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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

#631

Post by M2Ys4U »

kofejnik wrote: post #316
M2Ys4U wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No. I reject this. No matter how many times you or others tell me that I’m racist and can’t help it, and if I just pray... I mean take enough sanctioned training courses it’ll go away I will not partake. Period. Nobody is racist until proven otherwise, or racist until they’ve taken enough unconscious bias training courses. That’s something you and others are making up to deal with your own insecurities and racism. B…

> Everyone has biases and prejudices. Everyone. Yes, that includes you. Everyone is a sinner (not the Pope, tho). Yes, that includes you! Go confess and do your penance

Congratulations for completely missing the point of my comment. Please go back and read it in good faith.

It's _not_ a value judgement. People aren't evil for having biases. They're not sinners because they do, and they don't have to do penance.

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

#632

Post by taxcoder »

ardy42 wrote: post #553
taxcoder wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give some examples of societies that are more equal and how they are?

> Could you give some examples of societies that are more equal and how they are? Why? That has nothing to do with my point. Even if the US was in fact the most equal society to ever exist, it's indisputable that it still has significant inequality, which was the starting point of my comment.

There are people who disagree with this point

> it's indisputable that it still has significant inequality

I was trying to understand where you were coming from and giving you the opportunity to change my mind.

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

#633

Post by UncleMeat »

hitekker wrote: post #607
UncleMeat wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably, TJ isn't a college. And a full 12% of surveyed people in the article you cite think that testing should play no role in college admissions. It 12% is below the bar for "extreme" then a tremendous number of beliefs that are common among the tech crowd should be labeled as "extreme". I think you are using a rhetorical trick to retreat. I'm not coming for your children.

Separately from the admissions testing debate: what is your view on the "gatekeepers of white supremacy" and the assorted "I am a racist" declarations?

I don't believe that you believe that this is actually separate. Why else would my opinion matter here?

I know very little about HR departments and bias training. I do know a lot of academics who study race in fields like history and sociology and I do know that people scream at some of them and call them anti-white even though their scholarship is very rigorous. So I would expect there to be a range of quality among bias training and that both high and low quality bias training causes certain groups of people to lash out. But I also have basically no information here.

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

#634

Post by UncleMeat »

barry-cotter wrote: post #598
UncleMeat wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you led with people like me as example of extremism in modern discourse. What makes me not an extremist but my peers extremists? It is true that we probably have somewhat different values. I don't personally value TJ having some high rating as decided by magazines and would happily sacrifice scores if I believed it was possible to better provide education to gifted students across Fairfax County. And I do believe…

If you read what I wrote you will not find the word extremist anywhere. I didn’t say you you intend to sabotage quality education. I said you were against excellence. Turning a gifted school into a normal one will in practice be the end of academic acceleration. There’s no reason to believe getting rid of an option for the gifted will benefit anyone. If you have any examples to the contrary please share. Academic acc…

> If you read what I wrote you will not find the word extremist anywhere.

I missed that you were a different poster than the one I responded to.

> I didn’t say you you intend to sabotage quality education. I said you were against excellence. Turning a gifted school into a normal one will in practice be the end of academic acceleration.

But it isn't turning a gifted school into a normal one. The proposal still requires accelerated math background, high test scores, and recommendations from administrators. The teachers will remain strong. The proposal isn't a raw lottery among all FCPS students. The proposal isn't cutting funding for the astronomy lab. The option for the gifted won't vanish. The same population of people will be able to apply to TJ.

I am not "against excellence". I do value other things in different ratios, perhaps. If somebody told me that the average AP scores at TJ would go down by 0.2 points and the school would have a population of free-and-reduced-lunch kids that matched the general population of FCPS, I'd say that was a good trade. I may value "excellence" less than you (for some definition of excellence) but I don't oppose it.

I also believe that TJ's test focus (and AP focus) leads to a suboptimal pedagogy. Look at how 8th period has changed over the last several decades. Gone are the opportunities for wild experimentation and creativity outside of the norm. I believe that students are being forced into boxes at TJ and that eliminating the test will make it more clear that TJ can better serve its students with a wider set of opportunities for its kids.

I know a fair number of alumni who wouldn't encourage their kids to attend TJ because the "excellence" it provides is so limited in scope. Students can feasibly be exposed to better curricula in IB and to wider ranges of human experiences at accelerated programs within base schools. I don't know if I fully agree, but the fact that very smart, successful, and educate people can look at TJ and say "I do not agree that this is a pinnacle of excellence" should make us all step back and understand that we don't agree on what excellence means.

You did also use the phrase "support destroying..." when describing me and my beliefs. I think that "sabotage" is a reasonable match to that.

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

#635

Post by gogopuppygogo »

another-dave wrote: post #56

I think the main culprit exacerbating this is the main stream media. "Vox pops" have formed part of filling air-time or column inches for a long while, but this is largely replaced now by journalists looking at Twitter and either a) using that as a stand-in for 'this is what the public think' or b) making it the story itself. Social media is no longer just "second screen" below-the-line commenting on events, it's hel…

Alexander Hamilton founded the post. It wasn’t always this way.

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

#636

Post by readarticle »

dragonwriter wrote: post #619
readarticle wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And without even looking I can guarantee you the biggest percentage is Hispanic, not that far away from 27%, and heavily outweighing Asian and black figures that are once again combined under 20% alongside immigration flows from LA that have remained static for 20 years. It isn’t white vs minorities, it’s white “vs” a roughly equally sized Hispanic population in a few states that are already being consolidated becaus…

> And without even looking I can guarantee you the biggest percentage is Hispanic, not that far away from 27% I dunno, 20 percentage points higher makes a pretty loose definition of "not far away".

That’s indeed further than I thought, but only 6 points larger than the difference between white and Asian, and 4 points smaller than white - black.

Texas meanwhile with a 13 point difference but 22.5 between white and black, the next closest.

According to 2014-2016 March of Dimes data anyways

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

#637

Post by DontTellAnyone »

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?

The goal isn't really to "help people work in diverse environments". That's just a euphemism. What it really is, is a power grab to push white men out and people of color and ironically also white women in (who can always fall back on their gender to acclaim victim status and oppression).

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

#638

Post by shadowgovt »

Chris2048 wrote: post #628
shadowgovt wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only public humiliation if people perceive it to be public humiliation. what's humiliating about having the same problem that basically everyone does?

That's a funny stance given the context in which the material was introduced: as evidence that powerful people are racist "by their own admission". Doesn't sound like the no-big-deal definition of racism they might have thought they were confessing to. It also suggests it's up to session-organisers to decide what justifiably humiliates a person.

Humiliation is in the eye of the beholder. I don't see them as humiliated. They don't appear to think they are humiliated.

Perhaps it's just not humiliating.

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

#639

Post by crazygringo »

throwaway2245 wrote: post #529
crazygringo wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not how centrism is defined. Centrist public opinion is very different from the status quo, and this is a hugely important distinction to make. The status quo is set mainly by elites who have a vested interest in their own wealth and power. The "center" of public opinion, when you actually survey people in detail on the preferences they hold, does not match particularly well with government policy in the U…

>Centrist public opinion is very different from the status quo The centre of public opinion might be different from the status quo, I don't want to argue about that here. I was doubting that people who identify as 'centrist' usually hold the 'centre of public opinion'; I think they are more likely to hold a significantly right-wing opinion on most issues.

I'm very curious, based on what data?

I don't believe I've come across that hypothesis before in any of the literature or surveys. Do you have something you can cite? I'd love to see it.

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

#640

Post by Chris2048 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #638
Chris2048 wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a funny stance given the context in which the material was introduced: as evidence that powerful people are racist "by their own admission". Doesn't sound like the no-big-deal definition of racism they might have thought they were confessing to. It also suggests it's up to session-organisers to decide what justifiably humiliates a person.

Humiliation is in the eye of the beholder. I don't see them as humiliated. They don't appear to think they are humiliated. Perhaps it's just not humiliating.

> They don't appear to think they are humiliated

How do you know? It doesn't sound like the kind of session where honest (dissenting) exchange is encouraged.

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