• _db
    3.6k
    There is an aura of absurdity when crybabies moan and shout about reverse racism or reverse sexism (against white people and men, respectively). This is because they are equivocating personal prejudice with systemic persecution, treating the former with the same level of seriousness as the latter.

    A woman might hold personal prejudicial views of men that may make her a "man-hater" (e.g. "all men are pigs", or whatever) - yet unless she is a position of power, her views are pretty much irrelevant. Let her hate men, what difference does it make? Certainly it doesn't warrant hissy-fit outrages against her scandalous "misandry". An angry woman, oh, the whore horror!

    The same thing applies to white people crying over "reverse racism" whenever some random person on the Internet says something not nice about white people that hurts their fee-fees. Chill out already you privileged fucks.
  • Tzeentch
    3.9k
    Sounds like regular ol' racism/sexism to me.
  • Baden
    16.4k


    Depends on the situation. "Reverse racism" is used as a political tool to obscure systemic racism, for sure, and accusations of sexism against women are often a cover for frustrated misogynists. But we don't want to give a licence to any form of racism or sexism. None of it is acceptable.
  • 64bithuman
    28
    I always sense this dismissive nature about men's issues in particular - which we never really take seriously - after all, we don't really care if men get brutally beaten to death on screen, but for a women to get assaulted brutally on screen...that is jarring for all us. Historically, we simply don't value the lives of men as much as we do women. It was not so long ago that men were outcasted and called cowards or given the white feather for not voluntarily deciding to face the machine guns of the world wars.

    For example, there are many more men in prison, many more men overdosing or strung out on drugs, many more men die prematurely because of preventable health issues, more men are prone to serious mental health issues, and yet we don't really seem to care very much about and of these issues, certainly not as much as we care about women's issues. This is not personal prejudice, as you say, it is systemic prejudice, only it is unpopular to defend men's issues, particularly because people on the internet dismiss them with name calling and mob mentality, as you have done here, OP.

    It's the either or mentality that blows me away; it's perfectly possible for men's issues to coexist with women's issues and have them both be recognized as problematic. Dismissing white blue collar issues has become something of a hallmark of popular liberal politics. For educated, 'enlightened' (and probably socially indoctrinated) city-dwellers with decent jobs, a multicultural environment, and liberal friends it is practically impossible to understand the culture and unique problems that are currently plaguing the rust belt, where generationally poor and disadvantaged working class white people are facing an economic and manufacturing crisis as that is running hand in hand with an opioid epidemic. You dismiss these issues at your own peril, ie: enter Donald Trump.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Chill out already you privileged [self-entitled, narcissistic] fucks._db
    :100: :up:
  • BC
    13.6k
    Most assuredly, we white men are not subjected to systemic pervasive reverse racism/sexism. However, it is entirely possible for non-whites and women to speak and behave in a racist, sexist manner, and it happens.

    there are many more men in prison, many more men overdosing or strung out on drugs, many more men die prematurely because of preventable health issues, more men are prone to serious mental health issues, and yet we don't really seem to care very much about and of these issues,64bithuman

    The demographics you cite are, to a significant degree, class linked. Most upward mobile, middle to upper class white men (or women) are NOT in prison, overdosing or strong out on drugs, suffering premature / preventable death, or having major mental health issues. A significant portion of the men that you reference are downward mobile (or bottomed out) working class men with few to no prospects.

    The middle class establishment loathes downward mobile white men because they are an unpleasant reminder that social mobility works both ways, and the middle classes are not all that secure in their prosperity or status. Minority people in straitened circumstances, on the other hand, fulfill middle-class expectations, so the upwardly mobile are much less bothered by them.
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    A racist and sexist diatribe, but it’s against white men so it’s cool and edgy. What difference does it make?
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    @NOS4A2 is still
    equivocating personal prejudice with systemic persecution, treating the former with the same level of seriousness as the latter._db
    Some rather spout alt-Right/MAGA "talking points" than reason about (their) uncomfortably unexamined bigotries. :brow:
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k
    No one is racist until they systemically persecute someone in @180 Proof‘s clown world.
  • Hanover
    13k
    Discriminating on the basis of race is a moral wrong that results in greater harm to some races more than others.

    Was that so difficult to say without implying that every race suffers the same oppression and without implying that some racism is perfectly acceptable?
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    No one is racist until they systemically persecute someone in 180 Proof‘s clown world.NOS4A2
    You just made @_db's case, trumpt_rd. :clap:
  • 64bithuman
    28
    Yes I would agree that poverty is class-linked, obviously, but I do not believe that generationally poor people can so easily get themselves out of poverty. This is what makes them generationally poor. Peasants who fled Europe, like the Irish, fled from generational opression and poverty - many poor Europeans have fled literal genocide to arrive in North America. These people who arrived with nothing and no education are not the same as other white people who came from the aristocratic British ruling class. To ignore the class history of England is to make a critical error in judging all white people in America.

    To large extent, class is determined by origin, as everybody knows, and the mistake occurs when primarily middle-class or upper-middle class people make racist sweeping judgments about all white people and refuse to acknowledge the diversity that lies within that label, or the poor white population among them who by no fault of their own are in poverty - or to forget about the many working-class people in America who made their living in factories that have left since the country.

    In other words, there's no need to throw the baby out with the bath water and assume that because there is systemic racism against minorities in America there can't be poor white people who also face unique problems that must be addressed. Of course, there is the terrible history of slavery that America has yet to reckon with - which has left its mark on the country. Lawmakers and lawyers and the ruling class are still made up of wealthy white people, but that doesn't mean that all white people had an equal shot at becoming a member of that ruling class. Many of the wealthiest families in America have always been connected and generationally rich. George Washington, for example, came from a wealthy, well-connected family - his great Grandfather studied at Oxford, his great-great-Grandfather was High Church rector of the Church of England.

    It's also not very common for the very rich to fall down the social ladder to the bottom. Mostly poor people struggle to get themselves out of the lower classes, generationally. Poor people face fewer prospects, lack of education, exposure to crime, or to violence, abuse, drugs, single mothers, etc. These things then limit their ability to be 'good citizens'. Poor people are poor people regardless of ethnic background. Which can exist as a statement along with the statement: minorities in America face systemic oppression that white people do not. Both can be true.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Reverse racism! Yeah, kinda like where an illness is used as treatment for the very same illness. You can't rectify discrimination with more discrimination; no, not even when the polarity has been flipped. There's got to be a better way, oui mes amies?

    As fire drives out fire, so love love logic, eh?
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    No where have I equivocated between personal prejudice and systemic persecution. You’ve got nothing, as usual.
  • Benkei
    7.8k
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/543213

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/543238

    Before we get into prejudice, racism and oppression semantic discussions, please read the above two comments and perhaps we can at least agree on shared terminology.

    Some short thoughts from me:
    Oppressed people can be racist.
    Not all racism leads to oppression.

    Both oppression and racism are bad.
    Personal racist opinions usually don't cause harm or are too particular to solve through political means.
    Personal racism alone doesn't lead to oppression.
    Oppression is "cumulative" personal racism borne out by social groups or (in)directly caused by the operation of systems.
    Oppression is a social injustice.
    Social injustice requires political (e.g. "group") solutions.

    We don't police people's thoughts so we can't do much against personal racism other than education. If it directly causes damage courts are open for claims.

    Oppression is a social injustice which requires political action beyond the ability to file claims and state "we're all equal". Why? Because culture eats rules before breakfast. Or in other words, it's not enough to punish behaviour, you need to take steps to change culture/system to end oppression.
  • Ciceronianus
    3k
    The same thing applies to white people crying over "reverse racism" whenever some random person on the Internet says something not nice about white people that hurts their fee-fees. Chill out already you privileged fucks._db

    The appeal to equal treatment is a common dodge indulged in by those obviously better off and better treated than others, who resent being reminded of this and who will do nothing to remedy the situation.

    It's an egregious disregard of context. One of my favorite quotes about the law is this, attributed to Anatole France: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread." Ah, irony. How I love you.
  • I like sushi
    4.9k
    Here’s a question … Is ‘race’ a ‘social construct’? :D

    I have noticed that people are so quick to say how others are easily offended, ridicule them and then hammer home the argument of people being offended when openly trying to offend them.

    Humans are funny creatures.
  • _db
    3.6k
    Sounds like regular ol' racism/sexism to me.Tzeentch

    No, it's personal prejudice, which is a psychological defense mechanism that is sometimes warranted, given the context of a situation.

    But we don't want to give a licence to any form of racism or sexism. None of it is acceptable.Baden

    People who are oppressed have the right to be prejudiced against their oppressors.

    Historically, we simply don't value the lives of men as much as we do women.64bithuman

    Historically, we have valued the reproductive capabilities of women, which is not the same thing as valuing their lives.

    and yet we don't really seem to care very much about and of these issues, certainly not as much as we care about women's issues.64bithuman

    These issues hardly ever get mentioned except as ammunition against those who bring up the issues of minorities and women. wHaT AbOuT tHe MeN??!?

    There aren't very many movements or organizations that address men's issues for the sake of these issues (and not to just spite feminists), and those that do exist only do so by piggy-backing on the success of the feminist waves.
  • BC
    13.6k
    People who are oppressed have the right to be prejudiced against their oppressors._db

    Oppressors also tend to be prejudiced against the people they oppress. It is, briefly, hard to think positively about people you have screwed over, not just once but for a long time. If the people I oppress are good, deserving people, then what am I?

    That is one of the damnable things about oppressors: forgiving them isn't going to help. Reverse oppression won't help either. As long as oppression serves the purposes of the oppressor (and it generally does) there is no good external reason to stop being an oppressor. People won't stop oppressing until it no longer 'works'. The civil war was an ultimately unsuccessful effort to make slavery (in the USA) stop working. What happened is that a new regime of oppression took the slave masters' place (in some cases they were the same people). Eventually the banks, government, real estate agents, etc. took over.

    I don't say this out of approval: It just seems like that is the way it works.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Did caucasians & asians flee Africa or did they just decide to explore and ended up where they are now? A lot rides on the answer to that question.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Did caucasians & asians flee Africa or did they just decide to explore and ended up where they are now?Agent Smith
    Africans left africa in migratory waves over hundreds to thousands of millennia and this primeval African diaspora adapted over hundreds-thousands of generations to environments different from Africa and subject to different evolutionary stressors (perhaps mating with non-African hominid "cousins"). Our mitochondrial DNA does not lie. :fire:
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Africans left africa in migratory waves over hundreds to thousands of millennia and this primeval African diaspora adapted over hundreds-thousands of generations to environments different from Africa and subject to different evolutionary stressors (perhaps mating with non-African hominid "cousins"). Our mitochondrial DNA does not lie. :fire:180 Proof

    You da best, mon ami, you da best!

    So there were some non-African hominids in Europe (Neanderthals) and Asia (Denisovans). My knowledge of human evolution is limited to the out-of-Africa theory, our neanderthal and denisovan cousins which we probably assimilated and/or exterminated. :scream: That's one reason I don't feel "happy to be alive". My family tree is not something I would be proud of, soaked in the blood of so many my ancestors had to kill as it is. :sad: Survival of the fittest nastiest.
  • creativesoul
    12k
    There is an aura of absurdity when crybabies moan and shout about reverse racism or reverse sexism (against white people and men, respectively)._db

    It's only 'reverse' to them because they are white, on the other side of it, and they do not know what racism is to begin with!

    :lol:

    It is a perfect opportunity to help those out, should they be capable of being helped and there is someone capable of helping them. Sadly, there is no universal method applicable to everyone successfully. Getting through to some people requires much different approaches than others, and also requires certain kinds of people doing the approaching...
  • creativesoul
    12k
    There is an aura of absurdity when crybabies moan and shout about reverse racism or reverse sexism (against white people and men, respectively)._db

    Taking pride in the negative effects/affects that racism can have upon another, regardless of their race, is rather racist in and of itself...
  • Seeker
    214
    Racism = racism, no matter who it is pointed against and no matter how many abstractions you throw at it.

    Just accept the fact that racism is an anti-homo-sapiens sentiment, a self-inflicted poison, the very same sadistic evil fuel to a fire we dont need.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Racism is the animus of 'racial prejudice' historically force multiplied by policies and practices of government, business and/or religion (re: socioeconomic scapegoating). Those who do not deliberately oppose – who advocate, administer and/or enjoy the benefits of the legacies of – racism are racists.

    'Racial prejudice' is a mode of cultivated tribalism (i.e. zerosum anti-cosmopolitanism aka "us-or-themism"). Some Individuals outgrow this vice but most do not.

    Corollary: Merely personal 'racial prejudice' by the oppressed against her oppressor, while it may be tribal, cannot be "racist" (re: the delusion (cui bono?) of "reverse racism"). Racism is the theory and practice – ideology – of the oppressor and his functionaries. Denying this (i.e. a simplified summation of more than a century of well-documented, cross-cultural social researches) is an unmistakable tell. :mask:

    Note: Btw, substitute 'target categories' of sex, class, sect, color ... for race and the bureaucratic modalities of 'systemic discrimination' are as apparent as they are familiar.
  • Yohan
    679
    Racial prejudice is what racism means.
    Then there is scale:
    Light prejudice against a race VS hatred and intolerance. (And everything in between)
    Policy/oppression is another thing.

    Hitler's racism didn't begin with his enactment of oppressing policies. Rather, the policies(and their consequence) were the end result.
  • Seeker
    214
    A single vicious dog does not imply every dog to be vicious
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    The inability to individuate is a key component to racism. It opens up a host of fallacies that the racist can never overcome, relegating his beliefs to a lower order of thought, and any action motivated by it to injustice.
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