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On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality

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Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality

#231

Post by stcredzero »

throwawayjava wrote: post #227
stcredzero wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern left-wing view of racism is as a systematic, structural power relationship between races So in other words, it's pretty much Marxism. Just s/races/classes/.

You'd need a damn broad definition of Marxism for that to make much sense. Economy and class are so central the Marx's philosophy that saying "Just s/ /class" doesn't make any sense. You can't just go into Capital and s/ /class and end up with anything that makes any sense. The entire analysis needs restructuring. At some point, if Marxism is defined that way, you might as well just call any materialist philosophy "b…

You'd need a damn broad definition of Marxism for that to make much sense.

You have groups vying for power, with one group systemically oppressing another, and the morality of the situation adjudicated at that granulatiry. How does that not work? Can you reply with a specific?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjNJX64cBOE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRVhsNX5Ao

Tangentially, I've seen a lot of "so basically (cultural) Marxism" type comments lately about anything and everything left-leaning in the US. Something memetic is going on there.

The memes (in the academic Richard Dawkins sense) which stick around are often the ones which have the strength of truth behind them.

Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality

#232

Post by exelius »

closeparen wrote: post #118
Veelox wrote: post #61

I grew up in the Midwest and moved to Silicon Valley. I think that people here don't understand what this author describes as "Midwestern history is a study in racial quarantine." I would go as far as to say that racial is the wrong word to describe what happens in the Midwest. I think that communities in the Midwest have tighter cultural restrictions on what it means to be "one of us." This can be affected by where…

The modern left-wing view of racism is as a systematic, structural power relationship between races. Individual decisions branching on skin color is neither necessary nor sufficient to get there, although it can and historically has contributed. For example, divesting from your neighborhood out of concern for your property value when PoC start to move in does not necessarily reflect an individual racial bias. It coul…

Agree with this.

My personal way of saying this is "we all do racist things, but very few of us are racist." Very often the most pragmatic choice in a situation also happens to be racist. Just own the racist things you do, and try to change the world for the better so you are no longer pushed into doing racist things.

Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality

#233

Post by colechristensen »

evanlivingston wrote: post #197
colechristensen wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're missing is that growing up there simply _weren't_ people outside my community/culture. It was much less about systematic racism and much more about who chose to immigrate to specific regions in the late 19th century. What you're talking about are things that happened in larger cities, but that's not the whole world and that doesn't match the history of much of the midwest. The parent was right, if there i…

My point is that there is a reason there weren't people outside of your community/culture. Looks at maps used for redlining https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=5/37.510/-9... and tell me you don't see a concentration of them in the midwest. These policies were effective during a timeline that would strongly influence and limit the diversity you saw growing up. Cultural conditions created an environment t…

Redlining is a characteristic of cities. I'm not talking about cities, I didn't grow up anywhere near one. People keep beating this racism topic and can't seem to fathom something which shouldn't be surprising – there was very little desire for migration to rural upper midwestern farming communities outside of European immigrants from farming communities of similar climate.

When non-whites did migrate to the area they did so to cities to find work and they weren't always met warmly or treated fairly, but those cities were a world away from the culture and environment of my youth.

Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality

#234

Post by rhcom2 »

[deleted] wrote: post #167
rhcom2 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impact is the important part of racism, not intent. You can have the best intentions and still be racist.

[deleted]

Tornados can't have beliefs nor do they target specific neighborhoods because of the people that live there obviously. Separate but equal schooling had good intentions, doesn't make the impact less racist.

Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality

#235

Post by zanny »

sp332 wrote: post #42
humanrebar wrote: post #6

> ...humility is one of those words, like authenticity or (lately) resistance, that serves mainly to advertise the absence of the thing named... Humility is having a realistic view of your own abilities and worth while being OK with it. It's not a vacuum of self-worth or something. We have other words for that. To illustrate, it's not humble for LeBron James to say he's bad at basketball. It would be humble for him t…

I think it just meant that someone who claims to be humble is probably bragging. Not that no one is humble.

A humblebrag! https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=humblebrag

Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality

#236

Post by colechristensen »

maxerickson wrote: post #223
colechristensen wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which I am sure is true for some places, but not all. The census count for "black" in my county in 1920 and 1900 was 5. Not 5%, 5. It was 99.97% white. It's a fact that people seem to have quite some trouble with. Much of the midwest is nearly entirely white (and at that a pretty narrow subset of northern europeans) because only a small set of people had any interest in settling there.

What about 1990?

10.

The white population was "down" to 98.9%

Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality

#237

Post by throwawayjava »

stcredzero wrote: post #231
throwawayjava wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need a damn broad definition of Marxism for that to make much sense. Economy and class are so central the Marx's philosophy that saying "Just s/ /class" doesn't make any sense. You can't just go into Capital and s/ /class and end up with anything that makes any sense. The entire analysis needs restructuring. At some point, if Marxism is defined that way, you might as well just call any materialist philosophy "b…

You'd need a damn broad definition of Marxism for that to make much sense. You have groups vying for power, with one group systemically oppressing another, and the morality of the situation adjudicated at that granulatiry. How does that not work? Can you reply with a specific? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjNJX64cBOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRVhsNX5Ao Tangentially, I've seen a lot of "so basically (cultur…

> You have groups vying for power, with one group systemically oppressing another, and the morality of the situation adjudicated at that granulatiry

You've just described thousands of years of history prior to Marx and hundreds of years of history after Marx across every single axis of the political spectrum.

This is more a description of "effective political messaging" than a description of "Marxism".

Has there ever been a great politician -- good or evil -- who didn't believe they had the weight of morality on their side? Who didn't tap into feelings of oppression, real or perceived?

Even Hitler cast his politics in terms of an oppressed people with a moral right to rise up. And if Mein Kampf is Marxist then you've got one hell of a definition of Marxism.

> The memes (in the academic Richard Dawkins sense) which stick around are often the ones which have the strength of truth behind them.

Well, anything popular taps into some truth, usually about the audience with whom the popular thing resonates.

But tapping into some truth and actually being true are two very different things.

Interpreted any other way, your claim is silly. Mutually exclusive ideas achieve this sort of memetic status (with different subpopulations) all the time.

Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality

#238

Post by rhcom2 »

[deleted] wrote: post #201
grasshopperpurp wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you're a nice, white mother in the 1950s, and the subject of desegregation comes up. You have no problem with black people, but you don't think the disruption would be good for your daughter's educational experience, so you favor maintaining segregation. You can say, 'I'm not racist. I'm just thinking of my daughter,' but guess what? The Poc negatively impacted by your stance don't give two shits, and they should…

[deleted]

Can't you continue that line of thinking to include, "I have no problem with black people but slavery is my family's means of economic security, I'm not being racist, just selfish"?

Just because the people in these examples claim they aren't motivated by racism doesn't mean they aren't (at least partly) motivated by racism, maybe even unconsciously.

If I care about the suffering of my own race, but not those people over there because they're a different race - that's discrimination. That's my point about intent, the mother may feel she is just "indifferent" but the impact is certainly racist.

Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality

#239

Post by jackhack »

jdonaldson wrote: post #103
aaron-lebo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks from those areas really want the economic growth from a new HQ, and were quick to point out progressive changes that happened in their city. They would never talk about those progressive changes in a positive light if big tech were not moving to their neighborhood. In a wider context you are probably correct, but it's worth pointing out that the urban areas in the South are pretty damn progressive.

I would agree with that, and folks from those areas probably take more grief from their neighbors than what we deal with.

Chapel Hill, NC... Atlanta, GA... Austin, TX... New York City,NY

Yes, are all despised by their rural neighbors. And vice-versa. But the bias is bidirectional: Those in the cities look at the rural folks with just as much contempt and disgust as those folks in the country look at the cities. Perhaps more.

Re: On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality

#240

Post by gamechangr »

I grew up in the Midwest (Kansas City) .The first problem is no one knows who is being described.

"Midwestern" - It's a term used by the media. They tell us it includes Oklahoma and North Dakota (which are insanely different?). It's supposed to include Chicago, Milwaukee, Omaha, and Topeka?

Half of the West coast thinks "midwest" includes the South?

They need a new term....badly.

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