You're white. You haven't experienced racism

[PatricksRum]

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

@randomchatter it wasn't clear from your post tbh

Tappering

This isn't top trumps.

Apparently it is.

The desire to change racism at an individual level to racial prejudice by some posters to support an 'I can't be racist' stance is ridiculous.

It is a shame that people can't recognise a multifaceted issue.

White people can suffer racism but mainly at a personal level.

BAME people suffer racism at both personal and societal levels.

@CandyLeBonBon Ok then. Who perpetuated the Rwandan genocide?

(And yes, I am aware that the colonial legacy contributed to that because the world is complex and European imperialism has had far reaching consequences).

Similarly, who is persecuting who in the Rohinga genocide in Burma?

(Again, a whole range of different imperialisms have contributed to this and other issues in south east Asia. There’s no uniform power structure globally).

ODFO.

I live in London and worked in retail where the majority of my colleagues were women of colour. I tried my best to fit in and was nothing short of friendly to everybody.

I have been called a white bitch, a cracker and had colleagues mocking my race in my presence, saying they're going to get "white girl drunk" on the weekend and laughing at me.

I was also ostracized and not welcomed into their conversations and 'clique'

I felt discriminated against. That was racist.

My DM went into a local hair dressers to enquire about a cut, nowhere did it state that they only cater to afro hair. When politely asking about prices she was looked at like shit and told abruptly "we don't do that kind of hair" and the owner kissed her teeth at her.

That is discrimination.

Yes white people do experience racism.

I often ask my white friends how many dolls of colour do you own.

None of any colour, because dolls are spooky and the devils work

But I can't tell you how many works of classic European children's include racist depictions of 'natives'.

In the end I read them to my children, because I think it's better to acknowledge how much racism has been the water that we have swum in. I don't know what I would have done if my children weren't white.

children's literature

@SporadicNamechange I think you inadvertently answered your own questions. And no there is no global power structure but in the west the power dynamic is very much geared up to favour white males. And has been for centuries. Which is where the problems lie.

What do you want?

^I live in London and worked in retail where the majority of my colleagues were women of colour. I tried my best to fit in and was nothing short of friendly to everybody.

I have been called a white bitch, a cracker and had colleagues mocking my race in my presence, saying they're going to get "white girl drunk" on the weekend and laughing at me.

I was also ostracized and not welcomed into their conversations and 'clique'^

So some black people were mean to you once.

My DM went into a local hair dressers to enquire about a cut, nowhere did it state that they only cater to afro hair. When politely asking about prices she was looked at like shit and told abruptly "we don't do that kind of hair" and the owner kissed her teeth at her.

Your only other experience of 'racism' in your entire life was a black woman (allegedly) sucking her teeth at someone else?

Call the cops! (no seriously, don't do that, they're racist as fuck).

If a black person screams "humans are born with one eye" don't correct. Allow us to grieve. We are trying in any way we can to grieve.

Wait, what? I was with you until this. So, if a person makes a blatantly incorrect statement, nobody should correct them because they are black and have experienced racism? If you told me the sky was green, I should just agree with you because Racism? Are you really suggesting that someone who has experienced racism is beyond any question no matter what they are saying?

I'm not surprised the OP has abandoned the thread. I saw a post yesterday asking for a BAME section. Hopefully MNHQ will listen. I cannot begin to imagine how infuriating and enraging and devastating it must be to start conversations about your own oppression and have it hijacked all the time.

@SonjaMorgan, I've seen exactly the same posts on fb this morning and also feel embarrassed to have family who post such utter crap with seemingly know understanding of how/why they're totally different issues!

The Rwandan Geoncide was a product of generations of resentment on the part of Hutu farmers who were systematically marginalised by the Belgian colonial admin who favoured the Tutsi herders.

The Rwandan Geoncide was a product of generations of resentment on the part of Hutu farmers who were systematically marginalised by the Belgian colonial admin who favoured the Tutsi herders.

Look at you, spoiling the racists' narrative with your facts and knowledge.

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.

We don't really have any dolls in this house just action figures and we have a really decent mix of sex and skin colour. It started when my DS was a toddler and we couldn't find a Batgirl for his Batcave. I learned to customise action figures. First to make sure he had female figures as well as male. Through that, I realised that his figures were as white as they were male, so I started to make figures of characters of other ethnicities too. I also joined campaigns to have the toy manufacturers diversify their output which actually worked (moreso with Fisher Price & Lego than Hasbro) and today I can walk into Smyths (or could if there wasn't a pandemic) and pick up figures in a variety of sex and colour/ethnicity. Including women of colour which were usually utterly impossible to find.

@thedancingbear I can assure you, living in London I have experienced that type of thing more than once.

People of colour aren't in the minority where I live and shitty attitudes toward white people are common.

If you don't think being called a white bitch is racist then you're stupid.

Can you imagine if I had said "i'm off to get black girl pissed" at the weekend, the reception I would have got?

You can't (and I wouldn't) refer to people of colour in a derogatory way, but it's fine if they do that to white people.

Sure.

...cont'd.

The situation was made worse by support from the French for the Hutu govt in Rwanda because they were French-speaking and part of the Francophonie, the French 'Commonwealth,' whereas the mainly Tutsi opposition exiled in Uganda had become English-speakers who farmed tea and played cricket.

Read some of this thread but not all, and I can't help but think that part of the dispute here is just based on the words used. Most people already have a common understanding of the word racism, which is probably the same/ similar as the one in law which is basically about being shit to someone because of their race ( I paraphrase). They don't know that there is a different definition which includes power structures, and that that was the definition OP was using. If words don't have shared meanings, then these antagonistic or confused situations will arise.

A previous poster used the terms ' individual racism' and 'structural racism' I think that is a lot easier for people to grasp and agree on than 'racism' and 'racial prejudice' which is not quite such an easy distinction to grasp unless you are immersed in this area.

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.

Nationalists in Northern Ireland had to fear all of that. Not for their skin colour obviously but for their accent, their name and their address.

@BlackLikeMe“ please feel free not to answer as you have no obligation to educate me

“I've never made a great deal of this or asked for pity or understanding. But just imagine it. Imagine, just as one example, if for you, as a white child, every single child's book that was read to you, or you read yourself, had only black characters. Every single character in every book was black. Not one single white character. Ever.”

May I ask how would you go about combating that - other than using mixed racial resources?

I struggle with this one a lot as the (white) mother of a mixed (Asian-white) child. We were in an area where she and my husband were in the ethic majority but we’re now in one where I am because of work. We have moved her to a school with less good academics but more racially diverse so that she is exposed more to. I want to share my culture with my daughter (and as a women I’m doing the lions share of the upbringing) but I don’t want her to feel that if possible.

My husband says he does not feel what you have experienced- that feeing of unworthiness but he did grow up in an area where he was the majority, immersed in his parents culture of origin.

I am stuck between trying to emulate some of my dds (partial) culture of origin and worrying that that is cultural appropriation - for example should I dress her in clothes from her father’s culture or mine? I try and do both but then she wants to dress like me and I don’t think I can dress in the clothes of her culture because that’s appropriation. It dosent help that she dosent visually look like her fathers race or that he (culturally) thinks that clothing hair etc are women’s business.

Do I make an effort to learn songs and nursery rhymes from his culture and seek out books and stories etc or is my slant on this just patronising - a white women trying to teach about a non white culture?

I’ve ended up tying myself in knots over this the last few days - I instigated a (Very badly timed) culture of origin day where we ate food from husbands culture and wore those clothes etc, shared pictures with family and got an absolute pasting for cultural appropriation and stereotyping. I would appreciate your opinion as someone who did feel excluded from the dominant culture as a child about how I should act to make my DDs experience more postive.

The Rwandan Geoncide was a product of generations of resentment on the part of Hutu farmers who were systematically marginalised by the Belgian colonial admin who favoured the Tutsi herders.

Basically, people are awful to each other. Especially men. People try to establish themselves in a position of power over others. People try to commandeer resources. White people have done it to black people, and as soon as they had the chance, black people did it to other black people.

It’s the dark side of human nature and no ‘race’ has a monopoly on it.

As said, far more police brutality against blacks is happening in South Africa and the continent’s many failed states than in America.

People focus on the situation in America because it gives them a (false) sense of moral high ground. In reality, black people are committing all the same crimes elsewhere.

I'm white, I haven't experienced racism.
Do you think that I can't understand or have empathy for those that have?
Do you think I need to experience racism to understand it?
I teach my children to respect others, treat others as they would like to be treated themselves.
What else can I do OP?
Not really sure what you are asking people to do.
What happened was an atrocity and must never happen again, I 100% agree.
It's hard to stop atrocities you have no control over, they happen everyday all over the world. What is the solution??

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

Huh? Absolutely nobody is arguing that there is a long, long history of systemic racism by black people against white people. To the best of my knowledge there hasn't been. But there are people stating as if it's a fact that white people can't experience racism despite the fact that many, many have. And claiming that they can't have experienced it is wrong and it's absolute and utter erasure of their suffering. That's not ok. And it's frankly, so, so silly because history has shown us time and time again that 'divide and conquer' works. Telling someone that their awful experiences weren't real is not how you build a movement that achieves change. It's how you ensure that change just doesn't happen because what could have been a powerful unified force is now just hurt and pissed off people unable to work together. It's a narrative that will have actual racists rubbing their hands with glee.

I’m with you in the ‘it was awful but... ‘ It dilutes the issue, that a man died because if the colour of his skin and police brutality.

Although I think many of us experience predjudice, it’s not an exclusive part of race, I think that we don’t minimise the issue by saying ‘well everyone does experience this’. No. Not everyone was experience this. I’m not black. I’ve never experienced the racism a black persons has. I have experienced predjudice because I’m British, many times, however this is not the issue at the moment and I hope we can all speak with solidarity that black lives do matter. Without constantly referring to our own other pain.

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.

Perhaps read up on the history of this before using it as an example.

When we did exactly the same thing to the Palestinians in 1947, it was considered absolutely right, has led to decades of war and an entire nation of people left without a home or a voice on the world stage. The Country we created benefits from political and financial support from the most powerful countries and any questioning of that is considered anti Semitic. No sign of anyone being able to return to their land there.

Probably the worst example you could use to prove that there is an issue with white prejudice.