This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
yeah, blacks are 13% of US population yet have 70+% representation in ads, it seems. Same for govt. work (not just blacks but other minorities too). Some stereotypes are true.
The really screwy thing about black representation in ads is that the 70% despite being only 13% elides that a huge number of these black people in ads are generic middle class black people (often, but blessedly less than in the past, light skinned). For a people who are disproportionately poor, it really seems like the TV ad execs want to ignore that most black people exist.
They can't ignore them, they have to counter-balance the existing signal.
Less well-adjusted black people show up in the news for murder, sex trafficking, carjacking, shoplifting, brawls, failing schools... When there's a successful one in a talk-show they often have some kind of sob-story of under-privileged community, overcoming some system's injustice or other...
It appears that the only chance to see successful Blacks in respectable professions (not political/grievance activism but as judge, police chief, surgeon...) or as quiet, satisfied customers is when they are acting, directed by non-blacks.
Alternatively, I could take my dog for a walk.
Yes you the lucky few who gets to live in a blue neighborhood with the right balance of diversity that white people feel proud that their kids have a balanced learning environment enriched with a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that corporate elites love to broadcast, but not such that the local schools scores go down too sharply.
Supposedly you're not walking your dog by the projects.
It appears that you're not the target for these 'black people are wonderful but in a relatable way' ads.
If you want to see black people in respectable professions, all you have to do is go to where the people with respectable professions live. I'm not sure about "wonderful", but they're certainly reasonably relatable.
The diversity propaganda is absurd and oppressive and very obviously intentionally so, but that doesn't make the large percentage of reasonable, peaceable, moderately successful black people stop existing.
There's considerable variation on this.
Then I'd see white people, Indians, Asians. There's only so many middle-class black people to go around, and they are not equally distributed across the country.
Police chiefs, judges and surgeons are not 'moderately successful' imo. My point is that these people are largely invisible to the average American, except on TV, where they are mostly race-hustlers, or paid actors at work.
The average American knows that 'black' neighborhoods are not places you want to spend too much time in, 'black' schools are not places they want their kids to attend, and unless they personally know Mr Smith down the street, a black face in their neighborhood is cause for some concern.
There's a spectrum of black people Americans interact with, I'm not saying you have to be a surgeon to be respectable / not a petty criminal.
The ones that ads usually portray are basically 'average middle-class white American but dark-skinned' and I really don't think that's that common. For example the rates of parents having children together within wedlock etc are different.
Black people of any class aren't equally distributed around the country. famously, 51% of suspensions from school given to black students as punishment were given in the 13 states of the former Confederacy... which is where 51% of black students live, because it's where 51% of black people live.
Pretty sure black police chiefs aren't exactly rare IRL. Judges I have no idea about, but I do enjoy Clarence Thomas. Surgeons I have no idea about, but would expect "Blacks less likely" to apply.
Sure.
Sure.
Nope. There's too many middle-class black people where I live, way too far from the actual ghetto, for this to be a realistic concern. This isn't the 60s. Nice neighborhoods don't turn to shit overnight when blacks flood in from the ghetto. We've built an elaborate social system that pretty well precludes that particular mistake from being repeated, barring overwhelming and abrupt government action. The blacks moving in can afford the housing prices, which means they've more or less got their shit together.
And I'm telling you that "average middle class white american but dark-skinned" is what a notable portion of my neighbors look like. I'm lower-middle-class. I'm an artist, I don't make programmer money. My wife and I together are barely making it into six figures. We are not big shots, and neither are our neighbors, and yet a fair number of them are black.
Why would this be surprising? Given that Blacks are Less Likely, and given that most people are doing pretty okay, you should expect the bell curve on Black economic status to have a fat left tail and generally be shifted leftward, but otherwise to have roughly the same shape per-capita. So there's a lot more poor blacks and a lot less rich blacks relative to whites, but the middle portion of the graph is going to be fairly similar.
FC, you're Southern, aren't you?
I've found that a lot of people have trouble conceiving of the Suburban South as anything but Bull Connor's Alabama. The idea that the modern South has a lot more black people than other parts of the country and therefore -- blacks less likely or not -- has a lot more middle class black people is just outside of most people's experience.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link