You're conflating those who recognize their biases and potential prejudices (as we all should) with racists who embrace them and act them out. — Baden

:100:

I could be wrong, but I think this is what NOS is on about. If this link doesn't work for you, just google "Race Social Construct". — EricH

Their concern is with its adoption in genetic research and medicine. NOS's concern seems to be with its social adoption, claiming that it is somehow inherently naughty and requiring absolution if ever socially applied.

Racial biases are pretty much ubiquitous. They're built into the structure of our societies and therefore into the structure of our minds. The best we can do is recognize their reality, not feed them in our behavior but analyse and resist them.

You're conflating those who recognize their biases and potential prejudices (as we all should) with racists who embrace them and act them out.

They utilize and further the same superstitions, nomenclature, and taxonomies born of pseudoscience to guide their thoughts and behaviors. It invariably leads to hasty generalizations, racial affinity, and guilt by association where none ought to exist. It creates hierarchies or pits one false category against another. In the case of praxis here it creates implicit racial biases.

Moreover, it implicitly promotes racial segregation, which Adams's comments are a clear indication of.

When I start looking at their actual effects, these "spontaneous" movements for "the betterment of society" seem to me premeditated attempts at spreading division, probably for the betterment of less than altruistic political agendas.

Hard to work out what you're saying here. Biologically, the categories are false; socially, they're true. Being a social animal is a double-edged sword; we look for reasons to unite in groups and divide against other groups and find the stupidest ways of doing that. That those ways are stupid and unjustified doesn't make them any less real.

Sez's comments — Tzeentch

?



I know race is a social construct and not a biological reality. I don't think NOS even recognizes social facts though.

Fixed.

Biologically, the categories are false; socially, they're true. Being a social animal is a double-edged sword; we look for reasons to unite in groups and divide against other groups and find the stupidest ways of doing that. — Baden

Yet if it's biologically false, it's false. If it's socially true, it's a social construct. As you said above.

And that makes it different.

Thus you might then argue that some women being witches is true because a lot of people believed that some females would use black magic and witchcraft and thus should be burnt as a danger to the society. Wasn't witchcraft then a social construct? You can easily see that this was a way to put into line women, especially those that didn't live under the eyes of their husband.

in right-wing and far-right forums — RogueAI

There's your answer right there? The right-wing, globally, in western nations, has moved further away from low-tax, capitalist politics and gone fully into racist eugenic ideologies the last couple of years.

I think that what's happened is that a majority of people have woken up to the fact that such racial divides are bullshit, that free-market capitalism has created a new extreme class-divide and that the actual problems of society can't be solved with lowering taxes.

As more and more people realize these things, the more they realize that the economic elite lives off the labor of poor people and that the "poor" class is growing into the middle class. This ends up being a major threat to the right-wing elites because soon there won't be any majority able to gain actual democratic power, and more socialist political movements gain momentum.

So the right-wing and far right has been changing strategy, going full into internet-meme Trumpist bullshit to gain attention from the often uneducated people who are most likely to be affected the worst by right-wing policies. And they do this by gathering these people around a common enemy, be it Qanon conspiracies about pedos, or plain racism about immigrant and minorities.

So, essentially, they play the racist cards to keep the people affected the worst from gathering around more left-leaning opinions.

Of course this can only go two ways, either there will be a massive movement towards the left as the right gets left in the gutter, if only for a decade or two. Or we will see a rise in racism and fascism on national scales everywhere, which is almost what we've got today with far-right extremist groups and parties all over the world gaining power.

The major solution is to plainly call these people out and get the far-right voters to realize that these right-wing racists try to keep them in the dark to fool them into voting for them. We can laugh at the gullible average Qanon Maga-Trumpster all day long, but they're essentially the cannon fodder for the extreme right trying to do everything to keep themselves in power.

Hopefully people will wake up to these things and dismantle the racist ideologies flowing through parliaments and governments globally. Otherwise we will have new Nazis to go into war against.

Moreover, it implicitly promotes racial segregation, which Adams's comments are a clear indication of. — Tzeentch

Not at all. He was saying that he tried to help the black community in the past and he's extremely frustrated that all he gets in return is the sentiment that there's something wrong with being white.

It's like: "I cared about you, but you just hated me in return."

He actually wasn't expressing racism. Anyone who thinks so apparently doesn't know what racism is.

Yes, I'm not saying Adams promoted or intended to promote racial segregation, but that "woke" ideology implicitly promotes it.

Yes, I'm not saying Adams promoted or intended to promote racial segregation, but that "woke" ideology implicitly promotes it. — Tzeentch

Maybe, but that ship has pretty much sailed since the Civil Rights Act.

I’m only trying to argue that we ought not to use racial categories and to quit thinking with our epidermis. For me the fact that people use racial categories to divide human beings doesn’t entail that races themselves are true in any way, social or otherwise.

We can laugh at the gullible average Qanon Maga-Trumpster all day long, but they're essentially the cannon fodder for the extreme right trying to do everything to keep themselves in power. — Christoffer

:100:

They utilize and further the same superstitions, nomenclature, and taxonomies born of pseudoscience to guide their thoughts and behaviors. It invariably leads to hasty generalizations, racial affinity, and guilt by association where none ought to exist. It creates hierarchies or pits one false category against another. In the case of praxis here it creates implicit racial biases. — NOS4A2

You don't seem to understand how a bias develops. Not sure how many times I've pointed it out in this topic but mere categorization does not create a bias.

If you were on board with current right-wing media you might say that my bias was created by 'legacy media' or whatever.

Generally speaking, I think a bias develops through culture or personal experience. I've actually had little personal experience with black people in my life because of where I've lived but all the experiences I have had were positive. I can only attribute whatever bias I have to media and perhaps some influences in early life from my parents who were a bit racist, though not in a mean-spirited way, if that makes sense. Culture, in other words, rather than personal experience. That's why I'm always pleased to see minorities portrayed positively in the media and culture in general. I think it serves to counteract all the negative.

Moreover, it implicitly promotes racial segregation, which Adams's comments are a clear indication of. — Tzeentch

Jesus, someone please pull the hook out of your mouth.

"It's okay to be white" is an slogan that's been around for years and used by alt-right trolls to spark media backlash. You don't think that Adams knew that?

Woke promotes racial segregation. Need me to repeat it?

Regardless of what your actually mean by "woke", which is just the new "liberal" and meant as a pejorative, the idea that raising awareness of systemic racism promotes segregation is ludicrous and only promotes retaining the status quo. Women's suffrage wouldn't have come about by not talking about sexism. The idea racism will magically go away by not taking about it is nonsense. All progress in the past in this area came about by people explicating the difference in treatment. Either by taking about it (MLK or Malcolm X) or showing by doing (Rosa Parks). People whining about "you shouldn't talk about race", have done fuck all to improve the lives of oppressed people.

"You will recognize them by their fruit."


As I said,

When I start looking at their actual effects, these "spontaneous" movements for "the betterment of society" seem to me premeditated attempts at spreading division, probably for the betterment of less than altruistic political agendas. — Tzeentch

What we're seeing today is the angry, radical, self-loathing Malcolm X approach.

I wish there were more Martin Luther Kings around.

Racial categorization predisposes one to racial bias. It’s a collectivist impulse; we end up responding to people more as members of a social group than as individual people. In so doing you’ve immediately placed them into an out-group instead of integrating them into your in-group, predisposing yourself to bias against the former and preference towards the latter. Simply changing the categories can reduce the bias.

Travelling and exposure to others would surely help, no doubt, but once you alter your social categories the effects are almost immediate.

Also, "woke" is not liberal. It's progressive, though I would sooner call it regressive since it has effectively worked to dial back the clock on the role of race in society some 50 years. Alas, "woke" believes the changes they propose would benefit society, thus progressive is the proper term.

'Liberal' is just the label it inherited from the last wave of progressives, which had some right to call themselves liberals. Woke is just wearing it like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

What can be considered "progressive" these days is a counter-movement to actual liberalism, and is basically its polar opposite. It's attempts at controlling speech and people's thoughts are eerily Orwellian, and authoritarian to the very core.

For me the fact that people use racial categories to divide human beings doesn’t entail that races themselves are true in any way, social or otherwise. — NOS4A2

In any way? What about as social constructs?

Start with the US Census Bureau. Are you against what they say?

The U.S. Census Bureau collects racial data in accordance with the 1997 Office of Management and Budget standards on race and ethnicity. The data on race are based on self-identification and the categories on the form generally reflect a social definition of race. The categories are not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. Respondents can mark more than one race on the form to indicate their racial mixture.

"It's okay to be white" is an slogan that's been around for years and used by alt-right trolls to spark media backlash. You don't think that Adams knew that? — praxis

The naivety of some posters here re this is surprising. The way Adams chose and spun that poll (even on the basis of which three quarters of respondents showed no animus to the troll slogan) as proof that black people hated whites and therefore whites should "get away" from them is transparent in its racist intent. The idea that he just got his feelings hurt because he tried so hard to help black people and they just won't appreciate him is mind-numbingly silly given the context.

:100:

For me the fact that people use racial categories to divide human beings doesn’t entail that races themselves are true in any way, social or otherwise — NOS4A2

This just shows an ignorance of what social facts are. As above, if people in society self-identity in a particular way socially and mutually recognize such identifications, these are social facts by definition. I agree we ought to get beyond such identifications eventually but conflating this with racism is unhelpful at best.

I don't think you can mix the issues of systemic racism and overt racism in the way you have here.

Obviously, overt racism isn't going to go away by ignoring it, but overt racism is marginalised these days, we no longer live in the world which produced MLK or Rosa Parks. Its patently absurd to suggest we do, when many of the most famous rock stars, actors, sportsmen, politicians and presidents are black. What overt racism there is is much more of a mixed picture and as likely to involve the interaction of multiple groups (not just white>black).

Systemic racism, which is still very much an issue, has nowhere near so clear a solution, and I don't think you can simply claim that a continuation of MLK's approach to overt racism is the best, or even a good, way to tackle it. It's much more economic at root and solutions are more reparatory than awareness-raising.

Regardless of the nature of the initial complaint, anyone who can't see that a homeless white, ex-con has a legitimate grievance against the rich black lawyer railing against 'white privilege' has lost all sense of human empathy.

It's progressive, though I would sooner call it regressive since it has effectively worked to dial back the clock on the role of race in society some 50 years. - What can be considered "progressive" these days is basically a counter-movement to actual liberalism, and is basically its polar opposite. It's attempts at controlling speech and people's thoughts are eerily Orwellian, and authoritarian to the very core. — Tzeentch

I would add that the present tribalism and polarization works by those who oppose an ideology (left or right etc.) picking the worst, most fatuous examples there exists. Which usually is some odd extremist, who usually hasn't got anything in common with moderate views.

Also, I guess for politics it's the normal that centrist, moderate and consensus seeking views are attacked by those that we say to be on the far (left or right). The algorithms in the net / social media just exacerbate this. After all, a fight is more enjoyment to watch than people generally agreeing and having differences about the nuances.

naivety of some posters here re this is surprising. The way Adams chose and spun that poll (even on the basis of which three quarters of respondents showed no animus to the troll slogan) as proof that black people hated whites and therefore whites should "get away" from them is transparent in its racist intent — Baden

It's actually not transparent. I think you recognize that at face value, his rant wasn't racist. You're saying your dog whistling receptors are picking up covert ill intent.

Just curious, had you ever heard of this guy before this thread?

Racial categorization predisposes one to racial bias. It’s a collectivist impulse; we end up responding to people more as members of a social group than as individual people. In so doing you’ve immediately placed them into an out-group instead of integrating them into your in-group, predisposing yourself to bias against the former and preference towards the latter. — NOS4A2

This is getting very tedious. What you call a “collectivist impulse” is simply how our associative minds work. There is no way to get around this, even if it were a good idea to do so. My mind automatically identifies and categorizes people, at a mere glance and beneath conscious awareness. Whether my ‘groupings’ are positive or negative depends, as I just previously mentioned, on personal and/or cultural experience. Is that really news or are you just playing dumb for some reason?

Woke promotes racial segregation. Need me to repeat it? — Tzeentch

I hear it enough from people like Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and now fresh off the assembly line, Scott Adams, so you don’t need to parrot it further on my account, but thanks for asking.

It's actually not transparent. I think you recognize that at face value, his rant wasn't racist. You're saying your dog whistling receptors are picking up covert ill intent. — frank

No, at face value describing black people as a "hate group" that whites should "get the hell away from" is racist. He made racist statements. Period. His excuse, that a quarter of black people dared disagree with a slogan associated with white supremacists, is stupid, which is why I choose to disbelieve it.

frank

No, at face value describing black people as a "hate group" that whites should "get the hell away from" is racist. — Baden

It's actually not. Saying that black people are not fit company for whites is racist. Saying that black people hate whites, so whites should stay away from them is not racist. Sorry, it's just not.