[Excelsior]

(08-22-2011 11:43 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

I don't see anyone hating on black dudes having an easier time in spots. I just don't see as many white dudes kill it posts but maybe I am just not looking.

You wont find them because the perspective of the white male is largely the default, dominant one. Most of the anecdotes/reports come from this perspective-black perspectives are not common, which is why when a favorable one does show up, you hear more exclamation("black dudes kill it!"). This is not a bad or racist thing, it is simply a matter of demographics: The vast majority of male travelers are white, making the black(and, for that matter, asian/indian) perspective less common, and creating more demand for specific threads/conversations focused on them. Since they're rare, they'll also get more specific embellishments/exclamations.

Think about it in the context of Hollywood.

It is very easy to create the perception of a "black movie" in Hollywood. If the leading man/woman and 2-4 of the other main cast members are black, then the label comes forward pretty quickly. A movie/TV-show with a predominantly black cast is often type-cast by most as "a black movie" by many.

Inception sported a predominantly white cast, as did Transformers and the Dark Knight. When you see those movies and the predominantly white faces in them, do you think "This is a white movie"?

In most cases, you don't, because this is the norm. You just think they're movies or "blockbusters", and you fail to racialize them because you're seeing the accepted default, the de-facto position and it is therefore unremarkable to you. The majority perspective doesn't get the same exclamations or labels as the others simply because it is the default perspective, and everyone largely accepts that.

The same dynamic is at play here. Because most(though not all) travellers are white, most(though not all) threads are told from the white male perspective. You'll occasionally see users here mention how white guys do very well in certain places, but this distinction will be less common because their perspective is the standard and most common one, and is thus less likely to be singled out and embellished in a more racialized sense.