It seems that "the white oppressor" narrative was coined considering the American Society __only__. People tend to neglect other forms of racism experienced in other places in the world.
I had a very similar experience. White kid in a predominantly black, poor neighborhood. I was a true D&D playing, sci-fi-reading, sports-hating nerd who had to learn how to fight and physically intimidate people in order not to get beat up. It was not an easy time. I've never been diagnosed with PTSD but it's pretty clear I had it.
Zero racism in my heart. There are assholes everywhere in every race and gender, and truly, transcendentally noble, good-hearted people too. Find, and be, those latter; ruthlessly avoid the former. Most people just want to live peacefully, surrounded by family and friends. If that's your basic operating assumption, you'll have a good understanding of almost everyone.
The racial category "white" is as absurd as "black" or "Asian". These categories are overly inclusive, reductive, and indicate absolutely nothing about the individuals thereof. Whites include European hereditary aristocracy, living survivors of Balkan/Baltic/Caucasus genocide, Barbary pirates, Levantine peasantry, Uralic ethnicities you have never heard of because their populations are in the single digits, on and on.
Anyone who tries to make grand assertions about Asians, Blacks or whites, is, at most charitable interpretation, clueless, ignorant and uninformed. I am super clear about this.
Narratives about racism in America are about the systemic, structural ways in which our country disadvantages black people, not about individual people's feelings or even actions. It's possible for individuals to have different experiences without negating the fundamental truth that the deck is stacked against black Americans. As just one example, white wealth is tied to homeownership, which was denied to blacks for decades.
None of this is to deny the pain of the author's experiences, which is very real. My point is that this isn't the sort of thing we're talking about when we talk about racism in America; it's about the system as a whole.
In a structural context, I think you could argue than anyone who participates in existing institutions which propagate these differences in opportunity/resources is “racist”. Of course, this definition makes it extremely hard to avoid being racist- even by accident. This is how I (perhaps generously) interpret “white people are inherently racist”.
Because many people are born into these institutions, judging someone’s character based on this version of racism is misguided imo. Instead, we must all try to be aware of the effects of our institutions and how our participation affects them.
I am very sensitive to the plight of the white American working class. I'm aware of how the American oligarchs used us to become rich, and then shipped our jobs to third-world countries. There are countless communities of white people that have just flat out died due to this economic betrayal. Many of these areas which have been stripped of industry suffer social blights like heroin use, etc. There are entire areas in America where white people are just killing themselves with drugs because they are completely hopeless. Chris Hedges has written several great books about this. Also, you can look up plenty of documentaries on this subject on YouTube if you are not familiar with this subject.
Do some white people have an unfair advantage in this system? Absolutely. Do all white people have an unfair advantage in this system? Given what has happened to the white working class, I would say that the evidence proves that they don't.
I believe all people are inherently racist. I don't think race is the biggest issue in our nation. I believe class is the central issue, and I can't help but believe that race conflict is a diversion used to avoid class conflict.
All white people in America have an unfair advantage. That’s what white privilege is. If you actually care about this, research Peggy McIntosh and the concept of the invisible knapsack. Two very simple examples:
1. In the majority of industries in the US, a white person can rise to the upper echelons of that industry without meaningfully interacting with majority groups that don’t look like them.
2. White names have a better response rate with equivalent resumes than ethnic names.
There are dozens if not hundreds more tangible advantages that being white has. Does this mean that it’s not hard to be poor and white? No. But no matter what your class is in the US, it is advantageous to be white if you want to move up.
> All white people in America have an unfair advantage
Counterexample: the author in the story, who had an unfair disadvantage.
> In the majority of industries in the US, a white person can rise to the upper echelons of that industry without meaningfully interacting with majority groups that don’t look like them.
> All white people in America have an unfair advantage.
Statistical advantage you mean, but that does not translate to good outcomes for many people.
I'll agree with you that in a historically white country, white people, in general, have an advantage. But saying this completely disregards the marginalized white working class which has been under siege, like minorities, by a predatory ruling class.
Actually they’re taking it one step further shouting all white people are motherfuckers who need to die. Hard to tell when it’s releasing sentiment vs an actual rally cry for white genocide.
Sorry but this reeks of utter horseshit. This is the narrative of a male Karen.
Red flags:
1. An OP with zero social media presence beyond the past 30 days, with no verifiable info, presenting an individual anecdotal experience from which we are to infer the "white oppressor" narrative is flawed
2. Black kids in the 90s in Connecticut calling someone "cracker"
3. Describing Black people as a "pack of feral dogs"
4. Calling classes in a US school "lessons"... is the real writer even American?
5. The writer goes completely mute in high school and somehow the Black students... of which there are "many" but unlikely they are a majority at his school (if you check CT demographics), somehow think he's a safe victim to gang assault because he's white?
6. Describing Black people as "a pack of furious animals rudely deprived of their prey"
7. Link to Bret Weinstein lol
8. Modeling a Magical Negro with Model Minority behavior that bridges the gap... oh if only Black people were Nice, and not taught by their parents to be racist (as opposed to reacting and evolving to survive the systemic oppression they grow up in)
Even if this suspect narrative were true, as JeffRosenberg points out, racism in America is about structural bias, not individual experiences like this. OP and commenters like rendall, no matter how "unracist" you think you are, are supporting white supremacy with these "we're all the same, and I'm not racist" false narratives.
We're not all the same. If you think it's bad to make grand assertions about groups of people, wait until you hear about the Chinese Exclusion act, or redlining, or different credit ratings and property assessments, or, heck, relevant to the original post... the disparities in the Connecticut educational system.
1. I post anonymously. You're right that there's no verifiable information. It could be a completely fake story--like everything on the internet. However, I assure you, there are others that will report similar experiences--as we've seen in this thread. I'm certain this is not uncommon. The principles of human nature should also tell you that this story is entirely plausible. Is it really shocking that someone would be bullied because of their race? I'm sure a white, black, brown, etc, person has a story like this about another race.
2. Yes, they called me cracker. You've never heard people say that, even today? It is a common racial slur.
3. I was not describing black people as a "pack of feral dogs," but vicious kids. That's how they were acting, that's how I've described them. These kids were vicious. It's not a racial dig.
4. That's a good point. I suppose what I'm currently reading influenced my word choice there. I've been reading Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." In that book there's a lot of stuff about his schooling and the book was published in 1916.
5. Not sure what your point is here. I just didn't want to draw any attention to myself, at all, because the bullying was so severe. It really happened.
6. Again, it's a description of how they were acting. It's not a racial dig. They were literally acting like vicious animals towards me. I would say the same thing if they were white.
7. That documentary shocked me. It seemed to prove that some higher education institutions are being used to indoctrinate people into becoming race warriors. It's clear from that documentary that the students are under some kind of cult like "spell," which is why I linked it.
8. Robert was actually a real friend of mine. Believe it or not, this actually happened. I know maybe it sounds too fantastic or something, but it really went down like this. Robert knew I wasn't to blame for his problems. I was in a working class family just like him.
The reason why I've shared my experience is that the "white oppressor" rhetoric, although it may be designed to shed light on systematic inequalities, gets interpreted at the street level as "that white boy over there is the source of all my problems." I've seen firsthand how bad race relations makes working class communities completely dysfunctional and violent. Cui bono? Does it benefit the poor when they fight among themselves?
It’s extremely implausible that Black kids would bully people just because they’re white in a school where they are the minority, in a state where they are 10% of the population.
Your language describing the Black students is racist and all I did was quote your own words. Opinions differ I suppose but it stands on its own. Again there is a long historical context for this that you are knowingly or unknowingly participating in. Your consciousness of that history doesn’t change the impact of the words you chose. And if you are ignorant of that history it makes you perspective even more suspect.
If the narrative is that white oppression makes Black children target white people, then that would be an argument that white supremacy, which does exist in the US, hurts white people as well (just as misogyny also hurts men).
But the bottom line is, you’re providing an anecdotal anonymous experience. To me it smells completely fabricated and that’s the persuasive worth that I apply to it.
For others, if it validates some victim mentality they have about how bad white men have it in America, their mileage may vary.
> It’s extremely implausible that Black kids would bully people just because they’re white in a school where they are the minority, in a state where they are 10% of the population.
Lolwut? You really think a bully or a gang of bullies applies this sort of calculation before they bully? "Gee, I better not bully that fellow because, whilst almost everyone around me is my own race and that fellow is locally a minority, his race comprises 90% of the larger society." I'm struggling to imagine your idea here. Do you imagine - what - the rest of these 90% white people arriving in convoys of pick-up trucks and long guns to defend him? The machinery of Structural Racism cranking into high gear to teach these bullies a lesson in Pain?
I'll tell you what happened. Nothing. If he told, he's a snitch, and now not only did nothing happen, now there's even more reason to target him.
> "Again there is a long historical context for this that you are knowingly or unknowingly participating in."
"Not only is it unlikely, but there are historical reasons for it"
You're accusing this fellow of making up a story to advance some kind of racist agenda, but it turns out that actually it doesn't fit in with your agenda and that you're projecting.
He never said he was a minority at the school, and also never said "almost everyone around" the Black kids were Black as well. Reading comprehension is a bitch, I know.
The white oppressor narrative is flawed. You wouldn’t know it because you don’t step outside out your pampered life. You can’t relate to the OP. Some people have a positive outcome, other people have a horribly traumatic outcome. I would suggest therapy but childhood PTSD is a lifelong process that the OP alone would need to work out. I don’t judge him for it. Not like you, liberal shill.
There’s decades of actual written legislation enacting discrimination against minorities of years in this country. Feel free to deny it but you’re a moron if you do. And I voted for Bush, dipshit. That used to be conservative although I guess now it’s fairy liberal since the right has gone insane.
#5 - Don't check the demographics of the whole state. Schools only draw from the local area and CT, like most states is pretty segregated. I don't know where the author is from but for example, most schools in Hartford have a white minority.
Yeah, I knew that about CT but he mentioned there were "many" Black students. I don't know why exactly but from his phrasing it doesn't sound like he was at a white minority school.
CT is one of the most segregated states in the US, with some cities there in the top 5. I feel for the author's situation, though to be frank their conclusions strike me as extremely misguided.
What do you think my conclusion was? I, a poor white kid, became the scapegoat for a group of poor black kids. I experienced the poor being set against the poor with the racial rhetoric of my childhood. I feel like it has become much, much, worse today.
If you think my conclusion is that there's no inequality, and that we just need to all hold hands and get along...well, maybe that's poor writing on my part, but this was not the conclusion I was trying to draw!
These people will never validate your story. I speak from experience, here.
I was a full-blown SJW for decades, decades ago. That fellow, my former self, may well have rioted in Portland this past summer. I have had a longer, more intimate association with this mindset and philosophy than most.
First, it's not a principled outlook. It explicitly rejects principle and rationality. I see you debating these people as if somehow you can make them see reason. That's not going to happen, by design.
Second, it is a motte and bailey doctrine. This is why "all white people are racist" has two meanings. One is perhaps defensible*, but it's the other that gets deployed in practice, as you have learned.
Third, it relies on redefining the terms of discourse. One purpose is to coopt the associative power of certain words, eg "racism", "white supremacy", but to use them in unexpected ways that divert criticism. White supremacy is no longer, for example, merely the explicit belief that white people are superior, but is redefined as a pervasive global preference for European culture, particularly Enlightenment philosophy. If you sincerely advocate for free speech for example, you might be engaging in white supremacy according to this new definition.
By design, substantive criticism of the ideology cannot be unpacked within the tenets of the ideology, which is to say, one cannot substantively criticize the ideology without using tools of discourse that it has itself proscribed as oppressive. Thus the rejection of statistics, data, logic, rationality.
It is a dangerous ideology that perpetuates the exact imperialist cultural expansionism it purports to remedy. It was developed by actually privileged white** people - meaning, academics of hereditary wealth earned from colonialism - who had the prestige and platform to diffuse their personal guilt for their actual unearned privilege onto all white*** people everywhere, regardless of circumstance.
Thus, ironically, the virulence of the doctrine itself is an example of privileged American cultural dominance.
It is a doctrine that projects its proponents' own xenophobia and bigotry onto everyone, as in, "I cannot imagine not despising Black people, therefore everyone who looks like me, in their hearts, is racist" = Everyone is racist and to deny it is racism
So, no, your genuine, authentic, lived experience will never be validated nor even believed by anyone who has been indoctrinated. I'm sorry to tell you this. To pile on the bad news, it will be poor white people who will bear the brunt of the coming reckoning, and not the privileged assholes who propagate these nutty ideas, unfortunately.
The good news is you do get to shed your shitty neighborhood like dandruff. Find the good people. Also, you will have a comfort and ease with Black people that these people lecturing you here could only dream of. That's good news, too.
* "all white people benefit from the system" is defensible only if you squint and accept privileged white people's personal, local, provincial reality as the universal, global truth. Ironic, doing that, yeah?
** white here means descendents of the Europeans who primarily immigrated to the US - English, Irish, German, Scandinavian - and more specifically, those who descended from wealthy families.
*** white here means pale people of any nationality, heritage, class or circumstance whatsoever, across the globe, as determined solely by scarce melanin
"lived experience" god you do sound like an SJW cuck
Funny that you talk about statistics, data, logic, when there's heaps of empirical data about racist outcomes in American society.
Also, a lot of modern articulations of this discourse were started not by "privileged white people" as you say, but Black people (#MeToo by Tarana Burke, intersectionality by Kimberle Crenshaw, Critical Race Theory by Derrick Albert Bell Jr, 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones), go off with your false narrative king
Thanks for your insightful comment. Too bad HN keeps letting this post be flagged. It seems like we will never be able to have this conversation openly.
35 comments
[ 2222 ms ] story [ 933 ms ] threadZero racism in my heart. There are assholes everywhere in every race and gender, and truly, transcendentally noble, good-hearted people too. Find, and be, those latter; ruthlessly avoid the former. Most people just want to live peacefully, surrounded by family and friends. If that's your basic operating assumption, you'll have a good understanding of almost everyone.
The racial category "white" is as absurd as "black" or "Asian". These categories are overly inclusive, reductive, and indicate absolutely nothing about the individuals thereof. Whites include European hereditary aristocracy, living survivors of Balkan/Baltic/Caucasus genocide, Barbary pirates, Levantine peasantry, Uralic ethnicities you have never heard of because their populations are in the single digits, on and on.
Anyone who tries to make grand assertions about Asians, Blacks or whites, is, at most charitable interpretation, clueless, ignorant and uninformed. I am super clear about this.
None of this is to deny the pain of the author's experiences, which is very real. My point is that this isn't the sort of thing we're talking about when we talk about racism in America; it's about the system as a whole.
Because many people are born into these institutions, judging someone’s character based on this version of racism is misguided imo. Instead, we must all try to be aware of the effects of our institutions and how our participation affects them.
Curious if you’d disagree?
Do some white people have an unfair advantage in this system? Absolutely. Do all white people have an unfair advantage in this system? Given what has happened to the white working class, I would say that the evidence proves that they don't.
I believe all people are inherently racist. I don't think race is the biggest issue in our nation. I believe class is the central issue, and I can't help but believe that race conflict is a diversion used to avoid class conflict.
1. In the majority of industries in the US, a white person can rise to the upper echelons of that industry without meaningfully interacting with majority groups that don’t look like them.
2. White names have a better response rate with equivalent resumes than ethnic names.
There are dozens if not hundreds more tangible advantages that being white has. Does this mean that it’s not hard to be poor and white? No. But no matter what your class is in the US, it is advantageous to be white if you want to move up.
Counterexample: the author in the story, who had an unfair disadvantage.
> In the majority of industries in the US, a white person can rise to the upper echelons of that industry without meaningfully interacting with majority groups that don’t look like them.
Citation needed.
Statistical advantage you mean, but that does not translate to good outcomes for many people.
I'll agree with you that in a historically white country, white people, in general, have an advantage. But saying this completely disregards the marginalized white working class which has been under siege, like minorities, by a predatory ruling class.
What the author experienced happened in a structured institution.
> our country disadvantages black people
You need to add black to your definition of racism so that what the author experienced doesn't qualify as it.
> My point is that this isn't the sort of thing we're talking about when we talk about racism in America;
This is true, and hence the hypocrisy, only caring about a particular oppression, instead of all oppression.
> it's about the system as a whole.
Discriminated people, white or black, are all part of the system as a whole
Red flags:
1. An OP with zero social media presence beyond the past 30 days, with no verifiable info, presenting an individual anecdotal experience from which we are to infer the "white oppressor" narrative is flawed
2. Black kids in the 90s in Connecticut calling someone "cracker"
3. Describing Black people as a "pack of feral dogs"
4. Calling classes in a US school "lessons"... is the real writer even American?
5. The writer goes completely mute in high school and somehow the Black students... of which there are "many" but unlikely they are a majority at his school (if you check CT demographics), somehow think he's a safe victim to gang assault because he's white?
6. Describing Black people as "a pack of furious animals rudely deprived of their prey"
7. Link to Bret Weinstein lol
8. Modeling a Magical Negro with Model Minority behavior that bridges the gap... oh if only Black people were Nice, and not taught by their parents to be racist (as opposed to reacting and evolving to survive the systemic oppression they grow up in)
Even if this suspect narrative were true, as JeffRosenberg points out, racism in America is about structural bias, not individual experiences like this. OP and commenters like rendall, no matter how "unracist" you think you are, are supporting white supremacy with these "we're all the same, and I'm not racist" false narratives.
We're not all the same. If you think it's bad to make grand assertions about groups of people, wait until you hear about the Chinese Exclusion act, or redlining, or different credit ratings and property assessments, or, heck, relevant to the original post... the disparities in the Connecticut educational system.
https://ctvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/New-Edits-NG...
2. Yes, they called me cracker. You've never heard people say that, even today? It is a common racial slur.
3. I was not describing black people as a "pack of feral dogs," but vicious kids. That's how they were acting, that's how I've described them. These kids were vicious. It's not a racial dig.
4. That's a good point. I suppose what I'm currently reading influenced my word choice there. I've been reading Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." In that book there's a lot of stuff about his schooling and the book was published in 1916.
5. Not sure what your point is here. I just didn't want to draw any attention to myself, at all, because the bullying was so severe. It really happened.
6. Again, it's a description of how they were acting. It's not a racial dig. They were literally acting like vicious animals towards me. I would say the same thing if they were white.
7. That documentary shocked me. It seemed to prove that some higher education institutions are being used to indoctrinate people into becoming race warriors. It's clear from that documentary that the students are under some kind of cult like "spell," which is why I linked it.
8. Robert was actually a real friend of mine. Believe it or not, this actually happened. I know maybe it sounds too fantastic or something, but it really went down like this. Robert knew I wasn't to blame for his problems. I was in a working class family just like him.
The reason why I've shared my experience is that the "white oppressor" rhetoric, although it may be designed to shed light on systematic inequalities, gets interpreted at the street level as "that white boy over there is the source of all my problems." I've seen firsthand how bad race relations makes working class communities completely dysfunctional and violent. Cui bono? Does it benefit the poor when they fight among themselves?
Your language describing the Black students is racist and all I did was quote your own words. Opinions differ I suppose but it stands on its own. Again there is a long historical context for this that you are knowingly or unknowingly participating in. Your consciousness of that history doesn’t change the impact of the words you chose. And if you are ignorant of that history it makes you perspective even more suspect.
If the narrative is that white oppression makes Black children target white people, then that would be an argument that white supremacy, which does exist in the US, hurts white people as well (just as misogyny also hurts men).
But the bottom line is, you’re providing an anecdotal anonymous experience. To me it smells completely fabricated and that’s the persuasive worth that I apply to it.
For others, if it validates some victim mentality they have about how bad white men have it in America, their mileage may vary.
Lolwut? You really think a bully or a gang of bullies applies this sort of calculation before they bully? "Gee, I better not bully that fellow because, whilst almost everyone around me is my own race and that fellow is locally a minority, his race comprises 90% of the larger society." I'm struggling to imagine your idea here. Do you imagine - what - the rest of these 90% white people arriving in convoys of pick-up trucks and long guns to defend him? The machinery of Structural Racism cranking into high gear to teach these bullies a lesson in Pain?
I'll tell you what happened. Nothing. If he told, he's a snitch, and now not only did nothing happen, now there's even more reason to target him.
> "Again there is a long historical context for this that you are knowingly or unknowingly participating in."
"Not only is it unlikely, but there are historical reasons for it"
You're accusing this fellow of making up a story to advance some kind of racist agenda, but it turns out that actually it doesn't fit in with your agenda and that you're projecting.
>I'll tell you what happened. Nothing.
I agree with you.
https://www.greatschools.org/connecticut/hartford/hartford-s...
If you think my conclusion is that there's no inequality, and that we just need to all hold hands and get along...well, maybe that's poor writing on my part, but this was not the conclusion I was trying to draw!
I was a full-blown SJW for decades, decades ago. That fellow, my former self, may well have rioted in Portland this past summer. I have had a longer, more intimate association with this mindset and philosophy than most.
First, it's not a principled outlook. It explicitly rejects principle and rationality. I see you debating these people as if somehow you can make them see reason. That's not going to happen, by design.
Second, it is a motte and bailey doctrine. This is why "all white people are racist" has two meanings. One is perhaps defensible*, but it's the other that gets deployed in practice, as you have learned.
Third, it relies on redefining the terms of discourse. One purpose is to coopt the associative power of certain words, eg "racism", "white supremacy", but to use them in unexpected ways that divert criticism. White supremacy is no longer, for example, merely the explicit belief that white people are superior, but is redefined as a pervasive global preference for European culture, particularly Enlightenment philosophy. If you sincerely advocate for free speech for example, you might be engaging in white supremacy according to this new definition.
By design, substantive criticism of the ideology cannot be unpacked within the tenets of the ideology, which is to say, one cannot substantively criticize the ideology without using tools of discourse that it has itself proscribed as oppressive. Thus the rejection of statistics, data, logic, rationality.
It is a dangerous ideology that perpetuates the exact imperialist cultural expansionism it purports to remedy. It was developed by actually privileged white** people - meaning, academics of hereditary wealth earned from colonialism - who had the prestige and platform to diffuse their personal guilt for their actual unearned privilege onto all white*** people everywhere, regardless of circumstance.
Thus, ironically, the virulence of the doctrine itself is an example of privileged American cultural dominance.
It is a doctrine that projects its proponents' own xenophobia and bigotry onto everyone, as in, "I cannot imagine not despising Black people, therefore everyone who looks like me, in their hearts, is racist" = Everyone is racist and to deny it is racism
So, no, your genuine, authentic, lived experience will never be validated nor even believed by anyone who has been indoctrinated. I'm sorry to tell you this. To pile on the bad news, it will be poor white people who will bear the brunt of the coming reckoning, and not the privileged assholes who propagate these nutty ideas, unfortunately.
The good news is you do get to shed your shitty neighborhood like dandruff. Find the good people. Also, you will have a comfort and ease with Black people that these people lecturing you here could only dream of. That's good news, too.
* "all white people benefit from the system" is defensible only if you squint and accept privileged white people's personal, local, provincial reality as the universal, global truth. Ironic, doing that, yeah?
** white here means descendents of the Europeans who primarily immigrated to the US - English, Irish, German, Scandinavian - and more specifically, those who descended from wealthy families.
*** white here means pale people of any nationality, heritage, class or circumstance whatsoever, across the globe, as determined solely by scarce melanin
Funny that you talk about statistics, data, logic, when there's heaps of empirical data about racist outcomes in American society.
Also, a lot of modern articulations of this discourse were started not by "privileged white people" as you say, but Black people (#MeToo by Tarana Burke, intersectionality by Kimberle Crenshaw, Critical Race Theory by Derrick Albert Bell Jr, 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones), go off with your false narrative king