"Straight White Affluent Male Native-Born Protestants Are Uniquely Oppressed"

[YoungDemCA]

When you get a user who claims to be race-blind. you know they're probably white and are certainly not black, because whites can afford to ignore racial issues, but blacks never can. However, when you get a user who archly explains that he disapproves of curbs on hate speech because he's a First Amendment absolutist, you can pretty much assume that you're dealing with a straight white affluent male.

For some reason, this subspecies believes that if there are problems stemming from prejudice and/or ugly language, the right answer is not to suppress the behavior or the speech; it's to publicly debate the issue at length until everyone can see why prejudice and hate speech are bad things. There are three problems with this. First, it would mean any troll or bigot could derail any discussion, and their beliefs would take center stage in the public discourse. Second, naive First Amendment absolutists are seldom politically active, and they never attend or read about the sort of earnest public debates they urge on everyone else. Third, such debates don't actually have much power to change people's minds.

What they're really saying is "I don't want anyone else to have the power to say I'm in the wrong."

Men get abused too:

Men occasionally get abused by their domestic partners or suffer economic discrimination, or are falsely accused of rape. Whites are sometimes the victims of racist behavior or reverse discrimination. Once in a while, straights even feel (temporarily) like their sexuality is unacceptable. It just happens about a hundredth as often and a thousandth as severely as sh*t like that happens to women, gays, and persons of color. It is nevertheless essential that these wrongs get brought up and ceremonially paraded through every discussion of the very real social problems that arise from sexism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination.

It's bullsh*t. They don't actually want to discuss those problems. They just want to assert a sort of spurious parity so they can pretend their demographic group isn't playing the game at its lowest level of difficulty.

http://onlinemanship.wikia.com/wiki/Straight_White_Affluent_Male_Native-Born_Protestants_Are_Uniquely_Oppressed

From Onlinemanship, a wiki about online rhetorical gambits.

[AgingAmerican]

1. You are describing Republicans

And, no, they don't want to discuss or even acknowledge such things because their ideology tells them they don't have to.

[Anansi1171]

2. Its the modern equivalent of the "Slavery/Segregation was better for blacks"

And before that they had the White Mans Burden.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden

Pimpin' aint easy, people. Lets give our white male affluent brethren a break. On Edit.

[socialist_n_TN]

3. BWHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!.........

That's all. Just

[dawg]

4. We do bear a heavy burden.

Thanks God someone finally understands and appreciates our plight.

[Skittles]

10. you want I should kick your burdened ass, dawg?

I'LL SHOW MY APPRECIATION; yes INDEED

[SheilaT]

5. If the day ever comes when I look around

and 80 percent or more of all elected officials are female and/or persons of non-whiteness, when the Supreme Court only has one male and 8 females, when 95% of all CEOs of major corporations are women, then maybe I'll be willing to consider that white men are being oppressed. Until then, no.

[yuiyoshida]

7. This!

[Skittles]

11. THANK YOU

I remember a guy at work whining about an Asian worker club, saying, where's the white male club....CONGRESS, I told him, your club is called CONGRESS

[uponit7771]

14. +1

[cvoogt]

6. I see where the author's coming from

"It just happens about a hundredth as often and a thousandth as severely as sh*t like that happens to women, gays, and persons of color." Bit over the top. I do think this somewhat belittles what can be just as serious abuse of men by their partners, not 100th or 1000th as serious. It just happens a lot less frequently. I have been through it myself (physical as well as verbal/emotional) and I know there is no parity in frequency, but I won't let anyone tell me my experience is automatically less troublesome just because I happen to be a man. There are far worse things than what happened to me, but for me it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I won't go into details because I have dealt with it and have moved on.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

8. Darn, I guess that leaves me out.

I'm a straight white middle class male native born raised Catholic now an atheist.

[JDPriestly]

9. The crux of the problem: white people vote.

CALIFORNIA’S EXCLUSIVE ELECTORATE
MARK BALDASSARE
. . . .

California’s electorate does not reflect the size, the growth, or the
diversity of California’s population. Today, eight in 10 adults are
eligible to vote but just 56 percent are registered, less than half (43%)
belong to one of the major parties, and only 35 percent of adults can
be expected to vote in the November election. Voter registration has
grown at a slower rate than the population. As a result, 12 million
of the state’s 27.7 million adults are not registered to vote. Moreover,
although the state has become increasingly diverse, the adults
who frequently vote are predominantly white, age 45 and older,
and relatively affluent. In contrast, nonvoters (those who are not
registered to vote) are mostly nonwhite, younger, and less affluent
than frequent (or “likely”) voters.

. . . .

Analysis of thousands of interviews from the PPIC Statewide Surveys
shows that California’s likely voters are disproportionately white and
native born. By 2000, California had become the first large majority
minority state—that is, a state in which no ethnic or racial group
constitutes the majority. Today, the California adult population is 46
percent white and 32 percent Latino; the remaining 22 percent are
Asian (12%), black (6%), and other. Yet, seven in 10 California likely
voters are white, only one in six is Latino, and the remainder are
Asian, black, and other. Moreover, even though one in three adults
is foreign-born, about nine in 10 of the Californians who frequently
vote in the state’s elections were born in this country.

. . . .

Likely voters are also unrepresentative in demographic
characteristics such as age and socioeconomic status. The majority
of Californians who are frequent voters are age 45 and older (62%),
homeowners (77%), and college graduates (53%), with household
incomes of $60,000 or more (56%). The majority of California
nonvoters are under age 45 (76%) and renters (66%); fewer than
one in five is a college graduate (17%) or earns $60,000 or more
(18%). On all these dimensions, both likely voters and nonvoters are
distinct from all California adults.

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/atissue/AI_906MBAI.pdf

If you want to change attitudes about race and sexuality, get out and register people to vote.

And if your state does not permit felons who have served their time to vote, try to change that law. Point out that it discriminates based on race if you have to.

It won't do to just complain about discrimination, you have to be willing to take action. Register voters, write articles, sue if you must and can. Don't just complain. And don't resort to violence. Violence will just make things worse. Insulting people who do not agree with you will also just make things worse. And above all, do everything you can to make sure your children have the opportunities they need so that they can lead the country in the right direction.

[FrodosPet]

15. But it is so much more cathartic to tell the opposition

To go s*** a d***.

Doesn't change anybody's mind, and it may turn mature people away from the position you are representing. But it gets that manly man "Ooooh Rahhh!!!" adrenaline going.

And in the end, isn't that what is really important?

[tritsofme]

12. Anyone who scoffs derisively at "First Amendment absolutists" is a scary person in my book.

In this country we do not ban speech.

[NutmegYankee]

19. Then you are a speech nut.

If France, Britain, and most of the world have curbs on hate speech, then we should as well.


/sarcasm. (Though we actually are pretty alone on hate speech. Part of what makes us different is our absolute approach to rights.).

[Nye Bevan]

13. Unashamed First Amendment absolutist checking in here.

I don't want to see a whole bunch of DUers arrested for what they post about Southerners and Christians.

[YoungDemCA]

18. Strawman alert

No one wants to see anyone here arrested for what they post. But when one makes it a habit to defend privilege and bigotry, then no one should be surprised when people take offense.

[Nye Bevan]

20. Ah, so you are not in favor of attempting to enact "hate speech" laws.

Sorry if I misunderstood your post.

[AverageJoe90]

16. Unfortunately, the far-right has done a lot to poison language over these past 30+ years.

By the way, I dunno about some others, but I consider myself to be "colorblind".....in the way that I value someone's character over their skin color, religion, etc.; sad thing is, right-wingers have been more than eager to use such as a mask to hide their racism and other prejudices. And unfortunately, it's worked to fool a fair number of people, including some "whites".

To be honest with you all, it's long past time to take back the term "colorblind" and restore it's original definition.

[JDPriestly]

17. How do you propose to change that reality?

Do you think writing angry posts about it helps?

If not, what should be done?

I'm asking a serious question, not trying to ridicule you or make you angry.

I read so many posts about white privilege. I am white, and I cannot disagree with the posts. But what is to be done about it?

Legislation?

Banning certain speech doesn't really address the underlying problem which is the social structure and history of our country. People who hate will still whisper the banned words to themselves.

What do you suggest we do to change this situation?