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As a white person, on some level I don’t care about “hate speech” against my race. Sticks and stones, etc. I like to think that I’m strong enough to not be affe

As a white person, on some level I don’t care about “hate speech” against my race. Sticks and stones, etc. I like to think that I’m strong enough to not be affected by such things, and the prevailing ideology tells me that it’s nothing compared to what those in marginalized groups face. Policies like this one from Facebook are an extension of this notion. Besides, racial slurs, insults, and sweeping generalizations really say more about the person making them than they do about the target. Still, I don’t understand how policies like this can be seen as anything other than racism, by definition. And I don’t understand how racism can be defended as a good thing. Maybe that’s just my privilege.

chickenpotpie 5y ago
> Still, I don’t understand how policies like this can be seen as anything other than racism, by definition. And I don’t understand how racism can be defended as a good thing A good example I can give is if someone said “men rule the world” that is an objective truth and a problem we need to solve. Men have and continue to be extremely overrepresented in positions of power. Now if another person were to say “Jews rule the world” that is an ignorant and hurtful statement with a terrible history. Race/sex/religious/etc blind moderation would say either both statements are ok or neither are. But one statement is far more hurtful because of the historical connotation of it and what it implies. Two statements can have the same wording, but mean two fundamentally different things because of the history and struggle of that group. It’s not necessarily racist to allow certain statements about some groups and not others because it might mean something different depending on what group it’s directed towards.
- mercy_dude 5y ago
  > A good example I can give is if someone said “men rule the world” that is an objective truth and a problem we need to solve. And what would the solution look like? 50% men and 50% women in all professions? Including nursing, plumbing, construction etc.? And how would you achieve that? Using a quota? Forcing certain men/women taking more/less qualified positions than they are? And who and what defines power? CEOs? Highly paid jobs? > It’s not necessarily racist to allow certain statements about some groups and not others because it might mean something different depending on what group it’s directed towards. How many such groups are you going to cater to? And who gets to be the judge of what is ok to say in one group vs another and between ranking those groups? There are so many technical problems with these kind of thinking I can’t imagine how this ends well for anyone.
  - chickenpotpie 5y ago
    your argument is equality is hard so we should give up. > There are so many TECHNICAL problems I think this is the very problematic root of everything you said. There is no algorithm or equation to solve these problems. Equality is not a solved problem. We’re never gonna sit down one day and say “as of this morning we hit our equality metric, we did it everyone.” This is a soft science. It’s about debate and humanity. There are no easy answers, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem worth solving.
    - mercy_dude 5y ago
      To solve a problem first you have to at least vaguely define what the problem is and the end result of the problem so you can work towards solution. Just stating the objective isn’t good enough. I didn’t say it is hard. My opinion was the problem is not even defined well. For example are we going to aim for 50% men and 50% women (or an equal spilt among all possible subdivisions of groups e.g LGBTQI/black/latinos/asians/212 nationalities etc) in every field no matter what the outcome is and how would we go about achieving this? It’s not an easy/hard problem it’s a definition problem. Also are we just going to act as if such equality only matters in tech industry and a few other places of power? And if so why? I am not saying we should give up but we have NO idea how to define equality and what the outcome is going to look like let alone how to achieve it. For example is the outcome equal subdivision among all genders, classes, races, nationalities and their cross products? Or just in race dimension? And who chooses the appropriate dimensions? For example if it is in just one dimensional problem then what about people who are mixed? Not to say it has been tried in different forms in Soviet Russia and other places which didn’t go so well. If we are going to try this again we better at least know how and what the end result will look like.
    - remarkEon 5y ago
      >your argument is equality is hard so we should give up. The argument you are responding to is that equality is hard, and explicitly racist policies make it harder, not easier. >We’re never gonna sit down one day and say “as of this morning we hit our equality metric, we did it everyone.” Which is to say, Facebook will have this policy of "low priority" for addressing "hateful" content directed at whites, men, and Americans in perpetuity? I genuinely don't understand your argument because on the one hand you admit this is a "soft", and largely arbitrary, metric but on the other you still claim that it's something that can even be "solved" at all (for some sufficient-yet-undefined definition of "solved").
- no_time 5y ago
  How is allowing "i hate crackers" helping anything though? Okay, It's less hurtful, I don't care either but this is like legalizing slapping people on the street because "well, it doesn't leave a mark"
- native_samples 5y ago
  There's no difference. The origins of the "Jews rule the world" meme was a massive over-representation in powerful jobs like finance. How is it hurtful and terrible to say it about Jews but when it's about men it's just objective and a problem. A problem! Incredibly tone deaf - you're implying that there should be some sort of ... solution. The point of studying history is to learn generalizable lessons from it. That sort of hyper-specific take is simply failing to learn from it.
evolve2k 5y ago
While it is definitely racially insensitive, it’s punching up to the majority, or more specifically the hegemony which is the majority that holds the power. Think of the school yard situation where Nick is bullied for his leg, Tony yelling, “You walk funny!”, punches down and isolates and separates Nick from the group. Inclusion (more so, not being rejected) is strongly important to most humans. If Nick shouts back “Tony, your straight legs are like everyone else”; it doesn’t hold much strength, power or bite. It’s because Nick is punching up. Tony remains comfortably part of the hegemonic group part of the majority with no loss of anything really. I think this is an evolution in distinctions on this, earlier framing was that any racially insensitive comments were all collectively racism; the current framing seems to be some comments are racially insensitive and are a bit awkward while others shift power, divide and exclude; and the later is being defined as the more contemporary definition of racism. In short if the type of slur is not biting at you it’s likely because your power or position or inclusion as “one of us”, is not at risk or in question and it’s hence much easier to brush off. For people who fit well into the majority, much of this can be very invisible; hence so many comments from people with privilege often confirming to each other; I can’t see a problem here, I don’t feel this.
- firebaze 5y ago
  Nick could just ignore the bullying from Tony. If he'd like, he could smirk when Tony launches a personal attack, pointing out - if asked - how insecure he is, and that he wishes him recovery. Perception dominates everything.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Its a bit different when Nick is excluded from classes because he "can't sit in his chair like everyone else"
- quinnjh 5y ago
  I dont think we should be encoding rules relating to which classes of people are "above" and "below". Can you see how encoding a platform with rule sets for the "highers" and "lowers" could be problematic if maintained for years? Obviously im failing to grapple with the content. However, it is time we look at race as a technology of control- and if the "above" class is taught sticks and stones while the "below" class is taught that words and silence are violence - are we not re-entrenching the same oppressive binaries? (Oh right i forgot what the point was)
huxflux 5y ago
I do care though.
mindslight 5y ago
I mainly agree with you as far as the effects on myself. However, another aspect of racism is that it disempowers the speaker. Someone blaming "the whites" for their situation is putting themselves in the same exact position as someone blaming "the blacks" for their situation. Even if there is some truth to what they are saying, they're adopting a very simplistic model of the world that will practically lead to more failure. In a sense such feel good simplistic explanations have become the bulk of modern politics, but this isn't a good thing.

chickenpotpie 5y ago

> Still, I don’t understand how policies like this can be seen as anything other than racism, by definition. And I don’t understand how racism can be defended as a good thing A good example I can give is if someone said “men rule the world” that is an objective truth and a problem we need to solve. Men have and continue to be extremely overrepresented in positions of power. Now if another person were to say “Jews rule the world” that is an ignorant and hurtful statement with a terrible history. Race/sex/religious/etc blind moderation would say either both statements are ok or neither are. But one statement is far more hurtful because of the historical connotation of it and what it implies. Two statements can have the same wording, but mean two fundamentally different things because of the history and struggle of that group. It’s not necessarily racist to allow certain statements about some groups and not others because it might mean something different depending on what group it’s directed towards.

mercy_dude 5y ago
> A good example I can give is if someone said “men rule the world” that is an objective truth and a problem we need to solve. And what would the solution look like? 50% men and 50% women in all professions? Including nursing, plumbing, construction etc.? And how would you achieve that? Using a quota? Forcing certain men/women taking more/less qualified positions than they are? And who and what defines power? CEOs? Highly paid jobs? > It’s not necessarily racist to allow certain statements about some groups and not others because it might mean something different depending on what group it’s directed towards. How many such groups are you going to cater to? And who gets to be the judge of what is ok to say in one group vs another and between ranking those groups? There are so many technical problems with these kind of thinking I can’t imagine how this ends well for anyone.
- chickenpotpie 5y ago
  your argument is equality is hard so we should give up. > There are so many TECHNICAL problems I think this is the very problematic root of everything you said. There is no algorithm or equation to solve these problems. Equality is not a solved problem. We’re never gonna sit down one day and say “as of this morning we hit our equality metric, we did it everyone.” This is a soft science. It’s about debate and humanity. There are no easy answers, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem worth solving.
  - mercy_dude 5y ago
    To solve a problem first you have to at least vaguely define what the problem is and the end result of the problem so you can work towards solution. Just stating the objective isn’t good enough. I didn’t say it is hard. My opinion was the problem is not even defined well. For example are we going to aim for 50% men and 50% women (or an equal spilt among all possible subdivisions of groups e.g LGBTQI/black/latinos/asians/212 nationalities etc) in every field no matter what the outcome is and how would we go about achieving this? It’s not an easy/hard problem it’s a definition problem. Also are we just going to act as if such equality only matters in tech industry and a few other places of power? And if so why? I am not saying we should give up but we have NO idea how to define equality and what the outcome is going to look like let alone how to achieve it. For example is the outcome equal subdivision among all genders, classes, races, nationalities and their cross products? Or just in race dimension? And who chooses the appropriate dimensions? For example if it is in just one dimensional problem then what about people who are mixed? Not to say it has been tried in different forms in Soviet Russia and other places which didn’t go so well. If we are going to try this again we better at least know how and what the end result will look like.
  - remarkEon 5y ago
    >your argument is equality is hard so we should give up. The argument you are responding to is that equality is hard, and explicitly racist policies make it harder, not easier. >We’re never gonna sit down one day and say “as of this morning we hit our equality metric, we did it everyone.” Which is to say, Facebook will have this policy of "low priority" for addressing "hateful" content directed at whites, men, and Americans in perpetuity? I genuinely don't understand your argument because on the one hand you admit this is a "soft", and largely arbitrary, metric but on the other you still claim that it's something that can even be "solved" at all (for some sufficient-yet-undefined definition of "solved").
no_time 5y ago
How is allowing "i hate crackers" helping anything though? Okay, It's less hurtful, I don't care either but this is like legalizing slapping people on the street because "well, it doesn't leave a mark"
native_samples 5y ago
There's no difference. The origins of the "Jews rule the world" meme was a massive over-representation in powerful jobs like finance. How is it hurtful and terrible to say it about Jews but when it's about men it's just objective and a problem. A problem! Incredibly tone deaf - you're implying that there should be some sort of ... solution. The point of studying history is to learn generalizable lessons from it. That sort of hyper-specific take is simply failing to learn from it.

evolve2k 5y ago

While it is definitely racially insensitive, it’s punching up to the majority, or more specifically the hegemony which is the majority that holds the power. Think of the school yard situation where Nick is bullied for his leg, Tony yelling, “You walk funny!”, punches down and isolates and separates Nick from the group. Inclusion (more so, not being rejected) is strongly important to most humans. If Nick shouts back “Tony, your straight legs are like everyone else”; it doesn’t hold much strength, power or bite. It’s because Nick is punching up. Tony remains comfortably part of the hegemonic group part of the majority with no loss of anything really. I think this is an evolution in distinctions on this, earlier framing was that any racially insensitive comments were all collectively racism; the current framing seems to be some comments are racially insensitive and are a bit awkward while others shift power, divide and exclude; and the later is being defined as the more contemporary definition of racism. In short if the type of slur is not biting at you it’s likely because your power or position or inclusion as “one of us”, is not at risk or in question and it’s hence much easier to brush off. For people who fit well into the majority, much of this can be very invisible; hence so many comments from people with privilege often confirming to each other; I can’t see a problem here, I don’t feel this.

firebaze 5y ago
Nick could just ignore the bullying from Tony. If he'd like, he could smirk when Tony launches a personal attack, pointing out - if asked - how insecure he is, and that he wishes him recovery. Perception dominates everything.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Its a bit different when Nick is excluded from classes because he "can't sit in his chair like everyone else"
quinnjh 5y ago
I dont think we should be encoding rules relating to which classes of people are "above" and "below". Can you see how encoding a platform with rule sets for the "highers" and "lowers" could be problematic if maintained for years? Obviously im failing to grapple with the content. However, it is time we look at race as a technology of control- and if the "above" class is taught sticks and stones while the "below" class is taught that words and silence are violence - are we not re-entrenching the same oppressive binaries? (Oh right i forgot what the point was)

huxflux 5y ago

I do care though.

mindslight 5y ago

I mainly agree with you as far as the effects on myself. However, another aspect of racism is that it disempowers the speaker. Someone blaming "the whites" for their situation is putting themselves in the same exact position as someone blaming "the blacks" for their situation. Even if there is some truth to what they are saying, they're adopting a very simplistic model of the world that will practically lead to more failure. In a sense such feel good simplistic explanations have become the bulk of modern politics, but this isn't a good thing.