Texas State Newspaper writer fired for racist column

[Straha]

[May have energy to put together a reply to Straha's (4) and (5) tomorrow. Not sure; my usual periods of activity for that purpose will be stupidly busy in a different way]

No worries. Take your time. Mental health and real life come first.

[mr friendly guy]

Why should we? What good is there in the concept of Whiteness that we ought preserve?

I have been trying to avoid chipping in because Straha is already severely outnumbered, but the fact nobody is willing to answer this question head-on is infuriating to me.

Ask a privileged white person such as myself what white culture contributed to the world and the most important parts are:

Democracy (least worst political system)
Capitalism (least worst economic system)
The rule of law
The scientific method

There are certainly other cultures that embrace these ideals, but this combination is what led to European supremacy in the first place.

If you can define the Whiteness that deserves to be eliminated as not also eliminating the above, we will have a very different conversation.

Since other cultures have already adopted some of these ideals, wouldn't eliminating white culture no longer affect these? Just like how the broad principle of checks and balances persists even after Sparta was eliminated and with it their culture.

If you want to talk about those 4 items, start with democracy. Look at India the world's largest democracy. Capitalism. One word. China. Rule of law. I am sure certain Asian democracies also have these. Scientific method. Heck, most countries have scientist using this. Its just a matter of funding.

So I guess it comes back to, if these things are no longer the sole province of white culture, they can no longer be used to argue as a reason to preserve white culture, since the thing which replaces white culture could just as easily appropriate it back.

BTW - I wouldn't count democracy as one of these which lead to European supremacy. European nations already had a dominating geopolitical presence before they became true democracies. Check out Niall Ferguson 6 apps for what helped give rise to the West, which are also the reason why we are now witnessing, the rise of the rest.

[Ziggy Stardust]

So I guess it comes back to, if these things are no longer the sole province of white culture, they can no longer be used to argue as a reason to preserve white culture, since the thing which replaces white culture could just as easily appropriate it back.

Well, the problem with this entire line of thought is that this gets back to how ill-defined "Whiteness" as an ontological construct is. Is it a construct specifically related to racial power dynamics that's orthogonal to the actual whiteness (small w) of the race associated with it? Or is it actually an inherent "part" of white people on an intrinsic (e.g. biological) level? This was a point I had tried to raise a little while ago on this thread, though admittedly the thread got a bit out of hand since then so I don't begrudge it not being addressed specifically. The point being that there seems to be an element of "have your cake and eat it too" in this discussion, where it is insisted that "Whiteness" isn't racist since it is independent of biological whiteness, but then it is still discussed as an intrinsic characteristic of whiteness. Either it's an abstraction related to the way Western social structures have codified white supremacy OR it's a biological characteristic of white people, and it's not really possible to have a productive discussion on the construct or its implications without greater clarity as to which approach is being used. This discussion has muddled the lines between them.

[Simon_Jester]

I mean, we don't really have this problem in women's studies; there's a well defined term "patriarchy" for the gender hierarchy that is distinct from the set of terms that are used to describe biological males (such as "man" and "male"). Or even the set of terms we associate with customary male gender identity and roles (such as "manly" or "masculine").

A feminist can, in principle, say "that man over there is a manly man, and I'm okay with that, as his actions do not contribute to the patriarchy, and it is patriarchy which is the problem, not masculinity" They can say "Patriarchy creates toxic expectations for men that are ultimately to the detriment of many men, so it is to the advantage of men to undermine the patriarchy." And after listening to the feminist spend a few minutes explaining the difference between patriarchy and manhood, these sentences are at least easy to understand if you're not willfully misconstruing them.

But as long as we have "white, White, whiteness, Whiteness, and WhItEnEsS," race studies can't do what gender studies does. A sentence like "That white over there is white, and I'd be okay with that, except that he's also White, and his actions contribute to Whiteness, and Whiteness is a problem that needs to die, even though don't get me wrong I'm willing to tolerate living on the same continent as whiteness" just plain does not work. You cannot realistically expect to communicate a clear message in that manner, and anything you say will be predictably understood. It's like, having had the meaning of Whiteness explained to me, and working in a pure textual format, I can at least SORT OF tell what that sentence is and is not saying... but it communicates its message poorly and is very vulnerable to being used by disingenuous fuckers to say "oh, you thought I meant [thing you've just proven is a bad idea?] No no no, how naive of you, I meant [thing that you can't prove is a bad idea]!" and then go right back to asserting [thing we've just proven is a bad idea].

Now don't get me wrong, you can win a lot of arguments by using your vocabulary that way, in that people will throw up their hands in disgust rather than continue trying to communicate with someone who is so quick to equivocate about the meanings of words.

But it's not a good thing if you think we "need to have a conversation" about race.

[Esquire]

If I may - temporarily setting aside all possible questions of right, wrong, fair, unfair, or what-have-you - it is not a good tactical choice to even risk being perceived as claiming that the set of people with - by one's own thesis - all the power, money, influence, and numbers are implacably opposed to one's cause and cannot possibly be on one's side no matter how hard one tries. Doubly so when the only people likely to pay any attention whatsoever to one's arguments are those who were most inclined to help out in the first place.

It's all too likely to make the above true in actuality, and not just in historical and/or metaphorical terms.

[Esquire]

If I may - temporarily setting aside all possible questions of right, wrong, fair, unfair, or what-have-you - it is not a good tactical choice to even risk being perceived as claiming that the set of people with - by one's own thesis - all the power, money, influence, and numbers are implacably opposed to one's cause and cannot possibly be on one's side no matter how hard one tries. Doubly so when the only people likely to pay any attention whatsoever to one's arguments are those who were most inclined to help out in the first place.

It's all too likely to make the above true in actuality, and not just in historical and/or metaphorical terms.

EDIT: And also setting aside the various intellectual-rigor questions Simon raises. This is purely a poor-tactics complaint.

EDIT-EDIT: Obviously this was meant to be an edit of the above post; my bad.

[Effie]

If I may - temporarily setting aside all possible questions of right, wrong, fair, unfair, or what-have-you - it is not a good tactical choice to even risk being perceived as claiming that the set of people with - by one's own thesis - all the power, money, influence, and numbers are implacably opposed to one's cause and cannot possibly be on one's side no matter how hard one tries. Doubly so when the only people likely to pay any attention whatsoever to one's arguments are those who were most inclined to help out in the first place.

It's all too likely to make the above true in actuality, and not just in historical and/or metaphorical terms.

Why would anyone who genuinely believes in antiracism conclude that they have no choice but to be a racist now because someone wrote that white supremacy involves all white people?

Furthermore, white people very much do not have the numbers except locally, and they don't have all the power, influence, and money either. And a substantial portion of radical antiracism relies on seizure and reclamation of power by and for people of color, from the "Black Jacobins" of Haiti on down. Because a critical part of antiracism is the assertion of equality, which cannot happen via supplication.

[Straha]

I mean, we don't really have this problem in women's studies; there's a well defined term "patriarchy" for the gender hierarchy that is distinct from the set of terms that are used to describe biological males (such as "man" and "male"). Or even the set of terms we associate with customary male gender identity and roles (such as "manly" or "masculine").

How many books on Race or Race Studies have you read? Seriously, have you read Derrick Bell? Angela Davis? Saidiya Hartman? Cornel West?

Because this criticism, coupled with things like not recognizing whiteness in the original op-ed, not knowing what afro-pessimism is, and trying to call the field "postmodern" makes me think you haven't seriously read inside the field at all. If you're going to try and make these blanket criticisms it would help you to have at least some understanding of the canon.


Weirdly enough, I'm reminded of the really old days when creationists showed up here from time-to-time. Here, and on their own boards, they would talk about how confused 'evolutionists' were because they didn't even have one definition of evolution. Then they would point to Stephen Jay Gould, Dawkins, Stephen Sterns, Darwin and whoever else either giving slightly different definitions of the word 'evolution' and say that if they couldn't agree on what the basics were why should you approach the rest. Then they'd point at academic debates going on about things like punctuated equilibrium as proof that there was massive disagreement inside the field of Evolutionary Studies, and thus it was hopelessly confused.

When they were told no, that while these scholars might disagree about relatively small things that were important academically they agreed about the holistic process and disagreed vehemently with creationists, the creationists would just shrug. That was irrelevant to their point, and they weren't interested in the nuance nor, for that matter, did they care to try and read a field where there wasn't even agreement on a specific definition for evolution. Their ideological commitment trumped engagement.

[Effie]

I mean, we don't really have this problem in women's studies; there's a well defined term "patriarchy" for the gender hierarchy that is distinct from the set of terms that are used to describe biological males (such as "man" and "male"). Or even the set of terms we associate with customary male gender identity and roles (such as "manly" or "masculine").

A feminist can, in principle, say "that man over there is a manly man, and I'm okay with that, as his actions do not contribute to the patriarchy, and it is patriarchy which is the problem, not masculinity" They can say "Patriarchy creates toxic expectations for men that are ultimately to the detriment of many men, so it is to the advantage of men to undermine the patriarchy." And after listening to the feminist spend a few minutes explaining the difference between patriarchy and manhood, these sentences are at least easy to understand if you're not willfully misconstruing them.

But as long as we have "white, White, whiteness, Whiteness, and WhItEnEsS," race studies can't do what gender studies does. A sentence like "That white over there is white, and I'd be okay with that, except that he's also White, and his actions contribute to Whiteness, and Whiteness is a problem that needs to die, even though don't get me wrong I'm willing to tolerate living on the same continent as whiteness" just plain does not work. You cannot realistically expect to communicate a clear message in that manner, and anything you say will be predictably understood. It's like, having had the meaning of Whiteness explained to me, and working in a pure textual format, I can at least SORT OF tell what that sentence is and is not saying... but it communicates its message poorly and is very vulnerable to being used by disingenuous fuckers to say "oh, you thought I meant [thing you've just proven is a bad idea?] No no no, how naive of you, I meant [thing that you can't prove is a bad idea]!" and then go right back to asserting [thing we've just proven is a bad idea].

Now don't get me wrong, you can win a lot of arguments by using your vocabulary that way, in that people will throw up their hands in disgust rather than continue trying to communicate with someone who is so quick to equivocate about the meanings of words.

But it's not a good thing if you think we "need to have a conversation" about race.

Not to dogpile, but a lot of these differences of semantics are due to race and gender being categorically different. That is, while "man" and "white" are both in key ways bullshit, "white" is more bullshit than "man" is, which is why "transracial" (when not describing adoption) is bullshit. But "transgender" isn't.

[Simon_Jester]

Not to dogpile, but a lot of these differences of semantics are due to race and gender being categorically different. That is, while "man" and "white" are both in key ways bullshit, "white" is more bullshit than "man" is, which is why "transracial" (when not describing adoption) is bullshit. But "transgender" isn't.

I fail to see why this somehow makes it impossible to come up with terminology that clearly and unambiguously distinguishes between "the oppressive racial power structure," "the individual humans who, will they or nil they, benefit from said power structure," and "the traits commonly associated with said beneficiaries, regardless of whether or not said traits directly contribute to the said racial power structure."

By, y'know, using different words for the concepts, instead of saying "Whiteness," "white people," and "whiteness."

I mean, off the top of my head, you could have something like "[TERM]," "white people" and "Euroculture." I just made those up; for [TERM] you could substitute any number of obviously disagreeable slavery-based terms. Say, "the whip." Then you can say "I don't have a problem with white people or Euroculture, I have a problem with white people believing they have a right to the whip." Which sounds so much more persuasive than "I don't object to white people, just to Whiteness." And even more persuasive than "I think White people should die out and leave a bunch of confused cultural zombies wandering around."

And I'm not seriously suggesting that people adopt the exact stuff I just said, but seriously why not try something like that? Of all the zillion ways this could have been phrased, why did it have to be "Blackness" and "Whiteness" and not "whippees" and "whippers" or something like that, clearly differentiating in a way any idiot can understand that there's a huge difference between "Africa-descended people" as a category and "people who through historical accident have this permanent status as a racial underclass and a reputation as untermenschen."

If I may - temporarily setting aside all possible questions of right, wrong, fair, unfair, or what-have-you - it is not a good tactical choice to even risk being perceived as claiming that the set of people with - by one's own thesis - all the power, money, influence, and numbers are implacably opposed to one's cause and cannot possibly be on one's side no matter how hard one tries. Doubly so when the only people likely to pay any attention whatsoever to one's arguments are those who were most inclined to help out in the first place.

It's all too likely to make the above true in actuality, and not just in historical and/or metaphorical terms.

Why would anyone who genuinely believes in antiracism conclude that they have no choice but to be a racist now because someone wrote that white supremacy involves all white people?

Bluntly, the danger is that they might start believing you. Or rather, might start believing the logical consequences of what you just said. Let me explain by way of analogy.

I don't believe in handednessism. My own grandfather was abused as a child because of handednessism. I am strongly anti-handednessism.

But if you actually convinced me that the only truly consistent and valid outcome, the only way there could ever be fairness between lefties and righties, was war to the knife between left-handed and right-handed people... Well.

Ultimately, I am mindful of the fact that on strict utilitarian grounds, it's probably less bad for 10% of the population to die than for 90% of the population to die. Even ignoring that issue, I'm right-handed.

If I accede to this doctrine of handedness war, I have two choices. One is to fight in the handedness war, and strive to defeat, suppress, or if necessary even kill the lefties. The other choice is to die.

Most people will not accede to a philosophical viewpoint that mandates their own death. Not without some degree of resistance and opposition. Which leaves them with a rather bad alternate choice.

Now, does this answer your question? Because I feel like it should.

...

Now to be clear, FORTUNATELY no matter how many Sinistro-pessimists try to convince me that the Dexter oppressive hierarchy is inevitable, I will continue to believe that left- and right-handed people, can get along. And will in fact find myself grousing about how we keep using 'sinister' to mean bad which is obviously handednessist. And for that matter the use of the word 'right' itself to mean both 'correct' and, uh, 'clockwise away from my line of sight' is problematic.

But somewhere out there is a right-handed person who actually believes the argument being advanced by the Sinistro-pessimists, and saying to themselves "well, if there is no just society in which me and the lefties get along... guess at the very least, there's no reason for me to continue wanting the lefties to succeed!"

Handedness war is a bad doctrine, which is why I'm listing it as a bad outcome.

How many books on Race or Race Studies have you read? Seriously, have you read Derrick Bell? Angela Davis? Saidiya Hartman? Cornel West?

Because this criticism, coupled with things like not recognizing whiteness in the original op-ed, not knowing what afro-pessimism is, and trying to call the field "postmodern" makes me think you haven't seriously read inside the field at all. If you're going to try and make these blanket criticisms it would help you to have at least some understanding of the canon.

Weirdly enough, I'm reminded of the really old days when creationists showed up here from time-to-time. Here, and on their own boards, they would talk about how confused 'evolutionists' were because they didn't even have one definition of evolution. Then they would point to Stephen Jay Gould, Dawkins, Stephen Sterns, Darwin and whoever else either giving slightly different definitions of the word 'evolution' and say that if they couldn't agree on what the basics were why should you approach the rest. Then they'd point at academic debates going on about things like punctuated equilibrium as proof that there was massive disagreement inside the field of Evolutionary Studies, and thus it was hopelessly confused.

When they were told no, that while these scholars might disagree about relatively small things that were important academically they agreed about the holistic process and disagreed vehemently with creationists, the creationists would just shrug. That was irrelevant to their point, and they weren't interested in the nuance nor, for that matter, did they care to try and read a field where there wasn't even agreement on a specific definition for evolution. Their ideological commitment trumped engagement.

Okay, in fairness I understand why you're frustrated with this, but let me try to explain how it looks from where I'm actually standing.

The problem is, for me this isn't about the field of race studies as such. I have no desire to critique the field of race studies on any grounds except the consequences of their actions and choice of wording and communications.

It's about how the conclusions of race studies are communicated to the outside world. And about how the outside world itself processes and hopefully improves on racial issues, which are issues of great importance upon which the lives and fates of millions hinge.

I'm not here with an ideological commitment to demolish race studies. My criticism is not that race studies is a bad field or should be stopped from doing what it does. My criticism is that I want race studies to be an effective field, one that achieves positive things and brings about advances towards the goal of racial justice in the world, and I feel like they're dropping the ball.

Terminology that is, empirically, used to communicate outside a specific field... That terminology needs to be reasonably clear, and chosen so as to not needlessly and USELESSLY antagonize the people one is talking to. This is basic common sense when one intends to communicate with other people.

And the reason I feel I have standing to bring this up is that we are NOT talking about race studies per se, we are talking about the interface between race studies scholars and people who should try to listen to race studies scholars. I may not be in the first group, but I AM in fact in the second group. And I know I am, so I want to listen, while at the same time wanting the overall message to succeed in achieving good outcomes.

...

Pursuant to this end, I am trying to make some points about predictable consequences of actions and decisions, and why I fear those consequences becoming undesirable.

I'm not arguing "this entity which you call 'Whiteness' is not a thing, stop claiming it exists when you can't agree on what it means." I'm arguing:
1) Please please please choose terms that are clearly defined, if you can.
2) Or if you can't, at least choose terms that are clearly not specifically insulting.
3) Or if you HAVE to choose specifically insulting terms, at least don't specifically go far out of your way to phrase statements for shock value rather than for clarity.
4) Or if you MUST phrase for shock value, or at least don't act surprised when after you phrase statements for maximum shock value, other people wind up being shocked rather than listening carefully to you and heeding your words."

Because seriously, anyone who's actually trying to succeed in a conversation that involves the public, even the sympathetic, literate, supportive public, is going to be following those four rules. The column this was originally all about very emphatically violated those four rules.

That, ultimately, is the issue that we should not be in denial about. Inventing excuses for saying shocking things to people and then being surprised and offended that they dare to be shocked rather than meekly agreeing with us is STUPID.

...

I don't want race studies to wind up being useless to racial minorities on account of the field's head disappearing up its own collective colon. I advise- no, I exhort- that the field, or some members thereof, strive to extract head from colon long enough to at least comprehend why they are being misunderstood, or why certain avenues of argumentation are actively self-destructive and counterproductive.

This is quite distinct from the stance of a creationist who just wants the theory of evolution to go away.

This is more like me having to patiently explain to a parallel universe version of Charles Darwin* that if he wants his theory to catch on, he probably shouldn't title his seminal work on evolution Now We Know God Doesn't Exist, You Dumbasses. I want alt-Darwin to enjoy considerably more success than he is likely to have enjoyed to date, but at some point this means having to tell him he's making a mistake. And that ultimately, the root cause of his mistake is that somehow cranium wound up implanted in colon, somewhere at some time.
_____________________

*Yes I am aware that the real Darwin would not have titled his book thusly. Both because he had religious views of his own... And because he didn't have his head up his ass.

[I'm still waiting on a good time to handle (4) and (5), but maybe tonight]

[Effie]

Why are you fantasizing about situations where you feel morally compelled to take part in the extermination of people of color because of utilitarianism?

Why are you insistent on conflating concepts you have admitted you can distinguish between in order to suggest that radical antiracists want to kill all white people through violence?

[Straha]

Okay, in fairness I understand why you're frustrated with this, but let me try to explain how it looks from where I'm actually standing.

The problem is, for me this isn't about the field of race studies as such. I have no desire to critique the field of race studies on any grounds except the consequences of their actions and choice of wording and communications.

It's about how the conclusions of race studies are communicated to the outside world. And about how the outside world itself processes and hopefully improves on racial issues, which are issues of great importance upon which the lives and fates of millions hinge.

Your posts aren't making that distinction. In fact, it's almost the opposite. See the post I was replying to which is all about how Women's Studies as a field operates in comparison to how Race Studies as a field operates. See: "But as long as we have "white, White, whiteness, Whiteness, and WhItEnEsS," race studies can't do what gender studies does."

If your argument is, at its core, "Laymen have trouble understanding complex issues because their complexity makes it inherently hard for outsiders to grok them. Sometimes people should codeswitch so that outsiders can be let in on a superficial level." then, yeah. Totes McGoats. People do that. If your argument is "This is complicated, and unsettling, to me and I don't get it, therefore this is stupid." That's on you not the field.

My criticism is that I want race studies to be an effective field, one that achieves positive things and brings about advances towards the goal of racial justice in the world, and I feel like they're dropping the ball.

If you haven't read the literature how do you know this?

Seriously. If you don't know what they're saying how are you in any position to judge whether or not they're dropping the ball?

An analogy, maybe: Suppose someone came to you and said "I think Calculus is dumb because it relies on imaginary numbers, and if it was worth a damn they wouldn't have made an important part of the field sound like it came from Puff the Magic Dragon." What would you say? Especially if it was revealed that they had never taken calculus but that the sound of imaginary numbers was enough to put them off? Is that on math or is that on them?

Terminology that is, empirically, used to communicate outside a specific field... That terminology needs to be reasonably clear, and chosen so as to not needlessly and USELESSLY antagonize the people one is talking to. This is basic common sense when one intends to communicate with other people.

This conversation went from discussing how people talk about shit outside the field to how the field should be understood on page 1. If your argument is, effectively, "Don't say ontological death in an op-ed because people who don't understand what that means will be freaked out about it" then fair. Rudy Martinez made a mistake. If your argument is "Ontological death is a bad term to use inside the field because people outside the field will be freaked out" then you need to engage with the field to understand why it's being used in the first place. Otherwise you are literally throwing stones about something you don't understand.

And the reason I feel I have standing to bring this up is that we are NOT talking about race studies per se, we are talking about the interface between race studies scholars and people who should try to listen to race studies scholars. I may not be in the first group, but I AM in fact in the second group. And I know I am, so I want to listen, while at the same time wanting the overall message to succeed in achieving good outcomes.

Let me offer you a deal. I can recommend three books for you on Race Studies and why this shit is important. We'll stop this discussion until after you've read those books and then we can have a real discussion about their premises, conclusions, and everything around them. If you want to listen, engage in some buy-in and we'll actually have something that can hopefully be a productive exploration of this field.

2) Or if you can't, at least choose terms that are clearly not specifically insulting.

What about "Whiteness" is insulting?

This is more like me having to patiently explain to a parallel universe version of Charles Darwin* that if he wants his theory to catch on, he probably shouldn't title his seminal work on evolution Now We Know God Doesn't Exist, You Dumbasses.

But he didn't name it that and they responded like he had anyway because they didn't engage his work and were unwilling to check their own premises about the nature of god to realistically engage him. It was not on him to sugar-coat "On the Origin of Species" even more. Ditto, when people write about Whiteness as a historical process it's not on them to sugar coat the conclusions, it's on the people who are reading to at least give it a window of opportunity to change their mind. When they don't it's not Darwin's fault.

[I'm still waiting on a good time to handle (4) and (5), but maybe tonight]

Like I said, take your time. Other shit comes before this board.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Why are you fantasizing about situations where you feel morally compelled to take part in the extermination of people of color because of utilitarianism?

Why are you insistent on conflating concepts you have admitted you can distinguish between in order to suggest that radical antiracists want to kill all white people through violence?

Did you read the fucking OP? Have you read Straha's posts? Jesus Christ are you guys blinded to how your statements appear to everyone outside of a very narrow educational niche.

I'm a bleeding heart Berkeley liberal, and you've made me care noticibly less about social justice issues. Bravo.

[Effie]

Why are you fantasizing about situations where you feel morally compelled to take part in the extermination of people of color because of utilitarianism?

Why are you insistent on conflating concepts you have admitted you can distinguish between in order to suggest that radical antiracists want to kill all white people through violence?

Did you read the fucking OP? Have you read Straha's posts? Jesus Christ are you guys blinded to how your statements appear to everyone outside of a very narrow educational niche.

I'm a bleeding heart Berkeley liberal, and you've made me care noticibly less about social justice issues. Bravo.

I mean, don't let the door hit you on the way out, dude. You certainly are a caricature of a "bleeding heart Berkeley liberal", though, given the NIMBY attitudes many supposedly progressive people in the Bay Area have, fostering gentrification, homelessness, and general accelerating inequality. That is, there's a tendency among many "liberals" to actually be moderates. They want equality, so long as it doesn't make them uncomfortable.

So in turn, they- you- end up wanting to have your cake and eat it too. You want to have "social justice" without actual justice- without recognizing that the problem of racism might be broader or deeper than the existence of individual atoms of bigotry. So you talk from the position that race is real, that whiteness isn't bullshit, that there is something meaningful about it, and then conclude that the death of whiteness means the extermination of everyone who is classified as white today. And therefore that whiteness, something which, when examined in its boundaries, exists solely to define lines of oppression, must be preserved now and forever.

And in turn, that antiracism is actually fake, that it's just about people of color wanting to murder white people. The world wonders as to what gay liberation means then.

[Straha]

Simon:

I just reread your 'the whip v. Whiteness' section again. It's painfully clear that you haven't engaged with the literature of Race Studies at all and that you're ignorant about the field writ large. I don't mean that pejoratively, these days everyone on the board seems to be an adult and we've all got reasons why we know what we do, but nonetheless your position is a stance of ignorance.

I am, frankly, unwilling to continue the conversation from there because it either goes down a path of you trying to tell a field foreign to you what they ought be doing, which strikes me as the height of hubris. Or it becomes a question of how the field communicates their ideas to a world writ large which depends, at its core, on whether or not you agree with their conclusions.

So, I'm going to formalize my offer made in my post above. Let's stop this discussion, it's pointless to continue at this rate unless you're willing to familiarize yourself with the field. Instead, let's read three books, and talk about them. Here's the books I'd suggest:

Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi and Howard Winant. A very good book that covers the basics of how Race historically operates and how race, nation, and class intersect and form each other.

The American Evasion of Philosophy by Cornel West. Which is history of how American political philosophy arose and avoided the issue of Race and Identity.

Finally, I'd say pick one of three to explore a third vein:

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which is a deeply personal exploration of race in the Obama era and a discussion of notions of the possibility of Black progress and capture by the political system. I will admit to only having read excerpts but it is, by all accounts, eminently readable and engrossing.

Incognegro by Frank Wilderson, which is a personal memoir of the 'father' of Afro-pessimism that details his experience growing up in America and also his time as both a teacher and gun-runner in Apartheid South Africa working for the ANC and Nelson Mandela's paramilitary group.

Black Skins, White Masks by Franz Fanon. This is widely seen as the seminal work in the field of Radical Antiracism and anticolonialism and is both eminently readable and wildly influential.

(If you want to pick a fourth book, Scenes of Subjection by Sadiya Hartman is excellent and should absolutely be read and is only not on this list because I think it's slightly more formal than the rest of these.)

The books are good, they offer a grounding in the field, and they even shine a light on some of the disagreements between thinkers in the field and why those disagreements are important.

Let's (re)read them, and you can pick the venue where we talk about them. Here in an open thread (hell, invite others in we want to make it a reading group), in a Coliseum thread about how we should approach progress, or via Skype and we can post a recording here for people to listen to.

Let's see if we can make this something educational and productive, eh?

[Simon_Jester]

Why are you fantasizing about situations where you feel morally compelled to take part in the extermination of people of color because of utilitarianism?

Why are you insistent on conflating concepts you have admitted you can distinguish between in order to suggest that radical antiracists want to kill all white people through violence?

Because I am just that cartoonishly evil. I aspire to be secretly demonic in all things while outwardly keeping up the forms of being a nice person. And then I get into arguments with people like you, voluntarily, when you join the conversation late and don't read what I say except to skim it for things to accuse me of. Because I enjoy being consistently accused of secret evil. It's all part of my secret crypto-racist plot.

Mua. Ha. Ha.



...

Look, are you even trying to participate in this conversation in good faith? If you are, I'm willing to actually answer your question. if not, not. So yes or no, are you going to stop willfully interpreting things I say to paint me in the worst vaguely-superficially-plausible-ish light?

Seriously, are you willing to treat me as a person who is being earnest and speaking in good faith, without trying to psychoanalyze me to death rather than engaging with what I say?

Yes, or no?

Simon:

I just reread your 'the whip v. Whiteness' section again. It's painfully clear that you haven't engaged with the literature of Race Studies at all and that you're ignorant about the field writ large. I don't mean that pejoratively, these days everyone on the board seems to be an adult and we've all got reasons why we know what we do, but nonetheless your position is a stance of ignorance.

I am, frankly, unwilling to continue the conversation from there because it either goes down a path of you trying to tell a field foreign to you what they ought be doing, which strikes me as the height of hubris. Or it becomes a question of how the field communicates their ideas to a world writ large which depends, at its core, on whether or not you agree with their conclusions.

It is very, very much the underlined, not the italicized. And I very, very strongly disagree with the premise that at its core, how the field communicates its ideas depends on whether or not I agree with its conclusions.

If anything, I suspect the dependency points the other way: how race studies communicates its conclusions, and which conclusions get communicates, has a profound impact on whether I (and others) are likely to agree with those conclusions. Since I would like the field to be persuasive rather than anti-persuasive, when I find myself being actively anti-persuaded by what are presented as bona fide "conclusions of race studies..."

My reaction is to ask plaintively "If your conclusions are logical and just, why are you communicating them in this way?"

I want to be persuaded by logical and just arguments. A logical and just argument that is so presented as to be actively anti-persuasive to its audience strikes me as doing someone a profound injustice. And the injustice is one that I can only pin upon the person presenting the argument.

So, I'm going to formalize my offer made in my post above. Let's stop this discussion, it's pointless to continue at this rate unless you're willing to familiarize yourself with the field. Instead, let's read three books, and talk about them. Here's the books I'd suggest:

Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi and Howard Winant. A very good book that covers the basics of how Race historically operates and how race, nation, and class intersect and form each other.

The American Evasion of Philosophy by Cornel West. Which is history of how American political philosophy arose and avoided the issue of Race and Identity.

Finally, I'd say pick one of three to explore a third vein:

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which is a deeply personal exploration of race in the Obama era and a discussion of notions of the possibility of Black progress and capture by the political system. I will admit to only having read excerpts but it is, by all accounts, eminently readable and engrossing.

Incognegro by Frank Wilderson, which is a personal memoir of the 'father' of Afro-pessimism that details his experience growing up in America and also his time as both a teacher and gun-runner in Apartheid South Africa working for the ANC and Nelson Mandela's paramilitary group.

Black Skins, White Masks by Franz Fanon. This is widely seen as the seminal work in the field of Radical Antiracism and anticolonialism and is both eminently readable and wildly influential.

(If you want to pick a fourth book, Scenes of Subjection by Sadiya Hartman is excellent and should absolutely be read and is only not on this list because I think it's slightly more formal than the rest of these.)

The books are good, they offer a grounding in the field, and they even shine a light on some of the disagreements between thinkers in the field and why those disagreements are important.

Let's (re)read them, and you can pick the venue where we talk about them. Here in an open thread (hell, invite others in we want to make it a reading group), in a Coliseum thread about how we should approach progress, or via Skype and we can post a recording here for people to listen to.

Let's see if we can make this something educational and productive, eh?

Depending on the tone of the books... I'm not sure how good an idea this is.

If the tone is comparable to what I'm getting out of you and Effie in this thread, then frankly I have no desire to fall out of the top of a "get shrieked at" tree and hit all the branches with my face on the way down. I'm willing to listen to people tell me why I'm wrong, but there's a line somewhere between "tell me I'm wrong" and "verbally abuse me" that only a masochist would want to cross.

If the tone of the reading is not thus comparable (I suspect it will prove much more coherent about points where I perceive you and especially Effie dodging around key points and questions)... then the subsequent discussion of the recommended course reading will prove largely redundant.

[Effie]

Why are you fantasizing about situations where you feel morally compelled to take part in the extermination of people of color because of utilitarianism?

Why are you insistent on conflating concepts you have admitted you can distinguish between in order to suggest that radical antiracists want to kill all white people through violence?

Because I am just that cartoonishly evil. I aspire to be secretly demonic in all things while outwardly keeping up the forms of being a nice person. And then I get into arguments with people like you, voluntarily, when you join the conversation late and don't read what I say except to skim it for things to accuse me of. Because I enjoy being consistently accused of secret evil. It's all part of my secret crypto-racist plot.

Mua. Ha. Ha.



...

Look, are you even trying to participate in this conversation in good faith? If you are, I'm willing to actually answer your question. if not, not. So yes or no, are you going to stop willfully interpreting things I say to paint me in the worst vaguely-superficially-plausible-ish light?

Seriously, are you willing to treat me as a person who is being earnest and speaking in good faith, without trying to psychoanalyze me to death rather than engaging with what I say?

Yes, or no?

I didn't accuse you of any of those things. I am genuinely curious as to why you're writing what you write, because it's genuinely bizarre to me that anyone would respond to the perceived argument that white people are incapable of being meaningfully anti-racist by arguing that yes, this is true, but you can't say that or else white people will become actively genocidal. It's even more bizarre that you'd argue this in conjunction with arguing from a position that is not in evidence anywhere, not even acknowledging that it's one you made up on the grounds that it's what one of the hoi polloi would think.

[Straha]

Simon:

I just reread your 'the whip v. Whiteness' section again. It's painfully clear that you haven't engaged with the literature of Race Studies at all and that you're ignorant about the field writ large. I don't mean that pejoratively, these days everyone on the board seems to be an adult and we've all got reasons why we know what we do, but nonetheless your position is a stance of ignorance.

I am, frankly, unwilling to continue the conversation from there because it either goes down a path of you trying to tell a field foreign to you what they ought be doing, which strikes me as the height of hubris. Or it becomes a question of how the field communicates their ideas to a world writ large which depends, at its core, on whether or not you agree with their conclusions.

It is very, very much the underlined, not the italicized. And I very, very strongly disagree with the premise that at its core, how the field communicates its ideas depends on whether or not I agree with its conclusions.

No, I'm saying whether or not you agree with what the field is communicating depends inexorably on whether or not you agree with its conclusions. Which means that you really should engage with it before you lecture it about its conclusions.

My reaction is to ask plaintively "If your conclusions are logical and just, why are you communicating them in this way?"

Your notion of justice is putting the cart before the horse. Again, this is like the creationists saying they won't read books on evolution if they conclude in a way that they disagree with before reading the book.

I want to be persuaded by logical and just arguments. A logical and just argument that is so presented as to be actively anti-persuasive to its audience strikes me as doing someone a profound injustice. And the injustice is one that I can only pin upon the person presenting the argument.

You have admitted that you haven't engaged with their arguments or logic. I don't know why you expect me to take this protest seriously.

I also don't know why "People who won't read a book" is the audience that Professors and Scholars have to tailor their analysis toward.

Depending on the tone of the books... I'm not sure how good an idea this is.

The books are well-written and thoughtful texts written from an academic background with academic readers in mind. (Except for Between the World and Me which is written for mass consumption across colour lines.)

My offer is a serious one. If you want I'll even help you get your hands on digital copies of them so you don't have to spend money on it. Are you in or not?

[Rogue 9]

Most people don't go get degrees in race studies. I remind you that the point of this thread, the entire damn reason we're having this discussion, is because someone thought it would be a great idea to print in the newspaper that all white people are evil and deserve to die. You are here defending that behavior by trying to claim it was calling for the ontological death of Whiteness, but the problem is both that that's manifestly not what the jackass said, and "Whiteness" is a vague and loaded term to anyone not well-versed in race studies (a category that happens to include a large majority of the voting public), making it a particularly poor delivery system for the ideas you want to convey. It being a poor means of communication to outsiders is 100% independent of the merits of the underlying ideas. Simon or I could read the books you suggest (in fact I think I might; I've been hard up for new reading material lately) and it still wouldn't change the fact that calling for the "white death" in those terms will be misunderstood by the public at large and the cause of a near-guaranteed failure to communicate.

[Straha]

I remind you that the point of this thread, the entire damn reason we're having this discussion, is because someone thought it would be a great idea to print in the newspaper that all white people are evil and deserve to die.

Factually incorrect.

You are here defending that behavior by trying to claim it was calling for the ontological death of Whiteness, but the problem is both that that's manifestly not what the jackass said and "Whiteness" is a vague and loaded term to anyone not well-versed in race studies

Factually incorrect.

It being a poor means of communication to outsiders is 100% independent of the merits of the underlying ideas.

Factually incorrect.

Simon or I could read the books you suggest (in fact I think I might; I've been hard up for new reading material lately) and it still wouldn't change the fact that calling for the "white death" in those terms will be misunderstood by the public at large and the cause of a near-guaranteed failure to communicate.

I'll make the same offer to you that I made to Simon. Want to take me up on it if he doesn't?

[Tribble]

@ Straha

Suppose you are the editor for the newspaper. What, if anything, about the article (from title to contents) would you change? Or would you have printed it as is?

[Straha]

@ Straha

Suppose you are the editor for the newspaper. What, if anything, about the article (from title to contents) would you change? Or would you have printed it as is?

If I'm the editor of the paper? I would have A. not titled it the way I did because holy shit that editor needs to be sat down and talked to and B. like I said on page 1 would have kicked it back and asked them to spend more time clarifying their anger towards both white folk and explaining how whiteness is something created and not innate.

[Effie]

Most people don't go get degrees in race studies. I remind you that the point of this thread, the entire damn reason we're having this discussion, is because someone thought it would be a great idea to print in the newspaper that all white people are evil and deserve to die. You are here defending that behavior by trying to claim it was calling for the ontological death of Whiteness, but the problem is both that that's manifestly not what the jackass said, and "Whiteness" is a vague and loaded term to anyone not well-versed in race studies (a category that happens to include a large majority of the voting public), making it a particularly poor delivery system for the ideas you want to convey. It being a poor means of communication to outsiders is 100% independent of the merits of the underlying ideas. Simon or I could read the books you suggest (in fact I think I might; I've been hard up for new reading material lately) and it still wouldn't change the fact that calling for the "white death" in those terms will be misunderstood by the public at large and the cause of a near-guaranteed failure to communicate.

I would say that an absolute majority of people understand what ontological death is, and a lot of people understand whiteness in a similar sense to how critical race studies understands it.

Because people understand that "death to Packers fans" does not actually mean shooting up most of Wisconsin. People understand that Barack Obama is not simultaneously White and Black despite his parents being white and black people. Most of these fields of study focus on making the implicit explicit, teasing out the rules of the game to expose their ridiculousness and vileness.

[Simon_Jester]

Straha, I'm leading with a genuine attempt to clarify what you think I need to learn, for reasons I go into more depth on further down in the post.

It is very, very much the underlined, not the italicized. And I very, very strongly disagree with the premise that at its core, how the field communicates its ideas depends on whether or not I agree with its conclusions.

No, I'm saying whether or not you agree with what the field is communicating depends inexorably on whether or not you agree with its conclusions. Which means that you really should engage with it before you lecture it about its conclusions.

Just to be clear... are you disagreeing with the proposition that a person can comment on how an idea is communicated in a manner separate from their agreement with its conclusions?

I mean, I've already basically said to you "well, that's a fine conclusion, but it's being communicated in such a shitty way that it has totally undesired and counterproductive effects." And my reward tends to be a sort of cuttlefish reaction with someone (not always you) squirting out a cloud of rhetorical ink.

Even when you directly tell me the conclusions and I agree with them, that doesn't seem to be good enough to give me grounds to say "well, the effect of communicating the conclusions in the specific manner in question is going to be predictably disastrous all around." I'm not sure me reading a stack of books would help at that point, because if I don't interpret the books in a way that results in my viewpoint becoming literally identical to yours, we may still have disagreements on this and I'll still be getting clouds of ink in my face every time I try to discuss specific consequences of specific actions that occur in realms I do clearly understand.

Like the probable consequences of saying "I hate you, Whiteness needs to die" in a newspaper editorial.

My reaction is to ask plaintively "If your conclusions are logical and just, why are you communicating them in this way?"

Your notion of justice is putting the cart before the horse. Again, this is like the creationists saying they won't read books on evolution if they conclude in a way that they disagree with before reading the book.

Hang on.

It sounds like the arguments you want to advance are arguments about how the other arguments should be communicated. That is to say, for you this isn't a question of how to obtain the best (or least-bad) PR for accomplishing some agenda. But rather, how the other arguments should be communicated is the entire point, the thing I cannot possibly understand without reading a stack of books. Or perhaps, the ONLY point under debate is how the argument should be phrased, and everything else is irrelevant.

Am I misunderstanding you?

Because this forms one of two bases for our disagreement, this question of how to communicate if the goal is to establish a sustained conversation that leads towards the dismantling of race-based hierarchy in American (and other) societ(ies).

The other base, at least for me, is criticism of pessimist views that declare that there can never be peaceful dismantling or good-faith discussion of racial issues, and that it is therefore desirable or even imperative to be provocative and to say things that will blow up the (fake) attempts at sustained conversation as discussed above. My criticism of that is founded largely in my inability to fathom how one can expect that to end other than in race war, and in my conviction that race war is basically the worst thing ever and to be avoided.

Is there some third base of disagreement that I'm missing? Or is it one of these two bases that has you so strongly urging me to educate myself?

I want to be persuaded by logical and just arguments. A logical and just argument that is so presented as to be actively anti-persuasive to its audience strikes me as doing someone a profound injustice. And the injustice is one that I can only pin upon the person presenting the argument.

You have admitted that you haven't engaged with their arguments or logic. I don't know why you expect me to take this protest seriously.

I also don't know why "People who won't read a book" is the audience that Professors and Scholars have to tailor their analysis toward.

If this is a call-back to the original subject of the discussion, professors and scholars have to tailor their analysis towards people who haven't read a book if they want to communicate with people who haven't read that book. Until such time as newspaper editorials come with "required reading" lists and refuse to open for anyone who hasn't done the reading, newspaper editorials remain a venue in which one should not use communication styles one knows will be misinterpreted by those who haven't done the required reading.

More generally, you're asking me to commit considerable time, and more to the point time in which I would presumably be having to focus a good deal of mental energy in preparation for a rather exhausting discussion with someone whose debating style I find more than a little frustrating and evasive. At the same time, it's an honorable suggestion as such and appeals to my instincts, despite the fact that I expect frustration and unhappiness to result from it.

All in all, I'm having to think carefully about it and am trying to ask some questions before either agreeing or saying "no."

Depending on the tone of the books... I'm not sure how good an idea this is.

The books are well-written and thoughtful texts written from an academic background with academic readers in mind. (Except for Between the World and Me which is written for mass consumption across colour lines.)

My offer is a serious one. If you want I'll even help you get your hands on digital copies of them so you don't have to spend money on it. Are you in or not?

Again, I'm asking some questions in an attempt to clarify exactly what it is that I so clearly don't know, or at least get a sense of the "Simon's ignorance-shaped hole."

For example, if I did a series of calculations 'proving' some erroneous conclusion because I didn't understand relativity, a physicist could say "look, you clearly don't understand relativity and that's the problem." And if I asked him "well, what's relativity," they could, without taking the time and effort to 'educate' me on the subject, say "it's a system of equations and concepts that governs how time and space interrelate, and are shaped by the presence of mass, and its key findings are that nothing can exceed the speed of light, that many things we are accustomed to thinking constant are in fact variable depending on how the observer is moving while observing them, and that space and time are as noted shaped by matter."

Then they would take the step of tossing Einstein's Relativity at me, saying "this is the primer, when you're done with this read Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler's Gravitation."

From my perspective, you've skipped to the second step of this process while I'm still a little vague on the first step. Thus my questions.

---

I would say that an absolute majority of people understand what ontological death is, and a lot of people understand whiteness in a similar sense to how critical race studies understands it.

Because people understand that "death to Packers fans" does not actually mean shooting up most of Wisconsin...

And yet, it would be considered at best in very poor taste for an editorial to write out "death to Packers fans, I hate Packers fans, I've hardly ever even met a decent Packers fan." Especially not in a publication read by large numbers of Packers fans.

People understand that Barack Obama is not simultaneously White and Black despite his parents being white and black people. Most of these fields of study focus on making the implicit explicit, teasing out the rules of the game to expose their ridiculousness and vileness.

Yes.

And yet somehow, inexplicably, miraculously, SOME of these fields that expose the ridiculousness and vileness of oppressive hierarchies have managed to come up with some basic vocabulary terms that at least make it reasonably possible to communicate the nature of the ridiculousness and vileness. And to do so without predictably triggering massive misunderstandings among everyone who hasn't completed a college course or three's worth of recommended reading.

Maybe the race studies people need to talk to the gender studies people about this?

I didn't accuse you of any of those things. I am genuinely curious as to why you're writing what you write, because it's genuinely bizarre to me that anyone would respond to the perceived argument that white people are incapable of being meaningfully anti-racist by arguing that yes, this is true, but you can't say that or else white people will become actively genocidal. It's even more bizarre that you'd argue this in conjunction with arguing from a position that is not in evidence anywhere, not even acknowledging that it's one you made up on the grounds that it's what one of the hoi polloi would think.

To be quite frank, you are so far away from correctly understanding my points and arguments that my initial reaction was "this has got to be a willful and deliberate way to dismiss my objections by accusing me of genocide fantasies." I then stopped and realized this was probably wrong.

My second reaction was "this is the product of a mindset so far detached from my own, that said mind doesn't even consider the possibility that it may be misinterpreting my own, and skips straight to the "wow, Simon is an evil ogre" interpretation."

You are a recent joiner on this forum, and presumably don't know me, but I like to think I've established my bona fides on this front. I resent the implication that I desire mass death or other humanitarian catastrophes, especially when in this very thread, let alone elsewhere on the forum at times when you may not have been here, I have explicitly stated otherwise.

It's honestly not worth the time and blood pressure it would take for me to back up and try to explain to you just how far off the mark you are, and how fully you have misunderstood what I'm saying, unless you're willing to agree to at least apply the principle of charity, of humanity, and the Gricean maxims to what I'm saying.

Unless, in short, you're willing assume I'm actually a rational and more-or-less-moral being who harbors no secret fantasies of massacre, destruction, evil, treachery, and so forth.

So, are you willing to start from there? Yes, or no?

[Straha]

Just to be clear... are you disagreeing with the proposition that a person can comment on how an idea is communicated in a manner separate from their agreement with its conclusions?

A. I'm saying that agreeing with what the field is communicating depends on whether or not you agree with its conclusions.

B. I'm also saying that to be able to offer comment you have to have some sort of engagement with the field, even if it's just a passing familiarity. When the field is communicating "Whiteness is bad and must be contested" and you respond with "What about calling it the right of the whip?" you are not offering a suggestion for how it should massage its message, you are disagreeing with a core conclusion of the field. Not knowing that you are disagreeing with a core conclusion of the field underlines the point I'm making here.

Even when you directly tell me the conclusions and I agree with them, that doesn't seem to be good enough to give me grounds to say "well, the effect of communicating the conclusions in the specific manner in question is going to be predictably disastrous all around." I'm not sure me reading a stack of books would help at that point, because if I don't interpret the books in a way that results in my viewpoint becoming literally identical to yours, we may still have disagreements on this and I'll still be getting clouds of ink in my face every time I try to discuss specific consequences of specific actions that occur in realms I do clearly understand.

Disagreements are good. I'm not preaching a singular way of viewing race studies, and I find the disagreements between Afro-pessimists, Afro-futurists, Black feminism, et al. profoundly enriching and rewarding. (To say nothing of the incredibly complicated relationship between these claims and Native studies.) I am saying that you should read these books so that you can begin to grok why what's being communicated is being communicated the way it is.

Dawkins and Gould disagreed with each other. Those disagreements were profoundly enriching. Gould and, say, Jerry Falwell disagreed with each other. That disagreement wasn't. I want whatever disagreements we have to be enriching, that requires a literacy about what's being discussed.

Hang on.

It sounds like the arguments you want to advance are arguments about how the other arguments should be communicated. That is to say, for you this isn't a question of how to obtain the best (or least-bad) PR for accomplishing some agenda. But rather, how the other arguments should be communicated is the entire point, the thing I cannot possibly understand without reading a stack of books. Or perhaps, the ONLY point under debate is how the argument should be phrased, and everything else is irrelevant.

Am I misunderstanding you?

Yes. I am saying your notion of justice isn't actually just. Which answers the question of "If your conclusions are logical and just, why are you communicating them this way?" quite nicely.

More generally, you're asking me to commit considerable time, and more to the point time in which I would presumably be having to focus a good deal of mental energy in preparation for a rather exhausting discussion with someone whose debating style I find more than a little frustrating and evasive. At the same time, it's an honorable suggestion as such and appeals to my instincts, despite the fact that I expect frustration and unhappiness to result from it.

Frustration and unhappiness is what the world has to offer writ large. The least we can be is connected in our mutual frustration and better educated about it.

From my perspective, you've skipped to the second step of this process while I'm still a little vague on the first step. Thus my questions.

Honestly, perhaps this is on me, I thought you knew more than you did. I thought you were at least familiar with why certain terms were used and what core phrases (e.g. Postmodernism) mean. It became increasingly clear over the course of the thread that you weren't. To use your analogy if someone goes into that conversation with the Physics teacher mentioning Kip Thorne and whether or not black holes can destroy information and then reveals that they don't know anything about special relativity it's a whole different conversation. Hence, this breaking point here.