4 ms·

I think there are two points: first, 'all lives matter' is a typical dog whistle for a lot of people who are racist, even if you are not. If you're going to arg

I think there are two points: first, 'all lives matter' is a typical dog whistle for a lot of people who are racist, even if you are not. If you're going to argue that line, you have to try and put some clear water between you and them. The second point is that, in an unjust society, not accounting for the effects of that injustice on people (say candidates for a job position) compounds that injustice. So like, if you were an employer in post-abolition America, and you refused to employ ex-slaves because they had no history of employment, on the one hand, it's formally fair, because that's a criterion you can apply to all applicants. It is still, however, materially discriminatory. That's the observation at the root of a lot of affirmative action stuff.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
neonsunset 4y ago
That's the core of the issue. Instead of addressing rhetoric at a face value, people put their projection of disagreement into your words and judge you by that. After all, what is the difference between people who use "all lives matter" as a thinly veiled excuse for discrimination and people who use "it's a pride month and you're homophobic" as an excuse to attack you when asked to stay on technical topic? Addendum: I believe "affirmative action" is a major step towards dismantling freedom of speech. It is until after I got better at English and started immerse into the Western medium of discourse, that it became apparent that my beliefs of equality by judging people upon their virtues/vices are considered wrong by many who prefer to insist on categorizing people only by their superficial features and use that as a basis of the debate.
- mavhc 4y ago
  The point is to do both, acknowledging that certain people have inherent (dis)advantages, and that established perspectives are usually the perspective of the establishment, which isn't representative of the whole
- sofixa 4y ago
  > It is until after I got better at English and started immerse into the Western medium of discourse, that it became apparent that my beliefs of equality by judging people upon their virtues/vices are considered wrong by many who prefer to insist on categorizing people only by their superficial features and use that as a basis of the debate Don't confuse mostly American language and culture with "Western". The UK sometimes follows some of these things, but not always, and the rest usually don't. For instance in France It's forbidden for government entities to categorise people by how they look. There are no quotas or statistics per skin colour. There's still racism here and there of course - be it in some police actions/accidents, or political parties, or whatever. There are poor neighborhoods (which tend to be prevalently with immigrants or close descendants of immigrants, be they from Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe), and there are efforts to help the people living there ( improve schools, provide jobs, etc.), not "people from Arabian/Western African descent living there".
  - pasabagi 4y ago
    France just narrowly avoided voting in the daughter of a noted neo-nazi, running the nationalist party that neo-nazi founded. It's also got a hijab ban, which puts it in the company of places like Russia, or Xinjiang in China, not noted bastions of tolerance and diversity.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      > France just narrowly avoided voting in the daughter of a noted neo-nazi She's drastically less neo-Nazi than her father, just an empty far-right populist. But yeah, not great. > It's also got a hijab ban, which puts it in the company of places like Russia, or Xinjiang in China, not noted bastions of tolerance and diversity It's more complicated than that. The hijab ban isn't coming from intolerance or to force conformity. France has a long and proud history of laïcité, separation of church and state and irreligiousness in public life ( you don't get politicians doing photo ops with bibles or praising Jesus, thank god). Outright religious symbols, especially ones that are a symbol of religious subjugation for many ( many women, especially the young ones, are pressured/forced by family/husbands to be "modest"; plenty of others do it for themselves) have no place in irreligious public places. Religion is a private matter you practice however you please as long as you harm noone. And the ban isn't for hijabs, it's for face coverings, so a Catholic nun is also included; and it only covers public places like post office, town hall, schools ( not sure about that one). But the gist of it is - religion has no place in public life, especially its (often) intolerant parts.
junofan 4y ago
> is a typical dog whistle for a lot of people who are racist How do you know this? Do you associate with racists? Or did somebody tell you that racists profess basic unitarian universalist values? If so, why were they telling you?
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  It's a known thing and questioning common knowledge is generally the tactic of a contrarian or a manipulator with the intent of diffusing the conversation.
  - neonsunset 4y ago
    "Known things" and "common knowledge" are specific to your context of existence. The tactic to weave in the threads of logical statements or irrefutable facts together with person's/organization's agenda is used by everyone from radical individuals to sects to popular political parties. However, you cannot turn this argument on its head by saying that a reasonable statement shared by "bad" people makes it bad or invalid by association. Also, did you know hitler too would agree that sky is likely blue?
    - BizarroLand 4y ago
      Godwin's Law, "if you mention Adolf Hitler or Nazis within a discussion thread, you've automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in."
      - neonsunset 4y ago
        You should address the other points made in my response. And yet, you choose the last one and conveniently avoid everything else. By the way, Godwin’s law[0]: “Godwin’s law is the proposition that the longer an internet argument goes on, the higher the probability becomes that something or someone will be compared to Adolf Hitler.” [0]: https://www.dictionary.com/e/memes/godwins-law/ https://www.dictionary.com/e/memes/godwins-law/
  - 4y ago
honkdaddy 4y ago
I feel like this is a classic case of American exceptionalisms. Americans have an absolutely bonkers relationship with race and often assume that other Westerners around the world feel the same way. The _only_ reason the phrase "All Lives Matter" has any remotely political juice to it is because of the riots that occurred in America two years ago; the phrase itself is entirely innocuous and is really something most reasonable people can get behind. It bothers me to no end when people imply that the rest of the English speaking world should try to update their lexicon and tread carefully around certain words simply to appease a tiny minority of Americans.
- ant_li0n 4y ago
  I'm pretty ignorant of this, but was the phrase "All Lives Matter" really out and about in normal use for a long time? Or did it rise in popular use after "Black Lives Matter"? If it's the first one, yeah I agree w/you. If it's the second, well...
  - WalterGR 4y ago
    No and yes, respectively. OP is just being coy; they fully know this and tipped their hand by referring to the demonstrations as riots. > If it's the second, well...
    - honkdaddy 4y ago
      Would you not classify them as riots? What word would you use? I'm Canadian but was living in Seattle at the time. Businesses were burned, cars were flipped, statues torn down. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of what was being protested, but to pretend it was a peaceful demonstration is laughable. Riot is a perfectly reasonable word to describe it.
      - WalterGR 4y ago
        At issue is your word choice and how that goes to the answers of ant_li0n’s questions for you.
giantg2 4y ago
I think it's important to separate the ideas/words/meaning of "X lives matter" from the political movements that underlying them. "So like, if you were an employer in post-abolition America, and you refused to employ ex-slaves because they had no history of employment, on the one hand, it's formally fair, because that's a criterion you can apply to all applicants. It is still, however, materially discriminatory. That's the observation at the root of a lot of affirmative action stuff." I think we're so far removed from that, that it isn't straightforward anymore. We're seeing discrimination against certain minority groups simply because they're overrepresented in some areas (look at the recent issue/cases regarding Asians and education). It's one thing if we're making exceptions for disadvantaged people (ethnicity alone is not an indicator for this) that corrects and injustice, but it's something completely different when we are using blanket policies that aren't actually fixing anything and might actually cause more issues in the future.
mikewarot 4y ago
>a typical dog whistle The "magic words" used to silence critics and shut down discussion.
tresqotheq 4y ago
>It is still, however, materially discriminatory The problem with this is that this is applying a fix in the wrong place, making the effects of original injustice exist in a different form for a vastly longer period of time. In your example, the society can pay for the livehood, training and education of such ex-slaves, and help them fit back. But blindly giving them positions that require experience and skill is going to sound nice, but ultimately your whole society is going broke. And people will once again start associating low quality and untrustworthiness with the very same people you wanted to uplift in the first place..

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

neonsunset 4y ago

That's the core of the issue. Instead of addressing rhetoric at a face value, people put their projection of disagreement into your words and judge you by that. After all, what is the difference between people who use "all lives matter" as a thinly veiled excuse for discrimination and people who use "it's a pride month and you're homophobic" as an excuse to attack you when asked to stay on technical topic? Addendum: I believe "affirmative action" is a major step towards dismantling freedom of speech. It is until after I got better at English and started immerse into the Western medium of discourse, that it became apparent that my beliefs of equality by judging people upon their virtues/vices are considered wrong by many who prefer to insist on categorizing people only by their superficial features and use that as a basis of the debate.

mavhc 4y ago
The point is to do both, acknowledging that certain people have inherent (dis)advantages, and that established perspectives are usually the perspective of the establishment, which isn't representative of the whole
sofixa 4y ago
> It is until after I got better at English and started immerse into the Western medium of discourse, that it became apparent that my beliefs of equality by judging people upon their virtues/vices are considered wrong by many who prefer to insist on categorizing people only by their superficial features and use that as a basis of the debate Don't confuse mostly American language and culture with "Western". The UK sometimes follows some of these things, but not always, and the rest usually don't. For instance in France It's forbidden for government entities to categorise people by how they look. There are no quotas or statistics per skin colour. There's still racism here and there of course - be it in some police actions/accidents, or political parties, or whatever. There are poor neighborhoods (which tend to be prevalently with immigrants or close descendants of immigrants, be they from Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe), and there are efforts to help the people living there ( improve schools, provide jobs, etc.), not "people from Arabian/Western African descent living there".
- pasabagi 4y ago
  France just narrowly avoided voting in the daughter of a noted neo-nazi, running the nationalist party that neo-nazi founded. It's also got a hijab ban, which puts it in the company of places like Russia, or Xinjiang in China, not noted bastions of tolerance and diversity.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > France just narrowly avoided voting in the daughter of a noted neo-nazi She's drastically less neo-Nazi than her father, just an empty far-right populist. But yeah, not great. > It's also got a hijab ban, which puts it in the company of places like Russia, or Xinjiang in China, not noted bastions of tolerance and diversity It's more complicated than that. The hijab ban isn't coming from intolerance or to force conformity. France has a long and proud history of laïcité, separation of church and state and irreligiousness in public life ( you don't get politicians doing photo ops with bibles or praising Jesus, thank god). Outright religious symbols, especially ones that are a symbol of religious subjugation for many ( many women, especially the young ones, are pressured/forced by family/husbands to be "modest"; plenty of others do it for themselves) have no place in irreligious public places. Religion is a private matter you practice however you please as long as you harm noone. And the ban isn't for hijabs, it's for face coverings, so a Catholic nun is also included; and it only covers public places like post office, town hall, schools ( not sure about that one). But the gist of it is - religion has no place in public life, especially its (often) intolerant parts.

junofan 4y ago

> is a typical dog whistle for a lot of people who are racist How do you know this? Do you associate with racists? Or did somebody tell you that racists profess basic unitarian universalist values? If so, why were they telling you?

BizarroLand 4y ago
It's a known thing and questioning common knowledge is generally the tactic of a contrarian or a manipulator with the intent of diffusing the conversation.
- neonsunset 4y ago
  "Known things" and "common knowledge" are specific to your context of existence. The tactic to weave in the threads of logical statements or irrefutable facts together with person's/organization's agenda is used by everyone from radical individuals to sects to popular political parties. However, you cannot turn this argument on its head by saying that a reasonable statement shared by "bad" people makes it bad or invalid by association. Also, did you know hitler too would agree that sky is likely blue?
  - BizarroLand 4y ago
    Godwin's Law, "if you mention Adolf Hitler or Nazis within a discussion thread, you've automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in."
    - neonsunset 4y ago
      You should address the other points made in my response. And yet, you choose the last one and conveniently avoid everything else. By the way, Godwin’s law[0]: “Godwin’s law is the proposition that the longer an internet argument goes on, the higher the probability becomes that something or someone will be compared to Adolf Hitler.” [0]: https://www.dictionary.com/e/memes/godwins-law/ https://www.dictionary.com/e/memes/godwins-law/
- 4y ago

honkdaddy 4y ago

I feel like this is a classic case of American exceptionalisms. Americans have an absolutely bonkers relationship with race and often assume that other Westerners around the world feel the same way. The _only_ reason the phrase "All Lives Matter" has any remotely political juice to it is because of the riots that occurred in America two years ago; the phrase itself is entirely innocuous and is really something most reasonable people can get behind. It bothers me to no end when people imply that the rest of the English speaking world should try to update their lexicon and tread carefully around certain words simply to appease a tiny minority of Americans.

ant_li0n 4y ago
I'm pretty ignorant of this, but was the phrase "All Lives Matter" really out and about in normal use for a long time? Or did it rise in popular use after "Black Lives Matter"? If it's the first one, yeah I agree w/you. If it's the second, well...
- WalterGR 4y ago
  No and yes, respectively. OP is just being coy; they fully know this and tipped their hand by referring to the demonstrations as riots. > If it's the second, well...
  - honkdaddy 4y ago
    Would you not classify them as riots? What word would you use? I'm Canadian but was living in Seattle at the time. Businesses were burned, cars were flipped, statues torn down. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of what was being protested, but to pretend it was a peaceful demonstration is laughable. Riot is a perfectly reasonable word to describe it.
    - WalterGR 4y ago
      At issue is your word choice and how that goes to the answers of ant_li0n’s questions for you.

giantg2 4y ago

I think it's important to separate the ideas/words/meaning of "X lives matter" from the political movements that underlying them. "So like, if you were an employer in post-abolition America, and you refused to employ ex-slaves because they had no history of employment, on the one hand, it's formally fair, because that's a criterion you can apply to all applicants. It is still, however, materially discriminatory. That's the observation at the root of a lot of affirmative action stuff." I think we're so far removed from that, that it isn't straightforward anymore. We're seeing discrimination against certain minority groups simply because they're overrepresented in some areas (look at the recent issue/cases regarding Asians and education). It's one thing if we're making exceptions for disadvantaged people (ethnicity alone is not an indicator for this) that corrects and injustice, but it's something completely different when we are using blanket policies that aren't actually fixing anything and might actually cause more issues in the future.

mikewarot 4y ago

>a typical dog whistle The "magic words" used to silence critics and shut down discussion.

tresqotheq 4y ago

>It is still, however, materially discriminatory The problem with this is that this is applying a fix in the wrong place, making the effects of original injustice exist in a different form for a vastly longer period of time. In your example, the society can pay for the livehood, training and education of such ex-slaves, and help them fit back. But blindly giving them positions that require experience and skill is going to sound nice, but ultimately your whole society is going broke. And people will once again start associating low quality and untrustworthiness with the very same people you wanted to uplift in the first place..