Unintended Consequences
A lot of conservatives object to race-based admissions to colleges and universities on the grounds that Black students are getting slots they think should go to White students. They are presumably celebrating the Supreme Court decision limiting the use of race in admissions decisions, figuring that this decision will help White students get more slots.
Depends where. At top institutions, it will do exactly the opposite. They’re thinking about Black Americans. Who they aren’t thinking about is Asian Americans.
A century or so ago, American colleges and universities started getting a whole lot of very qualified Jewish applicants. They didn’t want their institutions becoming too Jewish, including my very liberal alma mater, Oberlin College, and so they started developing admissions criteria to help them limit Jews. Suddenly they were looking at “well-rounded” students. They were looking at extracurricular activities. They were making their decisions a whole lot more subjective.
As the Asian-American population grew and as Asians who, like Jews, have an unusual statistical tendency to take academics very seriously, these same criteria that limited Jewish admissions limited Asian admissions. In fact, one of the Supreme Court cases was about exactly that.
What happens to White students when race is taken out of the equation at premium institutions?
The Asian-American population is, as of 2020 according to Wikipedia, 7.3% of the US population. The White American population is, as of the same time, about 75% of the US population. In other words, the White population is roughly an order of magnitude bigger than the Asian population.
What happens when we look at institutions that really are more worried about merit than about anything else? Let’s take MIT and CalTech.
MIT: 28.7% White, 19.7% Asian
CalTech: 29.9% White, 22.9% Asian
The spread isn’t exactly an order of magnitude.
So what’s going on?
What’s going on is that no one is acknowledging that White students get a whole lot of affirmative action. They don’t object to it working in their favor; they only object to it working against them.
Geographic distribution: boosted representation from very White states
Sports: Inner city schools don’t necessarily have tennis teams, fencing teams, crew teams, and so students from places that don’t have these sports are underrepresented.
Legacies.: This one certainly works in White favor, but the main reason it’s still in place is actually not as racially motivated as you might think. There’s a different dynamic at work here, and it has to do with the US News & World Report national college rankings. What do they base their rankings on? One factor they base their rankings on is yield, which is to say the percentage of accepted students who choose to attend. Legacies have an astronomical yield rate.
Some of these may stay in place, though there’s a big outcry about legacies these days. However, we may see more legal action as people catch on to what’s in place, why it was introduced, and why it’s still in place.
What’s going to happen to White valedictorians from all over the country who can’t get into ivies any more? What’s going to happen to rich students and their parents when the schools they’re used to considering are suddenly way harder to get into because of Asian competition that is suddenly allowed a much more equal footing? What’s going to happen to White admissions at Chicago, Stanford, Berkeley, Northwestern, Duke, Rice, Swarthmore, Williams?
They’re already figuring out how to adjust, which is to say how to circumvent the ruling without technically circumventing the ruling. I’m not in on those conversations.
What we’re looking at here is classic racism, and we’re looking at a very particular conservative strain of racism. What I’ve noticed drives conservatives more nuts than anything else, as least as nuts than playing fields that aren’t level drives us, is poor people, particularly poor Black people, getting more than conservative White people think they deserve. This phenomenon is beyond rationality and has been forever. Conservatives would rather watch a thousand poor kids starve than watch one Welfare Cadillac, someone gaming the system successfully at what they view as their expense. In their book, the worst sin is to be taken. This phenomenon is only aimed at the poor except for at Rich Black people. When the wealthy take advantage of them, for some reason that doesn’t bother them. I can’t explain this; it’s too irrational for me.
So now fewer slots will go to the people they consider undeserving, keeping in mind that lack of opportunity doesn’t generally enter into their equation about deserving. What I will damned near guarantee you they are missing is that, compared to a whole lot of Asian students, they’re undeserving.
This decision will reduce White admissions at premium institutions, some of which are state schools that give a lot of need-based financial aid. As you sow, so shall you reap. Survival of the fittest is great while you assume that you’re the fittest, but when you abruptly discover that you’re not, it doesn’t look so great any more. I’m very curious as to how this will unfold. My fear is that a form it will take is resentment of Asians. Among some White populations, they’ll suddenly be viewed as foreigners even if they were born here.
We’ll see. But it’s worth watching.
[Note: I’m getting wild variation on the internet as to the White percentage of America’s population. The figure here may include the Hispanic population. Brookings says it’s 60.1%. These are about the outside boundaries of what I”m seeing.]
06/30/2023 @ 5:41 am
I agree with your analysis. I differ on one small, important aspect. That aspect is that I find that it is the result of a rational process. What it is not is the result of an intellectual commitment or process. I think it is rational because it is a way that a massive question is reduced to an organizable process.
The question generally is how should society be ordered? Who benefits, and who does not? Reducing the question to a tribal binary eliminates infinite questions. Power and dominance is the chosen organizing principle. The rejected organizing principle is justice. The rational aspect of choosing power over justice is that power is easier to see and measure. Justice requires the commitment to intellectuality that complicates and confuses the focused choice of power as an organizing principle.
Power says that merit is determined by membership in or proximity to itself. It is self serving. Solving the social equation for merit by power means being power, or being willing to serve it. Conversely, solving the equation for merit by intellectual principle takes a case by case inspection, with a process dedicated to justice. The result from this approach is not as easily controlled. This is a discovery process rather than a control process. Ultimately, intellectuality and reason are at cross purposes with power. An institution dedicated to reason and justice is a solvent for crystalized power, and an institution designed to promote power must insulate itself from reason and justice.
Merit ceases to be a primary consideration. This fact removes a moral aspect from society. Society becomes more of a religion where the morality/value of meritoriousness is replaced with the morality/value of tribal membership. So, I see the process as being as rational as a cake recipe. It has a design, and a desired outcome. What it is not is complex, dynamic…or good.
06/30/2023 @ 11:45 am
What I find irrational is that they are not bothered by being taken advantage of by the wealthy, at least not to the same extent.
I’m also very aware that they’re going from the frying pan to the fire. They’ll lose fewer slots to Black applicants and more to Asian applicants. In feedback I’ve gotten elsewhere, they’re way more OK with that – so far – because at least that’s based on merit, whereas they think affirmative action is based on racism. This analysis always drives me nuts. Affirmative action is not the cause of racism, it’s an imperfect solution to it, but they keep denying that racism exists without it. They’re under the weird impression that without affirmative action we’d have a real meritocracy, which is utter bullshit.
Right now they’re saying Great, Merit. I don’t think that will last, assuming the work-arounds don’t include continued limitation of Asian admissions. The only way it lasts is if we’ve gotten to the point where Whites consider Asians to be some sort of White equivalent and not outsiders. I don’t have faith in that.
I am not arguing in favor of limiting Asian admissions any more than I’d be of limiting Jewish admissions. What I’m saying is that I think those in support of favoring immediate merit (which is to say without taking into account differences in access to quality primary and secondary education) are expecting a Dividend from this. The nature or extent of that dividend is dubious. From your power standpoint, they’re taking power from one outside group but I don’t think they’re aware of the extent to which they’re giving it to another outside group.
I’m afraid of their reaction when they figure this out.
06/30/2023 @ 9:04 am
Big sufferers of this decision will be minorities seeking higher ed in red states. If you’re a smart Black kid whose eye is set on Catawba College in NC? Not great for you. Higher ed contributes to the changing politics in the red states, turning their grads into leftist Marxist radical Dem voters. Can’t have that. In five years, I’m gonna predict you won’t see a black face at Catawba College.
So called coastal elite academia will find reach-arounds, as California did. They’ve already begun. A well crafted letter from the president of my institution, prolly written weeks ago, went out half an hour after the decision. Our Director of DEI was recently snagged by our progressive new governor to come work at the state house. She’s a primary reason our student body is about 55% white and 45% BIPOC students. We will continue doing as we have been. A few years ago, we eliminated SAT scores in lieu of an in depth essay. That made a huge diff in admissions.
Friggin dejavu Roe ptsd at the utter arrogance of this old man bullshit, that they know better than settled law what’s best for the lil missies and minorities pulling themselves up by those legendary bootstraps. I have story after story after story of BIPOC students who went out to make a big mark on the world (literally) and young women who are enjoying their professional future because of access to abortion.
Thank you Kosher for providing this post where we can vent.
06/30/2023 @ 11:46 am
Venting’R’Us
06/30/2023 @ 2:28 pm
….and now they’ve rejected student loan forgiveness!
Kosher, your wife also works in higher ed? Between what DeSantis is doing to education in Florida and this, it’s a roller coaster ride of anger and upset. I don’t know how your wife feels, but I’ve invested 35 years of my life educating future crops of people, and this feels like a slam to me as well as them. These justices know that higher education is a game changer. They enjoyed the best money could buy. Had life gone a little differently, Brett Kavanaugh might be sitting on a local barstool every afternoon from 3:30 to closing time, hitting on chicks.
I spent eleven years living with someone in a doctoral program at Harvard and seven years with a sibling in a doctoral program at Yale. They’re doing great, but the reality of both these schools is nothing like the illusion of them. Maybe the most important thing they got was a good old boy network and a monster endowment that paid nearly every dollar of their tuitions. Tuition to U Mass next year is 18K (in state). Harvard tuition is 55, 500K. Is a Harvard education worth three times the cost of a U Mass education? Not even close! It’s not sour grapes to say that if I had a child headed to college, I’d save my tuition dollars for a public institution. When racking up debt carried until age fifty- something, might as well have less of that.
06/30/2023 @ 5:18 pm
My wife won’t spend money in Florida outside of Disney unless we need gas that badly.
My wife is a professor, but she’s the chair of the Student Affairs Administration Masters program at a public university. She’s training students who go into such fields as Admissions. When she goes to conferences, they’re mainly ACPA or NASPA. I don’t know if you’re familiar with these but I suspect you know what they are. She studies student populations.
06/30/2023 @ 7:41 pm
That is funny!! You couldn’t pay me to go to Florida now, even on a minus zero day in February. Friends, a married gay couple, just retired there this year, bought a condo in an association that has mostly gay couples, and they love Florida life. They mostly remain within the community, and say it’s like the rest doesn’t exist. B says that DeSantis will not be in office there forever, and he’s right, but when you’re retired you hope you’ll live long enough to see him gone!
07/01/2023 @ 9:51 pm
I spend some time on Quora, mainly answering questions as opposed to posing them, for me mostly Zionist stuff. However, following up with the idea of this post, I posed the following question:
Why don’t conservative Whites understand that a major consequence of the Supreme Court decision limiting the role of race in college admissions decisions will be a whole lot of slots at top institutions shifting from White students to Asian students?
The reaction was dead consistent and I got a lot of responses. They were all fine with moving to what they viewed as merit-based. They all said that if Asians dominated admissions, as long as they earn it it’s fine.
They all think that if we get rid of affirmative action, what will be left will be no functional racism. They view affirmative action as a source of racism and don’t understand it as a solution. They aren’t at all curious as to why certain groups are less competitive and are loathe to believe that those causes are external. This blind spot is defended for all they’re worth.
The problem is, of course, not that they don’t have a clue but that they emphatically don’t want one. They are in extreme denial.
07/02/2023 @ 8:59 am
Even with affirmative action, it’s always been harder for students of color.
The two factors that most affect the divide between Asian and BIPOC students are K-12 public education and income.
Asian students overwhelmingly tend come from middle or upper class families. They attend high performing schools K-12. Their parents are extremely involved in their educations, often to a degree that becomes painful for the student, e.g. my son will major in graphic design even though he hates graphic design, or I will stop paying his tuition. Or, you gave my daughter a B? How can we change that? What if she stays at the college over Thanksgiving break to work on an extra project that you assign? Very few Asian students have part time jobs during the semester. Very few lack books or supplies. Almost all live in the dorms across the street, room and board costs almost the same as tuition.
BIPOC students rarely arrive from high performing K-12 schools. Often they were involved in community after-school programs, or they attended the large progressive arts academy in my city (like the school in the movie Fame). Few have hovering parents; I’ve never had a meeting where a BIPOC parent complained about their child’s B. BIPOC students almost always work one and often two part time jobs. If they miss class or don’t meet a project deadline, it’s because they’re juggling twenty hours of homework with twenty hours of job. Few live in the dorm, most live off campus and commute.
White students tend to fall somewhere in between. Many come from low income families and receive local scholarships. Many work multiple part time jobs. Some went to crummy high schools, some didn’t. Some have involved parents, some don’t. Some can afford their books and supplies, some can’t. Some live in the dorms, some pile six in a two bedroom apartment or commute.
Re: Kosher’s white commentariat, the part they don’t get. The ranking of college acceptance and success is 1. Asian, 2. white, 3. POC. White students are not at the head of the line. The issue that affirmative action seeks to resolve, at least a little, is not to rearrange the line order, but to get rid of the line. Asian and white students will always be fine, no matter what.
Worth mentioning, is that everybody who wants to attend college has merit! People with C- averages don’t apply (why they have a C- GPA is a topic for another time). Also worth mentioning, again, since I just read an op ed in NYTimes that said same, it’s not the coastal ‘elite’ institutions that will be most affected by this decision. Even though the national conversation has been all about Harvard, it will be red state schools, esp small private colleges, where BIPOC students will be squeezed out. No need for ‘CRT’ if there are no black faces in the student body, which breaks my heart, because you know who most needs ‘CRT’? White students!
Sorry for the length of this rant. It’s a subject that makes me want to rip out what’s left of my gray hair!
07/02/2023 @ 11:03 am
I won’t deny that the Affirmative Action decision concerns me, but I am not as concerned about constructing college classes as I am about business owners getting contracts. It has been argued that college attendance has been overdeveloped in American culture with regard to its efficacy. I personally lean toward liberal education, but there are good arguments against. Conversely, access to business contracts is a short, direct line to power in society. That is potentially diminished and not much is being said about that currently.
07/03/2023 @ 8:01 am
Bitey, I wholehearted agree abt business and vocational training being super important. Also lucrative. My plumber’s hourly rate is $150.00/hr. Few liberal arts majors make that kind of money, not to mention every human needs a plumber, while they don’t need someone who read Emily Bronte.
The large community college in my city is tuition free. Several of our state colleges are re-focusing on stem and biz majors, and even shrinking their liberal arts programs to do so. Education is a game changer, no matter what your focus.
07/02/2023 @ 9:06 am
P.S. Kosher, why do you even talk with those people???
“They are in extreme denial.”
like alcoholics, who only change when they decide
07/02/2023 @ 11:01 pm
In this case because I was curious.
07/03/2023 @ 7:51 am
Curious? You thought maybe they’d say something new and different and original, rather than regurgitate old tired talking points?
Life is short my friend, and at our age, what’s left is extra precious. Investing mental energy by attempting to change trash minds set in cement is futile and a waste of thought. There are more worthy audiences for your intellect, young people for example.
07/03/2023 @ 10:09 am
Suzanne, I agree with that sentiment.
Old habits are hard to break, but turning 72 about a month or so from now has nade me evn more of the futility or discussions with blockheads.
Teaching the young would be a valuable turn in direction.
07/03/2023 @ 11:30 am
Younger people, or even just one another. Dialog and discussion feel stimulating, while arguments with mean bricks feel depleting.
IRL, one of my friends relishes arguing, and is a skilled arguer. It can be fun to engage with him sometimes. His arguments aren’t motivated by white supremacist perspective or evangelism. A recent argument was over bakeries, and for laughs, he gave me a gift card to his favorite for my birthday. Honestly, he’s not wrong about that place!
07/03/2023 @ 11:32 am
I did learn something. I was aware that the conservatives I come across do not like being thought of as racist. I didn’t see a shred of anti-Asian anything. I expected to find some. I found none. What I found, over and over and over, is that these guys do not think of themselves as racist and that it would bother the crap out of them to do so. They don’t care whether I think they’re racist. They think liberals have racism wrong. We don’t, of course, but there’s also the factor that they do not believe government should have a role in that.
If you’re trying to get anywhere, there’s a difference between dealing with people who think that racism is fine and with people who think that racism is wrong, and these people generally think in the abstract that racism is wrong.
In the West, we’re used to the idea that racism isn’t considered polite, that it’s something to be hidden because everyone knows that basically it’s wrong. We forget how not true that is overseas. If you go to China or Japan, they’re absolutely fine with being racist. They don’t see the problem. In the Arab world, it is totally acceptable to be antisemitic. If a government says or does something antisemitic, no one there is going to call them on it because there’s nothing to call them on. When I deal with people from the West in talking about Israel, they don’t get this at all. If they had any idea what Palestinian schoolchildren are taught about Jews they’d be horrified. It would be sort of like what the US would look like if the NEA were run by the Klan.
But back to the question more directly: The idea that racism is intrinsically wrong as a point of agreement is very important. In that respect, there is something to work with. It means that the opposition has intrinsic cognitive dissonance. The question is how to get at it, but the point is that there is something to get at.
07/03/2023 @ 12:13 pm
“What I found, over and over and over, is that these guys do not think of themselves as racist and that it would bother the crap out of them to do so”
And you did not know this until you exchanged perspectives with them, denial being an essential skill in the bigots’ toolbox? i.e. I am a good person, a family person, and god loves me, and not you.
We’ve all experienced bias. For me it’s men who still view women as unequal. For you, it’s antisemites. For Ron and Bitey, it’s racists. Something all three hate flavors have in common is a sense of entitlement and justification for their bigotry. That is a given, not a rare and hidden agenda. Do I want to stab myself in the eyeballs reading their emotionally and intellectually disabled screeds? Is there any point in trying to prove my womanly equality with them? Hell. No. The world is full of lovely people. By investing energy in unlovely people, I might begin to lose sight of that. These days, it’s almost too much just to read the front page of the NYTimes.
You have great gifts, for logic, for expository writing, for intelligent connection of dots. These gifts will always be wasted on bigots who will hate you extra for being highly intelligent. That’s become it’s own category for bias. There are audiences and groups that would appreciate your mind workings, and enable you to relish your knowledge built over your decades, give it purpose.
Ennyhoo, them’s my thoughts that you didn’t ask for. Stepping now off the soapbox…
07/02/2023 @ 4:03 pm
People like you keep me turned on. Rock ‘n Roll Heaven {OP-ER-A} would be a GODSPELL level attraction if one could keep a ‘lil bit funny! Today several momma mias and me are quickly comping our ‘green thumb’ ancestries for French Horn afficianoes well aware that greed is satiable but LOVE is unforgettable: one through ten! You say how … I’ll say WHO WHAT⁉ WHERE WHY AND WHEN .. thoroughly inspired with the coolest sturdily portable all terrain: an M($)4 as well as the back cover of The New York Times Magazine 2 JULy 2023 MEET VESTABOARD WHITE. Later at twi-light time skyrockets in flight and maybe that whirlpool suite at the MGM Grand‼
/!\S urface T o E rror M ile/!\S kinny T imes E ndless M iracles/!\
No doubt black and white are political yet oxygen is grey. Happy summer’s day LO;} Hey:!: we are the champions my friend …—…
07/03/2023 @ 2:11 pm
It depends on the person and situation, but I like to talk to conservative folks I don’t understand where they come from or why they think and believe the way they do. They’ve all been conservative white people so far that I’ve interacted with in this way, excepting two, very different Latina women. Some are Trump fans, some not, all deeply conservative.
Some people are not worth bothering with, I agree, those who never listen, who show up with their own sense of being so right there’s no back and forth to be had, but then, I’ve found that with all kinds of people, not just conservatives. Many farther left than I am can be similar. Feels like pronouncements being spouted from automatons while ears are firmly shut or nonexistent, no matter who it is or where on the political, social spectrum.
I like to talk with those who have firm stances but they’re also open, and it’s hard to know who those types are unless I’m open, as well. Surface doesn’t always show that very clearly. One fellow in rural Georgia I’d have bet money was a closed-minded, huge Trump fan by his look and environment, turned out not to be – by a long shot. A woman in Portland the same, but opposite. This vegan hippie-looking lady believes in Trump? What? She got to that place by way of being anti-capitalist. …. ??
Sometimes fruitful, sometimes not, but deciding how someone will be because of who they voted for or how they appear on the surface isn’t enough for me, usually. Not always, anyway. Again, depends on the person and the day.
I’m curious about the why of other people; those who seem ‘in the cult’ have nothing to say of interest, but others sometimes do and I find it interesting to see what their reasoning is, what in their lives and backgrounds brought them here, and crucially: what is important to them. Those who might respond with shrill propagandistic bytes aren’t interesting, but those who value a future on this planet, maybe in this country for their grandchildren, as I do, I do find interesting, and just maybe, a crack between ‘sides’ is left open and just maybe there’s a touch less vehement loathing in the world.
Or not ~ but it’s always been informational, one way or another.
So far, the several entitled southern white men, all wearing the khaki pants and navy blue blazers uniform, sitting confidently-to-arrogantly in their generational privilege were the toughest, and worst. Those particular fellas I knew when we were kids, they were pretty confident-to-arrogant then, too. They seemed funnier as kids, now all that stance of theirs and who knows what else hardened to brittle, starchy, smug and … ick.
I have noticed it is getting harder, stances are hardening all around.
Author Barbara Kingsolver wrote an essay speaking to this, of her neighbors in rural Kentucky that she loves and knows they love her back, but still, over time concern and edges of fear have been creeping up. Anxiety is growing.
An excellent essay, worth reading.
I keep thinking: where in history has it gotten to this state and there *isn’t* an eventual escalation into full-on violence and war? Where has it ever retreated to calm and even quasi-unity and peace once it’s gotten to this place we’re at of high tension and more and more overt signs of a teetering into ….
I’d love to know of this retreat happening, if it ever has, and how did they get there. What was most important to them?
07/03/2023 @ 3:37 pm
I think it happens when an event changes their perspective and the cognitive dissonance just gets too great. No, that can’t possibly be true, and then suddenly it’s undeniable. I’ve seen that happen twice in the past several years, both involving race. The first happened with Nikki Haley. When she saw Dylann Roof showing the Confederate flag after murdering her friend, Clementa Pinkney, she finally got what the Confederate flag was really being used for. Within a week, those flags were off most retail shelves in America and being taken down all over the place, including in NASCAR. The second was the George Floyd killing. Millions saw that video and concluded that we can’t give cops the benefit of the doubt all the time and that we really do have a problem.
I don’t know how to do that in this instance. I don’t know what kind of event or statistic or what would drive home exactly what Black people are up against that conservatives just don’t acknowledge. What I do know is that what I’ve observed in the instance of what I’m writing about is that this clearly is not about White supremacy. White supremacy would encompass Asians and here it just isn’t, at all. What I’m seeing is unanimous about that. The difference may have more to do with what they think is happening than what they think is right. If the difference is in what they think is right, there’s no common ground and it’s just a waste of time; but these people all obviously think they’re anti-racist. Now, there is an area where we disagree with what we think is right, but that’s more about what the role of government should be.
In some ways I think the big difference between a liberal and a conservative – not a Trumper – is what they know, but I also know that there are things they are trying very hard not to learn. That may be a difference in character. I’d certainly define it as that, as undoubtedly would Bitey. There is a point at which we’d agree that truth has to be more important than comfort.
07/03/2023 @ 6:18 pm
Everyone has the concept of racism wrong. I don’t mean the several assembled here. I mean everyone. Race was invented, and racism resulted. Race was invented for the purpose of racism. To refer to race is to practice racism. I’ll explain.
Race was invented by Gomes de Zurara. Race was invented by inventing the concept/status of blackness. The result was the concept of whiteness. The purpose of inventing blackness was to justify chattel slavery among Christian people. This happened in the 1450s and was commissioned by the King of Portugal.
“Race” does not exist in taxonomy in the animal or plant worlds. All of nature is described in categories which divide members among “domain”,”kingdom”, “phylum”, “class”, “order”, “family”, “genus”, and “specie”. There is no race. It takes the classification of humans to include division by race. That division is entirely socio-political. Humans are members of all the same categories from domain to specie. There are no humans who are not of the same order of classifications.
The only logic applied to classifying humans with race is to benefit some of them, and oppress others, in just such a way that it assuages the guilt of Christian oppressors of other humans. Race is essentially an ethical sedative. Used in a way that is consistent with the taxonomy of natural beings, it is an error. It does not exist. It is only used to oppress. To say or think that differences exist in some natural way, between group divisions that do not exist, is to be playing a racist trick on yourself. It is pure nonsense.
Racism does exist. Race is its coal fired engine. Race is its nuclear reactor. Race is its linen suit. Race is its Norwegian Jesus. Race is its cheap lettuce. Race is its blueberries in July in Ohio. Race is the S.A.T. Race is the Ivy League. Race is every cotillion. Race is a brick in every constructed edifice since 1450 because someone needed power and profit, because the world is finite. But race itself does not exist. We all have that wrong.
07/03/2023 @ 10:15 pm
Of course race doesn’t exist as a biological reality but strictly as a social construct. However, that construct has nasty consequences.
One could say of the tribes neighboring the ancient Hebrews that their gods did not exist, and yet there is a commandment saying that these gods are not to be elevated. If they didn’t exist, what is/was the point?
The point is that whether or not these gods existed, their priesthoods certainly did, and those priesthoods were sacrificing children to their presumably nonexistent gods. Racism works a lot like that.
07/04/2023 @ 6:05 am
Scientific fact, of course. Yet we have seen how scientific fact is received, esp in the current climate. The history in Nikole Hannah-Jones long version of The 1619 Project is history every American should be taught in school, every page is packed with history that white people should stop being pussies and own. We don’t believe in slavery *now*, but our ancestors. Ancestors are everything, for both white and black people.
In response to the idea that that listening to racists talk about their ideas helps us better understand them. This sentiment is a liberal hallmark. It’s why we’re labeled bleeding hearts. It’s also why we want everyone to have health care and employment and own their home and get a good education and not be piled into prisons and shot at by police at for traffic violations and that people suffering in other countries should be able to come here and join us.
And btw, has any person who subscribes to racist views ever asked us for our views, trying to understand us better? Not in my experience. I have been labeled a race traitor, and worse.
Bleeding heart liberals or radical Marxist elites, whatever, are collectively shellshocked on discovery that half our fellow citizens support someone as corrupt and immoral as Trump, because they thought Hillary Clinton would be worse than that. I’m no big Clinton fan, but seriously? If we’d listened to these fellow citizens more, invited them to share their thoughts with us, tried to understand them better, would we be in the place where we are now? Or would they be even more emboldened and convinced of the legitimacy of their views?
07/04/2023 @ 12:00 pm
I’m not looking for legitimacy. I’m looking for cracks. And I’m not looking at the Trump wing. They’re just too intellectually cowardly to deal with.
07/04/2023 @ 1:43 pm
Thing is, racism is not subject to logic and a perfect argument inserted into perceived ‘cracks’. Racism is emotional, arises from fear and self-interest and conditioning. It’s Pavlovian, embedded deep in a collective consciousness. Is it possible to use impenetrable logic with a dog that presses a food button each time it hears a bell ring?
By going back and forth with you over this, I realize I’m subscribing to the same thinking that also drives you: that making sense can alter thoughts. Yet thoughts are subjective, and we believe our thoughts, believe they are real, even though they’re just….thoughts. So I’m going to exit this particular discussion and wish you luck with those online boys.
On a different note. The account I used to have here disappeared, and I apologize for writing perhaps too many words in the comment feeds of others. Kosher seems generous enough…would you permit me one more? Every year on July 4th, a colleague posts on his social media an excerpt from Fredrick Douglass’s speech. I’ve never been a July 4th fan, the noise, the rah rah USA, the battle music. As painful as these words are, they are real, and they give me another much better reason to skip the fireworks.
“What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.”
The entire speech, which is lengthy, is here:
07/04/2023 @ 2:04 pm
There is an interesting point here. I don’t think they are intellectually cowardly at all. I think they are nihilists. Logics, ethics, and moral principles are considered exploitable weaknesses of any system that has justice as a value. They are street fighters in a boxing match.
I remember a quote from Steve Bannon from back when Trump ran the first time. Bannon said something like, “Trump is going to bitch-slap the administrative state…” Think about that for a second. Bannon crossed all sorts of lines there, while implying that there was no line you could find that he would not cross. I don’t think they are cowardly or courageous. I think they’re scum.
07/04/2023 @ 2:32 pm
They are street fighters in a boxing match.
How they’re cowardly is they’re afraid to face their own inconsistency and afraid to face facts that are counter to their views. Find something inconsistent? Make something up, then you don’t have to face that. I don’t think most are smart enough to approach this with that kind of cynicism. There aren’t all that many Goebbels and Karl Roves in the world.
07/04/2023 @ 2:56 pm
I am not complimenting them. And I don’t think they are necessarily smart. They’re authoritarian followers. Consistency means nothing to them. Following their leader is everything. And the crazier their leader is, the higher the value of their loyalty…to the group. Ultimately it is not even about the leader. It is about belonging to the group. Having the chutzpa to deny reality goes a long way with them.
You can see those who feel alienated by reality in a variety of ways. Crypto currency nuts have this condition working for them. Anti-vax nuts have this working for them. Flat Earthers are like this. People who buy into conspiracy theories generally have a bit of this going on. Remember, the Q-anon freaks believed that JFK and John Junior were still alive, and willing to be Republicans and run with Donald Trump. That’s crazy on numerous levels. JFK would be 106 years old. That’s old enough to be Joe Biden’s dad. (Aside from the fact that he’s fully dead). The Q-anon truth vandals who created that lie have to know that it is false, and that’s how it has its greatest value to nihilists.
07/04/2023 @ 9:36 pm
Alienated by reality, yes. Willing to face it, no.
07/03/2023 @ 9:04 pm
Bitey,
Leave it to you to get it right.
07/04/2023 @ 10:09 am
Trends of lyric
Highlights [please see O/E graph upon a star as bluered X converge!] IF coffee lids were drones blue guardian angels justice maybe POWER OF LOVE blinded by the light meteors scrapnel and ash 1-2-3-4, soda crackers OH HONEY neath our nano-physics geodesic polar dome 3 conductors magical with windsheild ebony faux ivory batons all sensory-centuries ALERT awesome as dew moist hypersonic iris plumes as daisies await THUNDER Lord we don’t need another acronym singing L0;} nor crutch gauze paced that hot day toward the burn hothsettle gonna fly now over the hill — and + berms — early morning rain had 10,007 American flags that slept wet with tears tracks stacked rusted to the dawn’s sunlight shadows times 500 miles PURPLE ain’t no better day this Fourth a4th the Fifth
08/20/2023 @ 1:28 pm
Islands in the stream of conciousness comments here upon oft stray obtuse hOWLevar and lickety split cybernisity cptchat (like a sonic boom in The Room yeah sure) subliminAI compells me to underscore a superstar essay yesterday morning NYTimes by Julia Angwin {:::.}
What if You Knew What You Were Missing on Social Media?17AUG23 is an astonishing bit of fresh air. Profluence of HOPE!