The Last White Man

Discussion in 'Race Relations' started by Lil Mike, Aug 8, 2022.

  1. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    A new book imagines that white people vanish. It's sort of a woke fantasy.

    The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid review – a hypnotic race fable


    One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown.” So begins Mohsin Hamid’s inventive new novel, The Last White Man. Anders, as it turns out, is not an isolated case. More people in an unnamed town begin to change, including Oona, a yoga instructor and a friend of Anders. Violence inevitably erupts around them. White vigilante gangs terrorise the transformed, while some doggedly refuse to accept an end to whiteness.

    You can imagine if someone wrote a book reversing the races...it probably wouldn't get such a good review in The Guardian. But I thing it digs into something deep in the woke that they wish white people would just...go away. It's telling that in this book white people turn brown; sort of a fantasy of woke whites to wake up free of guilt for being white.
     
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  2. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well, Im about as white as it gets, but even I have something like 1/100th Native American in me (or so my parents claim). To a lot of folks these days (not me), thats grounds to claim to be 'other than white.' So if thats the metric, its probably true there arent many (or any) 'white' people left anymore.

    TBC, thats not my metric, I just go by that which Im more of.
     
  3. Junkieturtle

    Junkieturtle Well-Known Member Donor

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    White dude here. It's beyond argument that white folks were responsible for some pretty heinous things in this country in our past. And while there are racists of every color and creed, there are still decent number of white racists out there.

    This country's makeup as predominantly white coupled with racism means there are going to be instances where white privilege is a reality. But I think it's time we refine that term because it invokes the wrong idea of what it's actually trying to describe. White people aren't afforded special rights and privileges in this country just for being white. It would be better to describe the situation that "white privilege" is intended to describe by calling it the absence of negative resistance. And it's absolutely not something that can be measured across the board, it's going to be situational.

    All that said, I have never for one second of my life felt any kind of guilt or negative emotion of any kind on account of being the white dude I was born as. Eff anybody who would try to make somebody feel bad just for being born a white person(or any race of person). Now, if you can cite specific examples of racist behavior or something along those lines, then you can criticize that specific white person. If you don't, it's just noise.
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2022
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  4. Jolly Penguin

    Jolly Penguin Well-Known Member

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    It's more than just noise. It's racism, no different than demanding this black child feel guilty that some random black gangsta shot somebody. It has absolutely nothing to do with this kid.
     
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  5. Daniel Light

    Daniel Light Well-Known Member

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    Why would white people worry about being a minority - unless there is a history of white people treating other minorities badly?

    Problem is that there are thousands of Americans alive today who were treated very poorly by the white
    majority during segregation. Hell, even I was alive when segregation was still codified under the law in many states.
    Hopefully, as that generation dies out, and the stories become history (not having grandpa sit you down and tell you stories of
    when white folk forced himself personally and other black Americans to sit at the back of the restaurant or bus) these feelings will start
    to subside.
     
  6. ToughTalk

    ToughTalk Well-Known Member

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    Whiteness is created by the environment...that's how the skin evolved to pale and light toned with less melenine.
     
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  7. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    I don't think you even read the OP. The book doesn't seem to be about that at all. Is that simply a stock reply to threads in the Race Relation section?
     
  8. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    You have fire water to trade for Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren for wapum?
     
  9. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    I hear that there's an easy way to start turning sort of a brown bronze-ish color.... You just take your shirt off and spend time in the Sun!
     
  10. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    hmm... bad trade.
     
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  11. Jolly Penguin

    Jolly Penguin Well-Known Member

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    There are more places on earth with no white people than there are with all white people.
     
  12. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    That is correct, on a global scale whites are and have always been the minority. Sounds like they're just mad because we were evidently better at conquering and civilizing the world
     
  13. Jolly Penguin

    Jolly Penguin Well-Known Member

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    My point regarding the OP is that there are plenty of places on earth that people can go if they don't want to see any white people. Plenty.
     
  14. Junkieturtle

    Junkieturtle Well-Known Member Donor

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    While true, it has nothing to do with the social customs and hierarchies that have been based on it. Those were all created by human beings, not the sun.
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2022
  15. Moriah

    Moriah Well-Known Member

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    Lil Mike, would you be able to accept living as a Black person? Just for a limited time? One year?
     
  16. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Welcome back!


    For a year? Sure, if there was some reason to do it, but what do you think that would accomplish?
     
  17. Moriah

    Moriah Well-Known Member

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    Thank you for the welcome back. It would give you an idea of what it's like to be Black in the USA.
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2022
  18. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    It really wouldn't.

    Unless of course you assume that my first day as a black man I'm immediately assaulted by the cops. I wasn't raised by a black family and never inculcated the culture, habits, and mores of a black family, or grew up with with the expectations of what it meant to by a black man in America, Sure I can read about stuff like that, but I can't make it a part of me so I can't ever deep down know what that's like. I would simply be a white guy cosplaying (as in blackface) for a year. Then I would write a book about it, Black Like Me, or something like that, and then go on a speaking tour where I pretend to really understand the black experience in America because of my experience and sell lots of books to white ladies who really want to be antiracist.
     
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  19. submarinepainter

    submarinepainter Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  20. Moriah

    Moriah Well-Known Member

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    I bet you could write a great book about your Black experience. :)
     
  21. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    I'm sure I could, and it would be hilarious, but if you think I would benefit from being a black man for a year, do you think you would benefit from being a white woman for a year?
     
  22. Moriah

    Moriah Well-Known Member

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    Yes. My hair would be easier to care for--- just wash and go. I heard that White women are the most adored, protected women in the USA. Maybe I could benefit from the switch. :)
     
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  23. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Well they do seem to get their way much of the time...
     
  24. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    It would be funny to see the difference in reactions if someone wrote a book about the last black person
     
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  25. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Well that's a book that would never be published.
     

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