Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'
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Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'
#2The other story about this fellow where his contract was accidentally terminated or not renewed (linked to from this article) is just about as Kafkaesque as you can get:
Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'
#3This is a bit of an aside, but...
What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves.
I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude things. I'd probably end up affiliating with other Anglophones because we'd all be going through the same journey.
Expecting people to completely suppress this tendency towards in-group affiliation seems, frankly, unscientific. Most of the popular proposals aimed at "eliminating racism" seem likely to fail, or even backfire, because they treat racism like it's something evil people do rather than a byproduct of our tendency to connect more easily to people like us.
Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'
#4This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…
I don't know if this is an ungenerous reading of what you are saying or not but that sounded vaguely like racism is a fact of life and we should just deal with it.
Am I misreading you on that? If not, what kind of approaches do you think would be more appropriate?
Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'
#5This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…
I don't see these two ideas as mutually exclusive. While putting aside our tribal nature seems unlikely, it seems realistic to think we could do something that would let most people stop considering race when deciding which "tribe" someone may belong to. You see this difference as well, which is why you based your example of reasonable tribal behavior on someone's actions/experiences rather than their skin color. It make sense to have tribal affiliations with other people that speak the same language as you do, it doesn't make sense to exclude someone from your tribe just because their skin is a different color.
Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'
#6This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…
I feel the same way. I had a coworker who believed that racism was a personal choice, like stealing, and that you could eliminate it by creating harsher laws to punish people who did or said anything racist.
Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'
#7This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…
Sorry that's ridiculous, if your in group affiliation excludes others its a huge problem with your group. Equating it to a language is also awful being exclusive on the grounds of sexuality, race and gender is a deliberate choice that people make. If your culture is lacking in diversity seek it out you'll never know what problems you can solve by adding to your view point.
Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'
#8This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…
I feel the same way. I had a coworker who believed that racism was a personal choice, like stealing, and that you could eliminate it by creating harsher laws to punish people who did or said anything racist.
Can you explain how racism isn't a personal choice?
Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'
#9This is a bit of an aside, but... What I think is getting obscured in all of the overheated rhetoric about race is the fact that all humans want a tribe. We want to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves. I'm Canadian, but I can imagine if I were to move to France to learn French it would be similar. Many people would be welcoming, but some might be impatient with my shitty French and say/do rude thi…
I don't see these two ideas as mutually exclusive. While putting aside our tribal nature seems unlikely, it seems realistic to think we could do something that would let most people stop considering race when deciding which "tribe" someone may belong to. You see this difference as well, which is why you based your example of reasonable tribal behavior on someone's actions/experiences rather than their skin color. It…
So, off the top of my head two other kinds of in-group identity that have worked in the past are nationalism and religion.
It seems those ideas aren’t so in favor right now, so how do we construct a sense of belonging that is truly positive?
Re: Viewpoint: 'I feel like I was accidentally hired'
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel the same way. I had a coworker who believed that racism was a personal choice, like stealing, and that you could eliminate it by creating harsher laws to punish people who did or said anything racist.
Can you explain how racism isn't a personal choice?
People are tribal about anything they identify with, whether it's their race, local sports team, country of birth, etc. It's not okay to be racist, but it's also not something you can legislate away. You may as well try to outlaw getting angry at people, it'll be just as effective.