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.
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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".
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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.
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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?
posted
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.
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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?
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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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?
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
Did someone just talk about this on a thread somewhere? Someone referenced this in my life recently but I don't remember where.
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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.
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posted
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.
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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.
posted
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.
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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.
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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.
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