You're white. You haven't experienced racism

[PatricksRum]

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

@TooTrueToBeGood

I think the OP would be more accurate if it said

"You are white, you have never experienced the systematic racism experienced over centuries by black people".

Possibly, but anyone with more than two functioning brain cells knows exactly the point she was making. If people have no argument other than one based on pedantry then they have no fucking argument, even if they don't realise that themselves.

It’s not “pedantry”. The OP has not engaged with why she is able to override the dictionary definition of racism to say the word racism covers only “structural racism”. Because it’s this issue which has primarily caused the confusion and argument on this thread.

Lots of good points above. As said above 1. it does not aid understanding and help eradicate discrimination if statements are made that are not true. White people eg Jews and many others can experience racism. 2. applying an American perspective to Europe is not always helpful in bringing more people to the cause.

@TabbyMumz

It could be argued that white women are receiving racism on this very thread.

In my experience the people who shout about equality and call other people out for being bigots are always the most prejudiced people in the room.

@CandyLeBonBon I wasn't comparing what's worse etc. I was simply trying to explain the term racism covers different kinds of racism (systemic, prejudice etc) and use sexual offences as an example because that term also covers different kinds of thing. It was just to illustrate that racism isn't just 1 thing. It's many different ones.

I dont think the op has heard of the holocaust.

Tappering

I don't understand tho. White people are not and have never been in power in Japan. The Japanese policy of total exclusion of all foreigners in the colonial period was extremely effective in that regard.

Handsoff - the op was on the thread until quite late into the night, she's probably still asleep!

"In my experience the people who shout about equality and call other people out for being bigots are always the most prejudiced people in the room."

And theres an example of it, right there.

One of the very worst places for police brutality against black people is South Africa - why isn't there a thread about this? Presumably because the police involved are mostly black themselves?

www.thesouthafrican.com/news/world-news/countries-strictest-lockdown-laws-south-africa-brutality/

www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/22/south-africa-police-brutality-increase

Racial Prejudice is the expression of an opinion. Racism is the experience of people who suffer disadvantage as a result of the racial prejudice of others. Racism is an experience, not an expression.

Simples.

Come and live in south Yorkshire. Maybe take a walk around page hall. Or firvale. Where the romany gypsys litter and rats are everywhere as big as cats. Where the grooming scandal happened in rotherham but police to afraid to respond due to racism girls tortured because they were white!!!!
Also bk to page hall none isolated and instead big gangs congregated on the.shops!!!
How can you say us white people have experienced racism and act as though any other culture isnt racist.

@Kippersbigfeet and OP so when i take my children to the concentration camp their relatives died at for being slavic Poles I tell them this isn't racism as they are white!

When elderly relatives are told to go home or treated differently because they are still heavily accented even though they have lived here and contributed since the 50s I tell my children that isn't racism.

Seriously...
Yes not looking 'different' probably helps them...but please don't assume it's only a problem for non whites... Unfortunately it's everywhere...and I will teach my children they have to be part of the solution.

I've worked extensively in southern US... The level of racism is truly shocking... If anything it seemed to be getting worse under current administration.... If one thing can come of this horrific murder I hope its a step change in attitudes... However it runs very deep... At a level where comments made are way beyond what I have ever heard before & truly shocking.

It’s a vast oversimplification to claim that the racism people who are not Japanese experience in Japan is some mythical and bullshit ‘reverse racism’.

The thing about power structures is that they do vary internationally. It doesn’t help at all to insist that the dominant systems of power in the west apply universally. They just don’t, for all sorts of reasons. The specificities of context really matter.

Acknowledging this is in no way to deny that the kind of racism people like the OP are talking about isn’t utterly dreadful and something that needs to be addressed.

Havent not have

Haha @Handsoffisback I feel your pain. Thankfully mine are all old enough to sleep in these days but I remember the early starts!

Sporadicnamechange

This is my point.

I do believe that power structures that favour white people are the majority, and certainly in the West, but to pretend there are no other power structures/systems in the world is short sighted and rather colonially patronising to those other structures by implying they do not matter internationally.

'We, as ethnic minorities, know you hold the power. You enslaved us. You still do. You hold all the key. I'm truly sorry that your white supremecy is preventing you from seeing reality.'

I'm tired too op. So tired of the 'white surpremacy' slurs.

Black lives do matter. I wish people would protest about the victims of black knife crime, but it doesn't seem to matter when it is black gangs stabbing others black gang members Why not? where is your anger for the disproportionate numbers of deaths as a result of knife crime?

The scenes in London were disgusting, why attack the police in this country?!

David Dorn a black retired poilciemsn murdered by looters in the US, hardly gets a mention in the news, why didn't his life matter?

I cannot back a movement that denies that the holocaust was racist.

Good luck.

My parents lived in London in the 60's. There were signs in windows of boarding houses saying "No blacks, no dogs, no Irish". Obviously, it wasn't racism as Irish and British people are both white but it was institutionalised discrimination by those in power.

I lived in London in the 80's. Those were the days when you could be beaten up and/or verbally abused for having an Irish accent. I was never beaten up but I was verbally abused simply for having an Irish accent.

Nationalists in Northern Ireland endured sustained and institutionalised discrimination from the unionists from partition. Catholics were denied jobs and housing. They are also subject to violence. Electoral boundaries were gerrymandered to ensure a unionist majority in Parliament even in areas with a nationalist majority population. The civil rights movement started in the late 60's and continued for decades, although it became a bloody struggle.

Travellers are discriminated against in Ireland and the UK. They are most definitely not in a position of power.

Jews also endure discrimination.

I think that your statement that white people cannot be the victims of racism is not true, if you define race as it is defined in the equality act. For the purposes of the Act `race´ includes colour, nationality and ethnic or national origins. The examples I have given are racism under the equality act. I suppose the advantage white people in discriminated groups have is they mainly look the same as those in power (although travellers and Roma can usually be identified physically) so if they stay quiet they are safer.

I don't think it's helpful to dismiss other's experience as it just creates division. Black people have endured way more than white people. The majority of white people have never, and will never, experience racism as they are, as you say, in a position of power. You won't change the mind of those who dismiss racism no matter what you do so you're wasting your time trying.

What is happening in the US at the moment is appalling. Racism is embedded in the system in many states. Trump actively encourages it with his comments.

@walkingchuckydoll who has said that?

Keep your ‘good luck’, no one wants it.

@OchonAgusOchonO Completely agree

@happytoday73 Yes, my F's family are Czech and suffered horribly under the Nazis. And we suffered prejudice when I was growing up in Yorkshire in the 1970s. It was at the height of the Cold War and my F was accused of being a Russian spy lots of times. My siblings and I were horribly bullied because of our obviously Czech surname, which I now think people spelt wrong deliberately sometimes.

But as an adult with a different surname, no one can ever know that history unless I choose to share it. That's where white privilege comes in, because black and Asian people are not able to do that.

I'm so sorry OP, you must be exhausted. These past few days I have sort of had an epiphany better late than never and the extent of racism has been a kick in the teeth for me (as a white person) so I cannot begin to imagine what you have to go through every day.

I follow some women on social media who are black, none of whom describe themselves as educators but who speak of issues of racism, blackness, identity etc from time to time. In the last few days they have been very active in the BLM area and all of them in response to questions have answered IT IS NOT OUR JOB TO EDUCATE YOU. As a white person, I need that leg up. I don't know who to turn to to get correct information, I am like a baby learning to walk, I desperately want to learn but want to get it right. I don't want to turn to google (as has been suggested) or wiki - I want to use my white privilege to amplify black voices, but over the past few days I have read soooo much conflicting info from black women. POC is better as it is more inclusive/POC is reductive, a mixed race person isn't/is black, black is brown /brown shouldn't be used for a black person etc etc. I'm finding I'm remaining silent as I don't want to say the wrong thing. As a person who has zero lived experience, I need a signpost. I'm quite sure I'm not the only one either.