The "Shake Your Fist At The Sky" Path To Getting Ahead In Life
Clay Routledge, below, was responding to a post I tweeted, "The Black Immigrant's View Of America: "The Dream Is Real." (My retweet of his tweet is on the top.)
I posted on this before, based on a tweet by @blackrepublican. An excerpt from that post, "Fetishizing Racism And Other Forms Of Discrimination -- Or Thriving Despite Them":
I think there's a trend for people to identify as victimized -- in order to signal themselves to be members of a tribe of victims, as a form of covert narcissism (getting attention through pity and feeling entitled to shame others), and as a way to demand (and sometimes get) unearned power over others.I think this identification as a victim is one of the more disempowering things a person can do -- which isn't to say that we should all just ignore that some people truly are discriminated against, more than others.
I think the difference in perception involves where you put your focus, past or future. Past is "What's been done to us" and future involves where you're going.
When a member of an Accredited Victim Group is seen to be victimized by a member of the Oppressor Class, it's a deposit into the moral authority account. The moral authority account allows the AVG to demand one thing or another from society.
Thus, issues like the current fuss in St. Louis must be exaggerated while ignoring the 140+ murders so far this year, 90&% of which involved black victims. Because 100% of the suspects are black. No joy there.
The racial lineup is so rare that it must be used unsparingly and, as with Trayvon Martin, a white man had to be invented out of George Zimmerman, half hispanic and blacker than Homer Plessey.
OTOH, an offense against a member of the Oppressor Class by a member of an AVG is a withdrawal from the moral authority account and so must be minimized.
See Matthew Shepard vs. Jesse Dirkhising in the matter of publicity.
Crystal Mangum vs. Dukie Katie Rouse, an actual Duke student who was actually raped at an actual Duke fraternity house. Who got the ink?
Richard Aubrey at September 19, 2017 4:35 AM
Part of becoming an adult is the discovery that life is unfair and terrifying. A hurricane can drop 50 inches of rain on you and your house on a "hill" goes under water. There is cancer out there. Crazy dictators get nuclear weapons. But even worse, there are unjust laws, people who don't like you, mean girls, mean teachers and bosses, bullies, thieves (including the IRS). You can decide to embrace victimhood and wail and shake your fist and riot, or you can become an adult who tries to make the best of the horror show. Choosing to make the best of it can work out pretty well as long as you don't expect rainbows and unicorns. In fact, it can be a blast. But not for victims, who will never have a good time, and who are still upset that "mom and dad--ie society" have let them down and are less than perfect.
cc at September 19, 2017 9:24 AM
You can decide to embrace victimhood and wail and shake your fist and riot, or you can become an adult who tries to make the best of the horror show.
I'm going to include the above sentence as my tagline on another forum.
"Life's a pile of shit, when you look at it . . ." -- From Monty Python's The Life of Brian
But how you handle it can determine whether YOU end up being a pile of -- um -- stuff, or not.
mpetrie98 at September 19, 2017 1:07 PM
Sadly, cc, your quote is too long to be accepted as a tagline on the other forum, but I will fondly keep it in mind.
mpetrie98 at September 19, 2017 1:12 PM
I wish I could remember who counseled the snowflakes that being offended is not an achievement.
Great insight into the snowflakes' world view.
Richard Aubrey at September 19, 2017 2:55 PM
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