Wypipo? Really? Is this really an issue for anyone?

[guillaumeb]

It is shorthand, and in a debate it has little use, but who here is so thin skinned that this term is really an issue?


We all know, (or those of us who are aware know), that the colonies, and later the US, were founded on structural, and institutional, and legal racism. Slaves built the South, slaves sent the raw materials to northern factories that paid lower costs to the plantation owners because of that same slave labor. North and South both benefitted from slavery.

And even though a civil war was fought in this country, slavery was simply renamed prison plantation labor and the same former slaves were now called convicts. Again, slaves by another name contributed to the wealth of this country while enjoying nothing.


So when I read the term wypipo, should I or anyone be offended? No.

Why?

None of my ancestors were slaves.

None of my ancestors were kidnapped from their homes and brought here naked in chains.

None of my ancestors were forced to give up their religion, their language, their heritage, their very names.

None of my ancestors were forced to sit in the back of a bus, denied the vote, lynched, imprisoned for existing while black.



Thoughts?

[REP]

1. It's a real threat to the white power structure11! /s

I don’t see how a colloquial contraction is an issue that really deserves a whole lot of handwringing.

[guillaumeb]

5. Empires will fall!!!

It is a mild term compared to what is used by others.

[REP]

14. Wypipo, Becky ... none of it bothers me

A poster downstream made the observation about “punching up.” No oppressed population is being maligned.

I don’t care if I’m personally meant to be included when those terms are used. Maybe I don’t deserve it; maybe I’ve been complicit; either way, my privilege and status aren’t diminished.

[guillaumeb]

17. True. eom

[tazkcmo]

7. No wonder I don't care.

I am definitely not in the power structure, white or not! Lol...I also have been aware of my privledge since childhood.

[gollygee]

2. People just like to play the victim

CONTEXT

There is a racial caste system. Teasing of a group at the top of the caste system is not equivalent to teasing a group at the bottom of the caste system.

The word was made to have comedic value, and in comedy there's a concept of "punching up" vs "punching down." Comedy works when you punch up - or tease someone up the social ladder - but not when you punch down.

I honestly think the people complaining know this and just like to complain and play the victim.

[guillaumeb]

6. I agree.

An excellent explanation by you.

[tazkcmo]

3. I'm not.

I quit caring what anonymous internet residents think of me just before Gore built it in his mom's basement.






Note: The Gore bit is in reference to GOPee-ers claiming Gore took credit for the internet's invention, not a slight. I respect the man very much.

[guillaumeb]

8. Nice Gore reference.

I heard it was in Bill Gates' garage.

[tazkcmo]

12. It started there

But after Bill ripped off Steve's ideas, Al took his ball and went home!

[lisby]

4. Not a prob fer moi.

And I am, according to my DNA test, 99.9 percent European Caucasian.

[guillaumeb]

10. 99.9%

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. So what is that 0.1%


My score is lower than 75%.

[bearsfootball516]

9. It might just be me, but I haven't seen anybody use Wypipo outside of DU.

Am I missing something here?

[guillaumeb]

11. Make certain that you insert it in conversation.

Trump will pick up on it and Roseanne will have more material.

[brush]

46. Now Rosanne and trump...those are wypipo.

That should clear that up those who think they should be offended by the term "wypipo".

If you're not of trump and Barr's ilk the term doesn't refer to you.

[gollygee]

13. Go to Twitter

do a search for "wypipo." It's all over there. I'm guessing that's where it started. It's just supposed to be funny - generally poking a stick at racist white people, often white people who are racist but think they aren't or at least don't realize they are.

[guillaumeb]

15. So Trump will be aware of it.

I am not on Twitter.

[gollygee]

16. LOL if Trump isn't aware of it, he should be. nt

[REP]

19. I see it on The Root

Saw it there first a couple years ago.

[gollygee]

20. It certainly could have started there. nt

[EffieBlack]

24. Or venture into sites where black voices aren't the distinct minority

It’s interesting how racially isolated, even online, so many so-called progressives are. I’ll bet a significant number, if not the majority of DUers have never visited theroot.com or grio or Essence, or any other site not dominated by white people.

[gollygee]

25. I bet you're right. nt

[njhoneybadger]

59. Never have but now I will. Damn I really am isolated. I've never even heard of those sites.

[guillaumeb]

68. I never heard of any of those sites. eom

[EffieBlack]

74. Well, now you have

[guillaumeb]

78. Thank you for the information. eom

[JNelson6563]

61. Same here.

Interesting.

[NCTraveler]

65. Seems you are missing the rest of the internet. Nt

[applegrove]

18. TOS says no broad brush attacks. I don't think we should be using slurs

on anybody. We have an election to fight. Let's not muddy the waters. DU will be busy welcoming Obama Obama Trump voters back. It is called a big tent. Wipipo just feeds into the right wing conspiracies that there is racism against white people everywhere. I don't know why that is so hard to understand.

[REP]

21. Bless your heart.

[applegrove]

22. Are we not in an election year? Do we not want disaffected obama voters back?

A lot of people voted out of their darkest motives. Should we show them light?

[Tarc]

27. Ahh, the myth of the "disaffected Obama voter"

Precious.

[EffieBlack]

29. You know?

Stop calling these people racist, just because they gave racists and Nazis the votes they needed to put a white supremacist in the White House.

First of all, I don't believe for a second that a significant number of these people voted for Obama. But even if they did, who cares? If voting for Trump doesn't make you a racist, voting for Obama doesn't make you NOT a racist.

I don't want those people anywhere near my party.

[applegrove]

40. So you don't want a big tent? You want the nativists to win congress again?

Really?

[EffieBlack]

43. I want a big tent. But I don't want bigots or those who support and enable them in it

We don't need Trump supporters to win.

And bringing them into the tent is a kick in the face to the millions of loyal black and brown Democrats who know that the only way to get those Trump supporters to vote Democratic is to make them think that our interests will be back burnered - since the main reason they voted for Trump is that they can't stand us.

On top of that, it's stupid. They're too much work. Anyone who voted for Obama and then voted for Trump is too fickle to trust. And even if you think you've convinced a Trump supporter to vote Democratic, anyone who voted for Trump and STILL supports him today can't be trusted to not flip right back to their old ways before actually going into the voting booth - meaning you've put a lot of time and effort into getting a Trump supporter to the polls.

No, thank you. Leave them to themselves, where they are. If, on their own, they finally figure out that they should vote Democratic and come to us, I'm all for letting them in. But I have no intention of spending a smidgen of my time and effort making room for people who have gone out of their way to stab my people and many other marginalized people in the back.

[gollygee]

44. We can't win the nativists

The GOP will always win that group.

The term "wypipo" might help make racism unfashionable, and that could actually help us. Our only way to win elections is either 1) smaller percentage of voters are white 2) fewer white people get out to vote 3) fewer white people are racist and vote on reasons of race. We aren't winning any racists. The GOP plays that game better than we do, and I certainly don't want to play that game anyway.

[applegrove]

51. I'm saying that if we don't insult white people with a slur we might

attract back the people who have voted for obama and voted their economic anxiety who are not wanting Trump anymore. The nativists are the trump republucans who will win if we don't accept that populism can get people to vote against their principles. The nativists are not people any of us care about. We care about the voters who still have a better angel of their nature on their shoulders but ignored it to go against globalism. If republicans win congress the nativists have won and they will just entrench their hateful ideology in the US of A.

[gollygee]

52. I think this is a myth

I live in the part of Michigan that supposedly had these people, and I am telling you they don't exist. A lot of Obama voters stayed home because they didn't like Clinton, and a TON of people who never bother to vote went out and voted for Trump specifically because he's racist. This idea that there are a bunch of Obama voters who voted for Trump because of economic insecurity is ridiculous.

[EffieBlack]

58. And a lot of Obama voters tried to vote and were either blocked or their vote wasn't counted

And, as you said, their votes were replaced by people who didn't vote previously but came out to vote for Trump. Yet this is being spun as "Obama voters voted for Trump this time.""

It's bullshit. And too many Democrats are falling for it. And instead of doing what they can to make sure those solid Democrats get out to vote and their vote gets counted, they want to chase around after those Trump voters.

Ridiculous.

I find that MUCH more insulting and divisive than "wypipo." Can I demand that we stop talking about THAT because it's insulting to me?

[guillaumeb]

70. Voter suppression, and tampering.

Thousands of voters supposedly left the Presidential box blank while voting for all of the down ticket races. This was fraud.

[mercuryblues]

45. Do you want them running on the Dem ticket?

[applegrove]

53. No. I want people who are not nativist and are angry at what Trump has

done to the country to vote Democratic again. You know a majority. A big tent. So the republucans/nativists don't win congress. Of course the right wing would love to have these Obama voters forever. We Don't have to hand the GOP their conspiracy theories that white people are the real victims of racism here on the DU. A lot of low information voters will be fooled by that.

[ck4829]

63. You can have the biggest tent in the world, we can also have a shredded tarp

I really don't want the support of Trump supporters, I don't want the support of people who yawned when Trump put out that Muslim ban, I don't want the support of people who screamed that "All Lives Matter" but ran away when refugees needed help, I don't want the support of people who demonize the GLBTQ population, I don't want the support of people who are afraid of MS-13 and Muslims but actively refuse to see it's not brown people with funny religions shooting up schools and churches, I don't want the support of people who say NFL protesters are "disrespecting our national symbols" but have no problem with confederate flag wavers, I don't want the support of people who call 911 because they see a black person existing in their field of vision, and I don't want the Evangelicals who are hungry for money and power and rationalize their sociopathic greed as some sort of perverted religion.

Reaching out to these people is not a big tent, it's taking a knife, and cutting that tent up.

They're disgusting. I say that as a white person.

We need to out-organize, out-fox, and out-vote these people while treating them as pariahs at the same time. I want nothing to do with these people and I will support anyone who shares that vision.

[gollygee]

66. We certainly shouldn't throw dedicated Democratic voters under the bus to attract racists.

I have no idea why anyone would even suggest that. But it gets suggested pretty often.

[guillaumeb]

71. Very well said.

Agreed.

[guillaumeb]

69. What indicates that disaffected Obama voters would vote for Trump

in any significant numbers?


Absent GOP suppression, Clinton would have won Wisconsin and possibly Pennsylvania.

[applegrove]

75. I meant disaffective Trump voters who had previously voted for Obama.

Sorry I was not clear. A lot of people are aghast at Trump. Voted against globalism. Hate the hater in chief.

[sarah FAILIN]

35. Thank you

None of these people are going to agree with you though because the intent is to stir up the muck making it impossible for us to accomplish anything.

[applegrove]

38. I know. Thanks for the support.

[Locrian]

62. +1 it's really depressing me how easy it is to do nothing except throw shit around - n/t

[LanternWaste]

77. I pretend to know intent as well

I pretend to know intent as well if doing so furthers my own agendas and biases. I also pretend they usage of Wypipo makes it impossible for "us to do anything..."

Though much like you, I would fail miserably if asked to support my premise with objective evidence.

[Drahthaardogs]

23. My family was indentured and forced to support US Steel

They made us give up our customs. We too were lynched. They took our language. They paid us with script. They interred us during WW2. We were forced to worship in the basements of the Churches we built. They changed history so Giovanni Cabotto is known as John Cabot, lest our history be smeared with his name.

We are now considered "white" thanks to a law passed in 1968. I'm more offended being called "white", as if it is something to aspire. I am a child of the Mediterranean. My ancestors held the largest empire in the world for 600 years. My people had flushing toilets while the rest of Europe slept on deer hides. They created our system of government. They boast the greatest scientists and artists from the Renaissance.

I see no reason to be "white". It doesn't offend me at all.

[brush]

48. Nice post. I like your thinking. If you're not consciously or subconsciouly bigoted...

wypipo does not apply.

Should be that hard to understand.

[guillaumeb]

72. Whiteness is a construct.

It is not a genetic condition, it is a social construct.

Great response.

[egduj]

26. I think it sounds funny.

[Cary]

28. The term doesn't bother me.

I want to defeat Republicans. Is this pissing match helping us to defeat Republicans? Are anymof.our pissing matches helping to defeat Republicans?

[oberliner]

30. By starting a new thread on the topic, are you not indicating that you believe it is an issue?

Otherwise, why initiate a discussion with a new thread?

[Jake Stern]

31. My Ancestors

Were forced from their homes at gunpoint and locked into ghettos

Were forced into cattle cars and transported to Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen

Were worked nearly to the point of starvation and death as slave labor

The ones deemed to old to work were immediately slaughtered

The ones that made it to American were repeatedly turned away by landlords who didn't want "filthy Jews" in their properties

Were repeatedly turned down for jobs

Had people rip the yarmulke of their head, spit in it then slap it back on their head with a chortle

Was ordered out of a shop with the phrase " Hitler had the right idea, too bad he didn't kill all of you"

All because they were deemed to be "subhuman"

With that pedigree of oppression and injustice can I, in your opinion, be offended by the term "wypipo"?

[brush]

49. if you're not one of the bigots "wypipo" does not aplly to you.

[Jake Stern]

55. My point is not whether it applies to me

I was replying to the OPs contention that he wasn't offended by it because his family wasn't oppressed and neither should anyone else. I noted that my ancestors faced not just oppression but a systematic program to eliminate all like them and asked if that gave me the right to be offended by it.

[guillaumeb]

73. And your ancestors were not considered white. eom

[TreasonousBastard]

33. Truth is, I thought it started with an old Redd Foxx routine...

I can just hear him, or Damon Wayens, or any number of great black comics exclaiming: "Wha? Wypipo sed dat?" Maybe it goes back to
Stepin Fetchit, or Moms Mabley.

A sendup of stereotypes, and if done right-- hilarious.

Now, can we find something else to focus the daily outrage on?

[Demsrule86]

34. It means nothing to me...I don't understand why some are so offended.

The only thing I can think of is something my sis told me about (she is a big lib)... that she was called the White girl by her seatmate (POC) on an airplane who was talking to someone on her cell, and sis was incredibly offended. I asked why she couldn't really explain why. Being put in a group maybe is offensive in some way.

[Thekaspervote]

85. If not offended, I am not let's just not post to the thread. Maybe it will die a natural death

[TCJ70]

36. If you want to use race based slurs...

...that’s on you, I guess.

[BlueTsunami2018]

37. It's just stupid and childish is all.

Does using it add anything positive to a conversation? What is the point of it?

[Dr Hobbitstein]

50. Wow. So out of touch. nt

[Hoyt]

41. Fine with it. Wypipo, honkie, cracker, etc., are not near as hateful as what too many Wypipo

have called minorities.

[bluedigger]

42. I thought we covered it a couple weeks ago.

Doesn't bother me in the least.

[ProudLib72]

54. Shit needs constant stirring. nt

[Maeve]

47. Some of my ancestors were forced to give up their religion, language, heritage & names

Last edited Thu May 31, 2018, 09:11 AM - Edit history (1)

They were also consisered "not white" because they were Irish (and a paler bunch I'd like to see!)

I won't do that to another group--and I won't stand by silently while it continues to happen. I won't join forces with oppressors just because they decided I'm acceptable now.

On edit, because I realize this post can be mistaken: I know wypipo--they don't speak for me and I don't care if they get offended for being called out on their racism. The term started as humor and only the outrage has made it more. BBQ Becky is wypipo, most white DUers are not.

[mythology]

56. Stupidity is always a little offensive to me

Much like any other racial slur, it generally lets me know the person using it isn't somebody I need to take seriously intellectually.

But no I don't feel threatened by people using it, nor do I think it's as offensive as say Roseanne's tweets or most of what comes out of Trump's mouth/twitter feed. But I do think it comes from the same ignorant thought process. That we need to make somebody the other and the other is evil and bad and horrible and so very unlike us.

[Blue Owl]

60. No issue here

Other than it's the dumbest looking word I've ever seen in a purely grammatical sense...

[ck4829]

64. My issue with it

Is that it's not used enough.

You call 911 because you simply see a black person? You're a wypipo.

You're afraid of MS-13 and Muslims but are insulted when someone reminds you it's not either of those groups shooting up schools, churches, movie theaters, etc.? You're a wypipo.

You say minorities are lazy and you don't have a job because of them and you get by on mooching and welfare... but you earned it unlike minorities? You're a wypipo.

You never lived in the 1950s or if you are a Roy Moore voter, before the civil war, but you think they were totally awesome eras to live in while 2018 sucks in comparison despite advances in antibiotics, vaccinations, indoor plumbing, air conditioning, and Twitter? You're a wypipo.

You think kneeling "disrespects our national symbols" and that's what protests are about but shrug your shoulders when someone waves a confederate flag or a Nazi flag alongside that national symbol? You're a wypipo.

You screamed "No, ALL LIVES MATTER!" when someone had the gall to say that black lives matter but when you have a chance to apply that scream to real life when it comes to refugees needing help, you run away? You're a wypipo.

You turn "Press 1 for English" into something that demands revolution? Yes, you're a wypipo.

And I'm white by the way.

[guillaumeb]

79. A big issue.

Well said.

[GeorgeGist]

67. Apparently.

Three long threads dissecting wypipo at the moment. I think 'bigot' is less divisive.

[Freethinker65]

76. Only, it seems, on DU

[LanternWaste]

80. I honestly believe it's an issue

I honestly and sincerely believe it's an issue only for the people who want to scream 'I'm being oppressed!" to either receive attention or minimize race discussions with false equivalencies.

Not saying that it *is*, only that I believe it to be so. And to date, I've seen no responses to the term which compel me to reconsider it as such.

[guillaumeb]

81. Thank you for the response.

Well said.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

82. I don't think it's offensive, but I don't see it as helpful, either.

Not sure how we can't have certain important conversations about race without feeling the need to invent a new racial term in 2018.

Sure, no one was ever whipped or lynched or had fire hoses shot on them while "wypipo" was being shouted, but I don't really see that as really requiring its use.

And the whole "it's okay, because not all white people are wypipo" line is eerily familiar to arguments I've heard about certain other words.

And that's all I have to say about that.

[guillaumeb]

83. I think that it is important to recognize that the problem exists.

Trump voters prefer to deny that racism is an issue any more, while engaging in constant acts of racial hate.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

84. And I agree with that statement.

But inventing silly racially based phrases, even relatively innocuous ones, really has nothing to do with that conversation.

[Jake Stern]

86. 'And the whole "it's okay, because not all white people are wypipo" line is eerily familiar'

Exactly

"I'm talking about rich Jews, not you"