General American Politics Thread

[rairii]

and before you start talking shit, yes, talking about sex in the workplace is inappropriate and it is a good way to get HR on your ass about sexual harrassment. i've had to put up with sexual harrassment enough times to know how HR handles that shit.

[Mira]

I feel like there's a lot of miscommunication in this discussion

On 6/11/2021 at 4:42 PM, Im_Unemployed said:

The predominantly black(working class) BBQs I've been to have the same level of racist banter being thrown around. Humans are tribalistic, there nothing wrong with throwing out a jab or two at the "other guy" while eating corn on the cob. 

In isolation, telling a joke that denigrates another race when no one of that race is present may not cause any direct harm, but if you are of the opinion that every human being is by their nature prejudiced against "the other" to some conscious or subconscious degree (I'm inclined to agree with you on that point because I'm a helpless pessimist), wouldn't that be a reason for such an impulse to be persistently suppressed at all times, and not to be seen as something that's acceptable to indulge in? If xenophobic beliefs are so omnipresent and commonly held it's no wonder that they cause real tangible harm so often when people keep affirming them among each other.

[Emby]

On 8/2/2021 at 9:59 AM, Riles said:

y'hear that fellas

sexual harrassment in the workplace is a-OK

oh yeah these dudes have some beliefs

Edited August 2, 2021 by Emby
I forgot how italics work (see edit history)

[Emby]

lol I don't have much room to talk I guess. I used to hang out with the kid who said the N word in high school and I thought it was normal and it was fine because I wasn't the one saying the N word and being racist.

 

But then rodney king happened and FOR SOME REASON I GOT THE SHIT KICKED OUT OF ME! What the hell man, I never said the N word!

 

dont worry, it took me a few years to figure it out too

[Im_CIA]

On 7/31/2021 at 11:49 PM, Shaddy said:

Racist "humor" blaming Chinese people for COVID, and the rise in anti-asian hate crimes in the US, have some commonalities. There's undeniably some overlap there. Exactly what is made better in this situation when the people making jokes say "we didn't mean it"? Fucking nothing, as far as I can see.

That's the same kind of logic used by staunch anti-gunners: let's bubble wrap the world so that the dregs don't stir up any shit.

Here is a study done about the shared characteristics of hate crime perpetrators. 

https://start.umd.edu/pubs/START_BIAS_MassCasualtyHateCrimeOffenders_Nov2020.pdf

To me this says that the problem lies with an underclass of dumb despondent schlemiels.  No reasonable person will take racial humor and turn it into a mantra, much less go around discriminating against others.

 

Quote

Or hell, how about the absolutely enormous number of people that constantly use "it's a joke, you're just too offended" to justify any shitty thing they say? Exactly what distinguishes between which of them are acting in bad faith to push reactionary rhetoric, and which are genuinely just not aware how shitty a thing they're saying is?

Simple, if the immediate company is offended, it's a social faux pas, if not it's just another joke. But in either case it doesn't matter; it's just off the cuff rose garden stuff.  The only ones that take any of this to heart are the nose picking degenerates from that study, and benign trash hailing from every corner of the proletariat shitscape.

 

Quote

I guess if you make up a strawman gestapo that goes around arresting people for being unfunny you have a problem, but someone else telling you you're a piece of shit for normalizing that racist culture is a problem you have to fix with yourself, the world isn't gonna wait up for you.

The world(read: America where everyone is absolutely bonkers about race) is too busy attacking it's own strawman in the image of a middleclass "casual racist". The real devil is growing wage to GDP gap, which does affect minorities more for systemic reasons, but in this case it's legacy institutionalized racism merging into generational poverty, not racism in and of itself.

You could rake every profane uncle and uncouth bureaucrat over coals even when it does absolutely nothing to aid our current social predicament, but it is a lot easier to chase echoes and solve superficial problems. I guarantee you,  if a lot more people had better prospects and outlooks, then casual racism wouldn't even be a blip on the radar, and it really is a non-issue compared to say central banking and corporate consolidation.

 

On 8/2/2021 at 7:10 PM, Emby said:

lol I don't have much room to talk I guess. I used to hang out with the kid who said the N word in high school and I thought it was normal and it was fine because I wasn't the one saying the N word and being racist.

 

But then rodney king happened and FOR SOME REASON I GOT THE SHIT KICKED OUT OF ME! What the hell man, I never said the N word!

 

dont worry, it took me a few years to figure it out too

 

Isn't that the same thing as rednecks targeting random muslims after 9/11? To my point above, do you think your assailants would do anything this bone headed if they had well paying jobs or were knee deep in Academia? I mean statistically speaking, of course.

Here's how I want things to play out in *my* ideal world.

Whenever someone witnesses a politically charged event, or hears a racial slur directed at them, they just shrug their shoulders, get a coffee, and drop another 1000 dollars into an IRA or a downpayment. A perfect decentralized world governed by personal determination, collectively summarized by the motto embedded on the original  Franklin Cent

[Im_CIA]

On 8/2/2021 at 4:21 PM, Mira said:

I feel like there's a lot of miscommunication in this discussion

In isolation, telling a joke that denigrates another race when no one of that race is present may not cause any direct harm, but if you are of the opinion that every human being is by their nature prejudiced against "the other" to some conscious or subconscious degree (I'm inclined to agree with you on that point because I'm a helpless pessimist), wouldn't that be a reason for such an impulse to be persistently suppressed at all times, and not to be seen as something that's acceptable to indulge in? If xenophobic beliefs are so omnipresent and commonly held it's no wonder that they cause real tangible harm so often when people keep affirming them among each other.

Real harm is caused by the disenfranchised and a few honest to god ideologues who would otherwise suffocate if the former didn't exist en mass. 

[Im_CIA]

On 8/2/2021 at 12:59 PM, Riles said:

y'hear that fellas

sexual harrassment in the workplace is a-OK

I'm pretty sure he meant something like talking about your sexual escapeds with a coworker. It's risky and might be slimy, but it's not the same as slapping someone's ass at the copier and you know it.

[Shaddy]

On 8/6/2021 at 10:17 PM, Im_Unemployed said:

To me this says that the problem lies with an underclass of dumb despondent schlemiels.

Yeah, and racists are more likely to be uneducated, violent and incompetent. So why would you try to be more like them?

On 8/6/2021 at 10:17 PM, Im_Unemployed said:

No reasonable person will take racial humor and turn it into a mantra, much less go around discriminating against others.

Well, obviously. Racists are not reasonable people. I would even go so far as to say that a person becoming less-racist becomes more reasonable. So again, I'm not seeing how ignoring racist comments or jokes is desirable.

On 8/6/2021 at 10:17 PM, Im_Unemployed said:

Simple, if the immediate company is offended, it's a social faux pas, if not it's just another joke. But in either case it doesn't matter; it's just off the cuff rose garden stuff.  The only ones that take any of this to heart are the nose picking degenerates from that study, and benign trash hailing from every corner of the proletariat shitscape.

To be so callous as to equate group people who are upset about you being racist with racist hate crimes is genuinely pretty fucked-up of you.

 

You simply cannot ignore here that your language has an effect on both yourself and the people around you. Even if someone else takes your insincere comment to heart, you still have responsibility there!

On 8/6/2021 at 10:17 PM, Im_Unemployed said:

The world(read: America where everyone is absolutely bonkers about race) is too busy attacking it's own strawman in the image of a middleclass "casual racist". The real devil is growing wage to GDP gap, which does affect minorities more for systemic reasons, but in this case it's legacy institutionalized racism merging into generational poverty, not racism in and of itself.

You could rake every profane uncle and uncouth bureaucrat over coals even when it does absolutely nothing to aid our current social predicament, but it is a lot easier to chase echoes and solve superficial problems. I guarantee you,  if a lot more people had better prospects and outlooks, then casual racism wouldn't even be a blip on the radar, and it really is a non-issue compared to say central banking and corporate consolidation.

People, believe it or not, are capable of fighting more than one kind of inequality at a time. Casual, systemic and violent racism are all worthy of being fought and actively are being fought, by a lot of people who, believe it or not, are not at-odds with each other in the slightest.

 

Nonetheless, it is absolutely preposterous to pretend here that the existence of systematic inequality is totally divorced from the normalization of racist attitudes. You can't just say "class is the real problem" and act like that's an excuse.

 

Also I don't know where you get this idea that racists are a strawman or that they're middle-class.

On 8/6/2021 at 10:17 PM, Im_Unemployed said:

Isn't that the same thing as rednecks targeting random muslims after 9/11?

Most Muslims in America do not regularly hang out with extremist groups.

On 8/6/2021 at 10:17 PM, Im_Unemployed said:

To my point above, do you think your assailants would do anything this bone headed if they had well paying jobs or were knee deep in Academia? I mean statistically speaking, of course.

Here's how I want things to play out in *my* ideal world.

Whenever someone witnesses a politically charged event, or hears a racial slur directed at them, they just shrug their shoulders, get a coffee, and drop another 1000 dollars into an IRA or a downpayment. A perfect decentralized world governed by personal determination, collectively summarized by the motto embedded on the original  Franklin Cent

On 8/6/2021 at 10:31 PM, Im_Unemployed said:

Real harm is caused by the disenfranchised and a few honest to god ideologues who would otherwise suffocate if the former didn't exist en mass. 

"A few honest to god ideologues" are the system. The whole thing is according to the design of people you're claiming are just one piece of the harm, but it's their system.

 

You cannot make an economic inequality argument while ignoring that bigotry is the motivator for separating people economically. Look back at Burke or De Maistre and you'll find that their vision of society, the founding principles of modern capitalism, were of a way to separate the rulers from the degenerate while feigning the appearance of an equal society. And it's not just generic royalist sentiment from these people, every single one of them had racial hangups.

 

There is no ignoring bigotry in favor of improving capitalism, because capitalism was created by bigotry. When black people suffer in homelessness and poverty, that isn't a flaw in the system, that is the system working as intended. Which means there's quite a few more numerous, wealthy and powerful racists than just a few poor skinheads and their grifting youtubers, but quite a lot of them don't even know the harm they're doing because a culture of racist oppression is normalized to them.

 

Racism will exist long after capitalism, and it will be worth fighting against then too.

Edited August 7, 2021 by Shaddy (see edit history)

[Emby]

this is probably going to blow people's mind, but I act like an sjw and a raging angry feminist off the internet too

 

[Im_CIA]

On 8/7/2021 at 4:06 AM, Shaddy said:

Yeah, and racists are more likely to be uneducated, violent and incompetent. So why would you try to be more like them?

Well, obviously. Racists are not reasonable people. I would even go so far as to say that a person becoming less-racist becomes more reasonable. So again, I'm not seeing how ignoring racist comments or jokes is desirable.

To be so callous as to equate group people who are upset about you being racist with racist hate crimes is genuinely pretty fucked-up of you.

 

You simply cannot ignore here that your language has an effect on both yourself and the people around you. Even if someone else takes your insincere comment to heart, you still have responsibility there!

People, believe it or not, are capable of fighting more than one kind of inequality at a time. Casual, systemic and violent racism are all worthy of being fought and actively are being fought, by a lot of people who, believe it or not, are not at-odds with each other in the slightest.

 

Nonetheless, it is absolutely preposterous to pretend here that the existence of systematic inequality is totally divorced from the normalization of racist attitudes. You can't just say "class is the real problem" and act like that's an excuse.

 

Also I don't know where you get this idea that racists are a strawman or that they're middle-class.

Most Muslims in America do not regularly hang out with extremist groups.

"A few honest to god ideologues" are the system. The whole thing is according to the design of people you're claiming are just one piece of the harm, but it's their system.

 

You cannot make an economic inequality argument while ignoring that bigotry is the motivator for separating people economically. Look back at Burke or De Maistre and you'll find that their vision of society, the founding principles of modern capitalism, were of a way to separate the rulers from the degenerate while feigning the appearance of an equal society. And it's not just generic royalist sentiment from these people, every single one of them had racial hangups.

 

There is no ignoring bigotry in favor of improving capitalism, because capitalism was created by bigotry. When black people suffer in homelessness and poverty, that isn't a flaw in the system, that is the system working as intended. Which means there's quite a few more numerous, wealthy and powerful racists than just a few poor skinheads and their grifting youtubers, but quite a lot of them don't even know the harm they're doing because a culture of racist oppression is normalized to them.

 

Racism will exist long after capitalism, and it will be worth fighting against then too.

 

I disagree with a lot of what you said here, but the zones of contention are growing out of control. I think casual racism will eventually be phased out naturally. I just don't trust in grassroots Idealism over gradual compromises- it's too open for hijacking by ulterior motives and can a lot more divisive than needed. At this point it's like sieving through flyshit in boxing gloves while a your house burns down.

 

On 8/7/2021 at 7:21 PM, Emby said:

this is probably going to blow people's mind, but I act like an sjw and a raging angry feminist off the internet too

 

You don't seem that angry. Are you holding out on us? I doubt anyone here(as in the frequent flyers) will take it personally. We're just talking shop 

[Shaddy]

On 8/7/2021 at 9:21 PM, Im_Unemployed said:

I disagree with a lot of what you said here, but the zones of contention are growing out of control. I think casual racism will eventually be phased out naturally. I just don't trust in grassroots Idealism over gradual compromises- it's too open for hijacking by ulterior motives and can a lot more divisive than needed. At this point it's like sieving through flyshit in boxing gloves while a your house burns down.

Exactly what motive do you feel threatened by and how is that motive saying "stop being racist" actually supposed to hurt you? What is the "natural" way even supposed to look like? As far as I'm concerned, a plurality of people deciding what the standard is for racism and excommunicating anyone who fails to meet that standard is about as natural as you can get. Nobody's talking about speech laws here.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Shaddy (see edit history)

[Im_CIA]

On 8/8/2021 at 2:02 AM, Shaddy said:

Exactly what motive do you feel threatened by and how is that motive saying "stop being racist" actually supposed to hurt you? What is the "natural" way even supposed to look like? As far as I'm concerned, a plurality of people deciding what the standard is for racism and excommunicating anyone who fails to meet that standard is about as natural as you can get. Nobody's talking about speech laws here.

 

As part of the people, I have a vote in what constitutes as a racism, and I'm torpedoing your amendment on "racial humor". I think it's a creatively stifling bridge too far, for now anyway. My ingroup and immediate family agrees with me for the most part too, so I won't be ostracized by society anytime soon.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Im_Unemployed (see edit history)

[Emby]

if you ingroup and immediate family are the only people who agree with you, and then not even all of them, then yes you most definitely are being ostracized by the rest of society

[Im_CIA]

On 8/8/2021 at 5:04 PM, Emby said:

if you ingroup and immediate family are the only people who agree with you, and then not even all of them, then yes you most definitely are being ostracized by the rest of society

I never said it was just them, and this is just pertaining to this one "issue" in particular. I generally disagree with a lot of their stances, but it seems like everyone has a list of stupid hills to die on, including myself.

[Shaddy]

On 8/8/2021 at 1:49 PM, Im_Unemployed said:

As part of the people, I have a vote in what constitutes as a racism, and I'm torpedoing your amendment on "racial humor". I think it's a creatively stifling bridge too far, for now anyway. My ingroup and immediate family agrees with me for the most part too, so I won't be ostracized by society anytime soon.

Praytell, what creativity is stifled by trying too hard not to be racist?

[Im_CIA]

On 8/8/2021 at 5:41 PM, Shaddy said:

Praytell, what creativity is stifled by trying too hard not to be racist?

The world of comedy will feel a lot emptier if you no one pokes fun at racial stereotypes, or deliberately avoids some in favor of others. 

[Emby]

sorry to say but if the comedy industry has to die in order to end racism then the comedy industry has to die

[Im_CIA]

On 8/8/2021 at 6:36 PM, Emby said:

sorry to say but if the comedy industry has to die in order to end racism then the comedy industry has to die

Except that racism won't end and comedy will just be all the poorer for it.

[Emby]

I can't believe this dude thinks this kind of casual racism is acceptable anywhere outside of his own house

[Im_CIA]

On 8/8/2021 at 7:29 PM, Emby said:

I can't believe this dude thinks this kind of casual racism is acceptable anywhere outside of his own house

I don't know, Dave Chappelle made a whole career out of it.