The culture wars will never end, and neither will fake culture wars

[Fishking]

Policies or attitudes which tend towards increasing racial disparities are racist; those which tend towards decreasing racial disparities are an answer to racism. Many folk seem to conflate those two polar opposites, deliberately or ignorantly pretending that the solution is the same sort of thing as the problem,

Your statement simply is not true and does not bear up to critical analysis. Not all disparities are racist, sexist, bigoted, ect. For example, if there are flat standards for a particular job that everyone has to pass, and their is a disparity, that doesn't automatically mean that discrimination is happening. An example here would be if there are equal physical standards for men and women to serve in the military. Or, there could be an disparity that is due mostly to choice in the specific demographic. An example here would be that despite all the push to get women into more STEM/Tech jobs they are still more men or for certain other fields that deal with working with people more (e.g. nursing/teaching) it's dominated by women. Or how about the dominance of Black people in certain sports but a lack of high performing Black people in academia while at the same time Asians outperform every other racial demographic group? Is the disproportionate killing of Blak people because of a bunch of racist police or is a disproportionate amount of violent crime? The answer to those questions are cultural differences and what effort and emphasis is being pushed in said cultures.

So you want your affirmative action but that pushes more qualified people out to let in less qualified people in. You're literally discriminating based on race. And that's just barely touching the surface of what I'm talking about. It also includes how people are just openly racist in society towards white people and it's applauded by progressives. Or how about telling all white people they are racist and responsible for everything that is bad in the world, which also isn't an uncommon thing among progressives.

 

[Mithrae]

Your statement simply is not true and does not bear up to critical analysis. Not all disparities are racist, sexist, bigoted, ect. For example, if there are flat standards for a particular job that everyone has to pass, and their is a disparity, that doesn't automatically mean that discrimination is happening. An example here would be if there are equal physical standards for men and women to serve in the military. Or, there could be an disparity that is due mostly to choice in the specific demographic. An example here would be that despite all the push to get women into more STEM/Tech jobs they are still more men or for certain other fields that deal with working with people more (e.g. nursing/teaching) it's dominated by women. Or how about the dominance of Black people in certain sports but a lack of high performing Black people in academia while at the same time Asians outperform every other racial demographic group? Is the disproportionate killing of Blak people because of a bunch of racist police or is a disproportionate amount of violent crime? The answer to those questions are cultural differences and what effort and emphasis is being pushed in said cultures.

So you want your affirmative action but that pushes more qualified people out to let in less qualified people in. You're literally discriminating based on race. And that's just barely touching the surface of what I'm talking about. It also includes how people are just openly racist in society towards white people and it's applauded by progressives. Or how about telling all white people they are racist and responsible for everything that is bad in the world, which also isn't an uncommon thing among progressives.

So, aside from pretending that potential solutions are the same sort of thing as the actual problems, you don't have any mainstream examples?

There's obviously no need to go over the historical and ongoing systemic issues surrounding the disadvantages against black people in America, for the umpteenth time - if you don't understand that by now, it really is by a deliberate choice to believe that they are themselves inferior. (Ooops, sorry, that 'black culture' is inferior, that's the new PC of conservatives isn't it.)

 

[Fishking]

So, aside from pretending that potential solutions are the same sort of thing as the actual problems, you don't have any mainstream examples?

I literally gave specific examples.

There's obviously no need to go over the historical and ongoing systemic issues surrounding the disadvantages against black people in America, for the umpteenth time - if you don't understand that by now, it really is by a deliberate choice to believe that they are themselves inferior. (Ooops, sorry, that 'black culture' is inferior, that's the new PC of conservatives isn't it.)

Interesting, so you're saying that I'm proposing that Asians are superior then, since you skipped over that part? What you did here is what is commonly done, you don't rebut anything but go right to rhetoric.

 

[Mithrae]

I literally gave specific examples.

The only mainstream example of progressive 'racism' you gave - affirmative action - was as I said based on the dishonest approach of pretending that potential answers (reducing unfair disparities) are the same sort of thing as the actual problems (unfair disparities). Beyond that... "It also includes how people are just openly racist in society towards white people and it's applauded by progressives." Not a specific example - do you know what that phrase means? - and certainly not mainstream, though it's certainly possible that you have your own special definition of 'openly racist' just as you apparently do for 'specific.' "Or how about telling all white people they are racist and responsible for everything that is bad in the world, which also isn't an uncommon thing among progressives." Again, nothing specific there, and nothing mainstream, just an obvious right-wing caricature possibly (without actual specifics one can only speculate) based on deliberate misunderstanding of concepts like 'white privilege.'

Interesting, so you're saying that I'm proposing that Asians are superior then, since you skipped over that part? What you did here is what is commonly done, you don't rebut anything but go right to rhetoric.

That's irrelevant to the fact that, by this stage, someone who pretends not to understand the historical and ongoing systemic issues surrounding the disadvantages against black people in America has evidently made a choice to believe that they (or 'black culture' in the new right-wing PC speak) are inferior.

But since you raise it as if it were a defense, that actually is a pretty common smokescreen for the bigotry of white people - pretending that by praising Asian people it proves they are merely being 'objective.' Even Hitler, obviously without any qualms about his open white supremacism, said "I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves. They belong to ancient civilizations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own."

 

[Fishking]

The only mainstream example of progressive 'racism' you gave - affirmative action - was as I said based on the dishonest approach of pretending that potential answers (reducing unfair disparities) are the same sort of thing as the actual problems (unfair disparities). Beyond that... "It also includes how people are just openly racist in society towards white people and it's applauded by progressives." Not a specific example - do you know what that phrase means? - and certainly not mainstream, though it's certainly possible that you have your own special definition of 'openly racist' just as you apparently do for 'specific.' "Or how about telling all white people they are racist and responsible for everything that is bad in the world, which also isn't an uncommon thing among progressives." Again, nothing specific there, and nothing mainstream, just an obvious right-wing caricature possibly (without actual specifics one can only speculate) based on deliberate misunderstanding of concepts like 'white privilege.'


That's irrelevant to the fact that, by this stage, someone who pretends not to understand the historical and ongoing systemic issues surrounding the disadvantages against black people in America has evidently made a choice to believe that they (or 'black culture' in the new right-wing PC speak) are inferior.

But since you raise it as if it were a defense, that actually is a pretty common smokescreen for the bigotry of white people - pretending that by praising Asian people it proves they are merely being 'objective.' Even Hitler, obviously without any qualms about his open white supremacism, said "I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves. They belong to ancient civilizations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own."

Look at you, making yourself a pile of bullshit unfalsifiable position. If someone says one group does worse due to choices influence by culture, that's racism. If someone says another group does better due to choices influenced by cultural influences, that's also racism. ****ing pathetic.

Btw...I gave you more than affirmative action, but you don't want to talk about that.

 

[noonereal]

Conservatives by definition want to maintain the status quo, because the status quo is racist, homophobic, and religiously bigoted- and they feel this keeps them at the top of the food chain in American society.

But like the rest of their policy positions, from Covid and climate change to foreign policy, it’s short sighted thinking which does not think about how sticking with the status quo will impact them in the long-term. The GOP should more accurately be called the myopic party.

Live for today like they lived yesterday.

Proactive, a banned word on the righ as is anything to do with progress and wisdom.

 

[Mithrae]

Look at you, making yourself a pile of bullshit unfalsifiable position. If someone says one group does worse due to choices influence by culture, that's racism. If someone says another group does better due to choices influenced by cultural influences, that's also racism. ****ing pathetic.

Btw...I gave you more than affirmative action, but you don't want to talk about that.

I did talk about the two other *ahem* "specific examples" which you vaguely alluded to, neither of which are mainstream features of progressivism. If you actually have some particular mainstream examples to raise, you're more than welcome to do so, but it seems you're either unable or unwilling to back up your rhetoric with anything substantial.

Meanwhile, you've evidently had a little trouble reading my post. Cultures and subcultures are real and can have real effects on social behaviour either positive or negative. What smacks of bigotry is choosing to willfully ignore everything else which by this stage is and should be well-known about the history and current context of certain disparities. 'Gangsta rap' for example didn't emerge in a vacuum. It's a legacy of generations of
- abject poverty following mass enslavement,
- widespread disenfranchisement and ongoing forced labour into the 20th century,
- housing discrimination up to the federal level through to the 1960s maintaining an incredible disadvantage in wealth,
- historically formal redlining and ongoing informal practices with apparently similar effects,
- as a consequence of these housing policies, wildly disproportionate exposure to the potent neuro-toxin lead prior to the ban (opposed by the right wing of course) on lead-based paints and fuels,
- education segregated first by skin colour and even down to the present by income levels,
- active creation of powerful black market incentives for pimping and drug dealing and their associated gang activities through the criminalization of individuals' freedom of choice,
- "tough on crime" political posturing which has the 'land of the free' locking up more of its citizens than any other developed country rather than addressing the social and political causes of poverty and crime, shutting ever more patients away rather than trying to cure the disease,
- disproportionate policing of poor and especially non-white neighbourhoods, disproportionate police contacts, disproportionate searches, arrest rates, convictions and harsher sentencing even for identical crimes,
- for many decades news and media portrayals reflecting or even exaggerating these artificially-skewed arrest and prison statistics, further reinforcing negative stereotypes among both black and especially white viewers,
- proven biases in recruitment and promotions processes continuing down to the present further exacerbating the poor income, employment and wealth statistics created by historical policies and ongoing educational disparities,
- disproportionate numbers of fatherless homes as a consequence of all these financial, educational, legal, judicial and social disparities - often alongside powerful political opposition to comprehensive sexual education and access to contraceptives - helping to continue the vicious cycle into another generation.

All of these are pretty well-known; I'm not even American and have little more than a basic intellectual curiousity on the subject from various forum discussions. Nor is 'gangsta rap' or whatever other aspects of 'black culture' you might choose to emphasize the whole or even main cultural influence on black Americans, by any stretch of the imagination. So what kind of a person would it take to make the decision to create some kind of weird caricature of 'black culture' which must be the sole or even main factor in determining social outcomes for black Americans, while deliberately ignoring all of the external historical and ongoing political and societal forces which have created and largely maintained those stark inequalities in opportunity and outcome; the poverty, poorer educational opportunities, negligible household wealth, lower employment/income rates and higher rates of policing, arrest, conviction, imprisonment and extra-judicial killings?

 

[HangLow]

I did talk about the two other *ahem* "specific examples" which you vaguely alluded to, neither of which are mainstream features of progressivism. If you actually have some particular mainstream examples to raise, you're more than welcome to do so, but it seems you're either unable or unwilling to back up your rhetoric with anything substantial.

Meanwhile, you've evidently had a little trouble reading my post. Cultures and subcultures are real and can have real effects on social behaviour either positive or negative. What smacks of bigotry is choosing to willfully ignore everything else which by this stage is and should be well-known about the history and current context of certain disparities. 'Gangsta rap' for example didn't emerge in a vacuum. It's a legacy of generations of
- abject poverty following mass enslavement,
- widespread disenfranchisement and ongoing forced labour into the 20th century,
- housing discrimination up to the federal level through to the 1960s maintaining an incredible disadvantage in wealth,
- historically formal redlining and ongoing informal practices with apparently similar effects,
- as a consequence of these housing policies, wildly disproportionate exposure to the potent neuro-toxin lead prior to the ban (opposed by the right wing of course) on lead-based paints and fuels,
- education segregated first by skin colour and even down to the present by income levels,
- active creation of powerful black market incentives for pimping and drug dealing and their associated gang activities through the criminalization of individuals' freedom of choice,
- "tough on crime" political posturing which has the 'land of the free' locking up more of its citizens than any other developed country rather than addressing the social and political causes of poverty and crime, shutting ever more patients away rather than trying to cure the disease,
- disproportionate policing of poor and especially non-white neighbourhoods, disproportionate police contacts, disproportionate searches, arrest rates, convictions and harsher sentencing even for identical crimes,
- for many decades news and media portrayals reflecting or even exaggerating these artificially-skewed arrest and prison statistics, further reinforcing negative stereotypes among both black and especially white viewers,
- proven biases in recruitment and promotions processes continuing down to the present further exacerbating the poor income, employment and wealth statistics created by historical policies and ongoing educational disparities,
- disproportionate numbers of fatherless homes as a consequence of all these financial, educational, legal, judicial and social disparities - often alongside powerful political opposition to comprehensive sexual education and access to contraceptives - helping to continue the vicious cycle into another generation.

All of these are pretty well-known; I'm not even American and have little more than a basic intellectual curiousity on the subject from various forum discussions. Nor is 'gangsta rap' or whatever other aspects of 'black culture' you might choose to emphasize the whole or even main cultural influence on black Americans, by any stretch of the imagination. So what kind of a person would it take to make the decision to create some kind of weird caricature of 'black culture' which must be the sole or even main factor in determining social outcomes for black Americans, while deliberately ignoring all of the external historical and ongoing political and societal forces which have created and largely maintained those stark inequalities in opportunity and outcome; the poverty, poorer educational opportunities, negligible household wealth, lower employment/income rates and higher rates of policing, arrest, conviction, imprisonment and extra-judicial killings?

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[HangLow]

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