So privilege is definitely a thing, and it's generally invisible to people who have it. But why does that make people who are unconscious of their privilege "stupid"? It's the norm. Moreover, why is it desirable for people who off-handedly reveal their unexamined privileges to ritualistically apologize without learning anything? Who does that help, exactly? Isn't the incentive then just for privileged people to be more assiduous about pretending privilege doesn't exist?

No, but nice try.

In his conversation, Bernie hypothesized that perhaps the reason people like McCain are so flippant in the way they toss around insults like "monkey" at people for whom those very specific insults might have a racial connotation...is that people like McCain are too privileged to even comprehend that what they think is a light joke, is actually a racial-based insult.

And then you challenged his implication that McCain came from a more privileged background, at which point I merely pointed out precisely how privileged a background John McCain came from (which is, frankly, more privleged than just about anyone, and certainly more so than *either* our current president or Iran's current president).

I could put all the relevant quotes in this post, but I've already done so, and that didn't seem to help you follow your own conversation, and repeating that work would not likely change that outcome.

Reading Is Fundamental. I can only surmise that RIF must have fallen by the wayside at some point, between the eras when you and I each were in elementary school.

It doesn't make them "stupid".

And, it's not at all desireable for them to "ritualistically apologize without learning anything."

What they should do is actually learn something, which appears to be well beyond John McCain's grasp at this advanced stage of his life. Maybe perhaps because he's been too privileged for too long. But that also seems to be endemic among the class of wealthy white males perched atop today's GOP, and emblematic of the same issues they're having connecting with any voter who isn't from their very same stock and background.

On some levels, it's all tied together, that McCain would call a nation's leader a monkey, and that his compadres would actively work to put obstructions in the way of minorities in this country's voting.

ageism itt

Odd that you chose only to include our current president, and no mention of the person we were actually talking about. Nor any allusions to him.

I mean, until way, way, way after the fact.

But it's cool. Lots of people can't admit when they were wrong.

I know, you still haven't admitted that John McCain comes from greater privilege than the Iranian president.

I don't know anything about the childhood of the Iranian president. I would hate to say something bigoted, like he can't have come from equal privilege just because he's Iranian, but I don't know his background at all, nor much anything about Iranian culture/people/etc.

But the statement McCain made, here in the present, about the current president of Iran, yeah, that's a different story. Is the Iranian president more, less, or roughly equally as privileged as McCain?

Then let me help you out.

One was the son of an ironwork/grocer/barber who had to change his last name in order to avoid discrimination, when his son was four years old.

One is the direct descendant of two generaetions of 4 star admirals, the single highest military rank you can receive in the United States Navy outside of wartime.

No, the two of them were nowhere near equally privileged.

Ok, and nowadays?

Well, allegedly (as in, according to Wiki)...

That doesn't sound like a privileged existence at all, certainly not as privileged as John McCain, was pretty much handed his first terms in the House and Senate, and is only a five-year period as a POW away from having basically nothing to hang his hat on with regard to not being a full on elitist (which he's become since, anyway, but can still rely on that old chestnut for seeming not to be a privileged person).

There's a lot of incredibly horrible things one can say about Iran's president which would be accurate. That's he's anywhere near as privileged a person as John McCain is not one of them.

Who is more likely to oppress who, Iran or the US?

b

these are the measures of what makes for a racist/bigoted comment?

wtf is going on in this thread, yo.

Luv how you just instantly put a vacuum around a comment.

It is a factor to it, especially in regards to one's privilege(maybe you don't understand privilege and how it works?). When was the last time another nation had troops occupying space within the continental US? Who has more power to decimate the other? Are you going to say that both countries are on equal footing with equal access to resources? It's just more macro level than what we have going on within our country as far as who has access to resources--affluent White heterosexual males--which dominate our top political offices.

btw...my initial privilege comment went towards people in congress(primarily repubs since they seem to be loose cannons in these displays), and not just isolated towards McCain's monkey comment(getting back to some of the original premise of the thread). Though it is included, as was explained a couple times, in how many don't seem to see what's wrong with those comments. McCain might get a little air if he didn't have a pattern of these comments. So acting like this is just one rare comment that slipped is disingenuous at best.

Punting to 'Iranians say they're caucasians' was quite loltastic. Since one knows very well in US culture they're not considered caucasians/White.

I find it hard to believe, given your time on this forum, that you are somehow in the dark about this. Nope, not buying it.


b

I just heard that some republican is trying to cut the pensions of congressman and gov't employees. I'm so sick of hearing about these repubs trying to cut gov't spending and their own pay. All they care about is our country. These repubs are going to die a tragic death.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/...ensions/39445/

jfc, just don't call brown people monkeys. How complicated is that?

Dick Morris apparently apparently tipped the ****** scales at Fox, and they're not renewing his contract.

So the line for being acceptably ****tarded is somewhere in between Rove and Morris

Dennis Kucinich is a new Fox contributor which should be fun.

It'll be interested to see if/when he gets whittled down to hackdom like that other fat liberal guy whose name is now escaping me

Fox was so bored beating up on strawmen of liberals they went out and hired the most liberal liberal in all liberaldom. Nice move sirs, nice move.

Fox news ratings are at a 12 year low, the frothers are literally dying

It's part of the assimilation process that's shown positive results year after year. They have to be able to call 'them' something...

How else is dominant culture supposed to define itself.

b

one dickbag politician calling another dickbag politician a name is expressing cultural dominance?

Well when you oversimplify if that much of course it doesn't sound so bad.

Michael Richards called someone in his audience "a name" once

Still after the gays.
Still all up in womens' vaginas.
Still pushing one religion in schools and government
Surrogates filing SCOTUS briefs arguing that civil rights laws should be struck down.

This week in the GOP is just like the last few years. Can leopards change their spots or is this the result of all the denial we've heard about after the 2012 elections?