A White teacher taught White students about White privilege. It cost him his job.

[laughing dog]

And your answer glides over the iss

Why do you make up libelous garbage about other posters? Why do you insinuate that the notion that picking victims randomly would have been "fine and dandy" is a notion I'm advocating rather than a notion I'm condemning? .....

You are responsible for your words. I read your bombastic words as they appeared. Apparently I missed your sarcasm. I apologize.Perhaps we both can learn something from this episode.

 

[Bomb#20]

If a school says girls aren't allowed to take machine shop and have to take sewing instead, do you think its policy does something to favor boys? How the heck do boys benefit from that?

That’s an easy one.

Machine shop jobs pay ... more than sewing jobs.

Did you never notice that? Really?

Sorry, I'm not following your chain of reasoning here. By what mechanism does having a girl with him in his high school shop class stop a boy from getting a paid job in a machine shop further down the road?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

If a school says girls aren't allowed to take machine shop and have to take sewing instead, do you think its policy does something to favor boys? How the heck do boys benefit from that?

That’s an easy one.

Machine shop jobs pay ... more than sewing jobs.

Did you never notice that? Really?

Sorry, I'm not following your chain of reasoning here. By what mechanism does having a girl with him in his high school shop class stop a boy from getting a paid job in a machine shop further down the road?

If they have more people in a classroom, then they will get less individualized attention, but as far as later on with specific jobs, if there are more people in the labor market, then that is more supply and so the probability of having a job is decreased or expected value of salary is decreased since there is more supply of labor.

 

[Bomb#20]

This is a great point to explore.

Indeed it is more likely that the march would never have happened if the victims were chosen randomly, because he would have gotten pushbackk from people with the power to stop him if their own families were at risk.

That is one of the ways that systemic racism is maintained. By picking on the people with no power to object, and the ones benefitting from that shield to say nothing.

So yes, history shows that it would indeed have been better morally for him to chose in a non-racist way.

Your post raises two issues. The on-topic point to be made is that it would indeed have been better morally for Jackson to choose in a non-racist way, but Gospel didn't say "c) would have been better morally because again the officers are treating everyone the same and not choosing skin color as the reason why some of us can stay". He said "fine", not "better morally". What Jackson did would not have been fine even if he'd chosen in a non-racist way, and we all know it, so my reductio ad absurdum refutation of Gospel's reasoning remains intact.

The other issue you raise takes us to Thomas More's argument for why attempted murder should be punished just as harshly as actual murder. Since the failure of his crime was not an outcome he was trying to achieve, the perpetrator does not deserve any moral credit for its failure. In the hypothetical scenario of Jackson trying to get non-racist random death-march legislation passed, the pushback from powerful people that would have stopped him is not something he would have been aiming to create, so Jackson would not deserve any moral credit for the failure of his attempted crime against humanity. It would have been better morally for him to choose in a non-racist way, true, but that's because racism is a moral wrong in itself; it's not IMHO because the march never would have happened.

That said, I'm not seeing how whether history showing an attempted wrongdoing would have failed makes a choice retroactively better morally bears one way or the other on whether public school teachers should be pushing "white-privilege" narratives on captive audiences. So unless you can explain the connection, if you want to explore that point further it would probably be better to start a thread in M&P.

 

[Coleman Smith]

Employers set the rules.

Employees are expected to follow them.

 

[Bomb#20]

You are responsible for your words. I read your bombastic words as they appeared. Apparently I missed your sarcasm. I apologize.Perhaps we both can learn something from this episode.

Well, I've learned that you don't know the difference between sarcasm and a reductio ad absurdum proof.

(Sorry about being bombastic. Occupational hazard of being a bomb. )

 

[Gospel]

What makes you think I can't understand it? I understand it fine; but that something is understandable doesn't magically make it right. You're wrong. (c) would not have been fine, for reasons I went into upthread. How on earth do you figure "treating everyone the same and not choosing skin color as the reason" implies "would have been fine"? What, is "Don't be racist" the sum total of your moral principles? Do you believe that when Andrew Jackson death-marched 60,000 people out of their homes and farms in the Old South to a struggle not to starve in the Oklahoma wilderness, that would have been a fine and dandy thing for the President to do if only he'd chosen his victims randomly instead of racistly picking on Indians?

So you do understand it. you just don't want to talk about white privilege and want to talk about what the police should have done at the train station. In that case, I choose other. Other being that they should have done what the law expected them to do. Are you happy? Oh, you need more details for an argument I wasn't making amirite? Ok, they would have been within the law to issue all of us a warning and ask us all to leave. You waxed lyrical a lot yet added absolutely zero to the conversation. Congrats, you're the donkey of the day.

 

[Bomb#20]

So you do understand it. you just don't want to talk about white privilege and want to talk about what the police should have done at the train station.

I am talking about "white privilege" -- there's no sensible way to think about the "white privilege" concept without contemplating what people should do instead of what they do.

In that case, I choose other. Other being that they should have done what the law expected them to do. Are you happy?

Progress! Woohoo!

So what did the law expect them to do?

 

[Gospel]

So what did the law expect them to do?

I gave one of those expectations. Which was, issue a warning and ask all of us to leave. You asked for an answer and I gave it. What do your question and my answer to your question has to do with white privilege or the teacher losing his job for discussing white privilege in his classroom?

 

[Gospel]

ou think it has nothing to do with what would be ethical on the police officers' part because your ideological fellows fed you a blue pill. I'm offering you a red pill.

And let me nip this in the bud. I don't like any of the US political parties. I will also like to add that I'm used to white people thinking the worst about me so don't worry about it.

 

[Bomb#20]

ou think it has nothing to do with what would be ethical on the police officers' part because your ideological fellows fed you a blue pill. I'm offering you a red pill.

And let me nip this in the bud. I don't like any of the US political parties. I will also like to add that I'm used to white people thinking the worst about me so don't worry about it.

OMG, have you never seen The Matrix? Quit wasting your time talking to internet crackpots like us and go stream it! You can thank me later.

Red and blue pills have nothing to do with the R's and the D's (who I agree are both unworthy of being liked.) I was referring to an iconic scene where Laurence Fishburne offers Keanu Reeves two pills and says "You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."

 

[Gospel]

Get to your point. I've grown bored with every one of your posts adding new points of contention as the conversation "progresses". You make a lot of presumptions that I don't care to correct because, unlike Vader, I'm not your father.

 

[Bomb#20]

Get to your point. I've grown bored with every one of your posts adding new points of contention as the conversation "progresses". You make a lot of presumptions that I don't care to correct because, unlike Vader, I'm not your father.

I already got to my point back in post #172 and you just deflected. So if you want to skip to the end and you're okay with abstraction, then take the question there seriously: Do you think "white privilege" and "more racial discrimination against non-white people than against white people" are synonyms? If those phrases are synonymous, then why does it make a difference to you which phrase is used to label it? If they aren't synonymous, then what implications do you think "white privilege" has that "more racial discrimination against non-white people than against white people" does not have, and what specific evidence do you have that those extra implications are true?

If you're not okay with abstraction, then buckle down and get ready for new points of contention.

 

[Bomb#20]

So what did the law expect them to do?

I gave one of those expectations. Which was, issue a warning and ask all of us to leave. You asked for an answer and I gave it. What do your question and my answer to your question has to do with white privilege or the teacher losing his job for discussing white privilege in his classroom?

Great, more progress. So that's option (a) in the concrete alternative discussion. So if the cops should have done what the law expected and the law expected them to give you a warning and ask you all to leave, that means it was illegal for people to sleep in the train station. And as Anatole France famously said,

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread."​

I don't want to make presumptions about your experience or press you for details you don't want to volunteer, but I'm guessing you weren't bothering anyone, and I'm guessing when the police kicked you out it was under a loitering law. And I'm guessing they didn't direct you to a more suitable sleeping place such as a homeless shelter. (I figure if they did you'd have mentioned it. Also, another poster related his own experience with getting pushed around by a cop when he was homeless, and that cop didn't offer him an alternative location.) So the legislators who enacted the loitering law, apparently, were de facto telling homeless people they have to just keep moving along from one public place to another until they go insane from sleeplessness.

So the new point of contention is: do you think there ought to be a law against homeless people sleeping in train stations? Because to my inexperienced mind, a train station strikes me as about the safest place there is for the homeless to sleep as long as the taxpayers aren't willing to be taxed enough to provide adequate shelter space. (And judging from where you all tried to sleep, I'm guessing you and your four friends thought it was the safest place too.)

Yes, this question relates to "white privilege". (It doesn't necessarily relate to a teacher losing his job -- that response seems a little over the top to me. Somebody needed to sit down with Hawn and teach him how to tell the difference between a fact and a political opinion.) But if you aren't interested in telling me whether you think there ought to be a law against homeless people sleeping in train stations, feel free to go abstract and finally address post #172. Or, if you prefer, just blow me off.

 

[Gospel]

Do you think "white privilege" and "more racial discrimination against non-white people than against white people" are synonyms?

I disagree with your use of the word "more". What do you mean by more & what kind of discrimination are we talking about? There are different types of discrimination. Earlier in this thread Gun Nut shared how Gun Nut faced discrimination as a white person due to affirmative action. Which (if I'm correct) discriminated against Gun Nut's color because of a government program limiting the number of white people the school can enroll. Black people however are discriminated against not only because of our skin color but because some white people imagine that we are not human &/or inferior. Big difference.


But to answer your question granted you note my above disagreement, no I do not consider them synonymous the same way I do not consider 1+1=2 synonymous with 4-2=2.

Similar results different problems.

Edit: Sorry for the edit. That in of itself (the type of discrimination white people face) is one example of white privilege.

 

[Rhea]

On the one hand, you take these very pointed questions posed as yes-or-no options, and you know the person asking them does not believe white privilege exists, and moreover has made numerous posts that he doesn’t think systemic racism exists either, for that matter, and you have observed in the past that the person doesn’t typically discuss with an open and expressed expectation of changing his stance on the above white privilege and systemic racism, and you ask yourself, “am I in a good faith discussion, or am I in a tunnel of picayune specifics that will be used to say ‘AHA! I have proved racism doesn’t exist and you have agreed with me!’ When in fact you have not agreed at all, but the existence of 100 questions each with an assumption that might contradict one of the subsequent assumptions causes your actual thoughts to be mis-assigned, which was the intent of the 100-question format in the first place, since it becomes a Gish Gallop strategy of overwhelming with bullshit instead of actual discussion of the topic?”

I already got to my point back in post #172 and you just deflected. So if you want to skip to the end and you're okay with abstraction, then take the question there seriously: Do you think "white privilege" and "more racial discrimination against non-white people than against white people" are synonyms? If those phrases are synonymous, then why does it make a difference to you which phrase is used to label it? If they aren't synonymous, then what implications do you think "white privilege" has that "more racial discrimination against non-white people than against white people" does not have, and what specific evidence do you have that those extra implications are true?

But on the other hand, you know others reading may be interested in the actual discussion, so you are willing to use the Gish-Gallop-in-progress as a launch for meaningfu discussion…

what implications do you think "white privilege" has that "more racial discrimination against non-white people than against white people" does not have

White privilege can include the starting point that you have, based on prior acts of more racial discrimination against non-white people. White privilege can include the ability to be blind to the descrimination, current or past, and therefore unconcerned about it. White privilege can include the behaviors people display toward you (or don’t.)

 

[Angra Mainyu]

On the one hand, you take these very pointed questions posed as yes-or-no options, and you know the person asking them does not believe white privilege exists, and moreover has made numerous posts that he doesn’t think systemic racism exists either, for that matter, and you have observed in the past that the person doesn’t typically discuss with an open and expressed expectation of changing his stance on the above white privilege and systemic racism, and you ask yourself, “am I in a good faith discussion, or am I in a tunnel of picayune specifics that will be used to say ‘AHA! I have proved racism doesn’t exist and you have agreed with me!’ When in fact you have not agreed at all, but the existence of 100 questions each with an assumption that might contradict one of the subsequent assumptions causes your actual thoughts to be mis-assigned, which was the intent of the 100-question format in the first place, since it becomes a Gish Gallop strategy of overwhelming with bullshit instead of actual discussion of the topic?”

A good faith discussion?
It's interesting that you made the same mistaken in the thread about gender (that time about me). Yes, of course Bomb#20 is debating in good faith. As he always does. And what he encounters most of the time are repeated misrepresentations of what he said, dodging of his questions, and suggestions that he is not discussing honestly!

Even if B20 is certain that he will not be persuaded by any of the arguments presented here that there is such thing as "White privilege" (which might or might not be the case, for all I know he is not sure someone isn't using the expression "White privilege" in a non-standard manner to name for example more negative discrimination against non-Whites than against Whites, or some other thing), that is not remotely a suggestion that he is not debating in good faith.

If I debate a Christian with good knowledge of philosophy - for example - about whether Christianity is true, I am certain (well beyond a reasonable doubt) that they will never persuade me that Christianity is true. However, that does not mean I will not debate honestly (i.e., in good faith) if I ask questions intended to get a clear target to make my arguments. Or if I debate a Wokeist on matters of transgender claims and the like. I will accept evidence and arguments and I am willing to change my mind if given good reasons for that, and this is so despite the fact that I am certain that such reasons are not forthcoming because I am certain that my opponents are mistaken on the matters under discussion and further, that I can find their mistakes with no difficulty if they just provide straight answers with information about their position. There is no dishonesty in that, and no good reason to think that that is . And there is no dishonesty in B20's participation; this should be obvious.

 

[Jarhyn]

Do you believe that when Andrew Jackson death-marched 60,000 people out of their homes and farms in the Old South to a struggle not to starve in the Oklahoma wilderness, that would have been a fine and dandy thing for the President to do if only he'd chosen his victims randomly instead of racistly picking on Indians?

This is a great point to explore.

Indeed it is more likely that the march would never have happened if the victims were chosen randomly, because he would have gotten pushbackk from people with the power to stop him if their own families were at risk.

That is one of the ways that systemic racism is maintained. By picking on the people with no power to object, and the ones benefitting from that shield to say nothing.

So yes, history shows that it would indeed have been better morally for him to chose in a non-racist way.

And your answer glides over the issue that President Jackson's policy was genocidal in nature and intent. Moreover, the notion that picking victims randomly would have been "fine and dandy" is a vicious and incredibly stupid use of an excluded middle (i.e. nothing between "wrong" and "fine and dandy").

Indeed, he could have chosen easily to not do that. Such a choice would have necessitated other choices, and that series of choices would have cost him something.

Sometimes the right choice has a personal cost.

Ultimately, we pay that cost knowing that every time we do, it is paid to many, many fold. Had he paid it, the pain in his life would have been spared many others.

Perhaps he would have ended up marching a few thousand 'seditious fucks who decided to make a move on their neighbors' into the wilderness to die on the shittiest land available instead of the people that did get marched.

It would have cost him an election, possibly his life. He still should have done it. It would have set a tone that would have taken history a very different direction.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

White privilege can include the starting point that you have, based on prior acts of more racial discrimination against non-white people. White privilege can include the ability to be blind to the descrimination, current or past, and therefore unconcerned about it. White privilege can include the behaviors people display toward you (or don’t.)

I agree with you.

This has some overlap and similarity to what I also wrote previously:

Privilege is in this sense a relative advantage. The opposite of relative advantage is relative disadvantage, not discrimination. Discrimination leads to and has overlap with relative disadvantage but they are not exactly the same set of things as discussed in prior posts. An example is how historical racism in conjunction with color-blind policy can lead to continuation of outcome differences among races and so a relative advantage can still be present without it technically being discrimination. Another thing besides is that the word discrimination is a pretty narrow thing: all opportunity differences across race with external persons, perception differences across race by external persons, treatment differences across race by external persons do not necessarily qualify as discrimination.

I expect a worthy, rational discussion around these points.

 

[Enigma]

White privilege can include the starting point that you have, based on prior acts of more racial discrimination against non-white people. White privilege can include the ability to be blind to the descrimination, current or past, and therefore unconcerned about it. White privilege can include the behaviors people display toward you (or don’t.)

I agree with you.

This has some overlap and similarity to what I also wrote previously:

Privilege is in this sense a relative advantage. The opposite of relative advantage is relative disadvantage, not discrimination. Discrimination leads to and has overlap with relative disadvantage but they are not exactly the same set of things as discussed in prior posts. An example is how historical racism in conjunction with color-blind policy can lead to continuation of outcome differences among races and so a relative advantage can still be present without it technically being discrimination. Another thing besides is that the word discrimination is a pretty narrow thing: all opportunity differences across race with external persons, perception differences across race by external persons, treatment differences across race by external persons do not necessarily qualify as discrimination.

I expect a worthy, rational discussion around these points.

If privilege is just a morally-neutral term describing relative advantage/disadvantage between two groups of people, then who is the second group of people referred to by "White Privilege"? Black people? Asians? Literally any subset of non-white persons?

If Asian people have relative advantages over a subset of non-Asian people, do they have "Asian Privilege"?

If Jewish people have relative advantages over a subset of non-Jewish people, do they have "Jewish Privilege"? Is it even possible to use the term "Jewish Privilege" without sounding like an edgelord or alt-righter?