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

(And, to be clear, race is not the only axis this operates on, hence intersectionality and why people who haven't lived their entire lives navigating these conflicting facets of identity want to throw up their hands and proclaim the entire thing invalid)

My bf (black) and his social circle (mostly black) use the term "spicy white" to describe white folks who aren't white-white-whitey-white-white-- Albanians, Portuguese, Persians, etc. Fun!

I don't think I've ever spent more than 10 seconds thinking about myself as a white guy and what that means to my own personal identity. I guess that's white privelege in a nutshell.

I think about whiteness pretty often, mostly when I'm in social situations where white people are being disparaged by POC friends, or race is being discussed. It was a notable transition tbh to move from a predominantly white/East Asian social circle to a predominantly black/South Asian social circle; race was not a factor in most discussions in the first social group, and race was always a factor in the second. These days I'm very-often conscious of how I move and behave at parties, and even which parties I should go to.

A few years ago, I was dating a dark-skinned biracial man in L.A. when I was living there, and we had been talking about going to this party for a couple weeks. I was on my way there, and he called me and told me that he had second thoughts about me coming. He said that it was going to be a largely black crowd and it might not be "my scene". I got off the phone with him and cried about it for a minute: "my black boyfriend is ashamed of my white ass". I texted a couple of friends about it, and they were both "wow, what a jerk!"

Then I texted another friend about it-- in fact, my current boyfriend, as we were close friends before we began our relationship. I told him what had happened. He said to me, "you need to understand that if you're going to be dating a black person, there are going to be spaces that he is allowed to enter, things he is allowed to say, activities he is allowed to do, that you and your white body are not going to be allowed to enter, say, or do. You have to accept this if you're going to be in a relationship with him." I'm still conscious of that in my current relationship, about once a month there is just something I won't go to. (And at least four times in the past two years, I've been singled out at mostly black parties and mocked, physically attacked, or made fun of. Big fucking deal. It's nothing compared to what some of my friends experience.)

when uh.... discussing .....the wite american guilt/pride dilemma (that tombot sketches out well up above) with d40 prev i typed an effort at a post that still sits in my evernote ffs but at some point between copying and pasting i actually thought (or maybe you had posted in interim dan): "i agree with this and i think its worth making the point but do i need djp to read another effort at an irish (proper irish) person explaining to a wite american on ilx that what they mean by witeness doesnt apply to entire nations of colonised white ppl" and for about the second time ever on ilx i think i made a good decision to not post.

maybe thats how prods feel all the time idk

He said to me, "you need to understand that if you're going to be dating a black person, there are going to be spaces that he is allowed to enter, things he is allowed to say, activities he is allowed to do, that you and your white body are not going to be allowed to enter, say, or do. You have to accept this if you're going to be in a relationship with him." I'm still conscious of that in my current relationship, about once a month there is just something I won't go to. (And at least four times in the past two years, I've been singled out at mostly black parties and mocked, physically attacked, or made fun of. Big fucking deal. It's nothing compared to what some of my friends experience.)

I don't think this is "nothing" to me or would feel like nothing if it had happened to me and I'm generally not too keen on excusing interpersonal violations by recourse to racial or political in/outgroup distinctions in general - my feeling is that this isn't the kind of world I'd want to inhabit or at least aspire towards, but you're the one in the relationship navigating these waters and there is some obvious nobility in yr approach as well (ultimately compassion/kindness instead of resentment even if it took some venting first). i'm just registering that despite how progressive it may sound to you, to my ears it sounds regressive + hostile and makes me sad.

If I come to a party with my boyfriend and, an hour in, a drunk black woman aggressively asks me to leave, then I will do so; I resent your statement that this is the kind of world I'd "want to inhabit or at least aspire toward". I am behaving according to what I feel is correct, given the circumstances.

Fwiw, I do think that being physically attacked for any reason is a big deal, fgti.

for my sins i read back some of the ludicrous last bump and its worth making a full and frank admission of being overly dickish to oûtiç (cant do the accent) during moments of high dudgeon with other unnamed affiliates of his during that spat

apologies for same etc

but at same time there was a lot of good 2011 energy in the room for a few days there

to soref: "the world" is not the world.

― Mordy

i think you'll find that the world became the world in 1974

I was very disappointed to learn that there were Jewish slave-owners in South Carolina

― change display name (Jordan)

there's also the whole weird thing about Judah P. Benjamin having a reputation for being "the brains of the Confederacy".

i'm not sure how closely this needs to be addressed but jewish slave-owners made up a minuscule percentage of slave-owners in the south and a lot of the rhetoric about jewish slave-owners and jewish participation in the slave trade has been purposefully inflated for antisemitic purposes.

^^^^ yup.

I was just at the museum of american jewish history in philadelphia -- great museum -- and they make it perfectly plain that some jews owned slaves -- not in the service of anti-semitism but in the service of its overall message that there's not a single part of american history that isn't in part american jewish history. i see the idea that we're somehow "a people apart" as more helpful to anti-semitism overall.

a relative just sent me a campaign guide from a group called "White Awake" and my main reaction was amusement that that name could work just as well for a neo-nazi/white nationalist group as it does for a "woke white liberals" group

How about 'White Awoke'?

White Awake - the neo-nazi Katy Perry fanclub

after years of reading and pondering I'm going to have to disparage a complex hierarchy of embedded cultural hegemonies

Middle class Lockdown Bingo: play here!

Banana bread
Growing tomatoes
Sourdough starter
Drinks on zoom
The Mirror & the Light
5pm gin
Videoing your street clapping
Doing Joe Wicks PE
Fancying Rishi Sunak
Ordering from independent shops
Crafts
Educational walks
Meditation
Tea

— Flic Everett (@fliceverett) April 3, 2020

Fancying Rishi Sunak

Excuse me?

Tea is a middle class thing now?

all walks are educational if you are doing it right

I did order a copy of The Mirror & The Light today.

What about that thing white ppl do -- I just was in a long conversation with a fellow white person who was doing this, that's why it's on my mind -- when they complain about the town/state/school of their childhood being "so white"?

I can imagine a perfectly reputable version of this practice where said white person would be making the point "all-white or almost all-white spaces are almost always the result of deliberate exclusionary practices, and as an adult, I see that enjoyed access to those spaces that was denied to others and that's not fair" but it usually doesn't come off like this, and it didn't in this case, the tone was much more "life was so bland and tiresome among all those whites," as if the reason you don't want to be in an all-white space is because it lacks the spicy SNAP people of color provide.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/15HiKjAnUuAymWdqejOTcP

i love to make fun of wite people

we fucking suck and deserve so much worse

Weird, I saw that playlist somewhere else recently too. They got the wrong Bon Jovi song at the end though. Shot Through the Heart was an album track on the self-titled debut. Whoever made this list probably meant to put on You Give Love a Bad Name off of Slippery When Wet, which starts off with the lyric "Shot through the heart and you're to blame".

Ok, wait. They did get You Give Love a Bad Name on there too. Who the fuck likes Shot Through the Heart?

Was it in a video game or something?

TIL that Bon Jovi already had a song called “Shot Through The Heart” before they made YGLABN.

true story: I spent my entire life until my mid 20s having never heard Sweet Caroline with a crowd. not really sure I’d even heard the entire song before

i’m standing around at a music festival and the house music starts playing it as the tent gets crowded, and it becomes a singalong. i’m mystified!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPkNBo4_rpM

ruuuuuuuuun

So good!

White people are also really scary, don't know if anyone itt mentioned it but they/we are

I'm a ghooooost

I'm willing to bet that there's a non-negligible number of white people who would shoot someone without hesitation for claiming that there are no 'ba ba ba's in the original recording of 'Sweet Caroline'

I'm not sure I've ever heard 'Sweet Caroline'.

Also I'm pretty sure only 2-3 of those songs would make me mildly turnt provided I had like 8-9 pints in me.

Ok I just looked up 'Sweet Caroline' and I think I've come across the chorus before but it may just be a case of faux déjà vu.

pom, have u heard 'Heartlight', if so then 'Sweet Caroline' is basically just 'Heartlight' except not about E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Sampling 'Heartlight' as we speak – I had not heard it, no. In fact I couldn't name a single Neil Diamond song until a few minutes ago.

Turn on your heartlight
(BA BA BAAAA!)
Let it shine wherever you go
(YOU GO! YOU GO! YOU GO! YOU GO!)

list seems to be missing “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes

Weird, I saw that playlist somewhere else recently too.

missing "Torn" "Stay" and "Humpty Dance"

What about the Byrds, "Turnt Turnt Turnt"?

If being turnt for "Don't You Want Me" is wrong I don't wanna be right

or white

i get irrationally embarrassed when people do this in public. tbr i think it's a version of liberal brainworms. ultimately whiteness is an ideology, not a person. though of course some fair-skinned people stump for it hard. and idk, liking some songs is actually not a problem? whereas working in finance or being an 'entrepreneur' or enjoying a high standard of living is... actively stumping for the ideology of whiteness. but that stuff is a lot harder to make fun of then 'sweet caroline' or whatever.

when parsing out whiteness, richness, maleness, etc., i think it's important to know when one is being made fun of while the others are being affirmed in the background because it makes the whole organism more resilient, if that makes any sense.

not everyone is cut out for self-hatred. you have to build toward it