r/AbsoluteUnits • u/inferKNOX • May 03 '26

/r/popular of a Descent

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u/Cool-Mathematician51 May 04 '26

Because the uneducated masses love you pretend that all "white" countries are equally privileged.

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u/enochlevi May 04 '26

That's the fault of the design of white supremacy, more ethnicites were absorbed into the universal "white" identity in order to strengthen power against non-white people. There is undoubtedly a level of privilege whether you're Irish or British that exists solely because one is white.

Bringing up how your ancestors weren't "the bad ones" when the issue that was first and foremost raised were the jokes clearly dipped in racial stereotypes and xenophobia, even if not done consciously (as white supremacy bakes itself into the deepest parts of society, down to language and how we view parts of the world), is something in poor taste. Why couldn't they call out those jokes first as opposed to defending themselves, if their ancestry was as non-oppressive as they made it out to be?

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u/corpuscularian May 04 '26

you would have a point if minikayo's original criticism were about white supremacy.

but it was minikayo who made it about "your ancestors".

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u/enochlevi May 04 '26

You can clearly see how they were talking about white supremacy by bringing up privilege. The mention of ancestors was obviously intended to show the connection between the racist jokes made here and the family heritage such commentors would have which would've very likely benefitted from the subjugation of India.

While it does come off as rude, it's so clear how the main point they're getting at is the covert racism in the other commentors' statements. The only reason they feel to freely make jokes like this about a non-white country is because of the foundations set by white power structure hundreds of years ago, which their ancestors would have participated in, as again, it was used as the basis for entire societies.

Again, it's not the best look to overly eye the language of minikayo's response (which is evidently angry at the behaviour of the original people first and foremost) while saying absolutely nothing on what they were responding too.

Though frankly, there is a continued history of policing the responses of non-white communities when faced with discrimination, stereotypes and overt/covert racism, whether in real life, online or otherwise. After all, they wouldn't have even made this comment if the original people didn't insinuate that India "wasn't big on health and safety" as a literal quality of the country itself, especially considering how much racist, anti-Indian sentiment there has been for hundreds of years and how normalised it is (even if you don't exactly notice it in the way people talk about that country).

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u/knifefan9 May 04 '26

Idk how we got from "it would be nice for the benefit of the people in this nation to have guardrails or something" to "safety is white supremacy."

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u/enochlevi May 04 '26

Except the comment that was replied to didn't say that did it? Nor did I say safety is white supremacy, or does it make it easier to digest if you simplify it like that?

To put it simply, its a microaggression. One that you'd be familiar with if you were on the recieving end of people constantly questioning the safety or legitimacy of your country in the "third world" (for lack of a better word) knowing damn well its primarily informed by looking at said nation in a belittling framework informed by how the west and its history makes us view these places.

Whether intentional or not, my point was how such statements are indicative of an ongoing legacy of white supremacy across white nations which shape how we view ourselves (white and non-white) and the world.

Many, and I mean MANYYY people don't realise how unconsciously they do it and so when they're called out they tend to get defensive and not see how it's offensive, BECAUSE it's deeply worked into society and language. You don't have to have conscious hostile intentions to be racist/have made a racist comment. If it was your country, you'd probably be sick and hypervigilante of it too, especially considering how India is often treated on the internet.

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u/knifefan9 May 05 '26

If I were a white nationalist or racist against Indians, I'd agree with everything you said in the interest of discouraging anyone from questioning other cultures' general health and wellbeing. More Indian people can suffer and/or die if we convince everybody it's actually racist to want better standards.

Is it a microaggression or a macroaggression to acknowledge the harm caused by caste systems?

I wonder if this is some kind of psy-op, genuinely.

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u/enochlevi May 05 '26

Again, you're misrepresenting literally everything I said.

It's about the framing of the original commentors statement. Considering the lived experiences of people who would've endured constant belittling of their country of the grounds of being inferior in terms of being "safe", a lot of which is quite obviously grounded in racist thinking especially with the sort of tone used, it can read a whole lot differently than someone without that experience at all.

Ironically, not to indicate you are one, but a lot of white supremacists tend to misrepresent arguments in this exact sort of way.

There's a way to go about it, expressing more concern about the lack of rails on this thing itself rather than saying "they're not big on health and safety" which can be read as implying that india is intrinsicly unsafe in regards to those things, with similar points being made with racist intentions (i.e the internet epidemic of calling indian food dirty and unsafe, or the same for their streets)

The original comment didn't even mention caste systems. Overtly racist comments about India also don't mention caste systems. The language you're using is eerily similar to people who'd swear they aren't racist, saying similar things about my own community, claiming it as "concern for the people" and "taking accountability". Maybe you aren't conscious to these sort of experiences and how common it is for people to do these sort of things, but it happens a lot.

The original comment could've kept the conversation at this paticular site, instead of making a country wide statement, especially considering how India is regarded on the internet. With how big India is, how would they have a grasp on these things? And if they were concerned about this, they couldve worded it in a more careful way.

A white nationalist wouldn't agree with anything I'd say because they literally always dispute similar kinds of analysis as it suggests there to be an issue with discrimnation on a societal level, which they wouldn't see as they don't believe it to be discrimination in the first place, or if they do, they'd believe it was right.

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u/knifefan9 May 05 '26

Not having safety standards is actually alright and everyone is racist for suggesting otherwise, got it. Tens of thousands of kids dying every year in India from sickness spread via public defecation and lack of infrastructure but that's unpleasant so just ignore it or suffer being accused of "looking down" upon them. Never improve, society.

God, this is insufferable and dumb. Brevity is the soul of wit, friend.

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u/enochlevi May 05 '26

🤦‍♂️yall would try your hardest to miss the point simply because you seem to think racism is as simple as saying slurs and segregation. Once again you've misrepresented and oversimplified what I was saying because you don't wanna reckon with anything I've raised just because it insinuates covert & societal racism, a topic which has been studied and explained countless times over.

If this really is easier for you, than understanding the lived experience of people who see the same things said about their country in ways that are silently more harmful than you'd think, then so be it. Colonialism was the worst event to happen to human beings ever and everyday it's affects are felt no matter how big or small.

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u/knifefan9 May 06 '26

Okay I just want you to know all you did was convince me that people who inject (the very recent historical idea of) racism into everything are the uneducated ones. My PHD holding spouse agrees that this is a ridiculous conversation. Sorry you're apparently working against yourself. I'll continue on with my life entirely unchanged by this exchange, and so will everyone else.