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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28047 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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The radical policy of putting criminals in jail without segregating the bus would have permitted Montgomery to have avoided the bus boycott entirely.

Sure, but they were segregationists; it wasn't about crime.

Sure, but they were segregationists; it wasn't about crime.

Seems like a remarkable coincidence, dontcha think? That the people being segregated just happened to have a murder rate that was 5-10 times higher than the majority population?

Saying 'they were segregationists' seems close to saying they were murderists.

Sure, but they were segregationists; it wasn't about crime.

Come to think of it, what was the point of separating blacks and whites? It's easy to think of Southern segregationists as moustache-twirling villains who wanted little beyond stigmatizing blacks and keeping them down, but perhaps there was an actual practical reason for this type of segregation?

It's easy to think of progressives as moustache-twirling villains who wanted little beyond stigmatizing non-progressives and keeping them down, but perhaps there was an actual practical reason for this type of segregation?

The purpose of this place is specifically to exclude this line of reasoning, because the answer of "the outgroup is ontologically evil" is trivial and boring. That way lies shady thinking, bad arguments, and no room for synthesis.

The [unstated] paradox of this place is that, if our outgroup wasn't ontologically evil, it wouldn't need to exist.

The purpose of this place is specifically to exclude this line of reasoning, because the answer of "the outgroup is ontologically evil" is trivial and boring. That way lies shady thinking, bad arguments, and no room for synthesis.

FWIW I am open to to the conclusion that segregationists (or progressives) are flat out evil, I just want to hear both sides of the story first. With progressives, I have definitely heard their side of the story -- it's impossible not to in the United States in 2026.

So I could probably be convinced that the "purpose of this place" is to let people hear all sides to a story.

By the way, if you quote me, please do so accurately. If you want to make changes for rhetorical purposes, please use brackets. Thanks.

The point of separating them was to express disdain for them. Libertarians here tend to read practical motivations into anything. No, if there were such motivations, they weren't very central to the idea. People forced blacks to use segregated water fountains because they got utility from forcing blacks to use segregated water fountains.

This is an extension of the quokka idea, except instead of "it's hard to imagine someone would want to harm me, just because", it's "it's hard to imagine that someone would want harm black people, just because".

The point of separating them was to express disdain for them.

What's your evidence/argument for this? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just would like to understand your reasoning.

"it's hard to imagine that someone would want harm black people, just because".

Well this is based on my experience. Of course I never lived in the Jim Crow south, but I've witnessed a lot of discrimination against blacks -- all of it was what could be called "rational discrimination." An example of this kind of discrimination is the example of the Nigerian cabbie who tries to avoid picking up young black men late at night because he perceives a much greater chance of being robbed.

What's your evidence/argument for this? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just would like to understand your reasoning.

This is like software patents where an idea is so obvious that nobody bothers to write it down. Are you seriously saying you've never observed discrimination that is just fundamentally based on not liking another race?

Are you seriously saying you've never observed discrimination that is just fundamentally based on not liking another race?

Over the years, I have observed what appears to be such, yes. But even assuming that what could be termed "irrational discrimination" exists, it doesn't follow that a given instance of discrimination is of this type.

This is like software patents where an idea is so obvious that nobody bothers to write it down.

It sounds like believe your position is so obviously correct you don't even need to supply any evidence or reasoning for why it is correct. I would have to disagree.

We know that "rational" discrimination exists. Therefore, one cannot automatically assume that a given instance of discrimination is not rational.

You're privileging the hypothesis. People who wanted segregated fountains described them in terms that indicate disdain for other races. The default assumption should then be to assume that is true unless you have a specific reason to believe otherwise. Defaulting to "it must be economic" is absurd. It's always possible that they are lying to themselves and actually have economic reasons, but that shouldn't be the default.

I also don't feel like being filibustered, and there's a type of filibuster where people keep asking for evidence for well known things just to create more work for their opponents. It is not possible to know the slightest bit about the subject and be unaware that segregated drinking fountains are rooted in disdain for blacks and not in economic reasons. I do not need to provide evidence for it. That's like going to a physicist and asking him to prove that atoms exist. He could probably refer you to some textbook, but overall it's just a waste of his time.

People who wanted segregated fountains described them in terms that indicate disdain for other races.

Ok, this is a piece of evidence. Perhaps weak, but let's see. Please give me 3 links and quotes.

The default assumption should then be to assume that is true unless you have a specific reason to believe otherwise.

I don't necessarily agree, since people frequently lie about their motivations. But let's see your evidence.

Defaulting to "it must be economic" is absurd.

You're privileging the hypothesis.

I don't recall doing so. Can you please quote me where I "default[ed]" to such a hypothesis?

It is not possible to know the slightest bit about the subject and be unaware that segregated drinking fountains are rooted in disdain for blacks and not in economic reasons.

I would have to disagree with this. My knowledge regarding segregation era policies comes from a source which I now know to be biased. I also know that at least some discrimination against blacks is "rational." So it's reasonable to be skeptical.

and there's a type of filibuster where people keep asking for evidence for well known things just to create more work

If you believe that I am discussing this in bad faith, well, I disagree. But you are of course free to disengage.

To have an exploitable, dehumanized underclass? I get that overlaps a bit with stigmatizing them and keeping them down, but that was the core reason they were brought over in the first place: coerced labor. It’s also the central reason for literally the only time a significant chunk of this country rose in rebellion: because they believed that system was under threat, and they were willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people to preserve it. And a big portion of that formerly rebellious chunk then passed and vigorously supported laws designed explicitly to keep that underclass in an excluded and subordinate state long after formal slavery ended.

Sometimes people just do awful things to other people because it materially benefits them, and they and their ancestors build all sorts of moral, cultural, and legal justifications for why it’s okay, actually. I don't see why that's so hard to believe. People have literally been doing some version of this for as long as there have been people.

Sometimes people just do awful things to other people because it materially benefits them, and they and their ancestors build all sorts of moral, cultural, and legal justifications for why it’s okay, actually. I don't see why that's so hard to believe.

What exactly is the material benefit to segregating buses?

Anyway, the general thinking here is that I mistrust liberals and progressives. They have a tendency to spin things to make their outgroup look maximally bad and evil. For example, suppose there is a time period in history during which women are not allowed to enter into contracts. If progressives talk about such a time period, they will frame it as an example of the evil patriarchy, led by woman-hating misogynists who just want to keep women down. But of course there is another interpretation, which is that -- perhaps -- society wanted to protect women from being held responsible for their decisions. After all, children cannot enter into (most) contracts but nobody claims this is because society hates children.

I learned about segregation and the civil rights era from progressives and liberals. I was one of those people who was taught that Rosa Parks was just some random nice lady who spontaneously decided to refuse to give up her seat because she'd had enough. Which was a complete lie. Probably I was lied to in other ways as well.

This experience makes me suspect that there was a practical reason to have segregation in busing. A reason which doesn't necessarily justify the practice, but which might ever so slightly undermine the black and white picture (so to speak) presented by progressives and liberals.

So perhaps there was a big problem with black bus riders being disruptive and unruly and harassing white riders. Not that this justifies full on segregation, but I would like to hear both sides of the story.

Labour in the postbellum south was generally very cheap, with no shortage of poor whites doing the exact same jobs as blacks.

Sure, I won’t argue that cheap labor wasn’t available elsewhere, but that wasn’t the main point by then. The goal was creating an underclass that was systematically excluded and subordinate. The relative social status mattered as much, if not more, than the labor itself. As LBJ put it: “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Racial laws enforced both economic exploitation and a social hierarchy that made poor whites' own exploitation acceptable for them, since they could at least take comfort in knowing they're better than the blacks.

Plus, they still found ways to exploit black people to a greater degree than poor whites through disparities in sharecropping, tenant farming, and the legal loopholes that enabled forced labor via vagrancy laws and convict leasing. They got away with what they could, having just lost a war, after all.

As LBJ put it: “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

That sounds nice, but I don't have the impression that the amount of government pickpocketing has went down since the Civil Rights movement.

My grandparents who remembered those days were very clear that the reason was to prevent blacks and whites from interbreeding. Nobody cared if black and white men mingled, although they usually didn't. Black and white women worked alongside each other regularly. But southern states briefly experimented with segregating their high schools by gender after brown v board. Racial vitriol was strongest for black men mixing with white women.

One reads in Carleton Putnam's Race and Reason that there was a widespread belief that the "cultural level" of blacks, in every nation, was "below" that of whites, and that free association between the races and especially intermarriage would "pull down" the white race's cultural level. Putnam doesn't mention it specifically, but a lot of white Southerners felt this was happening already with the popularity of rock-and-roll "jungle music" among white teenagers (some even thought it was part of a Communist plot!)

65 years on, looking at the global hip-hop phenomenon and "wiggers", one really has to wonder . . .

It's unclear that hip-hop and the ghetto thug culture could only have come from African Americans, at the very least. Most modern day observers way overestimate the cultural differences between poor southern whites and blacks in the period; the white underclass often behaves in very similar ways to ghetto blacks and trailer trash could easily have invented(and arguably did) thug culture, we associate it with AADOS because that's more visible to us. Hip hop I'm less sure about but the rhythms that became rock n roll were not ethnic specific at the time.

I think it bears mentioning here that Black hip-hop and the ghetto thug culture markedly does not originate in the American South, nor does the existence of racially self-segregated decaying urban cores.

Black ghetto thug culture is not markedly different from white southern trailer thrash culture, and the south invented segregation(literally; a ‘normal’ class first approach wouldn’t have done that, see eg Mexico, Brazil).

Black seed has to be powerful indeed for it to radiate black culture to places which never had a sizeable black population.

Might have been, but class consciousness has been part of the human experience for a long time, so it could have been just that with a racial class marker.

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