People are ignorant, selfish, evil and just plain dumb.
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I read this and it makes me ill:
(Written by a "nonwhite" student at my institution of "higher" learning.)
"'White guilt' offers no solution for racism
"Don't hate me because I am a white, straight, upper class male."
"Stop making me feel guilty for being born white!"
Sound familiar?
These statements are the sentiments of something that is very popular these days, and it's called white guilt. White people hate feeling guilty. They just hate it. They wish bygones could be bygones, and that we could all live in peace and harmony. They are the first to point out when they themselves are victims of "racism", and call affirmative action "reverse-discrimination".
Sufferers of white guilt overlook systematic inequality and define racism simply as an individual's prejudice against another individual solely on the basis of their skin color. They argue for a "color blind" society, using the buzzword "equality" to excess. They are in love with the idea that everyone in the world should be able to hold hands around the globe, treating each other like "equals". They quote Martin Luther King, the only black man they know of from their one day of learning about the civil rights movement in high school, and whine "Why can't we just all be friends?"
I wish it were that simple, that we can all let bygones be bygones and just be friends with everyone. I hate to break it to you, but equality can't exist in an unequal society. Racism is not just slavery. It's a system in which one group of people uses power and privilege to ensure their superiority over another. Race is a social construct made to place people of color in subordination to whites. Can there even be such a thing as reverse discrimination? No my friends, that's called justice. To demand equality between the races is like asking a woman to forgive the man who raped her.
Some white people are very aware of racism, but still suffer from white guilt. This is another, more PC type of guilt, which I call, "White Liberal Guilt". These are the white folks who acknowledge that while they themselves might not be racist on an individual level, they live in a racist society that automatically grants them certain advantages and rights at the expense of others. They understand the privileges they are given simply because of the color of their skin, that ignoring racism is perpetuating it, and dedicate themselves to practicing and spreading antiracism to soothe their guilty consciousness.
The white liberals take it too far when they start becoming "down" with the colored folks. I'm talking about those with dreadlocked hair and adopting an "urban" accent. I'm talking about upper class whites who dress in thrift shop clothing just because it's "cool to be poor." The ones who date people of color to make a political statement, and go to underground hip hop concerts yelling "down with the police!" I'm talking about white people who travel to third world countries to help the poor and needy to make themselves feel like better citizens.
I don't have a problem with white people who want to make a real change in this racist society, but I can't stand it when they forget who they are and what they always will be: white.
Some white people like to take off their race as if it was a baseball cap. They proclaim that they are not white, but a "human being". I laugh as I say this because they don't see that it is being white that allows them to forget they have a race, while others are forced to be reminded what their color is due to daily discrimination. A white person can think of himself or herself as a race-less human being because they themselves don't have to confront their race every single day of their lives. A black or native person cannot walk through an upper class neighborhood without being perceived as a criminal, but a white person can.
As an Asian American woman I have tried to have discussions with white friends about our racist society and then I will have to explain exactly why and how racism works to my clueless friends. They think that because they are white they cannot tell when something is racist or not. Instead, I am hired to enlighten, educate and use "my experience as a woman of color" to offer my subjective perspective. Why can't white people use their own experiences to discuss racism instead of using mine?
What most people don't realize about white guilt is that it's completely unnecessary. No one told white folks to feel bad for being who they are; white guilt is only a figment of their imagination. Transforming society and defeating racism cannot happen with this kind of mind-set. I recommend turning the guilt into anger, and anger into solidarity. Whites need to realize that they too are victims of an oppressive system they were born into, in that the automatic benefits they receive for being white are wrong and unjust. Everyone, including whites, can use their own experiences to fight racism. And nobody has to feel guilty for it, either. "
---------------
Why the above insanity makes my skin crawl:
It is absolutely FULL of stereotypical ideas about "whites"; it is full of projections as to what "white" people "think"; it takes the supposed moral high ground in defense of racism against "whites"; it IS racist against "whites" - in fact, it is so unbelievably bald-faced evil racism that I can not for the life of me figure out why it was given a place in a university setting. Sure, there is freedom of speech and all, and I support this person's right to voice her opinion, even if I think it is utterly WRONG, but can you imagine if a "white" person wrote something criticizing the "browns"? They'd have that person thrown out on his ear, forced to appear in front of the media, and hence, the world - hated as an evil racist. When someone who identifies himself as not "white" does the same racist thing, it is considered "justice"?!
I would like to tell that person:
You do not know me.
You do not know the struggles I have faced.
You do not know my history or my family's history.
You know nothing of the "story" of "my" "people".
You criticize "whites" as racist, but refuse to acknowledge your own.
You perpetuate the status quo of injustice in this country and in this world by your own racism.
You also unknowingly perpetuate this racial divide by the way you refer to yourself and people "like" you as people "of color". "White" has become so standardized, so "normal", that anything not white is considered "of color".
Is white not even a color any more? Am I invisible?
----New from Hawaii!! "The VISIBLE Haole!!"
I quote Dennis Miller: "Check the crayon box, asshole."
It is possible to see skin color as no more important than hair or eye color. I know this because I have lived this from my earliest years growing up in a household where some had yellow hair, some had brown hair, some had black hair and so on. Oh yeah, some of my FAMILY had white skin as well as brown skin. So what!?
I'd like to say, "who cares!" but I know that this would be foolish. I am living in a world where we humans are so primitive, we can't get past such a simple thing as a difference in the melanin content of our skin.
We are utterly undeserving of this planet, and the complete ignorance of the person who wrote that nazi diatribe is proof of it.
I read this and it makes me ill:
(Written by a "nonwhite" student at my institution of "higher" learning.)
"'White guilt' offers no solution for racism
"Don't hate me because I am a white, straight, upper class male."
"Stop making me feel guilty for being born white!"
Sound familiar?
These statements are the sentiments of something that is very popular these days, and it's called white guilt. White people hate feeling guilty. They just hate it. They wish bygones could be bygones, and that we could all live in peace and harmony. They are the first to point out when they themselves are victims of "racism", and call affirmative action "reverse-discrimination".
Sufferers of white guilt overlook systematic inequality and define racism simply as an individual's prejudice against another individual solely on the basis of their skin color. They argue for a "color blind" society, using the buzzword "equality" to excess. They are in love with the idea that everyone in the world should be able to hold hands around the globe, treating each other like "equals". They quote Martin Luther King, the only black man they know of from their one day of learning about the civil rights movement in high school, and whine "Why can't we just all be friends?"
I wish it were that simple, that we can all let bygones be bygones and just be friends with everyone. I hate to break it to you, but equality can't exist in an unequal society. Racism is not just slavery. It's a system in which one group of people uses power and privilege to ensure their superiority over another. Race is a social construct made to place people of color in subordination to whites. Can there even be such a thing as reverse discrimination? No my friends, that's called justice. To demand equality between the races is like asking a woman to forgive the man who raped her.
Some white people are very aware of racism, but still suffer from white guilt. This is another, more PC type of guilt, which I call, "White Liberal Guilt". These are the white folks who acknowledge that while they themselves might not be racist on an individual level, they live in a racist society that automatically grants them certain advantages and rights at the expense of others. They understand the privileges they are given simply because of the color of their skin, that ignoring racism is perpetuating it, and dedicate themselves to practicing and spreading antiracism to soothe their guilty consciousness.
The white liberals take it too far when they start becoming "down" with the colored folks. I'm talking about those with dreadlocked hair and adopting an "urban" accent. I'm talking about upper class whites who dress in thrift shop clothing just because it's "cool to be poor." The ones who date people of color to make a political statement, and go to underground hip hop concerts yelling "down with the police!" I'm talking about white people who travel to third world countries to help the poor and needy to make themselves feel like better citizens.
I don't have a problem with white people who want to make a real change in this racist society, but I can't stand it when they forget who they are and what they always will be: white.
Some white people like to take off their race as if it was a baseball cap. They proclaim that they are not white, but a "human being". I laugh as I say this because they don't see that it is being white that allows them to forget they have a race, while others are forced to be reminded what their color is due to daily discrimination. A white person can think of himself or herself as a race-less human being because they themselves don't have to confront their race every single day of their lives. A black or native person cannot walk through an upper class neighborhood without being perceived as a criminal, but a white person can.
As an Asian American woman I have tried to have discussions with white friends about our racist society and then I will have to explain exactly why and how racism works to my clueless friends. They think that because they are white they cannot tell when something is racist or not. Instead, I am hired to enlighten, educate and use "my experience as a woman of color" to offer my subjective perspective. Why can't white people use their own experiences to discuss racism instead of using mine?
What most people don't realize about white guilt is that it's completely unnecessary. No one told white folks to feel bad for being who they are; white guilt is only a figment of their imagination. Transforming society and defeating racism cannot happen with this kind of mind-set. I recommend turning the guilt into anger, and anger into solidarity. Whites need to realize that they too are victims of an oppressive system they were born into, in that the automatic benefits they receive for being white are wrong and unjust. Everyone, including whites, can use their own experiences to fight racism. And nobody has to feel guilty for it, either. "
---------------
Why the above insanity makes my skin crawl:
It is absolutely FULL of stereotypical ideas about "whites"; it is full of projections as to what "white" people "think"; it takes the supposed moral high ground in defense of racism against "whites"; it IS racist against "whites" - in fact, it is so unbelievably bald-faced evil racism that I can not for the life of me figure out why it was given a place in a university setting. Sure, there is freedom of speech and all, and I support this person's right to voice her opinion, even if I think it is utterly WRONG, but can you imagine if a "white" person wrote something criticizing the "browns"? They'd have that person thrown out on his ear, forced to appear in front of the media, and hence, the world - hated as an evil racist. When someone who identifies himself as not "white" does the same racist thing, it is considered "justice"?!
I would like to tell that person:
You do not know me.
You do not know the struggles I have faced.
You do not know my history or my family's history.
You know nothing of the "story" of "my" "people".
You criticize "whites" as racist, but refuse to acknowledge your own.
You perpetuate the status quo of injustice in this country and in this world by your own racism.
You also unknowingly perpetuate this racial divide by the way you refer to yourself and people "like" you as people "of color". "White" has become so standardized, so "normal", that anything not white is considered "of color".
Is white not even a color any more? Am I invisible?
----New from Hawaii!! "The VISIBLE Haole!!"
I quote Dennis Miller: "Check the crayon box, asshole."
It is possible to see skin color as no more important than hair or eye color. I know this because I have lived this from my earliest years growing up in a household where some had yellow hair, some had brown hair, some had black hair and so on. Oh yeah, some of my FAMILY had white skin as well as brown skin. So what!?
I'd like to say, "who cares!" but I know that this would be foolish. I am living in a world where we humans are so primitive, we can't get past such a simple thing as a difference in the melanin content of our skin.
We are utterly undeserving of this planet, and the complete ignorance of the person who wrote that nazi diatribe is proof of it.
