Some thoughts on modern society.

And on this subject, I saw a video recently where a black writer claimed that white people using GIFs or emojis involving black people was "Digital Blackface" and I'm not going to get into it because it's ridiculous but the point I'm getting to is these extremists decide what is offensive and expect everyone else to follow along.

Seriously? That's fucking ridiculous. By that logic, any black person using a white emoji, which they would have been, are "Digital Whiteface" which I guess he'd think is fine. Although this is the sort of thing that pisses me off with people. When they have double standards when it comes to racism. Take White Chicks. Great film. Don't see white people kicking off about it. But I can remember people complaining when RDJ went blackface in Tropic Thunder, which was also a great film. It was hilarious. But you can't complain about one and not the other as they are the same thing.

I actually heard someone say one time that black people can't be racist. Fuck off. Some of the most racist people I know are black people and I can guarantee that if it was the other way around then they'd be locked up or at the very least have a criminal record for being racist.

I still don't get it though. I know some of the older generation won't change what they've been brought up to believe, but the sooner we get a society that has been brought up on all skin colours are the same, the better. People also need to learn the difference between skin colour and cultures. A black guy born and raised in central England is not the same as a black guy born and raised in central Africa. Skin colour maybe. Culturally though? Completely different. Or a black guy raised in those shitty tower blocks full of crime in London is completely different to one raised in a lovely part of London with a good up bringing. The cultures that you're raised in make a difference, not skin colour, hence why you also get white people growing up in those shitty tower blocks behaving in the exact same way thinking that they're gangsters.

I quit social media ages ago because I generally just hate people. Best decision I've ever made. No more seeing people getting butt hurt over the smallest of things. Really, it's social media that has made things like that worse. It's given people a platform to complain and make a meal out of nothing. Remember the days when if you have a problem with a shop, you just wrote or emailed their head office? Now it's people writing on their Facebook page, trying to get free stuff or just masturbating over the amount of likes that their complain has got from other people. How about don't complain over something that means nothing and just move on with life like a normal person? So you had some mold in a new loaf of bread. Return it, get a new one for free and move on with life. Stop writing all over Facebook and the like about it.

The sueing society of modern times needs to go as well. Bring back natural selection I say. Stop letting people sue for stupid shit. Someone saved your life and you sue them because they hurt you in doing so? They should be laughed out of court and told to grow the fuck up and be thankful that someone actually saved them. Fell over because you weren't watching where you were walking? How is that anyones problem but your own? Working on a building site and don't wear protective glasses when welding or something? What are you, a child? Does someone need to mother you and walk you through the basics of safety every time you pick that welder up? If you fuck up your eyes the one time you didn't wear protective glasses, despite being told to and the numerous signs, then that is no a company problem. That's a problem of one moron who couldn't engage their brain. Yet they end up with hundreds of thousands of pounds from the company because they can no longer work, despite it being their own fucking fault. Stop people sueing for stupid shit. If you have no common sense and you need someone to tell you basic safety instructions, and you didn't get basic safety instructions, then maybe fair enough. But when you've had that health and safety induction and you then fuck up despite being told, that is your own problem.

It might be because of things like Facebook and Twitter, but people seem to be pulling the race card out a lot more recently. If this is how society is going then I don't like it - obviously some things are, because people are idiots, but there's so much calling foul now over anything. Black guy got shot, it's because he's black... nothing to do with him waving a gun around in peoples faces.

A good example is the recent shooting in America. Trump didn't call the guy a terrorist. People kick off because he didn't and so it has to be because he's white (the Unilad site didn't help with that as they started posting stupid shit about it and getting people questioning it on Facebook). All I can say is No, how about learn what a terrorist is. It's more than just inciting terror, or are we going to call those idiots that walk around as clowns trying to scare people as terrorists as they made loads of people terrified? If there's no political motivation behind it, it's not a terrorist attack. Otherwise every mass murder in the world throughout history is a terrorist.

Granted, this is all nothing new... been heading this way for ages. Anything happens against black people, it's racially motivated. They release pay scales for women at the BBC and people call sexist. People have taken to looking at headlines and believing all kinds of shit, making up stats without knowing actual facts or any reading of their own. Take the BBC one for example... there was absolutely no context as to the pay scales - giving out yearly wages is useless without context. What do they do for that money, the hours they work, etc. Yeah a female news person might earn £40k less than her male counterpart, but for all we know that guy works an extra 15 hours a week more than the woman. There's no context to it, yet everyone was jumping on about how disgusting it was and how clearly sexist it is. It might well be, but without context, how about we all calm the fuck down and do get some further information before the witch hunt begins.

We're basically going back to the whole "she's a witch" thing where you burn them at the steak and if she survives then she's a witch and if she doesn't then oh well. If the courts over here reacted like the population do, people would be locked up with life sentences without trial with no one caring whether they're guilty or not.

There's also the blame culture. My partner is a teacher and the amount of parents who can't control their children are unreal, but it's not their fault. It's the teachers, because they're raising the children and it's not the parents responsibility. They question why children are getting homework, why are they pushing a child to do better, how dare the school ask them to pay a few pounds to let their child go on a school trip and then blast the school for not including them on the school trip that they didn't pay for. It's like they can't remember what they did at school themselves and no one is interested in what their precious little child is going to have to deal with when they're adults. School is preparing them for life. Quite a few parents these days don't seem to recognise that or that they have to be actual parents and that their child is actually their responsibility. Teachers are there to teach, not raise your child for you so that you don't have to. If your kid is a little shit, look at home first and foremost, not to other people.

Modern society sucks basically lol. Everyone is too quick to jump to things, cry about anything and not accept responsibility. I've think we've summed things up nicely.

Could be worse. Us three could live in America like most people here. I imagine their society is worse than ours. In fact, I'm pretty confident in saying that given that it's so much bigger.

There's also the blame culture. My partner is a teacher and the amount of parents who can't control their children are unreal, but it's not their fault. It's the teachers, because they're raising the children and it's not the parents responsibility. They question why children are getting homework, why are they pushing a child to do better, how dare the school ask them to pay a few pounds to let their child go on a school trip and then blast the school for not including them on the school trip that they didn't pay for. It's like they can't remember what they did at school themselves and no one is interested in what their precious little child is going to have to deal with when they're adults. School is preparing them for life. Quite a few parents these days don't seem to recognise that or that they have to be actual parents and that their child is actually their responsibility. Teachers are there to teach, not raise your child for you so that you don't have to. If your kid is a little shit, look at home first and foremost, not to other people.

The kind of things you listed are stupid. There is an argument that kids would be better off without homework, but the teacher is not the person  you need to speak to but rather the school boards and shit who actually decide this stuff. I have great relationships with my son's teachers. The only issue I've had is with other kids bullying my son. I've had to say "this needs to be sorted" because some teachers (and luckily this is a minority) brush off kids fighting as "kids being kids" even if one kid is being bullied over the other. And I think those people give the good teachers (like 90% of all teachers) a bad name. Kinda similar to how one muslim is a terrorist and it rubs off on other muslims. I'm started to notice a pattern here. 😋

There's also the blame culture. My partner is a teacher and the amount of parents who can't control their children are unreal, but it's not their fault. It's the teachers, because they're raising the children and it's not the parents responsibility. They question why children are getting homework, why are they pushing a child to do better, how dare the school ask them to pay a few pounds to let their child go on a school trip and then blast the school for not including them on the school trip that they didn't pay for. It's like they can't remember what they did at school themselves and no one is interested in what their precious little child is going to have to deal with when they're adults. School is preparing them for life. Quite a few parents these days don't seem to recognise that or that they have to be actual parents and that their child is actually their responsibility. Teachers are there to teach, not raise your child for you so that you don't have to. If your kid is a little shit, look at home first and foremost, not to other people.

The kind of things you listed are stupid. There is an argument that kids would be better off without homework, but the teacher is not the person  you need to speak to but rather the school boards and shit who actually decide this stuff. I have great relationships with my son's teachers. The only issue I've had is with other kids bullying my son. I've had to say "this needs to be sorted" because some teachers (and luckily this is a minority) brush off kids fighting as "kids being kids" even if one kid is being bullied over the other. And I think those people give the good teachers (like 90% of all teachers) a bad name. Kinda similar to how one muslim is a terrorist and it rubs off on other muslims. I'm started to notice a pattern here. 😋

A year or two ago, a load of parents... like pretty much every parent of kids in that year... kicked off and threatened to take their children out of school because their kids had to take a test. It was pointed out to them that the kids only have to sign their names, they don't have to answer any questions if they don't want to, but they have to sit it. It's not a school thing, it's a government thing. But they were all taking it as a personal thing that the school were forcing, forgetting that they'd have to have done them when they were children. It was even pointed out to them that failure to turn up means that the kid can't progress to the next year and of course a fine if you pull the kid out of school. Unsurprisingly every kid turned up but parents were kicking off and calling the teachers all kinds of things... all over nothing, as their kids that they were so worried out because of the stress all did fine and not a single one mentioned about being bothered about it whilst in school.

Not surprised with the bullying though. The school my partner teaches at wouldn't accept that as an excuse. If a kid complains he's being bullied, shit gets sorted because you don't want it escalating. The problems come though when the parents start arguing with each other and then she has to deal with them as well like she's a counsellor. I keep telling her that they need to just tell the parents to sort their shit out and not bring things like that into school, but they always do and don't drop it. She's there for your kids education, not to mediate between adults.

White ppl thinking they're the victims ITT.

You're both right that aggressive arguing isn't a good way of changing a person's views. Instead try empathy and actual intelligible discussion.

Regarding the posters above me discussing political correctness, fear of offending people, and everyone's rush to complain about things:

How did we ever get change in the world without the common people complaining about injustices? White men like us don't get to decide whether the gender pay gap or that modern race issues are important. Inequality exists, and will continue to exist for many more years, and change is gradual, but complaining about people complaining makes you look like the people who were against women's right to vote or the abolishment of slavery. The obvious advantage that a straight able-bodied cisgender white man has in the world might not seem like a big deal to you, but the LGBT people, colored people, women, the disabled, and several other disadvantaged groups know that isn't true. Privilege is less obvious to those who unknowingly take advantage of it.

Black guy got shot, it's because he's black... nothing to do with him waving a gun around in peoples faces.

Most of the controversies around police violence against blacks revolve around police shooting unarmed black men.

pulling the race card

Oh boy do I ever dislike that phrase. Yes, there are instances of people claiming racial motives in instances where there is none, but this is such a minor issue compared to actual real race issues. I live in a very racially diverse part of a very racially diverse city, and discrimination and prejudice is rampant. I'm sure it is in your areas too.

Question for everyone else in this topic. Do you acknowledge the privilege that white folk are granted in your society, and do you agree that everyone else faces far greater challenges in life?

This has been a fun read. Looking forward to some real discussion here. 😉

Last edited by ré_mullé (Sat-7-Oct-2017 08:16:28)

Black guy got shot, it's because he's black... nothing to do with him waving a gun around in peoples faces.

Most of the controversies around police violence against blacks revolve around police shooting unarmed black men.

And in those circumstances I'd agree, likely is a race issue where they're assuming or doing it just because. But I've seen ones over here where a guy has a gun, reaches for it, gets put down and people riot because "he only got shot because he's black". No, he got shot because he reached for a gun. Skin colour doesn't come into it in cases like that.

Regarding "race card", the problem is that people pull it and that causes friction and takes away from cases where something actually is racially motivated. People call it quite often when there's no case for it. Like I saw in the news the other day a black guy getting thrown out of a shop for shouting at someone, and there was a comment on the post from a black woman saying "would like to see what would have happened if they were white." Caused a right kick off. Why comment that? For starters, the answer would be the same, they'd get kicked out. Had fuck all to do with race, yet someone brings it up. That causes unnecessary friction and winds people up, and I would see so much less talk of racism if it wasn't for things like this. Apart from a sad few, it's really not a big problem over here - just need other countries to pick up and for people to stop claiming it when there is none and I'd hardly hear of any racist talk. Funnily, most cases that I see of people claiming racism where there isn't any, are from people that have moved to this country, and ones that are born here tend not to make such stupid comments as they know it's not true.

If I didn't see people claiming racism when there clearly isn't, I'd rarely hear any racist complaints or comments or see anything racist.

I'd agree with Ninjak in a sense that the most racist people I know are actually black. I know one racist white guy, and I avoid him really as he's a drunk who comes out with the most ridiculous comments about Muslims. Would happily slap the guy, as would most people on Facebook by some of the comments people add to his statuses when he makes a stupid one. Three black friends I know make racist comments and have pulled the race card before - one of them got pulled over for speeding and didn't get a ticket because he kicked off that he'd only been pulled over because he was black and took the cops number and all that. He then laughed about it afterwards saying how it's a great way to get off because the police don't want a racist claim made against them, even though he was speeding. I talk to him very rarely now because of shit like that. He'd claim it regularly and then laugh about it, but all he's doing it causing a problem because it adds to peoples belief that it's called for no reason... especially because in cases like this guy, it really is.

It's a shame, because he's a funny guy usually. He once hid in a dark room to scare the shit out of us, because "I blend so well in the dark no one knows I'm here." Was hilarious listening to him say that, and I don't mind him making black jokes because they were great. But not when he's using it and claiming people are being racist when they aren't, and he knows they aren't.

Racism really isn't a big issue over here (probably is more in London than anywhere), and there's no real "white privilege," just like there's no male privilege despite what some people claim. The best example of male privilege not existing is when it comes to sending people to jail. Women get off incredibly lightly compared to men, like ridiculously so. You can have the same thing happen for a man and woman, and the man will get 6 years and the woman will get 1 or a suspended sentence. That causes so many complaints, mainly about how our justice system is a joke. People laugh about how if you're a woman and have a child, you can basically do what ever you want with very little repercussions.

I know it's worse in America though (and who knows about Australia because no one ever mentions you guys over here apart from to say how much they want to live there), but wasn't there a stat recently to show that most black people are shot by black people, including black cops? I'm sure I saw that. Doesn't excuse the white cops though when there's no reason for it. Too trigger happy, whereas over here there's a full inquest every time a cop has to shoot someone, which isn't often as the majority of our police don't carry guns.

Football recently made me laugh, with wanting to bring in a rule that you have to interview at least one black person for a job, because they don't feel that there's enough black managers in the game. So many things wrong with that. For starters, they're assuming that there's a huge amount of black people that want the jobs as they have no indication that there are loads applying. My brother pointed out a few years ago when they started talking about it, that there's not going to be many black managers around at the moment because there weren't that many black people playing football over here x amount of time ago that would now be retired and looking to get into management, so of course there'd be more white people applying for these jobs. It's only round about now and the coming years that we'd be expecting to see these retired players looking to move into management... assuming that they want to do it. And to get a job interview based on your skin colour? How is that right? Guy isn't good enough, but get's an interview anyway. Absolutely nothing wrong with giving people interviews based on their CV and application letter. Shouldn't have to interview people because they're black. That's just wrong.

Too many people still live in the past though (of all colours). Yeah, might have been a problem 20 years ago or more, but it's not now so stop claiming it.

EDIT: the problem with discussing this is that we're from all over the world, so will have different problems. We're quite accepting here, apart from a real minority - who you'll generally find get treated like outcasts and get the shit kicked out of them for being openly racist. Watching what the police can do in America is completely different to what our police are allowed to do over here or can do or will do. You really can't get much more different. We have so many laws that stop stupid shit and people that want to end the old ways.

Regarding the posters above me discussing political correctness, fear of offending people, and everyone's rush to complain about things:

How did we ever get change in the world without the common people complaining about injustices? White men like us don't get to decide whether the gender pay gap or that modern race issues are important. Inequality exists, and will continue to exist for many more years, and change is gradual, but complaining about people complaining makes you look like the people who were against women's right to vote or the abolishment of slavery. The obvious advantage that a straight able-bodied cisgender white man has in the world might not seem like a big deal to you, but the LGBT people, colored people, women, the disabled, and several other disadvantaged groups know that isn't true. Privilege is less obvious to those who unknowingly take advantage of it.

I'm not saying anything you said was incorrect, but complaining about injustices and deciding something is offensive and expecting everyone to agree with you or they are a nazi is an entirely different thing. In my post, I was simply talking about extreme aspects of both the left and right. This isn't even a political thing, it's a people thing and their refusal to accept anything from "the other side" as right or even worth listening to.

Question for everyone else in this topic. Do you acknowledge the privilege that white folk are granted in your society, and do you agree that everyone else faces far greater challenges in life?

I acknowledge I was born into the most privileged skin colour. I don't think anyone would argue that. Doesn't mean that white cis men are the devil though, like most extremist left wing would have you believe, just like not all muslims are terrorists, like most right wing extremists would have you believe.