How did I benefit from racism?

[emilynghiem]

Think about it Bootney. You have never been black, yet a few days ago you were telling me, a black man, that you had the definitive answer to the problems in the black community and that I did not. I mean we have all kinds of white "experts" here at USMB on the condition of blacks. Now what makes whites think this way?

Dear IM2
I don't have to be black to promote the solutions put together by BLACK leaders in BLACK communities that were destroyed by BLACK politics.

www.freedmenstown.com

I support you and these other BLACK leaders, YES INCLUDING SHEILA JACKSON LEE AND ALL DEMOCRATS BLAMED FOR LETTING THIS DESTRUCTION GO ON UNDER THEIR WATCH, to UNITE ALL BLACK LEADERS AND INVEST IN SAVING FREEDMEN'S TOWN as a campus district and central bank for managing restitution for documented injustices, abuses and discrimination on record and investing that in managing and training in business and property ownership and self govt.

I do NOT support whining about it and projecting blame back and forth.

The reason I accept blame put on Democrats is I share and claim mutual responsibility as a Democrat for the corruption and abuses by our own leaders who abused party and govt to destroy national Black history and ability to fulfill campus plans authored by BLACK LEADERS

How I've benefited from racism is the lessons learned from slavery as generational genocide,
both the impact it had over the centuries and generations affected,
and the solutions coming from affected communities that not only address
and solve their own historic problems, but can solve larger global problems
with slave trafficking and oppression of poor workers along the border.

www.earnedamnesty.org

I don't have to be BLACK to recognize when BLACK LEADERS know how to solve their own problems, and deserve support to fulfill those plans that would "liberate them from dependence on party politics that has destroyed whole communities for political dollars"

BEN CARSON, OBAMA, ALLEN WEST, CORNELL WEST,
KAEPERNICK and even SHAUN KING or any other BLM advocates
should ALL BE UNITED under plans for sustainable banking and community development
to uplift and empower BLACK COMMUNITIES to own, manage and govern their own districts.

Any other backbiting to divide and not work together
is part of that age old tactic of divide and conquer to keep people oppressed.

I don't have to be BLACK to understand the division tactic and how that
has destroyed and prevented BLACK UNITY in LEADERSHIP and INVESTMENT.

IM2 I applaud the day that all BLACK leaders can stand together
and defeat any political narrative or bias that has otherwise kept such forces divided.

That unity will set an example and lead the rest of the nation to unite as well
and quit this partisan division of blaming back and forth that isn't solving problems
but making them harder.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

What’s so funny BlackFlag ?

I’m an immigrant. I have no ties to the history of this country. My family didn’t get out of poverty until I was in high school, and even then we weren’t well off. You know how many times I was called white boy growing up? You can laugh it off and say poor baby or something, which is what liberals do, but being the victim of racism isn’t a good feeling, and anyone can be racist.

What's funny? Next you're going to tell me there's vomit on your sweater already, mom's spaghetti

Holy shit you're weird!!!

 

[emilynghiem]

Dear HereWeGoAgain

Can you please explain why you reacted to my post as FUNNY.
I think it is ironically TRAGIC that I was called in to help save
a national historic Freed Slave church community and CIVIL RIGHTS landmark
when I'm not even Black.

And IM2 resents my begging, preaching and urging him and other BLACK leaders
to unite to save their own national history as a site for launching a banking system for restitution.

Maybe it's a MALE thing.

I sympathize with Gladys House as a woman tired of watching MEN do nothing but blame each other while
the WOMEN in the district have been working several jobs to pay for the work to restore the district themselves.

Maybe the MEN are too ashamed they have done nothing
while all the work was dumped on WOMEN

* Gladys House, native descendent of Freed Slave founder of Freedmen's Town
and head of the CDC of Freedmen's Town and business leader of development plans
to restore the district
* Catherine Roberts, founder of Yates Museum who has spent thousand of her own
money and money she raised to purchase historic houses for preservation
* Deborah Blacklock Sloan of the Harris County Historical Commission
who has worked with the above to research the history to qualify for landmarks
* Sally Wickers, Executive Director of the Coalition of Pastoral Leaders representing
the remaining historic churches left in Freedmen's Town
* Perata Bradley, a student who took over care and executor duties for
Lenwood Johnson (community leader and co-author of the APV Community Campus plans)

IM2 maybe it's not racism that has destroyed Freedmen's Town
but SEXISM because the men wouldn't listen and support women
who inherited all the work to save this district destroyed by "patriarchal politics"

????

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Dear HereWeGoAgain

Can you please explain why you reacted to my post as FUNNY.
I think it is ironically TRAGIC that I was called in to help save
a national historic Freed Slave church community and CIVIL RIGHTS landmark
when I'm not even Black.

And IM2 resents my begging, preaching and urging him and other BLACK leaders
to unite to save their own national history as a site for launching a banking system for restitution.

Maybe it's a MALE thing.

I sympathize with Gladys House as a woman tired of watching MEN do nothing but blame each other while
the WOMEN in the district have been working several jobs to pay for the work to restore the district themselves.

Maybe the MEN are too ashamed they have done nothing
while all the work was dumped on WOMEN

* Gladys House, native descendent of Freed Slave founder of Freedmen's Town
and head of the CDC of Freedmen's Town and business leader of development plans
to restore the district
* Catherine Roberts, founder of Yates Museum who has spent thousand of her own
money and money she raised to purchase historic houses for preservation
* Deborah Blacklock Sloan of the Harris County Historical Commission
who has worked with the above to research the history to qualify for landmarks
* Sally Wickers, Executive Director of the Coalition of Pastoral Leaders representing
the remaining historic churches left in Freedmen's Town
* Perata Bradley, a student who took over care and executor duties for
Lenwood Johnson (community leader and co-author of the APV Community Campus plans)

IM2 maybe it's not racism that has destroyed Freedmen's Town
but SEXISM because the men wouldn't listen and support women
who inherited all the work to save this district destroyed by "patriarchal politics"

????

The second you brought up Sheila Jackson.......

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

I say this with no disrespect, but perhaps your parents could have worked smarter. When we first came to this country my dad worked at Alexanders and my mom was a baby sister. Both of them went to school and my dad became a computer programmer for Avon and my mom became an architect for Presbyterian hospital. I’m very proud of the hard work and sacrifices my parents made and so is my sister. They were terrific examples to me that with hard work and perseverance you can live a good life in this country.

I'm curious, how did your parents acquire the education necessary to obtain the jobs in the professions they achieved? And who paid for it?

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

I say this with no disrespect, but perhaps your parents could have worked smarter. When we first came to this country my dad worked at Alexanders and my mom was a baby sister. Both of them went to school and my dad became a computer programmer for Avon and my mom became an architect for Presbyterian hospital. I’m very proud of the hard work and sacrifices my parents made and so is my sister. They were terrific examples to me that with hard work and perseverance you can live a good life in this country.

I'm curious, how did your parents acquire the education necessary to obtain the jobs in the professions they achieved? And who paid for it?

ptbw forever - 1 Funny

 

[Rocko]

I say this with no disrespect, but perhaps your parents could have worked smarter. When we first came to this country my dad worked at Alexanders and my mom was a baby sister. Both of them went to school and my dad became a computer programmer for Avon and my mom became an architect for Presbyterian hospital. I’m very proud of the hard work and sacrifices my parents made and so is my sister. They were terrific examples to me that with hard work and perseverance you can live a good life in this country.

I'm curious, how did your parents acquire the education necessary to obtain the jobs in the professions they achieved? And who paid for it?

To be honest I’m not sure how they pulled it off. My dad went Devry university. I assuming he took out loans and paid his way through. Years later after my dad got a good paying job, my mom went to city college, and I going to assume my dad paid for it. We lived in Washington heights during my childhood, and when my mom and finally started making good money, they bought a house in Teaneck New Jersey.

 

[rightwinger]

I was the first person on either side of my family all the way back to homo erectus to attend a university.

I received NOTHING in inheritance from any parent, grandparent, or otherwise because there was nothing.

I had no connections or relationships for job opportunities.

I had no insiders and no legacy status.

I worked my way thought college and grad school.

No relative has ever loaned or gifted me any money other than minuscule amounts for birthdays or graduation.

No ancestor of mine owned or benefited from slavery. In fact, my great great great grandfather was a poor white farmer from Louisiana whose father was a poor immigrant from Scotland. He competed against slave-owner farms and was conscripted into the army by the CSA to defend an institution of which he not only did NOT benefit, but which was to his direct detriment.

My other ancestors were poor white cajuns or Irish immigrants who arrived here long after the NA's had been moved to reservations and paid for their trouble. My ancestors weren't exactly treated fairly.


.


I am willing to listen.

I am not interested in arguing. I will not respond. I am just listening.

Just tell me how I have benefitted from any form of racism.


I'll hang up and listen.

.

Were you ever forced to ride the back of the bus or denied access to public places?
Were you ever denied a job just by looking at you?
Your great, great, great grandfather from Scotland arrived in Louisiana at a time blacks were in bondage .....was that an advantage?

 

[emilynghiem]

I was the first person on either side of my family all the way back to homo erectus to attend a university.

I received NOTHING in inheritance from any parent, grandparent, or otherwise because there was nothing.

I had no connections or relationships for job opportunities.

I had no insiders and no legacy status.

I worked my way thought college and grad school.

No relative has ever loaned or gifted me any money other than minuscule amounts for birthdays or graduation.

No ancestor of mine owned or benefited from slavery. In fact, my great great great grandfather was a poor white farmer from Louisiana whose father was a poor immigrant from Scotland. He competed against slave-owner farms and was conscripted into the army by the CSA to defend an institution of which he not only did NOT benefit, but which was to his direct detriment.

My other ancestors were poor white cajuns or Irish immigrants who arrived here long after the NA's had been moved to reservations and paid for their trouble. My ancestors weren't exactly treated fairly.


.


I am willing to listen.

I am not interested in arguing. I will not respond. I am just listening.

Just tell me how I have benefitted from any form of racism.


I'll hang up and listen.

.

Were you ever forced to ride the back of the bus or denied access to public places?
Were you ever denied a job just by looking at you?
Your great, great, great grandfather from Scotland arrived in Louisiana at a time blacks were in bondage .....was that an advantage?

Dear rightwinger and Bootney Lee Farnsworth cc: IM2

1. Neither were people today forced to rid in the back of buses.
That's part of BLF's argument, is the people ASKING to receive
the reparations weren't DIRECTLY the people oppressed or abused during slavery or segregation

2. However, I'd say IM2 got it right by clarifying that if
YOUR DIRECT LINEAGE ANCESTORS were treated as PROPERTY
and NOT ALLOWED OR TAUGHT TO OWN PROPERTY
then the Future Generations will be unequal on the learning
curve of developing business ownership and self-government/independence

Bootney Lee Farnsworth Even if
you and I were not part of the slave owners or their lineage/generations
the fact that SOME African Americans were, and as a whole have remained
behind the learning curve in participating in land/property ownership
and in GOVERNMENT, then this is a form of CLASS DISPARITY that is
socioeconomic AND is related to race since those families were Black.

Regardless how much of this disparity can be tracked to slavery or segregation,
the issue of breaking the cycle of poverty, crime and incarceration STILL POINTS
to the SAME conservative approach of promoting OWNERSHIP of business, land,
and management of property, programs and local self-government.

If OWNERSHIP is the common factor, why not focus on THAT solution
regardless of debates or disputes over reparations for slavery, segregation, minority oppression,
affirmative action, etc etc. If we focus on the SOLUTIONS to ending poverty and oppression,
that INCLUDES and takes care of anything that "reparations would address."

Even Obama figured that much out when looking into the legal complications of reparations.
If you implement solutions that end poverty for ALL the underserved/underprivileged
socioeconomic classes, then that would also solve issues of black reparations included in that mix.

NOTE: the advantage of taking a general approach to ending ALL economic and political oppression
regardless of racial identity or lineage, is that this would include and address all other cases and questions such as:
A. what about BLACK slave owners that liberated themselves
then bought into the same slave trade business as white slave owners
where BOTH the Black and the White slave traders exploited Black slaves as property for profit
B. what about WHITE slaves such as Irish slaves also subjected to indentured servitude

(where both White and Black slaves were forcibly raped by Black slaves to breed more dark-skinned slaves for greater market value)
C. What about reparations for Hawaiian and Native Americans
If women were victims of genocide from rape and forced sterilizations
among Native Americans, as well as Black and White slaves, what if
WOMEN were named as the group that needed reparations for genocide.
Wouldn't that cover all the racial groups, if the focus was on reparations for RAPE.

so if we focus on Microlending to train residents in distressed regions to own
and manage their own property, programs and resources to become self-governing,
that would address all areas of socioeconomic disparity, including issues of Black reparations.​

 

[TNHarley]

I was the first person on either side of my family all the way back to homo erectus to attend a university.

I received NOTHING in inheritance from any parent, grandparent, or otherwise because there was nothing.

I had no connections or relationships for job opportunities.

I had no insiders and no legacy status.

I worked my way thought college and grad school.

No relative has ever loaned or gifted me any money other than minuscule amounts for birthdays or graduation.

No ancestor of mine owned or benefited from slavery. In fact, my great great great grandfather was a poor white farmer from Louisiana whose father was a poor immigrant from Scotland. He competed against slave-owner farms and was conscripted into the army by the CSA to defend an institution of which he not only did NOT benefit, but which was to his direct detriment.

My other ancestors were poor white cajuns or Irish immigrants who arrived here long after the NA's had been moved to reservations and paid for their trouble. My ancestors weren't exactly treated fairly.


.


I am willing to listen.

I am not interested in arguing. I will not respond. I am just listening.

Just tell me how I have benefitted from any form of racism.


I'll hang up and listen.

.

You didn't benefit from it, but you weren't hurt by it either. Congratulations?

I didn’t benefit from it, and I was hurt by it. I’m white and grew up around a lot of Hispanics and blacks that used racism against me. I hold no grudges, and
as I matured I learn to not be racist and live and let live.

Oh boy. Here we go. Why did those blacks and Hispanics not like white people? Was it based upon a false theory of racial superiority?

Or;

Was it because of how they have been treated by whites?

I like how you rail against certain types of racism and defend others. You disgusting faggot.

 

[MizMolly]

Think about it Bootney. You have never been black, yet a few days ago you were telling me, a black man, that you had the definitive answer to the problems in the black community and that I did not. I mean we have all kinds of white "experts" here at USMB on the condition of blacks. Now what makes whites think this way?

But you sure as hell feel you have whites all figured out like you are an expert on how and what whites think.

 

[MizMolly]

What’s so funny BlackFlag ?

I’m an immigrant. I have no ties to the history of this country. My family didn’t get out of poverty until I was in high school, and even then we weren’t well off. You know how many times I was called white boy growing up? You can laugh it off and say poor baby or something, which is what liberals do, but being the victim of racism isn’t a good feeling, and anyone can be racist.

What's funny? Next you're going to tell me there's vomit on your sweater already, mom's spaghetti

Dude I grew up in school PS 187 and Brooklyn Tech high school. PS 187 was like 95% Hispanic and black. Brooklyn Tech was one of the best high schools in the city, but it was like forty percent black, forty percent Asian, and twenty percent other. I’ve seen Asian kids get abused by blacks on a ongoing basis, and have been called white boy, honky, white devil you name it. This is real life, and it happens to a lot of people, but it gets ignored for some odd reason

Real life shows us an unending pattern of white racist behavior that has lasted 400 years.

Why did those blacks and Hispanics not like white people? Was it based upon a false theory of racial superiority?

Or;

Was it because of how they have been treated by whites?

Funny how you only saw blacks do these things. Because Asians do the same thing. And of course the majority white schools never did anything like that. And then we have the classic cry,
"It always gets ignored!"

Which is a boldfaced lie.

You love making excuses. It is okay for blacks to treat whites bad based on how SOME whites may have treated them yet whites aren’t allowed to treat blacks bad for how SOME blacks have treated them, if they do they are called racist. You seem to think bad behavior toward another race is acceptable for blacks.

 

[Paul Essien]

My other ancestors were poor white cajuns or Irish immigrants who arrived here long after the NA's had been moved to reservations and paid for their trouble. My ancestors weren't exactly treated fairly.

What you leave out is that the Irish got to where they are because of racism.

The Irish did not suffer from hundreds of years of slavery - Because they were White.
The Irish could vote by the 1860s, not the 1960s – Because they were White.
The Irish qualified for the Homestead Act, the G.I. Bill and FHA loans – Because they were White.
The Irish could live in nice neighbourhoods and go to nice schools – Because they were White.

Not everyone in the US saw them as fully White. But by the late 1800s, Whiteness in the US had been enlarged to include them and when the Irish first came to the USA in large numbers (in the 1800's) they had had almost no experience with blacks.

But after a short time in the states the Irish were rioting against blacks (as with the New York draft riots during the Civil War) and joining in the barring of blacks from labor unions, opposing school desegregation, and seeking to become white by assimilating to the white WASP system that was firmly in place.

The Irish joined the club of whiteness to the max.

Yes the Irish suffered and many never owned slaves. But whatever stereotypes they may have had then does not impact you now.

If you fill out a job application TODAY : No one cares if you are Irish.

• No one follows you around in the store.
• No one assumes you are lazy.
• No one assumes your child-like and can’t take care of yourself.
• No one assumes you're criminal.
• No one tells you are so much better off in America so you should be glad your ancestors were slaves.
• No one acts like they did you a favor or saved you from a backwardness.
• No one displays your human reminds as primitive until the late 70s.
• You don't have to radically change/permanently alter a feature of your body to become accepted or get employment (like hair for example).

You're just another white person.

The same cannot be said for a black person. And how does this relates to slavery ?

The stereotypes were created during slavery as an excuse for enslaving blacks (we are childlike and need guidance, can’t take of ourselves need white help/masters, black women are sex-hungry, baby making machines to explain all the mixed children running around).

Or they were created after slavery to keep whites at the top and blacks at the bottom.

These stereotypes of blacks are to this day are still widely held and even defended by white folks and a few misguided blacks.

None of them are new. They are very old and they are based in slavery and it’s immediate aftermath.

You sit there and type that you and your family had nothing to do with the evils of the past but you are content to live with all the benefits that those evils brought.

You cannot sit in contentment in an oppressive system and claim innocence.

I bet during Jim Crow there were whites who told themselves they never owned slaves :

• So who cares if a black man is shot unarmed ?
• If black schools are unfunded ?
• If black schools are being closed and prisons built in their places ?
• If black men are serving longer sentences for the same crimes ?
• If black men need two more years of education to get the same pay ?

These problems go on today.

I was the first person on either side of my family all the way back to homo erectus to attend a university.

Education is part of the system of white supremacy.

Black kids are punished more harshly than white kids for minor behavioral infractions, even if they commit those infractions no more frequently than whites.

Black children are tracked into basic and remedial level classes while white kids are tracked into advanced and honors classes (whether or not they show promise and even sometimes quite a bit less)

• Why are predominantly Black school districts are under-funded ?
• Why are predominantly Black school districts under-staffed with inexperienced teachers ?
• Why are predominantly Black school districts denied books ?
• Why are predominantly Black school districts denied microscopes and other lab equipment ?
• Why are predominantly Black school districts always have hazardous waste near by black schools ?
• Why are predominantly Black school districts always have to cut art and music classes, sports teams and sometimes hot meals in a cafeteria ?

Because of the system of white supremacy.

Remember you are white and you were seen as white by your teachers. So as you were coming up you reaped the benefits of presumed whiteness :

The presumptions of competence
The presumptions of law-abidingness
The presumptions of general intelligence

None of these thing black people attending school can assume others will presume about us

Yeah you worked hard but your hard work was met with an access to an opportunity structure to which millions of black people have been denied.

I received NOTHING in inheritance from any parent, grandparent, or otherwise because there was nothing.

Really ? Where did you live ? What school did you go to ? Don't sit there and try and claim you came from the gutter.

White privilege works in 3 ways

1) Material (greater opportunity in the labor market, or greater net worth, due to a history in which whites had the ability to accumulate wealth to a greater extent than blk ppl)
2) Social (such as presumptions of competence, creditworthiness, law-abidingness, intelligence)
3) Psychological (not having to worry about triggering negative stereotypes, rarely having to feel out of place, not having to worry about racial profiling, etc.).

White privilege is the flipside of discrimination against black people.

If you are saying white privilege does not exist, then you must also say racism does not exist

There can be no down without an up

If black people are the targets of discrimination, in housing, employment, the justice system, or elsewhere, then whites, by definition, are being elevated above those black ppl.

I had no connections or relationships for job opportunities.

You had white skin. That is you connection. That is your relationship.

I had no insiders and no legacy status.

Right. So must live on a island on your own then ...yeah ? So no white person ever cut you a break ? Open a door for you ? Give you insider info ?

No ancestor of mine owned or benefited from slavery.

Apart from a few nuts white people do not walk out their door in the morning saying, “I am going to screw black people”

They don't have to : Their forefathers set up the country to do just that.

A white American saying “My family never owned slaves” is like the daughter of a Mafia boss wearing her diamonds and pearls and saying she never murdered anyone or shook anyone down for money. As if the diamonds and pearls fell from the sky.

The evidence is clear. Slavery was merely a big part of a system of white supremacy (e.g. Slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, etc.) that explicitly and overtly benefitted whites economically, socially and legally well into the 1970s. So, so what your family never owned slaves. They certainly benefitted from the system that was, and still largely is, in place.

Perhaps Americans of Irish extraction should move to a reservation, or a district where impoverished Black people live, and continue talking about how ‘unfair ‘and ‘oppressive’ it is to be white.

In fact, my great great great grandfather was a poor white farmer from Louisiana whose father was a poor immigrant from Scotland. He competed against slave-owner farms and was conscripted into the army by the CSA to defend an institution of which he not only did NOT benefit, but which was to his direct detriment.

Your Irish family although they faced discrimination, never dealt with legalized segregation. Never were they treated as livestock rather than people in this country. They were allowed to intermarry with other groups, and they now have assimilated into being white, including being able to partake in white privilege.

It's extremely offensive when you sit there with this “I am of Irish background” or “My ancestors were poor” all this shape- shifting sh*t your doing to try and claim that you don’t have white privilege or have not participated in a white supremacist society.

There are quite a few people of Irish descent living in South Africa. Yet there has never been recorded in the history of SA that any white (Irish) person was forced to live in a squatter camp; that their houses were razed to the ground or bulldozed and then were dumped in the middle of nowhere or received special education to the level to only serve the master, i.e. the white man, etc. etc.

No Irish has been subjected to the pass laws, being made to endure life without any running water or electricity being made to feel like non-citizens in a country that they immigrated to when apartheid was in full swing.

Are you getting this ?

I think it's grotesque and monumentally repugnant of white ppl who want to own victim-hood whilst being FUCKING steeped in white privilege and patronizingly conflate their specific white ethnic problems within white dominance and project that onto black people and foist upon the very people (Black people) who have absolutely nothing to do with their (Irish) past oppression,

Get the fuck out my face.

And THEN you try to equate your history as similar to that of black history, thereby relinquishing any culpability emanating from THEIR OWN oppression/racism of black people all the while enjoying the ill-gotten fruits of white superiority.

Genius !! (lol)

Why don't you direct your complaints of ‘Irish oppression’ to you fellow white Anglo-Saxon brethren ? Why to Black people?

Black people have never enslaved or oppressed Irish people.

You have the fucking nerve to sit there trying to garner sympathy whilst exonerating yourself of racism, from the very people (Black people) whom whites oppress and continue to do so.

 

[IM2]

ALL RISE FOR THE HONORABLE PROFESSOR PAUL ESSEN!

Indeed, that was the greatest dissection of the white excuse I have seen.

Thank you Brother Essen.

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

One thing is true, my family didn't benefit from Blacks.
My Polish American uncle a Vietnam Vet, was jumped, and robbed by Black thugs in his own neighborhood in Portchester, NY.

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

If slavery benefited modern Whites economically, it's also trickled down to benefit modern Blacks economically.

 

[mudwhistle]

Think about it Bootney. You have never been black, yet a few days ago you were telling me, a black man, that you had the definitive answer to the problems in the black community and that I did not. I mean we have all kinds of white "experts" here at USMB on the condition of blacks. Now what makes whites think this way?

The age old, "whites don't understand cuz they ain't black" excuse.
That's racism.
Claiming to have an understanding simply because you are black is racist horseshit. Not all blacks have been treated the same. What one black person grew up in isn't the exact same thing all blacks grew up with. A black growing up in Philly doesn't have a clue to what it's like growing up black on a farm. A black living in New York has no idea what it's like growing up black in Montana.
And assuming that no white understands is racist.

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

My other ancestors were poor white cajuns or Irish immigrants who arrived here long after the NA's had been moved to reservations and paid for their trouble. My ancestors weren't exactly treated fairly.

What you leave out is that the Irish got to where they are because of racism.

The Irish did not suffer from hundreds of years of slavery - Because they were White.
The Irish could vote by the 1860s, not the 1960s – Because they were White.
The Irish qualified for the Homestead Act, the G.I. Bill and FHA loans – Because they were White.
The Irish could live in nice neighbourhoods and go to nice schools – Because they were White.

Not everyone in the US saw them as fully White. But by the late 1800s, Whiteness in the US had been enlarged to include them and when the Irish first came to the USA in large numbers (in the 1800's) they had had almost no experience with blacks.

But after a short time in the states the Irish were rioting against blacks (as with the New York draft riots during the Civil War) and joining in the barring of blacks from labor unions, opposing school desegregation, and seeking to become white by assimilating to the white WASP system that was firmly in place.

The Irish joined the club of whiteness to the max.

Yes the Irish suffered and many never owned slaves. But whatever stereotypes they may have had then does not impact you now.

If you fill out a job application TODAY : No one cares if you are Irish.

• No one follows you around in the store.
• No one assumes you are lazy.
• No one assumes your child-like and can’t take care of yourself.
• No one assumes you're criminal.
• No one tells you are so much better off in America so you should be glad your ancestors were slaves.
• No one acts like they did you a favor or saved you from a backwardness.
• No one displays your human reminds as primitive until the late 70s.
• You don't have to radically change/permanently alter a feature of your body to become accepted or get employment (like hair for example).

You're just another white person.

The same cannot be said for a black person. And how does this relates to slavery ?

The stereotypes were created during slavery as an excuse for enslaving blacks (we are childlike and need guidance, can’t take of ourselves need white help/masters, black women are sex-hungry, baby making machines to explain all the mixed children running around).

Or they were created after slavery to keep whites at the top and blacks at the bottom.

These stereotypes of blacks are to this day are still widely held and even defended by white folks and a few misguided blacks.

None of them are new. They are very old and they are based in slavery and it’s immediate aftermath.

You sit there and type that you and your family had nothing to do with the evils of the past but you are content to live with all the benefits that those evils brought.

You cannot sit in contentment in an oppressive system and claim innocence.

I bet during Jim Crow there were whites who told themselves they never owned slaves :

• So who cares if a black man is shot unarmed ?
• If black schools are unfunded ?
• If black schools are being closed and prisons built in their places ?
• If black men are serving longer sentences for the same crimes ?
• If black men need two more years of education to get the same pay ?

These problems go on today.

I was the first person on either side of my family all the way back to homo erectus to attend a university.

Education is part of the system of white supremacy.

Black kids are punished more harshly than white kids for minor behavioral infractions, even if they commit those infractions no more frequently than whites.

Black children are tracked into basic and remedial level classes while white kids are tracked into advanced and honors classes (whether or not they show promise and even sometimes quite a bit less)

• Why are predominantly Black school districts are under-funded ?
• Why are predominantly Black school districts under-staffed with inexperienced teachers ?
• Why are predominantly Black school districts denied books ?
• Why are predominantly Black school districts denied microscopes and other lab equipment ?
• Why are predominantly Black school districts always have hazardous waste near by black schools ?
• Why are predominantly Black school districts always have to cut art and music classes, sports teams and sometimes hot meals in a cafeteria ?

Because of the system of white supremacy.

Remember you are white and you were seen as white by your teachers. So as you were coming up you reaped the benefits of presumed whiteness :

The presumptions of competence
The presumptions of law-abidingness
The presumptions of general intelligence

None of these thing black people attending school can assume others will presume about us

Yeah you worked hard but your hard work was met with an access to an opportunity structure to which millions of black people have been denied.

I received NOTHING in inheritance from any parent, grandparent, or otherwise because there was nothing.

Really ? Where did you live ? What school did you go to ? Don't sit there and try and claim you came from the gutter.

White privilege works in 3 ways

1) Material (greater opportunity in the labor market, or greater net worth, due to a history in which whites had the ability to accumulate wealth to a greater extent than blk ppl)
2) Social (such as presumptions of competence, creditworthiness, law-abidingness, intelligence)
3) Psychological (not having to worry about triggering negative stereotypes, rarely having to feel out of place, not having to worry about racial profiling, etc.).

White privilege is the flipside of discrimination against black people.

If you are saying white privilege does not exist, then you must also say racism does not exist

There can be no down without an up

If black people are the targets of discrimination, in housing, employment, the justice system, or elsewhere, then whites, by definition, are being elevated above those black ppl.

I had no connections or relationships for job opportunities.

You had white skin. That is you connection. That is your relationship.

I had no insiders and no legacy status.

Right. So must live on a island on your own then ...yeah ? So no white person ever cut you a break ? Open a door for you ? Give you insider info ?

No ancestor of mine owned or benefited from slavery.

Apart from a few nuts white people do not walk out their door in the morning saying, “I am going to screw black people”

They don't have to : Their forefathers set up the country to do just that.

A white American saying “My family never owned slaves” is like the daughter of a Mafia boss wearing her diamonds and pearls and saying she never murdered anyone or shook anyone down for money. As if the diamonds and pearls fell from the sky.

The evidence is clear. Slavery was merely a big part of a system of white supremacy (e.g. Slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, etc.) that explicitly and overtly benefitted whites economically, socially and legally well into the 1970s. So, so what your family never owned slaves. They certainly benefitted from the system that was, and still largely is, in place.

Perhaps Americans of Irish extraction should move to a reservation, or a district where impoverished Black people live, and continue talking about how ‘unfair ‘and ‘oppressive’ it is to be white.

In fact, my great great great grandfather was a poor white farmer from Louisiana whose father was a poor immigrant from Scotland. He competed against slave-owner farms and was conscripted into the army by the CSA to defend an institution of which he not only did NOT benefit, but which was to his direct detriment.

Your Irish family although they faced discrimination, never dealt with legalized segregation. Never were they treated as livestock rather than people in this country. They were allowed to intermarry with other groups, and they now have assimilated into being white, including being able to partake in white privilege.

It's extremely offensive when you sit there with this “I am of Irish background” or “My ancestors were poor” all this shape- shifting sh*t your doing to try and claim that you don’t have white privilege or have not participated in a white supremacist society.

There are quite a few people of Irish descent living in South Africa. Yet there has never been recorded in the history of SA that any white (Irish) person was forced to live in a squatter camp; that their houses were razed to the ground or bulldozed and then were dumped in the middle of nowhere or received special education to the level to only serve the master, i.e. the white man, etc. etc.

No Irish has been subjected to the pass laws, being made to endure life without any running water or electricity being made to feel like non-citizens in a country that they immigrated to when apartheid was in full swing.

Are you getting this ?

I think it's grotesque and monumentally repugnant of white ppl who want to own victim-hood whilst being FUCKING steeped in white privilege and patronizingly conflate their specific white ethnic problems within white dominance and project that onto black people and foist upon the very people (Black people) who have absolutely nothing to do with their (Irish) past oppression,

Get the fuck out my face.

And THEN you try to equate your history as similar to that of black history, thereby relinquishing any culpability emanating from THEIR OWN oppression/racism of black people all the while enjoying the ill-gotten fruits of white superiority.

Why don't you direct your complaints of their ‘oppression’ to their fellow white Anglo-Saxon brethren ? Why to Black people?

Black people have never enslaved or oppressed Irish people.

Sitting there trying to garner sympathy whilst exonerating yourself of racism, from the very people whom they oppress or derive privilege at the expense of, is morally bankrupt.

There were some nasty anti-Irish Catholic pogroms in the USA, like the Philadelphia Nativist Riots, and Bloody Monday in Kentucky.

But these seem to be left out of school text-books, why?

Because of Black privilege?

 

[mudwhistle]

What’s so funny BlackFlag ?

I’m an immigrant. I have no ties to the history of this country. My family didn’t get out of poverty until I was in high school, and even then we weren’t well off. You know how many times I was called white boy growing up? You can laugh it off and say poor baby or something, which is what liberals do, but being the victim of racism isn’t a good feeling, and anyone can be racist.

White immigrants are white people. Now I asked you questions. I did not request the white conservative sob story. If being called the n word was the biggest thing I have ever had to face, I wouldn't be complaining about racism. My parents never made it out of poverty. We stayed poor and it was not because they were too lazy to work. My dad worked 2 jobs. My mom cleaned up old white racists in a nursing home. So spare me your that's what liberals do bullshit. I know what it is like to be a victim of racism and it ain't just being called a name.

OH, so you think there are no Whites living under the same conditions?

 

[IM2]

Think about it Bootney. You have never been black, yet a few days ago you were telling me, a black man, that you had the definitive answer to the problems in the black community and that I did not. I mean we have all kinds of white "experts" here at USMB on the condition of blacks. Now what makes whites think this way?

The age old, "whites don't understand cuz they ain't black" excuse.
That's racism.
Claiming to have an understanding simply because you are black is horseshit. Not all blacks have been treated the same. What one black person grew up in isn't the exact same thing all blacks grew up with. A black growing up in Philly doesn't have a clue to what it's like growing up black on a farm. A black living in New York has no idea what it's like growing up black in Montana.

No it's not racism. All those blacks you mentioned know what it is like to face white racism.

Farnsworth is trying to have a constructive and honest conversation with us. You're a punk ass white racist trying to add your 2 cent like you can talk for what we experience. You can't. Learn to live with that reality.