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If you are not a fan of Douglas Murray (I'm not) yet you are open-minded enough (I am) to read this article... I think that he has a fair point about privilege. Any thought?

[unherd.com]

The emerging ethic of this age tells people that they must scour the world looking for grievances to hold up; to locate power or privilege and destroy it or disperse it. But the world being what it is, and human beings being what we are, there will always be a profound number of grievances that we could find and point to. They might be said to be structural, personal, political, familial and much more. Some are just down to luck — health, wealth or good looks, and anyone who doesn’t think the latter a privilege needs to ‘educate themselves’, to use another sinister phrase of the age.

Sometimes there are injustices that we cannot allow to continue and that we can do something about — such as the treatment of some group of people as second-class citizens. But the privilege discussion now implies that once any privilege is identified it must be campaigned against and ‘dismantled’ until the playing field can be said to be levelled.

There is another solution, or at least approach, to problems that are endemic and unfair, but not oppressive. That is to try to reconcile ourselves to the world around us. To find our own attitudes towards, and ways around, inequities and inequalities that may be endemic but are also unfixable. The alternative is, at best, endless unhappiness, and at worst, something far more dangerous and divisive.

Jetty 7 June 19
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I read the post and thought it to be blaming the victim, calling people animals, 'the herd'.
it reminds me of 'political correctness', something that held egoists to account, therefore needing to be discredited and rubbished out of existence.

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At heart, humans are animals and operate on a hierarchical basis. Just as hens get into a pecking fight to establish their superiority (hence pecking order), we have a variety of -isms, etc.that we attack, and discriminate against, or we base a ability on a person's physical appearance, or weight. height, deformities, disability, the list is almost endless.

This happens in life and in the workplace, and it is sufficient to hold them back throughout their lives. One can be held back because you are assumed to be of a higher class, and therefore have greater privilege. It is sufficient, in the UK, to be assumed to be middle class simply for being well-educated, well-dressed, and well-spoken, and you can be held back in certain jobs, especially where managers feel threatened by it and fear that you may soon compete against them for jobs. Advancing up the through the class system, and getting promoted up the work ladder is, more by lack than through ability, and that is irrespective of colour.

Despite the UK not having had the same number of slaves as the US, nor anywhere near the number of Black citizens, they have taken advantage of events in the US to claim that they suffer in the same way. It never has been, and the race card has been dealt too often, in the UK, for it to have much meaning.

Claims of police harassment fail not because of the police being racist, but because dealing in drugs, or carrying knives is illegal. As for violence, they are faced with the same as everyone else in the UK. Yes, it is heavy-handed, and people have died (both white and black in equal numbers), but it is an obscenity to claim only blacks have suffered at the hands of the police. The reality is that blacks will be the likely killer of another black, yet there is no black outcry over this.

Many blacks leave school without a proper education, not because of racism, but because they misbehave regularly and used to be suspended from school. When schools were stopped from banning disruptive pupils, the many black pupils chose to misbehave and disrupt classes, spoiling the efforts of others to get a good education. Eventually, they had to be given classes of their own because they were ruining the prospects of others.

It is not surprising, then, that these school tearaways end up in menial jobs, because they haven't got the qualifications f tor something more skilled, and better paid. Their failure to get a proper education is what holds them back in life, but blaming it upon discrimination is far easier, and it salves their ego.

The lyrics in their choice of music seems to then inform their future lives, which often revolves around drugs selling for a minority. This then results in them coming to the notice of the police, from which point they will claim harassment, regardless of the cocaine wraps in their pocket. The same applies to their turf wars with rival drugs gangs. Except their records are now marked to showed that they carry weapons.

This mens that, if police are tracking them, they will send in armed police officers to tackle them if they get caught committing an offence, with the far greater potential for shots to be fired, and an increased possibility of a fatality.

One of the biggest multi-cultural events in London is the Notting Hill carnival. Every year it is marred by pickpockets, drugs dealers selling on the street and gang fights, and the criminals are, again, mainly black.

The trouble is that the police have been deliberately turning the service into a paramilitary force, probably because they had a desire to join the Armed Forces, but weren't able to face basic training. Giving guns to those without a military discipline is dangerous, because the gun will not be the weapon of last resort; fear will see it being used first.

What is really needed are skills in de-escalating tensions and the removal of weapons from the streets. This will probably never happen, because the arms industries are to big and powerful to break and they will twist the meaning of the right to bear arms. It's obvious that the intent was that individuals bought and kept weapons because it was not only cheaper than the government having to buy them and pay for their storage, but these individuals would form the government's militia,

It was not the intent that these arms should be used for self-defence, expect when specifically approved, but to provide a reserve stockpile ready to hand. Nowadays, there is an army for defence, there is no need for militia, to defend the country, and so the right to bear arms has become redundant and unnecessary. So, unless the American Armed Forces are incapable of fighting off the Mexican, or South American, counterparts, it is highly unlikely that a militia will e need to be formed to defend American soil.

In short, life is unfair. It is unfair for the great majority because they will never be able to advance to their fullest potential, not when those in power and wealthy positions keep them down. That unfairness does not discriminate based upon colour.

Magister Level 6 June 20, 2020

@Jetty Thank you for that, Ralph. It wasn't meant to be an exact like-for-like equation; the scale of American slavery and the racial composition of America means that the issue there is quite unique. I don't accept that nothing can be learned from my point of view, just as I would never claim to have an answer.
What do you find offensive, 'and crassly propagandistic (sic)'.

Actually, it is crass to write-off the police as brutal racists, when it is obvious that the vast majority aren't, they are professional officers doing a difficult job and many are as sick of unnecessary force as anyone else, but there are complexities that mean it is not quite so straightforward as reporting it. They still have to work with them, and they may have to rely upon them to save their life one day.

I find it offensive that you ignore the white slave trade, and you completely ignore the fact that the African slave trade was started by Africans and Arabs and they were trafficking slaves for centuries before the Western civilisations.

As for racism, it's a good job that I didn't mention the racism that the Irish have traditionally faced, and still do, because no-one ever wants to talk about white racism.

@Jetty Exactly. It was an entire country affected by it, and some were sent to work on sugar plantations. In the UK, boarding houses had signs reading: 'no blacks, no Irish, no dogs', and whenever the IRA set off a bomb, the Irish were subjected to Physical and verbal abuse.

Black Americans would discriminate against the Irish, and even now they are subjected to racist abuse. You just have to look at the racist rant by hip-hop singer Azealia Banks who, amongst other racist things, said that they were: "a bunch of prideful inbred leprechauns who have zero global influence and zero white privilege".

She also said that they had: "defective genes" and Don't you all have a famine to go die in?"** This is nothing less than hate speech and racism of the worst kind. Yet if you challenge them about their racism, you are promoted to being a white supremacist. Certain black activists are trying to whitewash American history by denying that it existed. The ugly truth is that there are plenty of black racists too.

@Jetty It's a great pity that Azealia Banks doesn't follow your example, but I don't suppose that intelligence is at all featured in the requirements to be a hip hop artiste.

@Jetty I am sure that there's nothing wrong with your intelligence, your posts allude to your brightness. No, some were slaves - deported from Ireland for their real, or imagined crime, and treated as slaves.

It is also worth mentioning that some slave masters were black. Slavery is terrible and the worst of it is that it is happening today to black, brown and yellow people all over the world, but particularly in the Middle East and the African continent.

Instead of protesting about historical events, people, of all colours, should be taking action to stop it happening today.

@Jetty The feeling is mutual. It has been a refreshing change to dare to speak the truth, openly, rather than tiptoeing around the subject.

I'm sure we'll be hatting about some other subject in the not too distant future. You've got my respect. Take care too.

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I am a massive fan of Douglas Murray. I find he argues all of his view very well.

HannaYou Level 6 June 20, 2020
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"I think that he has a fair point about privilege."

What fair point about privledge do you think he presents?

@Jetty oh... Of course that's true but not the only avenue to gain privledge... That's the easiest way ...

@Jetty i read what you wrote in your post
..is that not the whole article?

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I think there is too much emphasis on injustices being "unfixable." There are many problems such as racism and wealth inequality for which fixes haven't been tried or have been abandoned such as civil rights and voting rights.

Theresa_N Level 8 June 19, 2020
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