Black

[Guest]

A big issue, I think, is that women who don't know anything about cars/construction think that no woman knows anything, but they assume men do. Since I deal with insurance (formerly auto, now homeowners) I work with fields that are traditionally masculine. But many of the women know far more than I do about all of it.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

So are these women customers making this assumption, then?

[Pong Messiah]

Referring back to something Kurgan said about social science gospels, I have to second Fozzie's experience.

 

When I was growing up, if I were walking around after dark with a group of people who were predominately non-white, the police would regularly stop to ask us what was going on, where we were headed, etc. Nothing super dramatic or threatening (in fact, it was often quite friendly), but it definitely let us know they were paying attention to us. I'm sure factors other than race (style of clothing, body language, noise, etc.) played into this as well, but I am also sure nobody ever asked what I was doing and where I was going while walking around with a predominately white group of teenagers.

 

To a lesser extent, this same sort of "special attention" played out at convenience stores on several occasions -- i.e. with non-whites, clerk is obviously paying very close attention to us; with whites, clerk is paying very close attention to his or her phone call or friend at the counter.

 

I would say it is nice not to feel like everybody's all "WE GOT OUR EYES ON U!" every time you are around them. Maybe even a privilege.

 

On the flip side, even in areas where race/gender is brought up as some sort of positive, I can imagine it might become a bit of a drag. I was involved in classical music for many years and can't remember anybody ever referring to "that wonderful Asian/White cellist!" but if you don't want to make a big deal about your "identity" and you are black, a dark-skinned male from Mexico/South America, or a female conductor/composer, may Zod have mercy on you! I can't speak for others, but I would personally consider it a privilege not to have people (no matter how well-intentioned) constantly referring to the significance of my "identity," almost as if my work was of secondary importance.

 

As far as not listening to women, etc. I actually see a lot more clumsy overcompensation in that area (which is its own kind of offensive) than I do genuine dismissal and disrespect, but I think that that has more to do with living in one of the most progressive, hypersensitive cities in the United States, and not working with any baby boomers. In other words: I am sure it does happen, I just don't see it myself.

 

It's also true that there are people out there who will jump down your throat, who look to take offense at the slightest provocation. But just because the Twitterverse/Tumblrverse is full of sad morons incapable of achieving orgasm without outrage, without the rush of feeling like they are constantly being slighted somehow, it doesn't mean privilege doesn't exist.

 

Privilege exists, hypersensitive twits exist. The existence of one does not negate the other.

[Copper]

I wanna like you all over right now Pong.

[The Kurgan]

I'm unapologetic, have no desire to castrate myself or anything, but it's true to a degree. It's easier for me to get a job, and to move up. I've got a friend who started in a similar position, has similar education and background. I see it all the time at work, too, and I work in an office and talk to customers regularly, but never see them face-to-face. I can legitimately talk to a customer and they'll listen to me over any woman. I can say the exact same thing and they'll believe me and yell at her.

 

So, yes, I believe there is something to be said about the privilege we have as white men, but I mainly think that it allows me to keep in mind that I'm just lucky. Sure, I work hard, but there's a lot of my career and family life that is just plain luck.

I don't actually doubt this.

 

What seems to have happened these days is that anti-racists, LGBT rights groups, feminists - leftist identity politics groups basically, have together become a lightning rod for the sorts of people who want TRUTH with a capital 'T', an infallible and eternal ideology but who cannot find it in its oldest and purest form: religion. It is particularly attractive to college social science types, hence my reference to it as their "gospel." Kids who are bright and idealistic but inexperienced, with a daunting lot of possibilities and unknowns ahead of them still in life, and more than anything, a lot of uncertainty about their own ability to realize their potential. Outside campus, or even outside the humanities faculties, this personality type may instead gravitate towards religion, or its new age relative, or conspiratism a-la Alex Jones. "When people are ripe for a mass movement, they are usually ripe for any mass movement, and not soley for one with a particular doctrine or program." Provided it resonates with them on some level and offers certainty in an uncertain world.

 

Not all who sympathize with these ideals fit this type, of course. But this type are finding progressive identity politics movements attractive today in a similar way to which the same type once was drawn to Marxism, Puritanism, nationalist movements of various kinds, and so on.

 

Here, the problem is not so much the ideologies themselves - you'd be surprised to discover just how little I find distasteful about anti-racist and feminist theory. I find plenty distasteful about the kind of people who elevate said theories to the level of Holy writ, and who treat them as if they and they alone were universally applicable to all people in all places in all circumstances. The so called 'social justice warriors', as it were. It is nothing new, really. Just one of our generation's variations on an ancient theme: People finding "faith in a holy cause to be a substitute for lost faith in themselves."

[Pong Messiah]

The religious angle is something you've brought up before, and definitely worth exploring more deeply.

 

I have seen it implied several times in the last week that when it comes to UVA, the larger narrative is more important than the facts, and just read "The One Thing the Left Can Learn from Ayn Rand," both of which lines of thought wallow in the stink of blind faith and thou shalt nots.

[The Kurgan]

As far as not listening to women, etc. I actually see a lot more clumsy overcompensation in that area (which is its own kind of offensive) than I do genuine dismissal and disrespect, but I think that that has more to do with living in one of the most progressive, hypersensitive cities in the United States, and not working with any baby boomers. In other words: I am sure it does happen, I just don't see it myself.

This is my experience also, but moreso because more of the people I know personally are progressive. But I like what you alluded to about all of this excessive fawning over women and their issues being its own kind of offensive. It is as if they doubt women's ability to manage on their own if they are not constantly being singled out for praise, told how much better they are than and are better off without men, and so forth. It's as if feminism has gone full circle in a weird sort of way: wasn't being idealized and put up on pedestals like this something the feminists once opposed?

 

It's also true that there are people out there who will jump down your throat, who look to take offense at the slightest provocation. But just because the Twitterverse/Tumblrverse is full of sad morons incapable of achieving orgasm without outrage, without the rush of feeling like they are constantly being slighted somehow, it doesn't mean privilege doesn't exist.

 

Privilege exists, hypersensitive twits exist. The existence of one does not negate the other.

Well said.

[The Kurgan]

The religious angle is something you've brought up before, and definitely worth exploring more deeply.

 

I have seen it implied several times in the last week that when it comes to UVA, the larger narrative is more important than the facts, and just read "The One Thing the Left Can Learn from Ayn Rand," both of which lines of thought wallow in the stink of blind faith and thou shalt nots.

Good article. Its criticisms of leftist thought from an objectivist perspective are actually quite good. The problem with the Randroids, though, lies in the importance of practicing what you preach. "The Unlikeliest Cult in History" is a bit of a read, but is a striking example of what happens when ideologies and their adherents make the all too common mistake of mistaking unquestioning belief in the ideology for the virtues the ideology itself supposedly promotes:

 

"Barbara Branden, in her biography, The Passion of Ayn Rand, recalls: “Although the Objectivist movement clearly had many of

the trappings of a cult—the aggrandizement of the person of Ayn Rand, the too ready acceptance of her personal opinions on a

host of subjects, the incessant moralizing—it is nevertheless significant that the fundamental attraction of Objectivism … was the

precise opposite of religious worship” (p. 371). And Nathaniel Branden addressed the issue this way: “We were not a cult in the

literal, dictionary sense of the word, but certainly there was a cultish aspect to our world … . We were a group organized around

a charismatic leader, whose members judged one another’s character chiefly by loyalty to that leader and to her ideas” (p. 256)."

That assessment could just as easily, and certainly as accurately, have been written about most feminism these days, minus the emphasis on a single leader. Knee jerk leftist hatred of Rand is amusing, but one could just as easily say the same of the Randroid's all out attacks on socialists and other "collectivists." I'm probably one of the few who's actually read Marx and Rand and think there's something to be said for both, though both are prone to rather sweeping, reductionistic assessments of complex problems. Neither are the boogeymen their adherents paint the other to be, and both are dangerous more due to the consequences that would unfold from actually trying to implement the philosophy, right down to the letter, in a real world that is not so accommodating to one-size-fits-all solutions to all of man's ills, than because of the ideas themselves.

[Justus]

So did anybody else notice in the past few weeks that the media has gone back to calling them black and not African Americans? Has this been going on for a while now but I just noticed?

 

What other ridiculous PC thing can we expect to go away next? Can we call them mentally retarded again? Will people give up the Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays bull**** now?

So, are you fine with being addressed by the 500 or so terms used for your gender, that NOW & other groups have tried to bury over the decades?

[Cerina]

what

[Justus]

You label "African American" as PC, indicating you have no problem with "black"--despite some of that group resenting that label. My question to you is--as a female, are you fine with whatever label others use to describe you--even if you resent despise it?

[Pong Messiah]

You label "African American" as PC, indicating you have no problem with "black"--despite some of that group resenting that label. My question to you is--as a female, are you fine with whatever label others use to describe you--even if you resent despise it?

Justus: is that even real?

 

If somebody asks me to use a certain term to refer to them if/when issues of ethnicity or sexuality/gender or whatever come up, I'll use it. And I know certain people are sensitive about certain terms that other people could care less about... but is there really a significant number of people who resent/despise "black" as a term?

 

[Justus]

 

You label "African American" as PC, indicating you have no problem with "black"--despite some of that group resenting that label. My question to you is--as a female, are you fine with whatever label others use to describe you--even if you resent despise it?

Justus: is that even real?

 

If somebody asks me to use a certain term to refer to them if/when issues of ethnicity or sexuality/gender or whatever come up, I'll use it. And I know certain people are sensitive about certain terms that other people could care less about... but is there really a significant number of people who resent/despise "black" as a term?

 

 

Are you kidding?

 

For innumerable African Americans, the fight to escape the implication and effect of names created / applied by others has roots as old as the nation, and has been the source of psychological chaos that continues today. There's a false assumption concluding that African Americans had (at different points in history) embraced / were "all" comfortable with "negro" "black" "colored," etc., but that is not historically accurate at all. Just as it was equally false to assume that some of same terms found in organizations such as the NAACP or United Negro College Fund were universally accepted.

 

All along, the fight to reclaim what some described as self aware nativism included group naming, carrying a weight as important as the fight for equal opportunity / protection. As African American's political/social struggles evolved, so did the desire to establish their own sense of self with no origins in the slave experience. Before you think, "but succeeding generations were not slaves, so..." the moniker(s) have an irrevocable connection to that chapter / treatment in history as again, they were the creation of others, with the recipients having no choice in the matter. That--as noted earlier--is a source of psychological chaos that in no small measure, was a motivator in the creation (recognition at its base) and use of "African American," having nothing to do with latter day tools / goals of the PC movement.

 

Consider that a short look into the matter, but it makes one wonder why some target "African American"--often citing that those using it today are not really African, yet rarely (if ever) say the same of other groups who still label themselves "(fill in the blank) Americans," but are just as removed from their ancestors. Or, they are hardly criticized for reaching back centuries to proudly claim racial, or national heritage--for present day identification purposes, but treat anyone using "African American" with contempt....

[NumberSix]

All the black coworkers I've known over the past 26 years, and all the black people I follow or run across frequently on Twitter, including collegiate intellectuals of note who you'd think would be at the front of the Complaints line, seem 100% cool with "black" whether they're talking to each other or responding to white folks, so I'm gonna go ahead and continue assuming the "African-American" nitpicky labeling thing is an old, dead, obsolete issue until and unless one of them writes a new thinkpiece that says otherwise or personally reports me to HR.

[Pong Messiah]

I'm gonna go ahead and continue assuming the "African-American" nitpicky labeling thing is an old, dead, obsolete issue until and unless one of them writes a new thinkpiece that says otherwise or personally reports me to HR.

This is where I'm at, too. I'm happy to call anybody whatever they wanna be called, and can't think of anybody expressing a preference African-American" in recent memory. Not that the subject comes up often, but still.

[Justus]

How many are you encountering to make that judgement, Pong?

[Cerina]

Probably more than that one guy you met that one time who is offended by "black".

[Justus]

Probably more than that one guy you met that one time who is offended by "black".

A foolish post having no bearing in reality does not address the issue.

[Pong Messiah]

How many are you encountering to make that judgement, Pong?

No idea -- I don't feel a need to keep a tally of every POC I have ever had a conversation with. But I can honestly tell you that I am sure nobody I know has even talked about this as an issue since before 2004... and the vast majority of people I know are pretty far to the left, and sensitive about "doing the right thing" when it comes to identity politics.

 

I am not doubting your experience, I am just sharing my own.

[Cerina]

 

Probably more than that one guy you met that one time who is offended by "black".

A foolish post having no bearing in reality does not address the issue.

 

And yet, you keep making them.

[Justus]

Translation: you are incapable of offering anything even mildly flirting with a rational response, so you swim in the pool of tired, late 1990s board nonsense.

[Pong Messiah]

there is obviously some subtext here I am missing omg

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

I totally get what Justus is saying, and I can totally see why an African American might be offended by being called black, but I don't think that the African American community (be it a majority or significant amount of the population) necessarily has a problem with the term black. But still, I can see why the term black could offend some. It is not all that different than some people calling Native Americans red skin, or Indian, which can be and is offensive. Really, the only two groups of people on forms printed by federal or local governments that actually use a color to describe people by race are white and black. You don't see yellow to describe Asians, red to describe Native American, brown to describe Latinos, etc. And there was a time when the word colored was used to describe African Americans and it wasn't offensive, but now it is. And I think it is fair to say that there was a time in the late 1980s-early 1990s that when the term African American was being introduced to the public at large, to a degree the term black DID fall out of favor.

 

I did a quick search to see if there are studies that state that there's a majority, or at least a significant amount of African Americans offended by the term "black." I found two interesting articles, but they do not state African Americans are offended by the term black, but do state many are in fact offended by the term negro (before someone says it, yes negro literally means black in Spanish and Portuguese), but I think (my opinion) it is because the word negro is very reminiscent to many of a more offensive and racist term (starts with an n), to a lot of younger people.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/11/us/new-york-juror-form-negro/

 

http://thegrio.com/2010/01/05/the-word-negro-in-2010-census-form-offends-some-blacks/

 

However, I didn't see anything indicating the term black was offensive in the same way, now. I think this may indicate that like the original point of this thread, that either a) most African American people haven't found the term black offensive, or b) the pendulum has swung back, and it isn't offensive any longer, to most.

 

That said, I think the best policy is to use the term African American when you are not sure, and if you do use the term black, and are corrected, then use the term of the person's preference.

[Justus]

there is obviously some subtext here I am missing omg

We were seconds away from the bliss of marriage....but...but...but....