[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Saya

Really? He's come out now and said Versus is whiteshaming and that its racist to tell him that white people don't understand what its like to be black.

I have said no such thing. I said it's racist (and supremacist) to say that people of one ethnic group CANNOT understand the experience of another, because you take it upon yourself to judge the mental faculties of another's mind based on nothing besides their race or ethnic background. Not only is this completely unprovable, it is totalitarian and stupid.

The more we talk to him about any kind of issue be it Occupy or religion or feminism, the more he reveals he's only concerned with issues in which he can blame other people rather than look at himself critically. We should be happy he cares about these women at all and shouldn't be upset he thinks his American sisters should shut up about Occupy being sexist.

Once again that was never my argument. You are reading ridiculous things into my posts because you want a boogeyman to fight and I happen to be a convenient target.

Which is weird, because he's said before the only reason he started caring about classism and changed his mind about capitalism was when he moved and found out how hard it is to struggle on your own. But unless he's secretly trans, he just can't have the same experience with womanness and there's nothing in the world that can make him black. He hates the idea that there's experiences that as a privileged person he can't have access to.

No. God you're bad at this. My argument is that despite biases and ethnic/cultural differences communication between humans is always possible.

You want some more straw for that man you're building?

Why does Versus have to teach him after several threads of trying to teach him?

Because Versus is the one making positive claims and demanding we accept them based upon his ethos as a PoC alone. That is not acceptable any way you slice it. Versus is the one who came in here and shit all over my thread despite the fact that he's admitted my use of the term fits the definition and does not offend him (though he pretended otherwise). Then he had the gall to make the demand that others simply submit and and perform an act of contrition due to his superior knowledge on the subject which he has gained through nothing other than the circumstances of his birth and the life that resulted from those circumstances.

You may be one for blind submission Saya, I am not, and what he demands is patently offensive, not to me as a white man, but to me as an empiricist.

It's one thing to point out that it's not his responsibility to educate others, it's quite another to come into someone else's discussion, wag an appendage at him, spout some cryptic bullshit and then blame him for not understanding, and then use that lack of understanding as further evidence of the target's poor character.

That's not discussion, that's douchebaggery disguised as discussion.

This is not the military and no one here is Versus's inferior. He can't just fall back on "you can't understand so accept everything I'm saying uncritically." If he wants to make a positive claim about anything he has to prove it, and it is his responsibility to make every effort to make his point crystal clear. It is not our responsibility to read his mind and divine his intentions or his arguments for him.

If he doesn't want to have a discussion about this, he shouldn't initiate one.

He's said several times now that he didn't mean that its not slavery and he's not the arbiter, initially all it was is side eying the guy who has a history of not caring about criticisms of whiteness, and of using racialized words like the n-word for shits and giggles or images of abused women to appropriate for his Occupy group, who now decides to emphasize that the church engages in slavery, with capital letters.

This is nothing but an assault on my character, and a stupid one at that.

Fuck you Saya.

And those of us who aren't black immediately jumped the gun and assumed he was saying white people can't say it.

He posted that "[Despanan] shouldn't be so comfortable saying it" if there's nohing wrong with saying it, why should I be uncomfortable?