NEWS: Teacher Resigns After Appearing in "Blackface"

So are you saying poor white people who have absolutely no power in this world, like me, cannot be racists?

Discrimination can happen anytime, anywhere, by anyone. If I go into work tomorrow and my black boss gives me a heavier load than a fellow black employee just because I'm white, then I am being discriminated against.

Of course, I don't have a job at the moment, so that isn't going to happen...

Brinstar, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying, because as long as we're talking about the issue of race, visible ethnicity, skin colour, whatever you want to call it, there is no such thing as a white person without power. Can you be discriminated against, as you say? Sure. But it isn't racism.

Even if you're a poverty-stricken, deaf lesbian in a wheelchair, sure, you're discriminated against for being female, gay, disabled and living below the poverty line, but in that one area--the area which we're discussing--you're in a place of privilege. That's just how it is.

It would be one step harder to be a visible ethnic minority--as WELL as poverty-stricken, deaf lesbian in a wheelchair. Ya feel me?

How is there no such thing as a white person without power?

I see plenty of white homeless people every day. What power do they have?

The white lower classes living in trailer parks working minimum wage jobs to make ends meet... what power do they have?

What about a poor white person living in a primarily black neighborhood? Your race sure as hell doesn't give you any power there. It is a liability if anything.

If you're talking in super general terms, then maybe you have a point. Real people don't live in general terms. Real people live in real life situations. If you get nailed because of your race, you aren't going to sit around thinking about theoretical situations where it theoretically could have been a benefit. You are going to look at the real world situation you just got nailed for.

I'd say the opposite. Real world situations where individual white people are less privileged than individual black people are exist in measurable numbers. Nowhere near as common as the reverse, but far from "virtually nonexistent".

Of course if you limit it to "same social class" you can make the argument that whites have it better. Sort of. Though most people in the same social class well... have it something close to the same... which is why they are in the same social class. You don't sit around as a white male making 15k a year and feel like you're in a position of power over your black male neighbor making 15k a year.

If you take an individual white uneducated male who has worked his ass off in shitty jobs for year, and he gets a new job at say... a local KMart, where the store owner and several managers are minorities, he is not going to feel like he is in a position of power.

I think it really depends where you live and work. If you are a white male living and working in non-white neighborhoods, you simply will not ever feel like you are in power, and if anything, you will recieve the worse end of things. I grew up in a fairly white neighborhood so it was never a big issue for me, but I had poorer friends who grew up in worse neighborhoods... just getting through school without taking "whitey" shit was a real life issue for them, and by shit I mean, often, a lot more than name-calling... often ass kickings. And when your mom is white trash making like 15k a year and spending half of it on dope for her and her jobless live-in boyfriend, what positions of power do you feel?

See, this is something I think people aren't fully acknowledging. Being VERY poor and white generally means living in areas where white is the minority (well, in urban areas anyway), and where you are in just as shitty a position as everyone else around you. You don't have better means to get through education... you go to the same shit school with the same indifferent teachers. You don't have better means to get a job, you're generally looking at local McDonalds or something that is minority-managed. You will feel it, and it won't make you feel an ounce better if someone shows you a stats sheet that shows "most whites make more than most minorities". Because you aren't most whites.

I've seen alot of comments comparing blackface to black people using make-up to look like white people, i.e. white chicks. There is a big difference between dressing up in blackface and using make-up to look like a black person. White people would use blackface to dress up as black people and portray them as thieves, bafoons, rapists, etc. I understand why some people would be bothered by blackface today, but if a person got pissed because a white person used make-up to look like a black person, that would just be retarded.

This is one of the stupidest things, that I have heard many times in my life. When I was a teenager living in a fairly poor, almost all black neighborhood, everyone seemed to have about as few privileges as everyone else. Altough, there were a lot of people with nice, or fixed up cars, I was not one of them.

My wife grew up in a different poor, almost all black neighborhood. Her neighborhood was about the same as mine, just with mostly old beat-up houses instead of a bunch of apartments. Her parents worked very hard to send her to a catholic school, not for religious reasons but so she could go to a good school. She had about the same priviliges as the people in her neighborhood, but she was less privilliged than people she went to school with, even less privileged than the black girls.

Thanks for the link to the movie. It looks really interesting and I can't wait to get it.

thank you!!!

Yeah the League of Gentlemen character Papa Lazarou is basically just extremely strange.... he talks in a strange voice... says things like
"Your My Wife Now Dave" to a woman whom he kidnaps.

I feel a little sorry for the teacher. I think one of the main hidden problems with racism these days isnt that racism is as big as it once was. Because we all know people have grown more culturally aware and forgiving during the past 100 years.

I think one of the burning issues is that any act of humor involving race can be branded as 'racist'.
I personally think until people realise the difference between racism and good hearted humor the idea of racism will still be a very strong one.
If your a child growing up and you see humor you find is funny, but are then told by conflicting sources... no this is wrong its racist, it can give you mixed messages. Especially so if there was nothing actually racist about it in the first place. Whatever racial humor whether black or white.
There does seem to be a little bit of political correctness gone mad in some respects.

We obviously cant ignore the racial crimes and injustice that have existed in the past but if we really are going to move past them we need to be able to rise above racism and count a white person dressing up as a globe trotter or a black person dressing up as pete samprass equal.
Until then racism wont no longer be an issue, just a deeply burried one.