To find this offensive? No whites allowed

[chipvinegar]

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/2018/02/12/wellness-retreat-in-costa-rica-that-bans-white-people-sparks-controversy.amp.html

I don't live an America, and I have no experience of racism in America, I somewhat understand the desire to have a "safe space" or a space to hold conversation around the issues, however the lady running it "eliminated all white people from her personal life" doesn't think white people should own passports etc

That's a lot of negativity for a "healing" retreat

The empowerment part... yeah, but the self segregation? Travelling backwards rather than forwards somewhat surely?!

There is even a strong argument that if any group is the victim of a perceived social ill, they are actually the least appropriate people to be able to suggest solutions, as they are by definition going to approach the problem from the least objective position.

So feminists are not terribly able to offer objective solutions.......

Not sure that I agree with that "strong argument".

Scottishdiem

I think it's generally true. It's the same principle why we don't allow victims of crime to decide the punishment of their attackers.

You can go on some of the threads in the Feminism Chat area and decide for yourself how objective some of the posters are being.

Thank you guys. It does get that what happened is not called racism but if you reverse the colours then it would be, it’s insulting really. I was in an abusive relationship with a black man once and he would always bring my colour into his insults such as white bitch etc but it’s not racism so I’m glad I didn’t report any of it. The other guy I thought was being nice and giving me somewhere to sleep for the night, he made me take a bath because I was dirty and then during forcing himself into me would use the term white slut etc. I guess being naive landed me in these situations but I didn’t have any of the power so I’m baffled as to why it isn’t racism. As a group I can understand the concept but as an individual white person I cannot understand how I had any power or privilege.

Always interesting to read white privilege comments on MN.

individual white person I cannot understand how I had any power or privilege.
I get that. Because you didnt have any power in that situation you were the victim.

It is hard to understand privilidge when you feel you have none.

Imagine we were talking about coming from a position of privilidge in relation to disability. 2 rape victims, both feeling powerless and traumatised. The disabled rape victim then finds out that the rape crisis centre isnt adapted for their disability. Now this demonstrated the "privilidge" you have as an able bodied person to not even have to consider that on top of everything else thats going on. Although nobody is feeling at all privilidged or lucky IYKWIM

I'm sure the young white girls in Rotherham who were seen as so slutty and disposable because they were white enjoyed all their privilege too... they were seen as they were because of their race. By men who were more powerful.

In fact, the common denominator in acts of oppression and hatred seems to be men more than it is anything else, but I guess that's a different discussion!

Thats because white privilidge doesnt protect you from others who abuse their privilidges and abuses of power. Like misogyny, poverty and class.

Just means you there are some experiences you wont ever have. Doesnt mean that you wont have other shit experiences.

@beansonapost

I live in a country whose primary exports are commodities and tourism services and, by international comparisons, it's wealthy. Next door is a country whose export earnings are overwhelmingly commodities-based and it's one of the wealthiest countries in the world. This country also had its economy screwed by a mahoosive trade deal (the EU), but it's been able to recover pretty well on the whole. The reasons are that it has a well-educated workforce and strong civic institutions (by which I mean settled democracy, judicial independence, and so on). It's also technologically advanced, which means that business can thrive and wealth can be generated, and this is probably the most important reason.

@PancakeInMaBelly

So your saying it's like a stacking process of oppression, with many caveats and doublethink that excludes a certain race of being racist, despite the laws in the US and here saying otherwise and many countries where the model doesn't fit..

Thankfully, ID Politics is on the wane.

I think anyone can be racist (racism is rife in India for example) just as women can be mysogynistic. But also white privilidge is a thing. But its a thing thats hard to see as a white person as crucially, it relates to things that white people dont even have to consider, so how do you really see how privilidged you are if you dont know what it is youre NOT experiencing!

The girls abused by older Muslim men ... the racism there was the system was afraid to challenge what they knew was happening for fear of being seen as a racist system

It was all white girls. All Muslim men.

Islam sees non Muslims as less important humans, also sees western girls as immodest and immoral

It was seen as consensual behaviour by slutty little white girls (usually from a care background) and the police left girls in very obviously vulnerable situations who were very obviously underage along with social services being very aware for a LONG time what was happening.

The girls bore the blame. Not only from the men who were abusing them. But the police and social services. Even the media. Even the general public, I could find newspaper reports that prove this from the time in archives.

So due to fear of racism...

And obviously then the families of girls get involved with far right movements...

Vicious cycle

so how do you really see how privilidged you are if you dont know what it is youre NOT experiencing!

Firstly you do not know my ethnicity, and if you agree that anyone can be racist, then I'm glad you agree that white people can suffer from racism.

Firstly you do not know my ethnicity,
Wasnt @ you personally.
The royal you, or one

and if you agree that anyone can be racist, then I'm glad you agree that white people can suffer from racism
One doesnt equate the other.

I can see what you are trying to get at with the disabled analogy. My daughter is disabled. I don’t think it quite matches though. ALL disabled people are at a disadvantage in some way or another. Whether that be by health, movement or job prospects etc. However, not ALL black people are at a disadvantage. My mate wouldn’t think she was and certainly hasn’t experienced any racism, nor have many others that I know. Your analogy doesn’t seem to work because it doesn’t include all of both sets of groups. If you see what I mean.

I want to ask though, do you think that I experienced racism? Or can it not have possibly been racism even though it was my colour that was used alongside other insults? If I were to reverse the colours, would it have been racism?

Surely by using my colour as an insult, the black man hurting me believed his race to be superior? Therefore it is racism, right?

It was all white girls. All Muslim men

Sorry, have to correct you here. I know a victim and she is not white. She is SE Asian. It was still racism though, anybody who was not the same race as them and didn't play by their cultural rules for women was fair game.

Apologies. To my knowledge I thought it was all white girls, the majority were would have been better to say. It's also been blamed as all Pakistani men and it wasn't. It was all Muslim men though, but African men were amongst them.

Although the blame should lie mostly with the abusers, I can't speak for any town but where I was. It wasn't simply a Muslim men preying thing, it was police and social services pretty much handing girls over rather than intervening thus it became "fair game" after all the system was saying it's fine with these girls (ones in care)

The police didn't intervene because they didn't give a shit, not from a fear of being perceived as racist. That was just their spineless cop out.

The police didn't intervene because they didn't give a shit, not from a fear of being perceived as racist.

And yet the Jay Report which is independent, said it was a contributing factor..

They obviously didn't give a shit... on one hand they regularly found girls who were incredibly vulnerable and didn't intervene for their safety and left them with these men often

That doesn't mean that they also didn't tackle the problem due to fear of being perceived as racist.

On one hand individual situations- they didn't give a shit. But I'm sure the picture built up and rather than tackling it with the Muslim community it was avoided

Indeed the powers that be can often be oppressive to whites. A friend wore a revealing top and jacket through airport security with no intention of taking her jacket off. Muslim in full abbaya goes through before her. Friend told to remove jacket. Friend objects on basis full body covering just walked through and she didn't want to reveal bra etc. "Ah but she has a religious reason". Friend is orthodox and doesn't think she should strip off. Friend is threatened by security team with strip search and denied boarding. In the end she gets to go into a private room but wtf! How does the system allow some people a full body covering by preference but others have to comply or they are threatened. And they say whites are privileged?

Exactly right. Fear of being seen as racist and discriminatory is what drove the bizarre behaviour I just wrote about. This all happened in the Uk by the way.

I feel that one day, white people will be oppressed because apparently we deserve it. We are being held accountable for actions out of our control. Even if we weren’t raised as racist we should feel that we are. Because apparently according to someone up thread, we are ALL racist in some way 🙄

I'm sure the young white girls in Rotherham who were seen as so slutty and disposable because they were white enjoyed all their privilege too... they were seen as they were because of their race. By men who were more powerful

One of those Rotherham perverts carved the letter 'M' into the buttocks of a 12 year old girl he raped, which symbolised that she was the "property of Muhammed".
He literally branded her as his slave. I'll hazard a guess that she didn't feel very empowered.

I'm sure the young white girls in Rotherham who were seen as so slutty and disposable because they were white enjoyed all their privilege too... they were seen as they were because of their race. By men who were more powerful.

This 100%. It's so telling that it's about men oppressing women once again.