A few thoughts on the latest round of White Guilt discussions

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Meh, sorry, I've reached my cynicism quota for the day.  If I see "shitty society" one more time I might accidentally both my wrists.   Let some sunshine in Garbo.  That's all I can say.

One person's cynicism is another person's realism.

That being said, life just isn't that bad.  Unless you're the castrated Black guy being sold on Facebook, and then I'd have to argue that it sucks a whole bunch.

Yep. 

[AFK]

Meh, sorry, I've reached my cynicism quota for the day.  If I see "shitty society" one more time I might accidentally both my wrists.   Let some sunshine in Garbo.  That's all I can say.

One person's cynicism is another person's realism.

That being said, life just isn't that bad.  Unless you're the castrated Black guy being sold on Facebook, and then I'd have to argue that it sucks a whole bunch.

Jeezus, have I said anywhere that life is a bowl of peaches for everyone everywhere all the time?  I hate these all-or-nothing models and views in these discussions.  If one merely hints that the truth probably lies in some gray area between the black and white, those on the black side immediately recast that person as being 100% on the white side.


My point, if people can take a minute to really think about it without resorting to extremes, is that there IS good in this world.  There IS progress.  There ARE people who have their wits about them, have freed themselves of prejudice, and are out there working hard to help advance change.  Is it fast enough?  Nope, but people need to apply some of that realism you are talking about.


If all you do is trade in doom and gloom you will never get anywhere, because your (I'm using a general "your" here, not addressing any one specific person) vision is limited to the allies and strengths you have at your disposal.  A strengths-based approach will always be more productive than a deficit orientation.  Deficit orientation expects the worst and gets it because it doesn't use all of the tools available.  Strengths-based does use those tools and sets goals, and then works its ass of to achieve those goals.  It doesn't always succeed, but it makes more progress.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I feel like I've talked a lot about gray area, because I think that most of us fall into some kind of gray area, but it gets ignored or talked around by people who seem determined to find points in my posts that aren't there, or they reply to me with points that are apparently intended to refute something someone else said.

[AFK]

Well, if you do recognize that there are strengths and people with strengths that can be optimized and incorporated for effective change then my point doesn't pertain to you. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Well, if you do recognize that there are strengths and people with strengths that can be optimized and incorporated for effective change then my point doesn't pertain to you.

Well, it can get a little confusing when you quote my posts and then argue with points I didn't make. The whole "diologue" thing seems to work better if you quote the person you're responding to, instead of someone else.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Not that you have done that today. But most of yesterday's incredibly frustrating conversation apparently came of you quoting my posts but then responding to Garbo or some other person, and that really doesn't help advance the dialogue at all.

[AFK]

That's because it felt to me from some of your posts that you agreed with her opinion that everyone is tainted.  And I strongly disagree with that sentiment. 

[Dildo Argentino]

That's because it felt to me from some of your posts that you agreed with her opinion that everyone is tainted.  And I strongly disagree with that sentiment.

I think, dear Reverend, perhaps one lesson worth taking away from this is that it is quite possible, nay, not infrequent for people to think they are free of excessive prejudice (i.e. unnecessarily basing actions on prejudice). The other lessons (thanks to those inadvertent prejudice tests) I think, is that it is very possible, almost inevitable to have some unconscious bias. I don't think that in itself proves that "everyone is tainted" though. Let's not get into thoughtcrime territory. Prejudice not acted out is ultimately counterproductive, maladaptive, but it is largely harmless, especially if we know about them and can hence attempt at least to balance them out, hopefully (sorry, Alty) improving in the progress.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

There is a TON of shit like this you have to train yourself out of. And just when you think you found it all, some other little thing will come into your awareness.

That's amazing.

In my family, somehow, without being too 'aware' or reflective about it, race was never considered a characteristic to build value judgments on. As a result, this sort of thinking was not ingrained in me, and when I encountered it, I, like my parents, found it faintly repugnant and somehow depressing even in its mildest manifestations, and most vehemently not okay if it went any further than that. Poor Americans.

Nice to hear you've spent your life in a hermetically sealed box with your enlightened parents and never had exposure to other people or media, since a lot of us don't want to know you.

Enjoy the response. There won't be any more.

[Dildo Argentino]

Nice to hear you've spent your life in a hermetically sealed box with your enlightened parents and never had exposure to other people or media, since a lot of us don't want to know you.

Enjoy the response. There won't be any more.

You misunderstood me. My parents were very far from enlightened, Holy Jesus, were they far from it. But they were not particularly prejudiced, because they in turn came from families that had suffered at the wrong end of the stick of social prejudice (Budapest Jews, my dad, a hearing boy, was born to two Jewish, deaf parents in central Budapest, my mum came from a line of minority Hungarians in Transsylvania...)

Thing is, prejudice is not something you learn from the world at large when you are little: you learn it first from your parents, then the entire family and friends larger group, then, once you unwittingly join the education industry, your peer group and a bunch of mostly rather sorry or mean people whose job is largely to lie to children...

It is truly ironic, that a bunch of Americans, whose lands, while much affected by it, were at least largely not visited by the funfair we call World War II, who abandoned us because we were not worth saving from the Soviet variety of fascism, as a little pawn in a large game, and did it again in 1956, insist that I am a "privileged white boy". But do carry on, or ignore me, as you wish.

Damn, I got angry again. Duh.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It is truly ironic, that a bunch of Americans, whose lands, while much affected by it, were at least largely not visited by the funfair we call World War II, who abandoned us because we were not worth saving from the Soviet variety of fascism, as a little pawn in a large game, and did it again in 1956, insist that I am a "privileged white boy". But do carry on, or ignore me, as you wish.

That's what happens to pawns in international politics.  Hungary is a small and unimportant nation, with no irreplaceable resources.  Nobody was going to toss a nuclear war over your freedom or lack thereof.

Also, you are STILL stuck on the idea that privilege is a black & white issue, that it's all the same and that you either have it or you don't.  This isn't the case.

[Juana]

^^^ That. Far and away, most of us have some kind of it, but privilege intersects with so many parts of your life (where you're from, your race, gender, sex, religion, ability, sexuality, etc.) that it's to varying degrees. It's an incredibly complex issue.

[Juana]

A society that marginalizes significant portions of the population - which ours does - is a shitty society. We can do a lot to fix it. We have. But we have a lot more to go and in order to fix the problem, that there is a fundamental problem with our society must be admitted.

Ah now I understand, the best way to combat these problems is to insult the people you are trying to convince and roll your eyes at them.

My response to him had to do with him misconstruing my argument for three pages, mostly.

Speaking of which, I'll back off the "universal" point. There is possibly a person out there without a smidgen of prejudice, but I think they're pretty much a unicorn and 99.9999999999999+% of us will never meet them.

[AFK]

RWHN,
Unicorn

[Juana]

Garbo,
Doubts it