Why are white people so scared?

[Kalyke]

I'm white... well... sorta. I'm Irish, Scottish, Native American and English (and a whole slew of other Europeans) and I'm not afraid of Obama or immigrants or anchor babies or Elizabeth Warren or, hell, even snakes.

But, I am white and the thing I'm most scared of is most certainly not a person - even though this thing claims to be. I'm more scared of multi-national corporations and their ability to be zombies: persons in their ability to move through society, but blameless in their rending of flesh.

[murielm99]

1. Well, historically, white people have not treated darker skinned

people very well. That is putting it mildly.

Maybe a lot of us are afraid of receiving the same treatment?

[Journeyman]

13. Or as Thomas Jefferson said, when he contemplated the horror of slavery . . .

"I tremble when I think that God is just."

[bbgrunt]

2. guilt that they are not deserving of their good fortune.

That basic question was asked by Michael Moore in "Bowling for Columbine". Although he didn't answer the question directly, when he showed how differently Canadians seemed to process life and risk.

[Zoeisright]

3. Because they're afraid they are going to be treated exactly like they have treated

minorities all along.

[Kalyke]

9. Really?

I guess it's possible. Hell, I know it is. My husband (who is Jewish) had a revelation in Israel: "They are treating the Palestinians the same as they were treated. Why?"

I'm not scared of that. But, then again, I don't even treat bugs as lesser than I. They are also here for some reason.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. .

[Kalyke]

5. Heh... nope.

I wouldn't say as I would greet one, but I wouldn't run screaming, either.

:)

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. .

[Kalyke]

10. They're more scared of you than you of them, you know.

Just walk away.

BTW, my Grandma had the full painting of the small portrait you have in your sig on her wall.

She was a Republican... but is probably turning in her grave at what that party has become. She was a VERY head-strong woman. I can't imagine what she'd think of Palin.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

12. .

[mrcheerful]

7. Well you see when your brought up in a household that tells you from the day your born that

anyone who don't look like you is a scary evil boogieman. Then as you get older your told that what makes them evil boogie men is they want to take the stuff you earned for picking up your own messes and horrors of horror's they also don't believe what your church leader told you as the unquestionable truth so they are not only evil criminals, but they are also followers of the devil! Then because your family isolates you by putting you into religious schools and limit who you come in contact with, remember servants are either not seen as a person or they are a lesser person then you are, even that contact is steeped in fear, your checking to see if any household stuff is messing because servants steal.

You expect these types of people to be able to function in society that they been sheltered from? Heres on from my personal life, when my family left the homestead to go into the city to visit my grand parents, pre 64, we had to pass through the "black" side of the city. Every trip when we got to the south end of the city my mother would start complaining about the run down house's, junk cars and boarded up stores, declaring how dirty "those" people were.

Now in my eyes what I saw wasn't the same as mom, I saw very little difference between them and us country folk. My neighbors not only had junk cars in their yards but on top of the cars there would be bath tubs and toilets sitting in the yards for years in the hopes the neighbors would someday be able to afford indoor plumbing. When I pointed out that outside of skin color the people were the same, mom busted me in the mouth because the neighbors were decent white folks who were trying hard to better themselves where as the folks on the edge of the city were evil lazy people who would rob me blind if they knew I had it so good.

[Kalyke]

11. I grew up and still live in the South.

Baby, you hit the nail on the head.

Rarely do I talk like this, but...

Their ain't a damn bit of difference 'tween the rural white folk in the country and the black folk in the city. 'sits us suburbanites who are afraid and draw lines!

[mrcheerful]

14. Funny thing was we were dirt poor ourelves yet mom thought she was superior then the blacks

on the edge of the city. Hell I envied black kids cause they had bicycles and I didn't until I was 12, my first bike was an old 1950's Schwinn that I paid $5 for after one of the old neighbors died and the family was selling off his stuff before selling the house.

[The Traveler]

8. I'm not afraid

Bigots come in all shades of skin. Fuck 'em all. But in my experience, regardless of skin color or culture, most people will treat you well if you have respect for and interest in them. In other words, get to know your fellow human. Most of 'em are actually quite cool, once you get past the layers of fear and resentment that seem to armor us all.

I cannot explain the irrational behaviors of some of my friends ... but fear does seem to poison them. I can love these friends, and endure their right wing diatribes ... but I cannot heal them.

[mwb970]

19. You lost me at "endure their right wing diatribes".

I don't have any right-wing friends (in fact, I don't even know what that oxymoronic phrase could mean), but if I did, the worst part would be sitting there listening to a rerun of Glenn Beck's latest bout of logorrhea. I would be rolling my eyes, laughing, walking away, etc. Mostly walking away.

How do you do it? And why?

[HopeHoops]

15. It is only the really fucking stupid white people who are scared.

Normal white people are just fine.

[Karenina]

16. If only that were true...

[HopeHoops]

26. There are those who just pretend to be afraid for political gain...

... also known as Republican politicians.

[Karenina]

27. Stars on Thars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh1qWZWNGGE

[quaker bill]

17. They do as they are taught

This is the purpose of Faux News.

[DailyGrind51]

18. "Fear" has always been used to keep "us" from complaining or making demands.

Keeping people, especially average working white people, insecure makes it better for the "powers that be".

[Solomon]

20. Here we go again. Every so often I have to explain this.

There are a significant amount of whites who fear genetic anihilation.

If there was true and real integration in the world, these whites feel that the white "race" would melt into the gene pool.

It's not so much that they "hate" people of a darker color, but they fear white anihilation. White birth rates do not keep up with birth rates of darker people. Whites are already a small minority among the world's population.

In their mind, there are only two races: white and non-white. The only way you can produce a white is if a white mates with white. If white mates with non-white, then a non-white is produced. If non-white mates with a non-white, a non-white is produced.

The only way to stop this imbalance is to stockpile bombs, bullets and guns. Bombs, bullets and guns are the psychological answer to the billions upon billions of sperm of non-whites. These whites feel that they have to control the world or be over-run.

The darker the skin, the more vicious the attack because darker skin has a greater power to dilude whiteness.

There are a significant numbers of whites who do not entertain this fear, but there are significant numbers who do.

If you read and study the writings of white supremacists, you will clearly see that fear of genetic anihilation is what drives these people.
Thus they can say with a straight face that they don't "hate" darker peoples. But the thing is, they fear darker people for what they can do to the white "gene" pool.

[Kalyke]

21. Wow - that's just messed up.

Why would anyone get so bent out of shape at the color of a skin that does nothing but hold blood, sinew, bones and organs together?

Strange, indeed.

[Karenina]

22. You've got to be carefully taught...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyhgQMhBzjQ&feature=related

[Zorra]

23. A lot of people live in fear, not just white people.

Us, and them
And after all were only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it's knows what we would choose to do.
Forward he cried from the rear
And the front rank died.
Generals sat and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side.
Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who.
Up and down.
But in the end it's only round and round.
Haven't you heard it's a battle of words
The poster bearer cried.
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There's room for you inside.

(I mean, they're not gunna kill ya, so if you give em a quick short,
Sharp, shock, they won't do it again. dig it? I mean he get off
Lightly, cos I wouldve given him a thrashing - I only hit him once!
It was only a difference of opinion, but really...i mean good manners
Don't cost nothing do they, eh?)

Down and out
It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about.
With, without.
And wholl deny it's what the fightings all about?
Out of the way, it's a busy day
Ive got things on my mind.
For the want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died.

Pink Floyd, Lyrics by Roger Waters

[Orsino]

24. White people put up with a lot from their corporate masters.

They've been lied to, humiliated and paupered by The Man.

The one thing they always had going for them, though, was the knowledge that at least they were better than all those poorer, browner people. Now that the corporations are starting to treat them as shittily as everyone else, they know real fear. That last vestige of privilege is being taken away, and it reminds them of everything else Big Money has stolen.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

25. This entire thread is awash in irony

Is this really the stuff we have to sit around telling ourselves to make ourselves feel better about who WE are?

Really?

From the OP to just about every response I've read nothing but "white people fear the bogey man to explain away their insecurities" without even for half a second stopping to notice the fact that painting with such a broad, and racially charged, brush that white people are being turned into a bogey man to explain why we are frustrated about...whatever.

You know something? I'm pretty ticked off we don't have a public option, economic equality, open borders or full equality under the law for our friends and families among the LGBT community.

But I cannot bring myself to conjure images of big, bad, spooky whities to try and explain away the lack of political will shown by the people I was suckered into voting for.

I/me/myself supported and voted for the politicians who have disappointed me. I don't need fairy tales to see who I am mad at, I only need a mirror.

It sucks and I hate it. I hurt and I wonder what it is I'm supposed to fight for anymore. I don't trust any of them and I don't know who I can trust because the next time someone comes up to me smiling his toothpaste commercial smile, with his perfectly coifed hair and offering a handshake while saying, "I'm really going to change things for you." I'm going to be so cynical and jaded I'll want to smack him out of reflex.

I don't know if the crook makes the political office or the political office makes the crook but I do know there are a lot of crooks in our poliical offices and there are so many they aren't the proverbial turd in the punch bowl but rather the good ones are the pearl atop the shit pile.

I don't know where to find more pearls but I do know they will be that much harder to find if I make sorry excuses of white bogey men fearing not so white bogey to explain away the turds I keep heaping on top of the pile I'm never going to get anything constructive accomplished.

Sorry if I seem brash. I just very frustrated as of late but I don't intend to be mean.

[slackmaster]

28. I'm mainly afraid of car crashes and being robbed of my retirement savings

If you think that's because I'm white, so be it.

[Bluenorthwest]

29. Many people of all kinds are filled with fear

I heard one of Dr King's nieces yesterday, wailing about her fear of-dig this- the human race becoming extinct because of gay people. That is correct. How does that fit into the racial theory you have? That fear based bigotry is just white. It is a rainbow, just like all other things which are human. To me, the King niece is afraid, and say, Alan Grayson is not. You say you are not afraid, nor am I. King is terrified of teh gay. The gay of all colors, gunna make the speices extinct.