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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33194 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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like us

Ah yes, but along which axis? Same hair color? Same favorite food? Same clothes? Same language? Other socio-cultural markers? We, to a certain extent, get to define what it means to be "like us" and who "us" is. Staying stuck on racial grouping is profoundly limited thinking.

yes i meant the same hair color. Because there are all of those subcultures rooted in having the same hair. And people with the same colored hair have all had that same unique historical experience. And, first and foremost, because someone's hair color is how they primarily define themselves. Spot on.

  • -11

Yes, even hair color. Or hair type and style. Hair can absolutely be a snigificant cultural marker. Or a religious one. Hair colors even carry stereotypes about personal character. I'm glad you and I are on the same page.

You were doing pretty well standing your ground until now.

The only way I think this is a well intended and sound point is if you didn't sense that it was sarcasm.

Do you mean me or who you were replying to?

I think in the move over to this platform a good deal of civility and adherence to the sub's rules have slackened.

I wasn't being sarcastic. I felt your previous replies were even-handed, then you sort of seemed to give up and devolve into mockery. That's the opposite of steelmanning your interlocutor or discussing in good faith.

My race is definitely not how I primarily define myself. As a redheaded white person, my hair color ranks higher than race- I've been told that not caring about my race is a white privilege, which may be the case, but it's a privilege I think others deserve. Both hair color and race fall far below my sex in terms of identity.

All of those physical characteristics are orders of magnitude less significant to my identity than my personality characteristics. I primarily define myself in a way that doesn't involve my body at all- I am the thing that lives in my brain, hosted by my body. I identify with characters that make the decisions I would. As a caveat, I expect that also carries cultural values as a piece of group identity baggage.

I'm rambling a bit, so I'll get back to the point. Maybe identifying primarily as a race is a bad thing that we should not actively pursue. From personal experience, I don't think you have to think that way. Race is something that divides us; humanity unites us.

It's 2022 and you don't see how people who are not white might identify with their skin color even though you don't? When you meet black people you genuinely don't think their race is part of their identity?

I've been told that not caring about my race is a white privilege, which may be the case, but it's a privilege I think others deserve.

It's 2022 (not relevant but accurate) and I think it's time we stop treating race as a primary identity trait. This is a prescriptive position, not a descriptive one. It's not like I don't see race, but when I meet a black person I think of them primarily as a person and I would love for them to be able to do the same. I can't read minds, but I've definitely met black people whose entertainment is exclusively manga/anime so I imagine they either don't care about representation or don't identify themselves by race in a substantial way.

Worth noting also that plenty of white people do identify with their skin color, as evidenced by the regular expression of concerns of white extinction in this community or some of the replies upthread. I think those people should think of themselves differently as well, and I expect I have your agreement there.

Again, my apologies if I'm rambling. I am doing my best to go from thoughts to words here and having a rough time with it.

I've been told that not caring about my race is a white privilege,

I suspect that a more accurate statement would be "not caring about your [characteristic] is easy/a privilege when people with [characteristic] are a large local majority." If you've got something that stands out from most of the people around you, whether it's skin color, hair color, height, etc., that tends to be noticed and flagged as significant. People might refer to Jose as "the Mexican guy" in Vermont, but nobody's going to call him that in Mexico City.

And, first and foremost, because someone's hair color is how they primarily define themselves

It gets recursively difficult to accuse someone of begging the question when they're being sarcastic, so I'll just have to be glib:

People (including both OP's black kids cheering black superheroes, and a multitude of historical groups) primarily defining themselves by skin colour, is an error on their part, harmful to human flourishing, and film makers / critics should not be seeking to pander to it, encourage it, or perpetuate it.

This is ignorant about the nature of identity and how humans work. Identity is on what basis we define the us versus the them. And that is reinforced when there is a common historical and current experience. People gravitate to those who have had that same experience as them; race is not just some arbitrary aspect of who someone is. To assume the contrary is just obtuse. Like sure it would be great if we could re-engineer human nature, but we can't. you can't just ignore something as a reality because you think it's less than savory.

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