It’s not whataboutery. that’s classic deflection. Me blaming Labour for being shit in opposition when the Tories do something else that’s stupid.
This is pointing out that once you start to categorise disadvantaged groups, where do you stop?
A Pandora’s Box - “but if we’re better towards to black people we might also have to start being better to women.”
A woman who, based on her name, appears to be of African heritage, commented on the discrepancy between the people in the crowd (the ruled) and the people on the balcony (the rulers). It’s not a particularly insightful point to comment on the royals not being representative of the people of their country, including the children of the colonized, but it’s also not difficult to understand what was said and you need to have a hair trigger to see/hear those comments and think “omg it’s anti white racism”
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Of course, silly me, going straight to the racial makeup of a group of people is the first thing anybody would do and quite understandable.
Hair trigger? Only first thing in the morning.
Your experience of the world is as a white person. You don’t see race as an issue because, for you, it never has been an issue. You have never been compelled to define yourself by your race or assert your race as a key part of your identity. You haven’t been raised to see yourself in racial terms. Your race has never held you back and it’s never something that’s been used to make you feel inferior to those around you.
Of course you think it’s strange to be thinking about race when navigating the world. You’ve never needed to.
The challenge for you is to step outside the narrow confines of your own experience and actually try to understand what the world feels like to someone who doesn’t look like you.
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I don’t really care about black under representation in the Royal family, per se, as it’s just one family. Most single families will not be represented by numerous segments of society, as the sample size is too small.
With regard to Meghan Markle’s experience, the whole thing looked like a soap opera, and from afar it was impossible to say what was racist, or cultural, or cross cultural, or bad manners, or various attempts at PR and spin to take hold of more of the pie.
With all that said, the Royal Family, and the whole system that supports it, is of course very unequal indeed.
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There is an issue that needs to be acknowledged, and that is that people of our approximate age, lived a significant period of life being taught the importance of “colour blindness” when it comes to race. The idea that not seeing race in someone was the desired outcome of any exchange, which was the perceived best approach to eliminating prejudice. That is incongruent with the way race is spoken about today, so I can understand how people who grew up in the 80s or 90s when this idea was dominant might be confused and/or frustrated that now “race is everywhere”.
Lots of these ideas change from generation to generation as the limitations of them are better understood. This is partly how colorblindness has been reevaluated, but it’s also received a reevaluation in terms of its intent. It is an idea that can very easily be used to enforce status quos by refusing to acknowledge the issues in society that stem from race, and has been questioned as to whether that is why it become the dominant perspective.
“I cannot get a mortgage despite me meeting all the qualifications on paper for debt and income”
“That’s not my problem…I dont see colour”
Why should a black person have to do this today in the UK?
Again, does this happen for any black people in the UK today?
Is this the bit where you are given lots of examples of racism in our society and you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge them?
This is where this discussion always falls apart - the point where you just refuse to accept that racism is a thing people experience (except when white people are the victims of racism)
I don’t know, do you have a plausible alternative explanation for why black people received covid fines at a rate of approximately 3x that of white people (other visible minorities were ~ 2x)?
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That could (I stress could) be like asking why there’s more black on black knife crime?
Or all the police are racist? Let’s go with that, plays better to the crowd.
Why do you think there is more black on black knife crime?
I’ll read it later.
Can only be social and cultural. Which pretty much covers everything. I’m sure the government’s policies are charging towards this conversation though.
Similar to your article I suspect in parts.
Interesting article, if slightly misleading to claim ‘the real reasons’ - it’s a discussion piece.
But what is interesting about it, as it pertains to our conversation, is the spectre of structural racism repeatedly raises its head. Black people being more likely to live in poverty, denied opportunities, racism in police attitudes, lack of positive representation in media and culture, lack of political attention, disproportionate exclusion from school, etc.
In the context of a society in which a staggering 38% of people believe ethnic minority groups are less hard working than white people, and 18% believe they are genetically less intelligent, it’s not hard to see how these structural issues persist.
Because white middle aged men are racist?
Why do you think black on black knife crime is so high? Come on, cards on the table.
You were doing well until this last bit. Was that really a direct quote?
The first bit of the comment was very interesting.