• nednobbins@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    46
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    13 hours ago

    You are technically correct; people can absolutely be racist against white people.

    Now I’ll explain why you’re being downvoted anyway.

    “Black Lives Matter” became a slogan because police disproportionately target black people. They stop and question black people at a far higher rate than is warranted by actual crimes, they arrest people at a far higher rate than white people, and they kill black people at a far higher rate than they kill black people.

    The statement is very obviously not just a literal statement on the value of human life; it’s an accusation that police seem to think black lives don’t matter. “All Lives Matter” simply pretends to be ignorant of the entire background and reasoning behind the phrase.

    Israeli’s have been massacring Palestinians and leveling their cities. They have inflicted orders of magnitude more suffering on Palestinians in the last years than Hamas has during its entire existence. The only way to equate the two is if you believe that Palestinian lives are worth significantly less than Israeli lives, and yes, that would be racist.

    • village604@adultswim.fan
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      13 hours ago

      I think people assume I’m saying that white people are victims of systemic racism, which is not at all what I said.

      • orlyowl@piefed.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        12 hours ago

        I don’t have the sociological definition of racism at my fingertips, but IIRC it includes the need for a power imbalance, which is generally why people push back when folks say that minority groups can be racist against against white people. Our entire country was (arguably still is to a large degree) set up to where there is a huge power imbalance in favor of white people.

        If you just want to make the very real point that white people are victims of bigotry also sometimes, rather than get into this repetitive debate about whether there can be racism against white people, IMO you can just say “bigotry” or “racial prejudice” and carry the same message you intend to without having to have this tired debate about whether white people can experience racism.

        Unless you aren’t tired of the tired debate, but I know I sure am.

      • kurwa@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        9
        ·
        10 hours ago

        This is like having a conversation about menstruation, and then men being like, “I get cuts sometimes”.

        No one fucking cares, if you’re talking about white racism, you’re just being self centered.

      • Tiral@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        11
        ·
        12 hours ago

        People don’t care, they make up whatever they want to feel good about themselves. The definition of “racism” has no specific race, it’s like murder, it’s murder if xyz criteria are met.

        If an African American doesn’t hire ANYONE based off race/skin color, it’s racism, period. Even if it’s other African Americas. Caucasians aren’t magically excluded regardless of how bad you want them to be. Typically, at least in my experience in education, most African Americans are happy with racism as long as it’s in their benifit, because they have some weird ass belief that it’s impossible for them to be racist somehow.