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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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What was the point, in your opinion?

I can't see anything other than bare-faced racism because the name doesn't mean anything to me.

Black people with moderate opinions on race, or even 'when we say "kill all white people" we don't really mean "kill all white people"' opinions on race, do not name their children 'Tatishe'. African immigrants use biblically inspired names, Caribbeans use normal Anglo or Hispanic names, and AADOS use distinctive AADOS names which might be weird but which are recognizably not deriving from the Niger-Congo languages.

Tatishe

I tried finding that name, and it had two hits worldwide (0.001% of "Steven", for reference). The second result in my search was the study author, and the third was a Spanish (or at least Spanish-language) musician. Maybe I have to brush up on my linguistics, but I still don't see any notable connection between that name and any region, let alone any political stance.

Your multi-sentence specific explanation wasn't enough to convince me, so I stand behind my criticism of their brief dismissal.

It flags a very obvious conflict of interest.

"Discriminating in favor of black people is good and popular, says study by black man" naturally invokes suspicion.

Yes, it's an ad-hominem argument and not a replacement for drilling carefully down into the details of the study (assuming it's not one of those surveys where they just make up the results, which are rare but do exist). But the prior for this study's rigor and truthfulness should be set lower than would otherwise be the case.

When it comes to categories like race/sex/age/nationality, some level of presumptive conflict of interest is inevitable. Would a White researcher come off as unbiased in race research in your opinion?

Would a White researcher come off as unbiased in race research in your opinion?

In the social climate of the past 30 or so years? Quite possibly, though if the researcher themselves capitalized white that would be a signal that increases the prediction of bias. That's part of how we ended up with Biden.

No, of course not. That’s why everyone likes a convert - somebody who benefits from or was attached to position A telling you that B is true instead.