Jealousy towards Westerners (from "other" Asians)

[Lu]

'White males are priviledged' doesn't mean that every white man has an easy time while everyone else struggles. It just means that women/people of colour/handicapped people/etc have more obstacles to overcome than white men in the same position. Some white men grow up poor, for example, and some black handicapped women grow up rich and have parents pay for them to go into university and such. And then such a white man might say, look, I had a much harder time than she had, she's not oppressed at all. Well, no, but if she had grown up in that man's background and he in hers, she would have had an even harder time than he already had, and he would be much better off than she had even with the help she got.

Similarly with employment, education, etc. You (direct you) are of course not the most priviledged person on the planet and there are plenty of individual women and minorities who are better off than you. But you have had an easier time of it than you would have had if you had been a woman/handicapped/a minority/etc.

And because the disadvantages are systemic, some measures have been put into the system that counters that. Of course those countermeasures sometimes help people that didn't need the help all that much and overlook people who do. For example, you could argue that it would make more sense to help people from a disadvantaged social-economic background than to simply help all people of colour. But that doesn't change the overall point that some groups of people are disadvantaged, that society needs to do its best to counter that, and that able-bodied, straight white men are not one of those groups.

[MPhillips]

Hey studychinese--do you really think flaky liberals* like the speaker in your Richmond video represent even 2％ of the US's population? I'm all too acquainted with their ilk, & could tell some amusing stories about 'em. A lot of them don't really respect the members of minority groups they condescend to patronize. Unfortunately they're what passes for the left in the US nowadays. The solution to dealing with people like them is to avoid 'em, it's a bit hard for me though, since I have one or two in my family. Sure makes me nostalgic for the good old-fashioned Marxists of yore--probably none left on your side of the Atlantic either. BTW: my great grand-dad was a p.o.w. who participated in a jail-break out of a Richmond prison (1863 or so).

*flaky liberal example: (just so it's not in doubt what I mean by the term) the "leftist leader" in my city who got sick of protesting the war in Iraq after a few months & switched his focus to "saving the sea turtles" (one example among many possibilities)

[studychinese]

Lu, I am saying that I am from a group that is legally discriminated against in my country. In education, jobs, also the only group denied free speech (no first amendment in Australia). There is no other legally discriminated against group. There might be some private discrimination against certain groups, but then the question is who is doing it because all races, religions and genders are working in every sector, have full political rights, and so on.

I have heard some people say that I am privileged because I am allowed to speak my own language in my own country. To me that sounds ludicrous (I actually speak a bunch of other languages. Guess that is my white skin privilege too).

The result of this is a person that makes the choice of migrating here becomes a victim of discrimination the moment he or she arrives, requiring the kind of redress that either requires copious amounts of my tax dollars, formal discrimination against me in every public space in terms of employment or education, government mandated discrimination in the private sector, and restrictions on my non-right to free speech. In terms of employment companies bend over backwards to employ non-white people, and the public sector is exactly the same.

The fact is that I have been all over the world, and white privilege doesn't match reality. National majorities all over the world speak their own languages, for example. Just about every point in the invisible knapsack essay didn't apply to me and did apply to my non-white friends.

MPhillips, what I mean by that video is that there is a kind of sorting mechanism at work. Women take precedence over men, but not white women over non-white men, and so on. Back in the 90s there was a feminists vs Islamic male patriarchy thing - Islam won hands down and the feminists have realized that there is really only one group safe to criticize - the privileged white male.

Of course none of the costs borne by white privilege ideology is actually shared by wealthy whites. They have enough money to escape it. Rather it is just the average white person that will bear the burden of affirmative action and other discriminatory policies. How much violent crime has been directed towards white people because white privilege is taught in school is also an interesting question. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence for it.

I have avoided it, however. I live my life on my own terms, work independently, don't watch TV and thus I do not drink the kool-aid. This is the kind of rant that could easy get someone fired in Australia, and for that reason most will not write or discuss this. For me there is no ability to apply economic or even social discipline so I am not worried at all. That doesn't mean I can say whatever I like. It is illegal to discuss crime rates by ethnicity for example, so I don't do that.

[renzhe]

This might be the case in Australia, I do not know enough about the situation to argue your point.

It is certainly not the case anywhere I have ever lived or stayed for a significant amout of time. I have never been discriminated for being a white male, ever, anywhere. The closest was being surrounded by pushy sellers in third-world countries, but even there I was far safer and protected as a white tourist than any local.

I've never had a machine gun pointed at me in an embassy for being an Arab (because I'm not an Arab), or detained by the police for being black (because I'm not black). I have never been offered 1/5 of a standard salary for being a Chinese girl (because I'm not a Chinese girl). I have never been the subject of sexual harrassment at work or on the street, and I suspect that ugliness is only a part of the reason.

Yet my friends have these happy episodes regularly in our civilised European countries. I'm sure that if you ask your privileged minority friends, they could tell you stories that would blow your mind. We still have a long, long way to go.

Australia must be a bleak place nowadays if you get randomly detained, held at gunpoint by security, and paid only a fraction of the standard salary just for being a white male. I'm shocked to find out that things have gone so far.

[MPhillips]

studychinese同志：I didn't realize you were Australian, there's certainly a great old-time leftist still alive & kicking in Australia, namely John Pilger, I'm sure you've read him or heard him speak? I'm sorry I know very little about Australia, but your analysis doesn't apply in the least on this side of the Pacific; affirmative action is ancient history here, that groovy multicultural vibe that the US media use to pull the wool over people's eyes is of course a sham, there are more black men in prison today than were slaves in 1862.

Anyway the last thing I want to do is hold forth about a country I've never even been to. Since you did mention knowing many languages I'm sure there is no dearth of opportunities out there for you, remember the immortal words of that great sage (and incestuous stepdad) Woody Allen--"eighty percent of life is showing up"!

[studychinese]

Like I said, I removed myself from it. Not everyone can do that, however, and the mere existence of this type of thing is an offense to a person's intelligence. I travel six months of every year, enjoy seeing actual diversity rather than fake political diversity, and so on.

Last trip I went to North Korea. I wouldn't mind visiting Iran if the timing is right too.

[MPhillips]

Well I hope you get to visit Iran before the US or its henchman start lobbing missiles at them. Look at the bright side, being Australian you're probably allowed in a bunch of countries us murcans ain't!

[studychinese]

That is exactly the reason why I want to go to Iran.

I've been hoping that Bush and Blair would go to trial for their crimes.

[MPhillips]

Amen!

[MPhillips]

Back to E. Asia, I was thinking maybe you could start a topic on hangul & hanja one of these days, I haven't been able to get a straight story about the extent to which hanja are still in use. No rush of course!

[studychinese]

That's easy and doesn't require a post. Hanja are not in use at all, except for very occasionally in newspaper headlines, and even then only very simple Hanja like the names of well known countries like China or Japan.

Like Japanese, Korean has a lot of words that are derived from Chinese languages (but generally not Mandarin) and can be written in Hanja.

[MPhillips]

And they're just as uncommon in N. Korea as they are in S. Korea?

[Lu]

I can't comment on the Australian situation specifically, but like Renzhe I'm surprised if you would face situations like people yelling at you for your skin colour, pointing a gun at you, sexually harrassing you, assume you're a terrorist and ask you to prove you're not, and such things.

The thing about privilegde that you're born with (like skin colour) is that it's easy to never notice you have it. If you've never been black, or female, or whatever, it's hard to notice the things they have to deal with (and easier to see the help they get).

You mention 'National majorities all over the world speak their own languages, for example.' Well yes, the priviledged majority in a country is not always white. But all over the world, minorities have the disadvantage that they have to speak another language than their own if they want to get things done. Belonging to a majority group is an advantage.

Also keep in mind that not everyone (hardly anyone, actually) can afford to travel half the year. Most people have to pretty much stay where they are and make the best of it, even when the place they are at discriminates against them.

[geraldc]

Came across this article on gender politics in Australia http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/25/sure-australia-is-a-sexist-place-but-we-have-some-serious-competition

[imron]

As an Australian of the straight, white, male variety, I just want to state that I disagree with studychinese's comments.

 

SWM is basically the lowest difficulty setting.  Yes there might be certain advantages afforded to other groups, but regardless of your circumstances, for straight, white, males, change any single one of those and your life would almost certainly be more difficult than it currently is.

 

It can be hard to see prejudices against others when you a not a member of the group being prejudiced against, but ask friends and family members who belong to other demographics and you'll quickly start to realise they get a whole lot grief that SWM's don't need to really ever deal with.

[studychinese]

I am referring to this, which is the go-to essay for 'white privilege'. 

 

http://amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html

 

As for Scalzi... lol. He is a complete beta male and his shtick is laughable. 

 

http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com/2013/08/john-scalzi-for-beta-of-month.html

 

Anyway, I am not talking about invisible privileges (meaning impossible to quantify or verify) like 'white privilege', I am talking about actual legal privileges. As far as I know there are no legal privileges, no 'white bumiputra', for white men in Australia. There are plenty of formal, legal privileges for non-whites in Australia. Indeed, there are many regular white people that identify as aboriginal without having a single aboriginal ancestor in order to claim the superior privileges of being 'non-white'. A privileged person would not do that.

[MPhillips]

I'm reminded of white people in the US who are upset they can't set up a casino, which some Indians (indigenous people not people from India) have won the right to do. Well they signed treaties with the government calling them sovereign nations--what's the problem?

[imron]

He is a complete beta male

Ah ok, now it makes sense.  Let me guess, you took the red pill also?

 

If you ask me, it's the whole alpha/beta/gamma male schtick that is laughable, with alpha-male correlating highly with 'douchebag'.

[MPhillips]

Also the "knapsack" essay decrying white privilege in your link was written by an ivory tower academic in the US, what does it have to do with Australia per se unless you think it's part of a generalized culture which pervades all of the Eng.-speaking world, except on the other hand you seem to be saying Australia is much more anti white male than elsewhere. Frankly, people with views like this Wellesley College essay writer haven't had any influence in US politics since 1981. If they're so influential in Australia why haven't you adduced a similar essay written in Australia?

[studychinese]

An Australian essay would be of less general interest. That said the Australian version of this is built on the same critical theory / cultural Marxism.

Lest you think that I have a white bias because I am white, I criticise this wherever I find it.

Take one David Aldwinckle, for example. He is an naturalised Japanese citizen of American descent. He became a Japanese citizen so that he would have standing to call Japanese people racist for not instantly realising that he is 'Japanese' based on his appearance. I wrote about him many times on my now moribund, but formerly very prominent blog. He is following a very familiar theme, except this one is 'Japanese privilege' (such as the privilege to be considered Japanese on sight if you are Japanese).

http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=908

http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=827

http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=829

http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=870