that thing white ppl do when they disparage 'white ppl'

NV otm

Borat is specifically central Asian / Muslim but there has always been a racial component to a lot of anti-Eastern European prejudice, often based in the idea that they are not ‘fully white’ - either because Slavic nations are inherently Asiatic as well as European or because of their long history of interaction with the Ottoman Empire, etc. Certainly, as you progress into Armenia, Georgia, etc, the idea that second/third generation people would even code as white to everyone seems off.

tbh, having roots in a country’s where almost nobody is white and there are no clearly defined hierarchical systems of racial dominance but deeply rooted racism is everywhere, the power+prejudice structure doesn’t work so well. You can frame it as a legacy of white colonialism, which is probably true in part, but not in whole. I’m sympathetic to the idea that, as race is a social construct and that construct has historically been formally codified to reify white Anglo power, anti-white prejudice exists outside the boundaries of what should be properly be called racism but it’s not as though, internationally, the perception of race only persists in terms of its relationship to Anglo whiteness, however powerful that might be.

idk if the revive was prompted by the Sarah Jeong stuff but I can’t remember the last time I saw any genuine prejudice against white people on Twitter, or wherever, but there is a pretty huge amount of deliberate winding-up of racists, ranging from the absurd (Husein Kesvani claiming he works in a cafe and charges white people for soup when they order coffee, carrying on a three-day string of arguments with idiots who took it seriously) to more pointed stuff from people using it as a platform to, as Jeong did, push back against racist harassment. I kind of wonder how many of the likes and retweets, etc, are scratching the same itch - in terms of white people performatively distancing themselves from whiteness - as the theme of the thread.

In terms of legit looking Kazakh/Asian/Mongolian/Turkic/etc and therefore NOT reading as white in America no matter where someone is born, then that’s not a subset of whiteness...? Errr yes? Whereas the Georgians and Armenians and Albanians and Russians that I know are all very clearly white ppl and as soon as their kids don’t have an accent anymore they can go anywhere in the US and fit in. Obv I know that the ppl I have happened to meet don’t represent THEIR WHOLE ENTIRE COUNTRIES. But I’m still confused about this direction we’ve gone and how it relates.

the absurd (Husein Kesvani claiming he works in a café and charges white people for soup when they order coffee, carrying on a three-day string of arguments with idiots who took it seriously)

idk that lying about that counts as an absurdity, at least for anyone who has never heard of Husein Kesvani (like myself) and therefore has no basis whatsoever for judging its truth, other than its innate plausibility, which is far from absurd on its face.

I suppose such an assertion could bait a few rabid racists into a rage, but then, why tell lies that degrade yourself like that? All he has done is create a situation where he is being dishonest if it's true and being dishonest if it isn't.

I suppose such an assertion could bait a few rabid racists into a rage, but then, why tell lies that degrade yourself like that? All he has done is create a situation where he is being dishonest if it's true and being dishonest if it isn't.

Because it's funny. I know, I know, this is a thread about race so nothing can be funny ever, but that's funny. Baiting hair-trigger idiots almost always is.

I have a niece who, when she was about 14 would make 'prank' phone calls ordering pizzas for delivery to nonexistent addresses. She thought it was hilarious that the 'idiots' at the pizza place believed her.

Whereas the Georgians and Armenians and Albanians and Russians that I know are all very clearly white ppl and as soon as their kids don’t have an accent anymore they can go anywhere in the US and fit in.

If so, that’s phenomenal progress given that, in the mid-90s, over three quarters of Armenian-Americans said they felt they’d been racially discriminated against when seeking employment. Perhaps even more so for Albanians given the post-9/11 profiling of other Muslims with Mediterranean complexions tbh. It’s a digression from the crux of the thread but categories of “acceptable” whiteness are still malleable today and blanket statements that groups some people perceive to be within the bounds of whiteness can’t be the victims of racism-proper are unhelpful.

when i was a kid everything i knew about albania came from that simpsons episode

lest we forget "iron heart" Heydrich was part Jewish, maybe if he had a Mediterranean complexion he'd have been on the other side of the ghetto. I always remember the story of the Babi Yar survivor, whose mother basically said: you leave now, you don't look Jewish.

The 'edge' cases are always interesting studies in the fluidity of US racist perceptions. Albanians, Sicilians, Turks, Moroccans, all can slide back and forth on the 'whiteness' scale and often occupy a place not much different from light-skinned 'blacks' passing for white in the Jim Crow southern USA. I'm pretty sure European racism provides some interesting edge cases and variants on the overall theme of its own. As usual, the logic of racism is wholly irrational, but the harm is all too real.

Sharivari otm

Like in Los Angeles i had an armenian colleague and i noticed on quite a few occasions that non-armenians thought he was some type of middle eastern, and this was just a year ago

I also sensed that this particular armenian guy would go out of his way to make sure i knew he was more aligned with white/US/western european countries

He once asked me what continent I thought armenia was in, and i just answered with what they taught me at school and he did not seem pleased

The interesting thing for me is the question of what happens when unambiguously non-white categories become those edge cases. By and large, Indian Americans aren’t going to get shot by the police, many have skipped the bootstraps poverty grind by emigrating to the US as grad students and slotting in to the middle class, they are increasingly being courted by the racist-right, politically, etc. Idk if there is a point at which we can say they face endemic personal prejudice but not systematic structural racism.

like being the only Asian family in Kerry, scaled up a bit!

Going back a bit - I know we have a word "antisemitism" but.

It may be tangential to the issue white supremacy (and discussions of white/black racism in the US), but... how is antisemitism not a type of racism?

loved the tsrobodo posts on meaning, 'reverse racism' & particularly the point about what discussions are had and the shape they take

as I see it

"that thing white ppl do when they disparage"

is the phenomenon, and the own-group disparaging is the reductio ad absurdum that brings it into focus

so many conversations I've had with white people about race just get turned into condemnations, and they're so often cheap, and they so often seem to be primarily about soothing anxiety about responsibility and making people feel comfortable. you offer a statement condemning something when you don't want to do anything else about it.

there was a really good recent nabisco NYT op-ed I posted a few months ago to a different thread, which got a little discussion, that dealt with the nature of internet conversations and “speech as inquiry” vs “speech as activism”, and I think this thread is a good example of how unproductive things can be when everyone involved doesn’t think about what it is they’re really trying to accomplish by engaging in these discussions

as fate would have it, nabisco himself started a different thread about this very topic years ago

In which bracket would you place dropping in it at the end of a thread to say that!

That was meant to be a question mark!

doing well until yr jerry springer wrapup there kev

i think that maybe it is a good distinction btwn those two modes, is there a case for agreeing consent at the start of each thread/bump as to whether one gets to discuss-as-inquiry or whether one gets to broadcast-as-activist?

the question as to productiveness is a false god here. its a message board. think a lot of ppl are confused on that score sometimes idk

anti-Slav racism, anti-Irish racism etc etc

― the Joao looked at Jonny (Noodle Vague), Friday, 3 August 2018 21:58 (yesterday) Permalink

Irish isn’t a race it’s an ethnicity

You guys don’t even know the meanings of the words you use

Someone will be saying there's no such thing as race next.

You guys don’t even know the meanings of the words you use

Racist.

iirc Slaves were considered a race pre-1945 and suffered discrimination

but Noodle Vague otm re: the definition of racism that some of you are pushing is so US-centric that invites objection

You guys don’t even know the meanings of the words you use

i think you're treating "race" as a Platonic form rather than a shifting, contested term with a history, but I don't wanna fight about it

holy shit that’s an unfortunate typo

Ethnicities can suffer discrimination without it being racism ...

I know race had a contested history but if we’re talking about how it is used today there is no “Irish race” and whenever people start saying shit like that they tend to be minimizing ie anti black racism which is structurally separate from ethnic discrimination

cool

No let’s hear more about how it’s America centric to not bring up the history of Anglo Saxon discrimination of the Slavs every time someone brings up anti black racism

thread: that thing white ppl do when they disparage 'white ppl'

i mean pity about ya that the thread isnt conforming to whatever you think it should be about and which we hqve a million threada about

pity about ya that two minor points raised in the recent discussion provoked you like this

seems tough for u

It is tough to have a conversation w people abt a serious subject when they haven’t done the knowledge yeah

"You never studied"

Consult the scripture

The only ppl reading from a script here are the ones who go “what about the Irish” any time the convo makes them uncomfortable

And that happens allllllllllllllll the time. Sheesh!

im happy to ignore the irish points tbh theyre a bit of a diversion from the topic tbs, tbs

thats not ofc to disregard d40s typically winning style in making the pt, d id say you have a wonderful mother can u confirm pls

it's really weird to me that the DiAngilo piece posted upthread actually posted a very clear and positive way for people to come to terms with their own investment and indoctrination in white suprmacy - and a framework for working on it honestly without focusing on being "offended" - it was received a sort of hostile response and everyone's been playing whataboutism games since

especially annoying because the well black and white racism are just so American it's like we learned it from watching you daaaad, good thing Britain doesn't have any kind of role in the slave trade or heavy investment in a white supremacist worldview

I'm not sure what that means?

ah yes britain

sorry about that we'll work on that thanks for listening

also, only saw positive reads on diangelo piece

two irishman a scotch and ten americans walk into a bar eh

it may idk be relevant to thread to point out that "britain" is in fact a colonial power that has held sway over ireland (and i spose despite being actually part of it, scotland) for several hundred years, many of them to quite unpleasant effect and the continued nominal/not-nominal presence of a british colony on the island to this day has been somewhat of a talking point politically

i only say this and my man ums is my man, like, to note that when online americans insist that the world is only divisible in the order of race/gender/sexual orientation/et al because this is the accepted code of conduct and the accepted rhetorical weight that wite americans must bear, that honest-to-god lads many of the people of the nations you cant colour in on a map might object to this and honest-to-god this isnt said to either troll you nor to provide you with a backyard ramp for your wite-ilxor bmx

god bless all here and i dont even bear a grudge to my uk ilx ppl who all seem sorry enough for their part in it etc

let me summarize that for you: 'what about ireland'

wait til you find out what frank wilderson thinks of the holocaust

DiAngelo:

It’s about institutional power. That’s why with the so-called browning of America, there will be adaptations, but the institutions will continue to be controlled by those who currently control it.

They say there is always room at the top, but there is only room there for those who are eager to uphold, strengthen and defend all the privileges of those already at the top.

let me summarize that for you: 'what about ireland'

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Sunday, 5 August 2018 01:02 (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wouldnt let you summarize the alphabet you witless child

read the thread title again, i beg you, and try to comprehend why your spectacular point-missing is only the moreso spectacular subsequent to a wite american chiding irish and scottish posters about Britain's colonial crimes in what is presumably an attempt to close down the discussion germane to the thread.

jesus its a pity /american/ tags didnt exist in a physical enough form to slap you round the ears with you dullard.

Wish I were more confrontational so I could call people “witless child”

When did I chide anyone about british colonial crimes? Lmfao

Question their relevance to this conversation sure

tbh I think a lot of this particular digression is hard to discuss in good faith due to the popularity of the ‘the Irish were slaves in America’ narrative with white supremacist Irish Americans who want to distance themselves from the idea that have racial privilege over black Americans. That’s probably a much more dominant strand of thought than ‘the Irish are genetically, rather than culturally, different from other whites’ line of anti-Irish prejudice these days, imo.

This is a good reference wrt that:

https://medium.com/@Limerick1914/all-of-my-work-on-the-irish-slaves-meme-2015-16-4965e445802a