This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
No they are not pointless, and any one who sincerely desires a system of "white advocacy" is going to have to grapple with that fact for all the reasons @Hoffmeister25 lays out below.
We live in a world where nobody outside of academia and weird autists pays any attention to physiognomy. When people like Taylor Lorenz, Nancy Pelosi, or Karen from the Atlantic talk about dismantling white privilege they aren't talking about dismantling thier own privilege, they're talking about dismantling the privilege of a certain sort. The sort who isn't with the program, the sort who likes sports and country music more than he should, the sort who will put cheese and steak sauce on everything but wont put his pronouns in his email. It turns out that the catagory of "white" includes a lot of blacks which is how a this man ended up as "the face of white supremacy" on the West coast despite being darker than most of the youths in your picture.
Nancy Pelosi is white and finds political advantage in being against white privilege. Joe Biden for instance used to say 'we already have a nigger mayor, we don't need any more nigger bigshots' and 'I don't want my kids to grow up in a racial jungle'. He now talks about how it's great that the US is going to be minority white, how 'it's the source of our strength'... These people sway with the wind. Their words don't necessarily have any sincerity behind them. They say what they think will help them (or what they are given to say).
The existence of defectors doesn't disprove the existence of groups.
Anyway, HR doesn't need to come up with a foolproof definition of white or Asian or diversity if they want more diversity. They just do it. In Australia there are statutory declarations of aboriginality that people need to get affirmative action jobs. But no such thing is strictly necessary. There is no definition of 'culturally and linguistically diverse people', the unwieldy phrase positively defies definition. Yet it works. And so does white, for the very same reason.
You're missing my point. Race in the US is not a physical phenomenon it is a cultural one. We all recognize this on some level which is how people like Pelosi are able to talk about "whites" without including themselves or refer to Kenti-Jackson as the first "black" supreme court justice without a hint of irony. Its the background assumption behind Biden's bit about how you aren't really black if you vote rebublican. We know that when people talk about "black" they aren't talking about people of sub-Saharan ancestry, they're talking a bout a specific sort. Do you follow?
Black is both physical-genetic AND cultural but the genetic level is most important.
You can be ethnically white and act in the most black ways, that makes you less white than you would otherwise be in a holistic sense. But even so, you wouldn't become black. Elizabeth Warren isn't Native American even if she does a few rituals, whereas an actual genetically native american who acts like Elizabeth Warren could still be native american. People might say 'she's not acting like a native american' because she has all this money and poise and prestige and a certain kind of status.
The specific 'sort' you're talking about are MORE black than other blacks but other blacks are still black. Joe Biden is talking about precisely this, he means 'you're not acting black as you should be' if you vote Republican. But voting Republican doesn't automatically make you white, they still get classified as black Republican voters.
Likewise certain east-asians (Koreans and Japanese) are more white than others, so they don't get as much affirmative action and people call them model minorities. But they're not fully white, just more white.
Not to the vast majority of Americans it is not. That is my point.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I have literally never heard anybody do this, because no matter what anyone thinks of Clarence Thomas, Thurgood Marshall preceded him on the Court by more than twenty years.
Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and multiple mainstream news outlets have all referred to her as such at one time or another. Most recently NBC and the Huffington Post when reporting on the big necklace she wore to the Inauguration. Im still not clear on why exactly the necklace was newsworthy but there you go.
More options
Context Copy link
IIRC, several journalists have made this error. Example
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link