I’m sorry if someone has used bullshit “race realism” against you. That said, I’m not shutting this down because I think it’s instructional to a) people that have never heard of it (see above for examples) and b) for anyone watching and thinking they can drop dumb nuggets like “race realism” onto Qt3 and not have the community completely dismantle them.
To be clear, he said:
" whenever you find an imbalance of result, reward or representation, it must necessarily be the result of “oppression” or “systemic” factors."
If you remove “systemic factors”, then what does it leave you with?
If the system is not creating a situation where certain groups of individuals are under-represented in some population, relative to their representation in the overall population, then that would indicate that they have some inherent predisposition towards it, based on the characteristics that are defining their group.
In this case, that means (implicitly) that some intrinsic quality of those groups (racial minorities, females, etc.) is the underlying cause of their under-representation in the group. That they are, by virtue of their GENES, either uninterested or incapable of performing the duties of that profession.
There is no scientific basis for a biological, genetic mechanism which would result in such a thing.
And this is why “race realism” is fundamentally flawed, as an idea or explanation.
Since there is no biological mechanism which would translate the genetic differences between different racial groups, or human genders, into differences in capability when it comes to an abstract task such as reviewing movies, the only sensible answer is that an observed statistical anomaly showing very low representation of those groups in the job is in fact due to some sort of systematic cause.
To be clear, this doesn’t mean that such an anomaly is caused by systemic racism or whatever… at least not as we would normally see it. It could very well be due to something like overall society pressure. You may indeed get a low number of people in some subgroup interested in taking a certain job, because society has told them that it’s weird for them to want that job.
But that is, in itself, a systemic cause.
Had to ensure this thread is accurate to the title.
No. It’s still terrible.
FFS this thread and title is like someones walked into my living room and taken a shit on the carpet.
This thread needs to be locked and thrown away into the garbage.
Choice, preference, chance. This obviously cannot always be the explanation for every imbalance in representation or reward in the world, and I’m not suggesting it is (and I don’t think gurugeorge was either). I’m not suggesting “system factors” are never the cause, I’m saying it’s not a foregone conclusion that they always are.
We might just be talking past each other in hypotheticals because all I’ve tried to establish so far is that I don’t accept this line of thinking as an explanation for why there are more men in film criticism/press.
But you’re still making a leap I’m not when you say that absent system factors, the only alternative is that I must be suggesting inherent factors. I’m saying it’s possible the expression of freedom and preference can still create groups, communities, or organizations of people who came together because of choices they made (and likewise that people not in the group are also absent of their own choosing)—not because of some biological trait, and not because some other force made the decision for them.
I can’t think of a situation where I would apply this line of thinking across an entire profession, which is why I’m not saying it applies to the press. Generally speaking I think this will happen at a smaller scale.
Oh god no, here it comes.
I’m legitimately surprised by most of the reactions like this of shock and offense that this thread exists. Is it really just about the phrasing of the thread title?
If it was called something like “Race realism” - the latest bullshit rebranding of racism, would you still be mad? Because I’ll grant you the current title is more ambiguous, but it’s still hardly an endorsement, and it even includes a warning.
Edit: topic title was “Race Realism” uhhh… (warning, may be toxic) or something like that when I made this post, Telefrog just changed it.
Bad tacos at lunch?
Oh no, Gurugey Sexiston is typing something. BRACE FOR IMPACT.
Is that title better?
No, this is not a legitimate statement. I can break it down as such:
- Choice: your genetic composition does not influence abstract choices in this way. The only way to have a statistically noticable difference in the choices that these sub-groups make, in terms of their profession, that so dramatically departs from the population’s makeup, would be for some systemic factor which influences those choices.
- Preference: This is the same as choice, and is invalid as an explanation for the reason above.
- Chance: No, this is pretty much not a viable explanation. Chance is, by its nature, unlikely to result in such a deviation from the population’s makeup.
Sure, in some very small group of cases, then random chance could result in some weird result. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.
It’s not what gurugeorge was talking about. I guess maybe it is what I was talking about.
Anyway, I’ll drop it for now, as it’s certainly not what this thread is actually about either. It might be a more interesting debate if it was in response to something specific and all I’ve got is hypotheticals at this point.
To reiterate in closing, I am in no way entertaining that imbalances in representation or results or reward or whatever can be explained by inherent superiority or anything by any biological lines of race, gender, whatever.
We’re in agreement on that. What I was entertaining was the idea that if we start with that as a shared foundation and understanding, and we see an imbalance, I’m not ready to accept it as given that it must therefore be oppression or injustice. I may be wrong and never realize it! I may be wrong and eventually convinced! I may even be right! But in no situation am I suggesting “well, white people must just be better, lol!”
You totally got it, I guess I thought it was coming faster.
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/MeekRegularImperatorangel-size_restricted.gif
OH. GOD. HE’S STILL TYPING. HANG ONTO SOMETHING.
Yea yea, I was onboard but someone was already posting dinosaurs, so…
Yessssss, I knew it! I should have started the pool like I thought to myself I should.