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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Depending on the issue, while the advantages of being white can give white allies a lot of power to enact change relative to a singular minority individual of the same social standing, it's probably not the best for them to take the lead as opposed to working side by side and deferring, much in the same way that it's not a good idea for a Methodist to become the spokesperson for Sikh acceptance, unless said Methodist grew up in a Sikh household, and even then it's probably better to let a lifetime and continued Sikh do the bulk of advocacy.
It's not that their good-faith help is unwelcome, on the contrary it's very much appreciated, and anyone who expresses hostility towards allies on principle probably isn't a very good activist or person for that matter, but people not belonging to the group that's being advocated for shouldn't be placed in a position to talk over those who've actively lived those experiences more directly and holistically.
edited 9th Jun '18 9:35:44 PM by AlleyOop
The ability of angry white boys trying to be offended to take a clear statement about one individual in one particular positon and extrapolate it into something else is not really something we can do anything about, I guess we can offer them a spot on the Olympic team for conclusion jumping, but that’s about it.
Hell good natured talking over can often just be a failure to coordinate, the input of people who aren’t part of a victimised group can often have a greater impact due to the appearance of neutrality and a lack of self interest (because self interest is aparently always bad).
The problem with Sanders is that the talking over others and knocking them down is being done very deliberately, because he views himself as the one true saviour, the carrier of the White Man's Burden, and that concept has done a lot of damage throughout history. That arrogance of assuming that one knows better than the exploited about how to help them end their exploitation, it’s dangerous and it’s something Sanders very much has.
White men can lead, Sanders can’t, because he’s not a team player, that’s bad enough normally, but when it’s a wealthy white man that’s not a team player, it’s especially bad.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranWell, Trump just blew up the G7-communique and personally insulted the canadian leader while doing so:
The US president, who arrived at the summit in Canada late and left early to fly to Singapore to prepare for his summit with Kim Jong-un, shocked fellow leaders with a bellicose press conference on Saturday in which he attacked the trade policies of other countries.
The US had nevertheless appeared to agree a form of words on contentious issues thanks to an all-night negotiating session by officials from all sides.
But after leaving for Singapore, Trump tweeted personal attacks on Trudeau and said that he had told his representatives not to sign the summit communique, turning what had already been a tense meeting of the world’s leading industrialised democracies into a fiasco.
“PM Justin Trudeau acted so meek and mild,” he tweeted. “Only to give a news conference after I left saying that ‘us tariffs were kind of insulting’ and ‘he will not be pushed around’.
“Very dishonest and weak” he claimed, adding in a separate tweet: “I have instructed our US reps not to endorse the communique.”
Sounds to me like we're heading toward the G6 after all.
That said, as much as it's true that we can't be trusted on the world stage anymore, I do hope people understand that this asshat doesn't represent what most Americans really want. I can see this too easily leading to people guffawing at the dumb Americans getting kicked out of G7 while completely ignoring their own nascent Trump movements, and as ashamed as I am of Trump and his like, I hope the rest of the world doesn't just give up on us.
It's been fun.Trump has more support than Hitler ever got. I said it before but take it from a German: If you have a democratic system, you are responsible for the leaders you get, and you will be made responsible for what they are up to. And rightly so. That doesn't mean that we hate all Americans, but it means that we can't trust the US as a whole and won't be able to do so again anytime soon.
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You might start to fix it in four months, although I'm not sure that a retake of the House will slow Trump down much given he does most everything with executive power anyway. He's done tax cuts already so probably nothing more on that front, Obamacare is gutted, does he get another go at reconciliation before the midterms?
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I can't honestly blame most of the Italians for hating their state when their pols used to be able to walk out of their Parliament building straight into a restaurant called "The Privileged Ones" without a hint of irony. Hence the high government debt and tax avoidance, I would imagine.
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The British voting public has a strange case of hypochondria in that they only seem to be interested in the non-problems like government debt and welfare fraud rather than tax avoidance and generally living in a crumbling country led by venal cowards.
The British situation is partially explained by a heavily politicised media, where 80% of the media circulation is telling people to believe everything the Tories tell them. We've got political brainwashing on an industrial scale going on in the UK, something that's been happening for at least forty years, but which became a true game-changer twenty-six years ago when it was 'The Sun Wot Won It' — that means entire generations have been raised on this viewpoint, reinforced everywhere they look.
Why do you think these 'traditional' media channels hate the Internet so much? They've discovered the youngest generation of adults are circumventing them entirely and therefore are exposed to different, and more international, points-of-view.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.Can I just chime in and say it's really shitty to blame the entire United States for Republicans electing a blubbering manchild? Like, blame Republicans, third-party voters, and leftist abstainers all you want, don't lump up the people who voted for Clinton in with them.
This is the exact shit I was talking about in the U.S. Cultures thread.
edited 10th Jun '18 4:57:16 AM by PhysicalStamina
i'm tired, my friend

Apologies for dredging this up, but I was playing catchup on the thread and... well, statements like this bother me, as I hear "White men can't be allies - and even if they can be, they shouldn't lead." I realize that's not the intent of such statements, but plenty of other white guys don't, and will take umbrage at it.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"