The angle nobody ever mentions on this issue is that nothing mass-produces racism and extremist political views more than treating an entire generation of young men as though they are automatically racist, regardless of their actions, or lack of action. Most people under 40 right now were raised to be completely ready to forget about race and treat it like a non-issue. In response, a lot of well-intentioned and non-bigoted young whites have been called "racist" as little more than a bludgeoning word. It, ironically, has the strong stink of a racial slur when it is flung at one's feet in this way.
John McWhorter: The Neoracists
41–50 of 261 posts
Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists
#42It is important to note that this article was written by a black man, a contributing editor to The Atlantic. John McWhorter is not a MAGA hack. That being said... This article is the very definition of a straw man. Absolutely no one subscribes to the position it critiques. On the other hand, a fair number of people (including myself) subscribe to the position that, although things are not nearly as bad as they have b…
The lower classes fight amongst themselves, while the establishment gets richer every second. Ask yourself why you even think about these trivial issues like who is racist? Ask yourself why the establishment media doesn’t talk about who owns and controls the vast wealth in this country? Which has more impact and can benefit people of all races.
The British pulled the same trick in India for centuries. Turns out that it’s easier to rule a nation when you put its citizens against each other.
Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists
#43I'd recommend reading Ibram X. Kendi's counter to another piece by McWorther which demonstrates similar straw man rhetoric (pointed out by lisper) as this piece: agglomerating disparate positions from hundreds of people and pointing to a lack of internal consistency in such disparate points of view. Well yeah, if you assemble myriad opinions about racism in society in a long list, many of them won't be coherent. It's…
Why is it naive or calculating to look for coherence in a world-view?
Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Absolutely no one subscribes to the position it critiques. Have you been on Twitter or a college campus lately? There absolutely are people who believe those things to their core. I have spoken to many people who subscribe to those positions both online and off. I am not saying we should throw the baby out with the bathwater but disregarding the extremists in the anti-racism movement is just burying your head in th…
> Have you been on Twitter or a college campus lately? No. I live in a bubble. And no, I am not being facetious. I really have not been to a college campus for a long time, and I really don't read Twitter. Nonetheless... > There absolutely are people who believe those things to their core. I have a very hard time believing this. Can you point me to some evidence on the record that is longer than 140 characters?
Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists
#45Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely statistics might help us resolve to what extent things like public torture and killing of black people by authorities is a problem (as distinct from police brutality against all people generally). What do the statistics say? Edit: This comment went from +7 to -1 in a matter of a page refresh. HN should be cognizant of brigading on threads like this. But moreso, the people doing it should also ask themselves wh…
They say that black people are killed by police in disproportionate numbers, and are incarcerated in similarly disproportionate numbers. https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/
I'm not sure that page shows what you want it to. It doesn't seem to account for the demographic distribution of people being caught committing crimes to begin with.
Here's a thread with numbers from 2019 claiming blacks are actually killed less:
https://mobile.twitter.com/LeonydusJohnson/status/1267466345...
Here's a famous (now notorious) article from nytimes claiming there is no racial disparity when it comes to police shootings:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/police-killings-of...
Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists
#47It is important to note that this article was written by a black man, a contributing editor to The Atlantic. John McWhorter is not a MAGA hack. That being said... This article is the very definition of a straw man. Absolutely no one subscribes to the position it critiques. On the other hand, a fair number of people (including myself) subscribe to the position that, although things are not nearly as bad as they have b…
His arguments read exactly the same as Clarence Thomas’ on race and African Americans - to paraphrase a recent biography “that life is too easy for them and we are coddling them”.
Can you provide a few McWhorter quotes to that effect? Thanks!
Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists
#48It is important to note that this article was written by a black man, a contributing editor to The Atlantic. John McWhorter is not a MAGA hack. That being said... This article is the very definition of a straw man. Absolutely no one subscribes to the position it critiques. On the other hand, a fair number of people (including myself) subscribe to the position that, although things are not nearly as bad as they have b…
> But we have not yet solved fully solved it, and anyone who says that we have, particularly when they say it in such a condescending way, is part of the problem. I just finished reading this article in its entirety, and I think I might’ve missed this part. My impression was that the author is describing a proselytizing ideology that happens to be based on skin color and draws legitimacy from historical perfidies. Ac…
Yes, I read the whole article. And yes, I agree that "Actual progress on racism [is] orthogonal to what the author was talking about." But that's not what I'm critiquing. I'm critiquing his premise, that this thing he calls "third wave anti-racism" and whose characteristics he describes in his ten-point characterization is actually representative of the views of people who are concerned about racism today. I don't believe they are. They are certainly not representative of my views or of anyone I know. And he doesn't actually cite any sources. He just states it as if all this were common knowledge and beyond reasonable dispute.
Well, I dispute it.
Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists
#49The angle nobody ever mentions on this issue is that nothing mass-produces racism and extremist political views more than treating an entire generation of young men as though they are automatically racist, regardless of their actions, or lack of action. Most people under 40 right now were raised to be completely ready to forget about race and treat it like a non-issue. In response, a lot of well-intentioned and non-b…
"It, ironically, has the strong stink of a racial slur when it is flung at one's feet in this way."
That's because it is used as a slur, a powerful one which can end careers, almost exclusively against members of a single racial group. If that's not a racial slur, then what is?
Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists
#50When I read Hacker News I want to see inspiring articles about tech, not these puerile, low-T debates about "racism in America". God, I'm glad I'm not American. What a pathetic country it has become really. I can smell its stench from the other side of the Atlantic.
Low T? What is that?
A bunch of idiots (mostly seems to come from the alt-right side, see also some men's rights groups and "red pill" content) have determined that testosterone levels correspond to political views and the value of the male person. High T individuals, according to them, are near universally conservative, low T individuals are liberal. Part of the thought (and helps to exhibit the idiocy) is that women are liberal, women have lower testosterone than men, therefore low testosterone is the reason some men have betrayed the rest of men by being liberal. It's best to ignore these morons.