Being Racist to "Fight Racism"

[jordan179]

Some nice "evil" in the full Ayn Randian sense of the word here

http://firecat.livejournal.com/598782.html?thread=4673022#t4673022

The heart of this evil is expressed in this comment:

White people coming to consciousness about white privilege means accepting the

Comments

[pogo101]

Wasting your time. You're trying to teach a pig to dance.

[jordan179]

I think it's important, especially now when there's a government official trying to make whites feel guilty for being white, to stand up and say "No! I refuse to feel guilty for something I didn't do." When you acknowledge a moral claim on oneself, you hand the one you have acknowledged holds the claim an advantage.

[polaris93]

It's the sort of thing that abusive caretakers and those in charge of political prisoners try to get their victims to do -- "acknowledge" that they are guilty just for existing. A lot of feminists were abused as children and, probably, were battered by partners as adults, which would account for this sort of thing among them -- except that feminism is supposed to be empowering, and this neurotic guilt syndrome is not typical of people who have been empowered. Therefore feminism ain't empowering. It's just one more way that liberalism keeps people in thrall.

[sekhmetsat]

i'm a feminist. i was never abused as a child, though some say my marriage borders on it. feminism is about equality, not superiority. those who claim women are superior are not true feminists.

[kishiriadgr]

As a Latino person who is very, very sensitive to racism, I'll say that I'm $%&(ing sick and tired of this kind of liberal white guilt. You haven't rolled your eyes until you've had a room full of white feminists asking for your brown-skinned wisdom

[jordan179]

I think the comment that offends me most is "the white SF community". When I read that I braced myself for this to be an editorial by an admitted white supremacist. He is AUTOMATICALLY ASSUMING that there is a "white SF community". I haven't noticed that, have you?

Nope. In fact, fandom is one community in which race matters little if at all, and it's been this way in science fiction much longer than it has been in America as a whole.

It divides the world into "white people and people of colour". Guess who are assumed as being the "normal" ones?

Precisely. And the view holds that the "white people", as a magnanimous favor to presumed inferiors, should extend extra courtesy to those who due to their race can't be expected to be able to show courtesy in turn. It's a right-handed insult (the opposite of a left-handed compliment).

[kishiriadgr]

Yes.

This.

Exactly.

[kitten_goddess]

"Precisely. And the view holds that the "white people", as a magnanimous favor to presumed inferiors, should extend extra courtesy to those who due to their race can't be expected to be able to show courtesy in turn. It's a right-handed insult (the opposite of a left-handed compliment)."

Hi. As an unabashed liberal, this is the first post I've read that did not support the whole "white privilege" meme. (My own position on this is neutral, as I did not bother to read the whole RF mess, which has its own Wikipedia entry now!)

I just never looked upon the whole "white privilege" thing as an insult to people who aren't white. Jordan, you just gave me a new perspective on this mess. Thanks!

[jordan179]

I think you're probably right. I especially like the way in which he suddenly notices that "people of color" exist in fandom when he becomes a chaplain. What did he think before then, that Samuel Delany and Octavia Butler were spawned from the void?

[galadrion]

What - you didn't realize that "Samuel" and "Octavia" are classic white-only names? I mean, there's obviously never been a POC named something like that, has there?

(Note for anyone who doesn't quite catch it - this is an example of something called sarcasm. That means that - one - this doesn't actually represent my point of view, and - two - nor does it actually represent reality. Just a clarification for those who don't quite "get it".)

[mindstalk]

Man what. Go tell some blacks the US isn't racist. Taxis passing you by, resumes not getting looked at if they bear a commonly-black name, police giving you a harder time.

[polaris93]

Jordan -- Here's the comment I left to firecat's post, in case he refuses to unscreen it:

**You know, this reverse racism, which is truly racism disguised as "fighting racism," and very offensive, is one more indication that this country is on the skids and sinking fast, its polity losing their intellectual acuity, its schools so dumbed-down that their graduates can't compete in the real world, its citizens wallowing in neurosis. What do you want Caucasians to do to make up for having too-pale skin -- kill their children and then kill themselves? Or do you want to help Rev. Al Sharpton and his ilk build concentration camps for all of them, push them into those camps, and exterminate them? It'll come to that eventually, you know. We know how it goes from recent history -- been there, done that, and somebody wants to do it all over again. I refuse to apologize for the color of my skin and eyes and my "ethnic background." Period. Take that as you will, unscreen this post or not, there are a lot of people out here like me, at

[kishiriadgr]

Godwin's Law applies.

[polaris93]

Who is Godwin, and what is his/her/its/their law?

[silverlightstar]

It's rather long to post, so I'll provide a link instead: Godwin's Law

[gothelittle]

I dunno if my comment will be unscreened or not. We'll see. If I don't end up with a metric ton of hate mail in my inbox by tomorrow morning, it probably hasn't been. :D

[jordan179]

... the Honor Harrington series, where the royal family of Manticore is very dark-skinned, but this is deemed merely a family trait of no moral significance ...

Generally speaking, it's difficult to imagine a situation short of civilizational collapse in which the modern set of racial differences remain important centuries from now. This is because the historical examples show that people who have the opportunity to mix, will.

[haikujaguar]

I seem to recall Honor herself is half-Asian, genetically.

[galadrion]

...And the other half was genetically engineered, and never otherwise specified. So there's actually no telling what her ethnic origin on that side is... save that it's highly unlikely to be Pygmy, considering her father's height.