I've occasionally enjoyed the tumblr yoisthisracist.com, but I've recently come upon some entries that strike me as completely nuts. The guy apparently thinks you're racist if you have a 1950s-themed party, for example.
Does this strike anyone as at all sensible? I agree that racism was way worse in the '50s, but having a themed party doesn't mean one is "glorifying" the decade, let alone endorsing any particular aspect of it. Moreover, I see a slippery slope with no possible dividing line. Is it OK to enjoy films from that period, for example?
I don't understand how people get wound up so tight that they can see racial prejudice in something so mundane and harmless.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I deal with this stuff a lot in my work.
My own personal feeling is no it's not racist, though it'd be nice if you paused and realized exactly what it is that you're doing.
If you dress up in black face, then it's racist, or if you did a minstrel show or something. There are some subtle easy ways you can slip into the glorification or mythologizing of racist things from a time period. But dressing in period dress or something else that's benign? You're fine.
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
Finding a historical time period interesting is not, in itself, racist. There are very few time periods you are going to be able to go to (any?) in which some group or another is not being oppressed. Choosing that a particular time is interesting and wanting to throw a party with it as the theme does not entail that you endorse the bigotry of the day. (Whether it be anti-Black, anti-South, anti-Jew, anti-non-Roman-citizen, or what have you).
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
The website on the whole goes a bit too far:
"So... is the mere act of ACKNOWLEDGING [original emphasis] physical and cultural differences between different racist a racist thing to do?
Honestly, who else besides racists sit around doing bullshit like that?"
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I think they make an interesting point about not being able to cherry pick the things we like from an era, like, wanting to throw a party with zoot suits and flapper dresses, like a Prohibition Party or something, to emulate the roaring 20s, while ignoring the troubles just about everyone who wasn't a WASP experienced during the same time period. I don't think those troubles make the time period off-limits for emulation, but I do think we should recognize exactly what it is we're doing.
Star Trek DS9 did an interesting episode that covered this. In the last two seasons, people went to a holosuite program of a 1960s Las Vegas casino, and in one episode, "Badda-Bing Badda-Bang" they had to rescue it. Captain Sisko, the only black Captain to lead a series, protested against saving it because it was a fantasy. Blacks would not have been allowed into the casino if it was period accurate. The exchange that Sisko has with his girlfriend is particularly telling of both the controversy, and a healthy way to respond to it.
Cassidy Yates just finished saying that she always feels comfortable at the casino, and that she's never had any problems because of race. Sisko responds here:
quote:Captain Sisko: But don't you see? That's the lie. In 1962, the civil rights movement was still in its infancy. It wasn't an easy time for our people, and I'm not going to pretend that it was. Kasidy Yates: Baby - I know that Vic's isn't a totally accurate representation of the way things were, but... it isn't meant to be. It shows us the way things could've been - the way they should've been. Captain Sisko: We cannot ignore the truth about the past. Kasidy Yates: Going to Vic's isn't going to make us forget who we are or where we came from. What it does is reminds us that we are no longer bound by any limitations - except the ones we impose on ourselves.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Destineer... It's a tumblr. They make an art form out of being offended by perceived social injustices. Or at least, that's a common impression I have of the place.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Racism is a set of erroneous beliefs about what defines people. If you have a clear idea of what humanity is all about, and you don't judge people based on their race, then nothing you do is "racist."
This crap, along with "I'm not white = I can't be racist," thinking gets my goat every time. People learn all the wrong lessons about this. You're racist if you believe that race matters more than actions, in what people can achieve and in what defines them. That's racism- everything else is just flotsam.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Destineer... It's a tumblr. They make an art form out of being offended by perceived social injustices. Or at least, that's a common impression I have of the place.
I've not seen that. Most of my Tumblr contact is with friends who run fashion/music blogs using the tumblr format. But I suppose every social network has its corners of social injustice outrage. Just the other day I was browsing some pro-gun group and its photo-memes- full of choir preaching of course, but easy to ignore that side of facebook if you want to.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
Dress up silly, drink a manhattan and remark on the hosts vintage lamp that was bought for occasion.
Next time suggest a theme party based on how Europeans would scrape and bow while paying a kings ransom in luxuries and technologies to tribal leaders along the African coast. Whether or not you sell Africans from other tribes is up to you.
It is just a stupid reason to dress in costume. If someone throwing the party had any intention of acting in a period accurate manner toward anyone who was not a white male, middle class and up then it would be mean.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Destineer... It's a tumblr. They make an art form out of being offended by perceived social injustices. Or at least, that's a common impression I have of the place.
I've not seen that. Most of my Tumblr contact is with friends who run fashion/music blogs using the tumblr format. But I suppose every social network has its corners of social injustice outrage. Just the other day I was browsing some pro-gun group and its photo-memes- full of choir preaching of course, but easy to ignore that side of facebook if you want to.
Yeah, it's by no means the only thing people use Tumblr for.
But I'd say it's more than a corner, too. I think it's a pretty significant backbone of the site. And the account Destineer's talking about surely fits into the paradigm I'm used to.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I deal with this stuff a lot in my work.
Huh, what kind of work do you do?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I deal with this stuff a lot in my work.
Huh, what kind of work do you do?
Grad student of African-American history and modern race studies.
I should have said "this kind of stuff," as we don't talk about historically themed parties every day, but discussing what is and isn't racism is a daily conversation.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
'Social Justice' community culture — of the sort that tumblr so readily expresses — has reached utterly surreal levels, to the extent that it is starting to fracture and marginalize itself in a manner roughly and curiously analogous to how the Radfems did a few decades ago. It has worked out a whole inherent set of dogma and specific redefinition of words, its own common vehicular language and associated key words and phrases (see: poc, cis-, trans-, oppression olympics, trans*, ableist, tone argument/tone policing, intersectionality, cultural appropriation, kyriarchy, whiteness, ally, privilege, check your privilege, a specific and mandatory definition of racism and other "isms" that, under Social Justice terminology, cannot be applied to culturally dominant groups, which means that they will say "You can't be racist to whites" or "You can't be sexist to males," etc) and it is BY FAR responsible for the most absolutely mindblowingly surreal shame culture I have seen outside of locked-in right-wing authoritarianism emblematic groups.
I seriously mean it. The entire social justice community has become that profoundly weird that it is difficult to even seriously step back and analyze on a sociological level.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
I agree with Sam.
But I seem to remember him giving me grief for complaining about social justice culture in the past.
You change your mind? Or maybe I misunderstood you, or am misremembering.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I remembered you saying that, broadly, but I thought I remembered you as downplaying their prevalence.
You open your statement with "large subset," though, so I clearly didn't remember right. Good deal. Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Destineer... It's a tumblr. They make an art form out of being offended by perceived social injustices. Or at least, that's a common impression I have of the place.
I've not seen that. Most of my Tumblr contact is with friends who run fashion/music blogs using the tumblr format. But I suppose every social network has its corners of social injustice outrage. Just the other day I was browsing some pro-gun group and its photo-memes- full of choir preaching of course, but easy to ignore that side of facebook if you want to.
Yeah, it's by no means the only thing people use Tumblr for.
But I'd say it's more than a corner, too. I think it's a pretty significant backbone of the site. And the account Destineer's talking about surely fits into the paradigm I'm used to.
I had no idea. But it does explain a younger friend of mine's relatively constant referrals to dumb liberal memes about social justice. The kind of crap that embraces me as a liberal. She runs a well known fashion blog on tumblr.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Yeah, a less political friend of mine (she's lightly libertarian, but mostly just hates politics) gets really exhausted by the stuff on tumblr. She can't escape it, even on blogs nominally about totally unrelated things.
It embraces me too! Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: I agree that racism was way worse in the '50s, but having a themed party doesn't mean one is "glorifying" the decade, let alone endorsing any particular aspect of it. Moreover, I see a slippery slope with no possible dividing line. Is it OK to enjoy films from that period, for example?
Honestly, in this context I may not be the best person to ask if this is racist. I have a more specific definition of racism than many on Hatrack, at least last time in a similar conversation. This does not qualify.
That said, what I`m going to call an asshole test applies. Where you see a slippery slope, I see shades of grey where people will feel like an asshole at different points. I think like 95% (stat totally picked out of the air) of people would feel like an asshole if they were to invite Jewish grandmothers or grandfathers to a, well fascist German late Thirties party shall we say. 90% of people would feel like an asshole inviting the same generation of Chinese to an equivalent Imperial Japanese party. 75%, inviting black people to a Southern plantation party ... but say only 1% of people inviting Christians to a Roman toga party.
The numbers aren't important, the main point is that I feel that where most people disagree isn`t going to be at the extremes, but in that meaty middle. I don`t feel like I have to have a particularly strong opinion about people I may disagree with in there either.
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Racism is a set of erroneous beliefs about what defines people. If you have a clear idea of what humanity is all about, and you don't judge people based on their race, then nothing you do is "racist."
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.
Racism is a system of inequality based on race.
In the US, white people are the privileged race. People of color can be racist, but only in a context of white racism. If they are, as you define it, "racist" towards each other, whites benefit. Thus, such racism is a different kind of racism altogether.
US Racism is a moving strip at an airport that, unless a white person actively turns around and walks in the opposite direction, will carry her towards an even more racist society. As it is, by acknowledging privilege and acknowledging that color blindness is not a good ideal (It's okay, kiddo, we're all white on the inside!), white people can successfully start moving against it. If one doesn't, though, one is contributing to racism - One is a racist.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I deal with this stuff a lot in my work.
Huh, what kind of work do you do?
Grad student of African-American history and modern race studies.
I should have said "this kind of stuff," as we don't talk about historically themed parties every day, but discussing what is and isn't racism is a daily conversation.
I figured that's what you meant. That's awesome, do you have a particular research area yet?
quote:Destineer... It's a tumblr. They make an art form out of being offended by perceived social injustices. Or at least, that's a common impression I have of the place.
Yeah. There is one self-righteous social issue-focused tumblr blog that I think is legitimately hilarious, though:
quote: US Racism is a moving strip at an airport that, unless a white person actively turns around and walks in the opposite direction, will carry her towards an even more racist society. As it is, by acknowledging privilege and acknowledging that color blindness is not a good ideal (It's okay, kiddo, we're all white on the inside!), white people can successfully start moving against it. If one doesn't, though, one is contributing to racism - One is a racist.
If a color-blind civilization were achievable in practice in the near term, I would disagree more strongly with this. As it is, I think it does have some important truths at its heart. But I think of institutional racism a bit differently than you do. In particular, I think it's possible for a social institution (or system of institutions) to be racist while none of the individual participants in the system are racist. We often do things that contribute to institutional racism but which are not motivated by racially prejudiced attitudes. Doing so does not make someone "racist," in my book--although perhaps that's just a semantic question.
To give a concrete example: Armenians in the US are pretty much just part of white America, enjoying the same privilege as other whites. But there are also some people who are prejudiced against Armenians. These people are racists, even though their racism doesn't contribute to institutional racism.
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
niceguysofokcupid is the best Tumblr ever.
Me and all my girlfriends love it! Generally, I found the guys on Facebook I'm friends with didn't like it so much. But it's hilarious!
***Edited to add the following***
I would also just like to point out that OF COURSE race defines us so long as we live in a racist society.
***Edited further because I continually confuse the edit and quote buttons***
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I just kind of want to ask the yo is this racist dude that in light of the fact that we still live in a blatantly racist society doesn't that mean that any period time party thing is racist and you're a racist if you hold one, like wouldn't that make a 90's theme party racist and everyone who attends one racist, or a flapper costume party is all racist, or even a 2011 theme party.
And if not can we figure where the cutoff date is, does it make you racist to hold a 1979 party but not a 1980 party
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Also I mean if racism is systemic and takes a super long time to get rid of, then a futuristic party is probably still racist too, right? How dare you pretend that 2030 won't be a time full of racism and injustice and bigotry. Check your privilege.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
Wow, I just fell down the rabbit hole that is isthisracist.com. Incoherent caps lock free-for-all. I remember that someone hated fedoras, he lead with it in fact. How much rage must one have before you hate a particular style of hat?
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I just kind of want to ask the yo is this racist dude that in light of the fact that we still live in a blatantly racist society doesn't that mean that any period time party thing is racist and you're a racist if you hold one, like wouldn't that make a 90's theme party racist and everyone who attends one racist, or a flapper costume party is all racist, or even a 2011 theme party.
And if not can we figure where the cutoff date is, does it make you racist to hold a 1979 party but not a 1980 party
Ha, yeah. You should ask him and see what he says. (I've actually experimented with asking the guy a couple questions along similar lines, but none showed up on the blog. I don't think he's too interested in actually thinking his views through.)
quote:Also I mean if racism is systemic and takes a super long time to get rid of, then a futuristic party is probably still racist too, right? How dare you pretend that 2030 won't be a time full of racism and injustice and bigotry. Check your privilege.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
Anyone who attends a 90s theme party is not racist, but is, however, a terrible person.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Ha, yeah. You should ask him and see what he says.
probably some variation of 'yo why would this question matter unless DOT DOT DOT'
idk he would probably have some more substantive and reasoned response IF you asked him somehow outside of the obvious performance art n' hijinx nature of the blog, but on the blog it would be boiled down to Great Racist Question for Racists (yo)
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I think you've got him pegged.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
Is it racist to have an Orange County themed party?
Well, shit.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I deal with this stuff a lot in my work.
Huh, what kind of work do you do?
Grad student of African-American history and modern race studies.
I should have said "this kind of stuff," as we don't talk about historically themed parties every day, but discussing what is and isn't racism is a daily conversation.
I figured that's what you meant. That's awesome, do you have a particular research area yet?
My thesis research is on the 1963 "Walk to Freedom," the largest single civil rights march other than the March on Washington, which took place in Detroit a couple months before the MOW.
More broadly, my research interests focus on northern civil rights activity, and on Detroit in particular.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
Tumblr is dumb. People who go around playing social justice police and hunting for white people tears are dumb. way to make a good cause insufferable and pathologically bullyish, ya dinks.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
[ December 27, 2012, 07:03 PM: Message edited by: umberhulk ]
Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :
My experience with Tumblr can be summed up thusly: If I'm reading words, I'm doing it wrong. Show me the pictures of pretty boys!
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
Hey, girl. I love locavorism.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
What the.....This website is strange.
One guy asks " Is it racist if I am at work today? Please say yes."
What is wrong with some people?
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
Some gems.
quote: Anonymous asked: Is it racist when people of color play white music way better than white people (like when Farrakhan plays classical violin concertos, or yo yo ma plays the **** out of his cello)?
No, it’s merely wack.
quote: Anonymous asked: yo, is it racist if im indifferent to whether im perceived as racist
Yes.
quote: Anonymous asked: Why does everyone assume that white people are racist? that in and of itself is racist if you ask me.
Good thing no one is asking your stupid ass, then.
quote: Anonymous asked: My boyfriend hates my fedoras.
Yo, everyone hates your fedoras.
I'm glad our society has evolved to such an illustrious pinnacle.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
just wait until you get to watch social justice warriors segfault on the subject of transethnics (I'm an asian in a white man's body. THIS IS WHO I AM, check your cisethnic privilege) or get in fierce battles because sj vegans say you are fundamentally a rapist if you eat meat or because someone didn't put a trigger warning on their picture of an egg sammich they ate that day or people who issue death threats like candy and call any outrage or request for them to moderate their hostility as "tone policing"
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
Hitler liked doughnuts.
Do you have this in common with Hitler?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I am literally Hitler.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Which means, yes, I am responsible for .. that thing. That dark stain on history. Namely, I coded Windows 8 Server.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
I actually am 25% japanese and have my grandmothers skin color; asian in a white man's body representin'
What do they have to say about the star wars prequels? X-Men first class?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
nono, that's multiethnic. transethnic is like transsexual: you are biologically born one ethnicity but you do not identify as it and you really consider yourself to be a different ethnicity. Ergo if I were a transethnic black person it would be because my body is biologically white but I consider myself to really be a black person, and would want to be referred to as black, and that if anyone has a problem with you calling other black people brothers or the legacy of slavery your legacy or with you saying the n-word, that's prejudice and trans* shaming because they are denying that you are really black just the same as a ftm transsexual is male.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
cool got it, but I'm still an asian in a white man's body.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: nono, that's multiethnic. transethnic is like transsexual: you are biologically born one ethnicity but you do not identify as it and you really consider yourself to be a different ethnicity. Ergo if I were a transethnic black person it would be because my body is biologically white but I consider myself to really be a black person, and would want to be referred to as black, and that if anyone has a problem with you calling other black people brothers or the legacy of slavery your legacy or with you saying the n-word, that's prejudice and trans* shaming because they are denying that you are really black just the same as a ftm transsexual is male.
That's so pedestrian, Sam.
There's a thriving Otherkin community on Tumblr, too! I'm a tortoise in a white man's body, check your privilege!
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I feel bad laughing at someone who's so confused and bad at thinking.
But... good god, it's so hard not to.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
I am a Nordic male trapped in the body of a French/German male.
Who is the equivalent of Maury in regards to day time television these days? I have indeed checked my privilege, now I need to share it.
Posted by Daryl (Member # 12932) on :
Sorry but I don't agree. Racism is much more complex than that. How about the country of Fiji where ethnic Fijians have more rights than people born in Fiji of Indian extraction? Look at how the Kurds relate to others in the Middle East. As a middle class white male I generally got on well with people of Australian Aboriginal heritage while working in their culture but a small minority regarded me as inferior to them and made it obvious, that's racism and just as wrong headed as that displayed by rednecks in Alabama.
quote:Originally posted by Emreecheek:
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Racism is a set of erroneous beliefs about what defines people. If you have a clear idea of what humanity is all about, and you don't judge people based on their race, then nothing you do is "racist."
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.
Racism is a system of inequality based on race.
In the US, white people are the privileged race. People of color can be racist, but only in a context of white racism. If they are, as you define it, "racist" towards each other, whites benefit. Thus, such racism is a different kind of racism altogether.
US Racism is a moving strip at an airport that, unless a white person actively turns around and walks in the opposite direction, will carry her towards an even more racist society. As it is, by acknowledging privilege and acknowledging that color blindness is not a good ideal (It's okay, kiddo, we're all white on the inside!), white people can successfully start moving against it. If one doesn't, though, one is contributing to racism - One is a racist.
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
Did you include that quote because you forgot to read it before posting?
Or was it an ironic usage?
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by Emreecheek: Did you include that quote because you forgot to read it before posting?
Or was it an ironic usage?
Just because he has a point, you're choosing to be insulting? it's the internet, I don't know why i expect any different.
Posted by Daryl (Member # 12932) on :
I included the quote because I wanted to challenge your assertion that "people of colour" (I assume you mean non Caucasian?) are only racist in the context of white racism. World wide people of whatever ethnic group display racism when they put down people of a different background on grounds of race. Neither has to be white or have any connection with any white society, so there is generally no "context of white racism".
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
I have little to no opinion on this, but emre was just talking about the US, and qualified his claim as to effecting the system of inequality in the US, so countering with a racist allocation of rights in another country doesn't make a lot of sense.
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
^That.
Also, again, Racism is a system of inequality based on race. It is not perpetuated solely by bigots, but by lots of well meaning people as well. It's still bad. And in the end, the US has racism that benefits white people. How much culpability white people have in this kind of depends on whether or not culpability is based on intent or end-result. Either way, though, Racism can be perpetuated, even by "nice" people. I'm sorry, but people in another country who look at you funny is just not the same. It's just not.
If somebody thought that you were inferior to them because you were white, in another country, that still doesn't counter that US society (There's a fourth time) is racist. It has, structurally, multiple systems that privilege white people.
I'm tempted to type more on this, but I'm feeling a bit lazy. Can you just read those last two paragraphs again?
[ January 06, 2013, 07:00 PM: Message edited by: Emreecheek ]
Posted by Daryl (Member # 12932) on :
Sorry if I've caused offense, although I never said anything about people "just looking at you funny". I'm not disputing that racism is evil and I fully accept that the US may have long term institutions that disadvantage non whites. As a white citizen of a different country I've had racism directed at me that at various times put my career, health and life at recognizable risk. Some of the worst active racism I've seen in my travels has been in third world countries where people born there of a particular ethnic background can't legally participate in many things. I assume that in the US non white people don't actually have legal barriers to accessing all a citizen's rights, but do have prejudice and closed networks to contend with. The only point I tried ineptly to make is that much racism in the world has nothing to do with US white systems. I'll bow out now and cease causing trouble.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Emreecheek: Racism is a system of inequality based on race. It is not perpetuated solely by bigots, but by lots of well meaning people as well. It's still bad. And in the end, the US has racism that benefits white people.
What would you say to my example about Armenians? If someone is deeply bigoted against Armenians, it seems like they wouldn't count as racist by your definition, since Armenians are part of the privileged in-group in US culture. But that seems ridiculous.
Let's say a white person from the US, where racial politics favors whites over Arabs, is bigoted against Arabs. This person then emigrates to an Arab country where people of Arab ethnicity are privileged. Does that person then stop being racist, simply because his prejudices no longer contribute to institutional racism in his new adopted culture?
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by Emreecheek: ^That.
Also, again, Racism is a system of inequality based on race. It is not perpetuated solely by bigots, but by lots of well meaning people as well. It's still bad. And in the end, the US has racism that benefits white people. How much culpability white people have in this kind of depends on whether or not culpability is based on intent or end-result. Either way, though, Racism can be perpetuated, even by "nice" people. I'm sorry, but people in another country who look at you funny is just not the same. It's just not.
If somebody thought that you were inferior to them because you were white, in another country, that still doesn't counter that US society (There's a fourth time) is racist. It has, structurally, multiple systems that privilege white people.
I'm tempted to type more on this, but I'm feeling a bit lazy. Can you just read those last two paragraphs again?
Not to dogpile, but let me make sure I understand your hypothesis:
1. White people are more likely to be racist than other races
2. white racism is genetic/cultural?
It's the 2nd point I'm not clear on. Which do you think it is, genetic or cultural?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
steven, I don't understand where you're getting either of those questions.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Yeah, that's not at all what emreecheek is saying.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Her post seems to indicate she MIGHT think that there is no possibility that some other race could construct a system that is as (or more) racist as the current system in the US. I'm trying to figure out if that is, in fact, what she thinks.
I'm not going to bother bringing up the example of Zimbabwe's treatment of white farmers a few years ago, because that could be countered by a claim that it was simply a reaction to colonialism.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Her post seems to indicate she MIGHT think that there is no possibility that some other race could construct a system that is as (or more) racist as the current system in the US.
Where are you getting this?
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Her post seems to indicate she MIGHT think that there is no possibility that some other race could construct a system that is as (or more) racist as the current system in the US.
Where are you getting this?
I'm not getting it from anywhere. I'm removing the more extreme possibilities before moving to the more likely ones.
If you want to understand someone's POV (who you've never met or interacted with before) on a specific topic, then it's important to figure out the base assumptions they're working from. That's what I'm after.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
If you want to understand someone's POV, the best way is probably not to say "So are you saying it's genetic that white people are racist?" or "Are you saying that the US is the most racist country possible?" when nothing they've said gives any indication that they might ever think this in a million years.
Like you said, you're not getting it from anywhere. It's certainly not suggested by anything Emreecheek actually said.
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
I haven't lurked here very consistently, so I don't know. Is steven a troll? Like, should I engage?
quote:What would you say to my example about Armenians? If someone is deeply bigoted against Armenians, it seems like they wouldn't count as racist by your definition, since Armenians are part of the privileged in-group in US culture. But that seems ridiculous.
Let's say a white person from the US, where racial politics favors whites over Arabs, is bigoted against Arabs. This person then emigrates to an Arab country where people of Arab ethnicity are privileged. Does that person then stop being racist, simply because his prejudices no longer contribute to institutional racism in his new adopted culture?
Those are really good questions that I haven't thought much on. So, these are my two cents which are likely wrong.
The way I understand it is: Somebody who is contributing to a racist society being racist is a racist. For instance, if a US citizen travels abroad, she may still, I don't know, vlog things or write emails that maintain white privilege in the US, even while being in another country. Thus, she is racist, even while being in a country in which white people are disadvantaged.
We can begin to look at separate pockets of the US in the same way we looked at that different country. I can contribute to huge, institutional racism, even while feeling disadvantaged in the specific areas in which I live. The important thing would be in distinguishing this small pocket of white disadvantage (Which, honestly, I don't really think exists systemically in the US anywhere, but I'll concede that it does, somewhere) from the huge amount of privilege that does come pretty much everywhere in the US for being white.
In the Armenian scenario, these are people who are experiencing prejudice and bigotry. They are likely under stereotype threat often, and may under-perform because of it. However, if they live in a place where they are socially constructed to be white, they may still experience a great amount of privilege with that as well. US Racism can be directed by people of color, and can be directed against "white" people who are different in some way (Italians, Irish). However, this is just always going to be in the context of a larger, more massive racism that separates people into "White" and "not-white," and privileges the "white" people.
I don't understand the specific dynamics of such racism. I believe it is accurate to call it racism. But, again, it's racism within a larger subset of racism. It's like racism is this giant coral reef, and we're the living organisms building off of it. My over-arching point is to try to see racism not just as living organisms that actively demean other organisms, but also as a direction established a long time ago by dead organisms. We can't just wish it away.
I'm bad at eloquence.
I'm relatively new to this line of thinking, and am still learning. And welcome other perspectives.
But I still heartily object to sentiment I first took issue with.
quote:Racism is a set of erroneous beliefs about what defines people. If you have a clear idea of what humanity is all about, and you don't judge people based on their race, then nothing you do is "racist."
This crap, along with "I'm not white = I can't be racist," thinking gets my goat every time. People learn all the wrong lessons about this. You're racist if you believe that race matters more than actions, in what people can achieve and in what defines them. That's racism- everything else is just flotsam.
What bothered me about this is that it seemed rather naive. Because I do know that people who have "humanity" all figured out can still be racist. And that, in the US, "not judging people based on race" very often becomes "giving people an opportunity to act like us white people." See, you're not judging. Black people can act like white people too! They can learn!
I was also bothered by the defining of racism being a belief that race matters more than actions. I'm white, so my racial identity didn't mean all that much to me until recently, because I just assumed white was "normal." However, who am I to tell a person of color that their race doesn't matter as much as action? Because if I was discriminated against a lot because of being white, institutionally, I would certainly identify heavily with being white, and it would be as, if not more, important to me than "actions." I know that I'm uncomfortable with people from the middle and upper classes, and will likely end up dating another poor person. I don't think that makes me classist against dating partners. For the same reason, I can understand why people of color who are disadvantaged might want spaces for themselves, where they can acknowledge that race is important. And more important than actions.
I fail at life. Words are hard.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
A good first step to doing better at life would be to reject the ridiculous pablum that you seem to have swallowed wholesale.
People who think that "race is more important than actions" are 1) being racist, and 2) dead wrong.
This sort of attitude is part of the problem. It's not a viable solution. How could it be? What solution can be derived from maintaining an attitude of responsibility denial or a victim mentality?
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:I haven't lurked here very consistently, so I don't know. Is steven a troll? Like, should I engage?
Tough questions...
quote:The way I understand it is: Somebody who is contributing to a racist society being racist is a racist. For instance, if a US citizen travels abroad, she may still, I don't know, vlog things or write emails that maintain white privilege in the US, even while being in another country. Thus, she is racist, even while being in a country in which white people are disadvantaged.
What if she doesn't write emails or anything like that? She cuts off all ties to her home country but remains hatefully bigoted against Arabs. She makes no contribution to institutional racism in the US and, indeed, is no longer a participant in US culture. Would you really say that this means she's no longer racist?
quote: I'm relatively new to this line of thinking, and am still learning. And welcome other perspectives.
Cool, here's mine. What we end up with when we talk about race relations in a culture like ours are really two separate concepts. One is prejudice against people on the grounds of race, which is what the word 'racism' always meant until po-mo social theorists got ahold of it. The other is behavior and attitudes that contribute to the existence of racial privilege. These are two entirely separate phenomena and should not be lumped together (although they both have bad consequences).
Since 'racism' is the word people have always used to describe racial prejudice, it is silly and confusing to call contributing to racial privilege 'racism' as well. We need another name for this notion. When you call it racism, you needlessly piss well-meaning people off because they think you're calling them prejudiced when really you're not.
quote: People who think that "race is more important than actions" are 1) being racist, and 2) dead wrong.
I don't know if they're being racist. I can think of some non-racist sentiments that might be expressed that way. Really, the problem with "race is more important than actions" is that it's way too general to make much sense. More important for what?
quote: This sort of attitude is part of the problem. It's not a viable solution. How could it be? What solution can be derived from maintaining an attitude of responsibility denial or a victim mentality?
What if you are actually a victim? If I steal your shit, you're perfectly right to deny responsibility--you're not responsible for what I did. And when you think of yourself as a victim, that's just accurate.
If you're a black guy and a cab driver refuses to pick you up, the same is true. You're not responsible, you're a victim.
Now, if you're raised in a disadvantaged household where your parents don't read to you, or even talk much aside from telling you what to do, and you end up with a limited vocabulary, once again, you're a victim.
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
What if she doesn't write emails or anything like that? She cuts off all ties to her home country but remains hatefully bigoted against Arabs. She makes no contribution to institutional racism in the US and, indeed, is no longer a participant in US culture. Would you really say that this means she's no longer racist?
On the one hand, I see a danger in approaching racism as "prejudice that actually works," and bigotry as "prejudice that doesn't." But, on the other, I would say she's bigoted towards Arabs while not being racist.
quote:Since 'racism' is the word people have always used to describe racial prejudice, it is silly and confusing to call contributing to racial privilege 'racism' as well. We need another name for this notion. When you call it racism, you needlessly piss well-meaning people off because they think you're calling them prejudiced when really you're not.
However, I would add that while there is an innocent ignorance that comes with privilege, after a while that ignorance becomes willful. And so I do think that a continued refusal to acknowledge racial privilege is as heinous as what a majority of people view as racism. And somebody with such ignorance can, and should, be called a racist. Those people are not well-meaning. And if they get pissed off, then, well, that's kind of what racists do when you call them racists.
Further thoughts on "Actions matter more than race:
I mostly hear the phrase "Actions matter more than X" from people who are in the subset of "X" with the most power. I'm really struggling to explain this, but, honestly, that seems like a mentality that only benefits those in power.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
I think that a lot of racism stems from the fact that people think that race is more important than actions. I think what Orincoro is saying is that you should discriminate or favor based on actions, and not on race.
I'll put it this way: In interracial communications, actions should be the primary director of how you treat someone. It's what you should notice first, not second.
Someones race should be valued. But all races should be valued equally. But not all actions.
It's not necessarily that the actions are more important than what family-cultural-racial history they fell a connection to, but they shouldn't lose or gain any points from it compared to anyone else you interact with.
[ January 08, 2013, 12:15 AM: Message edited by: umberhulk ]
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
quote:Originally posted by umberhulk: I think that a lot of racism stems from the fact that people think that race is more important than actions. I think what Orincoro is saying is that you should discriminate or favor based on actions, and not on race.
I'll put it this way: In interracial communications, actions should be the primary director of how you treat someone. It's what you should notice first, not second.
Someones race should be valued. But all races should be valued equally. But not all actions.
It's not necessarily that the actions are more important than what family-cultural-racial history they fell a connection to, but they shouldn't lose or gain any points from it compared to anyone else you interact with.
See, I don't think that "gaining/losing" points is necessitated by approaching race first as opposed to actions.
I know in all of my inter-racial friendships, we've had to talk about race quite frankly. And we had to acknowledge the divide between us, which we could only surmount by acknowledging race. First. Before any action. In the middle of every reaction. And it was never a way of trying to pigeonhole somebody, of awarding points or taking them away. It was just a frank acknowledgement that life in the US had awarded us vastly different experiences, and that we'd have a bit more to go as far as making an effort for our friendship.
And that I've read similar accounts. I think about how inter-racial friendship is discussed in Beverly Tatum's "Can We Talk About Race" book. Race must be acknowledged first, before evaluating any actions. It seems counter-intuitive, especially if you've grown up in a household where any mention of race whatsoever was taboo and talking about it made everybody uncomfortable. But many of us have already been programmed to be racist. It takes conscious effort not to be, I think, in most cases.
I guess I'm not arguing so much that evaluating race should precede judging on action so much as saying that the latter never does, and probably never will, exist without the former.
And, again, I'm not going to judge somebody on their ability to act like a white person. It's not just looking at somebody's actions - it's evaluating the actions themselves, seeing if they're valued for a racist reason, and using that to further evaluate your racial understandings.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote: This sort of attitude is part of the problem. It's not a viable solution. How could it be? What solution can be derived from maintaining an attitude of responsibility denial or a victim mentality?
What if you are actually a victim? If I steal your shit, you're perfectly right to deny responsibility--you're not responsible for what I did. And when you think of yourself as a victim, that's just accurate.
If you're a black guy and a cab driver refuses to pick you up, the same is true. You're not responsible, you're a victim.
Now, if you're raised in a disadvantaged household where your parents don't read to you, or even talk much aside from telling you what to do, and you end up with a limited vocabulary, once again, you're a victim.
These are true as far as they go, in the specific contexts you lay out.
That is, if you get robbed, you're a victim, yes. You can deny responsibility for your property being stolen.
But you're still responsible for what comes next.
An extreme example to illustrate what I mean: If you, e.g. spend the next ten years failing to regain your previous financial position and blame everything on that robbery... even sympathetic people will dismiss this as embracing a victim mentality in order to escape responsibility.
But the same is true, to a commensurately lesser extent, if you blame e.g. your bad mood a day later on the robbery. It's far more understandable, but it's fundamentally still an evasion of responsibility, however small.
It's possible to actually be victimized, and also embrace a victim mentality in order to escape responsibility. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and the former does not morally justify the latter.
[ January 08, 2013, 12:44 PM: Message edited by: Dan_Frank ]
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Emreecheek: And, again, I'm not going to judge somebody on their ability to act like a white person.
This is so racist and condescending.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by Emreecheek: I haven't lurked here very consistently, so I don't know. Is steven a troll? Like, should I engage?
quote:What would you say to my example about Armenians? If someone is deeply bigoted against Armenians, it seems like they wouldn't count as racist by your definition, since Armenians are part of the privileged in-group in US culture. But that seems ridiculous.
Let's say a white person from the US, where racial politics favors whites over Arabs, is bigoted against Arabs. This person then emigrates to an Arab country where people of Arab ethnicity are privileged. Does that person then stop being racist, simply because his prejudices no longer contribute to institutional racism in his new adopted culture?
Those are really good questions that I haven't thought much on. So, these are my two cents which are likely wrong.
The way I understand it is: Somebody who is contributing to a racist society being racist is a racist. For instance, if a US citizen travels abroad, she may still, I don't know, vlog things or write emails that maintain white privilege in the US, even while being in another country. Thus, she is racist, even while being in a country in which white people are disadvantaged.
We can begin to look at separate pockets of the US in the same way we looked at that different country. I can contribute to huge, institutional racism, even while feeling disadvantaged in the specific areas in which I live. The important thing would be in distinguishing this small pocket of white disadvantage (Which, honestly, I don't really think exists systemically in the US anywhere, but I'll concede that it does, somewhere) from the huge amount of privilege that does come pretty much everywhere in the US for being white.
In the Armenian scenario, these are people who are experiencing prejudice and bigotry. They are likely under stereotype threat often, and may under-perform because of it. However, if they live in a place where they are socially constructed to be white, they may still experience a great amount of privilege with that as well. US Racism can be directed by people of color, and can be directed against "white" people who are different in some way (Italians, Irish). However, this is just always going to be in the context of a larger, more massive racism that separates people into "White" and "not-white," and privileges the "white" people.
I don't understand the specific dynamics of such racism. I believe it is accurate to call it racism. But, again, it's racism within a larger subset of racism. It's like racism is this giant coral reef, and we're the living organisms building off of it. My over-arching point is to try to see racism not just as living organisms that actively demean other organisms, but also as a direction established a long time ago by dead organisms. We can't just wish it away.
I'm bad at eloquence.
I'm relatively new to this line of thinking, and am still learning. And welcome other perspectives.
But I still heartily object to sentiment I first took issue with.
quote:Racism is a set of erroneous beliefs about what defines people. If you have a clear idea of what humanity is all about, and you don't judge people based on their race, then nothing you do is "racist."
This crap, along with "I'm not white = I can't be racist," thinking gets my goat every time. People learn all the wrong lessons about this. You're racist if you believe that race matters more than actions, in what people can achieve and in what defines them. That's racism- everything else is just flotsam.
What bothered me about this is that it seemed rather naive. Because I do know that people who have "humanity" all figured out can still be racist. And that, in the US, "not judging people based on race" very often becomes "giving people an opportunity to act like us white people." See, you're not judging. Black people can act like white people too! They can learn!
I was also bothered by the defining of racism being a belief that race matters more than actions. I'm white, so my racial identity didn't mean all that much to me until recently, because I just assumed white was "normal." However, who am I to tell a person of color that their race doesn't matter as much as action? Because if I was discriminated against a lot because of being white, institutionally, I would certainly identify heavily with being white, and it would be as, if not more, important to me than "actions." I know that I'm uncomfortable with people from the middle and upper classes, and will likely end up dating another poor person. I don't think that makes me classist against dating partners. For the same reason, I can understand why people of color who are disadvantaged might want spaces for themselves, where they can acknowledge that race is important. And more important than actions.
I fail at life. Words are hard.
No, you're not the most eloquent poster ever, but at least you've fleshed out your statements on the subject.
I don't take major issue with anything you've said, but let me throw a couple of complicating factors into the mix.
First, if you want to see some big-league racism, talk to to people born and raised in East Asia, mainly China and Japan. The issue of their own racial superiority (as a group--a few individuals are not racist) is unquestioned, in their minds. They think they are smarter and better than everyone else, period. So there's that.
Also, I've known plenty of black people (and white people) who make assumptions about singing and dancing ability based on race. Is that racist? Think of this as an essay question.
I recognize that you're not exactly a published author and/or a advanced degree-holder on the subject, so I'm not going to push you too hard all at once. It's a big topic, though, a massive one, and privilege in general is even bigger. Trying to tackle it all at once is a bit much, IMO.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:On the one hand, I see a danger in approaching racism as "prejudice that actually works," and bigotry as "prejudice that doesn't." But, on the other, I would say she's bigoted towards Arabs while not being racist.
You're certainly free to use your words any way you please. But you're going to needlessly confuse a lot of people if this is how you define 'racism.'
quote:However, I would add that while there is an innocent ignorance that comes with privilege, after a while that ignorance becomes willful. And so I do think that a continued refusal to acknowledge racial privilege is as heinous as what a majority of people view as racism. And somebody with such ignorance can, and should, be called a racist. Those people are not well-meaning. And if they get pissed off, then, well, that's kind of what racists do when you call them racists.
Do you mean that a refusal to acknowledge privilege is a sign of prejudice? I agree that it can be, although not always.
If someone understands the word 'racism' in the usual way, not your way, and you tell them something like "You're racist for liking Family Guy," they will naturally think you're crazy. Because what they hear you saying is, "liking Family Guy indicates that you're prejudiced against other races." And when they introspect and realize that they're not prejudiced, they're going to think you're crazy. Even though what you were trying to say is not that they're prejudiced, but that something they like and support is an instrument of racial privilege.
If someone runs into this sort of misunderstanding often enough, I think it's understandable and completely forgivable if they conclude that all this talk of privilege is a bunch of BS. Because they're right that only a crazy person would think enjoying Family Guy is a sign of racial prejudice.
quote:It's not just looking at somebody's actions - it's evaluating the actions themselves, seeing if they're valued for a racist reason, and using that to further evaluate your racial understandings.
I certainly agree that before judging an action--any action, done by a person of any race--you should carefully judge whether the reasons you approve or disapprove are objectively good reasons as opposed to artifacts of your particular social position in life. And this is usually harder when judging actions by someone of another race, so it is more important to make the effort in that case. I would even agree that it's more important for members of an advantaged race to do this carefully, although ideally disadvantaged people should do so as well.
The problem, as Dan points out, is here:
quote: And, again, I'm not going to judge somebody on their ability to act like a white person.
I really don't think you want to say this! A danger with views like yours is the possibility of lapsing into essentialism about race--basically, you run the risk of affirming stereotypes by thinking this way.
If there is such a thing as "acting white," there must also be such a thing as "acting black," and the comparison is unlikely to be flattering for black people given their disadvantaged social position. But it's not, in fact, essentially "black" to use certain slang, for example. Instead, it's stereotypical for black people to talk a particular way. And the stereotype is apt in many ways. But that doesn't mean you should expect people to match stereotypes, or judge them by the standard of the prevailing stereotype they fall under.
I would stick with the idea that you should carefully examine whether your standards of evaluation are racist, and ditch the idea that white people should be judged by white standards, black people by black standards, etc. I don't mean treat white people the same as black people, because black people are systematically victimized in ways white people are not and that needs to be acknowledged. But you should treat a black person the way you would treat a white person who was similarly victimized.
quote: Am extreme example to illustrate what I mean: If you, e.g. spend the next ten years failing to regain your previous financial position and blame everything on that robbery... even sympathetic people will dismiss this as embracing a vitim mentality in order to escape responsibility.
Wouldn't it depend on how much they lost in the robbery?
ETA: The obvious thing to say here--the obvious truth--is that the robbery is partly to blame, and you're partly to blame. The degree to which you're responsible will depend on how much you lost, how much support you had from friends and family, how much insurance helped out, etc.
quote: It's possible to actually be victimized, and also embrace a victim mentality in order to escape responsibility. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and the former does not morally justify the latter.
Sure, but it may be hard to judge whether someone is responding reasonably or not, if the victimization is really bad. To return to my example, if you're raised with a limited vocabulary, that's a huge disadvantage (and one which may be very difficult for you to recognize, let alone correct). I don't think it's at all unreasonable to blame a lot of failure in life on your circumstances, in that case.
[ January 08, 2013, 11:22 AM: Message edited by: Destineer ]
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
Did someone just talk about this on a thread somewhere? Someone referenced this in my life recently but I don't remember where.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote: And, again, I'm not going to judge somebody on their ability to act like a white person.
I really don't think you want to say this! A danger with views like yours is the possibility of lapsing into essentialism about race--basically, you run the risk of affirming stereotypes by thinking this way.
If there is such a thing as "acting white," there must also be such a thing as "acting black," and the comparison is unlikely to be flattering for black people given their disadvantaged social position. But it's not, in fact, essentially "black" to use certain slang, for example. Instead, it's stereotypical for black people to talk a particular way. And the stereotype is apt in many ways. But that doesn't mean you should expect people to match stereotypes, or judge them by the standard of the prevailing stereotype they fall under.
I would stick with the idea that you should carefully examine whether your standards of evaluation are racist, and ditch the idea that white people should be judged by white standards, black people by black standards, etc. I don't mean treat white people the same as black people, because black people are systematically victimized in ways white people are not and that needs to be acknowledged. But you should treat a black person the way you would treat a white person who was similarly victimized.
Yeah this is such a pernicious and dehumanizing form of racism. I think the main way people can hold this view and not realize how racist they're being is by drowning their critical thinking abilities in moral relativism.
But not all ideas are equally good. And since not all cultures are the same, or value the same ideas, that means not all cultures are equally good, either. While it's unreasonable to blame someone for being brought up in a worse culture than you, it's not unreasonable to recognize that it's a worse culture. It's not unreasonable to try to help them change their ideas, either. And if they resist improving their ideas... well, I talk a bit about this in some of my responses below.
By the way, an outgrowth of this racist/relativistic mentality is e.g. the idea that any successful, educated black person is an "oreo" or an uncle Tom or similar.
It's a way of actively hampering progress and improvement, and trying to trick people into retaining bad ideas. It's really quite horrible.
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote: An extreme example to illustrate what I mean: If you, e.g. spend the next ten years failing to regain your previous financial position and blame everything on that robbery... even sympathetic people will dismiss this as embracing a victim mentality in order to escape responsibility.
Wouldn't it depend on how much they lost in the robbery?
ETA: The obvious thing to say here--the obvious truth--is that the robbery is partly to blame, and you're partly to blame. The degree to which you're responsible will depend on how much you lost, how much support you had from friends and family, how much insurance helped out, etc.
It may seem obvious, and I agree with some of what you're saying here, but I have a substantive clarification/disagreement to make.
In a sense you're each "partly" to blame, yes... but you're each fully responsible for the aspects of the situation you had control over. Even in your list of examples, things like support from friends and family or how much insurance you had are things you should take responsibility for. Did you get good insurance? Do you cultivate good relationships with good people who will help their friends in times of crisis? These aren't just mysterious inexplicable factors out of your hands. It's everyone's individual responsibility to live a good life.
Similarly, you bear none of the responsibility of being robbed. You might bear responsibility for not taking reasonable precautions against robbing, or not, depending on the details of the situation. But that's a different (related) issue. Even if you made a mistake and left yourself vulnerable (a mistake you should take 100% responsibility for), the person that robbed you gets full responsibility for actually robbing you.
So you're each "partly" responsible in the sense that we're actually discussing lots of discreet factors glommed together into a single event (You got robbed). Responsibility isn't exactly like a pie, where each person has X% and the total is 100%. Everyone is responsible for their actions, and not responsible for the actions of others.
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote: It's possible to actually be victimized, and also embrace a victim mentality in order to escape responsibility. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and the former does not morally justify the latter.
Sure, but it may be hard to judge whether someone is responding reasonably or not, if the victimization is really bad. To return to my example, if you're raised with a limited vocabulary, that's a huge disadvantage (and one which may be very difficult for you to recognize, let alone correct). I don't think it's at all unreasonable to blame a lot of failure in life on your circumstances, in that case.
Yeah, definitely. Improvement takes time! And I can see that you intend this, rightly, as a better analogy to disadvantaged minorities growing up in poor, uneducated subcultures that often spurn education and success as a defense mechanism. Such a situation is more difficult to overcome than being robbed, particularly because it tries to disable you before you have a chance (i.e. from birth.)
Along the same lines, I think school and parents do a frighteningly good job of destroying creative problem solving skills and critical thinking in young people. So anyone in their late teens or twenties can reasonably blame a lot of their failures on their childhood.
But all of this only goes so far. The further we go from the point at which you had the opportunity to start improving your life, the less you can reasonably blame things like that. If you are now aware of ways you can improve your life, and you're not taking measurable steps towards that... again, that's your responsibility.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
While you can say once past this point, you could have fixed your life, by the time your brain has fully developed, you have cemented a lot of things in your life. College, children, jobs, crimes, etc are frequently in place by mid 20s. Imagine by 23 you dropped out of high school, have a few kids and a criminal record. Want to go back to school, how are you going to feed those kids? Lots of moms have dropped out of school because many states don't allow welfare while in school. Your criminal record is going to dog you in every job application. Let's assume your iq is average and you have no particular talent or skill. How do you get out of this? All of the bad choices (education, crime, children) were made before your brain had even developed long range planning. Your best chance to overcome all the crap inflicted on you during childhood is while you are an adolescent (training still open to you). Yes, it is possible to break out of the cycle, but it is dang hard and takes help.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:I haven't lurked here very consistently, so I don't know. Is steven a troll? Like, should I engage?
Yeah, he's a troll and not worth engaging.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:I haven't lurked here very consistently, so I don't know. Is steven a troll? Like, should I engage?
Yeah, he's a troll and not worth engaging.
Well, our esteemed host deserved what he got with me.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Yeah this is such a pernicious and dehumanizing form of racism. I think the main way people can hold this view and not realize how racist they're being is by drowning their critical thinking abilities in moral relativism.
I wouldn't call it racism, since (like I said above) I'm trying to reserve that word for racial prejudice.
quote:But not all ideas are equally good. And since not all cultures are the same, or value the same ideas, that means not all cultures are equally good, either. While it's unreasonable to blame someone for being brought up in a worse culture than you, it's not unreasonable to recognize that it's a worse culture. It's not unreasonable to try to help them change their ideas, either.
This isn't exactly a foolproof plan for improving someone's life. If you do get them to change their cultural ideas, that will often cut them off from social support like family and friends, etc. In fact, lower-class minority cultures are often quite well adapted to living in the places where many minorities live. You or I probably wouldn't do half as well living in a slum. So unless someone has the resources to move and start over...
I also think Emreecheek has a point that many of the things viewed as undesirable about minority cultures aren't actually objectively bad. In fact, a lot of facets of these cultures are widely looked down on precisely because it's minorities who take part in them.
quote:So you're each "partly" responsible in the sense that we're actually discussing lots of discreet factors glommed together into a single event (You got robbed). Responsibility isn't exactly like a pie, where each person has X% and the total is 100%. Everyone is responsible for their actions, and not responsible for the actions of others.
Sure, Dan. But if I ask the question, who's responsible for my current poverty, and you start telling me how I'm responsible for the actions of mine that led to it and the robber is responsible for the actions of his that led to it, you've just changed the subject.
Sometimes we do want to know who's responsible for some unhappy state of affairs in someone's life. (That's what matters to whether the label of "victim" is appropriate, which is what we were originally talking about.) Unsurprisingly, it usually turns out that the person him/herself isn't entirely responsible for it, and in some cases a large share of responsibility can be ascribed to someone else.
ETA:
quote:And I can see that you intend this, rightly, as a better analogy to disadvantaged minorities growing up in poor, uneducated subcultures that often spurn education and success as a defense mechanism.
Indeed, it is something that actually happens a lot in disadvantaged households and has been widely studied. It's not even about education as such, it's about whether parents spend much time reading and talking to their kids.
and a bit off topic but...
quote: Along the same lines, I think school and parents do a frighteningly good job of destroying creative problem solving skills and critical thinking in young people.
There are two sides to this coin. A lot of my more privileged students are constantly trying to use their cell phones in class, can't see why I don't like them having laptops or iPads, etc. Talk about something that impedes learning! Something tells me if they'd heard the word no a bit more from their parents, this might be less of a problem.
[ January 09, 2013, 12:59 PM: Message edited by: Destineer ]
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:I haven't lurked here very consistently, so I don't know. Is steven a troll? Like, should I engage?
Yeah, he's a troll and not worth engaging.
Well, our esteemed host deserved what he got with me.
I never heard this story, what happened?
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Originally posted by steven:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:I haven't lurked here very consistently, so I don't know. Is steven a troll? Like, should I engage?
Yeah, he's a troll and not worth engaging.
Well, our esteemed host deserved what he got with me.
I never heard this story, what happened?
The short version is that Ornery.org happened.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
A big problem with let the person take responsibility is that it allows a lot of culpability to be dismissed. When you take racial and class issues, doesn't looking at white flight, problems on desegregating education, etc need to be addressed as well? But by saying well, at this point they should move beyond it dismisses the systematic inequalities that still exist and passes the blame from the privelage class that has the most power to the least powerful.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Originally posted by steven:
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:I haven't lurked here very consistently, so I don't know. Is steven a troll? Like, should I engage?
Yeah, he's a troll and not worth engaging.
Well, our esteemed host deserved what he got with me.
I never heard this story, what happened?
I think I was asking for the longer version.
Not to be gossipy, but as a less frequent poster I often miss out on big Hatrack events and end up not getting a lot of references/inside jokes.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
Not to be gossipy, but as a less frequent poster I often miss out on big Hatrack events and end up not getting a lot of references/inside jokes.
How can I say this succinctly, but still give good coverage?
OSC kind of pulled Ornery and his support for Dubya out of thin air, from my point of view at the time (late 2000). I had recommended his books to a lot of people, including some lifelong friends, and felt (rightly, it turns out) that Dubya was not the better candidate in 2000. I emailed him about Dubya's stance on the death penalty in Texas. I find the death penalty in Texas to be...pretty scary. His response was that the governor doesn't have the power to commute penalties in Texas, which isn't the issue. the issue is that Dubya either
1. didn't care about the way Texas applies the death penalty, or 2. didn't want to look soft on crime in front of the base
either way, I was concerned about this, and I felt brushed off. So, I trolled.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
What a stirring tale.
It brought a tear to my eye.
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
That's awesome, do you have a particular research area yet?![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)