Since no-one is going to read a response to an anonymous comment...

[littlegirltoast]

In response to my Canada Day excerpting of the White Mice play, I received the following anonymous response from someone in Toronto just this morning:

"…was an attempt to draw in an audience who might otherwise have been resistant to hearing a condemnation of whiteness, but who could benefit the most from it."

Jesus. Of course if such blanket

Comments

[anonymous]

"Look, bud. "White" isn't an ethnic group. It's an infrastructure."

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Robert: "Neither Spain nor Britain should be models of German expansion but the Nordics of North America who ruthlessly pushed aside an inferior race to win for themselves soil and territory for the future." - Adolf Hitler.

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When Hitler mentions "Nordics" is that a reference to infrastructure, or a particular race? I hate to be petty but we really should be working from the same definitions. Infrastructure is a reference to physical things like roads, bridges, buildings, sewage, ports, water and power supplies. It has nothing to do with any particular people or behaviour. Social structure on the other hand is about people, such as group beliefs, ethics, morals, behaviour, laws and/or functioning of a human society. Maybe what you meant by infrastructure was a type of social or systemic behaviour? To be on the same page likewise, the word Nordic is a reference to a people (race).

White Mice compares Hitler's genocidal views as similar to what the Europeans did to the native cultures of North America. White Europeans. Yes Hitler wasn't a nice guy. Yes the white Europeans weren't nice to the natives of North America. Both are examples of reprehensible behaviour. History can also provide other examples of reprehensible actions throughout many other cultures and races from all over the world. Which would your rather change, the pain of the genocide or the colour of the skin of the abusers and abused?

Genocide is straight up theft. Ultimately it's the stealing of resources. Money, money, money. If you control the land then you control the wealth (resources and labour). If you control the wealth you control the people (whoever's left, or whoever you import). The desire to control other people is born out of need for security. The need for security is born out of fear. Fear is the foundation for all suffering, whether it's genocide, misogyny, child labour, slavery or any other social ailment that's afflicted upon one group from another. Hitler rolling across the Russian steppe was not much different from the Mongols fighting towards Europe in the 13th century. What the American Army did to natives in the 19th century, Cambodians did to themselves in the 1970s. I'm not responsible for any of it because I wasn't there, and I'm responsible for all of it because I'm a human being.

It's just a coincidence I suppose that the play is called White Mice, and not something like Vampire Bats or Weasels or Blood Sucking Leeches. The author could have just titled it Mice but a realistic patron will see the dealing off the bottom of the deck if it's to be argued race has nothing to do with this. You betrayed as such yourself, making it a point to cap lock how being white is AMAZINGLY BENEFICIAL IN ALL AREAS OF MY LIFE. You argued this isn't about an ethnic group, yet suggested I spend more time critically thinking about race.

As for privilege/oppression systems, I've probably spent the better part of the last two decades thinking about that. One thing I've learned is that race, religion and even politics to a degree are distractions from the real causes for the inequities. The religious creeds, political systems, colour of faces and historical names always change, but the behaviour is a constant. Maybe spend more than two seconds focusing on that.

[littlegirltoast]

You're failing to categorize your terms consistently. You are also failing to distinguish between the ethnological theories of Hitler and my own. You are also misplacing where the comparison takes place between North American genocide and Nazi strategies. You are also mistakenly restricting the definition of "infrastructure" to necessarily less applicable in cultural theory than structure with no prefix. You also keep telling me how you feel about yourself and I don't care, in part because you have intentionally obscured your identity from me so I have no instinctive empathy to fight off but also because it has absolutely nothing to do with anything I'm trying to talk about.

White isn't my ethnicity. It's not a benefit to me because of the rich heritage it brings me. It's a visible social marker and it benefits me because people treat me better because of it.

The play is called White Mice because it's about whiteness, the system of enfranchisement, and how it makes white people act like defensive entitled crybabies when they're confronted with it.

You aren't dropping any science in your responses. If you tell me your name, I'll invest the effort it takes to type out what basic reading comprehension mistakes you made. And I'll probably stop taking shots at you for things like this and feel a little bit bad.