Great Debates about Race and Racism

Original thread, read for background info.

Y, I think DQ might like to hear the explanation from Helen. I know I would. But since Helen’s explanation may not be forthcoming, I’ll bite. You do provide lots of interesting analysis, so please give me your take on that one.

I’ll read Helen’s response about White Privilege first, since I’m interested in her views as well.

the fact that he called me “his old nemesis” in his first comment. He started it; he set the tone.-Helen

Your old nemesis, ExPreacherMan, is watching you… EPMan

He also put a smile face on, Helen. Weren’t you the one that said smile faces means things are a joke and shouldn’t be taken personally? You use them plenty when you are criticizing or otherwise commenting on other folks. So if “he set the tone” then it obviously wasn’t a tone of hostility, eh.

for trying very hard to explain what he’s reading.

Just for clarification for the benefit of folks, my comment 118 wasn’t intended primarily as a description of Helen’s beliefs. It was intended more to describe Leftist and Democrat beliefs. Since the topic isn’t how much helen is or is not a Leftist, comment 118 shouldn’t be considered a translation of helen’s beliefs here, more or less. Be assured, if I think helen is advocating totalitarian thought police beliefs, I’ll say it directly without any kind of circumlocution. But until then, take my words as they were intended.

http://www.bookwormroom.com/2008/04/29/jeremiah-wright-at-the-national-press-club/#comment-22912

Comment 109 was explicitly intended to illustrate helen’s views, though. I have to take into consideration that helen might have been thinking about comment 109 rather than 118 when she said 118.

Judy, here begins the great quest for truth and clarity.

DQ, You are playing “lawyer games” by twisting every statement of mine or Wright’s to make us appear silly.

Applying logic to certain things “twists” the basic reality matrix of an idea, statement, belief, or action. This is because logic is an “overlay” on the thing it is used on. Logic is comprised of many parts, all of them cataloged and named with specific command phrases. Logical syntax is a field of study in itself, and with many derivatives such as logical and/or gates used in computer hardware/logic design and computer programming.

Logic “twists” things by making it flow through certain gates and pathways. This is true, what helen has said, but what she sees as a negative is something I see as a positive. Since sewer must also be forced to pass through specific gates and pathways, otherwise we have open sewers and water contamination.

DQ is not wrong to apply logic and twist the basic reality of Wright’s words or yours, helen.

DQ is only wrong in that he is applying logic and honestly expects you to meet him halfway on this subject. You aren’t going to meet him halfway, helen. Not because you don’t want to, but because you can’t. To meet DQ halfway, you must adopt or at least accept the right and duty of logic to “twist” things. You can argue about it or argue that DQ’s use of logic is wrong, but I tend to think you just don’t want logic to be used at all, since it does de facto twist words and actions through certain gyrations.

Lawyers do use logic in order to pass a sentence of guilt or innocence through loopholes and what not. But that’s not what DQ has been using.

You don’t have to agree with me to accept what I say at face value.

DQ is unwilling to accept that Wright is such a fanatic that he would actually believe the things that he has stated or suggested, such as the extent of the evil of America for example. So that is why DQ said Wright “lied” about HIV.

But I don’t think Wright lied. I think he told the truth. In his world, the American government not only has done such a thing but would do more of them if wasn’t for the efforts of people like Soros, Sharpton, Jackson, Wright, Malcom X, and so forth.

The meta-truth, as opposed to the parochial truth that people percieve to be true due to superstition and ignorance, is that if people like Wright were put into power the US government would become exactly what Wright has criticized it for being. In that way, Wright speaks the truth, but in a way that can only be recognized by an outside observer like me.

But you don’t seem to have a clue what racism is and isn’t.-helen to DQ

That is true, in a sense. DQ truly does not have a clue that racism is not about treating people based upon their character and individual actions. Racism is about a race and treating a race differently and making it inferior. Classical liberals don’t look at racism the same way others, anti-classical liberals, do. DQ may not be a classical liberal, ala Bookworm, but he’s pretty close, for a conservative.

Yes. I’m just ready to move on.

You’re ready to “get over it”? Hurray… or maybe not.

give me your take on that one.

As for Judyrose’s original topic of choice, here’s my take.

Using some quotes from helen’s link in order to cover my backside from accusations that I am just making stuff up as I go along,

I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious.

White privilege means that you are part of an aristocracy, judy, that has exploited its way to your current technological, social, and economic status.

The world is based upon a zero-sum principle that for one person to get rich, someone else must get poorer. This is called by Shrinkwrapped, which I pasted his post on this subject recently here, as a “Prime Divide” society. It is primarily divided between the haves and the have nots, Judy.

As we in women’s studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, “having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?”

Most classical liberals will answer to the question of “how do we lessen the power of the aristocracy to exploit the peasants like the United Nations exploits poorer and weaker nations for sex slaves and parties?” with the answer of “by empowering the weak nations and their citizens with the rule of law, American style military security, and justice”.

Helen’s White Privilege answer, however, tends to end up more like “we lessen exploitation by the rich over the poor by taking money away from the rich and redistributing it to the poor”.

Notice the difference between the two philosophies, Judy. One is based upon the Prime Divide and the other is based upon cooperative wealth making and teamwork, which essentially are derivatives of personal responsibiltiy and the frontiersman spirit that builds a house in a place of nothing.

I began to understand why we are just seen as oppressive, even when we don’t see ourselves that way.

Judy, whites oppress blacks because whites have more people in the US than Blacks, whites have more money than blacks, whites have more political power than blacks, and so in conclusion whites have more benefits than blacks. This means that blacks are being exploited by whites because there is no way that anybody can become wealthy without finding someone to steal that wealth and success from. So technically speaking, white people never earned their wealth. Poor people earned their wealth and it was taken by the rich and that is why the rich is rich and the poor poor.

My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will.

Obviously one can be “re-schooled” if the original education never took deeply. Re-education camps use the same principle to convert new diligent neophytes to the cause, you know.

For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.

…

It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.

A lot of the stuff at the end had me lost. Even I cannot 100% sink into the thoughts and psyches of such folks. Perhaps if I enter a trance and craft numerous layers of double think in order to reject my core philosophical beliefs and parts of my human decency indoctrinated into me by societal laws and my personal philosophical beliefs, I could come close to that 100%. But currently I have to say my comprehension is a little bit more than 50% but less than 80%.

*****

Was there anything about my attempt you found unsatisfying, Judy?

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