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I take issue with the notion that actual discrimination has taken a steep nosedive.
I've lost contracts, both public and private, due to my race and my sex ("sorry, you've been fantastic, but we have a big push to switch to all woman-owned vendors"). And while I didn't choose to go to university, my children may as well not even apply to many elite institutions for the penalties held against them due to their skin color, their academic merit notwithstanding.
My town was hit hard by its own self-imposed lockdown, so they decided to subsidize new businesses in the downtown area by paying for much of the first year's rent, renovation costs, etc. Except, whoops, only for women and 'minorities' (which incidentally whites are in my state of California, but I guess that doesn't count). I've seen scarce medical care withheld from whites in favor of prioritizing members of 'marginalized communities'.
I've seen white men lie about being Chinese women to get their writing published. I've seen others agree that persons of their race should stop making creative content because "we've had our time and it's their turn now." I've seen major media producers explicitly announce that it is now against policy to make shows and movies about white families and communities for not being 'representative' enough.
I've seen white women express that it would be wrong for them to reproduce, and instead wax lyrical about adopting 'brown babies'. I've seen judges decide that Christians shouldn't be allowed to adopt children for their failure to conform to modern gender ideology.
I've seen schoolchildren emotionally destroyed over the guilt and hatred heaped upon them due to what 'their' ancestors purportedly did. I've seen gifted kids lose access to advanced education because the demographics of those who qualified weren't equitable enough and this might disadvantage the children who really matter. I've seen teachers penalized or forced into resignation for disciplining too many of the wrong type of children. I've seen whole fields of study at every level of education, some quite venerable and august; some, I would say, absolutely vital to our society; neutered or destroyed because they are too thoroughly associated with the wrong kind of ethnicity.
I've seen the media lynch white (and, actually, Asian) people for self-defense because the presumption of guilt can only run one way. I've seen police officers crucified for defending themselves and others against armed, dangerous, and aggressive blacks who sometimes were in the literal act of attempting to murder others. I've seen whites refuse to report crimes, even those which did them great damage, because they've been so brainwashed into thinking that it is somehow morally correct for them to do so by the education system, the media, and the state. I've seen communities burned, laid to waste, and seen this called justice because it was done in the name of the 'oppressed'.
I've seen governments refuse to hamper heinous criminal activity, from property crime to mass organized rape of children, because the perpetrators have what our old friend Autistic Thinker might have called 'Tropical privilege'.
I could keep going on, for quite some time, and we all know it.
Discrimination is pervasive, overt, systemic, and often explicitly codified.
Perhaps I should rephrase: actual discrimination against nonwhites has taken a nosedive. Given that that was the topic of the thread, I assumed I didn’t need to specify.
If we want to understand the mechanism behind the massive decrease in discrimination against non-Whites, we would do well to notice that it has coincided with a massive increase in discrimination against Whites.
Seems to me that most of the people I hear pointing this out at all immediately blame 'the Jews'. But I think this is a poor proxy for whatever is actually going on. Just wish I knew what it was.
How about the idea that it never was about discrimination or civil rights or anything high minded at all. Just "who will defeat or dominate whom?", like most conflicts.
Why would a nation do this to itself?
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instead of nosediving it looks more like the polarity was just inverted.
No. No, it really hasn’t.
You had entire regions of the country with double sets of amenities just so whites could avoid contact with “colored people.” If you know of somewhere with Black-only bathrooms or streetcars, please let me know so I can narc on them to the ACLU.
What about safe spaces, does that count?, and then we have Affirmative action, segregated graduation ceremonies.
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Here
Please let me know how that goes.
Jesus Christ. Is this legal because it's...consensual? Surely someone has challenged it, because especially for public schools, it has to be a violation...
I have to ask at this point...does this change your estimation of progressives at all?
This happens just about weekly with you in particular, pretty much since I've noticed your username kicking around. Someone will mention some outrageous thing some progressives somewhere are doing, you'll immediately throw a flag on the play, insisting that you can't believe any progressive would actually be doing such, then you'll be dogpiled with examples, and you disappear from the thread.
Not really--but not in the way you're thinking. Believe it or not, I already have a pretty low opinion of extreme progressives. I'm throwing a flag because reversed stupidity is not intelligence, and claiming whites are "reversing the polarity" of 50s-era segregation is still objectively false. Even though the truth was much worse than I expected.
Clearly, in this case, I was too hasty. Normally, I try to be more clear that only a Sith deals in absolutes. I find it quite annoying when users throw out some random generalization about how the Other Team consists of degenerates and hypocrites. Especially when such generalizations are based on zero to one data points.
Here's another case where I wasn't careful enough. I wanted to convey that the OP was making unusually strong claims about toxicity, but in doing so, I doubted "anyone" would cop to it. What a blunder! Of course some jackass activist would say something close enough to the claim! And yet, I stuck around in that thread and made my position more clear. I'd like to think I make a point of doing that, of admitting I am wrong.
The frustrating thing here is that it sounded like you're giving an example of what constitute a "reversed polarity", only to follow up with "it's still objectively false" when the exact criteria from your example are met. If thus doesn't change your mind, what would?
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A related question - do examples like these (where apparently prestigious or large institutions have something batshit going on) change your calculus on progressive power?
I think I share the basic intuition that most people, even quite left-leaning, aren’t actually insane, and are quite reasonable in discussion. But I think I depart from your viewpoint in that I think there are a lot more people that just regurgitate progressive shibboleths without really thinking it through (as I know quite a few, and I’m not even in the US!), who moderate their internal opinions if they are given a chance to actually review what they say; and that I’m not incredibly surprised by incidents like the above happening, because the insane wing of the movement has shown itself to be able to punch way above its weight in various ways.
(For what it is worth, my read is that this well of power and - to borrow a word - privilege is running increasingly low now, and it was never to a point where the ideological capture threatened the entirety of society - just the most obnoxiously vocal parts.)
I suppose what I’m asking is - what are you continuously surprised by?
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You do this a lot, particularly lately. I occasionally disagree with your pushback, but in every case I can recall, your pushback has been much, much closer to the truth and/or more reasonable than the people you've responded to. I'd imagine it's fairly thankless work, but I appreciate it quite a bit.
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I'm guessing the legal fig leaf is "Black Affinity Housing residents, representing all diverse identities." So they don't explicitly say "black people only" or even "no straight white males." Everyone understands that's what it means in practice, but to challenge it you'd have to bring a lawsuit with evidence that they have demonstrated racial bias in their admissions, which would require first of all a sufficient number of white men to apply solely for the purpose of creating a legal case. And I'd further guess that seeing a spate of white men applying, they'd demand a "statement of black affinity" that mouths all the right words about wanting to learn how to unpack their white privilege and engage in anti-racist work, etc. Assuming you then get a few white guys who'd pass that filter, they'd accept a couple and then would be able to claim they are not practicing racial discrimination.
Not a whole lot different from how businesses who wanted to discriminate back in the day would invent various devices to keep out black people or women without saying "no blacks or women."
Is this where disparate impact comes in?
"This housing isn't exclusively for whites, just for people who happen to check all these extremely white-coded boxes" wouldn't fly, would it?
It probably wouldn't fly when/if it eventually reaches a court.
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