[noemon]

I can recognize true racism when I see it. That is different than having to walk on eggshells 24/7 because someone else may be offended.

He does not speak like a Republican and sometimes he sounds more like a black activist. I do not think that stating that is racism. If we cannot talk then Zizek is correct. I strongly suggest you watch him on the link I provided above, he is a marxist.

It depends on the context. You used African-American as an insult against Drlee. That is racism because you are using an ethnic-descriptor as an insult. Zizek does not agree with you that ethnic-terms should be redefined as insults so that racists can be more open with their racism. Noone is preventing you from talking but you are not saying anything. You 're either crying for being called a racist or simply trying to make your very open racism "regular". You are not contributing anything else other than that and that is not substantive or conducive to anything at all.

What is the problem of being an activist for Black people? And why would anyone other than a racist against Black people have a problem with activism supporting them? Are you jealous?

[Julian658]

It depends on the context. You used African-American as an insult against Drlee. That is racism because you are using an ethnic-descriptor as an insult. Zizek does not agree with you that ethnic-terms should be redefined as insults so that racists can be more open with their racism. Noone is preventing you from talking but you are not saying anything. You 're either crying for being called a racist or simply trying to make your very open racism "regular". You are not contributing anything else other than that and that is not substantive or conducive to anything at all.

What is the problem of being an activist for Black people? And why would anyone other than a racist against Black people have a problem with activism supporting them? Are you jealous?

I just think he is an impostor. I am not going to say more on this matter.
Thanks for your patience!

[Drlee]

I just think he is an impostor. I am not going to say more on this matter.

You mean pretending to be an American conservative and republican rather than a fascist who calls himself a conservative republican? Guilty.

[wat0n]

As long as everyone understands that it is not a good, clear, or true example of progressive positions on race.

What would a good, clear or true example of "progressive" positions on race? Particularly, on whatever "Whiteness" is supposed to mean?

Since I don't think conservatives are citing people like Robin D'Angelo's as examples of how to think about race (in fact, that's something "progressives" do) this is something that needs a clarification.

[Drlee]

@wat0n

What would a good, clear or true example of "progressive" positions on race?

I am not a progressive so I would not assert that I can answer for "them". Let me tell you want an old time conservative view might be. This takes 2000 words but I will be fairly brief. Let's talk money for now.

We have a situation in this country that impacts the ability of people of color (and OH BY THE WAY all poor people) that acts against improvement in their human condition. We simply do not pay workers enough money. We talk about "entry level" jobs and these pay, in some states, less than $8.00 an hour. When you are working for that amount of money, and you are required to contribute to a household income, it is absolutely impossible to improve your condition by paying for it. You are just a rat on a treadmill. So fuck the "bootstrap" people. Proof or it didn't happen.

If you want to improve poor neighborhoods you have to put jobs there and these jobs have to pay a decent living wage. The magic $15.00 an hour if often a talking point. $30K per year. Two workers making this are in the lower middle class but can have something like a life. They can afford to stay together if they are a poor family. They do not have to divorce to maximize welfare benefits. They can have a computer for the kids to use for school and decent internet access. Their car works so the kids can do extracurricular activities. It pays well enough that one can afford to flee high crime areas and even more importantly pays well enough that crime need not be a viable alternative. Families making $60K per year attract good food stores. Gone are the food deserts you see in our big cities. They attract day care centers. They raise the tax base allowing better policing.

It is bullshit to argue that McDonald's jobs are for kids. If you are trying to lift yourself from poverty that McDonald's job may be all you can get. But you know what? If everyone made decent money we could charge an extra 24 cents for a Big Mac and pay the employees what they are worth.

College and trade schools are fucking absurdly expensive. Why? because the US Government will loan a student as much money as it takes to pay whatever absurd tuition the state school wishes to charge. Federally insured student loans should stop at once. It they did stop we would see a miracle of free market economics. We would see tuitions fall to a level that students could afford to pay, and we would see a tuition free alternative in state schools. For whose good? For all of our good. I taught a class at a local university. The cost of the three semester hour class to the school was: Some computer time, my fee, the electricity for an 80 person classroom for one day per week, some photocopies, my share of building maintenance and printing in a catalog. The total tuition charged for the 80 kids in my class? $30,130.40. That is just tuition. Not fees, housing, activities, etc. And the school could not get away with this is Uncle Sam was not trowing loans at the kids like candy.

But I am a conservative who believes that it is in my enlightened interest to get people to pay their fair share. The only way to do this is to make work make sense and pay enough that they CAN pay their own way. It is a national disgrace that we do this: We allow McDonald's to pay a person less than $9.00 an hour to work very very hard. Then because this hard working person can't afford to buy food we give them food stamps and taxpayers pay for them. Who is it that the taxpayers are subsidizing? The worker or the huge profits of the owner of that McDonald's? I say the latter. The worker earned what they get.

But the deal is that conservatives are not allowed to say shit like this or they are not allowed to call themselves conservatives.

Fix poverty and you fix race.

Particularly, on whatever "Whiteness" is supposed to mean?

This is a disingenuous question. It does not deserve an answer. It is the kind of nonsensical question we see, sadly, from the right these days. How about you rephrase it.

[wat0n]

@wat0n

I am not a progressive so I would not assert that I can answer for "them". Let me tell you want an old time conservative view might be. This takes 2000 words but I will be fairly brief. Let's talk money for now.

We have a situation in this country that impacts the ability of people of color (and OH BY THE WAY all poor people) that acts against improvement in their human condition. We simply do not pay workers enough money. We talk about "entry level" jobs and these pay, in some states, less than $8.00 an hour. When you are working for that amount of money, and you are required to contribute to a household income, it is absolutely impossible to improve your condition by paying for it. You are just a rat on a treadmill. So fuck the "bootstrap" people. Proof or it didn't happen.

If you want to improve poor neighborhoods you have to put jobs there and these jobs have to pay a decent living wage. The magic $15.00 an hour if often a talking point. $30K per year. Two workers making this are in the lower middle class but can have something like a life. They can afford to stay together if they are a poor family. They do not have to divorce to maximize welfare benefits. They can have a computer for the kids to use for school and decent internet access. Their car works so the kids can do extracurricular activities. It pays well enough that one can afford to flee high crime areas and even more importantly pays well enough that crime need not be a viable alternative. Families making $60K per year attract good food stores. Gone are the food deserts you see in our big cities. They attract day care centers. They raise the tax base allowing better policing.

It is bullshit to argue that McDonald's jobs are for kids. If you are trying to lift yourself from poverty that McDonald's job may be all you can get. But you know what? If everyone made decent money we could charge an extra 24 cents for a Big Mac and pay the employees what they are worth.

College and trade schools are fucking absurdly expensive. Why? because the US Government will loan a student as much money as it takes to pay whatever absurd tuition the state school wishes to charge. Federally insured student loans should stop at once. It they did stop we would see a miracle of free market economics. We would see tuitions fall to a level that students could afford to pay, and we would see a tuition free alternative in state schools. For whose good? For all of our good. I taught a class at a local university. The cost of the three semester hour class to the school was: Some computer time, my fee, the electricity for an 80 person classroom for one day per week, some photocopies, my share of building maintenance and printing in a catalog. The total tuition charged for the 80 kids in my class? $30,130.40. That is just tuition. Not fees, housing, activities, etc. And the school could not get away with this is Uncle Sam was not trowing loans at the kids like candy.

But I am a conservative who believes that it is in my enlightened interest to get people to pay their fair share. The only way to do this is to make work make sense and pay enough that they CAN pay their own way. It is a national disgrace that we do this: We allow McDonald's to pay a person less than $9.00 an hour to work very very hard. Then because this hard working person can't afford to buy food we give them food stamps and taxpayers pay for them. Who is it that the taxpayers are subsidizing? The worker or the huge profits of the owner of that McDonald's? I say the latter. The worker earned what they get.

But the deal is that conservatives are not allowed to say shit like this or they are not allowed to call themselves conservatives.

Fix poverty and you fix race.

The bolded part is indeed what I also believe, and goes well beyond issues of systemic racism. Poverty is caused by more, a lot more, than simple discrimination.

You mentioned some of the effects, but the causes are deep and complex. If I had to guess, the issue lies more on technological changes that are currently taking on a labor saving bent (i.e. automation) and also a change that if I'm not mistaken has been going on for the last 40 years, namely, the increasing importance of agglomeration economies (i.e. that it may be cheaper to have a lot of economic activity concentrated in a relatively small geographical area) which has helped cities a lot but devastated rural areas.

The former doesn't seem to be fixing itself anytime soon (if anything, chances are that it's going to deepen) while I think the pandemic has shown the latter will actually start to fix itself on its own: Telework is a game changer and allows people to move from overpriced cities to cheaper places in suburban or even rural areas as long as the latter has a decent enough infrastructure.

This is a disingenuous question. It does not deserve an answer. It is the kind of nonsensical question we see, sadly, from the right these days. How about you rephrase it.

Why? I mean, this kind of nonsense was brought up by the left for starters, Trumpists probably don't even bother to think about this (or maybe they are not intelligent enough to, I'll let you pick). That infographic the Smithsonian had to retract, which is full of the identity politics generally done by the "progressives", is just an example of that.

I put "progressives" in quotes because I actually think it's an extremely regressive view (and I can provide historical examples of why), but has somehow entered their lexicon.

[Drlee]

If I had to guess, the issue lies more on technological changes that are currently taking on a labor saving bent (i.e. automation) and also a change that if I'm not mistaken has been going on for the last 40 years, namely, the increasing importance of agglomeration economies (i.e. that it may be cheaper to have a lot of economic activity concentrated in a relatively small geographical area) which has helped cities a lot but devastated rural areas.

My view is simpler than that. Of course I am old enough to remember when one could live frugally on the minimum wage. The minimum wage does not at all reflect the profitability of a good worker. It is a solid floor that many business owners use to justify keeping more and paying less. The fact that minimum wage has not kept up with inflation is a cold, calculated business/political decision.

To your point of geographic concentration of jobs...People will go where the jobs are. Always have. But the low minimum wage in rural areas is particularly problematic.

I am a simple solution guy. We raise the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour for ALL employees. Even food workers who get tips. (Tipping is just another subsidy of the service industry owners.) Will we lose jobs? Not enough to matter. Our experience with everywhere we have raised minimum wage (my own state is over $12.00 er hour) has not resulted in any significant loss of jobs.

We need not overthink this. We just need to pay people more, reduce the cost of education and, in my perfect world, get rid of the utterly absurd uncontrolled health care financing system and racism will take a broadside.

Why is this the conservative position? Because for the white middle class this was exactly how it used to be. My health insurance, for virtually complete coverage, in the early 70's was about $12.00 a month. This represented a percent or two of my earnings. The minimum wage in those days was the equivalent of about $12.00 per hour now. Health care absurdities forces us to bump that to at least $15.00 per hour to keep up.

We have been there before. We had more privacy. We had more money. We had upward mobility. We had employer supplied retirement. We had unionism pushing worker wages far above minimum wage. We white people that is. And the US was transcendentally wealthy compared to the rest of the world. We could do it again. That is we could if we could get so-called conservative to stop being distracted by guns, gays and gasoline.

Why? I mean, this kind of nonsense was brought up by the left for starters, Trumpists probably don't even bother to think about this (or maybe they are not intelligent enough to, I'll let you pick).

There you go. We are trying to find a solution and you can't resist trying to figure out who poked who first. Childish, right? No Trumpists are not smart enough to worry about race. They are a self-centered group of special snowflakes.

These Trump followers are loading up their $60,000.00 pickups with $5K worth of guns and body armor, and taking off for the Washington DC Hilton so they can spend their frequent flyer miles and paid personal leave days on the revolution. Why? Because they are pissed. About what? They are the envy of the world. This is a big game for them. They are not smart enough to see that they could break this shit badly. And it won't be the poor blacks they denigrate who suffers. It will be their entitled ass that gets a beat down.

[wat0n]

My view is simpler than that. Of course I am old enough to remember when one could live frugally on the minimum wage. The minimum wage does not at all reflect the profitability of a good worker. It is a solid floor that many business owners use to justify keeping more and paying less. The fact that minimum wage has not kept up with inflation is a cold, calculated business/political decision.

To your point of geographic concentration of jobs...People will go where the jobs are. Always have. But the low minimum wage in rural areas is particularly problematic.

I am a simple solution guy. We raise the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour for ALL employees. Even food workers who get tips. (Tipping is just another subsidy of the service industry owners.) Will we lose jobs? Not enough to matter. Our experience with everywhere we have raised minimum wage (my own state is over $12.00 er hour) has not resulted in any significant loss of jobs.

We need not overthink this. We just need to pay people more, reduce the cost of education and, in my perfect world, get rid of the utterly absurd uncontrolled health care financing system and racism will take a broadside.

Why is this the conservative position? Because for the white middle class this was exactly how it used to be. My health insurance, for virtually complete coverage, in the early 70's was about $12.00 a month. This represented a percent or two of my earnings. The minimum wage in those days was the equivalent of about $12.00 per hour now. Health care absurdities forces us to bump that to at least $15.00 per hour to keep up.

We have been there before. We had more privacy. We had more money. We had upward mobility. We had employer supplied retirement. We had unionism pushing worker wages far above minimum wage. We white people that is. And the US was transcendentally wealthy compared to the rest of the world. We could do it again. That is we could if we could get so-called conservative to stop being distracted by guns, gays and gasoline.

The problem, I think, is that it will provide even greater incentives for businesses to automate their processes... And thereby destroy even more jobs, by replacing workers with robots. It will not happen overnight, of course, but if the incentive is there, some research on it will be funded and carried out.

Instead, I think this would call to work on redistributing income, to help the poorer segments of society. Ideally this would take the form of a conditional transfer, where money would be given for fulfilling simple (perhaps even obvious) tasks. Examples: Sending your kids to school, keeping their vaccinations up to date, retraining so you can work elsewhere, staying out of trouble (with the criminal system), etc. Not necessarily hard goals, but important for society nonetheless.

I see it as both efficient, since it helps to address the problem (i.e. some jobs are now being automated and the recipients and their children will need to work on something else); and ethical, since it creates a social contract as both recipients and taxpayers will get a return of some form (having a more educated population, and vaccinated children benefits everyone).

There you go. We are trying to find a solution and you can't resist trying to figure out who poked who first. Childish, right? No Trumpists are not smart enough to worry about race. They are a self-centered group of special snowflakes.

Actually it's not so much about who poked first but the fact that they are both poking at each other (in the eyes, with nails, at that). Both the far left and far right play identity politics to their benefit, "Whiteness" is one way to do it but there are others. Can we agree this needs to stop? It's tearing the West apart (it's not just the USA) and its morality is more than questionable since it rests on fostering conflict in society as means to getting voted in. It's exactly why Trump says what he says and how he won.

These Trump followers are loading up their $60,000.00 pickups with $5K worth of guns and body armor, and taking off for the Washington DC Hilton so they can spend their frequent flyer miles and paid personal leave days on the revolution. Why? Because they are pissed. About what? They are the envy of the world. This is a big game for them. They are not smart enough to see that they could break this shit badly. And it won't be the poor blacks they denigrate who suffers. It will be their entitled ass that gets a beat down.

Indeed, they are heading to a disaster here.

[Drlee]

The problem, I think, is that it will provide even greater incentives for businesses to automate their processes... And thereby destroy even more jobs, by replacing workers with robots. It will not happen overnight, of course, but if the incentive is there, some research on it will be funded and carried out.

This is largely inevitable anyway. It is already happening. The incentive to replace meat with metal is baked into the system. Absent some "back to nature" movement it will happen. Imagine what will happen just with self driving cars and trucks. Millions of people will be left redundant from truck drivers to insurance salesmen, body shops, auto finance people, license issuers, etc.

Instead, I think this would call to work on redistributing income, to help the poorer segments of society. Ideally this would take the form of a conditional transfer, where money would be given for fulfilling simple (perhaps even obvious) tasks. Examples: Sending your kids to school, keeping their vaccinations up to date, retraining so you can work elsewhere, staying out of trouble (with the criminal system), etc. Not necessarily hard goals, but important for society nonetheless.

We will either have hunger games or we will have a guaranteed annual wage. Sooner than you think. In many ways we already have it.

[Pants-of-dog]

Here is an easy to find and decent definition of whiteness:

Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups of are compared. Whiteness is also at the core of understanding race in America. Whiteness and the normalization of white racial identity throughout America's history have created a culture where nonwhite persons are seen as inferior or abnormal.

This white-dominant culture also operates as a social mechanism that grants advantages to white people, since they can navigate society both by feeling normal and being viewed as normal. Persons who identify as white rarely have to think about their racial identity because they live within a culture where whiteness has been normalized.

Thinking about race is very different for nonwhite persons living in America. People of color must always consider their racial identity, whatever the situation, due to the systemic and interpersonal racism that still exists.

Whiteness (and its accepted normality) also exist as everyday microaggressions toward people of color. Acts of microaggressions include verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs or insults toward nonwhites. Whether intentional or not, these attitudes communicate hostile, derogatory, or harmful messages.

https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-abo ... /whiteness

And yes, this is the second time I cite this webpage in this thread.

[wat0n]

Then why would the accompanying infographic be incorrect? It was made for that site.

Or you'd rather rewrite the history behind its removal?

[Pants-of-dog]

So now readers have access to both the discredited infographic and the real webpage.

It would help the conversation a lot if people used the latter instead of trying to pretend the former is being used. The infographic n longer being used has been removed because some people easily get confused by it and start to address strawmen that were never claimed.

[wat0n]

What would those strawmen be? I find it quite clear on its examples, but go on.

And can we stop pretending it wasn't removed because of the backlash after its quite evident racism, which is no different to the backlash @Julian658 has faced for his comments about Kamala Harris?

[Drlee]

I find the definition of whiteness POD posted to be useful but more than a bit naive. The exact same things could be said of "German-ness", Spaniards, and Japanese. (And about any majority national trait you would like to give notice to.) In fact, there is probably no more racist society in the world than Japan.

I do agree with the benefits of being in any majority on a national level. On an international level there is an advantage to whiteness that is pretty interesting though simply an easily explained holdover from colonialism.

[Julian658]

I find the definition of whiteness POD posted to be useful but more than a bit naive. The exact same things could be said of "German-ness", Spaniards, and Japanese. (And about any majority national trait you would like to give notice to.) In fact, there is probably no more racist society in the world than Japan.

I actually agree. Japan is extremely ethnocentric and they even despise others from Asia. Interestingly I have seen videos of people of color living in Japan and they love it there. They see the racism in a total different light.

[wat0n]

This is largely inevitable anyway. It is already happening. The incentive to replace meat with metal is baked into the system. Absent some "back to nature" movement it will happen. Imagine what will happen just with self driving cars and trucks. Millions of people will be left redundant from truck drivers to insurance salesmen, body shops, auto finance people, license issuers, etc.

Right, but do you want to accelerate this change or want it to happen more gradually so the rest of society can adapt?

We will either have hunger games or we will have a guaranteed annual wage. Sooner than you think. In many ways we already have it.

I don't know what will happen, but I do agree there will be an expansion in the social welfare system at least for some decades, to allow for the transition.

I find the definition of whiteness POD posted to be useful but more than a bit naive. The exact same things could be said of "German-ness", Spaniards, and Japanese. (And about any majority national trait you would like to give notice to.) In fact, there is probably no more racist society in the world than Japan.

I do agree with the benefits of being in any majority on a national level. On an international level there is an advantage to whiteness that is pretty interesting though simply an easily explained holdover from colonialism.

The definition is applicable with regards to the majority of any society.

But more importantly, since when is the stuff in the infographic applicable to specific societies? Some of it is fairly universal and I don't know whatever they were thinking when making it at the Smithsonian. Did they really think there would be no backlash?

[Julian658]

Here is an easy to find and decent definition of whiteness:

Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups of are compared. Whiteness is also at the core of understanding race in America. Whiteness and the normalization of white racial identity throughout America's history have created a culture where nonwhite persons are seen as inferior or abnormal.

This white-dominant culture also operates as a social mechanism that grants advantages to white people, since they can navigate society both by feeling normal and being viewed as normal. Persons who identify as white rarely have to think about their racial identity because they live within a culture where whiteness has been normalized.

Thinking about race is very different for nonwhite persons living in America. People of color must always consider their racial identity, whatever the situation, due to the systemic and interpersonal racism that still exists.

Whiteness (and its accepted normality) also exist as everyday microaggressions toward people of color. Acts of microaggressions include verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs or insults toward nonwhites. Whether intentional or not, these attitudes communicate hostile, derogatory, or harmful messages.

https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-abo ... /whiteness

And yes, this is the second time I cite this webpage in this thread.

POD
Up until the 1960s when the USA opened the doors to immigration from non-European nations the USA was over 90% white. What did you expect? That was a silly post full of meaningless platitudes.

I speak English with an accent and I have a Spanish surname. I am well aware of that when I deal with Anglos. This is what I do. I do not see myself as a victim and I try to show I am as good or better than them.

Stop the victimhood narrative POD!

[Pants-of-dog]

@Julian658

Your usual accusations and strawmen seem even more out of place than usual, considering the quoted text.

Do you have anything to day about the quoted text that would help people understand what whiteness is and how it relates to racism?

[Julian658]

@Julian658

Your usual accusations and strawmen seem even more out of place than usual, considering the quoted text.

Do you have anything to day about the quoted text that would help people understand what whiteness is and how it relates to racism?

OK POD

Like me--------you are a Latin American. Where do you get the idea that a North American culture has to adjust to your culture? When in Rome do as the Romans and move on. Do not embrace the role of the noble victim; it is toxic.

[Pants-of-dog]

@Julian658

Your strawmen are getting weirder.

But let us discuss your idea that immigrants should adopt cultural norms of the new country.

Here in Canada, there is a lot of anti-indigenous sentiment. Should an immigrant start hating indigenous people as soon as they migrate? I personally married one instead. Am I making Canadians adapt to my culture (which, by the way, is just as racist against indigenous people) by not being racist?