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Prejudice and double standards


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Old 08-12-2004, 02:05   #21
simon simon is offline
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I'm hesitating to somehow get involved in something turning into what I think rappers would call a "bitchfight" between Ice Cream and PowerPuff Grrl. What I want to say is that I don't think that black people as a group can be blamed for homophobia. I know there is some polling evidence that on average black people in the US have more anti-gay prejudice than white people in the US, but remarks like

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice Cream
Would it be considered ok to hate black people because the majorly of them are homophobic and not actually because they are black? I was having this discussion recently with some of my friends and apparently I'm racist But of course I was having this conversation with 2 straight girls, so they wouldn't understand how annoying it can be that there is such a double standard.
are open to misinterpretation. It's not racist to hate a black person for being homophobic, but it is racist to hate black people because the majority of them are homophobic - that's showing prejudice towards individuals based on group characteristics. I once met a Jewish woman who told me that she hated Germans because of what had happened to members of her family in the Holocaust. She was of course being prejudiced, but was extremely angry when I tried to point it out to her. But to consider the Jewish analogy further (I'm of partly Jewish descent, before anyone starts accusing me of anti-semitism), look at the way the Israelis treat the Palestinians. After centuries of being mistreated in Europe, Jews go to Palestine and start mistreating the locals.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice Cream
Quote:
Originally Posted by simon
It's quite disturbing the way that people who have been the victims of prejudice themselves don't seem to be able to see that their prejudices against other people are just as wrong, but it's hardly surprising, lol.
No offense to anyone out there, but I think it's a bit like the notion that abused children usually end up abusers themselves.

I recently heard about a priest or whatever from Atlanta that said something like "when a gay person compares him/herself to the black community, he/she doesn't know what suffering is." It appears he seems to believe that suffering has only been experienced by blacks people and that everyone should shut up and put up with their "discomfort." He fails to understand the impact that homophobia has on gay people.
The way that most Israelis respond to any criticism of treatment of the Palestinians is to go on about how they are the victims of the Palestinians and when that won't wash to bring up the Holocaust and talk about how Jews have always been victims. It's easy to see this as just cynicism, but there's actually something deeper going on, as some left-wing Israelis have pointed out. There is indeed a lot of anti-Jewish prejudice among Arabs and the world in general. Why is so much more fuss made about what the Israelis have done to the Palestinians than about, say, what the Sudanese government is doing in Darfur right now, which is a hundred times worse? In the minds of most Israelis this justifies a belief that any criticism of them is yet another example of anti-Jewish prejudice (when all it really shows is that there are double standards, yet you don't have to commit genocide to behave appallingly). They have view of themselves as victims which means that they can't see themselves as the victimisers and resent the people they are victimising for claiming to be the victims.

I think something similar is going on among some black people regarding gay rights. They have, like the Atlanta clergyman, this idea that since they have always been the victims they resent the idea that some other group is claiming to be more victimised than them. This annoys the hell out of them, so they respond with prejudice against gays.

A similar example is the prejudice that some feminists have against transsexuals.

It's not logical in the normal sense, but there's a kind of logic to the irrationality.

Now this isn't inevitable. When South Africa was writing its new constitution in 1994 they put in it straight off that in future there would be no discrimination on the grounds of race, religion or gender. Then it was suggested that they should also forbid discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. South Africa is a very conservative country, but when this point was raised, the ANC didn't want to be hypocrites and the National Party didn't want to be accused of having just replaced one set of prejudices with another. So in it went.

Ice Cream is right that there's something particularly galling about victims of prejudice being prejudiced themselves, but that's life I'm afraid. PowerPuff Grrl is right that black people shouldn't be held to higher standards than other people. Being the victim of prejudice doesn't make you a good, noble, logical or compassionate person. Often, it brutalises you. It's intrinsically no worse for a black person to be homophobic than a white person. But it is kind of inconsistent to say 'I'm against prejudice against me, but I'll be as prejudiced as I like towards other people'.
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Old 08-12-2004, 02:39   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by simon
It's intrinsically no worse for a black person to be homophobic than a white person.
Black people are still victims of prejudice. And so are handicapped people, poor people, etc. So I don't understand how anyone who was a victim of prejudice can be prejudiced against other people. I think Rachel gave the black people example because it's very common. Now I don't think hating black people or whomever for being homophobic is the right sollution too. But it does leave a lot of space to interrogation, like why the hell would you attack someone and discriminate them on grounds of sexuality, religion, skin color, etc, if you were also discriminated and know how it feels like and how bad it is?! It seems like some sort of pathetic childish revenge. That and comparing "I suffered more than you" - it's like, how vague is that? People feel things so differently. What can be a huge offense and attack to you, can maybe be more easily ignored by me, so how the hell can you prove someone has suffered more than others? Pfff.
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Old 08-12-2004, 02:41   #23
Rachel Rachel is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by staringelf
...like why the hell would you attack someone and discriminate them on grounds of sexuality, religion, skin color, etc, if you were also discriminated and know how it feels like and how bad it is?!
That's EXACTLY what I'm trying to say! I'm glad someone can see that!
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Old 08-12-2004, 03:30   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice_Cream
Eminem is a stupid little boy with no talent what so ever. I mean, he's what?! In his early thirties and he's still so angry with his mum etc?!! He needs to grow up, get off the drugs and be a REAL father to his daughter.
Now I'm sorry, but he is the only rapper that I do like. Instead of rapping about hoes wit big asses, drinkin, smokin, going to clubs....he's rapping about REAL stuff that I could give a care about. I want to hear about growing up with one parent who was a drug abuser, and making it out alright, instead of "Ya, me n my doggz iz drinkin Bacardi in the club wit dem chicks wit da big asses!!!! (I hate 50 Cent. And his music is only the beginning.)". Heck, I know all the words to "Lose Yourself", which won a Grammy btw, and most of the words to "Cleaning Out My Closet". Eminem is cool with me, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't do drugs (please dont stereotype), and I'm sure he's around for his daughter as much as possible.

excuse me for going off topic.

What Mossopp has said sounds good to me. It's a shame that people use slang terms for homosexuals quite often, and the majority of the populace doesn't care. And speaking of the N word, it never fails to amaze me that blacks regularly use "nigger" to mean "dude", "homeboy", etc. Sometimes it's even comical.
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Old 08-12-2004, 10:40   #25
freddie freddie is offline
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I certainly don't agree that only black people are homophobic. Yeah rappers are the one getting targeted cause the their lyrics, but they're the ones dissing everybody and everything. They just don't make gays an exception. And I don't actualy see how the rap community represents the black race as a whole. It's not like they're ALL rappers.

It's a generalization really. It's just like saying all white people are homophobes because the majority of white hockey players are. One section, or a subculture of a society doesn't cover that whole population.

I can't say I condone most rappers lyrics when it comes to stuff about homophobia (I still say Eminem is mocking the homophobes themselves rather then gays), but it's not really something to make generalizations out of.

Just a samlpe of Eminem's lyrics (from the same song as Mossopp took her example from - Criminal):

You motherfuckin chickens ain't brave enough
to say the stuff I say, so this tape is shut
shit, half the shit I say, I just make it up
To make you mad so kiss my white naked ass
And if it's not a rapper that I make it as
I'ma be a fuckin rapist in a Jason mask

Last edited by freddie; 08-12-2004 at 10:58.
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Old 08-12-2004, 12:49   #26
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ypsidan04
And speaking of the N word, it never fails to amaze me that blacks regularly use "nigger" to mean "dude", "homeboy", etc. Sometimes it's even comical.
The word "nigger" has kinda been reclaimed by the black community. They've turned it around on itself so, while it was originally used against them, it's now almost a term of endearment.
I still don't like that word though. And I agree that it does seem comical at times to hear black people use it.
Gay people have done a similar thing with the word "queer" I suppose, although to a much lesser extent.
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Old 08-12-2004, 13:27   #27
simon simon is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice_Cream
Quote:
Originally Posted by staringelf
...like why the hell would you attack someone and discriminate them on grounds of sexuality, religion, skin color, etc, if you were also discriminated and know how it feels like and how bad it is?!
That's EXACTLY what I'm trying to say! I'm glad someone can see that!
I understood what you're saying. It is paradoxical. I was trying to give an explanation for why it happens - I certainly wasn't defending it! I was victimised a lot as a child on the grounds of my nationality and it made me very much sympathise with other people who were the victims of prejudice, but a lot of people don't seem to have that ability to universalise their own experience.
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Old 08-12-2004, 16:55   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freddie
I certainly don't agree that only black people are homophobic.
Nobody said "only black people" - it was just mentioned as an example of a group of people who were/are victims of prejudice and therefore shouldn't be prejudiced against others.

Quote:
Originally Posted by simon
I was victimised a lot as a child on the grounds of my nationality and it made me very much sympathise with other people who were the victims of prejudice, but a lot of people don't seem to have that ability to universalise their own experience.
True
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