Why is it considered racist....

Context? Connotations? Intent?

"Proud to be white", uttered by a white person, has strong white supremacist connotations...

And uttered by an native doesn't?

I've wondered the same thing.

In the city I grew up in, people would walk around with "Black Power" t-shirts (mostly Aftrican-American) or "Red Power" (Native Americans). They were considered to be proudly supporting their ethnic background, etc. But if someone walked around with a "White Power" t-shirt, this would be considered "terrible, white-supremacist."

There's ton of examples like this.

I just figure its one of the things we live with, as sort of a backlash of the past injustices, when other races were put down more, etc.

Its not fair, but I suppose the double-standard in acceptable semantics today is nothing compared to the injustices their ancestors lived through. Still, as long as we have these inequities, it will only fuel & continue the hatred & division.

What I find even more disturbing is the reverse-discrimmination that still exists (*some* affirmative action programs) that allow less-qualified individuals, even less hard-working individuals, get various positions because of their race. I think one of the most discrimminated against groups in the USA today are the: white poor. "White trash," whatever. Where did that term come from anyway, and why is it so acceptable that you hear it on TV, etc? Could you imagine if someone (even jokingly) caled someone "black trash" on TV, etc? Anyway, the poor trailer park whites tend to have all the same disadvantages of minorities, they tend to not have many opportunities in life, but they are treated by "the system" to be the same as whites from white upper class neighborhoods... they have all the same disadvantages as minorities, but get none of the AA benefits. Oh well, I better stop, this might cause a flame war.

Very good post tcis!

I agree that the difference is due to our collective past. If the white man is at the apex of power, all others are basically oppressed - I think for much of our history that oppression was actively put into effect by white rich men. White power, as a phrase, has been associated with brutal acts of violent racism for a long long time.

To have people disregard that history is a lot to ask.

The college I attend is mainly indian people, about 80/20. There is a lounge area that is strictly for natives, no one else. The board of education or whatever says they need they're own place to just get away. Well, shouldn't it be the other way around considering only 20% of the school consists of white people? Shouldn't we have our own place to just get away? No, because that would be racist!

One must understand history in order to understand what "racism" is all about.

Does that mean we should be punished for the rest of our lives, our childrens lives, etc.... for something that happpend so long ago, that the new generations had nothing to do with?

stand up - that does seem odd to me.

There is a stark contrast between the socio/ecomomic situations of the mainstream "white" US poplulation and the various Native American populations. reservations are basically concentration camps with third world living conditions.

Those conditions are a continuing legacy from those times so long ago.

Those groups of Native Americans which have a source of revenue, such as those that are allowed to run casinos, have brought in capital which can and has been used to improve their living standards.

I think Native Americans' situation as a minority group is quite different from those of other minority groups in the US.

I don't know how having an exclusivist lounge helps the Native American situation at your school, sufp, however.

So, the rest of the school population doesn't have a lounge to use?

Hmmm - actually, I consider it dumb to be "proud" of anything that one has for which one has not worked - ie colour, country etc seem to me stupid to be proud of, since they are assigned to us but as accidents of fate. Enjoying and valuing aspects of one's culture or physical attributes etc seems to me to be fine - but pride? Hmmmm......

That being said, for people in white-dominated societies, being proud of ethnicity and colour are promoted, and probably important, as a corrective to the past and continuing effects of racism and white domination.

Logically, the notion of black or gay or whatever pride is nuts - but only one intent on denying the realities of the world would fail to understand the contextual relevance.

I hope the need for such stuff will fade, and soon.

Meanwhile, I celebrate many aspects of my cultural history - which includes Shakespeare and the printing press and so on - and do not celebrate many other aspects.

I assume this is - or probably ought to be - true of all groupings and cultures, no?

For instance, I no more buy the notion of an Australian Aboriginal or First Nation or African pre-invasion Utopia than I do the stupid rantings of white supremacists. However, I do accept that we are in a sort of corrective, possibly over-idealising, phase re the valuing and understanding of the history and strengths of such cultures, and that this is probably a necessary part of making the changes that any decent person would regard as imperative???

I also think that only the blinkered would deny the continuing operations of racism and discrimination. Well, let me speak for my country - only an idiot would deny them here.

For a minrity, or anyone who's been historically given the short stick, it's not so much pride as it is resisting being told they're secondary. Majorities don't have anything to resist, so imitating that sentiment is just retarded.

Very succinct!!!!!

I like that, rufio!

Man, that's got to be the most popular 2 sentences I've ever written.

They were well said.

Nope, the "cafateria" is for white people, and native people who don't mind the fact that they have to eat with whites.

stand up,

So it appears that whites are actually the minority, in the world of your university.

So perhaps they should be given special treatment like minorities elsewhere are? Or perhaps they should be pushed down because of bad things some of their ancestors might have done.

Or, (gawd forbid), perhaps everyone should be treated equally!

There should be a lounge for everyone at your school.

I agree with rufio too. You go, and not in a yugo.

My ex husband has an interesting past. Let's see if I can capsulize...

he was about eleven and was playing baseball the day the watts riots started, I think four blocks from the ballfield. His parents were white, his mother from Montana, a college girl and his father from Minnesota, a farm boy who left school after fourth grade, To cut right to the chase, I liked the father. They bought where they did as most people do, it was what they could afford. They were religious and very involved in their parish. Both boys got full scholarships to the nearby university, the one in our city I think of myself as snotty. They went there by bicycle, and they shut out their bike lights at night.

We were together miles away when the next conflagration happened, in the early nineties, this time two blocks from their family home, although the parents had moved.... after my husband and his brother left. Still, those blocks and the neighbors were important to my ex and he often went back and did write a play, well, two plays, about it.

But back to him, he went to a private high school where he was in the extreme minority as a white boy. I know from talking with him that he flirted with white power as an idea in high school in the same sense that sufp is thinking about now... as a balance. No, not in the obvious other way.. he and I individually are still on the side of thinking there has been a great power play in history by white boys.

I think we are both, though years divorced, in agreement on seeing abuse of power by virtue of skin. Which brings to mind that
I agree with Dlowan's observations.