Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race
I sympathize with the author as a believer in structural racism that&#x27;s dealt with those same conversations with white people. However, I have to call the author out for not mentioning black people do <i>the same things</i>. As always, this article pushes The Narrative where only whites are racist and only minorities are victims of racism. Like the author&#x27;s troubles, I have similar troubles describing to minorities (esp black people here in the South) what it&#x27;s like to be a white minority in black school, business, or city. This is really Dominant vs Non-Dominant group stuff rather than White vs Black which is just the instantiation that plays out the most in this country. It goes the other way, too, any time a &quot;minority&quot; becomes the majority in an area or institution.<p>Quick examples from my time in black institutions, esp school. We&#x27;re excluded by default from social activities unless we become more like them (white style is wrong&#x2F;inferior&#x2F;lame) but not too much since then we&#x27;re posers (or wiggers). We&#x27;re told we&#x27;re inherently imperialists, rapists &quot;going after their women,&quot; responsible for all their problems, and so on. In businesses, the racists ones will hire, promote, or (food place) even sometimes serve their own ahead of us. If we disagree on a topic, they&#x27;re more likely to unite in a mob of sorts to shout us down in class. They&#x27;ll physically attack us in school usually in greater numbers since we&#x27;re the minority. In government, it&#x27;s common for them to try to reward their people over others with many businesses straight-up leaving over it in one of my cities. The list just goes on and on w&#x2F; a lot of whites coming out of these areas with conditions ranging from becoming racists themselves to PTSD-like effects from the beatdowns. Irony is I&#x27;ve seen black people accuse several people of racism for getting anxious when the blacks approached them during a verbal conflict when it was actually racist attacks by blacks that created permanent anxiety they can&#x27;t control. They were reliving the attack to some degree during the approach since the body language looked similar to when the attacks happened.<p>Now, just try mentioning this to writers like the OP. There&#x27;s some people that will agree structural racism goes both ways. It&#x27;s uncommon, though, with most blacks saying things so similar one would almost think there was a class giving out specific instructions on what to say to white victims. (Same goes for most whites on racism in fairness.) When I ask for black activists to help white victims, here&#x27;s the responses I almost always get in some form: (a) structural racism against whites doesn&#x27;t exist &amp; my experiences were simply isolated acts of discrimination; (b) black people have been through more shit and experience it more often so greater good is to focus on them first; (c) we have it coming because someone somewhere else is victimizing black people in similar or worse ways.<p>Well, ain&#x27;t that great. Might as well stop talking to black people about race since they&#x27;ll reject even the existence of white victims of structural racism. Definitely ain&#x27;t going to start campaigning against or suing black-controlled schools, companies, and governments to help us. They&#x27;ll go after white ones to help blacks, though. It&#x27;s too bad because the greatest threat the racist establishment ever perceived was a guy, MLK, that defended oppressed of all colors trying to unite them. He scared the power-mongers so much they straight-up murdered him in my hometown before he did his Washington march. They thought it would be game over for them. Kind of a hint of how we need to approach social justice today if we want the government scared, giving concessions, or showing their true colors.<p>Pieces like I just read are just politics. They don&#x27;t care about equality or justice. They just care about (benefits or punishments here) going to (preferred groups here for each). The moderate realists who would recognize and help both groups are rare. They&#x27;ll also get out-shouted by political movements on both Left and Right. That&#x27;s not metaphorical: I&#x27;m talking a room full of black people screaming at the white person until they shut up or leave as happened numerous times at our local university. The right wingers do something similar but with accusations toward black people instead citing all the worst stuff in media. Also citing their personal experience which didn&#x27;t have racism as in original article. Dissent is simply not allowed by either group. That&#x27;s why both sides are part of the overall problem that can only get better in tiniest, incremental ways and often gets worse for opposing groups in some way. And people in my camp are totally screwed since almost nobody will help white or male victims of oppression.<p>Ok, now off to my leaning-toward-mostly-black establishment to put in a long shift possibly hearing a guy making more and with more privilege talk about how the company is holding him back because he&#x27;s black. Usually only every other week but who knows. Maybe I&#x27;ll get lucky &amp; we all be peaceful today like last shift. ;)<p>EDIT: I dont upvote these kind of articles to front page since a lot of people just start fighting with throwaways and discussion quality drops too low. I am respondjng since submitter has an interest and my not have encountered this perspective. Just clarifying that if anyone was interested.