A guest post by Ankhesen Mie:
A few Fashion Tips from Moi on how to deal with white folks who absolutely insist upon talking about race with you (’cause you know they will):
1. Do not debate. Declare.
I’ve come to realize that debating is just another derailing tactic. If you come across a white American who wants to argue, cloud the issue, split hairs, etc., then you’ve reached the end of the conversation – period. Social justice is not a cult; it’s not your job to “convert” people. They have to choose to either be a decent human being or to support the racist colonialist system that is America.
- If they talk a lot about their “opinions”, end the conversation.
- If they ask you if you really do experience racism, ask them why they’re asking you that.
- End the conversation if they start with lines like,
- “I can’t imagine”
- “I refuse to believe”
- “I just don’t see”
And no, you do not have to be nice about it.
2. Racial discussion is not an “exchange” of ideas.
This isn’t about what we can learn from each other – this is about you learning from me, and you’re already behind by four centuries.
3. Do not end racial discussions on a positive note.
If white people end racial discussions on an optimistic, the-future-is-bright note, they’re happy, they feel absolved, and they tell themselves that things “will eventually work themselves out”. That’s why they have to leave these discussions bothered, troubled, and deeply perturbed.
We don’t get a slow, gentle, candy-coated introduction to the pains of American racism. Never have. White folks shouldn’t get to either.
4. Maintain realistic expectations.
What leads to frustration is most of us operate under the misguided notion that intelligence is all someone needs to learn something. Learning, in fact, requires additional components to intelligence, like consistent practice, research, recall, overall self-discipline, and a need for the absolute truth of things. White privilege conditions much of this out of most white Americans by the time they hit puberty.
5. Stop being afraid.
You don’t need white Americans to like you – if they cross the line, make them uncomfortable. We have already overcome and survived a lot in this country and contrary to popular belief, we did so with an overwhelming lack of support from white America. So do not doubt your worth or tone down your voice or temper your strength.
If you’re being dehumanized socially, assert yourself and walk way. If you’re being dehumanized occupationally or academically…lawsuit. Tolerance is a bullshit term, and we need to stop tolerating from hereon out, online and in real life – period.
6. Stop referring them to Tim Wise.
Since referring white people to Tim Wise as their introduction to social justice hasn’t had the necessary effect, stop doing it. Instead refer them to David S. Reynolds’s “John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights” (2006).
See also:
- Ankhesen Mie: For POC with Tim Wise Issues… – to read more about this on her blog
- Tim Wise
- John Brown
- Derailing for Dummies
- What this blog has taught me about white people
- The five walls of racism
Abagond 
I love black people. They’re so — what’s the word? — infallible.
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This is not different, btw, than what you will get from most any Boomer Jew.
Around 1995, I asked an orthodox Rabbi what he thought of the level of tolerance of Jews in America today.
He related to me the story of the man who leaped from the top of the Empire State Building and was heard to say as he passed the 50th floor, “So far, so good.”
In other words, he didn’t count America’s tolerance of Jews as being a “mission accomplished,” even in 1995.
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I love black people. They’re so — what’s the word? — infallible.
See, Abagond? Told you. And it’s the very first one.
*shakes head*
And people wonder why I don’t foresee a post-racial society ever occurring in America. *yawns* Good thing I’m packin’ my bags.
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Excellent post, as usual.
I just had a question for you Abagond. I recently was on facebook and made a comment one a public post stating (in response to this white guy) that I think that Natives shouldn’t have to pay taxes and that they should get grants to go to university. After that, he has been flooding my inbox with rebuttals, but I’m not very knowledgeable with regards to debating and history. He claims that we should just put up museums, and that they shouldn’t be freeloading off him because of something that happened a long time ago. Could you do a post about that?
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In other words, presume that you’re point of view is God’s Own, hew strictly to dogma and slap ad hominems on anyone who disagrees with you.
Hell, we don’t need 500 words for this one.
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Since referring white people to Tim Wise as their introduction to social justice hasn’t had the necessary effect…
Probably because most white working class people, racists or not, don’t want to hear a guy who makes his living sucking off the corporate/university tit on the lecture circuit rant at them about their privilege.
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Some of these are good, especially 4 and 5, but I disagree with book recommendation. It;s useless, whether it’s Time Wise or any other book.
Additional tip:
Don’t talk to whites about racism. And if they don’t realize you’re not talking to them about it not because there’s no racism but because you know it’s useless, don’t talk to them at all.
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Great post. As an Italian American who had to get out of the U.S. context to first look at my own subculture and larger “white” culture, as well as study and struggle, I have come to the conclusion over thirty years that most “white” people who talk about racism don’t get it; many don’t even want to get it. They just want to sound off and go home feeling justified that they’re not that bad, and that black people are the prejudiced ones.
I don’t find anything in this post at all questionable, but I can understand why it has already elicited sarcasm. Even many white “liberals” who fancy themselves free of prejudice reflect the racial narcissism and “infallibility” that one reader has attributed to the writer. In fact, there is no claim to infallibility in this post, only the voice of one seasoned by reality and an understanding of the nature of things pertaining to what Frederick Douglass called “a peculiar form of aristocracy.” Of course, I could never have understood this had I not had patient and loving black friends who were willing to answer my questions and talk through matters with me. But I was not debating them or imposing my opinion. I was listening, observing, reading, and the more I put myself in the company of black people, the more I even began to see what they saw, but only in a measured sense. As long as white people insist that the world works for everyone the way it works for them, they won’t get to square one. That’s why there are no roads to anti-racism for white people that do not lead back to John Brown, who is a key historical and spiritual figure for any white who wishes to come to terms with this truth. To no surprise, there is a deep well of contempt for Brown in this society.
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Don’t talk to whites about racism. And if they don’t realize you’re not talking to them about it not because there’s no racism but because you know it’s useless, don’t talk to them at all.
LOL – that’s actually my main suggestion, but you know…some POC insist on “fightin’ the good fight”.
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Cici:
Someone wrote comments like that on this blog. In answer to that I wrote this post:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/the-chinese-invasion-experiment/
Also, arguments like that come up in regard to blacks. I wrote about them here:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2008/09/06/white-innocence/
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/my-family-never-owned-slaves/
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I have come to the conclusion over thirty years that most “white” people who talk about racism don’t get it; many don’t even want to get it. They just want to sound off and go home feeling justified that they’re not that bad, and that black people are the prejudiced ones.
I don’t find anything in this post at all questionable, but I can understand why it has already elicited sarcasm. Even many white “liberals” who fancy themselves free of prejudice reflect the racial narcissism and “infallibility” that one reader has attributed to the writer. In fact, there is no claim to infallibility in this post, only the voice of one seasoned by reality and an understanding of the nature of things pertaining to what Frederick Douglass called “a peculiar form of aristocracy.”
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
LOVE your blog, btw!!!
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LOL – that’s actually my main suggestion, but you know…some POC insist on “fightin’ the good fight”.
I am not against explaining and educating people (on racism, sexism, xenophobia, anything). I just think doing that to random people is a waste of time. People need to prove themselves first, so to speak, to show they are worth of someone’s time and energy (not to mention emotions).
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Louis DeCaro Jr:
Wow! You have a whole blog on John Brown! How wonderful!
http://abolitionist-john-brown.blogspot.com/
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How to talk to white people about racism? If you talk at all, be frank. Just say how it is. It is the best way.
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Great post!
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1. Do not debate. Declare.
This goes without saying. I sometimes wonder why many people don’t realize this after two or three conversations on racial issues.
3. Do not end racial discussions on a positive note.
This can lead to hilarity! I’ve been in situations where people have come to me to absolve themselves of the ‘sin’ of racism. Needless to say, their wants are not satisfied. One woman left in tears when I refused to engage her.
4. Maintain realistic expectations.
Yep. Walk away.
5. Stop being afraid.
This works wonders as after a while they will not approach you at all!
If you’re being dehumanized occupationally or academically…lawsuit.
I have done this and it works wonders! In fact I have several new complaints which are ongoing. I was highly successful in the first.
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It’s such a painful discussion, but I’m afraid it will never wholly be solved until it is discussed–face to face. I had a friend tell me that racism ended when slavery was abolished in America. I kindly educated him that this was false. Once he became aware, somethings started to make more sense..but how would he ever know had I not shared that with him?
Growing up, I had friends in the 90’s who told me that they weren’t allowed to spend a night with me because I was black. The stories I hear from my (living) parents and grandparents are significantly worse.
The bottom line is, many black Americans grew up with these painful truths surrounding them. Surely there are always two sides to the story, but racism in America is an underlining theme in American culture and will not be alleviated (even for other minority groups and BETWEEN minority groups) until it is discussed with all parties having a progressive attitude toward the issue.
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People need to prove themselves first, so to speak, to show they are worth of someone’s time and energy (not to mention emotions).
Amen.
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@Louis
That’s why there are no roads to anti-racism for white people that do not lead back to John Brown, who is a key historical and spiritual figure for any white who wishes to come to terms with this truth.
So let me get this straight: basically, you’re saying we should get our children to hack up Tea Party members with dull swords, is that it?
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“since referring white people to Tim Wise as their introduction to social justice hasn’t had the necessary effect, stop doing it”
This idea that Tim Wise is failing to make a change in American society seems to take for granted that ton’s of people know who he is and have read his books/heard him speak. I don’t know what his book sales numbers are but I only heard about him after finding SWPD this year.
“This isn’t about what we can learn from each other – this is about you learning from me, and you’re already behind by four centuries.”
I wish this was more widely accepted etiquette.
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I–not having been a drug addict–am probably ill prepared to tell a drug addict how to kick his addiction. I’m ill-prepared to tell a prostitute how to go straight. I’m ill-prepared in how to tell a black woman to get her head on straight. I don’t know their inner arguments, I don’t know their inner pitfalls and the buttresses raised by the problems they face along the way.
A former drug addict is better prepared to talk to a drug addict; a former prostitute is better prepared to talk to a prostitute; a black woman is better prepared to talk to another black woman.
In the same way, as a black man, I cannot map the mental path a white man must travel to reach the unnatural–for him–goal of non-racism. I don’t know what his psychological obstacles really are, I don’t know what mental hurdles his upbringing have really raised. I suspect another white man who has traveled that path knows it better than I.
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“This isn’t about what we can learn from each other – this is about you learning from me, and you’re already behind by four centuries.”
Funny how usually when anyone claims expertise about anything around here, they’re called presumptious and arrogant.
In the same way, as a black man, I cannot map the mental path a white man must travel to reach the unnatural–for him–goal of non-racism. I don’t know what his psychological obstacles really are, I don’t know what mental hurdles his upbringing have really raised.
Bulls***.
This “only like can TRULY understand like” is simply fascist reductionist crap. No one is MERELY their color, gender, race, ethnicity, class etc. all of these things combine to create human experience. You will never, ever find someone who’se gone through the same stuff as you. So unless we posit SOME form of communication, of bridging gaps, of imagination and understanding, there is no hope for any sort of enlightenment whatsoever.
Up until around 1975 or thereabouts, the American left was all about BRIDGING those gaps. From 1975 on, it has become increasing involved in rhetorically insisting that they are unbridgeable. As a result, everything good that came out of the sturggles of the 1960s has been or is being overturned.
Tim Wise is a very privileged, college educated white guy. He has no particular “in” to any generic “white experience”. Having seen him talk on a couple of occasions, I state, for a fact, that his rhetoric falls entirely flat with the white working class and poor – precisely the folks whom the Klan and other racist groups prey on.
If Tim were truly interested in making a difference among the white masses, he’d look for other rhetorical tools. Unfortunately, as far as I can see, his main goal is to maintain his impeccable anti-racist credentials in the eyes of people who already pretty much agree with him.
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This sounds like a rather clever tactic if you want to piss someone off, give you the finger, and walk away. If only they taught this in debate- make sure to yell over anything they say, declare their opinions and any and all cognitive thoughts completely useless on the subject, and make sure they are either furious or crying, depending on gender, when the conversation ends.
This post is so laughable it wasn’t until I got half way through it that I realized the author wasn’t trying to be ironic, but instead extols hubris as a virtue. The reality is most “debates” take this course anyway, as if the average American can actually have an intelligent discourse with someone they don’t immediately see eye to eye with. This just gives justification that any and all ideas that a black man/woman can come up with concerning race are immediately correct, and anyones attempt to challenge it is obviously a deranged whitey living in fantasy world.
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jas0nburns said,
“I wish this was more widely accepted etiquette.”
You’d be surprised how common this is in classrooms, doctors offices etc.
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@Rolo
are you saying it’s more common for WP to defer to and listen to POC when it comes to matters of race in places where said whites are well educated to the point where it’s not much of an issue?
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Jasonburns said,
“@Rolo
are you saying it’s more common for WP to defer to and listen to POC when it comes to matters of race in places where said whites are well educated to the point where it’s not much of an issue?”
I’m saying it’s common for adult human beings to humble themselves in the way you imagine to those who own professional credentials to whatever subject they are teaching.
Point being, POC speaking on race is not the equivalent of someone with a MD explaining medical procedures. Don’t expect someone to bow down to your musings because of your supposed “credentials”. Even if you know more than the other person, it’s belittling and accomplishes nothing. Part of making people see your points of view, is the seduction. Talking down to a WP as a expert POC is the equivalent of trying to make a woman swoon by throwing her over your shoulder kicking and screaming back to your cave.
I’m sure there are POC here that find the idea of compromising on discussions of race to achieve some measure of success infuriating. As a white man who routinely listens to other white people say ignorant things about race, it’s often my subtle interjections to their points of view that actually put their guard down and make them think. But I sympathize with POC on the issue of setting aside emotional responses while trying to accomplish this. If you just want to scream back and forth and create bitterness, WP will use this to justify their previous ignorance and continue to ignore you.
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Co-sign Rolo.
It seems to be the line among most black militants that hewing to the dogma of “we are always right when it comes to race” is the way to go.
Meanwhile, while the U.S. is certainly not post-racist, it’s moving ever more rapidly towards a post modern racism, in which things are no longer simply black and white.
The viewpoint on racial discourse discussed above has its roots not in Africa, but in North American evangelical traditions of absolute truth and uncompromising behavior. As is the case with evangelism, such an attitude fragments the “truly faithful” into ever smaller sects, which are easily manipulated by any group with a more cohesive political agenda.
It’s no mystery WHY this sort of “identity is knowledge” take on race and ethnicity is taught today in most American schools: it produces a form of racial and ethnic discourse which is completely refractory and absolutely unable to create social change.
“We won’t speak to anyone civily unless the admit beforehand that we are 100% right”: that’s what this “strategy” boils down to and it’s a recipe for socio-political alienation and irrelevance.
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“We won’t speak to anyone civily unless the admit beforehand that we are 100% right”: that’s what this “strategy” boils down to and it’s a recipe for socio-political alienation and irrelevance.
Point taken. But you have to admit that most white people really haven’t examined racism very thoroughly. That fact never seems to stop us from approaching the subject as if we are on equal footing with POC. and I’m not so sure it’s even about “we as poc are always right” i think that there is a general lack of respect for experience that is the problem. And quite often when white people engage in racial discussion with POC their unconcious racism will become evident as they try to establish dominance somehow. that approach has to be rejected IMO.
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I don’t think it’s about being 100% right; nobody said that. But there are certainly some serious red flags when it comes to talking about racism.
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But you have to admit that most white people really haven’t examined racism very thoroughly.
No doubt. but waving a finger in their face and shouting at them isn’t going to get them to do that.
In fact, given the kind of comments that routinely get posted here, I’d have to say that most black people really haven’t examinde racism very thoroughly either. I mean, this very post itself seems to indicate that having a black skin ipso facto makes one an expert on racism. And then we have guys like Leaveum who seem to agree with the old fascist canard that “blood=politics”.
That fact never seems to stop us from approaching the subject as if we are on equal footing with POC.
Newsflash: whites are.
[Wait for outrage to subside.]
White views on racism are just as relevant and real, even if you disagree with many or most of them. Telling people to shut the f*** up doesn’t create dialogue and it’s a very dangerous tactic to take in minority politics. Yes, SOMETIMES it’s necessary. But Ank seems to believe that it’s a general organizing principle of life – which is why her PoV is a minority position in the U.S. and will remain that way for the forseeable future, absent some radical sea-change in American politics. Ank is the kind of person who’d rather be morally and politically correct than a political victor: she’d rather see the Tea Party than the Democrats in power because at least that’s “real” in her book. One gets the impression that she’d feel perversely satisfied if Jim Crow were openly reinstated as that would justify her opinion that nothing EVER changes in the field of American racial politics.
As Machiavelli shows, however, sincerity buys you nothing in politics.
As for “establishing dominance”, any white who has an opinion is going to be open to that charge. Either you speak your mind or you don’t enter into the debate. So you’d better get over being upset at being called a “domineering white guy” if you want to take part in discussions like this.
As far as I can see, the vast majority of white Americans have no real ideological commitment to racism: they’re just intellectually lazy. Most black Americans are easily as lazy, but because anti-black racism hits them where it’s personal, they at least need to have an opinion on that. Because the vast majority of Americans, of whatever color, don’t want to be discomfitted, you’re never, ever, ever going to get them into a position where you can harangue them for being politically incorrect.
You’re never going to get the majority of white folks to pay any attention to this issue at all if your approach is “Shut up and listen, because you are a bunch of ignorant motherf***ers”. Hell, black people don’t react positively to that approach: look at all the social darwinists and bigots who crawled out of the woodwork when Ana Paula simply claimed that Black Americans do not have a very good idea of what Black Brazil is all about.
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I don’t think it’s about being 100% right; nobody said that. But there are certainly some serious red flags when it comes to talking about racism.
Nope, Mira. It is most definitely about someone feeling that they are 100% right. Look at this comment:
This isn’t about what we can learn from each other – this is about you learning from me, and you’re already behind by four centuries.
Apparently, Ank feels that four centuries of wisdom have mystically congealed inside her skull and that this makes her absolutely correct. Anyone who begs to differ is automatically an enemy.
Kinda sounds like the way some Serbs feel about Kosovo, doesn’t it?
This is pugnacious bigotry, pure and simple. The only difference between this and what certain Aryanists proclaim is that it’s the pugnacious bigotry of someone who belongs to a group that’s historically and repeatedly gotten the very short end of a very dirty stick, so one can sympathize, on a personal if not a political level.
But I have no doubt that Ank Me would feel absolutely justified in sending people to the Wall, given the power to do so. I don’t see her as a fount of wisdom, but as a frustrated totalitarian. That is just my opinion, but there it is, based on what she writes.
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“As far as I can see, the vast majority of white Americans have no real ideological commitment to racism: they’re just intellectually lazy. Most black Americans are easily as lazy, but because anti-black racism hits them where it’s personal, they at least need to have an opinion on that.”
That’s the point i’m trying to make. it’s the “hitting them where it’s personal” that makes the footing unequal. your right, telling people to shut the fuck up doesn’t create dialogue. But the dialogue you just created by being nice is just as worthless as not having one at all if the WP can go on thinking that their experiences can compare. how can they be equal if it is never personal for WP but always personal for POC? Why does it have to be equal anyway? I don’t need to feel like I’m equally knowledgeable in racial discussions with POC. Nobody should need to make me feel smart by giving my perspective weight it doesn’t carry. If it isn’t personal for you, your coming to the convo less prepared and you should be aware of that and act accordingly is all i’m saying. I think that might actually go a long way towards establishing trust and actually not having POC tell you to shut the fuck up all the time.
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Funny how usually when anyone claims expertise about anything around here, they’re called presumptious and arrogant.
I don’t find you presumptuous or arrogant. In fact you remind me of some people I know. We have heated discussions all the time but have managed to retain a good relationship. You like to stir the pot but so what? I do-not agree with everything you post all the time, so what? I don’t agree with many other of the posters either. If everyone agreed on everyone’s posts, this would be an echo chamber. Call me a weirdo but I enjoy the heated discussions. Besides, you have a sense of humour similar to mine, so you can’t be that bad a person!
As for talking to white people, heck, people in general about racism, not many have a grasp as to what it entails. They believe that a ‘racist’ is a klan member or some such, who routinely hollers racist epithets at people, fringe types if you will. I have no interest in engaging such people at all. Now, if the person has even a cursory knowledge as to how racism works, intersectionality and such, yes class, gender and so forth, I am willing to talk to them. Unfortunately, there appears to be a scarcity of such people in the real world. In fact, most don’t even want to talk about it. I come into contact with a lot of people from various strata. For example, at work, there is only one woman whom I have come across who has some knowledge. The rest are willfully blind. I am not willing to get into ‘discussions’ with people of that ilk, it’s a waste of time. They personalize everything, cannot for the most part understand what it is you are trying to get across, and look at you cross eyed when you attempt to explain what it is you are saying. I don’t even bother anymore. I have resorted to lodging complaints when they make ignorant remarks about people.
I have also been the recipient of written death threats and racist name calling by an anonymous moron. Being that this person is anonymous, I may or may not be interacting with this person at work. This has also clouded my views and interactions with those I work with. This has been going on for about five years. They have yet to apprehend this person(s). My workplace has been poisoned as a result. It is a chore not to paint everyone with the same brush. However, I am not going to waste my time trying to talk to these people about racism as most have no interest in learning. Just a couple of weeks ago I had a fellow worker call me by another black person’s name. This is someone I have worked with for years! This seem to be a pattern in this work site as they do this constantly, calling black people by others names as you are one of ‘those’ and will correct them if needs be. Rather than ‘educate’ this man, I put pen to paper and lodged a complaint. Time will tell if anything comes of it. But no I ain’t interested in engaging such folk. I am paid to work, not to be abused. In general, I am not going to engage willfully ignorant folk, regardless of who or what they are. We are all ignorant to varying degrees, but one should try to acquire knowledge, empathy, and respect for others as your life progresses even though it is impossible to know everything. At least you are trying to gain some knowledge.
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Wish I had read this ten years ago. I’ve wasted precious time trying to explain to others why certain things about society bother me, only to realise that my concept of racism differs greatly from the vast majority of people. To them, racism is either overt discrimination, or racial slurs. To me, that is just the tip of the iceberg. At least now I know better not to waste my breath on such types. Frankly, I’m not even friends with such people anymore. Their inability to recognise the racism that surrounds us, and their stubborn refusal to acknowledge it even when pointed out, shows clearly that they lack basic decency. Sick people. This guest post was pessimistic, but I think it’s best for our well being to know that we are still living in sick times.
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@Abagond
Thank you, I will use that.
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Thaddeus–
Meanwhile, while the U.S. is certainly not post-racist, it’s moving ever more rapidly towards a post modern racism, in which things are no longer simply black and white.
RDKirk–
BTW, racism in the US north has never been “black and white,” which is why it has been more intractible than racism in the south. The northern character of racism has merely been nationalized.
Thaddeus–
As far as I can see, the vast majority of white Americans have no real ideological commitment to racism: they’re just intellectually lazy. Most black Americans are easily as lazy, but because anti-black racism hits them where it’s personal, they at least need to have an opinion on that. Because the vast majority of Americans, of whatever color, don’t want to be discomfitted, you’re never, ever, ever going to get them into a position where you can harangue them for being politically incorrect.
RDKirk–
Whites–particularly Southern whites who are Boomers or older–will most likely have an extreme commitment, one way or the other–to racial ideology. The Boomer generation was raised in apartheid and transitioned as young adults to integration. One way or another, Boomers have taken an ideological stand. The anti-integrationists may have acquiesced to political power, but they have a firm opinion–they were the ones who first had to take the buses and make the change.
But the generational differences between the War Generation, the transitional Boomer Generation, and succeeding generations must be observed. Right now the racial “dialog” is almost fully among Boomers. The Tea Party is led by Boomers. The NAACP is led by Boomers. American politics and business is run by Boomers. I expect that white and black Boomers will get little changed among us in the time we have left to us.
But the later generations–for whom integration was always a reality–should not be addressed in the same way.
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RDKirk,
I don’t know what his psychological obstacles really are, I don’t know what mental hurdles his upbringing have really raised.
So even though you don’t know what those supposed obstacles and hurdles are, you are absolutely positive that they are extant.
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“So even though you don’t know what those supposed obstacles and hurdles are, you are absolutely positive that they are extant.”
Well, it’s kind of obvious that there is some hurdle, cause mother#$&^ers keep trippin’.
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So you presumptuously assume that they apply to all whites.
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@RDKirk
BTW, racism in the US north has never been “black and white,” which is why it has been more intractible than racism in the south. The northern character of racism has merely been nationalized.
LOL! So, so true. And yet that northern racism is generally an integrationist, assimilative racism rather than a segregationalist racism. I’m amazed at how many black Americans don’t seem to grasp that fact. Northerners have no trouble eating at the same table with you, sitting on the same bus and even letting their daughters marry you AS LONG AS you act a certain way (what they call “normal” or “civilized”) and as long as you realize that you are forever on probation and that you should be happy that they are such damned good people to allow you a seat at the table.
Whites–particularly Southern whites who are Boomers or older–will most likely have an extreme commitment, one way or the other–to racial ideology.
True. But once you cut out the anti-racist southern whites, we are talking a minority – a small minority even.
I expect that white and black Boomers will get little changed among us in the time we have left to us.
You lazy sods! Just sitting on your gawdamn laurels from civil rights, affirmative action and desegregation, huh? Laziest f***in’ generation in U.S. history! 😉
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Jason, you mistake not caring enough to know with an inherent inability to not know.
Knowledge about racism isn’t carried in your melanin, man.
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RDKirk–
I don’t know what his psychological obstacles really are, I don’t know what mental hurdles his upbringing have really raised.
Reality Check–
So even though you don’t know what those supposed obstacles and hurdles are, you are absolutely positive that they are extant.
RDKirk–
How do you get “absolutely positive” from “I don’t know?”
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RDKirk,
You admit that you don’t know what the “white man’s” obstacles and hurdles are, yet you still seem very certain that “he” has obstacles and hurdles.
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@ Thad
“Jason, you mistake not caring enough to know with an inherent inability to not know.”
I have the inherent ability to know what it’s like to get struck by lightening but if I never experience it I will never know. I can read all about it and become totally obsessed with it but at the end of the day, I’m going to take the word of someone who’s experienced it, at the very least i’m not going to argue with him about how it feels.
It’s about experience, that’s it. And for the record I don’t believe anything having to do with racism is inherent.
“Knowledge about racism isn’t carried in your melanin, man.”
Not literally no. But isn’t societies reaction to “your melanin” what forces POC to confront racism and begin to process it at an early age in a way that whites never do? That’s got to count for something and in my mind deserves a certain level of respect. It’s something that whites rarely acknowledge and there is no shame in doing so.
@ reality check
It applies to all whites that trip, yes. so? Just as all things that are smoking are probably on fire.
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@ reality check
Your logic is fail.
You can see the effect of something without understanding the cause.
for several examples of this phenomena….
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Do all whites trip?
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I don’t know probably not, you definitely are. do you have a point?
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Reality Check–
You admit that you don’t know what the “white man’s” obstacles and hurdles are, yet you still seem very certain that “he” has obstacles and hurdles.
RDKirk–
I’ll take Tim Wise, Louis CK, and my old college roommate as examples of white people who have reached a certain destination. Those who aren’t where they are I will presume have run into obstacles, rather than presuming they are merely evil.
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I have the inherent ability to know what it’s like to get struck by lightening but if I never experience it I will never know. I can read all about it and become totally obsessed with it but at the end of the day, I’m going to take the word of someone who’s experienced it, at the very least i’m not going to argue with him about how it feels.
Jason, that’s true of ANY subjective experience. Given that, we do you bother communicating with other people at all? I mean you’ll never TRULY know what they think or feel, right?
But let’s take your premise seriously: why is there a “white” experience? Why would you presume that one guy’s “white” experience was essentially the same as another’s?
This is one of the biggest fallacies repeated on this board: the belief that experience is intensely subjective and yet somehow divided into color-coded lots which anyone of the appropriate indentity can instantly and thoroughly graps.
I’m sorry, Jason, but the world just doesn’t work that way: if you want to understand ANYONE’S experience, you’re going to have to read, listen and think alot. Having the same skin color as them doesn’t give you an instant “in”. In fact, it may just give you a false sense of confidence.
Furthermore, “society” doesn’t have a homogenous reaction to your melanin: it differs from person to person and it’s also modified by factors such as class, age, gender, nationality, profession, etc. etc.
The “PoC” concept is part and parcel of this fallacious thinking: your experience with racism is NOT fundamentally the same as, say, a Native American’s or even an African Brazilian’s. In fact, it’s not even the same as many black americans.
So what it comes right down to, Jason, when you say “experience” is this: you’re presuming that some sort of essential knowledge exists which is only accessible to people of a given biology. That, my friend, is purely and strictly racialism, a very close cousin to racism. And it’s as provably incorrect as a belief in the flat earth or creationism.
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If the “destination” that Tim Wise has reached is eyeballing his small intestine from the inside, then I agree.
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RDKirk,
Do you assume that all white people are racist until proven otherwise? Do you think that all of them need to “reach” that desination?
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Reality Check–
Do you assume that all white people are racist until proven otherwise? Do you think that all of them need to “reach” that desination?
RDKirk–
Asking those questions, you haven’t been reading what I’ve written in this thread. Read it, then get back to me. I won’t repeat myself.
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Thaddeus–
You lazy sods! Just sitting on your gawdamn laurels from civil rights, affirmative action and desegregation, huh? Laziest f***in’ generation in U.S. history!
RDKirk–
Unfortunately, we Boomers have turned out to be disappointing. In the 60s and early 70s we were so certain the world was fixable and that we would fix it. However it turns out that the best we’ve done in any area is to hold on to the gains of the War Generation in some areas, and we’ve lost ground in others. There is almost nothing we’ve done that the War Generation did not already initiate in any area.
And it seems from the last two years that we didn’t completely overcome our apartheid upbringing, either.
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“But let’s take your premise seriously: why is there a “white” experience? Why would you presume that one guy’s “white” experience was essentially the same as another’s?”
strawman alert.
I didn’t say the experience was the same for all members of a certain race.
“Furthermore, “society” doesn’t have a homogenous reaction to your melanin:”
another strawman.
“you’re presuming that some sort of essential knowledge exists which is only accessible to people of a given biology.”
I’m really not.
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I can’t help but notice how [some] white folks on here think my Fashion Tips are about yelling, shaking your finger in someone’s face, and feeling assured that you’re “100% right”. I find that hilarious, since that’s generally what POC receive from whites, not the other way around.
Notice I never stated any of these things. This post is advice for POC, to let them know that if they feel their efforts are being wasted they have no obligation to keep talking to a wall.
Also…
1) The twisting of my words is merely deliberate misreading, which reinforces precisely why POC hesitate to talk to white people about race, and don’t have to.
2) White people are behind POC in knowledge of racism. Getting upset about this is a sign of hubris.
3) As Elbert Hubbard once wrote, “The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.” I get that white people want to be heard and should be; white people contribute brilliantly to my blog all the time. But they do so in search of knowledge and truth, not in a self-serving attempt to display expertise, particularly over POC. IOW, they come to learn…and they do. And they walk away empowered by that knowledge.
4) Once again, this is not a “debate”. I’m seeing that word crop up again; white people and POC have nothing to “debate.” White people shouldn’t even want to debate; the ones who actually seek racial progress automatically recognize the counterproductive nature of debating.
5) My tips aren’t anything new; I’m not the only POC who thinks this. So white people are going to have to deal with the inevitable future of racial discussion. Some are genuinely trying; others are retaliating to their own detriment. And may they merry whilst they do; white self-destruction is ultimately of no concern to POC. We owe you nothing. Find someone else to care about your tantrums.
xoxo,
Moi
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I haven’t been on here for a while, but wow, Ankhesen. Awesome post! 🙂
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Really quickly –
ut Ank seems to believe that it’s a general organizing principle of life – which is why her PoV is a minority position in the U.S. and will remain that way for the forseeable future, absent some radical sea-change in American politics.
Notice the desperate denial in this statement. This is what happens when whites don’t listen to POC – they fall out of touch with how POC think.
Ank is the kind of person who’d rather be morally and politically correct than a political victor: she’d rather see the Tea Party than the Democrats in power because at least that’s “real” in her book. One gets the impression that she’d feel perversely satisfied if Jim Crow were openly reinstated as that would justify her opinion that nothing EVER changes in the field of American racial politics.
Notice the arrogant presumption. This is a white liberal’s personal nightmare projected onto a POC they refuse to understand. This is the paradigm of white resentment.
Btw…I wasn’t aware being “morally correct” was flaw. The insult flatters me.
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Jason
I didn’t say the experience was the same for all members of a certain race.
But you assume that being white allows one to understand the “white experience”, no? How could that be the case if there was not some sort of homogenous, racially coded experience, at least at some level?
Serious question here.
Explain what you mean, please.
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@ thad
I thought we were talking about 1 on 1 conversations or discussions within small groups. who said anything about “oh this is what it’s like to be (insert race), I know because this one (insert race) guy told me”
I’m talking about listening to and trying to understand the person directly in front of you who has been informed by their experience of racism which as a WP I lack. That’s all.
As for your essentialism point. Saying that Native Americans in the 1830’s had a good idea of what it feels like to have your land stolen probably isn’t far off the mark. not because they were born with that knowledge already inside them as a racial trait but because….THEY HAD THEIR LAND STOLEN. get it?
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@Ank Mie
I can’t help but notice how [some] white folks on here think my Fashion Tips are about yelling, shaking your finger in someone’s face, and feeling assured that you’re “100% right”. Notice I never stated any of these things.
Oh rly? What about your original comment that: “This isn’t about what we can learn from each other – this is about you learning from me, and you’re already behind by four centuries.”
Seems to me that it would be harder to articulate a more “I am right, you’re wrong” kind of position.
Or perhaps I’m exagerating, Ank: you’re not 100% right in all situations. You’re only 100% when talking to white people about race.
The twisting of my words is merely deliberate misreading, which reinforces precisely why POC hesitate to talk to white people about race, and don’t have to.
I don’t think anyone needs must talk about anything at all, if they don’t want to. But let’s be real, Ank: I highly doubt that you’ve ever turned down an opportunity to give someone a piece of your mind.
“The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.”
“This isn’t about what we can learn from each other – this is about you learning from me, and you’re already behind by four centuries.”
Nice.
But they do so in search of knowledge and truth, not in a self-serving attempt to display expertise, particularly over POC.
In other words, they don’t contradict you. As for “displaying expertise”, aren’t you the woman who comes up with cute psychological terms to belittle everyone who you disagree with. Yeah, you’re really a humble person, Ank.
White people shouldn’t even want to debate; the ones who actually seek racial progress automatically recognize the counterproductive nature of debating.
Because, of course, you already know all there is to know about racism, not only in your own culture, but the whole wide world over. People who don’t agree with your analysis are counterproductive.
My tips aren’t anything new; I’m not the only POC who thinks this.
A fact which doesn’t give your tips any more validity whatsoever.
So white people are going to have to deal with the inevitable future of racial discussion.
I wish it were true. Most of them are just going to tune you right out and go on living their lives. Eventually, their kids will marry people you consider to be non-white and, in about 60 years time, we’re going to have a new class of very light-skinned supposed “people of color” who’ll have all the social bennies of whiteness but will also have your self-righteousness and sense of victimization.
“Whiteness”, per se, dies out more and more among the American upper and middle classes every year. Every time I go up there, I meet more wealthy people who’re phenotypically indistinguishable from me but who claim to be non-white because they are “really” native american, latin , arab, black or what have you.
And may they merry whilst they do; white self-destruction is ultimately of no concern to POC.
Guess what: it’s of no concern to most American white people, either. Or do you SERIOUSLY think white Americans are throwing a fit because the kids are marrying Latin, Asian and even Black in ever-greater numbers? 😀
But you go on fighting the good fight, thinking in starkly binary terms, Ank Mie. Like I said, I think you’d rather be politically correct than actually win a struggle. Unfortunately, because of that tendency, you and the folks who think like you are not going to get rid of racism, even though whiteness is certainly on its way out.
Find someone else to care about your tantrums.
“Tantrums”? Mana, I take you about as seriously as I take PRONA here in Brazil: you’re a bunch of sound and fury, signifying nothing. You’re such a dogma machine, however, that it’s absolutely irresistable to tweak your cute little nose when you slide into your humorless, pseudo-revolutionary persona. 😀
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“Moral correctness” is only attractive to people who are self-righteous, Ank. I’m thus not surprised you don’t consider it to be a flaw.
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Dear Jason…
The “personal is political” does not mean that only the personal can be political. Now, you say…
I’m talking about listening to and trying to understand the person directly in front of you who has been informed by their experience of racism which as a WP I lack. That’s all.
…and I agree with that up until the point where you toss “as a WP” into the mix. Anybody else’s experience with racism, you lack. Period. Being white, black, brown, yellow, or red has nothing at all to do with it. When you say “Oh, yeah. As a white person, I’m somehow lacking a key to this”, the necessary collary of that argument is that if you WEREN’T white, you wouldn’t. Otherwise why bring up your color at all?
As for your essentialism point. Saying that Native Americans in the 1830′s had a good idea of what it feels like to have your land stolen probably isn’t far off the mark. not because they were born with that knowledge already inside them as a racial trait but because….THEY HAD THEIR LAND STOLEN. get it?
Here’s a great case in point: not all Native Americans in 1830 had that experience. There was a huge variety of Native American experience back then, as there is now, and there was no one common experience that held true for all. Not all native groups had their land stolen and presuming that they have is to create an essentialist myth. Get it?
In fact, in 1830, there were PLENTY of native groups on the high plains of North America that were willing to give up land and whatever else they might have for the U.S. to go out and give the Lakota a good whacking. The Omaha, in particular, would have probably been eliminated from the face of the Earth if the U.S. hadn’t come along.
Native history is hellishly complicated and full of ins and outs that you can’t possibly begin to imagine unless you’ve actually gone out there and READ IT.
In other words, your personal experience with this sort of thing can only take you so far without study.
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@ Thad: you are sometimes so funny!
Ok, the omahas might have been in deep shit with the lakota, maybe some other tribes too, but name one tribe, including the omaha, who really were “willing to give up land and WHATEVER ELSE THEY MIGHT HAVE TO THE U.S. TO GO OUT AND GIVE THE LAKOTA A GOOD WHACKING”.
I’m willing to bet my scalp on that fact that not one single tribe was ready nor willing to give their land and all their posessions to the US just to get some help against the enemy tribe. It is nice that you have been reading a lot about this subject, but I reccomend that you go and talk to the native american historians. They might have just a bit different take on this, I suspect. Why? Because I have talked to them.
You are missing a point there. You think, just like those idiots who are sending troops to Afganistan today, that there were one group of indians who wanted the white man to move in and kill their enemy and then take over their country and run it because they were such pussies and bozos that they could not do anything with it.
Just like in Afganistan today, you had many tribes with whole lot of agendas and ideas, plans and tricks, but not one wanted the white man to take their land, kill their way of life, kill their religion and culture, kill their language and themselves. I am willing to bet my scalp on that too!
If you really belive that white man was asked to take over by some tribes, you’ve been smoking funny tobacco in your pipe too much. That is whole lotta buffalo manure.
“The omahas, in particular, would have probably been eliminated from the face of the earth if the US hadn’t come along”. Really? And what happened to those lucky omahas with the US?? Did the US give them special place in this wonderful intervention of theirs? Did the US embrace the omahas and made them one of the leading components of the USA like you imply? Well… I guess not.
Even if you are living in Brazil, are married to a black brazilian lady, and are very, very intelligent and educated man, sometimes you are just funny. Do you really belive that there were “PLENTY OF NATIVE GROUPS” who were just waiting to to give all they got to the white man just to get some help against their enemiesa ?
Are you serious when you say “NOT ALL THE NATIVE GROUPS HAD THEIR LAND STOLEN AND PRESUMING THAT THEY HAVE IS TO CREATE AN ESSENTIALIST MYTH”?
Because they all had their lands stolen from them. That is a fact you can not twist nor explain away with any map book in this world. It is an historical fact.
If a much bigger man with big guns would walk into your house and say that “because you spend so little time in your living room, kitchen and toilet, I take them. You can have the balcony”, does that mean you volunteered to give him most of your appartment? Does it mean that you are happy now?
If you call some big dude to help you with a aggressive neighbour, does that mean that this big dude can now tell you that he is going to kill your kids, take your money and job, your wife too, and put you in the closet? And most importantly: does it mean that nobody took over your apartment, nobody did hurt you or your life, nobody did anything bad to you, and that you wanted this all to happen when you called this big dude to help you? Because that is what exately happened to these tribes who, according to you, were so willing to give up everything just get some yankees to whup some lakota arse.
Mind you, there was an real effort to kill vast majority of the indians just over a hundered years ago by means of biological warfare ( so-called grey blankets scandal). There was a big sterilisation campaing targeting just the indians in the US just few decades ago. But maybe these are the kind of things a friend and a true helper will do to a friendly peaceful tribe? You know, they were willing to give all they got just to see some lakota whuppin, right?
I’m sorry but you are repeating some very old and very white myths here and I wonder why?
Why it is so important to make these funny statements which you must understand are full of baloney? Do you just want to warm up conversation? I have no clue but you are sometimes funny as hell.
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Thaddeus–
“Moral correctness” is only attractive to people who are self-righteous, Ank. I’m thus not surprised you don’t consider it to be a flaw.
I’m going to presume you’re confusing “political correctness” with “moral correctness.”
That or you consider yourself a Nietzschean ubermensch without a need for moral intercourse with other members of society. Or perhaps you’re just a hermit…hermits don’t need morality.
Even dogs aspire to be moral.
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Black people were the first people on the planet. Everybody, including White people, come from Black people. White people are a genetic mutation or a genetic deficiency state [which] is what causes skin to be White. The Caucasian has not been chosen to lead the world. The original template for all human beings was the black man. We are the HEAD. Everybody, including White people, come from Black people. White people are a genetic deficiency state which is what causes skin to be White. This must be remembered before you get into any debate or discussion with those who classify themselves as white.
The color of white people is the result of leprosy and genetic inferiority, and that the ancestors of white people are the sexual partners of dogs and jackals. It took 600 years to breed them, part man and part beast. Hence is it any wonder that whites lack true emotions in their creation ? Is it any wonder that white people are never peaceful ? Whites were only created to fight other invading races, to protect the God race of the black man.
The black man has melanin, the white man does not.
Melanin is responsible for the existence of civilization, philosophy, science, religion, truth, justice, and righteousness. Read Pythagoras where got his theorem from ? Read Herodotus, read Julius Ceasar read where they went to get their learning, they went to the black man in Africa.
THE ORGINAL TEMPLATE FOR ALL HUMAN BEINGS WAS THE BLACK MAN.
Whites have low levels of Melanin thus will behave in a barbaric manner. Melanin gives humans the ability to feel because it is the absorber of all frequencies of energy. Since whites have the least amount of Melanin, this is why they are perceived by us as generally being rigid and unfeeling. Whites have no melanin, this is why they have an obsession with tanning, with tattoos anything to get some colour into them because they know they are inferior to the black men. White men give there women chocolate with nuts on Mothers day, so they can feel sexual equal to the black man. You notice the way so many white males are homos ? It’s because through anal intercourse, the sick self-debasing white male may fantasize that he can produce a product of color, albeit that the product of color is S**T. Do not take what I say lightly, this is the truth.
So as I said previously. What hurts us is that we think that white people are like us, they are not, so we try to reason with them. You cannot reason with the unreasonable
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@ Africanblackmilitant
at first I found your posts offensive. now I find them hilarious. keep up the good work.
@ Thad
I see where your going with the essentialist thing, but it doesn’t hold up.
Take two groups of people, an equal mix of all races.
Group A is forced to endure some hardship at the hands of group B. The people of group A are going to have a unique perspective on said hardship based on their experience of it.
Whether they all experienced it in the same way or not is totally irrelevant. What is relevant to this discussion is that everyone in group A will have a much better understanding of this hypothetical hardship than anyone in group B.
substitute privilege for hardship and you get the same result, except privileges tend to go unexamined by those that posses them.
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Ankhesen Mié,
Gladly would I kiss the ground that you walk on, and the feet that you walk with. God love you.
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I just hope Ank Me doesn’t whack me with the Rod of Righteous Retribution… 😀
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OK, @ Sam…
I’m willing to bet my scalp on that fact that not one single tribe was ready nor willing to give their land and all their posessions to the US just to get some help against the enemy tribe.
In fact, Sam, this sort of thing was quite common. The Hopi did it as well, as did several Northeastern tribes.
Native Americans weren’t living in one big peace-and-love fest when Europeans arrived: like every other mess of humans on the planet, they were more often than not busily trying to cut each others’ throats. Most people who study contact history in North America these days claim that after disease, inter-tribal warfare claimed more Indian lives than out-and-out conquest by Europeans. Europeans, of course, were quite aware of this and cheerfully armed the tribes so that they could kill each other off. One historian has compared these constant wars, aided and abetted by European technology, to a meatgrinder.
When a given people became unable to defend itself, a common strategy was to take shelter under the wings of its European ally, giving up land for some sort of protection from its enemies.
The very first European-Indian war in North America – that between the pilgrims and the Pequots – shows a couple of examples of this.
It is nice that you have been reading a lot about this subject, but I reccomend that you go and talk to the native american historians.
Aside from defending my doctorate in anthropology on U.S. Indian Administration, I did an 8 month visiting scholar gig at the National Museum of the American Indian, where I got plenty of face-to-face time with Lakota history scholars.
I also did some classes with Ward Churchill – who, whatever you might think of the man, is hardly an appologist for European colonialism. Finally, I lived on the Navaho Rez in the 1980s during the Big Mountain struggle and worked with plenty of AIM people. I was also pretty active during the spearfishing wars in Wisconsin in the 1980s.
None of this makes me God’s Own voice on Indian history, mind you, but I think we can say that I’ve had a bit more experience with this issue than simply “reading some books”.
Yourself…?
Just like in Afganistan today, you had many tribes with whole lot of agendas and ideas, plans and tricks, but not one wanted the white man to take their land, kill their way of life, kill their religion and culture, kill their language and themselves. I am willing to bet my scalp on that too!
No doubt, but history doesn’t work according to previously thought out conspiratorial plans, Sam. No Indian group thought the white man CAPABLE of doing what you propose, until they were far too weak to stop it. In the case of the Omaha, they had already been run off their land by the Lakota when they approached the U.S. government with terms for an alliance. They were thus giving up nothing at all when they ceded their old territories to Unka Sugah in exchange for a new reservation under the wing of the U.S.
Really? And what happened to those lucky omahas with the US?? Did the US give them special place in this wonderful intervention of theirs? Did the US embrace the omahas and made them one of the leading components of the USA like you imply?
First of all, I imply nothing about the U.S. making the Omaha “leading components”. That’s simply a fabrication on your part. Apparently you – like many Americans – believe that something must be either absolute evil or it is absolutely good: no shades of grey. I’m saying that the Omaha got a raw deal from the U.S., but that still doesn’t change the fact that they were living landless, driven off by the Lakota, who gave them an even worse deal.
Secondly, the Omaha did get a “special” place in this intervention: they were the first tribe to have their land alloted – at the Omaha’s bequest, I might add! That, of course, lead to the Dawes Act which resulted in massive land loss for Indians across the face of North America. I’m sure that the Omaha, had they some sort of crystal ball, would not have been so anxious to allot their land. But given the fact that the two other options open to them were 1) relocation to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, or 2) taking their chances with the Lakota, who heartily hated them, one can understand why the did what they did.
Are you serious when you say “NOT ALL THE NATIVE GROUPS HAD THEIR LAND STOLEN AND PRESUMING THAT THEY HAVE IS TO CREATE AN ESSENTIALIST MYTH”?
It would be hard to find a more radical advocate for Native American land rights than Ward Churchill, would you not agree? And even Churchill claims that about 40-60% of what’s now the U.S. was not “stolen”, but legitimately purchased, given or traded for.
So yeah, you are making an essentialist myth when you claim that “all groups had their land stolen”. This myth even has a name among Native history scholars: it’s called the “century of dishonor thesis”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Century_of_Dishonor
Why is this thesis dangerous? Because it ignores the specifics of Indian history. You’ll note that it was first articulated by white reformer Helen Hunt, who by and large believed precisely the same things you do. Because of Hunt’s rather shaky grasp of Native history, in combination with her overweening sense of outrage regarding the injustices done to Indians, she ended up a full-fledged supporter of the Dawes Act and was one of the earliest advogates of land allotment among the Omaha.
What is it that the road to hell is paved with again, Sam…? The study of history is supposed to help us avoid making the same mistakes twice. Then again, I keep on forgetting that history is not as important to most Americans as the chimera called “heritage”.
Mind you, there was an real effort to kill vast majority of the indians just over a hundered years ago by means of biological warfare ( so-called grey blankets scandal)
Over all effort? In 1900? I think you’re off by about 150 years.
You seem to be confusing an incident that occured in the 1760s under English Lord Jeffery Amherst with something else. A lot of Native Historians have spent much effort trying to prove that germ warfare was consciously used against the Indians and the only thing uncovered so far was Amherst’s suggestion during Pontiac’s Rebellion.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that new info on colonial relations in North America comes to light everyday, but I’ve heard nothing about a “grey blankets scandal”, nor does anything under that name turn up on the internet – which is odd, because if an OIA plan to kill Indians 100 years ago via germ warfare suddenly came to light, it would most certainly be news.
So if you have more info on this, please post it by all means!
I think, however, I’m pretty safe in saying that you’re tossing the Amherst story into the blender of myth and hitting “frappe”. The fact that you claimed it happened 100 years ago instead of 250 years ago (decades before the birth of the U.S., in fact) and the fact that you think it was American public policy directed by the OIA against the “vast majority of Indians”, instead of the suggestion of a single British commander which would be applied to a specific tribe against whom the British were fighting at the time, speaks volumes about your lack of knowledge regarding Native history.
And this is what’s really sad, Sam: Native American history apparently isn’t bloody and screwed up enough for you, you need to go making stuff up and exagerating it. You’re thus not showing respect for Native Americans: you’re simply trying to turn their historical experiences into a rhetorical tool to use in your current political struggles.
Apparently, taking Native lands isn’t enough for you Yanks: you need to take their history as well.
And you’re calling me to order about “white myths”? The “century of dishonor” thesis is one of the most hallowed white myths there is, Sam. So why do you subscribe to it?
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@RDKirk
I’m going to presume you’re confusing “political correctness” with “moral correctness.”
Nope. I mean moral correctness. Now, before you accuse me of relativism or Nietzchian absolutism, note that I do indeed believe that one does need to stand on one’s morals, whatever they are. But a WISE person understands that her morals are not and cannot be absolute.
At best, then, being cheered by one’s “moral correctness” means one is self-satisfied. At worst it means one is self-righteous.
I have no idea what “political correctness” means anymore. It started out as a leftist in-joke but has since been coopted as an ad hominem applied to any sort of progressive, leftist, or socialist political stance.
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@ Abagond
You should do a post on WP and their “credentials”. Because (supposedly) living in a foreign country & being married to a POC reeks of the I Have Black Friends argument.
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One thing people often don’t get is why whites don’t “udnerstand” racism. It’s not because they are UNABLE to understand it. Like Thad pointed out, being a victim of the same sort of oppression, and having the same skin colour (or gender, or nationality, or religion, or sexual orientation) does not mean to have some sort of collective understanding that others outside your group can never, never, never have or understand.
The fact most whites are clueless about racism is not because they are white (and therefore were never victims of racism). It’s because THEY DON’T CARE.
Plain and simple. They are not unable to udnerstand it; they just don’t care.
And it’s not a white thing, either. People in general tend not to care about things that don’t concern them, or their group (whatever that group may be). That’s why men don’t really care or notice sexism (as displayed numerous times on this blog), why heterosexuals don’t care about homophobia, etc. That’s why men/heterosexuals are often quick to point that is, in fact, the other way around!!!- women torture men, and homosexuals stick together in clans! They are the ones who have privilege, and they have the nerve to still whine about it!!!!111
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And I managed to misspell the same word twice.
To clarify: one may think that whites are unable to understand racism because they are not victims of it is a logical conclusion. But the thing is, you DON’T have to personally experience something to understand how wrong and bad it is. (None of the black commenters here was a slave, for example, and yet, everybody show strong negative feelings towards slavery).
So no, you don’t have to experience something in order to understand it. But you have to care enough about it, and whites don’t care because it doesn’t concern them personally (or their group).
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Jason sez:
Take two groups of people, an equal mix of all races.
Group A is forced to endure some hardship at the hands of group B. The people of group A are going to have a unique perspective on said hardship based on their experience of it.
Unfortunately, that’s an example of what Russell and Whitehead call “misplaced concreteness”.
There is no “group experience”: there is only a set of individual experiences, each of which are entirely subjective and ultimately unknowable. There is a group DISCOURSE about these experiences, but said discourse is never homogenous and is often simply political: not essentially “true” on any level.
To learn about such a situation, one needs to learn the discourse and this does not necessarily imply any subjective experience at all. In fact, group discourses often ERASE more subjective experiences than they “remember”. If you look at the debates here, you’ll see a whole slew of black-white experiences which provably occurred, according to the historical record, but which are pure political venom to bring up because they don’t match the hegemonic group discourses of either blacks or whites today.
So no, Jason, there is no essential “group experience” which all members of a group have access to on some experiential level but which all non-group members are forever barred from experiencing. There is only politics and discourse: this is what makes up ethnic identity.
Now, members of said group might have an identifiable discourse which might even be unique, but the degree to which said discourse maps to reality is debateable. Furthermore, said discourse, like ANY form of human symbolic communication, can indeed be learned. It is not rooted in the essential and experiental, as you claim.
Here’s an example of this: I often post on Ank Mie’s blog via a U.S.-based proxy. She has not yet figured out that I’m an “outsider” (from her perspective) because I do not contradict her discourse there. “Belonging” to a certain group has more to do with what signals you show than with what experiences you’ve had.
Whether they all experienced it in the same way or not is totally irrelevant. What is relevant to this discussion is that everyone in group A will have a much better understanding of this hypothetical hardship than anyone in group B.
Everyone? This presumes that said “hardship” impacts upon everyone in the group in the same or similar way. If it didn’t, there’d be absolutely no way you can make the qualitiative comparison that you are making (i.e. people in one group have a “better” understanding than people in another).
You’re attempting to measure and judge as better or worse something which simply doesn’t exist in objective form, Jason.
I know this is a hard thing for Americans to wrap their heads around, because your cultural tradition is incredibly essentialist and reductionist, based as it ultimately is on the protestant notion of individual revealed truth. Telling an American that there’s no such thing, in sociological terms, is a bit like telling a radical Muslim thatb the Koran is so much paper and ink.
Whether they all experienced it in the same way or not is totally irrelevant. What is relevant to this discussion is that everyone in group A will have a much better understanding of this hypothetical hardship than anyone in group B.
substitute privilege for hardship and you get the same result, except privileges tend to go unexamined by those that posses them.
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You should do a post on WP and their “credentials”. Because (supposedly) living in a foreign country & being married to a POC reeks of the I Have Black Friends argument.
It would if I used that as an excuse to destroy other peoples’ arguments, Ank Me. However, I’ve never claimed that I “understand” black people because I’m married to one. And if I understand Brazil better than you or Abagond, it’s not just because I’ve lived here for twenty years, but because I’ve got an undergraduate degree in Luso-Brazilian studies.
Of course, if you want me to pretend that I know less about Brazil than you do in order to make you feel better about your ignorance, I could do that, if you asked nicely. 😀
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@Mira
The fact most whites are clueless about racism is not because they are white (and therefore were never victims of racism). It’s because THEY DON’T CARE.
Precisely. The exact same reason why, say, Ank Me knows nothing about Brazil: she doesn’t care and why should she? It doesn’t impact much on her life.
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@Thad:
The grey blankets thing happened after Wounded Knee, when your magnificent Indian Administration shuffeled the goverment issued grey blankets from one reservation to the next, without washing them, from a reservation where they had pneumonia, influenza or other epidemic, to another which had none. That was biological warfare even if these deaths are in the books of your beloved Indiand Administration just as natural deaths.
The sterilization campaing went on at least to the 60’s, but I guess it is just my way of insulting the native americans when I say these things which, by the way, Russell Means and others have stated out loud too. But I guess they are against indians as well and don’t know shit about what they are talking about. And if I am not totally wrong, your fine Indian Administration was behind this too. But I guess all those women telling these stories are full of shit and against the interests of the indians, even though they are native americans themselves. Might be.
I guess killing off the buffalo was just a sport and had nothing to do with the destruction of a whole way of life? It did not have anything to do with the idea of forcing the natives to beg food from the white man and make them walk in to the white mans “reservation”, right? That is just crap I guess and just a some stupid white womans imagination, right? I guess you have information which shows that the indians themselves killed off the buffalo too and that white man actually saved those poor sods from the hunger which they had caused to themselves?
I have never said that native americans were dancing around with daffodils in their hands before white men came, some of them were pretty nasty guys indeed, but to make a claim that white man did not mean shit in their lives is so funny my stomach aches. 😀
I don’t know how you define fair trade but maybe gettin some chiefs drunk and buying their land for few hunderd bucks is fair to you. After all, nobody forced those guys to sell out, right? Maybe it is just fair that some guys sell lands which they do not own in the name of a whole nation without the consent of the said nation to a white man? But I guess business is business and deal is a deal. Cool.
You did meet some AIM guys? Great! So did I. But for some unexplainable reason they told you that it is the indians who asked the white man to come and take over their world. Thats funny because they told me completely different story. Imagine that! 😀 Maybe they were just yanking my chain? I mean, you had a doctorate in Indian Administration and these guys were just, you know, indians.
And it shows how sharp guy you are that you think I am a yank. I am not. And where I did get the information to my views on these things? I just spend some time with some guys who happened to be native americans. But they were bunch of bullkeisters I guess, you know, funny guys who were trying to get Leonard Peltier out of jail while you had all the knowledge all the time. I think I should have told them that what they need is the intervention of a white man here! The white man will sort things out and tell you what is true about yourselves! 😀
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That black militant guy is gettin funnier all the time. Does he have any DVD’s at sale? I mean, this is hilarious: “ancestors of the white man were sexual partners of jackals and dogs!” Can you see it? That is funny! 😀
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@ Mira
True, but I don’t talk about being a slave.
One of things that initially drew me to Macon’s blog was the title: Stuff White People Do. Note the present tense, not the past. In America, when POC talk about racial issues, they often focus on NOW. Most, WP, on the other hand, derail the dialogue to focus strictly on BEFORE so they can comfortably end the conversation with, “But that’s over now.”
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“Everyone? This presumes that said “hardship” impacts upon everyone in the group in the same or similar way.
No it does not. Your making a leap here on your own. there is no bridge between everyone experiencing for example an earthquake and everyone experiencing it the same way. some people might fall into a hole, some might have there house fall on them. some might get burned by a gas line rupture. some might not feel much at all. But you can still say that this group experienced an earthquake and it was real to them. and if you have any hope of understanding what it was like, you had better listen to as many of them as possible. Which brings me to your other strawman, the idea that these experiences can’t be understood by people outside the group, where does that fit in? Of course they can. Just not if you go into it thinking you already know everything and don’t care to listen to anyone.
Why do you need to assign words like homogeneous to my argument in order to attack it? it doesn’t depend on every POC having even a remotely similar experience with racism. just that they do have experiences with racism. again for the cheap seats. not the same experience, just experience.
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Sam
The grey blankets thing happened after Wounded Knee, when your magnificent Indian Administration shuffeled the goverment issued grey blankets from one reservation to the next, without washing them, from a reservation where they had pneumonia, influenza or other epidemic, to another which had none.
Source, please.
Furthermore, you claim that this was an organized plan to wipe out all Indians. How do you know it wasn’t simply typical OIA thievery and incompetence? And another question: you’re claiming that this was “germ warfare”, correct? You know that at roughly the same time, the U.S. military hospitals wouldn’t wash their blankets when transferring them from one soldier to another, right? Epidemology was in its infancy in 1890. the concept of the “virus” didn’t even exist.
Furthermore, “pneumonia” is not a transmittable disease: it’s a syndrome which occurs on top of another disease. You can’t “catch” pneumonia from another person.
Regarding your rantings on the sterilization campaign, buffalo extinction and other injustices visited upon the Native Americans, am I defending these in any way shape or form? Have I ever claimed – as you do, above – that the OIA is “magnificient” in any way, shape or form?
NONE of that touches upon the discussion at hand, which is whether or not Indians have some generic, essential experience with racist injustice that they can all relate to. NONE of that touches upon the original point which touched you off into frother mode: the fact of the matter remains that the Omaha were getting walloped by the Lakota and sought aid from the US, giving up land rights in the process.
…but to make a claim that white man did not mean shit in their lives is so funny my stomach aches.
Then you must give yourself many s***s and giggles, Sam, because the only one here who makes that claim is YOU, my friend.
Do you know the term “strawman”? Y’know, accuse someone of making an argument which they are not and then trashing that argument because you can’t or won’t deal with what they are actually saying? That’s you in spades, right here, Sam.
I mean, you had a doctorate in Indian Administration and these guys were just, you know, indians.
Sam, while I have a great deal of respect for many members of AIM, that does not mean that everything that drops out of their mouths are pearls of wisdom. Many people have their hearts in the right place, but haven’t the slightest clue about the history of what they are struggling for. Being an Indian doesn’t give one instant knowledge of Native history anymore than being white gives one instant knowledge of European history.
This is why we go to libraries and archives and engae with original documents AS WELL as talk to people. People are as often full of s*** – or simply wrong – as books. I do not take your average AIM member to be anymore knowledgeable about the conquest than, say, your average Jew is about the inner workings of the Holocaust.
“He’s an X, so he knows everything about X” doesn’t work in real life.
I don’t know how you define fair trade but maybe gettin some chiefs drunk and buying their land for few hunderd bucks is fair to you.
Every single time, that’s what occurred is what you’re saying? Not once in American history did a tribe sell, trade, or otherwise give up their land without being forced to?
Like I said, whatever you may think of Ward Churchill, he has much more radical creds on this issue than either you or me and not even HE believes that.
And it shows how sharp guy you are that you think I am a yank. I am not.
Yank, Canuck, same diff when it comes to this issue.
And where I did get the information to my views on these things? I just spend some time with some guys who happened to be native americans.
So let me get this straight: you had a couple of beers with some Native Americans and now you know everything there is to know about Native American history, do you?
Sam, you don’t even know that pneumonia isn’t caused by a virus. You mix up Amherst’s plan for the Pontiacs with blankets given out after Wounder Knee and declare that to be some sort of master plan to kill all Indians. You seem to think that Native peoples are all on the same page when it comes to history and politics and you yourself don’t seem to know anything about either of those topics, aside from what you picked up chatting to some anonymous AIM militants.
And you truly think you have an informed opinion on this topic? You’re just repeating the oldest white myth there is: a century of dishonor.
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Ank Me sez:
Most, WP, on the other hand, derail the dialogue to focus strictly on BEFORE so they can comfortably end the conversation with, “But that’s over now.”
How dare they presume to step into your role. I mean, derailing dialogue is surely your perrogative, Ank. 😀
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No it does not. Your making a leap here on your own. there is no bridge between everyone experiencing for example an earthquake and everyone experiencing it the same way.
But racism is not comparable to an earthquake: it is not a discrete, one time event that occurs in exactly the same fashion. Even if we were to take your analogy seriously, it STILL doesn’t work: not everyone who lives through an earthquake automatically acquires an “experience” which tunes them in with everyone else who lived through the same event. Some who went through the Haiti earthquake in a boat in Port au Prince harbor does not have anything remotely like the same experience as someone who lived through having a building collapse on them. You can’t even toss them , experientially speaking, into the sdame category except in the most vaguest way possible.
Yet you’d have us believe that both these people’s experiences are somehow “better” than anyone who’s never gone through an earthquake when it comes to earthquake knowledge – “better” even than, say, a trained seismologist.
Lived experience simply doesn’t line up in such nice and clear lines, Jason. No, living through something does not necessarily make you an expert on it. It DOES give you a different register of experience, but whether that’s “better” or “worse” or more or less informed is completely a subjective opinion.
Furthermore, here’s yet another rub: you say you need to listen to people to understand their experience. Fair go. But WHY is listening limited to oral communication? Reading a book allows you to engage with a person’s experience on a level that is as deep or deeper, yet you curiously seem to dismiss “book learnin'” as immaterial to the learning process.
Finally, the very first thing you’ll learn when you “listen to everyone you can”, as you put it, is that there is no one single experience of anything. to try to line these up along axises of “better/worse” or “more/less” is usually quite futile. And this is when we’re talking about a single discrete event, like an earthquake.
Racism is not a single discrete event. It’s a vast web of social complexes, traduced by individual prejudices. It does not manifest itself in the same way. It often, in fact, contradicts itself. An example: American racism eschews interracial sex: Brazilian racismpositively endorses it. given that, how can a Brazilian and an American’s views on racism be fundamentally in agreement, given that then social phenomena that they actually experience in the name of white supremacy are often diametrically opposed?
it doesn’t depend on every POC having even a remotely similar experience with racism. just that they do have experiences with racism. again for the cheap seats. not the same experience, just experience.
EVERYONE has experiences with racism and thus should be heard. This isn’t a PoC privilege. The problem is, many experiences of racism – both white and PoC – do not match up with the political dogmas that the majority buy.
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Ankhesen wrote:
In America, when POC talk about racial issues, they often focus on NOW. Most, WP, on the other hand, derail the dialogue to focus strictly on BEFORE so they can comfortably end the conversation with, “But that’s over now.”
In a word, no. In fact, that’s exactly bass-ackwards.
It’s the POC, if I may, who constantly traipse down memory lane to those halcyon days of yore, when the evil guys were always white and the virtuous guys were always black. We palefaces, I would venture to say, are more attuned to current realities (by current, let us say, the last 30 years: the Central Park “wilding,” the brick in Reginald Denny’s skull during the LA Feuernacht, the Wichita Massacre, the Colin Ferguson slayings, the Orenthal acquittal, and so on).
You can justifiably rebuke us, I think, for a certain historical nearsightedness. But from our perspective — invalid, selon vous — the problems of 2010 are not the problems of 1962.
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“yet you curiously seem to dismiss “book learnin’” as immaterial to the learning process.”
when did I even imply that? you curiously seem to like to make shit up when it suits you.
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“Yet you’d have us believe that both these people’s experiences are somehow “better” than anyone who’s never gone through an earthquake when it comes to earthquake knowledge – “better” even than, say, a trained seismologist.”
no. better than someone who hasn’t really cared to think about it much. as most whites have not. which apparently is just a coincidence and has nothing to do with said white people being white. (eyeroll)
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“not everyone who lives through an earthquake automatically acquires an “experience” which tunes them in with everyone else who lived through the same event”
no. but it does separate them from those who have not when it comes to talking about earthquakes.
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when did I even imply that?
Jason, your entire argument up to now is that experience trumps indirect learning, is it not?
no. better than someone who hasn’t really cared to think about it much. as most whites have not. which apparently is just a coincidence and has nothing to do with said white people being white. (eyeroll)
Ahn. Well THAT I can agree with. And no, it’s no coincidence. But this goes back to a very old argument between abagond and myself: I don’t buy the idea that whites are constitutionally incapable of understanding racism, believe that most of them simply don’t care to. It’s not an issue with them.
but it does separate them from those who have not when it comes to talking about earthquakes.
Sure. But the point that you originally made, at least as far as I understood it, is that people who have direct experience of a thing have a “better” understanding of it. Additionally, racism is a vast, diverse and on-going sociological phenomenon, not a discrete event. It would be hard to say that anyone in the world is truly seperate from it.
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Jason, your entire argument up to now is that experience trumps indirect learning, is it not?
well not really, It’s not about trumping to me. but if it were that simple and that was my point, ( which it isn’t ) I might have said experience trumps book learnin’ AND verbal 2nd hand accounts. NOT that verbal accounts trump reading. because whats the difference?
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“I don’t buy the idea that whites are constitutionally incapable of understanding racism, believe that most of them simply don’t care to. It’s not an issue with them.”
right dude, but how do you separate that from being white? WP don’t care BECAUSE they are white. what does constitution have to do with it?
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Ankhesen,
True, but I don’t talk about being a slave.
I didn’t mean on you or your article. I used slavery as an example to show that people can be interested and engaged and feel passionate about something that they, personally, didn’t experience.
So white people’s behavior when it comes to racism is not about being UNABLE to understand what’s going on- they simply don’t CARE. (The fact they are not personally harmed by racism doesn’t mean they can’t understand racism; they just don’t have much interest in it, and they generally don’t care about it).
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I might have said experience trumps book learnin’ AND verbal 2nd hand accounts. NOT that verbal accounts trump reading. because whats the difference?
Ahn. Odd, then, that you cheerfully live in a world where almost everything is learned via 2nd hand accounts. apparently, that sort of learning works perfectly well.
right dude, but how do you separate that from being white? WP don’t care BECAUSE they are white. what does constitution have to do with it?
Nope. They don’t care because it’s not an issue to them. If it DOES become an issue, they care. Plenty of white people care PASSIONATELY about racism because they are white: they just don’t care in the way you and I wish they would.
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@Sam
I get your frothing now: on another thread, someone refferred to you as a “pwnee”, so it all makes sense. 😀
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“Ahn. Odd, then, that you cheerfully live in a world where almost everything is learned via 2nd hand accounts. apparently, that sort of learning works perfectly well.”
And that is 100% the opposite of my experience.
Yeah, I think I can be confident that any further discussion with you is a waste of time.
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@ Thad: okay, lets agree that you as an white man living in Brazil know everything better than native americans how their story goes. After all you have studied the subject and of course, you are a white man. And lets not forget, you have also talked to some indians.
But hey, that is okay! I yield to your wisdom.
Well, anonymous activists for certain reasons, even today.
And no, I am not either a “pwnee” 😀 what the hell ever that means. 😀
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Fine, Jason, no problem.
Sammy, my little pwnee brave…
Thad: okay, lets agree that you as an white man living in Brazil know everything better than native americans how their story goes.
No, let’s agree that someone who’s actually studied a topic probably has a better take on it than someone who just pushed it around a barroom table over beers, which seems to be your case.
I really think that’s all that needs to be said, but if you want to get buttsore about not knowing much when it comes to native history, fire away with the ad hominems!
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I think saying that Whites and POC can equally understand racism is going a bit far. I’m sifting through a lot of these comments still, but I’ll try to make sense of much of it…
Whites as an insitutional group are involved just as much as POC in the system of racism. This is where I will agree with Thaddeus.
The problem in equalizing past this point is that is carries an implicit assumption that White people are affected in the same ways as POC. I think one can say that White people are just as involved and can have an equal place in the discussion, but only on the topics in which they are affected.
To me, using Native Americans and the fact that “not all had land stolen in 1830” is a terrible way to get going on this. All of them not having been robbed is a certainty, but we are looking at using today as a starting point for moving forward from yesterday. As of today, Native Americans have nothing but a legacy of what eventually did become of their ancestors and their land. So even though (to use another example) a Japanese-American has never been interned, this doesn’t mean that fact doesn’t hold a certain reality to them that White people just don’t understand in the same way.
Let me be clear here. White people CAN understand what happened to Japanese-Americans, CAN understand how and why this was damaging, but they cannot meaningfully contextualize it today. White people simply do not know what it is to open a book as a Japanese-American, read about what could have and did happen to their ancestors only a generation or so ago, and have the reality hit in the same way. White people can surely, if taught about racism as a system, understand the horrors of it, the ugliness, and the inhumanity of it, and can understand racism in a way that I don’t think Whites like to come to grips with often: that becoming anti-racist is how they can retake their own humanity in the West. This is one epiphany that Whites can have on racism that I think is unique, but it does not mean theirs is “less” per se (IMO), and it doesn’t mean it’s “the same” as POC. It’s just different and has a different meaning in the power structure of today.
I don’t think we need to focus on whether it’s “the same” or “better” or “worse”. it’s just different and should be judged, contextualized, appreciated as such. This is my theoretical opinion, of course, and know that many Whites do not realize or even think about the same things many are discussing on this board.
On a practical, everyday note, I also agree that Whites are largely intellectualy lazy when it comes to matters of social justice, especially racism. But I don’t think it’s a stretch to say they don’t care either, as someone else noted. Many seem to dismiss it outright and deny it’s relevance. I think this is because Whites are given no reason to care (historically) and in many cases are given reasons To ignore it (which is not excusing ignoring it, but I’ve noticed many Whites back away when they feel their job is at stake, etc.) I think the White structure provides Whites with a sort of reality that allows them to treat racism as a secondary nuissance, and if it is challenged in a way that affects their lives then they’ll steer clear of that path and go with the one of least resistance. This is both lazy and cowardly.
All in all, I do think White views (specifically anti-racist ones) are important in racism discussions and I do feel they understand racism, but I think they understand it from a different ledge, so to speak, than does a person of color. As long as a White person knows they are White in society, knows they are seen as such, and knows others are non-White, I don’t know how it can be any other way.
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@Jaime
The problem in equalizing past this point is that is carries an implicit assumption that White people are affected in the same ways as POC.
No it doesn’t. How does it?
Hell, I’m arguing that not even POC are affected in the same ways by racism, so how you take that point and stretch into “it’s the same for whites” is beyond me.
As of today, Native Americans have nothing but a legacy of what eventually did become of their ancestors and their land. So even though (to use another example) a Japanese-American has never been interned, this doesn’t mean that fact doesn’t hold a certain reality to them that White people just don’t understand in the same way.
The funny thing is that Sammy seems to believe that he sees this issue exactly as an Indian would, for all that he’s not Indian.
White people simply do not know what it is to open a book as a Japanese-American, read about what could have and did happen to their ancestors only a generation or so ago, and have the reality hit in the same way.
So you think Jews don’t have an analogous experience when they read about the Holocaust? Or the Irish when the read about the Famine? Last I checked, both groups were considered to be “white” these days. And how about the German-Americans, who had their lives pretty much trashed by WWI? To the day she died, my Grandma remembered being forced to not speak German in public and being afraid that the police would come for her father some day. Sure, these experiences are all different, but the point is that they existed and yet we somehow don’t think of them as being part of the “white” experience.
Why is that?
I don’t think we need to focus on whether it’s “the same” or “better” or “worse”. it’s just different and should be judged, contextualized, appreciated as such.
To a certain degree, I would agree with this. But I still think that one of its unstated premises is that there is some sort of racially encoded experience and that I strongly disagree with.
Even if one is a Japanese American, one isn’t guaranteed to open a book on the internations and be affected by it. Some people are just not much worried about what happened before they were born.
On a practical, everyday note, I also agree that Whites are largely intellectualy lazy when it comes to matters of social justice, especially racism.
I would say that’s a human and not a white condition. I don’t see many people here losing sleep over what the U.S. is doing in Afganistan, for instance, or ovwer U.S. immigratyion law. People only worry about what impacts upon them. Anti-black racism doesn’t impact on most whites, thus they don’t think about it.
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jas0nburns
I don’t expect you to understand what I’m saying. How can you reason with the devil ?
THE WHITE RACE IS A RACE OF DEVILS.
All white people are in it. The white race is race of devils. There will never true equality until the black man goes back to what we were at the begining at the very top of civilisation, when there were no white people on the planet. White people are new breed, not fully developed, hence, you name the problem, the war, the fighting, the trouble, the disease, the misery caused on millions and I’ll bet you as much money as you want I can put a white face on faster than you name the members of The Spice Girls.
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@Thad: I don’t drink, never did never will, oh you olympian wise man 😀
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@africanblackmilitant
“THE WHITE RACE IS A RACE OF DEVILS.”
you right. calling white people devils who come from jackals is a very reasonable thing to do. makes perfect sense.
So, does that mean we have special powers like the biblical devil? or we’re just bad. if we’re just bad, why call us devils? that kind of gives us an air of the supernatural don’t you think? also. I thought there was only one devil.
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“So you think Jews don’t have an analogous experience when they read about the Holocaust? Or the Irish when the read about the Famine? Last I checked, both groups were considered to be “white” these days. And how about the German-Americans, who had their lives pretty much trashed by WWI? To the day she died, my Grandma remembered being forced to not speak German in public and being afraid that the police would come for her father some day. Sure, these experiences are all different, but the point is that they existed and yet we somehow don’t think of them as being part of the “white” experience.
Why is that?”
I never said that. You are putting words in my mouth. I said that ethnic and racial minorities in a given context (the U.S. in this case) read history differently. People of Irish descent in America reading about the potato famine no doubt have feelings that others don’t know, but an American born person of Japanese descent no doubt worries in a different way about the atrocities that took place in this very country. The reality of the historical danger is more salient for them given that it took place and the legacy exists in this country.
“To a certain degree, I would agree with this. But I still think that one of its unstated premises is that there is some sort of racially encoded experience and that I strongly disagree with.
Even if one is a Japanese American, one isn’t guaranteed to open a book on the internations and be affected by it. Some people are just not much worried about what happened before they were born.
I would say that’s a human and not a white condition. I don’t see many people here losing sleep over what the U.S. is doing in Afganistan, for instance, or ovwer U.S. immigratyion law. People only worry about what impacts upon them. Anti-black racism doesn’t impact on most whites, thus they don’t think about it.”
No, it isn’t a “White condition”, but I note it because it is especially worrisome with respect to Whites given that they are the benefitting group from a system of racism. This is why a White person opening a book and “not feeling anything about the past” as you stated may be the truth with some Japanese descendents is particularly problematic. Whites being apathetic to atrocities take on a different meaning in the sense of a system of power and resources.
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I think it would be good for all white men to stand on the other side in a situation where you are not automatically aknowledged to be one of the privilidged white folks. That clarifies a lot of intellectual and philosophical problems quite fast.
I’ve had couple such instances and they are quite refreshing for a white man, looking litterally at the barrell of a gun from the wrong end for once. It sort of makes intellectual exercises not so important and makes a rather telling point of the issue.
Maybe they do not call you a n****r lover any more, no more than they call you injun lover or renegade, but is is a situation that will stay in ones mind for a pretty long time.
And yes, Thad, it was not over some beers in some bar with the AIM guys 😀
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@Sam
I don’t drink, never did never will, oh you olympian wise man…. it was not over some beers in some bar with the AIM guys
Yeah, but chuggin’ ‘tussin still counts, Sam.
I think it would be good for all white men to stand on the other side in a situation where you are not automatically aknowledged to be one of the privilidged white folks. That clarifies a lot of intellectual and philosophical problems quite fast.
As an immigrant, I’ve been in that situation more times than you can possibly imagine, Sam. My white skin most certainly doesn’t give me an “in” when it comes to Brazilian migration law. In fact, it has been mobilized against me on a couple of occasions because one of the stock racialist stereotypes federal immigration employees believe in down here is the evil white middle-aged pedophile and woman trafficker who comes to Brazil to steal our women and kids.
You know what? My intellectual and philosophical outlook didn’t change because of the experience. My emotional outlook did: I became increasingly impatient with people who think that rights and privileges are simply and easily distributed as if life were a nice little paint by numbers kit.
Also, given where I live, I lay dollars to donuts that I’ve looked down the wrong end of a gun many more times than you have, Sam – certainly more than most people here.
I hazard that most of your experience with “privilege” is pretty theoretical, given that you think it’s an unusual – even a life changing – experience to have guns pointed at you. Get out of your comfortable North American life and you’ll find that this sort of thing goes on all around the world, every day, as a matter of course.
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@Jaime
I said that ethnic and racial minorities in a given context (the U.S. in this case) read history differently.
I got that. But you also seem to feel that there’s some congruence of experience between, say, blacks and Indians, correct? Myquestion is why this congruence can’t exist between whites and blacks, given the provable fact that a white skin was not enough, historically, to prevent one from being the target of racist and social darwinist policies.
No, it isn’t a “White condition”, but I note it because it is especially worrisome with respect to Whites given that they are the benefitting group from a system of racism. This is why a White person opening a book and “not feeling anything about the past” as you stated may be the truth with some Japanese descendents is particularly problematic. Whites being apathetic to atrocities take on a different meaning in the sense of a system of power and resources.
Out here in the real world, chances are that that would be seen as a more American than white problem, actually. Americans in general have a very low tolerance for history, as far as I can see.
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@Thad: I don’t live in North America but I have been around some what. I know that life in Brazil can be pretty interesting. One of my friends lived there few years. He also almost got killed but was lucky. Just got shot once.
Well, I don’t know about the gun thing. I’ve been in military too :-D.
But I’ve been stopped with black friends and the said AIM guys in the middle of the night and that is very, how to put it, american experience. When you lay flat on the road spread eagle you understand that this guy with a shotgun is the law and wants you to know it and most of all, they are the law at that situation.
And of course it does not help to have a long black hair on ponytail like I did back then. Nor it is too funny at the time when after the “routine stop” you stay up all night with your AIM buddies arming themselves in case of a noctural visit by who knows who and you see from their faces that this is not a joke. For me it was one of those experiences which made me think little bit differently of somethings. Pretty long hours too :-D.
These were “routine stops”.
Of course they can point guns at you even over here if you are part of the wrong crowd, like outlaw bikers. But in those situations you can always speak the native language and read the situation so it is not so strange nor threatning.
Little bit different thing when you are, say, in Nigeria, where not only you are not a native, do not speak the local lingo but you are also the only white guy miles around. The concept of treath of violence feels different in those situations. So, I also know Thad what it is to be the white guy in a wrong place at the wrong time.
So you see, you are not the only guy around who has seen the world a bit. I bet there are others too besides me.
I’m not saying you don’t know anything nor I am putting you down in any way, but you got to admit that you seem to know anything better than anybody here. Be that native americans, african americans, women, whites or any other group, you just seem to know better than any of them how they feel, how they think and how they experience their life. And most of all you seem to know the Truth about any subject and everything without any hesitation. To me that is a bit funny at sometimes. I can’t help it :-D.
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@ jas0nburns:
See? You don’t get what Africanblackmilitant is saying because you are the devil. I know it may SEEM like he is a deluded fool with absolutely no realistic perspective on the human condition, but that’s because you are so devilish and couldn’t possibly understand.
You know you’ve got horns and a tail, don’t pretend otherwise, buddy.
As for me, I’m only half-devil.
Interestingly, that means most black Americans must be between 10% and 40% devil.
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@Sam
I don’t live in North America but I have been around some what. I know that life in Brazil can be pretty interesting. One of my friends lived there few years. He also almost got killed but was lucky. Just got shot once.
Yeah, because most Brazilians get sgot multiple times during their lives, right?
But I’ve been stopped with black friends and the said AIM guys in the middle of the night and that is very, how to put it, american experience. When you lay flat on the road spread eagle you understand that this guy with a shotgun is the law and wants you to know it and most of all, they are the law at that situation.
Yeah, well, white I may be, but that’s happened at least a half dozen times to be in Brazil.
So you see, you are not the only guy around who has seen the world a bit. I bet there are others too besides me.
Yeah, and you were in Nigeria for, what, a whole week, right? 😀
I’m not saying you don’t know anything nor I am putting you down in any way, but you got to admit that you seem to know anything better than anybody here.
And if I were a plumber, I’d probably happen to know more about plumbing than most people, too. It’s not arrogant to claim expertise in a field that one has worked on for a couple of decades. I study what I call the “ordering of peoples” and thus have studied, thought, discussed, and read ALOT about gender and race. Enough to know that what 90% of folks claim to be unaltered truth is bure dogma and myth.
Your comment that every native tribe was robbed of it’s land is just one small example.
Truth about any subject and everything without any hesitation. To me that is a bit funny at sometimes. I can’t help it.
Y’know what’s funny to me? That this is coming out of the mouth of the guy who, just above, was frothing and accusing me of defending every injustice ever made against Native Americans.
In my book, people who are knee-jerkers really have no call to moan about other people’as arrogance.
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@ Sam
I’m not saying you don’t know anything nor I am putting you down in any way, but you got to admit that you seem to know anything better than anybody here. Be that native americans, african americans, women, whites or any other group, you just seem to know better than any of them how they feel, how they think and how they experience their life. And most of all you seem to know the Truth about any subject and everything without any hesitation. To me that is a bit funny at sometimes.
*applause*
Granted, it ceases to be amusing very quickly.
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Thaddeus–
And if I were a plumber, I’d probably happen to know more about plumbing than most people, too. It’s not arrogant to claim expertise in a field that one has worked on for a couple of decades. I study what I call the “ordering of peoples” and thus have studied, thought, discussed, and read ALOT about gender and race. Enough to know that what 90% of folks claim to be unaltered truth is bure dogma and myth.
RDKirk–
A plumber will have done more than “studied, thought, discussed, and read” about plumbing. That’s what a plumber would call a “paper certification.”
What you appear to lack is what we called “ground truth” in the intelligence business.
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@Ank me
Granted, it ceases to be amusing very quickly.
Especially when Ank Me is the only person, in her eyes, who is allowed to have strong opinions. Everyone else is either arrogant or deluded.
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All in all, I do think White views (specifically anti-racist ones) are important in racism discussions and I do feel they understand racism, but I think they understand it from a different ledge, so to speak, than does a person of color.
In a country that obsesses over the notion of superiority, the word “different” tends to make some people twitch. When they hear that white and non-whites understand racism “differently”, they have that knee-jerk reaction of asking, “Well…who understands it better?”
What’s worse is the issue of age and education. Whites who are older and educated don’t want some young non-white person disagreeing with them or correcting them or offering up personal experiences to help explain their point of view. They demand statistics, theories, and quotes from such a person, because such a person couldn’t possibly know better than they.
“Tisn’t he who has stood and looked on, that can tell you what slavery is–’tis he who has endured,” John Little said in 1855, after fleeing bondage. The words ring true until today. A white anti-racist can have a Ph.D., write books, and quote theory and historical dates like the alphabet, but without “walking in the skin”, so to speak, there’s a crucial amount of information they’re missing. Priceless insight which can’t be borrowed or manufactured or learned.
And when I say “walking in the skin”, I mean just that. I don’t mean having an occasional slur hurled their way or simply not being first choice one day or traveling to some place where they’re a “minority”. Being a minority doesn’t automatically mean being oppressed; billionaires are a minority. And I’m not talking about pulling a “Black Like Me” either, at the end of his experiment, Griffin got to “go back”. I mean being born, living, and dying “in the skin.”
There is no book or documentary or statistic which can let a white person truly know what that means. A white person can immerse themselves in a world of color, marry and breed with a person of color, raise a person of color, and still never know what that means.
“Getting to know what that means”, however, should not be the driving force of white anti-racism. Social justice should, egalitarianism should, the end of dehumanization should. One doesn’t have to have great insight to simply be a decent human being. The oppressed and discriminated are not an “in crowd”; this isn’t a clique war.
This isn’t Avatar.
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@RDKirk–
A plumber will have done more than “studied, thought, discussed, and read” about plumbing. That’s what a plumber would call a “paper certification.”
I’m kind of in a quandary here. If I put down everything I’ve said and done on these subjects, why then I’m an arrogant asshole who’s bragging.
If I don’t, then I’m an ignorant white guy who can’t possibly know what he’s talking about and is thus arrogant because he’s talking with authority from a position of ignorance.
Which would you rather, RD?
If you want my CV, go look it up on Lattes. I’m posting under my real name, after all.
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Thaddeus–
I’m kind of in a quandary here. If I put down everything I’ve said and done on these subjects, why then I’m an arrogant asshole who’s bragging.
If I don’t, then I’m an ignorant white guy who can’t possibly know what he’s talking about and is thus arrogant because he’s talking with authority from a position of ignorance.
Which would you rather, RD?
RDKirk–
You might check Wikipedia on “ground truth” and realize when you’re lacking it.
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You might courteously answer my question.
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Btw, anyone who has to look up “ground truth” on wiki shows a stunning lack of it.
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This isn’t Avatar.
Avatar was a clique war…? 😀
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“Getting to know what that means”, however, should not be the driving force of white anti-racism. Social justice should, egalitarianism should, the end of dehumanization should. ”
Thank you for saying that, I absolutely agree 100%
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@ jas0nburns
I thought you might like that.
I think some white anti-racists lose focus somewhere along the line and create new problems for themselves while fighting for “the cause”. They forget “the cause” isn’t about their exploring and enjoying new cultures (and peoples), or being loved and accepted and becoming “one of the people”. It’s not about them having this “new identity/hobby/thing-they’re-into-that-makes-them-feel-cool”. They shouldn’t be doing this to become “experts” and “authorities”. This isn’t about them.
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Ankhesen said:
“There is no book or documentary or statistic which can let a white person truly know what that means. A white person can immerse themselves in a world of color, marry and breed with a person of color, raise a person of color, and still never know what that means.
“Getting to know what that means”, however, should not be the driving force of white anti-racism. Social justice should, egalitarianism should, the end of dehumanization should. One doesn’t have to have great insight to simply be a decent human being. The oppressed and discriminated are not an “in crowd”; this isn’t a clique war.”
Excellent comment. Thank you.
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Thaddeus–
Btw, anyone who has to look up “ground truth” on wiki shows a stunning lack of it.
RDKirk–
That is precisely why I referred you to it.
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Thaddeus–
You might courteously answer my question.
RDKirk–
You lost the right to courtesy when you stooped to profanity.
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[…] How to talk to white people about racism « Abagond Tim Wise is a very privileged, college educated white guy. He has no particular “in” to any generic “white experience” Having seen him talk on a couple of occasions, I state, for a fact, that his rhetoric falls entirely flat with the white Thank you, I will use that. on Mon 20 Sep 2010 at 22:10:53 RDKirk. Thaddeus– Meanwhile, while the U.S. is certainly not post-racist, it's moving ever more rapidly towards a post modern racism, in which things are no longer simply . […]
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I think not a single white guy, including me, should pretend that we somehow know how it is. For all I have gone trough and what I have seen, I have learned a lot. But that still doesn’t make me an expert, no matter how many books I’ve read, nor it makes me an african american or native american or any other that what I am. A white guy.
However some experiences makes one understand something that no books nor lectures or university courses or any intellectual excercise can do. No discussion can be more to the point than some personal experiences, good or bad.
@ Thad, you are very smart guy and propably one of the most educated guys here, but you have a problem. You get angry when somebody has seen things more than you, when someone has done more than you, and perhaps travelled this planet more than you. Not that this makes them any more knowledgable or wiser than you, or better, but don’t think for a second that you are the one guy here who has seen all there is to see. You’re not.
See, some of us have travelled around not so much as tourists, but as young guys who wanted to see stuff. That takes you to strange places with some really strange situations. It is not like you jump on a plane and end up in some resort. It is a little bit different kind of traveling. And sometimes one stayes in countries little more than a week, weather one likes it or not :-D.
Would I do that stuff now? No I would not. I’m closing fifty and that stuff is for younger guys who have no families or kids to look after. It is for the young guys who still do not have the concept of mortality in their heads. Once you do, you start to realize what you have been trough and how lucky sometimes you have been. And then you start to learn something about those experiences. For me, as a white guy, they were just instances, situations which were tricky, but for those other guys they are the fact of life 24/7. And makes one to learn something about life, skin color, racism, hatred, violence, frendship, loyalty and such little things.
It is great that you live in Brazil and that you have such a wife, but that does not make you black at all. It does not give you any of the experiences that a person has had being born black. Your wife gives you the advantage to see at close what it is like for her. But thats it. You are still white guy.
And I can not understand that a guy with your intelligence and education and experience – you must be in your mid forties at least since you were involved those things back in the 80’s – gets so railed up when somebody doesn’t agree with you or see things from your perspective. From what I have learned in my life is this: we all have our own opinions and that is all we have. None of us can tell the other that I know better than you how your life is, specially as a white guy telling that to a black guy.
I don’t mind agruments or disagreements, debates or even name calling. I’ve been trough enough to know that. But to pretend that I know better than anybody or that I know The Truth, that is funny, man!:-D
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Very well said, sam.
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“Getting to know what that means”, however, should not be the driving force of white anti-racism. Social justice should, egalitarianism should, the end of dehumanization should. One doesn’t have to have great insight to simply be a decent human being. The oppressed and discriminated are not an “in crowd”; this isn’t a clique war.”
My focus has been on learning enough to not be part of the problem myself, and to be able handle racist situations well when they arise in real life. I want to be able to recognize problematic behavior, understand it, and address it effectively. Recognizing it is usually easy enough, learning to address it effectively will probably be an ongoing struggle. I feel like that’s a good direction more WP could adopt to maintain focus, because I don’t know if there’s much else we can do.
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Thaddeus–
Btw, anyone who has to look up “ground truth” on wiki shows a stunning lack of it.
RDKirk–
That is precisely why I referred you to it.
Because you didn’t know what the concept is?
RD, if I don’t tell folks what I do or have done, I’m an arrogant but ignorant cuss. If I DO tell folks, then I’m an arrogant know-it-all.
That’s a very cheap rhetorical trick that you are pulling here: you are attacking my person, apparently because you can’t engage with my ideas.
Apaprently, you’re buttsore because you consider Daniel Moynihan to be a top authority on the black family. I pointed out that his study has been trashed – not be me, mind you, but by BLACK anthropologists who presumably have as much “grounded truth” as you could care to wish. I simply pointed out, in detail, what they say: Moynihan’s study is based on serious and heavy presumptions which are not backed up by empirical data.
Apparently, simply reporting what hundreds of other people have discovered now makes me a pencil-necked geek in your book, because a politically-based study which you consider to be “scientific” has been trashed by later research.
Instead of defending Moynihan’s work on its own merits, you decide then to attack me as a pie-in-the-sky arrogant intellectual, even though I’m not the one who’s trashed Moynihan’s work: I’m just the messnger.
Each of us has their own field of expertise in this life, RD. I would never presume, for example, to lecture you on the history of American popular music, someting I never studied.
But one thing I am fairly well trained in is social scientific methodology. I am, indeed, pretty well authorized to look at a study and see where its gaps may lie, esepcially when said study was made almost a half-century ago and has been thoroughly debunked since then.
Furthermore, I have had a s***-load of on the ground experience, but why should I be required to list that? Doing so would just open me to further chrages of arrogance. Finally, whether or not I have said experience makes no difference at all, because MY analysis of Moynihan is backed up by the analysis of plenty of other social scientists, many of them black and female?
Or are you SERIOUSLY making the claim that all those people lack “grounded truth” as well?
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@Sam
Thad, you are very smart guy and propably one of the most educated guys here, but you have a problem. You get angry when somebody has seen things more than you, when someone has done more than you, and perhaps travelled this planet more than you. Not that this makes them any more knowledgable or wiser than you, or better, but don’t think for a second that you are the one guy here who has seen all there is to see. You’re not.
No, Sam. I get angry when people PRESUME that I’m some sort of pie-in-the-sky intellectual who has done nothing in life but read books and then PRESUME that their so-called “practical” experience outweighs anything I might possibly say.
Your comments on how your dealings with AIM supposedly gave you a deep and more essentially true understanding of Native History are an excellent example of this.
This arrogance of “I’ve seen something which you haven’t and thus know more than you” is stunning to me because it operates on three levels:
1) It presumes that there’s nothing worthwhile to be learned outside the field of human practice, which is simply ignorant BS.
2) It presumes that the person you’re talking to has no practical experience simply because they’ve actually (horrors!) read a book.
3) And finally because it presumes that there’s some sort of unified scale of human experience: a single ladder up which we are all climbing and where positions can be easily measured as “more” or “less”.
I worked out at Big Mountain in the Navajo rez for months with AIM folks, Sam. I also worked with them in northern Wisconsin in the spear fishing issue. But I’ve ALSO had them as professors in the classroom. I’ve also hung out with some very intelligent Native Americans who have some SERIOUS issues with AIM. Vine Deloria Jr., for example, is one of my intellectual heroes and I think that even you would be hard put to situate him as some sort of sell-out. Vine’s perrenial critique of AIM was that, while its members hearts were in the right place, often they had a far too simplistic view of native histories and struggles which lead them to destroy and overturn delicate political processes which could have done much good for Native Americans.
Finally, if we’re going to talk subjective experience it’s foolish to talk of “who has done more or less”, as you do.
I once walked, on foot, across the United States. How does that compare – in doing more or less terms – with your couple of weeks in Nigeria?
Pretty stupid to try and compare things like that, huh?
So let’s get real, Sammy: the problem here isn’t that I have so much less practical experience than you: neither you nor I have any way to judge that. The problem is that I have a lot more theoretical experience in a field which you feel you are an expert in: Native History. This is what pisses YOU off, friend, not me.
So please don’t lecture me on the arrogance of my learned presumptions when the only presumptions which have been made here, so far, is that I must have no practical experience at all, because “everyone knows” that actually learning about something in books “naturally” precludes learning about it on the ground.
From my perspective, Sam, you actually sound a lot like myself back when I was 22 in 1989. Back then, I too thought that practice was far more important than theory. I too thought that all I needed to know about race and Indian Affairs could be learned at the feet of those bitchin’ radical AIM warriors.
Actually STUDYING with race scholars – most of whom were black and native – showed me how arrogant my presumptions were.
You don’t learn all you need to know about history by learning to repeat other peoples’ political myths, Sam.
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It is great that you live in Brazil and that you have such a wife, but that does not make you black at all.
Sam, show me one post where I even IMPLY that it does and I will donate 500 USD to the charity of your choice.
This is a complete strawman. You are accusing me of holding a position which I do not hold and never have claimed to hold.
Please quit doing stupid-ass crap like this.
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See, some of us have travelled around not so much as tourists, but as young guys who wanted to see stuff.
In other words, tourists who think that they are superior to the average run of tourists because they think they are seeing “the real country”. 😀
I have a whole chapter on this sort of person in my masters thesis, “Gringos”, which I’d be happy to e-mail you, Sam.
God, if I only had a dime for every gringo who thought that they were “in touch with the REAL Brazil” because they ate Sunday brunch at a girlfriend’s house in a favela, because they played capoeira on the beach in Bahia, or because they’ve lived a “whole two months in the Amazon”, I would be a rich man. 😀
Sam, for real: you say…
And I can not understand that a guy with your intelligence and education and experience – you must be in your mid forties at least since you were involved those things back in the 80′s – gets so railed up when somebody doesn’t agree with you or see things from your perspective.
…Now go up and look at your posts where you start frothing at the mouth and accuse me of saying that the BIA is great, that Indians are a respected part of America, that massacres never occurred, etc. etc.
Seriously, man: do you REALLY think you should be lecturing me about “getting angry at other people’s opinions”?
Hell, you let yourself get pissed regarding things that I WASN’T EVEN SAYING!
Why should I be taking the sage advice of a someone like you, Sam, who clearly lets themselves rant and rage everytime they encounter an opinion they disagree with?
The most we can say is that BOTH of us are arrogant sucks.
Fine.
At least I’m not trying to give myself a pair of cardboard wings and a glitter halo, Sam: you apparently are.
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Sam, Jaime, and jas0n –
Always remember: maintain realistic expectations. It’s a Fashion Tip you may want to try too.
As white folks, you’ve got a tough sitch when talking to other white folks about their own racism. Try not to give yourself a drinking problem. When you meet someone who is clearly beyond any hope of progress, like they’ve hit a plateau and just can’t grow anymore, nod politely and understand that God’s will has been done for that individual, and as a mortal, there’s naught else you can do.
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…because, of course, you are always correct and there’s no need for you to listen to anyone’s opinion if it contradicts your own.
And if you don’t have an opinion, just ask Ank and she’ll be happy to tell you hers, which is always correct.
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@ Ankhesen
Good advice. One thing I’ve learned about talking to other whites is that the longer the convo goes, the more CRAZY stuff will come out of some of their mouths. I think that when discussing race with POC most WP will try to keep a lid on certain things and proceed with caution. It seems like it’s more of a duck and cover operation, explain, backpedal, obscure, avoid, deny. At least it was that way with me (and still is sometimes.)
In the discussions I have now with other whites it seems like everything just comes right out and it can be really ugly and depressing. and shocking sometimes.
But I think that sometimes you will walk away having made a dent in someone even if it doesn’t seem like it, or they never admit it. Even if they cuss you out, they might walk away with an altered perspective on some things.
Either way, it seems like the most important thing is to not allow someone to make a racist remark and go unchallenged, because then it will seem OK. They might even think twice next time.
With all that in mind, it seems pointless to bother contradicting POC when it comes to racism. Any discussion you have about racism with a POC should be approached as a learning experience that will give you ammo when dealing with other WP. best case.
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With all that in mind, it seems pointless to bother contradicting POC when it comes to racism.
…because POCs aren’t truly human beings and one shouldn’t engage with them, intellectually, as one would with any other human being one respected. [rolleyes]
POCs are exactly as much full of s*** as WPs. To pretend anything else is simply to believe in a post-modern version of romantic savagery.
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Ah yes. Because to you contradiction is the only means of intellectual engagement. Arguing with someone is the only way to truly show respect.
I mean pointless in the most literal sense, pointless when your approach to racism is as something to fight and struggle against, rather than debate, theorize, and intellectualize about. You can do those things if you want to sure, but if you do chances are your focus is in the wrong place.
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No, proof is the means of intellectual engagement.
The view that POC are “naturally” experts on race and racism is an expression of faith or dogma, Jason, not a scientific or historical truth.
I agree that racism needs to be struggled against, or I wouldn’t bother to do half of what I’m doing.
However, I happen to disagree with a lot of poorly thought out, dogmatic positions which people take regarding what racism is and how it works. And, unlike you (apparently), I’m now old enough and intellectually secure enough that I don’t get flustered when the likes of Ank Mie start screaming at me because I disagree with her.
If you are like most young white anti-racists I have met, you’ll continue along in your beliefs for a few years. Sooner or later, however, you’ll drift off to something else, secure in the knowledge that you’re a “good” white boy because you took the “proper” positions back in college.
And you’ll never think of race again, except to occasionally cluck your tongue at some very grievous, overtly racist incident.
If you really want to struggle against racism, you need to look under its hood into things like religion, identity, ethnicity, social conflict and identity politics. Once you do that, the “just so” stories of the dogma that you now express will become inadequate to explain the phenomenon and EXTREMELY inadequate as a base for struggle against it.
Right now, your “politics” regarding race and racism seem to ammount to “I agree with whatever POC is yelling the loudest”. That’s not a political position for struggle, Jason: it’s the affirmation of a guy who wants to look cool while riding the band wagon.
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lot’s of laughs in that last post.
but you forgot to mention what your accomplishing by arguing with POC about racism. I’ll be waiting to hear about that. where is the benefit? how does it help fight racism and in so doing becomes a good way to spend your free time.
I think our disagreement here revolves around one point you keep making.
“The view that POC are “naturally” experts on race and racism is an expression of faith or dogma, Jason, not a scientific or historical truth.”
We’ve already had this discussion, and even though I agree that knowledge of racism isn’t born into anyone, those who have to deal with it regularly whether they want to or not will naturally come to an understanding that I lack. This is just an observation I’ve made. Maybe you are so vastly knowledgeable that it doesn’t apply to you.
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@ Thad.
By the way, if we lived in a world where a large percentage of white people spent a lot of time thinking about and trying to understand racism, you might be right. In fact if as many white people were as knowledgeable as you seem to think, we wouldn’t have to talk about it much at all, cause it wouldn’t still be much of a problem.
who cares if the average white person has the POTENTIAL to be as knowledgeable as POC about racism. The “ground truth” (to quote RDKirk) is that they aren’t.
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Let me give you some very concrete examples of how your dogma screws you over in the struggle against racism, Jason.
Marcus Garvey once tried to ally his movement with the Klan, claiming that the Klan was “obviously” the “natural” representative of the white race. Garvey later claimed that Mussolini “stole” fascism from UNIA. He also made several statements to the effect that American blacks were more “socially evolved” than African blacks due to their “survival struggle with the fierce anglo-saxon”.
Garvey was, in short, a flat-out scientific racist and in spite of all the good things he did, that fact can’t be erased and needs to be critiqued. It WAS ciritqued at the time, by the way, by W.E.B. Dubois.
You, the good white boy, have nothing to say about Marcus Garvey nor about his fight with Dubois? Then, my friend, I submit that you are a man who does not see himself as sharing the same political environment as black people. You refuse to “share time” with them, believing them to be within a different order of political reality from your own.
That’s not anti-racism, Jason: it’s segregation gussied up in politically correct plumage.
Here’s another example…
My fight with Ank Mie has its roots in her affirmation that, as an Anglo black woman, she “intuitively” understands the experiences of “POC” the wide world over because she’s been exposed to the same racism that they have. I find this to be arrogant and provably wrong. There are big and persistent issues on which blacks and indians or blacks and latinos don’t see eye-to-eye on within the U.S. itself. And let’s not even talk about the fact that Ank probably doesn’t know more than one or two other languages (if that) or the history of more than a few dozen countries and peoples (if that).
And Ank apparently believes that the level of melanin in her skin gives her some sort of instant understanding of the entire non-white world – an understanding that doesn’t have to be coupled with any sort of study or dialogue at all: it simply exists, fait acompli. Just ask Ank, and I’m sure that she’s fully capable of telling you which side is right and wrong in any dispute on the planet, whatever she actually knows about the history and politics of said dispute.
That sort of arrogant political rhetoric needs to be deflated, in my book. It is dangerous and incorrect. It DOES NOT contribute constructively to any anti-racist struggle on the planet: it’s simply a rhetorical device which Ank uses to whop the heads of those white folks who disagree with her. Ank is a talented and gifted writer and polemicist: that does not mean that she’s somehow and expert on the land struggles of the Natives in the Brazilian Amazon, or can break down the situation in Rwanda for us.
So you cannot stay passive and cannot presume that race is a clear-cut “PoC vs. whites” deal my friend, in which your proper role is simply to hold the PoC banner and mouth the appropriate slogans. You NEED to make choices and defend them if you’re an anti-racist. There’s a HUGE political and moral difference, for example, between supporting someone like Farrakhan and someone like Paul Gilroy or Henry Louis Gates, for all that all three of these men are PoC. And because you are white, ANY substantial political stance you take on a race issue is going to be construed by the PoC whom disagree with you as an expression of racist privilege. And believe me: some PoC, somewhere, WILL disagree with you, no matter what you say.
So you’d better stop fearing the accusation of racism and white privilege right now, my friend. Presuming, that is, that you are serious about anti-racist struggle and are not just some white boy looking to be cool by mouthing the appropriate platitudes. You CANNOT say anything serious at all about race, as a white person, and not be called a racist f*** by some fool, somewhere.
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““I agree with whatever POC is yelling the loudest”.”
If I don’t agree I might say so but probably not. My experience up to now has been that when I do argue, I have usually found myself upon later honest reflection to be wrong most of the time. Furthermore, it is not my objective to align POC to my views on racism. So even if I know I’m right there is no point in debate.
I agree with your theory, but is has no basis in reality. things just haven’t played out the way you describe as WP are by and large, clueless.
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but you forgot to mention what your accomplishing by arguing with POC about racism. I’ll be waiting to hear about that.
First of all, I’m not specifically arguing with PoC. In fact, much of the time I’m writing here, I’m arguing with anti-racist whites like yourself.
Secondly, this may come as a shock to you, Jason, but I don’t spend my life online (though there are times like this last weekend where it may feel that way). I come here to RELAX and to discuss things with people who have a similar frame of mind and see similar problems in the world. That does not mean, however, that I agree with these people all or even most of the time.
Finally, you seem to think that discussion is horrible in and of itself. You seem to be saying that all we should do is act. Sorry, I disagree. Action, untempered by thought and discussion, rarely does much good and often does much bad.
We’ve already had this discussion, and even though I agree that knowledge of racism isn’t born into anyone, those who have to deal with it regularly whether they want to or not will naturally come to an understanding that I lack.
Let’s presume, for the sake of argument, that you are correct: what in heaven’s name guarantees that said “understanding” is positive, correct or even anti-racist? Marcus Garvey thought that the KKK was your natural representative in the field of politics white boy: do you think that’s a good understanding?
Maybe you are so vastly knowledgeable that it doesn’t apply to you.
I wouldn’t say “vastly knowledgeable”: I WOULD say I’ve probably been around the track on this issue, in pragamatic terms, a few more times than yourself. Let me guess, Jason: you’re in college right now or recently graduated, correct? You certainly come off as a white kid who’s recently had his eyes open to racial injustice and has got his hands on a few basic theoretical tools to understand that and who now thinks that’s all there is to it.
In fact if as many white people were as knowledgeable as you seem to think, we wouldn’t have to talk about it much at all, cause it wouldn’t still be much of a problem.
Jason, where have I said or implied that many white people are knowledgeable on this issue? My point is that one shouldn’t ASSUME knowledge on matters racial based on the color of another person’s skin. Period. I have said about a dozen times here that most white people could care less about racism because they don’t see it as impacting on their lives. What part of that statement are you having a hard time getting your head around?
The “ground truth” (to quote RDKirk) is that they aren’t.
RDKirk’s “ground truth” seems to simply be a synonym for prejudice, by any other name. The fact that most white people are ignorant of racism in no way implies – as you often do – that most POC are somehow experts about it or that their oppinions are necessarily correct.
Let’s be real, Jason. Your policy on racism seems to boil down to this: “If a person of color says so, it must be so.”
So when RDKirk starts blathering on about how the (very white) Daniel Moynihan “proved” that the “black matriarchy” is destroying the black family, you applaud like a little battery-powered monkey, even though far many more black family scholars think that the Moynihan Report is so much ethnocentric and sexist bulls***. And if you were in the same room with THOSE scholars, I’m sure you’d applaud just as loudly, right?
In short, then, you take no political position on these issues at all: you just hop on the band wagon and cheer, while hoping that no one notices you’re cheering for two different sides at the same time.
That’s not being politically active in anti-racist politics, Jason: that’s being a white dilletant.
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“So you’d better stop fearing the accusation of racism and white privilege right now, my friend. Presuming, that is, that you are serious about anti-racist struggle and are not just some white boy looking to be cool by mouthing the appropriate platitudes.”
what’s to be afraid of in being called racist and privileged? thanks to racism and privilege, I don’t have much to fear.
as far as the cool thing goes…I just don’t know what to say. I’m in my early 30’s so coolness as motivation to do anything has pretty much dried up for me.
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Look Jason, I think your heart is in the right place and I think you’re right: you SHOULD listen to people of color, very carefully.
I think that once you do for long enough, however, you’ll begin to see that they are no more wiser or intelligent or essentially more morally correct than whites. They are simply human beings, with all the BS that entails.
So you’re “I’ll never argue with PoCs on issues of race”, if taken to its logical extreme, is simply going to remove you from the debate someday. you’ll just be yet another in the legion of “liberal whites” who’s intellectually against racism, but really doesn’t think much about it anymore.
At some point or another, you’re going to have to find the courage to voice your oppinions EVEN THOUGH THEY MAY WELL BE WRONG. You can’t honestly participate in this debate, as a white person, and avoid saying things that are going to piss some PoCs off.
There is simply no way to avoid this.
I have come to the conclusion, after 25 years of anti-racism, that I’m NEVER going to be saintly or informed enough to make statements without pissing someone off, so I might as well say what I think is TRUE, even if later on I find out I am wrong and need to change my opinion.
That is one of the reasons I post here under my god-given name.
Your mileage obviously varies and you need to do what you feel good with. But then again, I’m not the one clucking my tongue and shaking my finger at you, am I?
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what’s to be afraid of in being called racist and privileged? thanks to racism and privilege, I don’t have much to fear.
If that’s the case, why are you so worried about saying things NOW that you might decide were incorrect LATER?
You’ll notice that neither Abagond nor Ank spend much time worrying about this.
And they shouldn’t.
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“If that’s the case, why are you so worried about saying things NOW that you might decide were incorrect LATER? ”
Because you can’t listen if your lips are moving. And who’s worried?
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“Let’s be real, Jason. Your policy on racism seems to boil down to this: “If a person of color says so, it must be so.””
let’s be real insulting is what you mean. yep, you guessed it, i’m a puppet for POC, you’ve got my number you crafty devil.
(applause)
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Because you can’t listen if your lips are moving.
You can’t dialogue it they aren’t.
But here’s an example Jason…
You think that applauding RDKirk when he repeats the old saw that the black family is being ruined by matirarchy is a good thing?
Jason, what exactly is being learned by listening with ones’ mouth shut there? That opinion has been bandied around for 45 years now. It is neither new, nor correct. It has been thoroughly debunked by many black scholars.
So you’re going to “listen” to it without saying anything?
In heaven’s name, why? What do you learn? What does that prove, other than moral cowardice?
If it was a white guy saying the same crap, I’d certainly say something. The color of RDKing’s skin doesn’t suddenly make a very bad ethnocentric and sexist argument GOOD, nor do I suddenly become more enlightened by keeping my lips shut when he articulates.
I mean, nice rhetoirc, Jason, but piss poor political practice.
And who’s worried?
You claim you need to shut up because you later decide that things you think now are wrong. We can argue whether or not “worried” is the proper term for that, but at the very least you are concerned.
Why?
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let’s be real insulting is what you mean. yep, you guessed it, i’m a puppet for POC, you’ve got my number you crafty devil.
Let’s be real clear here: you’re not a puppet for POC because being a puppet means that you at least have some sort of set position.
I think you’ll applaud any PoC’s opinion without thinking it through, to the point where you’ll support RDKirk’s claims to “grounded truth” when he says that the Moynihan Report is so incredibly valid and yet if you were in the same room with the black female anthropologists who CHALLENGE the Moynihan Report, you’d applaud them too.
You’re not a puppet, Jason: you’ll go along with whatever comes down the pike, I reckon, even when one argument contradicts another you earlier claimed to agree with.
This is what we call being a “Maria-goes-with-the-others” down here. Maybe anglos would say “wishy-washy”.
You can’t stand in the middle of the road on some of these debates, Jason: you need to choose a side and that you avoid.
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@Thad
If you scroll near the top of the comments you will see that I disagreed with Ank about not referring people to Tim Wise.
Your attempting to make my assertion that WP should listen and not contradict POC when it comes to their experiences with racism into some nonsense about agreeing with everything POC say just because they’re POC. Fool’s errand.
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If you scroll near the top of the comments you will see that I disagreed with Ank about not referring people to Tim Wise.
So why weren’t you just keeping your lips shut and listening there? 😀
Your attempting to make my assertion that WP should listen and not contradict POC when it comes to their experiences with racism into some nonsense about agreeing with everything POC say just because they’re POC. Fool’s errand.
Ank’s point – and that of others – is that their experiences CONSTITUTE a cohesive critique of racism.
They do not.
I would never deny any individual’s experience with anything. I may not consider it to be particularly politically relevant, however.
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me:
“If you scroll near the top of the comments you will see that I disagreed with Ank about not referring people to Tim Wise.”
Thad:
“So why weren’t you just keeping your lips shut and listening there? ”
I decided to do something pointless I suppose. No more so than talking with you though. like I said, it’s about purpose. Your purpose is to sound informed, so you need to do a lot of arguing with everyone. My purpose is to become informed enough to deal with really clueless WP IRL. So arguing with POC is kind of a waste. So is this.
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Your purpose is to sound informed, so you need to do a lot of arguing with everyone.
Actually, you’ve got that backasswards, Jason: my purpose is to BE informed and that’s why I argue with everyone.
It is through dialogue that truths become apparent.
I guess they don’t teach Greek classics in American schools anymore.
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http://www.globallearningnj.org/global_ata/a_comparison_of_dialogue_and_debate.htm
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Another good one
http://uucboulder.org/sm/dialogue.html
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Ankhesen’s list does represent a pretty hard line stance. And if I were to venture a guess, I would say she probably got to this point by talking with a lot of white people who tried to distort and invalidate her perspective on race. Basically, she sounds like a person who has run out of patience. Perhaps so many people have been debating her, and so few listening that she has simply stopped trying. I doubt she started out with such an outlook on things. And I think many POC feel the same way as she does about talking to white people about race. I don’t think that’s a good thing. It’s disgraceful quite frankly. Alienating people who start out wanting to help you by trying to discredit their opinion is counterproductive to anti-racism. Even if you don’t agree with everything someone says, why focus on that? is it automatically better to focus on what you disagree with? is that more “real” or something? I don’t think so. it’s just easier.
I know I’m guilty of this too btw. just sayin’.
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Um… Am I the only one here who didn’t see Ankhesen’s list as some sort of evil protocol on “how to molest white people who want to discuss race”?
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It sounds more like how to tell whether or not a white person deserves your time in the first place.
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Well, true.
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I saw it more as a warning against certain common mistakes that people of colour make.
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Indeed. It is difficult to discuss these things with whites, because they are either blind of white privilege or they don’t want to admit it. Discussing racism in a form of “I’m poor, I don’t have white privilege” or “blacks can be racist too, you know” is a waste of time.
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when i said “It’s disgraceful quite frankly.”
I was talking about the behavior of whites. if that wasn’t clear.
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Jason, I’m not trying to prove you wrong: I’m working towards a common understanding here. You’re the man who’s taking me to task for not doing things the way you think they should be done. I’m very much engaged in a dialogue. Your mileage, apparently, varies.
If I were to venture a guess, I would say she probably got to this point by talking with a lot of white people who tried to distort and invalidate her perspective on race.
Perhaps, yes. Or she could just be a bossy individual in real life with very deep convictions.
Even if you don’t agree with everything someone says, why focus on that?
That’s fine when you don’t agree about small stuff, Jason. But when the topic is essentialist reductionism – which Ank believes in and bases almost all of her critique – it’s rather hard to get around the fact that it just doesn’t work. It’s kind of like trying to avoid discussing evolution with a frothing creationist.
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Ankhesen’s list does represent a pretty hard line stance. And if I were to venture a guess, I would say she probably got to this point by talking with a lot of white people who tried to distort and invalidate her perspective on race. Basically, she sounds like a person who has run out of patience.
Oh…I won’t lie. That is very much the case. As it is the case for most POC, particularly those of us who are getting older and don’t want to be another high blood pressure statistic.
It sounds more like how to tell whether or not a white person deserves your time in the first place.
Bingo. And most will not be worth it; history has already shown this numerous times. Just ask an civil rights activist – non-white or white – from the old days…you know, if they haven’t already been fire-bombed, bludgeoned, lynched or gunned down.
Because you can’t listen if your lips are moving.
Check…and mate.
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Ankhesen,
That’s why I think it’s unfair to see this post as a manual on how to “molest whites”, or “scare poor whites”, or “wave a finger in their face and shout at them” for no reason.
I think the problem (some) whites have with this manual is that they didn’t get it. As far as I can tell, no black person took it as an invitation to “be mean to whites for no reason”. They seem to understand what you’re saying- and it is ok. Some whites didn’t, but it wasn’t written for them.
While I don’t believe all blacks/whites think the same, I do think the fact no blacks asked for explanation of this speaks volumes. They obviously have this experience and they know what you’re talking about.
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“That’s why I think it’s unfair to see this post as a manual on how to “molest whites”, or “scare poor whites”, or “wave a finger in their face and shout at them” for no reason.”
indeed, if you make it all about you that’s how it will seem. what I see however is someone who DOES want to have real dialogue with whites and DOES want to help us, she just isn’t going to take any shit while doing it, and she doesn’t want any other well intentioned POC to take any shit either. GOOD!, don’t take any shit! I mean, why would Ankhesen bother writing something like this if the point was to “molest whites”? She’s basically saying: look, if you will meet me halfway and be open minded I’m happy to talk to you about this stuff. (and perhaps so will a lot of other POC ) I think that’s quite charitable actually. But naturally, she’s more concerned about her and other POC not taking abuse than WP learning at any cost. Why shouldn’t she be?
And she’s right on the money about it not being an equal exchange. I know this because I can’t remember a single time when a black person just HAD to discuss race with me. The very idea that a black American would really just need to discuss race with a white person in order to learn something makes me laugh actually. Maybe there is a need for this type of list because POC end up walking away from racial discussions FEELING LIKE SHIT! that’s supposed to be cool? I would love to see that sort of thing not happening.
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I think the problem is that many whites (who consider themselves to be open minded and not racist) imagine dialogue about race in a way of “I’ll admit my people done some bad things, but only if you admit your people done some bad things, too”.
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“I do think the fact no blacks asked for explanation of this speaks volumes.”
exactly, and it goes directly to the point about racial conversations not being an equal exchange. The very fact that this list is required as a means of protection from dehumanization illustrates that point. When was the last time a WP felt dehumanized during a racial discussion? Oh wait, NEVER! yet somehow it’s supposed to an equal exchange of ideas. right. sure. OK.
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@ mira.
““I’ll admit my people done some bad things, but only if you admit your people done some bad things, too”.”
right! I’ve noticed that as well. See because if everyone is equal as WP are taught than it’s only fair to demand that. Of course you can only see that as fair by overlooking white hegemony.
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““I’ll admit my people done some bad things, but only if you admit your people done some bad things, too”.”
Cool. Here’s the question: do I get to decide who “my people” are, or do you get to do that for me?
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lol, Thad! It’s 5:15 AM!
We BOTH decide who “my people” are. If we agree, cool. If we don’t, it can lead to all sorts of funny misunderstandings.
Secondly, this is Ank Me we’re talking about here: the woman who probably never shuts up even when she’s in a theater.
Is this a new round of assumptions?
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We BOTH decide who “my people” are. If we agree, cool. If we don’t, it can lead to all sorts of funny misunderstandings.
And that is precisely the problem. Both Jason and Ank apparently think they know who “my people” are.
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@ Mira:
That’s why I think it’s unfair to see this post as a manual on how to “molest whites”, or “scare poor whites”, or “wave a finger in their face and shout at them” for no reason.
In Thad’s defence, it is actually very easy to read this post as being all those things. I’m not going to say I know exactly what Ankhesen intends, but upon reading this my initial interpretation was that “white people cannot debate anything about racism with POC, because POC automatically know better.” Which, if that is indeed the implication of this post, is flawed in my book. I would guess that white people like yourself (Mira), Thad or jas0nburns have far more intelligent things to say about racism than, say, Africanblackmilitant, who I don’t think is worth paying attention to at all – just because he’s a POC doesnt mean he’s not thoroughly full of sh*t.
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I’m not going to say I know exactly what Ankhesen intends, but upon reading this my initial interpretation was that “white people cannot debate anything about racism with POC, because POC automatically know better.”
Ank Mie has in fact argued PRECISELY this point on several occasions, so why this would be an untoward and assuming interpetation of the above post is beyond me.
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There is a book on racial hoaxes that has a nice list of ficticious crimes by black people that white people made
The Color of Crime
here is the amazon page
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Crime-Protectionism-Harassment-Macroaggressions/dp/0814774717
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@ Eurasian,
” just because he’s a POC doesnt mean he’s not thoroughly full of sh*t.”
I see what your saying and I think you are right, anybody can be full of shit. I guess what i’m seeing is that WP often come at these discussions with the assumption that THEY know better because they are white. Anything a black person says is simply oversensitivity and a silly fixation on race. A desire to play the race card and avoid responsibility. As WP we are neutral and therefor more objective and reasonable. I think the above assumption is an undercurrent in racial discussions most of the time a white person is involved and that’s a problem. I see Ankhesen’s list as a way to ensure a worthwhile discussion.
More of a problem than POC thinking they know everything just because they are POC. I don’t see that as a pervasive and troubling issue.
And of course I can just laugh off anything africanblackmilitant says and go on with my day unaffected. However, would the same type of hateful ignorance displayed by a white person be as impotent? doubtful.
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Actually, white people who think like africanblackmilitant are laughable. Most of the whites, apart from proud stormfronters, disregard them as idiots. Which is a bad thing, because it makes regular whites think they can’t be racist because they are not like that.
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What I meant to say, white people who are africanblackmilitant’s counterparts.
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“Cool. Here’s the question: do I get to decide who “my people” are, or do you get to do that for me?”
really? I think that has already been decided by society. You can decide “your people” are left-handed biker arborists from Detroit, but your still going to benefit from white privilege, so your white.
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Is this a new round of assumptions?
Oh, Mira…you know how I’m the queen of “ad hominem”. After all, I’m always the one derailing discussions by making presumptions about the day to day details about other people’s personal lives…you know, like their supposed marriage problems, their sexual habits, how they act in a theater – no…wait….
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*details of
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I haven’t read all of the comments in their entirety, but I just wanted to touch on a few subjects since I stumbled upon this blog and thought it was pretty rad.
What place does a white woman like me have in anti-racist politics? Let me clarify that. Ever since I was ten years old I have been passionately dedicated to social justice. I feel like I can feel the suffering of others so deeply, I am moved to tears frequently from a deep sorrow of the nature of human sadism and ignorance. But, I don’t imagine my empathic qualities or my large amount of readings will ever allow me to speak for any group’s suffering, but more or less I feel like I am ready and willing to help such group if they need it.
I can’t even handle the injustice I see in the world. I am now 25, I was raised in an abusive and patriarchal family. I was raised, being told that women were inferior. Period. We were lower working class and I felt the dual burden of poverty and sexism as I grew up through my childhood. I understood, quite young, that everything my parents attempted to brainwash me with was incorrect. I took great pains in researching the truth of reality.
This borderline obsession with deconstructing the myths society, mainstream media, some forms of religion and other institutions impose on us as people has led me to read vasts numbers of texts, and books, on other people’s sufferings. I believe these sufferings are rooted in similar things, mostly the power structure of governments and people’s own apathetic nihilism (privileged people).
So forgive the background, but I am getting to the point somewhere soon I hope. Mostly, growing up in a multi-cultural town in California was a really amazing experience. But, on the downside I constantly had to engage with hateful, ignorant misogyny and racism on every level from white men. Sometimes I even saw non-white men degrading themselves for the purpose of belonging to these white male groups. To be blunt, it fucking horrified me. I would never let it die. I would constantly attempt to deconstruct these misconceptions… oh my god it pissed me off. Further, I saw the internalized sexism in the women around me as well. They would explain away men’s latent, or blatant, misogyny as well as their “casual” racist jokes. I found none of this casual or acceptable. I couldn’t understand how no one even bothered to pick up one book or even engage in a different community to understand the suffering of others. No, they sat, with privilege, disparaging many aspects of different ethnic cultures… particularly black culture. No shock there. White men in their early twenties love to disparage black culture for some reason. They love taking elements of the joy you are speaking of (all though superficially).. such as the flamboyant or party nature of modern hip hop, but they have absolutely no sympathy or empathy or MILD understanding of institutional racism. As if it doesn’t exist anymore.
It just fucking infuriates me beyond all belief. I think because of the way I was raised I feel like I can relate to the intense sorrow of people who feel disparaged and have no courage. I always found black-american culture incredibly inspiring. I was a poor white girl with absolutely no idea of how to reconstruct my self image or life. I have completely internalized the misogyny and physically superficial criticism enacted on me by my family’s fundamentalist culture. I don’t believe it rationally, I hardly believe it emotionally, but in my darkest hours I can feel it rearing it’s vile head up within my soul. It nearly brings me to tears to think I degrade myself in such a fashion, when I don’t, nor does anyone deserve that.
I suppose my whole point in this is that I would never assume to understand the particular place in time in which a black individual stands in american society, but I do feel like I am not a totally ignorant, mindless disconnect from it. I am more than anything wondering if it is not considered by some that perhaps some white people can transcend their whiteness , or try to, so that they can hear the suffering of other peoples. So that they can transform the institutions to adhere to the true sufferings of others, and what their needs are, not what our silly academic renderings of their needs are. What their true vocal needs are.
Thank you.
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I like the 4th and 5th point, have no idea about the 6th point and disagree with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd point.
Do not debate. Declare. There are times when POC can be wrong about racism too. What better way to find that out than through discussion/debate?
Racial discussion is not an “exchange” of ideas. It can be. It does not have to be one always speaking and the other always listening.
Do not end racial discussions on a positive note. Does it really matter on which note you’re ending? If a person, after all the discussion, picks up only the last sentence and goes home happy thinking racism is over, then it would have been a waste of time anyway.
Since the topic name is ‘How to talk with white people about racism’, I think my experience has some relevance. Born and brought up in India I used to be one of the idiots who thought that POC just need to stop giving a damn to racists and their problems would be solved. I had the illusion you get from watching Hollywood movies that the US of today is a fair country. As an average teenager you don’t spend much time thinking about stuff foreign to you. I occasionally visited this English forum in order to improve on my English, and what I experienced was not like anything that I was familiar with. Almost all of the members of that forum were white Americans. It was all fine until one Indian bloke joined and started a thread about prejudice against Indians and mentioned one of his experiences in a chatroom. His said in his post that “whites, many of them” think they are better than other races. Then the members started to post in a patronizing way saying why he must not generalize about whites. Some tried to blame the experience he had on him by asking whether he had established any prior criterion. Some said Indians hold a superior attitude which locals dislike and added they were not saying it to excuse racism(why mention it then, eh?). The Indian guy got angry and mentioned the attacks on Indians in Australia where some Australians said they hated Indians because they eat spicy food and they keep to themselves and talk loudly and went on to relate those attacks with this ‘locals dislike’ mentality. The posts from the other members that followed brought up cultural differences between the east and the west, casteism in India, ‘get over yourself’, ‘you are racist’, ‘Indians are racist towards Pakistanis too (equating racist hatred with a different kind of hatred: India and Pakistan have been warring over the Kashmir region and Pakistani terrorists are wrecking havoc down here, so many Indians and Pakistanis feel animosity towards each other)’ , everything except racism towards Indians. Strangely an Indian who spent some time in the US came to criticize the guy with remarks such as ‘if Australians say get the f*ck out of their country then if they(the Indians) have any self-respect then they should get out of their country’, ‘Indians started it when they made obscene gestures towards an Australian cricketer in a cricket match, what’s happening now is just payback’, ‘why do Indians work at call centres if they can’t speak proper English’, ‘Indian accents deserve to be ridiculed’ etc. Where does so much self-hatred come from, I wonder.
Yes, I don’t have to live with racism but I am not oblivious about racism any more. Racism is a big deal if you’re the minority and shoving it under the carpet won’t help.
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After all, I’m always the one derailing discussions by making presumptions about the day to day details about other people’s personal lives…you know, like their supposed marriage problems, their sexual habits, how they act in a theater – no…wait….
Don’t forget coming up with cute little pop terms to diagnose their supposed mental illnesses, Ank. (Because, of course, anyone with a bachelors in psych and a masters in sociology knows that social structures such as racism are simpl psychological problems writ big… right?) 😀
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@Ankhesen:
LOL! Get down with you bad self, girl! 😀 😀
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“deliberately misreads/instigates unnecessary conflict so I can create a justification for writing volumes of juvenile, masturbatory drivel”
I know. What the hell right?
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Yeah…Abagond took it down, LOL. I figured he would…but it sure as hell was fun while it lasted.
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[…] […]
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this blog is racist.
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You said:
“Do not debate. Declare.”
and
“2. Racial discussion is not an “exchange” of ideas.
This isn’t about what we can learn from each other – this is about you learning from me, and you’re already behind by four centuries.”
Yet you also said:
“Social justice is not a cult”
You have directly contradicted yourself. Cults control others by using the exact tactic you are advocating. *YOU* (either personally or categorically) are proclaiming yourself (and also your little racial/ethnic identity group) as the source of knowledge and wisdom and, as that source, others (especially white others) simply *must* believe whatever you tell them or they are evil, evil, EVIL TO THE CORE! The Catholic church controlled people this way for centuries – and still controls many using such tactics to this very day. You are NOT some kind of infallible oracle who others simply MUST believe in order to be valid human beings.
You might imagine yourself as being so amazingly important and so utterly enlightened that others (especially white others) must simply accept your word as law, but I think you will find precious few people who will long suffer your delusions. You are not some kind of warrior on the front lines of “social justice,” nor are you especially enlightened in ways others (especially white others) can never understand, nor are you even a moral human being. You’re nothing but a self-righteous narcissist whose ego has taken one too many blows from others (especially white others) whose opinions of you aren’t as reverential as you believe you have the right to demand.
Thus, you set yourself up (in your own distorted mind) as an indisputable font of wisdom, one who others (especially white others) must believe without question if they are to have any moral standing at all. Those who fail to defer to your god-like presumption of knowledge must be cast aside as chattel, unworthy of your magnificence and attention. You do this not because you have any moral or intellectual ground to stand on, but rather because your fragile ego can see no other course of action that will allow it to maintain its integrity. At the end of the day, your strategy *will* allow you to be the “king” of your little “intellectual castle” – but that’s only because you (and other similarly dysfunctional people) will be living there all alone.
So, you’re going to just shut us all out because we won’t just shut up and act as your amen chorus no matter what you spew? Please – be my guest! We others (especially white others) stand to lose nothing from being excluded from your infantile little circle. Enjoy your delusions, as I very much assume they are all you have of any value in your life.
I know it is unlikely, given what I have written above, that my comments will remain visible on your little blog for long – assuming they will ever be visible at all. However, I didn’t write this post for the benefit of your readers, I wrote it for you. I wrote this post as a reminder that we others will always be out here, failing to revere and worship you, no matter how much you try to insulate yourself into a cocoon of paranoid persecutory delusions and power fantasies.
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Is this bloke racist? 😀
[Abagond: sam is talking about George Michael since Other’s comment was in moderation at the time]
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Wow. Seems like you hurt some white people’s feelings Ank when you claimed to know more about something than we do.
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Other:
Ankhesen did not write this post for white people. Nor is she saying that she knows all and is never wrong. She is merely warning people of colour not to waste their time on whites who are neither serious enough nor knowledgeable enough about racism to be worth their time. Which, sadly, is what most whites in America are.
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sweet
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Please note: If your comment has the n-word, it will not appear.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/comment-policy/
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go live in a successful black country if you hate whites so much… oh wait… w/o white people how would blacks be living…? i think we know the answer to that.
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how to talk to black people:
stfu n-word and get back to the cotton fields so you can make yourself slightly less useless.
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@thomasr…
there are no successful black countries. ALL black countries are this planet are failures in every sense of the word. haitis existence is entirely dependent on white donations to allow their populace to survive
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i just read thru some of this blog…i dont even have to ask to be able to tell the author is either black or someone pretending to be black. as black-racist as the author is im more inclined to believe its a non-black trying to instigate. blacks arent this literate.
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can anyone tell my why blacks are a minority in the overall population of the US yet in prisons they are, in proportion to the overall population, a significant majority?
correct answer: blacks are more inclined to be criminals, refuse to behave like civilized human beings, and are better suited to being locked up in cages instead of roaming free where they can victimize others.
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blacks have such a hardon for their former slavemasters. they use this enslavement excuse as a crutch and expect pity from whites yet take into consideration the following:
the current slave trade in africa is far more extensive than it ever was in all parts of the world combined. children are purchased and abducted by the hundreds of thousands to be used as slave labor in mines and other ventures as well as to be sexually abused.
up until a few years ago slavery was a legal institution in several african countries
the overwhelming majority of blacks who ended up as slaves to western owners were procured by black africans by warfare, purchasing, or outright kidnapping
this being sad, blacks have no leg to stand on when it comes to blaming whites for their own shortcomings involving slavery. so get over it
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It’s the charge of the white brigade
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Looks like Stormfront has decided to troll us.
the current slave trade in africa is far more extensive than it ever was in all parts of the world combined.
‘Tussin is still popular with the White Power crowd, I see. Where’d you get that little factoid, Sycion? 😀
up until a few years ago slavery was a legal institution in several african countries.
Several? A few years ago? B.S. Name three.
the overwhelming majority of blacks who ended up as slaves to western owners were procured by black africans by warfare, purchasing, or outright kidnapping
True enough. So? How does this in any way, shape or form diminuish the fact that it was a certain class of Europeans and Americans which benefitted from their stolen labor?
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I think you Stormfront boys need to be more worried about the creeping effeminism that’s rotting you out from inside…
http://christwire.org/2010/09/has-stormfront-org-become-a-dangerous-nest-of-degeneracy-effeminacy-and-anti-christian-values/
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There are some real nutters commenting here. This stuff is hilarious.
You think I need to be educated? I got all the education I needed on the streets and I’ll not be lectured to by a bunch of condescending eggheads.
Some of us have no interest in your pseudo-scientific examination of racism and, frankly, we’re tired of hearing your whining. We don’t mean you any harm and hope you get the most out of you life, but we’re done listening. Your problems are not our problems.
If I had the authority I would free us from each other forever — the great divorce between white folk and black folk.
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“You think I need to be educated? I got all the education I needed on the streets and I’ll not be lectured to by a bunch of condescending eggheads.”
F*ck books! We don’t need your lies!
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thad…read some news articles. disagreeing about the modern situation of slavery in africa wont change the fact that its existence is alive and well and practiced more extensively than anywhere else in the world. i can say from first hand knowledge that in the 90’s in liberia children were abducted to be used as slaves. if you want specifics of whats going on there youre going to have to do your own research.
there is no one alive today that benefited in any way from anyones stolen labor. there is no one alive today that was directly effected by the slavery that was abolished in the united states. blacks using slavery as an excuse to behave the way they do is just that…a pitiful excuse.
blacks are so proud of their heritage and so hateful of being taken from their homeland yet they refuse to return to africa.
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stupid krakas
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Sycion:
I do not remember the post being about slavery. Or even about black people. It is about white people who like to derail and waste people’s time by seeming to seriously talk about race when they are not serious at all. Like you.
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If there is so much “racism” then why do you Negroes keep moving into white neighborhoods? Why do you refuse to return to Africa over 150 years after being liberated? Why do you continue to push your own racially exclusive organizations but whine if whites do the same exact thing?
The truth is that “racism” is profitable to blacks the same way the holocaust legend is profitable to the Jews. Take away the legend and the Jews lose all their reparations and have to work and compete like everyone else does.
Take away “racism” and the same fate befalls Negroes. That’s what this is really all about.
And meanwhile reality is still reality:
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F*ck books! We don’t need your lies!
Yeah, we got our own lies! 😀
The cool thing about books is that they allow you to read EVERYONE’S lies, dispassionately, without people screaming at you.
Then you can make up your own mind. That process is called “synthesis” and – for the folks who’ve never been – it’s what gets taught at the university level.
Education isn’t a question of reading books and believing lies: it’s a question of reading books in order to deconstruct lies and build one’s own useful truth on bases that are more solid than simple ignorance and prejudice.
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@Scyion
thad…read some news articles. disagreeing about the modern situation of slavery in africa wont change the fact that its existence is alive and well and practiced more extensively than anywhere else in the world.
Scy, I happen to work with the human trafficking issue on a very intimate level. I know exactly what stats the U.N. has for human trafficking in Africa and they are not, as you claim, worse than during the highpoint of slavery. In fact, we don’t have the slightest notion how many people are being trafficked today, something anyone who’s really studied this can easily tell you. It’s somewhere between 1 million and 100 million, globally, which is just another way of saying “We don’t have a f***** clue”.
So if you have BETTER information than the UN, please post it. Claiming that news articles make you informed on this issue is completely ridiculous: the media doesn’t count slaves, it just reports what other people say and when the experts can’t even give us an order of magnitude estimate of modern slavery, then the media is pretty much free to quote whoever it wants, according to however it wants to spin the news.
i can say from first hand knowledge that in the 90′s in liberia children were abducted to be used as slaves.
According to those same media sources you love to cite as authorities, much the same could be said of ANY country in the 1990s. Children are kidnapped into slavery all around the globe, everyday. How many? We haven’t the slightest notion.
But my question to you was this: name three African nations where slavery was LEGAL until only a few years ago. Talking about kidnappings in Liberia does not answer that question. Kidnappings are by definition illegal and slavery has NEVER been legal in Liberia, AFAIK, let alone a few years ago.
there is no one alive today that benefited in any way from anyones stolen labor. there is no one alive today that was directly effected by the slavery that was abolished in the united states. blacks using slavery as an excuse to behave the way they do is just that…a pitiful excuse.
Directly benefitted? Certainly not people, but there are several INSTITUTIONS that are still around which have, starting with the Catholic Church and the English monarchy. Also, indirectly, the entire U.S. economy is very much indebted to slavery. Finally, slavery was the base condition of racism, which certainly directly affects people today. And while I might agree that certain people attempt to use racism and slavery as a magic wand which explains every injustice and inequality to which black America is subject, most black Americans do not do that, including the owner of this board.
blacks are so proud of their heritage and so hateful of being taken from their homeland yet they refuse to return to africa.
Well, maybe when you white folks who feel that your European heritage is so all powerful and mighty return to Europe, you’ll be in a position to whine about Afro-ethnonationalists. Until then, it’s a bit like the mugger calling the burglar a thief, isn’t it? 😀
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@Ares
Oh, look! It’s an Arean! 😀
I’m sure Abagond’s checking the IPs of these posters, but it never hurts to suggest.
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Typical post from a Negro, filled with the usual victimisation propaganda – “oh pity us, we’re black, everyone is so mean to us, no one appreciates the many wonderful contributions we have made to mankind like AIDs and high crime rates.”
The worst thing White people ever did was bringing your God forsaken race to America, if only you had been left to your own devices in Africa you would most likely be extinct.
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AG, is that comment directed at yours truly? 😀
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Awwww…look at all the wittle twolls.
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black powuh said:
“stupid krakas”
This was written by Sycion.
Sycion:
I do not allow sock puppets. You are banned. I have a comment policy, a link to which I already posted after deleting your first comment. Here it is again:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/comment-policy/
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Silly sock puppet trolls will never learn, huh? lol! 😀
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Figured.
“Stupid krakas”, indeed.
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LOL!
(I like your avatar, Thad! My mental picture of you has morphed into Dr House… the expression on its face is very apt)
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Well, that was funny. I guess these WP kids were all class mates in some high school and need some kind of power trip. I actually knew this kind of guys in my youth. In those days they tortured all kinds of small animals to feel all mighty.
I found this extremely hilarious:
“If there is so much “racism” then why do you Negroes keep moving into white neighborhoods? Why do you refuse to return to Africa over 150 years after being liberated? Why do you continue to push your own racially exclusive organizations but whine if whites do the same exact thing?”.
ööhhh, you just can’t write that kind of material for any comedian. The reality Is truly mych crazier and funnier than anythin anybody can invent. 😀
“The truth is that “racism” is profitable to blacks the same way the holocaust legend is profitable to the Jews. Take away the legend and the Jews lose all their reparations and have to work and compete like everyone else does.”
This guy is so far out, man! 😀 Ares, the greek god of war was it? Hilrious!! I am splitting my pants for these jokes!! 😀
I think the guys in Murder Inc. could have teached our little Ares a thing or two about real cut throath competition, litterally that is. Some others come to mind also.
“there are no successful black countries. ALL black countries are this planet are failures in every sense of the word.” This sycion guy is even more hilarious! Does that include USA, sycion?? 😀
But anyways, thanks abagond. Informative and funny as hell, as always!! 😀
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whoops I don’t mean “its” in the bad way…
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@ Thad:
Sycion tried to use a proxy to get back in.
@ Sycion:
Everything you said has been said on this blog before by people I never banned. So get over yourself already.
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@ Sycion:
If you were at all serious you would not be using sock puppets. You would not derail. You also would not ask other people to do your research for you.
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@ Sycion:
If my position is so badly flawed, then why do you avoid it and derail instead?
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I like your avatar, Thad! My mental picture of you has morphed into Dr House… the expression on its face is very apt.
You can thank Mira for the suggestion! I’ve never watched the show myself, but I like how he looks like he just snorted a line or two of crystal meth.
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@ Abagond
*shakes head* Engaging….
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Ares, the greek god of war was it?
Like I said, that’s what he probably thinks “Arean” means, neh? 😀
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Hahahahahaha!!! At last the Stormfront brain trust arrives, in all of it’s attendant glory.
Where have you boys been, washing sheets?
Ares please, a greater example of post hoc ergo propter hoc could hardly be offered. Are you seriously showing nice pictures taken of Detroit in the 1950’s, as compared to not so nice pictures taken around Detroit in the 21st century, and then making an argument that it’s because Detroit is now Black?? Ha!
Detroit Skyline 2009
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“You can thank Mira for the suggestion! I’ve never watched the show myself, but I like how he looks like he just snorted a line or two of crystal meth.”
To me that pic looks like House has just said something snarky/sarcastic/brilliant and he’s simultaneously smirking and (half)shocked at the stupidity facing him. Very apt, looking at trolls above… Watch the show, you’ll see what I mean!
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You have it wrong abagond.
White people make up only 10% of the human population today.
That’s still too many! We need more immigration to get rid of the rest!
There are a Billion Indians in India.
A Billion Chinese in China.
A Billion Africans in Africa.
A Billion more Asians in SE Asia.
And a Billion more Arabic people.
All of us with Black hair and Black eyes. United.
ONLY you WHITES WILL BE EXTINCT.
ONLY YOU!
Long live all the human races. EXCEPT WHITE SKINS.
North America; Europe; Australia.
Soon white people will not have any countries of their own!
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White Nationalism – your worst nightmare is coming. There is nothing you can do about it. NOTHING. Guilt trip is over. Free ride is over.
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A novel point of view… but in the end, just a point of view, and from a dullard who is too witless and impotent to expand it into anything more meaningful than the last gasps of whining complaint against the rest of the world that has left you behind.
Go back to Stormfront, and continue arguing with your fellow nimrods how many national socialist can dance on the head of a pin. Please, go on fighting each other over whether or not skinheads should wear Doc Martens or not. Keep on fighting over who is right, the Klan or the Nazi’s.
You have all become a bad joke, and a cliche of ineffectiveness. Your downfall is due to your own stupidity. Your’e so stupid that you can’t even keep peace in your own camp of ideological cannibals. Hahaha!
Go back to the dunghill of your failed philosophy, and moronic infighting. At least the Black political movement has actually been effective in actually achieving some of its goals.
You are a laughing stock. You’ve been backpedalling and reducing your expectations of success for years now… and in your hears, you know that this is true.
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At last the Stormfront brain trust arrives, in all of it’s attendant glory.
Where have you boys been, washing sheets?
Bwahahahahahahahahahah!!!
Anywho…what’s with the drapto infestation?
*dials housekeeping*
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I thought being banned meant you couldn’t post anymore.
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Ahh, the life of a goof. Nothing better to do than to troll blogs spouting nonsense! That must be one of the longest run on sentences I’ve come across, you put me to shame! Go back to your box of Kleenix and jar of vaseline you one handed typist! You see folks, ad hominems come in handy sometimes!
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your position and existence are so badly flawed im amazed that evolution itself has permitted you to continue to exist.
Run out of Kleenix goof?
on. wait. im banned…this isnt really me responding. this is a figment of everyones imagination.
If you could stop masturbating for a moment, you’d have noticed this.
the fact of the matter is, blacks are incapable of functioning in a modern civilized society.
What’s the excuse for chronic masturbators such as yourself?
@scion:
How did you manage to type all of that with one hand?
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I’m a white guy, and I love black people. I think everybody should own one.
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Clever… and notice how broken up everyone is by your joke. We can barely go on.
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@King:
Indeed. We can barely contain our guffaws.
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What’s the excuse for chronic masturbators such as yourself? How did you manage to type all of that with one hand?
I’m guessing lots and LOTS of practice. Which takes time. Which he clearly has plenty of.
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Thou Spieth Trolls Under The Bridge!!!!
I’m a far right White man willing to work with Black people.
I’m not willing to give you free anything, except perhaps some advice.
1. Whites got their privledges through conquest.
2. Giving up privledges is NOT on the agenda.
3. You don’t even have the strength to overthrow the self-hating White people. (How on earth are you going to stand against the White racists? )
4. I’ve spent most of my life among the self hating whites. As a rule they are not warrior material. Their weakness is their lack of willingness to fight for their own people which leads them to pacifism.
5. My ancestors fought to preserve the Union, not for Black Power.
6. Your White friends/lovers pity you more than they are willing to admit.
7. You are half beast and half child in a war against the most calculating, dangerous men on the planet. (With the notable exception of the Jews who prop up non-Whites. Lol!)
And last but not least: You are jabbering on the internet while conquest still goes on in the real world!
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Sounds like my five year old’s debate methodology, he just keeps insisting he is right and pokes his fingers in his ears to and ‘la-la-las!!’ to anything contrary.
He feels good at that moment but he is continually prostesting, begging and feeling sorry for himself… remarkably similar to black America.
The only difference is he can grow up. I dont think black America will ever reach collective maturity.
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Sorry I forgot to mention:
Try telling a White Liberal that they have to give up their land, weath and privledges. Whether they have nearly nothing or a great deal.
Then you will see why you will never defeat White Racism.
You pussies who cry about stormfront.org need to realize that modern Fascism is the style of government in the USA that will further cement either Jewish or White power.
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ONLY you WHITES WILL BE EXTINCT.
ONLY YOU!
Oh, quivver quivver, quake quake.
1. Whites got their privledges through conquest.
Not to mention their l33t English grammar skilz.
2. Giving up privledges is NOT on the agenda.
Don’t worry, Bubba: nobody is going to confiscate your trailer.
3. You don’t even have the strength to overthrow the self-hating White people. (How on earth are you going to stand against the White racists? )
Well, the body oder is pretty bad, but I’m assuming that we’ll all just use noseplugs.
4. I’ve spent most of my life among the self hating whites. As a rule they are not warrior material. Their weakness is their lack of willingness to fight for their own people which leads them to pacifism.
Whereas 350 pound Aryan lard tubs suffering from eczema and heat rash are the Vikings reborn.
5. My ancestors fought to preserve the Union, not for Black Power.
If you’re like most white people in the U.S., most of your ancestors were hoeing potato patches in Europe when the Civil War broke out.
6. Your White friends/lovers pity you more than they are willing to admit.
Actually, there’s some truth to this: I pity my black friends and lovers for the fact that 400 years of racism can’t help but put a chill in their hearts, no matter how small and fleeting, when some racist turd gets on the internet and farts through his mouth about s*** he can’t possibly understand. I pity the fact that we have to take whacko clowns seriously, if only for the briefest of moments.
7. You are half beast and half child in a war against the most calculating, dangerous men on the planet. (With the notable exception of the Jews who prop up non-Whites. Lol!)
If you’re like most Stormfront members I’ve met, the only
“calculating” you do is by way of Texas Instruments. And even then you miss half the buttons.
And last but not least: You are jabbering on the internet while conquest still goes on in the real world!
Please hie thy spotty bottom over to Afganistan, Bubba, where it can get shot off by another brand of fanatic.
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@Scyion
you claim to ‘work wth the human trafficking issue on a very intimate level’ yet you disagree with the situation on slavery in africa?
I disagree that it’s worse now than it was at the height of the salve trade, as you affirmed.
when i referenced the children being abducted in liberia in the 90′s i wasnt using any media source…i was using my own observation when i was there.
Yeah, so? I was in the U.S. in the 1980s and children were being kidnapped and sold into slavery there, too. So by your logic, I guess that this proves that the U.S. has more slaves now than ever before too, right? 😀
if you want to harp on pointless details it was when the US embassy was evacuated, whatever that date was. google it.
Y’know, most people I know who’ve been through traumatic events can’t get the dates they happened out of their minds. Yet here you are telling me to google a date of an event you supposedly went through?
Sure, Scy. 😀
Now why don’t you shuffle your pimply butt back to Hungary, Poland or whatever other Eastern European paradise your ancestors ran away from.
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Wow. This blog is just crawling with ineffectual stormfront dingle berries.
Hey, you kids — throwing a sniveling hissy fit here won’t change the fact that you’re getting spanked 5 days a week by some black guy in your middle school. Take it up with your school principal or, better yet, let your mom know that her boyfriend spends the entire gym class laying the smackdown on you — and you simply can’t take it anymore!
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jigaboo said
“sweet”
That was also our good friend Sycion, one of his 63 (now mostly deleted) comments, who is now ranting in the spam filter, tipping over into self-parody.
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The kid does seem to like the proxxies, neh?
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Funny that Sycion made a comment about this blog being written by a white person pretending to be black. Something he obviously knows a little about, considering he then commented under the names “jigaboo” and “black powuh”. I guess even the stormfronters really want to be black.
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Suggestion: Don’t talk to white people about racism at all..
BRING BACK SEGREGATION. You hate us. We hate you.
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Shut up, Don.
Who nominated you as the universal voice of Whiteness?
You don’t speak for anyone.
Stormfront loosers are on the same level as people who stand in line for six hours wearing Spock ears and swinging their plastic light sabers at each other. The only difference is that sci-fi nerds have the decency to call their genre “fantasy” and Stormfronters think their fantasies are real.
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@james dunet;
“You are half beast and half child in a war against the most calculating, dangerous men on the planet. (With the notable exception of the Jews who prop up non-Whites.”
😀 This is so funny, James! I think what you really should do is go to Israel and tell those guys over there that you have come there to challenge their champion in Eye-to-Eye combat to death. And then, of course, you could prove to the world your superiority over the jewish race.
One caution though, read the bible, the book not the dvd, and check out the Goliath story. And also check out the krav maga, not the tourist version but the combat one. You can google it and then ask your teatcher to read it it for you.
And like I said before, the guys in Murder Inc. were mostly jewish, Lepke Buchalter was one too, Nails Morton was one, Moe Dalitz and Meyer Lansky too. Those guys could have told something about jews to you too. 😀
“I’ve spent most of my life among the self hating whites. As a rule they are not warrior material. Their weakness is their lack of willingness to fight for their own people which leads them to pacifism.”
Self hating whites? 😀 This is classic stuff James! Warrior material? Really funny, man. If you have spent most of your life among these gutless pacifists, then your family must be them, eh? Friends? Buddies? I mean, you are surrounded by them, right? Are you sure it is not in your genes too, James? You might belong genetically peaceful spineless sub race of self hating white men!! Go get the your genes tested, man! Save yourself!
“My ancestors fought to preserve the Union, not for Black Power.”
You really should take off your pointy hoods for a while and get together and try to decide what was it that your white supreme great great grand grand fathers were fighting for. You know, there was this other nimwitt who said that they liberated the blacks who then refused to back to Africa…
And if your ancestors fought to preserve the Union, they were also fighting to uphold the laws and there fore for the freedom of the black slaves. Isn’t that somethin? Your relatives were actually fighting for the negroes, darn!! The same genes run in you, man! Your ancestors were friends of the negroes, willing to lay down their lives for the black man in real battlefield, you dummy. Hows that for you? 😀
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You know it’s a good day on the net when a “fearsome troll” wannabe becomes nothing more than an amusing target.
Step right up, kids…take a shot. Sharpen your smack-talking skills.
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Stormfront loosers are on the same level as people who stand in line for six hours wearing Spock ears and swinging their plastic light sabers at each other. The only difference is that sci-fi nerds have the decency to call their genre “fantasy” and Stormfronters think their fantasies are real.
As someone who has many sci-fi nerd friends, I’m offended by the comparison. Also, it’s incorrect. There are, unfortunately, many trekkies who think Trek is real (or close enough to be no never mind). I mean, these guys will make the effort to learn Klingon, but not Spanish, so that should tell us something.
The difference is, I’ve never heard of a trekkie murdering people or putting people in the hospital. Can’t say the same for the Stormfront fools.
Though they are generally cowards.
Back in the day, it was common knowledge among us anarchopunk types that if you were jumped by Nazi skins, the thing to do was to ignore everyone else and go right for the leader. If you could kick the leader’s butt, the rest of the pack would run away, yelping. I’ve seen this proven on many an occasion.
99% of Nazis are losers looking to redeem their pathetic, piss-poor lives by pledging allegiance to the mob.
“American History X” is a VERY good film on what this subculture is all about.
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@sam You just posted a list of jewish hit men and murderers as a rebuttal to jews being anti-white. This is like when you anti-whites tell us to “go to Harlem or Compton and say that!” You are saying that they are morally deficient killers. I agree with you but antis usually argue the other side that the whites are the bad guys.
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@me: okay heres a nice story for you:
During the WW2 a Waffen SS division was fighting in Lapland along side their finnish brothers in arms. In one fight one finnish army officer made an big impression to the germans, particulary when he saved the lives of several SS soldiers who were wounded and while doing so the finnish officer risked his own life many times.
The germans were so impressed that they decided to hand out an iron cross for this finn for his valor in combat. They met the said officer and SS general wanted to know more about this outstanding officer.
– Where do soldiers like you come from? What kind of a man are you? asked the garateful SS general. The finnish officer answered with flawless german: Ich bin ein jude.
Needless to say he never got the iron cross, but heres the real funny part: this story is real. 😀
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Shut um me… and this from a race nerd who hangs out at a website that thinks Hitler was decidedly not a hit man or murderer.
What’s your usual SF handle anyway? Thor? Goebbels? Aragorn?
Do you have any idea how much the rest of the world is laughing at you? Normal people go to Stormfront these days for entertainment just to watch the mullet freak show.
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Normal people go to Stormfront these days for entertainment just to watch the mullet freak show.
[Raises hand]
That would be me. 😀
It’s kinda like going to a monster truck rally: a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
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@ Thad.
Nothing is more entertaining than watching the downward spiral of the Stormfront “expectations management” plan.
1) Get all the ni**ers out of OUR country!!!
2) Well, OK, let’s just cordon off the ni**ers into the ghettos!!
3) No? OK maybe we We can cordon ourselves off into Idaho?
4) Not Practical? Maybe just a singe town somewhere?? Does anyone know of a town that’s mostly White???
5) OK, forget it, this country is lost! What do you say we all move to Iceland? I hear that it’s a White man’s paradise!
I mean, when you’re backpedalling on your own venerated and sacred goals that fast, and yet, can’t even acknowledge that you’re loosing the battle at light speed, then you are only fit for entertainment. It’s like watching how many clowns can squeeze into a Yugo, with the windows closed.
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“You are half beast and half child
You mean like this?
Shoot, I wish I could meet a man horse like this!
“I’ve spent most of my life among the self hating whites. As a rule they are not warrior material. Their weakness is their lack of willingness to fight for their own people which leads them to pacifism.”
Here’s a white warrior preparing for battle:
“My ancestors fought to preserve the Union, not for Black Power.”
Your ancestors fought because they had nothing better to do that day. Being offered free liquor and cigarettes went a long way in those days! Ever hear of Jack Daniels? That’s how his business took off! During the Civil War! He had a standing contract with the army! No, your ancestor fought to perserve the right to drink copious amounts of liquor at a discount!
1) Get all the ni**ers out of OUR country!!!
How very erudite, concise and to the point!
4) Not Practical? Maybe just a singe town somewhere?? Does anyone know of a town that’s mostly White???
Yes: Bumf*ck Iowa
5) OK, forget it, this country is lost! What do you say we all move to Iceland? I hear that it’s a White man’s paradise!
What?! And destroy the scenic views? How about the Antarctic? On second thought they’d destroy the scenic views along with the environment! How about Uranus?
This is fun!
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Darn, those SF guys give the mullet a bad name!
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“Join Stormfront and move to Uranus!”
Catchy marketing phrase, Herneith.
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Stormfront loosers are on the same level as people who stand in line for six hours wearing Spock ears and swinging their plastic light sabers at each other.
No they are not. They are on par with chronic masturbators, men who love to expose their private parts, and peeping Toms! When not engaging in these types of activities, they are popping their pimples or cleaning the few teeth the have left in their heads. When they finish doing this, they then go to Stormfront.
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@sam You anti-whites give afros a bad name.
@Thad I’ll go to my trailer and get a bucket of chicken for your wife and some watermelon for the pickaninnies. Seriously though, these people of color will never accept you until you bow down to them and stop using facts to destroy their anti-white myths. Denying the smallpox blanket myth is like denying the holocaust myths. They don’t care about facts, they care about hating white people. Do you think you can reason with them? These are people who would get you fired from your job if you accidentally said “colored people” or used the word “niggardly” or referred to “black holes”. Having a black wife will not save you. By not accepting the lies and slander about our people, you are one of us by default. But we won’t accept you because you are a race traitor. So neither the whites nor the anti-whites will accept you. Maybe you should just give in learn to kiss Ank’s butt and accept all their lies as truth.
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I’m a racist through and through. Want to know why? No one taught me to be this way, not my parents or my siblings or my school.
YOU, YOU stupid blacks, you made me racist.
You’ve lived up to every stereotype ever said about you.
The vast majority of blacks I’ve been to school with or worked with have been human pieces of garbadge. They are violent, lazy, constantly loud and constantly blaming others for their probems.
Any white who isn’t racist is either a complete moron or hasn’t lived around blacks for any amount of time.
And you dont need to talk to whites about racism. Most whites are smart enough to know to stay away from blacks, just like they shouldn’t be near rattlesnakes.
They just don’t talk about how they feel because now a days it’s worse to be a racist (honest about the truth), then it is to be rapist or murderer.
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“This isn’t about what we can learn from each other – this is about you learning from me, and you’re already behind by four centuries.”
Ahhh…good to see the typical arrogance from Blacks. What are we behind 4 centuries in? Your perpetual victimhood?
Maybe blacks can learn from Whites, like how to live in civilized countries and cities without raping, murdering, and thieving our fellow neighbors. You speak of Whites being behing, yet all the brown people of the world want to flock to the nations that Whites built. Can’t blame them, the countries you originate from are one tiny step above sewage.
Your list means nothing to me. I long stopped caring what you think about anything at all. You are negative people, non productive people, and you base everything in the past. It’s a sad joke watching your race live in and use the fruits of a White society, when you have contributed *nothing* to it. Cars, planes, phones, computers, etc- none of it was brought to the world by blacks. You don’t have the ability to see 2 minutes ahead to how this endless bitching gets you nowhere.
“Stop being afraid.”
I tell that to fellow Whites all the time. Whites brainwashed into feeling guilty if they even utter one negative word about your race as a whole. The crime and cost to society that your race is directly resposible for in completely inexcusable, and I always encourage Whites to speak out and not tolerate your pathetic crap anymore.
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@Racist Frankenstein
I completely agree, and developed my racist views of these pathetic blacks the same way. My racism has zero to do with appearance, as these children always like to allege, since I have no problem with Asians- another people that can live peacefully amongst themselves and others without the primitive violence.
I’ve lived amongst blacks for too long as I save to move to a 95% plus White state. I have hadendless things stolen, vandalized and peed on. I’ve dealth with the blight that only they can bring to a city. The endless noise, yelling, slamming stereos, point blank shootings, FILTH, STENCH, etc.
They then have the balls to turn and say Whites are racist, ignorant and hateful when they utter a peep against the crap blacks bring to White neighborhoods as the brown race is force fed to America. I cannot wait for Whites to finally snap awake from the PC trance.
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By not accepting the lies and slander about our people, you are one of us by default.
Sorry, guess again.
But we won’t accept you because you are a race traitor.
Whew! That’s a relief. I was worried there for a second. 😀
Wow! Look at all the little sock-puppets proxie-dancing up there!
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@ ObamaSmellsBad
Exactly which parts of Obama have you been sniffing at, genius?
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@King
Great reply! If you cannot get a chuckle from that name- and I mean his policies, they STINK- then it shows just how pathetic you are.
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I get a chuckle out of ALL politicians, race nerd. And as far as I’m concerned, NONE of their policies have smelled that great to me for years.
But if you really want to chuckle, that’s not nearly as entertaining as the dunce cap parade over at SF! Surely even you can enjoy this one!! (If not, then it shows just how pathetic you are.)
“MisspelledConfederateGeneral: A wurd to our SF womwnfolk. It you are oiut working and payying your taxes tu the ocupational Fedral govt., yuo are doing a grate diservice to yuor peeple! We nead you to take on you god givn responsebilty of breeding. Our race is dpending on you pruducing baeutiful WHITE baybyies so we are not overun by the brown poeples of the world! I call on yuo my sisters to rethink you chioces… what is more importtand then your roll as a women? If you are marreid, then tell yuor hardworking huzband that you want tu stay home and breed. If yuo are sigle, than their are many avalable Storm Front single men who wuld be gladd to do the job for the cause…”
I mean, give me a break!!! Do you read this stuff? Hahahaha!
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White flight: The migration of millions of white people away from mud people like Hispanics and Negros.
Blacks and Mexicans are so disgusting they needed civil rights laws and the force of the US Army to force white human beings to accept them. Whites run as far as fast as they can to escape the destructive effects of black aboriginals and other third world primitives. The dream of “minorities” is to move to white neighborhoods, attend white schools and mate with white women….preferably blondes.
All successful muds try to mate with white blonde women. Muds know they’re scum and try to uplift themselves by copulating with higher level species.
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Hahaha! This nerd actually said “mud people”!! Hahaha… you guys really need some new material! This must go over great with the girls on your college campus… oh… right.. sorry man.
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cos only white people are racist lool
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But, bottom line, when it comes down to it, past all the sparring and Al Jolson websites, YOU are here.
That really says it all doesn’t it.. YOU are here.
Your ideological forefathers would have never come here if the technology was available in their day. They would not be on a “mud people” blog (did I say that properly?) arguing their points and trading insults among the muds.
You are here because you are weak. You are desperate, and impotent, and that is why you have come, to satiate your weakling anger and pent-up frustration—flailing your limbs like a drowning man, desperate to strike at something solid before gurgling down into the watery darkness.
We are never compelled to comment over at SF. We go there and laugh at your stupidity. We heap derision and mockery upon your doltish, and half-baked, deficiencies—upon your self important proclamations and calls to unity and superiority. To us, it’s just a bad joke, or a curiosity, like the two-headed calf. But it’s nothing to take seriously enough to actually engage in 🙂
And that is why you are over here, and we are not over there. We’re just not as weak as you are.
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This must go over great with the girls on your college campus… oh… right.. sorry man.
The highest educational level most SF folks ever get is a GED… and that after several years of trying.
But, bottom line, when it comes down to it, past all the sparring and Al Jolson websites, YOU are here.
Excellent point, King.
this is why the SF people are so sad. They really are, in most cases, down there in the gutter with the lower 25% of the black population they so deride. They don’t have decent jobs, nor any hope of them… Little to no education… All they have is this little straw called “whiteness” to cling to and, year after year, that straw gets smaller and smaller.
What must really hurt, I think, is to realize that no white person who has achieved any degree of success in the real world wants to associate with these guys. They’re simply disposable trash.
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Careful Thaddeus! You’re a “race traitor” haven’t you heard?
I believe you’re slated for five years “reeducation” in the camps.
It takes a guy who thinks like an 11-year-old to go around pointing at someone and saying, “he’s a race traitor!” I mean, where, in society today (besides the internet) do you find people who agree with stupid ideas like that?
Hmmm… I wonder how far you have to go before you’re considered a “race traitor?” I mean, what’s crossing the line? Listening to an Al Green CD? Ordering Chinese food? Watching the World Cup for more than 10 minutes?
What a collection of brain stems.
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@king.
The concept of race traitor is obviously being taken to the extreme with this group of morons, but I think the idea is still a factor even with average whites. When I talk to other whites about racism I often get the sense that they wonder why I would bother to care? That race isn’t our problem.
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Yes, but that’s a far cry from labeling you as a “race traitor.”
I’m not saying that there are not also some Black people who have the same stupid idea. I could even concede that the term might have some merit if presented in other more appropriate circumstances. But this thought that if you don’t agree with my interpretation of what I think people of my “race” should believe, then you’re a traitor is beyond ridiculous.
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After that it’s where your next bottle of discounted booze is coming from.
Tsk.
It’s ‘Tussin, Herneith. I lay you odds.
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@King “It takes a guy who thinks like an 11-year-old to go around pointing at someone and saying, “he’s a race traitor!””
That must be why anti-whites call themselves that. For such a wise and educated anti-white, you sure don’t know much about the anti-white movement.
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Why are these SFers coming here to make little speeches totally unrelated to the original post? Abagond, I thought it was against your (already lax) commenting policy…
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Aeigfc:
I allowed it because a) they were making Ankh’s point (though, admittedly, Stormfronters are not like most whites. Most whites are not that race conscious or extreme in their views) and b) I was curious to see Thad and them go head to head since on this blog he does come off as a white apologist.
But, yes, it has run its course and now has become nothing but name calling. So:
From this point on I will delete all comments not related to the post – Ankh’s advice on how to talk to white people about race. Asserting that whites are better or that blacks are degenerate scum are off topic unless you can tie them directly to the topic of the post.
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“I allowed it because a) they were making Ankh’s point (though, admittedly, Stormfronters are not like most whites. Most whites are not that race conscious or extreme in their views)”
lol, you’re right! Ankh must be thinking “told you so!”
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Darn, I was late. I would’ve loved to get it on with those schmucks!
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Sam,
Same here! But I must admit it wasn’t inspiring at all. Now, I assume “SF fans” means “stormfront fans”, not “science fiction fans” (since they were also mentioned).
Stormfronters are good to laugh at, but like Abagond said, they don’t represent majority of white people. In a way, they are a bad example, because most of the whites are not like that, and it makes many of them think they are not racist. So I think it’s important to understand you don’t have to share KKK/Stormfront beliefs to be racist. You don’t have to be violent to be racist.
I like Thad’s new avatar, though.
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I’m not sure if I read it on this blog but someone stated that the nazis were left-wing extremists. So it did become reality then. The “time masheen” “Idiocracy” style has been built. Which theme park is it in?
Novelty ideas. That’s what the free world is all about, isn’t it?
The statement does have some sort of anaemic plausibility though when seen from the logic of a simple mind. National socialism does contain the term “socialism”. Then again, therapist contains “rapist”.
I must have been so overwhelmed by the ingenuity of that statement that I forgot where I read it. I probably just dreamt it.
Is the “For entertainment purposes only” disclaimer still about to come? At the end of the day it’s just all about having fun, isn’t it? Right after money.
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Femi:
It was Chuck who said the Nazis were left-wing:
“America had a hand in not only preventing the spread of Nazism but also the spread of Communist – both of which were leftist ideologies. “
He said that in the whitewashed history thread:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/why-american-history-gets-whitewashed/#comment-68066
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To be honest, only glanced through comments, kinda strange the way some whites find this blog and then vent. I am repulsed by peadophiles so I ain’t gonna find sites or blogs about child molestation. I only found this blog coz someone recommended this to me. As for the topic of talking to white people about racism.
Whites don’t really talk (Well not in front of me) they start small, they’ll say a racist joke or comment, just to see if your a punk and you’ll take it. You either submit or resist. Submission means that you’ll be there bitch. Resist and you’ll be angry black man who can’t take a joke.
I prefer to resist which means they are scared of you, but white people are already scared of black people so it’s no loss.
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Femi,
I missed the comment about nazis being left-winged extremists, but to be honest, I thought that’s what most of the Americans think (that the Nazis were leftists). It’s because the anti-socialism/communism propaganda in the US which is, as I understand, still going strong.
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@ lordsoftheunderground101
The pedophile analogy is one I often make in my head when I see the same kinds of posts you’re talking about. It just seems like they’re out to not feel ignored, inadequate and powerless which just ends up making them look like asses. The entertainment value though short lived, is decent.
And I’ve had that experience again recently, I got the “Hey, can’t you take a joke?” retort when I called him on it followed by the “I know a lot of Black people who would be cool about it.” Of course I’m now just another one of those angry Black b!tches. LOL and I’ll wear the title proudly!
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I was curious to see Thad and them go head to head since on this blog he does come off as a white apologist.
There’s nothing really to go head-to-head with them on. I’d WELCOME an honest, informed debate with someone who was actually, rationally trying to defend the racist proposition, but I’m not going to get it with these guys, am I?
The ironic and hilarious fact of the matter is that dear old afrocentric J was a much more effective and informed (and twisty) proponent of classical Aryanism that these twits, although J, of course, liked to gussy up his Aryanist beliefs in blackface and afrocentric rhetoric.
These are just white adolescents, living out in East Sheepf*** somewhere who are understandably pi**ed at the world, but who don’t have the slightest clue as to who or what is really f***ing them over.
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It just seems like they’re out to not feel ignored, inadequate and powerless which just ends up making them look like asses.
Bingo.
Of course I’m now just another one of those angry Black b!tches.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. 😀
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@Mira
Oh dear…
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Thanks for the link Abagond.
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None of you nitwits even know what the word Racism even means. The word was invented by a jew leon trotsky in order to prevent white people from defending themselves. A racist is by definition just a conservative white person who dare to defend their race or do what is in the best interest of white people.
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Trotsky invented the word “racism”? Do tell! 😀
Kinda odd how W.E.B. DuBois was using precisely that word decades before the Russian Revolution, then.
Or are you proposing that Leon came up with the term while still wrapped in swaddling clothes?
See, this is why engaging with SF guys isn’t at all interesting. They just make s*** up on the fly, cut to fit.
You can’t argue or discuss with people who are committed to irrationality.
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This post is linked to from Stormfront and IMDb:
http://stormfront.org/forum/t749584/
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000082/thread/172395162
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Thad:
The word “racism” first appeared in English in 1936.
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Thad:
If you search “The Souls of Black Folks” (1903) you will see that DuBois does not use the word “racism” or “racist” even once:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/408/408.txt
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“This post is linked to from Stormfront and IMDb:”
… Ankhesen, you’ve done it again!
I have to tip my hat.
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FATtonysoprano “None of you nitwits even know what the word Racism even means. The word was invented by a jew leon trotsky”
I love the way these educated-by-YouTube SF guys come bouncing in with their totally wrong “facts,” and calling everyone else nitwits. Then, when the easily verifiable corrections to their stupidity are presented, they just fade away with their fingers in their ears.
Hey, grits-for-brains!!! Why not actually LOOK SOMETHING UP before making a complete fool of yourself?!!
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The word “racism” [in english] – is credited Lawrence Dennis, an American fascist in 1936.
The coining of the word in German is credited to Magnus Hirschfeld, [Founder of an Institute for Sexual Science] a German, who used it as the title of his book in 1933.
Nowhere is Leon Trotsky credited with inventing the word.
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Abagond, I could be very wrong here, but I am almost 100% certain that I have read a Dubois article where he uses precisely that term. I’d be interested in any information you have regarding its etymology, however.
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Gonwandola and Speak No Evil had their comments deleted: they were sock puppets.
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@ Speak No Evil
Are you actually here for dialogue, or is this just a one-off case of you blowing off steam?
Do you disagree with the actual article? And if so, why?
Understand that I’m not asking for your prognostications of what will and what won’t work for Black people in the future of your imagination… just tell me how you think the article is wrong and what is the proper way to look at it?
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Rats.
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Someone has a whole drawer full of unused socks, methinks.
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King
FATtonysoprano “None of you nitwits even know what the word Racism even means. The word was invented by a jew leon trotsky”
I love the way these educated-by-YouTube SF guys come bouncing in with their totally wrong “facts,” and calling everyone else nitwits. Then, when the easily verifiable corrections to their stupidity are presented, they just fade away with their fingers in their ears.
Hey, grits-for-brains!!! Why not actually LOOK SOMETHING UP before making a complete fool of yourself?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good that means you agree with me that the word Racism was invented to be used against white people when white people do what is in the best interest of white people. Of course it does not really matter who invented the word.You people even confirm that the word racism was created recently for political reasons.
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You people even confirm that the word racism was created recently for political reasons.
If King is correct, created by WHITE American and European fascists.
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@ the Soprano
First, I implore you not to be a sock puppet. Please just play by the rules, for crying out loud!
OK, so in your 1st post, you bring up a word [Racism] that describes a concept, and then point out that it was coined by Leon Trotsky, and that he was a Jew.
Then you end the reply of your very 2nd post with “Of course it does not really matter who invented the word.”
So if it didn’t matter who invented the word, then why did you make such a production of pointing out that it was Trotsky in the first place? Do you have any logical way of explaining this… or is it just as stupid as it sounds?
Secondly, can you please explain why my pointing out who it was who really coined the term has anything to do with the purpose for which the word was coined? I can’t see it myself, but please enlighten me.
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Look at all the drapto lovin’ – this post really brought it out of some folks!
*fans self*
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*fans self*
Not surprised.
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“This isn’t about what we can learn from each other – this is about you learning from me, and you’re already behind by four centuries.”
Bullshit. I’ve experienced racism as both a white person and especially as a woman, and I’m not going to automatically submit to the idea that someone else’s thoughts and ideas have more value simply because of the color of their skin.
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When I say that I was once a white, conservative atheist with some traditional social mores and a belief in small government . . .. I’m not lieing . . . I was. Shatter the stereotypes. If you claim to be against racism but are at the same time willing to hold onto stereotypes . . . . I wonder which is really any worse or better. The world will be a better place when we shatter our stereotypes and realize that we are all human beings that have a great purpose and a mysterious origin.
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Your posts are mainly geared towards White America but I live in the U.K and my experiences are scarily almost exactly the same.
Infact your point 5 reminded me of something that happened at work 2 weeks ago. If I didnt know better I would say you were someone who knew me.
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The phrase “how to talk to white people” should instead read “how to talk to people”. Listen . .. disliking white people or finding out how to deal with them is not a purpose in life. It is not a source of unity or morality. Now I know that many blacks have had trouble forming their identity as a people . . . I sympathise with that. But this is the real world made up of individuals so not all white Americans are the same. Lets stop talking about white or black. Lets move on. If you are going to point out prejudice in white people then you should do the same for blacks. Don’t be partial. I would like to see just one post on here about black people showing prejudice. There is, in reality, a certain percentage of racism in every group. But there are also a lot of good people in every group. It takes getting to know them to LEARN that they aren’t ALL bad. It is unfortunate that is is easier for people to learn about physics than it is for them to learn . . . at an emotional level . . . about people.
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@ mike00000000001
I agree with you……Judge people on an individaul level instead of the colour of their skin. Personally, I have always felt on the same level as white people, regardless of colour, race or shade…..We are all HUMAN first and foremost.
“How to talk to white people about racism”…..Actually, if a person is ignorant, then how can you talk to them about racism…..It’s just going to go into one ear and out of the next.
Some people just like to think they are better because of their colour, if that is the case, we have NOTHING to talk about.
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happiness
Great to here your response. I think the more society becomes aware of itself the less prejudice there will be everywhere.
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What about Asian Racism or Indian Caste-ism which has been brought to America too ???
What about Black biases out there ?
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@brentano917
What about Black biases out there ?
Can you elaborate a bit more here?
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@ Thaddeus
You are way off on this. Black people aren’t coming to this as individuals; they are coming it as a group, a group in a “democracy” that was singled out for special pieces legislation (and please do not tell me that the Civil Rights Act (CRA) was special piece of legislation ameliorating the lives of Blacks – there wouldn’t be a need for the CRA if Jim Crow was not instituted after emancipation) and had the state actions meted out to them; legislation that never affected any other group, Native North American may have come close to it. I can understand you not getting it, since those laws never affected you or your ancestors. You as a white man, as well as other white people, are/was seen as individuals by the American society, and that’s the mindset of the culture from which you spring. Secondly, your perspective is one of an American living in Brazil, where racial dynamics are quite different from the US, and you’re trying to superimpose it on the average lived lives of Black Americans. You’re the proverbial fish in water that doesn’t know you’re wet
You keep seeing the developed culture from Euro-American perspective with total disregard for what it bequeathed to Black and other minorities, and please, DO NOT dissect the word minority, since you are likely to start splitting hairs, that as a group, white men is a minority in America. Most black people cannot come to this purely from an academic exercise; it’s lives lived by their mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts cousins and neighbours.
No reasonable person can say that progress isn’t being/haven’t been made on the racial front in America; the older generation of Blacks are more willing to acknowledge this progress, but they’d be looking at it at from how things were. The frustration for younger Blacks, even when they do all the right things, see their white contemporaries, people with whom they associate, attended high schools and colleges getting ahead and most times the only variable the can see is skin colour. What do you expect them to conclude?
The American culture was developed over the last four hundred years; it may take another hundred and fifty to two hundred years to fully supplant what we have today as the CULTURE; a signature on a piece of paper does not obliterate culture. In the meantime Blacks and other minorities are being asked to “shut the f**k up” and stop complaining; it’s no different to me than in the sixties when northern cities were in conflagrations and white were asking ‘why are they burning the cities.’ It behoves you to at least see things from that Black American perspective, rather than holding fast to your doctrinaire position.
If Abagond permits me, I’d like to add a link for to a sixties song and I’d like you to put it in context of this discussion – NOTE, I’M NOT A RELIGIOUS PERSON, but a number of black people will agree wholeheartedly with the its sentiments.
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@ mike00000000001
The phrase “how to talk to white people” should instead read “how to talk to people”. Listen . .. disliking white people or finding out how to deal with them is not a purpose in life. It is not a source of unity or morality”
This is not about disliking white people, and you’re right, it shouldn’t be one’s “purpose in life” but dealing with them is a must even at the expense of your pride and mental well being. I know it’s very, very hard for you to understand the minefields POC has to traverse in their daily lives as a result of past and current actions of White, some wittingly, others unwittingly.
“Now I know that many blacks have had trouble forming their identity as a people . . . I sympathise with that. But this is the real world made up of individuals so not all white Americans are the same.”
White people in general talk about people being individuals, but the only people they conceive to be individuals are other white people, no matter where in world they are. Peoples of colour are always grouped together – insert word(s), phrases or other descriptors – used by them.
“Let’s stop talking about white or black”
Your ancestors created this mess and now we have to deal with it, more so blacks than whites. Black people did not create these dynamics; they were inherited. Deal with it, as most POC must. There would have been NO black had there been was No white, as far as human beings are concerned. Can you explain to me how racism affects you in your everyday life?
“Let’s move on”
Have you and your contemporaries done so with respect to your racist beliefs and your inability to promote social justice? Must be nice to be able to can pick up your ball and walk off the playing field without any repercussion; there are many of us who would like nothing better than to being able to do so, but “whiteness” still stands in the way.
“If you are going to point out prejudice in white people then you should do the same for blacks. Don’t be partial. I would like to see just one post on here about black people showing prejudice.”
As a matter of fact they are a few, and it’s primarily from one person who refers to himself as africanblackmilitant, who each time he posts is castigated his nonsense.
When you can talk to me and to your white friends and associates, and make reference to other people who are white, as in the WHITE GUY(S) over there or Robert, the WHITE GUY, when there are no people of colour around, then I’ll know your racial consciousness has been raised. You may want to try doing it for a month. Just to drive the point home, using an unrelated issue, I’m assuming you are male; what are some of the precautions you’ve taken to prevent you being raped?
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[…] (via) […]
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@ Demerera
When some guys jump to some crooks defense & shout racism when he is shot\jailed even though he is clearly guilty as sin, when some guys arbitrarily blame all their problems on any one else but themselves, what is that ???
White racists can take a hike but their evil doesn’t justify another’s wrong.
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I am mixed race, half white. I have light skin, straight hair, and Caucasian features. Therefore I enjoy the priveleges of whiteness, for the most part. Police are different than human beings in this respect.
It’s strange to hear other white people say people of color are being irrational about race. To me, they sound like people who had their college tuition paid for by their parents. Many of them are truly unable to understand why poor people “don’t just pull themselves by their bootstraps”. I have found that it is a constant work in progress to amend the lacunae in my views on race. Obviously, growing up in a safe all white suburb leaves certain gaps in a person’s education.
“You should do a post on WP and their “credentials”. Because (supposedly) living in a foreign country & being married to a POC reeks of the I Have Black Friends argument.”
I call this the Kurtzmann Syndrome: White male, not succeeding/fitting in with white society, moves to a country, usually Third World, where his race/color is even more of an advantage. Things are changing now, but twenty years ago, an American or European with five or ten thousand dollars could live like a king in South America. During my time there, living with family, I met several U.S. and British expatriates. The men mostly worked for the oil companies or ran businesses without those pesky minimum wage and L & I laws.
It used to bother me when complete strangers-whites-would ask me about race. But I figure at least they are trying to educate themselves, although it does kind of seem like asking your mechanic who he voted for in the last election.
I knew this blog would be interesting; the photo at the top of this page really says it all.
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I just recently graduated from college with a Bachelor’s of Science in Chemistry and Biochemistry in the DEEP south. There were only 6 of us who graduated this year, 3 of US happened to have had dark skin. Never once, did race play a part in how we obtained these degrees. Due to our accomplishments and hard work, all of us have been accepted into our professional schools and have great careers ahead of us. Wishing the same for all of you :).
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From what I’ve learned, you can’t talk to white people about racism if they refuse to listen in the first place. An interested white person would not shut you down when you attempt to discuss racism.
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If you haven’t already, check out #racetogether and #newstarbucksdrinks.
Starbucks is encouraging baristas to talk about race with customers, but it’s not going well for their corporate officers.
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this is probably a huge faux pas oh boy i cant wait to hear about this
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This guy makes the good point about how talking with white people about race is like going after a guy who steals your wallet:
All In with Chris Hayes 3/17/15
“An amazing discussion on ‘discussing race’: Starbucks wants to get people talking about race. Jay Smooth and Nancy Giles join Chris Hayes to debate the company’s strategy – and an authentic, awkward, awesome conversation ensues.”
http://player.theplatform.com/p/7wvmTC/MSNBCEmbeddedOffSite?guid=n_hayes_Frace2_150317
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