General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is [View all]ismnotwasm
(42,072 posts)Would help those so privileged to acknowledge responsibility to those who are oppressed, suffering from institutional racism, or are unfortunate in some way.
This happens all the time, only we call it charity. It's a beautiful, but superficial response in the context of what is being discussed.
A white coal miner isn't going to acknowledge white privilege to a well off black executive-- and this is part of the problem. We think too small or use anecdotal individual cases, missing the forest for the trees as it were.
What I meant merely was an opening for a dialogue that helps when you get knee-jerk bullshit responses when regarding race. Knowing the history of racism is helpful too, I know a bit because I have taken a few college courses. But I'm no expert. The expert in racism is the one who experiences it.
You have the ones who won't hear, won't listen, deliberately miss the point, think it's not a problem some of those responses are in this thread. Are they beyond reaching? Maybe. But starting somewhere, removing the self indulgent 'guilt' and saying " yeah you don't have as much as X, but your kids don't get followed in the shopping mall, or just a plain store for being black now do they? And go from there. Actual Conversations can happen.