11 Things White People Need To Realize About Race (article)

We're all human with different skin pigments.

People are different, and that's why stereotypes will always exist (and that's ok).

@sayyy-gaa:

1. Yes I live in America, I'm also white and happen to live in a city that is 65% black. I own my own home, have obtained a college degree and have done that on my own without any imaginary advantage.

2. White privilege is an excuse minorities use to justify failure. They can't take or earn these things on there own so it was a term coined so white guilt liberals will willingly just give them everything.

3. What does white privilege get you? Let's look at the facts.

Blacks make up 13 percent of the population and are responsible for over 50% of violent crime. As a white person you can't speak facts or your a racist.

When a black man is murdered wrongly by the police it gets full media coverage and there are riots in the streets. Yet somehow we ignore that whites are nearly 20X more likely to be killed by a black person. When a white man was Jumped by 20 people (mostly black ) males in Cincinnati why weren't they charged with a hate crime? Doooooh that must be white privilege at work again?

White privilege is the most pathetic attempt for minorities to guilt people into achieving things they have failed to do on there own and it's a product of racism towards whites.

People's skin colour isn't what causes conflicts in a "multicultural" society. It's the different cultures, many of which clash on a number of different levels. Modern western culture is far from perfect, but as far as respecting peoples rights and freedoms it's one of the best around in my opinion, especially in regards to women's rights.

So centuries of exploitation of minorities by white people under institutionalized racism is just an illusion and excuse from the minorities? lolwut?

The term "white privilege" is racist against whites.

Can't be racist against whites, because white race holds historical and institutionalized power. White people crying about "racism" (against whites) aren't talking about system of discrimination but rather a gradual loss of white privilege.

are we hitting critical tumblr mass where you can't be racist against white people/POC can't be racist?

I think all this tumblr/SJW stuff is ridiculous, but this is pretty terrible as well

Yep, can't be racist against white people. One can certainly have personal prejudice against people of certain race (including white people) but that's not racism.

So just prejudice based on someone's race....also known as racism.

You sound insecure yet want to blame everyone else.

In context of the topic, racism is prejudice plus power. Prejudice without a historical context or power is harmless so by adopting that literal interpretation of the term you are effectively white-washing that word. But racism is dirty and offensive and not harmless. If I'm white someone calls me a cracker or a redneck (really those terms are more class discriminate than racial), there's really no context for me to relate to. If I'm black someone white calls me the n word, there's centuries of discrimination and injustice that comes with it. It's frankly near impossible for most white people to understand because they don't carry that vulnerability every day and where ever they go. They think they understand racism because they are excluded from certain groups or desirable subcultural elements.

@bmanva: So there aren't any black business owners or managers who are in a direct position to deny people a job based on race? Because that's one of the main things that always comes up when we talk about institutionalized racism: white people's ability to deny people a job based on race. Even if the problem is specifically with institutionalized racism, I think it's totally valid to say that blacks have become part of the institution.

I haven't heard of such instance. But sure, they probably exist but certainly no where near as prevalent as white discriminating against minorities historically and currently.

So in other words, it is absolutely hogwash to say that blacks can't be racist against whites. For starters, it's ridiculous in the first place to say that racism only counts if it's "institutionalized racism", because racism is racism regardless of if it's institutional. The very definition of racism allows for any random jackass to be racist against someone else, "the institution" has nothing to do with the definition of racism. But even if we accept that institutional racism is the only type of racism that's really important (and I wouldn't agree with that at all), you already admit that blacks can totally be prejudiced against whites. You readily accept that there are black cops, black judges, black business owners, black managers, that there are a lot of black people who are in a direct position where acting on their prejudices has the potential for very serious repercussions. Fact is, black people most certain can be racist. The frequency of something like racially discriminatory hiring practices has nothing to do with it. The fact that you admit that it CAN happen completely invalidates your argument.

@bmanva: Was it relevant when it was happening? Yes....

But the fact people still thinks it exists is laughable. White privilege hasn't been a privilege since the 80s. It's a burden at this point.

so not racist just prejudice against people based on the color of their skin...

It reads like the group-think/hive mind nonsense that is commonly spewed elsewhere on the internet. Commonly by millennials, and even more common among left-centric voices who go out of there way to shut down opposing views.

is it racist if a PoC discriminates against another PoC? or is that still just prejudice based on race?

@lostrib: How is what I said terrible? If you think white privilege exist in 2016 you are delusional.

the part about white people having the most against them is pretty lolworthy

@lostrib: how so exactly?

They are the first to be scrutinized... any public disagreement with the SJW agenda will generally cost you your job and your livelihood.

Anyone of color can be an open racist and make a successful living at it.

It is not about race, it's about wealth, and any race can be poor. I'm white and grew up poor and have been through the same nonsense black people I grew up with have, and so have the white people I grew up with. Police harassment and assault and them pulling their guns on me. People judging me because of my race or where I'm from or telling me I can't be something because I'm white (That happened so much and it got me raging every time). Being followed in stores by employees. Being falsely accused and incarcerated for crimes I did not commit. Crappy education (the poor and rich sides of my city have separate school districts so we got crappy funding and the rich school got donations from rich parents). And plenty of other shit I'm not going to sit around trying to remember.

The only privilege is rich privilege, no matter your race. More white people may be rich than any other race, but that doesn't mean we all have this privilege. Just thinking that makes you a racist.

It's true

Whites get the most flak now

Now if you're white AND male? Holy cow, then you have the most against you right now. You're passed by for jobs, student loans, promotions.

doesn't privalege of every race exist?

Like how it's easier for blacks to get into med school than any race.

@sayyy-gaa: Seriously? So you think there is white privilege ? What the hell does that even mean exactly? At what point will you start looking at government policy as the reason to wealth distribution (another word that needs to be killed), employment statisics, etc? How about some accountable for ones actions instead of always blaming someone else? Its time for people to start taking responsibility for their own actions instead of pointing the finger at the new buzz word. I'm a white a guy, as white as you can get and you know what? I have gotten my balls busted more than once by many cops for no reason at all, did I sit there and make some dumb ass excuse on why they did it? No, did I sit here and cry that my rights were violated? No. Hey, I have gotten shitty service from restaurants, retail stores, and have been treated unfairly at times in my life. Did I sit there and start a rant on you tube or facebook and point the finger? No. People need t to wake up and make up their own perception instead of taking everything that is spouted on youtube, twitter, and facebook and claiming it as fact. Half the people that bitch about race don't have any issues with their lives to begin with and many of them weren't even born in the time of segregation to even have a right to complain. I'm tired of this country sitting here constantly dwelling about the past and trying to make it the present. We have a goddamn black president for Christ's sake, we have many black leaders in government, there are many successful black actors, actresses, athletes, business owners, and hard working Americans that seem to be doing alright for themselves. Its not about race, its about people not wanting to take accountability for their actions and where they stand in life. Sure, what I say may seem very simplistic, and it is, and by all means there are several other factors in why people aren't doing well in life, but we need to stop blaming race as the reason. How about the poor stop breeding the poor? That stands for all races. The American dream is not about entitlement, its about working hard and being rewarded for that hard work, you dont get life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if you are sitting there holding your hand out because you think life isn't fair.

Not exactly. First of all, single individual (even if one is in the position of power) does not qualify as nor representative of an entire institution. So black cops, judges or whatever exercising their personal prejudice on job still isn't "institutionalized" racism. Second, while I'm not denying black people can discriminate base on races, it likely isn't out of the belief that white people are inferior to blacks (more likely it's out of retribution for past injustice or implementing some form of affirmative action on a personal level), so even if you were to use the white washed definition of racism, such action still doesn't qualify as racism. The reason I make that claim is because racism isn't a state of mind that people arbitrarily fall in and out of. It's the product of a very specific condition. In the US, unlike white people, minorities have never experienced an environment where the idea that their race is superior to all other is prominently featured and integrated into every fabric of the American society. Unless the minority came from that type of environment where there's an institutionalized racism against white people outside of US (I don't really know of any place like that), the idea that their respective race is superior than whites is almost non-existent.

What you and many others here are trying to do is ignore the centuries of racism. You can't. White people shouting "white power" isn't the same as black people shouting "black power" due to that history; one is promoting racism the other fighting against it. It's the same reason I'm openly critical of the now cliche white response of "all lives matter" to the "black lives matter" movement, even if I don't agree with anything related to BLM.

Was what relevant when what was happening?

I disagree with your assertion that racism is dead. There are plenty of evidence to the contrary; positions of power are still disproportionally white male, white people are still hired more often and paid higher than minorities of similar qualification and skillsets, society is still operating off of a white standard of beauty, etc. But even if racism did end in the 80s, plenty of people lived through that time and carried that belief with them are alive and part of our society today.

I agree that racial discrimination have been addressed to a much more greater degree than class or wealth discrimination. You are ignoring the biggest difference between the two. You can pull yourself out of poverty; you can't turn into another race (although Michael Jackson did tried). If you are white and rich, your white neighbors don't know or care that you used to be poor. If you are black, you can be bougie as hell but you will still be another ****** to your white neighbors.

@bmanva: Positions of power are dispraportionaly white? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? Whites make up the majority of the US therefore they hold the most positions of power... That's the way it should be. Yet with a mere 13% of the US population a black man leads the very institution that you deem as racist.

Do you here anyone in China saying Asians hold to much power? It's a pitiful argument made by minorities who not only strive to make whites a minority but to take all positions of power and then cry "WHITE PRIVILEGE" when it doesn't work in there favor.

Do you honestly think a white person is more likely to get hired because of there skin? Can you tell me why white people are beat and murdered by minorities it barely makes the local the news, but whenever a black man is murdered by a cop it gets national attention?

You are right in that racism still exist but it's 10X worse for whites now. PERIOD!

@AM-Gamer: I would agree with that if whites were being thrown into internment camps, denied voting rights, given the crappiest jobs only, and placed into substandard schools, but since that's not happening, I find that sentiment laughable. There are people alive today that lived during a time when a black person had to step aside on the sidewalk when oncoming white people were walking by. If whites are experiencing racism in 2016, it doesn't hold a candle to what blacks, American Indians, and Asians have experienced in the past.

That white privilege in main land China today sure is strong.

You do understand what the term disproportionally means right? Because your response seems to indicate otherwise.

Maybe a picture will simpify things for you.

It is indeed. You make a pretty good living there for just being white:

Chinese companies 'rent' white foreigners

That's more of like a consolation prize than a true privilege. Like saying the poor is privileged because they can get government assist easier than rich people.

Institutionalized racism ended over half a century ago. Are you stuck at the beginning of the cold war?

It's incredibly dumb statements like this that make people intolerant to others' opinions.

Some random statistic that shows whites are overrepresented => confirmed white privilege

Some random statistic that shows blacks are overrepresented => consolation prize, not really privilege

This is the same as people b!tching about the gender wage gap because apparently being a CEO should pay the same as being an elementary school teacher.

Maybe if minorities actually tried competing for what they want rather than b!tching before even trying they'd get somewhere without coming off as incapable whiny crybabies.

@bmanva:

Well if they weren't busy creating the vast majority of violent crimes they would be in the position to hold more spots of authority.

Racism means those positions aren't given to anyone other than whites solely because of skin color. If differently colored individuals don't want those positions there's nothing we can do about it.

"Disproportionally" means sh!t in this context. Statistics can't be read by a scientifically illiterate that has no idea of what the things he says or reads mean.

Oh yeah, my parents were white zimbabweans and were almost evicted and almost killed by the government there was in the eighties. Where's my I-get-to-speak-like-a-racist-for-free card?

@gamerguru100: And none of that happens now. Now blacks are placed in jobs even if there less qualified due to affirmative action. Blacks murder whites at nearly 20X the rate whites murder blacks yet we get a movement for "black lives matter"? Again minorities and white guilt liberals live about 50 years in the past and keep living a delusion that no longer exists.

I agree with the last statement. I wasn't actually blaming the condition of black people solely on racism or advocating affirmative action, merely disagreeing with the sentiment express by many here that white privilege don't exist or that isolated incidents of prejudice exhibited by minorities toward white people are equivalent of racism. You do understand there's a distinct difference in denying existence of racism versus attributing every poor black person or black victim of police shooting on racism?

You seem to view them as enemies. Read this. I hope it helps you and any you might influence.

There's absolutely you can do something about people's personal prejudice. But racism is the bigger issue here.

What? Who's scientifically illiterate? Proportionality isn't exactly a hard concept to grasp, neither is basic statistics so you're either mistaken in understanding what "this context" is exactly or that's a pretty poor attempt at ad hominem.

If your grandparents or great grandparents didn't decide to exploit the country or its people then your parents wouldn't be in the predicament they were in now would they? How exactly have your racist past earned you the privilege to speak like a racist again?

Someone must've forgot to tell America since US schools weren't desegregated until 1970s.

@AM-Gamer said:

@bmanva:

Well if they weren't busy creating the vast majority of violent crimes they would be in the position to hold more spots of authority.

So you are basically saying black people are too violent to hold positions of authority?

First of all, minority doesn't just mean black people. And your response is a deliberate misrepresentation of all minorities. Second of all, that chart is strictly Chicago, which has significant higher black population than a national average. Although the crime statistic is still disproportionally (there's that word again, we learning yet?) higher with black, it's not as significant as you attempt to portray it to be.

White privilege doesn't exist anymore than black privilege does. Calling it "privilege" is BS and calling it social expectations is the correct way to go about it. White men have a real risk of being fired solely for something they or someone else SAY, is that white privilege too?

Apparently it is a hard concept to grasp. Saying that having certain jobs over others is a symptom of racism is plain idiotic given the statistics you're using and shows you jumped to factious conclusions. Equality of opportunity doesn't imply equality of outcome. As I said in the other reply if minorities don't want a given position that's not freaking racism. Not allowing the minority dude to access that position due to him being part of a minority is racism.

Yes, it was an ad hominem, it was also a suggestion to not try and use statistics when you can't properly read them, because otherwise you'd just end up being burnt.

As for your last phrase, if that's not a blatant fucking show of racism I don't know what is. There you have it boys.

You ****ing said that blacks can't be racist, and your entire point revolves around the fact that there's historically been a lot of racism against blacks. You're ***ing using general trends to excuse individual actions, which is a load of horseshit. You've flat out excused racism that's perpetrated by blacks against whites, and your entire justification basically amounts to "well, whites did it worse, so that gives blacks a pass."

Dude, **** that. I'm against ANY racism, and the first ****ing step to fighting it is to acknowledge that IT ****ING EXISTS. It's not an either/or situation. It's not as if recognizing that a lot of blacks ARE racist as shit and help to dig their own hole by treating white society as the enemy means that we can't also recognize the racism that is and has been perpetrated by whites. If you hate something, don't you do it too. Many blacks ARE digging their own holes, and one of the big underlying problems is RACISM. Growing up as a black kid, do you have any idea how much shit I got from other black kids because I tried to study and do well in school? Do you have any idea how many of my black peers I've seen end up in prison or in the grave because they deliberately decided to go with that "**** the man" mentality?

And dude, don't dare try to say that black racism isn't REALLY racist because blacks have historically been the underdogs. Go listen to a ****ing KKK speech, and you're damn sure gonna hear some bullshit about how it's whites who are oppressed, the the blacks and the jews are taking over, and that the whole white supremacy movement is really just a defense against the oppressors. Or look through this very thread. Every time I see a white person try to argue that white males have it worse than anyone, I get a little sick in my stomach. Hell, it's a little bit disgusting whenever ANYONE does it. The thing is NO ONE WANTS TO THINK OF THEMSELVES AS THE OPPRESSOR. Shit...I think that I'm better than dogs, but I'm not gonna go tell people to kill a dog unless I can state that in a way that makes dogs look like a legitimate threat. You talk about history, but you're ignoring that a HELL of a lot of racism against blacks was perpetrated under the same basis. Getting the public on board with racism against blacks wasn't JUST done on the basis that blacks were inferior, there have been big pushes to convince the public that giving blacks equal rights would be DANGEROUS. That equal rights for blacks poses a THREAT to whites. That whites would become the oppressed underdogs if blacks got power.

And that's the sickening thing about this. We can sit here and argue about which group has it worse, about who is the biggest underdog. But why the **** would anyone want to lay claim to such a thing if not to have a justification to use the same tactics as the oppressors? I don't want to see ANYONE doing that kind of shit to ANYONE ELSE. And arguing that blacks can't be racist because they're the underdogs sounds suspiciously similar to a klansman's rhetoric about how they're not really racist because they're just trying to protect the white race.