It’s a plain fact. That I should have to explain it, sad. But still fact.
Donald? Is that you??..
See, you say words like “explain” and “fact” but you offer neither, and I remain unconvinced. Perhaps opinionated assertions are no substitute for cogent argument?
It’s the central point of disagreement. Consider: When I fly, I fly Southwest. Or, if a different airline, still coach. Oprah flies 1st class - assuming she flied commercial. (My guess is she charters a plane, or owns one.) I’ve got some disc problems in my back, but I can’t afford to fly 1st class. Sometimes it takes a couple days to recover, if my back is acting up.
Isn’t Oprah’s wealth a privilege? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a plane to yourself, to fly anywhere you wanted to go?
Suppose I went to Switzerland (I’ve never been). I wouldn’t have gone into whatever store Oprah shopped. I’d know just from looking I couldn’t afford anything. If, for some reason, I had, and an assistant said I couldn’t afford something, I’d believe her. I wouldn’t have asked twice.
If I had asked twice, and she’d still refused - or even three times - my experience wouldn’t be news. Because no one would care.
My friends might be interested that I’d gotten to go to Switzerland. But my handbag story - assuming I’d gone to the store - would not have been interesting. I have plenty of friends who can’t afford a plane ticket, much less to Europe. I am privileged that I can afford to fly - at all. Forget about first class. (I did get bumped to first class - may years ago. It was awesome.)
Now Oprah, on the other hand, could have bought the damn store. Or she could have said, “Look, I can buy this store. I promise you I can afford the bag.” And the assistant would have handed it to her.
You’re holding wealth constant and only looking the effects of race. But try holding race constant, and then consider the effects of wealth. Try it, and consider the results.
Try just considering the lives of the assistant and of Oprah. Who is better off?
Consider a clerk in a store in America, who’s never even been to Europe. How much sympathy should she be required to summon for someone who’s trying to buy a bag that’s worth more than her annual salary?
Is it possible the assistant has said the same thing to any number of white people, before she said it to Oprah? Is it possible that any one of their complaints - assuming any of them made one - make the news?
FWIW, the sales assistant has a different take on the encounter:
Is it possible Oprah was looking for racism where it didn’t exist?
Congratulations. You’ve just destroyed your own demographics argument:
Demographically, rich people have a better life experience than poor people.
Demographically, minorities are discriminated against more often than majorities.
Anecdotally, a black rich woman can have a negative experience in a high end shop.
Yes, absolutely, and I have no idea where you got the idea that this wasn’t the case.
But you literally mentioned racism in your post. “Telling people they’re not tolerant enough or getting into games of I Am More Tolerant Than You is counter-productive and turns off people like me who agree racism is bad and everyone should be treated equally”, to snip out the part in question. If it’s the campaigns part you object to, I can get that, but you did pick out racism in particular. And you were responding in the first place to someone talking about not just that 97% of people, but specifically on the issue on racism.
Ok, so what is the result of you being turned off like this? That you become annoyed? I can certainly see how that would be… well, annoying, and I can sympathise with that, but I don’t see that this is a matter that’s a big trouble.
For real. I can’t figure out what he thinks he’s arguing.
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A wealthy straight white male can go into nearly any business in the United States, Canada, or Europe and get good service.
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A poor straight white male will have a harder time.
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A wealthy gay white male will have a harder time.
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A wealthy straight black male will have a harder time.
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A wealthy straight white female will have a harder time.
Which of groups 2-5 will have the hardest time? Depends on the business: a car dealership may be hardest for 2 and 5, a Christian bookstore may be hardest for 3, a retail shop may be hardest for 3. But 1 has the easiest time in almost all of them.
Go down another level:
- A poor gay white male is gonna have a harder time than 2 or 3 in almost any business.
- A wealthy gay white female is gonna have a harder time in more businesses than 3 and 5
- A poor straight black male is gonna have a harder time in most businesses.
and so on.
Pointing out that poor white dudes might have a harder time on an airplane than wealthy black women completely misses how things, and I know I’m gonna trigger some people here, intersect.
What is the point though? You just said in long form that lots of factors come into play. I may just have to invent the app that let’s people literally “check their privilege” from a smartphone. I am not sure if it will be better to have a low score or high score but it will remove any ambiguity when people argue about who has had it worse.
Nobody gives a shit who has it worse most of the time. That’s a straw man invented by people who are uncomfortable admitting that maybe they didn’t earn everything that they have, who are uncomfortable admitting that their opinion isn’t free of social context. invent whatever you’d like; there are a lot of rich white conservatives who are constantly seeking a way to dismiss the concept of privilege, and they’ve got serious disposable income and will buy your mocking app. But all it shows is that, when people tell you to listen more, you’re choosing to listen less insetad.
Many minorities or disadvantaged people are put in a no-win bind when it comes to privilege.
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Don’t complain about it, and just endure in silence. That might get you labeled as a “good one.”
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Complain about it, and get labeled as a race/gender/religion/etc. complainer, often people who will dismiss your complaint within seconds or milliseconds of “Oh, this again?”
You really can’t win, at times, in that situation. Sometimes you can only spread the message anonymously.
I’ve found that the most pervasive and deep-rooted prejudice/privilege is in the area of dating and relationships. On this issue, even many folks on the political left will either 1) Deny that wealth/race/appearance etc. privilege plays a role in dating and relationships, or 2) Condone it and say that it’s OK.
Yes. Didn’t I make this quite clear? Undoubtedly Oprah experiences some privileges that we (and other non-rich people of all races) don’t. Oprah probably also experiences some negative behavior and unfair treatment that we don’t, just by being a woman and by being black. I’m not claiming that we are more privileged than Oprah in all situations.
A rich white woman probably experiences even more privileges than Oprah, and a rich white man probably even more.
It’s possible. I doubt it --most black people understand and can identify anti-black racism far, far better than most white people, just as someone who walks through Central Park every day for 30 years probably understands Central Park better than someone who’s visited it 5 times in 30 years. Most people from any group with bigoted beliefs don’t know that they have them.
But this instance of Oprah has little to do with my larger point – wealth can be a privilege, but it doesn’t necessarily overcome each and every difficulty and instance of unfair treatment that can arise from being a woman, or black, or gay, or any other category. In general, a wealthy black person will have more privilege than a poor black person. As to whether a wealthy black person has more privilege than a poor white person, I’d say it depends on the situation. But considering how few truly wealthy black people there are in America, relatively speaking, this comparison is not particular important as far as understanding privilege. When it comes to day-to-day stuff – “average Joe” stuff – for most Americans (who aren’t wealth), race, gender, sexual orientation, and other categories, play the largest roles when it comes to privilege and unfair treatment.
I don’t know anyone who fits #1, and few who fit #2. Dating and relationships can’t be managed by governmental policy (and well they shouldn’t), so the best we can do for unfair treatment is endure. Talking about them is fine – it really is unfair, in the broad sense, that even aside from attractiveness, certain groups (such as Asian men and black women, cited most commonly in the stuff I’ve read about online dating) are considered less desirable. But I know individuals from both groups who have met people online and formed relationships, so it’s indeed possible. I might even suggest that folks from these groups consider getting together…
There’s always folks out there to meet. For anyone without serious disfigurement, or some similar extreme social or appearance handicap, there will be people that will go out with you if you keep looking.
I think **iiandyiiii **and some others have put it best. Sure, there is no one-size-fits-all answer, but on the whole, some people will have it easier than others.
Trying to compare a rich black person with a poor white person just muddles up the debate. You have to filter those out for a fair comparison. Is a poor white person better off than a poor black person? That’s a better comparison.
I think gender is much murkier than race on this issue, though. On the whole, being of Race X is a pretty evenly-spread advantage or disadvantage, across a wide range of situations. But with gender it’s much harder.
There are actually a considerable number of situations in which a woman is at an advantage over men, whereas there are relatively few situations where a black person has it better than a white person. For instance, women probably have it much easier in a career at a daycare center, or a babysitter, etc. whereas men might be perceived as a potential sex predator in those situations (there was even a situation a few years ago where some airlines banned men from sitting next to children they weren’t related to, on airplanes.)
FWIW, when I got hired as an elementary school teacher, I was given an immediate $500 (IIRC) signing bonus for being a man willing to teach at a high-needs school. I definitely benefited from affirmative action, and eventually had to tell a couple of co-workers to knock it off with the jokes about how I was an affirmative action hire because it was getting annoying.
It’s terribly annoying and turns me off supporting
I went to a “Meet the candidates” forum for the last election, because there were two candidates in particular who seemed like they’d be worthwhile voting for and I wanted to hear their views in more detail.
One of the two potentials stood up and began his introduction with “I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land…” and immediately lost my vote, although they had sensible answers to questions and was knowledgeable on relevant issues.
The other potential candidate didn’t begin his introduction with a bunch of touchy-feely nonsense and also had sensible answers and was knowledgable on relevant issues, so he got my vote.
The critical thing here is the candidate didn’t lose my vote for supporting Aborigines - like I said, they got an extraordinarily shitty deal in the past and still face a lot of very real challenges today - but for engaging in touchy-feely bullshit as a form of virtue signalling.
Fine, if you want to keep writing long, joyless, pedantic posts irrelevant to the topic of the thread about your problem with me, go right ahead.
You’ve given a useful example with your two sensible politicians, so hopefully I can offer a loose hypothetical too. Would you ever not support a group or politician looking to work to stamp out racism, where you otherwise would, because they engage in the kind of behaviour you’re talking about here?
That’s it? That’s all they said, and immediately, they lost your support? That seems… remarkable to me, frankly. You’re that annoyed by just that line that you immediately rejected supporting a sensible and knowledgeable person? It’s a dealbreaker?
I suppose the obvious next question would be; to what extent would the other candidate have to be less sensible in answering or less knowledgeable for you to “overlook” the first candidate’s faux pas as regards you? I know it’s not a fine line that can be exactly described, but how much more foolish or ignorant would the second candidate have to have been for you to reconsider the first again?
Beyond that, I would imagine that being two candidates running against each other, they had differing policies.
That’s some very poor quote snipping.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
If you’d said something like, “Based on my experience, it’s a plain fact that from among the people I have met…” and then carried on your paragraph, and likely you’d be fine. But you did not; you took your personal experience, and based upon it made some rather broad claims about the “typical American” and society, what dominates the academic world, media, and “a few other places”. As well, of course, as generalising to non-liberal-enclavites, too, with that “that’s the impression those on the outside get”.
To sum up; my problem with you is not that you were claiming that your personal experiences were not true for everyone. It’s that you don’t apply that reasoning; you took your experience, and based upon it and it alone, made some big claims about society.
[/QUOTE]
As you can see from context (really, you’re going to snip to five words?) my objection was to your generalisations on the topic of the thread.
Unlike, for example;
[QUOTE=ITR Champion]
Which reminds me that every time I post (by which I mean a great many times when I post) in this forum, you show up with this type of pointless nitpicking. Such posts never make any actual contribution to the topic of the thread, which is why I ignore them. No one else seems to care about them either, and I’m really not sure why you do it.
[/QUOTE]
Your beam; you may wish to remove it.
It’s a dealbreaker when there’s another sensible candidate who isn’t engaging in virtue signalling, yes.
There’s no reason to acknowledge the traditional owners of land when none of the people living in that area now are descendents of those traditional owners. You don’t acknowledge the previous owner of your car every time you get in it, or the previous owner of a shirt you might have got from the op shop every time you put it on.
Doing so tells me the person is swayed by political correctness, “approved” causes and might lean a bit to the bad kind of left politically too - basically, not someone I want representing me in parliament.
There’s a lot to take into account when deciding who to vote for, so it’s hard to give a definitive answer there. I’m not going to vote for an outright racist “Straya First, All Those Foreigners Can GTFO!”-type, or a super-religious candidate, nor am I going to vote for a member of the Green party or a fellow traveller. Nor am I going to vote for “All those smelly poor people can get stuffed” ultra-right wing type either.
There’s almost always more than two candidates in an electorate too - I’d discounted the types above before narrowing my likely choices to the two more-or-less middle of the road candidates.
…kia ora Martini. Talofa lava.
To everyone else: Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa.
Did that offend you?
As you are well aware New Zealand is a bi-cultural society. Maori culture is ingrained in our way of life. Our national anthem starts with a Maori language version. If you are a visitor to somewhere you might have to sit through a pōwhiri, and at the end you will hongi with others. A meeting might start with Karakia. An important occasion might spark a spontaneous waiata. If you represent your school at sports, you might perform the haka.
My dad is Samoan. My mum is Ngāpuhi. My whakapapa is important to me.
I am glad that I grew up in a strong bi-cultural nation where the rights of the tangata whenua are enshrined in our national document, the Treaty of Waitangi. I own my own business: and I’ve been running it for six years. I have been successful. I am proud of my heritage and I am not afraid to embrace it. And if I do embrace it I will not get punished for it.
But it is a lot harder for my brothers and sisters over in Australia. And I think that you have demonstrated perfectly why it is harder for them. Simply acknowledging the traditional owners of this land, even if you agree with everything else that they say, lost that candidate your vote. I just can’t fathom that.
How do you know that none of the people living in the area are descendents of those traditional owners?
This video still brings tears to my eyes.
You must have hated living here.E noho rā.