Caucasian in my country.

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by Ero-Sennin, Oct 25, 2011.

  1. Sketco

    Sketco Banned Banned

    We are a dying breed :cry:

    On a funnier note India and China's main exports are Indian and Chinese people respectively :hat:
     
  2. AndrewTheAndroid

    AndrewTheAndroid A hero for fun.

    I am thoroughly convinced that within the next twenty years most countries will hold a referendum to join China.
     
  3. LeaFirebender

    LeaFirebender Ice Bear has ninja stars

    Yeah its like being racist against whites is fine b/c our ancestors mistreated their ancestors. Well guess what: I CANT DO ANYTHING ABOUT MY ANCESTORS' PROBLEMS. So yeah, I don't appreciate that.

    Same thing goes for the black history month. Sure, it's fine that they want to have a month to say whatever. But again, I can't do anything about my ancestors who were slave owners (my aunt has traced our family history, so I know we were :( )

    So yea, I agree ...
     
  4. AndrewTheAndroid

    AndrewTheAndroid A hero for fun.

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cGfrExozQ&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cGfrExozQ&feature=related[/ame]
     
  5. Sketco

    Sketco Banned Banned

    You know. Every once in a while someone says something which just has such incredible simplicity and wisdom that you just laugh.
    I am in no way surprised something so beautifully, simply, elegant smart should come out of Morgan Freeman's mouth.
     
  6. Knight_Errant

    Knight_Errant Banned Banned

    I'm not. While researching the part of god, Morgan Freeman gained access to god's secret book of solutions. The solution to knife crime is, apparently gun crime, the solution to obesity is famine, and it turns out the solution to international tension is indeed violence- we just haven't been using enough of it.
     
  7. Blade96

    Blade96 shotokan karateka

    One of my aunts complained this morning about natives getting free tuition. Luckily, my mom shut her up with 'they took their land, shoved em on reserves, the residential schools, abuse of all kinds there, they still often live in poverty and crap and filth, you can't pay them enough for that.' That shut her up.
     
  8. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Since I've been coming around MAP more I decided to look into some old threads of mine, specifically this thread as racism has always been a big topic in my life and more so during current events in the U.S..

    As an aside if you're a MAP member and come across somebody who posts something like I did at the start, who is still very young and impressionable, maybe don't start right off with "awwwwww poor white boy." I'm glad I had friends who were minorities to help walk me through some of this stuff, because if I had reacted towards how many members of MAP acted in this thread towards me when I was genuinely searching for answers on a topic so I could grow . . . . I would probably be going down that "alt right" road. I get people troll, but I was a long time member at this point and I've always been genuine.

    Just a thought.
     
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  9. Mangosteen

    Mangosteen Hold strong not

    Yeah reading through this, there really should have been more talk about class and how you, despite being white, are not the same as a rich white guy.
    Yes you may be given more opportunities through social/cultural expectations of race in your country but you are still poor.

    The greatest grift ever committed was the wealthy convincing the poor to hate each other.

    How would you have handled your own question though?


    Questions of race require a lot of historical knowledge to inform our present - how do you provide that succinctly?
     
    David Harrison likes this.
  10. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    If the culture you were raised in didn't give you the social skills needed to mix in upper middle class circles, then your chances of upward social mobility are slim, no matter what ethnicity you are.

    Of course, if you belong to a ethnicity that society discriminates against then your chances are still limited even if your upbringing did afford you the ability to hang with people further up the pyramid.
     
  11. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    ...but yes, ridicule is not generally a good educational tool.

    Telling people who feel disenfranchised, alienated and lacking opportunity they have the same privilege in society as slave traders and CEOs doesn't seem like a good way to engage people in a tolerant society.
     
  12. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    How would I have handled my own question? I'll keep in context that this was in 2011, and it was more like 2008 for me because I was removed from society for four years and wasn't caught up to technology yet (I didn't even know what a meme was).

    I would have told myself to look up "Tulsa, Oklahoma Greenwood District and Black Wallstreet." I would have told myself to look up the Tuskegee study. Then I would have followed up with, "There's a LOT of things like this, please take a day or two and look these up so you can have an idea of the difficulties that have occurred for minorities, especially African Americans even after slavery was ended." Giving somebody a base to start with is important. NONE of this stuff was taught to me, not even in recent stints going back to college for classes in the last 5 years. I would also emphasize that much of this has taken place in the last 200 years. People live to be 80. As Joe Rogan puts it in one of his Netflix specials, "That's THREE PEOPLE AGO."

    I would have emphasized my own experiences involving the topic of race growing up, and how I was bullied both physically and mentally for being white (by both black and white kids for befriending black people). Then I would have shared how the "white" methodist church in town and the youth group event my family ran got canceled because certain people didn't like all the black children being there. The town still has a black and a white methodist church. I would then point out that while I may have not "deserved" to be treated the way I was growing up, that there are clear examples of minorities being treated exactly the way I was treated growing up all over the place and I am eye witness to it. It's unfortunate that I learned the difficulties minorities face because I got treated the way minorities are treated, sometimes by minority groups. I even got told my junior year in fooball by the white head coach that I couldn't play linebacker or full back because the other kids wont have other opportunities in life and needed those spots to try to get into college (meaning the black kids were too dumb to do anything but play sports? I don't know, that's what I got from it and I quit a week later under the lie of wanting to pursue body building. Did not have the skills at 16 to deal with this). I've got a lot of not fun stories that are racially themed all through my life.

    I think that would have been enough information for me to do what I needed as far as where/what to research, and hopefully my attempt at sharing personal experience would have granted me some weight with my words. Looking at the crowd that was in this thread that probably wouldn't have been likely, lol.

    If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have made this thread as my perspective wouldn't have been the same. Maybe some people think how I would respond now is no better than how I was in the original post. I would like to see reparations happen but not as a monetary thing. I think we should do it in a way that intentionally makes the people receiving reparations an integral and vital part of our country. Give them land, free education, equipment, and guidance to learn what to do with that land, then government contracts to get started, etc.. Maybe when climate change causes mass migration, we can do a huge national project like moving a mountain range to eradicate some rain shadow and increase useable land due to more water entering the water table. We could set minorities up with a reparations system that allows them to spearhead the operation and retain for their purposes all materials removed from the mountain or something. For me it's not enough to just throw money at people, and there's a lot of data on how us humans suck at dealing with that. I think we need to do things to make people proud, make them feel like they are an American, that they are a part of it and not just taking up space in it trying to survive.

    The "minorities not giving back to society" crap that I was saying I believe was based on an argument I was having with my ex at the time. My ex got a full ride through undergrad at a top university, she was able to get financial aid and government assistance to get through law school. Her family immigrated over here when she was young, and while they were poor they were able to get housing and food and help from the government. Some bad things also happened to them as well when they were just starting out. Today her immediate family (as far as I know), as first generation immigrants, all have a college degree, some of them a masters. At the time of the argument they were all getting very close to finishing their degrees, or staring their careers. I have one sibling who has made it through college that my pops was able to help pay for out of pocket. I got no help with anything, and had to work full time in construction to pay for the little college I did before the Marines. My two sisters have had a pretty rough life. At the time I think I had asked her if she ever thought about public service to give back since they were having so much success and she had scoffed and said she didn't owe the country a thing. I then went on MAP and made some stupid grand generalizations.
     
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  13. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    Thanks for reminding me how funny I am. The "worlds smallest violin" made me chuckle all over again. :)

    Honestly if there's one thing the "right" ( "alt' or otherwise) stress is that people make their own way in the world and where they end up is on them. I mean I don't agree with that (as far as I'm concerned we're all playing a "choose your own adventure" story but we all don't get the same range of choices to make) but that seems to be the gist of their world view.

    So while I'm not right wing I do think that, for the most part, if you ended up veering off to the alt right I don't think it was because some rando British idiot like me made a joke on an internet forum?
     
  14. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    So how old were you when you started this thread?
     
  15. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Wrydolphin - took a lot of time to explain different scientific processes on stuff to people, sometimes me specifically. I remember her posts influencing the way I started thinking in school, and she along with MAP in general assisted in me being able to start seeing where religious doctrine and the real world don't really match up.

    Lily - Although I haven't talked to her in years, we had become MAP pen pals. Coming home to an email to talk about things I had done or was thinking about and getting to listen to somebody older give me guidance or just listen to me was something I treasure to this day. I didn't really have that kind of thing growing up. Kindness and attention from anyone, anywhere was a blessing for me.

    Slipthejab - Called me out on a few different things. One of the times he told me I was an idiot I even listened. I had made a thread about a downed power pole and how I was mad at the cops actions towards me when I tried to help (which I should not have been doing, let EMS do their thing). He laid into me telling me I could have gotten myself or somebody else hurt and that if I'm not trained to do something like that, leave it alone. My interest and pursuits in EMS like training through the military was something I paid extra attention to because of him, and I've had to use those skills unfortunately. I'm glad I knew what to do.

    Warriorofanart - Having conversations with him helped me navigate my hate for middle eastern people when I got out of the military. There's another significant event that helped me put that mental conditioning away, but Warriorofanart had a big impact. We connected over Rorouni Kenshin the anime initially.

    Moi - One of the influences for me joining the Marine Corps

    You weren't the only one obviously. This whole thread was definitely me being a headstrong, ignorant, but genuinely sincere and confused person looking specifically for help in understanding the world around me. So yeah, some rando British person (especially somebody whose art I really like, always sucks when somebody you admire treats you like crap) making jokes about me while everyone else was piling had a pretty strong negative impact on me. I remember this thread because of how bad it made me feel, not because of the things I learned from it.

    I was 23 years old, and was getting ready to get out of the Marine Corps. I consider that young and impressionable, and I'm telling you that at that point in my life, I was both young, and impressionable, especially given the huge life shift that was about to happen.
     
  16. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Age and naivety have a correlative relationship, but not a causal one. Plus, it is subject dependent; I hope I grow old remaining naive about extremes of human behaviour that Ero had a working knowledge of at that age.
     
  17. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    At the same time, no-one owes anyone anything on forums and social media, so if having a laugh at people is entertaining to you then I guess that's fine.

    Just remember what would have happened had Ero posted that on a site full of "Western chauvinists"/alt-righters/white supremacists/nazis: he would have been answered with empathy, understanding and a sense of community.

    There are very few barriers to entry to hateful ideological movements, but for some reason people who describe themselves as tolerant and compassionate tend to display none of it when approached by someone they consider in an "out" group.
     
  18. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    I think it depends on the views being expressed really. As they say a tolerant society can't be tolerant of the intolerant (not saying Ero was intolerant BTW).

    Anyway...I literally cannot comprehend how a white person in the US can think that "white people" have it worse (or as bad as) "people of colour".
    I don't live in the US but still know about slavery, the civil war to try and keep hold of it, Jim Crow laws, Rosa Parks, segregation, MLK, Malcolm X, the civil rights movement, Tuskegee study, Lynchings, the KKK, yadda yadda yadda.
    The last civil war widow died in 2020. 2020!! Up until last year you could have physically talked to someone, who talked to someone, who fought in an actual war to end slavery! That's not even three people ago!
    To deny the role of "race" in life, and life outcomes, in the US is to deny or be blind to so much I've no idea how people do it. So when someone pops up and says "but what about my crappy situation and I'm white!?" it's a weird thing to deal with TBH.

    I think the problem is people being binary on the subject of "privilege".
    You either have it or you don't. And if you supposedly have "it" how can someone who doesn't have "it" have a better life than you!?
    Whereas the reality is that there are lots of intersecting "privileges" at play.
    Race, gender, ability/disability, physical health, socio-economic status, education/resource access, parental guidance, geographical and historical "place", mental health, resilience, etc.
    A person can have "privilege" in one direction that is vastly outweighed by their other circumstances and lack of privileges. Or a person can squander their privilege (for multiple reasons) while another overcomes their lack of them. But that doesn't stop the various privileges at play being tangible things.
     
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  19. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    Well for that I wholeheartedly apologise. I suppose it is easy to lose sight of the human behind the screen name and my natural tendency is to be flippant and snarky.
    I thought you didn't like me TBH so thanks for the props.
     
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  20. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Re"
    The last civil war widow died in 2020. 2020!! Up until last year you could have physically talked to someone, who talked to someone, who fought in an actual war to end slavery! "

    Whilst I generally agree with you, the civil war widow thing is a little more complex, often the men who fought in the civil war, in old age, would marry a young girl, partially so when they died, the new widow would still get the pension, in exchange for being looked after in old age.

    It doesn't change your point, but just an interesting point of history.
     
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