Why bother to quote my text if you’re not going to answer the question?
You could say that there are cases where black people have attacked white people for being white, and I wouldn’t contest it. And you could say that white people haven’t attacked black people for being black, and I would be willing to concede that there is a sense in which that is true. But to say that black people have attacked white people for being white, but white people have not attacked black people for being black is simply absurd.
The reason that they can both be individually correct, but not accurate as a comparison is because it involves a manipulation of terms. I am prepared to accept the claim that black people sometimes attack white people for being white, with the implicit understanding that what this really means is “being white and being in the wrong neighborhood,” or “being white and being taken as a scapegoat for a lifetime of second class citizenship.”
I am also prepared to accept that the claim that white people don’t kill black people for being black can be said to be true in a sense; you’re not going to find a white person who’ll kill a black person for being black in the same sense that they’d kill a person for sleeping with their wife. But you can find white people who’ll go out and commit premeditated attacks on people of other races to promote their ideology of a racially homogeneous society and strengthen their allegiance to the cause. It’s called lone wolf activism. And while the Klu Klux Klan would not, as you said, attack a black man who just happened to be walking down the street, a black person could attract violence for being found in the wrong neighborhood, just like your white person in a black neighborhood scenario, or for associating too closely with white people, or being too successful, or “getting ideas above their station.” Black people were attacked for representing a threat to white individuals’ place in the social hierarchy among people who needed someone to look down on. Saying that this doesn’t count as white people attacking black people for being black, while black on white racially motivated violence does count, is a severe case of special pleading.
Why bother to quote my text if you’re not going to answer the question?
You could say that there are cases where black people have attacked white people for being white, and I wouldn’t contest it. And you could say that white people haven’t attacked black people for being black, and I would be willing to concede that there is a sense in which that is true. But to say that black people have attacked white people for being white, but white people have not attacked black people for being black is simply absurd.
The reason that they can both be individually correct, but not accurate as a comparison is because it involves a manipulation of terms. I am prepared to accept the claim that black people sometimes attack white people for being white, with the implicit understanding that what this really means is “being white and being in the wrong neighborhood,” or “being white and being taken as a scapegoat for a lifetime of second class citizenship.”
I am also prepared to accept that the claim that white people don’t kill black people for being black can be said to be true in a sense; you’re not going to find a white person who’ll kill a black person for being black in the same sense that they’d kill a person for sleeping with their wife. But you can find white people who’ll go out and commit premeditated attacks on people of other races to promote their ideology of a racially homogeneous society and strengthen their allegiance to the cause. It’s called lone wolf activism. And while the Klu Klux Klan would not, as you said, attack a black man who just happened to be walking down the street, a black person could attract violence for being found in the wrong neighborhood, just like your white person in a black neighborhood scenario, or for associating too closely with white people, or being too successful, or “getting ideas above their station.” Black people were attacked for representing a threat to white individuals’ place in the social hierarchy among people who needed someone to look down on. Saying that this doesn’t count as white people attacking black people for being black, while black on white racially motivated violence does count, is a severe case of special pleading.
Stop feeding the troll.
I was thinking the same thing as Desertopia, but decided that he wasn’t worth the time it would take to type up.