Please Sign This Petition, Racism/Sexism Isn't Okay If Its Against Straight White Men

[Mikeybb]

<snipped for space, all a good read though>

(This last section isn't targeted at The Escapist forums, but at the internet in general. However, I guess it's The Escapist forums that that will see it, so... pass this along if you agree with it? I'm getting really tired of seeing outraged-hyperbole-harassment as the internet's weapon of first resort.)

Quoting that to chorus in my agreement.
Whatever happens as a result of her careless wording at best and woeful people management skills, less over the top reaction would be nice.

Slight off topic, but I sometimes wonder if the reason the internet relies on such exaggerated actions is a result of the way that it propagates the use of exaggeration as a tool of communication?
With the absence of, for the most part, visual clues to emotional expression, instead hyperbole takes that place.
Of course, it doesn't excuse the excesses and darkest turns, but it may go some way to explaining where it comes from.

(a semi non sequitur, I've spoken to people who used to use 'lol' with more frequency than punctuation. It always amused me to think they weren't actually exaggerating and were indeed sitting, laughing loudly like a mad person every ten seconds.)

Sorry for the slight off topic there.
Posting while tired and vulnerable to fits of rambling.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Our culture most certainly has affection and respect for women and minorities, as long as they behave in the way it wants them to behave. Not only are they punished for disobeying it, they are rewarded for reinforcing it.

Replace 'women and minorities' with 'people' and the statement is still true. Why single out those two?

...Because we're talking about racism and sexism. The topic of conversation is how women and minorities are treated differently, and more specifically, how that fact does not prevent them from negatively influencing the situation.

The overall point of the comment is a unifying one; remember who the enemy is. It isn't the particular shade that prejudice takes today, it's prejudice itself. And, judging by your response, you know that. When I mention the web of lies, the fact that it affects EVERYONE is precisely my point.

ALL are subject to cultural coercion. The comparison between male and female is not quantitative, can't be measured, unless we agree that every single person has the exact same goals in life. Life isn't a race to the top of the ladder, despite the common belief that it is.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

If this new definition of racism is truely what the academics have agreed on, that you can only be racist if you live in the right place and HAVE THE RIGHT SKIN COLOUR to qualify.... Then the new definition of racism is racist and they need to change the definition back. Saying only a white man can be racist is deeply wrong in my eyes.

I feel like if the pendulum swings too far in the other direction and the straight white man loses all their privalege this perception that only they can be racist/sexit could stick around longer than the actual privelege and become a real problem for future generations if we let it go too far.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Yeah if need to tell people you're not white you're white.

And if you white, then you Ben Affleck.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Racism and sexism are racism and sexism, regardless of whether the victim of it is an otherkin genderfluid pansexual woman or a straight, white dude.

Don't draw more and more lines in the sand so that you can insult people who fit into majorities. Because then you're a piece of shit. There are just some people who will congratulate and idolise you for fitting into as many obscure minorities and possible. This has gone too far.

 

[sumanoskae]

Our culture most certainly has affection and respect for women and minorities, as long as they behave in the way it wants them to behave. Not only are they punished for disobeying it, they are rewarded for reinforcing it.

Replace 'women and minorities' with 'people' and the statement is still true. Why single out those two?

...Because we're talking about racism and sexism. The topic of conversation is how women and minorities are treated differently, and more specifically, how that fact does not prevent them from negatively influencing the situation.

The overall point of the comment is a unifying one; remember who the enemy is. It isn't the particular shade that prejudice takes today, it's prejudice itself. And, judging by your response, you know that. When I mention the web of lies, the fact that it affects EVERYONE is precisely my point.

ALL are subject to cultural coercion. The comparison between male and female is not quantitative, can't be measured, unless we agree that every single person has the exact same goals in life. Life isn't a race to the top of the ladder, despite the common belief that it is.

Again, not seeing how how I said anything to the contrary of that.

 

[sumanoskae]

snip

Ahhh it seems I misread that then, my apologies. However, while I do agree that the government should not be able to force people to go to was, I was forced to sign up for Selective Service like everyone else and so, if women are capable of serving in the armed forces as all evidence suggests, wouldn't equality under the law dictate that they should also have to register into selected service? Either the government treats everyone equally under the law or it should be thrown out.

As well as that, you cannot fight a mindset, you cannot fight an idea (*Rolls to resist a V for Vendetta reference*). As soon as you do that it gets ugly very quickly. Because there will ALWAYS be people who either take it too far and make a smaller and smaller list of what 'acceptable' mindsets are and you don't want to give those people even a taste of power. Not only this but there will always be the opposite people as well. The UK shows well that attempting to shut down opposing views forcefully (The BNP and UKIP) often increases support for them as some people defend the group they see as a 'victim' of the establishment. Not that those people are right but human minds are tricky things and lead to odd results like this.

And... well Prejudice is natural. Call me a cynic but the Ingroup-Outgroup response is damn near hardwired into our minds and it requires an awful lot of knowledge and willpower to overcome it. These responses will always lead to prejudice of some degree against the 'other', the people outside of the 'ingroup' even more so if they can be classed as an 'outgroup' or, an 'enemy' for the ingroup to rally against. Whenever you eliminate some kind of prejudice these pieces of the human psyche will always ensure that we have some kind of division between groups. Managing these divisions so that multiple groups can work together within a larger group is called Civilisation and/or Politics.

But still, even knowing that such things are natural. The person who decided to make such divisions a core part of the rhetoric towards her student body was simply stirring such problems and making them much stronger than they needed to be.

I would argue that it is equally natural for humans to break down barriers between each other. Things like the Civil Rights movement are every bit a part of our programming as things like the KKK. It's a perpetual struggle, but we can't help but take a side; it's in our nature.

People are often quick to incite all the negative aspects of our behavior as a result of instinct, and characterize instinct itself as base; what many fail to mention is that not all instinct is base. Our intellect, sense of justice, capability for compassion, and thirst for self improvement are all instinctual in their own right.

It is my firm opinion that almost every aspect of life is cyclical; a cyclic environment, it could be argued, is the basis of all life, in fact. By extension, ideas are like matter; they can never be destroyed, only change form. For this reason, I champion causes like the denouncement of stereotypes not because I see a light at the end of the tunnel, but because the journey itself has value. The struggle against ignorance has no end.

As for the issue of military, while it certainly would be a more equal and logical situation if both men and women could be drafted, the underlying system is so foul that I will support any opportunity that exists to escape it. The end result of women being drafted is just that they are exploited in the same way men have been; it will not improve the lot of the poor souls who have already been made victims, and the only blood that will be shed will be yet more innocent blood.

There is no honor or justice to be had with a system this intrinsically oppressive. The system itself is unfair, it is not concerned with justice. If it suddenly decided to treat everyone as equally worthless, it wouldn't become fair or just to treat them as such. It doesn't need to be improved, it needs to be destroyed.