"Joe": that's a double standard. if the color of ur skins doesn't disqualify you for things, then it can't qualify you for things either, unless you are intellectually dead
"Anthony": no, it's a recognition that the reason whites in America predominantly hold power and wealth and that blacks predominantly have scarce income and political power is that a tradition of stigmatising social attitudes has created this unjust social hierarchy
"Anthony": social equality is not simply about treating everyone as equals
"Joe": nope...i don't by it...i think it's looking for excuses...and ultimately hurts the black community more than it helps it
"Anthony": it is more about correcting for past errors in treating everyone as equals and *then* treating them all as equals
"Joe": if you give special priviledges to blacks just because they are black, even if they 'succeed', people will be suspect of their true ability
"Anthony": so why do white people hold the vast majority of the power and wealth in this country?
"Joe": because too many black people have been told they are just entitled so don't do what they need to to succeed
"Anthony": "true ability" as measured by what? SATs?
"Joe": i have several black friends who are doing just fine
"Anthony": Gosh, and you *really* do believe that?
"Joe": no need for special priviledges. just honest work
"Anthony": I'm doing just fine, but I was very, very, lucky
"Anthony": no
"Joe": yes
"Anthony": the wealthiest whites in this country have to do no work at all - let alone *hard* work. bush. clinton. kennedy. hilton
"Joe": and i am sure there are wealthy blacks in the same boat. and there are poor whites
"Anthony": the proportion of the black population that is below the poverty line is much much grater than that of the white population
"Joe": and all the programs to 'help' have actually hurt by keeping many of them in poverty because they have the sense of entitlement and are taught not to do what they themselves need to do to get out of that state
"Anthony": perhaps other programs need to be identified that avoid that by-product
"Joe": or perhaps people just need to take some personal responsibility and realize because one short-sighted person called him a nigga, that's not reason to blame society for his ills, but to see that that person is ignorant and move on. i've been called all sorts of things. i don't blame that for my problems
"Anthony": it has nothing to do with "my problems." as i mentioned, I am very very lucky
"Joe": but that fact that u take such offense at one person saying it to you in a gay chatroom and expect the whole room to rally behind you because of it is very telling
"Anthony": but i am still the object of stigma on account of the colour of my skin
"Joe": i have heard plenty of insults flung around the room here from that one guy
"Anthony": this was more than just any insult
"Joe": one guy calling you a nigga doesn't a societal stigma make. but the point is, HE has the problem. i would say his view is not the majority view. ESPECIALLY in a gay chatroom
"Anthony": it tells me about the social acceptance of racial aversion, segregation, and insults in MI
"Anthony": perhaps
"Joe": no, it tells you one mans view
deeply appalled, much to say, too little time now; will comment at length at a later date--unless you provide a similar respond before me. as highly arguable as "one guy calling you a nigga doesn't a societal stigma make", i think the lack of calling out from members of the channel is a sad show of a collective's moral failing. and the fact that it occurs in a supposedly progressive space like gay.com doesn't excuse matters, but makes it worse. bottomline: "Anthony" is not being over-sensitive because that "white guy online" is reprehensible.
* response
and quote marks for "white guy online" assumes arguable identity, which is important i think because there might be a point to make, RE: "[afro-americans calling] themselves nigger all the time".
i really haven't the time to flesh out my sentiments in full, so i'm hoping that this excerpt from Robert Jensen's "The reality of race: Is the problem that white people don’t know or don’t care?" (http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/meananduncaring.htm) might help to shed some light instead on what i feel is a denial of privilege and blindness to the lineage/ history that have made many so complacent or ambivalent towards racism:
"Imagine that you could line white people up in front of a door and get them to really believe that if they walked into a "race-changing room" they would emerge on the other side with black skin and an accent associated with blacks from the South. Then ask whites to set their price -- the amount of money it would take them to agree to enter that room. Imagine there was an attendant there with stacks of cash, ready to hand money to the white folks. Just for fun, let's say the cash award would be tax free. In that setting, when white people really had to face the possibility of being black -- knowing all they know about the reality of life in white-supremacist America -- what would the price be?
My guess is that a significant percentage of whites would not become black for any amount of money. I also am fairly confident that the median price set by the whites who might be willing to go into the room would be considerably more than $1 million."
(also relevant in this discussion, Jensen's "White Privilege Shapes the U.S." URL: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/whiteprivilege.htm)
another way to look at this is simply this: just as how i'll only be post-feminist in a post-patriarchal society, the deeply entrenched and unlevelled playing field for non-het-white is by and large everyone's business until such a scenario no longer exists.