2641

And apparently it has all been a failure since black-white economic inequality has not budged in 50 years.

Do you think there has been no decrease in racism over the last 50 years? If there has, why has it not changed the relative income or wealth at all?

2642

If I had to hypothesize, I’d guess something along these lines…

Originally, racism created an environment where blacks were prevented from ascending the economic ladder, and forced to the lower class.

At that point, economic mobility was affected not only by their race, but by their current status as lower class. So, even if racism itself was reduced (and I think it certainly has been over the past 50 years), those people would have economic mobility limited by virtue of the fact that they are at the bottom of the economic ladder.

So, while racism still exists and limits economic mobility, I would suspect most of their mobility limitation is actually based upon their current economic status.

2643

Well Sarkeesian is just complaining about her personal hardships.

Oh for sure man.

Wait, unless you mean not the videos, but later her complaining above receiving death threats and what is coming onto years of organized harassment.

In that case… oh for sure man.

2644

There’s a great Stuart Lee bit about this, that “political correctness” is essentially institutionalized politeness. Timex is going to retreat even further and further into navel-gazing vagueness here, his “acting naive and obtuse” act will eventually border into like a Rainman impersonation, and it’s precisely because the “demands” from magnet here are simply to make accurate observations about society.

We aren’t even at the fixing shit level, dudes can’t even saying it’s better to be white than black without someone pointing that some black people are actually rich. “Oh wow, never thought of that, ban affirmative action, Paul/Scalise 2016”

2645

I’m being a little harsh there. It’s certainly possible that Desslock and Timex and Alstein really never had thought or read about the complex role race and gender and class play in shaping society, I’m being sarcastic where I shouldn’t be. I don’t know very much about chemistry, there’s certainly no obligation for everyone to become a lay scholar in history and sociology and political science.

But it’s just odd that people are CLEARLY taking Breitbart and 8chan and shit versions of those disciplines as fair representations(we’ve had multiple mentions of Harrison Bergeron, which, as an aside… GamerGaters’ top dog is a lawyer who couldn’t win a Skype debate against an unemployed punter. Maybe let’s not all pretend we’re the guy who excels at stuff and is brought down, huh?) . Read some shit from actual experts before just assuming that Critical Race Theory or whatever is part of the International Worker’s Rebellion.

2646

I’m still waiting for someone to provide data - any remotely credible data at all - that shows that “the politicization of games media” is actually a thing.

I mean, actually a thing in the way those who use it as a pejorative claim it exists - ignoring the fact that not talking about politics in games and fighting for the status quo is itself inherently a political position.

2647

I see where you’re coming from.

2648

Most people oppose racism/sexism. Even hardcore GGs. It’s just what people define as racist/sexist varies heavily from person to person.

2649

I agree. And I suspect the strongest visceral reactions in these discussions tend to come from people who oppose racism/sexism as they define it, but are considered racist/sexist (or the beneficiary of racism/sexism) according to someone else’s definition.

When it comes to racism/sexism, it can be really, really uncomfortable to ask yourself, “Is it possible that I am contributing to the problem?” It seems to set up a cognitive dissonance loop (“I’m not the bad guy!!”) that prevents any further analysis of the issues.

It’s funny, because this doesn’t seem to occur for other issues. For instance, I’m concerned about global warming yet I can easily identify several ways that I’m contributing to the problem, and I can easily ponder ways to change my behavior.

2650

Everything you say here is valid, although I would suspect that it’s not as limited to this particular issue as you suggest. I think the majority of folks don’t tend to really think that hard or often about why they believe what they do.

Perhaps even harder is thinking about what OTHER people are thinking, and why. Most people aren’t bad, or malicious, really towards anyone. And those that are tend to be so out of fear. A lot of sources of conflict, especially with something like racism, stem directly from this kind of fear. In my experience, the best way to combat it is often not to demonize those people, but rather to recognize that they are likely good human beings who are acting in something of a rational manner, but with incomplete information.

I forget where I originally saw it, it may have even been on these forums, but there was a cool article about Daryl Davis, a blues pianist who ended up befriending KKK members. I’ve seen similar things happen (albeit, not with a case as extreme as that, but with homophobic folks who end up softening their stance once they actually interact with normal gay people).

Generally, attacking them for their beliefs just puts them on the defensive. If you assume they’re evil, horrible people… well, they can’t really come around to your side. Because they’re not evil, horrible people. If that’s a major pillar of your argument, then it kind of precludes adoption of it. But if you start with the assumption that they’re decent people (and really, if they’re not, then there’s little point in talking to them anyway) then there’s some hope that you can slowly expose the parts of their experience that cause them to believe certain things, and work on better compartmentalizing them so that they don’t create such large misconceptions about things.

With a case like Daryl Davis, he basically brought down the whole KKK in Maryland, just by befriending a bunch of the members, because while it’s easy to hate an abstract entity like, “a black man”, it’s much harder to hate an ACTUAL person who is more than a one dimensional caricature.

As I said, I’ve seen this with gay people, and Davis’ story highlights it with a black person. I’m not sure exactly how it fits with sexism though, as we generally all have common interactions with women. It may be different because while homophobia or racism often hinges on the assumption that people in those groups are “bad”, sexism isn’t really based on the idea that women are bad. It’s more based on some notion that certain roles and positions within society are simply the “correct” positions for women. That may be harder to expose people to, and get them to accept the sort of change.

2651

I believe the trivialisation of a cause damages it, not strengthens it.

For example, now McIntosh (50% of FemFrequency) has declared Indiana Jones a vile series of films as they promote colonial looting and colonalism I’m now going to treat everything him and his company say as absolute tosh, and if he ever produces anything worthwhile, it will be ignored. If he thinks he is going to fight racism by attacking Indiana Jones and the swashbuckling archaeologist trope he has another thing coming.

2652

I assumed you were joking, but the fact that McIntosh actually seems to hate the Indiana Jones character is kind of laughable.

2653

Much of the root cause seems to be embedded into the US criminal justice system.

LMN8R - It is NOW. It’s not worth discussing certain topics anymore because #GG will be all over you if you don’t follow The Party Line. Sigh.

2654

The line between him trolling and being serious is more blurred than my own output in these two threads, (unless boogle its all serious) but I’m just a troll in a P&R forum, he’s doing it in his capacity as FemFreqs writer, producer and director.

2655

Why are you so concerned with quantification? The solution is very simple yet simultaneously very difficult: equality under the law for all people and elimination of personal prejudice. I would say the second thing is basically impossible but it can be massively mitigated and hopefully minimized by first of all making any form of institutional or corporate prejudice illegal and second of all social pressure to drive prejudice underground. I think we are making good progress on these things, but always the forces of reaction want to drag us back to the bad old days.

What about wealth? Wealth certainly constitutes immense privilege, potentially opening way more doors than simply being white. Is a rich black man more privileged then a poor white man?

Should they not be treated equally under the law, with respect to employment, and indeed socially? I should think yes.

2656

Here it is: identity politics doesn’t know how to handle class. It’s somehow pro-woman or pro-black to argue that we need more diversity amongst our plutocrats instead of analyzing how women and blacks are disproportionately hurt by wealth concentration.

2657

Why are you so concerned with quantification?

As I mentioned previously, I’m thinking about it from the perspective of actionable information, and actual domestic policy.

Should they not be treated equally under the law, with respect to employment, and indeed socially? I should think yes.

Certainly, but simply stating that as a desire isn’t necessarily useful.

My experience dealing with the government, and its schedule of differently disadvantaged groups is perhaps influencing my views here, as I’m thinking of it from a particularly concrete direction, where certain groups are directly favored over others, in order to achieve some sort of overall equality.

For example, the government may favor a company owned by a woman over one owned by a man, with the ultimate goal being to counterbalance the fact that sexism makes it more difficult for women to own businesses.

However, it becomes complex when you start comparing various cases of people who have all been disadvantaged in some way. That’s where you get the case with someone like Michael Jordan’s son. Technically, because of his race, he would qualify for benefits targeting a minorty owned business. However, in reality, he as an individual is not ACTUALLY disadvantaged. Indeed, he’s incredibly privileged compared to the average person.

At that point, the quantification starts to matter, maybe, because the government may have some limited amount of “favor” that it can hand out to various individuals.

2658

While affirmative action can be beneficial in extreme cases where it is essentially necessary to “force” segregated populations to work side by side so that the barriers can start to be broken down and also get that initial foot in the door for very disadvantaged groups, I don’t think it’s a good levelling mechanism. Better to strictly enforce equality under the law (for rich and poor as well, for heavens sake) and just keep playing whack-a-mole with cases of prejudice (and nepotism and graft and other forms of corruption as we do). And of course social disapproval of bigots, misogynists and the like slowly drives them underground.

I don’t think heavy handed action is required. It is foolish to seek equality of outcome, we should strive for equality of opportunity. It’s more about tearing down barricades and impediments rather than providing stepladders and grappling hooks.

At that point, the quantification starts to matter, maybe, because the government may have some limited amount of “favor” that it can hand out to various individuals.

Yes I see the bogeyman you wish to summon.

2659

Please, try to understand that I’m not trying to say that none of it matters, but rather at this is how the government deals with it currently. That there IS a prioritization of different groups, which is why you may need to go further than simply “everyone’s disadvantaged”.

While affirmative action can be beneficial in extreme cases where it is essentially necessary to “force” segregated populations to work side by side so that the barriers can start to be broken down and also get that initial foot in the door for very disadvantaged groups, I don’t think it’s a good levelling mechanism. Better to strictly enforce equality under the law (for rich and poor as well, for heavens sake) and just keep playing whack-a-mole with cases of prejudice (and nepotism and graft and other forms of corruption as we do). And of course social disapproval of bigots, misogynists and the like slowly drives them underground.

Well, the stuff I’m talking about is potentially different than affirmative action. I mean, it’s not things like hiring quotas. But rather, it’s a conscious decision to give certain contracts to corporations run by certain types of individuals.

So, in that case, the government has some kind of methodology (I have absolutely no idea what it is) that places different types of disadvantaged groups on a scale, and tries to offset the disadvantage by providing additional benefits through increased opportunity.

2660

First off, at some point judgement has to come into play in terms of determining what constitutes an unjust vs. an earned advantage. After these are qualified, the quantification becomes rather difficult to manage but it’s not impossible unless we won’t allow for a margin of error. I mean, I had to have suffered through doing multiple regressions by hand back in college for SOME damn reason, right? [er … sorry about that, just a little pent up aggravation over the decades; it was a point of pride when I finally used Calculus in the workplace, but I never, ever had to do ANOVA’s or multiple regressions by hand]. The thing is, none of us have the expertise to give a proper listing without some heavy research that would require access to a lot of info that people may not be so keen to offer up.

edit - I’d also say that means-testing is one tool to use, but it’s not a precision one