Jez

In what regard? The question I asked was clear, as was the reply;-

FWIW, I asked specifically a while back if we were talking about past issues requiring special steps, or if we are talking about measures today, and if so then what inequalities remain? I was told it was the past we were talking about, and the example given was 'redlining'. So the subject matter of any present injustices has not been a part of anything I have discussed since page 11, or whenever I asked and it was answered. If you think there are injustices today that require action, I am sure there are, but if so what, and what do you think is to be done about them 'in parallel'? Lots of on-going 'we need to do something', no-one actually describing any 'somethings'. What? There are two, potentially controversial, things to say in response to that; 1) It's clear that society as a whole has suffered the outcomes of racial prejudice, it is like a poison that has damaged more lives than just those in the groups who are the subject of the prejudice, and 2) Lots of minorities and disadvantaged 'white' folk also have to tap dance in high heels, you are not clarifying why that sort of comment applies to the 'black group' only. Without clarifications on why these comments of yours need to be acted on first and with priority to the 'black groups' it is difficult to comprehend what the solutions would be. It's even more difficult to comprehend when no-one's yet actually proposed any solutions, other than the existing legal routes and the commissions already set up to probe into these issues.

Yes, we covered that over several posts. The example presented to me was redlining, and I showed that the legal system is appropriate to deal with that, there are already several dozen cases that have run in court and it looks like the "reparations" have totalled some several billion so far. So, can you please now explain your routes which, as far as I can tell, are not going to include any legal means to enforce as you don't trust your own laws. So, what is the solution, a dictatorship? I'm not following what possible solution you could propose that can be logically tested if you say that laws aren't a solution and the constitution needs amending. Please spill the beans on your solutions. I've asked about a dozen times or more, and always get back a question about my thinking (which I always answer).

Your solutions to resolve what you see as an issue, and your means and methods of reparation. I keep asking what those are, but it seems they are buried in other text that you are telling me I'll find in the rest of the thread, right?

If you can tell me how to be specific about which part of a post is missing something? Like I have said, the OP is about a proposition of seeing black and white where it is not actually an issue, and then the authors refusing to provide the means to logically test it. I've not seen a set of propositions from you that can be logically tested. Maybe I missed it. Maybe you could just let me know, at least, on which page they appeared?

If I read the whole thread again and still don't understand, will you explain it to me then?

You could just answer the question as I put it than belligerently refuse. I asked for a concise summary for someone if that were to be the first post of the thread they came across. I expressed my position in a single sentence, and yet you feel a need to write whole paragraphs saying you can't do that. I don't think your position is comprehensible, and you cannot express it in a way that can be logically tested How do I logically test a cartoon or a parabola? I'll just repeat my position, because it's so short; A) In my opinion; A member of a group that has not personally experienced racial injustice (even if other members of the group have) needs no reparations. B) In my opinion; The difference [in this discussion] lies in those that believe seeing 'black' versus 'white' is part of the solution, and the other see it as part of the problem. Even if my opinion is wrong and yours are right, I have still seen no proposals from you how to actually implement any reparations. I have been concrete in my proposals; use your laws, use your 1st Amendment (which you've not explained to me what you think of that), set up commissions to help these social groups and administer any reparations as they see the means-tested needs to do so (they could be called, I dunno, maybe 'Equal Opportunities Commission' or 'Commission on Civil Rights' stuff like that? Maybe? Just stabbing in the dark here.)

Of course there is a difference. Perhaps your bias prevents you from seeing it? If there exists individuals in the group that have not experienced 'X', then the group has not experienced 'X'. Only some subset of the group may have experienced it. _____ If the set N, a set of natural numbers, is multiplied by 2 and is transformed to set T, then it means every member of T must be even. If set A contains members that are odd, then it could not be equivalent to set T, nor one that has previously experienced a multiplication by 2. _____ The 'experience' of being a set of natural numbers multiplied by 2 cannot be one that a group containing odd numbers has experienced. In my opinion; A member of a group that has not personally experienced racial injustice (even if other members of the group have) needs no reparations. As far as I can tell in your opinion; All member of a group in which any significant proportion have experienced racial injustice as a result of discriminatory attitudes to the whole of that group deserve reparations. I'd not seek to refute that you have the right to hold that opinion. I just don't find it very logical to be able to test its appropriateness. That is what the OP was about, that authors of a proposition [on seeing a correlation between black and white writing boards and racism] would refute approaches by others who want to logically test the proposition.

The negative reaction score is disappointing, for my last post that is neither insulting anyone nor failing to rationalise my opinion. A negative reaction just for my opinion? So much for freedom of opinion in the great democracies of our world. Well, let me put this proposition forward. Surely we, at least, need to make sure we understand what it is we are disagreeing on before we conclude we are disagreeing? I think the last exchange might have opened my eyes to that difference. I said; 'Groups' did not experience racism. 'People' experienced racism. and a reply was; I have re-bolded those quotes to make the point. I don't feel it is merely a semantic difference that I commented on racism that has been 'experienced' and that @Phi for All has commented on racism that 'happens to'. I'm working on a theory here that much of the misunderstanding surrounds this issue. I'm unclear on why I am trying so hard to pinpoint the misunderstanding when few else seem to care. Surely resolving the misunderstandings is the route to answers, not to ratchet up the misunderstanding? That's just my autistic way I guess, others seem to like to keep some things misunderstood. Not a solution, though, is it? There may well be people out there in the world that have racial prejudices against me. But I am not a 'victim of racism' because of it because I don't know who they are, and whatever their opinion is it is not appearing to have an effect on my life, or at least nothing that I regard as anything more than life's usual unfairnesses and injustices. It seems to me that the other side of the debate here is proposing that the racism occurs immediately that some other person has conceived of the prejudice and harbours it somewhere in their psyche. Well, that might be true by definition (as @Phi for Allsaid) but it does not allude to a racism 'experienced' and occasioning losses. So this is one aspect of the misunderstanding, and I was misquoted there, and arguing something I didn't say is a straw man, not sure why I was thrown a rock for saying that. There exists a fundamental problem seeing racism as 'happening to' a group rather than being what it experiences, and that is that people have a right to hold absurd opinions. If the elimination of racism is to force people not to think in a certain way, I would remark that such a goal is as non-sensical as it is impossible, and almost certainly counter-productive. Possibly so counter-productive that 200 years after a lot of deaths in a civil war over the issues, it is still not settled. So that cannot be a route. Both intellectually and practically, trying to eliminate racism from people's heads doesn't work. Perhaps it is even an ingrained evolutionary feature, to fear competing groups of humans, and those that did not develop that instinct were killed off by those other groups. Moving into the modern world, however, such innate fears have no place any more, and the means to regulate such instincts (if that is what it is, I am not really arguing that, just painting a picture) is by regulating behaviour. Someone who has racist thoughts that supresses the conversion of such thoughts in to manifest action and never expresses nor acts on them I do not believe would be properly labelled if they were called 'a racist'. This is probably something we might disagree on. I think I can see why some people might regard this view as wrong, and that is that if people harbour racist ideas, even if they never express them perhaps they might leach out of their thoughts into the world of reality without them even realising. In other words, a bias. But as we have long discussed, we all have biases and we might well be blind to them. I do agree, however, that a person holding unexpressed racist views who believes they are supressing their instincts, but actually fails to do so and induces some unintended bias into public proceedings, does risk implicit racism and I recognise and accept that risk being the thing which others here are rightly concerned about. However, in practice that has to be regulated by good governance, monitoring and oversight, for otherwise we would be policing society according to what the State believes people 'might be thinking' and there is nothing good nor viable about that approach. In conclusion, I do not think a person is guilty of 'racism' if they harbour racist thoughts that they never mention, manifest or act on. 'Racism' is the experience of a discriminated group, it is not the mental state of the person who lawfully holds such an opinion, unexpressed, in their heads. The proposition that changes might be made that can alter what opinions people hold in their heads on a subject is as flawed as it will be unsuccessful. I believe the only way to rid people of opinions on a subject is to remove the subject in its entirety from common thought. The only way to prevent unintended manifestations of racist opinion that do remain in people's thoughts is through vigilance and open dialogue to reach common understandings when and if it is suspected to give people a chance to consider the issues.

I don't agree that is the definition of what we are talking about. We disagree. It is allowed in politics. The discussion is 'discrimination or prejudice occasioning actual [financial, welfare and social mobility] losses'. That is because if there are no losses, then there is nothing to 'reparate'. I mean, sure, if you want to, you can argue that people with hurt feelings should get money hand outs for that, but that is not what I am talking about. I thought we were discussing actual losses arising from discrimination injustices? Someone may well be racist against a group 'in their heads' but they can only be racist to some fraction of them at any one time. If you can name anyone, or any thing, any Government policy, that has caused unjust losses to every member of a group at once, then please name it. A person might well think in their heads that they are prejudiced against every member of a group, I even commented on my own experience of people like that. But it is in their heads, and they were unable to, and would always be unable to, impress that prejudice on all of that group at once. As I said, the 'idea' that a person might hold to be racist to everyone in a group, and the 'idea' of members of that group that someone out there is prejudiced against them, these things live in the virtual world. They are imagined realities only. They only become manifest when someone puts those prejudices into action, and when they do, they can only affect those around them, not every member of the group. It's for that reason I don't agree with your statement. I trust I am allowed not to agree with you on that? ... meanwhile .... That we all recognise that there are victims of prejudice, do you have better ideas than I do to help those people? I recommend 'help commissions' and legal aid. You recommend? I can't tell. Would kneeling on pencils help, in your view? What? I just don't know what you are suggesting to move forward.

Straw man/non-sequitur 'Groups' did not experience racism. 'People' experienced racism. Or is your claim that 'a whole group' experience racism and that every single member of the group experienced the same racism and thus the same losses? If that were true I'd agree with you. But I believe that is objectively untrue. I just have to find a single example of an individual of the group that didn't suffer racism and losses and your statement is falsified. The fallacy here is that you see 'the whole group' experiencing racism, and if you think that is true I want to have the opportunity to test that logically. How would you present, objectively, a rational argument that every single individual of that group experienced the same racism? Let us discuss this further. I could easily be lead to believe that the proportion of a given group who experienced a systematic prejudice is so large as to represent a common interest with a common reparation needed. I would not seek to dispute that proposition. So, for example, I would not think for a moment to seek to limit the creation of a 'help commission' whose focussed effort is on the needs of members of a particular minority group. However, within their focussed effort and expertise to undertake that help, I would expect them to understand the impact of those past injustices on members of that group, and dispense the reparation in a manner relevant to individual needs. What I would also expect is that such 'help commissions' are not limited to the worst example of a minority group suffering injustices, but that there would be an equal opportunity for anyone suffering such injustices to have a 'help commission' to approach to assist them also in their losses.

Oh, was that to me? Great explanation, asking two 4 word questions to address a very difficult political issue that a civil war and 200 years of further efforts and troubles has not seen the end of. The victims are subjugated minorities. The reason is seeing black and white differently. Now that I have answered your questions, am I meant to 'see the light', somehow? I have not, please try again and avoid questions, cartoons, parabolas or anything else, just a plain speaking and a straight forward explanation of your position that anyone dropping in to the thread at this point would then uderstand what you are saying. Please. You said you do this. I am asking, for a self-contained explanation of your position here, that anyone could understand if this was the first post of the thread they saw, and is not predicated on any previous text in the thread. And, in keeping with the OP, it needs to be logically testable. I am unclear if people have forgotten the starting point, I am sure the OP hasn't. The point of the thread was a story in which authors of the paper saw a 'black and white' difference between writing boards. When challenged with logic and objective reasoning, the publishers and authors put up a smoke-screen of responses that could not be objectively challenged. It's ironic that when I came in to the thread I was told the thread subject had moved on. ... seems it hasn't .... Please provide me your explanation in a form that can be logically and objectively challenged, with propositions and logical statements as to why you said what you said.

Maybe you can explain the 1st amendment right of petition? Not discussed here yet. Why do you say that is not what is required, or if I misrepresent you, what did you actually say about it? I saw no 'why' explanations. I saw a bizarre cartoon and an incomprehensible 'parabola'. If that is your idea of an explanation then I'd fear to see what happens if you were to try to deliberately confuse someone!

5 cats.

Everyone has agreed with that, as far as I can tell, without exception. What you just put there seems materially wrong in its assertion. Can you provide a concrete example to demonstrate what you've just claimed? The difference lies in those that believe seeing 'black' versus 'white' is part of the solution, and the other see it as part of the problem. --------- @dimreepr has 'claimed' that they are willing to help explain something they have said if asked, but I keep asking and no response but 'oh, you have biases, that's why you don't understand'. Well, of course I do! We just went through several pages where everyone agreed we all had biases. Surely we are blind to our biases, else they'd not be biases. So there's no point telling someone they have biases thus are always wrong, because we'd all be wrong all of the time if that were true, so you have to spell out what their biases are. I have spelt out what I believe are your biases you are blind to, but if you don't accept you have biases they it makes you unwilling to listen. I've accepted that, willing to have my biases explained, have asked, and .... zip. Nothing but catching the rocks you guys are throwing at me. I have no concept of what you are arguing. You seem to be saying that racial discrimination is the problem here to fix, but there is no fix, but that if there were a fix then it'd be to discriminate the victims by racial profile. Makes as much sense as making a gearbox out of marshmallows. Everyone is talking in riddles, except those of us who recognise the legal system is a route to some level of restorative justice, and is actually doing that already, could be improved. That is concrete help to those victims.