I'm still trying to understand where this reaction to the idea of color-blindness really comes from. On the surface it is merely the idea that we should not judge others by their skin color (à la Dr. King), but it is made to seem like an insidious plot meant to subvert its own founding moral premise; a slithering ouroboros.

Is it that ignoring race is in and of itself harmful or racist? Presumably, because systemic factors continue to discriminate? (and if so, are those factors not the result of conscious or unconscious bias present in those holding positions of power? (e.g: judges, the wealthy, politicians, doctors, educators, police, etc..)) Is the attack on color-blindness ultimately a preemptive defense of "positive discrimination" as a kind of reparative justice?

I can see the sense of this, but how do we use positive discrimination to eliminate the systemic discriminatory factors that perpetuate these inequalities in the first place? Isn't that just treating a symptom and not the cause? (what exactly is the source of the systemic discrimination? (assuming systemic discrimination is the main inequality perpetrator)).

I can see the sense of this, but how do we use positive discrimination to eliminate the systemic discriminatory factors that perpetuate these inequalities in the first place? Isn't that just treating a symptom and not the cause? — VagabondSpectre

I think affirmative action was intended to boost social reform. To the extent that it put minorities in good housing and schooling, it was treating one of the causes of inequality.

Isn't that just treating a symptom and not the cause? — VagabondSpectre

Yes.

(what exactly is the source of the systemic discrimination? — VagabondSpectre

Re: In rich euro-american 'liberal' republics - historical class (i.e. White) privilege. Cui bono ...

I think affirmative action was intended to boost social reform. To the extent that it put minorities in good housing and schooling, it was treating one of the causes of inequality. — frank

And personally I don't think affirmative action went far enough. If we're going to intervene in inter-generational or community level poverty, half-measures and post-hoc reactions just aren't adequate. And with the looming of automation, AI, and the host other other incoming societal changes that guarantee an upending of our current economic way of life and status quo, no small amount of wealth redistribution or hole-ridden safety nets will make a difference.

If we're talking about inter-racial inequality, then affirmative action treats it directly as a symptom, but it does not exactly treat a cause per se (if lacking access to education is a symptom of poverty then I would treat poverty as the approximate cause. Even though it is true that lacking access to education can contribute to poverty, I reckon that poverty in youth predicts future education outcomes much more reliably than unjust education outcomes predicts poverty later in life (poverty is honestly the primary concern given that it is the main determinant of privilege in a commodified world)). And ultimately, I would support affirmative action for poor children and families of all colors and creeds. I don't really see a difference between the suffering of a poor white kid and a poor black kid.

overClass Priviledge. Cui bono ... — 180 Proof

This reasoning seems circular to me...

"Overclass privilege" (read: the current uninterpreted state of affairs) can't coherently be both symptom and syndrome in the context of this discussion (the discussion of whether color-blindness would be harmful). Either we use the spirit of colorblindness to *attempt to* reduce or negate class segregation along racial lines (to confront classic racism and bias that is operant in society), or we're not really talking about classes that are maintained by racist discrimination (a better take away would then be that possessing disproportional existing power is a great way to maintain, or get more of it). If we're talking about the over-class, then we're not talking about "the white race", we're talking about a minority of wealthy elites, (most of whom are white, but many of whom are not (some of whom aren't even persons, but corporations)), and who certainly did not get there by allowing advantages and privilege to trickle down to the rest of us.

If you want to redistribute wealth along racial lines so that we can enjoy the aesthetic appeal of up-down color symmetry, fine, but the 1% are still set to own everything, and the melting pot still burns when the ingredients are fairly proportioned.

I think we need reform bordering on paradigm shift to confront absolute poverty and absolute equality disparities in modern society. So not only does a reparations style approach fail to address the rest of the poor and the suffering, it could never go as far as is required.

I just want to understand when where and why race must enter this discussion. Beyond self-perpetuating statistical trends, what is the discrimination, systemic or otherwise, that we ought be aware of, and why is colorblindness not useful in the spirit of confronting it?

The world isn't perfect. It's never going to be perfect except for a couple of hours on a Tuesday afternoon in March of 2356 C.E. when nobody will even notice because they're all so busy griping.

The only one that needs THIS lecture is DingusJones arguing about bone densities and and so-called 'innate' racial IQ disparities to the point of reductionism, as if they have any strong relevancy to the topic.

And I don't think ANYTHING in the OP is culturally interesting regarding 'race'. — Swan

Sorry, if your point is this:

Another useless autobiography that addressed no point (for yet another "middle man") .. your stance does a GOOD job as misinterpreting my posts and spewing irrelevant points, which leaves nothing but a FISHY after taste regarding this topic. — Swan

and this ...

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: — Swan

You’ll have to point out what I’m misinterpreted. If it was in a previous post please tell what I misinterpreted. Thanks.

Not sure I know what you mean. The world will never be perfect, but we can still try to make it a better place to live. But a new coat of paint only goes so far, and lasts so long...

I'm still trying to understand where this reaction to the idea of color-blindness really comes from. On the surface it is merely the idea that we should not judge others by their skin color (à la Dr. King), but it is made to seem like an insidious plot meant to subvert its own founding moral premise; a slithering ouroboros.

Is it that ignoring race is in and of itself harmful or racist? Presumably, because systemic factors continue to discriminate? (and if so, are those factors not the result of conscious or unconscious bias present in those holding positions of power? (e.g: judges, the wealthy, politicians, doctors, educators, police, etc..)) Is the attack on color-blindness ultimately a preemptive defense of "positive discrimination" as a kind of reparative justice? — VagabondSpectre

I think you see the complexity of the situation. Is the goal at least color-blindness? Or rather color not being all that interesting? And yet we are supposed to get there by talking about color.

As a white man, I primarily threat track other white men. They are the ones I watch to see if they are going get angry, to bully or hurt others. A lifetime spent around white boys/men taught me that. The most damaged among us become white nationalists or mass shooters. — link

https://medium.com/@remakingmanhood/why-i-primarily-threat-track-other-white-men-6437cd1c8830

It's as if we just can't help ourselves. Is our white man threat-tracking himself? It sounds like he's been bullied. Or was he doing the bullying? Or did he stand and watch? And even someone getting angry is something he feels the need to police. As you might guess, the post is also about toxic masculinity. Our godless times have new original sins to play with.

To me the 'liberals' are basically right (systemic racism, etc.). But some of them have just switched to a new kind of magical thinking. The 'alt-right' boogeyman, lurking in the shadows, is ready to pounce. I think most people are racist. But most of us consciously reject it as irrational and do our best not to be jerks. We're interested in difference when it's not threatening.

Maybe it's the quest for an impossible purity that results in a projection of the boogeyman. Even noticing that things have changed (that posts like the one I've quoted have become common) is suspect. So the left is right, but the loons aren't helping things.

The world isn't perfect. It's never going to be perfect except for a couple of hours on a Tuesday afternoon in March of 2356 C.E. when nobody will even notice because they're all so busy griping. — frank

Nice.

Then--this is all what you say--new economic relations will be established, all ready-made and worked out with mathematical exactitude, so that every possible question will vanish in the twinkling of an eye, simply because every possible answer to it will be provided. Then the "Palace of Crystal" will be built. Then ... In fact, those will be halcyon days. Of course there is no guaranteeing (this is my comment) that it will not be, for instance, frightfully dull then (for what will one have to do when everything will be calculated and tabulated), but on the other hand everything will be extraordinarily rational. Of course boredom may lead you to anything. It is boredom sets one sticking golden pins into people, but all that would not matter. What is bad (this is my comment again) is that I dare say people will be thankful for the gold pins then. Man is stupid, you know, phenomenally stupid; or rather he is not at all stupid, but he is so ungrateful that you could not find another like him in all creation. I, for instance, would not be in the least surprised if all of a sudden, A PROPOS of nothing, in the midst of general prosperity a gentleman with an ignoble, or rather with a reactionary and ironical, countenance were to arise and, putting his arms akimbo, say to us all: "I say, gentleman, hadn't we better kick over the whole show and scatter rationalism to the winds, simply to send these logarithms to the devil, and to enable us to live once more at our own sweet foolish will!" That again would not matter, but what is annoying is that he would be sure to find followers--such is the nature of man. — Dostoevsky

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/600/600-h/600-h.htm

Not sure I know what you mean. The world will never be perfect, but we can still try to make it a better place to live. But a new coat of paint only goes so far, and lasts so long... — VagabondSpectre

I think you have to have a fairly strong middle-class before programs like affirmative action can create change. There's a downside to them also since they conflict with a merit-rewarding environment.

I think Americans are in the process of becoming more brownish than black and white. That might be the final solution, or part of it.

You've lost me. :yawn:

Awesome quote!

I’m pretty sure I have more in common with an Englishman my age of any colour than I do with an American or an Australian my age. The mainstay is the cultural understanding - granted there are divisions within countries, cities and even neighbourhoods too.
— I like sushi

In the intersectionality roulette nationality and culture define by country isn't hip as it's the thing that the wrong people emphasize.

Yet nationality is a good example of a truly man made or "invented" identity, which can have absolutely dramatic consequences on how we treat each other. Just think what happens when countries go to war. Still, I would say that race, gender, sex, nationality, ethnicity are all not so determinative than wealth. Being rich gives you real privilege in this World. — ssu

I wasn’t trying to pinpoint national identity, merely a common cultural/historical understanding - something that nations create and/or build on. This is why I think ‘nations’ will be gone by the end of the century - the internet will give everyone a common cultural/historical upbringing and in the future I would have more in common with people from other parts of the world than I do today due to having been raised through a common medium.

Of all the items mentions, including wealth, aren’t as determinative for commonality as language and environment as far as I can tell. At the extremes I do imagine the super rich understand each other well as do the extremely poor. The former have a common freedom to move and likely move in the same global circles or similar personal bubbles, and the later aren’t worried about much more than living through the day.

It is also true to say that I will have more in common with some black, disabled, or elderly people than I do with people from other regions - I don’t see how a common environment and language aren’t the most telling aspects of a persons relations to other humans. The so-called ‘nurture’ is more of an impact when it comes to what language I speak (including colloquialisms) and my sociopolitical attitudes and thoughts.

Clear enough racial distinctions are emphasised in certain regions too. It is rather strange that no one has yet mentions that racial distinctions are not necessarily apparent visually (racial/ethnic distinctions can be present in peoples of the same skin tone). That said I do understand that the US is the dominant world culture right now, and for the past several decades, so I’m not massively surprised about colour distinctions being brought to the fore.

I wasn’t talking about intersectionality directly. Just trying to look at the matter in a clinical manner and fish for, or point out, key features of human societies. There are plenty of disparities among populations so I thought it may be useful to look at the most common determinate factors before jumping into the discrimination/prejudice dynamic. I don’t think it is rational to come to the table pushing preconceived ideas about what is or isn’t the most impactful item.

I am very intrigued by how things will play out due to the information/communication revolution we’re living through. Some things will come of it that I can’t even imagine, but I’m just looking to see what telling impacts we can see now and how such technologies will determine the course of human cultures . The emphasis in this thread for me is how prejudices will play out and I don’t see skin tone being of major importance over all - because I don’t see for a moment how the colour of someone’s skin tells me anything about who they are, where they’re from, what religion they are or what language they speak. I could make educated guesses that would probably be based more on dress than skin tone. I could probably determine, with reasonable accuracy, that someone ‘white’ has likely been attached to a judeochristian society (European) or that someone ‘black’ has mostly ‘black’ relatives (note: I could be wrong there, hence the pointlessness of racial distinctions based only on phenotypical features rather than accounting for language spoken, religious culture, wealth, sex, dress etc.,.)

:cool: :up:

You've lost me. :yawn: — 180 Proof

Your argument amounts to "power comes from privilege, and privilege comes from power", where the significance of race is non-sequitir; e.g: people born into poverty tend to stay in poverty. You can use statistical trends in outcomes to equate whiteness with privilege and power, and non-whiteness with its absence, but then you'd be hastily generalizing.

"All white people have white privilege" becomes a meaningless or prejudiced statement if all you're doing is generalizing from statistical outcomes. Having a better chance at winning the wealth lottery doesn't make a difference if you don't win. If you can bring up specific examples of systemic racist discrimination, how would it hurt to consciously target it with a color-blindness initiative?

I think you have to have a fairly strong middle-class before programs like affirmative action can create change. There's a downside to them also since they conflict with a merit-rewarding environment.

I think Americans are in the process of becoming more brownish than black and white. That might be the final solution, or part of it. — frank

AFAIK, the middle class continues to shrink, and it is definitely a factor that must be addressed in general before our other half-measures and stop gaps will have lasting effects. Being more brownish might help us with our racism problems, and with inter-racial equality, but it wont address absolute inequality.

"I described it as a conceit for the privileged. The ascendency can afford to ignore race, ethnicity, gender and disability because their race, their gender, their ethnicity and their norms are taken as the default; they are the background against which others may be seen as different. So in claiming to be blind to those differences, the ascendency denies what makes those individuals who they are, and reasserts its dominance."

"Your skin colour, you aboriginality, your gender preferences, your disability, mean nothing to me."

What you don't account for is there isn't always an ascendancy thing going on in all real life settings or societal/social situations. There's plenty of people that fall into any of the various categories you keep mentioning that neither feel like they are privileged or under privileged and with good reason. What you're espousing is a limited view of how all this plays out in the real world. Racial phenotypes, ability status, gender self identification, etc are parts of who people are but not nearly the whole story; despite what your claim seems to convey.

You and 180 seem to get along marvelously. There's a racial difference. Which of you is the privileged in this setting?

Your argument amounts to "power comes from privilege, and privilege comes from power", where the significance of race is non-sequitir ... — VagabondSpectre

Not so. I even replied to you previously, VS, that it's a symptom treated - when it's even addressed - by e.g. "affirmative action", which is not "non-sequitur" at all. "Race", however, is just not the main problem or driver of racial-color discrimination & hatred, to my mind, at least not in (most) rich western societies like the U.S.

Maybe I've made my point more clearly on this thread titled

"White
Privilege"

or not. :yawn:

"All white people have white privilege" becomes a meaningless or prejudiced statement if all you're doing is generalizing from statistical outcomes.  — VagabondSpectre

Agreed if that's what I (or whomever) was doing. I've certainly not, however claimed or implied anything of this sort. Let's keep our strawmen to ourselves, shall we? Danke.

It makes sense if a little more is added (ie. All people have privileges, but not everyone has the same privileges).

It is difficult, maybe impossible(?), to pick words and phrasing that doesn’t sew doubt in someone.

What's interesting too, is in a forum setting like this, that we're all "racially colorblind" or racially masked to some degree or another at least until it comes out through avatars, language use, identifying country of origin, etc. If one was savvy enough to do so, one could remain fairly "racially" ambiguous here. Privilege is then constructed more through things like moderator status, site owner and his penchants, posters who've gained clout and respect, etc. Race is almost a non factor. A type of colorblindness, if you will.

Right, individuality. The trump card over pretty much any other metric.

I'm still trying to understand where this reaction to the idea of color-blindness really comes from. — VagabondSpectre

You aren't alone. One can make a conclusion from nobody giving a simple answer to this.

But some of them have just switched to a new kind of magical thinking. The 'alt-right' boogeyman, lurking in the shadows, is ready to pounce. — jellyfish

A boogeyman lurking in the shadows and ready to pounce, against whom ordinary people have to prepare to defend themselves is part and parcel of American culture as baseball.

Starting from the burglar breaking into your house that one has to shoot or otherwise your family will be killed, it's one of those things that creates xenophobia and the fear against minorities, which then turns into present day racism. A tiny minority harbour ideas of racial supremacy, the fear of criminals or lunatic gunmen is far more typical. The 'alt-right' shooter is a just one version of this, which shows how universal the phenomenon is in America. Few crackpots capture the imagination of a huge country.

Fault me for being an (American) old school anarcho-lefty, but, imho, "white privilege" is secondary to, or derivative of, manifest Class Privilege (i.e. hierarchical domination structures via systems of exploitation, regulatory semiotic schema & paramilitary policing). The only reason I can see for a white person being "ashamed" of "white privilege" is because s/he isn't using it to expose, subvert or sabotage Class Privilege and thereby becomes/remains complicit in the (passive, conformal) perpetuation of "white privilege" ... just as 'nonwhite persons' too can be complicit in perpetuating, even ramifying, nonwhite under-priviledge by failing or refusing to subvert & sabotage - whenever possible and however as covertly as necessary - Class Privilege.

I can't see how one judges oneself Just when one is not actively, in word & deed, Anti-Injustice. (e.g. Rosanna Arquette?) — 180 Proof

I assume you've heard the statement

When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression


or, at least, that you understand the sentiment. Many (will) feel "reverse discrimination" who have enjoyed the (legacy) privilege of discriminating with impunity against disadvantaged classes, or minorites of one kind or another, whenever "discrimination" is either explicitly prohibited or implicitly obviated (or threatened) by 'aggressively redistributive' policies (e.g. Rawls, Sen). The 'welfare state' & its attendant policies has always only been a reformist prophylactic (more quarter than) half-measure ... a political-economic 'gradualism' that's mostly only delayed a critical reckoning and exacerbated the metastases of Class Privilege (Piketty, Varoufakis, Wolff). If history, sociology, behavioral economics, etc braided together is an incisive guide, then (sooner rather than later) more radical measures (will) have to be taken than simply recycling more of the 'middle-class' same old same old e.g. "raise the minimum wage", "paid family leave", "free childcare", "free college", "free healthcare" ... "universal basic income", etc. — 180 Proof

Maybe I just can't get past the term "white privilege"?

If the primary or proximal force of inequality perpetuation is classism, why use the term "systemic racism" or "white privilege" to begin with when describing the phenomenon? If racial prejudice is not the main perpetuator of inter-racial inequality, then I can understand your opposition to color-blindness (in that it will not make a difference), but clearly your remarks about burkas and (and vague defense of those extolling the import of race as a determinant for interpersonal treatment) indicate you believe otherwise. What am I missing?

I'll candidly admit that the term 'white privilege' (and it's paramour, white guilt) deeply offends and upsets me. Not because I'm afraid of losing my unearned privilege, but because I believe that I've never been given any unearned privileges in the first place. It feels like I'm being assigned guilt for crimes that I neither committed, nor benefited from. And for that feeling, I'm rebuked as a part of the problem. How can I assent to a worldview that deprecates me for the color of my skin? Even if by misapprehension, such an emotional reaction is bound to consistently emerge to the extent that the generalizing and sweeping language invalidates individual experiences. Do we really want to encode such divisive sentiments in such loose simplified terms?

You might not intend these effects, but they're the obvious ramifications of your language. "Reverse racism" is roughly defined by @TheWillowOfDarkness' school of thought as "prejudice against whites" because racism itself has been redefined to mean "prejudice plus institutional power", where, since whites have all the power, it is they who decide the distribution of burdens and benefits ("All white people have white privilege" is true by its own definition, and some people within this school take it further and say "all white people are racist' (I won't speak for Willow on that point, but they do define racism purely as an outcome or state of affairs as opposed to an intention or even a specific action)).

And just as these aren't your actual words (intended usage) or arguments (strawmen), so too isn't the argument for colorblindness that we must ignore ad forget the existence of race at any or all costs, or even that we're capable of being perfectly fair and unbiased. Hence, I still don't get it.

. This is why I think ‘nations’ will be gone by the end of the century - the internet will give everyone a common cultural/historical upbringing and in the future I would have more in common with people from other parts of the world than I do today due to having been raised through a common medium. — I like sushi

I'm not so sure about that.

The internet has a lot of negative aspects too. Just like the printing press, which made books and texts common: it didn't only bring have the obvious positive effects, the printing press had a key role in the awful bloodshed called the wars of religion. The internet can divide us also in a similar way.

Maybe I just can't get past the term "white privilege"?

I'll candidly admit that the term 'white privilege' (and it's paramour, white guilt) deeply offends and upsets me. — VagabondSpectre

This probably contributes a fair amount to you reading me (or others on this thread) so poorly, VS. I see I can't win for losing with you either: on a thread purportedly about "White Privilege" you're perplexed as to why I point out that White Privilege is a symptom of what I argue is the more fundamental, or pervasive, problem of "Class Privilege" but then my focus on "Class Privilege" annoys you because you misread me as conflating Class & Race.

If the primary or proximal force of inequality perpetuation is classism, why use the term "systemic racism" or "white privilege" to begin with when describing the phenomenon? — VagabondSpectre

Because Systemic Racism is one of the policing functions of Structural Classism that facilitates the socio-economic structure (i.e. status quo) reproducing, or perpetuating, itself.

Consider: the relation of Classism to Racism is analogous to the relation of Central Nervous System to Peripheral Nervous System in our bodies - the latter being an intergral function the former.

... clearly your remarks about burkas and (and vague defense of those extolling the import of race as a determinant for interpersonal treatment) indicate you believe otherwise. What am I missing? — VagabondSpectre

You're apparently missing my satirical pique at the pedestrian quality of this thread discussion (and others like it), that is, you've missed the punchline of that post. So no, the burqa reductio doesn't indicate anything I believe whatsoever about Race, Class, etc

... I believe that I've never been given any unearned privileges in the first place. It feels like I'm being assigned guilt for crimes that I neither committed, nor benefited from. And for that feeling, I'm rebuked as a part of the problem. — VagabondSpectre

Really? The victim card. O----kay ...

... "White Privilege" isn't about individuals who happen to be white (i.e  caucasian ... (hetero & male too)); it's about what nonwhite persons and communities are up against - discrimination, etc in schooling, employment, healthcare, law enforcement, financial credit, housing, pollution, etc because they are nonwhite - all day everyday. None of that's about you ... unless, of course, you're a white person or community that happens to be poor (i.e. lower middle/working/under-class) and thereby catching hell on a daily basis too  ... otherwise "White Privilege" and "Class Privilege" ain't about the social economic & political struggles you're not having.

One's only "part of the problem", VS, when one doesn't actively oppose, subvert or sabotage racial-color discrimination & class exploitation, however one can whenever one can, as I point out at the close of my first post from the other thread which you've quoted. And I'll add, as a more eloquent reminder from recent history, which you may be familiar with:

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people." ~Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr

We are what we struggle against as much as, maybe even more than, we are what we strive for. That's my criterion for reflecting daily on how much I've been a part of the problem today; no doubt, at the end of each day, it's all too often obvious that I could've done better ...

At any rate, VS, structures of exploitation and their sub-systems of discrimination are the complex cause of INJUSTICE, with which one is either willingly or obliviously complicit or one is not, regardless of whether or not one is white and whether or not one belongs to the upper/over-classes. Nobody gets an ethical free pass (or Get Out of Moral-Jail Free card), so to speak ...

I didn’t say ‘positive’ did I? Maybe I did, anyway, I was certainly looking at things in an upbeat manner because the doom and gloom scenarios get enough people fawning over them. Learning about our unconscious prejudices can easily be manipulated by ‘nasty people’ but that doesn’t mean that ‘nice people’ won’t also put the knowledge to good use.

If things keep in going the way they’ve been going I expect the main boundaries to be drawn in cyberspace rather than between populations. I’m just speculating. I don’t see for an instant that we fully appreciate the implications of how we have been, and will be, influenced by the mass global communications we have today. It’s the new frontier.

I see I can't win for losing with you either: on a thread purportedly about "White Privilege" you're perplexed as to why I point out that it's a White Privilege is a symptom of what I argue is the more fundamental, or pervasive, problem of "Class Privilege" but then my focus of "Class Privilege" annoys you because you misread me as conflating Class & Race. — 180 Proof

That's fair, but you sent me to those posts to contextualize your position here. I'm not annoyed that you would focus on classism, or even on racism, but I am perplexed how you can transition so vaguely between the two in order to rebuke color-blindness.

I am an opponent of certain radical left narratives, and apologize if I’ve conflated your position them, but it isn’t for lack of trying not to…

Because Systemic Racism is one of the policing functions of Structural Classicism that facilitates the socio-economic structure (i.e. status quo) reproducing, or perpetuating, itself. Consider: the relation of Classism to Racism is analogous to the relation of Central Nervous System to Peripheral Nervous System in our bodies - the latter being an intergral function the former. — 180 Proof

I get this, but I can’t square it with opposing color-blindness…

You're apparently missing my satirical pique at the pedestrian quality of this thread discussion (and others like it), that is, you've missed the punchline of that post. So no, the burqa reductio doesn't indicate anything I believer whatsoever about Race, Class, etc — 180 Proof

Though it is clearly a humorous comment, it still seems to make a plausible point (humor is still valid persuasion): that we’re incapable of refraining from acting on racial bias, short of total racial anonymity.
In my scramble to understand why you and others oppose color-blindness initiatives, it seemed a reasonable interpretation

Really? The victim card. O----kay ... — 180 Proof

You seem to have made them into the only currency that matters, and as it happens, I’ve got a stacked deck, so why not?

... "White Privilege" isn't about individuals who happen to be white (i.e caucasian ... (hetero & male too)); it's about what nonwhite persons and communities are up against - discrimination, etc in schooling, employment, healthcare, law enforcement, house, pollution, etc because they are nonwhite - all day everyday. None of that's about you ... unless, of course, you're a white person or community that happens to be poor (i.e. lower middle/working/under-class) and thereby catching hell on a daily basis too ... otherwise "White Privilege" and "Class Privilege" ain't about the social economic & political struggles you're not having. — 180 Proof

Why make the assumption and then correct yourself in the same paragraph? (I'll admit to being annoyed that the only way to avoid the kafkatrap is to appeal to my own experience, but it shows the inconsistency of how telling people they have "white privilege" can play out and spares me the enduring insult of strangers telling me what opportunities and obstacles I did or didn't have).

At any rate, VS, structures of exploitation and their sub-systems of discrimination are the complex cause of INJUSTICE, with which one is either willingly or obliviously complicit or one is not, regardless of whether or not one is white and whether or not one belongs to the upper/over-classes. Nobody gets an ethical free pass (or Get Out of Moral-Jail Free card), so to speak ... — 180 Proof

So is vernacular like “white privilege” and anti-color blindness really the best vehicle for getting there or for stimulating positive action? I oppose the language as divisive and ultimately prejudiced, and I still can’t really comprehend why color-blindness as an initiative applied to discriminatory institutions is somehow bad.

How do you get "identity only matters as a position in a hierarchy" from my moral claim that "race should not confer societal advantages and disadvantages"? — VagabondSpectre

The colourblind is a response to the idea of people gaining merit over others by identity. We ought to, according to the colourblind approach, not recognise or describe differences of identity, for identity is only ever a means by which someone gains merit.

In other words, it is an approach afraid of recognising who people are, for it thinks identity is nothing more than a trick to obtain merit. The position is running on an underlying idea people obtain merit through who they are (i.e. their identity).

It tries to eliminate this by giving everyone the same singular identity (person, human, man, citizen, etc. ), so everyone is granted the same merit. We are all just free citizens (unlike those slaves, immigrants, non-citizens, aliens, etc., who do not belong), so we must be of equal merit. Not only does the colourblind approach fear identity gives merit, but it ironically believes it too.

If identity wasn’t consider to grant merit, the colourblind approach makes no sense. If we are people of equal merit, what do we have to fear in our differences being recognised? We have nothing. Since we are people of equal merit, we are valuable no matter how we might differ from others. Our differences can be bold, on show, recognised constantly.

My point here is the colourblind approach begins in a fucked understanding of people.

It understands people have to take some specific form (the differentlessness, universal subject) before they have merit. It rejects, like the racists, the sexists, etc al., people have merit in themselves (whatever differences that might entail). Rather than grasping people have merit, a colourblind approach just continues the squabble over being “the right sort” to have merit.

I understand that subcultures can run along ethnic or racial lines, but they don't actually. Groups are collections of individuals that all share something in common. Race can be used to define groups.but they're only as culturally, conceptually, materially, and economically homogeneous as the width and standard deviation of the bell curves that measure in-group diversity (that is to say, individuals are not actually defined or necessarily accurately described by the average situation of other members of their identity group). If you tried to define someone's identity based on their race, and they disagreed with your assessment, then you would have likely been employing a racist stereotype (although you could always accuse them of having "internalized white supremacy"). The moment someone says "All black people", or "All white people", they've departed from reality. — VagabondSpectre

Subcultures never run along racial or ethnic lines. Arguing so is a category error. Cultural actives one partakes in are distinct from having one particular identity or not. Former outsiders become part of groups all the time. Supposing a subculture only involves people of a certain racial or ethic group is just a form of racial essentialism.

Some subcultures might have a certain connection to people of particular racial or ethnic identity, but that doesn’t make belonging to the subculture only for that group of people. Family, relationships location and circumstance can always toss people of expected race or ethnicity into that culture.

Race, like any other identity aspect, cannot be used to defined groups. Identity is of the individual. If we are to speak about an identity, we are speaking about individuals. There is nothing homogenous about it. In any given ethnic group, there will be all sorts of people. Different cultural aspects, different concepts of self, variance in material and economic conditions. Identity specifically crosses in-group diversity, to include all sections of the bell curve. Rather the race defining groups, individuals of race define the group. A racial group is an identification of a similarity (racial identity) between these individuals of race.

The statistics you speak of here is a misstep. Or rather, the way you are using them is backwards. We can measure in group diversity, draw out particular relations, general trends, etc., of the group in society. What does this tell us? Certain numbers of people of the group are in particular cultural, material and economic conditions. It’s not a description of any one individual. Nor is it any absurd claim about what “all people are.” Measurement of masses of people are only useful for telling us a relationship of individuals in a social context about masses.

I'm trying to understand how ability relates to race, gender, or religion. I don't think ability is irrelevant, and since I think we should always be striving toward "equity" for those suffering the most, I fully support the initiatives required to help the disabled lead lives worth living. In assenting to this, I am tacitly admitting that disability is an intrinsic disadvantage; that it is better to be not disabled than to be disabled. Many disabilities are unique, but I think to be counted as a "disabled" an individual has to have some sort of reduced capacity that interferes with the normal living of life, hence, "all disabled people suffer as a result of their disability". We need not employ statistics at any point except when looking for the best bang for our investment buck when we erect or modify institutions to better accommodate the disabled, and at the same time, offering help that is tailored specifically to each disabled individual is how we can (at least forseeably) reduce the most amount of suffering among the disabled.

If we focus on the specific suffering and needs of individuals, regardless of group identity, I think we stand a better shot at delivering more change. We do need to recognize the ways in which we treat people unfairly because of their race, religion, or creed, so that we can cease the unfair treatment (which is the crux of 'colorblindness'). If poverty, immoral outcomes in the justice system, and a lack of access to quality healthcare or education are the things that disproportionately cause suffering in the black community, let's just address those problems directly, on the individual to individual level, and community to community level — VagabondSpectre

You misunderstand. I wasn’t trying to say ability relates to race, gender or religion in any particular way. I was referring to ability as identity. Just as someone might have a race, gender or relation, they have abilities which society might recognise or not. My point was an equitable society will recognise a person’s abilities as valuable, rather than trying to just ignore them (as the colourblind approach does with race).

In the case of disability for example, it means recognising the are valuable people in what they can do (assisted or otherwise). They don’t occupy some special category of lives not worth living. Sure, there is stuff they cannot do, but that is true of everyone else. An able-bodied person collapsed from hunger can no more walk then a legless person. Everyone relies on someone else. The need of a wheelchair to move around easily is no more of a “special” problem than able-bodied people needing farmers or/and environment to grow them food. It’s just a different need from the society or community to live a fulfilling life.

If a disability is to amount to a life not worth living, it’s got to be on features which define it (like terrible suffering, disconnection, etc. ), as for any able-bodied person. Anything else is just prejudice, a supposition the able-bodied get merit over the disabled by their able bodied existence.

With disability, we also the direction reaction between recognition and addressing problems. How can we hope to address the needs of this with a disability, if we ignore how they are different, the specific needs they have? To be blind to the difference means we cannot take directed action towards it. Addressing the problems on the individual and community level needs recognition of the individuals of the community.

Affirmative action, at least as it usually practiced, fails to address most structural problems for this reason. Giving a some individuals a position in a college or a company doesn’t address needs of the many which constitute that structural disadvantage, let alone other structural disadvantages of those of different identities.

Indeed, when affirmative action is mistaken for an exhaustive approach to racial disadvantage, it’s because people of a racial identity have been ignored. Imagined this way, it is effectively colourblind. It's repeating the same structural disadvantage, perhaps wth a limited number of people being able to break out due to getting a position. The work to recognise many individuals of a racial group and what they need for a structural disadvantage hasn't been done. Affirmative action needs to be understood for what it is, a potential way to bring diversity into a local culture/give select individuals a position.

(note: I think there are much more effective ways of affirmative action, ones which could seriously dent structural disadvantage, but they are much more complex and long term efforts. Stuff like giving people property, resources and building accompanying community and culture, but these aren't likely to be popular with capitalist developers or white inclined wealthy communities).

So my rebuke is that you're ultimately advocating we rhetorically divide ourselves into ideologically rigid groups in order to assign collective guilt or virtue, where you ought to be focusing on individual needs.

But symmetry doesn't speak to absolute suffering; we could arrive at symmetry by "devaluing" the whites currently at the top, but that doesn't guarantee any changes for the individuals who suffer at the bottom (the Bolshevics brought about more up-down symmetry, but they certainly didn't do it by valuing individuals or menshevics). — VagabondSpectre

I've put these together because they speak to the same issue: focusing on individual needs in a social context is always a question of collective guilt or virtue. Not in the sense you would seem to assume here, where a person is supposedly especially good/bad in their identity and obtains merit/lose merit for it, but in the sense our society will be guilty or virtuous towards individuals. We cannot focus on what an individual needs from society without a notion who the individual is, how they belong, and how society has a collective responsibility to deliver what they need.

Addressing an issue of structural racism is question of dealing with a guilt our society has generated for a group of people. Our society is guilty of a mistreatment. Fixing this wrong is a collective responsibility which will have consequences for particular people. Certain white people, for example, will lose their vision of an all white community. Some white rich people will have to be less rich, more money going to black people on the bottom (amongst others as well, assuming we are also fixing some things for other groups on the bottom).

A "devaluing" of those at the top, many of those who are white, is exactly what it takes to change something for those at the bottom. I don't mean some violent revolution where everyone's property is being seized, just that those on top lose certain aspects of wealth, status and power when those on the bottom are understood to have merit and get a greater slice of the economic pie.

A simple example is a billionaire will only be able to say they have $2999985000 more than a poor person, rather than $3000000000. But that $15000 of "devaluing" is enough to drive some people to racial hatred or neo-liberal insanity.

I get this, but I can’t square it with opposing color-blindness… — VagabondSpectre

It's descriptively wrong.

Since issues of structural racism have genesis the class structure, it is a material fact that our society/class structure forms a structural racism. One's race cannot said to be irrelevant because it has a social significance. In our society, it's a carrier of class prejudice towards some individuals (POC), but not others (white). To be colourblind is to ignore the significance of people, race and this manifestation of class in our society. It's to pretend an aspect of our society isn't there.

Or to borrow 180's analogy, to be colourblind is to think here is only a central nervous system, rather than there being a peripheral one as well. Do you think we would be doing a good job of describing the body if we only mentioned the CNS?

I have not claimed or implied anything about "genetics" anywhere on this thread. Read what I actually wrote to find out what I've said is "racist". As pointed out in a previous post, you only seem interested in responding to what you've read into what I wrote rather than to what I wrote - why is that, Harry? :shade: — 180 Proof

This is your first post in the thread:

In many public and most professional situations if one is a racial minority - member of an out-group or caste - one doesn't have the luxury of "racial color-blindness" because a racial minority's daily prospects, even life, more often than not depend on vigilance - one quickly, correctly, seeing how 'race & color' are seen (i.e. signified) by some members of the racial majority e.g. white cops (US) - and thereby conducting oneself accordingly. — 180 Proof

You're condoning the racial profiling of "white cops" as all possessing group-think - as if all white cops see race & color the same way - the way you do - because you are the one racially profiling people based on their "whiteness" - which is a genetic condition.

My working formula:
Prejudice (e.g. "racial"-color stereotypes/biases) +
Power (i.e. majority/over-Class) =
Racism (i.e. modes/strategies of discrimination against "racial" minority/under-Class) — 180 Proof

So,

Power - Racial Prejudice = Racial Equality?

Isn't that what we have now in the U.S. Isn't racial equality law? Where is the prejudice? I'm not saying that it doesn't exist. What I'm saying is that it doesn't exist on the scope that you claim it does - to the point where you get to be racist yourself and judge all whites - even those without power (and if you claim that then your formula becomes invalid) - as being racist. I actually don't see any instance where it is okay to be a hypocrite - to "fight" racism with racism.