Irish White Privilege......Yeah

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121012752#Comment_121012752

No strawman; just asking the question. You can answer now if you want. I'm just curious, and of course acknowledge that it's easy to miss a point in the discussion

growleaves

Furthermore, one poster mentioned the historic centuries-long oppression of Irish Catholics under a Protestant theocracy on this island and instead of just gritting their teeth and saying "Yeah cool, good example" and slowly changing the subject to black slavery or Jim Crow or whatever our left-wing friends above couldn't even do that.

Instead the guy flips out:

'While Irish Catholics were discriminated against, black people were being rounded up, shipped to the other side of the world and sold as slaves to the highest bidder, and please don't give me any of this bullshit about the red legs and "we were treated worse than the blacks".'

Of course its outrage to mention the suffering of our own ancestors who were genocided, what about...American slavery, American segregrationism, American civil rights, American this and American that.

Like I said, importing your junk ideology from America sticks out like a sore thumb. Its embarassing. Can't you even come up with your own waffle instead of just copy-and-pasting it from the New York Times??

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121012861#Comment_121012861

"nor does admitting that white privilege is a thing diminishes the oppression that some Irish people suffered. Being white is an advantage, regardless of your accent or the particular way you choose to worship."

See this for me is the sort of baseless racism that this whole discussion inevitably provokes.

And it's nonsense. Which is why I think we're better off without this crap in schools (or even in an appendix of a proposal for mixing things up in future, if you prefer)

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013004#Comment_121013004

Do you think being white carries no advantage at all?

Unflushable Turd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013004#Comment_121013004

what are you on about, baseless racism?

gameoverdude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013132#Comment_121013132

Skin cancer...oh wait...

Unflushable Turd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013003#Comment_121013003

It isn’t an outrage to mention their suffering, it is irrelevant to the discussion.

If you go back in anyone’s history then you’ll find some form of oppression, it’s pretty much how the human species operated for the first few thousand years after it learnt how to scratch its own arse.

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013132#Comment_121013132

Not really. Ask people in Moldova, Ukraine or Abkhazia as I said earlier. Or ask a warehouse operative or long-distance driver whose wage is being kept low/hours kept high because his employers can go to Eastern Europe to recruit for cheap labour there. Or anyone in Ireland until maybe 30 years ago. They'd all laugh at you.

There's a suggestion earlier in thread that Deco from Ballyer (or whatever it was) doesn't benefit from white privilege but Fiachra from Dalkey does. This is silly stuff. It's seeing people who are doing well and judging them by their skin colour. That's just racist.

I think being wealthy carries privilege though. And anyone can be wealthy. That's far more an issue. Look at us destroying Eastern European communities through emigration for example, leaving them in demographic collapse and finding it hard to grow their economy because of the brain drain we generate. That's privilege, leading to exclusion and inequity. But we don't care about or talk about that of course.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121012989#Comment_121012989

i would happily agree that in certain contexts, women hold a privileged position. but in general? no.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013199#Comment_121013199

in the contexts you're quoting, race is moot. it's not about race, it's about nationality or economic status. jobs aren't being sent abroad because of race, they're being sent abroad because of lower costs.

TomTomTim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013199#Comment_121013199

Yeah, and the fact that stuff like this is more likely to be pushed by middle or upper class types is highly relevant too. Privileged people for the most part, who push an ideology that makes us all "privileged" due to our race, is a very convenient get out for people who have class based privilege.

gameoverdude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013263#Comment_121013263

Can we still blame the German's(only white male German's, of non Jewish lineage, or gay, or two vowels in their first name. Catholics grand? ) ?

I'm so confused with this thread!

Any statement that generalises an entire population based on their skin colour is by definition racist.

Racism:

the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another.

That's exactly what some on this thread are defending.

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013199#Comment_121013199

We're in Ireland and the thread is called Irish White Privilege. I don't care about Moldova, Ukraine or wherever else you want to throw in the mix at this moment in time.

Are you saying, In Ireland, being white carries no advantage at all?

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121012945#Comment_121012945

So you choose to argue against something not mentioned in the document or by anyone else in the document. It’s great when you can invent a version an opposing argument so you don’t have to address what was actually said

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013297#Comment_121013297

May God have mercy on my soul for asking - who is being racist and how?

gameoverdude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013297#Comment_121013297

Don't forget sexism.

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013003#Comment_121013003

Both injustices and their consequences can be discussed. Acknowledging one does not make the other any less valid. It’s like ye believe that if ye admit that an “other” experienced something that disadvantages them it automatically invalidates any challenges faced from what you perceive as you’re in group. It doesn’t.

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121012616#Comment_121012616

Did you notice the question marks?

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013297#Comment_121013297

But all that was being asked was for individuals, irrespective of their background, consider what privileges they may have had relative to a minority, be it race, sex, religion, disability, anything. It is only suggested for people to consider themselves and not identify a full group.

The privileges I have as a white Irish male are not very much influenced by my ethnicity. A white British male though, their society greatly benefitted from their treatment of colonial territories, including Ireland.

Gender, yes, even in the 90’s I had choices in what I could study in school that girls in the same school did not purely because of gender. That was a privilege and it benefited me in my chosen career.

I had a stable family and extended family. That was a privilege relative to some.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013440#Comment_121013440

You can claim that for yourself, that's fine.

But when people make sweeping statements about all white Irish people, that's when it becomes racist.

A more accurate position would be, "Some people identify as privileged in society, irrespective of their skin colour".

FishOnABike

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013132#Comment_121013132

Well..... living in northern latitudes, it makes me less prone to vitamin D deficiency without having to take vitamin supplements, even in our dull winters.

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013303#Comment_121013303

Not really. The famine, the Penal Laws, the Troubles, white Irish people being refugees in their own country (Mosney), brain drain, people now unable to afford houses? Lots of privilege there.

The argument for "Irish White Privilege" (now a combined thing and separate from white privilege and Irish privilege it seems) is a bit like the argument for God, I think. When something good happens, it's privilege or God looking out for you. When something bad happens - yeah, we'll quietly ignore that.

But God persists because it's an easy way to explain a complex world beyond some people's understanding. And now white Irish male (or, it seems, any mix thereof) privilege exists because it's similarly an easy way to explain a complex world beyond some people's understanding. I think there's possibly a correlation between the decline of God in western society and the rise of stuff like white privilege. Silly people need something they can understand, and whether it's right nor not isn't really important.

nachouser

A casual glance at threads started and post histories will tell you a lot about the reason for the thread. Just saying.

nullzero

So far we've seen that travellers (themselves white and Irish) have a different experience of Irish society to others.

We've also seen that rich white irish people really do have a demonstrably better time of it than virtually everyone else in the country, one or two of whom have shared that they feel extremely privileged on this thread, they have also made the assumption that their privilege is based on their nationality and skin tone and therefor all people with the same skin colour as them in this country are also privileged in the same way as they are even if they are say, destitute and possibly addicts or any number of things, once you're white and Irish, and even more so if you're a man, you are by default, extremely privileged.

This is of course codswallop.

If you're from an affluent background and feel some guilt for having had such a privileged life, don't project it onto others by virtue of genetics and nationality.

We can rattle off all sorts of historical events and hardships that contextualise the insanity of this ideology but one pertinent question remains; even in the time when there was precious little in terms of ethnic diversity in Ireland, was Irish society ever completely equal? The answer is obviously no, which means there have always been privileged people in Ireland as well as disadvantaged people, and even today the majority of disadvantaged people in Ireland remain white Irish people.

These facts don't give us leave to discriminate against people of differing ethnicities it just makes a mockery of the notion of white Irish privilege.

We also have to acknowledge that a lot of people from outside Ireland who now live here are likely reasonably affluent themselves as Ireland is not a cheap place to choose to live and work in. Also, we don't have a massive problem with groups who target people on the basis of their nationality or ethnicity (a recent report demonstrated how numbers of anti immigration protests have fallen sharply for example), so Ireland isn't a bad place for people from outside Ireland to choose to live at all and there certainly aren't massive disadvantages for non white Irish people in our society.

magicbastarder

even if i was to take your post at face value - which i don't, certainly not all of it - are you arguing that this concept of 'allyship' (a word which i have yet to come to like) should not be taught? that kids shouldn't be taught to be aware of situations where they're in a position to help others?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121014185#Comment_121014185

"Allyship" is a socio-political term.

People should be taught to respect one another, period. But we don't need to foist socio-political terms like "ally", and even worse, "allyship", to reinforce that point (what a stupid word, by the way).

Nobody is saying people shouldn't help others. What we're saying is that politics needs to stay the hell away from that teaching.

sameoldname

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121014205#Comment_121014205

You're going to be really upset when you find out that not only does the government teach people to help each other, it actively practices it by taking your taxes and uses it to better the lives of others less well off than yourself. I know, I know... you might need to lie down.

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121005273#Comment_121005273

Travellers are shown incredible tolerance considering how awful they behave, most indulged group in the land

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121005322#Comment_121005322

It’s a form of woke original sin, teaching Irish children about “ white privilege” is no different to the Catholic Church of old instilling guilt back in the day

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013303#Comment_121013303

Our corporation tax rate carries an advantage, do you want to teach kids about that ?

why is it necessary to even characterise a large group of people as “ privileged “ ?

even we had a history identical to say Switzerland ( wealthy a long time), I would vehemently oppose this kind of Neo Marxist mind poison being inflicted on children

nachouser

This is the best bingo thread ever. I thought the rte thread was good, but this beats it. Good stuff, lads.

charlie_says

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058310097/irish-white-privilege-yeah

It's just anti white racism. It's all over the place tbh

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121013761#Comment_121013761

Where is “white Irish privilege”a combined thing other than those complaining about it?

More creation of imaginary arguments

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121014570#Comment_121014570

Where is the proposal to teach Irish children about white privilege? Because the actual proposal is for all students taking the course, irrespective of background, as part of inclusion,to consider how they may have benefited from a privilege that a minority, any minority, may not have. That is all.

The course teaching Irish children about white male privilege is an invention out of the fevered imaginations of those in this thread.

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121011786#Comment_121011786

Fiachra and Dekko walk into Hanlons pub. Both shout across the pub at the bar man to stick a pint on for them. We all know what happens next.

Who benefits from their privilege there?

Harping on about "white privilege" is just a way to be a racist knob and get away with it.

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121012978#Comment_121012978

I imagine, a black man would completely agree with that sentence

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121014933#Comment_121014933

if people adopt a group identity it becomes debilitating, it psychologically damaging and unproductive, you can only live one's life as an individual, not a group average.

elefant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121014917#Comment_121014917

Having privilege in one area doesn't mean that absolutely everything is better for you. This is a wildly simplistic understanding of the concept (although, in this example I'm not sure where 'white privilege' comes into play).

If you mean that Fiachra is a Irish guy from a privileged background and Dekko isn't - Fiachra might have less trouble getting into bars and nightclubs because of the way he speaks and the way he dresses. So if he is friends with Dekko, it would probably be a nice thing for him to be aware of if they're chatting about their experiences with bouncers in Ireland.

Just because they can both get served a pint in similar time doesn't mean that the idea of 'privilege' existing is nonsense.

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121014867#Comment_121014867

Either way it’s about instilling the idea that Irish kids have an advantage over kids from other cultures and nations, that serves no healthy purpose, the politicisation of education must be vehemently opposed , the militant progressives espousing this are todays Maos red guards

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121014917#Comment_121014917

Who is harping on about white privilege other than the folks on this thread telling us everyone is harping on about white privilege?

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121015026#Comment_121015026

Quit gas lighting, we see you

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121015025#Comment_121015025

Did you actually read it or did you just take the rants on this threat face value.

It can be any privilege that potentially conferred advantage - socio-economic background, education, disability etc etc. It only in the misconceptions continuously expressed through this thread that the focus on ethnicity.

blueskys

Privilege comes from class, not skin colour. To be fair the glossary should replace 'white' with 'middle/upper class' or 'privately educated'.

But they won't do that. Class is what nobody mentions in Ireland.

tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121015041#Comment_121015041

I oppose any and all concepts of privilege being taught in schools , as I said , it serves no healthy purpose, it instills either feelings of guilt or envy , education should not be politicised

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121014997#Comment_121014997

Whooosh!

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121015056#Comment_121015056

ITs the new Catholicism.

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121015056#Comment_121015056

It’s not being taught in schools. It is simply asking students to consider what advantages, if any, they may have had, when considering inclusion of a minority, any minority. That is all. The rest of it is intentions that have been projected onto a single worked by dozens of posters at this stage. A classic straw man. And the continual claims that anyone who has not wiped themselves into a frenzy are claiming “white privilege” is pure gaslighting, to use your own term.

It must be great when you can create an alternate version of what you are arguing against. Eliminates any need to actually form a coherent vioewpoint.

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121015074#Comment_121015074

Another completely inventing something that doesn’t exist by taking a single word out of context. It’s bizarre behaviour

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121015084#Comment_121015084

A lot of this conversation is going over your head isnt it.