All white people are racists...or "white fragility" ??

[A Theist]

Aroura: Someone, please explain this to me, so I can stop being the racist asshole I apparently was born to be.


First off, stop feeling guilty over your skin color. You're not a punching bag for others to beat up on.


Secondly, assholes and racists come in all different skin colors.


Third, take people as they come. If they treat you well, you treat them well. If they're friendly with you, be friendly with them. If they don't like you, stay away from them.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

No one is actually saying you're born racist because you're born white. No one is saying it's "your fault" you were born white. Yes, that would be racist, and only a small number of very dense people think that's the issue, usually out of an excess of zeal in trying to defend "their community" (defined by skin/ethnicity) against the "oppressors". The truth is much more nuanced, but no less real, and focusing on our individual attitudes toward people of color, congratulating ourselves when we manage to not hate someone because they have a tan may in fact make us the racists we'd hate to think we were.

This unexamined white privilege may may you a racist if, by your deeds or omissions, you are contributing to a problem by ignoring when people who are being systematically oppressed (and we have not only their anecdotal testimonies to this effect, but good statistical data that shows a great many problems with being nonwhite in America) try to tell us--practically screaming it--that it is happening. As someone above said, you don't have to hold negative opinions of other races, or be screaming Klan slogans, to be racist or at least contributing to the problem of racial inequality in this country.

You should not feel guilty for your skin color. No one should. Anyone who tells you this is about "feeling guilty" is part of the problem. The issue is, for all people of all colors who are of good conscience and want to fix what is clearly an issue in this country (unless we want to go the route of ignoring the people who're being oppressed or pretending they're making it up...for the past 50+ years), that it is incumbent on those in the majority, who enjoy the privileges inherent in that majority social position, to examine that privilege and seek to right what is wrong. It includes things you may not even realize you are saying, or tones you may not realize you are using.

We atheists point out to the Christian majority all the time that they have this majority-privilege, which they refuse to recognize, and by which they feel they can smugly ignore our complaints because if they don't see the problem, it must not really be a problem. Or they call us whiners, or they call us liars, or they say "well I don't mind if multiple religions display their statutes, too", ignoring the problem inherent in majority privilege and actions taken in the shadow of that privilege. Race works the same way.

Oh, yeah, and you should also take people as they come, and treat them as you want to be treated. Thanks for the Pro Tip, AT.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

As other people have said, racism is not unique to 'whites'. Probably the most racist countries in the world are in the middle east, and certain African states have taken such a hard line against 'whites' (even native whites - eg. Mugabe) that they put even the US in the 20th century to shame.

I agree with you Aroura and A Theist, fuck the politics of race and colour. It serves only to divide us if everyone is constantly obsessed with it. People are people, and I hate them all, regardless of colour ^_^

[Alex K]

Show me a person and I'll show you a racist. We're all wired that way, regardless of skin colour. Some simply manage to overcome those tribalist urges. That's my observation at least.

[Ben Davis]

No one is actually saying you're born racist because you're born white. No one is saying it's "your fault" you were born white. Yes, that would be racist, and only a small number of very dense people think that's the issue, usually out of an excess of zeal in trying to defend "their community" (defined by skin/ethnicity) against the "oppressors". The truth is much more nuanced, but no less real, and focusing on our individual attitudes toward people of color, congratulating ourselves when we manage to not hate someone because they have a tan may in fact make us the racists we'd hate to think we were.

This unexamined white privilege may may you a racist if, by your deeds or omissions, you are contributing to a problem by ignoring when people who are being systematically oppressed (and we have not only their anecdotal testimonies to this effect, but good statistical data that shows a great many problems with being nonwhite in America) try to tell us--practically screaming it--that it is happening. As someone above said, you don't have to hold negative opinions of other races, or be screaming Klan slogans, to be racist or at least contributing to the problem of racial inequality in this country.

You should not feel guilty for your skin color. No one should. Anyone who tells you this is about "feeling guilty" is part of the problem. The issue is, for all people of all colors who are of good conscience and want to fix what is clearly an issue in this country (unless we want to go the route of ignoring the people who're being oppressed or pretending they're making it up...for the past 50+ years), that it is incumbent on those in the majority, who enjoy the privileges inherent in that majority social position, to examine that privilege and seek to right what is wrong. It includes things you may not even realize you are saying, or tones you may not realize you are using.

We atheists point out to the Christian majority all the time that they have this majority-privilege, which they refuse to recognize, and by which they feel they can smugly ignore our complaints because if they don't see the problem, it must not really be a problem. Or they call us whiners, or they call us liars, or they say "well I don't mind if multiple religions display their statutes, too", ignoring the problem inherent in majority privilege and actions taken in the shadow of that privilege. Race works the same way.

Oh, yeah, and you should also take people as they come, and treat them as you want to be treated. Thanks for the Pro Tip, AT.

^^^this. Why has this not got 100 kudos?!

Show me a person and I'll show you a racist. We're all wired that way, regardless of skin colour. Some simply manage to overcome those tribalist urges. That's my observation at least.

Alex, we're not 'all a little bit racist'; I, for one, am simply not wired to discriminate and where I discover institutionalised discrimination, I oppose it. I just hate the unfairness of inequality and injustice. You've made a false generalisation here. Surprised you'd think that.

[Crossless2.0]

My wife is Korean-American. We've worked out the white privilege thing rather elegantly: she bosses me around 50% of the time and gets to be on top whenever she wants.

And Trump thinks he knows how to negotiate with Asians . . .

[Neo-Scholastic]

As a manager, I would not hire someone that displays such an oversensitive attitude to apparent slights. I could not trust them to interact effectively with clients, co-workers, and vendors. You need a thick skin to work in construction. I would be willing to overlook some immodest photos on Facebook long before I would forgive obsessive griping and self-pity.

White privilege my ass. I grew up in a house without a bathroom. I'd bet my bottom dollar that your oppressed friend did grow up with complete indoor plumbing and now has cable television, a cell phone and a bank account. Every single American of every color has more freedom and opportunities than 90% of the rest of the world. Stop whining and get to work.

[vorlon13]

I think the unspoken/unwritten (till now) rule on sex and racism (OMG!) is no matter what you're looking for, or why, if you find a willing somebody (and everyone is honest upfront) it ain't racist, by definition.

Or that would be the definition if we ever had the public discussion about it and that would be the resultant consensus.


I'll go get the Albolene . . . .

[paulpablo]

FUCK, I can't even express how stressed these bullshit articles make me feel.

Is white fragility going to be the new hashtag of the month?

Basically it's just one upper middle class white person who feels guilty about being white and projects it onto every white person.  What white people do is this, we go around murdering black people who are just innocently trying to express outrage about racism, it's obviously because we feel so superior because from birth we're all secretly initiated into the white people society where we're constantly told how great and superior we are.
Every week we meet up and discuss with the white queen mother how we can oppress the black people more, we all do this because white people aren't diverse, we are all privileged, not one of us is poor.
Ontop of this none of us are ever called honkey, cracker, white bastard, we never get racially abused because no other race is evil enough to be racist towards white people, white people are the inventors of racism and the only people who carry it out.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

FUCK, I can't even express how stressed these bullshit articles make me feel.

Is white fragility going to be the new hashtag of the month?

Basically it's just one upper middle class white person who feels guilty about being white and projects it onto every white person.  What white people do is this, we go around murdering black people who are just innocently trying to express outrage about racism, it's obviously because we feel so superior because from birth we're all secretly initiated into the white people society where we're constantly told how great and superior we are.
Every week we meet up and discuss with the white queen mother how we can oppress the black people more, we all do this because white people aren't diverse, we are all privileged, not one of us is poor.
Ontop of this none of us are ever called honkey, cracker, white bastard, we never get racially abused because no other race is evil enough to be racist towards white people, white people are the inventors of racism and the only people who carry it out.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand thank you for making my point.

This kind of white privilege, ignoring the claim by building a strawman and waving off the entire issue without truly examining it, is the entire issue: "Hey, bad things happen to white people, too! Therefore no problem."

"Racism consists of ideologies and practices that seek to justify, or cause, the unequal distribution of privileges, rights, or goods amongst, or otherwise exhibit hatred or prejudice toward, different racial groups."


I highly recommend everyone read the essay "I, Racist" by John Metta. It is by no means a definitive work on the concept of white privilege (and the practice of making this concept into a strawman, by which the practicioners of that form of strawman construction ironically become the thing they are trying to argue against), but it is a good place to start.

As I tell the Christians who tell us we atheists are just making up the problems with their unexamined social/cultural dominance: "examine your privilege."