The big assumption is that things happened exactly as they are being presented.
While I normally don't think a particular view would be that far from reality, in this case the author's clear bias - to the point of railing against a woman that made the cardinal sin of comparing his necklace to a calculator somehow equating to racism - I'm not so sure.
I think the word "oppression" perfectly applies to multiple unwelcome instances of strong verbal abuse coming from someone in a privileged class directed at someone in a non-privileged class. If there's a better word, I haven't found it yet.
Even if we take the most charitable interpretation possible, that this wasn't anything more than "talking BS" and "irreverent jokes" and that the person making jokes was just clueless and not trying to be deliberately hurtful, that still doesn't make this kind of behavior OK. Ignorance of common decency is no excuse not to be decent.
>I think the word "oppression" perfectly applies to multiple unwelcome instances of strong verbal abuse coming from someone in a privileged class directed at someone in a non-privileged class. If there's a better word, I haven't found it yet.
Are white people supposed to be privileged in a company and black people non-privileged? Was he denied changes to get a promotion, or had he to make do with less wage? What was his "under-privileged" status?
If two white guys, say an Irish and a Southern, exchange Irish and Redneck jokes at one another, does that count as "verbal abuse" too? Or is it only verbal abuse when they turn and address similar stuff to a black co-worker?
Are you seriously asking these questions? Do you realize that you're coming across as defending deplorable behavior? Do you care? Would you say these sorts of things to the author's face?
There's a large sea of historical context that we're all swimming in. You can pretend it doesn't exist and make your cute little conjectures about Irish and Redneck jokes.
>Are you seriously asking these questions? Do you realize that you're coming across as defending deplorable behavior? Do you care? Would you say these sorts of things to the author's face?
I sure would. He comes off as a judgemental, reverse-racist (I lost count of the "anti-white-in-general" references), and unable to take a joke guy with an axe to grind.
I care far more for actual cases of racism, like an over-representation of the black population being in prison, or the government (and the country) pissing all over native american rights, that for some guy crying over some jokes said in his office without any links to actual facts of racism (like, I was paid less because I was black, I was not promoted because I was black, etc).
>There's a large sea of historical context that we're all swimming in. You can pretend it doesn't exist and make your cute little conjectures about Irish and Redneck jokes.
YOU might be swimming in. This is the internet, it's global. My country didn't trade in black slaves, so I could care less for that hypocritical "after the fact" guilt.
I see where you're coming from. I guess I should have said "there's a large sea of historical context that the OP was swimming in"
It feels you're setting up a false dichotomy between "actual" racism that involves things like incarceration rates and workplace discrimination and "fake" racism that involves things like hostile workplaces and harassment. It is possible to care about both.
And maybe you wouldn't cry over jokes like that, but it doesn't mean that it's wrong for someone else to have a different response.
Is there an explanation for the events in the story that aren't clear examples of oppression? I can't find one.