AIBU to think that 'patriarchy chicken' isn't the whole story?

[AliceMaforethought]

Hear me out, as I reckon that this will be an unpopular opinion, but I am keen to know if my experience is just me or if others experience the same.

I hear a lot on this site about 'patriarchy chicken': simply put, the admirable notion that women deserve to take up space and not have to stand aside for men. Last week, I was in London, (I'm from a smaller UK city) I was STAGGERED by the utter lack of spatial awareness of women. I am a woman, for context: youngish (I'm 42 but look a lot younger) I found women knocked into me constantly and let their kids blunder into me and other people. I didn't have a problem with men at all. The other thing that I did notice was that all these women were white, and were all ages from young to late middle age (old women weren't an issue at all) I am mixed race. Before anyone thinks that I was the problem and was just out of my depth in London, that isn't the case. I am a trained dancer, I have a lot of spatial awareness, and I am used to London even though I haven't lived there for a while. I am starting to wonder if I need to play 'white supremacy chicken'!

Hi I’m mixed race and live in London, this is rare this happens. A woman bumped into me in a Caribbean takeaway which I think was deliberate cause she was jealous and another in a train station which she was white but said she was having a bad day. Only two times I can think this happened to me in London in my life.

This. ^ Not allowed. 😒 Say what you like about white women though. Same as Christians. Seems perfectly acceptable to bash both of these in society (oh and white men too.) No-one else though.

pull the other one, it’s gone bells on, as my nan would say 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂🤣😂😂😂😂😂😂

It's a power issue. People didn't own slaves because they were black, they owned them due to personal circumstance. Their personal circumstances were not due to skin pigmentation, they were due to unfortunate demographics.

Besides, if we look at the entirety of human history then more white people have been enslaved than black people. Why we only consider a very small segment of human history where predominantly black people were enslaved I think has much more to do with the kind of people who are happy to use that cause and those people to push their own agenda in proving to everybody else just how good of of a person they are in pointing that out.

I live in London. Sometimes I’m the barger (I usually notice after the fact because I’m in a sleep deprived haze and corralling my children making sure they don’t bash into anyone). If reflexes allow I will shout sorry over my shoulder. If people give space on a pavement I will try to make eye contact and say thank you. Sometimes I’m the barged. It’s always a white person when it does happen. Across gender and age.

To anyone questioning OP - please ask yourself if you know when someone is being sexist. PoC know when someone is being racist. Please believe them. The world is a LOT more racist than you think (and has sadly become worse).

Can you not re read your comment about the slave trade and not see what an utterly vile comment racist you have made? Do the four million (current estimates) slaves who died in transport not matter and they just need to get over it and relinquish their victimhood? Or do only white lives matter?

If they died in transit I'm pretty sure that's the very second they were quite literally 'over it'. No one is alive today however, with any living memory of that time so surely it's not something they need to be concerned about. If it is, what is the optimal number of years that's reasonable to say for all intents and purposes it's forgotten about?

People who died on the ships were most likely in a terrible state at the beginning of the journey. Famine was rife. It wasn't in the traders interest to have at the time a 'valuable comodity' die in transit and it would make sense would it not that every effort would be made to have the slaves looking as healthy as possible as it makes no sense they wouldn't want to get the highest value possible.

Fwiw I'm mixed race and I can't stand hearing people making a personal issue about a long forgotten trade that effects no one today.

Unfortunately it has to be said that was the right thing to do at the time it was done. Whether you or I believe it right or wrong we live in a country where the law must be adhered to. And the laws at the time were that people must be compensated for the forfeiture of property. You think they wanted to pay that vast sum of money out? Of course they didn't but it had to be done.

Rascism against white people is fine apparently. Stereotyping all white women as barging into people of colour, also fine.

Ive certainly never seen this, generally I see women constantly yielding.

Feels like stirring up racial division to me And let's face it, you never know who is behind these posts.

I can't believe how many replies there were saying that you can't be racist to white people. It's ridiculous

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThingabsolutely yes I would, because that’s how (whether they are bold enough to admit it or not) much of society in places like the UK and US behave.

Sexism against men is fine apparently. Stereotyping all men as barging into women, also fine.

I’ve certainly never seen this, generally I see men constantly yielding.

Feels like stirring up sex-based division to me And let’s face it, you never know who is behind these posts.

The slave trade does continue today, in the US, UK, Europe, Australia, NZ, and every other corner of the world. Under the name of human trafficking.

There is slavery in Britain today. Not legal but it is happening now. Not on the same scale as the Atlantic slave trade and not state sanctioned but I'm not sure that matters to the people concerned.

You are mistaking the situation: people generally don't bump into each other. Bumping and barging is quite rare, considering how many people you walk past each day.
The reason it is so rare is because we all subconsciously react to the hierarchy and the lower status person steps aside, without even realising that is what they are doing.
It is only when someone decides to play 'chicken', to make a point or as an experiment, that collisions occur.

Imagine your male boss was walking towards you down the centre of a corridor at work - would you step aside or swerve round him, or expect him to?
Would he swerve?

I'd usually end up with us doing that dance where we both move to the same side so still facing each other then doing it to the opposite side and then laughing and agreeing which way to go.

How to tell everyone you're racist without saying you're racist.

And before the op tries saying they're not racist, I ask... If I, as a middle aged white woman who looks a lot younger than I am... Yes I'm bragging... Posted the exact same thing but saying black woman purposely barged into me, would you agree or immediately call me racist?

This is almost funny. You don't have a clue do you?

So becuase they're dead, it doesn't matter?

As for "it was in the slave owners interest to keep them alive". hahahahahahahaha.

it was a complicated financial calculation - how to spend as little as possible getting them across the oceon and still make a profit. In addition, a powerfu factor was the desire to get good prices - usually generated as a result of the fittest and strongest slaves being up for sale once they arrived.

I mean, I'm not entirely sure why this thread devolved into a debate about slavery but I guess it's this sort of attitude that leads to the sort of experience the OP is talking about.

If you could defend your statement to refute what I said instead of a bewildered "hahaha.." it would help others, to indeed, understand what on earth youre talking about.

It certainly wasn't in the interest of any slavers for people to literally die in transit. Put aside the fact they're human beings. Whatever goods are being transported it is in the interest of those tasked with transport to ensure they arrive in good condition. This really isn't a contentious fact to most. Have you even thought of a reason that makes any sense why anyone would purchase high value commodities only to not be bothered about the condition that those commodities were maintained and delivered at the other end.

If you set out with the narrative that anyone connected to the slave trade was evil instead of being able to see the trade itself as evil you are likely to have a very skewed view of the reality on the ground.

As for complex calculations being used to maximise profit. Whos been telling you this? It isn't complex to work out that it might pay off to provide basic food rations of bread and water to valuable transit worth the equivalent of around £15,000 each in order to prevent death.

I don't think it's a male or female thing , sometimes I've been bumped into by men and women usually I'm not.
People lack spacial awareness, people are on their phones, or immersed in their own thoughts. I have honestly never experienced patriarchy chicken. , I suspect the women that do have an unconscious bias that they are unaware of

I also have never said that because they're dead it doesn't matter. I said it doesn't affect anyone in living memory, not that it didn't matter. However I do think that it doesn't matter anywhere close to the amount those making it out to be an issue keep claiming it matters.

It's a balance like put 250 on a ship, provide decent rations not just bread and water and most will survive the journey. Put 500 on a ship decent rations and maybe get 300 to survive. Pack the ship with 1000, poor rations and get 500 to survive the journey. You make more money even if 500 die.

Of course they matter, they have family who are affected. My husband knew his grandfather. His grandfather was the first generation born free. His great grand parents were born slaves but were freed, no compensation for them. The stories are passed on, it is not forgotten.

But part of the profit/loss equation was to minimise transportation costs and allow for the loss of a certain percentage of those transported while in transit.

But I did. You just didn't like my point becuase you think it's really simple. The ultimate "cost-benefit" calculation point IS simple, but the facts included are far more complex than, "more slaves on the other side = more profit". Instead, the cost of getting those slaves where they can be sold needs to balanced carefully with the potential income you can earn by selling them on the other side.

And on that basis, the cost of keepping ALL slaves alive during the journey was not always necessarily worth it based on what the price of those slaves would then be on the other side.

This is a well known facet of the slave trade. To this end, many slavers purposefully overloaded ships on the basis that they knew they'd lose some, but they'd potentially get a few more to sell on the other side. And lets not forget that insurance meant that they'd get paid out for slaves that died in many cases.

"Acceptable loss" is a pretty standard approach to any process in which cargo is transported around the world. Have you never experienced something like an order that doesn't turn up becuase DPD screws it up - and then when you contact the supplier, they just send you a new one? why? Because it's cheaper for them to do that than it is to chase and hound DPD, particularly as DPD is probably offering them significant cost savings and bulk discounts.

Take a look at this website which talks about the losses and conditions in a quick summary. I think if it wasn't profitable, we an safely assume they'd have put a lot more work into reducing those losses....