People really don’t understand these slogans. For example, we can look at “Black Lives Matter.” It was just a poetic way to say “black lives should matter.” The problem with replying with “all lives matter” is that they don’t all matter. (Especially in American society LGBT and Native tribes don’t always do so well either.) Which is the problem in the first place. These people are denying the issues.
Exactly. “Black Live Matter” is a statement of imperative, as in “look at these people you have been ignoring”, while “All Lives Matter” is saying “there is no problem, everything is fine”.
I don’t think that is what it is saying at all. I think that is what some people saying it want to pervert it into out of bigotry. To me it is obvious that when a disenfranchised demographic is disproportionately affected by violence and persecution, that demographic needs to have its collective voice heard and bring attention to an unfair societal imbalance.
Fundamentally there is nothing in a humanistic argument that would diminish that, just for the record, regardless whether some use it as a rhetorical device to spread hate. As a humanist there is no question to align oneself with Black Lives Matter, because everyone needs to and have the right to have their voices and grievances heard, especially when they cry out in unison and in pain. Everyone.
People have no idea how if feels for kids to be made to feel as they don’t belong or that there is something wrong with them. It infuriates me that schools can’t teach inclusivity due to terrorist groups like Moms for Liberty.
But why should rejecting shame automatically turn into pride? I’m not “proud” of every part of me that I’m not ashamed of.
Plus, it’s weird how the things are seen differently. “Queer pride” is usually seen as “sticking it to the homo/transphobes”, while someone saying they’re “proud of being cishet” sounds like they just hate LGBT people (and I mean, that’s probably correct). Why isn’t “proud of being gay” seen with the same acception?
They are proud in order to fight the shame that conservatives constantly tell them they should feel for existing. It’s a tool for empowerment and fighting back against oppression.
“Let’s get there and then decide” is usually not a good way to tackle issues… but I guess it’s not up to us anyway to decide, unfortunately it looks like it’s going to take a long time before that becomes reality.
This is not an issue and it’s not one that needs tackling. It’s literally bored Lemmings taking an argument to the extreme for the sake of being argumentative.
That is a hypothetical so far removed from any semblance of reality that it doesn’t even merit discussion.
Might as well ask “well if we were all made of purple goo would we have anything to fight about?” It’s fucking nonsense. Human nature dictates that a majority will always oppress a minority, even when it’s not intentional. It’s selective pressure, pure and simple. If you have a population that’s ⅔ one kind and ⅓ another, the society will naturally trend to cater to the ⅔ more than the ⅓, and it doesn’t take much thinking to understand why. And even if the smaller group grows to reach numerical equity, their historical disadvantage will stay with them for many, many generations, putting everyone born into that historical minority at a disadvantage from birth.
That’s called systemic inequality, and it is real and pervasive in human societies. It’s built into the system and will never go away, so we will ALWAYS have to also create ways to alleviate it.
Human nature dictates that a majority will always oppress a minority, even when it’s not intentional. It’s selective pressure, pure and simple.
That’s not true at all. Left-handed people are a minority. Blond people are a minority. People over 2 meters are a minority. But none of those minorities are currently “oppressed” because of that.
Society catering more to the majority doesn’t mean the minority has to be oppressed. Very tall people have a lot of issues because architecture, clothing and everything else is tailored mainly to people with an average height, but try saying tall people are “oppressed” and see how many agree.
The oppression we see now is because people feel the moral superiority in “being normal”, and everything else is different, weird and therefore wrong. But just like left-handed people stopped being considered spawns of Satan in all of civilized society, we can get to that point for homosexuality too.
Saying a world where LGBT people aren’t oppressed is as likely as a world where “we’re all made of purple goo” honestly feels offensive to the effort activists have been making for all these decades.
Pride as a reaction to shame is pretty unhealthy, from a mental health perspective. There are people trying to shame everyone for everything. Don’t be fat, don’t be thin, don’t be pretty, don’t be ugly. If everyone was distractingly screaming about their pride for everything they feel ashamed of the world would be obnoxious.
I think pride as a movement made sense when everything queer was a hidden subculture.
I feel like that’s past us. There are LGBT pro-hamas groups now. I think we’ve hit peak queer when there are queer activists for groups that would hang them.
Weird, no person of color ever told me to be ashamed of what my ancestors did. Do you think maybe you might have said something offensive that prompted such a response?
A bully saying mean things to you is different from the school administration discriminating against your whole race. Except in this case the bully is a handful of people and the school is the government in the past.
If you can’t see the difference, you might be blind.
Anyone that claims to be proud of being white or straight is doing it in opposition of black pride, or queer pride, etc. It might as well be the same as the all lives matter outrage.
Because that’s a logical flaw. “If black people and white people deserve the same rights, and black people can be proud of being black, why can’t white people be proud of being white?”
The difference between normal people and racists is that normal people might think of it as weird, but don’t talk about it because they don’t really care about “white pride”, while racists openly declare it and use the “fallacy” to stir the pot.
I can’t believe I’m being downvoted on Lemmy of all places for thinking “white pride” is bad and and the alternatives aren’t. I don’t even have a rebuttal, I’m just flabbergasted.
I’m being charitable and chalking it up to people with 0 social awareness or life experience who don’t realize how much they are enabling the real bigots.
Maybe some healthy open discussion would do us some good then, instead of barricading oneself behind semantic barbed wire in fear of having ones beliefs challenged.
Short answer - because the original events were called “Pride” and other events that followed that model and style can literally trace the name to two organizers of the original event, Brenda Howard and Robert A. Martin.
Long answer…
What is important to remember about Pride is it is specific. Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual liberation marches pre-date Prides but they were more like a conventional protest and they were poorly attended because you had to expect police violence. They were dour, focused primarily on the pain and hardship of oppression. It was mostly people dressed to look respectable marching with signs to appeal to the cis/hetro masses in a “hey look we’re actually just like you!” kind of way.
“Pride” was different. They organized the first event around the concept of Independence day style activities. It was supposed to have the feel of an emancipation celebration and was originally intended to become a National day of observance of the five days of Riots at Stonewall, something that a lot of queer people decided to rally around as essentially the literal fight for independence of queer culture in the US. Shortly thereafter a lot of cultural aspects of Queer community done for fun that actually create a culture like Ballroom culture, Drag performance, dance, theater, caberet, burlesque, various bizzare kink related specialities were spotlighted. Pride took all that stuff that was happening in the shadows and turned it into a public festival. In part it was intended as a “fuck you we are not afraid and there is more of us than you think” but it also gave the public a look at the spectacle of open queer joy. That it was fun and weird meant it became a proper festival. It spread and other events that followed that format also became “Prides”. Over time other communities and sub groups within the growing coalition came to define their own means to celebrate together and also came to call then things like “Trans Pride”.
So at least in part the “Pride” portion is a historical naming convention for a very specific style of event and festival with a tracable history. It is helpful to understand that “Pride” has a secondary and silent implication of Pride Event "Woo Happy Pride! " is at some point like wishing someone Happy Christmas. “Proud” is in part an event theme that euphemizes that original “fuck you, our culture is valid and we won’t be shamed out of the public eye.”
Someone going on about “cis pride” is at some point basically just trying to carbon copy a format of protest made for a specific purpose while entirely misunderstanding the original usage. Some argue they don’t really need a specific public culture festival or a protest because they are the dominant culture. They get their culture fest from national and religious tinted celebrations and they are accepted as a norm so the protest element is unnecessary. It more comes across more as someone who just doesn’t like how queer people have claimed a slice of public space and want to have yet another party to celebrate themselves. It’s like throwing an Independence day style celebration but when there is no commemorative event at it’s core and no independence that needed to be fought for at all.
Yeah, I guess there’s a huge distinction between pride as an emotion and Pride as an event at this point. Maybe that’s also why it’s seen with a very different meaning, I don’t think “””cis pride””” ever had an event, and if it did it was probably just a gathering of transphobes chanting slurs.
Straight prides… Have existed… and you are correct that the theme of straight prides were more about creating a narrative about how cis hegemony is unfairly under attack by the LGBTQIA making them in effect anti queer bigotry parades driven more by spite than anything. The organizers of such events have had traditionally firm links to the alt right.
The end effect of the Boston straight pride event was like an empty parody of a Pride event that just looks like an American Independance day celebration with a bunch of people wearing jeans and t-shirts waving American flags with a bunch of signs saying stuff like “Remember who gave birth to you” and a bunch of Trump related signage making it kind of vaguely indistinguishable from any other conservative rally.
The fact that when given a chance to organize a straight pride parade it just tends to take on the nationalist symbols of the country it is performed in kind of demonstrates that maybe there isn’t a whole lot of point to the event celebrating straight culture as the participants can’t really identify what is unique about being straight themselves because you are just supposed to assume it as a default…
Oh. I looked up “cis pride” and found nothing so I assumed that was it.
Then yeah, that just reinforces your last comment. I still think the difference in treatment feels unfair, but I can’t really blame it when LGBT people take these occasions to show off their best side and straight ones show their worst instead. I guess it’s a conversation for a different century (when hopefully we all learned not to ridicule people different from us).
I mean Prides are still open to cis and hetero folk in the same way like a Italian culture festival is open to non-Italians. The key component is that queerness has a culture with it’s own traditions, history, art, coded language and etticate in much the same way an ethnicity does the only difference is that it is not passed along by virtue of birth. The nature of Prides as being in opposition to generational suppression and genocide just makes them a bit louder and in your face.
That’s because of the current situation though. People who say it now are like that, so “normal people” don’t say it because it would automatically mean being grouped with them. So only people who don’t care about being labeled as homo/transphobic keep saying that and the “stereotype” reinforces itself.
Or rather, as I said in my first comment, I don’t get why should anyone say they’re proud of being cishet, same as for being proud of the opposite. But we don’t think people in a gay pride parade are being “heterophobic”, it’s seen as a normal thing (by most reasonable people, I mean).
If we look at current society I get the difference in treatment, but from a neutral point of view it’s weird that virtually the same expression, just with sexualities swapped, is seen as either empowering or discriminating.
I still don’t see why something that rightly stopped being a source of shame should turn into a source of pride.
The circumstances of hetero and non-hetero people are vastly different and that’s obvious, but that doesn’t mean they should be “proud” of that. Saying you’re proud of something doesn’t make the people who discriminate you for it disappear.
Except it hasn’t. Huge swathes of American society is still incredibly homophobic. Kids are shamed by their parents. Kids are kicked out by their parents. Meanwhile, we have groups like Moms for Liberty that want to send gay people back into the closet.
Half the country is trying to make being LGBT a source of shame. That you don’t even see that is shameful in and of itself.
Given the amount of people that seem to base their whole personality exclusively using this list, it will be a long while before we can move away from these as a collective.
Overtly stating anything about your identity is one of the dumbest and most boring things.
I don’t care how you identify. It doesn’t tell me anything about you, and it doesn’t tell me anything about the thing. And generally, it’s considered rude to talk about a person’s identity.
You’d be better off telling me something you’re interested in.
John Doe (likes trains)
There are two kinds of people… No wait, three kinds of people that care.
people who are emotionally fragile, mentally ill, or otherwise can’t handle literally any friction of any kind in any of their interactions.
people who are excessively polite, virtue signaling, it SJWs. These people don’t care for themselves but they care SO MUCH because they think it makes to OTHER people.
people who are afraid of complaints or legal action (business, public figures, etc)
I can count on one hand the number of times identity has mattered in a human interaction I’ve had.
The amount of energy we waste of identity is fucking absurd considering the literal zero value or brings to the world.
You don’t care. LGBT people are not necessarily prideful because of you. They’re prideful because of the half of America that wants them oppressed, imprisoned or dead because of who they are.
If that’s not you, they’re not talking about you, but they are still facing a lot of homophobic people. Until that ends, pride is the correct reaction to those people.
Sometimes there’s basis for patriotic pride. As a specific example, I live next to Russia, in a free country that respects LGBT rights. I know for a fact that those rights would be completely eroded if Russia conquered us. Therefore it makes sense to take some pride in my country and the armed forces of my country who are strongly discouraging that from happening.
So your pride is defending what you find is right, and your nation happens to be aligned with it currently. If your nation became homophobic, you wouldn’t follow it, would you?
When people talk about “LGBT Pride”, they’re not talking about the “a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements” definition, they’re talking about the “confidence and self-respect as expressed by members of a group, typically one that has been socially marginalized” definition.
It’s almost like words can have more than one meaning.
I would argue otherwise. Prides have always had a political aspect and part of that was a way to get a sense of numbers. Suppression of LGBTQ identities by early “support” groups encouraged narratives of it being rare, that it is natural to be lonely and shut away without a community. If you are small as a minority you tend to be meek and hide. Gay hook up spots were designed to hide people so true numbers were often impossible to have any notion of how many people were actually there. Some were just utterly flabbergasted by the numbers when police raids caused everyone to flee at once… But the news the next morning would make it sound like there was only a handful.
Consolidation and visibility, the understanding of strength in numbers has always been a factor of Pride. So to has been education and safety campaigns. While it has been a place to acknowledge the dead and bring hope to those who are afraid to be out it is absolutely for those at the festivities itself too.
I think of Pride as an acceptance of your sexuality, whatever it may be. The pride in question is a self esteem that comes from being comfortable in who you are.
Well when they have different meanings for everyone then what good are they? I often feel like when you point out things like the OP here, there’s a moving of the goal posts, or no true Scotsman-ing, what goes for one doesn’t go for the other. It’s an interesting question, why is it ok to be proud of your sexuality, which you have no control over, but not be ok to be proud of your color of skin, which you also have no control over?
Just redefining terms ad hoc depending on which side one happens to identify with makes the whole conversation suspect.
The last point could be argued, most people say/mean “proud of being their friend/brother/whatever”, and having mutual esteem with someone does take a degree of agency. It’s obviously moot if you have family ties with them but they hate you, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen people being proud of achievements of people who hate them.
The rest I agree, it feels weird unnecessary tribalism most of the time.
A bit of stretch but this why I don’t like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_designation_of_origin. It is supposed to guarantee quality, but why wouldn’t someone be able to make the same quality of cheese given the same cows and quality process anywhere else? It seems to be some kind of weird territorialist pride.
It’s a matter of economics and quality over time. These regions have chosen to tool up for making foods and commodities that are essential to the Euro Zone and arguably the world.
If they go out of business, the quality and availability of the product overall will certainly suffer. And it may not be so extreme as going out of business; if they miss out on a capital investment because some investor sees potential in a competitor making a product elsewhere, maybe it’s death by a thousand cuts.
So we protect their brands. Yes, it is technically anti-competitive, for the greater good. And at the very least, for the good of the Euro Zone.
If it wasn’t for the unfair advantage of the PDO, maybe other regions would be tempted to tool up too, which could encourage quality and/or optimizations that would reduce the price, that could benefit the people too.
It doesn’t seem fair for the people who weren’t born in one of those privileged regions which were given many PDOs. It reminds me of feudal birth rights in some way.
I’m not sure, it is for the greater good of everyone eventually.
Also, some PDOs are captured by industrial groups who keep buying the little producers who made the PDO, and it protects them from competitors. This articles translated from French describes the situation in France: https://www-lafranceagricole-fr.translate.goog/a-la-une/article/759488/contrls-par-les-gants?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
why wouldn’t someone be able to make the same quality of cheese given the same cows and quality process anywhere else?
They would, but the opposite wouldn’t be possible because of regulations. I feel like it’s more of a “this product has been made in a place which enforces good practices, so you can be sure it’s healthy (to a degree)”. It’s kind of like originals and bootlegs, bootlegs could be as good as good originals, but originals will never be as bad as bad bootlegs.
It’s not just for quality, but for authenticity too, I think.
Foods that are fermented or aged can take on a unique flavor profile, based on the unique blend of bacteria and mold and yeast in the area. Even using the same milk from the same cows and processing it the same way, cheese that is naturally aged in a cave in France might taste different from cheese that’s aged in a cave in West Virginia. Not necessarily better or worse, quality-wise, but different. Not authentic.
Weather patterns, seasonal changes, and soil conditions are also distinct and varied in different places. The same grapes grow differently in German soil than they do in Kansas. The grass that the cows eat grows differently in different places, and this can have a significant impact on the flavors of the milk and cheese.
I’m American, but I used to work in a fancy wine store that sold a lot of imported cheese and groceries. I imagine that in practice, PDO must seem like an annoying mix of over-regulation and jingoistic propaganda – especially to someone in Europe. But it does seem to serve a purpose, even if in an overbearing way.
I think being proud of local food culture is more like community spirit or neighborhood pride. It’s like saying, “here’s something ingeniously delicious we created using only our limited local resources.” I don’t think of that quite the same way as “pride” about race, gender, sexuality.
Pretty sure they could sell the bacteria/mold and produce the same climate conditions in controlled room. I’m not against quality labels, I just don’t like the territorial aspect of it. I think authenticity is a bias based on public image and imagination.
In the abstract, yes, but when a group of people is oppressed because of one of those identifiers, it stops just being a born trait. It also identifies that you’re oppressed. Celebrating who you are with regards to that kind of trait (sexuality, sex, race, etc) isn’t a celebration of being born a certain way. It’s a celebration of self acceptance, and an act of rebellion.
You aren’t proud of what you were born with, you’re proud of what you were born with, because some people have tried to punish you for that what.
We can add college in there. Choice of college means next to nothing about someone’s intellect and personality. Usually it’s just rich and/or “legacy” people getting into the prestigious schools. They are almost always pushed into it, or convinced into it by others.
I don’t get it. Why would one be? The whole point of pride is to in some sense feel and experience joy over the things that we like about ourselves or that stand out in a positive way. But maybe I’m missing something.
With whites you definitely have a point, but it’s a little different when whites have at various times in history attempted to erase your culture in numerous ways, including outlawing your language, clothing, music, dance, martial arts, traditional healing systems, religious beliefs, hair styles, etc, while converting you to what they believe to be valid and acceptable.
That’s being proud of your culture though, not your race. Culture is something you willingly engage in, and you definitely have the right to be proud of it (and that includes Italian culture, Greek culture and all other types of white culture as well).
But race? Saying “I’m proud of being black” means nothing when American black people and African black people barely have anything in common that isn’t the color of their skin.
Culture is very much tied to race and where those people came from. It still happens now. It should be obvious without explanation. It’s not at all difficult to find stories about black students sent home from school because their hair is “not ok.”
True that. Candice Ownens is the perfect example of a racist POC disowning their entire culture to not be associated with anyone but white Republicans. She’s culturally white and it’s a choice.
It’s tied but it’s different. A lot of third+ generation immigrants have the same customs as locals, and you wouldn’t tell them apart if not for physical traits, for example.
It’s also weird how stuff that used to be shamed about turned to reasons of pride. We (as in, non-racist people) realized shaming people for their hair is stupid, why would being proud of it not be just as stupid?
It’s not weird at all. If one race has systematically tried to beat you down throughout history and convince you that your race and culture are inferior, there’s all the reason in the world to reclaim respect for all that your people almost lost, and tell that race to fuck off if they don’t like it, and be proud of it. Gay pride isn’t race based, but it’s definitely a similar thing from a different direction. It sounds like you need to spend significant time sitting and talking with people of cultures that have been through it.
It’s correct to demand equality and apologies for what happened in the past, but beyond it isn’t that just “pride” in being/having been discriminated?
I would love to talk more about this with people who are directly involved in it, but even then, races/sexualities are not a monolith and that person I spoke to might have a completely different opinion from the rest. Plus I feel like you need to be very intimate with someone to have that kind of talk, so it’s not easy at all. I also comment my opinions on the internet because it’s a simple way of finding people who disagree and might give you a different point of view.
isn’t that just “pride” in being/having been discriminated?
No. I can’t imagine there’s a single person who has ever felt legitimately proud about being discriminated against in a manner you suggest.
Proud of continuing the traditions of one’s ancestors so they aren’t permanently lost to historic racism or diluted in the modern melting pot, via artistic expression, etc, yes.
You still have plenty of time to talk to people and change your viewpoint.
No. I can’t imagine there’s a single person who has ever felt legitimately proud about being discriminated against in a manner you suggest.
Sure, I didn’t think that’s what they mean, but that’s what it feels like. If it’s not the same as “being proud of your culture”, what’s the other difference?
Proud of continuing the traditions of one’s ancestors so they aren’t permanently lost to historic racism or diluted in the modern melting pot, via artistic expression, etc, yes.
But again, that’s culture. Isn’t it better to say you’re proud of what you do, instead of what you are?
That’s different though, the point of gay pride is recognising that your value in society and your person ought to be respected, against a larger imposing force or hivemind so to speak, just like black pride, etc, and valuing your open expression of pride, closeted queers could just as easily argue that being in the closet is about valuing your own person on an internal level rather than how others may expect you to express yourself - ie, you may value yourself in a way different from how society does. Just like how some sex workers view themselves as tools, not sex toys but rather as healers and value themselves as such, once you dig deep down on all this, you’ll realise that gay pride is as much a “reaction” of the person to society as being closeted would be, one is preferable to individualist cultures, the other is more conformist, either way you pick your poison.
People who unironically feel conflicted about being proud of overcoming or experiencing XYZ, e.g. taking a big dump or something as simple as eating an extra large McDonald’s double junior whopper, would like to dispute that pride is more often than not understanding that being ashamed of something is giving away your agency, by automatically saying, that was bad, the end, whereas being prideful at least gives you opportunity to reflect on the value of the experience itself rather than to simply paint it as inherently good or bad.
I always read black as “American black people”, and there there definitely is a shared culture, of having ancestors that were slaves and not knowing where in Africa they came from because the slavers didn’t care
That’s because their ancestors experienced a forced diaspora and slavery that was partially designed to destroy their sense of culture and identity. It’s a distinct group of people from Africans. Black is just how they choose to refer to themselves.
These sociological definitions aren’t always perfect. Strictly speaking, Musk is African, but he isn’t who you usually think of as part of that group.
This is the most obnoxious pedantry I’ve ever heard. Black Americans celebrate their old world origins just as much as Irish Americans celebrate theirs. They can’t be more specific to the tribe or country because that knowledge was fucking erased. Black is the culture, broadly speaking.
It’s weird to have pride in race if you experience no adversity because of it. Since white people don’t face the same kind of challenges white pride just feels like “I’m proud of my privilege”, whereas with black pride it’s more “I’m proud of who I am despite the challenges I face because of it”. Same goes for other things like LGBT pride, it’s celebrating who they are even if it cause them a lot of hardship.
Couldn’t it be sort of an affiliation with the full history of the White Man, for better or for worse? I don’t take pride in my skin color, but it does represent a fascinating time in human history and early human migration. This is purely academic of course, no actual person who says they are “proud of being white” would ever say that or likely even be aware of the history and the science, but it could be.
The problem lies in the definition of “pride”. You can be proud of who you are without comparing yourself to others. You can be proud of who you are without thinking less of others, or treat them as inferiors. In fact I’d say it’s mandatory but not everyone gets that.
Not sure where I’m going with this, not arguing for or against per se, just exploring the concept because it’s complex, interesting, and sadly ever so topical.
Anyway “white” is too broad an identifier to mean anything, unlike groups which have had their cultures systematically oppressed. There’s already widely accepted celebrations of “Irish pride”, “Italian pride”, “Polish pride”, etc. Not a lot of specifically “English pride” celebrations because the British empire already made that the default for centuries.
This “pride” thing is specifically meant to mean “we survived, and continue to survive.” Anyone advocating for “white pride” doesn’t even understand what they’re talking about. There is no “white identity” to be protected because it has never been under threat of annihilation. It’s like stationing a battalion of troops around a public park in a suburb because you’re convinced that The Enemy wants to take it over. Nobody’s coming for your playground equipment.
It’s all semantics either way, just treat people with kindness and respect, and then you can be proud of who you are. That said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being “proud” of ones features or traits. For instance, I have very blue eyes that have passed down through a ridiculous number of generations (n.b. not the exact same set), and I’m “proud” of them, in the sense that I’m glad I have them, that they remind me of my heritage and ancestry and family, and I hope that they will pass on to my offspring. I won’t cry myself to sleep if they don’t, but I think it’s “nice”.
Is there something wrong with me feeling this way? I don’t think so. How could it be? It’s nobody’s business how I feel about my eyes. I go out of my way to treat people with kindness and respect, and I am proud of that. But also the eye thing.
Maybe that’s the problem, perhaps we should just stop nagging and lecturing each other on our identities and preferences all the god damned time. Aren’t you all tired of it also?
I just find it weird, like astrology or ultras, idk.
I think you accidentally hit the nail on the head there. When you and I feel proud of our features, we are proud over the features themselves- not proud of identifying as part of the group of “all blue eyed people” or “all weird hair quirk people”.
It’s the affiliation with, to a greater or lesser extent, some group, and that group’s interests:
As a proud blue-eyed person, I couldn’t care less about what all other blue-eyed persons think, and unless there’d be fewer than a thousand left of us I couldn’t even conceive of any collective agenda such a group might have had.
As a proud black person, I would be highly motivated to care about and affiliate with all other black persons, because they would share experiences with me, and to a great extent negative or hateful.
As a proud homosexual, I would likewise affiliate with others of my kind or who have had similar experiences.
Even as a proud Ultras member, I can see how you would affiliate like so, even if the reason for it would rest on an artificial division between some arbitrary group- belonging to Ultras is not a physical trait, it’s made up, but there at least is some rationale.
As a proud white person? If white people were selectively persecuted, I sure as hell would affiliate with them, but they aren’t.
I’ve always thought being “proud” of your race, any race, is a weird concept.
Like, you didn’t do anything to be white, or black, or asian. Why would you take pride in something you had no agency in?
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Nah. Queer pride is a good thing.
It’s not pride as in “I am proud of this painting I made.” Rather, it’s pride as in “rejecting shame for being queer”.
“Pride is not the opposite of shame, but it’s source. True humility is the only antidote to shame.” -Uncle Iroh
People really don’t understand these slogans. For example, we can look at “Black Lives Matter.” It was just a poetic way to say “black lives should matter.” The problem with replying with “all lives matter” is that they don’t all matter. (Especially in American society LGBT and Native tribes don’t always do so well either.) Which is the problem in the first place. These people are denying the issues.
Exactly. “Black Live Matter” is a statement of imperative, as in “look at these people you have been ignoring”, while “All Lives Matter” is saying “there is no problem, everything is fine”.
I don’t think that is what it is saying at all. I think that is what some people saying it want to pervert it into out of bigotry. To me it is obvious that when a disenfranchised demographic is disproportionately affected by violence and persecution, that demographic needs to have its collective voice heard and bring attention to an unfair societal imbalance.
Fundamentally there is nothing in a humanistic argument that would diminish that, just for the record, regardless whether some use it as a rhetorical device to spread hate. As a humanist there is no question to align oneself with Black Lives Matter, because everyone needs to and have the right to have their voices and grievances heard, especially when they cry out in unison and in pain. Everyone.
People have no idea how if feels for kids to be made to feel as they don’t belong or that there is something wrong with them. It infuriates me that schools can’t teach inclusivity due to terrorist groups like Moms for Liberty.
But why should rejecting shame automatically turn into pride? I’m not “proud” of every part of me that I’m not ashamed of.
Plus, it’s weird how the things are seen differently. “Queer pride” is usually seen as “sticking it to the homo/transphobes”, while someone saying they’re “proud of being cishet” sounds like they just hate LGBT people (and I mean, that’s probably correct). Why isn’t “proud of being gay” seen with the same acception?
They are proud in order to fight the shame that conservatives constantly tell them they should feel for existing. It’s a tool for empowerment and fighting back against oppression.
So in your opinion, if we reached a level of society where no one is oppressed for their identity/sexuality, would it just cease to “be an idiom”?
Let’s get there first and then we decide. For now, I’m proud to be gay.
“Let’s get there and then decide” is usually not a good way to tackle issues… but I guess it’s not up to us anyway to decide, unfortunately it looks like it’s going to take a long time before that becomes reality.
This is not an issue and it’s not one that needs tackling. It’s literally bored Lemmings taking an argument to the extreme for the sake of being argumentative.
That is a hypothetical so far removed from any semblance of reality that it doesn’t even merit discussion.
Might as well ask “well if we were all made of purple goo would we have anything to fight about?” It’s fucking nonsense. Human nature dictates that a majority will always oppress a minority, even when it’s not intentional. It’s selective pressure, pure and simple. If you have a population that’s ⅔ one kind and ⅓ another, the society will naturally trend to cater to the ⅔ more than the ⅓, and it doesn’t take much thinking to understand why. And even if the smaller group grows to reach numerical equity, their historical disadvantage will stay with them for many, many generations, putting everyone born into that historical minority at a disadvantage from birth.
That’s called systemic inequality, and it is real and pervasive in human societies. It’s built into the system and will never go away, so we will ALWAYS have to also create ways to alleviate it.
Entertaining hypotheticals is kind of a fundamental part of argumentation.
That’s not true at all. Left-handed people are a minority. Blond people are a minority. People over 2 meters are a minority. But none of those minorities are currently “oppressed” because of that.
Society catering more to the majority doesn’t mean the minority has to be oppressed. Very tall people have a lot of issues because architecture, clothing and everything else is tailored mainly to people with an average height, but try saying tall people are “oppressed” and see how many agree.
The oppression we see now is because people feel the moral superiority in “being normal”, and everything else is different, weird and therefore wrong. But just like left-handed people stopped being considered spawns of Satan in all of civilized society, we can get to that point for homosexuality too.
Saying a world where LGBT people aren’t oppressed is as likely as a world where “we’re all made of purple goo” honestly feels offensive to the effort activists have been making for all these decades.
Pride as a reaction to shame is pretty unhealthy, from a mental health perspective. There are people trying to shame everyone for everything. Don’t be fat, don’t be thin, don’t be pretty, don’t be ugly. If everyone was distractingly screaming about their pride for everything they feel ashamed of the world would be obnoxious.
I think pride as a movement made sense when everything queer was a hidden subculture.
I feel like that’s past us. There are LGBT pro-hamas groups now. I think we’ve hit peak queer when there are queer activists for groups that would hang them.
You’re also being kind of obnoxious trying to knock something down that does not need to be knocked down, ngl.
OBNOXIOUS AND PROUD, BABY! 🌈
Good for you but now you’re just obnoxiously taking the piss.
Kinda like how sometimes people of colour tell white people to be ashamed of something their ancestors did ?
Except it’s usually more like
“This is something that happened”
“Why are you trying to shame me?!”
I mean, I see a lot of white people chanting pride about what their ancestors did. Do we really need to let that normalize?
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Weird, no person of color ever told me to be ashamed of what my ancestors did. Do you think maybe you might have said something offensive that prompted such a response?
It’s okay to be ashamed if your grandpa was in the fucking Klan, my dude. Normal, even.
A bully saying mean things to you is different from the school administration discriminating against your whole race. Except in this case the bully is a handful of people and the school is the government in the past.
If you can’t see the difference, you might be blind.
Anyone that claims to be proud of being white or straight is doing it in opposition of black pride, or queer pride, etc. It might as well be the same as the all lives matter outrage.
Because that’s a logical flaw. “If black people and white people deserve the same rights, and black people can be proud of being black, why can’t white people be proud of being white?”
The difference between normal people and racists is that normal people might think of it as weird, but don’t talk about it because they don’t really care about “white pride”, while racists openly declare it and use the “fallacy” to stir the pot.
I can’t believe I’m being downvoted on Lemmy of all places for thinking “white pride” is bad and and the alternatives aren’t. I don’t even have a rebuttal, I’m just flabbergasted.
Edit: I was 0/5 when I typed this.
I’m being charitable and chalking it up to people with 0 social awareness or life experience who don’t realize how much they are enabling the real bigots.
Maybe some healthy open discussion would do us some good then, instead of barricading oneself behind semantic barbed wire in fear of having ones beliefs challenged.
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Is flipping out and storming off really a constructive approach to debate?
Short answer - because the original events were called “Pride” and other events that followed that model and style can literally trace the name to two organizers of the original event, Brenda Howard and Robert A. Martin.
Long answer…
What is important to remember about Pride is it is specific. Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual liberation marches pre-date Prides but they were more like a conventional protest and they were poorly attended because you had to expect police violence. They were dour, focused primarily on the pain and hardship of oppression. It was mostly people dressed to look respectable marching with signs to appeal to the cis/hetro masses in a “hey look we’re actually just like you!” kind of way.
“Pride” was different. They organized the first event around the concept of Independence day style activities. It was supposed to have the feel of an emancipation celebration and was originally intended to become a National day of observance of the five days of Riots at Stonewall, something that a lot of queer people decided to rally around as essentially the literal fight for independence of queer culture in the US. Shortly thereafter a lot of cultural aspects of Queer community done for fun that actually create a culture like Ballroom culture, Drag performance, dance, theater, caberet, burlesque, various bizzare kink related specialities were spotlighted. Pride took all that stuff that was happening in the shadows and turned it into a public festival. In part it was intended as a “fuck you we are not afraid and there is more of us than you think” but it also gave the public a look at the spectacle of open queer joy. That it was fun and weird meant it became a proper festival. It spread and other events that followed that format also became “Prides”. Over time other communities and sub groups within the growing coalition came to define their own means to celebrate together and also came to call then things like “Trans Pride”.
So at least in part the “Pride” portion is a historical naming convention for a very specific style of event and festival with a tracable history. It is helpful to understand that “Pride” has a secondary and silent implication of Pride Event "Woo Happy Pride! " is at some point like wishing someone Happy Christmas. “Proud” is in part an event theme that euphemizes that original “fuck you, our culture is valid and we won’t be shamed out of the public eye.”
Someone going on about “cis pride” is at some point basically just trying to carbon copy a format of protest made for a specific purpose while entirely misunderstanding the original usage. Some argue they don’t really need a specific public culture festival or a protest because they are the dominant culture. They get their culture fest from national and religious tinted celebrations and they are accepted as a norm so the protest element is unnecessary. It more comes across more as someone who just doesn’t like how queer people have claimed a slice of public space and want to have yet another party to celebrate themselves. It’s like throwing an Independence day style celebration but when there is no commemorative event at it’s core and no independence that needed to be fought for at all.
Yeah, I guess there’s a huge distinction between pride as an emotion and Pride as an event at this point. Maybe that’s also why it’s seen with a very different meaning, I don’t think “””cis pride””” ever had an event, and if it did it was probably just a gathering of transphobes chanting slurs.
Straight prides… Have existed… and you are correct that the theme of straight prides were more about creating a narrative about how cis hegemony is unfairly under attack by the LGBTQIA making them in effect anti queer bigotry parades driven more by spite than anything. The organizers of such events have had traditionally firm links to the alt right.
The end effect of the Boston straight pride event was like an empty parody of a Pride event that just looks like an American Independance day celebration with a bunch of people wearing jeans and t-shirts waving American flags with a bunch of signs saying stuff like “Remember who gave birth to you” and a bunch of Trump related signage making it kind of vaguely indistinguishable from any other conservative rally.
The fact that when given a chance to organize a straight pride parade it just tends to take on the nationalist symbols of the country it is performed in kind of demonstrates that maybe there isn’t a whole lot of point to the event celebrating straight culture as the participants can’t really identify what is unique about being straight themselves because you are just supposed to assume it as a default…
Oh. I looked up “cis pride” and found nothing so I assumed that was it.
Then yeah, that just reinforces your last comment. I still think the difference in treatment feels unfair, but I can’t really blame it when LGBT people take these occasions to show off their best side and straight ones show their worst instead. I guess it’s a conversation for a different century (when hopefully we all learned not to ridicule people different from us).
I mean Prides are still open to cis and hetero folk in the same way like a Italian culture festival is open to non-Italians. The key component is that queerness has a culture with it’s own traditions, history, art, coded language and etticate in much the same way an ethnicity does the only difference is that it is not passed along by virtue of birth. The nature of Prides as being in opposition to generational suppression and genocide just makes them a bit louder and in your face.
Because it’s the same thing as gloating when you win. It makes you look like an asshole rubbing it in the face of the less fortunate.
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That’s because of the current situation though. People who say it now are like that, so “normal people” don’t say it because it would automatically mean being grouped with them. So only people who don’t care about being labeled as homo/transphobic keep saying that and the “stereotype” reinforces itself.
Or rather, as I said in my first comment, I don’t get why should anyone say they’re proud of being cishet, same as for being proud of the opposite. But we don’t think people in a gay pride parade are being “heterophobic”, it’s seen as a normal thing (by most reasonable people, I mean).
If we look at current society I get the difference in treatment, but from a neutral point of view it’s weird that virtually the same expression, just with sexualities swapped, is seen as either empowering or discriminating.
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I still don’t see why something that rightly stopped being a source of shame should turn into a source of pride.
The circumstances of hetero and non-hetero people are vastly different and that’s obvious, but that doesn’t mean they should be “proud” of that. Saying you’re proud of something doesn’t make the people who discriminate you for it disappear.
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Except it hasn’t. Huge swathes of American society is still incredibly homophobic. Kids are shamed by their parents. Kids are kicked out by their parents. Meanwhile, we have groups like Moms for Liberty that want to send gay people back into the closet.
Half the country is trying to make being LGBT a source of shame. That you don’t even see that is shameful in and of itself.
I know a debate has derailed when social splintering turns it into a semantic game of RISK.
Given the amount of people that seem to base their whole personality exclusively using this list, it will be a long while before we can move away from these as a collective.
It’s the most interesting thing about some people, that’s why.
Overtly stating anything about your identity is one of the dumbest and most boring things.
I don’t care how you identify. It doesn’t tell me anything about you, and it doesn’t tell me anything about the thing. And generally, it’s considered rude to talk about a person’s identity.
You’d be better off telling me something you’re interested in.
John Doe (likes trains)
There are two kinds of people… No wait, three kinds of people that care.
people who are emotionally fragile, mentally ill, or otherwise can’t handle literally any friction of any kind in any of their interactions.
people who are excessively polite, virtue signaling, it SJWs. These people don’t care for themselves but they care SO MUCH because they think it makes to OTHER people.
people who are afraid of complaints or legal action (business, public figures, etc)
I can count on one hand the number of times identity has mattered in a human interaction I’ve had.
The amount of energy we waste of identity is fucking absurd considering the literal zero value or brings to the world.
You don’t care. LGBT people are not necessarily prideful because of you. They’re prideful because of the half of America that wants them oppressed, imprisoned or dead because of who they are.
If that’s not you, they’re not talking about you, but they are still facing a lot of homophobic people. Until that ends, pride is the correct reaction to those people.
Sometimes there’s basis for patriotic pride. As a specific example, I live next to Russia, in a free country that respects LGBT rights. I know for a fact that those rights would be completely eroded if Russia conquered us. Therefore it makes sense to take some pride in my country and the armed forces of my country who are strongly discouraging that from happening.
So your pride is defending what you find is right, and your nation happens to be aligned with it currently. If your nation became homophobic, you wouldn’t follow it, would you?
No, I would not. But I’m not sure if I could be able to translate that into any action that had effect.
When people talk about “LGBT Pride”, they’re not talking about the “a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements” definition, they’re talking about the “confidence and self-respect as expressed by members of a group, typically one that has been socially marginalized” definition.
It’s almost like words can have more than one meaning.
LGBT Pride is not for those who celebrate it.
It’s for all those who couldn’t or can’t.
I would argue otherwise. Prides have always had a political aspect and part of that was a way to get a sense of numbers. Suppression of LGBTQ identities by early “support” groups encouraged narratives of it being rare, that it is natural to be lonely and shut away without a community. If you are small as a minority you tend to be meek and hide. Gay hook up spots were designed to hide people so true numbers were often impossible to have any notion of how many people were actually there. Some were just utterly flabbergasted by the numbers when police raids caused everyone to flee at once… But the news the next morning would make it sound like there was only a handful.
Consolidation and visibility, the understanding of strength in numbers has always been a factor of Pride. So to has been education and safety campaigns. While it has been a place to acknowledge the dead and bring hope to those who are afraid to be out it is absolutely for those at the festivities itself too.
And then everyone clapped.
I think of Pride as an acceptance of your sexuality, whatever it may be. The pride in question is a self esteem that comes from being comfortable in who you are.
Well when they have different meanings for everyone then what good are they? I often feel like when you point out things like the OP here, there’s a moving of the goal posts, or no true Scotsman-ing, what goes for one doesn’t go for the other. It’s an interesting question, why is it ok to be proud of your sexuality, which you have no control over, but not be ok to be proud of your color of skin, which you also have no control over?
Just redefining terms ad hoc depending on which side one happens to identify with makes the whole conversation suspect.
The last point could be argued, most people say/mean “proud of being their friend/brother/whatever”, and having mutual esteem with someone does take a degree of agency. It’s obviously moot if you have family ties with them but they hate you, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen people being proud of achievements of people who hate them.
The rest I agree, it feels weird unnecessary tribalism most of the time.
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A bit of stretch but this why I don’t like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_designation_of_origin. It is supposed to guarantee quality, but why wouldn’t someone be able to make the same quality of cheese given the same cows and quality process anywhere else? It seems to be some kind of weird territorialist pride.
It’s a matter of economics and quality over time. These regions have chosen to tool up for making foods and commodities that are essential to the Euro Zone and arguably the world.
If they go out of business, the quality and availability of the product overall will certainly suffer. And it may not be so extreme as going out of business; if they miss out on a capital investment because some investor sees potential in a competitor making a product elsewhere, maybe it’s death by a thousand cuts.
So we protect their brands. Yes, it is technically anti-competitive, for the greater good. And at the very least, for the good of the Euro Zone.
If it wasn’t for the unfair advantage of the PDO, maybe other regions would be tempted to tool up too, which could encourage quality and/or optimizations that would reduce the price, that could benefit the people too.
It doesn’t seem fair for the people who weren’t born in one of those privileged regions which were given many PDOs. It reminds me of feudal birth rights in some way.
I’m not sure, it is for the greater good of everyone eventually.
Also, some PDOs are captured by industrial groups who keep buying the little producers who made the PDO, and it protects them from competitors. This articles translated from French describes the situation in France: https://www-lafranceagricole-fr.translate.goog/a-la-une/article/759488/contrls-par-les-gants?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
They would, but the opposite wouldn’t be possible because of regulations. I feel like it’s more of a “this product has been made in a place which enforces good practices, so you can be sure it’s healthy (to a degree)”. It’s kind of like originals and bootlegs, bootlegs could be as good as good originals, but originals will never be as bad as bad bootlegs.
It’s not just for quality, but for authenticity too, I think.
Foods that are fermented or aged can take on a unique flavor profile, based on the unique blend of bacteria and mold and yeast in the area. Even using the same milk from the same cows and processing it the same way, cheese that is naturally aged in a cave in France might taste different from cheese that’s aged in a cave in West Virginia. Not necessarily better or worse, quality-wise, but different. Not authentic.
Weather patterns, seasonal changes, and soil conditions are also distinct and varied in different places. The same grapes grow differently in German soil than they do in Kansas. The grass that the cows eat grows differently in different places, and this can have a significant impact on the flavors of the milk and cheese.
I’m American, but I used to work in a fancy wine store that sold a lot of imported cheese and groceries. I imagine that in practice, PDO must seem like an annoying mix of over-regulation and jingoistic propaganda – especially to someone in Europe. But it does seem to serve a purpose, even if in an overbearing way.
I think being proud of local food culture is more like community spirit or neighborhood pride. It’s like saying, “here’s something ingeniously delicious we created using only our limited local resources.” I don’t think of that quite the same way as “pride” about race, gender, sexuality.
Pretty sure they could sell the bacteria/mold and produce the same climate conditions in controlled room. I’m not against quality labels, I just don’t like the territorial aspect of it. I think authenticity is a bias based on public image and imagination.
In the abstract, yes, but when a group of people is oppressed because of one of those identifiers, it stops just being a born trait. It also identifies that you’re oppressed. Celebrating who you are with regards to that kind of trait (sexuality, sex, race, etc) isn’t a celebration of being born a certain way. It’s a celebration of self acceptance, and an act of rebellion.
You aren’t proud of what you were born with, you’re proud of what you were born with, because some people have tried to punish you for that what.
We can add college in there. Choice of college means next to nothing about someone’s intellect and personality. Usually it’s just rich and/or “legacy” people getting into the prestigious schools. They are almost always pushed into it, or convinced into it by others.
It’s a participation prize. Congratulations, you were born.
I “proud” of my poor eye sight, and and “proud” of my genetic high cholesterol 🎊🔥💯
I don’t get it. Why would one be? The whole point of pride is to in some sense feel and experience joy over the things that we like about ourselves or that stand out in a positive way. But maybe I’m missing something.
With whites you definitely have a point, but it’s a little different when whites have at various times in history attempted to erase your culture in numerous ways, including outlawing your language, clothing, music, dance, martial arts, traditional healing systems, religious beliefs, hair styles, etc, while converting you to what they believe to be valid and acceptable.
That’s being proud of your culture though, not your race. Culture is something you willingly engage in, and you definitely have the right to be proud of it (and that includes Italian culture, Greek culture and all other types of white culture as well).
But race? Saying “I’m proud of being black” means nothing when American black people and African black people barely have anything in common that isn’t the color of their skin.
Culture is very much tied to race and where those people came from. It still happens now. It should be obvious without explanation. It’s not at all difficult to find stories about black students sent home from school because their hair is “not ok.”
True that. Candice Ownens is the perfect example of a racist POC disowning their entire culture to not be associated with anyone but white Republicans. She’s culturally white and it’s a choice.
It’s tied but it’s different. A lot of third+ generation immigrants have the same customs as locals, and you wouldn’t tell them apart if not for physical traits, for example.
It’s also weird how stuff that used to be shamed about turned to reasons of pride. We (as in, non-racist people) realized shaming people for their hair is stupid, why would being proud of it not be just as stupid?
It’s not weird at all. If one race has systematically tried to beat you down throughout history and convince you that your race and culture are inferior, there’s all the reason in the world to reclaim respect for all that your people almost lost, and tell that race to fuck off if they don’t like it, and be proud of it. Gay pride isn’t race based, but it’s definitely a similar thing from a different direction. It sounds like you need to spend significant time sitting and talking with people of cultures that have been through it.
It’s correct to demand equality and apologies for what happened in the past, but beyond it isn’t that just “pride” in being/having been discriminated?
I would love to talk more about this with people who are directly involved in it, but even then, races/sexualities are not a monolith and that person I spoke to might have a completely different opinion from the rest. Plus I feel like you need to be very intimate with someone to have that kind of talk, so it’s not easy at all. I also comment my opinions on the internet because it’s a simple way of finding people who disagree and might give you a different point of view.
No. I can’t imagine there’s a single person who has ever felt legitimately proud about being discriminated against in a manner you suggest.
Proud of continuing the traditions of one’s ancestors so they aren’t permanently lost to historic racism or diluted in the modern melting pot, via artistic expression, etc, yes.
You still have plenty of time to talk to people and change your viewpoint.
Sure, I didn’t think that’s what they mean, but that’s what it feels like. If it’s not the same as “being proud of your culture”, what’s the other difference?
But again, that’s culture. Isn’t it better to say you’re proud of what you do, instead of what you are?
That’s different though, the point of gay pride is recognising that your value in society and your person ought to be respected, against a larger imposing force or hivemind so to speak, just like black pride, etc, and valuing your open expression of pride, closeted queers could just as easily argue that being in the closet is about valuing your own person on an internal level rather than how others may expect you to express yourself - ie, you may value yourself in a way different from how society does. Just like how some sex workers view themselves as tools, not sex toys but rather as healers and value themselves as such, once you dig deep down on all this, you’ll realise that gay pride is as much a “reaction” of the person to society as being closeted would be, one is preferable to individualist cultures, the other is more conformist, either way you pick your poison.
Seriously, I said similar from a different direction, not the same.
Lying about who you are is not psychologically healthy and should not be praised or encouraged.
That’s not the point of the comment I made nor is it really a response that actually addresses the point I made, would you like to try again?
People who unironically feel conflicted about being proud of overcoming or experiencing XYZ, e.g. taking a big dump or something as simple as eating an extra large McDonald’s double junior whopper, would like to dispute that pride is more often than not understanding that being ashamed of something is giving away your agency, by automatically saying, that was bad, the end, whereas being prideful at least gives you opportunity to reflect on the value of the experience itself rather than to simply paint it as inherently good or bad.
Because racist people still exist and still control the narrative, that’s why. Pride is protection.
I always read black as “American black people”, and there there definitely is a shared culture, of having ancestors that were slaves and not knowing where in Africa they came from because the slavers didn’t care
That’s because their ancestors experienced a forced diaspora and slavery that was partially designed to destroy their sense of culture and identity. It’s a distinct group of people from Africans. Black is just how they choose to refer to themselves.
These sociological definitions aren’t always perfect. Strictly speaking, Musk is African, but he isn’t who you usually think of as part of that group.
This is the most obnoxious pedantry I’ve ever heard. Black Americans celebrate their old world origins just as much as Irish Americans celebrate theirs. They can’t be more specific to the tribe or country because that knowledge was fucking erased. Black is the culture, broadly speaking.
If you belong to a group that has been historically oppressed, being proud of your race/culture is a sign of rebellion.
It’s weird to have pride in race if you experience no adversity because of it. Since white people don’t face the same kind of challenges white pride just feels like “I’m proud of my privilege”, whereas with black pride it’s more “I’m proud of who I am despite the challenges I face because of it”. Same goes for other things like LGBT pride, it’s celebrating who they are even if it cause them a lot of hardship.
Couldn’t it be sort of an affiliation with the full history of the White Man, for better or for worse? I don’t take pride in my skin color, but it does represent a fascinating time in human history and early human migration. This is purely academic of course, no actual person who says they are “proud of being white” would ever say that or likely even be aware of the history and the science, but it could be.
The problem lies in the definition of “pride”. You can be proud of who you are without comparing yourself to others. You can be proud of who you are without thinking less of others, or treat them as inferiors. In fact I’d say it’s mandatory but not everyone gets that.
Not sure where I’m going with this, not arguing for or against per se, just exploring the concept because it’s complex, interesting, and sadly ever so topical.
Agreed
Anyway “white” is too broad an identifier to mean anything, unlike groups which have had their cultures systematically oppressed. There’s already widely accepted celebrations of “Irish pride”, “Italian pride”, “Polish pride”, etc. Not a lot of specifically “English pride” celebrations because the British empire already made that the default for centuries.
This “pride” thing is specifically meant to mean “we survived, and continue to survive.” Anyone advocating for “white pride” doesn’t even understand what they’re talking about. There is no “white identity” to be protected because it has never been under threat of annihilation. It’s like stationing a battalion of troops around a public park in a suburb because you’re convinced that The Enemy wants to take it over. Nobody’s coming for your playground equipment.
If you look close enough at the definition of any word, it kind of breaks apart.
It’s all semantics either way, just treat people with kindness and respect, and then you can be proud of who you are. That said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being “proud” of ones features or traits. For instance, I have very blue eyes that have passed down through a ridiculous number of generations (n.b. not the exact same set), and I’m “proud” of them, in the sense that I’m glad I have them, that they remind me of my heritage and ancestry and family, and I hope that they will pass on to my offspring. I won’t cry myself to sleep if they don’t, but I think it’s “nice”.
Is there something wrong with me feeling this way? I don’t think so. How could it be? It’s nobody’s business how I feel about my eyes. I go out of my way to treat people with kindness and respect, and I am proud of that. But also the eye thing.
Maybe that’s the problem, perhaps we should just stop nagging and lecturing each other on our identities and preferences all the god damned time. Aren’t you all tired of it also?
I can relate, I also have a weird hair quirk my grandma had as well, I like it and I’m glad I have it, but I wouldn’t really say I’m “proud” of it.
Yes, in the end it’s all semantics and there’s nothing really “wrong” with it, I just find it weird, like astrology or ultras, idk.
I think you accidentally hit the nail on the head there. When you and I feel proud of our features, we are proud over the features themselves- not proud of identifying as part of the group of “all blue eyed people” or “all weird hair quirk people”.
It’s the affiliation with, to a greater or lesser extent, some group, and that group’s interests:
As a proud blue-eyed person, I couldn’t care less about what all other blue-eyed persons think, and unless there’d be fewer than a thousand left of us I couldn’t even conceive of any collective agenda such a group might have had.
As a proud black person, I would be highly motivated to care about and affiliate with all other black persons, because they would share experiences with me, and to a great extent negative or hateful.
As a proud homosexual, I would likewise affiliate with others of my kind or who have had similar experiences.
Even as a proud Ultras member, I can see how you would affiliate like so, even if the reason for it would rest on an artificial division between some arbitrary group- belonging to Ultras is not a physical trait, it’s made up, but there at least is some rationale.
As a proud white person? If white people were selectively persecuted, I sure as hell would affiliate with them, but they aren’t.