Why are We Back-Peddling on Racial Color-Blindness?
I cannot be bothered with the concept of race, not only because a human being is a great deal more than her epidermis and phenotypes, but because mental apartheid is a sure path to true apartheid. In that sense, I am “color blind”.
It wasn’t too long ago that being racially color-blind was held in higher regard, and that it’s opposite— racializing people and being overly conscious of their race and skin-color instead of their character and deeds—was racist.
Nowadays, however, being color-blind is a matter of privilege, not principle. My “colorblindness comes from a lack of awareness of racial privilege conferred by Whiteness” (Psychology Today), as if color-blindness is limited to white people only.
But when I say “I don’t see color”, It’s taken literally, as if I cannot see the tone of someone’s skin, or worse, I cannot see them entirely. By being color-blind I am apparently choosing to ignore racism.
In fact, my color-blindness is now a “micro-aggression”, because by refusing to consider race as a valid categorization I “deny the significance of a person of color’s racial/ethnic experience and history” and “deny the individual as a racial/cultural being”, which I suppose causes her pain.
At any rate, when I judge someone by the content of her character and not the color of her skin, to the critic, I’m being racist.
I cannot understand it. Judging someone by the content of her character and not the color of her skin never once involves remaining ignorant of racism, or denying anyone’s experience or history. It never once involves literal color-blindness. It’s only about affirming another as an individual, without the need of dubious racial classifications.
So why are we back-peddling on racial color-blindness? Why are we teaching kids to be conscious of another’s race, and to factor it into their judgements and treatment of others? Are we heading backwards?
It wasn’t too long ago that being racially color-blind was held in higher regard, and that it’s opposite— racializing people and being overly conscious of their race and skin-color instead of their character and deeds—was racist.
Nowadays, however, being color-blind is a matter of privilege, not principle. My “colorblindness comes from a lack of awareness of racial privilege conferred by Whiteness” (Psychology Today), as if color-blindness is limited to white people only.
But when I say “I don’t see color”, It’s taken literally, as if I cannot see the tone of someone’s skin, or worse, I cannot see them entirely. By being color-blind I am apparently choosing to ignore racism.
In fact, my color-blindness is now a “micro-aggression”, because by refusing to consider race as a valid categorization I “deny the significance of a person of color’s racial/ethnic experience and history” and “deny the individual as a racial/cultural being”, which I suppose causes her pain.
At any rate, when I judge someone by the content of her character and not the color of her skin, to the critic, I’m being racist.
I cannot understand it. Judging someone by the content of her character and not the color of her skin never once involves remaining ignorant of racism, or denying anyone’s experience or history. It never once involves literal color-blindness. It’s only about affirming another as an individual, without the need of dubious racial classifications.
So why are we back-peddling on racial color-blindness? Why are we teaching kids to be conscious of another’s race, and to factor it into their judgements and treatment of others? Are we heading backwards?
Comments (1416)
I fully agree. It doesn’t make any sense. The whole idea of attaching significance to this or that biological grouping for taxonomical, identity or even census purposes presupposes a genetic distinction between this or that group, each with their discrepant genetic material. By definition, none of these groupings can be equal, and all it takes is for someone like Gobineau to build from this pseudoscience a hierarchy of white supremacy.
Racism without hatred is a genuine belief that it's correct to categorize and heirarchialize by race.
The latter is the type that disappeared among white American infantrymen during the Korean War. All it took was close association.
The former isn't diminished by association. It disappears when fashions change and the most convenient outlet for angst becomes something non-racial, politics for example.
I went into this kind of topic more vigorously on a predominately ‘scientific’ based forum and nearly every one of them attacked me and claimed there were no ‘races’. Scientifically of course there aren’t. The issue was that in sociology, and the humanities in general, ‘race’ is used quite openly to refer to cultural/ethnic differences (it’s even on most surveys).
What happened on that forum was kind of a reversal of this one. In both instances the importance of the topic was covered up or avoided.
The problem for the opening post is how you’re wedding your definition of ‘racism’ to the question of ‘colour-blindness’. If you think those against people being ‘colour-blind’ are against shifting the term ‘racism’ more toward ‘ethnicism’ (or something) then I think you’re partly right, but they are also partially justified in doing so because what is a crime against humanity needs a universally applicable term.
Distinctions can be used for protection and for persecution. The need for protection has certainly lessened, but we shouldn’t act too rashly and remain on guard regarding the power words have in the political sphere.
(1) "People without a stable family environment in their childhood generally do worse in their later lives (as measured in income)" is exactly the same kind of statement as: (2) "People with black skin from poor neighbourhoods generally do worse in their later lives (as measured in income)"
"The same kind of statement" there means "they aggregate over individuals to the level of demographics and look at statistically at relative disparities".
You can be white and come from a shitty family environment. Not everything is racism. I would never argue that all disparities come from racism, that would be silly.
So why do you resist the coherency and relevance and truth of statements like (2) but not the coherency and relevance and truth of statements like (1)? You can obviously think (1) in a way that makes (1) obvious and understandable to you, why is (2) much harder for you to think when it's the same concept applied to a different demographic?
Racism is defined as:
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
Prejudice is defined as :
a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.
a harm or injury that results or may result from some action or judgment - like the preconceived opinion that isn't based on reason or actual experience.
Discrimination is defined as:
the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.
These aren't my definitions. These are the ones you get when doing a Google search.
So it seems to me that racism is a type of hatred, or ideas that can cause unjust harm to others. If it doesn't entail some unjust treatment that is based on the preconceived opinion that isn't based on reason, and includes that belief that your own race is superior, then it doesn't qualify as racism.
It's not the same. (1) is about people in general regardless of race, while (2) is implying that only blacks do worse in their later lives when not raised in a stable family environment. (2) would be racist and ignore all the non-blacks who do worse as well.
Quoting fdrake
Exactly. Isn't that what I've been saying? So now isn't incumbent upon you to show how certain aspects of our society or system are racist today as opposed to just being the effects of racism in the past that are now present today. Does the effects today that are the result of racism in the past still qualify as racism today? If so, then what do we do about it that doesn't make us go back to doing the same thing that we are saying is wrong? Why is it soooo difficult to answer this question? It needs to be answered, or else all you're doing is complaining without providing any solutions to what you're complaining about - which makes me think that there really isn't a problem, or that you're fine with problem existing.
That's a misconception. Racist people may have fondness for an oppressed group which they see as child-like.
That is not inconsistent with the definitions you provided.
Sure it is. How is "fondness" a type of harm, or unjust action based on some preconceived notion that isn't based on reason?
How is seeing a group of people as child-like not based on your belief that you are superior?
If the British treat grown Indian men like children that causes harm.
What types of cultural/ethnic differences?
Ask the grown Indian man. How would you feel if I referred to you as something that you aren't? How would you feel if I called you a child?
How is "fondness" a type of harm, or unjust action based on some preconceived notion that isn't based on reason?
You know you've adopted your political ideology as a religion when you get to the point where you don't question it and everyone who does is a hater.
If my questions are irrelevant, then show how they are, don't resort to acting like a child (in calling you a child, am I exhibiting fondness or a dislike - I don't know because you won't answer the question about what you mean by "fondness").
"The way things are going... they're going to crucify me."
-Poor little Harry
So, you're not going to answer the question, then? You're going to stick to committing logical fallacies? Thanks for giving me the chance to treat you like a child. I'm sure it was pleasant for you.
I used to be a theist. As I developed, my curiosity made me question my beliefs. When I asked questions of those that were more learned than I was and they couldn't answer the questions, avoided them, or gave vague or incoherent answers, it made me believe less and less.
If they took the time to answer the questions in a coherent manner that didn't contradict what was said earlier, or didn't call me a hater or sinner for asking those questions, then maybe I'd still be a theist today.
So if you expect others to align themselves to your way of thinking, you need to answer their questions in a honest and meaningful way. Avoiding the questions, calling them names, or providing incoherent and vague answers is how you make them align themselves with the opposite of what you are trying to claim. What is your goal in this thread?
If you want someone's perspective, say something like: "Frank, what do you mean that a racist person can be fond of the oppressed and exploited? How can that be?"
Then you'll encourage a response. Don't assume anyone gives a shit about persuading you of anything.
You're making it more complicated than it needs to be. All you need to do is explain how you are using the word, "fondness".
If you're not using words to express your ideas so others might share them, then what are you using them for? I have a feeling your not going to answer that question either. I predict that you will respond again with more vitriolic ad hominems.
Hence, people will just stop responding as I did.
It may be easier to stick to exchanging with one person only. Frank seem game enough so offer some charity. I’m not game btw. I don’t see what I have to gain that I don’t gain by observing you try and find a resolution to your current problem in communicating whatever it is you’re trying to communicate.
Good luck. Hope it works out.
Do we unintentionally give racism a chance to continue by upholding and using the race/ethnicity categorization, even if this categorization is intended to fight racism?
It's like the political system of Lebanon that was founded with the 1943 National Pact that made Lebanon to be a "multiconfessional" state, where political power was allocated on an essentially confessional system based on the 1932 census. This meant the President was a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of the Parliament a Shia Muslim and so on.
Now did this "multiconfessionality" stabilize Lebanon? Hell no. It has had one of the worst Civil Wars in the Middle East and the country still has a lot of political problems even today. In fact some argue that this was a ploy of divide and rule by the French. Hence one could say it's about just how we divide ourselves into subgroups and how much these subgroups define our identity.
Typically ethnic or religious divides don't matter when people think of belonging to a group in another way. Basically this means that the most important identity to them and how they see their fellow citizens doesn't go either by religion or language / ethnicity. This is possible. My country is a perfect example as there was a true potential for an ethnic conflict between the Finnish speaking and the Swedish speaking segments of the society. Yet it never happened. Even if there was heated public debate about the status of the languages, it never became a violent political crisis. You see, the Swedish speaking here never saw themselves as Swedes and there was no desire for them to be Swedish. They viewed themselves as Finns. And so has actually the Finnish speaking part of Finland seen them too: as Finns. Hence nobody speaks about ethnicity or an ethnic divide (like we talk about in other places) at all when talking about the Finnish speaking and Swedish speaking Finns. The divide between Protestants and Orthodox Finns has been even more tranquil and peaceful.
(In the case of my country the political crisis was fought along political lines of right and left, which basically was about the Russian Revolution spilling into the country when the local Social Democratic party got carried away with the example of the October Revolution.)
So... what is a biological race such that one could conflate it with ethnicity and in doing so qualify for being racist?
You've never answered this question. You claimed that one is racist if they conflate biological race with ethnicity. You've also claimed that there is no such thing as biological race.
How do you reconcile this apparent self-contradiction?
Clearly his instinctual language doesn’t align with what he believes:
Quoting NOS4A2
He doesn’t have the vocabulary to replace the term ‘racism’ for people who hate certain ethnicities. This means he cannot call it out. It is worse if you cannot call this out because that means it cannot be discussed.
People would still kill each other if they didn’t have a language. The chances of negotiating peace increasing through language though. I don’t see how not using the term ‘murder’ or ‘war’ would eradicate war. I don’t believe the deaths of civilians in war zones has decreased due to calling it ‘collateral damage’.
This is a joke, right? Show where I have "quite consistently is plastering your impressions of people over their faces to the point that you can no longer see behind the mask you’ve made for them. Effectively you’ve ended up talking to nothing more than a mask of your own making."
I think maybe you have me mistaken for Frank, 180 and the others. It is they that have "quite consistently is plastering your impressions of people over their faces to the point that you can no longer see behind the mask you’ve made for them. Effectively you’ve ended up talking to nothing more than a mask of your own making."
Here is a consistent summary of the responses I get to my arguments...
Quoting unenlightened
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting Baden
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting frank
...and these are basically the entire contents of their posts - just ad hominems without any kind of argument or consideration for what I actually have said consistently.
All frank needs to do is define his use of the term "fondness" because we can't move forward unless I know that we're not talking past each other.
You obviously haven't been reading my posts because you are just wrong in what I actually have been consistent about, so you're just pulling the same stunt they are and accusing me of doing it, so follow 180's advice and don't be so incurious and intellectually lazy and actually and go and read my posts just as I would encourage every other reader to do and see for themselves. Don't take my or I love sushi's word for it.
Quoting 180 Proof
The only reason I've mentioned my skin color is because this is a topic about skin color, and this doesn't contradict anything that I've said. I have consistently said that being color-bind does not entail being color-blind all the time. It only means that we should be color-blind in contexts where race isn't a factor, or doesn't follow from the context. When hiring someone, one's race doesn't play a role in that person's ability to do the job, so shouldn't be taken into consideration. Only in biological/medical contexts, which includes topics whose titles include the word, "race" on philosophy forums, should we not be color-blind. Doing otherwise is making a category error. I'm repeating myself, because this is one of the things I have said consistently.
I have asked for solutions to the problems the others have proposed. Under what other circumstances should be not be color-blind, and what should we do with the information we have about that person's race in that context?
I have acknowledged that racism existed in the past and still does in pockets and individuals today, but is not systematic. I have acknowledged that the effects of systematic racism linger today, but I have asked for solutions and then everyone starts with the ad hominems or no replies at all. I have offered alternate views and solutions to some of the statistics put forth, but then get consistently trolled and ignored. But, I'm just repeating myself again because I've said this consistently before.
Read the transcript.
I was making the judgement from responses you’ve given to me and some others where you seem to be arguing against something that hasn’t been said or suggested.
Some of the names you mentioned do the same thing too, as do I and almost everyone at some point. I was pointing out that I observe this to be a consistent factor in your responses whilst even in other guilty parties there are lulls.
If you truly believe people are being disingenuous or obtuse (purposefully or not) then just be polite and/or resist the urge to respond - that is basically my position with you now (not that I am unwilling to listen or discuss, it just so happens that sometimes I don’t see any reasonable progress so I would rather step aside and hope for a better, and more amicable, means of continuing in the future).
When I have previously said I am acting as a ‘moderator’ I meant it in the capacity that it suits my purpose to try and speak in a manner that serves me not necessarily others. Moderate speech is helpful and we all know cool and calm speech (with the occasional careful little joke maybe) helps the discussion go somewhere - and I make no apologies for stating the obvious as it doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves that we’re all prone to such things and should look with charity on what is said and not take it too much to heart (assume the ‘other’ is sincere because if they’re not it is fairly easy for everyone to see that they lack sincerity if all you give them is a calm and mild-mannered expression).
I have said pretty much the same thing already to someone who gave you a father vicious response. It serves me to see this because the subject matter interests me yet I’m growing more and more impatient - several times in this thread - due to the emotional reactions I’ve seen, the derogatory language used (short of flat insults) and the needless accusations about all manner of things. That said a degree of ‘emotion’ and ‘political posturing’ is to be expected to some degree on this particular subject. Underneath it I’m fascinated by the way language can be used, the etymology of words and how these things shape our opinions of ourselves and others (that is my ‘dog in the race’).
I think there’s life in the thread yet, as always I try to hope for everything and expect nothing.
Good luck and hope frank, yourself and others can turn this discussion around a little more and get to the heart of the matter.
Note: I do now realise my analogy above can easily be taken as a slight. It wasn’t my intent. I love writing and sometimes bet carried away with metaphors without thinking too much about how it may be received in terms of being ‘insulting’. I do stand by my analysis though. You can consider it as genuine and being made in order to help the discussion or not. That is out of my hands.
I asked you to show where I have done that consistently, but you won't, because you can't, because I haven't. Show me what argument in my previous post isn't against what was said, and is Quoting I like sushi
Show me and everyone else that you actually are trying not to be impolite by accusing me of things which aren't the case, but is the case for you and 180. Where's the evidence that I have consistently done what you say that I have?
I have asked for solutions to the problems the others have proposed. Under what other circumstances should we not be color-blind, and what should we do with the information we have about that person's race in that context? Should we hire black people over veterans? These are all valid questions that you simply want to avoid answering. Why?
There are no biological races. But people believe there are. They often believe skin color or other racial markers are evidence of cultural differences, for instance that Asians are good at math or that Arabs are Muslim.
Clearly you’re a liar because I’ve already stated why I said that. Add on top of that the fake moderate approach, clearly you’re a concern troll.
Quoting 180 Proof
There was no lie and I’m not a liar. Either you were being purposefully deceptive by saying ‘racist’ or your natural/instinctual language made you say ‘racist’. I assumed you wasn’t playing deceptive games.
I don’t see how can take whatever I thought you meant in the opening post as correct anymore. If you struggle so much with yourself about how to define racism and fail to use your claimed meaning in general speech then I don’t have confidence that you can cope with the nuance of what you mean, or don’t mean, by ‘colour-blind’ in the opening post anymore.
That said I do think it is bad form for anyone here to call you ‘racist’ or insinuate such - as has happened. You should at least walk away from this with some questions for yourself about how you convey your thoughts (if not you just wasted your time probably).
I explicitly stated why I said I thought it was “racist”, but this explanation doesn’t fit into your specious mind-reading. So why the bad faith? Why won’t you give me, the only person who knows what I’m thinking, the benefit of the doubt?
So one, you have no clue what you’re talking about but pretend you do, and two, you reserve your sophistry and the fake moderate approach for only one side of the argument. So hopefully your fakery offers a learning experience for not just you, but for other readers.
...
Quoting NOS4A2
...
Quoting NOS4A2
...
Quoting NOS4A2
This is untrue. The rest of your errors arise from this one error, and simply repeating it isn’t going to make it any more true.
It doesn’t take a genius to see why I arrived where I did given your inconsistent proclamations:
Quoting creativesoul
Followed by:
Quoting NOS4A2
The confusion arises because you weren’t precise with your terminology. Distinct ethnicities do exist, yet they are not the same as biological races. I read the sentences as two separate sentences because they didn’t appear to be leading from one to the other.
This doesn’t distract from the obvious disjoint that you clearly admitted. You still spoke outside of your own claims about what defines ‘racism’. It is there in black and white.
This is too tiresome so you can have the last word if you wish.
Thanks.
The only disjoint is your false interpretation and subsequent misrepresentation of my argument. It’s all there in black and white.
There is self contradiction resulting from equivocation. The equivocation is regarding the term "racist". In particular, the criterion for what counts as being so is a moving target.
Either the author knows this or he doesn't.
Believing that there are biological races does not constitute racism. This is how he has trouble exonerating himself from using the notion of race, and it's how he charges others with being racist for using the notion.
The author is proving beyond all doubt to be blind... not to color... but rather...
To what racism is.
By sheer will alone...
Sad.
Sounds like something the Roman Catholic Church would pronounce some centuries ago. Anyone who doesn't believe in the vague descriptions we've given of our Big Brother in the sky is a heretic!
Give a better description of your Racist Big Brother so that we can believe in him and pool our resources to fight it. But we need a plan. What's the plan?
Quoting Harry Hindu
180, you're painting a bleak picture. People in the in-group can't see it, so I suppose they can't help. There can be no plan until all the members of the out-group die, blessing their lighter-skinned descendants on their way out. *Snark*
But then, there'll be no need for a plan.
That’s an uncharitable accounting of my views. I explicitly stated that all other racisms arise from this one belief.
And I’m not the only one who recognizes this element in racism.
Racism(s). An Introduction
Well, speech wasn't free in the old days. People had to form secret societies in order to speak freely.
Here's my problem... well, not mine so much a the one I'm pointing out yet again. It pertains directly to the OP...
Let us for a moment consider whether or not that suggested universal criterion for what counts as racism is adequate for actually rendering true judgment if and when it is used. I'm saying that it does not cannot account for those people who do not believe that there is biological scientific ground for separating different people into different human races, but nonetheless hate all asians anyway...
According to your definition as well as the one you've just put forth, the person above is not racist.
That's a big problem. Dontcha think?
Actually it's spot on. There's a couple of different perfectly acceptable ways to characterize the claims you've been making. I think there's something at root though. It's been previously mentioned by others and skirted around by myself, but it most certainly applies.
The criterion you've put forth for what counts as being racism/racist is inadequate for a few good reasons. One, it does not - cannot - take all examples of racism and being racist into proper account. Therefore it is utterly inadequate in it's explanatory power. Two, it puts forth standards that can be met by someone who is not racist. Therefore, it's false on it's face according to real life racism(racists) because it is precisely those people who offer prima facie evidence that falsifies your claims about what counts as racism. Three, it's been altered several times over in the middle of the same debate without mention by your good self. Therefore it's guilty of self contradiction(at worst) and equivocation(at best).
Neither is acceptable.
I like that you've been adjusting the criterion. You've still got a ways to go homey!
If we all truly did embrace the view that there is no division of races within humans, and modified our own language use accordingly, then racism could not possibly exist since there would be no means to prefer any one human based on race. If you want to be part of the solution just simply stop using racial language.
I've done it and it works.
I suspect that those who aren't open to such a shift believe that there are actually such things as races, and possibly also that the world is flat.
Or you could keep the plan you have and be hypocrites. You are hypocrites because:
1) you are encouraging the mistreatment of people who had no choice in the circumstances that they were born into.
2) AND THIS IS A BIG ONE, you keep voting for bigger government - you know - the Democrat party - which is mostly whites running for president. You keep voting to give more power to the system that you claim is racist! WTF?!
If racism was about power, then why are you voting to give more power to the system? Libertarianism would be the way to go - to limit centralized power. You people are so confused and you have your politics(religion) to thank for it.
How does it work? How is it different from a desire for anarchy?
So you think Noam Chomsky is mentally unstable?
He says he is a left-libertarian. So do notice that libertarianism isn't only what Murray Rothbard and Ron & Rand Paul promote.
How is it different from anarchism?
The libertarian is more rich and the anarchist more violent. :joke:
Lazy anarchist. Thought so.
Quoting Harry Hindu
You mean if the system is racist, why give more power to the system?
The idea of civil rights is that the government is in conflict with itself. The systemic racism that's been spoken of in this thread is extra-governmental, though.
It happens for the same reason gerrymandering puts a boundary right through the middle of a black college so none of the students know where theyre supposed to vote.
There are various sorts of biases, Dazed, do you boycott all terms that may indicate division and bias, such as old/young, attractive/ugly, tall/short, etc?
Quoting frank
This straw-man is no surprise from someone who conflates "fondness" with "a type of harm, or unjust action".
Quoting Harry Hindu
What in this statement implies that a Libertarian would be for NO, as opposed to LIMITED, centralized power?
It seems to me then, that if racism is about power, the solution to systemic racism would be anarchy, and that Libertarianism doesn't go far enough.
Quoting frank
No, the idea of civil rights is that citizens are in conflict with the government.
Quoting frank
What is an extra-governmental system? You keep throwing around these vague terms that don't have any substance, and are then unwilling to put more meat on the bones for the rest of us to chew on.
It does work, just as it does with any superstition. Those who no longer believe in witches will likely no longer burn people for witchcraft. This is the simple logic of folks like Mandela or MLK, who were imprisoned for their activities. The opposite, the criticism of color-blindness, was born in the privileged setting of academe.
Then why are your civil rights in the freaking constitution?
Because of citizens who revolted against an unfair and authoritarian government.
I answer your questions. When are you going to answer my questions? Is this an interrogation or a discussion?
Translation: I want everybody, regardless of who benefits more (financially, occupationally, medically, educationally, jurisprudentially) from the status quo than whom, to stop back-peddling on fellating the status quo.
:shade:
"Shut up and dribble", huh? ( :point: cluster-FOX'd Noise) GFY, son! No kumbaya, ONLY STRUGGLE: you're either actively Anti-(racial color, etc) discrimination Policies & practices or you're Not. Like this white brother, another fallen comrade ...
Noel Ignatiev 1940-2019 :victory:
sounds like you believe that there are such things as races
It’s more like I want people to stop fellating the privileged ivory towers of American academe, where most of this drivel comes from. Is it really that dangerous and ahistorical to treat someone like an individual, the most endangered minority, without first making a flurry of racist suppositions? Is it really that dangerous and ahistorical to negate the superstitions regarding skin-color? No.
I’m opposing racial discrimination as a method of inquiry just as I would racist discrimination in policy, and for the exact same reasons.
Everyone wants to limit centralised power. Who in the world wants to give central government all the power it is possible for a government to have... the power to tell you when to get up, what breakfast to have, what car to drive, who to marry, what clothes to wear...?
Libertarianism is bullshit because the only unifying aim is something everyone wants - the least imposition on freedom that still produces an acceptable society.
So the only thing that distinguishes so-called libertarians from any other more interventionist political persuasion is that they just care less about the stuff the government imposes on our freedom in order to get done.
But its guiding principle—liberty—is not bullshit. Of course people want liberty, but the efforts of libertarian thought is how to build a society guided by that principle. That principle is largely absent from other schools of thought.
I know that the concept exists, as do you. Similar potentially divisive concepts like age, weight, height, attractiveness, sexual orientation, etc etc, exist. Are you color blind but perhaps an ageists? If so, would refusing to see age help resolve your ageism?
:up: Medicare must be ageist because it takes account of age. Ban medicare!
Biological race doesn't exist, but race as a social construct does. The distinction makes a difference.
More bunk.
"Liberals have typically maintained that humans are naturally in “a State of perfect Freedom to order their Actions…as they think fit…without asking leave, or depending on the Will of any other Man” (Locke, 1960 [1689]: 287).Mill too argued that “the burden of proof is supposed to be with those who are against liberty; who contend for any restriction or prohibition…. The a priori assumption is in favour of freedom…” (1963, vol. 21: 262). Recent liberal thinkers such as as Joel Feinberg (1984: 9), Stanley Benn (1988: 87) and John Rawls (2001: 44, 112) agree. This might be called the Fundamental Liberal Principle (Gaus, 1996: 162–166): freedom is normatively basic, and so the onus of justification is on those who would use coercion to limit freedom. It follows from this that political authority and law must be justified, as they limit the liberty of citizens."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/#DebAboLib
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/
Different school of thought, eh?
Yes, that's why there are two entries and they have different names. Like when you have two of anything that are closely related and very similar in some respects (including origin).
And in those entries it says:
Oh look, liberals started calling themselves libertarian, and not because they traded world views, but because the word “liberal” was corrupted,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
So, now they are different (if obviously related historically) schools of thought? A second ago you were saying they weren't. That was the point at issue, remember?
But this is a rather off-topic pushback against the typical libertarian idea that you are the only ones who care about freedom etc. So, I am going to drop it. Carry on.
The point of the issue was that the core principles of liberty is largely absent from other schools of thought. It is central to classical liberalism,sure, but then again classical liberals renamed themselves libertarian because modern liberals excised that very principle.
This is where we disagree. But for another thread. Will just leave this here.
"...what is now called ‘liberalism’ in American politics [combines] a strong endorsement of civil and personal liberties* with indifference or even hostility to private ownership**.
*liberal and libertarian
**liberal only
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/#NewLib
The general or primary moral is care, for those who might need protection. With liberty comes responsibility, as the saying goes.
Liberal is a better label for libertarians than it is for American liberals, I would agree.
It’s debatable, sure. My main point was that libertarianism as it is known today is a valid school of thought and in fact not something that everyone wants. I would argue “liberal” is the more precise adjective for someone whose guiding principle is “liberty” and that libertarian is redundant.
OK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
Quoting Baden
:up: :brow:
And therefore a bureaucratic tool (i.e. business church & state policies ...) used by privileged in-group members to discriminate against members & communities of out-groups (as well as by some fraction of out-group members who benefit personally from conforming (i.e. aspiring) to "honorary" in-group privilege-like status).
It's a plague of privilege which some of plague-carriers apparently need to believe that everyone should just stop talking about in order - hocus-pocus (fingers stuck in ears) "nananananana I can't hear you" - to stop the spead of the contagion. All these Typhoid Harrys around here need to read Camus' The Plague (or watch the video :roll: ) since the reports & studies already cited on this thread are too lengthy, too historical and too tediously fact-pattern driven for them to digest.
Hint: plague is a metaphor for an expedient social construct used to divide Them (infected) from Us (not yet infected / carriers) that only spreads faster by pretending it's not happening and talking about it ... superstitiously (or disingenuously) as if 'naming the devil' brings forth the devil, makes the devil real. :shade:
Why is everyone racist? Thinking is impossible without "racism", aka the judgment of groups of a distinct population in a species, because no groups of species actually exist: everyone is a unique and individual species that diverge from everyone else: the groups are all posited and created by the individual, acting as a simplification and abstraction of all the differences. This doesn't mean that the abstraction of the group is "true", only that it's useful, for "truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live".
Put simply, value judgments are impossible without "racism", and "all sense perceptions are permeated with value judgments" (Nietzsche), therefore meaning that everything that senses is "racist". Nietzsche:
So, what are the extreme-left fighting, then? Only a certain type of "racism" (aka mentality, as has already been shown) that they condemn from a Socratic-Judeo-Christian moral-metaphysical standpoint, and sometimes from an intellectual standpoint, aka a distaste of a certain type of "racism" because it is viewed as a massive simplification, as in OP's case, where he is condemning a simpler type of racism from a much more complex racism. The former case disgusts me as reactive, whereas the latter is much less so.
So, where does that leave those "colorblind"? "Colourblind", lol, as of racism depends solely on color of skin (if this was actually believed blind people could never be racist). This is obviously meant to disparage any calls of racism, and is nothing but action in response to the extreme-left metaphysical condemnation. This active avoidance of condemnation angered the extreme-left in that others found a way to easily avoid all their tricks, so they absorbed this "colorblindness" as a function of that "racism".
After that, the "colorblind" complained about their active approach being absorbed and thrown back at them by the liberal metaphysicians. The "colorblind" can only succumb, or try to act against the liberals, making them look more "racist", so they stopped at standstill in defeat.
the concept of race has no basis in reality similar to the concept that the world is flat
it's not a matter of refusing to see race, as in fact there is nothing to see
I can see skin colours and differences in physical characteristics, but I can not see races, only faces
The difference in skin colour and differences in physical characteristics is what is meant by “race”. Thats what most people mean when they use the term. A strictly academic use of “race”, the way a biologist would use it for their work, is not what is meant. A racist might try and use that academic sense as part of their racism to try and support their ideology but in that case the issue isnt their use of the word but rather their misuse of the word.
This is another straw-man. I didn't make the argument that others "want to give central government all the power it is possible for a government to have... the power to tell you when to get up, what breakfast to have, what car to drive, who to marry, what clothes to wear..."
My argument was that if racism is equated to power, then why give the government more power than it has, or maintain the status quo, by voting for big government political parties, like the Democratic Party who has mostly whites running for president? This isn't to say that Republican party isn't for big government either. They are both for big government. The left wants more control over the economy, while the right wants more control over what religion can be taught in publicly funded areas. They both have authoritarian tendencies. I have made the case elsewhere on these forums that we should consider other parties, or really we should consider other ideas and we should abolish political parties.
Libertarians are the only true liberals.
Quoting Baden
This would be like saying "ban all treatment for sickle cell anemia because it takes into account race". That isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying that race exists and is biological, not social. What is social is the category errors that we make when we put people into boxes labeled "black" and "white" that have nothing to do with their color of skin - like when hiring someone, as opposed to determining what diseases they might be more susceptible to.
Now, take your position that we should take account of race because to do otherwise would be racist. Why aren't you forcing the members of this forum to display their race? Aren't you and the rest of the Admins being racist by not doing that? How is it that you aren't?
Quoting Baden
Then your previous argument makes no sense. If age doesn't exist, then why do we have medicare? If race doesn't exist as a biological characteristic, then what does "race as a social construction" entail?
Quoting ssu
Another category error. Libertarianism/anarchism has to do with the ideas that you hold, not your wealth or how violent you are.
There's too many meanings, too many interpretations, too many 'translations' and 'dog whistles' or 'subverted or masked intensions' to make any sense of this. When somebody 'interprets' you meaning something else, it's a rabbit whole. And hence the race issue is so difficult.
What there is, is this fanatic obsession with race, which does contribute of especially Americans and British to structural racism. It starts with when you participate in a course in the university or open a bank account and in the questionnaire you fill in beside your name and adress has a question of race and ethnicity. Why? I really ask why. Because that is then used to categorize you. If you think that is totally normal, how about religion? Do you have to fill in a questionnaire that what is your religion or state that you are an atheist when opening a bank account? How about participating in a history course in the university? That would be the case if the society would be divided by religion. Then we would all be talking about multiconfessionality.
And anybody that would dare to say that "Well, we are all people and the religion of one doesn't matter so much" would get attacked just as NOS4A2 perhaps. Especially if the history of the 'multiconfessional' state would have violent persecution of one religious group or sect of another.
I agree with this because asking for race when applying for college is a category error.
Would it be racist to have your race listed in your medical records? Medical records are mostly private - only accessible by your physician.
It is a strange obsession, and I would go so far as to say this is the remnants and continuation of institutional and systematic racism. In universities they are teaching courses on “whiteness”, “white privilege”—what is this but the continuation of white supremacy in particular and racism in general, as a curriculum?
You can categorise that whatever way you want. There are serious issues concerning freedom in both schools of thought, with the libertarian attempt to co-opt the concept particularly problematic. The left needs to assert itself in this area because it has a much more legitimate claim to be the ideology of freedom than either of the above. But I'm not going to follow that up here. I'm considering starting a separate discussion. If I do, you may feel free to come along and lose the argument there. :wink:
In both cases, the bases are social constructs. Similarly, money is also a social construct and an extremely successful one in its adoption. I don't think anyone believes that the actual paper and ink in paper money has value commensurate to its socially agreed-upon value or buying power. Its value is dependent on society to exist. If there were a cataclysmic event of some kind that wiped out 90% of the human population on earth, for example, the fictional value of paper money would instantly vanish.
You can also see paper money as just paper and ink. Nevertheless, its socially constructed value, unless you're a Buddhist monk or something who practices renunciation, is firmly embedded in your mind.
I disagree, I dont think its difficult, nor nonsensical. People make it that way because of ideology and/or being triggered by a sensitive issue (race). Without that, just about nobody has a problem with it. When I say “a black guy” or “a white guy” or a “chinese guy”, everyone has a pretty good idea of what I mean. That it. Everything else is just posturing, either to justify racism/bigotry or to witchhunt for it.
The color of your skin doesn't matter in matters of health. (Perhaps white people get sun burn more often, I don't know.) Yet the division in medical records by sex is totally understandable as the physiology and some diseases are different between men and women. Similarly we treat children and adults differently in medicine too as they obviously are different.
Quoting NOS4A2
Let's think about this for a while as there are many issues here.
Remember that it is events that we mutually experience that create our collective identity. And those events that truly mold our collective identity are usually huge tragedies, severe hardships where people have suffered together: wars, famines, disasters, where that common bond was seen and social cohesion formed. It is totally logical that Britons uphold WW2 and especially the Battle of Britain when they were facing the Third Reich alone and Finns have the Winter War when a country of 3,6 million people faced alone an attack from their neighboring country of 170 million people. It is also totally understandable that for Jewish identity the tragic history discrimination and persecution, which culminated in the Holocaust, is part and parcel of their identity. And same is true for especially African Americans, that have roots in slavery and have had discriminating laws well into the 20th century, so forget just your typical xenophobic jerks that exist in every population.
Hence it's understandable that if you say to a group then "You should forget this old stuff because it hasn't happened for a long time now" is like you are trying to depreciate something crucial to the identity. It simply doesn't go like that. That is something one should understand, yet one should be also draw the line where things go a bit too far.
And you can say also "tall guy", "blond guy", "fat" or "skinny", and people have a pretty good idea too. The issue is what just importance you give it, what you emphasize. Is it a definition that you use to describe a guy in a crowd, who someone is looking for and doesn't know. Or is it a term you use of a work mate that everybody knows. It's just like one doesn't refer to your peers or workmates by gender. As if gender would be the most important thing. People that bring up often the nationality and race of others quite often are the bigots.
Would that include people who constantly talk about white privilege?
Im not sure your metric works, even just as a rule of thumb.
Its not hard to tell the difference between bigots and not bigots once you start looking properly. Just the words (including the frequency you mention) are not enough. What matters is what the person means, what the intent of those words are.
I’m not sure why anyone should forget this “old stuff”, but I’m also not sure why anyone would want to employ the same race-thinking as their racist forbearers.
There's an old saying: If you are in a debate with a German and you are totally losing the argument, then to win just use the Hitler card and say: "Well, Your people slaughtered the Jews!" And if the German brushes it off (as the matter would have nothing to do with the argument), then you can accuse him of brushing off the Holocaust as something unimportant! It's a great classic strawman and I promise that it typically works at Germans: they have start admitting how bad Hitler was. It has been going on for generations.
So one just has to look if a people have something to say or if the people simply will choose the subject as some power play.
Quoting DingoJones
Well, if people just note words like a simple computer algorithm totally separate from sentences that have a meaning, it's not quite useful to talk to those kind of people anyway.
Sometime it can be observed even here. Just use the new hyped up lingo that Trump and friends use in a longer post and likely someone will attack you angrily without even reading the damn thing to the end. Try things like taxes, immigration controls or vice versa multiculturalism etc.
Im not sure id go that far, but yes that is what I mean by trigger words. You scarcely have to do more than mention race and people pucker up tighter than...something tight. I didnt think that through lol
nice try, but go ahead and define for me how all the vast array of physical characteristics of humans can be neatly catergorized into things called races, such that each race has a unique set of characteristics that aren't shared by other "races"
in fact race in common usage refers to the idea that there are really are different kinds of humans with physical traits that are connected to behavioural traits...comedians are a stark example of this usage
"white people do this" ha ha ah
"black people do this" ha ha ha
if you want to describe someone's physical characteristics go ahead and do so, but don't describe people using racial language which implies that they are a member of a particular subset of humans
you keep avoiding the question, do you actually believe that there are different sets of humans that are different unique characteristics such that we can call one set a race?
If I ask you "is the world flat", you could also argue "well there is a social construct that some humans embrace that suggests the world is flat"
but do you actually believe the world is flat?
similarly do you actually believe that people are in fact divided into races?
I am asking you a question about what you believe about the reality of our existence
Its not a “vast array”, and I didnt say “all” physical characteristics. Its some. There are some physical characteristics that can be categorised by race. This is obvious.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25517/
I'm not categorizing it "how I want". That is how Libertarianism is defined. In saying that the left needs to assert itself in this area, you are essentially saying that the left should become libertarians.
Look at this:
See how both the left and the right have libertarian and authoritarian positions? Notice how the Libertarians are the only ones with no authoritarian positions and all libertarian ones. So, to assert yourself in this area in the middle, would essentially make you a Libertarian an no longer a leftist.
No, it's way more complicated than your unsourced-helpfully-coloured-diagram-which-I-have-zero-reason-to-accept-as-definitive suggests.
If the one set were engaged in some sort of speed competition, then sure.
Quoting dazed
:chin: I pretty sure it’s spherical.
Quoting dazed
Sure, for instance, in high school I wasn’t a very good swimmer but I loved the butterfly, which was actually my worst stroke. Nevertheless, I talked the coach into letting me swim in a 100 yard butterfly at one meet. I lost badly and it was embarrassing.
Even if it's a bit off topic, how about "robust national defence"?
That if anything is a collective endeavor, quite autoritarian and has nothing to do with individual liberty. Citizens having a pistol and a shotgun at home doesn't make at all a "robust national defence".
It seems to me that you are agreeing with, and want to adopt my position. What does it matter what we call ourselves, left, right, moderate, libertarian, authoritarian, etc. if our ideas are the same, or if we agree?
This is why I have proposed that we abolish political parties because it gets in the way of talking about ideas and can make us oppose each other for no other reason than we label ourselves differently, yet we still think the same way about things. I think that most of us want the same things and maybe its just the means by which we get there that are different.
We are being divided and pitted against each other when it is all the elitist politicians that we need to be united against and blaming them for the way things are. I propose that everyone vote for a non-democrat and non-republican this next election cycle. There are plenty to choose from, but you have to do your research because they are not allowed an equal voice in the debates thanks to this polarizing mass delusion we have that things need to be black or white, democrat or republican, etc.
I'm hoping Baden is working on the OP of his new thread. I will wait until that starts and add this to my responses.
It doesn't necessarily matter at all. My closest real-life friend labels himself as being on the right, but we agree on plenty.
Quoting Harry Hindu
It might be a while as I've got a lot of other stuff, including admin stuff here, to do. But I'm definitely lining it up.
funny, but you still avoid the question.
but if you stick to the usage of "race" you employ there, then we are actually on the same page!
please enlighten us with the obvious.
Exactly which physical characteristics clearly correspond to which racial categories?
I think you are actually saying there are physical characteristics of humans that differ that I can see.
Yes that's obvious.
But to say that those differences in physical characteristics of humans can be neatly divided into races like "black" "white" "brown" etc is in fact not obvious and rather non-sensical.
and at a deeper level what would we gain by creating such divisions,assuming we could even arrive at a coherent set?
Well yes, that is what Im saying. Some of these physical differences we categorise as “race”.
Thats all I mean, and thats all most people mean when they use the term.
Its not nonsensical, and its so obvious that you yourself just used the category.
Where do you think that we could be off-page?
actually most usage of race is not confined to physical characteristics, an easy example are comedians "white people do this" ha ha ha, black people do this "ha ha ha"
and you are clearly not able to set out a clear description of which sets of physical characteristics belong where as that's simply not possible, hence non-sensical.
Well that is an example if a cultural difference, not a physical one. People notice cultural differences between races as well sure, but we have been talking about physical traits. Also, comedians are making jokes...not factual claims.
Quoting dazed
I don’t need to have an exhaustive list of the traits for it to be sensical. What makes no sense is denying that there are physical differences we categorise as race. Is that what you are doing?
the point I am trying to make is that racial language is not used exclusively to describe physical characteristics, rather racial language as shown in my comedian example, is used to describe humans as different subsets of creatures with different physical characteristics AND behavioural traits.
Racial language therefore is harmful and divisive and non-sensical. you can not neatly divide the diversity of human physical characteristics and cultures into simple categories like "white" "black" "brown" etc.
it's a useless and harmful way of speaking
It does. White people are more susceptible to skin cancer. Black people suffer more severe cases of skin cancer when they do get it.
There's an association between skin colour and blood pressure, probably via a common biochemical intermediate (melanocyte-stimulating hormones). The gene AGTI is related to skin pigmentation as well as predispositions for obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
The genetic mechanism for melanin biosynthesis is not clearly understood so there's probably a slew of predispositions for diseases that can be related to light or dark skin in relation to location.
And, of course, surprise-surprise, racists are a reality so sometimes people die or get sick because they don't get adequate treatment based on their skin colour.
You’ve Just repeated points ive addressed already.
Its not a harmful way of speaking, you just think that because you are being racially sensitive.
“Black” people in America gave birth to hip hop, rap and many expressions of urban slang used in popular culture. Wheres the harm that? It mixes culture and skin colour/race up as you describe but no harm is being done.
I understand you are worried that racists will use such categorisations to support or promote their ideology, but they are going to do that anyway. They do it with science, religion...anything they can use. Racists are the problem, not words and categories.
"We invented the blues; Europeans invented psychoanalysis. You invent what you need."
~Albert Murray
True.
But is that statement "racist"? "prejudiced"? "stereotypically biased"?
Or just an implicit observation about the in-group's 'hazards of privilege' in contrast to an out-group's 'survival praxis'?
racists need the categories to prefer and discriminate
take away the words and you take away their tools of discrimination
I choose to be part of a slow revolution in language that will mean racist preferences will no longer be possible
those who continue to use the categories that racists depend on are part of the problem
True. However you doctor treats skin cancer of individuals and doesn't actually categorize you by race. Yet the doctor does categorize you by sex. The doctor won't be looking if you might have cervical cancer when you are categorized to be a male. Your sexual preferences or what you feel your gender is doesn't matter to the doctor.
Quoting DingoJones
But the whole question here is that if now, thanks to the new wokeness and all, that others than racists have to use these categorizations too. And not using them would somehow be improper: as if not using these categorizations would somehow mean that you are dismissing racism. Hence colorblindness is thought to be as a negative thing. As if people don't understand that treating people as individuals and not based on their skin color is one thing and to dismiss or to deny the existence of racism by referring to colorblindness is another thing.
You see, nobody is denying here that skin color can be a defining identity for many and something they simply cannot avoid sometimes. After all, if you are the only person with one skin color and everybody else is of another skin color, naturally it will separate you. Or take a class or course where the are 100 people and you would be the only one of your sex. Nobody has to sexist or racist, actually. And as I've said earlier, especially collective tragedies are very important to create a collective identity. If your kind of people, be that defining characteristic the color of your skin or the religion you or your family has, have been discriminated and persecuted, then that character surely is something that makes an important part of your identity. You cannot avoid it, just a few racists or religious fanatics surely can surely make you feel it. And I think nobody here is denying that.
The discussion is that when these identities are put on a pedestal and used as to define you and everybody else and just what people ought to talk about etc. then the problems emerge.
More federal workers identify as being Democrat than any other party affiliation.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/146786/democrats-lead-ranks-union-state-workers.aspx
95% of campaign donations from federal workers went to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/302817-government-workers-shun-trump-give-big-money-to-clinton-campaign
I'm beginning to see how there just might be some truth to the claim that systematic racism exists in the United States government since the party that has a fetish with identities is the one holding most of the power. I wonder if the Democrats feel ashamed of their political privilege.
You aren’t engaging with what Im saying, just repeating yourself. I Heard you the first time.
Your interjection is misapplied, the part you quoted was not specifically about what you went on to rebut. Some sort of mutated strawman.
To your point, this is largely semantics. “Colourblind” is being defined differently by you and I. (and NOS I believe).
Being colourblind when judging the character of a person is not the same as the way you mean it as being blind to experiences or history relating to race/racism.
Then the next question is of course, if we take the others definition and go with it, do we then have an issue here?
Quoting DingoJones
Yes, it indeed isn't the same! That's my whole point.
The question could be put perhaps this way: if something has divided us and has caused discrimination, persecution and outright violence, what do we do with it?
It only matters to me that a persons stance follows from the definition, that the position makes sense given the definition being used.
The point of the comment wasnt to deal with either views definitions, but rather to identify the point of disagreement in the discussion on “colorblindness”. Its been strange, watching the thread have such disagreement when as far as I can tell everyone basically agrees.
Quoting ssu
Its not the words and categories that divide us, its the racism. Racism is the bad thing, racists are the problem.
I think it's telling: something indeed is amiss.
As if there is this urge to compartmentalize us and just to assume that people don't think of the issues. Some stereotypical viewpoint just defines us.
Us?
What I mean, generally speaking, is that if someone (who we don't know) starts a conversation about some issue, we tend to notice "catchphrases" etc. and assume the person is of one or another camp.
funny I feel the same way about you.
You keep repeating that it's the racist usage of certain words that is the problem, not the words
but the real solution is to get rid of the words themselves
those categories of people don't really exist, we create them with our words
if you really do away with the words, then you really destroy the foundations upon which the issue of racism depends
if a white supremacist no longer has the concept of "white" to form the structures upon which his racist ideologies depend, then it all collapses
ultimately minds will bend and realize that in fact we are all human beings and that the differences in our physical characteristics don't matter
I've transformed my own thinking in this way by simply doing away with the usage of racial language
I never thought of myself as racist in that I judged people only on merit, but I still had categories of people in my mind, and categories allow for preference
take away the categories and you take away the danger of preference.
Ok, I understand. Buzzwords and labels.
Take away the term "apple pies" and apple pies no longer exist...
Jeez!
:up:
:shade: @OP ...
Keep believing that black cats are bad luck in order to remember how badly we treated black cats.
:roll: :sweat: Whiskey. tRumper. Foxtrot.
Exactly. Your superstitions in a nutshell.
Basically yes. And reactions to buzzwords and labels, dog whistles and so on. It's not about trying to understand the other. How to interpret things in the worst possible way and to...win.
Sounds accurate to me.
Yeah, did you read the several places that heritability of intelligence for adults lies between 60% and 80%? Why are you cherrypicking what it says about 12 year olds?
Quoting Isaac
No, it says that IQ is determined 60 - 80% by genetics.
And just to underline, the original article Artemis posted doesn't show that IQ is determined largely by environment either - it doesn't even address the question of nature vs nurture - all it shows is that adoption is associated with a 4.4 point IQ gain, which is small, but close to the biggest environmental effect that the literature shows.
I 100% agree with you, but the super social justice warriors think that just being white makes you racist, just being male makes you sexist,sometimes even just being straight makes you homophobic and just being cis makes you transphobic. They are wrong, they also beleive that not treating minorities of any kind like special little snowflakes you are (insert minority here)phobic, and a s three minorities, no just treat me like a normal person, thanks.
Racists span the color spectrum. There is a pernicious group-think in it. People want to cling to their race, perhaps so they can claim someone else’s achievements or victim hood as their own. It saves them from the necessarily time consuming work of thinking and passing judgement on the level of an individual. One dissolves his individuality in an amorphous, disparate group, identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.
it is not "reverse discrimination" it is discrimination weather it is on a gay trans black woman or a cis straight white man, and i can cite several cases of literal discriminations against white people and against men that have arose in recent years (late 1990's and forward) because of extreme feminism and social justice warriors, who can do some good but because of how extreme they go they cause more harm than good.
let's start with the easy stuff because I'm lazy, a woman just claiming that a man raped her, even with no evidence can and will ruin his career and in many cases stop him from getting a new one. And on the flip side of that coin a woman can rape a minor, get pregnant and then sue the minor for child support, it is also stated that "forcing a man to penetrate" does not count as rape and a woman can often get away with having sex with a minor. Moving on past just societal outlooks to actual discrimination, if a man commits a burglary in a western country he is liable to face DOUBLE the time a woman convicted of the same crime is. men can also be denied paternity leave, even if they are a single father, women are 7* more likely to gain custody of a child in a civil court case, even if the mother is proven to be a threat to the children, men have to sign up for a draft just to get their driver's license, men are 90% less likely to get welfare than women and men make up 70% of the homeless population. all of these are not "reverse discrimination".
while minorities and women face discrimination, that does not cancel out the discrimination of everyone else. We should work towards equality, not towards superiority.
I feel you, I really hate how straight white males have been so intolerant of other sexual orientations, races and genders. They spend so many centuries judging others by the groups they belong to rather than looking past those things and just realising we're all human beings, it's disgusting.
Strawman.
We have always worked, and still do work, against those who have always worked, and still do work, "towards superiority". This sort of special pleading stinks of "victim envy". Compared to the grossly ubiquitous normativity of systemic discrimination against nonwhite, female & nonbinary persons, incidents of anti-'straight white male' discrimination are de minimis and, more significantly, not systemic (after all 'the system' is, in fact, controlled by 'straight white male' elites predominately for the benefit of 'straight white male' elites ...)
Victim envy? I am not straight, white, cis, or male, so no. And you are right the system is controlled by predominantly white elites but it is to the benefit of all of the elites, and does not protect the common straight, white man and the system is actually rigged against all commenors not just commoners that are minorities. There is systemic discrimination against almost any majority as well as minority, the only majority that is not descriminated against is straight, cisgender people and they don't get special treatment either, like I have said before I am not trying to cover up any oppression against anyone just bring to light that other people have to deal with racism and sexism every day too. Also one final note, nothing has to be systemic to be valid someone can be racist to a white person and whether or not you believe it is systemic it is still racism.
Yes, but aren't most victims of discrimination period poor, like I don't see any millionaires being descriminated against
Exactly. Money is the great equalizer. That is the great capitalist virtue.
Well yeah but in America if you are born poor there is a good chance you and every single one of your descendants will be poor
No social system has fixed that problem so far. There is no substitute for finding the ladder and getting your ass up onto it.
I'm talking about specifically America where this is a problem. This is not a problem in most of the western world.
If you mean there's greater wealth disparity in the US, I wouldn't be surprised. If you're saying there is less social mobility, I'd be interested in statistics that demonstrate that.
"The notion that anyone in America who is willing and able to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” can achieve significant upward mobility is deeply embedded in U.S. society. Conventional wisdom holds that class barriers in the United States are the lowest among the world’s advanced economies." -the economic policy institute
"The relationship between father-son earnings is tighter in the United States than in most peer OECD countries, meaning U.S. mobility is among the lowest of major industrialized economies. The relatively low correlations between father-son earnings in Scandinavian countries provide a stark contradiction to the conventional wisdom. An elasticity of 0.47 found in the United States offers much less likelihood of moving up than an elasticity of 0.18 or less, as characterizes Finland, Norway, and Denmark." - the economic policy institute
"eight countries studied—Canada, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, the UK and the US, the US had both the highest economic inequality and lowest economic mobility. In this and other studies, in fact, the USA has very low mobility at the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, with mobility increasing slightly as one goes up the ladder."-wikipedia
But still, point taken. What is it that makes social mobility greater in these countries?
You know what, I'll actually have to look into that because at this point I really don't know
:up:
Okay so looking into it I found a few things, so here is the gist of it
"Hout argues we have been misled by the fact that, for the Baby Boomer generation, pretty much everybody experienced upward mobility as part of the post-World War II economic boom. "Ninety percent of young adults earned more than their parents did, and 60 percent worked in higher-status occupations," he notes.
This was due to "broad economic growth and occupational transformation, not from equal chances to take advantage of opportunity," he writes. The waning of these trends in recent decades, he adds, has "unmasked" the reality that people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have a tough time moving up."
"This view approximates that of a majority of Americans. According to the World Values Survey, 70% of Americans believe that the poor can make it out of poverty on their own. This contrasts sharply with attitudes in Europe, where only 35% believe the same thing. Put another way, most Europeans consider the poor unfortunate, while most Americans consider them indolent. This may be one reason why European countries support more generous – and costlier – welfare transfers than the US." -world economic forums
"According to survey research that colleagues and I recently conducted and analyzed, Americans estimate that among children in the lowest income bracket, 12% will make it to the top bracket by the time they retire. Americans also believe that with hard work, only 22% of children in poverty today will remain there as adults.
The actual numbers are 8% and 33%, respectively. In other words, Americans overestimate upward social mobility and underestimate the likelihood of remaining stuck in poverty for generations. They also believe that if everyone worked hard, the American Dream of self-made success would hew closer to reality."
"European respondents are more pessimistic about mobility: unlike Americans, they overestimate the odds of remaining in poverty. For example, French, Italian, and British respondents said, respectively, that 35%, 34%, and 38% of low-income children will remain poor, when the reality is that 29%, 27%, and 31% will."
I tried to find more sources to back these two sites credibility, but I couldn't find any more that said why, not that, America is doing poorly here
It's a general trend that income inequality and social immobility are linearly related.
The only substitute for finding the ladder is building public access stairs.
I would have suspected that the UK has high immobility (low social mobility) as it is one of the most traditional class societies. And the stats do tell it.
You can correct inequality through wealth transfers, but you cannot change people when they actually love their class society.
(Reminds me of the story of a Finnish bank manager who went to lead the UK subsidiary. Trying to socialize with his British assistant manager, the Finn thought they would have something in common with sports and took the British banker to watch a football match in London, a thing the Finn had never done before. Well, it was a first for them both.)
The statistic also tells well the story of Latin America. Bigger the portion of the Indian population, bigger the immobility.
Makes sense. In the US, the economy has continued to expand and prosper, but wages stagnated. Which do you think has the biggest impact on prosperity and social mobility: internal policies or external factors like war (whether cold or hot)?
It can make a huge difference, which I know from experience. You still have to hustle.
internal politics, I mean they have made living wages almost impossible to find and now 40% of americans are below poverty, and they also caused the costs for higher education and medicine to rise to higher than they have ever been, at speeds as high as 20 times the rate of inflation, steadying out at 8 and 12 times the the inflation rate respectively
Though, it's not all about skin pigmentation; it's about genetic build.
Race is not a social construct. Different, non-relative genetic builds occur naturally.
Animals in the Southern Hemisphere, are nurtured by the Earth and Sun a lot differently than those in the Northern Hemisphere.
The human vessel evovles differently in different parts of the world.
Do you mean 40 million and 13 percent?
But why are internal factors more potent than external ones?
— sarah young
Do you mean 40 million and 13 percent?[/quote]
No I actually meant "below or near" poverty, but those are the correct figures for what i actually said, and why is a really good question that I do not know the answer to, but I could make a guess. Maybe corporations have been funding the government and trying to make laws that are helpful to corporations but perhaps harmful to the common man.
A human’s genes come from his parents, not from groups of people.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/abc7chicago.com/amp/us-capitol-threat-insurrection-riot-january-6/10371047/
It's early days yet but in the wake of the "6th of January" White Terrorist (re: Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois, Oathkeepers, "stop the steal" QAnon/MAGA morons, et al) Insurrection-clown show in Washington DC and subsequent ongoing federal and local criminal (& counterterrorism) investigations, I'm appending to this thread below a link to an article by the Southern Poverty Law Center, prefaced by excerpts from a year old post, to once again punctuate the urgency of resisting the myopic complacency (at best) expressed by the OP.
Quoting 180 Proof
https://www.splcenter.org/news/2021/02/16/end-trump-era-white-nationalists-increasingly-embrace-political-violence
It's not enough 'not to be racist (fascist)'; you're either anti-racist (anti-fascist) or you're not.
QAnon was a significant part of that group and they're racially mixed.
That your characterization of the event is wrong.
No, I didn't.
re: news
I'm not a white guy asshole.
My intuition is that this truism, is part of the neurological behavior that makes racism so endemic and persistent. Racial biases act like positive feedback loops. A person has a bias against black people. They walk by a group of black youths. They tense up, their heart races. We're programmed to react to low frequency, high risk incidents. Particularly interpersonal conflict. We are, after all, a species the evolved under homicide rates that are far in excess of anything today. Measured homicide rates in modern hunter gatherer societies are higher than Europe if you use 1914-1918 as your measuring period. The fight or flight response is irrational, quite likely not based on any personal experience, but it's acute.
Nothing has to happen for the loop to be reinforced. The person feels stress due to bias, regardless of if the object of their fear has done anything to warrant it, and this feeds the loop. The same thing can play out in social situations.
Not a white guy, not an asshole, or neither a white guy nor an asshole?
I think the positive feedback loop example also works for systemic racism. I've seen examples of how car insurance and credit scores are racist. Unable to use variables for race specifically, companies use spurious variables in their calculations as a proxy for race, which is what they really want to model.
Because certain groups are more likely to be unfairly treated in the justice system (e.g. "driving while black"), it means that individuals within those groups are going to be more likely to get tagged with variables that also correlate with risk (e.g. felony status).The US justice system is racist. Felony convictions correlate with credit worthiness because having a felony conviction makes it hard to get a job. These two factors working in confluence make some minority groups more likely to default on debt. Because the justice system is racist, all else equal, a truly color blind credit score system will be racist.
Who faces blame for a car accident depends on police reports many times. All else equal, because there is widespread racial bias, a minority driver is more likely to be blamed for an accident. This in turn makes it true that a minority driver is more costly to insure, and thus should be asked to pay more based on their risk profile (in pure, formulaic sense).
Regression analysis, by its nature, will turn into a feedback loop that perpetuates racism. Hypothetical magically non-racist AI cops would still arrest African Americans for smoking marijuana at a higher rate than European Americans, despite African Americans using the drug less, based on identical visual and olfactory sensors, because African Americans live in denser neighborhoods, which makes detecting marijuana smoke more likely.
This is essentially the same old structural racism argument that many have made better than I. I think the message also gets jumbled though. Structural racism would appear to have two components:
1. Ways systems are designed to carry out prejudice intentionally or based on subconscious bias;
2. Ways in which systems create almost mathematical feedback loops, where an oppressed group gets disadvantaged due to the system, and the measure of their disadvantage is a variable that feeds into further oppression.
A terrible example I know is that leaked Amazon documents show they seek to hit given levels of diversity because higher diversity actually makes union organizing less likely to occur or be successful. In turn, the poverty caused by machinations like these, make people more likely to hunker down into racist ideologies.
+1
Unless you are asinine.
It's the same thing. Or not, depending on one's definition of racism, which is a term that has been misused, or over-used, in the past several years. So much so that racism has lost its meaning.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting frank
So typical.
As if anyone that disagrees with you is "white".
As if anyone that says, "no" to black is racist.
:up:
It takes a little courage to drop the propganda and think for yourself. That's true on all sides.
Simply repeating that old saying is not enough, though. One has to actually do it. And to do that one must not be racist. Unfortunately one finds plenty of racism in those who repeat that saying.
I'm skeptical of such Manichean pronouncements entirely. On one side the great hosts of racism, sexism, and oppression gather. On the other, the forces of wisdom and freedom.
It isn't realistic.
How many disagreements have their been over simply the definition of "racism?"
"Black people cannot be racist. Racism, is not bigotry, but bigotry in addition to social privilege."
This definition causes near endless arguments across America. For many, racism is negative action against another for their race. For others, there is necissarily a component of large scale power imbalances.
Thus, I've heard it said, black people cannot be racist, even against other minorities, since they face the most oppression. This is true, given a definition of racist that looks through a wide lense of "privilege" and advantage at a national, or transnational level.
At the same time, I can see why this doesn't fit with personal experience. The word racist has connotations of a greater than average sin. To be racist, is to be sinful on a deep level.
For my own experience: I went to school in one of the poorest and most violent cities in the US. Hispanics were the largest demographic, followed by African Americans. Whites made up what I would guess was at least 15% of the population, although when I check now it's less than 10%, making the district's schools segregated by most datasets definitions. The city's demographics are not so segregated, but the median age of White and Hispanic populations differs by a full 23 years.
The ethnic demographic subjected to the most ostentatious bullying were Asians. This included frequent racist mocking, up to serious random beatings that sent high schoolers to the hospital, and resulted.in permanent brain injury.
Later in life I've heard the theory that Asians can be racist to African Americans, but African Americans cannot be racist to Asians Americans. The differences in privilege make equal acts unequal.
Whatever merits this argument might have, I doubt it will do anything to stem communal violence. If anything, it seems designed to be a wedge to perpetuate it.
The same question comes up in the question of Zimbabwe. Is the communal violence there racist?
Making definitions of racism correspond to broad, changeable ethnic hierarchies world wide seems to me to make for more fights over definitions, and less dialogue.
At it's worst, you end up with extremely warped ideas of history where "White" rich males have dictated all things, from time immorial, and all other peoples lack agency.
Why did Mossadegh face a coup? Because a single white man with $50,000 cash and a phone line willed it. Why did Pinochet lead his coup? Because he was told he would not be punished by US State Department employees. This is incredibly reductive reasoning that remains popular and seems racist in its own way.
You're a busy guy. Better get back to it.
Questioning that there was a riot at the Capitol? No. I'm not questing that. I'm questioning the premise that everyone at the Capitol was there to riot and that they were all white and all racists. :roll:
I seem to recall some left-wing celebrities threatening to blow up the White House and posing with a " beheaded" Trump, and riots during the summer that destroyed both private and public property and in which people lost their lives. There is vitriol from both sides. Both sides have blood on their hands.
There’s probably a difference between poetic and comedic expression and protesting police brutality on the one side and mindless insurrection on the other.
e.g. Both Allied & German forces at Normandy on D-Day 1944 had blood on their hands.
e.g. Both ante bellum Abolitionists & Slave Owners, like post bellum militant Freedmen & Klansmen, had blood on their hands.
e.g. Both strikers and strike-breaker police at the Haymarket Riot 1889 had blood on their hands.
( ... )
Drawing false equivalences where there aren't any, Hindu, is ahistorical demogoguery as well as the (second? to) last refuge of moral cowardice. :shade:
Yes, there are two sides. Defenders/survivors, and the Satanic forces of darkness. Only by a miracle can the hosts of the isms be defeated. Rest assured, when they are, things will be totally different.
At least until the next revolution does what they always do...
Of course defeating the Nazis was just. There are, or course, gradations in justice. I find it hard to see how the current circular firing squads of the America left advance justice. They instead appear to further the cause of reactionaries, more than anything else. You're more likely to tilt at a windmill than a Nazi.
Quoting praxis
I agree that there is, it's just that I'm not biased to think that only one side engages in poetic and comedic expression, while the other engages in hate and oppression. Both sides have hateful oppressors and poets and comedians, but you are only capable of seeing the world through your prism of politics.
I have no idea what your point is in showing these examples. I thought the Allies were priviliged racists, and you forgot to include your communist comrades in Russia who had innocent blood on their hands, too.
So yeah, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. When you've been indoctrinated to think that everyone that isn't like you in some way is out to get you in some way, then anyone that isn't like you that fights for their rights is viewed as a terrorist, as if those that aren't like you in some way can't have their liberty without ever infringing upon your liberties. Asking for liberty for all doesn't necessarily mean taking liberties from some. It just depends on what entails "liberty" for you.
You mentioned specific events, numbnuts, and I addressed each. Without bothering to check, if I recall correctly, "blow up the White House" was part of a poem that Madonna recited at the Woman's March. The decapitated Trump photo was a stunt by comedian Kathy Griffin. BLM are hateful oppressors???
I watched, in morbid fascination, much of the 'stop the steal' protests on YouTube. No comedy or poetry. Just a bunch of knuckleheads getting riled up by protest organizers who’s real motivation seemed to be soaking the gullible fools for donations.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Just exposing you again, Harry, not trying to persuade.
Quoting 180 Proof
Yes.
:brow:
Quoting frank
Consider the excerpts below from an authoritative expert testimony concerning the 6th of January attack on the US Capitol.
[quote=FBI Director Wray, senate testimony 3.2.21]That attack, that siege, was criminal behavior, plain and simple. It was behavior that we, the FBI, view as domestic terrorism.
The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now, and it’s not going away anytime soon.
Although I don’t have the percentage for you, the attackers on January 6th included a number — and the number keeps growing as we build out our investigations — of what we would call militia, violent extremism. And we have had some already arrested who we would put in the category of racially motivated violent extremism [ ... ] Those would be the categories so far that we’re seeing as far as January 6th.
I would certainly say, as I think I’ve said consistently in the past, that racially motivated violent extremism, specifically of the sort that advocates for the superiority of the white race, is a persistent, evolving threat. It’s the biggest chunk of our racially motivated violent extremism cases for sure. And racially motivated violent extremism is the biggest chunk of our domestic terrorism portfolio, if you will, overall.
I've been sounding the alarm about domestic terrorism since, I think, just about my first month on the job when I first started appearing up on the Hill, and I've spoken about it, and in maybe a dozen different congressional hearings. So whenever we've had the chance, we've tried to emphasize this is a top concern and remains so for the FBI.[/quote]
Yes, white supremacists were there. Since the inauguration they've been trying to gather up what's left of QAnon to flesh out their ranks.
Note that the FBI did not say the event was racially motivated. They know it wasn't.
Apparently you missed this quote in my previous post:
Sigh. Fine.
The event was planned and advertised across a variety of far right platforms, including 4chan's /pol/, 8kun, the_Donald, and greatawakening.win.
Aside from photos of their "load outs," i.e. the weapons they were going to bring in the lead up to January 6th, and lists of which lawmakers could be assasinated and would then be replaced by Republican lawmakers, was a constant stream or calls to use the platform as a launching point for the extermination of Jews, Blacks, transexuals, and other undesirables. It's pretty hard to spend any time on the far-right sites where planning for the event went on and not come across a torrent of calls for not just racial violence, but full genocide.
People live streamed the attack to these sites to choruses of calls for genocide, so your claim is frankly willfully ignorant at best. If you have an arrest record for hate crimes and stream your riot to hate sites, I think it's fair to say what your motives were.
The primary issue was a belief that Trump had been elected, that evil forces had interfered with the election, and that Mike Pence was committing treason.
White supremacists were a significant part of the sea of lunacy from which the event emerged, but still only a part. What's the motive for denying that?
Ask yourself what's so appealing about this that it attracts white supremacists in droves?
I suggest that this was the excuse and the racists heard the racism Trump stands for loud and clear and wanted 4 more years of that, willing to believe the lies because it was convenient to get what they wanted. Or are we back to the other side being too stupid to figure out the truth for themselves?
I'm more interested in how it happened. Where did these ideas come from?
Exposed what? In all the examples you provided, both sides have blood on their hands.
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/amanda-gorman-dutch-translation-scli-intl/index.html
So does this mean that whites can never understand the language used by blacks? If so, then I think that NOS4A2 is right when they say that this is just going to lead to more division and segregation.
Question:
When a white person looks at a black person and the black person looks at the white person, how much of each other should they see in themselves?
There's no should. Love reveals unity.
Res ipsa loquitur. :roll: Pax!
Some issues here.
1. We have black, female, bilingual, spoken word artists familiar with black emancipation in the US in the Netherlands, hell, we have bilingual spoken word artists that would presumably have a better understanding of the medium at least, none of them were approached;
2. Publisher knew this so there was a team of sensitivity readers set up because this translator's knowledge and grasp of the English language are mediocre at best;
The criticism was primarily about experience and knowledge of the translator.
Sic semper tyrannis.
So it appears that you're saying that the black group that thinks whites can't speak for them has no love for unity and is not doing what they should.
Do you see yourself in people of other races?
LOL. So you, as a white person, Benkei, can speak to what it is like to have owned slaves and what its like to have to let them go because your side lost the war? Can the descendents of northerners speak to what it was like trying to free slaves and the risks that they were taking? No black person alive today can speak to the experience of being a slave that was emancipated. And it can also be said that every person alive today had ancestors that were enslaved or oppressed in some way. Your argument just fell flat on its head.
So your reply is totally idiotic.
It's materialist to judge people by their appearance.
Who are you talking about? The Dutch writer is white and non-binary. They won the International Booker Prize in 2020. For more than 50 years, the Booker Prize has recognized outstanding fiction in the English-speaking world and is considered one of the top literary awards. The article is about how the Dutch writer is unqualified because they are white and doesn't mention any other reason other than that. So who is it that is having trouble reading again?
What is the point in asserting your greivances if the people you are addressing are incapable of understanding you? Every human being has to overcome adversity in some form or another. Every human being understands what it means to have to overcome adversity.
How far do we go when it comes to understanding others that are different than us?
Does this mean that atheists could never understand theists and vice versa? I was once a theist. I am an atheist BECAUSE I have come to understand religions and theism. I have asked for "white privilige" and "systemic racism" to be defined and to point out specifically who is participating in it and perpetuating it and I receive no concrete answers, just like when I ask a theist to define their god. So, until you are able to clearly define your religion, Benkei, I have no reason to believe it myself.
I don't know what materialism has to do with it. An idealist can judge by appearances as well. We all judge by appearances. Some people judge and identify by skin color only (shallow, surface-level thinkers). Others judge and identify by behaviors (deeper and more thoughtful thinkers that judge by the content of one's character). Which one are you, Frank?
I guess.
The Booker Prize was for her translated book from Dutch to English, which was translated by Michele Hutchison, you fucking retard. The original is De avond is ongemak. Her English sucks and even if it didn't, she still doesn't know anything about the black emancipation movement and has zero experience with spoken word. But please, continue to ram your own foot in your mouth.
You keep avoiding the question. Yet the article mentions none of that and only focuses on their skin color as the only reason they were not a good choice to translate the speech. Why do you think that is? I've provided a link that provides the information of what we are taking about. You havent provided anything to back up your assertions. Where are you getting your information? What is the black emancipation movement and if a non-blacks person are incapable of understanding it, then why translate it in the first place?
And if non-blacks can't understand the black experience then how can a man understand the female experience to assert that he is a she? Wait. Let pop some popcorn because watching you perform your mental gymnastics is entertaining.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I haven't said this, I said she had no knowledge of it. As to what it is, try Google.
For someone who pretends to be colour blind, you're really hung up on making this about colour.
Try again. I'm asking why CNN and Gorman is making it about color.
Quoting Benkei
Would you be able to successfully translate Gormans speech then? If not, then who and why, and does that not mean that English-speaking non-blacks hearing the speech directly from Gormans mouth before the Super Bowl were not able to understand the words?
I can use Google Translate. All I'm asking is for a link supporting your assertions. Saying that the CNN article is not complete requires evidence. Please forgive me if I don't take your emotional outbursts and name-calling as evidence. Instead I see your inability to answer direct questions as evidence that your are simply intellectually dishonest.
You may be able to read Englush, but according to you that still isn't enough to know the American experience. Look at how you contradict yourself with every post.
And no, I wouldn't be able to translate Gormans speech as well as Munganyende Hélène Christelle, Rachel Rumai, Zaïre Krieger, Rellie Telg, Lisette MaNeza, Babs Gons, Sanguilla Vabrie, Alida Aurora, Pelumi Adejumo or Schiavone Simson but I sure as hell would be better at it than Rijneveld would be. For starters, I do have experience with spoken word performances and my English is better. As stated before, the publisher had appointed "sensitivity readers" precisely because of her crappy English.
Finally, the complaints about Rijneveld being chosen were mostly made online. I'm not a news curator working for your pleasure. I shared what was the case and you can either chose to believe me or not. I have exactly zero incentive to provide "evidence" for what is apparent for anyone living in the Netherlands.
And you keep insisting this narrative is correct because you want it to be about her being white so you get to make your inane "colour blindness" and there's "no systemic racism" point. But this was once again an example of systemic racism. Only white people would get the benefit of the doubt of doing such important work without having actual qualifications for the job! And that was also part of the complaint but not a complaint against Rijneveld herself.
Then I could translate Gormans speech using Google Translate.
Quoting Benkei
We're not talking about an event that happened in the Netherlands. We taking about an event that happened in America that is translated to other languages, not just Dutch, dumb-ass.
Yeah, one wonders why we bother with translators at all. :roll: Sigh. Of course Google translate isn't sufficient. What part of my comment even remotely suggests this to be my point when the entire complaint was her skill was insufficient? Not absent, but insufficient, lacking, not good enough.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I know and that's how my comment should be read. I can comment on the US experience because I'm intimately familiar with its language and familiar with its culture and history because I read local, untranslated sources. You don't know shit about the Netherlands and even on this narrow subject failed to get your facts straight, first by basing yourself on a few foreign news sources and then failing to know Rijneveld doesn't publish in English. Maybe just accept you don't know what you're talking about for once.
Then any white person in America that knows Dutch should be able to translate it.
If you think that you would have even been considered to translate the speech, one look at your pale-white skin and you're automatically disqualified.
Have they found a replacement? With all those other names you provided you would think that they would have found a replacement by now. I still can't find any evidence of what your claiming. Other sites say they same thing - that it was about Rijneveld's skin color.
Quoting Benkei
Again, we're talking about events that happened in the US, not the Netherlands, that need to be translated into Dutch. So me knowing anything about the Netherlands is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the Netherlands seems to be having a tough time finding someone that can translate the spoken word of a black American.
It wasn't MY facts. It was CNNs, which you claimed to be incomplete, not wrong. (Then Trump was correct when he called CNN "Fake News"?) So all your other qualifiers that you claim Rijneveld doesn't have are irrelevant because if you don't have dark skin, all those other qualifications mean zilch.
I never said that and again you're trying to make it about colour. I've made it very clear that experience with the subject matter is important. Learn to read. I'm done. Bye.
No. I'm not. I'm asking why CNN and all the other sites are making it about color, and why you can't provide evidence to the contrary (because there isn't any).
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-03-22/amanda-gorman-hill-we-climb-translation-backlash-sparks-controversy?_amp=true
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/06/marieke-lucas-rijneveld-writes-poem-about-amanda-gorman-furore
Here's another opinion piece: https://www.parool.nl/columns-opinie/telkens-wordt-steekhoudende-kritiek-van-mensen-van-kleur-weggezet-als-identiteitspolitiek~b537371c7/
Why are you making it about skin color?
What's the matter, Netherlands have too much white privilege to find an qualified candidate to translate a speech made by a black woman in Amerika?
LOL, the written word is read at the pace of the reader, not at the pace of the speaker that is being translated. "Spoken-word-artist"? Phhhah! Art is in the eye of the beholder.
Identity politics is ultimately at odds with a social justice agenda. Social justice can only be achieved through broad social solidarity. The more we pit ourselves against one another, the more impotent we become.
Those who draw you to focus on white vs black are appealing to your base, fearful nature. They're inviting you to turn away from the only path to truly improving things. They're leading you to give up because "it's always been this way.'. Roll in your victimhood.
Who stands to lose if you embrace social solidarity? The elite. They need for you to believe that only money is power.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/5374754001
And isn't there supposed to be a money trail between the hit man and who sends the hit man? Very poor analogy made here, but what would you expect from those driven by hate and not truth?
The person you quoted should take some computer programming courses so that they understand how to use language in a more consistent manner. :lol:
Well put, Franky.
Quoting frank
So what changed your mind, Frank, in the past 5 months?
Insurrection: an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions
I wonder what 180 thinks of the Bolshevik insurrection, the French and American insurrections of the 18th century, etc.
That’s the saddest part, Trump didn’t do jack for his base and none of the wealthy who scored big under his administration stormed the capital.
It's like why is string theory right? bla bla. Why is string theory wrong? anti-bla anti-bla.
Well put, Franky.
At least Putin had a fun time. Must have reminded him of his old job heading the FSB.
There was a black boy and he looked up to adults as to what to do with his life. Adult black men were slaves. The boy became a slave.
There is a white girl and she looks to adults as to what to do with her life. Most adult women still are stay at home mums, nurses, librarians and school teachers. Meanwhile, media portrayal of girls has changed; they are protagonists in stories, heroines, smart and beat boys regularly. Her parents tell her that what she sees isn't the way the world has to be; "you can be whatever you like honey". Her teacher knows what girls usually become but he/she too believes she can be whatever she can be. assume where she'll end up and discovers she happens to be really good at mathematics, chemistry and physics. The teacher also discovers girls learn differently then boys. The teacher changes how she teaches and the girl blossoms. She becomes a mum, with a Ph.D. in linear algebra teaching at university.
If the parents or the teacher didn't realise what the world looked like to the girl, precisely because she is a girl, and actively engaged her to allow her to have a different view from what is, she never would've gotten there (we're not all Marie Curie!).
Now what to do about that black boy? Society and media still tell him he's "less" than white boys. Black men overwhelmingly have lower paying jobs. The only way out seems to be rap or athleticism. Stories with black heroes are rare, criminals are predominantly played by non-whites, in fact, representation of black people is often about race because non-whites apparently are incapable of having universal experiences (notable exceptions exist of course!).
People suggesting to ignore this boy's view of the world by ignoring that he's in fact black are not helping him. If you want to improve his chances, you need to realise what the world looks like to him, as a black boy, and actively engage him (e.g. going the extra mile to undo all the socio-economic damage he grows up in) to allow him to have a different view from what is. And while you're doing that you also need to teach him how to deal with the racist fucks still out there and those that think ignoring that he's clearly black is in any way, shape or form helping to change society for the better.
Not talking about the problem does not make it go away. Slavery didn't disappear because people stopped pretending there were slaves.
So string theory is what changed your mind? I don't get it. Is string theory right or wrong? It can't be both, but it has to be one.
The analogy states that the person who hired them should go to jail too.
Talk about needless personal attacks...
Not hate. Logic. Given what you said, I don't expect you to understand the difference.
The same can be said of Biden, who's been in power for 50 years, hasn't done jack for minorities except insult them, yet they keep voting for the promises made by the Democratic party. The only promises kept by either party is that they keep making you out to be the victim of someone else.
This is what I've been saying for awhile now and is the foundation of the problem as stated by - politics - dividing people based on identity and then making people think that everyone else that doesn't share your identity is out to get you. It's no different than religion. In fact, many religions make their followers out to be victims and most political arguments contain the same logical errors as religious arguments.
Abolish political parties and religions. Abolish group-think. Focusing on the things that make us different from one another and using it as an ideological weapon against each other is the status quo. If you are truly progressive then stop voting for the same people and groups that put us in this state of hate.
Emotion traps people. We want there to be recognition of racial bias in society so that DAs can't get away with just ignoring the murders of black men like Ahmaud Arbery.
But emotion clicks in and says that all white people are complicit, which isn't true, but it satisfies a bruised, frustrated heart to say it, and we just forget the more abysmal truth.
There's two sides to the coin.
For me it’s not about ignoring phenotypes—an impossibility unless one is blind—but about refusing to make assumptions from them. One cannot assume someone’s experience, character, beliefs, desires, etc. from the fact of these phenotypes. “This man has such-and-such phenotypes, therefor he has this-or-that experience, behavior, beliefs, and so on”, is the logic of racism and other forms of prejudice, and I see no reason to continue using it.
One must use other means of discovery in order to better apprehend the truth about an individual, anyways. The fact of a boy’s phenotype doesn’t permit some white man to “actively engage him”, nor does it give the white man the authority “to allow him to have a different view from what is”. Like experience, beliefs, character, one can only discover whether another needs or even wants a white man’s help and blessings through basic communication and observation, not through making assumptions on the basis of race, which are specious classifications in any case.
Yeah, you just have a history of allying yourself with those who welcome racists with open arms. It makes it hard to take anything you say about race seriously. One suspects an ulterior motive, but one isn't interested enough to follow up on the suspicion.
... isn't identity politics, it's politicizing some issue, and that can be done with practically anything. Currently popular is vaccination vs antivaccination. Many Trumpian antivac supporters are themselves vaccinated, though they may decline to admit it, inanely claiming HIPAA rights violations or whatever, and apparently could care less if a portion of their followers die from not being vaccinated.
Even if there were a significant risk with getting vaccinated, shouldn't Trumpian "conservatives" be willing to take a health risk in order to get the economy going full-steam? Isn't that what a brave patriot would do for their nation's economy? That seemed to be their courageous logic at the beginning of the pandemic. How did it get turned around? If you have no actual principles and are merely a group-thinking follower, the Trumps of the world can make you dance like a mindless puppet on strings.
Black men are telling you about their experiences on an almost daily basis. Describing the world as it is through the eyes of another as a result of listening is not reinforcing racism or prejudice at all, it's learning to understand what the world is like "as a black person" through empathy. If you don't understand what they're going through, you can't help them.
Your ignoring the reality of racism as it exists today does nothing to change it.
If all you can do is concern yourself with your own suspicions, it says more about you than it does about me or my views.
Some individuals are, sure, and others are not. The only way to get around the inductive fallacy inherent in your thinking is to make unwarranted, and, as I have argued, racist assumptions.
I haven’t ignored racism at all. What I ignore is the race-consciousness and it’s perversions.
Well, it works well for those in power wanting to hold on to the status quo.
Why have Americans getting truly together under banners like "We are the 99%" or so when you can make a basically a class issue a race issue? Even if race and povetry do go hand in hand in the US, it goes even more with class. Yet talking about "White privilege" goes so well with poor white people literally called "White trash" in the US that the Republicans will surely say about "the other side" saying how privileged they are. No wonder there are so many Trump supporters. Who cares about what actually people really try to say when strawman arguments rule the discourse?
Anyway, if you have so much discontent towards how things are in the country, both from the left and the right, make sure that the opposition will be divided and incapable of unifying. Has worked in other countries, actually.
I've come to the conclusion that the polarization of American politics is an active if not openly declared strategy (or policy) implemented by the two ruling parties to stay in power. They only ease the tension if some nutcase comes along and starts shooting politicians of one or the other party (as has already happened). Otherwise, make the other side as evil as possible in the "culture war".
I genuinely hope this political strategy isn't mimicked by political parties in my country. Unfortunately the media copies everything, so I don't have my hopes up.
Yeah, but I think that saysmoreaboutyou thanit doesaboutme.
I'll get back to my original point: not talking about a problem doesn't make it go away.
EDIT: how would you go about resolving the systemic racism that many (most) black us citizens claim they are experiencing?
NOS, your doublespeak is some vile, racist, shit.
Quoting NOS4A2
I get it though, like @Harry Hindu et al, you're on the victor's ... conquistador's ... crusader's ... exploiter-discriminator's "team". Denying the accumulated historical and systemically adverse effects on those "other teams" is par for the course, part of the strategy for how y'all play this millennium-old game. I for one am more pleased than not, NOS, you've not been banned yet since your post history (certainly the last couple of years) is an exemplary archival specimen of what Baldwin calls being "really despicable".
I don’t have the habit of identifying myself with specious classifications, and like Orwell, “placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests”. That’s your bag, and the habit of racists throughout history.
But you were talking about string theory. Can you make up your mind which analogy you're going to use? By narrowing it down to only two (views), limits the possible options or solutions you can think of or understand.
Quoting frank
The men who killed Ahmaud Arbery are in jail. Who else has killed a black person and isn't in jail, or isn't being hunted down to put in jail? The knee-jerk reaction to label every altercation between a black person and a white person as racist just makes the word, "racist" meaningless and makes it more difficult to fight real racism. Blacks and whites can disagree and it not be racist.
Labeling all white people as complicit is fighting racism with racism. In what ways are whites complicit, that blacks aren't? Don't blacks keep voting for the same Democrats for 50+ years that are part of this system of racism?
WHO is racist? Point them out so that we can fight them together. Calling everyone racist doesn't make anyone want to help you fight racism.
What does a nation with systemic racism look like vs a nation that doesn't have systemic racism but has pockets of racism in some areas?
Yes, it's politicizing identity. What do you think anti-vac and vaccinated are, if not identities? It's using labels as weapons against your political opponents.
A large percentage of unvaccinated are blacks. Why aren't they getting vaccinated? Maybe we should ask people why they aren't getting vaccinated instead of demonizing them when you have no idea what their reasoning is? What gives you the right to determine the medical decisions of others? Should others make medical decisions for you?
As such, essentially every government in the world is an oligarchy where the elite few rule the many and limit and strictly control the new members to their club. Just think if you or I were able to become president - what they did to Trump would be nothing compared to what they would do to people like us looking to really change things.
Quoting ssu
Dividing is just practicing what they are doing. You divide people by labeling them. Stop labeling. No more Democrats or Republicans.
Quoting ssu
I agree. The argument that voting for a third party is a vote for the other party is part of this strategy to scare you into voting for one of the two. But when you see both as equally evil, then voting third, fourth, fifth, etc. party (or just no parties) is the only reasonable option.
Yes, essentially it is like that. (I think that Monaco as a tiny city state can have basically the monarch as head of state as every Monegasque can go and visit him if they have a problem.)
Quoting Harry Hindu
Ummm....what did they do to Trump, actually?
The GOP utterly failed to do the choreographed selection of the party nominee (unlike the Democrats, who can rely on the ever loyal Bernie to lure in progressives and social democrats) and got a wild card with Trump. And the party is now in a state of disarray, but still holding on two the duopoly.
And let's face it: many in both parties would likely want to change things, but once the dance is going on with a certain tune, you cannot start to tango when everybody else is doing a square dance. There is no evil solid entity lurking in the shadows, no Illuminati. There are just people who think they can control the dance. Yes, there is a power elite in every country. But don't think they agree on things and can act in an uniform fashion. It's more like things happen and the elite accepts it or tries to manage somehow the process.
Ok stop. He's in jail because a reporter deemed the facts suspicious, looked into it, and raised a stink, THEN they investigated the murder like they were supposed to.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I don't know what this diatribe is about. Sounds like you're taking something personally.
Anti-vaxxer's are like climate change deniers, or in the case specific to this topic, systemic racism deniers, and are positions often taken to express tribal solidarity. I agree that the foundation of this is like religion and the value it places on social solidarity over truth or actual principles.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I don't think that it's particularly controversial to claim that the economic recovery would be aided by as many people getting vaccinated as quickly as possible. I've heard people claim that the vaccine is more dangerous than the cure, even for the elderly. I have yet to hear what I think is a reasonable explanation for not getting vaccinated. Do you know of any?
Quoting Harry Hindu
Not exactly sure what you're talking about, the Food & Drug Administration, for example, consistently makes this sort of determination. Prior to the existence of the FDA all sorts of toxins were sold to the public without their knowledge.
More relevant to this topic, I assume that you believe employers should have the right to make hiring decisions based on race, sex, age, or any other criteria.
Quoting Harry Hindu
No one is forced to get vaccinated, though the choice to not get vaccinated has an impact on society. Judging by the evidence I think it's irresponsible to not get vaccinated. Also judging by the evidence, I think it's irresponsible to deny climate change or systemic racism.
That some of the vaccines in use are of very new technology and different from classic vaccinations and we don't know what the long term effects of these are? Or that the person is a young child? Especially if the two times vaccinated still can spread new variants, I still think there opening on having a frank discussion about vaccinations, just as with medicine and health care in general. I'm personally not an anti-vaxxer, but I do value a public debate about vaccinations.
You see, the thing you portrayed well is the way we can also stop a discussion:
Quoting praxis
I do know who you are talking about, but that categorization can be used quickly to squelch any debate of quite valid issues. There is obviously a reason that we need an open discussion about these issues. For starters, we shouldn't respond like an internet computer algorithm that if we see the words "taxation", "deficits", "vaccination", "white privilege", "multiculturalism", we instantly assume what the person thinks and believes and categorize him or her.
(Caveat: so far, none of the big pharma (mRNA) Covid-19 vaccines have been given full approval by the US FDA or any its international counterparts – they are to high degrees (so far) symptomatically effective yet with undetermined long-term side-effects (re: safety?). Scientifically, rather than politically, it makes more sense to wait for an approved vaccine – I'm a long hauler by the way – conscientiously caught between a rock and hard place. Yes, it's a tradeoff of risk vs uncertainty (N.N.Taleb))
Harry is a racist apologist and MAGA-moron, that's what he's about. Read his post history on this thread alone (if you're bored enough and can stomach it). Harry & NOS are just like the buddy movie Hate & Hater. Systemic racism-denial is the quintessential version of Holocaust-denial (much more insidious than naively vapid anti-vaxxers or flat earthers).
I edited what you quoted to say “positions often taken…” The telltale sign is a lack of evidence or reasonable argument.
Might there not be long-term side-effects from contracting COVID? In any case, the point I was trying to make by bringing this up is that at the beginning of the pandemic Trumpers were saying that Americans should be willing to make sacrifices and take health risks in order to protect the economy. Theoretically, if everyone got vaccinated the pandemic would be greatly reduced if not eliminated and the economy would no longer be affected by it. What happened to their brave capitalistic patriotism? I’m suggesting that positions are often based in social solidarity and following a perceived authority rather than facts or principles.
As far Covid-19, vaccinated or not there's no evidence (yet) I'm aware of that the long-term effects of being infected are avoidable. The vaccines only suppress symptoms and neither prevent becoming infected nor infecting others. Masks, distancing, hand washing alone overwhelmingly reduce transmissibility. Pathetically, my libido got me infected four months back and yes I damn well regret those hook-ups with an "ex" who is twenty odd years younger (thus, in a different risk pool!) and was asymptomatic. At my age, still thinking with my ****?! :sad:
Yes, I was wrong to theorize that it could be eliminated through vaccination, though it would all but eliminate fear of severe symptoms and no longer cripple the economy, perhaps. The way things are going, it looks like we’re headed towards limited lockdowns again.
"due to my autism and OCD, I actually do feel uncomfortable around black people. i have always felt extremely sad, uncomfortable, anxious, and sometimes I feel really scared of the fact that some of them are kind of creepy and the men are really really scary."
I'm very confused as to who the oppressed group is here and would welcome thoughts on this.
I suppose you could say that this person is oppressed by their mental disorders and maladaptive perceptions.
My own conclusion remains the same. The criticism of color-blindness remains unproven and unprovoked. The idea that one will ignore racism by refusing to include racial taxonomies into his thinking is false on its face, because racializing people, viewing them as a member of this or that racial group and deriving assumptions thereby, is the problem to begin with. In short, one cannot banish racism by evoking it.
I agree.
It's the author's mental disorders plus the presence of black people that triggers the oppression.
No, the problem is taking advantage of a marginalized group. Ignoring an advantage allows the privileged group to keep whatever advantage they have.
Their emotional reactions are maladaptive (not appropriate to the circumstances). Maladaptive triggers can be inexplicable and literally anything. I developed panic disorder at one point in my youth so I have some firsthand experience in the matter.
I understand, but they're still complicit in the suffering and mental anguish of a neuroatypical person.
How so? It may be fair to say that popular American culture portrays black men as more violent than other groups, if that’s what you’re suggesting.
Ignoring an advantage ? ignoring racism.
How can you tell it's that, and not that he's just unaware of what's going on around him?
People aren't racist because they dislike diversity. They're racist out of ignorance and/or because they know, perhaps not even on a conscious level, that it gives them an advantage over the marginalized group in some way.
There are 3 kinds of "color blindness". Only one of them qualifies as any kind of virtue.
1. Failure, feigned or not, to perceive phenotypic differences between groupings: skin tone, facial features, and hair primarily. This is either disingenuousness or a perceptual or cognitive defect.
2. A disinclination or conscious refusal to make unwarranted associations with the perceptions of 1.
3. A failure, feigned or not, to apprehend the reality and the consequences of a societal and historical ~2. This failure can happen due to :
@NOS4A2 partakes of the ignominious 3, while defensively (and disingenuously) pretending virtuous participation in 2.
All I fail to apprehend is the classification of human beings into pseudoscientific taxonomies, which are as ridiculous as the day they were born. One needn’t use these taxonomies to recognize that people apply entire stereotypes to them, draw false conclusions from them, and abuse others because of them.
What exactly do you mean by claiming that people abuse others because of pseudoscientific taxonomies? If I want to abuse or marginalize a group I can creatively contrive any number of classifications that may facilitate my efforts, to the weak minded and/or unprincipled.
I believe that “race” is a pseudoscientific taxonomy, and that whole swaths of people should not be demarcated within those abstract boundaries. I believe that such a fake demarcation has allowed racists to run roughshod on entire groups of people, and I simply refuse to adopt it in my thinking.
Okay good, you agree that such demarcations allow or facilitate abuse rather than cause it. If you’re actually interested in solving a problem it’s usually best to deal with the cause of it.
:up:
Do you apply these pseudoscientific taxonomies to human beings?
Trump ran on fighting corruption, like so many other politicians. Whether they actually did anything or not to fight corruption isn't what I'm trying to focus on.
I'm assuming that when you, ssu, say that you want to fight corruption you really mean it. You don't have any ulterior motives and that if you see Democrats engaged in corruption, you will fight them as hard as any Republican you see engaged in corruption, nor will you be allowing certain corporations to continue to engage in corruption because they are donating to your campaign. I hope you would assume the same thing when I say that I want to fight corruption.
Now when both parties are engaged in the same kind of corruption, then investigating one can be a threat to the other. You and I will become the enemy of both and there will be a lot worse than impeachment that you and I would be facing.
Both parties need each other, 1) to keep the nation united and not have states secede, or another civil war break out, and 2) to have someone else to blame when your ideas fail.
When you say that there are many in both parties that would likely want change, what do you mean by "change"? Anything other than abolishing all political parties and lobbyists isn't any type of change from the status quo.
Ok, stop asking reasonable questions? How religious.
The police don't know who has been killed until they have been called. Someone has to call the police for them to do something. Think of how many people are lying dead in some wilderness without anyone knowing that they are dead or even missing. Who was suppose to call the police and didn't in the case of Ahmaud Arbery? Who called the reporter? Did they also contact the police? How did the video of the killing get out? These are all reasonable questions that I would expect a reasonable person to try to answer, and not tell me to stop. If they were really interested in the truth, then getting the answers to these questions would be the goal, not trying to shut the person up that is asking the questions. They're questions, not statements or arguments.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Quoting frank
Asking what the difference is between the two is taking things personally? It seems to me a valid question that you are simply incapable of answering so you make a personal stab at me, committing an ad hominem fallacy, equivalent to a fundamentally religious person calling me a "sinner" for asking questions about their definition of "god".
LOL. Just go back and listen to how the left was anti-vaxxers when Trump was president. If it was a Trump vaccine, they weren't going to take it. Now that we're under a Democrat administration, we're suppose to take it? It's the same fucking vaccine!! You see, the political parties are expecting you, like most people, to forget what they said just a couple of years ago.
Equating Anti-vaxxers to these other people is the problem I am talking about. Again, labeling people without having talked to them in order to understand them is the problem. It's just regurgitating the talking points of a particular political party, who's existence is dependent on people like you helping them demonize a certain group that you've never met or talked to.
Science never makes the claim to truth. Science expects the questioning of everything. It's not science that is dictating the truth. It is politicians and their constituents that use science to promote their own truth. Asking questions is scientific. Not asking questions is participating in group-think. Everyone should have the right to question authority. You shouldn't take offense to people asking questions about someone's claims.
Quoting praxisSo, the claim that the vaccine is more dangerous than the cure, even for the elderly isn't something you heard that is a reasonable explanation for not getting vaccinated? I'm confused on that point.
How is the economic recovery being helped if the vaccinated still have to mask themselves - when we have to go back to the authoritarian mandates that hurt the economy in the first place?
And, like Nixon, he succeeded beautifully. Nothing guarantees a mass locking up of politicians and their affiliates than the President drawing attention to how particularly corrupt he is, not just for a President, but for a human being.
When is it okay to invesitgate the corruption of your political opponents? When you are absent any corruption yourself? Which politician fits this definition? Any that do are the very ones whose political carreer will come to a quick and decisive end. That is the whole point - that investigating corruption has now been defined as corrupt. It's the oldest tactic in the political playbook - blame them for the same thing that you're doing.
I won’t bother asking you to support this in any meaningful way.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I’ve heard some people claim that the earth is flat.
Still confused?
Quoting Harry Hindu
The vaccinated need to wear masks because…?
Oh, I wasn't responding to you or your broader point per se, hence not linking to your post, I was just pointing out for the broader board that Republicans actually do have a fully worked out and successful approach for punishing the corrupt in politics. I was uninterested in the rest of your post which was, as standard, wide of the mark.
The guiding principle is simply that laws would be literally followed.
Giving outright bribes isn't tolerated anywhere. Yet we all understand where the slippery slope is here, where the true crucible of democracy lies. When laws simply aren't followed, when people who ought to be punished for braking the law aren't because the laws aren't enforced, then there is still hope. Simply abide by the laws, period. Once when corruption is simply made legal, then it's truly a problem. For example this is real challenge in the US is that the corruption is made legal only a real dork like the Vietnam fighter ace "Duke" Cunningham who turned politician made made a price list of how much to pay him for what amount of contract.
(Corruption as the clearest: Scan of a document submitted as evidence by the prosecution and included in their February 2006 sentencing memorandum against Cunningham, penned by his own hand on his own Congressional office stationery for the benefit of "co-conspirator#2" (defense contractor Mitchell Wade). The left column lists millions of dollars of government contracts; the right column lists the thousands of dollars in bribes required to secure them.)
Needless to say, President Trump pardoned Duke Cunningham.
After Kant we can say to refuse to consider race as a valid category is to deny the concept any rationality at all. How are we to address this? I can only understand this (mostly because of ignorance) through analytical philosophy, rather than as a social commentary. After Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, we can see that the "concept of race" has its own "grammar" as he calls it: the way it does what it does, the criteria for its identity, what counts in assessing it, what matters about it to us (here there seems at least two of "us"), the terms of its judgment--our criteria for race, and, of course, racism (separately, I think, perhaps even from "racist").
The point here is that the concept does not have anything to do with you (personally, individually) and your cares or refusals; it stands apart, like langauge, or culture. Our concepts: thinking, believing, knowing, apologizing, threatening, subjugating--all the whirl of human activity and expression--were here before you.
You do not "mean"--as if: intend or cause or control--your words and expressions. You say something (maybe choose to say it even, what to say) but then in a sense it is no longer yours (except to clarify after). How expressions have meaning to us was already there, existing before you, and whatever "reference" you believe you want (to outside/or from inside) is not for you to now decide. Now you can say you misspoke, offer excuses, apologize, but to say: "that is not what I meant" is limited to very specific distinctions, already built into the senses/uses an expression provides for (unless an extraordinary context, or poetry, etc).
So, categorically (to be part of the concept), the grammar of racism--the, in a sense, logic of it, based on the history of our lives--is not based on how you feel or your opinions (this is not a decision); this is to conflate "racism" or "racist" with the concept of prejudice. Racism does not care about your idea of yourself. And so your desire to be beyond judging (thus judgment), your sense of being just, your hopeful idealism--none of that matters (is weighed in). You want to claim (dictate) criteria of character and affirmation of the other. These are neither yours to grant, assume, nor impose. To believe you are doing right, what you are convinced is good, is to imagine you can will justice (righteously) into the world. Desire, feeling, belief, imagination--I'm sure the intention is well-meant, but your intention, as your meaning, disappears from the calculation of a concept. What you mean or intend from your act or expression are nothing to us unless there is something phishy, as in: "What did you intend here"? (Austin) To strip away the criteria of a concept--here overlaying equality, neutrality; to put everything, as it were, on a level field--is to turn from the "bumpy" ground (Wittgenstein) of the manners of our practices, toward an abstract, general, pre-decided ideal. But imposing a standard, abstract from any context, provides privilege to those favored by the current situation.
To see the problem as generalized (and yet within you) comes from a desire to solve the truth of your separateness from others, the possibility of your moral failure, with an intellectual solution. However, despite your desire for a certain, universal answer or rule of action, you are responsible for your response (or lack thereof--what you find is your duty is your own); it forms your character (higher than knowledge, Nietszche and Emerson will agree). The Other makes a claim on us (Wittgenstein says we do not know another's pain, we react to it (or ignore it); that we are not of the opinion that another has a (individual) soul, we see them as if they do, or not). Wittgenstein would call imposing requirements for our moral acts the sublimation of our concepts--the stripping away of our ordinary criteria and any context--our active avoidance of the Other with our convictions (PI, p. 191); not letting them come to us on their terms (Heidegger).
All of this choosing and willing and intention begs the question of what it is that might be hidden--maybe "behind" your morality, what you feel you act from--in controlling the terms of the conversation. An analogy is our blindness of the Other by our selves. Then your action is violence (a distinction always pushing away something else), your speech is suppression (of all that is unsaid), your vision (your picture) for yourself and for the just world is your ignorance--your opinion/knowledge ignores our shared criteria; how you want to treat people ignores the Other. Cavell writes in the Claim of Reason that the horror of slavery was not seeing slaves as inhuman, but, in your words "affirming another as an [equal] individual" while they are in chains.
Much as language functions on grammar already in place in our lives, so racism (by its grammar) is in the structure of our society, our culture. So what is the grammar of racism? (An honest question for investigation by all of us, each to see for themselves.) What counts towards it, what are the criteria: for identity, judgment, excuses, pardons, reconciliation? The picture of its grammar as overt and individual acts directed at the race of the Other (judged as bad) limits and allows me to control my exposure (I'm not a racist!). In addition, economic opportunity, education, enforcement of justice, and other fabric of our society are embedded with consequences for the race of the Other. The individual act subsumed into the institution (its policies, its goals, its measures of success). The overt act became unseen, implicit, ignoring the implications for the Other, from us (our shared unconscious as it were). We are compromised by those implications and culpable to them as we are for our picturing of the criteria of the concept. Our "self"-knowledge is our understanding these implications and consequences of our acts and expressions and institutions and culture. To make intuition into tuition as Emerson would say.
Quoting NOS4A2
Teaching being "conscious of", the "factor [ s in ]... judgement", the "treatment of"--simply--"others", is to universalize our concepts, generalize them until they are abstract from any context, such as the Other's--not their situation, nor yours, nor ours. None. But making explicit the grammar of race is learning about ourselves, becoming aware, accounting for our part (Cavell calls it, the education of adults). A claim to the implications of race are subject to discussion, reasons, evidence, flushing out contexts, etc., for you to see for yourself, to know the self you publicly bind yourself to, or when you claim different implications, criteria. So your characterization of the racializing of people and that classifications based on race are dubious, are legitimate, at least as claims, as are the claims you take issue with. Unfortunately, that we can disagree (maybe without resolution--after your spade is turned, I argue that Wittgenstein means to @Banno @Luke), does not justify your skeptical reaction that there is no rationality to the concept of race and to strip all criteria and context away. This negation of the concept at all, in a sense, kills the conversation about those claims--the conversation of justice--before it even begins.
...and some folk don't think Austin and Wittgenstein are about ethics. That was one of the best posts I've seen hereabouts.
I certainly ignore the concept of “the Other” and of race, but only because I think they collectivist crutches for people incapable of individuation, who cannot see past their skulls for the things outside of them. Your value for people does not seem to extend beyond your conceptions and categories to real being. I do not ignore, nor cannot ignore, how these ideas are used to justify the nonsense that is the consequence of this thinking.
Quoting praxis
Quoting NOS4A2
So do modern anti-racists reject or apply the pseudoscientific taxonomy?
They apply it.
And what, pray tell, are you not applying it to? Human beings.
Now that that’s cleared-up, where were we going with that?
I’m also not shooting or doing backflips over human beings. I don’t know where we’re going with that.
So your inquiry was pointless.
Nope.
Please allow me to rephrase. Your inquiry appears to be pointless. What is the point?
Which inquiry?
It was so long ago and forgettable, hmm, let me see… something about fake taxes applying to people? Was that it?
Quoting praxis
Then it's confusing. Because then those who say they are fighting racism are basically also upholding it.
At least I try to treat people as individuals. I don't believe in stereotypes. If there are 50 people belonging to some group, be it race, sex, age, nationality, class, occupation or whatever, 1 of them will likely be just like the stereotype we have of that group. 49 people won't be with many being as far as possible from the stereotypical ideas.
To reiterate an earlier point, the problem isn't applying "pseudoscientific taxonomies", the problem is a marginalized group being taken advantage of. How can trying to prevent a group of people from being taken advantage of be taking advantage of them? Politicizing the issue to garner public support and gain a position of power, all the while not having any intention of significantly helping the marginalized group, could be one way. That's the way that Trumpets like NOS prefer see it, I presume.
Yet isn't the problem that your talking about groups, focusing and upholding groups and not individuals? Really, I think it always starts with the formal application that you have to fill in asking your race. Asking for sex or nationality might have some value, but why race?
You see there isn't the application that asks if one is lower/middle/upper class. You don't literally segregate people into classes by saying them in which category they are. Simply the income and wealth separates classes by living and other things. Yet there are ways to avoid that this separation doesn't become a huge problem. We don't need to have people openly and actively dividing people to these classes. That there are rich and poor is obvious. Yet smart city planning can avoid the situation where the rich seclude themselves in one place and the poor end up in a slum or ghetto. That's the way to do it. And it doesn't start asking people in which class they belong to.
I wrote:
Quoting praxis
Such is the paradox. They apply racism to fight racism. Hence the term in the US “positive discrimination”. It’s good racism, the kind of racism that benefits the racialized groups we prefer, whether they are victims of racism or not.
But let's say we have a marginalized group like "middle-age to eldelry single males with low income". Not easy for them to get into higher paying jobs or to get rental flats. Lot of problems in this group at least in my country. Yet is it better to refer them as a group as "MATESMaWLI?" So in order to help MATESMaWLI-persons, we have to make this divide between MATESMaWLI and other men?
Americans have this fixation on race. And it's not going anywhere. I do understand that poverty and race do go hand in hand in the US still. But still. If you want it to be the most important issue, then I guess it will be that.
I personally think that Robin DiAngelo is a great personification of a racist turned to be this anti-racist accusing every white person being such a racist as she still is. And corporations will give her the big bucks to preach this. How progressive.
Here in 'Merika we have this natural talent called “stereotyping”. With a mere glance we can all but instantly assess a complete stranger. With attributes such as age, weight, fitness, bearing, and attire, we can estimate social status, and perhaps much more, practically instantly. If there were a corresponding label for a particular set of attributes and the social status they’re associated with, a label like “MATESMaWLI”, for example, then that label would come to mind. It would come to mind regardless if anyone wanted it to, if they possessed knowledge of the term. In America we call poor single middle-age men losers. Good thing I’m married!
Praxis, I think you just informed me from where the structural racism comes from in your country. :up:
(Yeah, “MATESMaWLI” would be a great definition for a certain male type.)
Please explain.
dark blue worsted wool pants
vs
cotton denim factory-ripped pants
vs
oversized pants almost falling off buttocks
You could derive considerable information about each man, just from 1 piece of clothing. Given a wider view, you could derive much more reasonably accurate information. Of course, one shouldn't take one's stereotypical views as gospel. The dark blue worsted wool pants could have a leading role in a criminal enterprise, but probably not. The falling off buttocks pants could belong to a blond guy, but probably not. The factory ripped pants might be too poor to afford better pants, but probably not.
It isn't just prejudiced people that see patterns. People also behave in patterns. That's why stereotyping yields reasonably accurate results.
This is like saying the police apply crime to fight crime whenever they intervene to stop / investigate murders and robberies. No "paradox", just gaslighting or idiocy or both. :shade:
@ssu doesn’t believe in Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, or stereotyping, so this is all just fairytales to him.
Yet then how to behave on that stereotype is the issue. And notice yourself that you said "reasonably accurate". As I've said, believing in stereotypes to be "reasonably accurate" then makes some people to believe in stereotypes and they don't take people as individuals. Who cares, if it's reasonably accurate. And racism creeps easily to those often funny stereotypes. If there is a lot of social cohesion, those stereotypes won't matter so much: people try to behave honorably towards strangers. If there is a rift or hostility between groups of people and there is a lack of social cohesion, it will immediately show.
Yet if the stereotypical person is an applicant of some form, someone in need of help or so, to get over the stereotype and treat him or her as an individual is a little bit more is important than when just observing passers by.
This is silly, as though if a person ‘believes in stereotypes’ they’re slaves to them and can’t distinguish individuals.
Quoting ssu
Stereotyping itself is not the reason that racism exists, obviously. Stereotyping does exist though, so it’s best to try dealing with it intelligently, taking control of the narrative as they say in PR talk, rather than ignoring it.
Quoting ssu
It may sound odd but a powerful method for achieving social cohesion is for leaders to identify others. A charismatic leader may intentionally create a rift, or exploit an existing one, in order to help galvanize a group identity. ‘The chosen ones’, or those that share our values, norms, purposes, etc., don’t need to behave honorably towards the others because they are lesser. Unscrupulous leaders of this kind don’t want you to believe in stereotypes. They want you to be color-blind. It’ll make it easier to fool you.
There is a philosophical divide between those who think "people are all alike" and "people are all different". But practically we don't operate that way. As we get to know 50 to 100 individuals much better -- because they are close friends, family members, spouses, children, long term colleagues, we learn and adapt to all sorts of differences. But the people in our lives who are that well known are likely to be relatively few in number.
Because people are very similar, we can behave in ways that will reliably reduce or increase friction and conflict or ease interactions and reduce conflict, for example. There are plenty of positive aspects to 'everybody is alike'.
Lol, quite a strawman there.
Quoting praxis
Try to take control of the narrative then. I assume you can do even there if it is about something else than race.
Quoting praxis
?
Social cohesion basically refers to the extent of connectedness and solidarity among different groups in society. Creating rifts and galvanizing one individual group's identity is the opposite of social cohesion.
My country avoided an ethnic conflict with the simple fact that the Swedish-speaking community here never identified themselves as Swedes, but Finns. And the Finnish speaking majority never saw them as Swedish, as foreigners, either. I found only one very nationalistic student paper from the 1930's which referred to the Swedish speaking people being Swedes. And even that paper didn't see the people as a threat or enemy, even if the Swedish speaking elite had "priviledges" at that time starting from the fact that the Capital Helsinki was just transforming from a Swedish speaking town to a Finnish speaking city. Hence We never have such political unrest as even Canada has seen in the French speaking part. Yes, there a small debate about the role of the Swedish language in schools, but it's something that basically belongs to a democracy. There's no hostility between these two genuinely ethnic groups.
And I'm surely not asking that.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes.
Perhaps the American problem can tried to be explained by an example one of my wife's friends told. This friend is a Mexican, with her father being Canadian and the mother Mexican. She looks like an American brunette WASP, very Anglo-Saxon with pale skin. She speaks perfect English with a Canadian accent and her appearance get's her into trouble in Mexico City as people assume she is a gringo. She was for a while in school in the US and made friends in her class easily. Then one day the principle remembered that she was Mexican and asked if she was willing to help some new Latino students in the school with their English. She agreed and didn't understand what would happen to her then. Word got around that she was a Mexican and immediately her prior friends disappeared and didn't invite her into their doings. She had broken the community divide as she should obviously ought to have known that Latinos only hang in their own group.
Just like the English uphold fervently their class system, so do Americans their own system. And I'm not personally confident about this new anti-racism really putting any end to racism. It just makes it different.
Just one of the first links in a google search:
Watching My Child Experience Racism in a Country of Contentment
Also offered for your amusement:
Implicit Association Test
There have been studies, btw, which correlate IAT results and real-world situations that significantly affect people's lives, even for those who may consider themselves without bias.
No, you are a well-traveled urban sophisticate, and if you are not urban then you are urbane. In America there are these dreaded 'diversity workshop leaders' who inflict upon their victims stereotypes of people living in monolithic white, suburban, heterosexual cultures who are incapable of insightful, sensitive reactions to persons from unfamiliar cultures. The diversity trainer isn't deploying a clever strategy; they are just selling a shallow idea.
Your wife's friend suffered from having her identity 'spoiled'. She didn't possess the precise identity that her friends thought she had. "Spoiled identity" can be a savage experience. It has happened to me once or twice. One of the good things about our rootlessness is that one can uproot and plant one's self somewhere else fairly easily. One need not be forever stuck with the spoiled identity.
The 'no second acts' idea of F. Scott Fitzgerald might be more valid in a rigid class system such as the UK's, and more in the past than the present. Part of the problem of rigid class system is that the top ranks and not that populous, and if you offend some grand dame, then everyone in your small circle will know about it, and may be inclined to shun you.
Quoting ssu
I don't believe that a classless society exists; I also don't believe that a society without deeply ingrained biases exists.
As far as I can tell, there is no national intention of putting an end to racism. There is plenty of lip service for the idea; there are numerous programs; there are all sorts of initiatives to nudge people towards being nice to one another.
Like this:
The American Class System rests on a very solid foundation of exploitation. We are not at all unique in this respect. Successive groups have been exploited quite ruthlessly: Poor Englishmen, American Indians, blacks, poor immigrants, Mexicans, Chinese... The degree to which exploitation and suppression has been practiced varies by groups. Whites, of course, had the greatest chance of escaping from the bottom of the class system, but this has not been even remotely universal. Working class whites have remained an exploited majority group. A portion have escaped the "working class" and become "middle class" -- and here "middle class" means business ownership, management, or licensed professional work (medicine, law...). Blacks had the smallest chance of escaping from the bottom, as have American Indians. SE Asians, Chinese, Mexicans, and Caribbean Islanders have faced persistent barriers.
Classism and racial prejudice (in every direction) serves extremely well to keep the the overwhelming majority of working people divided against themselves. And it isn't just prejudice. Class interests are real.
Putting an end to racism, exploitation, class divisions, and so on would break many of the pylons on which the structure of ruling class power rests. It would also break boundaries which various groups have erected around themselves. We could have a people's revolution; that doesn't seem likely. Even less likely is the Ruling Class shooting themselves in the head. Not going to happen,
Well said, Bitter Crank.
And I guess because there is social mobility upwards and also downwards, then the color of your skin is the last refuge for this division. Your observation also reinforces my thinking that the political discourse in the US is to divide and rule.
Quoting Bitter Crank
It surely not doesn't, because what we intend for the society to be is a meritocracy. And that results also in a class society. The question is if there is enough social mobility.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Well, those don't work. The success has been basically that now a white racist will look over his shoulders before uttering the n-word.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I agree with you. The US would be ripe for a unifying movement and one emerging would be theoretically possible, but I think it's unlikely. What is more likely is that you will have radical movements on the left and on the right that then will absolutely hate each other. In public debate poignant commentators who annoy the other side will be cherished. Yet it's not a debate when you don't listen to the other one. And what else those in power now could hope for? Other than they don't instill the divide into violence on the streets.
The US of course will go it's own way. All I can say that the Nordic model of "Folkhemmet", national home, has at least worked in the past as it has been alliance with the social democrat movement and the conservatives: the conservatives understanding that the welfare of the working class and the poor are very important and the social democrats understanding that the capitalist system has merits too. The real power in a left-right alliance is to have the ability to agree on few basic important issues and then let the less important details be the center of the political fight and heated political debate. When policies get to the level of agreement as the US supporting Israel (lousy example, but you get the point) then things happen. Here the parties are at their throats, as typical, but when it comes security policy and Russia, suddenly they are in unison. Naturally they don't openly admit it.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Lol. Well, something like that. We don't have diversity training. Yet. I assume it will come here too.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Race taxonomies are a pseudoscience as agreed on this thread, so "spoiled identities" do happen. All those "diversity workshop leaders" have to get their jobs! At least there are women and sexual minorities among the white Finns in the workplaces.
As Finns have lived in the same place for literally thousands of years, that identity based on language and your family roots is really hard to be transformed. At least for the US there is an identity that everyone can be an American. Finland along with other Nordic countries are struggling with this as there hasn't been such an option to become one earlier in the national myth. My wife, even if she has dual-citizenship now, thinks that she will be never be accepted here. And she doesn't like so much Finns in general (hopefully at least there's one exception). I just pick on her sometimes that I have darker skin than she has.
First slavery...there has almost always (the last 5000 years at least) been people who were servants to others in anything after tribal nations. If you were indentured they would pay (housing in a safe location, food, sometimes even support for their families). The longer you worked for them the better the benefits. During raids you gained servants, you treat them well because they treated yours well and eventually they were either returned or became part of the tribe/clan. What we would consider as slaves, in the distant past, were not beaten because there was a certain amount of trust and respect was imbued upon them and there was a common dignity for all men. If you mistreated a person after they died those mistreated ones would become hostile spirits that would ruin crops, fishing and hunts. In later periods, there were a lot more indentured servants and there were people taken to ward off future raids and conquests.
Then came the ability to capture whole villages and take them greater distances to them where they became slaves because there was no commonality between and their captors. Still they had to clothe and feed them because they needed them to be physically robust day in, day out. The greater the distance the easier it was maintain control over them. And using captured slaves to control the other captured slaves.
No it wasn't okay or right but it is what happened but we as intelligent people need to put this behind us and learn to be a society.
And this society, in America, is changing for the better and in some ways towards the worst. The better is because there were blatant wrongs done to fellow citizens. These wrongs cannot be taken back and now there has to be a reckoning and I see this as an opportunity for this country to grow for the better for all the people.
This country was built by war and that war did not end with the signing of the Declaration of Independence; July 4th 1776 was the start of a war ... a bloody war. In some ways that war never stopped. The Declaration of Independence was not meant to be a stopping point with the amendments in the Bill of Rights ... it was meant to be a starting point. And at times it has been it has grown with us. It was written when there were only 14 colonies on a part of one of our coasts. Now we have a vast country with fifty states.
It hasn't grown enough. That does not mean that we should scrap everything and start over. Logistically that will not work; a quorum let alone a consensus would never be reached. We cannot do it with everyone shouting only their own thoughts and ideas, we still need a method of representation: a representation that all people can feel is fair and just: that has equality in its representation for everyone. But in the end it should be one person one vote. No electoral college. We have the technology to achieve this. Maybe it cannot be from our own homes: from our own personal computers, at least not yet. This is the only way we can achieve an honest representation of our people, without prejudice ... without discrimination. But that is politically.
How to do it on a personal level is a lot harder. It is a lot easier to be nonracist than it is to become antiracist. Even our 'color-blind' portion of society. "Oh I am color-blind", "I am not prejudice", " I don't discriminate". Crap! Do you go to their rallies? March with them, right up in front holding the banner? Actively go pamphleteering door-to-door in your nice WASP neighborhood? "Well yeah I am for them, I put 5 dollars in their tin at the grocery store. They were there getting sodas for the march they were going to." "But they never come out to my neighborhood!" "I am friends with all of them at work." "When they came applying for the job at work, I gave them all the chances in the world and then some." Discrimination Is an insidious critter. It sneaks in like a thief in the middle of the night. Ya got your windows locked don'tcha?
The problem is systemic. We learned it from birth. I am no better, I have to watch what I say all the time. I am also a victim of it everyday. I am White and I was raised in an upper middle-class suburban neighborhood, a stone's throw from my Catholic church. But I was a sickly child, plagued by chronic asthma before the days of inhalers. When I got sick it was rush me to the hospital and get me in an oxygen tent. I missed a lot of school, luckily I have an eidetic memory and was raised with books. I was a straight 'A' student. Dropped out of first year high school because I learned so fast they couldn't keep me interested. Went to work and got a GED. Grew my hair out long and had a car at 16. I was skinny still am rather effeminate in appearance with my ponytail. I get along with women great. But then there are the people who I intimidate with my intellect and my ease with women. I learn fast so I always get extra raises at work. Minorities think of me as a scrawny dude so they intimidate me. It has been going on all my life. I was raised to be respectful of women and to be a pacifist. Bullies find me to be an easy prey since I never have thrown a punch.
And I still find myself with some prejudice habits because I give minorities the benefit of the doubt and an extra chance to do what I would do or what I consider as applicable or have what a White person would want to have. But I don't stop to think that I am thinking the same way 19th century Northern landowners thought, that they want what a White man would want; that by giving them an extra chance I am not giving them the chance to do what I do not consider applicable or the chance to fail and learn from it. We have sat back and tried to teach them to be White people of European descent which is not what they want to be.
In college learning anthropology I learned Black Urban Vernacular but that was the 1980's a different time a different place. Hell, in 1934, the National Conference for Christians and Jews (NCCJ) came up with the bold idea of celebrating National Brotherhood Week during the third week of February. That lasted until the 1980’s. Totally different time and place.
So I ask you what do you actively do to change this culture ... this country ... this broken world?
In this song, they suggest that both MLK Jr and Malcolm X were assassinated by the FBI. Probably were.
But to put that tune in some historical context of what we are up against:
In the UK, where I believed sense had gone the way of the dodo, a small opposition has found itself protected by law.
The headline in the Times: “Law protects opposition to critical race theory, judge rules”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/law-protects-opposition-to-critical-race-theory-judge-rules-rmrj2qnzt
https://archive.ph/La6Mf
Is the tide turning?
I’ll point you to the OP and the arguments.
What arguments in the OP? Some mild ranting with a few questions at the end.
The innocuous-sounding term “color-blindness”, which if was ever well-intentioned, is now distinctly ‘old hat’.
I take it you are not of African descent, nor have you been pulled over by the police or had your door kicked in by authorities for no reason.
So what Blacks say and write about their situation (CRT) doesn’t really directly concern you.
I imagine that you’d maybe like to trigger some libs to get your points across, but I’m done.
I’ve said all I have to say. Good bye and good luck to you.
You assume on the basis of race and descent, like every racist in the history of mankind. If you hadn't made assumptions on the basis of race and descent, asked instead of assumed, you wouldn't be capable of making sweeping race-based claims without evidence. Good riddance.
It has also been used as catch-all phrase for woke racism, which may or may not have anything to do with CRT proper. The worst thing the opposition can do is to seek its silence. The surest way to lead pliant minds to wonder if there is something important in CRT would be for governments to ban it. It’s enough to just point at the racism, which can be opposed from any angle.
The woke position on the concept of race is undeniably based on crt proper. It may not appear so on the surface (which may be a strategy to assume plausible deniability). However there is a direct line tying woke activism to the specific theories, which are solely responsible for its grotesquely peculiar and hyper-conspicuos qualities.
Woke is a cult, and like any other cult, its initiates (the footsoldiers) are generally kept in the dark and have little knowledge of the theory that underlies their woke activism.
Quoting NOS4A2
I agree. crt and woke racism is founded on pure contradiction. It will eat itself when sufficiently understood. The more it is exposed for what it is and where it comes from, the better. It is no different than what became of Empiricism in its inevitable defeat, except that it is easier to see how stupid it is and much easier to squash.
Or that that the term “racist” is being too liberally applied.
I do. But I think racism is an aberration of thought and belief rather than a feature of some particular system.
Except I know some racist people for whom the term is not being too liberally applied and I bet everyone here does too.
It's a feature of any human system.
How so?
I'd use "characteristic" rather than "feature", but we are evolutionarily inclined to be somewhat xenophobic. You might call it an aspect of monkey mindedness that humanity has to deal with.
I don’t doubt that. But it’s difficult to be xenophobic towards members of groups that do not exist, like a race, rather than towards groups that do exist, like people who are not a member of your community.
The latest engineered outrage from the right, trickled down to internet trolls.
Weird that it could have been engineered by the "right".
I was under the impression that it originated in the field of critical legal studies, present in all the major universities.
But, maybe that is just another conspiracy cooked up by the "right".
I think the engineered outrage is the connection to "wokeness" as that's easier to attack. Critical race theory is simply an academic discipline that applies critical thought to the phenomenon of race in society. I'm pretty sure those attacking it have no idea what it is or much appreciation of academic thought in general as they seem incapable of formulating a coherent argument that might discredit it. I don't even think such arguments can't be good ones, it's just the loudest critics of CRT never bother trying.
Yeah, it’s just a catch-all term for “everything we hate,” real or imaginary. Mostly imaginary.
Sure, the pendulum is swinging off center in that particular direction. But not acknowledging that in the past the pendulum was swung in other directions equally, or more off center that many people labeled "normal" is being somewhere between naive and disingenuous.
The pendulum metaphor doesn't work for me because I think it is all fruit from the same poisonous tree. The current racism is largely an extension of the old racism. The same taxonomies, the same tribalisms, the same methods—it's all there.
And they pine for the 1950's.
There are eight black CEO's in the Fortune 500. That's about 1.5%. Yet blacks make up 12% of the population. Their representation is off by almost an order of magnitude. Given how blacks have been treated in this country throughout it's history, don't you think racism has something to do with how few blacks there are running Fortune 500 companies?
Aside from the stupidity of using race as a taxonomy with which to order human beings into this or that category, the negative effects of racism alone should be enough to lead reasonable people to abandon it. So I find it odd and troubling that people would keep pushing to maintain it.
Maybe if the racial differences were hard to notice. The racial differences between blacks and whites are very noticeable. This makes it a lot easier for whites to "other" blacks, almost to the point where blacks are considered a different species (one that is closer to apes and chimps, of course).
It is important to understand how critical thought (like crt) differs from traditional critical thinking.
Critical Theory (or critical thought) is a very specialized theoretical framework that scrutinizes and criticizes the social structures and power dynamics underlying all human activity, all with the intention of fomenting radical social transformation.
In contrast, Critical Thinking is a broad cognitive skill that we use to objectively and rationally evaluate things with the intention of arriving at right judgment.
Critical thinking can be traced back to the time of Thales, while "critical thought" has been around for about a century.
CRT is merely an outgrowth of critical theory. Max Horkheimer invented critical theory, and Derrick Bell was the first to filter the issue of race through that framework. His work had a major impact in the field of critical legal studies, from which crt originates.
Quoting Baden
All critical theorists understand that the ultimate goal is to see theory put into practice, because that is the only way to ensure radical social transformation. Woke is merely a pejorative term for the activist wing of critical theory.
The pseudo-scientific justifications for using race have long been discredited. One does not have certain phenotypes because he belongs to some subgroup of human beings, but because his parents formed a distinctly new and unique pool of genes from which he would grow. So using the color of one’s skin or the color of someone’s eyes as a marker of something other than this is foolish.
Don't insult dogshit! I would take dogshit over activist scholarship every time.
Well I don't know why it doesn't work for you, since you neatly summed up my point.
You're a sceptic.
I'm a sceptic too. I don't think even colourblind people are racially colourblind. Race shows up even in black and white photography. Claim it doesn't have any meaning all you like, but don't pretend you cannot see it, unless you are actually blind.
Here’s why such statements are an admission of guilt rather than a statement of facts. Race is a so-called “social construct”. Race cannot show up in pictures unless one approaches the picture with this construct in mind, and uses it to differentiate between two or more individual people according to it. That this construct is based on pseudoscience makes the admission all the more silly.
No problem ever went away by ignoring it doesn't exist or changing how we speak about it. And that's really the only thing you bang on about, which doesn't solve the material conditions of people subject to prejudice in any shape, way or form. In other words: you're being useless.
Correct. and that is what everyone in the world does, and then they use it to explain to themselves why blue men cannot sing the whites and the orientals are inscrutable and orange people are pathological liars. Money and private property are social constructs, and I bet you recognise them too, you dreadful propertist and financist.
That there is no genetic base to race does not entail that there can be no genocides.
Race is a social construct, I agree. That doesn't change the fact that it is real. It is real because we believe in it. It is real because some people have expectations based to race, and those expectations are illusorily met through confirmation bias and the falsification of memories. But those expectations are also actualized (see the Pygmalion effect); this in-turn causes more people to share those expectations and the correlations between race and other properties are thusly continuously amplified. To ignore the realness of a social construct is not doing any help. But neither is adding onto the realness.
The best middle way is to acknowledge the actualities but also their root, thus realizing it doesn't need to be this way (because race is not intrinsically correlated with anything). Now, how may we walk this middle way? Is saying that one is/ought to be colorblind helpful to this end? I don't know, the above was merely my way of framing the issue.
One cannot determine who has or has not been subject to prejudice by perpetuating pseudoscience or noticing the color of someone’s epidermis, and one certainly cannot solve any of the material conditions by doing so. You’re being both useless and unjust, which is not a great combo.
I’ve never doubted that people have categorized human beings according to this false taxonomy.
A statement weened from historical fact. The lives of blacks and minorities has improved in the past decades in western countries because they held people and institutions to account by talking about it. But I understand how a change in the status quo feels like an injustice to you because you're a racist little git but just don't realise it yet.
You look at someone’s skin color, and since someone who looks like him may have been subject to prejudice in the past, he is the subject of prejudice today. That’s the logic of racism, as stupid and unjust as it is.
If you're black then you're 95% likely to be discriminated against at some point in your life based on your skin colour.
That person is black.
Therefore, he will most likely be discriminated against.
My solution: we need to talk about not discriminating against black people.
Your solution: we need to stop talking about black people.
Sure, but by using this false taxonomy, it becomes less and less false, and must thus be contended with to some degree. That's my point. Regardless of how false it is on its own, we humans actualize it. So, how do we deal with it?
You will predict based on skin colors who is likelier to be discriminated against based on their skin colors. At what point on the color spectrum does this figure no longer apply? Do you use the same color distinctions, as specious as they are, for statistics in crime, or just the ones that tend to paint arbitrary groupings of people as victims? I thought Europe no longer collects such statistics, for what I thought were obvious reasons. Do you use any other phenotypes, or just the one?
I propose we stop actualizing it. See these abstract, pseudoscientific concepts for what they are and abandon them in both thought and use.
So why haven't you?
I never use the concept at all. Give it a try sometime.
Yes you do. you're using it right now to argue with me. You know exactly what is being talked about and for a free speech absolutist you're more than a tad prescriptive about what people should talk about. Unfortunately for you one cannot forbid talk without breaking the prohibition.
I’m talking about the concept, sure. But I don’t use it in the manner you use it, or in the manner I’ve been criticizing this whole time.
I’ve explained why one out not to use racial categories. I’ve never prohibited nor been prescriptive yours or anyone else’s speech.
Some weird leaps occurring here.
Amen to that.
There's 53 women CEO's running Fortune 500 companies. That's 10,6%. Women make up 50% of the population.
Yeah, that's what I am saying too. But the question is, how do we stop actualizing it? As many have pointed out, ignoring something does not make it go away. So, what is the middle way between not feeding into the delusion but also acknowledging the current actualization of the delusion? Exactly what do we need to do to walk that middle way?
It’s a simple matter of organizing our own thoughts. The only thing someone might have to ignore is the knee-jerk and lazy urge of social categorization:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B0080430767017514?via%3Dihub
Avoid thinking in racial terms and “racializing” people.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7011480/#CR18
It follows that we stop imposing the classification of race on others. To avoid social categorization, treat others as individuals, each with their own lives, and learn from them rather than make assumptions based on the colors of their skins. All of that being said, it beggars belief that people cannot understand judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Maybe there is something more pathological in the racist’s being that does not allow what I thought would be a simple principle.
Here's what I mean: if I met a black person, I would try to get to know them without any assumptions about them. I would succeed quite well in that, as I am not very assumptive. However, it still a fact that there is more crime (per capita) among the black population than the white population. By ignoring this fact, how would one be able to enact accurate social change? One couldn't, and thus one would be worse off in de-actualizing this racially correlated trait.
It is possible to acknowledge statistics without assuming they apply to a single person of the population to which the statistics apply. Complete color blindness would include a complete blindness to the racial statistics, no? How then could one make a good piece of educational entertainment aimed at the black youth, for example, if one is blind to the statistics regarding that audience?
When dealing with the few, statistics are more of an obstruction than a help. When dealing with the many, statistics are helpful. This is getting at the middle way between racial realism and color blindness that I am talking about.
The problem with statistics, especially about "race" is that folks tend to accept and repeat stats that support their worldview and downplay or ignore those that challenge their worldview. Thus it is not only possible, but rather it is routine to be able to promote bias through using (cherry-picked) statistics. Or to put it another way, folks come up with subjective conclusions "supported" by objective data.
There would be a blindness to the statistics. Rightfully so, in my opinion. Race statistics are fruitless because the distinctions are arbitrary. It’s like talking about crime statistics regarding tall or short people, or the crime rates of blonde and redheads, phenotypes which have nothing to do with proclivities toward crime. There is no need for a middle way because with abandoning race you abandon the arbitrary distinctions. So one will just have to seek out new statistics.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health
How is what you refer to as "Color-blindness" different from ignorance?
It demands more effort and knowledge in regards to learning about and understanding the world. One cannot understand anything about a person by referring to his phenotypes, and so one cannot be just or moral or right by continually basing his judgements upon it.
How is racism and race consciousness different from ignorance?