Of course, let's just all only talk about how we are personally disadvantaged, that sounds like a great recipe for unity and fighting power. Or is it only black people who have right to complain about anything?
It's fucking stupid and offensive. No wonder you get people talking about how the white working class has been abandoned.
If you are black, or fat, or gay, or whatever, and you look at everything through that lens, if your whole identity is bound up in that then, apart from most likely being an asshole, you are going to have a very distorted view of the world and how others experience it. You are going to resent your fellows and assume they have an easy time or are somehow responsible for your suffering because they don't have exactly the same experience as you. And you are going to miss who the real enemy is, that we share.
So let's fight amongst ourselves and blame each other while the rich and powerful laugh at our division.
If you were to say this in the context of a serious discussion concerning race relations in the US, your statement would be not only ignorant but appalling, and you would be laughed out of the room, frankly.
Where even to begin in response to this nonsense? If all of the emo folks here want to whine and moan about blacks making blanket statements about whites, and then run behind the curtain of "oh no, that's reverse racism, you're fucking stupid and offensive, we are only supposed to fight for unity!" then you quite consciously and intentionally have chosen to ignore the interesting, salient, and relevant issues (which ripley and stelfox quite correctly pointed out). Call it what you want, cite all the dictionaries you like, call out Parrish for his views, fine, whatever, but that's missing the much more relevant points, which his comments bring the fore in a not entirely uninteresting way. The very first thing I think when I read that interview, is how to understand it, parse it, situate it, and learn from it ...
not how to run to the nearest message board to hem and haw about his generalizations concerning race ...
And hey, given the historical context, s
o fucking what if non-whites want to make generalizations about white-dominated power structures? Seems to me that it is a fruitful conversation to have, and if people (e.g., Parrish) want to do it by making outrageous claims, then big deal, it's a discussion that I would MUCH RATHER HAVE, AND LISTEN TO, than to erase by your quick, easy, dismissive "oh how dare he generalize about all whites! tsk tsk" responses.
You know, it's a historically situated conversation and the question of racism in America is finally
maybe getting some airtime in a fairly serious way (or, well, perhaps we're inching closer), so if you want to shut it down with sanctimonious and tin-eared shrill whining about 'reverse racism' then by all means, do so.
But my guess is that many folks have heard your complaints before and find them completely unhelpful.
Your comments about the white working class remind me, incidentally, of Hillary Clinton's last ditch re-invention of her candidacy as one for the 'working class,' which of course was a coded form of racism.
