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IBM pulls X ads as Elon Musk endorses white pride
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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In the cases of actively oppressed people, particularly people that were assigned a race regardless of actual national origin, and then were denigrated for being that race, it's a point of pride to say that "our people" (who you basically forced "us" to become not on the basis of our shared heritage or nationality but purely on the basis of lumping together everyone with the same color skin) survived and thrived, and eventually developed our own culture despite the shitty circumstances.
White people don't fit into this category because nobody forced people to be white and then said they weren't citizens in the country or that they could only live in certain towns, forcing them to band together as one and develop their own white people culture with basically strangers, and nobody robbed them of their history and forced them into brutal chattel slavery for hundreds of years.
Edit: Most white people who care to do so still have an understanding of their lineage, national origin, religion, and/or festivals, and many of those are or were celebrated in their own ways: St Patty's Day, Octoberfest, Christopher Columbus Day (which was basically an Italian pride day originally), Catholic holidays, Jewish holidays, etc.
This opens a whole new can of worms for me.
Can a gay person who has never experienced homophobia rightfully celebrate Pride Month?
Can a black person who was adopted by white parents and has no black cultural influence be proud of being black?
In any case, I understand the sentiment, I'm not saying "I don't understand why black people want to be recognised and celebrate the victories afforded to them by their ancestors".
What I don't understand is the specific vernacular of the word "pride" in these cases. Rosa Parks was a BAMF, but why would I be proud of her? I didn't put the idea in her head, I didn't give her the courage to sit at the back of the bus.
Whether I'm black or white has no bearing on whether I should be proud of anything outside of my own influence; I'm convinced identity politics gets us nowhere.
Those gay people wouldn't have a need to celebrate Pride Month.
Sadly, no gay person on this planet has never experienced homophobia, even in the most LGBTQ+ friendly countries in the world.
Strangely enough, we're closer to a gay tolerant society than an ethnic tolerant society (not factoring in transfolk).
One of my cousins is a gay teen but has never experienced homophobia first hand, only vicariously through media and online, which is notable.
When you're born, you aren't just dropped out of the clear blue sky onto a level playing field fully defined by the merits of your own actions. Life isn't a lone survivor video game.
You're born in context: historically, financially, genetically, and otherwise. Some people take pride in their heritage, their lineage, their culture, their traditions, etc etc etc. Just because it isn't your cup of tea and you'd rather only celebrate what you consider to be your own accomplishments (and I say it this way on purpose because without your born context there's no guarantee that your life would've turned out as it did) does not mean everyone views the world the same way.
I think more generically you should ask yourself why it bothers you so much when people celebrate aspects of their identity.
I'd largely have no problem with "white pride" festivals if the concept even made any sense at all (which it doesn't, and which is why it's basically "white power" with a tiny PR tune up), but these "events" are basically just Klan rallies. Versus look at most pride festivals. They're full of people dancing and singing and genuinely celebrating things they have in common with one another (or in some cases, like with gay pride and ally ship, things they simply have an affinity for).
I think you may be viewing my thoughts through an uncharitable lens. I am not bothered at all when anyone celebrates any aspect of their identity.
I'm a white Australian; my ancestors committed atrocities, yet, I do not feel shame for their actions, because I wasn't involved. I can only take shame in how I have acted.
To reiterate, the definition of pride is localised to the individual. It doesn't make sense to be proud of someone else's accomplishments if you haven't helped them.
A parent may feel proud if their child has done well, they have contributed to their success. However, if my college in a different department gets a promotion, I shouldn't.
Now extend this to people you don't know, and it makes no sense at all.
That's just what you think / feel / opine / believe. Pride has many definitions, and people often take pride in their ancestry which they cannot possibly have helped because they didn't exist the entire time they lived their life. Humans aren't fully rational and again, aren't dropped in greenfield without context on a level playing field. Also, you apparently don't feel much pride for your heritage, but you still benefit from it. Your achievements and failures are partially possible and/or caused by your birth situation. If, by birth lottery you were born a Palestinian, you might have died in childhood before ever going to school or college.
Who are you to tell others that their feelings are valid or invalid?
Ultimately, I'd suggest that you take a look inward because I don't think a lot of your problems with these things stem from a logical place either but also an emotional one. To be human is much more than a fancy calculator, and it's perfectly fine to feel various feelings without them necessarily being rationally justified. There is only, in my opinion of course, a problem when people start to use emotions to justify violence or other forms of abuse.
But life isn't generally, and being human isn't certainly:
I did one good thing = I have earned one smile.
EDIT: Outside and inside and in addition to all of this, I think it's perfectly fine and even kind of justified to feel proud of others because we are all ultimately only members of one race: the human one. I haven't marched at LGBTQ+ pride but it wouldn't bother me to do so if someone genuinely wanted me there for some reason, and I take pride in the positive achievements of lots of other people who I did nothing to help all of the time.
You seem to be assuming a lot about my position, and getting most of it wrong.
My only stance thus far is one of definitions. Yes, I know the definition of "pride" has changed, which I'm trying to illustrate is an issue.
Elon's "white pride" rhetoric stems from nationalism, which stems from the conventional definition of "pride", which is:
The pride displayed here is that of perceived inherent superiority, which leads to bigotry.
Rationality and emotion aren't mutually exclusive. Empathy has flaws, it causes people to become hijacked by emotion. Conversely, compassion is a choice, even psychopaths can be convinced behaving compassionately is in their own self interest.
So, I don't accept the assertion that feelings are an acceptable metric for evaluating the validity of a claim. I'm convinced it's wrong to be proud of an identity.
And I've always struggled to see the upside to celebrating the community team or whatever, but that doesn't make my opinion more rational, valuable, or human than anyone else's.
"Whatever" "I guess"... These words aren't in here by accident, but this overall sentiment is the one actually worth pursuing IMO without all of the passive aggression.
You and the Aussie don't seem to understand that you're advancing Musk's (and other racists') "arguments" by equating overwhelmingly positive movements with reactionary, retrograde movements that use co-opted words and rhetorical tricks to pretend they're the same thing.
Edit: ya ever wonder why you're talking about legitimate events for black people and gay people in a thread commenting about Elon Musk's endorsement of "white pride"? It's because you got "all lives matter"ed and lost the fucking plot.
Those are my quotes.
I stopped conversing with them after they misquoted me after replacing "rightfully" with "morally".
Don't waste your time trying to change their mind, they've already decided you're the one who's wrong.
The worst part is we're evidently all on the same team, yet we're made out to be Elon supporters.
You're acting like Elon or a klansman (same picture.gif) sat down and read a dictionary definition and came up with this. He didn't.
Of course they're not mutually exclusive, you were pretending they were by saying someone's "correct" feeling of pride can only be derived from their own achievements.
Rationality is a man made concept. Humans are not purely or perhaps not even mostly rational.
What claim are you even talking about? You're the one tossing out claims left and right, like it's morally wrong to go to a pride parade unless you've personally experienced homophobia... Meanwhile you're side stepping the very relevant and obvious thing: that someone acting positively due to unearned pride harms absolutely nobody.
You're getting confused by rhetoric because you're overly concerned about the dictionary definition of co-opted words. Just because it's called white pride and gay pride doesn't mean that the intentions, the events, the attendants, or anything philosophically backing any of it are remotely the same. Straight pride is practically a homophobic hatred event, gay pride is largely a block party with fun and revelry.
It's evident you're arguing in bad faith. I never claimed its morally wrong to attend a pride parade unless one has experience homophobia. I'm out, peace
It's exactly counter to your main position about how only certain people are allowed to feel pride based upon certain earned criteria. But you do you, bud.
I wish you and people like you weren't so simply fooled by tricks of rhetoric as you are. But not only is that unlikely to change, you're likely to continue thinking you're actually technically correct in some way because you have a dictionary definition of a term and think that's an argument.
White pride != black pride
Straight pride != gay pride
Black lives matter != all lives matter
Edit: y'all are right, these things are exactly the same because they use similar language in their names... That's definitely not what a retrograde shit movement would do to try to lend legitimacy to their bullshit.... That's definitely not similar to what North Korea does by calling itself the "People's Democratic Republic of Korea" or anything. /s
you should be a little ashamed that you benefit greatly from their actions. Nobody thinks it's your personal fault, were just trying to get you to see how you have an unfair leg up over your darker skinned counterparts. Nobody wants you to apologize, you yourself didn't do anything. We just want you to understand that it's a little fucked up how your life is easier in general just because you're white, and we want you to try and figure out why that is
Spare me with the condescension. I don't feel ashamed for something I have no control of.
Of course I want the same outcome as you, for people who have been historically discriminated against to have the same opportunities as me.
It is fucked up that things are easier because I won the genetic lottery, and was born male, and straight (mostly).
That being said, I have no obligation to make up for the sins of my fathers. However, I do have a moral obligation to fight injustices to the best of my abilities, this would be the case, regardless of the dice roll of life.
it's impossible to never experience those things when they're institutionalized. You don't have to actively feel or even know you're being supressed when it's going on behind the scenes.