Author Topic: The sad state of the (UN) United States  (Read 24056 times)

0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline Michael Hardner

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12461
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #135 on: November 23, 2021, 08:35:28 pm »
I don't recall storming any legislatures,   

You wanted teams, well your team is team Trump.
Winner Winner x 1 Dumb Dumb x 1 View List

Offline Black Dog

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 9069
  • Location: Deathbridge
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #136 on: November 23, 2021, 08:59:37 pm »
I don't have a problem with cops, anarchy boy.

No you're sucking up to a bunch of losers like the Patriot prayer dumbf*cks which is even sadder.

Quote
It's not the losers who want to maintain the present system, you dumb fuk. The losers are the ones who want to tear it all down because they're jealous and angry that others made it and they're fukking losers.

Oh you mean the Republicans and their fellow travellers like you?

Offline Black Dog

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 9069
  • Location: Deathbridge
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #137 on: November 23, 2021, 09:01:32 pm »
Black people in Canada aren't the victims of historical racism. Almost none of them were even here to experience it, nor were their ancestors.

You don't know your own country's history. Sad.

Offline Black Dog

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 9069
  • Location: Deathbridge
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #138 on: November 23, 2021, 09:09:25 pm »
These arguments are just whataboutism.  "Wokeness?...Ya but whatabout white nationalism".  This thread is about wokeness.  Saying white nationalism is worse doesn't negate wokeness from being harmful or being a bad idea, and its both.

Nah you don't have to bring up white nationalism to point out the woke panic is overblown nonsense.

But the fact this fake panic is happening against the backdrop of rising white wing authoritarianism makes the obsession so many have with it even more pathetic.

Quote
Canada and its institutions are not being influenced very much by white nationalist nonsense.  It is being influenced by wokeism, radical leftwing identity politics, whatever you want to call it.  The Prime Minister is woke, the Prime Minister is a radical feminist.  There's about 100 pages out of the 275 pages that make up the federal budget that were dedicated specifically to gender equality issues while only 3 pages were dedicated to veterans issues, and zero pages are dedicated to Neo-Nazism.

See, you continue to think that making gestures towards progressive measures on gender, or reconciliation or anti-racism are the same as real action. They aren't.

Quote
I don't have an issue with paying attention to some gender issues but dedicating a third of the federal budget to them is pretty insane.  The PM has a weird fetish about saving women because he wants to be the white knight saviour so the ladies swoon over him.

Aren't women like 50% of the population?

Offline Queefer Sutherland

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10186
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #139 on: November 23, 2021, 10:20:30 pm »
Nah you don't have to bring up white nationalism to point out the woke panic is overblown nonsense.

But the fact this fake panic is happening against the backdrop of rising white wing authoritarianism makes the obsession so many have with it even more pathetic.

The left and right have gone absolutely stupid when it comes to identity politics.

The examples from the right are pretty self-evident.  I'll give you can example from the woke left from Ben Shapiro's speech, he gives this example:
Quote

"As an anti-racist, when I see racial disparities, I see racism. But I know for many racist Americans, when they see racial disparities they see black inferiority. So I was not surprised in the least by the number of comments claiming racism is not a major factor in the lives of black males. So many of our neighbors are unfortunately still living in their post-racial fantasy world. Let’s hope this study thrusts some of them into the racist real world." - Ibram X. Kendi
  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/reader-questions-about-race-gender-and-mobility.html

Ibram X. Kendi is a PhD in African American studies and a professor of history and yet has said such a ridiculous statement as "when I see racial disparities, I see racism", which the NYT even used as the title for the article.  The growing trend today is this thinking based on the false assumption that racial disparities automatically mean racism somehow caused these disparities, which isn't necessarily true at all.  Sometimes it can be caused largely by racism, and sometimes it involves various factors, some having little or nothing to do with racism.  For instance, asians have higher education and income levels than whites.  Is that because whites were victimized by racial bias and asians, including many south asians with brown skin, were not?  Is it possible then that education and income levels are informed by variables other than just racism?  Yes obviously.  Same with NBA basketball players:  if white players and hispanic players are disproportionately less represented in the NBA compared to black players, does that mean they were racially discriminated against and racism is the cause of these disparities?  Obviously not.  So why do we increasingly automatically assume that any racial disparity where any racial minority group is less represented than the average is caused by racism?

Kendi is a PhD in a social science field and yet doesn't understand the basics of social research because he's attributing a single variable ("racism") to phenomena that can be caused by multiple variables.  But because he has an activist's bias towards seeing POC/blacks as victims of racism, he needs to attribute all racial disparities to a single variable to further his worldview.  This is activism and not good scholarship, because good scholarship and research is informed by facts and objectivity in search of truth rather than bias and emotion.  Again, this doesn't mean there aren't cases where racism is the primary or sometimes even sole cause for a racial disparity, it just means it isn't always automatically the case that racism is the sole cause or even primary cause.

This kind of thinking is becoming so prevalent that any time an unarmed African American is killed by a cop we assume the cop did so due to racism.  Sometimes that can be the case, but many don't even wait to look at the evidence before making false assumptions.  And if you challenge these assumptions well you must be a racist.
"Nipples is one of the great minds of our time!" - Bubbermiley

Offline Black Dog

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 9069
  • Location: Deathbridge
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #140 on: November 24, 2021, 09:20:59 am »
The left and right have gone absolutely stupid when it comes to identity politics.

The examples from the right are pretty self-evident.  I'll give you can example from the woke left from Ben Shapiro's speech, he gives this example:  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/reader-questions-about-race-gender-and-mobility.html

Ibram X. Kendi is a PhD in African American studies and a professor of history and yet has said such a ridiculous statement as "when I see racial disparities, I see racism", which the NYT even used as the title for the article.  The growing trend today is this thinking based on the false assumption that racial disparities automatically mean racism somehow caused these disparities, which isn't necessarily true at all.  Sometimes it can be caused largely by racism, and sometimes it involves various factors, some having little or nothing to do with racism.  For instance, asians have higher education and income levels than whites.  Is that because whites were victimized by racial bias and asians, including many south asians with brown skin, were not?  Is it possible then that education and income levels are informed by variables other than just racism?  Yes obviously.  Same with NBA basketball players:  if white players and hispanic players are disproportionately less represented in the NBA compared to black players, does that mean they were racially discriminated against and racism is the cause of these disparities?  Obviously not.So why do we increasingly automatically assume that any racial disparity where any racial minority group is less represented than the average is caused by racism?

Kendi is a PhD in a social science field and yet doesn't understand the basics of social research because he's attributing a single variable ("racism") to phenomena that can be caused by multiple variables.  But because he has an activist's bias towards seeing POC/blacks as victims of racism, he needs to attribute all racial disparities to a single variable to further his worldview.

You've arrive at the bolded conclusion about this guy's entire worldview based on a single quote?


Quote
This is activism and not good scholarship, because good scholarship and research is informed by facts and objectivity in search of truth rather than bias and emotion.  Again, this doesn't mean there aren't cases where racism is the primary or sometimes even sole cause for a racial disparity, it just means it isn't always automatically the case that racism is the sole cause or even primary cause.

Do you have anything to say about the study he's referencing? Y'know since you care so much about scholarship and research?

Quote
This kind of thinking is becoming so prevalent that any time an unarmed African American is killed by a cop we assume the cop did so due to racism.  Sometimes that can be the case, but many don't even wait to look at the evidence before making false assumptions.  And if you challenge these assumptions well you must be a racist.

That's a strawman. The actual argument is much more complicated.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2021, 09:23:56 am by Black Dog »

Offline Queefer Sutherland

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10186
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #141 on: November 24, 2021, 08:00:05 pm »
You've arrive at the bolded conclusion about this guy's entire worldview based on a single quote?
No, I arrived at the conclusion that he uses one variable (racism) for a phenomena involving multiple variables (racial disparities) because that's what he said.

Quote
Do you have anything to say about the study he's referencing? Y'know since you care so much about scholarship and research?

Actually I do know a lot about scholarship and research, but no I didn't read the actual study.  Did Kendi even read the entire study before commenting?  Who knows.

Quote
That's a strawman. The actual argument is much more complicated.

The BLM movement started out of the Ferguson protests because a cop killed an unarmed black man.  If you read the case, like on its wiki page, you find out the cop did nothing wrong (besides using profanity at Brown).  Now, i'm not anti-BLM, i'm pro-BLM because cops often do wrong things, but i'm also anti-jumping-to-conclusions in court cases.

You're right, things are often much more complicated than they seem, and yet here we are, yelling at cops because someone retweeted something that's not even true, like "hands up down shoot", which was a lie that happened according to witnesses, some who recanted their lies.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2021, 08:02:41 pm by Nipples Von Graham »
"Nipples is one of the great minds of our time!" - Bubbermiley

Offline Queefer Sutherland

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10186
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #142 on: November 24, 2021, 08:04:07 pm »
The truth is often buried underneath a large pile of total bullsh*t.  It's sad that it has to be that hard these days.
"Nipples is one of the great minds of our time!" - Bubbermiley

Offline Michael Hardner

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12461
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #143 on: November 25, 2021, 06:09:00 am »

1. So why do we increasingly automatically assume that any racial disparity where any racial minority group is less represented than the average is caused by racism?

2.  Same with NBA basketball players:  if white players and hispanic players are disproportionately less represented in the NBA compared to black players, does that mean they were racially discriminated against and racism is the cause of these disparities?  Obviously not.   


You wrote a thoughtful post, albeit one I disagree with.  So I took care to answer it.  Here goes:

Your hesitation to accept the premise that all disparity is rooted in racism is completely reasonable.  But, rather than reject the premise, let's use that disconnect to explore some of your questions and possible answers:

1. Do we accept that any human, raised in the same circumstances, will - with normal variability - matures to the same potential ?  It seems that the "American dream" and our liberal values tell us that, right ?  It's actually a premise that is used to justify that racism is "over" now - ie. that we all have the same opportunities.  The public has, at least, rejected that there's some innate ability for some races to be able to do certain things. 

If that's true, then racial representation in any activity is necessarily a result of social constructs right ?  Calling it "Racism" may colour these constructs as negative but still they are differences due to social constructs, right ?  Because it's not biology so what else could it be?

Well what about mere social customs and habits?  Can it not be that Asian Americans just have the custom to work harder ?  Of course, that could be true but there are still some questions I have:

Don't all immigrants work harder when they arrive onshore ?  I have seen studies and read books that said this of Africans, German Jews in the 1800s, Indians etc.  When you look at the motivation for coming to America this makes sense.  So is it so easy to separate one race ?  Why do we hear about Asians doing this and not Jews or Africans ?  So there's a perception question.

Secondly, when you compare these people to those who share the race in the home country - are there differences ?  I would say so.  And from what I have seen there's no race or country that dominates in intelligence. 

Now, you will get a country that has customs in which they are interested but again it's social constructs, not nature.   

And there are large scale effects, such as geo-cultural forces that work to embed certain characteristics into a culture over time.  For example, the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan creates myriad enclaves of social groups, the fertile crescent of the Tigris and Eurphrates rivers made a crossroads for cultural interchange that gave birth to civilization, the effects of Christianity with the Monarchy together on the peoples of Europe (see Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond) are such effects.

So does it mean that Afghans are naturally insular, Iraqis of the era were friendly, and white Europeans greedy etc. etc. etc. ?  No - these are still constructs.  Adopting an Afghan baby and raising her in Toronto means you'll get a Toronto baby.

---

So instead of having incendiary conversations of racial blame, can we have a conversation about such effects as these and accept that - yes - some groups and subgroups may be better at some things sometimes ?  At some point, sure.  There are academic conversations as such right now, even. 
We may be APPROACHING a time when we can actually discuss race with something like a 'public' but we're not there yet.  People are too inclined to blame racial/national/ethnic groups for their characteristics, effectively because those characteristics are different from some other group.

2. Why are blacks good at basketball and not hockey ?  Do you think that there aren't social factors involved such as the placement of hockey rinks, cost of competing, placement of basketball courts in areas where black kids grew up vs. baseball diamonds, etc. ? 

Did you know that in the mid 20th century Jews were noted for basketball abilities for the same reasons of urban access to facilities ?  Did you know that people expounded on the reasons:

Quote
Jews were believed to have a genetic edge, being endowed by nature with superior balance, greater speed and sharper eyes -- not to mention, in the words of one sportswriter, a ''scheming mind'' and ''flashy trickiness.''
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/04/16/reviews/000416.16holtlt.html

So - until we educate the masses that perceptions on race need more than observational/knee-jerk assessments (rather than just getting them to accept that racism is "wrong") then we will not be able to have such discussions productively.  They will, instead, serve the short-term purpose of inflaming and garnering support from the in-group.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2021, 09:59:35 am by MH »

Offline The Cynic

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 288
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #144 on: November 25, 2021, 09:53:14 am »
So - until we educate the masses that perceptions on race need more than observational/knee-jerk assessments (rather than just getting them to accept that racism is "wrong") then we will not be able to have such discussions productively.  They will, instead, serve the short-term purpose of inflaming and garnering support from the in-group.

And people wonder why Trump has so much support. Trump is just an arrogant, greedy idiot. He isn't interested in Marxist brainwashing or 'educating the masses', you pompous, arrogant elitist. The masses aren't interested in being educated by the likes of you and your brainless bullshit philosophy. They'd rather do away with democracy itself if this is what it brings.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2021, 09:55:04 am by The Cynic »

Offline Black Dog

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 9069
  • Location: Deathbridge
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #145 on: November 25, 2021, 10:02:59 am »
No, I arrived at the conclusion that he uses one variable (racism) for a phenomena involving multiple variables (racial disparities) because that's what he said.

Except he didn't say that.

"When I see racial disparities, I see racism" doesn't mean he only sees racism.

Quote
The BLM movement started out of the Ferguson protests because a cop killed an unarmed black man.  If you read the case, like on its wiki page, you find out the cop did nothing wrong (besides using profanity at Brown).  Now, i'm not anti-BLM, i'm pro-BLM because cops often do wrong things, but i'm also anti-jumping-to-conclusions in court cases.

You're right, things are often much more complicated than they seem, and yet here we are, yelling at cops because someone retweeted something that's not even true, like "hands up down shoot", which was a lie that happened according to witnesses, some who recanted their lies.

I'm not sure what this has to do with he point, which is that, while not every single police shooting is unjustified or motivated by racism, institutional racism creates the conditions under which black people are more likley to encounter cops, increasing the chances for violence.

Offline Michael Hardner

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12461
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #146 on: November 25, 2021, 10:03:55 am »
1. And people wonder why Trump has so much support.
2. Trump is just an arrogant, greedy idiot.
3. He isn't interested in Marxist brainwashing or 'educating the masses', you pompous, arrogant elitist. The masses aren't interested in being educated by the likes of you and your brainless bullshit philosophy.
4. They'd rather do away with democracy itself if this is what it brings.
1. Yes, I still wonder this.
2. Ok.
3. Ok, so you think they're perfect ?  Why did they elect Biden and Trudeau then ?  They saw the error of their ways and dumped Trump and Harper ?  Also - if you can explain what was incorrect in what I posted I'd be interested, if you're up for it.
4. People had to be educated to accept democracy in the first place right ?  There's a difference between trusting the institution of democracy and thinking that the masses are perfect.  The latter point of view is a narcissistic one - employed by the advertising industry.

More importantly, you just posted again insulting me and saying I was wrong by just ... saying so.  Not saying why.  Can you follow up with some reasons or will you just call me arrogant and stomp away like a teenager ?  Let's wait and see...

Offline Michael Hardner

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12461
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #147 on: November 25, 2021, 12:12:40 pm »
Trump is just an arrogant, ... you pompous, arrogant elitist. 

You really like the word 'arrogant' huh ?  What do you call a guy who just thinks he's right without having to provide any reasons ? 🤔
Funny Funny x 1 View List

Offline Queefer Sutherland

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10186
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #148 on: November 25, 2021, 02:39:56 pm »

You wrote a thoughtful post, albeit one I disagree with.  So I took care to answer it.  Here goes:

Your hesitation to accept the premise that all disparity is rooted in racism is completely reasonable.  But, rather than reject the premise, let's use that disconnect to explore some of your questions and possible answers:

1. Do we accept that any human, raised in the same circumstances, will - with normal variability - matures to the same potential ?  It seems that the "American dream" and our liberal values tell us that, right ?  It's actually a premise that is used to justify that racism is "over" now - ie. that we all have the same opportunities.  The public has, at least, rejected that there's some innate ability for some races to be able to do certain things. 

If that's true, then racial representation in any activity is necessarily a result of social constructs right ?  Calling it "Racism" may colour these constructs as negative but still they are differences due to social constructs, right ?  Because it's not biology so what else could it be?

Well what about mere social customs and habits?  Can it not be that Asian Americans just have the custom to work harder ?  Of course, that could be true but there are still some questions I have:

Don't all immigrants work harder when they arrive onshore ?  I have seen studies and read books that said this of Africans, German Jews in the 1800s, Indians etc.  When you look at the motivation for coming to America this makes sense.  So is it so easy to separate one race ?  Why do we hear about Asians doing this and not Jews or Africans ?  So there's a perception question.

Secondly, when you compare these people to those who share the race in the home country - are there differences ?  I would say so.  And from what I have seen there's no race or country that dominates in intelligence. 

Now, you will get a country that has customs in which they are interested but again it's social constructs, not nature.   

Well you seem to agree with me actually.  My point was that there are a great variety of reasons why people from some racial group will do better in some areas of life than others.  It can be cultural, economic, education, and yes even racial bias.  In terms of intelligence I've never seen any evidence to suggest one race is smarter or dumber than the other.  But there's many hypothesis that look at Jewish and many asian cultures that show that parents in those cultures put a great emphasis on education from a very early age and pressure their children to do into professional fields.

So as I said, racism isn't necessarily the sole reason why race A does worse than race B.  In some cases it may be one of the reasons, maybe in some cases the primary reason, and in some cases not a significant factor at all.  These phenomena are complex and contain multiple variables as I've said, and to conclude it's always "racism" without doing a proper analysis of many possible variables is just bad social science that's used increasingly to discriminate against races like whites and asians etc.  Doing so should absolutely be illegal.  So when Ibrahim X Kendi says "When I see racial disparities, I see racism" he's just preaching bad social science and emotional activism rather than research and scholarship, because we know that not all racial disparities are based on racism, unless the NBA, NFL, track and field, badminton, and ping-pong are racist.
"Nipples is one of the great minds of our time!" - Bubbermiley

Offline Michael Hardner

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12461
Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #149 on: November 25, 2021, 02:43:59 pm »
If you are talking about 'discriminating' by programs like affirmative action, then just stop seeing as that and see it as trying to provide a leg up to people who are disadvantaged... for some reason.  That way, you would agree it's not a permanent program either.
Winner Winner x 1 View List