• southsamurai
    link
    fedilink
    English
    339 months ago

    I’m a white man. I can absolutely generalize about a well known aspect of reality. It isn’t in question that white men are currently in a position of overall privilege, and that as a group that position of privilege has the effect stated.

    I pretty much also said that this is true in the western world where white men are the supposed majority. I said that the same would be the case with any dominant group because humans are just like that.

    A generalization can not only be true in general, but it doesn’t inherently mean that the entire group is at fault (beyond any unintentional benefits from the situation, which is what’s called privilege in current discourse on matters of gender and race in specific, but applies to more than those alone).


    Here’s the thing. Until and unless we, not just as white men (speaking of the group I’m in) work on calling out and correcting bad behaviors as a group, to the point that it ceases to be a problem for others, we are part of the problem, no matter how little any individual likes that.

    Divisions currently exist. They will always exist because any time there is a place of authority/power, there will be those that seek it and use it. Over time, you might see a given demographic shift in and out of that place of power, but it won’t change humans being humans; there will be abuse of power.

    That’s the real key. The fact that white men have held dominance over most of the world for centuries (for a given value of most, and a given value of white) is simply fact. One could argue that the position of dominance really covers all the world since anyone wanting to disrupt that has to contend against that hierarchy. There are definitely places where, within a region* white men aren’t the dominant group, kinda impossible to be otherwise. But trying to pretend that the world isn’t the way it is is just silly.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      49 months ago

      Completely agree with your points. But also hope you can see it may be more fruitful to appear as though you’re ready to attack the problem, rather than your fellow man.

      I say this because I didn’t read this as an outright attack or denigration of your fellow man, but I very much fear how easily any other man may interpret it and how it could serve to further the divide and make the problem even harder to address. That is my chief concern.

      I appreciate you taking the time to clarify your position fellow internet stranger <3

      • Amerikan Pharaoh
        link
        fedilink
        English
        2
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        rather than your fellow man.

        Imagine thinking anyone who actually has skin in the game is going to look at genocidal oppressors as “their fellow man” fucking lmao. Clown world kumbaya shit that will only end with the settler empire standing over unending hectares of the bodies of subjects-of-empire who got backstabbed and throat-slit by the settlers; while they still hold the knife.

        As long as the knife is still six inches in our back, it doesn’t matter that the settlers planted it twelve, and “graciously” drew it back six; the settlers haven’t done shit worth being regarded as “fellow man”. Really, haven’t done shit in general other than harm us.