White Privilege

Banned Scando.

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Edit- should send in a PM

edited 24th Feb '12 11:47:02 AM by Jordan

Hodor

Here are my two cents on the debate about affirmative action - in theory, it does sound like a good idea. However, it has a few problems. Yes, minorities are generally in a worse condition than the whites, but in practice, affirmative action in education tends to prop up minority students from the upper and middle classes much less than the poor and truly oppressed ones, who are the ones affirmative action is supposed to benefit in the first place. Also, despite the well-meaning cause, it helps the governent judge people by race, furthering the racial segregation when we should be pushing for a post-racial society. I am sure that increasing welfare and education spending, giving special funding to schools in areas with a large population of poor minorities, as well as overhauling the US educational system without the paranoia of it resembling SOCIALISM! ;_; can be much more effective in propping up poor minorities.

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

Good one.

And Milos, your points about the problems with affirmative action are spot on.

Talking to Humor, I realize I see what my problem is. I want a world where we increase opportunity, not take opportunity from some to give another.

It was an honor

I don't think that affirmative action exactly "takes" opportunity from whites, as the actual effects on them are minuscule, but the problem is that it's quite ineffective at what it's supposed to do.

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

I am telling you that your "empathy" is not actually empathetic, because I don't WANT the unfair advantage I get for being white, but you're telling me I can't fix it because that would be "bad for me".

Would you tell Warren Buffet that he can't demand a higher tax rate for himself in the interest of fairness? Because that's basically what you're doing, and I certainly don't appreciate it.

What? I think you've got things entirely backwards, because I don't have that freedom NOW. One of the biggest harms of privilege for white people is that it denies us that very ability to succeed or fail on our own efforts. If society is handing you stuff because you're white you can never know if you really earned anything.

Going back to the race metaphor, if I get an unfair advantage in a race, and I win, I can never know whether I would've won the race without the advantage. That advantage has robbed ME of a fair victory in addition to robbing all the other people in the race of any victory at all.

...but it doesn't. Or at least, relative to all other people it doesn't. If Warren Buffet gets his way and pays higher taxes he'd STILL be very rich. He'd be less rich than he is now, sure, but frankly defending his lower tax rate on the basis of that money he'd lose is utterly foolish when it could go to help people who are legitimately suffering.

EDIT: OH AND, I realize that Scando can't respond to this but this:

is just plain false. The number he almost certainly has is that the HERITABILITY of height is about 60-80%. But that doesn't mean that it's 60-80% hereditary. It means that 60-80% of the VARIATION is due to genetics.

If I have a population of an animal whose height is entirely determined by genes, and they all have the same gene, the heritability of height is ZERO, because there's no variation. Similarly if I have an animal whose height is almost all due to environment, and they're all in an identical environment, the heritability number I will get if I measure them is 100%, because all the variation in the population is due to genetics even if genes have very little effect on any individual's height.

edited 24th Feb '12 2:03:52 PM by BlackHumor

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

Hmm.....

It was an honor

Well, then, it's a good thing you aren't a minority, BH. You'll never have to deal with an unfair advantage.

Now, maybe you'll start out from a wealthy background. But that doesn't mean you have an unfair advantage. It means other people have to deal with an unfair disadvantage.

edited 24th Feb '12 2:17:31 PM by Ultrayellow

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

That's useless semantics. If everybody competing with BH has an unfair disadvantage, than BH has an unfair advantage. That just follows logically!

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Okay, this is starting to come a focus a bit.

Going with Humor's race analogy; Humor wants to basically run the race and not have the deck stacked in his favor, a rather noble sentiment.

I guess where I'm a little uncomfortable is watching Humor tie his feet together to offset the fact he was given a 10 second head start.

I guess this is where we're differing. I want a fair race as much as Humor does. But what I'm feeling, and this has been discussed elsewhere in this discussion, is that we need to be raising the level of opportunity for all, not lowering it so it's as the same low level.

Back to the race analogy, I want the runners in the back to step up to the same starting line, not have everybody start 3 feet behind it.

edited 24th Feb '12 2:25:50 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor

Nope. It's not useless semantics.

Wealth and success are not an unfair advantage. An unfair advantage is something people shouldn't have.

Reasonable wealth (at least not being poor) is something everyone should have.

So calling that an unfair advantage implies a worrying set of ideas. An unfair advantage should be taken away, no? But as a matter of fact, what should be taken away are the disadvantages.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

To be honest, it's better than doing nothing. I do like Milos' suggestion from further up the page:

If we could do this, then practically no one would be opposed to ending affirmative action as it is now.

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Well put Yellow.

But another bone of contention I have with Humor is the idea that it's okay to for minorities to call each other "nigger" but a white person who says it is to be shot.

Now that's just plain hypocrisy, and I can't co-sign on it.

It was an honor

Putting that money into scholarships and education definitely sounds a lot better to me.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Maxima, the reason for that is that if a black person says it it's obviously meant in jest, whereas when a white person says it, it's derogatory. Context is a massive part of language, context changes the meaning of a word.

"Roll for whores."

Well, a white friend saying 'nigger' to a black friend in jest should be fine by society (and around where I live, it is).

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setnakhe, I'm sure you see the problem with assuming someone's intent based solely on the color of their skin.

There's a word for that, you know.

It was an honor

Please tell me that was a joke. Please tell me you're not accusing me of being racist for saying that black people can say a certain word that begins with n, but whites can't.

e: exactly.

edited 24th Feb '12 2:44:25 PM by setnakhte

"Roll for whores."

As always context is everything.

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Fact: Most African-Americans didn't own slaves.

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I'm sorry but the thought that a person's whiteness automatically means they aren't capable of using a term in the same manner as someone of a different skin color using the exact same term IS racism.

Of course, I'm not trying to call you a racist. I'm simply disputing your assertion.

Also a fact: Nor have many whites today or even their parents.

edited 24th Feb '12 3:10:50 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor

While I agree that it's a bad thing for people who aren't African-American to say n*****, Loid, nobody alive owned slaves.

And if you're going by ancestors, there are probably quite a few African-Americans with a slaveowning ancestor.

Edit: Frankly, I don't see why anybody would want to say it. But we do have free speech, and all. It's just unpleasant. How do you think the word is perpetuated?

edited 24th Feb '12 3:09:00 PM by Ultrayellow

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Considering Jim Crow laws were still a thing up until 1965 and there are still white people who sling the n-word around totally-not-in-jest, it's fair to say that it's off-limits if you're not black.

In a magical fantasy hypothetical post-racial society, maybe it'd be okay for anyone to use (or just never use) but... that's not the society we're living in right now. I don't see what's at all complicated about this concept.

Yeah, most of the time when whites use it it's being used to deride black people, often preceded with something like "lazy" or "good-for-nothin'". In stark contrast to the way blacks use it (usually).

So I'm kinda glad it's held as taboo, it helps discourage that.

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The way I see it, language is about communication, and I can be fairly certain that if I, a white person, use that N word to a black person (or most anyone, for that matter), it will be construed as offensive, and intentionally so. Which means I'm not going to use the word, as I generally don't like offending people (and if I was going to be derogatory, I'd use something that doesn't imply I dislike ALL people of a certain background).

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