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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28993 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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But it’s a degree of magnitude worse (or maybe two) if my neighbor then deliberately gives the cold shoulder to a Black family that moves in on our block.

Would it still be wrong to give them the cold shoulder if they were blasting loud rap music at all hours, street racing, and selling drugs? If they actually live up to the stereotypes, is it wrong to treat them differently?

Like it's one thing to give the cold shoulder to a black family that, for lack of a better descriptor, acts white. But if they actually match several of the stereotypes then I don't see the issue.

Would it still be wrong to give them the cold shoulder if they were blasting loud rap music at all hours, street racing, and selling drugs?

That would fall under 'the content of their character'.

Would it still be wrong to give them the cold shoulder if they were blasting loud rap music at all hours, street racing, and selling drugs? If they actually live up to the stereotypes, is it wrong to treat them differently?

Differently from whom? Neighbors who don't do any of those things? That's it's not really about race. Unless they are/would be nice to white neighbors who "act black", there isn't necessarily a racism issue here (although someone might suspect that there is.)

See? Again with the "them". (Genuinely not trying to be nitpicky and you didn't mean it that way - a family is a plural noun - but hopefully you'll allow the point.) I'm not talking about "them". I'm talking about specific people. I'm saying that if you see the new black family and then expect them to act per negative stereotypes and then that comes across even when you first meet them and say hi, that's bad. It's true that humans and especially modern Americans aren't super great at "firewalling" the two things, which the whole 'microaggressions' thing was a somewhat deluded and misplaced crusade at affecting, but it does take effort to extend some charity especially at first.

And of course you did list purely and universally negative stereotypes. The family could equally as well bring humor, food, a neighborly sense of watching out for the kids, hospitality, a deep faith, etc. Of course, there are some "culture-clash" values or practices that are a bit more value-neutral than selling drugs/blaring music at 2am/street racing that cause friction, sure. I'm not going to claim that all cultures and practices are of equal value either. But you have to admit starting out with "white = universally good" is not a great building block. I'll still stand by what I said though. It's really not all that bad if that's the true belief you have, but you have to be honest with yourself about whether it might bleed through or not. Only God will judge us by the contents of our heart, for everyone else in society, we have to make do with actual behaviors.

If you get right down to it most of us agree about this, but I think it's really easy to let the politically charged parts distract from it. And it tends to be a more prosperous and mentally healthy mindset to boot, when you default to trust rather than default to suspicion. That's the secret sauce of humanity's success and I don't think tech has changed it too much.

I’m just not convinced racism is the big bad. Treating a black family coldly just because violates hospitality which is its own sin.

If for any "racist" action you'd find it bad anyway through some other means, you're still opposing racism only covertly.

To add, hospitality is orthogonal to racism.

Let’s say you as a policy never welcome new neighbors. I think that is bad. The woke person would think it’s bad if you only didn’t welcome the black family (or perhaps didn’t welcome the black family regardless of your normal behavior).

My view is that hospitality is virtue and therefore is agnostic as to race. Racism ethics are value neutral and are concerned about fairness (or favoritism). It has nothing to say about hospitality but only about your level of hospitality between races.

You're claiming hospitality is race-blind, which is already being against racism. A racist doesn't (from their own perspective) treat a black family coldly "just because"; they do it because the black family is black.

One need not be a racist to find obsession with policing alleged racism silly

Well no. I actually would not want to send my kids to a school with a lot of minorities even if it were a “good” school. I think the cost to diversity is frequently higher than the benefit

If it's woke to be against bad actions towards black people that are also bad when done towards anyone else, then I'm proud to be woke.

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