I haven’t approved your comment to the “How Prejudice and Bias Works” thread for a couple of reasons. One is that it’s an old thread; the conversation’s over and people have moved on. But the other is that your post really adds nothing. It’s just the stock white male privilege argument, same as the other 99 stock white male privilege arguments we’ve heard here. It’s not that it’s controversial, it’s uninteresting. Please feel free to comment on more recent threads — but I should caution you that you’re not likely to get much of a reaction unless your comments show more thought. Most likely people will just point you at the White Privilege or Colorblindness sections of the Required Readings and ignore you.

Once you’ve made one useful comment, I’ll approve you, and you’ll be able to post without moderation thereafter provided you adhere to the site rules.

Thanks, and have a good one,
Nojojojo (one of the moderators)

This is probably the kind of argument you fight against daily, but it seems to me that cultivating a truly free society will allow all people to rise on the back of their own competence, and that promoting meritocratic values will eliminate race as a factor in these discussions.

I think I have another issue with this sort of discussion, too, and that’s the assumption that ‘black people’ exist. I really resent the idea that there’s a ‘black community’ and a ‘white community’. I find the concept abhorrent. You might say that a white patriarchy forces people to think of themselves in these terms, and maybe that’s true, but then surely the way forward is to obstinately ignore race, rather than to make a bigger issue out of it?

I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be called out on most of the things I’ve said. Go for it, obviously.

I’ve been with my family when they’ve been treated poorly because of the color of their skin. Seen my cousins cry in High School, and my Uncles and Aunt scrape by because they could not go to college when they were kids. The UNCF was in it’s infancy and this generation is the first to really benefit from it. That’s the truth.

I’ve seen white on black, black on white, black on black(you’re not dark skinned or you’re too black), white on white, and every color on mixed.

Put yourself in my shoes, when the white comedian of the 60s makes fun of the black man I don’t laugh. When the black comedian of present day spends 60 minutes railing on white folk I don’t laugh. It’s the same thing and it’s not funny. If I don’t laugh when one cousin is insulted why would I laugh when another is in the same way? Because he’s white he should just take it? Personally I think comedy wise everybody should be free to make fun of everybody. That way you know whose a racist and whose not. I know there are racists everywhere but you can’t point a finger when they hide behind their one woman manager or one black assistant partner.

Culturally I agree with this article so much but I wish it could be expanded to include so much more. Maybe you should have an angry Latino woman and an angry Caucasian woman help.

“I can see how some of these guys get the idea that you all hate men. Because you’re talking to the regulars, and the regulars know you don’t hate men, but some new guy reading some of this stuff, he’s going to be all, wait, what did I do? I didn’t rape anybody, I never beat up a transsexual–”

“No, I get that,” I interrupted him. “That’s a lot like–like, I used to have the same reaction reading blogs by people of color. I’d see something like ‘white people sure suck sometimes,’ and I’d be all, ‘Hey! Wait! Not all of us! Not me!’ Even though I probably do suck as a white person sometimes–but I mean, I’d take it too personally.”

“It’s hard not to take it personally.”

“It’s not as hard if you move yourself out of the center of everything, though. That’s what I finally got through my thick skull. It’s not ABOUT me, always. And even if it is about me, so what? I’m not perfect. Why shouldn’t I have to take some shit once in awhile? Heaven knows I dish enough out in a day. Would it kill me to get an attitude adjustment? Would it kill me to listen to someone unlike me for five minutes?”

“But if you aren’t the problem,” he argued, “It sucks to be treated like you’re the problem. It’s like being accused of something you didn’t do.”

“If I’m not the problem,” I explained, “then why should I get invested in identifying with the problem? If the problem is some particular batch of white people, doing or saying shit I’d never in a million years do myself, why should I feel the need to put myself in their shoes? Just because they’re white and I’m white? That’s stupid. Like all the idiot white dudes who identify with the Duke lacrosse players–they don’t even comprehend that unless they’re just as wealthy and elite, which you know 95% of them aren’t, the fucking lacrosse players would SPIT on them. They’re ID-ing with the players, but I guarantee you the players aren’t ID-ing with them.”

“A lot of the guys written about on feminist blogs do things I would never do.”

“Then don’t identify with them. It’s not about you!”

As far as whether it’s “wrong” — I don’t think so, not even when analyzed from the priveleged perspective. I think people with privelege benefit from being smacked on the nose with the rolled up newspaper of someone’s non-violent, frustrated hate. People who have worked on coming to terms with their roles in the system will know what you mean and why, and the others need to start down a path that love and rainbows alone have so far failed to lure them down.

At least, that’s how I feel sometimes as a member of an oppressed group, thinking about groups that oppress me. I like this take on a tangential piece of the issue: http://ilykadamen.blogspot.com/2007/03/occasionally-conversations-with-my-man.html