Originally posted by cpxxx
You know I just can't buy the idea that we white males are being discriminated against . It's BS of the highest order. Look around you, who owns everything, runs everything, has the most money?
Yes, white males. Not all of us of course. But the good old white males pretty much control the world.
It always makes me laugh when I read stuff like that.
You obviously didn’t read the article. This is a story about an individual act of discrimination. The conclusion of the U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights was that the English professor illegally subjected the student to "intentional discrimination and harassment" because he was "a white, heterosexual Christian male" who expressed disapproval of homosexuality.
So you may not "buy into the idea that white males get discriminated against" but apparently the U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights does. However, their ruling wasn’t made on behalf of all white males but on the specific instance of this student and the English professor.
She declared in an email that because this "perfect example of privilege" "created a hostile environment" she felt the need to "protect that space (classroom) from further violence." The “violence” being his disagreement with her premise that as a heterosexual white male he was "threatened” by homosexuals.
She sent emails out to all her students calling the guy a "racist, sexist, and/or heterosexist". There was even a hint of a threat in that email:
"that a white, heterosexual, Christian male, one who vehemently denied his privilege last week insisting that he earned all he has, can feel entitled to make violent, heterosexist comments and not feel marked or threatened or vulnerable is what privilege makes possible."
In short "how dare he think that he can get away with thinking and stating that...?”
As a result he was threatened and his car vandalized.
On your point of “who owns what” there is no collective guilt for offensives made by past generations. Because Leroy didn’t get a job 50 years ago or because he descended from a slave doesn’t give him any more “rights” then me or anyone else. Just because others in my racial group may "own more" doesn’t mean I shouldn't be given an equal opportunity to earn my own. You can't collectively punish folks for things they haven’t done. What you can do is make judgments on individual instances and make corrections. The solution to past racism isn’t more racism.