7 ms·

White Americans are beginning to realise that they too belong to a race

18 points by tarakat 4y ago

polygamous_bat 4y ago
https://archive.ph/ekUh9 https://archive.ph/ekUh9
throwayyy479087 4y ago
The last time this happened it went very badly. I can’t imagine white identity as a political issue leading to anything good.
- realcertify 4y ago
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    No, but rather because it is not helpful or very rational at all, to divide humans into races (especially just based on the trait skincolor). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization) "Even though there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptions of race are untenable, scientists around the world continue to conceptualize race in widely differing ways. While some researchers continue to use the concept of race to make distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits or observable differences in behavior, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race is inherently naive or simplistic"
    - lern_too_spel 4y ago
      The people this article is about think that race is associated genetically with intellectual ability and worry about things like racial purity. The people who previously talked about race use it as a proxy for identifying groups of people that aren't succeeding in society, causing some drag on economic development, and try to figure out how to solve the problem.
      - Manu40 4y ago
        > The people who previously talked about race use it as a proxy for identifying groups of people that aren't succeeding in society, causing some drag on economic development, and try to figure out how to solve the problem. And that there is the problem. They used a term that has a whole lot of negative connotation to try to advance their good intentions, which have brought us hell because the worst among us also use that terminology for less good intent. This is why we shouldn't label under race. Label under issue, which allows for all who suffer the same issue to be helped, instead of just a subset of that group. Sure, there may very well be some people who are being harmed more by some factor or another, but by doing it the way they have, they made it about the race of these people instead of the suffering they (and others) all ultimately face. Poverty cares not for our definitions. It affects all of any colour, creed or race. But when we make it about their colour, creed, or race, we take away from the actual problem trying to be solved. Poverty.
        lern_too_spel 4y ago
        If poverty is partly caused by perceived race (e.g., denying housing à la Trump Management, Inc. or denying employment to ancestors causing a difference in how current generations view education and work), ignoring it will not help solve the problem. You have to be able to study all the reasons for poverty in order to craft appropriate policy.
        Manu40 4y ago
        I think that's only potentially true because the opposite side of the aisle is utilizing race to begin with from the negative end. No you shouldn't ignore that it is being used that way, but by playing into the game that side is playing, you are furthering their intent. Instead, just go after the problem as if it is something that affects everyone, because it does. Even the rich are affected by poverty, just in a different way. Sure, they may not be poor, but they still have to deal with the after effects of the impoverished. This is what I mean by poverty affects all. It may be more drastic for those it affects directly, and yes we should do something about it for them more directly; but by approaching it from a wide range approach like how I suggest; you avoid the nastiness of assuming race has anything to do with it. Example: I grew up with many first nations individuals surrounding me. Many of them were impoverished. I am also partially first nations, but don't appear to be. We were just as poor as many of them, and worse off that some of them to boot if you are to compare finances without biases. If we were to approach poverty as if it only affects the first nations, then our family would have potentially been cruelly left behind. Instead, by treating poverty as something that affects all of society, no one is left behind. A rising tide lifts all boats; though sometimes some more than others to be fair. Waves are not equal after all. > You have to be able to study all the reasons for poverty in order to craft appropriate policy. Exactly my point, but without focusing too hard on any single factor.
acapybara 4y ago
This is technically true.
- codefreeordie 4y ago
  It is just as true as any other "race" determined by phenotypy.
  - codefreeordie 4y ago
    - dang 4y ago
      Nothing "interesting" happened to your post - it got downvoted and flagged like any other. Moderators never saw it. Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and flamebait comments, and please stop using HN for ideological battle? We've already asked you this more than once, and you've kept doing it. We ban accounts that break the site rules like this (yes, regardless of which ideology you're battling for or against—we don't care). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
version_five 4y ago
Almost as if it's a bad idea to try reducing people to irrelevant traits
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
throwawayallday 4y ago
This is an example of the celebration parallax: It's a neo-Nazi White supremacist myth that the White population is declining! It's not happening but I'm glad that it is! No way this doesn't get [flagged] by the end of the night.
Manu40 4y ago
If I were dog, I would be a mutt. But due to being human, I just call myself an Earthling. This despite my heritage being from multiple cultures (8?) from around the world, some of them very long lived within their family trees. If you were to do a full deep dive on my lineage, you would find that my bloodline goes back not just decades, or even centuries, but millenniums. Technically, so too does everyone else who is alive today, for we all came from some line of apes that evolved or another. And that's ignoring all the stuff about Neanderthals and such. To me, it doesn't matter who you are, what you look like, or where you came from. What you believe is another matter, since there are wrong opinions about many things abound, but I tend to leave that alone; because arguing with idiots is a good way to lose to them when idiocy outnumbers intelligence since the days of the stone age. (With some exceptions thanks to the coincidental silver lining of plagues.) To me, people who focus solely on race in any fashion, need to stop. Not only is it not rational, but it's divisive. Which is why politicians love using it in some form or another, when we start to get along again; and most intelligent people know that politicians are less trustworthy than some random person on the internet. Yet we keep falling for their bullshit. Why? Because we deeply want to belong to something more than just ourselves, I think. And when that thing we belong to is supposedly threatened by another group inside or out of our own group, we fight them. Doesn't matter which group, it's the same for all. Now excuse me while I go back to trying to get things put together in my own life so I can make a place for people who think like me where we can escape the rest who obsess about race, colour or creed. You're all welcome to join me, though it may take some of you time to de-escalate your emotions over these sorts of things.
- version_five 4y ago
  > Yet we keep falling for their bullshit. Why? > Because we deeply want to belong to something more than just ourselves, I think. I think in most cases it's simpler than that. People go along with this kind of BS because they are afraid of being labeled as racist (and in doing so, ironically perpetuate racism). It's a shortcut that special interest have found so shut down discussion: "you're with us or you're racist (or some other 'phobic'") and people end up going along for the most part
  - 4y ago
dudebrooo 4y ago
- Manu40 4y ago
  As rude as your comment may come off to some, you are correct about at least one thing. Push from one side of politics too far, and the other side will swell up to meet that push. Hegel tried to teach us this, and Jung to some extent as well. It's often referred to as the political pendulum by folk like I, and we often think it best to be left alone in the center, with anyone daring touch it being given wide berth and sometimes complete avoidance. Only under the more important issues will touching it be allowable, and even then only lightly with extreme care. Since there is a lot of commentary on this subject matter, I will just link you the google search term so you can pick and choose your own preferred source on the subject matter. It all ultimately comes to the same conclusion. We need to leave the pendulum alone, and keep overtons window as close to center as possible, with only little swings when needed for the good of society. https://www.google.com/search?q=Political+Pendulum+Hegel&ei=HXxLY52BCMa30PEP1MeL0Ao&ved=0ahUKEwjdg8706OP6AhXGGzQIHdTjAqoQ4dUDCA4&oq=Political+Pendulum+Hegel&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6uAEM-AEBMgUQIRigATIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABwgIKEAAYRxjWBBiwA8ICCBAhGMMEGKABwgIFEAAYogSQBghI8FFQoBNY6xVwBHgByAEAkAEAmAF2oAGyAqoBAzEuMuIDBCBNGAHiAwQgQRgA4gMEIEYYAIgGAQ&sclient=gws-wiz https://www.google.com/search?q=Political+Pendulum+Hegel&ei=...
  - slowmovintarget 4y ago
    Hayek also addressed this in The Road to Serfdom.
    - Manu40 4y ago
      Right, thanks. I actually need to finish reading that.
version_five 4y ago
Also, what's the deal with the tone of the economist article? In the past I found them terse, detached and aloof, a little bit arrogant. This has the nyt/atlantic feel of someone who fancies themselves an undiscovered future award winner trying to write about the human side and choosing feelings over facts and analysis. Derek chauvin was born three years after George Floyd, and grew up in Cottage Grove, a suburb of the Twin Cities 20 miles from the corner where one man killed the other I understand that some journalists write like this, but I'm surprised to see that stile in the economist
Normille 4y ago
Being white and not self-loathing is practically a hate-crime these days. If you happen to be male and heterosexual too, you're worse than Hitler and should begin self-flagellation immediately. Personally I find it offensive to be continually lectured on what a rich, over-priveleged piece of shit I am, just because I was born white. By people with more wealth and privilege than anyone in my working class family has ever enjoyed. Political correctness, and its never-ending hammering on an already open door, has actually made me more racist of late, where I wasn't at all before.
- realcertify 4y ago
  - ninethirty 4y ago
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  > Being white and not self-loathing is practically a hate-crime these days. ...in the USA. In other parts of the world, not so much. Unfortunately, the USA has enormous influence on the culture in other countries: through business culture, tech giants and so on. So many of these alien concepts transpire to societies where they make little sense.
  - dudul 4y ago
    So it's only "in the USA" but due to cultural influence it transpires everywhere. So it's not just a US problem. The idea that someone should be hated because of the color of their skin makes sense no where, not even in the US.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
      > The idea that someone should be hated because of the color of their skin makes sense no where, not even in the US. There is an enormous sense between what you quote above and the comment I was replying to ("being white and not self-loathing is practically a hate-crime these days") especially in countries without a history of slavery or racial conflicts. And I think this lack of balance/distinction might be a huge problem here. You don't really go to extremes like self-loathing in order to show your respect and appreciation of other races.

18 points by tarakat 4y ago

https://archive.ph/ekUh9 https://archive.ph/ekUh9

The last time this happened it went very badly. I can’t imagine white identity as a political issue leading to anything good.

realcertify 4y ago
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  No, but rather because it is not helpful or very rational at all, to divide humans into races (especially just based on the trait skincolor). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization) "Even though there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptions of race are untenable, scientists around the world continue to conceptualize race in widely differing ways. While some researchers continue to use the concept of race to make distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits or observable differences in behavior, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race is inherently naive or simplistic"
  - lern_too_spel 4y ago
    The people this article is about think that race is associated genetically with intellectual ability and worry about things like racial purity. The people who previously talked about race use it as a proxy for identifying groups of people that aren't succeeding in society, causing some drag on economic development, and try to figure out how to solve the problem.
    - Manu40 4y ago
      > The people who previously talked about race use it as a proxy for identifying groups of people that aren't succeeding in society, causing some drag on economic development, and try to figure out how to solve the problem. And that there is the problem. They used a term that has a whole lot of negative connotation to try to advance their good intentions, which have brought us hell because the worst among us also use that terminology for less good intent. This is why we shouldn't label under race. Label under issue, which allows for all who suffer the same issue to be helped, instead of just a subset of that group. Sure, there may very well be some people who are being harmed more by some factor or another, but by doing it the way they have, they made it about the race of these people instead of the suffering they (and others) all ultimately face. Poverty cares not for our definitions. It affects all of any colour, creed or race. But when we make it about their colour, creed, or race, we take away from the actual problem trying to be solved. Poverty.
      - lern_too_spel 4y ago
        If poverty is partly caused by perceived race (e.g., denying housing à la Trump Management, Inc. or denying employment to ancestors causing a difference in how current generations view education and work), ignoring it will not help solve the problem. You have to be able to study all the reasons for poverty in order to craft appropriate policy.
        Manu40 4y ago
        I think that's only potentially true because the opposite side of the aisle is utilizing race to begin with from the negative end. No you shouldn't ignore that it is being used that way, but by playing into the game that side is playing, you are furthering their intent. Instead, just go after the problem as if it is something that affects everyone, because it does. Even the rich are affected by poverty, just in a different way. Sure, they may not be poor, but they still have to deal with the after effects of the impoverished. This is what I mean by poverty affects all. It may be more drastic for those it affects directly, and yes we should do something about it for them more directly; but by approaching it from a wide range approach like how I suggest; you avoid the nastiness of assuming race has anything to do with it. Example: I grew up with many first nations individuals surrounding me. Many of them were impoverished. I am also partially first nations, but don't appear to be. We were just as poor as many of them, and worse off that some of them to boot if you are to compare finances without biases. If we were to approach poverty as if it only affects the first nations, then our family would have potentially been cruelly left behind. Instead, by treating poverty as something that affects all of society, no one is left behind. A rising tide lifts all boats; though sometimes some more than others to be fair. Waves are not equal after all. > You have to be able to study all the reasons for poverty in order to craft appropriate policy. Exactly my point, but without focusing too hard on any single factor.

acapybara 4y ago

This is technically true.

codefreeordie 4y ago
It is just as true as any other "race" determined by phenotypy.
- codefreeordie 4y ago
  - dang 4y ago
    Nothing "interesting" happened to your post - it got downvoted and flagged like any other. Moderators never saw it. Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and flamebait comments, and please stop using HN for ideological battle? We've already asked you this more than once, and you've kept doing it. We ban accounts that break the site rules like this (yes, regardless of which ideology you're battling for or against—we don't care). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

version_five 4y ago

Almost as if it's a bad idea to try reducing people to irrelevant traits

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

throwawayallday 4y ago

This is an example of the celebration parallax: It's a neo-Nazi White supremacist myth that the White population is declining! It's not happening but I'm glad that it is! No way this doesn't get [flagged] by the end of the night.

Manu40 4y ago

If I were dog, I would be a mutt. But due to being human, I just call myself an Earthling. This despite my heritage being from multiple cultures (8?) from around the world, some of them very long lived within their family trees. If you were to do a full deep dive on my lineage, you would find that my bloodline goes back not just decades, or even centuries, but millenniums. Technically, so too does everyone else who is alive today, for we all came from some line of apes that evolved or another. And that's ignoring all the stuff about Neanderthals and such. To me, it doesn't matter who you are, what you look like, or where you came from. What you believe is another matter, since there are wrong opinions about many things abound, but I tend to leave that alone; because arguing with idiots is a good way to lose to them when idiocy outnumbers intelligence since the days of the stone age. (With some exceptions thanks to the coincidental silver lining of plagues.) To me, people who focus solely on race in any fashion, need to stop. Not only is it not rational, but it's divisive. Which is why politicians love using it in some form or another, when we start to get along again; and most intelligent people know that politicians are less trustworthy than some random person on the internet. Yet we keep falling for their bullshit. Why? Because we deeply want to belong to something more than just ourselves, I think. And when that thing we belong to is supposedly threatened by another group inside or out of our own group, we fight them. Doesn't matter which group, it's the same for all. Now excuse me while I go back to trying to get things put together in my own life so I can make a place for people who think like me where we can escape the rest who obsess about race, colour or creed. You're all welcome to join me, though it may take some of you time to de-escalate your emotions over these sorts of things.

version_five 4y ago
> Yet we keep falling for their bullshit. Why? > Because we deeply want to belong to something more than just ourselves, I think. I think in most cases it's simpler than that. People go along with this kind of BS because they are afraid of being labeled as racist (and in doing so, ironically perpetuate racism). It's a shortcut that special interest have found so shut down discussion: "you're with us or you're racist (or some other 'phobic'") and people end up going along for the most part
- 4y ago

dudebrooo 4y ago

Manu40 4y ago
As rude as your comment may come off to some, you are correct about at least one thing. Push from one side of politics too far, and the other side will swell up to meet that push. Hegel tried to teach us this, and Jung to some extent as well. It's often referred to as the political pendulum by folk like I, and we often think it best to be left alone in the center, with anyone daring touch it being given wide berth and sometimes complete avoidance. Only under the more important issues will touching it be allowable, and even then only lightly with extreme care. Since there is a lot of commentary on this subject matter, I will just link you the google search term so you can pick and choose your own preferred source on the subject matter. It all ultimately comes to the same conclusion. We need to leave the pendulum alone, and keep overtons window as close to center as possible, with only little swings when needed for the good of society. https://www.google.com/search?q=Political+Pendulum+Hegel&ei=HXxLY52BCMa30PEP1MeL0Ao&ved=0ahUKEwjdg8706OP6AhXGGzQIHdTjAqoQ4dUDCA4&oq=Political+Pendulum+Hegel&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6uAEM-AEBMgUQIRigATIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABwgIKEAAYRxjWBBiwA8ICCBAhGMMEGKABwgIFEAAYogSQBghI8FFQoBNY6xVwBHgByAEAkAEAmAF2oAGyAqoBAzEuMuIDBCBNGAHiAwQgQRgA4gMEIEYYAIgGAQ&sclient=gws-wiz https://www.google.com/search?q=Political+Pendulum+Hegel&ei=...
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  Hayek also addressed this in The Road to Serfdom.
  - Manu40 4y ago
    Right, thanks. I actually need to finish reading that.

version_five 4y ago

Also, what's the deal with the tone of the economist article? In the past I found them terse, detached and aloof, a little bit arrogant. This has the nyt/atlantic feel of someone who fancies themselves an undiscovered future award winner trying to write about the human side and choosing feelings over facts and analysis. Derek chauvin was born three years after George Floyd, and grew up in Cottage Grove, a suburb of the Twin Cities 20 miles from the corner where one man killed the other I understand that some journalists write like this, but I'm surprised to see that stile in the economist

Normille 4y ago

Being white and not self-loathing is practically a hate-crime these days. If you happen to be male and heterosexual too, you're worse than Hitler and should begin self-flagellation immediately. Personally I find it offensive to be continually lectured on what a rich, over-priveleged piece of shit I am, just because I was born white. By people with more wealth and privilege than anyone in my working class family has ever enjoyed. Political correctness, and its never-ending hammering on an already open door, has actually made me more racist of late, where I wasn't at all before.

realcertify 4y ago
- ninethirty 4y ago
hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
> Being white and not self-loathing is practically a hate-crime these days. ...in the USA. In other parts of the world, not so much. Unfortunately, the USA has enormous influence on the culture in other countries: through business culture, tech giants and so on. So many of these alien concepts transpire to societies where they make little sense.
- dudul 4y ago
  So it's only "in the USA" but due to cultural influence it transpires everywhere. So it's not just a US problem. The idea that someone should be hated because of the color of their skin makes sense no where, not even in the US.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
    > The idea that someone should be hated because of the color of their skin makes sense no where, not even in the US. There is an enormous sense between what you quote above and the comment I was replying to ("being white and not self-loathing is practically a hate-crime these days") especially in countries without a history of slavery or racial conflicts. And I think this lack of balance/distinction might be a huge problem here. You don't really go to extremes like self-loathing in order to show your respect and appreciation of other races.