To not see color is to say everything is fine with ME, that doesn’t mean it’s fine with everyone else.
Except that basically just erases that aspect of itneractions that colored how black people have experienced discrimination and still do in modern America, that's naive to act like race doesn't exist or doesn't matter, both of which are incredibly damaging and a sign that you're trying to diminish that situation, similar to some idea of claiming All Lives Matter, diminishing the struggles of black people
I wasn’t talking about acknowledging race in a way that embraces the diversity, I was talking about the fixation on race many of the racists and race baiters use to divide us into a hierarchy of intersectionality victimhood.
No one is saying that remotely as specifically as you claim, that sounds like outright fabrications and misunderstandings of intersectionality as bringing up systemic disparity and problems, not necessarily malicious in intent at all, like redlining back in the 30s that we've supposed been rendering null. But it doesn't stop the fact that many black families couldn't accrue wealth or pass it on as easily as white families in the green line districts
Just so we’re clear, explain “whiteness” and given example of how it is different from blackness, brownness, or some other type of color-ness.
Not sure why I have to do this again, you keep prevaricating and acting like it's some mystery when whiteness is linked to societal constructs that, while variable, still have underlying consistencies of being linked to "Caucasian" groups. Are you saying one could just look and not be able to tell if someone is white or even possibly biracial with white elements? One can have elements of whiteness, but it doesn't necessarily give you privilege in terms of appearance if you don't really manifest it that much (multiracial versus biracial, the genetics getting more complex if say, two biracial people marry or a biracial person marries a person of one of their races, their child more likely to appear more like their parent that isn't biracial)
I’m not suggesting we forget the history of racism in this country, I’m suggesting you guys quit trying to make us into perpetual victims for life! I am a product of my past, not a prisoner of it.
No one is making you a prisoner of it, because acknowledging the past is not imprisoning yourself, it's considering that there can be systemic problems that are enabled only by acting like history wasn't as bad as it was or that our "changes" have changed systemic realities of wealth accruement, etc, for non white families, as I pointed out above with red lining and the after effects. This isn't about victimhood, this is about acknowledging a problem and trying to fix it
I could be said to struggle as a white person and part of that is because of my privilege making me think things will just be okay for me, that I won't have difficulty getting a job, or that me having potential mental disabilities that make it hard for me to work won't be such a problem. This isn't necessarily just a problem that affects black people, though they're affected more disproportionately in many ways, while a privileged white person can suffer in more particular fashions, the system bad for everyone in that it tries to act like there aren't elements that have a racial factor even if there are also elements that are about corporate greed, political lobbyists, etc, that aren't racial, but economic plutocracy and the like
Generational wealth is something that was taken from us, but in today’s society with 80% of rich being first generation rich, generational wealth is not as much of an issue that it used to be. And when you consider African Immigrants (1st and 2nd generation) out perform native black americans in education as well as economic wealth, (Nigerians even out preform white people; on par with Asians) one has to consider perhaps culture is the problem, not generational wealth.
"Rich" sounds awfully subjective then if you're appealing to first generation African Americans as some example when, I'm pretty sure that's not the case for families that can trace their lineage back, we'd be lucky if a third generation black family from the 60s onwards would have amassed nearly as much wealth as a white family since the Civil War.
And I'm not talking about "rich" necessarily in terms of accumulated wealth, I'm talking an accruement that can be passed onto children in terms of education, etc. Black families don't appear to have that advantage and my experience in the South is not necessarily a good thing in that we were easily 90% white, barely 10% black, Hispanic, etc. And with a racist mascot of the Confederacy's "Rebel", that didn't help things, fights happening not just between black students, but white students as well (not really black versus white, thankfully, at least not that I remember)
Non sequitur: immigrants are an entirely different factor because of their ethnic origin and national origin as well. Culture in terms of America marginalized black people, mocked them for centuries with minstrel shows, dehumanizing them as slaves, as workers to be exploited for white profits in the South in particular. Even the North had its share of that issue with redlining and making it so schools were basically segregated even post integration in the 60s because the black families were stuck in other neighborhoods where the schools couldn't get proper funding because of lower property values, etc.
I never said I don’t notice people’s differences, I said I don’t prejudge people based on their appearance.
You can consciously try, it doesn't mean you're going to be divested of any biases from societal conditioning, however subtle it might be. I'm enjoying the new black Batwoman, for instance, but I can't claim I still don't have bad stereotypes in my subconscious about black people, in no small part because of my lack of exposure to many black people until I was in college.
Why would you assume I judge people harshly based strictly on their appearance? Is it because you judge people this way? If so, don’t assume your bigotry is everybody’s bigotry, everybody is not like you; I’m not like you.
I didn't say you were judging them harshly, but that there are going to be biases that we don't always recognize in terms of a society that still has that tendency to favor one racial group over another, even if they're trying to be better. It's why we have those issues in regards to whitewashing or even tokenization of minorities even just within race as a group, let alone others (token gay is another can of worms). We're working on it, but when we dismiss the problem or act like it's not so bad, that's turning a blind eye to the embers that can start another fire and decide, "Meh, I don't see a fire, I guess there's no danger"
And I don't claim I judge harshly based on appearance either, but that I cannot escape that psychologically, I do that as much as anyone, we're very dependent on visual input for judgment about anything, it's why stereotypes are a thing societally, it's expediency that creates an ease, but it also creates negative outcomes even with positive stereotypes about black people (like they're athletic or other things that can be spun that way).
