Why People Feel Like Victims(nautil.us)
nautil.us
Why People Feel Like Victims
https://nautil.us/issue/99/universality/why-people-feel-like-victims
499 comments
The mere act of caring about your children's schooling, and taking measures to ensure its quality is a far more solid predictor of good outcomes than nearly anything else. At least, that's what economic data from the last fifty years says.
These "narratives" are just that, fictional stories told to support a prevailing social ideology, and yes, they are dangerous, not the least because they ignore the facts.
These "narratives" are just that, fictional stories told to support a prevailing social ideology, and yes, they are dangerous, not the least because they ignore the facts.
We can debate all day long about the merits of explaining systemic racism to young black kids vs keeping them ignorant about it. However the people ignoring the facts are the ones who deny systemic racism exists.
It may be better for children of color to be ignorant about it, but certainly not adults of any racial background.
It may be better for children of color to be ignorant about it, but certainly not adults of any racial background.
It doesn’t exist.
I'd argue there's a lot more nuances to system racism than the general narrative that is currently being perpettuated. Looking into those nuances would be frowned upon because certain groups differ from other groups for reasons that are not truly understood but would cause us to ask questions we're not comfortable with.
Though anecdotal, I know several adults who have fallen into the "it's because systemic racism that I can't get ahead" trap. One example is a low-achiever socially awkward friend of mine that complains about not being able to find a tech job, yet spends the vast majority of his days playing video games. Instead of recongizing that his skills (social and coding) are subpar and addressing it, he chalks it up to systemic racism, makes an angry post on Facebook and calls it a day.
Though anecdotal, I know several adults who have fallen into the "it's because systemic racism that I can't get ahead" trap. One example is a low-achiever socially awkward friend of mine that complains about not being able to find a tech job, yet spends the vast majority of his days playing video games. Instead of recongizing that his skills (social and coding) are subpar and addressing it, he chalks it up to systemic racism, makes an angry post on Facebook and calls it a day.
I mean really. Do you really think that if someone who's unsuccessful because of laziness that if only they hadn't heard about systemic racism they would have a better work ethic? The laziness comes first. The excuse is crafted after the fact. If it wasnt that they'd claim to have some other disadvantage or problem.
A lot of psychotherapy is convincing individuals that they are in control of their actions and can decide how they react to and influence their environment.
A lot of what we're teaching now is the opposite. It's like anti-CBT. Teach everyone they are helpless against the nefarious powers that be.
A lot of what we're teaching now is the opposite. It's like anti-CBT. Teach everyone they are helpless against the nefarious powers that be.
There needs to be nuance for sure. People are still responsible for their own actions and the only way to guarantee you wont succeed is to not try.
At the same time there is systemic unfairness both in the legacy of racism that has created inequality and in how society operates to this very day and I don't know how you solve those problems if you don't address them. The status quo is not acceptable to myself or a lot of other people
At the same time there is systemic unfairness both in the legacy of racism that has created inequality and in how society operates to this very day and I don't know how you solve those problems if you don't address them. The status quo is not acceptable to myself or a lot of other people
You're missing the point. The current narrative of systemic racism and the victimhood culture it creates isnt helping, it's exacerbating the issues and reinforcing itself.
By conditioning people into believing that an outside force is the primary, if not only factor impacting their lack of success, you demotivate them from trying to adjust other factors that could improve their situation. The issue isn't that we address racism, it's that racism has become the end-all rationalisation for any deficiency at the individual level.
By conditioning people into believing that an outside force is the primary, if not only factor impacting their lack of success, you demotivate them from trying to adjust other factors that could improve their situation. The issue isn't that we address racism, it's that racism has become the end-all rationalisation for any deficiency at the individual level.
You seem to be missing my point. There ARE systemic disadvantages to being black.
I get that you're of the opinion that telling people about racial inequality can demotivate them and make them feel fatalistic about their futures, but I don't necessarily agree with your assessment to the degree this is the case and you seem to think there is no room for nuance here. We must stop talking about this immediately. People are too simple to understand that there is still some unfairness that needs to be resolved, but that they should do their best regardless. No we must lie to them and tell them the system is fair and through their ignorance they will magically overcome the disadvantages they face.
You seem to think fear of systemic racism is a bigger obstacle to the success of black people than actual systemic racism and I just think that's absurd. Your basic premise that fear of institutional racism can be demotivating is valid and worth consideration. You're elevating it to the root cause of all problems is absurd. A black job applicant will receive half as many callbacks for job interviews compared to an identically qualified white applicant. There are little obstacles like that all over our society. Can they be overcome through tenacity and perseverance? Yes. Does that mean we shouldn't work to fix that %#@#? Hell No!
I get that you're of the opinion that telling people about racial inequality can demotivate them and make them feel fatalistic about their futures, but I don't necessarily agree with your assessment to the degree this is the case and you seem to think there is no room for nuance here. We must stop talking about this immediately. People are too simple to understand that there is still some unfairness that needs to be resolved, but that they should do their best regardless. No we must lie to them and tell them the system is fair and through their ignorance they will magically overcome the disadvantages they face.
You seem to think fear of systemic racism is a bigger obstacle to the success of black people than actual systemic racism and I just think that's absurd. Your basic premise that fear of institutional racism can be demotivating is valid and worth consideration. You're elevating it to the root cause of all problems is absurd. A black job applicant will receive half as many callbacks for job interviews compared to an identically qualified white applicant. There are little obstacles like that all over our society. Can they be overcome through tenacity and perseverance? Yes. Does that mean we shouldn't work to fix that %#@#? Hell No!
The issue is that it's not framed that way. It's framed as all or nothing, that blacks fail only because of racism. That's my lk entire issue. The message isn'tthat they're disadvantaged, the message is that there is 0 chance.
One encourages them to hold out as it gets better, the other for them to give up till it gets better.
I'm not calling it the root of all problems either, so please don't put words in my mouth. I'm saying it's not even a solution, it's the opposite, worsening the situation and feeding itself.
And to be specific here, I'm referring to the narrative around racism being the sole and primary cause of failure.
One encourages them to hold out as it gets better, the other for them to give up till it gets better.
I'm not calling it the root of all problems either, so please don't put words in my mouth. I'm saying it's not even a solution, it's the opposite, worsening the situation and feeding itself.
And to be specific here, I'm referring to the narrative around racism being the sole and primary cause of failure.
No, it isn't framed as all or nothing.
Principally because "the framing" isn't some well-defined objective thing, it's all a matter of perception, which means it's always possible to read whatever narrative you like into the facts.
Like this:
> the narrative around racism being the sole and primary cause of failure.
This perception is yours, not the facts on the ground.
Principally because "the framing" isn't some well-defined objective thing, it's all a matter of perception, which means it's always possible to read whatever narrative you like into the facts.
Like this:
> the narrative around racism being the sole and primary cause of failure.
This perception is yours, not the facts on the ground.
Wouldn't it logically follow that issues of systemic racism are a bigger problem than the narrative of systemic racism? Can't that be true without being a brainwashed white guilted liberal?
One problem is the narrative makes it harder to make progress on systemic racism.
Outside of very liberal strongholds identity politics can't get passed and they get in the way of any progress you want to actually make at trying to minimize the difference in outcomes between races.
Outside of very liberal strongholds identity politics can't get passed and they get in the way of any progress you want to actually make at trying to minimize the difference in outcomes between races.
You are assuming that admitting existence of systemic racism is identity politics.
No I'm not I'm arguing that selling the vast majority of policies and legislation as being about equity is bad politics.
People define systemic racism as different outcomes for black people than white people.
Basically no one denies that.
People define systemic racism as different outcomes for black people than white people.
Basically no one denies that.
Yeah, but nobody is teaching that. Nobody is going in and telling kids that they are helpless victims. That's just fox news nonsense.
Which environment is easier to influence, one in which you are more aware of underlying factors, or one in which you are less aware?
Which environment is easier to influence, one in which you are more aware of underlying factors, or one in which you are less aware?
Remind me of a South Park episode about alcoholism / AA ...
>Do you really think that if someone who's unsuccessful because of laziness that if only they hadn't heard about systemic racism they would have a better work ethic?
In the case of that particular individual I'd say it's less laziness and more of systemic racism being deterrent to attempt self-improvement. In the "even if I try, I won't get ahead because these systems will hold me back" sense.
The point I was trying to make is that it's a lot easier to point the blame at something than admit to yourself that you suck - even if you're capable.
I don't know what your definition of systemic racism is, so I can't make a proper argument for/against it.
In any case, your comment has given me some food for thought in how I approach this person.
In the case of that particular individual I'd say it's less laziness and more of systemic racism being deterrent to attempt self-improvement. In the "even if I try, I won't get ahead because these systems will hold me back" sense.
The point I was trying to make is that it's a lot easier to point the blame at something than admit to yourself that you suck - even if you're capable.
I don't know what your definition of systemic racism is, so I can't make a proper argument for/against it.
In any case, your comment has given me some food for thought in how I approach this person.
There is something to be said about demotivation and dispair. As someone who also spends a lot of time thinking about global warming there is a tendency to have bouts of feeling doomed here and there. It's not unjustified, but it also does no good. We need the information so we can solve the problem. We just need to learn to process it in a healthy way.
I would just say that anyone who claims they won't get ahead even if they try because of systemic racism is being ignorant. They might have to try harder than a white person would. They might face some adversity, but there really is no excuse for not trying. It would literally perpetuate the problem.
I would just say that anyone who claims they won't get ahead even if they try because of systemic racism is being ignorant. They might have to try harder than a white person would. They might face some adversity, but there really is no excuse for not trying. It would literally perpetuate the problem.
>I would just say that anyone who claims they won't get ahead even if they try because of systemic racism is being ignorant. They might have to try harder than a white person would. They might face some adversity, but there really is no excuse for not trying. It would literally perpetuate the problem.
Not only does systemic racism exist, not only has the environment succeeded in inducing a victim mentality in this person, you are now blaming them for it? Classical "pull yourself by your bootstraps" bullshit. Do you really not see how dehumanizing your viewpoint is, and how such attitudes help perpetuate that person's inaction?
>As someone who also spends a lot of time thinking about global warming there is a tendency to have bouts of feeling doomed here and there.
Not to belittle your own existential fears, but feeling doomed due to global warming at least doesn't make you feel like there's something wrong with you in particular.
It's strange - people with a victim mentality are victims of their victim mentality. It's recursive and self-fulfilling, and it does take some amount of bootstrapping - which is, however, perfectly impossible in the absence of a bootloader and someone to push the power button.
Not only does systemic racism exist, not only has the environment succeeded in inducing a victim mentality in this person, you are now blaming them for it? Classical "pull yourself by your bootstraps" bullshit. Do you really not see how dehumanizing your viewpoint is, and how such attitudes help perpetuate that person's inaction?
>As someone who also spends a lot of time thinking about global warming there is a tendency to have bouts of feeling doomed here and there.
Not to belittle your own existential fears, but feeling doomed due to global warming at least doesn't make you feel like there's something wrong with you in particular.
It's strange - people with a victim mentality are victims of their victim mentality. It's recursive and self-fulfilling, and it does take some amount of bootstrapping - which is, however, perfectly impossible in the absence of a bootloader and someone to push the power button.
It's true that if a black person gives up without trying because they assume they can't succeed then their failure contributes to the inequality between the races. I'm sure I could have put it better. I was most concerned about pushing back on the notion that this subject should be taboo because somehow discussing systemic racism is the real cause of inequality.
>It's true that if a black person gives up without trying because they assume they can't succeed then their failure contributes to the inequality between the races.
Not really my point. But what you're saying is legitimate too. Though who are we to judge, considering we don't even have unambiguous language to discuss the subject without risking to offend each other's sensibilities.
>I was most concerned about pushing back on the notion that this subject should be taboo because somehow discussing systemic racism is the real cause of inequality.
I'm not sure if I can resolve the nesting of those clauses. IMHO, taboos are generally counterproductive because avoiding the taboo gives it more power. And enforcing a particular language, tone, or other mode of discourse about race relations can be used to perpetuate thinking that reinforces racism "in the name of fighting racism".
This whole thing is starting to look more and more like we need to find out if we're even capable of discussing systemic racism without freaking out, so we can try to conclusively establish what systemic racism is, so that we can look for a solution to systemic racism, so that we can finally stop cops from shooting civilians for being the "wrong" color. This yak shaving is truly the work of a higher intellect...
Not really my point. But what you're saying is legitimate too. Though who are we to judge, considering we don't even have unambiguous language to discuss the subject without risking to offend each other's sensibilities.
>I was most concerned about pushing back on the notion that this subject should be taboo because somehow discussing systemic racism is the real cause of inequality.
I'm not sure if I can resolve the nesting of those clauses. IMHO, taboos are generally counterproductive because avoiding the taboo gives it more power. And enforcing a particular language, tone, or other mode of discourse about race relations can be used to perpetuate thinking that reinforces racism "in the name of fighting racism".
This whole thing is starting to look more and more like we need to find out if we're even capable of discussing systemic racism without freaking out, so we can try to conclusively establish what systemic racism is, so that we can look for a solution to systemic racism, so that we can finally stop cops from shooting civilians for being the "wrong" color. This yak shaving is truly the work of a higher intellect...
Sounds like plenty of people with ADHD I know who don't have their meds. I wouldn't say they are lazy, I would say they have poor executive function when not taking medication to compensate.
exporectomy(3)
Instead of just saying systemic racism exists, why not point out examples? Then people can judge for themselves what effect it may have on them instead of feeling like there's this oppressive "other" which is the cause of anything they don't like about their life and there's no point struggling against it because it'll just crush them anyway.
This list is more tailored to highlight systemic racism in criminal justice, but the economic side is just as important. There are much higher levels of poverty in black communities and that can be directly tied to the fact that in many ways black people were systematically prevented from building wealth for most of US history while white people were provided trillions of dollars in government subsidized economic opportunity that black people were excluded from. From the homesteading of thr 1800s to the fha backed loans that gave white people homes in the suburbs for lower mortgage rates than black people had to pay for rent to live in the redlined slums they were cordoned into by law.
[1] Police stop black drivers significantly more than white drivers when the sun is up and they are able to see that the driver is black, but not at night when they can't see the race of the driver. Meaning race is often the determining factor for why black drivers are pulled over.
[2] Unarmed black people are 3.49 times as likely to be killed as unarmed white people and local crime rates have zero effect on this statistic.
[3] Black and white officers use force at similar rates in white neightborhoods, but White police officers use force significantly more compared to black police officers when responding to calls in minority neighborhoods.
[4] Police in oakland find contraband at the same rate regardless of the race of the person, but search black drivers 4x more often.
[5] The more white a suspect appears to be the less likely police are to use force. The more black a suspect appears the more likely it is that police will use force.
[6] Black police officers are more likely to be shot by their fellow police than white police officers.
[7] Oaklad police disproportionately handcuff blacks at stunning levels regardless of which area of the city you look at.
[8] In San Francisco, “although Black people accounted for less than 15 percent of all stops in 2015, they accounted for over 42 percent of all non-consent searches following stops.” This proved unwarranted: “Of all people searched without consent, Black and Hispanic people had the lowest ‘hit rates’ (i.e., the lowest rate of contraband recovered).”
[9] The DOJ investigation into Ferguson PD, found “a pattern or practice of unlawful conduct within the Ferguson PD that violates the 1st, 4th, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, and federal law.” The scathing report found that FPD was targeting black residents and treating them as revenue streams for the city by striving to continually increase the money brought in through fees and fines.
[10] In Chicago, a 2016 report found that “black and Hispanic drivers were searched approximately four times as often as white drivers, yet Chicago PDs own data show that contraband was found on white drivers twice as often as black and Hispanic drivers.”
[11]2014 ACLU analysis of Illinois DOT data found: “Black and Latino drivers are nearly twice as likely as white drivers to be asked during a routine traffic stop for ‘consent’ to have their car searched. Yet white motorists are 49% more likely than African American motorists to have contraband discovered during a consent search by law enforcement, and 56% more likely when compared to Latinos.”
[12] Black people are more likely to be wrongfully convicted and more likelt to be framed for a crime they didn't commit.
[13] Black kids are more likely to be tried as an adult.
[14] Black people get 20% longer prison sentences for the same crimes even when you control for criminal history.
[15] Black students are more likely to be arrested at school. This appears to be a function of increased security at predominantly black schools and not because black students commit crimes at school at higher rates.
[16] Security levels in schools are determined by how many black kids go to the school and not crime levels.
[17] Predominantly black schools are chronically underfunded compared to predominantly white schools.
[18] An identical resume with a white sounding name like Stephen or Susan is twice as likely to recieve a call for a job interview compared to the same resume with an ethnically black sounding name like Jamal or Latisha.
[19] Minorities who alter their resumes to seem white get more job interviews.
[20] Banks targeted black homeowners for predatory homeloans and refinancing in the lead up to the 2008 crisis. Causing black families to be disproportionately harmed by the forclosure crisis.
[21] owner-occupied homes in black neighborhoods are undervalued by $48,000 per home on average, amounting to $156 billion in cumulative losses. This study controls for crime rates. Neighborhood amenities like schools, parks, walkability, and public transportation. The size and age of homes etc.
[22] In an experiment landlords responding to emails treated Blacks, Arab males, Muslims, and single parents unfavorably.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0858-1
[2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
[3] https://www.nber.org/papers/w26774?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_me...
[4] https://stanford.app.box.com/v/Data-for-Change
[5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/194855061663350...
[6] https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/wien...
[7] https://sparq.stanford.edu/opd-reports
[8] https://sfdistrictattorney.org/sites/default/files/Document/...
[9] https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releas...
[10] https://chicagopatf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PATF_Fina...
[11] https://www.aclu-il.org/en/press-releases/traffic-stop-data-...
[12] https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race...
[13] https://www.wnyc.org/story/black-kids-more-likely-be-tried-a...
[14]https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/demographic-d...
[15] https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/01/25/black-students...
[16] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160608180824.h...
[17] https://psmag.com/education/nonwhite-school-districts-get-23...
[18] https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html
[19] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...
[20] https://www.aclu.org/files/field_document/discrimlend_final....
[21] https://www.brookings.edu/research/devaluation-of-assets-in-...
[22] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01660...
[1] Police stop black drivers significantly more than white drivers when the sun is up and they are able to see that the driver is black, but not at night when they can't see the race of the driver. Meaning race is often the determining factor for why black drivers are pulled over.
[2] Unarmed black people are 3.49 times as likely to be killed as unarmed white people and local crime rates have zero effect on this statistic.
[3] Black and white officers use force at similar rates in white neightborhoods, but White police officers use force significantly more compared to black police officers when responding to calls in minority neighborhoods.
[4] Police in oakland find contraband at the same rate regardless of the race of the person, but search black drivers 4x more often.
[5] The more white a suspect appears to be the less likely police are to use force. The more black a suspect appears the more likely it is that police will use force.
[6] Black police officers are more likely to be shot by their fellow police than white police officers.
[7] Oaklad police disproportionately handcuff blacks at stunning levels regardless of which area of the city you look at.
[8] In San Francisco, “although Black people accounted for less than 15 percent of all stops in 2015, they accounted for over 42 percent of all non-consent searches following stops.” This proved unwarranted: “Of all people searched without consent, Black and Hispanic people had the lowest ‘hit rates’ (i.e., the lowest rate of contraband recovered).”
[9] The DOJ investigation into Ferguson PD, found “a pattern or practice of unlawful conduct within the Ferguson PD that violates the 1st, 4th, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, and federal law.” The scathing report found that FPD was targeting black residents and treating them as revenue streams for the city by striving to continually increase the money brought in through fees and fines.
[10] In Chicago, a 2016 report found that “black and Hispanic drivers were searched approximately four times as often as white drivers, yet Chicago PDs own data show that contraband was found on white drivers twice as often as black and Hispanic drivers.”
[11]2014 ACLU analysis of Illinois DOT data found: “Black and Latino drivers are nearly twice as likely as white drivers to be asked during a routine traffic stop for ‘consent’ to have their car searched. Yet white motorists are 49% more likely than African American motorists to have contraband discovered during a consent search by law enforcement, and 56% more likely when compared to Latinos.”
[12] Black people are more likely to be wrongfully convicted and more likelt to be framed for a crime they didn't commit.
[13] Black kids are more likely to be tried as an adult.
[14] Black people get 20% longer prison sentences for the same crimes even when you control for criminal history.
[15] Black students are more likely to be arrested at school. This appears to be a function of increased security at predominantly black schools and not because black students commit crimes at school at higher rates.
[16] Security levels in schools are determined by how many black kids go to the school and not crime levels.
[17] Predominantly black schools are chronically underfunded compared to predominantly white schools.
[18] An identical resume with a white sounding name like Stephen or Susan is twice as likely to recieve a call for a job interview compared to the same resume with an ethnically black sounding name like Jamal or Latisha.
[19] Minorities who alter their resumes to seem white get more job interviews.
[20] Banks targeted black homeowners for predatory homeloans and refinancing in the lead up to the 2008 crisis. Causing black families to be disproportionately harmed by the forclosure crisis.
[21] owner-occupied homes in black neighborhoods are undervalued by $48,000 per home on average, amounting to $156 billion in cumulative losses. This study controls for crime rates. Neighborhood amenities like schools, parks, walkability, and public transportation. The size and age of homes etc.
[22] In an experiment landlords responding to emails treated Blacks, Arab males, Muslims, and single parents unfavorably.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0858-1
[2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
[3] https://www.nber.org/papers/w26774?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_me...
[4] https://stanford.app.box.com/v/Data-for-Change
[5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/194855061663350...
[6] https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/wien...
[7] https://sparq.stanford.edu/opd-reports
[8] https://sfdistrictattorney.org/sites/default/files/Document/...
[9] https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releas...
[10] https://chicagopatf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PATF_Fina...
[11] https://www.aclu-il.org/en/press-releases/traffic-stop-data-...
[12] https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race...
[13] https://www.wnyc.org/story/black-kids-more-likely-be-tried-a...
[14]https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/demographic-d...
[15] https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/01/25/black-students...
[16] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160608180824.h...
[17] https://psmag.com/education/nonwhite-school-districts-get-23...
[18] https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html
[19] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...
[20] https://www.aclu.org/files/field_document/discrimlend_final....
[21] https://www.brookings.edu/research/devaluation-of-assets-in-...
[22] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01660...
If you wanted to talk about about systemic racism you would talk about things like single family zoning and ability to get mortgages.
There was a strongtowns article that literally had nothing to do with race, merely about getting rid of single family zoning. It didn't take long for someone in the comment section to post how building affordable housing in those places will ruin everything and everyone is naive because they haven't had to live in a ghetto.
There was an economics explained video about real estate that even implied that race was one of the factors was how far the homeowners are away from other races.
Coming from Europe this was completely unexpected for me, turns out, segregation in the USA never went away it merely became more socially acceptable.
There was a strongtowns article that literally had nothing to do with race, merely about getting rid of single family zoning. It didn't take long for someone in the comment section to post how building affordable housing in those places will ruin everything and everyone is naive because they haven't had to live in a ghetto.
There was an economics explained video about real estate that even implied that race was one of the factors was how far the homeowners are away from other races.
Coming from Europe this was completely unexpected for me, turns out, segregation in the USA never went away it merely became more socially acceptable.
Ever been to London? It's thoroughly segregated among many ethnicities and nationalities. Here's one map
http://projects.andrewwhitby.com/uk-ethnicity-map/
but it's more fine grained than that. Bangladeshis are separate from Pakistanis, for instance.
http://projects.andrewwhitby.com/uk-ethnicity-map/
but it's more fine grained than that. Bangladeshis are separate from Pakistanis, for instance.
Number 2 for instance, is such a small chance it is not really worth mentioning. I believe white people get hit by lightning something like 6 times more likely than blacks and it happens way more than being unarmed and shot by police.
The population of white people is about 6 times bigger. That should mostly explain the lightning disparity.
The statistics on unarmed people being killed by police account for differences in population sizes. Also while that is a hot button issue it's really the tip of the iceberg for this subject. The body of work showing systemic racism is an ongoing problem in the US holds up just fine if you ignore police shootings altogether.
The statistics on unarmed people being killed by police account for differences in population sizes. Also while that is a hot button issue it's really the tip of the iceberg for this subject. The body of work showing systemic racism is an ongoing problem in the US holds up just fine if you ignore police shootings altogether.
Is there a way I'm missing to save comments on HN besides also commenting on them so they can be revisited later? I'd like to save this. This is one of the best meta-summaries I've ever seen, on any topic.
You can get a link to a particular comment by clicking on the timestamp next to the posters name.
May I recommend an organized note taking system copying the literal text and link for reference. I like org-roam with a hotkey to capture title and if existent any highlighted text.
https://github.com/org-roam/org-roam
There are of course about a million ways to skin this particular cat and plenty of them are good.
The benefit of using your own system is that you can trivially reference information from many websites via one method instead of relying on the many and varied features of many sites. The benefit of copying the full relevant text is both that you can search that text and if a site or a comment goes missing tomorrow or 5 years from now you aren't out the information.
May I recommend an organized note taking system copying the literal text and link for reference. I like org-roam with a hotkey to capture title and if existent any highlighted text.
https://github.com/org-roam/org-roam
There are of course about a million ways to skin this particular cat and plenty of them are good.
The benefit of using your own system is that you can trivially reference information from many websites via one method instead of relying on the many and varied features of many sites. The benefit of copying the full relevant text is both that you can search that text and if a site or a comment goes missing tomorrow or 5 years from now you aren't out the information.
Thanks for the information, and for the recommendation--I'll take a look!
There are 3 ways to save a comment within HN: comment, upvote (your list of upvoted comments is visible to you only), favorite (your list of favorited comments is publicly visible). To favorite a comment you have to visit that comment specifically (click on its timestamp).
There are of course other ways to save comments, such as bookmarking with your browser or other bookmark applications.
There are of course other ways to save comments, such as bookmarking with your browser or other bookmark applications.
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None of those are systemic causes. Those are all cases of individual prejudice or racism adding up to make a statistical significance. Calling this systemic racism is a good way of how to never solve the actual problem.
What? This makes no sense to me.
Most of the examples were about police targeting black people disproportionately compared to other races concluding that is because of systemic racism. Is there a law that compels police officers to behave in such a way? The answer is none. Therefore it can't be systemic. The targeting comes from individual decisions by individual officers. Whether this is from prejudice or bad experience or plain racism is unknown. For that you would have to divide individuals officers into buckets by their race in see the statics for each bucket. For example do black officers also arrest disproportionate number of black people? You would need all the combinations from different buckets to get a sense of underlying reasons.
What if a certain group of laws (say drug laws) was created specifically so police could target certain minorities? There isn't any particular motivation in the law to arrest more black people for marijuana use, but despite similar usage by race (2-4% difference https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2017/08/11/char...) arrests for Blacks happen at 3-6 times Whites. There's lots to suggest the war on drugs is racially motivated, but it criminalizes drug use and possession, not race (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_the_war_on_drugs)
>What if a certain group of laws (say drug laws) was created specifically so police could target certain minorities?
Could you point to such a law or even better cite a paragraph from such a law where you feel it targets certain minorities? How do police officers from minority background do their job?
Could you point to such a law or even better cite a paragraph from such a law where you feel it targets certain minorities? How do police officers from minority background do their job?
Are you not aware of the sentencing disparities between crack and cocain?
Also the war on drugs started under the Nixon admin was an intentional effort to target black people and anti-war activists.
https://www.businessinsider.com/nixon-adviser-ehrlichman-ant...
Also the war on drugs started under the Nixon admin was an intentional effort to target black people and anti-war activists.
https://www.businessinsider.com/nixon-adviser-ehrlichman-ant...
Could you provide a link to a law that requires harsher sentencing for black people (specific paragraph would be appreciated)? Do you also have statistics on how harsh judges from different races are towards black people when sentencing?
There is a difference between rules and laws being racist (systemic racism) and people being racist (boring old normal racism).
This reminds me of the debate between micro evolution and macro evolution. Nobody is confused that often these disparate outcomes are the cumulative effect of the decisions of many biased decisions by people inside the systems. It's still systemic racism because the outcome of all those peoples behavior is a system that discriminates. No racist intention needs to be spelled out in any rule or law for systemic racism to exist.
"Black people get 20% longer prison sentences for the same crimes even when you control for criminal history"
Why "Even" ? It does not say anything about racism if you do not control for other factors, like criminal history and society inclusion. It's phrased as if it would still hold without control variable, and the author is doing a favor to potential nitpicker. It may be true, but the "Even" does not make me confident of the scientific value of the publication and the absence of confirmation bias of the author.
Why "Even" ? It does not say anything about racism if you do not control for other factors, like criminal history and society inclusion. It's phrased as if it would still hold without control variable, and the author is doing a favor to potential nitpicker. It may be true, but the "Even" does not make me confident of the scientific value of the publication and the absence of confirmation bias of the author.
Repeat offenders are often given longer sentences. Mandatory minimum sentencing plays a big part in this. I assume that's what they're trying to control for.
If you don't encounter the justice system then almost nothing on your list is relevant. Most black kids won't be directly affected yet they do much worse at school. What specific examples of systemic racism have been shown to cause that? I've read some of the research and it's inconclusive. Many possible causes are suggested, a big one being cultural factors of the mothers.
So a normal black kid can safely pursue life without worrying that he or she has been held back by systemic racism.
So a normal black kid can safely pursue life without worrying that he or she has been held back by systemic racism.
This list shares a lot in common with these sources for a youtuber's racial policing videos: https://www.the1janitor.com/sources
Is there a meta-source you got your list from?
Is there a meta-source you got your list from?
I've seen the same list elsewhere in social media. I think it's a copy-pasted text that's in frequent use. Examples pulled from a search:
https://twitter.com/_SAWI__/status/1299096866789834754
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/mpabvz/serious_r...
https://twitter.com/_SAWI__/status/1299096866789834754
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/mpabvz/serious_r...
Can I just say this makes me really happy to see this getting around. The list I shared here is my own compilation. It's nice to see others have found it useful.
It’s interesting that it has gotten around even without your knowledge. If I may ask do you have a large following on some social media platform, from where it originated or spread out?
No I've just posted it around Facebook and reddit. Mostly Facebook. Once in a while someone will post it to /r/sports and credit me with it, but besides that I didn't know anyone was sharing it.
I compiled this list.
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"systemic racism" is intentionally deceptive language. I think you'd be hard-pressed to constructive uses of this jargon where people are actually trying to solve specific, well-defined problems.
Systemic racism isn't intentionally deceptive. It's self explanatory, but just like anything the more you investigate the more layered and multifaceted it becomes.
For me it's 3 main things.
1. The way historical oppression can set a group behind another group even after any specific policy has been repealed.
Poverty is often a cycle that can go on indefinitely for generations especially depending on things like upward mobility which has coincidentally been getting weaker since the period of official apartheid ended in the USA. Strange that we seem to be uninterested in spending much on the uplifting of our people now that such spending would need to include all people.
2. The way that bias against a group can result in that group being disadvantaged despite there being no rules or laws in place that require that and even in spite of it being contrary to policies.
Like the way that black people are half as likely to receive a callback for a job interview as an identically qualified white applicant or that despite being less likely to be found with contraband black people are twice as likely to be searched by police.
3. Would be laws and rules that do not target racial groups, but unfairly benefit or disadvantage racial groups.
This would be local property tax based school funding resulting in poor neighborhoods getting inadequate funding for schools resulting in predominantly black schools being underfunded. This is also drastically harsher penalties for crack compared to cocaine.
For me it's 3 main things.
1. The way historical oppression can set a group behind another group even after any specific policy has been repealed.
Poverty is often a cycle that can go on indefinitely for generations especially depending on things like upward mobility which has coincidentally been getting weaker since the period of official apartheid ended in the USA. Strange that we seem to be uninterested in spending much on the uplifting of our people now that such spending would need to include all people.
2. The way that bias against a group can result in that group being disadvantaged despite there being no rules or laws in place that require that and even in spite of it being contrary to policies.
Like the way that black people are half as likely to receive a callback for a job interview as an identically qualified white applicant or that despite being less likely to be found with contraband black people are twice as likely to be searched by police.
3. Would be laws and rules that do not target racial groups, but unfairly benefit or disadvantage racial groups.
This would be local property tax based school funding resulting in poor neighborhoods getting inadequate funding for schools resulting in predominantly black schools being underfunded. This is also drastically harsher penalties for crack compared to cocaine.
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"Systemic racism" is a conspiracy theory. It is a very convenient term because it is not disprovable easily yet allow to make a whole group of people responsible to all the problems of another one.
It's not easily disprovable because all the evidence supports its existence. I see identical criticisms of global warming. Which is so difficult to disprove on account of all the evidence supporting its existence. It would be easy to disprove either. You would just need the evidence to show they are wrong.
The parent poster gave you a great example in terms of the same resume getting fewer call backs with a black sounding name. Instead of dismissing it as a conspiracy theory it would be good to understand it.
https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...
https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...
It is true that many people have attributed a wide range issues to it, on offentimes shaky reasoning, but there are also very clear examples of codified rules and laws keeping minority races down, for instance the minimum wage.
The minimum wage keeps poor people down. That doesn't make it systemically racist.
It was first implemented locally in the reconstruction era south to keep blacks from competing with white labor.
Later, in the 1920s, African Americans had a higher rate of employment than White Americans! But after the federal minimum wage passed, their economic power was destroyed and has yet to recover.
Today, most people don't consider it as having anything to do with race, but when it was first put on the books, it was specifically designed to hurt them.
Later, in the 1920s, African Americans had a higher rate of employment than White Americans! But after the federal minimum wage passed, their economic power was destroyed and has yet to recover.
Today, most people don't consider it as having anything to do with race, but when it was first put on the books, it was specifically designed to hurt them.
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True. I don't see how you can possibly deny the existence of systemic racism in a country where all the top educational institutions actively discriminate against asians.
What do you think about Affirmative Action? Is it systemic racism or systemic antiracism?
> What do you think about Affirmative Action? Is it systemic racism or systemic antiracism?
Racism of course. Since it’s selecting people based on race.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Racism of course. Since it’s selecting people based on race.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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In theory but there is effectively already in many cases greater affirmative action for white people already. Lets look at Harvard as a case study.
43% of white students at Harvard are legacies, athletes, or related to staff and 75% of these 43% wouldn't have been admitted on merits.
Around 1/3 of white people at Harvard are there because of effectively white affirmative action.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/study-harvard-finds-43-...
A drive to pick people solely on merits would sound more meritorious if we applied it to white people first. I say this as a white man who believes in theory colorblind meritocracy in an imaginary world where such a thing can actually exist.
43% of white students at Harvard are legacies, athletes, or related to staff and 75% of these 43% wouldn't have been admitted on merits.
Around 1/3 of white people at Harvard are there because of effectively white affirmative action.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/study-harvard-finds-43-...
A drive to pick people solely on merits would sound more meritorious if we applied it to white people first. I say this as a white man who believes in theory colorblind meritocracy in an imaginary world where such a thing can actually exist.
I have nothing against moving the entire college admission over to be anonymous test based. Progressive people doesn't like it though.
So explain the drive to eliminate test based admissions at heavily Asian NYC and VA public high schools
I don't feel the need to as one doesn't negate the other.
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> Since it’s selecting people based on race.
This can also apply to antiracism, which as I understand it [1] is policy that attempts to undo structural racism, not policy that is absent of race-conscious treatment. I think this question would also be more interesting to answer because everyone already agrees that affirmative action literally does factor in race. The more controversial part is whether it serves to reinforce or counteract some forms of systemic racism.
[1] From a modern viewpoint (e.g. Kendi), although I'm not sure if this word previously had different uses.
This can also apply to antiracism, which as I understand it [1] is policy that attempts to undo structural racism, not policy that is absent of race-conscious treatment. I think this question would also be more interesting to answer because everyone already agrees that affirmative action literally does factor in race. The more controversial part is whether it serves to reinforce or counteract some forms of systemic racism.
[1] From a modern viewpoint (e.g. Kendi), although I'm not sure if this word previously had different uses.
Racism. But we'll call it anti-racism!
From this perspective (Kendi, etc.), it is very much not the same as racism and is not just "racism" being rebranded. The term "anti-racism" really only makes sense when you consider this dichotomy using the more specific definition of racism.
Let's make a ranking system for incoming students. There will be an academic score for things like test scores and grades, and there will be a "personality score" for, well, god knows what. Turns out that Asian applicants score higher on the academic score, so what we'll do then is rank them lower on personality (though in person interviews have ranked then the same as students of other races). This is what we call the "holistic" admissions system, and it was designed in the 1920's to keep out the Jews.
Hmm, is this racism or anti-racism? Because it's literally what Harvard does.
Hmm, is this racism or anti-racism? Because it's literally what Harvard does.
Antiracism is racism, by definition. The question should be whether it is justified/justifiable, not whether it's racism.
Yeah that seems to be a problem.
Systemic racism no longer exists or at least I’m completely unaware of it. I find proponents of this theory like people who believe in big foot. Somehow he’s out there but they have zero evidence for it
Other people have linked direct stats in this thread, and I encourage looking around at them. But also, just think about your theory in the abstract for a second.
Less than one full generation has passed since redlining was made illegal. It's been less than 60 years since segregation was ruled illegal across the board.
Do you really believe that the entirety of society has been reshaped in that amount of time and every negative system has been eliminated? In what is essentially less than the lifespan of a single generation?
People treat the civil rights movement like it's this very old event that we've all moved past. I don't necessarily blame people for having that perspective, because that's the way we're taught about it in schools. But the civil rights movement was very recent.
You think we overhauled the entire housing market in 60 years? We have not yet had even a single president that was born after the civil rights movement. So from my perspective, even ignoring the stats and research on this subject, I keep hearing people tell me that when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the voting rights act of 1965 passed, all the racists just, I don't know, died or something. That they can't possibly exist anymore, and they can't possibly have taught anything negative to their immediate kids who went on to be CEOs and politicians.
Less than one full generation has passed since redlining was made illegal. It's been less than 60 years since segregation was ruled illegal across the board.
Do you really believe that the entirety of society has been reshaped in that amount of time and every negative system has been eliminated? In what is essentially less than the lifespan of a single generation?
People treat the civil rights movement like it's this very old event that we've all moved past. I don't necessarily blame people for having that perspective, because that's the way we're taught about it in schools. But the civil rights movement was very recent.
You think we overhauled the entire housing market in 60 years? We have not yet had even a single president that was born after the civil rights movement. So from my perspective, even ignoring the stats and research on this subject, I keep hearing people tell me that when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the voting rights act of 1965 passed, all the racists just, I don't know, died or something. That they can't possibly exist anymore, and they can't possibly have taught anything negative to their immediate kids who went on to be CEOs and politicians.
I've never been in a room on a hiring committee where they were like, you know what? let's give this white guy a chance. I have been in the room where were like, let's give this minority an extra chance literally dozens of times. I find it very hard to believe that there is an elaborate rouse being played on me personally and that despite not knowing any single person who would actively discriminate against someone, it is everywhere and omnipresent. Do some racists exist? Sure. Are there enough to create this environment where it is a major problem for minorities? No. No way.
> and that despite not knowing any single person who would actively discriminate against someone
I've met plenty of people who I believe would actively discriminate against someone because of their race, and I'm an asocial white person who avoids public spaces. I just replied to a comment on this very page that openly argued that unequal outcomes in Black communities were the result of biological differences. I don't know what word to use for the belief that Blacks are biologically inferior other than the word 'racist'. I can't speak to anyone else's experiences, maybe you've been fortunate to interact with better communities than me, but I don't personally think this stuff is particularly rare.
If we're going off of what is and isn't hard to believe, I don't find systemic racism to be far-fetched. There was, objectively, an omnipresent, elaborate rouse being played on Black communities for the entirety of American history leading up to at least the civil rights act. That part isn't debatable. So for me, the wild conclusion to draw is that after >180 years of targeted oppression, everyone involved in those systems immediately vanished after a law was passed.
60 years is not enough time to fix wealth gaps in a preexisting neighborhood, not unless we take active steps to fix them. It's just really obvious to me that the reason many ghettos exist is because we built them; there's records of banks deliberately choosing not to invest in those areas because of race. We never did any kind of restitution plan or went back and gave those communities the investment money we denied them earlier. Those areas didn't immediately become rich or get better schools just because a law was passed.
But if you want to look at statistics instead of anecdotes, this is also something that has been studied a lot if you're willing to put in the effort to research it. There's a lot that people can debate around systemic racism, but at the very least, it's pretty hard not to acknowledge that there are unequal outcomes happening. I know you saw breakyerself's comment, do you think that none of those stats are worth being concerned about?
I've met plenty of people who I believe would actively discriminate against someone because of their race, and I'm an asocial white person who avoids public spaces. I just replied to a comment on this very page that openly argued that unequal outcomes in Black communities were the result of biological differences. I don't know what word to use for the belief that Blacks are biologically inferior other than the word 'racist'. I can't speak to anyone else's experiences, maybe you've been fortunate to interact with better communities than me, but I don't personally think this stuff is particularly rare.
If we're going off of what is and isn't hard to believe, I don't find systemic racism to be far-fetched. There was, objectively, an omnipresent, elaborate rouse being played on Black communities for the entirety of American history leading up to at least the civil rights act. That part isn't debatable. So for me, the wild conclusion to draw is that after >180 years of targeted oppression, everyone involved in those systems immediately vanished after a law was passed.
60 years is not enough time to fix wealth gaps in a preexisting neighborhood, not unless we take active steps to fix them. It's just really obvious to me that the reason many ghettos exist is because we built them; there's records of banks deliberately choosing not to invest in those areas because of race. We never did any kind of restitution plan or went back and gave those communities the investment money we denied them earlier. Those areas didn't immediately become rich or get better schools just because a law was passed.
But if you want to look at statistics instead of anecdotes, this is also something that has been studied a lot if you're willing to put in the effort to research it. There's a lot that people can debate around systemic racism, but at the very least, it's pretty hard not to acknowledge that there are unequal outcomes happening. I know you saw breakyerself's comment, do you think that none of those stats are worth being concerned about?
Have you not seen companies with white guys in leadership promoting whoever they seem to have the best rapport with and that just happens to be mostly white guys like themselves? No racism of any kind is needed for a companies leadership to become homogeneous.
> I've never been in a room on a hiring committee where they were like, you know what? let's give this white guy a chance.
I have seen people giving white guys changes again and again and again. And then make them fall upwards. Some took up those chances, others did not. I am not even calling something sinister in all those situations (through in some yeah). Just stating that giving a white guy a chance is not something rare.
I have seen people giving white guys changes again and again and again. And then make them fall upwards. Some took up those chances, others did not. I am not even calling something sinister in all those situations (through in some yeah). Just stating that giving a white guy a chance is not something rare.
There is a mountain of academic study on the subject. I don't blame you for being unfamiliar with it, but without doing the research I don't know what you think you would have stumbled across by accident that would have proven things to you. Especially if you're already primed to think it's not real.
> * I don't blame you for being unfamiliar with it*
I do.
I do.
11% of Americans openly believe in white supremacy and half of republicans think immigration weakens us as a nation despite centuries of America benefiting profoundly from immigration.
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/10/17670992/study-white-americans...
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/10/17670992/study-white-americans...
The study says 5.6%, and how you’re defining “white supremacy” is extremely dishonest:
> Respondents were asked how important their race was to their identity on a five-point scale ranging from “not at all important” to “extremely important.” They were also asked a question measuring their feelings of white solidarity: “How important is it that whites work together to change laws that are unfair to whites?” This followed the same five-point scale. Finally, we can assess survey respondents’ feelings of white victimization from their answers to the question of how much discrimination whites face in the U.S., also on a five-point scale, ranging from “none at all” to a “great deal.”
These people are opposed to affirmative action. The Biden administration is literally excluding white people from things like farm loan forgiveness and SBA loans. Cities are excluding them from things like mortgage subsidies. Companies are openly talking about quota systems. “White men” is used as a pejorative.
Maybe these people are like the “war on Christmas” folks and are blowing this stuff out of proportion. But when there is literal discrimination against white people being baked into our laws, calling them “white supremacist” for saying in a survey that white people should try to get those laws overturned is totally psychotic.
> Respondents were asked how important their race was to their identity on a five-point scale ranging from “not at all important” to “extremely important.” They were also asked a question measuring their feelings of white solidarity: “How important is it that whites work together to change laws that are unfair to whites?” This followed the same five-point scale. Finally, we can assess survey respondents’ feelings of white victimization from their answers to the question of how much discrimination whites face in the U.S., also on a five-point scale, ranging from “none at all” to a “great deal.”
These people are opposed to affirmative action. The Biden administration is literally excluding white people from things like farm loan forgiveness and SBA loans. Cities are excluding them from things like mortgage subsidies. Companies are openly talking about quota systems. “White men” is used as a pejorative.
Maybe these people are like the “war on Christmas” folks and are blowing this stuff out of proportion. But when there is literal discrimination against white people being baked into our laws, calling them “white supremacist” for saying in a survey that white people should try to get those laws overturned is totally psychotic.
Voter ID laws disproportionately affect racial minorities to this day, and are tantamount to a poll tax until the State bears the burden of providing ID.
https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...
https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...
Regardless that was the motivation. It may have been a failed effort, but it was absolutely the intention and it's got to hurt being a black person in this day and age and know that lawmakers are still looking for ways to exclude you from our democratic system.
> We can debate all day long about the merits of explaining systemic racism to young black kids vs keeping them ignorant about it. However the people ignoring the facts are the ones who deny systemic racism exists.
Because “systemic racism” is a term used mostly by college educated white people for other college educated white people. Not only that, it deliberately repurposes a label that ordinarily refers to prejudiced beliefs, and applies it to structural forces that operate without any individuals being consciously racist. The same academics who talk about “systemic racism” readily admit that prejudiced beliefs have actually declined.
If you educated people about the history of e.g. FHA redlining and how that affects people today, I think you’d find far fewer people deny that those effects exist.
Besides that, we’re now teaching it to all children of color, who definitely don’t suffer from systemic racism. Asians and Latinos are on a course to achieve economic parity with whites, just like previous immigrant generations:
https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353
> It may be better for children of color to be ignorant about it, but certainly not adults of any racial background.
Sure, we should definitely teach kinds about the history of these things, how they create structural barriers, statistics on persistent disparities, when they’re old enough to understand. But even then, we should actually say what we mean instead of using rhetoric chosen by activists for shock effect.
Because “systemic racism” is a term used mostly by college educated white people for other college educated white people. Not only that, it deliberately repurposes a label that ordinarily refers to prejudiced beliefs, and applies it to structural forces that operate without any individuals being consciously racist. The same academics who talk about “systemic racism” readily admit that prejudiced beliefs have actually declined.
If you educated people about the history of e.g. FHA redlining and how that affects people today, I think you’d find far fewer people deny that those effects exist.
Besides that, we’re now teaching it to all children of color, who definitely don’t suffer from systemic racism. Asians and Latinos are on a course to achieve economic parity with whites, just like previous immigrant generations:
https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353
> It may be better for children of color to be ignorant about it, but certainly not adults of any racial background.
Sure, we should definitely teach kinds about the history of these things, how they create structural barriers, statistics on persistent disparities, when they’re old enough to understand. But even then, we should actually say what we mean instead of using rhetoric chosen by activists for shock effect.
There are more factors to systemic racism than just worse economic outcomes, so it's naive to assert that only black people experience its negative effects.
Immigration comes to mind, where profiling is rampant in enforcement (but only really for people who look Mexican, not for people who look / sound Canadian). Or even immigration quotas -- there's the same annual green card cap per country, whether it's India or China or Iceland, thereby implicitly biasing toward smaller countries.
Or, affirmative action being used as a wedge issue for Asian Americans especially.
And just because some Asian populations are doing well, doesn't mean that _all_ of them are.
Immigration comes to mind, where profiling is rampant in enforcement (but only really for people who look Mexican, not for people who look / sound Canadian). Or even immigration quotas -- there's the same annual green card cap per country, whether it's India or China or Iceland, thereby implicitly biasing toward smaller countries.
Or, affirmative action being used as a wedge issue for Asian Americans especially.
And just because some Asian populations are doing well, doesn't mean that _all_ of them are.
Whoa. Now you’re using “systemic racism” to cover a lot of stuff that isn’t racist at all.
Immigration quotas that you speak of were created to increase diversity of immigrants. If we didn’t have them, then Chinese and Indian immigrants would get most of the visas pushing out other countries. It’s actually the opposite of systemic racism since it’s increasing racial diversity of immigrants.
Immigration quotas that you speak of were created to increase diversity of immigrants. If we didn’t have them, then Chinese and Indian immigrants would get most of the visas pushing out other countries. It’s actually the opposite of systemic racism since it’s increasing racial diversity of immigrants.
How is it not racist if it discriminates against people based on race? Sure it increases equality of outcome, but it decreases the equality of opportunity.
It’s not based on race but country of origin. If you’re a white person who was born in China you’re subject to the limits as well.
> There are more factors to systemic racism than just worse economic outcomes, so it's naive to assert that only black people experience its negative effects.
In the US economic disparities drive pretty much everything else.
> Immigration comes to mind, where profiling is rampant in enforcement (but only really for people who look Mexican, not for people who look / sound Canadian).
As a brown guy with a beard, maybe I get screened more at TSA, or maybe I don’t. (I definitely do outside the US.) At most that’s just regular racism caused by the preconceptions of TSA officers. It doesn’t lead to some systemic or persistent disadvantage.
> Or even immigration quotas -- there's the same annual green card cap per country, whether it's India or China or Iceland, thereby implicitly biasing toward smaller countries.
I’m not sure I would even call this racism.
> Or, affirmative action being used as a wedge issue for Asian Americans especially.
This is backward. It proceeds from a false premise “non-white solidarity” that’s broke by the use of wedge issues. The opposite is true: Asians have distinct interests and people trying to get them to support affirmative action measures are trying to get them to vote against their own interests. Ibram Kendi-style “equity”—where races are represented in proportion to their share of the population—would be disastrous for Asians. We would go from 20-40% in top universities to 6%. We’d go from 35% in Silicon Valley to 6%-10%. And that’s not a hypothetical thing. I went to TJHSST, where progressives voted to eliminate the admissions test. That will cut Asians from 70% to 20%. NYC is trying to do the same thing.
Asians, and to a great extent Latinos, have very little self-interest in rocking the boat. While immigrants in Europe are seeing generational poverty, Asians and Latinos enjoy similar or even higher levels of income mobility as whites. Cubans and Vietnamese came over as refugees with nothing, and achieved economic parity with white Americans within a single generation. There’s only a handful of countries (UK, Canada, Australia) where that sort of thing happens. We have very little self interest in messing with the current system.
It’s fair to argue that we should give up some of our privilege to help reduce systemic disparities. But that’s a completely different argument. But telling us that these changes are in our own self interest, because the existing system is racist against us, is just gaslighting.
> And just because some Asian populations are doing well, doesn't mean that _all_ of them are.
Yes, virtually all of them are. When you see people incoming intra-Asian disparities it’s almost invariably based on pointing to Asian groups that are recent immigrants. That’s why you suddenly started seeing articles about the plight of “Bhutanese Americans.” Virtually all of them came here during the Obama administration, as refugees. They might be poor now, but that’s to be expected at this stage.
I’m Bangladeshi. Bangladeshi Americans are one of the poorer Asian groups. But Indian Americans are one of the richest. That’s not the product of “racism”—that would be absurd, even we can’t usually tell each other apart by sight. Instead it’s because Indians started immigrating in the 1960s and Bangladeshis only did so in significant numbers since the 2000s. But even Asian groups who come here in poverty quickly move up the ladder. In 1980, Vietnamese were among the poorest ethnic groups, having come here as refugees. Today, they have reached economic parity with whites.
In the US economic disparities drive pretty much everything else.
> Immigration comes to mind, where profiling is rampant in enforcement (but only really for people who look Mexican, not for people who look / sound Canadian).
As a brown guy with a beard, maybe I get screened more at TSA, or maybe I don’t. (I definitely do outside the US.) At most that’s just regular racism caused by the preconceptions of TSA officers. It doesn’t lead to some systemic or persistent disadvantage.
> Or even immigration quotas -- there's the same annual green card cap per country, whether it's India or China or Iceland, thereby implicitly biasing toward smaller countries.
I’m not sure I would even call this racism.
> Or, affirmative action being used as a wedge issue for Asian Americans especially.
This is backward. It proceeds from a false premise “non-white solidarity” that’s broke by the use of wedge issues. The opposite is true: Asians have distinct interests and people trying to get them to support affirmative action measures are trying to get them to vote against their own interests. Ibram Kendi-style “equity”—where races are represented in proportion to their share of the population—would be disastrous for Asians. We would go from 20-40% in top universities to 6%. We’d go from 35% in Silicon Valley to 6%-10%. And that’s not a hypothetical thing. I went to TJHSST, where progressives voted to eliminate the admissions test. That will cut Asians from 70% to 20%. NYC is trying to do the same thing.
Asians, and to a great extent Latinos, have very little self-interest in rocking the boat. While immigrants in Europe are seeing generational poverty, Asians and Latinos enjoy similar or even higher levels of income mobility as whites. Cubans and Vietnamese came over as refugees with nothing, and achieved economic parity with white Americans within a single generation. There’s only a handful of countries (UK, Canada, Australia) where that sort of thing happens. We have very little self interest in messing with the current system.
It’s fair to argue that we should give up some of our privilege to help reduce systemic disparities. But that’s a completely different argument. But telling us that these changes are in our own self interest, because the existing system is racist against us, is just gaslighting.
> And just because some Asian populations are doing well, doesn't mean that _all_ of them are.
Yes, virtually all of them are. When you see people incoming intra-Asian disparities it’s almost invariably based on pointing to Asian groups that are recent immigrants. That’s why you suddenly started seeing articles about the plight of “Bhutanese Americans.” Virtually all of them came here during the Obama administration, as refugees. They might be poor now, but that’s to be expected at this stage.
I’m Bangladeshi. Bangladeshi Americans are one of the poorer Asian groups. But Indian Americans are one of the richest. That’s not the product of “racism”—that would be absurd, even we can’t usually tell each other apart by sight. Instead it’s because Indians started immigrating in the 1960s and Bangladeshis only did so in significant numbers since the 2000s. But even Asian groups who come here in poverty quickly move up the ladder. In 1980, Vietnamese were among the poorest ethnic groups, having come here as refugees. Today, they have reached economic parity with whites.
(Thanks for the very detailed response.)
(Immigration quotas are a weird one -- on one hand, you want to keep all the H1B visas from going to the mega-consultancies like Tata or Infosys that end up not paying very much, but on the other, of the 18 most populous countries, US is at #3, Russia is at #9, and the rest are outside of Europe. It's probably not racism! But at the same time, it does limit immigration from these larger countries which disproportionately skew Asian in favor of smaller countries that skew white. Europe is split into roughly as many countries as Asia, despite having a sixth of the population!)
I mean, affirmative action as a wedge issue for Asian Americans is already in place, whether it's achieving proportional representation or not -- the premise is that there are already higher admission standards at elite universities for Asian Americans than even whites (see: Harvard lawsuit). I agree with you there, that on the face of it, when taken in isolation, affirmative action is bad for Asian Americans! At the same time, you know which group is really under-represented at Harvard and would benefit from proportional representation? Non-hispanic whites (with "only" 40% of the student body, versus 60% of the US population).
I'm honestly curious to what extent the stats on median household income or whichever metric(s) you're using to gauge economic parity are skewed by the tendency of Asian Americans to concentrate in high cost-of-living urban areas. For instance, it's not a fair comparison to say "oh, Asian Americans who disproportionately live in NYC / SF make more than the median white American who lives in Wisconsin".
(Immigration quotas are a weird one -- on one hand, you want to keep all the H1B visas from going to the mega-consultancies like Tata or Infosys that end up not paying very much, but on the other, of the 18 most populous countries, US is at #3, Russia is at #9, and the rest are outside of Europe. It's probably not racism! But at the same time, it does limit immigration from these larger countries which disproportionately skew Asian in favor of smaller countries that skew white. Europe is split into roughly as many countries as Asia, despite having a sixth of the population!)
I mean, affirmative action as a wedge issue for Asian Americans is already in place, whether it's achieving proportional representation or not -- the premise is that there are already higher admission standards at elite universities for Asian Americans than even whites (see: Harvard lawsuit). I agree with you there, that on the face of it, when taken in isolation, affirmative action is bad for Asian Americans! At the same time, you know which group is really under-represented at Harvard and would benefit from proportional representation? Non-hispanic whites (with "only" 40% of the student body, versus 60% of the US population).
I'm honestly curious to what extent the stats on median household income or whichever metric(s) you're using to gauge economic parity are skewed by the tendency of Asian Americans to concentrate in high cost-of-living urban areas. For instance, it's not a fair comparison to say "oh, Asian Americans who disproportionately live in NYC / SF make more than the median white American who lives in Wisconsin".
[deleted]
Country of origin is not a race. You can’t just call everything racism because the numbers are different.
> Because “systemic racism” is a term used mostly by college educated white people for other college educated white people.
But we can agree that it exists, right? Whatever term you’d use, the phenomenon it describes is real. And it refers to present injustices as well as historical ones.
But we can agree that it exists, right? Whatever term you’d use, the phenomenon it describes is real. And it refers to present injustices as well as historical ones.
Many of the phenomena it describes are real, for sure, at least with respect to Black people. My Maryland county wasn’t desegregated until 1968, in my parents’ generation. That has produced statistical disparities that persist to this day.
Then what are you arguing? That it exists and doesn't exist at the same time?
The data don't support racism being the causes of the disparate outcomes. That makes it unreasonable to start with the assumption that the "system is racist."
If you want to understand why, I'd encourage you to read Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell.
Here's one example:
> These various facts might be summarized as examples of racism, so that the causal question is whether racism is either the cause, or one of the major causes, of poverty and other social problems among black Americans today. Many might consider the obvious answer to be "yes." Yet some incontrovertible facts undermine that conclusion. For example, despite the high poverty rate among black Americans in general, the poverty rate among black married couples has been less than 10 percent every year since 1994.
> The poverty rate of married blacks is not only lower than that of blacks as a whole, but in some years has also been lower than that of whites as a whole. In 2016, for example, the poverty rate for blacks was 22 percent, for whites was 11 percent, and for black married couples was 7.5 percent.
> Do racists care whether someone black is married or unmarried? If not, then why do married blacks escape poverty so much more often than other blacks, if racism is the main reason for black poverty? If the continuing effects of past evils such as slavery play a major causal role today, were the ancestors of today's black married couples exempt from slavery and other injuries?
The problem is the language around "systemic racism" cites outcomes as proof of preexisting conditions. That is, it asserts a tautology without presenting causal links, or ruling out other factors as causes.
When you do consider other factors, the detection of systemic racism collapses into one of point-stupidities (bad policies) and fairly ordinary economic forces not subject to racial choice. This is especially so when you start examining things like South Africa during apartheid (which was an example of systemic racism), or America at the turn of the 20th century.
There are a bundle of assumptions rolled up into that term that each merit discussion. If we're going to ever seriously talk about what behaviors and policies we should adopt, we ought to at least get the causes straight rather than leaping to the conclusion that "it" exists.
If you want to understand why, I'd encourage you to read Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell.
Here's one example:
> These various facts might be summarized as examples of racism, so that the causal question is whether racism is either the cause, or one of the major causes, of poverty and other social problems among black Americans today. Many might consider the obvious answer to be "yes." Yet some incontrovertible facts undermine that conclusion. For example, despite the high poverty rate among black Americans in general, the poverty rate among black married couples has been less than 10 percent every year since 1994.
> The poverty rate of married blacks is not only lower than that of blacks as a whole, but in some years has also been lower than that of whites as a whole. In 2016, for example, the poverty rate for blacks was 22 percent, for whites was 11 percent, and for black married couples was 7.5 percent.
> Do racists care whether someone black is married or unmarried? If not, then why do married blacks escape poverty so much more often than other blacks, if racism is the main reason for black poverty? If the continuing effects of past evils such as slavery play a major causal role today, were the ancestors of today's black married couples exempt from slavery and other injuries?
The problem is the language around "systemic racism" cites outcomes as proof of preexisting conditions. That is, it asserts a tautology without presenting causal links, or ruling out other factors as causes.
When you do consider other factors, the detection of systemic racism collapses into one of point-stupidities (bad policies) and fairly ordinary economic forces not subject to racial choice. This is especially so when you start examining things like South Africa during apartheid (which was an example of systemic racism), or America at the turn of the 20th century.
There are a bundle of assumptions rolled up into that term that each merit discussion. If we're going to ever seriously talk about what behaviors and policies we should adopt, we ought to at least get the causes straight rather than leaping to the conclusion that "it" exists.
I don't see systemic racism as being something activists say for shock effect.
The effects of Systemic racism is quantifiable and reproducible. You can simply do things like sending resumes to different employers with no meaningful changed but making the resume seem more like it's written by somebody of a different race. From what I see westernized Asians and Caucasians are preferred, anybody who sounds too foreign or too much like another minority is not.
Affirmative action is meant to counterveil this but in itself is the most brazen and blatent example of systemic racism in society, involving both power and prejudice, since affirmative action has teeth. The entire function of it is to put your finger on the scale to ensure certain racial groups get hired in preference of others.
Sure prejudiced beliefs have likely declined in general since say the 60s but racism is prevalent and omnipresent and hidden behind euphemisms and not called racism. The big reason why "systemic racism" specifically has come into vogue is that people are more opaque and dishonest about their prejudices for the sake of social survival.
People advocate for systemic racism while proudly calling themselves anti racists. Those against affirmative action and such also consider themselves anti-racists, but seem unconcerned that no affirmative action would effectively lead to a society where certain groups will certainly disperportionatey suffer from systemic racism - often conveniently to their own benefit.
I can't see racism as not pervasive, although I think it's easy to start fearing prejudice and microagressions from others that simply don't exist out of paranoia, to end up getting oppressed by phantoms.
The effects of Systemic racism is quantifiable and reproducible. You can simply do things like sending resumes to different employers with no meaningful changed but making the resume seem more like it's written by somebody of a different race. From what I see westernized Asians and Caucasians are preferred, anybody who sounds too foreign or too much like another minority is not.
Affirmative action is meant to counterveil this but in itself is the most brazen and blatent example of systemic racism in society, involving both power and prejudice, since affirmative action has teeth. The entire function of it is to put your finger on the scale to ensure certain racial groups get hired in preference of others.
Sure prejudiced beliefs have likely declined in general since say the 60s but racism is prevalent and omnipresent and hidden behind euphemisms and not called racism. The big reason why "systemic racism" specifically has come into vogue is that people are more opaque and dishonest about their prejudices for the sake of social survival.
People advocate for systemic racism while proudly calling themselves anti racists. Those against affirmative action and such also consider themselves anti-racists, but seem unconcerned that no affirmative action would effectively lead to a society where certain groups will certainly disperportionatey suffer from systemic racism - often conveniently to their own benefit.
I can't see racism as not pervasive, although I think it's easy to start fearing prejudice and microagressions from others that simply don't exist out of paranoia, to end up getting oppressed by phantoms.
[deleted]
It's not just about explaining, it's about identity, ideology and activism.
To posit the issues as 'merely explaining' is kind of to strawman people's legit concerns.
CRT, for example, goes way beyond 'explaining' - on purpose.
If this were an in issue of merely 'explaining to people who systematic limitations might work' - and being sufficiently nuanced about it, then I think this whole thing would be a lot less controversial.
I think there's a way for us to talk to kids about the potentialities of systematic racism without using the language of activism.
To posit the issues as 'merely explaining' is kind of to strawman people's legit concerns.
CRT, for example, goes way beyond 'explaining' - on purpose.
If this were an in issue of merely 'explaining to people who systematic limitations might work' - and being sufficiently nuanced about it, then I think this whole thing would be a lot less controversial.
I think there's a way for us to talk to kids about the potentialities of systematic racism without using the language of activism.
> CRT, for example, goes way beyond 'explaining' - on purpose.
That is not true. Critical Race Theory is a framework for viewing legal and social structures through the lens of race and racism.
I’m not an expert here, but this seems to be a fairly balanced summary: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_r...
That is not true. Critical Race Theory is a framework for viewing legal and social structures through the lens of race and racism.
I’m not an expert here, but this seems to be a fairly balanced summary: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_r...
CRT is a form of activism and ideology that goes far beyond explaining.
The link you provided is a nice reference, but it's a very small-c conservative description and avoids the harder parts of the issue.
The notion that 'minorities face challenges that majorities will have difficulty perceiving' is not unreasonable. But CRT uses language such as 'White Supremacy' - reminiscent of Men in Pointy White Hats' to describe those 'majority systems'. Their stated objective is to 'deconstruct and destroy Whiteness', implying that the 'majority culture must be removed', and that those who do not realize this and actively participate are holding up structures of White Supremacy.
So they use 'whiteness' in kind of an abstract way, something that 'stands in contrast to blackness' - but they also mean every classical cultural trait.
Things like a 'focus on the correct answer', 'focus on literacy', 'objectivity' etc. - these are artifacts of 'whiteness and white supremacy'.
The link you provided actually is fairly decent, if that text represented CRT then I think there would be controversy, but much less so.
But CRT in practices uses the language of race war: 'Destroy Whiteness or you are a White Supremacist'. In that case 'Whiteness' is effectively an ethnicity, broadly 'Westerners' or 'White People'.
Finally, even if we can agree on what CRT is, it plays heavily into ideological victimhood: 'the student failed to learn to read at a high level because that's a racist, colonial imposition, and shouldn't have to achieve literacy to graduate high school' etc..
When we're talking about 'systematic issues' then those who have a propensity for victimhood can view racism/sexism in literally everything. The 'truck' toy with the 'boy' on the front cover? Gendered language? Your company founders are white and male? It's all oppression.
On one hand, while the notion of systematic racism has legitimacy, CRT ideology opens up an ugly pandora's box that allows people to take an activist perspective on the basis of conjecture about literally everything and it plays directly into, and validates people's worst bigotries.
This article about how 'the sidewalks are racist' is not a joke. They make completely unsubstantiated and bigoted notions about how 'White people walk on sidewalks' at Northwestern U. This is the kind of crude, fantasy racist bigotry, supported and endorsed by CRT thinking. [3]
From the University of Toronto [1]
Wikipedia [2]
[1] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
[3] https://dailynorthwestern.com/2021/04/05/opinion/allen-are-t...
The link you provided is a nice reference, but it's a very small-c conservative description and avoids the harder parts of the issue.
The notion that 'minorities face challenges that majorities will have difficulty perceiving' is not unreasonable. But CRT uses language such as 'White Supremacy' - reminiscent of Men in Pointy White Hats' to describe those 'majority systems'. Their stated objective is to 'deconstruct and destroy Whiteness', implying that the 'majority culture must be removed', and that those who do not realize this and actively participate are holding up structures of White Supremacy.
So they use 'whiteness' in kind of an abstract way, something that 'stands in contrast to blackness' - but they also mean every classical cultural trait.
Things like a 'focus on the correct answer', 'focus on literacy', 'objectivity' etc. - these are artifacts of 'whiteness and white supremacy'.
The link you provided actually is fairly decent, if that text represented CRT then I think there would be controversy, but much less so.
But CRT in practices uses the language of race war: 'Destroy Whiteness or you are a White Supremacist'. In that case 'Whiteness' is effectively an ethnicity, broadly 'Westerners' or 'White People'.
Finally, even if we can agree on what CRT is, it plays heavily into ideological victimhood: 'the student failed to learn to read at a high level because that's a racist, colonial imposition, and shouldn't have to achieve literacy to graduate high school' etc..
When we're talking about 'systematic issues' then those who have a propensity for victimhood can view racism/sexism in literally everything. The 'truck' toy with the 'boy' on the front cover? Gendered language? Your company founders are white and male? It's all oppression.
On one hand, while the notion of systematic racism has legitimacy, CRT ideology opens up an ugly pandora's box that allows people to take an activist perspective on the basis of conjecture about literally everything and it plays directly into, and validates people's worst bigotries.
This article about how 'the sidewalks are racist' is not a joke. They make completely unsubstantiated and bigoted notions about how 'White people walk on sidewalks' at Northwestern U. This is the kind of crude, fantasy racist bigotry, supported and endorsed by CRT thinking. [3]
From the University of Toronto [1]
Wikipedia [2]
[1] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
[3] https://dailynorthwestern.com/2021/04/05/opinion/allen-are-t...
Same thing but I have girls. I don't want them growing up with the locus of control outside of themselves. The studies are convincing that that is the worst thing you can for a child.
Then to take control of your own mind and acknowledge you don't know, is the greatest achievement.
I'm a woman and in some sense I had sort of a sheltered childhood. I was one of the top students in my graduating high school class and I had a lot of firsthand experience with being taken seriously, having my opinions respected and feeling just as entitled as anyone else to speak my mind, etc.
And then I became an adult and life did not go how I thought it would and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what went wrong.
I will suggest that it can be counterproductive to try to hide the ugly truth from children that the world is often not a nice place, that there are prejudiced people and who you are can impact how other people react to you, among other things. I have been slow to take off my rose-colored glasses and get better at handling bad actors in a more tactical fashion.
Girls tend to be taught to worry about the feelings of other people more than their own and to conform to social expectations and to cave to social pressure. Trying to live up to high ideals about all people deserving to be treated well while I was not being treated well by them was something of an Achilles Heel for me.
That seems to generalize. I seem to not be the only woman who keeps trying to find some high road long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage.
And then I became an adult and life did not go how I thought it would and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what went wrong.
I will suggest that it can be counterproductive to try to hide the ugly truth from children that the world is often not a nice place, that there are prejudiced people and who you are can impact how other people react to you, among other things. I have been slow to take off my rose-colored glasses and get better at handling bad actors in a more tactical fashion.
Girls tend to be taught to worry about the feelings of other people more than their own and to conform to social expectations and to cave to social pressure. Trying to live up to high ideals about all people deserving to be treated well while I was not being treated well by them was something of an Achilles Heel for me.
That seems to generalize. I seem to not be the only woman who keeps trying to find some high road long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage.
>Girls tend to be taught to worry about the feelings of other people more than their own and to conform to social expectations and to cave to social pressure. Trying to live up to high ideals about all people deserving to be treated well while I was not being treated well by them was something of an Achilles Heel for me.
This is an assertion many people make without any actual factual basis or proof. It sounds like what we think is true so we believe it is true, but that's often how many societies make their biggest blunders.
>I seem to not be the only woman who keeps trying to find some high road long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage.
Most people do this. In fact this is a teaching of Jesus Christ, to turn the other cheek even in extreme and dangerous circumstances. I'm not Christian, but it's the largest religion in the US, so you could presume most people would learn this trait (wrong or right as it may be). And you could assume that their religious upbringing is more influential on them than some cryptic, unable to pinpoint, way in which "people" teach girls one thing and teach boys another thing about how to be respected.
This is an assertion many people make without any actual factual basis or proof. It sounds like what we think is true so we believe it is true, but that's often how many societies make their biggest blunders.
>I seem to not be the only woman who keeps trying to find some high road long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage.
Most people do this. In fact this is a teaching of Jesus Christ, to turn the other cheek even in extreme and dangerous circumstances. I'm not Christian, but it's the largest religion in the US, so you could presume most people would learn this trait (wrong or right as it may be). And you could assume that their religious upbringing is more influential on them than some cryptic, unable to pinpoint, way in which "people" teach girls one thing and teach boys another thing about how to be respected.
I value your perspective. Thank you.
I am glad we have some women amongst us. Too many people in here suffer from "silo thinking"
> long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage.
Do you consciously notice this change in your own perspective? In real time?
I only do this in retrospect. I can look back and see the thing that should have been obvious, but wasn't at the time. All the red flags.
I have found my ability to detect them has accelerated and my tolerance for them has declined.
We are supposed to be tolerant, work hard, do more, stay late, go the extra mile... and, as you said, it's taken advantage of.
At some point, I realize people are taking advantage of my good nature. And so then I just walk away.
But I wish I could not feel bad about it. Guilty somehow.
Do you consciously notice this change in your own perspective? In real time?
I only do this in retrospect. I can look back and see the thing that should have been obvious, but wasn't at the time. All the red flags.
I have found my ability to detect them has accelerated and my tolerance for them has declined.
We are supposed to be tolerant, work hard, do more, stay late, go the extra mile... and, as you said, it's taken advantage of.
At some point, I realize people are taking advantage of my good nature. And so then I just walk away.
But I wish I could not feel bad about it. Guilty somehow.
I'm older than I used to be. I've gotten better at figuring it out "in real time" and that's been enormously helpful. Life is better than it used to be.
I feel like my gender still contributes to some people wanting to play the sympathy card and justify their crap. I think they actually know better and they know it's BS but they think I will fall for it anyway for whatever reason.
It gets tiresome to deal with people like that and I think my next big development stage is getting better at shutting people down and finding some way to signal "That's a hard no and stop bothering me. You know better."
Some people will just keep pushing on the slightest excuse or opening and they have very selective hearing where if 98 percent of what you say is no and 2 percent is something that could be twisted into a justification, they are all over that 2 percent. And I think the fact that they are clearly being abusive at that point is on them but as a purely tactical thing I am trying to figure out how to deny such cretins that slight opening.
I feel like my gender still contributes to some people wanting to play the sympathy card and justify their crap. I think they actually know better and they know it's BS but they think I will fall for it anyway for whatever reason.
It gets tiresome to deal with people like that and I think my next big development stage is getting better at shutting people down and finding some way to signal "That's a hard no and stop bothering me. You know better."
Some people will just keep pushing on the slightest excuse or opening and they have very selective hearing where if 98 percent of what you say is no and 2 percent is something that could be twisted into a justification, they are all over that 2 percent. And I think the fact that they are clearly being abusive at that point is on them but as a purely tactical thing I am trying to figure out how to deny such cretins that slight opening.
I'm not sure it's that you're a woman or that you're empathetic, good natured, choose to avoid conflict, in addition to being technically skilled. There does seem to be a correlation between the two, but in my experience, what you're discussing here isn't unique to women. I see it happen to a lot of men as well, including myself.
They are manipulators. Their skill isn't in getting their job done, it's in manipulating other people into doing it for them.
I think for me, it's about boundaries. If someone continually pushes or crosses my boundaries, then that's the biggest red flag. If I push back and they push harder, then something is going wrong.
You giving of yourself should be an act of freewill in pursuit of something greater for all, not to avoid the negative repercussions of saying no.
When I find myself saying yes to avoid being lashed out at, threatened, extorted, coerced, insulted, etc, then it's time to go.
I'll tolerate it once or twice or even more times than that. I excuse bad behavior from others away with "I'm too sensitive" or "I know what they say isn't true" or "they don't understand what they just did."
But after too much of it, it doesn't matter. At some point, the math tips to it being worse to be around them than not, so I won't be around them anymore. In fact, I suppose, it adds up somehow, I don't know the formula.
Like... if someone does something, I let it slide, but if they do it again, then it's not just 1 + 1 = 2, it's more like 1 + 1.25 = 2.25. When it gets to 10, I'm done.
A memory multiplier, if you will.
"You've done this twice now. I laughed it off the first time, but I'm noticing a trend and I don't appreciate it."
Then the third time, it's 1 + 1.25 + 2.50 = 4.75.
Why?
1 for the first strike. 1 + 0.25 for the second strike, because it includes the memory of the first one. 2.50 for the third strike, because 2 memories, plus violating a direct ask to avoid repeating the bad behavior.
Something like that.
They are manipulators. Their skill isn't in getting their job done, it's in manipulating other people into doing it for them.
I think for me, it's about boundaries. If someone continually pushes or crosses my boundaries, then that's the biggest red flag. If I push back and they push harder, then something is going wrong.
You giving of yourself should be an act of freewill in pursuit of something greater for all, not to avoid the negative repercussions of saying no.
When I find myself saying yes to avoid being lashed out at, threatened, extorted, coerced, insulted, etc, then it's time to go.
I'll tolerate it once or twice or even more times than that. I excuse bad behavior from others away with "I'm too sensitive" or "I know what they say isn't true" or "they don't understand what they just did."
But after too much of it, it doesn't matter. At some point, the math tips to it being worse to be around them than not, so I won't be around them anymore. In fact, I suppose, it adds up somehow, I don't know the formula.
Like... if someone does something, I let it slide, but if they do it again, then it's not just 1 + 1 = 2, it's more like 1 + 1.25 = 2.25. When it gets to 10, I'm done.
A memory multiplier, if you will.
"You've done this twice now. I laughed it off the first time, but I'm noticing a trend and I don't appreciate it."
Then the third time, it's 1 + 1.25 + 2.50 = 4.75.
Why?
1 for the first strike. 1 + 0.25 for the second strike, because it includes the memory of the first one. 2.50 for the third strike, because 2 memories, plus violating a direct ask to avoid repeating the bad behavior.
Something like that.
I have reason to believe that my gender is a factor. I'm absolutely not suggesting that no one ever does any men dirty.
I did some volunteer work in town for a couple of organizations that are supposedly trying to do economic development and I was trying to use that as a means to make connections and develop a better income.
I had applied for a job locally and the guy that got it fits your terrific description: He's a manipulator and has no talent for doing the job. He was stealing ideas from me and actively denying me credit, thereby killing my hopes of establishing a better income on the ground locally.
He and other people were loading me up with volunteer work because I was actually getting things done and he apparently wasn't. He measured his so-called productivity in terms of the number of meetings he attended each month.
I quit all my volunteer work last year in May. It wasn't any one thing and he wasn't the only reason. Part of it was the pandemic and I just didn't want to become "the dog everyone kicks" because we are all losing our marbles during a pandemic.
I am absolutely certain that after I quit in part to try to escape his abusive bullshit, this awful guy continued to cyberstalk me and steal ideas from me without giving me credit, like he did when I was doing volunteer work in a good faith effort to help my town become a better place. And I cannot tell you how burned, used and pissed off I feel about his amazingly shitty, abusive behavior. It's gone way beyond the pale for being anything understandable or excusable.
But I think one element of why he was able to get away with his crap is that I did a lot of volunteer work when I was a homemaker and a number of people involved in these organizations are married women doing volunteer work themselves (mostly retirees in this case). And I think some of these people failed to connect the dots that I was obviously very poor and clearly trying to improve my income.
I think some of them just sort of mentally lumped me in with other women there who weren't there with any goal of improving their own income because they have enough.
That one guy who was stealing my ideas and intentionally screwing me over -- his behavior is outright unethical and wholly unforgivable. But I have mixed feelings about the part other people played and I can see where some of them just sort of assumed on some level that I was a comfortably well off homemaker whose man was taking care of her even though that clearly was not true.
And that's partly because I am a former homemaker and likely behaved a lot like these other women who have well-heeled husbands and don't need to network to try to establish an income. I "read" as being enough like them that kind of on autopilot they failed to get the memo that "I'm here because you people are supposedly doing economic development and I'm dirt poor and need more earned income."
Like you, I also take time to gather information and make a decision based on context and patterns over time. Abusers, like the guy stealing my ideas, like to interpret that as "She's put up with it this long. She will keep putting up with it."
That seems to be a key difference. Decent people seem to be more aware that "I've got two strikes against me already. I need to get it right from here on out or I'm through." and abusers are like "They let it slide twice. They will clearly let it slide again and I can count on this indefinitely." (And then they actively try to con you into "just one more chance...just one more chance.." ad infinitum.)
And it's a case of "I know you actually know better and are intentionally being abusive because you keep trying to take more from me even after I've tried to cut your sorry ass out of my life, you piece of shit of a human being."
This is far beyond "I gave freely and he just was too stupid to realize that I expected him to actually do his job and help me improve my income." He's not qualified to do the job. He knows that. He obviously knows that and has zero plans to actually do the job and had zero compunction about actively denying me opportunity -- in direct contradiction to his duties -- so he could pretend to have ideas of his own and pretend to work just enough to keep his paycheck.
Keeping his paycheck was his only real goal and he doesn't care that he's not only crapping all over me, he's crapping all over this small town that is paying him to make the town better.
He's basically a vampire. I think he absolutely knows that and isn't at all bothered by it. He has zero ethics or conscience.
I did some volunteer work in town for a couple of organizations that are supposedly trying to do economic development and I was trying to use that as a means to make connections and develop a better income.
I had applied for a job locally and the guy that got it fits your terrific description: He's a manipulator and has no talent for doing the job. He was stealing ideas from me and actively denying me credit, thereby killing my hopes of establishing a better income on the ground locally.
He and other people were loading me up with volunteer work because I was actually getting things done and he apparently wasn't. He measured his so-called productivity in terms of the number of meetings he attended each month.
I quit all my volunteer work last year in May. It wasn't any one thing and he wasn't the only reason. Part of it was the pandemic and I just didn't want to become "the dog everyone kicks" because we are all losing our marbles during a pandemic.
I am absolutely certain that after I quit in part to try to escape his abusive bullshit, this awful guy continued to cyberstalk me and steal ideas from me without giving me credit, like he did when I was doing volunteer work in a good faith effort to help my town become a better place. And I cannot tell you how burned, used and pissed off I feel about his amazingly shitty, abusive behavior. It's gone way beyond the pale for being anything understandable or excusable.
But I think one element of why he was able to get away with his crap is that I did a lot of volunteer work when I was a homemaker and a number of people involved in these organizations are married women doing volunteer work themselves (mostly retirees in this case). And I think some of these people failed to connect the dots that I was obviously very poor and clearly trying to improve my income.
I think some of them just sort of mentally lumped me in with other women there who weren't there with any goal of improving their own income because they have enough.
That one guy who was stealing my ideas and intentionally screwing me over -- his behavior is outright unethical and wholly unforgivable. But I have mixed feelings about the part other people played and I can see where some of them just sort of assumed on some level that I was a comfortably well off homemaker whose man was taking care of her even though that clearly was not true.
And that's partly because I am a former homemaker and likely behaved a lot like these other women who have well-heeled husbands and don't need to network to try to establish an income. I "read" as being enough like them that kind of on autopilot they failed to get the memo that "I'm here because you people are supposedly doing economic development and I'm dirt poor and need more earned income."
Like you, I also take time to gather information and make a decision based on context and patterns over time. Abusers, like the guy stealing my ideas, like to interpret that as "She's put up with it this long. She will keep putting up with it."
That seems to be a key difference. Decent people seem to be more aware that "I've got two strikes against me already. I need to get it right from here on out or I'm through." and abusers are like "They let it slide twice. They will clearly let it slide again and I can count on this indefinitely." (And then they actively try to con you into "just one more chance...just one more chance.." ad infinitum.)
And it's a case of "I know you actually know better and are intentionally being abusive because you keep trying to take more from me even after I've tried to cut your sorry ass out of my life, you piece of shit of a human being."
This is far beyond "I gave freely and he just was too stupid to realize that I expected him to actually do his job and help me improve my income." He's not qualified to do the job. He knows that. He obviously knows that and has zero plans to actually do the job and had zero compunction about actively denying me opportunity -- in direct contradiction to his duties -- so he could pretend to have ideas of his own and pretend to work just enough to keep his paycheck.
Keeping his paycheck was his only real goal and he doesn't care that he's not only crapping all over me, he's crapping all over this small town that is paying him to make the town better.
He's basically a vampire. I think he absolutely knows that and isn't at all bothered by it. He has zero ethics or conscience.
Well, I have to disagree. I don't believe your story has anything to do with you being a woman in that situation. There are plenty of male people who also don't have a network and who get taken advantage of and have their ideas stolen without credit. This happens all the time on a daily basis and has absolutely nothing to do with gender. It's a real problem, but in my impression it seems to be a quite standard problem with humanity and not gender.
The guy who stole my ideas would have done anyone dirty. He's just like that. But I'm confident he got away with it as long as he did at least in part for a variety of reasons rooted in my gender.
It's a small town. I post online under my real name. There's limits to how much I'm willing to say for the sake of an argument with an internet stranger.
You have a great day.
It's a small town. I post online under my real name. There's limits to how much I'm willing to say for the sake of an argument with an internet stranger.
You have a great day.
That is a terrible situation. We are overrun by vampires, leeches, skimmers and thieves. People with zero ethics or conscience.
They have an advantage. Lauded in silicon valley, politics, corporations.
Sociopaths and psychopaths. I don't know what the solution is. I don't think they can be fixed. Sometimes, removing the leeches causes more damage. They come after you and come after you. They are relentless in their defense of ego and pursuit of undue fame and fortune.
Most of the others are cowards, who won't stand up to them. Afraid of the abuse. "Is that the hill you want to die on?"
"Why are you causing conflict?"
Just go along with it.
Keep your head down.
Tall poppy syndrome.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
We are in real trouble.
The facts are clear. We can look at them and see what reality is. But we are intentionally choosing another path.
Why?
I don't understand why.
I think we've relied on a formula for human interaction that seems good for a little while. Stable. Beneficial. Suddenly collapsing into chaos.
Unethical, unconscionable people slowly gain power until revolution erupts. They will not. They refuse to give up any power. They shape the the violence and conflict to profit from that too.
We are still driven by primitive emotions. Fear. Lust. Those emotions are used to manipulate the unconscious masses into poverty and powerlessness.
A society built on a set of rules that benefits attributes of human character we resent in the individuals around us can't lead to good attributes.
That guy was wrought full of greed. He would steal your ideas. Lie. Cheat. We hate those character traits, but reward them handsomely.
It'll never work.
We have to think of something new. Sadly, it's probably too late. We've predicted it for thousands of years and seen it happen countless times without changing our ways.
Why now?
Following the rules is a disadvantage. Integrity is an evolutionarily disadvantageous trait. Honesty is the worst policy.
Ulterior motives. Plotting. Conniving. Betrayal. These will always win the game against someone playing by the rules.
Whose rules?
I don't know. I don't know what the rules are anymore.
I'm going to be good anyway and hope it rights itself. Someone is going to have to clean up all the rubble and feed people and give them shelter.
Who is that going to be?
Look for the helpers.
They have an advantage. Lauded in silicon valley, politics, corporations.
Sociopaths and psychopaths. I don't know what the solution is. I don't think they can be fixed. Sometimes, removing the leeches causes more damage. They come after you and come after you. They are relentless in their defense of ego and pursuit of undue fame and fortune.
Most of the others are cowards, who won't stand up to them. Afraid of the abuse. "Is that the hill you want to die on?"
"Why are you causing conflict?"
Just go along with it.
Keep your head down.
Tall poppy syndrome.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
We are in real trouble.
The facts are clear. We can look at them and see what reality is. But we are intentionally choosing another path.
Why?
I don't understand why.
I think we've relied on a formula for human interaction that seems good for a little while. Stable. Beneficial. Suddenly collapsing into chaos.
Unethical, unconscionable people slowly gain power until revolution erupts. They will not. They refuse to give up any power. They shape the the violence and conflict to profit from that too.
We are still driven by primitive emotions. Fear. Lust. Those emotions are used to manipulate the unconscious masses into poverty and powerlessness.
A society built on a set of rules that benefits attributes of human character we resent in the individuals around us can't lead to good attributes.
That guy was wrought full of greed. He would steal your ideas. Lie. Cheat. We hate those character traits, but reward them handsomely.
It'll never work.
We have to think of something new. Sadly, it's probably too late. We've predicted it for thousands of years and seen it happen countless times without changing our ways.
Why now?
Following the rules is a disadvantage. Integrity is an evolutionarily disadvantageous trait. Honesty is the worst policy.
Ulterior motives. Plotting. Conniving. Betrayal. These will always win the game against someone playing by the rules.
Whose rules?
I don't know. I don't know what the rules are anymore.
I'm going to be good anyway and hope it rights itself. Someone is going to have to clean up all the rubble and feed people and give them shelter.
Who is that going to be?
Look for the helpers.
If this can be taught to children then it absolutely should be. Feeling like nothing is under your control is guaranteed to lead to stress and anxiety.
CRT teaching and COVID-lockdown related psychosis is going to lead to more adolescent health crises e.g. Columbines than we can imagine.
This is going to cause issues with a whole generation of kids until we realize the damage it’s done and ban it.
This is going to cause issues with a whole generation of kids until we realize the damage it’s done and ban it.
Personally I believing in telling people the truth. Neither telling people that they are helpless victims, nor that they have control over everything. Simply that they have some degree of influence.
The serenity prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
The serenity prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
When I was about 14 I was diagnosed with autism; specifically, PDD-NOS ("Pervasive Development Disorder Not Otherwise Specified"; nice catch-all). This diagnosis wasn't accurate, and was mostly based on my lack of social ability (I never really had most of the other signs of autism). Today I'm plenty sociable, and I'm basically just a normal guy.
I can't blame them for making this misdiagnosis though. I grew up in a single-parent household. My mum was essentially a deadbeat mum who could hardly be arsed to take care of her kids (or be arsed to do anything else for that matter, like, say, have a job). While she was only rarely physically abusive, she was very emotionally abusive, as well as just neglecting in her parental role. She always acts like everyone else is wrong; to this day she bitches and moans about how everyone else wrongs her all the time. Everything I did as a child was wrong somehow. Her TIV is high.
Furthermore, I was bullied a lot at school; I was already quite insecure, and this only made it worse. Kids can be very mean, and the insecure shy kid is a good target. This was at a time when it was shrugged off with "boys will be boys" so little was done about this from the school other than send me to Teakwando lessons :-/
For most of my teens and twenties I felt horribly insecure in all sorts of ways. I didn't have the courage to actually apply for a programming job until I was 25. For a very long time I felt like people being nice to me were just humouring me; this was extremely silly and paranoid, and I let many potential friendships pass me by just because I was too insecure to actually ask people if they're keen to have a drink or whatever. At the time though, it was extremely hard to get over this. This didn't really change until I had my first girlfriend at 27.
It's no surprise I was diagnosed with autism, even though it was wrong. My problems mostly weren't inherent to my character, they were just results from my attitude.
This only made it worse; well-intentioned and empathic as the youth care[1] people were, they basically just see you as a victim to be pampered. It certainly didn't help me move forward, as all you feel is "woe is me", and the constant focus on your shortcomings is essentially just an assault on your self-confidence.
If I look at myself from 15 years ago vs. now then in many ways I'm the same person: I still like the same things, my politics are still similar, I have the same sense of humour, etc. But in many ways I couldn't be more different. It was a slow change that took about 4 years; there was never an "aha!" epiphany. This isn't an intellectual thing anyway, it's an emotional thing and overriding emotion with intellect is often very hard. People with depression can't be fixed by telling them there is nothing to be depressed about, and insecure people can't be fixed by telling them there is nothing to be insecure about.
Now, the context and situation is completely different than yours, but the point of the story is that how you see yourself, and see yourself in relation to others is extremely important. In fact, I'll go out on a limb here and claim it's one of the major factors determining your success and happiness in life (however you may measure these things), perhaps even the most important factor.
Perhaps I'm applying my own personal experiences a bit too much here, but what worries me especially is the effect is has on self-confidence of these kids. It's fine to have these kind of discussions in politics or academia, but teaching them to kids? I find it worrying. I think a more "deal with it" message along the lines of "yeah, you're gonna encounter racism and it sucks, you're still a great person with a lot of talents, so just deal with it" would be a lot better. It's unfair, but it is what it is, and if the end-goal is to empower black people then we should focus on what is effective, not what is perceived as "fair".
Perhaps this is also partly why both Asians and Latino people tend to do so much better than black people: a more positive empowering attitude in spite of racist obstacles. I think it's unfortunate that questions such as "what do these people do better?" are often explained as victim blaming of black people. In spite of mountains of text being written on this, especially in the last year, I find there's a sore lack of careful analysis on this topic as everything is infused with judgements and morality which clouds everything. Just the other day a HN discussion on the best messaging on these topics netted me a "white supremacy apologist" accusation/insult :-/
In the end, a lot of these questions are empirical questions, and should be answered as such. What you then do with the answers is very much a morality question, but it's an entirely different thing.
[1]: (presumably the US works different, but in the Netherlands kids with these kind of issues are more or less automatically enrolled in our communist Nazi socialist despotic "youth care" service, more or less like CPS except also for every-day normal guidance and counselling, and not just protection).
I can't blame them for making this misdiagnosis though. I grew up in a single-parent household. My mum was essentially a deadbeat mum who could hardly be arsed to take care of her kids (or be arsed to do anything else for that matter, like, say, have a job). While she was only rarely physically abusive, she was very emotionally abusive, as well as just neglecting in her parental role. She always acts like everyone else is wrong; to this day she bitches and moans about how everyone else wrongs her all the time. Everything I did as a child was wrong somehow. Her TIV is high.
Furthermore, I was bullied a lot at school; I was already quite insecure, and this only made it worse. Kids can be very mean, and the insecure shy kid is a good target. This was at a time when it was shrugged off with "boys will be boys" so little was done about this from the school other than send me to Teakwando lessons :-/
For most of my teens and twenties I felt horribly insecure in all sorts of ways. I didn't have the courage to actually apply for a programming job until I was 25. For a very long time I felt like people being nice to me were just humouring me; this was extremely silly and paranoid, and I let many potential friendships pass me by just because I was too insecure to actually ask people if they're keen to have a drink or whatever. At the time though, it was extremely hard to get over this. This didn't really change until I had my first girlfriend at 27.
It's no surprise I was diagnosed with autism, even though it was wrong. My problems mostly weren't inherent to my character, they were just results from my attitude.
This only made it worse; well-intentioned and empathic as the youth care[1] people were, they basically just see you as a victim to be pampered. It certainly didn't help me move forward, as all you feel is "woe is me", and the constant focus on your shortcomings is essentially just an assault on your self-confidence.
If I look at myself from 15 years ago vs. now then in many ways I'm the same person: I still like the same things, my politics are still similar, I have the same sense of humour, etc. But in many ways I couldn't be more different. It was a slow change that took about 4 years; there was never an "aha!" epiphany. This isn't an intellectual thing anyway, it's an emotional thing and overriding emotion with intellect is often very hard. People with depression can't be fixed by telling them there is nothing to be depressed about, and insecure people can't be fixed by telling them there is nothing to be insecure about.
Now, the context and situation is completely different than yours, but the point of the story is that how you see yourself, and see yourself in relation to others is extremely important. In fact, I'll go out on a limb here and claim it's one of the major factors determining your success and happiness in life (however you may measure these things), perhaps even the most important factor.
Perhaps I'm applying my own personal experiences a bit too much here, but what worries me especially is the effect is has on self-confidence of these kids. It's fine to have these kind of discussions in politics or academia, but teaching them to kids? I find it worrying. I think a more "deal with it" message along the lines of "yeah, you're gonna encounter racism and it sucks, you're still a great person with a lot of talents, so just deal with it" would be a lot better. It's unfair, but it is what it is, and if the end-goal is to empower black people then we should focus on what is effective, not what is perceived as "fair".
Perhaps this is also partly why both Asians and Latino people tend to do so much better than black people: a more positive empowering attitude in spite of racist obstacles. I think it's unfortunate that questions such as "what do these people do better?" are often explained as victim blaming of black people. In spite of mountains of text being written on this, especially in the last year, I find there's a sore lack of careful analysis on this topic as everything is infused with judgements and morality which clouds everything. Just the other day a HN discussion on the best messaging on these topics netted me a "white supremacy apologist" accusation/insult :-/
In the end, a lot of these questions are empirical questions, and should be answered as such. What you then do with the answers is very much a morality question, but it's an entirely different thing.
[1]: (presumably the US works different, but in the Netherlands kids with these kind of issues are more or less automatically enrolled in our communist Nazi socialist despotic "youth care" service, more or less like CPS except also for every-day normal guidance and counselling, and not just protection).
You make a good point about how your attitude affects your behavior. I see it with immigrants who didn't grow up in the south like I did. I've repeatedly heard "oh, I wouldn't want to go visit southern Virginia because of all the racists." I kid you not, I was just in southern Virginia with my white wife, our mixed kids, and a Chinese friend and her Jewish husband. It was great! Everyone was great. It's a lovely part of the country with lovely people. I wouldn't want my kid to deny herself those experiences out of some fear of "white supremacists" lurking in the shadows.
> Perhaps I'm applying my own personal experiences a bit too much here, but what worries me especially is the effect is has on self-confidence of these kids. It's fine to have these kind of discussions in politics or academia, but teaching them to kids? I find it worrying.
Agreed. I think "systemic racism" is a bad name for quantifiable disparities that, in an academic context, can be show to exist using facts and statistics. That doesn't mean you should teach it to kids, especially using labels that were specifically chosen to make them think their neighbors are out to get them.
"White supremacy," by contrast, doesn't exist, and it's absurd to pretend it does in a country where whites are poorer than several immigrant demographics, and are effectively underrepresented in elite colleges, Silicon Valley, etc.
As you observe, these discussions are politically fraught. I would prefer to stay out of them. But this sort of teaching and rhetoric has been extended to Asians now, and as someone with Asian kids I can't ignore it anymore.
> Perhaps I'm applying my own personal experiences a bit too much here, but what worries me especially is the effect is has on self-confidence of these kids. It's fine to have these kind of discussions in politics or academia, but teaching them to kids? I find it worrying.
Agreed. I think "systemic racism" is a bad name for quantifiable disparities that, in an academic context, can be show to exist using facts and statistics. That doesn't mean you should teach it to kids, especially using labels that were specifically chosen to make them think their neighbors are out to get them.
"White supremacy," by contrast, doesn't exist, and it's absurd to pretend it does in a country where whites are poorer than several immigrant demographics, and are effectively underrepresented in elite colleges, Silicon Valley, etc.
As you observe, these discussions are politically fraught. I would prefer to stay out of them. But this sort of teaching and rhetoric has been extended to Asians now, and as someone with Asian kids I can't ignore it anymore.
You can be poor and still be a white supremacist, because white supremacy is not about being rich or successful. It's about believing that non-whites are not just irredeemably inferior and threateningly different, they're born that way.
Just because you personally haven't experienced it does not mean it doesn't exist. That's such a self-evident logical fallacy it shouldn't even need to be stated.
Systemic racism means that people are treated badly for the same reasons. It's why black lawyers are regularly asked if they're the defendant in court, why black youths are stopped and searched far more often than white youths, why there are obvious differentials in sentencing for identical crimes... and so on.
If you think these discussions are fraught, consider the position of those for whom this is about everyday experience and not just about "discussion" or "rhetoric."
Just because you personally haven't experienced it does not mean it doesn't exist. That's such a self-evident logical fallacy it shouldn't even need to be stated.
Systemic racism means that people are treated badly for the same reasons. It's why black lawyers are regularly asked if they're the defendant in court, why black youths are stopped and searched far more often than white youths, why there are obvious differentials in sentencing for identical crimes... and so on.
If you think these discussions are fraught, consider the position of those for whom this is about everyday experience and not just about "discussion" or "rhetoric."
Obviously skin heads exist. I’m referring to the academic usage of “white supremacy”—an overall system that keeps non-whites from advancing. That’s just not true. Asians and Latinos are economically converging with whites, just as previous generations of immigrants did. Asians are the richest demographic. They live the longest. They’re over represented in elite institutions. And when you adjust for age and citizenship status, the supposed “bamboo ceiling” disappears too. Asians are evenly represented among Fortune 500 boards and over represented among new board member appointments.
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It's learned by going through trauma or PTSD enduring experiences. That's what the empirical data showed. It is not learned by simple teaching and seeing others attitudes, that bit was a non proven hypothesis that the interviewee said they think cultural differences might have an effect, but their experimentation were only done in Israel.
So when you hear "learned behavior" don't think as in this is what my parents told me or taught me. It means this was learned by being mistreated as a child, not given consistent care and attention, and such.
> You don’t need to have been victimized, physically abused, for example, in order to exhibit TIV. But the people who score very high on TIV are generally those who have experienced some kind of trauma, like PTSD
> when a child is very young, and care is uncertain, perhaps the caregiver, or the male figures in the child’s life, don’t act consistently, sometimes they may act very aggressively without warning, or they don’t notice that the child needs care. That’s when the anxious attachment style or ambivalent attachment style is created
> This is just my hypothesis, but there are certain societies, particularly those with long histories of prolonged conflict, where the central narrative of the society is a victim-oriented narrative, which is the Jewish narrative
So when you hear "learned behavior" don't think as in this is what my parents told me or taught me. It means this was learned by being mistreated as a child, not given consistent care and attention, and such.
> You don’t need to have been victimized, physically abused, for example, in order to exhibit TIV. But the people who score very high on TIV are generally those who have experienced some kind of trauma, like PTSD
> when a child is very young, and care is uncertain, perhaps the caregiver, or the male figures in the child’s life, don’t act consistently, sometimes they may act very aggressively without warning, or they don’t notice that the child needs care. That’s when the anxious attachment style or ambivalent attachment style is created
> This is just my hypothesis, but there are certain societies, particularly those with long histories of prolonged conflict, where the central narrative of the society is a victim-oriented narrative, which is the Jewish narrative
You're overgeneralizing. The data showed that it can be learned through trauma or PTSD experiences, but to claim "It is not learned by simple teaching and seeing others attitudes" is not defensible. Based on the researcher's comments about kindergarteners, they seem to think it can be learned through simple teaching.
> Based on the researcher's comments about kindergarteners, they seem to think...
In this situation, one thing is supported by data, the other is inferred from what you think the researcher thinks.
Generally this forum looks down more on "they're indoctrinating our children with X!" claims without some actual data.
In this situation, one thing is supported by data, the other is inferred from what you think the researcher thinks.
Generally this forum looks down more on "they're indoctrinating our children with X!" claims without some actual data.
I'm not saying it's true, I'm just saying the study as represented doesn't support claiming it's false, and that the researchers words support my position.
Except they have no evidence for it, so I’m not sure why we should be bothered what they might “think”.
There’s also little a priori reason to believe that might be true.
There’s also little a priori reason to believe that might be true.
> There’s also little a priori reason to believe that might be true.
What? You don't believe that constantly telling someone they are a victim during their entire childhood can make them feel like a victim? There are really no a priori reasons to believe that such a thing could be true?
You could argue that there are little evidence for it, but you can't argue there are no a priori reasons for it being true. If I take a white kid and tell that white kid that he is a victim of black oppression, do you think that the kid will be more or less likely to feel like a victim of black oppression?
What? You don't believe that constantly telling someone they are a victim during their entire childhood can make them feel like a victim? There are really no a priori reasons to believe that such a thing could be true?
You could argue that there are little evidence for it, but you can't argue there are no a priori reasons for it being true. If I take a white kid and tell that white kid that he is a victim of black oppression, do you think that the kid will be more or less likely to feel like a victim of black oppression?
I think there's a lot of a priori reason to believe that might be true. The phenomenon of vicarious traumatization points to a mechanism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_traumatization#:~:te....
I wouldn’t go as far as to presume that a typical parent, having been traumatised through being a victim of such a system themselves, is capable of teaching the topic strictly informatively, with impartiality and without imparting a (hopefully lesser) trauma on their children. It tends to seep through generations.
As another person of color, I agree.
What really makes me nervous is the talk of "white privilege". Although it is not meant as such, it is saying that in the world as is, all things being equal, white people are superior to people of color. For example, if you had to evaluate totally objectively whether you should hire a white CEO or a person of color as CEO, and they were otherwise equal, if you believe in the framework of systemic racism/white privilege, you should hire the white CEO.
Moral persuasion, and aiming for an ideal world, will only be effective so far, and then people will turn to what gives them an advantage.
What really makes me nervous is the talk of "white privilege". Although it is not meant as such, it is saying that in the world as is, all things being equal, white people are superior to people of color. For example, if you had to evaluate totally objectively whether you should hire a white CEO or a person of color as CEO, and they were otherwise equal, if you believe in the framework of systemic racism/white privilege, you should hire the white CEO.
Moral persuasion, and aiming for an ideal world, will only be effective so far, and then people will turn to what gives them an advantage.
My main problem with White privilege is that is drawing a big line between white people and people of color. IMO one of the big civil rights achievements was to get rid of that divide. To start seeing people as individuals of equal value, based on their character not group identity.
I'm white, my wife is not. I fear where my kids will land in all of this. If we are drawing hard lines between people how will half white children find their place in all this mess? To me it shouldn't matter they have multiple cultures they come from, in the same way I'm Scottish and Irish.
That said it's not a bad thing to look for areas in society for race based discriminations and eliminate them.
I'm white, my wife is not. I fear where my kids will land in all of this. If we are drawing hard lines between people how will half white children find their place in all this mess? To me it shouldn't matter they have multiple cultures they come from, in the same way I'm Scottish and Irish.
That said it's not a bad thing to look for areas in society for race based discriminations and eliminate them.
> IMO one of the big civil rights achievements was to get rid of that divide.
This never happened. You can't just eliminate explicitly racist laws from your books and expect all the racism and bigotry which led to those laws in the first place to disappear by magic. Pretending like there aren't different outcomes and general experiences between races also doesn't magically eliminate those differences. If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it applies to racism as well which is why understanding and talking about systemic racism is so important.
This never happened. You can't just eliminate explicitly racist laws from your books and expect all the racism and bigotry which led to those laws in the first place to disappear by magic. Pretending like there aren't different outcomes and general experiences between races also doesn't magically eliminate those differences. If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it applies to racism as well which is why understanding and talking about systemic racism is so important.
>>IMO one of the big civil rights achievements was to get rid of that divide.
>This never happened.
Speaking as an American raised in the 1990s, the cultural programming of my childhood at least made progress in that direction. I was raised on popular TV shows like Sesame Street, Captain Planet, and Power Rangers, which showed people of all races coexisting in settings where race did not divide them. When the issue of racial prejudice did surface, it was clearly marked as a backwards and wrong-headed way of thinking.
These TV shows (and movies, books, etc.) were fiction, and did not change the reality of racial prejudice or de-facto segregated communities on the ground. However, they did set my and many childrens' expectations for how the world should be, and how people of different races should treat each other (i.e. as equals and as they would want to be treated). I see the then-mainstream prevalence of such messages, and absence of countervailing messages, as a tangible victory of the Civil Rights Movement.
I worry that today's mainstream cultural programming will have an opposite effect. Teaching children to focus on racial differences, and constantly drawing attention to race more generally, only teaches them to divide each other along racial lines. I believe a happy medium exists where concrete examples of racial prejudice get called out, but race is not otherwise constantly in focus.
>This never happened.
Speaking as an American raised in the 1990s, the cultural programming of my childhood at least made progress in that direction. I was raised on popular TV shows like Sesame Street, Captain Planet, and Power Rangers, which showed people of all races coexisting in settings where race did not divide them. When the issue of racial prejudice did surface, it was clearly marked as a backwards and wrong-headed way of thinking.
These TV shows (and movies, books, etc.) were fiction, and did not change the reality of racial prejudice or de-facto segregated communities on the ground. However, they did set my and many childrens' expectations for how the world should be, and how people of different races should treat each other (i.e. as equals and as they would want to be treated). I see the then-mainstream prevalence of such messages, and absence of countervailing messages, as a tangible victory of the Civil Rights Movement.
I worry that today's mainstream cultural programming will have an opposite effect. Teaching children to focus on racial differences, and constantly drawing attention to race more generally, only teaches them to divide each other along racial lines. I believe a happy medium exists where concrete examples of racial prejudice get called out, but race is not otherwise constantly in focus.
I share this concern and miss the 90s. It created a positive desire to promote diversity because it is the right thing to do and there aren't downsides.
Nowadays, many people may reject POC in social and business settings because of political fears. For instance, if I hire, could I fire without being viewed as racist? Or, if I befriend someone, could they end up accusing me of racism in a devastating way?
Nowadays, many people may reject POC in social and business settings because of political fears. For instance, if I hire, could I fire without being viewed as racist? Or, if I befriend someone, could they end up accusing me of racism in a devastating way?
Off-topic, but I opened the above comment in a new tab (to read replies later) and got this:
https://imgur.com/a/pxz1qCS
Completely bizarre. Looks like a bunch of 0's got written into memory at random intervals. Is it flaky RAM on the HN server? Has anyone else seen HN content render like this? Reloaded the page, and now everything looks normal. Running memcheck on my laptop as a next step...
https://imgur.com/a/pxz1qCS
Completely bizarre. Looks like a bunch of 0's got written into memory at random intervals. Is it flaky RAM on the HN server? Has anyone else seen HN content render like this? Reloaded the page, and now everything looks normal. Running memcheck on my laptop as a next step...
I’d suspect that the problem with low-level client-side libraries – not necessarily hardware-related. I’ve had corrupted rendering/display of web pages when I had a couple of hundred tabs open while running Firefox (GNU/Linux) on my old computer with 4GB RAM. Sometimes pressing “refresh” would resolve it or switching to another application and then switching back.
Memcheck never reported any problems with the RAM itself. I haven’t experienced any such problems after installing the Auto Tab Discard extension which allows me to have lots of tabs opens without suffering excessive memory pressure.
Memcheck never reported any problems with the RAM itself. I haven’t experienced any such problems after installing the Auto Tab Discard extension which allows me to have lots of tabs opens without suffering excessive memory pressure.
Wow! I've never seen anything like that.
Could easily be on your end. It'd be strange if memory corruption just affected the (encrypted) payload but left everything in the rest of the network protocols perfectly intact
I've never seen this on the web, but I get something very similar after I put my computer to sleep with an ongoing mosh session.
The fact that these fictions didn’t change the fact that in real life the races where separated. Different schools, churches, neighborhoods.
At the end of the day we will never be color blind. Color is just too obvious of a characteristic. At best we can view the colors as equals. But we need to get rid of the systemic biases to do that.
At the end of the day we will never be color blind. Color is just too obvious of a characteristic. At best we can view the colors as equals. But we need to get rid of the systemic biases to do that.
> IMO one of the big civil rights achievements was to get rid of that divide.
That’s, yes, the central complaint about White privilege. But from the rest of your comment I suspect thst you actually meant to attribute this problem to mentioning White privilege, rather than to White privilege itself.
> IMO one of the big civil rights achievements was to get rid of that divide.
That...didn’t happen. Though the same kind of White moderates whose indifference Dr. King complained of did, after the successes of the 1960s, like to say that it had as a new rationalization for the same indifference.
> I'm white, my wife is not. I fear where my kids will land in all of this. If we are drawing hard lines between people how will half white children find their place in all this mess?
American society has drawn strong lines on race [0] forever, and, yes, that has special (not necessarily uniquely bad, but distinct) impacts on those of mixed race. (Source: nearly half a century living mixed race in America.)
> To me it shouldn't matter they have multiple cultures they come from, in the same way I'm Scottish and Irish.
Black and White in the US isn’t a simple divide of culture, its a divide of shared experience of still-prevalent racism.
[0] Particularly black/white, which is not to say others aren’t issues, but, e.g., the One Drop Rule, intermarriage bans through most of thr country through the mid-20th Century (and the entire South until struck down federally in 1967), and other things particularly focussed on the black/white divide.
That’s, yes, the central complaint about White privilege. But from the rest of your comment I suspect thst you actually meant to attribute this problem to mentioning White privilege, rather than to White privilege itself.
> IMO one of the big civil rights achievements was to get rid of that divide.
That...didn’t happen. Though the same kind of White moderates whose indifference Dr. King complained of did, after the successes of the 1960s, like to say that it had as a new rationalization for the same indifference.
> I'm white, my wife is not. I fear where my kids will land in all of this. If we are drawing hard lines between people how will half white children find their place in all this mess?
American society has drawn strong lines on race [0] forever, and, yes, that has special (not necessarily uniquely bad, but distinct) impacts on those of mixed race. (Source: nearly half a century living mixed race in America.)
> To me it shouldn't matter they have multiple cultures they come from, in the same way I'm Scottish and Irish.
Black and White in the US isn’t a simple divide of culture, its a divide of shared experience of still-prevalent racism.
[0] Particularly black/white, which is not to say others aren’t issues, but, e.g., the One Drop Rule, intermarriage bans through most of thr country through the mid-20th Century (and the entire South until struck down federally in 1967), and other things particularly focussed on the black/white divide.
Yes I worded that poorly.
If I were to go back in time, I would have written.
"one of the big civil rights achievements was to move towards getting rid of that divide."
Also yes, the problem is not the concept of white privilege. As a metric to show the experience of individuals in society it's not a bad thing. As a way of defining individuals it's bad, and as a focus it's not great.
If I were to go back in time, I would have written.
"one of the big civil rights achievements was to move towards getting rid of that divide."
Also yes, the problem is not the concept of white privilege. As a metric to show the experience of individuals in society it's not a bad thing. As a way of defining individuals it's bad, and as a focus it's not great.
There are systemic injustices. If you're chasing pure outcome it is advantageous to be aware of them so that you can access underpaid underprivileged people or back people whose performance is boosted by privilege.
If you think that a founder being black makes it very hard for him to access debt because of systemic bias and his company plans heavily on debt financing, then yeah, it makes total sense to pass on it if you think the risk is too high.
On the other hand, if you're a black founder and the company you want to build requires you to heavily rely on debt financing, it makes perfect sense for you to spend less time worrying about injustice and more time making this thing work however you can knowing full well that people will pass on you (perhaps "unfairly"). After all, you can play and maybe lose or not play and definitely lose.
A founder I knew used to look for schools that had strong candidates but had low social cachet. He believed he would have an advantage hiring from there.
One particular liberal arts college had him hire almost their entire founding CS year. Almost all of those graduates were great. Other times the strategy didn't work out.
If you think that a founder being black makes it very hard for him to access debt because of systemic bias and his company plans heavily on debt financing, then yeah, it makes total sense to pass on it if you think the risk is too high.
On the other hand, if you're a black founder and the company you want to build requires you to heavily rely on debt financing, it makes perfect sense for you to spend less time worrying about injustice and more time making this thing work however you can knowing full well that people will pass on you (perhaps "unfairly"). After all, you can play and maybe lose or not play and definitely lose.
A founder I knew used to look for schools that had strong candidates but had low social cachet. He believed he would have an advantage hiring from there.
One particular liberal arts college had him hire almost their entire founding CS year. Almost all of those graduates were great. Other times the strategy didn't work out.
That’s a good point—there is a difference between knowledge you’d want policymakers and academics to be thinking about, versus how you socialize children to view the world to maximize their individual potential.
I value what you've written, and I agree although my experience was (possibly?) the inverse.
I was a poor white kid in a wealthy white area. While I lived in that area, I only got to briefly attend a private school because of my mothers boyfriend. Everyone knew I was the "poor kid", and my mother, who did her best, was _obsessed_ with the fact that everyone knew we were "imposters" - not wealthy, not married, from a broken home, "gold-digger", etc etc etc. The list of victim-tokens is miles long. It was an illusion - I don't think more than a small handful of adults and certainly no kids ever held my status against me.
When I lived on my own as a teenager, I had no shortage of people explaining why I was a victim due to my life experiences. Obviously, this isn't even close to the the same level of experience as racism, but I completely agree with "they never let on, and frankly I think I'm better off not having dwelt on what was in their deepest thoughts".
Fearing what was in the "deepest thoughts" of others crippled many people in my life. If anything, in my experience, that fear of judgement "in a deep thought" is a _much_ larger hindrance than any actual action that was taken against us. I see echos of this in the politics of people I've met all around the country. And the great irony is that kids who grew up in wealth and surrounded by healthy parents seem oblivious or to not care whatsoever about such judgements from others. Are they ignorant or inoculated?
I'm _extremely_ cautious of even inhabiting the thought that the victim mentality hurts more than the victimization, as obviously that can turn callous incredibly quickly... But it's not a _useless_ thought either.
I was a poor white kid in a wealthy white area. While I lived in that area, I only got to briefly attend a private school because of my mothers boyfriend. Everyone knew I was the "poor kid", and my mother, who did her best, was _obsessed_ with the fact that everyone knew we were "imposters" - not wealthy, not married, from a broken home, "gold-digger", etc etc etc. The list of victim-tokens is miles long. It was an illusion - I don't think more than a small handful of adults and certainly no kids ever held my status against me.
When I lived on my own as a teenager, I had no shortage of people explaining why I was a victim due to my life experiences. Obviously, this isn't even close to the the same level of experience as racism, but I completely agree with "they never let on, and frankly I think I'm better off not having dwelt on what was in their deepest thoughts".
Fearing what was in the "deepest thoughts" of others crippled many people in my life. If anything, in my experience, that fear of judgement "in a deep thought" is a _much_ larger hindrance than any actual action that was taken against us. I see echos of this in the politics of people I've met all around the country. And the great irony is that kids who grew up in wealth and surrounded by healthy parents seem oblivious or to not care whatsoever about such judgements from others. Are they ignorant or inoculated?
I'm _extremely_ cautious of even inhabiting the thought that the victim mentality hurts more than the victimization, as obviously that can turn callous incredibly quickly... But it's not a _useless_ thought either.
I grew up a middle-class white kid in a good family in California so was pretty much oblivious to victimhood until I went to college in Missouri where the notion of racial inequality was drilled into me to the point I actually learned to fear people of other races held a grudge against me.
Although I've been aware of this learned fear and done what I can to mitigate it, this means I might sometimes fear interracial interactions which means I might not give a black person an equal chance as a white, which then comes across as systemic racism, and so it's a vicious cycle.
On the topic of breaking the cycle, I had an eye-opening encounter with an Iranian Christian who said that he felt the US oppressed Iran (sanctions leading to economic and political instability) but as a Christian, he chose to forgive the US and pray that they'd see the harm they're causing. In this scenario, because he offered forgiveness, I feel more comfortable around him even despite agreeing that "my people" have been making life harder for "his", and not in vague systemic ways or hundreds of years ago, but right now in concrete ways.
Although I've been aware of this learned fear and done what I can to mitigate it, this means I might sometimes fear interracial interactions which means I might not give a black person an equal chance as a white, which then comes across as systemic racism, and so it's a vicious cycle.
On the topic of breaking the cycle, I had an eye-opening encounter with an Iranian Christian who said that he felt the US oppressed Iran (sanctions leading to economic and political instability) but as a Christian, he chose to forgive the US and pray that they'd see the harm they're causing. In this scenario, because he offered forgiveness, I feel more comfortable around him even despite agreeing that "my people" have been making life harder for "his", and not in vague systemic ways or hundreds of years ago, but right now in concrete ways.
I grew up as a white kid in a good middle class family in the UK. I still got bullied by (white) kids at schools. The idea that all bullying is race related seems nonsense to me. Maybe it's different in the US.
Bullies typically choose a kid that somehow differs from the rest of the group. How specifically that kid differs, that depends on the specific group. In some groups, it will be the kid of a different race, in other groups in will be the nerdy kid. If there are multiple candidates, the bullies will probably choose the "safest" one, that is the one with smallest risk that someone will intervene and punish them.
The culture can have an effect on evaluation of the "safest" victim. If everyone knows that no one important will care about a black kid being bullied... And in a different town, maybe everyone knows that no one important will care about a kid from a poor family.
The culture can have an effect on evaluation of the "safest" victim. If everyone knows that no one important will care about a black kid being bullied... And in a different town, maybe everyone knows that no one important will care about a kid from a poor family.
I agree. The bullies bully those who are can be portrayed as different. Can be redheads, size, a cleft lip, or even - as in my school - the girl who's parents had plastic flowers in the back yard.
I don't think bullies usually care about race or power, they just want to be respected by their peers - using a distorted definition of respect. Of course there's also a group that are just psychopaths, but I don't think they care about race either. For them it's just a means to an end.
And finally, yes, racists do exist, I personally think that's passed down from adults.
I don't think bullies usually care about race or power, they just want to be respected by their peers - using a distorted definition of respect. Of course there's also a group that are just psychopaths, but I don't think they care about race either. For them it's just a means to an end.
And finally, yes, racists do exist, I personally think that's passed down from adults.
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> the great irony is that kids who grew up in wealth and surrounded by healthy parents seem oblivious or to not care whatsoever about such judgements from others. Are they ignorant or inoculated?
I think that we learn from experience, and experience has shown these people that judgement from others do not have any real effect on their lives.
Oppose that with people in less favorable positions, who have been badly affected in real life as a result of the judgement of others.
That’s where a lot of the difference comes from I think, in how different people later in life relate to judgement from others.
I think that we learn from experience, and experience has shown these people that judgement from others do not have any real effect on their lives.
Oppose that with people in less favorable positions, who have been badly affected in real life as a result of the judgement of others.
That’s where a lot of the difference comes from I think, in how different people later in life relate to judgement from others.
> kids who grew up in wealth and surrounded by healthy parents seem oblivious or to not care whatsoever about such judgements from others
I can assure you it is the healthy parents and not the wealth that create children confident enough to ignore the judgments of others. The wealthy are far more susceptible to social judgments when they lack confidence themselves.
I can assure you it is the healthy parents and not the wealth that create children confident enough to ignore the judgments of others. The wealthy are far more susceptible to social judgments when they lack confidence themselves.
If you don't mind my asking, how do/did you deal with the contradiction that the very same people whose judgements and thoughts you derived your view of the world from (or felt you were supposed to) were unaffected or unconcerned with yours?
I have a symmetrical background and experience (ty OP for sharing, I never talk about it, it's hard!), and...right or wrong...I just tell myself they went through a shorter road than I did, so I have a learned bias to being 'anxious' and nailing down every detail
I had to win a ton of coin flips to get here, and thinking and planning and caring about perception was something I did to maximize my chances, and they didn't/didn't have to.
I try to manage the resultant base day-to-day anxiety by noting they don't care as much as I do, they're more secure, and also noting it's a bit of a 'superpower' - I tend to be better at disappearing into esoteric subjects and reappearing in a couple months with a pristine, novel, solution to a big problem, because I obsess and master every detail.
I had to win a ton of coin flips to get here, and thinking and planning and caring about perception was something I did to maximize my chances, and they didn't/didn't have to.
I try to manage the resultant base day-to-day anxiety by noting they don't care as much as I do, they're more secure, and also noting it's a bit of a 'superpower' - I tend to be better at disappearing into esoteric subjects and reappearing in a couple months with a pristine, novel, solution to a big problem, because I obsess and master every detail.
"I don't think more than a small handful of adults and certainly no kids ever held my status against me."
Seeing how kids diss kids with old iPhones or even shoes, I have a hard time to believe that.
Seeing how kids diss kids with old iPhones or even shoes, I have a hard time to believe that.
I agree with this 100%. The problem is that I present white (although I do not identify that way) and so I have been stripped of the right to even suggest the very point you just made under extreme penalty of being labeled a “racist”. Which is…the worst thing you can be in American culture.
My voice isn’t worth much and I am afraid, but if you stand, I will stand with you.
My voice isn’t worth much and I am afraid, but if you stand, I will stand with you.
That treatment by the way, is extremely problematic. White people are empowered to amplify people like Ilhan Omar, who are extremely unrepresentative of their group, but are discouraged from amplifying people like my dad, a Biden voting Bangladeshi immigrant who hates being called a “hyphenated American” and wants to live in a “colorblind” society.
It’s gross to choose Ilhan Omar here as your throwaway example. Omar gets dumped on all day every day by a parade of disingenuous GOP-partisan bullies who are essentially indifferent to her words and actions, but feel profoundly threatened by the mere presence of a young, African, Muslim, refugee woman in a position of power.
Though she grew up in a really tough situation and has worked hard to overcome it, she does not make herself out to be a victim.
She has strong principles and can sometimes overstate her case, but from what I can tell she listens carefully, genuinely wants to help people, and is doing everything she can to make positive change. I have watched a lot of congressional hearings in the past few years, and Omar is more careful, more prepared, and more serious than the vast majority of her GOP colleagues.
Though she grew up in a really tough situation and has worked hard to overcome it, she does not make herself out to be a victim.
She has strong principles and can sometimes overstate her case, but from what I can tell she listens carefully, genuinely wants to help people, and is doing everything she can to make positive change. I have watched a lot of congressional hearings in the past few years, and Omar is more careful, more prepared, and more serious than the vast majority of her GOP colleagues.
I’m not dumping on Ilhan Omar. I’m dumping on the mostly white people in the media who have made her, in my dad’s words, “the face of American Muslims.” She has views that are far outside the mainstream for American Muslims, particularly with respect to social issues and activism. She’s welcome to have whatever politics she wants—it’s America! But it’s wrong for the media to amplify her as if she is representative of Muslims in America as a whole.
This is a problem with progressives, which have disproportionate power in the media, and academia. As a group (for example Elizabeth Warren supporters) they’re as disproportionately white as the Republican Party. But they trade on the moral authority of purporting to speak for people of color. To that end, they amplify voices like Omar and Tlaib, whose politics are indistinguishable from those of secular white progressives, and not representative of Muslims. There are probably more Muslims who voted for Trump (about 1/3) then ones who are as extreme in their politics as Omar and Tlaib. This pisses odd people like my parents, who are typical Muslim voters (moderate socially conservative Democrats).
It’s particularly problematic when, as the OP points out, whites people are judged differently for amplifying the voices of someone like Omar or Tlaib versus the voice of one of the many Muslims who voted for Trump. It suppresses conservatism within the community—progressive Muslims can count on getting tenure, getting in CNN, because white people are allowed to agree with and amplify them. But when conservative Muslims speak, white people are afraid to agree, and progressive whites often feel comfortable attacking them as tokens. This happens to other people of color as well—in the dozens of Asians you saw on CNN talking about the Atlanta shootings, how many were Trump voters (like 1/3 of Asians?)
This is a problem with progressives, which have disproportionate power in the media, and academia. As a group (for example Elizabeth Warren supporters) they’re as disproportionately white as the Republican Party. But they trade on the moral authority of purporting to speak for people of color. To that end, they amplify voices like Omar and Tlaib, whose politics are indistinguishable from those of secular white progressives, and not representative of Muslims. There are probably more Muslims who voted for Trump (about 1/3) then ones who are as extreme in their politics as Omar and Tlaib. This pisses odd people like my parents, who are typical Muslim voters (moderate socially conservative Democrats).
It’s particularly problematic when, as the OP points out, whites people are judged differently for amplifying the voices of someone like Omar or Tlaib versus the voice of one of the many Muslims who voted for Trump. It suppresses conservatism within the community—progressive Muslims can count on getting tenure, getting in CNN, because white people are allowed to agree with and amplify them. But when conservative Muslims speak, white people are afraid to agree, and progressive whites often feel comfortable attacking them as tokens. This happens to other people of color as well—in the dozens of Asians you saw on CNN talking about the Atlanta shootings, how many were Trump voters (like 1/3 of Asians?)
White “progressives” have not made Omar (or Tlaib) the face of anything, nor does Omar pretend to speak for all Muslims (or all Somali refugees for that matter). Omar also does not have “extreme” views; she is a mainstream Democrat with mainstream center-left policy positions.
Omar gets “amplified” predominantly because Fox News inter al. keep dumping on her all the time, and shrieking about what an “extremist” she is (generally without any reference to specific actions – as I said it’s a pure identity politics thing for them). If you have come to think that Omar is an extremist, ask yourself who keeps telling you that.
It seems like you are upset that progressives don’t put a lot of effort into boosting the political influence of Trump supporters. But why ever would they? It’s not progressives’ fault that GOP-aligned media made Muslims the bogeyman du jour after 2001 and amped racist people up into believing that Muslim = terrorist, to the point that conservative Muslims can’t get anywhere in GOP politics.
As for CNN: CNN is a center-right pro-establishment pro-corporate media outlet that does some good journalism but like all cable news also fills hours every day with bloviating pundits and sensationalized nonsense. People should stop watching cable news so much.
Omar gets “amplified” predominantly because Fox News inter al. keep dumping on her all the time, and shrieking about what an “extremist” she is (generally without any reference to specific actions – as I said it’s a pure identity politics thing for them). If you have come to think that Omar is an extremist, ask yourself who keeps telling you that.
It seems like you are upset that progressives don’t put a lot of effort into boosting the political influence of Trump supporters. But why ever would they? It’s not progressives’ fault that GOP-aligned media made Muslims the bogeyman du jour after 2001 and amped racist people up into believing that Muslim = terrorist, to the point that conservative Muslims can’t get anywhere in GOP politics.
As for CNN: CNN is a center-right pro-establishment pro-corporate media outlet that does some good journalism but like all cable news also fills hours every day with bloviating pundits and sensationalized nonsense. People should stop watching cable news so much.
> White “progressives” have not made Omar (or Tlaib) the face of anything, nor does Omar pretend to speak for all Muslims (or all Somali refugees for that matter). Omar also does not have “extreme” views; she is a mainstream Democrat with mainstream center-left policy positions.
Not even Democrats think she’s a “mainstream Democrat.” Political she’s squarely in the progressive wing. But my point was theological. She has extreme views on social issues recognized by virtually no American Muslim scholars.
I didn’t form any opinions of Omar from watching “Fox News.” I’m a longtime Democrat, from a Muslim country, who started watching Fox News during the Trump era because I was sick of progressives trading on the moral authority of purporting to represent Muslims while amplifying people like Omar whose views are highly unrepresentative of Muslims.
Progressives shouldn’t amplify the voices of moderate and conservative Muslims. They should stop acting like they represent “people of color” when the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is as white as the Republican Party.
Not even Democrats think she’s a “mainstream Democrat.” Political she’s squarely in the progressive wing. But my point was theological. She has extreme views on social issues recognized by virtually no American Muslim scholars.
I didn’t form any opinions of Omar from watching “Fox News.” I’m a longtime Democrat, from a Muslim country, who started watching Fox News during the Trump era because I was sick of progressives trading on the moral authority of purporting to represent Muslims while amplifying people like Omar whose views are highly unrepresentative of Muslims.
Progressives shouldn’t amplify the voices of moderate and conservative Muslims. They should stop acting like they represent “people of color” when the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is as white as the Republican Party.
> theological. She has extreme views on social issues recognized by virtually no American Muslim scholars
She does not purport to be a religious scholar or an authority on religion...
Her politics seem broadly comparable to the majority of young Muslims (say, born > 1980) I have met in cosmopolitan American cities. These tend to be secularized and at least roughly share the values of their non-Muslim peers. Should such people not be allowed to participate in the political process?
I don’t understand at all where you are going with this line of criticism. You think young Muslims should be forced to have the same views on e.g. women’s rights, LGBT rights, inter-ethnic relationships, and reproductive health that their immigrant parents and grandparents had? You want secularized Muslims to stop wearing headscarves? You think Muslim-American politicians should ask Saudi clerics to decide their political positions? ...?
She does not purport to be a religious scholar or an authority on religion...
Her politics seem broadly comparable to the majority of young Muslims (say, born > 1980) I have met in cosmopolitan American cities. These tend to be secularized and at least roughly share the values of their non-Muslim peers. Should such people not be allowed to participate in the political process?
I don’t understand at all where you are going with this line of criticism. You think young Muslims should be forced to have the same views on e.g. women’s rights, LGBT rights, inter-ethnic relationships, and reproductive health that their immigrant parents and grandparents had? You want secularized Muslims to stop wearing headscarves? You think Muslim-American politicians should ask Saudi clerics to decide their political positions? ...?
> Her politics seem broadly comparable to the majority of young Muslims (say, born > 1980) I have met in cosmopolitan American cities.
Which represents a very small fraction of all American Muslims. Also, note that in “cosmopolitan cities” you’re probably not interacting with a representative cross section of Muslim Americans.
> Should such people not be allowed to participate in the political process?
This is the third post where you try to turn it back to the politician, when I repeatedly make clear I’m talking about the media. These people are welcome to their politics. My problem is with the white people who control how Muslims are portrayed politically. Whenever you see a panel of Muslims speaking on issues, for example, they are always selected to agree with white progressive views. They never sound like my mom or aunts.
Which represents a very small fraction of all American Muslims. Also, note that in “cosmopolitan cities” you’re probably not interacting with a representative cross section of Muslim Americans.
> Should such people not be allowed to participate in the political process?
This is the third post where you try to turn it back to the politician, when I repeatedly make clear I’m talking about the media. These people are welcome to their politics. My problem is with the white people who control how Muslims are portrayed politically. Whenever you see a panel of Muslims speaking on issues, for example, they are always selected to agree with white progressive views. They never sound like my mom or aunts.
There is a strong selection bias involved here, but it is not the one you claim. The selection bias is: people who care strongly about perceived injustices and political failures devote their time and attention to politics, and people who devote their time and attention to politics (especially listening to a broad range of people in their communities) end up learning about what isn’t working for people and how people are suffering.
Then those political actors (organizers, activists, political staffers, policy analysts, campaign staff, journalists, NGO staff, ...) put effort into sharing their message and ideas and some e.g. end up getting elected.
If large numbers of people who “sound like your mom and aunts” get heavily involved in their local and regional political process, some of them will end up with their faces on cable news or whatever. It’s not like typical media outlets dial random telephone numbers until they hit on interview subjects who match the ideology of some secret cabal.
For better or worse though, in general older first-generation immigrants (of whatever background) are less involved in politics than more established groups. This comes down substantially to their own preferences about what to spend their time on, as well as cultural comfort/fluency, etc.
Then those political actors (organizers, activists, political staffers, policy analysts, campaign staff, journalists, NGO staff, ...) put effort into sharing their message and ideas and some e.g. end up getting elected.
If large numbers of people who “sound like your mom and aunts” get heavily involved in their local and regional political process, some of them will end up with their faces on cable news or whatever. It’s not like typical media outlets dial random telephone numbers until they hit on interview subjects who match the ideology of some secret cabal.
For better or worse though, in general older first-generation immigrants (of whatever background) are less involved in politics than more established groups. This comes down substantially to their own preferences about what to spend their time on, as well as cultural comfort/fluency, etc.
I dump on Omar and the rest of the squad as a middle-left Democrat for the sole reason that they are costing the left many centrist voters who otherwise agree with us. I also think that the extreme stuff that they push is actually bad and would hurt people.
It's fine to be an extremist, I am as well along some axes. But it is just dumb to think that everyone who is not as extreme as you is a Republican/fascist/communist/white supremacist/critical race theorist. Worse, it hurts your cause by tainting the center-ey people who can actually get things done with the stink of rabid activism.
It's fine to be an extremist, I am as well along some axes. But it is just dumb to think that everyone who is not as extreme as you is a Republican/fascist/communist/white supremacist/critical race theorist. Worse, it hurts your cause by tainting the center-ey people who can actually get things done with the stink of rabid activism.
They are not extremists.
It's funny, because the two groups you've described are diametrically opposed. The former are red solidly red, while "color blindness is racist" is pretty solidly blue.
My dad rejects the hyphenated American label. He prefers to be called just “an American.” These days that’s a right wing view.
> I learned we should treat everyone like we'd want to be treated ourselves.
Words said by the man who has no conception of individual variance.
The sexually addicted compulsive rapist would do well to ignore this advice, for instance.
Words said by the man who has no conception of individual variance.
The sexually addicted compulsive rapist would do well to ignore this advice, for instance.
Thank you! I always do a hard eye roll - whenever I hear those banal words "treat everyone like we'd want to be treated ourselves".
This is often regurgitated without forethought- differently people clearly want different things, and go about seeking those things in manifestly different ways enough to make this almost surely - bad advice, despite it "coming from a good place".
This is often regurgitated without forethought- differently people clearly want different things, and go about seeking those things in manifestly different ways enough to make this almost surely - bad advice, despite it "coming from a good place".
Agree! ... not making an identity out of victimhood looks central (to me) to develop te next generation to not have/tolerate these problems.
As another brown guy with kids my anecdote is that I was discriminated by my high school counselor[1] but I took that as a life lesson. The lesson wasn't that white people are evil, but that bias is real and I have to be aware of what's going on and stand up for myself. The lesson has served me well and I've been very successful. Bias of all types is real, it makes no sense to me to hid that fact from my kids. I just teach them that it's one of many obstacles in life and the only way to achieve your goals is to work harder than the people in your way.
[1] A couple example incidents: 1) I wasn't even made aware of AP classes because I didn't look like the kids in those classes. I had to do self study to take the test after I learned about it, which I ended up aceing. 2) I lost out a big scholarship that I would have easily gotten if my counselor had worked with me the way she worked with the white kids.
[1] A couple example incidents: 1) I wasn't even made aware of AP classes because I didn't look like the kids in those classes. I had to do self study to take the test after I learned about it, which I ended up aceing. 2) I lost out a big scholarship that I would have easily gotten if my counselor had worked with me the way she worked with the white kids.
Not to discount your experience, but I think high school counselors and university advisors just aren't very good in general, or are at least very hit or miss. They will tell all kinds of students not to bother trying for an elite school, or try to steer them away from college altogether. I also missed out on a lot of opportunities that I only recognized in hindsight, because nobody thought to tell me and I didn't know where to look.
You might have been better off not having dwelt on what was in their deepest thoughts, as long as what was in their deepest thoughts did not result in you getting arrested for no reason, getting killed by the very people who you thought existed to protect you for no reason, your kids not getting accepted in the schools, or after school programs they deserved for no reason, etc.
It’s amazing to me that brown people, like myself, who do really well in this country relative to most minorities, live to pretend as if they should just be the model minority without realizing that the only reason they can is because of all the blood sweat and tears spilt by the minority, often black, activists before them.
Of course, the ultimate irony, is that there is no evidence that victim hood is practiced by actual victims. If you consider the past 4 years, for example, it was spent with the President of the United States complaining on a nearly daily basis about everything. His entire base is built on little more than a laundry list of grievances. Their entire political movement at the moment can be reduced to complaining about “cancel culture” which is little more than complaining that white people cannot get well paid speaki by spots to spout racist bullshit.
If victim culture exists on a racial basis in the US, it exists almost entirely within the majority community, which shows that there’s absolutely no evidence that discussing real victimization causes a sense of victim hood amongst victims.
In fact, there’s good reason to believe that understanding that the racism they face might be systemic both allows the victims of the racism to not feel like victims anymore, but instead look for ways to succeed despite it, and allows them to not look negatively upon individuals anymore, because they learn that the racism is systemic and endemic, and as a result, is something that is exhibited by them as well.
It’s amazing to me that brown people, like myself, who do really well in this country relative to most minorities, live to pretend as if they should just be the model minority without realizing that the only reason they can is because of all the blood sweat and tears spilt by the minority, often black, activists before them.
Of course, the ultimate irony, is that there is no evidence that victim hood is practiced by actual victims. If you consider the past 4 years, for example, it was spent with the President of the United States complaining on a nearly daily basis about everything. His entire base is built on little more than a laundry list of grievances. Their entire political movement at the moment can be reduced to complaining about “cancel culture” which is little more than complaining that white people cannot get well paid speaki by spots to spout racist bullshit.
If victim culture exists on a racial basis in the US, it exists almost entirely within the majority community, which shows that there’s absolutely no evidence that discussing real victimization causes a sense of victim hood amongst victims.
In fact, there’s good reason to believe that understanding that the racism they face might be systemic both allows the victims of the racism to not feel like victims anymore, but instead look for ways to succeed despite it, and allows them to not look negatively upon individuals anymore, because they learn that the racism is systemic and endemic, and as a result, is something that is exhibited by them as well.
> You might have been better off not having dwelt on what was in their deepest thoughts, as long as what was in their deepest thoughts did not result in you getting arrested for no reason, getting killed by the very people who you thought existed to protect you for no reason, your kids not getting accepted in the schools, or after school programs they deserved for no reason, etc.
But it doesn’t, right? Asians are one third as likely to be incarcerated as white people, half as likely to be shot by the police, and overrepresented in elite schools. Teaching my Asian kids that “white supremacy” is working them is absurd.
> It’s amazing to me that brown people, like myself, who do really well in this country relative to most minorities, live to pretend as if they should just be the model minority without realizing that the only reason they can is because of all the blood sweat and tears spilt by the minority, often black, activists before them.
This thread is about my Asian kids. Black people face unique barriers, and they should educate their kids as they see fit. But people shouldn’t project that experience onto Asian kids, or assume the same solutions should be applied to Asian kids.
> If victim culture exists on a racial basis in the US, it exists almost entirely within the majority community
There are just a handful of countries in the world where foreigners can come and be more successful than the natives, and the US is one of the few. The majority seems to have done a pretty great job building a welcoming society.
> which shows that there’s absolutely no evidence that discussing real victimization causes a sense of victim hood amongst victims.
This article is about precisely that!
> In fact, there’s good reason to believe that understanding that the racism they face might be systemic both allows the victims of the racism to not feel like victims anymore, but instead look for ways to succeed despite it
Generations of Asians who grew up and succeeded in the US without being taught about “systemic racism” proves that it isn’t necessary.
But it doesn’t, right? Asians are one third as likely to be incarcerated as white people, half as likely to be shot by the police, and overrepresented in elite schools. Teaching my Asian kids that “white supremacy” is working them is absurd.
> It’s amazing to me that brown people, like myself, who do really well in this country relative to most minorities, live to pretend as if they should just be the model minority without realizing that the only reason they can is because of all the blood sweat and tears spilt by the minority, often black, activists before them.
This thread is about my Asian kids. Black people face unique barriers, and they should educate their kids as they see fit. But people shouldn’t project that experience onto Asian kids, or assume the same solutions should be applied to Asian kids.
> If victim culture exists on a racial basis in the US, it exists almost entirely within the majority community
There are just a handful of countries in the world where foreigners can come and be more successful than the natives, and the US is one of the few. The majority seems to have done a pretty great job building a welcoming society.
> which shows that there’s absolutely no evidence that discussing real victimization causes a sense of victim hood amongst victims.
This article is about precisely that!
> In fact, there’s good reason to believe that understanding that the racism they face might be systemic both allows the victims of the racism to not feel like victims anymore, but instead look for ways to succeed despite it
Generations of Asians who grew up and succeeded in the US without being taught about “systemic racism” proves that it isn’t necessary.
If they are teaching about systemic racism well then they are teaching what you can do about it. It’s not a ghost.
And teaching kids the truth in these matters is rarely a bad thing. Being able to identify things like using prison populations to prop up the population of conservative districts is something that only can be addressed if recognized to begin with.
And teaching kids the truth in these matters is rarely a bad thing. Being able to identify things like using prison populations to prop up the population of conservative districts is something that only can be addressed if recognized to begin with.
In the short term maybe a generation will not know how to deal with the knowledge of a system that is lopsided, but in the long-term waking up to the fact and then fixing the system is the only way we can have a better system.
> I don't want my kids to be taught that there's this amorphous but pervasive "systemic racism" and "white supremacy" out to get people who look like them, but which they can't do anything about.
My local PBS station recently aired a series on Asian Americans. The first episode was all about how they were ill treated in the past, and their fight for civil liberties.
I didn't bother watching the other episodes. Certainly not a show I'll ever let my (Asian) children watch. It was a good episode if the topic was specifically about civil right struggles by Asian Americans, but deciding to start a series about a whole group of people with how they were mistreated is problematic. There's a lot more to Asian Americans than just their treatments by whites. Why not begin with their achievements and cultures, and leave this for a later episode? Is their mistreatment so important to their identity?
If I watched a series on African Americans, and it began with all the (real) systemic racism - their low graduation rates, high teen pregnancies, high unemployment, and tied it to the centuries of slavery, it would be equally problematic. Why not begin the series with things like "Every single new genre of American music in the 20th century (rap, rock n roll, etc) was pioneered by African Americans"? How many people know the negatives, and how many know this accomplishment? Ask yourself: Would a documentary series starting with their problematic statistics result in more people knowing the negatives vs the positives?
When I talk to people from my home country, you'll see this dissonance: They all sympathize with the "plight of the black man", and they'll all tell me to stay away from them. They watch documentaries like these.
I don't want my children growing up believing they are victims of society, even if there is truth to it. I grew up in a third country, and my race was definitely discriminated against in nasty ways. Yet my parents and school did not try to inculcate a sense of victimhood, and I can tell you - it's extremely beneficial not to be weighed down by that belief. And the racism there was more overt than here - often having to deal with it in stores and in school.
Of course, there will be conversations with my kids about it. But it will be somewhere in the middle of the list of important discussions to have, not on the top.
My local PBS station recently aired a series on Asian Americans. The first episode was all about how they were ill treated in the past, and their fight for civil liberties.
I didn't bother watching the other episodes. Certainly not a show I'll ever let my (Asian) children watch. It was a good episode if the topic was specifically about civil right struggles by Asian Americans, but deciding to start a series about a whole group of people with how they were mistreated is problematic. There's a lot more to Asian Americans than just their treatments by whites. Why not begin with their achievements and cultures, and leave this for a later episode? Is their mistreatment so important to their identity?
If I watched a series on African Americans, and it began with all the (real) systemic racism - their low graduation rates, high teen pregnancies, high unemployment, and tied it to the centuries of slavery, it would be equally problematic. Why not begin the series with things like "Every single new genre of American music in the 20th century (rap, rock n roll, etc) was pioneered by African Americans"? How many people know the negatives, and how many know this accomplishment? Ask yourself: Would a documentary series starting with their problematic statistics result in more people knowing the negatives vs the positives?
When I talk to people from my home country, you'll see this dissonance: They all sympathize with the "plight of the black man", and they'll all tell me to stay away from them. They watch documentaries like these.
I don't want my children growing up believing they are victims of society, even if there is truth to it. I grew up in a third country, and my race was definitely discriminated against in nasty ways. Yet my parents and school did not try to inculcate a sense of victimhood, and I can tell you - it's extremely beneficial not to be weighed down by that belief. And the racism there was more overt than here - often having to deal with it in stores and in school.
Of course, there will be conversations with my kids about it. But it will be somewhere in the middle of the list of important discussions to have, not on the top.
Macro vs micro.
Appropriate advice at the individual level is often very different than, and sometimes the complete opposite of, appropriate advice at the demographic scale. It's fine to tell your brother to quit the shit and pick himself up by his bootstraps or whatever; it's both inappropriate and ineffective to translate that notion into social policy.
Systemic racism is a macro concern. Talking about it, and what to do about it, is a conversation totally different than the conversation you have with your kids about their lived experience. Being aware of systemic racism doesn't make anyone a victim. It makes them cognizant, smarter, better actors in the system.
Appropriate advice at the individual level is often very different than, and sometimes the complete opposite of, appropriate advice at the demographic scale. It's fine to tell your brother to quit the shit and pick himself up by his bootstraps or whatever; it's both inappropriate and ineffective to translate that notion into social policy.
Systemic racism is a macro concern. Talking about it, and what to do about it, is a conversation totally different than the conversation you have with your kids about their lived experience. Being aware of systemic racism doesn't make anyone a victim. It makes them cognizant, smarter, better actors in the system.
> Macro vs micro.
Are these really opposites? Hannah Arendt famously tied those together in her work "Eichmann in Jerusalem".
She pointed out that Eichmann, convicted architect of the Holocaust, wasn't necessarily a sociopath, but instead an extremely average and mundane person who relied on clichéd defenses rather than thinking for himself, was motivated by professional promotion rather than ideology, and believed in success which he considered the chief standard of "good society". Banality, in this sense, does not mean that Eichmann's actions were in any way ordinary, or even that there is a potential Eichmann in all of us, but that his actions were motivated by a sort of complacency which was wholly unexceptional
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem#The_bana...
The question that gets skirted when discussing "systemic racism" is this: what does this actually mean? How does it manifest itself? make it concrete?
The notion "systemic racism" covers a vast territory of human interactions and feelings. Mostly the uncomfortable one's that aren't easily discussed: indifference, complacency, egoism, irrational fear, insecurity, mistrust and so on.
Right now, there's another post on HN's frontpage about toxic workplaces. A toxic workplace is the result of emergent behavior of many individuals in that workplace. Both leadership that acts complacent rather then address human issues, and workers who don't feel engaged, incentivized or motivated and put their own interests, frustrations, irritations, fears,... up front.
In that regard, formal public policies - social, economic, political,... - are also a representation of emerging behavior, the fluctuating emotional state of a large group of individuals, a community, and the norms and values which grow prevalent and come to dominate collective thinking as time marches on.
Eichmann himself didn't pop up overnight, after all. He ended up becoming because both personal circumstances and factors, as well as the larger societal and environmental circumstances pushed him in that direction. That doesn't excuse what he did, but it does explain why it happened. And it's a relevant lesson to keep in mind when discussing inequities in modern day terms.
Are these really opposites? Hannah Arendt famously tied those together in her work "Eichmann in Jerusalem".
She pointed out that Eichmann, convicted architect of the Holocaust, wasn't necessarily a sociopath, but instead an extremely average and mundane person who relied on clichéd defenses rather than thinking for himself, was motivated by professional promotion rather than ideology, and believed in success which he considered the chief standard of "good society". Banality, in this sense, does not mean that Eichmann's actions were in any way ordinary, or even that there is a potential Eichmann in all of us, but that his actions were motivated by a sort of complacency which was wholly unexceptional
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem#The_bana...
The question that gets skirted when discussing "systemic racism" is this: what does this actually mean? How does it manifest itself? make it concrete?
The notion "systemic racism" covers a vast territory of human interactions and feelings. Mostly the uncomfortable one's that aren't easily discussed: indifference, complacency, egoism, irrational fear, insecurity, mistrust and so on.
Right now, there's another post on HN's frontpage about toxic workplaces. A toxic workplace is the result of emergent behavior of many individuals in that workplace. Both leadership that acts complacent rather then address human issues, and workers who don't feel engaged, incentivized or motivated and put their own interests, frustrations, irritations, fears,... up front.
In that regard, formal public policies - social, economic, political,... - are also a representation of emerging behavior, the fluctuating emotional state of a large group of individuals, a community, and the norms and values which grow prevalent and come to dominate collective thinking as time marches on.
Eichmann himself didn't pop up overnight, after all. He ended up becoming because both personal circumstances and factors, as well as the larger societal and environmental circumstances pushed him in that direction. That doesn't excuse what he did, but it does explain why it happened. And it's a relevant lesson to keep in mind when discussing inequities in modern day terms.
It has zero to do with kids being told that this or that is unfair, that racism or sexism exists. The article blames lack of emotional support from parents. That sentence is literally tl;dr for the following:
> So when a child is very young, and care is uncertain, perhaps the caregiver, or the male figures in the child’s life, don’t act consistently, sometimes they may act very aggressively without warning, or they don’t notice that the child needs care. That’s when the anxious attachment style or ambivalent attachment style is created.
and followed by the following:
> Yes, normally children internalize the empathetic and soothing reactions of their parents, they learn not to need others from outside to soothe themselves. But people with high TIV cannot soothe themselves.
It is quite odd to take that quote out of context and make it argument about something completely different, as if surrounding context in article supported the other claim.
> So when a child is very young, and care is uncertain, perhaps the caregiver, or the male figures in the child’s life, don’t act consistently, sometimes they may act very aggressively without warning, or they don’t notice that the child needs care. That’s when the anxious attachment style or ambivalent attachment style is created.
and followed by the following:
> Yes, normally children internalize the empathetic and soothing reactions of their parents, they learn not to need others from outside to soothe themselves. But people with high TIV cannot soothe themselves.
It is quite odd to take that quote out of context and make it argument about something completely different, as if surrounding context in article supported the other claim.
I agree with you completely to the extend that I feel like world has grown little bit weird recently. "White supremacy" is especially ironic, considering there's countries where white people were oppressed and sold as slaves and had to fight for their own freedom, these people don't owe anything for anyone.
TLDR, you were lucky, virginia has a lot of racial segregation, and we all need to do more to fight childhood hunger.
Seriously, go give money to https://www.feedingamerica.org/ or https://www.savethechildren.org/ or give to a local food bank. Five bucks even.
I think that the idea that discussions of systemic racism or white supremacy are teaching kids to be victims isn't a fair assessment of how such education is structured.
It's just like how kids are taught about climate change, as best I can tell. It's a problem, and they all need to be aware and do their part. Teaching kids about climate change hasn't lead them to all give up since the planet is likely going to be in bad shape from global warming, it's empowered them, at least some of them, to fight for a future in which we change things and make things better.
The thing is, racism doesn't go away if you pretend it doesn't exist. Maybe you didn't experience it, but per the 2000 census, about 1 in five Virginians are Black.
You being one of the few brown kids means you likely grew up very differently from many Black and Brown students in Virginia, and I expect that is likely the result of decades of white Virginians working to end school bussing and other integration efforts, creating new school districts and private schools, shifting school attendance boundaries within districts.
I think you have to remember that racism is not natural, that it's effects and results, which have been normalized, need not exist, and consider how much our country fails to do right by kids who are BIPOC.
That's what systemic racism is. It's structures and institutions and systems which perpetuate unequal outcomes. We know that integration helps Black students (and their kids) succeed, and that studies generally fail to demonstrate any significant negative effect on white students. https://www.chalkbeat.org/2019/7/1/21121022/did-busing-for-s...
There doesn't have to even be any outright in your face animosity against Black and Brown people, it's just that, places with higher levels of Black and Brown people in Virgnia are more likely to undertake school district or school attendance rezoning, and rezoned areas are more likely to concentrate people who are poor and Black or Brown, or who are middle to upper class and white.
https://cecr.ed.psu.edu/sites/default/files/School_Segregati...
And that's just how it's failing kids with school segregation, do you want to know the stats on childhood hunger? as of March 2020, about 1 in five families surveyed said they didn't have enough food. Just the lack of subsidized school lunch during Covid in many places means kids are going without necessary nutrition. And, surprise, Black and Hispanic kids are twice as likely as non Hispanic white kids to face hunger in America. That is, again, systemic racism.
I imagine that probably doesn't help their personal or professional success, not to mention their mental health.
I linked two places people could donate to help feed hungry kids above, you can ignore me or disagree with what I said, but seriously, if you are doing well, you can spare a few bucks at least.
Seriously, go give money to https://www.feedingamerica.org/ or https://www.savethechildren.org/ or give to a local food bank. Five bucks even.
I think that the idea that discussions of systemic racism or white supremacy are teaching kids to be victims isn't a fair assessment of how such education is structured.
It's just like how kids are taught about climate change, as best I can tell. It's a problem, and they all need to be aware and do their part. Teaching kids about climate change hasn't lead them to all give up since the planet is likely going to be in bad shape from global warming, it's empowered them, at least some of them, to fight for a future in which we change things and make things better.
The thing is, racism doesn't go away if you pretend it doesn't exist. Maybe you didn't experience it, but per the 2000 census, about 1 in five Virginians are Black.
You being one of the few brown kids means you likely grew up very differently from many Black and Brown students in Virginia, and I expect that is likely the result of decades of white Virginians working to end school bussing and other integration efforts, creating new school districts and private schools, shifting school attendance boundaries within districts.
I think you have to remember that racism is not natural, that it's effects and results, which have been normalized, need not exist, and consider how much our country fails to do right by kids who are BIPOC.
That's what systemic racism is. It's structures and institutions and systems which perpetuate unequal outcomes. We know that integration helps Black students (and their kids) succeed, and that studies generally fail to demonstrate any significant negative effect on white students. https://www.chalkbeat.org/2019/7/1/21121022/did-busing-for-s...
There doesn't have to even be any outright in your face animosity against Black and Brown people, it's just that, places with higher levels of Black and Brown people in Virgnia are more likely to undertake school district or school attendance rezoning, and rezoned areas are more likely to concentrate people who are poor and Black or Brown, or who are middle to upper class and white.
https://cecr.ed.psu.edu/sites/default/files/School_Segregati...
And that's just how it's failing kids with school segregation, do you want to know the stats on childhood hunger? as of March 2020, about 1 in five families surveyed said they didn't have enough food. Just the lack of subsidized school lunch during Covid in many places means kids are going without necessary nutrition. And, surprise, Black and Hispanic kids are twice as likely as non Hispanic white kids to face hunger in America. That is, again, systemic racism.
I imagine that probably doesn't help their personal or professional success, not to mention their mental health.
I linked two places people could donate to help feed hungry kids above, you can ignore me or disagree with what I said, but seriously, if you are doing well, you can spare a few bucks at least.
>I don't want my kids to be taught that there's this amorphous but pervasive "systemic racism" and "white supremacy" out to get people who look like them, but which they can't do anything about.
Learning this history is the first step of "doing something about it".
Brown/black people should know their history too, we can't just paper over the historic criminality of certain groups of people because it feels uncomfortable or somehow may make people unpatriotic. Everyone has a right to their history and black/brown people have been denied it in certain parts of the world, thanks in many cases to censorship and/or propaganda sucking the air out of the room.
I do find it interesting when new immigrants come to the US and "model-minority-explain" to the people (African Americans and others) that built this country for free and are actually the only reason non-white immigrants are even allowed into the country, that they should just move on or not pursue a better understanding of the history it was illegal for them to learn.
Sucking up to the majority for better standing at the expense of the purposely created minority underclass is a huge disservice to the people of this country/planet.
Learning this history is the first step of "doing something about it".
Brown/black people should know their history too, we can't just paper over the historic criminality of certain groups of people because it feels uncomfortable or somehow may make people unpatriotic. Everyone has a right to their history and black/brown people have been denied it in certain parts of the world, thanks in many cases to censorship and/or propaganda sucking the air out of the room.
I do find it interesting when new immigrants come to the US and "model-minority-explain" to the people (African Americans and others) that built this country for free and are actually the only reason non-white immigrants are even allowed into the country, that they should just move on or not pursue a better understanding of the history it was illegal for them to learn.
Sucking up to the majority for better standing at the expense of the purposely created minority underclass is a huge disservice to the people of this country/planet.
The first step to doing something about it is actually believing you're capable of it. I believe what the person you are responding to is trying to get across is that if we first focused on the achievements of a people, then when they later learn of the hardships endured, they will have a belief in themselves that they have the power to change it.
And as importantly, that doing things in the other direction may have the effect of blunting that.
Which, given that it's pushed so strongly, and mostly by upper class whites, is starting to feel like the point.
And as importantly, that doing things in the other direction may have the effect of blunting that.
Which, given that it's pushed so strongly, and mostly by upper class whites, is starting to feel like the point.
Do Jewish parents "save their children" from history lessons and postpone them?
When is the holocaust and other info about historic anti-semitism introduced?
I would be surprised to hear that they delay this, I believe some of these historical stories/events are part of their religious studies as children.
Giving the oppressive system a pass for X number of years and letting children walk through society ignorant of the threats they face is an even bigger disservice that any demoralization that may or may not occur in my opinion.
Black children literally get murdered by the state for benign activity, I think by 13 (the age Tamir Rice was murdered) they are old enough to start learning why.
When is the holocaust and other info about historic anti-semitism introduced?
I would be surprised to hear that they delay this, I believe some of these historical stories/events are part of their religious studies as children.
Giving the oppressive system a pass for X number of years and letting children walk through society ignorant of the threats they face is an even bigger disservice that any demoralization that may or may not occur in my opinion.
Black children literally get murdered by the state for benign activity, I think by 13 (the age Tamir Rice was murdered) they are old enough to start learning why.
We are not saying to "postpone" history lessons, but to contextualize them with other historical facts that are more important. While the holocaust is extremely important, I believe that a celebration of their shared culture, including the Torah, occurs first in Jewish homes, as the accumulated wisdom, the greatest and longest-lasting achievement of the Jewish faith and peoples.
Likewise, in a documentary series on any given people, perhaps episode two could focus on the difficulties, after episode one contextualized them with their successes?
I don't believe anyone suggested hiding or otherwise not sharing the history of oppression of any people in this comment thread. I recommend that you look back through and consider why you came away with a different impression.
Likewise, in a documentary series on any given people, perhaps episode two could focus on the difficulties, after episode one contextualized them with their successes?
I don't believe anyone suggested hiding or otherwise not sharing the history of oppression of any people in this comment thread. I recommend that you look back through and consider why you came away with a different impression.
>We are not saying to "postpone" history lessons, but to contextualize them with other historical facts that are more important.
Please give me some examples of these "facts that are more important" where racism and WS are concerned.
>I don't want my kids to be taught that there's this amorphous but pervasive "systemic racism" and "white supremacy" out to get people who look like them, but which they can't do anything about.
That final qualifier is the red flag to me, nobody teaches that "they can't do anything about it" (stating that seems purposely dishonest), the goal of these teachings is in large part about changing/fixing systems through awareness.
Side note: This history is also for white children who in many cases are negatively affected by these systems in non-obvious ways and are an important population to inform as they are potential future participants in the correction.
My intuition tells me when important and uncomfortable historical facts come up and certain people bend over backwards to make you look away, the goal is to distract, hide, and obfuscate.
Please give me some examples of these "facts that are more important" where racism and WS are concerned.
>I don't want my kids to be taught that there's this amorphous but pervasive "systemic racism" and "white supremacy" out to get people who look like them, but which they can't do anything about.
That final qualifier is the red flag to me, nobody teaches that "they can't do anything about it" (stating that seems purposely dishonest), the goal of these teachings is in large part about changing/fixing systems through awareness.
Side note: This history is also for white children who in many cases are negatively affected by these systems in non-obvious ways and are an important population to inform as they are potential future participants in the correction.
My intuition tells me when important and uncomfortable historical facts come up and certain people bend over backwards to make you look away, the goal is to distract, hide, and obfuscate.
The job of education is to maximize the potential of my kid, not to use my kid as a vehicle to fix society’s problems.
As to your claim of immigrants “sucking up”—if I wanted to suck up to elite whites I’d embrace teaching kids of color about “white supremacy.” If I didn’t think it would hurt my kid I would have no incentivize to oppose it.
As to your claim of immigrants “sucking up”—if I wanted to suck up to elite whites I’d embrace teaching kids of color about “white supremacy.” If I didn’t think it would hurt my kid I would have no incentivize to oppose it.
>if I wanted to suck up to elite whites I’d embrace teaching kids of color about “white supremacy.”
I completely disagree. White supremacist systems have operated across the globe for a few centuries now, the actual white elites/beneficiaries (not just the group I suspect you dislike), the British Royal family for example, hate the idea of history like the 1619 project being spread to the masses because the affected may find the common thread that weaves through their histories. WS thrives on ignorance and inaction.
When 90% of the planet has a common understanding of white supremacist systems and the vulnerabilities, the fragility of these systems is exposed and the foundation starts to crumble with minor shifts in behavior (especially economic) at the individual level on a mass scale.
TLDR Anyone arguing for less exposure of WS history and the history of racism in general is very suspect.
I completely disagree. White supremacist systems have operated across the globe for a few centuries now, the actual white elites/beneficiaries (not just the group I suspect you dislike), the British Royal family for example, hate the idea of history like the 1619 project being spread to the masses because the affected may find the common thread that weaves through their histories. WS thrives on ignorance and inaction.
When 90% of the planet has a common understanding of white supremacist systems and the vulnerabilities, the fragility of these systems is exposed and the foundation starts to crumble with minor shifts in behavior (especially economic) at the individual level on a mass scale.
TLDR Anyone arguing for less exposure of WS history and the history of racism in general is very suspect.
The 1619 project is a leftist hit piece full of factual inaccuracies. It’s article on capitalism was so egregious that even Jacobin was forced to correct it: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/how-slavery-shaped-american-c...
So did WSWS: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/06/1619-s06.html
When even self-avowed socialists have to distance themselves from a putatively Marxist attack on American capitalism, that tells you something.
The idea that teaching kids flawed history will bring about some utopian future is suspect. I would deem it none of my business, but as you note, people are now trying to draw Asians into the same retrospective thinking. They talk about how the British stole $42 trillion from India. How does that help? The British are never going to be able to give back that money—they can’t afford to.
Agitating and waiting for some utopian future to come about is just a recipe for countries like India to stay poor. I’m not interested in that.
So did WSWS: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/06/1619-s06.html
When even self-avowed socialists have to distance themselves from a putatively Marxist attack on American capitalism, that tells you something.
The idea that teaching kids flawed history will bring about some utopian future is suspect. I would deem it none of my business, but as you note, people are now trying to draw Asians into the same retrospective thinking. They talk about how the British stole $42 trillion from India. How does that help? The British are never going to be able to give back that money—they can’t afford to.
Agitating and waiting for some utopian future to come about is just a recipe for countries like India to stay poor. I’m not interested in that.
> people are now trying to draw Asians into the same retrospective thinking. They talk about how the British stole $42 trillion from India. How does that help? The British are never going to be able to give back that money—they can’t afford to.
Oh yes the British bourgeoisie can afford to.
The west can give up it's ridiculous intellectual property regime that kills millions of people and blocks innovation. IP is nothing more than an (artificially scarce) monopoly right on a bit of knowledge. That knowledge belongs to all.
Oh yes the British bourgeoisie can afford to.
The west can give up it's ridiculous intellectual property regime that kills millions of people and blocks innovation. IP is nothing more than an (artificially scarce) monopoly right on a bit of knowledge. That knowledge belongs to all.
Jacobin's criticisms reek of ignorance, slaves were clearly the engine of the country if you understand how they were also financialized.
US slaves were securitized and used as collateral for loans/leverage/etc (slaves were the first assets to be securitized in America). People around Europe, in countries where slavery was illegal/unpopular, and the rest of the US could invest and profit from the trade without getting blood on their hands directly.
Each slave was approximately the value of a single family home (~1kg of gold) which means the British/Americans were able to "create" the value of 10,000,000 or so single family homes worth of wealth (~$1,171,852,800,000) out of thin air using African men, women, and children's backs before cotton production (which was more valuable than all other exports combined), other labor, and other investment activity is even accounted for. (Note: I'm not even counting the slaves that were domestically produced in this calculation, this is just the number brought across the Atlantic.)
Cotton misdirection is what Jacobin is attempting, they (or their quoted 'experts') lack awareness of the financial ecosystem that operated with slavery at its foundation. The volume of money/gold involved built the first stages of a large % of early US/UK/etc cities and accounted for a much larger % of GDP and US/UK wealth than Jacobin is attempting to claim.
That fact that I need to explain this very recent history to educated US adults is yet another signal that this history is inadequately covered and should be compulsory. There is nothing more American than understanding the foundations of American Capitalism, and its evolution from the slave economy.
Final note: Speaking of India, destroying Indian and Chinese cotton production allowed the US/UK to dominate 2/3rds+ of the global cotton trade, not technical know-how or advanced intelligence... it was mostly torture,murder, and destruction (historical record has many accounts of invaders breaking/cutting off hands of poor Indian/Chinese textile laborers en masse, at the time these workers produced the finest muslin and other textiles in human history).
Ghandi's promotion of textile (yarn/khaadi) production during his protests/boycotts wasn't a fluke/random...
US slaves were securitized and used as collateral for loans/leverage/etc (slaves were the first assets to be securitized in America). People around Europe, in countries where slavery was illegal/unpopular, and the rest of the US could invest and profit from the trade without getting blood on their hands directly.
Each slave was approximately the value of a single family home (~1kg of gold) which means the British/Americans were able to "create" the value of 10,000,000 or so single family homes worth of wealth (~$1,171,852,800,000) out of thin air using African men, women, and children's backs before cotton production (which was more valuable than all other exports combined), other labor, and other investment activity is even accounted for. (Note: I'm not even counting the slaves that were domestically produced in this calculation, this is just the number brought across the Atlantic.)
Cotton misdirection is what Jacobin is attempting, they (or their quoted 'experts') lack awareness of the financial ecosystem that operated with slavery at its foundation. The volume of money/gold involved built the first stages of a large % of early US/UK/etc cities and accounted for a much larger % of GDP and US/UK wealth than Jacobin is attempting to claim.
That fact that I need to explain this very recent history to educated US adults is yet another signal that this history is inadequately covered and should be compulsory. There is nothing more American than understanding the foundations of American Capitalism, and its evolution from the slave economy.
Final note: Speaking of India, destroying Indian and Chinese cotton production allowed the US/UK to dominate 2/3rds+ of the global cotton trade, not technical know-how or advanced intelligence... it was mostly torture,murder, and destruction (historical record has many accounts of invaders breaking/cutting off hands of poor Indian/Chinese textile laborers en masse, at the time these workers produced the finest muslin and other textiles in human history).
Ghandi's promotion of textile (yarn/khaadi) production during his protests/boycotts wasn't a fluke/random...
It does seem like a dangerous way to get your kids to grow up expecting never to be able to achieve anything in life, so why bother.
I always considered the current culture of cultivated-victimhood to be rooted in the manner Western people fundamentally define themselves by their triumphs against adversity. In the absence of real adversity, people seek and create surrogate adversity for themselves to triumph over. From this process they can rationalise themselves as having the inner-strength to overcome such barriers.
This is a clever comment and I'm surprised to see no further discussion. In the West, everyone needs to be the hero of their own story. Everyone needs to be an Achilles or a King Arthur, therefore everyone needs a dragon to fight. The bigger the enemy, the more morally entitled your actions feel.
In discussion forums, the best answers are usually those with many upvotes and no replies
This is similar to my belief as to why modern American politics is the way it is. It's so much left vs right, red vs blue, etc.
During the cold war, we had a common enemy in communism. Sure there were disagreements, arguments, fights, but at the end of the day, most everyone could agree that we had to stand up for America.
Now those common enemies aren't such a threat, so we look across the aisle for our enemy.
It used to be "we just have different visions for America but we all want to succeed" and now it's "OMG you are trampling my right to ___________ you Nazi!".
Your comment says all this much better than I ever could, though.
During the cold war, we had a common enemy in communism. Sure there were disagreements, arguments, fights, but at the end of the day, most everyone could agree that we had to stand up for America.
Now those common enemies aren't such a threat, so we look across the aisle for our enemy.
It used to be "we just have different visions for America but we all want to succeed" and now it's "OMG you are trampling my right to ___________ you Nazi!".
Your comment says all this much better than I ever could, though.
> we had a common enemy in communism
Communism wasn’t a “common enemy”, it was a boogeyman used as a cudgel by the government to strike down inconvenient dissent and ruin innocent peoples’ lives. There were plenty of Americans with Communist ideals, and plenty more who were branded as “communists” for suggesting such outrageous things as poverty reform or labor rights, including Martin Luther King Jr. See COINTELPRO and the Red Scare for examples of the government’s abhorrent treatment of suspected communists.
Communism wasn’t a “common enemy”, it was a boogeyman used as a cudgel by the government to strike down inconvenient dissent and ruin innocent peoples’ lives. There were plenty of Americans with Communist ideals, and plenty more who were branded as “communists” for suggesting such outrageous things as poverty reform or labor rights, including Martin Luther King Jr. See COINTELPRO and the Red Scare for examples of the government’s abhorrent treatment of suspected communists.
There were also real Communist agents. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg
There were also real, devastating consequences to Communist ideology. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide
for three examples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg
There were also real, devastating consequences to Communist ideology. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide
for three examples.
I don't think that people experiencing racism have "surrogate adversity", but I can certainly relate to the general notion. I've "struggled" with this because I too had no "real" adversity in life and people like some greek philosophers and Nietzsche put adversity into their centre of attention. I'm convinced that sometimes, people just get hurt by adversity without any advantages later on. It’s also perverse to think that the pain serves a kind of purpose, it justifies an extremely toxic and abusive mindset. If it happens and you can grow from it - that's wonderful. But it should never be used as an excuse to do harm or to endure abusive situations, especially if the abusers are using this kind of narrative.
This might be the most insightful comment I’ve seen on this issue.
How about the west being founded on slavery, and genocides while sustaining racism and misogyny for hundreds of years.
I hear a lot of "head in the sand" thinking. If we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist and never happened.
I hear a lot of "head in the sand" thinking. If we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist and never happened.
> west being founded on slavery
The "west" was not founded on slavery, this is incorrect. This is the kind of "woke revisionism" that things like the 1619 tried to push through and were inaccurate.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/24/editorial-1...
https://reason.com/2020/03/06/1619-project-fact-checker-niko...
The "west" was not founded on slavery, this is incorrect. This is the kind of "woke revisionism" that things like the 1619 tried to push through and were inaccurate.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/24/editorial-1...
https://reason.com/2020/03/06/1619-project-fact-checker-niko...
I don't know if I would consider the early colonies as "the founding" of the modern western powers. If you look at the founding of the USA it absolutely is accurate, many founding fathers were slave owners. Slavery also had influence within Canadian territories until it was outlawed. Both waged genocidal war on First Nations and Native Americans from the beginning.
The USA continued to perpetuate slavery and compromise with slavers for decades/centuries to come, after Canada and Britain had long since moved on.
The USA continued to perpetuate slavery and compromise with slavers for decades/centuries to come, after Canada and Britain had long since moved on.
Believe it or not, slavery is alive and thriving in today's world.
You'll see most of it in developing nations where enforcement is non-existent. Rich nations still occasionally have trafficking busts, but nowhere compared to the scale and industry of some more equatorial countries. It's estimated that there are 38-46 million slaves worldwide.
In absolute numbers there are more enslaved people now than there ever has been in the past.
You'll see most of it in developing nations where enforcement is non-existent. Rich nations still occasionally have trafficking busts, but nowhere compared to the scale and industry of some more equatorial countries. It's estimated that there are 38-46 million slaves worldwide.
In absolute numbers there are more enslaved people now than there ever has been in the past.
Is this supposed to excuse the consequences of the past? What is your point exactly?
Even much of global human trafficking leads back to forced labor, exploited by major western corporations through obfuscated supply chains.
Even much of global human trafficking leads back to forced labor, exploited by major western corporations through obfuscated supply chains.
In that case, I certainly hope you don’t own an iPhone, don’t buy things on Amazon and only shop local where you check all the labels for “Made in MY country”.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that there isn’t any moral high ground here.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that there isn’t any moral high ground here.
I am not perfect, no one is, but it is worse to blindly accept or ignore these problems. It's not about trying to take a moral high ground, it's the acknowledgement of reality. Does an iPhone need/absolutely require slavery or child labor? Does anything?
100% agree. And I apologize for insinuating that you were trying to grab the high ground. That was probably a cheap shot.
The larger point is that it's easy to judge the past and make sweeping condemnations. I see that in wanting to condemn the West due to it's past. But surely people will condemn us as well for things we know are wrong, but we do anyway. At least I keep doing them. I like my iPhone. I like cheap electronics. I like affordable clothing. And behind all of that is some pretty egregious stuff. Where does that leave me in history?
The larger point is that it's easy to judge the past and make sweeping condemnations. I see that in wanting to condemn the West due to it's past. But surely people will condemn us as well for things we know are wrong, but we do anyway. At least I keep doing them. I like my iPhone. I like cheap electronics. I like affordable clothing. And behind all of that is some pretty egregious stuff. Where does that leave me in history?
Let them condemn us, they will likely be absolutely right. Not condemning actions of now or of the past, because we don't want to also be judged for our actions/inaction is basically averting your eyes to try to escape your own responsibility.
You would probably fit in as "feckless cog" within consumerist capitalist machine, a machine that rarely really care about human rights. Relying on the individual consumer to police giant national/multi-national corporations is an unfair and unrealistic burden. Conditioning consumers to believe that iPhones, cheap electronics and cheap clothing require exploitative practices is another shady tactic to maintain an inequitable/unfair wealth/class structure. The $1200 smartphone is built next to the $200 smartphone, the $50 shirt is sewn next to the $5 shirt, chip manufacturing is highly automated, and if cutthroat pricing wasn't "required" and there was teeth behind anti-exploitative regulations, companies might care about auditing their supply chains.
You would probably fit in as "feckless cog" within consumerist capitalist machine, a machine that rarely really care about human rights. Relying on the individual consumer to police giant national/multi-national corporations is an unfair and unrealistic burden. Conditioning consumers to believe that iPhones, cheap electronics and cheap clothing require exploitative practices is another shady tactic to maintain an inequitable/unfair wealth/class structure. The $1200 smartphone is built next to the $200 smartphone, the $50 shirt is sewn next to the $5 shirt, chip manufacturing is highly automated, and if cutthroat pricing wasn't "required" and there was teeth behind anti-exploitative regulations, companies might care about auditing their supply chains.
That's the history of humanity, not only of the west.
Not exactly, if you want to narrow it down to North American history, compared to some other countries, NA was rather slow at coming to terms with these issues, and compromises were made over the decades which propped and continued institutionalized racism, bigotry, and misogyny, which have had lasting effects to this day.
Also saying it's a universal humanitarian problem doesn't make it "not a problem" or victimless.
Also saying it's a universal humanitarian problem doesn't make it "not a problem" or victimless.
> NA was rather slow at coming to terms with these issues
But so were other parts of the world. Many countries in the Middle East continued to have slavery far beyond North America (Saudi Arabia did not outlaw it until 1962) and the Middle East is certainly culturally and historically very different from NA.
But so were other parts of the world. Many countries in the Middle East continued to have slavery far beyond North America (Saudi Arabia did not outlaw it until 1962) and the Middle East is certainly culturally and historically very different from NA.
This was a critique on American Exceptionalism and its failure to actually apply "all men are created equal" in spite of better examples existing in the world. The US still legally allowed segregation into the 60s.
So many people rushing to use the "other countries were also horrible as well" defense. That's not really a defense.
So many people rushing to use the "other countries were also horrible as well" defense. That's not really a defense.
We're pointing out that the problem is not particularly American, this is not a defense. Trying to make America seem worse then most of the world is warping the reality of the problem.
Enslavement and mistreatment is a problem that many cultures, countries and creeds have struggled with. Not admitting this and factoring this into your explanations shows some bias against America.
Enslavement and mistreatment is a problem that many cultures, countries and creeds have struggled with. Not admitting this and factoring this into your explanations shows some bias against America.
I am not trying to make it look worse, I am stating that its factual history is very problematic. There were many victims that came out of that history, and still exist to this day. Again, you sound like you're saying "stop picking on America, other people were bad too". That's little comfort to America's victims.
Of course there will be localized differences, and scale differences in civilizations that scaled more.
Also, realizing that it is a universal human problem helps with pointing the finger inwards rather than outwards.
Also, realizing that it is a universal human problem helps with pointing the finger inwards rather than outwards.
Inward to whom? Every human? Isn't that just as "vague" and unfair to blame even the slaves for their slavery?
Blame the slaves themselves? no.
But stating the reality that as a human there are other human beings who have things in common with them(skin color, national origin, culture, ethnicity) who also enslave and mistreat other people; helps people see the bigger picture of predatory behavior that were all potentially capable of.
But stating the reality that as a human there are other human beings who have things in common with them(skin color, national origin, culture, ethnicity) who also enslave and mistreat other people; helps people see the bigger picture of predatory behavior that were all potentially capable of.
It's of little help for a victim to know that someone with something in common with them is a victimizer elsewhere in the world.
A better understanding a human nature and what we're all capable of is certainly useful. Much of philosophy and psychology is devoted to this very idea.
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Okay but states, classes and parties are made up of men, and one individual often has limited impact, while groups can have much larger and longer lasting impact. Typically the best and worst of humanity has been achieved through a collective, and not through the individual alone.
Doesn't it feel somewhat hypocritical to accuse others of having their head in the sand whilst claiming slavery, genocide, racism and misogyny are uniquely western phenomenon?
I think the irony of the self-loathing westerner, is that in believing their history is uniquely evil, are practising a sort of white supremacy. Not only in being completely oblivious to the history of other parts of the world. But by believing that only white people are/were so powerful that the evil they wrought could never be replicated by the much less powerful other races.
I think the irony of the self-loathing westerner, is that in believing their history is uniquely evil, are practising a sort of white supremacy. Not only in being completely oblivious to the history of other parts of the world. But by believing that only white people are/were so powerful that the evil they wrought could never be replicated by the much less powerful other races.
No, because "other people did horrible things too" isn't a valid excuse.
Failing to acknowledge the failures of others and focusing on scapegoating problems onto a specific group(when others are guilty as well) is also not a valid position.
You're not scapegoating a problem onto a specific group if that specific group actually perpetrated or benefited from the problematic behavior.
Again, "other people did bad things" isn't a valid excuse for doing bad things.
Again, "other people did bad things" isn't a valid excuse for doing bad things.
This is a good time to recommend some supplementary reading: The Coddling of the American Mind[1], a book that does a great job of outlining what has changed in the last 30 years and why there is very much a generational gap at play with how people perceive themselves. It turns out, raising kids in an environment of "safetyism" where nothing ever goes wrong makes full-grown adults really unresilient, and more prone to thinking of themselves as victims.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Coddling-American-Mind-Intentions-Gen...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Coddling-American-Mind-Intentions-Gen...
I really like their original The Atlantic article of the same name (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-cod...) but was disappointed by the book, too much repetition and filler material.
Still worth a look, though, and the situation has not gotten better in the last 5 years.
Still worth a look, though, and the situation has not gotten better in the last 5 years.
https://archive.is/rgv6L
(as updated 2019, though I don't know if there are any differences, significant or not)
(as updated 2019, though I don't know if there are any differences, significant or not)
“ too much repetition and filler material”
That describes a lot of popular business, psychology and science books. I don’t really understand why authors feel pressure to fill hundreds of pages. A lot of books would be much better if they got to the point in 50 pages.
That describes a lot of popular business, psychology and science books. I don’t really understand why authors feel pressure to fill hundreds of pages. A lot of books would be much better if they got to the point in 50 pages.
I’ve not read the book but the first thing that came to mind was how does this explain the boomers?
If I am understanding the premise correctly it’s implying there’s some meaningful distinction across generational lines about mental resilience?
The last five years have made that abundantly clear that premise would have some real flaws in it.
If I am understanding the premise correctly it’s implying there’s some meaningful distinction across generational lines about mental resilience?
The last five years have made that abundantly clear that premise would have some real flaws in it.
Even before that; the religious right has been posing themselves as victims for decades. Bill O'Reily started talking about "you're no longer allowed to say 'Merry Christmas'" in the earlier '00s, which aside from being nonsense, is also a good example of their supposed victimhood.
You can totally take it the other way too. A group of people felt they were being victimized by having Christian seasonal greetings directed at them and went on a campaign to make that behavior be seen as uncouth.
Except that didn't happen.
Who were the people that put forward the “say happy holidays not merry Christmas” issue?
Or was the issue invented (and lost) by conservative talking heads?
Or was the issue invented (and lost) by conservative talking heads?
Some corporations put up a mixture of Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays signage/messaging etc.
Christian persecution complex hustlers—and Fox News etc. seeking outraged eyeballs—took the existence of people saying "Happy Holidays" as an attack on them because "Jesus is the reason for the season" and then unreasonably inferred that somehow people were banned from saying "Merry Christmas".
This led to some very entitled people shouting "It's 'Merry Christmas' actually!" at some underpaid cashier in Walmart because they'd been led to believing that saying Happy Holidays was a form of religious persecution and an attack on their faith.
For a British example, recall the story of "Winterval", where an attempt by a city council to come up with a brand name to cover a series of events including Diwali, Christmas, New Years and so on that was used in addition to "Christmas" led to a full out culture war where the press misrepresented the whole thing as somehow replacing Christmas due to "political correctness". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterval
Christian persecution complex hustlers—and Fox News etc. seeking outraged eyeballs—took the existence of people saying "Happy Holidays" as an attack on them because "Jesus is the reason for the season" and then unreasonably inferred that somehow people were banned from saying "Merry Christmas".
This led to some very entitled people shouting "It's 'Merry Christmas' actually!" at some underpaid cashier in Walmart because they'd been led to believing that saying Happy Holidays was a form of religious persecution and an attack on their faith.
For a British example, recall the story of "Winterval", where an attempt by a city council to come up with a brand name to cover a series of events including Diwali, Christmas, New Years and so on that was used in addition to "Christmas" led to a full out culture war where the press misrepresented the whole thing as somehow replacing Christmas due to "political correctness". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterval
Mostly the latter. Happy Holidays isn't about excluding Christmas and Christians. It's acknowledging that there are multiple religious celebrations in similar spirit going on around the same time. I'm not sure why so many people feel like more inclusive language somehow is meant to exclude them. Some more history on the usage.
https://www.history.com/news/the-war-of-words-behind-happy-h...
https://www.history.com/news/the-war-of-words-behind-happy-h...
I live in a 90% Christian country and everyone says "Happy Holidays" and it doesn't have anything to do with religious tolerance but rather with the fact that there are multiple Christian holidays around Christmas time.
I like how at no point it's occurred to you that maybe people are just being polite or considerate towards the beliefs of others...or that a business might not want to stipulate a specific theological belief it's employees must put forward.
That just can't be it for some reason, it's got to be a conspiracy against christianity!
Talk about victimhood...
That just can't be it for some reason, it's got to be a conspiracy against christianity!
Talk about victimhood...
Depending on where you live in the US, this actually did happen. I'm one of the people who bought into that crap.
White "Elder millennial" here, who grew up in red states with a Boomer dad who tried really hard not to drop the N-word in anger around me, but I still heard it a couple times. The "programming" worked on me great. I was all primed for this post-hate, post-racial society. I believed it. Legitimately. I was dedicated to judging people by the content of their character. Men, women. White, black. Whatever. IDK how it worked on everyone else but if fucking worked on me. It worked.
My... I dunno, mid 20s? Were a shock as I discovered we weren't all on the same page. It's just gotten worse over time.
My... I dunno, mid 20s? Were a shock as I discovered we weren't all on the same page. It's just gotten worse over time.
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When a society built for Christians (or for “Christian ideals” which this country was founded upon) starts to acknowledge and accept others, the folks against these changes think everyone else is being too sensitive.
When a society built with slaves and r*ping and pillaging indigenous populations starts to acknowledge that there’s issues that stemmed from that, the folks against these changes and dialogue think everyone else is being too sensitive.
Is there a pattern here? There’s a lot of talk here about “victim mentality” here and how “everyone else is so sensitive, I figured it out!”
It’s like the classic looking at bullet patterns on the planes that returned and not analyzing the planes that were taken down.
When a society built with slaves and r*ping and pillaging indigenous populations starts to acknowledge that there’s issues that stemmed from that, the folks against these changes and dialogue think everyone else is being too sensitive.
Is there a pattern here? There’s a lot of talk here about “victim mentality” here and how “everyone else is so sensitive, I figured it out!”
It’s like the classic looking at bullet patterns on the planes that returned and not analyzing the planes that were taken down.
You do know that most of the founding fathers were far from religious people (especially Christian religious), and the whole church and state separation thing was there from the beginning because about the only religious thing anyone could agree on was generally A god (and depending on the founding father that was controversial) - not the specific flavor/interpretation of the god?
Unlike some European states, the United States has never been particularly Christian in any solidly identifiable way - more a hand wavey ‘as long as we don’t talk about which sect or really think about it too much’ way.
Quakers? check. Protestants? Check check. Catholics? Check check. Unitarians? Check evangelicals? Check. Gnostics? Check. Sunnis? Check. Jews? Check. Baptists? Check. Mormons? Check. And a whole lot more.
Unlike some European states, the United States has never been particularly Christian in any solidly identifiable way - more a hand wavey ‘as long as we don’t talk about which sect or really think about it too much’ way.
Quakers? check. Protestants? Check check. Catholics? Check check. Unitarians? Check evangelicals? Check. Gnostics? Check. Sunnis? Check. Jews? Check. Baptists? Check. Mormons? Check. And a whole lot more.
Hand wavey?
The US was founded by entire colonies of people coming overseas to worship the Christian God freely. Many key founders were deeply religious; believing all forms of government are doomed without the help of the Christian God. The Christian God was a huge factor in government and repeatedly credited as the guiding force and inspiration for the entire endeavor.
Christian prayer and Bible reading was a public school item until the mid 1960s. Church and state separation was entirely redefined around then as well; it didn't mean back then what people think it means now. The ten commandments was in courthouses. There are people still alive today that were led in prayer to the Christian God every single day of public school (and required to read the Bible); they're everywhere.
The US was founded by entire colonies of people coming overseas to worship the Christian God freely. Many key founders were deeply religious; believing all forms of government are doomed without the help of the Christian God. The Christian God was a huge factor in government and repeatedly credited as the guiding force and inspiration for the entire endeavor.
Christian prayer and Bible reading was a public school item until the mid 1960s. Church and state separation was entirely redefined around then as well; it didn't mean back then what people think it means now. The ten commandments was in courthouses. There are people still alive today that were led in prayer to the Christian God every single day of public school (and required to read the Bible); they're everywhere.
> The US was founded by entire colonies of people coming overseas to worship the Christian God freely
That's the source of some of the colonies. There were many other reasons that people came.
Some were looking for economic benefit. Some were prisoners that their home countries were looking to get rid of.
> Christian prayer and Bible reading was a public school item until the mid 1960s
Until the 1960s, but starting in the 1940s or 1950s. Much of that public religiosity was a response to the Cold War, opposing the anti-theistic position of the USSR.
That's the source of some of the colonies. There were many other reasons that people came.
Some were looking for economic benefit. Some were prisoners that their home countries were looking to get rid of.
> Christian prayer and Bible reading was a public school item until the mid 1960s
Until the 1960s, but starting in the 1940s or 1950s. Much of that public religiosity was a response to the Cold War, opposing the anti-theistic position of the USSR.
All with different interpretations of the Christian god (or not Christian, as in the Jewish diaspora). The Spanish who settled colonies in Florida and California, the French in Louisiana, the English, Polish, and German settlers in Jamestown would all struggle to agree on a common set of definitions or rituals except there was a bible in there somewhere.
I was led in prayer at public schools, and private - doesn’t mean I or most of the other students were religious, though some were. And that is a very recent thing. Most regions didn’t have public school bible reading then.
You seem to be making a statement that the US has some strong theocratic religious foundation, when it’s more of a ‘we’ve got too many competing groups that can’t get along with each other - we’ll just kinda stay out of it where we can’. Hence the hand waves part. Which is good, we’ve never had the religious wars where a specific group had to fight against another, which is how you end up with the state religions like in Europe (anglicans vs Catholics vs Protestants for instance).
The groups you’re pointing to were often refugees from those fights and came in as waves during the various periods of repression as tides turned, or different regions fell to famine.
I was led in prayer at public schools, and private - doesn’t mean I or most of the other students were religious, though some were. And that is a very recent thing. Most regions didn’t have public school bible reading then.
You seem to be making a statement that the US has some strong theocratic religious foundation, when it’s more of a ‘we’ve got too many competing groups that can’t get along with each other - we’ll just kinda stay out of it where we can’. Hence the hand waves part. Which is good, we’ve never had the religious wars where a specific group had to fight against another, which is how you end up with the state religions like in Europe (anglicans vs Catholics vs Protestants for instance).
The groups you’re pointing to were often refugees from those fights and came in as waves during the various periods of repression as tides turned, or different regions fell to famine.
How do you see it that way?
What if it were mathematicians from all over armed with the same Calculus book hand waving that everyone should ignore the idiosyncrasies of their alma mater or their professor's flavor of finding derivatives? What if the founding documents they wrote all spoke highly of Calculus; Calculus books in every classroom. To me it sounds like people weren't hand waving away God, but setting aside their idiosyncrasies to worship the same Christ.
What if it were mathematicians from all over armed with the same Calculus book hand waving that everyone should ignore the idiosyncrasies of their alma mater or their professor's flavor of finding derivatives? What if the founding documents they wrote all spoke highly of Calculus; Calculus books in every classroom. To me it sounds like people weren't hand waving away God, but setting aside their idiosyncrasies to worship the same Christ.
Roger Ailes, the man who made Fox News, generated the controversy around this when it was a non-issue and drove it into the public spotlight.
You can read the book The Loudest Voice in the Room or watch the mini-series based on it to learn more.
You can read the book The Loudest Voice in the Room or watch the mini-series based on it to learn more.
Cool, will do. Thanks for an actual answer
> Who were the people that put forward the “say happy holidays not merry Christmas” issue?
I was one of these people for a time. Mainly because in certain places, like where I'm from, Christmas was pushed on people. I'm an atheist and those holidays are hard enough. I've been pressured into praying with people, whom when I would try to complain would effectively mock me. I was forced to go to church where a pastor (or priest) would talk about me by proxy, speaking about how terrible I am or how I was going to hell (yaaaaay brimstone and fire). That's just a couple examples, but I'm sure you can fill in the gaps. So, I got to be kind of a dick about it.
I have grown since then, and Christians have generally gotten more tolerant that not everybody pauses for their holidays. This "conversation" could've been a lot healthier though.
I was one of these people for a time. Mainly because in certain places, like where I'm from, Christmas was pushed on people. I'm an atheist and those holidays are hard enough. I've been pressured into praying with people, whom when I would try to complain would effectively mock me. I was forced to go to church where a pastor (or priest) would talk about me by proxy, speaking about how terrible I am or how I was going to hell (yaaaaay brimstone and fire). That's just a couple examples, but I'm sure you can fill in the gaps. So, I got to be kind of a dick about it.
I have grown since then, and Christians have generally gotten more tolerant that not everybody pauses for their holidays. This "conversation" could've been a lot healthier though.
I took that as more social commentary than victimhood. Victimhood would infer some real harm. O’Reilly never said that, just that the situation was ridiculous.
Ridiculous and completely non existent.
In what ways are boomers displaying victimhood? The article is quite specific and I wouldn’t recognise that group (though surely there will be individuals within that group) as displaying the kind of victimhood that suggests the high TIV mentioned.
I liked this book as well. Going into it, I was pretty baffled by some of the recent stories I'd heard from academia- Evergreen and the like. This book makes a compelling case that the post 2013 or so era of college kids are victims to a certain degree (new psychological problems and whatnot), or at least provides substantial evidence that they are suffering from various psychological issues to greater extent than previous generations. This book helped me emphasize better with some of the college debacles that seem batshit crazy to me.
These types of books are made to sell, bro, not to be completely truthful.
You got duped.
You got duped.
If you are a victim you are entitled to treat your victimizer with contempt and, increasingly, violence. It removes your victimizer from then normal moral calculus.
All the better if the victimizer can be made a general category, and as amorphous and abstract as possible, thereby allowing your manipulator to direct your anger at whoever they choose from that category.
Note that this does not necessarily mean that you aren't a victim with legitimate complaints.
All the better if the victimizer can be made a general category, and as amorphous and abstract as possible, thereby allowing your manipulator to direct your anger at whoever they choose from that category.
Note that this does not necessarily mean that you aren't a victim with legitimate complaints.
I don't know if this covers how people "feel" so much as how they justify how they act but it does cover something important.
The language of victimhood is standard amongst despots and fascists. The enemy is simultaneously weak and easily defeated, and an imminent threat to which we can never let our guard down.
The language of victimhood is standard amongst despots and fascists. The enemy is simultaneously weak and easily defeated, and an imminent threat to which we can never let our guard down.
The thing is if you are the victim, it is because you are personally the victim. The moment a whole category of people become victims just by definition, or for acts committed even before they were born the word loses all meaning.
Zizek has talked a lot about victimhood and makes, imo, some great points. One point he makes is that people today assign virtue to victimhood, which doesn't really correlate because victims can turn out to be assholes themselves. I agree with this point and think it's a major reason why it's trendy to be a victim. If victims get all the attention and support these days just for being a victim of something, why not join the crowd?
> which doesn't really correlate because victims can turn out to be assholes themselves.
And, in particular, victimhood is often contextual and temporal. The oppressed person today may turn around and oppress someone else tomorrow. (And, in fact, fewer things predict likelihood of abusing more than a history of being abused.)
If our culture's moral system is based on partitioning the graph of interactions into "victim" and "victimizer", then the system is completely unable to handle the reality that there are cycles in that graph. There are homophobic Black people and racist queers. Anti-trans women and trans mysogynists.
It's impossible to reliably take sides in an environment like that if your moral code just says "side with the victim". Which victim? When? Do we side with J.K. Rowling because she was a victim or domestic assault, or vilify her because she's anti-trans?
As our moral culture gets increasingly polarized, it gets increasingly unable to accurately model the world as it is.
And, in particular, victimhood is often contextual and temporal. The oppressed person today may turn around and oppress someone else tomorrow. (And, in fact, fewer things predict likelihood of abusing more than a history of being abused.)
If our culture's moral system is based on partitioning the graph of interactions into "victim" and "victimizer", then the system is completely unable to handle the reality that there are cycles in that graph. There are homophobic Black people and racist queers. Anti-trans women and trans mysogynists.
It's impossible to reliably take sides in an environment like that if your moral code just says "side with the victim". Which victim? When? Do we side with J.K. Rowling because she was a victim or domestic assault, or vilify her because she's anti-trans?
As our moral culture gets increasingly polarized, it gets increasingly unable to accurately model the world as it is.
It is an ironic paradox that:
This fracture will further drive unrest in the parent society. To make matters worse, if discussion of this potentially negative outcome of progress is seen as taboo then the cultural "brakes" that can be used to positively integrate the changes into the future society will be cut.
Attempts at destroying binary labels in one dimension create new binaries in adjacent dimensions.
This fracture will further drive unrest in the parent society. To make matters worse, if discussion of this potentially negative outcome of progress is seen as taboo then the cultural "brakes" that can be used to positively integrate the changes into the future society will be cut.
> To make matters worse, if discussion of this potentially negative outcome of progress is seen as taboo then the cultural "brakes" that can be used to positively integrate the changes into the future society will be cut.
This is already happening. Talk of diversity is a duplicitous facade, as people are pushing more and more for segregation and uniformity, and issues are becoming matters of dogma rather than opinion. Hence why, as you said, it's taboo to have any questions or doubts about a group's narrative.
This is already happening. Talk of diversity is a duplicitous facade, as people are pushing more and more for segregation and uniformity, and issues are becoming matters of dogma rather than opinion. Hence why, as you said, it's taboo to have any questions or doubts about a group's narrative.
It's popular to be a victim these days. Much more popular than I recall it being earlier in my lifetime. It even goes so far as to regard people who aren't victims with contempt.
Interestingly, and from my anecdotal experience, this seems to be true across political and ideological divides.
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True, but it's been weaponized extremely well by one side in recent years (2012~14 and onwards). Reminds me a lot of how it was weaponized by the other side in the late 80s and 90s.
I honestly have no idea which “side” you mean. Seems to me that both mainstream political sides are mainly about victimhood now. The whole point of Trumpism is “actually I’m the victim”
The fact that you brought Trump as a counter point shows that you have a pretty clear idea of which side the parent poster meant.
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Agreed. When I was young, victimhood was mostly scorned. "Don't be a crybaby." "Shake it off." "Toughen up." "Words can't hurt you." These were the messages I got from parents and teachers when I was feeling sorry for myself.
Serious question: do you think that was some great thing that we should continue doing?
Like with most things, the best is probably some middle path, and society will overshoot one way and then the other. Whether we are currently “overshot” or not is up to the reader to decide :)
I don't think these messages are mutually exclusive either; you can say both "yeah, life is unfair and racist" and "toughen up" at the same time.
Teaching that words can't do you permanent harm, yes. How you feel when being called a name, or having someone say something hurtful may not be a choice. But whether you dwell on it, whether you choose to continue to feel hurt, whether you choose to act in revenge... all of those things are within one's control. We absolutely should teach self-control and mastery of one's emotions to children. It helps them become sane, happy adults.
It is cruel to withhold this education from them, because a state of perpetual offendedness is misery.
It is cruel to withhold this education from them, because a state of perpetual offendedness is misery.
I really don’t know what you mean by teaching mastery of ones self control to children.
They are kids not monks. You can teach them all the self control you like, I don’t think there is a serious argument that let’s say for some particularly sadistic reason I wanted to bully them and do real harm. How difficult do you think it would be exactly?
Kids or adults for that matter aren’t failures for feeling hurt. The idea that you can’t hurt someone without physical pain is really not a serious idea.
It’s entirely possible to get overcome that and genuinely not let it impact you, I’m not saying that, I’m saying for a lot of people it’s not a normal reaction. The goal of life isn’t to not feel emotions in response to words. I genuinely am not even sure you would even really want that if you had a choice.
They are kids not monks. You can teach them all the self control you like, I don’t think there is a serious argument that let’s say for some particularly sadistic reason I wanted to bully them and do real harm. How difficult do you think it would be exactly?
Kids or adults for that matter aren’t failures for feeling hurt. The idea that you can’t hurt someone without physical pain is really not a serious idea.
It’s entirely possible to get overcome that and genuinely not let it impact you, I’m not saying that, I’m saying for a lot of people it’s not a normal reaction. The goal of life isn’t to not feel emotions in response to words. I genuinely am not even sure you would even really want that if you had a choice.
Self-control: Governing one's behavior and reaction.
Mastering one's emotions: Feeling the emotion, understanding it, and developing skills for overcoming negative feelings. Also, the ability to choose not to act based on strong emotion.
In a crisis, or in critical or chronic situations, possession of these two related skills usually yields superior outcomes.
It isn't "wrong" to feel the feelings. It is wrong to let the feelings dominate you to the point of paralysis or drive you to harmful behavior. Children can't help going through phases as their brains develop where they're overcome with emotions. You help them by teaching them it is OK to feel sad or angry. Then you help them by teaching them how to cope through action, or focus on something else like goals.
Having negative emotions is normal. Coping with negative emotions, mastering them, is a valuable skill.
Words do not inflict physical injury. You teach that. Words can inflict emotional pain. You also teach that this is so. Words can inflict mental injury, and you teach that, too. But you start with the far simpler formulation of "sticks and stones" until metaphor and nuance are available tools.
It's like teaching children about strangers. There are exceptions to every rule, but if you value their safety when they're small, you teach them the rule "Do not talk to strangers." Young children don't have the social context to parse exceptions until they're older... when the teaching has to add resolution and detail.
Mastering one's emotions: Feeling the emotion, understanding it, and developing skills for overcoming negative feelings. Also, the ability to choose not to act based on strong emotion.
In a crisis, or in critical or chronic situations, possession of these two related skills usually yields superior outcomes.
It isn't "wrong" to feel the feelings. It is wrong to let the feelings dominate you to the point of paralysis or drive you to harmful behavior. Children can't help going through phases as their brains develop where they're overcome with emotions. You help them by teaching them it is OK to feel sad or angry. Then you help them by teaching them how to cope through action, or focus on something else like goals.
Having negative emotions is normal. Coping with negative emotions, mastering them, is a valuable skill.
Words do not inflict physical injury. You teach that. Words can inflict emotional pain. You also teach that this is so. Words can inflict mental injury, and you teach that, too. But you start with the far simpler formulation of "sticks and stones" until metaphor and nuance are available tools.
It's like teaching children about strangers. There are exceptions to every rule, but if you value their safety when they're small, you teach them the rule "Do not talk to strangers." Young children don't have the social context to parse exceptions until they're older... when the teaching has to add resolution and detail.
> The goal of life isn’t to not feel emotions in response to words.
It’s not the goal of monks either, so perhaps mastery of oneself shouldn’t be taken as simply being stoic?
It’s not the goal of monks either, so perhaps mastery of oneself shouldn’t be taken as simply being stoic?
I see what he's saying, though I have different philosophy of what the world needs.
If I'm attempting to repeat back his sensibility: It's an aspiration for people to be self-responsible. Look after self, then others. We're individuals first, and must look after ourselves, and then the collectivist-minded activities come after looking after the self.
This self=>others axis is the basis of Maslow's hierarchy. But it's the inverse of many cultures' (including the blackfoot tribes from which Maslow borrowed the model, which put community at the bottom of the pyramid of needs, oddly enough)
I respect his view (it's rather effective in some contexts, esp environments of scarcity), but I'd rather embrace the collectivist and interdependent aspects of humanity as the foundational principle.
My general impression is that both of these worldviews could save us in different contexts. Maybe the collectivist would save us from climate change, and individualist would save us in some armed conflict. I feel we need to keep both, and keep them balanced, and respecting one another. It's like keeping a seed vault -- different wisdoms for later, and part of a diversity of thought we should probably preserve for unknowable future challenges.
> I don’t think there is a serious argument that let’s say for some particularly sadistic reason I wanted to bully them and do real harm
I think you'd be surprised. I had some tough great uncles who taught rough lessons and were damn proud of it.
If I'm attempting to repeat back his sensibility: It's an aspiration for people to be self-responsible. Look after self, then others. We're individuals first, and must look after ourselves, and then the collectivist-minded activities come after looking after the self.
This self=>others axis is the basis of Maslow's hierarchy. But it's the inverse of many cultures' (including the blackfoot tribes from which Maslow borrowed the model, which put community at the bottom of the pyramid of needs, oddly enough)
I respect his view (it's rather effective in some contexts, esp environments of scarcity), but I'd rather embrace the collectivist and interdependent aspects of humanity as the foundational principle.
My general impression is that both of these worldviews could save us in different contexts. Maybe the collectivist would save us from climate change, and individualist would save us in some armed conflict. I feel we need to keep both, and keep them balanced, and respecting one another. It's like keeping a seed vault -- different wisdoms for later, and part of a diversity of thought we should probably preserve for unknowable future challenges.
> I don’t think there is a serious argument that let’s say for some particularly sadistic reason I wanted to bully them and do real harm
I think you'd be surprised. I had some tough great uncles who taught rough lessons and were damn proud of it.
That's where lessons like "treat others as you would have them treat you" come in.
Contra: words spoken to children can and do have powerful effects, especially from parents and other family, and especially if it accompanied by physical abuse. “I am going to rape you,” followed up by that very action, will lead to damage that is difficult if not impossible to overcome.
> “I am going to rape you,” followed up by that very action, will lead to damage that is difficult if not impossible to overcome.
I'm not sure the words are the problem there.
I'm not sure the words are the problem there.
We're you ever bullied? This is such a ridiculous view. Those words turn you into an outcast
Why is it so much the problem of the person being targeted though? The approach you describe seems not to address the behavior of the aggressors at all.
There's a tricky balance that needs to be struck between personal agency and the mechanisms which society puts in place to prevent aggressors from victimizing people.
One such mechanism is the mentality of "believing victims". Not a bad thing on the face of it, but my feeling is that we've tipped over into a world where people are incentivized to become victims. In this way the mechanism ends up becoming weaponized and wielded like a cudgel by those good at playing the victim against a new set of victims who just aren't as good at that game.
These new victims may end up even more disadvantaged due to ideological fashions which shape who we see as victims (e.g. "girls are more likely to be victims than boys") and dictate to what degree we should mete out empathy (e.g. "we have to make sure we aren't overly empathetic towards the white kids since we are biased and they are privileged").
One such mechanism is the mentality of "believing victims". Not a bad thing on the face of it, but my feeling is that we've tipped over into a world where people are incentivized to become victims. In this way the mechanism ends up becoming weaponized and wielded like a cudgel by those good at playing the victim against a new set of victims who just aren't as good at that game.
These new victims may end up even more disadvantaged due to ideological fashions which shape who we see as victims (e.g. "girls are more likely to be victims than boys") and dictate to what degree we should mete out empathy (e.g. "we have to make sure we aren't overly empathetic towards the white kids since we are biased and they are privileged").
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Exactly, you be better. The most important person you need to change is yourself.
That just gives a pass to people who employ abusive behavior since the entire burden of adjustment is shifted to the receiver, incentivizing more abuse.
Yes become the abuser instead...much better plan.
I'm not sure why you're making sarcastic responses to things I didn't say in the first place.
If there is no disincentive for abuse, then abusive people will continue to inflict abuse on others for as long as they derive some emotional/social/financial gain from it. You are arguing that it is wholly up to those others (ie non-abusive people) to change themselves by making themselves less attractive targets in some fashion. But this has a cost and meantime the abusive person is gaining in strength and confidence. Also, new people are coming along all the time who are vulnerable to abusive behavior, so if previous targets become unattractive, abusers can rely on a relatively steady supply of new ones. I think you need to explain what the overall benefit of your approach is at the collective level.
It's also perplexing to me that you equate inflicting penalties upon abusers with 'becoming the abuser instead'. An abuser, by definition, is someone who inflicts pain or suffering on someone else who doesn't deserve it. Retaliation against abuse cannot be considered abuse, unless you want to argue that there is no such thing as a right to self-defense, only to self-protection. That seems similar to suggesting everyone become like turtles or snails, building shells which they can withdraw into when attacked but never developing any retaliatory capability.
I look forward to considering your alternative perspective.
If there is no disincentive for abuse, then abusive people will continue to inflict abuse on others for as long as they derive some emotional/social/financial gain from it. You are arguing that it is wholly up to those others (ie non-abusive people) to change themselves by making themselves less attractive targets in some fashion. But this has a cost and meantime the abusive person is gaining in strength and confidence. Also, new people are coming along all the time who are vulnerable to abusive behavior, so if previous targets become unattractive, abusers can rely on a relatively steady supply of new ones. I think you need to explain what the overall benefit of your approach is at the collective level.
It's also perplexing to me that you equate inflicting penalties upon abusers with 'becoming the abuser instead'. An abuser, by definition, is someone who inflicts pain or suffering on someone else who doesn't deserve it. Retaliation against abuse cannot be considered abuse, unless you want to argue that there is no such thing as a right to self-defense, only to self-protection. That seems similar to suggesting everyone become like turtles or snails, building shells which they can withdraw into when attacked but never developing any retaliatory capability.
I look forward to considering your alternative perspective.
That seems to be an orthogonal issue. Namely, the expectation that whatever wrong you have suffered should be righted. The message is to shut up because nobody is going to help you. Certainly effective to getting the victim to stop complaining. But that's not the same as actually coping with the issue, or better yet, solving it.
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You're confusing the problem here.
Sometimes coping with issues is just learning to ignore them, you must learn that even though you feel hurt there it is not worth putting energy into dealing with what people say and do.
People forget that 50% of the people on the planet are below average, its best to remember that when you're dealing with life. You can't expect these people to have reasoning and logic skills, emotional resilience or even base levels of compassion.
"Toughen up princess" can frequently be the best advice you can give someone.
Sometimes coping with issues is just learning to ignore them, you must learn that even though you feel hurt there it is not worth putting energy into dealing with what people say and do.
People forget that 50% of the people on the planet are below average, its best to remember that when you're dealing with life. You can't expect these people to have reasoning and logic skills, emotional resilience or even base levels of compassion.
"Toughen up princess" can frequently be the best advice you can give someone.
Well, maybe it seems like it's just trying to get you to shut up, but part of that message is that you're the one who's in control of your reaction, and that's what you can reliably control in that kind of situation. That even if your feelings are hurt, fundamentally you can still be OK, if you can learn to let it slide off you rather than getting all tied up about it. That's a pretty helpful, if difficult, lesson to learn.
Except that, kids who let slide first attempts at bullying get bullied again and again and again. And it escalates. It also creates a cycle in which a kid that was bullied once is more likely to be bullied again.
The kids who are able to set boundaries, say no, respond etc are more likely to stop whole dynamic even before it starts.
The kids who are able to set boundaries, say no, respond etc are more likely to stop whole dynamic even before it starts.
Or you can teach them to fight to be treated fairly and to fight for others to be treated fairly. That's what I see out of the generation in their 20s. They don't seem to see themselves as victims. They have a keen sense of justice and are willing to speak out.
Being OK isn't mutually exclusive with defending yourself. But if you're really OK, you might not feel the need to engage, because it might not really matter. The point is not to let your emotions control your response. If you calmly decide that you need to push for something, then that's the response you go with.
This is the issue. It is not to stop complaining. "Toughen up" means do something about, it means complaining solves nothing.
Which is why our problems now are so much bigger, since our complaining became so much louder.
Which is why our problems now are so much bigger, since our complaining became so much louder.
Sure. We all got these as kids. Twenty years later, I am much happier when I am able to communicate my unhappiness to people who care about me and who are able to get me through the tough times. Secure attachment is a pleasant thing.
But I'm not a safetyist. I much prefer to face the world as it stands. But I have a place of voluntary individuals who provide me support and I am stronger for it.
But I'm not a safetyist. I much prefer to face the world as it stands. But I have a place of voluntary individuals who provide me support and I am stronger for it.
> "Don't be a crybaby." "Shake it off." "Toughen up." "Words can't hurt you."
That is different issue. When kids are bullied, these are good for adults, because they force the victim to be silent, so that peace is kept. If you are educator and believe those, problem with bullying is essentially solved.
You don't have to deal with bullies themselves. You dont have to spend effort teaching bullied kid how to effectively set boundaries. You dont have to listen to yelling as the kid is trying to set boundaries for the first time and inevitably failing.
You dont have to do anything, except telling the bullied kid to shut up.
That is different issue. When kids are bullied, these are good for adults, because they force the victim to be silent, so that peace is kept. If you are educator and believe those, problem with bullying is essentially solved.
You don't have to deal with bullies themselves. You dont have to spend effort teaching bullied kid how to effectively set boundaries. You dont have to listen to yelling as the kid is trying to set boundaries for the first time and inevitably failing.
You dont have to do anything, except telling the bullied kid to shut up.
I feel quite a bit of alignment with this article.
But also, I def understand that scorning victimhood is exactly the sort of thing a culture would do when those in control (and with greater influence to shape narratives) are hurting a ton of people. It's a ridiculously effective way to avoid reckoning with our impacts on each other. And so of course someone with power to shape a narrative would use that ability to make being "too much of a victim" the taboo (not maliciously, just for self-preservation and limiting their own cognitive overhead of existing).
I'm firmly in the middle of this conversation. There's a balance of what's healthy for society imho. We have pockets in various places where unhealthy levels of one view or the other have concentrated. And sometimes these bubbles have moments of floating up to the top levels of societies, in fad-like ways. Then we see how things start working, and we learn and adjust <3
But also, I def understand that scorning victimhood is exactly the sort of thing a culture would do when those in control (and with greater influence to shape narratives) are hurting a ton of people. It's a ridiculously effective way to avoid reckoning with our impacts on each other. And so of course someone with power to shape a narrative would use that ability to make being "too much of a victim" the taboo (not maliciously, just for self-preservation and limiting their own cognitive overhead of existing).
I'm firmly in the middle of this conversation. There's a balance of what's healthy for society imho. We have pockets in various places where unhealthy levels of one view or the other have concentrated. And sometimes these bubbles have moments of floating up to the top levels of societies, in fad-like ways. Then we see how things start working, and we learn and adjust <3
I’m a big fan of David Goggings and the self reliance messaging. A treasure.
He should be getting more attention but I guess he runs a bit against mainstream narratives. A taste:
https://twitter.com/davidgoggins/status/1386386177184333829?...
He should be getting more attention but I guess he runs a bit against mainstream narratives. A taste:
https://twitter.com/davidgoggins/status/1386386177184333829?...
Wow, that's a human with real force of character!
Thank you for sharing that.
And Jocko Willink. Unsurprisingly, special forces types tend not to be very "woe is me."
Reminds me of this spoof commercial I heard on some comedy radio show one time for the drug Nothingenol - for people who suffer anxiety over not having been diagnosed with a disorder.
I take my Damitol pill every day.
I was recently reading Nietzsche and I'm sorry I won't quote him correctly, but he said something like this: that the weak would use their weakness as an insidious power, to control, to manipulate, to coerce, to bully; it was all just a deep down ploy to exert their tyranny on those stronger. I found it fascinating.
US tech appears rife in this right now. I follow lots of engineers on twitter and some folks seem to spend more time enrolled in their own victimhood or the victimhood of others who cause they love to rally to (because they get to point victims and their own invented perpetrators). I often want to point this out, but I would risk losing my job.
I remember seeing one of these very outspoken tech people at a conference. He tweeted a photo of a Mexican woman holding a presentation and saying what a great topic it was. Then he preceded to sit in a corner, ignore the talk, and work on his laptop. Or people who pull in >300k, go on about communism, but buy fast cars.
Full of shit, the lot.
Full of shit, the lot.
To me, the rich people bigging up high tax policies and heavy regulations feels like they're intentionally pulling up the ladder from behind them.
Back in the 70s my father hosted a few Americans in Poland and at a point the conversation shifted to the possibility of communism establishing itself in the US. It went somewhat like this:
"Aren't you guys afraid that communism will eventually get a foothold in the US?"
"Nah, if it ever does we'll just start selling hammer and sickle t-shirts."
I guess that's what eventually happened.
"Aren't you guys afraid that communism will eventually get a foothold in the US?"
"Nah, if it ever does we'll just start selling hammer and sickle t-shirts."
I guess that's what eventually happened.
I don’t think having a preference towards communism or socialism in some form over our current form of capitalism means that you cannot partake in being good at capitalism.
It’s like saying to someone - jeez, if you hate your job so much then why are you so good at it? Stop complaining about the job sucking when you do so well! People can be good at things they don’t enjoy or find fulfilling.
For instance, I’m very pro-ev and for taking significant action on climate change. Yet, I ride and drive sporty ICE vehicles. I travel around the world. You can still use or even enjoy one thing while still being a proponent for another that might seem to go against the thing you currently enjoy/use...
It’s like saying to someone - jeez, if you hate your job so much then why are you so good at it? Stop complaining about the job sucking when you do so well! People can be good at things they don’t enjoy or find fulfilling.
For instance, I’m very pro-ev and for taking significant action on climate change. Yet, I ride and drive sporty ICE vehicles. I travel around the world. You can still use or even enjoy one thing while still being a proponent for another that might seem to go against the thing you currently enjoy/use...
Of course you can. It’s just that sooner or later you’ll look silly.
Tweeting “fuck the system” from an iPhone? Fine. Everybody needs a phone, iPhones last a long time, and the SE models are cheap.
Preaching about the perils of consumerism and demonising anybody along the way whilst working at Amazon and always buying the latest tech? Solid hypocrite.
Tweeting “fuck the system” from an iPhone? Fine. Everybody needs a phone, iPhones last a long time, and the SE models are cheap.
Preaching about the perils of consumerism and demonising anybody along the way whilst working at Amazon and always buying the latest tech? Solid hypocrite.
> Preaching about the perils of consumerism and demonising anybody along the way whilst working at Amazon and always buying the latest tech? Solid hypocrite.
I just don't see this that often. Also - while you may denounce some cause - it doesn't mean you can't work at some place that might promote parts of that cause. After all - if you were a proponent of socialism or communism - how could you work at just about any company in the USA without being labeled as a "hypocrite"?
Sometimes the realities of the world force you to participate in things that you don't want to participate in...
I just don't see this that often. Also - while you may denounce some cause - it doesn't mean you can't work at some place that might promote parts of that cause. After all - if you were a proponent of socialism or communism - how could you work at just about any company in the USA without being labeled as a "hypocrite"?
Sometimes the realities of the world force you to participate in things that you don't want to participate in...
> I just don't see this that often
I see you don’t go on Twitter much.
I see you don’t go on Twitter much.
As someone who was abducted and kidnapped at gun point, PTSD and trauma are experienced differently by different people.
PTSD/trauma may be the result of being victimized, but it is not “learned” any more than a bone might “learn” to break under stress.
What happens under extreme trauma is an onslaught of electric signals and chemical reactions in the brain, essentially adrenaline (fight or flight) and cortisol (stress) responses. They help you survive when needed, but terrible for the brain and body in extreme amounts and/or prolonged exposure.
The issue is not that it is “learned” but that in some people the trauma essentially fires otherwise dormant pathways in the brain and instead of these pathways going back to a dormant state the neurons and pathways are potentially strengthened by the single acute episode and remain turned on. It creates an awful feedback loop where these neurons and pathways fire from normal/non traumatic stimulus moving forward because the connections become so strong they become a default pathway. Then regular firing of these pathways just reinforces the connections. You could point to that as “learning” I suppose, but it is involuntary. The associated behaviors are commonly avoidance in order to prevent these misfirings but unable to avoid it the responses will usually be consistent with the original response to the adrenaline and cortisol during the trauma.
Not everyone responds the same, because it really isn’t learned but something I would describe more as a physical “injury” to the brain from the natural biological response to the trauma. The 4 pillar model of the article might encapsulate a decent general framework for trauma victims, but it entirely ignores the very real biological responses and physical effects of trauma, so is on par with saying stress and fight or flight responses are learned. If it were learned we would teach soldiers not to have those responses, instead they are trained to manage their reactions to those responses, and even with training trauma can not be prevented in all individuals in all situations.
PTSD/trauma may be the result of being victimized, but it is not “learned” any more than a bone might “learn” to break under stress.
What happens under extreme trauma is an onslaught of electric signals and chemical reactions in the brain, essentially adrenaline (fight or flight) and cortisol (stress) responses. They help you survive when needed, but terrible for the brain and body in extreme amounts and/or prolonged exposure.
The issue is not that it is “learned” but that in some people the trauma essentially fires otherwise dormant pathways in the brain and instead of these pathways going back to a dormant state the neurons and pathways are potentially strengthened by the single acute episode and remain turned on. It creates an awful feedback loop where these neurons and pathways fire from normal/non traumatic stimulus moving forward because the connections become so strong they become a default pathway. Then regular firing of these pathways just reinforces the connections. You could point to that as “learning” I suppose, but it is involuntary. The associated behaviors are commonly avoidance in order to prevent these misfirings but unable to avoid it the responses will usually be consistent with the original response to the adrenaline and cortisol during the trauma.
Not everyone responds the same, because it really isn’t learned but something I would describe more as a physical “injury” to the brain from the natural biological response to the trauma. The 4 pillar model of the article might encapsulate a decent general framework for trauma victims, but it entirely ignores the very real biological responses and physical effects of trauma, so is on par with saying stress and fight or flight responses are learned. If it were learned we would teach soldiers not to have those responses, instead they are trained to manage their reactions to those responses, and even with training trauma can not be prevented in all individuals in all situations.
The article says TVI is learned, not PTSD.
> But the people who score very high on TIV are generally those who have experienced some kind of trauma, like PTSD.
Yeah. Restated: Often, people who score high on TVI are a subset of people who have undergone trauma like PTSD.
TVI is learned according to the author, not general trauma or PTSD.
TVI is learned according to the author, not general trauma or PTSD.
There's an important distinction to be made between true victims of crime or abuse, and those people who imagine themselves into the fake victim delusion and attach their identity to that. The psychological motivations of the latter are you get to blame everybody else and you don't have to take responsibility for anything that goes wrong in your life. It's a pretty toxic and disempowering delusion but it's also very compelling and addictive. people will struggle mightily against that which threatens to divorce them from their chosen identity as a victim.
I'm not saying there's no overlap between the two categories but it's an important distinction nonetheless.
Another way of talking about it is most people have been victimized by some trauma or another but how they respond to that, whether they see themselves as a victim and adopt that mindset, whether they see themselves as survivor, a thriver, whether they remake the meaning of that trauma and the response to it into some meaning that's personal for them and that is useful for them, is ultimately within the power of that individual. Some people go through stages some people choose for that trauma to define a large part of how they see themselves.
Life has suffering and trauma and I think it's important for a person to make some ways they can personally deal with that. At the same time I think life is so much more than suffering and trauma and it's important to keep that in mind as well.
Ultimately what you make of life, what you make it mean, it is up to you. I don't want to say it's not easy, or it's not hard, because everyone's different. but one thing I personally found useful is in dealing with the, as you mentioned, condition neural responses of traumatic memories is: where I live you can obtain the compound inderol (propranolol) over the counter and if you do self hypnotic regression when you go back and you know experience that memory again but you do it under the influence of inderol what happens is that the emotional intensity of those memories as you reactivate them becomes lessened. This does at least two things one is that the next time you remember them they're not as painful. The second is that by lessening the emotional intensity you're able to face an experience the emotions, and the associated events themselves, perhaps more fully and perhaps more objectively. I think it helps give you more perspective which is helpful.
While I found that effective I actually feel other strategies for emotional processing were more effective for me, strategies that, different to the first one, involved directly feeling facing and processing the thoughts and emotions of myself and other participants in those memories.
So whatever you do is your responsibility and I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just sharing some personal experience. Still, it's possible and understandable though that you may take what I'm saying at some sort of advice even though I don't intend it like, so even I don't want to say this because I know it's your responsibility what you choose to do, I think the way our society works in order for me to protect myself I better say the following: if you're thinking of trying what I told you I tried then I think you should talk with your doctor first about what I told you. While this technique is similar to the currently experimented MDMA regression therapies, there's also plenty of other ways to do emotional processing, but that may be one method you might find assists with some of the neurological aspects of it.
I'm not saying there's no overlap between the two categories but it's an important distinction nonetheless.
Another way of talking about it is most people have been victimized by some trauma or another but how they respond to that, whether they see themselves as a victim and adopt that mindset, whether they see themselves as survivor, a thriver, whether they remake the meaning of that trauma and the response to it into some meaning that's personal for them and that is useful for them, is ultimately within the power of that individual. Some people go through stages some people choose for that trauma to define a large part of how they see themselves.
Life has suffering and trauma and I think it's important for a person to make some ways they can personally deal with that. At the same time I think life is so much more than suffering and trauma and it's important to keep that in mind as well.
Ultimately what you make of life, what you make it mean, it is up to you. I don't want to say it's not easy, or it's not hard, because everyone's different. but one thing I personally found useful is in dealing with the, as you mentioned, condition neural responses of traumatic memories is: where I live you can obtain the compound inderol (propranolol) over the counter and if you do self hypnotic regression when you go back and you know experience that memory again but you do it under the influence of inderol what happens is that the emotional intensity of those memories as you reactivate them becomes lessened. This does at least two things one is that the next time you remember them they're not as painful. The second is that by lessening the emotional intensity you're able to face an experience the emotions, and the associated events themselves, perhaps more fully and perhaps more objectively. I think it helps give you more perspective which is helpful.
While I found that effective I actually feel other strategies for emotional processing were more effective for me, strategies that, different to the first one, involved directly feeling facing and processing the thoughts and emotions of myself and other participants in those memories.
So whatever you do is your responsibility and I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just sharing some personal experience. Still, it's possible and understandable though that you may take what I'm saying at some sort of advice even though I don't intend it like, so even I don't want to say this because I know it's your responsibility what you choose to do, I think the way our society works in order for me to protect myself I better say the following: if you're thinking of trying what I told you I tried then I think you should talk with your doctor first about what I told you. While this technique is similar to the currently experimented MDMA regression therapies, there's also plenty of other ways to do emotional processing, but that may be one method you might find assists with some of the neurological aspects of it.
> but it is involuntary
No and yes.
PTSD/trauma is the result of resistance to being. A person resists having their awareness in their body and being there with their emotions during crisis, and instead they are 'in shock' for the duration. This allows confusion or the kind of mental blocks where there is no recollection to happen. Once confusion or mental blocks manifest, it can be quite the challenge to regain clarity.
It has been proven time and again to be very helpful to consciously relive traumatic situations over and over in one's mind in order to relieve the tension and begin to integrate the experience into one's being in a healing manner, rather than letting that stress continue to arise again and again in one's life. This should likely be done under the guidance of someone with experience in such matters, or at least with trusted friends in a good environment.
Avoidance is so common here because that is the route taken during the crisis. The person avoids being, in the most fundamental sense, in exchange for becoming hypnotized by their senses and environment. Were the person able to be present and aware of their body and emotions during the crisis, no such PTSD would be able to be formed. So, a person may not be able to be present and avoid this psychological resistance, but they can learn to do so. Are they willing to undergo such learning is another matter.
Psychological literature is littered with examples of these techniques, but I'm not exactly sure where I have stumbled across them. As an extreme example of letting go of resistance, I offer the link below to the story of Thích Quảng Đức. I wish I had something that was not of Buddhist nature, but it is terribly easy to pick on them. =D
I do not mean to trivialize your experience or say that you were wrong, btw. I myself have been under extreme duress and have had a number of such traumatic instances and I wish you well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%9...
No and yes.
PTSD/trauma is the result of resistance to being. A person resists having their awareness in their body and being there with their emotions during crisis, and instead they are 'in shock' for the duration. This allows confusion or the kind of mental blocks where there is no recollection to happen. Once confusion or mental blocks manifest, it can be quite the challenge to regain clarity.
It has been proven time and again to be very helpful to consciously relive traumatic situations over and over in one's mind in order to relieve the tension and begin to integrate the experience into one's being in a healing manner, rather than letting that stress continue to arise again and again in one's life. This should likely be done under the guidance of someone with experience in such matters, or at least with trusted friends in a good environment.
Avoidance is so common here because that is the route taken during the crisis. The person avoids being, in the most fundamental sense, in exchange for becoming hypnotized by their senses and environment. Were the person able to be present and aware of their body and emotions during the crisis, no such PTSD would be able to be formed. So, a person may not be able to be present and avoid this psychological resistance, but they can learn to do so. Are they willing to undergo such learning is another matter.
Psychological literature is littered with examples of these techniques, but I'm not exactly sure where I have stumbled across them. As an extreme example of letting go of resistance, I offer the link below to the story of Thích Quảng Đức. I wish I had something that was not of Buddhist nature, but it is terribly easy to pick on them. =D
I do not mean to trivialize your experience or say that you were wrong, btw. I myself have been under extreme duress and have had a number of such traumatic instances and I wish you well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%9...
This is condensed pseudo-science given a veneer of acceptability by offhand reference to actual PTSD trauma research and treatment practice in psychiatry.
Is there some reason I should be using 'acceptable' trauma research and treatment practice in psychiatry for my past trauma, when by all measures I have been living an 'ordinary' and 'upwardly moving' life for years without such treatment?
Can your 'acceptable' practices explain how a man can sit in a street motionless while he burns to nothing?
If no, then perhaps it is the case that there is more to this life than what has been deemed 'acceptable'. I don't find modern psychiatry to be acceptable for myself whatsoever. If others deem it a help, then great.
If yes, I am very interested in knowing more.
Oh, I remembered this psychological technique: regression. Thanks for the brain jog.
https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/regres...
Can your 'acceptable' practices explain how a man can sit in a street motionless while he burns to nothing?
If no, then perhaps it is the case that there is more to this life than what has been deemed 'acceptable'. I don't find modern psychiatry to be acceptable for myself whatsoever. If others deem it a help, then great.
If yes, I am very interested in knowing more.
Oh, I remembered this psychological technique: regression. Thanks for the brain jog.
https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/regres...
This is powerful. Powerful in a good way, and powerful in a not-so-good way.
When I first heard about "playing the victim" I was truly shocked. But here and here I would find some good piece of writing about "Don't be a victim..." and similar ideas along the same line. It took me a few well written articles, months to digest them, and deep long meditations, writing about a hundred blog posts but I am now grasping the concept and - date to say - it has changed my life.
I don't know about you, but not everything in my life goes as planned, and at times things go wrong despite my best work, and at times things even go terribly wrong.
In those moments, and in the post-mortem analysis, my starting point is that I was at least partly accountable/responsible for the outcome, the only question is the % of accountability/responsibility; and then - most importantly - what measures to take, anything from "doing nothing" to "hurry to stop the ripple effects" and everything else in between.
It's not that before I was constantly playing the victim, but .... observing the world while taking the polar opposite stand from a victim's position opens interesting perspectives and problem-solving algorithms.
There are truly victims out there, victims of terrible actions and behaviors; I am not referring to them, I am actually talking about me and me only.
I am sure we're going to see more of these writing on the same concept and - IMO - it's pure gold!
When I first heard about "playing the victim" I was truly shocked. But here and here I would find some good piece of writing about "Don't be a victim..." and similar ideas along the same line. It took me a few well written articles, months to digest them, and deep long meditations, writing about a hundred blog posts but I am now grasping the concept and - date to say - it has changed my life.
I don't know about you, but not everything in my life goes as planned, and at times things go wrong despite my best work, and at times things even go terribly wrong.
In those moments, and in the post-mortem analysis, my starting point is that I was at least partly accountable/responsible for the outcome, the only question is the % of accountability/responsibility; and then - most importantly - what measures to take, anything from "doing nothing" to "hurry to stop the ripple effects" and everything else in between.
It's not that before I was constantly playing the victim, but .... observing the world while taking the polar opposite stand from a victim's position opens interesting perspectives and problem-solving algorithms.
There are truly victims out there, victims of terrible actions and behaviors; I am not referring to them, I am actually talking about me and me only.
I am sure we're going to see more of these writing on the same concept and - IMO - it's pure gold!
My father told me, when I was 10, that I might have never been born if my grand parents got caught during WW2.
I take social darwinism and competition very personally and seriously. I have the most difficulty accepting social hierarchy because they remind me of people being better than others for arbitrary reasons.
I often rationalize that what happened in germany, also happens to a certain degree between human beings in normal times, and it disgusts me. I feel like eugenics won many battles, just not the war, and that if Nazism happened, it tells a lot about the human nature of people around us.
I take social darwinism and competition very personally and seriously. I have the most difficulty accepting social hierarchy because they remind me of people being better than others for arbitrary reasons.
I often rationalize that what happened in germany, also happens to a certain degree between human beings in normal times, and it disgusts me. I feel like eugenics won many battles, just not the war, and that if Nazism happened, it tells a lot about the human nature of people around us.
The link here between the individual psychology and the broad political thrust seems very unclear to me. I haf the feeling of having a bias confirmed with very tenuous logic.
Psychology is never empirical. We should be skeptical of this article.
Precisely. Articles such as this, without metastudy to back up spurious claims, are the horoscopes of the modern age! Project your own culture upon it and espouse the 'correct' creed.
I truly believe that most discussions about race get it all wrong. The problem is not race. The problem is culture. Different groups of people of the same race have different cultures. And it is culture, not race, that is the #1 reason for how successful people are in general. That’s why you see different groups of the same race having very different outcomes. And not just for non-whites. The “white trash/red neck” culture is very different from the “urban professional” culture. Knowing about somebody’s culture tells you a lot more about their lives than their race. Your culture is the underlying OS of how you live your life and the decisions you make.
Considering the well studied links between testosterone and social behavior , and the well known precipitous drop in testosterone in recent decades, i wonder why they didn't talk about it
> testosterone seems to possess the ability to influence such processes; in particular, it appears to confer high motivational drive, low fearfulness, and high stress-resilience, either directly or via interactions with other hormones and neurotransmitter systems
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13646...
> testosterone seems to possess the ability to influence such processes; in particular, it appears to confer high motivational drive, low fearfulness, and high stress-resilience, either directly or via interactions with other hormones and neurotransmitter systems
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13646...
Provocative. What he describes as TIV seems like a transparent proxy for sadism and some other dark personality traits and disorders.
We get what we reward, kids do what works for them, and while there is a massive amount of prior art on solutions to mitigating this, I think we're in a spot where we never thought there would be such an acute need to explain to adults what this issue is, and so we've been culturally backfooted in producing critical tools for dealing with it.
We get what we reward, kids do what works for them, and while there is a massive amount of prior art on solutions to mitigating this, I think we're in a spot where we never thought there would be such an acute need to explain to adults what this issue is, and so we've been culturally backfooted in producing critical tools for dealing with it.
I just want to plug in two books by Alice Miller, mainly about childhood, the effects of growing up in a 'not-good' environment - that sort of thing. I found her to be very level-headed.
[1] The Drama of Being a Child by Alice Miller (also know by the IMO bad title 'The Drama of the Gifted Child')
[2] For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence by Alice Miller
Edit: Also a good comic named 'On a Plate':
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-wireless/373065/the-pencilswo...
[1] The Drama of Being a Child by Alice Miller (also know by the IMO bad title 'The Drama of the Gifted Child')
[2] For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence by Alice Miller
Edit: Also a good comic named 'On a Plate':
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-wireless/373065/the-pencilswo...
[deleted]
If you want some more thoughts from very articulate people of color on this topic try "Conversations with Coleman"
https://colemanhughes.org/
https://colemanhughes.org/
Coleman is someone I wish everyone knew about. He’s changed my mind on a number of things and always seems to have unique well reasoned views on the subjects he speaks about.
[deleted]
> You only need to spend only a few minutes watching or reading the news, in any country, to hear and see victimhood raging.
Isn't here the true relationship, rather than a made-up "sickness" called TIV (sounds a lot like untreated depression, but *no expert*) between safetyism and the constant barrage of clickbait-y, outrageous news we can do nothing about?
Isn't here the true relationship, rather than a made-up "sickness" called TIV (sounds a lot like untreated depression, but *no expert*) between safetyism and the constant barrage of clickbait-y, outrageous news we can do nothing about?
Generally speaking, a victim is someone who didn't/doesn't have the power to keep themselves from being a victim.
If you encourage someone to believe that they don't have the power to keep themselves from being a victim, generally speaking, that's a good way to turn them into a victim.
Better approach: teach people to recognize and use the power they have to avoid becoming a victim when they encounter a potential victimizer.
Better approach: teach people to recognize and use the power they have to avoid becoming a victim when they encounter a potential victimizer.
Obviously we’re speaking in generalities, but sometimes people reclaim that power vía speaking up about victimhood.
Generally speaking, demanding to be recognized as a victim doesn't do much to prevent or end victimhood, and in many cases, actually hurts.
I've seen far more people's lives ruined trapped in a victim mentality than I've seen ruined by saying "I refuse to see myself as a victim any longer. I have the power to do something about my situation."
Many people were a victim of an incident or circumstances beyond their control. But who benefits by continuing to define those people by the things that they were a victim of? What purpose does it serve to keep them trapped, rather than giving them the power to overcome?
I've seen far more people's lives ruined trapped in a victim mentality than I've seen ruined by saying "I refuse to see myself as a victim any longer. I have the power to do something about my situation."
Many people were a victim of an incident or circumstances beyond their control. But who benefits by continuing to define those people by the things that they were a victim of? What purpose does it serve to keep them trapped, rather than giving them the power to overcome?
We might be getting a little stuck on the word 'victim'. My main point is that people speaking up about being hurt can be a way for them to find resolution around it. Sometimes other people don't like them speaking up, but personally I wouldn't think of it as my place to judge.
>But who benefits by continuing to define those people by the things that they were a victim of?
I think ideally it's up to the person themselves to decide when they no longer need that definition.
>But who benefits by continuing to define those people by the things that they were a victim of?
I think ideally it's up to the person themselves to decide when they no longer need that definition.
WTF is this shit? Blame the victimhood?
If you’re living in an unjust world, the solution might not actually come from within; perhaps we could modify it somehow?
Don’t bet the farm on findings from psychology.
If you’re living in an unjust world, the solution might not actually come from within; perhaps we could modify it somehow?
Don’t bet the farm on findings from psychology.
Telling someone they are a victim and there is nothing they can possibly do to better their situation is not a helpful or productive action. You end up with entire generations who believe there is no point trying because its all pointless since they are a victim to something that happened generations ago.
> Telling someone they are a victim and there is nothing they can possibly do to better their situation is not a helpful or productive action.
Who is telling people that they are victims? Who thinks that being a victim means that it's 100% outside of that person's control?
These are the straw-men that so many dumb comments here are based on. There are real victims in the world and most of the time they're just trying to tell their stories, only to get constant derision from idiots in cesspools like Hacker News.
Who is telling people that they are victims? Who thinks that being a victim means that it's 100% outside of that person's control?
These are the straw-men that so many dumb comments here are based on. There are real victims in the world and most of the time they're just trying to tell their stories, only to get constant derision from idiots in cesspools like Hacker News.
> Who is telling people that they are victims?
just to name two examples: many feminists are telling women that they are oppressed (=victimized) by "the patriarchy" and a lot of people are claiming that black people are still systemically oppressed (=victimized) in the USA.
I'm not claiming that those examples are true or false, I want to show that this is not a straw man.
> There are real victims in the world
indeed there are but this article (and the comments) are not about them.
just to name two examples: many feminists are telling women that they are oppressed (=victimized) by "the patriarchy" and a lot of people are claiming that black people are still systemically oppressed (=victimized) in the USA.
I'm not claiming that those examples are true or false, I want to show that this is not a straw man.
> There are real victims in the world
indeed there are but this article (and the comments) are not about them.
I think you misunderstand what people the article is referring to. Victims are largely irrelevant, this is about people who (like to/have a tendency to) feel or see themselves as victims.
arguing it “emerged from the contentious politics of the 1960s, specifically the civil rights movement and its aftermath
This framing has nothing to do with individual psychology, it’s trying to make a political point.
This framing has nothing to do with individual psychology, it’s trying to make a political point.
People need to learn how not to give a fck for what other people might think about oneself, life becomes so much easier.
Just treat people fairly, and don't care what they think.
A necessary read.
I'll be more brazen. I don't know about other countries, but if you live in the US and am an adult of sound mind and body, you're not a victim.
If your life isn't working for you, reassess your situation, develop a plan, and get busy!
If your life isn't working for you, reassess your situation, develop a plan, and get busy!
Is this a moral or a factual statement?
I guess I'd reject the whole victim/perpetrator dichotomy and say that people's conditions are contingent on forces largely out of their control. That's a factual statement. Lots of people and societies find this very uncomfortable - we generally like the cosmos to be largely about us, down to our decisions, both for the better and for the worse.
I guess I'd reject the whole victim/perpetrator dichotomy and say that people's conditions are contingent on forces largely out of their control. That's a factual statement. Lots of people and societies find this very uncomfortable - we generally like the cosmos to be largely about us, down to our decisions, both for the better and for the worse.
> people's conditions are contingent on forces largely out of their control. That's a factual statement.
It is a factual statement, I agree, but in the US it is not true. Peoples' lives are the sum of their choices, large and small. One can choose to learn how to make better choices.
I spent a significant portion of every day learning to make better choices and doing things that will improve my life. Such as exercising. Improving my diet. Trying to eliminate unproductive behaviors. Etc.
It is a factual statement, I agree, but in the US it is not true. Peoples' lives are the sum of their choices, large and small. One can choose to learn how to make better choices.
I spent a significant portion of every day learning to make better choices and doing things that will improve my life. Such as exercising. Improving my diet. Trying to eliminate unproductive behaviors. Etc.
Okay, but you have to acknowledge that your experience was with a version of the United States that no longer exists.
Things have changed a lot for people on the bottom rungs since the '90s, Walter. Some sympathy for the fact that bootstrapping is vastly more difficult for young people today might be a better look.
Things have changed a lot for people on the bottom rungs since the '90s, Walter. Some sympathy for the fact that bootstrapping is vastly more difficult for young people today might be a better look.
It's never been easier and cheaper to get an education in the US, start a business, reach a global marketplace, learn how to do anything you want to do, etc.
When I was young it was pretty much unheard of for people to get wealthy before 25. Now it's commonplace and unremarkable.
When I was young it was pretty much unheard of for people to get wealthy before 25. Now it's commonplace and unremarkable.
> It's never been easier and cheaper to get an education in the US
Source? even the most conservative people I know who went to school in the 80s/90s say they could never afford it now. I myself am trying to figure out how to pay for it without $40k grand in debt if I choose to go back.
Source? even the most conservative people I know who went to school in the 80s/90s say they could never afford it now. I myself am trying to figure out how to pay for it without $40k grand in debt if I choose to go back.
MIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfQxyVuLeCs&list=PL9F74AFA03...
K-12: https://www.khanacademy.org/
All free, available on the supercomputer in your pocket.
K-12: https://www.khanacademy.org/
All free, available on the supercomputer in your pocket.
All completely irrelevant since they don't provide the official certifications which employers check.
Not to mention entirely dependent on the unsupported precept that traditional teaching structures were apparently worthless - but, it's cheap to put your money where your mouth is on this: are you going to save a lot of time and money and educate your children solely via these resources?
Not to mention entirely dependent on the unsupported precept that traditional teaching structures were apparently worthless - but, it's cheap to put your money where your mouth is on this: are you going to save a lot of time and money and educate your children solely via these resources?
> official certifications which employers check
Yet I wangled a job writing software despite a mechanical engineering job achieved without CS courses. I also know several people at Microsoft in programming jobs who had no college experience. There are tens of thousands of employers, all different. You can even start your own business doing programming, EE design, whatever.
> apparently worthless
Not at all. It's maybe a harder road, sure, but it's navigable for those who want to do it for free.
Yet I wangled a job writing software despite a mechanical engineering job achieved without CS courses. I also know several people at Microsoft in programming jobs who had no college experience. There are tens of thousands of employers, all different. You can even start your own business doing programming, EE design, whatever.
> apparently worthless
Not at all. It's maybe a harder road, sure, but it's navigable for those who want to do it for free.
You could have made the same argument in 1908, telling people to self educate at their local library.
If everyone watched a 2007 youtube course on circuits at MIT and learned the material, the value of such a skillset would be equal to the value of flipping Burgers at Burger King.
If everyone watched a 2007 youtube course on circuits at MIT and learned the material, the value of such a skillset would be equal to the value of flipping Burgers at Burger King.
> in 1980
Ironically, my grandfather at the time made his career by selling correspondence courses for college degrees. It was the equivalent in those days. He met my grandmother selling her a course in mechanical engineering she used to get a better job at the phone company.
My grandfather started literally at the bottom - shoveling coal into a steamship's boiler. A dirty, dangerous, sweaty job he did for years. He improved his lot by taking correspondence courses, and liked them so much decided on a career in selling them, primarily to sailors.
> If everyone
I wouldn't conflate "don't" with "can't".
I know about the MIT course because I took it myself (along with others) to fill in gaps in my education. And why not? Education doesn't stop with the diploma.
Ironically, my grandfather at the time made his career by selling correspondence courses for college degrees. It was the equivalent in those days. He met my grandmother selling her a course in mechanical engineering she used to get a better job at the phone company.
My grandfather started literally at the bottom - shoveling coal into a steamship's boiler. A dirty, dangerous, sweaty job he did for years. He improved his lot by taking correspondence courses, and liked them so much decided on a career in selling them, primarily to sailors.
> If everyone
I wouldn't conflate "don't" with "can't".
I know about the MIT course because I took it myself (along with others) to fill in gaps in my education. And why not? Education doesn't stop with the diploma.
How do you define wealthy Walter? I’m 25 and “unremarkable” and my net worth is only a quarter million. I make about $200k at a company you’d probably consider unimpressive.
Not everyone can be remarkable enough to go to CalTech.
Not everyone can be remarkable enough to go to CalTech.
Some days I can't tell which comments on HN are parody and which aren't...
I’m sorry what seems to be satirical about my statement?
You're only a few years into your career, not saddled with an oversized tuition from a prestigious university, and already making $200k with a sizable net worth. In my books that's absolutely a path to wealth!
I'm confused by your argument, because I'd consider making $200K/yr to be firmly on the side of wealthy. Also, I think he was talking about the circumstances being unremarkable, not the people themselves.
(Minor note, since you brought it up: it's spelled "Caltech".)
Id wager if you asked most of your graduating classmates if $200k@25 is impressive, most or all would say no. That’s a new grad’s total compensation and I’m several years in already.
Appreciate the correction on spelling. I’m more a Midwest guy myself.
Appreciate the correction on spelling. I’m more a Midwest guy myself.
Where on earth did you go to school? Most people I know — even in tech — aren’t making $200k well into their 30s.
The fact that you think a net worth of a quarter of a million dollars at 25 is unremarkable goes to show how completely out of touch you are.
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It seems a lot easier, given the fact that accessing an audience or starting a business requires significantly less capital than it did back then. Although maybe there's a side to your argument that I'm missing?
I think they meant bootstrapping a life not a business.
Disagree, it's never been easier. The country is awash in vast amounts of money, trying to find ways to be invested, to be spent. Access to information and resources is higher than it has ever been.
Sure, it's hard to just get by if you aren't out there hustling. The time of getting an average job with an average pension, which lets you buy a reasonable price house is over. The world is your oyster if you are willing to put in the time and have any ability to plan, organize, and work.
Sure, it's hard to just get by if you aren't out there hustling. The time of getting an average job with an average pension, which lets you buy a reasonable price house is over. The world is your oyster if you are willing to put in the time and have any ability to plan, organize, and work.
Most businesses fail. Why do you think that is?
80% of businesses fail in 5 years. There are many reasons, but the usual ones revolve around things like not understanding accounting, not putting in the effort, etc.
It's also true that many very successful people failed at business time after time before figuring it out. Fortunately, American culture doesn't look askance at people that fail at business and try again.
It's also true that many very successful people failed at business time after time before figuring it out. Fortunately, American culture doesn't look askance at people that fail at business and try again.
What percent of businesses fail because the owners don't understand accounting? What percent fail because they don't put in the effort? Where did you find this data?
Google "why businesses fail" and there's a lot of information.
>The time of getting an average job with an average pension, which lets you buy a reasonable price house is over.
Covid craziness aside, that's still true. You can't do it in California, or Seattle or NYC but outside of those areas it's easily obtainable.
Most of these "homes were so cheap" anecdotes neglect to mention that you might be paying 18% interest on your cheap houses. Or they are talking about a place like NYC in the 70s. Yeah you could have gotten a house for a song in a bankrupt city suffering through the crack epidemic.
Covid craziness aside, that's still true. You can't do it in California, or Seattle or NYC but outside of those areas it's easily obtainable.
Most of these "homes were so cheap" anecdotes neglect to mention that you might be paying 18% interest on your cheap houses. Or they are talking about a place like NYC in the 70s. Yeah you could have gotten a house for a song in a bankrupt city suffering through the crack epidemic.
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What about people who suffer trauma, childhood or otherwise, due to the decisions of others? Saying people's lives are strictly in their control is just not true.
Help is available for mental issues from psychological trauma. Even self-help, there is endless material freely available.
For mental issues from physical trauma, like a brain injury, I qualified my statement with being of "sound mind". I feel immense empathy for such people.
For mental issues from physical trauma, like a brain injury, I qualified my statement with being of "sound mind". I feel immense empathy for such people.
I'm bringing this up because you said people's lives are the sum of their actions.
I think we both agree psychological trauma can affect people immensely. However, your statement saying they can just go get help is really hand-wavy and oversimplifies the situation.
People who suffer trauma during childhood can have impaired brain development, stunted emotional development, poor executive decision making, and are way more likely to enter situations that retraumatize them -- causing more damage.
Simply saying "I will not be a victim" isn't really a thing. You adapt to the trauma by learning coping skills that are not healthy. When this happens in childhood, it is baked into your personality and then later in life you are left wondering which parts of you are really "you" and which are just maladaptive coping. Thus, the sum of you isn't due to just your decisions.
I speak from personal experience on this. I've never had a victim mentality. But now, at 35, going to therapy for cPTSD, I look at the young child I was and can truly see I was a victim. Does this mean I go around now saying I am a victim? No. But, realizing that I was in the past allows me to show more understanding and sympathy for myself.
I think we both agree psychological trauma can affect people immensely. However, your statement saying they can just go get help is really hand-wavy and oversimplifies the situation.
People who suffer trauma during childhood can have impaired brain development, stunted emotional development, poor executive decision making, and are way more likely to enter situations that retraumatize them -- causing more damage.
Simply saying "I will not be a victim" isn't really a thing. You adapt to the trauma by learning coping skills that are not healthy. When this happens in childhood, it is baked into your personality and then later in life you are left wondering which parts of you are really "you" and which are just maladaptive coping. Thus, the sum of you isn't due to just your decisions.
I speak from personal experience on this. I've never had a victim mentality. But now, at 35, going to therapy for cPTSD, I look at the young child I was and can truly see I was a victim. Does this mean I go around now saying I am a victim? No. But, realizing that I was in the past allows me to show more understanding and sympathy for myself.
I'm glad you could overcome these problems.
You do everything right, then one day a cop decides you were reaching for a gun instead of a wallet. Yes, choices matter, but sometimes the choices of others limit your own.
I've been pulled over many times. Here's what I do:
1. put my hands on the wheel in plain sight and keep them there
2. when the cop says "driver's license" I say "it's in my wallet in my right front pocket. I do not move.
3. cop says "ok, you can get your wallet".
4. I use one hand to get my wallet and the license.
5. cop says "registration"
6. I say "it's in the glove box" and I do not move.
7. cop says "ok you can get it"
8. I move slowly to get it.
What I never do is lunge for my cell phone, reach under the seat, turn around and try to get something from the back seat, try to grab the officer, try to drive off, etc.
Nothing's perfect, but your odds of survival improve greatly by doing this.
Yes, I've been held at gunpoint by a cop, too. Been robbed at gunpoint as well.
1. put my hands on the wheel in plain sight and keep them there
2. when the cop says "driver's license" I say "it's in my wallet in my right front pocket. I do not move.
3. cop says "ok, you can get your wallet".
4. I use one hand to get my wallet and the license.
5. cop says "registration"
6. I say "it's in the glove box" and I do not move.
7. cop says "ok you can get it"
8. I move slowly to get it.
What I never do is lunge for my cell phone, reach under the seat, turn around and try to get something from the back seat, try to grab the officer, try to drive off, etc.
Nothing's perfect, but your odds of survival improve greatly by doing this.
Yes, I've been held at gunpoint by a cop, too. Been robbed at gunpoint as well.
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It’s a sum of their choices and their parents’ choices*, heavily weighted toward theirs, but I think my success is at least 20% the consequences of my parents’ hard work and good choices.
* - and a sliver of teachers and other influential adults, but the overwhelmingly majority are from people who could say good night and good morning to each other.
* - and a sliver of teachers and other influential adults, but the overwhelmingly majority are from people who could say good night and good morning to each other.
> in the US it is not true
That is patently false. You can divide Americans into any number of segments which they are born into and reliably determine that segment's success. E.g. white people earn more than black people. Children of rich parents do better in school than children of poor parents. Lawyers who graduated in 2000 are more successful than ones who graduated in 2008. Forces out of their control determined this. Their "conditions" are functions of this. Your statement would imply that the people in these segments just happened to make worse choices unrelated to the circumstances of their segments. That would be quite the coincidence.
That is patently false. You can divide Americans into any number of segments which they are born into and reliably determine that segment's success. E.g. white people earn more than black people. Children of rich parents do better in school than children of poor parents. Lawyers who graduated in 2000 are more successful than ones who graduated in 2008. Forces out of their control determined this. Their "conditions" are functions of this. Your statement would imply that the people in these segments just happened to make worse choices unrelated to the circumstances of their segments. That would be quite the coincidence.
Yes, like your lawyer example there's plenty of evidence where outcomes for people doing basically the same work varies a lot across times and places.
Maximally small government / libertarian people would like to pretend that everything is about individual character because this would justify their preferred public policies, but thinking about it even a little bit it should be obvious that internal and external factors both matter.
I remember in a previous discussion here Walter was objecting even to the use of standard economic terminology around things like what wealth-creation means (dating back to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776), so I'd take his views here with a grain of salt.
Maximally small government / libertarian people would like to pretend that everything is about individual character because this would justify their preferred public policies, but thinking about it even a little bit it should be obvious that internal and external factors both matter.
I remember in a previous discussion here Walter was objecting even to the use of standard economic terminology around things like what wealth-creation means (dating back to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776), so I'd take his views here with a grain of salt.
The single biggest and most accurate predictor of financial success, or lack thereof, is which zip code people are born in. Libertarian sentiments like yours refuse to acknowledge in any meaningful sense environmental effects upon a population’s well-being, instead almost exclusively focusing on individual choice.
Which is absurd, and why it is not respected despite decades of evangelical proselytizing.
Which is absurd, and why it is not respected despite decades of evangelical proselytizing.
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Do you have any cites for that data? What is success defined as? I've heard that causation thrown around lately but have never seen the actual study.
I can see it at the extremes, meaning Martha's Vineyard and Compton perhaps as examples of positive and negative predictors. I haven't visited either, so I wouldn't know first hand. The vast, vast majority of zip codes aren't the extreme by definition. In my zip code, there are both wealthy people in million dollar properties as well as HUD housing and the majority somewhere in between.
I can see it at the extremes, meaning Martha's Vineyard and Compton perhaps as examples of positive and negative predictors. I haven't visited either, so I wouldn't know first hand. The vast, vast majority of zip codes aren't the extreme by definition. In my zip code, there are both wealthy people in million dollar properties as well as HUD housing and the majority somewhere in between.
On a practical level, this is a bad view to hold.
Individuals with an external locus of control have worse life outcomes. Having an internal locus of control, the idea that you do have a large amount of control over your life, results in better outcomes.
Individuals with an external locus of control have worse life outcomes. Having an internal locus of control, the idea that you do have a large amount of control over your life, results in better outcomes.
I definitely believe they're correlated, but are there any studies demonstrating a causal relationship?
To be honest, this comment section is full of blanket dismissals that speak to living in a bubble away from people with very real grievances. I would say it is not particularly philosophical or moral or factual - it is a reflection of personal material status.
I feel like most comments here reflect actual reality. Middle class of America is incredibly privileged. I feel like vocal minorities took over the media circles and got amplified disproportionately, especially after the pandemic hit and the only way to get information was through these narrow channels.
If possible, go out. Talk to people. It's quite refreshing how different the world is outside of the media machine.
If possible, go out. Talk to people. It's quite refreshing how different the world is outside of the media machine.
I certainly hope you're joking
Nope. Not remotely.
It’s truly hard to overstate what a ridiculous position you have staked out here with this argument.
You’ve picked some arbitrary definition of what it means to be a victim based on god only knows what philosophy or life experience and then tried to state it as some kind of objective fact or enlightened wisdom.
You’ve picked some arbitrary definition of what it means to be a victim based on god only knows what philosophy or life experience and then tried to state it as some kind of objective fact or enlightened wisdom.
> ridiculous position
I'm well aware of how other people perceive it. It's completely contrary to the barrage of what I call "cult of the victim" that spews forth from nearly all media.
I don't expect to change your mind. But give it a chance. For example,
A man falls down the stairs and breaks his leg.
Victim: "I'm so unlucky, my leg broke. Oh, life is so unfair."
Non-Victim: "Phew, I'm so lucky! I could have broken my neck! My broken leg will heal and I'll be fine. Next time I won't leave my toys laying on the steps."
Walter: "I put carpet on the stairs so I wouldn't slip on them. I go jogging to (in part) increase bone density so they are less likely to break."
I'm well aware of how other people perceive it. It's completely contrary to the barrage of what I call "cult of the victim" that spews forth from nearly all media.
I don't expect to change your mind. But give it a chance. For example,
A man falls down the stairs and breaks his leg.
Victim: "I'm so unlucky, my leg broke. Oh, life is so unfair."
Non-Victim: "Phew, I'm so lucky! I could have broken my neck! My broken leg will heal and I'll be fine. Next time I won't leave my toys laying on the steps."
Walter: "I put carpet on the stairs so I wouldn't slip on them. I go jogging to (in part) increase bone density so they are less likely to break."
Listen I’m glad this approach seems to work to you and I hope it might even get you through some dark times one day, but there is a reason you are using contrived child like examples here, it’s because it doesn’t hold up to anything remotely dark.
What life lessons do you want for the parent of a child who was sexually abused for example? Are they allowed to feel like a victim? What about the child?
What life lessons do you want for the parent of a child who was sexually abused for example? Are they allowed to feel like a victim? What about the child?
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"‘He insulted me, hit me, beat me, robbed me’–for those who brood on this, hostility isn’t stilled.
"‘He insulted me, hit me, beat me, robbed me’–for those who don’t brood on this, hostility is stilled.
"Hostilities aren’t stilled through hostility, regardless.
"Hostilities are stilled through non-hostility: this, an unending truth.
"Unlike those who don’t realize that we’re here on the verge of perishing, those who do: their quarrels are stilled."
--Dhammapada, ch. 1, circa 1st century common era (trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/Dhp/Ch01.html
"‘He insulted me, hit me, beat me, robbed me’–for those who don’t brood on this, hostility is stilled.
"Hostilities aren’t stilled through hostility, regardless.
"Hostilities are stilled through non-hostility: this, an unending truth.
"Unlike those who don’t realize that we’re here on the verge of perishing, those who do: their quarrels are stilled."
--Dhammapada, ch. 1, circa 1st century common era (trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/Dhp/Ch01.html
It's completely contrary to the barrage of what I call "cult of the victim" that spews forth from nearly all media.
[Villain music]
[Villain music]
Ah, so the reason that - just to pick an example here - my father who put in long hours as an IT professional and then came home to teach me and my siblings and kickstart my tech career, passed away is because he didn't come up with a plan and get busy not being a cancer victim?
Somebody who loses their legs after getting hit by a drunk driver just needs to make a plan, stop being a victim and try to grow their legs back.
Got COVID? The ticket to a speedy recovery is hard work and positive thinking.
Pull yourself up out of nutritional deficiency and homelessness by your bootstraps! If you don't have boots, start by making some out of leaves and twigs.
Come on, Walter. You can say "sound mind and body" if you like but the reality is that "normal" is an arbitrary distinction set by one person or another, and at any moment you can become a victim because you get pushed out of "normal". You or I can look at someone and say "what do they have to complain about?" but you have no way to know if they're currently dying of an autoimmune disease or being blackmailed or working 3 jobs to pay off their spouse's medical bills.
Somebody who loses their legs after getting hit by a drunk driver just needs to make a plan, stop being a victim and try to grow their legs back.
Got COVID? The ticket to a speedy recovery is hard work and positive thinking.
Pull yourself up out of nutritional deficiency and homelessness by your bootstraps! If you don't have boots, start by making some out of leaves and twigs.
Come on, Walter. You can say "sound mind and body" if you like but the reality is that "normal" is an arbitrary distinction set by one person or another, and at any moment you can become a victim because you get pushed out of "normal". You or I can look at someone and say "what do they have to complain about?" but you have no way to know if they're currently dying of an autoimmune disease or being blackmailed or working 3 jobs to pay off their spouse's medical bills.
I'm sorry you lost your father, cancer is a terrible disease. I lost my mom to cancer.
The vast majority of victims are of sound mind and body, they aren't legless. If your legs are crushed by a drunk, you have my sympathy. If you were playing on the freeway at the time, my sympathies would be a bit muted.
> Got COVID?
Personally, I did everything I could to reduce my risk, and am now vaccinated. 2/3 of Americans are not vaccinated, yet one can now just walk in and get vaccinated. I'm respectful and sympathetic to the health workers and essential workers who put their lives at risk.
But today, when vaccines (in the US) are trivially available, I'm not so sympathetic to those who do not get one, and then get Covid.
I had a conversation with one person who said she wasn't getting the vaccine because God would look out for her. I replied that God looked out for her by making the vaccine available.
The overwhelming majority of people in America are of sound mind and body.
The vast majority of victims are of sound mind and body, they aren't legless. If your legs are crushed by a drunk, you have my sympathy. If you were playing on the freeway at the time, my sympathies would be a bit muted.
> Got COVID?
Personally, I did everything I could to reduce my risk, and am now vaccinated. 2/3 of Americans are not vaccinated, yet one can now just walk in and get vaccinated. I'm respectful and sympathetic to the health workers and essential workers who put their lives at risk.
But today, when vaccines (in the US) are trivially available, I'm not so sympathetic to those who do not get one, and then get Covid.
I had a conversation with one person who said she wasn't getting the vaccine because God would look out for her. I replied that God looked out for her by making the vaccine available.
The overwhelming majority of people in America are of sound mind and body.
The trouble with being a victim is there's nothing to be done about it. Deciding to not being a victim is empowering, as it means you can do something about it.
At the moment, I'm going out for a run because running seems to stave off old age dementia. Ah'll be back later.
How does being a victim imply that nothing can be done? It seems to me that the opposite could be the case.
For example: If I'm the victim of a crime, the first step to reporting the crime is acknowledging that fact. Certain categories of criminals (con artists and sexual abusers) rely on the fact that victims are often reluctant to acknowledge their victimhood, even to themselves. This allows those individuals' behavior to go unreported so they can prey on more people.
For example: If I'm the victim of a crime, the first step to reporting the crime is acknowledging that fact. Certain categories of criminals (con artists and sexual abusers) rely on the fact that victims are often reluctant to acknowledge their victimhood, even to themselves. This allows those individuals' behavior to go unreported so they can prey on more people.
> How does being a victim imply that nothing can be done?
Because if you had no role in the matter, you couldn't have prevented it.
Because if you had no role in the matter, you couldn't have prevented it.
The fact that something in the past couldn't have been prevented doesn't mean that there's nothing to be done in the present.
There's also the fact that often you couldn't have prevented it.
There's also the fact that often you couldn't have prevented it.
Being a victim is what reaction a person takes to events. If they believe that nothing could have been done, then they believe they are powerless.
This doesn't make sense - often times we are powerless. No amount of "not being a victim" is going to bring back your husband who died in a car accident, or a soldier who died in war, nor is being a victim either.
It can be made less likely. It's the victim mindset that makes the victim believe it can't be prevented, which in turn prevents the person in question from making changes that will prevent problems in the future.
Chicago cops frisking you all the time -- wear skin tight pants.
Car accident -- use defensive driving techniques.
Being shot and killed for sleeping at a Wendy's -- don't resist arrest.
Wife divorced you, took your house and kids -- don't get married, OR, learn to discriminate.
Sexist manager won't promote you -- join a company run by females, OR, start your own company.
Pandemic -- move to the country.
On the other hand, if you prefer not to solve your problems yourself, you can say "Why should I change, when other people are the ones doing something wrong", fold your arms, and wait for a man to solve your problem for you.
Chicago cops frisking you all the time -- wear skin tight pants.
Car accident -- use defensive driving techniques.
Being shot and killed for sleeping at a Wendy's -- don't resist arrest.
Wife divorced you, took your house and kids -- don't get married, OR, learn to discriminate.
Sexist manager won't promote you -- join a company run by females, OR, start your own company.
Pandemic -- move to the country.
On the other hand, if you prefer not to solve your problems yourself, you can say "Why should I change, when other people are the ones doing something wrong", fold your arms, and wait for a man to solve your problem for you.
I don't know I agree with you there are no victims in America, but I strongly agree with you it's pointless to dwell on as an individual matter.
This makes no sense at all. If you have been or are being victimized, recognizing it is the first step to taking an action to counter it.
If someone steals from your car, nobody plays philosophical games about whether you were victimized and understanding that you were is the very first step to even understanding the situation and then adopting habits of not leaving expensive stuff in your car, investing in locks, taking a focus to the causes of crime, etc...
If someone steals from your car, nobody plays philosophical games about whether you were victimized and understanding that you were is the very first step to even understanding the situation and then adopting habits of not leaving expensive stuff in your car, investing in locks, taking a focus to the causes of crime, etc...
Do you mean being a victim, or being helpless?
I am a victim of a crime - I need to take the required action to get legal retribution.
Saying “I am not a victim” does nothing to help me.
I am a victim of a crime - I need to take the required action to get legal retribution.
Saying “I am not a victim” does nothing to help me.
Walter, please don't say these things. I get what you're trying to communicate but there is such thing as a victim. You can be doing everything right and still have harm brought to you and your loved ones by circumstances beyond your control. People who lost their families in 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina didn't end up that way because they didn't have a plan or weren't busy.
This isn't how I read OP's post. The OP isn't talking about a catastrophic or life-altering event which makes one a victim. Rather, being faced with difficult circumstances and life choices which can be altered and addressed with effort and plain hard work instead of blaming others and falling into victimhood.
While the OP might not have intended it this way, that's also a formula for perpetuating any 'difficult circumstances' that happen to be profitable for others.
A simple example which was in the news this week due to a Supreme court case: crack sentencing disparities. You made a bad life choice and sold 50 grams of cocaine and got caught, you might go away for 2 years and then turn your life around. But if you sold 5 grams of crack and got caught, you were probably going away for 20 years. The penalties for crack were literally 100 times higher.
Now, consuming crack is really bad for you, but consider the situation of some kid without much life experience that is tempted into making a quick buck. Depending on where they happen to be and what's in front of them, the same failure of morality/judgment would have staggeringly different consequences.
A simple example which was in the news this week due to a Supreme court case: crack sentencing disparities. You made a bad life choice and sold 50 grams of cocaine and got caught, you might go away for 2 years and then turn your life around. But if you sold 5 grams of crack and got caught, you were probably going away for 20 years. The penalties for crack were literally 100 times higher.
Now, consuming crack is really bad for you, but consider the situation of some kid without much life experience that is tempted into making a quick buck. Depending on where they happen to be and what's in front of them, the same failure of morality/judgment would have staggeringly different consequences.
FWIW, I strongly disagree with harsh sentences for drug crimes. I also strongly disagree with harsh sentences for juveniles - note that I qualified my statements with "adults" not children.
But you're not in charge, so having nice attitudes or empathy isn't really helpful to anyone. What is helpful is to acknowledge up front that those kind of problems exist rather than being so aggressively upbeat.
Your approach to dealing with life is valid, but you push it so aggressively it makes you sound like one of those yoga evangelists who is so into their thing that they lose sight of how it's not the answer to every problem.
Your approach to dealing with life is valid, but you push it so aggressively it makes you sound like one of those yoga evangelists who is so into their thing that they lose sight of how it's not the answer to every problem.
What the debate actually is about is whether it is possible to be subject to sexism or racism, whether those can influence outcomes and whether it is valid to talk about those. The problem is that if you state it like that, people will argue whether sexism and racism exist. So, op and the rest of HN go for the next best thing: trying to categorically deny that is is possible to be harmed by actions of others.
Note how there are no complains about harm of victimhood when single guys complain about being single and blame society for it.
The real topic here is that there should not be such a thing as activism. It should be shameful to talk openly talking about disadvantages or -isms. Instead, you should pretend none of that exists, so that everybody feels good about society being fair. It makes you feel safe and in control too. Bad things happen to people who deserve it.
Note how there are no complains about harm of victimhood when single guys complain about being single and blame society for it.
The real topic here is that there should not be such a thing as activism. It should be shameful to talk openly talking about disadvantages or -isms. Instead, you should pretend none of that exists, so that everybody feels good about society being fair. It makes you feel safe and in control too. Bad things happen to people who deserve it.
I've often thought about what I'd have done in those towers on 9/11. New York's finest who ran to that maelstrom to help are indeed New York's Finest.
I agree you can do everything right and still have grievous harm befall you. But you can dramatically reduce the odds of that.
For example, I know what sorts of natural disasters the Pacific Northwest is prone to. I've taken steps to reduce the odds of one of them destroying me. There's still an element of risk, and I accept that.
I agree you can do everything right and still have grievous harm befall you. But you can dramatically reduce the odds of that.
For example, I know what sorts of natural disasters the Pacific Northwest is prone to. I've taken steps to reduce the odds of one of them destroying me. There's still an element of risk, and I accept that.
"I’ve had it so good in this world, you know. The odds were fifty-to-one against me being born in the United States in 1930. I won the lottery the day I emerged from the womb by being in the United States instead of in some other country where my chances would have been way different.
Imagine there are two identical twins in the womb, both equally bright and energetic. And the genie says to them, “One of you is going to be born in the United States, and one of you is going to be born in Bangladesh. And if you wind up in Bangladesh, you will pay no taxes. What percentage of your income would you bid to be the one that is born in the United States?” It says something about the fact that society has something to do with your fate and not just your innate qualities. The people who say, “I did it all myself,” and think of themselves as Horatio Alger – believe me, they’d bid more to be in the United States than in Bangladesh. That’s the Ovarian Lottery." ― Warren Buffett
Imagine there are two identical twins in the womb, both equally bright and energetic. And the genie says to them, “One of you is going to be born in the United States, and one of you is going to be born in Bangladesh. And if you wind up in Bangladesh, you will pay no taxes. What percentage of your income would you bid to be the one that is born in the United States?” It says something about the fact that society has something to do with your fate and not just your innate qualities. The people who say, “I did it all myself,” and think of themselves as Horatio Alger – believe me, they’d bid more to be in the United States than in Bangladesh. That’s the Ovarian Lottery." ― Warren Buffett
This point is moot. Saying that people randomly emerge in all countries implies the stage of pre-birth during which a person hasn't been born yet, but a roulette is about to decide its destination, gender and other traits. This is basically the soul theory and if it's true, the new "assignment" for that soul would be decided based on its earned qualities. Buddhism, in other words. If we reject this idea and state that each person gets created at the point of delivery, then that new person never had "odds of being born rich or poor" for there was no person whose fate would be decided.
> This is basically the soul theory
No, it's really not. It's a thought experiment using a clearly fictitious mechanism to get the reader to consider what their experience might be like in completely different circumstances.
For the same reason It's A Wonderful Life and scifi about alternate universes don't have moot points.
No, it's really not. It's a thought experiment using a clearly fictitious mechanism to get the reader to consider what their experience might be like in completely different circumstances.
For the same reason It's A Wonderful Life and scifi about alternate universes don't have moot points.
This implies that the thing that gets the experience can be separated from one body and attached to another body. It's ridiculous to speculate what this Ford's experience would be if it was a Ferrari.
What does living in the US have to do with it? Different people do well or badly in every country.
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It's tough to know where to begin with something so obviously false and trivializing.
What amount of violence would you need to experience before you would acknowledge victimization? There's plenty that goes around that you apparently don't know about.
Let's say you are poor, went to a protest, and got arrested. You can't make bail (you're poor) and are fired from your job because you are in in jail. You easily win your case and see no prison time, but your life has been massively impacted in the negative by others unjustly.
This person was a victim of policing and likely the system in general that creates these trade-offs and punishes a lack of material wealth. You cannot begin to even understand the situation without acknowledging the fault and the injustice.
What amount of violence would you need to experience before you would acknowledge victimization? There's plenty that goes around that you apparently don't know about.
Let's say you are poor, went to a protest, and got arrested. You can't make bail (you're poor) and are fired from your job because you are in in jail. You easily win your case and see no prison time, but your life has been massively impacted in the negative by others unjustly.
This person was a victim of policing and likely the system in general that creates these trade-offs and punishes a lack of material wealth. You cannot begin to even understand the situation without acknowledging the fault and the injustice.
This is actually an artefact of America's protestant ethical roots: "Your circumstances are of your own sinful devising. Develop a strong work ethic and you'll live a good life; it's merely your choices and discipline that stand between you and a successful life."
It's an unfortunate moral code that creates unrealistic expectations, as well as handy judgments for those in the lower classes (and moral justification for those with too much wealth and power). The "meritocracy" is the modern form. I got to watch it in action during the few years I lived there.
It's an unfortunate moral code that creates unrealistic expectations, as well as handy judgments for those in the lower classes (and moral justification for those with too much wealth and power). The "meritocracy" is the modern form. I got to watch it in action during the few years I lived there.
it took me many many years to finally see that the loudest victims i have dealt with were (and are) actually the worst abusers. They are just giving themself the excuse to treat everyone like shit and manipulate people, and there's no need to apologize or take any responsibility for such behavior -after all, they're the victims.
The adage "Hurt people hurt people." is true in a lot of ways. It's important to have compassion for those people and more important to set clear boundaries.
An interesting article, though note the easy conflation of Jewishness with Israelis. Being Jewish ≠ being Israeli and for many people they are quite distinct identities. Indeed, Israeli identity can be quite anti victimhood.
While I would hesitate to call the conflation anti-semitic it is at minimum quite misleading - and also a gross overgeneralisation of Jewish identity.
While I would hesitate to call the conflation anti-semitic it is at minimum quite misleading - and also a gross overgeneralisation of Jewish identity.
The conflation tends to come from an angle that is either anti-semitic or Zionist and hyper-nationalist. Or was informed by one of those camps and picked it up by osmosis. I would guess this falls closer to the Zionist/hyper-nationalist camp.
The interview is with a Tel Aviv University researcher about studies performed only on people from Israel, so whatever they say about Jewish identity they quite clearly mean it about Israeli Jewish identity and non-Israel Jewish communities/identities are "out of scope".
No discussion whatsoever about people having actual grievances. Just the identification of a personality trait and then making it out to be a problem that actually hurts other people. Hoo boy.
the manipulation process of the world populates in participation plots the permanence [of];
to which culrural situations where made from virtual insanity ro ponder the proceesing;
societies (groups) then seeking the trending phenomena is the absense of "talk shows" on which fame are made;
computers then provide the tools where sentinels in observation of own activities in lack of influence generate the delay, the acomplishment are seen from the views at the viewer expectations;
the lone path to which, are commented in vain;
posts is a value coin to be censored from the processing world;
being so held hostage of situations demanding the assimilation [of];
....
to which culrural situations where made from virtual insanity ro ponder the proceesing;
societies (groups) then seeking the trending phenomena is the absense of "talk shows" on which fame are made;
computers then provide the tools where sentinels in observation of own activities in lack of influence generate the delay, the acomplishment are seen from the views at the viewer expectations;
the lone path to which, are commented in vain;
posts is a value coin to be censored from the processing world;
being so held hostage of situations demanding the assimilation [of];
....
I think there's a huge divide between people who recognize that TIV exists, and those who only see victim signalling as purely authentic, hence it's manipulative capabilities.
There's an Inuit signer [1] who is adamant that other aboriginals cannot do the 'throat singing'. The thing is - nobody cares that much about the art form, however, the CBC (Canada) and other entities will do some national coverage when they want to do 'Aboriginal Focus' because it's authentic and unique. This made an Inuit throat singer a little bit of a sub-star within the community. Along comes another Aboriginal doing it to steal some of the shine and the original lady went full into cultural appropriation diva mode.
I've never heard of an art form in my life, which almost nobody practices where the practitioners want to stop everyone else from participating because of very narrow and specific blood lineage.
"Throat singing is not a “pan-Indigenous free for all,” says Tanya Tagaq"
This is 'power in victimhood' and using identity to garner social capital and leverage.
The challenge is, there is often some degree of kernel of truth in the matter - i.e. it's not a completely irrational argument to contemplate if people who are not from a certain culture do something very culturally specific, and this is how arguments I think can get populist. Similar to the situation wherein there is some kind of confrontation between a Black and White person, wherein 'racism' may have nothing at all to do with the situation, but since there is the possibility, it's held as though there is de facto racism on the news.
Finally, this is not to suggest there are not real victims. Those who can't see TIV exists will see all cynical reaction to claims of victimhood as straight up fascism or some kind of deep insensitivity when it may or may not be the case.
[1] https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/should-non-inuit-perfo...
There's an Inuit signer [1] who is adamant that other aboriginals cannot do the 'throat singing'. The thing is - nobody cares that much about the art form, however, the CBC (Canada) and other entities will do some national coverage when they want to do 'Aboriginal Focus' because it's authentic and unique. This made an Inuit throat singer a little bit of a sub-star within the community. Along comes another Aboriginal doing it to steal some of the shine and the original lady went full into cultural appropriation diva mode.
I've never heard of an art form in my life, which almost nobody practices where the practitioners want to stop everyone else from participating because of very narrow and specific blood lineage.
"Throat singing is not a “pan-Indigenous free for all,” says Tanya Tagaq"
This is 'power in victimhood' and using identity to garner social capital and leverage.
The challenge is, there is often some degree of kernel of truth in the matter - i.e. it's not a completely irrational argument to contemplate if people who are not from a certain culture do something very culturally specific, and this is how arguments I think can get populist. Similar to the situation wherein there is some kind of confrontation between a Black and White person, wherein 'racism' may have nothing at all to do with the situation, but since there is the possibility, it's held as though there is de facto racism on the news.
Finally, this is not to suggest there are not real victims. Those who can't see TIV exists will see all cynical reaction to claims of victimhood as straight up fascism or some kind of deep insensitivity when it may or may not be the case.
[1] https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/should-non-inuit-perfo...
As a brown guy with kids in the school system, that's why recent trends in education alarm me. I don't want my kids to be taught that there's this amorphous but pervasive "systemic racism" and "white supremacy" out to get people who look like them, but which they can't do anything about. It's dangerous experimentation with kids' psychology.
Growing up as one of the few brown kids in what was (back then) solidly Republican Virginia, I learned we should treat everyone like we'd want to be treated ourselves. I don't think it would have helped my personal or professional success--not to mention my mental health--to be socialized to look out for these dark and foreboding forces around every corner. That's irrespective of whether it's true or not. If our white neighbors hated having Bangladeshis move in next door, they never let on, and frankly I think I'm better off not having dwelt on what was in their deepest thoughts.