I understand, but they're still complicit in the suffering and mental anguish of a neuroatypical person.

How so? It may be fair to say that popular American culture portrays black men as more violent than other groups, if that’s what you’re suggesting.

Ignoring an advantage ≠ ignoring racism.

Harry is a racist apologist and MAGA-moron, — 180 Proof

How can you tell it's that, and not that he's just unaware of what's going on around him?

Ignoring an advantage ≠ ignoring racism. — NOS4A2

People aren't racist because they dislike diversity. They're racist out of ignorance and/or because they know, perhaps not even on a conscious level, that it gives them an advantage over the marginalized group in some way.

There are 3 kinds of "color blindness". Only one of them qualifies as any kind of virtue.

1. Failure, feigned or not, to perceive phenotypic differences between groupings: skin tone, facial features, and hair primarily. This is either disingenuousness or a perceptual or cognitive defect.

2. A disinclination or conscious refusal to make unwarranted associations with the perceptions of 1.

3. A failure, feigned or not, to apprehend the reality and the consequences of a societal and historical ~2. This failure can happen due to :

• Obliviousness/stupidity
• A desire to maintain ~2's hierarchy and perquisites by hiding ~2.
• An internalization of ~2 so that the resulting hierarchy and perquisites appear to be the natural order of things, not a product of ~2.
• Any/all of the above

@NOS4A2 partakes of the ignominious 3, while defensively (and disingenuously) pretending virtuous participation in 2.

All I fail to apprehend is the classification of human beings into pseudoscientific taxonomies, which are as ridiculous as the day they were born. One needn’t use these taxonomies to recognize that people apply entire stereotypes to them, draw false conclusions from them, and abuse others because of them.

One needn’t use these taxonomies to recognize that people apply entire stereotypes to them, draw false conclusions from them, and abuse others because of them. — NOS4A2

What exactly do you mean by claiming that people abuse others because of pseudoscientific taxonomies? If I want to abuse or marginalize a group I can creatively contrive any number of classifications that may facilitate my efforts, to the weak minded and/or unprincipled.

Not "the presence of black people", friend, but the presence of anti-black bigots in his (early) life.

I referred to his post history on this thread so you (or anyone who's interested) can see for yourself what I had gathered in two years of reading and interacting with him.

I believe that “race” is a pseudoscientific taxonomy, and that whole swaths of people should not be demarcated within those abstract boundaries. I believe that such a fake demarcation has allowed racists to run roughshod on entire groups of people, and I simply refuse to adopt it in my thinking.

Okay good, you agree that such demarcations allow or facilitate abuse rather than cause it. If you’re actually interested in solving a problem it’s usually best to deal with the cause of it.

I referred to his post history on this thread so you (or anyone who's interested) can see for yourself what I had gathered in two years ago of reading and interacting with him. — 180 Proof

:up:

Okay good, you agree that such demarcations allow or facilitate abuse rather than cause it. If you’re actually interested in solving a problem it’s usually best to deal with the cause of it.

Do you apply these pseudoscientific taxonomies to human beings?

Ummm....what did they do to Trump, actually?

The GOP utterly failed to do the choreographed selection of the party nominee (unlike the Democrats, who can rely on the ever loyal Bernie to lure in progressives and social democrats) and got a wild card with Trump. And the party is now in a state of disarray, but still holding on two the duopoly.

And let's face it: many in both parties would likely want to change things, but once the dance is going on with a certain tune, you cannot start to tango when everybody else is doing a square dance. There is no evil solid entity lurking in the shadows, no Illuminati. There are just people who think they can control the dance. Yes, there is a power elite in every country. But don't think they agree on things and can act in an uniform fashion. It's more like things happen and the elite accepts it or tries to manage somehow the process. — ssu

Trump ran on fighting corruption, like so many other politicians. Whether they actually did anything or not to fight corruption isn't what I'm trying to focus on.

I'm assuming that when you, ssu, say that you want to fight corruption you really mean it. You don't have any ulterior motives and that if you see Democrats engaged in corruption, you will fight them as hard as any Republican you see engaged in corruption, nor will you be allowing certain corporations to continue to engage in corruption because they are donating to your campaign. I hope you would assume the same thing when I say that I want to fight corruption.

Now when both parties are engaged in the same kind of corruption, then investigating one can be a threat to the other. You and I will become the enemy of both and there will be a lot worse than impeachment that you and I would be facing.

Both parties need each other, 1) to keep the nation united and not have states secede, or another civil war break out, and 2) to have someone else to blame when your ideas fail.

When you say that there are many in both parties that would likely want change, what do you mean by "change"? Anything other than abolishing all political parties and lobbyists isn't any type of change from the status quo.

Ok stop. He's in jail because a reporter deemed the facts suspicious, looked into it, and raised a stink, THEN they investigated the murder like they were supposed to. — frank

Ok, stop asking reasonable questions? How religious.

The police don't know who has been killed until they have been called. Someone has to call the police for them to do something. Think of how many people are lying dead in some wilderness without anyone knowing that they are dead or even missing. Who was suppose to call the police and didn't in the case of Ahmaud Arbery? Who called the reporter? Did they also contact the police? How did the video of the killing get out? These are all reasonable questions that I would expect a reasonable person to try to answer, and not tell me to stop. If they were really interested in the truth, then getting the answers to these questions would be the goal, not trying to shut the person up that is asking the questions. They're questions, not statements or arguments.

What does a nation with systemic racism look like vs a nation that doesn't have systemic racism but has pockets of racism in some areas? — Harry Hindu

I don't know what this diatribe is about. Sounds like you're taking something personally. — frank

Asking what the difference is between the two is taking things personally? It seems to me a valid question that you are simply incapable of answering so you make a personal stab at me, committing an ad hominem fallacy, equivalent to a fundamentally religious person calling me a "sinner" for asking questions about their definition of "god".

Anti-vaxxer's are like climate change deniers, or in the case specific to this topic, systemic racism deniers, and are positions often taken to express tribal solidarity. I agree that the foundation of this is like religion and the value it places on social solidarity over truth or actual principles. — praxis

LOL. Just go back and listen to how the left was anti-vaxxers when Trump was president. If it was a Trump vaccine, they weren't going to take it. Now that we're under a Democrat administration, we're suppose to take it? It's the same fucking vaccine!! You see, the political parties are expecting you, like most people, to forget what they said just a couple of years ago.

Equating Anti-vaxxers to these other people is the problem I am talking about. Again, labeling people without having talked to them in order to understand them is the problem. It's just regurgitating the talking points of a particular political party, who's existence is dependent on people like you helping them demonize a certain group that you've never met or talked to.

Science never makes the claim to truth. Science expects the questioning of everything. It's not science that is dictating the truth. It is politicians and their constituents that use science to promote their own truth. Asking questions is scientific. Not asking questions is participating in group-think. Everyone should have the right to question authority. You shouldn't take offense to people asking questions about someone's claims.

I don't think that it's particularly controversial to claim that the economic recovery would be aided by as many people getting vaccinated as quickly as possible. I've heard people claim that the vaccine is more dangerous than the cure, even for the elderly. I have yet to hear what I think is a reasonable explanation for not getting vaccinated. Do you know of any? — praxis

So, the claim that the vaccine is more dangerous than the cure, even for the elderly isn't something you heard that is a reasonable explanation for not getting vaccinated? I'm confused on that point.

How is the economic recovery being helped if the vaccinated still have to mask themselves - when we have to go back to the authoritarian mandates that hurt the economy in the first place?

Trump ran on fighting corruption

And, like Nixon, he succeeded beautifully. Nothing guarantees a mass locking up of politicians and their affiliates than the President drawing attention to how particularly corrupt he is, not just for a President, but for a human being.

Irrelevant to the point I made had you read the entire post (but history shows that you aren't interested in reading the whole post, hence the reason why so many of your arguments fall flat in the context of the whole post that you are "responding" to.)

When is it okay to invesitgate the corruption of your political opponents? When you are absent any corruption yourself? Which politician fits this definition? Any that do are the very ones whose political carreer will come to a quick and decisive end. That is the whole point - that investigating corruption has now been defined as corrupt. It's the oldest tactic in the political playbook - blame them for the same thing that you're doing.

LOL. Just go back and listen to how the left was anti-vaxxers when Trump was president. — Harry Hindu

I won’t bother asking you to support this in any meaningful way.

So, the claim that the vaccine is more dangerous than the cure, even for the elderly isn't something you heard that is a reasonable explanation for not getting vaccinated? I'm confused on that point. — Harry Hindu

I’ve heard some people claim that the earth is flat.

Still confused?

How is the economic recovery being helped if the vaccinated still have to mask themselves — Harry Hindu

The vaccinated need to wear masks because…?

Irrelevant to the point I made had you read the entire post — Harry Hindu

Oh, I wasn't responding to you or your broader point per se, hence not linking to your post, I was just pointing out for the broader board that Republicans actually do have a fully worked out and successful approach for punishing the corrupt in politics. I was uninterested in the rest of your post which was, as standard, wide of the mark.

I'm assuming that when you, ssu, say that you want to fight corruption you really mean it. You don't have any ulterior motives and that if you see Democrats engaged in corruption, you will fight them as hard as any Republican you see engaged in corruption, nor will you be allowing certain corporations to continue to engage in corruption because they are donating to your campaign. I hope you would assume the same thing when I say that I want to fight corruption. — Harry Hindu

The guiding principle is simply that laws would be literally followed.

Giving outright bribes isn't tolerated anywhere. Yet we all understand where the slippery slope is here, where the true crucible of democracy lies. When laws simply aren't followed, when people who ought to be punished for braking the law aren't because the laws aren't enforced, then there is still hope. Simply abide by the laws, period. Once when corruption is simply made legal, then it's truly a problem. For example this is real challenge in the US is that the corruption is made legal only a real dork like the Vietnam fighter ace "Duke" Cunningham who turned politician made made a price list of how much to pay him for what amount of contract.

(Corruption as the clearest: Scan of a document submitted as evidence by the prosecution and included in their February 2006 sentencing memorandum against Cunningham, penned by his own hand on his own Congressional office stationery for the benefit of "co-conspirator#2" (defense contractor Mitchell Wade). The left column lists millions of dollars of government contracts; the right column lists the thousands of dollars in bribes required to secure them.)

Cunningham pleading guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes and under-reporting his taxable income for 2004. He pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion, and conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, and wire fraud. He was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison and was ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution.

Needless to say, President Trump pardoned Duke Cunningham.

I cannot be bothered with the concept of race — NOS4A2

After Kant we can say to refuse to consider race as a valid category is to deny the concept any rationality at all. How are we to address this? I can only understand this (mostly because of ignorance) through analytical philosophy, rather than as a social commentary. After Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, we can see that the "concept of race" has its own "grammar" as he calls it: the way it does what it does, the criteria for its identity, what counts in assessing it, what matters about it to us (here there seems at least two of "us"), the terms of its judgment--our criteria for race, and, of course, racism (separately, I think, perhaps even from "racist").

The point here is that the concept does not have anything to do with you (personally, individually) and your cares or refusals; it stands apart, like langauge, or culture. Our concepts: thinking, believing, knowing, apologizing, threatening, subjugating--all the whirl of human activity and expression--were here before you.

You do not "mean"--as if: intend or cause or control--your words and expressions. You say something (maybe choose to say it even, what to say) but then in a sense it is no longer yours (except to clarify after). How expressions have meaning to us was already there, existing before you, and whatever "reference" you believe you want (to outside/or from inside) is not for you to now decide. Now you can say you misspoke, offer excuses, apologize, but to say: "that is not what I meant" is limited to very specific distinctions, already built into the senses/uses an expression provides for (unless an extraordinary context, or poetry, etc).

So, categorically (to be part of the concept), the grammar of racism--the, in a sense, logic of it, based on the history of our lives--is not based on how you feel or your opinions (this is not a decision); this is to conflate "racism" or "racist" with the concept of prejudice. Racism does not care about your idea of yourself. And so your desire to be beyond judging (thus judgment), your sense of being just, your hopeful idealism--none of that matters (is weighed in). You want to claim (dictate) criteria of character and affirmation of the other. These are neither yours to grant, assume, nor impose. To believe you are doing right, what you are convinced is good, is to imagine you can will justice (righteously) into the world. Desire, feeling, belief, imagination--I'm sure the intention is well-meant, but your intention, as your meaning, disappears from the calculation of a concept. What you mean or intend from your act or expression are nothing to us unless there is something phishy, as in: "What did you intend here"? (Austin) To strip away the criteria of a concept--here overlaying equality, neutrality; to put everything, as it were, on a level field--is to turn from the "bumpy" ground (Wittgenstein) of the manners of our practices, toward an abstract, general, pre-decided ideal. But imposing a standard, abstract from any context, provides privilege to those favored by the current situation.

To see the problem as generalized (and yet within you) comes from a desire to solve the truth of your separateness from others, the possibility of your moral failure, with an intellectual solution. However, despite your desire for a certain, universal answer or rule of action, you are responsible for your response (or lack thereof--what you find is your duty is your own); it forms your character (higher than knowledge, Nietszche and Emerson will agree). The Other makes a claim on us (Wittgenstein says we do not know another's pain, we react to it (or ignore it); that we are not of the opinion that another has a (individual) soul, we see them as if they do, or not). Wittgenstein would call imposing requirements for our moral acts the sublimation of our concepts--the stripping away of our ordinary criteria and any context--our active avoidance of the Other with our convictions (PI, p. 191); not letting them come to us on their terms (Heidegger).

All of this choosing and willing and intention begs the question of what it is that might be hidden--maybe "behind" your morality, what you feel you act from--in controlling the terms of the conversation. An analogy is our blindness of the Other by our selves. Then your action is violence (a distinction always pushing away something else), your speech is suppression (of all that is unsaid), your vision (your picture) for yourself and for the just world is your ignorance--your opinion/knowledge ignores our shared criteria; how you want to treat people ignores the Other. Cavell writes in the Claim of Reason that the horror of slavery was not seeing slaves as inhuman, but, in your words "affirming another as an [equal] individual" while they are in chains.

Much as language functions on grammar already in place in our lives, so racism (by its grammar) is in the structure of our society, our culture. So what is the grammar of racism? (An honest question for investigation by all of us, each to see for themselves.) What counts towards it, what are the criteria: for identity, judgment, excuses, pardons, reconciliation? The picture of its grammar as overt and individual acts directed at the race of the Other (judged as bad) limits and allows me to control my exposure (I'm not a racist!). In addition, economic opportunity, education, enforcement of justice, and other fabric of our society are embedded with consequences for the race of the Other. The individual act subsumed into the institution (its policies, its goals, its measures of success). The overt act became unseen, implicit, ignoring the implications for the Other, from us (our shared unconscious as it were). We are compromised by those implications and culpable to them as we are for our picturing of the criteria of the concept. Our "self"-knowledge is our understanding these implications and consequences of our acts and expressions and institutions and culture. To make intuition into tuition as Emerson would say.

Why are we teaching kids to be conscious of another’s race, and to factor it into their judgements and treatment of others? ...racializing people and being overly conscious of their race and skin-color... — NOS4A2

Teaching being "conscious of", the "factor [ s in ]... judgement", the "treatment of"--simply--"others", is to universalize our concepts, generalize them until they are abstract from any context, such as the Other's--not their situation, nor yours, nor ours. None. But making explicit the grammar of race is learning about ourselves, becoming aware, accounting for our part (Cavell calls it, the education of adults). A claim to the implications of race are subject to discussion, reasons, evidence, flushing out contexts, etc., for you to see for yourself, to know the self you publicly bind yourself to, or when you claim different implications, criteria. So your characterization of the racializing of people and that classifications based on race are dubious, are legitimate, at least as claims, as are the claims you take issue with. Unfortunately, that we can disagree (maybe without resolution--after your spade is turned, I argue that Wittgenstein means to @Banno @Luke), does not justify your skeptical reaction that there is no rationality to the concept of race and to strip all criteria and context away. This negation of the concept at all, in a sense, kills the conversation about those claims--the conversation of justice--before it even begins.

...and some folk don't think Austin and Wittgenstein are about ethics. That was one of the best posts I've seen hereabouts.

Thanks, I tagged you and @Luke of course out of respect for your skill at noticing any need to clarify/correct, which would be appreciated.

I certainly ignore the concept of “the Other” and of race, but only because I think they collectivist crutches for people incapable of individuation, who cannot see past their skulls for the things outside of them. Your value for people does not seem to extend beyond your conceptions and categories to real being. I do not ignore, nor cannot ignore, how these ideas are used to justify the nonsense that is the consequence of this thinking.

I believe that “race” is a pseudoscientific taxonomy, and that whole swaths of people should not be demarcated within those abstract boundaries. I believe that such a fake demarcation has allowed racists to run roughshod on entire groups of people, and I simply refuse to adopt it in my thinking. — NOS4A2

Okay good, you agree that such demarcations allow or facilitate abuse rather than cause it. If you’re actually interested in solving a problem it’s usually best to deal with the cause of it. — praxis

Do you apply these pseudoscientific taxonomies to human beings? — NOS4A2

So do modern anti-racists reject or apply the pseudoscientific taxonomy?

They apply it.

And what, pray tell, are you not applying it to? Human beings.

Now that that’s cleared-up, where were we going with that?

I’m also not shooting or doing backflips over human beings. I don’t know where we’re going with that.