Interesting that we both separately identified “blessed” as a southern thing! “Lucky” just wasn’t used too much where I grew up, I’m not really sure why. Certainly if someone won the lottery I’d expect to hear it, but I think that’s about it.
We definitely “lost our privileges” as children, but it fit with the vein we were used to hearing it. These privileges had been granted to us by our parents, not due to any particular work or action on our own parts – but we sure could lose them through our own actions! If it was something our parents had provided us (extracurricular activities, a ride to a friend’s house, etc.), it was a privilege we could lose, but that would never apply to something we had worked for and purchased ourselves (I built an extensive collection of books over the years, but they were mine and were not considered a privilege that would be taken away). I don’t think I ever heard “lost rights”.
I’m from the Northeast. I do think most of the terminology I grew up being familiar with was more due to my family origin than my particular childhood location (I don’t specifically remember my friends using the same language, although we were only children at the time), but who can say?
I must say this is not where I expected this thread to go, but it’s been fascinating to realize how different your experience is to mine. I had no idea this wasn’t a common word for most people, and it does help to explain why some people are more sensitive to it than others.
This whole post is great, especially the bolded (bolding my own).
Also agree with all of this post, and in particular the bolded (bolding my own). It’s something I try (and struggle, and sometimes fail) to remember every day. I think the only way we are going to get anywhere is by keeping the humanity at the front of things.
I disagree. We need to quit treating racism as if it’s just a difference of political opinion and that we need to respect the racist’s point of view. We don’t. I hate that people have been gaslit into having to be so tolerant of the intolerant. I know I’m not changing anyone’s mind and I’m not trying to. We do have lurkers and this thread will be left here for anyone to read later on. So respectfully, I’m going to continue to point out racism where I see it.
Understanding underlying thought processes though is critical to identifying racism as opposed to ‘cultural/linguistic differences inadvertently coming into conflict’, from my own experience one episode stands out.
A church had a ‘Gospel Sunday’ on a Sunday in the month that celebrates African-American history, February. Some choir members were extremely annoyed by it. The assumption was that it was because they were racist and didn’t want any ‘more’ celebrations of black history, which would not have been an unreasonable assumption in that parish. That was not the case. They were offended by the name ‘Gospel’ because to them, Gospel music included both African-American and Appalachian Scots-Irish music and was Methodist in musical nature. They wanted the name and the music on that Sunday to more accurately reflect the music of (Episcopalian) Black culture because that was what it was supposed to be. Which includes Jamaica, Africa, and North America but does not include Scots-Irish and is not entirely Methodist (eg Wesley) in hymn styles. Their problem was that in their musical culture ‘Gospel’ meant one thing (Methodist); in the musical culture of the new minister of music, it meant something else (African-American).
I believe the church now has a Sunday for ‘LEVAS’ (Lift Every Voice and Sing) which is the Episcopal hymnal that came out of the African-American religious experience.
It was nearly a very, very ugly episode that would have inflamed racial tensions had it blown up, in much the way that I suspect the ugly turns of this thread have done, if only by confirming people’s pre-conceived notions. But it was stopped because people thought to ask: why is this person angry, rather than immediately accusing them of racism. Race is not the only lens through which people view their world.
The people involved with Plantation Field may or may not have been racist at the beginning of this, they may not be now. But, I can absolutely guarantee that they are now firmly opposed to liberal/progressive/woke culture because they were assumed to be ‘bad’ from the beginning. (if they are not, they are better people than I would be in that situation) That is not a win. Not for anyone. We don’t approach horses that way, why do we approach people that way? Is our goal to create racism or to end it? To understand and celebrate different cultures or to smash them all?
I apologize for copy/pasting in order to respond to some of your post B and B. I’m afraid to quote as I’ve had to spend time in the green cooler for that infraction. “…
The people involved with Plantation Field may or may not have been racist at the beginning of this, they may not be now. But, I can absolutely guarantee that they are now firmly opposed to liberal/progressive/woke culture because they were assumed to be ‘bad’ from the beginning. (if they are not, they are better people than I would be in that situation) That is not a win.”
I know the above is the popular narrative on this thread but I don’t recall ever seeing it stated that these folks were first approached as if they were bad, racist people. More so that an initial enquiry was made as to the name of this event potentially being problematic and unwelcoming in current times, at which point it didn’t get a great reception.
These two scenarios are quite different from each other. If indeed your portrayal is correct then yes, the outcome was predictable. If not then the conversation could have gone in another direction.
The foundational error on behalf of EN was in ASSuming their message would be percieved as collaborative, tender hearted, and kind. Given how Leslie couldn’t string two cogent sentences together on the MLE podcast, I am confident in stating she got waaaaay out over her skis and crashed, and Plantation burned.
Any one of you hyperarticulate geniuses could have stepped in at any time prior to this and said something. And you didn’t. Leslie is the only one who stepped up. And somebody needed to. It is easy to criticize. it is harder to do.
As someone whose primary association with ‘plantation’ was the New England, Canadian, and United Kingdom use for forestry. No I really never associated it negatively nor did I see a need to offend the majority by jumping on your bandwagon. I did, in fact, the other day use ‘plantation stock’ in an email…referring to Norway Spruce.
Some people believe that if one meaning of a word offends some people, the word should be excised, and others do not agree with this, as per the preceding 75 pages and countless convos elsewhere.
Perhaps someone(s) of the enlightened should inform the city of Plantation, Florida that they need to change their name… instead of thinking of pink flamingos.
If these twits were really concerned about “systemic racism” and “the legacy of slavery,” they’d be pointing out that the black and brown essential workers they depend on are are dying from COVID, facing homelessness every day, and still can’t afford a Breyer horse, never mind a trip to Plantation Fields.
Intellectually lazy, moneyed “Liberals” making themselves feel better with meaningless symbolic gestures while real injustice destroys the lives of actual human beings.
You take your superior little self and have a great day now, kay?
Just because inclusion is “meaningless” to you doesn’t mean it’s meaningless to everyone else. I have listened to enough people of color in the sport that were hurt by the name (and by other names and memorials with references to slavery). Those voices and opinions matter to some of us and I’m not ok with people here claiming those voices and opinions are meaningless.
Speaking up is the bare minimum anyone should be doing but I’m not sure why you seem to think that speaking out and taking further action/ getting involved are mutually exclusive.
You don’t get to go zero to 60 in less time because you think XYZ should have been done 20 years ago. You still have to follow the channels, you still have to have tact, and you still have to consider collateral damage. You don’t get to skip all the steps that should have been happening over the last 20 years.
Hypocrisy at it’s finest. You don’t get to sit and enjoy your luxury pets at a luxury farm with a luxury trailer and a luxury truck paying your luxury pet trainer with your excess money, while going home to your expensive home in rich white suburbia, and then tell people how socially woke and superior you are, and how in touch you are with people of poverty and disadvantaged people. The cognitive disconnect of that is HUGE.
If white privilege got you there, give it up and go live in poverty. Give it to someone you willfully disadvantaged somewhere along the way. Don’t ask others to go atone for their sins while you bark from your golden throne.
I know someone closely who filed for the women owned business status - it opened up a window to a grant that a male owned business does not qualify for, no matter how poor-off they are. I also have a family member who was denied a government position, despite testing at nearly the top of the group, due to quotas. I am very close with someone in a trade union - they used to have race and gender quotas, but switched to qualification testing because their jobs if not done correctly could kill people - you can’t have quotas in a situation like that. These things happen in real life. Maybe the person who got the position due to quota is totally qualified. Maybe they aren’t. One would have to inspect each program individually and decide.
Equkelly, you might not know about them because you probably don’t qualify for any of them, and the women owned business stuff relatively recently just gained a lot of steam. Rich white people typically don’t fall into the quota status.
You can be indignant and mad and yell-y … but you may as well go ahead and talk to a wall. It’s entirely ineffective.
You know nothing about me and nothing about my financial status or my struggles. Not everyone in this sport is as well off as that picture you painted but even if I was (I’m not) it wouldn’t change anything.
And benefiting from white privilege isn’t a sin. I’m not a bad person for it nor is anyone else. I just think everyone should be able to recognize it, not because I want white people to have less but I want people of color to have the exact same privileges as I do. I’m sorry if you think that’s just so radical and hard to get behind.
