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John McWhorter: The Neoracists

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Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#231

Post by belorn »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #34

Religion has no place in the classroom, in the halls of ivy, in our codes of ethics, or in deciding how we express ourselves, and almost all of us spontaneously understand that and see any misunderstanding of the premise as backward. Yet since about 2015, a peculiar contingent has been slowly headlocking us into making an exception, supposing that this new religion is so incontestably good, so gorgeously surpassing m…

From where I live (EU), I strongly disagree with that analysis. Anti-religious people tend to mostly be people who perceive religion as any other personal opinion and perspective of the world. The European declaration of Human rights come to mind, which also make it clear that religion hold no special distinction over a personal opinion.

The rejection of religion as something special that should handled outside of common rules and laws is just that, a rejection. A religious school in my view is no better than one segregated by race, and a religious leader that is talking about believers and unbelievers is no different if they had picked the two groups based on race.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#232

Post by leereeves »

leereeves wrote: post #204
thisiscorrect wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

In the view of the "NeoRacists", it's not a racial slur, it's opposition to: > The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people. White people are racist by default unless they accept that paradigm and try (hopelessly) to atone for that history. https://www.adl.org/racism

Replying to my own comment because it's too late to edit and I think I should clarify that I don't believe this myself; I'm more inclined to agree that "racist" is indeed a racial slur.

This is merely an attempt to understand their point of view. For those who believe that America is fundamentally built on structural racism, "a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people", as they claim, then it might seem reasonable to accuse every white person who accepts the status quo of being racist.

Much as it might seem reasonable to call everyone who's just trying to operate a business in America a capitalist, even if they have no strong opinions on political or economic systems and are just trying to sell food.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#233

Post by tanseydavid »

dragonwriter wrote: post #170
ceilingcorner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn’t intending to stereotype Protestants at all. But I think it’s not a controversial thing to say that American Protestantism in particular has some very unique aspects, especially in comparison to say, German Protestantism. Just off the top of my head, Puritanism, Prosperity theology, and Mormonism all strike me as very American phenomena. If you look at them from a certain angle, the first two have nearly iden…

> Just off the top of my head, Puritanism, Prosperity theology, and Mormonism all strike me as very American phenomena. Puritanism obviously isn't particularly American (nor is it a thing anymore in any coherent, nonmetaphorical sense), Prosperity theology isn't broadly characteristic of American Protestantism (though, yes, it's origin is within American Protestantism and it is more common within American Protestanti…

Why would Puritanism need to be a 'thing' anymore for the previous post to make sense?

It is not a necessary condition for the comparison that is being made.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#234

Post by dragonwriter »

tanseydavid wrote: post #233
dragonwriter wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just off the top of my head, Puritanism, Prosperity theology, and Mormonism all strike me as very American phenomena. Puritanism obviously isn't particularly American (nor is it a thing anymore in any coherent, nonmetaphorical sense), Prosperity theology isn't broadly characteristic of American Protestantism (though, yes, it's origin is within American Protestantism and it is more common within American Protestanti…

Why would Puritanism need to be a 'thing' anymore for the previous post to make sense? It is not a necessary condition for the comparison that is being made.

> Why would Puritanism need to be a 'thing' anymore for the previous post to make sense?

It would need to be a currently existing, non-belief, unifying feature of American Protestantism for it to be a rebuttal of the argument that saying that another thing was like American Protestantism except for the content of beliefs is meaningless because American Protestantism is a diverse community united only by a set of shared beliefs.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#235

Post by tanseydavid »

dragonwriter wrote: post #216
wilsocr88 wrote: post #41

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-b…

> 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. To the extent the hypothetical condition here describes something that actually happened anywhere recently and not a pure counterfactual irrelevancy, I think it's pretty clearly not true, because no recent generation…

>> I think it's pretty clearly not true, because no recent generation of “young men” has been more effectively manufactured into an army of racist than has ever occurred by any other means.

This is an astonishing claim, the likes of which I have not heard before. Could you elaborate on this please?

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#237

Post by defen »

pseudalopex wrote: post #222
defen wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 5. Show interest in multiculturalism. But do not culturally appropriate. > Oh come on. All people ask is things like: don't do blackface, it's dumb. Like dressing up as an SS. Fully legal, as it should be, but really dumb. I saw this document[1] making the rounds on twitter recently. Do you think the proposals in the document are good ones that all people should adhere to, or do you think they are completely ridic…

Making the rounds could mean endorsing it or ridiculing it. Or anything in between. Why does this document even matter?

The people who I saw sharing it were definitely serious about it and not ridiculing it.

> Why does this document even matter?

There is a massive discussion thread here, with multiple people saying "No one believes ; it's really about ". As in, "no one believes using a 100 emoji is cultural appropriation; people are just saying don't wear blackface". But every single bit of evidence (which includes things like best-selling books, essays in the prestige press, statements by government officials, etc) is dismissed as not real evidence that a substantial number of people believe something.

I suppose it's not something that can be resolved by Internet argumentation, only time. In a couple years we'll know whether this document is indeed ridiculous, or whether it's obvious that non-Black people should not use AAVE slang online.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#238

Post by tanseydavid »

dragonwriter wrote: post #213
thisiscorrect wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it naive or calculating to look for coherence in a world-view?

> Why is it naive or calculating to look for coherence in a world-view? It's naive or calculating to take carefully selected elements from the disparate positions of different people in a diverse group as a “world-view”, much less to demand that that faked-up strawman of worldview be held to a standard of internal consistency.

The inconsistent positions enumerated in the McWhorter piece should not be taken as disparate positions of different people.

To claim that it is seems to amount to arguing in bad faith.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#239

Post by dragonwriter »

tanseydavid wrote: post #235
dragonwriter wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. To the extent the hypothetical condition here describes something that actually happened anywhere recently and not a pure counterfactual irrelevancy, I think it's pretty clearly not true, because no recent generation…

>> I think it's pretty clearly not true, because no recent generation of “young men” has been more effectively manufactured into an army of racist than has ever occurred by any other means. This is an astonishing claim, the likes of which I have not heard before. Could you elaborate on this please?

I'll turn it around: please provide some reason to believe that some recent generation of American young men has been more effectively manufactured into an army of racists than has ever occurred at any time or place in the past, excluding other times where the mechanism was the same kind of “treating an entire generation of young men as though they are automatically racist” as has supposedly occurred sometime recently in our history.

Re: John McWhorter: The Neoracists

#240

Post by dragonwriter »

tanseydavid wrote: post #238
dragonwriter wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it naive or calculating to look for coherence in a world-view? It's naive or calculating to take carefully selected elements from the disparate positions of different people in a diverse group as a “world-view”, much less to demand that that faked-up strawman of worldview be held to a standard of internal consistency.

The inconsistent positions enumerated in the McWhorter piece should not be taken as disparate positions of different people. To claim that it is seems to amount to arguing in bad faith.

> The inconsistent positions enumerated in the McWhorter piece should not be taken as disparate positions of different people.

In the case where both views presented exist at all, I see no evidence (and McWhorter certainly presents none) that, outside of two where there is no internal conflict in the first place, they exist in any significnace other than as as disparate positions of different people.

Given that, why would I take them as anything else?

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