4 ms·

>you say cishet white guys and you can group up a whole lot of people without thinking much about them as individuals. I can empathize with the "turnabout is f

>you say cishet white guys and you can group up a whole lot of people without thinking much about them as individuals. I can empathize with the "turnabout is fair play" logic of it... >Do you believe this is constructive language that bridges the divide that's part of these issues? ...but, like you, I question its effectiveness in bringing us all together. My guess is that it generally triggers a sense of awareness in those who are already somewhere on the "allied" spectrum and that it triggers defensiveness and entrenchment in those that are on the fence or further away. There is clear benefit in the former and detriment in the latter. As you said: "know your audience."

smolder 5y ago
There's no "turnabout" happening in being prejudiced against a group full of unique people, many of whom aren't so prejudiced.
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  I can't imagine that you are arguing that non-white, non-cis, and non-hetro people haven't been prejudiced against by whitecishetromales. That's where the "turnabout" comes into play. If you are pointing out that the "turnabout" is also prejudicial, then I obviously agree. The point I was making is that when it is misapplied, it's potentially helpful (in creating additional awareness in those who are on some spectrum of "allied") and when it is accurately applied, it's detrimental (as it is likely to lead to "defensiveness and entrenchment"). In this way, it may also serve as a way to measure our own position. Also, I don't think anyone knows whether "many" is accurate. The same point is made by saying "some."
  - majormajor 5y ago
    Labeling, as used in this article, is hardly even turnabout. The dominant group may not explicitly create a term to label themselves, but the act of exclusion requires separating out the "other," and so labeling the non-other isn't so much an act of "turnabout" as just putting a word to an already-created group. The people originally assuming all white/male/heterosexual/whatever people can and should be lumped together are the ones who have and continue to try to restrict jobs, property, and liberty from being given to people outside that group. People will go a very long rhetorical way to try to refute the idea that if you want to fix racism in the US you need to address the very real and still very powerful and connected white racists. That problem won't magically fix itself because the people who desire racism to continue actively pursue it. We can't even get rid of the confederate flag, for goodness sake.
    - a1369209993 5y ago
      > if you want to fix racism in the US you need to address the very real and still very powerful and connected [] racists. Yes, exactly. And assuming all white/male/heterosexual/whatever people can and should be lumped together helps said racists, as might be expected from their being the ones who originally did so.
      - majormajor 5y ago
        That lumping is, again, descriptive. And it's an often-useful description/category in large part because of that historical racism. Getting worked up over that is a huge waste of time, to the point that I now wonder if it's a sideshow. If we waste our time arguing about if this "the diverse hires left and the new hires after them were white" description is bad, we've been successfully distracted. The idea that anyone is actually offended or feels harmed by that paragraph we're talking about is absurd - could you imagine how such people would feel if they were part of one of the out-groups instead and didn't just get lumped together but also had been attacked by the centuries of racism in the US? This is the paragraph in question, once again: > For example, I once worked for a company that poured a lot of effort into inclusive hiring: they made an inclusion skills rubric, placed ads in “diverse” tech spaces, et cetera. Two years later, all the “diverse people” they had carefully collected had left, and the company had backfilled with almost exclusively cishet white guys. If you don't let yourself look at the demographics, you blind yourself to any ability to evaluate effectiveness in terms of fighting the historical and present effects of white supremacy in the US. Note that the "diverse people" are similarly lumped together because it's non-judgmentally discussing the effects of a policy, nothing more. I don't see any way someone takes offense at that paragraph, but I see lots of ways someone would pretend to in order to make reactionary/distracting claims about if we even need to try to fight that historical racism.
        crazy_horse 5y ago
        > The idea that anyone is actually offended or feels harmed by that paragraph we're talking about is absurd It surprises me that you don't see that language like this is the same language used against marginalized groups. Nobody but the person that is offended gets to decide how they feel. We as people of lots of overlapping concerns have to be empathetic or we'll get more factionalism instead of unity and inclusion.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - smolder 5y ago
    > If you are pointing out that the "turnabout" is also prejudicial, then I obviously agree. Yes. It's never really "turnabout" to employ prejudice, because by nature you're not targeting the people who targeted you, you're targeting a broader group and repeating the error.

smolder 5y ago

There's no "turnabout" happening in being prejudiced against a group full of unique people, many of whom aren't so prejudiced.

wintermutestwin 5y ago
I can't imagine that you are arguing that non-white, non-cis, and non-hetro people haven't been prejudiced against by whitecishetromales. That's where the "turnabout" comes into play. If you are pointing out that the "turnabout" is also prejudicial, then I obviously agree. The point I was making is that when it is misapplied, it's potentially helpful (in creating additional awareness in those who are on some spectrum of "allied") and when it is accurately applied, it's detrimental (as it is likely to lead to "defensiveness and entrenchment"). In this way, it may also serve as a way to measure our own position. Also, I don't think anyone knows whether "many" is accurate. The same point is made by saying "some."
- majormajor 5y ago
  Labeling, as used in this article, is hardly even turnabout. The dominant group may not explicitly create a term to label themselves, but the act of exclusion requires separating out the "other," and so labeling the non-other isn't so much an act of "turnabout" as just putting a word to an already-created group. The people originally assuming all white/male/heterosexual/whatever people can and should be lumped together are the ones who have and continue to try to restrict jobs, property, and liberty from being given to people outside that group. People will go a very long rhetorical way to try to refute the idea that if you want to fix racism in the US you need to address the very real and still very powerful and connected white racists. That problem won't magically fix itself because the people who desire racism to continue actively pursue it. We can't even get rid of the confederate flag, for goodness sake.
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    > if you want to fix racism in the US you need to address the very real and still very powerful and connected [] racists. Yes, exactly. And assuming all white/male/heterosexual/whatever people can and should be lumped together helps said racists, as might be expected from their being the ones who originally did so.
    - majormajor 5y ago
      That lumping is, again, descriptive. And it's an often-useful description/category in large part because of that historical racism. Getting worked up over that is a huge waste of time, to the point that I now wonder if it's a sideshow. If we waste our time arguing about if this "the diverse hires left and the new hires after them were white" description is bad, we've been successfully distracted. The idea that anyone is actually offended or feels harmed by that paragraph we're talking about is absurd - could you imagine how such people would feel if they were part of one of the out-groups instead and didn't just get lumped together but also had been attacked by the centuries of racism in the US? This is the paragraph in question, once again: > For example, I once worked for a company that poured a lot of effort into inclusive hiring: they made an inclusion skills rubric, placed ads in “diverse” tech spaces, et cetera. Two years later, all the “diverse people” they had carefully collected had left, and the company had backfilled with almost exclusively cishet white guys. If you don't let yourself look at the demographics, you blind yourself to any ability to evaluate effectiveness in terms of fighting the historical and present effects of white supremacy in the US. Note that the "diverse people" are similarly lumped together because it's non-judgmentally discussing the effects of a policy, nothing more. I don't see any way someone takes offense at that paragraph, but I see lots of ways someone would pretend to in order to make reactionary/distracting claims about if we even need to try to fight that historical racism.
      - crazy_horse 5y ago
        > The idea that anyone is actually offended or feels harmed by that paragraph we're talking about is absurd It surprises me that you don't see that language like this is the same language used against marginalized groups. Nobody but the person that is offended gets to decide how they feel. We as people of lots of overlapping concerns have to be empathetic or we'll get more factionalism instead of unity and inclusion.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- smolder 5y ago
  > If you are pointing out that the "turnabout" is also prejudicial, then I obviously agree. Yes. It's never really "turnabout" to employ prejudice, because by nature you're not targeting the people who targeted you, you're targeting a broader group and repeating the error.