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Why Whites Hate Affirmative Action
Lack of knowledge on the actual policies. Very few people actually understand the original executive orders, subsequent judicial decisions and legislation beyond sound bites via “news" that is insistent upon painting this as “taking stuff" from Whites for Black people (as if it is “just" about Black people). Honesty, how many White people have reviewed the actual history of why this is needed? It’s almost as rare to find as anyone who calls themselves “patriotic" who has actually read the Constitution or a Christian who has read the Bible. Media soundbites shaped by bigotry (in a White supremacist capitalist patriarchal society) absorbed by many Whites whose life ideologies have been shaped by bigotry is not going to produce the nuance and thought necessary to understand affirmative action. (Even so, these two simple, non in-depth cartoons explain this almost as well as the complex legalese: 1 and 2.)
Anti-intellectualism. Piggybacking on the first point, the current culture of anti-intellectualism doesn’t encourage most White people (and Americans at large) to actually investigate things they are “for" or “against." It’s much simpler to decide to be “for" anything shaped by a legacy of White supremacy and White privilege and against anything that appears to be contrary to the former. Whites are used to being a “baseline," the “norm," or not considered a group at all, but those whom other groups are compared to. Sociopolitically, many Whites are having a “day of reckoning" moment by even being classified as a “group," or a “race" as Tom Scocca pointed out so well in a recent article about Romney’s overwhelming support from Whites. These factors contribute to the resistance to affirmative action.
Ahistorical views on race. If a White person takes the "why isn’t there a White history month" and "why isn’t there a White Entertainment Television station" stances on Whites and the media, it can be safely assumed that they are either uneducated or being willfully ignorant about the role of race in America and why certain spaces exist for Black people amidst the media, public discourse and culture itself. By pretending that the tide of history has no racial element, they can then infer that if everyone “is equal" (as if being equal means being treated equally) Black people are “unfairly" getting “goodies" through affirmative action. This also ignores the fact that even with said theoretical "goodies," unemployment, health care, finances, real estate, and more is markedly worse for Black people (and other people of colour) versus White. The latter is written off as Black “character failures" in the ever so common victim blaming ideologies such as American “exceptionalism" and even “patriotism" at times. This is where LIES about "poverty culture" come about as a way to praise greed, wealth and Whiteness and demonize suffering, poverty and Blackness.
the rest: http://www.gradientlair.com/post/36223829489/why-whites-hate-affirmative-action
Anti-intellectualism. Piggybacking on the first point, the current culture of anti-intellectualism doesn’t encourage most White people (and Americans at large) to actually investigate things they are “for" or “against." It’s much simpler to decide to be “for" anything shaped by a legacy of White supremacy and White privilege and against anything that appears to be contrary to the former. Whites are used to being a “baseline," the “norm," or not considered a group at all, but those whom other groups are compared to. Sociopolitically, many Whites are having a “day of reckoning" moment by even being classified as a “group," or a “race" as Tom Scocca pointed out so well in a recent article about Romney’s overwhelming support from Whites. These factors contribute to the resistance to affirmative action.
Ahistorical views on race. If a White person takes the "why isn’t there a White history month" and "why isn’t there a White Entertainment Television station" stances on Whites and the media, it can be safely assumed that they are either uneducated or being willfully ignorant about the role of race in America and why certain spaces exist for Black people amidst the media, public discourse and culture itself. By pretending that the tide of history has no racial element, they can then infer that if everyone “is equal" (as if being equal means being treated equally) Black people are “unfairly" getting “goodies" through affirmative action. This also ignores the fact that even with said theoretical "goodies," unemployment, health care, finances, real estate, and more is markedly worse for Black people (and other people of colour) versus White. The latter is written off as Black “character failures" in the ever so common victim blaming ideologies such as American “exceptionalism" and even “patriotism" at times. This is where LIES about "poverty culture" come about as a way to praise greed, wealth and Whiteness and demonize suffering, poverty and Blackness.
the rest: http://www.gradientlair.com/post/36223829489/why-whites-hate-affirmative-action
22 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Best way to fix it? Change the channel to BET and make them watch an hour of the programming and commercials on it, then ask, "Think that's doing black people any favors, you knucklehead?"
Then point out BET is owned by this guy:
EVERY month was white history month. 
It DOES make a difference. 
That is a really good question/point to make when confronted with that stupidity.
