Critical race theory

[Henri Christophe]

What I do not believe is that I am responsible for suppression of non-white people through my privilege, or that I have anything to apologize for based on my race. That idea is so...racist...it makes me sick.

Of course there are White previllege, specially in American Countries or in Europe.

 

[bernie14]

I'm begging literally any of you to actually read the literature. You're in the same camp as the evangelicals whining about "evolutionists" and "sceintivism" here.

How many "camps" are there?

 

[aelf]

Wrong, see legal case in post #211. And this nice article.

As an educator who has written about the penetration of CRT into Australian schools, I have been shocked by how misleading and uninformed many of these articles are. It is of course true that CRT as an academic legal theory is generally taught only in higher education, but it is also clear to anyone familiar with CRT that its core tenets are being taught to children in many of America’s K–12 schools—and taught as if those tenets were facts. Examples include the ideas of systemic racism, white privilege, white fragility and the predatory white imagination, as well as the notions that all white people (including white children) are inherently and irredeemably oppressors of black people, that all black people should recognize that they are fundamentally victims—and that pervasive racism is a permanent, ineradicable characteristic of American society.

That sounds like a rabid exaggeration lmao.

 

[Yeekim]

It's factual, not advocacy. /.../What the above Australian educator was whining about was the teaching of historical fact that white men used the law to retain power.

I obviously don't know what really happens in US schools... but I did read the article and for an outside observer such as myself, you're not doing a convincing job debunking it.

For example, it says:

Ironically, while the NAACP opposes anti-CRT laws, they also provide a helpful state-by-state map on their website, explaining what each state’s laws actually ban—and a look at this information makes clear that anti-CRT laws are not aimed at banning history teaching, but rather at banning the teaching of particular unproven—and often ill-defined—theoretical constructs such as white privilege, systemic racism and the idea that racism is endemic in American society. A close analysis of HB 3979, the bill from Texas, is illuminating. It actively mandates studying slavery, the Ku Klux Klan and why white supremacy is morally wrong, while it bans teaching that, “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.” In other words, the law is anti-white supremacist but bans totalising CRT tenets such as white complicity and systemic racism.

I admit I have not checked the links - the author may be lying or cherrypicking data.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I can see that there were white privileges.

A horny white man could take advantage of a pretty black slave girl etc.

And we could get together in a group and loot the Benin Bronzes.


But that was then, and now is now.


I don't have money passed down to me by ancestors specialising in the triangular trade.

So I am not really sure what my white (really pale pink) man privilege is in 2022.

Can I get a card listing them?

 

[sophie]

Let's say I'm in charge of a country. I know there's inequality in my country, and I want to help those who don't have as much. So I create an online form that people can fill out to apply for assistance.

The first line on the form has:
A dropdown for Mr./Mrs.
A box for the first name
A box for the middle name
A box for the last name

The second line on the form has:
A line for a street address
A line for city
A dropdown box for all the municipal districts in my country

Do you see any problems with this form so far?

 

[El_Machinae]

So I am not really sure what my white (really pale pink) man privilege is in 2022.

This is mostly just a classic case of leftist scholars being terrible at generating terms. Terrible. Like, "inspiring terror". No wait, 'terrible' means something else these days. Well, nvm. They're still terrible at it.

It's more that there are systemic or identifiable disadvantages that can be categorized. Privileges are the poorly named inverse of this.

 

[sophie]

It's more that there are systemic or identifiable disadvantages that can be categorized. Privileges are the poorly named inverse of this.

What do you think is poorly named about it?

 

[El_Machinae]

I have two middle names, and my documentation is a mess if people want exact matches. Hell, even my academic citations suffer from that.

What do you think is poorly named about it?

It immediately creates confusion. "Privilege" is a term that has a variety of meanings, depending on context, so forcing people to reach for a lesser-used concept isn't ideal. Think about how many times you've substituted the word for a longer description, in order to just get someone to understand. It's become a term-of-use for you, and you've been using it for so long, so the idea that it's a sub-optimal label might not be apparent.

Psychologically, we notice headwinds more easily than we notice tailwinds. Creating a framing that ignores this bias is just a recipe for slamming your head against a wall. People can recognize the headwinds other people face more easily than their own tailwinds.

I think another example of a word not working correctly today is "immunity". The word has shifted meaning, so when we talk about 'immunity' from disease, it creates confusion.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Do you see any problems with this form so far?

Yes, several. The main one is that many people do not live in cities.

 

[sophie]

It immediately creates confusion. "Privilege" is a term that has a variety of meanings, depending on context, so forcing people to reach for a lesser-used concept isn't ideal.

Spoiler :

I dunno dog, seems like the application isn't too idiosyncratic of its generally accepted and preferred use. Perhaps it's the case that the consistent confusion around the term's meaning has nothing to do with an innocent misunderstanding and everything to do with a certain group of people bristling at the implication of the term's conveyed meaning, and deliberately refraining from learning or reading further.

Yes, several. The main one is that many people do not live in cities.

So would you agree, then, that by creating this form in this particular way, we have created a situation whereby one set of people (people who do not live in cities) are universally excluded from receiving aid, even though they are legally permitted to fill the form in, just like everybody else?

 

[EnglishEdward]

Well yes, the form would seem deficient in that it does not have fields for States, Counties, Town etc.

 

[El_Machinae]

I dunno dog, seems like the application isn't too idiosyncratic of its generally accepted and preferred use. Perhaps it's the case that the consistent misunderstanding of the term's meaning has nothing to do with an innocent misunderstanding and everything to do with a certain group of people bristling at the implication of the term's conveyed meaning, and deliberately refraining from learning or reading further.

The problem with that interpretation is that you're making other people responsible if your communication is bad, and we don't have the self-reflection to really figure that out.

I have no real interest in debating whether it's a good term or not, my feedback is that it isn't, and I've made much better progress with recalcitrant people after I've worked around the word. Yes, it creates a knee-jerk reaction. I know that it does. I just acknowledge that it does. Nothing to do with their innocence, everything about knowing how bias works. If my bias was that I actually wanted to be angry rather than communicative, I'd hope I was alert to it.

Some people rely on 'othering', where the goal is to use sufficient words to prove to ourselves that other people are unworthy. But, it's not my thing and a bit too subjective. To talk about headwinds when people notice tailwinds is just bad communication, bad human factor analysis. Remember, there's the unconscious bias to feel good about ourselves by being able to look down on others. So, diagnosing that bias is hard.

There IS the one-two punch of combined efforts though. Me being able to swoop in with an alternative explanation does allow people to overcome their dissonance after rejecting whatever you've said. That might explain why the alternative explanation works. But, again, headwinds and tailwinds and just general human psychology.

There comes a point after 9 years of having to tiredly explain the term, that maybe the term itself could be tweaked for utility.

See also: immunity and invest, two other words where the colloquial meaning can confuse people when you're trying to be specific.

Edited to add. There is also the specific confusion, all else being equal, the goal is to remove disadvantages rather than remove privilege. That said, I can recognize the demoralizing effect of constantly referring to yourself as disadvantaged rather than referring to other people as advantaged. There's the final consideration, where some people will have been raised in a world where privileges are earned, where this discussion is focusing on unearned aspects.

 

[GenMarshall]

I don't know, I work in manufacturing (and retail prior to that). I'm not in a managerial/supervisory position, let alone a CEO (themselves a privileged position). Somewhat within lower class (way way far far below lower class). I don't feel privileged, just insulted since I ascribe "privilege" to be of someone of great wealth, rich, and occupying the upper crust of the socioeconomic class (typically upper class). Plus there's the idea drilled into my generation's minds that a privilege can be taken away through disciplinary actions (e.g. having your Driver's License revoked or losing computer access at school/work). When there's talk of "white privilege", people will get defensive in ether of two ways: The first is confusion because the person in question defines privilege, as I said before "of someone of high wealth and class" and that the speaker is out of touch with the listener's reality and/or the second that their rights and hardwork would be taken away from them because the group they belong to did something bad in the past or present (The disciplinary revocation action).

Personally, a better way to explain it would be to say that a person has a sociological advantage over someone, rather than the use of "privilege".

 

[danjuno]

I dunno dog, seems like the application isn't too idiosyncratic of its generally accepted and preferred use. Perhaps it's the case that the consistent confusion around the term's meaning has nothing to do with an innocent misunderstanding and everything to do with a certain group of people bristling at the implication of the term's conveyed meaning, and deliberately refraining from learning or reading further.

Yeah, I definitely think "privilege" has been tagged by the "anti-SJW" crowd as no-no word that makes you an evil blue-haired college student or some such nonsense.

 

[Samson]

What do you think is poorly named about it?

What I do not like about it is that it insinuates that the racist system actually benefits the standard white person who has white privilege. Sure, they are better off in that they do not have the disadvantages heaped on people of colour, but everyone but TPTB who benefit from division of the population would be better off in a non-racist system.

 

[sophie]

Well yes, the form would seem deficient in that it does not have fields for States, Counties, Town etc.

Yes, indeed. But I haven't done so out of malice, or because I think city-folk are somehow better or more deserving or in greater need of aid. We need an address that we can send the money to via the national mail service. It's not my fault if the mail doesn't go to rural areas, it's simply the reality of budgeting a government service on limited resources. It's not like I'm affording people in the cities any special legal privileges. I'm just working within the confines of our system as it functions, right?

There IS the one-two punch of combined efforts though. Me being able to swoop in with an alternative explanation does allow people to overcome their dissonance after rejecting whatever you've said. That might explain why the alternative explanation works. But, again, headwinds and tailwinds and just general human psychology.

This is irrelevant if the alternative you're swooping in with is insufficient or incorrect. This is something Crenshaw points out in the paper that I keep referencing. If my argument is that the "but-for" approach is a bad way to conceptualize discrimination, and that whiteness is something which is deliberately uplifted by society, rather than white people being on the ground floor and all deviations are pushed down into the basement, and you "swoop in" to say that what I actually mean is that some people have multiple "but-fors" that push them down further into the basement, then you haven't helped me at all. You've undermined the point I was making and given the other person an easy out to return to a comfortable stasis where they don't have to think about any of this.

I don't know, I work in manufacturing (and retail prior to that). I'm not in a managerial/supervisory position, let alone a CEO (themselves a privileged position). Somewhat within lower class (way way far far below lower class). I don't feel privileged, just insulted since I ascribe "privilege" to be of someone of great wealth, rich, and occupying the upper crust of the socioeconomic class (typically upper class). Plus there's the idea drilled into my generation's minds that a privilege can be taken away through disciplinary actions (e.g. having your Driver's License revoked or losing computer access at school/work). When there's talk of "white privilege", people will get defensive in ether of two ways: The first is confusion because the person in question defines privilege, as I said before "of someone of high wealth and class" and that the speaker is out of touch with the listener's reality and/or the second that their rights and hardwork would be taken away from them because the group they belong to did something bad in the past or present (The disciplinary revocation action).

Personally, a better way to explain it would be to say that a person has a sociological advantage over someone, rather than the use of "privilege".

I think the issue at play here is that when we talk about privilege, the immediate assumption is that someone with privilege is maximally privileged. When what we actually mean is that someone has privilege in some particular respect or aspect of their lives. Let me give you an example:

When we fly, we all have to go through TSA, right? And when we go through TSA, we have to go through those big full-body scanners. Those scanners have pre-set gender settings. A man walks forward to the checkpoint, the agent presses the "male" setting, and, assuming he doesn't have any metals on his person, he gets waved through without a second thought. If the scanner detects an anomaly, then the agent has to give a pat-down to determine the source of the anomaly and ensure everything is safe to fly. The rules are straightforward and applied universally, so they are fair, right? Well, what happens if you're a trans woman? If you are a trans woman, and you go to TSA presenting as a woman, they hit the "female" setting and your genitalia set off the alarm, and you need to be given a pat-down. If you go to TSA in "boymode", then if you have breasts, the breasts set off the alarm and you need to be given a pat-down. This happens every time, without fail. It doesn't matter what you do, or what you say to the agents. Any time we go on a flight, we have to choose between having the humiliating experience of being publicly groped by an agent of the state in front of a crowd of strangers who now probably know you're trans, or having the absolutely terrifying experience of being taken into a back room by a bunch of often-unscrupulous agents to do who-knows-what. The machines and the rules were created with cis bodies in mind.

Now "privilege" is confusing, I think, because typically privilege refers to two different phenomena simultaneously. On the one hand that checkpoint is a manifestation of privilege. Cis bodies are treated as the default, as the norm. They are afforded special status. The screening and the rules around the screening are constructed with the immediate priority that all cis people pass the test. Even when considering fail cases, the cases in mind are the particular types of cis bodies that society wants to catch. Trans people are an afterthought in this, if they are even thought of at all. That's the privilege. Going through security feels normal to you. And it feels normal because it was specifically designed to feel as normal as possible for you.

The problem is that privilege is also used to mean the social dynamics that come as a result of this arrangement. What happens to someone for whom airport security has only ever been a minor inconvenience at most? How does that affect the way you relate to flying? To the airport? When you get home, you say "the flight was good, the line at security moved quickly." When I get home, I say, "the flight was good, they actually acknowledged my request and allowed my groping to be performed by a female agent this time." You want to fly again, assuming you can afford it. It may even be your preferred method of travel, the first thing you think of checking when you want to go somewhere else. I hate flying. I will do everything in my power to avoid flying if I don't have to. This is also privilege. Flying is something which is normal for you. It is something you do not need to think, or worry about in that way. It is simply, "the obvious option," and when you plan a trip with friends, you operate under the assumption that everybody also thinks of it as such.

None of this is to say that you personally are super special or maximally privileged. There are plenty of other ways in which you are not privileged, and to have privilege is not necessarily a guarantee that everything in this specific scenario will be perfect for you. It does not intrinsically mean that flying must automatically be sunshine and roses or even an experience you relate to intrinsically positively. It is merely an acknowledgement that this is a particular social interaction or genre of social interactions which you do not ever have to think about, and you do not have to think about them because we have constructed our society specifically in order that you would not have to think about them.

 

[Oerdin]

Just like the former Zaire.

For something that isn't taught outside of higher education that isn't being taught to kids, many people seem dead set on insisting it would be a good thing to teach to kids.

They call it critical race praxis and it absolutely is in k-12 and quite openly. Also, yes, it is a hateful, racist political ideology used to push hate propaganda.

 

[Hygro]

We should switch from privilege oppression and start referring to people according to Platonic Republican designations of clay, tin, silver, gold etc

 

[El_Machinae]

I really enjoyed that explanation, so thank you. I'll do some general musings, which I'm using as a type of feedback-seeking variant of asking questions. So, just read everything below in a voice that has an uncertain or questioning uplift during punctuation.

The difference between 'uplift' and 'put down' is very interesting. We sometimes think of the real world as 'hostile', and so create various tools and techniques and infrastructure to make the world less dangerous or hard. Stairs make a hill easier. Automated screening technology makes line-ups faster. Regulations limiting police power makes inter-personal violence less likely. All of these things are designed to benefit us from a more basal state. So, because these things are made, the people who benefit from them are 'privileged'. I didn't make the stairs leading up the hill, but my life is better for their existence.

In many of these cases, the arrangement wasn't designed to oppress anybody. It's just that some people weren't included. Even in the case of police violence (and this is a stretch), the basal state is that people oppress each other if they can. So, while one person can access regulations preventing that violence, not everyone can.

I think the reason why I thought of much of the conversation as being about "but fors" is that there is very much a side conversation being had at the same time about oppression, the deliberate creation of hierarchy that actually seek to put certain people down. If the walkway up the hill is replaced by stairs, not only are things changed to make it better for some, but also worse for others. Active profiling by police not only (thinks it) benefits the other people, but actively harms other cohorts. Some arrangements were made less to uplift some but actually push down others.

Obviously, some but-fors will be in zero-sum arrangement with privileges. If I inherit money someone else inherits the need to borrow from me to do something with money.

So, because there's a Venn Diagram crossover in the conversations, I crossed over the concepts (I still think headwinds and tailwinds observation is a real thing). There's nothing about the concept of privilege that requires that the privilege itself be taken away, the goal is to increase the spread of the uplift. I might be just showing little shower-thought inspiration, but we are trying to reduce either the spread (or the damage from) the 'but fors'. Being raised on clean water is a privilege, but the goal is to replace lead-tainted water supplies. Of course, lots of the world is in unfortunate allocation of compounding benefit, so a privilege that allows a compounding benefit can will have consequences. Being strong makes it easier to build houses. But being good at building houses means that you also have an easier time saving money (which means that someone else will have to borrow).