How One Liberal 'Proves' Republicans Are Racist

[mahagonny]

The fact that this thread has been hijacked by adjunct grievances is illustrative of the point that none of this will ever be solved.  The issue really is class, not race.  The issue really is race, not class.  Argue amongst yourselves.  I'm going to go roll around on top of a pile of cash, then talk my way out of a speeding ticket.

It's not going to be solved, except on an individual basis, for some, but that doesn't mean it has to also be lied about. That's why I prefer your perspective.

[mahagonny]

Re: hijack
For the record, the term 'adjunct' first appeared in a post by Sun Worshipper.

[jimbogumbo]

Re: hypocrisy
You can always pay people different amounts for identical service. Just use different job titles. Society endorses this, and no one more extensively than higher education. Today I will be teaching a course for 1/2 (excluding the no benefits/benefits difference - that's big $ too)  pay that my 'colleagues' get for the same work. 'Pay equity' is a concept that our business pointedly rejects. To say it should be enforced only where race is involved would be arbitrary.

The first post referencing "adjuncts", unless I'm mistaken and you aren't one. I know you didn't use the word, but...

If you aren't an adjunct, then I apologize.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Re: hijack
For the record, the term 'adjunct' first appeared in a post by Sun Worshipper.

You brought it up, actually:

Re: hypocrisy
You can always pay people different amounts for identical service. Just use different job titles. Society endorses this, and no one more extensively than higher education. Today I will be teaching a course for 1/2 (excluding the no benefits/benefits difference - that's big $ too)  pay that my 'colleagues' get for the same work. 'Pay equity' is a concept that our business pointedly rejects. To say it should be enforced only where race is involved would be arbitrary.

[mahagonny]

I just feel like this thread is just asking for trouble. It's just going to attract polarized responses, isn't it?  And some reasonable calm people are going to post, but also some inflammatory people, and then others are going to take offense (probably sometimes justifiably), and the whole thing is going to be a train wreck. Is there anyone out there who doesn't already have an opinion? A strong opinion?  And if there is, why don't they go read some thoughtful writings on the topic, rather than a list of opinions of various degrees of fury, as this one will soon turn into? Has anyone ever been persuaded by people throwing comments around in an anonymous online discussion?  The research I've seen is that it just makes people more polarized and determined in their original opinions, and makes them detest the other side a little bit more. Can't we go do something useful instead?

It's interesting in a way that you'd say this about the thread but not the article itself, which is much more widely disseminated.

My father was a republican and there never was kinder, gentler man. I think it's really stupid to write things like this Meyerson did. It was stupid of Biden too. It could turn out to be another 'basket of deplorables' thing. People do not realize the negative power and provocation in saying something like that.

I'm disturbed by academia's reliance on and exploitation of adjunct labor, and I think it should be changed.

I doubt it. When the adjunct unions protest or demonstrate, are you there with them? Do you use your academic freedom protection to write against exploitation?

It's interesting that whenever these issues come up (which, of course, is very often), you default to the assumption that anyone who is FT faculty, tenured or not, does not do these things. Or, at a minimum, you take pains to make statements which imply that that's the "default setting" for FT faculty.

MANY of us actually do all of these things. Some of us have even presented at national conferences on these issues, and engage actively in advocacy. The continual insistence/implication that FT have it so good that they most likely either don't care or actively work against equity for ALL faculty, contingent or not, is really tiresome.   Huh -- it's almost as tiresome as someone making judgments or inferences about one's core beliefs on the basis of party identification. Fancy that.

But the advocacy is almost always for a little more shifting of the balance towards more tenure track positions, which, were it to happen, would still involve the  segmented workforce. It's never plausibly for all tenure track workforce, since everyone knows that isn't going to happen. In other words, still regular use of leftover-crumbs-from-the-banquet teaching jobs. And it's never for the obvious solution, an overhaul of the system, with everything on the table, including drastic tenure reform, with the approach that all jobs should be real jobs that are plausibly recommendable to students who would get themselves trained to become teachers.
That's why your kind of comment is so awfully tiresome.
And many more claim to are deeply about pay equity, but do not. and with typical preening, ask us to believe they go around all day fretting about wealth disparity among races.

I'll just say that you actually (demonstrably) know nothing about the advocacy work or positions of myself, my peers, or my discipline. You might have a point that such advocacy "almost always" doesn't go too far enough. But your categorical statements about advocacy, support, or reform efforts amongst FT faculty (in my discipline, at least) are, quite simply, both false and pretty offensive.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, it's offensive to be called racist because you're not voting for Biden. It's offensive to be called a temporary employee by the same people year after year. And then to have these same people offer to help you learn to be a nicer person. There are some issues here.

[financeguy]

Anyone is racist if you widen the definition enough. If we say that those who hate others because of race are racist, we have very few people. If believing that objective evidence supports that while some differences of outcomes are based on social bias, other differences in outcomes are the result of innate group features, we have another group of "racists" independent of verifiability of that statement. If someone is simply "not standing up for" certain groups to the extent others would like or in the way they prefer, that's another group of "racists." Whenever there aren't enough people fitting the current definition to keep various activists in business, just widen the pool of racists.

[writingprof]

Anyone is racist if you widen the definition enough. If we say that those who hate others because of race are racist, we have very few people. If believing that objective evidence supports that while some differences of outcomes are based on social bias, other differences in outcomes are the result of innate group features, we have another group of "racists" independent of verifiability of that statement. If someone is simply "not standing up for" certain groups to the extent others would like or in the way they prefer, that's another group of "racists." Whenever there aren't enough people fitting the current definition to keep various activists in business, just widen the pool of racists.

This post is so good and true, I feel like George Costanza in the do-the-opposite episode of Seinfeld.  Financeguy's post isn't just potent analysis; it's my new religion.

[marshwiggle]

Anyone is racist if you widen the definition enough. If we say that those who hate others because of race are racist, we have very few people. If believing that objective evidence supports that while some differences of outcomes are based on social bias, other differences in outcomes are the result of innate group features, we have another group of "racists" independent of verifiability of that statement. If someone is simply "not standing up for" certain groups to the extent others would like or in the way they prefer, that's another group of "racists." Whenever there aren't enough people fitting the current definition to keep various activists in business, just widen the pool of racists.

This is the logical fallacy/doublespeak mantra that "If you're not anti-racist, then you're racist." (And, of course, the person saying it gets to define what is required to count as "anti-racist", so everyone who doesn't conform to the speaker's wishes is, by definition, "racist".)

[Sun_Worshiper]

Anyone is racist if you widen the definition enough. If we say that those who hate others because of race are racist, we have very few people. If believing that objective evidence supports that while some differences of outcomes are based on social bias, other differences in outcomes are the result of innate group features, we have another group of "racists" independent of verifiability of that statement. If someone is simply "not standing up for" certain groups to the extent others would like or in the way they prefer, that's another group of "racists." Whenever there aren't enough people fitting the current definition to keep various activists in business, just widen the pool of racists.

Sure, but there really is no need to stretch the definition like this to identify racism.  Just look at the poll cited in the opening post.

And the most important racism that actually holds people down is structural racism, rooted in historical legacies, not whether some individual person says they don't like people of another race.

[mahagonny]

Anyone is racist if you widen the definition enough. If we say that those who hate others because of race are racist, we have very few people. If believing that objective evidence supports that while some differences of outcomes are based on social bias, other differences in outcomes are the result of innate group features, we have another group of "racists" independent of verifiability of that statement. If someone is simply "not standing up for" certain groups to the extent others would like or in the way they prefer, that's another group of "racists." Whenever there aren't enough people fitting the current definition to keep various activists in business, just widen the pool of racists.

Sure, but there really is no need to stretch the definition like this to identify racism.  Just look at the poll cited in the opening post.

And the most important racism that actually holds people down is structural racism, rooted in historical legacies, not whether some individual person says they don't like people of another race.

The thing that holds black Americans down the most is the absence of the father in the home. Your man Obama explained it years ago.
If I want to help black America, and you love protesting, do I have a right to demonstrate against the practice of getting people pregnant and then disappearing?

How about showing that the thing 'holds people down' is racism and not other factors? And speaking of being held down, is that why  people from the other countries keep moving here, driving cabs, learning new trades, getting decent jobs, and staying for the rest of their lives? Why would you move somewhere new, at great trouble and expense, to be held down?

[writingprof]

And the most important racism that actually holds people down is structural racism, rooted in historical legacies, not whether some individual person says they don't like people of another race.

That's good to know.  Since structural racism doesn't exist, we've solved the most important problem!

[little bongo]

Anyone is racist if you widen the definition enough. If we say that those who hate others because of race are racist, we have very few people. If believing that objective evidence supports that while some differences of outcomes are based on social bias, other differences in outcomes are the result of innate group features, we have another group of "racists" independent of verifiability of that statement. If someone is simply "not standing up for" certain groups to the extent others would like or in the way they prefer, that's another group of "racists." Whenever there aren't enough people fitting the current definition to keep various activists in business, just widen the pool of racists.

Sure, but there really is no need to stretch the definition like this to identify racism.  Just look at the poll cited in the opening post.

And the most important racism that actually holds people down is structural racism, rooted in historical legacies, not whether some individual person says they don't like people of another race.

+1

Also, has no one on this thread heard or seen the musical "Avenue Q"? And the song, "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist"? Musical theatre, people--it solves the world's problems.

For the good of the fora, I present some cogent, to-the-point, non-accusatory, applicable anti-racism training in about 5 1/2 minutes:

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

[mahagonny]

Re: hijack
For the record, the term 'adjunct' first appeared in a post by Sun Worshipper.

You brought it up, actually:

Re: hypocrisy
You can always pay people different amounts for identical service. Just use different job titles. Society endorses this, and no one more extensively than higher education. Today I will be teaching a course for 1/2 (excluding the no benefits/benefits difference - that's big $ too)  pay that my 'colleagues' get for the same work. 'Pay equity' is a concept that our business pointedly rejects. To say it should be enforced only where race is involved would be arbitrary.

The elephant in the room. Higher education is social justice conscious with issues that already have traction. There is no push for pay equity within the culture from anyone with any influence. Whenever the issue is raised people talk about research, as you did, reinforcing how it's overvalued in relation to teaching. So the optics are, hypocrisy and self-serving involvement with favorite liberal causes. If anyone's looking, and as usual with hypocrisy, people are happy when they're not looking.

[Sun_Worshiper]

And the most important racism that actually holds people down is structural racism, rooted in historical legacies, not whether some individual person says they don't like people of another race.

That's good to know.  Since structural racism doesn't exist, we've solved the most important problem!

If you actually care to scrutinize your assertion with empirical studies, then I'm sure you can use your university access to review some empirical literature.  My strong suspicion is that if you look at a range of studies in top sociology outlets you will find plenty of evidence for structural racism.

Anyone is racist if you widen the definition enough. If we say that those who hate others because of race are racist, we have very few people. If believing that objective evidence supports that while some differences of outcomes are based on social bias, other differences in outcomes are the result of innate group features, we have another group of "racists" independent of verifiability of that statement. If someone is simply "not standing up for" certain groups to the extent others would like or in the way they prefer, that's another group of "racists." Whenever there aren't enough people fitting the current definition to keep various activists in business, just widen the pool of racists.

Sure, but there really is no need to stretch the definition like this to identify racism.  Just look at the poll cited in the opening post.

And the most important racism that actually holds people down is structural racism, rooted in historical legacies, not whether some individual person says they don't like people of another race.

The thing that holds black Americans down the most is the absence of the father in the home. Your man Obama explained it years ago.
If I want to help black America, and you love protesting, do I have a right to demonstrate against the practice of getting people pregnant and then disappearing?

How about showing that the thing 'holds people down' is racism and not other factors? And speaking of being held down, is that why  people from the other countries keep moving here, driving cabs, learning new trades, getting decent jobs, and staying for the rest of their lives? Why would you move somewhere new, at great trouble and expense, to be held down?

Multiple things can be true: Fatherless homes in black communities can be a deterrent to upward mobility or success, but by the same token structural forces can be at play (e.g. poor public schools in urban minority communities, biased and generally poor policing, etc.), and of course the high rates of fatherlessness in black communities is itself affected by structural factors (e.g. the drug war waged largely in poor urban neighborhoods that leads many black men to long-term prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenses).

Mahagonny, for whatever reason you are deeply invested in insisting that racism is not a problem in America, but I would encourage you to clear your priors and look at America's history.  Blacks in America were just given equal rights in the 1960s, after decades of slavery, followed by jim crow, separate but equal, etc.  Do you honestly not think that that recent history has no effect on our society and the people in it today?

[marshwiggle]

Also, has no one on this thread heard or seen the musical "Avenue Q"? And the song, "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist"? Musical theatre, people--it solves the world's problems.

For the good of the fora, I present some cogent, to-the-point, non-accusatory, applicable anti-racism training in about 5 1/2 minutes:

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

Interesting video, but since 2011, it would now be considered very offensive by many on the left, and the concept of "equality of bigotry" would be vigorously opposed. (And talk of everybody just being less "PC" would be considered "violence".)