But…
Oh I think I know this guy from reddit
That guy is reddit
Hate to break it to everyone but many of those people found their way here too. Which is why this post is sitting at 74% upvotes as of my writing… They don’t appreciate being called out.
Waiting for one of them to chime in with why the person depicted in the meme is good actually
Something something marketplace of ideas
It’s the guy above in this thread saying “Strawman arguments are so boring & ineffectual.”
Yes, I saw that one.
I’ve also seen that user in other posts, behaving just as you’d expect lol
I looked at their history and didn’t really see anything like that. Remember an example?
Tell me you don’t understand how party politics & voting work without telling me you don’t understand how party politics & voting work
…to someone who clearly does understand how party politics and voting work, but it understandably disillusioned by the fact that we have two right-wingers to choose from, albeit one much further to the right than the other. Completely handwaves the negative effects of Democrats’ actions, which are very much in need of criticism.
I voted for Biden, but it’s been increasingly disappointing to watch stuff like this. Biden opened more concentration camps, Biden continued the wall, Biden took power away from railroad workers in favor of his own lobbyists’ approach, and supported the IRS in auditing unprecedented numbers of low wage earners. We need to talk about these things. This partisan teat-sucking shit needs to stop.
And if that’s “just how the system works,” then we need a new one. If families need to be imprisoned while Washington moves glacially, then fuck anything and anyone who enables that.
Ironically, by calling everyone a Russian psy-op who dares criticize the party, Democrats are alienating all except their most conservative voters.
Hey now, as an upper-middle class politically “center” white heterosexual cis male with “I don’t have to shave daily” five o’clock shadow, I’m offended 🥸
It’s probably worse than that. Those of us that took it as a good reason to leave reddit are very special.
Perhaps if we create further divisions amongst ourselves along lines of race, gender, and sexuality, we can ascend above these divisions.
… Wait a minute.
Yeah but they’ll soon realize how bored they get because of how few people there are here. Why go waste effort to anger like 50 people when they can go around angering over 1,000? Big difference.
Smaller online communities are the antidote for what I’ve got. For a lot of reasons
I downvoted this because I don’t like it
Yeah! Some stereotypes are A-OK!
Is that the pedo guy?
I think that’s just the CEO
You think that guy isn’t also on Lemmy?
Never said he’s not
If you look, you might see him in this very thread
Homer shriek
Willing to bet they’re on Kbin, Kbin favors trolls more than Lemmy does, since they have significantly worse moderation and some kbin instances have no moderation.
Serious response, but that’s almost certainly some random guy who got paid like 100 bucks by a stock image company. I always feel bad when a real person’s likeness gets applied to horrible ideological positions they probably don’t personally endorse just because they look like a stereotypical chud.
Yeah true. I was focused more on the concept than the guy, but I can see what you’re saying. The literal guy in the photo might be a really great person for all we know.
bullshit, he’s white and an obvious KKK grand wizard
I think this guy is reddit.
I believe self reflection is a requirement for personal growth. I think its important to accept outside criticism to better one’s self as well.
I’ve read this text now probably 10 times, and trying to see if this applies to me. I can’t tell if I’m misinterpreting the message here or if I’m interpreting it right and what I do sometimes thinking is helpful actually isn’t. Is this reading comprehension failure on my part or a poorly encoded communication? I’m interested in your feedback positive or negative.
Many other people’s struggles are theoretical to me in the sense that I don’t experience them personally, but can certainly listen to those experiencing them and the negative effects on their lives, and many times how their challenges also mean all the rest of us not experiencing that problem also are less because of it.
Is the text in the image advocating that “because I don’t experience these firsthand, I should hold my tongue when I see/hear someone advocating for things that would cause these struggles to increase”? As an example: I have no problem casting a ballot in an election. I can get time off from work. My polling place is always safe and well staffed. There are early voting days for at least a week prior to election day including access in evening hours and weekends. I have easy transportation to and from it. No one is targeting me demographically to try to remove me from voter rolls. However, I understand in many places in the country my fellow citizens trying to vote don’t have this same situation and have challenges just being able to cast a ballot.
Is the above text telling me that I shouldn’t speak out against those trying to increase the difficulty of voting on behalf of those that are facing the challenges to vote just because I don’t experience it? I’m certainly not trying to take up all the oxygen, but am I doing that unintentionally? Is this text telling me to be quiet if I’m not personally affected by the particular challenge being discussed? I don’t think so, but whats the nuance I’m missing?
The meme is more targeting so-called “devil’s advocates” and people who argue from a position of extreme privilege. An example I can think of is people hand-waving away the existence of concentration camps and Democrats’ role in colonialist border policy, which is easy for someone to say who’s not imprisoned in those camps.
Or implying we need to compromise on LGBT+ equality, etc.
Does that sound like what you’re doing? I’m not seeing that sort of thing in your description.
It’s ok to be a vocal ally or supporter of a cause, but “devil’s advocates” usually don’t have anything worthwhile to contribute.
”devil’s advocates”
Aka the “just asking questions” crowd.
JAQ-offs if you will.
Yes! So good.
I do love doing devil’s advocate where it helps me and my friends understand our position when faced with these questions. But I’m definitely not playing it all the time.
I think it depends. When someone starts playing “devil’s advocate” with me about the US border when I literally have friends and loved ones being wrongfully imprisoned or deported, I’d say they get a negative score on the empathy meter.
Or people playing “devil’s advocate” about trans people in sports when they themselves are not trans, I’d say the same.
In fact, I can’t think of an example in which someone can play devil’s advocate without being so far removed from the topic at hand that they’d perhaps benefit from forestalling sharing their opinion, though I imagine between friends might be such a case, as you said.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding what “Devil’s Advocate” means. It’s literally the argument of the “Devil”
The way I’ve always used it was to lay out the arguments of my opposition, to predict how they’d think so I could prepare counters accordingly.
If somebody is claiming to play devil’s advocate while voicing their own stances, they just know they have the wrong opinion on a topic and are trying to shield themselves from scorn.
they just know they have the wrong opinion on a topic and are trying to shield themselves from scorn
This very thing, but I’m not so sure they know their position is wrong per se. They just know they won’t be able to defend it.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/devil-s-advocate
You used it correctly.
I play devils advocate when people are talking about how to handle homeless population, taxes, etc., but if they try to debate human rights, I agree that they can f- off.
Homeless population debates are about human rights. People who dehumanize the homeless or NIMBYs who want them displaced are horrible people.
Yes, exactly, but we all have different solutions on how to deal with the underlying issue, or even what the underlying issue actually is. I take a different stance depending on the discussion with my friends so we can poke holes in the argument together and really understand the underlying issue together. That’s what devils advocate is really for.
I’m super progressive, so I think we should be having safe use sites, making all drugs legal. For the drugs that can kill from withdrawal, we should be supplying this at these safe use sites with the hopes of weaning them off. As for homes, we just don’t have enough. Get rid of these stupid parking lots in the cities that only ever have a dozen or so cars in them and just build subsidized housing.
You’re over-analyzing it. It’s a shitpost about people who shitpost about not voting for Biden and the people who shitpost in response to the not-vote-for-biden shitpost.
Unless you were shitposting; bravo if so sir.
It’s a shitpost about people who shitpost about not voting for Biden
So an inside-inside joke? Too meta for me, I guess. It went over my head. Thanks for responding though.
Unless you were shitposting; bravo if so sir.
Sadly, I’m not that clever.
I don’t think it’s actually all that meta to the general users here. I think the population here is heavily skewed very left (even compared to reddit) and this is general sentiment, exaggerated into a meme.
Doubtful you are taking up all the oxygen in the room friend, you are trying to learn about others to cultivate a varied and nuanced opinion. The type of engagement being described here is more specific…
What happens a lot of the time is people coming on and basically trying to tell people what their deal is. I am trans and people in this category of engagement come at me and try to insist things directly to my face about me which simply do not reflect how being trans works. They can’t argue me out of my position when it represents my lived reality but they will argue from a position that they are an authority that can tell me what is best for me… Or they argue from a position of a society that just doesn’t have time or patience to care and shouldn’t need to expend effort to care. They desperately have an opinion because everyone is talking but they get their sources strictly from cis people who talk strictly to other cis people about us because talking to us and letting us tell them what our deal is ourselves is unthinkable. Our accounts if reality are discounted because we are supposed to be delusional and someone else, a cis person, should be making decisions for us. To actually approach us as an authority on what it is like to live our lives is by them considered a radical position.
A lot of it can be easily spotted in how someone had their whiteness pointed out to them or mention how the concept of whiteness operates in society. Basically because whiteness is supposed to be a default just mentioning it tends to make white people uncomfortable to talk about it. That we think about our whiteness as little as possible is a feature of privilege and not a comfort extended to POC who operate in ways that interface with their race regularly. So when we discuss that privilege it brings us in line with the level of conscious awareness POCs tend to have about how their race routinely impacts their experience and rather than seeing that as an equality and sensitivity to be aware of their own whiteness in a space people treat it as a racist attack because we aren’t supposed to even be a race - just a raceless default.
Problem is if trans or POC people talk about cisness or whiteness then suddenly there’s a hissy fit about how we shouldn’t even mention those things. They are treated like slurs because we aren’t supposed to notice you’re cis and white. It is the thing we cannot speak on… But try being a minority and NOT discussing the majority. Our we don’t get to choose how our society operates, the majority does which means every time we leave the house we deal with the majority while members of majority and the minority themselves only gets to see a minority rarely. Our lives are limited by the will of a majority and sometimes that means discomfort, inconvenience or pressure exerted on us by them. You can’t talk about us without understanding what you look like from our perspective. So in saying “you can’t talk about us!” the burden falls on us because we can’t really use comparison or try and utilize what we know of your norms to explain what ours are.
If you are self aware that people who experience a thing directly have insights you can learn from. This guy in the meme isn’t you.
Its funny that you are only sitting on a positive comment score because you prefaced your question with several paragraphs of self-flagellation, humbling yourself and accepting to being patronized
Is this text telling me to be quiet if I’m not personally affected by the particular challenge being discussed
It’s telling you that you must believe and acquiesce to those that have standpoint. So not “being quiet,” but actively swallowing whatever they throw at you as “truth” and following their political will
Its funny that you are only sitting on a positive comment score because you prefaced your question with several paragraphs of self-flagellation, humbling yourself and accepting to being patronized
Is an honest conversation that foreign to you? Are you suggesting I need to wrap myself in bravado instead for some reason? I’m pretty comfortable in who I am with both my strengths and weaknesses. I’d like to encourage everyone to get to the place where they can be too.
It’s telling you that you must believe and acquiesce to those that have standpoint. So not “being quiet,” but actively swallowing whatever they throw at you as “truth” and following their political will
Slow down there a bit. You’re deciding what I believe already when I hadn’t even yet. You rush too quickly to judgment, apparently of the message and of me. I understand why. Simple pre-decided narratives are comfortable. However, we do ourselves a disservice if we don’t test our values internally. If my values and beliefs stand the test of scrutiny, then they are defensible and valid . If they crumble when examined, then perhaps I need new values and beliefs.
The first step is to decode the message which was confusing to me. If you’ll notice, on my reading came away with two distinct possible messages, and allowed for any number of others. That doesn’t mean accepting its premise as fact or belief. It might later, but that isn’t decided when one is still seeking to understand the premise of what is being said.
In the end, the original message was a shitpost joke instead of something with deeper meaning that I thought it might be. So it was right of me to seek understanding of the original message, instead of a rush to judgment.
OP is just saying people who disagree with them are bad. You can’t figure out the meaning because there is none.
Ok, so what’s the implication about white people here?
If I can play devil’s advocate here…
Straight white man bad
white = bad unless you think you’re the opposite sex, then it’s ok.
There is literally a slur specifically aimed at white women (Karen). It’s okay in feminist circles to say that white women should shut up. And here’s a study that shows people also ethnically mark white women.
I don’t think there is a group you can belong to that’s not stereotyped badly in some way.
Fuckin lol’d. 🤣
The implication is less about white people and more about the people posting this shit.
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
OP wasn’t funny either, just confusing.
Ah, this is “a lesson about how to exclude white people (still the majority of the country) from any social justice movement.” Characterize and belittle any of them who try to engage and support a cause.
If they can’t relate and want to have a conversation about it but challenge some of the ideas then they’re the baddies. If they don’t just repeat the movement’s slogans without thought then clearly they should be excluded. This honestly feels like a right wing subversion tactic.
Yes, I know there are people like the post. People who love to argue and do it for the fun of arguing. Those people do cause trouble if you’re trying to get a consensus or get something done… But just like “welfare , queens” or criminal illegal immigrants, they feel like the minority where this is intending to paint a large group of people with the same brush.
It’s usually not good to make fun of people who are trying to help, or you teach people to shut down and not engage with your cause. If the statement is you have to have experienced or you can’t relate, then why bother having a movement because you’re not trying to convince anybody who isn’t already on your side.
The country of lemmy.world?
It’s funny to me comments are distracting with the white guy while dismissing the liberal hypocrisy he imbues.
maybe because the first sentence is “i’m a white man”
It’s because Lemmy had an influx of new conservative sign ups.
Why would conservatives choose Lemmy over Reddit? Genuinely. Lemmy is the explicitly leftist answer to Reddit, at least in intention.
Not all conservatives are Republicans and Trump supporters. Joe Manchin, Liz Cheney, Joe Lieberman, etc. Many Democrats have conservative leanings.
Yes, and my point still stands. Lemmy is explicitly modeled in leftist fashion, not liberal or fascist, or any other conservative ideology.
It’s just interesting, that’s all. Choosing Lemmy isn’t an accident, it’s a fringe community formed due to the failures of Reddit. Choosing Lemmy over Reddit is an inherently political choice.
How exactly is this NOT racist?
It’s not necessary a “white” person, for example I once had a discussion with a black American who took this position depicted here, a big Obama fan and free market defender
“i can’t be racist, i have a black friend”
because it’s against the “bad” race.
Tell me you don’t understand what white supremacism is without telling me you don’t understand what white supremacism is.
It’s interesting that was your response.
It’s interesting how vilifying an entire group of people based on the skin color is not considered racist if that skin color is white.
Historically “racist” is the bunk pseudoscience that claimed white people are more intelligent than other racial groups. When you refer to someone in the modern age as racist you are comparing them to those idiots. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to compare somebody to that group for disliking white people.
To answer the deeper question you’re hinting at, although the post is racially predigest, making fun of white people for being white is generally considered punching up which is not frowned on in the same way as punching down.
Considered punching up? Is that not racist itself? If a non-white considers making fun of white people to be “punching up”, then do they consider themselves as lesser than white people? We are all human, and discriminating based on race is racist regardless of the race.
Punching up/down isn’t in reference to some scale of a person’s value, but in reference to how much somebody struggles. While in this case is is about race it doesn’t have to be. Making fun of somebody for having cancer for instance would be punching down because they are already struggling with that thing.
Obviously it can get nuanced pretty easily. People like Caitlyn Jenner are so privileged that the systemic oppression/hate of trans people probably don’t effect her very much, so it’s probably not punching down to make fun of her, though others may disagree.
It may make more sense to rephrase it as “don’t hit someone when they’re already on the ground”.
back pedal, back pedal!!!
Which part felt like back pedaling?
I’m honestly trying to debate in good faith.
“punching” people in any direction simply for the color of their skin makes you a racist piece of shit.
it really is that straightforward…
…
it’s also an extremely online thing to do, and something you probably don’t go around doing in person… because you know what it really is…
“Whites,” have Cultural Hegemony.
lol.
It’s interesting that you aren’t answering the question.
The meme is a critique of those at the top of the dominant social hierarchy. To question the legitimacy of the critique is acquiescence to that hierarchy. Robin DiAngelo explains it better.
I don’t think you understand the words you used. You didn’t actually explain why what you posted wasn’t a racist strawman. I’m not asking Robin DiAngelo to explain it. I’m asking you explain it.
thats a lot of words for I’m in this photo, and I dont like it
And I’m asking you to read gooderer and defer to experts that have studied racism instead of making it personal.
in other words, you don’t know what YOU are talking about, just what OTHERS are talking about?
That’s generally how we learn of experiences we’re not familiar with, by deferring to the expertise of those with knowledge of those lived experiences. Why should I pretend to be an expert on racism when I can easily source better information with a link? Maybe instead of denigrating someone that makes you aware of systemic racism, you should dislike the fact that systemic racism exists.
Not to excuse the behaviour, but I honestly think some people do it reflexively. Like I think some of the most egregious “sea lions” actually believe that they’re being measured and rational and just asking questions and raising concerns, or whatever bullshit.
Definitely some real bad actors, too, but also many many many useful idiots. I’m convinced. Just because I remember being a white 21yo and thinking I was some kind of atheist truth seeker, when really it was mostly just gas bagging
I’m honestly interested in how people think. There’s no meaningful action happening here - it’s mostly circle jerking. Most situations where people are accused of sea lioning online aren’t meaningful. Bit of a straw person.
Those are the types of situations where we should be asking ourselves if our interrogations are doing more harm than good. I’m interested in people, too, but there is some tact involved in knowing when to insert yourself.
Especially if it’s about something that might not affect us directly, like trans people being bullied at school, or black people venting about experiences with the cops (etc, I don’t know you, but insert your own).
Like the image says, these might be theoretical to us, but they are deadly serious to someone else, you know?
I mean, yeah. We should ask those things of ourselves. I’m better about it in person. You fucks, tho? Nah. Gimme your stances. Explain what I’m missing. I’ve learned so much from asking questions, and they’re usually things I can use to reach other people. I try to be respectful of things that aren’t just ideological.
This isn’t just social shit. When I’m learning new software, or a process, or pretty much anything I can’t learn from rote memorization. I have to understand why. That’s how things fit in my head. When I meet people that I can work with, that’s great. For those that want to just tell me something without explanation I prefer to remove myself from the conversation.
That’s fair. This is all contextual and case by case blah blah etc. If you’re doing it genuinely and with good will towards the person you’re asking, then that goes a long way.
What is a sea lion in this context?
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sea-lioning
In short: Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity, and feigning ignorance of the subject matter.
but I honestly think some people do it reflexively
Unless they’re a little kid or something, that’s absolutely not an excuse.
Man i cringe at my militant atheist phase so hard.
Some Christians never grow out of it. At least being an edgelord is part of youth.
Thinking the color of your skin has anything to do with anything is an easy way for me to not take anything you say seriously. The inequality is class based, not race. But keep spouting off about how whiteys are the devil and creating more racists of all colors. Both of these sides serve the ruling class by distracting us from the real issues.
So, what’s your race and gender then as I’m generally curious.
He is the guy on the meme.
It’s got to be intentional irony, right?
It’s mostly white people. I’m white. I know these people. I’ve been this person. Yes I agree, there is a meta inequality based on class outside of race. Just like there is “colourism” within non-white communities. These are all valid struggles that are worth fighting, and don’t detract from other battles. They’re in fact necessary skirmishes in a larger war (for universal human dignity, flourishing, whatever you want to call it).
Pardon all the violent analogies. The people at my work have infected me with this way of speaking.
“colourism”
the word you’re looking for is racism.
You’re right in that it is racism as well, and rooted in it. Though it is different in kind, and anyone who hasn’t experienced it personally should be careful not to redefine it out of existence. So just like all robbery is theft, being robbed is an instance of theft that can feel very different from other kinds of theft.
Actually I’ll just let Alice Walker do the talking:
Colorism, […] “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.” It is not racism although there is a clear relationship.
Imagine if a white person would need to choose between a black candidate and a white candidate for a job, and they choose the white candidate saying “well obviously I’m going to choose someone my own race” - what kind of mental gymnastics are you or Alice there gonna do to explain how that’s colorism, not racism?
That is racism. Colorism is far more common in Asia than in the west. When two Han Chinese people apply for the job and they hire the lighter skinned person you can’t call it racist as they are literally both the same race. So it instead falls under colorism. In the end of the day, as long as you recognize that both are bad it doesn’t really matter what you call it, except that it makes it easier to communicate with others.
both
the word you’re looking for is racism.
I think it’s best if you stop right there and not say anything else, okay?
I think it’s best if you stop trying hide behind coded words and bending things to fit your narrative. Racism is racism as much as you want to try and think otherwise. I thought people wanted to get AWAY from fascism with reddit. it’s alive and well here on lemmy too.
trying hide behind coded words
So you are so bereft of any real knowledge on the subject matter at hand that you just assume colorism is some kind of dogwhistle for white supremacism?
Again… perhaps it’s best if you stop right there.
assume colorism is some kind of dogwhistle for white supremacism
you’re putting words in my mouth. you’re the one assuming. colorism is a thinly veiled word for racism. no idea where you came up with the white supremacy thing.
no idea where you came up with the white supremacy thing.
Again… you don’t seem to understand the subject matter, Clyde. There is only one kind of racism - it’s white supremacism.
You do understand what race is, don’t you? You know - that thing that didn’t exist until white supremacists invented it?
I would agree with that, but the meme is essentially implying that white people’s opinions don’t matter.
This is the exact type of stuff that fuels more racism on the right.
How do you expect to fix inequality by treating people unequally.implying that white people’s opinions don’t matter
I’m a white person and I definitely did not read that into it. What it literally says is that if you play devil’s advocate for your own amusement, on topics that you don’t have any stake in, without any intention of learning, then you’re behaving insincerely. And that’s bad.
If you remove race from the meme and your last comment, we are in complete agreement.
The inequality is class based, not race.
Can you provide sources to back that up? (Genuine question, idk what science currently got to say about this.)
That’s hard to do because it’s a very broad statement. What I would need to send depends on which parts of your beliefsystem are incomplete or incorrect. Or i’d be writing a two hour essay combining facts and conclusions. I’ll try to keep it short.
You can easily conjure up statistics to back the claim that black people generally are poorer, and this does have a race-based history. However, underneath that is the class inequality, which because of the historic race inequality, means a lot of people of color being in the lower class.
At this point in time, inequality between the ultrarich and poor (of all colors) is broadening faster than ever. People looking for someone to blame. Media directs them in one of two directions, both incorrect.
a) The problem is migrants and communists who want to destroy tradition because they want free money.
b) The problem is racists and bigots who just love to hate for the sake of it.
These two factions are set up against eachother, reinforcing the need for the other’s existence.
Now that’s not to say both sides are equally incorrect, don’t get me wrong. But for the most part, neither of them acknowledge the issue of corruption in government allowing things like lobbying and gerrymandering which essentially provides a way for cooperations and money interests to have bought and paid for politicians on both sides. Since the system is inherently set up for money to have different objectives than commoners, we get eaten.This is the underlying issue causing race issues in the first place. Tribalism is exploited by these people because commoners want answers they’re not getting. It happens on both sides and it does not address the underlying issue.
Yes, racism exists, and it should be addressed. But you cannot fight racism with more racism. You attack the problem at it’s root instead.
“The treacherous are ever distrustful.” - MLK Jr.
_found on a white woman’s instagram _
just because you found it on a white womans instagram doesn’t make it any less correct.
There it is again, that funny feeling.
whataboutism at its finest. Some fucker on the news made the whataboutists angry now they will happily follow around some rich ass mother fucker. Also the rich ass mother fucker is distrusted by there own followers but doesn’t mind using them as pawns in there little game of 4d chess.
Meta.
Strawman arguments are so boring & ineffectual.
Yeah but you know, TO BE FAIR, even Strawmen (and strawmen identifying as strawwomen) need a hobby.
Edit: STRAWPEEPO IN GENERAL.
Just so we’re all clear, trans women are women. 👍
Everyone is a woman
Even better!
Yeah yeah all good
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This is real, no matter how hard you scoff.
Somebody deleted my comment on here and it wasn’t me, so that’s pretty fucked up.
Mods if you’re deleting people’s comments without notification, you’re going to get your community blocked.
Don’t be a censoring shithead, and keep the Internet free as it should be.
I’m think if someone deletes a comment you replied to, your comment is also gone.
They did not in this case, it was a reply to @Mango’s comment that is still there. They even messaged me to ask if I’d deleted that comment, which is how I found out that it was deleted.
no one deleted your comment.
Bigot cries about having bigotry removed. I’m disappointed they didn’t bother applying any other punishment, so you’re still here to whinge about it.
Check the modlog, people.
Lemmy is no different than reddit when it comes to mods abusing their power. People here think they’re all different and better than, but that’s just because they haven’t had an independent thought and non-conforming to Lemmy opinion so they don’t have to deal with it.
Seems a little racist, but I get where OP is coming from.
Remember: race is a social construct …until you can use it to criticize white people, then those people are white and bad and it’s objective reality, there’s no “social construct” anymore.
How do you people not hear yourselves?
This is the kind of shit that makes people (correctly) say “both sides”. Both sides are racist, both sides think their racism is justified, both sides completely overlook their own hypocrisy on the issue. The only change is which race they start the discussion with.
That’s not how social contructs work. Money is a social construct, yet people talk about it and need it to live. Language is a social construct but it has a huge impact on communication. And we acknowledge that all these constructs are real and keep affecting us.
The problem with race isn’t just that it’s a social construct, but the fact that it’s a social construct used to make a hierarchy out of arbitrary traits. It’s still maintained and keeps affecting people.
Therefore the only way to address the consequences of that construct is by looking at certain issues through its lenses.
For example, if we would look at poverty in marginalised groups without taking into account that construct, the conclusions would be that these marginalised groups are poor because they “made poor decisions” and deserved it.
However, if we take it into account, we can acknowledge the fact that the discrimination that marginalised groups face, aswell as their family background (ex: slavery) contributes a lot to the reasons as too why they are poor than people that aren’t marginalised.
It shouldn’t have been a race issue, but because of how race keeps affecting these issues, it is. So we address it that way.
Yeah a social construct is only theoretically meaningless. In society it’s everything.
Person A: “cops should stop overwhelmingly killing people who look like me!”
Person B: “fascinating, how did you come to this conclusion? You know some cops are good people, and even look like you.”
Person A: “there’s plenty of evidence, here…”
Person B: “oh I see your problem, this is about race-based bigotry - actually that’s a social construct, so it doesn’t matter”
Person A: “look it’s pretty simp–”
Person C: “pardon me, but the real problem is how both sides keep talking about race”
Person B: “agreed, but have you considered purely economic factors…”And on and on and on. But thankfully social constructs can be changed. We could make race a meaningless factoid about a person, like eye colour, but right now it’s not. So that’s the reality we have to deal with (and try to change).
Anway I’ll stop there at the risk of becoming “Person D” here.
This still ignores that if it’s a social construct for one group, it’s a social construct for all groups. You can’t simultaneously use it as reason to excuse certain groups (based on race ironically enough) accountability, while absolving others of any responsibility. Either race matters or it doesn’t, pick ONE. If it doesn’t matter than STFU about “white males” all the time. People, you included seem to think just saying “social construct” is an automatic win the argument card without ever realizing it’s full implications. All your comment sounds like is a justification for your racism.
No, it doesn’t ignore that. Analysing the social construct of race shows that, in most cases, white people are treated better than people of colour.
I never “excused” the behaviours in my initial reply, I explained them. But we know why it happens, and the decades of racism that people of colour faced (and still do) contributed to it. The best way to solve the problem is to adress it, not to ignore it.
If a black person does something bad because of this social construct, we would adress it by trying to prevent the conditions that make someone do this. Better education, social safety nets and sensitization helps a bunch.
The same goes for a white person. If they do something bad becauwe of this social construct, we also adress it. We can educate them by explaining why what they did had racist undertones, or, in this case, to not be one of the not marginalised people who talk over someone who is marginalised in an antagonistic way. Be compationate, stop playing the devil’s advocate all the time and just listen.
Poiting out the injustice going on between races isn’t racist. That’s like saying that if you tell someone that they are being rude to you (and they are), that you’re being rude by pointing that out.
Empircally, race doesn’t matter, but we made it matter in our society. Just look up what a social construct means.
Who do you think “constructed” the whiteness? The criticism isn’t about race, it’s about the hierarchy and power “whiteness” infers.
That’s funny, because it pretty exclusively mentions race. …and then is incredibly racist towards that particular race…and is coming from the crowd that usually screams about race being a “social construct”
If it walks like a duck…
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I do think there are people this applies to, but my understanding is there are relatively few of them and you can identify them as they talk shit about everyone to get gossip and hold petty grudges like gollum would hold the ring of power.
So which social justice cause has Biden made meaningful progress on?
Police shootings? Prison labor? Qualified Immunity? Civil Asset Forfeiture? Rent affordability? Welfare cliff? Welfare work load for not losing benefits? Unions? (Lmao, we all remember the railroad) Cash bail? Debtor’s prison? (An unconstitutional practice the DOJ could end today) Reproductive healthcare? Minimum sentences? Child marriage?
Look, if the word on the street was that Biden had meaningfully improved life for minorities and lower socioeconomic groups then I’d respect that. But it isn’t. Shit is just festering while the Democrats take victory laps.
Actually yes on Reproductive Healthcare, he signed a Memorandum in 2023 and Executive Order in 2022.
He also signed into law an update to the Respect for Marriage Act that extends protections to homosexuals and the trans community.
He also signed the Eviction Memorandum that prevented people from being evicted during the Pandemic.
Ironically the legislature that Biden helped write and pass in 1994, which overall was an absolutely terrible bill that most Democrats regret, is actually the law that gives the DOJ the power to audit and investigate Police Departments, but sadly the Patterns and Practice Reform Work reports seems to have ended under the Trump Admin and has yet to be renewed in any meaningful way.
Admittedly, Biden only mentioned an end to Cash Bail in passing as a single sentence in a 42 page document back in 2021, so not much progress there, but he did Pardon all simple possession convictions very early in his presidency.
The eviction moratorium was a disaster. Many people just got evicted later instead of during COVID lockdowns. It had the effect of raising their rent to an untenable level after the moratorium was over.
The executive order amounts to a request to please keep treating women at hospitals. It’s been largely ignored because doctors, shockingly, don’t want to go to prison for murder.
I’ll give him some credit for codifying Obergefell. But that was basically already done, it just needed to get pushed across the finish line.
I’ll even admit it’s not like any other president would do better. But the victory laps are a slap in the face.
