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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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Most people read into social subtext, so if you say, "blacks underperform for reasons other than discrimination" what most people hear is "blacks are bad, or somehow inferior.

Perhaps not for solely 'discrimination', but if one rejects that historical factors are the cause of racial disparities, what else are you left with? The OC offers as the only alternative 'culture', but that hardly helps; we can then only ask what causes the difference in culture? Hence, if you don't think there's a genetic difference we are left only with history and discrimination.

"believing black people should change" is problematic to many people.

I don't think people regard this as 'problematic' so much as pointless and unactionable. Where does a statement like that leave us in terms of actually making things better? As worthless a contribution as saying your solution to alcoholism is that people should drink less alcohol.

First, cultural differences are just as much an accidental difference between people as genetics. I do agree that history can influence culture, though.

The framing is important though. If we say culture is the cause, the solutions that come to mind are "socializing black people to act differently." If we say discrimination is the cause, the solutions that come to mind are reparations or something.

I agree the exact cause and effect is largely the same, so I will reiterate that the whole debate is largely a proxy argument for who is an agent. Feminism being also woke adjacent treats men as the only agents, too.

E: typo