The burden of proof is not "hold no positions until there is sufficient evidence of them" but "hold no positions that there is sufficient evidence against". — Pfhorrest

Nonsense. — Hanover

Critical rationalists beg to differ, because the contrary entails that nobody should ever believe anything.

I disagree that critical rationalism is as you've characterized it. In fact, it's a gross misstatement of it.

If you're lacking empirical support for an empirical claim, your claim has no basis to be held. If you say whites maintain privilege as the result of slavery without empirical support, your claim is no more supportable than my claim that the results of slavery no longer have impact on white privilege.

You're confusing one's epistemic liberty to hold an opinion with others' epistemic obligation to agree to it. You need evidence to oblige others to change their opinion; you don't need evidence to have an opinion in the first place, and if others want you to discard your opinion they need more evidence than "you have no evidence". Two people are free to hold disagreeing opinions until either can show the other evidence that they are wrong.

Why do you hold a position that there's insufficient evidence of? — Hanover

I don't believe there is insufficient evidence for it. I just don't have sufficient rigorous and presentable evidence. I am not a sociologist and have no easy access to the relevant literature.

There are loads of things I believe without any sort of rigourous evidence. All manner of basic knowledge about biology, chemistry and physics that's based either on things I heard in school, or things I saw in a documentary. My beliefs about the character and beliefs of my friends isn't based on much more than anecdotal evidence.

So, is there such a thing as a general epistemic "null hypothesis" according to you?

You do not understand the burden of proof sir.
I know what you are saying seems a reasonable standard but its not, it is burdened by a myriad of absurd and ridiculous claims/beliefs that get smuggled in with any good ones that pass the standard.
You DO need to have evidence for your own opinions/beliefs in order to be justified in them, even if its just evidence only you have access too. You should NOT hold opinions/beliefs without evidence, whether you can present it to others or not.

You do not understand the burden of proof sir. — DingoJones

A pet peeve of mine, but "burden of proof" is a legal concept designed to solve situations of non liquet. It's not a general epistemological principle. Neither is the notion of a "null hypothesis".

you don't need evidence to have an opinion in the first place — Pfhorrest

Sure, I have the right to a baseless opinion, and I suppose I have the right to be irrational, purposefully wrong, and even openly contradictory and idiotic.

Why are we pointing this out? Does this prove your case somehow that slavery has caused white privilege?

I don't believe there is insufficient evidence for it. I just don't have sufficient rigorous and presentable evidence. I am not a sociologist and have no easy access to the relevant literature. — Echarmion

Google.

Google. — Hanover

The effort wouldn't be commensurate with my investment in the topic.

The effort wouldn't be commensurate with my investment in the topic. — Echarmion

Your position is that slavery has caused modern day whites to be disproportionately privileged, yet you acknowledge you have no proof of that and can cite nothing in support of that. You then claim you're too busy to Google.

Next time just save us the time and tell us you have a baseless opinion that you're too busy to confirm or deny.

Your position is that slavery has caused modern day whites to be disproportionately privileged, yet you acknowledge you have no proof of that and can cite nothing in support of that. — Hanover

Except the things I wrote. You're welcome to point out any factual or other errors you happen to spot. I am not keeping you from using Google yourself, am I?

Next time just save us the time and tell us you have a baseless opinion that you're too busy to confirm or deny. — Hanover

A bit melodramatic, don't you think? I participating in a forum discussion, not running a political campaign.

Whatever happened to the idea that ad-hominem is not an acceptable argument? — Echarmion

So is it wrong to shame people, or for people to be ashamed, for being born a particular color or not? Would you agree that shaming one group to bring up another is wrong?

I think privilege describes (aims to describe) a socio-economic state of affairs. — Echarmion

Privilege doesn't have to do with ethics. Privilege has to do with advantages that someone has--the idea is that it makes it easier for them to get and keep a job, earn more money in that job, rent and buy real estate, deal with the police, etc.

"That this group has privileges that that group doesn't have is wrong" would be an ethical stance. — Terrapin Station

Privileges are given, bestowed, passed from one person to another. We are not born with them. That's the main issue with “white privilege”: the act of bestowing “privilege” on another is a result of the bestower, not the one receiving the privileges. So not only do they leave out the privilege-giver, but blame the receiver for being given them. — NOS4A2

Did none of you read the rest of my post?

First, what is privilege for one, which is to say what is good for one, may not be good for another. There are many people who don't see material pleasures as a privilege. They can be a crutch. It depends on how you look at life and how you're raised.

The problem you are complaining about is everywhere majorities and minorities exist, across the globe. How can you enforce people from choosing mostly whites for a job when mostly whites are available for the job? How can you force people to "choose" who they associate with?

I've been on the receiving end of an overly aggressive cop more than I can remember, and I think many of them need some anger-management training. This doesn't mean that they're racist. They do it to everyone because they're on a power trip.

What about the white male suicide rate? How easy it is to overlook stats that don't push your political agenda.

As to the socio-economics of it -what about the coinciding averages of socio-economic status and being raised by a single parent and doing well in school that I pointed out?

The fact that you have to point to averages, and not a case by case basis shows that there are instances where blacks make more and have more privileges than many white people. Being rich and famous gets you privileges and it seems more about who you know than what you know.

Hear, hear! And those who are fortunate enough to have good parenting seem to be more able to rise above less-than-ideal circumstances because they were brought up to believe that they could achieve anything. I teach quite a few students who come from the underclass (rural and inner city poverty) and it's pretty easy to tell what kind of parenting they've had. — uncanni

Exactly. My wife has been teaching for over 20 years and teachers and their families know all to well how parenting has a huge impact on the social behaviors of their children.

Why are we pointing this out? Does this prove your case somehow that slavery has caused white privilege? — Hanover

I'm not making that case. I just saw an exchange that looked like someone else stating that opinion and admitting that they don't have sufficient evidence to convince you of it, and you telling them that they should therefore discard it themselves, and called foul on that.

You do not understand the burden of proof sir.
I know what you are saying seems a reasonable standard but its not, it is burdened by a myriad of absurd and ridiculous claims/beliefs that get smuggled in with any good ones that pass the standard.
You DO need to have evidence for your own opinions/beliefs in order to be justified in them, even if its just evidence only you have access too. You should NOT hold opinions/beliefs without evidence, whether you can present it to others or not. — DingoJones

If those absurd and ridiculous beliefs are so absurd and ridiculous it should be easy to provide evidence against them, beyond merely the lack of evidence for them. You're epistemically free to say "I don't see any evidence for that and it doesn't seem to be true to me", but they're equally free to rejoin "it just seems true to me, even though I can't prove it conclusively to you", and until one of you can show the other wrong then it's just a disagreement between each others' intuitive perception with no rational ground to say one is by default right and the other is by default wrong. If you said that some opinions were by default right, that would be tantamount to religious faith; and if you said that no opinions are right unless they can be conclusively proven from the ground up, then you'd end up in nihilism because it's impossible to establish anything from the ground up.

I just linked an essay of mine on the topic before because I didn't want to derail this thread into an off-topic conversation, I was just calling a quick point of order on Hanover.

I'm participating in a forum discussion... — Echarmion

Barely.

I just linked an essay of mine on the topic before because I didn't want to derail this thread into an off-topic conversation, I was just calling a quick point of order on Hanover. — Pfhorrest

Your point of order remains absurd, despite your referring to yourself as authority.

I'm not referring to myself as an authority, just pointing to an already-written argument elsewhere so as not to fill this thread with off-topic argument about that point.

Also, your face is absurd. :p

First, what is privilege for one, which is to say what is good for one, may not be good for another. There are many people who don't see material pleasures as a privilege. They can be a crutch. It depends on how you look at life and how you're raised.

The problem you are complaining about is everywhere majorities and minorities exist, across the globe. How can you enforce people from choosing mostly whites for a job when mostly whites are available for the job? How can you force people to "choose" who they associate with? — Harry Hindu

I wasn't endorsing the idea, by the way. I was just saying that it's not an ethical idea. As I said, "Privilege has to do with advantages that someone has--the idea is that it makes it easier for them to get and keep a job, earn more money in that job, rent and buy real estate, deal with the police, etc."

If someone doesn't want to get or keep a job, earn more money rather than less at a job, etc., that's fine. Nevertheless the idea of privilege is that it's easier to get and keep a job, earn more money at that job, etc. That's not an ethical idea.

I wasn't endorsing the idea, by the way. I was just saying that it's not an ethical idea. As I said, "Privilege has to do with advantages that someone has--the idea is that it makes it easier for them to get and keep a job, earn more money in that job, rent and buy real estate, deal with the police, etc."

If someone doesn't want to get or keep a job, earn more money rather than less at a job, etc., that's fine. Nevertheless the idea of privilege is that it's easier to get and keep a job, earn more money at that job, etc. That's not an ethical idea. — Terrapin Station

Ok, so we agree that privileges exist. So what? How is that helpful? What do you want to do with this information that privileges exist? Should others ought to have privileges? Isn't that an ethical question?

Ok, so we agree that privileges exist. — Harry Hindu

I'm not even agreeing with that, really, especially not privileges that are at all due to "race." (I'm putting "race" in quotation marks because I believe it's a bogus concept to begin with.)

I'm just familiar with the concepts, and I thought it was odd that you were saying that the concept of privilege is an ethical concept. I was just providing info that conventionally, the concept of privilege is not itself an ethical concept.

Again, I'm not endorsing any sort of view in that clarification.

I think that most talk about these issues is very dubious, because it seems to be pretty uniformly executed with really bad epistemic methods behind it.

I'm not even agreeing with that, really, especially not privileges that are at all due to "race." (I'm putting "race" in quotation marks because I believe it's a bogus concept to begin with.) — Terrapin Station

Well, if privileges don't exist for you then no wonder you don't see it as an ethical issue. It seems to me that you're admitting that privileges are subjective. Some admit they exist or not to some degree or another.

This topic is about systematic racism and fairness (privilege), and racism and fairness are ethical issues.

Well, if privileges don't exist for you then no wonder you don't see it as an ethical issue. It seems to me that you're admitting that privileges are subjective. Some admit they exist or not to some degree or another. — Harry Hindu

I don't think that whether they exist is subjective, and the concept of them isn't ethical (though most thinking about the implications of them and all thinking about what should be done about it, when one thinks something should be done about it, IS ethical).

The problem, on my view, is that conclusions about this stuff are made, at best, on statistical data--about things like demographic data re mortgages, unemployment claims, tax returns, etc.:

(a) without critically looking at the many data collection/reporting issues that can make the statistics unreliable, misrepresentative, or even make crucial data unobtainable,

(b) while making very dubious assumptions about connections between different statistics,

(c) while making very dubious assumptions about causes/motivations of anything behind the statistics.

Or like I said--the epistemic methods fueling these claims suck, but not many people care about that. One side likes the narrative they've created and the other side likes combating it on its own terms.

Privileges are based on values. It is only a privilege if you value it. Values are subjective.

(a) without critically looking at the many data collection/reporting issues that can make the statistics unreliable, misrepresentative, or even make crucial data unobtainable,

(b) while making very dubious assumptions about connections between different statistics,

(c) while making very dubious assumptions about causes/motivations of anything behind the statistics. — Terrapin Station

or (d) don't include the detriments of one class or ethnic group that may offset some privilege they may have (like the suicide rate of white males vs other minorities).

There weren't slaves in the US 60 years ago.

The claim was that it's connected to slavery. — Terrapin Station

You're taking the claim unreasonably literally. — Echarmion

You concede too much Echarmion. Terrapin, aren't you from the U.S. (I am almost always wrong in my assumptions about people here)? It shouldn't seem that difficult to connect the Civil Rights Movement (60 years ago) to slavery?

Well since you will certainly have your reasons, here is a quick history (leaving out most of the egregious details):

Prior to the Civil War, most Americans were racist and made no effort to hide it. Many of those opposed to slavery (abolitionists), would be quick to admit that African people were inferior.

Following the Civil War, the 13, 14, and 15th amendments must be passed to correct racist errors in the constitution. Radical Republicans controlled congress and passed a severe, but entirely necessary, Reconstruction Act. Among other important features, this act authorized the U.S. military to basically act as police in the South, enforcing things like the right to vote for black people.

Unfortunately, the North felt uncomfortable "punishing" their white counterparts in the South for very long (racism). As we reach the 1880s, the South has been "punished" enough :roll:, and Reconstruction ends.

With the end of Reconstruction comes the return of the status quo in the South. The same people who were in power before/during the Civil War, are back in power. Now, they can't re-institute slavery without fear of another Reconstruction, but they can restore just about everything else. By 1893 (plessy v ferguson), Jim Crow laws are official, and black people are legally second class citizens (again).

Before I continue (I assume you are sick of this already, haha), can you see that slavery is connected to Jim Crow laws? If not, I have more work to do before I can show their connection to the Civil Right Movement (which was a direct response to the environment created fostered by Jim Crow laws). If you don't see a connection, can you maybe show where the gap is? It seems pretty air tight to me. Maybe we need to confirm we both mean the same thing with the word "connected'?

. For one, racial segregation was an outgrowth of slavery,
— Echarmion — frank

Seems obvious enough.

It wasnt a simple outgrowth from slavery. — frank

I agree, but you are the one that added the word "simple".

It was an outgrowth of anxiety associated with the 1890's economic depression coupled with the failure of southern progressives, socialists, and communists to deliver support to the poverty stricken, leading to the rise of southern demagogues who resorted to race baiting, which led to a violent take-over by white supremacists who passed laws to reduce black votership from 50-70% to 3%. — frank

While all of the above occurred, that just adds to the complexity that exists in any historical situation. Surely, slavery and racism are more significant causes of racial segregation than anything you mentioned here. You state the above like racism didn't exist until the 1890s.

which led to a violent take-over by white supremacists who passed laws to reduce black votership from 50-70% to 3%. — frank

This was due to the end of reconstruction. An army stationed in the South prevented those white supremacists from reducing black votership until this time.

If the rest if the US had given a fuck while the South descended into fascism, Jim Crow wouldnt have happened. — frank

The southern fascism you refer to only hurt black people. Does that give a hint as to why the rest of the country did not care?

Surely, slavery and racism are more significant causes of racial segregation than anything you mentioned here. You state the above like racism didn't exist until the 1890s. — ZhouBoTong

Prior to the 1890s, southern blacks were accumulating wealth and learning how to navigate the political system. In many areas blacks and whites worked side by side and gathered socially. Jim Crow was a violent movement intended to bring that progress to an end and reverse it. White supremacists believed that the association of whites with black would destroy white culture, so their racism was (is) about what they see as self-preservation.

The southern fascism you refer to only hurt black people. Does that give a hint as to why the rest of the country did not care? — ZhouBoTong

It's a myth that racism only exists in the southeast.

Yes, I'm from the U.S. by the way.

Prior to the Civil War, most Americans were racist and made no effort to hide it. — ZhouBoTong

How are we establishing that, exactly?

(I just quoted that because it was the first thing there's an issue with.)

I won't commit to the belief that the privileged are incapable of knowing what is fair or not due to their fear of losing their privilege, which means I must accept their complaints of oppression as I would any other. — Hanover

Gobsmacked ... at your privileged incoherence. :meh:

Prior to the Civil War, most Americans were racist and made no effort to hide it.
— ZhouBoTong

How are we establishing that, exactly?

(I just quoted that because it was the first thing there's an issue with.) — Terrapin Station

Really? The FACT that they made no effort to hide it means we have a LOT of evidence.

And I am not talking new racism where you are racist if you are uncomfortable around another race. I mean old fashioned definitional racism, "they are inferior".

Are you comfortable admitting that Jefferson and Washington were racist? Surely, owning slaves (based on race) counts as evidence of their racism? I am not saying we should stop celebrating their achievements, but we need to acknowledge facts.

Also, I just said "most" Americans. That doesn't specify whether most is 51% or 99%. Is it really debatable that "prior to the Civil War" at least 51% of Americans were racist?

I guess we mostly only have evidence that historical figures were racist. We don't know what EVERY American thought. However, it is fairly (entirely?) consistent through history that the lower classes are more racist (and the racist representatives they voted for represent their racism).

I am willing to go through many specific examples of evidence, like say, the 3/5 compromise, if really necessary. I am actually a bit confused by your doubts. Why do you think most Americans were NOT racist prior to the Civil War?

I am willing to go through many specific examples of evidence, like say, the 3/5 compromise, if really necessary. I am actually a bit confused by your doubts. Why do you think most Americans were NOT racist prior to the Civil War? — ZhouBoTong

Your question not directed to me, but I'll offer a reply. In order to speak of antebellum racism in contrast to any modern racism, you have to go to some trouble to understand and define the terms. If you don't, then the term becomes a label with little specific meaning - a piece of propaganda. As to the 3/5s compromise, you need to do some research; I don't think you understand what it was, what it was for, it's significance, or how it played out.

As to racism however meant, its meanings are effected, even determined, not just by era, but by region. Not accounting for these means your statements are necessarily out of balance.

It seems very safe to stake out the claim that "Prior to the Civil War, most Americans were racist". it's also safe to stake out the claim that Americans were racist after the civil war.

Slavery was an attractive system of extracting involuntary low cost labor from a designated group of people (Africans, mostly). The English did not introduce slavery because they were racists. They bought sold, and transported slaves because it was profitable. Slavery is old school -- going back a very long ways.

The Greeks and Romans owned slaves without developing intense negative feelings about the ethnicity of people who were slaves. Racism isn't a requirement for developing a slave system. Necessity and convenience are required.

Our peculiar American problem was our high-minded ideas about freedom and representation. It was contradictory to talk about freedom and equality when the keystone of our economy was slavery. Slaves couldn't be equal and free and still be slaves. One solution was to classify the slaves as not fully human, The 3/5 compromise counted the slaves along with whites, just subtracting 40% of their numerical weight. The purpose was to reduce the represented population of the slave-holding states.

Thomas Jefferson, slave owner, probably did not count Sally Hemings as sub-human when he had sex with her.

Slave holders likely had intensely ambiguous feelings about their slaves -- valuing them on the one hand, intuiting that they were humans like him or her self, and yet treating them with scalding cruelty. The outcome of these intense feelings wasn't to free the slave; rather it was to keep and hate them.

Slavery was an integral part of our economy, north and south. Northerners also had to square their ideals with their realities. (Granted, there were many people, north and south, who were not responsible for slavery's existence. But it was still a vital part of the economy.