Yes, calling a photo that is clearly not racist, racist, which is silly, and why I posted it as an example of what was going on in that thread in comparison.

Oh yes, I've often said I think it's a function of the internet, namely, the ease and anonymity. It's much like driving. When things get crowded and sloppy, road rage is tempting. Much discussion on this with Shamey upthread, or maybe a different thread.

It's an interesting question because everyone knows that we're all racist. So it comes down to how much. If you want an example, without getting too specific, there are probably people in that Mod thread who are more racists than others, but if you read the posts preceding my joke, you'll see posters getting mocked as racists for posting things as innocent as Ellen's photo. I don't think they should feel ashamed for posting that.

I'll have to think of an unsympathetic victim, maybe Brenden Eich. I dunno, you're really grilling me here and I'm watching football

Seems like everytime I start to get road rage, and have to restrain myself from doing something stupid, I'll realize I'm rolling up on an old geezer and feel bad. Or a student driver.

Niggardly is a great word. Christopher Hichens thought the word should fade away but he was wrong. It kicks ass. **** the ignorant.

Time for more football.

My interpretation of Toothsayer's original post was he is the Hitler in the story. I'm not sure there is any other way to read it. To be fair Toothsayer gets many historical facts wrong so I do not think anyone could be faulted for potentially misunderstanding what he is trying to communicate.

I will not even dive into the relevancy of the term PC and late 30s, Early to mid 40s Germany.

That photo is not clearly not racist. If I saw that picture in an advertisement I would think it was kind of weird, and probably made by someone lacking in a sense of American racial symbolism. But you seem to think this view (which is my own view) is so silly that it is inappropriate for me to even say it, i.e. to say that someone who posts that picture is kinda privileged or racist (or doesn't seem aware of how that picture would (and, fwiw, was) be perceived in racial terms).

Again, the disagreement here seems to be about what counts as bigotry/racism/sexism/etc. Isn't this transparently the case? Let's say Ellen tweeted a picture of herself dressed in KKK garb holding up a rope and a sign saying "I think black people are the worst." Would you object if some progressives out there pointed out that this seemed kind of racist? Maybe Ellen should try to not be so racist? I assume you wouldn't, because it is okay to point out that something is racist if it is racist. Well, that is the same principle that justifies claiming that picture by Ellen is racist if you actually believe it.

Don't worry, you can still object to this behavior even if you accept that this is based on a disagreement about ideas. For instance, here's an argument you could make. Shame is a negative emotion that has to be justified by it causing positive behavior. For example, shaming people for being openly racist causes some people to not be openly racist, hence shaming people for being openly racist is justified. However, shame can't cause (most) people to not live in a society with institutional racism (because that is a feature of society as a whole rather than the individual). Thus, shaming people for racist actions is justified, but shaming people for institutional racism is not justified. Furthermore, you can even explain why some people get very upset about white privilege talk - to them it can seem like you are asking them to carry shame for something they can't change, and so can never discharge.

But to make these arguments we have to get out of the meta-arguments about whether or not these progressives are acting inappropriately or not and into the object-level discussion about institutional racism, white privilege, reverse racism, whatever.

Sure, but that is a separate issue. This is a thread about the evils of PC and censorship, not about the evils of FB or Twitter.

This is a little too subtle for me. Are you saying that someone in that thread really is very racist, but they posted some innocent picture and then were mocked for being racist? I don't know your history with P. I briefly poked my head in there during the BruceZ defenestration and maybe a few other times over the years, but mostly I've stayed away.

What was unsympathetic about Brenden Eich? Successful businessman, co-founder of a high-prestige firm among online denizens, and according to Andrew Sullivan, "there is not a scintilla of evidence that he has ever discriminated against a single gay person at Mozilla."

Also, what was the inappropriate shaming behavior in this case?

I'm sorry, OP, but there's nothing racist about that picture and it's a joke for anyone to think it is. When Ellen get's accused of racism FFS, for tweeting and innocent joke that was pretty cute and you literally need to be educated about some obscure bit of crap from slave days to make the connection, people have lost touch.

I'm sorry, but if that's really worth debating then the social justice movement has jumped the shark. We may as well call sippin tea in the sunshine racist because I'm sure slaveholders used to sip tea made by slaves while watching their slaves get lashes and have a hootin time about it.

You wonder why half this country went nuts.

Besides that, your tangents about sympathetic/unsympathetic, very/not much racist racists make no sense either, imo.

I have to say, your willingness to continue this way surprises me. Tell me where this is wrong.

1. Some progressives believe that x is racist.
2. You think believing that x is racist is silly and so shouldn't be discussed.
3. Actually, that's it, because you have given up on the ideal of discussion you claim to be protecting and so there's no point in making a further argument.

Okay.

It's probably best I not try to debate this with you now OP because I think you're pretty smart and sincere but I've been drinking and all I can think about is joking about fonzi right now.

Fair enough. Take your time.

No, I think any arguments I've heard for why that is racist are terribly stupid and incoherent. What stops anything ever done ever from being racist if a piggy back ride is racist, FFS? We simply ought not be encouraging people to look for offense under every rock, how can that help our society?

And to your continued claim that pointing out stupidity, even using a bit of mockery, eg like I did with the Ellen photo, I'd like to point out there is a difference between embarrassment and shame. If I fall on my face, or lose an argument on the internet, I may get a bit embarrassed, but not ashamed. Shaming is all about trying to make people feel guilty. Again, I'm not against it altogether, keep saying that and you keep ignoring it it seems. But it is way overused, imo.

If some US liberals are saying that photo is racist I'm beginning to understand how it might drive some number of wavering people into the arms of Trump out of sheer frustration at the lack of clarity and common sense.

One thing I have ascertained in my limited time here is there are a couple of real racist people then a bunch of people who for some reason have decided to defend their behavior at any lengths because god forbid admitting someone who is actually a racist is a racist somehow concedes some sort of sacred ground they just can't fathom giving up.

Is it possible that it gets thrown around too frequently? Yes. However there are one or more hardcore racists/homophobes who regularly post here and people like foldn and others go to extreme lengths to defend and protect them. So much so it makes it pretty much impossible to take them seriously.

They essentially position themselves as people who are saying racism doesn't exist. Even when one of the biggest racists here favorite card is to pretend there are so many layers of racism that you can't really call anyone racist

This is why I think cheeze will fail here. I have dealt with enough people, employed lots of people in all sorts of capacities and being an openly homophobic racist is not something people can just agree to disagree on.

Everyone is not being accused of being racist but a number of people have decided to die on a hill in which they are saying racism is not something that exists. That is not a rational or defensible position and when people can't look at the most egregious examples and do anything but turn a blind eye it's just silly.

Not here please. This is not the thread for the forum noise about anyone denying racism exists etc

Plenty of other threads.

Again, I disagree with that decision, Chez. Mostly because I'm dissuaded from reponding to that hunk of steaming garbage argument. Clearly racism exists, and it is fairly ubiquitous in our society. To what degree is always debatable, as is what to do about it.

Probably a Ideological Turing Test is useful here. What is this argument that you think is terribly stupid and incoherent?

I've not ignored it. You've never explained what distinguishes appropriate and inappropriate shaming behavior, and that is mostly what I've been trying to elucidate in this thread. In fact, I've argued that of course you think some shaming behavior is okay - you yourself use shame all the time. Here you argue (I think?) that you aren't using shame, but rather you are just trying to embarrass people. Okay? I don't see the relevance of this point. Are you arguing that you actually never use shame because you think doing so is wrong (which you say you don't think here). You seem to have lost track of where the conversation is.

Here's the problem. You focus your criticism of shaming progressives, not on arguing that the premises that underlie these shaming statements are false, but on attacking the outcomes of these shaming statements (even though you seem to focus only on the cases where you view the targets as innocent). Fine. So is it your view then that if someone accepted the stupid, incoherent arguments underlying the silly belief that Ellen's photo was racially insensitive, that they are still acting incorrectly in saying that the photo was racially insensitive? I just am not sure if I should defend these views as not being silly or the arguments supporting them as not being stupid or incoherent, or if I need to defend the claim that it is okay to shame people if they do something you think is racist.

Even after reading the HuffPo piece, I personally would have recommended against calling the photo racist, or calling out Ellen for racism, for a few reasons:

1) I think it's fairly clear her intent is entirely innocent

2) I think the symbolic reading of the image that makes it offensive is pretty obscure. Because of that, I don't think Ellen is culpable for being ignorant of it. Beyond that, it also means that very few people are likely to interpret the symbolic meaning of the image that way. People are just going to see the obvious joke about Usain Bolt. I think Dr. Tomlinson acknowledges this point in her second paragraph. But if the overwhelming majority of people (both white and black) are going to interpret it as harmless, then I think it is harmless, regardless of the possibility of giving it a less harmless symbolic interpretation.

3) Given (1) and (2), and given the nature of social movements and counter-movements, framings and counter-framings, and the reality of cultural backlash against social justice movements, I think there's a pragmatic argument in favor of letting it go even if the symbolic interpretation seems bothersome. This, I assume, is where my position ends up close to something like foldn's.

On the other hand, if I don't think it makes sense to find Ellen culpable for the joke, I also don't really think it makes sense to condemn someone that expresses offense at it either. Just because I disagree with their conclusion doesn't mean they don't have a right to express an opinion. The pragmatic argument against elevating the importance of the case for activist purposes is not really a moral argument against any individual expressing a negative opinion.

As far as what bearing any of this has on what "US liberals" are doing, I don't know. I hadn't even heard of this controversy before.

You keep asking me to do all the work for you. Why don't you present an argument for why it's offensive that I couldn't use to be offended over someone drinking iced tea in the South? Or worse yet, two kids on the playground giving each other piggy back rides.

Maybe if Ellen were cracking a whip, or was dressed in a cape, you'd have an argument, but she wasn't, and Usain was smiling with his teeth. There's no indication anything there was forced, and I think we should be promoting humor like this, not shaming it. We want black and white kids to give each other piggy back rides, imo.

I think I've made my points pretty clearly by now, and I don't think you're reading them. Think for a moment about the difference between disputing a point, and whatever embarrassment that may come from the side who is shown to be wrong, and how you're using the term shame. We're using it much differently. And FWIW, I rarely set out to embarrass people either, and typically it's when they're after me, but it's natural for either side to be a bit embarrassed when we make mistakes.

To the rest of your questions along this line I'm tired of answering them. If you don't understand my position, I suggest you reread my posts or succumb to overwhelming dissatisfaction.

I don't think Brenden Eich was innocent, and I disagree with him very adamantly, yet I don't think he should have lost his job over his actions. Can you not see how such cases would be seen to Christians who hold similar views, making them fearful for their own jobs for holding different political opinions than the majority, or "elite"? Is it not easy to see how that could translate to support for a greasy tool who quotes from two corinthians over the side who they perceive to be threatening them?

Let's discuss African Americans and their various exploits while we're at it


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The need to reply is part of the reason for not allowing the posts. Otherwise it ends up dominating every thread.

Just answer the question.

She failed to foresee that black Americans were certain to find the 'plantation' implications demeaning and she pretty obviously shouldn't have gone there.

My point was that I don't think the "plantation implications" are at all obvious. Not that my opinion of what counts as obvious should be dispositive but I don't really see the benefit of holding her to be culpable for ignorance in this case.

And there's your problem. 'White Americans regarding black people as beasts of burden? Why, that doesn't have any unfortunate historical connotations at all, and I'd faint dead away if any descendant of the former enslaved peoples should happen to imagine such a connotation and you can hand me the sal volatile right now!'

I failed to recognise Ellen de Generes and that it had been PS'd (I assumed a female athlete friend of his had joined some celebration or other lol.)

A pretty bad idea of hers, when all's said and done. The fact that it was PS'd invalidates the concern about discouraging