The APA is all onboard the woke train

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I agree with you on all of this.

In the “woke” ideology you can’t because as a white person you are automatically racist due to your white privilege. You must be made uncomfortable or worse at all times be it at your job, and in every form of entertainment you receive because silence=violence.

“Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t”. That is exactly how it was intended and as demonstrated in the OP it is working. Disagree with ANY “woke” talking points, with the ever changing definitions? Proof of your white fragility. In a prior life this was defined as gaslighting.

All this nonsense is caused by people wrongly believing that other people cause their emotions due to an epidemic of bad parenting. I used to be a highly sensitive person who was easily offended and blamed everyone else for making me feel worse. Once I got a reality check and realized I was solely responsible for my own emotions, I was able to overcome my emotional problems and am now less sensitive than most people. I don't get offended anymore and hardly ever get upset.

The belief that people cause your emotions or that you can make someone else feel worse is known in the field of psychology as a control fallacy. Instead of catering to rapidly increasing numbers of people with mental problems, we should be telling people they're mentally ill and urging them to seek treatment for their mental problems which will make life easier and better for everyone, especially those with mental illnesses. Trying to be sensitive and avoid someone getting upset by agreeing with whatever nonsense they believe doesn't help them. It harms them by keeping them in denial by reinforcing their delusion that other people are the problem instead of acknowledging they are the problem and seeking appropriate treatment.

There seems to be a lot of gaslighting going on nowadays, in more ways than one. Trump trolls have turned it into an art form.

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The weaponization of the term is being discussed not the merits of being against racism.

I believe the author is complaining about grouping individual experiences. Most racism is about fear of difference, not ideology.

And posted by a sympathetic autistic. Oh dear. It is “woke” ideology often preached by white people that are telling them to see themselves only or primarily victims that is being objected to. Seeing oneself as only a victim and constantly looking for evidence of others victimizing you is a bad thing for your mental health. The APA used to call this type of thing paranoia. True, just because you are paranoid does mean someone is not out to get you, even in that case being paranoid is a bad thing.

This part I agree with you, the traumas of the pandemic do not erase the traumas of bigotry.
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Drawing attention good, fetishizing bad. Not emphasizing commonalities and encouraging group guilt is a bad thing because racist thinking centers around emphasizing differences. Some similarities to the old Vietnam War(and since) strategy of destroying a village to save it. That did not work out well.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 12 Sep 2020, 11:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

My use "woke train" was an attempt at an ironic reference to the expression "Trump train"

"I'm going off the rails of the crazy train!"

I’m going to quote Oscar Hammerstein II, from the book of Richard Rogers South Pacific

Cable - You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade
You've got to
Be carefuly
Taught
You've got to be taught
Before it's too late
Before you are six
Or seven
Or eight
To hate all the people
Your relatives hate
You've got to
Be carefully taught
You've got to
Be carefully taught.

Emile De Beque -
This is just the kind of ugliness I was running away from
It has followed my all this way
All these years
And now it has found me
I was cheated before
And i'm cheated again
By a mean little world
Full of mean little men
And the one chance for me
Is this life I know best
To be here on an island
And to hell with
The rest
I'll cling
To this island
Like a tree or a stone
I'll cling to this island and be free
And
Alone

Bolding is my idea.

The entire premise of South Pacific about racism, both overt and covert. Hammerstein was way ahead of his time when he adapted Michner’s Tales of the South Pacific For the musical stage back in the 1940’s.

Too bad the lesson was never learned by the general public.

Comparing individual experiences to others is a good way of determining where patterns exist that go beyond those individual experiences. Recognizing those patterns is how we work to break the cycle. Comparing our experiences as individuals on the spectrum has helped us better learn how to cope and how to help those not on the spectrum understand when their behavior towards us is not okay.

Recognizing when you are the target of prejudice is the first step in acting to change that. Seeing yourself as a victim is only a problem when it either is not true or it paralyzes you into inaction--neither of which apply here. It is not paranoia if it is based in reality. I'm willing to forgive occasionally seeing racism where there is none, because more often than not it is in fact very much real. The black community has not been inactive in response to being targets of racism--they organize, take to the streets, and try to educate those around them. "Woke" white people going overboard by virtue signalling are outliers among growing numbers of whites who are realizing the ubiquity of individual and systemic racism.

What the heck? Agreement mixed in with civil disagreement? Being pleasantly surprised on a politics forum? What's the world coming to.

What would you consider a more proper means of drawing attention to these issues that does not fetishize them? (Which is not to say that I think everyone involved in drawing attention to these things does so constructively or in good faith). Emphasizing commonalities often leads to situations where we see a lack of commonality. I would not say so much that we should be sowing group guilt so much as group responsibility. I believe I'm racist, because I'm white and I was raised in a racist society. I don't guilt trip or flagellate myself over it, I just try to be mindful of it when examining my thoughts and feelings so I can minimize its effect on my actions.

The end.

Seeing racism everywhere or fetishizing it will cause most people to act in two ways.

1. Paralyze them.
2. Act recklessly because what the hell the system is hopelessly rigged and people are evil.

My diagnosis sure made me aware of the disadvantages of being on the spectrum of the ableism that exists, hell that ableism is a thing. I don't believe all NT's are ableist because of their "NT privilege". I do not believe Leo Kanner's, Bruno Bettelheim's, and Ole Ivar Lovaas's decedents and certainly not all NT's owe me reparations. If someone says Autistics are ret*ds or any other stereotype I will criticize them for it. I would be all for a suit against The Association of Professional Behavior Analysts because they are engaging in current harmful actions against autistics. When I first ahem "woke" to the fact I am autistic and how it has disadvantaged me over my lifetime I used to think that parents who sent their kids to ABA were ableist monsters. Now I view most of them as fellow victims, not the problem. Why? I came to realize the only choices for their kids in America is ABA, homeschooling for which most of them are not qualified, finding some "alternative" treatments that are probably quack and they can't afford anyway. As much as I absolutely loathe to admit it ABA is the lesser of evils choice in many cases. How does telling them to "check their privilege", or that they are ableist because they are neurotypical help their autistic children?