Race- Privilege, Relations, Racism, etc.

You can have whatever intention you want, but a Jew seeing it will think of the murder of his people (and, quite possibly, of some of his relatives). It's just not something one should do.

Actually, I'm Jewish (well, ethnically Jewish anyway), and I like the swastika. It's a shame Hitler stole it.

Other than that I agree with you, though. And I want to say that the reason it's offensive to say you're proud of being white is that it implies that there's something wrong with being not-white, while there's no such implication in the other direction.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

The Indo-European culture

> And I want to say that the reason it's offensive to say you're proud of being white is that it implies that there's something wrong with being not-white, while there's no such implication in the other direction.

It depends on how you use it. There is nothing inherently wrong with being proud of your heritage and only thing that makes people think so is the constant misuse. I am proud of my culture but I don't think there is something wrong with the other ones (well, there are some wrong things with certain cultures but that's not a thread for this; generally, white cultures are no superior to non-white ones)

edited 31st May '11 2:07:14 PM by nzm1536

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Nobody sees anything wrong with being proud of being Norwegian, or Irish, or French, only white in general.

And to go into more detail, the reason it's seen as racist to be proud of being white is that, as I mentioned before, "white" means nothing more than "the class of people who have white privilege".*

Therefore being proud of being white is akin to being proud of your white privilege, which is essentially celebrating racism.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

^^ What is the Indo-European culture? Christianity? It's certainly not baseball and apple pie.

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

No, this is the offensive modern definition created by whiteness studies that stems from white guilt and self-loathing. White means white just like black means black (neither 'disadvantaged people' nor 'fitting the black stereotype' - simply black)

Not necessarily christianity. It's basically the whole European civilization and history

edited 31st May '11 2:19:01 PM by nzm1536

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

I don't see why anyone would find pride in what colour they are. Like I said, taking pride in that is treating it as an acheivement, which it isn't, and implies that one sees it as some kind of improved state of being.

And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)

Iran and India also contain Indo-European languages.

I don't think there's anyone who's saying there's something wrong with liking Renaissance art.

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

I know, let's not get into nitpicking because I was just writing fast (also, Iran is pretty mixed up right now: it's got a lot of Arabic influence this days)

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

• How, if at all, do you feel your race affects your everyday life?

Probably in the ways that it affects most White females. For example, when I'm walking down the sidewalk by myself, I would be more likely to be stereotyped as a potential victim of a crime rather than a perpetrator of one. I think I have had a bit of an unusual upbringing in that I not only have anti-racist parents who instilled their views in me, but also the unusual (for a White person in the Midwest) experience of going to a grade school that had a much larger population of "minority" race students than other schools. I am not exactly sure how this has affected me, although it probably made me see a greater racial diversity as "normal" more than some people would've seen it as being (like feeling like there was something wrong with an all-White group of students at college because my school norm was having greater racial diversity than that).

• Do you believe that white people (or whatever the majority race in your area is) receive privileges simply because of the color of their skin. How much?

Yes, I do think there is such a thing as White privilege, and I think how much of it depends on the situation one is in. One of the parts of White privilege is, unfortunately, the privilege to be unaware of racism or that a comment one might make is racist. I am ashamed to admit that I made a comment once when I was younger (probably in junior high or high school, maybe grade school) that was something like "Isn't it great buses aren't segregated anymore?" to some black kids and I think I may have offended them, although I don't remember anyone getting upset at me for it. I realize now that comment might have had the implication of being patronizing or implying that because de jure (by law) segregation is gone, that de facto (in practice) segregation and racism are gone. Some of this might be because I didn't learn about more modern racism that occurs even after the Civil Rights Movement until later than then, but that in itself is White privilege because I was able to learn about it in an academic setting of a book or a class rather than being forced to experience cruel racism. Another thing is, I was bullied in school, but it never was for being White in itself, it was other things, while if I was from a different racial background, I might've been bullied for that reason.

However, I don't think feeling guilty about being White is the answer to the problem, that's going to the other extreme. I really don't think anyone should feel guilty about who their ancestors were, nor do I think that it's a good idea to think that one is better than others because of one's ethnicity/race/national origin.

• Do you believe minorities are discriminated against for the same reason? How much?

Yes, I do believe that minorities are discriminated against, even nowadays, even though things certainly have improved. Again, "how much" is dependent on the situation. I answered some of that question above, too.

• Do you believe that assimilation of cultures is better than people trying to keep their own?

No, I believe that cultural diversity is a better idea than making immigrants conform. The US wouldn't be what it is today without immigrants, in fact, ALL White Americans owe their heritage to immigration because the indigenous population of the US would not count as "White." This anti-immigrant sentiment coming from people whose ancestors were immigrants annoys and confuses me. Not to mention it would be boring and stagnant without new ideas coming into a culture/region. I don't believe in the melting pot, I think a salad bowl or stew analogy is a better one (where some of it tastes similar but you can still pick out the individual flavors/cultures).

• Affirmative Action. Yea, Nay? Why or why not?

This is a rather complicated issue, although something that many White people forget is that there has almost always been "affirmative action" in the US—that is, favoring people for a job/school/whatever for being White. It's only recently that there has been an attempt to even things out by favoring other groups for a change.

That said, it is a bit of a "band-aid" solution, and could do with some improvement (such as focusing on trying to even out economic differences a little more rather than just focusing on race), and I don't think it's an end solution, or that there is one. I do think that many White people who oppose this may be simply ignorant of the privilege they had before those laws were passed, like that they don't realize that it's an attempt to make things more equal by favoring the "underdog." I personally wouldn't be offended if a Black person or whoever got a job instead of me because for one thing, it could easily be because that person was more qualified for the job than me (you never know unless someone outright says it, and as a White person who probably is privileged in other areas, I don't think I have the right to complain about someone else getting to be the favorite for once). It's not like White people aren't allowed to have jobs anymore, it's more like affirmative action is trying to make things more equal by taking away the unfair White privilege of being considered first.

• Also, a personal question from me.

Why (in my experience, not trying to generalize) do white people often try to insist that they aren't white? I can't count the number of times I've heard "I'm not white, I'm 1/4th English, 1/4th German, 1/4th Scandinavian 1/8th Cherokee, and 1/8th Russian, " as though 4 of 5 of those things aren't considered "white" by the masses. Is it because you have pride for your ancestry, or an attempt to try and differentiate yourself from all those "other" white people? Or something else altogether?

I think this depends on the person. In some cases, it is simply pride in one's ancestry or wanting to be different. I've never heard anyone say "I'm not White" and then list groups that are mostly considered to be "White" or at least are European groups. That sounds like a rather odd thing to do. Maybe they're saying "I'm not JUST White" or trying to fight the idea that being White makes them boring or something.

@nzm: Oh really?

Then explain these:

• Around 200 years ago, back when the Irish first started to immigrate to America, they were not considered "white" despite clearly having white skin. Now they are, even though their skin hasn't gotten any whiter.
• From antiquity until around 50 years ago, Arabs were considered white despite usually having brown skin, not white skin. Now they're usually not, even though their skin hasn't gotten any darker.
• The Spanish are still considered white despite not having white skin.
  • Same for Israelis, although not Palestinians, despite the fact that they both cover the same very broad range of skin tones.
• Latinos are very closely related to the Spanish and yet are often not considered white.
• East Asians clearly have white skin and yet are not considered white. Native Americans sometimes have white skin and yet are also not considered white.
• In summary, why are these guys white and this guy◊ isn't?

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

@ nzm: Arabic culture is an Indo-European culture as well.

I wonder, is this more of an American definition? Because I don't think Hispanics are generally considered non-white over here, and I'm certain you can belong to a minority ethnic group here and still be considered white. It's primarily a visual description, AFAIK.

^ Those guys aren't white, they're Middle Eastern, and that guy isn't white because he's East Asian.

edited 31st May '11 2:41:29 PM by BobbyG

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@Bobby: Yeah, it probably is; I would think most Hispanics in Britain are actually from Spain, and thus no worse off than anyone else.

In America they're the current wave of immigrants, and as such certain kinds of people resent them.

EDIT @Bobby G: Ok, so than why are these guys◊ white? Even if you don't think Israelis are, I don't think you can dispute that Italians are. But these two guys clearly have darker skin than Jackie Chan up there.

edited 31st May '11 2:45:20 PM by BlackHumor

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

There was no concept of whiteness in antiquity. Also, you're talking mostly about how are people treated in America. In Europe, Irish were always considered white and definition of whiteness was either purely skin color or belonging to central part of the culture (East Asians are non-white because they are not the part of European culture while Spanish people are)

edited 31st May '11 2:43:45 PM by nzm1536

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

Yeah, I really doubt we have that many Latin Americans here compared to the US.

But, say, Polish immigrants, which we get a lot of - pretty sure they're generally regarded as white here. As are most Jewish people here. And the Irish. Not sure about Romani.

Italians are white because they're ethnically European, and they look it. "White" doesn't refer purely to skin tone, it's a broad category that more-or-less means ethnically European-looking.

edited 31st May '11 2:47:41 PM by BobbyG

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I am curious as to whether this question ever pops up anywhere outside of the United States on internet forums.

First, race is mainly an issue in America anyway, so that argument seems off.

But it doesn't matter anyway, because for a long time Irish people weren't considered white within Great Britain.

EDIT @Bobby: The Irish have always looked European. But they weren't always considered white.

On the other hand, for most of history Arabs were considered white.◊ Including people such as the Iranian Jews from that picture above.

edited 31st May '11 2:52:13 PM by BlackHumor

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Race is not only an American issue, especially as immigration is rising in Europe. And the link you sent doesn't show that Irish weren't considered white: it shows they were considered racially different, but those days race had a broader meaning than today (it meant something like 'ethnicity')

edited 31st May '11 2:51:04 PM by nzm1536

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

^^ Well, they most certainly are now.

^ Yes, but I think it's possible that we have slightly different perceptions of and attitudes towards different races. We clearly group people slightly differently, if Black Humor's view is typical of an American's.

edited 31st May '11 2:51:05 PM by BobbyG

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I've heard it argued that Italians are Latino. Granted, this was to make the point that Latino is a worthless term.

And as for race, I would argue that it's a broader term than ethnicity—the difference between "white" and "central European," for instance. Both are in turn broader than nationality.

edited 31st May '11 3:21:52 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

I never say they aren't. I said they didn't use to be: for example, XIX century anthropologists thought of 'Slavic', 'Germanic' and 'Jewish' as separate races

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

You know the Japanese used to be considered White in America, versus the Chinese, who were considered evil yellows. The concept that White is merely an arbitrary grouping for the purpose of affording privilege isn't a made up only in today's world, it was around even back in post-WW 2 50s in the United States (except that it was thought of more positively of course).

I don't know the history of Poland with respect to minority groups and I'm quite sure that the Polish people have wildly different definitions and approaches to the subject. Even Canada and the United States view the topic very differently. You can see Europe and North America view it differently. But you know, I wouldn't suggest that China and Canada are as different as Canada and the United States. That's just ridiculous.

Canada is the main and only country that practices full on multiculturalism. United States is a close second. Europe is heavily about assimilation and I've rarely ever seen any actual multicultural policy. I see Germany love to talk about multikulti and France talk about affording their North Africans a lot of leeway but when I visited, it looked like plain cultural assimilation to me. I mean, clearly these people never set one foot in Canada before if they think what they have is multiculturalism (or for that matter, a high immigration rate).

edited 31st May '11 3:52:42 PM by breadloaf

Again, American definition of whiteness is not the same as the whole world's definition. America is not the whole world. In Poland we have neither assimilation nor multiculturalism because there is very little immigrants here, although our concept of whiteness is the way I said - either 'white' nations are the ones belonging to European culture or they are nations with white skin. From what I know, there were never racial politics in Poland so there were no official criteria of division between whites and non-whites

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey

I realise United States isn't the world but when you talk about the term "white" or "whiteness", you basically grabbing at something invented in North America. Race politics in the North American continent has always been very prevalent and the "white" term has morphed. Personally, in discussions with Europeans, I've noticed they mostly associate the term with skin colour but nobody does that here and they never did. That's why I find it odd you push for the skin colour perspective so much considering that it's not even a term that is relevant in Europe.

I use the meaning of term 'white person' and 'whiteness' how it is used in Europe and, probably, everywhere outside of the US. I reject the American idea of 'whiteness' being the same as 'being privileged' because I consider it offensive to white people, as it kind of puts them in the role of tyrants.

"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey