white male forum

Well that was fun. Okay I vote for allowing everyone else under the sun to join in after post#3. Make it real!

Ha ha Freedom55. While I'm sure you meant well, irony is a bit too much to ask at this stage.

So I'll do some unwelcomed spamming.

Privilege is Driving a Smooth Road and not even knowing it

A Guide to Racism 101 for Clueless White People, Written by a Slightly Less Clueless White Person

Racial Microagressions Chart

Unpacking White Male Privilege

But if you insist on irony, Privilege Denying Dude should make you happy.

So let me get this straight ... you'll trade the entire board for one forum?  Sold, by golly!

Rebecca West wrote:

So let me get this straight ... you'll trade the entire board for one forum?  Sold, by golly!

Know what... if you throw in control of advertising revenue so we can keep ourselves in beer and smokes, we might have a deal.

Merowe wrote:

I think its a great idea. I'm serious. I've thought about proposing it myself. While I'm deeply grateful to all the non-white-males on this board who give of their time and energy to descend to our level - however briefly - to remind us of our multiple failings, arrogance, and profound ignorance, there are times when even white males need a safe space to relax and unwind, without having to constantly look over their shoulder for fear of being bushwhacked by identity politics enthusiasts. We're not permitted to engage in the feminist forum when reverse sexism has a party so its fair that we have a space where we can blow off our steam without transgressing the women's dedicated zone.

There is so much wrong with this post, I'm at a loss as to where to start.

I guess I'll start with, "you have missed the point of this thread". Oh, and WTF?

Moving on, there is already a white male forum - it's call Planet Earth.  No, I'm not talking about a new touchy-feeling men's online discussion forum, I'm talking about the entire fucking planet.  There are plenty of places where you can carry on about the burden you carry as the most privileged people on earth.  Babble isn't it.

If you're looking for a safe place where you can wallow in your privilege, without "reverse sexism" and "identity politics" spoiling your fun, you have almost the entire Internet at your disposal.

could not go well

writer wrote:

All kidding aside, this board has a policy. For those who don't like the policy, don't want to follow the policy, or think the policy is full of shit, there is a big huge internet out there. Go play.

Quote:

 What is rabble.ca?

rabble.ca is a public, independent, progressive news and information source. In defining itself as "progressive," rabble.ca embraces a pro-human rights, pro-feminist, anti-racist, queer-positive, anti-imperialist and pro-labour stance, and as such encourages discussions which develop and expand progressive thought.

babble: discussion board

As part of rabble.ca, babble was created to ensure that readers and participants could explore a wide range of issues of interest and concern in interactive and dynamic ways.

babble is NOT intended as a place where the basic and fundamental values of human rights, feminism, anti-racism and labour rights are to be debated or refought. Anyone who joins babble who indicates intentions to challenge these rights and principles may be seen as disruptive to the nature of the forum.

babble terms and conditions

... You understand that racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, classist (e.g. poor-bashing) and other oppressive language that degrades marginalized communities is not acceptable. This policy applies to both public and private messages.

Edited to add: I was working on this response as RW posted her own.

fuck, seriously? LECTURE MUCH?

ya gotta wonder what the point was in the 1st place. was a alleged ironic thread bout this needed?  

etd to add is swearing and yelling at writer allowed?

Good point, bagkitty, though it ignores the fact there are enough closet cases working for the dark side.

And I should say all this bouncing between satire and serious commentary is enough to make anyone's head spin.

@ Sean

True. I had a post all ready to go last night, all full of gravitas. but I thought better, and erased it. 

Sometimes there is no proper response to something other than to turn it back on itself.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Rebecca West wrote:

So let me get this straight ... you'll trade the entire board for one forum?  Sold, by golly!

Know what... if you throw in control of advertising revenue so we can keep ourselves in beer and smokes, we might have a deal.

Good to know you have your priorities straight.  And it's 'beers', not 'beer'.  Were you raised by wolves?

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Well, if I didn't leave you with that impression I should probably toss my little red pencil in the garbage.

Though seeing as this thread isn't turning out to be that light and funny (I know I didn't think so when I first read it), I am a little bit curious as to what inspired it. Was it flouncing, hockey, or both?

I did like the bit about the smokes though.  So unacceptable in this day and age, but it's nice to see that Bob and Doug Mackenzie still rule.

I dunno.  Flouncing is a hot point that may well have spawned this thread.  Hockey? Nah.  It's much easier to believe that writer and I sucked the humour out of the thread, though I believe it was Merowe who threw the gauntlet.

Such is babble.

Freedom 55 wrote:

Well, if you're sure I meant well, that goes triple for me. As a progressive white dude, I'm always sure of my good intentions.

Ha!

And:

bagkitty wrote:

I don't want to run the risk of wandering in by mistake and messing up the hockey chat, I know how oppressive that is to "some people".

Ha!

Rebecca West wrote:

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Rebecca West wrote:

So let me get this straight ... you'll trade the entire board for one forum?  Sold, by golly!

Know what... if you throw in control of advertising revenue so we can keep ourselves in beer and smokes, we might have a deal.

Good to know you have your priorities straight.  And it's 'beers', not 'beer'.  Were you raised by wolves?

My father's equivalent expression was "Were you born in a barn?" To which the obvious comeback would be "What have you got against Jesus?"  

And thinking about it, "raised by wolves" unintentionally references the founding myth of a great ancient city state. What is it about expressions meant to imply declasse habits, but which inadvertantly end up comparing their targets to revered religious figures?  

Oh, the Romulus and Remus myth.  Who killed whom? 

Romulus killed Remus, and gave his name to the city he founded.

The Cain and Able myth is thought to have some sort of anti-agricultual bias. Shepherds(Abel) good, farmers(Cain), bad. Not sure what way-of-life RNR is supposed to be promoting.

Yep, this place is fucked and I understand why you might not want to post here but we NEED you.

I gave up a long time ago but still hold out hope or my illness will consume me.

I'm afraid I'm some straight white dude that seems to care but doesn't get it right.

I'd love to have a breadth of voices here. The moderators would need to agree to change their vision.

Until then, I'm afraid I don't have much use for the place, nor my donations, beyond some vitriol I fell bad for spewing at the mods.

Hey Revolution Please-- you are part of this place. Please stick around.

Rebecca West wrote:

Merowe wrote:

I think its a great idea. I'm serious. I've thought about proposing it myself. While I'm deeply grateful to all the non-white-males on this board who give of their time and energy to descend to our level - however briefly - to remind us of our multiple failings, arrogance, and profound ignorance, there are times when even white males need a safe space to relax and unwind, without having to constantly look over their shoulder for fear of being bushwhacked by identity politics enthusiasts. We're not permitted to engage in the feminist forum when reverse sexism has a party so its fair that we have a space where we can blow off our steam without transgressing the women's dedicated zone.

 

There is so much wrong with this post, I'm at a loss as to where to start.

I guess I'll start with, "you have missed the point of this thread". Oh, and WTF?

Moving on, there is already a white male forum - it's call Planet Earth.  No, I'm not talking about a new touchy-feeling men's online discussion forum, I'm talking about the entire fucking planet.  There are plenty of places where you can carry on about the burden you carry as the most privileged people on earth.  Babble isn't it.

If you're looking for a safe place where you can wallow in your privilege, without "reverse sexism" and "identity politics" spoiling your fun, you have almost the entire Internet at your disposal.

 

Ok, RW, not picking on you in particular, but its a good place to jump back in. To a thread that Boom Boom correctly diagnoses in #18.

Obviously I misread the thread, came upon the trigger phrase 'white male privilege' - which I've been mulling a good deal since, why I'm so sensitive to it that is - and had my little shit-fit. Reading it an hour or so later, noticed what a clumsy arse I'd been and pulled it. Too late, obviously, to avoid the ghouls, who now feast upon my misstep.

First: context, since I don't usually misread ironic comment. There is a personal element. Yesterday I learned my oldest friend on the planet will die in the next few months, cancer. There is no hope. I suppose the morphine will ease his pain, but his mind and body will be broken and he will die. He's just past fifty and I can't stop thinking about what this will do to his wife and two teenage kids. Who I last saw a few weeks ago. Some of you have experience of such close personal loss. I don't. My parents thrive. I had three glasses of strong beer, then thought to divert myself with a bit of Canadiana, via babble. And thence to 'white male privilege'.

Cut to facetious thread on white males (no offence Freedom, in retrospect a humourous notion) and my meltdown. Follow that thread back to other tendencies that have recently emerged on babble, in which its somehow acceptable to make stupid jokes about 'white males'. I'm a white male. I make jokes about white males. People who aren't white males can make jokes about white males too but if they get visibly aroused in the process, we're moving into sociopathy and its suddenly not amusing. Kinda like who's allowed to say 'nigga' and who isn't.

I really don't care if as some abstract demographic 'white males' appear to be doing well and are scrutinized for it. This is maybe the nub of it. I support the useful empirical work done around this pernicious subset of humanity BUT I am careful to distinguish between the ABSTRACTION and the PARTICULAR. And when the general term, which applies to both, is deployed willy-nilly one risks confusing the two, that is, freighting an individual with the baggage of his group, which is monstrously unfair.

We don't consider all Germans to be Nazis. We take a dim view of those who blame Jewish people for killing one of their own, one Jesus of Nazareth.

So how is it ok to make hip ironic comments about white males? Because as an analytical abstraction, 'white males' are thriving? Reveling in their privilege?

Here, let me share some privileged white male anecdotes. Last week I had a guest I'd met in Damascus a year ago. She's helped a number of Syrian families financially and stays in touch. Some of the men from these families have had to leave the country - others have been killed - and are living as refugees in DESPERATE circumstances in Italy, Lebanon, etc. And when I use the term 'desperate' most of you - honestly? - haven't a clue what I'm talking about. Its just a word, you've never been there, and you probably never will, praise Allah. The women and children are safe, it seems, not under direct threat, not obliged to FLEE. Their men's DAILY emails to her are tales of heartbreak and homesickness and misery. If you felt like enlightening the men there on their white privilege, I'm sure they'd welcome you royally, ply you with tea and cigarettes, listen to you with interest. Anything to fill the time, and they'd find your western manners fascinating.

Its not that I DON'T think there is such a thing as white male privilege and it is an obscenity. Its just that I'm aware its NOT THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN. (Diggin the caps yet, 'writer'? Quicken the pulse, do they?)

Here's an email from a Canadian friend, anonymized for her protection, received yesterday:

"Thank you M. I needed that I just came home from X Class at X totally bewildered by an incident concerning a youth at the centre I only know what he told me so there could be variables to this situation BUT ........ I found out that he had a very important homework essay to write tonight and a staff member was going to assist him. . I was told it was part of his "Community Service" something he "earned by committing a criminal act He is 13 years old and has a criminal record!!!!! It seems he has been a victim of long time bullying He used to walk away but that caused more attacks by others. He has been suspended for misplaced anger 3 times now this. He was being harrassed by an older boy with onlookerswhen he said " One more word from you and I`ll smash you in the throat" One of the onlookers told the mother of the bully The OPP were called The boy was arrested and charged with uttering a Death Threat. We ask, How come we have wars ? How come we have prisons? How come we have very angry young men who may one day become killers? I could go on but I know that I probably will keep an eye on this boy who helped me dig and plant the Comfie Cat garden and who tonight chopped and measured and did dishes and smiled and said Thank you X You are a good person. X"

Anyone care to jump in here and bring this misguided youth up to speed? Let him know the role he plays as privileged-white-man-in-waiting? He has all the attributes!

Here's a picture of me at age 19, after I dropped out of school and spent a year hitching around Sudan and the Congo. I spent a summer working in the Alberta oilpatch to fund it. The clothes I abandoned only reluctantly, they were so much more comfortable than our western gear. 

I suppose I put up this painfully personal image in hopes of establishing that one of my first acts as an adult - was to repudiate the embarrassing 'privilege' of my geography and genes.

RW I can take generalized remarks about my gender but when you presume to lecture me on PLANET EARTH and white male privilege I am afraid I conjure an educated middle class Canadian woman who to a good 9/10ths of the WOMEN on this planet epitomizes a privilege that transcends even gender. But I am sure I am mistaken. You are good-hearted, and live in one of the richest countries in the world!

Thanks for posting that and for being so candid, Merowe. Very interesting adventure. I've posted stuff and photos here about my own adventure in Central America in the 1980s, but there was little interest. I find white bourgeois anti-imperialists in dreadlocks who often talk past and over us are not easily impressed. We can't discuss a lot with certain people because they tend to know everything. 

Mrs Mulder I've been here for a long, long time. Sorry if I haven't taken notice of your thoughtful commentaries in the past. 

Fidel wrote:

Thanks for posting that and for being so candid, Merowe. Very interesting adventure. I've posted stuff and photos here about my own adventure in Central America in the 1980s, but there was little interest. I find white bourgeois anti-imperialists in dreadlocks who often talk past and over us are not easily impressed. We can't discuss a lot with certain people because they tend to know everything. 

Do you know of any babblers who wear their hair in dreadlocks?

I wonder if this is all more about a negative experience you may have had in the past...