Are You SORRY You're WHITE?

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Are You SORRY You're White?
6.12%
3 votes
Yes
87.76%
43 votes
No
6.12%
3 votes
Maybe
49 votes. You may not vote on this poll




Weird is relative.
Why should anyone be sorry for being white, or anything else? That's just racist, and eff racists. Period.



Being white is like having AIDs now, I guess.
It's like being part of aristocracy back in the 18th century.


Anyway, the fault of the existence of white privilege lies with those that are prejudiced and so in their prejudice they unjustly benefits whites. That's assuming that such thing exists (which I think it does in certain countries: if you have a name like Tyrone it's more likely your CV will be. rejected by a company than if your name is Sam in the US).



Hence, if you are identified as white and is privileged from it is the fault of those who are privileging you through their prejudice and not our fault if they are being prejudiced against/for you.


Prejudice is the fault of those that are doing the discrimination and not the fault of those receiving it (either positively or negatively).



We've gone on holiday by mistake
The UN should just declare a huge war on the filth that is the white race and remove this blight from the universe forever!
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mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
I mean, how can I be sorry for something I have no control over?
This exactly. What the hell is the point of going around feeling "guilty" for being born with a certain skin color? If others commit atrocities and happen to have the same skin color, that's not the fault of my own. We can just do our best being good people to one another. I don't look at myself as a white person. I look at myself as a person.



matt72582's Avatar
Please Quote/Tag Or I'll Miss Your Responses
Out of ALL the characteristics available to describe myself, skin pigment is the LAST one.. Would YOU want to be compared to all the people whose arms you can match in a tanning bed?

"Hi I'm Matt, and I'm off-white, what color do you identify with?"


I rather be defined by my actions, and then... movie/comedy/music tastes. "Hi, I'm Matt and my favorite directors are" is the way I introduce myself.



More the former than the latter. It doesn't seem like it's asking too much to acknowledge that (even if "sorry" is not the most accurate choice of words to reflect the situation as you can only take so much - if any - personal responsibility for the misdeeds of others), hence why it's questionable when someone disagrees so strongly with the question.
I think saying sorry is "not the most accurate choice of words" is a significant understatement and pretty much the entire explanation here. That posture is fundamentally wrong, for reasons d_chatterly explained.

Even if someone is skeptical of the concept of privilege, there's clearly an extra edge to the response when they're told they should be apologetic for their race, because that's clearly accusatory and overtly personal. So I don't see any good reason to assume that the hostility you might see in response to this question would transfer right over to any modestly related question about race or privilege.

I got it from the part about threatening physical violence against anyone who tried to pose this same question at them in real life. also, the idea that one has to first acknowledge a problem before they can truly be sorry for it so it just makes me question how many of the "not sorry" people still acknowledge the concept or not.
That's true, but I'm still not really seeing the supposed connection between "this person really hates the idea that they should apologize for their race" and "this person categorically rejects any concept of different races having a harder or easier time in life." I'll grant there's probably a more-than-random amount of overlap there, but it's a pretty big assumption because the two ideas are not actually that similar, in type or degree, even though they often get lumped together. It's kinda like assuming people who don't believe in affirmative action don't believe in racism.

You're right, it was wrong of me to assume that Sexy Celebrity of all people with his trademark oversize coloured words and use of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man was posing this question with a particular degree of sincerity. It's bad semantics all over this thread.
I'm starting to think a lot of the exasperation (or outright despair) over these discussions is exaggerated by the fact that almost nobody is speaking directly to the concerns of anyone else. Everything's four layers removed, so it shouldn't be shocking if it never seems to get anywhere.



By the same token, most conversations about white privilege aren't in good faith.
I'm not sure that's true. I'm a fairly liberal dude, the majority of my friends are liberal, I'm guessing I gravitate towards liberal groups, and I can't recall having ever seen an example of a bad faith white privilege conversation that wasn't brought to my attention by a PC outrage group of one type or another.


I'm definitely not saying that bad faith white privilege conversations don't exist, sometimes the ones brought to my attention are indeed pretty ridiculous, but I'm not sure it's the majority. And from the accounts of the PC outrage centers, I should be encountering this all of the time.


Oh, I guess I was making an assumption, I was assuming you meant most conversations started by what you would call Pro-PC person on white privilege were started in bad faith, not ALL conversations (including Anti-PC) on white privilege.


I also want to put a finer point on why I consider this topic to be in bad faith (I'll also acknowledge here that it's SC, and I think it was done for getting a rise and not actual malicious intent). The poll primes in two ways, it puts the person on the defensive AND it tries to frame the conversation in a way that is specifically misleading.



I want all people to acknowledge privilege in your life, I want all people to reflect on privilege's role (good or bad) in their life, they can do whatever they want to after they reflect. If they feel like saying sorry, fine, if they don't, that's fine too.



To be honest, I wouldn't have gone to college if people didn't assume I was going to (I did poorly in highschool, they had no reason to think I'd do well) and I loved college and actually did pretty well and landed into a good spot in life. Is that all white privilege? Probably not. Is it all middle class privilege? Probably not. But I sure didn't earn all of it, and I'm very grateful for that push. And I want to extend that opportunity to more people.



I live in rural Oklahoma, and I can tell you, white privilege hasn't done sh*t for all these white people out here.
I definitely agree that the rural poor deserve so much more care than they get, regardless of race. That reminds me of a Brother Ali track that actually hits on a lot of topics floating around here including that one:





i'm SUPER GOOD at Jewel karaoke
Absolutely.


Absolutely not.



Acknowledging white privilege is vastly different from feeling sorry about being white and putting those two different things in one question is implying you cannot have one without the other. This is what turns most white people off from discussing or acknowledging white privilege because a lot of them feel that somehow when they acknowledge it, they have to feel guilty about it.
there it is.
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Really? That’s you? I could have sworn that was one of your victims!
I think it's all b/s...I don't give a hoot what color/gender/race you are...even freaking alien from another planet...if you are good at what you do..thats fine with me!



'White privilege' as applied to today's world is a politically incorrect phrase. All anyone has to do is to read the verbose, indignant replies on this thread, to see that the term 'white privilege' to white people is akin to racial slurs to minorities. It's deeply offensive...As it's racism to blame an entire race for past privileges by some members of that same race.

Once there was white privilege decades ago, today it's used as excuse to explain why many minorities remain poor and disadvantaged. The advantage today in America for college applications and jobs goes to minorities and women as a result of institutionalized affirmation action programs.

The correct phrase to use today is 'Economic Privilege', people born to families of wealth (regardless of their skin color) have a higher chance of going to college and of landing great jobs and buying a house and having the means to live financially secure. Meanwhile those born to improvised families have a hard time bettering their own lives. That holds true regardless of skin color.

A poor white person like myself couldn't afford to go to college, so I'm in the working poor category. Not middle class, I'm the working poor... Let me tell you all, the term 'white privilege' as it applies today in America is a hateful term...and if we don't start embracing the idea that we are all one people on one big planet, then we're doomed to hate each other based on skin pigments.



i'm SUPER GOOD at Jewel karaoke
'White privilege' as applied to today's world is a politically incorrect phrase. All anyone has to do is to read the verbose, indignant replies on this thread, to see that the term 'white privilege' to white people is akin to racial slurs to minorities.
ew, no it's not. the backlash white people are currently experiencing is NOT on the same scale, spectrum, universe as ACTUAL LASHES BLACK PEOPLE WERE GIVEN TO THEIR NAKED SKIN FROM RACIST WHITE PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT THEM AFTER THEY WERE TORN FROM THEIR MOTHER COUNTRY

so just stop it.



I'm not sure slavery is the appropriate comparison, since the concept of white privilege is based on how some people are advantaged now over other races now.

Obviously, that's going to be the indirect result of that history on some level, but that's the thing we're comparing, not mixing-and-matching time periods so we're dismissing rust belt unemployment rates because nobody's getting whipped.



i'm SUPER GOOD at Jewel karaoke
I'm not sure slavery is the appropriate comparison, since the concept of white privilege is based on how some people are advantaged now over other races now
ya it is. he compared their [white people's] hurt feelings upon being told they have privilege akin to minorities hurt feelings when they hear racial slurs. which is ridiculous. why is the word n*gger so bad? because it's what slaves were called by white people when they weren't seen or treated as actual human beings. so, ya, it is a fair comparison, and what he said was... less good than what i said. i stand by that.



Hmm, might have been a misunderstanding, then, because it was phrased like this:

"...the backlash white people are currently experiencing is NOT on the same scale, spectrum, universe as ACTUAL LASHES..."

At face value this is a comparison between this "backlash" and slavery itself, as opposed to saying the history of slavery renders some racial slurs more potent. If the latter is what you meant, yeah, that's certainly reasonable.



i'm SUPER GOOD at Jewel karaoke
At face value this is a comparison between this "backlash" and slavery itself, as opposed to saying the history of slavery renders some racial slurs more potent. If the latter is what you meant, yeah, that's certainly reasonable.
yeah, cause that's the kind of horror history that racial slurs remind minorities of. there is no such comparison in the phrase 'white privilege'; it doesn't conjur up any image or remind white people about how they were stolen and dehumanized and tortured and raped and whatever else. honestly if you're into pointing out incorrect comparisons i'm kinda wondering why you didn't say that to CR.



Is the OP having a slow newsweek? What’s his next thread gonna be about?
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