Is the White Male Under Attack?

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Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC

There is a very real consideration in looking at one's age and experiences. It is not to put down one's age. There is no doubt in my mind that I have much more understanding about real life, now that I have experienced so many things. I used to know so much about parenting and marriage before I was married and a parent. Now I realize how much I DIDN'T know. If you think that maturity and understanding doesn't come with age, then that further proves the point.

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I don't mean to butt in to this argument, but it seems that the point you are making (ignoring the age aspect) is that people here would have different views if they personally experienced discrimination based on their skin color?

Seems like a fair point, but I don't agree. I'm only 20, but I grew up in Los Angeles, California, in a neighborhood in which whites were the minority. Everybody there hates white people, even the Jews, and I have experienced discrimination. I gotten beaten up and made fun of at schools for being a white man, I've been given subpar services at restaurants for being a "gringo," I've been told that I'm inherently evil by the children of former Black Panthers, and I had a friend who wasn't allowed to hang out with me because I was white. Despite all this, you still can not convince me that there's a mass conspiracy against white people, or that the white man has it rough compared to other racial groups. The fact that I've been victimized a few times in my lifetime doesn't mean **** in the grand scheme of things, or on any sort of macro level. My personal experience is vastly trumped by actual statistics.

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Originally Posted by Desolation

I don't mean to butt in to this argument, but it seems that the point you are making (ignoring the age aspect) is that people here would have different views if they personally experienced discrimination based on their skin color?

Seems like a fair point, but I don't agree. I'm only 20, but I grew up in Los Angeles, California, in a neighborhood in which whites were the minority. Everybody there hates white people, even the Jews, and I have experienced discrimination. I gotten beaten up and made fun of at schools for being a white man, I've been given subpar services at restaurants for being a "gringo," I've been told that I'm inherently evil by the children of former Black Panthers, and I had a friend who wasn't allowed to hang out with me because I was white. Despite all this, you still can not convince me that there's a mass conspiracy against white people, or that the white man has it rough compared to other racial groups. The fact that I've been victimized a few times in my lifetime doesn't mean **** in the grand scheme of things, or on any sort of macro level. My personal experience is vastly trumped by actual statistics.

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Sir you are truly a mature and perceptive man. Truly. I can just instinctively feel that some after your experience would immedietly judge every single minority group as against them.

On another note: I think that this particular hostility towards white people by some blacks is what one could call the Shylock-effect if you will: racism bates more racism. I am sure that I would be more likely to face more discrimination against a black individual from a low-income neighborhood, than vice-versa. This is the result of class struggle. Would that make him/her a bad person? Not particuarly. After experiencing so much prejudice, we must understand that a minority group is bound to react. Unfortunately, they react with counter-prejudice. It's human nature.

Of course racial tension overall has eased dramatically in the past decades, but it can still be found in low-income areas, not because of intrinsic racism within black Americans, but because of economic and social frustrations arising not only out of racial tension, but out of class struggle. It is unavoidable that those at the lower end of the rope will be surrounded by more racial tension, and as has been the unfortunate fact here in America and elsewhere, it is black Americans with low incomes. It was this way in Europe for hundreds of years with the Jews as well. This is a result of the factors of not only prejudiced societies, but hierarchical societies as well.

In the end what does this say for the anti-white conspiracy? Nothing. I can just about guarantee you that every group of peoples in ever society in history that were fed the short end of the stick were indeed 'hardened' by the sins committed against them. To quote the flawed Shylock, "The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction." And this is indeed the sad fact of post-colonial society in the wake of thousands of years of prejudice and slavery. It is not anti-white sentiment, it is disillusionment. Wounds do not heal easily and indeed it is a unfortunate fact the the black American still faces prejudice today, just less of it. As long as there's prejudice, there will always be this reactionary hostility. The white man is not under attack, in fact, it is the unperceptive white man who fails to understand the experience of minorities today.

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Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC

If you think that maturity and understanding doesn't come with age, then that further proves the point.

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This is nonsense.

The age of people that believe in things like astrology or young earth creation destroy your point entirely, because if age increased understanding, nobody over the age of 11 would begin to accept such irrational things.

When I look at people who claim that Noah's flood was real, or that the earth was created ~6016 years ago, or that dowsing for water really works, I find that the young believers are merely listening to what their elders and allegedly wisers are saying.

There is no "wiser"; there those who can think critically and those who cannot.

Not to mention those "older people" who might have no *experience* of a minority best friend, or a minority boss, or a minority giving advice or aid.

F i n a l__ W a r n i n g

Please do not personalise your arguments.

If you find yourself unable to discuss the topic at hand (rather than each other),

please refrain from taking part in the discussion.

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Originally Posted by DanielBenoit

it is pure dirty politics (rhetoric in this context) when one demeans and discredits peoples opinions on the basis of their age.

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Originally Posted by DanielBenoit

especially in considering that a majority of people working in the government are. . . . old white males.

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It would appear that righteous indignation is undermining your position.

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Originally Posted by Desolation

The fact that I've been victimized a few times in my lifetime doesn't mean **** in the grand scheme of things, or on any sort of macro level. My personal experience is vastly trumped by actual statistics.

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I don't disagree with your outlook. However, a large proportion of people, learned or otherwise use past experience as a primary guiding beacon and seldom look to empirical data since they trust in their own integrity. this means, good and bad experiences create a living, real, tangible truth which cannot be easily invalidated by pure statistics - especially when they contradict our first-hand knowledge. While we discuss empirical research at a collective level - mass statistics over subjectivity, it is worthwhile noting that such research has yet to arrive at a single conclusion which is collectively agreed upon.

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

It would appear that righteous indignation is undermining your position.

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Not really.

It's an emotive subject, and when confronted by what seems to me to be an unfair attack, an emotional response is reasonable.

One thing is quite stark in this thread - all of the "evidence" in favour of the proposition that white men are under attack is anecdotal.

There isn't a single shred of hard evidence, which really does lead me to wonder whether racism is so institutionalised that people believe these kind of things without ever thinking about it.

We had a classic case recently when a radical Maori Member of Parliament stated that he would uncomfortable with his daughter dating a white boy.

There are racists on every side of the fence, but until I see "coloured" organisations like Stormfront, the KKK and various other race-hate groups vocally supporting the demise of white men, I find it hard to accept that there are more than usual quotient of extremists on any side.

In NZ, we have an enormous number of criminal black gangs and violence is endemic in some parts. Of all the violence, I have yet to see a case of a white man being attacked physically - and that's despite hundreds of cases of coloured people attacking other coloured people, simply for being in the wrong gang.

It is the same in USA, where tha vast majority of "race" crime is commited against members of one's own race.

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Originally Posted by Delta40

I don't disagree with your outlook. However, a large proportion of people, learned or otherwise use past experience as a primary guiding beacon and seldom look to empirical data since they trust in their own integrity. this means, good and bad experiences create a living, real, tangible truth which cannot be easily invalidated by pure statistics - especially when they contradict our first-hand knowledge. While we discuss empirical research at a collective level - mass statistics over subjectivity, it is worthwhile noting that such research has yet to arrive at a single conclusion which is collectively agreed upon.

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Thank you for encapsulating the argument in a nutshell.

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

Thank you for encapsulating the argument in a nutshell.

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My pleasure Brian.

For example, I knew a woman from Colombia who thought that she was allergic to snow (upon her first encounter with it). It made her nose run.

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Originally Posted by DanielBenoit

The argument of this thread has been whether or not the white male is being more often discriminated and physically attacked. This has been proven to be completely untrue by the statistics I have provided twice. It has also been proven that blacks are still victim to hate crimes more than twice that of whites. Every instance in these percentages are not just a mere number, they are little yet highly significant capsules of personal experience.

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Your example may be true of the US, Daniel, but I doubt it is true universally. Your statistics are unlikely to hold true in Saudi Arabia, for example ;) Neither is it true for the UK, where the population is 92% white. One might argue that 'white' being the dominant 'race' is in the privileged position of being immune to racial hatred by means of their dominant position, except in certain very individual circumstances, and to a certain extent your example would be flawed for the UK simply by means of demographic as the racial hatred is more likely to be against 'brown' ( persons of Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi origin or descent) http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=267 than against 'black' though it appears true to say that racial minorities are more likely to be victim of racial crime than their white counterparts. But it goes much further than that. The statement that UK is 92% white is misleading because 'white' is a blanket statement for a much more varied demographic. Because in Europe there is a great freedom of movement between EU member states. So in UK, for example, there may be racism against the white man, because that particular white man is white Polish, or white Romanian. It may well be that white Poles are statistically more prone to racial attack in UK, but because we lump them in with all 'white' people that statistic is lost. And there is a difference between someone who is white English and white Scottish or white Northern Irish or Welsh. And it goes even further than that. So, for example, someone might be discriminated against because they are white Geordie or white Scouser because they don't have a BBC accent and people, quite wrongly, have a certain perception of people from those regions. They are still white, but to say as a blanket statement that as a result of being white they are less prone to racial discrimination is patently untrue. It is much more subtle than that. And that doesn't mean to say that it is not true that racial minorities are not more likely to suffer racial attack than the indiginous population (if there is such a thing these days). The statistics certainly seem to indicate that there is a problem, but what they don't give us are the subtleties or the reasons, for those you need to dig deeper. So, for example, it may be that hate crime is more common against minority groups or it may be that the minority groups are more likely to report hate crime and that such crimes are more likely to be taken seriously by the police if reported by a black person than a white person. Just to give a similar example of where statistics are simply the tip of the iceberg, take this report which makes for quite interesting reading: http://www.justice.gov.uk/stats-race...08-revised.pdf and I'll quote a passage here:

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For British Nationals, the proportion of Black prisoners relative to the population was 6.8 per 1,000 population compared to 1.3 per 1,000 for White persons. Similarly there were more people from Mixed ethnic backgrounds in prison per head of population (3.7 per 1,000) than White people. In contrast, people from Chinese or Other ethnic backgrounds had the lowest rate of imprisonment with a rate of 0.5 per 1,000 population. The rate for people from Asian groups was higher than for White persons but lower than that for the Mixed or Black groups at 1.8 per 1,000 population.

Among adult sentenced prisoners, 67% of the Black offenders, 60% of Asian offenders, 59% of Mixed ethnicity offenders and 47% of the Chinese or Other ethnicity offenders were serving a sentence of four years or more compared with 54% White adult sentenced offenders.

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which tells us that there is a greater proportion of black prisoners, per head of population, than white prisoners. Does this mean that blacks have a greater tendency towards offending behaviour, which is one interpretation, or does this tell us that blacks are more likely to be living in poverty (which is a key driver of criminal behaviour), targeted by the police and more likely to receive a severe sentence than their white compatriots? Both could be true, and neither could be true. The number is disturbing, actually I found the whole report a little disturbing, but in itself it doesn't tell me what's really happening, or what's the right thing to do to change it.

Of course the only way to defeat racism, or any other 'ism', for that matter is to stop putting people into groups and stop considering people as a group entity. So you do not battle racism by arguing that blacks are more discriminated against whites, because this argument inherently relies on the idea of a group experience which in itself becomes a cultivator of isms. Because people who are white then feel the need to defend themselves as a group even though they do not really share a group experience. And so it goes on. And when it comes down to it isms are just an expression of power, the idea that 'I have power over you due to circumstances over which you have no control and can therefore do nothing about'. It is an excuse, rather than a reason. If we are to break it, we must all start to think in terms of the individual, rather than the group, and we must all think in terms of what we can and can't control individually. Until we break the group mentality, this will just go on and on and on and on. Ad infinitum. And it is right that we should have laws which make it illegal to deny someone opportunities on the basis of race, sex, religious or sexual persuasion. But those laws should be applied universally, so it should be equally illegal to deny someone an opportunity because they are a white male as it is to deny someone an opportunity because they are a black female. Only by taking race entirely out of consideration do you have a hope of achieving true equality.

And I think it's worth quoting Dafydd's statement here, which I think is important and true:

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Originally Posted by dafydd manton

How much better would it be if we, the supposedly educated, resolved to stop wasting our time trying to show who is the hardest done by, but resolved instead to accept our differences, to enjoy the differences, and to try our best to live in harmony with each other, regardless of race, colour,creed, religion................. To embrace any cultural variations, rather than fruitlessly argue about them. Idealistic? No, not at all. It can be done, it has been......................

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Originally Posted by Delta40

I don't disagree with your outlook. However, a large proportion of people, learned or otherwise use past experience as a primary guiding beacon and seldom look to empirical data since they trust in their own integrity. this means, good and bad experiences create a living, real, tangible truth which cannot be easily invalidated by pure statistics - especially when they contradict our first-hand knowledge. While we discuss empirical research at a collective level - mass statistics over subjectivity, it is worthwhile noting that such research has yet to arrive at a single conclusion which is collectively agreed upon.

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Basing your view of an entire race on a few incidents and refusing to look at the overwhelming evidence contrary to your experience might be called integrity by some, but, in my very humble opinion, it fits the description of ignorance more accurately.

Using your own limited experience to formalute a general theory could be described as being prejudiced and narrow-minded. Prejudice is indeed hard to destroy, despite the evidence.

An example: I lived abroad, somewhere in Eastern Europe, and in my building there were living 20 other students. They were all British nationals, without exception. They were all, without exception, Asian in appearance and they were all, without exception, extremely nice. Other than that, I've only met two other British people. They were white. They were both, without exception, extremely drunk.

Should I disregard the empirical evidence, or should I simple form a living tangible, real truth and trust my 'integrity' and say: 'the majority of the British people are Asian in appearance, they are all very nice and friendly. Lovely roommates. All of the British people study medicine abroad. Great Britain has a white minority. They are loud and obnoxious and always drunk.

Now, of course, this is ridiculous... but somehow when you use this type of "guiding beacon" to support racist and prejudiced views, it's acceptable?

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Originally Posted by Propter W.

white.
Should I disregard the empirical evidence, or should I simple form a living tangible, real truth and trust my 'integrity' and say: 'the majority of the British people are Asian in appearance, they are all very nice and friendly. Lovely roommates. All of the British people study medicine abroad. Great Britain has a white minority. They are loud and obnoxious and always drunk.

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Well if you are saying, should I trust to my experience rather than someone who has an axe to grind and waving a sheet of statistics, I would say it would be silly, and in certain circumstances downright dangerous, to do otherwise.

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Originally Posted by Propter W.

Should I disregard the empirical evidence, or should I simple form a living tangible, real truth and trust my 'integrity' and say: 'the majority of the British people are Asian in appearance, they are all very nice and friendly. Lovely roommates. All of the British people study medicine abroad. Great Britain has a white minority. They are loud and obnoxious and always drunk.

Now, of course, this is ridiculous... but somehow when you use this type of "guiding beacon" to support racist and prejudiced views, it's acceptable?

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Whether we agree or not, a racist person is just as likely to employ the same formula as a non-racist. I'm confident a KKK member and a pacifist both use their living tangible truths and subsequently reinforce them in their everyday lives. Call it ignorance if you like - terminology is also relative.

It isn't for me to say whether you should form a negative or positive view of people based on your own integrity - you are the best person to answer this.