In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On September 23 2016 09:51 Doodsmack wrote: People do need to start seeing more nuance in these police shootings. If this guy in Charlotte had a gun, it's pretty clear the cop was justified.
What even is the Second Amendment? Americans are allowed guns, even the black ones. Pointing one at a cop is another matter but I'm always amazed at the way the right try to make it about whether or not he had a gun and the left agree to play that game by those rules. We all collectively concede that gun ownership isn't a black right and that the Second Amendment isn't worth shit in the eyes of the police.
There is a difference between the right to own a gun, and raising your hands with a gun in them when a cop is telling you to "drop the gun". Not saying that happened here, but that there is a world of difference between the right to own a gun and holding a gun while engaging with a cop, in a manner the latter might consider threathening.
Also, it was a black victim shoot by a black cop, with a black head of police department. So why is this a racial thing again?
It's a way of blaming white people in perpetuity and feeding off the division to get people in power in government, and as lackeys of government, for their own benefit, rather than addressing the root problems.
On September 23 2016 10:37 RealityIsKing wrote:
On September 23 2016 10:20 KwarK wrote:
On September 23 2016 10:05 GoTuNk! wrote:
On September 23 2016 09:58 KwarK wrote:
On September 23 2016 09:51 Doodsmack wrote: People do need to start seeing more nuance in these police shootings. If this guy in Charlotte had a gun, it's pretty clear the cop was justified.
What even is the Second Amendment? Americans are allowed guns, even the black ones. Pointing one at a cop is another matter but I'm always amazed at the way the right try to make it about whether or not he had a gun and the left agree to play that game by those rules. We all collectively concede that gun ownership isn't a black right and that the Second Amendment isn't worth shit in the eyes of the police.
There is a difference between the right to own a gun, and raising your hands with a gun in them when a cop is telling you to "drop the gun". Not saying that happened here, but that there is a world of difference between the right to own a gun and holding a gun while engaging with a cop, in a manner the latter might consider threathening.
Also, it was a black victim shoot by a black cop, with a black head of police department. So why is this a racial thing again?
Hi, this is your daily reminder that black people don't have a superpower that prevents them from learning any racism while growing up and living in a society with entrenched racism. It'd actually be really weird if they could do that. But, despite claims to the contrary by GG and xDaunt, black people are actually human.
Also I wasn't referring to this specific incident, just commenting on the way gun ownership in the black community is seen as a deciding factor for police shootings, even though it's a constitutional right.
I think at this point, white people feel racism too.
Especially with the rise of BLM.
And teachers these days are guilt tripping their white students.
I mean that's not at all what a healthy society should be like.
Do you have a source for the teachers thing? I thought that was in the UK but I don't remember.
Scattered schools, sometimes even with believable good intentions:
An elite Manhattan school is teaching white students as young as 6 that they’re born racist and should feel guilty benefiting from “white privilege,” while heaping praise and cupcakes on their black peers.
Administrators at the Bank Street School for Children on the Upper West Side claim it’s a novel approach to fighting discrimination, and that several other private New York schools are doing it, but even liberal parents aren’t buying it.
They complain the K-8 school of 430 kids is separating whites in classes where they’re made to feel awful about their “whiteness,” and all the “kids of color” in other rooms where they’re taught to feel proud about their race and are rewarded with treats and other privileges.
“Ever since Ferguson, the school has been increasing anti-white propaganda in its curriculum,” said a parent who requested anonymity because he has children currently enrolled in the school.
A Wisconsin high school is under fire after a parent accused a diversity class of promoting a critical race theory, alleging that students are being taught that minorities are disadvantaged by white oppressors, Fox News reports.
Delavan-Darien High School’s “American Diversity” course aims to help students “better understand oneself and recognize how feelings, ideas and beliefs interact with the ideas and beliefs of other individuals and groups,” according to the school’s website. By studying American society through the connections among culture, ethnicity, race, religion and gender issues, the course seeks to “create a more accurate picture of modern America.”
But an unnamed parent tells Fox News that assignments and class worksheets seem like “indoctrination.” A handout gives students a definition of “white privilege,” which appears to be taken from a book by the same name:
To put it charitably, some teachers think it's an appropriate way to introduce children to the topic of race and discrimination. I remember another school district that implemented a curriculum from an activist group on the issue, but it was protested and probably withdrawn.
^When you're mad the kids don't get the quality education in white supremacy they used to.
Top tier post, really showed those white supremacists.
Just btw people that completely dismiss the worries of others inevitably see the rise of the opposition. See Trump and blm.
If people are upset their high school age children are learning about the very real thing that is white privilege then boohoo. Its no different than parents crying their children learn the factual truth of evolution in science class. These things are real, your children need to learn it sooner or later, your feelings don't trump the truth. Do we want smarter, better, stronger, more compassionate children to lead the world to better places or do we want to shelter them and teach them lies and silly narrow minded nonsense so their feelings (or the parent's feelings) don't get hurt?
Your kids are in HS, they're going to be adults soon. White people objectively have it easier in America across the board, that's a fact and its time your kids learned it. Maybe they can try and make things better. You can't fix a problem by pretending it doesn't exist when its plain as day.
Lemme know when Asian priviledge and Jew priviledge is a thing, more over let me know why on earth it's acceptable to begin this shit with 6 year olds writing down crap to indoctrinate themselves.
On September 23 2016 12:39 OuchyDathurts wrote: [quote]
If people are upset their high school age children are learning about the very real thing that is white privilege then boohoo. Its no different than parents crying their children learn the factual truth of evolution in science class. These things are real, your children need to learn it sooner or later, your feelings don't trump the truth. Do we want smarter, better, stronger, more compassionate children to lead the world to better places or do we want to shelter them and teach them lies and silly narrow minded nonsense so their feelings (or the parent's feelings) don't get hurt?
Your kids are in HS, they're going to be adults soon. White people objectively have it easier in America across the board, that's a fact and its time your kids learned it. Maybe they can try and make things better. You can't fix a problem by pretending it doesn't exist when its plain as day.
Puting evolution and white privilege on the same level, I don't think even creatonist are that deluded.
Not really, its pretty easy to observe that many major institutions favor white people and people in general have more favorable reactions to white people inside of the US. It is obvious if you look at a lot of various numbers to get a bigger picture...or you know just live here for any extended period of time that isn't restricted to the white dominated middle class and up areas. I'm guessing you have done neither.
And why is that?
This is the key question. It's all well and good to point out problems with how the system and people in it are dealt with differently but I've never seen an explanation from a leftist on this specific question that didn't ultimately boil down "they have different coloured skin." That seems like a ridiculous premise on the face of it.
XDaunt should know this stuff because people have quoted the numbers that show things out of whack with institutions in regards to differential treatment. I will just take one: Criminal Justice. The whole thing, from how police come to observe race (and how that affects their arrest rates and interaction with communities) to the courts and how they tend to come down on minorities harder. Things like the war on drugs. To be clear its not 100% race motivated, a lot of it is biased against the poor (which is where economic and educational imbalances come into play).
All these things are interconnected and they pile onto each other. They are mostly small and in isolation may not seem like a big deal to you. Let us say for example how many black names get a lot of ridicule and people think they are credulous.
Yes, I have already accepted the premise that black people are treated differently at various levels of society. I'm asking why are they treated differently.
I explained it a little in the post above (accidentally hit post before I was done). To summarize that though: Whites built the institutions and were the only legal "americans" for so long so they were in all the power positions as the country was formed/built. So people equate whites with the quintessential "american", the norm and other races as other. Even forms of speech/names/behavior are not "favored" because they aren't from that "white norm". Lastly, people tend to favor their own race because they seem more familiar or more comfortable w/e.
So you have a country where all the power is basically occupied by whites, who will subtly favor their own race. There you get increased social mobility for other whites but not as much for blacks + the massive historical context of what slavery did and how far back it set blacks and the overt attitudes of many people earlier on of straight up thinking black people were inferior humans.
Total population in 2010 White American 223,553,265 72.4 % Black American 38,929,319 12.6 %
so 12% should dictate what is "the norm"?
Careful, globalization is a thing and it may actually be a surprise to some people, but white people don't make up much more than 12% of the population.
12% of the worlds population unarguably controls the direction it travels in, fairly incredible.
Puting evolution and white privilege on the same level, I don't think even creatonist are that deluded.
Not really, its pretty easy to observe that many major institutions favor white people and people in general have more favorable reactions to white people inside of the US. It is obvious if you look at a lot of various numbers to get a bigger picture...or you know just live here for any extended period of time that isn't restricted to the white dominated middle class and up areas. I'm guessing you have done neither.
And why is that?
This is the key question. It's all well and good to point out problems with how the system and people in it are dealt with differently but I've never seen an explanation from a leftist on this specific question that didn't ultimately boil down "they have different coloured skin." That seems like a ridiculous premise on the face of it.
XDaunt should know this stuff because people have quoted the numbers that show things out of whack with institutions in regards to differential treatment. I will just take one: Criminal Justice. The whole thing, from how police come to observe race (and how that affects their arrest rates and interaction with communities) to the courts and how they tend to come down on minorities harder. Things like the war on drugs. To be clear its not 100% race motivated, a lot of it is biased against the poor (which is where economic and educational imbalances come into play).
All these things are interconnected and they pile onto each other. They are mostly small and in isolation may not seem like a big deal to you. Let us say for example how many black names get a lot of ridicule and people think they are credulous.
Yes, I have already accepted the premise that black people are treated differently at various levels of society. I'm asking why are they treated differently.
I explained it a little in the post above (accidentally hit post before I was done). To summarize that though: Whites built the institutions and were the only legal "americans" for so long so they were in all the power positions as the country was formed/built. So people equate whites with the quintessential "american", the norm and other races as other. Even forms of speech/names/behavior are not "favored" because they aren't from that "white norm". Lastly, people tend to favor their own race because they seem more familiar or more comfortable w/e.
So you have a country where all the power is basically occupied by whites, who will subtly favor their own race. There you get increased social mobility for other whites but not as much for blacks + the massive historical context of what slavery did and how far back it set blacks and the overt attitudes of many people earlier on of straight up thinking black people were inferior humans.
Total population in 2010 White American 223,553,265 72.4 % Black American 38,929,319 12.6 %
so 12% should dictate what is "the norm"?
Careful, globalization is a thing and it may actually be a surprise to some people, but white people don't make up much more than 12% of the population.
12% of the worlds population unarguably controls the direction it travels in, fairly incredible.
Not for long if Madkipz is in charge
I've been beating up on Republicans for a while now, how about Stonetear? Hillary supporters still speculating it's probably all made up (hoping that's the case while they pray they at least get a denial from her)?
Or has it already moved on to "not a big deal", or did I totally miss the train and it's arrived at "but it's not as bad as Trump" or "it's Russia's fault" by now?
On September 23 2016 15:03 ChristianS wrote: Jesus this thread is depressing sometimes.
The last ~24 hours of discussion have put a sobering thought into my head, and I wonder what you guys think of it. Basically, in the last 50 or so years, there's been a strong anti-racist movement in the country as a whole. Laws that discriminate against blacks became widely considered unacceptable, public figures are shunned for expressing racist ideas or using racist epithets. The implied justification was that we as a society were making a concerted effort to eliminate racism as much as possible, and drive whatever resistant strains that survived to . Considered with other historical moves towards equality (elimination of slavery, blacks joining the military, Brown v. Board, etc.), it fit nicely with an overarching narrative of racial progress.
Maybe this is just a problem with anecdotal evidence, but it seems to me those attitudes are completely different in a lot of people today. Hardened Trump supporters often try to deny that Trump is a racist, but far more frequently I see people that just don't seem to care much. They might even lean toward thinking he probably is, but it's just not that important an issue. This is really baffling to me, since for my whole life there's been a widespread cultural agreement that overt racism is one of the ugliest sides of human civilization and absolutely cannot be tolerated, but in the broad view of history, racism is absolutely the norm. Not always as bad as early American South racism, but it's always been pretty normal to distrust people with different cultural and ethnic background than you, treat them worse, value their life less than that of your family or friends or tribe members. I always figured that was just part of progress – unlike humans for most of history, we have cars and refrigerators and computers and a prevailing cultural understanding that racism is bad.
It's a nice stroll through memory lane, but you make a sudden leap into modern times by contrasting the civil rights era with Trump and his supporters. Sit at the back of the bus was racism. Separate eating establishments based on race was racism. Immigration policy isn't. Political invective on several issues isn't (though abrasive speech will still cause others to bristle no matter the subject). You're right to call it anecdotal, and it's intensely subjective. You'll see the comparisons to late 1800s racism and xenophobia, others will see you as a wannabe crusader longing for a bygone era but without a real civil rights cause today.
My sobering thought was this: what if we're not on an inevitable march toward progress and greater racial equality? What if the anti-racist attitudes of the last 50 years aren't a lasting cultural achievement, but just a temporary backlash against the ugly racism of the 40's and 50's? People saw how hideous that Nazi movement was, and they saw the horrible treatment of blacks in the South, and the lynching of Emmett Till, and the dogs and firehoses deployed against civil rights protesters, and for a while it became fashionable to be against racism.
But now that all that stuff isn't such recent memory, racism takes on all of the advantages that made it prevalent in human society before. Scapegoating is an easy way to feel better about your problems. Stereotyping is almost inescapable in the psychology of how humans understand the world. Many apparent virtues that people are encouraged to cultivate (e.g. loyalty, empathy) can subconsciously promote tribalism (e.g. loyalty involves favoring those you're close to over those you're not, empathy encourages greater connection to people who are more like you). Racial minorities are often small enough in number that society can get weird impressions of them simply from having too small a sample size, and once a weird (especially negative) bias gets in place, confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy effects tend to maintain or expand that bias.
I've been hoping all the bigotry of the Trump movement would be remembered by history as a weird spike of bigotry as the white American middle class came to terms with several realities it had been in denial about for years. But what if history remembers these past ~50 years as that brief period where American society was largely anti-racist?
My sobering thought is this: what if the current campaign against out-of-fashion ideas and racial realism won't be reversed for many years? What if the zealots of today, the current victors of the culture war, won't realize how hideous their own movement has become, nor how the '60s rebellion against authority became a puritanical persecution from authority (cultural leadership brought to you by Your Moral Betters™). Scapegoating and stereotyping of Trump supporters for social ills could continue, as much as I wish it would not. It is intensely psychological and the fight in every generation is to inspire the better angels of our nature.
I'm hoping the atmosphere of moral scolds today are later regarded as a weird period of American history when people embraced racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issues. When language was so bastardized and social media lynch mobs so emboldened that every political opinion was viewed by the color difference of the author & subject's skin. I look with some hope to the next generation. Today's left-leaning culture responds to criticism like a priest to sacrilege, and even young people today can see how bizarre it acts. It's far more likely that today's regress, disguised as progress, continues to win and that's a very sobering thought indeed.
On September 23 2016 13:01 Slaughter wrote: [quote]
Not really, its pretty easy to observe that many major institutions favor white people and people in general have more favorable reactions to white people inside of the US. It is obvious if you look at a lot of various numbers to get a bigger picture...or you know just live here for any extended period of time that isn't restricted to the white dominated middle class and up areas. I'm guessing you have done neither.
And why is that?
This is the key question. It's all well and good to point out problems with how the system and people in it are dealt with differently but I've never seen an explanation from a leftist on this specific question that didn't ultimately boil down "they have different coloured skin." That seems like a ridiculous premise on the face of it.
XDaunt should know this stuff because people have quoted the numbers that show things out of whack with institutions in regards to differential treatment. I will just take one: Criminal Justice. The whole thing, from how police come to observe race (and how that affects their arrest rates and interaction with communities) to the courts and how they tend to come down on minorities harder. Things like the war on drugs. To be clear its not 100% race motivated, a lot of it is biased against the poor (which is where economic and educational imbalances come into play).
All these things are interconnected and they pile onto each other. They are mostly small and in isolation may not seem like a big deal to you. Let us say for example how many black names get a lot of ridicule and people think they are credulous.
Yes, I have already accepted the premise that black people are treated differently at various levels of society. I'm asking why are they treated differently.
I explained it a little in the post above (accidentally hit post before I was done). To summarize that though: Whites built the institutions and were the only legal "americans" for so long so they were in all the power positions as the country was formed/built. So people equate whites with the quintessential "american", the norm and other races as other. Even forms of speech/names/behavior are not "favored" because they aren't from that "white norm". Lastly, people tend to favor their own race because they seem more familiar or more comfortable w/e.
So you have a country where all the power is basically occupied by whites, who will subtly favor their own race. There you get increased social mobility for other whites but not as much for blacks + the massive historical context of what slavery did and how far back it set blacks and the overt attitudes of many people earlier on of straight up thinking black people were inferior humans.
Total population in 2010 White American 223,553,265 72.4 % Black American 38,929,319 12.6 %
so 12% should dictate what is "the norm"?
Careful, globalization is a thing and it may actually be a surprise to some people, but white people don't make up much more than 12% of the population.
12% of the worlds population unarguably controls the direction it travels in, fairly incredible.
Not for long if Madkipz is in charge
I've been beating up on Republicans for a while now, how about Stonetear? Hillary supporters still speculating it's probably all made up (hoping that's the case while they pray they at least get a denial from her)?
Or has it already moved on to "not a big deal", or did I totally miss the train and it's arrived at "but it's not as bad as Trump" or "it's Russia's fault" by now?
I had to google what Stonetear is...
So, basically just confirmation that Clinton's email IT/admin was incompetent? I thought we already knew that the email archives were not "complete" records of all traffic, and those reddit posts are from 2014, which is a year before the investigations started?
And we also knew that the people running the email server failed basic network security.
The counterpoint to that Danglars is the immense snap back to normalicy (and a bit further to the right) across the western world.
I have serious doubts if the Brexit would have passed or if Trump would have got through the primaries without the utter absurdity of left wing crusaders.
Every genius that proudly proclaims that Black people can't be racist, or that every white person needs to check learn their priviledge is doing nothing but hurt themselves.
On September 23 2016 13:01 Slaughter wrote: [quote]
Not really, its pretty easy to observe that many major institutions favor white people and people in general have more favorable reactions to white people inside of the US. It is obvious if you look at a lot of various numbers to get a bigger picture...or you know just live here for any extended period of time that isn't restricted to the white dominated middle class and up areas. I'm guessing you have done neither.
And why is that?
This is the key question. It's all well and good to point out problems with how the system and people in it are dealt with differently but I've never seen an explanation from a leftist on this specific question that didn't ultimately boil down "they have different coloured skin." That seems like a ridiculous premise on the face of it.
XDaunt should know this stuff because people have quoted the numbers that show things out of whack with institutions in regards to differential treatment. I will just take one: Criminal Justice. The whole thing, from how police come to observe race (and how that affects their arrest rates and interaction with communities) to the courts and how they tend to come down on minorities harder. Things like the war on drugs. To be clear its not 100% race motivated, a lot of it is biased against the poor (which is where economic and educational imbalances come into play).
All these things are interconnected and they pile onto each other. They are mostly small and in isolation may not seem like a big deal to you. Let us say for example how many black names get a lot of ridicule and people think they are credulous.
Yes, I have already accepted the premise that black people are treated differently at various levels of society. I'm asking why are they treated differently.
I explained it a little in the post above (accidentally hit post before I was done). To summarize that though: Whites built the institutions and were the only legal "americans" for so long so they were in all the power positions as the country was formed/built. So people equate whites with the quintessential "american", the norm and other races as other. Even forms of speech/names/behavior are not "favored" because they aren't from that "white norm". Lastly, people tend to favor their own race because they seem more familiar or more comfortable w/e.
So you have a country where all the power is basically occupied by whites, who will subtly favor their own race. There you get increased social mobility for other whites but not as much for blacks + the massive historical context of what slavery did and how far back it set blacks and the overt attitudes of many people earlier on of straight up thinking black people were inferior humans.
Total population in 2010 White American 223,553,265 72.4 % Black American 38,929,319 12.6 %
so 12% should dictate what is "the norm"?
Careful, globalization is a thing and it may actually be a surprise to some people, but white people don't make up much more than 12% of the population.
12% of the worlds population unarguably controls the direction it travels in, fairly incredible.
Not for long if Madkipz is in charge
I've been beating up on Republicans for a while now, how about Stonetear? Hillary supporters still speculating it's probably all made up (hoping that's the case while they pray they at least get a denial from her)?
Or has it already moved on to "not a big deal", or did I totally miss the train and it's arrived at "but it's not as bad as Trump" or "it's Russia's fault" by now?
I saw on Facebook, which I know is a fully reliable and trustworthy source, that the thing he was asking about is actually not as damning as some of the news outlets suggest. Like, basically just a way to prevent the user's actual email address from being displayed to the general public, or something. But since I don't know anything about what it is he's actually trying to learn from that post, I don't really know what to think about it. Maybe someone can clarify?
On September 23 2016 09:51 Doodsmack wrote: People do need to start seeing more nuance in these police shootings. If this guy in Charlotte had a gun, it's pretty clear the cop was justified.
What even is the Second Amendment? Americans are allowed guns, even the black ones. Pointing one at a cop is another matter but I'm always amazed at the way the right try to make it about whether or not he had a gun and the left agree to play that game by those rules. We all collectively concede that gun ownership isn't a black right and that the Second Amendment isn't worth shit in the eyes of the police.
There is a difference between the right to own a gun, and raising your hands with a gun in them when a cop is telling you to "drop the gun". Not saying that happened here, but that there is a world of difference between the right to own a gun and holding a gun while engaging with a cop, in a manner the latter might consider threathening.
Also, it was a black victim shoot by a black cop, with a black head of police department. So why is this a racial thing again?
It's a way of blaming white people in perpetuity and feeding off the division to get people in power in government, and as lackeys of government, for their own benefit, rather than addressing the root problems.
On September 23 2016 10:37 RealityIsKing wrote:
On September 23 2016 10:20 KwarK wrote:
On September 23 2016 10:05 GoTuNk! wrote:
On September 23 2016 09:58 KwarK wrote: [quote] What even is the Second Amendment? Americans are allowed guns, even the black ones. Pointing one at a cop is another matter but I'm always amazed at the way the right try to make it about whether or not he had a gun and the left agree to play that game by those rules. We all collectively concede that gun ownership isn't a black right and that the Second Amendment isn't worth shit in the eyes of the police.
There is a difference between the right to own a gun, and raising your hands with a gun in them when a cop is telling you to "drop the gun". Not saying that happened here, but that there is a world of difference between the right to own a gun and holding a gun while engaging with a cop, in a manner the latter might consider threathening.
Also, it was a black victim shoot by a black cop, with a black head of police department. So why is this a racial thing again?
Hi, this is your daily reminder that black people don't have a superpower that prevents them from learning any racism while growing up and living in a society with entrenched racism. It'd actually be really weird if they could do that. But, despite claims to the contrary by GG and xDaunt, black people are actually human.
Also I wasn't referring to this specific incident, just commenting on the way gun ownership in the black community is seen as a deciding factor for police shootings, even though it's a constitutional right.
I think at this point, white people feel racism too.
Especially with the rise of BLM.
And teachers these days are guilt tripping their white students.
I mean that's not at all what a healthy society should be like.
Do you have a source for the teachers thing? I thought that was in the UK but I don't remember.
Scattered schools, sometimes even with believable good intentions:
An elite Manhattan school is teaching white students as young as 6 that they’re born racist and should feel guilty benefiting from “white privilege,” while heaping praise and cupcakes on their black peers.
Administrators at the Bank Street School for Children on the Upper West Side claim it’s a novel approach to fighting discrimination, and that several other private New York schools are doing it, but even liberal parents aren’t buying it.
They complain the K-8 school of 430 kids is separating whites in classes where they’re made to feel awful about their “whiteness,” and all the “kids of color” in other rooms where they’re taught to feel proud about their race and are rewarded with treats and other privileges.
“Ever since Ferguson, the school has been increasing anti-white propaganda in its curriculum,” said a parent who requested anonymity because he has children currently enrolled in the school.
A Wisconsin high school is under fire after a parent accused a diversity class of promoting a critical race theory, alleging that students are being taught that minorities are disadvantaged by white oppressors, Fox News reports.
Delavan-Darien High School’s “American Diversity” course aims to help students “better understand oneself and recognize how feelings, ideas and beliefs interact with the ideas and beliefs of other individuals and groups,” according to the school’s website. By studying American society through the connections among culture, ethnicity, race, religion and gender issues, the course seeks to “create a more accurate picture of modern America.”
But an unnamed parent tells Fox News that assignments and class worksheets seem like “indoctrination.” A handout gives students a definition of “white privilege,” which appears to be taken from a book by the same name:
To put it charitably, some teachers think it's an appropriate way to introduce children to the topic of race and discrimination. I remember another school district that implemented a curriculum from an activist group on the issue, but it was protested and probably withdrawn.
^When you're mad the kids don't get the quality education in white supremacy they used to.
Top tier post, really showed those white supremacists.
Just btw people that completely dismiss the worries of others inevitably see the rise of the opposition. See Trump and blm.
If people are upset their high school age children are learning about the very real thing that is white privilege then boohoo. Its no different than parents crying their children learn the factual truth of evolution in science class. These things are real, your children need to learn it sooner or later, your feelings don't trump the truth. Do we want smarter, better, stronger, more compassionate children to lead the world to better places or do we want to shelter them and teach them lies and silly narrow minded nonsense so their feelings (or the parent's feelings) don't get hurt?
You skipping the treatment of elementary schoolers is a bit telling. We do want smart and compassionate children, and for certain reasons I'll try to expose, if you go too far to the left you stop getting those results.
Your kids are in HS, they're going to be adults soon. White people objectively have it easier in America across the board, that's a fact and its time your kids learned it. Maybe they can try and make things better. You can't fix a problem by pretending it doesn't exist when its plain as day.
Collectivism is fundamentally broken because the traits of a group don't transfer to the individual. This oppressor class theory is more divisive than beneficial to mankind, and it's what people are actually referring to by cultural marxism. If you're teaching white people.they're evil and minorities that they're victims (which wouldn't even be right for Asians or Jews), you're only going to perpetuate that, it's not any kind of fix at all. And your pet political-economic theory is not equivalent to the rigor of a central theory in natural science, that thought itself is anti-science. Its purpose is it creates opportunities for the people spreading the theory, in government, in nonprofits, as consultants, college administrators, where they can multiply and keep the machine going. The actual fixes are not complicated (but difficult, not a magic wand), it's just that it's easier for people to protest and lobby than it is to actually work and build shit in the world and the ongoing fight against poverty and crime in the world isn't as lucrative as the sale of identities:
-Reform the criminal justice system, including fixing the war on drugs so we don't imprison people for marijuana on an industrial level. But one reason the criminal justice system affects certain minorities worse, besides the old Nixon stuff, is that they are statistically more criminal. No, this is not a biological trait, it's a historical accident. But there are serious crime problems for many communities. We have to grant there's a way to break up that cycle that isn't racist to move forward. -Teach poor children with an actual education to do things in the world with their life -Keep poor families together, especially black fathers getting speared by crime and the courts -Facilitate poor people rising to control businesses and investments in their own communities
Earlier you strawmanned RealityIsKing as The classic "reverse racism is worse than actual racism"? By 'compassion' we also need the solidarity to realize things like this + Show Spoiler +
are related to skin color. The more divisive one side is the less others will bother.
On September 23 2016 13:06 xDaunt wrote: [quote] And why is that?
This is the key question. It's all well and good to point out problems with how the system and people in it are dealt with differently but I've never seen an explanation from a leftist on this specific question that didn't ultimately boil down "they have different coloured skin." That seems like a ridiculous premise on the face of it.
XDaunt should know this stuff because people have quoted the numbers that show things out of whack with institutions in regards to differential treatment. I will just take one: Criminal Justice. The whole thing, from how police come to observe race (and how that affects their arrest rates and interaction with communities) to the courts and how they tend to come down on minorities harder. Things like the war on drugs. To be clear its not 100% race motivated, a lot of it is biased against the poor (which is where economic and educational imbalances come into play).
All these things are interconnected and they pile onto each other. They are mostly small and in isolation may not seem like a big deal to you. Let us say for example how many black names get a lot of ridicule and people think they are credulous.
Yes, I have already accepted the premise that black people are treated differently at various levels of society. I'm asking why are they treated differently.
I explained it a little in the post above (accidentally hit post before I was done). To summarize that though: Whites built the institutions and were the only legal "americans" for so long so they were in all the power positions as the country was formed/built. So people equate whites with the quintessential "american", the norm and other races as other. Even forms of speech/names/behavior are not "favored" because they aren't from that "white norm". Lastly, people tend to favor their own race because they seem more familiar or more comfortable w/e.
So you have a country where all the power is basically occupied by whites, who will subtly favor their own race. There you get increased social mobility for other whites but not as much for blacks + the massive historical context of what slavery did and how far back it set blacks and the overt attitudes of many people earlier on of straight up thinking black people were inferior humans.
Total population in 2010 White American 223,553,265 72.4 % Black American 38,929,319 12.6 %
so 12% should dictate what is "the norm"?
Careful, globalization is a thing and it may actually be a surprise to some people, but white people don't make up much more than 12% of the population.
12% of the worlds population unarguably controls the direction it travels in, fairly incredible.
Not for long if Madkipz is in charge
I've been beating up on Republicans for a while now, how about Stonetear? Hillary supporters still speculating it's probably all made up (hoping that's the case while they pray they at least get a denial from her)?
Or has it already moved on to "not a big deal", or did I totally miss the train and it's arrived at "but it's not as bad as Trump" or "it's Russia's fault" by now?
I saw on Facebook, which I know is a fully reliable and trustworthy source, that the thing he was asking about is actually not as damning as some of the news outlets suggest. Like, basically just a way to prevent the user's actual email address from being displayed to the general public, or something. But since I don't know anything about what it is he's actually trying to learn from that post, I don't really know what to think about it. Maybe someone can clarify?
Honestly, from his request I have no idea what he was trying to accomplish. It looked like he was trying to redact someone's (likely Hillary's) name and email from the server archives.
Which is bizarre, because if you were trying to cover tracks, then just delete the entire archive. If you were trying to obscure her name/contact, then the archives aren't going to do much, since those are records of things already sent out. If you're trying to secure the archives, then clearing the stuff that's fairly open knowledge in a place that you have to hack into just to see makes no sense.
My best bet? He was asked to retrieve some emails with redactions, but was actually so bad at his job that he couldn't think of how to do that without applying it to their stored files.
On September 23 2016 15:54 bo1b wrote: The counterpoint to that Danglars is the immense snap back to normalicy (and a bit further to the right) across the western world.
I have serious doubts if the Brexit would have passed or if Trump would have got through the primaries without the utter absurdity of left wing crusaders.
Every genius that proudly proclaims that Black people can't be racist, or that every white person needs to check learn their priviledge is doing nothing but hurt themselves.
On September 23 2016 15:54 bo1b wrote: The counterpoint to that Danglars is the immense snap back to normalicy (and a bit further to the right) across the western world.
I have serious doubts if the Brexit would have passed or if Trump would have got through the primaries without the utter absurdity of left wing crusaders.
Every genius that proudly proclaims that Black people can't be racist, or that every white person needs to check learn their priviledge is doing nothing but hurt themselves.
Doesn't Australia have a "National Sorry Day"?
That went down as well as you can expect to a group of people who most likely have never even seen 5 aboriginals.
Those that have seen 5 different aboriginals probably had a worse reaction.
Worth noting that after Kevin Rudd we had arguably the most conservative Prime minister since world war 2.
On September 23 2016 15:54 bo1b wrote: The counterpoint to that Danglars is the immense snap back to normalicy (and a bit further to the right) across the western world.
I have serious doubts if the Brexit would have passed or if Trump would have got through the primaries without the utter absurdity of left wing crusaders.
Every genius that proudly proclaims that Black people can't be racist, or that every white person needs to check learn their priviledge is doing nothing but hurt themselves.
To the right? To the extremes is more accurate. Extreme left parties are gaining as well. I.e. Corbyn, Syriza, Podemos, Sanders and the hardcore left party in my own country (SP) has been gaining for years as well.
On September 23 2016 15:54 bo1b wrote: The counterpoint to that Danglars is the immense snap back to normalicy (and a bit further to the right) across the western world.
I have serious doubts if the Brexit would have passed or if Trump would have got through the primaries without the utter absurdity of left wing crusaders.
Every genius that proudly proclaims that Black people can't be racist, or that every white person needs to check learn their priviledge is doing nothing but hurt themselves.
To the right? To the extremes is more accurate. Extreme left parties are gaining as well. I.e. Corbyn, Syriza, Podemos, Sanders and the hardcore left party in my own country (SP) has been gaining for years as well.
You think? I see it more as a vocal minority (say 30-40%) over taking the left side of the political spectrum while there is an extreme backlash in the right side.
On September 23 2016 09:51 Doodsmack wrote: People do need to start seeing more nuance in these police shootings. If this guy in Charlotte had a gun, it's pretty clear the cop was justified.
What even is the Second Amendment? Americans are allowed guns, even the black ones. Pointing one at a cop is another matter but I'm always amazed at the way the right try to make it about whether or not he had a gun and the left agree to play that game by those rules. We all collectively concede that gun ownership isn't a black right and that the Second Amendment isn't worth shit in the eyes of the police.
There is a difference between the right to own a gun, and raising your hands with a gun in them when a cop is telling you to "drop the gun". Not saying that happened here, but that there is a world of difference between the right to own a gun and holding a gun while engaging with a cop, in a manner the latter might consider threathening.
Also, it was a black victim shoot by a black cop, with a black head of police department. So why is this a racial thing again?
It's a way of blaming white people in perpetuity and feeding off the division to get people in power in government, and as lackeys of government, for their own benefit, rather than addressing the root problems.
On September 23 2016 10:37 RealityIsKing wrote:
On September 23 2016 10:20 KwarK wrote:
On September 23 2016 10:05 GoTuNk! wrote: [quote]
There is a difference between the right to own a gun, and raising your hands with a gun in them when a cop is telling you to "drop the gun". Not saying that happened here, but that there is a world of difference between the right to own a gun and holding a gun while engaging with a cop, in a manner the latter might consider threathening.
Also, it was a black victim shoot by a black cop, with a black head of police department. So why is this a racial thing again?
Hi, this is your daily reminder that black people don't have a superpower that prevents them from learning any racism while growing up and living in a society with entrenched racism. It'd actually be really weird if they could do that. But, despite claims to the contrary by GG and xDaunt, black people are actually human.
Also I wasn't referring to this specific incident, just commenting on the way gun ownership in the black community is seen as a deciding factor for police shootings, even though it's a constitutional right.
I think at this point, white people feel racism too.
Especially with the rise of BLM.
And teachers these days are guilt tripping their white students.
I mean that's not at all what a healthy society should be like.
Do you have a source for the teachers thing? I thought that was in the UK but I don't remember.
Scattered schools, sometimes even with believable good intentions:
An elite Manhattan school is teaching white students as young as 6 that they’re born racist and should feel guilty benefiting from “white privilege,” while heaping praise and cupcakes on their black peers.
Administrators at the Bank Street School for Children on the Upper West Side claim it’s a novel approach to fighting discrimination, and that several other private New York schools are doing it, but even liberal parents aren’t buying it.
They complain the K-8 school of 430 kids is separating whites in classes where they’re made to feel awful about their “whiteness,” and all the “kids of color” in other rooms where they’re taught to feel proud about their race and are rewarded with treats and other privileges.
“Ever since Ferguson, the school has been increasing anti-white propaganda in its curriculum,” said a parent who requested anonymity because he has children currently enrolled in the school.
A Wisconsin high school is under fire after a parent accused a diversity class of promoting a critical race theory, alleging that students are being taught that minorities are disadvantaged by white oppressors, Fox News reports.
Delavan-Darien High School’s “American Diversity” course aims to help students “better understand oneself and recognize how feelings, ideas and beliefs interact with the ideas and beliefs of other individuals and groups,” according to the school’s website. By studying American society through the connections among culture, ethnicity, race, religion and gender issues, the course seeks to “create a more accurate picture of modern America.”
But an unnamed parent tells Fox News that assignments and class worksheets seem like “indoctrination.” A handout gives students a definition of “white privilege,” which appears to be taken from a book by the same name:
To put it charitably, some teachers think it's an appropriate way to introduce children to the topic of race and discrimination. I remember another school district that implemented a curriculum from an activist group on the issue, but it was protested and probably withdrawn.
^When you're mad the kids don't get the quality education in white supremacy they used to.
Top tier post, really showed those white supremacists.
Just btw people that completely dismiss the worries of others inevitably see the rise of the opposition. See Trump and blm.
If people are upset their high school age children are learning about the very real thing that is white privilege then boohoo. Its no different than parents crying their children learn the factual truth of evolution in science class. These things are real, your children need to learn it sooner or later, your feelings don't trump the truth. Do we want smarter, better, stronger, more compassionate children to lead the world to better places or do we want to shelter them and teach them lies and silly narrow minded nonsense so their feelings (or the parent's feelings) don't get hurt?
You skipping the treatment of elementary schoolers is a bit telling. We do want smart and compassionate children, and for certain reasons I'll try to expose, if you go too far to the left you stop getting those results.
Your kids are in HS, they're going to be adults soon. White people objectively have it easier in America across the board, that's a fact and its time your kids learned it. Maybe they can try and make things better. You can't fix a problem by pretending it doesn't exist when its plain as day.
Collectivism is fundamentally broken because the traits of a group don't transfer to the individual. This oppressor class theory is more divisive than beneficial to mankind, and it's what people are actually referring to by cultural marxism. If you're teaching white people.they're evil and minorities that they're victims (which wouldn't even be right for Asians or Jews), you're only going to perpetuate that, it's not any kind of fix at all. And your pet political-economic theory is not equivalent to the rigor of a central theory in natural science, that thought itself is anti-science. Its purpose is it creates opportunities for the people spreading the theory, in government, in nonprofits, as consultants, college administrators, where they can multiply and keep the machine going. The actual fixes are not complicated (but difficult, not a magic wand), it's just that it's easier for people to protest and lobby than it is to actually work and build shit in the world and the ongoing fight against poverty and crime in the world isn't as lucrative as the sale of identities:
-Reform the criminal justice system, including fixing the war on drugs so we don't imprison people for marijuana on an industrial level. But one reason the criminal justice system affects certain minorities worse, besides the old Nixon stuff, is that they are statistically more criminal. No, this is not a biological trait, it's a historical accident. But there are serious crime problems for many communities. We have to grant there's a way to break up that cycle that isn't racist to move forward. -Teach poor children with an actual education to do things in the world with their life -Keep poor families together, especially black fathers getting speared by crime and the courts -Facilitate poor people rising to control businesses and investments in their own communities
Earlier you strawmanned RealityIsKing as The classic "reverse racism is worse than actual racism"? By 'compassion' we also need the solidarity to realize things like this + Show Spoiler +
are related to skin color. The more divisive one side is the less others will bother.
That video made me sad
That's shitty and dude should be in prison. However that video is from London, not Charlotte. Stop buying into the everything you're being fed. The person who misstagged that video did it for a very obvious purpose.
On September 23 2016 15:03 ChristianS wrote: Jesus this thread is depressing sometimes.
The last ~24 hours of discussion have put a sobering thought into my head, and I wonder what you guys think of it. Basically, in the last 50 or so years, there's been a strong anti-racist movement in the country as a whole. Laws that discriminate against blacks became widely considered unacceptable, public figures are shunned for expressing racist ideas or using racist epithets. The implied justification was that we as a society were making a concerted effort to eliminate racism as much as possible, and drive whatever resistant strains that survived to . Considered with other historical moves towards equality (elimination of slavery, blacks joining the military, Brown v. Board, etc.), it fit nicely with an overarching narrative of racial progress.
Maybe this is just a problem with anecdotal evidence, but it seems to me those attitudes are completely different in a lot of people today. Hardened Trump supporters often try to deny that Trump is a racist, but far more frequently I see people that just don't seem to care much. They might even lean toward thinking he probably is, but it's just not that important an issue. This is really baffling to me, since for my whole life there's been a widespread cultural agreement that overt racism is one of the ugliest sides of human civilization and absolutely cannot be tolerated, but in the broad view of history, racism is absolutely the norm. Not always as bad as early American South racism, but it's always been pretty normal to distrust people with different cultural and ethnic background than you, treat them worse, value their life less than that of your family or friends or tribe members. I always figured that was just part of progress – unlike humans for most of history, we have cars and refrigerators and computers and a prevailing cultural understanding that racism is bad.
It's a nice stroll through memory lane, but you make a sudden leap into modern times by contrasting the civil rights era with Trump and his supporters. Sit at the back of the bus was racism. Separate eating establishments based on race was racism. Immigration policy isn't. Political invective on several issues isn't (though abrasive speech will still cause others to bristle no matter the subject). You're right to call it anecdotal, and it's intensely subjective. You'll see the comparisons to late 1800s racism and xenophobia, others will see you as a wannabe crusader longing for a bygone era but without a real civil rights cause today.
Worth noting I never said Trump's immigration policy means he's racist. I was honestly more focused on Trump himself. Being prosecuted by Nixon's Justice Department for really explicitly discriminating against black tenants in his hotels back in the 70's. That stuff by Jack O'Donnell about how when he was president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, Trump went off about not wanting a black guy as an accountant because blacks are lazy, and he only wants Jews counting his money. Calling Mexicans rapists. Those shitty stereotypes he embraced talking to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Y'know, that stuff.
But I wasn't really looking to pick a fight either. I don't really long to be a civil rights crusader. The 50's and 60's sound awful, and I'm glad I didn't have to be around for it. I honestly wish that we were having a relatively normal election between, like, Tim Kaine and Jeb Bush, and I could tune out and read the occasional headline without click on it and maybe get around to registering to vote if I had nothing better to do, but I probably never would because I wouldn't care that much who won.
Instead we've got a large, disgruntled population of lower- and middle-class white people who feel that they've been wronged by the world. They think they used to have some kind of glory and power, but now their manufacturing jobs are fading away and they're losing their privileged place in the world, and they feel betrayed and unsafe and powerless. We've got a demagogue candidate who's appealing to this population by telling them that they lost their power because of Mexicans and Muslims and China. He's parading around families of people that were raped or murdered by illegal Mexicans to gin up a rage against these foreigners that are raping and murdering their wives and children. He's saying the whole world is laughing at them because they don't win any more. And he's promising them that if they support him, then by the time he's done, nobody will laugh at them again.
This is not a drill, this is how real life racial persecution gets started. This is the type of movement that used to lead to pogroms and lynchings and blood libel. People get so caught up in the movement and the propaganda and the cult of personality around a charismatic leader that they stop paying attention to facts and policy, to the point that you can explain to them that the crime rate is down, not up, that they lost their manufacturing jobs to the inexorable forces of globalism and no one can bring them back, and that illegal immigrants actually commit violent crime at a lower rate than the rest of the population, but it has absolutely no bearing on how they feel.
My sobering thought was this: what if we're not on an inevitable march toward progress and greater racial equality? What if the anti-racist attitudes of the last 50 years aren't a lasting cultural achievement, but just a temporary backlash against the ugly racism of the 40's and 50's? People saw how hideous that Nazi movement was, and they saw the horrible treatment of blacks in the South, and the lynching of Emmett Till, and the dogs and firehoses deployed against civil rights protesters, and for a while it became fashionable to be against racism.
But now that all that stuff isn't such recent memory, racism takes on all of the advantages that made it prevalent in human society before. Scapegoating is an easy way to feel better about your problems. Stereotyping is almost inescapable in the psychology of how humans understand the world. Many apparent virtues that people are encouraged to cultivate (e.g. loyalty, empathy) can subconsciously promote tribalism (e.g. loyalty involves favoring those you're close to over those you're not, empathy encourages greater connection to people who are more like you). Racial minorities are often small enough in number that society can get weird impressions of them simply from having too small a sample size, and once a weird (especially negative) bias gets in place, confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy effects tend to maintain or expand that bias.
I've been hoping all the bigotry of the Trump movement would be remembered by history as a weird spike of bigotry as the white American middle class came to terms with several realities it had been in denial about for years. But what if history remembers these past ~50 years as that brief period where American society was largely anti-racist?
My sobering thought is this: what if the current campaign against out-of-fashion ideas and racial realism won't be reversed for many years? What if the zealots of today, the current victors of the culture war, won't realize how hideous their own movement has become, nor how the '60s rebellion against authority became a puritanical persecution from authority (cultural leadership brought to you by Your Moral Betters™). Scapegoating and stereotyping of Trump supporters for social ills could continue, as much as I wish it would not. It is intensely psychological and the fight in every generation is to inspire the better angels of our nature.
I'm hoping the atmosphere of moral scolds today are later regarded as a weird period of American history when people embraced racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issues. When language was so bastardized and social media lynch mobs so emboldened that every political opinion was viewed by the color difference of the author & subject's skin. I look with some hope to the next generation. Today's left-leaning culture responds to criticism like a priest to sacrilege, and even young people today can see how bizarre it acts. It's far more likely that today's regress, disguised as progress, continues to win and that's a very sobering thought indeed.
Seems like you're throwing out a lot of punches at stuff I'm not sure if you're assuming I support. I'm also not sure what's meant by terms like "racial realism." It seems to denote a position which acknowledges the realities of race (about which this "regressive left" is presumably in denial), but I'm not sure what realities you think those are. A white supremacist might say they're a "racial realist" for acknowledging that white people are better than black people. An SJW might call themselves a "racial realist" for acknowledging the power dynamics between whites and various minorities in America today, such that a "color-blind" approach can't solve racial issues. I assume you're in neither of these camps, so you probably mean something more along the lines of acknowledging black culture has some toxic trends which contribute to blacks' underprivileged state (which the regressive left insists is a racist position)? I'm only guessing at your meaning here.
But you seem to be opposed to much of the social backlash that currently exists against people and positions viewed as "racist," and I assume you don't think we shouldn't stigmatize actual racism, so you must think the labels of racist and bigot have been over-applied by the left. I might even agree with that. Online articles trying to teach white people about "microagressions" and the like can be alright when they come from a place of earnestly trying to help whites understand how to make racial minorities feel more at ease and less alienated, but when they come in the form of condemning anyone who uses the question "So, where are you from?" in small talk as Grand Dragon of the KKK, I think it weakens the label of "racist" and makes it easier for actual racists to hide behind the cover of just being "politically incorrect." A lot of people that use terms like "cultural appropriation" and "gentrification" to explain how white people are literally Hitler are being sloppy in their reasoning, and mostly just making people think it's okay to be skeptical that they could possibly ever be racist.
So I think you've assumed that I'm a member of that club, and I'm really not. Back in saner times, most of my online arguments were with those very people. But that group mostly just whines and blogs about Miley Cyrus appropriating this or that. This ethnocentrist movement wants to take over the world. I was hoping that, based on a progress-based view of racial equality, America had come far enough that it could tell the difference between telling an off-color joke to your friends (i.e. political incorrectness) and accusing Mexico of deliberately sending rapists across the border (i.e. racism). I was wrong, thus I am rethinking my assumption that racial equality has steadily improved over time and will only keep getting better.
The last ~24 hours of discussion have put a sobering thought into my head, and I wonder what you guys think of it. Basically, in the last 50 or so years, there's been a strong anti-racist movement in the country as a whole. Laws that discriminate against blacks became widely considered unacceptable, public figures are shunned for expressing racist ideas or using racist epithets. The implied justification was that we as a society were making a concerted effort to eliminate racism as much as possible, and drive whatever resistant strains that survived to . Considered with other historical moves towards equality (elimination of slavery, blacks joining the military, Brown v. Board, etc.), it fit nicely with an overarching narrative of racial progress.]
True but we're moving backwards again now and it's completely the fault of the left. Look at several universities making African-American only accommodation dorms to provide a "safe space" for that community. This article discusses University of Connecticut but it's happening everywhere.Segregation is back.So much for "integration".
According to the University of Connecticut, ScHOLA2RS House is a "Learning Community designed to support the scholastic efforts of students who identify as African-American/Black." In essence it is a residence hall for black men.
Universities talk a lot about diversity and the need for students of different backgrounds to be exposed to each other," said Heriot, a law professor at the University of San Diego, "but when they support racially-themed dorms, which simply increase racial isolation on campus, it's hard to take these schools seriously.
Racially-themed dorms nevertheless enjoy much support on campuses. Several years ago, Amie Macdonald, an associate professor of philosophy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice/CUNY, wrote an entire academic essay advocating such dorms. In it, she stated, "We teachers have an opportunity to stand in solidarity with our students who call for programmed houses on the basis of politicized racial identities."
On September 23 2016 15:54 bo1b wrote: The counterpoint to that Danglars is the immense snap back to normalicy (and a bit further to the right) across the western world.
I have serious doubts if the Brexit would have passed or if Trump would have got through the primaries without the utter absurdity of left wing crusaders.
Every genius that proudly proclaims that Black people can't be racist, or that every white person needs to check learn their priviledge is doing nothing but hurt themselves.
To the right? To the extremes is more accurate. Extreme left parties are gaining as well. I.e. Corbyn, Syriza, Podemos, Sanders and the hardcore left party in my own country (SP) has been gaining for years as well.
You think? I see it more as a vocal minority (say 30-40%) over taking the left side of the political spectrum while there is an extreme backlash in the right side.
I think so yeah. The economist had a good article on the retreat of social democracy in Europe.
But recently their share of the vote in domestic (and Europe-wide) elections has fallen by a third to lows not seen for 70 years (see chart 1). In the five European Union (EU) states that held national elections last year, social democrats lost power in Denmark, fell to their worst-ever results in Finland, Poland and Spain and came to within a hair’s-breadth of such a nadir in Britain.
Where are all the votes going? Many have been hoovered up by populists, typically of the anti-market left in southern Europe and the anti-migrant right in the north. But alternative left parties (feminists, pirates and greens, for example), liberals and the centre-right have also benefited. And so has the Stay On The Sofa party.
On September 23 2016 15:54 bo1b wrote: The counterpoint to that Danglars is the immense snap back to normalicy (and a bit further to the right) across the western world.
I have serious doubts if the Brexit would have passed or if Trump would have got through the primaries without the utter absurdity of left wing crusaders.
Every genius that proudly proclaims that Black people can't be racist, or that every white person needs to check learn their priviledge is doing nothing but hurt themselves.
If the way of expressing disagreement with leftists going too far is voting for candidates who legitimize the leftist fears, it's hard to argue that they were going too far in the first place...
On September 23 2016 15:03 ChristianS wrote: Jesus this thread is depressing sometimes.
The last ~24 hours of discussion have put a sobering thought into my head, and I wonder what you guys think of it. Basically, in the last 50 or so years, there's been a strong anti-racist movement in the country as a whole. Laws that discriminate against blacks became widely considered unacceptable, public figures are shunned for expressing racist ideas or using racist epithets. The implied justification was that we as a society were making a concerted effort to eliminate racism as much as possible, and drive whatever resistant strains that survived to . Considered with other historical moves towards equality (elimination of slavery, blacks joining the military, Brown v. Board, etc.), it fit nicely with an overarching narrative of racial progress.
Maybe this is just a problem with anecdotal evidence, but it seems to me those attitudes are completely different in a lot of people today. Hardened Trump supporters often try to deny that Trump is a racist, but far more frequently I see people that just don't seem to care much. They might even lean toward thinking he probably is, but it's just not that important an issue. This is really baffling to me, since for my whole life there's been a widespread cultural agreement that overt racism is one of the ugliest sides of human civilization and absolutely cannot be tolerated, but in the broad view of history, racism is absolutely the norm. Not always as bad as early American South racism, but it's always been pretty normal to distrust people with different cultural and ethnic background than you, treat them worse, value their life less than that of your family or friends or tribe members. I always figured that was just part of progress – unlike humans for most of history, we have cars and refrigerators and computers and a prevailing cultural understanding that racism is bad.
It's a nice stroll through memory lane, but you make a sudden leap into modern times by contrasting the civil rights era with Trump and his supporters. Sit at the back of the bus was racism. Separate eating establishments based on race was racism. Immigration policy isn't. Political invective on several issues isn't (though abrasive speech will still cause others to bristle no matter the subject). You're right to call it anecdotal, and it's intensely subjective. You'll see the comparisons to late 1800s racism and xenophobia, others will see you as a wannabe crusader longing for a bygone era but without a real civil rights cause today.
Worth noting I never said Trump's immigration policy means he's racist. I was honestly more focused on Trump himself. Being prosecuted by Nixon's Justice Department for really explicitly discriminating against black tenants in his hotels back in the 70's. That stuff by Jack O'Donnell about how when he was president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, Trump went off about not wanting a black guy as an accountant because blacks are lazy, and he only wants Jews counting his money. Calling Mexicans rapists. Those shitty stereotypes he embraced talking to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Y'know, that stuff.
But I wasn't really looking to pick a fight either. I don't really long to be a civil rights crusader. The 50's and 60's sound awful, and I'm glad I didn't have to be around for it. I honestly wish that we were having a relatively normal election between, like, Tim Kaine and Jeb Bush, and I could tune out and read the occasional headline without click on it and maybe get around to registering to vote if I had nothing better to do, but I probably never would because I wouldn't care that much who won.
Instead we've got a large, disgruntled population of lower- and middle-class white people who feel that they've been wronged by the world. They think they used to have some kind of glory and power, but now their manufacturing jobs are fading away and they're losing their privileged place in the world, and they feel betrayed and unsafe and powerless. We've got a demagogue candidate who's appealing to this population by telling them that they lost their power because of Mexicans and Muslims and China. He's parading around families of people that were raped or murdered by illegal Mexicans to gin up a rage against these foreigners that are raping and murdering their wives and children. He's saying the whole world is laughing at them because they don't win any more. And he's promising them that if they support him, then by the time he's done, nobody will laugh at them again.
This is not a drill, this is how real life racial persecution gets started. This is the type of movement that used to lead to pogroms and lynchings and blood libel. People get so caught up in the movement and the propaganda and the cult of personality around a charismatic leader that they stop paying attention to facts and policy, to the point that you can explain to them that the crime rate is down, not up, that they lost their manufacturing jobs to the inexorable forces of globalism and no one can bring them back, and that illegal immigrants actually commit violent crime at a lower rate than the rest of the population, but it has absolutely no bearing on how they feel.
My sobering thought was this: what if we're not on an inevitable march toward progress and greater racial equality? What if the anti-racist attitudes of the last 50 years aren't a lasting cultural achievement, but just a temporary backlash against the ugly racism of the 40's and 50's? People saw how hideous that Nazi movement was, and they saw the horrible treatment of blacks in the South, and the lynching of Emmett Till, and the dogs and firehoses deployed against civil rights protesters, and for a while it became fashionable to be against racism.
But now that all that stuff isn't such recent memory, racism takes on all of the advantages that made it prevalent in human society before. Scapegoating is an easy way to feel better about your problems. Stereotyping is almost inescapable in the psychology of how humans understand the world. Many apparent virtues that people are encouraged to cultivate (e.g. loyalty, empathy) can subconsciously promote tribalism (e.g. loyalty involves favoring those you're close to over those you're not, empathy encourages greater connection to people who are more like you). Racial minorities are often small enough in number that society can get weird impressions of them simply from having too small a sample size, and once a weird (especially negative) bias gets in place, confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy effects tend to maintain or expand that bias.
I've been hoping all the bigotry of the Trump movement would be remembered by history as a weird spike of bigotry as the white American middle class came to terms with several realities it had been in denial about for years. But what if history remembers these past ~50 years as that brief period where American society was largely anti-racist?
My sobering thought is this: what if the current campaign against out-of-fashion ideas and racial realism won't be reversed for many years? What if the zealots of today, the current victors of the culture war, won't realize how hideous their own movement has become, nor how the '60s rebellion against authority became a puritanical persecution from authority (cultural leadership brought to you by Your Moral Betters™). Scapegoating and stereotyping of Trump supporters for social ills could continue, as much as I wish it would not. It is intensely psychological and the fight in every generation is to inspire the better angels of our nature.
I'm hoping the atmosphere of moral scolds today are later regarded as a weird period of American history when people embraced racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issues. When language was so bastardized and social media lynch mobs so emboldened that every political opinion was viewed by the color difference of the author & subject's skin. I look with some hope to the next generation. Today's left-leaning culture responds to criticism like a priest to sacrilege, and even young people today can see how bizarre it acts. It's far more likely that today's regress, disguised as progress, continues to win and that's a very sobering thought indeed.
Seems like you're throwing out a lot of punches at stuff I'm not sure if you're assuming I support. I'm also not sure what's meant by terms like "racial realism." It seems to denote a position which acknowledges the realities of race (about which this "regressive left" is presumably in denial), but I'm not sure what realities you think those are. A white supremacist might say they're a "racial realist" for acknowledging that white people are better than black people. An SJW might call themselves a "racial realist" for acknowledging the power dynamics between whites and various minorities in America today, such that a "color-blind" approach can't solve racial issues. I assume you're in neither of these camps, so you probably mean something more along the lines of acknowledging black culture has some toxic trends which contribute to blacks' underprivileged state (which the regressive left insists is a racist position)? I'm only guessing at your meaning here.
But you seem to be opposed to much of the social backlash that currently exists against people and positions viewed as "racist," and I assume you don't think we shouldn't stigmatize actual racism, so you must think the labels of racist and bigot have been over-applied by the left. I might even agree with that. Online articles trying to teach white people about "microagressions" and the like can be alright when they come from a place of earnestly trying to help whites understand how to make racial minorities feel more at ease and less alienated, but when they come in the form of condemning anyone who uses the question "So, where are you from?" in small talk as Grand Dragon of the KKK, I think it weakens the label of "racist" and makes it easier for actual racists to hide behind the cover of just being "politically incorrect." A lot of people that use terms like "cultural appropriation" and "gentrification" to explain how white people are literally Hitler are being sloppy in their reasoning, and mostly just making people think it's okay to be skeptical that they could possibly ever be racist.
So I think you've assumed that I'm a member of that club, and I'm really not. Back in saner times, most of my online arguments were with those very people. But that group mostly just whines and blogs about Miley Cyrus appropriating this or that. This ethnocentrist movement wants to take over the world. I was hoping that, based on a progress-based view of racial equality, America had come far enough that it could tell the difference between telling an off-color joke to your friends (i.e. political incorrectness) and accusing Mexico of deliberately sending rapists across the border (i.e. racism). I was wrong, thus I am rethinking my assumption that racial equality has steadily improved over time and will only keep getting better.
I think this is the first opinion since the "racism war" started about 20 pages back that is actually worth reading.
EPT
