sejintenej wrote: Tue Jul 14, 2020 12:11 pm
Confused
As a man, I used to think I was pretty much just a normal sort of chap, but I was born white, into a two-parent household which now, whether I like it or not, makes me “Privileged”, a racist & responsible for slavery.
It doesn't make you a racist or responsible for slavery but, because of the color of your skin, you are indeed privileged and have benefited from hundreds of years of institutional racism and slavery. This isn't just some left-wing opinion. It's fact. Look up the UCL legacy of British slave-ownership project. It turns out that plenty of middle class people owned Black people in the West Indies at the time of abolition and they received financial compensation. I have not done any research into it but I would not be surprised to discover that Christ's Hospital owned and benefited from enslaved people during its history.
Please remember (or discover) that calling a policy or institution (or opinion) racist does not assume intent, but impact. For example an "equal opportunity" policy is not racist by intent but is racist in impact if it fails to correct historic racial imbalances in the field it is implemented in. You don't have to acted in a racist way towards an individual to have benefited from racist policies.
I am a fiscal & moral conservative, which by today’s standards, makes me a fascist because I plan, budget & support myself and my family.
see above - if your positions fail to acknowledge that past systemic racism has placed minorities in positions where they cannot do what you do and you don't seek to redress that imbalance, then you're propping up a racist system (again, no claim to intent - I don't call you a racist or fascist)
I went to Grammar School & have always held a job. I now find out that I am not here because I earned it, but because I was “advantaged.
You can have earned it and been advantaged at the same time. As a working class kid who became a professor at one of the world's leading academic institutions (apologies for the humble brag) it took me a while to come to terms with this. I did work hard to get where I am today. But would Black or Brown kids have had the same opportunities that I did? If I had a foreign sounding name, would people have responded to my emails inquiries in the same way? A good body of research tells us the answer is no.
I am heterosexual, which now makes me a homophobe. I am not a Muslim, which now labels me as an infidel.
I think part one is only true if you are - and only you know the answer to that. As for part 2, I'm an apathetic agnostic (I don't know and don't care), which labels me an infidel in the minds of many of the governing Christian class. Religion really is a problem, huh?
I am older than 70, making me a waste of space and resource who doesn’t understand Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. This I accept!
I feel this way at 40.
I think and I reason, and I doubt much of what “mainstream” media tells me, which makes me a “Right-wing conspiracy nut.
Do you think, reason and doubt what much of the right wing media tells you?
I am proud of my heritage & our inclusive British culture, making me a xenophobe.
I'm not sure that Black, Asian, and other British citizens feel quite that British culture is quite so inclusive. If you're proud of the inclusiveness but are not listening to those people's concerns then xenophobe is not the right term but ...
I believe in hard work, fair play, & fair compensation according to each individual’s merits, which today makes me an anti-socialist.
I believe our system guarantees freedom of effort - not freedom of outcome or subsidies ... which makes me a borderline sociopath.
Sounds great. If we can give every one the exact same opportunities and support, regardless of income, post-code, etc. Does that happen?
I believe in the defense & protection of Great Britain for & by all citizens, now making me a militant.
Not Northern Ireland?
I am proud of our flag, what it stands for and the many who died to let it fly, so I must be an imperialist and a racist.
When you say you're proud of the many who died to let it fly, does that include the hundreds of unarmed citizens who died at the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in 1919, the tens of thousands who died during the Mau Mau uprisings, or the millions who died in the Bengali famines? A rational person does not think it is bad to proud of one's country. A rational person is also not proud of mass genocide in the name of imperialism. It is important to have nuance and reflect on the pain our flag causes to some because of its terrible associations, while also be proud of the positive.
Please help me come to terms with the new me because I’m just not sure who I am anymore!
Funny - it all took place over the last 7 or 8 years!!
Maybe you're just getting more conservative as you age, but society in the US, UK, and elsewhere has begun (very slowly) to start reckoning with its past over this same period. Terms like white privelage, systemic racism and so on are difficult to reckon with. They illicit very strong defensive reactions because, after all, how can we be privileged or racist when we worked hard to get where we are and have lots of Black friends. But that's not it. It's the recognition that despite all those things, society is just set up for straight, white people in a way that it's not set up for anyone else. And for straight white people, challenging those ideas is tough. But here's the thing. No one's asking you to say you don't deserve all you have. No one is questioning your work ethic or your morals. No one is saying you're a bad person. What they're saying is that, on average, Black and Brown people who started out in your situation with your drive and work ethic would not have achieved what you did, not because they didn't work hard enough, but because society just wouldn't let them. It takes a lot of thought and introspection to come to terms with that. If you are indeed a socially conservative person who is proud of our British inclusiveness, then I think you'd want to make sure that society changes in a positive way by increasing the representation of minority folks in all walks of life.
If all this nonsense wasn’t enough to deal with, now I don’t even know which damn cloakroom to use!!
Ok, I think you might actually be a homophobe. Just saying.
