4 ms·

Re (4), it seems to me like in order to change the existing influence of race on society you must first recognize it. I don’t see how everybody claiming to be c

Re (4), it seems to me like in order to change the existing influence of race on society you must first recognize it. I don’t see how everybody claiming to be colorblind when the systems and cultural institutions are structured to perpetuate racism could change anything. It seems like real color conscious changes must be made before color blindness is achievable.

throwaway894345 5y ago
I’m skeptical that there is much in the way of structural racism these days, but moreover, you can acknowledge a racist system while remaining colorblind. You can recognize that society racializes people without racializing people yourself. I don’t see how race conscious changes are helpful in the first place, much less are a prerequisite for colorblindness—if you have a racist system, it means the system isn’t colorblind, so just go straight to making it colorblind—why pass through a “color conscious” state (I also don’t understand the distinction between “color conscious” and “racist” except for connotations). That said, I would be curious to understand what systems and cultural institutions you believe to be structurally racist and how they operate and so on.
- philosopher1234 5y ago
  I don’t have a developed enough view to argue this well. I’ve just been listening to a lot of Ezra Klein and engaging with a lot of leftist sources for a bit now and it’s made me much more sympathetic to these views, which previously seemed pretty empty and useless to me. So, yea, I can’t really do it justice. It was sad for me because I’ve engaged with you in the past in defenses of Go and you made some really insightful points, so I began to count you as one of my HN heroes, and all my HN heroes (and other online heroes of mine) have left leaning politics from what I gather, so learning that you perhaps don’t required me to do some reconciling. But yea, I can’t give a specific accounting of racist institutions.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    I’m flattered, but I stay away from partisan politics as they’re often tribalistic and devoid of principle. I have a handful of left-wing positions (e.g., universal healthcare, environmentalism, etc) and I remain open minded about left-wing positions, but mostly I’m a liberal in the philosophical sense—free speech, equality, human rights, democracy, etc (I have a few right-wing positions as well, like a general preference for market-based solutions). The BLM adjacent ideologies conflict with my liberal values.

throwaway894345 5y ago

I’m skeptical that there is much in the way of structural racism these days, but moreover, you can acknowledge a racist system while remaining colorblind. You can recognize that society racializes people without racializing people yourself. I don’t see how race conscious changes are helpful in the first place, much less are a prerequisite for colorblindness—if you have a racist system, it means the system isn’t colorblind, so just go straight to making it colorblind—why pass through a “color conscious” state (I also don’t understand the distinction between “color conscious” and “racist” except for connotations). That said, I would be curious to understand what systems and cultural institutions you believe to be structurally racist and how they operate and so on.

philosopher1234 5y ago
I don’t have a developed enough view to argue this well. I’ve just been listening to a lot of Ezra Klein and engaging with a lot of leftist sources for a bit now and it’s made me much more sympathetic to these views, which previously seemed pretty empty and useless to me. So, yea, I can’t really do it justice. It was sad for me because I’ve engaged with you in the past in defenses of Go and you made some really insightful points, so I began to count you as one of my HN heroes, and all my HN heroes (and other online heroes of mine) have left leaning politics from what I gather, so learning that you perhaps don’t required me to do some reconciling. But yea, I can’t give a specific accounting of racist institutions.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  I’m flattered, but I stay away from partisan politics as they’re often tribalistic and devoid of principle. I have a handful of left-wing positions (e.g., universal healthcare, environmentalism, etc) and I remain open minded about left-wing positions, but mostly I’m a liberal in the philosophical sense—free speech, equality, human rights, democracy, etc (I have a few right-wing positions as well, like a general preference for market-based solutions). The BLM adjacent ideologies conflict with my liberal values.