Welcome to the Broken Record Department! You were sent here because you are trying to make a Broken Record Argument, an argument that we have heard so many times before that it has its very own post! If you wish to continue arguing your point, please do so under the appropriate thread listed below.
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Thank you for your cooperation.
Broken Record Arguments:
- Having a Broken Record Department is unfair, it amounts to censorship!
- Not all whites are what you say. Whites are individuals!
- Whites are not uniquely evil.
- Blacks are just as racist if not more so.
- Racism is dead.
- I don’t like your tone. A post of yours made me upset!
- Your talk about race is divisive. You need to kiss up to whites.
- You see racism in everything!
- Black crime statistics
- Black rape statistics, particularly the DOJ crime victimization numbers
- The average African IQ is 70
- Black American IQ
- The Bell Curve is right!
- The BET Fallacy: Using BET, Chris Rock, Rented Negroes or hip hop videos to prove something about black people
- Africans sold their own into slavery. The Arabs traded slaves too!
- The bootstrap myth: If Jews or Asians or my grandfather can make it in America, anyone can. Blacks are just a bunch of layabout whiners.
- Black pathology: Blacks are their own worst enemies.
- There is some truth to stereotypes.
- Racism is universal, natural, part of human nature.
- The White Inventor argument.
Future Broken Record Argument posts:
- The higher black crime rates proves that blacks have greater criminal tendencies than whites.
- Affirmative action
- You hate white people: Criticism of whites can only come from hatred or racism.
- Whites do not benefit from racism, past (slavery, genocide, Jim Crow, etc) or present.
- Race is a fact of science.
- Making general statements about whites is racist.
See also:
@ abagond:
I’m looking forward to the Future Broken Record Argument posts.
@ Leigh
LOL. Me too. Some person name Birdie is harping about crime statistics. The way they talk about it it is almost like I am suppose to have one because I am black. LOL.
@Sharina
…Birdie is harping about crime statistics
Don’t you mean ‘chirping’
@ Demerera
LOL!!
@ Sharina:
Remember when I told you a little birdie told me Birdie was full of it? Well, there you go. lol!
Love the idea of a broken record dept, I may have to borrow this idea…
Some of those arguments are legitimate too. But people who look at race relations through marxist ways of thnking don’t let reason and logic burst their bubble.
Here are the other most frequent arguments,or rather,propositions and paradigms,on this blog:
Whites are racist.
White privilege (as in whites benefiting from being preferred by other whites,which is considered to be unfair.)
White supremacy (not necessarily the ideology,but the results of whites pursuing and protecting their interests).
White racist pathology.
Systemic racism.
Pervasive racism.
Institutional racism.
Implied racism.
Whites don’t get it (meaning,whites don’t understand the propositions and paradigms).
Lists of trivia,categories,cliches,stereotypes having to do with race (not actually arguments,but used to provoke emotional reactions.
@ Anthony
The point of the list is not to condemn but to keep most of my threads from going off track with the same old derailments. For example, maybe the White Inventor Argument is true, or the black rape statistics thing, but a) they are repeatedly brought up OFF TOPIC on other threads and b) I already have posts on them.
Of course, that is not to say I do not have my own tropes, misconceptions and pet arguments, some of them probably racist. I am not an intellectual saint.
@ Abagond,
It’s inevitable that people would get off topic when the topic is a smear about white people in general,or the dubious concept of white privilege,or a race-centered version of history that is intended to provoke emotional reactions. For example,with the topic of white privilege in society or business,there is usually no way to prove intent,and the personal preference and choices of white people and the results thereof are implicated and portrayed as a caste system. So what are white people supposed to do with that,when their own experiences and observations do not confirm it? Of course they will respond with real-life examples that contradict the claims or put things in perspective. Privilege is not even the right word,because there is no special right or benefit with regard to white people getting hired or promoted.
“Privilege is not even the right word,because there is no special right or benefit with regard to white people getting hired or promoted.”
******
Anthony
The evidence re WHITE privilege (relative to non-whites) is overwhelming!
Please. The truth is out there for anyone whose truly willing to see it.
Hint: Do LESS writing/talking and MORE listening/reading/studying/research..
Then – if possible – you might GET a clue.
@ Matari
… The truth is out there for anyone whose truly willing to see it.
…Do LESS writing/talking and MORE listening/reading/studying/research.
What you say ^^ reminds me of something James Baldwin wrote:
“To be white in America means not having to think about it.”
(Maybe from “No Name in the Street”, not sure.)
So strong is that sense of entitlement that the privileged person feels “attacked”, under siege, and “put upon” in the face of even the mildest invitation to pay attention to issues of privilege. Because it’s so “unfair”.
These are basically good white people …..why would the privileged white person have to be made to check themselves?
The ease of not being aware of privilege is an aspect of privilege itself.
Being aware, or sensitive, or having any respect — requires too much effort. Being able to rally the attention of lower-status folk (us) WITHOUT having to truly give it in return is pivotal to that privilege. That doesn’t take much…and they feel it’s a “right”. It comes in different disguises, but we feel it when we see it and, they avail of it without the need to think for one damn second. When they say “we aren’t privileged”, it is about their feelings, and about our silence.
Most of my life (I doubt if I am alone when I say this! LOL!), I’ve had to pay really close attention to whites, and their ways, in order that I could avoid displeasing them and losing out. Trust me when I say this: it is compounded when you are a female human, Matari — to get and keep employment, in education settings, in everyday dealings, in lots of stress-making, tedious situations.
Their privilege shields them from paying any attention to people who are not white and part of their stereotyping crap about people of colour.
Whites like this certainly don’t want to know how privilege affects them.
@ Anthony Puccetti
Your comment assumes whites are the centre of the universe, which is incorrect.
Suggested reading:
http://abagond.tumblr.com/post/31398350229
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/the-feelings-of-white-people/
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/i-do-not-write-this-blog-for-white-people/
@ Bulanik
Thanks for expounding for our clueless guest on just a few of the ways his unacknowleged WHITE PRIVILEGE works – and how it affects them, and others.
*****
“Most of my life (I doubt if I am alone when I say this! LOL!), I’ve had to pay really close attention to whites, and their ways, in order that I could avoid displeasing them and losing out. Trust me when I say this: it is compounded when you are a female human, Matari — to get and keep employment, in education settings, in everyday dealings, in lots of stress-making, tedious situations. ”
*****
I can relate to paying close attention to their ways … but in all honesty, I thought black women fared better than black men in employment. Here’s why (according to my opinion and experience living in racist America):
1. Employing black women was a two for the price of one in terms of govt credit. 1) a female. 2) a (so-called) minority.
(You probably know that AmeriKKKa lives/loves to count, label, categorize and arrange Americans of every so-called race…)
2. Black females are less intimidating and “threatening” than black (brutes) males. Which means whites in academic and business settings are generally more comfortable around you (female), rather than me (male).
3.Want to undermine and weaken the black community/family structure? Make it easier for black women to find and keep work… while putting all sorts of walls, barriers, obstacles and nonsense in the black man’s path to find and keep employment – and his family …
Anyway, getting back to the topic of privilege… you’re absolutely correct!
“Their privilege shields them from paying any attention to people who are not white..”
@ Matari
You know your country better than I do, and I have not had your experience.
I believe you about the walls, barriers, obstacles and the rest of the unutterable awfulness that are put in the way to thwart and stunt black men from employment, the human dignity and host of benefits from the stability that work can provide. If the tiny glimpse I have seen of the way the US judicial system works to criminalize/imprison black men and male children is anything to go by — just for starters — then, yes, it’s plain why you feel AND know what you do.
I can only tell you that in my experience, all the families need/needed the money from both partners earning to keep head above water.
The men had to put up with walls, barriers and obstacles put in their way to feed and clothe their families, and the women had to put up with walls, barriers and obstacles to feed and clothe their children, plus fight sexual harassment, even lower pay and even less opportunity for personal advancement on the job…plus the housework, and the childcare, domestic violence, rape, no job after pregnancy, and the like — whilst remembering to look nice and smile.
I wish I hadn’t seen some of these things. But I did. I wish it had been better. But it wasn’t.
At work, are black women perceived as less intimidating and threatening? In my own experience…not necessarily. Stereotypes and ugly hazards prevail in that environment, too.
Yet, I have no doubt that the likes of Anthony will come sniveling back to this blog to tell us both how much we exaggerate only to make him and his kin feel bad!
Please let me send you a copy of my book The Wheat Money (avail on Amazon) I reference this blog post as one of the starting points for whites hoping to become good allies.
For anyone interested, my web page has a contact form for any questions. The website is TheWheatMoney dot com.
Thank you for writing this. I discovered this site fairly recently and am ravenously devouring these posts. Please, please do one on the “science of race” as you say you will in the future. I would love to read your assessment of Lewontin’s work debunking race.
“Yes, it would RADICALLY change things. It would mean that whites would commit less than TEN PERCENT of the violent crimes and blacks would commit more than 90% of the violent crimes.”—How did you come up with that considering the only thing I did was switch black population with white. 247928 still are arrested violent crime.
@ Matari
I agree with your post. I also would add (if you have not already) that who you know goes a long way. I have been pulled over for speeding in one of the small towns around here. Yet I have seen white drivers who have been driving crazy and fast, but have yet to get pulled over. I also see those same driver chatting with the local law enforcement.
Your comment assumes whites are the centre of the universe, which is incorrect.
Hahahaha!
Abagond deserves major props for demonstrating such iron diplomacy.
Hi Sharina
“I agree with your post. I also would add (if you have not already) that who you know goes a long way.”
*************
That wasn’t my post – as in I didn’t write it. It was posted in 2 locations in response to you know who’s silly diatribe about black crime stats. One was posted on the open thread and the other was posted where I shouldn’t have placed it …
Sorry Abagond.
The two posts were pretty much identical, except one had a hyperlink leading back to the footnotes on the original author’s page where I found this piece. The other post excluded any links. Neither of these posts appeared here when I posted them, according to *my* browser . I thought they were caught in one of Abagond’s filters. In fact, I haven’t yet seen either of them, so I’m assuming they were held, and then deleted, possibly because I failed to follow specific protocol(s).
I thought the author of this piece, Tim Wise, articulated some very compelling points regarding how *unthinking minds* see and interpret black crime stats.
Both the piece and its footnotes can be found here:
http://www.timwise.org/2005/05/excuses-excuses-how-the-right-rationalizes-racial-inequity-part-two-criminal-justice/
And yes, it is a “who you know” – and who likes you enough to do favors – world!
@ Matari
Either way I am very glad you posted it. I have noticed that I am starting to fall into that trap of crime statistics when these trolls bring it up and I needed that to wake me up into the reality of statistics.
@ Abagond
“Broken Record Dept”= Genius. I love your work overall and I love this.
@ Bulanik
James Baldwin= Brilliant. I love him so much and his work has been beyond meaningful to me in my life. Perfect words to post.