While we need reminders to check our presumptions I don't think it's possible or even useful to suppress them entirely.
With Trump missing no opportunity to refer to COVID as the "China virus," with many publicized attacks on Asians that were indisputably racially motivated, a multiple murder by a white man is very possibly another one.…
While we need reminders to check our presumptions I don't think it's possible or even useful to suppress them entirely.
With Trump missing no opportunity to refer to COVID as the "China virus," with many publicized attacks on Asians that were indisputably racially motivated, a multiple murder by a white man is very possibly another one. Resentment against masks and vaccinations is intense, however irrational and frustrated hate looks for targets.
There's a war on against presumption, generalization and many other logically useful albeit not 100% accurate modes of thought. I see this as a lot more dangerous than a hasty presumption. Those people were murdered.
"I don't think it's possible or even useful to suppress them entirely."
I'm not talking about suppressing them, I'm talking about recognising them as presumptions and not treating them as fact. If you get into a fight with an Asian guy tomorrow, should we just proceed on the basis that you're a racist? Or should we be smart enough to try to understand your actual motivations?
Nobody is disputing that those people were murdered. It's a question of trying to accurately understand *why* it happened.
No of course you aren't seeking to suppress them but many, many are. I find your counsel to examine presumptions carefully to be sound advice but I know you've run across the SJW creed that "all generalizations are bad," whereas in my view generalization is the most potent tool we have for making sense of the world.
I mentioned on FB that I was considering rehoming one of my parrots but really didn't want to hand him over to a Vietnamese family. I was attacked for the "racist" assumption that "all" Vietnamese are indifferent to animal neglect (some of them didn't know I live here and thought I was bringing them into mention for no reason but bigotry).. But the reality that Asian cultures in general and Vietnamese in particular don't share the love of animals so common in the US ands UK is a Statistically Defensible Presumption (I use this phrase a LOT); this is a place where people eat dogs, knowing full well that every one of them is a stolen pet.
If we're inhibited from stating objective fact, we're in big trouble.
You have a far lower chance than I of getting malignant melanoma; the people I live with have about twice your chance. That doesn't mean there aren't exceptionally light-skinned African Americans whose susceptibility is as grave as mine, but on average ... etc. There are people who will bare their teeth at the opening sentence of this paragraph. You aren't one of them.
While we need reminders to check our presumptions I don't think it's possible or even useful to suppress them entirely.
With Trump missing no opportunity to refer to COVID as the "China virus," with many publicized attacks on Asians that were indisputably racially motivated, a multiple murder by a white man is very possibly another one. Resentment against masks and vaccinations is intense, however irrational and frustrated hate looks for targets.
There's a war on against presumption, generalization and many other logically useful albeit not 100% accurate modes of thought. I see this as a lot more dangerous than a hasty presumption. Those people were murdered.
"I don't think it's possible or even useful to suppress them entirely."
I'm not talking about suppressing them, I'm talking about recognising them as presumptions and not treating them as fact. If you get into a fight with an Asian guy tomorrow, should we just proceed on the basis that you're a racist? Or should we be smart enough to try to understand your actual motivations?
Nobody is disputing that those people were murdered. It's a question of trying to accurately understand *why* it happened.
No of course you aren't seeking to suppress them but many, many are. I find your counsel to examine presumptions carefully to be sound advice but I know you've run across the SJW creed that "all generalizations are bad," whereas in my view generalization is the most potent tool we have for making sense of the world.
I mentioned on FB that I was considering rehoming one of my parrots but really didn't want to hand him over to a Vietnamese family. I was attacked for the "racist" assumption that "all" Vietnamese are indifferent to animal neglect (some of them didn't know I live here and thought I was bringing them into mention for no reason but bigotry).. But the reality that Asian cultures in general and Vietnamese in particular don't share the love of animals so common in the US ands UK is a Statistically Defensible Presumption (I use this phrase a LOT); this is a place where people eat dogs, knowing full well that every one of them is a stolen pet.
If we're inhibited from stating objective fact, we're in big trouble.
You have a far lower chance than I of getting malignant melanoma; the people I live with have about twice your chance. That doesn't mean there aren't exceptionally light-skinned African Americans whose susceptibility is as grave as mine, but on average ... etc. There are people who will bare their teeth at the opening sentence of this paragraph. You aren't one of them.