We are all Slave now.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Hey TM, speaking of fragile white people, see this:

Coleman Hughes and Sam Harris covering identity politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqtZTMQiupg

(Or just get the podcast thru the Apple store.)

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Coleman Hughes and Sam Harris covering identity politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqtZTMQiupg

(Or just get the podcast thru the Apple store.)

Spreading Sam Harris' bigotry?

Come on. You know he's an ignorant racist kook.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Google is trying to compete with other employers. Years ago, it didn't have to offer as much money as other employers because people were willing to take less to work there. So Google paid below-market wages. Google absolutely has too much money. It's not providing food for no good reason. Have you eaten there? I have. The food is good.

You have not succeeded in explaining anything. None of what you're saying relates to this conversation even a little bit.

If you remove pimped out, subsidized cafeterias from employers like Google, which is what I'm talking about, Google and Google-like employers will find another way to compete for employees that doesn't amount to creating its own little, self-contained universe in which there is zero connection or benefit to the community.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I have worked at two places with on-site cafeterias. The first, a federal courthouse, had terrible food, the kind you would eat only out of desperation. The second, in a suburban office park, had decent food with prices that were supposed to be subsidized but weren't as far as I could tell. I ate there all the time because I was lazy, but many of my co-workers went to food trucks that parked outside, or to restaurants in the strip mall across the street. Since I left there, they have changed providers and the new food is better.

No one cares.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The idea that my second employer should have been barred from providing a cafeteria to help the food trucks and the restaurants across the street is nuts. Taking choices away does not make people better off. It's like banning Netflix to save Blockbuster, which was a source of foot traffic and a nice thing to have in a neighborhood.

No. It's not like that at all. That's a ridiculous analogy.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Seems like a big part of the problem you have with Google in NYC is the size of its offices, and maybe a better way to get at that is to zone to make it hard to bring in large employers.

It seems like you don't have the ability to understand what I have a problem with.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

But politicians, not wrongly, want the jobs there.

No shit. Of course they want the jobs there. That has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about.

Google offering free, gourmet food to its staff is a perq. It creates a self-contained environment in which a behemoth discourages its employees from spending any money in the community in which it is located or even interacting with anyone but themselves. All of your examples of the benefits they bring to surrounding communities aren't on point, because that's not what we're talking about.

If you want to maintain some type of balance in the areas in which these behemoths set up, the idea seems like a very small concession to try to keep the community from becoming abandoned parking lots for Teslas. Rant and rave away about stifling "innovation" and the always relevant Netlix-Blockbuster comparison [insert extreme eye-roll] all you want. None of that shit applies here.

TM

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Hey TM, speaking of fragile white people, see this:

This reminds me why I avoid Vox. I try to read it, but ultimately, its bias becomes too overt.

If you'd like to hear Ezra Klein, Vox's Editor in Chief, talk himself in circles and ultimately argue for censorship in academia, consider this: https://samharris.org/podcasts/123-identity-honesty/

Dismantling the quote offered:

White people really don’t like being called white people.

Sure they do. Look at all those delightful folks in Charlottesville. Consider any Trump rally.

That's the tennis match of identity politics. One side serves an exclusive identity complaint, another side returns it, and the match is on.

They don’t like being reminded that they are white people, part of a group with discernible boundaries, shared interests, and shared responsibilities.

Of course, those boundaries, interests, and responsibilities can never be defined because, to generalize on this level (100 million or so people?) is impossible. But nevermind unpacking that... This is Vox. Sounds like another media outlet that presently escapes me...

After all, one of the benefits of being in the dominant demographic and cultural group is that you are allowed to simply be a person, a blank slate upon which you can write your own individual story. You have no baggage but what you choose.

This actually has some heft to it. It's true that being a minority can be freighted. But again, we've trended into broad generalizations. "Non-dominant" groups are myriad. You can't throw all minorities into one bucket and say they're all similarly saddled with baggage. Nor can you you assert over the nation's history that all whites have been similarly dominant. "Irish need not apply," "Italians are criminally oriented mafia sorts," "Chinese are only good for laying railroad tracks," "Jews should be shunned." The forms of bigotry are endless. Hell, Kennedy was scrutinized as a possible Papist as recently as 1960.

"White" needs to be broken apart into many sub-groups before the assertion all whites are clean slates can be offered as bluntly as this article suggests.

But don't let me ruin Vox's fun. It's enjoying a lot of success mixing ever-so-subtle virtue signalling with arguments just logical and scientific enough to pass muster with fellow travelers. Klein and his writers deftly avoid sophistry, but often barely. Klein himself does it so well I found myself wishing he'd the better argument in that exchange with Harris. But then I recalled, Klein was arguing for creating the reality he wanted. Harris was citing actual data.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Spreading Sam Harris' bigotry?

Come on. You know he's an ignorant racist kook.

No. Ben Affleck knows he's an ignorant racist kook. And Ben Affleck is about as schooled, open-minded, and rigorous in his approach to these issues as the street vendors you'll pass at lunch. His views are Hollywood Doctrinaire, and he soiled himself in that exchange on Maher.

Harris is utterly reasonable. And since I smell a whiff of the tribal in your reaction, he's the most virulently anti-Trump intellectual I've heard. The man is about as right wing as Robert Reich.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Really? Coastal whites don't know minorities?

Are you questioning me or the numbers in the study?

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Look, I'll buy that whites in deep flyover land are segregated. But if you're in the coastal corridors, it's impossible not to have friends, co-workers, and business associates of various non-white backgrounds.

This conversation has become so fucking stupid that I can't believe I'm having it.

Yes. White people have black friends in lots of places. What they don't have are the types of relationships with minorities [and listen really fucking closely] in which they support them for opportunities in any types of numbers that whites do. Hell, white people who have more diverse friends are probably even less likely to be in a position to benefit those friends.

No one is interested in your anecdotal evidence. The numbers are what they are. That's the point.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

What's ridiculous about the identity politics at work here is it's fucking up efforts to find some common ground.

No. What's ridiculous is that I can state something so obvious to anyone with half a brain and have people like you turn it into "identity politics."

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm part of the 25% of whites WaPo discounts in that story. My suburban neighborhood is half minorities.

I find it astounding that you can type that number and still not recognize its significance in the context of the immediate conversation.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I enjoy (hell, I revel in doing it) explaining to white conservative friends that BLM has rock solid claims, and it's an obligation of all white people to do something to assist with justice reform (or at least not vote for some asshole who supports more "tough on cri-- er, minorities" legislation).

Please stop telling us about how you enjoy telling your conservative friends this and your liberal friends that. We all know it's pure bullshit.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

But when people use terms like "all whites," I cease listening.

You are a ridiculous person. I'm done with the rest of the post. And everyone on this board has seen an excellent example of exactly what I and the article are talking about. This conversation has been flipped back by you so that we are talking about your reaction, your feelings, you you you. "Not all whites!" So fucking ridiculous.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Google is no more hermetically sealed than the financial institutions and law firms that fill New York. It just offers its employees better food than you find in their cafeterias.

This is complete bullshit.

TM

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

"White" needs to be broken apart into many sub-groups before the assertion all whites are clean slates can be offered as bluntly as this article suggests.

No. That may have been true in 1920, but not by 1970, and certainly not today.*

I think what changed is sort of, who is "white." My uncle immigrated here as an I-tie in 1928. Italians were not equal at all. If you called my uncle a WOP when he was young, it was your ass. In my life about 3 times I was called a slur, or heard a really anti-Italian thought from someone. It threw me each time, like "what did I hear?" It ultimately was funny since it was so pathetic to me- threatless.

I will never forget my mom grew up in a US where her brother needed to fight when he heard a slur. But I also will always appreciate that I never even had to consider it. That is a part of the "privilege."

The question I think interesting is whether Latinos/Middle Eastern peoples become "white" over the next 50 years.

*the possible exception is the Jews, at least with the recent uptick in Nazis.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

White people have black friends in lots of places. What they don't have are the types of relationships with minorities [and listen really fucking closely] in which they support them for opportunities in any types of numbers that whites do. Hell, white people who have more diverse friends are probably even less likely to be in a position to benefit those friends.

How could that not be the case, given blacks are a minority. If 15% of people are black, statistically, how would whites (or any other group) support them for positions in greater numbers than the other 85%?

Your second sentence suggests that whites with more diverse social networks tend not to have as much power as whites who do not. While the cynic in me finds that somewhat compelling, I'm going to have to spit your "don't throw anecdotes at me" line back at you here.

No. What's ridiculous is that I can state something so obvious to anyone with half a brain and have people like you turn it into "identity politics."

I'm not using identity politics as a pejorative. I think the term captures that form of politics honestly, and as I noted elsewhere, identity politics has a place, and validity.

Please stop telling us about how you enjoy telling your conservative friends this and your liberal friends that. We all know it's pure bullshit.

No.

You are a ridiculous person. I'm done with the rest of the post. And everyone on this board has seen an excellent example of exactly what I am the article are talking about. This conversation has been flipped back by you so that we are talking about your reaction, your feelings, you you you. "Not all whites!" So fucking ridiculous.

I didn't dignify Ty's argument in this regard, based on a logical fallacy (see, you're proving my point by disagreeing with me!), and I won't yours.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Hey TM, speaking of fragile white people, see this:

Yep. Saw that this weekend. We all know what the baseline is here. I've used the following examples:

Picture the girl next door.
Picture the all-American boy.
Picture the ideal lawyer/associate.
Picture the most beautiful woman/handsome man you can think of.
Tell me what your "type" is.

And those are the positive examples. No need to go through the negatives.

There I go with the identity politics again. Damn. I just can't let it go!

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Given that African Americans vote 90% dem (and I assume Latinos do at some large majority) would the better poll be to ask only white people? I am not arguing with the premise just the value of the numbers. Would truly like to see the numbers limited to whites and broken down by affiliation.

You didn't read the article.

TM

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

No. That may have been true in 1920, but not by 1970, and certainly not today.*

I think what changed is sort of, who is "white." My uncle immigrated here as an I-tie in 1928. Italians were not equal at all. If you called my uncle a WOP when he was young, it was your ass. In my life about 3 times I was called a slur, or heard a really anti-Italian thought from someone. It threw me each time, like "what did I hear?" It ultimately was funny since it was so pathetic to me- threatless.

I will never forget my mom grew up in a US where her brother needed to fight when he heard a slur. But I also will always appreciate that I never even had to consider it. That is a part of the "privilege."

The question I think interesting is whether Latinos/Middle Eastern peoples become "white" over the next 50 years.

*the possible exception is the Jews, at least with the recent uptick in Nazis.

I think you have to look at these things over a historical timeline. We can disagree on that. I see your point.

The question this exchange highlights is, what's white? And built into that, is white a class construct?

Where do I slot my Indian neighbor? The Pakistanis? The Jews? How about the Asians? I've always assumed the Syrians, Lebanese, and Latino people I knew were white. Is that incorrect?

Is the Syrian Christian family part of the "majority," but the Syrian Muslim family a "minority?"

Does each discrete non-minority have a unique identity with unique forms of oppression?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Coleman Hughes and Sam Harris covering identity politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqtZTMQiupg

(Or just get the podcast thru the Apple store.)

hope T doesn't have any deals closing this week.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

No. Ben Affleck knows he's an ignorant racist kook. And Ben Affleck is about as schooled, open-minded, and rigorous in his approach to these issues as the street vendors you'll pass at lunch. His views are Hollywood Doctrinaire, and he soiled himself in that exchange on Maher.

Harris is utterly reasonable. And since I smell a whiff of the tribal in your reaction, he's the most virulently anti-Trump intellectual I've heard. The man is about as right wing as Robert Reich.

I don't care whether he's left or right, he's a fucking bigot.

Dismissed.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

You didn't read the article.

TM

I did, but quickly. I'll look again.