Physical Revue says "Whiteboards are Racist"

[Jez]

54 minutes ago, iNow said:

In my experience, those who assert forcefully that they’re neutral tend to be anything but. 

We all have biases. Pretending otherwise makes you a liar or a fool. 

Please excuse me for not engaging further, I see no reason for that sort of negative rhetoric.

Biased or otherwise, one is an outside neutral observer when one is not part of either of the groups being discussed, it stands to reason. That is all I meant.

[TheVat]

You don't come across as neutral.  You seem to be annoyed that black people, after several centuries of everyone constantly identifying them as black, now identify themselves as black and see that as a real ethnicity and culture.  Which they want to see thrive.

I want to write a book called The White People's Guide to How Black People Should Protest, Ask for Reparations, and Courteously Pretend That Race is Irrelevant and No One Has Reminded Them On a Daily Basis That They are Black. The chapters on how to protest and ask for reparations will consist of blank pages, except for the first one which has one word:  NEVER.

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by TheVat
italics gone mad

[StringJunky]

As pointed out to me, the Constitutional principle of redress for grievances is already written. It's working, people have the political arena to air them... and they do. What is taking time is the solution.

The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

[iNow]

4 hours ago, Jez said:

Please excuse me for not engaging further,

Excuse you? I’ll go one farther and thank you! Hell, I’ll even fist bump you for the neg reps you tossed my way 🤙🏼

 

4 hours ago, Jez said:

one is an outside neutral observer when one is not part of either of the groups being discussed

Horeshit. We often find that 3rd party observers might comment on situations without themselves being directly impacted stakeholders, but “neutral” objective automatons without bias or predispositions they/we are not.

In situations involving systemic racism especially, even passivity itself becomes an active choice.

Either stand with or stand aside, just please stop standing in the way all while whining and martyring yourself as if you’re the goddess Justitia incarnate. 

Edited June 8, 2023 by iNow

[CharonY]

5 hours ago, Jez said:

Biased or otherwise, one is an outside neutral observer when one is not part of either of the groups being discussed, it stands to reason. That is all I meant.

When it comes to things where all humans are socially characterized in the modern world, there is no neutral as such. Typically majority folks consider themselves the most neutral in any given context as their opinion is most commonly reflected by those around them. This is a bit what the paper describe as the invisibility of whiteness, when applied to a majority white community. 

But even on a more philosophical level, there is no true neutrality on matters that involve some sort of opinion (and there is an argument to be made that it might even extend to so some degree to seemingly "objective" measures) personal bias will play a role. This is the essence of what implicit bias is about, but I suspect it can be easily expanded to other issues. 

[Intoscience]

19 hours ago, dimreepr said:

That depends on which side of the cutlery you are...

If your bias is weighted by your desire to protect you and yours, then justice is just a cloud of need's and want's; our culture is what balances 'our' desire, for good and bad (it's a yin-yang thang).

Is that not a natural bias, inherent in all (most) living things? 

[Jez]

3 hours ago, iNow said:

 

In my experience, those who assert forcefully that they’re neutral tend to be anything but. 

We all have biases. Pretending otherwise makes you a liar or a fool. 

Excuse you? I’ll go one farther and thank you! Hell, I’ll even fist bump you for the neg reps you tossed my way 🤙🏼

 

Horeshit. We often find that 3rd party observers might comment on situations without themselves being directly impacted stakeholders

 

Honestly, I do want to back out but that's no way to let me do so gracefully.

Yes I gave a dislike for that post because in it you basically said I was a liar or a fool.

I am surprised that is allowed here. Is it?

That's name calling. I think moderators should be reviewing that sort of language.

You put it behind a vague conditional statement, but I think you know full well you sought to name call, and besides it is an ad hominem fallacy to imply I am wrong 'even if' was a liar and a fool.

There are a lot of liars and fools who are still right, are there not?

I can provide a statemented logical argument for you to argue the case I am more independent than you if you like, but I'd prefer moderators to review your previous comments, I don't think it is fair and reasonable for you to undertake name calling, even it if is veiled behind a vague conditionality to have avoided that directly.

3 hours ago, iNow said:

Either stand with or stand aside

Ah. The old 'you are either for or against us' fallacy.

Really, I think this is a fallacy too far and shows you are part of the problem, not its solution.

You are asserting there is only one solution and resort to veiled name calling when contradicted (and seems that you might be getting away with it?). Is there any balanced debate possible here after a comment like that?

 

 

[mistermack]

12 hours ago, zapatos said:

Tell that to the black woman in Georgia today who is forced to stand in a long line to vote, and whose children can spend a year in jail if they bring her a glass of water to quench her thirst.

Today's laws evolved from yesterday's laws. You cannot fix a problem if you have no idea how deep the rot goes.

It is outrageous, and makes me angry. But what's also annoying is the behaviour of the victims of this treatment. If someone was treating me in that way, I would stand in line for days, if necessary, just to make sure that the cheating swine didn't profit from it. But a high proportion of "black women in Georgia" let them get away with it, by not bothering to vote. And the men are even worse. The brave women who refuse to give up their seat on a bus etc. are a tiny minority. 

I don't blame them, I'm not in their shoes, but it really is hugely frustrating, that the people being exploited can't make the effort to fight the exploiters by voting. After all, once you have power, you can change the system. But if you don't vote, it won't ever change. 

It's a bit like the frustration I get when people get assaulted, and don't bring a case, because they 'just want to forget it'. I do understand where they are coming from, but it's heartbreaking when some other victim gets killed shortly after, by the same culprit. 

[Intoscience]

19 hours ago, Phi for All said:

This is really a sticking point for you, this perspective that attempting to correct racism is automatically racist no matter how it's approached. You want it to stop, but not if you determine that the method of stopping violates your weird discrimination maths. So far, you've admitted that black people were treated unfairly by certain practices, and you want those practices to cease, but you don't want any black people to be compensated for the effects of these practices, have I got that right? Because you'd be giving compensation to a group that deserves it, but not giving it to anyone who isn't in that group, so that's discrimination? 

No one is arguing that black people were treated unfairly, as Migl pointed out unfair treatment has not or currently is not exclusive to one specific group. None is arguing whether the people who have suffered as a result should be compensated. The argument is around what system would be fair compensation without reverting to the same tactics which caused the unfair treatment in the first place.   

You can wrap it up in pretty paper any how you like but discrimination against one racial group to compensate another is still racism. 

You often hear racial activists making statements that would not be tolerated if roles were reversed. I watch a black lady racial activist state clearly and openly "all white women are evil". Imagine if a white woman was to say "all black women are evil"! 

Jez mentions about clearly quantifying the level of compensation due and to which people its most deserved, and was shot down. 

I think we all agree that racism is a crime and those that suffer as a result should be compensated. All agree that it has to stop and systems need to change to allow this to happen.

There is bias, and I think our biases are what are provoking us to butt heads. I said it before and I stand by my view that the only real immediate solution is to just stop and reset.     

[dimreepr]

6 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Is that not a natural bias, inherent in all (most) living things? 

No it's not, it depends on your culture.

In some cultures it's an imperative to share, whatever you have, with a stranger in need; it's quite telling that those culture's tend to be poor.

Pulling up the drawbridge, just puts 'you' under siege. 

2 hours ago, Intoscience said:

No one is arguing that black people were treated unfairly, as Migl pointed out unfair treatment has not or currently is not exclusive to one specific group. None is arguing whether the people who have suffered as a result should be compensated. The argument is around what system would be fair compensation without reverting to the same tactics which caused the unfair treatment in the first place.   

You can wrap it up in pretty paper any how you like but discrimination against one racial group to compensate another is still racism. 

That's the "all life matters" argument, IOW just an excuse to carry on regardless.

2 hours ago, Intoscience said:

There is bias, and I think our biases are what are provoking us to butt heads. I said it before and I stand by my view that the only real immediate solution is to just stop and reset. 

That's not a solution, it's an excuse to wash your hands and pull up the drawbridge.

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, Intoscience said:

No one is arguing that black people were treated unfairly, as Migl pointed out unfair treatment has not or currently is not exclusive to one specific group. None is arguing whether the people who have suffered as a result should be compensated. The argument is around what system would be fair compensation without reverting to the same tactics which caused the unfair treatment in the first place.   

You can wrap it up in pretty paper any how you like but discrimination against one racial group to compensate another is still racism. 

And this is where I think you and those supporting your stance are wrong. You think reparations are "reverting to the same tactics which caused the unfair treatment in the first place", which is plainly silly. The tactics used to cause the problems with discrimination were based on trying to stop a specific group of citizens from prospering along with the rest of the citizens. You can't equate reparations with those tactics. Do you really believe reparations are designed to keep white people from prospering? 

What kind of ugly paper are you wrapping reparations in that you can claim it's racism? Again, I think y'all are using semantics to insist that reparations fits your definition of discrimination, so you won't even consider it, you kill it and stick your fingers in your ears. I sure wish you'd give up defending that hill because you're dying there and it's killing folks you don't know.

[dimreepr]

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

But what's also annoying is the behaviour of the victims of this treatment. If someone was treating me in that way, I would stand in line for days, if necessary, just to make sure that the cheating swine didn't profit from it.

Some line's are a road to nowhere, this reminds me of the bloke in the pub saying "if anyone did that too me, someone better hold me back... 😣 seriously guy's, hold me back, guy's... 🙄🤒" 

[TheVat]

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

It is outrageous, and makes me angry. But what's also annoying is the behaviour of the victims of this treatment. If someone was treating me in that way, I would stand in line for days, if necessary, just to make sure that the cheating swine didn't profit from it. But a high proportion of "black women in Georgia" let them get away with it, by not bothering to vote. And the men are even worse.

This situation is not quite as you describe.  The people who are "not bothering" are likely to be those who have low-end jobs where taking time off work is not an option, in places where polling stations in walking distance have been closed, where voter ID paperwork requirements fall especially hard on those with limited mobility, time, childcare, where some polling stations have standing outside Far Right election "monitors" carrying weapons, etc.  Due to time crunch this morning, I am leaving out a number of other obstacles thrown in the path of minority access to voting, but all of this is well documented and witnessed, especially in swing states.  

[zapatos]

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

But what's also annoying is the behaviour of the victims of this treatment. If someone was treating me in that way, I would stand in line for days, if necessary, just to make sure that the cheating swine didn't profit from it. But a high proportion of "black women in Georgia" let them get away with it, by not bothering to vote. And the men are even worse. The brave women who refuse to give up their seat on a bus etc. are a tiny minority. 

 

Yeah, victims really piss me off.

On another note...

Quote

By Abby Kousouris

Published: Oct. 19, 2022 at 5:48 PM CDT

 

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) -- It has been a rush to the polls over the first three days of early voting in Georgia. With hot races on the ticket, people can’t wait to get their vote cast.

Black voters account for nearly 36% of early voters so far, despite only making up less than 30% of active voters in the state.

https://www.wrdw.com/2022/10/19/record-high-early-voting-numbers-among-black-voters-georgia/

3 hours ago, Intoscience said:

You can wrap it up in pretty paper any how you like but discrimination against one racial group to compensate another is still racism. 

 

What racial group is targeted for discrimination to compensate another? I've never heard of that happening or even being proposed.

3 hours ago, Intoscience said:

I said it before and I stand by my view that the only real immediate solution is to just stop and reset.     

But no compensation?

[iNow]

18 hours ago, iNow said:

We all have biases. Pretending otherwise makes you a liar or a fool. 

 

9 hours ago, Jez said:

you basically said I was a liar or a fool.

Is reading comprehension a problem for you, or are you instead implicitly accepting my underlying premise that you, despite your repeated protests, are NOT in fact neutral?

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, zapatos said:

But no compensation?

If I were a criminal, I'd wholeheartedly agree with Intoscience. "Ooops, you're right, I did something bad, but I won't do that something anymore. Since there's no punishment, I'll have plenty of time and resources to think of something else."

This is the formula that makes crime pay.

[StringJunky]

9 minutes ago, iNow said:

 

Is reading comprehension a problem for you, or are you instead implicitly accepting my underlying premise that you, despite your repeated protests, are NOT in fact neutral?

There is no other way to interpret what you said. If he doesn't agree with you, he's a fool. You created a false dichotomy for him... maybe unwittingly.

Edited June 8, 2023 by StringJunky

[Phi for All]

2 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

There is no ther way to interpret what you said. If he doesn't agree with you, he's a fool.

I'd like to know if Jez thinks we DON'T all have biases. I thought it was phrased in a rhetorical way. Is this not a given? I could definitely be wrong.

[StringJunky]

7 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I'd like to know if Jez thinks we DON'T all have biases. I thought it was phrased in a rhetorical way. Is this not a given? I could definitely be wrong.

As much as I like iNow, his style is not rhetorical.

[mistermack]

3 hours ago, TheVat said:

This situation is not quite as you describe.  The people who are "not bothering" are likely to be those who have low-end jobs where taking time off work is not an option, in places where polling stations in walking distance have been closed, where voter ID paperwork requirements fall especially hard on those with limited mobility, time, childcare, where some polling stations have standing outside Far Right election "monitors" carrying weapons, etc.  Due to time crunch this morning, I am leaving out a number of other obstacles thrown in the path of minority access to voting, but all of this is well documented and witnessed, especially in swing states.  

The turnout of black voters in these areas is around 50 %. So one in two are putting up with all of the obstacles, and voting. And all credit to them. There will be some who absolutely can't vote, but there are plenty who just don't bother. And I know plenty of them, here in the UK, where the obstacles are not so high. 

I've not voted myself, on some occasions, when I can't see a significant advantage in either side. But in the US, the difference is a lot more marked. 

If they were giving out free Iphones or guns, you'd get a pretty high turnout. It boils down to how much you want it. 

[CharonY]

7 minutes ago, mistermack said:

The turnout of black voters in these areas is around 50 %. So one in two are putting up with all of the obstacles, and voting. And all credit to them. There will be some who absolutely can't vote, but there are plenty who just don't bother. And I know plenty of them, here in the UK, where the obstacles are not so high. 

I've not voted myself, on some occasions, when I can't see a significant advantage in either side. But in the US, the difference is a lot more marked. 

If they were giving out free Iphones or guns, you'd get a pretty high turnout. It boils down to how much you want it. 

Sure, let's again ignore all the measures in place to suppress black voters and blame it on their lazyness. I mean, it is funny how this post kind of validates the assumptions of the paper better than the paper itself.

[Jez]

38 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I'd like to know if Jez thinks we DON'T all have biases. I thought it was phrased in a rhetorical way. Is this not a given? I could definitely be wrong.

Just to say, I'm uncomfortable continuing in a debate where someone can name call and say that they are right and anyone who isn't on their 'side' is wrong and a fool or liar. I'd expect that sort of proposition to be suppressed in a good-faith discussion.

If you are asking me that question in good faith I have to say that I have not alluded to biases, I alluded to neutrality. It was @iNow who created the false synonym and dichotomy by switching the word between phrases. They are probably a lawyer or something?

19 hours ago, iNow said:

In my experience, those who assert forcefully that they’re neutral tend to be anything but. 

We all have biases. Pretending otherwise makes you a liar or a fool. 

Of course we all have biases, which is why this quoted statement should be viewed with suspicion that it is divisive chicanery merely to win a philological argument, as demonstrated by the later statement 'either stand [with me] or stand aside'.

'Neutrality' cannot mean 'lacking biases', for precisely that obvious meaning and that we all develop within societies subjected to biases, so I assumed we were intelligent people who understood the meaning of words and I did not need to spell it out in a longwinded axiomatically precise treatise.

If it were true that everyone has biases and no-one is neutral who has biases, that means no-one can be neutral. No referees. No judges. No mediators in a contract. No international arbitrators of national importance. No academics. No journals publishing the academics. No scientific studies could ever be 'neutral' because they are written by people with biases. This is nonsense.

'Neutrality' means that the person presiding is not 'from' the groups that have these particular vested interests and come from a different background.

I have ZERO experience of being an American 'black' person, just as I have ZERO experience of being an American white person, raised either in a sense of white superiority OR in a sense that white liberals must self-flagellate for the wrongs that their ancestors did.

Let me offer a small anecdote and maybe we can discuss that a bit more;

During the Black Lives Matter events when it started up, there were marches here in UK on that subject too. I had a 'white' acquaintance who joined a march. I asked them why they did that, and they said to show support. I asked if they had been asked to give support, and they said no. I asked how they could show support when they did not know, experience and understand the struggles of the people marching, and they said they wanted to do someting. I asked how the black people on the march felt about an uninvited white person joining them, who had not experienced their difficulties and therefore didn't really understand them. They were unsure. I asked them if joining the march might actually be an act of condescension towards the people marching, as if to say you can't protest on your own, you need white people to help you protest.

They were lost for words.

The 'neutrality' I speak of here is that (I am guessing) most of you have lived your lives as privileged (to whatever extent) liberal white families and 'that social experience' has indoctrinated you to believe that you must act in some way to remedy and rebalance the past discriminations to black Americans, and also to perceive new discriminations (when in fact the ones mentioned here apply to white people to).

The 'neutrality' I describe that I have that you don't is that I am not patronising enough to believe black people need my help to right the wrongs against them, because I am a modern British person and we know full well they are more than capable of holding their own, and I take my hat off to the many colonial 'blacks', Indians, Pakistanis and many assorted other nationalities that came to UK in the post war period, struggled bloody hard for their equality facing disreputable racism (and still do), and won their equality for themselves. Not merely a case that they deserved equality in the first place, but their nailed their rights as British citizens. THIS is the culture I was raised in, where such people are wholly capable of fighting their own grievances, and they proved it before I had any awareness of what had 'gone on' before my time, and it was just the way it was. Multi-cultural Britain was a fact, and a matter of 'equals'.

Thus, I am for sure independent of the middle-class American liberal cultural attitude that this 'problem' is something you feel some 'need' to get involved in. You are so deeply immersed in this white cultural view that you don't stop for a moment to consider or try to realise how disabling and patronising it might well be to black people that you want to solve their problems for them, rather than giving them the tools to solve their problems for themselves. Hence, my pressing the point about what is already in your 1st Amendment (that you might have not read to the end?).

I am independent of that. That's why I say I am 'neutral', because I come from a culture where there is already respect for 'black' people enough that we wait to be asked for help and if asked we wait to be told what help they want, before I force my own white-liberal belief system on their already large scale problems that are unknown to me. 

What sort of arrogance would it be if I choose to defined and scope out the injustices black Americans have suffered? As if they can't figure that out for themselves and ask for my help if they want it? Think about the irony of that for a moment.

Of course I am biased! I have seen how strong and capable are British non-white immigrants to standing up for themselves, working hard, handing down strong civil values to their children, making them go to school and university (more than the current generation of whites here do) and being the better, more civilised people than many unruly and feral white folk here are.

Does that clarify my thoughts on the biases we might all have?

 

[TheVat]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

I've not voted myself, on some occasions, when I can't see a significant advantage in either side.

So when you sit one out, it's because neither candidate seems better.  But when a black voter sits one out, they are just lazy.

How weird you cannot imagine a demographic often ignored by politicians (e.g. both candidates may favor building a freeway and splitting your hood down the middle and saturating it with diesel soot) may have members who conclude voting is pointless.  As @CharonY noted, your post seems to validate the OP article's view on ingrained racism.  

[MigL]

That is a problem with 'idealists'; they are so convinced they are right, they won't even consider alternate viewpoints worthy of discussion.

If you don't agree with their method, then obviously you want to do nothing, right Phi ?
That seems funny, as most of you guys arguing this are American, where the problem is most acute.
Hello ?!?
Whatever you're doing ( if anything ) is not working.

If You don't agree with them , they resort to thinly veiled name-calling.
And, whether right or wrong, this accusation has been levelled at you many times before, has it not, INow ?
Might be time to change your posting style, before people start thinking that where ther is smoke ( everywhere today ) there is fire.

If you don't agree with them, they immediately jump to extremes.
Voter apathy is at an all time high, even after 4 years of the most abysmal Presidency voters have ever, of D Trump. Voting against a bad system is everyone's obligation, yet Zap says MisterMack is  'victim blaming'.

Do you guys want to have this discussion or not ?
Because if you simply want converts to your ideology, no discussion is required.

[TheVat]

33 minutes ago, Jez said:

Thus, I am for sure independent of the middle-class American liberal cultural attitude that this 'problem' is something you feel some 'need' to get involved in. You are so deeply immersed in this white cultural view that you don't stop for a moment to consider or try to realise how disabling and patronising it might well be to black people that you want to solve their problems for them, rather than giving them the tools to solve their problems for themselves.

Strawman, as regards the US.  That you think equal justice and equal opportunity is some sort of paternal problem solving, rather than a provision of the basic tools to thrive in society, indicates you have no clue what minority groups in the US want.  Or what their obstacles are.  

As for fighting for your own grievances to be resolved, those are nice noble words, but here in the US, the problems are severe enough that no group minds all hands on deck helping out or at least voting progressively.  When someone has a jackboot on their face, it is not condescension to step in and help the removal.  

46 minutes ago, Jez said:

Of course I am biased! I have seen how strong and capable are British non-white immigrants to standing up for themselves, working hard, handing down strong civil values to their children, making them go to school and university (more than the current generation of whites here do) and being the better, more civilised people than many unruly and feral white folk here are.

Nothing says condescension quite like hagiography.