'Admit You're Uncomfortable Around Black People' and other nonsense

[mahagonny]

The focus of the discussion is pointless. Obsession with your own personal feelings is mostly a way to avoid confronting the bigger questions and thinking about institutions and histories. The question of Mahoganny's dating preferences or lack thereof is only of interest to people who would like to date him. Mamselle's feelings of discomfort don't really matter unless they are being expressed in some tangible and consequential way.

When I started the thread I wasn't expecting to be prompted to talk about my specific relationships with black friends and lovers. I simply said this article has a lot of accusing  of white people for being white; for example, that we are uncomfortable around black people. I was hoping to be taken at my word. Mamselle for example shows I was wrong, but she's probably only one of many in our culture. It's getting personal. It's rude to attribute sentiments to people that they don't express. Being white shouldn't give you the right to make this confession on behalf of your race. The idea is the white person has to confess to harboring anti-black feelings that he tries to deny, in order to get a welcome into the club of 'people who are part of the solution, not part of the problem.' It's a humiliating exercise to the white person, ignores other races (did we notice that one of the the four policeman is Asian, and with a long list of complaints about his violent treatment of suspects in custody?), and it doesn't even help the white person move forward in the event he is less comfortable in the company of black people. It's a lot of negativity. And the pressure to do the 'I'm a reactionary, square, idiot, white guy who needs to purge himself of bigotry' confessional and then tiptoe around these discussions (but don't you dare keep quiet and listen either -- silence is violence) is widespread, decades old. Personally, it strikes me as hopelessly corny. So, yeah, I guess it is a bit of a rant against people who are asking for it.
Next time you're in a room full of black people, try saying 'excuse me: one little thing. I know you're uncomfortable right now because there's a white person present, and I'm open to helping you work on it.' I think they will think you are a real boob. I would. I wish there were some factoring in of the Golden Rule and common courtesy meaning what they traditionally have.

[Caracal]

[

Who are these "people." You're creating a fantasy world in which there are all these racist attacks against white people going unpunished.

How many does it take to count? Does Treehugger's story above "count"? Or is it just an insignificant random event?

Why isn't violence against anyone on the basis of the colour of their skin problematic?

Again, exactly who is supporting violent attacks on white people because of their race? I can't find the post you're referring to, but you're arguing in non-sequiturs. People are pointing out that there is a pattern of violence and oppression towards black people and your response is "well, sometimes white people are attacked because of their race, shouldn't we care about that? Isn't that just as important?" It would be like if I came running into your office and breathlessly told you that the contractors working on the building next door had just accidentally put a wrecking ball through my office wall and your response was "I heard that last week a car ran into a house. Isn't all destruction of property  problematic?" Sure, I guess so, but your focus at this moment seems off, since there is a big hole in my office wall and the building might be about to fall down.

[Wahoo Redux]

The focus of the discussion is pointless. Obsession with your own personal feelings is mostly a way to avoid confronting the bigger questions and thinking about institutions and histories.

That's where these discussions of reverse racism get so absurd.

I don't think I agree with you there, Caracal.

Firstly, the sort of rhetoric Glanton uses does nothing but alienate people.  Just look at what's happen to this very thread.

Secondly, I'm sorry, but I can believe in the existence of "reverse racism." 

Thirdly, what "big issues" is anyone avoiding?  Like literally everyone on this thread, I am horrified by the death of Floyd, disgusted by the people who would dehumanize him, and angry that we still have to deal with this in 2020.  No one is avoiding "the bigger questions and thinking about institutions and histories."

What issues am I supposed to discuss that I am not? 

Am I supposed to remove any personal feelings? 

We have a terrible racist past that has extended its tendrils into our present.  To an extent, police have institutionalized this---nevertheless, we still must take in the hard facts of race and policing, which does not always support the most extreme conclusions. 

None of that is changed on my "personal feelings" that Glanton's piece was bad journalism and only served to attack the people who care (does anyone think the Nazis on Storm Front are going to change their minds after reading that?).

I read about halfway though the online "White Fragility," wondering the whole time if that was part of her PhD dissertation, before giving up.  Perhaps I should have read to the end but I saw no point.  That is an accusatory polemic, a well controlled screed really, built for the rage machine. 

Mill's "racial contract" points out that the founding socioeconomic/cultural philosophers of the past were racists.  Is that surprising?  It reminds me a bit of the reaction to this piece:

Is Mary Poppins Racist?

I remember the scene the professor is writing about from when I was a little.  I didn't know why the guy dressed like an admiral was shooting fireworks at the chimney sweeps, I did not know what a "Hottentot" was or why the admiral fella yelled it, I just thought the whole sequence was really funny.

Look, if we go back in time by any duration we will find deep racism and sexism.  We just will.  It's not a mystery.  We will find racism or a version thereof if we look at any culture in the history of the planet.  If we look around in any direction today we will find a whole series of bigotries alive and well.  I know this, you know this, Glanton knows this----what's the point in accusing the choir of ignoring it?

If you can figure out a way to eliminate bigotry, sign me up.

[Caracal]

The focus of the discussion is pointless. Obsession with your own personal feelings is mostly a way to avoid confronting the bigger questions and thinking about institutions and histories.

That's where these discussions of reverse racism get so absurd.

I don't think I agree with you there, Caracal.

Firstly, the sort of rhetoric Glanton uses does nothing but alienate people.  Just look at what's happen to this very thread.

Secondly, I'm sorry, but I can believe in the existence of "reverse racism." 

Thirdly, what "big issues" is anyone avoiding?  Like literally everyone on this thread, I am horrified by the death of Floyd, disgusted by the people who would dehumanize him, and angry that we still have to deal with this in 2020.  No one is avoiding "the bigger questions and thinking about institutions and histories."

What issues am I supposed to discuss that I am not? 

Am I supposed to remove any personal feelings? 

We have a terrible racist past that has extended its tendrils into our present.  To an extent, police have institutionalized this---nevertheless, we still must take in the hard facts of race and policing, which does not always support the most extreme conclusions. 

None of that is changed on my "personal feelings" that Glanton's piece was bad journalism and only served to attack the people who care (does anyone think the Nazis on Storm Front are going to change their minds after reading that?).

I read about halfway though the online "White Fragility," wondering the whole time if that was part of her PhD dissertation, before giving up.  Perhaps I should have read to the end but I saw no point.  That is an accusatory polemic, a well controlled screed really, built for the rage machine. 

Mill's "racial contract" points out that the founding socioeconomic/cultural philosophers of the past were racists.  Is that surprising?  It reminds me a bit of the reaction to this piece:

Is Mary Poppins Racist?

I remember the scene the professor is writing about from when I was a little.  I didn't know why the guy dressed like an admiral was shooting fireworks at the chimney sweeps, I did not know what a "Hottentot" was or why the admiral fella yelled it, I just thought the whole sequence was really funny.

Look, if we go back in time by any duration we will find deep racism and sexism.  We just will.  It's not a mystery.  We will find racism or a version thereof if we look at any culture in the history of the planet.  If we look around in any direction today we will find a whole series of bigotries alive and well.  I know this, you know this, Glanton knows this----what's the point in accusing the choir of ignoring it?

If you can figure out a way to eliminate bigotry, sign me up.

James Baldwin wrote about "white innocence" and I think it is a better phrase than fragility. He didn't mean it in a good way. For Baldwin white innocence was a failure to see the world as it was that kept many white Americans from fully realizing their humanity. Innocence was the belief that somehow things were fine. It is a seductive idea for those of us who can access it. I also find it helps me get away from these sorts of questions that focus on my own personal deep dark feelings about race. The danger is not that I have buried racist feelings inside me, but that I want to think that, at base, everything is fine and I can just shake my head and wonder what everyone is getting so up in arms about.

[marshwiggle]

James Baldwin wrote about "white innocence" and I think it is a better phrase than fragility. He didn't mean it in a good way. For Baldwin white innocence was a failure to see the world as it was that kept many white Americans from fully realizing their humanity. Innocence was the belief that somehow things were fine. It is a seductive idea for those of us who can access it. I also find it helps me get away from these sorts of questions that focus on my own personal deep dark feelings about race. The danger is not that I have buried racist feelings inside me, but that I want to think that, at base, everything is fine and I can just shake my head and wonder what everyone is getting so up in arms about.

If white people can underestimate how bad things are, then presumably other people can overestimate how bad things are. What objective process do you propose that can be used, independent of the person using it, so that everyone can determine accurately how bad things are, so that improvements can be made towards an objectively-determined standard?

[Wahoo Redux]

So 57 years ago, before I was born, in a time much different from today, Baldwin penned an essay about why we white Americans ignore the reality of racism in our country.

You know that the streets have literally swollen with whites condemning of the treatment of African Americans, right?

But okay, what am I, Wahoo Redux, supposed to do?

[Stockmann]

Along with Charles W. Mills' The Racial Contract, this article by Robin DiAngelo might give you some perspective on the author's intentions.

https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116

I take this quote regarding the definition of racism from DiAngelo (p. 56):

Although mainstream definitions of racism are typically some variation of individual "race prejudice", which anyone of any race can have, Whiteness scholars define racism as encompassing economic, political, social, and cultural structures, actions, and beliefs that systematize and perpetuate an unequal distribution of privileges, resources and power between white people and people of color (Hilliard, 1992). This unequal distribution benefits whites and disadvantages people of color overall and as a group. Racism is not fluid in the U.S.; it does not flow back and forth, one day benefiting whites and another day (or even era) benefiting people of color. The direction of power between whites and people of color is his- toric, traditional, normalized, and deeply embedded in the fabric of U.S. society (Mills, 1999; Feagin, 2006).

Translation: Only racism giving white people an advantage at the expense of non-whites counts. Let's re-define "racism" in a way such that bigotry between non-white groups, or directed against white folks, does not count.

Here's a more concise definition: Racism is prejudice plus power. That is, prejudice is judging people on some outward observable feature like race. It becomes an "ism" when it is coupled with the power to do something about your pre-judgments.

Power is highly situational and not monolthic. To use as an example something that actually happened to two different people I know, if a lone Mexican gets attacked by an all-black gang, then unless he has a gun and they're unarmed, then it is the black gang that has power (many against one). Yes, the gang would also have power if they were all white, but that's kind of the point - the gang has power over the attackee (indeed, potentially life-or-death power) in that scenario regardless of the race of its members, and gangs can be of any race. In both cases it happened for no apparent reason, leading the attackees to (separately, independently) conclude the attacks were racially motivated - a conclusion that nobody here would openly question if it had been an all-white gang attacking a non-white for no reason. Also note that it's plausible these gangs were exploiting systematic racism against Hispanics - assuming the attackees wouldn't go the police (as indeed happened) or that even if they did they'd get taken less seriously than a white attackee. Sure, there are lots of instances of "classic" racism, etc, but it is not universal in the US that it's the white people who have power in any situation involving race. So DiAngelo's defintion of racism amounts to circular reasoning - racism is a white thing because the word has been re-defined to apply only to whites.

[mahagonny]

So 57 years ago, before I was born, in a time much different from today, Baldwin penned an essay about why we white Americans ignore the reality of racism in our country.

You know that the streets have literally swollen with whites condemning of the treatment of African Americans, right?

But okay, what am I, Wahoo Redux, supposed to do?

It's a pretty good example of emotional reasoning:

1. If white America were against us, we should be very upset;
2. We are upset;
3. Therefore, white America is against us.

Now, whether the ways in which we have bee purporting to help black America since Baldwin's time have been or should be expected to be productive is another question. I happen to think for example the hip hop culture glorifies the dregs of black America, while white recording artists have imitated black criminal music/poetry culture without inflicting on themselves the same damage that comes from it.
We need to stop thinking everything any black person does is cool. We are not paying homage to their struggle by imitating fools.

[Treehugger]

So does what happened to George Floyd only matter because it is part of some "systematic" problem?

Yes, from the viewpoint of critical race theory, what happened to George Floyd only matters because of systemic racism. In my view, this is the very worst thing about critical race theory as well as gender theory and all their theoretical cousins. At the end of the day, it is only systems, language and power that count.  Individuals and their lived experience do not count. Or rather they only count to the extent that their experience can be used to illustrate the accepted narrative in question. They are profoundly anti-humanist theories.

[pigou]

Studies have shown that people who have wealthy parents have more opportunities as children. For example, Miles Davis attended Juilliard Conservatory.

Turns out these advantages re-emerge even if you wipe out the families' wealth (and execute the educated elite): https://www.nber.org/papers/w27053

The Chinese Communist Revolution in the 1950s and Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 aimed to eradicate inequality in wealth and education, to shut off intergenerational transmission, and to eliminate cultural differences in the population. Using newly digitized archival data and linked contemporary household surveys and census, we show that the revolutions were effective in homogenizing the population economically and culturally in the short run. However, the pattern of inequality that characterized the pre-revolution generation re-emerges today. Grandchildren of the pre-revolution elites earn 17 percent more than those from non-elite households. In addition, the grandchildren of pre-revolution elites differ in their cultural values: they are less averse to inequality, more individualistic, more pro-market, more pro-education, and more likely to see hard work as critical to success. Through intergenerational transmission, socioeconomic conditions and cultural traits thus survived one of the most aggressive attempts to eliminate differences in the population and to foster mobility.

Which, if nothing else, tells you that if you want to fix systemic inequality, you need something more radical than the communist and cultural revolutions. A more progressive tax code certainly isn't going to do it.

The paper does highlight one thing that breaks this chain: the early death of one's parents. Evidence for a mechanism of cultural transmission of values. Doesn't really lend itself to actionable policies, though.

[mahagonny]

If you can figure out a way to eliminate bigotry, sign me up.

Society is not perfectible. You might as well decide you're going to eliminate swearing or smelly feet.

[Wahoo Redux]

If you can figure out a way to eliminate bigotry, sign me up.

Society is not perfectible. You might as well decide you're going to eliminate swearing or smelly feet.

I will not support the elimination of swearing.

[permanent imposter]

This kind of polemic is what gets published nowadays. I admit to being ungracious and sometimes thinking similar thoughts of others who disagree with me politically, but I try not to publish those thoughts.

Do you mean me or the writer?

I'm late to replies because I only check here once a week, but yes I meant the writer. I know everyone has already talked about this, but I don't think this type of writing is helpful at all with respect to race relations. You're only going to further inflame people who already agree with you, and further retrench people who are wondering why people are making them out to be klan members.

This kind of polemic is what gets published nowadays. I admit to being ungracious and sometimes thinking similar thoughts of others who disagree with me politically, but I try not to publish those thoughts.

So you self-censure?

I think "self-censorship" is a little strong, but yes I am circumspect about what I say around others.

I am not in critical whiteness studies and used to have a similar reaction to the term. But once you read the works of Charles W. Mills, Cedric Robinson, bell hooks, Franz Fanon, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva or many others who have written seriously about these issues, you might find that their perspectives are not as simplistic or unproductive as you imagine but rather important considerations toward a more equitable society. 

Delsur, you mentioned these authors in five different posts yesterday, according to your posting history.  We get it.

I only saw them in a couple of places, so I for one am glad for the reminder.