straight white man hate

[Akira]

4 minutes ago, Godhead said:

@Fredodoow You see this stuff from Twitter because people filter this stuff out for you so they can play into your fear. They get your attention that way. It's really not a big deal in real life. 

You have to understand that the people that say "death to white men" (which is probably max 0.00001% of women) have probably been hurt by white men.

Most girls can't even count the times they have been harassed by men.

Most POC can't even count the times they have experienced racism.

When was the last time you've been harassed by a jew? 

You have to understand power dynamics. 

If you are the president and make jokes about poor people that's super disrespectful.

If you are a poor person and make fun of the president it still might not be nice but it's a different matter.

 

Yes but "white men" aren't the president... one white man is the president and many many white men are homeless drug addicts with no prospects and no voice... progressives should treat such broad terms as: white men, black men, women, women of colour etc, with a cautious and even hand lest they run the risk of double standards that alienate and disenfranchise millions

[Godhead]

2 minutes ago, Akira said:

Yes but "white men" aren't the president

well most of them have been lol

 

 

I used an extreme example to make a point. 

 

[Akira]

16 minutes ago, Godhead said:

well most of them have been lol

 

 

I used an extreme example to make a point. 

 

yes and in doing so you miss the point...

White men are so often lumped in together as privileged because a portion of them has and has historically had more power on average when compared to other groups...

And therefore it's tolerated and usually defended by many progressives to stereotype lump all white men together in a way they would never consider, and would immediately consider bigotry, for any other group. Forgetting that each of these so called groups consists of millions of individual human beings with a huge variety and array of lived experiences.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Akira

[smurf88]

2 minutes ago, Akira said:

yes and in doing so you miss the point...

White men are so often lumped in together as privileged because a portion of them has and has historically had more power on average when compared to other groups...

And therefore it's tolerated and usually defended by many progressives to stereotype lump all white men together in a way they would never consider, and would immediately consider bigotry, for any other group. Forgetting that each of these so called groups consists of millions of individual human beings with a huge variety and array of lived experiences.

I would have to agree there, the reason Trumpism began in the first place is largely because of this type of rhetoric. It's counterproductive and creates more division.

[Akira]

12 minutes ago, smurf88 said:

I would have to agree there, the reason Trumpism began in the first place is largely because of this type of rhetoric. It's counterproductive and creates more division.

Amen to that

That seems obvious to me but many seem to miss it completely or downplay it substantially... 

[Carl-Richard]

22 minutes ago, smurf88 said:

I would have to agree there, the reason Trumpism began in the first place is largely because of this type of rhetoric. It's counterproductive and creates more division.

Then where does the solution lie: silence the distress with force (but muh free speech) or actually try to fix the problems (systemic issues)?

Edited January 29, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Boethius]

@Fredodoow I'm aware of the sort of "demonization" of straight white men that you are referring to. In certain social justice spaces I have personally heard the problems of the world laid upon straight white men. But I think what you're missing is your own personal ability to tune the toxic aspects of this out. Yes, you should try to be a non-racist, non-sexist, non-homophobic, all around good man (maybe even an ally, if you feel so called), but you also don't need to accept the status of society's punching bag. The key is that the way you avoid being someone's punching bag isn't by arguing out about reverse racism and misandry, but in more subtle ways of letting things slide off your shoulders.

You can force people to own their projections when they are thrown on you, for example. Let's say a woman says in your vicinity that "men need to get in touch with their feelings". That's a cliche that's been floating around since the 70's, and maybe it's true, maybe it's not. You can always ask yourself "why does she care what men do?" The answer might be that she has dated men who expect her to play the role of therapist or who are dismissive of her own emotions. So in that case it's true that the men in her life have failed her, in a way, by not getting in touch with their own emotions. But if you are not dumping your emotions on her and you are able to have competent emotional conversations with her, then at that point it actually isn't her business, quite simply, how you decide to deal with your own emotions -- maybe you have a therapist, maybe you do kickboxing, maybe you practice Stoicism. My point is that these sorts of cliches that sound like men are being blamed for something usually have some kernel of truth in them and some natural limitations as well.

For myself, I found that learning a bit of Stoicism (Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, for example), learning about psychological projection including Karpman's drama triangle, and practicing non-violent communication (as developed by Marshall Rosenberg) helps me avoid the predictable drama of these various conversations when they devolve into simple finger pointing. If you prefer finger pointing then you're gonna get called racist, sexist, homophobic, etc and most people aren't going to defend you. But if you just want to live your life responsibly and in a way that avoids unnecessary drama, then some of what I wrote may be useful to you as well. Good luck!

[smurf88]

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Then where does the solution lie: silence the distress with force (but muh free speech) or actually try to fix the problems (systemic issues)?

People can always say what they want and achieve the counterproductive result of encouraging Trumpism if that's what they want to do.

Actually trying to fix the problems was always the solution and making it about which race is better, or which race is guilty has always been a distraction.

[Hansu]

5 hours ago, Akira said:

White men are so often lumped in together as privileged because a portion of them has and has historically had more power on average when compared to other groups...

Kinda like how people lump European countries into one. When it happens, I usually roll my eyes and disregard whatever the person says.

Especially since it's often used as a strawman by someone who lives outside Europe or by someone from Europe who wants to feel superior compared to someone else outside. There is 160 distinct cultural groups in Europe, it's very ignorant to generalize these into just "Europe"

 

EDIT: Oh, and this only applies on something positive.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Hansu

[Opo]

4 hours ago, smurf88 said:

I would have to agree there, the reason Trumpism began in the first place is largely because of this type of rhetoric. It's counterproductive and creates more division.

Trumpers use the same arguments just against different group. 

Edited January 29, 2021 by Opo

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Opo said:

Trumpers use the same arguments just against different group. 

Exactly . The problem is that both sides are right to some extent, but how you should approach that is much more nuanced.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Opo]

41 minutes ago, smurf88 said:

@Opo The best way to approach it is the simplest.

 

[Forestluv]

On 1/29/2021 at 0:54 PM, Akira said:

White men are so often lumped in together as privileged because a portion of them has and has historically had more power on average when compared to other groups...

And therefore it's tolerated and usually defended by many progressives to stereotype lump all white men together in a way they would never consider, and would immediately consider bigotry, for any other group. Forgetting that each of these so called groups consists of millions of individual human beings with a huge variety and array of lived experiences.

Privilege doesn't just mean well-off and having power. It doesn't mean having an easy life with no problems. In the context of bigotry, privilege means immunity is granted or available only to a particular person or group. A poor white man may have all sorts of problems and suffer greatly - yet he doesn't have to worry about being raped like women do. A heterosexual man may be subjected to all sorts of abuse, yet he doesn't have to worry about getting beat up because he held his girlfriend's hand in public like a homosexual man does. As a white person, I don't have to worry about being subjected to racism like black people do. I can have a discussion about racism and leave the room anytime I want and leave that behind for black people to worry about. I have the privilege of leaving that room. Black people do not. 

During my travels through South America, most people assumed I was trustworthy and deserved respect. I did nothing to earn that trust and respect. It was given to me because I'm white. Black people I encountered did not have that privilege. They were often perceived with skepticism and they had to earn people's trust and respect. 

As well, you seem to be conflating individual and population levels. At an individual level, there is an equivalency - yet not at a population level. At the population level, there is asymmetry. For example, at the individual level rape is just as bad regardless of whether a woman was raped or a man was raped. It is equally bad. Yet at the population level, there is asymmetry. Many more woman are raped than men. At this level, it is unfair to create a false equivalency and tell women "Well, men get raped too". If we had 1 million dollars to invest in rape prevention and care, it would be unfair to split the money 50:50 because over 90% of rape victims are women. Similarly, at the population level racism is asymmetric and it is unfair to create false equivalencies. It would be inaccurate to say 100% of racism is directed against black people and 0% against white people. Yet it is also unfair to suggest that both black and white people face racism equally. That is a common tactic to undercut efforts toward greater equality. It also obfuscates racism at a person level and racism at population / systemic levels. 

[Fredodoow]

@Forestluv yes, I can only agree with everything you are saying. However, the notion of privilege is something I find problematic. Let's take for exemple people who have back problems. A portion of the population has chronic back problems. Therefore they have a a problem. I don't have back problems, I don't have that particular problem. Now could you say I'm privileged in that regard? Let's "healthy-backed privileged?" Well if you look at it a certain way, yes you could. People with back problems are disadvantaged and people with no back problems are privileged. However, this is what bothers me : by talking about privilege, instead of pointing towards the problem that some people have, and how to go about fixing it, we are directing attention to the unfair advantage that some other people have. Therefore we don't think in terms of rising one groupe up, ut in terms of bringing the other group down. The notion of privilege always brings the notion of blame. The discution goes like this :

certain activists - "White people, you are to blame." Me : "But I didn't do anything" activists : "no but you benefit from it. You are priviledged". Me "Maby, but not to blame, since I didn't do anything". And so on and so on. Until thee activist says "ok, you are not directly to blame, but you benefit from that privilege, therefore it is your responsability to do such and such for the underpriviledged group." 

My position is this : I'm happy to make the world a better place, to help people, but not to be blamed. Never, ever. No white guilt. Guilt isn't, to my opinion, a good motivator to do anything. Instead, it's often what prevents people from taking action, because then they feel attacked, defensive. "Go help black people, go raise money for them, go make the miserable less miserable" Sure, I would love to. "Take a good look at yourself, agknowledge your priviledge, bring yourself down, tell us how arrogant, self bias you are." Nope, not even in your dreams. 

Oh, and every time I hear "white people are priviledged." I can't help but think : is that how the holocaust started? A bunch of germans saying "look at jews, how priviledged they are?" Once again I am not saying that the holocaust is coming for white men, don't stop at the dramatic comparaison, but just try to see the similarity in thinking. A nazi saying "Jews control the media, the finances and lots of other areas. They need to be put down a noch." And there were no question of holocaust at first. I can imagine, during the rise of nazis, someone saying "guys, your rethoric is dangerous, don't you think?" And the nazis responding "of course not, it's not like we're talking about killing jews! No one wants that! No we're just talking about their priviledges, and what could be done about it". And to some extent I'm sure the germans were right, I'm sure the jew comunity had some priviledges some advantages, they didn't just make all of that up. But the outcome was a massacre.

And one more thing. I have a ego. I'm a simple guy with an ego, and I like it stroked a bit. I have a tendency to prefer people who compliment me than people who critisize me. Wich means I most likely to help someone who asks kindly, than to help someone who shames me. (As for basically anyone). 

I don't think that's a shortcoming from my parth, but then if I hear "hey, you, white people, the ones who suck, the evil of this world! The least you could do is help those guys over there!" Well "Fuck you, I didn't do anything". "Sure but you benefit from the priviledge of years of etc etc etc"

So, little strategic advice to the activists : you want more help from whites? Maby try and tell them there's something else than a piece of shit every ones and a while. But I know what they think, they think we're arrogant, used to have everything handed to us, use to being respected for no reason. Well to that I answer, some of us yes, some of us not so much, but that doesn't mean we don't deserve respect. AND that doesn't mean that your all activism projet wouldn't work better. Try making us feel good about ourselves, manipulate us a little bit, we'll be gratefull for it, mabe we'll even open up our wallets and ackgnowledge our priviledges.

[Akira]

3 hours ago, Forestluv said:

Privilege doesn't just mean well-off and having power. It doesn't mean having an easy life with no problems. In the context of bigotry, privilege means immunity is granted or available only to a particular person or group. A poor white man may have all sorts of problems and suffer greatly - yet he doesn't have to worry about being raped like women do. A heterosexual man may be subjected to all sorts of abuse, yet he doesn't have to worry about getting beat up because he held his girlfriend's hand in public like a homosexual man does. As a white person, I don't have to worry about being subjected to racism like black people do. I can have a discussion about racism and leave the room anytime I want and leave that behind for black people to worry about. I have the privilege of leaving that room. Black people do not. 

During my travels through South America, most people assumed I was trustworthy and deserved respect. I did nothing to earn that trust and respect. It was given to me because I'm white. Black people I encountered did not have that privilege. They were often perceived with skepticism and they had to earn people's trust and respect. 

As well, you seem to be conflating individual and population levels. At an individual level, there is an equivalency - yet not at a population level. At the population level, there is asymmetry. For example, at the individual level rape is just as bad regardless of whether a woman was raped or a man was raped. It is equally bad. Yet at the population level, there is asymmetry. Many more woman are raped than men. At this level, it is unfair to create a false equivalency and tell women "Well, men get raped too". If we had 1 million dollars to invest in rape prevention and care, it would be unfair to split the money 50:50 because over 90% of rape victims are women. Similarly, at the population level racism is asymmetric and it is unfair to create false equivalencies. It would be inaccurate to say 100% of racism is directed against black people and 0% against white people. Yet it is also unfair to suggest that both black and white people face racism equally. That is a common tactic to undercut efforts toward greater equality. It also obfuscates racism at a person level and racism at population / systemic levels. 

@Forestluv Beautiful reply! Thankyou so much for your well thought out response. This is the level of exposition required (at a minimum) to make any meaningful progress on such a nuanced and contentious subject. You have inspired me with your response as I myself am often too curt when responding to others who discuss such contentious terms with a sloppiness that is manifestly contributing to misunderstanding, division and polarisation. It's high time we (myself included) took responsibility when dealing with such subjects.

I actually agree with everything you said here but because terms such as white privilege are by nature complicated, divisive, racially charged, they require delicacy, caution, elaboration, empathy (note to self) and some concession. If such terms are to be used they should be used with impartiality and humility (note to self). They should be used with the aim of reaching across and including with the ultimate end of going beyond and unifying. We must remember (as you said) that such terms denote groups, but those groups are made up of individual human beings with a great variety of lived experiences and we must be careful that we aren't blinded by abstraction to real issues suffered by real human beings. And we must ask ourselves: am I using such terms with a similar level of empathy and respect across all "groups" of human beings?

example scenario (not responding to you. Just an example): here are some instances where white privilege affords you certain advantages (..........something akin to what you said.....) and why I as a non white person feel disadvantaged. However, I see your point that the term white privilege could be inflammatory and upon further introspection I notice that I would not use such a term so indelicately if  I were referring to a different group of people; and this does seem to be a somewhat common trope that affords minorities a certain advantage in expressing themselves and I can see how you as a white person could feel unfairly treated in that regard. Do you see my point however? Let's try and help each other better understand each others experiences...

 

p.s. if you make a reply I apologize if I do not get back to you any time soon as I am taking an internet sabbatical starting tomorrow and lasting for the month of February. 

All the best

Phil

 

Edited January 30, 2021 by Akira

[Forestluv]

21 minutes ago, Fredodoow said:

@Forestluv 

the notion of privilege is something I find problematic. Let's take for exemple people who have back problems. A portion of the population has chronic back problems. Therefore they have a a problem. I don't have back problems, I don't have that particular problem. Now could you say I'm privileged in that regard? Let's "healthy-backed privileged?" Well if you look at it a certain way, yes you could. People with back problems are disadvantaged and people with no back problems are privileged. 

I don't consider this an accurate analogy because it has have removed causation and discrimination. I'd consider a better analogy to be: People with brown eyes didn't like people with blues eyes so they created robots that broke the backs of people with blue eyes. Since I have brown eyes, I have the privileges of not worrying about robots targeting me and breaking my back. 

26 minutes ago, Fredodoow said:

@Forestluvby talking about privilege, instead of pointing towards the problem that some people have, and how to go about fixing it, we are directing attention to the unfair advantage that some other people have. Therefore we don't think in terms of rising one groupe up, ut in terms of bringing the other group down. The notion of privilege always brings the notion of blame. The discution goes like this :

I don't see it like that. If we came together and said "It's unfair that robots are breaking the backs of people with blue eyes. Let's inactivate the robots so they don't do that anymore". That lifts up the people with blue eyes (they know longer have their backs broken by robots). Yet it does not pull brown-eyed people down. In one context, yes, brown-eyed people have an advantage. Since they robots are not breaking their backs, they are better able to carry out jobs. Yet a brown-eyed person would need to be hyper selfish to think "Wait a minute, if the robots stop breaking the backs of blue-eyed people, they will have healthy backs and they may start getting good jobs. I don't want them getting good jobs. Let's pretend like the robots don't exist. Let's point out the rare cases a malfunctional robot breaks a brown-eyed back and say it goes both ways". Imo, that is a crappy mindset.

33 minutes ago, Fredodoow said:

@Forestluv 

certain activists - "White people, you are to blame." Me : "But I didn't do anything" activists : "no but you benefit from it. You are priviledged". Me "Maby, but not to blame, since I didn't do anything". And so on and so on. Until thee activist says "ok, you are not directly to blame, but you benefit from that privilege, therefore it is your responsability to do such and such for the underpriviledged group." 

This is the equivalent of a brown-eyed person saying "I'm not a robot that breaks blue-eyed backs! Sure, brown-eyed people programmed the robots, yet don't blame me for it! Don't make me feel guilty!". I consider this a crappy mindset since it allows the back-breaking robots to continue.

Imagine being a blue-eyed person and you and your family has been targeted and suffered under these fucking robots programmed by brown-eyed people. And then a brown-eyed person comes by and says "Yea, it sucks to be you. But don't blame me". 

40 minutes ago, Fredodoow said:

My position is this : I'm happy to make the world a better place, to help people

No you are not. If you were, you would be taking action to reduce racism, helping people and making the world a better place. You wouldn't be on an internet forum being fragile and defensive. 

44 minutes ago, Fredodoow said:

My position is this : I'm happy to make the world a better place, to help people, but not to be blamed. Never, ever. No white guilt. Guilt isn't, to my opinion, a good motivator to do anything. Instead, it's often what prevents people from taking action, because then they feel attacked, defensive. "Go help black people, go raise money for them, go make the miserable less miserable" Sure, I would love to. "Take a good look at yourself, agknowledge your priviledge, bring yourself down, tell us how arrogant, self bias you are." Nope, not even in your dreams. 

And one more thing. I have a ego. I'm a simple guy with an ego, and I like it stroked a bit. I have a tendency to prefer people who compliment me than people who critisize me. Wich means I most likely to help someone who asks kindly, than to help someone who shames me. (As for basically anyone). 

I don't think that's a shortcoming from my parth, but then if I hear "hey, you, white people, the ones who suck, the evil of this world! The least you could do is help those guys over there!" Well "Fuck you, I didn't do anything". "Sure but you benefit from the priviledge of years of etc etc etc"

So, little strategic advice to the activists : you want more help from whites? Maby try and tell them there's something else than a piece of shit every ones and a while. But I know what they think, they think we're arrogant, used to have everything handed to us, use to being respected for no reason. Well to that I answer, some of us yes, some of us not so much, but that doesn't mean we don't deserve respect. AND that doesn't mean that your all activism projet wouldn't work better. Try making us feel good about ourselves, manipulate us a little bit, we'll be gratefull for it, mabe we'll even open up our wallets and ackgnowledge our priviledges.

Why should you get to dictate how people that have been treated unjustly should behave? Why should white people be allowed to tell black people "Stay in you place. Express your displeasure of being treated unjustly in a way that I am comfortable with"? This is what is referred to as "white fragility". 

Personally, I think blame and guilt has value in some contexts - yet is counter-productive in other contexts. For example, a few years ago I became aware of one of my unconscious biases that was conditioned into me at a young age. Importantly, I genuinely wanted to evolve beyond this conditioned behavior. If POC were guilt and shaming me, I would have retracted and gotten defensive. I wouldn't have grown. Yet I have yet to see a white person that genuinely and humbly wants to grow beyond their racist tendencies be guilted and shamed by poc. Never in my experience and I've never seen it. POC WANT white people to evolve so we all move closer toward equality.

However.  . . if a white person is disingenuous and is intentionally undercutting efforts toward equality - that is a very different scenario. For example, those that deny there is systemic racism. Here, calling them out on poor behavior and creating a social stigma for that behavior can be productive. 

[Forestluv]

25 minutes ago, Akira said:

@Forestluv 

I actually agree with everything you said here but because terms such as white privilege are by nature complicated, divisive, racially charged, they require delicacy, caution, elaboration, empathy (note to self) and some concession. If such terms are to be used they should be used with impartiality and humility (note to self). They should be used with the aim of reaching across and including with the ultimate end of going beyond and unifying. We must remember (as you said) that such terms denote groups, but those groups are made up of individual human beings with a great variety of lived experiences and we must be careful that we aren't blinded by abstraction to real issues suffered by real human beings. And we must ask ourselves: am I using such terms with a similar level of empathy and respect across all "groups" of human beings?

In my view, you are trying to control the narrative of what is acceptable and unacceptable in this arena. You are trying to take all the seats at the table. You only get one seat at the table and you only get one voice. The person sitting next to you may have a very different perspective and break all of your rules about how they should speak and behave. They get a seat at the table with their own voice, just like you do. 

This is why diversity and representation is needed at the table. 

One of my biggest breakdowns and breakthroughs came through a black woman I was dating. She straight-up revealed subconscious biases I had. She didn't sugar coat it and hold my hand. She ripped the band-aid off and told me sternly and directly. At this time, this is exactly what I needed. Throughout my life, people were trying to be polite as to not hurt my feelings on this issue. And I had never taken a hard look at myself. Sometimes, direct and stern is productive. It can be uncomfortable, yet can open up doors to growth. Other times, being gentle and creating a safe space is better. It's context dependent. 

[Akira]

37 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

In my view, you are trying to control the narrative of what is acceptable and unacceptable in this arena. You are trying to take all the seats at the table. You only get one seat at the table and you only get one voice. The person sitting next to you may have a very different perspective and break all of your rules about how they should speak and behave. They get a seat at the table with their own voice, just like you do. 

This is why diversity and representation is needed at the table. 

I'm merely proposing a path of mutual empathy... of course people can and will disagree, anyone can take any attitude they wish, whether that is ultimately productive or not is another issue... I think an attitude of mutual empathy would be most productive.  one human reaching across with empathy trying to understand the position of another human in the hope that that other human might reach back across with empathy and try to understand theirs...

What do you think?

 

"One of my biggest breakdowns and breakthroughs came through a black woman I was dating. She straight-up revealed subconscious biases I had. She didn't sugar coat it and hold my hand. She ripped the band-aid off and told me sternly and directly. At this time, this is exactly what I needed. Throughout my life, people were trying to be polite as to not hurt my feelings on this issue. And I had never taken a hard look at myself. Sometimes, direct and stern is productive. It can be uncomfortable, yet can open up doors to growth. Other times, being gentle and creating a safe space is better. It's context dependent. "

 

Being in a relationship is a very unique context that affords such straightforwardness... this is not the case when a blacklivesmatter advocate is addressing MAGA supporter or vice versa...

Edited January 30, 2021 by Akira

[Forestluv]

26 minutes ago, Akira said:

What do you think?

I think it's context dependent. In some cases mutual empathy opens up channels, yet ime many people have a low capacity for empathy. 

I see it as a spectrum from highly empathetic to highly narcissistic. Those in the middle to empathetic can have channels of mutual empathy. Yet for those toward the narcissistic end, empathy can be counter-productive. Narcissists don't come in good faith and are energy vampires. They manipulate empaths for their own selfish gains. Empaths are often naive and are taken advantage of. Empaths can still be empathetic, yet need to set up boundaries, show tough love and not allow abuse. For example, I've been watching videos of how vulnerable people got sucked into Qanon and how destructive it was to their lives. I have empathy for them. I can imagine myself being in that situation. Yet that doesn't mean I give a pass on poor behavior and let them manipulate me and others. 

[Akira]

@Forestluv "Yet for those toward the narcissistic end, empathy can be counter-productive. Narcissists don't come in good faith and are energy vampires."

"Yet that doesn't mean I give a pass on poor behavior and let them manipulate me and others."

 

should these principles be  applied impartially in all directions or only towards those on the other side of the debate?

Edited January 30, 2021 by Akira