Are they in sackcloth and ashes? No? Then yes, they have.
There’s nothing “twisted” about it, and the comparison to original sin is odious. “Sin” is made-up bullshit used for social control. White privilege and the ongoing legacy of white supremacism is all-too-real.
Me and Jesus …
I’ll have you know some of my best friendssubordinates are White…and I make legal decisions for my White wife on occasion. She has yet to complain.
Earned experience, probably. But “target” is a loaded word.
A qualified ‘yes’ - of course, that depends on them correctly reasoning as to motivations and historic background. If they just ascribe it to Blacks being congenitally violent, that’s not reasoning. I don’t think White supremacy stems from White biology, for example.
You link to an article that suggests we listen to the stories and circumstances of individuals. What about it is in opposition to my suggestion that we should “treat individuals as individuals”? Implicit in that is an understanding of the totality of a persons experience i.e. ethnicity, gender, sex, sexuality, class, religion, politics, education, height, weight, disabilities, medical history…etc. It all matters in different ways to different people. Any of those factors (or complex combination thereof) may turn out to be the most important or most impactful for that individual. I understand the attraction of labelling and stereotyping, especially for outward appearance, I just don’t think ultimately it is helpful.
I believe there is no suitable destination that doesn’t require us to subscribe to that point of view. It may not be sufficient on its own but it is absolutely necessary. It is a founding principle. I said in my previous post that laws and society need also to be based on enacting that principle.
Clearly we didn’t read the same article. The one I linked to says " One objective is to move away from thinking of racism solely as views and acts committed at the individual level, and instead a system of moving parts."
Perhaps you can quote where it says “listen to … individuals”? Because “we have to listen to the voices of Black folks, other people of color, and other marginalized folks broadly in all of our spaces.” is not it.
I don’t care what you believe. I do know you’re telling me how to best overcome racism, and I’m about up to here being whitesplained how to struggle against racism when I’ve been doing that my whole damn life.
I live in Asheville, a city that just voted to provide reparations to a black community. Asheville, in the 1950s, had thriving black neighborhoods. We built an interstate bypass through some of the largest, displacing dozens (hundreds?) of families. In the 1960s, we had an amazing black high school, with more teachers with masters degrees than any other school in the state, white or black. During integration, we shut down the black high school, ended its champion marching band and other programs, and a lot of the black staff lost their jobs. In the 1970s, we had a thriving black business district. Urban renewal meant tearing down much of that district and replacing it with parking decks that served mostly white-owned businesses.
So, yeah: in June, city council voted for reparations.
I got a survey last week about how we should aesthetically improve the interstate expansion, an expansion that’s going to run right through a majority-black neighborhood.
Please don’t tell me that these issues are in the past.
and? I neither commented on nor disagree with that particular comment.
I disagree, I think that sentence is perfectly relevant. note the part about “other marginalized folks broadly”. Clearly that points to a consideration of other factors than just race. You may not read it that way. That is up to you.
And it is terrible that you’ve had to do that and your worldview has clearly and understandably been coloured by that experience. I just fail to see how continuing to perpetuate prejudice or identify politics on either side actually helps. I’ve seen no evidence that it does.
An anecdote. In my own business we made a conscious decision some years ago to completely revamp the way in which we wrote our job descriptions when hiring. The aim of this was to make the language as neutral and as open as possible so that we widened the net as much as possible. We purposefully wanted as many good applicants as possible and we wanted them from as many varied backgrounds as we could get. New ideas, new ways of thinking, external influences. It was also carefully worded and carefully sifted to ensure that names, ages, ethnicity, sex etc. were completely blinded to us so that when we called in people for interview it was on the basis of talent and potential alone. Once in for interview there begins a rigorous process of understanding and measuring the individual, Prejudice is removed as much as possible. By reducing the possibility of systemic prejudices of all kinds as much as possible and focusing on the totality of the individual we ended up with a rich and varied pool of applicants.
“Treat individuals as individuals” is a disagreement with that comment
When have I ever said only race should be a consideration. I’ve quite specifically used an example of considering race and context, more than once.
And “broadly” is where individualism goes out the window.
Once again - it’s not prejudice if it’s based on reason and experience.
And “identity politics” is not what I practice. I’m all about that intersectionality.
You want a biscuit for acting like a decent human being? Have yourself a rich tea. But what was the point of that? I’ve nowhere advocated discrimination based on … anything. So what are you countering?
All I’m saying is Black people disliking whiteness is not racism, and it’s not prejudice. And being “colourblind” or “treating everyone as individuals only” is convenient erasure from a position of privilege.
If I said, “white people disliking blackness is not racism, and it’s not prejudice”, would you agree with that statement? If not, what makes the former true and the latter false?
I’m wondering if there is logical reasoning behind your statement, or whether you are simply parroting the mantra that, for some reason, Black people cannot be racists.
I disagree, we clearly are not reading it in the same way
I disagree, what you do is prejudice (thinking that you have justification for such prejudice does not absolve you), and if you are truly all about intersectionality then in order to do it justice and not just in a superficial and simplistic way you’d have to consider all the ways in which all the myriad factors regarding a person may intersect. Such a web becomes very complicated and tangled very quickly and ends up at the point I was making, i.e. that it is the totality of factors and influences of the individual that matters.
So you do agree that treating people as individuals is the decent thing to do?
Disliking someone due to the colour of their skin is racism.
And the word “only” doesn’t belong in that quote. Firstly because I didn’t say it (and I carefully stated that treating people as individuals is necessary but not sufficient, not sure how much clearer that could be). Secondly, “only” seems a curious choice of words seeing as fully treating people as individuals means considering.
“Whiteness” is a system, not a skin color. Just the words, when referring to race, “white” and “black” are, about this system, not about skin colors (quite clearly, no humans’ skin tone is actually white or black). “Whiteness” relegates non-“white” people to a position of inferiority/subservience/etc. “Whiteness” reinforces stereotypes that hammer home the supposed necessity and rightness of these relative positions. It happens consciously and unconsciously, and we’re all affected by it whether we want to be or not. We can pretend that this doesn’t exist, or doesn’t influence us, and that we can somehow treat people only as individuals… but in such a biased society as ours, this is a fantasy.
Saying that we must always be aware of how we might be affected by the environment we grew up in is a huge leap from implying that, by simply existing, one believes in “the supposed necessity and rightness” of one’s race one has been thrust into.
So, saying that you dislike whiteness, and at the same time saying that people you have labelled as white can never be rid of their whiteness, you are saying that you will always inherently dislike aspects about these people.
I don’t think this term can be rescued from these associations. I think it will always smack of irrevocably labeling people.
Quite frankly, I don’t care what some child of privilege thinks is and isn’t prejudice.
(…and cue the “You don’t know me…” bullshit…)
I do. Such as not wearing sackcloth and ashes…
When it comes to hiring decisions? It’s a decent thing to do.
Practicing affirmative action would be more decent, of course.
I said whiteness, not White.
So it is OK to judge people based on their group membership? Or isn’t it?
Because I’ve been quite clear that it’s not just skin colour I’m judging, it’s skin colour + enjoying the benefits of white supremacy, and yet you seem to think that stands in contrast to your own stance.
I think a lot of white people have told themselves a “just so” narrative: white people are racist but so are black people! And the dark history of racism in the US is a story of two parties trying to come to terms with their hatred and mistrust of each other. Wilkerson’s conceptualization of American racism as really being a caste system challenges this story. One way it does this is by taking hate out of the discourse.
Where on earth could I have got the impression you were talking about people who are black and people who are white?
So at least one of us has been talking about skin colour. That much is clear from my posts and your responses but only now do you take the opportunity to suggest that it is not about skin colour?