We are all Slave now.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

I guess I don't understand why there's not more effort to just appeal to voters in the middle of the country, rather than try to constantly complain about something you're not going to be able to change.

Don't entirely disagree with you, but part of the issue is that there just aren't voters in the middle of the country to appeal to. Literally. "Forget about 10 million Californians and go court 10,000 people from Wyoming" is pretty seriously anti-democratic.

[Adder]

So Cohen wearing a wire, not just recording phone calls, is interesting.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

I have been trying to ignore this entire discussion about the Senate. But is it really so hard to understand that two chambers of Congress, one with proportional representation and one with equal representation was literally a precondition of the constitutional union of the states? It is quite literally called the Great Compromise, because states both populous and rural had these exact same concerns then, especially when the western colonies were claiming land all the way to the west coast.

Same thing with the electoral college, which has also fallen out of favor on the left, which was also put in place so Hillary would have to visit states like Wisconsin and not just NY and CA or TX. I guess I don't understand why there's not more effort to just appeal to voters in the middle of the country, rather than try to constantly complain about something you're not going to be able to change.

Agreed on all of the above (with the strong caveat that not all of the compromises made in Philadelphia during that long hot summer are defensible).

I would add that we Liberal Snowflakes should spend our attention to fighting voter suppression laws and gerrymandering.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I don't disagree at all.

Ditto.

OK.

Hey, I tried to say that there were things about the article that I liked and things I disagreed with.

You are being particularly confusing about this. You talk about how you weren't that impressed with the article and ask why I was. I tell you and I get, "Ok. I said there was some stuff I liked." I don't understand what's going on in your head. If what impresses me you agree with, but doesn't impress you, fine. But don't ask me the question and act so dismissive. Maybe this is one of those instances that would go differently if we were standing across from each other, because, at the very least, you would temper your comments based on the look on my face.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I'm not arguing about the message -- I'm just surprised that you would say it's the best thing you've read on racism since college, because that sounds like a pretty high bar.

I'm not sure why you're surprised. I'm pretty sure I explained it very clearly. And given the fact that I have been working in diversity for 20 years and watched how D&I efforts have had to contort itself and struggle to make any headway at all by making white people comfortable enough in their own feelings to even consider addressing the underlying problems (that lay squarely at their own feet), it was nice to see the issue so eloquently set forth in this piece. Your continual explanation of how unimpressed you are is meaningless to me.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

So here were my criticisms, with some more explanation:

"how society is set up"

No one "set up" society. Racism is the product of a whole bunch of individuals actions and choices. While it is helpful to get people to realize that racism is systematic and pervasive, talking at this level of generality can become a substitute for illustrating the subject in a concrete way. (Maybe this is just the reviewer's gloss on a book that does the letter.) I want to hear more specifics about how and why people do and think what they do and think. Hearing that society is set up to be racist is about as helpful as Sebby explaining that we are all responsible for the rise of Trump.

This is one of you dumbest comments ever.

First, society is most definitely set up. White people set it up over the course of hundreds of years and they set it up and maintain it to benefit themselves. Period. Pointing that fact out does absolutely no damage whatsoever.

And I'm so glad you told me what you want to hear. What a disingenuous, bullshit thing to say. You pull one sentence out and say it's too big a generalization while simultaneously ignoring the specifics about how and why white people shut off when it comes to any discussion of racism. I'm starting to wonder whether your entire response is a more complicated example of exactly what the author is talking about.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

"white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color"

I don't think it's true. As I was saying to GGG, I think white progressives can be maddening, because one expects more help and less resistance, but I think Trump voters do more daily damage. For example, Trump voters and the officials they elected are splitting up refugee families. Obama was far from perfect, but he was better on that score.

I addressed this in my response to Ferrets.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

white racism as "a pathogen that seeks to replicate itself"

From a history of ideas perspective, I'm interested in the way that beliefs evolve. But. If the central problem addressed by the book and the review is that white liberals are in denial about their racism, then talking about racism as a sort of independent agent that goes around infecting people is just another way of letting them off the hooks for their choices, actions and beliefs.

The way you are characterizing the point in this piece is reductive and insulting. You have taken an analogy out of context and assigned it a meaning completely detached from the point of the article.

Racism isn't an independent agent that goes around infecting people. The fact that you can read what I read and reach a conclusion that it somehow lets people off the hook is fucking ridiculous. The problem with racism, whether whites benefit from it intentionally or simply as a byproduct of being white, is that there is very little incentive to fight those benefits if you are white. If you are born white, you automatically achieve a certain status in this country. Stating that doesn't let people off the hook. Stating that white people continue to enjoy the benefits of that status and will not act to endanger that status does the exact opposite.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

To my mind, I prefer the approach of Gordon Allport's Prejudice, which talks about prejudice (or racism, if you will) as thoughts and beliefs that the result of the way everyone thinks.

?

I am not sure what your point is here or how it lies in opposition to what is in this article. It seems like you read the piece, dismissed a bunch of it, seized on little pieces and reconstituted them into something that you disagree with.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I wrote my college thesis about racism and the way that it did and did not affect government policy in a particular case, so I guess I am repeating ideas that I have worked over a lot in the last many years.

Seems like you're trying to force everything into the conclusion box of your college thesis and if it doesn't fit, you toss it aside.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

In the spirit of being constructive and trying to find solutions, I just read a fantastic book called the High Growth Handbook, by Elad Gil. I'm sure it's much more relevant to my work than most other people here, but if it sounds like the sort of thing that would interest you then you should check it out. Anyway, in that book is an interview with a woman named Joelle Emerson, whom I don't think I knew anything about previously. That interview was really good. I lent my copy o the book to our CEO but TM I will make a copy of that interview and shoot it to you if you like.

Sure. I'm always open to reading something good that relates to this issue.

TM

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Don't entirely disagree with you, but part of the issue is that there just aren't voters in the middle of the country to appeal to. Literally. "Forget about 10 million Californians and go court 10,000 people from Wyoming" is pretty seriously anti-democratic.

We're a representative democracy (as opposed to a direct one) that has many features of a republic.

That's a mouthful, but there's no other way to define us. Focusing on the difference between direct and representative democracy, I'd take issue with your assessment that our system is anti-democratic. It's anti-direct democracy. And this isn't a bad thing. Direct democracy is effectively referendum democracy, which is a mess. It's also a system in which the thinnest of majorities is allowed to dictate policy to the rest.

I see no greater fairness accruing from removal of the electoral college. It would just be a reversal of the current situation in favor of the Democrats and the Left. One side, with a 1-5% vote margin (3 million votes is roughly 1/110th of the population), would be able to dictate to the other. That's not much different than the current situation in which one side, with the thinnest of electoral college majorities, dictates to the other side. Stated most simplistically, fighting unfairness with unfairness doesn't make fairness.

Also, direct democracy inevitably leads to pandering candidates and voters voting themselves increased transfers from the treasury. You can see a mild variant of that in action right now with the tax cuts. And that's in a representative democracy, where the minority party is able to check excesses of the majority. Imagine the kinds of policies we'd have in a system where one party merely had to acquire 51% of the popular vote? "Everybody gets a pony" would win every election.

The current system, flawed as it is, is still the best structure to avoid tyranny and national insolvency (well, perhaps not the latter...). If the Democrats win the House, Trump is cornered. Gridlock wins. Compromise is compelled, and with it, rational and reasonable centrist policies will emerge.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

But here's the question I have, sparked by that article: why aren't more white people in a rage over this? Is it because the only people they've actually invested in are white like them? Because we all invest in other folks in some way.

In a rage by what? White people live in a world in which they have segregated themselves in every possible way--friendships, school districts, housing, work, news, social media, whatever. It's easy to think this stuff is no longer an issue when you don't know anyone who goes through it. Hell, they get angry when their carefully manufactured, homogenous reality is disturbed by kneeling athletes, requests that people be treated as if their lives matter, being inconvenienced for a few minutes by people trying to break through that crafted bubble to try to get them to look outside of it. I mean the whole article talks about how white people react to anyone even implying that something they've done is the result of racism. They can't and don't want to hear it.

TM

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

So on things you may have more interest in, are you enjoying watching the slow-mo train wreck that is US trade policy these days?

What's not covered by the media is that Trump's trade war with China has caused rust belt states alone to lose over $100 billion in infrastructure investment so far. The multiplier lost there is heartbreaking. And that number is climbing.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

But, TM, what kind of fool pays for a platinum card?

Interesting. I'll give you two reasons:

1. It's actually a fairly good deal. For years, I could get a free business class companion ticket, once a year, which we would use for our anniversary trip. If you did your homework (comparing prices and figuring out where you could go to actually take advantage of the deal, which took some work) you could save thousands of dollars. We've gone to Asia a few times where the companion ticket deal saved us ~$5,000.

You get $200 a year in reimbursements for various airline related charges.

You get $15 a month in uber reimbursements.

They pay your charges for you and family members (up to a certain amount) for trusted traveler fees.

The mileage program is one of the best (in terms of partnership options and multiplier deals when you want to cash them in)

Other stuff I can't remember.

2. It gives me a small bit of satisfaction when service people who automatically feel superior for any number of reasons have to take the card and realize that maybe they're not so superior (based on how they were judging me in the first place) after all. Petty and stupid? Yep. But I takes it where I gets it.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I seriously have to question anyone who wants to talk about PC on college campuses, and who does not actually spend time on college campuses (ahem, Jonathan Chait). It is such a non-problem for the rest of society, and it is a diversion from what matters, not to mention a marketing scheme for right-wing provocateurs.

Agree 100%. My take on it even back then is that groups who have been stepped on historically finally get to do a little stepping and they get carried away. Youth, anger. Not that big a deal. Disagree with a lot of it, and actually had big issues with it on a personal level when I was in school [example redacted], but it just doesn't register at all on the outrage scale.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Have you read the book, or just the review?

Just the piece I linked to. But I bought it and it's in the cue. I'm reading American Eden right now. Who knew Dr. Hosack did so many amazing things? Not me, that's who. That guy got screwed by history.

TM

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Interesting. I'll give you two reasons:


2. It gives me a small bit of satisfaction when service people who automatically feel superior for any number of reasons have to take the card and realize that maybe they're not so superior (based on how they were judging me in the first place) after all. Petty and stupid? Yep. But I takes it where I gets it.

TM

Priceless.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

In a rage by what? White people live in a world in which they have segregated themselves in every possible way--friendships, school districts, housing, work, news, social media, whatever. It's easy to think this stuff is no longer an issue when you don't know anyone who goes through it. Hell, they get angry when their carefully manufactured, homogenous reality is disturbed by kneeling athletes, requests that people be treated as if their lives matter, being inconvenienced for a few minutes by people trying to break through that crafted bubble to try to get them to look outside of it. I mean the whole article talks about how white people react to anyone even implying that something they've done is the result of racism. They can't and don't want to hear it.

TM

My particular rage gets worst when I'm dealing with an associate I'm trying to bring along who is helpful to me and who happens to be a minority.

Yes, it is about me as much as him or her. I hate to admit it, but it's true.

The fact that other white folks aren't in a rage tell me they aren't investing in minorities in their own workplace. They aren't bringing anyone along other than white folks like them.

WTF, White people? WTF?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller

Thurgreed: Although I generally align with white progressives, here is where I have some serious problems: Microagressions....slights so small one must hire an expert to point them out. Trigger warnings. Safe spaces. Shouting down conservative speakers. These are used, particularly on college campuses by both white progressives, and minorities. I find these both offensive and counterproductive. So do my views on this make me worse than, to tear a page from today's truly hilarious news, Jason Spenser?

The serious grievances (police brutality, predatory racist laws, a racists court and justice system, etc.) should be clearly separated from the less-serious complaints (microaggressions, etc.). These things cannot be lumped together because doing so allows the latter to discredit the former. And no - the argument they are all inseparable threads of a cloth or part of a continuum of behavior that must be addressed in aggregate holds no sway.

You eat the elephant one bite at a time. Only a fool tries to address enormous issues in their entirety. It's impossible to do so, and it affords your enemy endless defenses and deflections.

Lurid, immature, and preposterous college activists should be ignored. Their nonsense should be shunned as frivolous. When a right wing pundit tries to argue, "But Charles Murray was attacked!" in response to points about police brutality in Ferguson, or Eric Garner's murder, the reply should be, "That has nothing - nothing at all - to do with what we are discussing... You may feel like mixing apples and oranges, but I'm not playing... I'm hear to talk about cops killing innocent civilians."

This is not to degrade the concept of microaggressions. People are entitled to raise those issues, and they will foster empathy and understanding, which is needed. But those things cannot be casually melded into discussions of people being killed by racist law enforcement officers.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

What's not covered by the media is that Trump's trade war with China has caused rust belt states alone to lose over $100 billion in infrastructure investment so far. The multiplier lost there is heartbreaking. And that number is climbing.

And it doesn't count the structural changes. If we turn someone away when they come to buy our stuff, and they have to guy buy it next door, they're going to start next door the next time they have to buy something.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Can you read? I said some small states are and gave examples.

For details on degree of urbanization of states, see here.

Small states where more than 90% of the population is urban: Rhode Island, Nevada, Utah, Hawaii

As an aside, the rural population of New York exceeds the total population of almost half the states. It's sort of odd that they're an afterthought for a couple Senators while other rural populations a fraction of the size of NY's get their own Senators.

I stand corrected.