People Twitter

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It's only offensive to a specific group of people (slrpnk.net)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 days ago (18 children)

I never claimed to speak for all young people? I have loved learning about history since I was a kid. But most people don't know much about history and don't have any interest in learning. They find it boring. That's just what I've noticed from being alive on this planet.

I bring up virtue signaling because it seems like the entire point of the tweet is for the person to signal that they are a moral and good person. I don't even understand the concept of being "offended by black history". Like what does that even mean and who does it apply to?

She's possibly talking about being offended by Black history month, which I guess is a thing? But in that case I would still disagree because you could be offended by it for the exact opposite reason, like how people are talking about Morgan Freeman not being a fan of it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (17 children)

I bring up virtue signaling because it seems like the entire point of the tweet is for the person to signal that they are a moral and good person. I don’t even understand the concept of being “offended by black history”. Like what does that even mean and who does it apply to?

I disagree with that entirely. It seems more angry to me and has nothing to do with how moral she is IMO.

She's black and probably is angry that people are offended if you mention the Tulsa race massacre because it's uncomfortable.

The Tulsa race massacre, also known as the Tulsa race riot or the Black Wall Street massacre,[12] was a two-day-long white supremacist terrorist[13][14] massacre[15] that took place between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as deputies and armed by city government officials,[16] attacked black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history.[17][18] The attackers burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood—at the time, one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States, colloquially known as "Black Wall Street."[19]

Or that most of the original men who started the US held slaves.

Thirty-four of the 47 men depicted in the famous "Declaration of Independence" painting were slaveholders.

You probably don't think that way, so you don't see it. I'm not going to pretend I know what her intent is either, I'm just guessing as well.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (16 children)

Not only do I not think that way, but I also can't imagine someone getting offended about people mentioning the Tulsa Race Massacre or the fact that the founding fathers held slaves.

Actual racists aren't going to be offended by those historical facts, they just might argue that they were justifiable in some way. Which is obviously super fucked up, but it's not like racist people are going to deny the fact that slavery happened or that black people got massacred by white people in history. They literally get off on that shit.

Which is why the tweet seems so strange to me. Black people getting enslaved and massacred and persecuted? That slaps? I fucking hope not.

I'm obviously overthinking but it just triggered my nonsense detector.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I also can’t imagine someone getting offended about people mentioning the Tulsa Race Massacre or the fact that the founding fathers held slaves.

Actual racists aren’t going to be offended by those historical facts, they just might argue that they were justifiable in some way. Which is obviously super fucked up, but it’s not like racist people are going to deny the fact that slavery happened or that black people got massacred by white people in history. They literally get off on that shit.

Many racists definitely do get offended by those facts. It's because they're coming at it from an emotional place, and the historical facts make them feel bad. Instead of dealing with that, they lash out. Not all racists are intentional about their racism.

I link this a lot, but it's worth a read https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

Which is why the tweet seems so strange to me. Black people getting enslaved and massacred and persecuted? That slaps? I fucking hope not.

That wasn't the intent of the tweet and that is a bizarre misreading of it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's a cute comic, thanks for that. I see what you mean, and I could see that happening with the Tulsa Race Massacre because a lot of people actually never learned about it. But not so much with the founding fathers holding slaves, because everyone already knows that.

Unfortunately, I still disagree with your assertions here on a number of levels. It seems to me that you're tilting at windmills in service of a tweet that inherently makes no sense.

I understand that wasn't the intent, which is why it seemed to me that the authors understanding of black history was coming from an extremely shallow perspective. I didn't misread anything, I simply have a more advanced conception of what history is.

If history is defined by excluding all of the bad things that happened, then it's not actually history, it's just fairy tales and bedtime stories to help kids sleep at night.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm glad you liked the comic.

I read the tweet as saying "Actually learning about history, the good and the bad, is better than avoiding it to whitewash (pun intended) slavers and spare their feelings"

How did you read it?

This also reminds me of a separate post I saw about how social media, and tweets especially, is a really bad format for communicating. The length constraints and incentivizing being clever don't make for fertile ground for ideas. Most people aren't going to read an essay, sadly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It just didn't make sense to me. I don't think talking about historical slavery necessarily makes racists feel bad and/or non-racists feel good. It's just a horrible reality all around, it's not really an empowering or liberating discussion on any level.

I totally agree with the difficulty communicating, I have been thinking that a lot of my issue with this is likely due to the limitations of the microblogging format, which I have always found to be very silly. I usually can't express how I really feel with 1000 words, let alone 140 characters. So misinterpretation is inevitable. And honestly that's probably part of the stickiness of the format, because misinterpretations drive engagement on corporate social media.

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