When did I ever dismiss your opinion because you're not a black American? And no, I'm not dismissing the opinions of black Americans, I'm dismissing the absurd notion that six pieces of anecdotal evidence constitute justification for an otherwise unsupported argument regarding a general trend amongst a population of 45 million.
I apologize for my sarcasm, it's just that your position stems from a place of such ridiculous misinformation (e.g.) that it's difficult to do anything but mock it.
The argument is that black people need to start taking some responsibility for their lives and stop using racism as an alibi for their misery. Do you disagree with that, and why? Attacking my person, calling me misinformed, etc, won't be considered an acceptable answer.
I disagree with how you've framed the argument. Your argument, as originally conveyed, was that black Americans have an annoying habit of blaming all their problems on whites. My original retort (through implication) was that black problems are frequently actually caused by racism, and I later edited that comment to convey an additional assertion, viz. that fighting to success is substantially harder for minorities in America. This is in contrast to the strawman claim that black people cannot succeed through hard work, which serves your argument (that black people should just work instead of complaining about racism) much better than acceptance of my argument does. I do not disagree that black people should work to achieve success. But I do disagree that if everyone just shut up about racism, everything would be fixed. The fact is that there are visibly harmful remnants of past racism and visibly harmful manifestations of present racism that continue to affect minorities in this country and will not be solved without meaningful public dialogue; furthermore, I see the original post as a response to the unfortunate reality that many POCs see no remaining recourse for fighting oppression than to express violent emotion, whether that's manifested in rants, rioting, or terrorism. Justice is not achieved by placing the burden of achieving equality on an oppressed minority. Justice is achieved when visible and invisible manifestations of oppression are alleviated; when the majority owns its mistakes, apologizes, and then fixes them; when the minority no longer has to work so much harder than the majority to achieve success that the gap between the average wealths of the historical majority and of the poorest minority is $105,774. PS Crucial distinction: I never attacked your person. I said your position stemmed from misinformation, which was directly relevant to the argument. I never said you were misinformed about everything, nor that you were stupid, nor however you interpreted my (admittedly somewhat unnecessarily biting) claim.
In other words, your response to my criticism of the black community's toxic victim mentality is to simply reassert that blacks are oppressed and that white folks are the problem, and now you're even trying to imply that it's okay for a black person to express his anger through terrorism? And you wonder why there's no "meaningful public dialogue" on racism? I'm trying to imagine what it must be like to be a white person in America today, and to be considered "privileged" even though your life kind of sucks and you have to work your ass off like everyone else, and to have to listen to someone tell you that it's all your fault if black people are poor and violent, that you have to apologise, and somehow fix their problems, which probably translates to special treatment and free stuff. If my position stems from misinformation, yours stems from delusion. You seriously think this kind of attitude is conducive to the end of racism? You're treating whiteness like some kind of original sin that white people have to repent for, while using words like "equality" and "justice". If this is how the average American anti-racist reasons, I expect blacks to still be an oppressed minority long after Asians (who themselves used to be an oppressed minority) have overthrown whites and become the dominant group. Who are you going to blame then?
This is what that white American you are trying to picture sounds like: "My life isn't ideal! I have to, like, I don't know, work at stuff sometimes! This shit stinks. How can anyone say that the vast majority of other people in my country have it worse off than I do, considering I still have to, like, do stuff that I don't always want to do like pay my fines and taxes?" Sure the average white American does have to, like, get by in society. No, they can't just wave a magic wand and have whatever they want without struggle work or hardship. Guess what. It's easily possible for other classes of people to still have it way worse. So yeah if you're white and average and american and you had a bad day, maybe it's off-putting when someone else tells you that what you just went through isn't shit. It could get on one's nerves. God it just sucks when someone points out I don't have the biggest problems, it sucks even more when someone points out that, of the possible problems a person could have, mine are probably the smallest, because then I realize what a fucking DICK I am for playing the world's tiniest violin.
I agree with you. For whatever it's worth, "galen" is "crazy" in Swedish. I can't help but wonder if he's being honest with you here.
These days I'm fairly certain people like him are just psychopaths playing games with us. They see that we care about the truth, and then they proceed to fuck with us by spewing endless reams of sophistry for us to unpack. That's true. But I bet in reality, neurotypical human beings who: 1) are very intelligent, 2) feel strongly about an issue, and 3) are genuinely, severely irrational are rare. Therefore, it's relatively safe to assume that people who seem like a match are actually psychopaths fucking with us. See some recent responses to my messages for example. Intellectual dishonesty combined with hostility / shaming, etc.As much as I wish he was a troll, I think he's serious.
The opinions he's expressing are mainstream; we're the crazy ones.