'Straight White Male' is the Real World's easiest difficulty setting

wordsmythe:

"Systemic effects" here is essentially the effect of racism and sexism. The "system" would behave correctly provided that those factors were purged from it.

I'm a firm proponent of effecting change by self-change, and in this thread have been called out negatively for it. That said, I still think it's going to be effective in the long run in large areas, and in the short run in small areas to null such sorting tendencies in ourselves.

Malor wrote:

Right, but again, if the problem is sorting due to skin color, the solution is not sorting in reverse. The solution is NOT SORTING, and then addressing the symptoms of the sorting that was endemic to the system for so long.

Don't help people because they're black or Latino, help them because they are poor. You'll automatically have a disproportionate impact on blacks and Latinos without having to be racist at all. And you'll also help poor white people, who are just as deserving of help as any other poor person.

While I often disagree with you on the logic and morality of using fire to fight fire on issues from race to Keynesian economics, this is one solution where I'd agree that just by addressing certain societal problems of a general kind (like poverty and the debacle of the War on Drugs) we'd go a long way towards fixing our societal problems of the racial kind.

LarryC wrote:

I'm a firm proponent of effecting change by self-change, and in this thread have been called out negatively for it. That said, I still think it's going to be effective in the long run in large areas, and in the short run in small areas to null such sorting tendencies in ourselves.

To wit, you've been called out for having a childish / naive / inaccurate view of the world. No one said "not being racist" is a negative thing, but "not acknowledging race" is silly.

Seth wrote:
LarryC wrote:

I'm a firm proponent of effecting change by self-change, and in this thread have been called out negatively for it. That said, I still think it's going to be effective in the long run in large areas, and in the short run in small areas to null such sorting tendencies in ourselves.

To wit, you've been called out for having a childish / naive / inaccurate view of the world. No one said "not being racist" is a negative thing, but "not acknowledging race" is silly.

Fortunately, I never advocated that! You're reading a cultural touch point you're familiar with into what I said. Removing race from self-identity doesn't mean that you suddenly don't recognize it when other people are using a concept you think doesn't apply.

The way the mind works is insidious. You can't avoid sorting between people and having different behavior between two groups so long as you acknowledge within yourself that this concept applies, and particularly to your self-identity. The "white is normal" phenomenon is something I'm sure most people who inadvertently think that way don't actively figure out.

but "not acknowledging race" is silly.

Thinking that race is anything but a cultural construct is silly. It's not real on a genetic level. The only reality it has is the reality we give it.

We have historically done so, and caused enormous grief in so doing, but that doesn't mean it ever really existed. People used to believe in Thor and Odin, too, and probably killed heretics, but they weren't real either. The people were still dead, but Thor and Odin never existed. People with black skin still have a terrible time in this country, but that doesn't mean that a 'Negro' race ever existed.

Cultures are certainly real things, however. But cultures can change. Skin color can't.

LarryC wrote:

wordsmythe:

"Systemic effects" here is essentially the effect of racism and sexism.

I don't know if I'm being misunderstood here or not. I mean things like how the public transit trains in Chicago have more lines and more stops on the north side of town, even reaching into a couple suburbs. There are also more interstate highways up that way. Meanwhile, the south side, being 3/5 of the city geographically, also happens to be more predominantly where black people live in the city. The government pays more attention to the north side, because more property and sales taxes come from there, because that's where the money is, because that's where it's easier to live if you have a job downtown. There's no blame and no sorting, not necessarily any active or intentional racism (anymore), but the system tends to favor those who don't live in black neighborhoods.

There might be blame and sorting, Wordsmythe. Historically, black districts have had a hell of a time pulling in basic services, like running water and electricity. The stated reason is 'because they're poor', the presumption being that they can't afford the monthly bills, but poor white neighborhoods get water and power.

They claim it's not racist, but a lot of the time, that is absolute crap.

Malor wrote:
but "not acknowledging race" is silly.

Thinking that race is anything but a cultural construct is silly. It's not real on a genetic level. The only reality it has is the reality we give it.

We have historically done so, and caused enormous grief in so doing, but that doesn't mean it ever really existed. People used to believe in Thor and Odin, too, and probably killed heretics, but they weren't real either. The people were still dead, but Thor and Odin never existed. People with black skin still have a terrible time in this country, but that doesn't mean that a 'Negro' race ever existed.

Cultures are certainly real things, however. But cultures can change. Skin color can't.

I saw The Avengers, I'm sure Thor is real.

On a more serious note, I do find it ironic whenever I catch you guilty of screaming the same false statement over and over despite being proven wrong literally half a dozen times in the last 12 months, given how much grief you give others over doing the same thing.

You haven't proven anything, Seth. All you've done is make very loud repeated assertions.

There are no races. There are only cultures.

Malor wrote:

You haven't proven anything, Seth. All you've done is make very loud repeated assertions.

There are no races. There are only cultures.

It wasn't me, it was Hypatian and Quintin Stone that provided the relevant data. The gist (because I can't dig it up at the moment) was that races exist when one looked at gene groupings...but none of those gene groupings matter in terms of value judgments.

This is the part where I compare the human species to dog breeds, you claim dog breeds wouldn't be recognized as the same species, and everyone even remotely familiar with the history of canis lupus rolls their eyes.

Then we realize that regardless of our very different views on the subject, we more or less fully agree on the solutions (the post you made above), and go back to being civil.

Malor wrote:

Cultures are certainly real things, however. But cultures can change. Skin color can't.

Wait, race doesn't exist because it is a cultural construct but culture is certainly real? Skin color can't change but neither can we change the culture we come from

DanB wrote:
Malor wrote:

Cultures are certainly real things, however. But cultures can change. Skin color can't.

Wait, race doesn't exist because it is a cultural construct but culture is certainly real? Skin color can't change but neither can we change the culture we come from

IMAGE(http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.318506!/img/httpImage/image.jpg)

Malor wrote:

You haven't proven anything, Seth. All you've done is make very loud repeated assertions.

There are no races. There are only cultures.

This is oversimplified from the other conversation. Ethnicities are what anthropologists use to describe what others call race. Ethnicities are different from cultures in that there is a significant hereditary factor.

The scholarly publishing on the existence of race has been changed since the "race doesn't exist" moment in the 1970s. The "people w/ male pattern baldness share more genes in common then do people of the same "race" was a powerful observation. However, as seth points out, while individual genes do not show the existence of genetic races, clusters of shared traits do. So, as tends to happen, the scholarly community corrected itself.

To paraphrase the current accepted theory: there is some genetic basis for race, but is is much (extremely) less significant than than popular culture makes it out to be. However, pretending it doesn't exist presents a real and present danger for health care, since there are some genetic diseases that cluster among certain genetic populations.

It's just such an empty thing to say. Yeah, our notions of race are largely cultural, but the "Straight White Male Collective Cultural Construct" remains the lowest difficulty setting. A sh*t-ball by any other name still smells as rank.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

It's just such an empty thing to say. Yeah, our notions of race are largely cultural, but the "Straight White Male Collective Cultural Construct" remains the lowest difficulty setting. A sh*t-ball by any other name still smells as rank.

1) Wow

2) Can we keep the "does race exist" question out of this thread. Regardless of whether race is a real construct or not, there are still advantages to having white skin which is the point of this thread.

SixteenBlue wrote:

2) Can we keep the "does race exist" question out of this thread. Regardless of whether race is a real construct or not, there are still advantages to having white skin which is the point of this thread.

Agreed. (sorry)

Oso wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

2) Can we keep the "does race exist" question out of this thread. Regardless of whether race is a real construct or not, there are still advantages to having white skin which is the point of this thread.

Agreed. (sorry)

Or at least some hint of how changing the definition of the construct will help matters.

Malor wrote:

There might be blame and sorting, Wordsmythe. Historically, black districts have had a hell of a time pulling in basic services, like running water and electricity. The stated reason is 'because they're poor', the presumption being that they can't afford the monthly bills, but poor white neighborhoods get water and power.

They claim it's not racist, but a lot of the time, that is absolute crap.

Yes, historically there were intentional acts, but the systemic nature of these things now and going forward does not require volition.

Seth wrote:

It wasn't me, it was Hypatian and Quintin Stone that provided the relevant data. The gist (because I can't dig it up at the moment) was that races exist when one looked at gene groupings...but none of those gene groupings matter in terms of value judgments.

Just as a note: That wasn't my position. My position is that the existence of race as a cultural construct is sufficient for race to "be a real thing". In fact, that's rather the problem: race is used to discriminate prejudicially without any basis in fact. It is not precisely the same thing as ethnicity or culture or economic or social class, but is connected to them.

Malor wrote:

Thinking that race is anything but a cultural construct is silly. It's not real on a genetic level. The only reality it has is the reality we give it.
...
Cultures are certainly real things, however. But cultures can change. Skin color can't.

Races are partly defined by skin color. It is on a genetic level. I carry different markers on my genes than, say, Quintin Stone. He gets locks of flowing blonde hair. I get thinning greying hair. He's pale like a zombie (it can be quite disturbing, really). I'm not.

Malor wrote:

There are no races. There are only cultures.

You can have different races without racism. We just don't, yet.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

You can have different races without racism. We just don't, yet.

I'd go so far as to argue that you can have racism without racists. (We don't, yet either, but to call the system racist is not the same thing as calling people in the system racists.)

We can have a system that is skewed to advantage the familiar without having any of the participants in that system intentionally choosing to give one group an advantage over the others. Especially since so much hiring is done through informal social networks, people who are like the people in charge tend to get hired. The status quo reinforces itself.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

Races are partly defined by skin color. It is on a genetic level. I carry different markers on my genes than, say, Quintin Stone. He gets locks of flowing blonde hair. I get thinning greying hair. He's pale like a zombie (it can be quite disturbing, really). I'm not.

His hair doesn't flow so much as it crawls. Oh, and you have the inscrutable gene which beats anything we've got going... as long as no one throws you into a swimming pool.

[trollface]

Oso:

Precisely why the only way to get rid of it is to remove the concept altogether. If "familiar" doesn't include skin coloration as a factor, then people with fair skin will not get classed as "familiar" or "normal" and will not have undue advantage (or disadvantage) even in a system that favors it.

LarryC wrote:

Oso:

Precisely why the only way to get rid of it is to remove the concept altogether. If "familiar" doesn't include skin coloration as a factor, then people with fair skin will not get classed as "familiar" or "normal" and will not have undue advantage (or disadvantage) even in a system that favors it.

This is the naivete to which I was referring earlier. fighting against our species' tendency to discriminate (I'm using that word in a non value judgment way) based on visual markers is reducing too much complexity into too simple of an idea - like announcing you're no longer using the words azure, robin's egg, or navy to discriminate between shades of blue.

Accepting and embracing the differences between people is not only easier, it's more profitable, from several different standpoints.

I admit that I have completely failed to understand how this concept of normality or familiarity has anything to do with this concept. I'm a member of the privileged group this thread is discussing, but I wouldn't consider "privileged" to be the same as "normal." I self identify as white because that's the word we've generally accepted to use to describe the color I see in the mirror, and my racial self identity helps drive discussions about and with others. Denying that facet of myself or others seems directly opposed to eliminating privilege based on race, sexual orientation, or sex.

Malor wrote:

You haven't proven anything, Seth. All you've done is make very loud repeated assertions.

I think this is the most ironic thing I've ever read on GWJ.

Do you also self-identify based on the shape of your nose? Some people do. Would you segregate fair-skinned people in terms of identity based on the proportions of their legs, their height, or hair characteristics?

That's where conflating "race" and "genetic clusters" fall short. They're not the same. Genetic clusters revolve around specific personal characteristics that may or may not be visible. People with those characteristics will be more similar to each other regardless of characteristics that do not occupy as much genetic space, one of which includes skin color.

This isn't fighting our species' proclivity to discriminate; it's just fighting our current situation where we discriminate based on skin color.

We can discriminate based on blood cell morphology, hair loss pattern, G6PD deficiency, and lung enzymes - I am ALL for that. If you have a risk of G6PD deficiency based on your family tree, I will not be sorry for marking that down, and I will tell you to your face that you should probably get tested.

Stuff which will probably only interest Seth and me:

Spoiler:

Probably should pursue this tangent on PM.

The thing is, having unchangeable fair skin is a defect rather than an advantage, speaking purely on the individual level in terms of adaptation to Earth environment in general. That's part of the reason why fair-skinned Australians have such a huge problem with skin cancer - their skin doesn't produce enough melanin to protect the organism.

All things considered, speaking purely in terms of skin pigmentation, the best skin is a fully changeable skin type, being capable of changing from very fair to very dark, at will, or in relation to environmental challenges or signals.

LarryC wrote:

Do you also self-identify based on the shape of your nose? Some people do. Would you segregate fair-skinned people in terms of identity based on the proportions of their legs, their height, or hair characteristics?

Yes. All of those, and a thousand more, depending on the situation.

That's where conflating "race" and "genetic clusters" fall short. They're not the same.

Right. The latter is a tiny but not unimportant facet of the former.

This isn't fighting our species' proclivity to discriminate; it's just fighting our current situation where we discriminate based on skin color.

Are you using the word discriminate in a non value judgment way? If so, you're simply incorrect. If you mean discriminate against, then you're right. But I am not prepared to give up one of my five senses when there are myriad other ways to fight privilege.

In other words, I am saying "i'm white and you're not, and I don't care." Even after months and months of you re explaining your idea, it still sounds like you're saying "I can't [or, refuse to] see color so we're the same," which is naive and wrong.

LarryC wrote:

Do you also self-identify based on the shape of your nose? Some people do. Would you segregate fair-skinned people in terms of identity based on the proportions of their legs, their height, or hair characteristics?

Strictly speaking we do discriminate on the basis of height
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...

As I've said before, I'd rather we lived in a world that acknowledged, accepted and embraced diversity rather than one that was blind to one another's evident differences.

Seth:

We should probably retake it up on the Races thread, or PM. SWM privilege is about racism and sexism. Race concept is a little far, methinks.

That said, I'm not saying that you should not see that the human in front of you has so-and-so skin color. I'm telling you if you don't self-identify that way, you're less likely to discriminate, and yes, I mean that in terms of both against and for. You don't have to be aware of this phenomenon for this to happen; and it's hard to fight against SWM and racism (and sexism, actually) because many such instances are active cases of discrimination.

You don't need to care or know that you do to discriminate against someone who you perceive to be different from you, or to discriminate for someone who you think is similar to you. That can happen completely subconsciously.

DanB:

All too right. We probably should include height in the things we should not include as part of self-identity.