But Seriously...

It should be pointed out that not everybody reading this thread - this topic or others - is posting about it. It may be productive for folks to follow the discussion, whether the comments are being shouted or not, and hear points that they may or not agree with. I am 47 years old, and what little progress I've made in wisdom and maturity didn't happen this morning. It's take all 47 years of me hearing, listening, shouting, learning, reading, observing and all that. For me personally, Ol' Mr. Honkey here has plenty of other places to go and pat myself on the back if that was all I was after.

At the same time, being a minority doesn't automatically make your perspective something that offers actual insight.

 

My take on the Yale students is that they seem to be asking staff to police something that's un-policeable: asshole yet legal behavior. A main point of the teacher's letter was posing the question: do you really want us to start policing what people can and cannot wear? Seems like a reasonable question to me (what if some more conservative-thinking folk find girls showing "too much" skin offensive?). Not only did the students not address this point (as far as I've seen), their response was basically SHUT THE FUCK UP. Makes me wonder why, if these students are so serious about this, there isn't video of them exposing the students who are actually being offensive. They're quick to get riled up at a professor with a long track record of being accommodating and understanding to all students, yet they don't seem to want to use their finger-snapping power to confront ACTUAL racists.

The other thing they seem to totally miss, or have no time for, is context. They talk about cultural appropriation like they invented or discovered the concept, not realizing it's been around as long as culture has, and it is not inherently a bad thing. It depends on how it's done. If I grew up loving the movie Aladdin and wanted to dress up specifically as the title character because I love it/him, that is the complete opposite of dressing up in a turban and doing a mocking accent to crack up my racist friends. A girl going to a music fest and wanting to wear a headdress because she thinks feathers are pretty is not the same as wearing one, jumping around doing a mock 'Indian' dance and going "Hey-oh-oh-oh, hey-oh-oh-oh."

My other question is: does this apply only to clothing? What about different parts of other cultures that we appropriate? Can I cook a stir-fry with Shanghai noodles tonight? Is it ok for Eminem to rap? The blues are a huge part of black culture, tied directly to a struggle no white person could understand. As I understand these students' logic, that makes Eric Clapton a huge racist -- motherfucker isn't even American!

 

Arkansas State ‏@ArkansasState 38m38 minutes ago
Report of an active shooter spotted at the student union. Everyone should evacuate to the west side of the building and clear the area.

Arkansas State ‏@ArkansasState 2m2 minutes ago
Suspect surrounded; no shots have been fired http://bit.ly/1Q4mAUg #astate

 

Supposedly written by an eyewitness:

"I'm a freshman at Astate, and I swear I heard gunshots. We yelled "gunshots! everyone run outside!" and ran the opposite direction. The shooter's name was Brad Bartelt and his most recent facebook post claimed he was suicidal and no one was paying attention to his problems. No one was hurt at our school. Idk why he had the flags and stuff on his truck, but that had nothing to do with his motives. He was just a guy in his 40's with mental problems that wanted his issues to come to light. As far as the gunshots, I don't know what I heard. Everyone around me claimed they heard gunshots as well. Our school's lockdown has been released except for the Student Union. So unless their hiding something, idk what that noise was."

 

The days of "active shooter" wolf crying have begun...my company enlisted a security guard after the layoffs for that explicit fear.

What in the actual fuck.

 

Don't be mad. It is constructive criticism. Look, I am probably 70-80% of the way there with you; I agree racism is a real problem on many levels, I just think the concept of white privilege as it is currently presented is hammered dog shit. I'm not shouting you down, I'm pointing out to you that this whole theory has NO science backing it up and nobody seems to question it at all. Intelligent people question ideas brought to them, it strengthens ideas or causes them to be sent to the ash bin of history; that is what science is all about. I can think of a few easy tests or experiments that people like the victimologist who wrote that article could concoct to try to prove her point but what she presented was nothing more than anecdotal information and opinion. Confirmation bias is real and from what I see she went out looking for white privilege and she found it.

 

I for one am thankful for the minority perspective here. I'm a white guy in my 40's. What I really didn't understand until recently from this board is that the general public still discriminates based on race. Even a very successful black businessman would get worse service than me if we showed up just about anywhere dressed alike. I'm not sure what to do about that, but it is at least something new that I understand. I also understand that there is no word anyone can call me based on my race that will make me feel marginalized or threatened. The terms "cracker" and "honkey" have zero effect on me, no matter their source. I think that even in minority neighborhoods in the U.S. I cannot feel like a second-class citizen because I know of the larger society outside. That is my experience, my history, and there are words I can say to people of a different race than me than can still make them feel marginalized, regardless of their real standing in society. If nothing else, I have learned to stop saying that people of all colors have the same opportunities now, because I understand it's still not quite true. Again, I don't know the solution to that.

 

Is it? The feather headdress is a sacred symbol for aboriginals. I don't think people would be so accommodating if someone were to wear a yarmulke and grow out the hair on their temples because they think it's a good look.

I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. There is a very recent history (in Canada, at least) of attempting to have aboriginal culture and language taken away from them. Children taken away from their parents and sent to schools where speaking their native language was forbidden, or sent en masse to white foster parents. There were over 1,000 cases missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada from 1980 to 2012. You don't need to be aboriginal or be a social justice warrior to know these things; you only need to pick up a newspaper or read a book every once in a while. Wearing a sacred symbol of that culture because it "looks pretty" is, well, pretty god damned ignorant, no matter what activity you're undertaking when wearing it.

I don't want to sound as though I think that we call every instance of cross-cultural mixing "cultural appropriation", or that this is by any means always a bad and exploitative thing. But the native american headdress? Come on. You might as well wear a t-shirt that says "I don't like to read!" or "I don't like to think very hard!".

 

If the phrase "white privilege" makes you squirm, then how about the phrase "racial bias that white people are blissfully unaware of"? Because that is pretty much what that means.

Anyway, to say that white privilege isn't backed by science is bullshit. In 5 seconds, I found a study that was done to determine how racial bias affects hiring. Link here. In fact, just google "hiring manager study racism". Or "white privilege studies".

I guess the real question is why you wrote how white privilege is hammered dog shit, yet you obviously made no attempt to find out for yourself. Oh damn it. Made the minority do the work for you.

Let me posit something to you guys. It seems to me that a lot of you are libertarian leaning, hetero white guys. Has it ever occurred to you that the reason you guys aren't fans of the government because they are the only real obstacle in your life? Like, really think about it. The only people that have any incentive at all to mess with you is the government. Minorities can't mess with white people because, by and large, most people in a position of power are white. How many black guys have the option to just quit a shitty job and hope that they get another? How many white people do you know that have to worry about politicians promising to deport members of their family because they were born here or came here illegally as infants?

The answer, obviously, is fucking zero. In general, the biggest thing a white dude has to deal with isn't an employer who may fire them for being five minutes late, or deportation to a country where they don't speak the language. It's wondering if their Starbucks order will be right this time.

This is the very definition of white privilege. When white people think of the "Man", they think of the government. When minorities think of the "Man", they're thinking about white people.

 

What are people's opinions on visible tattoos/piercings and, I hate to use the word discrimination, but perhaps "professionalism" regarding it?

Doing interviews with mainly young applicants, I still see quite a few going to great lengths to hide them. I really don't give two shits as long as it isn't something crazy like a facial tat or gory images that can't reasonable be covered if needed (and I'm honestly surprised when applicants learn that we really don't care), but I'm curious what others think.

 

They convicted Holtzclaw. Fucker is looking at 236 years. A cop in prison for life as a serial rapist of black women. Something tells me he isn't going to Tango & Cash his way out of this one.

 

They are so common I mean shit, half the cops I see now sport visible tattoos without trying to hide them. I've seen surgeons, dentists and all sorts of "white collar" types sporting it nowadays. I have four, want at least a dozen more. My wife has four tattoos and sixteen piercings and she's a stockbroker for Big Company Inc. If you don't look like you came from prison or were the lovechild of a three-ring binder and a wind chime then I certainly have no issue at all.

However if you look like you're trying out for the Jim Rose circus then I start to judge. Sorry, on-the-face tattoos, getting Frankenstein bolts surgically fastened to your skull, piercings through cheekbones and ear stretching....no. You're TRULY deforming yourself and you're a freak. There most definetly IS a line.

 

I don't have a problem with it if they can be covered. Facial, neck, & hand tattoos are a sign of someone who doesn't give a fuck and probably not someone I'd want dealing with my customers/clients in a professional environment.

If I owned a shop or a construction company? I could care less.

 

Depends on the job they are seeking. As much as I would love to tell the old biddies to stuff it because Eugene has a spiderweb tattooed on his elbow, appearances still matter in customer relations, sales, clerking, bla bla bla.

I am personally of the mind if someone is dumb enough to tattoo their hands then expect to be anything other than a waiter or a mechanic, they are not the type I would hire. If someone tattoos their face, I automatically assume they're too stupid to live and out on parole.

Everyone I know is inked up. Some head to toe. 50% are servers; as in restaurant or bar, and that number is probably higher than half. One is a teacher who can apparently smooth talk the devil or HR because he's got full sleeves to his fingers. One is a chemist with a massive forearm piece. Few others are tattoo "artists." Some do hair. Couple work retail. Some are unemployed. ONE is a lawyer, but she inked her torso. The main undercurrent running through these folks is that a scant few have more than a highschool diploma. THAT might be the issue why they are relegated to the restaurant life.

 

Well they atleast understand that some people may not find them desirable, and are trying to hide them without asking for it. Huge plus if I was hiring.

 

Statements like the last sentence are common to find from people nowadays when you disagree with them. It's funny really, you want intelligent discourse on topics yet make these statements. It's cool though, I get it, you think that reinforces your argument, I guess?

From your link:

Anyways, I see resumes with names like Jamal and Laquisha and I think the exact same things as when I see Jethro and Sapphire or Falcon and Meadow. I think that I am going to be expending far more energy on these people than is necessary to get them to do what I need them to do. I know that's wrong, I don't give them the benefit of the doubt but I don't have time to, I have a job to do. I need to make snap judgements on how to cull a stack of resumes down to a few reasonable candidates. For the record, people of color are OVER represented on my staff and not UNDER represented, it's not a race thing to me. Do I speak for a majority of people? Who knows, I can only share my experience in this realm. Can it be construed as racist? Sure, but I think it is more classism than anything. I see oddball names and I assume they have a different background, different skill set, different level of intelligence.

 

(Sorry for the double post) But to offer a different way of looking at the whole racism/free speech thing, consider what technology has done and how that has altered not only our view points, but the way we are able to broadcast those views.

Just as an example, when I was younger I used to be very against homosexuality. No religious bias whatsoever, it was simply a matter of I wasn't homosexual, didn't know anyone who was, and didn't have access to read about the other side of the coin. The Internet wasn't around yet, and I assumed it was wrong because it was different... Flash forward to now, where I can communicate on my phone, on this forum, with people from every walk of life and from all different parts of the globe. Views obviously change the more you have access to information and larger your circle of social inputs becomes.

Same thing, I believe, is happening with the issue of race. Sure, crap on college campuses and police brutality and discrimination has always been around. But now you can read about it instantly, and you can learn that the issues you encounter are shared by those around the world. Your life is no longer experienced in a small bubble. That's a very powerful thing.

So of course people are gonna disagree, and fight, and have what looks like some extremely different view points. Because you're taking all these tiny worlds that people live in in real life, and everyone is reading about them and experiencing them second hand. And they're able to say "me too."

This isn't something that is going to magically go away. But I remember when pagers came out and people were trying to comprehend the fact that they were expected to be within contact 24/7. The world is going to adapt to the new technology, and slowly but surely we're becoming a smaller place. That's a scary thought to someone who still lives in a bubble. But social evolution is happening. At about the speed of your internet connection.

Besides, in a few generations we're all just gonna be the same shade of brown anyway.

 

Now it's gone officially full on stupid:

(Yes, I know it's click bait, but still...WTF?)

Students at Pennsylvania school want 'Lynch Hall' renamed because of the word 'Lynch'

Aren't these kids supposed to be there learning instead of finding shit to be outraged at?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/1...l-want-lynch-hall-renamed-because-word-lynch/