3 ms·

I think the point the OP is making is that an overt statement such as "White power!!1 Jews will not replace us!!!sixonetikitorches" directly exposes a white sup

by dools 5y ago

I think the point the OP is making is that an overt statement such as "White power!!1 Jews will not replace us!!!sixonetikitorches" directly exposes a white supremacist opinion, whereas there are less overt actions that, if analysed thoughtfully, also expose white supremacy. It is very similar to people who say "I'm not racist, I don't think I'm superior to anyone and the dictionary definition of racism is to assume superiority based on race" (this is more or less a direct quote from Pauline Hanson, an Australian Senator who is wildly racist). What I have found in discussions with people who I think are racist, but who deny it, is that they have an emphasis on personal agency and personal responsibility. So while they might be able to happily have black friends, they see, for example, disparaties in incarceration rates not as a social problem but as an aggregation of personal failures. If one believes that a particular race is, on average, more likely to commit the types of crime for which one should be incarcerated, and one sees incarceration as an "inferior" way of life, then the logical conclusion is that they are racist. An interesting thing to note about analysing racism this way is that it can also uncover racist attitudes in the very minority populations who are being discriminated against. Also "defund the police" is a shorthand that typically means "reduce direct law enforcement funding and instead fund other community engagement programs". Of course we need cops, but we don't necessarily need them all armed to the teeth in riot gear showing up for a drug bust (sub-question: do we really need drug busts at all?), and maybe they're not the best first responders in domestic disputes, and so on. Most people for whom "defund the police" is a catchcry recognise this, because there are very few true anarchists in society (and anarchy is kind of where "left meets right" in the political spectrum anyway, which is why libertarianism is such a dangerous and insidious ideology).

vorpalhex 5y ago
Oddly, several members of the defund movement have said they literally want to defund and abolish the police. It's almost like words mean things? > If one believes that a particular race is, on average, more likely to commit the types of crime for which one should be incarcerated, and one sees incarceration as an "inferior" way of life, then the logical conclusion is that they are racist. You can try to argue that crime rates show disproportional racial representation for a bunch of reasons. Claiming anyone who states the facts is racist is wrong.
- dools 5y ago
  > Oddly, several members of the defund movement have said they literally want to defund and abolish the police. It's almost like words mean things? Yes those are the "few anarchists" I was referring to. From what I have seen of people discussing the "defund the police" movement it's about a dramatic reform of law enforcement, including much less emphasis on armed police storming about the place. > You can try to argue that crime rates show disproportional racial representation for a bunch of reasons. Claiming anyone who states the facts is racist is wrong. I didn't claim anyone stating the facts is wrong, I made the claim that when people attribute a statistical anomaly like disparity in incarceration rates to an aggregation of personal failures rather than a systemic problem, they are logically being racist (even if they don't see it as such).
  - arp242 5y ago
    One of the BLM co-founders and current directory of the BLM non-profit is one of those "few anarchists" who proposed to outright abolish the police.[1] That article also proposes to abolish prisons, the military, borders, capitalism, and includes phrases such as "U.S. [and its] fabricated borders" and calls to "fight the U.S. state". If you had told me this was written by some troll to make BLM look bad then I'd believe you. To be fair, there are some good things in that article too, it's not all bad; it contains some anecdotes worth hearing, but that doesn't follow that the conclusions are also good. This is also the same person who cited Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong as inspirations, by the way.[2] Yes, really, that Mao. I genuinely thought this was inserted by a vandal on the Wikipedia article when I encountered it last week, but the source pans out. I mean, people don't just get these "abolish the police" and "BLM is a Marxist organisation" out of thin air. Granted, there is a lot of bad-faith trollism from Tucker Carlson and similar people, but if your message is so confused, easily misunderstood, and your leadership says things in support of the most extreme interpretations then quite frankly, you have no one else to blame but yourself. [1]: https://harvardlawreview.org/2019/04/abolition-and-reparations-histories-of-resistance-transformative-justice-and-accountability/ https://harvardlawreview.org/2019/04/abolition-and-reparatio... [2]: https://time.com/5171270/black-lives-matter-patrisse-cullors/ https://time.com/5171270/black-lives-matter-patrisse-cullors...
moduspol 5y ago
> What I have found in discussions with people who I think are racist, but who deny it, Define "racist"
- dools 5y ago
  Those who think that a group of people are inferior based on racial characteristics (and/or ethnicity ... ie. for some definition of "race" even though the very distinction is pretty tenuous if you get into the biology/genetics of it all).
iptpus 5y ago
> Also "defund the police" is a shorthand that typically means "reduce direct law enforcement funding and instead fund other community engagement programs". "Reform the police" is much more universalist term that people across multiple political spectrums would have gotten behind (and it's still memorable). I'm not sure why it wasn't used instead.
- bullfightonmars 5y ago
  Reform the Police had been the modus oparandi for fixinf policing for >50 years. It hasn’t worked. That is why more absolute language has been used. Policing organizations/unions/departments have refused to change, evolve, or improve their behavior.
  - simondotau 5y ago
    Perhaps then the slogan should be closer to "Replace the Police". Something that represents both the dismantling and rebuilding of police forces. Personally I'm a big fan of requiring a much, much higher standard of training than police have now. Especially when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. The best way to minimise the consequences is to ensure that we have maximised their skill potential with the forms of intervention which have the least risk of permanent consequences.
    - ryanbrunner 5y ago
      There's probably a larger group of people that want to see portions of the police budget reallocated than the police disbanded and reformed. There's really not a great term that perfectly captures what everyone wants, but at least some common ground is "less funding", which "defund" is at least close to if you squint.
golemiprague 5y ago
This is not white supremacy, if anything I would say they believe in "black inferiority on average" since they don't direct this sentiment to other non white races and they don't direct it at black individuals who seems worthy in their eyes. You can argue such a sentiment is racist if those people thought that blacks will not be able to lift themselves up from the situation they are in, on average. But if they do think personal agency could change it, then what is the racial issue here? They are just pointing the current situation in this specific time, not an inherent problem with the black race. You could argue their solution of personal agency and responsibility is not going to work, but that is not a race question, it is a general social policy question how to lift people from a dire situation, which I agree, developing personal agency is difficult when you don't even know what you don't know. In my eyes it is more of a class problem and those calls for personal agency will be directed to anybody who is in a bad situation, not necessarly to blacks. It is because it is very hard for people to imagine the lack of mental ability and skills some people have when they are not brought up in a certain culture or class for that matter.

by dools 5y ago

vorpalhex 5y ago

Oddly, several members of the defund movement have said they literally want to defund and abolish the police. It's almost like words mean things? > If one believes that a particular race is, on average, more likely to commit the types of crime for which one should be incarcerated, and one sees incarceration as an "inferior" way of life, then the logical conclusion is that they are racist. You can try to argue that crime rates show disproportional racial representation for a bunch of reasons. Claiming anyone who states the facts is racist is wrong.

dools 5y ago
> Oddly, several members of the defund movement have said they literally want to defund and abolish the police. It's almost like words mean things? Yes those are the "few anarchists" I was referring to. From what I have seen of people discussing the "defund the police" movement it's about a dramatic reform of law enforcement, including much less emphasis on armed police storming about the place. > You can try to argue that crime rates show disproportional racial representation for a bunch of reasons. Claiming anyone who states the facts is racist is wrong. I didn't claim anyone stating the facts is wrong, I made the claim that when people attribute a statistical anomaly like disparity in incarceration rates to an aggregation of personal failures rather than a systemic problem, they are logically being racist (even if they don't see it as such).
- arp242 5y ago
  One of the BLM co-founders and current directory of the BLM non-profit is one of those "few anarchists" who proposed to outright abolish the police.[1] That article also proposes to abolish prisons, the military, borders, capitalism, and includes phrases such as "U.S. [and its] fabricated borders" and calls to "fight the U.S. state". If you had told me this was written by some troll to make BLM look bad then I'd believe you. To be fair, there are some good things in that article too, it's not all bad; it contains some anecdotes worth hearing, but that doesn't follow that the conclusions are also good. This is also the same person who cited Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong as inspirations, by the way.[2] Yes, really, that Mao. I genuinely thought this was inserted by a vandal on the Wikipedia article when I encountered it last week, but the source pans out. I mean, people don't just get these "abolish the police" and "BLM is a Marxist organisation" out of thin air. Granted, there is a lot of bad-faith trollism from Tucker Carlson and similar people, but if your message is so confused, easily misunderstood, and your leadership says things in support of the most extreme interpretations then quite frankly, you have no one else to blame but yourself. [1]: https://harvardlawreview.org/2019/04/abolition-and-reparations-histories-of-resistance-transformative-justice-and-accountability/ https://harvardlawreview.org/2019/04/abolition-and-reparatio... [2]: https://time.com/5171270/black-lives-matter-patrisse-cullors/ https://time.com/5171270/black-lives-matter-patrisse-cullors...

moduspol 5y ago

> What I have found in discussions with people who I think are racist, but who deny it, Define "racist"

dools 5y ago
Those who think that a group of people are inferior based on racial characteristics (and/or ethnicity ... ie. for some definition of "race" even though the very distinction is pretty tenuous if you get into the biology/genetics of it all).

iptpus 5y ago

> Also "defund the police" is a shorthand that typically means "reduce direct law enforcement funding and instead fund other community engagement programs". "Reform the police" is much more universalist term that people across multiple political spectrums would have gotten behind (and it's still memorable). I'm not sure why it wasn't used instead.

bullfightonmars 5y ago
Reform the Police had been the modus oparandi for fixinf policing for >50 years. It hasn’t worked. That is why more absolute language has been used. Policing organizations/unions/departments have refused to change, evolve, or improve their behavior.
- simondotau 5y ago
  Perhaps then the slogan should be closer to "Replace the Police". Something that represents both the dismantling and rebuilding of police forces. Personally I'm a big fan of requiring a much, much higher standard of training than police have now. Especially when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. The best way to minimise the consequences is to ensure that we have maximised their skill potential with the forms of intervention which have the least risk of permanent consequences.
  - ryanbrunner 5y ago
    There's probably a larger group of people that want to see portions of the police budget reallocated than the police disbanded and reformed. There's really not a great term that perfectly captures what everyone wants, but at least some common ground is "less funding", which "defund" is at least close to if you squint.

golemiprague 5y ago

This is not white supremacy, if anything I would say they believe in "black inferiority on average" since they don't direct this sentiment to other non white races and they don't direct it at black individuals who seems worthy in their eyes. You can argue such a sentiment is racist if those people thought that blacks will not be able to lift themselves up from the situation they are in, on average. But if they do think personal agency could change it, then what is the racial issue here? They are just pointing the current situation in this specific time, not an inherent problem with the black race. You could argue their solution of personal agency and responsibility is not going to work, but that is not a race question, it is a general social policy question how to lift people from a dire situation, which I agree, developing personal agency is difficult when you don't even know what you don't know. In my eyes it is more of a class problem and those calls for personal agency will be directed to anybody who is in a bad situation, not necessarly to blacks. It is because it is very hard for people to imagine the lack of mental ability and skills some people have when they are not brought up in a certain culture or class for that matter.