A few days ago, I received a notification about a conversation I had almost three years ago. My first, and so far only, on the topic of “transracialism.” In his article, Being Black Without Being Born Black, Daniel argued that “race” is a social construct. Which is largely true. There’s no good reason to group people by skin colour and not by head shape or blood group or whether their eyelids have an
"Race" or whatever people wish to call it is a collection of characteristics associated with race. It is certainly not restricted to melanin. With respect to a condition my wife has, a surgeon referred to her as "highly melanated." She is darker than some people who are classified as black which can be quite white. But a person who would not call her Asian based upon her appearance would be rare since her DNA ancestry is a collection of Southeast Asian subgroups. She has been mistaken for a Navaho, possibly because we live in Arizona.
All of that quickly dilutes. When we lived in Saudi Arabia several people assumed our daughters were Arabs. A mixture of European and Asian ancestry makes them technically Eurasian. They heard plenty of "Where are you from?" growing up and when we lived in Georgia many black people referred to them as "half white."
All that to say race can be unambiguously observable, or diluted to the point that people can pass for a race that comes with less baggage. It tells you nothing of their character, intelligence or world view. Does some of my wife's behavior fit the Asian stereotype? Sure, but with 50+ years of marriage to her, so is some of mine.
I'm not transracial ;0), just because of my comfort with some of that. That's where people go off the rails. TV over the internet from Thailand is streaming as I write this. There are Thai speaking actors/actresses in her shows who look white and who look black. Are they a mix or immigrants who speak Thai like a native? Who knows? Who cares? Nobody is calling them farang or farang dam. They are just people who are a part of the landscape, which is the way things should be. We are a collection of ancestry and personal experiences. I suspect that my life experience shaped me more than my genes.
""Race" or whatever people wish to call it is a collection of characteristics associated with race"
This is circular, no? Like saying that a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman? We've talked about this before, but I'm still not sure what you mean when you ay "race."
Interestingly enough, this conversation with Daniel three years ago evolved my thoughts on what race is. Until then I'd been quite happy thinking of "black" not only as a descriptor, but as a meaningful, cohesive category. Whereas I think a much better way to think of it is in the same way we think of brunette or redhead.
These too are generally related to other characteristics (dark eyes for brunettes, freckles and pale skin for redheads), and are unambiguously observable. But they're also so enormously diverse in genes and expression that it doesn't make much sense to think of them as much more than descriptors.
I don't buy into the idea that the concept of race is some evil shit invented by white people to oppress people. People notice observable features of appearance since it is a signal of someone of another tribe who may or may not be friendly or dangerous. When all is said and done, it is more a case of eye candy than knowledge of the person's character.
The fact that there is a concept, an absurd one, that there is "trans" gender, race, species, etc. indicates that those are commonly understood classifications. It doesn't define us that people see me as a white man or you as a black man. It's just something people see and may or may not attach importance to.
Could it indicate social views? It could but isn't necessarily so. If you adopt an infant Chinese girl (there are a bunch of them in America) thanks to one child and it needs to be a boy that happened for a number of years in China, is she a Chinese girl? What do people mean by that? Chinese DNA and appearance, culturally some subset of the American family who adopted her.
"I don't buy into the idea that the concept of race is some evil shit invented by white people to oppress people."
Yeah, I think this is why we're struggling to make progress on this point. It isn't a question of whether you buy into it, it's a fact. The concept of "black people" and "white people" as many think about it today is an invention of white slaveowners to justify keeping African Christians as lifelong slaves. It's a matter of historical record.
But that doesn't make race an invention of "white people" in the sense that I think you mean it. In fact, the sense that you mean it is the legacy of that same invention.
White people (or more accurately, people whose skin ranges from light pink to light beige) are not collectively responsible, in perpetuity, for every bad thing a person with similar coloured skin has ever done. But on some level, I think *this* is the concept you've bought into. So when you hear about something negative that a few white people did in the past, some part of you seems to feel a degree of defensiveness. Or at least an urge to reject the idea.
And to be clear, I understand this. One of the many reasons I spend so much time writing and talking about racial issues is that modern-day "antiracism" strongly encourages this mindset. In white people *and* black people. I think far fewer people thought this way 20 years ago than do today.
But again, this is not inevitable. Noticing difference doesn't equal tribalism. People notice, for example, that some people have blonde hair and others have brown hair. But nobody is tempted to say that all of those people are the same or have some sort of collective responsibility for each other's historical actions.
I have nothing to defend. I wasn't there in the days of trans-Atlantic slavery. I was in the racist south in the 70s, standing for and with black people though. The people who go on and on about white people this, systemic and supremist that can go F themselves. If it has done that to someone like me, and it has, the problem is much, much bigger than you think it is.
I don't reject the idea that white people did some awful stuff when they started buying black people from black people in Africa. The white people did X before we were born seems a bit like the Israel-Palestine rhetoric going on now and is just as unhelpful. "White [you name it]" and "holocaust" are seen as a wild card that makes hate at worst or negative attitudes at least OK.
I understand quite well that black people didn't like way it was which is why I stood with them, and still do, but they didn't openly make me their enemy. With that I can quote General James Mattis, "No better friend, no worse enemy..." Making a friend an enemy is a fool's errand.
"If it has done that to someone like me, and it has, the problem is much, much bigger than you think it is."
Yes, I absolutely agree. Again, this is exactly why I write and talk about these issues. The "antiracists" have created a monster and I don't think they even see it yet because they're too wrapped up in their own racism and self-righteousness. I see the size of the problem very clearly I think.
My entire thesis, in pretty much everything I write, is that you, and every other white person alive today, have nothing to defend when it comes to discussions of slavery or the invention of "race" or anything else other than your own actions. But that doesn't stop many white people from *feeling* defensive.I see it all the time. And as you hint at here, in a growing number of cases, that defensiveness is turning into something extremely worrying (obviously not talking about you here. I'm seeing some truly awful stuff elsewhere online).
There are many levers to pull in order to undo (or at least minimise) the damage that this "progressive" racism has caused. And one of those is to continue to pick apart this rancid idea of collectivism based on skin colour. That also means recognising that "black people" didn't make you their enemy. A small selection of idiots, many of them white, decided that picking at racial divisions could make them a lot of money.
I want to note that regarding your last sentence, while yes some want to make a lot of money (DiAngelo is now a millionaire, Kendi is doing well), I think that other psychological motives likely are more widely behind the spread of the movement. (If you were to counter that the handful having the most cultural influence were motivated by money more than anything, I have no knowledge either way on that; I'm talking about the second and third tier evangelists who are much more common).
Resentment, guilt, seeking a particular kind of redemption, the joys of feeling moral superiority, imagined solidarity with the oppressed, personal power seeking - all of these motives/payoffs are far more common among proponents and promoters of the ideology than is making a lot of money.
Critical Social Justice ideology has largely non-monetary payoffs for its adherents (who are commanded to also be its proselytizers).
Again, at the top of the influence chain, money could perhaps be a bigger factor than it is among the rank and file.
Great comment. Yes, appearances will get increasingly confusing in places like Southern California where literally the whole world mixes its genes. My grandchildren are half mestizo Mexican and the other half a mix of Scots Irish, South Asian Indian and Ashkenazi Jew. By appearance my six year old grandson could be mistaken for dozen ethnicities.
Here’s hoping that all this racial stuff just becomes irrelevant because, as Obama once quipped, “we’re all beige.”
This trend of requiring everyone to believe what one says one is and not believe their lying eyes has a strong element of narcissistic entitlement.
There'll still be cultural differences and national ones, but hopefully we will get a day when one's skin color is the most salient thing about their identity.
Back in the early days of Tumblr, you'd run into people of various identities. Each one of them swearing with 200% sincerity that, despite all physical appearances, they were actually a wolf/elf/wizard/"multiple" person; the generic term was "kin." Also, there were people saying, with the same sincerity, that, despite all physical appearances, they were actually a girl/boy/nonbinary. I figured it was the same thing; people looking to escape boring normie reality by creating a version of themselves that was Different. Nothing too odd; teenagers have always done that. And then I saw it happening in the real world: gender stripped of all definitions and reduced to a personal proposition. I say I am this, therefore I am. (With "and if you disagree, you're a bad person" popping up as the movement gained traction.)
The old 2-gender paradigm had its flaws; it was too reductive, overly rigid, relied more on social science than biology, and completely failed to account for intersex people, or the fact that, no matter how fine you draw boundaries, someone is always going to wind up outside. But what do we have now that the old has been deconstructed? Gender as opinion? Gender as statement of faith? Gender as non-falsifiable proposition? Gender as argument? Gender as brand? What new order do we construct, especially as this subject tears (or is used to tear) people apart, creating shibboleths and derailing other conversations. Personally, I'm tired of it.
"Nothing too odd; teenagers have always done that. And then I saw it happening in the real world"
Yeah, this is the thing. Those other identities have always happened in the real world too; punks, goths, emo, they were also often associated with mental health co-morbidities and increased suicide ideation.
But the saving graces were a) they were 100% reversible once those kids went through puberty and their hormones settled down. And b) nobody took them seriously as sacred identities. You were allowed to admit that these kids were being ridiculous and for almost all of them it was just a phase they'd grow out of.
You certainly weren't encouraged to pump them full of drugs or change your language to "affirm" them or tell them how stunning and brave they were as they chopped off parts of their bodies.
Nothing confounding about intersex. They are still male or female, albeit with deformed body parts.
Forget "gender." Just drop it. It has no more scientific value than "soul." There are two (2) sexes, and nothing outside or between. Let's treat this as the attention fad that it clearly is and move on to more important things like, oh, planetary survival.
D> "Skin color is an arbitrary factor that does not relate in any reasonable way to lineage. The idea that “black gives birth to black” is nothing but an outdated pseudo-scientific racist narrative."
This is a form of mott and bailey argument, and it's not scientific.
When he wants to defend it from dissent, he interprets it as "The correlation of lineage to skin color is less than 1.00" (which is true)
But when he wants to reason based on it, he interprets it as "The correlation of lineage to skin color is 0.00" (which is false).
If they were not related in any "reasonable" way, then Africa parents in general would be just as likely to birth an Asian, or White, baby as a black one, with no meaningful correlation between parent skin color and children's skin color. Similarly for Native American parents, Chinese parents, etc.
He's pretending that rare exceptions, or edge cases, mean that high statistical correlation is "a outdated pseudo-scientific racist narrative". It's clear that when he's using motivated reasoning to support his emotionally desired outcome, he has no grasp of statistics or science (whether he has any grasp of those in other contexts I know not).
Similarly fallacious reasoning is used in other facets of Critical Social Justice ideology, such as sex and gender ideology.
Let me use computer processors as an example. In some circuits, 2.5-3.3v is considered a "1", and 0-1.8v is considered a "0". The logic and architecture of the processor are based on this binary of 1 and 0, hence we call these binary computers using binary logic. But there are statistically uncommon cases where the master plan (in a lithograph) doesn't transfer perfectly to the silicon wafer, and a transistor malfunctions, so that a given line might be permanently or intermittantly stuck at a 2.0v, which is neither a 1 nor a 0. Does that mean the whole computer is now organized based on trinary math, or is structured as an analog computer utilizing a spectrum of voltages? Does it prove that there really isn't any meaningful difference between 1 and 0 in the computer? No, it does not; the computer's logical organization as AND and OR gates doesn't change; the stuck voltage component is just an error in implementation - a major or minor malfunction, noise in the system. Sometimes the chip can be salvaged by having redundant units which can be substituted for the malfunctioning ones, sometimes not.
Because a very small portion of the population is born with truly ambiguous genitalia or other genetic or developmental flaws, they reason that there is no meaningful difference between male and female in the overall population, and they delusionally think that has been "proven by science".
As you say, we can recognize reality and still treat people decently; there is no need to become delusional or out of touch with reality in order to create a better world.
"When he wants to defend it from dissent, he interprets it as "The correlation of lineage to skin color is less than 1.00" (which is true)
But when he wants to reason based on it, he interprets it as "The correlation of lineage to skin color is 0.00" (which is false)."
Yep, exactly. This is the same motte-and-bailey that all "trans" arguments depend on. Or really almost all critical theory infused arguments.
"Categories cannot be perfectly defined with zero exceptions therefore categories are meaningless. At least, until my argument rests on the category in question, then the category is sacred and inviolable and any attempt to define it differently to me is hate speech."
For example, "woman" is a social construct and has no objective definition. But if I "identify" as a woman and you tell me I don't fit your definition of what a woman is, that's basically genocide.
I worked for a city government for about a decade and it was fascinating to watch the race, diversity, etc. arc. When I started we were required to take a day training which included watching "Race: The Power of Illusion" (which I still think about a lot) to in the year before I left creating affinity groups for people of color that discouraged white people from joining. Since it was government they technically couldn't forbid white people to join a POC affinity group but we would have been judged had we done so.
It was fascinating. The more you actually learn about the history of racial classification the more it seems so obvious we have to somehow move past it. Anyway, that's my contribution for today. I encourage people to at least listen to the book discussion if not pick up the book for themselves.
And as always, thanks for your thoughtful commentary on these subjects. I always leave the reading with a new talking point.
Yeah, racial attitudes (and race "science") have largely been post hoc justifications or rationalizations to reinforce existing hierarchies. When a group has something valuable, they get to move up the ladder. Except for black/Africans, who wind up stuck at the bottom, no matter where.
It's only another step to insisting they really *are* those animals because they 'identify' a such. The liberal inability to say 'no' to anything is the reason why we're having all these dumbass conversations about whether you can be another race or another sex. The far left is as is virulently individualist as the far right, and doesn't want to 'oppress' anyone (esp if they're non-white) by telling them no, you can't be a boy or a black guy or a tiger or a mermaid.
And they *do* believe that reality, facts and scientific evidence are 'hate speech'.
Hell, even a lot of scientists are on board with that.
I actually hope you're right. Because horrifyingly enough, I think trans-age is next. "Minor attracted people" 🤮 have never had an opportunity like this one and they're pushing as hard as they can (thankfully humanity's natural disgust response means they can't push too hard).
But even in the comments of some of my articles, I'm seeing that some people desperately want age to be a fuzzier concept than it is...for some reason.
"(thankfully humanity's natural disgust response means they can't push too hard)."
Oh, you think so? I don't. I'm working on an article right now tracing the history of LGBTQ's and the left's complicated relationship with pedos, which started before the 'T' was added (the T has brought back a very ugly pedo image for gay men which they've helped to bring on themselves by being too inclusive - not of pedos this time, but trans, which has allowed, for the first time, heterosexual men who don't give a damn about conservative 'blood libel' against gay men.
I explain how trans 'grooming' isn't necessarily pedo (although I can't say there's not a nefarious purpose we haven't yet identified) but that, with transactivists' cooperation or not, the pedos are waiting in the wings (you know about MAPs already, I touch upon Jacob Breslow) while transactivists groom mostly progressive parents to unquestioningly accept everything their children and adult activists tell them.
I touch upon how mostly white 'progressive' feminists are more rape-collaborative if the situation is 'problematic' (i.e., the rapist(s) are not white, and the victims are). I had to cut out the part about feminist silence surrounding the horrific rapes of Israeli Jewish women for length sake, it's already very long.
No, I *don't* think either LGBTQ, feminists, or progressive parents will say no to pedos when they arrive for their kids. However, I'll happily, joyfully rebut if they prove me wrong.
I'm just not holding my breath. The right will be our allies against the pedos.
"I explain how trans 'grooming' isn't necessarily pedo"
Yeah, I don't really connect the T with pedophilia. Lots of sexual deviants have attached themselves to trans activism and transsexual issues, but I don't get the impression that there's any strong connection. Maybe you've seen some stuff here that I haven't.
But as you say, pedophiles have been trying to attach themselves to the gay community for decades. At least since NAMBLA if not earlier. But they got cut loose because, as unwilling as society was to accept gay people back in the day, they were far, far less willing to accept "man-boy lovers."
The reason I say they've never had an opportunity like this one is because there's never been such widespread support for the idea that all categories and boundaries are meaningless and even oppressive. If, in the "social construct" era, we accept that men can be women, why can't 25-year-olds be 15-year-olds? We're seeing isolated cases where this kind of thinking is already gaining traction.
There's a pocket of people on the left who will accept literally anything (https://x.com/JebraFaushay/status/1698077497722565099?s=20). And while not all progressives are in this category, all of the people in this category are progressives. But society in general, the normal people who aren't chronically online and have no idea any of this is happening, I think there are hard limits for almost all of them that don't include pedophilia.
"If, in the "social construct" era, we accept that men can be women, why can't 25-year-olds be 15-year-olds? We're seeing isolated cases where this kind of thinking is already gaining traction."
This is actually quite scary as I think a lot of young people are already quite young for their age. I think I've seen talk of this elsewhere, they want to stay sort of in perpetual childhood. A friend has a 23-year-old stepson going on 15. It's not a conscious decision on his part to be a child but he essentially is - lives with his bio mom, plays video games all day, doesn't want to go to community college or get a job. And he identifies as a 'furry', which I have found seem to attract very young adults, and I mean young upstairs, not necessarily chronologically. And of course there's teh immediate application for pedos to take advantage of this. This is what scares me so much: Because I DON'T think the prog left has the brains to say no. Some will, many won't. I mean, these mornons frankly, couldn't envision how opportunistic predators might take advantage of gender-ID-on-demand. None of them think it's at all weird that so many male prisoners, as soon as a law is passed in a state, suddenly find their inner woman and want to be housed in a female prison because 'they feel unsafe'. No one thinks it's weird that roughly half of them have been convicted for sex offenses (US, UK, Canada) and I'm like ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??? DO YOU THINK IDENTIFYING AS A WOMAN CURES RAPISTS OF RAPING AND CHILD MOLESTERS OF CHILD RAPING???
THIS is why I don't believe the prog left will put the skids on pedos. It's not just the LGBTQ set; everyone on the far left strikes me as too brain-dead (or perhaps too preoccupied with their new-found Nazi collaboration) to say no to this stuff.
And I admit, I always tend to suspect these ideas are male-generated. Hell, I pointed out years ago on a Pagan discussion group that when someone complained the coven/group they were in didn't do 'skyclad' rituals, they were always invariably male :) Gerald Gardner, founder of Wicca, was a nudist...hence his insistence on skyclad. Go figger.
Well bestiality's illegal now, so I don't know, maybe they'll start campaigning to repeal oppressive laws to allow the Love That Dares Not Bark Its Name?
> "suddenly find their inner woman and want to be housed in a male prison"
Typo? "female prision"?
(Just trying to help cleanup typos, which I make in abundance, "not" vs "now" being my worst misfire - I agree with your main points and am not disparaging you or your words).
I spent a decade and a half leading/staffing pagan festivals, and the small minority of people who wanted to ban clothing optional spaces were all women in our case - a very small portion of pagan women, but we had no men trying to prevent anybody from being openly skyclad at all (even if they themselves stayed in the clothing required areas). From much experience, I don't believe the skyclad contingent were mostly men wanting to see women's bodies.
I was one of the main peacemakers, trying to find a compromise which met everyone's major needs if not all of their preferences. But that was in an earlier era; it's probably nastier today.
Although I don't agree even remotely with the idea that a person can become trans-racial via self-attestation, Daniel's stance is an interesting endpoint for folks - like me - who believe "race" is itself a racist construct. (As opposed to ethnicity and culture.) I assume that Daniel strongly supports Sheena Mason's Theory of Racelessness.
"Daniel's stance is an interesting endpoint for folks - like me - who believe "race" is itself a racist construct."
Yeah, while Daniel was almost entirely incoherent in his thinking, this conversation with him did really evolve my thinking on race. I realised I'd kind of uncritically absorbed the idea that "black," "white," "Asian," etc. were discrete, meaningful groupings and that was pretty far from true.
Daniel was hamstrung by his ideological need to see the categories as completely meaningless. Otherwise, as he alluded to, the "trans women are literally women" argument falls apart too. But he did show me they were less meaningful than I thoughtlessly assumed they were.
"Race" or whatever people wish to call it is a collection of characteristics associated with race. It is certainly not restricted to melanin. With respect to a condition my wife has, a surgeon referred to her as "highly melanated." She is darker than some people who are classified as black which can be quite white. But a person who would not call her Asian based upon her appearance would be rare since her DNA ancestry is a collection of Southeast Asian subgroups. She has been mistaken for a Navaho, possibly because we live in Arizona.
All of that quickly dilutes. When we lived in Saudi Arabia several people assumed our daughters were Arabs. A mixture of European and Asian ancestry makes them technically Eurasian. They heard plenty of "Where are you from?" growing up and when we lived in Georgia many black people referred to them as "half white."
All that to say race can be unambiguously observable, or diluted to the point that people can pass for a race that comes with less baggage. It tells you nothing of their character, intelligence or world view. Does some of my wife's behavior fit the Asian stereotype? Sure, but with 50+ years of marriage to her, so is some of mine.
I'm not transracial ;0), just because of my comfort with some of that. That's where people go off the rails. TV over the internet from Thailand is streaming as I write this. There are Thai speaking actors/actresses in her shows who look white and who look black. Are they a mix or immigrants who speak Thai like a native? Who knows? Who cares? Nobody is calling them farang or farang dam. They are just people who are a part of the landscape, which is the way things should be. We are a collection of ancestry and personal experiences. I suspect that my life experience shaped me more than my genes.
""Race" or whatever people wish to call it is a collection of characteristics associated with race"
This is circular, no? Like saying that a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman? We've talked about this before, but I'm still not sure what you mean when you ay "race."
Interestingly enough, this conversation with Daniel three years ago evolved my thoughts on what race is. Until then I'd been quite happy thinking of "black" not only as a descriptor, but as a meaningful, cohesive category. Whereas I think a much better way to think of it is in the same way we think of brunette or redhead.
These too are generally related to other characteristics (dark eyes for brunettes, freckles and pale skin for redheads), and are unambiguously observable. But they're also so enormously diverse in genes and expression that it doesn't make much sense to think of them as much more than descriptors.
I don't buy into the idea that the concept of race is some evil shit invented by white people to oppress people. People notice observable features of appearance since it is a signal of someone of another tribe who may or may not be friendly or dangerous. When all is said and done, it is more a case of eye candy than knowledge of the person's character.
The fact that there is a concept, an absurd one, that there is "trans" gender, race, species, etc. indicates that those are commonly understood classifications. It doesn't define us that people see me as a white man or you as a black man. It's just something people see and may or may not attach importance to.
Could it indicate social views? It could but isn't necessarily so. If you adopt an infant Chinese girl (there are a bunch of them in America) thanks to one child and it needs to be a boy that happened for a number of years in China, is she a Chinese girl? What do people mean by that? Chinese DNA and appearance, culturally some subset of the American family who adopted her.
https://youtu.be/crAv5ttax2I?si=ugN7YBJgn72Dsmyc
"I don't buy into the idea that the concept of race is some evil shit invented by white people to oppress people."
Yeah, I think this is why we're struggling to make progress on this point. It isn't a question of whether you buy into it, it's a fact. The concept of "black people" and "white people" as many think about it today is an invention of white slaveowners to justify keeping African Christians as lifelong slaves. It's a matter of historical record.
But that doesn't make race an invention of "white people" in the sense that I think you mean it. In fact, the sense that you mean it is the legacy of that same invention.
White people (or more accurately, people whose skin ranges from light pink to light beige) are not collectively responsible, in perpetuity, for every bad thing a person with similar coloured skin has ever done. But on some level, I think *this* is the concept you've bought into. So when you hear about something negative that a few white people did in the past, some part of you seems to feel a degree of defensiveness. Or at least an urge to reject the idea.
And to be clear, I understand this. One of the many reasons I spend so much time writing and talking about racial issues is that modern-day "antiracism" strongly encourages this mindset. In white people *and* black people. I think far fewer people thought this way 20 years ago than do today.
But again, this is not inevitable. Noticing difference doesn't equal tribalism. People notice, for example, that some people have blonde hair and others have brown hair. But nobody is tempted to say that all of those people are the same or have some sort of collective responsibility for each other's historical actions.
"𝘚𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘧𝘦𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴. 𝘖𝘳 𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢."
I have nothing to defend. I wasn't there in the days of trans-Atlantic slavery. I was in the racist south in the 70s, standing for and with black people though. The people who go on and on about white people this, systemic and supremist that can go F themselves. If it has done that to someone like me, and it has, the problem is much, much bigger than you think it is.
I don't reject the idea that white people did some awful stuff when they started buying black people from black people in Africa. The white people did X before we were born seems a bit like the Israel-Palestine rhetoric going on now and is just as unhelpful. "White [you name it]" and "holocaust" are seen as a wild card that makes hate at worst or negative attitudes at least OK.
I understand quite well that black people didn't like way it was which is why I stood with them, and still do, but they didn't openly make me their enemy. With that I can quote General James Mattis, "No better friend, no worse enemy..." Making a friend an enemy is a fool's errand.
Sorry, you caught me on a bad day.
"If it has done that to someone like me, and it has, the problem is much, much bigger than you think it is."
Yes, I absolutely agree. Again, this is exactly why I write and talk about these issues. The "antiracists" have created a monster and I don't think they even see it yet because they're too wrapped up in their own racism and self-righteousness. I see the size of the problem very clearly I think.
My entire thesis, in pretty much everything I write, is that you, and every other white person alive today, have nothing to defend when it comes to discussions of slavery or the invention of "race" or anything else other than your own actions. But that doesn't stop many white people from *feeling* defensive.I see it all the time. And as you hint at here, in a growing number of cases, that defensiveness is turning into something extremely worrying (obviously not talking about you here. I'm seeing some truly awful stuff elsewhere online).
There are many levers to pull in order to undo (or at least minimise) the damage that this "progressive" racism has caused. And one of those is to continue to pick apart this rancid idea of collectivism based on skin colour. That also means recognising that "black people" didn't make you their enemy. A small selection of idiots, many of them white, decided that picking at racial divisions could make them a lot of money.
I am in general strong agreement as usual.
I want to note that regarding your last sentence, while yes some want to make a lot of money (DiAngelo is now a millionaire, Kendi is doing well), I think that other psychological motives likely are more widely behind the spread of the movement. (If you were to counter that the handful having the most cultural influence were motivated by money more than anything, I have no knowledge either way on that; I'm talking about the second and third tier evangelists who are much more common).
Resentment, guilt, seeking a particular kind of redemption, the joys of feeling moral superiority, imagined solidarity with the oppressed, personal power seeking - all of these motives/payoffs are far more common among proponents and promoters of the ideology than is making a lot of money.
Critical Social Justice ideology has largely non-monetary payoffs for its adherents (who are commanded to also be its proselytizers).
Again, at the top of the influence chain, money could perhaps be a bigger factor than it is among the rank and file.
Great comment. Yes, appearances will get increasingly confusing in places like Southern California where literally the whole world mixes its genes. My grandchildren are half mestizo Mexican and the other half a mix of Scots Irish, South Asian Indian and Ashkenazi Jew. By appearance my six year old grandson could be mistaken for dozen ethnicities.
Here’s hoping that all this racial stuff just becomes irrelevant because, as Obama once quipped, “we’re all beige.”
This trend of requiring everyone to believe what one says one is and not believe their lying eyes has a strong element of narcissistic entitlement.
There'll still be cultural differences and national ones, but hopefully we will get a day when one's skin color is the most salient thing about their identity.
Is there a missing "not" in your sentence?
ASIDE: HNY to all. I just canceled all my subscriptions; Substack, music, donations.
Except this one.
Time to grow up.
That's quite the vote of confidence! Thanks a lot Chris. Happy New Year to you too.
Back in the early days of Tumblr, you'd run into people of various identities. Each one of them swearing with 200% sincerity that, despite all physical appearances, they were actually a wolf/elf/wizard/"multiple" person; the generic term was "kin." Also, there were people saying, with the same sincerity, that, despite all physical appearances, they were actually a girl/boy/nonbinary. I figured it was the same thing; people looking to escape boring normie reality by creating a version of themselves that was Different. Nothing too odd; teenagers have always done that. And then I saw it happening in the real world: gender stripped of all definitions and reduced to a personal proposition. I say I am this, therefore I am. (With "and if you disagree, you're a bad person" popping up as the movement gained traction.)
The old 2-gender paradigm had its flaws; it was too reductive, overly rigid, relied more on social science than biology, and completely failed to account for intersex people, or the fact that, no matter how fine you draw boundaries, someone is always going to wind up outside. But what do we have now that the old has been deconstructed? Gender as opinion? Gender as statement of faith? Gender as non-falsifiable proposition? Gender as argument? Gender as brand? What new order do we construct, especially as this subject tears (or is used to tear) people apart, creating shibboleths and derailing other conversations. Personally, I'm tired of it.
"Nothing too odd; teenagers have always done that. And then I saw it happening in the real world"
Yeah, this is the thing. Those other identities have always happened in the real world too; punks, goths, emo, they were also often associated with mental health co-morbidities and increased suicide ideation.
But the saving graces were a) they were 100% reversible once those kids went through puberty and their hormones settled down. And b) nobody took them seriously as sacred identities. You were allowed to admit that these kids were being ridiculous and for almost all of them it was just a phase they'd grow out of.
You certainly weren't encouraged to pump them full of drugs or change your language to "affirm" them or tell them how stunning and brave they were as they chopped off parts of their bodies.
Nothing confounding about intersex. They are still male or female, albeit with deformed body parts.
Forget "gender." Just drop it. It has no more scientific value than "soul." There are two (2) sexes, and nothing outside or between. Let's treat this as the attention fad that it clearly is and move on to more important things like, oh, planetary survival.
This guy was really confusing and I couldn't understand his point. You did a great job trying to pin him down.
Happy Christmas!
"I couldn't understand his point."
I'm not sure he could understand his point either😅 Then again, that's pretty much standard procedure for these types.
Merry Christmas to you too!
D> "Skin color is an arbitrary factor that does not relate in any reasonable way to lineage. The idea that “black gives birth to black” is nothing but an outdated pseudo-scientific racist narrative."
This is a form of mott and bailey argument, and it's not scientific.
When he wants to defend it from dissent, he interprets it as "The correlation of lineage to skin color is less than 1.00" (which is true)
But when he wants to reason based on it, he interprets it as "The correlation of lineage to skin color is 0.00" (which is false).
If they were not related in any "reasonable" way, then Africa parents in general would be just as likely to birth an Asian, or White, baby as a black one, with no meaningful correlation between parent skin color and children's skin color. Similarly for Native American parents, Chinese parents, etc.
He's pretending that rare exceptions, or edge cases, mean that high statistical correlation is "a outdated pseudo-scientific racist narrative". It's clear that when he's using motivated reasoning to support his emotionally desired outcome, he has no grasp of statistics or science (whether he has any grasp of those in other contexts I know not).
Similarly fallacious reasoning is used in other facets of Critical Social Justice ideology, such as sex and gender ideology.
Let me use computer processors as an example. In some circuits, 2.5-3.3v is considered a "1", and 0-1.8v is considered a "0". The logic and architecture of the processor are based on this binary of 1 and 0, hence we call these binary computers using binary logic. But there are statistically uncommon cases where the master plan (in a lithograph) doesn't transfer perfectly to the silicon wafer, and a transistor malfunctions, so that a given line might be permanently or intermittantly stuck at a 2.0v, which is neither a 1 nor a 0. Does that mean the whole computer is now organized based on trinary math, or is structured as an analog computer utilizing a spectrum of voltages? Does it prove that there really isn't any meaningful difference between 1 and 0 in the computer? No, it does not; the computer's logical organization as AND and OR gates doesn't change; the stuck voltage component is just an error in implementation - a major or minor malfunction, noise in the system. Sometimes the chip can be salvaged by having redundant units which can be substituted for the malfunctioning ones, sometimes not.
Because a very small portion of the population is born with truly ambiguous genitalia or other genetic or developmental flaws, they reason that there is no meaningful difference between male and female in the overall population, and they delusionally think that has been "proven by science".
As you say, we can recognize reality and still treat people decently; there is no need to become delusional or out of touch with reality in order to create a better world.
"When he wants to defend it from dissent, he interprets it as "The correlation of lineage to skin color is less than 1.00" (which is true)
But when he wants to reason based on it, he interprets it as "The correlation of lineage to skin color is 0.00" (which is false)."
Yep, exactly. This is the same motte-and-bailey that all "trans" arguments depend on. Or really almost all critical theory infused arguments.
"Categories cannot be perfectly defined with zero exceptions therefore categories are meaningless. At least, until my argument rests on the category in question, then the category is sacred and inviolable and any attempt to define it differently to me is hate speech."
For example, "woman" is a social construct and has no objective definition. But if I "identify" as a woman and you tell me I don't fit your definition of what a woman is, that's basically genocide.
I worked for a city government for about a decade and it was fascinating to watch the race, diversity, etc. arc. When I started we were required to take a day training which included watching "Race: The Power of Illusion" (which I still think about a lot) to in the year before I left creating affinity groups for people of color that discouraged white people from joining. Since it was government they technically couldn't forbid white people to join a POC affinity group but we would have been judged had we done so.
I recently listened to a Michael Shermer interview with a man named David Bernstein who put out a book this year about the history of racial classification. (Link to the interview https://www.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show/david-bernstein-untold-story-of-racial-classification-in-america/)
It was fascinating. The more you actually learn about the history of racial classification the more it seems so obvious we have to somehow move past it. Anyway, that's my contribution for today. I encourage people to at least listen to the book discussion if not pick up the book for themselves.
And as always, thanks for your thoughtful commentary on these subjects. I always leave the reading with a new talking point.
Yeah, racial attitudes (and race "science") have largely been post hoc justifications or rationalizations to reinforce existing hierarchies. When a group has something valuable, they get to move up the ladder. Except for black/Africans, who wind up stuck at the bottom, no matter where.
When you say "no matter where" do you mean globally or what?
And why do you think that is?
I actually believe the furries are next. People have been body-modding themselves for many years, including to make themselves look more like animals.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/409898003560841968/
It's only another step to insisting they really *are* those animals because they 'identify' a such. The liberal inability to say 'no' to anything is the reason why we're having all these dumbass conversations about whether you can be another race or another sex. The far left is as is virulently individualist as the far right, and doesn't want to 'oppress' anyone (esp if they're non-white) by telling them no, you can't be a boy or a black guy or a tiger or a mermaid.
And they *do* believe that reality, facts and scientific evidence are 'hate speech'.
Hell, even a lot of scientists are on board with that.
"I actually believe the furries are next."
I actually hope you're right. Because horrifyingly enough, I think trans-age is next. "Minor attracted people" 🤮 have never had an opportunity like this one and they're pushing as hard as they can (thankfully humanity's natural disgust response means they can't push too hard).
But even in the comments of some of my articles, I'm seeing that some people desperately want age to be a fuzzier concept than it is...for some reason.
"(thankfully humanity's natural disgust response means they can't push too hard)."
Oh, you think so? I don't. I'm working on an article right now tracing the history of LGBTQ's and the left's complicated relationship with pedos, which started before the 'T' was added (the T has brought back a very ugly pedo image for gay men which they've helped to bring on themselves by being too inclusive - not of pedos this time, but trans, which has allowed, for the first time, heterosexual men who don't give a damn about conservative 'blood libel' against gay men.
I explain how trans 'grooming' isn't necessarily pedo (although I can't say there's not a nefarious purpose we haven't yet identified) but that, with transactivists' cooperation or not, the pedos are waiting in the wings (you know about MAPs already, I touch upon Jacob Breslow) while transactivists groom mostly progressive parents to unquestioningly accept everything their children and adult activists tell them.
I touch upon how mostly white 'progressive' feminists are more rape-collaborative if the situation is 'problematic' (i.e., the rapist(s) are not white, and the victims are). I had to cut out the part about feminist silence surrounding the horrific rapes of Israeli Jewish women for length sake, it's already very long.
No, I *don't* think either LGBTQ, feminists, or progressive parents will say no to pedos when they arrive for their kids. However, I'll happily, joyfully rebut if they prove me wrong.
I'm just not holding my breath. The right will be our allies against the pedos.
"I explain how trans 'grooming' isn't necessarily pedo"
Yeah, I don't really connect the T with pedophilia. Lots of sexual deviants have attached themselves to trans activism and transsexual issues, but I don't get the impression that there's any strong connection. Maybe you've seen some stuff here that I haven't.
But as you say, pedophiles have been trying to attach themselves to the gay community for decades. At least since NAMBLA if not earlier. But they got cut loose because, as unwilling as society was to accept gay people back in the day, they were far, far less willing to accept "man-boy lovers."
The reason I say they've never had an opportunity like this one is because there's never been such widespread support for the idea that all categories and boundaries are meaningless and even oppressive. If, in the "social construct" era, we accept that men can be women, why can't 25-year-olds be 15-year-olds? We're seeing isolated cases where this kind of thinking is already gaining traction.
There's a pocket of people on the left who will accept literally anything (https://x.com/JebraFaushay/status/1698077497722565099?s=20). And while not all progressives are in this category, all of the people in this category are progressives. But society in general, the normal people who aren't chronically online and have no idea any of this is happening, I think there are hard limits for almost all of them that don't include pedophilia.
"If, in the "social construct" era, we accept that men can be women, why can't 25-year-olds be 15-year-olds? We're seeing isolated cases where this kind of thinking is already gaining traction."
This is actually quite scary as I think a lot of young people are already quite young for their age. I think I've seen talk of this elsewhere, they want to stay sort of in perpetual childhood. A friend has a 23-year-old stepson going on 15. It's not a conscious decision on his part to be a child but he essentially is - lives with his bio mom, plays video games all day, doesn't want to go to community college or get a job. And he identifies as a 'furry', which I have found seem to attract very young adults, and I mean young upstairs, not necessarily chronologically. And of course there's teh immediate application for pedos to take advantage of this. This is what scares me so much: Because I DON'T think the prog left has the brains to say no. Some will, many won't. I mean, these mornons frankly, couldn't envision how opportunistic predators might take advantage of gender-ID-on-demand. None of them think it's at all weird that so many male prisoners, as soon as a law is passed in a state, suddenly find their inner woman and want to be housed in a female prison because 'they feel unsafe'. No one thinks it's weird that roughly half of them have been convicted for sex offenses (US, UK, Canada) and I'm like ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??? DO YOU THINK IDENTIFYING AS A WOMAN CURES RAPISTS OF RAPING AND CHILD MOLESTERS OF CHILD RAPING???
THIS is why I don't believe the prog left will put the skids on pedos. It's not just the LGBTQ set; everyone on the far left strikes me as too brain-dead (or perhaps too preoccupied with their new-found Nazi collaboration) to say no to this stuff.
And I admit, I always tend to suspect these ideas are male-generated. Hell, I pointed out years ago on a Pagan discussion group that when someone complained the coven/group they were in didn't do 'skyclad' rituals, they were always invariably male :) Gerald Gardner, founder of Wicca, was a nudist...hence his insistence on skyclad. Go figger.
Well bestiality's illegal now, so I don't know, maybe they'll start campaigning to repeal oppressive laws to allow the Love That Dares Not Bark Its Name?
> "suddenly find their inner woman and want to be housed in a male prison"
Typo? "female prision"?
(Just trying to help cleanup typos, which I make in abundance, "not" vs "now" being my worst misfire - I agree with your main points and am not disparaging you or your words).
Shit, thank you! Yeah, brain fart 😁 Thanks! Have a Merry, Sexually Dimorphic Christmas loll!
I spent a decade and a half leading/staffing pagan festivals, and the small minority of people who wanted to ban clothing optional spaces were all women in our case - a very small portion of pagan women, but we had no men trying to prevent anybody from being openly skyclad at all (even if they themselves stayed in the clothing required areas). From much experience, I don't believe the skyclad contingent were mostly men wanting to see women's bodies.
I was one of the main peacemakers, trying to find a compromise which met everyone's major needs if not all of their preferences. But that was in an earlier era; it's probably nastier today.
Although I don't agree even remotely with the idea that a person can become trans-racial via self-attestation, Daniel's stance is an interesting endpoint for folks - like me - who believe "race" is itself a racist construct. (As opposed to ethnicity and culture.) I assume that Daniel strongly supports Sheena Mason's Theory of Racelessness.
"Daniel's stance is an interesting endpoint for folks - like me - who believe "race" is itself a racist construct."
Yeah, while Daniel was almost entirely incoherent in his thinking, this conversation with him did really evolve my thinking on race. I realised I'd kind of uncritically absorbed the idea that "black," "white," "Asian," etc. were discrete, meaningful groupings and that was pretty far from true.
Daniel was hamstrung by his ideological need to see the categories as completely meaningless. Otherwise, as he alluded to, the "trans women are literally women" argument falls apart too. But he did show me they were less meaningful than I thoughtlessly assumed they were.
But you can dance, can't you?
Merry Christmas and Happy 2024!
As I like to put it... Happy Christicekwanzukkah!!
"But you can dance, can't you?"
I can! Although I had to work for it. My first few salsa lessons pretty quickly dispelled the myth that black people are all natural dancers😅
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too!
I had forgotten about that crazy commercial for Virgin Mobile and now that little song is running through me head. LOL
Have a wonderful holiday break!
Thank you! You too.
A case in point. Think about the joke and look at the comments. 📸 Look at this post on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/767081781624838/permalink/879494070383608/?ref=share&mibextid=NOb6eG