Guilty of Being White

Look getting beat up, or harassed due to your skin color, is screwed up no matter what your skin color might be. Racism is racism, no matter what the configuration.

The fact that some people on here are basically saying that certain forms of racism should be tolerated, because 'some people have it easier than others', is a pretty f**ked up argument when you think about it.

Look: I'm not saying over all, that its not much easier to be white rather than black, because I'm sure it is. Then again, I'm sure its much easier to be President Obama, than an impoverishment white kid from Jersey too.

My point is, is that ALL forms of racism should never be tolerated. The fact that some of you believe that the protagonist doesn't even have a right to express his emotions over being picked on, due to his race, is a form of racism in itself. Think about it.

In Steven Blush's book American Hardcore: A Tribal History, Iam MacKaye comments on this song. He says it is about his life growing up in DC, where HE was the minority. During history class, while studying the slave trade, he would be beaten up after class for something he had no part of. Also, Slayer covered this song, but they changed the last line to "guilty of being right!" which offended Ian with it's pretty blatant racism. Well, that's all for now.

I'm sorry, but you are WAAAY off. He's talking about how racism of any kind is bad. It's about his experiences in a 70% black highschool, where he and his white friends often took abuse for things like slavery, segreegation, etc. when they clearly had nothing to do with any of those things. He's basically just trying to say that racism is racism, it doesn't matter who does it.

well, i think this song is trying to point out how although most white people of this day and age never participated in the slave trade , they still get blamed for it. my family didnt even live in this country until the early 1900's. everyone is prejudice in their own way, but this is just pointing out how there is a reverse discrimination going on. now "all white people are evil because they must be racist against black people" so they are "guilty of being white"

Okay, I lived in a predominantly black school system while growing up, and was bullied for it. That's what this song is about. Evil is evil, prejudice is prejudice, no matter who does it. All the idiots here going on about white privilege really need to shut the fuck up, the idea of white privilege is exactly what the "guilty of being white" is about. Talking about white privilege as an absolute is dumb because there is no one thing that dominates all, American society is not perfectly homogenous. There are times, places, and situations where what was the minority on the large scale becomes the majority in the small scale. White man's guilt isn't going to fix the problem, it just breeds more racism.

Being a skinhead does not mean you are a racist; that's just an inaccurate generalization the media has been making since the skinhead movement started. They have been around longer than punk rock. It started in the late 60's/early 70's with British football fans who wanted to be involved in something other than the Mod movement that was going on at the time.

Let's end this subject on slayer. They definitely NOT racist, tom araya is from Chile and Dave lombardo is cuban.

I agree with this song 110 percent. Double standards FTL.

this is one of those things where we need to be logical, not emotional.

what logic says is that even if the world is still full of racism, patriarchy and all that other nasty shit (and it is), that doesn't mean that my anarchist, white, structurally unemployable ass that is actually descended from irish "indentured servants" and very recent norse and italian immigrants has a damned thing to do with it - not even in the sense that my ancestors are responsible, because the fact is that they aren't. what logic says is that blaming me for the legacy of slavery, me being a lower class white person that is descended from servants for fuck's sake, and doing it for no other reason than the colour of my skin, is actually the definition of prejudice. it's racist. that's what logic says...

and, yes, it does tend to get a little irritating sometimes when i try and reach out to people of colour in an attempt to work together and the result is being accused of some kind of inherent systemic preference due to my skin colour, a preference that i'd like to take some advantage of, but that seems rather illusory. that makes it really hard to build inclusive systems, moving forwards. that's what the important point here is.

i'm consequently led to the conclusion that this song makes a difficult to acknowledge, but absolutely pertinent point: my white, anarchist, hopelessly unemployed ass wants to work together with people of all colours, genders and orientations to try and produce legitimate change, not get brow beaten by an upper middle class coloured person for being a privileged functionally homeless person. whether intentional or not, what we see in the critical race theory when put into practice is very powerful divide and conquer. and it's drilled, drilled, drilled. i've repeatedly seen white kids on welfare or worse apologize to dark kids that live in mansions for not recognizing their privilege. it's absurd.

however, logic isn't always the best way to approach the situation, and if put into the wrong set of hands this song can become very racist. it could be used to stifle dissent, to deny the necessity of state reparations or to eliminate policies that level the playing field of continuing systemic injustices.

but, of course, punk music is supposed to exist in this kind of gray area.

the proper, non-racist way to interpret the song is to apply it to something specific, not something general. there are people of colour in the activist community that need to get their facts straight, and this does need to be said to them - specifically. but, it cannot be generalized, as, when it is, it erases and trivializes a lot of things that should not be trivialized or erased.

Heh, I find it funny how people go around calling each other morons, when they can't even use the right word. It's YOU'RE, not YOUR, jackass.