Current Affairs George Floyd and Minneapolis Unrest

[RAFUH]

 

[Death]

Why must people continue to label and divide people? Im a big believer of how can we end racism and discrimination in general when we still continue to divide each other based on colour/religion/sexual orientation etc.

ALL LIVES MATTER

Sooner we all come together and end this petty "I identify as this" the better for humanity.

 

[RAFUH]

Long overdue, but what's happening now has opened the eyes of those who didn't realize/chose not to realize the injustices out there. There may now be enough support nationwide, if not a clear supermajority in the South, to get these things removed everywhere.

Pessimist in me says the daughters/son of confederacy organizations moved the monuments to preserve them not out of any change of heart or they would also announce the dissolution of their organizations.

But I'll take having them off public land

 

[Ruairi77]

here's another one for UK people trying to get their head around whats going on.
Soldiers from fort Bragg have been deployed to DC for riot control.
So if you are a black protester, you might be facing off with soldiers from fort Bragg.
@RAFUH may know more about this given it's location.
Fort Bragg is the biggest military instillation in the world with some 25,000 inhabitants.
It's named for Braxton Bragg who left the US army to become a slave owner on a sugar plantation in Louisiana.
After the outbreak of the civil war, he became a general in the confederate army and fought against the US army so he could keep the right to own black people.
Now the biggest military base in the world, that serves the army he fought against, is named after him.

 

[ForeverBlue92]

If you're white, you won't experience discrimination due to your skin colour.

That is white privilege. The absence of that form of discrimination.

This isn't hard to understand.

Discrimination exists in many forms - just because you are white doesn't mean you have some mystical free pass (look at the victims of the grooming gangs in Rotherham etc who were largely white working class girls and targetted as such).

I could relate to a black lad who grew up on my estate alot more than some posh white guy who grew up in some leafy surburb in the South.

But even that in itself is grouping people based on upbringing.

 

[tsubaki]

The fact is you do have white privilege. You may not have had economic privilege in your eyes but as a white male in society you do have privilege that others who don’t look like you don’t.

I don’t want to move the discussion on too much because I think it’s important that we focus on racism but to ask you some questions about some of the privileges you’ve had that you might not think about.

have you ever had to reconsider what you are wearing for a night out as you feel your outfit night give the wrong impression?

have you ever had worry about being able to access a toilet when you go shopping?

have you ever had to worry about violence if you show a public display of affection with a partner?

Now imagine a black, lesbian, woman with a disability living next door to you and then consider what their experience might be and whether you’ve had privilege.

I’m just beginning to explore these things and frankly some of them are difficult and uncomfortable to realise. But that’s the way it is. Some of these truths are uncomfortable.

TBF the whole privilege argument is one that is questionable even in a US context, never mind over here where class has always been a much more significant dividing line. As an argument its frequently abused, usually by the very people who seek to promote and entrench divisions within the working class.

Yes, people who are visibly different to what society deems as "normal" are frequently treated differently, invariably negatively. However all those instances you cite are not examples of privilege; they aren't "white folks get to do X whereas noone else does", which is what would be required for them to have a position of privilege.

What many poor white folk have would be best described as invisibility - they aren't discriminated against on the grounds of race / disability / religion (though they often are because of their class and lack of wealth), but thats about it. That is why something like the opioid epidemic, or even something like the obesity crisis can come along, actually reduce life expectancy amongst that social group in the US and yet noone gives a toss.

 

[SerenityNigh]

Surely a lot of what you said would apply to a white lesbian women with a disability tho.

A discussion on intersectionality would satisfy this question, but I'm not qualified to provide such. But generally yes, every person faces certain privileges and prejudices based on their position/status/identity/etc. For most whites in Western cultures, this provides a significant privilege in most situations. You don't even have to apply for the benefits, you just get them.

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

Pessimist in me says the daughters/son of confederacy organizations moved the monuments to preserve them not out of any change of heart or they would also announce the dissolution of their organizations.

But I'll take having them off public land

I"m talking about a change in the narrative where, even if you're in the South, you're going to get to the point where you realize it's not sending the right message and needs to be taken down. Or there will be enough support nationally that it would be a federal mandate

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

I never really got the historical impact of race in US society until I met my friend who is a bi sexual african american woman from the south. Honestly, her background informs almost everything about how she goes about her life. Case in point: She had a real problem with noisy neighbours last year for months... Would NOT call the police, wanted nothing to do with the police because she's terrified of them.

Her brother is doing 10 years for small time weed deals. You think a middle class white kid dealing a little on the side is going to jail for a decade?

Her mum was homeless for about 6 months and managing chronic diabetes at the same time due to losing her job

Just 4 months ago, her school friend was shot dead by an off duty cop who mistook him for a housebreaker. He was in the house at the invitation of the murderers ex wife to teach her Excel. He showed up uninvited, let himself in, saw a black man in the kitchen and shot him four times in the back.

 

[Pettifogger]

I"m talking about a change in the narrative where, even if you're in the South, you're going to get to the point where you realize it's not sending the right message and needs to be taken down. Or there will be enough support nationally that it would be a federal mandate

I, for one, don't care if we change the name of streets named for people in the confederacy. It seems somewhat silly to hang on to those things.

I do care about actual things of historical significance or art being destroyed. If it's some segregation-era "FU" thing, not as much.

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

TBF the whole privilege argument is one that is questionable even in a US context, never mind over here where class has always been a much more significant dividing line. As an argument its frequently abused, usually by the very people who seek to promote and entrench divisions within the working class.

Yes, people who are visibly different to what society deems as "normal" are frequently treated differently, invariably negatively. However all those instances you cite are not examples of privilege; they aren't "white folks get to do X whereas noone else does", which is what would be required for them to have a position of privilege.

What many poor white folk have would be best described as invisibility - they aren't discriminated against on the grounds of race / disability / religion (though they often are because of their class and lack of wealth), but thats about it. That is why something like the opioid epidemic, or even something like the obesity crisis can come along, actually reduce life expectancy amongst that social group in the US and yet noone gives a toss.

The way America was built, literally on the backs of black people "working" for free at the behest of a white overlord, definitely makes the issue much great here than in other European nations. European countries just colonized other nations and enslaved them there and didn't take them back home like the US did.

Obviously I'm making grandiose statement here for effect, but this is why in America this is an issue that's been waiting to explode

 

[Hickson9]

Discrimination exists in many forms - just because you are white doesn't mean you have some mystical free pass.

I could relate to a black lad who grew up on my estate alot more than some posh white guy who grew up in some leafy surburb in the South.

But even that in itself is grouping people based on upbringing.

This isn't hard and you can't muddy the waters.

I'll say it again for you.

I was clear that being white means you won't suffer discrimination due to your skin colour. The absence of that form (singular) of discrimination is your white privilege.

To be even clearer, obviously people suffer different types of discrimination all of the time. That isn't relevant here.

This is specifically about the issue of racial inequality.

 

[TheBigEasy]

Black Lives Matter because what goes without saying is that it's obvious that white lives matter.

So there's no need for All Lives Matter.

Get it?

Think about it as Black Lives (Also) Matter

Not at all.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

I, for one, don't care if we change the name of streets named for people in the confederacy. It seems somewhat silly to hang on to those things.

I do care about actual things of historical significance or art being destroyed. If it's some segregation-era "FU" thing, not as much.

Most of the statues we have been discussing were erected in the Jim Crow era.

This is good (and funny!) on the topic

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

I, for one, don't care if we change the name of streets named for people in the confederacy. It seems somewhat silly to hang on to those things.

I do care about actual things of historical significance or art being destroyed. If it's some segregation-era "FU" thing, not as much.

The reasons those statues exist is because of a segregation era FU thing.

That's when the majority of them went up. It was all about Jim Crow laws

It's like when people don't realize that In God We Trust came about in the 50s