- Joined
- Dec 5, 2015
- Messages
- 3,325
- Reaction score
- 2,348
- Gender
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- Political Leaning
- Libertarian - Left
I've always been well aware of America's history, both bad, and good. I don't buy into the revisionist version where America is overwhelmingly an evil, oppressive society. Obviously, over 150 years ago(a very long time BTW), there was slavery, followed by segregation. In this country, slavery involved black Africans. Its unfathomable to me that some people accepted it back then, and I'm from NC. But I also see the other side(which is generally ignored or minimized by revisionists), where slave owners only consisted of a small percentage of wealthy people, and MOST importantly, hundreds of thousands of WHITE soldiers gave their lives and/or limbs to free black slaves. That last fact has largely been ommitted.
But slavery and oppression are NOT Caucasian institutions. Racism, slavery, oppression and conquest are human inventions carried out by EVERY race. Native Americans stole land and people from each other. Latin Americans stole land in America from native Americans and oppressed them. Latino tribes like the Aztecs conquered lands from other Latinos, and then ripped out the still-beating hearts of their victims, and Muslims of N. Africa captured millions of white Europeans and forced them into slavery.
But over the past 12-15 years, I've heard many leftists attempt to condition Americans of all races into believing that white people are somehow more inherently evil in those sins, while the supposed "minority" races are somehow more justified, and essentially blameless for their actions. It seems to me that evil is evil, and skin color has nothing to do with it.....
What's your honest opinion, regardless of political correctness?
Is oppression a white-only problem? Well, the only people who would argue for that are those that haven't picked up a history textbook. As far as oppression, it exists in all cultures and towards many different ethnicities/religions/etc.
You seem to be misconstruing genuine leftist critique with the poorly thought-out leftist critiques. A few irrelevant, unthoughtful people would argue that white people are more prejudicial than groups. The more thoughtful commentary, however, is that in America, it's clear that rich, heterosexual, white, Christian men hold a special seat of power, and if this is the context that you live in, there's something you can do about it and thus you should focus your efforts on these issues. That doesn't mean that these people don't face problems, it doesn't mean that they are the only ones who perpetrate the oppression, and it doesn't mean that all rich white, Christian men are doing the oppressing. For instance, I've heard plenty of horribly sexist comments from both women and women of color. I've heard racist and sexist things from LGBT individuals. There is institutionalized, enculturated views that exist in enough humans, however, that there are clear and undeniable burdens added to people of color, women, LGBT, religious minorities, disabled, etc. It varies quite a bit person to person, it can depend on the context that you live in, but they are real effects and they have real consequences.
As for your final claim that leftists are arguing for carte blanche freedom for people in discriminated communities --well, maybe some are. Most are not. Most are asking for equal treatment under the law. Most are asking for equal treatment when applying for a job, equal treatment while performing the job, and equal treatment in getting paid for the job. Most are asking for equal treatment in how they are prosecuted by the law or dealt with by the law. That's notably different than asking for new or extra rights.