My premise is that as soon as a poster A posts some content which other posters (B, C...) find racist is going to be derailed.

It doesn't matter if the the reply is 'you're a racist' or 'that's racist', or some long winded equivalent formulations. AFAIK, in almost every case here in Los Dos, A or his allies will (a) whine about name calling or (b) dissemble about 'bringing race into everything' y/o the Sandy Vagina PC Police.

I keep asking: if the word 'racist' was added to the profanity filter, responding with "that's racism" was an infractable offense, and FlyWf was perma-banned... do you seriously believe that these mythical 'adult conversations' would start happening?

Right.

But those who habitually whine about the 'meanies' wanna censor/ban everyone else to get their way. My point is we should have (a) a discussion of what 'working' here even means, and (b) we should have some pretty clear evidence that this proposed censor/banning actually really empirically makes things 'work' better.

Here you are basically begging the question (circular reasoning). Calling someone who consistently posts racist derp a 'racist' isn't "childish name calling". It's making a simple observation.

Yeah, but that's only because the Atlanta team owner doesn't post here.

He was called a racist plenty of times in that thread. I gotta assume if he did post here, and directly posted the quote in the OP as the actual OP... we would have seen the same typical derail by whining about name calling y/o the Sandy Vagina PC Police.

Trolly, your opinion is valid. I believe you're wrong though. It just stands to reason to me that engaging posters as you would if sitting face-to-face, with respect and civility, attempting to listen and argue the points without resorting to personal insult is a much more constructive way of learning and educating others, and thus more productive overall. Let's see what happens.

A lotta things that superficially seem to make sense turn out not to.

An anonymous asynchronous multi-way text-centric conversation != in person verbal & non-verbal synchronous two-way conversation.

For starters, we have this perpetual unanswered question: given a multi-way interwebs forum, let's say A posts something that B & C feel is racist content. Besides mod level censoring/banning, there is no way to keep C from responding with a "you're racist". The question is... how does that stop a B from engaging A as if he was sitting down face-to-face etc?

Because that's what we hear 100% of time... as soon as any C posts "you're racist" the whiners will then descend and derail the thread with their complaints of 'name-calling' y/o Sandy Vagina PC Police.

Notice: the posters shutting down the conversation is always the whiners. Shouldn't they be scolded as the actual derailers that they actually are? Why won't they STFU and allow any Bs who wanna have a sitting down face-to-face conversation do so ??

Again, you are begging the question here.

Here is that same old hidden assumption again. There is no reason to assume that learning or educating others is the goal of all Politards... in fact this is clearly false. Productive as per what goal/metric?

Well I've already tried this with my "A serious conversation of... " pair of threads last December. It was before self-modded threads, but I asked in my OP that FlyWf not post and all other posters to not call others 'a racist' etc. I couldn't enforce my OP... but I felt it was pretty well observed in that thread. Our former resident out-of-the-closet racist, the odious Silver_Man2 participated.

There was no mythical 'adult conversation' breaking out in that thread.

You might be right, Trolly. In fact, you may be both wrong and right. Some may find this conversation constructive and useful, others may think it's a waste of time.

Like I said, my intention is to discuss what is considered racist and why. This can serve to to inform and educate people who don't understand and as a forum for those who disagree. I welcome all opinions offered politely. Related to that, a discussion of degree is in order, ie, how much offense is or ought to be taken by specific racial comments in specific contexts. That can help everyone learn how such offense is taken, and how much if any scorn ought to be applied. I made a chart I want opinions on, but it's on my computer and it's crappy and incomplete, so I'll fix it up and post it later.

S. Trolly's myth is a myth. Communicating and keeping open correspondence through defined decorum is smarter and more adaptable than persistent labeling and harsh social pressure. It is more challenging and does not cater to the partisan style methods of adversarial discrediting.

Recently some posters declared it was not their job to help people who do not seem to 'get it' fast. Fine, stay out of the business of the people who do have the patience and the will to leave a light on for people of variable mistakes.


Can any poster nicely explain which words in this post constitute "whining" and explain how and why?

I'd love a polite explanation why people who don't want to have educational or informative discussions think they get to define why the people who want to have those types of interactions do?

Just to clarify... when I mentioned 'adult conversations' I was referring to these (perhaps mythical) conversations where my poster Bs (no known examples) politely learn/educate my poster As (ex: Silver_Man2), and where my Poster Cs (ex: FlyWf) are effectively censored/banned.

I wan't referring to meta-conversations, like the conversation ITT.

We should open a thread personally inviting alleged racists to participate and preventing the incendiary posters from being involved with the explicit purpose of discussing the issue delicately/maturely.

Would be interesting to try if nothing else.

Been there, did that last year.

To be fair, it seems like it wasn't exactly a "safe" place where prejudice could be expressed without it necessarily being followed by labels and derision.

I mean, here's what followed when SM2 made his entrance. I didn't even cherry pick, these were the first responses to him. Seems pretty standard for 2+2 TBH.

True enough. But if you had read further (not that I'd suggest that you should do so) I think you would have found that the "screaming and yelling" died out pretty quickly afterwards.

It's the best that could be done before self-mod threads. Now with the self-mod option the 'rules' in the OP could be enforced. You, me, or anyone else, could PM a request to OP such a thread right now (hint, hint).

I'll msg JJ.

Yeah, Trolly's thread was pretty depressing on many levels. I know plenty of people in St. Louis who think like Silverman and that other guy in there talking about "european" pride, and if I get into a discussion with them about Ferguson, I'll expect those sorts of arguments. Best I can figure is to just show them another point of view, and try and get them to understand why theirs is lacking much perspective. I'm not entirely dissing scorn and harassment of people who post repulsive ideas, just asking for more patience and understanding I guess. For now I'll put on my best Shoshana face and push through this hoping for a polite thread.

Mat posted in another thread about the time he felt guilty for questioning if a black doctor was the best qualified to treat him because of affirmative action. I think he's right to feel a bit guilty because he's acknowledging his ignorance of the process and if giving a leg up to someone based on their race could have lead to him receiving suboptimal treatment. I don't believe that's racist though because it wouldn't matter who the doctor was, he would have felt the same way in any case where affirmative action was possible. If bald people were given affirmative action, he'd wonder the same things and have the same apprehensions about doctors who look like Dr. Phil.

I'm not arguing against affirmative action, I think it's benefits out way it's drawbacks. I work for a minority-owned company under 8A status which receives government contracts because of it. I've been in a situation where my qualifications were questioned by another contractor because of that, and I was a bit offended. I couldn't blame the guy too much though. He and his team had created an entire 4-day course to train government agencies, and then, to cut costs, EPA asked them to drop two of their teachers and go with just one and me, a subcontractor. He wasn't shy about his apprehensions, even mentioning the 8A status outright, and I had to work hard to prove myself.

Conversation moved from the 'bad posters thread'...

OK great. I am a bit confused however, because of the quote you made, if you mean V1, or something like V2, here...

V1: Posting "You're racist" is considered a personal attack. Posting "That's Racist" is not. Complaining that "that's racist" is a personal attack is considered trolling.

V2: Posting "You're racist" -or- "That's racist" is considered a personal attack. Posting "Check Your Privilege", "CYP", or equivalent is not. Complaining that "CYP", etc is a personal attack is considered trolling.

It's more like if we can pull it off.

It doesn't hurt to ask. First, I'd suggest we see if we can start a conversation here ITT regarding this proposed 'FoldnDark-Shame Trolly !!!1! Compromise'. We should especially extend an invitation to MrWookie and tomdemaine to participate in our conversation.

See White Fragility.

Well sure, we can't really see how it works unless it was actually used. If it were to actually be implemented, I'd suggest a limited trail period at first.

Fair enough. To be clear, I certainly support what you're trying to do.

Thanks for the link on white fragility, Trolly. Enlightening. It would make a great thread topic. I agree with some of it for sure, like how segregated society still is, and how little dialogue there is between races about racism. This is a large and important hurdle, imo.

Some of it is pretty bizarre though. I think my favorite is how they describe the reactions white people have to being confronted with our white privilege: denial, anger, withdrawal, etc., and explain how this is the way white people reinstate their "racial equilibrium." I mean, okay. I can imagine a similar article about how white people are indignant when told they are half lizard, half alien, and here is what you should expect to see when they're told this.... Well, no shyt! Much of the stuff being stated as fact about white privilege comes off that way.

One interesting thing I've taken away from it so far is it appears studies show white people still desperately need to be educated on racism, and we are very sensitive to being called out on it ("oh, not me!"). So, my guess is that the authors wouldn't recommend an approach that involves mocking, insulting, etc., etc... just to bring it back to this discussion.

I was referring to your V1, scenario. I must have missed where you outlined V2. I'll give it a good think, and would be happy to hear other opinions. Chez makes good points that none of it matters a bit if most people aren't even interested in interesting conversations. I mean, Springer is interesting in it's own way.

Another suggestion, just spit-balling, but another moderator to enforce the no personal attack rules could help. I'm not suggesting booting Wookie, because I know he does his best (read: I know that's not an option), but just add someone else who might have a bit different political viewpoint.

OK VG. And yes, we should try to gather other opinions.

The 'Compromise' would open up a pathway to anyone who actually was interested in that kinda interesting conversation. It would give them a 'safe word' that they could use to skip on by -both- the 'name calling' provoking Bs -and- the 'tsk, tsk let's be civil' derailing Cs.

Sure, maybe nobody actually is interested in actually having that kinda interesting conversation. Well, that's where we are at now today... anyways. I don't see how we're losing anything by opening up that pathway.

Don't need most people to be interested in making it work, we just need those who aren't interested to not start the derail with personal attacks. It only takes a few, possibly just one to kick off the derail

I'd suggest adding to ST1's rules that a degree of PC is required, if people can't be attacked in the thread then they should accept non-PC posts being modded a bit more than usual.

Just a thought on the mod issue. This is where I think JJ's innovation can best work, with the forum rules being inherited from P plus the addition of some agreed extra rules and some thread mods to do the bulk of the work. [I don't think it can really come into it's own until the thread mods can act directly but it's a start]

If I were an annoying person, I'd bring up the Just World Hypothesis again.

You are and you did, lol... it's not that they point out how people react to being confronted with their white privilege or the detrimental effect of their racism that I find bizarre, it's the message that those reactions are somehow proof of it. I'll have to reread to see it that was intended in the paper, but I'll assume it wasn't. I see people here do that all the time though, calling someone a racist for something they posted, then claiming their negative reaction is proof. No, bozo, it's not.

Close behind is pointing out the "key words" we all use to hide our racism from ourselves, like "underprivileged," for example. Yes, I'm sure sometimes that's true, and people do think of only minorities when speaking of or giving to charity for underprivileged youths. But, you know, sometimes people are just thinking of the poor.

I think a major reason that racism is such a explosive issue on these forums is that it's almost unique in both being universally reviled (in that basically everyone agrees that "racism is bad", though they may disagree on what exactly constitutes racism) and yet difficult to prove either way, especially in singular, anecdotal cases. Exacerbating this is the overwhelming focus of this forum on these singular cases, like police actions and the views of individual posters. In many of those cases, there are usually enough unknown factors that racist and non-racist explanations can both seem very plausible, and are easily co-opted by those who have an ideological proclivity to them. It's unfortunate, because the bigger picture is a lot clearer and less personal.

An analogy is with cheating spouses. There's definitely a lot of people cheating right now, but only a small percentage could be firmly established as being likely cheaters if all you had to go by was second-hand evidence from their neighbour. If we decided that cheating is a serious problem that we need to address, then what should we do about it? It might be titillating to speculate on whether a member of a famous couple is cheating, or accuse other posts of being cheaters themselves. But in all likelihood, you're going to piss off a bunch of people but still not really achieve anything in the war on cheating. If I was to bring this up though, I'd get hit back with accusations along the lines of "Haha, what an idiot/cheater, you think cheating doesn't exist!" Of course not, I merely think anecdotes of it aren't very important.

No, that's not a valid analogy at all.

Cheating on your spouse, as used here, is an individual moral failure. It's not institutional class based discrimination.

I'm not saying Nichlemn is doing this intentionally or knowingly. But this comparison tries to conflate institutional racism as only instances of individual moral failure (the failure of personal racial animus). This kinda conflation only serves to support institutionalized racism by ignoring, trivializing, and denying it.

But as long as you are here...

What is your opinion about the proposed F-ST Compromise? Don't you think it would go a long ways in addressing your long-standing 'name-calling' complaints ??

Obviously there are many differences, the question is whether those differences are relevant to my point. (I'm rather sick of the "but differences!" card being played as a counter to every single analogy ever). The relevant commonality is that they are both examples of issues that clearly exist in aggregate but are hard to determine in individual cases. I would say that the difference you claim in fact makes my case much stronger for applying it to racism as compared to cheating - an institutional problem would seem to demand an aggregate approach far more than a collection of individual failings.

Is is that "You're racist" is banned, "That's racist" is allowed but you're not allowing to complain about the latter? Meh, I guess it's better than the status quo, but I think the fundamental issue is dwelling so much on whether we can divine individual instances of racism. It's probably not going to go away so long as we find stories and characters more interesting than dry-but-hard data, but I hope we can move towards the latter.