I have taken to using racism generically to include anti-S. We Jews are NOT a race as we include all the standard races. I include Gays and that gaggle of Letters and even anti religious bias like anti-Catholic. When I use racism this way in an article, I note my usage. The behavior of dislike, hatred, prejudice, and ignorance is essen…
I have taken to using racism generically to include anti-S. We Jews are NOT a race as we include all the standard races. I include Gays and that gaggle of Letters and even anti religious bias like anti-Catholic. When I use racism this way in an article, I note my usage. The behavior of dislike, hatred, prejudice, and ignorance is essentially the same when some one is disliked on the basis of the group to which he/she belongs. Hence, I use racism generically
Oh yes, our problem is NOT racism. It is Predation. If we were not a predatory society, we would not think of harming someone because he/she was from a different group . We would not think of harming others period! BLM despite its name focused on ending predatory behavior against everyone, not just Blacks. That really pissed of Pelosi.
"We Jews are NOT a race as we include all the standard races"
😁 Careful, Whoopi Goldberg got cancelled for saying that! Yeah, I had a long conversation with somebody once about the use of the word racism.
For me, it's just a question of precision. As you say, properly speaking, Jews are nor a race. Nor are gay people. To me, it makes no more sense to describe discrimination against those groups as racism than to describe discrimination against straight black people as homophobia.
These issues are important enough that we need to be able to talk about them accurately. So I tend to stick to broadly understood and accepted definitions.
Actually this is a good point. As I’ve said before, “race” is a term I avoid whenever possible because, as you say, it has no meaningful definition. But “racism” is widely understood to be discrimination based on skin colour. So when I want to talk about that particular problem, I use the word “racism.”
But yes, to your point, *no* skin colour is “properly speaking” a race. Imprecise on my part. But black people/white people/brown people/etc. are thought of as “races“ for the purposes of discussions about racism.
I am 87% Ashkenazi, more than most Israelis. OK, three of my grandparents were Jewish but how my Irish grandfather got to be half Jewish will forever remain a mystery.
I don't buy "race is a social construct" any more than gender. It doesn't take too many generations of geographic isolation between two colonies of a species before they can no longer interbreed.
There are differences. They're just not superiorities or inferiorities.
Personally, I think these ancestry businesses are for the birds. I'm not included in 23andme Jewish ancestry because my people are Sephardic. It gets even more complicated in Israel.
In Ethiopia, people have been practicing Judaism for 3,000 years. As his Holiness Abuna Paulos, patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, who holds a PhD in theology from Princeton University, explains: "We've had 1,000 years of Judaism, followed by 2,000 years of Christianity, and that's why our religion is rooted in the Old Testament."
When Christianity, and forced conversion, arrived in Ethiopia in the 4th century (AD), people who continued to practice Judaism were called “Falasha” (a derogatory term meaning outsider).
Sixteen hundred years later, during the political unrest of 1991, more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel. Unfortunately, Ethiopian Jews who had converted to Christianity were left behind. Ethiopian Israelis, known as Beta Israel (meaning House of Israel) have been trying to bring their family members to Israel ever since. Suffice to say, Israel’s immigration issues are as divisive as ours, and for much the same reason (religion).
The covenant of the ark, containing the two tablets with the Ten Commandments carried down the mountain by Moses is said to be in Ethiopia. The Smithsonian published a good article about this legend.
Conflation of ancestry via genetics vs. religious conviction? The point being that there is an identifiable genetic ancestry path, and there are also people who self-identify as Jews thru their religion. Thus, the two sides of the argument pertaining to a racial component.
"I tend to stick to broadly understood and accepted definitions."
Beware this. Language maps poorly to reality and the mapping is getting a lot worse with the explosive growth in neologisms and enclave vocabulary.
In software this has gotten completely out of control, with accurate terms being replaced with fuzzy and often meaningless ones. Everyone talks about "refactoring" but a dozen mentions could have eight different meanings.
The controversy over "woman" is just shocking, and the fact that a "trans woman" refers to a man should be setting off alarms. Words should have precise and clear meanings, since they are all we have to bridge between minds.
“Beware this. Language maps poorly to reality and the mapping is getting a lot worse with the explosive growth in neologisms and enclave vocabulary.”
True. But enclave vocabulary (lovely term) tends to only work within those enclaves unless it’s validated.
Case in point, I don’t think anybody is confused what I mean when I use the word “women.” I’m referring to what the overwhelming majority of people mean when they say “woman.” I deliberately differentiate between women and trans women for this reason.
I don’t validate the enclave vocabulary simply by using language the way everybody already understands it. And the people pretending not to understand give themselves away by getting mad at me for not playing their game.
I adamantly do the same. I refuse to use he/she or (s)he or the singular they, defiantly continuing with the generic "he" and using "people" instead of "someone" so I don't have to pair the latter with "they."
I say "invitation" and "request" instead of using invite and ask as nouns. I still say "contact" instead of "reach out" ... you get the picture. Not all of these are enclave but they're part of the "warmth" defilement of the language that I refuse to go along with.
Since I do a lot of technical writing I dread that the time may come when an employer tells me to use "they" because I know what my answer will be.
The "woman" thing is a scent-mark like "Trump won." Well, I'm not a member of the pack.
From my time in the technical arm of the corporate word it became clear to me that the more fuzzy-buzzy words people used the less likely they were to have a real understanding of the subject matter. They were typically trying to baffle with bullshit.
And when their meetings are 100% buzz you better start distributing your CV because things are not going to last.
I was in a meeting at a company that started doing that agile horseshit. Someone mentioned "stories," which is what we used to call user scenarios. Nobody asked what it meant but they figured it out and within minutes everyone was shoehorning "stories" into every sentence. Nodding vigorously, so compulsive in their conformity I wanted to vomit.
We don't need to die to go to hell. It's right here.
Scott Adams got rich with his "Dilbert" cartoons because they capture the phenomenon so precisely. I had one "peer" that I found it difficult to not refer to as Wally. There were Pointy Haired Bosses everywhere.
Those methodologies have destroyed software development. They all require tons of meetings, recurring meetings, and when you hold a meeting for no other reason than its appearance on the calendar the chance of it being any use drops to zero, along with its chances of letting out early or being canceled.
Breaking a good developer's concentration is the best way to crush his productivity and the quality of his work, so another fad, er, approach came along in which software testing is more important than writing software. "Flow" is a thing of the past and even ordinary concentration is out of reach.
I think Dilbert was out for a few years before this horrible stuff started.
The Oxford English Dictionary's first recorded utterance of the word racism was by a man named Richard Henry Pratt in 1902. Who the heck was Richard Henry Pratt? I turn to a piece from NPR for the answer.
Instead of racism, Pratt is better remembered for coining the phrase “Kill the Indian...save the man.”
"A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one," Pratt said. "In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."
We're still living with the after-effects of what Pratt thought and did. His story serves as a useful parable for why discussions of racism remain so deeply contentious even now.”
Pratt advocated for the assimilation of Native Americans into white life and convinced Congress to let him try out his ideas.
Pratte pushed for the total erasure of Native cultures and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School would become a model for dozens of other boarding schools for Indian children.
If you are interested in the rest of this ghastly story, here is the link to the NPR story.
For now, I think the NPR conclusion said it best. “In the century since Pratt used the word racism, the term has become an abstraction. But always buried somewhere underneath it are actions with real consequences. Sometimes those outcomes are intended. Sometimes they're not. But it's the outcomes, not the intentions, that matter most in the end.”
I have taken to using racism generically to include anti-S. We Jews are NOT a race as we include all the standard races. I include Gays and that gaggle of Letters and even anti religious bias like anti-Catholic. When I use racism this way in an article, I note my usage. The behavior of dislike, hatred, prejudice, and ignorance is essentially the same when some one is disliked on the basis of the group to which he/she belongs. Hence, I use racism generically
Oh yes, our problem is NOT racism. It is Predation. If we were not a predatory society, we would not think of harming someone because he/she was from a different group . We would not think of harming others period! BLM despite its name focused on ending predatory behavior against everyone, not just Blacks. That really pissed of Pelosi.
"We Jews are NOT a race as we include all the standard races"
😁 Careful, Whoopi Goldberg got cancelled for saying that! Yeah, I had a long conversation with somebody once about the use of the word racism.
For me, it's just a question of precision. As you say, properly speaking, Jews are nor a race. Nor are gay people. To me, it makes no more sense to describe discrimination against those groups as racism than to describe discrimination against straight black people as homophobia.
These issues are important enough that we need to be able to talk about them accurately. So I tend to stick to broadly understood and accepted definitions.
The DNA Genetics site does not use the word race. Do you think that identifiable race falls out of what they do measure? https://www.23andme.com/ancestry-composition-guide/
Note that genetic Ashkenazi Jewish is identifiable with a precision of 99.
Actually this is a good point. As I’ve said before, “race” is a term I avoid whenever possible because, as you say, it has no meaningful definition. But “racism” is widely understood to be discrimination based on skin colour. So when I want to talk about that particular problem, I use the word “racism.”
But yes, to your point, *no* skin colour is “properly speaking” a race. Imprecise on my part. But black people/white people/brown people/etc. are thought of as “races“ for the purposes of discussions about racism.
I am 87% Ashkenazi, more than most Israelis. OK, three of my grandparents were Jewish but how my Irish grandfather got to be half Jewish will forever remain a mystery.
I don't buy "race is a social construct" any more than gender. It doesn't take too many generations of geographic isolation between two colonies of a species before they can no longer interbreed.
There are differences. They're just not superiorities or inferiorities.
Personally, I think these ancestry businesses are for the birds. I'm not included in 23andme Jewish ancestry because my people are Sephardic. It gets even more complicated in Israel.
In Ethiopia, people have been practicing Judaism for 3,000 years. As his Holiness Abuna Paulos, patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, who holds a PhD in theology from Princeton University, explains: "We've had 1,000 years of Judaism, followed by 2,000 years of Christianity, and that's why our religion is rooted in the Old Testament."
When Christianity, and forced conversion, arrived in Ethiopia in the 4th century (AD), people who continued to practice Judaism were called “Falasha” (a derogatory term meaning outsider).
Sixteen hundred years later, during the political unrest of 1991, more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel. Unfortunately, Ethiopian Jews who had converted to Christianity were left behind. Ethiopian Israelis, known as Beta Israel (meaning House of Israel) have been trying to bring their family members to Israel ever since. Suffice to say, Israel’s immigration issues are as divisive as ours, and for much the same reason (religion).
The covenant of the ark, containing the two tablets with the Ten Commandments carried down the mountain by Moses is said to be in Ethiopia. The Smithsonian published a good article about this legend.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/keepers-of-the-lost-ark-179998820/
Conflation of ancestry via genetics vs. religious conviction? The point being that there is an identifiable genetic ancestry path, and there are also people who self-identify as Jews thru their religion. Thus, the two sides of the argument pertaining to a racial component.
I think you covered it - very well.
In Israel, you know, "the Jewish state," Sephardic Jews are second-class citizens.
"I tend to stick to broadly understood and accepted definitions."
Beware this. Language maps poorly to reality and the mapping is getting a lot worse with the explosive growth in neologisms and enclave vocabulary.
In software this has gotten completely out of control, with accurate terms being replaced with fuzzy and often meaningless ones. Everyone talks about "refactoring" but a dozen mentions could have eight different meanings.
The controversy over "woman" is just shocking, and the fact that a "trans woman" refers to a man should be setting off alarms. Words should have precise and clear meanings, since they are all we have to bridge between minds.
“Beware this. Language maps poorly to reality and the mapping is getting a lot worse with the explosive growth in neologisms and enclave vocabulary.”
True. But enclave vocabulary (lovely term) tends to only work within those enclaves unless it’s validated.
Case in point, I don’t think anybody is confused what I mean when I use the word “women.” I’m referring to what the overwhelming majority of people mean when they say “woman.” I deliberately differentiate between women and trans women for this reason.
I don’t validate the enclave vocabulary simply by using language the way everybody already understands it. And the people pretending not to understand give themselves away by getting mad at me for not playing their game.
I adamantly do the same. I refuse to use he/she or (s)he or the singular they, defiantly continuing with the generic "he" and using "people" instead of "someone" so I don't have to pair the latter with "they."
I say "invitation" and "request" instead of using invite and ask as nouns. I still say "contact" instead of "reach out" ... you get the picture. Not all of these are enclave but they're part of the "warmth" defilement of the language that I refuse to go along with.
Since I do a lot of technical writing I dread that the time may come when an employer tells me to use "they" because I know what my answer will be.
The "woman" thing is a scent-mark like "Trump won." Well, I'm not a member of the pack.
From my time in the technical arm of the corporate word it became clear to me that the more fuzzy-buzzy words people used the less likely they were to have a real understanding of the subject matter. They were typically trying to baffle with bullshit.
And when their meetings are 100% buzz you better start distributing your CV because things are not going to last.
I was in a meeting at a company that started doing that agile horseshit. Someone mentioned "stories," which is what we used to call user scenarios. Nobody asked what it meant but they figured it out and within minutes everyone was shoehorning "stories" into every sentence. Nodding vigorously, so compulsive in their conformity I wanted to vomit.
We don't need to die to go to hell. It's right here.
Scott Adams got rich with his "Dilbert" cartoons because they capture the phenomenon so precisely. I had one "peer" that I found it difficult to not refer to as Wally. There were Pointy Haired Bosses everywhere.
Those methodologies have destroyed software development. They all require tons of meetings, recurring meetings, and when you hold a meeting for no other reason than its appearance on the calendar the chance of it being any use drops to zero, along with its chances of letting out early or being canceled.
Breaking a good developer's concentration is the best way to crush his productivity and the quality of his work, so another fad, er, approach came along in which software testing is more important than writing software. "Flow" is a thing of the past and even ordinary concentration is out of reach.
I think Dilbert was out for a few years before this horrible stuff started.
The Oxford English Dictionary's first recorded utterance of the word racism was by a man named Richard Henry Pratt in 1902. Who the heck was Richard Henry Pratt? I turn to a piece from NPR for the answer.
Instead of racism, Pratt is better remembered for coining the phrase “Kill the Indian...save the man.”
"A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one," Pratt said. "In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."
We're still living with the after-effects of what Pratt thought and did. His story serves as a useful parable for why discussions of racism remain so deeply contentious even now.”
Pratt advocated for the assimilation of Native Americans into white life and convinced Congress to let him try out his ideas.
Pratte pushed for the total erasure of Native cultures and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School would become a model for dozens of other boarding schools for Indian children.
If you are interested in the rest of this ghastly story, here is the link to the NPR story.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/01/05/260006815/the-ugly-fascinating-history-of-the-word-racism
For now, I think the NPR conclusion said it best. “In the century since Pratt used the word racism, the term has become an abstraction. But always buried somewhere underneath it are actions with real consequences. Sometimes those outcomes are intended. Sometimes they're not. But it's the outcomes, not the intentions, that matter most in the end.”