A few thoughts on the latest round of White Guilt discussions

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The thing about prejudice is that that's largely how your brain works. Burn fingers in fire = prejudiced against burning your fingers in fire. What is generally called prejudice in threads like this is not the totality of prejudice (which helps us survive) but bad-signal prejudice, which is patently bullshit. These kind of things should be getting revised all the time. If you get stuck with one, it becomes a phobia. Congratulations - you've just moved one step closer to full retard. Your brain is bent.

Sort of like "faith fools"?   

[trippinprincezz13]

Not to bring up the stupid purse thing again, but it is an honest question, as it is something that comes to my mind time and again:

I know I'm not perfect, but I do make a concerted effort not to judge people beyond any personal interactions I may have with them.

That said, I do clutch/readjust my purse when someone I don't know walks by, regardless of race. But I've found myself feeling bad for it when it's a person of color. Obviously that person doesn't know that's how I react to everyone and that it's not out of Black/Hispanic/etc. fear. I usually try to look up and smile, regardless of who it is, because also really like being friendly to people. Mixed signals, I know.

I don't know, I guess what I'm saying is what do I do/how am I supposed to let someone know that I'm reacting to them not because of what they look like, but because I don't know them?

The smiling helps, I imagine, as long as you don't look excessively nervous.

No, the smile is genuine. And despite the knee-jerk reaction, I rarely feel very nervous or believe that EVERY person I walk by is going to mug me. Despite my distrust of people, I genuinely like to be nice and see people happy. I do attempt to make at least brief eyecontact, with anyone, since that's also something I have a hard time with, sometimes/even with people I know. And I'm sure a smile with averted eyes gives a nervous impression, even if the nervousness is for a different reason. So unless I'm in a mood, I try to give most people a smile and brief friendly eyecontact before going about my business.

[Cain]

I don't know about white guilt, but I'm sure as fuck starting to feel "perpetuating these kind of threads" guilt.

[Elder Iptuous]

I don't know about white guilt, but I'm sure as fuck starting to feel "perpetuating these kind of threads" guilt.

what, you don't have faith that we can resolve these issues?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I don't know about white guilt, but I'm sure as fuck starting to feel "perpetuating these kind of threads" guilt.

what, you don't have faith that we can resolve these issues?

If it ain't resolved in 9 pages, it isn't going to get resolved.  Instead, you get Holist coming in and mangling the language making non-arguments, and people piping up to tell you how THEY'RE pure and clean or that everyone else BUT them are fucked up.

Personally, I enjoy these threads, in the same manner that I have a deep appreciation for train wrecks, car accidents, and those idiots who try to "shred" their skateboards on handrails (with the inevitable results).

[Cain]

I don't know about white guilt, but I'm sure as fuck starting to feel "perpetuating these kind of threads" guilt.

what, you don't have faith that we can resolve these issues?

I am fairly confident if PD came up with an actionable plan on anything more ambitious than trolling a minor forum, the universe would implode from disbelief.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I don't know about white guilt, but I'm sure as fuck starting to feel "perpetuating these kind of threads" guilt.

what, you don't have faith that we can resolve these issues?

I am fairly confident if PD came up with an actionable plan on anything more ambitious than trolling a minor forum, the universe would implode from disbelief.

And while we can PLAN that trolling, we can't actually seem to DO it.  In practice, it's like watching Lucy hold the football for Charley Brown, where Charley Brown is the guy who actually GOES and Lucy is everyone else that SAID they'd go.

[Pæs]

I don't know about white guilt, but I'm sure as fuck starting to feel "perpetuating these kind of threads" guilt.

what, you don't have faith that we can resolve these issues?

I am fairly confident if PD came up with an actionable plan on anything more ambitious than trolling a minor forum, the universe would implode from disbelief.

Hey, that's not fair. We managed to nut out a fairly robust e-democracy blueprint, if I remember correctly.

[Cain]

And while we can PLAN that trolling, we can't actually seem to DO it.  In practice, it's like watching Lucy hold the football for Charley Brown, where Charley Brown is the guy who actually GOES and Lucy is everyone else that SAID they'd go.

Yup.  I am of the opinion that we cannot do that effectively, discussions about far more complex and difficult issues ain't really gonna go anywhere.

Hey, that's not fair. We managed to nut out a fairly robust e-democracy blueprint, if I remember correctly.

  Ah, fictionpuss.  EB&G was to e-democracy as postwar Iraq was to actual democracy. Good times.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Everyone carries preconceptions, misconceptions, and cultural baggage that, if they examine it, is probably contrary to their personal ideals. Anyone who claims they don't is claiming to be a perfect person, which is something I don't believe is possible, and claiming to be a perfect person seems like a great big enormous warning sign of someone with some kind of massive delusional personality disorder.

This is a great post and I am saving it for posterity.

Thank you!

[East Coast Hustle]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the second coming of Jesus H Christ.   

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Here before us we have the perfect man; he carries no misconceptions, preconceptions, or misjudgment of his fellow men and women.

Hallelujah!

It doesn't take a perfect person to be a fair person.

The danger of being convinced that you are perfectly fair and unprejudiced is that it means that if you do have prejudices, say toward potheads or rednecks or rich white women or people who don't wear helmets, you will never be able to see, acknowledge, and repair those aspects of your perception. I am very uncomfortable with people who claim to lack prejudice, because I've never found it to be true, and those people are the most incorrigible in terms of their prejudice because they, secure in their knowledge that they are unprejudiced, believe their prejudices to be objective truth.

Again, I claim no perfection at all, and reject the idea that what I've been talking about infers perfection.  I can be perfectly unfair to people, individuals, but not because of what I think they are, but because of how I'm interpreting what they are doing or saying in front of me. 

edit: RWHN's request.

Not good enough Net.  Delete it now. 

Technically, you gave up the rights to it once you posted it here originally. So while Net might be feeling magnanimous, he doesn't HAVE to bow to your inability to laugh at yourself.

[AFK]

Technically, people can be assholes, or maybe they could understand someone is going through a personal issue, put their butthurt behind them, and do the right thing.


But, I guess we know which camp you are in, good to know.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Technically, people can be assholes, or maybe they could understand someone is going through a personal issue, put their butthurt behind them, and do the right thing.


But, I guess we know which camp you are in, good to know.

I seem to remember being lectured by you when my father was being harrassed by Uncle BadTouch's crew recently.  Some sanctimonious shit about how if you put shit up on the internet, anything that happens is your own fault and you have to live with it.

I have erased your pic because, frankly, I don't really want it for WOMPing.  But watching you come in here 2 weeks after delivering the above-mentioned lecture is hilarious.

Cry me a fucking river if Net won't erase it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Ah, here we are:  RWHN's response to my being angry about my dad being doorstepped by Uncle BadTouch's crew.

Being the pessimistic cynic I am when it comes to the internet, my guess is that the only true way to protect your information from stalkers on the internet is to not post it on the internet.

HEY...

Fuck off.

Not trying to be difficult, but the reality is, if someone REALLY wants to find stuff, and has even a reasonable amount of internet skills, they will find it.  I could care less about what switches get turned on or off here, but if the goal is to keep a committed stalker (read: completely obsessive) at bay, it's not going to stop them. 


All they have to do is make an account and lurk, or not act as an obvious jackass. 


It's why I am VERY protective of information.  There's a reason only two people on this site know my real name, it's why I don't post pics anymore, it's why I've not posted info about my education.


The fewer crumbs we leave the less likely someone we don't want finding us, will find us.

Eat a dick.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

But he's going through a DIVORCE and it could cost him MONEY!