Random Politics 2

[Yasna]

Eine andere Polizei ist möglich – oder?

"Thomson war Polizeichef von Camden in New Jersey, als die Stadt im Jahr 2013 ihre Polizeibehörde abschaffte. Und er wurde auch Chef der neuen Polizei, die künftig vom Landkreis überwacht werden sollte. Weil die Stadt damals alle Polizisten entließ und ein neues Modell der Kriminalitätsbekämpfung entwickeln wollte, ist sie heute wieder in den Schlagzeilen. Auf der Suche nach einem Modell für Polizeireformen schauen Aktivisten und Politiker nach New Jersey. Nachdem Polizist Derek Chauvin den Afroamerikaner George Floyd in Minneapolis tötete, hören Hunderttausende Amerikaner nicht mehr auf, für Reformen und gegen Rassismus zu demonstrieren. Und der Stadtrat von Minneapolis kündigte an, die Polizei in ihrer jetzigen Form abschaffen zu wollen[...]

„Community Policing“ sei nur der Begriff, mit dem „Broken Windows“ heute verkauft werde, sagte auch Darnell Hardwick von der Bürgerrechtsorganisation NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) in Camden. Tatsächlich war die neu geschaffene Polizei anfangs besonders aggressiv und verteilte zwischen Juli 2013 und Juni 2014 125.000 Strafzettel und Vorladungen, 97.000 mehr als im Vorjahr. Im Jahr 2014 habe die Polizei allein 99 Tickets für das Fahrradfahren ohne Klingel ausgestellt, so McQuade. Diese Art von „Nachbarschaftspolizei“ sei nichts anderes als „konstante Schikane“[...]

Der Rückgang der Zahl der Morde auf 25 im Jahr 2019 liege auch im allgemeinen nationalen Trend und nicht allein an der Polizeiarbeit. Viele Anwohner vermuteten außerdem, dass nicht alle Straftaten auch in die Statistik einflössen, auf dass die Stadt besser dastehe. Auch habe es in den letzten Jahren immer wieder Gewalttaten durch Polizisten gegeben. Camden wird zwar von vielen als Modell hochgehalten, doch auch dort gab es in den letzten Tagen Demonstrationen – für die Reform der neuen Polizei."

[linguoboy]

QotD: "We didn't wreck the economy, Republicans did."

The context is an echo chamber of USAmerican gay men of Boomer age complaining that younger folk are "missing nuance" by blaming Boomers for the mess we're in. I'm like, bro, who do you think those "Republicans" were? How old do you think Donald Trump is? Or George W. Bush? Or Lindsey Graham? One of my (conservative) friends in college never tired of pointing out that only about one in ten Boomers actually protested the war. The ones who didn't went on to engineer the Republican Revolution that led to them taking the House in 1994 after 40 years of Democratic dominance. There's this persistent myth of Baby Boomers as progressive throughout their lives that just doesn't square with reality.

[DissidentRage]

They're taking advantage of the image of their generation that was manufactured after-the-fact once members of their own generation finally got into positions of power. The liberals of their generation (as opposed to the genuine article progressives/leftists) are acutely aware of how to allocate and wield social capital, and they used their power to frame the discourse that came after.

They've effectively whitewashed how much disdain their contemporaries held for protest movements, and by making them seem to have had popular support, were able to push the narratives that:

1. The only meaningful and effective displays of dissent were peaceful; and
2. The token progress achieved by "mass populist movements" is the most anyone could "realistically" hope for.

So not only did members of their generation do serious material harm, they also helped rehabilitate the discourse to be friendlier to the limitations favored by capital.

[vijayjohn]

Interacting with white Redditors in small doses, and with other POCs who have had to deal with them in bigger doses, has been an educational experience for me. I had no idea so many white people felt so threatened by the idea of a POC being smarter than them, or indeed believed that they were the smartest people ever.

[Yasna]

"Antiracism is now what any naïve, unbiased anthropologist would describe as a new and increasingly dominant religion." - John McWhorter, 2015

2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9df35G1djk

[DissidentRage]

[linguoboy]

I mean, technically he’s right.

It’s also never been less religious. It’s still pretty goddamn religious.

[DissidentRage]

It may be technically correct but it's absolutely an argument to suggest it's no longer a problem worth addressing. It's a pretty easy argument to make when you're a well-off grifter.

[md0]

I wonder what has been making it less racist than it has ever been

[linguoboy]

I wonder what has been making it less racist than it has ever been

"White people have gotten less crazy"--Chris Rock

[Yasna]

It may be technically correct but it's absolutely an argument to suggest it's no longer a problem worth addressing.

Where has McWhorter ever suggested that racism is no longer a problem worth addressing?

It's a pretty easy argument to make when you're a well-off grifter.

He does however suggest that racism is no longer the biggest obstacle to improving the lives of black Americans, which the majority of black Americans actually agree with. Do you think they are all grifters too?

I wonder what has been making it less racist than it has ever been

The tireless work of anti-racism activists.

Just kidding. While anti-racism activism obviously does some good things, it seems to me that the primary factor in declining racism is people with racist attitudes and beliefs dying off. Progress happens one funeral at a time.

[linguoboy]

Just kidding. While anti-racism activism obviously does some good things, it seems to me that the primary factor in declining racism is people with racist attitudes and beliefs dying off. Progress happens one funeral at a time.

That begs the question, though, by failing to explain why younger people don't harbour as many racist attitudes as their forebears.

[md0]

That begs the question, though, by failing to explain why younger people don't harbour as many racist attitudes as their forebears.

Likely the nation-state monopolies on force, commerce, increased literacy and communication, as well as a rise in a rational problem-solving [1].

As for racists dying off, well I can't replicate this where I come from, since polls show that nationalist attitudes are inversely correlated with age. There must be some hidden variable somewhere.

[DissidentRage]

Where has McWhorter ever suggested that racism is no longer a problem worth addressing?

I used to be a republican and also a libertarian. You use things like that for people who aren't within your in-group, but it's a wink and nudge for the people who are. It's plausible deniability to give cover to people who will use it to extrapolate a more extreme interpretation from it.

It's the same kind of logic people use to justify "stop-and-frisk." They say it's to prevent crimes, and while it may sometimes be true (which is a whole other thing), it gives cover to it actually being motivated by just wanting to rough up POC. This kind of shit goes back to the likes of Atwater, Nixon and Goldwater.

He does however suggest that racism is no longer the biggest obstacle to improving the lives of black Americans, which the majority of black Americans actually agree with. Do you think they are all grifters too?

A lot of people believe things that aren't true. The difference is McWhorter is supposed to be an academic and an influencer. He is responsible for the information he puts out there, and it is much more crucial that he gets it right.

Given his leanings and socioeconomic positions, however, I suspect it is intentional rather than ignorance, which is in keeping with the tradition of the past 50 years since the Powell Memorandum. The business community has made a concerted effort to manufacture consent for a mode of thought described as "capitalist realism":

The widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it.

Or to put it more succinctly:

That begs the question, though, by failing to explain why younger people don't harbour as many racist attitudes as their forebears.

It's probably to do with larger populations becoming more exposed to people outside of their usual in-group and finding that stereotypes don't hold water. Also the great efforts put in to study it and transform the narratives for people at younger ages, and the large body of work of anti-racist activists to inspire people later on.

And when push comes to shove, also demonstrating that being a racist shitbag in public is detrimental to one's health.

[Yasna]

1. This picture you're painting of McWhorter as some sort of corporate shill is preposterous. He's a linguist specializing in creole language formation at a liberal ivy league university. Either produce some hard evidence or drop the wild speculations.

2. You seem to believe that being well-informed and having good intentions preclude anyone from holding right-of-center socioeconomic views. If that's the case, please educate yourself better on right-leaning thought. I'm not saying all of their ideas are correct, or that some of it isn't corporatist, but there are certainly lots of valuable ideas and analyses to be found.

3. You implied that this article proves that racism is indeed the main obstacle to improving the lives of black Americans. It doesn't. For one, they drop this bombshell in the middle of the article but fail to consider its repercussions in their conclusions.

The authors, including the Stanford economist Raj Chetty and two census researchers, Maggie R. Jones and Sonya R. Porter, tried to identify neighborhoods where poor black boys do well, and as well as whites.

“The problem,” Mr. Chetty said, “is that there are essentially no such neighborhoods in America.”

The few neighborhoods that met this standard were in areas that showed less discrimination in surveys and tests of racial bias. They mostly had low poverty rates. And, intriguingly, these pockets — including parts of the Maryland suburbs of Washington, and corners of Queens and the Bronx were the places where many lower-income black children had fathers at home. Poor black boys did well in such places, whether their own fathers were present or not.

“That is a pathbreaking finding,” said William Julius Wilson, a Harvard sociologist whose books have chronicled the economic struggles of black men. “They’re not talking about the direct effects of a boy’s own parents’ marital status. They’re talking about the presence of fathers in a given census tract.”

Other fathers in the community can provide boys with role models and mentors, researchers say, and their presence may indicate other neighborhood factors that benefit families, like lower incarceration rates and better job opportunities.

Furthermore, they don't make a single mention of culture in the entire article. Maybe culture would change very little in the results. We don't know. But to entirely disregard it means the research is at best incomplete.

[vijayjohn]

1. This picture you're painting of McWhorter as some sort of corporate shill is preposterous.

Who said anything about him being a corporate shill?

there are certainly lots of valuable ideas and analyses to be found.

Such as?

For one, they drop this bombshell in the middle of the article but fail to consider its repercussions in their conclusions.

1. how does that prove racism isn't the main problem
2. what "repercussions"

Furthermore, they don't make a single mention of culture in the entire article.

Why should they?

[DissidentRage]

1. This picture you're painting of McWhorter as some sort of corporate shill is preposterous. He's a linguist specializing in creole language formation at a liberal ivy league university. Either produce some hard evidence or drop the wild speculations.

Being a linguist isn't his only hat anymore than it is for Noam Chomsky. He's written the piece you mentioned for Reason (known libertarian rag) as well as an article for The Atlantic that, tl;dr describes "white guilt" but by another name (a known RW canard), and the common misuse of "virtue signaling." He may not necessarily be getting paid to make propaganda, but it's at least class solidarity.

2. You seem to believe that being well-informed and having good intentions preclude anyone from holding right-of-center socioeconomic views. If that's the case, please educate yourself better on right-leaning thought.

Yes. I was raised in a very conservative household and used to be a libertarian. Being well-informed and having good intentions 100% precludes you from holding right-of-center socioeconomic views. I would also extend that to centrist views.

I'm not saying all of their ideas are correct, or that some of it isn't corporatist, but there are certainly lots of valuable ideas and analyses to be found.

All right-leaning socioeconomic positions are basically a gradient scale of how much one is willing to reject social contract to benefit ruling classes.

3. You implied that this article proves that racism is indeed the main obstacle to improving the lives of black Americans. It doesn't.

I never said it doesn't, I linked it because it has data that refutes the claim that POC have similar socioeconomic mobility. Racism is a factor, but so are many other things, like class, local market demographics, etc. And even some of those other things have a complicated history with racism.

Furthermore, they don't make a single mention of culture in the entire article. Maybe culture would change very little in the results. We don't know. But to entirely disregard it means the research is at best incomplete.

Maybe culture isn't brought up because black people are not a monolith.

[Yasna]

Being a linguist isn't his only hat anymore than it is for Noam Chomsky. He's written the piece you mentioned for Reason (known libertarian rag) as well as an article for The Atlantic that, tl;dr describes "white guilt" but by another name (a known RW canard), and the common misuse of "virtue signaling." He may not necessarily be getting paid to make propaganda, but it's at least class solidarity.

White guilt is a real thing, even if it's not as widespread as some conservatives would have us believe. Accusing someone from the upper classes of "class solidarity" is one of those nebulous accusations like calling someone "reactionary" to which there is no response because there is no substance behind them. How on earth could you know with any degree of certainty whether McWhorter's position on any given issue has anything to do with his class?

Yes. I was raised in a very conservative household and used to be a libertarian. Being well-informed and having good intentions 100% precludes you from holding right-of-center socioeconomic views. I would also extend that to centrist views.

If nothing else, intellectual humility should preclude you from making such absolutist proclamations. I'll give another example of a right-of-center view that can easily be defended by a well-informed person with good intentions: "Affirmative action has caused immense harm to minority students". Study after study has confirmed this, but since the left views affirmative action as a Good Thing that any decent person who cares about racial equality must support, most leftists seem incapable of taking an honest look at the consequences of academic mismatch.

The Painful Truth About Affirmative Action

All right-leaning socioeconomic positions are basically a gradient scale of how much one is willing to reject social contract to benefit ruling classes.

This is such a transparent caricature that it can be dismissed out of hand. But I'll just point out that the interests of the ruling class and other classes often intersect in ways that a Marxist world view would leave you blind to.

Maybe culture isn't brought up because black people are not a monolith.

The reason we are able to talk meaningfully about Afro-American culture is that people within that culture tend to share certain cultural characteristics.

[vijayjohn]

White guilt is a real thing, even if it's not as widespread as some conservatives would have us believe.

The article you hyperlinked itself lends doubt to whether it's a real thing.

Accusing someone from the upper classes of "class solidarity" is one of those nebulous accusations like calling someone "reactionary" to which there is no response because there is no substance behind them.

No, it's pretty clear what class solidarity means here. Reactionary is also a pretty well-known term though frequently misused, I'm sure.

How on earth could you know with any degree of certainty whether McWhorter's position on any given issue has anything to do with his class?

Because they consistently match up?

If nothing else, intellectual humility should preclude you from making such absolutist proclamations. I'll give another example of a right-of-center view that can easily be defended by a well-informed person with good intentions: "Affirmative action has caused immense harm to minority students". Study after study has confirmed this, but since the left views affirmative action as a Good Thing that any decent person who cares about racial equality must support, most leftists seem incapable of taking an honest look at the consequences of academic mismatch.

Wow the wording at the beginning of both of those papers makes such incredibly sweeping generalizations over black people that I don't know how a human being could take them seriously without also being racist.

This is such a transparent caricature that it can be dismissed out of hand. But I'll just point out that the interests of the ruling class and other classes often intersect in ways that a Marxist world view would leave you blind to.

This seems more like an American right-wing canard than anything else; American right-wingers, for anyone who happens to be reading and isn't so familiar with American politics, have benefited significantly from convincing people to vote against their own interests.

The reason we are able to talk meaningfully about Afro-American culture is that people within that culture tend to share certain cultural characteristics.

"Afro-American" is a very broad label at least in an American context. It could mean anyone from Gullah people to people whose parents come from literally any country in Africa. Really, all (EDIT: or even most, if you prefer) of them share exactly the same cultural characteristics?

[DissidentRage]

White guilt is a real thing, even if it's not as widespread as some conservatives would have us believe.

So the exception to prove the rule?

Accusing someone from the upper classes of "class solidarity" is one of those nebulous accusations like calling someone "reactionary" to which there is no response because there is no substance behind them.

Literally the same argument neo-Nazis and other racists use when called out for supporting people and positions that line up with those mindsets. I am actually aware of the definitions of those terms and do not use them hyperbolically. When I use them, I mean it.

How on earth could you know with any degree of certainty whether McWhorter's position on any given issue has anything to do with his class?

Because it's the same arguments put out by people with similar interests.

If nothing else, intellectual humility should preclude you from making such absolutist proclamations.

It's because of knowledge of the history of right-wing thought and its motivations that I make that claim. Right-wing people are always on the wrong side of history, just as they are right now in the US on the wrong side of every single fucking issue.

I'll give another example of a right-of-center view that can easily be defended by a well-informed person with good intentions: "Affirmative action has caused immense harm to minority students". Study after study has confirmed this, but since the left views affirmative action as a Good Thing that any decent person who cares about racial equality must support, most leftists seem incapable of taking an honest look at the consequences of academic mismatch.

The Painful Truth About Affirmative Action

It's not such a cut-and-dry issue with refutations or inconclusive studies, but at its core it is ad-hoc argumentation to justify the continuation of systemic racism while pretending it doesn't exist.

This is such a transparent caricature that it can be dismissed out of hand.

No, it's not. You're demonstrating it here.

But I'll just point out that the interests of the ruling class and other classes often intersect in ways that a Marxist world view would leave you blind to.

Such intersections are largely fabricated on their part to their own ends. This was the case in the antebellum south. Racism in the US is largely the result of a concerted effort by the slave-owning population to create a false sense of solidarity among whites that was founded on a thinly-veiled threat: "you have it better than them and should feel grateful for that, because it could be you."

Actual class interests are this: employers and employees fight over who gets the higher share of labor value, with one side wanting more working hours and the other side wanting less. Anything more than that is a distraction to divide workers. They've used that pretty well to dismantle worker protections in the US.

The reason we are able to talk meaningfully about Afro-American culture is that people within that culture tend to share certain cultural characteristics.

The reason it's brought up the way that it is is because white people would rather talk about them without their input.