General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhiteness is one hell of a drug
Love thy neighbor, she said, meant "love thy American neighbor"Link to tweet
Funtatlaguy
(10,856 posts)how disappointed I have become with the majority of white America, my own ethnicity.
I was roundly criticized as being a racist.
kpete
(71,900 posts)as trump told us
we have "nothing" to lose
kp
YessirAtsaFact
(2,064 posts)Everybody except the ultra rich and white racists loses under Trump.
And most of the white racists are getting hosed economically, theyre just too obsessed to notice.
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)Not exactly the same thing as "disappointment" with "some white Americans"
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)Funtatlaguy
(10,856 posts)if you want to discuss it again.
And, yes, I do hate those that voted for and still support Trump.
And, guess, what - the majority of them are white.
Thats not racist. Thats not a banana or an apple.
Thats a fact.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,110 posts)for bringing the Rascist-in-Chief to power.
LBM20
(1,580 posts)people with a broad brush.
EffieBlack
(14,249 posts)Who precisely does it divide from whom?
Funtatlaguy
(10,856 posts)Before you can solve any problem, you must define it.
Why have between 60-70% of white people in America bought into the Trump and GOP line.
I think that the years of talk radio and Fox News lies and propaganda have had an effect.
Especially on those who have some fears of becoming the minority in this country with changing demographics. Demonizing blacks and browns has worked, by and large.
So, there.
Problem defined.
Solving it is much more difficult.
EffieBlack
(14,249 posts)How is a white person's observation about racism among white people "divisive?"
Funtatlaguy
(10,856 posts)Im white.
I am very disappointed that the majority of my race has been conned by a racist Trump.
EffieBlack
(14,249 posts)My apologies!
radius777
(3,624 posts)doesn't want to face, that Trump was elected mainly due to white backlash against PoC and diversity - not because of so-called economic anxiety.
The populist-left/Sanders/Stein movement is also related to this backlash. At least a portion of the white left hold resentment against 'identity politics' which they feel PoC and immigrants benefit from at the expense of working class whites.
Now I will say there are virtuous whites who voted for Hillary and disgraceful PoC who didn't.
But we need to be honest about the overall trends and the reason for our current sociopolitical climate.
Garrett78
(10,721 posts)I've said before, if you take away racism (like if it just magically vanished tomorrow), the Republican Party would cease to be viable. Racism is what enabled the rise of Trump. Anyone who denies that is being willfully ignorant.
From the Southern Strategy of Nixon (and the backlash to the Civil Rights Act) to Reagan and his dog whistling (such as kicking off his campaign with a speech about "states' rights" not far from where 3 civil rights activists were murdered) to the vile response to Obama (including Trump's 'birtherism'), the Republican Party is deeply rooted in racism. Without it, there wouldn't be enough people to support right wing economic policy, right wing health care policy, right wing environmental policy, and so on. I kid you not, the GOP would no longer be a major national political party.
radius777
(3,624 posts)The majority of white voters fled into the arms of the GOP, which essentially became the white flight party of Reagan, until Trump, when it became the white nationalist party.
The election of Obama is what sent them over the edge, as they simply couldn't bear seeing a non-white person as the president of "their" country.
Funtatlaguy
(10,856 posts)But, yes.
JI7
(89,176 posts)usually because they are anti gay , anti immigrant or anti some group. overall they make up a smaller number but the point is that they are still voting out of bigotry so their support for Trump isn't an example of people voting for him for other reasons besides bigotry.
whathehell
(28,969 posts)but you wouldn't be the first here to confuse the two.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Seems foolish to me.
radius777
(3,624 posts)The idea that 'some whites' supported Trump - as if it's a side issue - is simply not truthful.
The story of Trump's election is the story of white backlash on the right and (to a lesser degree) on the left, from upper to lower class, from north to south to east to west.
IOW this wasn't merely a rebellion of the far right, but a backlash amongst a cross section of the white population.
The election was a choice between the racist candidate(Trump) and the antiracist candidate(Hillary), and white voters made their choice.
Only 31% of white male voters voted for Hillary, and only 43% of white female voters did.
Overall whites voted 57% Trump, 37% Hillary, 6% other/third party.
Overall nonwhites voted 74% Hillary, 21% Trump, 5% other/third party.
source: CNN
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)sarah FAILIN
(2,857 posts)There are regular fishing expeditions here to slam one particular race and nobody cares. It is a plot because if they can trick you into posting something that can be misconstrued into something it isn't, they will alert on you and hope to get their group all on the jury so they can delete you. After a few times of this you are automatically kicked out of DU even if what you said was not offensive. Yesterday a post was removed talking about not liking being stuck behind couponers and something about one was arguing over a 15 cent coupon. The intent by some is to drive out anyone they see as different and they are well coordinated.
brush
(53,474 posts)Some totally fell for that absurd identity politics meme pushed as "bad" by someone who will remain nameless (I got alerted on about stating that).
Are they allies of POCs or what? Politics is always about identity, look at the repug party. It's identity is all about white people.
Give us a break here, even with the oft-repeated counter argument from the left that it's all about policy and implementation of policy, we all should know better. It's so reminiscent of the social justice v economic just argument from before.
Anyone with knowledge of this country knows, or should know, that economic justice if actually realized won't be applied equally to POCs until there is actual social justice towards all.
Let's not be naive.
whathehell
(28,969 posts)but that doesn't seem to matter. -- The Race Resentment narrative must go on. Maybe that:s a "drug", too.
:
Iggo
(47,487 posts)lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)That is, obviously, a racist claim, which will very effectively divide core constituencies within the Democratic Party. Hmmm, who do you suppose benefits most from dividing Democrats....?
whathehell
(28,969 posts)dalton99a
(81,068 posts)Last edited Mon Jul 23, 2018, 02:30 AM - Edit history (1)
I hope the appliances have lifetime warranties
ProfessorGAC
(64,425 posts)Appliances? Heaven is about appliances? What an idiot!
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Funny how most of them claim to be devout "Christians".
KitSileya
(4,035 posts)I feel it is important for Democratic Christians not to go all 'no true Scotsman' on these people. While I insistently believe that the racism, misogyny, homophobia and general malevolence they exhibit are not consistent with the values espoused and taught by the Jesus I believe in, it cannot be denied that a large part of those calling themselves Christian in the US are racist, sexist, homophobic, and malevolent towards those who do not belong to their in-group. In fact, they may even be the majority of Christians who are also white Americans. That means that people of color, LGBTQUIA people, immigrants, and women have the right to look askance at any white American Christians until they prove themselves. We are Schrödinger's Christians, and we cannot be angry at those victimized for not trusting us at first sight. Too many of our families, friends, co-workers, and fellow parishioners, even, are Trump/GOP supporters and they look just like us, and worship the same way as us. How are victims, or potential victims to know who among us can be trusted. Saying we are the 'real' Christians is useless - only by our actions can that be proven, and we might not even be the majority of Christians, so who's to say we are the 'real' Christians anyway.
Duppers
(28,094 posts)JI7
(89,176 posts)Aristus
(66,095 posts)are not allowed to interpret the Bible) interpret the Bible...
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)Exhibit #1 being how godamn academic one needs to be to discuss what whiteness even *is* so the people who profit from dont get offended. In that spirit, I offer this:
https://www.ucalgary.ca/cared/whiteness
whathehell
(28,969 posts)conflating that with simple "whiteness" is absurd.
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)The whole concept of a dominant race in the sociology-economic sense, or any other sense, not to mention the reality of it, is fucked up.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)It's just that little group over there.
whathehell
(28,969 posts)of a certain race.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)It's much more accurate than writing it off as right wing evangelical nuttery. Simply writing it off as that is to whitewash the scope of the problem.
whathehell
(28,969 posts). interesting.
NY_20th
(1,028 posts)What are your thoughts on Sheila and Linda's comments?
whathehell
(28,969 posts)Who are Sheila and Linda?
NY_20th
(1,028 posts)Maybe you should read the OP.
whathehell
(28,969 posts)Maybe you should refer to it as "the OP" so the rest of us know what you're talking about.
NY_20th
(1,028 posts)It's disappointing that you are dismissing actual racism.
whathehell
(28,969 posts)and no, I don't confuse Evangelicals who are in FACT, a minority of Chriians, not to mention white people (and NOT all are white)with "real racism" .
NY_20th
(1,028 posts)whathehell
(28,969 posts)Last edited Mon Jul 23, 2018, 04:25 PM - Edit history (1)
as would every other white DUer here...Why do you think we're Democrats?
What I disagree with is that this is just "about being white". If that were true, we'd all be Right wing racist Fundamentalist, which we all CLEARLY are not.
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)When issues very specific to being black and a woman were dismissed by certain people on the left. The #notallwhitepeople mentality stops the self examination and Introspection required to defeat the privileges of whiteness. Saying I am white and I am never racist, I never abet racism and I call it out whenever and wherever I see it is a claim very few white people can make. I am convinced can grow out of racism with a lot of work, but its pretty much a lifes work when you cant see outside your own skin.
whathehell
(28,969 posts)There's no 'dominant" race, there are dominant NUMBERS in given societies.
.The major reason that whites in America are dominant relative to African Americans is because they far out number them. It's a Majority- Minority situation.
,
..
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)you are reducing racism to a numbers game? So can you at least acknowledge the effect of white colonialism?
whathehell
(28,969 posts)I won't even attempt a rational discussion with you.
Goodbye and good luck.
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)Just educated
whathehell
(28,969 posts).So you're "educated", but not rational?.. I'd try that again if I were you.
Garrett78
(10,721 posts)And I'm afraid there are tens of millions just like Linda and Sheila. Fortunately, there are more of us, but we have to overcome voter suppression and Russia.
struggle4progress
(118,041 posts)Garrett78
(10,721 posts)Deprogramming any one of them would be next to impossible. You'd have to get the individual away from their community (that in itself is almost certainly not going to happen), and expose them continually to new experiences and points of view. And the individual would have to be okay with being shunned by their family, friends and other community members (there'd be no going back for that person). I think that's one reason why college is frowned upon by many.
Years ago I read in an article (and I wish I could find it again) that some stunningly high percentage of people who grow up in very small, rural towns never (in their lifetime) venture more than 50 square miles away from their home.
struggle4progress
(118,041 posts)by Gary Denali
What happens when two people who dont know each other, but hate each other, finally meet? ...
Ellis was the Exalted Cyclops of the Klu Klux Klan in Durham, North Carolina. Atwater was a local civil rights activist. This all takes place in 1971, in Durham, NC where, at the time there was a great deal of turmoil cause by court ordered desegretion of the local schools. Motivated by fears of violence, the students organized a 10 day meeting called a charette to solve the problems. Atwater, a welfare mom and Ellis, a klan leader, were asked to co-chair the meetings ...
At the last night of the charrette, 1000 people participated, including Ellis fellow Klan members. At the microphone, Ellis held his Klan membership card up and said: If schools are going to be better by me tearing up this card, I shall do so. Ellis thus renounced the Klan that night and never returned. The remaining Klansmen threatened his life and never talked to him again for the next 30 years.
Ellis and Atwater formed an enduring friendship. He went on to organize black and white labor unions in Durham, and Atwater continued to empower poor people ...
A reformed white racist, he fought for black workers
Christopher Reed
Thu 17 Nov 2005 19.06 EST
... "It finally came to me," he said, "that I had more in common with poor black people than I did with rich white ones" ...
Ellis was born into a poor family in the tobacco and textile town of Durham, North Carolina. His father was a mill worker - and a Ku Klux Klansman who hated blacks, Jews, Roman Catholics and liberals in that order, and taught his son to think the same way ...
He became the Exalted Grand Cyclops .. of the Durham klan and attended city council meetings armed. It was in 1968, at one of these gatherings, that Atwater tried to stab Ellis. They met again in 1971 when they were asked to join a discussion group on educational desegregation. Ellis took a machine gun with him.
To their mutual astonishment, the pair were voted co-chairmen of the meeting, which lasted for 10 days. They spent 12 hours of each day arguing, but gradually found that they agreed on many points. Ellis said he realised they had much in common: poverty, hard work and exploitation by others ...
Civil-Rights Activist, Ex-Klansman C.P. Ellis
November 8, 2005 12:00 AM ET
... Civil rights activist Ann Atwater .. spoke at C.P. Ellis' funeral ...
Ann Atwater, Durham Civil Rights Activist, Dies At 80
By LEONEDA INGE JUN 21, 2016
... In the early 1970s, Atwater's strong voice became paired with that of C.P. Ellis, an Exalted Cyclops, or chief officer, of Durhams Ku Klux Klan. They were enemies, and it was even reported that Atwater "pulled out a pocket knife to try and kill Ellis."
Ellis and Atwater would eventually become friends in the fight to desegregate Durham schools ...
Duppers
(28,094 posts)"BIBLICAL ORTHODOXY WITHOUT COMPASSION IS SURELY THE UGLIEST THING IN THE WORLD."
- FRANCIS SCHAEFFER
struggle4progress
(118,041 posts)if they'd wanted to take the necessary steps. And about 62 million of them did actually vote for Trump: that's around 27%
Supposing 72% of Americans describe themselves as "white," about 165 million "white" Americans were eligible to vote in 2016. And if all 62 million Trump voters were "white," that would mean about 38% of "white" Americans supported Trump
I've done this calculation to give the highest possible percentage for "white" Trump support
pansypoo53219
(20,906 posts)or would she mean just republikans.
whathehell
(28,969 posts)Right Wing Evangelical nuttery to simple "whiteness".
I'm white & they are more "foreign" to me than any skin color could be.
those people might as well be from another planet.
I dont know what whiteness has to do with it, but they are certainly out of their freaking minds.
whathehell
(28,969 posts)rainin
(3,010 posts)Can you imagine that this might be offensive? Does it sound racist to you? Of course, it's racist. Why are we allowing racism on DU?
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)rainin
(3,010 posts)deriving from perceptions about race/skin colour.
STOP stirring up hate for white people. Hate racism, not white people.
Your determination to divide should make anyone reading this thread suspicious of your motives.
tonedevil
(3,022 posts)this is interesting though:
At first glance, it may seem that in common usage in Alberta, the word "white" is used to refer specifically to skin colour or race. Initially, this might seem like reverting back to, or reinforcing, the old (and racist) categories of European imperialism, and in some cases, it may in fact be meant that way. We are profoundly concerned, for example, by the increase in neo-Nazi/white supremacist activity in our province. In our experience, however, we have found that when people refer to "white people" (either in self-identification or identifying individuals/groups), it is in fact being used as a shorthand reference to whiteness, about which people may have varied understandings that you will need to clarify. In other words, it is being used as a shorthand for the privileges/power that people who appear white receive because they are not subjected to the racism faced by people of colour and Indigenous people.
rainin
(3,010 posts)tonedevil
(3,022 posts)so not really at the other posters link, but close enough. They indeed define racial prejudice and clearly anyone can harbor racial prejudice. Did you notice the part where they indicate it takes more to be racism? They have a little mathematical equation to illustrate: Racism = Racial Prejudice + Power. Did you ruminate on that?
rainin
(3,010 posts)I no longer believe that those replying to my comments are discussing in good faith if they can't even acknowledge that. This thread is intended to divide and inflame. Hopefully, the casual reader will see this, too. Racism does not belong on DU.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)Most of us just ignore these threads.
Same posters again and again.
Their motivation is blatantly obvious.
rainin
(3,010 posts)whathehell
(28,969 posts)ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)Race is scientifically insignificant.
Race is a socially constructed category that powerfully attaches meaning to perceptions of skin colour; inequitable social/economic relations are structured and reproduced (including the meanings attached to skin colour) through notions of race, class, gender, and nation.
Whiteness is a set of normative privileges granted to white-skinned individuals and groups; it is normalized in its production/maintenance for those of that group such that its operations are "invisible" to those privileged by it (but not to those oppressed/disadvantaged by it). It has a long history in European imperialism and epistemologies (for those who are of mixed ancestry and "pass" as white, this normativity, I would assume, would not occur).
Distinct but not separate from ideologies and material manifestations of ideologies of class, nation, gender, sexuality, and ability.
The meaning of "whiteness" is historical and has shifted over time (i.e. Irish, Italian, Spanish, Greek and southern European peoples have at times been "raced" as non-white).
Click here to see our glossary definitions of White Fragility, Whiteness, White Privilege/White-Skin Privilege and White Supremacy
whathehell
(28,969 posts)about Confirmation Bias.
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)Its my favorite
whathehell
(28,969 posts)They're mine too..allthough I'm fond of a few.
Amishman
(5,541 posts)I'm getting pretty tired of seeing race dragged into absolutely everything and statements made that would be utterly unacceptable if a different race or ethnicity was inserted.
rainin
(3,010 posts)This thread does not belong on DU IMO.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)As well others may be suspicious of people more upset with the mere discussion of race than racism itself.
There's a lot of that also... though it's often rationalized as something other than what it is; a pretense about divisiveness, for example.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)and this has been extensively discusses here on DU forever. You must have missed those discussionns. This is very much a DU issue.
Prejudice plus power is a stipulative definition of racism often used by anti-racist educators, including the American pastor Joseph Barndt.[1] The definition was first proposed by Patricia Bidol, who, in a 1970 book, defined it as "prejudice plus institutional power."[2]
According to this definition, two elements are required in order for racism to exist: racial prejudice, and social power to codify and enforce this prejudice into an entire society.[1][3] Reasons cited in support of this definition include that power is responsible for the creation of racial categories, and that people favor their own racial groups over others.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power
Racism, however, is more than just prejudice and discrimination combined. Racism is a socially constructed reality at the heart of society¹s structures. Racism is the deliberate structuring of privilege by means of an objective, differential and unequal treatment of people, for the purpose of social advantage over scarce resources, resulting in an ideology of supremacy which justifies power of position by placing a negative meaning on perceived or actual biological/cultural differences.
http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/caleb/racism.html
rainin
(3,010 posts)It's ok because you can't really be a racists unless you're white. Judging white people is different (apparently) because some whites are racists.
All these links are missing the point. I disagree that ALL white people are racist and you aren't giving links to dispute my point. In fact, I believe saying all white people hold any view because they are white is racist.
Either you agree with this, or you are demonstrating racism perfectly.
Racism belongs on DU.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)I don't know where in the world you got that from.
All white people do benefit from racism, though. That is called white privilege.
NY_20th
(1,028 posts)Ignoring it will not make it go away.
whathehell
(28,969 posts)by only one race won't either.
NY_20th
(1,028 posts)G_j
(40,366 posts)Yet the OP title is nothing but divisive.
NY_20th
(1,028 posts)It's a fact that too many white people fail to see racism.
Yes, the comments of Sheila and Linda are very disturbing. When I went to church we used to sing that Jesus loves the little children. ALL the little children of the world.
whathehell
(28,969 posts)Talk about double standards. It's nothing but race-based resentment posing as political "discussion"...Right.
.
I have to wonder why some are trying to divide us.
Iggo
(47,487 posts)Which shouldn't surprise you because in this country Blackness and Whiteness are two completely different experiences.