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
Isn't that just treating a symptom and not the cause? — VagabondSpectre
(what exactly is the source of the systemic discrimination? — 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. — frank
overClass Priviledge. Cui bono ... — 180 Proof
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
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
: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
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
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
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
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/600/600-h/600-h.htmThen--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
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’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
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.You've lost me. :yawn: — 180 Proof
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
Your argument amounts to "power comes from privilege, and privilege comes from power", where the significance of race is non-sequitir ... — VagabondSpectre
"All white people have white privilege" becomes a meaningless or prejudiced statement if all you're doing is generalizing from statistical outcomes. — VagabondSpectre
You aren't alone. One can make a conclusion from nobody giving a simple answer to this.I'm still trying to understand where this reaction to the idea of color-blindness really comes from. — VagabondSpectre
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.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
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
I'm not so sure about that.. 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
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
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
... 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
... 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
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
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
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
Really? The victim card. O----kay ... — 180 Proof
... "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
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
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
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
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
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 get this, but I can’t square it with opposing color-blindness… — VagabondSpectre
This is your first post in the thread: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
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.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
So,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
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