I don’t know what your life has been but I’m white and my life has not been privileged, there are probably billions of white people who don’t understand the sheer ignorance behind the claim of white privilege. In Russia and parts of Europe ordinary people were considered serfs of the aristocracy there to be used and abused at the whim of the ruling class. Marie Antoinette was young and foolish but the quote “Let them eat cake” is her speaking about starving French people regardless of their colour not a white princess talking about people of colour in some far off land. It took two world wars and well into the twentieth century before white people could say they were even approaching equality in their own countries.
The killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri sparked some of the biggest riots for years. Michael Brown was walking along the road, not on the pavement, when a policeman in a patrol car asked him to get onto the pavement because by walking down the road he was causing a traffic build up and the potential for accident. Michael Brown didn’t like being told to walk on the pavement so he attacked the policeman in his car, there is evidence to support this, and tried to get the policeman’s gun away from him. There was a fight which continued out of the car the policeman shot Michael Brown a number of times and Michael Brown died.
In the first rush of shock and anger people exploded onto the streets and it was an explosion there appears to have been an initial reaction of rage which is understandable when a young man dies at the hands of the police but it didn’t stop it went on for weeks shops were looted buildings badly damaged, small businesses many owned by black people were destroyed, and all the while everyone knew that Michael Brown was a thug and a bully there is video evidence of him beating people up and robbing a local store. Michael Brown had considerable form but none of it was allowed to get in the way of righteous grievance.
So why did the riots happen because Michael Brown was black or because the policeman who shot him was white?
Errol Garner was also black he sold cigarettes singly and apparently illegally in New York, he was apprehended by police, put in a choke hold which is against police rules, and died. Its my opinion that the policeman who killed Errol Garner should be facing manslaughter charges he’s not, there were some protests about the killing but not many and most were not violent. I believe that’s at least partially because of the huge riots over Michael Brown.
I don’t know about white privilege ordinary white people don’t grow up aware of privilege mostly they grow up aware of what they and their friends regardless of colour don’t have and what they won’t get because their families and friends can’t afford it and no they don’t want black neighbours so they can take comfort in looking down on them either for being black or for being worse off. A neighbour is a neighbour not a competitor.
On another continent three young girls run off to join Islamic jihadists fighting in Syria. The girls are going into real danger what do we think will happen will they be treated with kindness and respect or is it more likely they will be passed from one man to another, and what happens when they get home will they be welcomed back into their family and community or is it more likely they will find their own families and communities want nothing to do with them? Its scary for girls and race has nothing to do with it.
I have spent the last five years in an area where my accent singles me out, oh there are others here but as far as I can tell they’ve all done their penance at the local RCC church. I had to listen to one a neighbour tell me how wonderful the Irish were for forgiving her for all the horrible things the English had done to them. I stared.
For years I wanted to move to Ireland of course being me I left it to the last minute but also being me I got here and most unlike me I was slowly disillusioned. I know about racism and colour is just the most obvious outward sign of it.
We talk a lot of well meaning tat about race and we do it by dumping any bit of history that disproves or confounds what we insist is history. I’m not sure racism has anything to do with colour anymore perhaps it never did, slavery certainly wasn’t a black only market, maybe racism was always an excuse for class segregation and maybe its that we need to look at rather than colour.
Not light years away from the subject I’m an Islamophobe because I think Islam represents real danger to women but its not politically acceptable to say that so the word Islamophobe has been invented and the establishment have decreed that being Islamophobe is racist.
I disagree I think being Islamic is being anti female its no good telling me there are enlightened Muslims I know that I also know there are billions of people who believe in the Koran and Sharia and neither are acceptable
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