When I, or anyone else for that matter, talk about how white people are bad I’m talking about how the position they occupy in society is bad, not how an individual has committed some original sin of whiteness and must atone.
Whiteness is a social construct used to enforce racialized class society.
A person can no more atone for the classification society created and laid upon them than they can shake off that classification itself.
The thing that is bad about white people is their position in racialised class society in the settler colonial state. An individual white person can uphold all the rules and morals you could name but will still occupy the role of oppressor in the hierarchy everyone lives under.
The usual response people give to me is something along the lines of “well what if a white person fought against racial oppression, they wouldn’t be bad and you would be wrong!” Combined with usually either Lincoln or John brown as examples. Those are great examples of how the settler colonial state will protect itself and will find an outlet for its appetites. Lincoln fought against the Dakota uprising and brown was killed for his insurrection.
I don’t bring that up to make an easy dunk over the head of some guy I made up, but to preempt the response that seems to be on everyone’s lips.
If a person is raised as a certain type of person with every aspect of society behaving towards them with respect to that typification, included in which is the normalization and reification of the relationship that type is a part of, the person will “be” what that type is within that relationship.
Remember the funny dub king fu movie, “we trained him wrong as a joke”? Imagine “we trained him to ~be white~ as a ~way to ensure the propagation of class society~”
All of what you’re saying makes sense, and I believe you believe what you’re saying.
I don’t know if I buy that everyone that says white people are bad have this much thought going into it. My experience with people suggests that this simply can’t be true, as there are far too many individuals (especially with the access to information we have these days) that seek others to think for them and act according to their declarations.
What you’re saying, however, all adds up. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said.
It may come as a surprise to you, but my views are not birthed fully formed out of my forehead.
It took years of reading, conversation and consideration to reach that place. A huge part of that wasn’t even reaching the conclusions but was instead figuring out how to put them into words and how to express them under the sort of violence and history averse liberal framework of polite discussion that people expect.
All that is to say: Very little of what I’ve written are my own original ideas and thoughts. Am I letting others think for me? I demonstrably have. Am I acting according to their decisions. I am at this very moment doing so.
So I’d say it’s less important that people have thought and read deeply than it is for them to recognize and accept the correct understanding.
To put it another way, if you holler “think fast!” and toss a ball to someone, does it matter if they trained extensively to recognize that it’s better for them to make that catch than the third baseman or just whipped around and caught whatever was coming reflexively?
It doesn’t matter in that case, but it would be best if a person figure out weather it’s a kitchen knife, water balloon or baseball before they move to make the catch. The analog to our trained catcher there maybe would be a vanguard party, whose members train and study to be able to lead movements and recognize and counter any reactive or reformist tendencies within those movements.
Maybe when a person who doesn’t express it like I have or in the context of the settler colonial state says “white people are bad” it doesn’t matter if they can do so or simply responds “I hate them” when pressed.
The onus is on all people of right mind and heart to hear the cry of the colonized, and not upon the colonized to fit their protest into the presuppositions of their oppressors.
I know this is a late response, I did just forget to respond, but looking through my past conversations lead me back here.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with utilizing information uncovered by others to guide your worldview. I think it’s elegant, why reinvent the wheel?
However, we live in a world filled with people that have been trained by social media to find the fastest route to justifying their personal views.
Think of it the same way as the “20% of the population, 50% of the crime” statistic. Big number better than small number. Small number responsible for bad big number, small number bad. No nuance, no context, they see the statistic and think “me me no number good, but I don’t like black people so this tracks”.
You can clarify all you want after the fact. When your message is “yt ppl bad” you cannot expect that every person reading will go through your detailed and nuanced explanation of why whiteness is bad. The average person will see the surface level and go no further.
Just food for thought. This isn’t just about “the colonized fitting their protests into the presuppositions of their oppressors”. Think about all these white people suddenly behaving like they’re being “oppressed”. I’m sure you’ve heard about it, despite it being fucking ridiculous considering it’s entirely online.
When Billy the inbred sees “yt people bad” do you think he’s going to give a shit when you give a detailed and nuanced explanation of why whiteness is bad ? No, he’s going to take 5 minutes learning what “yt” means, then be insulted. Then he’s going to experience more of that shit, and come to the conclusion that he’s oppressed. But he feels fine! He gets to fuck his sister everyday, if that’s being oppressed then sign him up!
Suddenly, there’s -1 person that thinks oppression is 1) still a problem and 2) really as bad as people say it is.
Seems like a recipe for two sides that hate each other. Don’t know how you see that ending in anything other than bloodshed.
Yeah, I meant to reply initially but things got in the way.
Sure, if something I say doesn’t add up please let me know.
To put it simply, I think statements like “yt people bad” or any of the variants are too reductive for their explanations to ultimately matter, regardless of merit.
If 1 person sees your message, challenges you, and positively receives your explanation that’s great! That is the ideal circumstance. What about the people who don’t think they need an explanation, either because they “know” (in quotes because, again, most people likely have not read as much about this as you) or those that just outright refuse what you’re saying? The reality is that for that 1 person you enlightened to the truth, 100 more people saw it and you do not know if they actually read your explanation.
Not choosing your words carefully might seem fine, because you think having the moral high ground precludes any need. Ideally, yes, this is how it should be. The truth should reign supreme, but we both know it doesn’t otherwise we wouldn’t be dealing with any of this in the first place.
The reality is that how you think it should be perceived is not how it will be perceived by the majority of people who will see your message. Whether they are for or against the message in your explanation. One side sees it as being attacked, the other genuinely hates white people (when the reality is they hate rich people, and it just so happens that the “whiteness” you mentioned is related to being rich).
A place like Lemmy, with such a small community? Makes a little more sense, as these ideas are shared pretty well here and discussion is (for the most part, looking at you Hexbear) ok. On literally any platform with a sizeable userbase (lurkers)? Absolutely not, the net result is ultimately in favor of polarization. Whether they’re feeding one side or the other, it flows both ways.
I am not of the belief that continuing to enable polarization on both sides will lead to a positive outcome for anyone involved. Am I asking you to be prescient, perfectly predicting how every individual person will perceive your words? No, that’s ridiculous. You’d end up never saying anything out of anxiety, and that’s just as bad. But pretending that this kind of rhetoric is somehow acceptable is wrong, especially when we have so many words to choose from.
Am I reading this right? Are you saying basically “you may have a perfectly reasonable, consistent understanding that I can’t oppose in good faith but because other people might not like it you shouldn’t say it”?
I want to also point out that you put the words “white people bad” in the mouth of the top level commenter. If you’re so concerned about people getting spooked by that rhetoric then maybe don’t drag it into a conversation!
Ah, I see the point. I didn’t realize it was a commentary on how media portrays these issues.
I struggle with the idea that all white people in the U.S. are somehow bad.
When I, or anyone else for that matter, talk about how white people are bad I’m talking about how the position they occupy in society is bad, not how an individual has committed some original sin of whiteness and must atone.
Whiteness is a social construct used to enforce racialized class society.
A person can no more atone for the classification society created and laid upon them than they can shake off that classification itself.
The thing that is bad about white people is their position in racialised class society in the settler colonial state. An individual white person can uphold all the rules and morals you could name but will still occupy the role of oppressor in the hierarchy everyone lives under.
The usual response people give to me is something along the lines of “well what if a white person fought against racial oppression, they wouldn’t be bad and you would be wrong!” Combined with usually either Lincoln or John brown as examples. Those are great examples of how the settler colonial state will protect itself and will find an outlet for its appetites. Lincoln fought against the Dakota uprising and brown was killed for his insurrection.
I don’t bring that up to make an easy dunk over the head of some guy I made up, but to preempt the response that seems to be on everyone’s lips.
If a person is raised as a certain type of person with every aspect of society behaving towards them with respect to that typification, included in which is the normalization and reification of the relationship that type is a part of, the person will “be” what that type is within that relationship.
Remember the funny dub king fu movie, “we trained him wrong as a joke”? Imagine “we trained him to ~be white~ as a ~way to ensure the propagation of class society~”
All of what you’re saying makes sense, and I believe you believe what you’re saying.
I don’t know if I buy that everyone that says white people are bad have this much thought going into it. My experience with people suggests that this simply can’t be true, as there are far too many individuals (especially with the access to information we have these days) that seek others to think for them and act according to their declarations.
What you’re saying, however, all adds up. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said.
It may come as a surprise to you, but my views are not birthed fully formed out of my forehead.
It took years of reading, conversation and consideration to reach that place. A huge part of that wasn’t even reaching the conclusions but was instead figuring out how to put them into words and how to express them under the sort of violence and history averse liberal framework of polite discussion that people expect.
All that is to say: Very little of what I’ve written are my own original ideas and thoughts. Am I letting others think for me? I demonstrably have. Am I acting according to their decisions. I am at this very moment doing so.
So I’d say it’s less important that people have thought and read deeply than it is for them to recognize and accept the correct understanding.
To put it another way, if you holler “think fast!” and toss a ball to someone, does it matter if they trained extensively to recognize that it’s better for them to make that catch than the third baseman or just whipped around and caught whatever was coming reflexively?
It doesn’t matter in that case, but it would be best if a person figure out weather it’s a kitchen knife, water balloon or baseball before they move to make the catch. The analog to our trained catcher there maybe would be a vanguard party, whose members train and study to be able to lead movements and recognize and counter any reactive or reformist tendencies within those movements.
Maybe when a person who doesn’t express it like I have or in the context of the settler colonial state says “white people are bad” it doesn’t matter if they can do so or simply responds “I hate them” when pressed.
The onus is on all people of right mind and heart to hear the cry of the colonized, and not upon the colonized to fit their protest into the presuppositions of their oppressors.
I know this is a late response, I did just forget to respond, but looking through my past conversations lead me back here.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with utilizing information uncovered by others to guide your worldview. I think it’s elegant, why reinvent the wheel?
However, we live in a world filled with people that have been trained by social media to find the fastest route to justifying their personal views.
Think of it the same way as the “20% of the population, 50% of the crime” statistic. Big number better than small number. Small number responsible for bad big number, small number bad. No nuance, no context, they see the statistic and think “me me no number good, but I don’t like black people so this tracks”.
You can clarify all you want after the fact. When your message is “yt ppl bad” you cannot expect that every person reading will go through your detailed and nuanced explanation of why whiteness is bad. The average person will see the surface level and go no further.
Just food for thought. This isn’t just about “the colonized fitting their protests into the presuppositions of their oppressors”. Think about all these white people suddenly behaving like they’re being “oppressed”. I’m sure you’ve heard about it, despite it being fucking ridiculous considering it’s entirely online.
When Billy the inbred sees “yt people bad” do you think he’s going to give a shit when you give a detailed and nuanced explanation of why whiteness is bad ? No, he’s going to take 5 minutes learning what “yt” means, then be insulted. Then he’s going to experience more of that shit, and come to the conclusion that he’s oppressed. But he feels fine! He gets to fuck his sister everyday, if that’s being oppressed then sign him up!
Suddenly, there’s -1 person that thinks oppression is 1) still a problem and 2) really as bad as people say it is.
Seems like a recipe for two sides that hate each other. Don’t know how you see that ending in anything other than bloodshed.
talk about making up for lost time!
i am genuinely confused by this comment. can you maybe make it a little clearer?
Yeah, I meant to reply initially but things got in the way.
Sure, if something I say doesn’t add up please let me know.
To put it simply, I think statements like “yt people bad” or any of the variants are too reductive for their explanations to ultimately matter, regardless of merit.
If 1 person sees your message, challenges you, and positively receives your explanation that’s great! That is the ideal circumstance. What about the people who don’t think they need an explanation, either because they “know” (in quotes because, again, most people likely have not read as much about this as you) or those that just outright refuse what you’re saying? The reality is that for that 1 person you enlightened to the truth, 100 more people saw it and you do not know if they actually read your explanation.
Not choosing your words carefully might seem fine, because you think having the moral high ground precludes any need. Ideally, yes, this is how it should be. The truth should reign supreme, but we both know it doesn’t otherwise we wouldn’t be dealing with any of this in the first place.
The reality is that how you think it should be perceived is not how it will be perceived by the majority of people who will see your message. Whether they are for or against the message in your explanation. One side sees it as being attacked, the other genuinely hates white people (when the reality is they hate rich people, and it just so happens that the “whiteness” you mentioned is related to being rich).
A place like Lemmy, with such a small community? Makes a little more sense, as these ideas are shared pretty well here and discussion is (for the most part, looking at you Hexbear) ok. On literally any platform with a sizeable userbase (lurkers)? Absolutely not, the net result is ultimately in favor of polarization. Whether they’re feeding one side or the other, it flows both ways.
I am not of the belief that continuing to enable polarization on both sides will lead to a positive outcome for anyone involved. Am I asking you to be prescient, perfectly predicting how every individual person will perceive your words? No, that’s ridiculous. You’d end up never saying anything out of anxiety, and that’s just as bad. But pretending that this kind of rhetoric is somehow acceptable is wrong, especially when we have so many words to choose from.
Am I reading this right? Are you saying basically “you may have a perfectly reasonable, consistent understanding that I can’t oppose in good faith but because other people might not like it you shouldn’t say it”?
I want to also point out that you put the words “white people bad” in the mouth of the top level commenter. If you’re so concerned about people getting spooked by that rhetoric then maybe don’t drag it into a conversation!
No, I said you should be more careful when saying it. Great way to say you skim.