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That's funny I always thought that prejudice and discrimination was something someone could be regardless of who you are. That is interesting to learn that as l

That's funny I always thought that prejudice and discrimination was something someone could be regardless of who you are. That is interesting to learn that as long as you are part of certain groups it is impossible for one to be racist, sexist, or homophobic. I love this morality, next thing you'll tell me it is not wrong for one group of people to attempt to perform ethnic cleansing because they were "disadvantaged" so it's okay. I mean if that is the price we have to pay to keep Nazis out of society though clearly it is worth it. I mean how horrible would it be if we had students at prominent ivy League universities chanting things like. "There is only one solution infantada revolution." But I am sure this relative standards of ethic and morality will lead us to a new golden age and not just engender resentment and divide.

beachy 3y ago
Never go full Godwin.
moron4hire 3y ago
I'm not going to try to wade into this discussion and argue one way or another (mostly because I'm too tired to put that kind of effort in), but I do want to point out a case of varying word usage that I think often muddies the waters in these kinds of situations. It's a misclassification of things. Prejudice is a feeling against a group. Racism/Sexism/etc., is an action against individuals based on prejudice. There is an old saying, "racism = prejudice + power". Basically, people can be prejudiced all day long, but if they lack the power structure to be able to do anything about it, then they can't be whatever-ist. It's also where the notion of "systemic racism" comes from. If a law or policy disproportionately impacts a certain group of people, that is prima facia a power structure that enforces a prejudice. In a way, it's almost like a kind of mathematics. There are operands and operators. Depending on the operands, the operations are one-way. Like the issues of zero getting anywhere near division. In the pursuit of a mathematics that is consistent, we discard a mathematics that is complete. This distinction is important because people educated in traditionally liberal institutions have this taught to them, as well as what "counts" as power structures capable of weaponizing prejudice to become an -ism. Just as we accept in STEM fields that "division by 0 is an undefined operation", people in social justice fields accept "traditionally underrepresented groups can't be -ist". Kind of like how lawyers have their own language for things like "reasonable" and all kinds of Latin phrases that don't follow or completely befuddle the intuitive understanding that lay-people have. For example, you'll see people talk about how certain standup comics appear to "get away" with saying things that would cause screaming fits if a person of a different background said similar things. E.g., an African American comic making comments about white people vs. a white comic making comments about African Americans. You're likely to hear apologia like, "it's impossible for a black person to be racist". What they mean is that black people historically lack the power structure to be able to activate prejudice against white people. In other words, Kevin Hart's prejudicial comments about white people aren't "racist comments" because it's unlikely to have any major impact on how white people are perceived or treated. Whereas Michael Richards using the N-word reinforces and normalizes existing systemic problems in American culture. Again, I'm not here to argue that prejudice from one group is OK as long as that group has been historically (and let's be honest, contemporaneously) mistreated. But if you want to understand how people can make such confusing statements as "black people can't be racist" or "women can't be sexist", this is the worldview under which they are operating. NB: I'm a big believer in Sun Tzu's exhortation to "know your enemy and know yourself". To be clear, the enemy here is "people who overly-parse words to post hoc rationalize saying mean things about other people."

beachy 3y ago

Never go full Godwin.

moron4hire 3y ago

I'm not going to try to wade into this discussion and argue one way or another (mostly because I'm too tired to put that kind of effort in), but I do want to point out a case of varying word usage that I think often muddies the waters in these kinds of situations. It's a misclassification of things. Prejudice is a feeling against a group. Racism/Sexism/etc., is an action against individuals based on prejudice. There is an old saying, "racism = prejudice + power". Basically, people can be prejudiced all day long, but if they lack the power structure to be able to do anything about it, then they can't be whatever-ist. It's also where the notion of "systemic racism" comes from. If a law or policy disproportionately impacts a certain group of people, that is prima facia a power structure that enforces a prejudice. In a way, it's almost like a kind of mathematics. There are operands and operators. Depending on the operands, the operations are one-way. Like the issues of zero getting anywhere near division. In the pursuit of a mathematics that is consistent, we discard a mathematics that is complete. This distinction is important because people educated in traditionally liberal institutions have this taught to them, as well as what "counts" as power structures capable of weaponizing prejudice to become an -ism. Just as we accept in STEM fields that "division by 0 is an undefined operation", people in social justice fields accept "traditionally underrepresented groups can't be -ist". Kind of like how lawyers have their own language for things like "reasonable" and all kinds of Latin phrases that don't follow or completely befuddle the intuitive understanding that lay-people have. For example, you'll see people talk about how certain standup comics appear to "get away" with saying things that would cause screaming fits if a person of a different background said similar things. E.g., an African American comic making comments about white people vs. a white comic making comments about African Americans. You're likely to hear apologia like, "it's impossible for a black person to be racist". What they mean is that black people historically lack the power structure to be able to activate prejudice against white people. In other words, Kevin Hart's prejudicial comments about white people aren't "racist comments" because it's unlikely to have any major impact on how white people are perceived or treated. Whereas Michael Richards using the N-word reinforces and normalizes existing systemic problems in American culture. Again, I'm not here to argue that prejudice from one group is OK as long as that group has been historically (and let's be honest, contemporaneously) mistreated. But if you want to understand how people can make such confusing statements as "black people can't be racist" or "women can't be sexist", this is the worldview under which they are operating. NB: I'm a big believer in Sun Tzu's exhortation to "know your enemy and know yourself". To be clear, the enemy here is "people who overly-parse words to post hoc rationalize saying mean things about other people."