The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Just found this. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/18/whites-can-black-wish-says-lecturers-union/

But some will doubt your sincerity:

"Mr Lennon, 53, who was born in London and whose parents are Irish, won a place on a two-year Arts Council-funded scheme, after a leading black theatre company accepted his claim to be of "mixed heritage".

Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said allowing people to self-identify their race meant members of ethnic minority communities "lost out"."

And this: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-genetics-science-africa/

"THERE'S MORE DIVERSITY IN AFRICA THAN ON ALL THE OTHER CONTINENTS COMBINED.

That's because modern humans originated in Africa and have lived there the longest."

but how about if you elect to stop being white not to get a break in the business, but just to stay out of the line of fire?  If race is just made up, can't you just pick one and say 'I'm that?' And if white people are assumed to be harboring racial bias they haven't yet detected, might some decide to stop being white? Who wants to be interrogated over their inner thoughts and assumptions? We're all African anyway.
What do you think?

I think this is not worth discussing, as virtually any position, no matter how whackadox, will be found somewhere.

Quote from: kaysixteen on July 15, 2020, 11:22:20 PM
I think this is not worth discussing, as virtually any position, no matter how whackadox, will be found somewhere.

But isn't choosing your own race more biologically plausible than choosing your gender? Yesterday's whackadox can be today's social justice advancement. So all that would be missing is a reason to make the discovery that you are uncomfortable in your white skin, and you can do something about it. I know I have been lately.

Someone who is Irish is not by any reasonable sense of history or genetics, black.  So merely asserting that such a person is black, because for whatever reason said person wants it to be so, is a whackadox position not worthy of anything but scorn.

Quote from: kaysixteen on July 15, 2020, 11:43:53 PM
Someone who is Irish is not by any reasonable sense of history or genetics, black.  So merely asserting that such a person is black, because for whatever reason said person wants it to be so, is a whackadox position not worthy of anything but scorn.

A statement like this one makes you well grounded, but it doesn't make you in charge.

If I were teaching out their way, I could declare myself to be black and I would be doing something that is pro-labor and pro-union. I would be making use of a newly acquired right giving them a chance to show what they do for members. And really, being hounded over suspicion of white supremacy beliefs is a practical problem in need of a solution. The solution for me cannot be to join up with Black Lives Matter, since they advocate for things I don't agree with such as the 'disruption of the western-prescribed nuclear family by supporting each other as extended families and "villages" that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable."

Quote from: mahagonny on July 15, 2020, 11:10:26 PM
If race is just made up, can't you just pick one and say 'I'm that?'

Sigh. These would be reasonable questions if you had just landed in your spacecraft. Race is socially constructed, which isn't the same as "made up." You can claim to be black if you want, but nobody else is likely to accept that identity, and your attempt to claim blackness is unlikely to be be met positively. That reaction is going to be bound up with the whole history of race in the United States. You and your claims and choices are bound up in that and you aren't going to be able to bypass it and simply choose some fantasy of a colorblind world.

Quote from: Caracal on July 16, 2020, 04:11:42 AM

Quote from: mahagonny on July 15, 2020, 11:10:26 PM
If race is just made up, can't you just pick one and say 'I'm that?'

Sigh. These would be reasonable questions if you had just landed in your spacecraft. Race is socially constructed, which isn't the same as "made up." You can claim to be black if you want, but nobody else is likely to accept that identity, and your attempt to claim blackness is unlikely to be be met positively.

As mahagonny said, how is that different from gender? Isn't gender "socially constructed"?

Quote
That reaction is going to be bound up with the whole history of race in the United States.

So is it country-specific? Would it be reasonable in countries without a history of slavery for people to self-identify as whatever race they wish?

Quote
You and your claims and choices are bound up in that and you aren't going to be able to bypass it and simply choose some fantasy of a colorblind world.

Since biological sex is vastly more objectively determined than  race, why is self-identifying gender acceptable but self-identifying race not? It's ridiculously logically inconsistent.

Quote from: kaysixteen on July 15, 2020, 11:43:53 PM
Someone who is Irish is not by any reasonable sense of history or genetics, black.  So merely asserting that such a person is black, because for whatever reason said person wants it to be so, is a whackadox position not worthy of anything but scorn.

Regardless of the issues in this case (not as straightforward btw as the newspaper report makes out), it is perfectly normal to be black and Irish. It's a modern multicultural society and immigration into Ireland has happened for decades now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal

Why not just make up an ethnic heritage in addition to the race you identify with? As long as you don't go and get your DNA tested for publicity, nobody will be any wiser. We're not going to fact-check whether someone's grandparents came from Ireland, so why would we fact-check whether one of them was Black?

Rachel Dolezal is the exception that shows just how hard it is to get caught with this. She headed an NAACP chapter and taught a university course in Africana Studies, having convinced people that she was Black. If she hadn't gotten national media attention or if her story had been even slightly harder to falsify, she'd probably still hold those offices.

Quote from: pigou on July 16, 2020, 06:04:39 AM
Why not just make up an ethnic heritage in addition to the race you identify with? As long as you don't go and get your DNA tested for publicity, nobody will be any wiser. We're not going to fact-check whether someone's grandparents came from Ireland, so why would we fact-check whether one of them was Black?

Rachel Dolezal is the exception that shows just how hard it is to get caught with this. She headed an NAACP chapter and taught a university course in Africana Studies, having convinced people that she was Black. If she hadn't gotten national media attention or if her story had been even slightly harder to falsify, she'd probably still hold those offices.

Right, race was constructed as a system of categorization for the purpose of establishing white supremacy. In various ways, at least in the US, that actually meant it needed to be vaguer and not based solely on "objective" criteria, such as appearance or ancestry. That's why in the US attempts to apply the one drop rule were always pretty halting, even though there was an intellectual movement to establish race as scientifically based. In the early 20th century, various state courts held that race was determined only by community assessment, rather than ancestry. It wasn't in the interest of lots of white southerners to have their ancestries scrutinized too closely. Ironically, doing that would risk undermining the system of racial supremacy.

The result is a system that ends up being flexible around the margins in some very complicated ways. So, yeah, people can claim all kinds of things. If you decide you are going to identify as black, and you don't have to deal with the reality of other people perceiving you as black in most of your life, and you didn't grow up within a black community, lots of people might reasonably conclude that you are adopting this identity for opportunistic reasons, or as a way of resolving personal conflicts. And Gender is also socially constructed, but in very different ways, so I think that's a red herring.

Quote from: polly_mer on July 16, 2020, 05:35:08 AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal

Also Rebecca Tuvel's In Defense of Transracialism (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/hypa.12327) and the later symposium (https://www.pdcnet.org/collection-anonymous/browse?fp=philtoday&fq=philtoday%2FVolume%2F8938%7C62%2F8999%7CIssue%3A+1%2F) on it. Honestly, the article is not great, and the symposium is not very good at all, but Tuvel at least identifies the question and begins the process of trying to answer it.

Quote from: mahagonny on July 15, 2020, 11:10:26 PM

If race is just made up, can't you just pick one and say 'I'm that?'

Social construction indicates that a concept is substantively mind-dependent, it's true. Mind-dependence comes in many forms, however. The alien I'm imagining right now is mind-dependent; so is the concept 'cool'. But my alien only depends on an individual's imagining, whereas being cool depends on what lots of people think. Likewise, the concept of citizenship is mind-dependent, too, but it's a concept that's institutionally defined and reified. A lot of people make the mistake of emphasizing the 'constructed' bit at the expense of the 'social' bit, but it's the social bit that does all of the heavy lifting.

Nor does social construction entail that the concept's vehicle is non-existent. 'Weed' is a socially-constructed concept, as is 'food', but the things we classify as weeds and food not only exist, they have a deep genetic structure, too.

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.

It's worth pointing out, however, that our concept of race is especially incoherent. People still tend to think it's biological and mind-independent, but the reality is that it simply tracks steretypical groupings of phenotypical features. And while yes, those phenotypical features are controlled by genes, the problem is that those genes aren't consistently or uniquely distributed among the right target populations.

So yes, there's an incredible amount of genetic diversity in Africa--way more than elsewhere. But we lump Africans together as 'black' because their skin tends to be darker, and lump them in with African-Americans and Afro-Caribbean people, etc. Similarly, we lump 'Asians' together on the basis of hair and skin type and eye shape, even though Koreans, Mongolians, Chinese people, Japanese people, Vietnamese people, etc. all look pretty different--to say nothing of people from India, Russia, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. And people are not very good at identifying other people with unfamiliar phenotypes (honestly, the number of people who think my hooded eyes are actually epicanthic folds...).

Similarly, think of the category 'white' and its extension: does it really include all of the historical Mediterannean peoples? Do we include Turks and Syrians and Egyptians and Moroccans and Algerians? The distinctions race tracks are not especially robust, and they're not at all genetic, even if each individual phenotypical feature we care about is clearly expressed by a gene or genes. In fact, where genetics are concerned, you'll find that there's less genetic variation between individuals who share a language than there is between individuals who look alike (race-wise). And yet race doesn't track language!

For another perspective on the incoherence of our racial concepts, think about how race works in the US. The way we usually think about it is in the terms set by Jim Crow and so on: the one-drop rule for Blackness. But Indigenous peoples have never been subject to a one-drop rule (at least in part because doing so would require extending land claims to far too many people). In fact, until just a few years ago in Canada, Indigenous 'status' was passed through men only. So if your mother was Indigenous and your father wasn't, you weren't Indigenous; but if your father was Indigenous and your mother not, you were. That's totally ludicrous (and deliberate: it was part and parcel of a program of actual and cultural genocide).

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.

Quote from: Caracal on July 16, 2020, 07:37:20 AM
The result is a system that ends up being flexible around the margins in some very complicated ways. So, yeah, people can claim all kinds of things. If you decide you are going to identify as black, and you don't have to deal with the reality of other people perceiving you as black in most of your life, and you didn't grow up within a black community, lots of people might reasonably conclude that you are adopting this identity for opportunistic reasons, or as a way of resolving personal conflicts.

Michelle Lujan Grisham (current governor of New Mexico) has been floated as a potential vice-presidential candidate because she is a woman of color with high political office.  While Gov. Grisham's family background is indeed Nth generation new Mexican, a picture of Gov. Grisham or a recording of her voice doesn't align with a stereotypical Hispanic New Mexican.

I don't think Gov. Grisham is being opportunistic, but I also don't imagine too many Hispanics in New Mexico and other Southwestern states saying, yep, Gov. Grisham could be anyone's abuela and I hope mi hija grows up to be just like her now that the barriers are down for our people.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 16, 2020, 07:57:57 AM


Different racial concepts are applied differently to different peoples, depending on the interests involved. They don't track deep structure.

So race is not a well-defined thing....

Quote
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.

...but yet it's somehow something one cannot in any way "choose".

If those aliens care about consistency we're obviously doomed.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 16, 2020, 08:05:07 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 16, 2020, 07:57:57 AM


Different racial concepts are applied differently to different peoples, depending on the interests involved. They don't track deep structure.

So race is not a well-defined thing....

Quote
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.

...but yet it's somehow something one cannot in any way "choose".

If those aliens care about consistency we're obviously doomed.

'Cool' is not a well-delimited concept, either. And you can't choose to be cool. (In fact, doing so would be paradigmatically uncool.) Conventions exert a lot of power over the human world, especially the social world.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 16, 2020, 08:09:01 AM

'Cool' is not a well-delimited concept, either. And you can't choose to be cool. (In fact, doing so would be paradigmatically uncool.) Conventions exert a lot of power over the human world, especially the social world.

Yes, many saxophonists copy Lester Young recordings, but they turn out all different ways. And some, not quite there yet.

If you're in the mood for a little levity, I find these interesting. Just a short time ago you it passed for comedy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R79yYo2aOZs

And now the claim gets push back only from those few who are brazen enough to challenge it. It's serious stuff the person who believes what we believed as kids had better have guts of steel if he/she wants to get into a conversation about it. I can't find it right now, but there's a video with Candace Owens arguing that transsexual is not a real thing. She is now boasting about getting kicked out restaurants for her views. (No such thing as bad publicity.)

Yet we see ourselves as tolerant of religion. Religion can tell you stuff like 'it's wrong to eat meat.' How is that not provocative?

And if you're in the mood for levity, I thought this was hilarious: https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=cHUQX-HAE4PFytMPjPiH6AQ&q=dave+chappelle+the+racial+draft&oq=dave+chappelle+the+racial+draft&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzICCAAyBggAEBYQHjIICAAQFhAKEB4yBggAEBYQHjoFCAAQsQM6CggAELEDEEYQ-wFQsg5YinJghHRoAHAAeACAAe8miAHcoAGSAQ8wLjEuMS4wLjIuMS45LTSYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwjhuOSfjtLqAhWDonIEHQz8AU0Q4dUDCAw&uact=5

[warning: n-word spoken]

Guess I am feeling my age and culture shock.

delete

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 16, 2020, 08:09:01 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 16, 2020, 08:05:07 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 16, 2020, 07:57:57 AM


Different racial concepts are applied differently to different peoples, depending on the interests involved. They don't track deep structure.

So race is not a well-defined thing....

Quote
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.

...but yet it's somehow something one cannot in any way "choose".

If those aliens care about consistency we're obviously doomed.

'Cool' is not a well-delimited concept, either. And you can't choose to be cool. (In fact, doing so would be paradigmatically uncool.) Conventions exert a lot of power over the human world, especially the social world.

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.

Quote from: Caracal on July 16, 2020, 04:11:42 AM

Quote from: mahagonny on July 15, 2020, 11:10:26 PM
If race is just made up, can't you just pick one and say 'I'm that?'

Sigh. These would be reasonable questions if you had just landed in your spacecraft. Race is socially constructed, which isn't the same as "made up." You can claim to be black if you want, but nobody else is likely to accept that identity, and your attempt to claim blackness is unlikely to be be met positively. That reaction is going to be bound up with the whole history of race in the United States. You and your claims and choices are bound up in that and you aren't going to be able to bypass it and simply choose some fantasy of a colorblind world.

How it's met is a matter of timing and advocacy or lack of it. See Monty Python link upthread. To be really legitimate, one could say 'my feeling of kinship is with the black community, and most especially not with the white. It's my life's work to be bonded with them. My self-actualizing depends on my appropriate racial identity.' It could be music, cooking, study, religion, sports, neighborhoods, all sorts  of things.

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

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 16, 2020, 08:09:01 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 16, 2020, 08:05:07 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 16, 2020, 07:57:57 AM


Different racial concepts are applied differently to different peoples, depending on the interests involved. They don't track deep structure.

So race is not a well-defined thing....

Quote
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.

...but yet it's somehow something one cannot in any way "choose".

If those aliens care about consistency we're obviously doomed.

'Cool' is not a well-delimited concept, either. And you can't choose to be cool. (In fact, doing so would be paradigmatically uncool.) Conventions exert a lot of power over the human world, especially the social world.

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.

Nope. Not what I wrote.

There are people today who have the opportunity to pick their race. My roommate some years ago, James, had a white mother and a black father. He self-identified as black. His brother Lawrence looked more like their mother. I don't know how he self-idenfied, but if he wasn't being seen with his family, he could have told people he was white, if the subject came up. On the other hand, if someone had said 'Lawrence, you need to confront your white privilege' he could have said 'I am black.'
In a just society, shouldn't we all have the same rights?

Quote from: kaysixteen on July 15, 2020, 11:43:53 PM
Someone who is Irish is not by any reasonable sense of history or genetics, black.  So merely asserting that such a person is black, because for whatever reason said person wants it to be so, is a whackadox position not worthy of anything but scorn.

This is a rather ignorant statement. It assumes that nobody of African descent can be Irish. But if the president of Peru can be Japanese, and for that matter, the president of Ireland can be Indian, why cannot an Irish person be black? Or a black person be Irish? I mean, I remember in the early 2000s there were a fair number of African migrants working in Dublin. Certainly at least one of them must have stayed and had children, who could with a "reasonable sense of history or genetics" be considered black.

If I remember correctly, there is an episode in the Derry Girls where a student of Chinese descent transfers to the school and they keep asking her where she's from... Hong Kong? Beijing? Shanghai? And she replies with a perfect accent, Belfast.

It seems that in much of Europe, there is a conflation of ethnic heritage and national identity, and the argument that the son of an African cannot really be [fill in the blank for whatever European country you want].

I see this situation more as the tension between self-determination and cheating. If some authority or social convention says that people have autonomy in deciding what they are going to be, then someone will come along and claim to be whatever is necessary to get some benefit.

As someone who uses genetics to study biological variation, I find the natural association between genetics and race or gender pretty obvious. But I don't find that association to be relevant to the question whether and individual's choice of which race to identify as should be socially acceptable. Two different contexts, needing different kinds of reasoning.

This thread seems to be about definitions. Definitions are never right or wrong, they can only be more or less useful.

Quote from: Hibush on July 16, 2020, 02:15:24 PM
I see this situation more as the tension between self-determination and cheating. If some authority or social convention says that people have autonomy in deciding what they are going to be, then someone will come along and claim to be whatever is necessary to get some benefit.

Of if you're stuck with the race you were dealt at birth then you are considered to be cheating, e. g. white privilege, institutional racism.

Quote from: Hibush on July 16, 2020, 02:15:24 PM

As someone who uses genetics to study biological variation, I find the natural association between genetics and race or gender pretty obvious.

So is gender a continuum or is it one thing or the other?

QuoteBut I don't find that association to be relevant to the question whether and individual's choice of which race to identify as should be socially acceptable. Two different contexts, needing different kinds of reasoning.

But that's a scholar's erudite view. What happens when people on Main Street or their appointed judges decide is what I wonder.

Quote from: Hibush on July 16, 2020, 02:15:24 PM
As someone who uses genetics to study biological variation, I find the natural association between genetics and race or gender pretty obvious. But I don't find that association to be relevant to the question whether and individual's choice of which race to identify as should be socially acceptable. Two different contexts, needing different kinds of reasoning.

I'm not sure I understand this. As long as there is a concept that has a historically objective basis, (such as sex), sugesting there is a closely related concept (such as gender) but that is totally subject to self-identification is going to meet with a lot of opposition, since it's very logically inconsistent. It's not two different contexts, it's two different (and intentionally unrelated) concepts.

Quote from: mahagonny on July 16, 2020, 02:47:51 PM

Quote from: Hibush on July 16, 2020, 02:15:24 PM

As someone who uses genetics to study biological variation, I find the natural association between genetics and race or gender pretty obvious.

So is gender a continuum or is it one thing or the other?

The way I find it helpful to think about (i.e. no claims to this being the social norm) is that nature makes lots of variation. While the basic design is to have two sexes determined genetically, it doesn't work that way all the time. Thus you have the great majority of XX people thinking of themselves as women and the great majority of XY people thinking of themselves as men. However, there are what some people term "edge cases" where the sex chromosomes didn't assort normally, or some sex-identity related genes don't turn on or off in the typical way, and evironmental interactions with all of that, and other things we don't really understand the basis of. The result is varying degrees of physically or psychologically intermediate (or off-axis) results. I don't know that "continuum" is the right concept even for this extra variation.

Nature is like that. We come up with categories, she throws us exceptions.

Acknowledging that it exists is one step. People vary a lot in how they deal with things that don't fit in their categories, so that is a constant challenge.

Accepting that the variation is normal in nature may be easier for biologists who see it all the time. Some people like to classify the variation further in hope of increasing understanding. Those who find themselves not fitting in the usual categories are often especially curious about some angle.

Then the tricky part, the actual question you posed: how does gender map onto this variation? With lots of nuance! Beyond that, I'm not sure. I hope those most affected have enough space to figure out workable answers.

How many angels fit on the head of a pin?

I spoke with appreciably less accuracy than I should have.  But it remains true that, until very very recently, Ireland was a very genetically homogeneous place, relatively speaking (and acknowledging that there were various European strains in the Irish population matrix), and most other countries were as well.   In no serious sense, then, historically, were Irish people black.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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".

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.

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.

What happens when human attitudes socially construct that arsenic is food?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 17, 2020, 03:17:45 PM

There's nothing logically or metaphysically impossible there.

The statement that anything is possible is correct. It just isn't helpful.

Quote from: dismalist on July 17, 2020, 03:24:53 PM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 17, 2020, 03:17:45 PM

There's nothing logically or metaphysically impossible there.

The statement that anything is possible is correct. It just isn't helpful.

I mean, I've talked about some of the mechanisms that lead to shifts in the extensions of social kinds. I don't know what kind of help you want that you're not getting.

(And, while we're at it, bare talk of possibility isn't especially helpful. Do you mean epistemic, physical, logical, or metaphysical possibility, or something else? There are a lot of different senses. Modality is hard.)

That's not even wrong. :-)

Quote from: writingprof on July 17, 2020, 01:04:45 PM
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.

But, cheer up, writingprof: if it is determined that one can pick his own race, there is something in it for everyone. Even us bigots. For example, my reaction would be to say I'm black. Effective now, you will recognize that I am black. This means, of all the white people who enjoy walking around every day feeling terrible about themselves, and all the black people who enjoy telling them what they can do about it, and what they must not do about it, so gingerly, even though there is no resolution coming, (see quotation below) y'all can play without me. I'm like Groucho Marx after having been handed the check in a restaurant. As he hands it to the guy sitting next to him he says 'this bill is outrageous. I wouldn't pay it if I were you.'

Here's an example of my idea of the kind of really stupid writing that has come into fashion. Of course, it's not entirely stupid if you remember that people are requesting it.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/opinions/black-lives-matter-usa-race-irving/index.html

"Most importantly, this is not a game you can win. Doing better means actively enjoying the process of learning how to be better. There's no finish line. You must fall in love with the process of becoming anti-racist. It's a journey, not a race."

It's not that it isn't a game you can win. It's that it isn't a game where everyone playing it loses. It's not good for blacks, whites, anyone. It's become a fixation, a religious sacrament.

and

"It's a moment of endless questions on how to be a better ally or anti-racist -- well-meaning yet overwhelming."

This is not, like, 'tips for how to get better service in a restaurant' 'everyday etiquette in the workplace' or other practical advice. It's the language of religion -- awe- inspiring. Soul searching. Trying to comprehend the size of the universe.

(sorry, I overdid it with the bold type. don't know how to reverse it.)

:edit: fix bold

What should be bolded?

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


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.

There really is a fundamental inability or, unwillingness, too understand. What people might object to is your blithe assertion that these racial distinctions can all just be ignored happily. You want to be outraged because some people  point out that it doesn't really matter if you renounce your white identity, you'll still get the benefits of that. It isn't generally going to work that way the other way.

Quote from: mahagonny on July 17, 2020, 05:24:41 PM



But, cheer up, writingprof: if it is determined that one can pick his own race, there is something in it for everyone. Even us bigots. For example, my reaction would be to say I'm black. Effective now, you will recognize that I am black. This means, of all the white people who enjoy walking around every day feeling terrible about themselves, and all the black people who enjoy telling them what they can do about it, and what they must not do about it, so gingerly, even though there is no resolution coming, (see quotation below) y'all can play without me. I'm like Groucho Marx after having been handed the check in a restaurant. As he hands it to the guy sitting next to him he says 'this bill is outrageous. I wouldn't pay it if I were you.'

:edit: fix bold

This is not a particularly productive conversation, but at various points in my life I've had this sort of reaction. What I've ended up realizing is that nobody is actually yelling at you, nobody cares if you feel guilty, and nobody actually gives a crap about you. You're complaining about white guilt, while participating in the exact same exhausting discourse that makes it all about you and your feelings.

Nobody is walking into your work and telling you you should quit and give your job to a person of color. Nobody wakes up every morning and demands you put on your hair shirt. You're right, you actually don't have to participate. That's what being white in the United States means. You're mostly mad because you read some articles in the paper you didn't like.  So, why are you on here yelling about how you're going to take your ball and go home. Great. Nobody is actually all that interested.

:edit: fix bold in quote

Quote from: Caracal on July 18, 2020, 04:43:14 AM

Nobody is walking into your work and telling you you should quit and give your job to a person of color. Nobody wakes up every morning and demands you put on your hair shirt.

Caracal, you don't get out enough if that's a true statement where you live.  Words to that effect have been used multiple times in the past decade in various places in IHE and CHE, particularly when people ask what they can do to help adjuncts.  Those calls have increased in the past few years.


Those exact words aren't used in meetings and email lists at my non-academic employer, but it's pretty clear the sentiment in some quarters at my work is we shouldn't hire any more white, cis, het men if any qualified other people are in the pool.  The hiring trend recently indicates that any qualified woman and/or underrepresented minority who doesn't blow the interview will be hired.

The words were used indicating that the small numbers of African Americans, in particular, at our workplace was due to all those racist white males (>80% of relevant job categories) doing the hiring and then being the norm in the workplace.  The case was made using data from national groups that are advocates with varying degrees of neutral scientific rigor and in-your-face calls for change.


Assertions have been made and continue to be made that we should force retirement on many white men so we could replace them with a more diverse workforce.  All attempts at pointing out that the national pool for those positions have almost no African Americans (e.g., at 1.5% we're actually representative of the qualified people and overrepresentative of our local community) are ignored.

Many attempts, including those by the handful of African Americans we have, to point out our specific efforts as an institution would be better spent helping the poor kids of color in the communities around us become qualified are met with outrage that we're saying Black lives don't matter in favor of all lives matter.  I was particularly amused last month as the Native American male who wrote a data-filled email with pointers to paid outreach activities supported by our institution was quietly ignored because it wasn't what that diversity group wanted to read.

In June, there was a group of employees who were angry with our institution's official statement released as part of the wave after the riots.  The African American employee group worked with the administration to write the statement. The outraged people were mostly those angry that the explicit words of Black lives matter did not appear and instead the focus was on our efforts at diversity of thought to produce the best science and engineering to support the nation along with our inclusion/outreach efforts to ensure a great pipeline of future scientists and engineers.

Usually, when it becomes clear that some people are against white, cis, het males instead of being in favor of inclusion, the diversity and inclusion groups here marginalize the people who are outraged on behalf of African Americans who are far away and the groups go back to doing something useful for our region.  We haven't swung back yet this cycle.  We're still in the phase of calling for retirement or making the possible furlough lists that are heavy on white men.

Thus, it's pretty clear there are people who wake up every morning out to get specific groups of white men fired and insist those guys should be wearing hair shirts even if they are ready to quit.  If it wouldn't out me, I could give names and it's a list of more than a handful.

Quote from: Caracal on July 18, 2020, 04:43:14 AM

Quote from: mahagonny on July 17, 2020, 05:24:41 PM



But, cheer up, writingprof: if it is determined that one can pick his own race, there is something in it for everyone. Even us bigots. For example, my reaction would be to say I'm black. Effective now, you will recognize that I am black. This means, of all the white people who enjoy walking around every day feeling terrible about themselves, and all the black people who enjoy telling them what they can do about it, and what they must not do about it, so gingerly, even though there is no resolution coming, (see quotation below) y'all can play without me. I'm like Groucho Marx after having been handed the check in a restaurant. As he hands it to the guy sitting next to him he says 'this bill is outrageous. I wouldn't pay it if I were you.'

:edit: fix bold

This is not a particularly productive conversation, but at various points in my life I've had this sort of reaction. What I've ended up realizing is that nobody is actually yelling at you, nobody cares if you feel guilty, and nobody actually gives a crap about you. You're complaining about white guilt, while participating in the exact same exhausting discourse that makes it all about you and your feelings.

Nobody is walking into your work and telling you you should quit and give your job to a person of color. Nobody wakes up every morning and demands you put on your hair shirt. You're right, you actually don't have to participate. That's what being white in the United States means. You're mostly mad because you read some articles in the paper you didn't like.  So, why are you on here yelling about how you're going to take your ball and go home. Great. Nobody is actually all that interested.

OK, I knew this kind of scolding was coming. I'll take it. It's not that I'm angry and want to complain so much as that I'm reading these pieces where they advise us on how to be anti-racist and I think they're dumb. Here's another, fresh off the press. They're virtually identical.  https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/07/16/race-black-friend-racism-george-floyd-injustice-column/5442278002/

Something that I would like to complain about  is 104 people shot over father's day weekend. Most of the victims black and most of the shooters black. This doesn't make me angry. It makes be sad and sick to my stomach. The police didn't do this. White supremacy didn't do this. Not all of it. link: https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/6/20/21297470/chicago-fathers-day-weekend-shootings-homicide-gun-violence-june-19-22-104-shot

Speaking of people who should just go away and not participate because no one really cares about them, perhaps Barack Obama is another one. I wonder how he feels reading the news now. As POTUS, he explained, patiently, not angrily, how the lack of a father in the home is statistically related to strikingly poorer levels of health, success, adjustment, freedom from legal trouble. And it doesn't appear that what he said had much effect.

Quote from: polly_mer on July 17, 2020, 08:20:22 PM

What should be bolded?

Just those few words that were also italicized.

QuoteCaracal, you don't get out enough if that's a true statement where you live.  Words to that effect have been used multiple times in the past decade in various places in IHE and CHE, particularly when people ask what they can do to help adjuncts.  Those calls have increased in the past few years.

Longer than that. Twenty years ago I had dinner with a bunch of new friends including adjunct Phil and his chair. The drinks were coming at a steady pace. Before the night was over the chair told me 'Phil is outstanding, PhD, well liked, but I can't offer another full time job to a white man at this time.'
Another guy I hung out with had become the provost at my other school, briefly He was going on abut how the conversions to full time were such a great success because so many were women and people of color.
It's not that we don't like to see these good things to good people. But you can't claim they don't make it harder than it would have been for a white man to move up.

Quote from: Caracal on July 18, 2020, 04:18:28 AM

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


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.

There really is a fundamental inability or, unwillingness, too understand. What people might object to is your blithe assertion that these racial distinctions can all just be ignored happily. You want to be outraged because some people  point out that it doesn't really matter if you renounce your white identity, you'll still get the benefits of that. It isn't generally going to work that way the other way.

The vast majority of inequality is related to class, not race. Malia and Sasha Obama will be able to write their own tickets in life. Being "women of colour" won't be a problem because of their socioeconomic status. Meanwhile, some kid who grew up in a trailer park in a rural community with 80% unemployment is not going to see any perceived benefits  of "privilege".

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 18, 2020, 07:30:22 AM

Quote from: Caracal on July 18, 2020, 04:18:28 AM

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


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.

There really is a fundamental inability or, unwillingness, too understand. What people might object to is your blithe assertion that these racial distinctions can all just be ignored happily. You want to be outraged because some people  point out that it doesn't really matter if you renounce your white identity, you'll still get the benefits of that. It isn't generally going to work that way the other way.

The vast majority of inequality is related to class, not race. Malia and Sasha Obama will be able to write their own tickets in life. Being "women of colour" won't be a problem because of their socioeconomic status. Meanwhile, some kid who grew up in a trailer park in a rural community with 80% unemployment is not going to see any perceived benefits  of "privilege".

That was the frustration where I grew up and where I currently live.  There's no privilege in skin tone when it's so clear that one's socioeconomic status is low.  New clothes aren't enough to erase the obvious signs in behavior and other parts of appearance like access to cosmetic dental care.

The African Americans in town here moved for the high-paying, graduate-degree-required jobs.  The poor kids here are not Black.


My home town had exactly two Black families when I was growing up: the hospital administrator and a minister.  While money might have been tight for the minister's family, the poor kids in town who weren't going to college and really didn't have a good future of any kind were very pale.

Quote from: polly_mer on July 18, 2020, 06:45:52 AM

Those exact words aren't used in meetings and email lists at my non-academic employer, but it's pretty clear the sentiment in some quarters at my work is we shouldn't hire any more white, cis, het men if any qualified other people are in the pool.  The hiring trend recently indicates that any qualified woman and/or underrepresented minority who doesn't blow the interview will be hired.

Yes, that's why you just don't see any more white men get hired anymore in academia.

Quote from: Caracal on July 18, 2020, 09:54:24 AM

Quote from: polly_mer on July 18, 2020, 06:45:52 AM

Those exact words aren't used in meetings and email lists at my non-academic employer, but it's pretty clear the sentiment in some quarters at my work is we shouldn't hire any more white, cis, het men if any qualified other people are in the pool.  The hiring trend recently indicates that any qualified woman and/or underrepresented minority who doesn't blow the interview will be hired.

Yes, that's why you just don't see any more white men get hired anymore in academia.

So if no black men get killed by police in my community it doesn't matter that it happens somwehere else?

Some samples from a few studies.,

"Of all full-time faculty in degree-granting postsecondary institutions in fall 2017, 41 percent were White males; 35 percent were White females; 6 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander males; 5 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander females; and 3 percent each were Black males, Black females, Hispanic males, and Hispanic females.1 Those who were American Indian/Alaska Native and those who were of Two or more races each made up 1 percent or less of full-time faculty."

"Diversity issues were shown to be particularly prevalent at doctoral-status institutions, a category representing universities with the heaviest research focus, where the number of black tenured faculty members grew by only one-tenth of a percent from 2013 to 2017, to comprise 4 percent of the total tenured faculty. The number of Hispanic and Latino tenured faculty members also grew by less than 1 percent (0.65 percent) in that time, and in 2017 was 4.6 percent of tenured faculty. Faculty positions filled by Asian Americans saw the largest amount of growth at doctoral-status institutions, with a 1.2 percent increase to make up 12.8 percent of all tenured faculty.
At master's-level institutions, black faculty members made up a larger percentage at 5.6 percent of tenured faculty. But the group saw smaller growth during the years studied, with an increase of less than a tenth of a percent (0.07 percent). Hispanics and Latinos, who were 5 percent of tenured faculty at these institutions, in 2017 saw a 0.64 percent increase."

You can try all you want, but there's no way to square this data with these claims about how difficult it is for white people to get jobs.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 18, 2020, 10:05:35 AM

Quote from: Caracal on July 18, 2020, 09:54:24 AM

Quote from: polly_mer on July 18, 2020, 06:45:52 AM

Those exact words aren't used in meetings and email lists at my non-academic employer, but it's pretty clear the sentiment in some quarters at my work is we shouldn't hire any more white, cis, het men if any qualified other people are in the pool.  The hiring trend recently indicates that any qualified woman and/or underrepresented minority who doesn't blow the interview will be hired.

Yes, that's why you just don't see any more white men get hired anymore in academia.

So if no black men get killed by police in my community it doesn't matter that it happens somwehere else?

???????

Quote from: Caracal on July 18, 2020, 10:09:14 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 18, 2020, 10:05:35 AM

Quote from: Caracal on July 18, 2020, 09:54:24 AM

Quote from: polly_mer on July 18, 2020, 06:45:52 AM

Those exact words aren't used in meetings and email lists at my non-academic employer, but it's pretty clear the sentiment in some quarters at my work is we shouldn't hire any more white, cis, het men if any qualified other people are in the pool.  The hiring trend recently indicates that any qualified woman and/or underrepresented minority who doesn't blow the interview will be hired.

Yes, that's why you just don't see any more white men get hired anymore in academia.

So if no black men get killed by police in my community it doesn't matter that it happens somwehere else?

???????

The fact that "white men get hired" in some places seems to imply (by what you've said) that the kind of anti-white men issues that Polly raised are not a problem. So, if you apply that to other issues, then as long as a problem isn't absolutely universal, it isn't really a problem.

Quote from: polly_mer on July 18, 2020, 08:41:51 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 18, 2020, 07:30:22 AM

The vast majority of inequality is related to class, not race. Malia and Sasha Obama will be able to write their own tickets in life. Being "women of colour" won't be a problem because of their socioeconomic status. Meanwhile, some kid who grew up in a trailer park in a rural community with 80% unemployment is not going to see any perceived benefits  of "privilege".

That was the frustration where I grew up and where I currently live.  There's no privilege in skin tone when it's so clear that one's socioeconomic status is low.  New clothes aren't enough to erase the obvious signs in behavior and other parts of appearance like access to cosmetic dental care.

The African Americans in town here moved for the high-paying, graduate-degree-required jobs.  The poor kids here are not Black.


My home town had exactly two Black families when I was growing up: the hospital administrator and a minister.  While money might have been tight for the minister's family, the poor kids in town who weren't going to college and really didn't have a good future of any kind were very pale.

A counterpoint is offered in a letter from Gary May, the chancellor at UC Davis. He is the biggest big shot in town, so his social status is undisputedly on top.

Yet the everyday dangers faced by all black men affect even him.

He writes (https://leadership.ucdavis.edu/news/messages/chancellor-messages/statement-on-george-floyd), "George Floyd could have been any African American man, including me. Beyond the constant barrage of fear of the negative consequences of birding while black, shopping while black, cooking out while black, exercising while black — it is just exhausting. And I'm tired."

Something may be true but totally unpersuasive. Just like you are never going to lessen the anger of someone who sees a member of their own group wrongfully killed by a single cop by pointing out any statistics about how likely it is to happen or even if true that it happens to whites just as often, you are never going to get any white person who has seen a single job "allocated" by race or gender to think it "isn't a big deal" by how often it happens. I'm not even necessarily making either of those statistical arguments. I'm just saying they wouldn't matter in the least to anyone who hears them. The only acceptable objective is going to be eliminate rather than lessen/accept the practice. Whites are never going to accept threats to their jobs as not a big deal no matter how small/infrequent/seemingly justified numerically. It's just a conversation non-starter that's a loser from a persuasion standpoint from the beginning.

Quote from: financeguy on July 18, 2020, 11:30:31 AM
Something may be true but totally unpersuasive. Just like you are never going to lessen the anger of someone who sees a member of their own group wrongfully killed by a single cop by pointing out any statistics about how likely it is to happen or even if true that it happens to whites just as often, you are never going to get any white person who has seen a single job "allocated" by race or gender to think it "isn't a big deal" by how often it happens. I'm not even necessarily making either of those statistical arguments. I'm just saying they wouldn't matter in the least to anyone who hears them. The only acceptable objective is going to be eliminate rather than lessen/accept the practice. Whites are never going to accept threats to their jobs as not a big deal no matter how small/infrequent/seemingly justified numerically. It's just a conversation non-starter that's a loser from a persuasion standpoint from the beginning.

The first part is not true.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/

As for the second, really? Despite the fact that numbers suggest that discrimination goes the other way, what we need to do is really concentrate on making sure that no white person ever believes they have been discriminated against. It would be one thing if this sort of argument was made by people who seem concerned about discrimination against minorities, but that rarely seems to be the case. The base assumption is that if a white person gets hired, they must have been hired because they are the best choice. This despite the fact that it is pretty obvious that having more a more diverse faculty would be beneficial in a whole variety of ways.

Quote from: Hibush on July 18, 2020, 11:06:13 AM

Quote from: polly_mer on July 18, 2020, 08:41:51 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 18, 2020, 07:30:22 AM

The vast majority of inequality is related to class, not race. Malia and Sasha Obama will be able to write their own tickets in life. Being "women of colour" won't be a problem because of their socioeconomic status. Meanwhile, some kid who grew up in a trailer park in a rural community with 80% unemployment is not going to see any perceived benefits  of "privilege".

That was the frustration where I grew up and where I currently live.  There's no privilege in skin tone when it's so clear that one's socioeconomic status is low.  New clothes aren't enough to erase the obvious signs in behavior and other parts of appearance like access to cosmetic dental care.

The African Americans in town here moved for the high-paying, graduate-degree-required jobs.  The poor kids here are not Black.


My home town had exactly two Black families when I was growing up: the hospital administrator and a minister.  While money might have been tight for the minister's family, the poor kids in town who weren't going to college and really didn't have a good future of any kind were very pale.

A counterpoint is offered in a letter from Gary May, the chancellor at UC Davis. He is the biggest big shot in town, so his social status is undisputedly on top.

Yet the everyday dangers faced by all black men affect even him.

He writes (https://leadership.ucdavis.edu/news/messages/chancellor-messages/statement-on-george-floyd), "George Floyd could have been any African American man, including me. Beyond the constant barrage of fear of the negative consequences of birding while black, shopping while black, cooking out while black, exercising while black — it is just exhausting. And I'm tired."

So the chancellor goes into convenience stores and passes counterfeit money? He does home invasions and sells cocaine in the neighborhood? He fathers five children without a plan to support all of them?

Quote from: mahagonny on July 18, 2020, 12:06:28 PM

Quote from: Hibush on July 18, 2020, 11:06:13 AM

Quote from: polly_mer on July 18, 2020, 08:41:51 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 18, 2020, 07:30:22 AM

The vast majority of inequality is related to class, not race. Malia and Sasha Obama will be able to write their own tickets in life. Being "women of colour" won't be a problem because of their socioeconomic status. Meanwhile, some kid who grew up in a trailer park in a rural community with 80% unemployment is not going to see any perceived benefits  of "privilege".

That was the frustration where I grew up and where I currently live.  There's no privilege in skin tone when it's so clear that one's socioeconomic status is low.  New clothes aren't enough to erase the obvious signs in behavior and other parts of appearance like access to cosmetic dental care.

The African Americans in town here moved for the high-paying, graduate-degree-required jobs.  The poor kids here are not Black.


My home town had exactly two Black families when I was growing up: the hospital administrator and a minister.  While money might have been tight for the minister's family, the poor kids in town who weren't going to college and really didn't have a good future of any kind were very pale.

A counterpoint is offered in a letter from Gary May, the chancellor at UC Davis. He is the biggest big shot in town, so his social status is undisputedly on top.

Yet the everyday dangers faced by all black men affect even him.

He writes (https://leadership.ucdavis.edu/news/messages/chancellor-messages/statement-on-george-floyd), "George Floyd could have been any African American man, including me. Beyond the constant barrage of fear of the negative consequences of birding while black, shopping while black, cooking out while black, exercising while black — it is just exhausting. And I'm tired."

So the chancellor goes into convenience stores and passes counterfeit money? He does home invasions and sells cocaine in the neighborhood? He fathers five children without a plan to support all of them?

Rancid.

Quote from: Caracal on July 18, 2020, 12:01:18 PM
This despite the fact that it is pretty obvious that having more a more diverse faculty would be beneficial in a whole variety of ways.

So diversity being inherently good must mean you're in favour of Kanye running for president, since otherwise it's just two old white guys.

There's no guarantee that any individual, upon leaving his house on any particular day, will not be the victim of police malpractice. But there are moral and common sense choices that affect your odds.

The chancellor doesn't sound like he has a lot of depth, frankly. Very given to gross generalization, and quite possibly misleading statement. Plenty of whites die in confrontations with police. He's not interested in that.

Caracal, you can't ensure that no white person ever believes they are discriminated against. What you can do (and should do if you wish your policy preferences to actually succeed) is to attempt to pursued whites effectively, just as you would pursued any other interest groups. Let's say we're approaching affirmative action. These things don't tend to pursued whites:

-Stating institutional racism or "white privileged" as causes necessitating affirmative action rather than stating the benefits to those who ultimately attend, perhaps even those who are white! Stating the case as something that is owed based on a transgression that must be atoned for is a conversation non-starter more likely to cause whites to dig in their heels rather than attempt to see the benefit of the program.

-Stating that AA is "one of many factors" is one of the worst approaches from a logical or persuasion standpoint, so much so that it surprises me that people still use it as a defense. So if an admission rep chose females he considered physically attractive as "only one of many factors" rather than as a determining factor, it would render it acceptable when it would otherwise not be? Sorry, just drop this talking point. It won't work.

-Downplaying the numbers. Regardless of AA stats for hiring or college admission, anyone who has seen it happen ONE time has enough of a data point to have a negative visceral reaction independent of how the level of frequency fits into overall statistics. Don't try to downplay the numbers. Reframe based on benefits.

If you simply want to seem woke or virtue signal, you can do whatever you want and have a ready trump card to pull from your back pocket to own those who oppose your desires by simply implying or outright stating they're racists. If you actually want your policies to succeed, whites are the same as any other group. Tell them what's in it for them or why something "works" in general rather than why they owe you, the latter of which has never succeeded in attracting voters/supporters from any group, whites or anyone else.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 18, 2020, 12:33:49 PM

Quote from: Caracal on July 18, 2020, 12:01:18 PM
This despite the fact that it is pretty obvious that having more a more diverse faculty would be beneficial in a whole variety of ways.

So diversity being inherently good must mean you're in favour of Kanye running for president, since otherwise it's just two old white guys.

I'm just ducking in here to point out that, of the two wildly unqualified men in this example, the black guy dropped out after one day and the white guy is running for a second term. Part of diversity is allowing people other than the white dudes to be mediocre failures, without allowing those failures to reflect on their larger group as a whole. XKCD has commented on this (https://xkcd.com/385/).

Quote from: financeguy on July 18, 2020, 10:02:21 PM

If you simply want to seem woke or virtue signal, you can do whatever you want and have a ready trump card to pull from your back pocket to own those who oppose your desires by simply implying or outright stating they're racists. If you actually want your policies to succeed, whites are the same as any other group. Tell them what's in it for them or why something "works" in general rather than why they owe you, the latter of which has never succeeded in attracting voters/supporters from any group, whites or anyone else.

Apparently now virtue signaling is just not engaging in overt racism? Seriously, this is usually a pitiful deflection, as it is in this case. When groups in power insist they are being discriminated against by minority groups, it is rarely part of some fair minded crusade for universal justice.
I can't say I'm really interested in impressing anybody on here, but as far as it goes, sure I'd prefer to not be on the side of white people engaged in creating false narratives of racial resentment.

Quote from: financeguy on July 18, 2020, 10:02:21 PM
Caracal, you can't ensure that no white person ever believes they are discriminated against. What you can do (and should do if you wish your policy preferences to actually succeed) is to attempt to pursued whites effectively, just as you would pursued any other interest groups. Let's say we're approaching affirmative action. These things don't tend to pursued whites:

-Stating institutional racism or "white privileged" as causes necessitating affirmative action rather than stating the benefits to those who ultimately attend, perhaps even those who are white! Stating the case as something that is owed based on a transgression that must be atoned for is a conversation non-starter more likely to cause whites to dig in their heels rather than attempt to see the benefit of the program.

-Stating that AA is "one of many factors" is one of the worst approaches from a logical or persuasion standpoint, so much so that it surprises me that people still use it as a defense. So if an admission rep chose females he considered physically attractive as "only one of many factors" rather than as a determining factor, it would render it acceptable when it would otherwise not be? Sorry, just drop this talking point. It won't work.

-Downplaying the numbers. Regardless of AA stats for hiring or college admission, anyone who has seen it happen ONE time has enough of a data point to have a negative visceral reaction independent of how the level of frequency fits into overall statistics. Don't try to downplay the numbers. Reframe based on benefits.

If you simply want to seem woke or virtue signal, you can do whatever you want and have a ready trump card to pull from your back pocket to own those who oppose your desires by simply implying or outright stating they're racists. If you actually want your policies to succeed, whites are the same as any other group. Tell them what's in it for them or why something "works" in general rather than why they owe you, the latter of which has never succeeded in attracting voters/supporters from any group, whites or anyone else.

There is one mindset wherein academics know they are out of the mainstream politically, and don't wish things to be otherwise. They still have classrooms of kids who need passing grades. The study of racism, white privilege, white superiority etc. are big business, and getting bigger.
If someone thinks we are just going to have to agree to disagree, I can get along. If they just want to do ad hominem, In all honestly, they may serve as instructive negative examples. In other words, you're not gonna talk to them, but you're gonna talk about them.

Quote from: Caracal on July 19, 2020, 04:00:18 AM

Apparently now virtue signaling is just not engaging in overt racism? Seriously, this is usually a pitiful deflection, as it is in this case. When groups in power insist they are being discriminated against by minority groups, it is rarely part of some fair minded crusade for universal justice.

"Groups" generally aren't discriminated against by "groups"; individuals get discriminated against by other individuals. Most of the recent protesters were actually white, including ones who trashed properties owned by people who were black.

And in the cases of preferential hiring that have been mentioned here, it's mostly white people on hiring committees vowing to avoid hiring white people.

So, since white people can be racist, can they be called out for being racist against other white people?

Quote
I can't say I'm really interested in impressing anybody on here, but as far as it goes, sure I'd prefer to not be on the side of white people engaged in creating false narratives of racial resentment.

Again, the racial resentment usually comes from other white people, who are all caught up in their excessive wokeness.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/dehumanizing-condescension-white-fragility/614146/ is a relevant article for those want to discuss.

Years ago, Dave Barry pointed out that while the people in charge might be white guys, those people in charge didn't call up all the white guys as equals.  The power is really in just a few humans.

The arguments and beliefs on this thread just make me despair.

Quote from: Hegemony on July 19, 2020, 04:47:14 PM
The arguments and beliefs on this thread just make me despair.

Why don't you refute them? You've been invited. You're a person too.

I see no indication that many people on this thread are genuinely open to rethinking their positions. What I see are bigotry, abrasiveness,  and people who get a lot of pleasure from baiting other people. So I won't be checking this thread again; no need to try to bait me as well.

Quote from: Hegemony on July 19, 2020, 08:15:56 PM
I see no indication that many people on this thread are genuinely open to rethinking their positions. What I see are bigotry, abrasiveness,  and people who get a lot of pleasure from baiting other people. So I won't be checking this thread again; no need to try to bait me as well.

Last word freak. You could always talk to John McWhorter, if you have the chops. Who knows? He might be reading.

I find it odd that someone says people (presumably including me) are not open to changing their views when my entire point is to tell someone to try to convince and persuade me rather than simply tell me how inherently immoral I am by virtue of group inclusion. This shouldn't be so hard, which is why I believe many do not even want a solution. Having the issue is more important than solving it. Either way, try to convince me to change my mind with logic and reason and I'm at least listening. Tell me why I "should" because of how bad I am or that someone else is owed a particular viewpoint and I cease to be willing to have the conversation.

Quote from: Hegemony on July 19, 2020, 08:15:56 PM
I see no indication that many people on this thread are genuinely open to rethinking their positions.

The irony is that, without indicating which people you seem to think are "genuinely open to rethinking their positions", it's impossible to examine the veracity of this claim.

Quote from: financeguy on July 19, 2020, 10:20:24 PM
I find it odd that someone says people (presumably including me) are not open to changing their views when my entire point is to tell someone to try to convince and persuade me rather than simply tell me how inherently immoral I am by virtue of group inclusion. This shouldn't be so hard, which is why I believe many do not even want a solution. Having the issue is more important than solving it. Either way, try to convince me to change my mind with logic and reason and I'm at least listening. Tell me why I "should" because of how bad I am or that someone else is owed a particular viewpoint and I cease to be willing to have the conversation.

Nobody in this thread or another has said you're inherently immoral by virtue of group membership. They have said you're wrong about things like group differences in IQ and the BS evolutionary explanations you put forward, that you and others are fundamentally misunderstanding and misconstruing social construction, or that you're mischaracterizing the concept of privilege.

Put another way (in the terms you seem to prefer): where's your evidence that anyone here has said you're immoral in virtue of your group membership?

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 20, 2020, 08:14:47 AM

Put another way (in the terms you seem to prefer): where's your evidence that anyone here has said you're immoral in virtue of your group membership?

Is "whiteness" a real thing and does it someone inherently racist?

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 20, 2020, 08:41:30 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 20, 2020, 08:14:47 AM

Put another way (in the terms you seem to prefer): where's your evidence that anyone here has said you're immoral in virtue of your group membership?

Is "whiteness" a real thing and does it someone inherently racist?

It's as real as any other social kind, but it's clearly not a natural kind. And I wouldn't think it makes anyone inherently racist, no.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 20, 2020, 08:14:47 AM

Quote from: financeguy on July 19, 2020, 10:20:24 PM
I find it odd that someone says people (presumably including me) are not open to changing their views when my entire point is to tell someone to try to convince and persuade me rather than simply tell me how inherently immoral I am by virtue of group inclusion. This shouldn't be so hard, which is why I believe many do not even want a solution. Having the issue is more important than solving it. Either way, try to convince me to change my mind with logic and reason and I'm at least listening. Tell me why I "should" because of how bad I am or that someone else is owed a particular viewpoint and I cease to be willing to have the conversation.

Nobody in this thread or another has said you're inherently immoral by virtue of group membership. They have said you're wrong about things like group differences in IQ and the BS evolutionary explanations you put forward, that you and others are fundamentally misunderstanding and misconstruing social construction, or that you're mischaracterizing the concept of privilege.

Put another way (in the terms you seem to prefer): where's your evidence that anyone here has said you're immoral in virtue of your group membership?

Yeah, there's a lot of that going on in this thread. The responses from various people don't have much to do with what anybody is actually saying. I f you just create an imaginary version of the enemy, I guess you don't have to bother trying to figure out if anything you are saying makes sense.

Parasaurolophus, I'm not sure I would say people are not inherently racist, depending on how one defines that term. It is pretty obvious that many forms of own group preference including those related to race are as universal to humans as anything else.

If running into a burning building full of children, do we have a preference to save our own child or just any child? I think everyone knows the obvious answer to that question and many of the same tribal attitudes people hold toward family are also held toward race or other group identities. 

The fact that someone may have an innate character trait or that humans as a whole have this trait does not make it a positive. My default assumption is the view of the American rather than French revolutionaries: Flaws in man are the norm rather than the exception and must be checked rather than just "let's find the 'right' ones."

An innate own group preference for those like themselves is something I view as a human "norm" that's built into the operating system just like greed, laziness, shortsightedness or any of our other characteristics that need to be met with disincentives rather than ignored as something unusual or in need of explanation.

Quote from: financeguy on July 20, 2020, 11:20:23 AM
An innate own group preference for those like themselves is something I view as a human "norm" that's built into the operating system just like greed, laziness, shortsightedness or any of our other characteristics that need to be met with disincentives rather than ignored as something unusual or in need of explanation.

Ironically, white liberals actually have an out-group bias.  (https://www.takimag.com/article/white-liberals-our-greatest-political-liability/)

From the article:

Quote
The organization GenForward, of the University of Chicago, recently surveyed a number of people from ages 18 to 34. Of the four ethnic groups—whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians—whites had the lowest in-group bias. Asked their opinion about whites becoming a minority, projected to happen in about thirty years, 57 percent of white liberals said that that would be a strength for the country.

Ain't self-loathing a great thing........

I'm very skeptical of what people say when in contradiction to what they do. No one in the history of voter surveys has said they voted for the one who was taller but based on experience it's undeniable that we associate height with leadership ability. I'm actually surprised no one brought up this trait as opposed to Hillary's gender. A female the same height as Trump would have been viewed much differently, perhaps not without a different set of challenges. Of course no one believes themselves swayed by such "irrational" points.

The fact that whites state an out group preference is more about the social disincentive to say otherwise that those in other groups will not face. I forget which actress was doing a red carpet interview before the Oscars or Emmys and was asked who she was rooting for. She responded with "Whoever's black." or something similar such as "all the blacks nominated." The fact that I can't even remember who this was last year shows that it wasn't really seen as a big deal by anyone. Even if that were the position held by a white actor, they would not only be unlikely to say so, but may also make a comment along the lines of "hoping to see some diversity this year" which would presume out group preference. At what cost to him?

I suppose I'm just a bit exhausted by getting lectured by people who are not immune from the same issues they bemoan in whites. I live in a major metropolitan area and can tell you the multiple minority groups that live in areas where there are next to no whites are not suddenly getting along with each other in harmony independent of these pesky immoral racists. They're at each others throats as well, with absolutely no desire to conceal the sentiment for public consumption. One need only survey a small portion of the graffiti from only the most recent riot (small by our "historical" standards) to tell exactly what these groups think of one another! Can someone please tell me where this isn't the case? Whites are not racist; people are racist.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 20, 2020, 11:27:21 AM

Quote from: financeguy on July 20, 2020, 11:20:23 AM
An innate own group preference for those like themselves is something I view as a human "norm" that's built into the operating system just like greed, laziness, shortsightedness or any of our other characteristics that need to be met with disincentives rather than ignored as something unusual or in need of explanation.

Ironically, white liberals actually have an out-group bias.  (https://www.takimag.com/article/white-liberals-our-greatest-political-liability/)

From the article:

Quote
The organization GenForward, of the University of Chicago, recently surveyed a number of people from ages 18 to 34. Of the four ethnic groups—whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians—whites had the lowest in-group bias. Asked their opinion about whites becoming a minority, projected to happen in about thirty years, 57 percent of white liberals said that that would be a strength for the country.

Ain't self-loathing a great thing........

This is getting very Stormfront.

Quote from: financeguy on July 20, 2020, 11:20:23 AM
Parasaurolophus, I'm not sure I would say people are not inherently racist, depending on how one defines that term. It is pretty obvious that many forms of own group preference including those related to race are as universal to humans as anything else.

If running into a burning building full of children, do we have a preference to save our own child or just any child? I think everyone knows the obvious answer to that question and many of the same tribal attitudes people hold toward family are also held toward race or other group identities. 

An innate own group preference for those like themselves is something I view as a human "norm" that's built into the operating system just like greed, laziness, shortsightedness or any of our other characteristics that need to be met with disincentives rather than ignored as something unusual or in need of explanation.

As a historian, I'm always kind of amazed at the way lots of people just sort of think race is just some natural phenomenon. Sure, on some level, humans as social creatures are probably attuned to think in terms of difference, although I'll leave that to the psychologists. Race, however, is a relatively recent concept that ties skin color to identity. The Romans and Greeks, for example, noticed skin color, but it was things like culture and language that distinguished Greeks and Romans from Barbarians.

Race developed at this very particular moment, and the story is complicated, but really it crystallizes as a system of domination centered around slavery. This isn't controversial or disputed, when you look at slave codes, you can see how increasingly black and slave become synonymous terms. It isn't like any of this is ancient history, either, that's how race functions, as a system of domination and power. So, when you try to pretend that it is normal for people to like "people like them," you're just ignoring this whole history. There's nothing natural about it. That's also why, by the way, expressing pride in being white, or wanting white people to continue to be the dominant group in the United States, is a staple of racist, white supremacist thought.

Quote from: Caracal on July 20, 2020, 02:47:50 PM

Race developed at this very particular moment, and the story is complicated, but really it crystallizes as a system of domination centered around slavery. This isn't controversial or disputed, when you look at slave codes, you can see how increasingly black and slave become synonymous terms. It isn't like any of this is ancient history, either, that's how race functions, as a system of domination and power. So, when you try to pretend that it is normal for people to like "people like them," you're just ignoring this whole history. There's nothing natural about it. That's also why, by the way, expressing pride in being white, or wanting white people to continue to be the dominant group in the United States, is a staple of racist, white supremacist thought.

Wanting whites (or any other group) to be a minority is likewise a staple of racist thought.  The ethnic makeup of the country is pretty much irrelevant; what matters is shared values. Twenty years from now, who knows where most immigration will be from, AND IT DOESN'T MATTER. A society where all people are respected is the goal, not one with racial bean-counters making sure that there is appropriate "representation" in every slice of society.

Caracal, I'm not sure I agree with the degree of emphasis you place on race and slavery. Thomas Sowell has noted that people have enslaved one another since before we were able to read and write as a species. The term in English comes from the Slavic origin, long predating the involvement of Americans in the African trade. There are many areas of the world right now in which you can still see the existence of slavery, without even including sweat shops which might also be included in a modern definition.

This is one of the other "naturals" I'll put in the operating system of the human being. People have an innate desire to control one another and a willingness and capacity to do so with violence, exacerbated by the desire to do so for profit. This does not make it a positive, but it does mean the absence of this activity in a geographic region is what needs an explanation, not its presence. If we looked at Slavery historically in this way, including the trade in the Muslim world in hundreds of years before the existence of the United States as a country, we'd have to see it as a common yet undesirable historical feature of many people, not a historical outlier confined to whites. I've actually heard whites referred to as "inventors" of slavery, which goes to show the absolute lack of factual context many come to the issue with.

Quote from: financeguy on July 20, 2020, 04:54:08 PM
Caracal, I'm not sure I agree with the degree of emphasis you place on race and slavery. Thomas Sowell has noted that people have enslaved one another since before we were able to read and write as a species. The term in English comes from the Slavic origin, long predating the involvement of Americans in the African trade. There are many areas of the world right now in which you can still see the existence of slavery, without even including sweat shops which might also be included in a modern definition.

This is one of the other "naturals" I'll put in the operating system of the human being. People have an innate desire to control one another and a willingness and capacity to do so with violence, exacerbated by the desire to do so for profit. This does not make it a positive, but it does mean the absence of this activity in a geographic region is what needs an explanation, not its presence. If we looked at Slavery historically in this way, including the trade in the Muslim world in hundreds of years before the existence of the United States as a country, we'd have to see it as a common yet undesirable historical feature of many people, not a historical outlier confined to whites. I've actually heard whites referred to as "inventors" of slavery, which goes to show the absolute lack of factual context many come to the issue with.

Caracal is talking about race-based slavery, which is of recent origin.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 20, 2020, 04:14:34 PM

Quote from: Caracal on July 20, 2020, 02:47:50 PM

Race developed at this very particular moment, and the story is complicated, but really it crystallizes as a system of domination centered around slavery. This isn't controversial or disputed, when you look at slave codes, you can see how increasingly black and slave become synonymous terms. It isn't like any of this is ancient history, either, that's how race functions, as a system of domination and power. So, when you try to pretend that it is normal for people to like "people like them," you're just ignoring this whole history. There's nothing natural about it. That's also why, by the way, expressing pride in being white, or wanting white people to continue to be the dominant group in the United States, is a staple of racist, white supremacist thought.

Wanting whites (or any other group) to be a minority is likewise a staple of racist thought.  The ethnic makeup of the country is pretty much irrelevant; what matters is shared values. Twenty years from now, who knows where most immigration will be from, AND IT DOESN'T MATTER. A society where all people are respected is the goal, not one with racial bean-counters making sure that there is appropriate "representation" in every slice of society.

Yes, eventually that's the goal. The problem, though, with this sort of 'color-blind' thinking now, in today's society, is that it blinds you from seeing the current injustices. It's great to be color blind if everyone else is too. But if some people (or systems, or institutions, or inherent biases) favor white people over other people, then living the color blind philosophy just means that you can't actually see it, call it out, and correct it. We must be color-aware now, in order to build a color-blind society later.

Quote from: ergative on July 21, 2020, 12:32:36 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 20, 2020, 04:14:34 PM

Quote from: Caracal on July 20, 2020, 02:47:50 PM

Race developed at this very particular moment, and the story is complicated, but really it crystallizes as a system of domination centered around slavery. This isn't controversial or disputed, when you look at slave codes, you can see how increasingly black and slave become synonymous terms. It isn't like any of this is ancient history, either, that's how race functions, as a system of domination and power. So, when you try to pretend that it is normal for people to like "people like them," you're just ignoring this whole history. There's nothing natural about it. That's also why, by the way, expressing pride in being white, or wanting white people to continue to be the dominant group in the United States, is a staple of racist, white supremacist thought.

Wanting whites (or any other group) to be a minority is likewise a staple of racist thought.  The ethnic makeup of the country is pretty much irrelevant; what matters is shared values. Twenty years from now, who knows where most immigration will be from, AND IT DOESN'T MATTER. A society where all people are respected is the goal, not one with racial bean-counters making sure that there is appropriate "representation" in every slice of society.

Yes, eventually that's the goal. The problem, though, with this sort of 'color-blind' thinking now, in today's society, is that it blinds you from seeing the current injustices. It's great to be color blind if everyone else is too. But if some people (or systems, or institutions, or inherent biases) favor white people over other people, then living the color blind philosophy just means that you can't actually see it, call it out, and correct it. We must be color-aware now, in order to build a color-blind society later.

By this, MLK must be rejected as "not woke enough". It won't be long before statues to him are torn down.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 04:11:55 AM

Quote from: ergative on July 21, 2020, 12:32:36 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 20, 2020, 04:14:34 PM

Quote from: Caracal on July 20, 2020, 02:47:50 PM

Race developed at this very particular moment, and the story is complicated, but really it crystallizes as a system of domination centered around slavery. This isn't controversial or disputed, when you look at slave codes, you can see how increasingly black and slave become synonymous terms. It isn't like any of this is ancient history, either, that's how race functions, as a system of domination and power. So, when you try to pretend that it is normal for people to like "people like them," you're just ignoring this whole history. There's nothing natural about it. That's also why, by the way, expressing pride in being white, or wanting white people to continue to be the dominant group in the United States, is a staple of racist, white supremacist thought.

Wanting whites (or any other group) to be a minority is likewise a staple of racist thought.  The ethnic makeup of the country is pretty much irrelevant; what matters is shared values. Twenty years from now, who knows where most immigration will be from, AND IT DOESN'T MATTER. A society where all people are respected is the goal, not one with racial bean-counters making sure that there is appropriate "representation" in every slice of society.

Yes, eventually that's the goal. The problem, though, with this sort of 'color-blind' thinking now, in today's society, is that it blinds you from seeing the current injustices. It's great to be color blind if everyone else is too. But if some people (or systems, or institutions, or inherent biases) favor white people over other people, then living the color blind philosophy just means that you can't actually see it, call it out, and correct it. We must be color-aware now, in order to build a color-blind society later.

By this, MLK must be rejected as "not woke enough". It won't be long before statues to him are torn down.

It doesn't seem like it should be too much work to go read a biography of King before you opine on his beliefs and legacy. Heck, Wikipedia would probably do in a pinch. He, certainly embraced the idea of a color blind society as an eventual goal, but he didn't argue that the way to get there was to pretend race wasn't an issue. King said that "A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him," as part of an argument for affirmative action.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 20, 2020, 09:41:57 PM

Quote from: financeguy on July 20, 2020, 04:54:08 PM
Caracal, I'm not sure I agree with the degree of emphasis you place on race and slavery. Thomas Sowell has noted that people have enslaved one another since before we were able to read and write as a species. The term in English comes from the Slavic origin, long predating the involvement of Americans in the African trade. There are many areas of the world right now in which you can still see the existence of slavery, without even including sweat shops which might also be included in a modern definition.

This is one of the other "naturals" I'll put in the operating system of the human being. People have an innate desire to control one another and a willingness and capacity to do so with violence, exacerbated by the desire to do so for profit. This does not make it a positive, but it does mean the absence of this activity in a geographic region is what needs an explanation, not its presence. If we looked at Slavery historically in this way, including the trade in the Muslim world in hundreds of years before the existence of the United States as a country, we'd have to see it as a common yet undesirable historical feature of many people, not a historical outlier confined to whites. I've actually heard whites referred to as "inventors" of slavery, which goes to show the absolute lack of factual context many come to the issue with.

Caracal is talking about race-based slavery, which is of recent origin.

Indeed. Slavery is very old, one historian has argued that it might be tied up in the domestication of animals. However, there's really no reasonable argument that the modern concept of race isn't bound up with slavery. The details are complicated and subject to more debate but no reputable historians disagree with that basic point.

Finance guy's comments are illustrative of a way that I think lots of people  misunderstand historical thought. Questions about the essential badness or goodness of people are beyond my professional pay grade, but, the idea that violence, control and oppression are staples of most societies throughout history is pretty clearly true. When I say that race based slavery comes out of European colonization and settlement in the Western Hemisphere, I'm not making moral comparisons to other places and other systems of slavery or exploitation. I'm just explaining why race isn't a neutral concept for distinguishing one group of people from another. Race developed as a system of exploitation and control and it has been used that way throughout its history, although you also see people try to repurpose it for other ends.

I'm also not suggesting any need for guilt and self flagellation. I think we should understand the past and how it continues to influence the present. People often self identify with a version of the past that isn't real, or is missing a lot, and when you point that out, they think historians want them to feel guilty. I don't need anyone to feel guilty or to think that the US is some  uniquely awful country, I just want people to have a better understanding of actual history and not act like we all just woke up in 1990 with the world the way it currently is.

Quote from: kaysixteen on July 15, 2020, 11:22:20 PM
I think this is not worth discussing, as virtually any position, no matter how whackadox, will be found somewhere.

Post #2 from this thread.

McWhorter's views do comprise, IMHO, a better basis for a discussion. This NPR link has excerpts from an interview, and an embedded link to the full interview: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/20/892943728/professor-criticizes-book-white-fragility-as-dehumanizing-to-black-people

Quote from: ergative on July 21, 2020, 12:32:36 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 20, 2020, 04:14:34 PM

Quote from: Caracal on July 20, 2020, 02:47:50 PM

Race developed at this very particular moment, and the story is complicated, but really it crystallizes as a system of domination centered around slavery. This isn't controversial or disputed, when you look at slave codes, you can see how increasingly black and slave become synonymous terms. It isn't like any of this is ancient history, either, that's how race functions, as a system of domination and power. So, when you try to pretend that it is normal for people to like "people like them," you're just ignoring this whole history. There's nothing natural about it. That's also why, by the way, expressing pride in being white, or wanting white people to continue to be the dominant group in the United States, is a staple of racist, white supremacist thought.

Wanting whites (or any other group) to be a minority is likewise a staple of racist thought.  The ethnic makeup of the country is pretty much irrelevant; what matters is shared values. Twenty years from now, who knows where most immigration will be from, AND IT DOESN'T MATTER. A society where all people are respected is the goal, not one with racial bean-counters making sure that there is appropriate "representation" in every slice of society.

Yes, eventually that's the goal. The problem, though, with this sort of 'color-blind' thinking now, in today's society, is that it blinds you from seeing the current injustices. It's great to be color blind if everyone else is too. But if some people (or systems, or institutions, or inherent biases) favor white people over other people, then living the color blind philosophy just means that you can't actually see it, call it out, and correct it. We must be color-aware now, in order to build a color-blind society later.

Questions:
A color-blind society is not the goal of the Left. Their goal is equal outcomes in wealth, success, influence among people of all races. How will your 'color-aware' (I assume you mean 'anti-racist') plan accomplish that?
If one important question (if not the most important one) is how to help Black Americans reach greater prosperity, have safer neighborhoods, more success, better health free from addiction, etc. who should we trust to decide how they might get there? Why not these people? They have two qualifications to your one. They are both Black and educated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzOApVTfT48

Incidentally, as far as whites shrinking to a minority in twenty years or whatever the prediction is, if conservatives have their way, the Black brith rate will increase, with access to abortion decreased or made illegal.

Quote from: ergative on July 21, 2020, 12:32:36 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 20, 2020, 04:14:34 PM

Quote from: Caracal on July 20, 2020, 02:47:50 PM

Race developed at this very particular moment, and the story is complicated, but really it crystallizes as a system of domination centered around slavery. This isn't controversial or disputed, when you look at slave codes, you can see how increasingly black and slave become synonymous terms. It isn't like any of this is ancient history, either, that's how race functions, as a system of domination and power. So, when you try to pretend that it is normal for people to like "people like them," you're just ignoring this whole history. There's nothing natural about it. That's also why, by the way, expressing pride in being white, or wanting white people to continue to be the dominant group in the United States, is a staple of racist, white supremacist thought.

Wanting whites (or any other group) to be a minority is likewise a staple of racist thought.  The ethnic makeup of the country is pretty much irrelevant; what matters is shared values. Twenty years from now, who knows where most immigration will be from, AND IT DOESN'T MATTER. A society where all people are respected is the goal, not one with racial bean-counters making sure that there is appropriate "representation" in every slice of society.

Yes, eventually that's the goal. The problem, though, with this sort of 'color-blind' thinking now, in today's society, is that it blinds you from seeing the current injustices. It's great to be color blind if everyone else is too. But if some people (or systems, or institutions, or inherent biases) favor white people over other people, then living the color blind philosophy just means that you can't actually see it, call it out, and correct it. We must be color-aware now, in order to build a color-blind society later.

Speaking as an employer, I have to bear this in mind in making hiring decisions.  We have a lot of black patrons at our library, and I don't dare let our front-desk service staff become all white (Or all black, for that matter).  I can't let that be the only consideration in making my hiring decisions, but it must be a consideration. 

I'm helped greatly in this by having an assistant director who is black.  We examine applications and resumes together, and interview prospects together.  This helps to make sure that different perspectives--and not just racial perspectives--are taken into account in our hiring process. 

This is a big part of why there's such a push to see more diversity in higher-level positions in academia and elsewhere.  More diverse representation at that level helps to insure greater diversity at other levels.  Unfortunately institutions have long been caught in a Catch-22 situation where they need greater diversity at the entry level to insure more at the higher level, yet less diversity at the higher level slows progress at the entry level.  No wonder people get frustrated at the slow progress and want to try to hurry it up in some way.

Quote from: Caracal on July 21, 2020, 05:26:18 AM

I'm also not suggesting any need for guilt and self flagellation. I think we should understand the past and how it continues to influence the present. People often self identify with a version of the past that isn't real, or is missing a lot, and when you point that out, they think historians want them to feel guilty. I don't need anyone to feel guilty or to think that the US is some  uniquely awful country, I just want people to have a better understanding of actual history and not act like we all just woke up in 1990 with the world the way it currently is.

I fully agree with this.  However, the tone of so much commentary on racial matters gives the definite impression that guilt and self flagellation and a generally abject attitude are what is being demanded of whites who want to be considered acceptable citizens and allies.  Attitudes like that are not helpful.  They alienate some who might otherwise be prepared to listen.  This is why a lot of the more radical stuff we hear about defunding the police and such concerns me.  We've got an unprecedented level of support at this point for needed police reform.  Radical overreach could damage that support.

Quote from: apl68 on July 21, 2020, 07:48:58 AM

Quote from: Caracal on July 21, 2020, 05:26:18 AM

I'm also not suggesting any need for guilt and self flagellation. I think we should understand the past and how it continues to influence the present. People often self identify with a version of the past that isn't real, or is missing a lot, and when you point that out, they think historians want them to feel guilty. I don't need anyone to feel guilty or to think that the US is some  uniquely awful country, I just want people to have a better understanding of actual history and not act like we all just woke up in 1990 with the world the way it currently is.

I fully agree with this.  However, the tone of so much commentary on racial matters gives the definite impression that guilt and self flagellation and a generally abject attitude are what is being demanded of whites who want to be considered acceptable citizens and allies.  Attitudes like that are not helpful.  They alienate some who might otherwise be prepared to listen.  This is why a lot of the more radical stuff we hear about defunding the police and such concerns me.  We've got an unprecedented level of support at this point for needed police reform.  Radical overreach could damage that support.

A good example of this is the difference between "black lives matter"- the idea and "Black Lives Matter" -the political organization. All of the population who aren't white supremacists (probably 99% of the population) agree with the idea  but reject many of the positions of the political organization. (One of those ideas is the defunding of police.) This is illustrated by people saying "all lives matter". Since "all" includes black people, then it absolutely supports the idea, while implicitly rejecting support for the political organization.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 08:24:52 AM

Quote from: apl68 on July 21, 2020, 07:48:58 AM

Quote from: Caracal on July 21, 2020, 05:26:18 AM

I'm also not suggesting any need for guilt and self flagellation. I think we should understand the past and how it continues to influence the present. People often self identify with a version of the past that isn't real, or is missing a lot, and when you point that out, they think historians want them to feel guilty. I don't need anyone to feel guilty or to think that the US is some  uniquely awful country, I just want people to have a better understanding of actual history and not act like we all just woke up in 1990 with the world the way it currently is.

I fully agree with this.  However, the tone of so much commentary on racial matters gives the definite impression that guilt and self flagellation and a generally abject attitude are what is being demanded of whites who want to be considered acceptable citizens and allies.  Attitudes like that are not helpful.  They alienate some who might otherwise be prepared to listen.  This is why a lot of the more radical stuff we hear about defunding the police and such concerns me.  We've got an unprecedented level of support at this point for needed police reform.  Radical overreach could damage that support.

A good example of this is the difference between "black lives matter"- the idea and "Black Lives Matter" -the political organization. All of the population who aren't white supremacists (probably 99% of the population) agree with the idea  but reject many of the positions of the political organization. (One of those ideas is the defunding of police.) This is illustrated by people saying "all lives matter". Since "all" includes black people, then it absolutely supports the idea, while implicitly rejecting support for the political organization.

This is definitely a major problem--the growing assertion that one can't be a true supporter of one thing unless one signs on to a particular political program that one might have reservations about.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 08:24:52 AM

A good example of this is the difference between "black lives matter"- the idea and "Black Lives Matter" -the political organization. All of the population who aren't white supremacists (probably 99% of the population) agree with the idea  but reject many of the positions of the political organization. (One of those ideas is the defunding of police.) This is illustrated by people saying "all lives matter". Since "all" includes black people, then it absolutely supports the idea, while implicitly rejecting support for the political organization.

If I say 'Save the whales!', I'm not saying 'Save only the whales and let everything else in the ocean die'. I'm expressing particular concern for a particular segment of marine life, and advocating for solutions which will help it and other marine life too. If I say 'save the whales!' and you respond with 'save all marine life', while the content of your utterance is unobjectionable, its function in context is to deny that there's anything special to worry about with respect to whales.

The same is true of the Black/all lives matter talk. When people are protesting in the streets and saying 'Black lives matter', they're responding to particular events which indicate the extent to which Black lives don't matter. They're responding to events in which police murder Black people for no good reason. That's not to deny that white and Indigenous and Latinx people are also murdered by the police; it's just to express concern about the disproportionate rate at which Black people experience this kind of violence. The solution everyone is calling for is less police brutality in general, and a recognition of the particular harms visited upon Black and minority communities. Those are solutions which will benefit everyone who interacts with the police. When you respond to that by saying 'all lives matter', although the content of your utterance is unobjectionable, its function in context is to deny that there's a particular problem. It's a distraction, an attempt to shift the conversation in another direction. 'Black lives matter' is a call for equality of treatment; 'all lives matter' is a hollow, pedantic correction.

In other words, if we want to plug 'all lives matter', we need to start by showing that it's true. And that means taking particular care where some lives are disproportionately affected. If it's sincerely meant, then great: when I look at the people saying it, I should be looking at people who are actively trying to change law enforcement culture, prosecute police brutality, etc. But that's not what I see when I look at that crowd. I see widespread misunderstanding and mischaracterization, and I see too many white supremacists for comfort. It's fine if you mean well, but then show it. And maybe take a moment to worry about your well-meaning message of solidarity being hijacked by the ghost costume brigade.

The evidence from the world around me, right now, indicates that it's simply not true that all lives matter. Some lives clearly matter more than others.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 21, 2020, 09:12:22 AM

The evidence from the world around me, right now, indicates that it's simply not true that all lives matter. Some lives clearly matter more than others.

Specifically, black lives taken by white people matter much more than black lives taken by other black people.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 09:24:14 AM


Specifically, black lives taken by white people matter much more than black lives taken by other black people.

It's a call for an end to police brutality, not white police brutality.


The deflection to 'Black-on-Black' crime is a red herring. Tellingly, I don't remember anyone going around on September 12, 2001 saying "but what about white-on-white crime?!", even though it's true that white people are most often killed by other white people.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 21, 2020, 09:12:22 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 08:24:52 AM

A good example of this is the difference between "black lives matter"- the idea and "Black Lives Matter" -the political organization. All of the population who aren't white supremacists (probably 99% of the population) agree with the idea  but reject many of the positions of the political organization. (One of those ideas is the defunding of police.) This is illustrated by people saying "all lives matter". Since "all" includes black people, then it absolutely supports the idea, while implicitly rejecting support for the political organization.

If I say 'Save the whales!', I'm not saying 'Save only the whales and let everything else in the ocean die'. I'm expressing particular concern for a particular segment of marine life, and advocating for solutions which will help it and other marine life too. If I say 'save the whales!' and you respond with 'save all marine life', while the content of your utterance is unobjectionable, its function in context is to deny that there's anything special to worry about with respect to whales.

The same is true of the Black/all lives matter talk. When people are protesting in the streets and saying 'Black lives matter', they're responding to particular events which indicate the extent to which Black lives don't matter. They're responding to events in which police murder Black people for no good reason. That's not to deny that white and Indigenous and Latinx people are also murdered by the police; it's just to express concern about the disproportionate rate at which Black people experience this kind of violence. The solution everyone is calling for is less police brutality in general, and a recognition of the particular harms visited upon Black and minority communities. Those are solutions which will benefit everyone who interacts with the police. When you respond to that by saying 'all lives matter', although the content of your utterance is unobjectionable, its function in context is to deny that there's a particular problem. It's a distraction, an attempt to shift the conversation in another direction. 'Black lives matter' is a call for equality of treatment; 'all lives matter' is a hollow, pedantic correction.

In other words, if we want to plug 'all lives matter', we need to start by showing that it's true. And that means taking particular care where some lives are disproportionately affected. If it's sincerely meant, then great: when I look at the people saying it, I should be looking at people who are actively trying to change law enforcement culture, prosecute police brutality, etc. But that's not what I see when I look at that crowd. I see widespread misunderstanding and mischaracterization, and I see too many white supremacists for comfort. It's fine if you mean well, but then show it. And maybe take a moment to worry about your well-meaning message of solidarity being hijacked by the ghost costume brigade.

The evidence from the world around me, right now, indicates that it's simply not true that all lives matter. Some lives clearly matter more than others.

Yes, this, this, this, 1,000 times this. But as clear as Parasaurolophus has made this point, it's just not going to land with everyone.

As for systemic racism and individuals, it's also worth noting the way people casually expressed themselves not all that long ago. Looking at popular plays and entertainment from the 1920s, for example, you'll come across variations on treating somebody "white," being white, or "say, that's white of you!" A great deal of people, with no particular malice, accepted and used that way of expression to mean treating somebody with respect or being the best kind of person one could be. In the play "They Knew What They Wanted," (which formed the basis of the later 1950s musical "The Most Happy Fella") the heroine toward the end says of her much older Italian husband something along the lines of, "Poor Tony! He's a white guy if he is a wop." And that connects us to the myriad racial and ethnic slurs of the period, all having to do with not being white, but instead being a wop, sheeny, paddy, and so on. The book "How the Irish Became White" by Noel Ignatiev has some great information on how the Irish (and other groups) gradually climbed a "ladder of whiteness" to gain acceptance--and one way to do that was to gang up on black folks.

The point, or at least one point, is that in 2020, most people would now object to what was once considered a pretty normal, everyday way of speaking. So people agree to systemic racism, put it in place, and eventually absorb it without too much thought--but it's also possible to raise awareness and say, "Hm, maybe 'mighty white of you' is NOT the best way to express my complimentary intentions in this case..." That requires a bit of soul-searching and yes, discomfort.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 21, 2020, 09:46:46 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 09:24:14 AM


Specifically, black lives taken by white people matter much more than black lives taken by other black people.

It's a call for an end to police brutality, not white police brutality.

The Washington Post has a searchable database (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/)

From 2019:
The number of shootings of unarmed people by police: 55
The number of shootings of black unarmed people by police: 14 (25%)
The number of shootings of white unarmed people by police: 25 (45%)
The number of shootings of Hispanic unarmed people by police: 11 (20%)
The number of shootings of other unarmed people by police: 5 (9%)

Of those people, 11 had some sort of mental illness.

Of the black people shot, 3 were fleeing by car.
Of the black people shot, 5 were fleeing on foot.

You can go on and on; it's pretty cool to be able to apply filters, and the associated stories show up at the bottom of the page. (The database doesn't have filters for characteristics of the police officers, and the stories often don't contain details either.)


At any rate, if the issue is "police brutality, not white police brutality", then there should be roughly twice as much focus on white unarmed people being shot by police as on black unarmed people shot by police.

Quote
The deflection to 'Black-on-Black' crime is a red herring. Tellingly, I don't remember anyone going around on September 12, 2001 saying "but what about white-on-white crime?!", even though it's true that white people are most often killed by other white people.

It's not deflection; it's pointing out that coverage is not proportional to data; there are certain narratives that get much more coverage for ideological reasons.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 21, 2020, 09:46:46 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 09:24:14 AM


Specifically, black lives taken by white people matter much more than black lives taken by other black people.

It's a call for an end to police brutality, not white police brutality.


The deflection to 'Black-on-Black' crime is a red herring. Tellingly, I don't remember anyone going around on September 12, 2001 saying "but what about white-on-white crime?!", even though it's true that white people are most often killed by other white people.

I can't believe I'm reading something as stupid as this.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 11:24:04 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 21, 2020, 09:46:46 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 09:24:14 AM


Specifically, black lives taken by white people matter much more than black lives taken by other black people.

It's a call for an end to police brutality, not white police brutality.

The Washington Post has a searchable database (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/)

From 2019:
The number of shootings of unarmed people by police: 55
The number of shootings of black unarmed people by police: 14 (25%)
The number of shootings of white unarmed people by police: 25 (45%)
The number of shootings of Hispanic unarmed people by police: 11 (20%)
The number of shootings of other unarmed people by police: 5 (9%)

Of those people, 11 had some sort of mental illness.

Of the black people shot, 3 were fleeing by car.
Of the black people shot, 5 were fleeing on foot.

You can go on and on; it's pretty cool to be able to apply filters, and the associated stories show up at the bottom of the page. (The database doesn't have filters for characteristics of the police officers, and the stories often don't contain details either.)


At any rate, if the issue is "police brutality, not white police brutality", then there should be roughly twice as much focus on white unarmed people being shot by police as on black unarmed people shot by police.

Quote
The deflection to 'Black-on-Black' crime is a red herring. Tellingly, I don't remember anyone going around on September 12, 2001 saying "but what about white-on-white crime?!", even though it's true that white people are most often killed by other white people.

It's not deflection; it's pointing out that coverage is not proportional to data; there are certain narratives that get much more coverage for ideological reasons.

Well, lies, damned lies, and statistics, as the saying goes. (Fun fact: the saying most likely did not originate with either Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli.) If we're just counting numbers, we're missing a lot of perspective with regard to proportion. But I think there's a bigger issue. Let's say you've gone through this database very carefully and found all the numbers you need to find to say, "Aha! These acts of protest are not supported by data!" So... why? What exactly did that accomplish? Have you made institutional racism disappear in a puff of logic? And why is it so important for you, or anybody, to do so? What's at stake for you? Why not just say, "These people should not have been killed. Let's find a solution." Are you bothered by some young "wokester" and their lecturing tone? It seems to me I've been reminded by a number of Scut Farkases* and Grover Dills* on these fora that the tone shouldn't matter if the substance is important. So in other words, yeah, this is most definitely a deflection. And again, the question arises--why?

*the chief antagonists from "A Christmas Story." I could also just stick with "rudesbies" and "mockingbird-killers."

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 11:24:04 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 21, 2020, 09:46:46 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 09:24:14 AM


Specifically, black lives taken by white people matter much more than black lives taken by other black people.

It's a call for an end to police brutality, not white police brutality.

The Washington Post has a searchable database (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/)

From 2019:
The number of shootings of unarmed people by police: 55
The number of shootings of black unarmed people by police: 14 (25%)
The number of shootings of white unarmed people by police: 25 (45%)
The number of shootings of Hispanic unarmed people by police: 11 (20%)
The number of shootings of other unarmed people by police: 5 (9%)

Of those people, 11 had some sort of mental illness.

Of the black people shot, 3 were fleeing by car.
Of the black people shot, 5 were fleeing on foot.

You can go on and on; it's pretty cool to be able to apply filters, and the associated stories show up at the bottom of the page. (The database doesn't have filters for characteristics of the police officers, and the stories often don't contain details either.)


At any rate, if the issue is "police brutality, not white police brutality", then there should be roughly twice as much focus on white unarmed people being shot by police as on black unarmed people shot by police.

Quote
The deflection to 'Black-on-Black' crime is a red herring. Tellingly, I don't remember anyone going around on September 12, 2001 saying "but what about white-on-white crime?!", even though it's true that white people are most often killed by other white people.

It's not deflection; it's pointing out that coverage is not proportional to data; there are certain narratives that get much more coverage for ideological reasons.

The statistics on shootings you cite are worth bearing in mind for proportion's sake, not least because to hear some tell it police officers are gunning down people in the streets by the hundreds.  The thing is, though, the shootings are only the sparks that set off the powder kegs.  What has filled up the powder kegs is a long-term pattern of aggressive policing in black communities in many cities.  For example, the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri came on top of years of heavy-handed enforcement that aimed at maximizing revenue from fines for misdemeanor offenses.  The members of the black community there had legitimate grievances.  Rioting is always wrong, but communities don't riot for no reason.

Quite a few other cities have similar problems even now with police forces that have spent years burning their bridges with the local black community.  So far as I'm aware, there aren't any white communities in the U.S. that feel a similar sense of large-scale alienation from the local police force.  If a white person gets shot by the police, local white residents--except maybe for the shooting victim's close friends and family--are inclined to give the police the benefit of the doubt.  A disturbingly high number of black Americans don't feel that the police have earned that benefit of the doubt from them.

That's why police reform to rebuild relations with black communities is such an urgent need.  These reform efforts don't need to be hijacked or derailed by groups pushing more radical agendas.  Not long ago I noticed an article in the New York Times that observed that many rank-and-file black protestors do NOT want to see the police de-funded.  They're well aware that their communities still need serious policing.  But they want major changes in how it is done.  A lot of the calls to de-fund, or even disband, police departments come from outside the communities that are most directly impacted by police brutality.

Quote from: apl68 on July 21, 2020, 01:24:56 PM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 11:24:04 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 21, 2020, 09:46:46 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 09:24:14 AM


Specifically, black lives taken by white people matter much more than black lives taken by other black people.

It's a call for an end to police brutality, not white police brutality.

The Washington Post has a searchable database (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/)

From 2019:
The number of shootings of unarmed people by police: 55
The number of shootings of black unarmed people by police: 14 (25%)
The number of shootings of white unarmed people by police: 25 (45%)
The number of shootings of Hispanic unarmed people by police: 11 (20%)
The number of shootings of other unarmed people by police: 5 (9%)

Of those people, 11 had some sort of mental illness.

Of the black people shot, 3 were fleeing by car.
Of the black people shot, 5 were fleeing on foot.

You can go on and on; it's pretty cool to be able to apply filters, and the associated stories show up at the bottom of the page. (The database doesn't have filters for characteristics of the police officers, and the stories often don't contain details either.)


At any rate, if the issue is "police brutality, not white police brutality", then there should be roughly twice as much focus on white unarmed people being shot by police as on black unarmed people shot by police.

Quote
The deflection to 'Black-on-Black' crime is a red herring. Tellingly, I don't remember anyone going around on September 12, 2001 saying "but what about white-on-white crime?!", even though it's true that white people are most often killed by other white people.

It's not deflection; it's pointing out that coverage is not proportional to data; there are certain narratives that get much more coverage for ideological reasons.

The statistics on shootings you cite are worth bearing in mind for proportion's sake, not least because to hear some tell it police officers are gunning down people in the streets by the hundreds.  The thing is, though, the shootings are only the sparks that set off the powder kegs.  What has filled up the powder kegs is a long-term pattern of aggressive policing in black communities in many cities.  For example, the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri came on top of years of heavy-handed enforcement that aimed at maximizing revenue from fines for misdemeanor offenses.  The members of the black community there had legitimate grievances.  Rioting is always wrong, but communities don't riot for no reason.

That's the kind of nuanced statement I have no objection to.

Quote
Quite a few other cities have similar problems even now with police forces that have spent years burning their bridges with the local black community.  So far as I'm aware, there aren't any white communities in the U.S. that feel a similar sense of large-scale alienation from the local police force.  If a white person gets shot by the police, local white residents--except maybe for the shooting victim's close friends and family--are inclined to give the police the benefit of the doubt.  A disturbingly high number of black Americans don't feel that the police have earned that benefit of the doubt from them.

Regarding white communities; there seems to be increasing unrest when police are called in to deal with someone with mental health issues. An argument is often made that police shouldn't be the ones dealing with this. It's true that mental health professionals or social workers would have more appropriate training, but often police are called by family members, because the person is unstable. As long as there is a risk of violence, it's unlikely other professionals are going to risk going in alone, but even if police accompany them, the police will be blamed if anything goes badly.

Quote
That's why police reform to rebuild relations with black communities is such an urgent need.  These reform efforts don't need to be hijacked or derailed by groups pushing more radical agendas. 

Recently many of these efforts to get police involved in positive ways in struggling communities have been criticized by BLM and their supporters. In Toronto, a couple of years back, BLM shut down the Pride parade and demanded that police be forbidden from participating.

Quote

Not long ago I noticed an article in the New York Times that observed that many rank-and-file black protestors do NOT want to see the police de-funded.  They're well aware that their communities still need serious policing.  But they want major changes in how it is done.  A lot of the calls to de-fund, or even disband, police departments come from outside the communities that are most directly impacted by police brutality.

i.e. from self-righteous white people.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 21, 2020, 11:24:04 AM

At any rate, if the issue is "police brutality, not white police brutality", then there should be roughly twice as much focus on white unarmed people being shot by police as on black unarmed people shot by police.

Do the statistics show that white people are twice as brutalized as Black people are? Because it doesn't look to me like that's how the numbers shake out.

It also looks like now we're bringing in media coverage and community organizing. I don't know why white people don't care more about police brutality, but they should. But the fact that they're not as mobilized to protest against excessive violence does not imply that there's no problem with institutionalized violence against Black people, or that it should not be addressed.

Quote from: mahagonny on July 21, 2020, 12:02:08 PM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 21, 2020, 09:46:46 AM

The deflection to 'Black-on-Black' crime is a red herring. Tellingly, I don't remember anyone going around on September 12, 2001 saying "but what about white-on-white crime?!", even though it's true that white people are most often killed by other white people.

I can't believe I'm reading something as stupid as this.

You're right, it would have been a stupid response. And transparently so, since it's clearly irrelevant. It shouldn't be hard to see that when people are protesting police brutality and, in particular, the way that their communities are singled out for brutality, talking about "Black-on-Black" crime is just as stupid and irrelevant.

Quote from: apl68 on July 21, 2020, 07:48:58 AM

I fully agree with this.  However, the tone of so much commentary on racial matters gives the definite impression that guilt and self flagellation and a generally abject attitude are what is being demanded of whites who want to be considered acceptable citizens and allies.  Attitudes like that are not helpful. 

Well, and some people are willing participants. Some whites are having a blast with the guilt and self-flagellation, without much clear thought going into it, so in that case, I guess my attitude is 'let them.' In our free country one has the right to follow the herd or to be silly of his own accord.
But, worthy of comment, these requirements cross into anti-intellectualism. Too often guilt and self flagellation also include the requirement that white people must not have any judgmental attitudes (do any thinking) about black people's behavior. Where would we be if we couldn't judge our own behavior? How would we be helping raise our children or our neighbor's by being that way?
The demand is, you can't analyze; you can't think, unless your thought culminates with the apologetic not-daring-to-keep-silent-not-daring-to-observe-anything-that-doesn't-fit-the-narrative-of-how-humans-of-color -find-setbacks... or even self-construct them. We have to wait for the occasional, resolutely out-of-fashion black writer to do it. And so, again, I show you John McWhorter. It's not a new piece, and sadly, was never listened to enough. Maybe that will change if people are finding out who he is.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-hip-hop-holds-blacks-back-12442.html

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 21, 2020, 01:48:40 PM

Quote from: mahagonny on July 21, 2020, 12:02:08 PM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 21, 2020, 09:46:46 AM

The deflection to 'Black-on-Black' crime is a red herring. Tellingly, I don't remember anyone going around on September 12, 2001 saying "but what about white-on-white crime?!", even though it's true that white people are most often killed by other white people.

I can't believe I'm reading something as stupid as this.

You're right, it would have been a stupid response. And transparently so, since it's clearly irrelevant. It shouldn't be hard to see that when people are protesting police brutality and, in particular, the way that their communities are singled out for brutality, talking about "Black-on-Black" crime is just as stupid and irrelevant.

Let's say we know they are 'singled out' for brutality. When  police are required to work in a neighborhood with lots of crime, it seems reasonable that they would experience more stress, fear, and perhaps make more mistakes.

So would the residents, but they never get a pass. Only the cops get away with assault, battery, and murder. The problem is not just that cops do it, but that they do it with impunity. Even when hundreds of thousands of people protest, it's incredibly hard to hold them to account.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 22, 2020, 06:50:18 AM
So would the residents, but they never get a pass. Only the cops get away with assault, battery, and murder.

As I quoted above, there were a total of 55 shootings of unarmed people by the police in 2019, and only 14 of those were black people.  There were 25 white peole shot.

Quote
The problem is not just that cops do it, but that they do it with impunity. Even when hundreds of thousands of people protest, it's incredibly hard to hold them to account.

With impunity? Really???? Pretty much every time an unarmed black person gets shot by police it makes national (and often international) news. Shootings of unarmed white people by police may not get beyond the local newspaper.


That kind of hyperbole makes it hard to have a meaningful discussion. (As I've said, I'm all for things like bodycams and dashcams to make these things easier to investigate.)

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 22, 2020, 07:19:54 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 22, 2020, 06:50:18 AM
So would the residents, but they never get a pass. Only the cops get away with assault, battery, and murder.

As I quoted above, there were a total of 55 shootings of unarmed people by the police in 2019, and only 14 of those were black people.  There were 25 white peole shot.

Quote
The problem is not just that cops do it, but that they do it with impunity. Even when hundreds of thousands of people protest, it's incredibly hard to hold them to account.

With impunity? Really???? Pretty much every time an unarmed black person gets shot by police it makes national (and often international) news. Shootings of unarmed white people by police may not get beyond the local newspaper.


That kind of hyperbole makes it hard to have a meaningful discussion. (As I've said, I'm all for things like bodycams and dashcams to make these things easier to investigate.)

Quote from: ergative on June 28, 2020, 07:24:52 AM
Well, Brett Hankison, John Mattingly, and Myles Cosgrove still haven't been charged with anything. (https://www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html) And Eddie Gallagher was pardoned (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/eddie-gallagher-trump-navy-seal-iraq). And no charges were ever brought against Daniel Pantaleo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Eric_Garner).  I don't really think my statement was hyperbolic.

I agree that as an academic, it's on us to "examine issues deeply and consider all of the nuances to arrive at a rational, if necessarily complex interpretation." But 'How dare you be so hyperbolic! Just for that I'm out of here!' doesn't sound like that.

If you don't want to engage I can't make you. But I'll never approve of it, and I'm not going to accept any responsibility for 'look what you made me do'.

I feel like these conversations are going in circles.

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 22, 2020, 07:19:54 AM

As I quoted above, there were a total of 55 shootings of unarmed people by the police in 2019, and only 14 of those were black people.  There were 25 white peole shot.

How many of those were justified? How many of those which weren't resulted in charges? How many of those charged resulted in a conviction? If people are asking for accountability, the number of unarmed shootings isn't the number that's relevant. And, as before, you seem to be suggesting (1) that white people are twice as likely as Black people to be shot by police, and (2) that because of (1), the issues raised by protesters are somehow misguided. But (1) is just bad maths, and (2) is a weird straw man, if not a whole red herring.

Also remember two things: (1) that database is incomplete (it's based on news headlines, but even other, more rigorous databases are acknowledged to be substantially incomplete), and (2) it's a tally of police shootings. It doesn't count deaths in custody as a result of choke-holds, kneeling on someone's neck, battery, tasering, vehicle use, or other suspicious deaths in custody. It doesn't count deaths due to "excited delirium", which isn't a thing but which is still used to exculpate police.

A better tool is https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/states, since it counts most of these other causes of death, not just shootings. There, I count 108 unarmed deaths by police for 2019, 26 of them Black people. That's pretty high for 13% of the country. You can also see the rate of police killings per 1 000 000 people.

Quote
With impunity? Really???? Pretty much every time an unarmed black person gets shot by police it makes national (and often international) news. Shootings of unarmed white people by police may not get beyond the local newspaper.

"Impunity" means "without punishment or adverse consequences". If it takes national-level protests to hold someone accountable for their actions, then your system of accountability doesn't work very well. Officers who violate regulations or commit crimes should be disciplined or charged as a matter of course, as any other citizen would be. But they aren't.

Also, it's simply not true that every unarmed Black person who's shot makes the headlines. They sometimes do, and when we're in a period of protests, as we currently are, more do because we're paying more attention. But months and years can easily go by, and headlines aren't the same as investigations, charging, prosecuting, etc. Headlines =/= accountability.

Quote from: ergative on June 28, 2020, 07:24:52 AM

Quote
Well, Brett Hankison, John Mattingly, and Myles Cosgrove still haven't been charged with anything. (https://www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html) And Eddie Gallagher was pardoned (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/eddie-gallagher-trump-navy-seal-iraq). And no charges were ever brought against Daniel Pantaleo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Eric_Garner).  I don't really think my statement was hyperbolic.

I agree that as an academic, it's on us to "examine issues deeply and consider all of the nuances to arrive at a rational, if necessarily complex interpretation." But 'How dare you be so hyperbolic! Just for that I'm out of here!' doesn't sound like that.

If you don't want to engage I can't make you. But I'll never approve of it, and I'm not going to accept any responsibility for 'look what you made me do'.

I feel like these conversations are going in circles.

Yeah, really.

Quote from: ergative on July 22, 2020, 07:40:36 AM
I feel like these conversations are going in circles.

That seems a generous interpretation.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 22, 2020, 08:12:17 AM

A better tool is https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/states, since it counts most of these other causes of death, not just shootings. There, I count 108 unarmed deaths by police for 2019, 26 of them Black people. That's pretty high for 13% of the country. You can also see the rate of police killings per 1 000 000 people.

That's an interesting database. I was interested to see in the secriptions of the "unarmed" cases, how frequently the person was in possesion of a replica weapon. Unless police are psychic, it's no surpise if the response is the same as it would be to a "real" gun.

As far as the rate of 26/108 for 13% of the population, correcting for income and/or employment status would probably reduce the disparity. (Higher rates of poverty and unemployment in black communities is a societal problem, but not specifically a police problem. In other words, changes to policing will not by itself change the employment rate or income in those communities.)

Quote

Quote
With impunity? Really???? Pretty much every time an unarmed black person gets shot by police it makes national (and often international) news. Shootings of unarmed white people by police may not get beyond the local newspaper.

"Impunity" means "without punishment or adverse consequences". If it takes national-level protests to hold someone accountable for their actions, then your system of accountability doesn't work very well. Officers who violate regulations or commit crimes should be disciplined or charged as a matter of course, as any other citizen would be. But they aren't.

Since police (like the military) are called on by society to enter dangerous situations that ordinary people are unwilling to face, there has to be a higher bar for the level of force that counts as "criminal" than for regular people. That doesn't mean they can do what they want, but it does mean that investigations need to be thourough since their actions will necessarily entail behaviour that would not be acceptable by ordinary citizens.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on July 20, 2020, 09:41:57 PM

Quote from: financeguy on July 20, 2020, 04:54:08 PM
Caracal, I'm not sure I agree with the degree of emphasis you place on race and slavery. Thomas Sowell has noted that people have enslaved one another since before we were able to read and write as a species. The term in English comes from the Slavic origin, long predating the involvement of Americans in the African trade. There are many areas of the world right now in which you can still see the existence of slavery, without even including sweat shops which might also be included in a modern definition.

This is one of the other "naturals" I'll put in the operating system of the human being. People have an innate desire to control one another and a willingness and capacity to do so with violence, exacerbated by the desire to do so for profit. This does not make it a positive, but it does mean the absence of this activity in a geographic region is what needs an explanation, not its presence. If we looked at Slavery historically in this way, including the trade in the Muslim world in hundreds of years before the existence of the United States as a country, we'd have to see it as a common yet undesirable historical feature of many people, not a historical outlier confined to whites. I've actually heard whites referred to as "inventors" of slavery, which goes to show the absolute lack of factual context many come to the issue with.

Caracal is talking about race-based slavery, which is of recent origin.

How about abolition of slavery? I'm not a historian, but it appears from what I've been able to read that Caucasian dominated nations were closer to the beginning of that timeline.
And something I honestly don't get: what is the horror if someone says he is proud that he is white? I don't need to say it, particularly, although many of my heroes are white, but many are black too, and always race might be an interesting part of the story and why they're admired, but often only peripherally or not at all. Obviously "White Pride' has been associated with Aryan Nation, et al, weird, anti-social people with scary plans. But normally guilt by association is considered a sign of ignorance. Except here. I can say, however, that I am proud to be part of a 'Rainbow Coalition' which includes all colors. Weird.

QuoteQuote from: ergative on Today at 07:40:36 AM
I feel like these conversations are going in circles.

That seems a generous interpretation.

White people are being asked to change and the burden belongs with those making the demand to show why.