Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
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So what is the bear thing? I’ve seen reference to it a couple of times… I get the gist, but like what’s the source?
Just a post of someone saying they'd rather be stuck in the middle of the woods with a bear rather than with an unknown man, been posted lots of places not just lemmy.
I'm confused. How is that controversial, and how are people taking it personally?
The first one is just an expression of biases that their experiences have resulted in. As for the second one, I'm clueless. Maybe if you feel like the main character in every situation, they'd be offended because the man in reference is then, and as such not unknown?
How would you feel if the hypothetical was asking if you'd rather encounter a bear or a Muslim?
What about a bear or a person who is black?
Or a bear vs an immigrant?
See the issue?
Also, when we dehumanize or other an entire sex (which is what we're doing here) who do you think suffers the most irl from that dehumanization?
Because it isn't rich white men in gated suburban communities. It's the black and brown men who are already viewed as inherently harmful and are disproportionately violently victimized by police and the state.
If we want more George Floyds then we should keep spreading memes like this. Because this contributes to the mindset that allows us to view men of color as inherently dangerous superpredators
If I had to guess I'd say because "an unknown man" can be intepreted as "an average man" which obviously is going to hit a lot of people.
The actual statistics of man vs bear is not really the point through, and a large number people did not get that. It's just that the question was phrased (intentionally or unintentionally) in a way that lends itself to this comparison.