Rolling 2018 Thread on Race

Real situation I was just confronted with: what happens when your younger black friends in academia have requested that you (me), a white man, drop "slave" from your vocabulary in favor of "enslaved people" due to the belief that term provides more agency and humanity to the generations of black people who were held in bondage here against their will and without mercy, but then a friend of a friend, an older black woman also in academia, calls you out for using the term "enslaved people" and says her ancestors were indeed slaves and that the softening of the language around that is offensive?

I don't know if this is a young/old divide or not, but the last thing I want to do is show my ass if I ever find myself in this conversational pivot again.

White people problems are barely even problems, I know, but any guidance here would be appreciated.

Adjust your language to different generations? I understand this only works for conversations and not written text and it is painfully obvious but I’ve been in a similar situation when discussing sexual assault with younger and older women in the context of #metoo and thats the only method I found. However, my context is outside academia and those not include written text.

My take: You’re in a unique position to broker and explain the differences in perception that can come from usage. Use your privilege for good, as an educator, but not an arbiter.

Also everyone is allowed to take issue with you as necessary- that’s what being a trust broker means, whenever complicated shit comes up.

My take: You’re in a unique position to broker and explain the differences in perception that can come from usage.

Good answer!

I should point out that I'm in no way involved in academia. I just seem to have found myself fortunate enough to have several scholars in my life.

i've had some fun times reading the alt-papers this week. seattle's stranger has this to say about cameron whitten:

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/06/07/27192471/portland-in-flames-after-alleged-racist-incident-at-vegan-bakery

in the meantime, the portland mercury has this to say about cameron whitten:

https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/2018/06/06/20394535/alt-right-trolls-put-local-businesses-on-edge-for-hosting-reparations-happy-hour

Par for the course in Quebec...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/04/arts/music/protests-shutter-a-show-that-cast-white-singers-as-black-slaves.html

The production bills itself as a “theatrical odyssey” inspired by “traditional African-American slave and work songs.” It also features a nearly all-white cast performing the music. Its director, Mr. Lepage, is white, as is its star Betty Bonifassi. Two of the seven cast members are black, including Kattia Thony, who plays a young black woman searching for the roots of her identity.

On Wednesday, the storm proved too much, and the jazz festival and Ms. Bonifassi canceled the show after only two performances. It had sold more than 8,000 tickets and was scheduled for 16 performances. The festival said it had been “shaken” by the intensity of the response. “We would like to apologize to those who were hurt,” it said in a statement. “It was not our intention at all.”

The anger provoked by the production had been visceral and swift as artists of all stripes asked why Mr. Lepage hadn’t bothered to hire more black actors and singers. The production also raised thorny questions about how to differentiate cultural appreciation from cultural appropriation and accusations, fairly or not, that its white creators had engaged in a modern-day form of blackface.

https://nextshark.com/crazy-rich-asians-poster-vandalized-racist-comments-vancouver-nothing-will-shake-us-says-director/

A theatrical poster of “Crazy Rich Asians” in Vancouver, Canada was vandalized with racist comments ahead of the movie’s opening this month.

Several incidents of racial harassment or low-level assault in Ontario over the last week or two getting shared a lot. I don't know where it's coming from:

https://www.facebook.com/teejay.meer/videos/10156095612873591/UzpfSTgwNTU4MDE2NDoxMDE2MDcyMjg3MzE2MDE2NQ/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/race-incident-london-sobeys-1.4768191
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/white-man-threatens-kill-indian-13000193

Security appear to be restraining or taking away the victims in the first video (about 2 wks old) rather than doing anything against the aggressor.

Guy kept yelling about "my province" which who tf gets that way about Ontario?

I made the mistake of reading the comments on F#A#'s article.

Ugh. Let's hope this won't snowball.

it's bad all around i'd say

National Book Award winner Ibram Kendi has some thoughts, and a new antiracist center in Washington.

The goal is to identify inequalities, identify the policies that create and maintain those inequalities, and propose correctives in six areas: criminal justice, education, economics, health, environment and politics. Kendi also hopes to create an online library of anti-racist thinking. He’s still considering initial projects.

But when he talks about racism, he is not still puzzling out his ideas. Kendi has spent thousands of hours reading thousands of documents, including “some of the most horrific things that have ever been said about black people,” to uncover the origins of racist thought. His words are distilled, precise, authoritative. His voice never rises. He is, temperamentally, an antidote to the heat of the subject matter and the hyperbole of the times.

“We have been taught that ignorance and hate lead to racist ideas, lead to racist policies,” Kendi said. “If the fundamental problem is ignorance and hate, then your solutions are going to be focused on education, and love and persuasion. But of course [Stamped from the Beginning] shows that the actual foundation of racism is not ignorance and hate, but self-interest, particularly economic and political and cultural.” Self-interest drives racist policies that benefit that self-interest. When the policies are challenged because they produce inequalities, racist ideas spring up to justify those policies. Hate flows freely from there.

https://theundefeated.com/features/ibram-kendi-leading-scholar-of-racism-says-education-and-love-are-not-the-answer/

Van Dyke murder trial verdict to be read at any moment.

Guilty, 2nd degree murder.
Guilty of 16 separate counts (one for each shot fired) of aggravated battery with a firearm
Not Guilty of official misconduct

and not guilty on 1st degree murder

weird that we don't have a racism in europe thread so putting this here

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/travel/racism-travel-italy-study-abroad.html

This is a racism thread. It covers racism anywhere. The predominance of US racism as a topic here is merely a byproduct, not a dictate.

it's cuz we're so good at it

youtube is recommending me a video where a young white man with a beard calling himself "the pop song professor" explains the lyrics to "how much a dollar cost"

please try to remember this the next time somebody asks why white people hate themselves

I don't get it.

Also I don't hate myself for being white, I'm not American. Can you please start saying 'why (some) white Americans hate themselves' instead? Thanks.

I don't get it.

― pomenitul

give it a couple years and perhaps the pop song professor will have a video explaining it

I don't get why someone – even, yes, a white dude – explaining that song to people who don't get it is a problem. Not everyone who watches YouTube is American and intimately familiar with your history, for starters.

I haven't seen the video so I have no idea if he does it well, though. But the implication that such a thing is simply inconceivable due to his skin colour is frankly absurd.

pomenitul have you heard the song

I have and I still don't get your point. Why don't you spell it out for me, since I clearly need to have it explained?

because i didn't come here for a stupid internet argument

i'm sorry i insulted someone who turned out to be your favorite streamer or something

Suit yourself. I frankly have no idea what you're talking about at this point and your refusal to accept that only reinforces the notion that, yes, there might be some value in explaining what's going on in that song and in this 'argument' both. There are people out there learning English in part through songs like this one who might be tempted to search for its 'meaning' online, whether on YouTube or elsewhere. I see no harm.

I've never watched this guy's videos. For all I know they're complete shit. I just take issue with the argument that his being a white dude with a beard tackling this topic somehow justifies white self-loathing.

rushomancy laying down the semiology of beards

a really, really sad story, at the intersection of america's problems with guns and racism

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/12/1812296/-Chicago-Man-is-Shot-and-Killed-by-Police-For-Being-a-Hero-Security-Guard-While-Black

Jemel Roberson, 26, was working early Sunday at Manny’s Blue Room ― a bar in the predominantly black Chicago suburb of Robbins, Illinois ― when a patron who was part of a drunken group that had been kicked out returned with a gun at 4 a.m. and opened fire, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Several people were shot.

Roberson, who was armed at the time, grabbed one of the men, held him down and waited for police, according to witnesses.

However when the police arrived, one of the officers shot at Roberson, who died later.

[A witness] said the officer shot an innocent man and that people on the scene tried to warn police that Roberson was a security guard.

“Everybody was screaming out, ‘Security!’ He was a security guard ... and they still did their job, and saw a black man with a gun, and basically killed him,” Harris said.

This interview with Wesley Yang is interesting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/17/us/kansas-official-master-race.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

But Mark Loughry, the administrator of Leavenworth County, which is just outside Kansas City, said in a statement that Mr. Klemp’s comments were misconstrued and had nothing to do with Nazism.

Mr. Loughry said Mr. Klemp had used the term “master race” several times in the past year to refer to people with gaps in their front teeth, and his comment was meant to include both Ms. Penelton and himself.

annie olaloku-teriba who wrote the piece on afro-pessimism i linked upthread in may had an interesting interview on the groundings podcast with some particularly interesting stuff on the relationship between afro pessimism, anti blackness and black nationalism

https://groundings.simplecast.fm

Dorchester historical society apologizes, says it's horrified by Christmas card it sent out to advertise an upcoming event. pic.twitter.com/144ukLTxj5

— WBZ NewsRadio (@wbznewsradio) November 27, 2018

I feel like I'm missing something here. I mean, it's obvious they're talking about snow. "Dreaming of a white [fill in the blank]" is an extremely common phrase about hoping it will snow. Why is this so obviously a racist faux pas? Is it because they used "Dorchester" instead of "Christmas"? I guess usually it's Christmas but idk, I still feel like that's a stretch.

can't believe they misspelled 'genocide' as 'dorchester', that's a real fuckup

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/07/unc-teaching-assistants-go-strike-over-confederate-monument

Several dozen teaching assistants at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill started a strike Friday, saying that they will withhold student grades as long as the university moves ahead with the idea of constructing a building to house the Confederate monument known as Silent Sam. The strike comes after classes have finished for the semester and students are preparing for final exams and normally would be soon receiving final grades.

the comments... god help me i read the comments...

I don't want to start a 2019 race thread just to share this one amazing tweet. Just read it and be amazed.

Here’s my only nativist beef: Hispanic people who look and sound Mongolian and who I therefore don’t realize I could just communicate with in Spanish instead of English which they don’t speak particularly intelligibly. I’m cool with Spanish, just not being super-confused.

— Liz Mair (@LizMair) January 2, 2019

oooof.

tbftts i too might try to pass as mongolian if it seemed to make her not communicate with me

I am so confused by this ^^^. Mongolian? I had to look her up. Ok. She's an idiot.

I'm assuming she's saying "latin american person who looks indigenous" in the most racist way possible

Lol, she made a loooong thread defending that tweet, and complaining that people don't realize how anti-racist she is. She's a never-Trump'er, don't people realize how important an ally she could be?

The non-apology thread is breathtaking.

That tweet is despicable and depressing. I’m not surprised that kind of language is catching on even among the (vanishingly small) “never trump” right.

It’s the most dangerous kind of thinking in the world, that dehumanizing shit

(whoops, that was an xp to gyac)

Yep i agree with you & it’s why I just have no time for anyone giving obvious and dangerous charlatans making those arguments.

xps to soda: I am fairly sure, however, we could outflank Pinker on at least one measure...

Idk what you mean, gyac? It is not an imaginative exercise for me. Philippe Rushton was doing that in the 80s.

we should not be blind to biologically determined differences in intelligence between groups and how they affect people's outcomes when formulating policy

the thing is, there are so so so so many other factors that affect people's outcomes in re policy than biologically determined differences in intelligence! Like, this may be super fucking trenchant, but, a cop is not going to give you an IQ test before deciding whether you are a potential threat that requires use of deadly force -- the cop is going to take note if you are black, brown or white.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't get the leap from 'platforming these hateful fuckers is bad' (ditto) to 'doing more to educate the general public about why racism is scientifically unfounded in addition to being ethically wrong is bad'.

Yeah, I'm not saying it's a good argument (at all!), just that "we should value everyone, forget intelligence" alone may not be enough.xp otm

i haven't followed this conversation closely, but i would guess that the thought was that an honest effort to educate the general public about why racism is scientifically unfounded can end up providing a platform for the disinformers.

that is generally why, in a very different debate, it is not a good idea for climate scientists to "debate" the climate deniers. the uninformed public shuts down whenever it starts to get academically or numerically complicated, and come away with the thought "oh, well i guess it's still unsettled"

xp

Idk what you mean, gyac? It is not an imaginative exercise for me. Philippe Rushton was doing that in the 80s.

however, the possibility of that kind of thing happening does not imply that educating the public about the scientifically rong aspects of racism is a bad idea. but attempting to "educate" anyone is perilous when there is an active disinformation campaign going on, because that is also their stated angle: "we're trying to educate people!"

xp to self and pomenitul

Yes, Karl Malone – I agree. In the Western world of 2020, basically anybody who believes (or purports to believe) in the tenets of scientific racism, or a strictly biological basis for race (intelligence, r/K, etc.,) is either profoundly ignorant, manipulative, or just masking antique bigotries in pseudo-acceptable terms. A well-built argument isn't going to change anybody's mind, because the initial argument's being made in bad faith resting on garbage science.

But if you allow that there is such a thing as garbage science then surely that means it's demonstrable? Why shouldn't it be demonstrated then? In schools, for example.

They're being given jobs in the British goverment, I call that pretty mainstream.

in my mind, social justice / political advocacy is a lot about choosing one's battles wisely. I remember back in grad school (20+ years ago), taking a required media ethics course that partly focused on "agenda-setting" -- which, at the time, seemed kinda "duh whatever" -- but is actually super relevant and important. Like, why focus on this? Why give the racists a platform on this issue? Idk, as an American, in terms of combating racism, scientific "proof" of biological intelligence is low on the list of what "we" should be spending time debating.

I suspect there are some national differences at play here:

https://time.com/5642773/american-students-taught-race/

xps

xxp the PM is a pretty mainstream role tbf

also Karl otm

For anybody interested, I highly recommend Angela Saini's book 'Superior' on this very issue.

that’s where these ideas always end up leading. Why else would there be so much effort at repeatedly reviving and funding them time and time again?

They are not leading there. They have arrived there and are teaching at Harvard, publishing in the NYT, and advising the British PM. How do you think we should respond?

I’ve already said upthread and you seem determined that that’s not a good enough answer.

Admittedly, I'm somewhat heated and posting quickly but, no, it wasn't obvious to me. The main thing I was getting from your posts was that rational scientific arguments and education won't work and play into the hands of racists. Did you mean that your favoured response is to ignore these people, avoid giving platforms where we can, and continuing to stress the moral wrong of racism?

Yes, that’s why I said those things across several posts.