This post is bullshit. There are legitimate issues here, but packaging them like this only divides people and does nothing to bring about any kind of solution. Yay racism.
I have heard most of these from black people, there's a mentality that the majority of black people now days have, it's so sad but true. And nobody said all black people were like this, this is not racism.
Like I said, there are real issues being pointed out here, but we can't even start fixing them until we acknowledge that *this* mindset is also part of the problem.
I'm saying you contradict yourself in the service of racism. You say, "nobody said all black people" and in the same sentence "most black people."
If this post isn't racist, I'd love to know what you think is.
Saying "Most" is not racism, racism is saying something is true about someone simply because of their race, ie. he's black he must be a thief, he's Asian, he must not be able to drive. Saying "most" is not racist. I do apologize for saying most though, as I don't know if that is 100% true. how about thousands then? That sounds better. This post is not racist, it's simply stating that thousands of black people behave this was and we're really tired of it.
Okay first, saying "most" *is* racist in this context. You might not be saying "he's black he must be a thief," but you are saying "he's black so he's probably a thief." But I think you understand that already. And anyway, this post doesn't say "thousands of" anything - it says black people, without qualifying in any way. You might as well argue that it's only talking about the one guy in the photo and has nothing to do with race, but we all know that's not true.
Anyway this is all semantics. The issue here is that representations like this gloss right over the root causes of the problems, and suggest that they're somehow a function of race, when in fact they're a function of oppression. Variations on these issues pop up everywhere you get an oppressed minority - they have nothing to do with race, and everything to do with human nature and circumstance.
And making the butt of jokes for white people to laugh at only drives the wedge further in. If this "mentality" bothers you, why not work towards a world where it has no fuel to flourish?
And for the record I don't think this is funny or a joke, this attitude is a very serious problem, I never laughed at this, maybe it was meant to be a joke but I didn't think it was funny
Deshoes' definition of racism misses some important subtleties, and you're right about the white girl memes. White guilt is a rich enough vein that a lot of plain racism against them goes unnoticed and even celebrated - it's part of what fuels this kind of bullshit post and the smug defences of it being thrown about above.
I'm black and I don't even come CLOSE to acting like that. Same goes for the rest of my family members. This really offends me and probably a plethora of others.
I have to say, sadly I know lots of people that think this way, but not all people are like this. I think society just tries to shove racism down our throats. How do we stop racism? We stop talking about it.
Evil succeeds when good men do nothing. You stop racism by cultivating the idea that a person's intrinsic value has no relationship to their colour, not by pretending it doesn't exist.
Precisely why I reported this post. People just guess at what everyone else acts like. "Well, this Mexican doesn't know too many English words, so it's most likely the same for everyone else."
"This black guy lacks in grammar AND spelling. I guess no black people can spell anything."
Yeah but we need to ask why, rather than making it the butt of jokes (assuming we want anything to change). That what's written here is sometimes true, and that the people saying it are black, is *incidental* - it's not that black people think this way because they're black, it's because they were fucking broken over many generations. If you took a subset of white people and subjected them to what black Americans were subjected to, you'd get exactly the same result.
But what can be done? In my country, this is a belief held by a fair amount of the black population, despite all efforts made - from all sects of society - towards racial equality. Surely there comes a time when we, as a people, must all move on together? We shouldn't forget the past, but we also shouldn't let it hold us back (partially because the crimes so oft discussed no longer occur).
Personal responsibility runs both ways. People who insist on casting themselves as the victim are creating problems for themselves, yes. It takes a certain kind of honesty to allow yourself to grow out of that, and as drewpancakes said before, we (I mean the dominant/majority/white in this case) need to be disciplined enough not to overcompensate for it.
The antidote to racism (and sexism/classism etc etc) is ultimately a moral perspective that we can inhabit, which sees that all human beings have something important in common, something unique to our species and thus definitive, and that it has nothing to do with what an individual member looks like, what foods they eat or language they speak or what their parents did for a living.
And accept that, just because we're not going to see the end of racism in our lifetime, we're not excused from making small consistent efforts to benefit the people who come after us.
This makes me sad. I thought FS was the ONE place where we didn't have to deal with this crap. What happened to the silly, supportive, family vibe we had going?
If this post isn't racist, I'd love to know what you think is.
Anyway this is all semantics. The issue here is that representations like this gloss right over the root causes of the problems, and suggest that they're somehow a function of race, when in fact they're a function of oppression. Variations on these issues pop up everywhere you get an oppressed minority - they have nothing to do with race, and everything to do with human nature and circumstance.
"This black guy lacks in grammar AND spelling. I guess no black people can spell anything."
The antidote to racism (and sexism/classism etc etc) is ultimately a moral perspective that we can inhabit, which sees that all human beings have something important in common, something unique to our species and thus definitive, and that it has nothing to do with what an individual member looks like, what foods they eat or language they speak or what their parents did for a living.