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'Whites Can Be Black if They Wish' says Lecturers' Union

Started by mahagonny, July 15, 2020, 11:10:26 PM

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mahagonny

#30
Quote from: financeguy on July 16, 2020, 09:23:27 PM
Much easier explanation for why people are much more receptive to self identifying gender than race:

Humans exhibit TONS of in group preference racially and almost none of it for gender. We know that people by the numbers vote their race to an astonishingly disproportional amount. Gender? If the same were true on this side, women would hold every single office for which a female candidate was running since they are around 51% of the population.

The reason for this is that throughout history women have had the option to "lay down for the victors" in any combat situation. There are many stories throughout history of women bearing several children to their previous mate's executioner on the battlefield. Not so much the other way around. Race on the other hand? Much more important militarily through most parts of history to maintain in group solidarity since at many points in history males were simply killed off en masse at the conclusion of a conflict, less frequently being given the option to "join the other team." This same tribal in group preference is apparent today by anyone who simply looks at the numbers. Go into any district in the country that is heavily racially homogeneous among one minority group and try to run as a different minority on "superior policy for the district." Good luck with that one!

Interesting.
Well, speaking of simpler explanations, the incentive to avoid being called white is on the increase. How much it would have to increase before re-identifying yourself were being thought of with any frequency, I don't know. You can't turn on the television without seeing something about white supremacy, white privilege, and the urgent need for change. This is being presented as an idea that has the power to unite us. But I suspect many don't believe it, and frankly I think we shouldn't. It's more of the media selling us crap that's become fashionable. Particularly when the change isn't even spelled out. Hell, the mechanisms and ramifications of white supremacy are not even being identified with any clarity or consistency. One thing we supposedly all agree on, though dammit: this is important, and we can't wait another minute for resolution.
It's almost mindless hysteria.

A person can only listen to the message that whatever success he's had in life (and in many cases it seemed to be hard fought for, and not a lot of it to show either) was not earned for so long without reacting.

financeguy

But mahagonny, that "reacting" you speak of is considered "white male rage." This term even went viral as an SNL song although I'd never heard the term until during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Apparently there is a less rage filled and "pleasant" reaction that one should exhibit when some nut job who can't remember the location, date or other key factors a nearly four decade old accusation against you is taken seriously.

Caracal

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 16, 2020, 09:02:31 AM


So when the "conventions" of race were applied by white supremacists to oppress non-white people, they were bad, but if the "conventions" are applied by the equity and diversity proponents to do good things for non-white people, they're good.

In other words, the *distinctions are perfectly reasonable; it's only what they're used for that makes them good or bad. Is that it?

*So the white people had the right idea in making the distinctions, they just were nasty in what they used them for.

Just thinking about this from the other day, and I don't think I really gave credit to how naive and foolish this was. No, the system of race isn't "good or bad" depending on who enforces them. They are evil, but they exist. Your attitude is basically of someone who wakes up one day, decides to go for a walk and goes to a neighborhood with a freeway running through it and says "these trucks and cars are terrible and I want to get to the other side, maybe I could just walk across." When someone who lives there  says, "well I don't like all these cars and trucks going through either, but thats probably going to get you and others hurt, it happens to people all the time, you respond "Oh, well, so its ok when you enforce the rules because you don't like cars!" I think that goes some way towards capturing the absurdly innocent naiveté you are bringing to this discussion.

marshwiggle

#33
Quote from: Caracal on July 17, 2020, 08:32:37 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on July 16, 2020, 09:02:31 AM


So when the "conventions" of race were applied by white supremacists to oppress non-white people, they were bad, but if the "conventions" are applied by the equity and diversity proponents to do good things for non-white people, they're good.

In other words, the *distinctions are perfectly reasonable; it's only what they're used for that makes them good or bad. Is that it?

*So the white people had the right idea in making the distinctions, they just were nasty in what they used them for.

Just thinking about this from the other day, and I don't think I really gave credit to how naive and foolish this was. No, the system of race isn't "good or bad" depending on who enforces them. They are evil, but they exist.
To put this in context, I was trying to figure out how Parasaurolophus seemed to be arguing that "race" was something relatively clearly established compared to "gender" which a person is free to choose. Some exceprts:
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 16, 2020, 07:57:57 AM
Race and gender are tricky, because they don't just depend on individual minds, they depend on broader social perceptions. And it doesn't help that people routinely conflate sex and gender (sex is biological and mind-independent, although the insistence on a strict duality, or on chromosomal definitions, is scientifically problematic, while gender has to do with social presentation, traditionally the social presentation of sex). Sex and gender are easier to tease apart because we've spent longer doing so, thanks in large part to successive feminist movements, and the distinction is increasingly widely socially accepted. The conventions have shifted in a way they haven't for race, and that's why self-identification of gender is acceptable, but self-identification of race isn't.

and

Quote
Different racial concepts are applied differently to different peoples, depending on the interests involved. They don't track deep structure. But they do track deep-seated conventions, and as with conventions everywhere, different historical accidents and precedents result in different conventions. That's why you can change your gender to match your personal identity, but not your race. In a different world, the answer might be different. But we're not in that different world.

So the argument seems to be (as far as I can tell) that somehow racial distinctions are somehow unavoidable and relatively objective. (If I'm interpreting the argument incorrectly, I'd be glad to have some clarification.)

Quote
Your attitude is basically of someone who wakes up one day, decides to go for a walk and goes to a neighborhood with a freeway running through it and says "these trucks and cars are terrible and I want to get to the other side, maybe I could just walk across." When someone who lives there  says, "well I don't like all these cars and trucks going through either, but thats probably going to get you and others hurt, it happens to people all the time, you respond "Oh, well, so its ok when you enforce the rules because you don't like cars!" I think that goes some way towards capturing the absurdly innocent naiveté you are bringing to this discussion.

I don't really grasp the analogy. My point is that it's understandable that racists would want to make racial distinctions; it seems bizzare to me that so-called "anti-racists" still want to make racial distinctions, just for different objectives.
It takes so little to be above average.

Parasaurolophus

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 17, 2020, 09:01:42 AM

To put this in context, I was trying to figure out how Parasaurolophus seemed to be arguing that "race" was something relatively clearly established compared to "gender" which a person is free to choose. Some exceprts:
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 16, 2020, 07:57:57 AM
Race and gender are tricky, because they don't just depend on individual minds, they depend on broader social perceptions. And it doesn't help that people routinely conflate sex and gender (sex is biological and mind-independent, although the insistence on a strict duality, or on chromosomal definitions, is scientifically problematic, while gender has to do with social presentation, traditionally the social presentation of sex). Sex and gender are easier to tease apart because we've spent longer doing so, thanks in large part to successive feminist movements, and the distinction is increasingly widely socially accepted. The conventions have shifted in a way they haven't for race, and that's why self-identification of gender is acceptable, but self-identification of race isn't.

and

Quote
Different racial concepts are applied differently to different peoples, depending on the interests involved. They don't track deep structure. But they do track deep-seated conventions, and as with conventions everywhere, different historical accidents and precedents result in different conventions. That's why you can change your gender to match your personal identity, but not your race. In a different world, the answer might be different. But we're not in that different world.

So the argument seems to be (as far as I can tell) that somehow racial distinctions are somehow unavoidable and relatively objective. (If I'm interpreting the argument incorrectly, I'd be glad to have some clarification.)


That's not at all what I was saying. What I was saying is that both gender and race are the kinds of concepts we call socially-constructed. So are 'weed', 'cool', 'money', 'art', 'citizen', etc. But that doesn't mean they function identically, or have been constructed identically. All it means is that they exhibit mind-dependence. That mind-dependence can be articulated in different ways, depending on the individual histories of the concepts. Some, for example, have widespread institutional backing, whereas others don't. They're all underpinned by conventions, but conventions aren't immutable.

The kinds of conventions which underpin the concept of gender have been shifting steadily for decades, in ways that make it possible for us now to accept a wider range of gender expressions and, yes, transitioning. That hasn't really happened for race--at least, it hasn't been freed from our attitudes, classificatory schema, institutions, and systems of oppression to the same extent as gender has, so it operates differently, and people think differently about it. And that's why you can change your gender to match how you feel on the inside, but not your race. One has become acceptable, the other not. Not all social kinds function the same way, because each one has a different causal history, functions differently, and is underpinned by a different complex of attitudes, beliefs, and institutions. As I pointed out above, for example, you can't just decide to be cool. But that's not an indication that 'cool' is somehow better-defined or "more real", or, indeed, a natural kind. It's a social kind like any other, but social kinds can be differently constructed.
I know it's a genus.

mahagonny

#35
Quote from: financeguy on July 17, 2020, 12:27:27 AM
But mahagonny, that "reacting" you speak of is considered "white male rage." This term even went viral as an SNL song although I'd never heard the term until during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Apparently there is a less rage filled and "pleasant" reaction that one should exhibit when some nut job who can't remember the location, date or other key factors a nearly four decade old accusation against you is taken seriously.

Right, passive aggressive accusations are the gold you want in your bank account nowadays. You sound angry, you lose, they win. Now they're after the District Attorney Jackie Lacey and her husband who pointed a gun at protesters on his lawn.
'One Black Lives Matter representative said at the time that the group was "traumatized" by David Lacey aiming at them.' Does this mean the group will stop demonstrating and seek psychiatric treatment from trauma specialists? Or will they be back on Main Street with their signs by the day after tomorrow? I want to know which individuals were traumatized.
Of course, he shouldn't have pointed a gun at them. But you know, a sane person would have said to himself 'OK, he's upset. He's pointing a gun at us. We're doing something weird. Time to leave.'
https://abc7.com/la-district-attorney-los-angeles-jackie-lacey-black-lives-matter/6140195/

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 17, 2020, 09:30:52 AM

The kinds of conventions which underpin the concept of gender have been shifting steadily for decades, in ways that make it possible for us now to accept a wider range of gender expressions and, yes, transitioning. That hasn't really happened for race--at least, it hasn't been freed from our attitudes, classificatory schema, institutions, and systems of oppression to the same extent as gender has, so it operates differently, and people think differently about it. And that's why you can change your gender to match how you feel on the inside, but not your race. One has become acceptable, the other not. Not all social kinds function the same way, because each one has a different causal history, functions differently, and is underpinned by a different complex of attitudes, beliefs, and institutions. As I pointed out above, for example, you can't just decide to be cool. But that's not an indication that 'cool' is somehow better-defined or "more real", or, indeed, a natural kind. It's a social kind like any other, but social kinds can be differently constructed.
Curious about something:
So are you seeing yourself as neutral on the question of the right of someone to self-identify racially as he chooses? How does that compare to Jefferson Sessions some years ago saying that the American people were not ready to accept gay marriage? Was he being neutral?

marshwiggle

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 17, 2020, 09:30:52 AM

The kinds of conventions which underpin the concept of gender have been shifting steadily for decades, in ways that make it possible for us now to accept a wider range of gender expressions and, yes, transitioning. That hasn't really happened for race--at least, it hasn't been freed from our attitudes, classificatory schema, institutions, and systems of oppression to the same extent as gender has, so it operates differently, and people think differently about it.

This doesn't make sense.  Until very recently, "gender" would have pretty much exclusively meant "male" or "female", whereas for decades there have been people of mixed "race", people of one "race" adopted into families of a different "race", and all kinds of other much more nuanced distinctions than for gender.

A mixed race couple I know (from South Africa, who had to leave the country during apartheid to marry) lived in Alabama for a while. Friends of theirs indicated that since they weren't American-born, the fact they weren't the same race wasn't as nuch of an issue as it would have been if they were American.

That's a lot of nuance.


Quote
And that's why you can change your gender to match how you feel on the inside, but not your race. One has become acceptable, the other not.

That's more for ideological reasons than rational ones. The victimhood narrative is much harder to preserve when there are situations which are sufficiently nuanced that it really is pretty arbitrary how one classifies oneself. In the case of gender, someone who identifies as something obviously different than their biology is definitvely being an outlier, and therefore a clear "victim".


It takes so little to be above average.

writingprof

Whether one can change one's race will not be determined on this thread.  It will be determined on Twitter and, to a lesser extent, in the media.  If it's determined that one can, then most of the people on the left who say now that such a thing is ridiculous will instantly change their tune, deny that they ever believed otherwise, and launch a campaign of persecution against any holdouts.  (What's the race equivalent of calling someone a "TERF"?)

In any case, attempts on this thread to sort out the logic of the proposition are so sweetly naive that they make my heart hurt.

Parasaurolophus

Quote from: mahagonny on July 17, 2020, 09:33:52 AM
Curious about something:
So are you seeing yourself as neutral on the question of the right of someone to self-identify racially as he chooses? How does that compare to Jefferson Sessions some years ago saying that the American people were not ready to accept gay marriage? Was he being neutral?

No? I don't think you can racially self-identify, except perhaps under some pretty limited circumstances. But if the history of the concept had been different, then I think it would be possible. And it may well be possible to do so at some point in the future, if concepts of race are further decoupled from stereotypes, bare readings of phenotypical features, institutional issues and strictures, etc.

In much the same way, I don't think that cats are food. That's not because of any essential properties cats have, however; it's just because history hasn't played out in such a way that it's acceptable for us (well, me and my culture, anyway) to eat cats. (Although Iron-Age Danes did farm them for their fur...)

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 17, 2020, 10:23:25 AM

This doesn't make sense.  Until very recently, "gender" would have pretty much exclusively meant "male" or "female", whereas for decades there have been people of mixed "race", people of one "race" adopted into families of a different "race", and all kinds of other much more nuanced distinctions than for gender.

A mixed race couple I know (from South Africa, who had to leave the country during apartheid to marry) lived in Alabama for a while. Friends of theirs indicated that since they weren't American-born, the fact they weren't the same race wasn't as nuch of an issue as it would have been if they were American.

That's a lot of nuance.

I don't understand what doesn't make sense to you, so you'll have to clarify.

To say that gender is socially-constructed is to say that its extension and reference are not fixed naturally, by something akin to homeostatic property clusters, but by reference to human minds. That means that the extension and reference of socially-constructed terms can shift over time as human interests and conventions change, much as the reference of 'Madagascar' shifted from a region of the mainland to the island.

Gold is the element Au. That's the extension of gold, and the reference of 'gold', regardless of what anyone thinks. It was the reference of gold back in mediaeval days when they relied on a scratch test to identify it, and it's the reference today when we can do lots of fancy physics or chemistry to identify it. That's because gold is a natural kind, and natural kinds have their extensions fixed necessarily by the natural world (by, e.g., homeostatic property clusters, causal powers, or whatever—choose your favourite analysis of microstructure from the philosophy of science, the specifics don't matter here).

Social kinds can't have their extensions fixed the same way because they don't have the same kind of deep microstructure. Consider 'food' again. There is no deep set of microstructural properties that determine all and only what counts as food. What counts as food depends on human attitudes just as much as it does compatible chemistry—so, for instance, there's lots of stuff out there we could eat, but that we don't consider food. That includes insects, cats, dogs, tons of plants (e.g. maple blossoms and seeds), etc. That's not to say we couldn't consider it food, or that it isn't food in places and times with different conventions (e.g. in some places, cows aren't food).

Or, you know. Substitute the social kind of your choice. 'Food' just seemed like maybe it would be easier to understand.
I know it's a genus.

dismalist

What happens when human attitudes socially construct that arsenic is food?
That's not even wrong!
--Wolfgang Pauli

Hibush

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 17, 2020, 01:27:28 PM
I don't think you can racially self-identify, except perhaps under some pretty limited circumstances. But if the history of the concept had been different, then I think it would be possible. And it may well be possible to do so at some point in the future, if concepts of race are further decoupled from stereotypes, bare readings of phenotypical features, institutional issues and strictures, etc.

I look at that differently. Anybody can self-identify as any race. No problem at all. The challenge is to have others accept that identity. Because others are also free to identify a person as any race. There is a long history of those not being the same. Especially so in America where people with mixed ethnic ancestry abound.

The trouble comes when one of these identities is declared correct for the purposes of some decision. We have plenty of that kind of trouble.

Hibush

Quote from: dismalist on July 17, 2020, 01:51:37 PM
What happens when human attitudes socially construct that arsenic is food?

No worries! That is a self-liming social construct.

Parasaurolophus

Quote from: dismalist on July 17, 2020, 01:51:37 PM
What happens when human attitudes socially construct that arsenic is food?

Is that supposed to be a reductio?

Quote from: Hibush on July 17, 2020, 02:00:04 PM

I look at that differently. Anybody can self-identify as any race. No problem at all. The challenge is to have others accept that identity. Because others are also free to identify a person as any race. There is a long history of those not being the same. Especially so in America where people with mixed ethnic ancestry abound.


I'm not sure that's all that different, actually Social kinds (and social construction) are social. They require community uptake.
I know it's a genus.

dismalist

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 17, 2020, 02:40:26 PM
Quote from: dismalist on July 17, 2020, 01:51:37 PM
What happens when human attitudes socially construct that arsenic is food?

Is that supposed to be a reductio?


It means that some things cannot happen, or if they did, they would soon disappear. Invoking "social construct" alone is useless.
That's not even wrong!
--Wolfgang Pauli

Parasaurolophus

Quote from: dismalist on July 17, 2020, 02:58:27 PM
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 17, 2020, 02:40:26 PM
Quote from: dismalist on July 17, 2020, 01:51:37 PM
What happens when human attitudes socially construct that arsenic is food?

Is that supposed to be a reductio?


It means that some things cannot happen, or if they did, they would soon disappear. Invoking "social construct" alone is useless.


Nobody is denying that there are some basic conditions which make social construction in one or another particular direction possible. 'Food' has to be more or less edible without being fatal when ingested, 'cool' people have to be (1) extant, and (2) alive, 'art' requires a vehicular medium and is predicated on our sense modalities (+ thought, perhaps)...

I don't understand what you mean by "invoking 'social construct' alone". Who's doing that, other than yourself?


As far as arsenic goes, I can easily imagine circumstances under which it might come under the extension of 'food'. GFAJ-1 is an arsenic-eating bacterium. I can imagine a civilization out there on the galactic rim which, like GFAJ-1, ingests large quantities of arsenic and derives nourishment from it. Arsenic might well count as food for them.

Alternately, I could imagine arsenic eventually becoming food for human beings, too, given sufficient time. I could imagine, for instance, a group of people who gradually build up a tolerance to arsenic for the purposes of using it as a condiment, or who find a way to use chelation or something similar to counteract the arsenic they're ingesting. Maybe over time the practice becomes entrenched, and arsenic comes to count as food. Or, if you prefer, at some point in the future we decide to genetically engineer ourselves to be more like GFAJ-1. Shrug.

There's nothing logically or metaphysically impossible there. It is perhaps physically impossible for us to bring arsenic under the extension of 'food' given the current state of the world. That doesn't make 'food' is a natural kind. When you carve the world up at its joints, you don't get 'food' mixed in with your elements and particles.
I know it's a genus.