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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

You're white. You haven't experienced racism

999 replies

PatricksRum · 04/06/2020 00:29

I'm so sick of repeating myself today.
AIBU or is ignorance just bliss?

OP posts:
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PatricksRum · 04/06/2020 03:01

Hopefully your post won’t cause any more divides due to your attitude

So now I'm responsible for your racist behavior towards me?

Hostile toward you I may have been. I've experienced bereavements due to your race. I know which I'd rather.

OP posts:
Jada1234 · 04/06/2020 03:02

Racist =MN

ILikeyourHairyHands · 04/06/2020 03:03

Ok. It is horrible. Full stop.

We can talk about white fragility. You're seeing it, it's in your face.

Woman, do you think telling people something they don't want to hear makes them more sympathetic?

No.

I don't have an answer. I don't actually think people care. All this 'Educate me' is fucking disingenuous. If you cared
you'd know, you wouldn't have to ask.

ForTheCulture · 04/06/2020 03:03

Um no. Have you been to Africa? Have you seen the racism towards white people? Yes, I know, Apartheid and all that, but that was more than 20 years ago

Oh please I aam black and have worked and studied in South Africa and although a minority white people are the most racist and racially abusive there. A cursory glance on google will pull up thousands of examples including the coffin case where 2 white men terrorised a black man and put him in a coffin threatening to kill him.

The systems placed by colonialism and Apartheid in Africa have not been dismantled and white people still enjoy so much privilege there as well as controlling and owning most of the wealth

Despite what Katie Hopkins tries to tell you about the mass genocide of white farmers. When you have privilege feels like oppression and that is why white people there are so outraged about having to share anything and affirmative action.

PatricksRum · 04/06/2020 03:03

@R1R2 Correct. But white people haven't experienced what we have so you cannot relate.
The same way an ex forces doesn't want to hear your tales of stopping a supermarket brall to empathise with him losing a leg fighting for freedom.

OP posts:
TangibleTuTu · 04/06/2020 03:04

BUT, it really, ultimately comes down to education and class.

No one gives a shit about your colour or race once you attain a certain level.

This is definitely not true. My roommate from college is now a bigwig lawyer. She has much more education that me, much more responsibility at work than I do and in so many ways would be seen as further up the class and education ladder. However, because she is a black American and I am white, when we are together people frequently turn to me and ask for my opinion, if we are waiting for a table at a restaurant people assume we are not together and ignore her while talking to me. People have even assumed that I am the lawyer and not her when looking at reservations. She has also experienced a lot of racism in so many ways when alone, such as being suspiciously followed around expensive stores.

PatricksRum · 04/06/2020 03:05

People don't understand the difference between racism and prejudice. White people are at the top of the chain, racism doesn't affect you overall if you're at the top.

100%

The same way a male throwing his toys put of the pram claiming he has been through women's struggles.

OP posts:
PatricksRum · 04/06/2020 03:06

@Dontcoughnearme Racial prejudice.
What's your point? That your one experience trumps ours?

OP posts:
Flaxmeadow · 04/06/2020 03:06

OP
Are you in the USA?

mathanxiety · 04/06/2020 03:06

no one in living memory has been a white slave master.
It was an disgusting time in history, which should never be forgotten, but it is just that history.

Sorry, but the attitudes that underpinned legal slavery still live on. It's not history.

Stripesgalore · 04/06/2020 03:06

‘People don't understand the difference between racism and prejudice.’

No, they just don’t agree with your definitions.

Why are people more interested in debating what the meaning of these words is than actually talking about the discrimination black people are facing?

I agree with the previous poster who said that arguing over a definition is a complete tangent.

These murders keep happening. It happened here with Mikey Powell and the press were complicit in the police coverup. There is never going to be an end to this unless we change attitudes but also change the regulations for institutions like the police so they can be held accountable.

And the US is walking into fascism in its response to this.

PatricksRum · 04/06/2020 03:07

@changeitupagain I have been scrolling through through through. I will go back and check.
That coment was about white experiences not your experience as an ethnic minority

OP posts:
Dontcoughnearme · 04/06/2020 03:08

My point is racism happens to every race.

changeitupagain · 04/06/2020 03:09

@AvranaKernsBestSpider

Thank you.

It's weird with grandparents isn't it. I love them and I know they truly want the best for my but my god some of their thinking is frustrating and I genuinely don't know what to do or say sometimes. I love them and I don't want them to die but I'm glad that when their time comes those attitudes within my family will die with them. I hope they can realise what's best for me is being with this particular white man and be happy, not just for me, but truly happy that I am happy.

PatricksRum · 04/06/2020 03:10

@flax no

OP posts:
Schmoody · 04/06/2020 03:10

The vast majority of posts on this thread prove all of PatricksRum's points. Solidarity, OP. Despite saying you're understandably beyond tired, you have the patience of a saint to keep responding to people who refuse to see beyond what they've decided the problem is.

PatricksRum · 04/06/2020 03:11

@Stripesgalore So don't argue with us.

Fight with us or don't fight with us but don't fight against us at this moment.

OP posts:
namechange240817 · 04/06/2020 03:11

i am a irish traveller. from a really young age i noticed that i was treated differently to other people and i still am. i walk into a restaurant or a bar and 85% of the time i get told to leave. constantly stopped by the police for no reason at all except that they know i am a traveller so most be up to something apparently. there was so many times in my early to late teens where i would meet up with my friends(also travellers) to go cinema, bowling ect, and had so many people, adults and kids scream knacker, gypo, scum, slut, whore, all kind of insults again simply because i am a traveller. i have suffered all my life because of it. i left school at a very young age so actually out of everyone here actually do need to educate myself on most things lol but not this.. what i experienced and still do is because of my culture...my way of living.. NOT MY SKIN COLOUR!! there is very much a difference between prejudice and racism!! im not saying white people dont suffer, especially travellers but its just not the same thing. there is a big difference between being told to leave a bar because im a traveller and being killed because your black. op i am so sorry that this has ever happened, never mind that in 2020 this is still happening and it sickens me that people are still making excuses.

ILikeyourHairyHands · 04/06/2020 03:12

That's not my experience Tangible, are you speaking about the UK or in the US? Whenever I go to the US I'm always horrified by racial divisions, I think it's better in the UK. Not perfect but better.

PatricksRum · 04/06/2020 03:14

@namechange240817 I'm really sorry to hear this.
I'm not sure if you saw up thread where I mentioned gypsy ethnicity and the suffering you face.
I totally agree with your post. Which is another important point tk raise. Black people are attacked just because of their race. Just that one thing. In comparison to someone being judged on their whole appearance. A huge difference.
Another point with prejudice is the difference in equal rights and fear.

OP posts:
mathanxiety · 04/06/2020 03:14

If you can use it, go ahead, @CandyLeBonBon

Thepigeonsarecoming · 04/06/2020 03:16

@PatricksRum

I'm a white female who has lived in the Middle East most of my adult life and I can tell you in no uncertain terms I have experienced racism due to my skin colour and ethnicity.

Course you have(!)
Do you understand that you being able to step on a plane Is a privilege of your race?
You being able to step in a country without being shot at is a privilege of your race?
You even being able to choose whether to travel to the ME is a privilege of your race. We aren't able to live where we're from. Your ancestors pulled us and dumped us here. I wouldn't be able to safely travel to the US. You would.

OP I’m struggling to understand where you are from? You aren’t allowed to step foot on a plane or travel to the US or ME?
Flaxmeadow · 04/06/2020 03:17

OP
I asked if you are in the USA because you said this.
Your ancestors pulled us and dumped us here
Are you in the Caribbean?

HoppingPavlova · 04/06/2020 03:19

OP, I’m really sorry if you are having a hard time but I disagree with the sentiment. I would think my kids have experienced racism from the outset. Starting with refusal to enrol in daycare (our form of nursery/preschool and here the majority are privately run even though publicly funded), due to the fact we were white. The official line was they were fully booked but funnily spots opened up for everyone else’s free us who were the right ‘colour’. Same story across our area so my kids had to start off out of area.

Then moving on to school where they were teased due to being white and the worst came from kids telling them what their parents said about them, namely they were stupid (because, white) and they couldn’t play with them because it would make them stupid too. Wish they were not in the kids class as they would make the class slow etc, that they ate weird food etc. Demographic of school was such that they would be the only white kid in the class with maybe another white child in the grade. We thought it best that kids go to neighbourhood school and it would be fine as we don’t view things in terms of colour and kids would be okay. Nope. However by end of primary good news is they had friends that realised their parents were full of shit.

If we need police we no longer get any joy from our local station as we are not the right demographic (they ended up stocking the local police station with staff who spoke the same language spoken by everyone else here). Last two reports we made, not against anyone here but crime we were witnesses to, seem to have disappeared with the note we chose not to bother with a report. There was also a period of break-ins and home invasions in our neighbour. Police visited every house in our street for intel and safety talk, that is every house except ours.

Neighbours don’t talk to us and if we even glance in their direction say not English, no English’ yet I have heard many speak it. Sure, we are not in fear of being shot in the street but also if we ever needed help in event of crime, accident etc people would turn and walk the other way.

I’ve been refused brochures and visit of housing for sale in our area each time with the agent pretending they don’t speak English. No brochures in English anyway but they have picture and I can always get someone at work to translate.

In our experience there can be racism against whites.

For those wondering why we don’t move. We purchased before the demographic of our area changed and to move to another where we won’t experience this behaviour from others would probably add an hour in travel time each day to our workplaces, kids uni’s, it’s a great location handy to main arteries, good amenities etc. Also, we don’t want racists to chase us out.

Flaxmeadow · 04/06/2020 03:20

gypsy ethnicity...

Irish Travellers don't have "gypsy ethnicity".
They are ethnic Irish

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