Yep, I'm makin' it a roundtable.

Not to get too "political" on you, but I watched this six-part video series recently, and I thought it was really well-done. It may seem like a typical anti-GamerGate video at the start, but it isn't. It isn't even truly about Anita Sarkeesian. The analysis is very logical and even-handed, and I appreciated the way that it recast the whole feminism issue (or any social progress issue, really) by framing it from the perspective of the people whom it irritates. Honestly, it almost single-handedly repaired the damage done to my judgement by thousands upon thousands of strident internet-liberals.

Try to go in without any pre-conceived expectations and watch it with an open mind.








I'll give you the Cliffs Notes, in case you don't want to watch right now. Essentially, the video series analyzes WHY people like Anita Sarkeesian produce such a strong negative reaction, and it goes beyond the usual simplistic "They're taking our games!!" rhetoric. This guy posits that the REAL, underlying reason why Anita makes many gamers uncomfortable is that she causes them to question their way they've lived their life to this point. Ignorance is bliss, and the aim of people like Anita is to remove that ignorance. Like the term "privilege". A lot of people hate that term, and it's always rubbed me the wrong way, as well. But it doesn't mean that your life is peaches and cream or that every person from a minority has it tough. It just means that a minority person in the same position as you would have it harder, solely due to the way they were born.

That's an uncomfortable thought, as most people think of themselves as fundamentally good people, and acknowledging that you've never questioned your advantages or thought to help the less fortunate would call your own morality into question. And we're ALL guilty of that, to be honest. It's almost unnatural behavior to revolt against a system that personally benefits you. I mean, I don't like the thought of killing living creatures. I find the thought of hunting utterly revolting. I don't even swat mosquitoes or gnats. If I really considered the fact that animals had to die just so I could enjoy a hamburger, I'd probably be a vegetarian. So I don't WANT to consider it. Because meat is delicious!

Similarly, look at freaking FoxConn. All of our consumer electronics products are basically made of Chinese children. Who the fuck wants to think about that?! What's the alternative?

I'm not saying that I'm necessarily going to change my behavior based on this video series. I still believe that ignorance is bliss, and if you spend all of your time thinking about the evils of the world, your life's probably not going to be very enjoyable. But I still think it was worth watching. It kind of brought stuff that has always been floating at the back of my consciousness to the forefront. And what I most appreciate is that it did so in a non-judgmental way. It might make you a bit uncomfortable, but it definitely won't single you out.

URL to share (right click and copy)

@Anand Putting whatever issues I have with that aside, the specific issue here was not minorities making generalizations about prejudice to keep safe, but a not at risk white dude making generalizations to defend a relatively privileged individual's personal racism because uh... guess the logic was that where he is from everyone is doing it so that makes it more ok so we people shouldn't be making an issue out of it? Except he isn't from India anyway, so it was a stretch of a stretch of your opinion being used to defend open racism. I feel like you should kind of be taking more issue with the misuse of your idea (you were specifically cited to give legitimacy) to defend racism than anything else here.

We're talking about a dude who was born in Georgia and grew up in Florida here. And I don't know his complete racial heritage but apparently a lot of it is "white". And he has never lived in India or anywhere outside of the US as far as I can gather (outside of touring.) Whatever weird argument Rob was making, it seems to be a complete misapplication of whatever you were trying to say. It was basically, as far as I can tell, "Stop criticizing Hogan because pretty much everyone from India is racist" which... I don't have words for this.

But when it gets compounded with more generalizations (all vegans are smug) too, I put my foot down. We don't need this nonsense here.

@Zero
I don't really see that Rob was defending racism, though. Did he say that it was okay to be openly racist? (Although Hogan was being privately racist, which is even worse, in some respects.)

But I wasn't referencing his post, anyway. Just the responses.

@Anand

Sorry but I can't agree with that. It's way too close to the type of racism where people move to the other side of the street or lock their car door if they see someone of a different race walking by. Practical? Maybe to some degree. Racist as fuck? Without question.

Did you support the racial profiling that went on post 9/11 at security checks? That's probably the biggest application of 'practical' racism in recent years and far too many people were okay with it because they were simply scared.

@Stephen
Fair enough. I consider myself a practical person. (I wouldn't cross the street based on skin color, but if I saw a group of dudes with prison tats walking towards me? Taxi!!)

As someone who probably DID get an inordinate amount of scrutiny at airports post-911, I would support profiling in emergency situations (i.e. "There's a bomb on this plane, and we only have two minutes to find the remote mechanism!"), but not ordinary ones. I feel that continually irradiatiating someone as a matter of course is somewhat of a violation of human rights.

It's a thorny issue to make that a judgment call, though, since overuse of profiling has resulted in quite a few recent tragedies.

@Anand
@Stephen

Racial profiling (in that context) doesn't work to begin with. It's not like the leader of a terrorist organization would be stupid enough to send an Arab man to blow up a plane. If they wanted to send white soccer mom to do it, she'd get by no problem thanks to our misguided security measures. Unless checks are purely random, people will be able to play the system.

Of course, there's a discussion to be had about the fourth amendment and our culture of fear and whether the militarization of airports is actually beneficial in the first place, but if it's gonna happen, we could at least make it work.

@Anand I dunno, this sure sounds like a defense of racism:

You'd grow up a racist yourself, and then everyone would tell you how you're such an awful person, even though you weren't in charge of the way you were developed.

Maybe Rob could explain what he meant better but it sure seems like he is peeved that people are calling out Hogan for obvious racism because he "wasn't in charge of the way he was developed", and then he got into the 100% of Indians yada yada thing like trying to justify it because "everyone" from that culture is that way. Which, again, we're talking about a half? white dude from America who has absolutely no connection to people who live in India but whatever.

Bah. Maybe we should just try to get back on track here.

@Anand

There is nothing more for me to really say in response to that. If you think racial profiling is okay then I can't really say much else besides I think it is absolutely a wrong thing to engage in. It hurts people directly through application and others through being restated. Because of what you said Mustache now believes that 'all Indian people are a little bit racist against black people'. Maybe others who have read this thread now believe it as well. I'd like to think not but that's how these myths gain traction.

@Zero
But it IS natural to have racist attitudes, if you're raised in a racist environment. Of course, you'll eventually gain more control of it, particuarly when you enter a larger, more diverse environment. But, you know, it takes a lot of courage and mental flexibility to reject your parents' teachings or the general mores or beliefs of your environment. I don't think everyone is necessarily capable of that. (I'm speaking generally, not about Hogan. I have no idea what his background is.)

Even though I'm tempted to, I'm not going to go into my theory of zero personal responsibility here, because everybody hates and reflexively rejects it, even though the logic of it seems ironclad to me.

@Secret_Tunnel
Not only that, but there are a billion ways to skin a cat. To assume that the only avenue of potential attack is to commandeer a plane seems very short-sighted to me.

@Stephen
I actually don't support the example of racial profiling which you mentioned. Out of curiosity, do you support actual, traditional criminal profiling? Like trying to narrow down potential suspects in a serial killing case based on behavior and race/gender/etc.?

As far as 'myths', some of them gain traction because they're largely true. Not for stereotyping an individual that you've never met, but for analyzing trends in a culture. Pretending that a generalization can never be even partially accurate will only stifle the open discussion of possible causes and solutions.

@Anand Yeah but it is also natural to be expected to be a free-thinking adult after a certain age and be expected to take some responsibility for what you say and do.

The interesting thing to me about this is that defending people based on being a product of your environment tends to be more "liberal" viewpoint than a "conservative" one, which makes me wonder how Stache would feel if we extrapolated his feelings here to other examples. Like, why are crime rates so high in the inner city? Etc. In conversations we have had on these things in the past he seems to be a BIG proponent of personal responsibility there. Why then should a relatively privileged dude like Hogan get a "product of his culture" pass?

But even most liberals wouldn't say "don't make people take responsibility for their actions", like in the case above pretty much no one is saying people born in the inner city who commit crimes should never be arrested, they would just focus more on the systems that contribute to crime and how to fix those.

I dunno. This is all a conversation I really don't think is going to help anyone though. The key takeaway of this all is... let's not make racist generalizations of huge groups of people. I THOUGHT I made it clear that wouldn't be acceptable here in the past, maybe I have to make it clear all over again.

@Anand

That's tough because you have a situation where an eyewitness says the person looked like this or had these features. It does happen though that those descriptions lead to false arrests, false convictions and undeserved time incarcerated. I think it ultimately is up to the police to ensure that the information they are given is credible and that they are applying it to the best of their ability. I think though that there is a fundamental difference from saying we saw a guy do this thing and he looked like this versus you look like this so you are more inclined to act in this way.

Myths can have some grain of truth in them but they are still harmful and not worth giving oxygen to. For example, there is a myth that black people don't tip waitstaff well. So what happens is that the myth gets repeated, waitstaff give poor service to black customers who in turn tip them poorly thus reinforcing the myth. So the waitstaff has their opinion reinforced and repeats the myth thus giving it more traction. Repeating that myth just breeds a stronger, uglier stereotype. There are tonnes of these myths but they are all founded on some level of ignorance and intolerance.

@Zero

This is important though. Stifling discussion of racist statements just leads to people not confronting them for the toxic ideas that they are.

@Stephen
You're talking about portrait sketching. I meant criminal profiling, when no actual data on the perpetrator's appearance is available.

As far as the second part, different cultures have different overall values. It's not just race. It includes gender, environment, and everything else. Using your example, if you saw a rigorously-conducted scientific study that overwhelmingly confirmed a common myth, would you be okay with its propagation?

@Stephen I think it can be important, sometimes. If you don't just end up arguing and arguing for pages. Which can also have the reverse effect of making the person feel more victimized if it looks like everyone is piling on them, and digging their heels in more.

@Anand The problem with this is it ignores the context, as well as usually ignoring the root causes. Like, it may be a provable fact that, for instance, certain ethnic groups commit more crime per capita than other ethnic groups (although I feel like those stats should be questioned based on who is getting profiled and thus caught more often but I digress, more on this below.) But to just say something like "it's not racist to point out facts" ignores that context is pretty much precisely what makes things racist or not. Because that same fact can be used in a variety of ways:

Ethnic group A has a high crime rate, we should study the root causes of this and see what changes need to be made to make things better.

Ethnic group A has a high crime rate, let's try to stop the flow of guns and drugs into their neighborhoods.

Ethnic group A has a high crime rate, I'm going to work extra hard to make sure I don't just fall into bad tropes representing them in my media.

Ethnic group A has a high crime rate, traveling through that neighborhood highly populated with people from this group alone makes me uncomfortable.

Ethnic group A has a high crime rate, there is a boy from that ethnic group in my shop, I'm going to follow him around to make sure he doesn't rob me!

Ethnic group A has a high crime rate, my daughter will date a person from Ethnic group A over my dead body!

Ethnic group A has a high crime rate, what a bunch of dirty *insert slurs here*, they should go back to *some other place that isn't here*.

Etc.

I'd say in most cases if some "fact" is being brought up just to tear down a group of people, it's probably racist, or sexist, or whatever. If it is being brought up to try to make positive change in a community... then maybe not quite so much, although it depends on the context there too as well.

Either way "facts" that make groups look bad should be questioned rigorously on every level instead of just accepted as truth. Instead of just blindly accepting crime stats, for instance, we should look into why some stats might make certain groups look more criminal than they actually are, etc. Often it is systematic racism that leads to the "facts", if we're not willing to address how those "facts" are created, we're just buying into the broken system.

@Anand

Ah okay. I don't really see how that is related then to racism? Looking for motive, connections to the victim etc. all seem like standard police work to me.

No, I wouldn't be okay with it because we are talking about people's lives and how the rest of society treats them. Just because some people might fall in to a myth applying to them doesn't mean it should affect the way you treat an entire demographic. Correlation does not equal causation. Think about what you are saying here. If we took a racist myth like asian people are poor drivers, tested it and found out that on average asian people have a higher incidence rate of getting in to accidents that it is then totally okay for an insurance company to raise rates purely on the skin colour of the applicants? Can you not agree that would be terrible?

@Stephen

Car insurance companies do charge men more than women for that exact reason. I'm not sure if it that's terrible or not. I had it explained to me that "it's not sexism, it's statistics."

@Secret_Tunnel

And yet the myth I always hear is that women are worse drivers than men. Goes to show how pointless some of these myths are. I do think it is terrible and absolutely sexist.

@Secret_Tunnel

They also charge younger drivers more too.

@Secret_Tunnel As a really, really safe driver this always bothered me especially. It's a weird case where blatant discrimination is legal.

I feel slightly less conflicted about "Ladies' Nights" and such, maybe just because I've never been a part of that whole scene, and because, despite it being pretty problematic in some ways, it at least seems to be TRYING to be for the benefit of both sexes on some level (I've even heard arguments that it mostly exists for men, because men want lots of women at clubs, or whatever.) Still, on a technical level it probably shouldn't be legal. And it looks like disagreement with Ladies' Nights might be one thing some feminists and MRAs actually agree on.

@Zero
I specifically asked Stephen that because he argued against the black people/tipping myth due to behavioral tampering of the data. So I wanted to see if he thought it would be okay if the data was obtained in a controlled environment.

I actually think cultural/gender/racial/etc. differences SHOULD be acknowledged, specifically so the root causes of any unfavorable disparities can be analyzed and potentially eliminated. Like, if we take my earlier statement about Indians and black people to be true, WHY is it that way (I have some theories), and how can we fix it? That's far more useful to me than pretending that it doesn't exist, in the name of political correctness.

For the sake of argument, how do you guys feel about positive stereotypes like "Asian people are smart"?

@Stephen
Hmm, insurance is a weird example. Because it really IS all about statistics, I think. There's nothing moral about insurance. Those guys are like bookmakers, just trying to beat the odds and score a healthy margin for themselves. Is it wrong to think that the Yankees are going to beat the Cowboys by a two point spread?

Y'know, when people do traffic studies, sometimes they factor potential fatal accidents into their decision. Like, "It would cost this much more, but it could save this many lives." And there's an actual value they use for the worth of a human life in that formula. (Unfortunately, I forgot what it is.)

As for your first question, criminal profilers usually, in the absence of real data, assume a racial profile based on evidence and statistics. It's basically similar to the racial profiling which you were referencing, except it's used to solve a specific important crime or series of crimes.

Agent Mulder made his name with criminal profiling, btw.

@Zero
Insurance agents are like me! They start with a certain assumption of you, based on your gender/age/etc., and then adjust it over time as they observe your behavior.

@Anand Yeah but what I am saying is WHY myths (or in your example, if it is proven true, facts) are getting propagated is important too. I don't think it is as simple as "is it ok to propagate this fact, yes or no?" That's why I gave the examples above. If you're propagating the facts about say... black crime rates to try to get people interested in making the inner city a safer place, that is a huge difference between propagating facts about black crime rates to justify profiling black teens when they are shopping or something. No fact exists in a void. People are propagating generalities for a reason, and that reason matters. "The truth" can be used just as easily for bad as it can for good.

I'd also go back to being very, very skeptical of any of these "facts" to begin with. Often people just spout out vague numbers on say... crime... to try to prove something about a population, but ignore that those numbers are skewed by bias and profiling to begin with. Suffice to say, pointing to numbers about who is currently incarcerated is NOT the same as knowing who actually commits the most crimes in America. Especially when you take into account how very, very unlikely it is for anyone above a certain income to ever end up doing serious jail time.

As for "Asian people are smart", Shirley despises that one. She could explain why better than me, but she makes it very clear that "benevolent" racism still has a ton of negative effects for the recipients. For instance, there is an intense amount of pressure for Asian immigrants to excel to super high standards that most can't actually meet, and then they are looked down upon as failures. And you can also end up with a bunch of shitty students making friends with you just to try to use your perceived intelligence. There was actually an old punk band who wrote a song about this...


Also, as a teacher, I actually kind of hate the word "smart" as a catch-all. You can say group A scores better on this specific kind of standardized test, or group B excels in this particular field, etc. but one overall "smart"? There are all kinds of smarts. And sometimes I think the smartest people are the ones who you know... just do what they love, and don't worry about excelling in the things Capitalist bigwigs value blah blah blah you know where I'm going with this...

@Anand

Positive stereotypes are just as bad. With your example of asian people being smart think how it must feel for an asian person who isn't smart. An unnecessary focus is being put on their shortcoming and if it is repeated and gets internalized it could foster some serious issues of self doubt or difficulty figuring out their own identity. For asian people who are smart it marginalizes their skills as just being innate to their race. If I was asian and I worked hard to excel in school or whatever and someone just chalked it up to 'asians are smart' I'd be pretty annoyed with that.

So you are saying that there is a case and they don't know who the perpetrator is nor do they have evidence but the leap is made to be that they are looking for someone of a certain ethnicity? Yeah, I'd say that's pretty problematic.

As for the insurance thing I think it is a poor system. The only variables that should matter are experience of the driver, culpability of incidents they have been a part of, and the vehicle that is being driven.

EDIT: I would say as well that you can discuss the cultural influences you are speaking about without perpetuating the racist myth. You have to make sure you actually do that though. So far in this thread all we have heard is your idea that indian people are a little bit racist and none of these cultural values have been explored whatsoever. That is textbook racism with no analysis or interpretation of larger issues at play. I'm sure you have reasons for believing what you do but you have to understand why I and most people who hear that kind of thing disagree and push back against it.