Reply #76: We've been through this adi infinitum, and I still disagree.

[UdoKier]

Michael Powell, son of Colin Powell *IS* more privileged than I am. He never would have had his job had it not been for his father.

I have never tried to gloss over the very real discrimination MANY if not MOST minorities in this country face, and there may have been a time or two when I got a break for being white but was unaware of it. But human individuals are NOT representatives of, or averages of the race they happen to belong to. We each have an individual lot in life, and a very individual way of facing up to it. There was another poster who actually had the nerve to say that any white male who wasn't a millionaire was a moron for not knowing how to take advantage of all the free "white-only" giveaways in this society, and that is just BULLSHIT. George Bush was born into more privilege than most of us could imagine, so was Michael Powell. Most African-Americans have a much harder row to hoe, and unlike gays, they can't hide who they are, so no matter how talented or brilliant they may be, there will be more barriers for them BUT NOT ALWAYS.

And using your logic, I could say that gays are a privileged class in this country. After all gays have much higher incomes than the population at large. But how do you think a post on "whiny gays" would be received? But with white guys it's okay, and the majority of us who are not rich and powerful are supposed to suck it up just because rich and powerful people happen to be white.

I stand by every comment I have made on this subject, and look forward to the day when every liberal is willing to look at people as people rather than statistics to pigeonhole.


And there are instances when every group is subject to discrimination. As a kid I was forcibly bussed to a low-income Mexican-American neighborhood, and the white kids were CONSTANTLY getting beaten up for being white.

Not that I'm blaming the Mexican kids, there were probably some instances where they were retaliating for snobby behavior by the white kids, or maybe they just resented their school being invaded by a bunch of white kids from another neighborhood, but whatever the reason, I know for a fact that I was repeatedly victimized by kids I didn't even know, who I had never done anything to.

When I lived in Miami, I was limited in the jobs I could take because I'm not fluent in Spanish - almost all jobs there require Spanish fluency (luckily I'm a japanese-English translator, so it wasn't a problem for me personally) but I know many whites who have been forced to leave Miami not because they disliked the place, but because they couldn't find any jobs for English speakers.


My point is not to say that white people as a group are enduring discrimination. I really think the "as a group" part is the problem. I'm just saying that there are times when white people do experience discrimination, and there are few people in this country born into more disadvantaged circumstances than the poor whites of Appalachia.


Please think about this and understand that grouping people the way you do is the exact same thing you claim to be against.