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Foxstar loves BashcraftMichael Harriot
9/14/18 4:42pm
White folks really need to stop getting the idea that they are the best allies ever, because they seem to forget being an ally also means being vigorously and repeatedly challenged, questioned and not trusted. And there are no fucking headpats, cookies or chin rubbings.
The true allies have taken beatings, been smeared and often been murdered for standing up against racism, almost always without complaint and dare I say, actively avoiding or wanting praise for what they did. They saw an injustice and decided they weren’t going to let that shit fly, even when they knew it would blow back on them. To white folks who want to be real allies, leave it up to history to decide if you were a true ally or not and allow your actions to speak for themselves.
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  Cardi B's Other ShoeFoxstar loves Bashcraft
  9/14/18 5:01pm
  You don’t understand. They voted for Obama twice. Why isn’t that enough for you people?
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  Sassinak11Foxstar loves Bashcraft
  9/14/18 5:08pm
  I just don’t get it.. why is it so difficult to just treat EVERYONE the way they want to be treated. Why is so difficult to understand to treat everyone with basic respect and decency regardless of colour/race/gender? I mean I don’t understand why a class needs to be taught.
  Step one: you don’t like being called names.. then don’t do it to other.
  Step two: you don’t like being discriminated against and held back through factors that have nothing to do with YOU? (not the shell you happen to wear). Then don’t do it to others.
  I mean its not that hard.
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sTalkinggoat, first and last of his nameMichael Harriot
9/14/18 4:40pm
I’d love to sit in the back of that room with a tallboy and some kettlecorn and watch this shit go down, but I have no chill.
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  Not Enough Day DrinkingsTalkinggoat, first and last of his name
  9/14/18 4:47pm
  Right? They should’ve let it go on but set up some cameras and live streamed it. The Black Twitter commentary would’ve been awesome.
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  ArtistAtLargesTalkinggoat, first and last of his name
  9/14/18 5:29pm
  I know this will sound weird, but you would literally laugh yourself to sleep.
  I know I would. And then I’d choke and waste my tallboy and corn.
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Not Enough Day DrinkingMichael Harriot
9/14/18 4:10pm
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Squib308Michael Harriot
9/14/18 6:04pm
Wouldn’t something like a meet & greet with all different kinda folks be more likely to help students feel like they can fit in with a diverse world? Or just maybe talk to people different than you in your everyday campus life?
I’m a little confused here, but hey, if people are ‘uncomfortable and confused before, during, and after interactions with racial and ethnic minorities’, maybe some therapy counseling makes sense. Someone to hold their hand while they do some inspection of their own beliefs and prejudices, come out of it a more enlightened, less unconsciously racist person? (and not just switch to being consciously racist, either :)
I’ve had an idea tossing around in my mind for a while, that a therapist could talk somebody through, and out of, racist beliefs. Challenge their preconceptions, talk them through illogical thought processes, and plant at least a seed in their minds that might change the way they interpret and interact with people different than them.
Man, it must be friday, I sure am optimistic.
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  Vanessa FutrellSquib308
  9/14/18 7:40pm
  Nah Squib, it kinda sounds like you’re hallucinating.
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  Old white guySquib308
  9/14/18 8:21pm
  Wouldn’t something like a meet & greet with all different kinda folks be more likely to help students feel like they can fit in with a diverse world?
  No, because it’ll end up like a sixth grade dance. All the black kids on one side of the room. All the white kids on the other side of the room, holding tiki torches and chanting.
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Tb2125Michael Harriot
9/14/18 4:45pm
This sounds like where I work. A place that has changed my title and put me into an outpost office while all the white folks stay in the main office and discuss equity and diversity in education. I’m so over this sh*t
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  Old ladyTb2125
  9/14/18 5:10pm
  Been there. I am a retiree but the handbook and script on job and career issues and the treatment of “ minorities” has not changed significantly over the last generation or so.. For the sake of your mental and emotional health look elsewhere for employment, and until you find something else read up on and practice a high level of self care. You will then be better prepared for the inevitable obstacles when they occur again. A really thick skin is required for even a modicum of real career success in today’s world.
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  ArtistAtLargeTb2125
  9/14/18 5:31pm
  WTF? Damn.
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bassguitarheroMichael Harriot
9/14/18 4:56pm
White folks are already no longer the majority of births. We are barreling towards being a majority-minority country, and white folks will lose their minds all the way until the moment that power goes away and they realize it’s really not as fucking bad as they feared.
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  hamwinkybassguitarhero
  9/14/18 5:21pm
  They haven’t even lost that much power though, which is confusing and terrifying that when instead of owning 100% of things, they own 98% and lose their minds.
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  darkblue88hamwinky
  9/14/18 6:02pm
  “If ya’ll losing ....who’s winning? It ain’t us.”
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SuperNintendoChalmersMichael Harriot
9/14/18 8:49pm
I....actually think this might not be terrible...I’m a recovering addict, and that informs my worldview a lot in the sense that I needed a safe space to be a fuck up for a while, but if this program is for people who know they hold fucked up views and want to get woke, is that bad? Isn’t white racism and white privilege and white just-plain-ignorance 98% of the problem. This feels like a play for hearts and minds to me. Obviously it’d be better to just, uh, I dunno, have a conversation with a black person, but if you’re so awkward you have to go through official channels, isnt this kinda a decent way of people realizing they are very much in the fucking way of progress and need to get redirected?
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  Push the Button MaxSuperNintendoChalmers
  9/15/18 9:34am
  Many moons ago I was a student at this campus and can say that the school used to have a much better version of this idea. The Office of Human Relations Program offered mediated discussion groups that students had to apply to be a part of. Some of the.groups were meant to foster understanding between people of different backgrounds, whether it be religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, socieconomic, and so on. Some of the groups were exactly this and were meant for people of specific groups to gather and discuss the challenges or concerns from each other. I don’t think there was one for white students specifically but if they did I seriously doubt that it would have been marketed as a safe place for white students. The US Department of Ed says that the demographics of white students on that campus is 52% currently, which seems like a smaller percentage when I was a student. Everywhere on that campus is pretty much a safe space for white students. The goal is probably well intentioned considering some of what has happened on that campus in the recent past, but the flier sort of leads me to think this might not be it.
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  FromTokyoSuperNintendoChalmers
  9/15/18 10:29am
  No. Because it is arrogant to assume that you’re an authority on other people. Even here (and EVERY minority space they can enter), white folks come to police thought, which goes to show they DGAF about understanding minorities at all. Black folks have been telling and showing that we’re regular humans for thousands of years, yet people STILL act like we landed here on a ship a few years ago. We explain countless times and folks still act like they don’t get it (because they don’t want to, they want to try to manipulate a change themselves). That’s why it’s a problem. And most importantly: White folks meeting in private to discuss how they’ll treat non-whites has NEVER, EVER gone well.
  Guarantee this will be them venting about negative experiences in which a minority called them on their crap.
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Tool of the MatriarchyMichael Harriot
9/15/18 10:50pm
“The aim of this group is to help White students become more culturally competent, so they can better participate in creating a more inclusive environment at the University of Maryland.
White person here, so I may well be full of shit. I would have set up something like this, and thought I was doing the right thing. I would have tried to make, not a safe space for white tears, but a containment area for white tears.
I would have tried to give well-meaning but gormless and ignorant teenagers a Racism 101 course. This is why it’s racist to touch black people’s hair. This is why it’s racist to say the N-word, and yes, Tiffany, that includes when you’re singing along to a rap song. This is why it’s racist to say All Lives Matter. This is why it’s racist to assume black people are jailed more than white people because they commit more crimes. This is why it’s racist to think having sex with black people means you can’t be racist. Etc. A place where these kids could shed their White Tears, and rage about their Black Friends and their Non-Racist Bones, without any POC having to deal with their nonsense. An extension of what I try to do in my daily life; educate white people about stuff they’re doing that’s racist, so hopefully they’ll stop doing it. And doing it while white, using information and knowledge gained from listening to POC, because white people should clean up our own shit.
I would definitely include POC in the planning stage, and ask if they wanted to be included in the implementation. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if they said no, because I don’t imagine it would be a fun way to spend your afternoon. I get the anger of the black students. Do white people really need therapy sessions to be decent members of society? Do they really need to be handheld through the most basic stages of self-examination? Do they really need special training, a safe space and a facilitator to face dealing with their own racism? Unfortunately, yes. Yes we do. We are that weak, ignorant, self-absorbed and pathetic. I assume the leader of this group thought - as I would have - that they could save POC a lot of microagressions, white tears and tantrums.
So, genuine question on my own behalf because I want to do better. How should this situation have been handled? Was it a bad idea, or a good idea badly implemented? How could the organiser have done better?
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  LegHumperTool of the Matriarchy
  9/17/18 3:09pm
  Yeah, pretty much. It’s white people’s responsibility to fix white people, right? I think the best way to do that is to give them a safe space to hang their asses out, and then gently guiding them to the realization that their ass is hanging out and they don’t actually like it. Like therapy.
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Sean BondMichael Harriot
9/14/18 4:22pm
Who thought this was a good idea?
“Want to learn how to relate to non-white people? Just talk to a bunch of other white people!”
I get being intimidated about talking to other races about touchy subjects (I’ve phrased shit wrong here or on other parts of the Gizmodo-universe and it hasn’t gone well), but that’s how you learn.
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  sTalkinggoat, first and last of his nameSean Bond
  9/14/18 6:30pm
  The grays getting all in their feelings below you are my entertainment this evening.
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  Vanessa FutrellsTalkinggoat, first and last of his name
  9/14/18 7:33pm
  I’m always entertained when they put on one of their whiteface minstrel shows. : )
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MisterPigginsMichael Harriot
9/15/18 1:40am
It’s called “Everywhere.”
Yeah, if you’re white and can’t handle talking about racism with other white people (and only white) then you’re seriously cowardly. Not that it seems like a very profitable activity anyway, there’s a reason people consider echo chambers to be a negative thing.
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  Tool of the MatriarchyMisterPiggins
  9/15/18 11:06pm
  if you’re white and can’t handle talking about racism with other white people (and only white) then you’re seriously cowardly
  I’m white. We are seriously cowardly about race. We’re also seriously ignorant about race.
  Black people talk about race like theoretical physicists. White people talk about race like paste-eating kindergartners at best, and most of us are still working on not shitting on the floor. We need basic stuff like this.
  There’s also the plus that, if white people talk about racism with other white people, POC don’t have to deal with the White Tears. You know there’s gonna be a bunch of those.
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  MisterPigginsTool of the Matriarchy
  9/16/18 1:49am
  You’re right, partially. Like physics, if you care about learning about it you gotta go out and find knowledge and understand that we can’t fully master the subject. You gotta be open to learning, and stay open to learning.
  Unlike physics, it’s emotionally tough. It takes bravery, it involves discomfort (although not as much as some make it out to be). It takes admitting being wrong. A lot of people can’t handle it, obviously. But clearly talking about race in a group of only one race (and the white race at that) seems like it would just reinforce bad information and behavior.
  Things like this weird idea that a lot of white women seem to have, about touching black hair. I don’t know why it’s so popular and yet we hear it happens all the time. You get a bunch of women together who think that’s fine, then none of them are going to change their views on it.
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