Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

spiked-online.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 49 posts

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#11

Post by skinkestek »

atemerev wrote: post #2

This is how it works in European countries, e.g. France. “Race” never figures in any government documents, forms and surveys. Mentioning someone’s race considered to be somewhat rude and is regarded as a thing of the past. Not everybody is race-agnostic, but all government organizations and all businesses are required to be race-agnostic by law. This includes never asking about race, particularly in forms and surveys…

This is true as far as I am aware, and I agree. It is (IMO) objectively backwards and ugly to discuss someones physical characteristics instead of their contributions, especially backwards if one are trying to get rid of differences.

That said, you will find many larger companies actively trying to be or at least look diverse.

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#12

Post by mikece »

Race or culture isn't the issue but "identity politics" which mandates that one must see themselves and others not as the unique and wonderful individuals they are but as an impersonal member of a class to be treated according to the understood (or assumed) qualities of that class. Nothing is more destructive to cordial interpersonal relations than saying "Oh, you're an X and I will treat you as X-types ought to be treated" without regard to who the individual actually is.

It's not impossible to see, recognize, and appreciate races and cultures as long as the dignity of the individual is maintained.

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#13

Post by [deleted] »

joaomacp wrote: post #10

As a European, every US election season I'm always dumbfounded by how much the "black vote" is discussed. Just recently, when Kamala Harris was announced as VP, all they talk about is how she will contribute to the black vote. This makes it seem as she was only chosen because of her race, and even worse: it's an insult to black people, grouping them together as having one opinion. I don't know why there's no backlash…

[deleted]

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#15

Post by notsureaboutpg »

wcerfgba wrote: post #8

There seem to be some conflicting ideas here. On one hand, the concept of 'race' is what allows racism to exist and we need to remove this concept from our collective ideology in order to defeat racism -- people are just people. On the other hand, it is a fact that external biological characteristics (predominantly skin colour and facial structure) result in social clustering and discrimination, at the individual, co…

> as I have often applied the same logic to gender, which is arguably even more socially constructed than race, since the appeal to biological characteristics is weaker for defining one's gender than one's race.

Is this a typo? Surely the appeal to biological characteristics is stronger for defining one's gender than one's race...

You can be "mixed" race and pass for multiple races (so the link to biology is less) without doing anything, but you have to do a lot to obscure the biological giveaways of your gender (voice, Adams apple, breasts/hips/shoulders).

And also you need cultural understanding to know the race of someone from a different area than you (are dark skinned Italians black/Latino? No, but if you saw a bunch, and didn't have cultural understanding you might think so). But you can tell the gender of nearly all people without any cultural context.

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#16

Post by SllX »

mikece wrote: post #12

Race or culture isn't the issue but "identity politics" which mandates that one must see themselves and others not as the unique and wonderful individuals they are but as an impersonal member of a class to be treated according to the understood (or assumed) qualities of that class. Nothing is more destructive to cordial interpersonal relations than saying "Oh, you're an X and I will treat you as X-types ought to be t…

In other words, a caste system developed from first principles.

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#17

Post by Tainnor »

joaomacp wrote: post #10

As a European, every US election season I'm always dumbfounded by how much the "black vote" is discussed. Just recently, when Kamala Harris was announced as VP, all they talk about is how she will contribute to the black vote. This makes it seem as she was only chosen because of her race, and even worse: it's an insult to black people, grouping them together as having one opinion. I don't know why there's no backlash…

I'm European myself. I don't think we can compare Europe with the US. Due to centuries of slavery and then segregation, black and white communities are still somewhat separate and tend to have different cultures etc. Of course, individually, there are many examples of people who are "in between", but the cultural blocs do exist.

And by the way - in Belgium, parties have to pander to the French or the Dutch voters; in Switzerland, the different language regions have different voting behaviour; in Germany, east Germany votes significantly differently, as does Bavaria; and so on. Voter blocs are not something exclusive to the US, even if the history of the black population doesn't have a direct parallel in Europe.

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#18

Post by aklemm »

Joker_vD wrote: post #5

> the concept of ‘race’ is scientifically and socially unsupportable. Just like the concept of "culture". See https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/12/does-race-exist-does-c... , here's the kicker: "There were two arguments against race being a real concept: it didn’t cluster nicely, and within-group variation was greater than between group variation. And both of these are equally true of culture. Any mathematical argum…

Except that culture is escapable, changeable. Race isn’t. So what is your point exactly?

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#19

Post by cuillevel3 »

As a German I always feel offended, when American sign-up forms (conferences and such) ask for my 'race'. Are they asking for my migrant background? Asking for race is just so Nazi, what should I put there, "Herrenrasse", "Fremdrasse", ...?

There are no different human races.

Post reply on HN