Spinozasgalt wrote:When it's science, everyone's all like, "We'll we're steeped in biases and science gotta control for that blah blah blah. Dunning-Kruger yadda yadda." But when it's racism, everyone's all like, "Whoah, whoah, whoah, all that bias talk is bordering on original sin."

If we're going to talk about science, perhaps we should start from falsifiability.

So racism (in the classic sense, and I did note the video was more than a touch revisionist on that one) "is the belief in the superiority of one race over another, which often results in discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. ". This the video reduces to individual/conscious/intent and it definitely exists, we can definitely falsify that - if someone expresses or does not express an attitude of superiority to people from another ethnicity.

Institutional racism also clearly exists, either in patterns of behaviour resulting from systems, from companies or from laws. It's much harder to falsify, because now we're not in an analogy of science, we're doing actual science - we have to look at outcomes compared to expectations, and those expectations are based on assumptions. Still, like any social science there are cases where we can establish a large body of evidence, where we can expose a specific discriminatory law, or a legacy from one. With some work we can still do falsification, so the corresponding failure of falsification still acts as evidence for the charge.

But what about this hybrid of the two? What about this accusation of "that specific event" was racist "that specific person" is being racist? How are we going to falsify that one, when intent doesn't matter, when being conscious of what's happening doesn't matter, where we're accusing an individual and there's no larger pattern to analyse?

When such lengths have been taken to avoid all possible rebuttals, all possible falsifications, then the comparison with a doctrine of original sin isn't quite such a stretch. And when that definition goes further and makes a special exception of the speaker themself (e.g. I can't be racist, I'm black and only white people can be racist)? Then it's no stretch at all.

If an institution is racist, then call it racist. But that doesn't extend to pointing at individuals within that institution, assuming they must be racist and calling them racist too. Of course when someone points the finger people will take that personally. Pointing the finger is personal. Group trends do not necessarily apply to every individual within a group and individuals do not necessarily represent the group they are part of. It's just not necessary to misapply group trends to individuals, in any circumstances, including when it comes to controversial topics.

Just to add: I'm not saying anyone here is or is not behaving in the way described in the third non-falsifiable example here. What I would say is that it's my impression that at the very least the response that things are bordering on original sin generally has such a situation in mind.

GrahamH wrote:

Thommo wrote:
So racism (in the classic sense, and I did note the video was more than a touch revisionist on that one) "is the belief in the superiority of one race over another, which often results in discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. ". This the video reduces to individual/conscious/intent and it definitely exists, we can definitely falsify that - if someone expresses or does not express an attitude of superiority to people from another ethnicity.

I think the video does not reduce to "individual/conscious/intent".

The video doesn't, the point in the video she reduces to "individual/conscious/intent" does. It's literally a quote. That is what the text you're quoting says and is the referrent of the pronoun "this" in the third sentence.

GrahamH wrote:The point of the video is that "individual/conscious/intent" is an error.

I would not summarise the video that way. If it were an accurate summary, then I would say the point of the video is wrong. There is a real meaning of racism, that applies to many actual individuals in which they consciously intend to be racist. They actively believe that racial groupings are reflective of real and meaningful differences in underlying features of humans, such as intelligence, propensity to criminality and so on, and that this makes some races better than others. Indeed over the years we've had dozens of posters here saying exactly that, and ultimately getting banned for it.

And as I said there's also a very real meaning of racism that refers to institutional racism. It's the blurring of the two where the ability to point the finger sanctimoniously while hiding behind the looser criteria of the second - even where those criteria cannot be affirmed or denied - that I'm delineating and criticising.

GrahamH wrote:It's not falsifiable that on any single instance the temperature of a beverage is the reason for the assessment.
So what?

So it is wrong to point to that individual and assign that reason. And if people do this, they should not be surprised that their error is criticised and that their finger pointing provokes a reaction.

(Incidentally, reporting of social science like this does make me feel obliged to say that I take the result with some scepticism, most of published science is wrong).

GrahamH wrote:

Thommo wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

Thommo wrote:
So racism (in the classic sense, and I did note the video was more than a touch revisionist on that one) "is the belief in the superiority of one race over another, which often results in discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. ". This the video reduces to individual/conscious/intent and it definitely exists, we can definitely falsify that - if someone expresses or does not express an attitude of superiority to people from another ethnicity.

I think the video does not reduce to "individual/conscious/intent".

The video doesn't, the point in the video she reduces to "individual/conscious/intent" does. It's literally a quote. That is what the text you're quoting says and is the referrent of the pronoun "this" in the third sentence.

Yes, it's literally a quote


Take your literal glasses off and watch it again. Who's definition is it and what is she saying are the consequences of people using that defintion for themselves? It's not what she thinks racism is all about.

What are you talking about Graham? You're criticising what I said, and saying I'm not allowed to accurately quote and represent the video, the two things you highlight as her not having said are complete non sequiturs, I haven't said she said them. You've then followed up by rolling your eyes.

This is just going to make another thread descend into farce. Let's just not. For once.

GrahamH wrote:

Thommo wrote:

GrahamH wrote:It's not falsifiable that on any single instance the temperature of a beverage is the reason for the assessment.
So what?

So it is wrong to point to that individual and assign that reason. And if people do this, they should not be surprised that their error is criticised and that their finger pointing provokes a reaction.

It's not an "error" it's an opinion that may inform, or may be rejected through denial. As the title of the video puts it '"I'm not racist" is only half the story'.

Yes, it's an error. It's the exact same error as saying "Men are taller than women, therefore this man is taller than this woman", other than the fact we can actually observe whether this man is taller than this woman or not (we cannot however observe why). Population level statistics describe populations, not individuals, they are different objects.

Combating racism, whether individual or institutional does not require conflating the two. If research shows that CVs with ethnic or unfamiliar names fare worse and this leads to unequal outcomes, the problem can be addressed by removing names from CVs. It can't actually be addressed by pointing at interviewers and calling them racists.

GrahamH wrote:

Thommo wrote: If it were an accurate summary, then I would say the point of the video is wrong. There is a real meaning of racism, that applies to many actual individuals in which they consciously intend to be racist.

Sure there is that sort of racism as well, but you seem to have mssed the whole point of the video and taken the pointing out of the problem to be the core message. In short you are doing excatly what DiAngelo says poeple do when they miss the very point she made.

And we're off again. You deliberately misunderstand my point so you can accuse me of something.

That's as sanctimonious as it is unnecessary, and it's just going to pollute yet another perfectly sensible discussion that I wasn't even having with you. I'm out.

felltoearth wrote:Thommo. You are taking the quote out of context.

No, I'm not. She is describing that view, that's all I've said. I didn't say it summarised her view, or the video or anything else. Watch that part of the video, she describes that view and summarises it with those three words.

That is not out of context.

ETA: Here, transcript:

I think the most effective adaptation of the system of racism to the challenges of the civil rights movement was to reduce a racist to a very simple formula. A racist is an individual - always an individual not a system - who consciously does not like people based on race - must be conscious – and who intentionally seeks to be mean to them. Individual/conscious/intent.

And if that is my definition of a racist then your suggestion that anything I’ve said or done is racist or has a racist impact I’m going to hear that as you’ve just said I was a bad person. You’ve just put me over there in that category. And most of my bias anyway is unconscious…

Spinozasgalt wrote:This may be my fault. I'm sorry I mentioned the Spice Girls. Things always blow up when I mention the Spice Girls.

Thommo wrote:But what about this hybrid of the two? What about this accusation of "that specific event" was racist "that specific person" is being racist? How are we going to falsify that one, when intent doesn't matter, when being conscious of what's happening doesn't matter, where we're accusing an individual and there's no larger pattern to analyse?

Oh, you all watched the video? I didn't watch the video. In the Knight cartoon case, I think there was a larger pattern to analyse, but I couldn't be bothered expending the energy on a guy like that at the time. Anyway, the rant that follows isn't really aimed at you so much as using your quote here to explain what I think. I'm not going to speak very carefully because I probably won't get very involved in this whole thing. (That means no one should try to argue with me because I'm gonna be listening to music instead.)

But in regards to the epistemic concern in the hybrid case, I'll just say I don't think science (or the way we sometimes do falsifiability as a kind of analogue for it here) is much help because I don't know that it actually demarcates good answers from bad. I think even in a falsification account of science that there's a whole lot more going on. And I guess I doubt that people can practice this full-blown skepticism that they put on here more generally in life. Maybe the view is largely confected from what people brought to the theism discussions years ago here and elsewhere. I do think that as a community we've just never delivered a workable philosophy out of the version of empiricism in use here. But my ideas on this are old news.

I don't know how to resolve the competing racism claims here. I think you've got at least two different understandings of what racism is in these conversations at any one time. I don't just mean that people mix up the systemic/individual cases to create a hybrid, either. I suspect that even that way of parsing it is just one view opposing another. I think that even how accusations of racism behave and what norms they enact and all of that is complicated by the difference. Talk of white supremacy has exploded since Trump's presidency and common usage has absorbed parts of what black theory says about systems of domination and such. White supremacy on this understanding (to the extent that I can make it singular) isn't a view held by some members of the population that we have to locate and educate such people out of or defeat by numbers. It's a system or structure that we all participate in and that's constituted or constructed by the norms we enact around race and how we conceptualise it and so on and so forth. I think that's where some of the clash is.

I think that's all fair enough, my comments weren't much directed at the video either, I don't think I have a view on whether she's right or wrong or how that breaks down, and I certainly didn't express one.

What I was really referring to was this comparison with original sin. If I encapsulated it in a phrase I'd say that I reject the concept of original sin, and dismiss it as religious dogma because there's nothing I could say, no evidence I could bring that would convince my accuser otherwise.

Applying that criteria to these accusations against an individual of being racist, it seems virtually identical. If you need not be conscious, need not have intent, and need not exhibit a pattern of behaviour (and noting here that in the case of the cartoon a lot of the better posters actually did specifically refer to a wider pattern of behaviour of the cartoonist, which although I never entered the conversation or bothered to have a view, seems worth mentioning), then there's nothing the accused can ever say, no evidence they could provide to rebut the accusation. So if they draw the parallel, that seems justified.

Doubtless other people (as always) who aren't in the same boat, but think their situation superficially resembles the first will mimic (incorrectly) the justification.

But in summation: The Spice girls suck as much as they ever did.