So its actually NOT enough to repudiate their past racist statements? They have to join BLM?
Does that mean that Sarah Song has to join the white equivalent of BLM? Has she?
AFAICT, she is still pretty belligerent to whites and males.
I am also still not seeing the “context” of the seemingly racist tweets that make it unreasonable to criticize the tweets and call for her ouster. I keep reading that she was parodying something but the few tweet chains I have seen do not seem to support this.
As a white guy with progressive leanings, I feel like I’m in an increasingly uncomfortable position reading left wing social media. I’m supposed to walk on eggshells, police my thoughts and language for even the slightest hints of implicit bias or microaggressions. But when I ask that I be treated with just a modicum of respect in return, not have overt hostility thrown my way because of my gender and skin color, I’m guilty of “white fragility”. Empathy only goes one way.
I realize this is not the mainstream of the Democratic Party (not yet), but I’m worried what things are going to look like 20 or 30 years from now as the Sarah Jeongs and others like her gain control.
As a white guy with progressive leanings, I haven’t noticed any of that.
I’m much more worried about the people who are in control now.
I encourage you to research this more, “white fragility” isn’t an attack, it is a term to call out a conditioned response. There is no way that you and I would have had an innate understanding about the challenges that our fellow Americans experience.
I know it can be painful to address initially, but that is what the term “white fragility” actually describes. As white men we are protected in a bit of a bubble, but this is not an attack, it is a description of a challenge that we need to over come.
The problem is that minorities are often expected to avoid these topics to prevent this and to avoid us from addressing the issues of racism in a direct and useful way.
I know that this will sound like koolaid, but once you do the work and realize that “privilege” and “white fragility” are not attacks against those topics exactly it will be easier and we can move forward.
What is evil is avoiding conversations to protect ourselves from this discomfort. Unfortunately for us, we just don’t have the experience with this and tend to take it as a personal attack. Those who are subject to discrimination can’t escape it and have had a lot more time to develop coping skills.
It is not your fault that you are white, and you shouldn’t be ashamed that you are white.
It is not your fault that you are male, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of the fact you are male.
What is shameful is allowing our fellow countrymen to suffer because it is hard to work through this. The shame is not in being ignorant (which we all are) but in avoiding a hard topic because it is hard. I do have bad news, it doesn’t matter if it is race, car brands or sports teams. We will always have some in-group biases. And there will always be work to be done.
The point is that we need to get past this sensitivity, and once you do it becomes infinitely less less difficult. For people like you, or most people to be honest, who want to do the right thing the discussions will be pretty much stress free after doing this work to get past this tinge of being attacked.
When people react, like the writer in this article, they are expressing frustration about not being able to have conversations because us white men tend to react like we are being attacked, and this stress you feel reading these articles is the cause of that.
Try just applying these points when you have this feeling and see if it helps.
- Don’t assume you have an objective understanding of the experiences of minorities.
- Try to not get defensive when people try to talk honestly about their experiences.
- Consider that what you think is an abusive or divisive pov is a sign you need to work on the previous.
- Don’t recenter the conversation around you or try and bring up topics like reverse racism. Take the time to understand what they are saying.
- Embrace and expand on uncomfortable exchanges, seek to learn more.
- Don’t dismiss someone based on emotional outbursts or complaints, consider that may be the only way they think they can be seen. Often being helpful and friendly isn’t an option for them like it is for us.
- Related to the previous, give people the benefit of the doubt. Dismissing someone just helps us be complicit in the existing system that causes the oppression even if we are well meaning.
We all inherited this shit show and for good or bad we just happen to have ended up on the side that gets the benefits and also blinders to the fact that we get these benefits.
I am far from perfect, but that doesn’t matter because that is not what is expected of us. We just need to ‘man up’ and confront these problems which exist in large part due to our predecessors being too weak to do this themselves.
I am pretty sure that you and I and the rest of the country can protect future generations from this pain and discomfort if we are willing to sacrifice a bit of our own comfort to move past this.
I know that it can be frustrating, but if you are passionate about equality a bit of work will show that really this is really just about being empathetic.
TLDR, better written version.
Don’t buy the hype from the right, this has nothing to do with giving up rights or being feminized, it is 100% about actively working to equality for all people.
There is no “white guilt” or “cuckolding” required or expected of you. But it will take some work to realize that and to build the emotional tools to do so.
I’m going to be lazy and ask where people in this thread complained about being “feminized” or “cuckolded” because I control-f’ed for these and couldn’t find then in the last two pages, although perhaps I was not looking hard enough or enough pages back.
Those are two very common insults that are pointed at men on the left. If you want an example just google for “Fox News” and Tantaros
Here are terms that the alt-right uses
Does that help or are you arguing that men who stand up for equal rights don’t have these attacks directed at them often? Because I can start posting tons of links to stories if you wish.
It seems unnecessary to caution people in this thread against feeling that way when it seems no one has said they did.
Between the term “White Privilege” and “White Fragility” it is almost as if the people coming up with these terms choose the least palatable terms from a white person’s perspective. It invites defensiveness.
Telling white people who make reasonable sounding statements to “check their privilege” or to accuse any white person complaining about discrimination against whites of “White Fragility” makes these terms weapons used by some people to silence their opponents.
That’s exactly right. Defer to me, a Hispanic, on these issues going forward, please.
I’ll pos my consultation rates and hours shortly.
On issues related to the experience and challenges of Hispanic people in America, I, for one, certainly would not challenge you or any other Hispanic American’s take on it.
So, now they have a small, purely rhetorical taste of how it feels on the other side. It’s supposed to be uncomfortable. To make the person pause and think, “wait, am I helping reinforce this?” and not just dismiss it because he knows HE is not meaning ill.
I’m not sure that makes much sense. Unlike being black in America, being Hispanic in America doesn’t necessarily mean you have significant experience of discrimination.
A lot of Hispanic people are white. Many come from a family history of privilege, even if that privilege was being in the upper class in a less wealthy country. That’s quite different from the experience of people who are racialized in America whether they like it or not. Ted Cruz gets to be Hispanic when it suits him.
I’m not white but…
Really? Because some of Sarah Jeong’s comments seem to vilify white people and men. And white men.
Tinge?
#cancel white people
white men are bullshit
Oh man. It’s sick how much joy I get from being cruel to old white men
Just a tinge, right?
I’m still waiting for the “context” that makes all this OK. I’m waiting for the context that makes calling for her to get fired unreasonable.
Dude, you ARE being attacked. Some of them are bending you over, and hate fucking you up the ass and telling you that it wouldn’t hurt as much if you lubed up and spread your cheeks. Just meet them halfway by lubing up and spreading your cheeks man, otherwise you are being kinda racist.
Objective facts exist.
Human dignity exists.
Your dignity is no more important than mine.
We should strive for a society where we do not have to choose between the two.
It doesn’t mean I can’t disagree – I’m just not going to tell a Hispanic person that they’re wrong about something specifically related to being Hispanic in America. Just like I’m not going to tell Ben Carson that I think he’s wrong about the effects and extent of anti-black racism in America. I do find Ta-Nehisi Coates’s arguments far, far more convincing than Carson’s, but if I were speaking to Carson, the most I’d say is something to the effect of “that’s contrary to my understanding, based on XYZ”.
It’s kind of like how I’m not going to tell a pilot that they’re wrong about some pilot-related thing – they inherently know more about piloting than a non-pilot like me, even if there’s a chance that a pilot might at some point be wrong about a piloting fact.
So you’re saying that this makes it OK or that the insult is an intentional teaching device to instruct wypipo on how it feels to have hurtful words used against you?
These two terms are so misused by people in predictable ways that the misunderstanding of these terms have become more common than the understanding of them.
White fragility has basically come to mean any time wypipo have their feelings hurt by anti-white racism.
Well, maybe that’s accurate. Why do you care if some person is making fun of white people? Does it affect your life? Does it reinforce the oppressive hold POC have on white people? Do you think other people hear that and think “Yeah! I’m gonna keep whitey from this job that I hire for?”
I empathize with the idea that some people do not have the same access to be heard as I am and that sometimes that can result in bursts of anger and frustration.
And in the case of here I actually went and looked at all of the misogynistic bullshit she was getting even before her first tweet.
Funny that whole lecture then you tell me how I should feel, splaining to me how I am being oppressed.
Some of us just don’t take it personally when oppressed groups aren’t silenced into polite obedience.
Damuri Ajashi:
Care to address why both the
Paper’s statement
And her apology
Do not match my above claims?