Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black man

Emily's Cat said:
We should stand behind it and expand it to everyone.

The objective is NOT to eliminate privilege so that everyone suffers the same amount. The objective is to extend privilege so that nobody suffers from a lack of it.
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So how would you go about expanding 'White privilege' to a Black person - bearing in mind the OP request in his video - would that extend to their owning people as slaves and living off the products of their labour? Of course not. How will that work because your statement 'The objective is NOT to eliminate privilege so that everyone suffers the same amount. The objective is to extend privilege so that nobody suffers from a lack of it,' sounds very similar to the 'All Lives Matter' riposte that the guy in the video mentions as being a dismissive one. He is talking specifically about racism, not every problem in society.
 
Emily's Cat said:
We should stand behind it and expand it to everyone.

The objective is NOT to eliminate privilege so that everyone suffers the same amount. The objective is to extend privilege so that nobody suffers from a lack of it.
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It's important to understand that for some factions (roughly describable as elitists), the objective IS to eliminate privilege so that everyone suffers the same amount. But of course "everyone" never includes themselves.
 
Myriad said:
It's important to understand that for some factions (roughly describable as elitists), the objective IS to eliminate privilege so that everyone suffers the same amount. But of course "everyone" never includes themselves.
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It's also important to understand that for other factions (far greater in number than your elitists) the important thing is to have more privilege relative to others. Therefore any attempt to raise the privilege of an underprivileged group to alleviate that group's suffering will be seen as lowering the already privileged group's privilege. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth will ensue.
 
Planigale said:
... The reason why Slavs and slaves were viewed as synonymous ...
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That's a fascinating snippet, that I for one had not been aware of. (Some quick google check bears that out perfectly.)

I was aware of slave trade back in Roman times, obviously, although not in detail, but this does put things kind of in perspective, historically at any rate.
 
Vixen said:
So how would you go about expanding 'White privilege' to a Black person - bearing in mind the OP request in his video - would that extend to their owning people as slaves and living off the products of their labour? Of course not. How will that work because your statement 'The objective is NOT to eliminate privilege so that everyone suffers the same amount. The objective is to extend privilege so that nobody suffers from a lack of it,' sounds very similar to the 'All Lives Matter' riposte that the guy in the video mentions as being a dismissive one. He is talking specifically about racism, not every problem in society.
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This is frankly an absurd rejoinder. White people don't get to own slaves now, and nobody else should either.

The privileges that white people enjoy are predominantly social in nature, many of them stem from assumptions regarding intent, integrity, and trustworthiness that are extended differentially to white people and not to black people. White people are given the benefit of the doubt, they're assumed to have the full intention of paying off their debts, they're assumed to be hard workers. Much of those assumptions have their roots in the oppression of black people, definitely, and they carry through.

Black people should also be given the benefit of the doubt. They should be assumed to be of good intent, not criminals, to have made a mistake rather than have been malicious.
 
wareyin said:
It's also important to understand that for other factions (far greater in number than your elitists) the important thing is to have more privilege relative to others. Therefore any attempt to raise the privilege of an underprivileged group to alleviate that group's suffering will be seen as lowering the already privileged group's privilege. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth will ensue.
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I'm not sure where this observation comes into this discussion though.
 
Chanakya said:
That's a fascinating snippet, that I for one had not been aware of. (Some quick google check bears that out perfectly.)

I was aware of slave trade back in Roman times, obviously, although not in detail, but this does put things kind of in perspective, historically at any rate.
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Long before Roman times. Slavery was common in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, China.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Long before Roman times. Slavery was common in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, China.
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Egypt, sure. What the Bible was all about after all.


eta: This etymology thing's a derail, I realize, but I was curious about when this word, slave, was first used. Some quick googling throws up the year 1290. The funny thing is, Slavs weren't the only people who literally were and meant 'slave': apparently a few centuries before that, the word Briton was used as synonym for slave!

And that reminds me of what came up in the course of yet another thread here, that Hebrew also literally meant slave.

So Slavs, Britons, and Hebrews, were three peoples who were apparently enslaved in such huge numbers that those words were used to mean 'slave'. (With Hebrews it was the other way around: the word itself meant slave, and later came to be assigned for the people.)


...But of course, all that is ancient (or medieval) history. In modern times, in relatively recent times, it is the blacks who overwhelmingly were victims of this despicable system.
 
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Emily's Cat said:
This is frankly an absurd rejoinder. White people don't get to own slaves now, and nobody else should either.

The privileges that white people enjoy are predominantly social in nature, many of them stem from assumptions regarding intent, integrity, and trustworthiness that are extended differentially to white people and not to black people. White people are given the benefit of the doubt, they're assumed to have the full intention of paying off their debts, they're assumed to be hard workers. Much of those assumptions have their roots in the oppression of black people, definitely, and they carry through.

Black people should also be given the benefit of the doubt. They should be assumed to be of good intent, not criminals, to have made a mistake rather than have been malicious.
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The flowery words and declarations are all very nice but I have two questions:

  1. Who will be in charge of distributing out privilege more fairly?
  2. Who will decide the criteria of who qualifies for the endowment of more privilege?

Enquiring minds need to know as it hasn't happened yet after all this time.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Well... them and the young women who get abducted and sold into sex slavery in actual current times.
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Why does the topic keep reverting to Romans, East Europeans, Egyptians and whatnot and sexism/feminism?

Why can't people focus on the topic of racism and how they personally can do something?
 
Historically, ensuring that black Americans remain in poverty is been the chief tool of oppressing these people, especially after the more explicit tools of slavery, and later disenfranchisement, had been eliminated.

Taking measures to reduce poverty would not exclusively benefit black Americans, but it would disproportionately help black Americans exactly because of way that this community has been the victims of oppressive economic policy rooted in racism.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I've been reliably informed that Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
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So, that is either ignorance; or else it is irony; or else the "again" is silent -- call it poetic license!

(Not really, though. Someone who's been a slave in the past can certainly jump up on the bar table and announce that they're never going to be one in future.)


Vixen said:
Why does the topic keep reverting to Romans, East Europeans, Egyptians and whatnot and sexism/feminism?

Why can't people focus on the topic of racism and how they personally can do something?
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Britons and Hebrews too. Afraid those last two are on me!

What do you suggest we do, I mean actually do as opposed to just talk? I for one do think something ought to be done. Reparations, for instance, I'm all for it, in principle at least. (The devil would be in the details, I guess, but even an in-principle agreement would be plenty, if that agreement were widespread enough.)
 
Chanakya said:
So, that is either ignorance; or else it is irony; or else the "again" is silent -- call it poetic license!

(Not really, though. Someone who's been a slave in the past can certainly jump up on the bar table and announce that they're never going to be one in future.)





Britons and Hebrews too. Afraid those last two are on me!

What do you suggest we do, I mean actually do as opposed to just talk? I for one do think something ought to be done. Reparations, for instance, I'm all for it, in principle at least. (The devil would be in the details, I guess, but even an in-principle agreement would be plenty, if that agreement were widespread enough.)
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The institution of racism as we know it today has its roots in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and I dare say the underclasses (for example, 'the Untouchables' in India) elsewhere in the world (Japan, China, rest of the world) have different roots, probably based on old enmities between nations and being subjugated as serfs or whatever, the key thing being shunned or despised by the rest of society.

If you could solve this problem beyond talking about it then you deserve a place in the annals of history, along side Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and John F Kennedy*.

The guy in the video makes a good point IMV that it starts from personal recognition and an averment to make a change. Personal is political.

*I assume these are whom Marvin Gaye was singing about.
 
Vixen said:
So how would you go about expanding 'White privilege' to a Black person - bearing in mind the OP request in his video - would that extend to their owning people as slaves and living off the products of their labour? Of course not. How will that work because your statement 'The objective is NOT to eliminate privilege so that everyone suffers the same amount. The objective is to extend privilege so that nobody suffers from a lack of it,' sounds very similar to the 'All Lives Matter' riposte that the guy in the video mentions as being a dismissive one. He is talking specifically about racism, not every problem in society.
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"Majority rule" is considered by many to be a fundamental pillar of what is and is not "fair".
It is, regrettably, probably unavoidable that those with "minority" status are going to have fewer privileges in a fair society, no?
 
Vixen said:
Like South Africa..?
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Exactly.
Consider how South Africa was viewed when the minority were in control.
It was widely considered a very unfair system.

Something about the human condition that just expects the majority to set the tone for a society. When that is inverted, it seems fundamentally unfair.
 
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Vixen said:
Why does the topic keep reverting to Romans, East Europeans, Egyptians and whatnot and sexism/feminism?

Why can't people focus on the topic of racism and how they personally can do something?
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IMO it's usually expressed in a form under which people can't do anything effective.

Eg in the US unarmed black men are 2.5X more like to be shot by police as unarmed white men (15X in Alabama). Even after adjusting for socioeconomic status there remains a gap, so racism in some form does play a role and there historical racism plays a big role in the difference in socioeconomic status to begin with.

The question is how do you fix this? Police, for them most part, don't believe they are acting out of racial intent and in fact black police officers turn out to be just as guilty as white officers. Give this "get rid of racist police officers" doesn't seem to be a real option.

To come up with a real solution, first we need to understand what it is in police training, culture and work environment that causes the problem, then and only then can we take the steps to do something about it.

The first thing I think needs to be looked at isn't racial in nature at all. While US police shoot unarmed black men at rates 2.5X higher that they shoot unarmed white men, they also shoot unarmed white men 4X as often as Canadian police do and 20X as often as German police do.

The biggest part of the problem by far is that US police culture and training involves making people obey you and shooting them at even the suggestion of personal risk. Fix this authoritarian tendencies would significantly reduce the number of black men shot by police even if the black to white ratio doesn't change at all.

The next biggest thing that could be done is address the underlying social issues that create the difference in socioeconomic status. This isn't something that can be fixed quickly. It's a problem created and entrenched over generations and will take generations to resolve. But, as the saying goes even the longest journey begins with a single step.

The "obvious" problem bias on the part of officers themselves may in fact be impossible to fix while differences in socioeconomic status remain. Human brains are pattern finding machines. If skin color gives real clues as to socioeconomic status (which at present it does) and socioeconomic status gives real clues as to how likely someone is involved in criminal activity (which it does) then human brains will connect the dots when they go out looking for the people most likely involved in criminal activity.

Of course there will be some out and out racism as well and this can be fixed by purging these officers and attacking racism in police culture, but IMO this is the smallest part of the problem in most cases (maybe not Alabama) so the benefit from what many people seem to be calling for would be marginal IMO.
 
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