6 ms·

The status quo is not explicitly racist, and a lot of people are comfortable with it. The push by the left is to suggest that just because a system does not hav

The status quo is not explicitly racist, and a lot of people are comfortable with it. The push by the left is to suggest that just because a system does not have discriminatory laws, that doesn't mean it's not oppressive. Take the prevalence of indentured servitude after the Civil War as an example. I'd recommend "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" for a lucid account of the racial issues in current America. If you can be convinced that the status quo is oppressive to racial minorities, then it serves to perpetuate white supremacy. I don't follow your first point, since it seems clear to me that people of color, jewish people, and homosexuals are able to hold white supremacist viewpoints.

goatlover 6y ago
> If you can be convinced that the status quo is oppressive to racial minorities, then it serves to perpetuate white supremacy. This is assuming white privilege is the same as white supremacy, when the term white supremacy has been used for KKK and neo-nazis groups, not mainstream white society since after the civil rights era. It also assumes that most whites and only whites benefit from white privilege, otherwise it's not so white, and may be more a combination of class, culture and/or historical consequences. Also the fact that white people are still a majority in countries like the US, where a majority in any country likely has similar privileges just by being the majority. One last assumption (in America) is that white culture is a certain way, when in reality the US is primarily an English dominated culture historically, whereas Europe has a lot of cultural variation. A related issue is that white supremacy is sometimes extended to considering an entire economic system as racist, just because history went a certain way. But there's nothing about an economic system that says any one particular group need benefit more than another.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  > there's nothing about an economic system that says anyone one particular group need benefit more than another. Crony capitalism creates positive feedback loops where the friends of rich people benefit more than strangers to rich people. I doesn't take a lot of analysis to see how that can re-enforce the dominance of one race in a society if there's any small amount of inequality to start(1) and people of a given race are mostly associating with others of the same race, since the positive feedback loops in capitalism are significant. (1) And "small amount of inequality" isn't a fair assumption for the US, where one race started out owning people of the other race.
  - goatlover 6y ago
    I should have said racial or ethnic group, since there's no reason other than historical happenstance why any racial/ethnic grouping can't benefit. As for friends of the rich, has there been any economic system where that wasn't true? If not rich, then at least the powerful and well connected have always benefitted in every society. The challenging part is how to mitigate that somewhat.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Crony capitalism creates positive feedback loops where the friends of rich people benefit more than strangers to rich people. That's about class, not race, ethnicity or whatever other grouping you prefer. White billionaires hang out with black billionaires, not with white hobos.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      > White billionaires hang out with black billionaires, not with white hobos. I'm pretty sure that, to a 90%-10% ratio, they hang out with white millionaires, not either of the groups you described.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        You're reinforcing the parent's point that there's not race discrimination but class discrimination. Our hypothetical white billionaire is presumably discriminating utterly on a class basis (hanging out with zero poor people of any race) and not discriminating at all on a racial basis (hanging out with members of his class in proportion to their race / without racial bias).
        shadowgovt 6y ago
        You missed the "black billionaires / white millionaires" distinction.
        throwaway894345 6y ago
- jawarner 6y ago
  Fair point. White supremacy is an attitude, whereas white privilege a state of being. I would quibble that white supremacist ideas are quite widespread - see, e.g., references to "thugs" during the BLM protests. I also agree that white privilege interacts with class, culture and historical consequences, this was well put. If, hypothetically, an economic system admits little class mobility, and if classes are racially biased, then the effect of that economic system is to maintain a racial caste system. What are your thoughts on this? I'd also point that the justice system works similarly. There are few explicit racial biases, but what is the effect of this system? It actively maintains a racial hierarchy. Does that make it racist?
  - goatlover 6y ago
    Sure, I’d say the West is less so over time as laws and attitudes shift towed being more inclusive. But as for capitalism in general, it’s just an economic system that any society can make use of. I’m of the opinion that it does a better job of growing the economy and producing more opportunities than other systems, raising the standard of living in general. It does also produce more wealth inequality. It also has a tendency to produce powerful corporations. So those two tendencies along with a few others need to be kept in check.
throwaway894345 6y ago
> The push by the left is to suggest that just because a system does not have discriminatory laws, that doesn't mean it's not oppressive. ... If you can be convinced that the status quo is oppressive to racial minorities, then it serves to perpetuate white supremacy. There are a couple of dynamics at play here: * The distinction between de jure and de facto discrimination. No one disputes that a country can be racially oppressive via de facto discrimination as our country has been in the past. * Whether any kind of discrimination is a necessary condition for a system to be called "oppressive". Of course a system is oppressive if it discriminates at all, even if the discrimination is only de facto. This is a completely uncontroversial opinion--virtually everyone believes this, so I don't think this is the position that the left is espousing (especially given that prominent left-wing voices like Kendi are pretty explicit that this isn't what they're talking about). Moreover, if leftists are taking the uncontroversial interpretation, then it doesn't make sense to call anyone else a "white supremacist" because at worst they are opposed to discrimination to the extent that they are aware that it exists (and no, pointing to disparities does not constitute compelling evidence of discrimination). So presumably leftists believe we live under "white supremacy" because there are disparities at all, irrespective of whether those disparities are attributable to racial discrimination. More likely, it seems to me that leftists are conflating "there was a lot of historical discrimination that created different wealth, crime, marriage/family, etc distributions that the present system acts upon" with "the system today is racist and we've made little progress since the legalization of slavery". If the latter were true then we would indeed be under a 'white supremacist' system, but thankfully it's obviously fallacious. There are certainly still some vestiges of racism that we should continue to work to remove, but we've progressed tremendously--our system is mostly colorblind, everyone of consequence everywhere is in favor of making the system more colorblind (save apparently progressives and a handful of thoroughly marginalized actual white supremacists); however, a perfectly egalitarian (i.e., non-racist) system isn't going to yield equal outcomes. That said, if we want to address historical racism, then let's talk about it as such and not give the impression that we're solving for extant racism (or that extant racism is a primary driver in various disparities). This is unnecessarily dishonest and divisive. Let's talk about reparations instead of advocating for a racialized society and system (in contrast to a colorblind society and system). Let's dispense with viewpoints of racial primacy and essentialism. Let's dispense with DiAngelo's "whites are inherently racist" (not paraphrasing) and Kendi's "anti-racism requires eternal discrimination" (paraphrasing). All of this is nonsense and a distraction if our goal is to address historical discrimination or decrease injustice or even close racial gaps (defunding police or antagonizing whites are not likely to improve yields for minorities). > I don't follow your first point, since it seems clear to me that people of color, jewish people, and homosexuals are able to hold white supremacist viewpoints. My point didn't depend on the ability or inability of people with those identities to hold white supremacist viewpoints; it was literally parenthetical. I only brought it up because there's a lot of overlap between the people who make broad claims of white supremacy and the people who advocate that whites "shut up and listen" to people with these identities such that, you know, they might shut up and listen before writing these people off as white supremacists.

goatlover 6y ago

> If you can be convinced that the status quo is oppressive to racial minorities, then it serves to perpetuate white supremacy. This is assuming white privilege is the same as white supremacy, when the term white supremacy has been used for KKK and neo-nazis groups, not mainstream white society since after the civil rights era. It also assumes that most whites and only whites benefit from white privilege, otherwise it's not so white, and may be more a combination of class, culture and/or historical consequences. Also the fact that white people are still a majority in countries like the US, where a majority in any country likely has similar privileges just by being the majority. One last assumption (in America) is that white culture is a certain way, when in reality the US is primarily an English dominated culture historically, whereas Europe has a lot of cultural variation. A related issue is that white supremacy is sometimes extended to considering an entire economic system as racist, just because history went a certain way. But there's nothing about an economic system that says any one particular group need benefit more than another.

shadowgovt 6y ago
> there's nothing about an economic system that says anyone one particular group need benefit more than another. Crony capitalism creates positive feedback loops where the friends of rich people benefit more than strangers to rich people. I doesn't take a lot of analysis to see how that can re-enforce the dominance of one race in a society if there's any small amount of inequality to start(1) and people of a given race are mostly associating with others of the same race, since the positive feedback loops in capitalism are significant. (1) And "small amount of inequality" isn't a fair assumption for the US, where one race started out owning people of the other race.
- goatlover 6y ago
  I should have said racial or ethnic group, since there's no reason other than historical happenstance why any racial/ethnic grouping can't benefit. As for friends of the rich, has there been any economic system where that wasn't true? If not rich, then at least the powerful and well connected have always benefitted in every society. The challenging part is how to mitigate that somewhat.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Crony capitalism creates positive feedback loops where the friends of rich people benefit more than strangers to rich people. That's about class, not race, ethnicity or whatever other grouping you prefer. White billionaires hang out with black billionaires, not with white hobos.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    > White billionaires hang out with black billionaires, not with white hobos. I'm pretty sure that, to a 90%-10% ratio, they hang out with white millionaires, not either of the groups you described.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      You're reinforcing the parent's point that there's not race discrimination but class discrimination. Our hypothetical white billionaire is presumably discriminating utterly on a class basis (hanging out with zero poor people of any race) and not discriminating at all on a racial basis (hanging out with members of his class in proportion to their race / without racial bias).
      - shadowgovt 6y ago
        You missed the "black billionaires / white millionaires" distinction.
        throwaway894345 6y ago
jawarner 6y ago
Fair point. White supremacy is an attitude, whereas white privilege a state of being. I would quibble that white supremacist ideas are quite widespread - see, e.g., references to "thugs" during the BLM protests. I also agree that white privilege interacts with class, culture and historical consequences, this was well put. If, hypothetically, an economic system admits little class mobility, and if classes are racially biased, then the effect of that economic system is to maintain a racial caste system. What are your thoughts on this? I'd also point that the justice system works similarly. There are few explicit racial biases, but what is the effect of this system? It actively maintains a racial hierarchy. Does that make it racist?
- goatlover 6y ago
  Sure, I’d say the West is less so over time as laws and attitudes shift towed being more inclusive. But as for capitalism in general, it’s just an economic system that any society can make use of. I’m of the opinion that it does a better job of growing the economy and producing more opportunities than other systems, raising the standard of living in general. It does also produce more wealth inequality. It also has a tendency to produce powerful corporations. So those two tendencies along with a few others need to be kept in check.

throwaway894345 6y ago

> The push by the left is to suggest that just because a system does not have discriminatory laws, that doesn't mean it's not oppressive. ... If you can be convinced that the status quo is oppressive to racial minorities, then it serves to perpetuate white supremacy. There are a couple of dynamics at play here: * The distinction between de jure and de facto discrimination. No one disputes that a country can be racially oppressive via de facto discrimination as our country has been in the past. * Whether any kind of discrimination is a necessary condition for a system to be called "oppressive". Of course a system is oppressive if it discriminates at all, even if the discrimination is only de facto. This is a completely uncontroversial opinion--virtually everyone believes this, so I don't think this is the position that the left is espousing (especially given that prominent left-wing voices like Kendi are pretty explicit that this isn't what they're talking about). Moreover, if leftists are taking the uncontroversial interpretation, then it doesn't make sense to call anyone else a "white supremacist" because at worst they are opposed to discrimination to the extent that they are aware that it exists (and no, pointing to disparities does not constitute compelling evidence of discrimination). So presumably leftists believe we live under "white supremacy" because there are disparities at all, irrespective of whether those disparities are attributable to racial discrimination. More likely, it seems to me that leftists are conflating "there was a lot of historical discrimination that created different wealth, crime, marriage/family, etc distributions that the present system acts upon" with "the system today is racist and we've made little progress since the legalization of slavery". If the latter were true then we would indeed be under a 'white supremacist' system, but thankfully it's obviously fallacious. There are certainly still some vestiges of racism that we should continue to work to remove, but we've progressed tremendously--our system is mostly colorblind, everyone of consequence everywhere is in favor of making the system more colorblind (save apparently progressives and a handful of thoroughly marginalized actual white supremacists); however, a perfectly egalitarian (i.e., non-racist) system isn't going to yield equal outcomes. That said, if we want to address historical racism, then let's talk about it as such and not give the impression that we're solving for extant racism (or that extant racism is a primary driver in various disparities). This is unnecessarily dishonest and divisive. Let's talk about reparations instead of advocating for a racialized society and system (in contrast to a colorblind society and system). Let's dispense with viewpoints of racial primacy and essentialism. Let's dispense with DiAngelo's "whites are inherently racist" (not paraphrasing) and Kendi's "anti-racism requires eternal discrimination" (paraphrasing). All of this is nonsense and a distraction if our goal is to address historical discrimination or decrease injustice or even close racial gaps (defunding police or antagonizing whites are not likely to improve yields for minorities). > I don't follow your first point, since it seems clear to me that people of color, jewish people, and homosexuals are able to hold white supremacist viewpoints. My point didn't depend on the ability or inability of people with those identities to hold white supremacist viewpoints; it was literally parenthetical. I only brought it up because there's a lot of overlap between the people who make broad claims of white supremacy and the people who advocate that whites "shut up and listen" to people with these identities such that, you know, they might shut up and listen before writing these people off as white supremacists.