You're white. You haven't experienced racism

[PatricksRum]

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

It's an ignorant statement that's very much based on the Afro-American experience in the United States.

Different types of racism exist dependant on geographic location.

There's lots of white Europeans who have experienced racism in the UK after the Brexit vote.

In what way @Fiona1987

I have been chased down the street because of my skin colour.

I have been pulled over by the police because of my skin colour.

I have experienced regular sexual harassment because of my skin colour.

I have been ripped off because of my skin colour.

I have been held by authorities for refusing to pay bribes because of my skin colour.

I am white.

I lived in a majority black (and very corrupt) country for a while. But I had the option to leave and it wasn’t my home so I didn’t suffer too badly.

Very few white people have experienced much racism, but that doesn’t mean you should make such generalised statements. In the west you are right, but making it into “them against us” alienates people. Better to point out how we can recognise the racism around us and be part of the solution.

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

This is fucking bollocks. I lived in Forest Hill and then Peckham for 13 years and didn't encounter anything like this at any point. Not once.

@MintyMabel

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.

What is your take on the spilt of Cyprus with the intervention of the British and the Greek Pontian genocide at the hands of the Turks?

People keep mentioning the signs saying no blacks, no dogs no Irish etc but the 1960s is way in the past now (the 1960s is as far in the past today as 1900 was from the 1960s) we've moved on so much from that as a society, surely this can't be used as an argument about how racist all white people are right now?

The UK on the whole has been making so much effort with equal opportunities for years now, there are so many initiatives and schemes to help black people. One that springs to mind is a school scheme for young black girls to get into STEM, my daughter isn't eligible to benefit from this opportunity, even though she's really interested in science (I have worked in this field in the past and there were lots of black researchers where I worked). I wish my daughter could benefit from something like this, they don't have schemes like this for white girls - she only has access to ordinary state schooling. We have regular diversity and unconscious bias training at work, flags have been flying for black history month for years, they have so many lessons at school on this subject, a large chunk of the History syllabus at our local comp is the slave trade, US Civil Rights, Rosa Parks etc. The UK has embraced black culture and education - my children's school (school in suburbs of a major UK city) spend a lot of time on black culture, they did an African themed Christmas concert, they do raps in their assemblies and have had local black grime music artists to come and work with the children (which I can't object to for fear of being labelled racist, even though I deeply abhor the misogyny and glorification of gang violence in the lyrics typical of this genre).

I was saddened to see footage of the protests in London there was a black woman repeatedly screaming, inches from a young white policeman's face, that he is racist. The police in the UK surely are one of the least racist police forces in the world - surely? It made me feel very sad that we as a country are trying to put this inequality right - much more so than in America as far as I know, yet people here are as angry at our police as the US citizens are at their police. I'm worried that the way this is going is stirring up black hatred of whites and it's only going to backfire horribly.

In addition to this, a poster earlier said

Racism is rooted in power structures where white people have almost all political, financial and legal power. How many UK judges or barristers are non-white? How many top police officers are non-white? How many top politicians are non-white?

This is a class issue which goes right back to 1066. The majority of the power has stayed with the same families and their friends.

I hate it that black people feel that we are oppressing them but at the same time we are trying to do so much for equality in this country so to be accused of being a white supremacist purely because my skin is white is starting to worry me that even more division is being created right now and an awful lot of black people are going to hate white people no matter what we do.

@peajotter
So have I. All of those things.
It’s still not what black people suffer and have suffered. It’s just not.

*@CandyLeBonBon

That's racially motivated misogyny.*

That's very true. And I've said several times on this thread that men like this abuse Asian girls, too. Surely we've all heard of so-called 'honour killings' and forced marriage.

These men have been taught to hate women and think them inferior to men.

I've read about half this thread. It's long. Its contents are also profoundly depressing, and many of the comments unfortunately illustrate the nature of ideologically-embedded, structural, socially 'acceptable' racism. On the other hand, this comment especially stood out:

Individual racism is entirely different to systematic racism in which a country essentially condones the killing of one race by not prosecuting those who do the killing to the full extent of the law.

YY. It's systematic, structural racism like this which as a member of the privileged race, at the root of the complex structures surrounding colonialism for eg., that I can never fully understand or experience. The constant 'whataboutery' we are seeing in the wake of the George Floyd tragedy is a symptom of precisely these structures.

The attached image makes for uncomfortable reading. I've looked at this as honestly as I can, and have identified possibly 8-10 of the 'covert white supremacy' categories of which I've personally been guilty without even realising it. I never previously saw myself as complicit with racism in any form. And I seriously intend to work on putting this right.

The saddest issue is that 'white supremacy' is so ideologically dripfed that it's very easy not to recognise it. And I'm ashamed to admit that it took a situation as serious as George Floyd's to make me see.

@alittleprivacy

Your examples are way off the mark. We are discussing racism, not political or religous discrimination. They are not same thing.
Neither the white Catholics or the white Protestants in N.Ireland experienced any racism. Google “race”.

Can racism be directed against white people? Of course it can - but your examples were poor I’m afraid.

In reality, black people are committing all the same crimes elsewhere.

But the issue at hand is the specific prejudice that black people suffer now in the US and UK. That does not mean that there are no other kinds of racism or that all black people are innately virtuous.

It does mean, that if we want to live in a society where people aren't randomly disadvantaged because of skin pigmentation, we have to tackle the route causes of racism here.

You can't tackle inequality with whataboutism.

It always ends up with the two extremes.
On the one side
“ALL lives matter! Everyone is racist! White peoples experience racist too!” This kind of tone deaf, fingers in ears, data light, historically deaf nonsense.

On the other side
“White people can never be victims of racism!”.
“Racism can only ever by definition come from white people against POC, even in minority white societies!”. “All white people have massively privilege lives!”
Equally nonsense.

Why are people so incapable of putting forward nuanced thought and arguments?

Maybe a simpler way to put it is...

If we can’t just be in solidarity and support the cries for change, and black lives matter...

If we find ourselves saying... this death was awful... and then any kind of excuse or ‘other people matter too’ then we are minimising this in some way?

I think what many of us struggle with here is there seems to be no room for regional variation in discussion

You're not wrong, OP.

I used to think I had experienced it, as the only white person living and working in a different country. I was young and a bit of an idiot. Thankfully I realised that what I was experiencing was mostly annoyance and mild inconvenience, not in any way comparable to actual racism.

I'm only grateful that I didn't voice my thoughts out loud before I worked it out.

The Metro recently published an article on this topic, I will link it below.

metro.co.uk/2020/03/09/can-white-people-experience-racism-12340542/

It still wasn’t the (contemporary) Belgian’s who committed the atrocities, was it?

Belgian imperialism provides part of the (historical) context. It was not the sole cause. And it doesn’t change the fact that neither of the two ethnic groups involved were white.

Things are always complex, which is why boiling it down to ‘racism is a thing that white people do to everyone else’ just isn’t helpful.

The fact is, due to a whole range of contributing circumstances specific in time and place, people often do terrible things to each other. The fact that the Belgian colonialists were total shits doesn’t take responsibility away from the Rwandans involved in perpetuating atrocities. It provides context that can help to address the issues and try to resolve things.

If I mug you in the street, then I’m responsible for that action regardless of my upbringing or current socioeconomic situation. The fact that (hypothetically) my parents were shits and I’m economically and socially marginalized will be relevant to plans for my sentencing and rehabilitation. And, more structurally, that may be relevant to thinking about how the wider society reduces and prevents crime. But I am still responsible for my actions. After all, my brother didn’t mug you and his parents were equally shit.

That's a sobering diagram@MarieIVanArkleStinks

@Cam77

This is the Oxford Dictionary definition of Racism.

Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.

In British law the 1965 Race Relations Act and the 2010 Equality Act refer to less favourable treatment on grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins

Every single example I mentioned falls under those definitions. And if you actually read my post you'll note I did reference how the mightn't fall under some peoples very narrow specific definitions of racism but if you are going to be pedantic most of the examples I gave are accurately described as Ethnic Cleansing, which I'd argue is the absolute worst fucking expression of racism that there is.

I'm white. I lived in Egypt and I experienced racism in many different forms. The worst was having a can of sprite thrown at me as I walked with my five year old.

I'm white British.
I've had people of other ethnicity call me names and exclude me based on the colour of my skin or the fact I'm British.

So... White people do experience racism.

Why do we even use terms such as Black person or White person? Are we simply not... People?

You can't tackle inequality with whataboutism.

You can't also tackle inequality by shushing others experiencing very similar thing.

I think the main problem here is that it should be made clear the discussion IS about US. Not the whole world.

??????? Hmmmm #MUMSNET SO WHITE ????????

People keep mentioning the signs saying no blacks, no dogs no Irish etc but the 1960s is way in the past now (the 1960s is as far in the past today as 1900 was from the 1960s) we've moved on so much from that as a society, surely this can't be used as an argument about how racist all white people are right now

Those signs were in the 60s.

My nan was being abused and banned from shops for having an Irish accent in the 80s.

Lower level racisim against Irish people is very much alive in this country. I experienced it between 2008 -2014 in the work place.

Thats doesnt means its as bad as racisim against black people or that it cancels it out.

Just pointing out some facts.