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> It’s puzzling that you have concluded that this means he thinks that ‘any’ research on race is bogus. So: any research on race is fine, but using the words '

> It’s puzzling that you have concluded that this means he thinks that ‘any’ research on race is bogus. So: any research on race is fine, but using the words 'whiteness', 'racialized' or now 'intersectionality' (this word appears newly to me) makes it bogus... Half of the results on Google Scholar which mention 'white supremacy' contain at least one of those three words, broadly consistently since 1990. How do you talk in any useful way about race relations without ever using those words? Awkwardly, in modern academia. - You can't now easily define what "white" means in your context (since this definition is not fixed or absolute), for example, so how can we understand the foundation of your work? - You don't now have a word for talking about how the experience of being a woman or disabled or gay etc is different (or not) for black people than it is for white people. - You don't now have a word for the experience of ethnic or cultural groups becoming discriminated against with political involvement. It's akin to saying research in computer science is fine, but the words 'algorithm', 'lisp', or 'big data' show it to be bogus.

zepto 6y ago
> So: any research on race is fine, but using the words 'whiteness', 'racialized' or now 'intersectionality' (this word appears newly to me) makes it bogus... Again, a puzzling interpretation. A couple of points, it’s fairly obvious that PG doesn’t expect people to go through every single search result past the first few. Search results with the conjunction of those words are listed first. You have mistakenly used the word ‘or’, but search engines place ‘and’ results first. PG doesn’t use the term ‘white’ anywhere. That has been introduced by you. He uses the term ‘whiteness’. I am a little surprised you conflate these two terms, since in both the academic discourse, and in activism about race, these words do not mean the same thing. > How do you talk in any useful way about race relations without ever using those words? It’s not clear what this question has to do with what PG wrote, and the rest of your post seems to hinge on its relevance. PG didn’t say anything about people not using words. He posted a link to a search he expected would prioritize examples of the kind of research he thinks is bogus. Generally when we do a Google search, we assume that the first few results will be the most relevant, not that every result is equally relevant. See my earlier point - search prioritizes results that contain as many of these terms as possible. To summarize: Your comment seems to be based on two misunderstandings. One about how Google search works, and the other about how the meaning of the word ‘whiteness’ differs from the word ‘white’ in contemporary discourse on race. Also, I note that you conflate search results with research. These aren’t the same thing.
- zepto 6y ago
  In conclusion - PG is clearly dismissive of certain academic writing on ‘whiteness’. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that he denies the existence of white supremacy. That just isn’t implied by the link.

zepto 6y ago

> So: any research on race is fine, but using the words 'whiteness', 'racialized' or now 'intersectionality' (this word appears newly to me) makes it bogus... Again, a puzzling interpretation. A couple of points, it’s fairly obvious that PG doesn’t expect people to go through every single search result past the first few. Search results with the conjunction of those words are listed first. You have mistakenly used the word ‘or’, but search engines place ‘and’ results first. PG doesn’t use the term ‘white’ anywhere. That has been introduced by you. He uses the term ‘whiteness’. I am a little surprised you conflate these two terms, since in both the academic discourse, and in activism about race, these words do not mean the same thing. > How do you talk in any useful way about race relations without ever using those words? It’s not clear what this question has to do with what PG wrote, and the rest of your post seems to hinge on its relevance. PG didn’t say anything about people not using words. He posted a link to a search he expected would prioritize examples of the kind of research he thinks is bogus. Generally when we do a Google search, we assume that the first few results will be the most relevant, not that every result is equally relevant. See my earlier point - search prioritizes results that contain as many of these terms as possible. To summarize: Your comment seems to be based on two misunderstandings. One about how Google search works, and the other about how the meaning of the word ‘whiteness’ differs from the word ‘white’ in contemporary discourse on race. Also, I note that you conflate search results with research. These aren’t the same thing.

zepto 6y ago
In conclusion - PG is clearly dismissive of certain academic writing on ‘whiteness’. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that he denies the existence of white supremacy. That just isn’t implied by the link.