• bisby@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    My dad once told me my mom didnt feel safe walking alone at night in the neighborhood and asked if I felt the same. I said I didnt feel any concerns, but added the caveat that Im not a small woman, and Im a large man.

    He paused for a minute, nodded and said “that makes sense.” Then after another few seconds goes “That’s not white privilege.”

      • bisby@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        He saw himself having an epiphany about privilege in general, so he had to swerve and add race into the mix so he could say a true (albeit unrelated) thing and miss the point.

        It’s like when anti BLM people say “All lives matter” … Sure, all lives DO matter, but they’re intentionally missing the point, so they don’t have to acknowledge that police brutality disproportionately affects black lives.

        Saying unrelated “true” things to undermine the original statement is a bit telling about intentions.

        • TheDoozer@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          And that would be white privilege. I’m not sure what you’re trying to convey here.

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Reminds me of my white dad talking to a friend of my brother’s who’s black about how he feels when a cop is around. “Not that different, maybe a little safer.” And the friend said he has to be very careful about everything he does in that situation. My dad’s not a conservative type, thank god, so hopefully it gave him some insight.

      A few years ago, some cops were in my neighborhood looking for someone while I was sitting in my car. One ducked his head down to look at me and quickly left. I was VERY aware that my skin color might have just saved my life.

      • uis@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Living in multinational country I can say noone feels safe around police.

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
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      9 months ago

      I was talking to my handyman the other day, he’s a nice guy and likes to learn. I’m telling him about how much it sucks to grow up in car-centric suburbs, and he told me about childhood.

      I told him how the freedom he had now gets people arrested for child neglect, and all of a sudden he goes “yeah it’s so dangerous now with the crisis at the border”

      It’s like they’ve been through an “education” camp. You carefully lead them through understanding how the world could be very easily improved, and they’re getting it… Then some phrase reminds them of their conditioning, and they snap back to step one.

      It takes months of gently leading them to see that what they’re saying makes no sense… It’s possible, but it’s depressing how many people are falling into the fox newshole