I don't think I am being included in this, but my apologies if my curiosity about why Nakita quoted me if indeed I am being included.
White self-hatred.... it's impact on mixed race people and families?
- Thread starter INACTIVERedDwarf
- Start date
- Status
I don't think I am being included in this, but my apologies if my curiosity about why Nakita quoted me if indeed I am being included.
No, you weren't. No worries.
As a white woman that is also a mother to two littles, I hear the mantra about self care often. I read this article a few months back, which linked white guilt, self care and white fragility in a way that spoke to me.
https://medium.com/@margostebbing/i...-white-guilt-and-white-fragility-76eeea262ec0
I have a lot of interest and do quite a bit of reading on this as I am married to a man of Middle Eastern descent. I am pale with dark strawberry hair and freckles. My son favors me, with light hair and pale skin and Irish features. My daughter looks straight up Turkish. You would not know she was mine if we were next to each other. Her experience is going to be different than mine and I both look forward to this and am terrified for her.
https://medium.com/@margostebbing/i...-white-guilt-and-white-fragility-76eeea262ec0
I have a lot of interest and do quite a bit of reading on this as I am married to a man of Middle Eastern descent. I am pale with dark strawberry hair and freckles. My son favors me, with light hair and pale skin and Irish features. My daughter looks straight up Turkish. You would not know she was mine if we were next to each other. Her experience is going to be different than mine and I both look forward to this and am terrified for her.
Still don't feel guilty. I do have a headache now though, so thanks for that. I do hope the white guilt thing becomes a point of ridicule in the future.
I guess I am secure enough to admit my privilege, to admit that my skin color affords me advantages that people of color don't get. It is not about feeling guilt, it is about taking responsibility. I have never understood why people get so offended by the word guilt, when it is really a stand in for words like responsibility. Is it more palatable if we talked about white responsibility?
Don't blame me for your headache. Take an aspirin, and next time don't read articles that you know will just make you angry to read.
No anger at all on my part. However I did feel it supported the OP's point quite well.
Don't mean to toot my own horn here, but you might want to re-read my earlier posts on why those words do not mean the same thing.
I felt the opposite. Different perspectives, yo.
That's the problem that you and Marynator have been running into in this thread quite a bit, despite multiple people addressing it. You're making unfounded and frankly rather condescending assumptions that people are not aware that they have privilege just because they reject the idea of feeling guilt for the circumstances of their birth and their ancestry rather than for their own actions. You (general you) can and should acknowledge your privilege and try and help and support others who don't enjoy it whenever possible without feeling guilty for simply being who you are. The idea that you should feel guilty for simply being white or male or any other group regardless of how you choose to behave as a person is wrong.
That is literally what others have been saying repeatedly, and yet "guilt" keeps getting thrown around despite being completely inappropriate wording and needlessly aggressive. I know the OP brought it up first in a different context, but then a few people started running with it and saying "Yeah, you should feel guilt for being white or male."
Yes, there are people who are totally clueless about the concept of white male privilege, but that hasn't been the dominant response in this thread (though some have), and to keep rehashing the "guilt" angle and acting like people are unaware of these concepts when they have flat out stated they are aware of and acknowledge it themselves is not the right way to make your point if you want people to listen.
Its not quite like that. But you’re off to a good start.
Trans people aren’t disabled.
Actually when the military looked into this, they found no reasons to keep trans people from serving and while transitioning. The only people who disagreed were Trump, Pence and a religious group who have openly declared their goal is the erasure of trans people from America. It’s almost like they’re just bigots.
Actually it’s an essential and life saving operation. You have no clue about anything you are posting about.
They also do corrective eye surgeries and provide glasses if corrective lens are needed. But bigots are fine with glasses.
Not a valid comparison.
You’re wrong.
So you aren’t racist, just ignorant of trans people? Glad we understand each other.
I think I love you. Not like that. Get over it.Yep. I feel no white guilt (although I'm sad that bad things were done) and I think judging people of 100+ years ago by today's attitudes is wrong.
After reading a lot about how people were treated during World War II, I came to the conclusion (as a teen), that humanity of any race or from any country can do awful things. It's a sad commentary on humanity. We're not immune today either. We may not hold slaves (thank God!) but people are still in slavery in other parts of the world - or in the US via trafficking. Some people are just ghastly.
As for racism and sexism? I spent a good amount of years when I was in a neighborhood where I was a minority and I can say that when one is a minority anywhere, one can get the short end of the stick. I've been called many names in my time (and shrugged them off and didn't even both to reply) and it's an unpleasant part of life. It seems that everywhere, too many people look down on those different than they are. In S Florida, many white disdained the Hispanics (and Miami). In North Dakota, it was the First Peoples who came in for abuse. In my hometown, if you were in a white neighborhood, they weren't thrilled with blacks. If you were in a Black neighborhood, there was a disdain toward whites. Hell, I was in a hotel last month and the Hispanic room cleaner shocked me with a negative comment about black people.
Men come in for abuse, especially these days.
I realize that many people are not jackasses like this. But there are too many people in the world who think that they are better than (fill-in-the-group) and others who think that they are entitled to tell people what to think and how to live. They can both fuck off.
Here is what I truly think. Nice people = awesome. Mean/bad people = must avoid. Nothing else matters. Not ethnicity, nor nationality, nor sex.
OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD:
Color/race/gender/orientation/whatever guilt? Non-starter. Homey don't play, to borrow a phrase. I am not responsible for my ancestors' actions. I am responsible for myself. The same goes for you.
Be the best you that you can be. Achieve, excel. You can do it. If people don't like it they can fuck right off.
RULES FOR LIVING:
1. The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
2. Live and Let Live. Don't mess with me and I won't slash your tires. See Rule 1.
3. Don't tell me that I owe you because somebody in the past did something to somebody in the past. It's the past. (Insert annoying movie song here.)
4. Repeat as necessary.
Everyone: Follow these simple rules. Full stop.
She's certainly read a lot of feminist blogs. But she's also been mega-judgmental and accusatory in this thread, to the point that last night I had to get up and walk off some of the anger I was feeling before I could read further or even begin to compose the replies that I did post... which were a lot more restrained than I would have posted elsewhere.
Wow. So this non-white woman comes across as quite a bigot herself. Really, she's playing the "cultural appropriation" card because a white woman in her group likes to do yoga? She's upset that a white woman in her group isn't into social justice 24/7/365 and wants to maintain some kind of balance in her own life? Granted, I find the whole bath-in-rose-petals thing silly, but what this blogger has done is tar all white women with the brush she's using against the women in her group who she feels are not giving their energies 24/7/365.
It seems to me that she doesn't think white women have any right to involve ourselves in social justice issues because her perception is that no white woman ever goes through problems that are unjust. Okay, fine. The next time I get an email from Amnesty International, asking me to sign a petition or write a letter on behalf of a non-white person, I'll just delete it because my "white privilege" means I really don't care, that it's just a hobby and I'd rather be doing yoga or bathing in rose petals.
Does this woman have knowledge of what her white colleagues' personal lives are like? They may be in situations that preclude their working more hours on the group's work. There may be psychological reasons. There may be family obligations. And yeah, some may see it as one cause among several. Does that mean that what they do accomplish is meaningless? According to the blogger, white women who don't give 24/7/365 might as well not do anything at all.
Well, if that's her attitude, what is she doing in a "mixed race group" in the first place?
Oh, and this "white fragility" phrase is repugnant. Does she really think that Oprah Winfrey has never taken a bubble bath with expensive, frivolous soaps or oils? What about Michelle Obama? Or any other wealthy black woman?
You're welcome to consider yourself "guilty" and "fragile" and responsible for the actions of people centuries ago, and just for being born with the skin color you have, if you feel you really have to... but do not sit there and expect every other white person to follow suit, if we don't see it your way.
Agreed. The bigotry was just dripping from that blog post.
Why is it that some here appear incapable of understanding that throwing the word "guilt" around is basically an accusation that people have committed a crime, or have done something immoral? Are you responsible for who your parents were? Did you choose to be born a white person?
I've stated this numerous times: I am not guilty for being born a white female in an average Western Canadian city. I'm not guilty for the acts of people in the past before I was born, or for the acts of people after that if I didn't know they happened (ie. the Sixties Scoop is something I just learned about last year; it's not something that was taught in Canadian history classes in school), or for the acts of people who I can't stop from doing what they do.
What I am responsible for is what I do. I'm responsible for not actively seeking to make bad situations worse. I'm responsible for acknowledging that oppression happened in the past and happens now.
I take voting extremely seriously. There's a party I never vote for here (two, actually; the provincial one is an offshoot of the federal one) that's anti-science, anti-choice, anti-same-sex marriage, anti-LGBT, anti-age-appropriate sex education, and would love to roll back all the social programs we have now. Some of the people in that party are determined to drag Canada back to the 1950s, and some of them are unabashed Trump fans. They praise Trump on the news sites, and say they wish Canada could be like the U.S., where certain demographics are having their rights slowly stripped away by oppressive legislation. My answer to them is this: Go outside. Turn south. Keep walking. Don't let the border hit you on the rear end as you cross. And don't come back. Canada does not need such people. Attitudes like theirs do not enhance our country.
The times I've felt shame for another person's actions are the times when people in my family said awful things; while I couldn't reason with my mother over her hatred of Indian/Pakistani people, I did manage to get my grandmother to delete the "n-word" from her vocabulary by explaining that it was no longer acceptable to use and that if she were to use it in public people would consider her a vulgar and terribly bigoted person.
Given that you posted the link with the intention of inducing people to read it, your "don't read articles that you know will just make you angry" is unreasonable.
The article didn't give me a headache, but it did make me disgusted... not with myself, but with the author.
I read the medium piece posted and @Riker'sMailbox one thing I couldn't get out of my head was how Gwyneth Paltrow has made this kind of self care mantra a mockery. Certainly I hear self care all the time in activism from all kinds of people. It's not a luxury, it's a real thing people need to do but if presented with certain Gwynethy babble it sounds like a luxury presented as need. For me self care is a cup of tea and some forum posting or gaming and then I'm once again centered (a term I would never use IRL because, associations) and able to deal with shit. So I think the piece was unfairly judgemental, though the writer was certainly spot on picking up on that person writing about activism as though it was personal fulfillment.
I live in a very hippie/alternative area full ofidiots people who say a lot of stuff that sounds like Gwyneth slumming it. I've found it really useful to hear what's behind the phrasing and language employed by this, and by extension other social groups of people. So when I read "It was something about paying attention to when the labor (in doing social justice work) begins to feel that it stops benefitting of our ‘personal’ process; to remember to pause, and self-care." my reaction is omg could we be any more full of ourselves but that's me reacting to the language I have negative associations with. If that same person had said "if you're burnt out make sure you take a break and recharge" I wouldn't even notice it. Christians I know would say the same thing with lots of christian gobbledygook in it. I'd probably just say "I'm fucked mate, I need a break" 
Anyway, that's been my personal challenge in talking to newagers and christians practically every day, how to hear what's really being said behind the language I have issues with. While this has been a sidetrack of the thread language has been important in this discussion with people seeing rephrasing as capitulating which I don't think is the case.
I live in a very hippie/alternative area full of
Anyway, that's been my personal challenge in talking to newagers and christians practically every day, how to hear what's really being said behind the language I have issues with. While this has been a sidetrack of the thread language has been important in this discussion with people seeing rephrasing as capitulating which I don't think is the case.
Whether there is a root relevance to various terms I think they become counter-productive. You know what I mean? People see a word and they start to become defensive and then simply eye-roll it. 'Woke' was mentioned earlier. I read this one (just in the link provided above) 'white fragility'. I can think of others but won't derail the thread. It's difficult but getting a message through has to avoid patronising those who are supposed to be 'educated'. People on this site are articulate thinkers (for the most part
). They already know the score but if someone shares a personal story or reaches out it is usually that that gets through.
I think I love you. Not like that. Get over it.
Damn it - I see you as that hunky Urban as McCoy avatar. Alas....
I am having an ewww my parents moment here.
I'm so glad that others came into this thread and said the same general things I would've said in such a balanced way. I feel so strongly about these silly notions ("white guilt," white privilege, cultural appropriation, and similar ilk that we naughty white people are expected to punish ourselves for, even though it's no longer 1907) that I fear I would've come in here and napalmed the area. I have a history and anthropology background, and it makes me bristle with annoyance every single time, because it's a bunch of bunkum, twisted to fit a very specific narrative.
I salute our erstwhile members here for their awesome, balanced responses.
I salute our erstwhile members here for their awesome, balanced responses.
fwiw most of the people I've seen using the term Gammon are white anyway.
True, to be fair. But they're the same people who would go on a borderline witch hunt if someone said they wanted a Black Coffee. I exaggerate but you get my point.
The thing about white guilt is I personally NEVER oppressed anyone. You are asking me to feel guilty for something other people did.
If my granddad commit murder and the police came to me and arrested me for it would that be OK? It's essentially the same thing in my mind.
If my granddad commit murder and the police came to me and arrested me for it would that be OK? It's essentially the same thing in my mind.
- Status
