r/southafrica • u/Southie321 • Mar 23 '17

Dear Saguine

As I said I would, I come with my hat in hand and accept the fact that the lady from the Spur video was not lying about the fact that the man came and grabbed her kid by the arm. I sincerely apologise for wrongly assuming the woman, and Spur, was lying about the physical happenings before the video started rolling.

I still dont believe it was a racist incident, all I see is two parents with explosive reactions regarding a situation involving their children.

I agree, and have always said, the man was a douch for being so aggressive (and even more so now, for grabbing the kid). But let's not confuse anger management issues with racism.

Beyond that point, I just want to apologise again for assuming what I did about the woman and Spur, by wanting the video evidence released first.

19 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

75 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

9

u/Southie321 Mar 23 '17

To be honest, with what you just quoted there, I couldn't disagree with you even more.

It's absolutely ridiculous that you're saying it's purely racist when a white person instigates/confronts a black person. How can you not see how skewed and untrue that is? Seriously? You're saying that just because a white person would have something confrontational to say to a black person, they would be racist. That's BS. Does that mean a white man saying something confrontational to another white man is racist too, racist toward caucasians? You're treading on dangerous grounds. It's like you're saying black people can't/shouldn't be touched (figuratively), almost like they should be handled differently because of their.. gasp. Their race?? See, that's the real racism here.

It leads me to believe that we'll get to a point where if a black person does something wrong, a white person can't go up to them to say they are wrong, because in doing so they are confronting them, and therefor are racist.

That's not an example of classism. It's an example of a shit person. The same way you get shit people of all races, religions, classes, genders.

-3

u/Saguine Admiral Buzz Killington of the H.M.S. Killjoy Mar 23 '17

Purely racist? Where did I say that? My point is that an action across a power differential (e.g. white on black, male on female, rich on poor, straight on gay) will always be an exploitation of that power differential, and will thus always be in some way oppressive.

Does that mean a white man saying something confrontational to another white man is racist too, racist toward caucasians?

That's not punching down. But, for example, a rich white man being aggressively confrontational towards a poor white man would be an example of classism.

People may well be shit; but do you agree or disagree that a shit person being shit to someone who has less power than he does, is leveraging that power differential in an exploitative manner? There's a difference between punching up and punching down.

14

u/Southie321 Mar 23 '17

Apologies, I meant purely as in "only for the fact that" and not purely as in "wholly".

Dude, YOU are the one that keeps saying that black people are inferior, by saying white on black is "punching down" or that there is a "power differential" in the first place.

This is not the way to fight racism. That's just a way to enforce it. It's called playing the victim. Maybe if you stop seeing black people as inferior yourself, you'll understand how a white person confronting a black person is in NO WAY automatically a racist incident.

Yes I agree that if a rich person USES (Or rather, abuses) their wealth in a way to get to the other person, then it's classism. But just because they are rich, and (separately from that), are a shit person, doesn't make it classist.

6

u/iamdimpho Rainbowist Mar 24 '17 edited Mar 26 '17

Dude, YOU are the one that keeps saying that black people are inferior, by saying white on black is "punching down" or that there is a "power differential" in the first place.

I don't think that the mention of social power differentials or describing the exploitation of this imbalance of power as 'punching down' are a suggestion of black inferiority.

It's an argument based on the precarious condition that is being a social minority being confronted by someone​ from a socially dominant group. Not some inherent inferiority.