Interesting Links for 24-12-2014

[andrewducker]

• Why America continues to be a segregated country
  (tags: usa racism )
• Civil partnerships ban challenged by heterosexual couple
  (tags: lgbt law uk marriage )
• Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses
  (tags: crime torture usa politics )
• “What’s up with the rag head?”: When I starred in a Facebook ad
  (tags: religion racism Facebook usa India )
• An Orangutan

Comments

[kalimac]

I have to negotiate consent with my cat in order to pet her. Sometimes she wants it, sometimes not. I've learned to recognize the body language, including that of "I want to be petted."

So the author of the "good white people" article has a problem with them. Well, just as it's natural, understandable, and human for blacks to bristle at the ways they get treated in white society, it's equally natural, understandable, and human for whites with any conscience whatever to want assurance that, whatever their failings, they're not that bad. Would it hurt not to say in response, "They act like they want a medal for it"?

[andrewducker]

Depends on how long you've been putting up with it, I suspect.

I've had men on my friends list act like they deserved thanking for not raping women before. I can understand why that might grate somewhat.

[kalimac]

When the rhetoric surrounding them sounds as if all men are rapists, then yes, acting as if you deserve thanks for not being one is an understandable reaction. (Especially if, as I suspect, their intention is just to reassure others that they're not that bad.)

[nancylebov]

I think the first link is a matter of *how* segregation continues rather than why.