It's "Get On Your Knees and Thank a White Man Day" in the Men's Rights subreddit [UPDATED]

@ samantha

it means cisgendered, which means you identify as the gender you were physically born as. like i’m cisgendered because i was born in a female body and i identify as female.

Even if the OP was being sarcastic (which just sounds like a shitty cop-out to me, TBH), his point is still wrong. Blaming white people as a group for committing atrocities against people of color through colonialist expansion and white supremacy does not, in any way, rest on a line of reasoning that would imply that white people deserve to be thanked for all of the supposedly good things they have done.

First of all, prejudice against white people is not racist, and plenty of folks who don’t like white people already know that not every single white person is genuinely supportive of white supremacist colonialism. Even Martin Luther King complained about the “white moderate” in his essay Letter From Birmingham Jail.

Second, even if we concede the truth of his accusation of anti-white racism, it is entirely possible to blame white people as a group for committing injustice and also devalue the contributions that white people have made. In fact, plenty of POC already do that; they point out that POC were in fact present in Europe during the Medieval Age, that at least some indigenous American societies were structured on the basis of a political system that we call “direct democracy” today, and that the creation of rock can be attributed to black musicians. And much more than that.

Beyond these specific examples of whitewashing, there is the fact that many POC still hate white supremacist colonialism because, regardless of how many positive accomplishments white people have made (accomplishments which have mainly benefited white people only), the system in which those discoveries were made still colonized and destroyed POC societies. It’s like telling an indigenous woman who was raped that she should appreciate the white man who raped her because he donates to charity, is known as a righteous man of the cloth, and even has “plenty of Indian friends.”

it means cisgendered, which means you identify as the gender you were physically born as. like i’m cisgendered because i was born in a female body and i identify as female.

The preferred term is “cisgender”, actually. The reasons for this preference are unclear to me, but almost every single trans person I know hates hearing “cisgendered”, “transgendered”, etc. – the problem is in the passive voice of the words, as far as I can tell.

And I’d say the most accurate definition is just “non-transgender”, with “transgender” simply meaning “someone whose gender differs from the gender they were assigned at birth.” For instance, I’m trans because my gender is female despite the fact that my gender was assigned male at birth.

It’s easy to focus on the ahistoricity, but really, even if this guy had personally invented everything himself, he’d still be an asshole if he expected you to get down on your knees and thank him for it.

@ Buttercup Q. Skullpants

I know, how has the white man accomplished anything, considering how busy he’s been being oppressed by women since forever?? Surely they were too busy hunting mammoth for women to actually create anything.

Somehow, I have a hard time believing that this was satire. For satire to work it has to be:
1) Clear that it’s satire
2) Funny

This looks like backpedaling from someone who got called out for being racist and forgetting elementary school level history. How does this highlight racism against white people? First of all, racism against white people isn’t a thing. Second of all, it isn’t common for people to go around saying that white men never invented anything. The contributions white men made to civilization are not undervalued. In fact they are typically overvalued.

Seriously, don’t most third graders know that gunpowder, the printing press and pasta are Chinese inventions? Isn’t it common knowledge that the concept of zero was Arabic? Didn’t most American kids grow up learning about black inventions in school during black history month?

Actually, the invention of a numeral indicating zero was Indian; other cultures (e.g. the Sumerians) had the concept too, but indicated it using an empty space rather than a character. IIRC, the Mayans also had a numeral for zero, but I’m not sure.

Leum.
Wow, thanks. I was misinformed.
http://media3.giphy.com/media/5bo8XMq0GROw0/giphy.gif

RE: WWTH

Seriously, don’t most third graders know that gunpowder, the printing press and pasta are Chinese inventions?

I didn’t learn it till high school, myself.

RE: Robert

I have read of people complaining about being referred to as ‘cis’. Well, if that’s the worst thing you get called, you have really won the Oppression Olympics, imnsho. /s

I don’t even GET how they complain about it. It’s a strict, neutral, descriptive term. You don’t have assholes leaning out of car windows and shrieking, “CIS!” at you as you walk home from the store. You don’t have crowbar-wielding gangsters saying, “We’re gonna make an example out of you, cis,” or job agencies saying, “Sorry, we don’t accept cis people.” What exactly are they complaining about?

“ask yourself how much of current civilization would exist if not for the white man”

As if current civilization is all that it’s cracked up to be.

@Robert

To be exact, a granfalloon is a group united under a fabricated common “identity” but with no real connection, which describes such a thing as “The White Race” very well.

Actually, the invention of a numeral indicating zero was Indian

A dramatic recreation of that very moment