You're white. You haven't experienced racism

[PatricksRum]

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

The complete, utter lack of understanding of institutional racism on this thread is so depressing

Would you say that a girl, forced by a racist gang into racist slavery, who goes to the police for help but they arrest her and let the gang go. She goes to social services and they deny her too. She goes to her MP, who does the same. Not only that but some of the racist gang members are working for these services, including the police.

Anyone from these services who tries to bravely raise the alarm is threatened with the sack and sent on a retraining course. A government trainng course that teaches that these racist gangs don't even exist .

This slavery happens to thousands of girls in towns across a whole country for twenty years

Would you call this institutionalised racism?

Within that school maybe but not within every day life. Do you still go through it now.. Today. Are you still looked down upon? , do you still feel unequal? Black people do and are considered less than white people in many different situations. I don't know everything about how deeply ingrained racism in everyday life is for Black people but I am learning. I always thought racism against white people by black people was the same.. I know know it is not. Black people are considered unequal in a lot of places white people are not. I don't claim to understand but I stand for Black lives matter

@PlanDeRaccordement

@PlanDeRaccordement

ROFL 🤣. Never been to China have you OP? I’ve witnessed racism against my white friend when we visited my family in rural China. A man on the street started asking what I was doing with “that monkey”
I or my uncle had to go everywhere with my white friend while there because their life would be in danger if they went out on their own.
And it’s insulting to me that you think white people have power in my homeland. They don’t. They never did.

Great that you're laughing so hard during a time that is so upsetting for black people.

I've been to China, and me and my white companions were regularly asked by friendly locals to have pictures taken with them, particularly the blond friends. Your experience sounds 'rare'.

The claims that the UK has no systemic racism are hugely wishful thinking, that are easier to believe if you are white British and have not experienced it (I am white British. I haven't experienced it.) I like to pretend there is no racism here but I know that there is. There is systemic racism in the UK police, with data to back it up, though it is not nearly as deadly as the issues with the US police force because police hold less individual power here as they don't carry lethal weapons as a matter of course.

There is racism towards white people as well - particularly travellers and Eastern Europeans. That doesn't negate racism towards black people.

@Tonz

Within that school maybe but not within every day life. Do you still go through it now.. Today. Are you still looked down upon? , do you still feel unequal? Black people do and are considered less than white people in many different situations. I don't know everything about how deeply ingrained racism in everyday life is for Black people but I am learning. I always thought racism against white people by black people was the same.. I know know it is not. Black people are considered unequal in a lot of places white people are not. I don't claim to understand but I stand for Black lives matter

Thank you. You've articulated some of my feelings really well.

I don't now no because i moved.

Not sure if you are referring to me in this comment
"I really wish posters would stop comparing the UK to the USA. As if they have identical histories and identical modern day situations. They don't".

As I think I already clearly stated, the two countries have different histories. What they do have is very entwined histories and English colonists introduced slavery to what became the USA, of that there is no historical doubt.

From then until now, the UK has profited handsomely from the American economy. In fact we are still to this day the largest investor in the US. The US in return is the UKs biggest investor.

The UK is the single largest investor in the United States. British companies have invested more than$540 billionin the U.S., accounting for more than 15% of all inbound foreign direct investment (FDI).The U.S. is also the largest investor in the UK. American firms haveinvested nearly $750 billionin the British market, nearly a quarter of their total investment in Europe, and more than 12% of all U.S. FDI worldwide.

So we have been intimately and literally invested in the USA throughout it's history and all periods of its history: slavery, the Black Codes, Jim Crow. If we consider the USA a racist state, our own people have given it the money to prosper and enabled it every step of the way. Much of the time we directly funded the people and structures that made slavery possible.

To wave slavery off "as way back then, so irrelevant today" we cannot explain where the animosity toward black people comes from in the USA. If you start to trace the beliefs and behaviors of white people toward black people in the USA they reveal an unbroken line back to the days of US slavery and then back to English Colonialism.

White people were always free, as in mathanxiety's illustration of the woman in Central Park, to call the full force of the state down on a black person.

YABU. We have a large ethnic community near where I live which is an unofficial no go area. If anyone outside of their community wonders onto their street you get verbal abuse, and often get attacked. As far as I’m concerned, however you try to differentiate racism and racial prejudice, that is treating me differently and in a derogatory way because of the colour of my skin.

Just wanted to add that my experience does not compare in any way to the racism black people experience everyday.
And she was stereotyping more than anything else.

I hear casual racism all the time from people who don't want Polish/Ukrainian/whatever people here. If you have a 'foreign' surname, you will experience racism, even if you are white. Just because you haven't experienced it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Keep living in your bubble.

Great that you're laughing so hard during a time that is so upsetting for black people

So no one can laugh at something they find ridiculous? That poster clearly found that particular statement ridiculous.

Your experience sounds 'rare'.

Are you seriously, telling someone how racisim works in their own country and their knowledge and experiences of their home country is wrong?

I very much doubt you spent much time in rural China, living with a local family and your holiday.

No one ever mentions how long the Arab/middle eastern slave trade went on for, those countries enslaved Africans and treated them just as inhumanely for longer than the European slave trade went on for - both before and after it started. It's all terrible, terrible history and I'm not saying therefore the European slave trade wasn't a problem. I'm saying that it's never mentioned because it doesn't fit the black vs white narrative and that's insane. Either it's about the injustices suffered or it's not. Similarly I don't see how anyone can read even a tiny bit of Jewish history and not see them as at the very least natural allies who have had an almost endless trauma across the world... but no their suffering and slaughter is less because many were ethnically white. The world has generally been a fucking horrible place much of the time and still is much of the time but apparently one part of the horror it way worse than any other part and not only would I be called a racist bigot for saying that in some circles, I'm expected to feel personally responsible for it all.

Also creating a post then whining about the injustice of people then wanting to discuss is laughable honestly. You want a fight, it's what you're defining yourself by.

White people were always free, as inmathanxiety'sillustration of the woman in Central Park, to call the full force of the state down on a black person.

Not if you are a white female teenager, in the UK being used as a sex slave by an Asian gang.

Could I ask a question and apologise in advance if it is ignorant?

The way Mugabe treated whites during his later years in SA - is that racism? Or not, because of the history? It’s just the one lone example I can think of where there might have been racism against whites.

Lots of white people need to open their eyes when denying white privilege or insisting that whites can face racism too. It might be hard to accept, but it’s right there staring you in the face when you’re willing to look.

This is the point though you moved somewhere else and are OK. Black people in the US especially can move to every state and still be unequal. Different countries in the UK and still be unequal. They are and always have been unequal everywhere not just in a few different settings and not just as children but as adults.

You don’t seem to understand that not all white people are treated the same or hold the same position of power that you refer to. Using your definition of racism as including power many white ethnic groups are excluded from your version of white as a class incapable of experiencing racism. Perhaps you mean Western European?

My own ethnic group which is white (imo, it’s disputed but most of are very pale of skin at any rate) have been subjected to enslavement, genocide and, ethnic cleansing as have many others. And before you start, yes it’s just as easy to look at us and be able to tell that we aren’t Western European.

I appreciate what you are trying to say but unless you mean Western Europeans when you say white you are simply incorrect.

Institutional racism and individual racism are obviously different. But they are both racism. You don’t get to redefine the meaning of words I’m afraid.

let’s break this down:

racism is systemic; it is to do with the structure of society and the history of colonialism and slavery, therefore it can only exist from the ‘top down’ as it requires those who make the systems (historically and currently, these systems are constructed and controlled by white males); racial prejudice is something any individual of any race can feel or act on; it is of course completely unacceptable, and it may be caused structural racism in some cases, but it’s not the same thing. Acknowledging the difference does not diminish individual instances of anyone of any colour being abused because of their race - it’s all unacceptable. But George Floyd died because of racism, not racial prejudice, and that’s the issue right now. people are hurting, grieving, and afraid. let’s remember that and allow that grief and rage to be expressed.

@PatricksRum and another POC on this thread; i see you, i hear you, i believe you

@Trevsadick

Are you seriously, telling someone how racisim works in their own country and their knowledge and experiences of their home country is wrong?

No, I'm relating my own experience. Funny how defensive that makes you.

*and other POC

Well I think a movement DOES get to redefine the meaning of words actually. That’s how it happens. OP thank you and hope you get a good sleep at some point x

I am not saying that racism towards white people doesn't happen it does and it shouldn't but it is not the same as the racism endured by black people. I was attacked by a group of black people for being white when I was 17..while the attack was serious enough to hospitalise me it is in now way comparable to the racism endured by black people. I once thought it was but I have learned.. It is not