quote:I'm wondering if you're aware that many people view the New Testament and Jesus's teachings to be a higher/better set of commandments that supplanted much of the older law in the Old Testament? (Not me, I strictly adhere to the code of Ur-Nammu.)
Of course I am. I'm not sure how that is relevant when we are talking about people who are specifically referencing the Old Testament verses though. Could you explain?
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1) I'm not aware of BB defending those who believe in those Old Testament verses in particular; I don't think he's on record that those verses are fine and dandy.
2) Your argument seems to be that if one uses Leviticus to justify ones opinion of homosexuality, one must also be OK with stoning people as prescribed there. My point is that no, the vast majority of people whose scripture includes those verses manifestly DO NOT believe in stoning people to death any more.
I guess what I didn't make clear is that it's pretty common for those people to think there's still a lot of valid guidance in the Old Testament, while also thinking that the codes of punishment (among other parts) are obsolete.
In other words, even if BB urges "tolerance" for people who justify animosity for gay people by pointing to Leviticus, it a) doesn't mean that he defends their views and even more so b) doesn't mean that he defends people who are abnormal and want to stone gay people.
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posted
So you read 55 copies of Ender's Game. Were they all the exact same edition or different? Maybe 12 mass market paperbacks, 22 1st edition hard covers and 21 ebooks in four different file formats? Did you maybe throw in a pirated version to see if it had any errors?
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So I totally missed y'all talking about me on page 13/14. I feel like it was kinda nice to just have other people say the things I would have said.
Also, Samprimary, it's not tone policing. Or if it is, it's blind tone policing.
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in what sense would you call it 'blind' tone policing? is it because you are expecting the same surface politeness from both parties in an exchange between a marginalized person (say, a gay person who is fighting to have his rights recognized in his state) and a person who enacts/perpetuates the marginalization (a 'sincere' religious person who votes for and donates money to the attempt to keep gay marriage illegal)?
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It's blind tone policing because regardless of the position being stated, you expect the same standards of conduct.
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As an example leading into a critique of that idea, do you understand the typical criticisms of when people profess "colorblindness" on their own part and/or uphold it as the way to deal with racial issues in this country?
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I'd rather hear you tell me what you think they are, rather than guess we have the same understanding.
I do understand that often those discussions themselves are tailored to give the privileged person an edge even when things equal on paper.
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posted
Basically, the same issue with proclaiming "I use only blind tone policing" comes part and parcel with saying that you "don't see race!" in terms of the problems it comes with.
Your blind tone policing is ... tone policing. And while I know that the whole community of people who are most prone to use concepts like Tone Policing (or intersectionality or whatever) frequently use tone policing as a get-out-of-critical-review-free card constantly because they're an insane maelstrom of perpetual psychodrama, the previous critiques I had of your position on 'politeness' are still right, and I wasn't the only person explaining why.
I will dive into that later but I feel I have to interrupt this for some hilarious news
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posted
So today I got contacted by both an individual and an anti-online bullying group for any information I had on former user Lisa because apparently she's now earned a reputation as an odious harasser and had even cyberbullied a 12 year old kid or something and got a community backlash for it, and I was asked if I knew her 'before she got involved in white supremacist sites' and/or if I could provide accounts of her bigoted behavior.
ookay
is there something I can sign up for to be not part of the Doxxing Force contact list or what
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quote:Originally posted by Wingracer: So you read 55 copies of Ender's Game. Were they all the exact same edition or different? Maybe 12 mass market paperbacks, 22 1st edition hard covers and 21 ebooks in four different file formats? Did you maybe throw in a pirated version to see if it had any errors?
Did you read them simultaneously (to save time)?
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posted
yes. i would read a word in book 1 of 55, then repeat the reading of that word in each subsequent book, until finished. Then continue with the next word in all books.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: So today I got contacted by both an individual and an anti-online bullying group for any information I had on former user Lisa because apparently she's now earned a reputation as an odious harasser and had even cyberbullied a 12 year old kid or something and got a community backlash for it, and I was asked if I knew her 'before she got involved in white supremacist sites' and/or if I could provide accounts of her bigoted behavior.
I just can't believe that's what it's come to. How on Earth could she ever be involved in White Supremacy groups? That's antithetical to a huge part of her.
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posted
I wonder why they contacted you in particular about Lisa, Sam; that's really odd.
BB, I agree; it's so bizarre that I wonder if it's actually true. Maybe the person who contacted Sam had his usernames crossed or something?
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: So today I got contacted by both an individual and an anti-online bullying group for any information I had on former user Lisa because apparently she's now earned a reputation as an odious harasser and had even cyberbullied a 12 year old kid or something and got a community backlash for it, and I was asked if I knew her 'before she got involved in white supremacist sites' and/or if I could provide accounts of her bigoted behavior.
I just can't believe that's what it's come to. How on Earth could she ever be involved in White Supremacy groups? That's antithetical to a huge part of her.
Unless Samprimary is just messing with us. Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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this is not the first time i've had someone tail me from Hatrack apparently (i had my fb page stalked and harrassed and got threatened by a pissy anonymous hatrack user) so hooray
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Basically, the same issue with proclaiming "I use only blind tone policing" comes part and parcel with saying that you "don't see race!" in terms of the problems it comes with.
Your blind tone policing is ... tone policing. And while I know that the whole community of people who are most prone to use concepts like Tone Policing (or intersectionality or whatever) frequently use tone policing as a get-out-of-critical-review-free card constantly because they're an insane maelstrom of perpetual psychodrama, the previous critiques I had of your position on 'politeness' are still right, and I wasn't the only person explaining why.
I will dive into that later but I feel I have to interrupt this for some hilarious news
I don't know that I think victimized minorities need tone policing anymore than the victimizing majorities do though Sam.
I myself need it all the time in conversations ranging from, "Why don't you approve of me dad?" to "The Tea Party is full of idiots."
People are pretty bad at discussing issues of deep import without also using words and tones of voice that block meaningful communication; preventing persuasion.
I'll admit that lately I've become somewhat enamored with John Roberts statement, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." He said that in relation to Michigan voters being permitted to end affirmative action in university admissions.
And I say that as somebody who in the past would have 100% supported an activity where the white kids in a group shut up, and let the minority group kids speak for a full two hours. And still believe people who make admission decisions are unduly influenced by the race of the applicant, in a way that favors whites over other ethnic groups. I feel like I'm starting to see pitfalls in "Check your privilege." Are we really going to move into a post-racial society by making atonement for past behaviors? By paying some chunk of money? Or by giving minority's a handicap in the school/business world?
I just haven't seen that working. Then again, I haven't seen anything working so what do I know? I just know what worked for me (and I was never maliciously racist in the sense I hated somebody because of race) was just learning to care about people, no matter who they are. You can't hate somebody's race when you genuinely care about them. I laughed at black racist jokes until I learned about Malcolm X.
It just a movie, but this part in American History X I think is a real concept. The transition came because the black man kept being kind to him, and he started to care about him.
People can be taught to hate somebody the moment they observe that they are a certain race. But if you care about or love somebody who happens to be of a certain race, you've destroyed the rationale for hating based on race because you now have a contradiction that stares you in the face. If you can love somebody who is black, then being black isn't a blanket indictment anymore.
I think it's much harder to teach somebody, "Oh you shouldn't conclude X about a race, that's wrong to do." You're dealing with all the logical fallacies, and pride that refuses to let that person change their mind. The poor being lazy, immigrants being parasites, gays being evil, women being less able, rich being apathetic, whites being entitled, all that melts away when you eventually learn to love everybody.
Being around KarlEd and Phoenix for one hour at dinner, was the equivalent of reading 50 well written essays on homophobia.
But I feel like it works the other way too. When you are an oppressed minority, you're angry. Angry at the people who keep hurting you. You lump them all in together. They are an institution that needs to be dealt with the same way. You don't see them as individuals anymore, they are all zombies who are diseased with bigotry, and the cure is for them to be mute, blind, and deaf, while you lead them by a rough hand out of purgatory. Their protests mean nothing because they are blinded with that disease, they don't know any better. In fact, in many instances there is no cure, so it's best to just get them out of the way, and forget about them. The sooner the better, they deserve it.
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quote:I just know what worked for me (and I was never maliciously racist in the sense I hated somebody because of race) was just learning to care about people, no matter who they are.
Let me point out that people who believe in the phenomenon of privilege would observe that of course this works for you, because you're (loosely) in a position of privilege. Because all you need to do is think, "oh, <X> isn't all that bad, so I shouldn't think less of them or treat them badly."
Whereas someone who is <X> cannot, by simply choosing to not think poorly of people of privilege, magically be treated well by those people. The issue, after all, is that some groups are still marginalized and stigmatized, and "let's be race-blind" is a solution for the groups that do the marginalizing and stigmatizing. But a minority who is actually, honest-to-God "race-blind" is going to go around wondering "why on Earth do people keep treating me like crap?"
quote:Their protests mean nothing because they are blinded with that disease, they don't know any better. In fact, in many instances there is no cure, so it's best to just get them out of the way, and forget about them. The sooner the better, they deserve it.
I would argue that this is probably the case. White people -- especially white Christian men -- are going to have to learn what it's like to not run the world. They won't like it. They will whine. They will kick and scream and lash out. And it may well be best to get them out of the way and forget about them until they can behave like adults.
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posted
And I get that sounds like a posh version of, "I have black friends, so I can't be racist against blacks."
But I don't think it's possible to eradicate racism *without* being the sort of person who would voluntarily befriend a black person. I think racism is a symptom of not caring about others and being told to ostracize others. I don't think it's a problem unto itself.
If people are taught to welcome people into their definition of "My community", I think that does far more than quotas, check your privilege, shaming, et al.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: How on Earth could she ever be involved in White Supremacy groups? That's antithetical to a huge part of her.
Like, I wouldn't have considered it totally antithetical since she already has a few instances in this forum where she's let her racism slip through. But that was all pretty much anti-arab racism, so anti-black would be just an unexpected new and unseen angle. I would not have understood the racist against blacks thing specifically from any experience here even when she was at the height of her hatepostin'.
But then I asked about it, and, welp, was provided some links, and definitely I could see and confirm for myself, that 1. she did indeed harass a child pretty brazenly, it was a thing that happened and it was pretty bad, and 2. she openly links to and broadcasts some white supremacist sites. Like, she was unarguably broadcasting and supporting anti-black hate sites. No question. Her facebook is filled with public posts where she's saying racist things and broadcasting messages and links from white supremacist sites. End of story.
I am not gonna buy that that's "involvement" in most realistic senses of the word but still, good lord, when she's unfiltered, she's off-the-rails comically racist, so w/e
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BB, basically, it all comes down to where we ended up stuck the last time. The hypothetical about the KKK member.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Let me point out that people who believe in the phenomenon of privilege would observe that of course this works for you, because you're (loosely) in a position of privilege. Because all you need to do is think, "oh, <X> isn't all that bad, so I shouldn't think less of them or treat them badly."
Whereas someone who is <X> cannot, by simply choosing to not think poorly of people of privilege, magically be treated well by those people. The issue, after all, is that some groups are still marginalized and stigmatized, and "let's be race-blind" is a solution for the groups that do the marginalizing and stigmatizing. But a minority who is actually, honest-to-God "race-blind" is going to go around wondering "why on Earth do people keep treating me like crap?"
Well said. I used to think like BB on this subject and it certainly sounds like the ideal to aspire to but I have come around to your view.
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quote:Let me point out that people who believe in the phenomenon of privilege would observe that of course this works for you, because you're (loosely) in a position of privilege. Because all you need to do is think, "oh, <X> isn't all that bad, so I shouldn't think less of them or treat them badly."
No, it's more like, "This person is admirable, and previously I thought that was impossible for people with <X> characteristic. I can no longer see people who are <X> the same negative way now. This also naturally leads one to consider that other people still share that old belief and have institutionalized it.
quote:Whereas someone who is <X> cannot, by simply choosing to not think poorly of people of privilege, magically be treated well by those people.
Yeah, that's not what I'm arguing at all. But if the person does act poorly towards people of privilege, they are guaranteeing nothing will change.
quote:I would argue that this is probably the case. White people -- especially white Christian men -- are going to have to learn what it's like to not run the world. They won't like it. They will whine. They will kick and scream and lash out. And it may well be best to get them out of the way and forget about them until they can behave like adults.
Yeah, I don't really want to live in a society where one race owes the others a debt all the time. And we all act like racism towards whites is justified because the desired outcome is equality.
I'm not going to work towards that world. I'm going to work towards a world where people try to change each other for the better. And do so with nothing but kind motives.
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quote:I'm going to work towards a world where people try to change each other for the better.
That sounds admirable, but it's the kind of thinking that gave us Liberia.
Yeah Liberia is to what I'm talking about as disowning your child but buying a plane ticket for them is to love.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: How on Earth could she ever be involved in White Supremacy groups? That's antithetical to a huge part of her.
Like, I wouldn't have considered it totally antithetical since she already has a few instances in this forum where she's let her racism slip through. But that was all pretty much anti-arab racism, so anti-black would be just an unexpected new and unseen angle. I would not have understood the racist against blacks thing specifically from any experience here even when she was at the height of her hatepostin'.
But then I asked about it, and, welp, was provided some links, and definitely I could see and confirm for myself, that 1. she did indeed harass a child pretty brazenly, it was a thing that happened and it was pretty bad, and 2. she openly links to and broadcasts some white supremacist sites. Like, she was unarguably broadcasting and supporting anti-black hate sites. No question. Her facebook is filled with public posts where she's saying racist things and broadcasting messages and links from white supremacist sites. End of story.
I am not gonna buy that that's "involvement" in most realistic senses of the word but still, good lord, when she's unfiltered, she's off-the-rails comically racist, so w/e
But white supremacists are also vehemently anti-Jew also pro-Nazi. I just can't see how you square that in Lisa's mind.
Not that I am denying what you are saying you saw Sam.
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quote: I just can't see how you square that in Lisa's mind.
I don't know, the same way you square away some sort of bizarre pretend-compatibility between Objectivism and Orthodox Judaism, or Orthodox Judaism and other things? We are talking about a known pro in doublethought identity!
I mean, we're talking about a person who unabashedly champions ethnic cleansing to begin with, so hey no big surprise, and what probably happened is that it wasn't gonna take much to either inspire or reveal she had similarly odious opinions with regards to more domestic ethnic tensions ("urban youth" and other american race issues) and quotes and images and activism from anti-black hate sites were probably just put up on her facebook out of uncritical convenience, or who even knows.
I'm hearing from another hatracker that this is way not a new thing anyway and at the height of the trayvon martin controversy she was posting such ridiculously problematic anti-black crap as to inspire them to get screenshots for posterity. You can also just of your own accord (or masochism) take a quick jaunt back in time on her facebook and get some real choice publicly posted quotes about wanting to cleanse all the arabs, gleefully promoting syrians dying and burning so that the jews can go in and claim all the land, being super happy that they were gonna pop the temple mount like a zit once they kick out all the muslims, etc
yeah awesome i'm good on this lisa stuff now thx, got my fill, i'm out
posted
BB, I appreciate your idealism. I agree that the world you describe would be lovely. In my religion we refer to it as the Kingdom of God and we strive for it. However, we are nowhere near there. We can't ask people to wait for justice until everybody loves their neighbor and the lion lies down with the lamb. We have to address the systemic injustice before and during encouraging universal peace and love. Pretending that the injustice doesn't exist won't make it go away. It is like a race where one runner has been training and has a head start and the other runner has been in shackles. You can't just take the shackles off and call it a fair race.
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quote:Let me point out that people who believe in the phenomenon of privilege would observe that of course this works for you, because you're (loosely) in a position of privilege. Because all you need to do is think, "oh, <X> isn't all that bad, so I shouldn't think less of them or treat them badly."
No, it's more like, "This person is admirable, and previously I thought that was impossible for people with <X> characteristic. I can no longer see people who are <X> the same negative way now. This also naturally leads one to consider that other people still share that old belief and have institutionalized it.
I know this will sound inflammatory, but to me this idea smells of Jim Crow-enabling naivete.
Because your conclusion is not supported by the premise. People have an amazing capacity for cognitive dissonance. It is just as likely, based on [EDIT: historical evidence], for your hypothetical person to believe "this person X isn't all that bad, because they are _exceptional_, because of [insert rationalizations A,B,C, and/or D]. However, that doesn't mean I can trust that anyone else with characteristic X to be similarly exceptional, because, well, obviously X is _exceptional_.
I am sure in Jim Crow days there were plenty of white folks who knew local black folks, and treated them pretty well, maybe even bent the rules/looked the other way for "their black folk". But that didn't mean they believed that sort of leeway could be extended to all black people, nor would it stop them from falling back on their socially-ingrained stereotypes when the black people they know and could apparently sincerely say, "X isn't all that bad," or, "X is admirable," if said black people started clamoring for general civil rights. I could easily see them believing that such behavior would reinforce the stereotypes more strongly.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: BB, I appreciate your idealism. I agree that the world you describe would be lovely. In my religion we refer to it as the Kingdom of God and we strive for it. However, we are nowhere near there. We can't ask people to wait for justice until everybody loves their neighbor and the lion lies down with the lamb. We have to address the systemic injustice before and during encouraging universal peace and love. Pretending that the injustice doesn't exist won't make it go away. It is like a race where one runner has been training and has a head start and the other runner has been in shackles. You can't just take the shackles off and call it a fair race.
Of course not. But I'm not going to then break the shackles in half, and make the other runner wear one of the links around his ankle so that the sound and discomfort remind him of the institution he was a part of and give the previously disadvantaged runner a lesser advantage.
The devil is probably in the details. I understand what affirmative action is trying to accomplish. I just remain unconvinced it's really working. And it *does* disadvantage without discretion white males. You can certainly argue (and I know it's true) that at a macro level, white guys still have it better than any other demographic, and justify doing even more like things. But are we really going to get to racial equality by just being unequal in the other direction?
Barack Obama didn't need special handicaps while running for President to win right? Certainly his race cost him votes. I would suspect Hillary Clinton will win in 2016 without any restructuring of the rules for electing people.
I'm in favor of rules that level the playing field. I certainly support services that help lift people out of poverty. I would support paying for specially funded schools in black neighborhoods that improve their ability to help themselves. I support legislation that mandates pay being equal for equivalent jobs regardless of race or gender. I support allowing workers to sue the pants off businesses that mistreat them on account of their gender/race/marital status/etc. But for some reason in my mind when it comes time to get into a school or a job, it doesn't sit right with me that a person has a mandate for being accepted because of their race. Be it affirmative action or the good ol' boy's club.
The game is rigged, because people are bigots, I know we all believe that. I just think quotas, while well intentioned, and successful in that they get minorities into schools and jobs that help lift them out, that they are still the wrong tool for the job. But data could certainly change my mind. We've had several decades of quotas.
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Bok:
quote:I am sure in Jim Crow days there were plenty of white folks who knew local black folks, and treated them pretty well, maybe even bent the rules/looked the other way for "their black folk".
But that didn't mean they believed that sort of leeway could be extended to all black people, nor would it stop them from falling back on their socially-ingrained stereotypes when the black people they know and could apparently sincerely say, "X isn't all that bad," or, "X is admirable," if said black people started clamoring for general civil rights. I could easily see them believing that such behavior would reinforce the stereotypes more strongly.
I suspect we see this effect in people who know better, but are unwilling to pay the cost of society alienating them were they to act on this new knowledge.
These people who are nice to "their black people" are still a step in the right direction, as screwed up as that sounds. Get enough of them, and they start to talk and realize they are safe to express previously radical feelings. I am absolutely certain my own writing on gay rights has given people permission and courage to act more truthfully. They've abandoned poor thoughts and behaviors. I've had people say as much to me. That's not a brag, it's just the natural effect of insisting on kind dealings with each other. When people come to believe they can talk without their weapons, and that nobody else is armed, they connect.
This isn't to say, "Hey, I'm no longer racist, that's all I have to do to be a part of the solution!" I still expect non-racists to back those words up. I expect them to stand with those who still suffer from racism. I expect them to act against laws that enable racism. I expect their conduct to mirror their supposed beliefs, and where they don't, they willingly make changes once those contradictions are understood.
Perhaps it's not as visible a solution as quotas and laws that loudly denounce racism, but I'm starting to think it's more effective than trying to legislate morality. Especially legislating morality that is justified by committing lesser immoral offenses.
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posted
Man I don't even invest in the whole quotas or restorative legal justice element of this whole thing.
What I am primarily concerned with, involving this whole roundabout discussion, is not about quotas or AA or people's ostensible feelings that count as "benevolent" racism.
My point is, and has always been, that your definitions of "tolerant" and "intolerant" behavior were completely invalid unless you want to have a shockingly useless definition of what counts as "tolerant" behavior, because it concerns itself only with feelings being "genuine" even when they are wholly bigoted and harmfully discriminatory, and "tolerance" being defined by surface politeness and an apparent willingness to dialogue with the people you are actively oppressing.
You are generally right when it comes to issues of discriminatory injustice. You are even a remarkable outlier in terms of how much you are willing to stick your neck out to stand up for the right cause given the basal tendencies of your background and affiliation and the teachings and action of your church. This is not a super major deal, just something that's worth understanding so that your definitions of tolerance don't come off as, as a specific and immediately understood and recognizable example in this community, orson scott card's definition of tolerance.
Highlights recap:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Amka: Tolerance implies disagreement - it means that even though we don't agree with or approve of each other's beliefs or actions, we can still live together amicably.
It makes me sad when people are so intolerant that they cannot bear to be friends with anyone who disapproves of some action or opinion of theirs.
Gay people are under no obligation to tolerate people who hold beliefs and act on those beliefs in a way which furthers discrimination against them. You're just basically saying that it makes you sad that nobody's obligated to be nice to people who hold dehumanizing views about them. Views which further discrimination and othering. Well, too bad.
It's actually supremely insulting to lecture on tolerance in this fashion — it's effectively saying that there is any sort of onus is on an oppressed party to be nice to their oppressors in the name of "tolerance." And that's an incredibly dirtbag thing to do.
Being gay is not an "action or opinion" — it's not something a gay person chose for themselves that they can decide to change their mind on, like an opinion. Being gay isn't something that only exists as long as you are actively doing it, like an action. It is not these things, not any more so than you could change your race by having someone change your mind about it. So talking about tolerance with regard to other people's 'actions or opinions' is, at best, completely unrelated to the issue of responding to people's actions furthering discrimination against your sexuality.
You might as well call a black person "intolerant" for not wanting to be friends with someone who doesn't want to let interracial marriage be allowed by law. Tut-tut and lecture them about how we should all just be friends and respect each other despite differences of opinion. Tut-tut, minorities. Tut-tut. [/QB]
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: It's entirely a person's choice to be friends with a person who acts in a way which furthers social and institutional oppression against their race, gender, sexuality, etc. But if they choose not to be friends with their oppressors over these issues, it is a breathtakingly dickish thing to police them on that decision and whine about how it shows that they are not being 'tolerant.'
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Sam: What do you mean by tolerance when you refuse to be polite to or associate with people when they do not support and vote against same sex marriage?
Sorry if this is answering a question with a question, but I honestly don't know what tolerance means if you do neither of those things. [/qb]
It comes down to what this 'virtue' of tolerance is, and contrasting that against what is being intentionally or unintentionally advocated here.
To be perfectly straightforward about it: the type of tolerance you right now SEEM* to be suggesting people should have for their oppressors turns tolerance into tone policing for marginalized people, and that kind of 'tolerance' is not a virtue of society, it's a tool of oppression. It's not something that 'our society can only function with,' it's unnecessary, bad, and something we're better off without.
*and I'm completely open to having this be clarified completely
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Sam: So explain to me in your interactions with around 40+% of the country that in polls indicate they don't support same-sex marriage how you demonstrate "tolerance" to them?
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I don't attempt to legislate away their ability to be in a marriage and have a spouse and have spousal benefits. I don't denigrate their sexuality by comparing it to a choice or an opinion. I don't say that their being married to someone of the opposite sex is wrong or bad. I don't elect people who have — as a major party platform — an agenda to keep them from having the legal right to get married or legislate it away where it already exists. That's already more tolerance than they show the gays, which makes it riotously absurd and insulting when people like OSC claim that they are the true face of tolerance because the pro gay marriage side doesn't stay polite about their views. They want any more "tolerance?" They going to call people intolerant when their feelings get hurt and a polite reception of their views is not guaranteed? Too bad.
But, then again, I'm not gay. I'm not a marginalized party in this equation. So my "tolerance" is a different issue than what we are talking about — and what I'm directly criticizing — when people are upset that gay people won't be "tolerant" of the people who marginalize them, and when they set the standard for 'tolerance' as having to be polite to people who are bigoted against them, or they're 'intolerant'
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: That's what it amounts to for me as well. It's not simply 'both sides disagree equally with one another, therefore it's fair to expect mutual amiability'. One side tries-successfully!-to control behavior and lives. The other wishes to mind their own affairs and live their own lives to the same extent their opposition does-but they don't attempt to stop their rivals from doing so.
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:You aren't telling me what you do to demonstrate tolerance. You are telling me what you don't do. That's only half an answer.
So if I describe that I'm not discriminating against people, not using legal force to suppress them in society and legal standing, not being bigoted against them, not attempting to hold back their relationship or denigrate it and call it unnatural and unholy .. but I'm not making an outward show of how pleasantly we can discuss their views, I'm not going far enough, that's not 'demonstrating tolerance,' I need to demonstrate it to them.
.. but if I were to discriminate against them, try to keep them second-class citizens and be bigoted against them, but smile and engage in pleasantries and be sure to stress I'm only doing what I think as moral so why can't we all just not resort to name-calling or being mean to each other, I'm 'demonstrating tolerance'
...
yeah, the way you describe 'demonstrating tolerance' makes 'tolerance' a wholly worthless thing. It just basically means "if you're not polite back to me about my oppressing and demeaning you, you're not tolerant"
and that kind of "tolerance" — which goes inside the quote marks a mile high — can die in a fire. It's crude tone policing. It's not central to a decent civilization. It's only central to protecting the feelings of people who oppress marginalized folk and still expect that they deserve polite reception of their views. [/QB]
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: As described you could literally have a "tolerant" KKK member who sincerely believes that blacks should be removed from the continent systematically by a relocation program, but so long as they individually think that their "intentions are good" and will be friendly to a black person in terms of surface formality or will invite them to discuss segregationist plans for the lesser races such as they, they're "tolerant" and if a black person doesn't want to associate with them at all and wants KKK members to 'stay the hell away from me, asshole' and simply wants to find a way to live with dignity without the 'polite' oeuvre of this person's 'tolerance' — you'd call that "intolerant"
.. actually, it's gotten kind of worse than that; it's not just judged as 'intolerant' and inferior to the goodly sincerity and Good Intentions of the KKK member. It's now worse. You've insinuated that, say, if the black person did that, it's 'poor behavior' and if they hold the opinion that they don't have an obligation to afford their oppressors a reciprocation of surface politeness, they're using their race to get away with more' poor behavior'
i should not, i should absolutely and sincerely not have to explain the troubling nature of those connotations.
quote:My point is, and has always been, that your definitions of "tolerant" and "intolerant" behavior were completely invalid unless you want to have a shockingly useless definition of what counts as "tolerant" behavior, because it concerns itself only with feelings being "genuine" even when they are wholly bigoted and harmfully discriminatory, and "tolerance" being defined by surface politeness and an apparent willingness to dialogue with the people you are actively oppressing.
You keep trying to reduce it to "surface politeness". I'm talking about genuine good feeling and being a good example of the change you want to see in others.
And again it's not limited to the oppressed minority. Oppressing majorities have all sorts of problems with how they engage with minorities too. One need look no further than a racist who calls black males "boy", or when conservatives make sure to pronounce (and emphasize) the full middle name of President Obama. Telling them to knock that off would be tone policing too, and yet it's necessary. I call people out on it all the time.
quote:You are generally right when it comes to issues of discriminatory injustice. You are even a remarkable outlier in terms of how much you are willing to stick your neck out to stand up for the right cause given the basal tendencies of your background and affiliation and the teachings and action of your church. This is not a super major deal, just something that's worth understanding so that your definitions of tolerance don't come off as, as a specific and immediately understood and recognizable example in this community
I think you're complimenting me? Also, kudos on getting me to look up basal so I learned a new word, but I don't love the meaning.
I have the advantage of having been in a truly diverse environment growing up, and belonging to a religion that lends itself to insularity to a degree. I think it has given me a clear eyed view of what it takes to live in a truly plural society.
It's dismaying when the people (not you necessarily) who yammer about diversity don't actually understand that diversity is work, and it's hard. Homogeneity is so prevalent in history because it's so bloody easy and people love to to find the easiest way to feel included in the group.
What good is a diversity that just pulls in all the gays, but in the next breath, expels all the heteronorms? Is diversity just finding the configuration that maximizes the number of opinions that can handle being in the same tent?
To me it's living in the sort of society where the way out is when a person wants out. Not because they're shoved out.
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I apologize for my rambling in the next several paragraphs. Lack of coherency is on me, and me alone
-- Quotas are not Affirmative Action. I took a mandatory 3-day "diversity training" when I worked for IBM, 15 years ago. They were very clear on this. I hate that quotas and AA are mixed up even today. Maybe we should all be forced to go to diversity training for a few days
[I will add the caveat, I may be mis-remembering the training, but I remember being surprised at the distinction, as I had quotas and AA merged in my mind too)
Quotas are a _punishment_ for failure to adhere to AA principles. Not a single organization has to institute quotas to satisfy AA. What they _have_ to document is that they are not biasing their recruitment process to avoid the population mix in their area (that's an important note too... Your business of 75 people is in a 90% white area, that's the bar you are judged against).
For instance, the IBM plant I was at was almost all white people, at least in tech roles (though in my crop of new hires, there were several Hispanics and an African American) while the town itself was probably much closer to parity between African Americans and white people and other racial demographics.
I can tell you that IBM was in no danger of being sued, because they diligently documented the fact that they were recruiting fairly.
So the fact that some schools/businesses can't or won't do the documentation to show compliance, and go straight to the "punishment", has more to do with how those organizations are run, and less to do with AA as a general principle/policy. In my eyes, anyway.
-- Also, even with quotas while you may "shackle" them somewhat, you aren't taking away their structural advantages... Which would be impossible to do directly, short of brainwashing. AA is much preferred to that (not much of a bar, granted), if only because by exposing people to each other generally, and across the board, will remove the systemic supports of the racism, hopefully by making people widen their conception of their in-group, unconsciously.
This goes to your point to me as well... Since no one I know (and I run in pretty liberal circles) even _wants_ to force people to associate with people they might otherwise not want to associate with, how _do_ we get people talking together? White flight was/is a real thing, and is often couched in (and perhaps believed earnestly as) non-racist/merely socioeconomic rationales.
I fight this in the city I live in, which has an exceedingly gentrified half, and a more poor, immigrant half. Unsurprisingly, the school system is a battlefield. Over 60% of kids are on free/reduced lunch, and a significant percentage (I want to say 30%) of kids learn English as a second language, and have parents who speak little to no English. I have seen all of this. This is likely due to the fact that the rich folks would in the recent past move out to "better school systems" or private schools as their oldest children neared school age. This in uber-liberal Massachusetts, of all places, and even in a particularly liberal part of said state!
But, as I hope you can see, it is a systemic disadvantage to the poor/not white people. Me and my wife have decided to "be the change you want to see" for this. Maybe we are "experimenting" with our kids, though I loathe the implication. Their are being introduced to the world, as it is, and I hope will find that others are really "us". Because they really are. I see it when I drop of my kid at school, or when they are playing with other kids at playgrounds. And we aren't perfect. Language barriers alone are a significant problem, aside from any racism. Think about the difficulty of setting up play dates, for starters.
--
So I guess I am saying, AA isn't perfect (but neither is it as bad as widely seen, in and of itself). You and many others see it as enabling another kind of racism. But I see it as creating room for equality to grow. I don't know if anyone else sees it that way.
The biggest issue is that I don't see an alternative being proposed. In that way _I_ am a conservative. Show me real objective, systemic harm that outweighs the benefits for AA, and I will be interested. But as I heard from a libertarian-minded co-worker, his suggestion is that we should remove all racial labels, and hopefully that will let nature run its course. Too bad for the disadvantaged in the meantime, never mind somehow forcing people to stop using racial terms.
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I don't have a good proven alternative to AA it's true. Thanks for explaining the difference between AA and quotas.
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BTW, BB, I hope you don't feel like I am dog-piling you. I respect your point of view, and your very basic decency (and your thankless work as Janitor here).
posted
Bok: No worries. Interestingly enough being a moderator has forced me to rethink what tolerance means to me. After all, I've expelled several people from here.
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quote:My point is, and has always been, that your definitions of "tolerant" and "intolerant" behavior were completely invalid unless you want to have a shockingly useless definition of what counts as "tolerant" behavior, because it concerns itself only with feelings being "genuine" even when they are wholly bigoted and harmfully discriminatory, and "tolerance" being defined by surface politeness and an apparent willingness to dialogue with the people you are actively oppressing.
You keep trying to reduce it to "surface politeness". I'm talking about genuine good feeling and being a good example of the change you want to see in others.
That's what the Genuine Good Feeling KKK member was about, remember?
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Yeah, but Genuine Good Feeling KKK member probably can't exist for one thing, and two if they could, they'd probably spend more of their time trying to get all the other people in the KKK to stop hating black people or else leave the organization when they were unsuccessful.
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Genuine Good Feeling KKK member exists. The KKK has disavowed violence against blacks and holds as a routine ideological point of their institution that segregation is better for the blacks as well and that their quest is one which is divinely and sincerely inspired by God. They really believe that their standpoint on race relations is to the betterment of all, and even court audience based on a hearts and minds thing!
It doesn't matter. You're not "intolerant" of the "tolerant" KKK if you adamantly refuse to associate with them and angrily protest their ideology, even if they themselves insist it is not a hateful ideology.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Genuine Good Feeling KKK member exists. The KKK has disavowed violence against blacks and holds as a routine ideological point of their institution that segregation is better for the blacks as well and that their quest is one which is divinely and sincerely inspired by God. They really believe that their standpoint on race relations is to the betterment of all, and even court audience based on a hearts and minds thing!
It doesn't matter. You're not "intolerant" of the "tolerant" KKK if you adamantly refuse to associate with them and angrily protest their ideology, even if they themselves insist it is not a hateful ideology.
Having actually known KKK members during the time I lived in Mississippi, and after having several long discussions with them, as well as doing a good deal of research into their organization, I can say that this is definitely the case.
Even in it's heyday back in the 20s and 30s, the lynchings and terrorism were the acts of a few extremist parts of the organization, not the main body. The modern KKK disavows all violence against racial minorities, and goes on a "we don't hate blacks, we love whites" mentality. I remember watching an interview with a Grand Dragon (or something like that) who, at a cross burning, gave a very eloquent speech. Paraphrased (I don't remember the exact wording): "People see us doing this, and think we're all about hate. We don't hate anyone, this is about something else, it's about [picking up his daughter's baby] *this*. The White Baby, the most beautiful thing in the world. That's the aim of our organization, to preserve the White Family, to keep our racial identity intact. We don't hate n*****s, we're just trying to keep them in their place, keep them from taking over the country and raping our women and destroying our families. We just want to keep things the way they were, back in the good old days."
As I've said before, the NOM is roughly the moral equal of the KKK. The NOM is full of people who are, generally, far better educated, more eloquent, and more affluent people than the KKK, but their goals and rhetoric are the same, simply applied to different minority groups.
Yet somehow, though nobody would think twice at boycotting a CEO who was a member of the KKK and actively supported them (even though the KKK has *no* political power and giving them money is, at worst, doing pretty much nothing), boycotting a CEO who gives money to the NOM (who wields considerably more political power and actively does harm with it) is intolerant. You can try to split hairs over this one, but really the only difference between well meaning homophobia and well meaning racism is how socially acceptable they are.
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