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

[Anarchy]

It's the fifth of November

The day when many Brits set off celebratory fireworks,

And build bonfires, on which they symbolically burn the effigy of a RomanCatholic.

Guy Fawkes, appears to have been all to conveniently caught and processed. He provided cover for further clampdowns on the freedom of the british population.

Might he have been the unwitting patsy in a sting operation by crown agents?

Food for thought, next time some atrocious act is pinned onto some minority some where.

In the present question over the downing of an airliner, we might do well to remember that the major powers all have previous form.

Litvinienko, published what he knew about Russian security agents getting caught planting explosives to bring down Moscow tower blocks. Acts that were used to provide a pretext for war in Chechnya. Litvinienko was poisoned with polonium, for publishing the story.

Around 1990, a secret army was uncovered in Italy. Gladio.
Others were uncovered in other parts of Europe.
They had been used to stage terrorist atrocities, including the Milan and Bologna railway station bombings, and the kidnap and murder of a former Italian prime minister. All to be blamed on the political left.

Which of the bogeymen, racists included, is real? And which might be puppets.

 

[Bill Dickerson]

@Bill Dickerson , what is your investment in this gaslighting of people? Just curious.[...

You call it gaslighting I call it letting people know there isn't always some huge conspiracy to hold people down because of their race. Institutional Racism CAN exist just as it did at that Black College. Using your logic all black institutions are beehives of Institutional Racism. I know that isn't true.

Institutional Racism can exist anywhere humans exist. Perpetuating a huge misrepresentation of whats real is as racist as the Klan. It has become a huge self inflating pursuit of revenge not justice. My investment is my frustration in people holding up revenge as a way to make things right. Revenge never solves anything, it only feeds on itself. My investment is to explain why white people can't talk about race. It often isn't about justice it's just revenge. How can you talk about one when the true purpose is something else.

 

[Anarchy]

Institutional racism, requires coercive institutions.

Without the coercion, racism means that an individual or institution is turning potential paying customers, or competitive suppliers away, on grounds of race.

Those potential good customers, and good deals from suppliers go to the competition instead.

So what if some business or club says my race isn't allowed. There are plenty of alternatives where my race is welcome.

Monopoly can only survive with the use of force to keep it from being out competed. Force can only legally be used by the state. And it is cops where the boot rubber of legal coercive force meets human faces...

Certainly, racism doesn't require a state to exist.

But without a state, racists have to pay out of their own incomes and pockets for their prejudice.

With state enforced and protected monopolies, every one but the state protected racists gets to pay for their racism.

And no going to the competition is possible, because no competition is allowed.and it is cops who get to enforce that prohibition.

 

[Pencil]

1980s south African apartheid thug

... or a 2015 EFF thug:

Or the president of South Africa chanting 'Kill a farmer, kill a Boer' while the world is very reluctant to acknowledge the genocide in SA.

To render the issue so simplistically only adds fuel to unnecessary runaway fires. Does 'white privilege' exist in the Middle East? In the Far East? In Africa? But I promised myself I would never respond to this thread, so I won't :whistling:

 

[Anarchy]

Hi pencil,
Thanks for breaking your silence!

From the very little lamestream news that I watch these days, I don't see coverage of what goes on in S'iffrika.

We did see a lot of coverage of police brutality and outright criminality from the days of a decaying apartheid regime though.

I'm a little out of touch recently, but spent much of the mid and late 2000s working in southern and eastern Africa.

I guess that the complex tangle of group rivalries and grievances ( real and imagined) is just too damn complicated for any 90 second news slot.

I didn't even notice anything in the British news back when S'iffrikan cops were using their issue pistols to go postal on their colleagues, wives, girlfriends and children, but we did get a little, very superficial coverage of the police (inter tribal) massacre of striking miners.

We certainly don't get coverage of Afrikaans farmers having the highest murder victimisation rate of any group in the world. I don't think it fits preferred narratives or agendas.

Or mention of the spate of attacks on white farming families in other parts of Africa, which follow news of the latest rant from Mugabe, and others of his ilk.

 

[Pencil]

We certainly don't get coverage of Afrikaans farmers having the highest murder victimisation rate of any group in the world. I don't think it fits preferred narratives or agendas..

Thank you for absolutely NAILING IT!

[oops, I meant to add a quote here, and don't know how to do it in edit]
Exactly: Do I acknowledge that white privilege exists? Yes. But: White privilege exists in a very, very small part of the world (aka 'The West') - which is, by definition and history, White. So I'm asking anyone to explain why this is surprising. In whatever part of the world not designated the West, whites are fair game, but as you say, it isn't fashionable to acknowledge this. 'Liberalism' dictates white guilt, and the irony is that liberalism is as aggressively fundamentalist as any other form of fundamentalism.

I shouldn't get myself started on this topic. And of course, being South African I am disqualified from talking about racism. Grrrrrrr.

Thank you @Anarchy and others for not accepting fashionable dictates blindly.

 

[Anarchy]

Hugs Pencil,
Hoping that you are in one of the safer parts, and stay safe.

A few years back, a British politician was pressured to resign after telling a racist joke at a private dinner. I was told the same joke, in S'iffrika:

It was told by a Zulu, about Nigerians.

 

[Bill Dickerson]

In whatever part of the world not designated the West, whites are fair game, but as you say, it isn't fashionable to acknowledge this. 'Liberalism' dictates white guilt

Liberalism is like Ebola just when you think it's contained it comes back with a vengeance. As some say Liberalism happens. This BS happens everywhere.

If your a cop who defends himself and the suspect dies. You will never work in that job again and may even end up in jail. G-d forbid if your white and the suspect is black. Lawyers from every civil rights organization are pulling up in MRAPs, the feds are going through your trash. Jesse and Al are pulling up in their limos sniffing out microphones.

There can be video of the suspect swinging a bloody machete and yelling ...die pig, die... It doesn't matter all of the TV stations will be airing his best friend saying you should have shot him in the leg you didn't have to kill him.

It's about revenge not justice. Hold your breath cause white people aren't allowed to talk about this. If we do it's because we are defensive and fear for loss of privilege. Stating the obvious means your a bad, bad, person.

 

[Pencil]

A few years back, a British politician was pressured to resign after telling a racist joke at a private dinner. I was told the same joke, in S'iffrika:

It was told by a Zulu, about Nigerians

Yes, the vast majority of whites are woefully ignorant of tribal hatred. Isn't that racism? In SA the Zulus and Xhosas regard the Sothos, Tswanas, etc as inferior. Is anybody aware of the racial make-up of cabinet? Xhosa. Zuma is a weird exception, being Zulu. It's like having a Protestant Pope. Xenophobic violence erupts every now and then - black on black.

And for the record; I'm not condoning any form of violence or hatred or ... My point is that until the world realises that LIFE matters, and not 'black lives', they are wholly missing the point.

Hold your breath cause white people aren't allowed to talk about this. If we do it's because we are defensive and fear for loss of privilege. Stating the obvious means your a bad, bad, person.

Yes, absolutely. And why is this so hard to see? The bloody emperor is stark naked.

 

[Bill Dickerson]

Some hatreds are so old no one remembers why they started in the first place. It's easy for leaders to reinforce their power by blaming another group. It happens in US also.

I remember a Doonesbury joke told about an Iraqi interpreter embedded who said they could not talk to another Iraqi. The interpreter said that his family had insulted a member of their family. The soldier said that's awful when did this happen. The Interpreter said 1084 AD.

Unfortunately the joke isn't far off the mark.

I know the Hutus were involved in a massacre but I'm not sure if it was victim or perpetrators.

We had the same issues when the settlers came the North American continent. Inter tribal warfare was common but alliances with more powerful settlers and countries exaggerated the situation.

We are getting off the mark on the stream of posts so I will shut up.

 

[Ronin]

LIFE matters, and not 'black lives', they are wholly missing the point.

Hi Pencil,
I see your point, & difficulty & insecurity / can empathize with the threat you live under, to start with.
Just thought I'd add this very statement is rather complicated, because it's contrary to what that movement is about and for. Being solidarity with those who are, or perceive themselves to be for the same reasons, systematically hurt. It's against genocides, not for them. It's 'Black lives matter' in the US context. That slogan could have multiple other forms in other countries, and as far as I've noticed it, protestors in them have caught up on the intent.

(Clarifying, not arguing that tribalism & supremacist tendencies in any directions are so very not healthy).

 

[Ronin]

Does 'white privilege' exist in the Middle East?

It does.
It just may not have the same practical effects because of other existing balances of power.
Or: existence of privilege and access to things that privilege is supposed to grant, or grants in some societies, are two different things.