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On July 19 2019 04:34 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 04:21 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:About the point of those being American not loving America enough, what do you all say to this guy? Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a United States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler later became an outspoken critic of U.S. wars and their consequences. He also exposed an alleged plan to overthrow the U.S. government.
By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal (along with Wendell Neville and David Porter) and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.
In 1933, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler selected to lead a march of veterans to become dictator, similar to Fascist regimes at that time. The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot and the media ridiculed the allegations, but a final report by a special House of Representatives Committee confirmed some of Butler's testimony.
In 1935, Butler wrote a book titled War Is a Racket, where he described and criticized the workings of the United States in its foreign actions and wars, such as those he was a part of, including the American corporations and other imperialist motivations behind them. After retiring from service, he became a popular advocate, speaking at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists, and church groups in the 1930s SourceI bring it up because you don't have to hate America to want better for the nation. There's nothing anti-American about criticizing America. If anything, it shows a willingness to see the defects and argue/fight for a better outcome. Also this is quite accurate. When you're creating anything, anything at all, if you want to make it better you have to get it criticized to hell first. A functioning nation is no exception. The problem is, with the "Democrats hate America" crowd, "America" is code for "America exactly as it was", and not actually America. First you have to decipher the code, then you can spot it for the dogwhistle that it is. Just like how "traditional family values" actually means subjecting women to a life of child-rearing and servitude to men.
Precisely. This man operated on 3 continents and still came back to the US to criticize the government. Doesn't make him less American all of a sudden. And it doesn't make any of the women charged by trump any less American. How many F500 companies have foreign born CEOs? How many inventions are credited to foreign born Americans(and minority Americans) that we enjoy today? Once you get away from racist beliefs and start really seeing America, not what she is, but what she can be, you will also begin to criticize it.
I personally believe that women are more than capable of running the world if given the chance better than men. And I'm hoping we get some AOC Speaker or Presidency out of this in the coming years (once we accept democratic socialism as the heir to democracy).
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To echo an analogy I made earlier, I highly recommend the three part Ken Burns documentary on Prohibition. Just a bit of a look at US history shows that all this “real American” bullshit is not only old, it’s directly associated with some of the worst cross burning components of the nation. The Democratic primary between Al Smith and William Gibbs McAdoo in ‘28 relates remarkably well to what is going on now.
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On July 19 2019 04:51 farvacola wrote:
To echo an analogy I made earlier, I highly recommend the three part Ken Burns documentary on Prohibition. Just a bit of a look at US history shows that all this “real American” bullshit is not only old, it’s directly associated with some of the worst cross burning components of the nation. The Democratic primary between Al Smith and William Gibbs McAdoo in ‘28 relates remarkably well to what is going on now.
I've seen it. I cosign this recommendation.
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Interesting opinion piece in the Guardian today + Show Spoiler +https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/18/trump-pompeo-human-rights-un-orwellian-mission-redefine
Also Trump just announced that they've shot down an Iranian drone near one of the US military vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Hopefully that de-escalates before anything further comes out of that.
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On July 19 2019 04:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 02:35 IgnE wrote:On July 19 2019 01:45 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 19 2019 00:05 IgnE wrote:On July 18 2019 15:29 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 18 2019 13:46 IgnE wrote:On July 18 2019 13:20 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 18 2019 11:35 IgnE wrote:On July 18 2019 09:42 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 18 2019 06:57 GreenHorizons wrote:I'm reminded of this article on why white (and/or white adjacent) people think there is "anti-whiteness" everywhere they look. [quote] www.gcorr.orgThey even see anti-white racism, divisive, fight-starting in capitalization while seeing white supremacist propaganda as conciliatory lol. You nailed it dude... I 1,000,000% agree with this.I as that as a milk-toast, Scotts-Irish, white ass American man. About 8 years ago I was confronted with the reality of my privilege and I did not want to accept it, but eventually did, and it opened my fucking eyes. “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” Equality requires the privileged to relinquish some of their power, most are unwilling to do that. When I was a little kid growing up on the east coast in the semi-south I used to think my black friends would lie about all the horrible shit that happened to them, I thought, "why do they make this stuff up?" Turns out I just never had to deal with it, so it was invisible to me... that is privilege. What power have you relinquished in order to work towards equality? I would say the first step, and probably the most important is simply acknowledging that I have privilege, and giving up my ignorance about my privilege. The nature of privilege is ignorance, the privileged people don't have to consider the problems other people do. So in regard to racial privilege, in acknowledging it I would think there comes some degree of commitment in calling it out when I see rather than just letting it slide because, "I'm white and it doesn't affect me." If I'm playing a game a CSGO and I hear the N word (happens all the time), rather than just be ok with that, I can at the very least confront them on it, and report the account. There are many different versions of that... for example is I see a nazi symbol written on a wall, I can get a pen and mark over it. Donate to a charity organization that combats racial inequality, march for black lives matter. I haven't done these latter two things, but for a lot of my black friends growing up I apologized for not believe them when we were kids, and tell them I believe them now. Small steps, but if all privileged people did that, the world would change. I thought there was more to privilege than that. You don't sound like someone who's given much of any thought to the subject. What's the point of your post? Are you actually curious about my experience or just want something to rail against? The post GH made that I quoted, you sound exactly like the type of person that post describes. Equality feels like oppression for you, that true for you or you just never even gave it a thought? No, I'm actually just surprised at how little privilege you actually had to relinquish. It's almost like you didn't have much power in the first place. You really stretched there, too, with the suggestion to donate to BLM. Giving away money counts as giving away power I guess. But maybe the metaphorical language doesn't really work? Why do you think this idea that giving up privilege feels like oppression resonates with you so much when your examples of giving up privilege are so lame? I can think of something else that might better describe the experience of 1) conversion to a cause, 2) spreading the good news to blasphemers, and 3) tithing — but "relinquishing power" isn't it. I'll ask again... What is the point of your post? Does Equality feel like oppression for you? And if you don't think money is power, you are incredibly naive. I am trying to decide why this “relinquish (white) power” articulation seems so off to me. Who are the kind of people you imagine when you imagine indignant whites for whom giving up privilege feels like oppression? Are they people who can actually give up “power”? What kind of power do they have and don’t have, now, in 2019? And what kind of power do you gain as a “woke” white who can preach to others? I feel obliged to point out that 1) I acknowledged that giving money might be some kind of “relinquishing power” although such language feels overwrought — I’m not sure why that would be different in kind from other charitable giving or why it would feel oppressive and 2) you said you haven’t actually given money to BLM so it seems fairly moot. As for my personal opinion, no, equality doesn’t feel like oppression to me, hence my line of questioning. Personally, I am inclined more towards the idea of “recognition.” edit: given that someone posted a Nazi talking about “race-recognition” while I was typing this post, I have to now clarify that I meant “recognition” in the sense of Hegel or Levinas: recognition of the subject. Not some scientistic recognition of race, which we want to deconstruct anyway right? You speak like someone who really doesn't understand the concept of privilege, which is really the nature of it privilege... you don't have to worry about it because it doesn't directly affect you. If you are are white, there are a host of difficulties in life you don't have to worry about... In other words, day to day, you don't have to give these difficulties a second of thought, but minorities do, because they are affected by the difficulties. For example, as a white person, when you are pulled over by the police in America, you don't have to worry about being killed in the same way an African-American does. When you get pulled over you expect to pay a speeding ticket. When an African-American gets pulled over they have to worry they might die. The privileged person doesn't have to give a seconds thought to the latter problem, that is their privilege... To walk through life worrying about other things and thinking about things other than being killed by a cop. Let's use your word... recognition. If you "recognize" your privilege, that is the first step, Yay! After you recognize it, you can do other things to be allies for minority groups, and there are varying degrees of time and effort you can put toward that. But... by virtue of "recognizing" your privilege, you are in a sense giving up some degree of your power, because you can no longer just pretend minority groups aren't being persecuted. And it's also not enough to simply now "recognize" your privilege, you have to speak out against it... or be the person who knows and does nothing.
No, I understand all that quite well. What am I trying to get at here is what you meant by “relinquishing power” and the particular resonance of “when you’ve been privileged, equality feels like oppression.” Don’t you find it curious that “privilege” is usually described via its lack? People of color lack certain presumptions of innocence, people of color lack certain presumptions of competence, people of color lack safety in their dealings with police.
So what are we really talking about here? Giving up those presumptions? Giving up the privilege of ignoring people? If the “power” you give up is the power to “pretend” or the power not to sympathize it seems like a rather weak form of power. If that’s all it is, it’s not exactly clear how it’s related to some white people’s complaints that they aren’t particularly privileged. You might not even begrudge some redneck in West Virginia his complaints that he also lacks such presumptions (of competence, etc.), that he might even face worse presumptions, in 2019, than an upper class person of color dressed in a well-tailored suit who gets paid a bunch of money.
Ah well, fuck the rednecks. If you dress like that, and wear a rat-tail, and drive a truck, and listen to country music you probably are ignorant and incompetent anyway.
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On July 19 2019 05:32 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 04:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 19 2019 02:35 IgnE wrote:On July 19 2019 01:45 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 19 2019 00:05 IgnE wrote:On July 18 2019 15:29 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 18 2019 13:46 IgnE wrote:On July 18 2019 13:20 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 18 2019 11:35 IgnE wrote:On July 18 2019 09:42 ShambhalaWar wrote:
[quote]
You nailed it dude... I 1,000,000% agree with this.
I as that as a milk-toast, Scotts-Irish, white ass American man. About 8 years ago I was confronted with the reality of my privilege and I did not want to accept it, but eventually did, and it opened my fucking eyes.
“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
Equality requires the privileged to relinquish some of their power, most are unwilling to do that.
When I was a little kid growing up on the east coast in the semi-south I used to think my black friends would lie about all the horrible shit that happened to them, I thought, "why do they make this stuff up?" Turns out I just never had to deal with it, so it was invisible to me... that is privilege. What power have you relinquished in order to work towards equality? I would say the first step, and probably the most important is simply acknowledging that I have privilege, and giving up my ignorance about my privilege. The nature of privilege is ignorance, the privileged people don't have to consider the problems other people do. So in regard to racial privilege, in acknowledging it I would think there comes some degree of commitment in calling it out when I see rather than just letting it slide because, "I'm white and it doesn't affect me." If I'm playing a game a CSGO and I hear the N word (happens all the time), rather than just be ok with that, I can at the very least confront them on it, and report the account. There are many different versions of that... for example is I see a nazi symbol written on a wall, I can get a pen and mark over it. Donate to a charity organization that combats racial inequality, march for black lives matter. I haven't done these latter two things, but for a lot of my black friends growing up I apologized for not believe them when we were kids, and tell them I believe them now. Small steps, but if all privileged people did that, the world would change. I thought there was more to privilege than that. You don't sound like someone who's given much of any thought to the subject. What's the point of your post? Are you actually curious about my experience or just want something to rail against? The post GH made that I quoted, you sound exactly like the type of person that post describes. Equality feels like oppression for you, that true for you or you just never even gave it a thought? No, I'm actually just surprised at how little privilege you actually had to relinquish. It's almost like you didn't have much power in the first place. You really stretched there, too, with the suggestion to donate to BLM. Giving away money counts as giving away power I guess. But maybe the metaphorical language doesn't really work? Why do you think this idea that giving up privilege feels like oppression resonates with you so much when your examples of giving up privilege are so lame? I can think of something else that might better describe the experience of 1) conversion to a cause, 2) spreading the good news to blasphemers, and 3) tithing — but "relinquishing power" isn't it. I'll ask again... What is the point of your post? Does Equality feel like oppression for you? And if you don't think money is power, you are incredibly naive. I am trying to decide why this “relinquish (white) power” articulation seems so off to me. Who are the kind of people you imagine when you imagine indignant whites for whom giving up privilege feels like oppression? Are they people who can actually give up “power”? What kind of power do they have and don’t have, now, in 2019? And what kind of power do you gain as a “woke” white who can preach to others? I feel obliged to point out that 1) I acknowledged that giving money might be some kind of “relinquishing power” although such language feels overwrought — I’m not sure why that would be different in kind from other charitable giving or why it would feel oppressive and 2) you said you haven’t actually given money to BLM so it seems fairly moot. As for my personal opinion, no, equality doesn’t feel like oppression to me, hence my line of questioning. Personally, I am inclined more towards the idea of “recognition.” edit: given that someone posted a Nazi talking about “race-recognition” while I was typing this post, I have to now clarify that I meant “recognition” in the sense of Hegel or Levinas: recognition of the subject. Not some scientistic recognition of race, which we want to deconstruct anyway right? You speak like someone who really doesn't understand the concept of privilege, which is really the nature of it privilege... you don't have to worry about it because it doesn't directly affect you. If you are are white, there are a host of difficulties in life you don't have to worry about... In other words, day to day, you don't have to give these difficulties a second of thought, but minorities do, because they are affected by the difficulties. For example, as a white person, when you are pulled over by the police in America, you don't have to worry about being killed in the same way an African-American does. When you get pulled over you expect to pay a speeding ticket. When an African-American gets pulled over they have to worry they might die. The privileged person doesn't have to give a seconds thought to the latter problem, that is their privilege... To walk through life worrying about other things and thinking about things other than being killed by a cop. Let's use your word... recognition. If you "recognize" your privilege, that is the first step, Yay! After you recognize it, you can do other things to be allies for minority groups, and there are varying degrees of time and effort you can put toward that. But... by virtue of "recognizing" your privilege, you are in a sense giving up some degree of your power, because you can no longer just pretend minority groups aren't being persecuted. And it's also not enough to simply now "recognize" your privilege, you have to speak out against it... or be the person who knows and does nothing. No, I understand all that quite well. What am I trying to get at here is what you meant by “relinquishing power” and the particular resonance of “when you’ve been privileged, equality feels like oppression.” Don’t you find it curious that “privilege” is usually described via its lack? People of color lack certain presumptions of innocence, people of color lack certain presumptions of competence, people of color lack safety in their dealings with police. So what are we really talking about here? Giving up those presumptions? Giving up the privilege of ignoring people? If the “power” you give up is the power to “pretend” or the power not to sympathize it seems like a rather weak form of power. If that’s all it is, it’s not exactly clear how it’s related to some white people’s complaints that they aren’t particularly privileged. You might not even begrudge some redneck in West Virginia his complaints that he also lacks such presumptions (of competence, etc.), that he might even face worse presumptions, in 2019, than an upper class person of color dressed in a well-tailored suit who gets paid a bunch of money. Ah well, fuck the rednecks. If you dress like that, and wear a rat-tail, and drive a truck, and listen to country music you probably are ignorant and incompetent anyway.
So you could make the same statement about a "red-neck" and competence (this is your example), technically that would be true... and would be the argument of reverse racism.
It's essentially a standpoint of some white people, that they are too the victim in this. I'm not sure if that's the point you are trying to make, but you are dancing on that edge of people interpreting you that way. The problem with that is while in some sense maybe it is true, you are focusing on the most privileged group and the ways in which the might not have privilege... Therefore ignoring essentially 90% (or more) of the issue of privilege.
And for the record I still don't think you get it, but I encourage you to try a bit more to consider yourself and how much easier your life is day to day, because when you walk into a grocery store people aren't eyeing you the whole time to see if you are going to steal something.
By virtue of being born white in the US you have an exponentially disproportionate lower risk of being incarcerated in your life time than and African American person. *That alone is massive privilege. If you get stuck in that system of incarceration it will chew you up and spit you out broken. Imagine if I told you today, as of today you are 5 times more likely to be locked up than prior in your life, and you knew this to be true for a fact.
Do you think that would increase your daily stress? How would you feel the next time you get pulled over for speeding? How would your relationship to police officers change (would you still see them has here to help you)? How would your life change if you actually got locked up (maybe you lost your privilege to have your vote counted)? Maybe you got killed in prison...
https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/02/the-race-gap-in-u-s-prisons-is-glaring-and-poverty-is-making-it-worse/
This is just one example of the many you don't have to worry about because you are white, are you going to tell me that is a weak effect?
If you were born black back in the days of slavery you had a 100% chance of ending up a slave. How do you think that would have affected your life?
A weak affect?
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On July 18 2019 06:43 KwarK wrote:I think you’re not distinguishing between white as a skin colour and white as an exclusionary social group that exerts power within a multicultural society. Let’s call them white skin and white club. White skin has been around forever but white dudes hanging out with white dudes didn’t need to make a big deal about it because what’d be the point. White club is a new thing because you can’t have an exclusionary club without first finding some non whites to not let join.
The membership criteria of white club aren’t just white skin and have changed over time. It used to be white male Anglo Saxon Protestant club, for example. What GH is saying is that white club is a construct, an expression of exclusivity by the dominant group in society to justify abhorrent treatment of people not in the club. Obviously white skin is biological, but white club isn’t.
And in case anyone didn’t know, the first rule of white club is YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT WHITE CLUB.
Sorry for bringing up a post from several pages back, but I found this post interesting and I don't think it garnered wider attention.
Could you elaborate on that? To what extent do those two groups overlap? What fraction of the white skin population is part of the white club and conspires to undermine the non-white people? Roughly half of the white population votes for Democrats, so they're actively working against the white club, I'd presume. Are Asians part of the white club? If not, why are they one of the targets of affirmative action?
I get the impression that there is little overlap between the white skin and white club groups. And yet the affirmative action discrimination seems to be based on one's affiliation to the former, not the latter. To me this seems awfully similar to 20th-century antisemitism, which used the privileged position of a subset of Jews to justify discrimination of Jews in general.
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On July 19 2019 06:29 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 05:32 IgnE wrote:On July 19 2019 04:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 19 2019 02:35 IgnE wrote:On July 19 2019 01:45 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 19 2019 00:05 IgnE wrote:On July 18 2019 15:29 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 18 2019 13:46 IgnE wrote:On July 18 2019 13:20 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 18 2019 11:35 IgnE wrote:
[quote]
What power have you relinquished in order to work towards equality? I would say the first step, and probably the most important is simply acknowledging that I have privilege, and giving up my ignorance about my privilege. The nature of privilege is ignorance, the privileged people don't have to consider the problems other people do. So in regard to racial privilege, in acknowledging it I would think there comes some degree of commitment in calling it out when I see rather than just letting it slide because, "I'm white and it doesn't affect me." If I'm playing a game a CSGO and I hear the N word (happens all the time), rather than just be ok with that, I can at the very least confront them on it, and report the account. There are many different versions of that... for example is I see a nazi symbol written on a wall, I can get a pen and mark over it. Donate to a charity organization that combats racial inequality, march for black lives matter. I haven't done these latter two things, but for a lot of my black friends growing up I apologized for not believe them when we were kids, and tell them I believe them now. Small steps, but if all privileged people did that, the world would change. I thought there was more to privilege than that. You don't sound like someone who's given much of any thought to the subject. What's the point of your post? Are you actually curious about my experience or just want something to rail against? The post GH made that I quoted, you sound exactly like the type of person that post describes. Equality feels like oppression for you, that true for you or you just never even gave it a thought? No, I'm actually just surprised at how little privilege you actually had to relinquish. It's almost like you didn't have much power in the first place. You really stretched there, too, with the suggestion to donate to BLM. Giving away money counts as giving away power I guess. But maybe the metaphorical language doesn't really work? Why do you think this idea that giving up privilege feels like oppression resonates with you so much when your examples of giving up privilege are so lame? I can think of something else that might better describe the experience of 1) conversion to a cause, 2) spreading the good news to blasphemers, and 3) tithing — but "relinquishing power" isn't it. I'll ask again... What is the point of your post? Does Equality feel like oppression for you? And if you don't think money is power, you are incredibly naive. I am trying to decide why this “relinquish (white) power” articulation seems so off to me. Who are the kind of people you imagine when you imagine indignant whites for whom giving up privilege feels like oppression? Are they people who can actually give up “power”? What kind of power do they have and don’t have, now, in 2019? And what kind of power do you gain as a “woke” white who can preach to others? I feel obliged to point out that 1) I acknowledged that giving money might be some kind of “relinquishing power” although such language feels overwrought — I’m not sure why that would be different in kind from other charitable giving or why it would feel oppressive and 2) you said you haven’t actually given money to BLM so it seems fairly moot. As for my personal opinion, no, equality doesn’t feel like oppression to me, hence my line of questioning. Personally, I am inclined more towards the idea of “recognition.” edit: given that someone posted a Nazi talking about “race-recognition” while I was typing this post, I have to now clarify that I meant “recognition” in the sense of Hegel or Levinas: recognition of the subject. Not some scientistic recognition of race, which we want to deconstruct anyway right? You speak like someone who really doesn't understand the concept of privilege, which is really the nature of it privilege... you don't have to worry about it because it doesn't directly affect you. If you are are white, there are a host of difficulties in life you don't have to worry about... In other words, day to day, you don't have to give these difficulties a second of thought, but minorities do, because they are affected by the difficulties. For example, as a white person, when you are pulled over by the police in America, you don't have to worry about being killed in the same way an African-American does. When you get pulled over you expect to pay a speeding ticket. When an African-American gets pulled over they have to worry they might die. The privileged person doesn't have to give a seconds thought to the latter problem, that is their privilege... To walk through life worrying about other things and thinking about things other than being killed by a cop. Let's use your word... recognition. If you "recognize" your privilege, that is the first step, Yay! After you recognize it, you can do other things to be allies for minority groups, and there are varying degrees of time and effort you can put toward that. But... by virtue of "recognizing" your privilege, you are in a sense giving up some degree of your power, because you can no longer just pretend minority groups aren't being persecuted. And it's also not enough to simply now "recognize" your privilege, you have to speak out against it... or be the person who knows and does nothing. No, I understand all that quite well. What am I trying to get at here is what you meant by “relinquishing power” and the particular resonance of “when you’ve been privileged, equality feels like oppression.” Don’t you find it curious that “privilege” is usually described via its lack? People of color lack certain presumptions of innocence, people of color lack certain presumptions of competence, people of color lack safety in their dealings with police. So what are we really talking about here? Giving up those presumptions? Giving up the privilege of ignoring people? If the “power” you give up is the power to “pretend” or the power not to sympathize it seems like a rather weak form of power. If that’s all it is, it’s not exactly clear how it’s related to some white people’s complaints that they aren’t particularly privileged. You might not even begrudge some redneck in West Virginia his complaints that he also lacks such presumptions (of competence, etc.), that he might even face worse presumptions, in 2019, than an upper class person of color dressed in a well-tailored suit who gets paid a bunch of money. Ah well, fuck the rednecks. If you dress like that, and wear a rat-tail, and drive a truck, and listen to country music you probably are ignorant and incompetent anyway. So you could make the same statement about a "red-neck" and competence (this is your example), technically that would be true... and would be the argument of reverse racism. It's essentially a standpoint of some white people, that they are too the victim in this. I'm not sure if that's the point you are trying to make, but you are dancing on that edge of people interpreting you that way. The problem with that is while in some sense maybe it is true, you are focusing on the most privileged group and the ways in which the might not have privilege... Therefore ignoring essentially 90% (or more) of the issue of privilege.
No it’s not reverse racism. I’m not talking about a person’s of color presumptions about rednecks or even about race at all. Their being unprivileged need not be connected to race at all.
I have absolutely no idea where you pulled that “90%” number from or why you think including white redneck West Virginians in a group that is “most privileged” is an especially astute or helpful way of grouping people. The whole point of this exercise has been to point out that if you think the children of two doctors of color in 2019 who live in a major city are unambiguously less “privileged” than some white children born in West Virginia to parents who didn’t complete high school and are living in a trailer, your concept of privilege is inadequate. (To heighten the point, consider black sons of NBA players, who are vastly vastly more likely than anyone else on the planet to play in the NBA).
You haven’t mentioned “intersectionality” yet, but maybe you should pick it up.
And for the record I still don't think you get it, but I encourage you to try a bit more to consider yourself and how much easier your life is day to day, because when you walk into a grocery store people aren't eyeing you the whole time to see if you are going to steal something.
For the record, even if I thought you were a moron I wouldn’t let that opinion distract me from engaging with what you’ve actually said, and I don’t see why you should attempt to let your assumptions about me carry the argument for you either. In any case, let’s say I had never ever considered before how my experience shopping might be different than that of a person of color. Now I’ve had the epiphany: Wow! They get followed by security some times! Ok. Now what power do I have to give up to rectify that situation (even if I’m the security guard?!?)?
By virtue of being born white in the US you have an exponentially disproportionate lower risk of being incarcerated in your life time than and African American person. * That alone is massive privilege. If you get stuck in that system of incarceration it will chew you up and spit you out broken. Imagine if I told you today, as of today you are 5 times more likely to be locked up than prior in your life, and you knew this to be true for a fact. Do you think that would increase your daily stress? How would you feel the next time you get pulled over for speeding? How would your relationship to police officers change (would you still see them has here to help you)? How would your life change if you actually got locked up (maybe you lost your privilege to have your vote counted)? Maybe you got killed in prison... https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/02/the-race-gap-in-u-s-prisons-is-glaring-and-poverty-is-making-it-worse/This is just one example of the many you don't have to worry about because you are white, are you going to tell me that is a weak effect?
Yeah I know all that. I don’t see what privileges I have to give up in order for this not to happen, or how anything you’ve talked about relating to your awokening bears on this beyond the fact that you are no longer ignorant of it.
This also raises issues of boundary-drawing which your own source points out. How do we disentangle blackness from poverty or from even more difficult to capture factors like community cohesion, family structures, attitudes, etc.?
If you were born black back in the days of slavery you had a 100% chance of ending up a slave. How do you think that would have affected your life?
A weak affect?
I’ve been very careful to say “in 2019” repeatedly. I wasn’t born in the days of slavery and neither were you.
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On July 19 2019 04:46 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 04:34 NewSunshine wrote:On July 19 2019 04:21 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:About the point of those being American not loving America enough, what do you all say to this guy? Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a United States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler later became an outspoken critic of U.S. wars and their consequences. He also exposed an alleged plan to overthrow the U.S. government.
By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal (along with Wendell Neville and David Porter) and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.
In 1933, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler selected to lead a march of veterans to become dictator, similar to Fascist regimes at that time. The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot and the media ridiculed the allegations, but a final report by a special House of Representatives Committee confirmed some of Butler's testimony.
In 1935, Butler wrote a book titled War Is a Racket, where he described and criticized the workings of the United States in its foreign actions and wars, such as those he was a part of, including the American corporations and other imperialist motivations behind them. After retiring from service, he became a popular advocate, speaking at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists, and church groups in the 1930s SourceI bring it up because you don't have to hate America to want better for the nation. There's nothing anti-American about criticizing America. If anything, it shows a willingness to see the defects and argue/fight for a better outcome. Also this is quite accurate. When you're creating anything, anything at all, if you want to make it better you have to get it criticized to hell first. A functioning nation is no exception. The problem is, with the "Democrats hate America" crowd, "America" is code for "America exactly as it was", and not actually America. First you have to decipher the code, then you can spot it for the dogwhistle that it is. Just like how "traditional family values" actually means subjecting women to a life of child-rearing and servitude to men. Precisely. This man operated on 3 continents and still came back to the US to criticize the government. Doesn't make him less American all of a sudden. And it doesn't make any of the women charged by trump any less American. How many F500 companies have foreign born CEOs? How many inventions are credited to foreign born Americans(and minority Americans) that we enjoy today? Once you get away from racist beliefs and start really seeing America, not what she is, but what she can be, you will also begin to criticize it. I personally believe that women are more than capable of running the world if given the chance better than men. And I'm hoping we get some AOC Speaker or Presidency out of this in the coming years (once we accept democratic socialism as the heir to democracy).
I agree with the first part of your post. Some of the most famous inventors are actually immigrants (Einstein for example).Immigrants are also more likely to be an entrepreneur and usually make the economy more dynamic. The second part I find questionably though. Why would women be better than men? That seems to be as sexists as claiming men are better than women just the other way around.
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United States41989 Posts
On July 19 2019 06:54 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2019 06:43 KwarK wrote:I think you’re not distinguishing between white as a skin colour and white as an exclusionary social group that exerts power within a multicultural society. Let’s call them white skin and white club. White skin has been around forever but white dudes hanging out with white dudes didn’t need to make a big deal about it because what’d be the point. White club is a new thing because you can’t have an exclusionary club without first finding some non whites to not let join.
The membership criteria of white club aren’t just white skin and have changed over time. It used to be white male Anglo Saxon Protestant club, for example. What GH is saying is that white club is a construct, an expression of exclusivity by the dominant group in society to justify abhorrent treatment of people not in the club. Obviously white skin is biological, but white club isn’t.
And in case anyone didn’t know, the first rule of white club is YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT WHITE CLUB. Sorry for bringing up a post from several pages back, but I found this post interesting and I don't think it garnered wider attention. Could you elaborate on that? To what extent do those two groups overlap? What fraction of the white skin population is part of the white club and conspires to undermine the non-white people? Roughly half of the white population votes for Democrats, so they're actively working against the white club, I'd presume. Are Asians part of the white club? If not, why are they one of the targets of affirmative action? I get the impression that there is little overlap between the white skin and white club groups. And yet the affirmative action discrimination seems to be based on one's affiliation to the former, not the latter. To me this seems awfully similar to 20th-century antisemitism, which used the privileged position of a subset of Jews to justify discrimination of Jews in general.
These days all people of Northern European ancestry are in white club, but it wasn't always that way.
If we take it back to the start of the US the founders were a bunch of incel neckbeards who all got in a room and said "anyone who doesn't look like us, doesn't think like us, or is poorer than us isn't in the club". No women, no blacks, no Catholics, no poors. It's not a conspiracy as you're suggesting with the insiders conspiring to undermine the others, just the monopolizing of power. You didn't employ people outside the club in skilled trades because you already knew a guy in the club who could do it and everyone knows that everyone outside of the club sucks, etc. If you're in the club and mediocre then you can train as a physician, if you're outside of the club but amazing then you can't because everyone knows girls can't be doctors and the gatekeepers are all in the club. The business owners are in the club borrowing money from the bankers who are in the club and trading with the shipping magnates who are in the club.
That's why groups which today would be considered privileged (rich white women for example) were treated so poorly for so long (not allowed to vote etc.), they may have been white but they weren't in the club, it was pretty exclusive back then. The club monopolizes power because the club monopolizes power. Take the disenfranchisement laws I keep referencing. The chief of police and the election registrar are both in the club and as long as they're both in the club they're able to restrict the people appointing them to club members in a perfect loop.
Unfortunately it's quite difficult to completely monopolize wealth, especially when the excluded communities form their own little Ireland or whatever in Boston. If the club collectively says "no Irish", as they did, and the Irish all say "screw you guys" and make their own little place then eventually you run the risk of rich Irishmen which makes the club look bad because you can't have a club that's built on the idea that all the wealth and power is held by club members when there are outsiders with wealth and power. And so the club slowly expands, by the early 1900s rich Catholics are allowed in, as long as they're male and white. Later women are allowed in, as long as they're rich and white.
The 30s roll around and suddenly it's a difficult time to have all the rich white people dicking over everyone else all the time and there's a lot of people saying a lot of scary words like "revolution". The club can't throw open its doors entirely but what they can do is ease up on the rich requirement, while still enforcing the race requirement. By doing so they get a significant number of working class voters to effectively buy in to the system. As long as they believe that they're receiving a marginal benefit from the continuation of the status quo they'll prop it up, and it's becoming hard to prop it up without them. By this point white club is a pretty good name for it. Women and workers are allowed in. Hell, if you're rich enough you could probably even get away with being gay or Jewish, as long as you do it discreetly.
It's less exclusive than it used to be but it's still a pretty great club to be in. If you go into a bank to borrow money for a mortgage then you and the bank manager have an unofficial understanding that you're both in the club. He knows he'll have no trouble explaining why he extended a line of credit to John Smith to his underwriters because John Smith is a good club name. If you go to buy a house in a neighbourhood of club members you can rely upon being welcomed. The club is ingrained in the understanding of the world at this point, if a club member applies to be a manager alongside a non club member then it just makes sense to hire the club member, both because of your own bias and the bias of all your customers. Even if you're super progressive for the 1950s and know the club is a sham, you don't want your customers leaving. If you're in the club you have access to education, jobs, credit, investments, and resources that non members just don't have because all the people controlling those things are in the club.
The exact same still applies today. If I walk into a Porsche dealership and ask to test drive a car they're not going to mess around, they'll take a look at me and they'll recognize that I'm in the club. I look, sound, and dress like the kind of person who's in the club. It conforms to all of their internal biases, it's fine. It's the same if I go to a bank and ask for a loan, when I have to walk into a room of strangers and run a meeting, when I have an interaction with an elected official or a police officer. I'm given respect and deference because I've been born into a world where people like me get respect and deference and everyone understands that. I'm not ever going to worry that the police are going to give me a rough ride in the back of a truck because I know and they know that that kind of thing isn't done to club members. Being in the club means never having to prove your value to people. Obviously you can go the other direction, you can demonstrate that you have no value, but you've always got that great intro with your private membership.
White club isn't actively conspiring, we don't have meetings, it's the monopolization of power by the group in power through cultural conditioning.
Your presumption that Democrats are working against white club is false, as GH and MLK will tell you. Democrat strongholds are often the worst offenders when it comes to shit like school segregation which is a classic symptom of limiting access to education to club members. Democrats want all the social credibility of acknowledging privilege without any of the sweeping societal revolution needed to address it because at the end of the day being in the club is great and we'd all much rather feel bad about being in the club than close the club.
Asians aren't a homogeneous group. They're not in white club but if they're the right kind of Asian they can get honorary memberships. You're not letting the dry cleaners in but you might let in the guy who owns a chain of a hundred dry cleaners.
The overlap of white skin and white club isn't total but it's close. If your first language is Spanish, your English is heavily accented, and your last name is Gonzales then light skin isn't going to help that much. Alternatively if you're third gen Japanese American and middle class or higher than you're probably some kind of honorary member.
It's absolutely nothing like antisemitism for the simple reason that the Jews did not control all the money and power in Europe and use it to turn everyone else into a second class citizen. If you're not in the club in America you're a second class citizen. You're more likely to be arrested, you're more likely to be convicted, you're less likely to be hired for jobs, you're more likely to have your civil rights taken away, and so forth. None of that was ever true for the antisemitic ethnic Germans living in Germany.
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I'm kinda sad.. oBlade doesn't answer anymore. Silencing idiots feels better when they weep and cry. Most likely he went back home in his chamber...
Its also kinda bad for this whole topic when the obviously moral thing is just so friggin clear.. ffs. If you defend anything your administration does (or the eu that lets people drown, for that matter), your just a bad person.
Btw: those friggn irish never were white, fucking starfing morons.. the iberian master race that conquered a continent on the other side, 1a white.
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United States41989 Posts
If the Spanish wanted to be 1a white then they shouldn't have lost their empire. The hierarchy is built on power and they didn't have any.
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Fucking racist storms, i tell you... Should have invented the plane earlier.
My favorite alternate timeline to think about, what if the spanish armada "won"... The whole new world would have been Spanish and Britain/England would have sat on the Island. It's just such a clear moment in history when dominance changed...
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On July 19 2019 04:24 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 04:22 Fleetfeet wrote:
Why would the onus be on me to draw from your posting anything beyond the obvious push towards a fascist, 'white' America? I'm just going to stop right here. If this is the conclusion that you have drawn from my posting, then you're not worth my time.
I think your biggest problem, XDaunt, is that you think you're important enough to be worth anyone else's. Nobody cares about the 'hidden mysteries' of your supposedly complex political thinking.
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On July 19 2019 08:15 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 06:54 maybenexttime wrote:On July 18 2019 06:43 KwarK wrote:I think you’re not distinguishing between white as a skin colour and white as an exclusionary social group that exerts power within a multicultural society. Let’s call them white skin and white club. White skin has been around forever but white dudes hanging out with white dudes didn’t need to make a big deal about it because what’d be the point. White club is a new thing because you can’t have an exclusionary club without first finding some non whites to not let join.
The membership criteria of white club aren’t just white skin and have changed over time. It used to be white male Anglo Saxon Protestant club, for example. What GH is saying is that white club is a construct, an expression of exclusivity by the dominant group in society to justify abhorrent treatment of people not in the club. Obviously white skin is biological, but white club isn’t.
And in case anyone didn’t know, the first rule of white club is YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT WHITE CLUB. Sorry for bringing up a post from several pages back, but I found this post interesting and I don't think it garnered wider attention. Could you elaborate on that? To what extent do those two groups overlap? What fraction of the white skin population is part of the white club and conspires to undermine the non-white people? Roughly half of the white population votes for Democrats, so they're actively working against the white club, I'd presume. Are Asians part of the white club? If not, why are they one of the targets of affirmative action? I get the impression that there is little overlap between the white skin and white club groups. And yet the affirmative action discrimination seems to be based on one's affiliation to the former, not the latter. To me this seems awfully similar to 20th-century antisemitism, which used the privileged position of a subset of Jews to justify discrimination of Jews in general. These days all people of Northern European ancestry are in white club, but it wasn't always that way. If we take it back to the start of the US the founders were a bunch of incel neckbeards who all got in a room and said "anyone who doesn't look like us, doesn't think like us, or is poorer than us isn't in the club". No women, no blacks, no Catholics, no poors. It's not a conspiracy as you're suggesting with the insiders conspiring to undermine the others, just the monopolizing of power. You didn't employ people outside the club in skilled trades because you already knew a guy in the club who could do it and everyone knows that everyone outside of the club sucks, etc. If you're in the club and mediocre then you can train as a physician, if you're outside of the club but amazing then you can't because everyone knows girls can't be doctors and the gatekeepers are all in the club. The business owners are in the club borrowing money from the bankers who are in the club and trading with the shipping magnates who are in the club. That's why groups which today would be considered privileged (rich white women for example) were treated so poorly for so long (not allowed to vote etc.), they may have been white but they weren't in the club, it was pretty exclusive back then. The club monopolizes power because the club monopolizes power. Take the disenfranchisement laws I keep referencing. The chief of police and the election registrar are both in the club and as long as they're both in the club they're able to restrict the people appointing them to club members in a perfect loop. Unfortunately it's quite difficult to completely monopolize wealth, especially when the excluded communities form their own little Ireland or whatever in Boston. If the club collectively says "no Irish", as they did, and the Irish all say "screw you guys" and make their own little place then eventually you run the risk of rich Irishmen which makes the club look bad because you can't have a club that's built on the idea that all the wealth and power is held by club members when there are outsiders with wealth and power. And so the club slowly expands, by the early 1900s rich Catholics are allowed in, as long as they're male and white. Later women are allowed in, as long as they're rich and white. The 30s roll around and suddenly it's a difficult time to have all the rich white people dicking over everyone else all the time and there's a lot of people saying a lot of scary words like "revolution". The club can't throw open its doors entirely but what they can do is ease up on the rich requirement, while still enforcing the race requirement. By doing so they get a significant number of working class voters to effectively buy in to the system. As long as they believe that they're receiving a marginal benefit from the continuation of the status quo they'll prop it up, and it's becoming hard to prop it up without them. By this point white club is a pretty good name for it. Women and workers are allowed in. Hell, if you're rich enough you could probably even get away with being gay or Jewish, as long as you do it discreetly. It's less exclusive than it used to be but it's still a pretty great club to be in. If you go into a bank to borrow money for a mortgage then you and the bank manager have an unofficial understanding that you're both in the club. He knows he'll have no trouble explaining why he extended a line of credit to John Smith to his underwriters because John Smith is a good club name. If you go to buy a house in a neighbourhood of club members you can rely upon being welcomed. The club is ingrained in the understanding of the world at this point, if a club member applies to be a manager alongside a non club member then it just makes sense to hire the club member, both because of your own bias and the bias of all your customers. Even if you're super progressive for the 1950s and know the club is a sham, you don't want your customers leaving. If you're in the club you have access to education, jobs, credit, investments, and resources that non members just don't have because all the people controlling those things are in the club. The exact same still applies today. If I walk into a Porsche dealership and ask to test drive a car they're not going to mess around, they'll take a look at me and they'll recognize that I'm in the club. I look, sound, and dress like the kind of person who's in the club. It conforms to all of their internal biases, it's fine. It's the same if I go to a bank and ask for a loan, when I have to walk into a room of strangers and run a meeting, when I have an interaction with an elected official or a police officer. I'm given respect and deference because I've been born into a world where people like me get respect and deference and everyone understands that. I'm not ever going to worry that the police are going to give me a rough ride in the back of a truck because I know and they know that that kind of thing isn't done to club members. Being in the club means never having to prove your value to people. Obviously you can go the other direction, you can demonstrate that you have no value, but you've always got that great intro with your private membership. White club isn't actively conspiring, we don't have meetings, it's the monopolization of power by the group in power through cultural conditioning. Your presumption that Democrats are working against white club is false, as GH and MLK will tell you. Democrat strongholds are often the worst offenders when it comes to shit like school segregation which is a classic symptom of limiting access to education to club members. Democrats want all the social credibility of acknowledging privilege without any of the sweeping societal revolution needed to address it because at the end of the day being in the club is great and we'd all much rather feel bad about being in the club than close the club. Asians aren't a homogeneous group. They're not in white club but if they're the right kind of Asian they can get honorary memberships. You're not letting the dry cleaners in but you might let in the guy who owns a chain of a hundred dry cleaners. The overlap of white skin and white club isn't total but it's close. If your first language is Spanish, your English is heavily accented, and your last name is Gonzales then light skin isn't going to help that much. Alternatively if you're third gen Japanese American and middle class or higher than you're probably some kind of honorary member. It's absolutely nothing like antisemitism for the simple reason that the Jews did not control all the money and power in Europe and use it to turn everyone else into a second class citizen. If you're not in the club in America you're a second class citizen. You're more likely to be arrested, you're more likely to be convicted, you're less likely to be hired for jobs, you're more likely to have your civil rights taken away, and so forth. None of that was ever true for the antisemitic ethnic Germans living in Germany.
This doubles as a pretty good explanation of how colonization works too. It's very much like this throughout South America and still shifting in South Africa (white rent seekers fearing they'll be killed has moved it along a bit).
This part was so important it needs to be said twice:
Democrats want all the social credibility of acknowledging privilege without any of the sweeping societal revolution needed to address it because at the end of the day being in the club is great and we'd all much rather feel bad about being in the club than close the club.
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Democrats want all the social credibility of acknowledging privilege without any of the sweeping societal revolution needed to address it because at the end of the day being in the club is great and we'd all much rather feel bad about being in the club than close the club.
So.. What do you envision?
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United States41989 Posts
On July 19 2019 09:12 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +Democrats want all the social credibility of acknowledging privilege without any of the sweeping societal revolution needed to address it because at the end of the day being in the club is great and we'd all much rather feel bad about being in the club than close the club. So.. What do you envision?
No changes. The idea of a group in power voluntarily giving up their power isn’t realistic. You can’t expect the direct beneficiaries of racism to mobilize themselves to address it. Hell, most of them deliberately refuse to see it.
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In other words, he's just bitchin?
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On July 19 2019 09:16 Velr wrote:
In other words, he's just bitchin?
No, he's explaining to you why revolution is the only viable (though he's doubtful even that would work) option for marginalized groups and that the people shitting on it prefer to be in WHITECLUB.
Democrats condemning Trump and the like are the ones "just bitchin".
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
— Frederick Douglass
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." — JFK
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I'm watching Marianne Williamson's interview with Dave Rubin and I actually really like her.
I can see most people thinking she's a bit mad but she really schooled Rubin in a way that should be eye opening for people who watch right wing youtube thinking those guys are smart or insightful.
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EPT
