Viral “racism in academia” story deleted when I started asking questions

In my view, it is the demand for viral anger inducing content that is unlimited. That, of course, can include content that relates to racism, but the power of social media doesn't depend on the specific category of anger; rather, it thrives on virtually all anger. There are many examples of viral hoaxes that are not specifically about race, though topics related to race certainly do play well into the anger spiral of most social media.

I would say that such hoaxes, in general, only work to add confusion to our perceptions of the real harms of racism in our society. Do not attempt to find any clarity based on these hoaxes. We shouldn't draw conclusions about how much racism there is, based on internet viral fud. To do so is to allow the deception to misdirect us away from the reality of the situation. Whatever that reality is, it's not reflected by this type of thing. Rather, this type of situation reflects the more general anger spiral that social media thrives on.

It's not surprising that people do this, given how much value modern society places on "victimhood" and being a member of some oppressed group. What's more worrying is the tendency of the media and society to accept these accusations uncritically and jump on the bandwagon to condemn the alleged wrongdoer.

Getting rid of all racism is as futile as getting rid of all stupidity. I think them being in the public so people can actually watch what they are doing and discussing is pretty reassuring. Because it often is very clear that it doesn't amount to much.

This is social media wagging the dog.

Your conclusions are erroneous.

Then I saw their disclaimer, "The stories and information here are artistic work of fiction and falsehood. only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."

It seems like a dumb way to come to this realization but after turning this statement over in my head for a few weeks, it dawned on me that all the quirky stories I've been reading on reddit for years, even the believable ones, are fake. Part of this realization was actually posting a number of fake stories and getting some very highly upvoted comments.

That many people, journalists especially, seem to read twitter content with a default-true instead of a defaul-false assumption is scary to me.

For instance, if there is a study that says [group 1] are actually better managers than [group 2]. I ask myself what if the study found [group 2] is in fact better than [group 1]? It very well may be that [group 1] is in fact better managers, but if the reverse cannot be reported, then you're not getting any counterfactual evidence since it would be suppressed, ignored or manipulated. Basically it doesn't fit the popular narrative.

You can apply this to other statements. If you hear a statement in which the reverse would be inconceivable, it's probably not a meaningful statement. If you hear a manager say "I stand with my employees", would the reverse make sense? Is there someone that would argue, no, I don't stand with my employees? If not, then that statement is a meaningless platitude and not conveying any information. The only caveat I would add is that the subject may add focus. Focusing on employees may be a signal to some value that is not universally shared, but people often hedge their bets and say something like "I stand with my employees, customers and stockholders", which is completely meaningless.

https://loricism.fandom.com/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_Effect

At one point, even gently suggesting that all was not as it seemed with the Covid numbers (remember when it was reported to have a 10% mortality rate in Italy?) would get you banned/blacklisted/downvoted etc...

Even today, pointing out the risk/reward issues with child vaccination for Covid will get a mob attacking you, and anti-vaxxer etc... labels applied.

Whether it's racism, covid, gun control, abortion or any other politically charged "wedge" issue, it's nearly impossible to get to a reasonable discussion of the issue. Neither "side" wants that. They want demonization, othering and disgust reaction in order to gain and consolidate power.

Partisan media organizations outright lie, and face basically no accountability for it.

In order to try to hunt down some semblance of truth, you have to constantly read opposing publications, and it's a lot of work.

I prefer to read media that doesn't pretend to hide their bias, Huffington Post, Breitbart, The Atlantic, etc... Over the claimed "impartial" media like NYT, Fox, MSNBC that pretend at objective journalism but have a clear political agenda.

Not just minorities. There's bias, discrimination, bigotry, and intolerance toward white people too. Heavy-handed affirmative action, for one thing.

This has a side effect of ethnic groups sticking together at work, where language, culture, religion, etc are similar.

And it also doesn’t mean economic exclusion either. In places like Brampton the highest income bracket by religion is Hindu #1, then Jews, atheists, and Christians.

Here's what the article quoted:

> In the Harvard brief, the academics argued that SFFA’s case is grounded in racist stereotypes, citing the petitioner’s own assertion that Asian Americans are academically “substantially stronger” than other demographic groups and therefore “should be admitted at a higher rate.”

> “That assertion fundamentally rests on a racial stereotype about Asian Americans as a so-called ‘model minority,’” the brief reads. “That stereotype advances the views that (1) Asian Americans are smarter and value education more than other groups and (2) other racial minorities do not value hard work and education.”

> The Harvard brief also states that the dissolution of race-conscious admissions would harm Asian Americans and ignore the diversity of experiences and degrees of power and privilege within the group.

> “Research shows that advocating such views creates groundless fears of racial discrimination in college admissions that … inhibits identity development among Asian American students,” the brief reads.

I'm not sure if it's an elephant or a duck.

A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on.

"race" when speaking of humans is the most undefined term you can come up with. It basically doesn't have any real scientific meaning anymore, that's why people call everything "racism" when in reality it often is something else.

> A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society.[1] The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of various kinds, including those characterized by close kinship relations.[2] By the 17th century, the term began to refer to physical (phenotypical) traits, and then later to national affiliations. Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society.[3][4] While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.[1][5][6] The concept of race is foundational to racism, the belief that humans can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.

> Even though there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptions of race are untenable,[14][15][16][17][18][19] scientists around the world continue to conceptualize race in widely differing ways.[20] While some researchers continue to use the concept of race to make distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits or observable differences in behavior, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race is inherently naive[9] or simplistic.[21] Still others argue that, among humans, race has no taxonomic significance because all living humans belong to the same subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)