Catering to the White Capitalist Crowd
Aug. 28th, 2013 07:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidravitaleThat was disappointing.
A clip of President Obama (at a graduation? I think,) was just played on NPR, and in it he says to his audience no one cares how tough your upbringing was, it wasn't as bad as what your forefathers went through, and if they overcame it, you can, too.
That's the wrong principle being expressed. That's the idea that it's up to the individual member of an oppressed minority to exceed in spite of the barriers prejudice placed in front of them. It places the onus on the minority member, not the system enforcing and perpetuating the prejudice. It places the responsibility for failure on the oppressed individual, not the prejudicial system operating to suppress any success.
That's wrong. It makes it easy for the white American to ignore the systemic problem, and someday, write a blog with a title like, "where are all the black people at?", cluelessly wondering why there aren't black CEOs, etc.
That was more than disappointing. That was colluding with the prejudicial system.
A clip of President Obama (at a graduation? I think,) was just played on NPR, and in it he says to his audience no one cares how tough your upbringing was, it wasn't as bad as what your forefathers went through, and if they overcame it, you can, too.
That's the wrong principle being expressed. That's the idea that it's up to the individual member of an oppressed minority to exceed in spite of the barriers prejudice placed in front of them. It places the onus on the minority member, not the system enforcing and perpetuating the prejudice. It places the responsibility for failure on the oppressed individual, not the prejudicial system operating to suppress any success.
That's wrong. It makes it easy for the white American to ignore the systemic problem, and someday, write a blog with a title like, "where are all the black people at?", cluelessly wondering why there aren't black CEOs, etc.
That was more than disappointing. That was colluding with the prejudicial system.