It's amazing how little we (in the US, at DU, whatever) actually fully communicate about racism

[gollygee]

One person says, "White people should talk more and listen less" and the other person hears that white people shouldn't talk at all and should be lectured at.

One person says, "
Your experience is not the same as mine" and the other person hears that their experience has no value at all.

I'm not sure why that is, and therefore I'm not sure how to solve that. If we could actually discuss without people hearing something other than what is said, we might make more progress. Do people not want to hear? Are people unable in some way to really hear about this issue, because of some societal issue? Are people simply not really listening? I don't know.

[betsuni]

1. Things in that "discussion" made my mouth fall open until finally I just left it open...

It's like there are two planets. This one, this group, where I understand the language and customs and weathers, and the other one where I don't know what's being said half the time, references and innuendos I don't get, where the atmosphere and even gravity seem different.

"Don't Tell Me What to Do" should be printed on the dollar bill, it's so American.

[Starry Messenger]

2. I think they are really not listening.

Usually when you dig a little further into these discussions, the person being defensive will end with tone policing, citing your attitude or emotional state for the reason they won't continue "listening."

I've noticed the new DU wrinkle of white posters being indignant that white supremacy is being discussed by white women. Or maybe that's an old trope and this is the first time I've run into it.

Then there are people who are so defensive that they think POC or white people trying to dismantle racism, are actually racists (the so-called "SJW".) Sadly, a writer I used to like uncloaked as this kind of asshole several years ago and he encourages this thinking among his minions. He's a bigtime "it's class, not race" guy and is totally dug into his bigoted world-view.

[gollygee]

3. Oh I've gotten that

First, a number of black posters get silenced, and then they say that we can't talk about racism because we're white. The end game is nobody talking about racism. Neat trick, that.

[Starry Messenger]

5. Yeah, I'm doing a little research.

Evidently this is common. I think we've been invaded by some gamergate leftovers and similar reactionaries from other web wars.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior

"Demographics
A common criticism of SJWs is that they are themselves not members of the groups that they defend. Hill describes the typical SJW strawman, stating that:[23] "SJWs are generally young, white, and spend their time on social media condemning those who fail to live up to their own moral and ethical standards." Yet there is no clear evidence that this is true or that this deflects from SJW's arguments towards equality among disenfranchised identity groups.

[edit]Scale
Hill writes:[23]
The occasional overly pedantic Tumblr user targeting white men in power is dwarfed by the thousands of racist, sexist, and homophobic tirades which flood online comments sections every single day. Who’s the real problem here?
[edit]"

There are Kindle books on Amazon for sale about the "big problem" of "SJWs." That's fine, that just makes me more likely to dig into these topics. It seems like an organized effort to disrupt, on their part, and not just organic whitefeels and cluelessness.

[Number23]

8. I think you have nailed it completely.

First, a number of black posters get silenced, and then they say that we can't talk about racism because we're white. The end game is nobody talking about racism.

[Number23]

4. Not only that, but the white people who think that --despite making up easily 90% of this board --

that they are "oppressed minorities" who are just quivering messes waiting to be persecuted for not agreeing with poc 100% of the time just makes it all so worthwhile.

They are probably the main ones that need to listen the most closely and most often.

[JustAnotherGen]

6. You picked up on that too?

The thread that prompted this - yikes! It was pretty obvious.

[Number23]

7. Between the "woe is me! The 12 poc that still post on DU are oppressing me!!1" vibe

and the ever so SPECIAL individual running up and down the thread continuing her mission to pretend that she was called names when it is beyond obvious to everyone on this board that it was all in her head, I just didn't even really bother.

I gave up a long time ago. I don't know who the people are that the people in the thread were referring to with their "I learned on DU that unless I agree 100% with poc that I will be called a racist" comment but I really don't have enough interest to find out.

[betsuni]

9. The last reply to you by the seriously hurt special individual made me LOL.

Now I have to go back and check that thread again to see if more amusing things have appeared. My tradition demands I do.

[Number23]

10. Me too! Can just imagine the special soul going full Dr. Smith as they writhed in agony!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. I am going to ask you again, not that I expect an answer,

if you think calling a LATINA and a JEW what you did was not an insult?

That is not being special. That is just being rude on your part.

[Number23]

13. I never called you ANYTHING which is exactly what every single solitary person that has seen those

posts has been saying to you.

You keep screaming that you are going to put me on ignore, then DO IT and leave me alone.

You may pollute the rest of this board with this type of idiocy but you are not going to do this in this forum. This is your first and last warning.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. I am not making this up

An apology is that adults do when they are bluntly told that an insult was done.

And I already told you that you NEVER EVER going on ignore.

But you calling me special now, adds to the level of insult you are doing. Keep it up It is lovely.

Once again, I am a minority like you are. I have a clue how minorities are treated in this country. I really do. You might think this is limited to just African Americans, but it is not. In San Diego we get to enjoy quite a bit of it.

It is not open, it is not obvious, it is systemic. But keep crapping on other people of color.

Thankfully, locally, leaders of both AA and Latino populations get it. Work together, or hang apart.

You could do the adult thing, but I do not expect it.

[Number23]

17. You are not owed anything and certainly not an apology. I don't know what is going on with you

but you need to take this foolishness someplace else.

This is tedious and indicative of something that seems to be incredibly serious as well as something I have absolutely no interest in. You will get NO apology for me and if anything, you owe scarletwoman and myself an apology for the littany of lies you have been telling about both of us.

So you may scream about getting an apology for insults that you made up while spreading real insults about others, but the real difference is, I certainly don't care about you or your posts, particularly as they say everything that needs to be said about you and nothing about scarletwoman or myself.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. I already gave you one

You will get NO apology for me and if anything, you owe scarletwoman and myself an apology for the littany of lies you have been telling about both of us.

Never mind that from where I sit they were not lies, and neither did some juries see them as lies. I posted the relevant juries.

have an excellent life. I expect you not to behave in an adult manner. Which speaks about you and nothing else.

[Number23]

19. You apologized because you were the one in the wrong. Which you have been REPEATEDLY

which is why every time you wail about being called names, half a dozen posters come out of nowhere to call you full of crap.

You should be mortified by your behavior. It is nothing short of disgusting as well as incredibly bizarre. But we all know that would never happen. So allow me to remind you AGAIN to just stay away from me and hopefully that will fix everything.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. No Number23, I apologized becuase you perceive that you were attacked

I respect your experience, but you will deny mine for ever and ever and ever and ever.

It is ok. You can. I will leave you know with this. I recognize your experience and accept it, but you do not accept what other people tell you.

And that is your problem, not mine. I cannot fix it.

I have unsub from this group. I really do not care to participate online, HERE. I participate ONLINE with my LOCAL LEADERS who I respect deeply, who I consider great people, and who have taught me a lot. You could learn a lot from others. But it is to the point that many of us. some of us are not even white, though you might believe that, will NOT discuss issues of race on DU, and it is becuase of you. Go re-read that thread. Reflect on what some people posted.

Suffice it to say, next time we have (and it will come) another issue where a PoC, either brown or black, is falsely arrested or worst killed, we will be there. Next time we have another issue with the courts, we will be there. We will continue to cover race and poverty and all those issues. And I will continue NOT TO POST THEM at a supposedly progressive site.

You want us to just listen and not interrupt, and not speak of our experience... like being stopped by a cop for speaking with an accent... and being challenged on my citizenship status. by all means. have at it. But any respect I ever had for you as an individual is basically gone.

[Number23]

21. I'm not reading this garbage and have no idea what is going on with you

I am banning you from this forum.

You were asked to stop REPEATEDLY and have refused. Your behavior is beyond disturbing and it is totally unwelcome in this forum.

[scarletwoman]

12. Oh. My. Gawd. I opened that thread a while ago, then quickly closed it when I saw who was making

a multitude of posts in it.

But after seeing this thread here, I went back and read the whole thing - "SPECIAL individual" included - and mainly it just made me very sad.

I don't know... I'm a white woman, but I just don't get where so many of these of these other white posters are coming from.

All I can think of is that they just have no clue what it really means to belong to the dominant culture, and how very different that experience is from NOT belonging to the dominant culture.

Being white means taking for granted that your life experience is "normal", and uncritically presuming that your life experience DEFINES "normal". And how dare POC tell me that there might be something wrong with that!

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. I am latina thank you very much and Jewish

by definition a minority, not white, Nor am I special.


You hurt me.

[Number23]

15. I don't get where they're coming from either. But the entire point of that OP was that

because so many white people refuse to discuss racism or when it is being discussed around them, do nothing but shift the conversation to how the discussion is victimizing THEM, this is one of the many reasons that this poison on our society has not gone away.

Hell, in some cases it seems to be actually GROWING.

[scarletwoman]

22. Oh, I think it's clear that it IS growing!

They get that the white supremacist system is being seriously challenged, and the defenses are going up.

We white folks have been quite comfortable with things as they have been - it's incredibly inconvenient to be confronted with demands for change. So uncomfortable, in fact, that we're manning the barricades to protect our privilege.

I mean, why would you colored folks be questioning us nice white liberals? Haven't we always said that we support your civil rights? Didn't a whole bunch of us march with MLK?

/sarcasm

Seriously, it's really disturbing how ugly it's getting. There was something I read many years back - and I wish to hell I could find it again and cite it properly - but the jist of it was this: We can never forgive those whom we have wronged, because that would mean admitting that we wronged them. So, instead we hate and revile them, in order to justify the wrong we did to them in the first place.

[Number23]

23. King said it beautifully as well...

And, with a spirit straining toward true self-esteem, the Negro must boldly throw off the manacles of self-abnegation and say to himself and to the world, "I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history. How painful and exploited that history has been. Yes, I was a slave through my foreparents and I am not ashamed of that. I'm ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave." Yes, we must stand up and say, "I'm black and I'm beautiful," and this self-affirmation is the black man's need, made compelling by the white man's crimes against him.

From http://www.famous-speeches-and-speech-topics.info/martin-luther-king-speeches/martin-luther-king-speech-where-do-we-go-from-here.htm

I get chills EVERY. SINGLE. TIME

[scarletwoman]

24. "I'm ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave." Just... Awesome.

Yes, that's it exactly!

Thank you so much.

[lovemydog]

29. Yes indeed Number23.

Love you my friend.

[JustAnotherGen]

25. They come with preconceived notions

About what "real racism" towards blacks looks like.

They don't see what happened to 1strongblackman last September around this time because he doesn't fit their narrative.

On that note . . . Off to bump that thread.

[gwheezie]

26. White folks make it about them

Most of my friends and coworkers and several family members are black. We talk about race. These are people I love and respect so I don't feel like I have to defend white folks because no one is lying about white folks or saying something I don't see for myself. Racism exists. White people institutionalized racism into our laws and society. If you take the whole of the history of black folks in this country and what has continued today, white people have had s very negative effect on black people. I think black people have depended solely on their own strength to live here because white people have done nothing to spread equality. The efforts white people have made is to attempt to correct their inhumanity directed at a race of people. That is much different than knowing the truth of truly being a member of the human family with equal worth among all races. White people by their deeds and actions do not value black lives as much as their own. Now that is not to say there aren't white folks that have evolved and been actually heroic in being humbled by their own arrogance.
This is how I see things. I have listened to black people and continue to listen.

[lovemydog]

27. Yes. And there's a distortion phenomenon that inhibits discussion.

First off, I agree with you gollygee. We all benefit from open discussion in the spirit of learning and understanding.

I wonder why race is difficult to discuss. Here's one phenomenon that inhibits discussion. Some white people get defensive and distort what is originally said. The distortion makes the original comment appear worse than it really is. Here's a few examples:

1. Someone mentions white supremacy behavior in the context of white privilege. It becomes: I was called a white supremacist.

2. A minor disagreement of the kind that exist in all types of day to day dialogue. It becomes: all this talk of race just leads to making enemies and destroying friendships.

3. Mentioning something that is racist behavior. It becomes: I'm not a racist, don't call me a racist, that's racist to call me a racist.

4. Mentioning some behave in a condescending manner. It becomes: They're calling our candidate racist so they are here to disrupt our candidate's ascendancy.

Why do some people take what is said and distort it into something worse. Something more personal. To the point where it becomes repeated as a lie. These lies inhibit the spirit of communication.

[WhollyHeretic]

28. I avoided reading that thread yesterday because I knew it would piss me off

I read it today and it was worse than I thought it would be. Just nonstop claims of white people being oppressed. All sorts of crying about being attacked and called racist for no reason. I'm white and have never felt that especially on this board where the vast majority of posters are white.

[lovemydog]

30. Word.

Same here.

[betsuni]

31. You could practically see them making protest signs: "We are being silenced!"

Quite the spectacle.

[Starry Messenger]

32. A friend of mine posted this on FB today

It's how I felt about that thread.



With a heavy dose of this:



And to all of our white critics who feel oppressed even by white people calling you out of your stuff:

[steve2470]

33. same here

I find the PoC extraordinarily reasonable on this site. The concept of white privilege is a non-issue in my book, and I'm a middle aged white Southern male.

[yuiyoshida]

34. I have heard lots of crap thrown at me on line..

In all my years in San Francisco I have never been called slur, nor been treated badly, it was just after I went on to the internet years ago, suddenly I was a target of racial hatred..I was like omg, where is this coming from?? From ignorant people, that's who.. and I don't understand it, until recently someone told me to "Go the fuck back to Chiner!!!" which nearly made me spill my boba tea.. (Seriously!) They were getting this from Donald Trump, and other Republicans who rub off on to the stupid, and ignorant. From Fox News and especially Rush Limbaugh who mocks Asian languages like its normal thing to do...

I don't ever want to leave my city now unless I go to Hawaii, and who knows what I would find there. (I am part native Hawaiian on my grandfathers side.) The hatred has become worse and worse, and I don't see any way its gonna get better soon, though I can only hope it will.

[davidpdx]

35. There are a lot of ignorant people in our country

Many of them have never traveled outside the United States and experienced other cultures and are extremely close-minded.

I also think people like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump who run their mouths like diarrhea tend to give people outside the US the perception that all Americans are like that, which upsets me.

Having lived in two foreign countries, I have experienced racism. Granted, I would say it is mild compared to what minorities in the US or other countries have to put up with. It is eye-opening though.