Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[Foolmewunz]

@Foolmewunz, I like your description and think it's reasonable in what it covers. I think it excludes subtle but meaningful discrimination that shows up in disparate outcomes. Where does the difference in call backs of names from different cultures fit it? Or disparate sentencing for defendants of different races?

To a degree, I think everything can be crammed into one of the categories I mentioned, but if we wish to catalogue the entire gamut of experiences, we could probably create sub-groups within sub-groups.

My main contention is that both bigotry and institutionalized racism are the ugliest and need to be fought, tooth and nail.

Ignorant racism needs to be addressed, but grabbing the person by the forelock and smashing their head against the wall, even figuratively, is probably not going to gain many converts. How much easier and more convincing to say, "You're likely not aware because you weren't exposed to it in Elfswidge (I hope I made that town up) in the 50s or 60s but black lawn jockey statuettes are considered very offensive to persons of color because they're a throwback to the antebellum south when the black kid doing that duty would be a slave." As opposed to: "Check your privilege. This racist **** doesn't float around here."

I'm not sure what you mean by call-backs of names from different cultures. Not a term I'm familiar with.

Different sentences for people of different races? That's pretty clearly institutionalized racism and needs to go into that category.

Two of your possibilities - situations without agency and the experience itself. I'd define the former as situations without racial intent. One aspect of privilege is the ability to say or do things with racial implications without realizing it. Consider the widely discussed phenomenon of white people asking to touch black people's hair.

I know this wasn't addressed to me but it's part and parcel of much of the same as what I was addressing. No, intent is not magic, but it is a word with a meaning and if we're going to have any kind of serious discourse, y'all need to stop dismissing it as though it has no import whatsoever. The story of the courier delivery is a prime example. I've experienced something similar, myself. The guy who used the expression "you people" likely realized afterwards, "Damn! Bad choice of words!" I know I did. But the guy who took it originally as racist probably also thought afterwards, "Damn! I've gotta be careful to not jump to conclusions." If it ended that each understood the other, then I think both the experience and the intention were important.

My version: It was '81 in New York. My first wife and I were heading home and there were a couple of guys hanging out chatting in front of our building. One or two tenants and someone who worked there. One was black - a very well-to-do architect who my ex had a huge crush on. As we turned into our lobby/foyer, there was some noise from up the block and my ex said, "Oh, the natives are getting restless, I guess." The black guy looked at her and said, "Natives??" So, it wasn't me... it was my ex,... She coined an oft-used phrase at just the wrong moment. And she felt like crap for days afterward. The black guy? We often ran into him in a neighborhood pub and he apologized to her several times for HIM MAKING HER FEEL SO BAD, because he knew it was unintentional.

Oh, and Asian kids want to check out white people's hair all the time. Does that make them racists? The Thai girls at the 7/11 fawn all over three or four kids in the neighborhood here, and one of them is not the world's most gorgeous kid, Marcello. They all just love the anomalous blond/blue Russian babies. The Gerber baby stands out here because they're rare. It's curiosity. They're not treating the kid like an exhibit in a zoo and the Chinese kids aren't tugging on my leg hair to condition me to accept them as my superior. They just haven't seen this sort of thing and are exercising the unfettered curiosity that a kid will exhibit.

And I've seen Chinese women ask my friend Andrea if they could touch her hair, too. Are they exercising privilege or racism? Trying to control Andrea? Or are they just curious as to what long red silky hair feels like.

Is an insensitive Chinese woman trying to leverage a position of power over a western woman? Is the Chinese kid pulling my leg hair trying to remind me that I'm inferior. Or are they just culturally not attuned to things we are. I've had long tresses and I've had goofy white and black males and females who hadn't experienced long hair on a guy ask me if they could touch my hair. I never felt oppressed in the slightest.

A lot of this "... but my experience can't be ignored" is just plain wrong. If your experience tells you that because I sip my orange juice before I take a bite of my eggs it means that I secretly want to fornicate with a donkey, why should I give it the slightest credibility? But if you have some rational reason for feeling that, well, then you explain it to me and while my breakfast experience has nothing to do with donkey fornication, I'll at least be able to see which inter-planetary shuttle you came in on and can elect to not traumatize you again should we ever share breakfast. But that's a matter of me being a nice person and thinking in terms of not wanting to offend someone if the drama can be avoided. It has nothing to do with "the experience is correct", because it's catching-moonbeams-in-a-jar crazy.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The former is what I'm getting at. The feelings of marginalization are real even if they stem from an inaccurate appraisal of another's motives.

Yes but, again, that's something that I explicitly said in my first post on the subject, so you reiterating it doesn't actually add to the conversation but, instead, just keeps it going round in circles. You don't need to tell people things they already know, and certainly not as if you were imparting a great truth upon them.

 

[shuttlt]

Not at all. With the caveat that I'm relying on my memory, I'm reasonably sure that I have heard that very definition of rape espoused and defended, with a presumably straight face and no discernible hint of irony, on this board in recent months. I don't recall by whom, but I will try to find it and link to it if you like. And I considered it a relevant parallel to the point Kevin Lowe was making: that taking a word that means something horrific, and watering it down to the point where it also means something trivial, is belittling to those who have lived through the horrific thing it properly describes.

A good post in relation to this is:
http://skepchick.org/2012/12/twitter-users-sad-to-hear-they-may-be-rapists/
The whole outrage relies on equivocating on the definition of drunk.

 

[Dissolution]

Is this the "thinking a white person is racist is the real racism" argument?

See "Black racism is not a mirror image of white racism"

What an utterly biased and racist article.
Completely US-centric and misguided.
Talk about justifying the author's own bigotry.

That's the same sort of thing that Ceepolk tries to push.
You can't be racist towards those scummy crackers because privilege.
It's gibberish.

 

[squealpiggy]

What an utterly biased and racist article.
Completely US-centric and misguided.
Talk about justifying the author's own bigotry.

That's the same sort of thing that Ceepolk tries to push.
You can't be racist towards those scummy crackers because privilege.
It's gibberish.

From the article:

"Blacks lack institutional power. They do not, for the most part, control
the banks,
the police,
the courts,
the schools,
the hospitals,
the newspapers,
the film industry,
the fashion industry,
the labour market,
the housing market"

Neither do white people. For the most part.

ETA and yes, the rest of the article is gibberish. I could be summed up with: Black people cannot truly be racist because white people are so racist.

 

[shuttlt]

I like this one:

"Blacks do not build their sense of self-worth on looking down on whites."

Given that this is supposed to be a list pointing out the lack of symmetry in the relationship between races, is the claim that this is a defining feature of white people? Is it a claim that no true black person has a negative view of white people at the core of their identity? It seems silly to me unless the words are being used in a context specific way that I'm unfamiliar with.

 

[squealpiggy]

I like this one:

"Blacks do not build their sense of self-worth on looking down on whites."

Given that this is supposed to be a list pointing out the lack of symmetry in the relationship between races, is the claim that this is a defining feature of white people? Is it a claim that no true black person has a negative view of white people at the core of their identity? It seems silly to me unless the words are being used in a context specific way that I'm unfamiliar with.

There's a certain irony in using a phrase like this to support the notion that black racism is an element of their victimhood from white racism.

 

[qwints]

I'm not sure what you mean by call-backs of names from different cultures. Not a term I'm familiar with.

Researchers submitted resumes with only the names changed and got lower response rates for names common among black people than names common among white people.

"Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination"
See also "Walking the Talk? What Employers Say Versus What They Do"

Different sentences for people of different races? That's pretty clearly institutionalized racism and needs to go into that category.

Would you call an institution 'blatantly racist' if it was, on its face, racially neutral but had significantly disparate outcomes? If so, then I wholly agree with you.

And I've seen Chinese women ask my friend Andrea if they could touch her hair, too. Are they exercising privilege or racism? Trying to control Andrea? Or are they just curious as to what long red silky hair feels like.

Based solely on that description, yes. (Assuming that there are taboos in that culture against touching strangers and that Chinese women have greater racial privilege in that culture). The point of the discussion is that people are more likely to overcome taboos to satisfy their curiosity when the person they're asking is less privileged along that axis.

A lot of this "... but my experience can't be ignored" is just plain wrong. If your experience tells you that because I sip my orange juice before I take a bite of my eggs it means that I secretly want to fornicate with a donkey, why should I give it the slightest credibility?

You're conflating the subjective emotional experience with mistaken beliefs about other's intentions or actions. The can be know by the speaker with a high degree of certainty while the latter can be mistaken.

Yes but, again, that's something that I explicitly said in my first post on the subject, so you reiterating it doesn't actually add to the conversation but, instead, just keeps it going round in circles. You don't need to tell people things they already know, and certainly not as if you were imparting a great truth upon them.

Because I think you're saying the delivery person was wrong to be upset, and I disagree with that. Being wrong about the speaker's intentions doesn't necessarily make an offensive statement unoffensive.

 

[qwints]

No

Ok, then what does you statement mean?

 

[Amazer]

Ok, then what does you statement mean?

The delivery man assumed ill intent on part of the person who asked why he didn't use the back entrance, on nothing else then his ethnicity. If a black/asian/latin person had said the same, would the delivery man have had the same reaction?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Quick news update: the A+ skepticon indiegogo fundraiser fell $60 short, raising just $640 with only 8 backers (and $250 of that from one single backer). Indiegogo lets you keep the money anyway, though, so someone's still getting $640. No word yet on whether anyone's going to be sent to Skepticon with it.

Damn, the SJW's are a cheap bunch, aren't they?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Not at all. With the caveat that I'm relying on my memory, I'm reasonably sure that I have heard that very definition of rape espoused and defended, with a presumably straight face and no discernible hint of irony, on this board in recent months. I don't recall by whom, but I will try to find it and link to it if you like. And I considered it a relevant parallel to the point Kevin Lowe was making: that taking a word that means something horrific, and watering it down to the point where it also means something trivial, is belittling to those who have lived through the horrific thing it properly describes.

In other words, if everything is rape, then nothing is rape.

And yes, the A+ SJW's have argued (presumably with a straight face) that is someone has been drinking (and even 1 beer counts as "drinking"), they cannot give consent.

 

[luchog]

Luchog, are you talking about one particular study or the test as a whole? I think using IATs as a racist detector would be a bad idea for the reasons you set out, but I also think it reveals useful data in the aggregate (i.e. generalities.)

I think the flaws in the test as a whole, and the principles underlying the test, prevent it from being a useful predictor of behaviour, even on a general level, right now. It's certainly a good start; but has to have a way to control for a larger number of factors, and be applied to a much wider demographic than just white people's views of other groups, in order to be useful in a sociological sense. The science isn't quite there yet, but it's definitely moving down the right road for the most part.

It's not a bad tool, but the science is still not quite there for it to do what its proponents claim it does. It still has a way to go before it's a very good one. Like all scientific tools, it has to start somewhere; it's just a matter of where it goes from there.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The point of the discussion is that people are more likely to overcome taboos to satisfy their curiosity when the person they're asking is less privileged along that axis.

Let's say that that's true. Is it not the case that that's likely to be true because people are more likely to be curious about something with which they're unfamiliar, and therefore are more likely to be curious about aspects of people who are in a minority?

I suppose the interesting case-study would be Apartheid-era South Africa, where white people had the social advantages, yet were outnumbered by black people 9 to 1.

Because I think you're saying the delivery person was wrong to be upset, and I disagree with that.

Well, if you're going to completely ignore all the things that I've said and instead make up a position that you'd like me to hold, then there's not much I can do about that, I suppose, except to ask you not to.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Researchers submitted resumes with only the names changed and got lower response rates for names common among black people than names common among white people.

"Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination"
See also "Walking the Talk? What Employers Say Versus What They Do"



Would you call an institution 'blatantly racist' if it was, on its face, racially neutral but had significantly disparate outcomes? If so, then I wholly agree with you.


Based solely on that description, yes. (Assuming that there are taboos in that culture against touching strangers and that Chinese women have greater racial privilege in that culture). The point of the discussion is that people are more likely to overcome taboos to satisfy their curiosity when the person they're asking is less privileged along that axis.



You're conflating the subjective emotional experience with mistaken beliefs about other's intentions or actions. The can be know by the speaker with a high degree of certainty while the latter can be mistaken.



Because I think you're saying the delivery person was wrong to be upset, and I disagree with that. Being wrong about the speaker's intentions doesn't necessarily make an offensive statement unoffensive.

You're going to have to walk me through how a Chinese woman, who in no way feels in a position of superiority to a six foot tall American amazon with red hair is exercising any form of one-upsperson-ship over that person. Even if there is a strict taboo about touching a woman's hair - which there happens to be - that's why they asked rather than just walked over and tugged at it like the little kids do to waigworen leg hair. But I don't think you've seen many Chinese and Americans interacting. In mixed social circles (westerners and Chinese) if there's any inequality, it's in favor of the westerner. You're going to have to trust my experience on this and not make me invisible. Oh, and especially Andrea... when she was visiting Taipei my best friend at the time, Syau Dzou would say, "Oh, I have to brush up on my Mandarin - Andrea's coming." She speaks and writes Chinese like a native.

These were social equals. Ask any guy who's got a shaved head how many people ask him if they can feel it. Or anyone with a long beard. This is a common phenomenon. The fact that the subjects of this attention see racism and controlling mechanisms says much more about them than the persons insensitively asking to satisfy their curiosity.

And surely you're not asking me if I agree that the institutional racism of the sentencing in the USA - I assume you're speaking of the numerous studies done here - is something I approve of.

As to the call-backs... I just didn't understand how you were using the term. Whether it's institutionalized would be the question. If it's bias, then the persons making the decisions may be consciously or subconsciously racist, but I'd say they're racist. If anyone can show me a smoking gun where a company or an industry or association has put out instructions on this, I'll call that a smoking gun. And don't think that's not possible. A bunch of employment agencies in NYC were busted because someone flagged just that. They had code words between them and potential employers that said, "No ******* or ******, or ****** okay but no *******."

True story: I knew a guy at an employment agency and he was a scumbag (he was the husband of someone I worked with) who never got busted. His company's code was that he and the client would discuss the job position in detail and then talk sports. Any time of year, New York has two teams playing in a major sport. Say it was football season.... "So, who do you like on Sunday?" And if the client said he liked both the Jets and Giants (or Rangers and Islanders, Met/Yankees, Knicks/Nets), it meant send me a white person. If he answered both NY teams to lose, it meant "open position, send anyone who's qualified". And some variation on picking one or the other meant no n-words only or no s-words only. THIS WAS A COMPANY WIDE CODE.

eta: the s-word is a pejorative for Puerto Rican which is okay by the auto-censor but not okay by me, so I asterisked it out, myself.

 

[squealpiggy]

Researchers submitted resumes with only the names changed and got lower response rates for names common among black people than names common among white people.

"Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination"
See also "Walking the Talk? What Employers Say Versus What They Do"

The problem with this study is that thenames they used as "stereotypically black" are also stereotypically lower class names. For want of a better term, "ghetto" names.

I would suggest you would get similar results if you compared names like Emily and Greg with names like Krystal and Kane.

 

[luchog]

The former is what I'm getting at. The feelings of marginalization are real even if they stem from an inaccurate appraisal of another's motives.

There's the entire point I and others are making, and the point of the aphorism. Feelings are real; but they are not necessarily accurate, and rarely relevant. Feelings are by definition irrational. At what point do we cease to be responsible for someone else's misinterpretation of our words and actions? At what point does ignorance or oversensitivity cease to be a valid criticism of someone's reaction to an otherwise innocuous comment.

Feelings of offense are unfalsifiable, they're entirely idiosyncratic and do not have to be predicated on real phenomena. Further, unlike rational thought, are subject to fluctuating physiological states. They're extremely self-focused and self-important.

There is no right to not be offended; because offense is anywhere and everywhere if you look hard enough. You can find it if you really want to; particularly if you already believe it exists. It is absolutely impossible to live in a way that will not offend someone, somewhere, at some time; because offense is idiosyncratic and inherently contradictory. It is not an outcome, and cannot be effectively controlled for.

 

[luchog]

The problem with this study is that thenames they used as "stereotypically black" are also stereotypically lower class names. For want of a better term, "ghetto" names.

I would suggest you would get similar results if you compared names like Emily and Greg with names like Krystal and Kane.

The fundamental flaw in this and similar studies, and in tests like the IAT, is the lack of control for familiarity response. At best, there's a partial control that only accounts for the most overt forms of familiarity; and more often it's just handwaved away.

Replacing stereotypically black names with stereotypically German, Russian, Asian, Hispanic, Jewish, and/or Pacific Islander should have similar results; but I'm not aware of any studies that have extended the range of name types; or examined any other socio-racial demographic to the same extent as white middle-upper class.

 

[Foolmewunz]

The problem with this study is that thenames they used as "stereotypically black" are also stereotypically lower class names. For want of a better term, "ghetto" names.

I would suggest you would get similar results if you compared names like Emily and Greg with names like Krystal and Kane.

Are you sure about this? Latisha and Jamal are lower class names?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Wait if feeling oppressed is enough to count as being oppressed then shouldn't they do something about how gays are now oppressing Christians?