Steve, you handle this conversation quite well. Claiming Blacks cannot be racist because they are powerless is MASSIVELY disempowering. You frame this very well, and it is a critical point for all of humanity to see. Cudos.
One small edit I might suggest: You don't want to gaslight one aspect of her argument. On AVERAGE it is probabl…
Steve, you handle this conversation quite well. Claiming Blacks cannot be racist because they are powerless is MASSIVELY disempowering. You frame this very well, and it is a critical point for all of humanity to see. Cudos.
One small edit I might suggest: You don't want to gaslight one aspect of her argument. On AVERAGE it is probably true that the AVERAGE white person is in a position of greater power, than the average black person. So not all peoples are in an equivalent position to cause race related damage. I think you can acknowledge this truth while still keeping all humans in the same bucket... all of us can be racist, some are in a position to do greater damage, but it is all the same stuff. This more nuanced framing does acknowledge the difference she is claiming, while also putting that difference into it proper place. (but this is nuanced, so harder to execute. your statement is powerful in its simplicity... I just like to acknowledge anytime there is any part of my partner's argument with some degree of merit.)
" On AVERAGE it is probably true that the AVERAGE white person is in a position of greater power, than the average black person."
I wonder if this is true in 2022 once you account for the difference in population sizes. But regardless, I don't think this is a useful way to look at disparities. In fact, it's kind of Kendian in the end.
On average, tall people do better in life than short people. Slim people do better than fat people. But as somebody who is tall and slim, I don't consider short, fat people powerless. And I definitely don't consider myself more (or less) "powerful" than all the short, fat white people in the world.
As I've pointed out a few times, the concept of privilege is far more complex than the single factor of race. And telling yourself that you're inferior *or* superior on the basis of a single difference is hopelessly simplistic (and in either case, a signifier of deep insecurity). Especially when you apply it in broad strokes on a group identity level.
If I start working at a place where my boss is white, that's not an example of white people having power over me. If you get a job where your boss is black that's not black people having power over you. In both cases, it's an interpersonal dynamic where hopefully both people can treat each other as human beings. And in think in 2022, this is what happens more often than not.
Steve (and Passion guided by reason) we see the world in precisely the same way. And I agree wholeheartedly that the her framing is misleading, you articulate well WHY it is misleading.
Perhaps Passion is correct that I should not use the term 'gaslight', but the one thought I was trying to add to all of this agreement, was the idea that you could have acknowledged her point that some folks are in more able to cause damage because of their biases, but then go on to notice that white/black is not the only axis upon with such asymetries exist.
That is how I would have responded, simply because I think she (incorrectly) feels that you believe people are in equivelant positions, and she sees this as a false equivalence (as you do as well).
Still I acknowledge my approach would bring this distracting non-argument into the foreground, and my approach is more complex, which might loose the reader. but if the reader feels unheard, they may also be lost.
Anyway... the three of us have no disagreement on the invalidity of her arguments
> "On AVERAGE it is probably true that the AVERAGE white person is in a position of greater power, than the average black person. So not all peoples are in an equivalent position to cause race related damage. "
I want to agree with the idea of looking for any kernal of truth in the arguments of an opponent.
However, in this case I want to join Steve in pushing back against this framing. The second sentence reflects concepts which are ubiquitous and conventional today, but I believe it misleads the mind as way of modeling the world around us. It fosters the illusion that "population groups" (or as you call them "peoples") are the most salient entities, each with its own unitary collective will and agency.
Agency (and the target for interventions) resides at the individual level, not at the collective level (pending the arrival of hive minds).
If you change the actual real-world incomes of many people within a population group, that will automatically change and completely control the population-wide averages (and sums and medians and percentiles). The agency is at many individual levels, and the statistics are derivative. By contrast, society doesn't have a knob by which to turn up or down the average, and have the magically change the individual incomes. The averages do not control individual lives, but individual lives do control the averages.
The proper role of derived statistics is to help in deriving hypotheses about the mixtures of broad causative forces which may underpin some statistical differences influencing individuals - and to help in evaluating and assessing the relative validity of those hypotheses. Averages (and medians and distributions) are potentially useful simplifications of complex realities, from which to learn - but very carefully. A biased interpretation of partial statistics can very easily mislead, by accident or deliberation. So what you get is a potentially useful, and potentially misleading, simplification of overall reality - not a useful predictor (much less controller) of individual outcomes, income, or power.
So in terms of two individuals interacting, focusing on the AVERAGE (or median) of the groups to they may belong, is more of a matter of toxic stereotyping - assuming that group traits (whether based on high or low statistical validity) apply to any individual within that group.
Suppose we found that Asians (or whites to a lesser degree) tend to on average have more education than other groups; should that influence the jobs or the wages paid to a given person? Or should we look to individuals and their actual education, rather than group averages?
The unfortunate truth is that the average crime rate among some population groups is substantially higher. Should we treat that knowledge as telling us something important about each individual within that group, or treat each AS an individual (whether as a criminal or as a non-criminal)?
In what contexts is the derived group average useful and when is it misleading or unhelpful? We need a logical argument based on fuctionality, NOT an argument of convenience where we get to switch willy-nilly and without justification, between individuals and group averages depending just on what serves our argument in the moment.
The individuals with significant societal power are a small subset of every broad population group, and they do not today tend to reflect or answer to the rest of those population groups. So when you focus on "whites on average have more power than Blacks", that is implying that the proper focus is on broad and diverse groups and small differences between their averages, and avoiding the reality that to overwhelming degree the axis of differential power resides within each group (or just as relevantly, all groups together). Some people (within every broad population group) have many thousands of times more power than others, but instead we are supposed parse out relatively small and tractionless differences between broad "averages".
I maintain that this focus on the AVERAGE (as you put it) harms the validity of our mental models much more than it helps, and leads us to miss the larger causative factors in favor of smaller ones.
And a small note: my reading of the interchanges is that Steve's disagreeing with her would not be reasonably described as "gaslighting" her. If you think otherwise, please explain further. Let's not turn meaningful concepts into undifferentiated free-floating slurs.
Steve, you handle this conversation quite well. Claiming Blacks cannot be racist because they are powerless is MASSIVELY disempowering. You frame this very well, and it is a critical point for all of humanity to see. Cudos.
One small edit I might suggest: You don't want to gaslight one aspect of her argument. On AVERAGE it is probably true that the AVERAGE white person is in a position of greater power, than the average black person. So not all peoples are in an equivalent position to cause race related damage. I think you can acknowledge this truth while still keeping all humans in the same bucket... all of us can be racist, some are in a position to do greater damage, but it is all the same stuff. This more nuanced framing does acknowledge the difference she is claiming, while also putting that difference into it proper place. (but this is nuanced, so harder to execute. your statement is powerful in its simplicity... I just like to acknowledge anytime there is any part of my partner's argument with some degree of merit.)
" On AVERAGE it is probably true that the AVERAGE white person is in a position of greater power, than the average black person."
I wonder if this is true in 2022 once you account for the difference in population sizes. But regardless, I don't think this is a useful way to look at disparities. In fact, it's kind of Kendian in the end.
On average, tall people do better in life than short people. Slim people do better than fat people. But as somebody who is tall and slim, I don't consider short, fat people powerless. And I definitely don't consider myself more (or less) "powerful" than all the short, fat white people in the world.
As I've pointed out a few times, the concept of privilege is far more complex than the single factor of race. And telling yourself that you're inferior *or* superior on the basis of a single difference is hopelessly simplistic (and in either case, a signifier of deep insecurity). Especially when you apply it in broad strokes on a group identity level.
If I start working at a place where my boss is white, that's not an example of white people having power over me. If you get a job where your boss is black that's not black people having power over you. In both cases, it's an interpersonal dynamic where hopefully both people can treat each other as human beings. And in think in 2022, this is what happens more often than not.
Steve (and Passion guided by reason) we see the world in precisely the same way. And I agree wholeheartedly that the her framing is misleading, you articulate well WHY it is misleading.
Perhaps Passion is correct that I should not use the term 'gaslight', but the one thought I was trying to add to all of this agreement, was the idea that you could have acknowledged her point that some folks are in more able to cause damage because of their biases, but then go on to notice that white/black is not the only axis upon with such asymetries exist.
That is how I would have responded, simply because I think she (incorrectly) feels that you believe people are in equivelant positions, and she sees this as a false equivalence (as you do as well).
Still I acknowledge my approach would bring this distracting non-argument into the foreground, and my approach is more complex, which might loose the reader. but if the reader feels unheard, they may also be lost.
Anyway... the three of us have no disagreement on the invalidity of her arguments
> "On AVERAGE it is probably true that the AVERAGE white person is in a position of greater power, than the average black person. So not all peoples are in an equivalent position to cause race related damage. "
I want to agree with the idea of looking for any kernal of truth in the arguments of an opponent.
However, in this case I want to join Steve in pushing back against this framing. The second sentence reflects concepts which are ubiquitous and conventional today, but I believe it misleads the mind as way of modeling the world around us. It fosters the illusion that "population groups" (or as you call them "peoples") are the most salient entities, each with its own unitary collective will and agency.
Agency (and the target for interventions) resides at the individual level, not at the collective level (pending the arrival of hive minds).
If you change the actual real-world incomes of many people within a population group, that will automatically change and completely control the population-wide averages (and sums and medians and percentiles). The agency is at many individual levels, and the statistics are derivative. By contrast, society doesn't have a knob by which to turn up or down the average, and have the magically change the individual incomes. The averages do not control individual lives, but individual lives do control the averages.
The proper role of derived statistics is to help in deriving hypotheses about the mixtures of broad causative forces which may underpin some statistical differences influencing individuals - and to help in evaluating and assessing the relative validity of those hypotheses. Averages (and medians and distributions) are potentially useful simplifications of complex realities, from which to learn - but very carefully. A biased interpretation of partial statistics can very easily mislead, by accident or deliberation. So what you get is a potentially useful, and potentially misleading, simplification of overall reality - not a useful predictor (much less controller) of individual outcomes, income, or power.
So in terms of two individuals interacting, focusing on the AVERAGE (or median) of the groups to they may belong, is more of a matter of toxic stereotyping - assuming that group traits (whether based on high or low statistical validity) apply to any individual within that group.
Suppose we found that Asians (or whites to a lesser degree) tend to on average have more education than other groups; should that influence the jobs or the wages paid to a given person? Or should we look to individuals and their actual education, rather than group averages?
The unfortunate truth is that the average crime rate among some population groups is substantially higher. Should we treat that knowledge as telling us something important about each individual within that group, or treat each AS an individual (whether as a criminal or as a non-criminal)?
In what contexts is the derived group average useful and when is it misleading or unhelpful? We need a logical argument based on fuctionality, NOT an argument of convenience where we get to switch willy-nilly and without justification, between individuals and group averages depending just on what serves our argument in the moment.
The individuals with significant societal power are a small subset of every broad population group, and they do not today tend to reflect or answer to the rest of those population groups. So when you focus on "whites on average have more power than Blacks", that is implying that the proper focus is on broad and diverse groups and small differences between their averages, and avoiding the reality that to overwhelming degree the axis of differential power resides within each group (or just as relevantly, all groups together). Some people (within every broad population group) have many thousands of times more power than others, but instead we are supposed parse out relatively small and tractionless differences between broad "averages".
I maintain that this focus on the AVERAGE (as you put it) harms the validity of our mental models much more than it helps, and leads us to miss the larger causative factors in favor of smaller ones.
And a small note: my reading of the interchanges is that Steve's disagreeing with her would not be reasonably described as "gaslighting" her. If you think otherwise, please explain further. Let's not turn meaningful concepts into undifferentiated free-floating slurs.