Response to "If you are a white person... "
Here is a link to The Article I Cited Earlier in this thread.
_________________
Last edited by Fnord on 15 Sep 2021, 3:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You have already claimed it.
And you have utterly failed to refute it.
Show me where I said that anyone who disagrees with my reading of the text is stupid?
The article explicitly states that it is generalizable to all white people, without making any exceptions. This is clear in the text. And the majority of posters in this thread generally agree with my reading of it. Thus far, only four members have disagreed with my interpretations.
Last edited by dorkseid on 15 Sep 2021, 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Also known as argument from personal incredulity, appeal to common sense, or the divine fallacy, is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition must be false because it contradicts one's personal expectations or beliefs, or is difficult to imagine. Example: "I believe she's wrong, so she must be wrong."
Your move.
All you've done is quote the definition of a random logical fallacy which has no relevance to anything I said.
That millions of white people live in poverty, white disabled and ND people are marginalized, and white same-sex couples face homophobia on a regular basis; are all established facts supported by large bodies of empirical data. Nothing here is a personal opinion.
So where in any of that is there any argument from incredulity?
Last edited by dorkseid on 15 Sep 2021, 3:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
funeralxempire
Veteran
Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 39
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 25,509
Location: Right over your left shoulder
You have already claimed it.
And you have utterly failed to refute it.
Show me where I said that anyone who disagrees with my reading of the text is stupid?
The article explicitly states that it is generalizable to all white people, without making any exceptions. This is clear in the text. And the majority of posters in this thread generally agree with my reading of it. Thus far, only four members have disagreed with my interpretations.
My mistake, you're just called the author of the list you disagree with stupid.
I think people shouldn't talk about matters they are clearly too stupid to accurately comprehend.
Even you seem to often concede that the issue is with a lack of clarity and precise language, not the overall general concept. She's adequately clear for the average reader, whatever issues exist within the exact wording of the piece, she's not stupid and by resorting to that approach it makes it seem like you don't actually understand the nuances you insist that you understand.
_________________
Watching liberals try to solve societal problems without a systemic critique/class consciousness is like watching someone in the dark try to flip on the light switch, but they keep turning on the garbage disposal instead.
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う
I think people shouldn't talk about matters they are clearly too stupid to accurately comprehend.
In hindsight, perhaps that was too harsh. But she clearly failed to put adequate thought or proper research into her article.
You clearly misunderstood what I said. The language of the article appears quite clear. If the author's intended message was something different than what her article appears to be saying, then that is because she has failed to accurately communicate it. It is her responsibility to make the effort to ensure her intended message is communicated correctly; not the reader's to infer what she failed to communicate.
Again, the majority of posters in this thread agree with my reading of the article. Therefore it is our reading that represents that of the average reader. If that does not match the author's intended message, that means that she was not clear at all. According to the language of the article, which explicitly states that her claims are generalizable to all white people with no exceptions, it is McIntoch who lacks nuance.
However, I very much doubt mathematical precision was ever intended by their author.
If I were to say that all winged vertebrates are classified as birds, but then you tell that bats are winged vertebrates that are classified as mammals. If I were to retort that I clearly meant that all winged vertebrates with the exception of bats are classified as birds; it would be clear that I am blatantly lying, since I clearly did not say that.
The author has the responsibility to make sure that her claims are mathematically precise and correct.
However, I very much doubt mathematical precision was ever intended by their author.
If I were to say that all winged vertebrates are classified as birds, but then you tell that bats are winged vertebrates that are classified as mammals. If I were to retort that I clearly meant that all winged vertebrates with the exception of bats are classified as birds; it would be clear that I am blatantly lying, since I clearly did not say that.
The author has the responsibility to make sure that her claims are mathematically precise and correct.
Nope That's Not 'Normally' How Life Works...
The Author Wasn't Preparing
A Math Equation; She Was
Generalizing A Thought
Specific to the Human
Condition In American Culture,
Many Folks Will Relate to;
Yet Of Course, Not All,
Or We Would Only Be
Machines, With 'Black And White Thoughts'...
Again, There is Obviously Some Bias in this Thread
In Common Response
That One
Would
'Normally'
Expect, Seeing
Additionally, Outside The
'Control Group' Here of Opinion...
As Pedantic As One Might Like the World
To Be; It Just Doesn't Work That Way; One
Has to
Figure
Out the
'Nuances'
More Often On Their Own...
Without Every Possible Exception
Spoon-Fed to Others, Hehe, Like i Provide...
To The Chagrin Of Those Who Don't Like to
See the Bigger And Smaller Pictures ALL AT ONCE...
And the Obvious
Pleasure for
Those
Who Can And Will...
_________________
KATiE MiA FredericK!iI
Gravatar is one of the coolest things ever!! !
http://en.gravatar.com/katiemiafrederick
Perhaps it's all-or-nothing thinking at work, or maybe people are intentionally being obtuse...
Having a privilege doesn't mean that you NEVER face a problem. It means your odds are GREATLY REDUDCED of facing a SPECIFIC problem, in SPECIFIC SITUATIONS.
The fact that money won't solve LITERALLY EVERY problem doesn't mean that having money can't be a privilege.
The fact that being white doesn't save you from LITERALLY EVERY inconvenience or pitfall doesn't mean being white can't be a privilege.
"Well, in this OTHER country...!" Yes, because privileges are specific to a situation. Being tall is great for basketball, not so good for a horse jockey. Being thick and meaty is great for a defensive football player, but not that handy for an acrobat. IN AMERICA, the system is designed to inherently favor white people, and disfavor POC. It is ALSO designed to favor the rich over the poor, males over females, straights over gays, and the attractive over the ugly. ALL of these can work for or against you, and collectively they shape how you're treated, IN SPECIFIC SITUATIONS. Go to an expensive store, they'll help the rich looking people over the poor looking people. Go to a trendy clothing store, they'll help the cute skinny people before the homely heavy people. Go to a big-n-tall store, they're gonna try to help the big tall guys, not the short skinny guys.
"But that's different! It's logical to pay more attention to the person more likely to be of benefit!" Oh, kinda like how a nation made for, and by white people, on the backs of others, would find it equally logical to make a system of government that inherently favors them over others. And just like stores know to not make it OFFICIAL policy to ignore "the poors", governments know how to make laws that target people without NAMING people. Kinda like how Nixon couldn't outlaw being liberal, but he COULD outlaw something liberals tended to DO, like smoke weed. Or in the case of jim crow laws, use a word like "loitering" to describe the act of "existing in public", and use "anti-loitering" laws to arrest people - of course, the white folk just get warnings, while the POC get the full punishment. Cos while SLAVERY is illegal, "forced labor as part of a criminal punishment" was and is entirely legal. So to get your slaves back, all you had to do was find way to make POC be criminals. Laws are easy to subvert, cos you can selectively ignore or apply them as you please.
And as people on this very forum have pointed out, "blacks are only 16% of the population", so I guess some people think it's "only logical" to ignore that tiny little 16% and focus on bigger pieces of pie.
Most white people don't CARE that racism exists. It doesn't affect them, it's not their problem. They're WHITE. THEY don't have to deal with the negative consequences of it. So its FAR easier to just convince yourself that it's not a REAL problem, or convince yourself that it's not AS BAD as people act like it is - or just look away and pretend it isn't happening while humming "everything is awesome" to yourself.
It's fairly typical for people to be blind to problems that they don't experience. People with private jets seldom concern themselves with the cancellation of bus routes. People born into money do not often get to experience true poverty. A cadillac is shabby when you've lived your whole life in an Aston or a Bentley. The simple act of cooking is "hard work", when you've always had someone to cook FOR you.
And it's astounding that people easily recognize a system that capitalizes on exploitability and utility when it comes to whining about not being hired for a job or being taken advantage of for being disabled or having autism, but then it's utterly beyond comprehension that the same things might be done for OTHER reasons, too - like race, or sex, or gender, or social class - y'know, all the other things that get brought up over and over too, in addition to disability.
So apparently when the government decided to make it illegal to discriminate for reasons of sex age disability gender race or religion etc, only SOME of those problems were actually REAL, and others only got added for purely political fake made-up reasons. "Disability discrimination, now THAT'S real. But RACE discrimination, feh, that doesn't exist! Slavery totally ended like a hundred years ago!" And yet they felt compelled to add "race" to the list of things you can't discriminate against, in the the 1960's and later. Apparently for lulz, cos racism isn't real
"I can't have privilege, I have problems, too!" Privilege doesn't mean you don't have ANY problems. It means you're LESS LIKELY to face SPECIFIC problems. You can be poor and still have OTHER privileges. You can be disabled and still have OTHER privileges. And you can be poor and disabled, but still NOT have OTHER DISADVANTAGES. If you're going to compare like-for-like, rather than simply whining about "poor disabled white people", tell me how their existence invalidates the possibility that a poor, disabled, PERSON OF COLOR, still wouldn't have it worse.
For instance, a poor disabled WHITE person isn't typically as scrutinized over seeking painkillers for their disability than a poor disabled BLACK person might be, if the dr or pharmacist believes dumb crap like "but POC are more likely to be druggies" or "but POC are more tolerant of pain" - both of which are common ideas believed today. The latter still being taught in some medical schools. And if you find yourself thinking "but they ARE...", there's your systemic racism. They really aren't. POC are more heavily and successfully PROSECUTED, but instances of prevalence and arrest are about the same across ethnicities. The white guy gets a second chance cos he's clearly just a troubled soul - but the black dude, we better teach him a hard lesson, "he's clearly a troublemaker and born criminal..."
And again, cos people LOVE to forget this fact, it's not GUARANTEED, it's simply MORE or LESS likely, dependent on the ENTIRE SITUATION. Saying "white privilege isn't real cos white people are poor, too!" is like saying "ableism isn't real cos not all able bodied people are successful!"
Being obviously European-looking and not sticking out of the crowd makes border controls quick and easy.
It instantly ends when you start to stick out. When I was mismedicated, I started getting redirected to the "other queue" and got thoroughly questioned and searched.
This is just my personal experience. But every time I've returned to the US from Libya or Egypt, I got detained in the airport for questioning. Being white never got me out of that.
Reading this post got me to thinking: where I live, there are no significant social or socio-economic barriers between white and black people. My neighborhood has roughly even numbers of white and black families. White and black people mix comfortably in social groups, and neither seems to generally have a particular preference for the company their own race over the other. Perhaps this has influenced my own view of racial relationships, and I've overlooked that matters are very different in others parts of the country. Perhaps in many inner city areas there are significant barriers largely isolating black and white people from one another.
And not all of the rough language and false accusations came from non-whites, either.[/color]
Veteran privilege is certainly a real thing in the US, and that is by design since military service is not compulsory. And it likely has some hand in how you've been able to retain such a high credit score. It has been extremely difficult for me due to my struggles with unemployment combined with my medical and student debts.
However, many veterans have been neglected and treated poorly, particularly those suffering from physical and mental handicaps. So I do also acknowledge that this is not a simple cut and dry matter either.
My advancements in military rank ... my grades on college essays and projects ... my degrees ... my career and promotions ... my marriage to a beautiful Filipina ... at every step of the way, there has been someone who attributed my achievements and successes to either my race, my sex, or just plain dumb luck -- never any of the hard work and perseverance on my part; never forgoing a social life; never being where I was supposed to be, when I was supposed to be there, and doing what I was supposed to be doing; and certainly never to trying to be the kind of person that other people (especially women) like being around. No, according to people who did none of these things, everything I have accomplished was brought about solely because of the color of my skin, my 'Y' chromosome, and the fortuitous occurrences of random chance.
While I am not denying that "White Privilege" may have had some influence, it does not account for all of those white people from my childhood who went on to become felons, junkies, drunks, and homeless people living (or dying) on the streets.[/color]
I would like to talk about the relationship between success and privilege. First, I do want to make it clear that I acknowledge and respect that successful people did work hard to earn the successes they've achieved. But there is still a some significant elements of luck or privilege at play.
People rarely consider that the ability to work hard is itself a privilege that many do not possess, particularly those with physical or mental disabilities which make it considerably difficult or impossible. The opportunity to acquire a skill is a privilege, as someone living in poverty may not be able to afford classes or the transportation to those classes. Privilege may also be in the form of being in the right place at the right time with the right skillset in order to have access to the right opportunity, like David Hasselhoff just happening by chance to be on the same plane with a TV exec who thought he resembled a certain cartoon character launching his acting career.
Many people are successful because they were born to a family which already had established wealth and could afford the best tutors and the best schools and universities, while others are unable to dedicate time to their studies or are forced to drop out of school altogether because they have to work to take care of impoverished families with absent parents. A past supervisor of mine once said that life is actually fair; it gives you back whatever you put into it. He was, of course, a trust fund baby.
Many like Fnord got their start by joining the military, but let's not forget that many fail to meet the qualifications for military service due to circumstances outside of their control like illnesses and disabilities. My point is that while it is true that successful people have worked hard, many others who have worked equally as hard their whole lives never achieved the same successes because they were never afforded the same opportunities, while others still never even had the ability to work hard in the first place.
Interestingly, many of the women I've met over the years have enjoyed being around me, but always only as a friend.
I've heard that many Filipinas are drawn to middle aged white men, and are even significantly less likely than Western women to be turned off by autistic characteristics. I've been seriously considering relocating to the Philippines to improve my chances with women, but I've also heard that the job market there isn't great. It is not my intention to assume that this is why or how Fnord met his wife.
Do keep in mind that there is a selection bias at play regarding immigrants from oversea countries. It is generally only the privileged few who have achieved financial and career success who can afford to relocate to Western countries. This accounts for why the Indians and Pakistanis you encounter in your country are significantly likely to among the ones with successful careers.
But that still demonstrates that many white people face adversity.
This is an extremely messy subject to delve into. My thoughts on the matter are that the prejudice that young black men face when seeking employment leads results in increasing numbers of them turning to crime out of desperation, thus fueling the stereotypes that caused the problem in the first place and creating a vicious cycle. Do keep in mind that black men, like any group, are not a monolith. That any number of black men engage in illegal behaviors should not reflect on those who do not.
Last edited by dorkseid on 15 Sep 2021, 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Having a privilege doesn't mean that you NEVER face a problem. It means your odds are GREATLY REDUDCED of facing a SPECIFIC problem, in SPECIFIC SITUATIONS.
The fact that money won't solve LITERALLY EVERY problem doesn't mean that having money can't be a privilege.
The fact that being white doesn't save you from LITERALLY EVERY inconvenience or pitfall doesn't mean being white can't be a privilege.
"Well, in this OTHER country...!" Yes, because privileges are specific to a situation. Being tall is great for basketball, not so good for a horse jockey. Being thick and meaty is great for a defensive football player, but not that handy for an acrobat. IN AMERICA, the system is designed to inherently favor white people, and disfavor POC. It is ALSO designed to favor the rich over the poor, males over females, straights over gays, and the attractive over the ugly. ALL of these can work for or against you, and collectively they shape how you're treated, IN SPECIFIC SITUATIONS. Go to an expensive store, they'll help the rich looking people over the poor looking people. Go to a trendy clothing store, they'll help the cute skinny people before the homely heavy people. Go to a big-n-tall store, they're gonna try to help the big tall guys, not the short skinny guys.
"But that's different! It's logical to pay more attention to the person more likely to be of benefit!" Oh, kinda like how a nation made for, and by white people, on the backs of others, would find it equally logical to make a system of government that inherently favors them over others. And just like stores know to not make it OFFICIAL policy to ignore "the poors", governments know how to make laws that target people without NAMING people. Kinda like how Nixon couldn't outlaw being liberal, but he COULD outlaw something liberals tended to DO, like smoke weed. Or in the case of jim crow laws, use a word like "loitering" to describe the act of "existing in public", and use "anti-loitering" laws to arrest people - of course, the white folk just get warnings, while the POC get the full punishment. Cos while SLAVERY is illegal, "forced labor as part of a criminal punishment" was and is entirely legal. So to get your slaves back, all you had to do was find way to make POC be criminals. Laws are easy to subvert, cos you can selectively ignore or apply them as you please.
And as people on this very forum have pointed out, "blacks are only 16% of the population", so I guess some people think it's "only logical" to ignore that tiny little 16% and focus on bigger pieces of pie.
Most white people don't CARE that racism exists. It doesn't affect them, it's not their problem. They're WHITE. THEY don't have to deal with the negative consequences of it. So its FAR easier to just convince yourself that it's not a REAL problem, or convince yourself that it's not AS BAD as people act like it is - or just look away and pretend it isn't happening while humming "everything is awesome" to yourself.
It's fairly typical for people to be blind to problems that they don't experience. People with private jets seldom concern themselves with the cancellation of bus routes. People born into money do not often get to experience true poverty. A cadillac is shabby when you've lived your whole life in an Aston or a Bentley. The simple act of cooking is "hard work", when you've always had someone to cook FOR you.
And it's astounding that people easily recognize a system that capitalizes on exploitability and utility when it comes to whining about not being hired for a job or being taken advantage of for being disabled or having autism, but then it's utterly beyond comprehension that the same things might be done for OTHER reasons, too - like race, or sex, or gender, or social class - y'know, all the other things that get brought up over and over too, in addition to disability.
So apparently when the government decided to make it illegal to discriminate for reasons of sex age disability gender race or religion etc, only SOME of those problems were actually REAL, and others only got added for purely political fake made-up reasons. "Disability discrimination, now THAT'S real. But RACE discrimination, feh, that doesn't exist! Slavery totally ended like a hundred years ago!" And yet they felt compelled to add "race" to the list of things you can't discriminate against, in the the 1960's and later. Apparently for lulz, cos racism isn't real
"I can't have privilege, I have problems, too!" Privilege doesn't mean you don't have ANY problems. It means you're LESS LIKELY to face SPECIFIC problems. You can be poor and still have OTHER privileges. You can be disabled and still have OTHER privileges. And you can be poor and disabled, but still NOT have OTHER DISADVANTAGES. If you're going to compare like-for-like, rather than simply whining about "poor disabled white people", tell me how their existence invalidates the possibility that a poor, disabled, PERSON OF COLOR, still wouldn't have it worse.
For instance, a poor disabled WHITE person isn't typically as scrutinized over seeking painkillers for their disability than a poor disabled BLACK person might be, if the dr or pharmacist believes dumb crap like "but POC are more likely to be druggies" or "but POC are more tolerant of pain" - both of which are common ideas believed today. The latter still being taught in some medical schools. And if you find yourself thinking "but they ARE...", there's your systemic racism. They really aren't. POC are more heavily and successfully PROSECUTED, but instances of prevalence and arrest are about the same across ethnicities. The white guy gets a second chance cos he's clearly just a troubled soul - but the black dude, we better teach him a hard lesson, "he's clearly a troublemaker and born criminal..."
And again, cos people LOVE to forget this fact, it's not GUARANTEED, it's simply MORE or LESS likely, dependent on the ENTIRE SITUATION. Saying "white privilege isn't real cos white people are poor, too!" is like saying "ableism isn't real cos not all able bodied people are successful!"
There is absolutely nothing you have said that I do not fully agree with or that conflicts with anything I have said in this forum or elsewhere. I never, at any point, said that white privilege isn't real, and I challenge to quote any post I've made which says otherwise.
All I have the said is that I object to the sweeping generalizations that is article makes, like the claim that all white people can afford to live in nice neighborhoods or that no white person ever experiences othering, which are objectively inaccurate. I never at any point claimed that negates the experiences of non-whites or means that white privilege is not real. And again, I challenge you to provide evidence which proves otherwise.
Please, do feel free to critique anything that I have actually said. But I am getting fed the f**k up with having to repeat my response to the same tired straw man bullsh*t that I have already refuted countless times.
As would be half the people who disagree with him...
Your point being?
WP is not a representative sample of the general public. I am willing to bet the average WP member has an above average IQ.
The majority of posters in this thread still agree with my reading of the text. Thus far, I only count five posters who do not. Therefore, until such a time as you can demonstrate that at least one of you is better qualified in critical analysis than the rest of us, it is prudent to continue under the assumption that the majority consensus is the accurate representation of how the text is interpreted by the 'average reader'.
As would be half the people who disagree with him...
Your point being?
WP is not a representative sample of the general public. I am willing to bet the average WP member has an above average IQ.
The majority of posters in this thread still agree with my reading of the text. Thus far, I only count five posters who do not. .
Both of these points are assumptions.
As would be half the people who disagree with him...
Your point being?
WP is not a representative sample of the general public. I am willing to bet the average WP member has an above average IQ.
The majority of posters in this thread still agree with my reading of the text. Thus far, I only count five posters who do not. Therefore, until such a time as you can demonstrate that at least one of you is better qualified in critical analysis than the rest of us, it is prudent to continue under the assumption that the majority consensus is the accurate representation of how the text is interpreted by the 'average reader'.
From the snarky way his post was phrased, it came across as though he was implying that half the people on this site who agreed with the "OP" on this site have below average intelligence (although in his defence he didn't explicitly state this - Though given the discussion was taking place on the site, the inference that this was who he was referring to was reasonable), and so I was merely pointing out that under his "logic" the same aplied to the side who disagreed with the OP.
I'm not disagreeing with what the OP was stating (or agreeing), merely demonstrating that the poster's claim about the intelligence of people (whether on this site (as it appeared to insinuate) or elsewhere) has no bearing on whether they agree or not, and so had no place in the discussion other than as an attempt to incite or belittle those who disagreed with his views, being he was not a member of the group he was describing.
As would be half the people who disagree with him...
Your point being?
WP is not a representative sample of the general public. I am willing to bet the average WP member has an above average IQ.
The majority of posters in this thread still agree with my reading of the text. Thus far, I only count five posters who do not. .
Both of these points are assumptions.
WP attracts certain types of users, primarily NDs along with some NTs who have personal or professional connections to ASD and NDs. There is a selection bias regarding who is on this forum. Therefore it is not a representative sampling of the entirety of the general public, from which the statistic that 50% have below average IQs comes.
The second point is more debatable, but high functioning autism is commonly associated with above average IQs.
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