Hacker News Reader

Comment by brightball | Hacker News Reader

He’s right to do so. Statements that your research must be presented with a filter based on how it will advance political goals calls into question the integrity of all research. When people don’t “trust the science” this will be why.

But further, I’d never seen the statement from antiracist before…wow. The idea that the only cure for discrimination is discrimination is akin to saying the only cure for violence is violence. It’s abject insanity that such a notion is being advanced in society.

The cure for discrimination is forgiveness. The cure for violence is forgiveness. The cure for hatred is forgiveness.

The only way anything stops is for people to have the humility and wisdom to say “this will stop with me.”

View on HN

> But further, I’d never seen the statement from antiracist before…wow. The idea that the only cure for discrimination is discrimination is akin to saying the only cure for violence is violence. It’s abject insanity that such a notion is being advanced in society.

Kendi is just advocating for a system of racial preferences administered by "good white people." That's been a hobby horse of a segment of the political left since the Nixon administration. Decades later, it still remains unpopular even among the minorities it is supposed to help: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/05/08/americans-see-adv.... But center left think tanks and advocacy organizations won't let it go. Even the most liberal state in the country defeating it resoundingly won't dissuade them: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/california-not-bell.... So keep expecting it to pop up in different guises until they manage to get their way.

Is the reason that he wants it administered by "good white people" because every other ethnic group (including the "bad white people") is nakedly self-interested when it comes to racial preference?

What makes you think they’re not nakedly self interested? They get the most out of the system, because they get to run the show. They not only get a powerful club against “bad white people,” but also get to hand-pick “representation” to shape minority groups according their own preferences. They’ll pick Hispanics who answer to “Latinx” but never one that believes that abortion is wrong. They’ll pick Muslims that endorses white American views of gender roles. They’ll pick the Asian that says Asian values are a “model minority myth.”

As to why Kendi supports it, who knows. Lots of people attach a low price to their dignity.

> They’ll pick Hispanics who answer to “Latinx” but never one that believes that abortion is wrong. They’ll pick Muslims that endorses white American views of gender roles. They’ll pick the Asian that says Asian values are a “model minority myth.”

Is that worse than not picking a single Hispanic, Muslim, or Asian because they are Hispanic, Muslim, and Asian?

The main flaw in your blend of anti-affirmative action argument is that at it's core it's a pro-racism argument, which supports the racist status quo as a default desirable scenario by first going out of your way to reject each and any alternative to the racist status quo.

No, what would be preferable would be a non-racist, objective system where minority groups can have independence and agency. Systems where minorities don’t have to appeal to the tastes of panels of white people in order to advance. Instead of a system of managed racism where white people create carefully curated collections of minorities, like Apple’s goddamn App Store.

I feel like you are putting words in their mouth. They didn't imply anything of this sort. It's a false dichotomy of racist vs ""anti-racist""

> Is the reason that he wants it administered by "good white people" because every other ethnic group (including the "bad white people") is nakedly self-interested when it comes to racial preference?

Systems like this have historically been managed by the dominant "white people", which have unknowingly or not been advancing "white people" almost exclusively whether due to good or bad intentions, thus forming a vicious cycle. See for instance companies that employed machine learning models to drive admissions which ended up admitting candidates which already match the candidates which were already admitted in the past (white candidates from specific white-dominated academic institutions) and rejecting everyone else in the process regardless of ability.

You are 100 years late for people in power to care about race. With exception of how some of them distribute their self-serving racial justice. Self-serving, because they can remain among the enlightened and generally better people.

This has been the way it's gone since Kendi wrote How to be an Anti-Racist. It is racism by any other name whether somehow "justified" or not. The books in the catalog of anti-racism include great hits like "White Fragility" further exemplifying the movements innate hatred of a certain skin color. The more you go down the rabbit hole the more you realize it's been a movement to transfer all problems other non-white races have onto white people and use that to promote what is objectively racist and bigoted language and methodology. These "authors" (I use that term loosely here, they are racist demagogues) are a key driver of so-called "diversity hiring" and an overall more difficult workplace because now anything can be conceived in their framework as some sort of anti-PoC swipe. This concept of "increasing representation" has in many places replaced the meritocracy. If anything, this type of movement has an overall negative effect (as exemplified by the pejorative "diversity hire" to refer to a person who is undeserving of their position).

It's not uncommon to get silenced for having the above view of anti-racism though a cursory view of the movement will lead you to the same thing. The reason you are just seeing this now is we've reached the point the average American realized "anti-racism" is cleverly designed newspeak and it's supporters are becoming more fringe by the day. In fact, commonly, criticism of the movement is associated with "marginalizing" the experiences of "people of color" which creates a situation where the movement can do what it wants because the opposite of anti-racism, is, of course racism (in English). If you're criticizing them as the wrong skin color you "benefit from power structures designed to empower white people". There's no winning with them, and that's why the movement has taken so much ground. No one wants to be accused of racism so you end having to do all sorts of backflips through flaming rings just to show how not-racist you are.

I don't have a solution to whatever perceived slights other people feel. I do know that targeting a group of people for punishment based on their skin color is wrong regardless of who it is or what they are.

> He’s right to do so. Statements that your research must be presented with a filter based on how it will advance political goals calls into question the integrity of all research. When people don’t “trust the science” this will be why.

When I started to read it, I thought it would be about making a statement about how we should be diverse. Not that he would have to present only science that is about diversity.

The second I read there would be a litmus test for studies I was right onboard with him quitting.

> The cure for discrimination is forgiveness. The cure for violence is forgiveness. The cure for hatred is forgiveness.

Stepping aside from the main debate, how can you possibly justify this? If I'm going to be forgiven every time I discriminate, assault, and slander people, why would I ever want to change my behavior? After all, I get rewarded for it: When I do those things I gain advantages over other people that benefit me, not to mention the psychological rush of dominating others. You forgive me for those things? Over and over, unconditionally? That sounds to me like I'm your god and I can do with you as a I please.

Discrimination, violence, and hatred are antisocial behaviors. They need to be reduced in a way that is just and fair and effective. Forgiveness is none of those.

> Discrimination, violence, and hatred are antisocial behaviors. They need to be reduced in a way that is just and fair and effective. Forgiveness is none of those.

The key thing for me is we give people the opportunity to change. This doesn't necessarily mean that there shouldn't be consequences. Only that the consequences are proportionate and finite.

In my opinion, hostility towards people who have made mistakes is a major problem that holds the left back. Identity politics has been very successful in driving a wedge between groups that would otherwise have very similar economic and class interests. I don't believe that was a mistake.

Is the hostility from the right holding them back? It doesn’t seem like it. is it only the left that is not allowed to have aggression?

I didn't say the left aren't allowed to have aggression. However, I do think it needs to be directed at the right people. My point was that the right are much more likely to look past things they might disagree with rather than excluding that person entirely. The most obvious example of this being evangelical support for Trump (and other Republicans) despite his numerous affairs.

I'm in no way saying that going that far is desirable. However, I do think less ideological purity and more flexibility would be beneficial in bringing in people who agree on the core values.

> My point was that the right are much more likely to look past things they might disagree with rather than excluding that person entirely.

Like women who have abortions? Gay people? Trans people? Liberals? Communists?

I'm not against flexibility, but IMO the left is far too forgiving, and needs to be much more aggressive. the Trump right is a fascist party, and the left needs to openly recognize that.

> Like women who have abortions? Gay people? Trans people? Liberals? Communists?

Yes. The right are quite ready to entirely ignore pretty much all of that if you're in agreement with them on whatever other issue is currently at hand. Plenty of women on the right have had abortions. Some fairly prominent gay figures would be Dave Rubin and Milo Yiannopoulos. I don't think Blair White needs much introduction either. Ben Shapiro is quite clearly Jewish and regularly reposted by the same kind of guys that were chanting "Jews will not replace us" in Charlottesville. The right are practical beyond the point of hypocrisy when it comes to the topic of the moment.

> I'm not against flexibility, but IMO the left is far too forgiving, and needs to be much more aggressive. the Trump right is a fascist party, and the left needs to openly recognize that.

The left needs to be aggressive in the right way. The right are extremely effective at being extremely hateful while also guiding relatively normal, if sometimes problematic, people down a path that takes them much farther right. From what I've seen, leftists doing the same work to reach out to the uninformed and apathetic are often attacked for a perceived lack ideological purity. I've not seen that kind of behaviour from the right and I think it plays a big part in pushing people away.

Besides, elements of the left are already aggressive, in the wrong way. Personally I think allowing race to supplant class as the primary talking point has been a huge mistake. You essentially alienate a great many people who would otherwise share a common interest by allowing the issue to be morphed into a blame game with fingers pointed across racial lines.

>Besides, elements of the left are already aggressive, in the wrong way. Personally I think allowing race to supplant class as the primary talking point has been a huge mistake. You essentially alienate a great many people who would otherwise share a common interest by allowing the issue to be morphed into a blame game with fingers pointed across racial lines.

Why is it race instead of class and not race AND class?

Also, who has been canceled inappropriately? In fact, who has even suffered significant consequences for being cancelled? My impression is that it's a band of rapists who become right wing celebrities and get book deals.

I think the people being pushed right are:

1. Generally already on the right

2. If they are pushed, it's by the internal contradictions on the left. And those internal contradictions are caused by a wavering of conviction, not an excess

> Why is it race instead of class and not race AND class?

It's not race and class because race has eclipsed class in the public discourse. I don't know why that is but if I was being cynical I'd say it's to sow division and limit effectiveness.

On And vs Or, there's limited space in public discourse. Introducing additional issues necessitates that space being divided into smaller chunks. Grouping the issues also only serves to narrow your potential support. That's not to say certain issues can't/shouldn't be grouped.

Personally I believe that a focus on class would be more effective in dealing with the harms of systemic racism than the current approach focused on race. While also taking a lot of steam out of the right's rhetoric.

I honestly only see harm in the current approach where upper middle class white people tell some guy living in a trailer, paycheck to paycheck, that he has white privilege and that's why he should be paying reparations and passed over for a job.

> Also, who has been canceled inappropriately?

I'm not talking about people being cancelled, I'm talking about how we engage with people who are either politically apathetic or exploring a leftist perspective for the first time.

> 1. Generally already on the right

There seems to be this insular view that we should only engage with people that already fully agree with us and it often results in attacking people that might have problematic views that they would otherwise have become open to examining. I've seen a lot of younger people who don't necessarily have fully formed opinions pushed away in this way. The same applies for people who are generally apathetic and maybe examining their opinions for the first time.

> 2. If they are pushed, it's by the internal contradictions on the left. And those internal contradictions are caused by a wavering of conviction, not an excess

Hard disagree. The demand for ideological purity is the biggest factor that pushes people who haven't quite made up their mind or don't fully engage to the right. We literally saw this play out with the atheism movement in the early 2010s.

We will have to agree to disagree. I predict that if the left becomes more aggressive they will win more elections. No one is going to vote for wimpy liberals, whose hearts no longer beat

Perhaps, although I'd stil be interested in hearing why you think that is. I can't think of any examples of people moving right because the left was too nice.

My observation has been that orthodoxy and too many causes has alienated a lot of people that were traditionally aligned with the left.

In the UK a recent example would be the collapse of the red wall. Constituencies that had been held by Labour for up to ~80 years flipped. A key factor was that the working class in the area felt that Labour was no longer interested in representing them, with the focus having shifted to social justice and right wing press latching onto this as an angle of attack.

> Also, who has been canceled inappropriately?

I don't follow celebs enough to name names here but there are many democrat-leaning ones being cancelled. It's hard to cancel a dedicated conservative in a conservative environment, but a lib can be cancelled for anything, like saying the correct messages from six months ago.

And then there's everyone not in the news. All the women kicked out of breastfeeding or ovarian cancer groups for complaining that they allow men, etc.

> In fact, who has even suffered significant consequences for being cancelled?

Parents who question what their child's school is doing. The father who the school board worked with the FBI to label a terrorist because he shouted during a meeting where he was discussion the cover-up of the rape of his daughter at school.

> people being pushed right [by] the internal contradictions on the left. And those internal contradictions are caused by a wavering of conviction, not an excess

Contradictions are probably not caused by wavering beliefs but by inconsistent or hypocritical beliefs. Combine this with an excess of conviction and usual absolute unwillingness to discuss and you have alienating opinions.

But I don't think people are being pushed "right" as much as the liberal parties are being pushed to hard-left absolutist positions. "Capitalism bad. White people bad. Men are women." The people are staying roughly where they were and the parties are moving.

> If I'm going to be forgiven every time I discriminate, assault, and slander people

If that's too much, you could at least forgive the people who had nothing to do with the discrimination, assault and slander - which is something that Kendi doesn't seem to be able to do.

The forgiveness line is straight out of the Bible. If you were a domineering tyrant wouldn’t it be convenient if your population were obligated to forgive you? Sounds pretty docile

I always thought anti-racist meant “this will stop with me.” My understanding was that anti-racism meant, if you hear/see something racist, take a part in ending it. I think you can be anti-racist, and walk the fine line of being forgiving of unintentional missteps, while also helping people realize why what they did was wrong.

You would be cancelled for that view. The correct view is that people of good standing should only admit and hire from a few groups until there is parity. Extra points if you want overrepresentation, to compensate for past imbalances. Explicitly, you must accept the proposition that the son is not only to be blamed for the sins of the father, but also to be blamed for the sins of all who share similar ancestry. Individual behavior or innocence is irrelevant.

It such a barbaric view that makes little more sense than sacrificing virgins to Baal so it will rain.

That view is less extreme than Kendi's position which staked a claim on the term "anti-racist" in public conversation.

> The cure for discrimination is forgiveness.

Too handwavy, the cure for discrimination is at the very minimum adequate public funding for primary and secondary education _everywhere_ (with adequate student to teacher ratios _everywhere_).

Although the discussion is at NYU this problem is not limited to the US. The issue with this and other societal problems is that state governance is operated in 4 year cycles (much like corporations now are restrained by the next quarter). Public education is something you invest in now to see a benefit of 25 years down the road. Until we collectively solve the incentives around long term policy all other aspects of addressing discrimination fall short.

> the cure for discrimination is at the very minimum adequate public funding for primary and secondary education _everywhere_

So how does increasing the funding of poor white students advance Kendi's "anti-racist" program, precisely?

Clearly there's no logical link between the two concepts of discrimination and government school funding, at best a historical one and where I live, government schools get way more funding per pupil ($10k more) than private school tuition. But that doesn't make the government schools good, as a rule.

> the cure for discrimination is at the very minimum adequate public funding for primary and secondary education _everywhere_ (with adequate student to teacher ratios

You know that when you're describing a policy with vague words like "adequate" you are actually giving yourself an escape hatch in case the policy fails?

"The policy was great, it's just that funding wasn't adequate".

Which makes your policy unfalsifiable and almost religious in nature.

"Adequate" is less vague than most other ways you could describe levels of funding though. You can easily enough define a base set of requirements that all educational institutions need to be able to provide (independent of any proposed goal such as combating entrenched discrimination against particular minorities) and establish what the minimal funding necessary for that much is. And if after doing so, given a reasonable span of time of ensuring those requirements are met (let's say 10 years), there's still no measurable (relative) improvement in educational outcomes for those you're aiming to help, it's fair to say the theory is falsified - or at least, you've proven that adequate funding for all education institutions regardless of location or ethnic make-up of students isn't enough on its own. Which personally is the result I would expect to see, for various complex reasons - while I'm not a fan of policies that explicitly show favoritism to individuals based on ethnicity etc., I don't have a problem with accepting that it costs more to provide effective education to students from certain socio-economic backgrounds, and therefore there's an argument for allocating taxpayer funding accordingly (esp. in parts of the world, and it's certainly the case here in Australia, where even public schools rely on a percentage of their funding to come from the community/parents).

Ok I will bite, adequate budget means you can keep a 20 students to teacher ratio. And you have enough school supplies (for all students) in order for teachers to follow their programmes.

As a South African it's wild to me that just over 30 years ago Mandela warned of the dangers of this way of thinking and yet here we are...

Thomas Sowell explains how insurgent movements generally have a more just vision for the world in their early stages, and become tyrannical after they seize power.

He gives the example of the vision laid out by MLK in the 1960s ("judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin"), and contrasts it with that of modern social justice types, and also compares Christianity when it was persecuted in the Roman Empire, to when it became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

You're saying the only way to end discrimination is for the victims to forgive the perpetrators? How would that work exactly? IMO, the only way to move forward is to correct past wrongs by heavily investing in affected communities economically and afa education and health. What Haidt is being asked to do here does none of these things and is purely for show.

> IMO, the only way to move forward is to correct past wrongs by heavily investing in affected communities economically and afa education and health.

As if we hadn't been doing that for past 60 years, with extremely underwhelming (in fact, arguably negative) outcomes.

The outcomes have been underwhelming because we (at least, the US) haven't actually been doing this, and we've just found new and arguably worse ways to maintain deeply racist policies.

If what you say is true, books like “how to be an antiracist” would include examples of these “arguably worse” mechanisms to maintain inequality. They don’t contain such examples. Indeed, a central premise of Kendi’s book is that affirmative measures are required because simply “not being racist” doesn’t work.

When you say "books like _How To Be An Antiracist_", you mean... bad books, right? Why would you expect bad-faith actors like Kendi to do better?

What’s your disagreement with Kendi and those like him? What changed?

Nothing's changed. I think Kendi is an ideological grifter. It's frustrating to see "normie" anti-racism, of the "BLM lawn sign" variety, tainted by association with him.

I don’t think he’s a “grifter.” Kendi thought is just the logical combination of three mainstream progressive ideas:

1) (a) The history and experience of Black people in America is sui generis and (b) justifies responses that don’t need to be generalizable or measure up to ordinary standards of procedural fairness.

2) the “bootstraps”approach of Kendi’s parent’s generation has failed.

3) bureaucratic institutions operated by well meaning credentialed people can solve every problem.

Really, the only area where I substantively disagree with him is (3)—the white people in charge of bureaucratic institutions will inevitably use any special powers given to them to advance their own economic and cultural interests.

I don't want to get too far into it, so I'll just say:

1. Virtually nobody with a BLM lawn sign believes this: https://twitter.com/DrIbram/status/1302724276412387334

2. I can't do any better than Kalefa Sanneh at pointing out the incoherence of Kendi's professed world view. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/19/the-fight-to-r...

What are the examples of ideological grift? I just found out about Kendi through this comment thread and a simple Google search didn't yield anything.

But how convincingly does he make that case? It seems to be that while we're obviously a long way from a truly race-blind world, someone belonging to a minority ethnic grouping has a much better chance of succeeding in most careers in the average Western country today than they would have 50 years ago. I struggle to believe that's largely due to the weird sort of "anti-racism" Kendi promotes.

I don't see how this follows from what I said at all.

I would like to point out that one of the important reasons South African didn't descend into a race war at the end of the apartheid was the formation of the Truth & Reconciliation Committee for precisely this reason: to forgive and reconcile.

> South Africa's ANC defends "Kill the Boer" song

> South Africa’s ruling party on Tuesday defended the singing of an apartheid-era song with the words “Kill the Boer” in a row that has raised fears of increasing racial polarisation.

> The African National Congress dismissed a ruling by a regional high court last week that uttering or publishing the words would amount to hate speech and violate the constitution put in place after the end of white minority rule.

> “These songs cannot be regarded as hate speech or unconstitutional,” ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe told a news conference. “Any judgment that describes them as such is impractical and unimplementable.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/ozatp-safrica-racism-2010033...

And your point is?

> correct past wrongs by heavily investing in affected communities economically and afa education and health

Which should eventually lead to forgiveness, right?

The framework presented does not include forgiveness at all, the crimes are treated as unforgivable and atonement is eternal. Which clearly indicates that their goal is not to end discrimination.

Discrimination is but a small part of the otherization/dehumanization and subjugation disempowered groups are subjected to. To focus on discrimination without regard for the broader socioeconomic landscape different demographics find themselves in by luck of birth is to not see the forest for the trees.

Perhaps we should consider what crimes are treated by America as unforgivable as a way to establish common ground and then look at outliers from in groups and out groups for trends? There’s a lot of discussion here that is naive to how social work professionals routinely and successfully resolve these matters. I anticipate rich and colorful debate over the forgivability of rape, child abuse, and murder depending on the offenders demographics, assets, and associations.

Forgiveness is a process that victims undertake for themselves when they are out from the clutches of their abusers. Forgiveness is not a trophy for active offenders to carry as a spoil of their conquest, instead it a badge of shame they honor by being a better human than they were when they willingly harmed our caused others to be harmed tangibly or otherwise. Victims must be extraordinarily supported through their healing journey in any community truly invested in solving generational problems, which is not a process that can be scheduled or timed. Some people may never achieve this and accepting that is non negotiable if our goal is to heal. The offenders must work on themselves to, at minimum, become incapable of ever perpetrating these offenses again and be able to articulate the explicit details of their offenses while taking responsibility for their actions and making personal restitution to their direct and indirect victims. Only when both victim and perp have successfully achieved these ends can they be safely reunited. Those who are incapable or refuse to rehabilitate have no place in civil society, their status or demographics are irrelevant. This applies to gang banging murderers as it does to the architects and agents of slavery, the war on drugs/terrorism, or child abusers whether or not they hold status in their communities, etc.

Demanding forgiveness for ongoing abuses is laughable and shameful. No one is entitled to being forgiven for their wrongs, especially not if they keep doing the same horrible shit over and over and over again.

What's laughable is failing to recognize that regardless of your skin color and socioeconomic status, if you were born in the US, you are one of the most privileged people in the world.

Have you considered that blaming white folks for your all problems might be one of the main reasons those problems persist?

Indians, Latinos, Asians move to the US with no money to their name, work their assess off and achieve success. Do you think they are not being discriminated against?

Your "generational problems" are a minor nuisance compared to the struggles of the rest of the world. Maybe it's time to stop with the despicable victimhood and whining?

Heed my words, the biggest change to well-being of the black community will not come from the policies. It will come from within.

Ah the classic: it’s worse elsewhere so we don’t need to look in the mirror and be accountable for our actions; out of hand dismissal. Just because you’re not ready to look in the mirror does not give you the right to stop others. I hope you get there soon.

I’m not blaming white people as a monolith, but that seems to be what you want to interpret from my post. Telling. I’m blaming the people who made the choice to hurt others, see the bit above about without respect to one’s status, wealth ,or demographics. I meant that. All bad actors should be rehabilitated or imprisoned. Black white pink, gay straight trans or female, or Democrat. These things do not matter for the purposes of identifying bad actors.

Have you no capacity to emphasize with others? It seems you don’t. Minimization, and suggesting victims of state sponsored abuses should shut up and take it because America seems better than your cherry picked examples? Have a long face to face conversation with someone that repulses you just listen while they tell about their life. Imagine yourself in their shoes.

What qualifies you to make sweeping off the cuff assertions about all black Americans? Have you any similar assertions for gay Americans? Lesbian Americans? Trans Americans? Japanese Americans? Korean Americans? Irish Americans? Catholic Americans? Indigenous Americans? American communists/socialists/anarchists? I’d love to hear more of your hot takes on what these large and homogenous populations need to heal.

> suggesting victims of state sponsored abuses should shut up and take it

If that leads to a better outcome for them, why not? I don't believe they should live in poverty for the sake of achieving some weird intergenerational justice.

> What qualifies you to make sweeping off the cuff assertions about all black Americans?

Oh, but I'm actually not talking about all black Americans. Are you aware that the racism you talking about somehow evades Nigerian Americans, with their income being higher than national average, and poverty rate being lower (in fact being less than half that of African Americans)? Somehow they don't feel the same about police brutality.

Can you entertain the thought that this enforced victimhood mentality doesn't help black folks, but hurts them instead?

Why are you assuming that people will live in poverty if we address historical injustices? I’ve addressed this elsewhere but if that were to occur we would have failed at righting these wrongs and invest even more resources to correct this wrong if we had done it correctly the first time. Poverty in America is a governmental failure, and in some cases is intentional (racism is behind the intentional subjugation of these people, see the Nixon tapes as one example) or the result of bad governance and a political process corrupted by greedy people and those driven by hate or delusions to deny reality.

I don’t think you understand what rehabilitation entails, America, as a general rule, does not facilitate rehabilitation so it is outside our cultural knowledge. Generally speaking this rehabilitation in practice looks like restorative Justice. Punitive systems lead to worse societal outcomes. Undertaking a restorative Justice project for victims of American subjugation would require actions like paying restitution, expunging criminal records, drawing the architects and agents of these systems of repression under charges for their crimes, returning land stolen from indigenous peoples, etc.

This is not the gotcha you think it is, and if you’re going to refer to a small minority of a demographic you should name them so it doesn’t seem like you’re moving the goalposts when I take you at your words. Police brutality is not a subject up for debate, this term refers to police using force in excess of what they were trained to do. A severe problem in police departments across the country fostered by a toxic culture and poor oversight. What Nigerian or any Americans think about it is a pointless exercise. Either we hold violent criminals to account or we don’t. In America some violent criminals are excessively punished, others are not punished at all and instead celebrated for mercilessly assaulting the right people. These are systemic failures.

enforced victim hood mentality is a racist dog whistle and I’m not going to engage with you further if you can’t help but use hateful language. This article could be helpful in your understanding, however you will need to do the work of relating their examples to America and considering the adjustments to your outlook needed to drop the dog whistles and underlying prejudices.

https://ilizwi.co.za/on-victimhood/

> if that were to occur we would have failed at righting these wrongs and invest even more resources to correct this wrong

Essentially what you're saying is: if we try policy X and it doesn't work, we need to try even harder. Rinse and repeat.

This is a religious mindset.

You know perfectly well that most of your described actions will never happen. And that is exactly why you put them on your list: it protects you from the evidence that your policy doesn't work. When it fails, you can always claim that we didn't do enough.

> enforced victim hood mentality is a racist dog whistle

Back at you. Your messages reek of White Savior complex.

Repeatedly failing to solve a problem is not religious, it is perseverance. Trying the same over and over against is stupidity and insanity. You don’t seem to understand the fundamental reality that it is harder and more expensive to fix social problems than to do things fairly the first time. Half measures create more problems.

You’re ascribing motivations to me when you don’t understand the definitions of the words you use. I don’t want to make you feel bad, but you might be wise to look up some things before you speak about them.

White savior complex is used to describe people who try and solve problems for people they pity. I suspect you may treat empathy and sympathy as synonymsthey are not. I’m not trying to solve any problems for any groups I’m not part of. What I am is an ally who strives to understand the realities experienced by marginalized groups and I am willing to adjust my perspective toincorporate new (to me) information. I recognize that America only has democratic freedom for rich white men and that in order to make a freer society for all there need to be systemic changes and accountability for the consequences of this power structure must be had. By learning about the experiences of marginalized people I can incorporate their views into my mine and can in solidarity for the solutions these people demand.

> White savior complex is used to describe people who try and solve problems for people they pity.

> I’m not trying to solve any problems for any groups I’m not part of. What I am is an ally who strives to understand the realities experienced by marginalized groups and I am willing ...

A large part of the problem is calling it a racial problem. You're declaring yourself an ally to a racial group which means that the problem then has to be universal amongst your concept of that racial group. If a black person testifies that this isn't a universal race-based problem they aren't listened to (as tautological proof of their statement) but instead lambasted as having internalized white-supremacy or whatever.

Also, 'ally' is a pretentious term in this context. Ally generally means peers who support each other not a paternalistic protector but BLM showed that this isn't how it was being used in a social justice setting. There's a video from Portland during BLM of a black resident trying to talk to a black officer and a white Antifa runs between and starts shrieking at them because it would destroy the narrative if we could simply discuss our problems calmly.

It quickly starts to look like using marginalized people as props in a fight against your political enemies more than actually trying to help them.

You’re putting words in my mouth to use a non sequiter as your argument? Nowhere have I said all people party to all marginalized groups suffer the same amount of racism. There isan ever increasing body of unbiased research unequivocally proving that people who are not rich white cishet men face discrimination, abuse, neglect, poverty, untreated illness, housing insecurity, addiction, and various other preventable adverse experiences. Intentionality explores, in part, where these experiences intersect with demographics.

Understanding this key point is fundamental to understanding intersectionality, which you would know if you had read the link I shared earlier. I have extended generous benefit of the doubt to you regarding your arguments and assuming, despite ample contrary indicators, that you’re arguing in good faith. I think this comment chain serves to prove that you’re actively arguing in bad faith in violation of the site guidelines. I suggest you read those as well as the article I linked above up thread and reflect upon your words and actions while digesting the content therein.

Once again you’re using words that you do not understand. I don’t know where you’re hearing these terms used in the way you’ve used them but you would be wise to excise that source of propaganda from your life.

https://libguides.library.cpp.edu/c.php?g=1047593&p=7681898

so one person got upset and acted poorly? I hope that they’ve learned from their mistakes because they do not represent anti fascism, blm, or me. Anti fascism means to be against fascism. Fascism is anti American so to be antifa is to be patriotic. My families elders did not kill fascists in wwii to see fascism brought to America by our own minority party. America can not be a democratic state and fascistic.

another non sequiter, and failure to understand me. I am trying to speak plainly for you but you need to do your part in trying to understand me. I actually want to help people, especially the marginalized and forgotten. I won’t bore you with the details or doxx myself but I think it suffices to say that I put considerable money and time where my mouth is.

> You’re putting words in my mouth to use a non sequiter as your argument?

I'm quoting you. You wrote those two sentences.

> Once again you’re using words that you do not understand. [Posts link to definition of 'Ally']

That definition is clearly aspirational.

> so one person got upset and acted poorly?

A lot more than one. And when they returned to their group nobody took issue with it. Look at riot footage, a majority of the people burning down black neighborhoods were whites carrying BLM-supporting signs.

> Anti fascism means to be against fascism.

Apparently anti-fascist just means fascist. I'm sure there's an aspirational definition somewhere that says otherwise but actions speak more loudly than words.

> Fascism is anti American so to be antifa is to be patriotic.

Antifa beats people in the street for their political views. That's very un-American! There was literally a USA communist party during the cold war, but there was no USA party in the USSR.

> My families elders did not kill fascists in wwii to see fascism brought to America by our own minority party.

Surprise, it's being brought by the majority party!

> There isan ever increasing body of unbiased research unequivocally proving ...

The article we're discussing is literally about how the institutions sanctioning the research are biased and only accepting research that purports, in its very setup, to support DEI. What we see is an echo chamber where people are expected to agree with those statements.

> I am trying to speak plainly for you but you need to do your part in trying to understand me. I actually want to help people, especially the marginalized and forgotten

This is what I used your quote to show, the type of allyship you are practicing defines problems as being based on intersections such as race, and how that turns into attacks on anyone who disagrees. (Even where that outcome is absurd, such as white people lecturing black people about blackness.)

I have seen Thomas Sowell and Candace Owens being racially attacked, by supposed anti-racist allies, simply because they did not subscribe to the narrative you use. I've seen Antifa members beat unarmed people and claim to be patriots. Behavior speaks louder than words.

Isn't "correcting past wrongs" how wars usually start? Anti-racists don't want justice in the future, they want revenge for the past.

do you honestly believe every anti racist wants revenge?

It worked for Polnd in 1939, didn't it?

After decades/centuries of abuse, how does "forgiveness" fix systemic issues? Forgiveness can't fix the fact that black Americans were denied access to loans, houses, GI Bill provisions, and all sorts of opportunities that were the primary source of household wealth gains for the last 75 years. It can't fix the fact that those gains mean white people have, on average, more access to "a small loan" from a family member to start a business, a house or inheritance to fall back on if their take a risk starting a business and it doesn't pan out, and so on.

Your point stands, but population dynamics over the last 75 years complicate matters. There are as many immigrants in the United States today (not even counting children of immigrants) as there are Black Americans – immigrants who of course did not have access to GI Bill provisions, etc. How do they fit into the picture?

Regardless, there must be a system.

Part of a functioning, healthy system is recompense/justice, and yes foregiveness.

If you tear a system down, even if you manage to shift some power balance, you stand to create a situation as bad or worse than the one you began with.

Unless a core value of the system you seek to create is forgiveness, you only stand to substitute one systemic opression for another.

Put in terms perhaps you might understand, african americans, hispanics are not forgiven their crimes, where often those with wealth and influence or socially favorable bias are (often) foregiven.

Adding more henious lanaguage, attitude to the mix does not help, when it can be redirected at those still in a position of relative powerlessness.

Some specific crimes should be punished harder (rapists especially in college and positions of power should immediately be punished and severely), at the same time where we are willing to dole out forgiveness, that should be equally given.

You cannot have one without the other.

So, with your reasoning, what's the correct response today to the Holocaust?

Germany has been paying reparations to survivors since the 1950s and paid large sums to Israel and the World Jewish Congress as heirs to the deceased.

http://www.mnchurches.org/blog/2021/02/18/holocaust-survivor...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_Agreement_between_...

>The idea that the only cure for discrimination is discrimination is akin to saying the only cure for violence is violence. It’s abject insanity that such a notion is being advanced in society.

Absolutely not. The idea that any of this is fixable with 'forgiveness' is far more insane. You can't undo hundreds of years of systematic disenfranchisement and subjugation with forgiveness - you have to discriminate in the opposite direction.

To quote LBJ, "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair." That's what Kendi is saying, and he's completely right.

> You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair."

It's not fair. Neither is discriminating in the other direction because these people are not at fault for what their ancestors did, not to mention that affirmative action policies divide people along racial lines rather than the factor more relevant to today, class lines.

Ask yourself whether a black student with wealthy parents should benefit from preferential admissions to colleges over a white student from a poor background.

you hear people from minority group all the time saying they want to keep the bloodline pure and not dare someone from a different races.

If a white people said this everyone would say he is a nazi.

Similarly when immigrant minorities gravitate to particular localities for their shared culture and background, this is a wonderful example of diversity. When white people do this, its called white flight and is akin to nazism.

> To quote LBJ, "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair." That's what Kendi is saying, and he's completely right.

My problem with this quote is it intentionally ignores the plight of anyone who has nothing and isn't African American. Kendi's approach is an inherently selfish one and that's what makes it so polarising.

The answer to the societal issue of wealth disparity is not to give the poor of one racial group an advantage over the poor of another. It's to actually address the source of the problem in a manner agnostic to race. Doing anything else only serves to stoke division and racism.

Where Kendi and I (appear to, I haven't read his book) disagree is the idea that your antiracist policies must be _explicitly_ discriminatory to work. You can implement universal social goods like "everyone gets housing and health care" which in practice give far more to black people (because on average they're starting further back) but which apply to everyone and get the right outcome.

Certainly I wouldn't argue for a second that we should implement policies that ignore or exclude poor white people.

if you care more about what happened hundreds of years ago (racism against group A) than what is happening now (racism against group B). you are part of the problem!

I never understand the American way to fix these issue. They do have good intention, we can see that, but somehow the perspective of how they see the problem is distorted, which let to distorted answer. I think many of us can see it, but can't say it aloud.

Unless we see others as friends — that everyone is flawed human being, including yourself, that share this same world, and one day have to left this world altogether sooner or later, then I don't see how this problem will genuinely get fixed.

What they did instead is amped up individualistic ego and make the divide even more...divide.

The problem with him resigning is that only conformant people remain. These are unlikely to further science as well.

> I’d never seen the statement from antiracist before…wow.

You’re at least a year behind.

> The cure for discrimination is forgiveness. The cure for violence is forgiveness. The cure for hatred is forgiveness.

> The only way anything stops is for people to have the humility and wisdom to say “this will stop with me.”

This is how I used to think. It’s reminiscent of the thinking of the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, John Lennon, and countless others who have had noble idealism which sadly isn’t congruous with reality. Here is a quote which demonstrates the logical endpoint of this idea:

> Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.....It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany.... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.[1]

That is the logical conclusion of this idea, take your own life in hopes you’ll posthumously be considered worthy of having been spared, and worthy of having anyone intervene to spare you. Because unilaterally, arbitrarily deciding to forgive a transgressor who’s still motivated by their transgression grants permission and submission to their goal.

There is historical precedent for a similar notion being more realistic and effective: Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa. But what makes it more realistic and more effective is that there was significant, forceful pressure which motivated the transgressors to seek mutual reconciliation. To some extent, they were also willing participants.

Personal anecdote time: like probably many here, I was bullied as a kid. It was a shockingly regular occurrence for me to be violently attacked, sometimes even by people I don’t think I’d ever interacted with before they were beating me. I had a timid and peaceful demeanor even when some of my family strongly encouraged me to defend myself. Eventually this led to a group of ~20 kids kicking me on the ground while I covered my head and neck and hoped to make it out alive. I was 13-14 years old, I had endured beatings on a lesser scale too many times to count. Of course I knew I couldn’t defend myself from 20 kids, so I took another beating. But the next time I got jumped, by one kid, I punched him straight in the face. I didn’t even know I had it in me to do, but instinct took over. Then I got up, saw the kid who attacked me was embarrassed but physically okay, and I walked away. That was the last time anyone ever laid hands on me outside a sporting context with established consent. Now I can forgive those kids, because they’ve stopped beating me.

1: Quoting Gandhi, source: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/gandhi-on-the-holocaust

I don't mean to pick on your personal story, but it would only be relevant if you found your bullies 60 years later, punched them in the face, and that somehow fixed your broken character.

In the real world, your bullies are no longer the same people, and punching them 60 years later won't address your past or future problems.

Huh? Actual discrimination and hate and violence are also active and ongoing. That was my point. You can’t forgive someone for transgressions they’re determined to continue. I can forgive people for something that happened to me 25 years ago because it’s in the past. That’s the relevance of my story. I can’t forgive people who are going to do the same to me tomorrow. And no one forgiving them while they still pursue that aggression is going to “end” anything other than their own dignity or their own lives.

> hate and violence are also active and ongoing

> You can’t forgive someone for transgressions they’re determined to continue

My understanding is that hate and violence in the last few decades have been steadily declining. At the same time, self-reported perception of those has been increasing since ~2014.

Maybe there's eluding racism we can all feel but cannot measure.

Or maybe a side effect of changes to social network recommendation algorithms is that we're now building echo chambers and polarizing people.

Today there's less hate, but more talk about it. And drastic measures aimed to decrease it have a high likelihood of changing the trend.

There has been a massive resurgence of hate groups and hate crimes in recent years. Some of it has barely been discussed at all.

That's adorable.

When white people have kids, they have to give their children the birds and the bees talk when they reach an appropriate age.

When black people have kids, they have to give them the same talk, and also the one where you need to be really careful about acting a specific way around cops lest they unalive you because police officers view blacks as more aggressive than whites because of prejudice.

As long as my kids have to live in a world where they need to be given that second talk? I don't care about how put-upon you are by people actively reacting against racism.

Hmm, while I was an exchange student in the US, I got that exact speach house from a friend's father ("hands on the wheel unless asked to do otherwise, stay friendly, no sudden moves"). However, I was very white (a geek who didn't get out much) and he was a white Mormon. That was in 1997 and since my friend had obviously heard that speech many times before, I just assumed that's what all kids are taught over there...

Did he tell you about how you shouldn't act suspicious when you walk into a convenience store lest the employees stalk you? Did he warn you that attempting to sell a house in this country will automatically result in a lower sale price from your own agent than if you were white? There are literally hundreds of these examples.

Notice how you're moving the goalpost.

> shouldn't act suspicious when you walk into a convenience store lest the employees stalk you

I understand it's tempting to blame it on racism, but please go talk to non-white store owners. They do the same thing, it's not about the race.

You have to pick which battle you're going to fight.

Either racism today is the major problem. Or there's racism in the past that lead to poverty in the present. Those are two different lenses dictating two different strategies.

You can choose to feel righteous and fight ever-elusive racism.

Or you can chose to be pragmatic and fight poverty.

Being righteous is definitely more pleasant and convincing to the masses, but it rarely produces better results than being pragmatic.

How would you know it's not a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Have you considered that giving the talk and installing the idea that "cops are your enemy" might cause your kids to run away or resist the police, thus unnecessarily escalating what could be a perfectly civil interaction?

Because people aren't pulling themselves over and and shooting themselves. They aren't invading their own homes and shooting themselves. They aren't kneeling on their own chests and asphyxiating themselves. And the simple fact of the matter is that this is a RESPONSE to how cops have treated minorities for generations. Pretending that educating children on how to act around people who have a preconception that the color of your skin causes you to be a threat is racist gaslighting.

There's a speed trap in Louisiana that I passed through for over 30 years. I've never seen a white person behind the wheel of a car with a police car nearby unless it was a traffic accident, I've seen tons of white motorists pass through the area far above the speed limit, and the community is 60% white. Meanwhile, I saw black folks pulled over literally every day. Please whitesplain to me how being wary of the cops in that stretch is the fault of black folks.

> Because people aren't pulling themselves over and and shooting themselves. They aren't invading their own homes and shooting themselves. They aren't kneeling on their own chests and asphyxiating themselves

Are you aware that for every example you brought up (Rayshard Brooks, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd) there's a recent example of the exact same thing happening to a white person and getting no national attention whatsoever?

Your cherry-picking and emotional response is what leads to polarization in society.

> how cops have treated minorities for generations

No, this is how cops treated everyone.

The statistics are out there for you to read, provided that you can do basic math.

> The only way anything stops is for people to have the humility and wisdom to say “this will stop with me.”

You mean like when people decide to highlight issues with diversity and representation in academia by requiring it to be addressed?

Representation is a significant goal post move past equality of opportunity. Typically what is meant is that unequal representation is evidence of discrimination. Academia has bent over backwards for a long time now to attempt to admit people of all groups. Blaming academia's admission and hiring processes for the numbers not being the way representationalists would prefer completely ignores the practices of decades.

Addressing diversity issues in academia is a pursuit that can be — and commonly is — orthogonal to presenting research.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com