4 ms·

OK no college for them. We'll use your idea instead. What is it?

toomanyrichies 6y ago
> We'll use your idea instead. What is it? For starters, how about they prove they've learned the error of their ways? If racist behavior was the grounds for the revocation of their acceptance letter, they can start by demonstrating a track record of remorse for their actions, over a non-trivial amount of time. An appropriately contrite-sounding college entrance essay cranked out over a weekend isn't going to cut it. What sincere attempts have they made to make amends for their racist actions? The students we're discussing have burned bridges through their racist actions, now it's on them to build new ones. Once they've done that, then we'll talk. > What's next, restaurants refusing patrons for being hungry? Any time I see the "what's next" argument here on HN or anywhere, it immediately reeks of the "slippery slope" fallacy. Equating racist behavior with "being hungry" is absurd on its face. > Not only to get some history and some different perspectives, but also to potentially have a brown person as a prof, a roommate or better yet a project teammate... Expecting racists to do a 180 and become upstanding citizens as the result of "having a brown person as a prof", as if you can catch anti-racism via osmosis, is only slightly less absurd than equating racist behavior with being hungry.
- rdiddly 6y ago
  When you characterize a perfectly easy-to-understand analogy as "equating" you leave room for only two possibilities: 1) You're bad at analogy, or 2) You're making a bad-faith argument. I don't see how that trick would work ever, but of all places, it won't work here. The thing to do would be to argue the point, not to argue a fake point based on pretending not to know what an analogy is. Moving on. I actually liked the idea in your first paragraph. Too bad you had to spend the middle one alienating me. Finally, it's not a 180 someone would be turning. Things are never, if you'll pardon the expression, so black and white. Surprisingly, racists are actually complex human beings with whole lives and shit, not some shallow caricature of pure evil who needs to turn 180° to be "good." Probably I'm some kind of heretic already just for suggesting a racist might not be pure evil, and I reek of, and it smacks of, and the vibe I'm getting is. But yeah I'll bet it's more like a 10° turn in most cases. And it's a turn of a vessel that, at age 18, really doesn't have much weight or momentum to it either. And yes I firmly believe exposure to the people they're biased against is one of the few things that will change them or make them see that racism makes no sense. Call it osmosis if you like; it's how humans learn from each other. Shrieking & judging just makes them hate you along with whomever they already hate. I've certainly done enough of that myself, though on other causes, but with predictably bad results. I still like the "prove you've reformed" thing though.

> We'll use your idea instead. What is it? For starters, how about they prove they've learned the error of their ways? If racist behavior was the grounds for the revocation of their acceptance letter, they can start by demonstrating a track record of remorse for their actions, over a non-trivial amount of time. An appropriately contrite-sounding college entrance essay cranked out over a weekend isn't going to cut it. What sincere attempts have they made to make amends for their racist actions? The students we're discussing have burned bridges through their racist actions, now it's on them to build new ones. Once they've done that, then we'll talk. > What's next, restaurants refusing patrons for being hungry? Any time I see the "what's next" argument here on HN or anywhere, it immediately reeks of the "slippery slope" fallacy. Equating racist behavior with "being hungry" is absurd on its face. > Not only to get some history and some different perspectives, but also to potentially have a brown person as a prof, a roommate or better yet a project teammate... Expecting racists to do a 180 and become upstanding citizens as the result of "having a brown person as a prof", as if you can catch anti-racism via osmosis, is only slightly less absurd than equating racist behavior with being hungry.

rdiddly 6y ago
When you characterize a perfectly easy-to-understand analogy as "equating" you leave room for only two possibilities: 1) You're bad at analogy, or 2) You're making a bad-faith argument. I don't see how that trick would work ever, but of all places, it won't work here. The thing to do would be to argue the point, not to argue a fake point based on pretending not to know what an analogy is. Moving on. I actually liked the idea in your first paragraph. Too bad you had to spend the middle one alienating me. Finally, it's not a 180 someone would be turning. Things are never, if you'll pardon the expression, so black and white. Surprisingly, racists are actually complex human beings with whole lives and shit, not some shallow caricature of pure evil who needs to turn 180° to be "good." Probably I'm some kind of heretic already just for suggesting a racist might not be pure evil, and I reek of, and it smacks of, and the vibe I'm getting is. But yeah I'll bet it's more like a 10° turn in most cases. And it's a turn of a vessel that, at age 18, really doesn't have much weight or momentum to it either. And yes I firmly believe exposure to the people they're biased against is one of the few things that will change them or make them see that racism makes no sense. Call it osmosis if you like; it's how humans learn from each other. Shrieking & judging just makes them hate you along with whomever they already hate. I've certainly done enough of that myself, though on other causes, but with predictably bad results. I still like the "prove you've reformed" thing though.