What do you think about "white privilege”?

Below is the answer (with updates) to that question given by Rik Haines on Quora.com.  He is a college employee in IT

I think “white privilege” is an excuse to be racist against white people.

Last year I applied for a promotion. I passed all the tests with nearly perfect scores, completed the classroom training with nearly perfect scores, and was moved into my new position for the probationary period. My supervisor was a black woman. With the exception of a couple of white female supervisors, I was the only white male in the whole office. My performance throughout the probationary period was outstanding, no complaints.

During the last week of my probationary period, my supervisor recommended me be demoted back to my previous position because I didn’t “fit in” with the “culture” there. I never had any issues with anyone there. I made quite a few friends. I showed up on time every day, did my work, and left along with everyone else. The only issue here was my supervisor had some “unspoken” problem with me being there.

At the end of that week, I was demoted back to my previous position. A few months later, I reapplied for the position hoping to get a different supervisor. Once again, I passed all the tests with even better nearly perfect scores. I was invited to the interview. Because of my previous demotion, not only was I rejected for the position, but banned from being able to apply again for 2 years. The ban for me ends at the end of November this year.

I went to the union and they told me it was an HR issue. I went to the Human Relations Commission to file a complaint of discrimination based on me being white. They told me because I wasn’t a member of a “protected class” there was nothing they could do for me. The law says that because I’m white, I can be discriminated against. I can be excluded from non-white groups. My career can be undermined. I am not afforded all the luxuries of special treatment that non-whites get. And I have to suck it up.

“White privilege” my ass.

Edit: 6.5k upvotes! Thank you very much!

I wanted to share this because every time someone slings around the phrase “white privilege” I have to call BS. It’s an excuse to tear some people down in order to raise other people up. That concept in itself is racist, no matter what color someone is. It isn’t just non-whites who suffer from discrimination and racism. Each one of us is responsible for our own actions. Each one of us is responsible for our own lives. I am a grown up. No one gives me anything. I make my own way in life. If I don’t find what I need to move forward in one place, I move on to another place until I find what I need. That’s exactly what I’m doing. No other person is responsible for holding us back. We hold ourselves back. If we want to move forward, we have to change the way we think, and accept responsibility for ourselves.

These are the kind of conversations we need to have in order to move forward together in society. There’s no such thing as an African American, a Mexican American, an Indian American, an Asian American, etc. We are all just plain Americans. The sooner we stop dividing ourselves, and letting people categorize us by our looks, by our race, by our gender, by our culture, the sooner we can all move forward as a united people.

Edit 2: 7.4k upvotes! Thank you again!

There have been a lot of great responses here, some giving advice, some pointing out flaws in my perspective, and I appreciate your responses whether you agree or disagree with me, or even partly. But most of all, I am glad that a bad experience can open up meaningful conversation and self-reflection. Thank you all for your support and criticisms.

SOURCE






SPLC implodes

It sounds like Dees developed into quite a bully

The discredited “anti-hate” group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) fired its co-founder and chief litigator Morris Dees for a “personal” issue that didn’t reflect “the mission of the organization” or its values.

A statement from the organization’s president, Richard Cohen, published by the Montgomery Advertiser, states that Dee’s employment was terminated “effective yesterday.”

“Effective yesterday, Morris Dees’ employment at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was terminated. As a civil rights organization, the SPLC is committed to ensuring that the conduct of our staff reflects the mission of the organization and the values we hope to instill in the world. When one of our own fails to meet those standards, no matter his or her role in the organization, we take it seriously and must take appropriate action,” the statement said.

The SPLC has become in recent years an organization seemingly dedicated to labeling as “hate” anything that doesn’t align with its radical views. In 2018, the organization paid Maajid Nawaz $3.375 million for falsely labeling him an “anti-Muslim extremist” for his criticism of radical Islam.

At least 60 other organizations filed lawsuits against the organization after this settlement.

More of the organization’s failures were detailed last year by The Washington Post’s Marc Thiessen, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush.

The group also labeled former neurosurgeon, Republican presidential candidate and current secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as author and American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray as extremists among white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

In 2017, Murray’s designation on the website led to angry protests at Middlebury College while he spoke, and a liberal professor who stood up for Murray's right to free speech was sent to the hospital.

The organization also labeled the Christian organization Family Research Council on its “hate map,” and two years later a man went to their office to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-fil-A sandwiches in victims’ faces.” The man told FBI agents he picked FRC from the SPLC website.

It is still unknown what Dees did to get fired, but that will certainly be revealed eventually. In the meantime, the SPLC said it would bring “in an outside organization to conduct a comprehensive assessment of our internal climate and workplace practices, to ensure that our talented staff is working in the environment that they deserve – one in which all voices are heard and all staff members are respected.”

SOURCE







Italian appeals court finds victim ‘too ugly to be raped’

I am sure it is very incorrect of me but I must admit that I find this very Italian verdict amusing

Italy's justice ministry has ordered a preliminary inquiry into an appeals court ruling that overturned a rape verdict on the grounds that the victim was too ugly to be raped.

The ruling has sparked outrage in Italy, including a demonstration on Monday outside the Ancona court where protesters shouted "Shame!" and held up signs saying "indignation".

The appeals sentence was handed down in 2017 - by an all-female panel - but the reasons behind it only emerged when Italy's high court annulled it on March 5 and ordered a retrial.

The Court of Cassation said on Wednesday its own reasons for ordering the retrial will be issued next month.

The Justice Ministry says two Peruvian men convicted in the 2015 assault successfully argued the woman was too "masculine" to be a victim.

SOURCE






Cardinal Pell And Australian Conservatism

John Tomlinson is a welfare academic.  In the far-Left "New Matilda" he writes:

"I have always had a grudging tolerance for the classical conservative position with its defence of the established order, a belief in the imperfection of human beings, the necessity of privilege and leadership. Associated with the conservative position is adherence to traditional values (such as the primacy of the extended family), the importance of work and of sexual restraint, the sanctity of private property and an abhorrence of utopian social change." 

That's not a bad definition of conservatism.  The thing he leaves out of the definition, however, is the key to his whole attack on Australian conservatism.  He leaves out the importance of individual responsibility.  He clearly believes instead in social responsibility.  He sees no problem in taking money off people who have earned it and giving it to people who have not earned it. Conservatives do see a moral problem there but in a classical conservative way resort to compromise:  Do it but limit it as far as possible.  Tomlinson is clearly uninterested in limits to redistribution.

He seems in fact to be uninterested in balance of any sort. Take his comments on Cardinal Pell.  That anybody might take a nuanced view of His Eminence fills him with rage.  He writes:

"Amongst those who gave court character references there was a ‘Craven’ vice chancellor of the Catholic University, an ex-‘socially conservative’ prime minister who had a track record of being reluctant to sack ex-Governor General, Peter Hollingsworth (who had previously been an Anglican Archbishop, who was, at the time, enmeshed in his own scandal).

It takes a particular style of myogenous, misanthropic troglodyte, with a total commitment to turning away from the obvious towards the promotion of arch-conservatism to stand where these men found themselves. They can’t claim to have been blinded by God, and fear and light – it is just that they have lost sight of any sense of right.

Then, of course, there were the trainee galahs in the media such as Andrew Bolt and Janet Albrechtsen who despite, the twelve and true finding Pell guilty of five counts of child molestation, declared the Cardinal innocent.

Howard, Craven, Albrechtsen and Bolt are all part of a right-wing putsch determined to drive out decency and humanity from our nation. But are they conservatives in the classical meaning of the term? In Howard’s court reference for Pell he writes:

“I am aware he has been convicted of those charges; that an appeal against the conviction has been lodged and that he maintains his innocence in respect of these charges. None of these matters alter my opinion of the Cardinal.

“Cardinal Pell is a person of both high intelligence and exemplary character. Strength and sincerity have always been features of his personality. I have always found him to be lacking hypocrisy and cant. In his chosen vocation he has frequently displayed much courage and held to his values and beliefs, irrespective of the prevailing wisdom of the time.”

I suppose that when Pell was rabidly denouncing gay sex, same sex marriage, abortion, divorce, adultery and environmentalism Howard considered him to be “displaying much courage and holding to his values and beliefs, irrespective of the prevailing wisdom of the time”. Clearly as the same sex plebiscite established, Pell was neither reflecting the general will nor the wisdom of the time.

The schmozzle of ideas professed by Pell, Howard, Craven, Albrechtsen and Bolt seem to have little to do with sexual constraint or conservatism generally but rather more to do with a particular reading of a neoliberal, protofascist conception of conservatism.


That anyone should doubt the guilt of His Eminence can only be due to foul motives in Tomlinson's view.  The thought that His Eminence might be the victim of a wrongful conviction cannot apparently be allowed into Tomlinson's mind. If Tomlinson had any kind of balance in his mind he might have considered the prosecution ongoing in Britain at the moment of the fantasist "Nick" -- a man who did immense damage with his lies.  His Eminence was convicted on one count by one accuser.  Could that accuser also be a fantasist?  His story was certainly replete with improbabilities

And wrongful convictions generally are a dime a dozen.  Black men are exonerated of serious crimes in the USA on an almost weekly basis.  Are Catholics seen as negatively to some people in Australia as blacks are in America?

We have certainly seen other instances of wrongful convictions that seem to have arisen from a jaundiced view of a group to which an innocent  person belongs.  Take the notorious case of Welsh footballer Ched Evans.  Evans spent a couple of years in jail and had a couple of unsuccessful appeals before he was finally exonerated.  So how come?  Evan was convicted of rape under the leadership of a gaggle of feminist officials even though the alleged rapee had consented and had never lodged any complaint about Evans.  The big mistake Evans made appears to have been being a typical footballer -- a type anathema to feminists.  The one male involved in the prosecution thought Evans had no case to answer.

The two examples I have just given are from Britain but Australians will remember the quite notorious case of Lindy Chamberlain -- where a devout Christian woman -- wife of a Pastor -- was convicted of murdering her baby -- on precisely zero evidence.  She was however a Seventh Day Adventist and a redneck jury apparently saw that as "weird" and making the woman capable of anything.  She spent some years in prison before she was finally exonerated.

So conservatives -- such as myself -- are simply being cautious until we know the outcome of his Eminence's appeal. Could he have been convicted not because of anything he did personally but because of the evil deeds of others in his church?  Being cautious is very conservative, after all.  It may even be definitional of conservatism.  The foul motives that Tomlinson attributes to conservatives in relation to Cardinal Pell in reality reveal the foul and bigoted mind of John Tomlinson.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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