We are all Slave now.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Yeah. Of course it didn't. Color me shocked.

Pun intended?

Look, it is almost impossible to talk to white people about racism.

I hear you. Thanks for taking up the challenge here.

I sit on 3 different diversity organizations. Every single time white people are in the room, a conversation about racism, the effects of racism, steps to fix it, devolves into a conversation about white people's good intentions, feelings about being in the vicinity of racism, their meager upbringing, whatever. It makes it completely impossible to discuss the actual effects of their racism. People who are trying to address racism spend most of their time helping white people with their feelings and ensuring them that they aren't bad people. White people (on the whole) cannot have a conversation about racism.

I don't disagree at all.

Like I said, I have been struggling with this phenomenon for quite some time, as have many prominent people in the diversity field. Focusing on unconscious bias, confirmation bias, etc. is strategic because the message is, "Hey, shhhhh, it's not really your fault. But let's see how we can get past this." And it's because when you say to a white person, "Black people at this firm aren't being given the same opportunities. We need to do this that and the other." All they hear is "You're a racist," and that's that. Conversation effectively over.

Ditto.

And liberals and progressives benefit from racism and actively fight changing societal dynamics that grant them those benefits. As long as they can tell themselves that they aren't part of the problem or would never use a racial slur, they let themselves off the hook. Once again, when they are faced with how they benefit, they completely disconnect from the conversation. I've gone into the examples a million times on this board.

OK.

But enough of this. Your post is annoying in that you point out a bunch of stuff you disagree with but never actually say anything. So, if you want to have a conversation, I suggest you do more than sit there and shit on the article without offering even a little bit of insight into why what you are quoting is incorrect or what you think is or isn't "helpful."

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

"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.

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. 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 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.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Pun intended?



I hear you. Thanks for taking up the challenge here.



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. 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. 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.

"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.

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. 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 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.

I'll have to respond tomorrow. I gotta run to a meeting.

TM

[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

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

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.

You gave the article very high praise. I don't get it. I agree with a lot of it. I have seen white people talk and act in the way described and I think it's a real and important thing. What did I say that is "dismissive"? I suspect you are right that if we were talking in person we wouldn't be talking past each other.

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.

To be clear, I completely get what you are saying about D&I efforts and white people. I have been involved in those efforts too, though not to the extent you have. I have heard white people say those things. Some of my friends are black. (That was a joke.) I'm in a somewhat different position vis-a-vis my current employer than you are, but this topic is something I'm working on. I am with you on everything you say in this paragraph except that while I found the piece good and right, I didn't think it was so eloquently set forth. And I say that not in the spirit of trying to crap on good work -- yours, the reviewer's, the author's. I agree that most white people want to think of racism as something that other, bad people do, not as something in which they are complicit and from which they benefit. I think that's absolutely a thing. But that idea is not new to me, and I can't believe it was new to you.

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.

No damage at all, but nor does it add anything.

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.

What specifics? I would like to see more specifics. That would be interesting.

I addressed this in my response to Ferrets.

And I in my response to GGG.

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.

And yet that's what the author said, comparing it to a pathogen. I'm not saying I reject the whole article, I just said that it was an idea in the piece that I didn't like.

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 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.

Agree. White people have agency, and make choices, and are responsible for their choices, such as avoiding dealing with uncomfortable truths and doing nothing.

The problem I have with the "racism as pathogen" idea -- not with the larger piece -- is that it diminishes that agency. You seem to think I'm saying white people should be let off the hook. I'm saying the opposite.

?

Allport describes prejudice as a product of the way ordinary people think, not as something external and anomalous (a "pathogen"). If you want people to accept how pervasive prejudice, it seems to me a better path is to explain how it is integral to everyone's psychology.

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.

My thesis was about the post-war occupation of Japan, so that would be a good trick. Come to SF for a beer and I will tell you about it.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You gave the article very high praise. I don't get it. I agree with a lot of it. I have seen white people talk and act in the way described and I think it's a real and important thing. What did I say that is "dismissive"? I suspect you are right that if we were talking in person we wouldn't be talking past each other.

To be clear, I completely get what you are saying about D&I efforts and white people. I have been involved in those efforts too, though not to the extent you have. I have heard white people say those things. Some of my friends are black. (That was a joke.) I'm in a somewhat different position vis-a-vis my current employer than you are, but this topic is something I'm working on. I am with you on everything you say in this paragraph except that while I found the piece good and right, I didn't think it was so eloquently set forth. And I say that not in the spirit of trying to crap on good work -- yours, the reviewer's, the author's. I agree that most white people want to think of racism as something that other, bad people do, not as something in which they are complicit and from which they benefit. I think that's absolutely a thing. But that idea is not new to me, and I can't believe it was new to you.

No damage at all, but nor does it add anything.

What specifics? I would like to see more specifics. That would be interesting.

And I in my response to GGG.

And yet that's what the author said, comparing it to a pathogen. I'm not saying I reject the whole article, I just said that it was an idea in the piece that I didn't like.

Agree. White people have agency, and make choices, and are responsible for their choices, such as avoiding dealing with uncomfortable truths and doing nothing.

The problem I have with the "racism as pathogen" idea -- not with the larger piece -- is that it diminishes that agency. You seem to think I'm saying white people should be let off the hook. I'm saying the opposite.

Allport describes prejudice as a product of the way ordinary people think, not as something external and anomalous (a "pathogen"). If you want people to accept how pervasive prejudice, it seems to me a better path is to explain how it is integral to everyone's psychology.

My thesis was about the post-war occupation of Japan, so that would be a good trick. Come to SF for a beer and I will tell you about it.

I'm not going to go through and respond to all of this point-by-point. But there are two main points I would like to address.

1. Being a part of diversity issues from very early on when it was just lip service and experimenting and crafting different programming and training and approaches to try to deal with it, you get very close to the topic. Although white resistance was always front and center, you start to lose perspective as to why you first try this approach, then another, then another, again and again and again. We are now at a point where implicit bias and confirmation bias are front and center and are fairly effective because white people seem to understand (when given the proper examples) that the point of the drill is not how it makes them feel about themselves. That's the one thread that was always present--how to effectively send a message of inclusivity that would be heard. And to be heard, you had to find a way to navigate and manage the feelings of white people who do not want to confront what is inside them.

So, the reason why I thought it was so well handled in that piece is that it sheds these structures built to be successful based on how white people will react and just outright states the real problem. Although it's always been there, I know it, and I have explained it here many times in many different ways, I thought it was done much better in that piece than anywhere else I've seen it because it's not about protecting those feelings. It's saying, "Those feelings are the fucking problem."

2. We are going to disagree with your reading of the pathogen analogy. You think it lets white people off the hook. I don't. If you're born white, every single benefit you receive that grants you an advantage infects you and you fight any efforts to remove those advantages. There are innumerable opportunities to exercise your agency to either make a choice to push back on those advantages. No one does. And when someone like Adder even mentions trying, people shit all over them for being overly liberal saps. But it's always white people doing the shitting. That goes for feminism, LGBT issues. Whatever. And we're not talking about the most obvious examples--overt racism. We're talking about the built-in, systemic advantages that all whites enjoy (which takes us back to whether progressives are in fact as great a danger as outright racists. Where are the black people? Look at the neighborhoods and schools and opportunity for blacks where progressives live. Sure, an overtly racist policy in Alabama is horrible. But go to the projects which are always designed to be completely avoided by progressives.)

TM

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

progressives

TM

We are talking about our takes on the reviewer's take on some book, but here goes.

As to micro-aggression or whatever you want to call the thought, we need to deal with the concept- I spent 7 years carting several young black men around the midwest to bball tournaments- seeing through their eyes I can tell you they were frequently seeing shit that was offending- not hateful maybe, and from well meaning individuals maybe, but stupid. The guys didn't complain to me, they just commented on stuff, but open to me hearing. The things they were struck by I didn't even notice at first, but made aware of them I couldn't tell them they were over reacting, or shouldn't be struck by the thing said or done. One might tell them to deal with it and not be bugged (I wouldn't), but you can not say the frequent offenses don't happen.

And we talked about the "racists" in the high school, the kids wearing stars and bar, and skin heads. They were aware of who the real haters were, but somehow there seemed something almost worse when it was a white person who postured as an ally doing the nonsense, without realizing. I mean these guys will have to walk into an interview with a white person some day, and will need to feel confident they'll be getting a chance, and the more they have to question what every white person really feels, the harder that will be.

(if I posted this before apologies) my Next Door webpage had a thread- the local High school football team is 50/50 white and black- my tiny suburb is part of that school, but 95% white. 3 black players were going door to door selling coupons for the season. An old woman started the thread- "there are 3 black kids knocking on my door. anybody know if they mean bad, I pretended not to be home?" or some such nonsense-

my suburb is 70% liberals- they took up the thread, "They're from the football team. I was happy to meet them, bought tickets, Joe is a d tackle and frank is a safety and ......." 2 dozens similar replies. The replies read to me as "I was brave and opened my door..., here let me brag." That is those well-intended replies seemed harmful- any high school kid who read it would know the entire fucking suburb was afraid. You were bragging about opening your door to a high school kid and talking to him as if he were a person, really?

My response,
"can someone please delete this whole thread before any kids, white or black read it?"

I knew the dozen braggers, all good people, no one intended to do anything but positive thoughts. if I told them how the posts, especially the volume of the same thought, could be taken as implying something harmful, I'd be told I was nuts. but these people all took a deep breath before they opened the door to black people they didn't know, they won't admit it, even to themselves, but I think their words show it.

I realize this little thing is nothing compared to a job or whatever, but I think it shows how several people (who think themselves progressive) truly have some inner issues to admit to.

I don't have any answers, but what I took away from the article is that NO white people should be thinking "I got it together, we just got to get them other white people thinking right."

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

(if I posted this before apologies) my Next Door webpage had a thread- the local High school football team is 50/50 white and black- my tiny suburb is part of that school, but 95% white. 3 black players were going door to door selling coupons for the season. An old woman started the thread- "there are 3 black kids knocking on my door. anybody know if they mean bad, I pretended not to be home?" or some such nonsense-

my suburb is 70% liberals- they took up the thread, "They're from the football team. I was happy to meet them, bought tickets, Joe is a d tackle and frank is a safety and ......." 2 dozens similar replies. The replies read to me as "I was brave and opened my door..., here let me brag." That is those well-intended replies seemed harmful- any high school kid who read it would know the entire fucking suburb was afraid. You were bragging about opening your door to a high school kid and talking to him as if he were a person, really?

My response,
"can someone please delete this whole thread before any kids, white or black read it?"

I knew the dozen braggers, all good people, no one intended to do anything but positive thoughts. if I told them how the posts, especially the volume of the same thought, could be taken as implying something harmful, I'd be told I was nuts. but these people all took a deep breath before they opened the door to black people they didn't know, they won't admit it, even to themselves, but I think their words show it.

Not your main point, but while I'm sure that NextDoor was started with the best of intentions, as a practical matter its business model seems to be to monetize exactly this sort of bias. Half the board activity, from what I can tell, is neighbors worrying about the criminal threat posed by various darker-hued people in the neighborhood.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Not your main point, but while I'm sure that NextDoor was started with the best of intentions, as a practical matter its business model seems to be to monetize exactly this sort of bias. Half the board activity, from what I can tell, is neighbors worrying about the criminal threat posed by various darker-hued people in the neighborhood.

Hey! Just like Twitter and Facebook! Whodathunkit?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I'm not going to go through and respond to all of this point-by-point. But there are two main points I would like to address.

1. Being a part of diversity issues from very early on when it was just lip service and experimenting and crafting different programming and training and approaches to try to deal with it, you get very close to it. Although white resistance was always front and center, you start to lose perspective as to why you first try this approach, then another, then another, again and again and again. We are now at a point where implicit bias and confirmation bias are front and center and is fairly effective because white people seem to understand (when given the proper examples) that the point of the drill is not how it makes them feel about themselves. That's the one thread that was always present--how to effectively send a message of inclusivity that would be heard. And to be heard, you had to find a way to navigate and manage the feelings of white people who do not want to confront what is inside them.

So, the reason why I thought it was so well handled in that piece is that it sheds these structures built to be successful based on how white people will react and just outright states the real problem. Although it's there, I know it, I have explained it here, I thought it was done much better in that piece than anywhere else I've seen it because it's not about protecting those feelings. It's saying, "Those feelings are the fucking problem."

OK. Thanks for explaining that.

2. We are going to disagree with your reading of the pathogen analogy. You think it lets white people off the hook. I don't. If you're born white, every single benefit you receive that benefits you infects you into fighting to remove those advantages. There are uncountable opportunities to exercise your agency to either make a choice to push back on those advantages. No one does. And when someone like Adder even mentions trying, people shit all over them for being overly liberal saps. But it's always white people doing the shitting. That goes for feminism, LGBT issues. Whatever. And we're not talking about the most obvious examples--overt racism. We're talking about the built-in, systemic advantages that all whites enjoy (which takes us back to whether progressives are in fact as great a danger as outright racists. Where are the black people? Look at the neighborhoods and schools and opportunity for blacks where progressives live. Sure, an overtly racist policy in Alabama is horrible. But go to the projects which are always designed to be completely avoided by progressives.)

I agree completely with everything you say here.

One suggestion from Joelle Emerson in that book I haven't gotten back from my boss is that a way to combat unconscious bias in hiring is to move to structured interviewing, because the focus on specific things in an interview leaves less room for assumptions and confirmation bias, etc. I love that suggestion and am trying to figure out how to make it happen where I work.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

And now for a different view:

I have just spent a week in Beijing talking to officials and intellectuals, many of whom are awed by his skill as a strategist and tactician…He [Yafei] worries that strategic competition has become the new normal and says that “trade wars are just the tip of the iceberg”.

…In Chinese eyes, Mr Trump’s response is a form of “creative destruction”. He is systematically destroying the existing institutions — from the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement to Nato and the Iran nuclear deal — as a first step towards renegotiating the world order on terms more favourable to Washington. Once the order is destroyed, the Chinese elite believes, Mr Trump will move to stage two: renegotiating America’s relationship with other powers. Because the US is still the most powerful country in the world, it will be able to negotiate with other countries from a position of strength if it deals with them one at a time rather than through multilateral institutions that empower the weak at the expense of the strong…

My interlocutors say that Mr Trump is the US first president for more than 40 years to bash China on three fronts simultaneously: trade, military and ideology. They describe him as a master tactician, focusing on one issue at a time, and extracting as many concessions as he can. They speak of the skillful way Mr Trump has treated President Xi Jinping. “Look at how he handled North Korea,” one says. “He got Xi Jinping to agree to UN sanctions [half a dozen] times, creating an economic stranglehold on the country. China almost turned North Korea into a sworn enemy of the country.” But they also see him as a strategist, willing to declare a truce in each area when there are no more concessions to be had, and then start again with a new front.

That's an FT reporter, via Tyler Cowen.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

And now for a different view:



That's an FT reporter, via Tyler Cowen.

Ah, the Chinese authoritative but unnamed sources. I trust you follow The Relevant Organs on twitter?

I think almost everyone has figured out that flattering Trump is a cheap and easy way to curry favor and get what you want. Yes, indeed, look at what happened with North Korea.

In the Obama administration, we worked on moving China into the existing world order; it was a reluctant move, and building alliances through things like TPP fenced them in. Yes, Trump will tear down all the fences. And then look around.... And the US will not have the leverage it used to, and China will benefit. Most importantly, their own well-educated people may stop spending as much time as they are now figuring out how to manage a soft landing in the US.

[ferrets_bueller]

Quote:
I have just spent a week in Beijing talking to officials and intellectuals, many of whom are awed by his skill as a strategist and tactician…He [Yafei] worries that strategic competition has become the new normal and says that “trade wars are just the tip of the iceberg”.

…In Chinese eyes, Mr Trump’s response is a form of “creative destruction”. He is systematically destroying the existing institutions — from the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement to Nato and the Iran nuclear deal — as a first step towards renegotiating the world order on terms more favourable to Washington. Once the order is destroyed, the Chinese elite believes, Mr Trump will move to stage two: renegotiating America’s relationship with other powers. Because the US is still the most powerful country in the world, it will be able to negotiate with other countries from a position of strength if it deals with them one at a time rather than through multilateral institutions that empower the weak at the expense of the strong…

My interlocutors say that Mr Trump is the US first president for more than 40 years to bash China on three fronts simultaneously: trade, military and ideology. They describe him as a master tactician, focusing on one issue at a time, and extracting as many concessions as he can. They speak of the skillful way Mr Trump has treated President Xi Jinping. “Look at how he handled North Korea,” one says. “He got Xi Jinping to agree to UN sanctions [half a dozen] times, creating an economic stranglehold on the country. China almost turned North Korea into a sworn enemy of the country.” But they also see him as a strategist, willing to declare a truce in each area when there are no more concessions to be had, and then start again with a new front.
That's an FT reporter, via Tyler Cowen. __________________


Interesting, but I disagree. Trump has no strategy whatsoever. That gives him far too much credit. He takes random positions, reverses them, and then reverses the reversal when it is proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that his head is squarely up his posterior at all points of a particular issue.



I've been to China ten times in the last fifteen years. The Chinese really do have a long, long term outlook. Invest in Africa. Invest in infrastructure projects worldwide. Turn the South China Sea into a Chinese lake. Turn the outer provinces tame by infusing more Han people. Control the people with an internal intelligence apparatus that is extensive beyond anything Orwell could imagine.



Trump's long term strategy begins and ends with the question of whether a given policy leads to an opportunity for him to see that his actions...on any particular day...lead to praise from his base. He increases the possibility of praise by denying any previous position the base finds offensive, declaring it to be fake news. Change one's position and then excoriate anyone who points out that your position has changed.



In his own way, Trump is also Orwellian. Europe is now our enemy. Russia is now our friend. Except this week he claims he is harder on Russia than previous Presidents, and that Russia wants Democrats to win. And the EU and the USA will sing kumbaya on trade. If "random" is a strategy, Trump has one.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

And now for a different view:



That's an FT reporter, via Tyler Cowen.

This conclusion might stem from politicians generally being so unskilled. Look around the Senate or House and see if more than 30% of politicians are people who could run a lemonade stand.

Politics attracts lots of dead enders and dipshits (trust fund shmucks, people who sold daddy's business and needed something to do, private sector flameouts). You get a shit quality of candidate because you have to chose from people who'd want such a job and people who don't have skeletons in their closet. In the Bible Belt, a person has to claim pathological devotion to Jesus in a lot of locales to get elected.

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. He's blundered through the private sector, surely, but Trump has spent fifty years in it. This is more than 95% of politicians, and may cause a few Chinese folks to think he's a chess player.

They're deluded of course. But it's nice to think someone thinks he has a plan while Russia is laughing its ass off at the man.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

One suggestion from Joelle Emerson in that book I haven't gotten back from my boss is that a way to combat unconscious bias in hiring is to move to structured interviewing, because the focus on specific things in an interview leaves less room for assumptions and confirmation bias, etc. I love that suggestion and am trying to figure out how to make it happen where I work.

Yes. We've have moved towards this model as well. A lot of it has to do with listing the types of questions we want to ask and limiting the subjectivity of the possible review. Difficult to achieve, but if you make the review form multiple choice with carefully-chosen descriptors and adjectives, it tends to eliminate a lot of bullshit.

TM

[Adder]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Look at the neighborhoods and schools and opportunity for blacks where progressives live. Sure, an overtly racist policy in Alabama is horrible. But go to the projects which are always designed to be completely avoided by progressives.)

In Minneapolis, we're going through a huge fight over a periodic update to the comprehensive plan, in which the city has proposed a fairly large overhaul, in part as an attempt to address very stark racial disparities in our city and region. Realizing that we have good schools and access to parks and other amenities the large swathes of the southern part of the city that are currently zoned for single family homes, which happen to be very white and to have been redlined that way in the past, they proposed opening the whole city up to small multi-unit buildings up to four units, as a way to introduce greater variety and supply of housing, and thus indirectly ease access.

The result is an uproar from those very richest and whitest parts of the city, some of whom instead argue we should invest in the north side (stand in for "black part of the city", even though it's more complicated than that) so they have good parks and schools too. Nevermind the problem of funding for that, or if it's even possible or desirable to gentrify the north side.

Naturally, all of these rich white people who live in the city also view themselves as super progressive, and as standing against the evil developers who must be behind the plan to add housing to their neighborhoods.

Point being, people are real good at ignoring that they're standing up for racism.

(None of which is to argue that adding housing to those neighborhoods is really going to do all that much for racial disparities, but it is a chip against the foundation of our segregation)