| Locknuts said: [1] Since the Las Vegas shooting I am noticing a disturbing trend where people in the liberal media and elsewhere are collectively demonising a group of people based on the colour of their skin. This group is 'white men'. [2] I'm not sure what the whiteness of a persons' skin has to do with their character. Dr Martin Luther King would be appalled. If anyone referred to any other group in a negative light i.e 'black women', or 'brown people' they would probably end up being fired (or worse). [3] I see these groups saying that if this was an Islamic terror attack, all Muslims would be demonised. This is a false equivalence. Islam is not a race, it's a set of (really bad) ideas. ISIS read and refer to the same texts as moderate muslims. Bad ideas can be criticised. Most importantly though, Muslims can be any colour. Just as communists, Christians and fascists can be. [4] I can't believe the liberal media don't see the double standard, and dangerous people like Jared Taylor are just waiting for enough people to fall for the identity politics to build a political platform based on 'race realism'. He claims he is not a white supremacist. But read his work, he considers black people akin to a different species. [5] We can't let this happen. We saw the results of this over 70 years ago. Wake up. |
Let's take this point by point:
[1] This is the exact same thing that happens on The Right whenever a non-white person shoots people. I know you bring up "false equivalence" in [3], but I'll get to why that's misinformed when I get there. That certainly doesn't make it right, but it certainly doesn't fit into the narrative of "Liberal Media OMG" you hint at, because ALL non-centrist news outlets do this.
Here's the thing though, when a white man does something terrible, the conversation isn't generally "white men need to be stopped" or "deport all white men" or "don't let white men into this country". The conversation is "Oh, mental illness is a terrible thing". Right off the bat white men get a pass. When you don't have to worry about blowback for your race, life sure does get so much easier.
You as a white man will never know what it's like to be called a "sand-n*gger" even though you're a 4th generation American. As a white person, you will never have to worry about being stopped by the cops and asked for your papers. Do you carry them on your person everywhere you go just in case you're asked? No, because you're white, and you don't have to. Right away, the onus is on the minority to prove they belong here because they don't look white.
When a Muslim in this country commits an act of terror, Muslim Imams and others are asked to condemn the violence. When a white man commits an act of violence, do we asked Southern Baptist preachers to do the same? No. He's a one-off. Not representative of an entire group. I was in middle school when 9/11 happened. The next day, I was walking with my friend Kumar (Indian) when a group of kids pushed him down, kicked him, and spit on him for no other reason than the fact he was brown. They called him "jihadi" and other inaccurate, hurtful things. Dude is actually christian! He was walking and talking with me, minding his own business when he was accosted because he's brown. This is something a white man will NEVER have to deal with in the US.
We're a country above all that was by and for white men. We were dragged kicking and screaming into letting minorites have rights. Hell, it took almost 150 years past our countries founding to give WOMEN the right to vote. We're STILL using creative ways to keep the influence of minority votes down (gerrymandering, voter ID, etc).
To reiterate: whenever someone of color commits an act of atrocity, the whole race is called into question, so when someone finally brings up the fact that white men might have a problem, it's been a long time coming. White men have had no idea what it's like to be demonized for the acts of a non-representative few. Not saying it's right, just pointing out the "double standard".
[2]
You're right. I think MLK would be appalled at someone judging someone else for the color of their skin, as that's exactly what he fought against. The only issue with your statetment is that, at least in the media, white men are still the vast majority in purveying this thought. Not to mention the fact that white men still have the majority of the power in this country. "Travel Ban", "Illegal immigration", and "Voter ID" are all not-so-thinly veiled code for "keep those minorities down and out".
This even ignores some of the worst instances of overt instances of racism in the country. From the Trail of Tears to Dredd Scott, nearly every (if not all!) terrible act of institutional racial violence in this country has been perpetrated by white men. Saying "don't judge me" conveniently ignores the fact that we've been keeping minorities down for generations. We haven't talked about "whiteness" in the country in a negative light because the white people in power don't want to talk about that.
Starting from about the 60's, a large portion of white people finally realized that racism is wrong. As such, we instituted laws (Civil Rights Act) that banned discrimination based on race. This didn't affect how we treated white people because white people in general were not affected by racism against them. White people were never denied a home loan because people were worried about them lowering their home values. White people weren't denied jobs because a business was afraid of losing the patronage of their white customers.
So yes, today, if you talk about "all brown people" in a disparaging way, you'd probably end up fired if your employer ever caught wind, just like how more than a few white supremacists in Charlottesville lost their jobs for attending that rally. It's not the same for white people because we've never had that terrible history of racial violence thrust upon them.
Again, I'm not saying it's not wrong, or that it's not a double standard (because it is), but there is a reason why it's worse (legally and morally) for a white person to call people out because of their race.
[3]
This is probably the strongest of your arguments, but unfortunately it has one fatal flaw: White people tend to group all muslims (and even non-muslims!) together based on how they look. You're right, religion is a choice. A white person can be muslim, an Arab person can be Christian, but here's the thing; the people doing the blaming and finger-pointing don't care. They don't take the time to differentiate between a Sikh (super peaceful) and a Muslim. They see brown, they instantly hate.
Bad ideas can (and should!) be criticized. There are elements of the Muslim faith that give a tolerant person like me serious pause, but to say it's false equivalence is just wrong because people can and absolutely do judge other people based on their appearance. Blaming an innocent white person for something another white person did is just as fallacious and wrong as blaming a Muslim (or other brown person) for something a Muslim (or other brown person) did. See: My friend Kumar I mentioned earlier.
[4]
I understand "Liberal Media" is a buzzword these days, used especially by those who look to push right-leaning agendas, but the things you're talking about are not exclusive to the "Liberal Media". All non-centrist news orgs do it. I don't know who Jared Taylor is, and I'm not going to give him the google hit to look it up, but I agree with your premise that all race-baiters are bad news. (excuse the pun)
[5]
I need more clarification on "this". I'm assuming by 70 years ago you mean WW2. I can then infer that you meaning Hitler was basically a giant race baiter who turned the white majority against the Jewish minority. While I get your overall point (if that indeed is what you mean), the two situations are definitely not comparible as Jews were a much smaller minority in Germany than all of our demonized minorities here in the US are today. What will happen isn't an extiction, it'll be a civil war. Whites versus non-whites. Which is, funny enough, what's been going on in this country since the end of slavery, just this time there will be more violence.
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I don't know if you're being sincere or not when you refer to the "Liberal Media" as the problem here. When you use such a loaded term, you're basically picking a side and cutting off any legitimate conversation because you're already "other-ing" the other side. We're all Americans and should be able to talk about these issues as such.
White people aren't inherently evil. At the same time, white people refuse to acknowledge the systemic issues we've caused other races in realizing the American dream, in obtaining truly equal rights for all. We actually still continue to demonize and stigmatize different minorites in different ways, we're just more clever about how we do it (at least to black people).
TL;DR White men don't like having done to them what they've done to other races throughout history. The best way to avoid this is through denial and demonization of the "other" side. The most wonderful example of this is when white people use the same arguments minorities used to defend against demonization. History can be hilariously circular sometimes.
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