I agree with Highroller's approach here that if you think someone/something is racist you should say so, and not necessarily worry about how that might make one feel. Unfortunately, though, I think this word - racist - is becoming increasingly less meaningful and, consequently, you should be ready to explain what you mean by that and why it's a problem. I also believe that Highroller has done a pretty good job of that in this thread.
I wanted to explain what my issue is with this word right now by way of an example. Recently, there was an article about Yusra Khogali on Huffington Post. She is the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto. She's said many things that are preposterous from a factual perspective (e.g. claiming that Justin Trudeau is a white supremacist, some pseudo-science about race and the sun) and also things that I contend are viciously racist (e.g. that white people are subhuman, talking about how hard it is for her not to kill white people, etc.). Now if you read that article and scroll down to the comment section you will find many people defending her comments or her position in this group and, to my knowledge, she hasn't resigned or been dismissed from it. So here you have people holding up the banner of anti-racism saying that these comments aren't racist and attacking the editor, calling him a racist for calling such comments out. So that highlights some of the strange ways in which this word is being employed lately. Meanwhile, I don't think you can find a more primo example of racism than the labeling of any group of people as subhuman because of their skin-color. And I believe I was in a conversation here not too long ago with someone claiming that no one is ever falsely accused of racism, which would mean that I have to accept that Justin Trudeau really is a white supremacist and that is just silly.
Bottom line, call it like you see it (racism or anything else) and be willing to listen and respond.
Polarization is not a problem when the other side is unambiguously wrong.
Certainly not. But maybe we're defining the sides differently than you. I know that I am. E.g., I hope no one pours toxic waste in the river but that doesn't mean I have to support the E.L.F. (Or, similarly, a vote for Jill Stein doesn't justify E.L.F. behaviors.)
It's why any sane person would look at the Civil War and say that, however horrific and unfortunate the war was, to have allowed slavery to continue in order to prevent the war would be a far worse circumstance.
We're not on the same page here. He claims to have been mocking things because they were *false*: Jewish global conspiracies to conquer the world, miscegenation encouraged by governments to destroy the white race, etc. He didn't say he was mocking things that were *true*. Except he did mock things that were true because the Haitian genocide actually happened. You don't see any difference between conspiracy theories and things that actually happened? So if I say radical Muslims did 9/11 and then say radical Muslims are imposing Sharia law across the United States - those claims are on the same level?
When white nationalists talk about white genocide, they cite the Haitian massacre as an example of what we have in store for us. (I'd rather not link to Stormfront, but you can Google and find some of their essays on the topic). He didn't choose that example by accident - he was mocking the perception of white nationalists that people like him yearn for a repeat of that massacre.
That might make more sense of it, but the problem is that here's where the satire intersects with real life. He wrote a paper defending the revolution. I'm not particularly versed on the subject, but defending all of the consequences of the revolution is pretty controversial. As you know, we sometimes take up positions in history to provide context and give people or events a more thorough and fair hearing. Nevertheless, you start combining these behaviors together and it doesn't look good for this guy. You know, someone might argue that Holocaust death tolls are overestimated without being a Nazi sympathizer. But put a few other questionable claims and ideas into the mix and yeah, it's going to start looking bad for you at some point.
What I want to believe is that he was honest in his explanation that he was satirizing the white power crowd's idea of 'white genocide.' Equating miscegenation with genocide is laughable.
But then everything else he says - including his first explanation as to the meaning of the tweet belies that notion. The events in Haiti have little to do with white nationalist conspiracy theories. Being concerned that a population which you are enslaving will rise against you and, in the ensuing chaos, destroy the innocent life among you - that would have been a rational fear possessed by a group of people that are apart from you in space and time. Whereas, say, a global conspiracy among the Jews who meet in secret to recruit blacks to get your children hooked on drugs blablabla... not so much.
You asked for my opinion, knowing that I have limited information. So here it is. I believe that his anger about historical (and perhaps many present) injustices has devolved into a hatred of whiteness and of white people, even though he, himself is white, whereas his anger ought to be directed at injustice itself.
I don't think that anyone who speaks about an entire race or gender in this way belongs in the classroom and I'm not going to make an exception because it's the correct group to hate.
So really the problem here is that you're so blinded by your SJW fever dreams that you really do think he hates white people and supports white genocide.
I didn't say that he really and truly deep down supports white genocide. Given that he's white, I doubt it. I do think he hates white people and, more than that, 'whiteness.' How much more would you want in the way of evidence than all of the tweets listed above?
Can you name any living person today who hates white people and explain how you know that they do? Because 'abolish the white race' and 'All I want for Christmas is white genocide' seems like an awfully good start to me.
You think Haiti has nothing do with white nationalist conspiracy theories, but white nationalists LOVE to bring up the Haitian massacre. It's like their go-to example. It seems to me that you just aren't well-informed enough to understand his tweets, and without that context you're reading into them what you want to see rather than what's actually there.
We're not on the same page here. He claims to have been mocking things because they were *false*: Jewish global conspiracies to conquer the world, miscegenation encouraged by governments to destroy the white race, etc. He didn't say he was mocking things that were *true*. Except he did mock things that were true because the Haitian genocide actually happened. You don't see any difference between conspiracy theories and things that actually happened? So if I say radical Muslims did 9/11 and then say radical Muslims are imposing Sharia law across the United States - those claims are on the same level?
What I want to believe is that he was honest in his explanation that he was satirizing the white power crowd's idea of 'white genocide.' Equating miscegenation with genocide is laughable.
But then everything else he says - including his first explanation as to the meaning of the tweet belies that notion. The events in Haiti have little to do with white nationalist conspiracy theories. Being concerned that a population which you are enslaving will rise against you and, in the ensuing chaos, destroy the innocent life among you - that would have been a rational fear possessed by a group of people that are apart from you in space and time. Whereas, say, a global conspiracy among the Jews who meet in secret to recruit blacks to get your children hooked on drugs blablabla... not so much.
You asked for my opinion, knowing that I have limited information. So here it is. I believe that his anger about historical (and perhaps many present) injustices has devolved into a hatred of whiteness and of white people, even though he, himself is white, whereas his anger ought to be directed at injustice itself.
I don't think that anyone who speaks about an entire race or gender in this way belongs in the classroom and I'm not going to make an exception because it's the correct group to hate.
So here's a brand new story. Afterwards, I'll tell you why I'm talking about this story in particular. It's about a professor at Drexel University who is being investigated by the administration because of a tweet that read:
On Christmas Eve, I sent a satirical tweet about an imaginary concept, 'white genocide,'" he said in an e-mail. 'For those who haven't bothered to do their research, 'white genocide' is an idea invented by white supremacists and used to denounce everything from interracial relationships to multicultural policies (and most recently, against a tweet by State Farm Insurance). It is a figment of the racist imagination, it should be mocked, and I'm glad to have mocked it
...which, if you agree with him, might push his tweet more into the tasteless category than the actionable one.
But then, before news broke, he had already 'clarified' what he meant with the following tweet:
To clarify: when the whites were massacred during the Haitian revolution, that was a good thing indeed.
So I'm not sure how many times you get to 'clarify' comments that are offensive on their face, apparently at least twice and in completely opposite ways.
And that would be one thing if he didn't have a history of this:
Abolish the white race
[Bleep] the pig white majority
So now let me explain why I quoted this story. Jay, you've alternately claimed that SJW is a nonsense term used to indict all progressives and that SJWs are just people fighting for equality.
On the first point, I think I'm actually doing progressives a favor by distinguishing out some of the nuts from the rest of them. Though this professor is very likely to accept the label of progressive and though a shockingly large amount of progressives actually support this behavior (check out his timeline), I genuinely believe that the majority of progressives do not think it's appropriate to be advocating the genocide of any group of people - even whites.
As for fighting for equality: there's a difference between talking about it and actually doing it. Maybe this man actually does it to a large degree. But I don't want this being the face of the fight for equality. And I think it's total bull for people to be labeled as defenders of white nationalism just because they say this is not appropriate behavior from a professor.
Not to mention, both sides view on racism; SJW pretend Racism is some sort of proplem that is exclusive to non-white people, and that human value is weighted according not only to your preference, but with what ethnicity you identify with. On the other hand the advocates of freedom say racism is almost non existant (or doesn't exists anymore) while fighting for the right to make offensive jokes and sicrarding every argument on it.
I relate and I don't know where the sensible middle ground has gone on race.***
***which is not to say that something being a middle ground or a moderate position necessarily makes it right, but I think in this case.
When talking about race here, I mostly spend my time going after the SJWs. I figure that's because this forum can be very left. But I've been on right-wing forums and I'll come across the other way. The thing with the SJWs and race/gender is that they say things that are fundamentally appalling, things that I would recoil at if a white or male friend said them about women or a non-white group. But when they say these disgusting, hateful things, it is not considered racist---and, prejudice + power nonsense aside, these things are not even considered wrong. For a sample, one might google the SJW vs. Stormfront game and see how similar the rhetoric of SJWs and white nationalists really is or what happens when you replace all instances of "men" with "black people" in the words of a feminist SJW or when Buzzfeed celebrates presentations with titles like "white people are a plague to the planet," "white people are crazy" or "white people are dangerous," etc.
The funny thing here is, you say you don't where the middle ground on race is, but that's because you're moving the Overton Window without even realizing it. You're normalizing an ideology that wants really ugly, inexcusable things because people who want equality also sometimes use ugly language. But they're not remotely the same.
Comparing "SJWs" to White Nationalists is absurd. White nationalists want the US to be a 'white nation', for white people. "SJWs" want their groups to be treated fairly and equitably, and frame their arguments in terms of the dominant power. Sometimes that results in stupid articles like 'White people are a plague to the planet', but there is no concerted movement to remove white people from America or make white people second class citizens like the White Nationalists want to do to others.
Besides, "SJW" is a group that you're defining as having the same agenda, which is rarely the case. White Nationalists share the same rhetoric and goals (an America with only whites, or with whites in power), whereas Feminism is just one movement of many lumped into "SJW", and one that's not even cohesive within itself. I'd hardly call that a fair comparison. If one person wants ethnic cleansing, and one person wants fairness, they're not the same just because they both say mean things.
Now, to be blunt, of course everyone is racist. It's not okay for a black person to be anti-semetic or homophobic, and it's something rarely talked about. There are plenty of feminists who, frankly, don't know what they're talking about. But acting like that's equivalent to White Nationalism's agenda? That's not even close.
There's a lot to dissect here, so I'm not going to make twenty quote tags.
You accuse me of normalizing white nationalism. Let me say first that I have no interest in doing so, as I consider it among the most wrongheaded of ideas. But, more importantly, I do not see how I have actually done that in the post you quoted. It's not my intention to say, "oh, much of white nationalism is just SJWism reversed, so really no big deal" - if that's what you thought I was saying. Quite the opposite. In fact I am saying "white nationalism is crazy and many of these people are saying things that are at times virtually indistinguishable from white nationalism and damned if that doesn't give me pause."
You suggest that I am saying SJWism and white nationalism are the same. I haven't said this, and I don't think this. Just because I'm pointing out similarities, that doesn't mean that I think the two things are the same. I am saying they share certain troubling qualities.
You say that "White nationalists want the US to be a 'white nation', for white people. Leaving aside the mention of the U.S. as there are white nationalists all around the world, I agree. I would define white nationalism as the desire for the creation and retention of a community of people which shall be solely restricted to people with white skin through the use of force and/or intimidation and/or social pressure. So then, fine, let's go ahead and use that phrase as intended and not, say, to automatically describe anyone who wants to enforce immigration laws (in the U.S., because enforcing those laws elsewhere is barely ever discussed) or anyone who is concerned about radical Islam, etc. Those beliefs can overlap, but they are not the same and that's kind of a big deal.
You say that '"SJWs" want their groups to be treated fairly and equitably, and frame their arguments in terms of the dominant power.' I would remind you that white nationalists absolutely want their group to be treated fairly and equitably and they would have no problem telling you that. But their understanding of what is fair and equitable is completely off the rails because they hold false beliefs to justify it. They might view Jews as greedy, conniving conspirators due to their genetics and blacks as ruthless savages due to their genetics. If that were actually true, then suddenly keeping those people away from the innocent whites or, heck, even committing mass violence against them might be justified to one degree or another - and that might very well be considered a fair treatment to the innocent whites. But since those things are not true, it's just insane.
Lest I'm misunderstood for that last paragraph, once again, I'm not saying that white nationalists and SJWs are the same. In this case: the use of buzzwords doesn't mean anything. You have to actually investigate and interpret the ideas and actions and decide for yourself. IOW: you're not an ancap, so do you hate freedom?
Some more recent examples in the past month: MTV posts a "New Year's resolutions for white men" video but for once actually has to pull it down because the backlash was too severe. This is encouraging because rarely do you get such an outcry from moderates (who I think were involved, given the quick reaction).
Shakespeare not diverse enough for UPenn's English students, tear down portrait and replace it with a more diverse author. (How any one person can be considered 'diverse' is beyond me - it's not like "here's 10 English authors and they're all white men." And why there should be any surprise that a central figure in the English language is, after all, ethnically English... again, no clue.
If you study the classics because they represent, in part, the foundation of Western Civilization, you're on a slippery slope to white supremacy. I mean, come on...
It's very important to understand that these are not isolate incidents, they are happening every day.
SJWs are not white nationalists. They are not nearly as dangerous as white nationalists, but for the fact that their ideas and their power structure is rarely challenged. It is instead allowed to run roughshod over academia. It puts into the spotlight divisions between groups of people in a way that it claims gives attention to those divisions and inequities but I say it enhances those divisions. If the election of Trump was a whitelash, perhaps it was a two-pronged one: by white nationalists on the one hand and by opponents of identity politics on the other.
Not to mention, both sides view on racism; SJW pretend Racism is some sort of proplem that is exclusive to non-white people, and that human value is weighted according not only to your preference, but with what ethnicity you identify with. On the other hand the advocates of freedom say racism is almost non existant (or doesn't exists anymore) while fighting for the right to make offensive jokes and sicrarding every argument on it.
I relate and I don't know where the sensible middle ground has gone on race.***
***which is not to say that something being a middle ground or a moderate position necessarily makes it right, but I think in this case.
When talking about race here, I mostly spend my time going after the SJWs. I figure that's because this forum can be very left. But I've been on right-wing forums and I'll come across the other way. The thing with the SJWs and race/gender is that they say things that are fundamentally appalling, things that I would recoil at if a white or male friend said them about women or a non-white group. But when they say these disgusting, hateful things, it is not considered racist---and, prejudice + power nonsense aside, these things are not even considered wrong. For a sample, one might google the SJW vs. Stormfront game and see how similar the rhetoric of SJWs and white nationalists really is or what happens when you replace all instances of "men" with "black people" in the words of a feminist SJW or when Buzzfeed celebrates presentations with titles like "white people are a plague to the planet," "white people are crazy" or "white people are dangerous," etc.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I wanted to explain what my issue is with this word right now by way of an example. Recently, there was an article about Yusra Khogali on Huffington Post. She is the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto. She's said many things that are preposterous from a factual perspective (e.g. claiming that Justin Trudeau is a white supremacist, some pseudo-science about race and the sun) and also things that I contend are viciously racist (e.g. that white people are subhuman, talking about how hard it is for her not to kill white people, etc.). Now if you read that article and scroll down to the comment section you will find many people defending her comments or her position in this group and, to my knowledge, she hasn't resigned or been dismissed from it. So here you have people holding up the banner of anti-racism saying that these comments aren't racist and attacking the editor, calling him a racist for calling such comments out. So that highlights some of the strange ways in which this word is being employed lately. Meanwhile, I don't think you can find a more primo example of racism than the labeling of any group of people as subhuman because of their skin-color. And I believe I was in a conversation here not too long ago with someone claiming that no one is ever falsely accused of racism, which would mean that I have to accept that Justin Trudeau really is a white supremacist and that is just silly.
Bottom line, call it like you see it (racism or anything else) and be willing to listen and respond.
Certainly not. But maybe we're defining the sides differently than you. I know that I am. E.g., I hope no one pours toxic waste in the river but that doesn't mean I have to support the E.L.F. (Or, similarly, a vote for Jill Stein doesn't justify E.L.F. behaviors.)
It wouldn't have prevented the war.
That might make more sense of it, but the problem is that here's where the satire intersects with real life. He wrote a paper defending the revolution. I'm not particularly versed on the subject, but defending all of the consequences of the revolution is pretty controversial. As you know, we sometimes take up positions in history to provide context and give people or events a more thorough and fair hearing. Nevertheless, you start combining these behaviors together and it doesn't look good for this guy. You know, someone might argue that Holocaust death tolls are overestimated without being a Nazi sympathizer. But put a few other questionable claims and ideas into the mix and yeah, it's going to start looking bad for you at some point.
I didn't say that he really and truly deep down supports white genocide. Given that he's white, I doubt it. I do think he hates white people and, more than that, 'whiteness.' How much more would you want in the way of evidence than all of the tweets listed above?
Can you name any living person today who hates white people and explain how you know that they do? Because 'abolish the white race' and 'All I want for Christmas is white genocide' seems like an awfully good start to me.
We're not on the same page here. He claims to have been mocking things because they were *false*: Jewish global conspiracies to conquer the world, miscegenation encouraged by governments to destroy the white race, etc. He didn't say he was mocking things that were *true*. Except he did mock things that were true because the Haitian genocide actually happened. You don't see any difference between conspiracy theories and things that actually happened? So if I say radical Muslims did 9/11 and then say radical Muslims are imposing Sharia law across the United States - those claims are on the same level?
What I want to believe is that he was honest in his explanation that he was satirizing the white power crowd's idea of 'white genocide.' Equating miscegenation with genocide is laughable.
But then everything else he says - including his first explanation as to the meaning of the tweet belies that notion. The events in Haiti have little to do with white nationalist conspiracy theories. Being concerned that a population which you are enslaving will rise against you and, in the ensuing chaos, destroy the innocent life among you - that would have been a rational fear possessed by a group of people that are apart from you in space and time. Whereas, say, a global conspiracy among the Jews who meet in secret to recruit blacks to get your children hooked on drugs blablabla... not so much.
You asked for my opinion, knowing that I have limited information. So here it is. I believe that his anger about historical (and perhaps many present) injustices has devolved into a hatred of whiteness and of white people, even though he, himself is white, whereas his anger ought to be directed at injustice itself.
I don't think that anyone who speaks about an entire race or gender in this way belongs in the classroom and I'm not going to make an exception because it's the correct group to hate.
When word broke, he defended himself by saying:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Drexel-officials-Professor-George-Ciccariello-Mahers-White-Genocide-tweet-was-utterly-reprehensible.html
...which, if you agree with him, might push his tweet more into the tasteless category than the actionable one.
But then, before news broke, he had already 'clarified' what he meant with the following tweet:
So I'm not sure how many times you get to 'clarify' comments that are offensive on their face, apparently at least twice and in completely opposite ways.
And that would be one thing if he didn't have a history of this:
So now let me explain why I quoted this story. Jay, you've alternately claimed that SJW is a nonsense term used to indict all progressives and that SJWs are just people fighting for equality.
On the first point, I think I'm actually doing progressives a favor by distinguishing out some of the nuts from the rest of them. Though this professor is very likely to accept the label of progressive and though a shockingly large amount of progressives actually support this behavior (check out his timeline), I genuinely believe that the majority of progressives do not think it's appropriate to be advocating the genocide of any group of people - even whites.
As for fighting for equality: there's a difference between talking about it and actually doing it. Maybe this man actually does it to a large degree. But I don't want this being the face of the fight for equality. And I think it's total bull for people to be labeled as defenders of white nationalism just because they say this is not appropriate behavior from a professor.
There's a lot to dissect here, so I'm not going to make twenty quote tags.
You accuse me of normalizing white nationalism. Let me say first that I have no interest in doing so, as I consider it among the most wrongheaded of ideas. But, more importantly, I do not see how I have actually done that in the post you quoted. It's not my intention to say, "oh, much of white nationalism is just SJWism reversed, so really no big deal" - if that's what you thought I was saying. Quite the opposite. In fact I am saying "white nationalism is crazy and many of these people are saying things that are at times virtually indistinguishable from white nationalism and damned if that doesn't give me pause."
You suggest that I am saying SJWism and white nationalism are the same. I haven't said this, and I don't think this. Just because I'm pointing out similarities, that doesn't mean that I think the two things are the same. I am saying they share certain troubling qualities.
You say that "White nationalists want the US to be a 'white nation', for white people. Leaving aside the mention of the U.S. as there are white nationalists all around the world, I agree. I would define white nationalism as the desire for the creation and retention of a community of people which shall be solely restricted to people with white skin through the use of force and/or intimidation and/or social pressure. So then, fine, let's go ahead and use that phrase as intended and not, say, to automatically describe anyone who wants to enforce immigration laws (in the U.S., because enforcing those laws elsewhere is barely ever discussed) or anyone who is concerned about radical Islam, etc. Those beliefs can overlap, but they are not the same and that's kind of a big deal.
You say that '"SJWs" want their groups to be treated fairly and equitably, and frame their arguments in terms of the dominant power.' I would remind you that white nationalists absolutely want their group to be treated fairly and equitably and they would have no problem telling you that. But their understanding of what is fair and equitable is completely off the rails because they hold false beliefs to justify it. They might view Jews as greedy, conniving conspirators due to their genetics and blacks as ruthless savages due to their genetics. If that were actually true, then suddenly keeping those people away from the innocent whites or, heck, even committing mass violence against them might be justified to one degree or another - and that might very well be considered a fair treatment to the innocent whites. But since those things are not true, it's just insane.
Lest I'm misunderstood for that last paragraph, once again, I'm not saying that white nationalists and SJWs are the same. In this case: the use of buzzwords doesn't mean anything. You have to actually investigate and interpret the ideas and actions and decide for yourself. IOW: you're not an ancap, so do you hate freedom?
Some more recent examples in the past month: MTV posts a "New Year's resolutions for white men" video but for once actually has to pull it down because the backlash was too severe. This is encouraging because rarely do you get such an outcry from moderates (who I think were involved, given the quick reaction).
Shakespeare not diverse enough for UPenn's English students, tear down portrait and replace it with a more diverse author. (How any one person can be considered 'diverse' is beyond me - it's not like "here's 10 English authors and they're all white men." And why there should be any surprise that a central figure in the English language is, after all, ethnically English... again, no clue.
If you study the classics because they represent, in part, the foundation of Western Civilization, you're on a slippery slope to white supremacy. I mean, come on...
It's very important to understand that these are not isolate incidents, they are happening every day.
SJWs are not white nationalists. They are not nearly as dangerous as white nationalists, but for the fact that their ideas and their power structure is rarely challenged. It is instead allowed to run roughshod over academia. It puts into the spotlight divisions between groups of people in a way that it claims gives attention to those divisions and inequities but I say it enhances those divisions. If the election of Trump was a whitelash, perhaps it was a two-pronged one: by white nationalists on the one hand and by opponents of identity politics on the other.
I relate and I don't know where the sensible middle ground has gone on race.***
When talking about race here, I mostly spend my time going after the SJWs. I figure that's because this forum can be very left. But I've been on right-wing forums and I'll come across the other way. The thing with the SJWs and race/gender is that they say things that are fundamentally appalling, things that I would recoil at if a white or male friend said them about women or a non-white group. But when they say these disgusting, hateful things, it is not considered racist---and, prejudice + power nonsense aside, these things are not even considered wrong. For a sample, one might google the SJW vs. Stormfront game and see how similar the rhetoric of SJWs and white nationalists really is or what happens when you replace all instances of "men" with "black people" in the words of a feminist SJW or when Buzzfeed celebrates presentations with titles like "white people are a plague to the planet," "white people are crazy" or "white people are dangerous," etc.