I often see mentions of the disunity in the left and it being a real show stopper for achieving anything meaningful. Whats your take on that and also do you have any reasons(experiences, arguments etc) for that?

  • Exocrinous@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Yeah, so you’d be (as an example), french-german-italian-hungarian-swedish-portuhese-irish-syrian. Or whatever. Why do we call the first 7 of those, or the first 7 of your ancestries white? Because a bunch of slave traders said those 7 things are the same thing. If you were haudenosaunee-vietnamese-scottish-maori-jewish-kenyan, we wouldn’t be reducing all that complexity to one label. Yes, certain commonalities exist to a greater degree in your ancestry than in my pancontinental example. Yes, it may be fair to call you european. But white? That word is a racist term. It’s as fake as the word aryan. Your skin isn’t white, it’s probably somewhere around a beige-tan-olive. That’s not white. If white were a colour, Asians would be white. It’s not, it’s just racism.

    • M500@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      What I don’t understand is what some people would want me to do about it.

      I understand what you’re saying now, but I’m not sure what the call to action is.

      • Exocrinous@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Change the lens with which you frame your position in the world from “I am a white person” to “I am a person who racists claim to be white”.

        It’s a very subtle and subjective change and I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve already done it.

        • M500@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Great, so a second person complaining about someone calling themselves white without suggestion as to what souls be changed.

          I think you’re just racist against white people.

          • punkisundead [they/them]@slrpnk.netOPM
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            8 months ago

            without suggestion as to what souls be changed

            because that is really dependend on your context and location. whiteness is differently constructed and maintained in different places and what you should / can do also is different.

            One starting point for inspiration might be !landback@slrpnk.net, another one might be just talking with someone irl about this

            I think you’re just racist against white people.

            I dont think this is helpful for anyone and I dont get why you would say that to someone, especially someone who from my perspective tried to engage with you in good faith

            • M500@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              “I am a person who racists claim to be white”.

              This can’t be a real suggestion.

              Is a little frustrating talking about this as so far, people have either said that in a colonizer or not tell me how this issue can be resolved.

              So far it just sounds like complaining about something with offering a solution.