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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:
Thread gallery
23
wafflyversatile · 04/06/2020 08:59

One example I remebeeing reading a few years ago but I doubt things have changed is that on average black graduates take 6 months longer to find a job than their equivalent white graduates.

SuckingDieselFella · 04/06/2020 08:59

@Nagsnovalballs

The thing is... if white people have experienced racism/racial prejudice, that should make them more empathetic to the experience of people of colour. But based on the first few pages, it does not: it is just being used as a statement to ignore/belittle or compete with (with concomitant hostile notions of defeating) black experience.

If you are not using your (apparently) equivalent experiences to empathise and mobilise in solidarity, then you have learned nothing.

For example, I cannot know what it is to be a person of colour. However, as a woman, I can see some similarities between the manifestations of misogyny and racism, because both are institutional and structural in nature, as well as insidiously embedded in casual language and socialised behaviours. They are not the same, and white women have all kinds of privilege, but it is a great starting point for understanding and bringing nuance to that understanding that does not rely on people of colour’s emotional or intellectual labour in educating white people. From empathy comes solidarity, from solidarity comes change.

Sometimes, comparisons are effective if simplistic. I got elderly white people to understand the complexities of the n word by comparing it to the c word. Having grown up with children’s books with dogs named that offensive word, they were wilfully resisting the idea that the n word was offensive. Although they agreed it was socially unacceptable to use it, they kept complaining they didn’t understand why and that people are too sensitive these days. So I started using the c word With them, because i personally don’t have an issue with using the c word (won’t go into a spiel about why, unless people would like me to!) but knew that they did. It made them rethink their ignorant claim that “the n word is just a word and people shouldn’t be offended by it”. I recommend this tactic with any wilfully ignorant elderly white person. It really made them understand it at last, when all my attempts to explain racialised discourse and the history of aggression and oppression associated with the word had failed.

You use the c word with your elderly relatives to "teach them about racism"? Confused
Tappering · 04/06/2020 08:59

God what a depressing thread. No wonder the OP is tired.

I hear you OP.

ProsperTheBear · 04/06/2020 09:00

But based on the first few pages, it does not: it is just being used as a statement to ignore/belittle or compete with

the context is the tone of the OP.
People are not replying to a situation, they are replying to what the OP wrote.

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland · 04/06/2020 09:01

Is it not possible for a white person to live in a country such as Japan and experience racism?

I don't think any platitudes can be applied generally to all people based on the colour of their skin, there are so many factors to consider.

spacecoma · 04/06/2020 09:01

@rosiejaune - Nope, not all Jews are mixed race, that is not true. I am 100% European Ashkenazi Jewish. No Middle Eastern in me. Ashkenazi Jews are normally pale skinned but there are lots of different groups that are white but are genetically distinct. My family have lived in Europe for over a thousand years. My grandparents are from Poland and Ukraine. Ashkenazi Jews are white. Mizrahi, Sephardi and Beta Israel are Middle Eastern and Ethiopian Jews. Do a DNA test and educate yourself.

TheFencePainter · 04/06/2020 09:01

Lee Right was murdered by two black men.
Just saying.

If you are going to try to use this at the very least, learn his name right

jaminia · 04/06/2020 09:03

Racism and discrimination has no place in this modern world. I hope the humanity will learn about how pandemic affects us all an that we should be united instead of divided.

Tappering · 04/06/2020 09:03

One example I remebeeing reading a few years ago but I doubt things have changed is that on average black graduates take 6 months longer to find a job than their equivalent white graduates.

Oxford University did a study on this. They sent out fake CVs where the experience and background was identical. The only difference was the name on the CV.

  • Names which sounded white British got a 24% callback rate.
  • Names which sounded ethnic minority British got a 15% callback rate. Despite identical qualifications and experience.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46927417

SoberCurious · 04/06/2020 09:04

@PatricksRum this argument seems to be going in circles.

I posted a thread yesterday in chat asking if we could share ideas on how to be a good white ally. This might be more productive than telling other people what they have or haven't experienced.

I would be very appreciative if anyone would like to share helpful ideas.
Obviously don't worry if you're too tired at the moment though OP.

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3928184-how-to-be-a-good-white-ally

Thanks 🖤

bubblev · 04/06/2020 09:04

Just to clarify I don't want to minimise, I was answering in the context of the OP.

notalwaysalondoner · 04/06/2020 09:04

I think flat out saying “white people cannot experience racism” probably hasn’t helped your point OP as there are many instances given here which invalidate that statement - Jewish people in the UK, white people living in other countries. There are definitely some cultures which historically have considered themselves racially superior to white people so saying it can’t be racism because the power isn’t there also isn’t necessarily correct - if you’re a junior white person in a board room of powerful executives in another country of course you can experience racism. It depends on the setting.

But of course that isn’t really your point. Your point I think is that white people especially in Europe and the US can’t point to these isolated experiences as in any way equivalent to what non white people experience daily. Which I completely agree with. I think the closest I ever came was when I spent several months in South Africa and I finally understood the constant feeling of “otherness” that a minority feels, but of course in that country the power structures are still completely biased towards whites even though they’re a minority.

I also think that conflating the UK with the US doesn’t help the argument - our history and relationship with people of other races is totally different, as is our policing and gun laws.

Nonotthatdr · 04/06/2020 09:05

Of course white people can experience racism - the white girls in Rochdale were sexually assaulted because of their race and because the Asian men held the socioeconomic power in that situation.

It’s got very little to do with the situation at present though.

I hear you OP. It’s shit.

mathanxiety · 04/06/2020 09:05

FlaxMeadow, I would call the targeting and then the abject failures of the authorities in the Rochdale cases a combination of the class system and ingrained misogyny. The wielding of male power across ethnic groups resulted in the silencing of female victims of egregious crimes and the women who believed them.

The girls who were victimised by the criminal gangs and by all the institutions supposed to protect them were up against a power structure trained both formally and informally through cultural exposure, regardless of racial makeup, to attach no value to the word of lower class young women and especially those suspected of being sexually active, of drinking or drug use, or who were seen as 'damaged goods', and to value the word of people with educated accents, job titles, and confidence when dealing with the authorities. The whistleblowers were women and they were also ignored.

The institutions which dismissed the girls in Rochdale were conditioned to see a certain type of girl as unreliable. The gangs specifically targeted girls who were from dysfunctional homes, or in the care system, who were very vulnerable, the least powerful and least protected members of the society in which they operated. They did not hang around the playing fields of private schools looking for their victims.

In the US, black people are targeted by police regardless of socio economic status. In fact, a black male teenager who lives in an affluent neighbourhood stands a high chance of very poor treatment by police for just walking on the path outside his own home. Policing in black areas tends to be heavy handed, and the proportion of unsolved crimes in these areas tends to be high. The conclusion many black people draw is that police are focused on protecting white people and white neighbourhoods and not interested in serving or protecting when it comes to black crime victims and black property loss.

Amy Cooper in Central Park thought she could get an educated, middle class, well spoken black man to regret his boldness in asking her to restrain her dog if she invoked her whiteness and called on what she assumed to be the defenders of white interests to teach him a lesson, perhaps the ultimate lesson.

There have been multiple examples of black men and women murdered in their own homes and gardens by police who were called by white neighbours, and then there is the drip, drip effect when thousands of black people experience being held up on the street by police and asked to account for themselves while they are going about their business, because they 'fit a description' which could be as vague as 'black man aged 18-30', 'wearing jeans', 'wearing a baseball hat'. As long as you are black you are fair game. Ms Cooper knew that.

The dynamic in which one group is valued and one group is automatically, reflexively discredited works the same in both racism and misogyny with the complication of classism.

TheFencePainter · 04/06/2020 09:05

Non British names were also proven to change car insurance costs... We didn't believe it until we tested it when it came out. I wonder of they changed it now🤔

Tappering · 04/06/2020 09:05

Is it not possible for a white person to live in a country such as Japan and experience racism?

As PP have said, this is racial prejudice not racism. There is a very distinct difference.

www.aclrc.com/myth-of-reverse-racism

MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing · 04/06/2020 09:06

The sign said:

No Jews
No Blacks
No Irish

randomchatter · 04/06/2020 09:06

@Widowodiw

No I haven’t . But people who are dissing white people who are trying and help because they haven’t experienced racism, it doesn’t sit right. Surely everyone needs to come together to overcome this not push people away. There seems to be an unhealthy vibe that all white people are being tarred with being racist.
You'd have to be really entrenched in your prejudices to not see what happened and not want to help/ join in the push back to overcome this.

I think people are saying we need to understand where this level of violent racism comes from / how it's come about and why, to date, it's not been dealt with.

It isn't an isolated incident, perpetrated by the few who sneak into law enforcement hiding their racism.

Starcup · 04/06/2020 09:07

OP I hear you.

I can see why you’re angry and I’m sure I would be feeling exactly the same as you if I was in you’re situation. I’m not though- I’m White British and live in predominantly white area. I’ve never experienced anything like what you have to put up with and i never will. I can never empathise, but please know that I am sympathetic to your plight.

I’m lucky in that I don’t feel disadvantaged due to my colour. It must be horrific to have to feel like that.

I was driving to work yesterday and I thought of what happened to George Floyd and my eyes filled with tears. Had to pull myself together as my kids were in the car and I didn’t want to have to explain to them how this poor man suffered at the hands of a racist white policeman.

I have the luxury to not have to tell them right then, I can shield them from seeing or hearing the brutality of mankind, but you can’t. You have to put up with it every day on a personal level and be discriminated against.

I’m so sorry.

Xxxx

Rose789 · 04/06/2020 09:09

OP I hear you and I support you.
As a white person ive always thought it’s enough that I’m not racist, I’ve never made a racial slur so I’m not part of the problem. That’s not enough, that will never be enough until black lives matter. Over the last few years I have read books, I have read articles, I have watched films and I have watched documentaries, I have listened to podcasts, I have listened to my friends who are black. Really listened to what they are saying. I am actively anti racist i challenge comments that are made in every day life, I try to educate where ever possible. I’m raising my 2 kids to understand that racism is wrong and that it’s not enough for them not to judge someone by colour but to be actively not racist.
I will never understand what it is to be black, I will never know because I’m white, I have white privilege but I stand with black peoples as an ally.

022828MAN · 04/06/2020 09:10

How ridiculous. The very definition of racial prejudice is the same definition of racism.
I understand emotions are high but people are doing linguistic gymnastics to disprove that white people could EVER experience racism. It's so dismissive and does not help the cause.
Yes in the UK and US the power imbalance is in the favour of white people, but in non white countries it is not. Don't dismiss peoples own experiences if they say they've experienced racism in those circumstances.
Also many people have given examples of when they've experiences racism as a white person in the UK. But obviously you, a complete stranger, can tell them they haven't. How arrogant and obnoxious!

ProsperTheBear · 04/06/2020 09:10

AtrociousCircumstance

a few months ago, it was all about Greta.
Then it became "be kind" in the UK
Then we had the Thursday clapping
Today is Black Lives matter

my point is that tomorrow something else will be trending. So the smug and laughable attitude of many are just a bit childish...they'll be jumping on something else.

Obviously I am uk based, and each of the new trend was a very valuable point, and still is btw, but they are quickly forgotten when the new one starts. It's sad but there you go.

TheClitterati · 04/06/2020 09:10

Jane Elliot is a white American who has been teaching people about racism for many years. Lots of videos about her work on YT.

C4 in UK ran an experiment with her - you can watch the show on YT. It starts to explain some of the issues people are struggling to grasp.

Rather than being defensive (like so many on here) please try being open.

CandyLeBonBon · 04/06/2020 09:12

There seems to be an unhealthy vibe that all white people are being tarred with being racist*

I think the problem we have, as a pp put it up thread is that whilst individuals can be anti racist and be sensitive to the issues black people face, we exist in a society which is white-centric and until the white people in power change society, because white society demands change, we are always going to live in a world that benefits white people over POC. THIS is why white people need to lend their voice to facilitate that change.

ItsSpittingEverybodyIn · 04/06/2020 09:13

I am white and grew up in a very heavily Asian populated area where white people were the minority. I have been a victim of racism!

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