You're white. You haven't experienced racism

[PatricksRum]

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

* Well, I have been called a white bitch. I'm pretty sure that's racist.*

No. You aren’t a bitch because you are white. Just like if they had called you a “fat bitch” you wouldn’t be a bitch because you were fat. Just like if they called you a “tall bitch” a “blonde bitch”

It was a physical description tagged on to a character description.

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

@ArthurBloom

I am more than happy to assist in the fight against racism with you, please point me to a racist law/policy and I will combat it with you.

Oh and Please don't mention about police violence without figures.

Oh do give over. You know as well as I do that racist laws/policies aren't required for racism, systemic, institutionalised or everyday street level stuff to exist or thrive.

Bleedin' straw-man twittery or what?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@Trevsadick my original comment was not even addressed to you so why are you asking who am I telling to have sympathy?!

My point is instead of bleating about your own experiences, put them aside, because the current situation is about black people, so I don’t care about white/Asian/Jewish/Muslim/mixed race/Irish experiences today! I just don’t give a shit today!

@ArthurBloom

I am more than happy to assist in the fight against racism with you, please point me to a racist law/policy and I will combat it with you.

Oh and Please don't mention about police violence without figures.

@ArthurBloom thanks for those figures - they clearly show black people in America are disporoprtionaly killed by police.

African Americans are 12.6% of US population and according to your figures in 2019 made up at least 23% of people shot by police.

White Americans are 72% of population and make up 37% of people killed by police in 2019.

Racial categories
2010 U.S CensusTable 1
Self-identified race Percent of population
White 72.4%
Black or African American 12.6%

PatricksRum I think it's very good of you to come educate everyone on what you learned on facebook and other social media.

Is it true that you're American? If so then we should cut you some slack for thinking that the US is the whole world.

I was just about to say the same Clitterati

@ThroughHedgeBackwards have a for possibly offering the most tone deaf argument on the thread.

@LastTrainEast in the UK we were rightly devastated after 9/11. Why can’t we be devastated after what happened to George Floyd?

Clitterati, I was about to post exactly the same thing.

It's really instructive when racists expose themselves in this way. It also helps demonstrate the inverse relationship between racism and GCSE maths.

*We say “a tall person” “a short person” “fat person” “thin person”

To me it’s a descriptive physical feature. Nothing more nothing less.*

Black people dont get to just think of it as a descriptive physical feature nothing more nothing less then get on with their day. That's an example of what people mean when they talk about white privilege.

my original comment was not even addressed to you so why are you asking who am I telling to have sympathy?

You said that someone was claiming the Irish people cant be racist. I questioned where that was. Its a public forum and you claimed something that was factually incorrect. You made it up.

You then quoted my question and said 'to have some sympathy'.

Most of us aren't emotionally stunted to the point we can not understand that racisim against black people is different to the Irish, have sympathy and still recognise that racisim against the irsh is still happening.

And no one on this thread said irish people can't be racisit. At all.

If you need to add bits in a backtrack to make your argument, you need to look at that.

any race can experience racism, obviously. Sometimes it's irrspective of skin colour.
Many white ethnic minorities have experienced racism, it's happening across Europe atm, including the UK.
It doesn't always gain media attention because for some groups it obviously doesn't matter enough to be reported

George Floyd wasn't shot by police so won't be included in @ArthurBloom's figures as they are record death by shooting, not by other means.

@Trevsadick

You said that someone was claiming the Irish people cant be racist.

Quote where I said this?

I already have.

You quoted me and told me to have some symptathy.

Second time there's been a presumption, I have challenged some facts thats wrong.

You need to look at yourself. I dont need to be told to have some sympathy, because I have a slightly different view point to the op. Slightly.

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

I'm sure black people would love to just be people but their experience in the US and here tells them they are not free to simply be ... people.

Discrimination happens at so many levels in society I don’t think it’s fair or constructive to dismiss other people’s experiences.

I fully support the BAME communities and in particular black lives matter but I see no ground to be gained from dismissing people’s experiences. All your doing is validating their aggravation, no one wants to hear they’re view point is wrong and it distracts from the original point with a completely fruitless argument where no one learns anything and both sides become more deeply entrenched in their view point.

The problem with privilege is people with it are blind to its existence by default. It’s also hard to hear you have privilege when you feel your life has anything but, it’s almost perceived as an accusation of laziness.

You’re right it’s not your responsibility to educate others so don’t give those who have no intention of changing their view point more fuel.

I’ve just joined Mumsnet to post on this thread, although I’ve been reading threads for years.

People who say that ‘white people can experience racism too’ and use examples of when they have been targeted for the colour of their skin, (by ethnic minorities) Aren’t really getting one major point: because of colonialism and events in British history like kidnapping African people to be enslaved, and forcing British control in countries like India etc, some countries around the world will have a deep seated hatred of white people for those events.

So if a black person says something derogatory to a white person, it comes from years of white supremacy being forced on those people. It comes from years and years of being enslaved, and having their liberties removed from them DUE TO white privilege.

White people who say they have experienced racist name calling or other attacks also still have white privilege even within these events - they have the privilege of exposing it, and being believed, of being validated by their peers and of it probably being widely denounced.

Sorry if these points have already been made, I haven’t read the full thread. FYI I’m also white.

The abuse towards Irish people in the 1980s would have been because of the Troubles. Any Irish person was at risk of being arrested in connection with IRA bombings, when they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was very similar to how German people were viewed in this country, for long after the war ended.

It has nothing to do with race, it's xenophobia more than anything else.

So stop moaning, no one is being discriminated 'as much as black people'

Oh i don't know about that. I also assume by black people you're refering specifically to what's happening in America just now.

The persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Africa is reaching genocidal levels according to some reports. In Nigera, for example, over 2100 Christians have been killed in since 2019.

In China anywhere between 1 and 3 million ethnic Uyghurs have been detained and sent to "re-education camps" simply for being Muslim.

Chechnya is still continuing with it's "gay purges" with people suspected of being LGBT being abducted, tortuted and killed.

Around 40 million people around the world, primarily the poor from in East and Southeast Asia are in slavery right now. Including in forced labour and sexual slavery.

Finally there are ethnic cleansing campaign's going on in DCR and the Congo Basin, Bostswana, Iraq, India, Burma, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan, Central African Republic and Myanmar to name but a few.

What's happening to black people in America is absolutely a travesty but it's not the only, or even the worst, example of discrimination going on right now and comments like that don't help.

I'm 100% behind the BLM movement but it's simply not true to say that white people can't experience racism. Ask any white Jewish person and they would tell you some tales.

@Trevsadick

So I said

"Are there no racist Irish people now?"

And you've turned that into me saying:

"You said that someone was claiming the Irish people cant be racist."

Why are you twisting what I said? Pathetic. Is this how you usually operate?

My point is Irish people who have suffered racial prejudice should realise that Irish people (just like white/Asian/Jewish/Muslim people) are racist towards black people and should therefore support black people.

I was once called a "fucking white whore" and spat at by Asian men as they drove past me as I was walking with my dd in her buggy.
I've also been called a "white Muslim loving cunt" and "why do you love fucking Muslim men white bitch?" by a black man as I was walking with my asian muslim workmates and special needs children (also asian) on a school trip.
So yes I'm white and have experienced racism. Is it on par with with what black and other ethnic minorities experience ? no.
But still racism.

@PatricksRum So when my friend's white son was the only white child in his entire school and was massively bullied for being white, you're saying that wasn't racism?

They live in a city that is predominantly African (they're quite happy there and not racist people themselves) and they are, in that city and in that school, in the minority. Their African neighbours, and all the other kids in his school, happen to be the majority. Therefore surely what he experienced is racism, is it not?