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comment by OftenBen
OftenBen  ·  2539 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: April 5, 2017

Personally, it's because such courses/lines of thought are pretty much exclusively used to justify racism against people who have less melanin in their skins.

Such courses/lines of thought often conflate 'white privilege' with 'Rich oligarch privilege' forgetting that if you weren't one of the Founding Fathers or a member of their social class (Rich, Landowning) life wasn't much better/different for you in early America than anybody else.

I will never feel ashamed of what I look like. The slaves my grand-cestors held had skin the same shade as their own.





galen  ·  2538 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Where do you get from "whiteness is a social construct" to "you should be ashamed of what you look like"?

OftenBen  ·  2538 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I get it from all the people in undergrad who told me the best way to be an ally as a cis-het-white-male was to, in short, 'Shut up, and pay me.'

I get it from all the BLM leaders who state that white people are 'recessive genetic defects' and 'mutants' and 'sub-human' Source

I'm all for equality. I'm all for egalitarianism. To radical degrees for both causes.

HOWEVER

When you start from the assumption 'All white people are subhuman monsters who need to be done away with, you sound like a racist, not a progressive.

The extremists are in charge. The radicals are in charge. I have yet to see a 'moderate' approach to these topics taken or respected by any one in a position of power.

galen  ·  2538 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yes, all those things are bullshit.

But my question is what do they have to do with my course's description?

By deconstructing race we're exposing the defects in any racialized thinking, including "white people are genetic defects" or "white people are monsters" or whatever.

OftenBen  ·  2538 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    But my question is what do they have to do with my course's description?

By taking the course you agree with the radicals that white people are 'problematic.'

Not 'whiteness' because that's an abstract. 'Whiteness' doesn't exist. Only people do. And I can't see this class encouraging the golden rule. I CAN see it encouraging white people to feel guilty for the color of their skin, and the historical actions of powerful, wealthy oligarchs who happened to be white AT THAT PLACE/TIME IN HISTORY.

Fuck race politics. Study classism instead.

From where I'm sitting courses like this are a waste of your money/your parents money. I wish I could get back the thousands of dollars I wasted on 'Anthropology of Latin America' because I got to pay for the privilege of being told how much white people had fucked up central/south america, how if you ever eat a banana you're a facist, and it's my responsibility to buy my bathroom tile from a 10 man operation in Ecuador, because of neoliberal policies enacted before I was born, and that I would have opposed if I had the power.

galen  ·  2538 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I can't really argue with this because you're making like 12 assumptions about what the course must be about, none of which seem to be grounded in what I posted. Whatever.

OftenBen  ·  2538 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I know my experience. I know the experience of other cis-het-white-males in similar spheres of influence. If you get lucky, and actually get a nuanced moderate to teach these things, I'd be super happy for you.

But nuanced moderates aren't being hired by universities these days.

snoodog  ·  2538 days ago  ·  link  ·  

5 Generations back my ancestors were slaves for all practical purposes. White guilt my ass.