Bigots?
How is some average college student worried about their next exam and doing nothing wrong to anyone, being told they are the wrong skin tone and they cannot walk in a certain area a “bigot”?
Do they really need to have things “thrown back at them”? Are they suddenly going to feel sorry for different people? Do you really think actions like this cause anyones opinions to change?
Would you be honest and admit stupid actions like this set the movement back instead of pushing it forward?
No, people standing somewhere holding signs is people standing somewhere holding signs. A demonstration is when people are interactive with passerbys.
And I don’t agree that a peaceful demonstration should be broken up by police because it makes some people uncomfortable.
And that is a controversial request. When you are a minority, and everywhere you go, you are reminded of the fact that you are a minority, that you don’t belong here, that you aren’t good enough to be here, it gets tiring. I can certainly understand why people who have those experiences would like to have a place they can go that they do belong.
How that is accomplished, and what best to do about it are good questions. But, to be honest, the attitude that you present that they don’t even deserve consideration for such a request reinforces in my mind that such a thing is probably needed.
If anyone was “humiliated” by this demonstration, then I don’t know that they don’t need their own “safe spaces”. And, really, that is what is being asked for, that the entire campus, and all of american society, really, be a safe space for white people. Never remind white people what other demographics went through, never do anything that might make a white person feel the slightest bit uncomfortable or even guilty about the privileges that they have enjoyed and taken for granted that others have had to struggle to even glimpse. The people who were upset by this are the people who never would have taken their side no matter how nice and kindly the minorities groveled before them to be accepted into their society.
OTOH, we are here, and talking about it. And we are talking about how this slight inconveniences and feeling of uncomfortableness that some white people went through is a small sample of what the demonstrators go through every day. Who knows, maybe some of us will learn some empathy.
Or, answer 2:
they have no interest in seeing an issue from someone else point of view.
That’s not a “peaceful demonstration”. Those are people violently preventing other people from freely entering an area where they have a legitimate right to be. Last time I checked, that was considered “assault”.
This is perhaps a more egregious example of the sort of violent leftist behavior that is tolerated in some circles under the guise of "political correctness.
If what happened in the article was accurate, then I don’t think you can shrug off outright racism as “uncomfortableness”. Especially since I have never done anything like that to someone, yet some will still consider me a racist due to being the passive recipient of racist policy. It beggars belief that naked prejudice should not be considered racism yet “privilege” should be. Furthermore, you don’t get to excuse any actions because some other people who share my skin tone did worse things.
Sure, this is a relatively minor incident even if it did happen the way it’s portrayed. But you know what’s worse than racism? Hitler! Health care! The Iraq War. If no one should be offended at small instances of anti-white racism, then anti-racist protesters should be protesting the lack of health care and wars of choice, both of which kill more than American racism does.
I think this thread answered the OP’s question. Bigots don’t think they are bigoted.
I have some thoughts, BloodStalk, but out of respect, I’ll wait to share them until after you return to the thread and present your own Humble Opinion, which I’m sure you’ll do shortly.
Because they think the ones calling them out for their views are bigots, which are defined as:
noun
1.
a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.
You’re being intolerant for not tolerating my intolerance! :mad:
You quote my passage and ignore where it is prefaced with “Going back to the OP”. I was not calling the students bigots. ***That paragraph was not about your complaint about the events at that college. *** It was about the OP question “Why is that when bigots are called out for their views, they call it harassment or bullying?” Or is it going to be insisted upon that the thread become about justifying (or not) that incident?
For one day? A protest. A stupid one, perhaps, but a protest nonetheless. A bit different from the state forbidding it by force of law forever.
The protest is especially stupid because the white people being blocked might be queer or transgender also who just want to go to class. It is not like these are mutually exclusive categories. Not to mention I’d guess some of the protesters are surely white also.
Perhaps a homophobic black student could tell them how wrong they are.
Have you ever been on the Berkeley campus? It is a big place. I doubt any student was prevented from going to class that day, unless they felt like having an excuse to cut.
I was in college during the invasion of Cambodia and the protests around that, and this stuff is diddly squat.
Equating a powerless group calling names with a powerful group enforcing bigotry through the law is exactly what I meant in bringing up southern marches.
Hell, I was around during the black power movement where people called whites a lot nastier names than this. My or anyone else’s (except maybe Patty Hearst’s) white privilege was not shaken a bit. But maybe some people got the message that those who were oppressed didn’t love them.
We don’t call it anything - we minimize it, ignore it, and change the subject.
Regards,
Shodan
Wait, take a step back and look at where you are talking. The college is Berkeley!
Yes, Berkeley. Isnt Berkeley about the most hippie, liberal, and yes TOLERANT college in just about the whole country?]
You say " small sample of what the demonstrators go through every day". Where? At Berkeley? In San Fransisco? Do you really think Berkeley is some sort of homophobic, racist hell hole?
Do you REALLY think gay, transgender, black, hispanic, or whatever kids on THAT campus near THAT city, feel marginalized or feel like “they dont belong”?
“Who knows, maybe some of us will learn some empathy.” Do you REALLY think anyone is going to get that? Heck you piss off some people who ahead of time might have been sympathetic and turn them against the cause.
If anything,imagine being a Republican at Berkley. This article mentions students being punched, spit on, and overall marginalized just for being republican.
Are you familiar with the phrase “the whole world is watching”?
This video is on the internet where it will remain for years and millions of people will watch it and form opinions.
So you say “just one day”? Maybe. But that video and the bigotry and intolerance it shows will be out there forever.
The discussion about that incident is itself a spectacularly succesful butwhatabout/theydoittous change of focus from the original thread question.
It sort of is because it started with “who then exactly is a bigot” when no one in the thread had said that these prejudicial actions are not bigotry. It devolved into an apropos example however when people came in to defend them.
+1
and, gosh, should we be worried about the OP who would surely be here threshing out the issue if he wasn’t sick or in the hospital or something. :rolleyes:
Like I said, calling it harassment isn’t the only response. Minimize, deny, change the subject.
Come on, it only lasted for one day- what’s the big fuss?
Regards,
Shodan