I’ve watched alot of her videos but I dont see any that propose solutions nor do they talk about all the people out there who are working to make a difference. This is why I propose back to the original OP she would say instead “raise your hand if you are doing something to counter racism and would like to share it”.
And the fact is every business I have worked for already has employees taking racial sensitivity and awareness courses. I dont think hers are any better.
The only solution to racism to to make people aware of it. To make people aware of not only the racism in others, but in themselves as well.
Racism cannot be fought when people question the premise of its very existence. It cannot be addressed when people say that racism didn’t exist until Obama was elected.
Racism cannot be fought when people think that the existence of scholarships meant for people of color means that white people have a disadvantage. Racism is not going anywhere when people substitute personal anecdotes for data.
Racism will absolutely exist as long as businesses have to require their employees to take a racial sensitivity and awareness class that they will complain about and mock later. Racism will be around as long as people consider Elliott’s work to be summed up as no more than a employer mandated sensitivity class.
The first step in addressing racism is to acknowledge there is a problem. As we can see by many responses in this thread, we are still working on that first step.
Is there something that you are doing to counter racism that you would like to share?
You haven’t seen any all encompassing solutions to racism because she is still stuck on step 1 - educate and inform people as to how they are knowingly or unknowingly involved with a system that disadvantages others.
And looking at the responses of many of the sensitive white souls posting in this thread, we are a long, Long, LONG way off from being ready to even discuss what should happen in step 2.
I wish the only personal problem I had with racism in America was an oversensitivity to the word “privilege.”
Why do some white people not understand how much of privilege it is to be able to wallow in semantics while others continue to hold the shit end of the stick, hoping things will change for the better.
All the shitty goings-on in 2020 are really making me hate America more than I ever imagined possible.
I think the best first step for these people would be to accept that they don’t get to pick the words this time.
Because we don’t have to. No one can make us. Because of our privilege.
It truly does not matter what word you use, it is the concept that offends. If you can come up with a word that doesn’t mean that white people are treated favorably in this society, then it may be accepted, but only because it doesn’t actually mean anything.
If we say that black people have a disadvantage, then we are “making excuses”. If we say that white people are privileged, then we are attacking white people for being white. Ultimately, either they do not know, do not care, or actively desire that black people are treated poorly. At this point, only the willfully ignorant do not know.
In our school system AP classes are open to more because in a lot of high schools there wouldn’t be enough gifted students to take them.
I was on the board of a support group for parents of gifted kids for a long time. Mostly Asian. White parents in general didn’t seem to give a crap about getting their kids counted as gifted mostly because their privilege made them think their kids would do fine just coasting.
I was on an advisory committee to create criteria to select a new principal, and when I suggested support for academics should be number one, the other white parents looked at me like I was crazy. Sports was a lot more important.
[quote=“k9bfriender, post:222, topic:913927, full:true”]
Is there something that you are doing to counter racism that you would like to share?
[/quote]Lets see, I try and help my black coworkers move into other jobs. I treat them as equals in both good and bad feedback. I work with scouts and disabled persons.
So what do YOU do?
Sports in schools is a totally different topic.
You REALLY think most white people dont care?
Hmmmm…OK, whatever
Black people have some disadvantages, we agree. Primarily because they started off less equal in this country, upon foundation.
Excuses are only excuses when they are used to excuse any and all ill or woe that the black population encounters as someone else’s fault. And currently that is exactly what is going on, instead of possible problems that the black culture may currently have. I am not saying that black people are inherently bad or different but the culture of black Americans is different than African black people. Entitled, like a big portion of the US.
No one is entitled to a good life, you work for it. And I know this is possible because you see people of all stripes. colors, races that do break poverty cycles and claw their way up the financial ladders to success. It is usually those with strong familial support (2 parent families)
So, in my eyes, the black population needs to work on the problems affecting a BIG, disproportionate segment of the population, as well as work to get the things that they need to help themselves. Racism is already illegal in this country, keep working to completely eradicate it and you will find plenty of help.
Not all the woes that are affecting the black population here in the states is to blame on racism. The things that can be changed or worked upon from the inside absolutely need to be worked upon within the black community. Changing those disproportionate numbers would go a LONG way.
As I’ve been saying to Ashtura, those words are synonymous. If the system grants you an advantage over others, it is giving you a privilege. I’m not sure where the disconnect is in appreciating that basic fact.
Not if it is less of a disadvantage. That’s not what people use the word to mean. In a system, for instance, where everyone is liable to be randomly slapped for just walking on the sidewalk, while some people are liable to be beaten up or worse, the first people are not privileged by the situation. No one in their right mind would choose it.
That’s not as true for the economic sphere, because the advantage is so great that it is likely to overwhelm the inefficiencies and costs of maintaining inequality. There, I will grant, it simply sounds tone-deaf rather than being inaccurate, sort of like using an outdated-but-not-completely-racist term for someone’s ethnicity, even if the extent to which institutional inequalities trump costs is debatable.
Let’s say we’re in a prison, as prisoners. Every day prisoners are subjected to five minutes of slapping. But prisoners who exhibit good behavior after a year don’t get this punishment.
Wouldn’t you say those prisoners have earned a privilege? They are in essence privileged over the prisoners who do get slapped. Even though they are still prisoners.
So I disagree with you that people don’t use privilege in this way. We frequently speaking of "privilege’ in this way. If you have “privileges” in an institutional setting, that means you can do things that aren’t given by default to others in that institution. In another setting, those privileges might seem like punishments. But in that setting, they are advantages.
We’re all familiar with the golden child (not the movie, but the concept).
The golden child is the one kid in the family that gets spoiled. They can never do anything wrong. They get away with murder. They always get whatever they want for Christmas.
Does the existence of a golden child in a family necessarily mean their siblings are abused? No. Maybe they are just treated “normally”. They don’t get spoiled. Their wrongs are pointed out to them, but not in a mean way. They are punished when they do wrong, but the punishments are always fair and reasonable. They often get what they want for Christmas, but not always. Sometimes they get socks and underwear. They get a bike instead of a pony.
Nonetheless, we can still speak of the golden child as having more privilege than the non-golden child. Because in the context of that family, they have more privilege. It doesn’t matter that there’s a golden child somewhere else who gets spoiled even more. All that matters is what is happening in that family. In that family, one child is being treated differently than the other children. And the other children have every right to be offended and resentful, despite being well-cared for in an objective sense. Humans are programmed to rebel against the lop-sidedness against them. You can lecture them all day long on how they too can get “golden child” treatment by just working harder. But as long as they have to work harder than the golden child to get what he or she has, they are going to be upset about it. And that feeling will undermine their ability to succeed–the same way that knowing your opponent in a board game is a cheater makes you not want to take the game too seriously.
Monstro, I have enjoyed your postings on this subject. In so much as I can see how some people do hold privilege, especially the well to do. But privilege of skin color, I still have trouble seeing what can be done about it. It is already illegal to have an advantage given to a white person due to skin color (except in reverse that isn’t true as AA, and college applications point out to us)
However, I can see that AA is an attempt at leveling a playing field that may be mostly level today but is slanted against those who started further down the slope. I am mostly ok with AA as a concept but I am entirely unsure of where that line starts or ends. I don’t want AA (or legislation like it) to be the way things get “fixed”.
In your honest opinion, I have only two questions:
They are not “privileged by the situation” but they experience a privilege that the other people do not. Being slapped is not a privilege, but not being beaten is.
Some people experience a baseline of X. Others experience a baseline of Y that is appreciably “better” than X. They experience Y not because they earned it, but because of things outside of their control. That reflects a privilege.
Again, this is common usage of the word privilege.
Why are you focused on what theb"black community" can do? What about the “white community”? We white people control the government and the media. We control the message. Why aren’t we doing anything? We could:
Fund impoverished schools at a much higher level than affluent schools, so that they could face their challenges
Quit exposing everyone, white, black, and brown, to constant messaging that black people are violent and angry and dangerous
Construct social systems that don’t give a pass to racist behavior to preserve social cohesion. Use social pressure to relieve, not reinforce, white supremacy.
I could go on for DAYS about things the "white community " could do to make things more equitable. It’s like we dug a huge whole, flung black people down it, and now we are shouting at them “You down there. Any ideas how you could get out?”
We aren’t talking about the white community because we aren’t talking about them.
Why would we, are the white people complaining about systemic racism, over representation among the poverty stricken, unwed mothers or incarcerated people ?
Might as well ask why we aren’t talking about the moon.
White people can HELP, but the black community can also help and since it is happening to THEM, wouldn’t you expect them to want to do the things that would better themselves?