Random Politics 2

[Yasna]

Thomas Chatterton Williams, Glenn Loury, Coleman Hughes… Les anticonformistes de l’antiracisme

"Ecrit par la consultante blanche Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility – 1,6 million d’exemplaires vendus – part du principe que « l’identité blanche est intrinsèquement raciste ». « Si vous le niez, c’est la preuve que vous êtes raciste, un raisonnement circulaire parfaitement irréfutable qu’elle déroule d’entreprise en administration, facturant des sommes folles pour expliquer qu’il n’y a pas de solution au problème », poursuit Williams, qui exagère à peine (Robin diAngelo a notamment été invitée à s’adresser aux salariés de Google et Microsoft).

L’historien Ibram X. Kendi, auteur de How to be an Antiracist et d’Antiracist Baby, aussi un best-seller, soutient pour sa part que toute politique, toute idée, toute action est forcément raciste ou antiraciste. Est raciste toute mesure dont découle une disparité statistique entre groupes, par exemple l’évaluation standardisée des élèves ; est antiraciste l’opposé. Depuis l’université de Boston, où il dirige le premier centre de recherches sur l’antiracisme des Etats-Unis, Kendi appelle de ses vœux un nouvel amendement constitutionnel qui permettrait à un corps d’universitaires formés par lui d’examiner chaque politique au niveau fédéral, étatique et local. Le 20 août, le patron de Twitter, Jack Dorsey, lui a fait don de 10 millions de dollars."

"Adoptée à la fin des années 1960 pour prévenir toute discrimination dans le recrutement, cette méthode [audition aveugle] qui consiste à cacher les musiciens auditionnés derrière un paravent a changé le visage des orchestres symphoniques américains, qui se sont féminisés. Pour Coleman Hughes, l’audition aveugle est une réalisation chimiquement pure de la promesse méritocratique, une métaphore d’une société débarrassée de ses biais conscients et inconscients. Cet été, au nom de la justice raciale, Anthony Tommasini, le chef des critiques de musique classique du New York Times, a plaidé pour le retour des auditions sans paravent."

[vijayjohn]

Guess what, everyone? Discord is full of racists and BJP supporters. The BJP supporters start arguing politics with you once they've barely started to get to know you. Yay!

[Johanna]

Guess what, everyone? Discord is full of racists and BJP supporters. The BJP supporters start arguing politics with you once they've barely started to get to know you. Yay!

You mean that particular Discord server?

Yeah, some servers can be nasty, but there are also really good ones around that don't tolerate anything of the kind. It all depends on the people behind the server and why it was created, the ones I'm on don't really allow overt politics like that outside of a single channel, and if you try to go J. K. Rowling, you're out even then.

[Aurinĭa]

Belgium finally got a proper federal government with full federal governmental power. Somewhat more than a year since the elections, just under a full two years since the fall of the last majority government (minority governments are normally not done in Belgium). Since then we've had a minority government that resigned after less than two weeks, and became a caretaker government until March this year, when it got full powers again as a minority government thanks to the support of enough opposition parties to deal with the corona crisis for a period of six months. Also as a result of the pandemic, the prime minister swore the oath today in the European Parliament, because that way all 150 MPs could be present and still keep enough distance.

Oh, Belgium. I'd say I'd hope the politicians in charge can finally start taking proper measures to deal with the pandemic that's still ongoing, now they don't have to worry about their popularity for a while, but let's me realistic here. Politicians and sense have never been a good match.

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

How long do you think this government will last?

[Aurinĭa]

According to the two main ((very) right-wing) Flemish opposition parties, five minutes. According to me? No idea. I doubt it'll be a very stable government, though. It's the first time this kind of coalition has been formed (both socialist parties, both liberal parties, both green parties, Flemish christian democrats, so a lot of different parties), and it has an unequal language balance (French-speaking majority), and there's the whole pandemic with resulting economic crisis, not to mention several other issues. Hopefully longer than the time that's passed since the last time we had a full federal government. And if not, we could always try to break the longest government formation record again.

[vijayjohn]

Guess what, everyone? Discord is full of racists and BJP supporters. The BJP supporters start arguing politics with you once they've barely started to get to know you. Yay!

You mean that particular Discord server?

No, I encountered racists on two servers and BJP supporters on two others.

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

According to the two main ((very) right-wing) Flemish opposition parties, five minutes. According to me? No idea. I doubt it'll be a very stable government, though. It's the first time this kind of coalition has been formed (both socialist parties, both liberal parties, both green parties, Flemish christian democrats, so a lot of different parties), and it has an unequal language balance (French-speaking majority), and there's the whole pandemic with resulting economic crisis, not to mention several other issues. Hopefully longer than the time that's passed since the last time we had a full federal government. And if not, we could always try to break the longest government formation record again.

I really love Belgium but I'm so not jealous of your political system with all those governments...

[Car]

And if not, we could always try to break the longest government formation record again.[/size]

http://www.iseraleenregering.be/ will be ready.

I read about that site here.

[Aurinĭa]

http://www.iseraleenregering.be/ will be ready.

I really love Belgium but I'm so not jealous of your political system with all those governments...

I don't know, Belgium seems to function better without a federal government than many other countries with one. I know it's a bit of an extreme example, but when the US federal government can't agree on a budget, everything shuts down. When Belgium doesn't have a proper federal government, life continues as normal. It doesn't actually make much difference to ordinary people.

[vijayjohn]

Has anyone heard of Rudy Rochman? If so, what are your views on him? I'm not sure I agree with the need for borders in the first place, but I think he's trying to treat Palestinians (and others) as equal and work with them, which I see as a good thing. We could use someone like that to help normalize relations between other countries, too, like India and Pakistan.

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

http://www.iseraleenregering.be/ will be ready.

I really love Belgium but I'm so not jealous of your political system with all those governments...

I don't know, Belgium seems to function better without a federal government than many other countries with one. I know it's a bit of an extreme example, but when the US federal government can't agree on a budget, everything shuts down. When Belgium doesn't have a proper federal government, life continues as normal. It doesn't actually make much difference to ordinary people.

Yes that's definitely true!

[md0]

The peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan really caught me by surprise this morning.
Last night I read that Azerbaijan downed a Russian helicopter and killed two Russian soldiers, which made me think Russia will enter the conflict and that Azerbaijan would be in trouble. Today, a treaty brokered by Russia that is very favourable to Azerbaijan.

Did anyone see that coming?

[vijayjohn]

I keep hearing bits and pieces off and on about this recent war(?) between Armenia and Azerbaijan, so I don't actually know anything about what is or was going on there. I do remember reading a little bit about such a conflict in the 90s, though.

[linguoboy]

I keep hearing bits and pieces off and on about this recent war(?) between Armenia and Azerbaijan, so I don't actually know anything about what is or was going on there. I do remember reading a little bit about such a conflict in the 90s, though.

I was following the conflict very closely in the 90s. I was caught off guard by it flaring up again and I'm almost equally surprised to hear such a quick resolution. I guess Russia really brought its full weight to bear this time.

[vijayjohn]

I actually first heard about the recent conflict on the Discord server for Azerbaijan, which I ended up leaving soon afterwards because it's just way too active for my taste and I don't think my presence there was especially welcome anyway.

[Osias]

[vijayjohn]

What are you so surprised about this time?

[Osias]

Every language forum I ever saw welcomes very well foreign learners. Maybe it's for Ajerbaijan the country and not whatever language they speak there. Maybe they didn't even know you were a foreign learner.

[vijayjohn]

It's not a language forum, though. It's a Discord server, and yes, it was for the country, not for the language spoken there, though it did also have chatrooms at least in Azeri, Russian, Turkish, and Persian, and I believe a few other languages or groups of languages.

EDIT: Oh, and they definitely knew I was a foreigner. That was precisely why I don't think I was welcome: The server owner wanted more Azeris there and told the person who invited me in to stop bringing in so many foreigners.