3 ms·

I don't buy the color blind thing. That just means the only color you see is white. I think the trick for doing anti-racism right is exactly the opposite. Lear

I don't buy the color blind thing. That just means the only color you see is white. I think the trick for doing anti-racism right is exactly the opposite. Learn to be surprised. Hey, that's odd, why no black people in the board room? Why no women? They're half of humanity, why aren't they here? Isn't it a bit odd that everyone in the room is straight, white, male, conventionally masculine and upper middle class?

viraptor 15y ago
Is anti-racism and reverse-racism the same thing? If we actually want to use those terms, I think you're both right. Anti-racism would be actively working on not being in a room of straight, white, male people. Reverse-racism would be promoting minorities when you hear about them / when they come to you. Then again I'd call anti-racism something else entirely. Most people are against racism, but I see that's not the context in which you're using the phrase. I can definitely believe the colour-blindness though. (slightly related - reminds me of the southpark episode where everyone was alarmed that kids didn't find the flag with black man being hanged racist - while they just saw a group of people hanging another guy)
- JulianMorrison 15y ago
  No, see what I said. Surprise is important. It's not just that you're working to "not be[...] in a room of straight, white, male people". It's that when you walk into such a room, you learn to see the black people who are not there. This is meant to be a behavior-driving, meta-level change. So for example when you're promoting people, you realize that your candidates are skewed, and maybe you apply your own reverse-skew, maybe you go investigate why black candidates aren't making it to you - you don't just colorblindly take the situation as it comes, as if were unbiased happenstance. I don't consider it reverse racism to try to skew back a biased pool of candidates towards what an unbiased one would look like. It is perhaps, a bit quixotic to try to repair a society wide disease with local affirmative action. But it does help.

viraptor 15y ago

Is anti-racism and reverse-racism the same thing? If we actually want to use those terms, I think you're both right. Anti-racism would be actively working on not being in a room of straight, white, male people. Reverse-racism would be promoting minorities when you hear about them / when they come to you. Then again I'd call anti-racism something else entirely. Most people are against racism, but I see that's not the context in which you're using the phrase. I can definitely believe the colour-blindness though. (slightly related - reminds me of the southpark episode where everyone was alarmed that kids didn't find the flag with black man being hanged racist - while they just saw a group of people hanging another guy)

JulianMorrison 15y ago
No, see what I said. Surprise is important. It's not just that you're working to "not be[...] in a room of straight, white, male people". It's that when you walk into such a room, you learn to see the black people who are not there. This is meant to be a behavior-driving, meta-level change. So for example when you're promoting people, you realize that your candidates are skewed, and maybe you apply your own reverse-skew, maybe you go investigate why black candidates aren't making it to you - you don't just colorblindly take the situation as it comes, as if were unbiased happenstance. I don't consider it reverse racism to try to skew back a biased pool of candidates towards what an unbiased one would look like. It is perhaps, a bit quixotic to try to repair a society wide disease with local affirmative action. But it does help.