US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1718

To your first point, privilege is directly tied to race... you cannot separate the two, this is true world wide. Race has been shown throughout human history to carry favor in regard to cultural classes. And historically/generally, people with darker skin are persecuted simply for that fact.

I don't think that statement is up for debate.

"Bleaching skin" to a lighter color is a cultural phenomenon in India because there simply a skin color bias. People actually attempt to stain their skin to a lighter color so they are less dark skinned.

http://theconversation.com/bleached-girls-india-and-its-love-for-light-skin-80655

In India, it doesn't matter if you are poor or rich, if you have lighter skin you are likely to be favored by society. The same is true in America... If you are a white redneck in West Virginia, you are going to be favored in society based simply on the fact you have white skin.

That doesn't mean you won't be treated poorly based on other characteristics, such as the perception/stereotype of how people might negatively view being a "redneck," but you will for sure carry advantage in American culture for being white.

That statement is also not up for debate imo. There is a huge body of research that supports it, studies in police violence, poverty, discrimination in housing, white people getting more favorable sentences in the justice system... this list goes on.

In your example of a doctor with 2 black kids, you are looking very myopically at the fact their father was a doctor or an NBA player. Below is a recent example (there are more if you just research it) of an NBA player who was tazered by police for no good reason. If you consider an NBA player part of a privileged class of society (because of money), then it is a striking thing to note that he gets tazered... the conclusion many people draw is that it is because he was black.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/23/613657447/milwaukee-police-disciplined-for-tasing-arrest-of-nba-player

Below is a black senator who states he was pulled over 6-7 times in one year, I (not a senator, or rich, but white) have been pulled over maybe 1 time in the last 4-5 years (maybe more).

https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/13/politics/tim-scott-police-racial-profiling/index.html

My point is that despite position in class or society, African Americans face discrimination that white people don't... that occurs despite financial status. You can bet that if you are poor and African American it will happen wayyyyyy more, that if you are rich and African American.

But please take your time, and find me any example in the last decade of a white NBA player who was tasered for no good reason by a cop.

I just did a google search, "white man harassed by cop."

Every example on the page that turned up was of a black man being harassed by police or someone harassing police.

You did a great job of saying the word, "intersectionality" but don't describe at all how it contributes to your comments.

Intersectionality is important, it means to not have a myopic view in considering discrimination and abuse of power. For example, not just being black in America, but also poor and how the two dynamics interact together. Or being white and poor, there you have a mix of privilege (being white), and lack of privilege (being poor).

In your early statements you seem unable to consider both of these things being able to exist in the same space, in your comments about redneck people. It's as if you think, how can they be white poor and privileged... as if being poor negates any form of privilege from being white... That is exactly what intersectionality address imo... That both things can and do occur in the same space... you can be privilege in some ways and not privileged in others.

I'm not making my comments as a judgement toward you, I make them because you speak like someone who in my subjective opinion doesn't understand the dynamics of privilege... as a white person I try to make an effort to help other white Americans understand what their privilege is and how it affects others, and how we can consciously work with our privilege to balance the imbalance it creates in society.

I am far from the person with the most understanding or expertise in this area (many more know much more than me), but I know something and I'm trying to do something about it, rather than ignore it (even if it is just talking to you in a forum).

You weren't born in a time of overt slavery, and you didn't enslave anyone... but you absolutely were born in a culture that at one point it time was ubiquitous with the practice of slavery, and because of being born white you benefitted from the cultural imbalance that was created (and was never fully corrected) from the practice of slavery so many years ago.

The only reason you don't know that, is because people know what affects them. If you had dark skin, the bias of our culture would affect you daily, you would feel it... and be unable to ignore how shitty it made you feel. You would be likely feel depressed, tense, and probably have less social motility as a result.

As a white person you don't even have to consider it... You don't have to spend your time doing ANYTHING about it... you just get to live your life as normal, that is privilege.

African Americans don't get to do that. Their daily list of things to do includes a list of things you don't have to worry about, such as "teach my son how to talk to police in a way that doesn't get him shot."

That is a conversation you would never have with your kids because it sounds insane to say to them, but for other races of American citizens it is a very sane and potentially necessary conversation to have.

As far as disentangling poverty from color of skin or race, I think that is a phonemically good question. In my opinion, it's the result of decades old damage done by slavery. Look at the Native American culture and African American culture, two cultures extremely harmed by white culture... both were left in poverty, white culture basically hamstrung them by essentially murdering and enslaving them all.

Slaves have nothing, you set them free, they now have freedom... but still no money or home.

How do you think that affects someone's social mobility? It destroys it.

How many generations do you think it takes for a culture of people that were enslaved to get to a place of equal footing with the people that enslaved them?

Our racism continued past slavery, we are not too far from 200 years since the end of overt slavery and many of the dynamics are still at play, and the imbalance is certainly there. The concept of "reparations" was born out of this very problem... which is the idea of giving up your privilege/power (in the case of reparations is money) so that underprivileged groups can have equal footing in society.

It's as if white people said lets run a race, then as the race starts shot the African American runner in the leg and then pretended that never happened. Then the whole race we are like, "you just aren't trying hard enough man... you got to run faster if you ever want to make it to the finish line."

First step in rectifying that situation... is to own that "you" or your culture/ancestors actually shot the other runner, and that the race isn't fair... to make if fair you don't need to shoot yourself per se (which is what I think most white people fear), but you need to do something drastic.

At the very least, stop the race, nurture the shot runner, feed them for months until the wounds heal, then help them to get physical therapy and strength training... Then reschedule the race and run again if they feel fit and equal.

That's what you give up, the privilege of ignoring the problem... you have to actually exert yourself to correct the fuck up of your ancestors... you have to actually talk about the problem and acknowledge it, so that it somehow gets fixed. It is the responsibility of all white people to attend to the fuck ups of our ancestors.