Re:Why People Feel Like Victims
by TheOtherHobbes on Thursday May 06, 2021 @08:48PM
(#27070668)
You can be poor and still be a white supremacist, because white supremacy is not about being rich or successful. It's about believing that non-whites are not just irredeemably inferior and threateningly different, they're born that way.
Just because you personally haven't experienced it does not mean it doesn't exist. That's such a self-evident logical fallacy it shouldn't even need to be stated.
Systemic racism means that people are treated badly for the same reasons. It's why black lawyers are regularly asked if they're the defendant in court, why black youths are stopped and searched far more often than white youths, why there are obvious differentials in sentencing for identical crimes... and so on.
If you think these discussions are fraught, consider the position of those for whom this is about everyday experience and not just about "discussion" or "rhetoric."
Obviously skin heads exist. I’m referring to the academic usage of “white supremacy”—an overall system that keeps non-whites from advancing. That’s just not true. Asians and Latinos are economically converging with whites, just as previous generations of immigrants did. Asians are the richest demographic. They live the longest. They’re over represented in elite institutions. And when you adjust for age and citizenship status, the supposed “bamboo ceiling” disappears too. Asians are evenly represented among Fortune 500 boards and over represented among new board member appointments.
> Perhaps I'm applying my own personal experiences a bit too much here, but what worries me especially is the effect is has on self-confidence of these kids. It's fine to have these kind of discussions in politics or academia, but teaching them to kids? I find it worrying.
Agreed. I think "systemic racism" is a bad name for quantifiable disparities that, in an academic context, can be show to exist using facts and statistics. That doesn't mean you should teach it to kids, especially using labels that were specifically chosen to make them think their neighbors are out to get them.
"White supremacy," by contrast, doesn't exist, and it's absurd to pretend it does in a country where whites are poorer than several immigrant demographics, and are effectively underrepresented in elite colleges, Silicon Valley, etc.
As you observe, these discussions are politically fraught. I would prefer to stay out of them. But this sort of teaching and rhetoric has been extended to Asians now, and as someone with Asian kids I can't ignore it anymore.