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 -
Race-baiting people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have been around for decades. WorldStarHipHop has done more for race realism then either of those two hucksters. So who is race-baiting here? The thugs trying to steal the nurse's bike under threat of getting cancelled/fired/beaten? The grifters posting the video claiming "white tears get innocent Scholars killed"?
Just in terms of raw numbers, which category of people do you think is larger?:
a) black people watching this thinking for the first time, "yet another Karen trying to kill black bodies"
or
b) non-black people watching this thinking for the first time, "why do we have to live with these animals?"
I don't think this video converted very many new people to the idea that white women overreacting gets black people killed. That's basically 99% of black people already and is the progressive dogma. I think vastly more people were converted to, or became more sympathetic to, the idea that black people are out of control in the West.
Given that this was posted by blacks, it looks like a massive self-own. The people most harming race relations are these people posting gleeful videos of their own misbehavior. How many of these kind of videos will people see before they decide having blacks around is a terrible idea?:
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1660148662385922049
That's from the same account that shows him entering random people's homes and walking out of the library with books he didn't check out. He's posting that for social status. If this is "race-baiting" it's of the "I'm black and untouchable" kind.
Look at the replies. What percentage are black people saying, "knock this shit off you cretin!"?
Yes, both of those.
Neither. The largest group by far is
c) non-black people "thinking" how horrible this woman is for picking on poor innocent black people, and what a terrible racist she is and how we have to "do better".
I dunno, man. This one had such a short viral-to-debunked cycle that I'm not sure how many left-leaning (but not all-in progressive) normies even saw it. That's who I think makes up the bulk of your category c). I don't think we can include non-black generic lefties because they're going to follow the progressive hive mind regardless of the specifics. Some people still buy the "fine people on both sides" story and "hands up don't shoot" but that isn't the group I'm talking about here.
However, I would be very interested in a serious breakdown of who actually saw this video and where they saw it. All of the twitter (spit) threads I saw were overwhelmingly in blind support of the blacks or exasperated support of the pregnant woman. National Review had news about it and the comments there were not credulous of the "teens." Do you know whether this got posted anywhere normies would see it before the (mostly?) full story came out?
At least locally (I'm in the NYC area) it made the radio news.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link