• psvrh@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      Middle-aged white men have a lot of privilege. It’s time we used it for good.

      Is this white-saviour and/or patriarchial? Yup. Does it work? Also yup.

      I don’t know if we all realize this, but some shitlord being told “What the fuck is wrong you?!” cuts deeper when it comes from someone who looks like their dad, granddad, or their boss.

      I’m a 47-year old white guy in a leadership position in a large company. I’ve done exactly this to both young-millenial edgelord types who think I’m in on the joke, and boomer or elder-Xers who are yelling at clouds. I will tell you that, not only does it smack down the dipshit who thought that “lol rape” or “brown people bad” was funny, it also sets the tone for everyone else in the room, and it gets word around that bigotry isn’t acceptable.

      Anyone can say this, but it hits harder when it’s someone privileged. Women, LGBTQ folk and other vulnerable groups don’t have this privilege, and get shut down, and if we don’t want that to be the case, we need to speak up for them.

      • Track_Shovel@slrpnk.netOP
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        8 days ago

        Fuck yes. This is the entire point of the post. This is not my meme, but some turds are focusing in on ‘buh only WhItE mEn?!’. No. Not just white men. White women and children too, anikan. Anybody really.

        You raise a very good point about our white male privilege and the lack of ‘stopping power’ less privileged groups have when challenging bigotry.

      • AlpacaChariot@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        All of this also applies to women saying horrible things being called out by other women who they respect / think are part of their social group.

    • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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      8 days ago

      It’s only bigotry if it’s cishetwhitemen doing it, otherwise it’s just sparkling discrimination.

      I’m not in the trenches of this particular culture war, so I don’t know shit, but I really do wonder why not phrase it as “people who want to be better allies” instead of targeting a single racial group and sexual orientation. Would feel more inclusive.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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        8 days ago

        I think you got it. The op was probably fixating on the biggest impact that they can see, but that’s going to vary by community and who is reading this.

        Also huge shocker, diverse groups of people also need to be mindful of this shit.

        It’s the reason good “DEI” policies are important. If you just start hiring people from more diverse backgrounds (good) then have them land in a toxic work environment with 0 support (bad) then they’re not likely to thrive.