Why the white man always singled out?

Post Reply New Topic

You can select five choices on the poll, so probably use one for whiteness and the others for man-ness, strictly as a result of the way the two categories break down. This is a poll to determine the local perspective on the global criteria for those two traits, so answer how you believe people in general feel about the criteria.

I'd like to get some data before we start with the commenting, so it would be great if we could wait for >10 replies to the poll. If you must run your mouth off before any results come in then be my guest. It's a free internet. I also left it so we can change our answers. Later, if there's interest, we can change our answers to how we personally feel about the issue.

Maybe the voting will pick up more, later. I just wanted to make sure that everyone understands that I want the answer for how you think society in general feels about the issue. You can change your vote, I think.

Huh? You can't define whitness as being based on percentage of white ancestry, because you need to know what whiteness is in order to base it on white ancestry, in which case you already know the answer.

skin color is a really stupid method of character judgement.

I don't know what to point of this is, but if you want to do a survey I wouldn't start with a leading question, and make sure to have options that are clear and relate to the question. Also make sure you want people to take sides you don't provide answers that leave a large in potential options.

The poll option on this forum is not that advanced. You may wish to use another service like survey monkey. You can split up the question and have them on separate pages. You have more fin grain control over mutually exclusive or multiple choice questions.

Design the survey to follow a path of least influence, that way you are not leading them, and you are more like to get accurate information.

It's a forum survey with no pretensions of scientific authority. I did take care in drafting it, though I haven't yet had the course in surveys and questionnaires.

Perception matters more in this case than reality. Also, the answer that I already know is actually the one to the thread title, not the poll question.

As a non-white, I think White is just a culture. It is of course an identifiable phenotype, but what we often consider "white," is more a function of values and the culture created by those values, then anything else. Black is also a culture too. When a white acts like a black(whatever that means...), or a black acts like a white(whatever that means...), you don't even see their skin color. You just see the culture most identified with that particular skin color. You see a white person acting black, or... since we live in a majority white country, when you see a black person acting white, what you actually see a black man acting normal, as in normal culture. A black man acting "white" would probably be very out of place, in not only a culturally black setting... but also in a different white culture, such as maybe Bosnia. He would also have more in common and enjoy the company/conversation with a white South African farmer, then with black South Africans, or many Africans in Africa for that matter.

Where's the "it doesn't matter what race you are or what you identify as, other people will tend to judge you by their standards and not your own" option?

Since the entire thread is about other people's perceptions, I think I got that covered.

Interesting topic, despite that awful title. My natural inclination would be going with the largest percentage in someone's ancestry. Looking back in US history, there was the "one drop" rule. If you had one African American ancestor anywhere in your family tree, then you were not white. Obviously not a scientific method, but a reflection of racism in our history.

"White" is not a culture at all. "White People" run the gamut, really.

I am of Northern European ancestry.

The term "White" has been morphing over the years and means different things in different countries. In the US, "White" now includes people in the Middle East and Northern Africa (such as Arabs, Egyptians, etc), even if they're not perceived as being white.
And because so many people have such different ideas on what "White" means, it can cause issues. Does is mean people with Northern European ancestry? Or is it just about how you look? I've been seeing a lot of people get picked on for being white, when they're, say, from Brazil and just have light skin (what the US calls White Latino). "Passing for white" is just a way for people to judge others without knowing anything about them, which negates the One Drop rule.
People of mixed ancestry have no place anywhere because people expect them to conform to one culture (are you black, Latino/Hispanic, Asian, or white? Can't just pick everything you are, apparently). If someone who happened to get the lighter genes in a mixed parentage (one parent of Northern European ancestry, one parent of a different ancestry) feels closer to their Native American heritage, or African heritage, etc, they *will* get shunned by both sides.

As for "why the white man always singled out"... If the places of power were switched, it would be someone else singled out. No one likes those who are in a social power position, even if that position is far far less powerful than it used to be. They are perceived as an enemy, of sorts, an oppressor of the people, even if it's only a few of them. People like to generalize (oh look, people of this look are in power and have been in power for a while, they're all evil now, even if they are less privileged than most other people - as long as they have white male privilege, they will be judged, even if they're homeless because their wives took everything and they're in need of food and medical care that has been denied them multiple times).

People need something to hate against.

A black man sits in the Whitehouse, women outnumber men in colleges, have greatly increased numbers in boardrooms and young women are now out-earning men. Despite this, anti-white male sentiment appears to be increasing exponentially - especially among those aforementioned young women.

In short, I remain sceptical.

That's because society still views white males to be in power. Whether it's true or not is beside the point. People want something to blame.

Just me, or has the goal got smaller?