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thehomemaster posted:Well I don't know that analogy so do go on? Anyways the "Dinner Table Analogy" goes like this: You are seated at a table with your family, with father serving portions to everyone in succession. When he reaches your plate he skips past it, and continues to put food on the rest of the plates at the table. "Hey! I would like a fair portion, as well!" you exclaim. "Everybody should get a fair share," father replies and everybody else around the table smiles and nods, before father places the main dish back on the table and then goes about the process of eating his meal - as does everyone else, satisfied that they have been inclusive enough by declaring that they believe in fairness. So you get both a dismissal of the point which is brought out ("black lives matter", because black lives seem to matter less in practise in this society, for instance) as well as a snarky response and/or put-down, and then everybody else who got their fair share, feel the warm glow of agreeing that everybody ought to be equal - while they eat their meals next to someone with an empty plate, and who rudely dared to call their issue to attention in front of the group. It's the epitome of patriarchy/entitlement, and has been well displayed by reactions to Bernie Sanders being chased off-stage ... The people who felt that their issue was so important that they interrupt a public event to bring their issue to the fore, are quickly shoved aside while a DIFFERENT old white man (in a hat) grabs the mic away from them and tells them to "calm down" and "be respectful", and countless others say "hey, he's the best candidate for Black people - why you hating on him!?" This is a pretty solid primer http://www.bestoftheleft.com/_947_understanding_the_schism_in_the_progressive_movement_blacklivesmatter if you're (like me) a non-black person who has been having some hangups trying to get their head around the whole thing... That said however, I think that the entire link I just posted can be summed up in one quote, quote:“You need to stop telling us 'he marched with Martin Luther King.' I promise, we already heard about that. And that’s great, that he marched with Dr. King in the 60s, but we also marched with Janet Jackson in the 80s, and she taught us to ask, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ Anyone who cares about you and wants your trust should be ready to answer that question. And if you really believe in Bernie Sanders, you should have faith that he can answer that question. Which is why, at the end of the day, instead of being mad at #BlackLivesMatter or mad at those two activists, every Bernie Sanders supporter should be thanking them for what they’ve done.” I've received an amazing amount of venom from rabid Sanders boosters (almost all of whom seem to be retirement age white people) when I tried to bring up how he changed his "7 point plan" to an "8 point plan" within 24 hours of BLM protestors chasing him off stage - although those same pro-Sanders supporters spend a lot of time telling me how he'd hired Simone Sanders three weeks prior... I am reasonably sure that Ms Sanders had a stance on black issues already written up and ready for Bernie to read out loud from day 1 of getting the job - yet nobody bothered to bring it up until it was forced to the front... And then it's couched in classic respectability politics... http://fusion.net/story/184032/black-lives-matter-martin-luther-king-hate-mail/  “It would be well if every American Negro compared his position and opportunity with that of his race in other countries. He would find that in none does the Negro have the advantages the United States gives him. As justified as may be many of the demands Negroes make, they are not the only matter of importance in the world.” #AllLivesMatter..? coyo7e fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Aug 20, 2015 |
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Aug 20, 2015 01:48
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thehomemaster posted:Well I don't know that analogy so do go on? This is more applicable to the "All lives matter" counterpoint that gets made. BLM didn't become a thing because a bunch of people just thought it'd be cool to reinforce something everyone knows and agrees with, it became a thing because it's highlighting a problem. Responding with "All lives matter"--like with the dinner table--is taking their specific, happening-right-now problem, ignoring it, and broadening what they said into a pithy ideal that helps nobody and dithers the focus of their message. I will be honest I mostly skimmed that link but as others have said he washes his hands of the whole thing by pointing out that black people can not only be aggressive and angry, but also can and do kill each other(!). If anyone takes those points and arrives at a conclusion of, "so, there you go", that person is called--sorry but I'm showing off my erudite knowledge of sociology tech words--an "rear end in a top hat". I listened to this book on audio during some air travel I took in july. I think the first half struck me much more profoundly than the second. His accounts, from his own voice, of his youth & upbringing, and how he came to understand his world, the world of his parents, neighbors, older kids, and so on, all told through this prism of constant fear and bodily threats (each manifesting in a variety of ways), taken in altogether it left me totally speechless for some time. I didn't grow up in the roughest neighborhoods or anything but I had some exposure to actual street gangs and things like that, and I feel like I identified with a that fear he described. But only a flake of it, just enough to appreciate how much heavier, constant and confining it would have been for him. Perhaps my largest take-away was his brilliant way of establishing fear as the common root. Showing it as a fuel for anger, killer for motivation & expectations, and a permanent warp the psyche that ultimately turns you onto others and yourself. And it's man made, and reinforced by man each generation. Not always intentionally, maybe, but far far too often it is so. Anyway, he was masterful in sharing a glimpse of what that's really like for those of us who didn't have to grow up through it ourselves. EDIT: I don't know if it's been mentioned, but the book title and pretty much the entirety of the content reminded me so much of this clip from The Wire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba5SeHo7vbQ In particular, that line at the end, "I wish I knew" is just so devastating. Bhaal fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Aug 20, 2015 |
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Aug 20, 2015 03:23
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Bhaal posted:If anyone takes those points and arrives at a conclusion of, "so, there you go", that person is called--sorry but I'm showing off my erudite knowledge of sociology tech words--an "rear end in a top hat". Jesus Christ almighty....
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Aug 20, 2015 09:50
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Did anyone see the David Brooks op-ed response to it? From a skyhigh vantage point, if Brooks was serious about engaging with this from a center-right "rah rah America" standpoint, he should have asked for space in a more long form medium like the NY review of books, the NYT review of books, or the NYT Magazine. As it stands now, his level of engagement with Coates' ideas are so shallow as to be offensive to the author on a purely professional level.
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Aug 20, 2015 20:30
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Paper With Lines posted:Did anyone see the David Brooks op-ed response to it? The response was so tone-deaf as to be essentially insignificant. This loving paragraph here quote:I think you distort American history. This country, like each person in it, is a mixture of glory and shame. There’s a Lincoln for every Jefferson Davis and a Harlem Children’s Zone for every K.K.K. — and usually vastly more than one. Violence is embedded in America, but it is not close to the totality of America. Misses the point of BTWM so hard that it brings into question if Brooks even read it.
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Aug 20, 2015 20:52
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It feels like I was kind of in an advantage, because though not being black, I read it from a point of view so far removed from America that I didn't need to get incredibly offended at the thought that someone either insulted The American Dream or The Founding Fathers or whatever. And because of that I didn't have to be so completely blinded that I missed the actual message instead of these trivial hang-ups that this Brooks and other people like him got. I was about to say it seems like a common discourse on race relations in the US, but to be honest it's exactly like that over here as well. For every minority speaking up about their experiences, there's three people from the majority ready to defend the sacred honour of the local parallel to "The White Man".
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Aug 20, 2015 22:15
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Mel Mudkiper posted:
I'm not sure if Brooks can read it.
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Aug 20, 2015 22:17
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The big issue is that white people are taught to see Lincoln and Davis, for example, as opposites. Davis bad, Lincoln good. It's how we can say "yes slavery was bad, but people also were against it" and act as if the end result is moral neutrality. They do not understand that the evil of one side has more moral weight than the goodness of the other. A nation that endorsed slavery until the second half of the 19th century is not morally cleansed by the fact we eventually stopped doing it.
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Aug 20, 2015 23:10
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I would go so far to say that treating ending slavery as "good" is itself morally bankrupt. Stopping a wicked action because you realize it is wicked is not inherently virtuous in itself.
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Aug 20, 2015 23:13
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Eh, really? I mean c'mon stop judging the past based on todays morals.
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Aug 21, 2015 10:49
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opposition to slavery wasn't magically invented at the end of the 1800s.
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Aug 21, 2015 10:56
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thehomemaster posted:Eh, really? The past exists to be judged by today's morals ulvir posted:opposition to slavery wasn't magically invented at the end of the 1800s. Right but we are not talking the morality of people, we are talking the morality of nations. Was a person who fought to end slavery doing a moral action? Absolutely. But you cannot consider the actions of moral people going against the immorality of their own culture as a credit to the culture itself. You cannot say "America had people who fought for slavery, but it also had people who fought against slavery" and act as if that somehow means America was morally neutral on the issue. For the first 100 years of America as a nation and 200 years before that the government endorsed the institution. Eventually realizing it was wrong and ending the practice does not redeem the country from its history, and its dishonest to try to defend the country's legacy by pointing to the actions of abolitionists when they were fighting against the country itself. Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Aug 21, 2015 |
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Aug 21, 2015 14:24
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Right but we are not talking the morality of people, we are talking the morality of nations. Was a person who fought to end slavery doing a moral action? Absolutely. But you cannot consider the actions of moral people going against the immorality of their own culture as a credit to the culture itself. Oh no, I wasn't arguing against that. I was just commenting on the dumb idea of "judging the past by todays morals". Because there were nations who abolished slavery a whole 100 years before the US, for example. (And also lol at the idea in general, following that logic, we shouldn't say that what Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot etc. was doing wasn't objectively terrible)
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Aug 21, 2015 23:15
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ulvir posted:Oh no, I wasn't arguing against that. I was just commenting on the dumb idea of "judging the past by todays morals". Because there were nations who abolished slavery a whole 100 years before the US, for example. (And also lol at the idea in general, following that logic, we shouldn't say that what Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot etc. was doing wasn't objectively terrible) Yeah I wasn't sure which post you were responding to so I figured I would cover my bases
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Aug 21, 2015 23:30
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Well People manage to say that ghengis khan wasn't all bad, so I'll let that sit. Anyway, I mean I'm with you, I'm just being devils advocate.
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Aug 22, 2015 00:01
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^^^^ The difference being that most people who say that Ghenghis Khan was an important figure who improved culture around the world (and forget what he did to the people in his own time,) aren't ethnic mongols, profiting from the historic effects of his rule and atrocities. It's very much a demonstration of privilege though, I listened to a Dan Carlin Hardcore History podcast series on the history of the mongol empire, and he began with just how sticky a wicket it can be to talk about that particular figure.Paper With Lines posted:Did anyone see the David Brooks op-ed response to it? Bhaal posted:I will be honest I mostly skimmed that link but as others have said he washes his hands of the whole thing by pointing out that black people can not only be aggressive and angry, but also can and do kill each other(!). If anyone takes those points and arrives at a conclusion of, "so, there you go", that person is called--sorry but I'm showing off my erudite knowledge of sociology tech words--an "rear end in a top hat". thehomemaster posted:Well People manage to say that ghengis khan wasn't all bad, so I'll let that sit. Your two-sentence response is literally what "privilege" in this context is about - being able to just make crass comments and shut down those with real issues to bring up - while walking away from the isue yet STILL getting in the last word of "yo, ain't those peopel upset about dead and buried history loving CRAZY or what bro? Amirite? Fist bump! WOOOOOO!" coyo7e fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Aug 23, 2015 |
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Aug 23, 2015 09:02
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ulvir posted:Oh no, I wasn't arguing against that. I was just commenting on the dumb idea of "judging the past by todays morals". Because there were nations who abolished slavery a whole 100 years before the US, for example. (And also lol at the idea in general, following that logic, we shouldn't say that what Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot etc. was doing wasn't objectively terrible) Stalin and Mao were cool actually
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Aug 23, 2015 10:43
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ulvir posted:It feels like I was kind of in an advantage, because though not being black, I read it from a point of view so far removed from America that I didn't need to get incredibly offended at the thought that someone either insulted The American Dream or The Founding Fathers or whatever. And because of that I didn't have to be so completely blinded that I missed the actual message instead of these trivial hang-ups that this Brooks and other people like him got. I was about to say it seems like a common discourse on race relations in the US, but to be honest it's exactly like that over here as well. For every minority speaking up about their experiences, there's three people from the majority ready to defend the sacred honour of the local parallel to "The White Man". Don't worry, civilized (i.e. potty-trained) white Americans are capable of not getting offended by someone who faces us with our own history. I've been listening to Coates' reading of the book during my commute, and so far it is beautiful, stark, and heavy. Since I first heard the phrase 'black bodies,' I found it terribly confusing and it felt counterproductive. This book made me understand what it's supposed to mean. The mind is contained within the body, the body is its interface to the world, and the state of that body (and throughout our history, its color) directly shapes how the world interacts with the body. I would like to re-iterate what was said about Jews not being considered 'white,' until it was politically convenient. I remember from my high school textbook, there was a poster comparing stylized images of the "Negro" and the "Irishman" to show they were on a spectrum leading to monkeys (I don't know how Scopes felt about that), far from "white" people. I couldn't find that one, but this print of an Irishman in a political cartoon has the same effect.  Indeed, these prints' creators believed themselves to be white. I have believed myself to be white since I was in kindergarten, and that fact is now terribly unsettling to me. It is rare these days that I come across an idea that truly challenges how I see things, and that I ultimately internalize. This is the talent of Ta-Nehisi Coates. In the intro (which is also found pretty much verbatim in one of his Atlanic articles), Coates describes an indistinct sadness that he feels when asked an oblivious question by a journalist. You can hear it subtly in his voice. I think that there is a lot to be gained by listening to him speak his own words, but there are so many things that I want to quote or review later, I'm glad I bought the e-book as well. I'm about a quarter of the way through, and I'm looking forward to the Civil War part, judging by what I've seen here. Oh and I'm stoked to have a reason to use this just after my first week as a member. quote:And also lol at the idea in general, following that logic, we shouldn't say that what Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot etc. was doing wasn't objectively terrible 
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Aug 23, 2015 12:51
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Maf as gently caress. It was a good book yo!
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Aug 23, 2015 13:54
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coyo7e posted:
thehomemaster posted:Interesting points about 'black lives matter' http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2015/06/15/genosuicide-and-its-causes/
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Aug 24, 2015 19:54
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Bhaal posted:My bad, it was this one from the first page: Exactly, when a pathological liar gets to murder a man whose shape fits an opposite description of his purported target, without showing his badge, while wearing plain clothes, outside of his jurisdiction, standing on the excuse that an ambitious college student about to visit his fiancee would try to run him over on a lark, gets off scot-free and put back on the streets almost immediately, that's not a "legal nicety" being disregarded. And where were that cop's parents?
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Aug 25, 2015 04:51
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Since the month is winding down I want to remind everyone to check Ta-Nehisi Coates' twitter He has spent the last few days posting exclusively about old school PC RPGs and debating Planescape vs. Baldur's Gate II
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Aug 28, 2015 23:44
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https://twitter.com/tanehisicoates/status/637395328094896129 edit: also https://twitter.com/tanehisicoates/status/637336042417356800 Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Aug 29, 2015 |
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Aug 29, 2015 02:05
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This is the first time I've bought a book because of one of these book of the month things, and I'm super happy I did. Got it this afternoon, tore through it this evening, and still digesting its meaning.
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Aug 29, 2015 04:01
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Book for September *will be* The Moonstone. I'll get a thread up tomorrow, 3rd at the latest.
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Sep 2, 2015 04:34
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