6 ms·

The assumption that racism and sexism result in elastic deformation of society that will go away as soon as you remove whatever force is warping it. Yes, this

The assumption that racism and sexism result in elastic deformation of society that will go away as soon as you remove whatever force is warping it. Yes, this is the economic assumption - folks are greedy and will exploit undervalued resources. I don't think history bears that out. Society is a soft ductile metal. If you bend it, it'll stay bent. This ignores the history of various oppressed groups who unbent themselves (east Asians, south Asians, Jews, Irish). It also ignores the fact that women have unbent themselves in most fields, just not math heavy STEM fields.

joe5150 11y ago
it's hard to argue that any of those groups are truly "unbent" outside of very narrow, precarious and conditional contexts.
afarrell 11y ago
I'd argue the Irish have "unbent themselves". What prejudice or discrimination do the Irish face in contemporary America? (My background: Grew up in the New England then moved to Austin. I look Mediterranean but my last name is Farrell and I play the bodhran...mediocrely) I'm highly skeptical of the idea that this "unbending" is anything but a loud, activist process.
- msandford 11y ago
  They don't face it in contemporary America, but they did face it when they started immigrating to the US many years ago. Given that you don't discern any anti-Irish sentiment I might argue that they did a fine job of "unbending themselves" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Irish_sentiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Irish_sentiment I'm not suggesting that "unbending yourself" is the only way to do things, just that it does seem as though it's possible. Maybe not easy, maybe not quick, but to suggest that "it can't be done" would be disingenuous.
  - nailer 11y ago
    Only place I've ever heard people openly hate Irish people is Scotland, only place I've heard people claim intellectual inferiority is Australia. One of my parents is Irish, and I don't have an accent, so people tend to say what they think. The rest of the world stereotypes and is occasionally ignorant of history, but that's common for people from most countries.
- xaqfox 11y ago
  Every single year America celebrates the de facto Irish holiday, St. Patrick's Day, by getting as drunk as possible and pretending to be stereotypical Irishmen. Note: I am of Irish descent and not at all offended. What I wonder is if this impassive attitude to a relatively minor transgression, came about before or after the cultural "unbending"?
jarcane 11y ago
Those oppressed groups mostly came "unbent" because they stopped putting up with their oppressors and started killing them. Are you even at all aware of the history of any of the examples you just cited?
- cousin_it 11y ago
  Jewish folks and South Asian folks overcame discrimination from Americans by killing them? Are you from Earth-2? Read Steven Dutch's essay "The world's most toxic value system" [1] before you recommend violence as a solution to any group's problems. It's a comfortably direct approach, but it backfires. It creates a class of violent people who will push others down, so the group as a whole stays down. [1] http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/toxicval.htm http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/toxicval.htm
  - jarcane 11y ago
    I didn't recommend anything. I just suggested one become a little more familiar with history before making absurd claims and value judgements against whole races of people. Every single one of the cited examples had to fight bloody wars of independence against occupation before their refugees were even seen as human. We enslaved the Chinese. We used the Irish in proxy wars between street gangs that still are going on today in parts of the Northeast. The Jews spend hundreds of years trying to assimilate into European society, and then the Germans killed 6 million of them. We gave them back their own country. Out of guilt. Spouting a bunch of stereotypes about the local immigrant population is a pretty fucking ignorant view of that history.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - cousin_it 11y ago
      I just tried to educate myself about the Chinese getting enslaved and fighting a war for independence, but unfortunately I failed. Which events are you referring to?
- deleted 11y ago
rayiner 11y ago
> Yes, this is the economic assumption - folks are greedy and will exploit undervalued resources. Except that's not what history shows us. Economics didn't free the slaves. Guns did. Economics didn't end segregation in housing and education. Bitter, expensive litigation did.[1] Economics didn't make gay marriage legal. Waging a cultural war on homophobes until it became social suicide in most circles to be one did that. [1] And guns when people defied the court judgments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_National_Guard_and_the_integration_of_Central_High_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_National_Guard_and_th....
- cousin_it 11y ago
  Most countries around the world abolished slavery peacefully.
  - justizin 11y ago
    > Most countries around the world abolished slavery peacefully. [citation needed]
    - cousin_it 11y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline From a quick skim, the US and Haiti seem to be the only non-peaceful abolitions out of hundreds.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        This is a weird lens to look at slavery through. The circumstances in the US were unique: intense economic coupling to slavery, very large regional identity defined by slavery, &c. More importantly, I'm not sure what this has to do with Rayiner's point. The realization that many plantation slaves would be better utilized as doctors and lawyers did not free the slaves, nor did economic competition from non-slaveholding plantations. It did, in fact, require coercion.
tzs 11y ago
> This ignores the history of various oppressed groups who unbent themselves (east Asians, south Asians, Jews, Irish). It also ignores the fact that women have unbent themselves in most fields, just not math heavy STEM fields. I almost had a crazy theory about what determines if a group can overcome their oppression and become mainstream, but the Irish provided a counterexample that shot it down. The theory was that to overcome oppression, a group had to contribute a cuisine or food style that became mainstream. Asians. Check. Jews. Check. Italians. Check. Hispanics. Check. Blacks...they contributed soul food, but it has not gone mainstream the way the others have, and they have not overcome oppression. Indians. Check. But I don't think I've ever even seen an Irish restaurant in the US, so my beautiful theory went down in flames.
- HCIdivision17 11y ago
  Good news! Irish pubs are pretty great (I guess many thematic pubs are?), and while not pop-culture mainstream, are at least common enough that you likely have one not-too-far away. At the very least, it gives your idea something to grab onto :)
- tripzilch 11y ago
  so basically you're saying to un-oppress women, they should get back to the kitchen :-P (I'm kidding! I'm kidding) it's an interesting theory, and as HCIdivision said, there's indeed Irish pubs, and (mainly in the US) also that whole St. Patrick's Day thing that does indeed put Irish in a good light. but realistically, for women in tech, I don't think baking cookies is going to do the trick. however going with the Irish example, some general celebratory thing could be nice. even if it doesn't work, at worst, you'd have a great time? I've always been of the opinion that pretty much whatever you do with a group of people (be it a convention, a party, study, or work) just steadily gets better in many ways the more the gender ratio approaches 50/50. out of curiosity, what is popular Jewish mainstream food? (I can't think of any, perhaps it's something that I forgot was originally Jewish)
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Wait, Hispanics "overcame their oppression"? So they aren't economically disadvantaged and victims of rampant discrimination in the US? They might be better off than blacks, but I think they're at least as big a hole in your theory as the Irish.

joe5150 11y ago

it's hard to argue that any of those groups are truly "unbent" outside of very narrow, precarious and conditional contexts.

afarrell 11y ago

I'd argue the Irish have "unbent themselves". What prejudice or discrimination do the Irish face in contemporary America? (My background: Grew up in the New England then moved to Austin. I look Mediterranean but my last name is Farrell and I play the bodhran...mediocrely) I'm highly skeptical of the idea that this "unbending" is anything but a loud, activist process.

msandford 11y ago
They don't face it in contemporary America, but they did face it when they started immigrating to the US many years ago. Given that you don't discern any anti-Irish sentiment I might argue that they did a fine job of "unbending themselves" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Irish_sentiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Irish_sentiment I'm not suggesting that "unbending yourself" is the only way to do things, just that it does seem as though it's possible. Maybe not easy, maybe not quick, but to suggest that "it can't be done" would be disingenuous.
- nailer 11y ago
  Only place I've ever heard people openly hate Irish people is Scotland, only place I've heard people claim intellectual inferiority is Australia. One of my parents is Irish, and I don't have an accent, so people tend to say what they think. The rest of the world stereotypes and is occasionally ignorant of history, but that's common for people from most countries.
xaqfox 11y ago
Every single year America celebrates the de facto Irish holiday, St. Patrick's Day, by getting as drunk as possible and pretending to be stereotypical Irishmen. Note: I am of Irish descent and not at all offended. What I wonder is if this impassive attitude to a relatively minor transgression, came about before or after the cultural "unbending"?

jarcane 11y ago

Those oppressed groups mostly came "unbent" because they stopped putting up with their oppressors and started killing them. Are you even at all aware of the history of any of the examples you just cited?

cousin_it 11y ago
Jewish folks and South Asian folks overcame discrimination from Americans by killing them? Are you from Earth-2? Read Steven Dutch's essay "The world's most toxic value system" [1] before you recommend violence as a solution to any group's problems. It's a comfortably direct approach, but it backfires. It creates a class of violent people who will push others down, so the group as a whole stays down. [1] http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/toxicval.htm http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/toxicval.htm
- jarcane 11y ago
  I didn't recommend anything. I just suggested one become a little more familiar with history before making absurd claims and value judgements against whole races of people. Every single one of the cited examples had to fight bloody wars of independence against occupation before their refugees were even seen as human. We enslaved the Chinese. We used the Irish in proxy wars between street gangs that still are going on today in parts of the Northeast. The Jews spend hundreds of years trying to assimilate into European society, and then the Germans killed 6 million of them. We gave them back their own country. Out of guilt. Spouting a bunch of stereotypes about the local immigrant population is a pretty fucking ignorant view of that history.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - cousin_it 11y ago
    I just tried to educate myself about the Chinese getting enslaved and fighting a war for independence, but unfortunately I failed. Which events are you referring to?
deleted 11y ago

rayiner 11y ago

> Yes, this is the economic assumption - folks are greedy and will exploit undervalued resources. Except that's not what history shows us. Economics didn't free the slaves. Guns did. Economics didn't end segregation in housing and education. Bitter, expensive litigation did.[1] Economics didn't make gay marriage legal. Waging a cultural war on homophobes until it became social suicide in most circles to be one did that. [1] And guns when people defied the court judgments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_National_Guard_and_the_integration_of_Central_High_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_National_Guard_and_th....

cousin_it 11y ago
Most countries around the world abolished slavery peacefully.
- justizin 11y ago
  > Most countries around the world abolished slavery peacefully. [citation needed]
  - cousin_it 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline From a quick skim, the US and Haiti seem to be the only non-peaceful abolitions out of hundreds.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      This is a weird lens to look at slavery through. The circumstances in the US were unique: intense economic coupling to slavery, very large regional identity defined by slavery, &c. More importantly, I'm not sure what this has to do with Rayiner's point. The realization that many plantation slaves would be better utilized as doctors and lawyers did not free the slaves, nor did economic competition from non-slaveholding plantations. It did, in fact, require coercion.

tzs 11y ago

> This ignores the history of various oppressed groups who unbent themselves (east Asians, south Asians, Jews, Irish). It also ignores the fact that women have unbent themselves in most fields, just not math heavy STEM fields. I almost had a crazy theory about what determines if a group can overcome their oppression and become mainstream, but the Irish provided a counterexample that shot it down. The theory was that to overcome oppression, a group had to contribute a cuisine or food style that became mainstream. Asians. Check. Jews. Check. Italians. Check. Hispanics. Check. Blacks...they contributed soul food, but it has not gone mainstream the way the others have, and they have not overcome oppression. Indians. Check. But I don't think I've ever even seen an Irish restaurant in the US, so my beautiful theory went down in flames.

HCIdivision17 11y ago
Good news! Irish pubs are pretty great (I guess many thematic pubs are?), and while not pop-culture mainstream, are at least common enough that you likely have one not-too-far away. At the very least, it gives your idea something to grab onto :)
tripzilch 11y ago
so basically you're saying to un-oppress women, they should get back to the kitchen :-P (I'm kidding! I'm kidding) it's an interesting theory, and as HCIdivision said, there's indeed Irish pubs, and (mainly in the US) also that whole St. Patrick's Day thing that does indeed put Irish in a good light. but realistically, for women in tech, I don't think baking cookies is going to do the trick. however going with the Irish example, some general celebratory thing could be nice. even if it doesn't work, at worst, you'd have a great time? I've always been of the opinion that pretty much whatever you do with a group of people (be it a convention, a party, study, or work) just steadily gets better in many ways the more the gender ratio approaches 50/50. out of curiosity, what is popular Jewish mainstream food? (I can't think of any, perhaps it's something that I forgot was originally Jewish)
dragonwriter 11y ago
Wait, Hispanics "overcame their oppression"? So they aren't economically disadvantaged and victims of rampant discrimination in the US? They might be better off than blacks, but I think they're at least as big a hole in your theory as the Irish.