4 ms·
Example: "People should be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin" Saying that phrase, went from forbidden, to controversial, to
by h2odragon 3y ago
Example: "People should be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin"
Saying that phrase, went from forbidden, to controversial, to "you're not allowed to disagree," to "you're not allowed to agree" so rapidly.
Someone who actually holds it as a principle has had enemies on all sides at various times. Many of those who find the phrase offensive are not offended because it clashes with their principles, but because it strikes at the status / tribe signal positions they've adopted.
- warkdarrior 3y agoI missed the memo that I am not allowed to agree with that quote. When did this happen?
- zmgsabst 3y agoWhen people started saying it to oppose re-introducing systemic racism, such as Harvard being racist to Asian students.
- h2odragon 3y agohttps://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/colorblind-constitution/602221/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/colorblind... https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article-abstract/66/4/503/5280788?login=false https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article-abstract/66/4/503/52... I quoted MLK (as above) at someone in 2020 and was quite surprised when it uncorked a rant about how that must mean i was a racist and didn't care for the struggles of the oppressed and so on.
- lapcat 3y agoCrucially, MLK said "I have a dream" about "one day" in the future. But MLK wasn't dumb enough to think that people could just magically declare racism to be over now without doing anything to address the social inequities and inequalities caused by centuries of historical racism.
- h2odragon 3y agoMoving the "colored" seats from the back of the bus to the front, is not doing anything to address the inequities, either.
- lern_too_spel 3y agoMoving seats obviously doesn't address the economic inequalities. That's why nobody (except maybe some conservatives arguing in bad faith) has ever proposed it.
- pauldenton 3y agoPunishing people who were never victimizers and promoting people who were never victims for the sake of equity doesn't address the problems of a single parent household and the consequences it has for children, but that is proposed for the sake of Equity all the time
- lapcat 3y agoGreater equality is not a "punishment". It's simply a necessity for a functional, just, compassionate society. In any case, we are all beneficiaries or victims of the past. Children don't start from equal positions. "average per capita wealth of White Americans was $338,093 in 2019 but only $60,126 for Black Americans" https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2022/how-the-racial-wealth-gap-has-evolved-and-why-it-persists https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2022/how-the-racial-w... As stated by the linked article, this is actually a vast improvement from 150 years ago. But let's not pretend that the existence of the racial gap wasn't the result of historical factors. Arguing that we're all equal now would just be sticking one's head in the sand and pretending that history didn't exist.
- pauldenton 3y ago[dead]
- 3y ago