I'm pretty tired about hearing about race

[Overtures]

One way or another, I'm tired of it.

I'm tired of it as a way for white progressives to sprinkle meaning and importance into their writing/art without having to say anything.

I'm tired of seeing it brought up as a lens through which to critique society.

I'm tired of people using it to justify this action, explain that action, or anything of that nature.

I accept, as pretty much obvious, that systemic racism exists. But I would hazard to guess that thinking "racially" is a poison.

I'm brown.

I learned in adulthood, that my ethnicity doesn't really define me, and it only goes so far in describing how I relate to the world, wish to relate to the world, and strive to exist in the world.

"Fuck your ethnicity"

 

[Billy no mates]

Stop going on about it then .

 

[Overtures]

Stop going on about it then .

Fuck off.

 

[bushman505]

Sounds like something a white male would say.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

First rule of being tired about hearing about something is to speak on it. That paradoxes of life.

 

[Overtures]

Sounds like something a white male would say.

You're a nihilist.

 

[chubbman]

if the left don't stop with this identity politics bullshit, all whites are racist etc, they'll find in 20 years time whites will be racist. Its a self fulfilling prophecy just waiting to happen.

 

[Trotsky]

I accept, as pretty much obvious, that systemic racism exists. But I would hazard to guess that thinking "racially" is a poison.

This is a fundamental contradiction when you consider that a huge amount of the population disagrees that systemic racism is "pretty much obvious." If that were stipulated, and could be addressed as an obvious problem in need of correction, then "thinking 'racially'" wouldn't be as necessary.

To say that, because you are a person who is successful enough to not need to existentially consider your race (certainly, no one would ask that you or anyone else just consider themselves a fungible member of any race or creed), that you should make yourself willfully ignorant to injustices that exist along the arbitrary lines of race (including the race to which you are said to belong) could smack of ignorance and laziness just as much as it does of independence.

First rule of being tired about hearing about something is to speak on it. That paradoxes of life.

I'm really tired of hearing about CrossFit.

 

[Overtures]

This is a fundamental contradiction when you consider that a huge amount of the population disagrees that systemic racism is "pretty much obvious." If that were stipulated, and could be addressed as an obvious problem in need of correction, then "thinking 'racially'" wouldn't be as necessary.

To say that, because you are a person who is successful enough to not need to existentially consider your race (certainly, no one would ask that you or anyone else just consider themselves a fungible member of any race or creed), that you should make yourself willfully ignorant to injustices that exist along the arbitrary lines of race (including the race to which you are said to belong) could smack of ignorance and laziness just as much as it does of independence.



I'm really tired of hearing about CrossFit.

u right, u right

 

[58miles]

if the left don't stop with this identity politics bullshit, all whites are racist etc, they'll find in 20 years time whites will be racist. Its a self fulfilling prophecy just waiting to happen.

They weren't in let's say the 50's and 60's? That's gonna come as a huge surprise to the ghosts of MLK and Emmett Till.

 

[Billy no mates]

Fuck off.

It's good advice , I'll take it .

 

[Overtures]

Trotsky made me reconsider,

I now say that I am tired of hearing about race when it is used as a brush to paint some sort of artifice, be it in an article, a work of literature, or a documentary. Which is to say, I think race as a study of racism, systemic racism, etc., is productive and essential. But I think when race is used to supplement some other production, namely art/social commentary, the sincerity of said production is easily called into question.

 

[Trotsky]

u right, u right

You have a point, though. Race and anecdotes of micro-level racism are too often used to punctuate or divert conversations from broader problems of inequality and bad policy making.

Lord knows that without insidious racial optics about welfare abuse, obfuscating system inequality with individual racial animus, and the like, poor and exploited white folks would be less averse (or rather less amenable to aversion) to corrective measures in those areas of economic and criminal justice reform. I mean, reasonable minds can disagree on how much of it is purposeful obfuscation by agenda setters and politicians, but it's pretty obvious from recent American history that lower-income white people would both support and duly benefit from policies that they are being situated against politically, like universal healthcare, worker rights, financial regulation, consumer protections, etc.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

I'm really tired of hearing about CrossFit.

Then simply behold.

 

[chubbman]

They weren't in let's say the 50's and 60's? That's gonna come as a huge surprise to the ghosts of MLK and Emmett Till.

what i'm saying is it will be like being back in the 50s and 60s

 

[NoDak]

One way or another, I'm tired of it.

I'm tired of it as a way for white progressives to sprinkle meaning and importance into their writing/art without having to say anything.

I'm tired of seeing it brought up as a lens through which to critique society.

I'm tired of people using it to justify this action, explain that action, or anything of that nature.

I accept, as pretty much obvious, that systemic racism exists. But I would hazard to guess that thinking "racially" is a poison.

I'm brown.

I learned in adulthood, that my ethnicity doesn't really define me, and it only goes so far in describing how I relate to the world, wish to relate to the world, and strive to exist in the world.

"Fuck your ethnicity"

Hi.

You seem pretty cool.

I'll bless this thread with an overture fave.

 

[Scrody]

Likewise. Could give a fuck about where your parents great grandparents came from.

 

[NoDak]

Lord knows that without insidious racial optics about welfare abuse, obfuscating system inequality with individual racial animus, and the like, poor and exploited white folks would be less averse (or rather less amenable to aversion) to corrective measures in those areas of economic and criminal justice reform. I mean, reasonable minds can disagree on how much of it is purposeful obfuscation by agenda setters and politicians, but it's pretty obvious from recent American history that lower-income white people would both support and duly benefit from policies that they are being situated against politically, like universal healthcare, worker rights, financial regulation, consumer protections, etc.

One of my problems with the current political climate is that the brand of left-wing politics I roll for is class-consciousness transcending all else, whereas identity politics and group recognition is virtually the opposite of that. It's certainly complicated by how much race has historically served as a component of class, but it's pretty clear by the current levels of wealth and income inequality that white people are hardly exempt from exploitation and they really never have been, which is the original bribe of 'white privilege' as described by the academics who introduced the term itself.

The challenge is how do you go about solving this conundrum? That is, achieving a transcendent level of class-consciousness that cuts across all barriers of group identity without making existing minorities feel as though their grievances are being marginalized whilst simultaneously not alienating the largest voting bloc in the country from left wing movements and making them feel like some kind of inherent enemy.

The popular answer seems to be that white people just need to shut the fuck up and swallow it, but it isn't a realistic strategy IMO. You're dealing with human beings and all of the emotional baggage that comes with. It's particularly unrealistic among those who have known nothing but struggle and lived paycheck-to-paycheck their entire lives. OTOH, Bernie Sanders showed it isn't that difficult to get white workers to put aside their anxieties about racial demographics and immigration in exchange for working class benefits. It's when you don't offer them at all that the competitive tribalism sets in.

 

[Oeshon]

I preferred back in the 'racist days' when noone gave a shit about what color or race you were and we could all talk shit

 

[spin]

Whelp the world isn't gonna change to fit your preferences, so time to work on filtering out opinions you don't find valid.