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Author Topic:   My views on sexism and racism
aquaguy91
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From: tennessee
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posted January 28, 2014 10:53 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for aquaguy91     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Now many of you on this forum have implied or outright accused me of being a misogynist. Now I will readily admit that I may seem a little callous when it comes to these subjects , but you have to understand where I'm coming from to understand why I feel the way I do. I am writing all of this now because I'm bored at work and have nothing better to do, most of you probably don't care but here goes. First off, I am a 6'4 white male with blonde hair and green eyes. Some of you would probably assume I am the vision of the mythical "white male privilege" but this is not so. Most of my life I have been poor and have struggled greatly . When I was a teenager me and mom lived in the projects and I was regularly harassed by the cops for no reason other than the fact I was poor and lived in the wrong neighborhood and they saw me as trash. One time I was even brutalized and arrested for no reason! Again, I was poor and lived in the wrong neighborhood. My treatment had nothing to do with gender or color, it was a matter of economic status. Well off= good and poor= automatic criminal. The high school I went to even discriminated against me because they knew I lived in the wrong neighborhood. My teachers and principal were mean to me because I lived in low income housing, therefore I was a bad kid in their eyes. Even thought the reality was I was a shy quiet kid who didn't bother anybody. I dealt with a lot of bullsh*t and discrimination back then because I was poor, I was far from privileged! Now that I live in a surburban subdivision I don't deal with this nonsense nearly as much . This is why I roll my eyes when I hear the media or liberals twisting everything into a sexist or racist issue. My personal opinion is the power struggle is not between black and white or male and female, it is between the rich and poor. Quiet simply if you have money you don't have to put up with the bullcrap that poor people do. I think the powers that be try to deceive us by making us think sexism and/or racism are the real issues when they really aren't. Now I'm not saying those don't exist , but the real issue is whether you have money or not. A rich person of color is a lot better off than a white poor person and a rich woman is a lot more privileged than a poor man. The notions that men are inherently more privileged than women and whites are inherently more privileged than minorities is a myth that needs to go the way of the dinosaur. This is coming from a white man who has been a victim of the system. So perhaps now you can better understand where I'm coming from.

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Ami Anne
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From: Pluto/house next to NickiG
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posted January 28, 2014 11:24 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ami Anne     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

------------------
Want To Ask Any Question About Bible Prophecy? Go For it. It is Free, of course.


http://www.mychristianpsychic.com/

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Barbiegirl19
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posted January 28, 2014 11:47 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Barbiegirl19     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I'm not trying to be a ***** or rude but would you like a pat on the back, a high five, a "Way to go"! All I got from that whole thing is that you're white, you're white, and guess what you're white. Who cares!?...This is not the 20s,30s,40s,50s or even 60s anymore. If you're gonna talk about an issue don't put your main focus on one, talk about the whole issue.

I've really bit my tongue quite a few times and now I just can't hold off anymore. I feel like you are always, ALWAYS looking for someone to feel bad for you. I'm sorry that all of those things happened to you, they weren't right and I hope they never happen again. But seriously you need to move on already. You're how old? I know a few years older than me, yet I feel like I'm beyond the years of the both of us. I don't understand where this whole idea came from, nor do I really care to find out. That whole thing made you come off as a complete racist who got to go through what you never thought you'd ever have to. Stop with the pity parties, and fabricated stories.

If I'm coming off too strong I apologize, both of these topics are just very serious to me and things that I take seriously.

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aquaguy91
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From: tennessee
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posted January 28, 2014 11:53 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for aquaguy91     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Barbiegirl19:
I'm not trying to be a ***** or rude but would you like a pat on the back, a high five, a "Way to go"! All I got from that whole thing is that you're white, you're white, and guess what you're white. Who cares!?...This is not the 20s,30s,40s,50s or even 60s anymore. If you're gonna talk about an issue don't put your main focus on one, talk about the whole issue.

I've really bit my tongue quite a few times and now I just can't hold off anymore. I feel like you are always, ALWAYS looking for someone to feel bad for you. I'm sorry that all of those things happened to you, they weren't right and I hope they never happen again. But seriously you need to move on already. You're how old? I know a few years older than me, yet I feel like I'm beyond the years of the both of us. I don't understand where this whole idea came from, nor do I really care to find out. That whole thing made you come off as a complete racist who got to go through what you never thought you'd ever have to.

If I'm coming off too strong I greatly apologize, both of these topics are just very serious to me and things that I take seriously.


Jesus Christ.... Do you have any reading comprehension skills? My point in writing all of that was to show that I'm white and was a victim of discrimination because I was poor. I had a rough life in a lot of ways and that's why I seem callous towards people who whine about sexism and racism. I was even called "privileged " by someone on this forum because I'm a white male. I'm just giving the white male perspective on things . Of course I'm automatically labeled a whiner or a b*tch for saying anything. But it's ok for women and minorities to go on and on and on about their struggles in life.

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aquaguy91
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From: tennessee
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posted January 28, 2014 11:55 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for aquaguy91     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
So you are accusing me of fabricating this? The level of ignorance in your post astounds me.

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Barbiegirl19
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posted January 29, 2014 12:06 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Barbiegirl19     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
My whole reasoning behind what I said is because really who the **** cares! I didn't have the greatest upbringing either. I didn't grow up in the "ghetto" and in lower income housing such as yourself, but it sure as hell wasn't a walk in the park. Do you ever hear me ***** or moan about it, especially on here. Stop letting all of these "hardships" shape you. The bitterness is seeping through. I've dated white guys my whole like and not one of them acted like you or gave these types of perspectives.

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DeepFreeze
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posted January 29, 2014 12:07 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for DeepFreeze     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I grew up with not much money. We sometimes had little to eat. We ate "Mac & Cheese" a lot.

I was picked on by older kids in my neighborhood.
I've been accused of being racist and etc.
Sh*t happens.
I treat people as individuals and at the end of the day, I'm responsible for me.
I'm "me" because I choose to be.

I'm here now... I'm fine, I'm healthy and take good care of myself.
Anything that happened then simply doesn't matter.
You can not be callous if you want to be. You don't though. You explain away poor behavior.

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aquaguy91
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From: tennessee
Registered: Jan 2012

posted January 29, 2014 12:10 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for aquaguy91     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Barbiegirl19:
My whole reasoning behind what I said is because really who the **** cares! I didn't have the greatest upbringing either. I didn't grow up in the "ghetto" and in lower income housing such as yourself, but it sure as hell wasn't a walk in the park. Do you ever hear me ***** or moan about it, especially on here. Stop letting all of these "hardships" shape you. The bitterness is seeping through. I've dated white guys my whole like and not one of them acted like you or gave these types of perspectives.

But if I was a woman or a minority it would be a tragedy. But because I'm a white man I should just get over it. My post was not to whine , it was to candidly tell my life experience. My point was to show that white men don't neccesarily have it any easier than anyone else . But because I was honest , I'm complaining. Unlike you I'm real and will tell it like it is , you are fake and try to act like life is peachy.

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Barbiegirl19
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posted January 29, 2014 12:15 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Barbiegirl19     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I'm very real or I wouldn't have written what I did. I didn't sugar coat it, I said how I felt because what you said ****** me off. Who cares if your purple, orange or even green? I don't act like life is "peachy", I live it! Something you should try doing instead of looking for pity from people who don't even know you.

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aquaguy91
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From: tennessee
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posted January 29, 2014 12:21 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for aquaguy91     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by DeepFreeze:
I grew up with not much money. We sometimes had little to eat. We ate "Mac & Cheese" a lot.

I was picked on by older kids in my neighborhood.
I've been accused of being racist and etc.
Sh*t happens.
I treat people as individuals and at the end of the day, I'm responsible for me.
I'm "me" because I choose to be.

I'm here now... I'm fine, I'm healthy and take good care of myself.
Anything that happened then simply doesn't matter.
You can not be callous if you want to be. You don't though. You explain away poor behavior.



Does anyone here have reading comprehension skills? Because nobody has gotten the point behind what I was saying. My point was a lot of people on this forum have the mindset that men have it easier than women and whites have it easier than minorities. I was using experiences from my own life, as a white male , to show that this just isn't the case. The fact of the matter is your position in life isn't about your gender or race so much as it is economic status. If you have money you are better of than people who don't , plain and simple. I got treated a lot better by people when I moved into a nicer neighborhood. This is not me being a b*tch or whining reality . To take my point further, I think that men, women of all races are essentially in the same boat with people in their economic status . As a poor white teenager I was profiled by the cops like a lot of poor black men. I think a lot of the race baiting and sexist baiting by the media is the powers that be way of keeping us all at each other's throats. This is why I come off as callous to the people on this forum. Because I don't buy into all that stuff because I see it for what it is, a distraction.

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Padre35
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posted January 29, 2014 12:25 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Padre35     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Yeah, not feeling Ag on this one.

Came up quite poor, got away w/murder in HS, including making sure the football team passed Am History

Was given detention once, for something I had not done, never showed up, nothing was said.

Won a woodsmen of the world award, never showed up..had to work

So this..mi no comprende'

as for Misogyny, from what I've seen, it really is who is saying it, and what the prevailing opinion of him is.

Have seen guys get away with just over the top stuff w/a laugh, and the sincere, deeply concerned guy get steam rolled

Racism, my view is fully planned on kicking this large guys ass, a Cuban friend removed my glasses while it was going to down to save them from being broken.

Among other things

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PixieJane
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posted January 29, 2014 12:26 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Women aren't supposed to whine either, at least not too much. Granted, women generally have more room to whine than men (who will get called "princess" if he whines too much. but anger is often more okay for a man).

That aside, I agree with you that money is the number 1 criteria for how you're treated. Even a certified psychotic will be treated as a brilliant, or at least intriguing, eccentric if he has several millions of dollars at his command, even if it's as a trust fund (though I understand many mentally disabled people living off trust funds get ripped off by banks and lawyers so it's not likely to happen).

But I don't agree that white people "have it bad like everyone else" (that is, that they have the same exact row to hoe). What many others put up is invisible to you because it doesn't affect you. A lot of it was invisible to me, too, and it happened right in front of me but I kept dismissing it as it wasn't constant for me as it was for those I saw experiencing it. And as the old saying goes, "The rich man in a fur coat can't understand why the poor man without one is shivering." Or put into more modern terms, privilege explained in terms of World of Warcraft:
http://kotaku.com/5910857/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is

Note, it doesn't say that therefore whites can't suffer or know oppression or that other people can't succeed. It also notes that wealth matters.

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aquaguy91
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From: tennessee
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posted January 29, 2014 12:26 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for aquaguy91     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Barbiegirl19:
I'm very real or I wouldn't have written what I did. I didn't sugar coat it, I said how I felt because what you said ****** me off. Who cares if your purple, orange or even green? I don't act like life is "peachy", I live it! Something you should try doing instead of looking for pity from people who don't even know you.

It ****** you off because what I said contradicts your worldview. Let me tell ya something, i don't look for pity, I tell it like it is.

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Barbiegirl19
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posted January 29, 2014 12:30 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Barbiegirl19     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It ****** me off because I gave you the benefit of the doubt and you **** all over it. You know what you wrote is wrong and you tried sugar coating and covering your real meaning behind writing this load of crap in the first place. Oooh poor white kid living in the projects. Shame on you. You act like you're more superior and better than those who live there because they can't afford anywhere else. Like it's just a catastrophe that you lived in the ghetto and were discriminated against. People go through crap like that every day and nine times out of ten we never hear about it. What makes you think you're somebody different. Stop letting it shape and define you. Be the change you want in the world.

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DeepFreeze
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posted January 29, 2014 12:31 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for DeepFreeze     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by aquaguy91:

Does anyone here have reading comprehension skills? Because nobody has gotten the point behind what I was saying. My point was a lot of people on this forum have the mindset that men have it easier than women and whites have it easier than minorities. I was using experiences from my own life, as a white male , to show that this just isn't the case. The fact of the matter is your position in life isn't about your gender or race so much as it is economic status. If you have money you are better of than people who don't , plain and simple. I got treated a lot better by people when I moved into a nicer neighborhood. This is not me being a b*tch or whining reality . To take my point further, I think that men, women of all races are essentially in the same boat with people in their economic status . As a poor white teenager I was profiled by the cops like a lot of poor black men. I think a lot of the race baiting and sexist baiting by the media is the powers that be way of keeping us all at each other's throats. This is why I come off as callous to the people on this forum. Because I don't buy into all that stuff because I see it for what it is, a distraction.

Oh I saw your point. Basically, you say it's not about race but about "the poor". Really, it's a back-door, round-about way to tell minorities to get over it and how it's some big conspiracy by the media. I got your point loud and clear. There's a lot of little hidden messages in there.

Further, you don't tell it how it is. You tell it how you THINK it is. There's a big difference. Also, you do it to draw in all of this attention to yourself which I guess you are doing a fine job of. LOL

Anyway, carry on. I've already lost interest in your pointless BS.

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aquaguy91
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From: tennessee
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posted January 29, 2014 12:32 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for aquaguy91     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by PixieJane:
Women aren't supposed to whine either, at least not too much. Granted, women generally have more room to whine than men (who will get called "princess" if he whines too much).

That aside, I agree with you that money is the number 1 criteria for how you're treated. Even a certified psychotic will be treated as a brilliant, or at least intriguing, eccentric if he has several millions of dollars at his command, even if it's as a trust fund (though I understand many mentally disabled people living off trust funds get ripped off by banks and lawyers so it's not likely to happen).

But I don't agree that white people "have it bad like everyone else" (that is, that they have the same exact row). What many others put up is invisible to you because it doesn't affect you. A lot of it was invisible to me, too, and it happened right in front of me but I kept dismissing it as it wasn't constant for me as it was for those I saw experiencing it. And as the old saying goes, "The rich man in a fur coat can't understand why the poor man without one is shivering." Or put into more modern terms, privilege explained in terms of World of Warcraft:
http://kotaku.com/5910857/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is

Note, it doesn't say that therefore whites can't suffer or know oppression or that other people can't succeed. It also notes that wealth matters.



Oh minorities can have it rough for sure . I was just saying that poorer people tend to have it rougher and lots of minorities are also poor. But when I was a teenager I saw myself as equal with all the black and white kids (make and female) in my neighbor because we all dealt with crap from the cops and the school because we were poor. Since I have moved out of that hellhole I no longer deal with that stuff.

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Padre35
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From: Asheville, NC, US
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posted January 29, 2014 12:32 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Padre35     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by PixieJane:
Women aren't supposed to whine either, at least not too much. Granted, women generally have more room to whine than men (who will get called "princess" if he whines too much. but anger is often more okay for a man).

That aside, I agree with you that money is the number 1 criteria for how you're treated. Even a certified psychotic will be treated as a brilliant, or at least intriguing, eccentric if he has several millions of dollars at his command, even if it's as a trust fund (though I understand many mentally disabled people living off trust funds get ripped off by banks and lawyers so it's not likely to happen).

But I don't agree that white people "have it bad like everyone else" (that is, that they have the same exact row to hoe). What many others put up is invisible to you because it doesn't affect you. A lot of it was invisible to me, too, and it happened right in front of me but I kept dismissing it as it wasn't constant for me as it was for those I saw experiencing it. And as the old saying goes, "The rich man in a fur coat can't understand why the poor man without one is shivering." Or put into more modern terms, privilege explained in terms of World of Warcraft:
http://kotaku.com/5910857/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is

Note, it doesn't say that therefore whites can't suffer or know oppression or that other people can't succeed. It also notes that wealth matters.


You have had so many experiences, this may or may not be a truism for you:

Wealth w/bad parenting is a disaster

Parents who cannot say "no" lead to children/young adults who cannot say "no"

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aquaguy91
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From: tennessee
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posted January 29, 2014 12:40 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for aquaguy91     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by DeepFreeze:
Oh I saw your point. Basically, you say it's not about race but about "the poor". Really, it's a back-door, round-about way to tell minorities to get over it and how it's some big conspiracy by the media. I got your point loud and clear. There's a lot of little hidden messages in there.

Further, you don't tell it how it is. You tell it how you THINK it is. There's a big difference. Also, you do it to draw in all of this attention to yourself which I guess you are doing a fine job of. LOL

Anyway, carry on. I've already lost interest in your pointless BS.


No my point is people are blaming their problems on the wrong things. I'm not saying they don't deal with challenges everyday. I'm saying most of those problems are a result of economic status . Look at me ..., I lived in the projects and was profiled by the police . Why was that? I can't say the white cops that harrassed me were racist can I? Could it maybe have something to do with the fact that I lived in the wrong neighborhood? When I was going through this all the kids in my age group who lived in the same neighborhood went through the same things,all the races and both genders. My point is men and women and the different races deal with the same things but the media tells us otherwise to keep us at each other's throats.

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Odette
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posted January 29, 2014 12:44 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Odette     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
AG - This is true. There is quite a bit of classist/financial status discrimination going on as well in the world. This also sh*ts me.
Discrimination is by no means restricted to sexism and racism.


I completely understand where you are coming from.
However, you *feel* more strongly about this issue, because it happened to you personally. You went *through* it and you *know* on a personal level how it felt to be in that position.
This does not lessen the significance of other types of discrimination that others have dealt with and that are/were just as painful to them.
You can't put yourself in the shoes of a person of another race (who was treated just as badly as you were, in virtue of their race).... and you can't put yourself in the shoes of a woman who has dealt with sexism.
If you had -lived- through this ^^ as you have lived through financial status discrimination, then you would be more understanding of their plight.

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aquaguy91
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From: tennessee
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posted January 29, 2014 12:50 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for aquaguy91     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Odette:
AG - This is true. There is quite a bit of classist/financial status discrimination going on as well in the world. This also sh*ts me.
Discrimination is by no means restricted to sexism and racism.


I completely understand where you are coming from.
However, you *feel* more strongly about this issue, because it happened to you personally. You went *through* it and you *know* on a personal level how it felt to be in that position.
This does not lessen the significance of other types of discrimination that others have dealt with and that are/were just as painful to them.
You can't put yourself in the shoes of a person of another race (who was treated just as badly as you were in virtue of their race).... and you can't put yourself in the shoes of a woman who has dealt with sexism.
If you had -lived- through this ^^ as you have lived through financial status discrimination, then you would be more understanding of their plight.



Ya know I could have more sympathy for all that if I wasn't so disrespected when I bring up my experiences. When a man says anything he is automatically a misogynist or being a b*tch and I resent the hell out of that. I'm just supposed to smile and lie and pretend I'm a white privileged male or else face ridicule . If I am honest and say that's not the way it is I'm an a** hole or a whiner.

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Padre35
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posted January 29, 2014 12:55 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Padre35     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by aquaguy91:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Odette:
[b]AG - This is true. There is quite a bit of classist/financial status discrimination going on as well in the world. This also sh*ts me.
Discrimination is by no means restricted to sexism and racism.


I completely understand where you are coming from.
However, you *feel* more strongly about this issue, because it happened to you personally. You went *through* it and you *know* on a personal level how it felt to be in that position.
This does not lessen the significance of other types of discrimination that others have dealt with and that are/were just as painful to them.
You can't put yourself in the shoes of a person of another race (who was treated just as badly as you were in virtue of their race).... and you can't put yourself in the shoes of a woman who has dealt with sexism.
If you had -lived- through this ^^ as you have lived through financial status discrimination, then you would be more understanding of their plight.



Ya know I could have more sympathy for all that if I wasn't so disrespected when I bring up my experiences. When a man says anything he is automatically a misogynist or being a b*tch and I resent the hell out of that. I'm just supposed to smile and lie and pretend I'm a white privileged male or else face ridicule . If I am honest and say that's not the way it is I'm an a** hole or a whiner. [/B][/QUOTE]

It's a **** test AG, meaning, where are you coming from, where is your grounding, when you speak your mind?

Are you a grounded, confident man, or are you merely complaining?

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Odette
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posted January 29, 2014 12:57 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Odette     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
*Hugs*

I'm not sure why everyone reacted so badly here.. I think it's accumulated tension from other threads.

I am very sympathetic towards you and the things you have been through and I am not now nor have I in the past - tried to paint you as a "white privileged male" who has it all.

I am glad that things are looking up in general and that you are no longer in such a negative situation financially. As we go through certain things in life, I think we become more open to understanding others and more empathetic.. and I know that on some level you *understand* me also (although you don't always express that).

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StarlightSmileSupreme
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posted January 29, 2014 12:59 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for StarlightSmileSupreme     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Odette:
AG - This is true. There is quite a bit of classist/financial status discrimination going on as well in the world. This also sh*ts me.
Discrimination is by no means restricted to sexism and racism.


I completely understand where you are coming from.
However, you *feel* more strongly about this issue, because it happened to you personally. You went *through* it and you *know* on a personal level how it felt to be in that position.
This does not lessen the significance of other types of discrimination that others have dealt with and that are/were just as painful to them.
You can't put yourself in the shoes of a person of another race (who was treated just as badly as you were, in virtue of their race).... and you can't put yourself in the shoes of a woman who has dealt with sexism.
If you had -lived- through this ^^ as you have lived through financial status discrimination, then you would be more understanding of their plight.


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aquaguy91
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From: tennessee
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posted January 29, 2014 01:04 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for aquaguy91     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Odette:
*Hugs*

I'm not sure why everyone reacted so badly here.. I think it's accumulated tension from other threads.

I am very sympathetic towards you and the things you have been through and I am not now nor have I in the past - tried to paint you as a "white privileged male" who has it all.

I am glad that things are looking up in general and that you are no longer in such a negative situation financially. As we go through certain things in life, I think we become more open to understanding others and more empathetic.. and I know that on some level you *understand* me also (although you don't always express that).


Thanks. I just get irked when I see or hear certain things. For example, you have probably heard about all nonsense justin bieber has been doing lately. It has been all over the net and I have seen people trying to paint the whole thing as a race issue. A lot of people feel the reason he is getting away with all his bad behavior is he is white. I have a different perspective on the matter, I think he is getting away with it because he is rich and money talks . The fact of the matter is a normal guy would never get away as easily for the stuff he is doing.

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PixieJane
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posted January 29, 2014 04:50 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Padre35:
You have had so many experiences, this may or may not be a truism for you:

Wealth w/bad parenting is a disaster

Parents who cannot say "no" lead to children/young adults who cannot say "no"


Can't say I've had plenty of experience with the wealthy (not in the millions of dollars anyway), but generally speaking kids imitate their parents, even if they're punished for doing so, and even if the kids despise their parents. Therefore it makes sense to me that spineless or impulsive parents would lead to kids that way, and the habits of childhood are not easily broken by the time they're adults, so what you say seems plausible enough to me.

Kids who get large allowances and everything they want tend to not handle the "real world" that well, at least it takes them a long while to learn to manage their money and tend to get upset that the world doesn't just provide it for them. Those I met like this were sometimes political radicals (anarchists, communists, etc) from middle class homes where they were skilled musicians (so their parents had bought them expensive instruments and lessons), often well educated (not to say they had common sense) which suggested further wealth for books and leisure to deal in ideals rather than real life, and all too often preferred name brands, sometimes expensive ones (I got a funny story about that which I might share another time...) and yet they didn't seem to understand their own ideology, only that they should be able to play guitar and not have to worry about paying the bills (as an example), that is entitled to enjoy all the things they grew up with (which was basically being a sheltered kid). Others with that background who weren't so intellectual tended to rely way too much on "cash advance" services (while having expensive name brands and showing other signs of poor money management), but I avoided those types so I can't say much about them.

Another observation is that kids who never did housework (not even cleaning up after themselves) found even the simplest chores to be terrible, even traumatic, but on the other extreme I've seen people who are obsessed with cleaning because their parents worked them like Cinderella and the kids grew into adults with psychological issues regarding things like housework, either doing it obsessively or avoiding it like the plague and bitter about it either way (also knew a couple who got that way after the military).

I think it's a delicate balancing act between protecting kids and letting them grow up, doing too much of either one can really harm a kid. And if a kid is sheltered with time carefully structured and/or kept away from the outside world then it's absurd to say "Okay, you're 18, you have to look out for yourself now." That's like raising wild animals in cages until they're fully grown and then letting them out into the woods to figure out how to live on their own.

'Course if they have money then they can pay others to take care of life's little details, though they better have supervision, like I knew one whose parents died and left her a wealthy trust fund and yet she saw very little of it because it was repeatedly being stolen by lawyers who knew she wasn't savvy enough to stop them, and to get help she'd have to make a deal with another lawyer who just wanted to steal the money for himself. I've heard and read of banks and other lawyers pulling similar tricks, and like any predator they try to find people they don't think will be able to stop them.

There's been research saying brains normally don't mature (and thus gain adult impulse control) until age 25 (average). Yet I've also seen other studies that show the brain adapts to the environment, for example a guy having his brain scanned repeatedly over something medical revealed that his memory pathways built up after he got a job as a taxi driver, that is his brain adapted (much like a muscle) and I wonder if many brains don't mature until 25 because they're generally not exercising their brain as an adult (supported by parents in college, friends going to parties all the time with their excess energy, etc) and that their brains mature after they get more into an adult routine...that is to say if allowed to play video games all day while parents took care of them until they're 40 that their brains would be revealed by scans to be one that still hadn't matured while kids who somehow managed to gain extensive responsibilities (it happens, and used to happen a lot historically) would instead reveal brains that had matured, because the brain was used in a certain way that demanded impulse control and the like so adapted.

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