You're white. You haven't experienced racism

[PatricksRum]

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

@Handsoffisback

But sporadic we are always saying kids need educating and teaching from day one about racism and that they are not born racist. Yet these children are being taught from somewhere to be racist to a white boy. These things start small and escalate.

I think I’m actually agreeing with you. Clearly I’m not getting the point across well though.

I was trying to agree that the power structures within a peer group or local community can work very differently to those in wider society. So you can get schools or classes where the small number of white children are systematically excluded because of their race. And where many of the parents support and encourage this in various ways.

I was trying to pre-empt the comeback that the larger structural issues in society matter there. Of course they do, and you need to consider that they will influence the community and/or peer group group attitudes.

But it’s still shit for the kid who no one will play with because his skin is the ‘wrong’ colour. His everyday experience is of a racism that makes him miserable and prevents him from participating fully in his social context.

The context and the power relations at a range of scales do matter a great deal. Yet so many people would rather oversimplify and overgeneralise.

I live in the North too and have been called a Paki numerous times, even though I am Greek. I have never been rude back or retaliated. I would ask you to examine how you behave as calling people Pakis will make a lot if them attack you back, even though this is something I would personally not do.

I am sorry OP. I have been incredibly ignorant as I honestly believed that it was a tiny minority in this country who were racist. I was wrong. After hearing comments and reading what people are happy to put online it has made me realise that it is no better hear than the US.

On Facebook someone set up a peaceful protest and advertised it on a local group at least 25 pc of the comments were racist.

Embarrassingly I have a family member who has posted photos of Lee Rugby along with a caption saying "where was the outrage when he was murdered by 2 black men", a photo of the little girl in Bolton with similar caption about her being murdered by an immigrant and a copy of a post asking why people don't protest and riot over the numerous young girls who are groomed and raped by asian men in this country.

I have seen the tiktoks and photos of people doing "the George Floyd challenge".

I know I shouldn't be surprised as all the signs were there. I live in a country where people voted for a PM who has made numerous racist remarks. But it is different seeing all this so openly. It have made me realise that just because I don't see racism daily it has always been bubbling under the surface. If all these idiots are happy to write racist remarks on social media they sure as hell are going to discriminate in the work place along with all other walks of life.

This might be off topic but I think there is a big issue with holding the police to account. More so in the US but it here too.

@orangeheater what he experienced was racial discrimination and racial abuse. The mere fact that he can escape it means it's not causing him to be consistently and systemically deprived of the same privileges afforded to others. It's abhorrent yes. But it's not systemic racism. It was a nasty but temporary problem that he had the power to change.

I've not had time to read the full thread but the OP is very ill informed. Whites are not the majority. Globally I believe there are around 750 million white people and nearly 1.5 billion blacks. I am also sick of the 'it's not my job to educate you' comment. I see it frequently in these sorts of debates when the other person doesn't actually have to knowledge or ability to debate. Educate yourself is a very lazy way of saying I don't have an answer.

Why, again, am I forced to educate you? This is not my duty.

Then don't!

@DrDetriment zebras outnumber lions 4:1. Who's the predator. It is not a numbers game.

The racism experienced by black people is throughout their life and is not just individual but systemic. That is why it is so much worse.

So much worse than the systemic oppression of the nationalist community in Northern Ireland?

So much worse than the experiences of the Jewish people of Europe in the first half of the 20th century?

So much worse than the experiences of the Croats, Bosnians, Albanians etc at the end of the last century? Ok sure, we can get all pedantic and claim it didn't fit under a specific narrow definition of racism it was only systemic Ethnic Cleansing. Soooooo much better, phew!!!!

Just like the Batak Massacre in Bulgaria, the Armenian massacre, St Brice's Day Massacre, the dislocation of the Sami. Or revenge massacres like the Brno death march.

Europe has a vast and complex history. Stop making utterly ignorant statements that complete erase the systemic oppressions of people you likely aren't even aware of. It's not your place, or anyone's place, to do that. As for complex histories, that is true of every continent. This awful shit has not just been practiced by Europeans.

Acknowledging that systemic oppression has been experienced by many peoples, and perpetrated by many peoples, does not take away from the validity of the systemic oppression and racism of black people in the west. But denying that it happened to others, does take it away from them. And all it will do is ensure that people are never able to come together and overcome it.

@DrDetriment '750 million white people and 1.5 billion blacks'

Wow. At least the minority are people!!

I'm talking about racism plain and simple. Systematic racism will of course take time to be developed against.
I often ask my white friends how many dolls of colour do you own. The answer is normally a fake shocked well none followed by a laugh and zero intention of changing this.
That takes years and years of change it cannot happen over night.
But to say white people have not suffered racism is untrue and I remain with my position there.

validity of the systemic oppression and racism of black people in the west.

That should read validity of the systemic oppression of and racism experienced by black people in the west.

Good post @alittleprivacy.

@alittleprivacy but who perpetuated those atrocities? It wasn't black people was it?

BlackLikeMe your post was very thought provoking and I agree with you. There's an inbuilt dynamic in the power imbalance that I believe will take generations to change. Even in the most well intentioned people.

I did what you suggested and imagined that every book had pictures that don't look like me. It still wouldn't bother me, because I'm white. If someone called me white trash it wouldn't bother me, I don't care about being othered for being white, because I'm white. I cannot deny that it is easier and more pleasant to be white.

It's embarrassing to be white now, but it's time to take the medicine and admit it's easier to be white and try to help others have the same starting point as white people do.

[quote CandyLeBonBon]@alittleprivacy but who perpetuated those atrocities? It wasn't black people was it? [/quote]
No it wasn’t but this thread is about the experience of racism by those with white skin, not about the colour of skin of the perpetrator.

Which actually is a massive diversion from the very important black lives matter movement which is gaining momentum, and in my view caused by a poorly worded OP.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland - Im sorry but in the UK i don't think the UK "built a society based on the systemic enslavement of non white people".

It is one factor in our history - a huge and horrifying one. It is not what our society is based on.

You have got to be joking! The UK today is built on the empire. Ok, the subjugation was not limited to non-white people, as the Irish can testify, but that doesn't make it any less true.

What about the targeting of young white girls by the Muslim rape gangs. Those men think those girls are inferior to their race. Is that not racism?

i resided in peckham, south london for a short while many years ago. i was called 'whitr honky' on many occasions. op is mistaken to say a white person cannot be racially abused. of course they can.

*white

[quote Iamagree]**@Randomchatter* Perhaps there's a physiological difference in black men that causes them to die when a man kneels on his neck, and others have their weight on his chest! Can we all just move on already and stop talking about racism and black people?!*
This is appalling - I don't know where to start. Do you honestly think the police routinely kneel on everyone's neck? Do you think for a second it's an approved form of restraint (even if any restraint at all was justified in this particular case?). You want people to stop talking about this? There are no words.[/quote]
Perhaps I should have added a few more !!!'s at the end. However if you read the entire post you'll see that I am questioning those who say the US is different so there is nothing for UK dwellers to discuss or protest about. 'The UK is different and therefore a bit better'.

Most adults know that if you put enough weight on a human's chest alone that they will suffocate. Add a knee to the neck will take less time to kill them. Are black men not human, is my point.

@boredtotears11 no. That's racially motivated misogyny.

Feudal England was built on the systemic enslavement of white Anglo-Saxons. The legacy of this lives on today in the social inequality of British Society..

The descendants of that peasantry were in the vast majority not beneficiaries of empire slavery. It helped depress their wages and drove them into rural poverty or oppressive factory labour. When Gandho came to Lancashire to seek support from the mill-workers for a boycott of Indian cotton, he was given a warm welcome by the workers and shunned by the bosses.

You don't have to fear being shot at for your skin colour, being stopped and searched for your skin colour, being pulled over for your skin colour.
In England, thousands of teenage girls have been raped for being white by Muslim men. The authorities turned a blind eye for years.

In Zimbabwe, under the dictatorial regime of Robert Mugabe, between 2,000 and 3,500 white people were forced from their homes and into destitution because of the colour of their skin. The new government is now compensating them.

So it's not true to say that white people never experience racism. They are not always in a position of power.