The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    The Social Construction of Racism in the United States

    By artappraiser on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 4:19am |

    The Social Construction of Racism in the United States (Executive Summary, Table of Contents and PDF download at link)

    by Eric Kaufmann, April 7, published at Manhattan-Institute.org

    Foreword by Coleman Hughes

    In the 1980s, people all around America became convinced that day care centers were secretly practicing demonic ritual sex abuse on children. These allegations stayed in the national news for the better part of a decade. Hapless day care workers were falsely convicted of running sex rings. Evidence of their guilt was manufactured as necessary. In hindsight, this episode looks absurd. How could anyone have believed that there were Satanic day care centers throughout the country? Yet at the time, many reasonable people were swept up in the delusion—as were the prosecutors and elected officials who promised to put a stop to the fake problem. Such is the nature of moral panics. What looks like obvious absurdity from the outside seems totally reasonable to those on the inside.

    Some moral panics are mysterious in origin. Others are the product of specific ideas. Since about 2014, we have been facing a new moral panic surrounding race, gender, and sexuality. Unlike Satanic day cares, this one is not a complete fabrication. Bigotry is real. Yet the public perception of bigotry has surpassed the reality to such an extent that it has become a moral panic. White supremacy is said to be rampant. Black people should fear for their lives when going for a jog, one New York Times op-ed argued.

    Yet as political scientist Eric Kaufmann lays out in this paper, the public has a mistaken perception of how much racism exists in America today. This misperception is not only driven by cognitive biases such as the availability heuristic, it is also driven by ideas. Critical race theory and intersectionality—formerly confined to graduate seminars—have seeped into corporate America and Silicon Valley, as well as into many K–12 education systems. With their spread has come an increase in the misperception that bigotry is everywhere, even as the data tell a different story: racism exists, but there has never been less racism than there is now.

    If America’s racial tensions ever heal, it will be because we were able to align our perceptions with our reality and leave moral panics at the door.

    Comments

    One thing about racism in the US: Americans are so overeducated and take in such media that they often think something like racism works the way professional analysts and academics say it does and not in the fluid way it often does in real life.

    I had a good friend, a black guy, who I knew at work. He was friends with a maintenance guy who was very clearly from a rural country area. All 3 of us got along really well. The maintenance dude dropped the n-bomb really, really loud, with the "full E-R" while just the 2 of us were talking once. He was talking about a traffic altercation he had with a black driver. Based on the liberal analysis of how racism works, I wondered if maybe he faked his friendship with the other guy and secretly loathed him but, as I continued working there, I observed their interaction and realized their relationship was exactly like it seemed at the onset. Also, the black guy in question that he was friends with was no "uncle tom" - he was extremely progressive and voiced it frequently. Cognitive dissonance? Maybe. It is a thing. Spike Lee also depicted people like this at the Italian pizza place "Sal's" in Do The Right Thing.

    I also had a black employer at one point who would very much talk black victimhood - lynchings, police harassment, African immigrants looking down on him as lazy, etc. - but when it came to hiring, seemed racist as hell. He was holding on to dear life to me while making it very difficult for anyone black, especially women, to stay in his employ. He tried putting various white people in the job even though they clearly were not good fits. Self-hatred? Maybe.

    That doesn't mean that the maintenance guy wasn't racist, or that the black employer wasn't genuinely black, only that racism didn't quite operate the way the narrative says. I think that other societies have a more fluid understanding of how tribalism and prejudice works, but we like to see things as simple/black and white here.

    Also, I won't say it was intentional but racial identity in the US has worked to split working class interests. Black people are often conservative about literally everything except race, and that works to supercede everything else and keep them voting for progressives, even when gun ownership is high and you see active churches and pro-life billboard ads in black areas.


    by Orion on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 2:39pm

    Orion, I always enjoy your personal anecdotes and insights very much; thank you for taking the time to write them up!


    by artappraiser on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 5:08pm

    I'm looking for writing jobs. Give me a letter of recommendation!


    by Orion on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 7:56pm

    you have the best kind of recommendation to cite right there, from a reader

    http://dagblog.com/comment/303642#comment-303642


    by artappraiser on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 8:25pm

    Whooot!


    by Orion on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 8:58pm

    From your description of the event, the maintenance person used the slur when only the two of you were in conversation. Did your Black friend ever hear the maintenance person use the word in his presence? If the maintenance person never used the word in the presence of your Black friend, the Liberal,analysis would say that your Black took took the relationship at face value and could in no way be called an Uncle Tom.

    Did you ever work for Black bosses who hired on a fair basis? Otherwise, it would seem that the Black boss was simply a hypocrite.

    Do you think Blacks, while conservative, see Republicans as foes because of things like voter suppression? Progressives often the only option.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 5:35pm

    The maintenance person never said that around the black friend, that I know of (I was usually working when they talked to each other). The thing about the maintenance guy is he looked like the kind of white person who would drop the n-word and there's no way the black friend didn't know that.

    The only other time I worked for a black man was at a hip-hop magazine in the 2000s. There were similar dynamics - both had a white guy working with him that they were really close to and didn't seem to mind sharing power with. At the hip-hop magazine, it was still majority black being employed. The hip-hop guy was not a hypocrite and that's what the guy I referenced was - there was a big separation between what he said about the world and what he did. He preferred being around white people and working with white people but he liked to use all the grievance to keep the working relationship going.

    I think that mainstream conservatism generally turns off black people. I met black conservatives before Trump but it's like something talked them in to it or it was a rebellious phase. During Trump, I met young black guys who really liked Trump and had very thought out reasons for it.

    If you go back and look at history, you actually see blacks voting for Democrats at the same time Dixiecrats were pushing Jim Crow laws.You see Nation of Islam with George Lincoln Rockwell. I think it is strictly economic. Conservatism isn't overtly hostile to them but it doesn't give them economic opportunity, and therefore is even more hostile than nationalism in their eyes. Conservative era saw mass incarceration, the crack epidemic, a bunch of stuff that was really bad in the black community. And it's not just them - that whole ideology never appealed to a majority of any minorities, even Jews.


    by Orion on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 9:44pm

    So the Black co-worker was unaware (most likely) that the maintenance guy called him a nigger. Not a real test of anything

    The hypocritical Black boss seems to be a one-off

    White Supremacists and Farrakhan shared a dream of white and Black separatism. They are also anti-Semites. Both are outliers. There are Black members of the Proud Boys, for example.

    Blacks lived in the South where Democrats held power, it seems logical that Blacks knew it was best to show that you voted for those in power. 

    The New Deal changed the dynamics for Blacks in the North

    https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Essays/Keeping-the-Faith/Party-Realignment--New-Deal/

    Republicans currently represent Conservatives

    Do you think that the Republican Party is not overtly hostile to Black voters?


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 9:03pm

    Maintenance guy never called co-worker anything besides his name. He was referring to someone he had a traffic collison with.

    I would distinguish the Reagan and Bush eras as conservative and Trump as nationalist. Trump saw himself his whole career as an outlier from conservatism and he didn't change much when he became president. He injected ideas and approaches that alienated many conservatives and many conservatives who put support behind him were really under the gun to do so.

    During the Bush years, when mainstream conservatism was big, it was not overtly racist. The people behind the scenes sure may have been, but they took pains to appear inclusive (Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, a diverse cabinet, black people on 700 Club, etc.) and it just flat out didn't work. Somehow, despite overt racism, Trump did better with them than Bush ever could have dreamed of. Of course, he still won over only a small portion but a larger portion than previous GOP presidents.

    When I worked at a conservative think tank back in 2010, a year before Trump made himself a public figure with all the birth certificate stuff, I heard insanely racist stuff. One lecturer in a speech referred to Washington D.C. as "a land of fried chicken franchises." It was stuff like that every day. Nevertheless, they were putting black people all over their propaganda, especially trying to portray themselves as supporting getting black students in to charter schools, etc.

    I will be more specific about one black Trump supporter I met. He worked security, lived in Oakland (which Trump called "like living in hell"), wore gold teeth and supported Trump largely because he was pro-gun. Claimed he couldn't get his glock if Joe Biden became president. He also said that "people don't like Donald Trump don't know why they don't like him. They just know they're not supposed to." He also said he preferred overt racism to "stealth" racism. I did know black Bush supporters but they were not as passionate.

    There's a lot to work out and I'm not sure of the reasoning, but I'd say black voters, even outliers like you mentioned, largely just never saw anything in conservatism for them. It's not meant for them so go figure.


    by Orion on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 9:47pm

    I think that it is clear that Black voters view themselves as Conservatives and Republicans as reactionaries 

    Tasha Philpot discusses this POV in her book "Conservative But Not Republican: The Paradox of Party Identification and Ideology Among African Americans"

    Left of Black host Dr. Mark Anthony Neal sits down with Dr. Tasha Philpot to discuss her recent publication, "Conservative But Not Republican: The Paradox of Party Identification and Ideology Among African Americans" Dr. Philpot is an Associate Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Her particular interests are in African-American Politics, Political Psychology, Public Opinion and Political Behavior, Political Communication, and Political Parties. Dr. Neal teaches Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6st5Mwa1XmU&t=64s

    Republicans abandoned Conservatism 


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 11:03pm

    you realize that in this comment you're totally making all kinds of social constructions for yourself? everyone has to be placed within some kind of tribal unit, where there's no such things as individuals with complex independent thoughts? and it's always about politics, everything is within a political frame


    by artappraiser on Fri, 04/09/2021 - 12:01am

    I'm not making any social constructions. I'm reporting on the findings of studies done by a respected sociologist and the studies she refers to. The studies are about Blacks who label themselves Conservative. Their complex thought patterns about why they are Conservative but not Republican are detailed in the book.


    by rmrd0000 on Sat, 04/10/2021 - 12:07pm

    You do realize theres nothing racist in noting where many of a type eat? If you say something about white guys and Bud or yuppie whites and sushi is that offensive? racist? Yeah, i lived in DC and oh so surprisingly it's 80-90% black. Of course you could pick out the whites by going to Whole Foods on Sunday morning. Then there was the whole crop of political Capitol Hill females, blondes with their hair cut exactly the same, bobbed in a couple inches above their i'm-a-professional women's suit with skirt tastefully mid-calf. No, don't try to distinguish. Is that a salad bar she's going for? Now let's talk about professional DC gays around Dupont Circle.... I mean, this is life, no?


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/09/2021 - 2:00am

    From the book description 

    Conservative but Not Republican provides a clear and comprehensive framework for understanding the formation and structure of ideological self-identification and its relationship to party identification in the United States. Exploring why the increase in Black conservatives has not met with a corresponding rise in the number of Black Republicans, the book bridges the literature from a number of different research areas to paint a detailed portrait of African-American ideological self-identification. It also provides insight into a contemporary electoral puzzle facing party strategists, while addressing gaps in the current literature on public opinion and voting behavior. Further, it offers original research from previously untapped data. The book is primarily designed for political science, but is also relevant to African-American studies, communication studies, and psychology. Including easy-to-read tables and figures, it is accessible not only to academic audiences but also to journalists and practitioners.

    https://bookshop.org/books/conservative-but-not-republican-the-paradox-of-party-identification-and-ideology-among-african-americans/9781316615959

    It has nothing to do with the situations you present 

     


    by rmrd0000 on Sat, 04/10/2021 - 12:12pm

    A performance artist secretly recorded interactions with strangers.

    Here's what resulted.

    Via @christicarras https://t.co/0IrxBfjcYL

    — Los Angeles Times (@latimes) April 8, 2021

    edit to add, also in LATimes:

     


    by artappraiser on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 10:13pm

    So if a Chinese mispronounces a Thai or Chinese name is that ok?

    And since when did Middle-easterners become "white"? Churchill called, he wants his colonial racism back.

    (is "Hasan" hard to pronounce? Don't we have a famous actress or singer named "Minaj"?)

    Of course, strange to say, many of these offended long-namers have short versions in their own culture like "P.J." or "Hari" - it's not like Moms gonna hold dinner until she spits out the full names of all her kids.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/09/2021 - 1:45am

    reminded only now how my father legally changed his name after getting out of the army because it was one of those long Polish names with "ski" on the end of it. Reasons he would give: In the army they would just call out "ski"; he felt that some WASPS fell for the "Poles are dumb oxes" prejudice and he wanted to climb the ladder; and he tired of spelling it out for people. His father,my grandfather, whose parents came from Poland and he was not close to, was deceased, so no problem there. And his mother, my grandmother, whose parents came from Germany, and was known to tell a Polish joke or two herself, thought it such a good idea that she was thinking of changing it along with him! She didn't, though, she just found a guy to marry a second time with a shorter name. None of the relatives with this name were immigrants, they were all born in the U.S., that was the generation before them, so they absolutely considered themselves American and nothing else.

    It's clearly harder for people with Asian features because of the stupid prejudices of some of our population--just getting rid of their name wouldn't help.

    I guess I was raised to understand that some people could hate their heritage of "the old country", that many come to America to be American. You can't  presume. You can't presume that someone with black skin is of slave heritage, either, they could have heritage of immigrants of choice from Africa. You can't presume AT ALL from physical appearance....

    Edit to add: i do think that one thing you can presume pretty safely is that most if not all immigrants of Chinese heritage are here because someone didn't like China or Taiwan and wanted to be in America instead.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 04/09/2021 - 2:45pm

    If we shuffle around names and faces we'll be through with hierarchies forever. So simple.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/09/2021 - 3:19pm

    absurdly bold in-your-face illogical support of "the narrative":

    it follows, from the huge type in their very own tweet, that 79% of the supposedly unfairly paid college athletes are not black but it's only the commodification of the 21% that have black bodies that they care about! Because I guess that fits nicely with the slavery heritage, and the other color bodies don't.

    Anything to promote the narrative, anything.  It's so absurd, you almost have to laugh. One could at the very least think about spinning logical tales, find something that leaves the inconvenient facts out, something just talking about black college athletes alone!


    by artappraiser on Thu, 04/08/2021 - 11:31pm

    And the best women basketball players are in the bottom 10th of the men's league, but sure, pay them the same - people go to watch comparative rankings and relative parity, not top performance. That's why high school basketball's so big.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/09/2021 - 1:33am

    I am curious whether they plan to ask the businesses they are considering buying from if the owners are African immigrants.

    Target pledges to spend more than $2B at Black-owned businesses.https://t.co/B6wGJaKPEh pic.twitter.com/fs3VjhEBxv

    — KARE 11 (@kare11) April 7, 2021

    Is it possible to make a database with *verified Afro-American* business owners? To be in the database, they would have to fill out a form, like when applying for a grant, testifying to the inherited prejudice they have suffered due to being genetically related to those with black skin who have lived in the U.S. for many generations.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 04/09/2021 - 2:58pm

    Hard without showing ID?


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/09/2021 - 3:17pm

    Just FYI:


    by artappraiser on Fri, 04/09/2021 - 10:59pm


    by artappraiser on Sat, 04/10/2021 - 12:31am

    Media Matters is thankfully watching Fox pushing it's new narrative, they picked out this tweet of a long thread to retweet:

    This needs said: Fox News and the American Right are telling the same white supremacist story and selling the same conspiracy.

    They say "we're losing OUR America," but what they're doing, not so subtly, is saying, "White America is being taken away."

    13/ pic.twitter.com/4DUnYPCVyy

    — Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) April 10, 2021

    It's pretty damn shameful, nearly equal to Trump pumping insurrection against the election. Murdoch cracked down on that, hopefully many more institutions like the ADL will complain about this one too, and give him the impetus to crack down again.

    There are plenty of rational ways to support anti-immigration policies without resorting to "replacement theory". Doing so dangerously stokes the same kind of extremists acting that ended up in Jan. 6. Corporations that want a stable economy to make profit in should be against it. This is a short-term profit from clicks and remotes, long term disaster plan.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 04/10/2021 - 2:55pm


    by artappraiser on Sat, 04/10/2021 - 1:30am

    Pride in being American and "race"

    Immigrants came to America because they had a hopeful vision of what the country would be like for them. The country has mostly delivered on that promise.

    The group with the fastest income growth between in the years 2014-2019 were Hispanics, followed by Asians

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) April 11, 2021

    More Hispanics are proud to be American than whites; curious about the big gap between blacks and Asians. Why do Asians lag so far behind? https://t.co/xoeBhpDnSn

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) April 11, 2021

     


    by artappraiser on Sat, 04/10/2021 - 10:41pm


    by artappraiser on Sun, 04/11/2021 - 12:20pm

    "Hispanic" you say? Think again? The U.S. is not the only melting pot. wink


    by artappraiser on Sun, 04/11/2021 - 5:56pm


    by artappraiser on Sun, 04/11/2021 - 9:40pm

    now here's an American celebrity birth announcement that P.R. people of both parents wants to make sure everyone sees:

    Congratulations to Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song on the birth of their first child, Dakota Song Culkin, who was born on Monday, April 5! pic.twitter.com/1ys07clcWK

    — The AHS Zone (@ahszone) April 12, 2021

    I bothered to look it up: This American child's heritage will be 1/2 Thai/Hmong and 1/2 Irish-but really of strange Manhattan breed going pretty far back (the latter was a real toughie, I had to click thru numerous wikipedia pages and footnotes and ultimately found myself on geni.com to find the Irish forbear immigrant)

    Where is this kid going to fit in the racial divide narrative?


    by artappraiser on Mon, 04/12/2021 - 3:52pm

    Oh, wait, doh! on me for asking that question. We already had a president of the U.S. for 8 yrs. who was 1/2 Kenyan heritage and 1/2 American of Irish heritage, raised partly in Indonesia and Hawaii. And now we have a vice-president who is 1/2 SE Asian-Indian heritage and 1/2 Afro-American heritage (with a white husband, yet.) Seems to me the classic racial narrative construction is really screwed!


    by artappraiser on Mon, 04/12/2021 - 4:03pm

    no rules


    by artappraiser on Mon, 04/12/2021 - 6:52pm

    nice discussion of how race essentialism sucks, not the least of which it leads to divisive counterproductive culture war trolling, unreal narrative wars, Hatfield's vs. McCoy's


    by artappraiser on Tue, 04/13/2021 - 1:35pm

    Tweet unaffiliated with the above thread, but applicable nonetheless:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 04/13/2021 - 1:45pm

    oops! if you're thinking of doing the racial grievance thing as part of the vicitm olympics, a reminder that the constructions can sometimes get quite tricky:

    Asian Man Mistook Asian Woman as White, Attacked Her as Retaliation for Hate Crimes Spike: Policehttps://t.co/aGL9leFwUT

    — Law & Crime (@lawcrimenews) April 14, 2021

    by artappraiser on Wed, 04/14/2021 - 11:34pm


    by artappraiser on Thu, 04/15/2021 - 7:12pm

    .@epkaufm: "My latest report ... shows that being exposed to news and social media, having left-wing views on race, and being anxious or depressed explains a great deal of how much racism a person perceives." https://t.co/hsQl6IliEO

    — Manhattan Institute (@ManhattanInst) April 16, 2021

    Eric Kaufmann @epkaufm is

    Professor of Politics. Affiliated @CSPICenterOrg @ManhattanInst @Policy_Exchange

    From Vancouver BC. (Ice) hockey player. Dad. Located in London, UK. 

    Website link he gives, sneps.net, promotes his book entitled Whiteshift: populism, immigration and the future of White majorities. It was published February 5, 2019 in North America with Abrams-Overlook. It was published by Penguin (Allen Lane) in the UK and Australia on October 25, 2018 (paperback 29 Aug 2019).


    by artappraiser on Fri, 04/16/2021 - 5:08pm

    on the most egregious, most stubbornly ingrained construction of all, one that the even the medical profession and "science" continues to reinforce and our society still cannot even begin to confront:

    I want to share one of the best articles I have EVER read. (Thanks @miri_iron for sharing it.) As always when tackling this topic, I'm turning off responses because ignorant, cruel people and ignorant, well-meaning people will respond without reading it.https://t.co/GXfT4YKApd

    — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) April 18, 2021

    excerpts, but do yourself and a huge segment of our population a favor and read the whole thing:

    Paradoxically, as the number of larger Americans has risen, the biases against them have become more severe. More than 40 percent of Americans classified as obese now say they experience stigma on a daily basis, a rate far higher than any other minority group. And this does terrible things to their bodies.

    This is how fat-shaming works: It is visible and invisible, public and private, hidden and everywhere at the same time. Research consistently finds that larger Americans (especially larger women) earn lower salaries and are less likely to be hired and promoted. In a 2017 survey, 500 hiring managers were given a photo of an overweight female applicant. Twenty-one percent of them described her as unprofessional despite having no other information about her. What’s worse, only a few cities and one state (nice work, Michigan) officially prohibit workplace discrimination on the basis of weight.

    And, in a remarkable finding, rich people of color have higher rates of cardiovascular disease than poor people of color—the opposite of what happens with white people. One explanation is that navigating increasingly white spaces, and increasingly higher stakes, exerts stress on racial minorities that, over time, makes them more susceptible to heart problems.

    But perhaps the most unique aspect of weight stigma is how it isolates its victims from one another. For most minority groups, discrimination contributes to a sense of belongingness, a community in opposition to a majority. Gay people like other gay people; Mormons root for other Mormons. Surveys of higher-weight people, however, reveal that they hold many of the same biases as the people discriminating against them. In a 2005 study, the words obese participants used to classify other obese people included gluttonous, unclean and sluggish.

    And yet, despite weight being the number one reason children are bullied at school, America’s institutions of public health continue to pursue policies perfectly designed to inflame the cruelty. TV and billboard campaigns still use slogans like “Too much screen time, too much kid” and “Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid.” Cat Pausé, a researcher at Massey University in New Zealand, spent months looking for a single public health campaign, worldwide, that attempted to reduce stigma against fat people and came up empty. In an incendiary case of good intentions gone bad, about a dozen states now send children home with “BMI report cards,” an intervention unlikely to have any effect on their weight but almost certain to increase bullying from the people closest to them.

    This is not an abstract concern: Surveys of higher-weight adults find that their worst experiences of discrimination come from their own families.

     


    by artappraiser on Sun, 04/18/2021 - 1:54pm


    by artappraiser on Mon, 04/19/2021 - 12:24pm


    by artappraiser on Mon, 04/19/2021 - 11:53pm


    by artappraiser on Wed, 04/21/2021 - 2:48am


    by artappraiser on Mon, 04/26/2021 - 10:47pm

    here's an interesting compare/contrast that I serendipitously ran across on twitter, the change in the social construct over the years,

    a 1942 hero vs.a 2021 hero:

    I realize now that the strange rumbling noise that I heard on Sat. for like 20 minutes, like something I never heard before, coming from the Deegan expressway near my home in the Bronx, was the latter, the DMX caravan making it's way from Yonkers to Brooklyn.

    Oh and tell me again about systemic racism in NY state?


    by artappraiser on Wed, 04/28/2021 - 2:41am

    The government has Asian as a race. That is completely nonsensical and not based on skin color.

    Are these people the same race?

    According to the government they are. pic.twitter.com/0QxGS2y8AK

    — Benny Russell (@GCSnipe) April 29, 2021

    Found retweeted by Wesley Yang, who also just tweeted this:

    "How will you need to lose privilege and safety" is a very telling phrase, illustrative of the conceptual turn that anti-racism took in framing racial progress as zero sum https://t.co/qhDhj0YUjY

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) April 29, 2021

    and, as he notes in these followup tweets, it is directly on topic of the thread:

    This is not just a tactical error that will alienate those you need to persuade (it is a considered choice to do so under the premise that coercion must be the first resort on principle). It is a grave moral wrong to approach social change in this way.

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) April 29, 2021

    though he opinionates there as to motive and dialogues on that

    That they are eager to inflict this on children expresses a totally unconstrained will to power

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) April 29, 2021

    the latter in service of the former

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) April 29, 2021

    Because the latter requires unchallenged power to stifle dissent so that they can inflict their vision of proper morals

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) April 29, 2021


    by artappraiser on Fri, 04/30/2021 - 7:18am

    Toni Morrison on Black Artists | ‎Portland, 1975‎‎

    "Free dedicated artists reveal a singularly important thing: that racism was and is not only a public mark of ignorance, it was and is a monumental fraud. Racism was never the issue. Profit and money always was. ‎The threat was always jobs, land or money. When you really want to take away, to oppress and to prevent, you have to have a reason for despising your victim. Racism was always a con game that sucked all the strength of the victim. It's the red flag that is danced before the head of a bull. It's purpose is only to distract. To keep the bull's mind away from his power and his energy. Keep it focused on anything but his own business. It's hoped for consequence is to define black people as reaction to white presence. 

    MORE HERE


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/03/2021 - 5:24am


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/03/2021 - 6:00am

    If Helen Reddy had lived, she'd have had trouble fitting in all these syllables into a stanza.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/03/2021 - 7:41am

    Left: ...Born in Miami and raised in Buenos Aires and London... to Dennis Alan Taylor, a former international banker turned two-time Union Internationale Motonautique world champion powerboat racer (who was awarded a MBE in the 1982 New Year Honours (for services to the British community in Buenos Aires) and an OBE in 1998 (for services to British trade with Argentina)[4] and Jennifer Marina Joy, a psychologist. Her father, who also was the director of a private jet hire company, is an Argentine of Argentinian and Scottish ancestry and her mother is a Zambian of Spanish and English ancestry. She is the youngest of six siblings.[5][2][3]

    Taylor-Joy and her family moved from Miami to Buenos Aires when she was an infant and she attended Northlands School until age six, when the family relocated to the Victoria area of London.[2][6] She is fluent in both Spanish and English and holds triple British, American, and Argentine citizenship.[2][3] Taylor-Joy experienced the move as "traumatic" and refused to learn English in hopes of moving back to Argentina.[7] She was educated at Hill House and attended Queen's Gate School, acting in school productions. She dropped out of school at the age of 14, citing bullying from her classmates as the reason. She recalled....

     

    Right: ...born in Lithia Springs, Georgia, parents divorced when he was six, settled in a housing project with his mother and grandmother. Three years later, he moved in with his father, a gospel singer, north of the city in Austell, Georgia. Although initially reluctant to leave, he later regarded it as an important decision: "There's so much shit going on in Atlanta—if I would have stayed there, I would have fallen in with the wrong crowd." He started "using the Internet heavily right around the time when memes started to become their own form of entertainment"; about when he was thirteen. He spent much of his teenage years alone, and turned to the Internet, "particularly Twitter, creating memes that showed his disarming wit and pop-culture savvy."....

    His teenage years also saw him struggling with his coming out to himself as being gay; he prayed that it was just a phase, but around sixteen or seventeen he came to accept it. He began playing trumpet in the fourth grade and was first chair by his junior high years, but quit out of fear of looking uncool.[19]

    He attended Lithia Springs High School and graduated in 2017.[20] He attended the University of West Georgia for one year before dropping out to pursue a musical career. During this time, he stayed with his sister and supported himself with jobs at Zaxby's restaurants and the Six Flags Over Georgia theme park...


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/03/2021 - 4:44pm

    He's right, the irony abounds here--click on the picture to see the full title of her new book:

    Had to think a minute where to post this. I didn't feel this was appropriate for either CREATING A NARRATIVE AND PROMOTING IT FOR A POLITICAL AGENDA or RACIALIZING A POLICY ISSUE IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE IN U.S. POLITICS because hers is not a political agenda nor is it about gaining support for a policy.

    It really IS about trying to change social construction FOR PERSONAL PROFIT.

    Yeah, maybe she has good will, so did a lot of gurus and preachers in the past who predominately did it for the wealth and fame.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/06/2021 - 2:07pm

    for the lazy, her new book title is Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm


    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/06/2021 - 2:24pm

    related commentary from a Nigerian Born, American Made • /Fit/ Refugee


    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/06/2021 - 8:16pm


    by artappraiser on Sat, 05/08/2021 - 1:37am

    thread continues...


    by artappraiser on Sun, 05/09/2021 - 5:48pm

    Wes Yang caught the change several days ago already, coming out of San Francisco:

    the penis reference is explained by this earlier tweet:

     


    by artappraiser on Sun, 05/09/2021 - 6:01pm

    Wow, will they restore our right to full nudity in Playboy, or is this just another way of ghettoizing us?


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 05/09/2021 - 8:07pm


    by artappraiser on Sun, 05/09/2021 - 6:24pm

    We are seeing in real time how the memetic inculcation of self-hatred in a hated outgroup can become self-executing and self-policing https://t.co/pOBXB3NANQ

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) May 8, 2021

     

    Today I saw two middle-aged white women screaming "You're a fucking Karen!!" at each other for like 5 minutes in the streets of San Francisco.

    — Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) May 8, 2021

    by artappraiser on Sun, 05/09/2021 - 6:35pm

    How Southern blacks stayed empowered


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 9:32am

    these two paragraphs are extremely intriguing, especially as regards the stubborn "ghettos" of the inner cities of the upper midwest and rust belt; I wish that it was a more scholarly article with citations and stuff to back them up:

    A spirit of enterprise, combined with the moral vision of the church, imbued Southern black Americans with a sense of inherent dignity and self-worth that was missing in many communities in the North. As a result, the spiritual doctrine against resentment and vengeance as embodied by nonviolent agitation against segregation in the South fell on deaf ears in the North, because so many black Americans in the North lacked a sense of self-worth to begin with.

    "The Negroes of Chicago have a greater feeling of powerlessness than any I ever saw," Hosea Williams, Dr. King's chief field lieutenant, said after discovering the ghettos of Chicago. "They don't participate in the governmental process because they're beaten down psychologically. We're used to working with people who want to be freed."

    Especially if you think bigger picture, how it's been a downward spiral of despair for everyone there, and where that fits within that.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 11:57am

    I like McWhorter's title question a bit upthread as regards this DO BLACK PEOPLE ENJOY BEING TOLD THEY ARE WEAK AND DUMB? THE ELECT HOPE SO. 

    As I see it related to Trump's popularity with white working class in the rust belt type areas and other constituencies like business-minded minorities. What they seemed to enjoy the most about him is that he continually pumped the meme, against elite theory, that they are not weak and dumb and to be pitied.

    Edit to add: a lot of recent gun violence also seems related, misguided empowerment: it's I am not weak or dumb, I got a gun, I am stronger and I can shoot you, motherfucker


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 12:12pm

    Worse, it may be behind blacks without guns putting themselves in confrontational situations with no real power, contrary to "The Talk". I'm secure enough to run like hell and keep any talks with cops short and ultra polite - I'm a chicken shit and recognize situations with no upside.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 12:20pm

    Re: I'm secure enough to....Exactly! But you got that from education and from being raised in a family that valued education. The opposite is not just found in black inner cities but any gangs or subcultures of the past like "hoods" or juvies of the 50's, where a great car was power and got the attraction of the hot babes and admiration from your peers in your clique. I think segregation of clique/sub-culture enforces this all as much as lack of education. If they travel and mingle, they don't need education as much, their eyes are opened to what is really powerful. And i think that applies to many race and ethnic groups. This is why employment often helps just by virtue of getting out of the "ghetto" and meeting and interacting with other types of people. Even go back decades: if you got a job as a maid in the house of a person with money, you saw and learned with your own eyes a different way of life. It might have made you angry, but you at least realized other ways/cultures were possible, everything was not as your circle presumed.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 12:33pm

    I remember reading Lennon early, where he never got into fights cuz he used wit & biting humor to get out of it. I was always the youngest & smallest, so no way it paid to get physical. But yes, with education it's "some day one day I'll get back at them by owning half the world..." A bit of delusion, but pro-survival delusion 


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 12:53pm

    further thoughts: cars could (and can) be as dangerous as guns, and they are certainly seen as empowering, especially by young males. But a lot of that power is taken away by the huge system we have set up to use them: drivers are stringently licensed and regulated and all the rules of the roads we have built on which to use them. We just don't even realize it anymore, everybody accepts the strong system of rules because there'd be no place to use cars if they weren't there. The recent fad bedeviling some big cities of illegal dirt bike racing allover the place seems to be a statement about that in some way, it's like faux individual empowerment against "the man".


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 12:20pm

    just came to mind that Tim Scott's mom's story is very much a southern black one, especially as she talks about her own mother


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 1:59pm

    It is what it is. But still, it's a very sad report of the current "construct". (And racist as well, if you use the original meaning) - 


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 4:45pm

    This cynical conservative talking point is a powerful one, that it's easy to claim systemic ageism or systemic prejudice against men in law enforcement if you follow the method of reasoning that's common among CRT acolytes:

    Younger people are disproportionately targeted, arrested, and killed by police compared to elderly people. Their neighborhoods are overpoliced compared to retirement communities.

    We must do something about this systemic ageism. #Equity

    — Leonydus Johnson (leave/me/alone) (@LeonydusJohnson) May 10, 2021


    the system is #misandrist

    over 90 percent of the prison population is men

    if that's not evidence of systemic oppression of men, I don't know what is

    — Mark Schaberg (@TrueFreedom626) May 10, 2021

    You are 25x more likely to be killed or arrested by police if you are a male.

    We must stop this systemic misandrism

    — CNN-makes-you-stupid (@Garbage_Output) May 10, 2021

    and then there's taking it all the way, whole hog (which is not uncommon in CRT acolytes, too, i.e., victim olympics):

    Also, how many millions of non-men have been conscripted in to war? Men are the most oppressed sex/gender in all of human history

    — CNN-makes-you-stupid (@Garbage_Output) May 10, 2021

     


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 5:20pm

    Well men have traditionally died much younger from taking in dangerous heavy lifting tasks. Now that we're going all robotic and digital, that bit if testosterone/bulk exploitation will be more and more forgotten, and that once useful male thing becomes more and more an annoyance.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 6:42pm


    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/13/2021 - 1:00am

    "Politely engaging" - is that what Bibi's been doing?

    21 years since Clinton tried a full-court press to move the needle. The Israelis strike me as thinking the "status quo plus"  (steadily encroaching, steadily settling) is a way cool self-serving model. 

    So let's say Hezbollah didn't fire it's crappy but terrorizing missiles? The Israelis would go the peace table, make a deal, find a good compromise? Hardly a chance - full control of East Jerusalem is one of the goals, may take another 20, but for them worth the wait (and violence).

    Bibi likely helped hack our 2016 election. Bibi and the new GOP are examples of the "get what I want at any cost" new politics. Yes, normal Jews, normal Palestinians don't deserve these worlds, this terrorized living. So do something to fix it already - 54 years since 1967's 6-day war. Look at those settlements go.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/13/2021 - 2:13am

    AOC on Biden's 1-side-does-it pronouncement

    (note she calls Hamas' rocket attacks "condemnable")

    Ocasio-Cortez lashes out at Joe Biden for declaring that Israel has a right to protect itself from rocket attacks https://t.co/2AM605YeSw

    — TheBlaze (@theblaze) May 13, 2021

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/13/2021 - 6:16am

    Surprise (actually not to me, but nice to have an example): NYC Afro-Americans not all Republicans in 1904:


    by artappraiser on Fri, 05/14/2021 - 3:46pm

    Homework over sports, that's all most of the difference in achievement really is:

    Asian parents in America spend about a third more on education than others.

    1. The data is older, but from US govt
    2. No, you can't buy your way to improved scores

    On average Asian parents take their kids education seriously.

    Broad statement: academics matter, sports don't. pic.twitter.com/qqnQeCPjad

    — Manu Sarna (@msarna) May 18, 2021

     

    And this older study from the UK reinforces the stereotype: Asians are medics and math 'nerds'.

    I say good. Let's embrace it. pic.twitter.com/D7BPruTRwA

    — Manu Sarna (@msarna) May 18, 2021

    My son isn't Asian, but most of his closest friends are, and we spend enough time with their parents that I've seen this first hand. I think that educational ethic is integral to a healthy culture, and I hope more Americans "culturally appropriate" it.

    — Roger Williams (@PIAccount1) May 18, 2021

    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/17/2021 - 10:26pm

    as regards the UK:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 05/18/2021 - 5:17am

    for people who like anecdotals, there is a long thread of answers here that are worth your time (note there are many replies to the replies and many of those are interesting, too):

    What - for my Black, Caucasian, etc. tweeps - is the worst incident of racism you have ever personally encountered?

    — Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) May 17, 2021

    he later commented in these followup tweets on what he was seeing in answers, but the the first set of 281 replies are just people telling their stories and others on them

    (2) Some interesting "trends in the data" here. First, the white experiences w racism seem to be as unpleasant as anybody else's. 2nd, many stories show the complexity of categories like 'race' - does a post-football-game brawl between Jewish and Italian schools count AS racism?

    — Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) May 18, 2021

    (3) Third - as I myself noticed years ago in business - almost all overseas Asian/Black/Slavic/etc states are FAR more racist than the USA.

    Finally, my own life must have been unusually interesting - my "worst experiences" with both Caucasians and Blacks were violent brawls.

    — Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) May 18, 2021

    by artappraiser on Tue, 05/18/2021 - 6:44pm

    Mine is seeing Macedonians make Albanians crossing the border get out of the bus, walk through a puddle of disgusting muddy "antiseptic" and get back on the bus to supposedly de-disease them. Total humiliating show of power and contempt, healthwise useless, but tame as far as the Balkans go.

    My 1st hand experience with racism has been pretty minimal - say being in a bar when a Gypsy wedding party was attacked by skinheads and having to escape out the window.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/19/2021 - 1:50am


    by artappraiser on Wed, 05/19/2021 - 5:59pm

    I appreciate the significance of the event & honoring survivors,
    but if they're going to "hold hearings" could they gt back on Jan 6 & related?


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/21/2021 - 6:21am

    a reminder that revolutions don't also work out as planned:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/20/2021 - 5:33pm

    The Growing Diversity of Black America

    46.8 million people in the U.S. identify as Black

    BY CHRISTINE TAMIR @ PewRearch.org, March 25, 2021

    [...] Terminology: This report relies on self-identification of race and ethnicity in U.S. Census Bureau products (decennial censuses and iterations of the American Community Survey) to identify the nation’s Black population [....]

    The Black population of the United States is diverse. Its members have varied histories in the nation – many are descendants of enslaved people, while others are recently arrived immigrants. The Black population also has nuanced ethnic and racial identities reflecting intermarriage and international migration. As a result, there are key distinctions in demographic and economic characteristics between different parts of the national Black population, highlighting its diverse multitude of backgrounds.

    The U.S. Black population is also growing. In 2019, 46.8 million people in the U.S. identified their race as Black, either alone or as part of a multiracial or ethnic background. That is up from 36.2 million in 2000.1 The Black share of the U.S. population is higher today than in 2000 as well. About 14% of the national population said they were Black in 2019, up from 13% who did so in 2000.

    At the same time, the Black population’s racial self-identification is changing. Among those who self-identify as “Black or African American,” the share who say it is their only racial or ethnic identification has declined over the past two decades. In 2019, 40.7 million, or 87%, identified their race as Black alone and their ethnicity as non-Hispanic, while around 3.7 million, or 8%, indicated their race was Black and another race (most often White) and not Hispanic. Another 2.4 million, or 5%, self-identified as both Black and Hispanic, or Black Hispanic.2But these shares have changed since 2000. Then, 93% identified their race and ethnicity as Black alone.

    The nation’s Black population is changing in other ways too. A growing share are foreign born, the population is aging (though some segments are significantly younger), and a growing share are college graduates. These trends and more are explored in this report. Accompanying it is a fact sheet showing the demographic and economic characteristics of the nation’s Black population in 2019, based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey. Findings for all Black people, non-Hispanic single-race Black people, non-Hispanic multiracial Black people and Black Hispanics are shown separately. A downloadable spreadsheet of findings is also available.

    One-in-four Black people are members of Gen Z

    The age structure of the Black population has also changed since 2000. As of 2019, the median age of single-race, non-Hispanic Black people is 35, compared with 30 in 2000. This makes the nation’s Black population younger than the nation’s single-race, non-Hispanic White population (with a median age of 43) and the single-race, non-Hispanic Asian population (38), and slightly older than the nation’s Hispanic population (29).

    The median age for the entire Black population is 32, though it varies across the differing identities among the Black population. Among Black Hispanic people, it is 22 years. Meanwhile, multiracial Black people are the youngest group, with a median age of 16.

    A quarter (25%) of those in the U.S. Black population are members of Generation Z – born between 1997 and 2012 and ages 7 to 22 in 2019. A further one-in-ten were under the age of 7 that year. Together, 35% of the U.S. Black population is age 22 or younger. Another 23% are Millennials, meaning that over half (59%) of the nation’s Black population were Millennials or younger (under age 38) in 2019.

    The majority (63%) of multiracial Black people were age 22 or younger in 2019, reflecting the youth of this demographic subgroup. Roughly half (51%) of Black Hispanics were 22 or younger as well.

    Over half of the Black population lives in the South 

    [....]

    Texas has the largest Black state population

    [....]

    The New York metropolitan area has the largest Black metropolitan population

    [....]

    A growing share of Black adults have a college degree

    [....]

    The Black immigrant population has grown in number and share

    Immigrants are a part of the nation’s Black population that has grown over time. The foreign-born Black population has nearly doubled since 2000, rising from 7% then to 10% in 2019. In numbers, 2.4 million Black people were born in another country in 2000, and by 2019, that had risen to 4.6 million.

    Black immigrants are mostly from just two regions of the world. Almost nine-in-ten (88%) were born in African or Caribbean countries. Of that group, a little less than half (46%) were born in Caribbean nations, while a slightly lower share (42%) are from African countries. The remaining 12% of Black immigrants are from other parts of the world, with Guyana, Mexico and Honduras as the top three countries of origin.

    The majority of Black immigrants identify as single-race Black (87%) and non-Hispanic, while 10% identify as Black and Hispanic and 3% say their racial background is multiracial.

    Black household incomes since 2000

    Since 2000, the U.S. Black population has not seen significant increases in median household income. The median income for households headed by a Black person was $44,000 in 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic-induced recession). But household income of Black households varies. Roughly three-in-ten Black households (29%) made less than $25,000 in 2019, while a quarter earned between $25,000 and $49,999 – which means that more than half (54%) of Black households made less than $50,000 in 2019. About one-in-six Black households (17%) made $50,000 but below $75,000, 10% earned at least $75,000 but less than $100,000, and 18% earned $100,000 or more in 2019.

    The 2019 shares represent an improvement over the distribution of Black household income in 2000. That year, roughly six-in-ten (61%) Black-headed households made $25,000 or less (in 2019 U.S. dollar adjusted value), and more than a quarter (27%) made between $25,000 and $49,999, meaning that 88% of Black households earned less than $50,000 in 2000. In that same year, roughly one-in-ten Black households (11%) made at least $50,000 but less than $100,000, and 2% made $100,000 or more.

    The median income among Black households in 2019 was roughly $44,000, representing a slight inflation-adjusted increase over the median household income for Black people in 2000 ($43,581).

    Income inequality within the Black population remains one of the widest within a major racial or ethnic group. In 2019, Black-headed households with income in the 90th percentile among the population of Black households earned 14 times that of Black households with income in the 10th percentile. The 90th percentile of households in the overall 2019 population, by contrast, earned 12 times that of households with incomes in the 10th percentile

    [....] CONTINUES ON 3 MORE PAGES .


    by artappraiser on Sat, 05/22/2021 - 6:13am

    U.S.' Natonal Gallery of Art:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 05/25/2021 - 1:52pm


    by artappraiser on Wed, 05/26/2021 - 12:54am

    nice example of arguing about constructs:

    I don’t know who “they” are, but this is the second time I’ve asked you a question and you’ve opted to ignore it. You tell us in so many words how we are oppressed, and how white supremacy is prohibiting our progress.

    How did it not prohibit yours? Please tell us. https://t.co/XOrfgYTfo9

    — Barrington Martin II (@_BarringtonII) May 26, 2021

    @marclamonthill I feel like he owes black ppl an explanation. Clearly he's cracked the code on how to triumph in spite of white supremacy. Please teach us Marc

    — Pls Don't @ Me or Quote Me (@veetocorleone) May 26, 2021

     


    by artappraiser on Wed, 05/26/2021 - 6:28pm


    by artappraiser on Wed, 05/26/2021 - 6:38pm


    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/27/2021 - 12:32pm


    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/27/2021 - 1:16pm


    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/27/2021 - 12:50pm

    retweeted by Martin:

    more from him:

    he retweeted this reply to that

    this reply says it short and sweet:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/27/2021 - 1:03pm

    this strikes me as a brutal point, it's as if those shows could be from 50 years ago; am I deluded by social media or has the social zeigeist really changed that much?

    Time to reboot both Sopranos and the Wire for post-Awokened America

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) May 27, 2021


    Bodie in social emotional learning

    Avon undergoes restorative justice

    — Wesley Yang (@wesyang) May 27, 2021

    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/27/2021 - 2:44pm


    by artappraiser on Fri, 05/28/2021 - 5:33pm

    Uh, so Asians *besides* Indochina & Pacific Island countries are rather wealthy. Not sure this constitutes a myth.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 06/02/2021 - 9:05pm

    UK for comparison:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/31/2021 - 10:03pm


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/02/2021 - 7:55pm


    by artappraiser on Fri, 06/04/2021 - 11:20pm


    by artappraiser on Fri, 06/04/2021 - 11:23pm


    by artappraiser on Sun, 06/06/2021 - 2:43am

    Sorry, but in general a black guy walking down the street faces a lot worse issues than Asians and Hispanics. Yes, recently Asian abuse has popped up. But the problem i see biggest is integrating blacks in with the rest - economically, socially, legally. I'm worried that a Color Us United will codify the all colors equal while making it harder to solve actual problems, police being only 1 - inner city shooting being bigger.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 06/06/2021 - 3:22am

    "in general". Have you ever questioned yourself, though,  if the problems of "inner cities" or ghettoes as we used to call them, have become more about sub-cultures and the economic factors those sub-cultures are tied to, than about "race", about color of skin?

    I have to all the time when I constantly see stuff like this on Twitter:

    I am being bad at brunch today. I selected the salmon eggs benedict, the bacon and fried egg avocado toast. Cocktail of choice: The lovely Lavender 75. pic.twitter.com/fF0Wbq8ZSH

    — Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty (@evangelestia) June 6, 2021

    here is more about Tamar with a large photo

    Why is it always about color of skin? And not more about sub-cultures of certain areas and certain groups that reinforce values that ensure low economic class?

    How does one actually go about changing stereotypes associated with skin color? I just seriously doubt that pushing the idea that each skin color has it's own subculture is not going to change anything but make things worse, can't seem to shake that doubt....

    and that's exactly the direction that CRT takes. According to it, Tamar here is acting white elite and needs to stop. Because: the color of her skin.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 06/06/2021 - 1:16pm

    You know, some Asian-American girl can like tacos and veggie hot dogs, but some guy smashes her face cuz she's Asian - well, we can slice and dice the racism, but that's no longer sub-culture stuff - it's a bright lights "anti-Asian" (typically Chinese/Korean, not so much Indian or any other nationality). Will it matter if they're half Chinese or fully Chinese or even Vietnamese or Thai - doubtful - they look Asian enough to get their face smashed in. [like the Korean girl calleed "Chinese bitch".]
    And such is the plight of black-skinned Americans - whether they're Ethiopian or Obama half-and-half or dark Jamaican, whoever, if you've got a bit of black skin, you're in for some of the worst treatment we give people on the street who we don't even know just for being "black". Or blacks kept from voting. Or other discriminatory & basically ugly behavior that pops up more for blacks. Black guy in a 3-piece suit standing outside a 5-start hotel, and gets tackled for shoplifting - this kind of stuff happens enough that it just stays a prominent issue, whatever can be explained re: percentages.
    That said, some of the worst behavior in America continues to be in black neighborhoods - and here we probably exclude Ethiopians and some other black-or-dark-skinned subcultures who have stricter discipline and control of their members.
    I'm certainly not for CRT - but I also don't think that "treat everyone the same" addresses some of this entrenched racism that de facto won't be treated equal. Not every explanation is due to color of skin,but a lot is, and a lot's rationalized. So I'm resistent to do-gooder idealistic "colorblind" theory as I am to the reparations crowd and other simplistic solutions. 


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 06/06/2021 - 9:37pm

    However, a reminder that it is against the law to smash in the face of anyone whether you like the way they look or not. And if you do it because you don't like the way they look, the judge often has discretion to punish you more severely just for that reason.

    I was just thinking about this precisely because in following crime stories in general, I have noticed a great lack of hate crimes accusations lately about attacks on people for being black, every since like, the Ahmad Arbery case, they seem to have disappeared. And oddly enough, many more people with black skin seem to be accused of hate crimes against other colors! Now maybe this is a media coverage issue, but with all the emphasis on everything and anything else "black" in the media, I really do doubt it. I think if they could find cases, they would be played up.

    You haven't really convinced me one bit that economic class, not color, is the way things are headed.Especially as I am now regularly getting texted videos of my brother's 3/4 afro-american, 1/4 white grandson (probably with a little Native American in that mix, going quite a bit back).as he starts to walk and talk and as white grampa and very black step Kenyan immigrant gramma (with appropriate accent) spoil him rotten. I think he's the future. I suspect he might chose "other" on the census when he's of age.

    To lighten the conversation, I offer Christoph's latest:

    Fat white women count as People of Color but y’all ain’t ready for that conversation pic.twitter.com/nBvjGe8rfG

    — Christoph (@Halalcoholism) June 7, 2021

     


    by artappraiser on Mon, 06/07/2021 - 12:46am

    Oh and my mother was a fat white woman who suffered some pretty terrible things for being overweight, and not just medically, including at one time mental abuse and humiliation from her husband, my father, on whom she was very dependent, as well as many other slights and prejudices against her that I witnessed growing up as her only (not overweight) daughter, so I am actually sympathetic to Christoph's joking.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 06/07/2021 - 12:55am

    As you've noted, it's not my job to convince you - i just give my opinion. And I've posted on fat shaming as well, incl the interesting observation that unlike other cliques and subcultures, fat people are less likely to bond and be mutually supportive, more despising each other. I'm quite happy to treat that as another area that needs attention, its own "moonshot". Society often improves in fits and heaves, not seamless steady progression, depends.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 06/07/2021 - 3:36am

    this is perhaps a better example. We have a phenomenon currently where elite society, all kinds of institutions, just chomping at the bit to find any "person of color" that is a meritocrat, the upper class is basically on a tear to include perhaps more minorities among them than the percentage that occur in the general population:

    @sfchronicle

    1 hour ago

    Oakland Tech’s first Black male valedictorian got accepted to 11 universities. Here’s which one he picked

    Ahmed Muhammad is Oakland Technical High School’s class of 2021 valedictorian — the first Black male valedictorian in the school’s 106-year history. But in addition to earning good grades in tough classes, Muhammad has taken multiple college classes, played varsity basketball and started his own nonprofit providing kids with science experiments in a box. Now, he's going to Stanford.

    I predict they will be successful, it already seems to me that's the case in a lot of arts and humanities fields, where the situation basically is "no white males need apply and we're also kicking out as many of those as we can as fast as we can on whatever basis we can manage to do that"

    edit to add: let me be clear that I am not complaining about the latter, it is more a case on my part of "it is what it is", a as previously white males had preference most of my life and there I also thought it was a case of "it is what it is"


    by artappraiser on Mon, 06/07/2021 - 7:16pm

    My note is I'm less interested in these "firsts" than I am in the average - let's say as a wild guess that if 50% of the black population (however loosely defined) is doing pretty well with middle class income and attitudes, so much so that the need to comment on it largely disappears, that much of the structural racism and all these pockets of mass shootings and hellish life may diminish. But I'm getting pretty pissed at "hip-hop culture" as pretty antithetical to well-being and progress. 

    Do note that outside Lake Woebegone someone is always below average. That's less a problem than a specific group being horridly below average and no reasonable overlap with the mean. And somehow achievement has to be self-driven - it's one thing to push hard for women in STEM subsidies, another for whatever % of women to be naturally interested, whatever the %, and be able to make their way without some of the pretty awful hurdles and discouragements for a "guys only" club mentality. How to reconcile this with obsession over "microagression" vs being able to deal with the normal work requirements and frictions everybody encounters to some extent.

    (I'm in a Twitter argument re the female tennis player who's had health problems  i have no prob with excusing her for mental health needs, but the attitude of "athletes should just compete, no other tasks" ignores the importance of promotion and fan interaction and TV broadcasts in building up those inflated salaries - minus that, they're just carpenters and librarians. And the top stars are often creating the revenue flow for the less known athletes coming up. So prima Donna attitudes will harm the whole profession. Fine to have outbursts - those draw eyeballs. But hiding away decreases interest.)


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 06/08/2021 - 2:13am


    by artappraiser on Mon, 06/07/2021 - 1:50am


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/09/2021 - 1:19am

    This should go without saying, but we live in a time where it needs to be said, and where those who say it are increasingly a minority in elite institutions https://t.co/5yoYCk5XEj

    — Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) June 8, 2021

     


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/09/2021 - 5:03pm

    Definitely some new constructs here.

    I always knew the field of psychoanalysis was bad but I had no idea it was this bad:

    The journal that published this boasts that it has rigorous peer review https://t.co/zyfhCW89wQ

    — Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) June 9, 2021

    And here's a yoga gal who claims them white devils appropriated and polluted her field to heck, she would know, even though American, having skin of a darker color helps you understand yoga better, I guess?

     


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/09/2021 - 7:55pm

    and an example of an old construct that was waaay less racist:


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/09/2021 - 8:09pm


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/09/2021 - 9:34pm

    If GOP said playing in the street was bad, there'd be a flick if Dems pushing to play in the street just to own the Rethugs.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 06/10/2021 - 12:38am

    just the opinion of a musician who was raised to think kinda different:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 06/10/2021 - 3:15pm


    by artappraiser on Thu, 06/10/2021 - 4:01pm


    by artappraiser on Mon, 06/14/2021 - 10:05am

    I would add after seeing this, that recent immigrants don't tend to like socialist memes, that's not what they came here for:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 06/14/2021 - 10:47am

    LatinAmerica works on caudillism - local strongman authority.

    This has proven more enduring than Spanish occupation and Bolivarist regional unification (with dictator for life powers)

    Not sure why people expect different. Castro and Batista were as alike as the Ayatollah and the Shah.

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

    [btw, apparently the way slavery was halted in Gran Colombia was Haiti put up Bolivar for a while when he was on the run, and the leader Alexandre Petion , asked for this in return. A bit of hospitality goes a long way.]


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 06/14/2021 - 11:34am

    if you're going to go on physical appearance, what's good for the goose is good for the gander:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 06/15/2021 - 4:05pm

    "Things have gotten so bad, Barkley says he can’t even call San Antonio women, “Big ol’ women down in San Antonio” anymore." - says he never called them "fat"


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 06/15/2021 - 8:03pm


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/16/2021 - 11:40pm


    by artappraiser on Sat, 06/19/2021 - 4:24pm

    DOH interacting with people from other tribes could be fundamental and tribal segregation can be very dangerous:


    by artappraiser on Sat, 06/19/2021 - 5:17pm


    by artappraiser on Mon, 06/21/2021 - 2:12pm

    Intriguing discussion of an alternative to the whole evil colonialist oppressors narrative:

     


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/23/2021 - 10:30pm

    thread continues with more good discussion


    by artappraiser on Wed, 06/23/2021 - 10:54pm

    simple but important point:

    The term “white American” isn’t even accurate to history though. When people came here they were Irish, Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, etc. and they had their own unique experiences in America. The notion of putting all white Americans into a single group is ridiculous.

    — Peter Garrett (@TheUnrealPeterG) June 24, 2021

    Even if only to keep in mind they weren't "Americans" until they became citizens. And they chose to become citizens.

    There are two groups of people who didn't chose to be here, one very large and one relatively small group

    • everyone born here of all colors of skin
    • and the original African slaves born in Africa (their free descendants are actually in the same group as above, born here and therefore American by default, no choice in the matter and no longer part of any other country either.)

    "White" is really such a nonsense denominator. The power of multi-generational American WASP families is actually what it's referencing. And they only became a force when they "joined together" to create a country. Before that they were Pennsylvanian Quakers vs. Maryland Catholics (who weren't part of the "P" group and therefore continued to experience power issues) vs. Dutch New York traders vs. Georgian plantation owners vs. Massachusetts Puritan theocrats.  Throw in slightly later midwest pioneer German Lutherans etc.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 06/24/2021 - 1:27pm

    What is "Korean"?


    by artappraiser on Mon, 06/28/2021 - 1:59pm


    by artappraiser on Mon, 06/28/2021 - 2:11pm

    see whole thread:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 06/29/2021 - 12:52pm

    It's more Foucault - the Scientific Revolution passed Africa by, but that doesn't mean African kids can't do internet and data science and modern healthcare - as long as you don't tell them it's "not African" to do so. For the serfs in Russia who got fre d about 1912, it's not like they had the full weight of Pasteurian medicine and the industrial revolution as innate models, but Stalin etc al pushed them to keep up. The Chinese still had an Emperor in what, 1936? Look where the are now. 


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 06/29/2021 - 1:13pm


    by artappraiser on Sun, 07/04/2021 - 3:30pm

    I'm going quote "Pls don't quote me" and a few of his followers, as it's great stuff and he'll never know I'm doing it laugh

     

    Another thing I'm beginning to wonder is what would the benefits be for white people to discriminate against 13% of the population?

    — Pls Don't @ Me or Quote Me (@veetocorleone) July 13, 2021


    Why would white do things that make it more likely for them to have to pay tax money for welfare, have less available talent to utilize, and increase their chances of being murdered? What percentage of white ppl would want to do this?

    — Pls Don't @ Me or Quote Me (@veetocorleone) July 13, 2021

    Let's start with talent. If I'm looking for talent why would I start off by making the pool of talent I have to choose from 13% smaller? I don't see how this can coincide with the idea that logic is a white supremacist construct because this would be very illogical.

    — Pls Don't @ Me or Quote Me (@veetocorleone) July 13, 2021

    Really? You can go outside and see how they benefit.

    — Betty (@cakenremy) July 13, 2021

    What am I not seeing?

    — Pls Don't @ Me or Quote Me (@veetocorleone) July 13, 2021

    Discriminating against the 13% of us keeps them living with better resources. Being the head of industry will easily allow this. white ppl have mastered hiding in plain sight; that’s why you don’t see it.

    — Betty (@cakenremy) July 13, 2021


    In plain sight working for Black bosses, hiring Black plumbers, being taught by Black professors. Yup, those YTs are a clever bunch.

    — Spielberg's Glasses (@SpielbergSpecs) July 13, 2021

    Not to mention electing a black president. Twice.

    — Bourbon is Life (@ardavs76) July 13, 2021

    God Damn Devils!

    — Spielberg's Glasses (@SpielbergSpecs) July 13, 2021

    Also why do they need to 'hide in plain sight' if they run and control everything and decide everyone else's fate? You hide something you're doing if you think there's a chance someone will punish you, but who's gonna punish them if they're the ones in charge?

    — Dekopon (@the_deko_pon) July 13, 2021

    I don't get this either. Why hide it? If the courts are racist why would they ever rule in the favor of black ppl in discrimination cases? https://t.co/GXdlhs7QMW

    — Pls Don't @ Me or Quote Me (@veetocorleone) July 13, 2021

    by artappraiser on Tue, 07/13/2021 - 5:29pm

    things get complicated when you wanna do identarian by race but then you have to start tossing out so many with the same skin color who are not ideologically pure via your test; it's hard work, really hard, to paraphrase Geo. Bush:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 07/19/2021 - 11:29pm

    And I'm fascinated that he's fascinated with people like this guy, and is clearly trying to affect what he sees as distortion of truth by narratives:


    by artappraiser on Fri, 07/30/2021 - 6:48pm


    by artappraiser on Mon, 08/23/2021 - 4:23am

    Interesting comment-she's proudly Black (and a fanatical investor in residential real estate, espec. vacant lots)

    Main issue ngas don’t have a code anymore at all… they don’t stand for shit

    — Land Acquistion Specialist (@theporshaedmun) September 3, 2021

    by artappraiser on Thu, 09/02/2021 - 9:23pm


    by artappraiser on Fri, 09/10/2021 - 12:57pm

    Surely there should be more balance than olden times "children should be seen but not heard",  but at the same time "rowdy" is not compatible with urban civilization?

    Racializing it, now I think that's pure absurdity of attributing culture to race rather than class, or perhaps geographical climate effects.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 09/15/2021 - 2:54am


    by artappraiser on Sat, 09/18/2021 - 11:44pm

    Seeing another "white guys be doing this..." article on HuffPost or Salon, I'm struck how "race is an artificial construct" is followed so quickly by "...but anyone with similar skin tone (but presumably no minority genetics in the mix) and XY chromosomes does/thinks/embodies this behavior/thought pattern/level of privilege". Those blessed God-anointed people of Carpathia and Albania and Galicia don't know how lucky they have it. Nothing's raised the status of Europe's impoverished fringes than CRT - suddenly they're on top of the heap without lifting a finger (aside from soil-scraping backbreaking work over millennia)


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 09/20/2021 - 12:57am

    And then there's

    “For me, being part of the Latino community means being proud of my roots, not to forget them. It means never stop ... in honor of #HispanicLatinxHeritageMonth."

    "For me being part of the White community means being proud of my roots, not to forget them. It means never stop... in honor of #WhiteHeritageMonth"

    As they say at McDonalds,"I'm loving it..." Actually I don't much give a shit, but the hypocrisy is galling.The conquest of the "Latinx" Americas was rape, murder, forced servitude/slavery, and pretty unimaginable brutality in wiping out other cultures. But hey, open up the border, let's bring in the least successful of that culture and let them push aside white culture, because Latinx America is natural, "diverse" - white America speaks of privilege and exploitation.

    Whenever we start talking about race of any sort, we're pretty much talking bullshit. Maybe we can just return to "people". Even that's a mess, but easier to parse.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 09/20/2021 - 2:59pm

    amen:

    Maybe we can just return to "people". Even that's a mess, but easier to parse.

    It's basically just the same old absurdity of racism to do otherwise, just done by liberals this time.

    "Latinx" is offensively lumping together a hundred different cultures, same as "Asian-American" is (they're all the same because they are the slanty-eyed ones.)

    It all comes from playing Victim Olympics with the original preferences for American people with black skin as if they all are one underclass celebrating their underclass culture.

    Mho, this is the opposite of the result MLK Jr. was trying to effect. He wanted everyone to sit down at the same table as "just people".


    by artappraiser on Mon, 09/20/2021 - 3:07pm

    It's also weird - New Mexico is half Hispanic; Cali & Texas are 40%; Arizona & Nevada 30%, Florida 1/4; New Jersey & New York are 1/5; even Connecticut and Rhode Island are at 17%. Why are Hispanics being promoted here (National Geographic in this case) as if they're a tiny minority that needs a helping hand? It's probably to Hispanics' credit that they're not so visible (from here?) as demanding any special rights (presuming the factions in different states & cities agree with each other). though obviously politicians and parties do have to pay attention to what people want, whether they're a specific group or not.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 09/20/2021 - 7:05pm


    by artappraiser on Mon, 09/20/2021 - 5:07pm


    by artappraiser on Thu, 09/23/2021 - 7:28pm

    Most Americans say the declining share of White people in the U.S. is neither good nor bad for society

    @ PewResearch.org, Aug. 23, 2021


    by artappraiser on Tue, 09/28/2021 - 11:53am

    HA HA HA, LOVE IT!!! This is a larger percentage than those who described themselves as "Black"!!! We're on our way! Demographers will have to stop dividing by color of skin! Racism slowly fading away!

    1 In 7 People Are 'Some Other Race' On The U.S. Census. That's A Big Data Problem

    By Hans Lo Wang @ NPR.org, Sept. 30

    For Leani García Torres, none of the boxes really fit.

    In 2010, she answered U.S. census questions for the first time on her own as an adult. Is she of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin? That was easy. She marked, "Yes, Puerto Rican."

    But then came the stumper: What is her race?

    "Whenever that question is posed, it does raise a little bit of anxiety," García Torres explains. "I actually remember calling my dad and saying, 'Wha[...]t race are you putting? I don't know what to put.' "

    The categories the once-a-decade head count uses — "White," "Black" and "American Indian or Alaska Native," plus those for Asian and Pacific Islander groups — have never resonated with her [....]


    by artappraiser on Thu, 10/07/2021 - 11:46pm

    cross-link to related  ON NEW INTER-MARRIAGE STATS FROM PEW, Sat, 09/25/2021 - 6:44pm |


    by artappraiser on Fri, 10/08/2021 - 12:46am

    cross-link to related MINORITY VS. MINORITY: PARTISANSHIP AND INTER-GROUP COMPETITION AMONG ASIAN AMERICANS


    by artappraiser on Fri, 10/08/2021 - 3:04am

    Harvard Pulitzer-winning historian Annette Gordon Reed living it in real time:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 10/19/2021 - 9:23pm

    back in July, a crazy artist I follow on topic:


    by artappraiser on Wed, 10/20/2021 - 6:55pm


    by artappraiser on Thu, 10/21/2021 - 1:37pm

    p.s. am reminded of Wokeness is a problem and we all know it


    by artappraiser on Thu, 10/21/2021 - 1:43pm

    Have seen this one work quite a few times before, this is THE GREAT QUESTION/CHALLENGE, the one that often causes many Americans to quit their racial identity whining and change the topic:

    Name a country less racist than America with the same multicultural distribution. I'll wait.

    — Aesthetic Bear (@dissentdissent) November 8, 2021

    by artappraiser on Sun, 11/07/2021 - 8:31pm

    The United States gets judged by the degree of racism felt to exist within its borders. 

    There is no international competition 

    BTW, many did take refuge in France 

    https://www.npr.org/2013/09/02/218074523/paris-has-been-a-haven-for-african-americans-escaping-racism


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 11/24/2021 - 1:42pm

    doh do you think I don't know about that history? I'm an art historian, I know who went to Paris and stayed and who didn't. But guess what (no surprise to me since it's like your favorite thing) you're reading simplistic narratives about it that have been revised, try to keep up -

    Don’t let the inspiring story of Josephine Baker erase France’s pervasive racism

    Not only that, it's still going on. The French are notoriously xenophobic, you assimilate or else, they do not want other cultures changing theirs. The American black artists and writers who went there in the early 20th century were tokenized. The U.S. is very open to sub-cultures and tolerance of "the other", it's in our founding. They are the opposite, officially it's assimilate or else. Just yesterday I was reading about migrants setting up tents in Calais while they try to get into the UK. The reporter asked a bunch of them why they don't apply to France for asylum instead of trying to get to the UK. One of the main reasons they gave is that France is very prejudiced. If you are Muslim, fuggeaboutit. The French police have been clearing their tents and belongings every 48 hrs. and throw them away


    by artappraiser on Wed, 11/24/2021 - 2:46pm


    by artappraiser on Wed, 11/24/2021 - 1:29pm

    in the UK


    by artappraiser on Wed, 04/20/2022 - 11:31pm

    ah, a finding of a similar thing here, what a surprise NOT -

    Tulane study concludes that girls raised by at least one Jewish parent tend to have advantages when it comes to college achievement.https://t.co/veNK7jhdv3

    — Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) April 21, 2022

    edit to add, I spent some time looking on comments on the new hashtag on "Black Twitter" influenced by a big Twitter Live discussion and it became very clear to me that something similar was going on there too in that holding onto certain aspects of Afro-American culture was what was holding some people back on the achievement scale.He gets it:

     


    by artappraiser on Thu, 04/21/2022 - 12:03am

    p.s. and this gal is a perfect example of one who doesn't get it, she could just as well be agreeing with George Wallace in 1963 saying segregation now segregation tomorrow segregation forever:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 04/21/2022 - 12:14am