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So what's this whole Race and Gender thing all about....

Started by Chelagoras The Boulder, July 10, 2015, 08:16:57 AM

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Reginald Ret

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on July 15, 2015, 03:27:36 PM
Ret: if you're trying to say you notice traits like race and gender, but make a conscious effort to avoid judging people based on those traits, you probably don't want to express that by saying you "don't notice" those traits.

That is a good idea.

Thats why I didn't say that.

The closest I came to saying something even vaguely similar was:
Quote from: Reginald Ret on July 14, 2015, 09:57:05 AM
Good people notice and remember actions better than looks.
I hope that didn't cause all this fighting because now that I reread that it doesn't read like a proper sentence. Noticing is a yes/no affair, so there is no better.
I apologize for putting up that windmill for people to attack with my badly constructed sentence.

If you would allow me to rephrase:
Good people assign a greater value to your actions than your looks when they judge you.

So that when they start forgetting details of the time they met you(forgetting is unavoidable afaik) they will forget the tilt of your nose before they forget that you rescued a bee from drowning. Unless they think your nose is exceptional in some way and/or they really don't care about bees.

Of course, both ctrl-F and my memory could have failed me, so please point out anywhere in this thread where i said i didn't see race or gender. I'm pretty sure I qualified every one of my statements though.
Lord Byron: "Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves."

Nigel saying the wisest words ever uttered: "It's just a suffix."

"The worst forum ever" "The most mediocre forum on the internet" "The dumbest forum on the internet" "The most retarded forum on the internet" "The lamest forum on the internet" "The coolest forum on the internet"

The Johnny

Id say than in general the more sensible option is hyperawareness rather than blindness...

blindness to a trait is treated as innocence by purists but 90% of the time in real life its just callouness.

ill rephrase later if no sense it makes im waking up
<<My image in some places, is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively.>>

-B.F. Skinner

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

#47
Quote from: Reginald Ret on July 15, 2015, 11:32:26 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on July 14, 2015, 10:09:41 PM
Just LOOK at all that virtue you're assigning to yourself. And the flip side, the malignment of those terribly shallow people who don't have the virtue of not noticing people's appearance.
I'm quite aware that I am a bad person, I just don't think that my attempts to not judge by appearance is one of the reasons.

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on July 14, 2015, 10:11:34 PM
If someone sees me sitting there reading, I prefer that they notice that I'm reading and leave me the fuck alone. Why would YOU approach a stranger who is reading? I can tell you why I'm approached while I'm reading 99% of the time, and it isn't because they failed to notice my gender or appearance.
I would want to be left alone as well so I wouldn't approach reading people.
If most approaches while you are reading happen because they assign greater value to your looks than to your book and that annoys you, that means you would prefer people to notice your book? Are you saying that books are more important than looks? Because that would be nice but it doesn't fit the general tone of your other posts.


Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on July 14, 2015, 10:12:24 PM
But please, continue to tell women and brown people why they're lame and shallow to find "I don't see gender" and "I don't see race" facile, disingenuous, and insulting.
Isn't assigning a large value to superficial traits like skin color the definition of shallow?
I'm telling people who assign a large value to superficial traits that they are shallow. That usually hits bigots harder than brown women.
I see skin color just fine, I just don't assign it a large value.

I get the impression we are not fighting on the same battleground, I'm trying to tell you that broad-brush superficial categories don't matter to me and that I hope many other people think that way as well.
You are trying to tell me I am lying because other people tend to lie about that. OK, so you don't believe me. I can accept that. Just don't expect me to be quiet when you call me a liar.

My last attempt at clarifying what I mean:
I think superficial and trivial should have a large overlap so I try to shape my thought processes to make that true.

I think that you are doing the kind of hand-waving dismissal of the experience of being black or female as "shallow and trivial" that only people who do not possess or wish to have to think about nonwhite nonmale physical traits can do. It's only possible to do when they don't have traits that not only put them in a minority, but also significantly shape their experience of existence.

It is far easier to dismiss someone's racial, cultural, or gender experience as trivial and worthy only of being ignored (if you are a good person, that is) than it is to recognize and value it for what it is.

Some people have conditions... well, conditions is probably  the wrong word. Let us call them "unique variations of normal" that make it so they literally find it difficult to notice what people look like. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it's not some virtue that makes them "less shallow" than someone who is highly visually observant. Observing and recognizing physical differences isn't shallow, nor is it shallow to form a sense of identity that incorporates those physical attributes; assigning relative values to physical appearance is.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Doktor Howl

Quote from: The Johnny on July 15, 2015, 07:03:05 PM
Id say than in general the more sensible option is hyperawareness rather than blindness...

blindness to a trait is treated as innocence by purists but 90% of the time in real life its just callouness.

ill rephrase later if no sense it makes im waking up

It makes perfect sense.

I used to think that being "color-blind" was the moral course for dealing with race, gender, etc.  Nigel and Garbo1 set me straight on that, with some help from LMNO and a few others.

It was made clear to me that people are different.  And that this okay.  Not better or worse, just different.




1 This was, obviously, pre-tumblr Garbo, whom I miss terribly.



Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

In fact, to say otherwise is to trivialize people and the things they go through.  No matter who they are.
Molon Lube

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

#50
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 16, 2015, 03:26:38 AM
In fact, to say otherwise is to trivialize people and the things they go through.  No matter who they are.

Yep.

For example, you and my housemate are big white guys, and because of that, various types of assholes tend to single you out for their insecurity-fueled cockerel-strutting bar challenges. Were my response to that to be "Oh, you're big and white and intimidating-looking? I hadn't noticed, I don't see trivial things like that. How shallow of people to respond to you based on an inconsequential aspect of your appearance", I would be effectively totally dismissing your actual, lived experience of going through life with a physical appearance that elicits certain treatment and responses from people. Is it shallow of them? I don't know about that... you actually ARE physically large and potentially intimidating, just as I actually AM small and brown and have a uterus. It's all very well and good to say that people shouldn't treat us differently or that social status and opportunities shouldn't be based on these superficial traits, but we are living in the world as it is, not as it should be, and we are having the experiences that we do.

Furthermore, I don't think a valid argument can be made for value or enlightenment in ignoring a person's physical attributes. They may not be the most important thing about them, but they aren't completely inconsequential, either. Ignoring them seems to me to be essentially an intellectually lazy means of avoidance; it certainly doesn't fly in biomedical research, where those "trivial" physical differences may betray important medical considerations that should not be ignored. Vision is a sense that relays information about the physical world to our brains.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


The Johnny

Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 16, 2015, 03:25:22 AM
Quote from: The Johnny on July 15, 2015, 07:03:05 PM
Id say than in general the more sensible option is hyperawareness rather than blindness...

blindness to a trait is treated as innocence by purists but 90% of the time in real life its just callouness.

ill rephrase later if no sense it makes im waking up

It makes perfect sense.

I used to think that being "color-blind" was the moral course for dealing with race, gender, etc.  Nigel and Garbo1 set me straight on that, with some help from LMNO and a few others.

It was made clear to me that people are different.  And that this okay.  Not better or worse, just different.

1 This was, obviously, pre-tumblr Garbo, whom I miss terribly.

Yah like, i have quite a diverse group of aquaintances and friends, and given that each has its own language registry, humour and special characteristics, not everything flies with everyone.

I really dont want to offend anyone, but for example, when im playing videogames versus a friend, we have moments in which we devolve to call each others variations of pig or homosexual, because, even though its politically insensitive and incorrect in other contexts or in front of other people, used exclusively against each other is for the sole purpose of jabbing at each other with a clear message conveyed...

now, i also have obese friends, so i would never in the world mention pig or anything that could offend them because it might (or might not) be offended or sensitive about it...

im also friends with a lesbian couple, so i would completely avoid any slur or trigger word around them...

or idk, i also have friends with suicidal tendencies, so saying a phrase after a hard day or a long week something like "omg im gonna kill myself, this week was horrible" is also out of the question.

TL;DR being hyper-aware of the differences and vulnerabilities of someone allows us to be emphatic and avoid hurtful comments and actions.
<<My image in some places, is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively.>>

-B.F. Skinner

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: The Johnny on July 16, 2015, 07:59:00 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 16, 2015, 03:25:22 AM
Quote from: The Johnny on July 15, 2015, 07:03:05 PM
Id say than in general the more sensible option is hyperawareness rather than blindness...

blindness to a trait is treated as innocence by purists but 90% of the time in real life its just callouness.

ill rephrase later if no sense it makes im waking up

It makes perfect sense.

I used to think that being "color-blind" was the moral course for dealing with race, gender, etc.  Nigel and Garbo1 set me straight on that, with some help from LMNO and a few others.

It was made clear to me that people are different.  And that this okay.  Not better or worse, just different.

1 This was, obviously, pre-tumblr Garbo, whom I miss terribly.

Yah like, i have quite a diverse group of aquaintances and friends, and given that each has its own language registry, humour and special characteristics, not everything flies with everyone.

I really dont want to offend anyone, but for example, when im playing videogames versus a friend, we have moments in which we devolve to call each others variations of pig or homosexual, because, even though its politically insensitive and incorrect in other contexts or in front of other people, used exclusively against each other is for the sole purpose of jabbing at each other with a clear message conveyed...

now, i also have obese friends, so i would never in the world mention pig or anything that could offend them because it might (or might not) be offended or sensitive about it...

im also friends with a lesbian couple, so i would completely avoid any slur or trigger word around them...

or idk, i also have friends with suicidal tendencies, so saying a phrase after a hard day or a long week something like "omg im gonna kill myself, this week was horrible" is also out of the question.

TL;DR being hyper-aware of the differences and vulnerabilities of someone allows us to be emphatic and avoid hurtful comments and actions.

Very well-conveyed, Johnny.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Doktor Howl

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on July 16, 2015, 05:57:36 AM
It's all very well and good to say that people shouldn't treat us differently or that social status and opportunities shouldn't be based on these superficial traits, but we are living in the world as it is, not as it should be, and we are having the experiences that we do.

Exactly. 

On top of that, even if the world were fair, why not enjoy the differences around you?

I spent the first 11 years of my life surrounded by people with almost identical appearances.  Everyone was Scots/Irish.  I am not joking when I say that as a small child, I thought Black and Hispanic people were make believe, because I only ever saw them on Sesame Street (which also gave me some interesting expectations, years later).  I can't describe how dreary that is...By which I mean, there was only one culture, and nothing local was feeding into it.  It was a culture that had only three meaningful interruptions in two centuries (WWI, WWII, the advent of television).

Just moving from Newfoundland to Ontario was a hell of a step up.  Moving to the states was like moving to another world.
Molon Lube

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 16, 2015, 07:33:02 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on July 16, 2015, 05:57:36 AM
It's all very well and good to say that people shouldn't treat us differently or that social status and opportunities shouldn't be based on these superficial traits, but we are living in the world as it is, not as it should be, and we are having the experiences that we do.

Exactly. 

On top of that, even if the world were fair, why not enjoy the differences around you?

I spent the first 11 years of my life surrounded by people with almost identical appearances.  Everyone was Scots/Irish.  I am not joking when I say that as a small child, I thought Black and Hispanic people were make believe, because I only ever saw them on Sesame Street (which also gave me some interesting expectations, years later).  I can't describe how dreary that is...By which I mean, there was only one culture, and nothing local was feeding into it.  It was a culture that had only three meaningful interruptions in two centuries (WWI, WWII, the advent of television).

Just moving from Newfoundland to Ontario was a hell of a step up.  Moving to the states was like moving to another world.

Totally! I mean, one of the reasons I like white guys is the skin-in-skin contrast, which is also true of guys who are much darker than I am. Looking around and seeing a lot of people who look different is visually appealing. It's pretty. If appreciating that makes me shallow, then I guess I'm shallow.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


The Johnny

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on July 16, 2015, 10:48:53 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 16, 2015, 07:33:02 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on July 16, 2015, 05:57:36 AM
It's all very well and good to say that people shouldn't treat us differently or that social status and opportunities shouldn't be based on these superficial traits, but we are living in the world as it is, not as it should be, and we are having the experiences that we do.

Exactly. 

On top of that, even if the world were fair, why not enjoy the differences around you?

I spent the first 11 years of my life surrounded by people with almost identical appearances.  Everyone was Scots/Irish.  I am not joking when I say that as a small child, I thought Black and Hispanic people were make believe, because I only ever saw them on Sesame Street (which also gave me some interesting expectations, years later).  I can't describe how dreary that is...By which I mean, there was only one culture, and nothing local was feeding into it.  It was a culture that had only three meaningful interruptions in two centuries (WWI, WWII, the advent of television).

Just moving from Newfoundland to Ontario was a hell of a step up.  Moving to the states was like moving to another world.

Totally! I mean, one of the reasons I like white guys is the skin-in-skin contrast, which is also true of guys who are much darker than I am. Looking around and seeing a lot of people who look different is visually appealing. It's pretty. If appreciating that makes me shallow, then I guess I'm shallow.

Well ive heard stories that being attracted to "exotic people" (read: those different than yourself) has some basis on seeking to enrich the gene pool and explains why foreigners are more attractive when they are indeed foreigners than how attractive they were at their homeland. But this is pseudo-biology im talking about.

So besides the hypothetical gene enrichment, theres the cultural and intellectual enrichment... ive been to a lot of places with a lot of people, and after a while you start seeing how customs and ideas are just stupid inertia most of the time, opening a whole new perspective on things.

<<My image in some places, is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively.>>

-B.F. Skinner

Chelagoras The Boulder

Right so this was really bothering me for a bit and i thought i'd get this off my chest. I recently had to talk to my dad about this joke he used to make. It would always really bother me and i'm wondering if there might be some racial undertones to it or if i'm being overly sensitive. My dad used to joke that i am "the mailman's son" because i tend to favor my mom's side of the family in terms of looks. My dads side of the family are what you would call Californios- Mexicans that have typically european features, short with dark wavy hair, green eyes, pale skin. My mom's family, with the exception of my mom, look like Indios,- Mexicans with more Native features. All of my uncles are taller, with very curly hair, dark skin, and brown eyes.

This joke wouldnt cut so deep except that my dad has a deep, abiding hate for my mom's family, and if you talk to him for an extended period of time he'll eventually get to his screed about why my mother's family is a bunch of liars cheaters and thieves. So because I, between me and my sisters, look the most like my moms family, it is often said in my family that i am genetically only 25% Alonzo, and my sisters are 50% and 75% Alonzo respectively(cuz you know, genes have surnames, right?) and so between that and the mailman thing, it feels like my dad is saying i'm a lying cheating piece of shit that is probably not his son anyway. All the while, this si a man who paid for my college, lets me live rent-free,  and pays me to do odd jobs around the house. When i confronted him about it, he initially laughed it off, but he seems to have dropped that particualr gem from his Dad Joke repetoire. Am i nuts for reading a racial thing into this?
"It isn't who you know, it's who you know, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do."

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on August 04, 2015, 07:49:43 AM
Right so this was really bothering me for a bit and i thought i'd get this off my chest. I recently had to talk to my dad about this joke he used to make. It would always really bother me and i'm wondering if there might be some racial undertones to it or if i'm being overly sensitive. My dad used to joke that i am "the mailman's son" because i tend to favor my mom's side of the family in terms of looks. My dads side of the family are what you would call Californios- Mexicans that have typically european features, short with dark wavy hair, green eyes, pale skin. My mom's family, with the exception of my mom, look like Indios,- Mexicans with more Native features. All of my uncles are taller, with very curly hair, dark skin, and brown eyes.

This joke wouldnt cut so deep except that my dad has a deep, abiding hate for my mom's family, and if you talk to him for an extended period of time he'll eventually get to his screed about why my mother's family is a bunch of liars cheaters and thieves. So because I, between me and my sisters, look the most like my moms family, it is often said in my family that i am genetically only 25% Alonzo, and my sisters are 50% and 75% Alonzo respectively(cuz you know, genes have surnames, right?) and so between that and the mailman thing, it feels like my dad is saying i'm a lying cheating piece of shit that is probably not his son anyway. All the while, this si a man who paid for my college, lets me live rent-free,  and pays me to do odd jobs around the house. When i confronted him about it, he initially laughed it off, but he seems to have dropped that particualr gem from his Dad Joke repetoire. Am i nuts for reading a racial thing into this?

No, not nuts. Sometimes people are carrying prejudices they don't realize they have, and it sounds like that is probably the case with your dad.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Faust

It sounds like he really cares about you, and even if he does have some prejudices and he hasn't realised why it bothers you, he cares about you enough not to make the joke any more.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Chelagoras The Boulder

yea, one of the things it took me a long time to accept about my dad is that he only knows how to show love by being a prick. So yea, hes an asshole, but he's MY asshole.
"It isn't who you know, it's who you know, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do."