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News Why It's So Hard To Talk To White People About Racism

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Racism & bigotry as understood by Western standards is not what applies here, it doesn't work by Zimbabwean standards. You'd have to take into account inter-clans & inter-tribal & tribal & collonial and government + rebel forces influences on all of that to get even remotely close to what's going on in Zimbabwe, and that's still nowhere near the picture of what's going on, but are bits that are researcheable online from materials publicly available.
It may not be on the forefront of daily life but I have found that racism and bigotry are universal. It's all about power and control.

<chuckling> 2 different truths.

@Bill & @Cashew... What You & Cashew are talking about, as I read it, are the different paradigms of how we organize ourselves that are back up in that novel. What do we look to first? What holds the most weight?

The parallel is how much is race (sex, religion, etc.) important in the Senate & House? It may be a thing, but what people look to FIRST is "Are you republican or democrat?" Only after your tribal affiliation is sorted, does any of the rest matter... Except on an individual basis.

Same durn thing happens in microcosm with police & military (& sports teams & etc.). When you assess a scene on the fly, does your mind first split people into race, etc... Or does it split into police v civvie? On a football field, is the guy running next to you wearing your colors/on your team or the other team? Battlefield, ditto. First split is us v them. Next split is useful/danger/in-the-effing-way.

When tribal stuff is forefront, yeah, racism (or any other ism) may be a thing. But it's waaaaaaay down the list of what is considered important / is only important maybe after everything else. Like when people are shooting at us, no one cares if I'm a chick. They care, first off, that my rounds aren't coming at them. Then they care that I'm hitting what I'm aiming at. When it's just other dogs, that I'm a chick may be important. But add in Navy/Army/Airforce? They don't side with them over me. Add in combatants? They don't side with them over Navy/Army/Airforce. Add in civvies? In order for the ISM to be an important thing, first the tribal stuff has to be sorted, when you're dealing with tribal/clan paradigm.

((The parallels are a little weak, though. Cause these are affiliations we choose, not that we're born into. Out West, we still primarily organize ourselves by nationality/ sex/ race, etc. So even when we pledge our allegiance & take oaths & fight/bleed for our own? We've still got the larger whole present. Even if the motherf*cking marine corps is the best damn fighting force in the goddamn world, and they're mine, I'm still a part of this larger group. It's a tribal affiliation, but not as deep a one as cultures that use it as their primary identifier.))

I would say that organizing ourselves is a human condition. That lock steps both truths.
 
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Ok, this is somewhat of a novel…
That's exactly the point. The 2 most common modern arguments against white privilege don't make sense. They're logical fallacies.

No racial privilege ... Because I'm not racist!
No racial privilege ... Because I grew up poor!

There’s a big difference between “But” and “Because”.

“But” is used to introduce something contrasting with what has already been mentioned. “Because” is used to introduce a word or phrase that stands for a clause expressing an explanation or reason. They contradict themselves, and change the meaning.

With “But”, one is a person acknowledging that there is racism. With “Because”, one is equating not being racist to there being no racism.
the majority view is that "white privilege" is a made up thing / "But I'm not racist!"
is not a fallacy. It’s logical and sound.
No racial privilege ... Because I'm not racist!
however isn't. The fallacy therein is how you changed the words from your first argument to fit your second attempt at the argument by creating a completely new example which, lo and behold, is a fallacy. This is called special pleading. This is why the conversation still hasn't really moved much forward.

On another part of your post I was wondering what you meant here:
One is trying to negate the whole based off of individual experience, and logic doesn't flow that way (what's true for one, is not necessarily true for all)

Did you mean that “what’s true for one, is not necessarily true for all” isn’t logical?
 
But/Because is exactly where the argument begins and ends. WHY it's a fallacy.

Someone is talking about racial privilege. Someone else objects that it doesn't exist / they themselves aren't racist. That either has absolutely nothing to do with whether racial privilege exists and is as non-sequitur as "I like sparkly things", or it's being used as an argument against racial privilege to support their idea it doesn't exist... because they themselves aren't racist. That they aren't racist may be a true statement. That's not contested. Why on earth is it brought up? Because it's being used as a "because" argument. If/then. The emotional argument is that RP doesn't exist, because they themselves aren't racist. Yes, they're saying "But I'm not racist!", however if it's trying to be used as an argument against RP? Then:

If RP exists, then I'm racist ... Is what a lot of people hear.
They know that's not true. So they turn it around (reverse logic fallacy) and say
If I'm not racist, then RP doesn't exist!


And, yeah. It looks kind of stupid in black and white. Because it's an emotional argument that simply doesn't apply, because reverse logic doesn't work. The foundation of a helluva lot of emotional arguments are reverse logic (or nonseq, etc.).

Racial Privilege exists... But I'm not racist! : doesn't look stupid and yet
Racial Privilege doesn't exist... Because I'm not racist : looks stupid.
Because it's not logical. Whether nonseq, or reverse logic, it just doesn't work.

***
Nope. "What's true for one is not necessarily true for all." IS logical.
 
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I'm not racist. Other white people are. They demonstrate it. They approach me in both real life and online. They spout crap about non-white people and how bad/ dumb /lazy/ annoying/ criminal/ subhuman/ et cetera they are.

Apparently they think I will be cool with that because I'm a Caucasian.

If online, they **assume**I am Caucasian because humans are apparently default Caucasian...
About a month ago one told me the following joke:
" Why don't blacks and mexicans marry? The children would be too lazy to do anything!"
He doesn't know the black and Mexican-immigrant people I've worked with. The people I have worked with worked their asses off.
I guess he never will understand how disgusting I found his little joke, or why I blocked him.

So, while in **theory** nonwhite people are legally protected? It is very hard to prove you were fired for explicitly racist reasons. Or not hired for racist reasons. Or not promoted for racist reasons. Or arrested for racist reasons...basically, doing something that a white person could do and not get arrested for.
...the cumulative effect of random racist people acting on their **often-unconscious** bias is to disadvantage the nonwhite population as a whole.
****************
There are black people who are way better off than my broke little white trash self, but that doesn't mean white skin isn't advantaged.

I believe that I do not have a criminal record because of my white skin. Honest.
No, I didn't do it, but hanging out with the wrong people earns lots of poor people a felony conviction for stuff they did not do.
Poor people can't afford good lawyers, they are forced to plea for money reasons.
This happens disproportionately to poor **nonwhite** people-getting charged, having to plea for money reasons.
I told the truth and was believed. I think a non-white person might well not have been believed by the white detective who interrogated me.
 
. What You & Cashew are talking about, as I read it, are the different paradigms of how we organize ourselves that are back up in that novel. What do we look to first? What holds the most weight?

I raised Robert Mugabe for a reason I've forgotten now and discussion swung around that racism isn't really important in Africa. I also have tried to explain bigotry or being suspicious of people that are different is universal to all humans.

The territorial part of the reptile brain causes us (read humans) to sort ourselves out to who we are the most comfortable with.

I prefer to go back to the reason for the string. Why is it so hard.......
 
"What's true for one is not necessarily true for all." IS logical.

So it goes back to what I said in the beginning.

The problem with the concept of white privilege is that it's too generalized. In essence, it's a blanket statement. In this case, it's about a race. Something no one has control over. No one can chose the race they are born with. It does not take into account each individual's entire life's experiences. If people don't have the same set of experience, as reality points out, the concept itself becomes meaningless.

What's true for one is not necessarily true for all.

Quite frankly this whole thread is about money.

And your special pleading is so apparent I'm not gonna touch with a ten foot pole the other stuff you've said. It's not conversation. It's shifting of goalposts from the field into the parking lot!
 
We had a Uniformed Deputy executed from behind while pumping gas in Texas. They located the black man who pulled the trigger but he's not talking. The Sheriff of the county has asserted that an Internet radio type program by the "Black Lives Matter" leaders may have been the trigger.

The program called for a war against the police and to start shooting cops and white people. I hope this doesn't start a trend.
 
Money comes into it like this:
Nonwhite people ***as a whole*** are disadvantaged in terms of earning potential.
They are therefore statistically more likely to be poor.
As I noted above, there are wealthy black ***individuals*** and poor white ***individuals.***
There are a disproportionate amount of poor black people due to systemic disadvantage.

Where I think you might be getting derailed is this...intersectionality.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/intersectionality

Oppressive social customs and institutions interlock with each other.

You can be oppressed as a poor person alone. You can be oppressed as a black person. Or you can be both poor and black, get oppressed as either, or both.
You can be oppressed as a Jew, or a Lesbian, or both at the same time. Or as a woman alone.
You can be oppressed as a woman, or as a First Nations/Native American person, or as a poor person, or all three together.
I'd go so far as to say you can be oppressed as a child, though that's undergoing a long, slow change process....kids aren't viewed as property so much anymore.
You could be a poor black paraplegic transwoman and hit the oppression jackpot...I'm not sure I'd ever slap my makeup on and wheel on out of the house, swear to gawd.
All of the above doesn't mean those of us not in whatever social oppression categories we do not happen to be in had it easy.

I didn't choose to be Caucasian, or choose ***what that skin tone means in our society.***
 
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