AlimNassor
Banned
How? i can't feel pride for skin color. White is not a race for starters, and even if it were how could I celebrate when my people have committed such great harm to people?
3 White college students file racial discrimination complaint against professor
- Thread starter Enzom21
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How? i can't feel pride for skin color. White is not a race for starters, and even if it were how could I celebrate when my people have committed such great harm to people?
Deified Data
Banned
I think I missed the post where it was outlined who, exactly, is allowed to be proud of their heritage. A lot of you folks coming off as caricatures of white guilt.
Byakuya769
Member
My apologies.
IHaveCandy
Banned
Depends on your definition of "need". I think a more fair question would be "Enough for a whites-only meetup site to be useful?" And I would say yes to that question.
AyaisMUsikWhore
Member
No lies. Absolutely none. You took the words right out.
AbsolutBro
Member
IHaveCandy
Banned
Yeah I don't agree with white guilt at all. You are only responsible for what you do.
Yeah I think you are reaching actually.
Yes but you missed the point. I'm saying you dont need to forget your heritage because someone else tried to take it away. IE, never forget where you or your ancestors came from.
shanshan310
Member
Am I not allowed to be proud? It feels like you're trying to twist my words into something that better fits your world view.
No worries ^^
The Incarnation
Member
Chip on the shoulder. That's a classic. Up there with nigger.
Pretty clear to see what your mentality is all about.
Byakuya769
Member
... If only you could travel back through time and tell those slaves that the whippings are just something they should grin and bear. That the dissolution of their families is something that they could get around if only they kept better records. Oh, and that they could teach themselves how to write and speak in their native languages even if they were the only one on any given plantation speaking in that dialect.
I think you would have solved a lot of the present day problems.
Fixed.
IHaveCandy
Banned
You don't think the few white people living in, say a city nearing the border of Mexico that had a huge majority of Mexican American citizens, would have more in common with each other than their more foreign neighbors? This is what I mean when I say it's unfair to hold more contempt for a white person doing it. In both circumstances, I'd hold these racial meetup sites in equal contempt. And I don't really agree with the argument that African American have all that much in common. A lot of those commonalities are derived from similar environment upbringing, not skincolor. So an "urbanpeoplemeet' would make more sense than black people. Same for a southernpeoplemeet or "christianmingle". I don't think black people can be so easily grouped together as a single culture.
RoninChaos
Member
That's a very apt way to put it.
I look at it a bit simpler, and it comes down to a lot of people not having empathy or critical thinking skills. Take someone like Mitt Romney. I don't have the information in front of me, but to my recollection, Romney beat Obama in a ton of exit polls that gauged things like how he understood the economy, if he had a plan forward, etc. But he was demolished in the category of something like "Mitt Romney knows what its like to be me". That 47% being the takers comment SANK him.
His comments are exactly what privilege is. When he was asked before how people could start a business or go to college, his reply was "borrow money from your parents".
People like him are the problem. And it all comes down to empathy. Romney didn't give a fuck why the people he's demonizing would feel the way they do.
What further exacerbates the problem is there are a ton of people in Congress who think JUST LIKE ROMNEY. We aren't going to move past the whole privileged thing until the type of ignorance our elected officials display is addressed.
NotMyRealName
Banned
She's got a 3.8 on ratemyprofessors so she can't be that bad 
IHaveCandy
Banned
It's nearly statistically impossible for my claim to be incorrect.
Deified Data
Banned
I don't feel pride for my heritage either, but I'm not terribly off-put by people who do. It's a natural human emotion. And every race has committed some atrocity against another - your list of "races its okay to take pride in" would probably be pretty short, unless you're making a special exception for your own race. I guess your stance would make sense if you oppose any sort of racial or ethnic pride. Do you?
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Just from the limited description in the OP, it sounds like a professor with a particular ax to grind got called out on it. Now, the students may, themselves, merely be assholes who don't want to hear about the reality of structural racism, but if you end up focusing primarily on structural racism in a course on Mass Communication more generally, you SHOULD be at least mildly rebuked. I don't think she should be reprimanded or punished - and claiming "racial discrimination" is silly unless she was targeting white students in particular, which is not altogether clear from the article in the OP - but if your educational priorities are out of whack, a reality check is a necessity. Structural racism is, of course, an unfortunate, unavoidable reality that should be covered, but to say it is "the context" of 21st Century America is as wrong as saying that it is not. It is a PART of the context.
I had plenty of bad professors who could only approach their subject matter from a VERY limited perspective, which had a provincializing effect on the way their teaching was conducted and received.
Edit: White pride is silly. Take pride in whatever national heritage comprises that whiteness, but the whiteness, itself, is pretty meaningless. The reason for "Black Pride", "Latino Pride", etc. was to give marginalized minorities a way to come together in solidarity in order to affect change, i.e. "Hey, they shame us for our skin color, but it stems from grand civilizations, cultures, and traditions! We take pride in that fact!" It is, in truth, silly in its own right, in the sense that it's always at least a little silly to take pride in something one had no choice nor role in (nationality, skin color, whatever), but it at least has a historical purpose and context that make it effable, at least. "White pride" does not have the same claim.
I had plenty of bad professors who could only approach their subject matter from a VERY limited perspective, which had a provincializing effect on the way their teaching was conducted and received.
Edit: White pride is silly. Take pride in whatever national heritage comprises that whiteness, but the whiteness, itself, is pretty meaningless. The reason for "Black Pride", "Latino Pride", etc. was to give marginalized minorities a way to come together in solidarity in order to affect change, i.e. "Hey, they shame us for our skin color, but it stems from grand civilizations, cultures, and traditions! We take pride in that fact!" It is, in truth, silly in its own right, in the sense that it's always at least a little silly to take pride in something one had no choice nor role in (nationality, skin color, whatever), but it at least has a historical purpose and context that make it effable, at least. "White pride" does not have the same claim.
Straightist.
Byakuya769
Member
Yes, this is a good way of framing it. If you were to feel a sense of pride at the accomplishments of another who shared that same commonality, that is what we're getting at.
Yeah but also you keep arguing from "I'm pretty sure that exists though" instead of "here's an actual honest-to-God example". You also keep speaking on behalf of minority populations that may not exist and which at any rate you don't belong to.
So I'm not exactly sure what experience or expert knowledge you're contributing.
I feel like you're coming at it from a different angle than they are, as evidenced by this post.
In this formulation, you are proud of who you are, which to you means that you are (indirectly) proud of your family, and by extension your heritage, because those things are part of what make you you.
I don't think Byakuya or animlboogy are talking about that sort of holistic-and- individualistic pride in who you are. I think they're talking about people who are proud of their whiteness, as members of a particular racial group. And I've explained why we differentiate between assertions of racial pride for whites and non-whites.
IHaveCandy
Banned
Ad-hominem. Do I really need to find an example of one city in America where the white population is low? Can we really not take that assumption as truth? I don't think it was an unreasonable assumption.
IHaveCandy
Banned
I am Eritrean. Growing up, I was basically considered "black" by my peers. I never really fought against or took on that identifier, but I guess I was treated by others as a black person growing up and today.
With that said, do you agree that a meetup site based on similar environmental or cultural curation would be better? Things like an urbanpeople meet in a rural area or a ruralpeoplemeet in an urban area.
It's such an exception to the rule that it's almost irrelevant
shanshan310
Member
Yeah, that's it
thanks Mumei. I'm not great at expressing myself which I guess wasn't helped by what seems to be different understandings of the topic at hand.I don't think you know what ad hominem means either? I'm saying you want to talk about how you've never felt like a member of some black community that's one thing but "there are definitely white people in America who live in a minority" isn't really something you seem to have access to.
The Incarnation
Member
Used to be a common thing to say to black people about 30 years ago, especially in the UK when they complained about anything. 100 of the time the person saying was a bigot.
You get these little markers which help identify a person's mindset.
She's Australian, I don't think they do that.
I don't necessarily agree at all with the poster you were responding to, but you are way, way off base here.
Or maybe you're reading too much into a bog standard 08/15 expression.
it doesn't matter at this point; he's banned.
You better suck that D or wait until you're 36.
Byakuya769
Member
Yeah, that's it
And I probably wasn't very clear in my articulation. I wasn't trying to prove you had some racist pride. Quite the contrary, I was trying to show you that your pride was different than the "white pride" we were discussing and disfavor.
I found this quote particularly striking
Teacher in Question said:
It sounds like to me perhaps this field has some relatively strong racial and gender issues that persist today in varying degrees. However, I suspect this teacher has begun to simplify these issues internally and perhaps vilify white men in general. I say this because of the past email exchange and in particular what the student said. The original complaint wasn't "White men are better than you!" it was "Why do we have to talk about this every class?" Having taught undergraduates, I can't imagine a student saying that if the lecture was a balanced discussion on structural racism that properly fit into a larger course syllabus. It seems more likely the teacher went off-topic and had done so multiple times throughout the course. The fact that other students felt the same way also lends itself to this interpretation.
Eh, it's a tricky one. Here in England, it's not really a bog standard expression. I've only ever heard it used to describe black people. It definitely made me raise an eyebrow when I read it earlier. That said, I don't think ThisWreckage is from the UK and I've fallen foul of the cultural barrier on here before so I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
I'd say it was something of a grey area.
ThisWreckage's stance was being fleshed out into something quite likely abhorrent, and I can't say I'm surprised or object. I'd contend however that it does matter for The Incarnation's sake in future discussions that the mere appearance of the phrase "chip on one's shoulder" is not definitively indicative of bigotry.
edit:
I was unaware of this connotation across the pond and will attempt to learn more.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
I agree. Most younger white folk I know are at least willing to hear about structural racism, but I, too, would get annoyed if it became the focus of an introductory course that is meant to give a broad perspective of the whole field.
RoninChaos
Member
Are you on lunch, sir? lol
I personally had no idea that "chip on your shoulder" had any association with racism at all. I hear it quite regularly with no racial connotations whatsoever. Don't think I've ever heard it with racial connotations, at least not that I can remember.
Uh. What? o.o
However this context is largely isolated to a particular place and time - considering the nature of both this board, and this growing global society we live in, applying this dated (I don't mean old, just assigned to a particular time period) and local context uniformly is poor form, and entirely unnecessary.
Also, I feel like it's arbitrary, and it unfairly provides someone like me with advantage. I can say I am proud of being ethiopian, black, african and a whole slew of things - and not all of these cultural groups have spotless records, nor do all people look favourably upon them (Ethiopians for example have had plenty of strife and accusations of mistreatment when it comes to it's neighbours). I understand and appreciate that the scale might be different, but in the end, I think when it ends up just singling out white people, globally, it is a harmful and negative idea.
Let people be proud of being white, and let's not assume that they mean anything negative by it. I appreciate that saying something like "I'm a proud white man" can illicit negative responses in people, and in the wrong environments can be dangerous, but I'd hope something that doesn't necessarily have negative connotations (unlike a slur) shouldn't be immediately assumed as a negative. Ideally I'd like it to be that way. Actually ideally I'd like it if people didn't really care all that much about their ethnicity, but this is the next best thing.
This same mindset applies to something like mens rights/issues advocates. Until they act misognistic, it's harmful to assume they are misognistic.
The Incarnation
Member
Kind of weird to be apologetic. A white Eastern European certainly shouldn't feel bad about things you do. All nations were born with blood. No exceptions.
The proud to be white thing is just a response by the ignorant. They just say things. It is easier to speak and hard to think for some.
The whole black pride thing was really just trying to get the message around that blacks aren't ashamed to be black. Black pride did sum that up quite well at the time. After all it was started to counter white supremacy, which in part wanted to make blacks be ashamed to be black. Less than human.
Black pride never had the goal of making whites feel ashamed of guilty of anything. So the need for whites to say I'm proud to be white is slightly weird. Certainly no one should be ashamed to be white. I'd advise against saying I'm proud to be white to get that across though.
It's much different from someone taking the good qualities of their nation and saying I'm proud to be British, or American.
Deified Data
Banned
The question is whether or not she literally singled out the students, as in "You, you, and you are the cause of structural racism" or whether the students felt singled out when the professor highlighted the role of white men in structural racism. There's a world of difference between the two. If she actually went out of her way to pin this on those three students she obviously deserves the reprimand, but it sounds to me as though they just went out of their way to be offended.
It is new to me as well, though of course there are plenty of racially offensive use cases for phrases I haven't encountered yet. I'm trying to think of an example of it being used with racist intent from my own experiences, but I don't think I have any either. At the very least is certainly not a default association in my community.
edit:
No, it does not. At least not without being used with specific purpose.
Wikipedia:
This is all I have ever known it to mean, and its 1700s-era etymology certainly has nothing at all to do with race. So I'm perplexed.
I can imagine. Same for Hawkian above. There are so many cultural quirks that can land you in hot water before you even realise why people are suddenly pissed off at you. That's why I tend to give the benefit of the doubt.
Here in England, I'd say 'chip on his shoulder' was usually used as a replacement for 'uppity / angry black guy'. Someone perceived to be seething with resentment.
That said, for all I know this shit might be regional and someone 100 miles north might say I'm talking pure shit.
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