Debate Flares After Black College Students Seek A Non-White Roommate

[MrScorpio]

249. I'm saying that, as a matter of survival, in an overtly and covertly white supremacist society...

The need for those who are systematically, endemically and institutionally oppressed within that society is much greater than those who derive benefits and privileges from it.

One privilege that the white majority has is the ability to create systems of discrimination and segregation against PoCs, impose social and institutional punishments for those PoCs who dare to violate such systems. Such systems also isolate the white majority from understanding the conditions of the non-white minority. Without actually needing to have that understanding, in such cases whites simply supplant their own narrow understanding of normality onto people that they're not completely familiar with.

After all, unless whites actually do some work to know what the other side, or they live as part of the cohesive non-white community (i.e. family or community activism), then it's not necessary to actually achieve comprehensive understanding. As such, most whites can only speculate. For non-whites, however, necessity dictates that operating within the confines of the overall white normality makes it completely unavoidable to understand and navigate the nuances of white white controlled society.

For example, white identification and standards of appearance are imposed and emphasized on everyone, rather than those of PoCs, who are classified as tangential and even to the degree of resorting to nothing more than tropes and stereotypes. Think about movies and TV, magazines and books, the overall system of education, lack of cultural specification in dress, food and otherwise. Merely think about who's actually identified in the mundane description of someone as an "All-American," and who isn't. It's usually someone who's white.

Also, as such a society identifies with whiteness, centers whiteness and makes whiteness the standard by which non-whiteness is classified as inherently inferior, it places a greater value on focusing on the white point of view than the non-white point of view.

So, no, white people are not otherwise motivated to understand non-whites as non-whites are motivated to understand the white majority.

And the thing is, I haven't even touched on the phenomena of many whites to only relate in terms of anti-black biases. Terms of fear, and hatred and beliefs that all black people are potentially violent predators. Just think about the inability of many whites to say nice things about black people in general.