The assholes might be turning people off, but what does the self-righteous asshole stuff have to do with my post?
I think you’re wrong about this, or at least you’re not necessarily correct.
There’s no point in trying to quantify things like this. A rich black person probably experiences privilege in a lot of scenarios, but a rich white person probably experiences even more. There are plenty of negative things that Obama (or Oprah) probably would not have experienced were they white.
I have trouble understanding how anyone can believe this. But if you do, when do you think it changed in American history? At what point, roughly, did average black people cease to experience more instances of unfair and poor treatment than white people?
Mercedes vehicles are luxury cars here; they’re not something an upper-middle class parent would buy for their kid. They’re not the sort of vehicle most people in their early 20s could buy on their own, either. My point stands.
I agree with this. 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, but because I’m a Standard White Guy I’m the root cause of all the world’s problems apparently.
Turns you off from what?
Privilege as a concept I have no issue with. The phrase “check your privilege” said to an individual is rightfully dismissed because it is almost always used in an assholish way.
The phrase is tainted enough in my mind to be viewed as a bullying tactic to tell people to shut up. I’ve never heard it used in a way that doesn’t carry that connotation. Perhaps it is possible, but I doubt I’d find out because once I hear it, it wont matter what the other person is saying - I will immediately dismiss that person’s views as worthless. As a result it is an ineffective persuasion tactic so unless the goal is to berate rather than to communicate, it’s totally ineffective.
Assuming a particular person enjoys some kind of privilege is stereotyping.
I don’t live in the US so I’m not speaking from a voting perspective, but the I Am More Tolerant Than You And Also You’re What’s Wrong With The World thing is certainly the difference for me between “Agreeing there’s a situation which might conceivably warrant addressing” and “Actually wanting to do anything about addressing said situation”. In extreme cases, it might even make me want to work against whatever thing they are trying to acheive.
The lectures that come to mind are mostly those I heard while attending college at Harvey Mudd. After I went on to grad school at Vanderbilt, which is not as left wing as Harvey Mudd, I heard a lot fewer. And after I left grad school and went out more conservative small-town America, I stopped hearing lectures on the topic at all. Based on my experience, it’s a plain fact that the typical American, outside of the liberal enclaves of the academic world, media, and a few other places, is simply not interested in hearing about white privilege or the horrors of cultural appropriation or the enormous importance of having more than two options when asking someone’s gender. These issues dominate inside the liberal enclaves, or at least that’s the impression those on the outside get.
I think the phrase is unnecessary, and the same sentiment can be put in more diplomatic words. But I also think that such little things are often used as excuses by people who want to ignore things like privilege (not you), and they should be criticized as much or more.
It’s hard to convince somebody who’s gone from making $20/hr with benefits to $10/hr without that they’re “privileged.” Especially if they can’t afford to buy new clothes for school for their kids or pay their bills on time, or if they’ve lost the home they used to live in.
It’s also hard to convince them that the US is a terrible place for people who aren’t white, when so many are trying so hard to get in - even to the point of coming in illegally.
I’m sure it was also hard to convince poor white people in the 60s that civil rights was necessary – that doesn’t mean it’s not correct, and worth doing. These folks are only privileged in the sense that they’d probably have it even tougher in a lot of ways were they black. It’s even tougher to be poor and black than poor and white, in general.
“Terrible” is subjective, but the US is better than a lot of places, for white and non-white people alike. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of problems and things that ought to be improved.
Eh, I think the ideal stance would be to not assume anything at all beyond the clearly apparent. People are going to almost immediately shut down when they sense another explicitly or implicitly assuming something about their past that isn’t true. That the person assuming is just working off probabilities does not make it any better and in fact, I would argue, makes it worse.
I don’t want to be boiled down to averages and probabilities based on physical and socioeconomic characteristics. I want to be treated like an individual. And I imagine everyone else wants to as well, unless they for whatever reason want to be seen as a nondescript portion of a nebulous mass. Simply asking someone about such things is always an option. If they can’t handle presuming a question has an ulterior motive behind it, well shame on them.
I’m genuinely shocked that people telling you that you’re not tolerant enough is enough to make you want to be racist, or homophobic, or whatever the position in question is.
So the answer to the question I asked you originally would be, “No, I’ve never been lectured online by someone on this subject”. Is that correct?
I’m also curious to know why you believe it’s reasonable to base a conclusion about the “typical American” solely on your personal experiences. I mean, putting aside all the issues of that being a ludicrously unreasonable sample, it’s easily utterly demolished by simply having one person have an alternative experience - such as me. And I have. That’s one of the big problems with using just your personal experience to describe an entire nation; now you have no reason to hold to that view.
“We”? Who is this “we” you speak of, Kemosabe?
If some other white person is a Senator or a CEO or a football star, do you get special passes, or share of wealth, or anything at all, because you’re also white?
This is the kind of thing where you should really try to speak only for yourself.
Sharing a demographic with someone doesn’t give you the right to speak for them.
If you talk too much, and listen too little, that says nothing about what another random white person does.
“Demographics” don’t want to get a word in. Demographics are abstractions. Only people - individuals - want or don’t want things. Individuals may explain why things are hard for them - demographics can’t. We - all of us - have our hardships and our burdens. It’s true even for those of us who live in first world countries. It’s true even for the rich.
Eh, actually in post #112 I specifically said that I was describing my personal experiences, which might not be true for everyone. In fact, I did so twice. Do you want to complain that I don’t put such disclaimers in every single post I write? Why would I? That would be pointless, pedantic, and a waste of time. In discussions like this, people here are intelligent enough to know that a person is reporting their personal opinion about what a typical American says, based on that person’s experience, without any need for disclaimers that specifically say so. Likewise spelling out “every time…” meaning “almost every time…”, who needs to have the difference explained?
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.
Not racist or homophobic - everyone deserves a fair go and your skin colour or adult fun time with other adults orientation has nothing to do with anything IMHO - but things like environmental causes, sustainable lifestyle, “trigger warnings” and so on.
No, I’m not going to take a 44 Gallon drum full of crude oil and find some turtles to dump it over, but it’s 35 degrees outside so I’m going to run my airconditioner as much as I like and drive in my car to do things even though I could conceivably cycle there.
I’m afraid you’re barking up entirely the wrong tree, and I’m not sure how, since that you were talking about your own experiences was the whole point of the post you’re quoting. Look, I say it, right there, in that part you quote. Let me quote again for you, that specific part;
[QUOTE=Me]
I’m also curious to know why you believe it’s reasonable to base a conclusion about the “typical American” solely on your personal experiences.
[/QUOTE]
See?
No, the problem I had with your post is that you were taking your personal experiences, which both of us agree aren’t likely to be shared by everyone, and then saying things based on those personal experiences like;
[QUOTE=ITR Champion]
Based on my experience, it’s a plain fact that the typical American, outside of the liberal enclaves of the academic world, media, and a few other places, is simply not interested in hearing about white privilege or the horrors of cultural appropriation or the enormous importance of having more than two options when asking someone’s gender. These issues dominate inside the liberal enclaves, or at least that’s the impression those on the outside get.
[/QUOTE]
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.
Putting aside that you’re responding to a post of mine for the second time in this thread, a quick but obvious question; if you ignore them, how would you know whether other people care about them or not? If you’re correct in that you ignore them, I think this an unfortunate but useful example of the same issue you’re showing in our conversation on the topic; you’re taking your own personal experience and assuming it on behalf of others. It might well be you’re right - I don’t make any claims to posting excellence! - but really, I don’t think “I know about this subject because I deliberately make sure I don’t take in information about it!” is a good basis for judging that.
If I could re-quote the original post I responded to, in that case;
What did you mean by “turns off” there, in that case, given that you are talking about being turned off from anti-racism campaigns particularly in that post?
I wasn’t actually referring to anti-racism campaigns in particular - race relations in Australia are a very different kettle of fish to the US. More, I was responding to the idea that people who are 97% on board with something are getting turned off by self-righteous lefties accusing them of Not Being Tolerant Enough or whatever.
For example, when I hear people referring to Australia Day as “Invasion Day” unironically, I have to resist the urge to tell them to go fuck themselves. Doubly so if they’re not Aboriginal and are being offended on behalf of Aborigines.
Here’s the thing: I completely accept some extraordinarily shitty things were done to the Aborigines in Australia’s post-settlement history and I wish those things hadn’t happened, and if I could I’d gladly go back in time and fix it so they didn’t. But guess what? It’s in the past and getting outraged about it two centuries later isn’t going to fix anything. Further, none of my family had anything to do with it on account of “not being from Australia ourselves”.
That’s not an “approved” opinion for many of the progressive side of politics, though.