There are lots of terms in racial discourse that I dislike; “people of colour,” “whiteness,” “systemic racism,” “black bodies,” but chief among them is “race.” Admittedly, this is a bit of a pickle for a “race” writer. My problem stems from the fact that “race”, as most people think of it, doesn’t exist. The idea that people can be divided into groups based on skin colour has been widely debunked for decades. Yet it lives on because the intuition that people who look the same are the same feels correct if you don’t think about it too hard.
Visible "Racial" characteristics; melanin, hair texture (follicle shape), nose shape, cheekbones, epicanthic fold, etc. give a recognizable tribal association. That would mean little or nothing except that people attach subculture perceptions to the tribe. If the view of the subculture is negative it is seen as racism though it is properly tribalism/culturalism.
As is often discussed in The Commentary, it is often monolithic, and individuals are prejudged by perceptions of the tribal subculture. The visible characteristics in appearance act as an identifying uniform.
You mention the miscegenation that comes with "interracial marriage/partnerships." It will take some time for visible vestiges of our "uniforms" to fade into non-recognition since everyone is not participating. A thing that does matter and perhaps I am overly optimistic in thinking it could happen sooner is fixing perceptions. Stereotypes are the result of broad observation and can be either negative or positive (to who?).
This is where I think that black people (in America and other places) have a bit of a self-inflicted wound. I will be accused of victim blaming by someone, no doubt, but we do need to clean our own house. In an effort to resist assimilation into "whiteness", purposeful trappings of "black culture" (having nothing to do with Africa) establish a tribe where the people who seem to cling to it most strongly are people that are not the best positive examples. The most common "fear" of black people found in white, Asian and Hispanic people is criminality associated with black people with the "Gangsta" persona. If there is a disparity in crime it has numerous causes (not as simple as choosing one like poverty). Gangsta subculture is not just tolerant of criminality but glorifies it. The monolith attaches it to melanin without justification, except the gangstas purposefully create the association, a curse upon the majority of black people.
Tribalism may always be with us, and tribes are not always bad since they are unifying within while divisive from the outside. Can we reduce negative tribal (racial) associations? It's not just a matter of fixing our own perceptions of others, but also fixing the somewhat logical/justifiable perceptions of our own tribe. I'm not just pointing at black people with that. We all have those issues.
"The monolith attaches it to melanin without justification, except the gangstas purposefully create the association, a curse upon the majority of black people."
Yeah, this is the problem. The fact that this grouping is attached to melanin. White people as a group aren't associated with hillbillies or the Amish or (by sane people) the KKK. As I pointed out in a recent article, the percentage of black Americans who commit homicides, for example, is an infinitesimal fraction of the whole (0.008%). Yet many people hold this prejudice of "black criminality" because they just think of "black people".
If people were as discerning about racial characteristics as you suggest, considering nose shape, cheekbones, epicanthic fold, etc. when lumping people together, racism would be a far smaller issue than it is. But how often do you hear people differentiate between black people from Nigeria and black people from Ethiopia and black people from Jamaica in news reports or just in general? You can tell the difference between these groups quite easily by the characteristics you listed, but they're all just "black" in most people's minds.
This is the fallacy of the concept of race. For most people, it's just "everybody with the same skin colour is the same." Which is ridiculous whether you're talking about black people or white people or any other shade.
Yep, absolutely. So stupid. Of course, the idea that black peoples are one homogeneous lump is the one thing the racists on the left and the right agree on.
I was listening to a podcast this weekend of a panel of four black thinkers Glenn Loury was about 'black indentity' and they made a similar point - not necessarily about gangsta rap per se but about how the proponents of 'black culture' are often not the best representatives of 'the black community'. How American blacks' biggest problem is not being ready for the modern world when, supposedly, most of them are graduating high school with an eighth-grade reading level. (Although a lousy education and not knowing shit out of high school OR college appears to be a nationwide, colour-blind problem).
But yeah, glorifying black criminality isn't doing much for their image. Then again, country music is quite popular and tends to brush 'hillbillies' a certain way. Maybe if the Amish had better rap bands we'd be more associated with them too ;)
My focus on racial identification of cultures and subcultures elevates "race" above the status of a social construct even though that is what culture is in many ways. It is the zeitgeist which strongly influences views. Views and actions driven by them impact character which is meaningful. The issue becomes avoidance of prejudgment because influence is not always destiny.
"So my slightly more realistic hope is that we learn to judge each other based on meaningful qualities. Things like shared values and a common sense of decency and a willingness to stand up against injustice"
Agreed, although I'm writing an article right now about someone's challenge last year on Medium just before I got kicked off. One of Medium's very good, but too-woke-for-her-own-alleged-feminist-good writers (and now a super-woke Medium staff member) and I were debating trans issues, and she fell on the 'transwomen are women' side. She asked where my compassion was & I asked where her brain was. The article is about the thinking I've done about compassion since then, and how easy it is to be compassionate toward people you like, and less about Those Other People (the ones you don't).
The ones I'm less compassionate about are the 'acceptable' Thems on t'other side - the people who belong to fundamentalist religion, MAGAs, white supremacists, etc. It's not okay to discriminate against people who were born with a particular biology, but it's okay to discriminate against those with bad values, hateful creeds, etc.
Why are we less compassionate about *them*? They may not have been born into a particular biology but they were into a certain family, community, culture, etc. and may not know any other way. The ones who think critically may leave that unhealthy mental prison but others may not; I'm reminded of a book written by a woman who escaped a fundamentalist Mormon polygamous compound out West who described in detail why so many women never questioned or challenged the notion that they had to be held essentially in bondage to male whims and sexual desires. A fundamentalist Christian friend I had years ago - someone who wasn't very worldly or bright and with some likely brain chemistry-related emotional regulation problems - told me when she was three her mother told her Jesus loved her and always would and she believed it, and stuck with her birth religion without ever questioning it.
She was a very kind and sweet person which made her fundamentalism easier to overlook than if she'd been a hateful Republican (which, back then, over 35 years ago, they weren't nearly as bad, but Ronald Reagan was setting the scene for the mess we're in today).
I'm working slowly toward trying to engage with Those People in dribs and drabs to try and understand why they think as they do, and whether there are ways to get through their muddy thinking. And who knows, maybe I'll find something to challenge my own muddy thinking at times ;)
Some ask, 'What would Jesus do?' I ask myself, 'Who would Buddha hate?'
"Why are we less compassionate about *them*? They may not have been born into a particular biology but they were into a certain family, community, culture, etc. and may not know any other way."
I think there's a difference between having compassion for people and considering them part of "your tribe." Again, this under the assumption that tribal thinking is too ingrained in us to just eliminate.
I don't really buy the "they had no choice because of the environment they were born in" argument. It applies perfectly well to children, but not to adults. The world is too interconnected that you can innocently hate entire groups of people unless you choose, at least to some degree, to remain ignorant.
I don't consider many (if any) people "the enemy." But there are people who I think are wrong. I can still have compassion for these people. I'll still give them the benefit of the doubt if they want to have a conversation (that's kind of my whole schtick, in fact😄). I'll still try to understand where they're coming from. But there are certain values and principles of decency that I won't give ground on. And while I strongly advocate a "live and let live" mentality, that can't apply to people who don't let *others* live.
You can try to understand someone without excusing or condoning their toxic values, beliefs, practices, etc. Kind of like the difference between 'explaining' and 'excusing': "Here's why I did this bad thing, here were my thought processes, but there's still no excuse for what I did."
Trying to understand why people are the way they are isn't to excuse them, the mistake commonly made by some liberals ("Aw, poor baby, it's not their fault!"), but to better understand how we can fight their toxicity. Esp since we all think we react to each other for reasons that are largely hidden from us in our unconscious.
I don't think we should let Trumpers and the woke 'live and let live', but seek to fight their toxicity.
They might even be able to help *us* locate our *own* toxicity...and we all have some, even if it doesn't wear a red cap or a #StayWoke shirt.
Trans-women have a penis, women don't. Acknowledging that is not necessarily an indication of lack of compassion or hate. People can disagree without hate.
I think that your broad brush accusation of conservatives/Republicans is unjustifiable and (I can't read minds) seeming a bit like what you accuse them of. At the very least I see it as a straw man.
I'm pretty comfortable brushing Republicans broadly. At this point, the party is just a human shitshow of bad ideas, bigotry and naked hatred. AFAIC, if you identify as a Republican, you've admitted to being a bad human being. You don't have to be a Democrat or a liberal, but supporting it today as a voter or a politician is being on the wrong side of history, the way a lot of 'good people' (who actually had their good sides, whether we like to admit it or not) joined the Nazi Party 80-90 years ago.
I don't consider all conservatives nasty, just as I don't consider all liberals nasty. Just the extremists, and I will fight them both and their toxic beliefs. Yes, I'm guilty of divisive thinking too which is part of why I do this - searching for my own good self along with everyone else's. Nobody is *all* bad - even the most committed Nazis loved their families (I've read their letters to them).
The trouble is, Republicans say the same about Democrats with the same justification, or lack of it, as Democrats. If I had my way, political parties would be banned, and it would be a capital crime to start one. All political parties are a "𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘴, 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘥." They are the worst-case tribalism and quickest to confirm Godwin's Law.
People who strongly associate things with political parties are the typical extremists precisely because of their broad-brush views. If you look at my views on individual issues, you might think that I am one or the other until you look at all of them and see that I don't conform to either, don't want to be a part of either and they probably don't want me in their tribe except for wanting my vote.
I didn't bother to vote in the recent election. If there was a choice for "no acceptable candidate" and if it got the most votes, they would vacate the office until the next scheduled election I would start voting again. As it stands it is just good cop/bad cop in the interrogation room where neither are your friend. Tired of voting for the lesser of two evils it would be nice to vote for no evil. even if it means no government (I repeat myself). You might think I'm a near anarchist, perhaps I am.
Forgive my rant, I often agree with you and intend no foul, but political party partisanship sets me off since I so firmly see it as destructive.
Ironically, you may have a point. Just this morning I read an AP article about small towners who fear for democracy. It was about people who are regarded as 'far right' and supported Trump, but who are a bit more complicated - one guy supported the civil rights protests after George Floyd and others say they don't want violence. It was an interesting, more nuanced look into them, although it was disturbing that many of them listened to QAnon. (Then again, the far left listens to Pink News).
For sure, people assume I'm a wokie once they figure out I'm on the left (or how far down) or a right-winger if I'm pushing back on the left, as I'm wont to do. I'm not sure it's unrealistic though, to suspect that any Republican with morals has already left the party, however conservative they may be. Maybe that's incorrect, but if they're not that crazy, maybe they might want to think they're known by the company they keep.
I once left a discussion forum a year later than I should have for exactly that reason. It was getting embarrassing to be seen online with people whose cause I supported (being childfree), but who also included a lot of extremist child-haters and parent-bashers.
People are complicated which is why I so often protest tribal politics. I don't subscribe to Fox News and have only seen a limited amount of his stuff. Today I read a piece on Medium going on and on about Tucker Carlson and fear mongering. TC couldn't hold a candle to this dude's fear mongering, hyperbole and outright BS. Medium is the left-wing Tucker Carlson show. I don't hate them for it any more than I hate TC; they are expressing their biased perceptions to their audience. While their audience is not as large as his, I suspect that the average Medium reader spends more time on Medium than TC's viewers spend watching him.
From a Niel Young song, "Ooh, ooh, the damage done"
The extremists are the squeaky wheel that gets attention as they act like they are the mouth of their tribe. Odin help us if they are. Your last paragraph is a perfect example of how embarrassing it can be when people you could agree with jump the shark. All of us here have expressed it.
I don't know if it makes me unique in any way, but I have dear friends and family both left and right whose friendship I cherish and I am comfortable in their company. Some, too close to the edges will hear my opinion of that and so far, we have remained friends. Probably because we go back far before even knowing each other's political views. One internet (Medium) friend who I liked and cared about was a sad exception. Looking back, I should have expected it.
Sorry, I tend to ramble when writing since I don't need to stop and listen. As for conservatives leaving the RP, a number of friends who, like me, don't lock-step with a party started calling themselves Libertarians (a mix of left and right views who made a crossroads deal with the devil and too often vote R) for various reasons. They in no way sit at the feet of Ayn Rand, most libertarians abandoned Objectivism too.
I earned my place in the cult-like tribe known as Marines. If you were vetted to some of our forums, you would find that we are as politically divided as the rest of America. Our terms of endearment for each other sound like hate speech to outsiders. LOL
I wish I could converse with a number of people here at a table with a pitcher and bowl of chips where communication is less difficult. I suspect that your idea of what a conservative is is a bit different from mine.
In the book Racecraft, the authors say that racism came first, then race, and that's there's no race without racism. In other words, racists created the notion of race out of thin air in order to justify slavery and other atrocities.
Yep, this is true as far as I'm aware. Christians couldn't be kept as slaves indefinitely and more and more African slaves were being force-converted to Christianity, threatening the slave trade that huge amounts of money relied on. So racial distinctions were born in order to create a loophole where Africans could be Christians but it was still okay to keep them as lifelong slaves.
Steve, you are on point with your discussion w/ Celine. Two points to that I think add nuance here:
(1) Not all biases are created equal. Humans are driven to make tribal associations and make them matter. AND humans have a perceptual system that by default attend to certain sensory inputs over others. e. g. if you traveled to a foreign land where some folks treated you with great respect and others tried to kill you. Among the various differences observed you notice all folks were either dressed in all white or in all black. Likely you would attend to this difference before noticing the different shoes they were wearing, etc. So it is natural that skin tone would be a frequent attribute for random attribution of importance. as opposed to other visible differences. (and of course less visible differences would be even less likely to be selected.) (NOTE: I am merely explaining why this particular random attribute would be preferentially selected at important, I of course am not trying to argue that it actually IS important.)
(2) You are right to notice that capitalizing Black is a racist thing to do. Just understand, the majority of blacks that I have discussed this topic with, actually WANT to maintain this distinction. They view Blackness as a point of commonality as a key part of their identity.
The would NOT want to remove that part of their identity, further they see banding together with other blacks as an important power move which strengthens them and is a key part of SOLVING the injustices perpetrated against African Americans.
This is sort of a "fight fire with fire" kind of approach. I definitely agree with you, that using this approach does perpetuate racism itself, since it highlights and ensconces the centrality of this color distinction. Rarely do I get understanding of this unintended consequence. Occasionally I do managed to get acknowledgement of the unintended consequence, but even when I do get acknowledgement of this. The black listener is generally UNWILLING to part with this identity, nor part with having a black-based response to racism.
your thinking on this matter is singular in my experience. but 'birds of a feather' .... perhaps you have met and know others who feel as you do???
you should ask them if they would be ok just erasing their black identity. e.g. they still have their same tastes and friends, but now, no one even conceives of any of this as being connected to skin color... that is just erased as an identity. would they be ok with this. I think most would not.
Btw, I hold no judgement on this point. We all have identities that are more happenstance than essential. So who am I to judge another's identity? I am just NOTICING what each person is holding as central.
1. Yeah, your example makes sense. The real world just doesn't really map onto it though. Especially in the case of the white racists who enslaved and then segregated themselves from black people. What exactly were they afraid of? What did black people ever do to them? And why on Earth would whatever that was resonate even today? I'm not defending racism in either case, but at least many black people in America have a legitimate gripe about the way their ancestors were treated.
I just don't see being black as an identity. I like my skin, I wouldn't want to wake up tomorrow with different coloured skin, but it doesn't carry the weight it does for some other people (most people I know, black and otherwise, feel the same way. But as you say, birds of a feather...).
I don't think capitalising the "b" in "black" is racist. It's just stupid. It collectivises people who aren't a collective. It's like capitalising the "t" in "tall" or even the "g" in "gay."
- 100% agree on the legitimate gripe point. Indeed the biggest gripe is not the historical racism, but the racism & bias that is alive today.
- Yes, I have noticed that your view on being black as VERY unusual, AND at your best you can be extremely articulate. It is these two things together that got me to join your channel, and to contribute.
American society (and many African American sub communities) have a challenge:
- on the one hand, as a group, it is true that blacks are at a systematic disadvantage.
- Naturally this galvanizes and reinforces an identity among those oppressed.
- But blacks viewing themselves as importantly different, causes NON-blacks to view them as importantly different.
- Thus in the end, this identification response ends up perpetuating the importance of this identity.
NOTICE: I am not "blaming" blacks for white beliefs here, just noticing a natural cause and effect that is in play.
Your point of view is the anecdote:
- You are quick to acknowledge the many injustices that disproportionally affect blacks.
- Still you reject tying it to black itself, you notice that non-blacks (often to a lesser degree statistically) are also affected by the same injustices.
- Thus your frame the problem, and those to be helped in NON-racial terms.
- If it is done in this way, I think it can gain broader acceptance, so action can happen.
- But also it lessens the white black divide, since it notices whites that are on the disadvantage side and blacks on the advantage side. It makes many different splits.
- If all blacks and whites began framing problems as you see them, then two advantages would come:
(1) black as a critical identity would become less in the minds of all... which naturally would lessen all oppression based on that identity.
(2) shifting the discussion from us and them, to with and without is more likely to gain action from those in the 'with' category. After all, I am presently a 'with' but someday I might be a 'without', but while presently white, I will never be black. that is just 'not my crew' in the same way.
But I think the propagator of your perspective needs to come from a black person.
According to those who believe in Black identity, a non Black person has no authority to speak.
Now I know **YOU** reject this perspective, but that is irrelevant. If that is the listener's perspective, then I as a non-black can never legitimately present evidence to reject the perspective. The well is already poisoned. (if you know the name of that particular debating fallacy).
So you are in a unique position given your (1) color, (2) beliefs, and (3) articulate way with words.
what exactly to do with this uniqueness??? well I dunno! but it seems precious.
Amen. I agree with your analysis and most of the responses. I'll offer a slightly different view from my life - somewhat of a self-esteem issue fed by media/culture/etc. If you feel down or like you're not successful, it's nice to yearn for group solidarity. Some find this in beliefs (church) or practice (sports group), etc - these are all positive forms of solidarity. The laziest and most negative way of all is to say "my skin is dark and I have curly hair texture". My life is unsatisfactory because of how I look. And there's a new book, slavery movie, or NYT editorial all the time to feed into that. There is no encouragement for positive engagement, forward-looking building, etc. My heritage is very mixed so I was on the outside of all the groups, I suppose it was natural for me to see through this all some years ago. I am very much a "race abolitionist" and think it obscures or confounds almost every cultural problem we have, making it worse. I always enter "human" in the surveys and try to talk to people who are trying to "do better". I've seen it first hand in my own workplace (I used to get jokes about my skin color, and it didn't bother me at all! they assumed I was a different "race" and it impacted nothing of value) and now at society at large. Most troublingly in "decolonizing" science and "anti-racist" medicine. The child's way is the best way. May we be wise enough to grow young.
"My life is unsatisfactory because of how I look. And there's a new book, slavery movie, or NYT editorial all the time to feed into that"
Ugh, this is so true and so infuriating. And I get it. I saw the women in my family struggling with their hair because they thought their tight afros weren't beautiful enough. I saw how difficult it was for them to find stylists who had any idea what to do with it. But I also saw the self hypnosis some of them put themselves under, repeating the mantra that men only liked "blonde bimbos." Telling themselves that nobody wanted to date them and sabotaging themselves because of it.
Even today, I notice how reflexively some of them exaggerate the struggles of life as a black person. And I know that if they thought they could get away with it, they'd tell me I didn't know what I was talking about when I call them out for it.
As with several issues that affect black people, there are problems from without and within. There's no denying that there are ways in which society doesn't treat black people and white people as equals. But some black people refuse to see how they themselves uphold that narrative in their minds in ways that make it far worse than it is.
How exactly does Celine believe group dynamics work anyhow? Humans do not need to be taught a firm scientific classification scheme in order to classify the world around them. It's the most basic function of the brain, to sort things into groups and then categorize those things as threatening or non-threatening. And anything that is unfamiliar is instinctively an area of risk. When Steve et. al. talk about ignorance, that's mostly about the lack of upfront information about the unfamiliar. It can be about being explicitly taught a group hierarchy, but even without such teaching the classification will still be created by the individual.
"When Steve et. al. talk about ignorance, that's mostly about the lack of upfront information about the unfamiliar."
Yep, exactly. That ignorance can be overcome. Chris above posts a link to one of my favourites, Daryl Davis, who has demonstrated this more effectively than anybody else I'm aware of. But he doesn't overcome that ignorance by saying, "well, Mr. Klansman, were you aware that race is a social construct?"
Hey Chris! Always difficult to know what somebody means when they just post a link without further comment, but yes, Daryl is amazing. I blather on about him in at least one article a month.
I certainly didn't mean to suggest it's impossible to cure a klansman (or anybody else) of their ignorance. Just that Daryl doesn't achieve this by informing them that race is a social construct.
Hi back --- no you didn't suggest it was easy ... and that's what I like about what you write, that you address hard issues legitimately, and from what I can tell, objectively. I don't know about anyone else, but I really appreciate that.
Visible "Racial" characteristics; melanin, hair texture (follicle shape), nose shape, cheekbones, epicanthic fold, etc. give a recognizable tribal association. That would mean little or nothing except that people attach subculture perceptions to the tribe. If the view of the subculture is negative it is seen as racism though it is properly tribalism/culturalism.
As is often discussed in The Commentary, it is often monolithic, and individuals are prejudged by perceptions of the tribal subculture. The visible characteristics in appearance act as an identifying uniform.
You mention the miscegenation that comes with "interracial marriage/partnerships." It will take some time for visible vestiges of our "uniforms" to fade into non-recognition since everyone is not participating. A thing that does matter and perhaps I am overly optimistic in thinking it could happen sooner is fixing perceptions. Stereotypes are the result of broad observation and can be either negative or positive (to who?).
This is where I think that black people (in America and other places) have a bit of a self-inflicted wound. I will be accused of victim blaming by someone, no doubt, but we do need to clean our own house. In an effort to resist assimilation into "whiteness", purposeful trappings of "black culture" (having nothing to do with Africa) establish a tribe where the people who seem to cling to it most strongly are people that are not the best positive examples. The most common "fear" of black people found in white, Asian and Hispanic people is criminality associated with black people with the "Gangsta" persona. If there is a disparity in crime it has numerous causes (not as simple as choosing one like poverty). Gangsta subculture is not just tolerant of criminality but glorifies it. The monolith attaches it to melanin without justification, except the gangstas purposefully create the association, a curse upon the majority of black people.
To understand why I write that it would be helpful to read https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-White-Liberals-Autonomy-ebook/dp/B003XRDBYE/ref=sr_1_1
Tribalism may always be with us, and tribes are not always bad since they are unifying within while divisive from the outside. Can we reduce negative tribal (racial) associations? It's not just a matter of fixing our own perceptions of others, but also fixing the somewhat logical/justifiable perceptions of our own tribe. I'm not just pointing at black people with that. We all have those issues.
"The monolith attaches it to melanin without justification, except the gangstas purposefully create the association, a curse upon the majority of black people."
Yeah, this is the problem. The fact that this grouping is attached to melanin. White people as a group aren't associated with hillbillies or the Amish or (by sane people) the KKK. As I pointed out in a recent article, the percentage of black Americans who commit homicides, for example, is an infinitesimal fraction of the whole (0.008%). Yet many people hold this prejudice of "black criminality" because they just think of "black people".
If people were as discerning about racial characteristics as you suggest, considering nose shape, cheekbones, epicanthic fold, etc. when lumping people together, racism would be a far smaller issue than it is. But how often do you hear people differentiate between black people from Nigeria and black people from Ethiopia and black people from Jamaica in news reports or just in general? You can tell the difference between these groups quite easily by the characteristics you listed, but they're all just "black" in most people's minds.
This is the fallacy of the concept of race. For most people, it's just "everybody with the same skin colour is the same." Which is ridiculous whether you're talking about black people or white people or any other shade.
Which is why the MSM reification of race via the capitalization of Black is particularly gross.
Yep, absolutely. So stupid. Of course, the idea that black peoples are one homogeneous lump is the one thing the racists on the left and the right agree on.
I was listening to a podcast this weekend of a panel of four black thinkers Glenn Loury was about 'black indentity' and they made a similar point - not necessarily about gangsta rap per se but about how the proponents of 'black culture' are often not the best representatives of 'the black community'. How American blacks' biggest problem is not being ready for the modern world when, supposedly, most of them are graduating high school with an eighth-grade reading level. (Although a lousy education and not knowing shit out of high school OR college appears to be a nationwide, colour-blind problem).
But yeah, glorifying black criminality isn't doing much for their image. Then again, country music is quite popular and tends to brush 'hillbillies' a certain way. Maybe if the Amish had better rap bands we'd be more associated with them too ;)
My focus on racial identification of cultures and subcultures elevates "race" above the status of a social construct even though that is what culture is in many ways. It is the zeitgeist which strongly influences views. Views and actions driven by them impact character which is meaningful. The issue becomes avoidance of prejudgment because influence is not always destiny.
"So my slightly more realistic hope is that we learn to judge each other based on meaningful qualities. Things like shared values and a common sense of decency and a willingness to stand up against injustice"
Agreed, although I'm writing an article right now about someone's challenge last year on Medium just before I got kicked off. One of Medium's very good, but too-woke-for-her-own-alleged-feminist-good writers (and now a super-woke Medium staff member) and I were debating trans issues, and she fell on the 'transwomen are women' side. She asked where my compassion was & I asked where her brain was. The article is about the thinking I've done about compassion since then, and how easy it is to be compassionate toward people you like, and less about Those Other People (the ones you don't).
The ones I'm less compassionate about are the 'acceptable' Thems on t'other side - the people who belong to fundamentalist religion, MAGAs, white supremacists, etc. It's not okay to discriminate against people who were born with a particular biology, but it's okay to discriminate against those with bad values, hateful creeds, etc.
Why are we less compassionate about *them*? They may not have been born into a particular biology but they were into a certain family, community, culture, etc. and may not know any other way. The ones who think critically may leave that unhealthy mental prison but others may not; I'm reminded of a book written by a woman who escaped a fundamentalist Mormon polygamous compound out West who described in detail why so many women never questioned or challenged the notion that they had to be held essentially in bondage to male whims and sexual desires. A fundamentalist Christian friend I had years ago - someone who wasn't very worldly or bright and with some likely brain chemistry-related emotional regulation problems - told me when she was three her mother told her Jesus loved her and always would and she believed it, and stuck with her birth religion without ever questioning it.
She was a very kind and sweet person which made her fundamentalism easier to overlook than if she'd been a hateful Republican (which, back then, over 35 years ago, they weren't nearly as bad, but Ronald Reagan was setting the scene for the mess we're in today).
I'm working slowly toward trying to engage with Those People in dribs and drabs to try and understand why they think as they do, and whether there are ways to get through their muddy thinking. And who knows, maybe I'll find something to challenge my own muddy thinking at times ;)
Some ask, 'What would Jesus do?' I ask myself, 'Who would Buddha hate?'
"Why are we less compassionate about *them*? They may not have been born into a particular biology but they were into a certain family, community, culture, etc. and may not know any other way."
I think there's a difference between having compassion for people and considering them part of "your tribe." Again, this under the assumption that tribal thinking is too ingrained in us to just eliminate.
I don't really buy the "they had no choice because of the environment they were born in" argument. It applies perfectly well to children, but not to adults. The world is too interconnected that you can innocently hate entire groups of people unless you choose, at least to some degree, to remain ignorant.
I don't consider many (if any) people "the enemy." But there are people who I think are wrong. I can still have compassion for these people. I'll still give them the benefit of the doubt if they want to have a conversation (that's kind of my whole schtick, in fact😄). I'll still try to understand where they're coming from. But there are certain values and principles of decency that I won't give ground on. And while I strongly advocate a "live and let live" mentality, that can't apply to people who don't let *others* live.
You can try to understand someone without excusing or condoning their toxic values, beliefs, practices, etc. Kind of like the difference between 'explaining' and 'excusing': "Here's why I did this bad thing, here were my thought processes, but there's still no excuse for what I did."
Trying to understand why people are the way they are isn't to excuse them, the mistake commonly made by some liberals ("Aw, poor baby, it's not their fault!"), but to better understand how we can fight their toxicity. Esp since we all think we react to each other for reasons that are largely hidden from us in our unconscious.
I don't think we should let Trumpers and the woke 'live and let live', but seek to fight their toxicity.
They might even be able to help *us* locate our *own* toxicity...and we all have some, even if it doesn't wear a red cap or a #StayWoke shirt.
Trans-women have a penis, women don't. Acknowledging that is not necessarily an indication of lack of compassion or hate. People can disagree without hate.
I think that your broad brush accusation of conservatives/Republicans is unjustifiable and (I can't read minds) seeming a bit like what you accuse them of. At the very least I see it as a straw man.
I'm pretty comfortable brushing Republicans broadly. At this point, the party is just a human shitshow of bad ideas, bigotry and naked hatred. AFAIC, if you identify as a Republican, you've admitted to being a bad human being. You don't have to be a Democrat or a liberal, but supporting it today as a voter or a politician is being on the wrong side of history, the way a lot of 'good people' (who actually had their good sides, whether we like to admit it or not) joined the Nazi Party 80-90 years ago.
I don't consider all conservatives nasty, just as I don't consider all liberals nasty. Just the extremists, and I will fight them both and their toxic beliefs. Yes, I'm guilty of divisive thinking too which is part of why I do this - searching for my own good self along with everyone else's. Nobody is *all* bad - even the most committed Nazis loved their families (I've read their letters to them).
"𝘐'𝘮 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘙𝘦𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘺. 𝘈𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘴, 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘥"
The trouble is, Republicans say the same about Democrats with the same justification, or lack of it, as Democrats. If I had my way, political parties would be banned, and it would be a capital crime to start one. All political parties are a "𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘴, 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘥." They are the worst-case tribalism and quickest to confirm Godwin's Law.
People who strongly associate things with political parties are the typical extremists precisely because of their broad-brush views. If you look at my views on individual issues, you might think that I am one or the other until you look at all of them and see that I don't conform to either, don't want to be a part of either and they probably don't want me in their tribe except for wanting my vote.
I didn't bother to vote in the recent election. If there was a choice for "no acceptable candidate" and if it got the most votes, they would vacate the office until the next scheduled election I would start voting again. As it stands it is just good cop/bad cop in the interrogation room where neither are your friend. Tired of voting for the lesser of two evils it would be nice to vote for no evil. even if it means no government (I repeat myself). You might think I'm a near anarchist, perhaps I am.
Forgive my rant, I often agree with you and intend no foul, but political party partisanship sets me off since I so firmly see it as destructive.
Ironically, you may have a point. Just this morning I read an AP article about small towners who fear for democracy. It was about people who are regarded as 'far right' and supported Trump, but who are a bit more complicated - one guy supported the civil rights protests after George Floyd and others say they don't want violence. It was an interesting, more nuanced look into them, although it was disturbing that many of them listened to QAnon. (Then again, the far left listens to Pink News).
For sure, people assume I'm a wokie once they figure out I'm on the left (or how far down) or a right-winger if I'm pushing back on the left, as I'm wont to do. I'm not sure it's unrealistic though, to suspect that any Republican with morals has already left the party, however conservative they may be. Maybe that's incorrect, but if they're not that crazy, maybe they might want to think they're known by the company they keep.
I once left a discussion forum a year later than I should have for exactly that reason. It was getting embarrassing to be seen online with people whose cause I supported (being childfree), but who also included a lot of extremist child-haters and parent-bashers.
People are complicated which is why I so often protest tribal politics. I don't subscribe to Fox News and have only seen a limited amount of his stuff. Today I read a piece on Medium going on and on about Tucker Carlson and fear mongering. TC couldn't hold a candle to this dude's fear mongering, hyperbole and outright BS. Medium is the left-wing Tucker Carlson show. I don't hate them for it any more than I hate TC; they are expressing their biased perceptions to their audience. While their audience is not as large as his, I suspect that the average Medium reader spends more time on Medium than TC's viewers spend watching him.
From a Niel Young song, "Ooh, ooh, the damage done"
The extremists are the squeaky wheel that gets attention as they act like they are the mouth of their tribe. Odin help us if they are. Your last paragraph is a perfect example of how embarrassing it can be when people you could agree with jump the shark. All of us here have expressed it.
I don't know if it makes me unique in any way, but I have dear friends and family both left and right whose friendship I cherish and I am comfortable in their company. Some, too close to the edges will hear my opinion of that and so far, we have remained friends. Probably because we go back far before even knowing each other's political views. One internet (Medium) friend who I liked and cared about was a sad exception. Looking back, I should have expected it.
Sorry, I tend to ramble when writing since I don't need to stop and listen. As for conservatives leaving the RP, a number of friends who, like me, don't lock-step with a party started calling themselves Libertarians (a mix of left and right views who made a crossroads deal with the devil and too often vote R) for various reasons. They in no way sit at the feet of Ayn Rand, most libertarians abandoned Objectivism too.
I earned my place in the cult-like tribe known as Marines. If you were vetted to some of our forums, you would find that we are as politically divided as the rest of America. Our terms of endearment for each other sound like hate speech to outsiders. LOL
I wish I could converse with a number of people here at a table with a pitcher and bowl of chips where communication is less difficult. I suspect that your idea of what a conservative is is a bit different from mine.
In the book Racecraft, the authors say that racism came first, then race, and that's there's no race without racism. In other words, racists created the notion of race out of thin air in order to justify slavery and other atrocities.
Yep, this is true as far as I'm aware. Christians couldn't be kept as slaves indefinitely and more and more African slaves were being force-converted to Christianity, threatening the slave trade that huge amounts of money relied on. So racial distinctions were born in order to create a loophole where Africans could be Christians but it was still okay to keep them as lifelong slaves.
Steve, you are on point with your discussion w/ Celine. Two points to that I think add nuance here:
(1) Not all biases are created equal. Humans are driven to make tribal associations and make them matter. AND humans have a perceptual system that by default attend to certain sensory inputs over others. e. g. if you traveled to a foreign land where some folks treated you with great respect and others tried to kill you. Among the various differences observed you notice all folks were either dressed in all white or in all black. Likely you would attend to this difference before noticing the different shoes they were wearing, etc. So it is natural that skin tone would be a frequent attribute for random attribution of importance. as opposed to other visible differences. (and of course less visible differences would be even less likely to be selected.) (NOTE: I am merely explaining why this particular random attribute would be preferentially selected at important, I of course am not trying to argue that it actually IS important.)
(2) You are right to notice that capitalizing Black is a racist thing to do. Just understand, the majority of blacks that I have discussed this topic with, actually WANT to maintain this distinction. They view Blackness as a point of commonality as a key part of their identity.
The would NOT want to remove that part of their identity, further they see banding together with other blacks as an important power move which strengthens them and is a key part of SOLVING the injustices perpetrated against African Americans.
This is sort of a "fight fire with fire" kind of approach. I definitely agree with you, that using this approach does perpetuate racism itself, since it highlights and ensconces the centrality of this color distinction. Rarely do I get understanding of this unintended consequence. Occasionally I do managed to get acknowledgement of the unintended consequence, but even when I do get acknowledgement of this. The black listener is generally UNWILLING to part with this identity, nor part with having a black-based response to racism.
your thinking on this matter is singular in my experience. but 'birds of a feather' .... perhaps you have met and know others who feel as you do???
you should ask them if they would be ok just erasing their black identity. e.g. they still have their same tastes and friends, but now, no one even conceives of any of this as being connected to skin color... that is just erased as an identity. would they be ok with this. I think most would not.
Btw, I hold no judgement on this point. We all have identities that are more happenstance than essential. So who am I to judge another's identity? I am just NOTICING what each person is holding as central.
--d
(2)
1. Yeah, your example makes sense. The real world just doesn't really map onto it though. Especially in the case of the white racists who enslaved and then segregated themselves from black people. What exactly were they afraid of? What did black people ever do to them? And why on Earth would whatever that was resonate even today? I'm not defending racism in either case, but at least many black people in America have a legitimate gripe about the way their ancestors were treated.
2. Yeah, Pew did some research on this recently (https://www.pewresearch.org/race-ethnicity/2022/04/14/race-is-central-to-identity-for-black-americans-and-affects-how-they-connect-with-each-other/). Fully 76% of black people see being black as extremely or very important to how they see themselves. Somewhere in the recesses of my memory I remember seeing a similar question asked to white people and the percentage was waaaay lower.
I just don't see being black as an identity. I like my skin, I wouldn't want to wake up tomorrow with different coloured skin, but it doesn't carry the weight it does for some other people (most people I know, black and otherwise, feel the same way. But as you say, birds of a feather...).
I don't think capitalising the "b" in "black" is racist. It's just stupid. It collectivises people who aren't a collective. It's like capitalising the "t" in "tall" or even the "g" in "gay."
- 100% agree on the legitimate gripe point. Indeed the biggest gripe is not the historical racism, but the racism & bias that is alive today.
- Yes, I have noticed that your view on being black as VERY unusual, AND at your best you can be extremely articulate. It is these two things together that got me to join your channel, and to contribute.
American society (and many African American sub communities) have a challenge:
- on the one hand, as a group, it is true that blacks are at a systematic disadvantage.
- Naturally this galvanizes and reinforces an identity among those oppressed.
- But blacks viewing themselves as importantly different, causes NON-blacks to view them as importantly different.
- Thus in the end, this identification response ends up perpetuating the importance of this identity.
NOTICE: I am not "blaming" blacks for white beliefs here, just noticing a natural cause and effect that is in play.
Your point of view is the anecdote:
- You are quick to acknowledge the many injustices that disproportionally affect blacks.
- Still you reject tying it to black itself, you notice that non-blacks (often to a lesser degree statistically) are also affected by the same injustices.
- Thus your frame the problem, and those to be helped in NON-racial terms.
- If it is done in this way, I think it can gain broader acceptance, so action can happen.
- But also it lessens the white black divide, since it notices whites that are on the disadvantage side and blacks on the advantage side. It makes many different splits.
- If all blacks and whites began framing problems as you see them, then two advantages would come:
(1) black as a critical identity would become less in the minds of all... which naturally would lessen all oppression based on that identity.
(2) shifting the discussion from us and them, to with and without is more likely to gain action from those in the 'with' category. After all, I am presently a 'with' but someday I might be a 'without', but while presently white, I will never be black. that is just 'not my crew' in the same way.
But I think the propagator of your perspective needs to come from a black person.
According to those who believe in Black identity, a non Black person has no authority to speak.
Now I know **YOU** reject this perspective, but that is irrelevant. If that is the listener's perspective, then I as a non-black can never legitimately present evidence to reject the perspective. The well is already poisoned. (if you know the name of that particular debating fallacy).
So you are in a unique position given your (1) color, (2) beliefs, and (3) articulate way with words.
what exactly to do with this uniqueness??? well I dunno! but it seems precious.
Cheers!!
Amen. I agree with your analysis and most of the responses. I'll offer a slightly different view from my life - somewhat of a self-esteem issue fed by media/culture/etc. If you feel down or like you're not successful, it's nice to yearn for group solidarity. Some find this in beliefs (church) or practice (sports group), etc - these are all positive forms of solidarity. The laziest and most negative way of all is to say "my skin is dark and I have curly hair texture". My life is unsatisfactory because of how I look. And there's a new book, slavery movie, or NYT editorial all the time to feed into that. There is no encouragement for positive engagement, forward-looking building, etc. My heritage is very mixed so I was on the outside of all the groups, I suppose it was natural for me to see through this all some years ago. I am very much a "race abolitionist" and think it obscures or confounds almost every cultural problem we have, making it worse. I always enter "human" in the surveys and try to talk to people who are trying to "do better". I've seen it first hand in my own workplace (I used to get jokes about my skin color, and it didn't bother me at all! they assumed I was a different "race" and it impacted nothing of value) and now at society at large. Most troublingly in "decolonizing" science and "anti-racist" medicine. The child's way is the best way. May we be wise enough to grow young.
"My life is unsatisfactory because of how I look. And there's a new book, slavery movie, or NYT editorial all the time to feed into that"
Ugh, this is so true and so infuriating. And I get it. I saw the women in my family struggling with their hair because they thought their tight afros weren't beautiful enough. I saw how difficult it was for them to find stylists who had any idea what to do with it. But I also saw the self hypnosis some of them put themselves under, repeating the mantra that men only liked "blonde bimbos." Telling themselves that nobody wanted to date them and sabotaging themselves because of it.
Even today, I notice how reflexively some of them exaggerate the struggles of life as a black person. And I know that if they thought they could get away with it, they'd tell me I didn't know what I was talking about when I call them out for it.
As with several issues that affect black people, there are problems from without and within. There's no denying that there are ways in which society doesn't treat black people and white people as equals. But some black people refuse to see how they themselves uphold that narrative in their minds in ways that make it far worse than it is.
Entirely agreed. I see all sides of it here personally.
How exactly does Celine believe group dynamics work anyhow? Humans do not need to be taught a firm scientific classification scheme in order to classify the world around them. It's the most basic function of the brain, to sort things into groups and then categorize those things as threatening or non-threatening. And anything that is unfamiliar is instinctively an area of risk. When Steve et. al. talk about ignorance, that's mostly about the lack of upfront information about the unfamiliar. It can be about being explicitly taught a group hierarchy, but even without such teaching the classification will still be created by the individual.
"When Steve et. al. talk about ignorance, that's mostly about the lack of upfront information about the unfamiliar."
Yep, exactly. That ignorance can be overcome. Chris above posts a link to one of my favourites, Daryl Davis, who has demonstrated this more effectively than anybody else I'm aware of. But he doesn't overcome that ignorance by saying, "well, Mr. Klansman, were you aware that race is a social construct?"
npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes
Hey Chris! Always difficult to know what somebody means when they just post a link without further comment, but yes, Daryl is amazing. I blather on about him in at least one article a month.
I certainly didn't mean to suggest it's impossible to cure a klansman (or anybody else) of their ignorance. Just that Daryl doesn't achieve this by informing them that race is a social construct.
Steve --- Thanks for the reply.
If this issue / topic / situation was easy to define, let alone solve, I'm pretty sure we'd have figured it out by now.
Yep, agreed. I don’t think I suggested it was easy did I?
Hi back --- no you didn't suggest it was easy ... and that's what I like about what you write, that you address hard issues legitimately, and from what I can tell, objectively. I don't know about anyone else, but I really appreciate that.