Quote:
Originally Posted by well named
Your second second sentence is exactly the point. It's significant that you can't think of a white trash male name. I don't just mean that it's significant to the question of racial discrimination, although it clearly is (think: why can't you think of a male name associated with lower-status whites?)
Because every white-trash guy I personally know has a name that's shared by at least one other person I personally know who grew up middle class or better. I wasn't in school with any girls with stripper names. The one I ran into in college (a misspelled stripper name of all horrible things) had a total white trash family background and got herself out. If you can't think of any either, maybe it's not gender influencing perception of status, but that white trash name their girls with a much wider range than their boys.
Quote:
I think this misses the point I'm trying to make. How is it determined that a name is misspelled? Is Juan a misspelling of John? Is Matthieu a misspelling of Matthew?
By the norms of society. The same way that a dictionary is considered a reference for how to spell words. If you're not French/French Canadian or whatever, it's not Matthieu. If you're from earth, it's not "Dwyane".
Quote:
Beyond that, from what perspective is it "idiotic"?
By the perspective of most everybody who encounters it. I'm sure somebody out there (besides mom) thinks Marijuana Pepsi is a great name,
but most people are going to agree that "naming your kid after drugs" or "naming your kid after dog sounds" is actually stupid.
Quote:
Clearly lots of black people disagree. Why is the perspective of those who thinks it's idiotic more legitimate than the perspective of those who think it's not?
Clearly lots of people with face tattoos disagree too. Which is great when they're hanging around with other face tattoos and not so great otherwise. Signaling exists, and aggressively signaling that you don't give a **** about a group's norms isn't a good way to ingratiate yourself.
Quote:
When we're talking about the significance of race in American culture, it's not just a question of overt discrimination or negative stereotypes. The fact that the dominant culture is white and views non-white cultural expressions (like names) as idiotic or incorrect is important. Again, your assertion that those names are idiotic is prejudicial.
I don't think anybody bats an eye at a French Matthieu or a Hispanic Juan or a Korean Dong Hyun Kim or whatever, and the idiotic/incorrect rating is going to be way lower than for a Tifanee or Chasity or Jaxton even if you went and surveyed actual huge racists. Dumb names are like hipsters. Non-hipsters hate hipsters. See below.
Quote:
I disagree. The creation and maintenance of collective identity is central to human culture, and clearly has a value apart from concerns with discrimination in a pluralistic society.
And you literally just got done implying that it's a f'ing horrible thing for people to negatively perceive those who deliberately act to reduce their collective identity. This is the same duality as in the last post- it's A+++ great and ok for a group to create its own distinct identity, because collective identities are great, but it's F--- terrible for a group to look down at those attempting to weaken theirs.
Quote:
It is true that the role collective identity plays in civil rights movements is different than it would be in a world with a very different history, and it's also clearly true that the processes that are involved create problems as well (i.e. in-group out-group bias). It's a complex topic, but if the implication is supposed to be that the establishment of collective identity should be discouraged because it's useless in a perfect world then I think that's misguided, but also impractical anyway.
Of course. People, if necessary, spontaneously create identities out of nothing for the sole purpose of ingroup-outgrouping each other. Dr. Seuss even wrote a kids book about it (The Sneetches). Your position is, roughly, that the more dominant group should have no negative feelings about the less dominant group actively rejecting its norms (but the less dominant group is free to feel aggrieved about the dominant group rejecting its)... which is a pretty impractical ask in most or all of today's societies.
Last edited by TomCowley; 05-30-2017 at 09:35 PM.