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Haha, am I like literally the only black person here? I'm serious, I've been scrolling down and I don't see anyone else? Anyway, to try to summarize it all; No

by jrm4 5y ago

Haha, am I like literally the only black person here? I'm serious, I've been scrolling down and I don't see anyone else? Anyway, to try to summarize it all; Nothing surprising about the article; the difficulty comes in where very well meaning people try to come up with concrete/discrete "solutions" to racism, which is difficult. My take on most of them is, yeah, a lot of them are awkward and clumsy, but a hell of a lot better than nothing? It's a conversation. Anecdotally, I'm remembering a thing where at my alma mater they wanted to change the name of a title from "House Master" to "Faculty Dean." Fundamentally, like, who cares either way? It's really not important..but For me, the most telling thing wasn't so much the name itself (which me and my friends had a ton of jokes over), but how much people appeared to be invested in keeping the old name, as if it were that special, i.e. -- as people tried to defend the old name and just had terrible arguments for doing so, it became clear that the cause was "something else," i.e. if the old name was "House Leader" or something, I'm 100% certain those same people would NOT have been fighting that hard. So yeah, it's complicated.

chrismcb 5y ago
People also don't like change, especially when it seems nonsensical. In your specific case I could see some friction against the term "Dean" as it has a connotation that might but apply here. When I was in University they changed the logo. There was a huge uproar. Mainly it didn't make much sense. If course, now, decades later I love it. But just because people don't want to change doesn't always mean racism is involved.
- jrm4 5y ago
  Right -- but of course you're bringing up the HUGER issue of "what is racism?" - where the binary of "racist" or "not racist" is hugely deficient and frequently unhelpful. The easiest way I can think to explain it: e.g. Any white person who openly calls me the n-word is very likely a harmless loser to me. More likely to harm me and others; a more powerful person who's intelligent enough not to use it, but may wield language strategically, like perhaps while trying to get elected, denigrates the black opponent by saying "let's not monkey this up." That person might actually like black people, and was being strategic to get racists votes through the dog-whistle, since they have plausible deniability. The second guy feels "less racist," right? BUT HE'S MUCH WORSE THAN THE FIRST GUY in my opinion.
Clubber 5y ago
I can't read minds, but it reminds me about when people lost their shit when Pluto was declassified as a planet. I try to remember to give people the benefit of the doubt, mainly for my benefit.
allturtles 5y ago
There are a few reasons they might care: 1) They are secretly racists and the House Master was a racist term, so they liked it (this is what you seem to imply?) 2) Accepting the change would mean accepting that they were formerly acting in a racist way in using the term House Master (since they are implicitly accepting that 'master' is a racist term) 3) They felt that the House Master was a small but important part of their cultural heritage and continuity as members of / alumni of X University, and now that is now being taken away. 4) They want to draw a line on this kind of change (the give an inch and they'll take a mile theory), rather than be subjected to future demands to change X, Y, and Z also.
- jollybean 5y ago
  Or the most obvious reason: 'Principle'. Which is to say, something should not be labelled 'blue' if it is not 'blue'? And definitely not 'guilty' if they are indeed not 'guilty'? It's one thing to 'change the name' it's another to do it on the basis of some accusation of very criminal wrongthink.
  - jrm4 5y ago
    "Blue", "Not guilty" and e.g. "House Master" are ENTIRELY fundamentally different types of concepts and there's no reason to much compare them. Different cultures call different things blue, and some don't even have blue. Frequently subjective. "Guilty," as you are likely using it -- is emphatically not an objective description of an event that happened in the real world. It is a description of a judge or jury's best evaluation of such given certain evidence. Again, also subjective. The principle that I think you're invoking is something like "prescriptive" (as opposed to descriptive) language, which tends to be useless at best and a dangerous tool that keeps powerful people powerful at worst.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      So those are good points, but I think you're missing the meaning of the term 'Principled' possibly given distraction by the examples that I gave. We can make populist, emotional, political, purely rational and technical appeals, but 'principled' is the approach that I believe should be taken. It shouldn't even be remotely controversial to say that. While 'Blue' is less subjective that 'Guilty' we have 'Principled' ways of assessing those things outside the context of hyperbole. While 'guilty' has much more broad meaning that simply the notion of 'legal guilt' as you're implying, even within that context we can absolutely make objective determination (or try to) given legal parameters aka: Murder is illegal, we have a video of a man shooting someone and killing them, he's admitted to doing it ergo -> he is 'guilty' in a very objective sense. A 'principled' approach would involve trying to assess if there's material objectivity to the degree something is offensive, weighing the gravity of the change, listening to those who are personally aggrieved and trying to determine why, contextualizing the information and making an assessment etc.. An 'unprincipled' approach would be making a decision that appealed so some kind of populist emotion, virtue signalling (in either direction), placating the powerful, ignoring facts, appeasing the loudest voices, doing what 'Twitter' is pressuring to do, caving to threats, applying oddball ideologies, over representing or poorly contextualizing information etc..
somedude895 5y ago
I feel that it's not so much about fighting the change itself, but disagreeing with the Why. Agreeing with the change would mean agreeing with those people's views. It means giving them the power of interpreting the world the way they want and allowing them to force that interpretation on others.
rayiner 5y ago
> My take on most of them is, yeah, a lot of them are awkward and clumsy, but a hell of a lot better than nothing? As the article points out, research shows that fear of racism hurts minorities. Insofar as these “solutions” cause minorities to perceive racism where there isn’t any, without effecting real change, that may be worse than nothing. > It's a conversation It’s usually not. > but how much people appeared to be invested in keeping the old name, as if it were that special People get antsy when flimsy reasoning is used to change things around them. The “master” as a label for school heads dates back at least to 15th century England, long before Britain participated in the slave trade. But that doesn’t matter and it makes people mad that it doesn’t matter.
- Tomte 5y ago
  That's an interesting point, so I looked it up. Etymology for master: https://www.etymonline.com/word/master https://www.etymonline.com/word/master

by jrm4 5y ago

chrismcb 5y ago

People also don't like change, especially when it seems nonsensical. In your specific case I could see some friction against the term "Dean" as it has a connotation that might but apply here. When I was in University they changed the logo. There was a huge uproar. Mainly it didn't make much sense. If course, now, decades later I love it. But just because people don't want to change doesn't always mean racism is involved.

jrm4 5y ago
Right -- but of course you're bringing up the HUGER issue of "what is racism?" - where the binary of "racist" or "not racist" is hugely deficient and frequently unhelpful. The easiest way I can think to explain it: e.g. Any white person who openly calls me the n-word is very likely a harmless loser to me. More likely to harm me and others; a more powerful person who's intelligent enough not to use it, but may wield language strategically, like perhaps while trying to get elected, denigrates the black opponent by saying "let's not monkey this up." That person might actually like black people, and was being strategic to get racists votes through the dog-whistle, since they have plausible deniability. The second guy feels "less racist," right? BUT HE'S MUCH WORSE THAN THE FIRST GUY in my opinion.

Clubber 5y ago

I can't read minds, but it reminds me about when people lost their shit when Pluto was declassified as a planet. I try to remember to give people the benefit of the doubt, mainly for my benefit.

allturtles 5y ago

There are a few reasons they might care: 1) They are secretly racists and the House Master was a racist term, so they liked it (this is what you seem to imply?) 2) Accepting the change would mean accepting that they were formerly acting in a racist way in using the term House Master (since they are implicitly accepting that 'master' is a racist term) 3) They felt that the House Master was a small but important part of their cultural heritage and continuity as members of / alumni of X University, and now that is now being taken away. 4) They want to draw a line on this kind of change (the give an inch and they'll take a mile theory), rather than be subjected to future demands to change X, Y, and Z also.

jollybean 5y ago
Or the most obvious reason: 'Principle'. Which is to say, something should not be labelled 'blue' if it is not 'blue'? And definitely not 'guilty' if they are indeed not 'guilty'? It's one thing to 'change the name' it's another to do it on the basis of some accusation of very criminal wrongthink.
- jrm4 5y ago
  "Blue", "Not guilty" and e.g. "House Master" are ENTIRELY fundamentally different types of concepts and there's no reason to much compare them. Different cultures call different things blue, and some don't even have blue. Frequently subjective. "Guilty," as you are likely using it -- is emphatically not an objective description of an event that happened in the real world. It is a description of a judge or jury's best evaluation of such given certain evidence. Again, also subjective. The principle that I think you're invoking is something like "prescriptive" (as opposed to descriptive) language, which tends to be useless at best and a dangerous tool that keeps powerful people powerful at worst.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    So those are good points, but I think you're missing the meaning of the term 'Principled' possibly given distraction by the examples that I gave. We can make populist, emotional, political, purely rational and technical appeals, but 'principled' is the approach that I believe should be taken. It shouldn't even be remotely controversial to say that. While 'Blue' is less subjective that 'Guilty' we have 'Principled' ways of assessing those things outside the context of hyperbole. While 'guilty' has much more broad meaning that simply the notion of 'legal guilt' as you're implying, even within that context we can absolutely make objective determination (or try to) given legal parameters aka: Murder is illegal, we have a video of a man shooting someone and killing them, he's admitted to doing it ergo -> he is 'guilty' in a very objective sense. A 'principled' approach would involve trying to assess if there's material objectivity to the degree something is offensive, weighing the gravity of the change, listening to those who are personally aggrieved and trying to determine why, contextualizing the information and making an assessment etc.. An 'unprincipled' approach would be making a decision that appealed so some kind of populist emotion, virtue signalling (in either direction), placating the powerful, ignoring facts, appeasing the loudest voices, doing what 'Twitter' is pressuring to do, caving to threats, applying oddball ideologies, over representing or poorly contextualizing information etc..

somedude895 5y ago

I feel that it's not so much about fighting the change itself, but disagreeing with the Why. Agreeing with the change would mean agreeing with those people's views. It means giving them the power of interpreting the world the way they want and allowing them to force that interpretation on others.

rayiner 5y ago

> My take on most of them is, yeah, a lot of them are awkward and clumsy, but a hell of a lot better than nothing? As the article points out, research shows that fear of racism hurts minorities. Insofar as these “solutions” cause minorities to perceive racism where there isn’t any, without effecting real change, that may be worse than nothing. > It's a conversation It’s usually not. > but how much people appeared to be invested in keeping the old name, as if it were that special People get antsy when flimsy reasoning is used to change things around them. The “master” as a label for school heads dates back at least to 15th century England, long before Britain participated in the slave trade. But that doesn’t matter and it makes people mad that it doesn’t matter.

Tomte 5y ago
That's an interesting point, so I looked it up. Etymology for master: https://www.etymonline.com/word/master https://www.etymonline.com/word/master