The lesson was supposed to be “Son, races aren’t actually a thing, they’re a categorical method of sorting people into groups based on variable forms of bigotry. Where one race begins and another ends is as arbitrary as the lines we draw in the sand.”
Not turning the white supremacy around into some kind of self-hating racism. That makes about as much sense as the white supremacy. And progresses the human race about as far.
In 8th grade I was talking to my bff who is half Druze and my buddy Dan whose family immigrated from Portugal about how it’s weird that Dan is “white” and yet has a dark brown skin tone while my BFF was not despite having a similar skin tone to myself who is very white.
I went to a pretty mixed high school and a lot of people there decided it was okay to be racist to white people. I asked my Portuguese friend why he didn’t have a problem with it, and he said because he’s not white. Same with my Polish friend. Same with my Portuguese teacher.
Apparently you can earn all the benefits of white privilege while not self-identifying as white, and as long as you aren’t calling yourself “Irish”, people are okay with that.
Denying diferencess actually regresses the human race. What should be thought is that personal and cultural differences have much bigger influence over behaviour then biological ones. And that humans have this thing called a brain, whos internal wiring can be changed to different levels of being an asshole.
If you don’t accept the basic thing, you won’t understand the advanced one.
Lumping people into groups and applying attributes to those people based on the groups they find themselves in denies the individual their right to be different.
This was a common argument used in the colonial era and is actually a common rationalization used by sociopaths (if you had my ability you’d hurt people too).
We can speculate they’d hop on a boat and do that but the reality is only one region of the world actually did it on a scale that was globally disruptive in recent history.
In any case, it’s still a sociopathic argument that relies on gaslighting.
Never said Westerners were the only imperialists. But the scale of their foreign interference, in recent times, is unmatched. The Japanese mostly stayed within East Asia.
You can attempt to throw out as many supposed counter-examples you like. Nothing will match the scale of destruction and genocide that was the European colonial era.
No one is saying that the Europeans were the only ones that lacked the ethical framework to forego the colonial pursuit. The point is that they absolutely did lack that ethical framework and, well, here we are. There are many cultures on Earth that would not have done what they did, if given the same circumstances. Even though I know you’d prefer to focus on the cultures that would.
That doesn’t mean white people are more evil or violent. I personally beleive Abrahamic religions are often interpreted by their followers as a justification for conquest. It’s part of why Europe and the Middle East are so similar in their imperialistic aspirations over the past millennia.
Also you’re not a sociopath. The argument that you suggested is sociopathic though.
People are people. We are more a product of our environments than any innate differences.
Europeans and their descendants have had environmental pressures that led to certain advantages which they were willing to capitalize on globally. The inhumanity involved was predicated on dehumanizing other peoples and cultures, giving birth to white supremacy. The resultant industrialization they sought after has wreaked havoc on our planet and may bring our species to extinction through climate change.
I appreciate where your dad was coming from. It’s disappointing that we live in a world where your father even had to challenge such a proposterous notion (racial superiority).
But white people are not more violent. In the same way, I don’t see any accomplishment by a white person as unique to their race. They are human accomplishments first and, in my view, could have been achieved by any person in the same environmental circumstances.
I don’t even see white people as an amalgamation anymore. Or any ‘race’ for that matter. My ancestors are Indian so you can imagine we don’t all see or refer to ourselves as just Indian (an identity that within it holds 1500 dialects). I don’t think it’s a meaningful designation. It’s happenstance.
I’m much more interested in the specifics. Particularily, defining and understanding a persons worldview. If youre a person that tries to put people on a hierarchical ladder based on arbitrary physical traits, we’re probably not going to vibe. If you’re someone that understands that identity is fluid and evolves over time (just as our values might) and have a goal of making life better for ourselves and others then I would reassert what I said earlier. We are more similar than we are different.
Meh. Dad nailed it. “Son, we’re not the best race, we’re the most violent.”
Been thinking on that for 30 years. Still rings true.
The lesson was supposed to be “Son, races aren’t actually a thing, they’re a categorical method of sorting people into groups based on variable forms of bigotry. Where one race begins and another ends is as arbitrary as the lines we draw in the sand.”
Not turning the white supremacy around into some kind of self-hating racism. That makes about as much sense as the white supremacy. And progresses the human race about as far.
In 8th grade I was talking to my bff who is half Druze and my buddy Dan whose family immigrated from Portugal about how it’s weird that Dan is “white” and yet has a dark brown skin tone while my BFF was not despite having a similar skin tone to myself who is very white.
I went to a pretty mixed high school and a lot of people there decided it was okay to be racist to white people. I asked my Portuguese friend why he didn’t have a problem with it, and he said because he’s not white. Same with my Polish friend. Same with my Portuguese teacher.
Apparently you can earn all the benefits of white privilege while not self-identifying as white, and as long as you aren’t calling yourself “Irish”, people are okay with that.
For the record you should not be racist to anyone and the “you can’t be racist to white people” are no different than klanspersons.
Hey thanks for saying that.
Dad’s point of view had nothing to do with self-hate, to him it was merely a statement of fact.
What?!
Fine. Let’s have some reading comprehension.
The speaker is repeating an opinion given by the subject of the sentence.
Jesus fuck me. Some of you people are so intent on delivering a sick burn you can’t stop to parse a single sentence.
Denying diferencess actually regresses the human race. What should be thought is that personal and cultural differences have much bigger influence over behaviour then biological ones. And that humans have this thing called a brain, whos internal wiring can be changed to different levels of being an asshole.
If you don’t accept the basic thing, you won’t understand the advanced one.
Lumping people into groups and applying attributes to those people based on the groups they find themselves in denies the individual their right to be different.
Hence I said that it is far less important then individual and cultural differences. But I guess being righteous is more important then reading.
Who said anything about “denying differences”?
“races arn’t actually a thing”
Race isn’t the only thing that differentiates people…
Some people seem to base their entire personality on their race and/or sexuality.
Hence the rest of what I said. But yea, being right is more important then… anything.
I guess saying things like “asians have lower lactose tolerance” is also racist, even though I am also lactose intolerant.
Than*
Have you ever heard of the history of Asia?
If the Aztecs had sea worthy warships they probably would have tried to conquer North America as well.
This was a common argument used in the colonial era and is actually a common rationalization used by sociopaths (if you had my ability you’d hurt people too).
But the Aztecs were known for their military conquest of other tribes.
We can speculate they’d hop on a boat and do that but the reality is only one region of the world actually did it on a scale that was globally disruptive in recent history.
In any case, it’s still a sociopathic argument that relies on gaslighting.
Did you forget about the Japanese? They got western tech and then started colonizing Asia. And that was also globally disruptive.
Also why you keep calling me a sociopath. fucking loser
Never said Westerners were the only imperialists. But the scale of their foreign interference, in recent times, is unmatched. The Japanese mostly stayed within East Asia.
You can attempt to throw out as many supposed counter-examples you like. Nothing will match the scale of destruction and genocide that was the European colonial era.
No one is saying that the Europeans were the only ones that lacked the ethical framework to forego the colonial pursuit. The point is that they absolutely did lack that ethical framework and, well, here we are. There are many cultures on Earth that would not have done what they did, if given the same circumstances. Even though I know you’d prefer to focus on the cultures that would.
That doesn’t mean white people are more evil or violent. I personally beleive Abrahamic religions are often interpreted by their followers as a justification for conquest. It’s part of why Europe and the Middle East are so similar in their imperialistic aspirations over the past millennia.
Also you’re not a sociopath. The argument that you suggested is sociopathic though.
People are people. We are more a product of our environments than any innate differences.
Europeans and their descendants have had environmental pressures that led to certain advantages which they were willing to capitalize on globally. The inhumanity involved was predicated on dehumanizing other peoples and cultures, giving birth to white supremacy. The resultant industrialization they sought after has wreaked havoc on our planet and may bring our species to extinction through climate change.
I appreciate where your dad was coming from. It’s disappointing that we live in a world where your father even had to challenge such a proposterous notion (racial superiority).
But white people are not more violent. In the same way, I don’t see any accomplishment by a white person as unique to their race. They are human accomplishments first and, in my view, could have been achieved by any person in the same environmental circumstances.
I don’t even see white people as an amalgamation anymore. Or any ‘race’ for that matter. My ancestors are Indian so you can imagine we don’t all see or refer to ourselves as just Indian (an identity that within it holds 1500 dialects). I don’t think it’s a meaningful designation. It’s happenstance.
I’m much more interested in the specifics. Particularily, defining and understanding a persons worldview. If youre a person that tries to put people on a hierarchical ladder based on arbitrary physical traits, we’re probably not going to vibe. If you’re someone that understands that identity is fluid and evolves over time (just as our values might) and have a goal of making life better for ourselves and others then I would reassert what I said earlier. We are more similar than we are different.