White Student Union forms at Georgia State

[East Coast Hustle]

Pergamos, can you define the word "minority" as used in this conversation?

group that is less than half of the total.

So whites are in fact a minority of the students of Georgia State, being only 38% of the student body.  Meanwhile as a percentage of American Citizens whites will remain the majority for a few more decades.

Well, then.

Let's say you have 3 subgroups:

Whites at 38%
Blacks at 30%
Hispanics at 28%
Asians at 4%

Who is the majority?

There isn't one.  There's 3 sizeable minorities and a tiny minority (and apparently no middle easterners at all)

OMG did you read anything at all that other people posted about the meaning of "minority"? Because now you're using your own made-up definition that no one else uses, except racists who don't understand the term and try to use it to mean "less than 50%". Good lord.

Jesus tittyfucking Christ. you ARE aware that not everyone here is a sociology student and that "less than 50%" is the commonly accepted colloquial definition of the word "minority", right?

Because this business of implying that someone is a racist because they don't understand how you're using a term is really fucked up.

Did you not read THE WHOLE REST OF THE THREAD where everybody patiently tried to explain about 20 times, including links, the ACTUAL AND CORRECT DEFINITION OF MINORITY IN A SOCIAL CONTEXT?

And frankly, I've met maybe four people IN MY LIFE who did not know that definition. Maybe I'm a special snowflake, but in my experience the only people who try to use the straight-up population definition when they're talking about political issues (like organizing for representation, eg. forming a student union) are Right Wingers whining about white rights.

Well, now you've met 5. And no amount of yelling and berating people is going to change the fact that the definition of the term was obviously muddled and/or misunderstood for most of this thread. It's not a big deal at all except for the part where you seemed to have this immediate and unwarranted reaction of implying people were racist for not understanding what you were saying and/or not being sure about the accuracy of the term you were using. I mean, keep doing that sort of shit all you want. Nobody's telling you you can't. But it's not going to encourage people to want to have an honest dialogue with you about this sort of stuff. It's an incredibly unproductive way of trying to get your point across as well as being pretty damn rude.

[Pæs]

I am having a disconnect between this explanation of muddled definitions and being told that the definition was "retarded" when I first identified semantics as the source of fail in this thread.

[East Coast Hustle]

I believe the exact thing you were told was that it was retarded from a laymen's point of view.

IOW, someone who doesn't study sociology and has always assumed that "minority" means "less than half".

[East Coast Hustle]

And frankly, I still think that given the etymology of the word, the sociological definition is kind of dumb and makes confusion inevitable. but apparently that's just because I'm a racist and probably a bit dim to boot.

[East Coast Hustle]

I guess what I'm trying to say is: here's a big sack of Everybody Go Fuck Yourselves.

Assholes.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Try reading the posts from OLDEST to NEWEST so that you have a sense of the chronological order in which explanations were given before I started to suspect that Pergamos has some kind of latent racist bullshit going on in his head.

I'm not convinced that "latent racist" tendencies should be met with the same level of disgust and vitriol that outright racism warrants. Isn't there a qualitative difference between "I tend to think a certain way because that is how I have been conditioned" and "I think a certain way despite mountains of plain evidence"? After all, Pergamos at worst is displaying oversimplified thinking in terms of race, I haven't seen any kind of superiority talk and in fact he has made it pretty clear he's anti-racism, even if his thinking is contaminated with latent racism.

Isn't it a little extreme to throw him to the wolves at this point as if he's some kind of unabashed Klansman? If the default reaction to people spouting things they haven't quite worked out yet is going to be fire and brimstone like it's a crime to start a journey you haven't finished yet, then what's the point in saying anything at all?

What on EARTH makes you think that was the same level of disgust and vitriol I would have leveled at someone displaying outright racism?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

NOBODY is doing the shit you're accusing us of doing. You're fucking pissed because some assumption you've been making aligns with a right wing Sacred Cow. Yeah, I tend to associate ignoring the difference between "social majority" and "simple majority" with the right-wing racist agenda. At the very least, not knowing is a symptom of privilege, as it's a pretty good indication that you have never had a reason to know.

SO SORRY.

I didn't start to wonder whether Pergamos had some latent racism issues until he refused to acknowledge various people patiently pointing out the difference over and over and over again. And you you fuckers are up my butt for "insinuating" there might be an unsavory reason for that refusal.

Come on. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What gets me is that the numerical definition of majority, while accurate in one sense, is used to attempt to downplay the power the sociological majority enjoys...Whether the person arguing the point is doing so consciously or not.

There's really no other reason to dig heels in and argue definitions in this sort of thing.

Annnd this.

[Doktor Howl]

Latent racism is another word for Privilege, right?

That's kind of where I was heading.

It is unjust and unfair and tragic, but none of that injustice exists as far as the privileged person is concerned. It isn't that they don't care, exactly, it's that they don't see it. Privilege is a condition -- not a disease, not a natural state, but a condition that comes along with being born into a world that immediately begins programming children. Privileged people are not "evil" for simply failing to naturally recognize, transcend, and reject that privilege any more than a kid born in the Amazon is "evil" for not naturally growing up to speak Dutch all by himself. So coming at privileged people from a position of "hey fuck you for not seeing your blind spots" is ridiculous at best. Not that it's bad to show people the things they're missing -- but being angry and disrespectful by default (not that this is the case specifically here) isn't going to be very productive.

This is why I haven't offered him a white sheet and hood. 

No, but you did suspect him of "having an agenda" in a context that made it pretty clear what you were getting at.

Yeah, and I'm standing by that, though I don't think that Permagos is overtly or consciously racist.

I think it's more of a reflexive "my tribe" thing.  Everyone does that to one degree or another, whether or not they realize it.  Trick is to realize it and mitigate it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And frankly, I still think that given the etymology of the word, the sociological definition is kind of dumb and makes confusion inevitable. but apparently that's just because I'm a racist and probably a bit dim to boot.

I'm sorry, but that argument holds no water. Do you know the etymology of "minority"? The term is used the same way in politics, it's been used that way long before sociology existed as a field of study. I'm sorry English refuses to acquiesce to your ideas of what words "should" mean.

minority (n.) Look up minority at Dictionary.com
    1530s, "condition of being smaller," from Middle French minorité (15c.), or directly from Medieval Latin minoritatem (nominative minoritas), from Latin minor (see minor (adj.)). Meaning "state of being under legal age" is from 1540s; that of "smaller number or part" is from 1736. The meaning "group of people separated from the rest of a community by race, religion, language, etc." is from 1919, originally in an Eastern European context.

The condition of being smaller can refer to any number of things: lesser in age (a minor person) lesser in power (a minority group) lesser in number (a population minority) or smaller than another group (a simple minority).

I took a year of sociology, and they didn't teach this there. I think most people learn it in their social or political science classes in high school.

[Doktor Howl]

ECH, if I thought Permagos was an outright racist, I would be talking to him in a very, very different manner.  It would involve a lot more of these:



And a lot less typing.

Just saying.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Also, for the record, responding to "what he's saying sounds racist and makes me wonder if he has some latent racist ideas because it's the same argument a lot of racist people make to support their racism" with "FUCK YOU HOW DARE YOU" is not a terribly effective way to dissipate that skepticism.

[Doktor Howl]

Also, for the record, responding to "what he's saying sounds racist and makes me wonder if he has some latent racist ideas because it's the same argument a lot of racist people make to support their racism" with "FUCK YOU HOW DARE YOU" is not a terribly effective way to dissipate that skepticism.

I remember my response to "privilege" prior to having it spelled out for me.   

Perhaps we should get Corbeat et Renard up in here.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Also, for the record, responding to "what he's saying sounds racist and makes me wonder if he has some latent racist ideas because it's the same argument a lot of racist people make to support their racism" with "FUCK YOU HOW DARE YOU" is not a terribly effective way to dissipate that skepticism.

I remember my response to "privilege" prior to having it spelled out for me.   

Perhaps we should get Corbeat et Renard up in here.

[Pergamos]

So, just to be clear, under the definition of minority being used here, would white people in apartheid era South Africa be considered a minority or not? 

I know the word has a ton of baggage, and that's why it gets used by people like these student union ass hats, because it gets tied up with privilege and oppressed minorities need to be protected through things like the ERA, anti-discrimination laws and so forth, but if a tiny fraction of the population (who holds power) is not a minority then the word has become jargon.  It confuses instead of communicating, and also seems to carry some very strong connotations of either racism or anti-racism depending on who is using it and how.