What is it about white people
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Peace,
How do White people cash-in on being White? I'm afraid I don't understand your post.
Please google "white privilege". Although books have been written on it, there's a wealth of information online for free. There are even white people who acknowledge white privilege; by having a dialogue with someone on that frequency, this nasty truth of white privilege may be easier to swallow if you think it's a crock because a white person isn't writing this.
One can easily take out the "white" part of "white privilege" and fill in the blank with "class" or "gender". There are also people who benefit from socio-political privilege because they were born in a certain country (as opposed to having to go through a naturalization process); they speak a certain language as a native speaker (and no, I'm not just talking about English); they're literate; they weigh a certain number; they belong to a certain political party; they're straight; they have formal education; they can hear; they have a fully functioning brain and a body that works the way it's supposed to; they have access to clean water 24 hours a day; they belong to a certain religion; they belong from a certain religious sect; and/or because of many other reasons.
I have better things to do than regurgitate information that you can easily access but choose not to because it doesn't apply to a way in which you feel oppressed or a way in which you feel that others are being oppressed.
My point is that socio-political privilege is damaging, and there isn't one person on the planet who hasn't benefitted or won't benefit from at least one form of privilege at some point in their life. If that person chooses to go through life cashing-in on that/those privilege(s), then they are experiencing a spiritual disconnect from Allah.
And to be clear, I personally don't believe that anyone should feel guilty for having a certain socio-political privilege; however, I do believe anyone benefitting from a certain privilege should feel motivated to do more than participate in a bunch of intellectual masturbation.
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....I find myself impressed with the morals and attitudes of 'white people'. They have given me an education and have made sure that I have equal rights as them....
Salaam,
Everyone has the right to a formal education. No human being of any color is powerful enough to "give" you an education. Allah has granted you a formal education.
Everyone has the right not to be oppressed. It is not up to a certain group of humans to "grant" civil rights to another groups of humans. Allah has made sure you've been blessed enough to live comfortably with respect to certain human rights.
Allah granted you that education and those basic human rights with the hope that you would acknowledge where those blessings came from. I'm sorry, but by giving credit to white people - or any group of people - for your blessings, you are taking credit away from The Almighty.
Ma'salaama,
T. -
Fix things how? Yes, they should be charitable, but not because they're White and because some White people did horrible things in the past, but because they're human. A White person shouldn't help improve society while bearing in mind that they're White and that they need to make up for the crimes of some White people in the past. No one should base their identity on their skin colour because it's not something they choose and like you said before, no one is responsible for the actions of other people even though they may be of the same ethnicity.
No it's just some white people fail to realize how slavery and years of oppression against groups of people have propelled them to where they are today and how much it is still affecting others. Noone is blaming you. A famous guy once said "White people just had a 400 year head start"
Look at it this way...if my grandfather met your grandfather, your grandfather had 20 bucks and he was going to use it to go to college and get an education and be rich, but my grandfather came out of nowhere STOLE his money, and used it to become rich and go to college. While your grandfather was left with nothing and had to be poor, couldn't send his children to school so they grew up poor and when they grew up they didn't have enough to send their kids to school so they stayed poor until someone made it. While my grandfather continued to educate his children and they continued to flourish off all because he STOLE the 20 bucks which propelled his life and sent yours down the toilet. What does this remind you of?
Just because you didn't steal the dollars, doesn't mean YOU DON'T BENEFIT FROM THE STOLEN DOLLARS!
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Peace Samia,
This is exactly the point. The concept of Noah cursing Ham and all his descendants to be black-skinned people is a complete mistranslation, misinterpretation, and fabrication, prompted by "white people" who wanted to make their race superior. The claim that white people were the originals and "blackness" is a curse is totally unfounded... Now, it's unreasonable for us to say that black-skinned people started this myth - it's pretty obvious that "white people" did it. And they CONTINUE to do it. That's why nearly every orthodox Christian church in America depicts a white Jesus. Nearly every orthodox Islaamic mosque in the Middle East, America, and Europe depicts a white Muhammad. Nearly every orthodox Jewish synagogue (the ones that are allowed to post pictures, since many aren't) depicts a white Moses. These prophets look EUROPEAN, even though none of them were from Europe or had European ancestry. This is the "racist" aspect of religious dogma. Addressing the issue is NOT racist at all...
People often say that the color/race of the people and the prophets is UNIMPORTANT, but this is ridiculous. If it wasn't important, then they wouldn't display a picture at all. Instead,they do display a picture, and they display it with a pale-skinned, white face. But try walking into any religious establishment of the orthodox Abrahamic religions and paint pictures of black-skinned prophets, and the people will probably throw stones! You don't think it's strange that white people have attempted to "whitewash" every aspect of religion throughout the world? You don't think it's strange that they've built the biggest following in organized religion ("Christianity", turning BILLIONS of people away from the straight path of monotheism and convincing them to worship Jesus? Even in modern Islaam, white people have convinced over a BILLION people to idolize Muhammad and follow the hadiths and sunna in place of the Qur'aan. In Judaism, white people (especially Ashkenazi Jews) have convinced MILLIONS to discard the Torah, and instead, they should only follow the wisdom of the rabbis! This stuff doesn't sound alarming to you? Although some of them are believers, most of them are stern objectors to the truth. They sound alarmingly similar to another group mentioned in the Qur'aan, "al-jinn"...
Peace,
Ahmad
Good post
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And to be clear, I personally don't believe that anyone should feel guilty for having a certain socio-political privilege;
Exactly. It is those who grant them their unfair privileges who should feel guilty. All people should be treated equally. This means that there should be no White privilege, affirmative action and other evils that discriminate against people on the basis of immaterial things like race, gender, sexuality, etc.
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No it's just some white people fail to realize how slavery and years of oppression against groups of people have propelled them to where they are today and how much it is still affecting others. Noone is blaming you. A famous guy once said "White people just had a 400 year head start"
I don't know if the suffering of other groups of people can be blamed on the actions of White people of the past. My country Pakistan isn't a violent hellhole because of colonialism. White people don't make Pakistanis blow up hotels and Mosques and White colonialists didn't tell the retard Zulfiqar Bhutto to ruin Pakistan's economy by nationalizing all of Pakistan's industries.
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Perhaps White people are benefiting from the crimes of some White people of the past, but that still doesn't make it reasonable to expect them to feel guilty. Yes, they should do their best to undo the damage done by some White people of the past, but it'd be completely unjust and unreasonable to blame them for what some White people did in the past. Oh and I'm not White.
When in my post did I ever say white people should feel guilty? And I never concluded your white, I was just using an example. When did I ever blame white people today for the crimes that their ancestors did? Your putting words in my mouth
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Peace,
Here some stuff white people like http//stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/full-list-of-stuff-white-people-like/ yay
laugh
Here's one of my faves on a similar frequency
http//www.blackpeopleloveus.com/
It's totally satirical, but you wouldn't believe some of the reactions it gets.
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Exactly. It is those who grant them their unfair privileges who should feel guilty. All people should be treated equally. This means that there should be no White privilege, affirmative action and other evils that discriminate against people on the basis of immaterial things like race, gender, sexuality, etc.
The original motive and use of affirmative action in the U.S. is not to discriminate against others, but help the marginalized bust through glass ceilings that have been put in place by the privileged.....but whatever. This could go on for days, and everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and I accept that.
Anyhoo, I've got some doing to do, so I'll be bowing out now.
Ma'salaama,
T. -
The original motive and use of affirmative action in the U.S. is not to discriminate against others, but help the marginalized bust through glass ceilings that have been put in place by the privileged.....but whatever.
That might be the motive behind affirmative action, but motives and actions don't always correlate. Affirmative action is discrimination, period. True, it's the kind of discrimination that looks good and seems fair, but it's still ugly discrimination.
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That might be the motive behind affirmative action, but motives and actions don't always correlate. Affirmative action is discrimination, period. True, it's the kind of discrimination that looks good and seems fair, but it's still ugly discrimination.
I agree. It's not the best way to "help the marginalized burst through the glass ceilings."
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Peace,
Affirmative action isn't what a lot of us think it is.
Only .5% of the scholarship budget at most universities is devoted to affirmative action. Furthermore, for every student that gets in through affirmative action 2 other students will get in through "connections." The university I went to had maybe 100 Black students and 200 Hispanic students out of a total population of 20,000. The rest of the students were White, Asian, Indian, or Jewish. Our school offers affirmative action.
Furthermore, most students from disadvantaged backgrounds are forced to go through the worst public school systems where a lot of the classes that are required for college such as Algebra 2 or Calculus are not even available. I'm sure if these students had the chance to go to better public schools that only exist in nicer neighborhoods, or had the money to go private schools they would be able to score just as well as the rest of their more privileged peers. Keep in mind that affirmative action, at least in California, takes into account more than ethnicity. Family income, neighborhoods, and other factors are involved when a decision is based on affirmative action.
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Peace,
Affirmative action isn't what a lot of us think it is.
Only .5% of the scholarship budget at most universities is devoted to affirmative action. Furthermore, for every student that gets in through affirmative action 2 other students will get in through "connections." The university I went to had maybe 100 Black students and 200 Hispanic students out of a total population of 20,000. The rest of the students were White, Asian, Indian, or Jewish. Our school offers affirmative action.
Furthermore, most students from disadvantaged backgrounds are forced to go through the worst public school systems where a lot of the classes that are required for college such as Algebra 2 or Calculus are not even available. I'm sure if these students had the chance to go to better public schools that only exist in nicer neighborhoods, or had the money to go private schools they would be able to score just as well as the rest of their more privileged peers. Keep in mind that affirmative action, at least in California, takes into account more than ethnicity. Family income, neighborhoods, and other factors are involved when a decision is based on affirmative action.
So affirmative action is pretty much useless? I don't know how much money if any the government puts into it but they'd be better off spending it on other things.
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So affirmative action is pretty much useless? I don't know how much money if any the government puts into it but they'd be better off spending it on other things.
Peace, brother,
Kind of like the school programs "Head Start" followed up with "No Child Left Behind".
Someone screwed up.
Peace and blessings.
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Peace,
So affirmative action is pretty much useless? I don't know how much money if any the government puts into it but they'd be better off spending it on other things.
Lets just say the chances of any of us losing a seat to a "minority" student that is supposedly "dumber" than us, is incredibly tiny. Affirmative action receives such little funding that it is pretty much irrelevant (although a few universities have "larger" affirmative action programs, this is the exception not the norm). Money would be better spent fixing the broken public school system that currently exists in the United States. If you don't live in a decent neighborhood or have the money for private school, your screwed.
I also agree that this thread should be shut down.
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And even though only a tiny bit of money is spent on affirmative action, it's still completely wrong. Even a tiny bit of poison is bad so why take any of it?
Yes, it's completely wrong that some people get into universities through "connections", but one wrong doesn't justify another kind of wrong. I think the best ways to help the under-privileged are zakat (betterment) and to help increase their self-efficacy.