6 ms·

I’m not sure > As a white guy, I'd certainly encourage you not to worry about this -- if we're talking about an upper middle class, professional-ish activity,

I’m not sure > As a white guy, I'd certainly encourage you not to worry about this -- if we're talking about an upper middle class, professional-ish activity, you can be fairly sure that all those white people feel self-conscious about their group being so white and would welcome you to join them. Is as helpful as you may have intended. The comment was about not wanting to be the first, even if the group is welcoming, the commentator will still be the first/only person of color in the group and there is a discomfort inherent to that even if everyone is trying to be welcoming. Also re “colorblind” policies of the 90a versus the explicitness of today, I think it’s similar to the current reckoning in journalism. We all have biases and pretending we don’t/acting like we are capable of pure objectivity simply hides them and makes them more difficult to combat. On the other hand explicitly acknowledging them allows you to consider how they might be influencing your decisions.

ShredKazoo 4y ago
I certainly didn't mean to invalidate their discomfort -- as I mentioned at the end, I feel the same way sometimes. I apologize if people found it invalidating. I actually wrote the initial draft of my comment with welcomingness as sort of a background assumption in my mind, and then I thought "wait a minute, even if I'm assuming that people would be welcoming, the person reading my comment might not. and given how hostile online discussions can get, it seems safer to err on the side of emphasizing welcomingness." That still seems roughly correct to me -- I think some topics have so much hostility associated with them that whatever you're going to say about the topic, it probably makes sense to also add in a bunch of welcomingness too, just so the discussion goes well.
ShredKazoo 4y ago
For the colorblindness part, I think my core objection to the cultural changes which have occurred since I was a kid is not to increased awareness of biases per se, but rather this phenomenon: https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb My feeling is that the best way to reduce subconscious bias is to have good race relations. And the best way to have good race relations is to have more positive interactions than negative interactions. A thought experiment: Imagine a non-Mexican person says "I love celebrating Cinco de Mayo. It's an excellent excuse to drink tequila!" As a culture, we can decide whether that's a positive interaction or a negative interaction. We can make it a positive interaction by laughing and clinking glasses. We can make it a negative interaction by calling the person out for cultural appropriation or trivializing an important Mexican holiday. My intuition is that making it a negative interaction is a big mistake, because it worsens subconscious racial biases and generally makes the world a less pleasant place. I recommend playing this game https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb to better understand my intuition here. (Based on what I've read about Israel/Palestine, the game is an excellent description of why things have been getting so bad there lately.)
- dinkumthinkum 4y ago
  I know this just your example but I think it demonstrates the larger issue with victim culture. Cinco de Mayo is not actually a very important holiday in Mexico. I agree that it’s not good to turn everything into a negative interaction but it’s not clear to me that having “cultural appropriation” as a top of mind issue is a very healthy thing either.
  - bennysonething 4y ago
    Cultural appropriation is nonsense. Probably most of what we are is a result of cross-pollination of cultures. Who gets to decide who belongs to one group or another?
    - dinkumthinkum 4y ago
      I think they are called Progressives.
- BuckRogers 4y ago
  Irony is heavy there, unintentional double entendre of sorts. Mexicans barely recognize or care about the 5th of May. That’s an American Chicano celebration for the most part. Mexicans kind of laugh about its importance in the US. I say this from Mexico, sitting next to my Mexican wife and her mother.
  - garfieldnate 4y ago
    To loop this back to OP, "US Mexicans" are different from "Mexico Mexicans" is something I didn't realize until my adult life. They have their own way of speaking, their own foods, and a more recent immigrant background as a minority, which has a huge affect sociologically. That doesn't make their particular cultural enclave less important, but it is an interesting observation. American Italians are another great example of this, though their immigration ended much longer ago.
flippinburgers 4y ago
I find the unatonable original sin spin placed on white people these days in the USA to be a tad bit repulsive personally.
- BuckRogers 4y ago
  And that’s why the Proud Boys say they’re not apologizing for creating the modern world. And the idea is popular. To be clear, many Hispanics agree. Many of their ancestors played a role alongside the rest of their fellow whites. Whites are still admired by Asians as well. This anti-white thing is largely an American phenomenon and other far left folks around the world that are resentful and cannot accept responsibility for their own condition. The rest of them deal with the hand they’re dealt, and go to work. As no one has more influence over their lives than them. We just accept it rather than adopt victimhood as a way of life. That’s how you create losers.
  - s5300 4y ago
    Not sure what fantasy you’re living in where a terrorist group (aside from perhaps the U.S. government) is “creating the modern world” lmao I presume whatever fantasy it is might be a fairly common “master race” one
    - gadders 4y ago
      The "they" when they say "they" created the modern world is not the membership of the organisation, but rather western civilisation/culture.
      - Viliam1234 4y ago
        If it is silly to feel responsible for bad things that other people did, just because they happened to have the same color of skin, it is also silly to take credit for the good things other people did.
        BuckRogers 4y ago

ShredKazoo 4y ago

I certainly didn't mean to invalidate their discomfort -- as I mentioned at the end, I feel the same way sometimes. I apologize if people found it invalidating. I actually wrote the initial draft of my comment with welcomingness as sort of a background assumption in my mind, and then I thought "wait a minute, even if I'm assuming that people would be welcoming, the person reading my comment might not. and given how hostile online discussions can get, it seems safer to err on the side of emphasizing welcomingness." That still seems roughly correct to me -- I think some topics have so much hostility associated with them that whatever you're going to say about the topic, it probably makes sense to also add in a bunch of welcomingness too, just so the discussion goes well.

ShredKazoo 4y ago

For the colorblindness part, I think my core objection to the cultural changes which have occurred since I was a kid is not to increased awareness of biases per se, but rather this phenomenon: https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb My feeling is that the best way to reduce subconscious bias is to have good race relations. And the best way to have good race relations is to have more positive interactions than negative interactions. A thought experiment: Imagine a non-Mexican person says "I love celebrating Cinco de Mayo. It's an excellent excuse to drink tequila!" As a culture, we can decide whether that's a positive interaction or a negative interaction. We can make it a positive interaction by laughing and clinking glasses. We can make it a negative interaction by calling the person out for cultural appropriation or trivializing an important Mexican holiday. My intuition is that making it a negative interaction is a big mistake, because it worsens subconscious racial biases and generally makes the world a less pleasant place. I recommend playing this game https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb to better understand my intuition here. (Based on what I've read about Israel/Palestine, the game is an excellent description of why things have been getting so bad there lately.)

dinkumthinkum 4y ago
I know this just your example but I think it demonstrates the larger issue with victim culture. Cinco de Mayo is not actually a very important holiday in Mexico. I agree that it’s not good to turn everything into a negative interaction but it’s not clear to me that having “cultural appropriation” as a top of mind issue is a very healthy thing either.
- bennysonething 4y ago
  Cultural appropriation is nonsense. Probably most of what we are is a result of cross-pollination of cultures. Who gets to decide who belongs to one group or another?
  - dinkumthinkum 4y ago
    I think they are called Progressives.
BuckRogers 4y ago
Irony is heavy there, unintentional double entendre of sorts. Mexicans barely recognize or care about the 5th of May. That’s an American Chicano celebration for the most part. Mexicans kind of laugh about its importance in the US. I say this from Mexico, sitting next to my Mexican wife and her mother.
- garfieldnate 4y ago
  To loop this back to OP, "US Mexicans" are different from "Mexico Mexicans" is something I didn't realize until my adult life. They have their own way of speaking, their own foods, and a more recent immigrant background as a minority, which has a huge affect sociologically. That doesn't make their particular cultural enclave less important, but it is an interesting observation. American Italians are another great example of this, though their immigration ended much longer ago.

flippinburgers 4y ago

I find the unatonable original sin spin placed on white people these days in the USA to be a tad bit repulsive personally.

BuckRogers 4y ago
And that’s why the Proud Boys say they’re not apologizing for creating the modern world. And the idea is popular. To be clear, many Hispanics agree. Many of their ancestors played a role alongside the rest of their fellow whites. Whites are still admired by Asians as well. This anti-white thing is largely an American phenomenon and other far left folks around the world that are resentful and cannot accept responsibility for their own condition. The rest of them deal with the hand they’re dealt, and go to work. As no one has more influence over their lives than them. We just accept it rather than adopt victimhood as a way of life. That’s how you create losers.
- s5300 4y ago
  Not sure what fantasy you’re living in where a terrorist group (aside from perhaps the U.S. government) is “creating the modern world” lmao I presume whatever fantasy it is might be a fairly common “master race” one
  - gadders 4y ago
    The "they" when they say "they" created the modern world is not the membership of the organisation, but rather western civilisation/culture.
    - Viliam1234 4y ago
      If it is silly to feel responsible for bad things that other people did, just because they happened to have the same color of skin, it is also silly to take credit for the good things other people did.
      - BuckRogers 4y ago