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Calling out “White People”
I was on a bus in Seattle the other day sitting next to someone I met that day and will likely never meet again. We had gotten into a conversation about each other’s religious backgrounds. He went first.
“Yeah, back home I went to a Lutheran church [I’m not sure of the denomination, but it was something liturgical]. It sucked. I don’t like traditional stuff, and that’s all it was. Everyone was super old and like 90 percent white.”
“What was that?”
“Oh, just — everyone was white. It was terrible.”
Mind you, this is coming from a young, white man.
The exchange was weird, to say the least. I had met this guy not two hours ago, and he was already polemicizing about the evils of the white race. Maybe it was my fault for bringing up religion. I should know that topic can get contentious, and in today’s world, religious ideals stretch ever-farther beyond any reasonable understanding of any sacred text outside of The Communist Manifesto. But it still doesn’t seem appropriate to voice your disdain for a particular group to someone you’ve just met.
Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I tend to be a little less brazen with my prejudices. Don’t get me wrong, I have my share of likely-unfair biases (to those of you who don’t: you do), but I cringe at the thought of sharing them with all but my closest friends, much less someone I barely know. Perhaps this is a new strategy for the left: strike first and strike emphatically.
I can’t help but wonder what he would have said if I had replied, “Yeah, my old church sucked. There were too many young, black people there. It was awful.” If he were reasonable, he likely would have reacted with scorn. So why does the think it fine to be not only racist but ageist, too? I know there’s supposedly no such thing as “reverse racism” (really, there isn’t, because racism is just that: racism), but even most leftists wouldn’t deny the ageism critique of this young man’s sentiment.
This type of story isn’t new and it certainly isn’t unique. Pile it on with the rest of the accounts of segregation on college campuses in the form of safe spaces, public anti-Semitic and anti-Christian statements from prominent left-wing individuals, and descriptions from oh, say, a sitting US president of “typical white people.” I still think it’s important to write about these. If a single person reads one of these stories, sees themselves in it, and begins to change their ways, the redundancy will have been worth it.
Cross-posted from my blog, One Restless Heart
Published in Culture
My only bias is against humans, but it’s very fair.
Depending on how young this “young, white man” is, he may have been hearing for a substantial portion of his life that most or all of the world’s problems are the fault of white people, and that anything that has more than a smattering of white people is bad. A 32 year old white woman I know uses “full of old white people” as inherently a bad thing. I’m pretty sure she picked most of that up at university (even though she was a math major).
The joke is, some day he’ll look in the mirror and be an old white guy.
it has gone international btw.
except the anti everything old white dude seems to actually mean: white American conservative males of the Baby Boom generation
welcome to the club dude
Maybe he was referring to the music, or some other part of the service.
My wife and I have often said we would like to go to a “black” church. Why? Because their entire congregation sings, dances, and gets involved in the music. There’s lots of energy. White folks tend to stand, or sit, without any dancing or raising of their voices when they sing. You might get someone who raises up their arms, but that is about as much dancing as you will get. Feet always stay firmly planted. Honestly, some of the music is like a la-la-bye. I am often half asleep, by the time the sermon starts.
He has been programmed. However, this program has a bug. It does not end well. Major blue screen ahead.
I think young people are so used to externalizing their identities on Facebook, Twitter and the like that they don’t know how to make conversation about anything other than themselves any more. And even if they do, a great many young people seem to think that their opinion on anything and anyone under the sun is of stupendous interest to whomever they’re speaking with, and so they just launch, screech, and rant, whenever the opportunity arises.
I have lunch a couple of times a month with a very good friend of mine. I’ve known her since 1990. I’m pretty sure she voted for Hillary in 2016. But I can’t really prove that, because I’ve never asked her, and the subject just never seems to come up. There are, actually, other things to talk about at lunch besides what’s trending on Facebook, Twitter, or even, sometimes, on Ricochet. And I like it that way.
Because nobody speaks up. Everyone lets it slide to avoid confrontation — often just because an argument doesn’t seem worth the trouble, or because speaking plain sense could threaten one’s job, grades, family situation, etc.
I wasn’t there. Perhaps, as Tabby suggests, he merely wanted more exciting worship and youthful energy. But the Left has grown bolder and unfortunately that boldness is exponential. It is necessary for the Right to publicly and regularly express conservative ideas and objections.
Yes – he is spouting off as a young, impressionable person repeating the babble of the hour – he’ll learn.
I hope so. The trouble is, he’ll probably vote several times before he does.
I had a similar experience riding a bus in Pittsburgh except I was eavesdropping on a conversation between 2 white millennials behind me. The crux of their conversation was that their new-age, seeker friendly, “christian” church was so much better than the conservative white churches they went to as children. As they described their church, it wasn’t anything but a club they went to to encourage each other in their various sinful behaviors.
No, it’s simpler than that. Everyone hates white people. It’s okay to express it publicly. In fact, it’s weird not to do so.
It could also be that he was simply a jerk. Recently, an associate loudly complained about politics while we dined at a restaurant. He knew well that his conversation might upset nearby diners who came there for a pleasant meal with friends or family. He simply didn’t care. There are countless such people… and others who are just oblivious as they say whatever comes to mind.
If someone derives pleasure from Freud, can we call it “Freudfreude?”
not sure that the world be be at much of a loss if that never happens.
just sayen’
not wishing ill.
Forget it, Jake. It’s Seattle.
White skin as symbol for evil is growing. The Empire in Star Wars is all white men. We have to see people in groups instead of individuals and if White is an identity then the young man you talked to is just rejecting this identity. So sad…
My theory is that lefty whites hate white people and regular people of any color tend not to care.
I think you should respond, “Hey now. Some of my best friends are white.”
Or, you could say, “It was bad because the people were old and white? Have you looked in a mirror lately? ‘Cause you’re halfway there, dude.”
Even females of a traditional, conservative background in the age group get this sort of thing: #ustoo. :-)
should ask him which of his “toys and apps” were brought to him by other than white dudes and/ or dudettes?
ask him if he would give up even one minute one FB if it gave him the poser to rewind and redo the world without old dead white dudes in it.
has the average IQ dropped more than just a few decibels in my lifetime?
wtf – over?
It only seems that way. Worldwide, with better nutrition, it’s probably up.
It is long past time for us to have the “national conversation” about anti-White racism.
It is everywhere.
It is definitely programming. Or more accurately, brain-washing. People spew out anti-white rhetoric like mantras or incantations to keep the evil at bay. (The “evil” here being the left.)
It’s all part of What You Must Say to be left alone.
Remember Havel’s lesson of the greengrocer.
There is nothing stopping him from reducing the white population by one — and he doesn’t have to hurt anyone else to do it.
Simple answer: Because he is ignorant. He lacks knowledge of Scripture, culture and Jesus. In his tiny world the only god that matters is the god of self.
The Church (the Body of Christ) is quite diverse. Just because a congregation in a building shares a common race or age, does not mean that they are cookie-cutter Christians. All of us are unique; each with his/her own observations and experiences in life. The young man you talked to has no idea just how completely absurd his argument against the “mostly white” congregation is. There are congregations throughout the world that have predominate race: White, Black, Hispanic, etc. The lack of diversity in the race of a congregation has very little to do with the message that should be taught from the pulpit – God loves you! Jesus didn’t come to condemn you; He came to save you! He did not come to appease silly notions thought up by institutionally-indoctrinated elitists.
I pray for that young man to turn from his bias and be awakened to Jesus.
The worrisome part is that it’s just as accepted as anti-black racism once was. It is taught in schools, and promoted by news and entertainment media. It’s also written into law. For that reason, it’s really more of a problem, at this point, than the spent force of anti-black or anti-brown racism.
More and more, I’m finding that “white” is not really meant to denote race, but is rather used as a synonym for “bourgeois”.
e.g. If you look at jokes about “things white people like” they usually refer to a very narrow subset of caucasians. Yachting, country clubs, Lacoste, etc.
A conventional Lutheran church is therefore dull because it’s bourgeois. A church full of badass bikers would, by contrast, presumably be pretty cool and therefore not “white”.