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Comment by neartheplain | Hacker News Reader

I suspect anti-white speech would not be considered hate speech according to the YMCA of Canada. An "intersectional equity lens" often implies the redefinition as racism as racism-plus-power, viewing all whites as empowered and all non-whites as oppressed.

We know anti-white speech can and does incite violence, as it did last week in Daytona Beach:

https://twitter.com/gwupoe/status/1409137548899893251

It can also incite white identity politics, which to me is the much bigger problem caused by this sort of law.

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>§ 15.1 Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

>§ 15.2 Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Indeed, this is covered by the Charter. Confer with "All animals are equal/ But some etc."

What seems to be missing from the list of classes is sexual orientation. Is this just how it appears from the outside?

It was written before gay rights was much of a thing, I think in the 70s. I'm fairly certain it's there as a normal law although.

>It can also incite white identity politics, which to me is the much bigger problem caused by this sort of law.

"Part of left's problem is it expects/demands blacks/hispanics to vote on ethnic basis but is appalled when whites do" (<https://twitter.com/JYDenham/status/796345533124186113>)

The quote from the Labour MP is absolutely correct. Doubly so when whites are told that they're always "acting to preserve their own power and privilege", even when they're not, and they've been raised to despise the behavior they feel criticized for doing. This leads to the mindset of "well, if I'm a racist either way, I'd rather be one who actually DOES look out for my own self-interest."

It's a classic Prisoner's Dilemma [0]. I feel this dilemma quite deeply myself. I vastly prefer a society that treats people as individuals, while still condemning racism and teaching its role in our history, but if every other group acts selfishly and I still get called a racist either way, then at the very least I won't be a sucker too.

Lately this manifests in access to education. Consider this excerpt from a Washington Post report on admissions changes at Thomas Jefferson, the nation's #1 high school:

>Eleven percent of this year’s offers will go to Hispanic students, and 7 percent will go to Black students — both representing significant increases. 22 percent of this year’s offers are going to White students — a number that is largely consistent with the past four years, when White students accounted for between 17 and 22 percent of offers extended. Fifty-four percent of offers are going to Asian students, a marked decrease. In previous years, Asian students have accounted for between 65 and 75 percent of all offers.

>The county at large was 60 percent White, 10 percent Black, 20 percent Asian and 17 percent Hispanic in 2020, according to Fairfax government data.

>Still, the sharp decline in Asian representation is sure to stoke controversy in the Fairfax school system, a Northern Virginia district of 180,000 located just outside D.C.

Tensions stoked by "a decline in Asian representation"? What about the white parents, whose children make up 60% of the county but just 22% of TJ students? White students are now the most underrepresented race in TJ admissions, by a lot. The possibility that they might object to this status isn't even considered. In this case, every other big racial group is now openly fighting for their own self-interest, in the courts and the bureacracy, except for whites. How long do we expect this to last?

The solution is to preserve and rebuild trust between people of different racial and ethnic groups, including white people. I don't know how best to do this, exactly, but laws like the one proposed in Canada are probably on the wrong track.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/after-admissions-changes-t...

> The possibility that they might object to this status isn't even considered.

Presumably because, as you quoted:

> 22 percent of this year’s offers are going to White students — a number that is largely consistent with the past four years

The author for this article has concluded that something changing is more likely to stoke controversy than something remaining more or less the same as it has been for a while.

Are you a TJ grad? It has been wild to see so many people form incredibly strong opinions about the school but have no actual connection to it.

The new policy is race blind. It has further improved access for economically disadvantaged students and students with other special needs. That is precisely the sort of result that class absolutist leftists would hope for.

Further, the merit lottery proposal that activists wanted (which was rejected by the school board and decried by critics as racist) would have produced a more representative student body for all races, including white people because it was a lottery system. The thing you are concerned about isn’t a concern.

The conservative white racists already lost at TJ because their normal arguments of “meritocracy” failed them, so they aren’t an especially important political player on the topic.

I live in DC and read local news. The TJ article was featured in last week's WaPo Metro section. I have a personal interest in the school's academic quality and admissions policy.

>The new policy is race blind.

The old admissions policy was race-blind.

>It has further improved access for economically disadvantaged students and students with other special needs

It has removed standardized literacy and numeracy testing. The test has been replaced with a 7th grade GPA requirement, and opaque "holistic review" which lets county officials paint whatever demographics picture they want. The holistic review is a fig leaf over what many parents suspect to be de facto racial quotas, which are expressly illegal. One group of parents is suing over this: https://pacificlegal.org/case/coalition_for_tj/

EDIT: Yes, and I'd have taken merit lottery over holistic review, per previous comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27569189

What the new process does NOT do is address the root causes which led to low black and Hispanic admissions with the old system, i.e. underperformance on standardized numeracy and literacy tests. A true "class absolutist leftist", which I am not, would address those problems at the root instead of fudging TJ admissions numbers to obscure the issue. Now it looks like the county is preparing more diverse students for success at TJ, which it isn't, because the old race-blind system showed that it wasn't. We've put a thin coat of paint over a bunch of subpar middle schools and support systems.

Under the new policy, TJ will admit more students who are not equipped to succeed in such a rigorous academic environment. In response, either the students or academic standards will suffer. Underequipped students admitted under the new system replace others who in all likelihood would've been better prepared to succeed. This is the problem of affirmative action "mismatch," about which much has already been said: https://harvardpolitics.com/matters-mismatch-debate-affirmat...

>The conservative white racists already lost at TJ because their normal arguments of “meritocracy” failed them, so they aren’t an especially important political player on the topic.

That's quite the laundry list of assumptions.

The new process is not perfect and will not address all problems with biased racial outcomes in FCPS education. Many of the activists who support changing the admissions system actually support eliminating TJ entirely and rethinking how access to accelerated education works. Why is there a limit to the number of students who can get these experiences?

However, as somebody who has personal experience working with this for the accelerated programs starting in 3rd grade, it is precisely the same people who complain about policies trying to address inequities earlier in education. This makes the argument that the changing TJ admission policies won't address root issues seem very disingenuous.

If you want to help change inequities in early accelerated education, then there are places where you can help. Since you are local, I'm sure people would love to have you!

I went to TJ. The testing culture there was amazingly toxic and a huge portion of my alumni friends consider our experiences there to be actually traumatic. Not the actual learning, but the testing culture. It has also gotten worse over time, and despite continued high rankings it has become more difficult for graduates to be accepted into top universities. This is true even for institutions like CalTech that famously focus on "traditional" application processes. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the TJ test.

I was one of the students whose parents paid many thousands of dollars for test prep, which was structured in the "testing strategies" manner rather than actually teaching any sort of academic material. I do not believe that the TJ test was actually a proxy for merit and I do not believe that the incoming class will be ill equipped to succeed at an accelerated program.

It's completely maddening how backwards this thinking is:

> Racism is bad.

> People from the same race have the same traits, guilt (or victimhood) and needs.

In Europe there have been many attacks by suspected Islamists, the latest one just this week:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-police-say-several-kill...

The skin color of the victims is not mentioned in these cases, so I presume they were white. If anyone were to say that white lives matter, he would be branded a racist.

You are speculating. There's no reason to believe that. So far it only says "hate speech" and nothing about "power" or "white".

You're right, there's no reason to believe that. At least, not unless you've been paying any attention at all to the rhetoric and explicit ideological content of "anti-racism" over the past decade and you're able to locate this bill in that context.

There are still people who think the woke thing is just a fad and doesn't actually affect anyone.

Well, but it does. People loses their job. Maybe you didn't but you know someone who did, or a public figure you like.

Also, it affects personal relationships. It's amazing how my conservative friends unload their thoughts on me, because thy are afraid to speak frankly with other people.

Right, it has psychological effects on anyone who it targets (directly or indirectly). There's a debilitating mental burden that gets put on you when you are constantly trying to defend yourself or others against assailants who don't adhere to any basis in reality or principles. Most likely it's a social problem; the pain of challenging your own community and being alienated. It's also commonly seen in people who have to deal with narcissistic abuse.

Just as a historical anecdote, it was common for the resistance in the Soviet union to have mental health issues because of having to wrestle with all of the propaganda, insane behaviours, accusations and attacks. The Soviets took advantage of that by accusing anyone who had negative views of the government or culture of being schizophrenics and locking them in institutions.

I didn't notice on any of them, but I notice the struggle of being constantly under attack, that's right. I mean, I do notice myself, being a kind of materialist and utilitarian social-democrat in country with a leftist social majority.

Well, maybe a bit of depression for those who have a softer personality.

If it doesn't affect anyone they shouldn't feel the need to defend it

It's another motte and bailey

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