We are all Slave now.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

If I say something is not what you accuse it of being, it does not mean I am defensive. It means I disagree. It means I have considered both sides of the issue and concluded that you are wrong.

Can someone save this for posterity?

TM

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

maybe that's a bit broad? e.g. he said this Harris guy wasn't racist but when I asked about what the guy said he didn't argue that it was racist, did he? And having a discussion does mean one can say, "I don't think that is racist," doesn't it?

When TM posted the review, I thought "that sounds like conversations we've had over the the years with Sebby." I alluded to, but did not state, that in my response to TM. That was before the Harris/Klein tedium, which is not what I'm referring to.

Of course, I can't recall the precise circumstances I am referring to, aside from pre-election insistence that misogyny was not a significant factor in why people dislike Hillary, that he was well placed to decide that certain grievances made by POC matter and others do not, that racism wasn't a factor in the election outside of ignorant hicks and certainly not among the more affluent GOP voters and, going farther back into undefined history, arguing at times that certain things that were posited to be motivated by racism really weren't.

The person DiAngelo was describing sounded like Sebby to me. But he says he's not, so, okay.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

It is both, in near equal amounts, among numerous other causes, all of those in much smaller amounts.

Wut?

"In equal amounts." What on Earth does that even mean? (Standards weights and measures or Metric?)

Your commitment to seeing both sides of every issue in equal proportions is staggering. You're like the soldier who saw everything twice:

That was the most illogical Thanksgiving he could ever remember spending, and his thoughts returned wishfully to his halcyon fourteen-day quarantine in the hospital the year before; but even that idyll had ended on a tragic note; he was still in good health when the quarantine period was over, and they told him again that he had to get out and go to war. Yossarian sat up in bed when he heard the bad news and shouted.
'I see everything twice!'
Pandemonium broke loose in the ward again. The specialists came running up from all directions and ringed him in a circle of scrutiny so confining that he could feel the humid breath from their various noses blowing uncomfortably upon the different sectors of his body. They went snooping into his eyes and ears with tiny beams of light, assaulted his legs and feet with rubber hammers and vibrating forks, drew blood from his veins, held anything handy up for him to see on the periphery of his vision.
The leader of this team of doctors was a dignified, solicitous gentleman who held one finger up directly in front ofYossarian and demanded, 'How many fingers do you see?'
'Two,' said Yossarian.
'How many fingers do you see now?' asked the doctor, holding up two.
'Two,' said Yossarian.
'And how many now?' asked the doctor, holding up none.
'Two,' said Yossarian.
The doctor's face wreathed with a smile. 'By Jove, he's right,' he declared jubilantly. 'He does see everything twice.'

But, hey -- for Yossarian it was a choice.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I don’t think so. I think you can be disgusted by one element of him but conclude other benefits outweigh that.

Do we have to test your reading comprehension? Because you just said what I said with different words and thought you were disagreeing.

Either the level of racism rises to a level where you no longer support him or not. If you still support him, then you are okay enough with his racism that it doesn't affect your support of him. You can't have it both ways given the way the sentence is constructed.

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I'm curious to understand how sentence two isn't evidence of the defensiveness you reference in sentence one. People don't make those statements in an academic vacuum.

I think (a) Sebby and many other see racism as necessarily involving some sort of malign intent, as opposed to indifference, (b) as we have discussed, that definition itself reflects indifference which I would characterize as reflecting racism, but (c) someone who believes that bias has had significant systemic and pervasive effects on society can also subscribe to (a) because of how they use language.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Do we have to test your reading comprehension? Because you just said what I said with different words and thought you were disagreeing.

Either the level of racism rises to a level where you no longer support him or not. If you still support him, then you are okay enough with his racism that it doesn't affect your support of him. You can't have it both ways given the way the sentence is constructed.

TM

You can be very much not okay with his racism, but figure the pluses elsewhere outweigh his racism.

If a man has horrible qualities, you can be entirely opposed to and disgusted by them but decide his other positive qualities render him worthy of support. It’s partly a measurement thing, but it’s also a lot of compartmentalizing.

ETA: You are arguing one has to be okay with something. I’m saying a person can simply ignore it or deem it less material than other issues. “Being okay” with it is not a necessary prerequisite. Aflluent Trump voters apply this analysis. “I hate the guy, but I like the tax break.”

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Do we have to test your reading comprehension?

Off my corner, ho.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by thurgreedmarshall

tm

2

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I think (a) Sebby and many other see racism as necessarily involving some sort of malign intent, as opposed to indifference, (b) as we have discussed, that definition itself reflects indifference which I would characterize as reflecting racism, but (c) someone who believes that bias has had significant systemic and pervasive effects on society can also subscribe to (a) because of how they use language.

Fair enough.

TM

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You’re pretty much earning a spot in the Wikipedia page defining “tribalist.”

I’ll double down so much as to say not only are you tribalist, you enjoy it. And the only reason you won’t say as much is because TM’s posts have boxed you in in on that front. To say so now would be to admit a defect in your personality that you privately think is a feature.

I'm a Democrat, with a capital D, and damn proud of it.

It's not a tribe, its not a religion, its a political party, and it is THE political party that has consistently fought for civil and economic rights for all for a long, long time. It may have factions, we may have people with different views, and we may not be perfect, but as a whole it has still been on the right side of virtually every issue for the last half century, and its done a lot of good.

Screw this tribe stuff, just call people who are Democrats Democrats.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You can be very much not okay with his racism, but figure the pluses elsewhere outweigh his racism.

In other words, racism isn't a deal breaker.

This is the fucking point.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You can be very much not okay with his racism, but figure the pluses elsewhere outweigh his racism.

After this, I give up.

You can be very much not okay with his racism, but figure the pluses elsewhere outweigh his racism enough to not affect your support of him.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

If a man has horrible qualities, you can be entirely opposed to and disgusted by them but decide his other positive qualities render him worthy of support. It’s partly a measurement thing, but it’s also a lot of compartmentalizing.

Yes. The point is you think the things you prefer about him outweigh the bad things or you care about the positive things more. In any case, you are making a determination that the racism won't keep you from supporting him.

I feel like if we weren't talking about racism, this concept would be very easy to swallow. If your candidate is pro-choice, but his stance on taxes, free trade, military spending, civil rights, whatever else, works for you, then you are okay with his stance on abortion enough to continue to support him.

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Fair enough.

TM

No doubt that people who use "racism" in the narrower sense are less likely to agree about the extent of racism and its effects, but cause and effect are not simply there. There is a powerful (exculpatory) instinct to want to talk about racism as malign intent. Once you do that, it's hard to find other good language to talk about systemic and hegemonic bias and discrimination, and it's easy to shout about whether someone has malign intent.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Wrong. You can be very much not okay with his racism, but figure the pluses elsewhere outweigh his racism.

If a man has horrible qualities, you can be entirely opposed to and disgusted by them but decide his other positive qualities render him worthy of support. It’s partly a measurement thing, but it’s also a lot of compartmentalizing.

Dude, that’s exactly what TM is saying. Let me channel what I think one of my union member cousins in the Ancestral Homeland thinks:

He may be a jerk to people, but I like his plan to reopen factories and save our jobs. Yeah, [insert name of his one black friend who he played basketball with in high school], hates him. And [] makes some good points. But I’m saving $1500 on taxes and the f——ts are kicking kicked out of the Army, so I think he just needs to cool it a bit with LeBron, and he’ll be good.

Bingo. My cousin Sully would tell you that he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, but is ok with a certain level of racism in Trump.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I'm a Democrat, with a capital D, and damn proud of it.

It's not a tribe, its not a religion, its a political party, and it is THE political party that has consistently fought for civil and economic rights for all for a long, long time. It may have factions, we may have people with different views, and we may not be perfect, but as a whole it has still been on the right side of virtually every issue for the last half century, and its done a lot of good.

Screw this tribe stuff, just call people who are Democrats Democrats.

Fundamentally, Sebby is wrong when he says that the country is tribal, and that Democrats are tribal. Conservatives are. The mainstream is not. Conservatives are tribal because they define themselves in opposition and reaction to the mainstream. The mainstream is not because it is the mainstream, and doesn't care about conservatives in the way that conservatives care about the mainstream. (E.g., conservatives like to trigger libs, but libs don't really care about triggering conservatives.)

There is a fundamental asymmetry at work, but he sees everything twice.