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‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

theguardian.com

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Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#231

Post by waffle_ss »

Miner49er wrote: post #138
cabraca wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know those diversity sessions... They claim everyone who is white or passing as white is racist. I had to "confess" that i'm racist and promise to do better or it would have consequences for my career. Sidenote: I volunteer at a refugee center and took in a syrian family. Literally hitler, i know. A colleague got fired because he wouldn't confess and left the session. So even if that Dean said he is a racist, he's…

Well that's the thing. These diversity training people do use a different definition of racism then what you are thinking of. The diversity training definition of racism doesn't simply mean prejudiced, it means a part of a system of power that benefits people considered "white" at the expense of others. By that definition, most white people are probably "racist". If you understand the context used when they call them…

> "I'm white, and I recognize that society treats me a little bit better cause of that".

That's a complete crock. East Asians top the charts in income by ethnicity, college admissions, and have the lowest rates of criminality. For a supposed system created to benefit white people it sure is doing an awful job of it.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#232

Post by Miner49er »

cabraca wrote: post #224
Miner49er wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be better if there was more understanding of what people were talking about when they said "racism". I personally think that this definition of "racism", is more useful, but it clearly causes misunderstanding. I personally don't think individual racists are that big of a deal anymore. Systemic racism is much more harmful. I even think that a little bit of the prejudice-type racism can help people ove…

Could you give me an example what constitutes systemic racism from your point of view?

It's just systemic things that end up, on large scale, hurting minorities more. For example, the judicial and prison system. Black people aren't incarcerated at such a high rate [1] because the judicial system and the police are full of KKK members or anything. It's due to a bunch of systemic problems and America's history of racism and slavery. It's a result of when America was clearly straight-forwardly racist. Like when black people couldn't buy houses in white neighborhoods. Now they have on average 10x less wealth than the average white family [2] and have access to worse schools, etc. This of course will lead more black people to turn to crime, because they have less good options, because they are on average, poorer and less educated. All the old laws and our history going back to slavery still has effects today that are compounding and allow the problem to continue to exist.

[1] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/raceinc.html

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/racial-wealth-gap-costs-economy...

[3] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-...

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#233

Post by cmdshiftf4 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #42
cabraca wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know those diversity sessions... They claim everyone who is white or passing as white is racist. I had to "confess" that i'm racist and promise to do better or it would have consequences for my career. Sidenote: I volunteer at a refugee center and took in a syrian family. Literally hitler, i know. A colleague got fired because he wouldn't confess and left the session. So even if that Dean said he is a racist, he's…

Is there any real proof that these diversity sessions actually help people work in diverse environments? The way you describe this, it reads like a really, really weird cargo cult where just confessing to one's supposed racism will somehow make you more open to people of differing backgrounds. How exactly does this help?

>Is there any real proof that these diversity sessions actually help people work in diverse environments?

I read a study a while back, which I can't find right now, that concluded that these sessions do more harm than good in the workplace.

One study I could find, which might be of relevant interest, is that diverse workplaces are far less likely to come together and organize in terms of unions or worker rights[0], which might go some way to back up the suspicion this whole shitshow we've been submerged into is merely a big-money attempt to turn normal people against one another by provoking racial tensions to prevent them from becoming class conscious and instigating a movement like Occupy Wall Street again.

>How exactly does this help?

It doesn't. The entire purpose of it is ritual humiliation.

[0]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019793915602253

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#234

Post by snowwrestler »

zozbot234 wrote: post #42
cabraca wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know those diversity sessions... They claim everyone who is white or passing as white is racist. I had to "confess" that i'm racist and promise to do better or it would have consequences for my career. Sidenote: I volunteer at a refugee center and took in a syrian family. Literally hitler, i know. A colleague got fired because he wouldn't confess and left the session. So even if that Dean said he is a racist, he's…

Is there any real proof that these diversity sessions actually help people work in diverse environments? The way you describe this, it reads like a really, really weird cargo cult where just confessing to one's supposed racism will somehow make you more open to people of differing backgrounds. How exactly does this help?

Not yet, but these are still pretty new to corporate environments. I've been in "harassment prevention" training sessions for years, but only within the last year sat through my first "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) training. (It was not an inquisition; quite helpful in the opinion of this middle aged white guy.)

There is research that shows that companies with diverse leadership and staff financially outperform the average. See for example:

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inc...

The problem is, no one knows for sure how to take an existing corporate culture with low diversity, and transform it to one with higher diversity and higher performance. Cultures can be extremely resistant to change.

DEI trainings are just the latest attempt to find something that works. It will take a few years to see if they do.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#236

Post by pegasus »

Miner49er wrote: post #201
cabraca wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you agree that this definition is biased and we shouldn't use it?

I think it would be better if there was more understanding of what people were talking about when they said "racism". I personally think that this definition of "racism", is more useful, but it clearly causes misunderstanding. I personally don't think individual racists are that big of a deal anymore. Systemic racism is much more harmful. I even think that a little bit of the prejudice-type racism can help people ove…

Of course it causes misunderstanding (and so is not useful after all), because "racism" simply means something else. Use the word "complicit" maybe, but redefining words at a whim is counterproductive. Dangerous even, in the case of highly charged words like this one.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#237

Post by specialist »

wombatmobile wrote: post #175
rmrfstar wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Orwell's Oceania, the inner and outer party made up around 10% of the population. Minitrue was a small subset of that apparatus, and developed such wonderful products as "the two minutes hate". It's not like we weren't warned.

Neil Postman wrote in 1985: “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism." "Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley fe…

Neil Postman's books influenced me tremendously.

I've been rereading McLuhan, Postman, Huxley, etc.

Manufacturing Consent is the most directly applicable to understanding social media. With at least two updates to the thesis.

#1

The outrage machine is fueled by advertising, right? What's new is the motivating control (choice) moved from the advertiser's intent to the algorithmic recommenders.

#2

Third parties learned to effectively manipulate the algorithmic recommenders. So whereas before the gatekeepers acted as a great filter, third parties are now able to command attention and drive narratives.

--

Forgive me for stumbling over my descriptions. I'm just now trying to write out my notions. And I don't think any of this is "new". Just that with the new medium upsetting the old constraints and balances, different parts of the ecosystem are more impactful.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#239

Post by dugmartin »

clydethefrog wrote: post #225

Reminds me of the research NPR did before closing their comments section. >In July, NPR.org recorded nearly 33 million unique users, and 491,000 comments. But those comments came from just 19,400 commenters, Montgomery said. That's 0.06 percent of users who are commenting, a number that has stayed steady through 2016. https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2016/08/17/4895169...

That pretty well matches the 90-9-1 rule:

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/participation-inequality/

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#240

Post by offtop5 »

This is why it's impossible to have a nuance discussion online.

The vast majority of people who heavily use social media, are much more likely to have much stronger beliefs one way or another than people who don't.

I even have a theory much of this is driven by social isolation, mostly young men with nothing better to do. So these young men go on tirades about how the Last of Us Two is a feminist plot to destroy masculinity or something stupid like that.

Normally if you have stuff going on you won't waste your time being angry about a piece of media. Society is going to need to find a path for these left over men, self worth shouldn't be tied into your income after all.

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