Observations...

[silverthorne]

There was a long rambling post here that served no purpose other than me being upset, and by proxy, upsetting whoever read it.

It's erased. So at least I've learned something. Not so sure I still won't upset someone with this, but I'm trying not to here, all right? Just trying to get a wider perspective than I apparently have.

So...okay then.

Will someone please be kind enough to tell me what would be considered appropriate ways to help fix this situation? I'm understanding the reasoning about white america needing to be held accountable for the 'crimes of the past' as well as the present, but what I'm not getting a clear idea on, is what, exactly, I can do as a person to help rectify it. Since I can't change my skin color, my racial inheritance, or what the guys who have a lot more money and power than me are doing, what can I do as a person? What are you expecting? My own ideas of treating (and thinking of, despite the examples I used first post) people as people and not skins is apparently not enough.

No, this is not sarcasm, this is a person who's been up all night reading on this and getting a lot of the 'it's our/white people's fault and we/white people need to fix it' part, but not finding a whole lot of practical application for the average person living an everyday life. Except for talking it to death. Which still does nothing to help the situation. So I'm asking for a succinct run down.

What can be done?
What do you do?
What would you want done?

Comments

[ninjagaijin.livejournal.com]

Really, there's not a damn thing you can do to chage the way the world is.

Just keep treating everyone with respect, and you're already 10 times better than your average person.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I don't think there is anything that can be done for at least another 50 years...and that's a generous estimate.

All the people who are still alive and remember segregation and the N word as okay need to die out and stop teaching that prejudiced viewpoint to other people.

By the same token, all the people who are still alive and are propagating Whitey is Evil, The Man Keeps Me Down and so on also need to die out and stop teaching that prejudiced viewpoint to other people.

Unfortunately, not much can be done about the religious viewpoint that follows these same lines: brown people are muslims, muslims are bad; gay people are bad, transgender people, alternate lifestyle people, any people who aren't just like us are bad. Because even when the current generation of those die out, they've already taught their children who are growing to adulthood even now with this poison in their minds.

The other problem is as you observed elsewhere: people hate the "PC" aspect of it, and so are rebelling against it by refusing to do the respectful thing.

So in short -- I don't really have a solution. I wish I did, but I wanted to let you know I understand your stress, because although there are black people who will say it's the white person's fault, there is some fault on our side of the racial line too for hanging onto anger for things done to us generations ago that are not still being done today.

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

First things first: White people are not solely responsible for the way things are. Slavery, for instance, was commonplace in both pre-columbian South America under the Aztecs and many indiginous Tribes, and also common amoungst African tribes before whites came there, and VERY common in the Middle East. The Romans, in fact, took the concept of wartime slavery from the Babylonians, and from the Jews.

Whites did not invent slavery, and the enslavement of the blacks could not have happened if not for black tribesmen taking members of enemy tribes prisoner, and selling them to white (and muslim) slavers.

First thing you can do, is know the REAL history of what whites are being accused of. It's not any one race's fault, and so it's not any one race's job to "fix it". We must all fix it.

Playing into racial victimology does no good for either the 'oppressor race', or for the 'victim race'. It just engenderes mutual loathing, and codependency, and you know from a personal standpoint how that ends up. Don't swallow the racial guilt. Do what you can do as a living soul to balance the wheel, but don't buy into Original, or Racial sin, sister. That way lies hell, and nothing else.

[skywardprodigal.livejournal.com]

Hey there.

This is a good question. I think people who are trying to answer that tend to explore/discuss these things in anti-racist communities and conferences. I think.

debunkingwhite might be a very good place, maybe even a safe space, to ask that question.

[molotovcoqtiz.livejournal.com]

You need to remember that any extreme is bad and that by noting still the racial differences - OMG I'm white and I'm bad - You're still promoting a chasm between people based on the colour of their skin and not their true ethnicity or the very person that they are.

One should not look at life as - I'm white and I'm evil of more anymore than they should see it as I'm white and that makes me special. See beyond colour, don't continue to make it an issue.

[skalja.livejournal.com]

I think the single piece of writing I've found most useful in dealing with/counteracting my own privilege in a productive manner is this essay (http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-03-08_146). I hope you can also get something out of it. (Note: it speaks of generic privilege, so it's good for any kind: white privilege, male privilege, class, able-bodied, American, etc).