Lemonade Controversy

[Mr.E]

Just to avoid long-ass replies to those who quoted me, I said nothing about racism (or sexism) not still existing (even in the Western world let alone, say, the Middle East). My original reply was more of an angry response to JES' assertion that simply being white automatically grants every white person a pass through every would-be difficulty in life. It's simply statistics. Sure, racism is still a thing, more in some places than others. On average, black people may be more socioeconomically disadvantaged than white people. But to make such a sweeping statement as "I'm always get annoyed with white supremacists who make claims of racism against whites, or use the term 'white genocide', as if the privileged Caucasian American population is in any danger!" is a foolish generalization. I, as an individual white person, sure as hell haven't seen much of my supposed privilege. I grew up and live in a city roughly divided 50/50 racially anyway but that's besides the point.

Have I personally been disadvantaged by affirmative action? Maybe. I'd say even "probably" at least once that I know of (more on the male side than the white side). I can't prove it anymore than I can disprove Russell's teapot. Nobody (sane and reasonably intelligent) outright announces "oh yeah we blatantly discriminated against this person." Does it matter if I have been anyway? That doesn't make it less wrong. "Affirmative action negatively affects no one..." I mean, really? Of course it negatively affects people. For literally every minority person that has been granted favor in the name of "diversity" is a non-minority person that got screwed. It's a quick-fix to righting historical wrongs and I just happen to be one of the poor, unlucky saps who have to bear the weight. As if I deserve it anymore than random-black-person did 50 years ago or random-woman 100 years ago.

But mostly I am just salty at how much effort I've put into improving my station in life, only for everything in the universe to take a big steaming dump on my face at every fucking turn and took JES saying a retarded generalization in a bad topic to vent about it. Then vonfiedler said something even dumber and I managed to turn this topic into something useful at least.

 

[Soul Fly]

Except intergenerational privilege allows people of certain community to have to social and political capital (on even a very generous balance of probability) to access certain benefits or even legitimate qualifications that determine entry into higher echelons of work and education. It's not some generic KKK supremacism but rather a very real pattern of translating supremacism into tangible social and economic power due to having centuries worth of headstart in terms of consolidating economic and social capital. Merit that you harp upon is very much determined by the opportunities you were able to access due to your social and material conditions of existence. Unless you're some one-in-a-million supergenius merit is also a reflection of your privilege.
At this point suddenly outlawing racist practices isn't the point as much as undoing the lopsided harm done to the socio-economic fabric of minority communities. Your understanding of privilege is laughably shallow.

Was slavery your fault? No. Was having to face centuries of brutalization and exclusion from the economy and the workplace and systematically being kept out of blue and white collar work by various degrees, and maiming their ability to do so once they finally could, at least legally on paper - was that the black guy's fault? No.

Why are black poverty rates almost triple of white poverty? why are blacks severely underrepresented in many institutions even with affirmative action? Why is the only institution that they are overrrepresented in the prison system of all places? Are blacks somehow stupider and lazier that white people? <- (that was rhetorical in case you're as thick as you seem to be)

You can't simply be color blind to history, nor disown it by saying you're not a fault for the slavery. That's idiotic af.

There's this Lyndon Jonson quote I remember reading a while back which I particularly like: "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say you are free to compete with all the others, and still just believe that you have been completely fair."

I would suggest some basic political theory or write a tl;dr but you would probably ignore that like von's post and just continue with your soapbox. In fact most of this was already there in vonfiedler and dice's post but you're too busy not reading them. I don't see a point wasting time on someone who very proudly refuses to engage with very basic logic.



I'm still sorry you don't have a job, but that doesn't excuse whatever the fuck soapbox you have been riding.

 

[vonFiedler]

as if the privileged Caucasian American population is in any danger!"

As in, we aren't waking up tomorrow and living in a nation where whites are minorities, or oppressed, or even not generally a somewhat positive thing to be, as opposed the fears of "genocide" YOU bring up. How is that a generalization at all? How does that warrant a response that is even slightly salty?

Have I personally been disadvantaged by affirmative action? Maybe. I'd say even "probably" at least once that I know of (more on the male side than the white side). I can't prove it anymore than I can disprove Russell's teapot. Nobody (sane and reasonably intelligent) outright announces "oh yeah we blatantly discriminated against this person." Does it matter if I have been anyway? That doesn't make it less wrong. "Affirmative action negatively affects no one..." I mean, really? Of course it negatively affects people. For literally every minority person that has been granted favor in the name of "diversity" is a non-minority person that got screwed. It's a quick-fix to righting historical wrongs and I just happen to be one of the poor, unlucky saps who have to bear the weight. As if I deserve it anymore than random-black-person did 50 years ago or random-woman 100 years ago.

You've MAYBE been disadvantaged? You're only paranoid about it, and that's shaped your worldview? And on the slim chance you were passed over once... you. went. to. college. Or has every job offering over five years been given to some dumb darkie in your mind? Not fucking happening. You're not oppressed. You're a millennial. Lots of us are going through the same shit. The only difference is that we have a system in place where a handful of disenfranchised minorities get to have life situations at least as bad as yours, as opposed to worse. And frankly, coming up with a solution to the job/college debt crisis is a lot more important than whether or not affirmative action has wronged you.

Nobody likes a pity party, much less an egotistical one.

To simplify, affirmative action takes people who never had a chance at going to college and gives them one. To people who had chances, who get rejected to one college, they are going to get accepted to another. The worst that might happen is that they don't get into a REALLY good college, like Harvard, but if they were the lowest person on the list before AA kicked in, then they weren't good enough.

 

[Mr.E]

I mean, if discrimination only exists where it's explicitly provable, then it doesn't exist at all except in its most blatantly obvious forms (e.g. the KKK). Which is funny because the whole argument behind white privilege is in all the little details and subconscious biases and historical precedent and whatnot. There's no hard evidence for it. There's no White Police Officer up on the stand saying he shot that guy because he was black. It's looking at stats and noticing stuff like "black poverty rates almost triple of white poverty." Not that it's even relevant whether or not I've personally experienced undue hardship due to such things. How many prominent black celebrities have experienced serious racial discrimination? Most of them still talk race sometimes and they shouldn't be faulted for having a bajillion dollars and world-renowned fame talking about shit that probably has never personally affected them. FFS, why do I even bother?

meanwhile, soul fly clearly doesn't watch professional sports among other problems

The question of such issues is how do we solve them? Personally, I'm just not a big fan of giving other people a leg up at my expense because those other people's ancestors were disadvantaged many moons ago and blah blah blah lingering chain effect. And I certainly don't take kindly to other people telling me how privileged I am personally based on racial generalizations. You haven't lived my life, you have no idea of all the things I've gone through. Who are you to tell me how good (or bad) I have it?

 

[vonFiedler]

Not that it's even relevant whether or not I've personally experienced undue hardship due to such things.

A utilitarian would say that it's not. You've gone to college. Now so has someone who wouldn't have. That's a net gain against the little details and stats, and it only matters on a scale much larger than your personal experience.

 

[Mr.E]

If an employer is choosing between "less-qualified minority based on diversity" and "more-qualified non-minority based on merit," they're not going to hire both people because they can't afford to do that. Colleges and universities have some wiggle room for admissions but have the specter of exclusivety and academic standards to maintain, as well as controlling class sizes. For the most part, it's a zero-sum game. AA doesn't make for a net gain, it just shifts some plusses toward the historically disadvantaged and away from the historically advantaged. Some people find that acceptable, I just think it creates a cycle of abuse (eye for an eye style) when we should instead be trying to break the chain.

A utilitarian would recognize that "helping some people more than others" is functionally equivalent to "helping some people less than others" (or harming some but not others).

 

[Soul Fly]

when we should instead be trying to break the chain.

you essentially just said "yo let's not break the chain of this vicious cycle of under-representation and the consequential deprivation of access for minorities BUT WE SHOULD INSTEAD BE TRYING TO BREAK THE CHAIN" 10/10

Yet once again you seem to be myopic on history when there are at least five tl;dr's trying to tell you that this isn't a zero sum game but it has rather been a historical plus one game for whites in america, so even if society is legally "equal" today it is still not egalitarian. Affirmative action stands as a form of state mandate in form of reallocating resources to the underprivileged strata to help them have that level playing field in the first place, in order to repair that historical harm. I don't know how many other ways to put that in.

in light of that..

A utilitarian would recognize that "helping some people more than others" is functionally equivalent to "helping some people less than others" (or harming some but not others).

which perfectly fine... except the brackets (massive pedantic leap, less state support doesn't = "harm" wtf lol)...

There is a reason you don't get blue shells or lightning bolts when you're already in first place in mario kart.


e: If your response to institution injustice and effacement of blacks, and the chronic need for affirmative action is that "a lot of them play pro sports!" then you are smoking some next level shit.

 

[jumpluff]

I mean I wasn't even going to post in this thread let alone effortpost, this is what you get. dice and shrug summed up my viewpoints, and soul fly since i wrote this post.

what mre is talking about is class disprivilege anyway (which fyi has a lot to do with pro sports and education! sports educations are fuckin awful). i don't think we should dismiss that, i think he mostly sums it up as a racial war rather than realising it's a class thing (but he was dead on that bey in her current state has access to more power, that's just more obvious). but he's as usual missing the point on the intersections of class and race. imagine if bey were white (and you don't need to imagine very hard, look at taylor swift who gets 'political' all the time). imagine if mre was black. he might not think it could get worse, that access to racial AA could help him, but the statistics tell the lie to that; odds are, mre in his position would be struggling even more if he was black. that doesn't mean his position isn't shit or we should say it isn't because he's dead wrong and unable to empathise with the demonstrated struggle of black americans, but it means we need to re-envision in it a societal perspective (von saying mre is a typical millennial -- not really, mre is a typical millennial of his class). so, to look at privilege theory and solely individualise it; you're probably messing up, that's not what it's about, it can be applied to individual situations (specifically power dynamics), it's not d&d modifiers that can be used to quantitatively compare them, it's more generally about a communal view of society, then how that can manifest for individuals as a factor. privilege theory and social sciences ground the experience of the individual in the context of the society. i feel like a lot of posts in this thread (in particular adamant zoroark's) are strawmen in that they assume an individual focus, or assuming a meritocracy is objective.

a meritocracy coexists with affirmative action because for a meritocracy to truly be decided by one's efforts, it has to have some semblance of equal opportunity (which fyi doesn't exist with affirmative action, but it's a slight improvement). i question the desire for a society-wide meritocracy anyway, i question that we should judge things like human needs, worth to society, etc. based off ability, that this won't self-perpetuate inequity, but that's probably besides the point since mre is mostly concerned about getting jobs he feels the most qualified for.

on-topic: white artists make political music, and statements around their artistry, all the time and it goes unremarked upon in most scenes; black artists are heavily scrutinised for any politics in their music (hint: art is informed by your ideology, whether you're setting out to make something explicitly political like bey did or not; the very nature of absence of politics is political), and bey has a superbowl-sized platform and, being seen as basically the zeitgeist, takes on a symbolic element of the current pivot racial relations in the US are at. i think in this context lemonade is remarkably both self-aware and culturally aware. and i didn't expect her to make something as good as her self-titled album, let alone directly after it, but she has.

bey has always been relatively moderate, but the more she comes into herself the more she explores her identity as a specifically black woman and tries to reach out to that crucial segment of her audience, who really genuinely have a role model in bey and have lifted her up. most black women aren't the extremely lucky sorry, they're just as bad off if not worse, disadvantaged by class, their gender, and their race, which includes intergenerational exploitation that's put white people on average ahead. i think that's cool. yeah of course it's going to speak to other people, especially non-black women, but i think there's a lot to be said for respecting the blackness of her music, of avoiding decontextualising it or recontextualising it in a way that's inappropriate, and that's where the cover thing comes from. so yes i'm defending the position that non-black people should be careful in this discussion. i don't know why this is a shocker of an idea to everyone, because most people would agree that it's optimal to express informed opinions, behave in an informed way, and talk to one's strengths. that doesn't mean what white people say needs to be thrown out automatically, it just means white people need to be aware of their spaces in the discussion, the meaning of bey's music to others (again, contextualising the experience of the individual in the society), the extent to which they can know they may or may not be erring, the fact that people have different opinions, etc. which is how you should conduct yourself normally, let alone with regard to something sensitive like race (yes, race is sensitive), which is subject to power dynamics.

sorry if this is incomplete or lacking in any areas, i didn't want to post in this thread as said because i think it's a leading question and been derailed and i'm kinda busy

p.s. a really interesting example on top of this to talk about race/class intersections in music is how people reacted to rihanna's bitch better have my money video (which is also super gendered too!)

or just how people talk about hip-hop tbh but this is an example that sticks out prominently in my mind because it's very complex to some

 

[JALMONT]

If affirmative action affects no one negatively to a significant degree, how does it really help solve racial injustice/lack of equal opportunity? Does it truly help black Americans advance in society as von says it does? I'm not actually convinced that affirmative action does much to help solve the problem (but then again that's just my intuition), but instead create a system where people can bicker and complain about, further dividing society and causing us to move away from actually solving problems.

That's the thing about affirmative action is that I understand the idea behind it, but I personally don't think it's the right way to go about solving the problem. To me, it's a lazy way of attempting to fix the problem, when the real issue isn't necessarily about race, but about the lack of equal opportunity, which is caused by a variety of factors and not limited just by race. Affirmative action is a racist mechanism, at least if you're going by the actual definition of the term, not the "you need power and privilege" to be racist which I think is bullshit but that's not super important. A system that artificially boosts or detracts from certain races by no reason except by the arbitrary concept of skin color is racist because it's essentially saying that certain races are better than others so they need to be held back, while other races to be artificially propelled forward. Why is it that if you took exactly two identical people, except one was black and the other Asian American, that the Asian American would need to work harder just to be considered for the same college? It's not like Asians haven't been disadvantaged historically in the United States. And then how does affirmative action help the poor black student who doesn't have access to libraries or educational materials that a rich black family does? What about poor white families?

That's not to say that I'm denying that blacks are disadvantaged in other ways. But affirmative action isn't the way to solve the problem. What are the actual issues that cause black Americans to be 3x poorer then white Americans? I think we need to focus on those issues and do things like improve the quality of education specifically in places where the surrounding population is relatively poor - regardless of race, so predominantly white areas included.

it's worth expanding upon this though. often, the notion of "racism" is seen as an abstract concept. as a white male, it's nearly impossible to truly empathize with what black folk have to deal with constantly. to align with this thread, you don't have to 'deal with' an offensive appropriation of your culture by people who lack the experience and understanding of your language, belief systems, and music to absorb it fully. you don't have to deal with the side-eyeing and questioning of success. you also don't have to deal with the assumptions of inferiority.. the lost opportunities made throughout life just from being black.

What is offensive "appropriation of culture"? What does that mean? I mean given how interconnected the world is globally, isn't it to be expected that aspects of culture are going to be "appropriated" regardless? That doesn't really seem like a fair criticism to make against a "white male."

Except intergenerational privilege allows people of certain community to have to social and political capital (on even a very generous balance of probability) to access certain benefits or even legitimate qualifications that determine entry into higher echelons of work and education. It's not some generic KKK supremacism but rather a very real pattern of translating supremacism into tangible social and economic power due to having centuries worth of headstart in terms of consolidating economic and social capital. Merit that you harp upon is very much determined by the opportunities you were able to access due to your social and material conditions of existence. Unless you're some one-in-a-million supergenius merit is also a reflection of your privilege.
At this point suddenly outlawing racist practices isn't the point as much as undoing the lopsided harm done to the socio-economic fabric of minority communities. Your understanding of privilege is laughably shallow

But intergenerational privilege isn't something that's just given to all white people in the US when they're born. What about white people who are in poverty? Is it ok to ignore them because they weren't victims of the KKK? Why do we need to play the game of who has suffered the most historically instead of looking towards the future and figuring out how we can collectively more forward as a society in terms of economic and social equality? It feels like a lot of the posts so far in this thread are suggesting that all white Americans have greater opportunity than all black Americans when I simply do not think that's true. The division overall is in terms of economic status. Perhaps if you narrow in on an income bracket, sure, white Americans have an advantage. But I think that that problem is so much easier to address when you raise everyone's education level to the point where people no longer hold whatever deeply ingrained prejudices that I guess white Americans have.

The dichotomy of white vs. black isn't helpful in solving these issues. Systems created using the lens of race that try and solve these issues do more to more to further divide white and black Americans from solving the actual issues of class inequality that I believe we should be focusing on.

Hopefully this brings up another point to consider and I'm interested in hearing what you guys have to say about this and to see if I've gone wrong somewhere in my thinking.

 

[tehy]

on-topic: white artists make political music, and statements around their artistry, all the time

such as

 

[Asek]

Lol the whole concept of privelefge makes me mad, if u think just because u born a bloke or U white u got some magical entitlement stick or some shit makes me sick. My boy mr e struggling to make ends meet and posts why he thinks privedgd is a load of horse shit ( he makes some damm good points btw) nd u guys just post a whole bunch of strawnab about if hr was black or some shot he'd have it worse??? Lol gooood shit

 

[Outlaw]

What is offensive "appropriation of culture"? What does that mean? I mean given how interconnected the world is globally, isn't it to be expected that aspects of culture are going to be "appropriated" regardless? That doesn't really seem like a fair criticism to make against a "white male."

It's segregation that's A-Ok to some people for some odd reason. I always thought it was bad myself, but apparently, PoC/LGBT/etc only zones/songs/things are needed and no white menpeople allowed!

 

[UncleSam]

The notion that we can solve racial inequality by creating more racial inequality is ridiculous.

It's poor African Americans who are racially (and otherwise) discriminated against in the USA. It's recreational pot smokers, drifters, and other non-violent criminals who get disproportionately incarcerated and punished for crimes in comparison to non-violent criminals of other races (and btw none of these people ought to be considered 'criminals' either, but that's a discussion for another thread). There is undeniably horrible systemic racism which hurts underprivileged minorities in this country. Of course this also extends to educational opportunities for poor African American youth.

These are not the people who affirmative action is helping. Colleges aren't looking for truly underprivileged minorities, they're looking for wealthy minorities to fill a racial quota AND stuff their own coffers with overpriced tuition/donations at the same time. Affirmative action proposes to fight injustice amongst the most vulnerable in society by overtly favoring an already privileged class of people. Stop the bullshit condescension of 'I know you're drowning MrE but you'd be drowning even worse if you were black trust me', it's just a blatant refusal to face the reality of many who are actually being discriminated against in this country, and it was really brave of him to bother posting about his problems when it was completely obvious they would get ignored. Women and minorities are overtly favored for employment and educational opportunities/funding in the maths and sciences. So no, MrE is not 'paranoid' or 'delusional' when he says that he has been discriminated against and that the result is that his life is shitty, and people who are victim blaming him ought to be ashamed of themselves.

As for Soul Fly's assertion that (paraphrasing, not his words) 'it is meant to correct for historical imbalances', all I have to say is that I've not read anyone attempt to justify discrimination against a class of people based on what their ancestors did since I was forced to read the Old Testament in high school.

End affirmative action, and force public colleges to take household income into account in making college admissions decisions. Then once you've done that add mandatory body cameras to police, take away guns from traffic police (in what situation does a taser not suffice for a traffic cop?), and crack down on racial sentencing discrepancies.

It's not a solution, but it's a start.

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

The liberal left is just out of control. Just take away the welfare, and the problem will figure itself out. Youd be surprised how many people learn personal responsibility when their gib me dats are taken away from them lol

 

[jumpluff]

such as

no offence but did you just want my attention because why else would you bother me with such a worthless notification

generously excluded nazis and christian rock

 

[jumpluff]

I DIDN'T EVEN PICK ANYTHING CONTENTIOUS but my browser started crashing so.

edit: I'd argue I learned more personal responsibility (read: survival tools to deal with things I'm not responsible for) from being needlessly in poverty in one of the world's most prosperous countries than the posters on not on welfare itt seem to have tbh. maybe they'd fancy a go?

 

[UncleSam]

Not for anything jumpluff, but tehy probably meant 'when have white singers commented on racially-charged politics'. I doubt if Beyonce had written an album against war anyone would really be arguing about it.

I'm actually not sure about the answer and was kind of looking forward to a response. Good song selection though ^_^

 

[jumpluff]

Not for anything jumpluff, but tehy probably meant 'when have white singers commented on racially-charged politics'. I doubt if Beyonce had written an album against war anyone would really be arguing about it.

I'm actually not sure about the answer and was kind of looking forward to a response. Good song selection though ^_^

but that's exactly it, these messages are seen as utterly benign because a white person is saying them gently. meghan trainor's all about that bass? nicki minaj's anaconda. beyonce? taylor swift. dads making peace music because the status quo suits white people? black artists making songs about poverty and institutional violence, or literally just muhammad ali. midnight oil singing solemnly about race relations in a country their ancestors colonised after having benefited from it? WELL. you can't divorce these songs from their whiteness! black artists who make peace songs, or who argue peace in the current situation would leave black people high and dry, are tolerated at best (or weirdly objectified and stripped of context, like bob marley who was panafrican). edit: all the anti-bush songs I linked, look at every single black artist who complained about bush, especially kanye

half these songs (and I intentionally didn't pick a lot of punk) are class war songs, infinitely more 'threatening' to some people ni here than anything bey's ever written. who's getting all the heat? HM

tehy can google interviews if he likes, he can start with hiphop then proceed to rock then to metal then just look up what random pop singers think about countries the US is involved in. make a dumb post, be treated like you live under a rock.

 

[Outlaw]

but that's exactly it, these messages are seen as utterly benign because a white person is saying them gently. meghan trainor's all about that bass? nicki minaj's anaconda. beyonce? taylor swift. dads making peace music because the status quo suits white people? black artists making songs about poverty and institutional violence, or literally just muhammad ali. midnight oil singing solemnly about race relations in a country their ancestors colonised after having benefited from it? WELL. you can't divorce these songs from their whiteness! black artists who make peace songs, or who argue peace in the current situation would leave black people high and dry, are tolerated at best (or weirdly objectified and stripped of context, like bob marley who was panafrican). edit: all the anti-bush songs I linked, look at every single black artist who complained about bush, especially kanye

half these songs (and I intentionally didn't pick a lot of punk) are class war songs, infinitely more 'threatening' to some people ni here than anything bey's ever written. who's getting all the heat? HM

tehy can google interviews if he likes, he can start with hiphop then proceed to rock then to metal then just look up what random pop singers think about countries the US is involved in. make a dumb post, be treated like you live under a rock.

I was more throwing heat towards the OP and those saying white people should be careful when singing someone elses song when they are a PoC. I could care less what Beyonce sings about, just the rights of others to sing along.

 

[TheValkyries]

Also worth noting UncleSam how you spectacularly missed the part in pluffs earlier post about MrEs failure to understand the intersections of modalities of oppression. They aren't saying that class-based oppression is better or worse for the oppressed than race based oppression, they're saying that if MrE was also black AS WELL as poor things would be harder. Which is something you manage to side along acknowledge in that you point out that the black people benefiting most from affirmative action tend to be well to do (this whole conversation is conveniently forgetting that white women are quantifiably the largest group benefitting from affirmative action and not black people). Conversations about oppression should not turn into pissing contests for whose the most deserving of our help based on whose the most oppressed we should be talking about why the oppression is wrong and shouldn't be happening in the first place.

 

[v]

white privilege is turning every single thread thread that mentions any racial issue into a discussion of whether white privilege exists or not and thinking nothing of it

 

[Solace]

It's segregation that's A-Ok to some people for some odd reason. I always thought it was bad myself, but apparently, PoC/LGBT/etc only zones/songs/things are needed and no white menpeople allowed!

it's not segregation lmao. it's people being offended that things that they are made to feel like outsiders/less than for are being used by white people as fashion trends. see: white people getting lip injections because that's a popular trend now but black people born with big lips are called racial slurs for having them, or white people wearing native headdresses as a fashion statement when those have significant meanings in native cultures and are given to honor respected natives, or wearing bindis as a trend, etc. some people may take it too far but it is meant to protect things that have cultural significance. also i hate the "no white men allowed!" thing you're trying to claim as discrimination i'm assuming by your tone when white men/people have historically (and currently) oppress minorities based on race, gender, and sexuality, and there's nothing wrong with those people wanting safe spaces to express themselves.

Women and minorities are overtly favored for employment and educational opportunities/funding in the maths and sciences. So no, MrE is not 'paranoid' or 'delusional' when he says that he has been discriminated against and that the result is that his life is shitty, and people who are victim blaming him ought to be ashamed of themselves.

there's a reason women and minorities are favored, though. it's because of a large systemic bias against them. at young ages, girls and especially african-american girls are discouraged by their teachers from taking stem classes, which would in turn affect how many women would choose to pursue a degree and later a career in a stem field. they're favored because there's a smaller amount and increasing the opportunities for women and minorities is meant to encourage them to pursue a stem job. and it's also rarely the "less qualified minority gets the job over the more qualified white guy" it's more that the equally qualified minority gets the job, which is unfortunate if you're the white guy, but the systemic discrimination that women and minorities receive that discourages them in the first place is a bigger issue.

some reading on how women are discouraged at young ages: http://www.slate.com/articles/techn...hools_keep_some_girls_from_pursuing_stem.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/u...courage-girls-from-math-and-science.html?_r=0

and, to the actual topic: i think lemonade is good & important. a black woman using her platform to speak about black issues is important. becky isn't a racial slur by any means lmao. i think that any non-black singer can cover the album, but they should be careful to not repurpose the important and black women-specific messages of lemonade to fit themselves, but honoring the original and just giving it a different voice isn't bad by any means. and piers morgan is ridiculous and everything he says about beyonce reeks of misogyny imo

 

[v]

The liberal left is just out of control. Just take away the welfare, and the problem will figure itself out. Youd be surprised how many people learn personal responsibility when their gib me dats are taken away from them lol

u should tell ur mom that u think this

 

[Outlaw]

it's not segregation lmao. it's people being offended that things that they are made to feel like outsiders/less than for are being used by white people as fashion trends. see: white people getting lip injections because that's a popular trend now but black people born with big lips are called racial slurs for having them, or white people wearing native headdresses as a fashion statement when those have significant meanings in native cultures and are given to honor respected natives, or wearing bindis as a trend, etc. some people may take it too far but it is meant to protect things that have cultural significance. also i hate the "no white men allowed!" thing you're trying to claim as discrimination i'm assuming by your tone when white men/people have historically (and currently) oppress minorities based on race, gender, and sexuality, and there's nothing wrong with those people wanting safe spaces to express themselves.

noun
noun: segregation

1. the enforced separation of different racial groups in a country, community, or establishment.

It literally is segregation. Self-imposed, but segregation nonetheless.

If it's not a problem, why is it a problem if a golf club wants to be male only? It's the same thing. Yet one is always viewed as deplorable and the other is not. Inclusivity should mean what it means and not everyone but white people. Would it just, explode your mind if you saw a transgendered black woman wearing a native american headdress when she has not a lick of native american in her? Would she get the same sort of flak as a white person? Doubtful.

PS: White privilege and racism's hip, trendy new definition of "power and privilege" are both really dumb. The concept of white privilege is racist in and of itself.

 

[Skitty]

ugh i was actually sort of looking forward to discussing the album since i kind of liked it