1814 1914 2014 Meme - US Black Suffering

[Jolly_Penguin]

Of course your race confers certain privileges. Affirmative action, black-only scholarships, preferential hiring for government jobs, ability to play race card, ability to make fun of whites because of their race but calling whites who retaliate "racist".
Same goes to gender. Still affirmative action and gender-based scholarships but add to that preferential treatment in divorce/family court, free birth control, now illegal to charge women more for health insurance but still legal to charge men more for car and life insurance, ability to unilaterally make reproductive decisions while making the man pay for them, getting lower sentences than men for the same crime etc.

Of course race and gender do this. And it runs in all directions. You can be unfairly advantaged in some ways for being male, and in others for being female. You can be unfairly advantaged in some ways for being white, and in others for being black, and in yet others for being asian, native american, etc. And not all who belong to these groupings benefit equally or suffer equally due to these manifestations of privilege/bias/racism/sexism. That Athena refuses to see this is what I was referring to in my initial post in this thread that baffled Athena so. Just because white and male have the biggest privilege does not mean the others cease to exist. These don't cancel each other out.

It's not that it is uncomfortable, it's that the definition is fine tuned to exclude blacks or women by claiming their privileges do not count as privileges.

Exactly, and note how Athena continues to deny that there could be any such privilege running in the opposite direction. I asked her once if she defines privilege similarly to how she defines racism, to exclude certain groups from it. She never directly answered, but I think can now safely infer that she does.

 

[arkirk]

If you don't live where it is happening, sometimes it is easy to poo poo claims of discrimination and maybe feel alright about it. It has always been HARD to protest an easy to doubt anything that happens out of your sight. The police violence against blacks, hispanics, poor people, is a fact. The demonstrations you are seeing are happening because police violence and mistreatment of minoritites is getting worse in this country. The more police force and overpowering weapons they wield, the less these characters become keepers of the peace.

I constantly hear from people like Derek about how minorities have been given special rights and that to him is "unfair." They have also been given in many cases, extreme disadvantages. Affirmative action was an attempt to ameliorate some of the negative results from the disadvantages of racial discrimination. They yell "reverse discrimination." In making that claim, are they pointing to a type of discrimination that is okay...not reverse? We need to understand black people are being shot down in our streets without cause by trigger happy cops. We need to understand our government is arming them to the teeth and that the average one of these cops believes he has the right to order a common citizen to do about anything and enforce his orders with bullets. We started with a weak constitution, and as the time has passed, it has gotten weaker. There are plenty of reasons to protest. If you don't practice a little vigilance, you will find yourself suddenly one day on the ground in the felony position...maybe taking a bullet too.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I constantly hear from people like Derek about how minorities have been given special rights and that to him is "unfair." They have also been given in many cases, extreme disadvantages. Affirmative action was an attempt to ameliorate some of the negative results from the disadvantages of racial discrimination.

This is certainly true, in many cases. But more discrimination based on race doesn't fix that. It may be easier to discriminate in favour of some people of X to feel better about discrimination against people of X, which may or may not include those same people, but it only hides the actual base problem. Even if you get the benefit to the very same people who face the hardship and in proportion (which you never will), you still haven't fixed the problem, but only complicated matters and obscured it. You'll also create pretty legitimate resentment in those being discriminated against in your attempt to address past discrimination by others.

It helps even less when words are redefined specifically to exclude particular groupings of people from being able to be racist or sexist, etc. When you can't admit that we are all able to fall prey to prejudice, sexism, racism, and other ugly things, you frankly lose a lot of credibility for your call for fair treatment for yourself. This shouldn't affect fair minded people, as we all know those who do the above are not representative of all in the "victim" group, but it does arm those not so fair minded on the other side.

We need to understand black people are being shot down in our streets without cause by trigger happy cops. We need to understand our government is arming them to the teeth and that the average one of these cops believes he has the right to order a common citizen to do about anything and enforce his orders with bullets. We started with a weak constitution, and as the time has passed, it has gotten weaker. There are plenty of reasons to protest. If you don't practice a little vigilance, you will find yourself suddenly one day on the ground in the felony position...maybe taking a bullet too.

I agree wholeheartedly. And those who would oppose us in this are those that seek to divide us. To counter that, we should be encouraging empathy and pushing each other to identify with each other regardless of race. We shouldn't be pushing division, and claiming that some people can be racist and others can't.