Quote:
Originally Posted by Voidbarker
the reason why people hate 'white people' as a whole is probably due to the rampant colonialism from us + white nationalists. we're also complicit in racism, which we should probably work on unlearning as much as possible. plus there's a lot of junk in there about cultural appropriation, i.e: white people misusing AAVE (African American Vernacular English) and such, y'know?
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People hate "white people" because white people have become a
symbol of racist oppression. Not that they
are racist oppressors, but just that people want to blame SOMEONE for the ills of the modern world, and white people as a group are acceptable targets because on average in Western society white people are wealthier, more powerful, and more numerous. Being able to point to historical evils provides an excuse to make it seem more okay.
White people aren't inherently complicit in racism. To suggest they are is, itself, racist. White people don't perpetuate racism just by being white. There shouldn't be anything
to unlearn for today's youth -- we've got three generations now where kids have been brought up in a world that recognizes that racial superiority is a myth.
The only thing that people need to learn is that different doesn't mean bad. Humans have an innate bias to gravitate towards people who are like them, and to shy away from people who aren't like them. If you don't show kids that it's okay to associate with people who look different, they won't generally pick it up on their own. Which means that what's going on in modern culture is counterproductive, because it's training kids to avoid people of other races lest they accidentally hurt them or be hurt by them.
It's true that there are unfair systematic phenomena in place that disadvantage minority groups. That doesn't mean it's racism -- it's just easier to be successful if you're starting from a better position. Pointing blame at the people who have a head start through no fault of their own doesn't solve that. Helping people in need does.
As a side note: Cultural appropriation as a concept has, itself, been misappropriated. It's a real thing, but it has little relation to what the average person today
thinks it is. It's not "cultural appropriation" to admire other cultures and to enjoy the things that make them unique. It's not cultural appropriation for an American to wear a kimono, or for a white person's spoken dialect to include some stereotypically-black elements. Cultural appropriation is what happened with jazz in the 1920s -- a larger, more powerful group took a style from a smaller group,
presented it as their own, and crowded the original creators out of their own market. If you're explicitly
honoring the original culture instead of claiming it as your own, it's not cultural appropriation, and if your own culture has started to absorb some of the other culture as a natural process without denying that to the original culture, that's not cultural appropriation either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Voidbarker
i'm fairly certain neurotypical people can comprehend that they're loved. i can't, for some reason, which makes me want more attention near constantly and it's frustrating to deal with. i know there's something wrong here. can't do a single thing about it because, you know, the UK is utter fucking shit with mental health care despite being a halfway decent country as a result of near-universal healthcare, but we still have to pay for therapy.
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All the hugs, man. :(