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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Rachel Dolezal and Race Identity
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Seems to me that there are two logical ways you can look at this.
1) music is colour-blind. It's OK for musicians of any colour to play, sing, record etc music written or previously played/sung/recorded by anybody else in the world (subject to everyone involved getting an appropriate share of the profits through sensible copyright legislation).
2) Music is race-specific. A black violinist needs some sort of permission from white people s a whole in order to play Mozart. A white singer needs some sort of permission from black people as a whole in order to play a song written by a black person or sing in the general style made famous by a black person.
If 2) is really the way you want the world to work then clearly there has to be some organisation which adjudicates on who is black and who is white. For the sake of accountability, no ambiguity can be permitted. And as for people who try to cross from one side of this divide to the other...
Best wishes,
Russ
Game, set and match on this Tangent to Russ.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Bullshit.
(3) Persecuted minorities who are being trammeled and discriminated against and killed by their oppressors have a right to feel aggrieved if their oppressors, while denying them full participation in the greater culture, nevertheless take good things from the minority's culture as if they were already equals (or indeed as if the majority culture WANTS them to be equals).
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
I agree with Russ, too. That's why I asked the question up thread about what the obviously racially mixed Mariah Carey should do as she's clearly going to be in trouble, whatever she sings.
This story about a woman who "discovered" she was white after being adopted by black people, just points out the ridiculousness of trying to race label people in America where very few "black," people don't have some "white," in them as well.
I read about this woman and wondered how black people managed to adopt a white baby, way back then, and so I read a bit further and saw that, actually, her biological mother lists another man other than her husband as the father. It seems the adoptee did probably have some African American blood after all. This makes her whole story kind of pointless but she's outraged at Rachel Dolezal anyway.
The melting pot country just gets more blended all the time. I'm hoping racial profiling by the police will soon be impossible as well as illegal.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Bullshit.
(3) Persecuted minorities who are being trammeled and discriminated against and killed by their oppressors have a right to feel aggrieved if their oppressors, while denying them full participation in the greater culture, nevertheless take good things from the minority's culture as if they were already equals (or indeed as if the majority culture WANTS them to be equals).
While I agree it's not so cut and dried, there's a fundamental problem here: acknowledging they feel aggrieved is not the same thing as saying white people need permission.
To mind, they don't. They just don't, because the notion of needing permission is simply untenable as a matter of logic and against the way that the arts work. Especially the art of music (don't get me started on the sheer stupidity of some of the music "copying" cases that go on these days).
What the dominant culture needs is sensitivity, and to stop doing the things that are grievous. It's not the using the music that's the problem! It's the other shit that goes on, the persecution and the discrimination. It's the denial of full participation that's the problem, not the cultural borrowing!
"You're using it" is a fundamentally different complaint from "You're using it more than I can".
[ 27. June 2015, 15:11: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
It starts by acknowledging that there is a problem at all. Privilege is blind; it gets to be, it has the luxury. White people need to wake the fuck up and realize how things look like through non-white eyes. As long as we stick our fingers in our ears and say "either all trans-racial borrowing is bad or none is" we are refusing to see the power differential and are part of the problem, not part of the solution. How the oppressor treats the oppressed is a different thing to how the oppressed treats the oppressor. Until we can see that, we are blind and should just STFU about anything having to do with race.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
acknowledging they feel aggrieved is not the same thing as saying white people need permission.
To mind, they don't. They just don't, because the notion of needing permission is simply untenable as a matter of logic and against the way that the arts work.
But black people have needed permission. some white person/people had to acquiesce. This is the frustration.
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Every time Liopleurodon says something beautifully nuanced, you seem to summarise it in a way that strips the nuance out of it.
You know, thinking about your post, I felt I might need to apologise to the thread. I do not wish to appear that I am thinking in such a rigid manner.
However, sitting down to do so, it struck me that following each of her posts were posts by others completely missing her points. Mine, flawed as they are, are a reaction to those.
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
acknowledging they feel aggrieved is not the same thing as saying white people need permission.
To mind, they don't. They just don't, because the notion of needing permission is simply untenable as a matter of logic and against the way that the arts work.
But black people have needed permission. some white person/people had to acquiesce. This is the frustration.
Absolutely. But what is the solution to white people having wrongly put up barriers to black people?
Call me a naive idealist, but I don't think the solution is for black people to retaliate by putting up barriers to white people. First of all, we know it's not going to work in practice because of the power imbalance. It's just going to be moral outrage.
No, to my mind the solution is for black people to say "hey, stop putting up barriers against us". The solution is to point out the double standard and make white people conscious of it.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Seems to me that there are two logical ways you can look at this.
1) music is colour-blind. It's OK for musicians of any colour to play, sing, record etc music written or previously played/sung/recorded by anybody else in the world (subject to everyone involved getting an appropriate share of the profits through sensible copyright legislation).
2) Music is race-specific. A black violinist needs some sort of permission from white people s a whole in order to play Mozart. A white singer needs some sort of permission from black people as a whole in order to play a song written by a black person or sing in the general style made famous by a black person.
If 2) is really the way you want the world to work then clearly there has to be some organisation which adjudicates on who is black and who is white. For the sake of accountability, no ambiguity can be permitted. And as for people who try to cross from one side of this divide to the other...
Best wishes,
Russ
Game, set and match on this Tangent to Russ.
Absolute bollocks. I don't see how imposing a false dichotomy on a complicated situation helps at all. Nobody has been saying, for example, that white people can't sing the blues if they want, or do rap. But it seems clear to me that black musicians were heavily ripped off in the past, and were basically hidden away. Whether this is still true, I'm not sure, but I note that some people want to ban hip-hop from Glastonbury. This happened with Jay Z, and it's happening right now with Kanye West. This might not be racism, it might be genre snobbery, but I have my doubts.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
acknowledging they feel aggrieved is not the same thing as saying white people need permission.
To mind, they don't. They just don't, because the notion of needing permission is simply untenable as a matter of logic and against the way that the arts work.
But black people have needed permission. some white person/people had to acquiesce. This is the frustration.
Absolutely. But what is the solution to white people having wrongly put up barriers to black people?
Call me a naive idealist, but I don't think the solution is for black people to retaliate by putting up barriers to white people. First of all, we know it's not going to work in practice because of the power imbalance. It's just going to be moral outrage.
No, to my mind the solution is for black people to say "hey, stop putting up barriers against us". The solution is to point out the double standard and make white people conscious of it.
OK, but who on this thread has suggested putting up barriers to white people? And people, black and white, have been pointing to the double standard for a long time.
It is doubly frustrating that the case in music should be so opaque to some. To me, it is very clear. Talent, and the enjoyment of that talent, should be the only factor. Music does not have as many walls to hide behind as other inequities, so the prejudice factor in its history should stand out more clearly.
Twilight is, sort of, correct in that music is far from the most important career path that has been blocked. after all, what percentage of
any group has a snowball's chance in Hell of being successful?
But it is emblematic. And simpler than a discussion of why are there not more black doctors, lawyers or bank managers.
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Whether this is still true, I'm not sure, but I note that some people want to ban hip-hop from Glastonbury.
Well, hip-hop is about
violence anddrugs.Must keep the festival clean.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
OK, but who on this thread has suggested putting up barriers to white people?
The idea of needing permission is a barrier.
And while I don't think that anyone has suggested in so many words that permission is required for white people to use black culture, it's not hard to see how complaints about appropriating black culture end up conveying that "that culture belonged to us and you shouldn't have used it" in a way that suggests permission is required.
And that's precisely why I'm saying that a better form of the complaint is "that culture came from us and you prevented us from using it".
Which shifts the focus entirely. It switches the complaint from "your use is a problem" to "preventing our use is a problem".
PS As to your comment that talent should be the only factor... look, even I'm not that idealistic about the music business. It's not about art or merit, and the only reason that talent ever gets somewhere is that executives worked out that being any good is one of the factors that might help something sell.
[ 27. June 2015, 16:23: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The idea of needing permission is a barrier.
And while I don't think that anyone has suggested in so many words that permission is required for white people to use black culture, it's not hard to see how complaints about appropriating black culture end up conveying that "that culture belonged to us and you shouldn't have used it" in a way that suggests permission is required.
Ah, you seem to think that some here have implied this, and I think you, and others, are inferring it.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And that's precisely why I'm saying that a better form of the complaint is "that culture came from us and you prevented us from using it".
Which shifts the focus entirely. It switches the complaint from "your use is a problem" to "preventing our use is a problem".
Damn, now I think I must be losing it. I thought this was fairly implicit. At least in Lio's posts. quote:
PS As to your comment that talent should be the only factor
OK, I'm no tyro, just did not want to asterisk the hell out of that. Or wander too far down that tangent.
[code]
[ 27. June 2015, 17:38: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Hallellou, hallellou
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
OK, but who on this thread has suggested putting up barriers to white people?
The idea of needing permission is a barrier.
And while I don't think that anyone has suggested in so many words that permission is required for white people to use black culture
:rollseyes:
quote:
It's not hard to see how complaints about appropriating black culture end up conveying that "that culture belonged to us and you shouldn't have used it" in a way that suggests permission is required.
It's somewhat ironic how - as soon as the boot is on the other foot - people get hypersensitive to even the faintest hint that something that may - if read incorrectly - imply discrimination.
I mean, if reverse racism by black people was the biggest cause of discrimination then it might be understandable.
[ 27. June 2015, 18:18: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Seems to me that there are two logical ways you can look at this.
If you ignore the basic context that gives rise to the problem, then yes.
The problem is this: black musicians invent a music style. A lot of people, black and white, like their music. However, some combination of record company signers, marketing people, reviewers, DJs, and the record buying public acting out of conscious or not so conscious racial prejudice are reluctant to promote or buy the music. (If you think people's choices have never been influenced by conscious or unconscious racial prejudice then I have a bridge to sell you, one careful user.)
Now a white musician imitates the style perhaps as well perhaps not as well, and some combination of the above groups adopt the white musicians enthusiastically and the white musician makes a lot of money from the musical style.
Now, a good proportion of that money that the white musician has made would have gone to black musicians if there had been no racism in the music chain. What does the white musician owe the black musicians who invented the musical style in the first place? It's not a question with an easy answer. But the answer certainly isn't to be found in cheap false dichotomies.
Since there is probably not a significant proportion of market share that goes to black classical musicians only because they're black, I think the situation is not really comparable.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
White people need to wake the fuck up and realize how things look like through non-white eyes. As long as we stick our fingers in our ears and say "either all trans-racial borrowing is bad or none is" we are refusing to see the power differential and are part of the problem, not part of the solution. How the oppressor treats the oppressed is a different thing to how the oppressed treats the oppressor. Until we can see that, we are blind and should just STFU about anything having to do with race.
It's interesting that you never seem to include yourself in this group that should STFU.
I notice this sort of split among white people on every thread of this nature. We have the black people on these threads, who to varying degrees are pissed off at the whites and with very good reason.
We have the white people like me who tend to be alternately sympathetic, defensive and hurt. It's hard to feel guilty and hated.
And then we have the white people like MT who unconditionally side with the black people, in a sort of, let me stand with you and join in the finger pointing and by doing that I will not be associated with the guilty group.
You may say that at least you are admitting to the wrongs white people have and still have committed, but no one is denying any of that. Some of us are pointing out the futility of trying to change the past, but we aren't pretending things didn't happen and we aren't pretending to belong to a separate rarefied group that floats above it all.
Don't tell me to STFU -- at least I have the grace to know that the black anger is directed at me as much as any other white person.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Absolutely. But what is the solution to white people having wrongly put up barriers to black people?
Call me a naive idealist, but I don't think the solution is for black people to retaliate by putting up barriers to white people.
I'm so glad nobody has suggested it, then, aren't you? Straw man much?
quote:
No, to my mind the solution is for black people to say "hey, stop putting up barriers against us". The solution is to point out the double standard and make white people conscious of it.
Yeah, that's worked well so far, hasn't it? Oppressed people just say "stop it!" and their oppressors oblige.
quote:
And while I don't think that anyone has suggested in so many words that permission is required for white people to use black culture, it's not hard to see how complaints about appropriating black culture end up conveying that "that culture belonged to us and you shouldn't have used it" in a way that suggests permission is required.
I suppose it's not hard for you to see it. I can't see it. Who would you ask permission from? Is there a committee of black people who sit in judgment on which white people can appropriate black culture? I think this completely, utterly, totally, and miserably misses the point entirely.
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
It's interesting that you never seem to include yourself in this group that should STFU.
Where did you learn English, that "we" doesn't include the speaker? No really, I'm curious.
quote:
We have the white people like me who tend to be alternately sympathetic, defensive and hurt. It's hard to feel guilty and hated.
Maybe some people hate you. But by and large people trying to wake up whites to their privilege neither hate them or want them to feel guilty. They want them to see the situation, and how they have unfairly profited from it, and recognize the injustice of their privileged position.
quote:
You may say that at least you are admitting to the wrongs white people have and still have committed, but no one is denying any of that. Some of us are pointing out the futility of trying to change the past, but we aren't pretending things didn't happen and we aren't pretending to belong to a separate rarefied group that floats above it all.
When you say "stop making me feel guilty and hated" you are indeed doing exactly that.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Wow.
I'm beginning to wonder if we should all bring our dictionaries.
Because I sure didn't imagine quetzalcoatl talking about "theft and appropriation". I didn't imagine other references to misappropriation or theft.
I wasn't the person who mentioned "applying for permits", even if it was in relation to a Mount Everest analogy.
I wasn't the person who explicitly raised a culture where Mariah would have to ask permission from the owners of the song to sing it.
I had the grace to say no-one was talking about permission in so many words, but fuck me, if you're going to suggest I just invented such things out of thin air it would be a good idea to actually have a read of the thread first.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
It's interesting that you never seem to include yourself in this group that should STFU.
quote:
Mousethief:Where did you learn English, that "we" doesn't include the speaker? No really, I'm curious.
I learned English in a school that said just because you say "we" at one point doesn't mean it applies for all time. Particularly when you say some people should STFU. Logic would tell us you weren't including yourself in that or you wouldn't be typing away on your computer.
quote:
When you say "stop making me feel guilty and hated" you are indeed doing exactly that.
I'm so glad I didn't say that then, aren't you? Straw man much?
[ 27. June 2015, 20:17: Message edited by: Twilight ]
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
Let's try to breathe and not got too mad at one another. Also I think categorizing can actually be complicated. There are quite a few people on this thread that I don't know the race of. Actually I hadn't thought about that, but I think it adds a neat dynamic to discuss race with people who are invisible. Maybe it's just me, but I think that real-life conversations it can be easy to assume people's motivations etc (He's just a white do-gooder hippie, she's an angry black woman, and he's an old southern racist.*) Here I have been reading some of you for years, but it's easier to remember that I don't know you.
*I tried to carefully avoid describing anyone on this thread, so if I did describe anyone, sorry. Certainly not a personal comment.
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
No, to my mind the solution is for black people to say "hey, stop putting up barriers against us". The solution is to point out the double standard and make white people conscious of it.
Yeah, that's worked well so far, hasn't it? Oppressed people just say "stop it!" and their oppressors oblige.
Despite your cynicism, is this not precisely the point of Luke 18:1-5?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
No, to my mind the solution is for black people to say "hey, stop putting up barriers against us". The solution is to point out the double standard and make white people conscious of it.
Yeah, that's worked well so far, hasn't it? Oppressed people just say "stop it!" and their oppressors oblige.
Despite your cynicism, is this not precisely the point of Luke 18:1-5?
If we waited for the compunction of slave-owners to be piqued by the complaints of slaves, and for that and that alone to end the institution of slavery in this country, we'd still have slavery. Whatever Christ meant by this parable, it is clear it cannot be universally applied to any and all situations of oppression.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:
When you say "stop making me feel guilty and hated" you are indeed doing exactly that.
I'm so glad I didn't say that then, aren't you? Straw man much? [/QB]
You're right. You never said you wanted anybody to stop making you feel that way; you only mentioned that you do. For my own part, if someone was making me feel guilty and hated, I would want them to stop. I overgeneralized when I thought others would feel this way also.
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Maybe some people hate you. But by and large people trying to wake up whites to their privilege neither hate them or want them to feel guilty. They want them to see the situation, and how they have unfairly profited from it, and recognize the injustice of their privileged position.
And yet to me that reads a bit like a call to feel guilty over how white people have "unfairly profited" from their privileged position.
The only reason I want white people to recognize the injustice of their position is if they're planning to use that knowledge to disrupt the system.
The school to prison pipeline in the US is ridiculously out of control. Quibbling over whether or not the white majority sufficiently recognizes the injustice of black musicians historically not being paid as much as the white people who appropriated their music while people are dying because cops think the look on their face is threatening seems a bit... I don't know.
But carry on.
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I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
No, to my mind the solution is for black people to say "hey, stop putting up barriers against us". The solution is to point out the double standard and make white people conscious of it.
Yeah, that's worked well so far, hasn't it? Oppressed people just say "stop it!" and their oppressors oblige.
Despite your cynicism, is this not precisely the point of Luke 18:1-5?
If we waited for the compunction of slave-owners to be piqued by the complaints of slaves, and for that and that alone to end the institution of slavery in this country, we'd still have slavery. Whatever Christ meant by this parable, it is clear it cannot be universally applied to any and all situations of oppression.
But is that not precisely what happened? How do you think slavery ended, if it wasn't by the accumulated voices saying "this is bad" gradually turning more and more people to the view that it was bad? People who didn't think that before.
Heck, how the hell do you think you just got marriage equality in the United States, if it wasn't from people saying over and over again that they had rights, and that discrimination was wrong? Do you think that people just woke up one morning and spontaneously decided that the next time there was an opinion poll on the subject, they'd switch their view?
[ 27. June 2015, 20:53: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
And yet to me that reads a bit like a call to feel guilty over how white people have "unfairly profited" from their privileged position.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I can't help you.
quote:
The only reason I want white people to recognize the injustice of their position is if they're planning to use that knowledge to disrupt the system.
Duh. That's the only reason anybody wants white people to realize their privilege.
quote:
The school to prison pipeline in the US is ridiculously out of control. Quibbling over whether or not the white majority sufficiently recognizes the injustice of black musicians historically not being paid as much as the white people who appropriated their music while people are dying because cops think the look on their face is threatening seems a bit... I don't know.
Is there only one injustice, and we shouldn't talk about any others? I didn't get that memo.
quote:
But carry on.
I appreciate the permission.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But is that not precisely what happened? How do you think slavery ended, if it wasn't by the accumulated voices saying "this is bad" gradually turning more and more people to the view that it was bad? People who didn't think that before.
You have changed the narrative. In the parable of the unjust judge, it is the cheated woman whose noise gets justice. And I specifically said, "Oppressed people say stop it." So no, that's NOT precisely what happened. It was accumulated white voices that brought about the change. Not accumulated black voices.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
...we are refusing to see the power differential and are part of the problem, not part of the solution. How the oppressor treats the oppressed is a different thing to how the oppressed treats the oppressor. Until we can see that, we are blind and should just STFU about anything having to do with race.
Nobody is forgetting, or ignoring, or blind to, the catalogue of oppression suffered by American black people. They're just not drawing from that history the same conclusion as you are.
You seem here to be arguing the position that Victims Can Do No Wrong. Don't know how far you believe that and would apply it.
My take is that being a victim is in general a mitigating circumstance for wrongs subsequently committed against the oppressor. It's not that the victim has extra rights; it's that they are less culpable for a certain sort of wrongs.
How the oppressed should treat the oppressor is exactly the same as how the oppressor should treat the oppressed; it's how any human being should treat another.
And the only "solution" is to bring all people to that way of thinking, one soul at a time.
Best wishes,
Russ
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Let's try to breathe and not got too mad at one another. Also I think categorizing can actually be complicated. There are quite a few people on this thread that I don't know the race of. Actually I hadn't thought about that, but I think it adds a neat dynamic to discuss race with people who are invisible. Maybe it's just me, but I think that real-life conversations it can be easy to assume people's motivations etc (He's just a white do-gooder hippie, she's an angry black woman, and he's an old southern racist.*) Here I have been reading some of you for years, but it's easier to remember that I don't know you.
*I tried to carefully avoid describing anyone on this thread, so if I did describe anyone, sorry. Certainly not a personal comment.
Sorry. I didn't want to go there with the categories but once Mousethief started telling white people to shut the fuck up, I couldn't see how else to question why he didn't shut the fuck up himself, as his picture in the Gallery seemed to indicate whiteness.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It was accumulated white voices that brought about the change. Not accumulated black voices.
I seem to remember that some of the most vocal and influential anti-slavery advocates were black, on both sides of the pond.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Nobody is forgetting, or ignoring, or blind to, the catalogue of oppression suffered by American black people. They're just not drawing from that history the same conclusion as you are.
You seem here to be arguing the position that Victims Can Do No Wrong.
Where have I ever said anything that implies that? Unless you want to say that black people playing classical music is "wrong"? Is that what you mean? Otherwise please explain what you mean.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It was accumulated white voices that brought about the change. Not accumulated black voices.
I seem to remember that some of the most vocal and influential anti-slavery advocates were black, on both sides of the pond.
Mmhmm. And all by themselves they would have ended slavery? No white people need get involved at all? They would have pricked the hearts of the slave-owners? That's what orfeo is arguing when he likens this to the righteous widow. Her voice, alone, unaided by any other voices, turned the heart of the unrighteous judge. I'm saying it doesn't happen like that in the real world the vast majority of the time. Without powerful white people speaking against slavery, it would not have ended from mere black voices, be they ever so vocal or influential. Who they were influential with was not slave-owners (the righteous widow theory) but with political movers and shakers.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Ending oppression is, was and should be a combined effort. Orators like Frederick Douglas helped Northerners realise that, just perhaps, black people might be actual people.
But the effort was not equal. Removing a power imbalance requires wither acquiescence from those with the power or violent revolt.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
And all by themselves they would have ended slavery?
Probably not. But that's no reason to - I don't know - whitewash them out of their own liberation. It ended up a coalition of people of goodwill against the slave-owning classes, white and black united in a common cause, in an echo of both future struggles and of the world to come.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
And all by themselves they would have ended slavery?
Probably not. But that's no reason to - I don't know - whitewash them out of their own liberation.
This is true, and I don't mean to do that. Apologies for not realizing how I was coming across, and thus not incorporating this idea. But what lilbuddha said, also. Getting back to the righteous widow: short of violent revolution, the plaints of the oppressed very rarely turn the hearts of the oppressors. It may be that it worked for the righteous widow because her adversary was just one human being, and not an entire institution, for which no one person would feel personally accountable. In which case the parable is quite irrelevant to the slavery situation; it's speaking to another set of circumstances entirely.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
And yet to me that reads a bit like a call to feel guilty over how white people have "unfairly profited" from their privileged position.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I can't help you.
Who said anything about my feelings? I’m not claiming I feel guilty, but that what you said reads like a call for people to feel guilty. If it’s more than that, then why stop at calling for people to recognize their relative privilege? Have the people on this thread given any indication that they don’t already know that? As Cornell West said at a protest I was at a few months ago, ‘white people - we don’t need allies, we need freedom riders.’
quote:
quote:
The only reason I want white people to recognize the injustice of their position is if they're planning to use that knowledge to disrupt the system.
Duh. That's the only reason anybody wants white people to realize their privilege.
Wrong. There are quite a few people on the American left (who Twilight and I have complained about before) who recognize that the system unfairly benefits them but who don’t want the system to change because they realize that they would not be in the position they are in without the unfair advantages they’ve been given.
I used to see it all the time on college campuses. Talking about privilege - and insisting that people use the language of privilege - becomes nothing more than a way of signaling that they belong to the same tribe.
Now I keep seeing it in the non-profit industrial complex among people who are making very good money saying that their organization is serving a disadvantaged population when very few of the resources that are being donated are actually used to help that population rather than the white people running the organization.
IME, people simply calling on others to merely recognize their privilege are frequently asking people to feel guilty about what they have rather than asking people to share their blessings with those who haven’t been as fortunate. Might not be true in your case.
quote:
quote:
The school to prison pipeline in the US is ridiculously out of control. Quibbling over whether or not the white majority sufficiently recognizes the injustice of black musicians historically not being paid as much as the white people who appropriated their music while people are dying because cops think the look on their face is threatening seems a bit... I don't know.
Is there only one injustice, and we shouldn't talk about any others? I didn't get that memo.
Perhaps it’s just the people I know, but I’ve never known anyone who wasn’t aware of the racial disparity within the music industry. And yet people on this thread keep bringing it up as if it’s supposed to be some big revelation. As Twilight pointed out, even if people are learning about it for the first time, none of us has a time machine, so there’s nothing we can do about it.
Seems to me like some people are trying to teach their grandmothers to suck eggs and getting frustrated when their grandmothers don’t praise them for their wisdom and insight.
quote:
quote:
But carry on.
I appreciate the permission.
Coming from someone who said upthread that until white people fulfill the very specific condition that you have somehow determined is a necessary prerequisite to having the right to speak on the subject of race at all (and which it seems like you think the people on this thread have failed to meet), this is amusing.
It’s like being back in college in a class led by a feminist who insists that decisions will only be made by consensus and then refuses to acknowledge any opinions that deviate from what they’ve predetermined the consensus is.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Perhaps it’s just the people I know, but I’ve never known anyone who wasn’t aware of the racial disparity within the music industry. And yet people on this thread keep bringing it up as if it’s supposed to be some big revelation.
Um, no. It was brought up because it is an example of how white privilege works. Not every example used is meant to be a revelation.
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
As Twilight pointed out, even if people are learning about it for the first time, none of us has a time machine, so there’s nothing we can do about it.
Once again, example, not a call to arms.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Perhaps it’s just the people I know, but I’ve never known anyone who wasn’t aware of the racial disparity within the music industry. And yet people on this thread keep bringing it up as if it’s supposed to be some big revelation.
Um, no. It was brought up because it is an example of how white privilege works. Not every example used is meant to be a revelation.
You, upthread: quote:
It is doubly frustrating that the case in music should be so opaque to some. To me, it is very clear.
Point me to the people who are saying that the case is opaque?
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
As Twilight pointed out, even if people are learning about it for the first time, none of us has a time machine, so there’s nothing we can do about it.
Once again, example, not a call to arms.
And that's my problem. If it's not a call to arms, what is the point of endlessly discussing it if not to try to make white people feel guilty for things that in many cases happened before they were born?
Have you listened to the speech Obama gave yesterday at the funeral in SC? One of his points was that every time a shooting like this happens people call for us to have a conversation about race.
But we seem to talk about race a lot without anything substantial changing.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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irish_lord99
Shipmate
# 16250
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Posted
No response to anyone in particular, just general thoughts/questions:
At what point does the constant reminder of oppression become a self-fulfilling prophecy? If you tell me I'm going to be oppressed my whole life, why would I bother going to school, getting a job and trying to have a better life than my predecessors?
I'm whiter than a polar bear in a blizzard, and I'm having to fight tooth and nail to work a back-breaking job while going back to school (apparently a four-year degree in business earns you a shitty carpentry job) to get a chance at just maybe getting a job that might possibly catapult me into the middle class.
If I'd been told by a respected community leader like Jesse Jackson that I'll never get that job because of my skin color, then there's no way I'd go through all this shit just to take a chance on being some diversity hire. I'd go straight to the welfare line: same lifestyle, fewer bodily injuries.
Is oppression in the US more about race or more about class anymore? I know there is still a lot of racism in America, but it seems to me that economic oppression is shared by all races and economic success is owned by the mostly white upper class who inherited it from their mostly-white predecessors. They don't care what color you are, they don't want to share with anybody. They're not sitting around in their corporate high-rises giggling over the fact that they didn't have to share with any black people today, they're no more likely to share with any white people. The fact that the power structure of this country has been traditionally white doesn't benefit me or 99% of the white people I know. And the 1% were rich to begin with.
If a significant portion of the upper class were black, do you think it would benefit lower class black people?
Is there any benefit to having an ethnically diverse group at the top? Wouldn't it be more desirable to make everyone more equal?
Would instant, universal equality be seen as a good thing; or is there an element of thinking which requires whites to go through some hardship for the sins of our fathers?
If so, when do we begin to judge by content of character, and not by the color of skin?
I understand that there's a history of oppression that needs to be respected, but how am I supposed to empathize with sincerity? How am I to sympathize without pity? How do I respond constructively to the history of racial tension in my country?
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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
Posts: 1169 | From: Maine, US | Registered: Feb 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
quote:
The only reason I want white people to recognize the injustice of their position is if they're planning to use that knowledge to disrupt the system.
Duh. That's the only reason anybody wants white people to realize their privilege.
Wrong. There are quite a few people on the American left (who Twilight and I have complained about before) who recognize that the system unfairly benefits them but who don’t want the system to change because they realize that they would not be in the position they are in without the unfair advantages they’ve been given.
That has nothing to do with what I said. I was talking about the motivations of people exposing white privilege. Not about the actions of people who know they have privilege.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But is that not precisely what happened? How do you think slavery ended, if it wasn't by the accumulated voices saying "this is bad" gradually turning more and more people to the view that it was bad? People who didn't think that before.
You have changed the narrative. In the parable of the unjust judge, it is the cheated woman whose noise gets justice. And I specifically said, "Oppressed people say stop it." So no, that's NOT precisely what happened. It was accumulated white voices that brought about the change. Not accumulated black voices.
I haven't changed the narrative at all. The point of Jesus' parable is not simply that the cheated woman made noise, but that the person she made noise to reacted. That even a completely heartless person will eventually react, even if out of self-interest, out of doing a cost/benefit analysis and saying "you know what? it's easier if I switch, I can't ignore it any more".
And how much more quickly, then, will someone who ISN'T completely heartless reach that tipping point.
You can't have it both ways. You can't talk about white people as oppressors and then tell me that it was white people who changed the situation. Something caused them to move from being oppressors to being agents of change, and yet you don't want to accept that the work of making white people aware of that injustice was the reason for the change, and that work had to start with hearing the voices of black people.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It was accumulated white voices that brought about the change. Not accumulated black voices.
I seem to remember that some of the most vocal and influential anti-slavery advocates were black, on both sides of the pond.
Mmhmm. And all by themselves they would have ended slavery? No white people need get involved at all? They would have pricked the hearts of the slave-owners? That's what orfeo is arguing when he likens this to the righteous widow. Her voice, alone, unaided by any other voices, turned the heart of the unrighteous judge.
No, that is not what I am arguing at all. Surely you don't think I am trying to literally apply a parable with only two individuals in it like it's a script.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
It’s like being back in college in a class led by a feminist who...
...apparently quite a few things are like that...
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
You can't have it both ways. You can't talk about white people as oppressors and then tell me that it was white people who changed the situation.
You do realize that white people aren't a single bloc, right? That there were some white people who owned slaves, and some other white people who were abolitionists?
quote:
Something caused them to move from being oppressors to being agents of change, and yet you don't want to accept that the work of making white people aware of that injustice was the reason for the change, and that work had to start with hearing the voices of black people.
I admitted that. Read the thread.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
You can't have it both ways. You can't talk about white people as oppressors and then tell me that it was white people who changed the situation.
You do realize that white people aren't a single bloc, right? That there were some white people who owned slaves, and some other white people who were abolitionists?
I do realise that. In fact, I was pretty much asking whether you realised that.
I'm also asking whether you realise that the relative proportions were not the same at any given point in time. Just as support for marriage equality has increased over time, so did support for the abolition of slavery.
A lot of your statements give me an impression of a state of inevitability that I just don't buy into. That includes your skepticism that "the oppressors" won't ever change. That, to me, is you treating people like a single bloc.
[code]
[ 28. June 2015, 05:56: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
No response to anyone in particular, just general thoughts/questions:
At what point does the constant reminder of oppression become a self-fulfilling prophecy? If you tell me I'm going to be oppressed my whole life, why would I bother going to school, getting a job and trying to have a better life than my predecessors?
This is part of the overall problem. Especially in America, but certainly not limited to there. When it appears effort will be for naught, it is more difficult to wish to apply effort. This is not limited to brown peoples.
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
If I'd been told by a respected community leader like Jesse Jackson that I'll never get that job because of my skin color,
I don't think that is his message. Could be wrong, I'm hardly an expert on him.
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
Is oppression in the US more about race or more about class anymore?
IME, it is both. As is the UK, but to different proportions and character.
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
The fact that the power structure of this country has been traditionally white doesn't benefit me or 99% of the white people I know. And the 1% were rich to begin with.
Not precisely true. You could more easily become middle class than a brown person. The doors are open wider for you. No red carpet, no valet to meet you at the door, perhaps. But the fence is not as high and the hounds are not waiting to be unleashed.
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
If a significant portion of the upper class were black, do you think it would benefit lower class black people?
ISTM, yes it would help. It is easier to believe you might achieve something if others like you are already there.
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
Would instant, universal equality be seen as a good thing;
Instant equality would be a good thing. But it is more than erasing prejudice, it is leveling the playing field.
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
or is there an element of thinking which requires whites to go through some hardship for the sins of our fathers?
Emphatically not.
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
If so, when do we begin to judge by content of character, and not by the color of skin?
I would answer now, but I am not sure where you are going with this.
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
I understand that there's a history of oppression that needs to be respected, but how am I supposed to empathize with sincerity? How am I to sympathize without pity? How do I respond constructively to the history of racial tension in my country?
I wish I could tell you, but I cannot. It is something you have to figure out.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
No response to anyone in particular, just general thoughts/questions:
At what point does the constant reminder of oppression become a self-fulfilling prophecy? If you tell me I'm going to be oppressed my whole life, why would I bother going to school, getting a job and trying to have a better life than my predecessors?
I'm whiter than a polar bear in a blizzard, and I'm having to fight tooth and nail to work a back-breaking job while going back to school (apparently a four-year degree in business earns you a shitty carpentry job) to get a chance at just maybe getting a job that might possibly catapult me into the middle class.
If I'd been told by a respected community leader like Jesse Jackson that I'll never get that job because of my skin color, then there's no way I'd go through all this shit just to take a chance on being some diversity hire. I'd go straight to the welfare line: same lifestyle, fewer bodily injuries.
Is oppression in the US more about race or more about class anymore? I know there is still a lot of racism in America, but it seems to me that economic oppression is shared by all races and economic success is owned by the mostly white upper class who inherited it from their mostly-white predecessors. They don't care what color you are, they don't want to share with anybody. They're not sitting around in their corporate high-rises giggling over the fact that they didn't have to share with any black people today, they're no more likely to share with any white people. The fact that the power structure of this country has been traditionally white doesn't benefit me or 99% of the white people I know. And the 1% were rich to begin with.
If a significant portion of the upper class were black, do you think it would benefit lower class black people?
Is there any benefit to having an ethnically diverse group at the top? Wouldn't it be more desirable to make everyone more equal?
Would instant, universal equality be seen as a good thing; or is there an element of thinking which requires whites to go through some hardship for the sins of our fathers?
If so, when do we begin to judge by content of character, and not by the color of skin?
I understand that there's a history of oppression that needs to be respected, but how am I supposed to empathize with sincerity? How am I to sympathize without pity? How do I respond constructively to the history of racial tension in my country?
When you say you don't derive benefit from the current power structure, you seem to be thinking in just terms of wealth/class.
You are still much less likely to be killed by the state, accidentally or on purpose, and you will experience less harrassment on the street. These are significant benefits.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
When you say you don't derive benefit from the current power structure, you seem to be thinking in just terms of wealth/class.
I don't know if it's 'many of us' or 'some of us', but I'll stick with 'some' - but for some of us, that's all there is. I live in a part of the world which is 95% White British. Of those 5%, those who aren't white, tend to be British, and those who aren't British, tend to be white.
Our primary discriminants are accent and postcode. I have an iffy postcode, but because I was born in the south, I can pass locally as 'posh' - as can my kids, despite being born here. As soon as we travel to That London or other places down south, we tend to clutter up things with our coarse northern ways.
Certainly, as far as my children and their cohort are concerned, colour and immigrant status are pretty much ignored. The divisions of class and wealth cut across those factors.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Yes I get that, I was specifically responding to the poster I quoted.
[ 28. June 2015, 13:05: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Just a thought or two about guilt and feeling hated (or the realization that others might feel anger, justified or not, toward oneself):
Isn't this a necessary part of some transition process? I dislike feeling guilty, too. I'm intensely unhappy when forced to recognize that I have contributed to someone else's suffering, especially when it was done all unconsciously and without overt intention on my part. It makes me feel like the proverbial china-shop bull.
But do we stop there? What do we do with such feelings? How do we deal with them? Sometimes we get angry and defensive: I didn't mean that, do that, say that, and you're misinterpreting me and failing to acknowledge my feelings in this mess!
Sometimes we just shut up, shrug our shoulders, decide the situation's hopeless, and back away, resolving to have nothing further to do with those who brought us up short.
Sometimes we acknowledge that, however unwittingly, we are in fact part of the problem, and set about doing whatever we can, in whatever small ways and means we have available to us, to set matters right.
Mostly, most of do all of these at different times and ways in different situations.
But for my money, guilt and legitimate confrontation can be powerful motivators.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I was struck, watching Kanye West at Glasto, by the gale of words which come from him. It's as if melodic pop and soul are inadequate to convey this torrent of words - as if (maybe I am being fanciful), the generations and centuries of oppressed and enslaved people are saying speak, speak, and listen, listen, these are my words, words, and they will never end now.
Of course, others say, well, that's not my story either. And of course there are great white rappers, who also have stories to tell. Speak.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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