Ahhh, Denise you have exposed your white supremacy by insisting you're an individual. 20 Lashings! I only kid. You make an excellent point and one that we should celebrate. Humanity for everyone!
I think race issues would get a lot less polarized if we just substituted “systemic bias” for “systemic racism.” There are all kinds of biases in our systems that many people can relate to. Biases against the poor. Biases against ugly people. Biases against fat people. Biases against the less-educated. Biases against people with a strong southern accent.
Imagine a sort of implicit bias test that incorporated those factors instead of just race.
The essay is absolutely correct, but once we're free to ask what a variety of blacks think about their experience and their situation, we should be free to ask as well:
How important is it to get a black's perspective on black issues? After all, we see that some blacks have the same views on it as some whites, and that some of the most vocal whites have views that aren't shared by large numbers of blacks. And many of us believe that humans can share experiences and understand one another, largely, because they're all human.
Is race really as vital an issue as is currently popular to say? Maybe poverty is more important. Maybe the plight of women. Maybe our public discourse, or political dysfunction, or police brutality.
Free Black Thought makes sense. It's a good thing. Free Thought in general would be a good thing as well.
Right, but we need to keep conversation from being shut down by saying that all non-Black people who don’t espouse a certain line are racist or are blinded by their privilege, when there is diversity among Black people themselves.
Classism is vastly more punitive than racism and yet racism is an easy way to avoid that. If you are poor and you are uneducated your odds of being treated badly by the dominant class are much higher than if you are Harvard educated, despite your race. But race is the more trendy way for the white Mrs Jellyby gentry to assuage their guilt and feel good about themselves. Michael Che was probably not kidding when he said on SNL 3/27 "I just bought a gun now that all those white kids are talking about defunding the police." His brother is a cop.
Like Jim, I see it being more - if not completely - an issue of poverty and inequality than of race. "We Shall Overcome" by obtaining the leverage to get in on the unalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. That's what the Revolutionary War was fought for: the freedom to establish and then maintain a system of making money, acquiring land, owning capital, and protecting and serving that social structure.
The U.S. Constitution serves as the foundation for America's pay-to-play system that everyone wants in on, no matter if you're white or non-white.
It isn’t that I think I am privileged because I’m white. But, I do feel I’ve never had to face racial headwinds because I’m white: I’ve never been turned down for a loan because I’m white; never pulled over by police because I’m white; never turned down for a job interview because I’m white. I think those have been real obstacles for non-whites. To the extent that is true, relative poverty, inequality, and the ability to accumulate wealth are inhibited. They can be one & the same.
Bruce, I agree that there's an aspect of facial recognition at work, and by that I don't mean the A.I. technology. There's a security that comes with a person's appearance when it's familiar to us and ubiquitous throughout society. You along with many others have benefitted from it.
We're now starting to see that ubiquity change as demographics shift, and that's got some of the Old Guard feeling insecure. They're in the unfamiliar territory of the folks outside the gate outnumbering them. You hear it amplified in the echo chamber network whenever a pundit frets over "no longer recognizing the America I grew up in."
Still, I think their fears aren't so much triggered by skin color as they are by the associations they've made in their heads between skin color and crime, disease, illiteracy, and godlessness. Just as affluence becomes equated with the height of human fulfillment, abject poverty becomes equated with brute savagery. That the savages happen to have a different skin tone and different facial features makes it easier for the Life of Ease Club to identify them.
We pretty much agree. I used to just think that Mark Twain nailed the whole thing by saying: “ travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness...”. More familiarity & intermingling would simply reduce fear. However, we now have to add fears of loss of power—cultural & economic. I believe our country (and much of Europe) faces the same challenge. America’s world economic dominance is likely to be eclipsed by China & Asia. A little off point, but an extension, I think, of the issue(s).
In addition to the pet dimensions of the MSM I have always enjoyed splitting up black America into two sets of quintiles {Jazz, Rap, Gospel, Blues, R&B} x {Atheist, Baptist, Pentecostal, AME, Congregational} . I myself like electronic music, and am an Episcopalian. My wife is from Detroit. I'm from LA. My kids were born in Brooklyn and Atlanta. My mother is from New Orleans, my father from New Haven. It's a miracle anybody calls us black at all. A miracle or a curse.
Thanks, Erec Smith. Such a project is essential even as the need is so much larger than any possible intervention. I've always tried to challenge students' belief that there is one authentic way of being X, often by introducing alternative perspectives on any particular topic by other Xs. I've also refused to embrace the fashionable progressive viewpoint that on any topic that bears on Xs, only Xs (and of course, only Xs who hold the appropriate, authentic beliefs) should be permitted to speak. Of course, for decades some students have been intrigued by this kind of pedagogy and others have been mildly offended and impatient for the experience to end. The difference between then and now is that, under the tutelage of their professors and other mentors on the left, students now characterize attempts to acquaint them with alternative perspectives and nudge them to reckon with complexity as indoctrination. I suspect this is what many students would do with FBT. The benefit is obvious: those who are routinely educated in a way that fits the definition of indoctrination get to condemn it while ridding themselves of the meddlesome priests of intellectual heterodoxy.
The notion that every voice is relevant to a conversation is laudable. Why then limit it to “all black voices”? A true move to anti-racial behavior requires all races to explore their experiences & potentially uncomfortable thoughts openly & together, not as separate groups—racial, or otherwise.
I don’t disagree...But, we need encourage a two way street here. For example, in your comment below to Michael Berkowitz, we also need to allow non black people to espouse viewpoints without automatically shutting them down as “racist”.
Our “tribes” are getting more numerous & smaller as the belief requirements to belong become more restrictive.
Isn't CRT a rehash of the old Ebonics(?) idea that inner city kids speak a different language. If memory serves me correct Black parents absolutely hated it.
Brittany Talissa King’s article in Tablet from September 2020 has the same title as your website. You mentioned her, but you didn’t mention that article. Hopefully you aren’t just taking that title from her. I imagine you aren’t, but so many people take ideas w/o crediting the creator these days. Her article is linked below. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/dubois-washington-black-lives-matter
No offense, but I can’t understand that line of thinking. Original thought is highly important to journalists/writers and creative people, which is what Persuasion is made up of. And credit always needs to be given where credit is due. I always find it strange when people don’t care about such things, and it always gives me echoes of “Sure, Carlos Mencia stole the bit from (insert name here) but he performed it better.”
I'm neither journalist nor writer, and if I'm creative, well, I don't think that has bearing here. Credit should be given where credit is due, but I haven't been appointed Hall Monitor, and that, combined with the fact that I don't *know* anything untoward has been done, leaves me unconcerned.
Lol. I completely get it. I am not a journalist/writer (prob obvious), and I don’t “know“ anything either. I just don’t like it when “lesser-knowns” get plagiarized by others who have a larger audience (and again, that’s likely not the situation here). And it is enhanced perhaps because I just discovered Brittany. She had a really great interview on Bret Weinstein‘s podcast if you haven’t checked it out. She gives me hope. https://youtu.be/j3nuTSMUK-8
This interested me enough to go to your site, but the site itself didn't make it clear how to read anything. If you had something like a feed of articles on the main landing page, I would definitely stick around / visit regularly / subscribe. But I had to scroll quite a ways down to even find where the articles are, and then once I went there, I saw a giant nested list of topics. I just can't see myself navigating something like that for this purpose. I only mean this as constructive feedback, not criticism of what I'm sure has been a difficult endeavor.
"All ____ people are _____" can never be true. Each of us is an individual, and any philosophy that insists otherwise is flat out wrong.
Ahhh, Denise you have exposed your white supremacy by insisting you're an individual. 20 Lashings! I only kid. You make an excellent point and one that we should celebrate. Humanity for everyone!
I think race issues would get a lot less polarized if we just substituted “systemic bias” for “systemic racism.” There are all kinds of biases in our systems that many people can relate to. Biases against the poor. Biases against ugly people. Biases against fat people. Biases against the less-educated. Biases against people with a strong southern accent.
Imagine a sort of implicit bias test that incorporated those factors instead of just race.
The essay is absolutely correct, but once we're free to ask what a variety of blacks think about their experience and their situation, we should be free to ask as well:
How important is it to get a black's perspective on black issues? After all, we see that some blacks have the same views on it as some whites, and that some of the most vocal whites have views that aren't shared by large numbers of blacks. And many of us believe that humans can share experiences and understand one another, largely, because they're all human.
Is race really as vital an issue as is currently popular to say? Maybe poverty is more important. Maybe the plight of women. Maybe our public discourse, or political dysfunction, or police brutality.
Free Black Thought makes sense. It's a good thing. Free Thought in general would be a good thing as well.
Right, but we need to keep conversation from being shut down by saying that all non-Black people who don’t espouse a certain line are racist or are blinded by their privilege, when there is diversity among Black people themselves.
Okay... I'm not sure how that relates to what I wrote.
Classism is vastly more punitive than racism and yet racism is an easy way to avoid that. If you are poor and you are uneducated your odds of being treated badly by the dominant class are much higher than if you are Harvard educated, despite your race. But race is the more trendy way for the white Mrs Jellyby gentry to assuage their guilt and feel good about themselves. Michael Che was probably not kidding when he said on SNL 3/27 "I just bought a gun now that all those white kids are talking about defunding the police." His brother is a cop.
Like Jim, I see it being more - if not completely - an issue of poverty and inequality than of race. "We Shall Overcome" by obtaining the leverage to get in on the unalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. That's what the Revolutionary War was fought for: the freedom to establish and then maintain a system of making money, acquiring land, owning capital, and protecting and serving that social structure.
The U.S. Constitution serves as the foundation for America's pay-to-play system that everyone wants in on, no matter if you're white or non-white.
It isn’t that I think I am privileged because I’m white. But, I do feel I’ve never had to face racial headwinds because I’m white: I’ve never been turned down for a loan because I’m white; never pulled over by police because I’m white; never turned down for a job interview because I’m white. I think those have been real obstacles for non-whites. To the extent that is true, relative poverty, inequality, and the ability to accumulate wealth are inhibited. They can be one & the same.
Bruce, I agree that there's an aspect of facial recognition at work, and by that I don't mean the A.I. technology. There's a security that comes with a person's appearance when it's familiar to us and ubiquitous throughout society. You along with many others have benefitted from it.
We're now starting to see that ubiquity change as demographics shift, and that's got some of the Old Guard feeling insecure. They're in the unfamiliar territory of the folks outside the gate outnumbering them. You hear it amplified in the echo chamber network whenever a pundit frets over "no longer recognizing the America I grew up in."
Still, I think their fears aren't so much triggered by skin color as they are by the associations they've made in their heads between skin color and crime, disease, illiteracy, and godlessness. Just as affluence becomes equated with the height of human fulfillment, abject poverty becomes equated with brute savagery. That the savages happen to have a different skin tone and different facial features makes it easier for the Life of Ease Club to identify them.
We pretty much agree. I used to just think that Mark Twain nailed the whole thing by saying: “ travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness...”. More familiarity & intermingling would simply reduce fear. However, we now have to add fears of loss of power—cultural & economic. I believe our country (and much of Europe) faces the same challenge. America’s world economic dominance is likely to be eclipsed by China & Asia. A little off point, but an extension, I think, of the issue(s).
In addition to the pet dimensions of the MSM I have always enjoyed splitting up black America into two sets of quintiles {Jazz, Rap, Gospel, Blues, R&B} x {Atheist, Baptist, Pentecostal, AME, Congregational} . I myself like electronic music, and am an Episcopalian. My wife is from Detroit. I'm from LA. My kids were born in Brooklyn and Atlanta. My mother is from New Orleans, my father from New Haven. It's a miracle anybody calls us black at all. A miracle or a curse.
Thanks, Erec Smith. Such a project is essential even as the need is so much larger than any possible intervention. I've always tried to challenge students' belief that there is one authentic way of being X, often by introducing alternative perspectives on any particular topic by other Xs. I've also refused to embrace the fashionable progressive viewpoint that on any topic that bears on Xs, only Xs (and of course, only Xs who hold the appropriate, authentic beliefs) should be permitted to speak. Of course, for decades some students have been intrigued by this kind of pedagogy and others have been mildly offended and impatient for the experience to end. The difference between then and now is that, under the tutelage of their professors and other mentors on the left, students now characterize attempts to acquaint them with alternative perspectives and nudge them to reckon with complexity as indoctrination. I suspect this is what many students would do with FBT. The benefit is obvious: those who are routinely educated in a way that fits the definition of indoctrination get to condemn it while ridding themselves of the meddlesome priests of intellectual heterodoxy.
The notion that every voice is relevant to a conversation is laudable. Why then limit it to “all black voices”? A true move to anti-racial behavior requires all races to explore their experiences & potentially uncomfortable thoughts openly & together, not as separate groups—racial, or otherwise.
Because much of our media and powerful institutions are lately promulgating the notion that the Black community is a monolith.
I don’t disagree...But, we need encourage a two way street here. For example, in your comment below to Michael Berkowitz, we also need to allow non black people to espouse viewpoints without automatically shutting them down as “racist”.
Our “tribes” are getting more numerous & smaller as the belief requirements to belong become more restrictive.
Isn't CRT a rehash of the old Ebonics(?) idea that inner city kids speak a different language. If memory serves me correct Black parents absolutely hated it.
Speech therapists working in school are no allowed to correct black kids English as not to make them sound white. That's inconceivable.
Brittany Talissa King’s article in Tablet from September 2020 has the same title as your website. You mentioned her, but you didn’t mention that article. Hopefully you aren’t just taking that title from her. I imagine you aren’t, but so many people take ideas w/o crediting the creator these days. Her article is linked below. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/dubois-washington-black-lives-matter
I'm not concerned about the authors stepping on King's toes, but it's a good essay. Thanks for linking to it.
No offense, but I can’t understand that line of thinking. Original thought is highly important to journalists/writers and creative people, which is what Persuasion is made up of. And credit always needs to be given where credit is due. I always find it strange when people don’t care about such things, and it always gives me echoes of “Sure, Carlos Mencia stole the bit from (insert name here) but he performed it better.”
None taken.
I'm neither journalist nor writer, and if I'm creative, well, I don't think that has bearing here. Credit should be given where credit is due, but I haven't been appointed Hall Monitor, and that, combined with the fact that I don't *know* anything untoward has been done, leaves me unconcerned.
Lol. I completely get it. I am not a journalist/writer (prob obvious), and I don’t “know“ anything either. I just don’t like it when “lesser-knowns” get plagiarized by others who have a larger audience (and again, that’s likely not the situation here). And it is enhanced perhaps because I just discovered Brittany. She had a really great interview on Bret Weinstein‘s podcast if you haven’t checked it out. She gives me hope. https://youtu.be/j3nuTSMUK-8
Thanks again, I'll have to check that out.
This interested me enough to go to your site, but the site itself didn't make it clear how to read anything. If you had something like a feed of articles on the main landing page, I would definitely stick around / visit regularly / subscribe. But I had to scroll quite a ways down to even find where the articles are, and then once I went there, I saw a giant nested list of topics. I just can't see myself navigating something like that for this purpose. I only mean this as constructive feedback, not criticism of what I'm sure has been a difficult endeavor.