But how is it racist? In no way can this view be considered racist in any way because you cannot have a racist view since racism deals with oppression and that group is in the majority. How can you speak about other cultures when you've never faced discrimination in your life?
I've been lurking since before the Schilling Thanksgiving and don't post often, but this struck a nerve. This thread is already off track, so I don't mind putting in my 2 cents.
Your view on SWMs is pretty presumptuous; some of us get out in the world and find ourselves in the minority fairly often. In my work I'm often been the only male in a large group, or the only straight male, or the only white, or all of the above. Being in the majority in the nation as a whole does not mean one spends all of one's time being in the majority, and discrimination can happen to anyone, although it often takes different forms.
I spent years living overseas, where I went long periods of time without seeing any other whites. My wife is from another race and ethnic group, and we've never thought of each other as anything other than wife and husband (she never refers to me as her "white husband"). We laugh how the school system classifies some of our kids as white and others as my wife's race; we've always thought of them as our kids and don't care at all about what box they check under race.
When I lived overseas, at first I took every instance of unfavorable treatment as racism, but in time I realized that some of them were by pure chance, sometimes I got the dirty end of the stick because I didn't have close connections to the other parties involved, and some instances were not necessarily because people hated me for being white but because they felt they could get away with treating me bad because I'm white. That made all the difference to me; I can deal with opportunists better than I can deal with haters, so from then on I always assumed that hate wasn't involved.
In the end I realized that I have no direct control over what anyone thinks, and it doesn't matter why things happen; they happen and I have to deal with them. Of course, I didn't grow up being told that I would be discriminated against constantly, so it was relatively easy to make that shift in thinking as an adult.
I think part of the problem with race is that people on all sides are ready to see discrimination everywhere. I think some of the outrage in this thread is spring-loaded, just waiting to jump at the first instance of inelegant words and cry "racist."
In face to face situations I find it better to not even acknowledge the possibility of discrimination, and eventually most people will see me as an individual, and not simply as white, or as straight, or as simply a male; my words and actions are all they need to judge me.
Yes, I have general opinions about other ethnic groups, based on behavior; for each group there are things I personally like, and things I personally dislike, but most of these things are unimportant in the big scheme and I don't worry about them a whole lot. I do my best to not automatically associate every individual with the behavior of the group, and treat everyone as an individual. Every group has good people, not so good people, and everything in between, and I'd bet the proportions are pretty consistent across groups.
I can't pretend to know what it's like to be a black in America, or a lesbian, or a woman in an all-male group, but then again, I can't fully imagine what it's like to be any of my brothers, who are all straight white males I grew up with but live in very different places from me and run in different circles.
It's arrogant to assume you know all about what anybody else's situation is like; we are all different, even among the same race/ethnic group/sexual orientation/gender, and we should all stop attributing every word and action to race and racism.
/rant
