This is the most concise explanation for what many on the left fail to grasp, and one of the many reasons why I and many are Trump supporters.
We are on one hand supposed to respect and honor other cultures, but are not allowed to cultivate, maintain and respect our own (American) culture.
Which is absurd for many reasons... one being it denies a very real reason for many wanting to come to our country, or fails to identify the characteristics that made western culture generally preferable to many others.
I feel like this is exactly what is happening in France too...
The media tries so hard to stay "politically correct" at all times that it is absurdely biased some times.
An exagerated example: if an immigrant commit a crime, the medias talk about him as a victim of modern society instead of an actual criminal.
I've completely stopped watching TV a long time ago, so it might have changed since then, but then again I would like to see the French values put forward instead of everyone else adapting to the few people that don't want to change (and, to some extent, don't really want to be French).
But American culture is not homogeneous. The platform on which Trump ran seemed to elevate certain parts of American culture while dismissing others.
More important to his success - it seems to me as an outside observer - were his promises to do things that are not possible but sound appealing to voters. Reopen mines, open factories that will offer many jobs to low skilled workers, and so on, to build a symbolically protectionist wall without paying for its construction.
American culture is in many aspects very homogenous. Take for example the fact that there's 50% of the population that wants to cut down on government even if it means that social services are to be cut.
Or the business culture which is very unique, at least I've seen nothing similar anywhere in the world.
Then there's a degree of freedom of speech that nowhere else exists, and rights like being allowed to carry a gun in public which is vigorously defended by large parts of the population.
And yes, there is an American brand of Christianity. Even if you don't see it in population centres it's still there everywhere else and it is more important than Christianity in most other Christian cultures.
There's a kind of attitude among US citizens leaning towards some Classical Liberal or Libertarian principles that can't be found anywhere else in the world. Where ever else you go the majority expects the government to take care of every member of the society from cradle to grave.
>rights like being allowed to carry a gun in public which is vigorously defended by large parts of the population.
Just FYI that's actually different depending on local laws. I don't live in an open carry state so I very much don't have the right to carry a gun in public. Not unless I went through the rigorous process to get a carry permit.
Yes I know that many regulations are done on the state level and then there's gun free areas and so on, but I'd still say that this is something very unique about the US.
I can't name even a single example where societies, even if it is only at a state level, generally allow citizens to carry a gun in public (without having to acquire some special permission that only very few people have access to)
If there is some other society that allows this then it's probably an Anglophone country.
Pakistan is much different from the US. Most of Pakistan's gun culture is in remote and rural areas where its not the most safe and therefore, guns are more of a necessity than a love.
The US has a gun-culture where collection of guns is done without any overt reason. In Urban areas, guns are basically never really owned, much less carried openly.
What Trump supporters fail to grasp is that many on the left agree but don't think Trump is the man for the job. He doesn't care about culture. You've been duped.
But that was never the conversation. It was always about how only bigots and deplorables could support him. The concerns powering Trump's rise were shooed away as small-minded. Well, Brexit and Trump are two black eyes.
I really hope the Left tune in to the grievances of the majority now, because I'm fearful of what comes next if they don't.
You've quoted the word deplorable, yet ignored the entire point of the statement that it came from, that it's not just bigots that are supporting Trump. How does that happen?
You're on here emploring the left to pay attention to something, while (intentionally?) ignoring the fact that they did, and it got spun against them as one of their biggest gaffes of the campaign.
That's not paying attention to the "basket of deplorables," it's dismissing them.
This election has shown me how out of touch most Americans are with each other. The media doesn't care about whole swathes of the country and our political systems write off rural inhabitants all the time.
Yes she's dismissing the basked of deplorables, it's the other voters who don't fit that description she's reaching out to:
"And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people — now how 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America. But the other basket — and I know this because I see friends from all over America here — I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas — as well as, you know, New York and California — but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well. "
The left has almost no political power. It is also the popular majority. There are more registered democrats in the us than republicans. Clinton is likely to win the popular vote. The system is physically designed, by districting and the electoral college, to support the political minority. You are conflating the actual demographics with the electoral system, which is lending more power to an oppressive point of view that is precisely what the political elite cultivates.
Just because he's leading in the popular vote now doesn't mean he won the popular vote. The New York Times projects that Clinton will win the popular vote once all the ballots have been counted.
Right now it's projecting a margin of 0.7% It's pretty hard to call that a mandate from a clear majority. I think we've got to accept that what we have is a deeply divided country, not a highly vocal minority.
There are many people such as myself in places like NY or California that don't vote because we know our votes don't matter, so it may be that in a popular vote election we'd see a greater margin for Clinton.
I wonder what it would look like if you took the percentages that voted for each candidate and scaled it to the population of the state, and then used that to total the scaled popular vote?
Of course, there's many problems with that, foremost being that you can't assume that those that didn't vote did so in the same relative percentages of support that those that did vote. For example, I imagine there's a higher percentage of Democrats/Clinton supporters in CA and NY that didn't vote compared to the alternatives, and the opposite is likely true of predominantly red states.
When will people learn that polls and "projections" from mainstream media etc are ridiculously wrong on this.
They were wrong on Brexit. They were wrong on Trump. Maybe once more countries have results like this the polsters and media will start actually engaging with real people.
I don't mean to sound offensive but you do understand how the US election system works, right?
It is possible to win the popular vote but lose the election. I don't think anyone is spinning the fact she won the popular vote to mean she should've won.
The President is elected by the electoral college who aren't directed by popular vote but by electorates.
Given current tallies, Trump will probably lose the popular vote by over a million. And he won't break 300 in the Electoral College. This is a very, very narrow win.
This is the third-closest result in the electoral college since 1960 (first that included AK and HI). The next two were G. W. Bush's two wins. It's the second-tightest in the popular vote since then (the results I see have Clinton ahead by about 200K; JFK beat Nixon by ~100K).
Our most recent president, Obama, absolutely destroyed Trump's results as far as having a "mandate", if that's what winning is considered. He got twice as many electoral votes as McCain and a margin of 7% in the popular. The win over Romney was tighter but still in a different order than this election.
Reagan got a mandate in 1984. The talk of "mandate" this year is utter, complete, uncontestable political horse puckey.
True, but you could say that about nearly every politician that's been elected recently. At some point you have to vote for the person you agree with and just hope they will hold up at least some part of what they've promised.
Many supporters might agree that Trump isn't the man for the job. But you really think Hillary can serve as a symbol of our culture? She's a integral part of the politically correct movement that Trump supporters hate.
They weren't duped - they got what they ordered - but liberals might want to re-examine their mission statement.
How are you not allowed to cultivate your culture?
EDIT: A number of people are asking you this question, I don't want to make it feel like you are being ganged up on or in for a trick. I myself am asking due to curiosity.
I'm a white male in a very predominantly white European country. The argument you make sounds familiar to me. When I hear people lament the cultural oppression of the white male, what I really hear is: "Here's what white males think and do in this country, why won't you let us be what we are?"
This gives me the creeps something awful, because I'd rather not have some traditionalist's concept of white male identity imposed upon me simply because I belong to the same demographics, in many ways, as they do.
Trying to cultivate, maintain and respect a culture seems to me to usually come with a healthy dose of thou-shalt-not-do. I prefer to think for myself, so I'm not really very sympathetic.
Then you should consider that there are plenty of non-traditionalists who feel the same way. Associating white and male pride with traditionalism is exactly the party line that's been pushed, and that created this situation.
Until the humiliating defeats with Brexit and Trump, the progressive left was so high on its own supply, they wouldn't hear it. Some still won't hear it, they're just covering their ears and panicking, because they think the media's image of Trump and his supporters - the same media that predicted a 93% chance of Clinton presidency - was actually an accurate representation of reality.
Think men aren't horrible oppressors? You're a misogynist, sexist MRA who wants to bring women back into the kitchen. Think "white people" are just a convenient but wrong proxy for class, and that blindly inviting uneducated and illiberal refugees into a service-based economy and libertarian culture is a recipe for disaster? You're a racist islamophobe who thinks black lives don't matter.
Respecting white culture means respecting the values that built western society, and that includes rationality, impartiality, and evidence-based inquiry. Valuing male culture means acknowledging meritocracy, understanding that respect is earned - not given - and encouraging confidence to accomplish by yourself.
There is really a stunning amount of projection stemming from the left these days, and it's left otherwise sympathetic people out in the cold. The progressive left repeats the right words, but they don't seem to understand what they mean or where they came from, incapable of self-reflection.
The progressive Left supported Bernie Sanders. The moderate Left and Right and the Establishment forced the exactly perfect candidate for Trump to beat.
One example would be the adoption of European, and "ethnic" literature in lieu of the American literary canon -- even in American Literature courses! There's a comment about this by the late Andrew Breitbart, you can google it. (He studied American Literature.)
That's just one example, there are literally millions. Here's another way of looking at it:
- if a African American outwardly expresses his cultural origins and identity, this is called "affirmative" -- a word with positive connotations;
- if an Italian American expresses ties to his cultural origins, it's considered less inspiring, but still ok
- if an white European American expresses pride at his cultural heritage, then he's usually derided as nativist, racist, xenophobic, or, worst of all -- an old fogey.
This seems to me, as a Swede, as the same rhetoric used by nationalists here in Sweden as well as nationalists in other countries.
But it's more a feeling than a fact.
" - if an white European American expresses pride at his cultural heritage, then he's usually derided as nativist, racist, xenophobic, or, worst of all -- an old fogey."
This is also just your words and feelings, not an example of where a white European American expresses pride at his cultural heritage and is derived as something negative.
> if an white European American expresses pride at his cultural heritage
As a white guy who was raised in Upstate NY, and had festivals throughout the year for Italian (a Columbus Day Parade + multiple social clubs), Greek, & Ukrainian festivals, a huge St Patty's Day parade, etc, this doesn't ring true.
We didn't have a single festival for brown people or native people. There were no Women's parades.
Yes waving a Confederate flag will bring a little judgement from me, but that feels like the exception.
Exactly. It makes no sense. The story is similar with regard to Irish cultural heritage.
Actually, it does make sense if you look at it through the right lens.
"Oppressed" => affirmative
"Hegemonic" => racist, bad
AFAICT, this is how the calculation works. And to be fair, it's not entirely without merit. It just seems to me the pendulum -- which was too far in the pro-European heritage direction before -- has now swung too far in the "European/White bad, everything else good" direction.
Well kind of, in the last century 1900-2000 in Australia, Greek and Italian immigrants weren't considered "white". The only immigrants that were considered white were from the UK (and maybe France, Germany, and the Nordic countries).
There is a semi-derogotary slang term used for people of that descent in Australia, but it escapes my mind at the moment. Nevertheless the people immigrated from Greece and Italy and made a significant impact on Australian culture.
I've driven across the US three times. American culture is largely gone, coopted by cookie cutter homes, strip malls and wal-marts. It's a beautiful country though.
I disagree. American culture is still very much there, it just doesn't exist within the corporate/commercial realm.
I think something people always seem to overlook is that there never really was a singular American culture. The different regions have had very distinct cultures. I've been to Polish festivals across the Midwest, large bbq/cookouts in the south, and plenty of bluegrass festivals around appalachia.
There's plenty of culture around. It's just not at the surface anymore now that mass media and other interests have sort of taken control of that arena.
And in California, music festivals and underground parties, all the swimming holes around Yuba, Tahoe (not the touristy stuff), countless other hippie hang-outs...
And that's just a specific sub-culture in NorCal. I'm sure tons of similar things exist around the US, but the California one is pretty awesome and does reach to other places in the world (Hawaii, Costa Rica, Bali, etc)
Very much disagree. Check out a small town in the South, some fishing village in the North East, go to Alaska or Hawaii, watch a high school Football game on a nice Friday night in Texas. Enjoy some Jazz in New Orleans...I think the USA is dripping with culture(s). Even the mega cities are very rich. NYC has a very distinct feel, LA has movie culture which is very much a US thing.
But the USA is also a country of immigrants and natives. It seems silly to toss out immigrants who have actually enriched the culture of the country. I think it's fantastic that you feel the German influence in Pennsylvanian, there are Chinatowns in most cities, I've heard rumors that there might be some Irish influence in Boston etc. etc.
I am a little sad that the native culture isn't a bit stronger.
No, the interstates are a bigger joke. You'll see nothing, but make great time. What I've seen as someone originally from Ohio that's lived in NYC and Seattle the last 10 years is much of the culture is diluted because people move around and communities receive more outside influence than they did pre-WW2. I've seen too much to list here. The rural areas like where I grew up and the farm I was raised on are familiar. It's the faces of people and culture are familiar to me. And people do cling to religion and sometimes guns.
I've also lived in the wealthiest zip code on the upper east side and listened in on elitist ramblings as people discuss international finance in the corner Starbucks. Oblivious of the wider social impacts such topics have.
My day today is spent working in a technocracy that unfortunately over estimates merits and the ability of anyone to simply advance beyond their circumstance.
The culture exists, but it has Americanized over the years. Polish, Irish, German, Swiss, etc it all gets diluted from the European versions after 5 or 6 generations.
You could argue that interstates are actually a very specific part of "American culture". Certainly they had a large impact on the way of life for many Americans over the past 60 some odd years (or however many it's been). Motels, those clusters of shops around the interchanges, certain kinds of diners and truck-stops, not to mention the ubiquity of semi-trucks ("18 wheelers"), etc., are tightly tied to the emergence of the interstates and are iconic in American culture.
For those interested in this, check out Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck. It was written in 1962, but I think it holds up well.
An aged Steinbeck feels out of touch with a country he is famous for writing about. To aid this, he travels across the country with his dog to see the America and it's people he has grown away from. He specifically avoids major highways and roads for the reasons people list here.
No, they aren't; though culture grows through them and around them. They're the result of government policies. Soviet apartment blocks aren't culture either.
Well if you just drive around on the main roads it can feel that way. Talk to the locals and participate in local culture and you'll feel very different.
> Most of the things written in past few years about
> diversity. The western culture is evil, because it
> was built by white men.
As a white man, I'm yet to read anything I've taken seriously suggesting that "western culture" is evil. I've read plenty to suggest that my experience isn't always the most important one though, and I think the whole idea of privilege is very very useful. I found the whole GitHub meritocracy debate to be genuinely mind-expanding.
> Regardless of the merit, when you have actual white
> men talking like that, it seems a tad
> self-destructive.
I wonder what we'd make today of the discussions about Southern Culture around the time of abolition. Self-destructive?
> As a white man, I'm yet to read anything I've taken seriously suggesting that "western culture" is evil.
Try "colonialism", "white man's burden", etc. I've seen a lot of those being thrown around lately, with the implication that the current western culture is still imperialistic and oppressive, and therefore all of us - stereotypical westerners - should ask the world for judgement and forgiveness. My point is - well, sure, imperialism happened, lot of bad things were done. Let's resolve particular claims of particular peoples in a mature and legal way. But beyond that, I don't feel any personal responsibility for what happened 100+ years ago, and I don't see why I now - as suggested - should hate myself, hate my culture, or bow down and voluntarily make place for the "oppressed" to step up.
> I wonder what we'd make today of the discussions about Southern Culture around the time of abolition. Self-destructive?
Discussions about slavery != discussions about the whole culture of people. Again, I'm fine with discussing a specific issue on merits - but the current media situation is that one has to be wary of saying anything "too white" or "too patriarchy", lest he be chastised by his own fellow white men - that feels like a pretty self-destructive phenomenon.
Genuine question lost in the blizzard on this thread... but why would a citation add to this? It would just indicate that someone else agreed; what does this add?
Presumably, citation is requesting some factual evidence that this is true, not that people feel it is true.
Though both are important, if there's not actually a "War on Christmas" and Obama didn't actually rename the White House christmas tree the winter tree, but the new President has been cited by his son as running because those things did happen, then both these facts are interesting.
edit to add: something to look forward to, when Trump announces he's renamed the tree to the Christmas tree, even though it never got called anything else. I'm trying to imagine how they'll spin that without actually telling a blatant lie, probably just by making a big fuss about it and letting other people online lie about it.
Somehow it feels "frowned upon" to celebrate that you're a white male. It's something we can't be proud of. Patriarchy and the fact that white males dominate the corporate world is apparently something that should be "changed". I hope Trump changes that.
If a black man says "I'm proud to be a black man" it seems reasonable to most people. If a white man says "I'm proud to be a white man" people think he's part of a prison gang.
I agree that that is unacceptable. Neither stance makes sense to me, but you can be proud of a heritage or culture, but having a particular color of skin doesn't make you automatically part of any culture...it has to do with upbringing or adoption may be, but birth race really has nothing to do with what is a social phenomenon.
If you are proud of being part of a culture, that seems completely reasonable. May be we don't call white culture "white culture," some refer to it as "American culture." Perhaps that's what you want?
I think you are oversimplifying. Look at Black Lives Matter. It is an example of, If a black person says "Black Lives Matter", many white people say "you're racist."
Being white and male is pretty awesome, though, so maybe it's better not to get the rest of the human race jealous? /s
Seriously, people seem to make the mistake of assuming that because we need to change the fact that the corporate world is dominated by white men, that makes being a white man in the corporate world bad. It doesn't, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that - it's the fact that there are not enough other members of the human race represented i.e. restating the thing we need to change as a negative statement, we see what it is that is bad about the situation.
Being a white male isn't a culture. I'm a white male myself, and there's a lot of cultural differences between me and white men in Russia; white men in different social classes; in different workplaces; in different hobbies and so forth.
Patriarchy is frowned upon because it's inherently unfair. You're complaining that people frown on you because you celebrate your social superiority over them?
> Patriarchy and the fact that white males dominate the corporate world is apparently something that should be "changed"
It seems to me that social superiority was part of the conversation to begin with. The OP wants to celebrate being a white male and apparently doesn't believe that the social superiority of white males is something that needs to be changed.
There's more similarity between you and white men in Russia than you might think.
The trajectory of both cultures were at times parallel. Industrialization. Space race. Higher education accessible for middle class. Having to figure out womens and minorities rights, freedom of religion and abortion.
The bashing of white male culture obscures the fact that it's the culture that made universal human rights possible. Not done by Indians, Chinese or Arabs. We invented this idea that women and men, black and white should be viewed from same angle. Was universally unthinkable before.
Firstly, I'm not American, so no, 'space race' is not part of my culture. Similarly, just because you can draw parallels, does not mean the cultures are the same. American men like to drink to excess? So do Russian men. Ergo the cultures are the same? But wait, Japanese men also like to drink to excess.
As for "white men figuring out women's rights"... are you serious? Women have had to fight for their rights every step of the way. And as for universal human rights, that wasn't a "white male" thing either. It came from certain parts of Europe, not "white males".
You can't simply take everything that came from any white country and just claim that it's a monoculture.
It's sad that 'space race' is not part of your culture. You've missed out on one of Top 5 Things To Do In XX Century.
WRT women had to fight every step: In Soviet Russia, which by the way I don't really like, women got quite a few rights over a range of time without big struggle, and that in part encouraged other white women in the world, and then all other women too, to go for what's theirs.
The white European male culture is what made fight for human rights possible. It's where it all happened, just like Jesus happened in Jerusalem and not in Ohio.
You're not even being internally consistent. Apparently I get to share in the culture of human rights because I'm a white male and white males were in Europe doing human rights things, but I don't get to share in the culture of the space race, which was done predominantly by white males? Why do I get to culturally associate with one and not the other?
> In Soviet Russia, which by the way I don't really like, women got quite a few rights over a range of time
The primary example of women's rights, the Suffragette movement, well predates the existence of the USSR. Women had gained the ability to vote in several countries before the start of WWI, let alone the USSR.
> The white European male culture is what made fight for human rights possible
No it didn't, because there isn't one culture like that. It's like saying that there's only one black culture, only one yellow culture, only one arab culture.
It's a question to you whether you get to shate the culture of the space race. You rejected it in your parent comment.
Suffrage is not everything. The right of doing your finances is another one. The right to abortion is yet other. Entering higher education a different one.
You make it sound like culture is a rigid thing like a barcode, it's either same on two individuals or different, end of story. It is not so. You share more with your peers, a bit less with other compatriots, a bit less with people from neighboring countries, a bit less, but still significant amount, with all white Europeans, and then you share some with the rest of the world.
But on the 'white European' level quite some interesting things do happen.
As a white male you are the wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society.
If you feel otherwise it's likely something going on in your own head.
EDIT my point is that you're complaining you can't celebrate your white privilege, when in fact every day is a celebration of that. Not that because you are white you necessarily are any of those things - just that it is easier to be.
EDIT2
> All it leads to is an endless loop of arguments
Or, if you step back and don't get so "offended" it's also known as a "discussion".
There's a huge amount of people who really, really don't know how good they have it. Talk about how they need more. Then get offended when you point out there are people worse off.
Inequality is a serious issue, and yes we do need to have a discussion around "privilege", who is or isn't "privileged", and comparison of levels of "privilege".
Telling people to "check their privilege" is pretty close to the worst way to advance any kind of meaningful dialogue, from what I've seen. Speaking that way manages to be simultaneously presumptuous, condescending and demeaning. I'll go out on a limb and posit that we should drop use of the term "privilege" altogether. All it leads to is an endless loop of arguments about: the nature (or existence) of "privilege", who is or isn't "privileged", and comparison of levels of "privilege". I have yet to see one of these discussions change anyone's mind, or lead to any increased understanding.
> Telling people to "check their privilege" is pretty close to the worst way to advance any kind of meaningful dialogue, from what I've seen. Speaking that way manages to be simultaneously presumptuous, condescending and demeaning.
Given the closeness of the election result, it may well have been the straw that tipped it over into a Trump victory.
People who have spread the "check your privilege" meme should reflect on that. But I bet most of them won't.
Congratulations, you've just perfectly proven the GP's point.
This kind of reaction is what makes it forbidden for white westerners "to cultivate, maintain, and respect" their own culture. This kind of reaction, multiplied milionfold via media - both social and traditional alike - which can sometimes lead you to lose your job, or home.
I get it - mistakes were made, some people in the past got trampled in order for the West to get where it is. We can, and should, absolutely talk about it[0]. But living our lives in despair over the "privilege"? Feeling constantly guilty for being born? That's an overreaction.
Frankly, all that privilege talk seems to be just an attempt to guilt-trip the west into self-destructing.
--
[0] - I'm talking pretty recent times; if you want to go back to the beginnings, then each culture has humongous amounts of blood on its hands.
- A Nobel Prize laureate made a joke at a conference lunch, it costed him and his wife their jobs. [0]
- Rosetta comet landing twisted from success into abusing one of the lead scientists. [1]
- There was someone about to or after losing his/her home over a Twitter shitstorm, but I can't for life remember who he or she was now :/.
There are many more stories if you read reports on abuse of Twitter, which has turned into the literal "Internet hate machine". Whether or not these stories are completely innocent or maybe the victims lacked taste in their initial deed is a different discussion; my point is, social media became weaponized and used to strike people at random, and the people wielding the weapon are the same who scream evils of west culture patriarchy at you.
Americans don't like to sing Happy Birthday, wear blue jeans, and bbq things on sunny days? Are any of these negative stereotypes? Who would be offended by saying that it's common in the US for people to do these things? Where did I pass judgment on wearing blue jeans? Denigrate people for singing Happy Birthday? Defend the humble sausage?
My 'list of stereotypes' before that bit was intentionally culture free, apart perhaps from 'birthday songs'. Every (major) culture has all of those aspects. How is it bigoted to say that cultures have religious holidays or sporting events?
--
I can't believe that I just got called a bigot for saying that in American culture, people sing Happy Birthday. In a thread that came from a guy whining that he can't celebrate patriarchy and white men holding all the positions of power, no less. How ridiculously over-sensitive are you?
>"No matter what you have, you will never be happy. All your blessings are curses to you."
That makes no sense. Most would be happy to be just left alone and not be vilified for being white, male, of a western-culture, non-liberal, having cultural/national pride, etc.
Just leave people alone, that's what people are failing to grasp.
The worst we have to worry about is that this "progressive" non-sense is being washed-into our children at public schools and elsewhere. Through the pervasive hate-men and hate-western privilege media that makes such a narrative pervasive to an extent that the teachers themselves can't help but push it onto their pupils.
> Just leave people alone, that's what people are failing to grasp.
Exactly this. Why even bring up the topic of "privilege"? If someone brings it up, they're trying to illicit some sort of reaction from the other party. Ok I fit the definition of what you use the word "privilege" to refer to. I don't feel like I need to be moved to any sort of action because of this. No apologies, no feeling of shame, no feeling of I need to be charitable, respect someone else's position more or less, no need to gloat about it, etc. Nothing. It's like making the observation that the sky is blue. I can look, agree with you, and that is exactly where it should end. If you expect anything more than that, I outright reject it.
> Through the pervasive hate-men and hate-western privilege media
Have a look at the demographic makeup of your country, then have a look at the demographic makeup of TV hosts. Compare also how many times male vs female anchors have their appearance commented on.
Have a listen to some talkback radio.
Read a variety of local papers.
I thoroughly agree that people want to be left alone, but people also want life to be fair. For example, life is not fair when black people get sentenced to significantly longer terms than whites, for identical crimes.
> Are these the worst things you have to worry about?
What else? What other issue are you going to conflate with this one in order to derail it? The "There are starving children in Africa, so all your problems are trivial" argument?
> Your culture is imprinted right across the face of the world
As previously mentioned, "white" isn't really a simple culture, there are many white cultures. If you can be specific by what you mean by culture in this instance?
> woebetide anybody that dares point that out to you.
generalization. You don't know anything about that poster, other than their interactions with you specifically. Your dismissing specific problems in your own arguments as just being general disagree-ability in you opponents.
This ignores the many white men for whom there is no economic hope, because their towns and regions are dying. Many of these white men are living off of disability because their jobs left and aren't going to be coming back. Many are addicted to pain killers and other drugs to help distract them from the reality of their situation. That is an existence without much hope, a slow, depressive sinking into despair.
With that in mind, I think you can imagine why the drum telling them about how privileged they are and have no right to complain might inspire more than a little anger.
Have the same empathy towards poor white men as you would to anyone else, and encourage your friends to, for everyone's sake.
Can we stop this tired meme? The median income for Trump voter at least in the primaries was higher than the nation's median and higher than Clinton's or Sanders'[0].
That article has very suspect figures. It says that all the major candidates had supporters with median incomes above the national median income. Which tells me that the population they're polling isn't representative.
That's not cause to suspect the analysis. Yes, the sampled population may not be congruent with the nationwide population. There's a reason for that: these are exit polls at the primaries. Only those who showed up to vote in those primaries can be polled.
The VA results there, for example, also show that the majority of respondents for both Republican and Democratic primaries are over the median state (and national) _age_.
Right, that was my point - primary voters are not representative of general election voters, and so conclusions about general election voters should not be drawn from primary voter data.
Maybe you should start to see people as individuals instead of treating them as members of a group and putting all of them into a box labeled "privileged".
Not every white male is part of the "wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society".
Society does not treat individuals as individuals. People are put into boxes every day, and it's really only now that people are saying, "hey you know that being white means you probably get put in less boxes, and boxes of less negative importance, let's just acknowledge that", that people are suddenly imploring people to not put people in boxes.
> As a white male you are the ..., healthiest, ... in modern society.
Not true, Asians are healthier than whites and females are healthier than males. White males have some privileges but they certainly don't have all of them.
You need to compare within countries or it doesn't matter. Asians in the US lives a lot longer than whites in the US. Also if you want to find poor whites you just have to look at Russia where they live shorter than even China. Therefore we can conclude that being born in the US is a privilege in terms of life span, but being white is not.
Everywhere around you. You have a indoor plumbing and electricity and always-on internet, correct? You eat three squares a day, right? In global terms, you are likely to be quite wealthy. Most software developers easily make it into the world's top 5%, if not the top 1%.
>Most software developers easily make it into the world's top 5%, if not the top 1%.
You do realise they are what they are because they made it so? Or at least becasuse their parents grandparents did. They weren't born pro developets, not a single one of them had any guaratees of being succesful or fairly paid.
And no - not all of them were born into a wealthy family of the 1% of the first world countries. You can check some noatable bios and see for yourself just how many of the so called 'world's top 5%, if not the top 1%' started at the bottom of the world.
You seem to be attacking me for stating a fact. Who cares about why they are wealthy — people in the computer industry are astonishingly wealthy in historic or global terms.
>astonishingly wealthy in historic or global terms
Like if we compare a junior sys.admin to some kid of the similar age from an african village that has problems with drinkable water? Yes, well, no shit.
This is the essence of white privilege. A belief that you got there through your own hard work, smarts and gumption.
Stand back a second. Many third world countries have this in spades, but just never had your opportunities.
There is a possibility, that maybe you failed to consider, that maybe you are just "lucky". The gaping chasm of inequality that faces you is insurmountable, so you justify your privilege by telling yourself you're better.
I know that's a hard pill to swallow, because it calls into question a belief that you are in control of your life which is a scary thought. Especially for 'murca.
And the opposite belief is that because someone has privilege they should "do something about it". White males are at the top of the ladder. It doesn't matter why. They have no need to apologize or feel guilty about it. Even if it is an indirect result of exploiting slave labor at some point in the distant past, so be it.
The current pre-Trump political zeitgeist is completely antithetical towards this. It downright seeks to eradicate patriarchy. I like Trump because he gives me the impression that if someone were to give me shit about my so-called "white privilege" and I said to them "So what, go fuck yourself" he'd have my back all the way.
>This is the essence of white privilege. A belief that you got there through your own hard work, smarts and gumption.
Oh really? Lend me a minute of your time then, if you can be so kind.
My family (half russian half ukrainian) comes from Tajikistan (both parents and their parents were living and working there before USSR went down). At the time I was born (1988) Tajikistan was still part of the USSR, obviously.
When the shit hit the fan in the late 80s (civil war began in 1991) we had to move from there. While father was trying to start up his business in Cheboksary (capital of Chuvash republic in Russia) - my mother and I were living in Poltava, Ukraine. So, while Ukraine and Russia were our respective homelands - we were refugees, formally. Yet, in a matter of 4 or 5 year my father and his friends, who also made it out from Tajikistan torn by a war, were able to establish a company, which was successful enough to provide these families with homes, food etc. They made it with their knowledge, will, effort and hard work. Despite being refugees in their own country (which is a paradox, right?). Not because they were white, not because they had more money (they had not) or any other "privileges".
So - my 'privileges', did not just appeared out of the blue, because I'm white. They are the result if my father's and mother's efforts. Had they thrown this chance away - I wouldn't have any of this. No matter how white I am.
And this is just one, not very well telling example.
Yes, living in the more or less modern environment has it's benefits, but this has nothing to do with 'white privilege'.
>You have a indoor plumbing and electricity and always-on internet, correct? You eat three squares a day, right?
So does everyone in America, regardless of race or class.
> Most software developers easily make it into the world's top 5%, if not the top 1%.
I am the only upper middle-class member of my entire extended family. The rest are all lower-middle, blue collar workers - the kind people like you want to kick to the curb with open borders.
>Everywhere around you. You have a indoor plumbing and electricity and always-on internet, correct? You eat three squares a day, right? In global terms, you are likely to be quite wealthy
These things are true of every black male, white woman, hispanic woman, asian male, etc... I've ever met. So do all of those demographics also have white male privilege?
Then you need to meet more people, for sure. You're so wealthy that you don't even know what poverty looks like.
No comment on whether any demographics enjoy white male privilege. It was just a comment on the fact that the wealth of hackers are literally everywhere around us, but we apparently can't have a discussion about it without descending into who has privilege.
>You're so wealthy that you don't even know what poverty looks like.
I mean, knowing what poverty is and experiencing it are two different things. Of course, I've lived out of my car, so it's possible both apply to me... And even then I had access to all the things you talk about by stepping into a goddamned McDonald's. I would have gone to a shelter of some kind, but none of them let me in because I am a white male.
> but we apparently can't have a discussion about it without descending into who has privilege.
"You disputed my claim about privilege, therefore we can't have a discussion about privilege."
Every one around me gets those advantages, regardless of skin color.
The real lesson to take away from Trump's win is that there are a lot of people finding it increasingly hard to keep that water running and electricity on. Job security has disappeared and underemployment is a huge problem.
> As a white male you are the wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society.
Yes. I don't want to feel that I need to apologize for this or be treated in a negative way. I get that we're at the top of the ladder, now leave us alone.
I'm not sure you need to apologize and it doesn't look like you have been treated in a negative way.
I hope you don't consider this thread as "being treated in a negative way", it's a just discussion. EDIT: I really appreciate you replying. We are supposed to talk to you about it all, apparently, and it's good to have that discussion.
> you are the wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society.
individuals experience reality as individuals, not in aggregate. Also, you can slice the cake as you wish - you can specify a group as "the wealthiest/celebrated" group directly, without conflating this with race or sex, whatever correlations might exist.
The wealthiest white males live on the liberal coasts of CA and in NY, mean FA to rust belt white men who are being told to stfu because they are so wealthy/powerful/celebrated... in aggregate at least. White men can reject the establishment too - there is no contradiction in the fact that the "establishment" consists mainly of white males, so long as you understand that race/sex/etc aren't the only way to group the world.
Here in Spain the 12th of October is remembered as the day Chris Columbus found the new continent but somehow the left is disgusted by the fact that there were some degree of imperialism and colonialism.
FFS its our history and we should not deny it. We should learn from it, see what was good, what was bad, and celebrate the date because it was a important mark in this world.
- Scott Fitzgerald
- Mark Twain
- Herman Melville
- John Steinbeck
- Wall Whitman
- E. Allan Poe
- Ginsbert
- Bukowski
- Charlie Chaplin
- Miles Davis
- Bob Dylan
- (countless others)
Depends on where/what you choose to look. I understand that the average American is not all that knowledgeable but neither is the average European, Australian, Japanese or Nigerian...
Just nitpicking, but Chaplin was born in the UK and was already a vaudeville star when he was signed up by Karno and went to Hollywood. His status as an immigrant led to calls for him to be deported when he protested against HUAC. In the end, when he left for the premier of Limelight in London in 1952, the AG revoked his re-entry permit, and he didn't return to the US for twenty years.
Which is not to deny that his silent movie career isn't American culture; just that Chaplin's relationship with America was complicated.
On a more serious note, it's interesting to reread his poem _America_, which was certainly written more as an aspiration than a description at the time. However, this election makes you wonder whether the aspiration is even there anymore (from either side, if we're being honest).
| Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
| All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
| Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
| Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
| A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
| Chair’d in the adamant of Time.
"respect for American culture" always comes in the form of trashing and stereotyping other cultures and enumerating the reasons why "they" should leave. Maybe if you tried an affirmative approach, instead of saying all kinds of racist and bigoted things about other cultures, fewer people would call you a bigot or a racist.
We are on one hand supposed to respect and honor other cultures, but are not allowed to cultivate, maintain and respect our own (American) culture.
Which is absurd for many reasons... one being it denies a very real reason for many wanting to come to our country, or fails to identify the characteristics that made western culture generally preferable to many others.
I appreciate your perspective on this issue.