You’re welcome.
And yes, in re-reading your initial post, you do come off as very racist.
I don’t think so. I think in her original post she felt something that its hard to write about. Sometimes you get into a situation and it feels wrong. Someone is treating someone else poorly, and you get the “vibe” that its racism. Or sexism. Or homophobia. Or prejudice against fat people or the disabled. And often that vibe isn’t because of something that was said or can be objectively reported. Its a look. Its body language.
Ever meet someone who doesn’t like you? They are civil to you, but you continually get the “I don’t really like you” feeling from them. Its that sort of feeling, where you can’t really accuse them of anything. Sometimes those perceptions are wrong. But, in my experience, and maybe I’m more perceptive than others, very often my perceptions of a situation are right, long before the confess to a mutual friend or coworker and it gets back to me that they DON’T like me.
And Eleanor did not accuse this guy or the other passengers of racism in her letters. She recognized that something unprovable - the vibe - was not a fact, it was a perception. She merely did so here - where anonymous venting about how unfair the world is is appropriate.
And I know that you have gone through this - since you got a racist vibe from Eleanor’s post.
Are you guys serious? How can anyone still not understand what we’re talking about by this point? It was clear in the OP and we’ve explained it again several times. Hell, we’ve beat it to death. And you guys are acting like you still don’t understand. Are you all really this clueless or is this becoming a joke?
So just to be clear: This is not about the conducter and the original passenger.
It’s long overdue we rethink the “vibe.”
If the vibe relies less on the facts in front of us than our ingrained biases than we perpetuate racism.
The problem is that the tables have turned. Now the racist may be the do-gooder who can’t see the African American as an equal, and persists in seeing them as perpetual victims of racism.
That leaves us with a condescending and paternalistic system where we rush to the defense of people who are not really victims (or racism anyway…) and who don’t need our help.
To the OP :
I did a word search and found that 4 people had already mocked your racist arse for your use of black/white.
But may i ask, say all the races (except yours) reversed, would this rant still exist?
P.s you’re a racist.
I agree with this. I don’t really see myself as a “do-gooder”, but I can see how this interpretation of events can be made here. And I agree that RAWMP could have blown something–it must have been minute, given the close quarters of the train car–out of proportion. But IMO it is more likely that RAWMP wrongly interpreted or wrongly perceived a remark or an action by MCM. I was more disturbed by the lack of response by the passengers, but I’ve been through this too many times already.
But as someone also said upthread(paraphrasing here), jerks is jerks–and they come in all colors, genders and locations. I just happened to be in a train car where all the white people are jerks…
Some of you have misconstrued my posts–I am not patting myself on the back here. I never have been. Maybe you all don’t fill out those surveys on customer service when someone gives you excellent or shitty service. I do, so writing to TPTB about this is not a big deal for me. I also know that nothing is going to change in this world unless people speak up. Not everyone feels that way–what you choose to do is your business.
There has been some real ugliness in this thread, but I am left with a feeling of hopelessness about the entire issue. We cannot even talk about this kind of thing–this is a problem throughout the Dope and not just on this topic. There is almost no dialogue going on here.
I am willing (and have been willing all along) to concede that I may be misconstruing the event–I don’t think so, but the possibility remains. What I don’t see on the part of some other posters is a willingness to consider my point at all. Why so quick to say I couldn’t be correct in my inference? Why can’t we talk about this in a civil manner? This has gone from me expressing my feelings about an incident to me being called racist for admitting to being embarrassed by racist behavior on the part of others of my race. And that is quite a sentence. 
Jump–Sure, why wouldn’t it be racist if it involved different races? If this were between a black passenger and a Hispanic conductor, and the support or lack thereof aligned along race, it’s still racist. The difference would be that I wouldn’t have posted about it in the manner that I did this, because it wasn’t my race that was involved. I might still have posted about it, but it would have been titled something like “Ugly Incident on the Train Made Me Uncomfortable”.
I don’t see what difference it would make. The black passengers were acting the same way the white passengers were so everyone’s racism level appears to have been equal.
I try and be very careful with the “vibe” - I don’t accuse people of sexism if I get the vibe from them. (Being female, I get sexism radar far more often than racism radar. But I’m also the white mom of an Asian kid, so my racism radar is ‘differently tuned’ than a lot of white people’s)
But I think its OK to come here and rant anoymously about the vibe you are getting from other anonymous people out in the great big world. Because while racism may be much less than it once was…it certainly isn’t dead. And sometimes the vibe is right. And its worth ranting about racism even if the rant is simply “why in the hell must I get this vibe from white people.”
I’ve seen incidents on the Metra that I’ve been pretty sure were racially charged; I wouldn’t be able to prove it, but I was pretty damn sure. One was actually quite similar, in that it struck me that white people were lining up behind a white person making an unfair complaint against a group of Hispanic girls. I’ve been wrongly accused of racism–that was a traumatic childhood incident–so I do know that people get things wrong, and think that it’s important to be careful before calling a person out. However, it’s strange to say that someone is racist for seeing a racially charged tone in something and not being able to prove it. I wasn’t there with elinorigby, and thus have no idea if she read the scene correctly, but to simply assume that she is wrong because the racial charge of the scene wasn’t overt makes no sense.
She’s not racist for having a sense of group identification with whites, either–not in any way I’d use the word. Racism, historically, is a theory of racial superiority. The use of the word “racism” to denote any feeling of racial group identity is, I think, the result of an attempt suggest a false equivalence between, for instance, black pride and Jim Crow.
Psst: racist is better than jerk…ish posts.
No I understood the rant just fine (not sure the evidence is there to justify it though). What I was commenting on was the misleading and attention driven thread title. Maybe you would care to explain why one should be embarrassed for one’s entire race because of the actions of one individual asshole who happens, by chance, to be a member of said race.
Or a small group of assholes.
Well, I guess the real question is that if eleanorigby had been the only white person on board and all the other whites were instead latinos, would she have come in here to announce her embarrassment for their race? Probably not, as that would have come off as a bit racist.
The notion of taking responsibility for other people’s behavior will most certainly lead to a heavy burden as time goes by.
I do love socially aware people. They’re the ones who make things happen. Sometimes those things are for the better. Other times, a little too much zeal makes mountains of molehills.
Learning to discern between the two can only improve one’s energy level and mental health.
[moderator warning]
This post was way out of line for the MPSIMS forum. Personal insults are not allowed, and this direct attack on another poster contributed nothing to the thread. Don’t do this again.
[/moderator warning]
Bill Cosby is making a second (third?) career out of it, and few people call him a racist.
I’ve been in situations where I’ve seen a racial divide in people taking sides. I’ve seen it in schools, on public transportation, in offices.
By reporting what I’ve seen, that makes me racist?
I think some of you are determined to find something wrong in every post you read.
I get this Eleanor Rigby, and I don’t understand why some of you don’t.
This is the only sentence that even remotely addresses that :
So the white folks weren’t speaking up for the HMCM to his face, (as far as **Rigby **could tell) and that makes them racists? So racist as to personally embarrass her on behalf of her entire race? And that was the point of the entire OP? Bullshit. That’s just backpedaling, pure and simple.
If the issue was about division along racial lines, why wasn’t she offended by the black folks who did the same thing?
A wise woman once told me ‘Honey, assholes come in all colours and sometimes you just have to call it as you see it.’
And yeah, you can talk about people having an affinity with like and siding with people of the same colour…but sometimes a guy is just an asshole and people would rather not engage or further enrage.