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For the colorblindness part, I think my core objection to the cultural changes which have occurred since I was a kid is not to increased awareness of biases per se, but rather this phenomenon: https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb

My feeling is that the best way to reduce subconscious bias is to have good race relations. And the best way to have good race relations is to have more positive interactions than negative interactions.

A thought experiment: Imagine a non-Mexican person says "I love celebrating Cinco de Mayo. It's an excellent excuse to drink tequila!"

As a culture, we can decide whether that's a positive interaction or a negative interaction.

We can make it a positive interaction by laughing and clinking glasses.

We can make it a negative interaction by calling the person out for cultural appropriation or trivializing an important Mexican holiday.

My intuition is that making it a negative interaction is a big mistake, because it worsens subconscious racial biases and generally makes the world a less pleasant place. I recommend playing this game https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb to better understand my intuition here. (Based on what I've read about Israel/Palestine, the game is an excellent description of why things have been getting so bad there lately.)

Irony is heavy there, unintentional double entendre of sorts. Mexicans barely recognize or care about the 5th of May. That’s an American Chicano celebration for the most part. Mexicans kind of laugh about its importance in the US.

I say this from Mexico, sitting next to my Mexican wife and her mother.

To loop this back to OP, "US Mexicans" are different from "Mexico Mexicans" is something I didn't realize until my adult life. They have their own way of speaking, their own foods, and a more recent immigrant background as a minority, which has a huge affect sociologically. That doesn't make their particular cultural enclave less important, but it is an interesting observation. American Italians are another great example of this, though their immigration ended much longer ago.

I know this just your example but I think it demonstrates the larger issue with victim culture. Cinco de Mayo is not actually a very important holiday in Mexico. I agree that it’s not good to turn everything into a negative interaction but it’s not clear to me that having “cultural appropriation” as a top of mind issue is a very healthy thing either.

Cultural appropriation is nonsense. Probably most of what we are is a result of cross-pollination of cultures. Who gets to decide who belongs to one group or another?

I think they are called Progressives.

I find the unatonable original sin spin placed on white people these days in the USA to be a tad bit repulsive personally.

And that’s why the Proud Boys say they’re not apologizing for creating the modern world. And the idea is popular.

To be clear, many Hispanics agree. Many of their ancestors played a role alongside the rest of their fellow whites. Whites are still admired by Asians as well.

This anti-white thing is largely an American phenomenon and other far left folks around the world that are resentful and cannot accept responsibility for their own condition. The rest of them deal with the hand they’re dealt, and go to work. As no one has more influence over their lives than them. We just accept it rather than adopt victimhood as a way of life. That’s how you create losers.

Not sure what fantasy you’re living in where a terrorist group (aside from perhaps the U.S. government) is “creating the modern world” lmao

I presume whatever fantasy it is might be a fairly common “master race” one

The "they" when they say "they" created the modern world is not the membership of the organisation, but rather western civilisation/culture.

If it is silly to feel responsible for bad things that other people did, just because they happened to have the same color of skin, it is also silly to take credit for the good things other people did.

Exactly. We can only be proud of what we personally accomplish.

I wasn’t endorsing the Proud Boys, but they aren’t completely without a point either. I’m more concerned victimhood culture is destroying more lives than racism is at this point.

My wife is not a white woman. No one’s going to tell our kids that they’re doomed. I want them to flourish. regardless of circumstances, through grit, persistence, determination, and resilience.

At a certain point, we all need to deal with the hand we’re dealt in life. I certainly was not on the fortunate side of the fence myself.

There’s a reason why a lot of families no longer exist. Tough times came and they put a bullet in their head. We’re heading for tough times again and outcomes will be delineated by who has taught their children strong values.

Well strictly speaking a) they don't say they're proud of it, they say the "refuse to apologise for it" and b) they have ethnic minority members and their leader was afro-cuban (Enrique Tarrio).

This is true. I am not a Proud Boy expert. I don't support the movement. I just know of them and referenced a line of theirs. But their stance is better nuanced than my recollection was.

I do like the minority inclusion because you don't have to be white to be Christian, support a modern law-abiding civilization, or generally do "what works". I'm white but my wife is Mexican. We're both very conservative in most ways. Her family is proud of the Christian conquest of Latin America and don't think they went far enough in the conquest. Far beyond the typical liberal American view of boo hoo for the "natives". Americans are not aware that many hispanics are more conservative than they think. The racial purity thing is not going to be very productive going forward. The Proud Boys were a model for the future in that regard.

What the boat is sailing on now though are Greco-Roman values, which is the basis of western civilization. Which is kind of important since the east tends to rely on oppression. Look at Russia and China today.

To be clear, are you saying that white people are supposed to feel bad for being white because of "bad things" done by white people?

That is the underlying tone that comes across to me whenever these subjects come up. Effectively pushing against the idea makes one a "racist" or a "white supremacist" as far as I can tell. I don't know how to respond to that kind of labeling because I don't find myself disliking people because of something as superficial as their skin color.

> Effectively pushing against the idea makes one a "racist" or a "white supremacist" as far as I can tell.

Your wording is a wee bit vague. There's nothing wrong about pushing back on the notion that if one is white than one is guilty of crimes committed in the name of white superiority (because that's actually racist too).

But it also doesn't discount the fact that racism is still very much a problem.

I am not vague. What is vague is the shadowy threat of being called a racist for stating ones opinion while having the wrong color of skin. It is a problem. Just a wee bit.

I'm sorry -- that wasn't intended as an insult, more of an issue on me being able to ascertain exactly what you were saying. Comprehending other people's writing can be challenging at times even if you think you know what they're saying.

One's opinion should stand on the words/ideas behind them, not what one looks like. Getting called out for that is bullshit and should be disregarded.

Part of my confusion is also that I don't feel the threat that you mention. I'm also okay with being challenged and with being wrong. I think the key is to try to engage with respect and be prepared to listen to what the other party is trying to say -- and assume best intentions.

I fully agree with you about ideas standing on their merits. I hope we continue to move in that direction as a species.

I certainly didn't mean to invalidate their discomfort -- as I mentioned at the end, I feel the same way sometimes. I apologize if people found it invalidating.

I actually wrote the initial draft of my comment with welcomingness as sort of a background assumption in my mind, and then I thought "wait a minute, even if I'm assuming that people would be welcoming, the person reading my comment might not. and given how hostile online discussions can get, it seems safer to err on the side of emphasizing welcomingness." That still seems roughly correct to me -- I think some topics have so much hostility associated with them that whatever you're going to say about the topic, it probably makes sense to also add in a bunch of welcomingness too, just so the discussion goes well.