Racism on display at University of Virginia

[ThatRobGuy]

History of what?

History of the impact of black-target racism vs. white-targeted racism.

Certain black people not liking me because I'm white has never led to me getting pulled over anywhere or having neighborhood residents calling the cops because I "didn't look like I belonged" in a particular neighborhood.

It's never led to mall security following me and watching me like a hawk because of the assumption that I'm "up to no good" or am going to steal something simply because of a stereotype.

Why do white people make her uncomfortable?

In general? or in certain venues & environments?

The former would be tough to say. Could be that certain parts of Virginia aren't known for being very tolerant of non-whites. The multicultural center was created in the first place because of a white guy roughing up a black girl who was running for student council... The university is also located in the same city where, 2 years ago, a bunch of dudes showed up with confederate flags (many of them being armed) to yell racial slurs and show their anger about the removal of confederate monuments

For latter, in certain venues and circumstances, that one's easy. If the multicultural center, up until it moved, was mostly people of color, and was used for a collaborative support space or marginalized groups (as originally laid out by the school...their original statement of purpose was “student-centered, collaborative space that supports underrepresented and marginalized communities "

As noted by other students, white kids didn't seem to have any interest in going for the first 3 years it was in existence, they only started wanting to go there after it was moved to a nicer venue. I understand that it's always been "open to everyone", but if the prior 3 years, no white people ever went to it, it probably did feel like a safe space for them to talk about their issues.

I'd liken it to the scenario of a woman who'd just been sexually assaulted, going to the police station to file the report, being more comfortable discussing that with female officers, in a somewhat more private setting rather than in front of a room full of men. Her being uncomfortable talking about that in front of a bunch of men doesn't necessarily equate to her hating men.

She's a UVA student just like her peers. She has the same rights and privileges as them.

Yes, much like I and a black guy my same age would have the same rights and privileges on paper if we were both citizens of a rural town in South Carolina. However, we'd have a very different life experience in terms of reality and everyday life.

 

[rambot]

So first off, it's disappointing but not surprising that this needs to be pointed out:
* She did not say anyone had to leave. She didn't even ASK any one to leave.

What she asked is that the white people there be cognizant that there are people of colour who are uncomfortable around large groups of white folks.


To be clear I'm not saying I agree with her, or that she doesn't have her own things to deal with. But if we're going to cast aspersions on someone, you better dang well make sure you are not misrepresenting them.

 

[Aldebaran]

I was referring to this comment you made:

It just goes to show that diversity, multiculturalism and equality are for everyone but whites. It's nice when they finally open up and become honest about it and stop hiding behind, "We just want equal rights!" when they actually see themselves as more "equal" than the rest of us.

...and that comment falls in line with my assessment from earlier.

Which was:
Seems like this is a case of someone (possibly secretly?) recording her as a means to somehow "discredit" or "debunk" the underlying message of a particular movement, as a whole, by finding an extreme example to somehow prove "it's actually white people who are the victims of racism".

You seemingly did the exact thing I said...which was link a video that highlights an extreme scenario, and then proceeded to tried to discredit an entire movement.

I wouldn't say that the video was an "extreme" example. If she and a bunch of other people were standing outside the multicultural center and waving signs and chanting "No more white people!", then it could be considered to be more extreme. In this case, we have an example of someone representing what is traditionally considered to be the "victim" side doing exactly what they accuse white people of doing.

But here's another way of looking at it even if what's in the video really is an extreme example: How many more examples no doubt exist that are more moderate, or even subtle? If black people can exhibit extreme examples of racism, then more mainstream examples are more abundant.

 

[Ana the Ist]

History of the impact of black-target racism vs. white-targeted racism.

Certain black people not liking me because I'm white has never led to me getting pulled over anywhere or having neighborhood residents calling the cops because I "didn't look like I belonged" in a particular neighborhood.

It's never led to mall security following me and watching me like a hawk because of the assumption that I'm "up to no good" or am going to steal something simply because of a stereotype.

Wow...ok...this is good, we're making progress here.

This a pretty bad argument for a number of reasons...but I'll just try to stick to the big ones.

Firstly, since you're invoking the history of racism here I'll do the same. Slavery, Jim Crow, redlining....these oppressive practices didn't magically spring into existence on their own. They all began with the general acceptance of racist ideas. What do you think this girl is going to do when she graduates? Magically stop being racist? Why? She's openly racist...and she's got people applauding her. She's got people like yourself downplaying and dismissing her racism. She probably doesn't even believe she can be racist.

When is the time to push back against her racism? After she's the head of HR, a manager, recruiter, cop, judge, mayor, or legislator? What exactly is the argument going to be then?

"Hey, you know how everyone was cool with you being racist against whites while you were in college?...Well...kindly stop now."

Dismissing and downplaying this kind of racism now is how it becomes a societal norm....and once it's a societal norm, that's when all that oppression that you're concerned about happens. Surely you're aware of this and I don't need to give examples of racist ideas from the past.

In general? or in certain venues & environments?

The former would be tough to say. Could be that certain parts of Virginia aren't known for being very tolerant of non-whites. The multicultural center was created in the first place because of a white guy roughing up a black girl who was running for student council... The university is also located in the same city where, 2 years ago, a bunch of dudes showed up with confederate flags (many of them being armed) to yell racial slurs and show their anger about the removal of confederate monuments
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For latter, in certain venues and circumstances, that one's easy. If the multicultural center, up until it moved, was mostly people of color, and was used for a collaborative support space or marginalized groups (as originally laid out by the school...their original statement of purpose was “student-centered, collaborative space that supports underrepresented and marginalized communities "

This is a bizarre rationale that I don't think you'd accept for any other racist behavior. If a black student attacked a white student....would white students suddenly be entitled to a safe space from black students? Would they be justifiably "uncomfortable" around black students?

The existence of some racist white people somewhere doesn't justify racism against whites....nor does it entitle anyone to exclude white students from university spaces. It's just a bizarre argument. She wasn't even a student when this supposed attack happened on campus, was she?

I daresay you'd think it racist if someone told you "Hey, I was once mugged by a black guy so now I'm uncomfortable around black people." Right? You certainly wouldn't say they're entitled to exclude black people in general because of it?

This is never going to be a valid excuse for racism. As for the statement of purpose for the MSC...it doesn't exclude any student for their race or any other reason. I can only assume you're aware of that so I'm not sure why you keep bringing it up. If black students mistakenly thought it was intended to exclude whites....that's their fault....not the fault of white students.

As noted by other students, white kids didn't seem to have any interest in going for the first 3 years it was in existence, they only started wanting to go there after it was moved to a nicer venue. I understand that it's always been "open to everyone", but if the prior 3 years, no white people ever went to it, it probably did feel like a safe space for them to talk about their issues.

The irony that seems to be going over your head is that it's extremely unlikely that any of those non-white students have ever been excluded from anywhere in the university solely because of their skin color. I also sincerely doubt they've had one of their peers openly express racist feelings towatds them and be applauded for it.

If the college culture is openly accepting and even applauding or dismissing racism against whites....what other group is more deserving of a safe space? Isn't that exactly what being marginalized is all about?

I'd liken it to the scenario of a woman who'd just been sexually assaulted, going to the police station to file the report, being more comfortable discussing that with female officers, in a somewhat more private setting rather than in front of a room full of men. Her being uncomfortable talking about that in front of a bunch of men doesn't necessarily equate to her hating men.

I hope this is just a really sloppy and poorly thought out analogy. Surely you don't mean to compare sexual assault with being in the mere vicinity of white people.

I'll play along though...if said woman were to then proclaim that she was uncomfortable around men in general from the point of her sexual assault on....then the appropriate response is for her to seek psychiatric or therapeutic treatment so that she's no longer uncomfortable around men. She should be trying to change her negative viewpoint and move past her sexual assault. She certainly wouldn't be entitled to discriminate against men from that point on.

If the student in OP was genuinely trying to change her racist feelings...that might be worthy of some consideration. That's not the case though...she appears to be proud of her racist feelings and judging by her tweets and the tweets from her friend, it seems far more likely that they just want a place to be racist against whites without any concern for being confronted by them.

Yes, much like I and a black guy my same age would have the same rights and privileges on paper if we were both citizens of a rural town in South Carolina. However, we'd have a very different life experience in terms of reality and everyday life.

You and anyone have very different life experiences...it doesn't matter what race they are.

 

[Ana the Ist]

So first off, it's disappointing but not surprising that this needs to be pointed out:
* She did not say anyone had to leave. She didn't even ASK any one to leave.

What she asked is that the white people there be cognizant that there are people of colour who are uncomfortable around large groups of white folks.


To be clear I'm not saying I agree with her, or that she doesn't have her own things to deal with. But if we're going to cast aspersions on someone, you better dang well make sure you are not misrepresenting them.

This is a pretty generous interpretation of her statement.

What exactly do you think she meant by "There's too many white people in here...this is a space for people of color."?

She's saying that she doesn't like being around white people, because it makes her uncomfortable, and she'd like it if they left.

That's the most generous interpretation I can give her.

 

[Aldebaran]

This is a pretty generous interpretation of her statement.

What exactly do you think she meant by "There's too many white people in here...this is a space for people of color."?

She's saying that she doesn't like being around white people, because it makes her uncomfortable, and she'd like it if they left.

That's the most generous interpretation I can give her.

One thing that's being missed is the fact that "multicultural" should mean that it's a place where people can be where they feel welcome. The fact that there are so many white people there (by choice!) should indicate that such a place isn't really all that necessary. White people are clearly not being racist if they are there mingling with people of other races. The entire campus could be considered multicultural in the fact that people of multiple cultures are there and engaging each other without having to go to a place specifically designated for it.

The thing we're seeing now is that racism still exists where it's not normally acknowledged; in people who are not white. Even so, a multicultural center is not needed. Recognition that we're of many different cultures and races and that we already get along together is what is needed.

 

[Ana the Ist]

One thing that's being missed is the fact that "multicultural" should mean that it's a place where people can be where they feel welcome.

It definitely should mean that....

Increasingly though, it seems like certain terms such as multicultural or diverse are really just racist dog whistles for some people who want to exclude whites or have less of them around.

 

[rambot]

This is a pretty generous interpretation of her statement.

What exactly do you think she meant by "There's too many white people in here...this is a space for people of color."?

She's saying that she doesn't like being around white people, because it makes her uncomfortable, and she'd like it if they left.

That's the most generous interpretation I can give her.

No no. It is the words she used.

That she asked people to leave is not an unreasonable inference but it is NOT what she said.

I like using actual words. Like when Trump said Mexico is sending rapists and drug dealers and that SOME of them are good people.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Wow...ok...this is good, we're making progress here.

This a pretty bad argument for a number of reasons...but I'll just try to stick to the big ones.

Firstly, since you're invoking the history of racism here I'll do the same. Slavery, Jim Crow, redlining....these oppressive practices didn't magically spring into existence on their own. They all began with the general acceptance of racist ideas. What do you think this girl is going to do when she graduates? Magically stop being racist? Why? She's openly racist...and she's got people applauding her. She's got people like yourself downplaying and dismissing her racism. She probably doesn't even believe she can be racist.

The key distinction to make is whether or not one's racial apprehensions comes from a place of foisting a position of racial superiority on others...or if it comes as a reactionary response of being the target of the aforementioned kind for an extended period of time.


Allow me to make another analogy (because I do enjoy my analogies )

Let's say you had red hair, and I (and the majority of the community we lived in) had blonde hair, and for one reason or another, we were all brought up hearing that redheads are inferior, and as a result, you and the other very few redheads in town lived in misery for 100 years as a result (violence, job discrimination, police profiling, etc...), and that was your life experience from the time you could remember, up through adulthood.

It'd be understandable for you to have a negative association with people who have blonde hair...even if legislation had been passed preventing hair discrimination, that wouldn't "wipe the slate clean" so to speak.

So it'd be perfectly understandable if you still had some apprehensions about blonde people (and maybe even some feelings of anger). That anger would be exacerbated by blonde people being dismissive of your feelings, and claiming that you didn't have a right to be angry, and that the residual negativity you still experience were somehow "your own fault".

If an outsider were assessing that situation, it'd be too blunt an instrument to simply say "Well, all hair color discrimination is wrong" because it doesn't delve into the vastly different place those feelings are coming from.

The irony that seems to be going over your head is that it's extremely unlikely that any of those non-white students have ever been excluded from anywhere in the university solely because of their skin color. I also sincerely doubt they've had one of their peers openly express racist feelings towatds them and be applauded for it.

It's not that anything is going over my head, it's people are operating on the false premise that somehow the slate was wiped completely clean with regards to racial disparities when that's not even close to being the case.

In America, black apprehension about white people isn't coming from the same place as white apprehension about black people, and the two notions aren't even remotely close to being on the same playing field. Both notions may be incorrect sweeping generalizations that attempt to judge individuals by the actions of the collective (which is wrong), but to pretend that the catalyst is the same is incorrect.

I hope this is just a really sloppy and poorly thought out analogy. Surely you don't mean to compare sexual assault with being in the mere vicinity of white people.

I'll play along though...if said woman were to then proclaim that she was uncomfortable around men in general from the point of her sexual assault on....then the appropriate response is for her to seek psychiatric or therapeutic treatment so that she's no longer uncomfortable around men.

Didn't say she was uncomfortable around all men, just that she'd be more comfortable discussing a sensitive women's issue with other women.

That comfort level of "discussing sensitive things with people who can sympathize" isn't unique to racial issues. There's a reason why the majority of any form of support group involves meeting with other people who've faced similar circumstances or have a lot in common with them.

There's a reason why drug addiction support groups aren't comprised of 1 or 2 recovering drug addicts, and 30 people, who've never been addicted to drugs, ganging up on them and telling them "it's your own fault", and "you just need to stop doing it".

You and anyone have very different life experiences...it doesn't matter what race they are.

Probably, however...when it comes to racial disparities, there are some key systemic factors at play that have some more impactful effects than other forms of disparities.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I wouldn't say that the video was an "extreme" example. If she and a bunch of other people were standing outside the multicultural center and waving signs and chanting "No more white people!", then it could be considered to be more extreme. In this case, we have an example of someone representing what is traditionally considered to be the "victim" side doing exactly what they accuse white people of doing.

But here's another way of looking at it even if what's in the video really is an extreme example: How many more examples no doubt exist that are more moderate, or even subtle? If black people can exhibit extreme examples of racism, then more mainstream examples are more abundant.

Being that everyone has a camera phone these days, and there's never a shortage of people uploading videos of things that they feel help them make some sort of political case...the fact that this is the first instance of this to show up on social media shows that it's not exactly "the norm"

Like I mentioned in my reply to the other poster, not all racial apprehensions come from the same place.

Even if you want to label it as "hatred", it's incorrect to assume that in the case of bidirectional "hatred", both sides are coming from the same place.

If Joe was raised to hate and mistreat Billy (beat him up for years on end) without provocation or any good reason other than being taught that Billy was inferior, there's a good chance that Billy will end up hating Joe.

To simply give the ten thousand feet assessment of "well, you two...all hatred is wrong" and chastise them both as if both of their feelings of animus are equally invalid would be ignoring a lot of history and context.

 

[Ana the Ist]

No no. It is the words she used.

That she asked people to leave is not an unreasonable inference but it is NOT what she said.

I like using actual words. Like when Trump said Mexico is sending rapists and drug dealers and that SOME of them are good people.

That's remarkable....why it puts into context every accusation of "they called the police because they're racist" in a new light because none of those people actually said they were calling the police because of someone's race.

You must think racism is dead in the US.

 

[Ken-1122]

Seems like this is a case of someone (possibly secretly?) recording her as a means to somehow "discredit" or "debunk" the underlying message of a particular movement, as a whole, by finding an extreme example to somehow prove "it's actually white people who are the victims of racism".

Actually this is an example of white people being victims of racism.

I think when discussing these topics, it's important to "cut through the bull excrement", so to speak.

These kinds of "gotcha journalism" moments are examples of people trying to discredit a movement they don't like. (not saying what she said wasn't wrong, but let's not be silly here...it's blatantly obvious what someone's trying to do when they post a video like this on YouTube and says "look at the racism against white people!")

They have a good reason to dislike this type of movement. Any movement that allows such bigotry to go unchallenged deserves to be discredited.

When looking at any equality movement (gender, race, religious, whatever...), the movements are typically focused on bolstering up groups that have typically been on the losing end of inequality. Which makes perfect sense.

The problem with these type of “equality movements” is they will often attract bigots and racists regardless of how innocent their original intent; hence this woman feeling comfortable expressing her racist and bigoted views.

This is no different than when men, who are upset about women's equality movements (due to the fact that it threatens their societal status of superiority and they were comfortable with the status quo arrangement of Men > Women), scour the web finding cases of extreme feminists trashing men, and then claiming that "feminism is about man-hating!".

Any feminist movement that allows man hating to go unchallenged, deserves to be trashed!

If someone is so dense that they really can't understand why, in the US, gender equality movements are focused on women, racial/multicultural equality movements are focused on non-whites, and religious equality movements are focused on minority religions, then they're either being deliberately naive, or they're just bitter about the prospect of having to lose their status of superiority.

Let's not be disingenuous here, folks... We know why the concept of "Whites are the victims of racism" and "Mens rights activism" are silly, don't we?

Racism and bigotry affects everybody; even white men. If you cannot see that; you are a part of the problem!

 

[Ken-1122]

So first off, it's disappointing but not surprising that this needs to be pointed out:
* She did not say anyone had to leave. She didn't even ASK any one to leave.

What she asked is that the white people there be cognizant that there are people of colour who are uncomfortable around large groups of white folks..

That is as wrong as it would be if a white person asked people of colour to be cognizant that there are white people who are uncomfortable around large groups of people of colour. And shame on you for trying to justify it.

 

[Ana the Ist]

The key distinction to make is whether or not one's racial apprehensions comes from a place of foisting a position of racial superiority on others...or if it comes as a reactionary response of being the target of the aforementioned kind for an extended period of time.

It seems presumptuous and...even racist...to make broad generalizations about her life based on nothing more than her skin color.

That said, yeah...she appears to be taking a position of racial superiority. If the reason she's "uncomfortable" around whites (so uncomfortable she has no problem standing in front of them and trying to racially exclude them lol) is because she has experienced racism from whites....

....then the mere fact that she believes it's morally acceptable for her to be racist towards whites indicates that she believes she is morally superior by virtue of her race.

It's literally holding a particular race to a moral standard that you don't hold yourself to. Moral inferiority, I'm sure you know, is one of the oldest pro-slavery arguments their is. Southern slave owners claimed that without any white people in control of the black population...they would descend into savagery and moral decay.

Allow me to make another analogy (because I do enjoy my analogies )

Let's say you had red hair, and I (and the majority of the community we lived in) had blonde hair, and for one reason or another, we were all brought up hearing that redheads are inferior, and as a result, you and the other very few redheads in town lived in misery for 100 years as a result (violence, job discrimination, police profiling, etc...), and that was your life experience from the time you could remember, up through adulthood.

It'd be understandable for you to have a negative association with people who have blonde hair...even if legislation had been passed preventing hair discrimination, that wouldn't "wipe the slate clean" so to speak.

So it'd be perfectly understandable if you still had some apprehensions about blonde people (and maybe even some feelings of anger). That anger would be exacerbated by blonde people being dismissive of your feelings, and claiming that you didn't have a right to be angry, and that the residual negativity you still experience were somehow "your own fault".

If an outsider were assessing that situation, it'd be too blunt an instrument to simply say "Well, all hair color discrimination is wrong" because it doesn't delve into the vastly different place those feelings are coming from.

Fascinating. If she was 60 years old or so....yeah, I'd understand the apprehension and possibly even distrust of white people. It's still racist of course...but understandable.

As it is, I doubt she was born any later than the mid 90s. She hasn't lived through any widespread oppression (at least, I've no reason to believe she has). I'm not saying she hasn't run into some racist people....we all have. If she's generalizing the entire white race based upon the behavior of a few white individuals....she's just racist.

It's not that anything is going over my head, it's people are operating on the false premise that somehow the slate was wiped completely clean with regards to racial disparities when that's not even close to being the case.

Sorry....racial disparities? Only a year or two ago the New York Times did a rather in-depth article about a study charting the income data for basically all white and black people in the US. One of the major findings was that black women were just as financially successful as white women at every single income level (if you want to get technical, black women actually do slightly better) for the past 30 years.

Let's see...I'm sure the internet still has that chart....

So if you want to believe that black women are somehow suffering miserably under the thumb of white oppression....well....the facts seem to disagree. I know economics aren't everything....but it seems like the kind of oppression you're talking about would have some impact on income.

In America, black apprehension about white people isn't coming from the same place as white apprehension about black people, and the two notions aren't even remotely close to being on the same playing field.

Racism is racism. Do you think white people are morally inferior? If not...why are you holding them to a different moral standard?

I see people as equals regardless of skin color. I can't engage in the kind of mental gymnastics that allows people to normalize racism because it was normalized decades and decades ago. If it was wrong then, it's wrong now.

I find it odd that anyone thinks they can morally justify racist behavior because of what may or may not have happened to their grandparents long ago.

Frankly, it just sounds like racists making excuses for their racism.

Both notions may be incorrect sweeping generalizations that attempt to judge individuals by the actions of the collective (which is wrong), but to pretend that the catalyst is the same is incorrect.

The catalyst is exactly the same....segregation happened because of the widespread normalization of racist beliefs. She got up and tried to create her own racially segregated space because of the widespread normalization of racist beliefs.

In this case, it's the belief that racism against whites is acceptable or not a problem becuz history.

Didn't say she was uncomfortable around all men, *snip*

Well then you have another reason why it's a poor analogy. She wasn't trying to exclude whites from the MSC because she briefly wanted to speak with her black friend in private.

That comfort level of "discussing sensitive things with people who can sympathize" isn't unique to racial issues. There's a reason why the majority of any form of support group involves meeting with other people who've faced similar circumstances or have a lot in common with them.

It's a poor analogy. She isn't trying to get over her feelings about white people....she's celebrating them.

It's not a support recovery group....it's more like a convention for racist POCs.

There's a reason why drug addiction support groups

Drug addiction support groups exist to help people get off of drugs....not to revel in them. Her tweet shows she is quite proud of her behavior....not ashamed of it and trying to do better.

Probably, however...when it comes to racial disparities, there are some key systemic factors at play that have some more impactful effects than other forms of disparities.

Siblings who grew up in the same circumstances can have wildly different lives. My father is 1 of 4 brothers who grew up in a small Appalachian town that about as cliche as those get. 1 brother became an alcoholic and lives in relative poverty in the same town today. 2 left, got degrees, and managed to create rather solidly middle class suburban lives over varying amounts of time. The youngest got a degree, rose to the head of a company, rebuilt it from the ground up and was a multi millionaire by about the time he was 42. He retired before he was 48, and came out of retirement like 4 or 5 times because various companies kept throwing millions at him to be their CEO. Last I heard, he has 3 mansions in rather expensive parts of the nation and hasn't worked for a decade at least.

They're all white and all came from the exact same circumstances. The difference is largely in the choices they made and opportunities they decided to make the most of.

Why bring this up? Because it's wrong to just generalize about people's lives based on nothing more than skin color or even economic status. You seem to be heavily invested in this idea that the important part of people are these superficial characteristics and that you can make these broad generalizations about individuals because of them.

The reality is you don't know anything about the lives and experiences of the people in the video. You don't have any idea how easy or difficult it was for them to become students at that university and what advantages or disadvantages they had in getting there.

All we can say for certain is that the white students there were racially discriminated against by the black student....as hard as that may be for you to accept.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I think some of the replies in this thread highlight exactly why productive conversations about this topic seem to escape us as a society.

It's kind of telling that we have a scenario in which people in marginalized groups try to express their feelings/discomfort/issues/etc... and rather than listening to them and trying to understand why they're feeling the way they're feeling, instead it's immediately met with smarmy attempts to either A) out-debate them on technical/semantic terms, or B) presenting them with loaded questions in order to trap them and somehow prove that they're the ones at fault and "they're actually the bigots" or that they're somehow not justified in feeling the way they're feeling.

 

[All Englands Skies]

I think some of the replies in this thread highlight exactly why productive conversations about this topic seem to escape us as a society.

It's kind of telling that we have a scenario in which people in marginalized groups try to express their feelings/discomfort/issues/etc... and rather than listening to them and trying to understand why they're feeling the way they're feeling, instead it's immediately met with smarmy attempts to either A) out-debate them on technical/semantic terms, or B) presenting them with loaded questions in order to trap them and somehow prove that they're the ones at fault and "they're actually the bigots" or that they're somehow not justified in feeling the way they're feeling.

Because the events at the University this thread is about was not about productive arguments to begin with, what that person did was divisive and unhelpful and doesn't do anything to promote harmony, it cant be legitimised as marginalised groups expressing their feelings, if you do that, its basically giving certain people carte blanche to act however they please due to perceived or actual, depending on circumstances, marginalisation with no re-butt to venting what amounts to their own form of intolerance to those people they view as bogeymen or the "enemy".

You cannot fight racism with racism, this is a sad fact lost today and its time to put a stop to all divisive rhetoric, be it from the likes of Trump/MAGA crowd or from the so called "progressives" (not actual progressives who strive for an actual better society), of course there is equivelent politics here in the UK also.

 

[rambot]

That's remarkable....why it puts into context every accusation of "they called the police because they're racist" in a new light because none of those people actually said they were calling the police because of someone's race.

You must think racism is dead in the US.

ahhh...ye Olde strategy of a tenuous analogy to detail to a new convo.

She asked the crowd their to be considerate.

It's laughably snowflake-like to call this racist when there are plenty of great examples of ACTUAL racism against whites in the US.

 

[Ana the Ist]

ahhh...ye Olde strategy of a tenuous analogy to detail to a new convo.

Tenuous analogy? It's the logical conclusion of your position....if they don't say it, it didn't happen.

She asked the crowd their to be considerate.

She told them there's too many white people. Luckily she doesn't have any authority or I'm sure she would have kicked them out.

It's laughably snowflake-like to call this racist when there are plenty of great examples of ACTUAL racism against whites in the US.

You don't think trying to exclude people because of their race is racist?

 

[Ana the Ist]

I think some of the replies in this thread highlight exactly why productive conversations about this topic seem to escape us as a society.

I can agree with that.

It's kind of telling that we have a scenario in which people in marginalized groups try to express their feelings/discomfort/issues/etc...

If some guy stands up on a bus and yells "There's too many black people here!" I don't necessarily think it's the responsibility of the people nearby to get his background and try and figure out why he's racist.

It's enough to highlight the incident, and point out the racism and discuss why it's wrong so others understand that isn't acceptable behavior.

The problem occurs when people hand wave and dismiss it like it's either not happening or not wrong.

and rather than listening to them and trying to understand why they're feeling the way they're feeling,

I think I do understand....

She's racist.

instead it's immediately met with smarmy attempts to either A) out-debate them on technical/semantic terms, or B) presenting them with loaded questions in order to trap them and somehow prove that they're the ones at fault and "they're actually the bigots" or that they're somehow not justified in feeling the way they're feeling.

I don't know if this refers to me....but I certainly wasn't being smarmy or looking for debate points.

I'm simply discussing the problem of racism.

Some years ago I was having a discussion with a coworker of mine who had moved into the city I work in a couple of years earlier. Anyone looking at him would think he was black but he grew up in Puerto Rico and identified as Puerto Rican.

We talked about the usual small talk, how his family was doing, what he does off work, and what he thought of the city. He mentioned that he stopped going to bars without his friends anymore. I asked why and he related that he had a few uncomfortable encounters with the local black people. Nothing too troubling, but they didn't know he was PR so it made him uncomfortable when they said racist things about latinos or whites. Basically all of his friends were latino and white....and he never really heard them saying racist things about anyone. He never made it out to be something he heard from all or even most black people....but he realized that because of his dark skin that sometimes black people believed he shared their racist views.

He said that he had encountered racism in Puerto Rico of course, but it was typically directed at other latino communities....Dominicans, Haitians, Cubans, etc.

Now, obviously he wasn't telling anyone "There's too many black people around and it was making him uncomfortable." He didn't even really have a problem with any black people unless they were making assumptions about him and the way he saw things because of his skin color.

He understood that it was because at a glance...he looked just like any other black American. He didn't really identify with them though nor have any connection to the black community. To hear him tell it, he never experienced any racism from the white community....the majority of racism he encountered was from the latino community and directed at other latino communities. He mostly hung out with white coworkers and friends.

I have no problem trying to understand why someone feels the way they do....but I wouldn't just assume the reasons why just because of their race. Perhaps the girl in the OP has experienced a lot of racism....perhaps her parents are racist against whites and they instilled it in her....or perhaps she's bought into some larger narrative that justifies racism against whites. There's really no way of knowing.

My point here is that one shouldn't assume things about people because of their skin color. Anyone can be racist...and being uncomfortable doesn't justify racism.

 

[Ken-1122]

It's kind of telling that we have a scenario in which people in marginalized groups try to express their feelings/discomfort/issues/etc...

The person was black. Black people are not a part of a marginalized group

and rather than listening to them and trying to understand why they're feeling the way they're feeling, instead it's immediately met with smarmy attempts to either A) out-debate them on technical/semantic terms, or B) presenting them with loaded questions in order to trap them and somehow prove that they're the ones at fault and "they're actually the bigots" or that they're somehow not justified in feeling the way they're feeling.

As she should be. If a white person said that, I will bet you would see it as unacceptable. If it's wrong for a white person, it's wrong for a black person.