'White Pride'

[Flagg]

I also hate the way blacks tend to assume that the word "racism" means "blacks vs whites", as if other races are irrelevant. And I'll tell you this: when I was growing up, I received more racial abuse from blacks than whites. What does that say?

It's not just blacks. In fact the only people I have ever heard use the term "reverse racism" are white people bitching about affirmative action or the fact that it's not socially acceptable for them to say the word "nigger" but it's acceptable for blacks. As if racism only goes one way.

[GuppyShark]

You may not be able to take credit for them...

Yes, I did.

[Lord Woodlouse]

You'd be proud of your father (I'd think), but you wouldn't go around boasting of "Fatherly Pride" or anything.

No, of course not. There seems to be degrees to it even though, let's face it, you don't have any real responsibility for anything your father did (well, you might, but let's assume you don't). It seems understandable to have a degree of pride for certain things you're linked with. I feel a little bit of pride about English history, for instance, even though I'm most certainly not Henry VIII or Alfred the Great. I feel a little more pride at my grandfather being a Grenadier Guard. I feel far less pride about the achievements of the "white" race (ignoring, of course, that white is not really even a race... it's a skin colour).

The more it's linked to me and what I am the more pride I'm liable to feel (and that also includes shame), even if I can't claim responsibility for it. I can understand that right up to the feeling of pride for your own father there's a certain lack of logic there, but I think it's instinctive. I think we all have that instinct. It's ok so long as we feel this pride with the temperance of reason and perspective, I think.

[Darth Wong]

Tell me, do the "White Pride" people feel guilt and shame over the Holocaust, the ethnic cleansing of the Americas, etc? Of course not. But they take pride in what the "white race" has accomplished, right?

As I said before, people who are proud of being white are idiots who have nothing else to be proud of. It's such a pitiful thing to be proud of, like a kid bragging that his daddy can beat up your daddy.

[Lord Woodlouse]

Tell me, do the "White Pride" people feel guilt and shame over the Holocaust, the ethnic cleansing of the Americas, etc? Of course not. But they take pride in what the "white race" has accomplished, right?

As I said before, people who are proud of being white are idiots who have nothing else to be proud of. It's such a pitiful thing to be proud of, like a kid bragging that his daddy can beat up your daddy.

Well the holocaust is a bad example because most whites here will have been part of nations actively fighting against it. But if you ask a German if he's ashamed of the holocaust that becomes more of a serious question, even if the chap himself had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Our histories play a small part in making us the people we are, most especially with family history but also in a slightly more abstract sense with national histories. We often will feel a little pride or shame based on them.

You're absolutely right in the fact that pride or shame based on the colour of our skin is pretty preposterous, and I guess I'm waffling a little. Just trying to bring forward the notion that it's not entirely crazy to feel pride based on something we did not do, in other cases it's often very natural for us to feel such pride. As I say, because these histories play a part in making us who we are.

[Havok]

"White pride" is about as racist a slogan/term etc. as you can get. I know, because I useto use it that way in my younger more moronic days of skinheadery. There is absolutely no cause to use the term unless you are deliberatly trying to invoke unity or solidarity among racist people, or provoke people who aren't white into a fury or violence.

Saying that the term "Black pride" is on equal footing with that is just silly. Black people use the term to try to achieve pride where there literaly was none. White people use it as a "shield" against all things not white.

By the way I am half mexican and half sicilian... go figure.

I find this to be a little illogical. White people can't claim any sort of pride in their ancestry, heritage, and culture? For anyone race to claim "pride" in their ethnicticty is to claim exclusive rights on it and therefore makes it exclusive by definition. I don't see the logic in black people being able to take pride in who they are and where they come from, and I, being white, not able to participate in the same action.

Saying white people use it as a shield against anything non-white is stereo-typing. Not all whites are the same. Just as not all blacks, asians, and middle-easterners are not the same. I can't be proud of who I am just because I'm white?

Im glad you find it illogical. It is. There is nothing logical about it. I was merely commenting on actual experiance from a side that probably no one else on the board can speak from. Don't try to make sense of something that is senseless.

I was a stupid kid that liked to fight and found this to be the easiest way to do it. The racism was just a tool I used to get what I wanted and when I grew out of the fighting I discarded the slogans, styles and other bullshit that went with it just like the trash that it is.

[Setzer]

I'v often been glad I was born a white male while reading about civil rights in the past, but it was always because such things wouldn't be happening to me if I were alive back then. I don't consider myself inherently superior because of my pasty face.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

'White Racial Superiority' my pink hairy Irish honkey cracker gabacho ass! We're hairy, we stink, we're flabby, and we BURN LIKE VAMPIRES in the hot Texas sun whereas the dolphin-smooth hardbodied Mexicans, Asians, and blacks merrily play and run rings around us for hours on end without a care in the world.

[Simplicius]

Well the holocaust is a bad example because most whites here will have been part of nations actively fighting against it. But if you ask a German if he's ashamed of the holocaust that becomes more of a serious question, even if the chap himself had absolutely nothing to do with it.

It's a perfectly good example. If one is going to derive pride from the achievements of whites, one is obliged to consider all the shitty things that whites have also done. If one is going to refuse to associate himself with the Holocaust because it was perpetrated by Germans and he is not a German, then he should not claim affiliation with any positive German accomplishment either.

It's inherently dishonest to pick and choose one's affiliations in order to avoid acknowledging evils. One must take the good with the bad.

[Lord Woodlouse]

Well the holocaust is a bad example because most whites here will have been part of nations actively fighting against it. But if you ask a German if he's ashamed of the holocaust that becomes more of a serious question, even if the chap himself had absolutely nothing to do with it.

It's a perfectly good example. If one is going to derive pride from the achievements of whites, one is obliged to consider all the shitty things that whites have also done. If one is going to refuse to associate himself with the Holocaust because it was perpetrated by Germans and he is not a German, then he should not claim affiliation with any positive German accomplishment either.

It's inherently dishonest to pick and choose one's affiliations in order to avoid acknowledging evils. One must take the good with the bad.

No mate, it's a bad example because it's something whites were inherently on both sides of the situation with. Most people here's ancestors were on the other side of that situation, so for most of us the holocaust is actually where we're going to feel pride, if anything, because our ancestors aimed to prevent it. But as I say, we're more likely to feel pride as Britons, or shame as Germans, than either based on the colour of our skin.

It does highlight a reason why "white pride" IS a bit ridiculous though, it's essentially too wide, diverse and abstract to really say we have any real connection to the whole amorphous mass of "whitekind". So in that respect I suppose it's a good example of why "white pride" is a bad idea, but then I think a better example might be... say... the colonisation of the Americas. That could be said to be a virtually universal "white" thing, and it's a source of both shame and pride for understandable reasons.

*shrugs* Actually, consider my point conceded. It was a good example. I'm mostly just thinking aloud.

[Big Orange]

I was a stupid kid that liked to fight and found this to be the easiest way to do it. The racism was just a tool I used to get what I wanted and when I grew out of the fighting I discarded the slogans, styles and other bullshit that went with it just like the trash that it is.

I think most xenophobes in history are like that: maybe Adolf Eichmann and Rudolf Hoess did not hate Jews per se, but they saw the Holocaust as a career opportunity and chance to have power. You do not need to hate to kill millions (and in some ways that's worse).

And the term "white pride" is cheesy jargon most often blurted out by Neo-Nazis and why should "white pride" apply to the Holocaust when the vast majority of Holocaust victims were white Caucasians?

[Darth Wong]

No mate, it's a bad example because it's something whites were inherently on both sides of the situation with.

Bullshit. Whites were on both sides of every situation. Take "white pride" in the invention of Greek philosophy; did you conveniently forget that Socrates' fellow Greeks forced him to commit suicide for corrupting the youth?

[RedImperator]

I was a stupid kid that liked to fight and found this to be the easiest way to do it. The racism was just a tool I used to get what I wanted and when I grew out of the fighting I discarded the slogans, styles and other bullshit that went with it just like the trash that it is.

I think most xenophobes in history are like that: maybe Adolf Eichmann and Rudolf Hoess did not hate Jews per se, but they saw the Holocaust as a career opportunity and chance to have power. You do not need to hate to kill millions (and in some ways that's worse).

And the term "white pride" is cheesy jargon most often blurted out by Neo-Nazis and why should "white pride" apply to the Holocaust when the vast majority of Holocaust victims were white Caucasians?

Because in the racist worldview, "white" isn't just skin color. You have to be the right kind of light skinned person, and Jews are not the right kind of light skinned person. Whiteness is a state of moral and intellectual superiority that carries the right to be a full participant in society and access to any number of special privleges to which non-whites are not entitled, and skin color is just an external marker of this. All whites have light skin, but not all light skinned people are white. As PrinceofLowLight pointed out above, in the United States, many European ethnic groups who have light skin were excluded from being "white": Italians, Greeks, Slavs, even the Irish.

[Panzer Grenadier]

Every ethnic/national history is riddled with injustice and atrocities. I think people should simply be aware of their histories and past. They should be proud of the good things and learn from the bad things. They should not be totally defined by what happened one hundred years ago.

[Lord Zentei]

Europeans do share a common culture and heritage on some level though; it's not as if they are entirely distinct ethnic groups. Such common ties are the basis for the new European conciousness vis-a-vis the EU (for all that it is worth and for all that it is rather culturally centrifugal, the common cultural denominator is still there).

That said, the negative historic connotations of the term "white pride" are still present.

'White Racial Superiority' my pink hairy Irish honkey cracker gabacho ass! We're hairy, we stink, we're flabby, and we BURN LIKE VAMPIRES in the hot Texas sun whereas the dolphin-smooth hardbodied Mexicans, Asians, and blacks merrily play and run rings around us for hours on end without a care in the world.

What? Vampires are cool.

[Coyote]

It kinda reminds me of the thread we had awhile back over the issue of reparations to the descendants of former slaves. The idea that all whites in America should pay reparations, and all blacks should receive them. The issue was raised that the descendants of Union soldiers and armaments workers should be exempt, since they alreay paid the price of war in their own lifetimes.

This would then lead to a complex, time-consuming and ultimately rediculous endeavor of tracking down all the descendents throughout the history of the country in order to "make things even" between everyone who had nothing whatsoever to do with the situation today. The only part of the program that I found amusing was seeing the flip-flopping of white southerners who felt that they should not pay, but would have to grit their teeth and falsify records to make themselves appear to be the descendants of Unionists in order to get out of it.

What it boils down to is the actions of the individuals-- their skin color has nothing to do with it, and 'white pride' is hard to enjoy when the only people who seem to be fervently raising that banner are the ones who take pride in what is wholly indefensible. "Yeah! White power! White pride! We beat up Indians and Blacks! Some of us even beat up Jews! Yeah!"

It's great to identify with a particular ethnic group and have fun with it, maybe even revel in your own team's stereotypes for laughs. The whole St. Patrick's Day thing comes to mind. For a day, anyone who wants to can be Irish, in a way, it is inclusive and fun and so on. Nevermind that Irish used to face a great deal of discrimination and prejudice. Italians don't get a holiday but then again, no one thinks twice about the opening of another "Italian" restaurant (serving spaghetti, a Chinese invention).

It comes down to modern perceptions and attitudes. I mean, is there really that big a difference between the pugnacious and pugilistic green-suited Fighting Irishman of Notre Dame's football and the glowering Indian of the Washington Redskins? What makes one racist and the other harmless?

[Darth Wong]

Non-Irish people are allowed to participate in St Patrick's Day celebrations. All of the kids at my son's school were asked to wear green as a way of celebrating it, regardless of their ethnic heritage. So you really can't compare St. Patrick's Day to "white pride". I don't see any "white pride" people including blacks in their little orgy of racial celebration.

[CarsonPalmer]

I would say the difference between the Washington Redskins and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame is that a. Fighting Irish is not inherently a racial slur and b. Irish chose that nickname, while Indians had no choice in the Redskins.

[Darth Wong]

It comes down to modern perceptions and attitudes. I mean, is there really that big a difference between the pugnacious and pugilistic green-suited Fighting Irishman of Notre Dame's football and the glowering Indian of the Washington Redskins? What makes one racist and the other harmless?

If you want the brutal truth, it's simple: the natives in America are a failure. The Irish are not. That's why the natives are so much more sensitive to caricatured representations of themselves.