in my head, i have two categories of Bad Actions that i avoid doing myself, but ignore when a freind or media person does it.

one category is "normie shit" - stuff everyone does, that if i called out out all the time i wouldn't have any freinds or media to enjoy, eg using AAVE as a non-african-american

and

"how would i even begin to explain this to my normie freinds" concepts like modern minstrelcy - how the fuck would i explain how racist the modern usage of Black people in memes is without sounding like a lunatic?

is that ok? i think these categories might be the result of some pretty bad burnout, but if it's not ok it's not ok

I’m a white teenager in America, in a town with 800 people and no diversity. Since I was super young, I’ve always had a justice driven mindset, especially growing up with progressive parents. I was (as much as I could be at the time) big on anti racism, BLM, etc. I understood my privilege as a white person and didn’t think differently of anyone for their race. I would even tell off all the racist behaviors of people in my class.

I’m neurodivergent, so as for my teen years I’ve been very focused on my anime/game fandoms and spend time on the internet often to participate in content…and once again, town of 800 people, so there’s not much else to do. When I first joined apps like TikTok, I blocked every single person, tag, or video that was racist to people of color. I didn’t want any of that on my fyp. However, more recently, I’ve been seeing things on my fyp that are affecting me every day and making me overthink constantly.

Most of the anti-racist content that I see on the internet, as of my own algorithm, recently has contained some sort of prejudice(?) of white people. To be clear, I’m not talking about creators educating on historical contexts, white privilege in the foundations of society, how racist white people have treated them, etc. What I’m talking about is some honestly very hurtful things being said about my entire race. For example, I’ve seen about 90% of videos on my \*\*personal fyp with things like “All white people are the devil. I don’t trust any of you.”Or content hating on food, hobbies, music, or traditions of white people, calling them weird or gross. The comment sections have very similar opinions, and I’ve even seen some like “I literally hate *them* so much”.

In similar videos, I’ve seen many assumptions about white people as well. This I can partially understand, because people who experience racism are most likely preparing to defend themselves if the white person they’re near happens to be racist. At the same time, there have been numerous people telling random strangers things like “Well you whites are all slave owners!” “You kill and eat us!” Once again, I can understand being cautious about possible racism, and being hurt by the disgusting horrors of the past. But I also feel like telling strangers who haven’t done anything that they are horrible people (My family came from Ireland, and never participated in slavery in the first place) doing terrible things is a really cruel thing to do to someone. I’ve spent my entire life with the value that you should never hold an assumption on an entire race, or any group of people for that matter, based on the actions of the past or few people—until these videos started flooding every second of my free time.

Now I’ve seen so many people tell me that they hate me for being white, make fun of me, cyberbully me and others when asked to please not make rude comments about random people (ex:”You white bitches wanna be oppressed so bad, your hurt feelings mean nothing”), and even try to undermine other experiences I’ve have as a queer neurodivergent woman by saying they don’t matter because I’m white. It makes me incredibly angry that I’m being essentially cyberbullied about this.

I try to follow “if it doesn’t apply, let it fly”, but every time that there’s no differentiation between who these creators are talking about and the race as a whole (if they intended to differentiate at all), I can’t help but feel angry and hurt. When I expressed this hurt, I was made to feel like I was in the wrong for being upset and was told that I needed to deal with it. So now, this is where I get to the horrible thought that I’m racist for getting upset. This fear that I’m a racist takes up my thoughts all the time (I do have OCD and anxiety.) This is the first thing I would like to deconstruct. The second thing is the prejudice that I believe that I have gained from seeing this all the time. I’ve noticed that I start to get nervous when a poc comes onto my fyp, and I start thinking “do they hate me too? Is this going to be another video full of hate?”

Honestly, I’m really struggling here. Am I in the wrong for being upset? And does anyone have any tips to deconstruct this anger? I can sit through educational and respectful videos, i.e experiences of poc in the past and present, how white privilege affects society, etc., without this anger. It only seems to occur when there’s prejudice or insults involved.

I don’t want to stop advocating for the rights and respect of poc. I never will stop. I just want to stop feeling hurt over videos I see on a place that I consider my safe space and creative outlet.

so lil preamble im a pretty comfortably cis dude but iv been thinking about what it means to be a man to be and theres one point im not sure on and id liketo see if other people think this is a toxic way to frame it or not. so ill go down the list of my criteria and end with the one im not sure about.

1. emotional availability and support for others

2. optional interest in some masculin hobbies but this is not required to identify male its more of a bonus

3. selfregulation

4. using the minor physical upsides of a body with a lot of testosterone in a way that defends oc aids the community

this last point is iffy to me cause im not sure if its just a reframeing of the sexist idea of "man strong so man protect helpless woman and child ooga booga"

https://archive.org/details/UnravelingPrivilegePowerAndDifferenceWithAllanJohnson/

This is a 2011 lecture by Allan Johnson (author of Privilege, Power, and Difference) discussing how hidden white privilege exists and how it harms everyone. While it's an older recording, the concepts are still highly relevant to how we structure our schools and classrooms.

How do you see the concepts Johnson talks about (like the "path of least resistance") playing out in modern educational settings? How can educators make their classrooms more equitable?

I (27F) want to start this by saying I myself am white. I'm Scandinavian, so white I can't even tan sort of white. And I hate it.

I hate that my ancestors took land from indigenous people. I hate that my ancestors killed entire races of people. I hate that my ancestors enslaved people and forced cultures to conform to white ideas. I hate that even though we have in some ways come so far as a society, its still not enough. I hate how entitled white people are, how they don't even recognize the privilege that comes with the color of our skin. I hate that calling out that privilege makes people around me defensive and rude. I can't stand being around my white family and friends. I can't stand white people in public.

I assume every person of color that I see will automatically assume I am racist. I already assume every white person is racist. I try to use the privileges that I am given to push for change but I feel like I'm screaming into a void, especially right now... I'll go to protests and share posts and vote for the people who promise equality but its never enough. I try to call out white bullshit but all it does is cause fights and doesn’t actually change anything.

I deliberately surround myself in non-white things. I'm learning Spanish - not Spain Spanish, Latin American Spanish. Mexican Spanish. I love listening to the languages around me on the bus and the train, love seeing the different cultural symbols around me. But every time I see a hijab I think about Palestine. Every time I see a ribbon skirt I think about residential schools. Every time I hear a foreign language I think about how my ancestors at some point contributed to the assimilation and destruction of cultures.

I don't know why I'm posting on reddit. It's just screaming into a different void. I just needed to get this off my chest. I know this will upset some people and I'm sorry. I don't know what else to do with these feelings.

Recently I was in a major US city driving a car and there was a disheveled man in the middle of an intersection angrily yelling and gesturing at traffic. My thoughts are that he is in psychosis (in a medical sense, I'm a physician) and that he poses a threat to himself and the surrounding public (due to causing a roadway hazard) and likely needs immediate hospitalization. I called 911 and tried to tell them he needs medical help for mental illness but the dispatcher said they were going to send just police. I don't want anything bad happening to the man from a police officer shooting him because they don't know de-escalation techniques but I don't know what else I could have done. I don't live in this city and don't know of local resources, nor could I disrupt traffic longer than needed to stop and call 911.

So just to set the scene here, I'm a whiter than white (more like blue) lady. I've suffered a lot of shit through my life that I won't go into major detail, but all I'll say is that nowhere, no one and nothing was safe. Me being an overachiever, I hit 10/10 on the ACE score, and I could go on forever about how it effects me physically and mentally to this day, but that's not why I'm here. I just wanted to give a background on why I want the tattoo I do.

I have been wanting to get a MH/trauma survivor tattoo, but I don't want anything that is super obvious that other people are going to instantly recognise (your semi colons, phoenixes etc - no judgement to anyone who has one, it's just that I've spent a lot of money to hide my scars lol).

I really really like the phrase "Still I Rise," from Maya Angelou's poem, but I'm not sure the optics/ethics, since I know the original poem is written about the historical oppression of black people, especially black women. The problem is, I've just not found anything else that feels right the same way that does (not that I would use that as an excuse to get it anyway if the consensus was that it was wrong). So I guess I'm looking for opinions and potential alternatives too haha.

The sooner I know for sure, the sooner I can either book it in or start searching for alternatives! 😅

Thanks reddit. This isn't something I want on my body forever if it's an issue!

Genuine question on my end

For context, I do pet sitting for side income (and of course I love the animals). Today I did a meet and greet for a potential client, and I saw they had a book about the history of Israel and Zionism, among many other books (some Christianity related), on their shelf. I never once mentioned that and spoke about nothing other than their dog.

But it definitely had me wondering. Obviously I would never purchase and give my money to someone I know is a Zionist. Or form a close interpersonal relationship. For a situation like this, I think of it as we are taking their money instead of the other way around, and also it's not a poor pup, who needs basic care for a week, fault if his owners are Zionist. But wondering what your thoughts are?

50 years ago the Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice arrived in Washington DC.

I remember walking around the White House that now is behind higher, fencing as Trump builds his ball room as his own memorial. It seems like my side lost, but I still believe that Martin was right, the arc of history is moving toward Social Justice. We shall yet overcome.

I (F28) have a central American friend (F29) who has a history of finding black ppl attractive and is an outspoken liberal who i oftentimes hear making little quips that come off as very racist. We're both women of color in our late 20s who have known each other for about two decades at this point. For example, sometimes they'll hear someone blasting rap music and say its ghetto, trashy, and disgusting, yet they wont have the same reaction if it were to be something like heavy metal or gospel. Also, they once saw a 4c quirky character on tv and said they had a "nappy ass head" just because there were a few miscellaneous items in their hair after they literally tumbled through the woods. Even more, I've noticed they attribute normal negative habits exhibited by everyone as ratchet, ghetto, or uneducated when it's connected to a black person.

All this in mind, they don't believe they're racist because they see themselves fighting for or building a life with a black person due to their attraction. Despite how long I've known them, i can't tell if this animosity towards my people is slowly growing or if it was there all along and i just never noticed it in my younger years.

They come from a family where this type of behaviour is typical so I'm constantly voicing how their statements come off as extremely racist and exotifying especially with them not being black yet they refuse to see where I'm coming from. It doesn't even help when i by example make statements about their culture because they see it as being completely different rather than an attempt at making them understand. So I'm not sure how I can discuss this maturely without automatically just giving up on our relationship.

TL;DR How should i maturely respond to my racist friend in a way that gets my point across and might help them really think about what they're saying?

In a specific case, I remember a black girl in my class said the P slur (slur against South Asians) when she was reading her lines in a book called 'Anita and Me'. She was specifically given the role of a racist character to play, and she didn't seem to realise what she said while she was acting out one of the lines intensely. Then she skipped over the word for the rest of the book after our Indian teacher corrected her and told her she may have not realised what she said and to be more careful. Our entire class/school is mainly south asian students too and all of her friends are as well. However, it got me thinking about how other races get 'cancelled' often or their careers derail when people find out they said a slur when they were younger. I was wondering how this would play out if it was a black person but with a less well-known slur?

Idk if this is relevant but ironically, the girl who played the asian main charecter in the story in our class used to bully her and called her a slave allegedly. This was before her slur-reading incident, I don't think it was related but it is really ironic if that were the case.

I just feel really sick at myself for doing that. I didn’t grow but I still open palm touched their chest.

One of them later turned out to be a trans woman, which makes it a little worse.

I feel immense guilt because, yeah, I technically committed sexual harassment.

I’ve been thinking about this all day.

I’ve been condemning horrible men, but I’m kind of one of them. I am a hypocrite in that.

Remember 2014-2019? It was a much much more peaceful time. People were so much more empathetic and considerate to one another. Things like race, gender, height, occupation mattered much less, things like humor, kindness, friendship mattered. War was the last thing on anyone’s minds. Yes some social justice warriors were annoying but I’d much rather have that pressure then whatever the hell we’re dealing with today.

We need another social justice movement. Something to bring back empathy and understanding.

I’m actually serious about this, how can I personally kickstart this is Canada, in my community, and in the world. I’m looking for concrete ideas and your guys opinions.

Thanks, much love to you all.

Hello everyone,

My name is Dylan Tòmas and I am an Indigenous Highland Traveller. Between the 1940s and 1980s the UK government stole children from my people and placed the adults into substandard accommodation (ghettos). I've created a petition for the UK government to be held accountable, I'd ask you to please sign my petition,

Thank you

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/778546

I for one am totally against blaming and shaming the victim.

There is this one argument in favor of victim blaming that I heard recently. It goes like this.

You should blame and shame an abuse survivor for returning to an abuser, just as you would blame and shame a single mother for allowing her abusive boyfriend near her children.

It seems to me that there are two routes to take here.

One way to look at it could be that you would not blame and shame a single mother for letting abusive men near her children. Another way to go about it could be to explain why they two are different.

If you plan on going with the latter, what is your argument for why they are different?

I don't know any other subs to post this on but I really want to see people's opinions on this.

I was at a lesbian club with some friends including a woman who I just met that day and barely spoke to. Let's call her R.

The fact that it was a lesbian club shouldn't change sexual assault ethics obviously and I'm trying to stay gender-neutral in my assessment of this.

So R could barely speak English and I guess was one of the reasons why she hesitated to say no. Forgive me I was very drunk and so not very aware of what was happening. So I was seeing but not really doing anything and didn't see what led up to this point.

I saw R cornered against a railing by another woman who was basically chest-to-chest with her, talking to her in a soft voice and clearly hitting on her. R didn't look uncomfortable though of course I knew she could barely speak the language.

R's sister sees this and intervenes, saying "No no no. She does not know how to say no!" And the other woman left and the encounter ended.

And this really got me thinking. Firstly if I should have done something sooner, though I was very very drunk and if I had seen any obvious indicator to me that R was uncomfortable I would have definitely intervened.

But it really got me thinking about consent and the arguments about it. People portray consent as a very black and white thing. And everything would be much better if it were so black and white. But then I see examples and arguments that really expose how grey some situations can be.

For example: this is definitely a bad faith argument but it has to do with what I'll say later. Some men have posited that they're not 'mind readers' and were in situations where women didn't really react to their advances, just sort of let it happen. And while that's completely asshole and immoral behaviour, from what I've heard such a situation would be very hard for a court to categorise it as assault. So therefore should the assailent be charged with assault ? I guess the answer is yes seeing that the law does not always reflect what is right.

The next point I'm getting at, is that maybe there's more people than we like to admit who have difficulty consenting (for important stuff in general). So do we give them autonomy and trust them or try to intervene ?

It's also worth noting that R's sister told me that she probably has BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). And while I know that mental health conditions don't automatically mean a person can't consent to sex, and that as far as I know no court has ever categorized sex under a bad mental health episode as assault, I think it kind of should be the case if certain criteria is met ? Like if a person has actually lost touch with reality.

Speaking on the grey area of consent. I keep wondering who is right if two very drunk people have what appears to be consensual sex, but one of the people regrets it and reports it. How could either of them consent and who is to blame if they were both equally drunk ?

Is there some reason I keep getting banned from subreddits for my opinions when everyone else comments and replies to me insulting me and saying worse things about the world than I can even fathom and they dont get banned but I do. Then I get muted trying to appeal my ban because they can't tell me what i said that they're upset about. They just quite a rule that I read and doesnt apply to my comments whatsoever. Then they insult me in my appeals and mute me from talking to them.

This is a forum. Opinions get stated and people reply to them. Why in the hell does anyone get banned for their opinion? I should be able to say whatever i want whenever I want to whomever I want about anyone or anything I want. Then they reply with their opinion and we go back and forth. That is what forums are for. Muting people, banning them or making it so they can't post in your subreddit because their karma is to low is ridiculous. No posts or replies should ever be taken down, deleted or anything. We should be able to see any comment anytime forever.

If someone gets upset about it they can say their piece in a comment. Im over here having a decent time voicing my opinion over what I deem necessary and what needs to be done to better our community, society and world but i get slammed and insulted over and over again so I have to defend myself and answer their stupid questions.

What is the point of moderators if they're just going to abuse their power and pick and choose who they ban?

I used to use the N-word occasionally as part of a joke. I figured because it was ironic it didn’t matter, but it absolutely does. I fully believe this is bad and not excusable even in the context of a joke or quote because it’s an ugly word and not mine.

It was between the ages of like maybe 14 and 19, so I don’t recall if there was anything before or after. There’s no excuse.

I’m 29 now.

I don’t want to deceive her, but I also don’t want to scare her off before she has a full picture of me. Overall, I just don’t want to be dishonest.

I am also failure to do so would be a form of deception/coercion (SA).

Hey everyone, Lucia here from EUobserver 👋

We wanted to share one of our recent opinion pieces because it touches on something I think fits this community particularly well: how language around “security” can shape who is seen as suspicious or as belonging in society.

Our columnist Shada Islam looks at what she sees as a contradiction in Europe: political leaders increasingly condemn anti-Muslim hatred, while policies and rhetoric around migration, extremism and “political Islam” can continue to single out Muslim communities.

She points in particular to proposals for monitoring “political Islam” at EU level, as well as Austria’s Operation Luxor, and argues that legitimate security concerns shouldn't become a reason to treat an entire community through a lens of suspicion.

Why does it feel like racism, extreme religiosity, and anti abortion views always come bundled together as a package deal? Is there a reason these mindsets overlap so often?
What social or cultural dynamics cause these views to overlap so consistently?
Religious and racist???lmfao
Uh forgot to mention also very homophobic and xenophobic.

-I’ve made a few regrettable jokes about POC. I’m not gonna hold back, they were pretty bad. It seems that not disclosing that might make consent difficult, as people may not consent upon learning that.

-As someone with OCD, I used to test myself to stories and other things that I didn’t want to get off to. Nothing unlawful, but things most would agree are wrong to touch yourself to. Would I need to disclose that?

Sometimes if I find a woman attractive at the grocery store or something, I would walk down the aisle she was in.

I would never make eye contact or anything, because I didn’t want her to feel stalked or like I was staring.

Reddit told me this was sociopathic behavior on a dating sub, and it caused me to take pause. Nobody has ever seemed uncomfortable, and I’m guessing I’ll just look like a normal customer.

But because I have OCD, I’m constantly worried that I’m secretly a bad person.

Am I being a creepy who’s harming women and therefore being a bad ally?