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

This is kind of a ridiculous story. So I grew up in Virginia and of course they teach about the Holocaust, show Schindler's List in class etc. I had a complete disconnect about why the Jewish were persecuted probably until I was in my late 20s, after living in NYC for years and years. Basically, to me (who had a non-white mother/Buddhist, white father/non-practicing Catholic) who was brought up non-religious, I was always like, in all these pictures they look white, how could people possibly know they were Jewish; why would they care? I've told this story to some of my Jewish friends who I somehow had always missed that they were Jewish, and they stare at me "you do know my last name is (insert some very Jewish last name), etc." And me, "I don't know, you are just a white dude to me!"

This also happened with a longtime co-worker who mentioned being Italian once (she had a very Italian last name and I guess an Italian-American accent, even though to me that just read as NY) and me "You're Italian?!?" To me she's just white!

Like seriously you can whine about being insufficiently respected all you want but you cannot at the same time tell a person of colour they don't understand what racism is and expect to come away without a severe clowning at the very least.

If you read my post again the bit in brackets acknowledges the exact point you're making and I was very careful to put that in.

― Matt DC, Saturday, 11 August 2018 09:50 (seven hours ago) Permalink

I really don’t think I’ve said anything you should be offended by & I don’t understand what you said in brackets (you mean parentheses?) The part about intent? That’s not congruent w what I’m saying at all, any framework of racism I’ve ever seen makes it clear racism is not determined by “intent”

I regret the wording of that post already LOL but I am mystified what I’ve said that would be construed that way. If I did say something offensive I apologize but I’m genuinely not sure what that would be

*obviously* you are welcome to be offended by whatever you want.

These last three were bad posts & other than the Rwanda/Sudan ones upthread I regret them as much bc I feel like they undermine some pretty important wider arguments which I 100% stand by, & I think they’ve unfortunately made this conversation much different to have...

You don’t think there’s a better word for ppl who discriminate against Catholics than “racist”?

howzabout "bigots"?

The year is 2251. White Genocide has eliminated all trace of the Irish Race. All...save one

In the ruins of South Boston, one Irish dad struggles to feed his family as war threatens from all sides. One Irishman...will take a stand.

This Summer, Mark Wahlberg is Sole Dad O'Brien

— Jeff Van Fundme (@lbourgie) August 11, 2018

an oasis of mild lol in a desert of

So his family isn't Irish?

Soledad O'Brien - Mexican Irish.

Xxxp Ha + ha xp = 2 has out of 5

#peaktwittercomedy

The Lone Irish starring Atahualpa is a tale of one man’s race to rescue his entire village. But will his very race survive the horses trodding on the rich, bloody veins of the earth he calls home?

[Liam Neeson voice]

as the token irish person to be told how to irish itt pls no more discussion of irish

No ones telling irish ppl how to irish bud

☘️

bedad, deems, you're only irish because you were born there and lived there most all your life. you never had to work at it like the american irish have to.

an oasis of mild lol in a desert of

― the Joao looked at Jonny (Noodle Vague), Saturday, August 11, 2018 1:56 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

brits deflecting self awareness

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/11/donald-trump-charlottesville-anniversary-condemn-all-racism/965715002/

yes but you see he realizes that only those who have both prejudice and power are racists

the thing is D-40, and i'm gonna rise to this once and then promise myself i'll keep out of this thread, i have no problem with self-awareness, no problem acknowledging the global structures of racism, no problem with accepting my own complicity and privilege within those structures, and no problem listening to people's experience of being victims within those structures and trying to understand how i can work to resist and change my own complicity.

but i've got a massive problem, embarrassingly so, with being spoken to like i'm a racist 5 year-old by somebody who believes they're the keeper of the eternal changeless truth of all politics and language and is pathologically incapable of analyzing their own beliefs and how they discuss them with other human beings

Deej as explained I was more amused than offended by your post but I could have taken offense because "if you guys still see 'racism' as 'frothing at the mouth' you don't actually understand what racism is" is a pretty dumb and condescending thing to say to a non-white person. You've homed in on that phrase despite the fact that it was pretty obviously exaggerated for effect and that I might actually have a more nuanced definition of racism that acknowledges it might take other forms as well.

One of the reasons you keep running into trouble on this thread is that you keep trying to explain racism to people who have experienced it, or whose families have. At the very worst you are effectively saying that some of those lived experiences can't actually be racism because they don't fit into a framework of yours that people keep pointing out is inadequate.

At this particular moment in the UK there are white people who are being mysteriously turned down for jobs for which they are perfectly well qualified, whose homes and businesses are being vandalised, who are suspected of being terrorist sympathisers, and would be repatriated by far right groups in the unlikely event that they were to attain a degree of power. All for no reason other than where they're from. If that isn't racism then it definitely looks like it to me, it would be accepted as such under the UN definition of racism, and I don't think that acknowledging that devalues the racism experienced by black and Asian people.

The UK has never really made a clear distinction between race, nationality and ethnicity - socially or legally. On the census, ‘white British’ and ‘black British’ are separate ‘ethnicities’, ‘racial hatred’ laws specifically cover ethnicity and nationality alongside race (largely because nobody can unpick the precise differences imo), if you ask most people to self-describe their ‘ethnicity’ they’ll tell you their race or the nationality of their parents/grandparents, etc. If you ask white people to tell you their race, there’s probably an even chance they will say ‘British’ rather than ‘white’. It may be incorrect in the abstract but that’s absolutely how it’s used in practice. You can be a British national, be ‘culturally British’, etc, but the idea of being ‘ethnically British’ is a deeply loaded and exclusionary term and not something that is straightforwardly conferred by speaking English, drinking tea, watching Inspector Morse, etc.

No-one even knows what 'British' means, especially in England.

Semi-relevant

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/opinion/sunday/speak-for-yourself.html

Agree with that. There are times when the "as a" posturing becomes so extreme that I wonder why the writer then insists on a byline. If speaking as a member of a group is that important, the op-ed should just be credited to "A _____".

i enjoyed that column and was considering posting tl race thread

Drawing attention to certain identities you have is often a natural way of drawing attention to the contours of your beliefs, values or concerns.

i wish this line of thought had been developed more

like how do you do that properly without sliding into asserting authority

but i've got a massive problem, embarrassingly so, with being spoken to like i'm a racist 5 year-old by somebody who believes they're the keeper of the eternal changeless truth of all politics and language and is pathologically incapable of analyzing their own beliefs and how they discuss them with other human beings

― the Joao looked at Jonny (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 12 August 2018 12:03 (six hours ago) Permalink

2 days ago:

Itt i keep feeling like im getting accused of thinking im better than everyone or thinking i have access to 'the truth' better than them. if it helps the debate at all, i don't feel that way, but i DO feel like this effort to marginalize my perspective as being wholly based on some american discourse 1. is ignorant about this argument's origins in the first place, but more importantly 2. don't actually understand what arguments are being made.

I think it’s *interesting* how my side is the one seen as coming from this condescending place when there hasn’t been a moment when it didn’t feel like I was being ganged up on or talked down to give or take a post by shake or matt

One of the reasons you keep running into trouble on this thread is that you keep trying to explain racism to people who have experienced it, or whose families have. At the very worst you are effectively saying that some of those lived experiences can't actually be racism because they don't fit into a framework of yours that people keep pointing out is inadequate.

― Matt DC, Sunday, August 12, 2018 7:22 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I literally don’t care if white people are telling me they’ve experienced racism and I’m not being sensitive to it. Lol. It’s not a “framework of mine”. This is pretty commonly understood, by lots of people ! And I never assumed I was only talking to white people or they haven’t suffered from racism But 99% of what keeps coming up in arguments with me feels like efforts to deflect or argue any kind of discrimination or conflict is a result of racism, to nuance racism into being about literally any kind of hatred or bigotry when it’s really not that. As was written in that piece I linked upthread, race and ethnicity are asymmetrical concepts, and conflating the two is something conservative politicians who want to downplay the significance of racial discrimination.

Something *done by

I don’t care if “frothing at the mouth” is hyperbolic the point is thats Crash the Oscar Winning Movie understanding of race to assume racism is a matter of people’s anger or individual moral choices instead of the overarching system. There was no frothing at the mouth or anger behind my conflation if the Sudanese and Rwandans; yet that’s racism and someone refusing to vote for Kennedy because they hated Catholics is not.

I’m sorry to you and noodle vague if saying these things somehow seems like being talked down to like 5 year olds (?) but I’m not going to defer to your worldview if I think you’re arguing from a POV that misrepresents it misunderstands what is being said

I think it’s *interesting* how my side is the one seen as coming from this condescending place when there hasn’t been a moment when it didn’t feel like I was being ganged up on or talked down to give or take a post by shake or matt

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), 12. august 2018 20:38 (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is one of the greatest things ever written.

For the record I also think it's 'interesting' that I'm the one who is constantly accused of not knowing what I'm talking about with regards to US politics when not I day goes by where I don't feel like I'm smarter than everyone else on here. So how do you all account for that, eh?

Serious question, D-40. If the sources, mechanisms and effects of racism and a non-racist bigotry were more or less identical, would it matter to you as much that one of them is racism, while the other is not? iow, if a particular institutionalized bigotry operates exactly like institutionalized racism, what would be the harm in conflating them, other than an imprecision of language?

fwiw D I regretted losing my cool about 20 seconds after posting that but I do feel like this is a circular clusterfuck where we're talking past each other and I'm gonna shut up because I've got nothing I want to add to this specific convo

Serious question, D-40. If the sources, mechanisms and effects of racism and a non-racist bigotry were more or less identical, would it matter to you as much that one of them is racism, while the other is not? iow, if a particular institutionalized bigotry operates exactly like institutionalized racism, what would be the harm in conflating them, other than an imprecision of language?

― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, August 12, 2018 2:09 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The sources mechanisms and effects are not the same and they don’t operate exactly alike so I reject the framing of the question

For the record I also think it's 'interesting' that I'm the one who is constantly accused of not knowing what I'm talking about with regards to US politics when not I day goes by where I don't feel like I'm smarter than everyone else on here. So how do you all account for that, eh?

― Frederik B, Sunday, August 12, 2018 2:06 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

and he has issues with the self-awareness of others

oh a wonderful mother, definitely

I don’t care if “frothing at the mouth” is hyperbolic the point is thats Crash the Oscar Winning Movie understanding of race to assume racism is a matter of people’s anger or individual moral choices instead of the overarching system.

This wasn't my assumption and I don't know why you keep assuming I don't already know and understand this.

deej i am positive that matt and pretty much everyone else itt knows that modern-day racism is part of the deep structuring of capitalist society, and not just a matter of individual animus. at the risk of mattsplaining. and i certainly know that American racism is the legacy of slavery, and that even, say, third-generation Indian migrants in Boston face consequences in their personal and professional lives that are a product of the endless, malignant reverberations of it, even though they're not black. i doubt anyone in this thread would disagree with any of that. right? sorry if all that seems basic but it feels like we keep getting hung up on it.

i do think it's important to recognise and understand the specificity of American-style racism, and the ideological project that constructed it as an essential component of slavery. and i think you're right that that project was so malignant, and America so influential, that American racism has burst its bounds and is ordering the practices of institutions and individuals all over the globe. but let's not forget to be good intersectionalists - there's all sorts of other non-American racism that people get to be fucked over by as well - with its own specificity and historical grounding in other ideological projects

maybe i'm wrong but i feel like it's important to see

lol i forgot to erase that last bit

new board desc obv

Irish isn’t a race it’s an ethnicity

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

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), 4. august 2018 12:58 (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), 4. august 2018 21:36 (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), 4. august 2018 22:19 (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), 5. august 2018 00:55 (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just want this thread to stop at this point, but D-40, this is literally your first four posts in this thread, so you have no business now complaining that people are unfairly calling you condescending. Try just and take a moment and consider that in fact people are 'ganging up' on you because it's really really obvious to everyone that you have in fact been wrong, condescending and annoying.

How have I been “wrong”??

The sources mechanisms and effects are not the same and they don’t operate exactly alike

Glad to have your assurances on that. A bit of elaboration would be welcome, since you seem to have analyzed this already to your own satisfaction.

btw, by 'sources' I do not mean historical accidents, but rather social or personal sources which tend to create and enforce bigotry. By 'mechanisms' I mean both formal and informal, and both micro and macro social structures.

Of course, societies differ quite widely, as do the targets of racism and bigotry within those societies, so it would not be pertinent to differentiate between how racism and bigotry operate within one society to dismiss the possible similarities between the operations of racism and bigotry in all societies.

Tracer fwiw I see nothing wrong with your post but none of the posts I’ve responded to in this thread have made that particular point; or in pointing out that America has a unique racial history they simultaneously minimized their own, or suggested that the framework of an overlying racial system was the pure product of that American racial history, that it had no basis in ie colonialism or enlightenment thought

I’ve never argued america’s racial history is not in some ways distinct, but itt those “distinctions” were brought up less to point to differing ways of dealing with race than to dismiss the notion that racial issues external to the United States were any different than ethnic conflicts or anti catholic bigotry or etc

Fred I’m not responding to tone police bs like ppl weren’t being just as flip in response & also bc the point of this convo imho isn’t to validate me but to gain attention for a contested point

in pointing out that America has a unique racial history they simultaneously minimized their own

Do you have any examples of this?

(I'm not saying it didn't it happen, I just can't remember it happening)

(also I'm not sure the second part of your sentence is true either)