Third Wave Anti-racism

[Ana the Ist]

I came across probably the best article I've read on current race relations in the US. This one seemed to either fly under the radar....or was flat out ignored by most media outlets.

The Virtue Signalers Won’t Change the World

Some excerpts...

In fact, however, third-wave antiracism is a profoundly religious movement in everything but terminology. The idea that whites are permanently stained by their white privilege, gaining moral absolution only by eternally attesting to it, is the third wave’s version of original sin. The idea of a someday when America will “come to terms with race” is as vaguely specified a guidepost as Judgment Day. Explorations as to whether an opinion is “problematic” are equivalent to explorations of that which may be blasphemous. The social mauling of the person with “problematic” thoughts parallels the excommunication of the heretic. What is called “virtue signaling,” then, channels the impulse that might lead a Christian to an aggressive display of her faith in Jesus.

The people espousing this third-wave ideology are not unintelligent, mentally imbalanced, or working from some nefarious agenda. They want to be on the right side of history. However, upon reflection, and aware of the risk of how an essay like this might read in the future, I suggest it is going nowhere fast.

Second, and more important, is it even necessary to force a revolution in thought? Certainly a people cannot succeed as slaves, or under a system that condemns them to officially segregated and second-class status. However, human history hardly shows that an oppressed group needs the wholehearted love and acceptance of its overlords. Are black hands truly tied because whites are more likely to associate black faces with negative concepts in implicit-association tests, especially when evidence suggests that the results do not correlate meaningfully with behavior? Or because whites aren’t deeply informed about the injustices blacks have suffered throughout history? Precisely why must whites transform themselves to so extreme a degree for racial disparities to close?

Under the new regime, people like Murray and Johnson had it wrong and apparently now qualify as antique figures; fostering social justice requires fashioning oneself as vulnerable, injured, and/or broken by things thoroughly “woke” people in the past would have treated as things to be brushed off their shoe. The contrast here is not simply “complex.” It suggests that the struggle has gone off the rails. The new zeitgeist is under-considered and even condescending, seductive but fruitless, a fashion statement in the guise of a program, and finally, a distraction for a people who have already been through so very much.

Pretty smart stuff...but then again, I tend to think highly of opinions that mirror my own. As a side read (because I know you'll want to read more after this article) here's a link to a satirical blog mentioned in the article. It reads pretty hilariously these days for something written in 2008...

#101 Being Offended

Thoughts?

 

[dzheremi]

All seems pretty obvious if you're already some type of traditional Christian. Western anti-racism or whatever as a brand/tribe/movement is very Christian-like, because it comes about in at least nominally Christian countries. It's similar to how Pakistan was created because most of the prominent nationalists in the anti-British/anti-Colonial movement in India were Hindus, so the ideas of people like Gandhi appealed to the Hindu majority (since it was framed in terms they were familiar with), but not as much to the Muslims, who have their own way of being. Every movement reflects the culture it comes from in some way.

• Being white is the 'original sin' that you inherit by virtue of being born (NB: this itself is a western way of conceptualizing sin; Eastern Christianity is not like this, in general)
• You must repent of your sin (being white/having white privilege) and be 'born again'/become 'woke'
• After you become 'woke', you must bring the 'gospel of wokeness' to all who do not know it, so that they too may become 'woke'
• It is also not good enough that you do these things to signal your wokeness and bring others into the movement; you must be willing to personally sacrifice/take up your cross and follow the leader of the movement (whoever that may be, according to your cultural niche: Louis Farrakhan, Linda Sarsour, Subcomandante Marcos, etc. Pick your woke cause and follow its leader/s)
• There is an almost iconophilic veneration of, if not people (though sometimes, yeah...), certain precepts that are taken as self-evident in a manner very similar to how icons are taught in the iconophilic traditions (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, certain forms of Protestantism) as being the written evidence of the existence of such-and-such a person and the work of the Lord in his or her life, such that questioning said precepts (e.g., that 'white privilege' is actually the reason for XYZ) effectively turns you into an iconoclast, and you are treated accordingly (Read: people turn on you for questioning their assumptions as though it is akin to physically breaking these 'icons' they've made out of their own ideas of how the world works; it's a manifestation of the whole "words are violence" thing that makes it impossible to disagree or even dialogue on certain matters if you are a non-POC and your interlocutor is a POC)
• There is quasi-theological terminology like POC, that needs to be understood in the overall context of the 'religion' to be properly appreciated and used, and its proper meaning and usage is probably not immediately obvious to the outsider (e.g., why Jews aren't generally considered POC but Arabs are); it must be learned

Etc.

I could've gone on for quite a while more, but you get my point. Many years ago by now I heard an Antiochian Orthodox priest refer to all this stuff as "bits of cultural theology" which we are now expected by society to profess as unwilling and unwitting members of what is essentially the modern rebirth of ancient Roman civic religion. Apparently the Romans believed that the Pax Romana (peace throughout their empire) was only guaranteed if the gods were appeased by the offerings and worship of the people. This is why Christians' refusal to join in the public worship was such an offense and threat to the Roman leaders of the day. They're messing up the only chance we have at achieving peace and harmony by not joining us! Unless everyone gets on board, we're doomed!

Does that sound familiar...?

 

[Redac]

It strikes me as (likely ineffective) tone policing. Trying to argue against the consequences of a specific ideology/movement/whatever while basically agreeing with all its premises is an exercise in futility.

And while it's fun to claim that this sort of thing has been fruitless, you'd be wrong to do so. Compare now to even 20 years ago and tell me that things are "going nowhere fast". Whether the author is lying here or just wrong, I couldn't say.

 

[Silmarien]

Eh, I am tentatively in agreement with the article on some points, though I'm very frustrated with it on others, and by and large it makes me a bit uneasy.

For one, I don't care at all for the anti-religious sentiment running through it, particularly because a lot of it is simplistic and stereotypical if not blatantly theologically incorrect. I subscribe to a fairly Augustinian brand of left wing political thought, so my response to the comment about white privilege being a form of original sin is, "Yes, obviously." But a true reconciliation of progressive politics and Augustinian theology would decidedly not result in privilege being the sort of thing you can gain moral absolution from by eternally attesting to it. We don't think it can be overcome through anything short of divine intervention. That is the whole point of Augustinian theology--humans cannot rise above their circumstances of their own power. It's a pessimistic approach that would deny that the country will magically one day come to terms with all of its social issues (though that does not mean giving up). So the reference to original sin in this article irritates me somewhat, since if there is a problem with modern secular progressive (and there definitely is), it's probably that it's too Pelagian, with the naive belief that the legacy of colonialism will someday be washed away if we just scream loudly enough.

I do think modern secular progressivism is in equal parts fascinating and troubling, though, particularly in the way it's developed its own honor-shame culture. Both the virtue signaling and the social scapegoating play a role in that, I would say. There's a shrillness, rigidity, and self-righteousness to the movement that ought to be called into question, as should the conflation of actual crimes and alleged thought crimes.

At the same time, this sort of article always makes me a bit leery, since I'm not sure to what extent it's an attempt to make excuses so that people don't have to reexamine their own behavior. White privilege is the sort of thing people ought to be aware of, even if they shouldn't start a crusade about it and apply it broadly to every possible situation.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

It strikes me as (likely ineffective) tone policing. Trying to argue against the consequences of a specific ideology/movement/whatever while basically agreeing with all its premises is an exercise in futility.

And while it's fun to claim that this sort of thing has been fruitless, you'd be wrong to do so. Compare now to even 20 years ago and tell me that things are "going nowhere fast". Whether the author is lying here or just wrong, I couldn't say.

Things have been moving fast in the past few decades...and they smell (the rest of the) blood in the water.

Several good points in the article, that the movement has "gone off the rails" is most fitting. As a 'conversation' about racism/equality it's just another bowl of salad.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Eh, I am tentatively in agreement with the article on some points, though I'm very frustrated with it on others, and by and large it makes me a bit uneasy.

For one, I don't care at all for the anti-religious sentiment running through it, particularly because a lot of it is simplistic and stereotypical if not blatantly theologically incorrect. I subscribe to a fairly Augustinian brand of left wing political thought, so my response to the comment about white privilege being a form of original sin is, "Yes, obviously." But a true reconciliation of progressive politics and Augustinian theology would decidedly not result in privilege being the sort of thing you can gain moral absolution from by eternally attesting to it. We don't think it can be overcome through anything short of divine intervention. That is the whole point of Augustinian theology--humans cannot rise above their circumstances of their own power.

I honestly think he's just using the religious comparison in regards to "original sin" because it's a concept his audience understands. This being a largely Christian nation....I think most people are familiar with the concept of sin being passed down from Adam and Eve, through blood, to every living person. As with any analogy....it's not a perfect comparison.

The comparison is apt regarding the idea that "white people" are somehow "guilty" of their racial ancestors' behavior. It's a concept inherent in many ideas such as white privilege, white supremacy, racial/social hierarchy, whiteness, etc.

It's a pessimistic approach that would deny that the country will magically one day come to terms with all of its social issues (though that does not mean giving up). So the reference to original sin in this article irritates me somewhat, since if there is a problem with modern secular progressive (and there definitely is), it's probably that it's too Pelagian, with the naive belief that the legacy of colonialism will someday be washed away if we just scream loudly enough.

I think the problem is inherent in how it selectively narrows and widens it's focus. They imagine they hold some wider understanding of colonialism and how it impacted the world (particularly the US) but they selectively focus on some narrowly negative aspects of it.

I do think modern secular progressivism is in equal parts fascinating and troubling, though, particularly in the way it's developed its own honor-shame culture. Both the virtue signaling and the social scapegoating play a role in that, I would say. There's a shrillness, rigidity, and self-righteousness to the movement that ought to be called into question, as should the conflation of actual crimes and alleged thought crimes.

Yeah....I opted out about 5 years ago when I noticed it was killing any critical thinking/dialogue about it's own concepts and praising a sort of blind acceptance of certain narratives.

When that turned into an uncritical acceptance of certain racist beliefs...I was glad I stepped away from it, but disappointed to see some friends of mine become increasingly entrenched in it.

At the same time, this sort of article always makes me a bit leery, since I'm not sure to what extent it's an attempt to make excuses so that people don't have to reexamine their own behavior. White privilege is the sort of thing people ought to be aware of, even if they shouldn't start a crusade about it and apply it broadly to every possible situation.

White privilege...when it was introduced as a concept for the masses...was initially pretty benign and unimportant. I had already studied some psychology....so I was aware of social/cultural biases regarding things like height, weight, beauty, age, etc. I remember thinking....why is this a topic of interest? While it may be interesting in a scholarly sense....it's not a particularly useful concept for describing social situations or conditions. The response I always got back was "I just want you to acknowledge it". Fine...nothing wrong with that.

Then once there was a sort of broad general acceptance of the concept...it quickly morphed into something it isn't...a generalized racist explanation. Why is something the way it is? White privilege. It was used to explain things as broad as colonialism to things as narrow as "why didn't I get called back for this job?" A generally useless concept was constantly being misused as an explanation for all sorts of things.

I say useless, because without a way of detecting or measuring it's effect....there's no real way to know if it's a factor in any situation at all. We know it exists, because we can test for it in a tightly controlled research setting where nearly every other factor can be controlled for. Real life doesn't have that sort of possibility though.

So is it interesting to discuss in the confines of a scholarly setting? Sure. Is it useful for the average person who really only understands the bare bones of the concept? Not really. In that situation, it turns into something ugly and twisted...a bludgeon used to justify racist beliefs/behavior.

 

[Tanj]

Thoughts?

Always. I thought it was an excellent article despite your snippets from it, which said alot more about you than it did about the topic.. and I also thought @Silmarien was correct at the anti-religious sentiment of one section of the essay (one of those you highlighted).

In general I find the knees bent running around advancing behavior of the US in stark contrast to the pragmatic move forward of Australia.

And finally, it's high time the Angle/Jute/Saxon/Scanidianvian/Welsh interlopers paid repatriation to the Picts in the UK.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Always. I thought it was an excellent article despite your snippets from it, which said alot more about you than it did about the topic..

Uh huh...

and I also thought @Silmarien was correct at the anti-religious sentiment of one section of the essay (one of those you highlighted).

Ok.

In general I find the knees bent running around advancing behavior of the US in stark contrast to the pragmatic move forward of Australia.

"Knees bent running around advancing behavior"? Is that some sort of local saying?

It's basically gibberish to me.

And finally, it's high time the Angle/Jute/Saxon/Scanidianvian/Welsh interlopers paid repatriation to the Picts in the UK.

Ok...as usual your posts are a wealth of profundity.

 

[tall73]

And finally, it's high time the Angle/Jute/Saxon/Scanidianvian/Welsh interlopers paid repatriation to the Picts in the UK.

This comes up around my family table as well!

 

[essentialsaltes]

"Knees bent running around advancing behavior"? Is that some sort of local saying.

I knew there would come a day when I became old and Python references would go unrecognized.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I knew there would come a day when I became old and Python references would go unrecognized.

I've seen it....don't have the movie memorized though.

 

[dzheremi]

I knew there would come a day when I became old and Python references would go unrecognized.

Do we need to Spam this thread...?

 

[rjs330]

What I don't understand is is why white people are the only ones that are guilty for their ancestors behaviors. Slavery has been practiced by every race on this planet. Many races are guilty of selling their own people as slaves. Their women as slaves. Much of it is still going on. Yet all we hear about is how white people are the guilty ones.

 

[iluvatar5150]

What I don't understand is is why white people are the only ones that are guilty for their ancestors behaviors. Slavery has been practiced by every race on this planet. Many races are guilty of selling their own people as slaves. Their women as slaves. Much of it is still going on. Yet all we hear about is how white people are the guilty ones.

You hear what you hear because you live in the US (or at least some other western country, I assume) where the primary division has been along racial lines and the offending majority has been white. If you want to hear about another group’s offenses, try consuming media from a culture where the lines were drawn differently a different group were the offenders.

 

[Ana the Ist]

You hear what you hear because you live in the US (or at least some other western country, I assume) where the primary division has been along racial lines and the offending majority has been white. If you want to hear about another group’s offenses, try consuming media from a culture where the lines were drawn differently a different group were the offenders.

I'm not sure he was stating that he considers it a valid complaint. I think perhaps he was pointing out the arbitrary nature of it.

What point in time are we stopping at....and why are we judging people from the past by today's metrics?

There's no reasonable explanation for either. I don't like that slavery happened...but it's odd to judge a people who lived in a time and place where it was common. It's even worse to judge people today based on what those in the past did. It would be like telling the German people they need to constantly be ashamed of themselves for what happened in WW2. I suspect the vast majority find it just as bad as I do....for very similar reasons. They aren't those people though (mostly) and it would be wrong to judge them by the actions of others simply because they have a shared race, ethnicity, culture, or national boundaries.

 

[Ana the Ist]

You hear what you hear because you live in the US (or at least some other western country, I assume) where the primary division has been along racial lines and the offending majority has been white. If you want to hear about another group’s offenses, try consuming media from a culture where the lines were drawn differently a different group were the offenders.

Perhaps this is a better way of wording it. When some people on the left speak of white privilege, they speak of it in terms of an unfair advantage. It's unfair because fundamentally....whiteness is over valued and given a preferable outcome by individuals or systems more often than say "blackness" for example.

The entire premise rests on 2 fundamental assumptions....

1. That race has no real value and in fact should never be given advantage.

2. That "unfair" advantages exist.

I can actually accept #1....I believe it to be true. The problem is the same people who throw around the concept of white privilege as explained above, don't act as if race has no value. Instead, they say that a company has to hire more people of color....or a school has to restructure its disciplinary process to the advantage of people of color...or a person of color should be believed when accusations of racism are made, because they are a person of color. That isn't devaluing race to where it doesn't matter....it's valuing other races higher than whites. That's not ending racism...it's perpetuating racism. Worse, it's perpetuating systemic racism (arguably the worst kind) and justified with good intentions. It's as if everyone forgets that most systemic racism was justified with good intentions and later, when finally ended, people largely suspect it was really just based upon hatred of a particular race. Even something as benign as "celebrating blackness" becomes racist since it's basically teaching people to value that which should have no value.

If I were to say that race can or does have value....then I can't really morally or logically say that someone is valuing it incorrectly. Value is entirely subjective. It doesn't exist apart from perceptions. What that means in practical terms would be that it's never really wrong to value whiteness, or blackness, or engage in the kinds of racism that extends advantages to people based upon race. I don't agree with that....but the more I see a large segment of society do it, argue for, or promote it....the harder it becomes to tell others they shouldn't.

So in a way, it's as if they want me to answer a moral wrong with another moral wrong. It goes from being a rather abstract scholarly concept to a blatant justification for racism.

This is without ever considering the second premise....that an advantage can be "unfair". An advantage by definition is unfair....if everything was fair, no one would have an advantage. The discussion leans toward this idea of "unearned" advantages being unfair....but most advantages are "unearned". Someone generally more attractive, stronger, or intelligent than someone else has unearned advantages....and these are things that people are openly and admittedly selecting for. How can I possibly believe that a company openly admitting that they are looking for intelligent programmers are really, somehow, unconsciously ignoring intelligence and selecting for things like whiteness, asian-ness, and male-ness? I would have to believe the opposite of what all the evidence suggests....that our unconscious biases are more responsible for deliberate behavior than our conscious ones. All the evidence suggests that unconscious biases (at least racial ones) have little to no measurable impact on behavior.

It still leaves me without any real understanding of what makes a particular advantage "unfair" and another completely valid. If one genuinely believes an advantage to be unfair because it wasn't earned, then why this oddly specific obsession over one particular and not especially significant advantage? Would it not make things fundamentally more fair to fight against beauty bias (something which has a demonstrated bias advantage)?

Sorry if this seems long...but I genuinely tried to keep things simple.

 

[Kentonio]

Perhaps this is a better way of wording it. When some people on the left speak of white privilege, they speak of it in terms of an unfair advantage. It's unfair because fundamentally....whiteness is over valued and given a preferable outcome by individuals or systems more often than say "blackness" for example.

The entire premise rests on 2 fundamental assumptions....

1. That race has no real value and in fact should never be given advantage.

2. That "unfair" advantages exist.

I can actually accept #1....I believe it to be true. The problem is the same people who throw around the concept of white privilege as explained above, don't act as if race has no value. Instead, they say that a company has to hire more people of color....or a school has to restructure its disciplinary process to the advantage of people of color...or a person of color should be believed when accusations of racism are made, because they are a person of color. That isn't devaluing race to where it doesn't matter....it's valuing other races higher than whites. That's not ending racism...it's perpetuating racism. Worse, it's perpetuating systemic racism (arguably the worst kind) and justified with good intentions. It's as if everyone forgets that most systemic racism was justified with good intentions and later, when finally ended, people largely suspect it was really just based upon hatred of a particular race. Even something as benign as "celebrating blackness" becomes racist since it's basically teaching people to value that which should have no value.

If I were to say that race can or does have value....then I can't really morally or logically say that someone is valuing it incorrectly. Value is entirely subjective. It doesn't exist apart from perceptions. What that means in practical terms would be that it's never really wrong to value whiteness, or blackness, or engage in the kinds of racism that extends advantages to people based upon race. I don't agree with that....but the more I see a large segment of society do it, argue for, or promote it....the harder it becomes to tell others they shouldn't.

So in a way, it's as if they want me to answer a moral wrong with another moral wrong. It goes from being a rather abstract scholarly concept to a blatant justification for racism.

This is without ever considering the second premise....that an advantage can be "unfair". An advantage by definition is unfair....if everything was fair, no one would have an advantage. The discussion leans toward this idea of "unearned" advantages being unfair....but most advantages are "unearned". Someone generally more attractive, stronger, or intelligent than someone else has unearned advantages....and these are things that people are openly and admittedly selecting for. How can I possibly believe that a company openly admitting that they are looking for intelligent programmers are really, somehow, unconsciously ignoring intelligence and selecting for things like whiteness, asian-ness, and male-ness? I would have to believe the opposite of what all the evidence suggests....that our unconscious biases are more responsible for deliberate behavior than our conscious ones. All the evidence suggests that unconscious biases (at least racial ones) have little to no measurable impact on behavior.

It still leaves me without any real understanding of what makes a particular advantage "unfair" and another completely valid. If one genuinely believes an advantage to be unfair because it wasn't earned, then why this oddly specific obsession over one particular and not especially significant advantage? Would it not make things fundamentally more fair to fight against beauty bias (something which has a demonstrated bias advantage)?

Sorry if this seems long...but I genuinely tried to keep things simple.

How is this so hard to understand? White people as a group have lots of economic advantages over minority people because for centuries minorities were prevented via a whole range of legal and social restrictions from achieving the same things as white people. Purely on race. As a result we have a society where white people overwhelmingly have more wealth and where white people dominate positions of authority.

The ENTIRE point of trying to encourage companies to hire more minorities is to correct a balance that was entirely artificial in the first place. Whites had literally centuries of having the game tilted artificially in their favour, yet now people are whining because of some small artificial rebalancing that won't put minorities above whites, but might just create a situation which gives everyone an even playing field.

Seriously? As white people, we're supposed to find that wildly unfair?

 

[rjs330]

You hear what you hear because you live in the US (or at least some other western country, I assume) where the primary division has been along racial lines and the offending majority has been white. If you want to hear about another group’s offenses, try consuming media from a culture where the lines were drawn differently a different group were the offenders.

So only Americans are the ones saying all whites are guilty for slavery? Are other countries doing the same thing? Or is only America?

 

[rjs330]

How is this so hard to understand? White people as a group have lots of economic advantages over minority people because for centuries minorities were prevented via a whole range of legal and social restrictions from achieving the same things as white people. Purely on race. As a result we have a society where white people overwhelmingly have more wealth and where white people dominate positions of authority.

The ENTIRE point of trying to encourage companies to hire more minorities is to correct a balance that was entirely artificial in the first place. Whites had literally centuries of having the game tilted artificially in their favour, yet now people are whining because of some small artificial rebalancing that won't put minorities above whites, but might just create a situation which gives everyone an even playing field.

Seriously? As white people, we're supposed to find that wildly unfair?

That's so yesterday. Blacks have the same opportunities as whites today. We don't live in the south anymore.

 

[tall73]

How is this so hard to understand? White people as a group have lots of economic advantages over minority people because for centuries minorities were prevented via a whole range of legal and social restrictions from achieving the same things as white people. Purely on race.

What is so hard to understand that people are not groups? If you want to stop perpetuating people hating other groups, treat people as individuals.