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TexasBushwhacker

(20,272 posts)
Thu Feb 2, 2023, 11:16 PM Feb 2023

I'm white. Do you ever just get sick of white people?

Really, it's just stupid white people, but I got an inquiry on LinkedIn from a headhunter. She's working for a company that is one of the 3 largest CPA firms in the US owned by African Americans. All I could think was HALLELUJAH!

I had a rather tense conversation with my boss and his wife this morning. When I started working for them over 3.5 years ago, there were 3 people in the office full time and 2 part timers. Since August, it's just been me in the office full time because he and his antivax wife infected everyone with COVID and the other 2 people didn't come back. My boss decided he can get so much more done working from home! (And you should see his liquor bills!) His wife is there 50% of the time.

I told them this wasn't what I signed up for and that in almost 6 months, they should have been able to find someone. Their claim is "no one wants to work". I told them they probably weren't paying enough and they said "No, all our friends can't find any help either." Well, their friend is are stingy, stupid white people just like them!

So yeah, I'm ready to work for some smart people of color.

140 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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I'm white. Do you ever just get sick of white people? (Original Post) TexasBushwhacker Feb 2023 OP
I remain flabbergasted by how ingrained racism is Effete Snob Feb 2023 #1
Racism is certainly appallingly pervasive, just pops up everywhere. Hortensis Feb 2023 #52
It kind of does matter, though. White people fall into two categories ... Whiskeytide Feb 2023 #68
Possibility of New Job people Feb 2023 #2
I do get sick of stupid people. Ignorance, laziness and greed: no one race has a monopoly. DFW Feb 2023 #3
That has the ring of truth Hekate Feb 2023 #29
:) +100 as the station chief weighs in gently. Hortensis Feb 2023 #57
I always weigh in gently, but I make it easy on myself DFW Feb 2023 #73
Sounds like a great place with great, and fortunate people. Hortensis Feb 2023 #76
My man in Geneva is very fortunate to be where he is. DFW Feb 2023 #129
Yes. I can't even live in a mostly white neighborhood ismnotwasm Feb 2023 #4
I moved to a white rural county in CA, no less. Here's what I found. usonian Feb 2023 #9
And hanging on mostly white social media sites gets even worse Hortensis Feb 2023 #53
Isn't DU a mostly white social media site? hunter Feb 2023 #88
Yes. ismnotwasm Feb 2023 #103
There's no way in hell I'd ever move back to the 99% affluent white community I grew up in. hunter Feb 2023 #91
See, this is the way ismnotwasm Feb 2023 #104
All the fucking time. Aristus Feb 2023 #5
+1000 Diamond_Dog Feb 2023 #12
+1,000,000 ismnotwasm Feb 2023 #36
This. And it won't stop until more of us admit it. yardwork Feb 2023 #65
+++++++ LuckyCharms Feb 2023 #74
A small pointless defense of Honey Boo Boo. betsuni Feb 2023 #117
Absolutely. cilla4progress Feb 2023 #6
I am a white woman, I feel much safer and more comfortable in a room that's all Black people but me Walleye Feb 2023 #7
Yes, I am white and sick of ellie Feb 2023 #8
Do you see the racism in your comments? Sympthsical Feb 2023 #10
Sure TexasBushwhacker Feb 2023 #11
I'd delete it Sympthsical Feb 2023 #14
I disagree. I think we need lots more OPs like this. yardwork Feb 2023 #66
+1000 Solomon Feb 2023 #70
It's just rewritten Catholicism Sympthsical Feb 2023 #71
Well said. BlackSkimmer Feb 2023 #80
I don't see it that way at all, though I agree with many of your points. yardwork Feb 2023 #84
There's nothing wrong with being Catholic. old as dirt Feb 2023 #85
My entire family is Catholic Sympthsical Feb 2023 #100
Always thought the Hamilton Walk might be fun. old as dirt Feb 2023 #116
In the U.S.A. the Catholic Church is as diverse and as divided as the U.S.A. in general. hunter Feb 2023 #118
I was just keeping it short Sympthsical Feb 2023 #122
In the Province of Popayán, ... old as dirt Feb 2023 #134
+1. N/T obnoxiousdrunk Feb 2023 #98
Nailed it fescuerescue Feb 2023 #112
I also hope your job situation improves. WDLAL Feb 2023 #45
To my mind it's about the culture, cilla4progress Feb 2023 #27
What about "white culture" is offensive? Sympthsical Feb 2023 #50
In historical writings, ... old as dirt Feb 2023 #59
Ok let's unpack, shall we? cilla4progress Feb 2023 #108
Very thoughtful post. K&R. GoodRaisin Feb 2023 #37
This thread is fascinating. BlackSkimmer Feb 2023 #43
Thank you for this comment. WDLAL Feb 2023 #44
Apparently no for people who don't realize that white on white Hortensis Feb 2023 #54
Racism is a by-product of a power structure ismnotwasm Feb 2023 #107
:) Right. Presumably, if all those who're sick of white people Hortensis Feb 2023 #111
I'm guessing your post will be studiously ignored. EX500rider Feb 2023 #130
:) I glanced down this sorry thread and noticed the typical Hortensis Feb 2023 #131
Thank you, you're totally on point. nt Raine Feb 2023 #56
Yeah, This RobinA Feb 2023 #58
as usual, spot on m8 Celerity Feb 2023 #60
This. It's like the "noble savage" cliche, even if unintended. Oneironaut Feb 2023 #79
That is the first phrase that came to mind Sympthsical Feb 2023 #99
Immersion in another culture GusBob Feb 2023 #105
Also like the decisions to appoint someone treestar Feb 2023 #93
OH DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED Skittles Feb 2023 #13
I know how you feel. WinstonSmith4740 Feb 2023 #15
What I get sick of Demobrat Feb 2023 #16
Then there are the ones who want them to BUILD THAT WALL! TexasBushwhacker Feb 2023 #20
It Was Always Thus RobinA Feb 2023 #64
I've lived in diverse neighborhoods all of my life GenThePerservering Feb 2023 #17
Me too. Demobrat Feb 2023 #18
Lol, yes. When we moved away from extremely diverse Los Angeles, Hortensis Feb 2023 #63
Nope. Just like I never get sick of black people or brown people of other people. I do get kelly1mm Feb 2023 #19
That right there GenThePerservering Feb 2023 #120
Stupid, racist white people. I am reading "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage niyad Feb 2023 #21
Oh, god, YES. I'm white, too. TygrBright Feb 2023 #22
I don't rabid_decline Feb 2023 #23
I get exhausted oer it at times... rabid_decline Feb 2023 #24
Yes, I do. Elessar Zappa Feb 2023 #25
I'm half white and I look white. So yeah, damn near every day. Iggo Feb 2023 #26
I really don't care where anyone is from. Mr. Evil Feb 2023 #28
Exactly TRUE Laura PourMeADrink Feb 2023 #31
+1 treestar Feb 2023 #49
+1. N/T obnoxiousdrunk Feb 2023 #124
60% of US population white. Non-white 40%. Seems Laura PourMeADrink Feb 2023 #30
Yascha Mounk Author, "The Great Experiment" littlemissmartypants Feb 2023 #32
I get sick of Right Wingers and Far Left Trolls that are closer to Right Wing than Liberal JI7 Feb 2023 #33
+100000000000000 betsuni Feb 2023 #40
+1 treestar Feb 2023 #48
This message was self-deleted by its author AllyCat Feb 2023 #34
No. johnp3907 Feb 2023 #35
Yep. Sick of their entitlement, racism, heads up their asses Sky Jewels Feb 2023 #38
I'm white and I like white people Tickle Feb 2023 #39
No I don't. I get sick of all people in general. nt Raine Feb 2023 #41
LoL 🤣 me too NT Tickle Feb 2023 #42
If you think you won't find non-whites who think just malaise Feb 2023 #46
how is this one whit any better treestar Feb 2023 #47
"It's a form of virtue signalling" LexVegas Feb 2023 #77
Bingo. BlackSkimmer Feb 2023 #115
The difference is: intheflow Feb 2023 #78
how does that make it OK to be treestar Feb 2023 #92
"Not all white people!!!" "White Lives Matter!" intheflow Feb 2023 #138
When is the "institutional racism" over treestar Feb 2023 #139
(HD) SON PALENQUE / YO ME VOY : AMPLIFICADO (COLOMBIA) EN VIVO old as dirt Feb 2023 #51
being Asian American, it's not just white people, stupidity runs rampant in all countries JuJuChen Feb 2023 #55
Only sick of angry, entitled white men. milestogo Feb 2023 #61
I get sick of stupidity, whatever the source. NT Patton French Feb 2023 #62
Even in our semirural blood-red GA county, about 30% vote Democratic Hortensis Feb 2023 #67
Yep, lots of them tavernier Feb 2023 #69
Vacancy rates GusBob Feb 2023 #72
Man, I miss working for smart Black people. intheflow Feb 2023 #75
I had a post on FB the other day where they were talking black people and a string LizBeth Feb 2023 #81
I like to think because I'm mucifer Feb 2023 #82
No. And I think saying that is weird. Happy Hoosier Feb 2023 #83
Seriously I am fed up with stupid kacekwl Feb 2023 #86
Sure, I get frustrated with other white people mvd Feb 2023 #87
No, I'm just sick of self righteous people forthemiddle Feb 2023 #89
Totally agree. nt Raine Feb 2023 #95
Sometimes it's ForgedCrank Feb 2023 #96
What is self righteous about acknowledging whiteness as a destructive social system? ismnotwasm Feb 2023 #106
This is how we lose elections. jalan48 Feb 2023 #90
People want to work. Employers don't want to pay workers a fair wage. Initech Feb 2023 #94
The premise and substance of this thread are crap. Bonx Feb 2023 #97
Embrace it my friend - this is the direction the left wants to go... Fix The Stupid Feb 2023 #102
Its virtue signaling. Its not real. nt LexVegas Feb 2023 #110
Not for me it's not ismnotwasm Feb 2023 #113
Trump is a cartoon of whiteness. How he dresses, what he eats, how he talks, everything. betsuni Feb 2023 #114
If you think it should be deleted, report it TexasBushwhacker Feb 2023 #132
I don't think it should be deleted TheProle Feb 2023 #140
Back atcha. Iggo Feb 2023 #125
No. I get sick of systemic racism, and as others have said, stupid people, or all kinds. Caliman73 Feb 2023 #101
I'd never put it like that. I can be well aware of my privilege and the political bent... Silent3 Feb 2023 #109
To figure out if this is offensive.... EX500rider Feb 2023 #119
I think this is shallow and offensive. My answer to you is "No. I don't" WarGamer Feb 2023 #121
+1 Kaleva Feb 2023 #128
You're trying too hard. BannonsLiver Feb 2023 #123
YES. My damn relatives. Siblings and their kids. Racist ignorant assholes, all. n/t CousinIT Feb 2023 #126
Most of us DUers in LTRs are in a relationship with someone of our own race Kaleva Feb 2023 #127
I don't understand the accusations in this thread that saying you're sick of your own group is the betsuni Feb 2023 #133
Quite an exaggerated conflation of events hey? GusBob Feb 2023 #135
So you think if a black person posted they "were sick of black people" on this site.. EX500rider Feb 2023 #136
I suggest the OP consider looking into the mirror every day and punch themselves in the face MichMan Feb 2023 #137
 

Effete Snob

(8,387 posts)
1. I remain flabbergasted by how ingrained racism is
Thu Feb 2, 2023, 11:23 PM
Feb 2023

It seems that a lot of white people are made uncomfortable by the mere presence of African Americans.

The fact remains that a majority of white people voted for Trump both times.

It's a simple undeniable fact.

The other mindblower for me personally is how many feel compelled to say "not me" in order to confirm that they are in the MINORITY of white people who didn't vote for Trump.

The fact that "not you" voted differently has utterly nothing to do with what most white people did.

Whiskeytide

(4,466 posts)
68. It kind of does matter, though. White people fall into two categories ...
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 09:33 AM
Feb 2023

… on this issue. 1) Those who reject and are troubled by the history that created institutional racism in this country, and 2) Those who embrace it and long for its ratification. The second group is what perpetuates it. So the first group - white people who don’t vote for people like Тяцмp - are important, and we need to grow our numbers. That’s why I tell people “not me” all the time. You’re right that it doesn’t change the past, but perhaps it can move the needle a little in the future.

DFW

(54,619 posts)
3. I do get sick of stupid people. Ignorance, laziness and greed: no one race has a monopoly.
Thu Feb 2, 2023, 11:41 PM
Feb 2023

Living and working in Europe, obviously the bad apples I encounter tend to be European. So are all of the good ones. Of course, as station chief for Europe, maybe some the people under me say I'm a bad apple, but our turnover in the last 25 years has been just about zero, so maybe I'm not so horrible after all. I have learned the languages of EVERY single European employee we have, and so that has helped keep the lines of communication flowing. I'm sure someone living in Hong Kong or Lusaka would say something different.

DFW

(54,619 posts)
73. I always weigh in gently, but I make it easy on myself
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 10:06 AM
Feb 2023

I very seldom take on new people on over here unless I'm extremely confident they know what they are doing, are pleasant, competent without me needing to look over their shoulder every second, and have a good work ethic as well as loyalty. It's a bill very few men and women fulfill in the first place. When they do, they usually stick around until retirement, and some even after. I recruited my man in Switzerland 39 years ago when he was 37. He's still with me full time at age 76 (this March), and he has no intention of retiring. He says, "why should I? I still like doing this job, and it beats being bored!" Sure. You can be bored living in a city like Geneva? How? But I'm sure not going to tell him he's wrong. This year, I'll be celebrating my 48th year at my job. No longer a loose group of a dozen barely-twenty-somethings, we are 550 (or more?) people worldwide, and more structures in place than I would ever want to have to worry about (I get shit from above for not worrying enough about their bureaucracy back home, but my people over here are REALLY good, and Dallas doesn't want to get them upset). Funnily enough, the ones who are the paperwork-lovers are the younger ones. Those of us who survived decades BEFORE there was an internet or email see it all a little looser.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
76. Sounds like a great place with great, and fortunate people.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 10:18 AM
Feb 2023

I laughed at that last, but it makes me wonder. My years as a retiree from a very changing work world (maybe not yours quite as much as some) are adding up so that my view is increasingly not just from outside but from times passed. I envy your man in Switzerland his continued involvement -- and of course Geneva.

DFW

(54,619 posts)
129. My man in Geneva is very fortunate to be where he is.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 08:35 PM
Feb 2023

When he first joined us, he said that if he was going to quit his job as a graphic designer (thus his sharp eye to detect counterfeit money), he wanted assurance that we would guarantee his job for three years. Dallas said no, but I never told him that. They didn’t know him. I did. I knew it xould work. He was soon earning a six figure salary and was whining about his new high tax bracket of 25%. I told him that Americans who earned what he did were already paying a marginal 39.6%. Yypical European, he said that’s their fault for being Americans.

He inherited his house from his dad. If he hadn’t, there is no way in the world he could have afforded to live in a house inside the city of Geneva, even an old, modest duplex like he has. Competing UN agencies, oil rich Arabs and Russians, and a few rich non-affiliated people (a few of whom are even real Swiss!) drive Geneva real estate prices into the Asteroid Belt. He could probably sell his house for fortune and a half, but he’d just say, maybe, but what in the world for? This was his FATHER’S house after all. You can’t force a Swiss to adopt Republican « money is more important » attitudes just because an American political party says they should. Most Swiss are something our Republicans are not: conservative.

ismnotwasm

(42,042 posts)
4. Yes. I can't even live in a mostly white neighborhood
Thu Feb 2, 2023, 11:41 PM
Feb 2023

The thought of moving for my retirement in a few years to a mostly white and rural county gives me considerable anxiety. Yet it’s one I am considering. Ugh.

I get easily annoyed by white people, when they are minimizing racial issues, or are denying that whiteness is a caste-like social system.


usonian

(10,106 posts)
9. I moved to a white rural county in CA, no less. Here's what I found.
Thu Feb 2, 2023, 11:54 PM
Feb 2023

Guns going off every day (presumably target practice), not a person of color anywhere, not even in the one grocery store, and it's a tourist town, dammit.

Across the street from the gun store is the guy with the ***MP boat in his front yard. (and I don't mean shrimp). Nearest body of water is 35 miles away. They stopped counting the doubly vaccinated rate at 47% (I think. It never changed off that "peak&quot

One hospital. Nearest alternatives are 50 miles away, including the V.A.

Damn fine place to take scenic photographs. Let's see what the future holds.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
53. And hanging on mostly white social media sites gets even worse
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 08:43 AM
Feb 2023

when anonymous people start letting themselves hang out. What to do?

ismnotwasm

(42,042 posts)
103. Yes.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:27 PM
Feb 2023

Unfortunately. Truly wonderful people here, but kinda boomer central. Really wish it was more diverse.

hunter

(38,381 posts)
91. There's no way in hell I'd ever move back to the 99% affluent white community I grew up in.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:21 PM
Feb 2023

My wife and I haven't lived in majority white neighborhoods since we got married more than thirty years ago.

We explicitly made the decision to raise our children in culturally and economically diverse communities.

ismnotwasm

(42,042 posts)
104. See, this is the way
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:30 PM
Feb 2023

I think being white in white spaces is ultimately damaging to the evolution of thought. Hard to correct internal bias, you know, like stereotypes, knee-jerk reactions, that remain unacknowledged and unexamined—not impossible, of course, just far more difficult

Aristus

(66,616 posts)
5. All the fucking time.
Thu Feb 2, 2023, 11:44 PM
Feb 2023

This country is going to hell because of the stupid shit white people think, and believe, and do.

Hey, white people!: STOP IT!

I’m white. And I’m tired of stupid white people stuff like gunz, gunz, gunz, hillbilly redneck TV like Duck Dynasty and Honey Boo-Boo; I’m tired of white people making heroes out of Kyle Rottenhouse and Donald Fucking Trump! I’m tired of country & western caterwauling being called ‘real American music’. I’m tired of fucking jet-flyovers at the Super Bowl. I’m tired of anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers. I’m tired of “I’m entitled to my opinion” like their blockheaded stupid fucking opinion is supposed to matter. I’m tired of freedom without accountability. I’m tired of stupid white people with no history of or interest in public service getting elected to Congress. I’m tired of stupid evil white men insisting only they have decision making power over women.

I want to live on a smarter, less white planet…

yardwork

(61,860 posts)
65. This. And it won't stop until more of us admit it.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 09:19 AM
Feb 2023

The country is going to hell because of ignorant racist white peoples' behavior. And so far, waaaay too many white Democrats don't want to admit that.

In this thread there are several passive aggressive "not me I don't know what you're talking about" responses, as if the OP is at fault for pointing out the white elephant in the room.

It's not that any "race" (which is a made-up concept - made up by white slave owners who wanted to justify slavery) is inherently good or bad. The problem is that there is currently a group of people in the U.S. who self-identify as a race ("white people) and are running around being as hateful as possible in every imaginable way. The mythology and beliefs that they have created and perpetuate endanger us all.

Anyone with any power who disagrees with them needs to stand up and speak out against this. Every day. Everywhere. Including but not limited to here.

I'm an older white woman. I don't need to keep saying "not me." I need to find ways to fight these people who are "not me." The first step is admitting that the problem exists.

betsuni

(25,941 posts)
117. A small pointless defense of Honey Boo Boo.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 05:08 PM
Feb 2023

No guns, no religion, no politics, the mother and one daughter are bisexual, an uncle is gay. The show appealed to all sorts of people because it was about this messy nutty family and their self-identified "redneck" cultural practices (like a favorite meal, sketti: noodles, ketchup, margarine (they call it butter but pretty sure butter-flavored margarine)).

Walleye

(31,246 posts)
7. I am a white woman, I feel much safer and more comfortable in a room that's all Black people but me
Thu Feb 2, 2023, 11:48 PM
Feb 2023

I never feel safe when I’m in a crowd of all white people.

Sympthsical

(9,220 posts)
10. Do you see the racism in your comments?
Thu Feb 2, 2023, 11:55 PM
Feb 2023

Or nah?

(and I'm not talking about toward other white people, either)

Edit: Actually, this whole thread about to go to town.

Good grief. And since this apparently needs explaining. Here's the problem. It's always blazingly clear when people don't have a lot of friends or experience with other races or cultures, because they don't frame them as human beings. They're always framed as a bit better. Not like my terrible group. That other group is magical.

It's condescending and compensating.

There are good and bad people of every group. Some you love being around and working with. Some will make your day miserable.

But instead of seeing them as humans and treating them as humans, they get boxed into the groups with the wistful soft focus.

It's like . . . kind of revealing a lot in all this. People aren't seen as people. They're broken solely into their group and valued (or devalued) because of it.

This is not a good trait to possess. People shouldn't be high-fiving it. It's low-key patronizingly racist as hell.

TexasBushwhacker

(20,272 posts)
11. Sure
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:11 AM
Feb 2023

As much as I'd like to say I don't have a racist cell in my body, I know I can't claim that. I try to do my best. My 66 trips around the sun have been spent EXCLUSIVELY in Texas at that. So yes, I am aware that I am imperfect, but thanks for reminding me! Seriously, I considered not making this post, but I just figured there were others who could relate.

Sympthsical

(9,220 posts)
14. I'd delete it
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:31 AM
Feb 2023

I can't even read all the replies too closely because the full body cringe is just too much.

This just isn't a good look.

I do hope you find a better job situation, though.

yardwork

(61,860 posts)
66. I disagree. I think we need lots more OPs like this.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 09:28 AM
Feb 2023

Every one of them will be imperfect. Every one will involve cringey aspects as we stumble around trying to express a huge, real problem in this country that we can't ignore anymore.

The behavior of a whole bunch of racist people who collectively identify as a tribe is destroying this country. They are a movement. They are not going to stop until the rest of us band together and stop them.

I'm old. I've watched a lot unfold since the 1960s, including a lot of disappointments. This is an existential moment for our country. We can't ignore it.

Sympthsical

(9,220 posts)
71. It's just rewritten Catholicism
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 09:50 AM
Feb 2023

And I'm honestly not interested in rehashing it just because someone dressed up the impulse in a different ideological shroud.

The original sin all must forever atone for and repeatedly say prayers that they might be forgiven for being inherently awful and flawed people who fall short of God. It's self-flagellation disguised in nobility. If you're truly repentant, you'll join.

Super hard pass.

I'm a gay man who got the fuck out of Catholicism as rapidly as possible. Why would I sign up for more of the corrosive and toxic attitudes just because people decided to start applying them to a temporal issue? I get people need religion in their life and will often permutate those impulses into secular ideology. But I don't need it. I reject it.

It's possible to call out bad behavior and bad attitudes. "Racism sucks, and people who are racist are assholes." Simple. But "White people are just the worst, am I right?" is just seeking approval and applause to show that I, too, am a member of the Church of Perpetual Sin. Say five Hail Marys and get four back pats.

It doesn't solve anything, it's divisive, and it only serves to relieve the person saying their secular prayers of whatever issues they're dealing with and how it makes them feel. It also doesn't accomplish anything. It's not an active impulse. It's a passive one. "I said the words, so that's that solved."

Again. Repurposed Catholicism.

yardwork

(61,860 posts)
84. I don't see it that way at all, though I agree with many of your points.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 11:26 AM
Feb 2023

What I'm saying is that this situation is actually new and different from recent U.S. history.

Speaking up about this wave of white supremacist tribalism sweeping the nation can look like self-flagellation, white guilt, magical thinking, lazy stereotyping, etc. There are certainly plenty of problematic and wrong headed tropes and myths that people will mix into their efforts to point out this huge problem.

We still have to do it. I've never seen such open, systemic meanness and ugliness in this country. The laws Republicans are passing would have shocked the right wingers I grew up with in rural Ohio. It's not shocking their children and grandchildren and that's a problem. They're rushing to vote for literal Nazis and the reason is white tribalism.

 

old as dirt

(1,972 posts)
85. There's nothing wrong with being Catholic.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 11:37 AM
Feb 2023

My wife comes from Catholic culture.

Dramatización Arrullo



Arrullos


Sympthsical

(9,220 posts)
100. My entire family is Catholic
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:22 PM
Feb 2023

A bunch of Irish Catholics at that. Believe me. I know what the religion is like.

 

old as dirt

(1,972 posts)
116. Always thought the Hamilton Walk might be fun.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 04:38 PM
Feb 2023
William Rowan Hamilton— Ireland’s liberator of algebra

https://www.historyireland.com/william-rowan-hamilton-irelands-liberator-of-algebra/

William Rowan Hamilton (Science YouTuber Collab) | A Capella Science



Hamilton Walk 2020

Oct 17, 2020

The annual Hamilton Walk takes place on 16 October , commemorating Hamilton's invention of quaternions and takes place during Maths Week Ireland. The walk was founded in 1990. As the real 2020 walk was cancelled due to Covid, Maths Week Ireland produced a virtual walk. The walk is organised by Fiacre O'Cairbre and Tony O'Farrell of Maynooth University. It is narrated by Eoin Gill with contributions from Prof Peter Gallagher, Prof Tony O'Farrell, Anne van Weerden and Fiacre O'Cairbe.





hunter

(38,381 posts)
118. In the U.S.A. the Catholic Church is as diverse and as divided as the U.S.A. in general.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 06:12 PM
Feb 2023

I don't think anyone can say "I know what the religion is like" any more than they can say "I know what gay people are like."

Nah, I don't have anything nice to say about "conservative" Catholics, or religiously conservative people in general. The "Love the sinner, hate the sin" sorts are vile when they go on to tell you all the harmless an ordinary human behaviors they think are sinful.

When my mom was young she became a Jehovah's Witness because the Catholic Church hadn't lived up to her high expectations. That was a good thing for me, I wouldn't have been born if she'd become a nun!

Good thing for me again when the Witnesses gave her the boot because she couldn't stay out of politics. Then we were Quakers. I never said the flag salute in school, so that was cool. Mostly I'd just sit there reading, drawing spaceships, or simply daydreaming because everyone who said the flag salute was disobeying God and probably going to hell too. Didn't celebrate birthdays either.

I haven't told the entire story here on DU of how much of my PTSD is related to religion, but it is. Religion can kill. So do certain ideologies. Thankfully none of that came from my parents. I was always safe at home and loved unconditionally. But the "real world" kicked me around something awful from the time I quit high school until I graduated from college nine years later and decided it was okay to just be myself.

Sympthsical

(9,220 posts)
122. I was just keeping it short
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 07:07 PM
Feb 2023

I was raised Irish Catholic, educated by Jesuits in theology at a Catholic university, partnered into a Filipino Catholic family, while my brother married into a Mexican Catholic family. Family affairs are like being at Mardi Gras, but flinging rosary beads.

So there is quite a span to my knowledge and experience of it, and most of the Catholics I know are completely lovely people.

I just didn't feel like getting into it. The point that ideology often replaces religion for many people, that their approaches to ideology and politics often take shapes familiar to religious patterns of thinking, is really the only point I wanted to get at.

A lot of modern ideology consists of ideas about original sin, forever seeking forgiveness for inborn flaws, only allowed enlightenment/elevation if one earnestly believes in the Thing. There are saints and sinners, believers and heretics. Outward displays of devotion and humility before the Thing. Ostracization or seeking punishment towards those who are not obeying current doctrine. Generally followed with a professional (well-paid and self-promoting) class of people who behave as arbitrating priests offering absolution to sinners seeking redemption.

That whole structure is a very solid no for me, and I find the current discussion topic to be completely riddled with it. I firmly believe a lot of the behaviors exhibited can be directly traced back to that thinking pattern that is either inborn somehow or framed out for people early in their development (undecided on this). It's exhausting just to observe. I cannot imagine having that kind of toxic pattern in my life, much less one that demands endless obeisance. Newp newp.

(PS: I read your replies to the AI/Art thread yesterday, I think, and meant to reply about how much I enjoyed reading your perspective about it. I thought it was a pretty thoughtful and unique take on the topic).

 

old as dirt

(1,972 posts)
134. In the Province of Popayán, ...
Sat Feb 4, 2023, 07:51 AM
Feb 2023
but flinging rosary beads

...(outside of the palenques, of course), historically, "a woman slave owner might measure the duration of a flogging by the time it took her to recite her rosary".

The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America

Michael T. Taussig


https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/taussig_devil_commodity.pdf

snip---------

Part II: The Plantations of the Cauca Valley in Colombia

CHAPTER 3: Slave Religion and the Rise of the Free Peasantry


Two generalizations are necessary to any discussion of black slave religion in Latin America. First, the whites were apprehensive of the supernatural powers of their subjects, and vice versa. Second, religion was inseparable from magic, and both permeated everyday life—agriculture, mining, economy, healing, marital affairs, and social relations in general. The Inquisition, for instance, regarded the occult arts that were drawn from the three continents not as idle fantasies but as the exercise of supernatural powers, including an explicit or implicit pact with the devil. The African slaves brought their mysteries and sorcery, the Indians their occult powers to cure or kill, and the colonists their own belief in magic (Lea, 1908:462).

The magical lore of the European was joined to that of the despised African and Indian to form a symbiosis, transformation, and adaptation of forms unknown to each group. This process was most obvious in beliefs concerning illness and healing. The Europeans had few efficacious medical resources, and their curing depended heavily on religious and magical faith: masses, prayers to the saints, rosary beads, holy water, and miracles wrought by priests and folk curers. The indoctrination of African slaves by Catholic priests focused on curing, which exploited the miracle-yielding power of the Christian pantheon to the utmost (Sandoval, 1956). Conversely, the Europeans availed themselves of their subjects' magic, which was not distinguished from religion. In fact, the Europeans defined African and Indian religion not merely as magic but as evil magic. "It is in this trance," writes Gustavo Otero, referring to the first days of the conquest, "that the conquerors became the conquered" (1951: 128). That restless dialectic of magical counterattributions persists in popular culture to the present day.

Colonization and enslavement inadvertently delivered a special mystical power to the underdog of colonial society—the power of mystic evil as embodied in the Christians' fear of the devil. The quasi-Manichaean dualistic cosmology of the conquerors coexisted with the polytheistic or animistic monism of the African slaves and Indians, so that the conquerors stood to the conquered as God did to the devil. Thus, the popular religion of Spanish America was stamped with ethnic and class dualisms of this momentous order —ever susceptible to mercurial inversions in accordance with the shifting currents of caste and class power.

The Inquisition was founded in Cartagena in the early seventeenth century for reasons that included the Church Fathers' judgment of the colony as the "most vicious and sinful in the Spanish Dominions, [with] the faith on the point of destruction" (Lea, 1908 :456). Female slaves served as healers to such exalted personages as the bishop of Cartagena and the inquisitors themselves, while others were lashed when their occult powers were defined as evil, especially when epidemics of witchcraft were raging. Male sorcerers (brujos) became important leaders in the runaway slave camps (palenques} which caused the authorities endless concern (Borrego Pla, 1973 :27, 83; Tejado Fernandez, 1954:117-32). As intermediaries for Satan, such leaders supposedly initiated their converts in a ritual that mocked Christian baptism and denied God, the saints, and the Virgin Mary in order to achieve salvation in the afterlife and wealth and power in the here and now. This system of belief expresses the specter of social inversion. Teleologically ordered by the Supreme God, the hierarchy of social forms defined by class, color, and sex engendered its mirror image in the fears or hopes of an underworld allied with Satan.

Blacks were notorious for their militantly anti-Christian outbursts, which were macabrely ritualized in the sine qua non of slavery, flogging; at such times it was not unusual for the victim to cry, "I denounce God!" (Medina, 1889:106; cf., Palmer, 1975). They also destroyed symbols of the church—hardly surprising in a society in which, for example, a woman slave owner might measure the duration of a flogging by the time it took her to recite her rosary (Meiklejohn, 1968:216).

Writing in 1662, the chief inquisitor attributed much of the sorcery and idolatry in the mining districts to the heedless materialism of the mineowners, who "live only for profit. . . and keep watch only that the slaves accomplish their daily labor and care for nothing else" (Medina, 1889:12,0). Ostensibly, this sorcery could not only kill and maim people but also destroy the fruits of the earth—a claim still heard in connection with alleged devil pacts made by plantation laborers in the southern Cauca Valley. The pact will increase their productivity and their wage, but renders the canefield barren. Yet, the same laborers, working as peasants on their own or their neighbors' plots around the plantations or as independent subsistence dwellers in the jungles of the Pacific coast, reputedly spurn such pacts. Zaragoza, the mining area referred to, was the scene of one of Colombia's greatest slave revolts, which, according to observers, attempted to exterminate the whites and destroy the mines, as well (Vazquez de Espinosa, 1948 :34i).

The spasmodic moment that bridged the lash and the cry of renunciation of the master's God epitomizes the slaves' devil. He can become a figure of solace and power in that war of attrition against the African's culture and humanity itself. In their devil worship, the slaves appropriated their enemy's enemy. Ironically, through its very attempts at suppression, the Church indirectly validated devil worship and invested it with power. By acknowledging fear of the slaves' spiritual powers, the credulous Spanish inadvertently delivered a powerful instrument to their bondsmen. The Spaniards believed that the devil had spawned the heathen African and that the slaves were part of his ministry. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were, after all, the most intense years of the witch cult in Western Europe, the Counter-Reformation, and the Inquisition—an epoch in which the whole of Christendom trembled before the threat of the diabolic and the magician's manipulation of nature.

Ambiguously but persistently, Europeans equated slave folklore and religion, African identity, with the devil (cf., Genovese, 1974: 159-284). But for the African slave the devil was not necessarily the vengeful spirit of evil. He was also a figure of mirth and a powerful trickster. As Melville J. Herskovits pointed out, West Africans understood the European devil as their divine trickster, and their moral philosophy resisted the sharp dichotomy of good and evil espoused by the missionaries (195 8:2 5 3). Today, along the virtually isolated rivers of the Colombian Pacific coast, where blacks were largely left to fend for themselves after emancipation, they have, not one, but several devils, who tempt rather than threaten. The idea of hell among the blacks of the Raposo River only vaguely corresponds to the Christian idea; some people place it in the sky (Pavy, 1967:2,34). Finding their spirits defined as devils or one in particular defined as the devil, the blacks did not readily attribute evil to the "devil," at least not at first. And even if they did, the attribution could have signified hostility to the new order.

Describing the Apo ceremony among the Ashanti, William Bosman wrote during the late seventeenth century:

Conjurors and Miracle-Mongers are no strange things amongst the Negroes: they firmly believe in them, but in a different manner from our European Ridiculous Opinionists; who are persuaded no Conjuror can do any feats without the help of the Devil. For on the contrary, the Negroes do not doubt but that 'tis a gift of God, and though in reality it is a downright cheat, yet they, ignorant of the Fraud, swallow it as a Miracle, and above Humane power; but that the Devil may not in the least participate of the Honour, they ascribe it all to God. [1967:157-58]

Whereas the Spanish ascribed it to the devil! Perturbed by the purely formal character of baptism and conversion, which impeded rather than sustained indoctrination, the outstanding Jesuit Father Alonso de Sandoval wrote during the early seventeenth century from his post in Cartagena: "They worship the devil. . . and when sick they invoke the names of Jesus and Maria" (1956 1, 82). As for "Guinea," he writes, there the devil held such sway and had so many aides that those few people inclined to the Christian faith died without remedy from sorcery or poison. Yet, by his own testimony, it was impossible to proselytize without reinforcing the pagan premises of the potential neophytes.

The enforcement of Christianity entailed those almost insuperable contradictions that made social control difficult for colonialists everywhere. The authorities constrained or suppressed some of the most public expressions of popular religion—for example, the feast days and funerals organized by the black cofiadias (religious brotherhoods) and cabildos (councils)—which augmented the solidarity of slaves and free blacks, encouraged liberation, and maintained an African tradition in the New World (Acosta Saignes, 1967:202-5; Bastide, 1971 9). Yet, paradoxically, one of the reasons for allowing the formation of such cofiadias and cabildos in the first place had been to further control over the black population (Bastide, 1971; Ortiz, 1921).

The scanty accounts of Christianization suggest that conversion and consolidation of belief remained little more than a formality throughout the entire epoch of slavery. Indeed, Sandoval (1956:198) echoed the common observation that the slave owners regarded Christianized slaves as more rebellious and as poorer workers than those not indoctrinated and would pay less for them (Sandoval, 1956:198; cf., Bowser, 1974 9; King, 1939:16-17). Whites were not only disinclined to buy Christianized slaves but tried to prevent their conversion, at times telling them that baptism was bad. According to Jose Toribio Medina, slave owners, reluctant to pay the costs of lengthy inquiries and penalties, encouraged their slaves to disappear if they were on the Inquisition's wanted list (1889). As a result, an underground African or quasi-African religion seems to have flourished, at least during the early years, syncretized with ardent faith in the miracle powers of Christ and the saints—powerful spirits who could be appealed to for earthly succor.

In 1771 the Bishop of Popayan, capital of the Cauca region of south-west Colombia, complained bitterly that his attempts to catechize the slaves and prevent their being worked on Sundays and feast days encountered the firm opposition of the slave owners. He believed that clerical mine speculators were identifying too closely with the exploiters of their slave flocks (King, 1939:217). The right of the slaves to rest on feast days, of which there was at least one a week in addition to Sundays, was hotly disputed by the Cauca mine owners during the eighteenth century. Yet, in a study of the health of slaves in New Granada, David Lee Chandler concludes that for many slaves the Church's insistence on rest days "must have . . . prolonged their lives" (1972:238). On these days they could also earn the wherewithal to buy their freedom, but many Cauca slave owners responded by reducing the food and clothing ration of the slaves. In these circumstances the feast days may have inclined the slaves favorably toward the Church and added a religious rationale to their opposition to their masters.

Priests were in short supply, and few gave much attention to Christianizing slaves. "As a result," writes Norman Meiklejohn, "many of Colombia's Negroes were blithely ignorant of Christianity's true meaning and of its moral precepts" (1968:287,- cf., Pons, 1806, i: 160). Yet surely this "ignorance" cannot be explained only by the shortage of priests. Black popular religion could hardly endorse slavery and all it implied, nor could the slaves remain content with equality in God's eyes but not in their own. But only with the breakdown of the colonial hegemony and the power of the Church could a radical interpretation of Christianity surface fully, as it did in the chiliastic doctrine espoused by the radical liberals from the 1840s onward. In the opinion of Ramon Mercado, native of Cali and Liberal party governor of the Cauca region between 1850 and 1852, it was precisely Christianity in its true sense that was astir among the oppressed classes as a result of their condition and the authorities' abuse of doctrine. The slave owners and their priests taught a perversion of Christianity, which eventually facilitated their overthrow. His accusation was leveled not against Christianity, which he saw as innately liberating, but against the slave owners and the Church, whose preaching "was reduced to the idea of a terrifying God so as to exalt the large landowners, inculcate blind respect for the privileged classes, . . . combat with the threat of eternal punishment in hell the libertarianism threatening their hegemony, . . . and to erect as sins the slightest action of the poor and devalued classes" (1853 :xi-xii, Ixxix). As Mercado astutely observed, it became a moot point who was practicing idolatry, the rulers or the ruled. The tremendous power of the slave owners, nowhere greater than in Cauca, engendered a religious fanaticism prone to violence.

With the impulse set afoot by the unsettling conditions of the French Revolution and the Wars of Independence from Spain, the diabolical God of the slave owners spawned an antithetical vision of the holy cause among the subject classes—a radical Catholic Utopia, anarchist and egalitarian, founded in the sacred ways of nature. Confidently assuming the support of the masses, Mercado declared, "We have to drag into the light of Christianity the iniquities that they have committed against the people. The people know that their rights should not be at the mercy of rulers, but that they are immanent in nature, inalienable and sacred" (1853 : Ixxix).

snip-------

(pp. 41-46)

https://www.amazon.com/Devil-Commodity-Fetishism-South-America/dp/0807871338

WDLAL

(36 posts)
45. I also hope your job situation improves.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 07:52 AM
Feb 2023

Like you, I’ve lived all my life in Texas. POC have always been the minority, but always a part of the communities in which I’ve lived. My experience has been that every ethnicity is composed of mostly decent people, along with a small percentage who are not so nice and a smaller percentage who are evil.

cilla4progress

(24,860 posts)
27. To my mind it's about the culture,
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:21 AM
Feb 2023

not individuals.

Predominant white culture - or a significant and loud part - is very offensive to me.

Sympthsical

(9,220 posts)
50. What about "white culture" is offensive?
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 08:10 AM
Feb 2023

I'd also be interested to know what white culture is considered to be. I think anyone's answer to that would be very revealing of how they perceive the world.

And are there any other cultures that are predominantly offensive, or is it just the, uh, white one?

My partner's Filipino from a big family with mostly Filipino friends, so my house is kind of revolving door of Filipinos. My friends and social group is predominantly non-white. I don't think I could go up to any of them, glance at the bad traits among the ones I don't get along with, and feel comfortable holding forth on "The problem with Filipino culture is . . ."

At least not without coming across like a complete flaming asshole before I hit the second sentence of the thought.

It's possible to hate parts of culture. We all do. We talk about gun culture or evangelical culture or influencer culture. That's behavior. Criticize away.

Once you just decide, "Well that whole race sucks," uh, that's not good. And it really shouldn't be worn as a badge. It's certainly signalling something, but not what one thinks.

 

old as dirt

(1,972 posts)
59. In historical writings, ...
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 09:09 AM
Feb 2023

...I usually see it written as "la cultura mayor".

I'd also be interested to know what white culture is considered to be.

My wife's ancestors ran away from their masters and established their own culture centuries ago.

Invisibles - Las Guerrillas Del Patia

(Audio-generated closed captions translated into the language of your choice.)





Vivimos del Mate (page 60)

https://www.amazon.com/Vivimos-del-mate-testimonios-afropatianas/dp/9587321979

cilla4progress

(24,860 posts)
108. Ok let's unpack, shall we?
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:47 PM
Feb 2023

First of alll do you have the stats on membership in the R v. D party by race? I don't have them at my fingertips, but there is a distinct correlation of party membership by race. And as we know, political party membership at this time says a lot about one's values and character.

A propos:

Share a post. https://post.news/article/2LEcTeqZOiMyLClW3uzqiynrfxe

Two - I mis-spoke, I did. Instead of white, I should have said western, culture

Western - north Eusopean - culture for the last 500 years has been characterized by domination, religious wars, exploitation, imperialism. Along with industrial and tech innovation (the good part) which fueled exploiitation, came enslavement and genocide.

I come from and have worked in other non-white BIPOC communities. I think marginalized populations develop a survival mentaity which often encompasses a unique music, art, humor ..think Yiddish or AA.

The non-western homes I entered still had a multi-generational family structure, were reclaiming language and tradtitions that they highly valued that had been stamped out and CRIMINALIZED by their white European colonizers. So, indigenous. Whose wisdom I highly admire and believe will resurrect our planet once western civilization has (thankfully) obliterated itself. I suggest Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer as a starting place.

Perhaps also because I am largely a creature of western / white culture ‐ which has for too long been centered - I find other cultures more interesting and attractive.

It's perfectly ok to prefer some cultures over others, in my book: LGBTQ or feminist over cis male; Parisian or Viennese;.outdoor bros; Latin music and dance; 17th century Ming.

It's hard not to sound patronizing in one's admiration. depending....

I hope this clarifies a little bit about my views.


 

BlackSkimmer

(51,308 posts)
43. This thread is fascinating.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 07:29 AM
Feb 2023

I won't make any further comment except to say your last two sentences are spot on.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
54. Apparently no for people who don't realize that white on white
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 08:48 AM
Feb 2023

racism is as real as imagining that the only humans capable of it are white. Everyone else is another species?

Racism is racism. Can't help wonder how many people REALLY don't understand that. This thread would have been gone before the third response if the title had invited others to talk about how sick they are of black people. Let it all hang out.

Oh, my people.

ismnotwasm

(42,042 posts)
107. Racism is a by-product of a power structure
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:38 PM
Feb 2023

Race isn’t real in the biological sense. It’s a made up social system, like completely made up. A lie, if you will.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
111. :) Right. Presumably, if all those who're sick of white people
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 02:10 PM
Feb 2023

in America moved to black-power-structure Nigeria they'd be sick of the racist behaviors of black people instead -- and in that situation it wouldn't be at all racist to ascribe what they didn't like in some to all with black skin.

Or, do I have it wrong? Would the only racists in Nigeria still also be all white people?

I have trouble following these made-up lies.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
131. :) I glanced down this sorry thread and noticed the typical
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 09:55 PM
Feb 2023

had been happening -- after an unfortunate beginning that could make one wonder if he clicked on the wrong forum, thoughtful people seemingly feel obliged to weigh in.

RobinA

(9,940 posts)
58. Yeah, This
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 09:05 AM
Feb 2023

I work in a situation that is about 50/50 black and white. I'm white. There is plenty of stupid to go around. I don't like the us vs. them vibe that permeates everything, flowing in both directions. I do my job and return to my office, which houses two whites, one black and one Hispanic. We all get along well. Otherwise I don't fraternize much with anyone, it's really not a good atmosphere.

Oneironaut

(5,559 posts)
79. This. It's like the "noble savage" cliche, even if unintended.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 10:27 AM
Feb 2023

A lot of people everywhere suck. Only being tired of white people shows that you’re around white people a lot.

The “noble savage” cliche, or, related “magic negro” cliche are invoked in movies and entertainment depicting a minority being almost too pure for this world, and often literally possessing magic powers. Also, Spike Lee described the “magic negro” cliche as racist - in movies / works such as The Green Mile.

I apologize if this is offensive.

Sympthsical

(9,220 posts)
99. That is the first phrase that came to mind
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:17 PM
Feb 2023

I was going to use it, but then wondered if that wasn't going to open a whole other can of mess that would just end up being a distraction. But that is 100% a phrase that was in my head as I read the OP and responded.

"Only being tired of white people shows that you’re around white people a lot."

Bingo. That's what I think gets revealed in a lot of the commentary. I just don't think people who exist in diverse environments think in this in-group/out-group way all the time. The attitude and rhetoric feels compensatory for something they're not doing. If your life is full of people of other races and experiences with other cultures, you're not spending a lot of time navel-gazing the issue. I don't mean racism in general, which forever needs dealing with, but the concern with having to declare yourself or others are this or that thing. It's like people who talk about how tough they are all day. Actually tough people don't need to declare it. It's self-evident.

And yep on the "magical" trope. Also in my head when reading the description of the other companies. "These people from another race are there to fix my problems." And that's exactly why I used that word.

You definitely picked up what I was throwing down.

GusBob

(7,286 posts)
105. Immersion in another culture
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:34 PM
Feb 2023

As a health care provider for the IHS going on 7 years now, my life is most def "fulll of people of other races and cultures" Going on 4 years now, I am the only white male living on a very remote Reservation. The stories I could tell but shall not.

Suffice it to say, one definitely gets an understanding of what it's like to be a minority, but no, I do not spend much time contemplating it. Too busy

I know a native fella that works on a big ranch and he tells me about the racist jokes he gets. I asked him: does it not bother you?
He goes: 'man I got too much other shit to worry about than that'

treestar

(82,383 posts)
93. Also like the decisions to appoint someone
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:28 PM
Feb 2023

because of their race, etc.

I heard the cringey argument that there are plenty of people qualified to be Supreme Court justices, and now it's a black woman's turn, as there have not been any before. (In response to right wing arguments she is getting it due to skin color).

That really undermines Justice Jackson Lee. There aren't plenty of people who qualify for that rare, top spot. She was the most qualified jurist, the best in the US not already on the Supreme Court, and she deserves that credit.

That argument says sure there are a lot of white people and black men who are just as good as she, but she gets the spot because of her skin color. Making the right wingers correct!

So the proclamations of "see how not racist I am" are invalid. If you use that argument, anyway. Who is the one saying she was not the best one for the job, just that the spot needed to be filled by a black woman? They don't even get how racist they are being.

Skittles

(153,485 posts)
13. OH DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:30 AM
Feb 2023

right now I am often mistaken for the local KAREN (we do look a lot alike), a true racist asshole - OMFG, UGH

Demobrat

(9,087 posts)
16. What I get sick of
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:37 AM
Feb 2023

is people whose parents were immigrants, and even people who came to this country as young children with immigrant parents, wanting to slam the door behind them.

I live in San Francisco. I have heard this from Italians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Arabs, and Irish. And some I’m forgetting.

One minute they’re talking about how they came to this country when they were children, and the next they’re complaining about immigration.

Okay for me but not for thee. It makes me feel like my head is about to explode.

TexasBushwhacker

(20,272 posts)
20. Then there are the ones who want them to BUILD THAT WALL!
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:43 AM
Feb 2023

But hire undocumented house cleaners, landscapers, etc. The lady that cleans our office and their house is from Colombia. I asked if I should be preparing a 1099 for her and was told not to.

RobinA

(9,940 posts)
64. It Was Always Thus
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 09:18 AM
Feb 2023

People have been like that since forever. Hell, even the British settlers had something to say about their counterparts from different PARTS of Britain. Then came my people, Germans. No one could stand them. In turn, they looked down on the Irish, who wrinkled their noses up at the subsequent Italians. I'll never forget a friend of Irish descent telling me how her father wouldn't sit next to an Italian on the bus. I thought to myself how MY relatives looked down on both Irish and Italians and in turn were trash according to the various Brits. My uncle wasn't allowed to marry a Catholic. Everybody wants the bridge blown up after they are across it.

GenThePerservering

(1,945 posts)
17. I've lived in diverse neighborhoods all of my life
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:39 AM
Feb 2023

save for 8 years when I lived in a redneck town (left ASAP). It's weird to me to be around all white people. The white people I know are cool (and cool with diversity) so I can't say I'm sick of them (us).

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
63. Lol, yes. When we moved away from extremely diverse Los Angeles,
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 09:14 AM
Feb 2023

or when a work friend loaned me an "enjoyable" novel and I wondered why it felt increasingly odd until I realized everyone in it was not just white but Anglo. What parallel universe was this?

The white people you "know" are tolerant and accepting of all skin colors, including their own. Of course.
People befriend others who feel as they do.

kelly1mm

(4,749 posts)
19. Nope. Just like I never get sick of black people or brown people of other people. I do get
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:43 AM
Feb 2023

sick of people in general though ......

niyad

(114,302 posts)
21. Stupid, racist white people. I am reading "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:44 AM
Feb 2023

Murders and the Birth of the FBI", and it makes me so sick that I wish I could go back in time, and slap the smug, superior, racist, hate-filled bastards.

TygrBright

(20,788 posts)
22. Oh, god, YES. I'm white, too.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:49 AM
Feb 2023

Sometimes I wanna slap myself for something stupid coming out of my mouth, but mostly it's other people who are just so effing OBLIVIOUS to the damage white people have done and see no reason to think about it, much less try to change it.

Systemic racism continues to be enabled by white people who aren't virulently racist themselves but who don't see why they should put themselves out to change a system that was created based on virulent racism.

"I have >black/Latino/Asian/whatever< friends! I can't be racist!"

::sigh::

wearily,
Bright

rabid_decline

(36 posts)
23. I don't
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:52 AM
Feb 2023

Get along with Anglo people quite well - as a "brown person" who looks more red than brown - or racially ambiguous. Most folks think I might be racially ambiguous, or look Asiatic. I just roll with it. I'm fine with looking racially "vague." Most people can't pidgeonhole what I am. I'm fair skinned but full blooded Chicano - I have some Asiatic features, but Am very fair complected, No one can make much sense of it - but I am Chicano / mixed, with Irish and Germanic lineage sprinkled in with Armenian and Indigenous Mesoamerican blood. So I have given up on even figuring it out. But I am of mixed ethnicities, so the jury is out on all of that. I look like s shorter ersion of Keanu Reeves, so long story short I do not know.

rabid_decline

(36 posts)
24. I get exhausted oer it at times...
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:11 AM
Feb 2023

but a lot of the struggle withing the system or "shitstem" is capitalism eating itself. Some of this is a caste system argument turning the have nots against the half's - and worse yet, turning the mid level strugglers against the "others." As a Dem i find myself deeply troubled - almost endangered by these people. I am not - am NOT scared of them, but I can see, as hope yo all can how troubling it is that they are going to treat democracy with such a swaggart, flippant attitude. They will do this cointininually-the line line of abuse starts with a slap: then they test you. The slap turns into a punch. Then they will punch you. The punch turns into things far worse. This is incremental - and exponential. This is EXACTLY how Narcissism works! We need to stop this at the gate.

Iggo

(47,637 posts)
26. I'm half white and I look white. So yeah, damn near every day.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:17 AM
Feb 2023

Usually after the last brown person leaves the room.

Mr. Evil

(2,872 posts)
28. I really don't care where anyone is from.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:23 AM
Feb 2023

Or, what color their skin is or what language they speak. Nor do I care what their culture is (so long it's pleasing and not demeaning to anyone else) or what they look like. I don't care if they're male or female, gay or straight or bi or trans. We're all a mixed bag.

In my view (nearly 63 years on this rock), there are only 2 kinds of people on this planet: those that are assholes and those that are not assholes.

 

Laura PourMeADrink

(42,770 posts)
30. 60% of US population white. Non-white 40%. Seems
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:31 AM
Feb 2023

to a white D anyway, everyone is the same. All humans the same.

littlemissmartypants

(23,014 posts)
32. Yascha Mounk Author, "The Great Experiment"
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:35 AM
Feb 2023

Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure




Yascha Mounk
Author, “The Great Experiment”
In much of the world, democracy is currently under threat by the rise of authoritarianism. Writer Yascha Mounk is known for his work on democratic institutions and liberal values. In his latest book "The Great Experiment," Mounk describes ethnically diverse democracies as the biggest test of our time. He discusses with Walter Isaacson.

❤️pants

JI7

(89,322 posts)
33. I get sick of Right Wingers and Far Left Trolls that are closer to Right Wing than Liberal
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:42 AM
Feb 2023

No matter what race they are. In the US these are mostly white. BUt if you pay attention to politics in other places without white majorities you will see right wingers suck everywhere .

They are usually dominated by insecure, bitter , resentful males that want to drag others down to their misery .

treestar

(82,383 posts)
48. +1
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 08:08 AM
Feb 2023

Watching a documentary on dictators, the Idi Amin section showed that while he was dictator, he scapegoated an Asian/Indian minority that lived in Uganda. Some of the black Ugandans interviewed were racist against the Asians. They were in fact kicked out of the country! Some had been many generations there and didn't have another country.

Pretending nonwhite people are superior is supposed to give people credit for being nonracist, when it just proves they have no problem with racism as long as it is directed in the proper direction.

Response to TexasBushwhacker (Original post)

Sky Jewels

(7,235 posts)
38. Yep. Sick of their entitlement, racism, heads up their asses
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 04:14 AM
Feb 2023

on so many issues. I grew up in white privilege. Im trying to open my eyes and see what I’ve been missing. I’m disgusted that so many tens of millions of white people have really revealed their toxic true selves in recent years.

It’s gotten to the point that I when I hear that another of my parents’ 80-something friends has died my first thought is usually, “well, at least that’s one less racist religious right wing Republican vote.”

Tickle

(2,644 posts)
39. I'm white and I like white people
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 05:09 AM
Feb 2023

I'm proud of who I am. People are people some good some bad. Don't judge by color

malaise

(269,636 posts)
46. If you think you won't find non-whites who think just
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 07:56 AM
Feb 2023

like your boss and his wife, dream on.

And I'm non- white in a predominantly black country.

treestar

(82,383 posts)
47. how is this one whit any better
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 08:05 AM
Feb 2023

than saying you are sick of black people?

It's a form of virtue signalling that is really weird. Who are you trying to impress?

intheflow

(28,535 posts)
78. The difference is:
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 10:25 AM
Feb 2023

white people as a whole have not been deprived of opportunity and had their humanity questioned by everyone from US presidents to the Karens who regularly call cops on Black people for bird watching, catching insects, and kids lemonade stands.

What's virtue-signaling is you jumping on with a holier-than-thou good white liberal POV. You are operating on the assumption we live in a colorblind world. You probably don't even believe that conciously, but this post is the left's version of bothsiderism and dismisses the very basic truth that there are two Americas.

treestar

(82,383 posts)
92. how does that make it OK to be
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:22 PM
Feb 2023

"sick of white people?"

If doing the very thing the nonwhite people have complained about white people doing to them, then you are not against racism. You are only against it as applied to selected groups.

The broad brush that every white person has some sort of power (still) over nonwhite people is used as excuse for hypocrisy. You can't say you are "sick of white people" without making it OK for others to say they are sick of some other color of people.

It doesn't matter that white people have an advantage. How is that advantage, such as it is today, an excuse for generalizing about them in a way you would not permit for any other group? You are not setting an example for any white racists, but giving them an excuse, you hate them, so why can't they hate whatever group they choose?

I'm starting to cringe when white people say these things, because they look like they are just trying to impress nonwhite people that they are OK, and that they may well not get. And they are trying to claim they are better than other white people. Which they may well not be, just because those other people don't trumpet their feelings. It's like the praying out loud when Jesus said don't do that.

intheflow

(28,535 posts)
138. "Not all white people!!!" "White Lives Matter!"
Wed Feb 8, 2023, 10:04 AM
Feb 2023

That's what I hear when I read your posts. Yes, of course, in a perfect world it would be BS for white people to say we're sick of white people. But you've shown your hand in your white advantage even in this post I'm replying to.

"The broad brush that every white person has some sort of power (still) over nonwhite people..."


"It doesn't matter that white people have an advantage. How is that advantage, such as it is today, an excuse for generalizing about them in a way you would not permit for any other group?"


"And they are trying to claim they are better than other white people."


All three of these remarks are racist assumptions that reflect more on the state of white fragility than prove your thesis. Putting "still" in parenthesis indicates you don't really think white people have an advantage over Black people in society.

"Such as it is today" says that you, as a white person, do not think that you have any advantages over Black people, which is baloney at the most basic level. Are you regularly stopped for driving while white, followed around stores by people who assume you're going to steal something, or have the cops called on you for bird watching/jogging/collecting insects/having a phone in your hand/etc.?

And I do not know a single white person, in over 20 years of antiracism work, who thinks they're better than other white people when they acknowledge that white people created and continue to perpetuate most modern systems of oppression, and most of us understand fully that we are complicit even as we work to overcome racism. If you think voicing our frustration with fellow white folk means we think we're better than you, that's 100% projection on your part.

treestar

(82,383 posts)
139. When is the "institutional racism" over
Wed Feb 8, 2023, 06:27 PM
Feb 2023

You're the racist, assuming that it is all permanent, and drawing conclusions from things that may happen to a small minority of other races still, but aren't nearly as bad as 50 years ago. You can be sick of a people due to their race.

And you've resorted to ad hominem, because you could not respond to the point of your making it OK to be sick of white people. If it is OK to be sick of white people, how can you argue that other groups can make people sick of them?

And it's not just white people. Others can be racists against other nonwhite groups. It is America-centrism - you don't know what happens elsewhere.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
67. Even in our semirural blood-red GA county, about 30% vote Democratic
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 09:28 AM
Feb 2023

(local and congressional races are our version of the south's "lost cause" ).

Of course we can find nice white people who feel as we do. And we also have friends who are lifelong conservative Republicans and do not agree with us on political issues -- but are genuine friends nonetheless. (They're very different stuff from those conservatives who in these mean days refuse to be friends -- a basic divide.)

Those who can't find decent people to associate with should look for them where they gather. Don't make the terrible mistake of choosing by skin color, and rejecting people because they're white, or something else -- choose by "liberality of ideas" as Jane Austen's Anne Elliot put it.

Go find a group doing something decent that decent people of any type believe should be done. Decent people will be there, including from the local "30%" or whatever it is of liberals. Or just join a generally liberal group, such as the local Democratic Party. Predominant color will reflect local demographics, not some unfortunate notions of racial superiority and inferiority.

GusBob

(7,286 posts)
72. Vacancy rates
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 09:59 AM
Feb 2023

The vacancy rates in our clinic fluctuates from 30-37% since COVID. This is the same-ish for the 14 clinics in the 3 state district. These are well paid positions with all the benefits plus others culturally related.

I’m a contractor and don’t get bennies, but the vacancy rate for my position is 60%

Very often I read about businesses shutting down or curtailing hours due to short staffed. In town many businesses are always offering hiring. The local sports bar restaurant had to close on Sundays. Think about that a sports bar closed on the weekend

Our own business is short-staffed as well and we offer great pay



intheflow

(28,535 posts)
75. Man, I miss working for smart Black people.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 10:17 AM
Feb 2023

As a white woman in a liberal profession (librarianship), let me just tell you, it ain't just the white Reich wingers that are the problem. It's white culture. I don't doubt my library's leadership sees itself as liberal and supporting diversity, but somehow they can't seem to hire Black or Latino librarians and staff in our 35% Black/40% Latino city. No one on the front lines speaks Spanish. Attempts to change the culture into something resembling DEIB are met with suspicion and resistance, and trying to push for it will lead to being shut out of promotions. (I know this from personal experience.) Any kind of lliberatory work to change the culture from helping poor people to helping our neighbors is shut down immediately

Meanwhile, when I worked for a Black-run non-profit, we worked on very heavy subjects and we also had fun, thoughtful discussions, the workplace was a community in and of itself, and was also a vital part of the larger community we served. Our service to the community was based on community needs and feedback, not what passes for "service" in my library (book clubs reading white authors, computer classes to teach the poor masses of the 21st Century, etc.). My boss and coworkers took the time to get to know me and allowed me to get to know them. It was a cooperative, thoughtful, and focused organization, and I really, really miss it.

LizBeth

(9,954 posts)
81. I had a post on FB the other day where they were talking black people and a string
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 10:47 AM
Feb 2023

started yelling thugs. I do not even remember what it was about but in that thread I went off being damn sick and tired of fuggin white people and their racism. Later that day I got flagged by FB and told I was not behaving by FB community standards and got the post deleted and a demerit or something. Ya.... Pretty damn tired of white people.

Happy Hoosier

(7,526 posts)
83. No. And I think saying that is weird.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 11:07 AM
Feb 2023

I‘m not sick of “white people” at all. I am white. Most of my friends are white. I love my cultural heritage. I fucking HATE MAGAts, and I hate fucks who can’t recognize their own privilege. Racism sucks.

kacekwl

(7,037 posts)
86. Seriously I am fed up with stupid
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 11:42 AM
Feb 2023

people in general. Black, white and otherwise. Way too many in my opinion.

mvd

(65,190 posts)
87. Sure, I get frustrated with other white people
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 11:47 AM
Feb 2023

Especially white men. Yes, plenty of white people voted sensibly, but their voting patterns enabled TFG to get in the WH and the Repuke party to get as bad as it has.

forthemiddle

(1,384 posts)
89. No, I'm just sick of self righteous people
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 11:53 AM
Feb 2023

Self righteous people that hurt themselves patting themselves on the back about how open minded they are.

What a stupid thread, and we wonder why we have more and more trouble attracting the suburban and rural voters. You know the people that “vote against their best interests”?
Maybe because they just read a thread about how the majority of Democrats are “sick of them”.

ForgedCrank

(1,804 posts)
96. Sometimes it's
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:54 PM
Feb 2023

hard for me to hang on and even has me questioning my associations on occasion as well.
Daily, I see multiple threads and comments about how awful Christians are, and wide blankets being cast that denounce an entire race of humans.
I just keep telling myself it's not everyone who thinks like this.

ismnotwasm

(42,042 posts)
106. What is self righteous about acknowledging whiteness as a destructive social system?
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:36 PM
Feb 2023

Race is a completely made up category. As in no biology basis in fact. Yet here we are, aren’t we? It is up to white peoples to start talking to each other about these topics, power structures like racism

You think the damage goes away, that everyone and everything will be ok, by stating “all lives matter” “I don’t see color” or the like?

Try looking up black codes as a starting point. You want to have a conversation, I’m game, but let’s get our history straight

Initech

(100,202 posts)
94. People want to work. Employers don't want to pay workers a fair wage.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 12:37 PM
Feb 2023

It's way past time we start changing that talking point, which I'm sure is a product of Fox and AM radio.

Fix The Stupid

(952 posts)
102. Embrace it my friend - this is the direction the left wants to go...
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:27 PM
Feb 2023

I am sick of it. What used to be an excellent site has deteriorated to the point where such an obvious, blatant, RACIST attempt @ trolling is not only allowed to stand, but is embraced by the posters here...

Let that sink in for a minute. The thread STILL has not been deleted...

They give so much power and influence to every white person - it's just jaw-dropping amazing to see.

Reminds of the old Bill Hicks joke...

"Heck...if I thought the Jews killed Christ...I'd worship the Jews. There's some bad MF'ers on that team!".

Same exact situation here.... if all White people have this much power over you, over all your thoughts, actions, etc - why aren't they being worshiped as some all powerful, all knowing entity that can magically exert influence over EVERY aspect of peoples lives???

Sounds like Omnipresence...Sounds like Divinity...

Can't these people see this???



ismnotwasm

(42,042 posts)
113. Not for me it's not
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 02:48 PM
Feb 2023

It’s a way of life. A way of thinking. Not so much “white ppl get on my nerves”, as “whiteness needs to end” I can’t believe people are #notallwhitepeople this topic when Florida is in the middle of a white, fascist takeover, (literally, textbook fascism too, NOT hyperbole) with other racist states watching, and planning on using Florida as template

Sure, the OP was a tad inelegant, but rather than joining a needed conversation, poster after poster is shutting it down. Everything to ‘this is why we lose elections’ to ‘meh, virtue signaling’ ignoring, for example the Black vote, specifically the Black women vote that has carried us again and again and again.

Trump is a creation of Whiteness and economics, the more malignant forces are setting the buffoon aside, and getting closer to what they really want, which is to uphold the power system of white supremacy this country is built on.

But sure. Virtue signaling. That’s me.





betsuni

(25,941 posts)
114. Trump is a cartoon of whiteness. How he dresses, what he eats, how he talks, everything.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 04:15 PM
Feb 2023

Years ago that "What White People Like" blog came out and became popular, but it took a long time for people to get it. Hundreds of comments after every edition of something white people like that "I'm white and I don't like that." Some can't see the culture as a whole and make fun of it, get defensive. That's a shame.

An incredibly white thing was in 2016 to vote third party because "Voting my conscience," also "Lesser of two evils."

TheProle

(2,231 posts)
140. I don't think it should be deleted
Wed Feb 8, 2023, 06:47 PM
Feb 2023

but I do think you and many others participating in it should be embarrassed.

Caliman73

(11,764 posts)
101. No. I get sick of systemic racism, and as others have said, stupid people, or all kinds.
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:25 PM
Feb 2023

Because people who are identified as White, have benefitted more than others from the way that the American system of laws and societal norms were set up, certainly there is more opportunity for them to be ignorant and stupid about how racism affects everyone.

I often use the analogy of fish and whales. both creatures live in water, both have a level of proficiency living in the water, but because fish are able to breathe in water, they are likely much less aware of the water. It is just the environment they live in. Whales can hold their breath for a long long time, but they can die in the water from drowning. They have to be aware at all times, that they are in their environment, but that environment, while suited to them in most ways, can also be deadly.

White, is the "default" color, even in spaces where White is the minority, because of the legacy of White Supremacy and Colonization. You can argue that it isn't even considered a "color". Whenever some right winger wants to start an argument about race and how racism doesn't exist, I always start with, "Before we start discussing any issues, I want you to define, what a White person is, and you have to define it affirmatively, meaning you cannot base your definition on what White is NOT."

When they inevitably cannot come up with a concise and cogent definition of what a White person is, then I say, how can we have a conversation about racism if you can't even define a major component of what we would be arguing about?

White is an exclusionary term, as are terms like Black and Brown. The difference is that White, as I said, is the "default" it is the "norm" and what all other "types" of people are judged against.

There is ignorance, stupidity, and anger all around us. White people, as another person said, do not have the monopoly on that. It is just that they tend to have more power within the systems we live in, so when they express those things, there is more power and can be more destruction behind it.

Silent3

(15,493 posts)
109. I'd never put it like that. I can be well aware of my privilege and the political bent...
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 01:53 PM
Feb 2023

…of the majority of white people without turning it in racial self-hate.

I do find it troubling to realize that whenever I see another white male around my own age (60) that the odds are I’m looking at a Republican, someone who calls themselves independent but who typically votes Republican, or maybe someone who doesn’t bother to vote but who would probably spout a bunch of right wing BS if you scratched the surface.

Married white women sadly aren’t politically very different from white men either, just a few percentage points of difference.

If it weren’t for people of color, the younger people who get out and vote, and single women, we’d be deep into fascist authoritarianism right now. I’m of course grateful for my demographic compatriots who have more enlightened views as well.

WarGamer

(12,573 posts)
121. I think this is shallow and offensive. My answer to you is "No. I don't"
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 06:37 PM
Feb 2023

In reality...

There is NO PROBLEM with White, Black, Brown, Green, Red, Yellow or Blue people.

We have a serious problem with ASSHOLES.

ASSHOLES come in all colors.

I'm "anti-asshole"... meaning I fight against people who are mean, treat people unfairly, lack compassion and think too highly of themselves.

And those bad people can be and ARE any and all colors.

Unrec.

Kaleva

(36,474 posts)
127. Most of us DUers in LTRs are in a relationship with someone of our own race
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 08:32 PM
Feb 2023

This is my guess and not based on any actual facts.

betsuni

(25,941 posts)
133. I don't understand the accusations in this thread that saying you're sick of your own group is the
Fri Feb 3, 2023, 10:51 PM
Feb 2023

same as saying you're sick of an entirely different group, substitute ____ for white people and it would be racist. Huh?

As a member of the group, you have criticism/joke immunity.


GusBob

(7,286 posts)
135. Quite an exaggerated conflation of events hey?
Sat Feb 4, 2023, 10:04 AM
Feb 2023

He didn’t like his job so white people suck

Hope none of his clients are white, for their sake

EX500rider

(10,902 posts)
136. So you think if a black person posted they "were sick of black people" on this site..
Sat Feb 4, 2023, 12:49 PM
Feb 2023

...it would be well received with many posters agreeing? lol

MichMan

(12,029 posts)
137. I suggest the OP consider looking into the mirror every day and punch themselves in the face
Sun Feb 5, 2023, 02:40 PM
Feb 2023

They might find it therapeutic

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