that thing white ppl do when they disparage 'white ppl'

btw I only posted crime stats cuz I wanted to find a concrete middle ground between bamcquern's meaningless 'black majority' and hi dere's anecdotal "no one in my family outside of one urban area". no, 1/3 isn't a majority by any means, but it's still a distressing number.

i'm distressed.

you're maybe missing the point that this isn't about "disparaging other white ppl" so much as "taking an ironic distance towards one's own self-acknowledged whiteness in order to harmlessly mock it"

... which, to put it rather crudely, is something you'd only really feel the need to do if you were aware of, and felt guilty about, your own white privilege.
... any discussion of which will necessarily have to touch on certain structural features of modern american society.

Well... yes and no. I don't see why black people automatically have to be dragged into a conversation about why white people make fun of themselves. There are a bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with black people (interesting that everyone jumped on and ran with the "liberal guilt" side but totally ignored the "redneck humor" side; it seems it's easier for people to handwave self-deprecating humor when it's done to highlight and elevate how much more enlightened you are now than it is to confront and acknowledge humor that points out all of the warts on your body).

I only say "black majority" because Houston Baker, et al. say it. I thought it had common currency, so yeesh.

see i'm not sure if bamcquern is right with all of his crude generalizations but his observations are preferable to just mumbling about problematics and avoiding any consideration of nonwhite ppl as having some wilful agency determining their cultural outlook beyond the history of their oppression, which seems to be a fairly common timidity among american left-'white ppl'

they seem to be afraid they will be seen as eliding the contribution of white racist ppl (govt etc) to poverty, incarceration rates etc among nonwhite ppl, which oughtn't to be the case if their rhetorical poise is up to the ask

whether bamquern's is, i dunno, but that's a very profound and interesting question in itself

it seems it's easier for people to handwave self-deprecating humor when it's done to highlight and elevate how much more enlightened you are now than it is to confront and acknowledge humor that points out all of the warts on your body).

I had a long argument with my lol black friend about that Tiger Woods woodpile cartoon when he said he didn't think it was racist if there was some truth to the joke.

... which, to put it rather crudely, is something you'd only really feel the need to do if you were aware of, and felt guilty about, your own white privilege.
... any discussion of which will necessarily have to touch on certain structural features of modern american society.

It's odd to me that often identity turns around negativity. Black people have the history of racism and enslavement, Irish people their oppression by the Brits, Poles the animosity towards them both as slavs but especially as Catholics (at the beginning at least), etc... My ancestors may have been the white people who were doing the hating and the oppression but not suffering from anything worse than having to live amongst inferior races and suffering immigrants to come and screw up our little paradise or Indians encumbering the land that God intended for us so we (or at least I) don't have much of a sense of 'white culture' apart from its racism, its grim religiosity and its bland food so I don't really identify with my Anglo-American side very much or feel much attachment to it except maybe to a certain strain of American liberalism and a respect for the Common Law.

you're maybe missing the point that this isn't about "disparaging other white ppl" so much as "taking an ironic distance towards one's own self-acknowledged whiteness in order to harmlessly mock it"

this is pretty otm

Crude generalizations - 1 part laziness, 1 part presumptuousness, 1 part typing on tiny netbook keyboard without a mouse.

you're maybe missing the point that this isn't about "disparaging other white ppl" so much as "taking an ironic distance towards one's own self-acknowledged whiteness in order to harmlessly mock it"

and simultaneously disavowing their commonality with mnstrm 'white ppl', in many cases

Michael White - I think it's inevitable that things get defined negatively.

(interesting that everyone jumped on and ran with the "liberal guilt" side but totally ignored the "redneck humor" side;

Larry the Cable Guy or Jeff Foxworthy or whatever = sympathetic mockery of traits presumably shared by audience and performer
"that thing white ppl do" = please don't associate me with the target of my withering progressive scorn

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gawker/2009/06/stuff-white-ppl-like.jpg

amon you're capable of so much better

and simultaneously disavowing their commonality with mnstrm 'white ppl', in many cases

My problem is less w/white people and more w/mainstream

cosign xp

i think bernard snowy can read nakhchivan's mind

who is nakhchivan

xpost I knew you would

that's cuz they're totally different things! (and while I can't claim to be able to read the original poster's mind, I think only one of them is "that thing white ppl do")

Larry the Cable Guy or Jeff Foxworthy or whatever = sympathetic mockery of traits presumably shared by audience and performer

thankfully i'm not american, so i haven't heard of any of those white ppl and am completely unaware of whatever tradition they belong to

nothing wrong with talking about 'problematics'

On zing but otherwise would post Doing That Thing You Do movie poster

you know you are a white person when you post to ilx

i'm inuit btw

bernie you were right in saying that americans would be well-served to focus on issues of class and not race, but until there can be a greater degree of separation between the two, what difference does even it make? until such time as it does happen, whites don't necessarily need to feel guilty about white privilege but what they DO need to do, and what guilt can be a very effective albeit prob unhealthy catalyst for, is spending a tenth of the time they devote to being cute about it on the internet to attempting to enact some sort of tangible change promoting diversity and social justice through opportunities for the more vulnerable classes/races, such as signing the dream act petition

I forgot this was a poll.

which type of white ppl are we talking about again?

the european ones

they are pinkish yellow and they disparage other pinkish yellow people

alright I gotta go smoke weed and do dishes but before I leave I just want to say: my use of the word "harmless" upthread was very deliberate, and meant to convey that "that thing" entails very little risk for the white ppl who engage in it, because it's basically masturbation

xp dude I signed the dream act petition already, chill!

if you are inuit in the kitchen, pakistani in the bedroom, and peruvian in the living room, what are you in the bathroom?

I was #29,044 to sign that petition

sweet thanks

You may say that iiiijjjj's a dreamer
But iiiijjjj's not the only one

haha sorry, didn't mean to seem so defensive -- I really do appreciate your persistent nagging throughout this thread, and I hope it's gotten more people than just me and hi dere to sign

white basketball players amirite

farts

"Larry the Cable Guy or Jeff Foxworthy or whatever = sympathetic mockery of traits presumably shared by audience and performer"

Jeff Foxworthy was some white collar middle-management telecom engineer before mustaching up. Similar story with "Larry"
These dudes are definitely slumming.

^ classist

i wld nvr disparage white ppl

i believe in and admire the accomplishments of white culture

like this episode of supernatural i just watched 1 of the bros - dean - he str8 fukken bones an angel

the angel was white

man what a gr8 show

plenty of reasonable points in the thread and i understand the objections and reservations, but...

when i was involved in various discussions (with mostly white american people) about obama during the '08 campaign, i made plenty of comments like, "talking about race just freaks white people right the fuck out," which i think were intended and understood not as literal statements (not all white people, obv) or as reductionist by exclusion (white people are not the only people who get freaked out in talking about race), but were still i think more or less fair statements. to say that talking about race freaks out white americans is a shorthand way of acknowledging the degree to which white americans have been historically able to dance around the subject in all the ways and for all the reasons i think we all know. and speaking as a white american with a fair amount of experience observing and engaging other white americans on the subject of race, it's the kind of generalization i feel comfortable making.

like someone said at the beginning of the thread, i think it's more healthy than not for "white people" to talk about "white people," because it is a move away from the sense of whiteness as a racial/cultural default. of course there are a lot of problems wrapped up in it, but that's true of talking about "race" in any context. every statement from anyone on racial issues comes loaded with pages of footnotes and caveats that yr reasonably aware person will provide without needing them spelled out. (of course, when you're not talking to "reasonably aware" people, you need to actually state all those footnotes and caveats, and really you're better off just skipping the conversation entirely because you're going to end up spending 45 minutes talking about why black people can say n---er "but we can't.")

the angel was white

aren't they all ;) btw

1 of the angels is bunnie colvin from the wire hes a jerk tho

dk if thats a race thing mb hes just frustrated cuz no1 is bonen him...

Wait, are we really saying that white people can't say "nigger" if they're talking about the word "nigger," or just that they shouldn't call people niggers for whatever reason, good or bad?

To tipsy, I mean.