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Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

This was the wrong decision. Liberal institutions in the west have begun to increasingly yield to the demands of extremist minority views and doing so only emboldens them. You are free to insult white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men in this country but everyone else is a protected class. Even speaking positively or respectfully discussing the protected classes in a vaguely defined wrong way spurs outrage and likely costs you your job. Its interesting watching institutions act outraged over Florida's "don't say gay" bill while instituting their own version of it that just targets everything else.

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> institutions act outraged over Florida's "don't say gay" bill

Were you upset of the 'don't say gay bill'? It's an example, not just of a single school acting to restrict academic freedom and freedom of expression in general, but the actual government enforcing this on ALL schools. That should be enraging to anyone who cares about freedom. A elementary school teacher was fired not too long ago for reading 'A need a new butt', because Christians found it offensive.

I think the decision to fire this guy was wrong, but this sort of action is hardly the sole domain of the 'left', the 'right' is doing plenty of censorship in schools all by itself.

The bill in Florida was perfectly reasonable. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age- appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students according to state standards.

3rd grade classrooms are not places of intellectual freedom. They are places of indoctrination. A third grader does not have academic freedom, there is no countervailing point in the classroom. It is completely different than a university setting. According to the t xt of the bill, I can't think of any good reason for a teacher to want to violate the law unless they want to push their own agenda onto the children. And that should not happen in a public school.

Why can't the banning depictions of mohammad also be 'perfectly reasonable' because it university classrooms are not places of intellectual freedom, they are places of indoctrination. I can't think of any good reason for a teacher to want to violate this policy unless they want to push their own agenda onto the students. See how generic your defense is? It can be used for anything you disagree with.

'I need a new butt', was a book on the schools reading list. Was firing that teacher perfectly reasonable also? Was a funny book about butts indoctrination?

Critical race theory is being muzzled at the university level by the government in florida. Are you angry about that overreach by state?

    > Critical race theory is being muzzled at the university level by the government in florida. Are you angry about that overreach by state?

Critical race theory needs to be treated the same as other pro-discrimination ideologies. Either they're all ok or none are ok. Picking and choosing one type of racial discrimination to support is in fact racist.

After all, Ibram X. Kendi who is generally regarded as the foremost proponent of Critical Race Theory argued in his book How to Be an Antiracist that, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” This is a fundamental position of Critical Race teachings.

Many would argue it's reasonable for parents to not want this sort of "good racial discrimination" being taught to their kids.

> Either they're all ok or none are ok.

Ibram X. Kendi is making a few points in the quoted passage.

The first is that it's not enough to just say "no more discrimination" after the entire system has already been set up to discriminate. That just results in a system that perpetuates discrimination.

To illustrate with an example: you and I sit down to play a game of Monopoly. Except instead of letting you play from the beginning, I tie you down and you have to watch me play the game alone until I control the bank, and have hotels on every space. At this point, I untie you and invite you to join me playing by the usual rules of the game.

"But that's not fair, you're obviously going to win." you say

"How is it not fair? We're both playing the game by the same rules."

The second point he's making is that there's no "end" to discrimination. The entire idea is just nonsense given the dynamics he describes, and it shouldn't be a goal much like eliminating all bias to appear fair and balanced, or vowing to never make a mistake again in order to be competent. Even if you declare it at an end, and try your hardest to end it in practice, discrimination still happens. It should be our goal to think long and hard about how to deal with discrimination rather than to endeavor to eliminate it.

Your analogy doesn't work because it assumes anything that happens to your ancestors necessarily affects you directly for every generation that comes after, forever. Your monopoly example is using a game that you and I play in directly against each other, when the reality is we have no idea how much positive or negative impact the ancestors of any given person has had on their lot in life.

Do you think people in Appalachia or a trailer park near you who have lived in generational poverty are some how benefited by their skin color? That would assume upper class people associate themselves with lower class, just due to skin color. But we know really that it's based on in groups and out groups. To test this, ask the average upper or upper middle class educated white person to describe the average trailer park dweller with the same color skin, and see their response.

It also assumes a lot of things based on skin color alone. If the concern is that we want to help those who need financial assistance, or educational assistance or whatever then there are ways to do that with means testing, not by relying on a Sherwin Williams color chart held up against your skin.

> anything that happens to your ancestors necessarily affects you directly for every generation that comes after, forever.

No, that's not what I said. The point is that the state of the system interplays with the rules governing the system. You can't ignore the state of the system and declare the game fair by looking at just the rules.

> when the reality is we have no idea how much positive or negative impact the ancestors of any given person has had on their lot in life.

I mean, we do though. Generational wealth is a thing. American slavery isn't even the distant past; the last person born into slavery died within living memory.

> If the concern is that we want to help those who need financial assistance, or educational assistance or whatever then there are ways to do that with means testing

Right, which involves a process of discrimination to correct for past discrimination.

> not by relying on a Sherwin Williams color chart held up against your skin.

Of course there are better ways to do things than this terrible strawman you built.

   > I mean, we do though. Generational wealth is a thing. American slavery isn't even the distant past

70% of generational wealth is lost by the 2nd generation, 90% by the 3rd generation[1][2][3], and it grows even more distant each generation after that. American slavery was around 15-20 generations ago, meaning there is almost zero generational wealth left in the same family hands from slavery. Also, a tiny percentage of American are even descended from a slave holding family in the first place..

So if 15-20 generations isn't long enough, how many more generations into the future would you say we need to discriminate against people based on skin color before we can call it enough? And what do we do about the millions of poor people with the wrong color skin, just keep discriminating against them due to their race and hope they don't take it personally?

   > Of course there are better ways to do things than this terrible strawman you built.

It's not a strawman though. If you're basing preferential treatment on race, how exactly do you determine that? Race isn't a scientific thing, so we have to either take people at their word or use a color chart. Is there a different method you had in mind?

[1] https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/generational-wealth:-why-do-...

[2] https://money.com/rich-families-lose-wealth/

[3] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-90-of-rich-peopl...

> American slavery was around 15-20 generations ago

Maybe you missed where I said the last person born into slavery died in living memory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_last_survivors_of_Am...

But the discussion of slavery kind of misses the larger point; that systemic discrimination was not in fact dismantled in America with the end of chattel slavery. Other systems replaced the intent, and those persisted long past the Civil War, well into recent history to today.

> It's not a strawman though. If you're basing preferential treatment on race, how exactly do you determine that?

No one is holding up color scales to people’s skin, and no one suggested doing so, certainly not me. That’s how your argument is a straw man.

It sounds like you are trying to make a different argument now, and if you want to make that one without building a straw man, please do so.

I gave you the data that shows your claims of generational wealth trickling through to an entire race of people, are false. You haven't addressed that.

You are the one making the argument that we need racial discrimination to right past wrongs. I gave you the reasons that is not only immoral, but unworkable. So if you have some method to make your vision of present & future racial discrimination a net benefit for society, I would like to hear it. Logically it isn't possible, so I'm curious to hear your proposed solution.

You supplied three links about how wealthy families lose fortunes over time, I don't think they're really relevant to the discussion. They don't address anything we're talking about here, which is how some groups are systemically held back by building wealth in the first place.

What is the argument for basing policies on race, rather than actual need? Also, how do you verify race?

1) You are the only one here arguing about race-based policies. Neither I nor the passage you quoted by Ibram X. Kendi make such an argument (if Kendi makes the argument that racial discrimination is necessary, I don't agree with that. But the passage you quoted isn't making that point). I don't know if he makes that argument elsewhere, but as far as this discussion goes, that's something you're arguing against, not what I'm arguing for. In that sense, this argument of yours is a continuation of your strawman argument from before.

To be clear: not all discrimination is racial discrimination, and you don't need to racially discriminate to fix the effects of racial discrimination. Saying we need discrimination is not the same as saying we need racial discrimination.

2) Although this discussion surrounds race and focuses on rectifying past racial discrimination, we don't have to turn to future racial discrimination to rectify it. The point is that we do have to discriminate, however. I believe even you recognize and admit the need for that, because you suggested as much in your earlier post.

For example, we can recognize the impact racist policies like redlining had on minority communities. We can fix this past discrimination by investing in those areas, which of course involves discrimination. We don't have to decide who gets those dollars based on race, but we are basing who gets those dollars on past racial discrimination.

3) If you want to implement a policy based on race, obviously you can just ask the person what their race is. It's okay to let people self-report sometimes. Or market the program to people who are in the specific community you are targeting and ask for proof of residence. There's lots of things you can do, but literally no one has color swatches or endeavors to implement such practices. That's a strawman.

    > You are the only one here arguing about race-based policies. Neither I nor the passage you quoted by Ibram X. Kendi make such an argument (if Kendi makes the argument that racial discrimination is necessary, I don't agree with that. But the passage you quoted isn't making that point)

He does, and it forms the foundation of the book "How to be an Antiracist" which is where it is made, and the book is one of the most widely cited books from those who support the concept of racial equity (ie racial policy preferences to achieve specific outcomes by skin color). If you don't support racial preferences/discrimination that's good, but it certainly seemed like you were defending it throughout this exchange. And by backing Kendi, you are backing a racist. It's certainly within your rights, I just don't agree with it.

    > If you want to implement a policy based on race, obviously you can just ask the person what their race is.

Why would we ever want the government to participate in racial discrimination though? We've seen that never ends well and only leads to resentment and divisiveness.

> He does, and it forms the foundation of the book "How to be an Antiracist"

Did you read the book? The foundation of the book is right in the title: to fight racism it's not enough to be not racist, one must be antiracist. The book is about defining this term and explaining that premise. The book makes a lot of points, some good, some strained, but I don't believe "racial discrimination is necessary" is one of them. I'd challenge you to find some quotes that support your position. And no, the one you already quoted does not fit the bill.

> And by backing Kendi, you are backing a racist.

Point in fact I was defending a specific point you raised, not "backing" anybody.

> Why would we ever want the government to participate in racial discrimination though?

I wouldn't and you wouldn't, but some people have wanted this in a misguided way.

     > Did you read the book?

Yes.

    > I don't believe "racial discrimination is necessary" is one of them.

Did you read the book?

Racial equity (as opposed to racial equality) by definition requires racial discrimination. There is no other way to achieve the "desired" equitable outcomes other than racial preferences. It's a point acknowledged in Kendi's work along with every other "antiracist" author of note.

> Did you read the book?

Yes, and I did not get your interpretation at all. Considering the fact that in our discussion you've misrepresented a quote from Kendi, and built strawmen to argue points never made by Kendi or myself (to the point you couldn't even recognize my argument, instead favoring to argue against the strawman you've built), I'm wondering if you haven't strawmanned the entire book.

In a previous post I asked you to substantiate your argument with quotes from the book, but you haven't. If you don't want to substantiate your argument I think we're done here.

> Racial equity (as opposed to racial equality) by definition requires racial discrimination.

This idea is unrecognizable to me. It seems more like a caricature of what progressives and anti-racists believe than what they actually believe (which is a common thread that unifies your posts). If we want to try at a definition, here's one as good as any:

"Racial equity is a process of eliminating racial disparities and improving outcomes for everyone."

https://www.raceforward.org/about/what-is-racial-equity-key-...

Here's another one:

"Racial equity is achieved when race no longer factors into or determines one’s socioeconomic outcomes. It is when everyone has what they need to thrive, no matter where they live or how they identify."

https://unitedwaynca.org/blog/what-is-racial-equity-definiti...

So we have a definition for racial equity used by a notable antiracist org (united way) that explicitly says racial equity is achieved in through an absence of racial discrimination, not through it.

Again, bring some quotes or some other source to support your position and we can have a discussion.

> There is no other way to achieve the "desired" equitable outcomes other than racial preferences.

You also insisted that the only way to determine someone's race is to use a color chart (and also your view of race is very narrow -- it's not about skin tone), so I think your imagination is lacking. In fact if you actually listen to anti-racists (which is distinct from pretending to listen and then putting the words in their mouths you wish they had said), you'd hear that equity is achieved through anti-racism, which is not just reflected racism as you are claiming.

   > "Racial equity is a process of eliminating racial disparities and improving outcomes for everyone."

Uh huh. Now show us how you change racial disparities without using racial preferences/discrimination. By definition, it's not possible. Policies have to consider race first and tilt scales in order to achieve these objectives.

I'd encourage you to try and find some actual examples that run counter to this, and see for yourself.

Well then I don't get it. Putting up depictions of Mohammad can easily be viewed as inflammatory discrimination against Muslims, but that's ok?

Again, I don't think this teacher should have been fired. But the arguments against it in these comments seem hypocritical when support is given to other types of censorship only because they happen to disagree with what was being suppressed.

> Although it was unnecessarily inflammatory in my opinion, it isn't a universal belief among Muslims that Mohammad can't be depicted and it certainly isn't a core tenet of Islam. If anything, one would argue that depictions of Mohammad should be treated the same as depictions of Jesus, Moses etc.

Exactly my point. Arguments could be made about the validity of any of these topics. There is no consistent basis, just 'This is censorship because topic is bad in my opinion, but other topic can be censored without issue because I disagree with it'.

   > Well then I don't get it. Putting up depictions of Mohammad can easily be viewed as inflammatory discrimination against Muslims, but that's ok?

Although it was unnecessarily inflammatory in my opinion, it isn't a universal belief among Muslims that Mohammad can't be depicted and it certainly isn't a core tenet of Islam. If anything, one would argue that depictions of Mohammad should be treated the same as depictions of Jesus, Moses etc.

Ps, side question. How do you make the quoted part of the comment come out in a different font like that?

Prepend a paragraph with two spaces

Honestly no, elementary thru highschool is not the same as intellectual free wheeling college. Lower levels are there to teach you the basics needed to survive they are not there to present sexual ideas to kids and challenge social norms. Parents are free to educate their kids outside of school how they want. I'm fine with elementary school kids not learning about homosexuality and transexuality. I actually voted Republican for the first time in my life to support this bill.

> This was the wrong decision.

It seems like it. It seems like the university didn’t even clearly understand that Muslims are divided on this topic before taking action.

> Liberal institutions in the west have begun to increasingly yield to the demands of extremist minority views and doing so only emboldens them. You are free to insult white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men in this country but everyone else is a protected class.

This, however, is just straight up alt-right talking points.

Really? If you speak ill of "white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men" will you lose your job? Will you lose your job in liberal universities if you speak ill of Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, African Americans? In case of perceived bias, I'm a swing voting (95% Dem) Jew.

The worst thing is that the white left decides what is offensive or not. I’m Asian and most of the things they claim as racism against Asian are so cringe, literally nobody cares.

Same goes with the latinx movement. Actual people from latin America find it stupid and in some cases, ironically, offensive

Yes, it's cringe because it's said as a laughing matter and can have no consequences nowadays or it mostly doesn't. I used to think this way too before and I am still not liberal but the thing with racism is, the start might be jokes but once it's systematic because "nobody cares it's just jokes" those same words might start to hit differently.

The liberals can be overreaching about such matters, but I personally think racial slurs shouldn't be tolerated a lot.

This is just my 2 cents on the subject.

The point is, banning things does not solve problems. It just complicates things, force people to act in certain ways to make sure they aren't racist, instead of being genuine. When I'm accepted into interviews for jobs that aren't going to hire me anyway... it just wastes my time and their time.

The problem isn't much about racism, it is about some people act like jerks. And people can be jerks with or without racism.

The point of banning racism is so people don't feel comfortable doing it in public Because once that's there, systematic racism is going to be back, things won't stop at the random jerk level. Being a jerk might be because someone had a bad day etc, it's not loaded, you can counter it and it's not organized hate. But racism is different, racism targets anyone who looks like you, and it's usually organized efforts and loaded with ideas about dehumanizing people.

sometimes things escalate and this same random jerk might murder you if they think there is a high chance they will escape the justice system because you're basically a subhuman under the new laws that these lighthearted racists passed.

You can't make everyone good and decent, but you can for sure punish the racists and limit their access to power and that's what banning does in this case.

What would be illegal under this law? If a couple guys are sitting having a beer at home discussing their opinion on the difference in races and how some are better than others would that be illegal? If the neighbor overhead and turned them in, how long would they go to jail for over this private conversation that had previously been protected by the 1st? Would you advocate taking their children away from them? Does this law extend to people saying bad things about whites? What other speech would be outlawed as dangerous? What political ideas are banned? The 1st amendment exists for a very important reason. Restricting speech is a slippery slope that can rapidly lead to the party in power staying in power by banning opposing ideas.

Yes, depending on what you say, absolutely. If I stood in my classroom and made blanket disparaging statements about cis men or Christians or white people, I guarantee students in those groups would go to the admin and complain. If what I said was bad enough, I’d likely be fired.

You wouldn’t get fired at Rutgers:

https://torontosun.com/life/rutgers-professor-calls-white-pe...

Or Drexel:

https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/health/drexel-professor-white...

Or Yale:

https://news.yahoo.com/psychiatrist-delivered-lecture-yale-d...

But say things that are embarrassing yet true of minority students at Georgetown, and you’ll be fired and disowned by the college in under 48 hours:

https://news.yahoo.com/georgetown-law-professor-fired-over-1...

To be clear when I wrote my post I had in mind classroom instruction. The first two links are about comments made outside of the classroom, by tenured professors nonetheless. Hard to fire them for almost anything, but it does happen from time to time. The Drexel professor was later placed on administrative leave and then resigned.

The Yale link was about a lecture given by someone not affiliated with the University.

> you’ll be fired and disowned by the college in under 48 hours:

Yes, much easier to do with adjuncts compared to tenured professors.

Modern progressivism does distinguish instances of “punching down”, yes. That’s no secret and is not intended to be.

That’s not the point, though. Turning this into a “what about the white men!” whinge is blatantly misrepresenting this scenario as the result of “modern progressivism” when it’s actually something else.

I believe that you’re not going to find many proponents of the sort of progressivism that the “white about the white men!?”crowd fight against, that are actually in favour of this decision. Furthermore I believe that you’d find plenty that are against it.

Around the proponents of this ideology are concentric circles of people making misguided attempts to “capitulate to this PC culture”, often as an ass-covering tactic. By the time you get to a layperson perceiving ‘the culture’, it’s a xerox of a xerox of a xerox created by various corporate HR, PR, and marketing departments. Then, of course, you’ve got the people revolting against Big Org #836 mandating wearing pronoun pins in the office when that’s clearly not something any trans person would advocate for. The collective facepalming at misguided attempts to pander to “LGBTQIA+” is a big part of the current queer community / culture. This is just the community I am familiar with. I imagine it’s the same elsewhere.

I don’t believe that this is much of a ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy. It’s pretty easy to draw a logical bound between those that believe in the cause, and the rest.

I do not believe that this action was taken as a genuine act of modern progressivism. It’s a typical corporate ‘make this go away and don’t upset the minorities with megaphones’ action. But we’ve got some great keywords like “university” and “Muslim” which opportunists obnoxiously use to fuel the culture war.

Wouldn't offending muslims be punching down then?

   > Modern progressivism does distinguish instances of “punching down”

And many would argue the concept of this being "punching down" requires at least a subconscious belief that those groups are somehow beneath other groups in the first place. Furthermore, why support punching at all?

I'm not alt-right and I'm not white and I'm not religious. I agree completely with that view.

> It seems like the university didn’t even clearly understand that Muslims are divided on this topic before taking action.

Of course, I'd assume most muslim don't care about this event, besides a minority of fanatics. But I don't think it even matters. A art history teacher should be free to discuss a painting in their class no matter what "Muslims" think.

Clearly the issue is with the school here. Not the teacher, and not the "muslims". This complaining student should have been explained that her demands are not legitimate.

> This, however, is just straight up alt-right talking points.

Doesn't make it inaccurate. Trying to cudgel GP into submission by casting aspersions of being "alt-right" affiliated is evidence of it being true, even. The gaslighting is unwelcome.

I disagree with the alt-right categorization. I am thankful I am not a teacher who has to lead a discussion in a liberal arts school. I am asian(Indian) and while I have heard / seen plenty of offensive content against my ilk, I have never felt threatened / fearsome or the need to play the victim card like the Ms. Wedatalla. >“Who do I call at 8 a.m.,” she asked, when “you see someone disrespecting and offending your religion?”

Over the top, much?

> This, however, is just straight up alt-right talking points.

I beg to differ, this is exactly my impression, too.

You are allowed to insult brown people of other faiths without repercussion. Honestly there are only two faiths that can get you cancelled with a high degree of success. To phrase this as some anti-christian white-only intifada is dis-genuine.

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