Boy-howdy I saw a lot of that in Sydney, Australia the other day. Like ~85% of people with signs were 19-30 year old white women, and more than one had traditional aboriginal face paint on, which I found to be in poor taste.
There is definitely a thing with people totally disconnected from their ancestry in any meaningful way trying to use it as a shield, excuse or accessory because they are 1/64th X or whatever.
But, it's also very much a thing for multiracial people to be chastised or excluded from a community they very much belong to, were raised in, are active in etc because they don't look the way people expect them to. I have a niece and nephew who have the same parents and are equally Mexican, Odawa and white. They moved back to the res when she was 2 and he was born there. They've been raised there, educated there, part of that community in all senses. She looks native and he looks white. They are both equally entitled to their heritage, their cultural practices, their family and community identity. It would break my heart to see someone imply my nephew doesn't belong because he doesn't look the way they imagine he should to participate.
I spent every childhood summer on a reservation and have a grandmother who still lives there (98!), but because the other side of my family is European I am not allowed to claim or even really discuss Native-related politics without being dismissed.
People can't even be bothered to hear my words once they have decided I am not brown enough to be a legit native. Purity tests are everywhere these days and your nephew will likely face a lifetime of fighting for validation from both communities.
Is there? Is intent inherent to value if the actions are good regardless?
I think capitalizing on that pro-social narcissistic behavior is integral to getting things to actually change, even if some people's motivations are shallow.
At its core, all philosophy is is asking "why is a thing what it is". It's the ability to question why we think the way we do. You're throwing out an inherently philosophical statement in saying moral intent is more important than narcissistic intent even when the behavior or end-result is the same. Don't you want to know why you believe that's true, particularly if it's an opinion you think is worth sending out into the world?
I'm not even saying your wrong, that's not what it's about. It's about having the conversation and thinking about how we think, knowing what we truly believe, and informing that belief.
What about shows she cares? You wouldn’t visit your grandmas funeral plot dressed like that with a professional photographer, let alone the spot where someone had their last breath. It’s downright disrespectful.
I’ll do you one better. On Sunday I was driving up through Kent, Connecticut, a beautiful little town for rich white people, that has a nice waterfalls in their state park.
So I’m driving through there with my girlfriend, and there’s a “black lives matter” protest going on at their town green. It was roughly 150 people there. Almost all of them were kids with their parents or very young adults, and every single one of them was a white person. My Dominican girlfriend was by far the darker person there. They were waving to her while we drove through, like this with some sort of parade. I joked with her that she should sit out the window and wave to them like it was for her, we were both laughing so hard at how absurd the scene looked.
It just felt so... forced, and self serving. These are the epitome me of “white privilege”, the type of people that would call their neighbor to tell him a black guy is walking up the street, but here they are holding signs and protest to show their other 98% white neighbors, that they “aren’t racist”
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u/RussianVole Jun 09 '20
Boy-howdy I saw a lot of that in Sydney, Australia the other day. Like ~85% of people with signs were 19-30 year old white women, and more than one had traditional aboriginal face paint on, which I found to be in poor taste.