Honest Question

[dviss1]

Yeah but coming from me you know it was light hearted. Please dont shoot me.

..... I don't own a gun. Nor do I have a need for one...

 

[riverman]

If I see a personal insult from someone I edit or remove it. No one gets special treatment. I've even edited Denny's posts. If you see something that you think might be a personal insult please bring it to my attention.

I'm insulted by your hat....but don't feel bad....once someone PM'd me expressing extreme dislike for mine as well

 

[dviss1]

I've been avoiding posting here, mainly because this is a toxic waste of a loaded question. No way to handle it without getting some unwanted crap on you.

Are we to assume that there's just one way that blacks are treated in this country? We all know that's not true. Black athletes, musicians, actors, politicians, etc. are all treated pretty darned well by society. Blacks working white collar jobs and living in middle class neighborhoods are generally treated fairly. Black government workers, police officers, firemen, and members of the armed forces get a pretty even shake, from what I've seen. So, I assume that we're primarily talking about the lower income black communities in the major urban areas. I would also assume that the question in this thread is mainly aimed at the interaction between those folks and the police.

Framing the question that way, I think it's pretty clear that I would prefer to continue to bask in the glow of my white privilege, thank you very much. The last time I got pulled over by a cop, I was clearly in the wrong, having had a mental brain fart. The cop came to the window of my car, I just laughed and apologized. Told him I just got confused about which lane I was in. I showed him my license and registration, he talked with me enough to see I wasn't drunk, and let me off with a warning. Do I think that the interaction would have been the same if I was black, driving a beater car and wearing clothes that don't fit in the white suburban Portland area? Probably not. I probably would have been more fearful and the officer probably would have been more on guard. It sucks that that's all too often the case and I don't pretend to have the answers to this problem. More education for police officers, more working with black communities to improve relations with cops, and definitely more work to root out whatever racists there may be in our police forces.

One thing that concerns me about the Black Lives Matter movement is that it's just being framed in the context of blacks being treated unfairly by police and the legal system. I'd like to see a broader meaning to the statement. Black lives matter: meaning the way blacks get to live their lives matters. Better availability of jobs, education, loans for business start-ups. More help for drug addiction and gang problems. It's going to take people working together to make things better and it's going to take time.

How about how our president is treated? Yeah I'll wait.

 

[MARIS61]

It wasn't directed at a specific member of the forum.

#dogsplaining

They are vile hate terms directed at a specific race or sex. No difference from the n-word. Used to demean and debase a selected class of people that the poster has developed a strong personal hate for.

 

[Denny Crane]

I went to a friend's wedding in East Palo Alto a few years back. Another ghetto story. It's right across the 101 freeway from Palo Alto, one of the richest neighborhoods in the entire world. There were rumors that the police department there shut down at 9PM. They built the freeway to segregate the black folks from the white.

The Bay is a natural feature to segregate the blacks in Oakland from San Francisco - the difference between the two neighboring cities is night and day.

Anyhow, at the wedding, I noticed half the cars in the parking lot had bullet holes in them.

I would still go because, it was my friend's wedding.

 

[Denny Crane]

They are vile hate terms directed at a specific race or sex. No difference from the n-word. Used to demean and debase a selected class of people that the poster has developed a strong personal hate for.

Not the same at all.

She's definitely in your face and strongly opinionated. If you're not used to a real feminist, you wouldn't recognize it.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

They are vile hate terms directed at a specific race or sex. No difference from the n-word. Used to demean and debase a selected class of people that the poster has developed a strong personal hate for.

I edit personal insults, not class insults.

 

[Denny Crane]

How about how our president is treated? Yeah I'll wait.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/09/obama.reid/

Reid apologizes for racial remarks about Obama during campaign


The authors quote Reid as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

"He [Reid] was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,' " Halperin and Heilemann say.

"Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination," they write.

 

[riverman]

I edit personal insults, not class insults.

Freshmen suck!

 

[Natebishop3]

How about how our president is treated? Yeah I'll wait.

Really? You're going to play that card? People were MERCILESS in their ridicule for George W Bush. They called him a moron. They called him a monkey. They made cartoons depicting him as a child. People are brutal towards the President. Considering nobody has taken a shot at Obama, I think he's ahead of Kennedy, Lincoln, and Reagan.

 

[dviss1]

I personally would rather have someone call me an idiot, rather than have them tell me that my opinion is irrelevant because I'm white or a man.

That's not what whitepslain means. It DOES NOT mean your opinion is irrelevant. What it refers to is when whites tell us what we need to do to change our communities; e.g. stop being lazy, stop killing each other, or bringing up statistics to explain to us what our problems are. Also it's assumed that we don't know or don't care because you see us protesting the police. But ignores all the things we do to come together as a people. WE KNOW we need more self love. WE KNOW we need to look in the mirror to change the self destruction in our communities. Michael Jackson wrote a song about it called "Man in the Mirror".

What we don't need is you to tell us. And you see us protesting because COPS GET OFF.

When we kill our own 2 things happen:

One person dies and another either dies or goes to prison. Either way 2 families lose and NOBODY wins. So the next time you or anyone else who DOESN'T live near or isn't active in our community decides to explain to us what's wrong with us after being absent while looking at numbers and statistics to form you opinion, maybe then you can understand why it's met with angst... We really don't give a fuck if you don't like the term whitesplaining.

 

[dviss1]

Really? You're going to play that card? People were MERCILESS in their ridicule for George W Bush. They called him a moron. They called him a monkey. They made cartoons depicting him as a child. People are brutal towards the President. Considering nobody has taken a shot at Obama, I think he's ahead of Kennedy, Lincoln, and Reagan.

Sigh.... I'm done with you.

 

[Natebishop3]

That's not what whiteslain means. It DOES NOT mean your opinion is irrelevant.

We really don't give a fuck if you don't like the term whitesplaining.

So our opinion is only irrelevant about the term "whitesplaining."

 

[Natebishop3]

Sigh.... I'm done with you.

This is your response to everything. If you're given something that refutes your opinion, you throw up your hands and walk away. I gave you two different articles about Ryan Lochte and you refused to read them. You're so set in your opinions that you won't even listen to someone with information to the contrary.

 

[dviss1]

But whitesplain is okay? How about blacksplain? Is that okay?

If I told you about how you needed to change your community without visiting it or really knowing the situation intimately, I would be out of line and whatever word you wanted to call that is up to you. I would truly need to STFU.

 

[dviss1]

So our opinion is only irrelevant about the term "whitesplaining."

Having an opinion about something when you don't have all the info is dangerous.

I doesn't mean what you think it means.

 

[dviss1]

This is your response to everything. If you're given something that refutes your opinion, you throw up your hands and walk away. I gave you two different articles about Ryan Lochte and you refused to read them. You're so set in your opinions that you won't even listen to someone with information to the contrary.

He's a liar. I don't need you to tell me he's credible. He's not. Those articles wouldn't make him credible in my eyes. So why read them? He's a disgrace.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

If I told you about how you needed to change your community without visiting it or really knowing the situation intimately, I would be out of line and whatever word you wanted to call that is up to you. I would truly need to STFU.

Having an opinion about something when you don't have all the info is dangerous.

I hope you don't have any opinions about American military involvement in the Middle East.

 

[Natebishop3]

If I told you about how you needed to change your community without visiting it or really knowing the situation intimately, I would be out of line and whatever word you wanted to call that is up to you. I would truly need to STFU.

There isn't really such a thing as "the white community." There's too many subsets to really put them all under one umbrella. And not just subsets of heritage, but also subsets of American culture. The way that I grew up is very different from how someone grew up in the south, or someone in Philly. I have noticed a stark difference in how people behave on the East Coast compared to people on the West Coast. So trying to hang something on White Americans is really almost as bad as trying to hang something on Americans as a whole. We're all so different. That's why I have always found it very strange when the rest of the world stereotypes people from our country. Does a fat white guy shopping at Walmart really represent our entire country? Obviously not.

 

[Natebishop3]

He's a liar. I don't need you to tell me he's credible. He's not. Those articles wouldn't make him credible in my eyes. So why read them? He's a disgrace.

The meat of his story was that he was robbed, and there is evidence to support that he was, in fact, robbed.

Did someone put a gun to his head? No.

He obviously exaggerated the story to sound cooler than it was, but he and 3 other swimmers were basically forced to hand over every dime that they had by men with guns. That part of the story is true. Does Lochte deserve to have his life ruined because he embellished the story?

 

[e_blazer]

How about how our president is treated? Yeah I'll wait.

By whom? He gets a lot less grief from the press than Bush did? Are there racists out there who hate on him? Sure. No shortage of assholes in the world. If you're looking to resolve that issue, you're in for a long wait.

 

[MARIS61]

It wasn't directed at a specific member of the forum.

#dogsplaining

So the n-word is okay now, because it's the exact same usage of a word whose only purpose is to degrade and insult a specific group of people.

 

[Denny Crane]

FWIW, if Obama were white he wouldn't have been elected. Why would anyone elect a white guy with zero experience and life accomplishments?

I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. SPD approves my metaphor.

 

[Natebishop3]

By whom? He gets a lot less grief from the press than Bush did? Are there racists out there who hate on him? Sure. No shortage of assholes in the world. If you're looking to resolve that issue, you're in for a long wait.

People bash on Presidents, and they usually take the lowest hanging fruit. They made fun of Bush because of how he talked and how he looked. They say racist things to Obama because they're not very intelligent and it's the easiest insult to use. It takes zero thought to call him a racist name.

 

[e_blazer]

How about how our president is treated? Yeah I'll wait.

And, WTF, man? You ask for honest comments, I give you my views and this one-liner is what I get back. Bullshit.

 

[Denny Crane]

So the n-word is okay now, because it's the exact same usage of a word whose only purpose is to degrade and insult a specific group of people.

You wanted a link. Here's a perfect example, and one of the more tame ones.

No, it's not the exact same usage.

 

[riverman]

The meat of his story was that he was robbed, and there is evidence to support that he was, in fact, robbed.

Did someone put a gun to his head? No.

He obviously exaggerated the story to sound cooler than it was, but he and 3 other swimmers were basically forced to hand over every dime that they had by men with guns. That part of the story is true. Does Lochte deserve to have his life ruined because he embellished the story?

The last thing on earth I'm worried about is Lochte's life...he'll write a book and make the talkshow circuit and within a year accumulate more wealth from his stupid bullshit than I'll probably retire with. Fuck this self empowered jock.

 

[dviss1]

OK, dviss, hope you are still reading but would understand if you're not since a lot of shit was posted here. Interesting when you said person of color almost everyone thought Black and then thought poor. Funny, no one when they thought Black thought Barack Obama, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Alice Walker, Misty Copeland. And a lot of whitesplaining about what's wrong in the African-American community (they have bad families and Democrats give them too much free stuff so they became lazy, you know, like prima ballerinas and astrophysicists).
To answer your question - give me more information. Would this be a "Black Like Me" experience, where I would have a different skin tone/features but everything else the same? Same life to this point? Well, I'd be a fish out of water, for sure. Transgender people have tried to explain their feelings by asking how would a cis person feel if he/she woke up one day in the body of the opposite sex, but nothing else had changed? That's about how I'd feel. Born and raised white and Jewish and all of a sudden something else? Because "person of color" is not just about skin tone or features. If it were Misty Copeland would not be considered "Black" (look at her).

I went to college with, and now work with, a number of Asian women who were always totally focused. They, in college, had no social life, did not date, were not politically active, they were laser beams focused on their work and they are the same as adults. They are often rather insular. I wonder sometimes if they feel happy with this intense focus? Was it what they wanted or family/group pressure? I don't claim to know.

So is the "person of color" I become a Chinese woman with a Ph.D. in biochemistry leading a research team at Genentech? Or a working class Black lesbian? Or my Filipina dentist, African-American primary care doctor, Latina eye doctor (who I started going to when my Chinese eye doctor retired)?

Did I suddenly become a "person of color" or would I have been born and raised in a different culture? I think if you asked most African-Americans if they'd rather be white they'd say no. They have their own culture and identity they value and would probably not want to give it up. As a feminist I was often accused of wanting to be a man but I never did; I just wanted the same economic, social, cultural, political, sexual rights as men and a society that did not differentiate. And whatever straight men claim, I have never wanted to be hetero.

With no alternate universe, dviss, I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't know. If I suddenly became another "color" I would NOT like it because it would be like the cis person suddenly becoming the wrong gender; it would feel wrong because it would not be the culture/identity in which I have lived. Aside from how others treated me. OTOH, if I were born/raised in another culture, would I be happier? And which one? I can't say because there is no alternate universe. I know my experiences would definitely be different and I'd have more/different barriers.

Dviss, in another conversation I mentioned to you that when I, a midlife white woman, see a cop, I can figure he/she will either ignore me or politely greet me while you, a young African-American male, feel quite differently. But you can walk into a sports bar and see the Blazers on big screen TV; I, a woman, cannot.

I'm not sure if I'm being clear. I will not, like some, deny racism exists and it is NOT just the prejudices in people's heads, it is institutionalized just like discrimination against women is institutionalized. Would I want to experience racism? No. I do not enjoy sexism, homophobia, or anti-Semitism, not to mention the prejudice against older women and people with disabilities. I mean, dviss, don't I have enough headaches already?

I love you for this post. Truly. We should watch a Blazer game this season.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

So the n-word is okay now, because it's the exact same usage of a word whose only purpose is to degrade and insult a specific group of people.

the n-word demeans a person or a group of people because of what they are.
"Whitesplain" demeans a group of people because of what they choose to do (i.e., tell black people what they should do differently).

Very, very different.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

So the n-word is okay now, because it's the exact same usage of a word whose only purpose is to degrade and insult a specific group of people.

No, the n word will be deleted.