Reminds me of the time I went to Texas for a wedding. My buddy's wife is from Lyford TX which is about 25 miles from the border. We went out drinking at some club/bar that her brother took us to and the only white people in the entire place were me, my brother and one other random dude there. We definitely got some nasty looks and even my drunk ass remembers feeling uncomfortable and having an heightened awareness of what was going on. Can't imagine feeling that almost everywhere I go.
Welcome to my world. I work about 15 minutes away from Lyford. It's common to be called racist names when you're white down here.
Of course not all white people are racist. However, the number of white racists in America far outnumbers any other ethnic group that has racists in it. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that it is clearly better being white in America than it is to be any other color. If I were to go through life just assuming that white people weren't racist, that could potentially cause me great physical harm, to say nothing of the mental and emotional. I have to make snap judgement calls on stranger's attitudes towards race without the benefit of knowing their history or talking to them. If a woman were to be raped by a man, would that be her fault? No, it wouldn't. It is incumbent on men to not rape. We as a people should stop men from raping women. What the woman was doing or wearing should have no bearing on if they deserved to be raped or not. If a black man walks down the street, and he gets shot by the cops, is it the black man's fault? In this day and age, white people generally want to know what the black man was doing to get shot. A black man gets blamed for being shot by a cop, simply for being black in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, we don't blame rape victims for being raped. Can you see the parallel? Why is it incumbent on black people to not be shot by police? It shouldn't be. Saying that I am just as bad as the racially profiling cop who shoots an unarmed black man ignores the inherent power dynamic. Yes, in a vacuum, no profiling should be done. But we don't live in a vacuum or social utopia. That you think that we are either in one or that everything is so black in white is a real glimpse into how white moderates view minorities. Conflating my actions due to a fear of death by racism with racist hatred and/or ignorance is ludicrous and offensive to every person who has ever been negatively affected by white supremacy. I would hope that some of you would take this opportunity to google what white people should be doing to help black people and minorities in general. Read what non-white people write about racism and its effect on society. The problem of race in America will not go away until white people as a whole, start doing better. Let's start with cops not killing unarmed black and brown people.
But it is ignorant. It's ignorant and wholly irrational. How often are Asian people randomly murdered by racist whites? Almost never, but you continue to sit there and pretend it happens all the time. Why? You are basing this on nothing more than your feelings, but when your feelings aren't grounded in reality it doesn't mean shit to me. There are 1000 other ways you are more likely to die, yet you choose to be irrationally paranoid about an extremely unlikely statistical anomaly. Society didn't force this sentiment on you, you chose it.
Just because you're Asian does not mean you aren't or cannot be racists. Some of the biggest racists I know are Asian (Chinese and Japanese). A good friend of mine is married to a Chinese woman, born and raised, and he's first to admit "she's racist as FUCK". Her main target? MAINLAND Chinese... "she's so fucking Mainland..." Never mind how I am treated as a white Canadian dude in Tokyo... most people are nice, or tolerant, but a large number are downright racist. Or how the Chinese and Japanese are racists against each other... You're living in a fucking bubble if you think you're the only one impacted by racists, and when that is your only frame of reference, and you come at me with "you're white therefore you're a racist" then yeah, go figure I'm going to tell you to go fuck yourself. Get your head out of your ass, and realize that it's not the world against you, and that you cannot paint everyone with the same brush. And also try to fucking understand that we sympathize and are doing what we can to help with what is going on... WE'RE TRYING TO HELP, FOR FUCK SAKE. So telling us we're all racist pieces of shit, like we're some Southern redneck looking to hang you from a tree, is the exact opposite way you may want to be accepting or motivating whatever we can do for you. Or telling us that we're not doing enough. Fuck. You. You have NO idea what I am doing to help with minorities (racial or gender) representation. Fully 60% of the teams that I hire and work with are minorities or women (or some other non-male gender). We go OUT OF OUR WAY to help qualified candidates get hired, and if they're not qualified, then we do what we can to help them become qualified. So get off your fucking high horse... or keep going, and then wonder why you're being alienated by rational, empathetic, caring people. How about YOU look past the colour of our skin and judge us for who and what we really are.
Look, man, I'm not going to tell you again. If you can't have a civil exchange without shouting expletives at the other guy, you can take a week off.
Any number greater than zero of Asians, black people, Hispanic or any minority getting unjustly killed by racist cops is fucking wrong. What the fuck is the matter with you? Where is your fucking humanity? Where is your morality? Why are you so obtuse? What is so fucking hard to understand? Killing people is wrong! Killing people without consequence is fucked up! Entire sections of a population shouldn't have to be afraid of the police! You've never had to deal with the fear that your ethnic makeup could raise the chance of dying at a traffic stop, so I wouldn't expect you to understand. But what does it fucking say to you that white people are the only group of people that don't worry about something like that? Hey look, another thing you're wrong about. https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/03/us/minneapolis-police-use-of-force.html I'm basing this on the shit I've seen with my own two eyes. You are arguing for an acceptable amount of death caused by racism, which makes you part of the problem. Well, if you want to point towards a bunch of Korean cops that are murdering unarmed white people who were freed from 246 years of Korean-owned slavery that ended roughly two generations ago, I'll protest that shit too. Why don't all of you examine why you're all getting defensive? I'm not saying anything that isn't a shared experience by any other minority in this country. I'm not making up black and brown people getting murdered and being scared as a result. I'm not making up getting threatening looks from white people as an Asian man during a pandemic that was called a Chinese virus by the fucking President. You all want to say "well it isn't happening to Asians enough" or "Asians are just as racist" instead of addressing the fact that white people are responsible for the worst and most racially fueled atrocities since the first black people were brought to this country in 1619. All I've been doing is relate how racism has directly affected me and what decades of white racist history that guide my actions today. If that upsets your worldview so fucking bad, why are you blaming me instead of the racists that did that shit?
Well, this is productive. Can we agree that everyone wants to eliminate racism, and that intent matters? And that alienating all the people trying to help is counterproductive? If the general consensus from non-white persons is that all whites, regardless of intent, are inherently racist and that their job in all of this is to listen and do exactly as they’re told, and that their contribution to the problem should be to get on their knees and beg forgiveness for the sins of their ancestors, and oh by the way looting is terrible but we understand how necessary it is, right? If that’s the attitude then, like Nett says, fuck off. We’ll stick with the status quo if it’s a choice between those two alternatives. Everyone who saw that video knows that man was murdered and the cop should serve time. Most people here agree that policing is long overdue for a reckoning. Most people here support eradication of any policy or procedure that intentionally or inadvertently excludes a particular group. What we refuse to accept is that we’re all evil murders, or that rioting and looting is an acceptable reaction when you want change.
If that's the message you're taking away from my posts, then I fail to see how I am alienating anybody who is being rational, empathetic, and caring. If you were rational, you wouldn't tell the only minority left on this board who's been trying to present a non-white perspective on race to a bunch of white people, to fuck off. I'm sure the irony wouldn't be lost on you that telling me that I am "living in a fucking bubble" while telling me to fuck off would make the discussion around here a little more white and conservative. You'd also realize that I'm not telling you these things because I'm trying to fuck with you or make you upset. They literally happened and that ain't my fault. If you were empathetic, you'd acknowledge that my perspective is different than yours, because you are not a minority. You'd try to make a good faith effort to imagine what it would be like living in a society that has been oppressive to you and others like you for centuries. You'd try to explain how that might change the way how you and others who look like you would behave in racially-charged situations. You'd also imagine that when trying to explain what that's like to a bunch of people who have no idea what those years of systemic oppression might do to your psyche, that they'd deflect, deny and denigrate you for saying things that actually happened to you, and those who look like you. If you were caring, you would have done all of those things before you told me to fuck off. I'm done posting. It's obvious to me that I'm not welcome here.
However would I get the idea that you think all white people are racists? You're more than welcome here... but don't tell me to my face that I'm a racist and expect me to roll over and take it. I feel for you, and empathize with you, and sure, do not experience what you do to the degree that you do, but do NOT discount my feelings or experiences just because I'm white. And even more, do NOT judge me based on the colour of my skin alone and expect me to do anything other than tell you to fuck the hell off and consider YOU to be a racist, just like the rest. If you feel you can't hang out taking that into account, then so be it. Thanks for coming out, and I wish you the best. But yeah, don't play the victim and think that we pushed you out just because we didn't roll over and blindly accept what you were saying. Discuss things... educate ALL of us... respect ALL of us... and we'll get along just fine. Up to you.
Oh man. I'm gonna post in this thread in actual seriousness, and I'm scared to do so. Let me preface all this by just saying...these are my feelings, and I'm not trying to paint with a broad brush, even if some of the words I use may make you think I am. I think we call that a "trigger warning" these days, even though I don't plan on saying anything that brazenly wild. I also apologize if this sounds rambling, but things come to mind as I write. I wanted to look up the definition of "empathetic" before I posted, which is: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. I think one of the reasons this debate can get heated is that, in a lot of cases, people are trying very hard to be understand, and they are trying very hard to put themselves in that position, and they are trying very hard to find out what they can do. And I feel like a lot of times...I don't know. For example, reading this discussion. I feel that it it becomes, "You have to be empathetic and understand something you will never in your life understand, ever. And if you are working to correct it, you're never going to do enough, and even if you do a decent amount, the way you're doing it is completely wrong." And yes, it's because these are hard things to face. And for me, following the path of logic, the only answer is that all white people are racist. I am white, therefore I am racist. If I don't believe I am racist, then anything I do to try and explain that I'm not sounds like the anecdotal "oh, I have so many black friends though." I spent ten years working retail, where my golden rule was DO NOT TALK POLITICS AND RELIGION. You don't want anything you say to hurt your paycheck. That's my white privilege, because I have a job and I'm not being judged by my skin color, and I can keep my thoughts to myself. I got really good at knowing right away whether somebody was coming into the store to steal. Most of the times it a was white meth head. Sometimes it was a black guy. When it was the latter, my first thought was "am I being racist?" One time, a customer came in, a white guy with a bald head, and he wanted some sort of audio cable. I didn't know exactly what he needed, so I directed him to my best associate in that department. Later, the guy came back to me to pay for the cable. I was confused, but I took care of the guy. When he left, the staff came over to me and said I was such a dick - because I had not seen the giant lightning bolt SS tattoo on the guy's arm, and my best audio associate was a black man. I genuinely didn't see it, and everybody thought I was fucking with my associate. And I said "Honestly, I didn't see it - and even if I did, I STILL would have taken him to you, because you know what you're talking about, and FUCK that guy." And even in telling THAT story, my first thought is "am I being racist? Am I just telling these random people on a message board that 'I have black friends too'?" And writing all this makes it sounds like I'm bemoaning the fact that I feel this way. I am not. I just feel...helpless to assist. Because the more I try to understand, the more it starts to get to that wall of "you'll never understand, and as hard as you try you never will." And then that wall makes me just want to keep to myself. And that's part of the problem too, isn't it? So what can I do to help? It's not enough to not be racist - I need to learn how to be anti-racist. But I'm a white man, and I will always be racist. What if I live my life the best I can, and treat everyone around me with love and respect, and if I ever have children, teach them to do the same, to judge someone on the content of their character first? What if I do my absolute best to teach my child to try and understand someone else's situation? But in the end, my wife and I are both white. I just feel like if that's where things always lead. That we're trying to solve a problem that will never go away, and whatever I do is never going to be a solution, because I will never ever understand the problem - and talking about it like this, just talking about my feelings, is so selfish. Does it perpetuate the problem? Am I being racist right now? If white people will never understand, and white people are all racist, then should we let white people be cops at all? Man, I'm rambling, I'm sorry. I know this discussion has been heated, and passionate, but it's also been informative. There's been a lot of people who have given some really good and interesting answers to these questions of what can be done, and how to go forward. As much as I avoid posting in these threads, I read them all. I've even tried ignoring members that say things I don't like, but I end up opening their posts anyway, because they make me think. So there's that.