Yet more problematic stuff

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Sean Hayden
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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Sean Hayden » Sun Sep 19, 2021 10:37 pm

I called you an extremist because you don't seem capable of entering my position in good faith or of sharing with any kind of vulnerability. Why am I constantly being pressured to prove an allegiance? Why do you equate your position with BLM and the civil rights movement, so that if I disagree with you I'm essentially disagreeing with one or both of them?

That doesn't strike you as the least bit extreme? --really? --who else do you know that talks that way...

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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Sean Hayden » Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:44 am


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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:41 pm

'Blacks are further behind than when all of this [the civil rights era] started.' By what metrics? Blacks had it better in the era of Jim Crow? Steele just lays that down as a given. The US is 'no longer the racist nation that [Steele] grew up in.' Agreed, however that doesn't mean that racism is in the past. He acknowledges that, but his claim that 'the problem of racism has been diminished enormously' is questionable. We have the Trumpist Republican Party trying to 'Make America Great Again' by restricting voting rights in ways that disproportionately affect black and other disadvantaged demographic groups--it looks like racism isn't as 'enormously' diminished as Steele would like us to believe.

'We're not the racist country we once were.' True, racism in the US has evolved, but systematic racism is still endemic. He appears to want to deny that. He claims that the civil rights era changes were not designed to help blacks to overcome the racist policies of the past, but to help whites feel they no longer had to be concerned about racism. I note that he doesn't offer a genuinely more constructive route (see below).

He claims that all of the efforts to combat racism that began in the civil rights era 'have gotten us nowhere.' That directly contradicts his other claim that the US is no longer the racist country it once was. The US is not re-fighting 'the same old battle.' Progress has been made, and contemporary struggles against racism are an attempt to address contemporary racism. It's not as if racism is no longer a problem in the US. 'America doesn't want to be a racist country any more.' I would say that some of America doesn't want to be a racist country, while a significant percentage of white America is STILL racist. He takes the convenient route of making claims about 'white America' as if it were a monolith. It clearly is not.

He claims that the fact that blacks still struggle in the US is 'our [black folks'] problem,' as if the racism that still exists is not the real problem. He asserts that the efforts to combat racism will not help this problem. How the hell does he think that the progress that has been made in the US was achieved, if not through efforts to combat racism? There is a basic disconnect in his spiel, and it's rather annoying.

'Become responsible for your own fate' is not a constructive real-world solution, it's just an empty platitude. He's saying 'pull yourself up by your own bootstraps' as if it's simply that easy. As if really nothing needed to be done besides saying 'hey, we're not racist anymore, so now it's up to you to get with the program.' He apparently places the blame on black culture, as if that culture were not in considerable part a reaction to racism, which is a continuing issue in the US.

Yeah, Shelby Steele's bullshit is problematic.

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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Sean Hayden » Mon Sep 20, 2021 4:35 pm

They tend to use the family as a metric and cite the breakdown of black families since the 60s. But you're right, it's difficult to imagine what other metrics he has in mind. They are closing the income gap, the education gap, and even more recently the prison disparity.

I think it's indisputable that racism is greatly diminished. Perhaps not keeping in mind the extent of racism in just our parents generation fools us into seeing Trumpism as comparable. It's also important to keep in mind our own biases and blind spots which have been confirmed to favor seeing more racism than even those who deal with it most.

--//--

I wonder if he's not just wrestling with a kernel of truth about negative aspects of black culture, and finding a lack of willingness in others to acknowledge it is amplifying its importance to him. :dunno:

I'll definitely pick up a book of his to see if his case is more robust in print.

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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Mon Sep 20, 2021 6:02 pm

OK, good for you. I don't see any need to more deeply explore a lame schtick which basically attempts to downplay the issue of racism and disparage the efforts that have been made to reduce its effects. It's a more erudite version of Seth's mantra of 'adapt or perish.'

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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Seabass » Mon Sep 20, 2021 6:52 pm

"White America is rooting for us." :funny:

How can someone say that with a straight face after what's just happened over the last five years?


"If in the 1960s, white America had said, 'ok we've lost the moral authority, but we have to ask something of blacks, which is, that you become responsible for your own fate. You take charge. You develop... we expect you to develop, whether we give you a program or whether we don't. You are free. And you think freedom is some wonderful glorious thing that we finally achieve, and it may be those things, but freedom also is a tough taskmaster. It asks that you be responsible for yourself.'"

"...but I think the more important goal, since the 1960s ought to have been black America taking its fate into its own hands and saying we will be an educated people. We will develop into... to a place where we are competitive with all other people in the modern world. We will join, not the white world, but modernity itself. The modern world. We will become educated in the technical realm, in the artistic realm, in everything. We will do that no matter what whites do."

What utter tripe. More right-wing garbage from the right-wing Hoover Institute. I mean, really? The solution to racism is for white people to tell black people to join modernity? Brilliant. Why didn't someone else think of that before?

Sean Hayden wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 4:35 pm
I'll definitely pick up a book of his to see if his case is more robust in print.
So you're finally going to read something from a black author, and you've chosen to go with a black Republican? :fp:

The video pretty much tells us where he's coming from. He puts all the onus on black people to fix the racial gap. It's ludicrous.
Last edited by Seabass on Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Seabass » Mon Sep 20, 2021 6:58 pm

Sean Hayden wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 10:37 pm
I called you an extremist because you don't seem capable of entering my position in good faith or of sharing with any kind of vulnerability. Why am I constantly being pressured to prove an allegiance? Why do you equate your position with BLM and the civil rights movement, so that if I disagree with you I'm essentially disagreeing with one or both of them?

That doesn't strike you as the least bit extreme? --really? --who else do you know that talks that way...
That's not what "extremist" means.


I'm not equating my position with anything; I'm just pointing to some parallels. Throughout US history, racists and right-wingers have always accused those who only want equality of being reverse racists and extremists.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Sean Hayden » Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:26 pm

It's actually two of the qualities of an extremist.

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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Sean Hayden » Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:30 pm

L'Emmerdeur wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 6:02 pm
OK, good for you. I don't see any need to more deeply explore a lame schtick which basically attempts to downplay the issue of racism and disparage the efforts that have been made to reduce its effects. It's a more erudite version of Seth's mantra of 'adapt or perish.'
Maybe, but I can't know that.

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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Seabass » Mon Sep 20, 2021 10:02 pm

Sean Hayden wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:26 pm
It's actually two of the qualities of an extremist.
entering my position in good faith or of sharing with any kind of vulnerability
What does that even mean? What does that have to do with extremism?

Do you think I'm an extremist because I won't give credence to your nonsensical theory that black people are not disadvantaged compared to white people on lower economic rungs? Is that what this is about?
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Sean Hayden » Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:05 am

That's an oversimplification of what I've argued.

Vulnerability is fairly straightforward. When I shared that in my angrier moments I might have imagined you were sowing discord, I exposed myself to questions about my mental state --what kind of loon seriously considers that a possibility? :biggrin:

When I expressed understanding of your use of house negro, I exposed myself to being considered a hypocrite. If I felt the same way, why did I bother you about it?

By contrast you are highly guarded 24/7, seemingly unwilling to even entertain the possibility you might have some weaknesses in your thinking, heaven forbid your beliefs.

But really, that could just be anonymous asshole arguing on the Internet syndrome --made that one up.

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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Brian Peacock » Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:52 am

No, AAAOTIS is a real thing. :tea:
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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Seabass » Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:54 am

Sean Hayden wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:05 am
By contrast you are highly guarded 24/7, seemingly unwilling to even entertain the possibility you might have some weaknesses in your thinking, heaven forbid your beliefs.
I dispute your characterization.

I recall one recent exchange where I was unsure of my position on one aspect of the subject of censorship here:
http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 0#p1916700
Hermit presented his thoughts on the matter, and I was persuaded by that and something that Jim said.

If someone presents a good argument and/or solid evidence, I can have my mind changed.

I would suggest that your failure to persuade me (or anyone else on this forum for that matter) that white people don't have any advantages compared to black people on lower economic rungs has more to do with the weakness of your position rather than any intransigence or "extremism" on my part.
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"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Sean Hayden » Tue Sep 21, 2021 1:39 am

Being unconvinced is one thing, being unable or unwilling to articulate an opponents argument so that they would recognize it is another.

Sticking with this thread, you've managed to assume my problem with your use of house negro amounts to misunderstanding you, to picking on you, and now just an excuse to revisit another argument. That's not being unconvinced. It's being unaware at best, and full on fingers in your ears --la, la, la-- at worst.

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Re: Yet more problematic stuff

Post by Seabass » Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:31 am

Sean Hayden wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 1:39 am
Being unconvinced is one thing, being unable or unwilling to articulate an opponents argument so that they would recognize it is another.

Sticking with this thread, you've managed to assume my problem with your use of house negro amounts to misunderstanding you, to picking on you, and now just an excuse to revisit another argument. That's not being unconvinced. It's being unaware at best, and full on fingers in your ears --la, la, la-- at worst.
But is was a misunderstanding. You're conflating two different issues into one.

I meant one thing, and you thought I meant something else. That is the dictionary definition of a misunderstanding.

Now, if you want to argue that I shouldn't use that phrase because it has other connotations that can lead to misunderstandings, that's fine. Maybe you're right. But that doesn't make the other thing not a misunderstanding. These are two separate issues.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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