i didnt realize how many problems i had

There's an industry being built around these topics, flavor of the decade, money for clicks from the insecure who buy into feeling guilty (but they are just narcissists!).

I've done enough wrong things in my life to feel guilty about, but I'll be damned if I am expected to feel guilty for the actions of other people just because they share my skin color.

It was only a matter of time before someone replied with "talking about racism is as bad as racism itself..."

Most fish are not conscious of the water they take for granted. I imagine many fish will deny its existence.

If you take a person out of a racist environment they are improved as a person.

If you take a fish out of water it dies. It's also interesting to see other fish damn our subject fish for refusing to leave the water.

Of course, good luck finding who's the proper person to educate oneself.

We can't fucking win, no matter what. Speak out..you are just atoning for guilt or narcissistic. Not speaking out, you are racist. Helping, not helping, same thing.

There is no pleasing some people. I'm so tired of this bullshit. All articles like this serve to do is alienate people who would otherwise be on the right side of things. Whatever we do, it isn't good enough.

* If you do not include other cultures you're guilty of being culturally homogenous

* If you adopt another culture you're guilty cultural appropriation

* If you blend another culture with your own you're guilty of cultural imperialism

Now you have gone too far.

Speaking of narcissism, I can't help but wonder if his ego has lead him to make some profoundly bad decisions and now that he's $53m in debt he could launch onto a destructive trajectory.

Can't Kim just cut him a check? Wtf did he even buy that is $53M? If he just gave it all away, wouldn't he have had to have the $ in the first place, and then it wouldn't be debt... So much confusion for me. Maybe there are answers out there that I just haven't seen... I definitely don't keep up with Kanye or the Kardashians enough :p

For some reason I assume someone as rich as he is could put that $40M down in cash, instead of having to take out a business loan. Maybe he did take out a loan though... where is all his past earnings? You just don't get that type of loan with no collateral. Why does he need to ask the internet for money help? Obama was right about him

doesn't mean that he doesn't have any assets. He could have a hundred million stored in the bank for all we know. Every article I've read has been shallow on this point.

As for why asking people for help? Kanye himself has been quoted as saying that it's better to risk other peoples' money than your own.

LOL

What can I say? She's hot.

As for Kanye West, the President said it best: he's a jackass.

Is a person who crows too much about how wonderful they are a narcissist? Probably. But that doesn't mean all good people are narcissists or their motivations are self interested. I think that sometimes people who make claims like that are feeling a little sting of guilt themselves and projecting it a bit.

... And treat people on merit regardless of skin color.

Rushing home to start a DU thread about it so everyone can praise you for being a great person is narcissism. So yes, I do agree with some of this.

Excellent example, too.

It is very hard to dismantle one's unconscious biases. It requires self-examination every single day, with nearly every interaction. This is difficult but necessary work. It requires the white person to keep asking the question, over and over, "am I making this about me?" Sadly, most of the time the answer is "yes." In some measure, the "me-ness" can also be about trying to be a better human being, and not just about trying to scratch out a comfort zone. At least I hope so.

I wish there was an easier path to unlearning this stuff, but it's just applying the practice of Golden Rule all day, every day. I apologize in advance for slipping up, and I'll keep trying to do better.

Thank you for posting.

Yes? I'm horrible for making this self-examination about myself about myself. No? I can't possibly be doing this correctly.

no matter what race or color, operates out of "me-ness." As much as we may try to be empathetic, no one can fully understand how it feels to be someone else.

"It requires the white person to keep asking the question, over and over, "am I making this about me?" "

in order to feel good about themselves? Got news (old news) -- that's how we are wired. Scientists are very insulting about this. To read their analyses every good act is performed in order to get a little shot of biochemical joy juice. I expect we have more to learn. But...narcissism? Wouldn't feeling happy and good from being good need a little more massaging to become actual self admiration?

How big is this supposed "white guilt," though, anyway? This discussion seems like the kind of precious thing that would grow up in precious environments where people are encouraged to develop conceits about their special sensitivity (a promotion of narcissism in fact as well as theory), like university campuses.

Normal people know we are part and parcel of extremely imperfect and racist societies, whether we want to be or not, and I don't think most of us waste more time "white guilting" ourselves about that any more than men here go around "guy-guilting" themselves because of their advantages over women. I do feel bad, for instance, that people are being hurt because in over 200 years we have not yet extended the principle of "all men are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to all. But that's something else, not guilt. And principles are real, joy juice or not.

Class guilt. Class warfare. The I am above, better than, special, affluent, born to, better breeding, looking down on crap that we can't seem to get rid of.

I'm not particularly absorbed in racial issues, but I know that I both consciously reject any notions of racial superiority while, mostly subconsciously but not always, have adopted some racist attitudes. Does it bother me? Sure, a bit. Do I overcompensate in narcissitic ways? Possibly occasionally yep. However it's almost impossible to not have racial prejudices (not necessarily negative assumptions per se, for example I might expect a black sprinter to win a televised 100m race, knowing nothing about the runners' abilities) which in whites in the US is complicated by benefitting from institutional racism, so anyone self-aware and reflective is bound to have some twinges. I'd say the problem is with those who do not try to compensate for realized bias.

This becomes a minefield however in any informed discussion because there ARE generalizable cultural, or rather subcultural, differences which mean both some behaviors and some outcomes are likely to be different for blacks on aggregate as opposed to whites. These are never universal and rarely normative. Not all black men are better basketball players than all white men, but the vast majority of NBA players are black for good reasons; the cultural importance of the game and impetus to pursue excellence at it are stronger among the black population for a start, generally speaking. Please note what I said about universalization before you respond. Is it normatively superior or inferior to care so much about basketball as opposed to, say, hockey? Nothing but subjective bias would say so. Things however get worse where normative impulses are not purely subjective, and we need to be able to talk about those.

People shouldn't kill each other is largely unquestioned as normative, and it should not rationally be seen as racist to say black people do so at a higher rate than white people in the US. It certainly WOULD be racist to say they do so because they are black, rather than a whole host of socioeconomic and cultural reasons, racism itself not least among them, but that white liberal narcissistic response often quashes such discussions, assuming even noting data must be racist. Even here, where such a discussion would naturally be focused on why the hell our shared culture is more likely to turn black men into killers than white men and what if anything we can do to stop that over time, rather than the Fox/Yahoo bilge that it somehow comes through the melanin, the hypersensitive narcissistic guilt described just tends to shout "racist!" and pretend it's solved the problem and done something honorable. THAT is the problem with overcompensated guilt, and it is inimical to the stated and conscious goals of avowed non-racists.

is always a good thing. We are by nature selfish creatures & do nothing without a degree of self interest. Interesting read.

Look ... We ARE all in this together ... The situations we find ourselves in are different, as we would expect, but, we hopefully EMPATHIZE with those in our whole community who need or want or suffer ...

I personally believe that Bernie provides the BEST opportunity for EVERYONE, regardless of skin color, to level the playing field ....

Out of all the choices we have in the General Election ... Bernie is the one who gives working people the BEST chance of success to move your own family forward ...

Bottom line ... BEST option ...

I may or may not answer the phone, though.

But in everyday life, they just don't come up often.

The real issue is this. Can we just manage to get
along and work together, regardless of our flaws
or issues?

Imagine what the reaction would be outside our oh-so-progressive community!

Maybe not.

Maybe I'll change my mind sometime down the road, but this election cycle has made me very pessimistic about our ability to ever truly tackle racial injustice in this country. Our history is our future.

I would have thought that "progressives" would avoid wagging their fingers in their allies' faces to shame them. Seems absolutely pointless and divisive.

Unfortunately, some "progressives" would rather pick the easy target that stands still for their derision than going after the opposition. Keep up with the shaming, I'm sure it will work out great for you. **eyeroll**

I know lots of white people who live and love and work with people of African descent - who laugh and cry and feel our pain and who are anything but narcissists. Many help all persons in need and are by no means on some guilt trip.

But race is especially toxic in some quarters.

Some cultures are more misogynistic than other cultures, for example. I'm white and I'm female, living in sweden, and I know very well that other imported cultures are complete, threatening assholes to women.

Another day, another anti-white screed. Yawn.

Last edited Wed Feb 24, 2016, 01:08 PM - Edit history (1)

Oh, wait a minute, Savage Weiner lives and broadcasts from here. There goes that theory.

Many of our fellow white liberals are happy to support equal rights, as long as they are praised and appreciated for their enlightened attitudes toward race. The moment the issue becomes about anyone else but them and their feelings, though, things tend to turn sour.

I am often complimented for my sunny disposition, though I fail to see how that's relevant.

As far as I can tell, this author has no credentials to seriously discuss psychology or race politics.

She's done a pretty good job at writing an opinion piece that divides people though.

Sorry, but humans are more diverse than that.

are important defining elements of narcissism. Someone who feels guilty about wrongs committed against others, isn't a narcissist.

The author should have learned the definition of the word, before writing the article.

~ Smohalla

I find nationalism of any sort repulsive.