[RD] Why y'all always trying to defend Nazis?

[ashendashin]

*shrug* Maybe when Lexicus wants to talk about the only prevailing and significantly harmful racism locally relevant to the majority of CFC posters he should just call it what it is: white supremacy.

White supremacy gets expressed in personal acts of racism and has also been reinforced and maintained by power structures and institutions built or turned to this purpose.

That discussion sounds largely useless, considering how deeply ingrained racial cultures are (and how they so often get exploited by the same race and others, with many looking for serious cash in diverse markets, but also opening the way for those seeking instability). I'll just try ignore this obsession with white supremacy from now on, considering that xenophobia in general is lower than ever. You'll find plenty of common racism in less developed countries, but any potentially damaging discrimination in the western world is currently limited to prominent figures (with most constantly checked for racism, limiting any hate related influence). The usual crap about police brutality and the ol' extremist groups that are now largely cut off from positive public opinion isn't helping anyone. The police brutality stuff is always especially entertaining, because they're not really the ones creating crime among race anymore. Hispanics have plenty of that brought over from their own countries and blacks only recently started to be properly integrated in the states (and now being encouraged to hate whites again, even though they'll find endless heaps of genuine racism from their nearest hood, with most of them plainly aware of that fact). If stating that ghettos and foreign crime doesn't end in their respective locations brands me a racist by some of you, I wouldn't be surprised. Why hate your fellow man when those trying to recreate genuine splits are so limited?

It's certainly not going to change how the word racist is applied though, which for some reason suddenly can't be applied to non-whites according to some. Lexicus here just wants to encourage racial splits that took so much work to get past to this degree. Why? Probably because he wants a violent attempt at changing certain positions in the world. Pretty horrible way to go about it, in my opinion.

 

[luiz]

*shrug* Maybe when Lexicus wants to talk about the only prevailing and significantly harmful racism locally relevant to the majority of CFC posters he should just call it what it is: white supremacy.

White supremacy gets expressed in personal acts of racism and has also been reinforced and maintained by power structures and institutions built or turned to this purpose - institutional racism.

Is this useful? Because this page is really boring.

Honest question. If there is such thing as "white supremacy" in the US, how come so many large non-white groups do much better than whites? Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Iranian Americans (who may or may not be considered white, who knows).

I'm not saying that non-whites don't face racism. Of course they do. But maybe this whole "white supremacy" talk is a bit outdated, no? I don't see much supremacy when whites don't have the highest incomes, education levels, health outcomes, etc etc.

 

[El_Machinae]

Until the 1960s it was taken utterly for granted that they have this right. Most countries in the world take it for granted that they have this right. It is a very recent and wholly western idea that a group of people don't have a right to maintain their own hegemony.

They do, it's just that instead of defending cultural values, the alt-right courts the racialists instead.

I have no problem with people wanting to preserve a culture. It makes sense. But the focus on race, in lieu of culture, is what makes little sense to me. The idea of defending a culture based on skin color, to me, is silly. Especially along arbitrary racial lines.

Think about it this way, I'm rather welcome at an alt-right rally right now, given my skin color. The alt-right of yesteryear would have voted against my grandparents being 'allowed' to be in the country. Now, the alt-right is disgusting to me, because of their banal beliefs. But because of yesterday's progressives fighting for equality, I'm now welcome. Because they're basing everything on race.

Additionally, I don't think that the 1960s southern states should really be given any kudos on how they were able to 'handle' race relations. It's the same culture that debated whether color-based marriage should be even allowed.

 

[Akka]

They do, it's just that instead of defending cultural values, the alt-right courts the racialists instead.

I have no problem with people wanting to preserve a culture. It makes sense. But the focus on race, in lieu of culture, is what makes little sense to me. The idea of defending a culture based on skin color, to me, is silly. Especially along arbitrary racial lines.

That's also exactly the same on the other hand of the spectrum, as you can see in this very thread, with "white" being treated as a whole group, or in such piece as the laughably stupid critics about The Witcher 3 "lack of diversity" (because it display people who have nearly only white skin).

But somehow, one side is "racist" (which is, BTW, true) but the other is "anti-racist" (which is, BTW, false).

 

[civver_764]

They do, it's just that instead of defending cultural values, the alt-right courts the racialists instead.

I have no problem with people wanting to preserve a culture. It makes sense. But the focus on race, in lieu of culture, is what makes little sense to me. The idea of defending a culture based on skin color, to me, is silly. Especially along arbitrary racial lines.

Think about it this way, I'm rather welcome at an alt-right rally right now, given my skin color. The alt-right of yesteryear would have voted against my grandparents being 'allowed' to be in the country. Now, the alt-right is disgusting to me, because of their banal beliefs. But because of yesterday's progressives fighting for equality, I'm now welcome. Because they're basing everything on race.

Additionally, I don't think that the 1960s southern states should really be given any kudos on how they were able to 'handle' race relations. It's the same culture that debated whether color-based marriage should be even allowed.

Sure, culture is the defining factor. There are many non-whites that are fully assimilated into American culture and I think that's great. I guess what many on the Alt-Right (and the regressive left) have recognized is that race correlates highly with culture. The culture that we understand as "American culture" was largely created by European people (NOTE: this is not meant to imply any form of superiority of Europeans over any other peoples, I'm simply making observations). If America was colonized by the Chinese it would have a much different culture today. And similarly, if you allow in too many Chinese immigrants they are going to change the culture accordingly (NOTE: This is not meant to imply anything negative about Chinese people, I'm simply making observations).

For example look at Trump's recent immigration proposal. It was supposed to limit immigration to highly-educated English speakers. Many on the "SJW left" pointed out that this was "racist" because most of these people are "white". And then those on the Alt-Right responded "well, yeah...so what?" These two things go hand in hand, two sides of the same coin. In this sense, you can view the "Alt-right" as a backlash against SJWs calling everyday white people racist. It's like "well they're going to call us racist anyways, why even worry about it?"

 

[Senethro]

Honest question. If there is such thing as "white supremacy" in the US, how come so many large non-white groups do much better than whites? Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Iranian Americans (who may or may not be considered white, who knows).

I'm not saying that non-whites don't face racism. Of course they do. But maybe this whole "white supremacy" talk is a bit outdated, no? I don't see much supremacy when whites don't have the highest incomes, education levels, health outcomes, etc etc.

Additionally, recent African immigrants also out perform native black americans and even white average on some metrics.

I'd conclude white supremacy is a toxin that harms you dependent on the dosage and length of exposure.

 

[luiz]

Additionally, recent African immigrants also out perform native black americans and even white average on some metrics.

I'd conclude white supremacy is a toxin that harms you dependent on the dosage and length of exposure.

But consider that many Chinese Americans can trace their American roots to the 19th century, so they've been exposed to plenty of racism, and they are still doing great. There's also a lot of disparity among recent non-white immigrants, even among African immigrants, with some groups doing vastly better than others.

This would suggest that "white supremacy" is not really a good explanation for what's going on, no?

 

[Senethro]

I disagree but I dearly want to know your alternative better supported explanation.

 

[luiz]

I disagree but I dearly want to know your alternative better supported explanation.

I have already provided it many times. First, I'm not in any way denying the impact of slavery and Jim Crow. Of course this means that blacks in average had a great disadvantage in terms of physical and human capital.

But my explanation is that simply dividing society in "whites" and "blacks" makes no sense. Firstly because these are far from the only groups in the US (and some non-white and non-black groups are doing better than whites), but most importantly because they are too diverse to be meaningfully lumped together. Some white groups have a lot of "privilege", no doubt. An old white family from Massachusetts? Likely quite privileged. A poor one from Appalachia? Not. In fact if you look at many of these poor white communities you'll see the same problems that are usually associated with blacks. Low incomes, lots of single mothers, substance abuse, terrible education levels, precarious employment. In fact in some states and cities, the high school graduation rate for whites is lower than for blacks. Which brings us to another important factor, simple geographic distribution : blacks are over represented in poor states where incomes and education levels are vastly lower. There is also quite some variation within black communities too, with some doing pretty good.

I would argue then that there are several "disadvantaged communities" in the US, many of which are black, but several are white too. Even among Hispanics, you see some subgroups doing better than whites, and others doing much worse than blacks. So "white supremacy" is not a very good explanation. And neither is lumping all whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and etc in a single group given the enormous in-group variability.

 

[Senethro]

Thats not an explanation as to why the current circumstances are the way they are which was my question, sorry for not making it clear.

 

[Akka]

One explanation from the top of my head (important notice : it's a possible explanation that comes from the top of my head, i.e. it's not claimed as the answer, I'm not even claiming it's not white supremacism which is the actual answer, I'm just providing this as an illustration of the reasoning process that could lead to other answers) could be cultural markers like accents, attire and body language.

Example I actually know about : I know that a large amount of social segregation in France comes from rejection of the typical "jeune des banlieues" (literally "suburbs youth", but with the implied meaning of "teenagers/early adults showing a thuggish behaviour typical from the low-income semi-ghettos") behaviour, which is associated with extreme rudeness, agressivity, dishonesty, violence and terrible education. Someone who dress and speak like one would be quickly rejected in most work application, regardless of its skin colour - and as such suburbs tend to have a large arab population, it might tend to blur the line with "racism".
But the key here is more the perceived behaviour, and it tends to keep repeating through generations, because if you've internalized such markers, you're liable to transmit them to your offsprings.
As such, a much larger proportion of arabs than whites tend to have this behaviour, and it might be construed as "racism against arabs", which is only partly true (and even the "true" part comes in VERY LARGE amount from this very perception "arab = thug from the suburbs").

I can personally attest that I don't feel threatened at all by an arab wearing a smoking and speaking without accent, but very wary when near a blond white guy speaking with suburb slang.

 

[civver_764]

Our Welfare system in this country highly incentivizes women to "marry the state" and be single mothers, which disproportionately affects black people, and data shows that single motherhood is the root of many societal ills. Over 70% of black children are born out of wedlock today, an incredibly sharp increase from before the introduction of the welfare state in the 1960s. This suggests to me that we should look into reforming our welfare system so that families are encouraged to stay together.

Another problem definitely seems to be our draconian drug laws. So much of the crime in black communities is directly related to the selling of drugs, violent or not. I think we would definitely see a large reduction in crime if we were to end the war on drugs.

I also think the over emphasis on "white supremacy" is not healthy. All that does is breed racial tension, which is the exact opposite of what we want. If you teach black children as kids that they're going to be "oppressed" by society, then it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. Yes, some white people can be jerks, and they can be dealt with on an individual basis. But there is not some conspiracy among white people to keep black people down, why would there be? It would obviously be better for everybody if everyone was prosperous, and most people have the common sense to recognize this.

 

[luiz]

Thats not an explanation as to why the current circumstances are the way they are which was my question, sorry for not making it clear.

There are a lot of factors involved, with racism being one. But to explain why there is so much variability within communities (white, black, Hispanic, etc) we would need to look at their historical development, how the local subcultures were formed, etc. It's been pointed out that the communities that descend (culturally, not genetically) from the settled agricultural Southeast England do better than those that descend from pastoral ones from other regions of England, Scotland and etc. You also have to look at the vast discrepancies among US states. Average income in the richest state is an astounding 100% higher than in the poorest.

 

[Lexicus]

There are a lot of factors involved, with racism being one.

Almost sounds like you're saying analysis needs to be "intersectional" or something

 

[onejayhawk]

Almost sounds like you're saying analysis needs to be "intersectional" or something

Hate is in the eye of the beholder. What one person considers valid criticism another considers hatespeak. It's why you need to be very reluctant to label people. Often the labeling itself is a form of hatespeak. If the label is unjustified there is no doubt of the hatespeak. Shaming is almost always answering hate with hate and sometimes worse.

J

 

[Lexicus]

Hate is in the eye of the beholder. What one person considers valid criticism another considers hatespeak. It's why you need to be very reluctant to label people. Often the labeling itself is a form of hatespeak. If the label is unjustified there is no doubt of the hatespeak. Shaming is almost always answering hate with hate and sometimes worse.

I am very unclear on how this is in any way relevant to my comment which you have quoted

 

[Akka]

I am very unclear on how this is in any way relevant to my comment which you have quoted

Funny thing, all your posts in the previous page were also completely irrelevant to what they answered and ignored all the points made. Didn't seem to bother you though, and you are back here like if nothing happened.

 

[inthesomeday]

Just woke up. So yeah let's talk a little bit about American white supremacy, this is a good and important discussion to have.

In answer to your question, luiz, this is a very important thing to talk about when it comes to the differing economic power of specific white individuals. The answer is most white people barely even benefit in any way from white supremacy. You're completely correct that a poor rural white family from the Appalachian is unlikely to reap any economic benefit from the systematic white supremacy in America. However, the benefit for someone like this is moreso sociopolitical. If you're not from anywhere in America, South or North, this point might not be obvious to you, but historically, the entirety of the New World has developed with what I would certainly term RACISM. Not trying to keep the fight going about what that word means, just using it here to describe application of a structuring of society based on racial features, because indeed it is the only word I know of to describe this system. This was the first time such a system existed in world history. Arguably, similar systems existed in ancient civilizations when foreign populations would be pressed into slavery, but this was moreso characteristic of specific conquests, and the social hierarchy itself would rarely be directly organized along these lines.

Such was the opposite in America, where it became the de facto social organization that within any economic class were two social classes (the European breed and the non-European breed). Now quite early in the development of Western society in the Americas there were no non-European members of the wealthy class, but there were certainly very distinct and separate classes of poor white people and poor people of color. This is very documented and widely agreed upon by historians, you can research and rebut as you see fit.

In modern America, this system hasn't really gone away-- however, there are certainly new, non-white members of the wealthier classes. The reason it's still fit to think of it as global white supremacy is because of the fact that, persistent to this day, within each echelon of economic wealth, the social distinction between western white people and non-white people retains the supremacy of white people more and more towards the lower classes. Now I'll agree that the richest of the rich are the richest of the rich regardless of race. However it's very important to note, for example, the de facto distinction between poor white people and poor black people in the United States. Poor black people, regardless of the espoused opinions of liberal politicians or "I'm not racist but" dinner parties, are statistically more likely to enter exploitative labor positions in prison, to be murdered by police over misdemeanor crimes, to work minimum wage jobs and live in poor areas.

There are two narratives we can blame for this inequality: one, that says black people are lazy and have done this to their own communities. Or the other, that says that this inequality is the modern development of historical white supremacy. (The American way racism has developed.)

One of these analyses is historical and the other is a racist narrative to support the racism of the American economic system.

 

[civver_764]

There are two narratives we can blame for this inequality: one, that says black people are lazy and have done this to their own communities. Or the other, that says that this inequality is the modern development of historical white supremacy. (The American way racism has developed.)

I would argue that whatever happened in the past is in the past, and today black people DO need to take responsibility for their own communities. It's easy to blame "white supremacy", but that does not address the actual causes of the problems we see today.

WHY are black people more likely to killed by police, or go to jail, or work minimum wage jobs? Isn't it because they disproportionately drop out of school and commit a disproportionate amount of crimes? And then you have to ask, why are they doing these things? Was it white people that told them to do those things? Well, no, as a matter of fact it wasn't. So how exactly does focusing on "white supremacy" help anybody? Aren't you just deflecting from the actual issues and stirring up racial tension?

 

[Lexicus]

I would argue that whatever happened in the past is in the past

Yet you want to preserve those Confederate statues because "muh history."

Also "Can't we just let the past go?" asked the white man, sitting atop a pile of bloodstained treasure stolen by his ancestors