5 ms·

I agree with benlumen. I think there is a group which is trying very hard to redefine what racism means, in order to advance a different ideology. It seems to b

by esja 6y ago

I agree with benlumen. I think there is a group which is trying very hard to redefine what racism means, in order to advance a different ideology. It seems to be working, at least in America. For those people, To Kill a Mockingbird is very dangerous, because it espouses the MLK philosophy (colour blindness) which most people agree with, but which they hate. For these modern "anti-racists", we must instead see race everywhere, and factor it into every aspect of our lives, making constant calculations and adjustments which we can never hope to do correctly, and which contain internal contradictions we can never resolve. This hands those people tremendous power. They are like parasites who have taken over a host. It took massive effort to reach the point in society where almost everyone agreed racism was unacceptable, and legitimately feared being called a racist. Like all "isms", we reached the point where almost everyone stopped thinking about what these terms actually mean, and just started substituting the word for a value judgement: racism bad, anti-racism good. This is the perfect setup for someone with different goals to hijack the concept.

UncleMeat 6y ago
MLK’s philosophy was not color blindness. This is just what people hear if they listen to one line from one speech from his entire career. He also explicitly stated that programs that specifically benefited black people and only black people as a mechanism to address prior injustice would be justified. “A society that has done something special against the negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the negro”.
- esja 6y ago
  Sure, but that's not important to the point I'm making. If you asked almost everybody even two years ago what "racism" or "anti-racism" meant, and what Atticus Finch stood for, you would have gotten some version of "colour blindness" and probably some reference to MLK, because that one speech is what they consider the best expression of the view. Whatever else MLK said is irrelevant - it's about the specific idea that most people associated with anti-racism. The modern "anti-racists" have very different beliefs, which would have very little support if the implications were spelled out clearly to everyone, and therefore these beliefs need to be laundered and disguised as something more respectable. Hence the language games.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    Of course it is important. Because it is moral justification for why "color blindness" is morally superior to alternatives pushed by a subset of anti-racists. By referencing MLK, a figure often revered as a moral compass, your post presents anti-racists as a corrupted extension of the valid work done in the 60s. My point is that if you want to complain about modern anti-racists, you are very likely also complaining about MLK's beliefs too. That can be a thing you can do, but your moral foundations become less automatically rock solid and require some justification.
    - esja 6y ago
      The point was not that modern anti-racists are wrong because they disagreed with MLK on some topics, it was that they are wrong because they completely reject colour blindness, of which MLK’s famous statements are one well-known example. Perhaps I should have picked a different person or just not mentioned him. Again: It’s about the specific idea, not a person. And the idea is what is being hijacked, to mean almost the opposite of what was generally accepted.
      - UncleMeat 6y ago
        > Perhaps I should have picked a different person or just not mentioned him. I agree. MLK is consistently used as a cudgel to defend color-blindness despite never supporting that approach.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > If you asked almost everybody [...] what Atticus Finch stood for, you would have gotten some version of "colour blindness" Eh. I like to think someone might have answered along the lines of "you shouldn't throw people in jail for crimes they didn't commit".
    - esja 6y ago
      No, it was already very well accepted that you shouldn’t throw white people in jail for crimes they didn’t commit. It was not well accepted if the accused was black. The challenge was to persuade people (many of whom were racists) to see the accused man as equal to a white man before the law, and deserving of the same treatment as a white man would have received. In other words, to persuade people to be blind to his colour in their assessment of the case. There are plenty of novels about defending people against crimes they didn’t commit. This one is about much more than that.
atlasunknown 6y ago
I think there is a good reason why people who consider themselves anti-racists think we should see race in many places, and why they think 'color-blindness' is not enough. The main reason is that, if people of a particular group have been treated very badly by society for a long time, simply stopping that treatment is unambiguously a good thing, but it leaves that group in a disadvantaged position which can persist long after the persecution stops. Black people start off life (on average!) with a substantial disadvantage, so if we want people to have equal opportunities to achieve great things regardless of the colour of their skin, you have to do something to redress the balance. This is why they sometimes advocate for preferential treatment for minorities: equal opportunity is no good if one group of people do not have equal access to those opportunities because they were born poor as a result of historical injustices. An analogy sometimes used is that of a house on fire. If your house is on fire, you'd like the fire brigade to focus their attention on your house, rather than nearby houses that are not on fire. To an anti-racist, the idea of ignoring the colour of people's skin entirely is as misguided as the idea of fire-fighters focussing on all houses regardless of whether they are on fire.
- esja 6y ago
  Is an Asian child who is born poor less deserving of help than a black child who is born poor? If so, why? If not, why not? And if your ultimate goal is a society where race is irrelevant and we all treat each other equally, exactly how does doing the opposite get you there?
  - atlasunknown 6y ago
    I believe that society remains biased against black people and as such, if we have limited resources to help people escape poverty then they should disproportionately be used to support poor black people. To me, ultimate goal is a society that is not biased for or against any racial group. Currently society is biased against some racial groups, so to redress the balance I believe that we should give more support to those that society is biased against. Maybe it's a silly metaphor, but imagine a seesaw. Currently more weight is on the left than the right, so it's unbalanced. I'd like it to be equally balanced so at the moment, I think the best thing to do it place more weight on the right.

by esja 6y ago

UncleMeat 6y ago

MLK’s philosophy was not color blindness. This is just what people hear if they listen to one line from one speech from his entire career. He also explicitly stated that programs that specifically benefited black people and only black people as a mechanism to address prior injustice would be justified. “A society that has done something special against the negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the negro”.

esja 6y ago
Sure, but that's not important to the point I'm making. If you asked almost everybody even two years ago what "racism" or "anti-racism" meant, and what Atticus Finch stood for, you would have gotten some version of "colour blindness" and probably some reference to MLK, because that one speech is what they consider the best expression of the view. Whatever else MLK said is irrelevant - it's about the specific idea that most people associated with anti-racism. The modern "anti-racists" have very different beliefs, which would have very little support if the implications were spelled out clearly to everyone, and therefore these beliefs need to be laundered and disguised as something more respectable. Hence the language games.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  Of course it is important. Because it is moral justification for why "color blindness" is morally superior to alternatives pushed by a subset of anti-racists. By referencing MLK, a figure often revered as a moral compass, your post presents anti-racists as a corrupted extension of the valid work done in the 60s. My point is that if you want to complain about modern anti-racists, you are very likely also complaining about MLK's beliefs too. That can be a thing you can do, but your moral foundations become less automatically rock solid and require some justification.
  - esja 6y ago
    The point was not that modern anti-racists are wrong because they disagreed with MLK on some topics, it was that they are wrong because they completely reject colour blindness, of which MLK’s famous statements are one well-known example. Perhaps I should have picked a different person or just not mentioned him. Again: It’s about the specific idea, not a person. And the idea is what is being hijacked, to mean almost the opposite of what was generally accepted.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      > Perhaps I should have picked a different person or just not mentioned him. I agree. MLK is consistently used as a cudgel to defend color-blindness despite never supporting that approach.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > If you asked almost everybody [...] what Atticus Finch stood for, you would have gotten some version of "colour blindness" Eh. I like to think someone might have answered along the lines of "you shouldn't throw people in jail for crimes they didn't commit".
  - esja 6y ago
    No, it was already very well accepted that you shouldn’t throw white people in jail for crimes they didn’t commit. It was not well accepted if the accused was black. The challenge was to persuade people (many of whom were racists) to see the accused man as equal to a white man before the law, and deserving of the same treatment as a white man would have received. In other words, to persuade people to be blind to his colour in their assessment of the case. There are plenty of novels about defending people against crimes they didn’t commit. This one is about much more than that.

atlasunknown 6y ago

I think there is a good reason why people who consider themselves anti-racists think we should see race in many places, and why they think 'color-blindness' is not enough. The main reason is that, if people of a particular group have been treated very badly by society for a long time, simply stopping that treatment is unambiguously a good thing, but it leaves that group in a disadvantaged position which can persist long after the persecution stops. Black people start off life (on average!) with a substantial disadvantage, so if we want people to have equal opportunities to achieve great things regardless of the colour of their skin, you have to do something to redress the balance. This is why they sometimes advocate for preferential treatment for minorities: equal opportunity is no good if one group of people do not have equal access to those opportunities because they were born poor as a result of historical injustices. An analogy sometimes used is that of a house on fire. If your house is on fire, you'd like the fire brigade to focus their attention on your house, rather than nearby houses that are not on fire. To an anti-racist, the idea of ignoring the colour of people's skin entirely is as misguided as the idea of fire-fighters focussing on all houses regardless of whether they are on fire.

esja 6y ago
Is an Asian child who is born poor less deserving of help than a black child who is born poor? If so, why? If not, why not? And if your ultimate goal is a society where race is irrelevant and we all treat each other equally, exactly how does doing the opposite get you there?
- atlasunknown 6y ago
  I believe that society remains biased against black people and as such, if we have limited resources to help people escape poverty then they should disproportionately be used to support poor black people. To me, ultimate goal is a society that is not biased for or against any racial group. Currently society is biased against some racial groups, so to redress the balance I believe that we should give more support to those that society is biased against. Maybe it's a silly metaphor, but imagine a seesaw. Currently more weight is on the left than the right, so it's unbalanced. I'd like it to be equally balanced so at the moment, I think the best thing to do it place more weight on the right.