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> At some point, it has to be eliminated as a special dispensation topic If white supremacy would stop being perpetuated, we could stop worrying about the effe
by digging 3y ago
> At some point, it has to be eliminated as a special dispensation topic
If white supremacy would stop being perpetuated, we could stop worrying about the effects of white supremacy. But the discussion doesn't have to end after a specific timeframe just because you feel uncomfortable with it.
- sokoloff 3y agoWhen someone in the future inevitably asks "what was the United States of America?", it will be long past time...
- digging 3y agoHow interesting that you think it's easier to destroy the USA than it is to end white supremacy in the USA.
- sokoloff 3y agoI'm not advancing that argument at all, but rather arguing "even people who do believe that will surely agree that the USA will someday cease to exist and, later, will fall out of history to an extent that someone will have to ask who/what the USA even was and, therefore, the notion that we will forever need affirmative action because '[the USA had] an actual legacy of the extraction, relocation, and enslavement of a particular group of people on the basis of race' is highly questionable".
- digging 3y agoI see. We're misunderstanding each other. A society with severe imbalances in wealth, health, and power should examine how those imbalances came about. If it turns out that they're directly caused by racism, that society should consider race-conscious remedies. This is true regardless of how long the racist policies have been perpetuated, and it's true regardless of whether or not the federal government of the USA still exists.
- sokoloff 3y agoI agree with that 100%! My only disagreement was with the conclusion that such remedies should be ordained at this moment to be "always be a topic deserving of special dispensation" since always is a very/infinitely long time.
- digging 3y agoI never said it should be ordained for all time. I said it should be ordained until the issue is solved. If that takes another hundred years, we shouldn't just stop because too much time has passed - in fact we should probably double down and accelerate our efforts in that case.
- sokoloff 3y agoYou didn't (nor did I suggest you did); someone else did; that's what started this sub-thread.
- mynameisvlad 3y agoI mean, sure, but we’re not even close to there so I’m not sure why it’s relevant right now.
- sokoloff 3y agoBecause a policy that is intended to last over 10K years, regardless of changes in situation is likely to be different than a policy that is designed to last until some level of change in situation has been acheived. You design one for its ever-lasting nature. You design the other to achieve a specific outcome.
- mynameisvlad 3y agoNo policy is designed to last 10k years. Period. Reminder that even the oldest of official policies in the US are just over 300 years old. Two magnitudes less. Most policies currently in use are less than a hundred years old and are a result of changes and amendments to those that proceeded them. Even common law is only a thousand years old and has been revised over time. None of that has anything to do with the issue still being relevant now and for the foreseeable future, ie the colloquial definition of “always”. When that eventually changes, then it can be re-evaluated, but that’s not likely to happen within our lifetimes, so it should very much be remembered when policies are made.