Why are antiracists so... racist?

[GoodSarmatian]

What happened to the Good Old Days when only "The Left" would carelessly throw around words like racism ?

 

[Senethro]

I'm not sure its me you want to discuss these things with. Better find some "SJWs" who meet your criteria.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Have you guys ever watched nature documentary about lions and wish them a succesful hunt? and then next time when the film was about zebras the lions seemed all of sudden as pure evil?
The problem lies in the one-sidedness of the human intelect and its capacity for an exclusive focus which works well when you are concentrating in physical sciences but is much less practical in social sciences and when psychology is involved.
On the top of that you have the function of human ego which justifies an intolerence against another percieved intolerence as a form of good.

 

[Lexicus]

You are correct. Perhaps a more interesting discussion would be, why so much obsession with racism, when other forms of bigotry are killing so much more?

I'm not sure if that's even actually true. Looking at the stark racial differences in health outcomes in the US I think it's pretty possible to make the case that US racism is actually more deadly than ISIS...it's just that US racism tends to kill in less dramatic ways, by e.g. undernourishing people over time or forcing them to live near toxic pollution, than ISIS does.

 

[luiz]

I'm not sure if that's even actually true. Looking at the stark racial differences in health outcomes in the US I think it's pretty possible to make the case that US racism is actually more deadly than ISIS...it's just that US racism tends to kill in less dramatic ways, by e.g. undernourishing people over time or forcing them to live near toxic pollution, than ISIS does.

Life expectancy of minorities in the US is still vastly superior to the average life expectancy for human beings. Minorities in the US are still vastly richer than the average human.

So to say that their relative disadvantage, which still constitutes a huge absolute advantage in relation to most other people, is killing more than ISIS is not accurate.

And of course the zealotry of ISIS and other like-minded groups is also causing mass poverty (far more than racism in the US), which also kills and dislodges people en masse. The scale of the problems are not even comparable.

 

[Senethro]

The scale is tens of millions for both issues but one is acute and severe and the other is chronic, improving but some people contest the diagnosis at all.

 

[Lexicus]

So to say that their relative disadvantage, which still constitutes a huge absolute advantage in relation to most other people, is killing more than ISIS is not accurate.

I fail to see how.

And of course the zealotry of ISIS and other like-minded groups is also causing mass poverty (far more than racism in the US), which also kills and dislodges people en masse. The scale of the problems are not even comparable.

As Senethro says millions are affected by both problems. The scale seems pretty similar to me.

Of course, if we're tying this back to the thread topic, the ISIS situation is a direct consequence of the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq, so uh...

 

[Senethro]

Gotta have that uninterrupted supply of oil even if it means killing some folks or raising no objections at how kings rule their country. Well, that and selling them banned munitions.

Isn't imperialism grand?

 

[luiz]

The scale is tens of millions for both issues but one is acute and severe and the other is chronic, improving but some people contest the diagnosis at all.

The scale is tens of millions for both, but one is actually killing people directly, kicking them out of their homes en masse and causing economic ruination, while the other still allows them to live as well-off people by global standards. To compare both issues shows a lack of perspective which is frankly baffling. It's like comparing the common cold to brain cancer.

I fail to see how.

As Senethro says millions are affected by both problems. The scale seems pretty similar to me.

More people are affected by the common cold than by cancer, and yet I'm more worried about the latter.

Of course, if we're tying this back to the thread topic, the ISIS situation is a direct consequence of the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq, so uh...

Not sure how this is tying back to the thread topic, unless you think Bush invaded Iraq out of racism.
And of course while Bush (and Obama, and Sarkozy, and others) certainly helped ISIS to gain a lot of ground, the broader issue of Islamists terrorizing people who disagree with them is much wider. See Nigeria, or Sudan.

Gotta have that uninterrupted supply of oil even if it means killing some folks or raising no objections at how kings rule their country. Well, that and selling them banned munitions.

Isn't imperialism grand?

As if the US needed the Iraqi oil supply.

 

[Lexicus]

Not sure how this is tying back to the thread topic, unless you think Bush invaded Iraq out of racism.

ISIS is essentially the West's (or the US's, more specifically) fault, is the point, and incidentally yes, I do think racism played a role in the decision to invade Iraq...

As if the US needed the Iraqi oil supply.

Europe did/does though.

 

[Senethro]

Well, there is racism as an ideology and racism as extreme contempt of the consequences that fall upon other peoples.

 

[luiz]

Ok, so according to you both, being killed and having your wife and daughters sold into sex slavery is on the same level as a slightly higher chance of having a bank loan rejected, and possibly being overlooked for a job.

And no, Isis is not the West's fault anymore than the Nazis were the fault of the WW1 victors. Sure, both played a role in enabling their rise, but you have to look into the deep sickness of a culture that allows it to flourish. ISIS and ISIS-like groups are not ravaging just Iraq and Syria, they're also in Nigeria, Sudan, Kenya, Indonesia... To blame all of that on the Iraq War and other western intervention is beyond silly. Which is not to say that those interventions were not disastrous - they were, and Obama is also guilty BTW.

And a second no, invading Iraq had nothing to do with racism.

 

[Lexicus]

Ok, so according to you both, being killed and having your wife and daughters sold into sex slavery is on the same level as a slightly higher chance of having a bank loan rejected, and possibly being overlooked for a job.

No. We are actually talking about stuff more like this:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4181672/

Incidentally, an illuminating quote from this article:

In 1990, for example, McCord and Freeman shocked the world by reporting that a Black male in Harlem had less of a chance of reaching the age of 65 than did the average male resident of Bangladesh—one of the poorest countries in the world.

And no, Isis is not the West's fault anymore than the Nazis were the fault of the WW1 victors.

This is an interesting analogy, because I do tend to blame the WW1 victors for the Nazis, though of course you are right that there are multiple causal factors. I think, though, that the causal chain from the Iraq War to the rise of ISIS is far more direct than the causal chain from the Versailles Treaty to the Nazis. The general collapse of capitalism at the end of the 20s played a larger role than the Versailles Treaty in the rise of the Nazis.

ISIS and ISIS-like groups are not ravaging just Iraq and Syria, they're also in Nigeria, Sudan, Kenya, Indonesia... To blame all of that on the Iraq War and other western intervention is beyond silly.

Notice that I've only made a claim about ISIS, not these other groups...

And a second no, invading Iraq had nothing to do with racism.

I don't agree, I think the racialization of people in the Middle East contributed to a decided callousness among the US population about the consequences of the war.

 

[warpus]

Hey I'm an anti-racist

I'm not racist

goodnight

 

[EgonSpengler]

I want your opinion. Time and again I met people - students, phd students,
postdocs - who called themselves "antiracist" & proceeded to lay the blame
of virtually all wars, all starvation, all injustice in the world solely and squarely
on the western world

I mean, come on. We have ethnic cleanings, slave markets, terror attacks,
stabbings, cars that drive into pedestrians. It is simply impossible to
overlook this actual, true racism And it is simply impossible to overlook
that these so called "antiracists" work very hard, every single day, to ignore &
overlook it.

Now, I want your opinion. Why do they have such an obviously discriminatory
world view? Why do they take such pains to ignore actual, true racism? Or
maybe you honestly think that the western world/white people are the greatest
problem in the world?

Assuming the people you're referring to are themselves Westerners, I imagine part of the answer is that they're focused on the part of the problem that they can perhaps do something about. We all need to take some responsibility for ourselves, and we White Westerners are best positioned to address the portion of the problem that is White Westerners. I mean, yes, most White men are not rapey, neo-Nazi slave traders, but turn the problem around: Of the people who are not rapey, neo-Nazi slave traders, who is in the best position to do something about them? Jews, women and Black people? Or White men? I'm not talking about taking responsibility for the problem, I'm talking about taking responsibility for the solution. The pipes are leaking; we can argue over whose fault it is while the basement fills with water or we can fix the damned pipes, and one of us is holding a wrench in his hand, so who should it be?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Some people are more scared about what "SJWs" say than what the alt-right does.

Whatever this term even means. I've been accused of being one, but OTOH, I've been assured that I'm not one.

Sure, but I would expect graver problems to be prioritized, instead of obsessing over smaller ones.

What is a small problem to you might be a grave problem to someone else.

To all of you: Nope.

Yes, grave problems deserve more attention than trivial ones, but I was criticizing the faux-concerned attitude that says zero progress should be made on smaller problems while larger ones exist. Its not actual concern, its delaying and misdirection.

An example vaguely relevant to this thread might be an islamophobe criticizing western feminists for not putting all their energy into womens rights in Saudi Arabia. The issue is real, the concern is not.

Yep, I've had that thrown at me, right on this forum (although I can't say for sure if the person was "phobic" - he was trying to pick a fight in one of the many feminism threads we've had over the years).

Sorry, but I have to put the bulk of my energy into the rights of physically disabled women in Canada. That's my demographic, and I'm expecting yet another round of fighting in October, when the municipal election comes around and I apply for an at-home special ballot. They're going to ask a list of questions such as "how do you get your groceries?" "how do you get your mail?" "how do you get to appointments?" "Why don't you get your husband/family member to drive you - you MUST have SOMEONE"... and so on.

The last time I voted at a polling station, there weren't even any chairs for seniors or disabled people to sit on, the station wasn't wheelchair-accessible (thankfully I didn't need a wheelchair, but that would have made some other voters turn around and go home), and when I mentioned this to the workers, they just looked at me and shrugged.

Yes, and usually we can do more about problems at our own backyard that halfway across the globe.

Still, the hypocrisy and selectiveness is sometimes too much to stomach. Like how European feminists spend most of their energy arguing about a (largely imaginary) gender pay gap while ignoring the large scale oppression of women in their own countries inside Islamic communities.

And because you are a European woman, you know all about what financial, family/children, and work-related concerns they have, right?

 

[JollyRoger]

In observing the thread starts around here, there does seem to be one side that obsesses over such things as race and gender. It's not the so-called SJWs.

 

[caketastydelish]

I haven't noticed anyone only blaming the western world for all the wars. You could make a legitimate case with ISIS since that was a result of instability in the region, a direct consequence of America invading Iraq.

If it's a conflict that doesn't involve oil or other massive profits between two third world countries, you probably can't blame the western world. "The western world" did not cause the Rwandan genocide, for example.

edit: to add more to this, I think "the western world" is not really a fair term. At this point, it's just the United States. I'm not seeing the countries of Canada, Sweden, Germany, France, etc having cruel foreign policies. However cruel some of those countries were 100 years ago, that does not apply to today. The USA is the only Superpower left. We are in a position to be evil. Being evil pays off, and we take advantage of it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Western civilization the United States is to blame for all of the world's wars and troubles.

 

[Ryika]

No, that's religion.