Am I the only one bothered by the term "people of color"?

[Beyonder]

I mean welcome to the Country full of contradiction.

 

[Smashlilman]

I am also bothered by the term. But mostly because it implies i lack color.

The politically correct term is Translucent Americans.

 

[DeadPresident]

I am a white European immigrant in the United States. I have been stopped a few times by the police. Routine inspection, minor traffic violations, what have you.

I speak English without a distinct accent. Never except once has the officer in one of these instances asked about my nationality even though my license marks me a foreigner. The one who did ask, asked me what country I was from. He said "oh, I hear it's nice over there" and told me to drive safe.

I even asked a couple of times if they wanted to see my documentation, but they politely declined and sent me on my way.

My Hispanic friends have rather different stories about what transpires when they get pulled over.

My black friends fear for their lives when they get pulled over.

White privilege is **** white people take for granted.

While I agree that white privilege is a prominent issue, it needs to be prefaced by the fact that it's a massive problem primarily in North America and Europe where Caucasians dominate demographically. What's going lost in this ridiculously popular colloquial discussion is that whites are privileged because they're the controlling majority in certain regions. The same way other ethnicities are dominant in other regions. Native Arabs from the UAE have Arab privilege when you compare them to the Filipino and Pakistani laborers they employ, higher caste Indians have privilege compared to supposedly lower caste citizens, the Chinese have a social caste system that privileges some over others.

What seems to be happening increasingly as social issues are discussed at length by laymen on the internet with the abject focus on white privilege is the concept that only whites can be privileged. Everything is obvious once it's been said and people have interacted with it, but it bears mentioning that white privilege exists predominantly, if not exclusively in areas where whites are the demographic majority and the legislators. What we're actually discussing is hegemonic/dominant privilege, because privilege goes to whichever group in a given region is deciding how discourse happens. It's a tribalist notion, but one that is rapidly becoming conflated with whiteness, and if that's permissible then every other racial or ethnic stereotype becomes fair game again too.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

While I agree that white privilege is a prominent issue, it needs to be prefaced by the fact that it's a massive problem primarily in North America and Europe where Caucasians dominate demographically. What's going lost in this ridiculously popular colloquial discussion is that whites are privileged because they're the controlling majority in certain regions. The same way other ethnicities are dominant in other regions. Native Arabs from the UAE have Arab privilege when you compare them to the Filipino and Pakistani laborers they employ, higher caste Indians have privilege compared to supposedly lower caste citizens, the Chinese have a social caste system that privileges some over others.

What seems to be happening increasingly as social issues are discussed at length by laymen on the internet with the abject focus on white privilege is the concept that only whites can be privileged. Everything is obvious once it's been said and people have interacted with it, but it bears mentioning that white privilege exists predominantly, if not exclusively in areas where whites are the demographic majority and the legislators. What we're actually discussing is hegemonic/dominant privilege, because privilege goes to whichever group in a given region is deciding how discourse happens. It's a tribalist notion, but one that is rapidly becoming conflated with whiteness, and if that's permissible then every other racial or ethnic stereotype becomes fair game again too.

Well said.

 

[Schlosser85]

Just because you're offended does not mean anyone else has an obligation to care.

 

[Unbreakable Lex]

While I agree that white privilege is a prominent issue, it needs to be prefaced by the fact that it's a massive problem primarily in North America and Europe where Caucasians dominate demographically. What's going lost in this ridiculously popular colloquial discussion is that whites are privileged because they're the controlling majority in certain regions. The same way other ethnicities are dominant in other regions. Native Arabs from the UAE have Arab privilege when you compare them to the Filipino and Pakistani laborers they employ, higher caste Indians have privilege compared to supposedly lower caste citizens, the Chinese have a social caste system that privileges some over others.

What seems to be happening increasingly as social issues are discussed at length by laymen on the internet with the abject focus on white privilege is the concept that only whites can be privileged. Everything is obvious once it's been said and people have interacted with it, but it bears mentioning that white privilege exists predominantly, if not exclusively in areas where whites are the demographic majority and the legislators. What we're actually discussing is hegemonic/dominant privilege, because privilege goes to whichever group in a given region is deciding how discourse happens. It's a tribalist notion, but one that is rapidly becoming conflated with whiteness, and if that's permissible then every other racial or ethnic stereotype becomes fair game again too.

Thank you. The country was founded by white males, the laws were written by white males. White males eventually opened up the country they founded to the rest of the world and are now under attack for doing so.

 

[DeadPresident]

Just because you're offended does not mean anyone else has an obligation to care.

Is this aimed at me?

I wasn't offended, I was offering a clarification? I'm not an American white male, so I'm not sure what I would feel offended about.

If this is aimed at me I find it kind of strange, since you're also a white male, right? This touches on another issue I've been thinking of lately, but I'll await your response to bring it up.

Thank you. The country was founded by white males, the laws were written by white males. White males eventually opened up the country they founded to the rest of the world and are now under attack for doing so.

This doesn't mean that white males are allowed to walk roughshod over every other demographic in the country. All I'm saying is privilege is about who is in power, not somehow intrinsically related to an actual ethnicity. Whites in certain areas have created a self-serving system, the same way dominant groups have done all over the world for millennia.

Obviously now a lot of people are going to see this as some white power clarion call, but social media reactionism is what it is.

 

[DeadPresident]

Also, as a disclaimer, since obviously everything needs to be qualified around here or people assume an antagonistic keyboard warrior - I wasn't attacking Thunder or trying to refute anything in his post, I was adding an appendix to it.

 

[Schlosser85]

It wasn't directed at you, it was a general comment.

 

[DeadPresident]

Also, an additional ramification of this pop-discussion of how white males have ruined the world and are the root of all evil, is it erases any other agent of reprehensible behaviour globally, because North American and European sociocultural media dominates globally.

An age-old phenomenon of identity being conflated with behaviour is happening in this case, and it's going to take like 10-15 years of having this conversation before Joe Soap catches up to what it means.

 

[DeadPresident]

It wasn't directed at you, it was a general comment.

Alright.

 

[chaseter]

Beyonce glorifies militant Black Panthers at the Super Bowl and that's alright....

#killcops