ruby sparks
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I thought he was validly picking up on what the OP studies suggested. He might have over-egged it, though it would surely be astonishing if Loren of all people relished making hay about liberals.
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White Liberals Present Themselves as Less Competent in Interactions with African-Americans
- Thread starter thebeave
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I thought he was validly picking up on what the OP studies suggested. He might have over-egged it, though it would surely be astonishing if Loren of all people relished making hay about liberals.
ruby sparks
Contributor
I'm not sure what to say to that. While I'm thinking up how to phrase a response, could you possibly just confirm your ethnicity?
ruby sparks
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The other issue that this thread potentially throws up is, is all this fuss about 'microinvalidations' just an attempt by PC leftists to censor the free speech of white people?
It's not a quote from me, it's a quote from Joe Biden.
This is only an issue because people get fixated on group identities. Step one is to stop encouraging people to fixate on group identities. If we get more people to see each other as individuals and not as representatives of group members, and presuming certain traits are universal to all in each group, we are well on our way out of this. Let's not be especially mean or nice to you, presume you especially smart or dumb, or presume you less or more morally upright, or presume that you are particularly over or under privileged merely by your physical characteristics. That's a start, right?
Politesse
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You know, it is entirely possible to criticize something that someone says, without "censoring" their speech. I've never heard of anyone being formally persecuted for micro-aggression, unless they were in a representative role.
Politesse
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I don't know what "verbal competence" is, but in general people tend to simplify language when they are code-switching, especially if they believe themselves to be talking to someone of lower social class than themselves. It is a patronizing habit, and should be avoided.
Jimmy Higgins
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When talking to clients, I always try to simplify things, though not to the point of idiocy. What is the point is getting all fancy with the terminology other than to brag how brilliant one is?
ruby sparks
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It's ok. I know. I was trying to be witty though. If you're non-white, I'll use smaller words and shorter sentences.
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Fair point.
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Poli, the entire white, western, male, cisgendered race is persecuted, and what's more it's the worst of all the persecutions happening today, because it affects so many more people than reverse racism.
Politesse
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Why would you believe something so patently ridiculous as the idea that the most blatantly privileged members of society are persecuted more than any other class?
ruby sparks
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Blatantly privileged, yes, but that's exactly why everyone else is picking on us.
ruby sparks
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I'm guessing your work involves issuing food stamps?
Maybe I'm at a loss here, but why would any special competence when interacting with African-Americans be necessary? Why wouoldn't you just interact with them as with any other people? Why this separation and otherization?
I have never met any African-Americans, because I don't live in the US. But I have met black people here in Sweden. I interacted with them the same way I'd interact with any other people. Some of these black people were nice and friendly fellows, some of them were assholes. Just like with everybody else. Because black people are just like everybody else.
I have never met any African-Americans, because I don't live in the US. But I have met black people here in Sweden. I interacted with them the same way I'd interact with any other people. Some of these black people were nice and friendly fellows, some of them were assholes. Just like with everybody else. Because black people are just like everybody else.
ruby sparks
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Wait till you meet the female ones. Then you'll see.
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Any black person is born with the same potential as any other person. This is not in contention, at least not among most of us here on "the left". The issue arises not from the conception of individuals, but rather with imbalanced exposure to a population of individuals who, due to factors arising from cultural associations unique to the US, are taught that making things 'about race' will 'solve' certain social games in a 'favorable' manner to them and coincidentally detrimentally to the other players in said social game. As such, for everyone else, it becomes a smart strategy for the "everyone else" in such situations to guard against anything that would allow this strategy to be leveraged.
For example, let's say I am on a bus in the US, and am sitting next to someone who is (illegally) playing music loudly and without headphones, on a route that runs through the inner city. Because I dislike loud disruptions that I cannot escape, and because this is explicitly illegal, I have a choice: I can either confront the person or I can just deal with it for 30 minutes.
If this person is black, there is a high (>50% chance) that the person doing this will use aforementioned strategy to inpugn my intentions, with the excuse that this is a 'black' behavior and being against it is 'racist'; indeed, it is something that about 9:1 is done by people who happen to be black in my experience, but it is in fact entirely a product of cultural programming and not race. Nevertheless, there is this high chance that I will get chewed out for being a "racist" and see social consequences in the future when I commute. This is enough to change how I interact, as I do not want to do something with a high risk of social consequences, especially in a context I will have to return to daily.
Whereas if they were white, I'd just ask them to turn their music down or off, because there is no risk of social consequences, since there is no public perception that it is being done as a criticism of their race.
Underseer
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This isn't a surprise for anyone who bothers to pay attention.
Racism isn't a binary thing. Too many people think that either you're completely not racist or else you're wearing a pillow case on your head and burning crosses in the neighbor's yard while shouting "Make America great again!" with nothing in between. Let me clue you in: almost everyone is somewhere in between.
Most white liberals are indeed less racist than Republicans (although some are just as racist or nearly so), but that's not the same thing as not racist at all. Most white people suffer from white fragility, liberal and conservative alike. If you simply bring up the topic of racism, many white people get offended or defensive or both and complain about the fact that you brought up the topic at all. Instead of talking about the racism and figuring out what anyone can do about it, they change the topic to whether or not the topic should have been brought up in the first place.
Then of course, there's the regional thing. White people in some places are clearly worse with regards to racism.
Things like this are why I argue that racism is a property of culture, not just a property of individuals.
Most white people are in denial about all of this. They don't want to be racist, but they also want to avoid carefully examining the topic of racism enough to figure out if anything they've done or do regularly is racist. Thus, I think I am safe in saying that none of the denialists chose to be racist. If racism comes to us through culture (a series of premises that are almost never openly discussed by people in the culture), then that would explain why we have so many people who don't want to be racist but say and do racist things anyway.
Many people don't realize what assumptions underlie the premises they use to support arguments that they use to evaluate conclusions. This is why culture is such a powerful tool for Christian missionaries, who are trained to manipulate culture to convert entire populations. For example, they didn't have as much success converting indigenous Americans until they altered indigenous culture to treat women and homosexuals worse. Once that change was successfully made to indigenous culture, conversions became much easier.
But I think the best argument that racism is baked into our culture and infects us with bad assumptions that we don't realize we are making is a series of scientific studies done with young children.
[YOUTUBE]QRZPw-9sJtQ[/YOUTUBE]
These experiments were first done in the 1940s, and the results are heartbreaking.
It is incredibly unlikely that the parents of those young children (especially the parents of the young minority children) overtly taught their children to make racist assumptions. If those children were not expressly told to make racist assumptions but make them anyway, where did those assumptions come from? Our culture seems the most reasonable explanation to me for how this can happen, and if it can happen in young children, you'd have to be pretty delusional to think that adults are not also affected by this, and from what I can see most are just as unaware that they make those assumptions as the children in these studies.
This only changes when you start accepting that it affects you as well.
In the 1990s, I realized that I was wrong to look down on homosexuals, transgendered, etc. I consciously made the decision to not be prejudiced against them, but when I look back at some of my behavior towards them or in regards to them in the 1990s, some of those memories made me cringe. No doubt a decade from now, I will look back at some of the things I currently say or do with regards to LGBTQ people and cringe all over again. I still have improvements to make, but to the extent that I got this far, I improved as much as I have because I know that simply deciding to not be prejudiced is not enough. Uncomfortable and unpleasant self-criticism is necessary as well, and if you simply assume that you're definitely not prejudiced without that self-examination, you're not going to make any progress.
Racism isn't a binary thing. Too many people think that either you're completely not racist or else you're wearing a pillow case on your head and burning crosses in the neighbor's yard while shouting "Make America great again!" with nothing in between. Let me clue you in: almost everyone is somewhere in between.
Most white liberals are indeed less racist than Republicans (although some are just as racist or nearly so), but that's not the same thing as not racist at all. Most white people suffer from white fragility, liberal and conservative alike. If you simply bring up the topic of racism, many white people get offended or defensive or both and complain about the fact that you brought up the topic at all. Instead of talking about the racism and figuring out what anyone can do about it, they change the topic to whether or not the topic should have been brought up in the first place.
- Everyone is at least a little bit racist.
- Yes, including liberals.
- Many white liberals are in complete denial about their own racism to whatever degree they have it.
- Conservatives are either in denial of their own (often worse) racism as liberals, or else they know they are racist and lie, claiming to not be racist.
- Ironically, that last group is more aware of the extent of their own racism than any of the other white people.
Then of course, there's the regional thing. White people in some places are clearly worse with regards to racism.
Things like this are why I argue that racism is a property of culture, not just a property of individuals.
Most white people are in denial about all of this. They don't want to be racist, but they also want to avoid carefully examining the topic of racism enough to figure out if anything they've done or do regularly is racist. Thus, I think I am safe in saying that none of the denialists chose to be racist. If racism comes to us through culture (a series of premises that are almost never openly discussed by people in the culture), then that would explain why we have so many people who don't want to be racist but say and do racist things anyway.
Many people don't realize what assumptions underlie the premises they use to support arguments that they use to evaluate conclusions. This is why culture is such a powerful tool for Christian missionaries, who are trained to manipulate culture to convert entire populations. For example, they didn't have as much success converting indigenous Americans until they altered indigenous culture to treat women and homosexuals worse. Once that change was successfully made to indigenous culture, conversions became much easier.
But I think the best argument that racism is baked into our culture and infects us with bad assumptions that we don't realize we are making is a series of scientific studies done with young children.
[YOUTUBE]QRZPw-9sJtQ[/YOUTUBE]
These experiments were first done in the 1940s, and the results are heartbreaking.
It is incredibly unlikely that the parents of those young children (especially the parents of the young minority children) overtly taught their children to make racist assumptions. If those children were not expressly told to make racist assumptions but make them anyway, where did those assumptions come from? Our culture seems the most reasonable explanation to me for how this can happen, and if it can happen in young children, you'd have to be pretty delusional to think that adults are not also affected by this, and from what I can see most are just as unaware that they make those assumptions as the children in these studies.
This only changes when you start accepting that it affects you as well.
In the 1990s, I realized that I was wrong to look down on homosexuals, transgendered, etc. I consciously made the decision to not be prejudiced against them, but when I look back at some of my behavior towards them or in regards to them in the 1990s, some of those memories made me cringe. No doubt a decade from now, I will look back at some of the things I currently say or do with regards to LGBTQ people and cringe all over again. I still have improvements to make, but to the extent that I got this far, I improved as much as I have because I know that simply deciding to not be prejudiced is not enough. Uncomfortable and unpleasant self-criticism is necessary as well, and if you simply assume that you're definitely not prejudiced without that self-examination, you're not going to make any progress.
When society pushes the judgment of people by their appearance, and the grouping of them into race categories, and the assumption of things based on that categorization, this should be no surprise.
Remember when Oprah got told by some lady that didn't recognize her that she "couldn't afford that"? Remember how black guys driving nice cars in white neighbourhoods are presumed to be thieves? Remember how black applicants to school are presumed to be underprivileged and thus get lower entrance requirements? Remembe when Biden remarked how articulate Obama is? Remember when BLM automatically leaps to the defence of any random black guy who gets show by police and how others automatically presume he was a thug? Remember every election coverage you've ever seen where they talk about the "latino vote", the "black vote", etc? Remember when Trump pointed out his "black guy" in the audience and remarked how "black people love him"? I get presumed frequently to be good at math, because of my race, when I suck at math. That all comes from the same core. It all comes form making judgments about people based on their race and we need to stop it, regardless of political affiliation.
Remember when Oprah got told by some lady that didn't recognize her that she "couldn't afford that"? Remember how black guys driving nice cars in white neighbourhoods are presumed to be thieves? Remember how black applicants to school are presumed to be underprivileged and thus get lower entrance requirements? Remembe when Biden remarked how articulate Obama is? Remember when BLM automatically leaps to the defence of any random black guy who gets show by police and how others automatically presume he was a thug? Remember every election coverage you've ever seen where they talk about the "latino vote", the "black vote", etc? Remember when Trump pointed out his "black guy" in the audience and remarked how "black people love him"? I get presumed frequently to be good at math, because of my race, when I suck at math. That all comes from the same core. It all comes form making judgments about people based on their race and we need to stop it, regardless of political affiliation.
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Wait, all those people complaining about cultural appropriation are right wingers?
I did not know that.