Texas State Newspaper writer fired for racist column

[Patroklos]

And yes, when read in context of the article alone I think it’s pretty straight forward. Whiteness created a class of people who had privileged access to law, land, society, and just about everything you could imagine (including, literally, other people’s bodies). That is an aberration, an aberration that arose right out of colonization and the theft of land. Whiteness ought never have existed. I don’t think either of those claims are disputable. Do you?

In the context of human history this is not an aberration. It is very much the norm. The amount of time for which this is not the absolute norm (though still very much an active thing) is the blink of an eye. Not even a full generation. You have been asked a hundred times now where we limit this grudge settling, and have ducked the question every time.

Also, Whiteness isn't a thing. Someone needed to say that.

[FaxModem1]

A. Because it is often just as much their crimes as their parent's crimes.

B. Because the victims still suffer because of this. This is not a crime that happened, it is a crime that is continuing.

As others have pointed out, such crimes include being born into a better off family, and having the property they inherited. Are you advocating a communist style seizing of assets and then a forced relocation? How far back do we go here? When is the correct time and date to reset the clock when it comes to seizure of property and land?

A. Oh no. Can you imagine what a large scale seizure of land would look like? At gun-point? What it would entail? Being ripped from your home by force? Only to see the land and property given over to others. Simply because of where you were born. Followed by a forced relocation, and probably explicit confinement. Also the rules that would have to be in place to protect that transfer and culturally enforce it. Truly horrifying to consider what that would look like, and what the long-term ramifications of that would be on people...

B. I realize I’m being cute here, but there’s a fundamental point to be had here. The hypothetical horror you outline as being too inconceivable to happen except in nightmares is a present tense occurrence whose ramifications we live inside. It is an ongoing process of which we are a part of. Once it’s understood in that light then I think the entire framing of the questions to ask shifts. You're right, this is complicated. But the simple fact that questions are being asked doesn't mean that this is a ludicrous discussion, it means the opposite.

Is blackness a problem as well? Does it need to die as well? As I work with several black people, and they do consider themselves black, and that factors into a lot of their thinking, especially at election time. If so, great, but phrasing it as, "Whitey is the real monster." achieves nothing and doesn't build bridges, and prevents ending the actual problems people face.

Yes it does, but that's an incredibly different conversation from the question of Whiteness. Blackness needs to end much like the concept of the untouchable in India is recognized as needing to end.

And, again, I'm not sure how the structural violence people face on a day-to-day level isn't an "actual problem".

Again, how far back do we go? Conquest and violence is sadly a normal part of human history. Do we only stop the reparations and seizing of assets when people with white skin or have 'whiteness' are punished, or do we keep on going all the way back until the end of recorded history? You know that old saying, "Two wrongs don't make a right."? You are literally arguing 'Two wrongs do make a right.

[Rogue 9]

Not the point. The point is this: If someone approached me in the metaphorical dark alleyway and addressed me with, "I hate you because you shouldn't exist," I would interpret that as a clear and immediate threat to my life and react accordingly. That is not discussing the concept of racial supremacy. It's how you address people. "I hate you because you shouldn't exist" is a fair summation of the NSDAP's attitude towards Jews, and we all know what happened there. Telling people that they are hated and should not exist has very clear implications, because there is one sure way to make people cease to exist. That way, so we're not leaving anything to interpretation, is to kill them. That attitude is at the root of genocide.

I'll spot you the analogy, let's roll with it for a minute. "I hate you because you shouldn't exist" is also a pretty summation of the Jews response to the NSDAP.

Now, tell me something. When Whiteness the ideology has stolen land, pushed people into concentrated areas of no economic or argicultural potential and constrained people to them, built its own wealth on forced slave labor, engaged engaged in widespread eugenic processes and enforced access to laws, and violently supported all of the above. Then, who is the Nazi and who is the Jew in this analogy?

Being Jewish is intrinsic to one's genetics, as is being white. Being a Nazi is not; it's a choice. The article is very specific about white DNA being the problem, and then goes on to advocate that white people should cease to exist. Imagine, if you will, replacing "white" in the previous three sentences with "black," or perhaps "Han Chinese," and then consider how that would go over with the audience.

[Gandalf]

Holy hell have I ever missed Straha in these sorts of threads.

[Straha]

Again, how far back do we go? Conquest and violence is sadly a normal part of human history. Do we only stop the reparations and seizing of assets when people with white skin or have 'whiteness' are punished, or do we keep on going all the way back until the end of recorded history? You know that old saying, "Two wrongs don't make a right."? You are literally arguing 'Two wrongs do make a right.

A. It's not two wrongs make a right. It's that we need to undo a wrong that's being done right now. You blew past that discussion, I know, but if the wrong is ongoing it needs to end.

B. You keep acting as if this is a discussion-ending question. It's not. What of "this is complicated" defends the status quo? What of this makes the world around us now right or even okay? As I've said elsewhere in this thread this is an incredibly complicated project both theoretically and practically and it requires discussion and a path forward. Part of that means coming to terms on some basic concepts, the concept that the article being discussed advances is: Whiteness is not okay. Part of that is: White people being here is a historical wrong, it should be undone. Once that's settled the details of how to undo are complicated and require an intense hashing out and dialogues, that's fair. But it doesn't change the principle that whiteness ought be undone. I don't think to defend any one of many possible paths to do this to defend the question, as the article does, that Whiteness ought not be.

C. Perhaps this an analogy you can understand: You wake up one day and find a lump in your body where there ought not be one. You go to the doctor and tell her. She looks at you and says "well, what were you last healthy?" You stare. You don't know the date. When you say that she responds "Well, fuck. Then what are you doing here?" Baffled you say that you're just looking to be cured of whatever you have. The Doctor looks at you again, "How?" You don't know, you're not a doctor. She looks at you again, "Well, if you don't even know what you want me to do what did you expect to have happen?" Of course she's wrong. You want to be healed. That's it.

Same thing here. There is a disease, it needs to be cured. We can hash out the cure after come to the same page that it needs to happen because those are two different discussions.

[Straha]

And yes, when read in context of the article alone I think it’s pretty straight forward. Whiteness created a class of people who had privileged access to law, land, society, and just about everything you could imagine (including, literally, other people’s bodies). That is an aberration, an aberration that arose right out of colonization and the theft of land. Whiteness ought never have existed. I don’t think either of those claims are disputable. Do you?

In the context of human history this is not an aberration. It is very much the norm. The amount of time for which this is not the absolute norm (though still very much an active thing) is the blink of an eye. Not even a full generation. You have been asked a hundred times now where we limit this grudge settling, and have ducked the question every time.

Yeah, bullshit. Colonization, and especially colonization as practiced in the Americas, has no historical precedent and was done in radically different ways than the histories of warfare and conquest you're laying out. This is old hat for every serious historian of colonization and even the contemporary jurisprudence around colonization.

Also, Whiteness isn't a thing. Someone needed to say that.

You can say it. You're wrong, but you can say it.

[Straha]

I'll spot you the analogy, let's roll with it for a minute. "I hate you because you shouldn't exist" is also a pretty summation of the Jews response to the NSDAP.

Now, tell me something. When Whiteness the ideology has stolen land, pushed people into concentrated areas of no economic or argicultural potential and constrained people to them, built its own wealth on forced slave labor, engaged engaged in widespread eugenic processes and enforced access to laws, and violently supported all of the above. Then, who is the Nazi and who is the Jew in this analogy?

Being Jewish is intrinsic to one's genetics, as is being white. Being a Nazi is not; it's a choice. The article is very specific about white DNA being the problem, and then goes on to advocate that white people should cease to exist. Imagine, if you will, replacing "white" in the previous three sentences with "black," or perhaps "Han Chinese," and then consider how that would go over with the audience.

1. It's like you're not even reading the rest of the thread or the article. White isn't a race. The article says so. "You were not born white, you became white. You actively remain white." I've explained this at some length elsewhere in the thread. Put simply: White is a construct that operates separately from notions of race even for White folk. Irish is a race. White is a power position. White is a choice.

2. I realize that I have said this four times, but I also realize you need to read this again. The article's headline is the only place DNA is mentioned. Headlines for articles are written by editors and not the author of the article. The author does not use DNA at all in the article. Further, the author makes clear that people are not biologically dead. They exist as biological entities. It is talking about the Ontological death of Whiteness. They are simply no longer White. Read the article. If you disagree I'm glad to hear where you would say it does advocate for white death in a non-ontological sense. I'll be waiting.

[FaxModem1]

Again, how far back do we go? Conquest and violence is sadly a normal part of human history. Do we only stop the reparations and seizing of assets when people with white skin or have 'whiteness' are punished, or do we keep on going all the way back until the end of recorded history? You know that old saying, "Two wrongs don't make a right."? You are literally arguing 'Two wrongs do make a right.

A. It's not two wrongs make a right. It's that we need to undo a wrong that's being done right now. You blew past that discussion, I know, but if the wrong is ongoing it needs to end.

B. You keep acting as if this is a discussion-ending question. It's not. What of "this is complicated" defends the status quo? What of this makes the world around us now right or even okay? As I've said elsewhere in this thread this is an incredibly complicated project both theoretically and practically and it requires discussion and a path forward. Part of that means coming to terms on some basic concepts, the concept that the article being discussed advances is: Whiteness is not okay. Part of that is: White people being here is a historical wrong, it should be undone. Once that's settled the details of how to undo are complicated and require an intense hashing out and dialogues, that's fair. But it doesn't change the principle that whiteness ought be undone. I don't think to defend any one of many possible paths to do this to defend the question, as the article does, that Whiteness ought not be.

C. Perhaps this an analogy you can understand: You wake up one day and find a lump in your body where there ought not be one. You go to the doctor and tell her. She looks at you and says "well, what were you last healthy?" You stare. You don't know the date. When you say that she responds "Well, fuck. Then what are you doing here?" Baffled you say that you're just looking to be cured of whatever you have. The Doctor looks at you again, "How?" You don't know, you're not a doctor. She looks at you again, "Well, if you don't even know what you want me to do what did you expect to have happen?" Of course she's wrong. You want to be healed. That's it.

Same thing here. There is a disease, it needs to be cured. We can hash out the cure after come to the same page that it needs to happen because those are two different discussions.

Because you're sidestepping the question. Even if, hypothetically speaking, removing everyone who has white skin from the continent was a moral action, it's not, but for the sake of argument, let's say it is, where do you put them? Once that is settled, do you move all the blacks too, because they were mostly forced to come here due to the Atlantic slave trade? Is everyone descended from the slave trade supposed to go settle in Africa? How about all the mixed people of different races? Where do they fit into this mess? Same with those of Hispanic descent, and the mixing of Spanish settlers with natives. Do we apply this anti-whiteness to all mixed couples? Eliminating the 'bad half' of the equation?

How is this not a worse crime than those of the past? Especially when society is already making efforts to better itself and be inclusive towards those that are different. Instead, it's time to destroy the melting pot and apparently keep one's peas and carrots separate.

This isn't a solution to any perceived problem, this is advocating violence in the name of racial justice. Logistically, it is nuts. Morally, it's repugnant and regressive. You aren't even trying to suggest a way to progress, but instead some sort of separate but unequal solution to the sins of the past few generations.

Since when did fucking segregation become a moral action?

[Straha]

Because you're sidestepping the question. Even if, hypothetically speaking, removing everyone who has white skin from the continent was a moral action, it's not, but for the sake of argument, let's say it is,

This is the sidestep. You ignore everything in favor of "Well, what can be done?"
ME: There's a prior discussion that we need to have to figure out this stuff.
You: BUT WHAT HAPPENS AFTER?
ME: To say that we need to have this discussion otherwise we're flailing the dark.
You: Not an answer! Suppose we have the discussion, WHAT NEXT?
ME: Well, that requires the discussion to occur. It hasn't. Let's have it so we can go on to the next step.
You: Pfft, sophistry!

You say it's not a moral action. Why not? It's only after we've hashed that out that the rest of this conversation can make sense. Also, as long as you think it's not a moral action any I answer I give you is going to be immoral. The real conversation is there, not in the followup.

Once that is settled, do you move all the blacks too, because they were mostly forced to come here due to the Atlantic slave trade? Is everyone descended from the slave trade supposed to go settle in Africa?

This is discussed at some length above with Simon. Respond to that if you want an answer here.

How about all the mixed people of different races? Where do they fit into this mess? Same with those of Hispanic descent, and the mixing of Spanish settlers with natives. Do we apply this anti-whiteness to all mixed couples? Eliminating the 'bad half' of the equation?

Good complicated questions worth analysis. Stop ducking the prior question about Whiteness and the morality of settler-colonialism and we can have a proper discussion of this.

Since when did fucking segregation become a moral action?

That's a good question. Yet here you are defending a status quo based on racial segregation through the reservation system and anti-blackness and saying undoing the segregation is too heinous a thing to contemplate. Funny that.

[FaxModem1]

This is the sidestep. You ignore everything in favor of "Well, what can be done?"
ME: There's a prior discussion that we need to have to figure out this stuff.
You: BUT WHAT HAPPENS AFTER?
ME: To say that we need to have this discussion otherwise we're flailing the dark.
You: Not an answer! Suppose we have the discussion, WHAT NEXT?
ME: Well, that requires the discussion to occur. It hasn't. Let's have it so we can go on to the next step.
You: Pfft, sophistry!

You say it's not a moral action. Why not? It's only after we've hashed that out that the rest of this conversation can make sense. Also, as long as you think it's not a moral action any I answer I give you is going to be immoral. The real conversation is there, not in the followup.

Because, as you already established, ripping people out of their homes and exiling them for the color of their skin is evil? Considering it a moral thing to do an eye for an eye property swap will not fix things.

Human progress, for recorded human history, seems to be uplifting people's quality of life, not lowering it. Yes, it has been at the expense if others, but there is no reason to do so unless one is a fan of petty vengeance. Any sort of past historical crimes, are just exactly that, historical. Present crimes are to be dealt with in policy and enforcement, and legislation.

Goal is the melting pot and everyone having equal opportunity, by increasing people's chances. Progress should not be viewed as a zero sum game, which seems to be your position on it.

How about all the mixed people of different races? Where do they fit into this mess? Same with those of Hispanic descent, and the mixing of Spanish settlers with natives. Do we apply this anti-whiteness to all mixed couples? Eliminating the 'bad half' of the equation?

Good complicated questions worth analysis. Stop ducking the prior question about Whiteness and the morality of settler-colonialism and we can have a proper discussion of this.

Problem is the lack of equal definition of whiteness. There may be this philosophical concept of whiteness racism against whites may hide behind, but it is, nonetheless, as the article shows, a concept arguing that all white people are evil for how they define themselves, without morally condemning how other types of people define themselves?

Yes, there was a shift in tribalism, from national origin to race. This was actually a step forward. As creeds, tribes, denominations, etc, stopped being reasons to kill each other. The past century has been a melting, albeit slower than it should be, of the differences in race, different religions, and cultures. Your stance is anti-melting pot and removing any gains mankind has achieved through Western culture.

I guess we should still be at a level where Hartfields and McCoys should be feuding over some livestock, because past making peace is wrong?

Since when did fucking segregation become a moral action?

That's a good question. Yet here you are defending a status quo based on racial segregation through the reservation system and anti-blackness and saying undoing the segregation is too heinous a thing to contemplate. Funny that.

No. You're the one arguing for segregation and a white form of Reservations. Everyone else seems aghast at the concept and wants the world to move on into a post-racial society.

[Straha]

So this argument may mean one thing to people who specialize in the field it is discussing (it was written by a philosophy major, yes), and a very different thing to the average layperson.

That's a fair criticism for something posted as an op-ed in a newspaper, and one I certainly agree with. It's a sophomoric approach to assume everyone knows what you're talking about. But maybe the author is actually a Sophomore?

2. What's the meaningful distinction between "White people should not be here" and "White people should not have come here in the first place"? Because I just don't see one historically.

Because condemning a past action, and condemning the present (which is a product of that and many other past acts) are two fundamentally different things.

Suppose a child is conceived as a result of a rape. I think that we can all agree that the act which lead to its conception should never have occurred, and in that sense, the child should not exist. But that is a very different sentiment from saying "The living child should now die." (yes, its not a perfect analogy, and you could abort a child before birth, but I hope it at least illustrates my point, which is that the past and present are two very different things, and that you cannot undo the past by trying to punish the present).

I think the direct analogy is less Rape and more Theft.


If my father steals your car it should be given back. Ideally with compensation for the damages you sustained while it was gone.
If my father steals your car and sells it to someone else, whether or not they know it was stolen, it should still be given back to you. Ideally with compensation for the damages sustained.
If my father steals your car and gives it to me and dies nothing changes. I may think the car is mine, I might have a personal sentimental attachment to it from the time I spent in it with my now deceased father. It's still your car.
If my father steals your car and gives it to me and dies, and you die (perhaps because you no longer have a car) the car still belongs to your heirs, not me.

Same principle. A theft occurred. A genocide was wrought to do it. We ought fix that.

I'm more interested in trying to make a better and more just world NOW, than in the impossible task of trying to erase the past.

There's no attempt to erase the past here. The question is more how can we imagine the obligation we owe to the victims. Before we can understand reparation/restitution we have understand the gravity of the crime.

The obvious solution is to try to renegotiate the existing status quo, and see if a deal can be reached, without coercion, that is acceptable to all parties. Likely, I imagine, it would involve ceding some pieces of land, and paying substantial reparations in exchange for keeping others. But it would be important to come to such a discussion without a lot of preconceptions.

Sure, I can buy that. I think one of the preconceptions that needs to be undone then is the idea that because I was born here I'm somehow not a participant in the crimes that need to be undone. Also, the legitimacy of the United States as an entity. Some framing needs to exist for this to happen, answers to those questions are important.

Of course, as a general principle, I don't believe in drawing up national boundaries on racial lines.

If that's true, that's fine. But the United States was actively drawn on racial lines. Paul Frymer's recent book "Building an American Empire" is really good on this, as are many other books. The entire point of the United States was that it was a White nation taking over land that belonged to it because of this racial lines. If you believe that's true then one the direct consequences is that maybe the Nation of the United States ought not exist.

And no, I don't know all the legal or practical ins and outs of solving this question, as I acknowledged. If I was capable enough to craft a perfect solution to a problem like this, I'd run for Congress, instead of just posting on a web forum about it. But I think that we have to try to solve it, rather than simply writing it off as unsolvable.

That's part of the problem. Imagine Congress saying it maybe shouldn't exist? Idk. That's a rough beat to walk. But discussions like this are important, they help to bring these concerns forward in the popular consciousness.

As a start, we could begin by sitting down and saying to Native Americans: "We admit that crimes and atrocities were inflicted upon your ancestors. We acknowledge that you suffer from great disadvantages as a result of those acts to this day. We are prepared to renegotiate our relationship, and try to find a solution that is equitable to everyone, and we are willing to make some concessions to achieve that." Start talking, from a position of sincere openmindedness and a desire for fairness, and then see what comes of it.

That's a good start. I don't disagree.

[Straha]

Human progress, for recorded human history, seems to be uplifting people's quality of life, not lowering it. Yes, it has been at the expense if others, but there is no reason to do so unless one is a fan of petty vengeance.

That's a funny line to take considering the destruction that colonialism wrought on Sub-Saharan Africa. And Northern Africa. India. Really, actually, all of Central Asia. China. South East Asia. And, of course, the Americas. Australia too, there's a thread started by Gandalf about that down the page. Damage that was only recognized as damage in the 60s and 70s. Seems like your definition of quality of life is tied to white folks.

Any sort of past historical crimes, are just exactly that, historical. Present crimes are to be dealt with in policy and enforcement, and legislation.

What about the Indian Reservation is historical? What about the occupation of stolen land is historical? Seriously. You keep trying to pull this stunt that "It's all past us now." when we live in this as an ongoing process. If you can't give a coherent answer as to how the reservation is post-racial than the rest of your argument is a complete non-starter.

Yes, there was a shift in tribalism, from national origin to race. This was actually a step forward.

Never thought I'd see someone saying that Colonialism based on racial supremacy was a step forward. Yikes.

Since when did fucking segregation become a moral action?

That's a good question. Yet here you are defending a status quo based on racial segregation through the reservation system and anti-blackness and saying undoing the segregation is too heinous a thing to contemplate. Funny that.

No. You're the one arguing for segregation and a white form of Reservations. Everyone else seems aghast at the concept and wants the world to move on into a post-racial society.

I'm arguing that White Folk ought not be on stolen land and should recognize they don't belong. I've never once advocated for reservation systems for white folks. You're the one here literally saying doctrines of racial supremacy were a "step forward" and saying that the Indian Reservation is both a historical legacy and that the damage of it is too complicated to contemplate undoing. Check yourself.

[FaxModem1]

Human progress, for recorded human history, seems to be uplifting people's quality of life, not lowering it. Yes, it has been at the expense if others, but there is no reason to do so unless one is a fan of petty vengeance.

That's a funny line to take considering the destruction that colonialism wrought on Sub-Saharan Africa. And Northern Africa. India. Really, actually, all of Central Asia. China. South East Asia. And, of course, the Americas. Australia too, there's a thread started by Gandalf about that down the page. Damage that was only recognized as damage in the 60s and 70s. Seems like your definition of quality of life is tied to white folks.

I'm referring to the concept of tribal and Creed fights being reduced over time. The introduction of racial and tribal conflicts in Africa via Colonial conquering is, of course, horrid and needs fixing.

Any sort of past historical crimes, are just exactly that, historical. Present crimes are to be dealt with in policy and enforcement, and legislation.

What about the Indian Reservation is historical? What about the occupation of stolen land is historical? Seriously. You keep trying to pull this stunt that "It's all past us now." when we live in this as an ongoing process. If you can't give a coherent answer as to how the reservation is post-racial than the rest of your argument is a complete non-starter.

What about the holdings from the Conquest of the Desert, the Adal-Ethopian war, the numerous European wars, etc. Your answer to modern borders, affected by past conflicts, is, 'BUT THE WHITES TOOK THE LAND!!!!''

Yes they did. So did every people conquering another people. This isn't unique to 'whiteness' or colonialism. Acting like it is is dishonest.

And for the record, I do believe that the Natives get and got a raw deal, and that we should be doing more to help them. That makes sense to me. Abolishing the nation's borders and ripping away property that's been in people's hands for centuries doesn't.

I'm not against financial reparations or increased government spending to increase their way of life, and fixing things through legislation to give them a better shot at life. Yours is the same old process of taking away land to make things even. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

Yes, there was a shift in tribalism, from national origin to race. This was actually a step forward.

Never thought I'd see someone saying that Colonialism based on racial supremacy was a step forward. Yikes.

Compared to fights over family name and clan? It's larger at least. Still incredibly ugly and needs to be stopped, but better than Hartfields and McCoys.

Honestly it's the same thing under a broader scope and larger area. But it does show that the tribalism of humans can be shifted to greater and greater groups of people, preventing smaller and smaller infighting due to past differences grows over time, until eventually it's the human race against some alien species. Melting pot, remember?

We saw this in how anti-Irish and anti-Italian discrimination faded away over time and became immaterial. You're the one advocating that that was a mistake and they should still be fighting along those lines.

This gives us greater peace and stability over broader areas. I'm not saying that the cost is worth it, but it does provide better qualities over time.

That's a good question. Yet here you are defending a status quo based on racial segregation through the reservation system and anti-blackness and saying undoing the segregation is too heinous a thing to contemplate. Funny that.

No. You're the one arguing for segregation and a white form of Reservations. Everyone else seems aghast at the concept and wants the world to move on into a post-racial society.
[/quote]

I'm arguing that White Folk ought not be on stolen land and should recognize they don't belong. I've never once advocated for reservation systems for white folks. You're the one here literally saying doctrines of racial supremacy were a "step forward" and saying that the Indian Reservation is both a historical legacy and that the damage of it is too complicated to contemplate undoing. Check yourself.
[/quote]

Please point to where I say reservations are a good thing. Please also point out where I'm satisfied with the status quo. I'm not. I'm pointing out that moving forward is the best route, not regressing back into the actions of yesteryear. Repeating the actions of the past and present with different actors is not progress, no matter how much in your mind they deserve it.

Tldr: I'm not saying that White supremacism, reservations, or any other form of racial violence is a good thing. You however, are saying that since things aren't perfect, say that it's a valid tactic.

[GuppyShark]

This is an intriguing conversation. It seems built on exceptionalism, that the US experience is somehow unique when we know similar events have unfolded across human history.

The most obvious counterpoint, the history of the British Isles, the people most guilty of "Whiteness", is one of the British peoples becoming subjects of a foreign power. Celts, Saxons, Normans, Romans, everyone got to make their imprint on England.

Straha made a passing mention to why White colonisation is different to every other invasion in history, but didn't provide a citation. Straha, you said this was a settled argument, can you point us in the right direction as to why? I am not the only board member who doesn't see why we shouldn't treat the occupation of Pilgrim Rock as somehow more abhorrent than any other ancient wrong that still echoes to the current day.

EDIT: Yes, as an Australian, I'm aware of how this discussion impacts us. If anything, we are a purer example (the slaves that built Australia were white, it's just colonists and natives). That's why I'm interested.

[Rogue 9]

It is talking about the Ontological death of Whiteness. They are simply no longer White. Read the article. If you disagree I'm glad to hear where you would say it does advocate for white death in a non-ontological sense. I'll be waiting.

Bullshit. "I hate you because you shouldn't exist." You'd be correct if it was "I hate your ideology because it shouldn't exist." But it doesn't.

[Straha]

It is talking about the Ontological death of Whiteness. They are simply no longer White. Read the article. If you disagree I'm glad to hear where you would say it does advocate for white death in a non-ontological sense. I'll be waiting.

Bullshit. "I hate you because you shouldn't exist." You'd be correct if it was "I hate your ideology because it shouldn't exist." But it doesn't.

Which loops us back to the whole Jewish response to the Nazis thing. Much like the Jews would say "I hate you, you should not exist" to Nazis with it being understood that it didn't apply to Germans despite the remarkable overlap between the two, this author is saying that to White people. "I hate you [because you've become white]" "You should not exist [as white]". It's all literally right there in the article.

[Straha]

That's a funny line to take considering the destruction that colonialism wrought on Sub-Saharan Africa. And Northern Africa. India. Really, actually, all of Central Asia. China. South East Asia. And, of course, the Americas. Australia too, there's a thread started by Gandalf about that down the page. Damage that was only recognized as damage in the 60s and 70s. Seems like your definition of quality of life is tied to white folks.

I'm referring to the concept of tribal and Creed fights being reduced over time. The introduction of racial and tribal conflicts in Africa via Colonial conquering is, of course, horrid and needs fixing.

Yeah, which really doesn't answer the fact that "human progress" over the past two centuries was historically concentrated in Europe and European colonists at the direct cost of the rest of the world, a trend that has only begun to reverse relatively recently and after Europeans were no longer there. Your yardstick of progress is tied to Whiteness. That's screwed up.

Any sort of past historical crimes, are just exactly that, historical. Present crimes are to be dealt with in policy and enforcement, and legislation.

What about the Indian Reservation is historical? What about the occupation of stolen land is historical? Seriously. You keep trying to pull this stunt that "It's all past us now." when we live in this as an ongoing process. If you can't give a coherent answer as to how the reservation is post-racial than the rest of your argument is a complete non-starter.

What about the holdings from the Conquest of the Desert, the Adal-Ethopian war, the numerous European wars, etc. Your answer to modern borders, affected by past conflicts, is, 'BUT THE WHITES TOOK THE LAND!!!!''

Yes they did. So did every people conquering another people. This isn't unique to 'whiteness' or colonialism. Acting like it is is dishonest.

Ducking the question. What about the Reservation is historical? What about the occupation of their land is historical? You can point to other examples of occupations all you want, we're discussing this one here. Until you answer this question the conversation cannot advance further.

And for the record, I do believe that the Natives get and got a raw deal, and that we should be doing more to help them. That makes sense to me. Abolishing the nation's borders and ripping away property that's been in people's hands for centuries doesn't.

Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide are not common occurrences throughout history. Also, nice to note that you mark the genocide wrought against Natives as "a raw deal". Jeepers.

Never thought I'd see someone saying that Colonialism based on racial supremacy was a step forward. Yikes.

Compared to fights over family name and clan? It's larger at least. Still incredibly ugly and needs to be stopped, but better than Hartfields and McCoys.

"Colonialism: Better than the Hartfields and McCoys". You must be so much fun at parties.

Honestly it's the same thing under a broader scope and larger area. But it does show that the tribalism of humans can be shifted to greater and greater groups of people, preventing smaller and smaller infighting due to past differences grows over time, until eventually it's the human race against some alien species. Melting pot, remember?

I'm not going to touch this beyond pointing out that A. you are claiming that the processes behind ethnic cleansing in North and South America and African chattel slavery as markers of human progress and B. portraying that process as part of a "Melting Pot" approach to humanity. It's almost self-parody at this point.

I'm arguing that White Folk ought not be on stolen land and should recognize they don't belong. I've never once advocated for reservation systems for white folks. You're the one here literally saying doctrines of racial supremacy were a "step forward" and saying that the Indian Reservation is both a historical legacy and that the damage of it is too complicated to contemplate undoing. Check yourself.

Please point to where I say reservations are a good thing. Please also point out where I'm satisfied with the status quo. I'm not. I'm pointing out that moving forward is the best route, not regressing back into the actions of yesteryear. Repeating the actions of the past and present with different actors is not progress, no matter how much in your mind they deserve it.

The occupation of land in North America is built on a system of explicit legal racism and white supremacy. You are defending the recognition of that occupation as a moral good. You are also the one explicitly marking the Reservation system as a historical occurrence that is somehow both past us and beyond our remit of responsibility to fix. And for all your protested complaints against the Status Quo you are doing very little in what you're proposing to actually challenge the structures of the Status Quo.

[FaxModem1]

Bullshit, Straha. I'm not in support of any of these historical occurrences, and your continued saying that I do is offensive. The fact that I'm in favor of the government supporting and helping the Natives should show you that without resulting in the destruction of a Nation should illustrate that. That I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater seems to be lost on you.

You're all for eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth, and it's disturbing to see.

[Simon_Jester]

Straha, are you saying my best chance to avoid seeing my whiteish family killed in this inescapable race war is to throw in with the oppressors? I am confused.

Er, no? I'm not sure where you're getting that but certainly no one is advocating for people to double-down with the oppressors.

It sounds like the Afro-Pessimists kind of are.

Because it sounds like their argument as presented by you goes something like this:

1) Whites are permanently and structurally committed to the intolerable oppression of black people.
2) Therefore, any claim by whites to be opposed to this oppression is at best self-delusion and more likely to be a self-serving lie.
3) The only solution is to destroy the existing social order and the concept of whiteness.
4) Whites will not listen or be persuaded, because their existence is structurally opposed to the welfare of black people.

There really aren't a lot of coherent conclusions to draw from this except "therefore, there needs to be a race war."

Like, not a semi-metaphorical postmodern construction of "race war" where the losing side has a bunch of people unfairly thrown in jail and has to live in the crappy neighborhoods and the police unjustly shoot several thousand people a year. The literal kind of war. where large, organized bodies of armed men round up people by the millions and evict them from the country at the point of the bayonet. The kind where, when predictable resistance to such events arises, blood runs in rivers in the streets.

The kind that is generally much worse for both sides, even the winning side, and which tends to provide no justice and do nothing to prove who is 'right,' only who is 'left,' as in 'left alive.

And the problem with such a literal war is that it forces people who would otherwise have been well content with an outcome that is better for literally everyone, to align with the bad outcome in self-defense. In a world where the other side of the Prisoner's Dilemma always chooses "defect" because they refuse to believe you could ever NOT choose "defect..." you really do have very little recourse but to retroactively prove them right.

Because you're sidestepping the question. Even if, hypothetically speaking, removing everyone who has white skin from the continent was a moral action, it's not, but for the sake of argument, let's say it is,

This is the sidestep. You ignore everything in favor of "Well, what can be done?"
ME: There's a prior discussion that we need to have to figure out this stuff.
You: BUT WHAT HAPPENS AFTER?
ME: To say that we need to have this discussion otherwise we're flailing the dark.
You: Not an answer! Suppose we have the discussion, WHAT NEXT?
ME: Well, that requires the discussion to occur. It hasn't. Let's have it so we can go on to the next step.
You: Pfft, sophistry!

You say it's not a moral action. Why not? It's only after we've hashed that out that the rest of this conversation can make sense. Also, as long as you think it's not a moral action any I answer I give you is going to be immoral. The real conversation is there, not in the followup.

I'm not sure "have this discussion" means the same thing to you that it does to, well... the English language.

"Have this discussion" does not mean "everyone who disagrees with you admits you were right and they were wrong and swears an oath to take unlimited amounts of verbal abuse on the chin because the Blood Guilt means they were horrible people when they were formed in the womb."

It means, well, have a discussion. A conversation in which both sides get to make points and have points, and agree to listen to each other, and agree to enough of a minimum of mutual respect that the conversation can proceed in a civilized way rather than just being the verbal equivalent of The Brute Squad delivering beatings to people it doesn't like.

One of the rules one has to agree to, in a discussion, is to answer awkward questions. Because this isn't just a game about who gets to score rhetorical points where you can win by refusing to concede rhetorical points to your opponent. This is, well, a discussion. There is supposed to be a serious attempt to engage with other people's opinions here, and that includes being willing to ask probing questions about the other side's opinions, and to answer similarly probing questions about one's own.

"First admit I'm right about key points of contention while I breeze past what you consider to be important points, THEN we can talk about the consequences of me being right" means you're not having a discussion, you're attempting to have a browbeating. And you shouldn't be surprised when it doesn't work, because people do not and should not have to consent to be browbeaten, and people with self-respect know that.

Since when did fucking segregation become a moral action?

That's a good question. Yet here you are defending a status quo based on racial segregation through the reservation system and anti-blackness and saying undoing the segregation is too heinous a thing to contemplate. Funny that.

You are proposing to "undo" a segregation in which it is legal for people of different races to live in the same neighborhood by instituting a segregation in which it is illegal for people of different races to live on the same continent.

Remove the log from your own eye.

[Dragon Angel]

This conversation is absolutely fascinating because it seems like there are two sides using two different dialects of academic English who are using words that connote absolutely different meanings to each other. Having interacted with people of both sides, it's interesting because I can somewhat imagine they probably want the same thing, but that language barrier prevents any sort of understanding.

(And then there are worse-than-useless sides such as Patroklos', who just plugs his ears and screams "neener neener I can't hear you!!!")

I haven't read it all yet since the second page is monstrously long, but I am interested in further seeing this progress.

[Straha]

Like, not a semi-metaphorical postmodern construction of "race war" where the losing side has a bunch of people unfairly thrown in jail and has to live in the crappy neighborhoods and the police unjustly shoot several thousand people a year. The literal kind of war. where large, organized bodies of armed men round up people by the millions and evict them from the country at the point of the bayonet. The kind where, when predictable resistance to such events arises, blood runs in rivers in the streets.

I'm going to respond to you in full later, I just want to flag that the way you have this written comes across as you minimizing both the carceral state and police shootings of Black Men. At best it's jarring, at worst it's... Beneath you and probably should be, at the least, addressed and revised.

[Straha]

Straha made a passing mention to why White colonisation is different to every other invasion in history, but didn't provide a citation. Straha, you said this was a settled argument, can you point us in the right direction as to why? I am not the only board member who doesn't see why we shouldn't treat the occupation of Pilgrim Rock as somehow more abhorrent than any other ancient wrong that still echoes to the current day.

EDIT: Yes, as an Australian, I'm aware of how this discussion impacts us. If anything, we are a purer example (the slaves that built Australia were white, it's just colonists and natives). That's why I'm interested.

So, there are a bunch of books that I can point you towards but I'll flag any book that seriously discusses how the Spanish Empire in South America operated or the ideological underpinnings of colonialism as a concept should hit on most of this. I'll give you two processes that flag how this operated differently:

A.) A disregard for continuity. Colonialism assumed, in a very real way, that European contact was the starting point for how land and peoples should be treated, a mentality that frankly persists in how discuss this (see: Columbus 'discovering' the Americas.) Historical acts of conquest involved, as a rule, a recognition of preexisting legal relationships to land and preexisting governmental structures. To use the example of Britain, the successive conquests all recognized that there were preexisting governments there and mostly simply replaced the top structures of those governments. So when William the Conqueror comes in he might kill the King and kick out some nobles but the majority of the old nobility sticks around while the government changes its functioning language. Further, when William the Conqueror comes in the vast majority of the people who live in England are left there. Their relationships to their lords and their relationship to land is recognized as legitimate. Put simply: the conquest establishes itself on historical continuity that recognizes the existence and history of England. This sort of approach is how most conquests operate across Eurasia, even groups like the Mongols recognize the legitimacy of the governments they are deposing and often continue those relationships. The times where this is not true, the first Crusade for instance, are noted historically as being aberrant and often abhorrent to outside observers.

By contrast, when Europeans show up in the Americas they use what's later called the Discovery Doctrine as their framework for approaching the acquisition of new lands. The Discovery Doctrine was based on European law for what you do when you find land that is empty either because it is uninhabited or was lost to previous generations (the doctrine arose right out of the Great Plague). It said that the first people who came across it owned the land and it was theirs to do as they see fit. So when Spain, for instance, discovered Native Nations it simply disregarded both their title to the land and the preexisting relationships that existed with the land in favor of their own new found relationship. This meant that people who had generational ties were simply thrown off the land and became refugees inside a brand new nation that no longer recognized them as perhaps even being people.

I'm not as conversant as I wish I were in the colonization of Australia, but Australia certainly had this approach legally codified before the '67 referendum and even after that until Mabo. There's never been something quite like Mabo in the United States which would offer a legal counter-narrative to the legitimacy of conquest. The problem in the United is that one of the germinal cases of property law, Johnson V. M'Intosh (linked above), is all about how land in the United States was being held by Natives in trust until White people showed up. To recognize native title in the United States would undo a shocking amount of the legal canon, so it's not really a possibility. (Also Native Americans had a legally unclear relationship with Citizenship until 1924, before then it was a mish-mash where even though legally you'd think they'd be entitled to citizenship by dint of being born in the US the courts ruled they often weren't. This has all sorts of other historical problems that are passed down to the modern era.)

B.) Anti-Black Slavery. Slavery pops up again and again through human history, but the notion of someone being demarcated a slave simply by skin was an 'innovation' of the era. Look up Bartolome de la Casas for how this actually worked, but the colonization of the Americas was based on Black people being inherently marked for servitude and degradation and always being alien to the state. This was pervasive, to the point of in Colonial North America Black people, of all sorts, had to carry lanterns with them when they went out at night to let them be surveiled because to not know where they were was seen as a threat to public order. (Simone Brown's book Dark Matters on Blackness and Surveillance is phenomenally interesting about this and other matters.) This intrinsic marker of servitude that was inescapable is something that enabled colonialism to operate and was something that arose ideologically out of it.

There's more to it that we can talk about, but those twin pillars alone answer the question and offer a framework for understanding just how different this was to human history.

[Soontir C'boath]

Like, not a semi-metaphorical postmodern construction of "race war" where the losing side has a bunch of people unfairly thrown in jail and has to live in the crappy neighborhoods and the police unjustly shoot several thousand people a year. The literal kind of war. where large, organized bodies of armed men round up people by the millions and evict them from the country at the point of the bayonet. The kind where, when predictable resistance to such events arises, blood runs in rivers in the streets.

I'm going to respond to you in full later, I just want to flag that the way you have this written comes across as you minimizing both the carceral state and police shootings of Black Men. At best it's jarring, at worst it's... Beneath you and probably should be, at the least, addressed and revised.

This is why I don't like the lesser of two evils mentality. As long as there's always something worse possible or dare I say just imaginable for that matter, the current status quo of injustice turns to be justifiable as long as there's even a bad peace to be had. It's the kind of thinking where as long as you don't rock my boat, things are ok, but that's simply not true for many others.

[Straha]

Straha, are you saying my best chance to avoid seeing my whiteish family killed in this inescapable race war is to throw in with the oppressors? I am confused.

Er, no? I'm not sure where you're getting that but certainly no one is advocating for people to double-down with the oppressors.

It sounds like the Afro-Pessimists kind of are.

Because it sounds like their argument as presented by you goes something like this:

1) Whites are permanently and structurally committed to the intolerable oppression of black people.
2) Therefore, any claim by whites to be opposed to this oppression is at best self-delusion and more likely to be a self-serving lie.
3) The only solution is to destroy the existing social order and the concept of whiteness.
4) Whites will not listen or be persuaded, because their existence is structurally opposed to the welfare of black people.

Where exactly do you disagree with their logic?

This also isn't that radically new an idea. Most of this Frantz Fanon warmed over for the United States. Nor is this too different from NYU/Harvard Law Professor Derrick Bell's scholarship. This is all remarkably old hat.

There really aren't a lot of coherent conclusions to draw from this except "therefore, there needs to be a race war."

This is discussed explicitly above. Their framing of this is that there is already a race war going on. The difference you talk about is one of degree, not kind. Which...

Like, not a semi-metaphorical postmodern construction of "race war" where the losing side has a bunch of people unfairly thrown in jail and has to live in the crappy neighborhoods and the police unjustly shoot several thousand people a year. The literal kind of war. where large, organized bodies of armed men round up people by the millions and evict them from the country at the point of the bayonet. The kind where, when predictable resistance to such events arises, blood runs in rivers in the streets.

I'll give you the chance to address this separately. This isn't a good look for you.

And the problem with such a literal war is that it forces people who would otherwise have been well content with an outcome that is better for literally everyone, to align with the bad outcome in self-defense. In a world where the other side of the Prisoner's Dilemma always chooses "defect" because they refuse to believe you could ever NOT choose "defect..." you really do have very little recourse but to retroactively prove them right.

Two things:
1. If your response to "I am actively part of an oppressive culture which others suffer from in violent forms" is "I will only accept pragmatic changes that will not radically alter my way of life to undo this" then I don't think 'defect' was ever an option that was on the table. Which is the point, your appeals back to the white majority again and again show that as long as the white majority holds a veto there's no chance of change in any substantive form. So why bother? (I'll flag here that I disagree with their conclusions, from a different perspective than yours, but I disagree nonetheless. Their analysis of the structures isn't wrong though.)

2. As long as you're framing through self-interest the other claim is that this will never benefit White people. Giving up a state that is designed to protect and insulate White interests (and egos) is never something that is going to be to their benefit. Further, as just a capital-T True claim White people in the United States (and first world) live a globally unsustainable life. As long as you're framing it through self-interest then, again, defection was never in the cards. This is a moral cause, not a practical one.

(Again, I want to flag I disagree with their analysis here. But I'm a card-carrying Wobbly so my answers aren't going to resolve your pragmatic objections or self-interest for the White middle class.)

I'm not sure "have this discussion" means the same thing to you that it does to, well... the English language.

I will admit I'm using discussion in a singular sense to cover multiple meanings. To which... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Fax was still trying to side step real discussions, like:

1. A cultural sense. We've moved on as a society to understand things like slavery and women not having the vote were wrong. Inside the parlance who refer to these mindset shifts these often called cultural discussions, and this is also things like the #metoo movement are framed. I think colonialism and anti-blackness are both objective things and wrongs that our society has conducted. So, yes, before we move to phase X where we talk about 'action' this discussion needs to occur.

2. This conversation. Fax's shift was a way to short-circuit the conversation, because as long as he thinks that colonialism and chattel slavery are part of the melting pot of humanity and not moral wrongs which have deeply stained our society, or that our society is in anyway 'postracial', then there's no advancing the discussion. Any attempt I make to discuss what I think we ought do in a practical sense to fix these wrongs will always look ludicrous because it's not fixing a problem he recognizes.

3. A real discussion about how to comprehend the scope of these problems. Like I said to you above re: Frank Wilderson there's a shitton of disagreement around a lot of this. Many scholars are trying to hashout the problems around, for instance, are Black folk settlers? If no, how do you account for them? If you're not down with ctrl-alt-del on the world around us then these are tough cookies and I have made clear I don't think I have all the answers to these questions. What I am advancing is simple: We ought recognize that Whiteness as system is a destructive ideology that ought be undone, and that part of that means recognizing that White people ought not be in North America (or South America, or Australia).

Jumping ahead to "What does fixing this actually look like" jumps the gun both in terms of what I'm advancing and in terms of the conversation being had here. Throwing out the conversation here is like someone turning down a marriage proposal because the proposer didn't include the exact date they wanted to get married when they asked "Will you marry me?".

One of the rules one has to agree to, in a discussion, is to answer awkward questions.

Let's talk about that. Here are questions that I have asked explicitly, multiple times, that have yet to get any attempt at an answer that also determine what can happen in a pragmatic sense:

* What about the Reservation system is purely historic nature?
* What about the theft of land is historic in nature?
* When did Racism and Anti-Blackness in society become a historic question?
* Why are rules of conduct put together by an explicitly racist society something that the oppressed groups of that society should follow?
* If racism is to be rejected carte blanche how do we deal with American Law (for instance, property law) that is foundationally grounded in racist ideology?


It's just fucking funny for me to see people accuse me of ducking the question when these things have all been hand-waved away because the implications require complicated answers.

You are proposing to "undo" a segregation in which it is legal for people of different races to live in the same neighborhood by instituting a segregation in which it is illegal for people of different races to live on the same continent.

Again, this begs the questions I've asked multiple times above: If White People ought not be here why should we recognize their right to be here?

I've never once advocated here for anything like an actual legal segregation you and others are trying to pin me to. I'm saying that as a starting point for us undoing the harms of colonialism we need to call a spade a spade ans say what exists around us now is legal segregation and racist and needs to torn up root and stem. That involves reparations and recognizing that pre-existing property claims are probably invalid and not something that should be part of our decision calculus.

[ray245]

Straha, do you think that the change you are hoping to see could realistically happen anytime in the near future?