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Fri, 24 May 2024 17:08:27 +0200

starwall@wizzzard.online

white people will never be able to understand black and indigenous power as anything other than domineering or seeking to become top of a power pyramid because that's all they can imagine power doing. Diseased by white supremacy so immensely that they can't even imagine that phrases like "Palestine will be free" could mean anything other than genocidal hegemony.

show all 43 comments

Fri, 24 May 2024 17:14:36 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@ᔅᑕᕐᐗᓪ Isn't that a tad bit racist?

I sympathise with what you're trying to say, but doing that with a gross generalisation about whites seems a bit counter-intuitive.

Fri, 24 May 2024 17:26:56 +0200

Swiff, Alenessendil Curuvartur

swiff@wizzzard.online

@hans @starwall thanks for illustrating the point. Now, never interact with my instance again.

Fri, 24 May 2024 17:32:39 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@Swiff, Alenessendil Curuvartur Is what I say incorrect, or do you react like this because you see the problem too?

Fri, 24 May 2024 17:33:15 +0200

ᔅᑕᕐᐗᓪ

starwall@wizzzard.online

@hans no. I say this as someone of mixed native and white descent. Racism is a system of oppression, a system of oppression which serves to divide the power of the working class to fight among itself. It is old and entrenched. White people benefit from its spoils both generationally and through the continued exploitation of the periphery and invasion of indigenous lands. There are instances where non-white people are both post colonial and the colonizers, like in the case of Indonesia, of course, but racism and 'race science' is a concept invented by white supremacists. When we study these things that's critical race theory and it's not racism but instead an analysis of existing racial relations. Racism is inherently a question of defining whiteness, however once you realize this, you can rebel against those systems of oppression, become an anti-racist. This is not at all equivalent to being a racist. Perhaps in a world where Europe hadn't conquered and subjugated nearly all of the rest of the world leaving not a single country untouched then the discussion would be different, but we are all prisoners to social-historical context

Fri, 24 May 2024 17:37:41 +0200

Swiff, Alenessendil Curuvartur

swiff@wizzzard.online

@hans I'm gonna put it as succinct as I can: racism, as a systemic tool of oppression, does not exist against white people. White supremacy is the hegemony, and liberatory projects by those who have been historically repressed by that hegemony are, definitionally, not racist in mistrusting or critiquing whites as a population.

It is not meaningful, revolutionary, or kind to police their every word to ensure they are leaving room for "the good sort" of white person.

In conversations like this one, the onus is on white people to listen, to internalize, and to not disrupt important work and dialogue because their feelings got hurt when someone shouted the word "Honkey." Whether you are aware or not, that is what your reply did here: centered your own feelings in a conversation which is not about you.

Fri, 24 May 2024 17:57:55 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@Swiff, Alenessendil Curuvartur I'm going to make this short, because I'm working on a mobile phone atm.

We agree on racism being bad, and we agree on quite a few more things too.

But we seem to disagree on the definition of racism. The original post associated power hunger and oppression with whites.

If you take a step back and look at that, don't you think that's the same mechanism as "all blacks are thieves"? It's attributing flaws in the world to a specific group of people, based on race (and yes, I know that there aren't even different human races, we are all homo sapiens).

Don't blame a group of people with one skin color for any problem, can we agree on that?

Fri, 24 May 2024 17:58:04 +0200

ᔅᑕᕐᐗᓪ

starwall@wizzzard.online

@hans @swiff reverse racism cannot be real until a system of oppression can be leveraged against white people, a thing which nobody, literally anywhere, is suggesting or able to do. white supremacy are the shackles, they must be broken, black and indigenous power movements are key to that because they understand well through lived experience the systems of imperialism and how they must be dismantled. Anti-whiteness isn't racism, it's social justice, anti-colonialism.

A lot of the times all the rest of the world is asking for is and end to the oppression and the killing, a very easy thing to deliver on. The West and its almost entirely white ruling classes are deaf to all pleading for human decency. Instead, they threaten to starve, sanction, or make war on the rest of the world. This is the context, it cannot be ignored. Racism and white supremacy are the same concept, the same system. Anti whiteness cannot be racist because it works entirely in anti-racist ways to empower classes and peoples oppressed by the current world order. For more on this read Settlers: Myth of the White Proletariat.

Fri, 24 May 2024 18:01:28 +0200

ᔅᑕᕐᐗᓪ

starwall@wizzzard.online

@hans @swiff your definition of racism fails to have any historical or present day context whatsoever. Racism, race science, white supremacy, they are all the same oppressive system, the same social construct. What you are taking about here is prejudice alone, which is a different but related concept

Fri, 24 May 2024 18:10:02 +0200

Swiff, Alenessendil Curuvartur

swiff@wizzzard.online

@hans we can't agree because we are having different conversations.

You are trying to get me to admit that racism against white people is equally heinous as racism against non white people, and I am telling you that that is not a relevant question when the subject is global hegemony and power structure. Which it was and is, in this thread that you are going out of your way to hijack.

I will say again: as the hegemonic bearers of power, both historically and present, white people-- in the global collective sense-- MUST come to understand that this mess is our doing. Must come to understand that the playing field is not and never has been equal.

So-called "anti white racism" is clearly and demonstrably not a problem which collectively holds white people down and denies them agency. I refuse to accept the premise of your argument which hinges upon denying the existence of that greater context in favor of "awww but their poor white feelings"

If someone has their jack boot on someone else's windpipe, and then gets punched in the face, I don't consider the throat-stomping and the punch equal crimes, do you get it?

Fri, 24 May 2024 18:58:26 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans Whiteness is an invention, the utilization of which requires it to be 'naturalized,' treated as an inherent quality of people that they "are white," and to the extent that they engage in whiteness, indeed they are, though not as a biological category but as a political one tied inextricably to the colonial project writ large. A people can be granted whiteness, and it can be taken away.

Fri, 24 May 2024 19:08:29 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans In any case if by "racism" you are not referring to the same thing as others, then "racism is bad" from you is merely formally similar to "racism is bad" from them. They aren't the same statements. You cannot be said to be in agreement if you are not in agreement with, or even familiar with, the terms. The actual statements may be substantively different, as they certainly are here.

Fri, 24 May 2024 20:31:46 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@ᔅᑕᕐᐗᓪ @Swiff, Alenessendil Curuvartur This is turning into an interesting discussion. Glad to see that, this is a subject that could do with a bit of discussion, especially between different "racial" groups.

I'm going to pick out a few things here and there and react to those.

starwall@wizzzard.online wrote:

I say this as someone of mixed native and white descent. Racism is a system of oppression, a system of oppression which serves to divide the power of the working class to fight among itself. It is old and entrenched.

It is certainly used for oppression, absolutely. Not only to keep the working class fighting among themselves, but to suppress anyone "other than us"; based on what we call race, but since there aren't any different races of homo sapiens, it's usually based on skin color, nationality, creed or anything else that separates "us" from "them".

And yes, it is old, veeeeery old. I think it's as old as mankind, honestly. I really think it's part of our evolutionary heritage, to want to protect our group of people from the one in the other cave (which, in prehistoric times, made sense). And as a result, we've seen racism since written history, in all parts of the world. Racism is probably even older than whites, because whiteness is quite new in the human evolution.

starwall@wizzzard.online wrote:

Racism is inherently a question of defining whiteness, however once you realize this, you can rebel against those systems of oppression, become an anti-racist.

Not sure if I understand what you mean by this. You seem to tie whiteness to a privileged position in the world, correct? I think we can agree that whites have a disproportionately better position worldwide than non-whites, but does that make those whites racist? They thank their better position to the consequences of centuries of racism, but does that make them racist?

I am speaking as a 100% white, who was born and raised in an almost 100% white, European world, so our backgrounds are fundamentally different. I have never experienced racism or discrimination, so I'm looking at the problem from a fundamentally different angle. I am fully aware of that.

swiff@wizzzard.online wrote:

I will say again: as the hegemonic bearers of power, both historically and present, white people-- in the global collective sense-- MUST come to understand that this mess is our doing. Must come to understand that the playing field is not and never has been equal.

Agree, completely. That's why I consider myself a socialist: I believe in equality for all. But I don't like the concept of connecting oppression to skin color, for me that's the exact same mistake as is made the other way around. If my image of America is correct, you can't drive a car there without being pulled over by the police every five minutes if your skin is too dark.

swiff@wizzzard.online wrote:

So-called "anti white racism" is clearly and demonstrably not a problem which collectively holds white people down and denies them agency. I refuse to accept the premise of your argument which hinges upon denying the existence of that greater context in favor of "awww but their poor white feelings"

I think I haven't explained my view clearly enough, sorry. I don't care about what people call me, this isn't about feelings. In this thread I was called "honky" for the first time in my life, and that's fine. That word doesn't really mean anything to me: I have never been at the receiving end of racism, so it doesn't hit an already bruised part of me.

But if I had been called that over and over and over again, all my life, in a way that's meant to say "you're inferiour to me/us because of your skin color", I'm sure it would actually have hurt.

swiff@wizzzard.online wrote:

If someone has their jack boot on someone else's windpipe, and then gets punched in the face, I don't consider the throat-stomping and the punch equal crimes, do you get it?

I get that, yes, and I agree. But you're calling both of them crimes, and that's precisely my point here: racism is wrong, no matter who it's aimed at.

Fri, 24 May 2024 20:37:36 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social wrote:

You cannot be said to be in agreement if you are not in agreement with, or even familiar with, the terms. The actual statements may be substantively different, as they certainly are here.

There are definitely different ideas about what racism means, and I'm trying to understand how that works. Only thing I can do to get familiar with the terms, as used outside my personal world, is engage in discussions about it. I'm actively trying to understand things.

I'm not trying to "hijack" this thread, as someone suggested, I'm only trying to understand the position of "anti-white racism isn't bad". To me, that's a double standard.

Fri, 24 May 2024 20:54:34 +0200

🪨 stone 🪨

stone_@octodon.social

@hans silence fascist

when the new red army crushes the imperialist states i will come for you personally

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:04:06 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@🪨 stone 🪨 That's constructive...

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:06:25 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans It's not that people are saying "anti-white racism isn't bad," but rather, that "anti-white" racism is not real, and in fact is unreal in multiple ways. The very concept of anti-white racism is nonsensical as whiteness is not a biological trait but a conferred status which precludes the notion of some structural force against it. The avenues by which someone deemed white might be "discriminated against" by someone who is not white are so vanishingly few as to broadly not exist at all.

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:10:40 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans Just so, "anti-white racism" as a phantasmal fear is brought up as a spooky hypothetical in order to induce in whites (those deemed white or amenable to being identified as such) a reflexive identification with whiteness (the aforementioned "naturalization" of whiteness presented as an inherent biological trait) and to get them on board with actions and policies to further whiteness as a political project or tool thereof. You can see this blatantly in anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:16:18 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans The world in which "all the other races" somehow team up to subject whites to the same mechanisms of racialization and racism as an institution is an absurdity conjured up not because it would ever be a serious threat but because this absurd and thoroughly implausible, if not outright impossible what-if scenario produces real effects on whites who buy into it enough to act to "prevent" such an outcome. Even "reasonable concern" is a form of defending whiteness; the very idea's unreasonable

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:18:09 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@Peter Griffin That clears things up a bit, thanks.

... whiteness is not a biological trait but a conferred status which precludes the notion of some structural force against it.

That's my problem, that's saying that white people have these treats 😉

We agree that those in a better position than others, feel little or no real consequences of a bit of unfairness. I just think it's wrong to connect that to a skin color, that's all.

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:24:38 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans The definition of racism as being merely when one person or group is bigoted against some other on the basis of skin color (which is colorism and is only a facet of racism flowing from whites downward, i.e. down to those most racialized, black people) is itself a tool of whiteness. All power relations are flattened absurdly until the individual act is the only thing left, in a perfect vacuum, like arguing that the economy is when two people trade coconuts on a desert island or something

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:27:24 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans No it expressly isn't. In fact it's saying the exact opposite, that whiteness is *not* a natural condition, that people do not universally have these traits by virtue of some inherent trait. The only way you could get to such a reading is to assume that whiteness is just such a biological or color-based trait and then assume I'm talking about that, rather than a historical development.

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:34:50 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans unless you really did mean "treat" as in "benefit" and not "trait," in which case I'm sorry but whiteness will always work to provide benefit to whites at the expense of others. For example, a very down-on-his-luck white homeless man can still benefit from his whiteness in ways a black man in the exact same economic situation could not, does not have access to, even if both are severely estranged from socioeconomic benefit. That's not the white man's personal doing, but it is still true.

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:38:20 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans this is because of whiteness as a system, as an institution. The white homeless guy is not personally responsible for his skin color and nobody is saying he is, but just the same he is whiteness' beneficiary, willing or otherwise, by virtue of being read as white and treated accordingly. Whiteness is his caste, he cannot be rid of it even if he wants to, even though it is a trait projected onto him rather than inherent within him.

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:40:10 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans We can imagine an alien planet where both would be treated by aliens with equal importance, a world free of racialization, but such is not the world we live in, nor is it the one in which decisions are made.

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:42:17 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@Peter Griffin Good to see we're completely on the same page here.

I see that exact induced fear against "other races" (or basically anything "other") around me, the same populists are doing their work here as there are on your side of the ocean.

Last year we (Netherlands) held general elections, and ONE IN FOUR voted for a fascist, Geert Wilders. And you know how he got there? By incessantly pointing at the danger of muslims in our country. For more than twenty years he's been spreading this fear, and slowly but surely he started reaping what he had sown: hate against "them".

In 2 weeks we have general elections in the European Parliament, and the far-right parties are expected to win big. Same racist and fascist parties all over Europe, same rhetoric, the same hate and the same scapegoating.

Picking on muslims in the European Parliament would be a very risky bet, so the refugee is the easy scapegoat here. That's an easy piggy-back on muslims, because lots of refugees are muslims: they can direct the hate they've already built to this group. Doesn't really matter who you pick on, as long as you can convince enough of "your people" that "those people" are a threat.

And believe me, I'm really, really worried about this development. Not because I think those "others" are a threat, but the ones who try to make us all believe that we need to fight. We've seen what this leads to, history has too many examples of it to deny it.

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:43:00 +0200

Nasado

nasado@tech.lgbt

@petergriffinkinnie @hans

> The very concept of anti-white racism is nonsensical as whiteness is not a biological trait but a conferred status which precludes the notion of some structural force against it.

Are you asserting that blackness/indigenousness/etc, by contrast, *is* a biological trait? That seems like playing into the racists' hands to me...

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:48:06 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@nasado @hans what do you think the term "racialized" means and why do you suppose I have asserted that black people are maximally racialized? Do you think it's because I think there is an inherent quality to them, or do you think that a person *being racialized* is a thing done to them and not an inherent quality? Bad attempt at concern trolling

Fri, 24 May 2024 21:53:18 +0200

Nasado

nasado@tech.lgbt

@petergriffinkinnie @hans

I'm just saying that if you're arguing that anti-white racism can't exist because whiteness isn't biological, then you're also arguing either that racialization is biological, or that actual racism can't exist. Don't get me wrong, anti-white racism doesn't exist, just not for this reason.

Fri, 24 May 2024 23:01:22 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@Peter Griffin I honestly don't know what "racialized" means. I know it's a past participle that indicates that race has been made a factor, but I'd rather have someone explain to me what it means here, than venture a guess myself.

I have learned that what I call racism, is called colorism here. And "whiteness" and "blackness" seem to be used more as a political color, a flag color if you like, than as a reference to someone's actual skin color. Or as the name of a caste. Please correct me if I'm getting it wrong.

So the whites are the privileged group, and the blacks and other groups aren't. The whites don't necessarily have a white skin, but of course most do. I think "white power" might mean something different here than in my world too. In my vocabulary it is a violent organisation of whites (in the skin-color sense) that fights against blacks (again the skin color). Again, if I'm getting it wrong, please explain.

Fri, 24 May 2024 23:08:51 +0200

Gorgeous Killer

are0h@h-i.social

@esvrld @hans LOL, I shouldn’t have laughed as hard as I did at this.

Fri, 24 May 2024 23:12:01 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@nasado @hans Racialization is not biological and neither is your propensity for arriving fully in bad faith, bye

Fri, 24 May 2024 23:22:07 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@Peter Griffin What did I do, what did I say wrong?

Fri, 24 May 2024 23:30:47 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans that wasn't to you

Fri, 24 May 2024 23:35:47 +0200

Jennifer Moore 😷

unchartedworlds@scicomm.xyz

@hans

"... we seem to disagree on the definition of racism."

I think you're right that this is why the original statement looks wrong to you. You're operating from a very simplified concept of what racism is & how it functions. I'm not blaming you - it's similar to what I knew when I was younger - but if you want to be able to contribute usefully to this kind of conversation, you have to get up to speed first. You probably want to find a few good books on racism, anti-racism & whiteness.

Sat, 25 May 2024 00:02:01 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@Jennifer Moore 😷 I'm open to suggestions. I read Uncle Tom's Cabin when I was 7 or 8, recently I read Trevor Noah's book Born in Crime, about him growing up in apartheid, but you can only learn so much from books.

Words change meaning fast these days, those books had better be up to date. When I first heard the word "woke", it meant something quite different than what it's used for today. Racism, I just found out, means different things to different people in different places, and probably in different times too. Left and right don't mean what they used to mean either.

Why should I not chime in on a messages someone boosts into my timeline? Two-way conversation works so much quicker than reading a few books and forming an idea based on those. I'm glad it's possible to have a decent conversation about a sensitive subject in public on the Fediverse. I would have been covered under shit on the bird site by now, but I only got 1 death threat here 😉

Sat, 25 May 2024 00:58:13 +0200

fear is not a Weltanschauung

wouldinotcallmyselfahumanbeing@zirk.us

@hans i'd love to share why i think that's a false equivalence, but i don't think i'll have time in the foreseeable future. bookmarking this just in case.

Sat, 25 May 2024 01:04:31 +0200 last edited: Sat, 25 May 2024 01:06:25 +0200

fear is not a Weltanschauung

wouldinotcallmyselfahumanbeing@zirk.us

it's horribly fascinating how easily and unselfconsciously, after decades of opposing, suppressing and decrying it as dangerous nonsense, the white-dominant cultural narrative has adopted the parlance of identity, of social consciousness and equality, and attempts to detourn it in the name of reifying oppression.
@starwall

Sat, 25 May 2024 02:00:14 +0200 last edited: Sat, 25 May 2024 02:02:40 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@Swiff, Alenessendil Curuvartur

In conversations like this one, the onus is on white people to listen, to internalize, and to not disrupt important work and dialogue because their feelings got hurt when someone shouted the word "Honkey."

That was not at all why I reacted, my feelings weren't hurt. I reacted because the post contained something I didn't understand, so I asked that question. I was listening, and internalizing the answers in the following posts. @Peter Griffin and @ᔅᑕᕐᐗᓪ posted a few very helpful answers.

I understand how my question triggered some angry responses, after all I'm white in every possible definition, and I am fully aware of that. We were having different conversations, as you correctly put it. Seeing racism as a complete system of power and oppression, or only as a marker to single out specific groups of people, means we were not talking about the same thing.

I still don't have a satisfying answer to my original question, but I do know now that I'll have to find out what the words race and racism mean precisely to different groups of people. It is clear that my view of it is too simple, what I call "racism" should be called "colorism".

Sat, 25 May 2024 02:07:50 +0200

Peter Griffin

petergriffinkinnie@mastodon.social

@hans Fair warning that I think I oversold you on that term "colorism." In most contexts it tends to refer to discrimination within groups which are similarly categorized, rather than being a readily used term for discrimination on the basis of skin color, though that is the most obvious dimension by which colorism tends to operate. But yeah there is a lot to this, whiteness has been operating as a major historical force for hundreds of years of being treated as a 'natural' category

Sat, 25 May 2024 11:37:39 +0200

Yo Soy Freeman

YoSoyFreeman@mastodon.gamedev.place

@hans

As a white man, no, is not counter intuitive or a gross generalization.

Social power dynamics are studied by groups. Racism is, by definition, the systematic oppression from white people to non white people.

There is PoC people who are extremely privileged in society. You wouldn't say racism does not exist because of that.

You can be a good person. Doesn't change how we, as a collective, had behave historically.

Sat, 25 May 2024 11:41:43 +0200

Yo Soy Freeman

YoSoyFreeman@mastodon.gamedev.place

@hans

"Not all white people" is reductionist. It only points out the obvious and take the focus away for the important discussion.

I been where you are. Once you understand that social analysis are not about you in specific you can learn how to empathize better with the struggles of other people.

When i say i don't like neurotypical people i'm OBVIOUSLY not referring to specific individuals. It would be silly from my neurotypical friends to feel alluded by that.

Sat, 25 May 2024 11:46:24 +0200

Yo Soy Freeman

YoSoyFreeman@mastodon.gamedev.place

@hans

Words have not meaning if you strip them of their context. Who and why says what is as important as what they say.

We can not change our history, but we can learn from it. My country did horrible things. Is a fact. If i want to continue that legacy is the choice i must make.

Context. Context is everything. Don't look for enemies where there are none.

Tue, 28 May 2024 02:14:47 +0200

Hans van Zijst

hans@social.woefdram.nl

@Yo Soy Freeman Making the point that I'm "a good guy" was not what I was after. My ancestors have also committed horrible crimes, for centuries. And I am indeed "whiteness' beneficiary", which doesn't make me a bad person. I know all that.

Social power dynamics are studied by groups. Racism is, by definition, the systematic oppression from white people to non white people.

That's where things got messy. What I though racism means, was only a small part of that definition. Words have no meaning if you strip them of their context, you said, which was the problem here: I was looking, thinking and writing from a different context than others, because our definitions were different.

It was confusing for a bit, but I think I've learned a few things.