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The Oval Office, then and now. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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[–] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Apparently criticising Western Exceptionalism = "simping for dictators"

I'm increasingly convinced that liberals don't even think words mean anything anymore beyond signalling what team you're on.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    When you read the description "dictator from the middle east" and you believe that it is an attack on Asians in general, you do not understand that not everybody from the Middle East is Asian or a dictator.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    What exactly do you think their point was?

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Just look below. Pretty clearly to call the other person a racist.

    The irony obviously being that this is about the interior design of the White House and calling it "designed by a dictator from the middle east" is about as bad of an insult as "designed by a king from europe". It only really works as a racist statement, when you believe in Western Exceptionalism.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    It only really works as a racist statement, when you believe in Western Exceptionalism.

    This Is some laughable mental gymnastics! I assure you that I don't believe in Western exceptionalism.

    The reason looking at Trump's ugly, ego-stroking, interior design choices and saying they "look like a middle eastern dictator designed it" is racist, is because it Orientalizes the middle east, not as a place with diverse peoples, politics, and yes, interior design senses.

    But instead papers over that diversity and paints Trump's gaudy displays as unbecoming of a western leader, more akin to that of an imagined barbaric Oriental Despotism

    Saying Trump's design sense is "Like a middle eastern dictator" is very different from saying it's "like a European king". The former sits within a of a long history of Oriental racism perpetuated by Europeans, against people's the Global South.

    Please read Orientalism by Edward Said, I'm begging you people!

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