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Look, the original article is about gender discrimination and you're displaying all the signs of the newly converted, so I'm not going to try too hard to argue with you about this. We all know there's many aspects of life where outcomes are disproportionate to racial/gender demographics, and that US police violence is one of them, with white women being given a famously light touch by police. In fact I once talked to a girl who openly boasted that she was always speeding and never got a ticket because she just started crying at the policeman (she was a very pretty girl so I could believe that this worked). However your original claim was wrong and deserved to be called out. You said: "When I get pulled over for speeding I don't have to worry about getting shot like black men do." which is an absolute statement. In fact, you do have to worry about getting shot. I knew perfectly well you'd make a statistical argument in return, and also that it would be irrelevant given the strength of your original claim. There is no "white privilege" that means US police won't shoot you. They will do so if they feel the need, or perhaps even if they don't. The primary determinator of that is nonetheless your own actions, like whether you're armed or on drugs at the time. But it also doesn't make sense to use this one isolated statistic in the context we're debating. After all, if you want to use getting shot by the police to define your hierarchy of privilege then the poorest European is vastly more privileged than the richest American will ever be, implying that Europeans should never be hired for jobs when an American could be hired instead. That wouldn't make sense. Now, none of the above will land home with you. But I want you to consider something else. When you try to justify racism and sexism against white men like you are doing above, you're not just slapping yourself in the face, you're slapping the rest of us too. You're justifying us being denied jobs, including those of us who don't even live in America, because this ridiculous self-harming ideology gets exported via American HR departments, management and cultural production to the rest of the world. That's how you end up with people marching in London saying "hands up don't shoot" even though British police are almost always unarmed and the UK doesn't have a problem with police shootings. By insisting that arbitrarily chosen differences in outcome with deep and complex socioeconomic causes are all reduced to "white man bad" you are deservedly opening yourself to harsh criticism, not merely because it's a racist and sexist viewpoint, but also because it directly harms the lives of those around you. By all means, stop applying for lucrative jobs if you feel so guilty about existing, but for goodness sake don't insist that those same harms befall the innocent. |
> When you try to justify racism and sexism against white men like you are doing above, you're not just slapping yourself in the face, you're slapping the rest of us too.
Yes, I did choose an absolute example. You're not wrong about that. The part you're missing is that you sound tone-deaf. To quote a famous movie: "You're not wrong, you're just an asshole." Are you the guy that says "all lives matter" instead of "black lives matter?" It's like you don't get the bigger picture. Yes, the problems you point out are real - they're also trivial. And if you want to make a mountain out of a molehill I can't stop you, but you come across as an entitled jerk.
The point isn't white men are bad. The point is white men are clueless that others are suffering more than them and are only focusing on themselves when others need help more than they do. It's selfish. It's similar to billionaires complaining about taxes. You also conveniently avoided my question - what's the greatest adversity you've faced as a white male? Because that's the perspective you're lacking.
FWIW I actually appreciate you writing a long response. Anyway, agree to disagree.