Jump to content

Civil Rights 2.0?


Burt
 Share

Recommended Posts

I hope it is due to the fact that the last generation of well-educated rich conservative old white dude politicians are starting to kick the bucket make one big last push to reclaim American now that a black President has brought Hell to Earth.

 

I say DIE FASTER. In a couple more decades your going to have a Republican party that leans left socially, Democrats that find a way to loop in the fringe liberals and maybe a Libertarian party with more numbers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can report from the trenches on this, unfortunately. In the Deep South, it depends on location. In a more metropolitan area like where I am, things are fairly progressive. In more rural areas, it's just as bad as it's always been.

You'd think that the ease of access to information and the outside world in general would make deep-rooted biases, racism, and various phobias harder to come by. But instead, education and communication are too often actively frowned upon these days. It's scary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are current gender and race equality issues leading to big changes?

 

Or, is this just more flash-in-the-pan activism, like Occupy Wall Street and Kony 2012?

I don't think so. I think much of what you're hearing right now is just a giant circle jerk. People with lots of spare time who are super excited cuz they've been provided a bullhorn by the Internet spending their days either shouting to other people who feel similarly, or shouting down people who refuse the gospel.

 

It may trickle into real life from time to time, but it's not real life or real big change. I sometimes wonder if it even turns more people off than it attracts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can report from the trenches on this, unfortunately. In the Deep South, it depends on location. In a more metropolitan area like where I am, things are fairly progressive. In more rural areas, it's just as bad as it's always been.

 

 

 

You're really generalizing this way too much. It doesn't depend on location as it depends on the person and environment they are brought up in. Trust me, I have seen the same racist tendancies in the metro areas as I have in rural areas.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only big change it's leading to is a huge division between the races that we haven't seen since the 60s/early 70s.

 

 

I'm probably the biggest critic of the whole armchair-activism/internet social justice nonsense on this board... but.. seriously? This is a little "Chicken Little," don't you think?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm probably the biggest critic of the whole armchair-activism/internet social justice nonsense on this board

I'd give you a run for your money.

 

I don't think so. I think much of what you're hearing right now is just a giant circle jerk. People with lots of spare time who are super excited cuz they've been provided a bullhorn by the Internet spending their days either shouting to other people who feel similarly, or shouting down people who refuse the gospel.

For this reason, I hope it sinks like a stone. It just depends on how long it takes people to start to catch on that this ultimately not about race or gender based civil rights, but academic egos. Egos that need to shame or put others down in order to make themselves look just that much smarter. They appeal to feminism and anti racism because that's what's considered virtuous these days. That will eventually change, and the good names of these once proud traditions will be tarnished forever.

 

I don't think much will change in the foreseeable future, though. Reason being is that "political correctness" has basically become, for all intents and purposes, the public relations arm of the arts, humanities and social sciences departments of academia. Don't believe me? Just try reading a lot of social justice type blogs. Especially ones where words like "intersectionality" turn up. The vocabulary and tone sure ain't what you'd find in a ghetto, Indian reservation or battered woman's shelter. Where you will find it is in a place where the real "knapsack of privilege" you'll be unpacking is the one you carry your over priced text books around campus in.

 

I don't intend this to be an anti intellectualist screed against the ivory tower. But this fusion we've seen of 1960s era new left politics and at least some academic fields goes a long way towards explaining some of the stranger qualities that social justice advocacy seems to have these days. Why, after all is said than done, a good deal more is always said than done. Why ideologies that pride themselves on supposed egalitarian premises end up being so incomprehensible to all but an elect few. Why advocacy for this marginalized group or that is so often a thin veneer overtop an ugly competativeness and propensity to shame others. Resources are limited and undergraduates have a reputation for bitterness, after all.

 

Afterwords, little changed. It's more radical than thou for a few years, until you get a real job or end up getting hitched - like you swore you'd never do. At best, someone's thesis ends up being an established critique of some form of sexism/racism in some obscure corner of popular culture or another. You might get to take eventual credit for such monumental civil rights break throughs as ... Disney prinesses shooting down instead of swoonong over Prince Charming's overtures in the next fairy tale cinema reboot! It will get rave reviews from married male reviewers for its "empowering" themes, though feminist blogs will just find something else to bitch and whine about. All of the mothers viewing the film will cheer "girl power" with their young daughters before going home to do more home making for their husbands and children. W00t! And that's best case scenario. Far more likely your thesis will exist only as it was cited by other thesis. Assuming you even get published at all. But you can ALWAYS blog, and THAT'S how more of this stuff has reached main stream audiences. Susan B. Anthony you most certainly will not be.

 

From then on it's mostly cheap nostalgia to disguise the fact that the only thing you ever really advocated on behalf of was your own publishing career. On the grand scheme of things, "civil rights 2.0" - which is really not quite so new, will change little and itself be changed little.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I bet a lot have already seen the video clip online I'm about to refer to, but the other day a black friend of mine was showing another black friend a video clip of a couple white cops trying to arrest a young black kid in an urban neighborhood. The kid was yelling and jumping and flailing around like an idiot, screaming GO AHEAD SHOOT ME over and over. Eventually the cop (or cops) lit him up. That's really the only context I saw, and I tried to find it again later but couldn't. Tragic thing for sure, but the way I saw it blame can be assigned to both the kid and the cop. I mean, kid, they have guns aimed at you...umm no sudden moves? but on the other hand, maybe a warning shot or a non-lethal takedown? But then again, I don't know what he was being arrested for or how big a threat he was...

 

Well these friends of mine, who I've never heard any of them say anything racist before, suddenly were rallying around this and trash talking cops and white people in general right in front of me and others (all white). Obviously they only wanted to talk or listen to the black kid's point of view. I don't know were all that hate came from; had no idea they harbored nastiness. they took their own skewed version of what they saw and applied it to EVERY white person, cop or no.

 

I'm convinced sometimes people go out of their way to be offended and look for racism. But then a part of me remembers that video and my friends' responses to it, and then I wonder how much of it is real and if it will ever go away.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well these friends of mine, who I've never heard any of them say anything racist before, suddenly were rallying around this and trash talking cops and white people in general right in front of me and others (all white). Obviously they only wanted to talk or listen to the black kid's point of view. I don't know were all that hate came from; had no idea they harbored nastiness. they took their own skewed version of what they saw and applied it to EVERY white person, cop or no.

With your friends, I think it's important to remember that people aren't rational and that their perception is their reality -- however skewed. When you are venting over something that impacts you emotionally, something that leaves you frustrated and angry, you can act out and say stupid things that you might otherwise self-censor.

 

Unless it is something dangerous or just plain unforgivable, I honestly wouldn't put a ton of stock into things said or done in the heat of the moment. It can give you a glimpse into the inner workings of a person, but it's hardly the whole machine. Even the sweet, helpful clerk at your local Walgreens can have a heart of bile beneath the right moon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

DANA-kin, the black rage is kind of what has got my interest. Black people seem to be really, really pissed.

 

A linebacker from OU brings up a pretty damn solid point about the two-faced nature of a lot of white people:

(NSFW language)

There has been a massive push in my lifetime to say we've progressed beyond racism, but as the OU linebacker said it's a bunch of BS.

 

Interestingly enough, the same white fraternity that chanted about "n***ers" had no problem partying with Wacka Flacka.

 

However, black people were plenty pissed in the early 90s in Los Angeles. I guess it's not really any worse now, I'm just more in touch with opinions of black people because of the internet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My wife and I were commenting how remarkable it was that society flipped its position on homosexuality. She was watching a few episodes of Friends, and some of those jokes about homosexuals and innuendo just wouldn't fly today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, my daughter was watching Mulan and there was a crack about cross-dressers. It felt awkward in today's world, but as D-Ray pointed out, certain areas (particularly rural) are much less accepting of homosexuals and transgendered. Thinking about my language as a teenager, I wonder if that stuff is still acceptable in teen circles or if they're the same little ***holes we were.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's definitely changed a lot in a short period of time. Gradeschool kids absolutely still use "***" as an insult, though, even in politically correct, progressiver-than-thou Portland. But if you are older than 18 and not careful about how you use it, people are gonna consider you something of a sad idiot and roll their eyes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But it is not like gay rights is something new either. Even an episode of Barney Miller put gay rights on the 70s screen. Yes. Gay rights were something that maybe NYC may have considered in the 70s in Greenwich Village but not rural areas like say Centre Alabama may have thought about but people are starting to feel more comfortable coming out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hope it is due to the fact that the last generation of well-educated rich conservative old white dude politicians are starting to kick the bucket make one big last push to reclaim American now that a black President has brought Hell to Earth.

 

I say DIE FASTER. In a couple more decades your going to have a Republican party that leans left socially, Democrats that find a way to loop in the fringe liberals and maybe a Libertarian party with more numbers.

This is not the frst time you have expressed such hyperbolic sentiments, and I have to say it is just way off (aside from the anger).

 

If you think any of the "isms" are limited to "old white dude politicians" then you need to wonder why a University of Oklahoma fraternity (and others) have been exposed for a chant that sounds like something right out of the Klan songbook circa 1920.

 

Moreover, discrimination of many forms has many supporters among the younger generations. For example, there's a faction of young hispanics increasingly political (with hostile views surpassing anything coming out of La Raza) despise whites and blacks, and cannot wait for the day when they beome the voting block in the nation. Similarly, i'm sure Kurgan can tell you of the ever-growing hostile side of young feminism, which sees everything from descriptive terms to a casual look as the equivalent of assualt, and desire to remake society in their own image--or mindset.

 

Now, for the white end of the pool, well, the link is a situation that is not exactly rare at college universirties. We're talking about 20-somethings who will eventually take the same offensive beliefs to the rest of the world (socially, professionally, etc.). If any have childern, do you think their beliefs will not be passed on by some--just as older generations passed on the same "heirloom" to their kids? Ultimately, the knife buried in the neck of unity, respect and equal treatment crosses all borders, and its not just the "old / white / well educated" group with a grip on that handle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.