Majority Of White Americans Say They Believe Whites Face Discrimination

[Tom Servo]

Majority Of White Americans Say They Believe Whites Face Discrimination

October 24, 20171:35 PM ET | Don Gonyea

A majority of whites say discrimination against them exists in America today, according to a poll released Tuesday from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

"If you apply for a job, they seem to give the blacks the first crack at it," said 68-year-old Tim Hershman of Akron, Ohio, "and, basically, you know, if you want any help from the government, if you're white, you don't get it. If you're black, you get it."

More than half of whites — 55 percent — surveyed say that, generally speaking, they believe there is discrimination against white people in America today. Hershman's view is similar to what was heard on the campaign trail at Trump rally after Trump rally. Donald Trump catered to white grievance during the 2016 presidential campaign and has done so as president as well.

[Tom Servo]

The article goes on to describe the three types of respondents encountered in the survey: those who think whites are discriminated against and have been personally affected; those who think whites are discriminated against but haven't been personally affected; those who do not believe whites have been discriminated against. It's in that third category that we meet this bundle of stupid:

Now for the third category — those who scoff at the notion that whites face racial discrimination.

That describes retired community college English teacher Betty Holton, of Elkton, Md.

"I don't see how we can be discriminated against when, when we have all the power," Holton said, chuckling in disbelief into her cellphone.

This notion that those with power are immune to discrimination is a curious thing. Obviously this (thankfully) retired teacher does not realize that power comes in many forms. There's nothing to stop, say, a black clerk at a store from ignoring a white customer on purpose, even if that white customer is a millionaire who drives a Mercedes. That "power" means nothing in this situation. Ditto equal-ranking workers on the assembly line. There's nothing to stop one from harassing the other, regardless of skin color. That both the white and black workers make $8.50 an hour putting widgets together means neither has a power advantage over the other.

Obviously Miss Betty is only thinking of discrimination from the top town, and not from the bottom up, because she is a liberal elitist who thinks all the world's ills start at the top.

My question to the rest of you, since you're all obviously white and middle class or better: do you think discrimination against whites actually exists? Have you been the victim of racial discrimination or bigotry in the past?

I believe it exists AND I have been the victim of racial harassment because of my skin color upon occasion. What say ye?

[Newman]

My question to the rest of you, since you're all obviously white and middle class or better: do you think discrimination against whites actually exists? Have you been the victim of racial discrimination or bigotry in the past?

I believe it exists AND I have been the victim of racial harassment because of my skin color upon occasion. What say ye?

I think if you (collectively) decide discrimination is a legitimate and legal policy, regardless of the objective, you will always have irreconcilable resentment and competition among defined groups of offenders and offended.

Life isn't fair. As a famous rabbi once said, The poor you shall always have with you. Legalized discrimination allows you to always blame inequality on the malevolence of others, and to seek a remedy by punishing others.

So, sure discrimination is around. If you're a white woman seeking college admission (or worse, Asian), for example.

I believe that if we genuinely oppose discrimination, we simply must bite the bullet and scrub it out entirely from our legal arsenal of social justice strategies. Justice O'Connor's laughable prediction of a benign demise of affirmative active must become a conscious reality. After that, discrimination can be reduced to an unpleasant personal habit, something you can't eliminate completely, any more than you can eliminate rudeness, but which isn't something that matters in the larger picture.

[phillygirl]

The article goes on to describe the three types of respondents encountered in the survey: those who think whites are discriminated against and have been personally affected; those who think whites are discriminated against but haven't been personally affected; those who do not believe whites have been discriminated against. It's in that third category that we meet this bundle of stupid:

This notion that those with power are immune to discrimination is a curious thing. Obviously this (thankfully) retired teacher does not realize that power comes in many forms. There's nothing to stop, say, a black clerk at a store from ignoring a white customer on purpose, even if that white customer is a millionaire who drives a Mercedes. That "power" means nothing in this situation. Ditto equal-ranking workers on the assembly line. There's nothing to stop one from harassing the other, regardless of skin color. That both the white and black workers make $8.50 an hour putting widgets together means neither has a power advantage over the other.

Obviously Miss Betty is only thinking of discrimination from the top town, and not from the bottom up, because she is a liberal elitist who thinks all the world's ills start at the top.

My question to the rest of you, since you're all obviously white and middle class or better: do you think discrimination against whites actually exists? Have you been the victim of racial discrimination or bigotry in the past?

I believe it exists AND I have been the victim of racial harassment because of my skin color upon occasion. What say ye?

I don't believe I've ever been discriminated against in terms of casual social interaction due to my skin color. I was discriminated against in terms of scholarship, etc. in law school. The people of color in my law school were given more money due to that fact and were also given one on one tutoring for the first year by the professors in their specific classes. This was done automatically, despite the fact that many of those same students came from "better" schools than I did and therefore presumably had a better educational pedigree than I did. The assumption that they needed and deserved the additional help was carte blanche discrimination. I also saw false claims of racism delivered by a couple of students of color. They broke into the professor's filing cabinet in order to see their grades ahead of time. They then immediately filed a complaint that their grades (which they weren't supposed to know yet) were artificially deflated due to their race and gender. This particular adjunct was a far left liberal whose life work was helping women victims of domestic violence. The students' grades were low because they didn't do the work they were assigned to do. They also objected to driving to the ghetto to help the poor people there...thinking that there were lots of poor people on the Main Line near Philadelphia. The end result was that the program was discontinued. Very unfortunate.

[Lady Marva]

Affirmative Action, anyone?

[Gingersnap]

Discriminated against in school and in early hiring professionally, obviously, despite having a vagina.

Today, constantly hearing my skin color being a dog whistle for white supremacy, colonialism, the patriarchy, global warming, bad schools, and yoga pants.

Having been termed a white supremacist, homophobe, racist, Islamaphobe, anti-choice, redneck, sex-negative, nationalist, and academic elitist, I'm kinda over it.

Really. So are a lot of people. When you say everybody is a witch, nobody is one. Witchness loses it's cool or defamation.

I'm a witch or evil or whatever label you want. By now, I've heard them all many, many times. The sting is all gone for me. That's what happens when everything is one thing.

[scott]

The article goes on to describe the three types of respondents encountered in the survey: those who think whites are discriminated against and have been personally affected; those who think whites are discriminated against but haven't been personally affected; those who do not believe whites have been discriminated against. It's in that third category that we meet this bundle of stupid:

This notion that those with power are immune to discrimination is a curious thing. Obviously this (thankfully) retired teacher does not realize that power comes in many forms. There's nothing to stop, say, a black clerk at a store from ignoring a white customer on purpose, even if that white customer is a millionaire who drives a Mercedes. That "power" means nothing in this situation. Ditto equal-ranking workers on the assembly line. There's nothing to stop one from harassing the other, regardless of skin color. That both the white and black workers make $8.50 an hour putting widgets together means neither has a power advantage over the other.

Obviously Miss Betty is only thinking of discrimination from the top town, and not from the bottom up, because she is a liberal elitist who thinks all the world's ills start at the top.

My question to the rest of you, since you're all obviously white and middle class or better: do you think discrimination against whites actually exists? Have you been the victim of racial discrimination or bigotry in the past?

I believe it exists AND I have been the victim of racial harassment because of my skin color upon occasion. What say ye?

Of course it exists and yes I've experienced it. Life moves on....

[scott]

I'd also like to state that most of those making allegations of "white privilege" come from either wealthy families or they are people who have deliberately segregated themselves away from people not of their own race.

The rest of us just like to hang out with cool people.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

I've been disliked by someone because of my skin color/race. I've been insulted because of it. I've also, in the past, experienced discrimination in my favor because of it. I didn't feel guilty about that, because I didn't seek it or take advantage of it, but it did cause me to feel contempt for the person responsible. I've been discriminated against based on sex (quite overtly, when it was legal, and more subtly when it no longer was) and based on affectional orientation.

Frankly, the racial discrimination that bothers me most right now is the kind that masquerades as caring or defending. When I hear someone say it's "racist" or "discriminatory" to require minority children to meets behavioral standards, I don't see how that's different from saying minorities are bad, violent, and/or irresponsible. When I hear that it's discriminatory to expect minority people to demonstrate punctuality and good attendance, I don't see how that's different from saying non-whites are lazy and "shiftless." When someone says that math is "whiteness" (putting aside for the moment the Arab origins of, for example, algebra, and the racial makeup of higher math courses at most universities - have we decided that Asians and South Asians are white now?), how does that differ from the excuses for "separate but equal" schools because of black people's assumed assumed inferior intelligence?

The reason Head Start "doesn't work" (because it actually does, for the duration of the child's participation in the program) is because, once they're out of Head Start and in regular school, the lowered expectations start whittling away at the benefits of Head Start. That's not just true of poor or minority kids; it's true of any child with a learning challenge whose learning isn't constantly reinforced. Example: In HRH's middle school, there were 2 kids who were pretty seriously autistic. Both had been in early intervention, in fact, that's how they and their parents originally met. C's mom was a single parent, almost no involvement on the part of the father, with a child older than C and one younger (HRH's age). C's mom had a high school education, cleaned houses for a living, received little or no support, and lived pretty close to the bone financially. She also volunteered at the kids' school(s) and cleaned house gratis for a sick old lady who couldn't afford help. A's parents both lived in the same town, but not together. They were well off and the kids, A and a younger sister, could walk from the mom's gracious and well-appointed house to the dad's luxury townhouse. I never saw either of them at school. He was a doctor and she owned 2 successful boutiques. Both kids were above-average in intelligence, but not brilliant. C's mom kept up the work they had done in autism early intervention, and got C into classes and activities that helped develop his social and interpersonal skills. He was able to articulate his experience of autism but was also able to function very nearly normally in society and his peer group. He actually learned to experience empathy or something very like it. He could cuddle. he had real friends. He could make and understand jokes. A's parents seemed embarrassed by her disability, and treated the early intervention as if it were a cure and not training for a lifestyle; once she finished the program, they never did the activities again. As she became more overwhelmed following the transition from a tiny, unconventional 2-room middle school to a huge public high school, when her grandma and C's mom tried to tell them A was becoming depressed on top of the autism, the parents were highly offended and totally in denial. They ended up cutting A off from those 2 advocates. C is now in college and functions very much like a person without autism. A does not and probably never will.

[Lady Marva]

Of course it exists and yes I've experienced it. Life moves on....

Unless you have Al Sharpton or a mad hatter congress woman on speed dial............................oh, wait, that only works for some.....................

[Newman]

DNC Email: Straight White Men Need Not Apply

The Democratic National Committee is hiring for some new positions in their Technology Team, including Chief Security Officer, IT Systems Administrator, and Product Manager. In the email soliciting job applications, it says that the DNC is looking for a "staff of diverse voices and life experiences."

Unfortunately, according to the DNC's Data Service Manager Madeleine Leader, this desire for "diverse voices and life experiences" apparently doesn't extend to "cisgender straight white males." In the closing paragraph of the email, Leader said "I personally would prefer that you not forward to cisgender straight white males, as they are already in the majority."

At the link there's a screenshot of the email in question:

Another person pointed out that the DNC's official line says something different:

DNaesz0W4AAI9A0.jpg

I'm in with the out crowd (cisgender straight white males) but I'm not feeling terribly bothered here. I have perhaps been discriminated against myself, but I have enough confidence in my abilities to know there will be plenty of opportunities, especially where employers decide they need to look for the person best able to perform.

I've known a number of fast food places in particular who have obviously made a strong effort to hire people with various disabilities. Most people (I hope) think this is a noble effort, and they know there are plenty of opportunities elsewhere for those better-abled workers. That's the key part -- that there are plenty of other opportunities around.

Sometimes getting "the best worker" isn't the only value at issue.

There's a clear danger in hiring unqualified or incapable workers. Those fast food places wouldn't be doing anyone a favor—including the community of disabled they are trying to help out—by putting people in jobs they cannot do.

But it's up to the employee to decide where the line is.

[Lady Marva]

At the link there's a screenshot of the email in question:

Isn't that illegal?

[Celeste Chalfonte]

Isn't that illegal?

Yes. The personal preference part is way out of line and should get the writer fired.

[80zephyr]

Hmm. I wonder what color Madeleine Leader is?

Mark

[Lady Marva]

White. About as young as it gets.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=Madeleine+Leader+Democratic+National+Committee&filters=ufn%3a%22Madeleine+Leader+Democratic+National+Committee%22+sid%3a%22465f81b1-ff46-3b11-c064-9b568e531482%22&FORM=SNAPST