Thank god civilizations have been able to extract themselves from historical precedents and evolve. Try it. Guess what, when I see a German I don't ask him to prove he's not antisemitic, groundbreaking right ?

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Hillary won the popular vote by 3 million. Majority of those who voted for her were also white people. But, demographically speaking, "white people" still elected Donald Trump.

This is what you guys need to understand about how people talk about these things and what they mean. Unless you're having an in depth analytical discussion, no ones going to parse the language for semantic specificity. Just like when people say "blacks" are the most economically disadvantaged group in the US, it doesn't mean Oprah or Beyonce don't exist. Or when they say "Asians" are model minorities, it doesn't mean there aren't Asians who could give two ****s about school.

People speak in broad strokes to simplify concepts, and smart people can usually understand what all that means.

When you're telling me, personally, I need to prove I'm not racist because I'm white, you're not using a broad term.

Well when it's ongoing for 200+ years, it becomes ingrained in the public discourse. Not really comparable to Germany's short Holocaust period. When a country, like the US, practices racism every day for 100s of years, it becomes a subconscious driver of daily functions.

When whites discriminate against people based on race, people of color internalize that and project it back. There's an entire psychology to it.

Nah. It was generalized. Nice try though.

My post :

"I don't feel like I need to SHOW I'm not racist"

Your COMPLETE answer :

And what assurance do minorities have to believe that you aren't?

The same way gays are inherently suspicious of straight people who don't take a stand on homophobia or gay rights.

Basically, you can't expect minorities who have always been on the defensive to drop their guard before the people who've historically oppressed them do first.

Going by your selective quoting, you know what you did. I'm done with this conservation.

That discussion wasn't even about you personally. I don't know why you tried to make it that way.

It was about what it'll take, from white people as a group, for minorities, as a group, to come down from their heightened defenses.

Until the general feelings of alarmness are extinguished, minorities will acted alarmed under the pressures of racism.

this

Also, this was my first response to your post on "I don't feel the need to SHOW that I'm not racist", which again, was about the generalized relationships among the groups. And an example of what straight people needed to do (i.e. give gays the right to marry) before gays could feel comfortable in their sexuality with the vast majority of straight people.

It's not that hard to comprehend. You making it about YOU personally just shows lack of perceptive and a self-centered approach to dealing with racism. You're not victim. And never will be.

Me saying "Minorities would like some indication they can trust white people after a hard documented history of racism" isn't racism against white people. It's just common sense. This is the whole reverse racism thing. Whereby just mentioning that white people need to do their part to end racism is considered racist. Frankly, I'm not really budged by that logic or argument because it's not about solving racism. It's about keeping white people from feeling uncomfortable.

Racism pervades all facets of our society. It is impossible to grow up in our society today (or at any time, really) and not internalize, at some level, white supremacy and racism.

So yes, white people are racist.

The ONLY issue with such discourse is that it doesn't articulate that the idea of "white people are racist" comes from the understanding of each society and culture as a power system - and there's simply no power system in which "blackness" exists as a concept and where black people aren't oppressed. Anti-blackness is global - white supremacy isn't as much.

It's like when people try to bring up the "Africans sold Africans to Europeans too!" - but black Africans didn't sell one another because of "blackness", or because either of them lacked "whiteness". Yet, we have texts of European settlers saying it is their God-given "right" to rule over the 'Indian' (Native American) and 'African'. You have to discuss a power system with its historical context and nuance. The way racism has manifested in the US is vastly different from France or Korea or Norway or South Africa or Argentina.

Korea and many places in Asia are a very different cultural system than America + Canada + Western Europe. I don't think anyone would say Koreans are oppressed under white supremacy in Korea. That's silly because it's just not true for their lives (aka why many Asian-Americans may have different reactions to types of racism than people born in and living in Asian countries because the lived experiences are inherently differently). However, anti-blackness is still just as prominent in most places within Asia. Again - anti-blackness is global.

When someone says "all white people are racist' - they're trying to articulate that the vast majority of the power systems in our world, at present time, honor "whiteness" as a concept. If you live in a place where "whiteness" is a marker, it is not going to harm you. While in nearly every power system where "blackness" is a conscious concept, it is usually to harm and malign black people.

Of course HOW racism manifests in all of these places will vary on tons of factors - population, proximity (HOW you can be racist to a race will vary depending on if they're barely 1% of your population vs a huge %), history, etc.

Same for any other axis of power we experience as humans. Look at homophobia. Most of the world is heteronormative and homophobic because, no matter their differences, there's still homophobia around the world. There's homophobia in the largely Christian US, there's homophobia even in Israel, there's homophobia all throughout the Middle East, AND there's homophobia even in largely areligious places like South Korea. Sure, the answers to WHY and how to end it in all places will vary, but they're similar power systems.

It's like they're most focused on defending their individual reputations than shining a compelling light on racism.

Clearly, if you're not racist to me on a personal level, I'm not going to call you a racist.
But it doesn't mean I walk into a room of white people naive to the fact that I'm working against a set of inherent racial biases.

Tbh. I don't even think the "all white people are racist" debate is that compelling. It leaves no room for nuance. Frankly a lot of people try to not be racist.

So that's actually why I posed my initial argument. To note that many white people aren't racist, but those many don't actively seek out justice for the prejudices that minorities face. Which I detailed in my previous post here:

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.-

-Martin Luther King

But even in that sense, inaction results in perpetuating the status quo, which is clearly racist. So the white moderate who isn't expressly racist is definitely racist - or complicit in racism - as I see it.

If the tension you're trying to avoid is PoC talking candidly about their experience of how "white people" do this and that, then what you prefer is a negative peace. Because, frankly, there's NO good way to talk about racism.

If you call someone out individually, it's often written off as the victim being "too sensitive" or a SJW
If you call out the entire group, it's often written off as "generalizing" or, more irrationally, "reverse racism"

The most comfortable way to talk about racism, is just to not. And MLK noted this. It's the whole Tomi Lahren argument, get mad when they protest and get mad when they sit out the national anthem. Why? Because the easiest way to talk about racism is for the topic to stay out of your sight.

Shall we get back on topic? I don't want this thread closed