Oh I think I know this guy from reddit
Serious response, but that's almost certainly some random guy who got paid like 100 bucks by a stock image company. I always feel bad when a real person's likeness gets applied to horrible ideological positions they probably don't personally endorse just because they look like a stereotypical chud.
I think this guy is reddit.
I believe self reflection is a requirement for personal growth. I think its important to accept outside criticism to better one's self as well.
I've read this text now probably 10 times, and trying to see if this applies to me. I can't tell if I'm misinterpreting the message here or if I'm interpreting it right and what I do sometimes thinking is helpful actually isn't. Is this reading comprehension failure on my part or a poorly encoded communication? I'm interested in your feedback positive or negative.
Many other people's struggles are theoretical to me in the sense that I don't experience them personally, but can certainly listen to those experiencing them and the negative effects on their lives, and many times how their challenges also mean all the rest of us not experiencing that problem also are less because of it.
Is the text in the image advocating that "because I don't experience these firsthand, I should hold my tongue when I see/hear someone advocating for things that would cause these struggles to increase"? As an example: I have no problem casting a ballot in an election. I can get time off from work. My polling place is always safe and well staffed. There are early voting days for at least a week prior to election day including access in evening hours and weekends. I have easy transportation to and from it. No one is targeting me demographically to try to remove me from voter rolls. However, I understand in many places in the country my fellow citizens trying to vote don't have this same situation and have challenges just being able to cast a ballot.
Is the above text telling me that I shouldn't speak out against those trying to increase the difficulty of voting on behalf of those that are facing the challenges to vote just because I don't experience it? I'm certainly not trying to take up all the oxygen, but am I doing that unintentionally? Is this text telling me to be quiet if I'm not personally affected by the particular challenge being discussed? I don't think so, but whats the nuance I'm missing?
The meme is more targeting so-called "devil's advocates" and people who argue from a position of extreme privilege. An example I can think of is people hand-waving away the existence of concentration camps and Democrats' role in colonialist border policy, which is easy for someone to say who's not imprisoned in those camps.
Or implying we need to compromise on LGBT+ equality, etc.
Does that sound like what you're doing? I'm not seeing that sort of thing in your description.
It's ok to be a vocal ally or supporter of a cause, but "devil's advocates" usually don't have anything worthwhile to contribute.
You're over-analyzing it. It's a shitpost about people who shitpost about not voting for Biden and the people who shitpost in response to the not-vote-for-biden shitpost.
Unless you were shitposting; bravo if so sir.
Doubtful you are taking up all the oxygen in the room friend, you are trying to learn about others to cultivate a varied and nuanced opinion. The type of engagement being described here is more specific...
What happens a lot of the time is people coming on and basically trying to tell people what their deal is. I am trans and people in this category of engagement come at me and try to insist things directly to my face about me which simply do not reflect how being trans works. They can't argue me out of my position when it represents my lived reality but they will argue from a position that they are an authority that can tell me what is best for me... Or they argue from a position of a society that just doesn't have time or patience to care and shouldn't need to expend effort to care. They desperately have an opinion because everyone is talking but they get their sources strictly from cis people who talk strictly to other cis people about us because talking to us and letting us tell them what our deal is ourselves is unthinkable. Our accounts if reality are discounted because we are supposed to be delusional and someone else, a cis person, should be making decisions for us. To actually approach us as an authority on what it is like to live our lives is by them considered a radical position.
A lot of it can be easily spotted in how someone had their whiteness pointed out to them or mention how the concept of whiteness operates in society. Basically because whiteness is supposed to be a default just mentioning it tends to make white people uncomfortable to talk about it. That we think about our whiteness as little as possible is a feature of privilege and not a comfort extended to POC who operate in ways that interface with their race regularly. So when we discuss that privilege it brings us in line with the level of conscious awareness POCs tend to have about how their race routinely impacts their experience and rather than seeing that as an equality and sensitivity to be aware of their own whiteness in a space people treat it as a racist attack because we aren't supposed to even be a race - just a raceless default.
Problem is if trans or POC people talk about cisness or whiteness then suddenly there's a hissy fit about how we shouldn't even mention those things. They are treated like slurs because we aren't supposed to notice you're cis and white. It is the thing we cannot speak on... But try being a minority and NOT discussing the majority. Our we don't get to choose how our society operates, the majority does which means every time we leave the house we deal with the majority while members of majority and the minority themselves only gets to see a minority rarely. Our lives are limited by the will of a majority and sometimes that means discomfort, inconvenience or pressure exerted on us by them. You can't talk about us without understanding what you look like from our perspective. So in saying "you can't talk about us!" the burden falls on us because we can't really use comparison or try and utilize what we know of your norms to explain what ours are.
If you are self aware that people who experience a thing directly have insights you can learn from. This guy in the meme isn't you.
Its funny that you are only sitting on a positive comment score because you prefaced your question with several paragraphs of self-flagellation, humbling yourself and accepting to being patronized
Is this text telling me to be quiet if I’m not personally affected by the particular challenge being discussed
It's telling you that you must believe and acquiesce to those that have standpoint. So not "being quiet," but actively swallowing whatever they throw at you as "truth" and following their political will
Its funny that you are only sitting on a positive comment score because you prefaced your question with several paragraphs of self-flagellation, humbling yourself and accepting to being patronized
Is an honest conversation that foreign to you? Are you suggesting I need to wrap myself in bravado instead for some reason? I'm pretty comfortable in who I am with both my strengths and weaknesses. I'd like to encourage everyone to get to the place where they can be too.
It’s telling you that you must believe and acquiesce to those that have standpoint. So not “being quiet,” but actively swallowing whatever they throw at you as “truth” and following their political will
Slow down there a bit. You're deciding what I believe already when I hadn't even yet. You rush too quickly to judgment, apparently of the message and of me. I understand why. Simple pre-decided narratives are comfortable. However, we do ourselves a disservice if we don't test our values internally. If my values and beliefs stand the test of scrutiny, then they are defensible and valid . If they crumble when examined, then perhaps I need new values and beliefs.
The first step is to decode the message which was confusing to me. If you'll notice, on my reading came away with two distinct possible messages, and allowed for any number of others. That doesn't mean accepting its premise as fact or belief. It might later, but that isn't decided when one is still seeking to understand the premise of what is being said.
In the end, the original message was a shitpost joke instead of something with deeper meaning that I thought it might be. So it was right of me to seek understanding of the original message, instead of a rush to judgment.
OP is just saying people who disagree with them are bad. You can't figure out the meaning because there is none.
Ok, so what's the implication about white people here?
If I can play devil's advocate here...
Straight white man bad
The implication is less about white people and more about the people posting this shit.
white = bad unless you think you're the opposite sex, then it's ok.
There is literally a slur specifically aimed at white women (Karen). It's okay in feminist circles to say that white women should shut up. And here's a study that shows people also ethnically mark white women.
I don't think there is a group you can belong to that's not stereotyped badly in some way.
Fuckin lol'd. 🤣
Ah, this is "a lesson about how to exclude white people (still the majority of the country) from any social justice movement." Characterize and belittle any of them who try to engage and support a cause.
If they can't relate and want to have a conversation about it but challenge some of the ideas then they're the baddies. If they don't just repeat the movement's slogans without thought then clearly they should be excluded. This honestly feels like a right wing subversion tactic.
Yes, I know there are people like the post. People who love to argue and do it for the fun of arguing. Those people do cause trouble if you're trying to get a consensus or get something done.... But just like "welfare , queens" or criminal illegal immigrants, they feel like the minority where this is intending to paint a large group of people with the same brush.
It's usually not good to make fun of people who are trying to help, or you teach people to shut down and not engage with your cause. If the statement is you have to have experienced or you can't relate, then why bother having a movement because you're not trying to convince anybody who isn't already on your side.
How exactly is this NOT racist?
It's not necessary a "white" person, for example I once had a discussion with a black American who took this position depicted here, a big Obama fan and free market defender
"i can't be racist, i have a black friend"
because it's against the "bad" race.
Tell me you don't understand what white supremacism is without telling me you don't understand what white supremacism is.
Not to excuse the behaviour, but I honestly think some people do it reflexively. Like I think some of the most egregious "sea lions" actually believe that they're being measured and rational and just asking questions and raising concerns, or whatever bullshit.
Definitely some real bad actors, too, but also many many many useful idiots. I'm convinced. Just because I remember being a white 21yo and thinking I was some kind of atheist truth seeker, when really it was mostly just gas bagging
I'm honestly interested in how people think. There's no meaningful action happening here - it's mostly circle jerking. Most situations where people are accused of sea lioning online aren't meaningful. Bit of a straw person.
Those are the types of situations where we should be asking ourselves if our interrogations are doing more harm than good. I'm interested in people, too, but there is some tact involved in knowing when to insert yourself.
Especially if it's about something that might not affect us directly, like trans people being bullied at school, or black people venting about experiences with the cops (etc, I don't know you, but insert your own).
Like the image says, these might be theoretical to us, but they are deadly serious to someone else, you know?
What is a sea lion in this context?
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sea-lioning
In short: Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity, and feigning ignorance of the subject matter.
but I honestly think some people do it reflexively
Unless they're a little kid or something, that's absolutely not an excuse.
Man i cringe at my militant atheist phase so hard.
Some Christians never grow out of it. At least being an edgelord is part of youth.
Thinking the color of your skin has anything to do with anything is an easy way for me to not take anything you say seriously. The inequality is class based, not race. But keep spouting off about how whiteys are the devil and creating more racists of all colors. Both of these sides serve the ruling class by distracting us from the real issues.
It's mostly white people. I'm white. I know these people. I've been this person. Yes I agree, there is a meta inequality based on class outside of race. Just like there is "colourism" within non-white communities. These are all valid struggles that are worth fighting, and don't detract from other battles. They're in fact necessary skirmishes in a larger war (for universal human dignity, flourishing, whatever you want to call it).
Pardon all the violent analogies. The people at my work have infected me with this way of speaking.
The inequality is class based, not race.
Can you provide sources to back that up? (Genuine question, idk what science currently got to say about this.)
That's hard to do because it's a very broad statement. What I would need to send depends on which parts of your beliefsystem are incomplete or incorrect. Or i'd be writing a two hour essay combining facts and conclusions. I'll try to keep it short.
You can easily conjure up statistics to back the claim that black people generally are poorer, and this does have a race-based history. However, underneath that is the class inequality, which because of the historic race inequality, means a lot of people of color being in the lower class.
At this point in time, inequality between the ultrarich and poor (of all colors) is broadening faster than ever. People looking for someone to blame. Media directs them in one of two directions, both incorrect.
a) The problem is migrants and communists who want to destroy tradition because they want free money.
b) The problem is racists and bigots who just love to hate for the sake of it.
These two factions are set up against eachother, reinforcing the need for the other's existence.
Now that's not to say both sides are equally incorrect, don't get me wrong. But for the most part, neither of them acknowledge the issue of corruption in government allowing things like lobbying and gerrymandering which essentially provides a way for cooperations and money interests to have bought and paid for politicians on both sides. Since the system is inherently set up for money to have different objectives than commoners, we get eaten.This is the underlying issue causing race issues in the first place. Tribalism is exploited by these people because commoners want answers they're not getting. It happens on both sides and it does not address the underlying issue.
Yes, racism exists, and it should be addressed. But you cannot fight racism with more racism. You attack the problem at it's root instead.
whataboutism at its finest. Some fucker on the news made the whataboutists angry now they will happily follow around some rich ass mother fucker. Also the rich ass mother fucker is distrusted by there own followers but doesn't mind using them as pawns in there little game of 4d chess.
Meta.
Somebody deleted my comment on here and it wasn't me, so that's pretty fucked up.
Mods if you're deleting people's comments without notification, you're going to get your community blocked.
Don't be a censoring shithead, and keep the Internet free as it should be.
no one deleted your comment.
hear me out..
I do think there are people this applies to, but my understanding is there are relatively few of them and you can identify them as they talk shit about everyone to get gossip and hold petty grudges like gollum would hold the ring of power.
So which social justice cause has Biden made meaningful progress on?
Police shootings? Prison labor? Qualified Immunity? Civil Asset Forfeiture? Rent affordability? Welfare cliff? Welfare work load for not losing benefits? Unions? (Lmao, we all remember the railroad) Cash bail? Debtor's prison? (An unconstitutional practice the DOJ could end today) Reproductive healthcare? Minimum sentences? Child marriage?
Look, if the word on the street was that Biden had meaningfully improved life for minorities and lower socioeconomic groups then I'd respect that. But it isn't. Shit is just festering while the Democrats take victory laps.
Here in South Africa we just call them "white liberals."
Huh......ynow what.....fuck you.
Maybe reflect on why this bothers you? Much love.
"Economist, political scientist liberal and libertarian"
"If you block me means I win the debate"
For conservatives, being called white is somehow a slur.
That’s what they are conserving. The hierarchy.
TIL lemmy.world is full of extremely fragile closet fascists, wow!
great post OP!
Thanks.
Like David Pakman
Too true.
I'm not white but teenage/early 20's me is feeling really called out right now....
“Whiteness” doesn’t exist.
Well it does, it's just not what people think it is.
wow so true fuck white men!
