Is this season of big brother actually big racism?

[maizefolk]

I agree it doesn't need to be a binary choice.  Lots can be done, some little is actually being done, and history proves the rate of change, while probably seen by those not suffering the inequality themselves as great strides forward from how bad it used to be, is frustratingly slow for those who are the ones suffering the inequality.

I don't disagree with any of this. Fast is better than slower. And we could be going an awful lot faster than we are today.

Related to this: Forward is better than backward.

My only original point in responding to your comment about quota "racism" was that it could well be a reaction to the perceived limited action towards tackling systemic covert racism beyond making it taboo to be openly racist.

Alternatively, imposing racial quotas on reality TV participants is a great way to generate headlines for a TV network (both positive and negative, but most likely to be perceived primarily positively by the young, affluent and college educated demographics which are most valuable to networks) and generate the perception of "doing something" without having to devote money or resources to addressing the real problem.

There seems to be a pretty strong consensus in this thread that racial quotas on reality TV are extremely pointless and frankly not even worth discussing. I don't think anyone is arguing reality tv quotas are actually an effective strategy to combat and disarm systematic racism are they?

My understanding is that I'm an outlier only in that I think stupid gestures like this may do long term hard to the goals it intends to promote even as it generates postive-to-their-target-demographics coverages for the corporations who enact it.

[uniwelder]

My give-a-fuckometer is riding dangerously low on this one either way.

If it's not racist, then let's just stop discussing crap TV.  If it is racist, it's a display of racism that doesn't matter in any way to anyone.  Oh no - on a ridiculous 'reality tv show' that is probably mostly scripted some actors decided to band together by skin colour?

In the words of the illustrious US president - "C'mon man".

:P

Personally, I agree.

But those poor white people might lose the pointless, rigged competition. How can you not care?

I didn't know anything about Big Brother until yesterday, so I don't care in the context of the show itself, but the message it sends to society.  I talked with a very liberal friend about it today and she had the same thoughts as most here.  I did have to explain the little bit I knew as she never heard of the tv series either.  We might be totally in the dark, but if this show has been on the air 20 years, it must have a big enough following to be influential, so in that regard I think it matters.

GuitarStv-- You cared enough to comment, so there's something about this topic that got your attention.

[Metalcat]

I agree it doesn't need to be a binary choice.  Lots can be done, some little is actually being done, and history proves the rate of change, while probably seen by those not suffering the inequality themselves as great strides forward from how bad it used to be, is frustratingly slow for those who are the ones suffering the inequality.

I don't disagree with any of this. Fast is better than slower. And we could be going an awful lot faster than we are today.

Related to this: Forward is better than backward.

My only original point in responding to your comment about quota "racism" was that it could well be a reaction to the perceived limited action towards tackling systemic covert racism beyond making it taboo to be openly racist.

Alternatively, imposing racial quotas on reality TV participants is a great way to generate headlines for a TV network (both positive and negative, but most likely to be perceived primarily positively by the young, affluent and college educated demographics which are most valuable to networks) and generate the perception of "doing something" without having to devote money or resources to addressing the real problem.

There seems to be a pretty strong consensus in this thread that racial quotas on reality TV are extremely pointless and frankly not even worth discussing. I don't think anyone is arguing reality tv quotas are actually an effective strategy to combat and disarm systematic racism are they?

My understanding is that I'm an outlier only in that I think stupid gestures like this may do long term hard to the goals it intends to promote even as it generates postive-to-their-target-demographics coverages for the corporations who enact it.

I certainly don't agree with that.

Representation in media really matters, even just stupid reality tv shows. But not seeing POCs on television definitely has a huge impact on the sense that the default is to be white and that POCs are the "others".

It matters that people of colour are seen. It very much matters that they are seen on media for young people and cast in roles that are cool, sexy, and fun, and that those roles are not just reserved for white people the way it was on The Bachelor for a truly embarrassingly long time.

And we can dismiss trash TV as pointless and not important, but let's face it, this is what people watch.

More young people watch and talk about Love Island than the news. The second season was won by a black couple and the man really played up his respect for his partner as a strong black woman. This started a massive online discussion of race issues because the woman was very dark and African, and the man was light skin mixed and had a white mother. It was revealed that he and his mother are both staunchly racist against dark black women and he was playing her and pandering to the audience.

Love Is Blind was another MASSIVE hit that featured a black man who faces enormous struggles and clear mental health issues because he is bisexual, and many people may not be aware of the additional struggles that LGBTQ+ POCs have to face.

Suffice to say, a lot of young white viewers who may have known very little about race issues got educated as to the realities that black women and queer men can face even within their own community. All because they wanted to gossip about a trashy reality show on Reddit where very involved discussions of race issues were happening, with a lot of POCs leading the conversations and educating readers as to the nuances of the dynamics they saw onscreen.

So it may seem frivolous and like pandering, but when POCs get included in the pop culture media, so do their experiences and issues become more entrenched in the pop culture narrative.

This is also how awareness becomes easy, and not a chore that people have to actively seek out. When non white cultures get blended into the dominant cultural narrative, the dominant culture stops being so Lilly white.

Reality show quotas aren't going to solve racism, but they create exposure and representation that's a hell of a lot better alternative than our young people continuing to consume hours upon hours of content featuring pretty much ONLY white people.

If this is the shit that people watch, then yeah, it being all white is a problem.

If quotas bring more POCs onto the screens of people who will then spend hours watching them and getting exposed to non white culture without having to put any effort into learning.

Well, I'm all for it, and certainly don't see it as a hollow PR move.

[PKFFW]

Related to this: Forward is better than backward.

I don't think anyone would dispute that.

Related to that though is: forward is better than back is often a convenient excuse for not trying to go any faster.

Alternatively, imposing racial quotas on reality TV participants is a great way to generate headlines for a TV network (both positive and negative, but most likely to be perceived primarily positively by the young, affluent and college educated demographics which are most valuable to networks) and generate the perception of "doing something" without having to devote money or resources to addressing the real problem.

Yes, could be exactly that too.

There seems to be a pretty strong consensus in this thread that racial quotas on reality TV are extremely pointless and frankly not even worth discussing. I don't think anyone is arguing reality tv quotas are actually an effective strategy to combat and disarm systematic racism are they?

Actually I thought the consensus was more about arguing whether a few black people banded together on "reality tv" to ensure a black person won was racist or not was the extremely pointless activity.  You and I seem to be the only ones really discussing the quota "racism" side topic.

My understanding is that I'm an outlier only in that I think stupid gestures like this may do long term hard to the goals it intends to promote even as it generates postive-to-their-target-demographics coverages for the corporations who enact it.

Yeah there is a risk it could do long tern harm to the goal it intends to promote.

Perhaps that potential risk is considered to be offset by the actual harm to people being done right now and will continue to be done if the slowly, slowly, approach continues? 

Or perhaps not, it's just a thought and maybe I'm giving too much credit to bunch of people who work for a corporation.  On the other hand it seems a significant driving force in bringing change to the marriage equality issue was corporate activism after the profits of corporations that were seen to not be active enough were negatively affected.  So perhaps this corporation is merely trying to avoid that sort of situation before it comes to pass.

[Metalcat]

My give-a-fuckometer is riding dangerously low on this one either way.

If it's not racist, then let's just stop discussing crap TV.  If it is racist, it's a display of racism that doesn't matter in any way to anyone.  Oh no - on a ridiculous 'reality tv show' that is probably mostly scripted some actors decided to band together by skin colour?

In the words of the illustrious US president - "C'mon man".

:P

Personally, I agree.

But those poor white people might lose the pointless, rigged competition. How can you not care?

I didn't know anything about Big Brother until yesterday, so I don't care in the context of the show itself, but the message it sends to society.  I talked with a very liberal friend about it today and she had the same thoughts as most here.  I did have to explain the little bit I knew as she never heard of the tv series either.  We might be totally in the dark, but if this show has been on the air 20 years, it must have a big enough following to be influential, so in that regard I think it matters.

GuitarStv-- You cared enough to comment, so there's something about this topic that got your attention.

Not only do these shows have a massive following, they have an enormous and robust online community that discuss them in detail.

So similar to this community, but with a fuck ton more people, the ins and outs of these shows and the lives of these people on them are analyzed in detail.

Not just in terms of their time on the show, but also their IRL lives since reality shows now preferentially cast people with existing social media presence.

So these shows don't just have an audience, they have an entire social media ecosystem, and hugely boost the contestants to major influencer status.

[EvenSteven]

My give-a-fuckometer is riding dangerously low on this one either way.

If it's not racist, then let's just stop discussing crap TV.  If it is racist, it's a display of racism that doesn't matter in any way to anyone.  Oh no - on a ridiculous 'reality tv show' that is probably mostly scripted some actors decided to band together by skin colour?

In the words of the illustrious US president - "C'mon man".

:P

Personally, I agree.

But those poor white people might lose the pointless, rigged competition. How can you not care?

I didn't know anything about Big Brother until yesterday, so I don't care in the context of the show itself, but the message it sends to society.  I talked with a very liberal friend about it today and she had the same thoughts as most here.  I did have to explain the little bit I knew as she never heard of the tv series either.  We might be totally in the dark, but if this show has been on the air 20 years, it must have a big enough following to be influential, so in that regard I think it matters.

GuitarStv-- You cared enough to comment, so there's something about this topic that got your attention.

Not only do these shows have a massive following, they have an enormous and robust online community that discuss them in detail.

So similar to this community, but with a fuck ton more people, the ins and outs of these shows and the lives of these people on them are analyzed in detail.

Not just in terms of their time on the show, but also their IRL lives since reality shows now preferentially cast people with existing social media presence.

So these shows don't just have an audience, they have an entire social media ecosystem, and hugely boost the contestants to major influencer status.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

[maizefolk]

Perhaps that potential risk is considered to be offset by the actual harm to people being done right now and will continue to be done if the slowly, slowly, approach continues?

Or perhaps not, it's just a thought and maybe I'm giving too much credit to bunch of people who work for a corporation.  On the other hand it seems a significant driving force in bringing change to the marriage equality issue was corporate activism after the profits of corporations that were seen to not be active enough were negatively affected.  So perhaps this corporation is merely trying to avoid that sort of situation before it comes to pass.

PKFFW. I am not advocating for a slow approach. Nor am I advocating for doing nothing. All I am saying is that I personally believe this one particular thing does harm by undermining a consensus that racial discrimination is uniformly a bad thing and does absolutely no good since random selection from the target population would achieve the same representation goals malcat eloquently speaks about the benefits of without the downside.

I also believe it does harm by taking people like you -- who clearly care about building a more just world for all of us -- and getting you to spend your time defending racial quotas rather than focusing on advocating for and passing the big things we could be doing right now to make progress:

Things like criminal justice reform, education reform, strengthening the economic safety net, building better on-ramps to higher education for talented students from poor families, cracking down on illegal housing discrimination, ensuring it takes more training to become a police officer than a hair dresser. Heck a race-blind universal basic income would do loads to reduce racial economic inequality and we're up to close of half of american's supporting the idea from a tiny percentage three years ago.

Just because I don't think one particular approach that you do seem to believe is a good idea does not mean I am in favor of doing nothing or doing only small and incremental things.

[Metalcat]

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

It's the reality we live in. Some of the most famous people in the world right now are people I've literally never heard of and couldn't possibly recognize because they are on platforms I don't see because I'm too old.

But that's the ecosystem young people exist in, whether it's barfy or not.

[PKFFW]

PKFFW. I am not advocating for a slow approach. Nor am I advocating for doing nothing. All I am saying is that I personally believe this one particular thing does harm by undermining a consensus that racial discrimination is uniformly a bad thing and does absolutely no good since random selection from the target population would achieve the same representation goals malcat eloquently speaks about the benefits of without the downside.

I never stated you were advocating anything.  I mentioned that perhaps this quota "racism" is a response to the continued covert racism that is endemic in many societies.

I agree that "undermining a consensus that racial discrimination is uniformly a bad thing".  However, it's easy for the likes of you and me to agree on that since (and forgive me if I'm mistaken here) we aren't the ones suffering any of the negative aspects of the status quo.

I also believe it does harm by taking people like you -- who clearly care about building a more just world for all of us -- and getting you to spend your time defending racial quotas rather than focusing on advocating for and passing the big things we could be doing right now to make progress:

Things like criminal justice reform, education reform, strengthening the economic safety net, building better on-ramps to higher education for talented students from poor families, cracking down on illegal housing discrimination, ensuring it takes more training to become a police officer than a hair dresser. Heck a race-blind universal basic income would do loads to reduce racial economic inequality and we're up to close of half of american's supporting the idea from a tiny percentage three years ago.

Thank you for implying I'm incapable of focusing on more than one aspect of the issue.  Believe it or not, discussing on the internet while I have some free time the reasons a corporation might implement supposedly "racist" quotas is not the only thing I do in this area.

Just because I don't think one particular approach that you do seem to believe is a good idea does not mean I am in favor of doing nothing or doing only small and incremental things.

I never stated or implied that you do.

Society at large though clearly does advocate for doing next to nothing or only small and incremental things.  Over a few hundred years of history is evidence of that.  Maybe, and I'm only suggesting this as a possible reason such things as quotas are considered or enacted, to borrow a phrase from your President, the patience of those suffering while society at large is happy things are better than they were though far from great, is wearing thin.  Perhaps they don't care if the "consensus that racial discrimination is uniformly a bad thing" is undermined if it means they stop actually being discriminated against in the here and now.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

My give-a-fuckometer is riding dangerously low on this one either way.

If it's not racist, then let's just stop discussing crap TV.  If it is racist, it's a display of racism that doesn't matter in any way to anyone.  Oh no - on a ridiculous 'reality tv show' that is probably mostly scripted some actors decided to band together by skin colour?

In the words of the illustrious US president - "C'mon man".

:P

I take this same point anytime something occurs in the avenue of pop culture and the like. I just don't get the outrage over everything. Lebron makes stupid statements about China. Who cares? NFL players are kneeling during the anthem. What does it bother me one way or the other? Now, the actual problems, like the abuses of China and the issues the NFL players are highlighting are worth concern over. The actual actions by the pop icons involved...I really couldn't care less over. Same with this Big Brother thing. I mean, how does any of this impact my life whatsoever? There's so much to get outraged over today that it's hard for me to muster it over serious stuff much less things like this.

And in terms of uniwelder's question to GuitarStv about it, I can speak for myself that I cared enough to comment because I find people's consternation over all of this stuff interesting from the perspective that it's so different from how I view things.

[Metalcat]

My give-a-fuckometer is riding dangerously low on this one either way.

If it's not racist, then let's just stop discussing crap TV.  If it is racist, it's a display of racism that doesn't matter in any way to anyone.  Oh no - on a ridiculous 'reality tv show' that is probably mostly scripted some actors decided to band together by skin colour?

In the words of the illustrious US president - "C'mon man".

:P

I take this same point anytime something occurs in the avenue of pop culture and the like. I just don't get the outrage over everything. Lebron makes stupid statements about China. Who cares? NFL players are kneeling during the anthem. What does it bother me one way or the other? Now, the actual problems, like the abuses of China and the issues the NFL players are highlighting are worth concern over. The actual actions by the pop icons involved...I really couldn't care less over. Same with this Big Brother thing. I mean, how does any of this impact my life whatsoever? There's so much to get outraged over today that it's hard for me to muster it over serious stuff much less things like this.

And in terms of uniwelder's question to GuitarStv about it, I can speak for myself that I cared enough to comment because I find people's consternation over all of this stuff interesting from the perspective that it's so different from how I view things.

But the phenomenon behind the outrage is very real.

Yes, it's absolutely ridiculous to try and turn a few black people making a team in a stupid game show into a scandal. However, it's a thing because there is a HUGE push back against the rise of Black Lives Matter, and a whole bunch of white folk are looking for any opportunity to criticize "reverse racism" to try and neutralize what they feel as an attack.

And that matters.

The fact that it manifests as outrage over a team in a relaity show, or outrage over a bent knee, or whatever, also shows the level of desperation of the people looking to promote this concept. They'll scrape for examples anywhere and everywhere and then post all over the internet "hey look! Isn't what these black people doing racism? What about if white people did this, they would be crucified by cancel culture! This is hypocrisy and no one cares!!"

And as I said before, the stupid game show or the stupid sports might not matter to you, but it matters to millions. These forms of entertainment get more attention and more time from the public than any form of politics or current affairs.

I guarantee you that way more Americans know the ins and outs of the racial story lines I described above in just two seasons of two shows than Americans who have any clue about the new NAFTA agreement that happened at the same time.

That's the thing, the more something matters, the less the public tends to pay attention to it, because serous things are boring and stressful. So instead they spend thousands of hours online discussing timeline details of the MCU and having a fucking nervous breakdown about the new Dr. Who being a woman.

This shit doesn't matter to you, but it matters to way more people than the stuff that you think *actually* matters.

That's just the Kardashian reality you live in. Sorry, but that's what it is and judging it won't stop it from being legitimately important because to the voting public of your country, it very, very much matters.

[uniwelder]

Yes, it's absolutely ridiculous to try and turn a few black people making a team in a stupid game show into a scandal. However, it's a thing because there is a HUGE push back against the rise of Black Lives Matter, and a whole bunch of white folk are looking for any opportunity to criticize "reverse racism" to try and neutralize what they feel as an attack.

And that matters.

The fact that it manifests as outrage over a team in a relaity show, or outrage over a bent knee, or whatever, also shows the level of desperation of the people looking to promote this concept. They'll scrape for examples anywhere and everywhere and then post all over the internet "hey look! Isn't what these black people doing racism? What about if white people did this, they would be crucified by cancel culture! This is hypocrisy and no one cares!!"

I don't think anything said in this thread so far points to outrage, but I suppose its elsewhere on reddit or twitter.  I'm curious about the hypocrisy, but not because I'm looking for an excuse to criticize Black Lives Matter.  I consider myself politically moderate and vote democratic.  I do believe condoning controversial actions like this hurt the movement though. 

The actual actions by the pop icons involved...I really couldn't care less over. Same with this Big Brother thing. I mean, how does any of this impact my life whatsoever? There's so much to get outraged over today that it's hard for me to muster it over serious stuff much less things like this.

There hasn't really been much discussion about the tv show here--- which character said what to whom, who snuck around behind someone's back, the drama, etc.  Most of this thread has been about what people perceive racism to be, how its defined, and affirmative action related quotas.  It started because of a show thats broadcast widely, but not really about it.

[Metalcat]

Yes, it's absolutely ridiculous to try and turn a few black people making a team in a stupid game show into a scandal. However, it's a thing because there is a HUGE push back against the rise of Black Lives Matter, and a whole bunch of white folk are looking for any opportunity to criticize "reverse racism" to try and neutralize what they feel as an attack.

And that matters.

The fact that it manifests as outrage over a team in a relaity show, or outrage over a bent knee, or whatever, also shows the level of desperation of the people looking to promote this concept. They'll scrape for examples anywhere and everywhere and then post all over the internet "hey look! Isn't what these black people doing racism? What about if white people did this, they would be crucified by cancel culture! This is hypocrisy and no one cares!!"

I don't think anything said in this thread so far points to outrage, but I suppose its elsewhere on reddit or twitter.  I'm curious about the hypocrisy, but not because I'm looking for an excuse to criticize Black Lives Matter.  I consider myself politically moderate and vote democratic.  I do believe condoning controversial actions like this hurt the movement though. 

Like I said from the beginning, if you want to genuinely educate yourself on "the movement" and what factors hurt it, then this is not the place to do it.

This is a nuanced issue, and it's not my place to explain it. There are countless avenues you could take to explore your concerns.

Note, I'm not saying your stance is wrong or accusing you of anything, I'm just saying that if your concern and interest is genuine, there are much, much better avenues to explore than here.

I refer people here for a lot of wisdom, but never would I refer someone here to learn about race issues.

[OtherJen]

A bit of Google research suggests that this is nothing new with these types of highly manufactured and manipulated "reality" dramas:

On reality TV shows like ‘Big Brother’ and ‘The Bachelor,’ race becomes impossible to ignore (Chicago Tribune)

At first glance, ABC’s “The Bachelor” and CBS' “Big Brother” are completely different. One is a fairy tale-flavored franchise where participants seek true love and happily-ever-afters. The other pits strangers cut off from the outside world against one another in a battle for a $500,000 grand prize.

But “The Bachelor,” its spinoff “The Bachelorette” and “Big Brother” share a common link: They’ve been rocked during their decades-long runs by charges of racism.

For much of its 18-year, 40-season run, “The Bachelor” franchise stood firm against repeated calls — and a contentious legal challenge — to feature a Black lead. Since its 2000 debut, “Big Brother” has regularly featured predominantly white casts, and Black houseguests have complained of being targeted and bullied.

Although “Survivor,” “America’s Got Talent,” “America’s Next Top Model” and other reality series have also come under fire for troubling racial dynamics, the “Bachelor” franchise and “Big Brother” have consistently drawn criticism for their handling of race, including from their own contestants. As recently as last season, “Big Brother’s” Kemi Fakunle publicly condemned “degrading and threatening comments” from her fellow houseguests, while Rachel Lindsay, who became “The Bachelorette’s” first Black lead in 2017, spoke out earlier this year about the series' need for a “diversity makeover.”

I don't watch these shows at all so I have no opinion about what goes on in them, but I don't remember seeing a similar discussion about the racial allegations from previous seasons of Big Brother.

[Master of None]

Yes, it's absolutely ridiculous to try and turn a few black people making a team in a stupid game show into a scandal. However, it's a thing because there is a HUGE push back against the rise of Black Lives Matter, and a whole bunch of white folk are looking for any opportunity to criticize "reverse racism" to try and neutralize what they feel as an attack.

And that matters.

The fact that it manifests as outrage over a team in a relaity show, or outrage over a bent knee, or whatever, also shows the level of desperation of the people looking to promote this concept. They'll scrape for examples anywhere and everywhere and then post all over the internet "hey look! Isn't what these black people doing racism? What about if white people did this, they would be crucified by cancel culture! This is hypocrisy and no one cares!!"

I don't think anything said in this thread so far points to outrage, but I suppose its elsewhere on reddit or twitter.  I'm curious about the hypocrisy, but not because I'm looking for an excuse to criticize Black Lives Matter.  I consider myself politically moderate and vote democratic.  I do believe condoning controversial actions like this hurt the movement though. 

Like I said from the beginning, if you want to genuinely educate yourself on "the movement" and what factors hurt it, then this is not the place to do it.

This is a nuanced issue, and it's not my place to explain it. There are countless avenues you could take to explore your concerns.

Note, I'm not saying your stance is wrong or accusing you of anything, I'm just saying that if your concern and interest is genuine, there are much, much better avenues to explore than here.

I refer people here for a lot of wisdom, but never would I refer someone here to learn about race issues.

I have recently been reading through, Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. A lot of the context in the book really opened my eyes to my own color-blind racists behaviors. It's very difficult to unlearn the bias you have from the environment you grew up in, but I am happy that I have started making concentrated efforts to improve. I often have to pause and question the thoughts running through my mind and where they were coming from. No, these aren't what you would think as "outwardly racists" thoughts, but touch on color-blind racism. For too long I've had the privileges' to ignore racism and racists behaviors due to not being effected by it. It's harder than I care to admit, but I would encourage anyone to do the same. This is just a suggestion of an area to explore if you would like to follow Malcat's advice.

[uniwelder]

Yes, it's absolutely ridiculous to try and turn a few black people making a team in a stupid game show into a scandal. However, it's a thing because there is a HUGE push back against the rise of Black Lives Matter, and a whole bunch of white folk are looking for any opportunity to criticize "reverse racism" to try and neutralize what they feel as an attack.

And that matters.

The fact that it manifests as outrage over a team in a relaity show, or outrage over a bent knee, or whatever, also shows the level of desperation of the people looking to promote this concept. They'll scrape for examples anywhere and everywhere and then post all over the internet "hey look! Isn't what these black people doing racism? What about if white people did this, they would be crucified by cancel culture! This is hypocrisy and no one cares!!"

I don't think anything said in this thread so far points to outrage, but I suppose its elsewhere on reddit or twitter.  I'm curious about the hypocrisy, but not because I'm looking for an excuse to criticize Black Lives Matter.  I consider myself politically moderate and vote democratic.  I do believe condoning controversial actions like this hurt the movement though. 

Like I said from the beginning, if you want to genuinely educate yourself on "the movement" and what factors hurt it, then this is not the place to do it.

This is a nuanced issue, and it's not my place to explain it. There are countless avenues you could take to explore your concerns.

Note, I'm not saying your stance is wrong or accusing you of anything, I'm just saying that if your concern and interest is genuine, there are much, much better avenues to explore than here.

I refer people here for a lot of wisdom, but never would I refer someone here to learn about race issues.

I have recently been reading through, Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. A lot of the context in the book really opened my eyes to my own color-blind racists behaviors. It's very difficult to unlearn the bias you have from the environment you grew up in, but I am happy that I have started making concentrated efforts to improve. I often have to pause and question the thoughts running through my mind and where they were coming from. No, these are what you would think as "outwardly racists" thoughts, but touch on color-blind racism. For too long I've had the privileges' to ignore racism and racists behaviors due to not being effected by it. It's harder than I care to admit, but I would encourage anyone to do the same. This is just a suggestion of an area to explore if you would like to follow Malcat's advice.

I have the audiobook version downloaded just now.  Its a 12 hour listen, so I'll get back to update when its through-- sometime next week?

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

My give-a-fuckometer is riding dangerously low on this one either way.

If it's not racist, then let's just stop discussing crap TV.  If it is racist, it's a display of racism that doesn't matter in any way to anyone.  Oh no - on a ridiculous 'reality tv show' that is probably mostly scripted some actors decided to band together by skin colour?

In the words of the illustrious US president - "C'mon man".

:P

I take this same point anytime something occurs in the avenue of pop culture and the like. I just don't get the outrage over everything. Lebron makes stupid statements about China. Who cares? NFL players are kneeling during the anthem. What does it bother me one way or the other? Now, the actual problems, like the abuses of China and the issues the NFL players are highlighting are worth concern over. The actual actions by the pop icons involved...I really couldn't care less over. Same with this Big Brother thing. I mean, how does any of this impact my life whatsoever? There's so much to get outraged over today that it's hard for me to muster it over serious stuff much less things like this.

And in terms of uniwelder's question to GuitarStv about it, I can speak for myself that I cared enough to comment because I find people's consternation over all of this stuff interesting from the perspective that it's so different from how I view things.

But the phenomenon behind the outrage is very real.

Yes, it's absolutely ridiculous to try and turn a few black people making a team in a stupid game show into a scandal. However, it's a thing because there is a HUGE push back against the rise of Black Lives Matter, and a whole bunch of white folk are looking for any opportunity to criticize "reverse racism" to try and neutralize what they feel as an attack.

And that matters.

The fact that it manifests as outrage over a team in a relaity show, or outrage over a bent knee, or whatever, also shows the level of desperation of the people looking to promote this concept. They'll scrape for examples anywhere and everywhere and then post all over the internet "hey look! Isn't what these black people doing racism? What about if white people did this, they would be crucified by cancel culture! This is hypocrisy and no one cares!!"

And as I said before, the stupid game show or the stupid sports might not matter to you, but it matters to millions. These forms of entertainment get more attention and more time from the public than any form of politics or current affairs.

I guarantee you that way more Americans know the ins and outs of the racial story lines I described above in just two seasons of two shows than Americans who have any clue about the new NAFTA agreement that happened at the same time.

That's the thing, the more something matters, the less the public tends to pay attention to it, because serous things are boring and stressful. So instead they spend thousands of hours online discussing timeline details of the MCU and having a fucking nervous breakdown about the new Dr. Who being a woman.

This shit doesn't matter to you, but it matters to way more people than the stuff that you think *actually* matters.

That's just the Kardashian reality you live in. Sorry, but that's what it is and judging it won't stop it from being legitimately important because to the voting public of your country, it very, very much matters.

I mean, it is interesting and worth consideration. That's why I posted in the thread at all. If it were completely pointless to me, I probably wouldn't have posted anything. I fully realize people's reactions to it are representative of their perspectives. So, people who are all upset at people kneeling in protest reveals at least how little they value the thing that is being protested for - less police violence. They value the "respect" of the flag above that. It's telling about what their motivations are.

Again, all I'm saying is that I find the whole thing very interesting and a little telling on anyone who gets truly outraged over things like that. You see it on the left with outrage over celebs that supported Trump. I mean, my thoughts are just, who cares. If I'm interested in some form of art or entertainment, I'll watch it. If I'm not, I won't. I just think the whole concept of outrage, regardless of if I agree with the political stance or points of the people expressing outrage or not is really strange. I get that I'm somewhat unique in thinking this way, but that just makes it more interesting. I wonder what kind of lives people live where they appear to be just waiting to pounce on someone with some position or the other who is in the public spotlight and says something they don't agree with.

[Metalcat]

I mean, it is interesting and worth consideration. That's why I posted in the thread at all. If it were completely pointless to me, I probably wouldn't have posted anything. I fully realize people's reactions to it are representative of their perspectives. So, people who are all upset at people kneeling in protest reveals at least how little they value the thing that is being protested for - less police violence. They value the "respect" of the flag above that. It's telling about what their motivations are.

Again, all I'm saying is that I find the whole thing very interesting and a little telling on anyone who gets truly outraged over things like that. You see it on the left with outrage over celebs that supported Trump. I mean, my thoughts are just, who cares. If I'm interested in some form of art or entertainment, I'll watch it. If I'm not, I won't. I just think the whole concept of outrage, regardless of if I agree with the political stance or points of the people expressing outrage or not is really strange. I get that I'm somewhat unique in thinking this way, but that just makes it more interesting. I wonder what kind of lives people live where they appear to be just waiting to pounce on someone with some position or the other who is in the public spotlight and says something they don't agree with.

Okay, well this is two very different issues.

First, the outrage general comes from living in a state of fear. Anger is never a primary emotion, it can't exist on its own, it's always a reaction to something, which is almost always fear or shame.

Because fear is perpetually fomented these days, it's natural that huge amounts of the public are responding with fear, and subsequent anger and outrage.

If you aren't feeling that way, it means you are likely less affected by the constant onslaught of fear triggers being aimed at you on a daily basis. But that's an unusual response. It may feel normal because it's your response, but it's not how most people respond to the perpetual parade of fear.

That said, this is a separate issue from not wanting to support a celebrity who does something you find loathsome. It's a totally reasonable thing to not want to directly contribute to the profits of someone whose behaviour offends you.

Some people make the argument "well I separate the art from the artist", or something like that, but that attitude is what gives horrible people power. People caring more about the product than the person is how Kevin Spacey was untouchable as long as he was a valuable commodity.

If you had two flower shops in your neighbourhood and you knew one of the flower shop owners was convicted of defrauding the local seniors in a phone scam, you probably would probably buy flowers from the other shop.

Now, to *you* being a Trump supporter may not be the biggest offense out there, but to some, it's a very legitimate reason to not want to contribute to someone's wealth.

Also, this kind of boycotting is directly something that's being marketed to them as the "right thing to do" by the fear and rage machine in the first place. And so the wheel spins on and on.

[dignam]

My GF watches BB regularly so I see bits and pieces.  I did raise an eyebrow when they were overtly outing anyone who wasn't black.

But it doesn't really matter, it's just a dumb tv show.  I don't think it is racism, but is kind of weird.  I mean, I'd be trying to form alliances and out people in a way that gives me the best chance of ultimately winning.  I will say if the tables were turned, we'd be hearing a lot more about this season of BB.

[maizefolk]

My GF watches BB regularly so I see bits and pieces.  I did raise an eyebrow when they were overtly outing anyone who wasn't black.

But it doesn't really matter, it's just a dumb tv show.  I don't think it is racism, but is kind of weird.  I mean, I'd be trying to form alliances and out people in a way that gives me the best chance of ultimately winning.  I will say if the tables were turned, we'd be hearing a lot more about this season of BB.

In fairness, my understanding is that the view of some of the folks who are most outraged at the fact that other people are outraged about this year is that the same outcomes actually were happening in previous seasons (people being voted out for being black) just without people talking about it, and potentially without people being conscious of the fact they were doing so.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

I mean, it is interesting and worth consideration. That's why I posted in the thread at all. If it were completely pointless to me, I probably wouldn't have posted anything. I fully realize people's reactions to it are representative of their perspectives. So, people who are all upset at people kneeling in protest reveals at least how little they value the thing that is being protested for - less police violence. They value the "respect" of the flag above that. It's telling about what their motivations are.

Again, all I'm saying is that I find the whole thing very interesting and a little telling on anyone who gets truly outraged over things like that. You see it on the left with outrage over celebs that supported Trump. I mean, my thoughts are just, who cares. If I'm interested in some form of art or entertainment, I'll watch it. If I'm not, I won't. I just think the whole concept of outrage, regardless of if I agree with the political stance or points of the people expressing outrage or not is really strange. I get that I'm somewhat unique in thinking this way, but that just makes it more interesting. I wonder what kind of lives people live where they appear to be just waiting to pounce on someone with some position or the other who is in the public spotlight and says something they don't agree with.

Okay, well this is two very different issues.

First, the outrage general comes from living in a state of fear. Anger is never a primary emotion, it can't exist on its own, it's always a reaction to something, which is almost always fear or shame.

Because fear is perpetually fomented these days, it's natural that huge amounts of the public are responding with fear, and subsequent anger and outrage.

If you aren't feeling that way, it means you are likely less affected by the constant onslaught of fear triggers being aimed at you on a daily basis. But that's an unusual response. It may feel normal because it's your response, but it's not how most people respond to the perpetual parade of fear.

That said, this is a separate issue from not wanting to support a celebrity who does something you find loathsome. It's a totally reasonable thing to not want to directly contribute to the profits of someone whose behaviour offends you.

Some people make the argument "well I separate the art from the artist", or something like that, but that attitude is what gives horrible people power. People caring more about the product than the person is how Kevin Spacey was untouchable as long as he was a valuable commodity.

If you had two flower shops in your neighbourhood and you knew one of the flower shop owners was convicted of defrauding the local seniors in a phone scam, you probably would probably buy flowers from the other shop.

Now, to *you* being a Trump supporter may not be the biggest offense out there, but to some, it's a very legitimate reason to not want to contribute to someone's wealth.

Also, this kind of boycotting is directly something that's being marketed to them as the "right thing to do" by the fear and rage machine in the first place. And so the wheel spins on and on.

I would agree that I'm not impacted by all of the fear that's peddled and propagated as much as others and that I can see it's abnormal.

I don't agree with the bolded statement. I think it is somewhat different, but I don't think it is very different. I see the desire to find and seek outrage as being at least somewhat similar (and actually pretty similar in my mind).

First I want to clear something up - you mentioned multiple examples of someone doing something which I did not go into at all in any of my examples. For instance, you mention Kevin Spacey who committed criminal actions. It felt like you were associating what I said with "how Kevin Spacey was untouchable as long as he was," but I only mentioned situations where someone said something not when they did something. I won't support someone who sexually assaults someone....of course. He did something. The hypothetical flower company did something through fraud.

I will say that Trump was probably a bad example, because it's not really the outrage I was thinking about since supporting him is more of an overall statement. I was trying to think of something from the liberal side of things. I guess maybe the backlash against Chris Pratt could be an example.

Anyways, I do agree that simply choosing to not financially support someone who has a political stance different than yours is not exactly the same thing as the outrage machine I'm thinking about that I believe has become ridiculous. However, it rarely ends with one person making a single, personal decision. Or, it may end there a lot, but by definition, it doesn't end there if it comes to my attention. That's because I don't pay a lot of attention towards seeking out this kind of stuff. If I notice it, it means it has gone beyond me making that personal decision into people spreading outrage about what someone might have said or might think. And to me, that's pretty much in the same boat as people being outraged by some people on Big Brother trying to get non-black people kicked off or whatnot.

I don't think it's unreasonable per se. I do think it's silly and often unhealthy because of how far it goes and the divides it helps to make amongst people, and I do think it definitely has ties to the overall outrage situation. It's outside of your personal circle of control. It doesn't directly affect you. It's not worth worrying about, at least to me, of course. I see a little but not a lot of difference in the original Big Brother example and people that worry about what all of these celebs say one way or the other, which it seems like you might agree with from your last statement, but I'm not entirely sure.

[Metalcat]

I mean, it is interesting and worth consideration. That's why I posted in the thread at all. If it were completely pointless to me, I probably wouldn't have posted anything. I fully realize people's reactions to it are representative of their perspectives. So, people who are all upset at people kneeling in protest reveals at least how little they value the thing that is being protested for - less police violence. They value the "respect" of the flag above that. It's telling about what their motivations are.

Again, all I'm saying is that I find the whole thing very interesting and a little telling on anyone who gets truly outraged over things like that. You see it on the left with outrage over celebs that supported Trump. I mean, my thoughts are just, who cares. If I'm interested in some form of art or entertainment, I'll watch it. If I'm not, I won't. I just think the whole concept of outrage, regardless of if I agree with the political stance or points of the people expressing outrage or not is really strange. I get that I'm somewhat unique in thinking this way, but that just makes it more interesting. I wonder what kind of lives people live where they appear to be just waiting to pounce on someone with some position or the other who is in the public spotlight and says something they don't agree with.

Okay, well this is two very different issues.

First, the outrage general comes from living in a state of fear. Anger is never a primary emotion, it can't exist on its own, it's always a reaction to something, which is almost always fear or shame.

Because fear is perpetually fomented these days, it's natural that huge amounts of the public are responding with fear, and subsequent anger and outrage.

If you aren't feeling that way, it means you are likely less affected by the constant onslaught of fear triggers being aimed at you on a daily basis. But that's an unusual response. It may feel normal because it's your response, but it's not how most people respond to the perpetual parade of fear.

That said, this is a separate issue from not wanting to support a celebrity who does something you find loathsome. It's a totally reasonable thing to not want to directly contribute to the profits of someone whose behaviour offends you.

Some people make the argument "well I separate the art from the artist", or something like that, but that attitude is what gives horrible people power. People caring more about the product than the person is how Kevin Spacey was untouchable as long as he was a valuable commodity.

If you had two flower shops in your neighbourhood and you knew one of the flower shop owners was convicted of defrauding the local seniors in a phone scam, you probably would probably buy flowers from the other shop.

Now, to *you* being a Trump supporter may not be the biggest offense out there, but to some, it's a very legitimate reason to not want to contribute to someone's wealth.

Also, this kind of boycotting is directly something that's being marketed to them as the "right thing to do" by the fear and rage machine in the first place. And so the wheel spins on and on.

I would agree that I'm not impacted by all of the fear that's peddled and propagated as much as others and that I can see it's abnormal.

I don't agree with the bolded statement. I think it is somewhat different, but I don't think it is very different. I see the desire to find and seek outrage as being at least somewhat similar (and actually pretty similar in my mind).

First I want to clear something up - you mentioned multiple examples of someone doing something which I did not go into at all in any of my examples. For instance, you mention Kevin Spacey who committed criminal actions. It felt like you were associating what I said with "how Kevin Spacey was untouchable as long as he was," but I only mentioned situations where someone said something not when they did something. I won't support someone who sexually assaults someone....of course. He did something. The hypothetical flower company did something through fraud.

I will say that Trump was probably a bad example, because it's not really the outrage I was thinking about since supporting him is more of an overall statement. I was trying to think of something from the liberal side of things. I guess maybe the backlash against Chris Pratt could be an example.

Anyways, I do agree that simply choosing to not financially support someone who has a political stance different than yours is not exactly the same thing as the outrage machine I'm thinking about that I believe has become ridiculous. However, it rarely ends with one person making a single, personal decision. Or, it may end there a lot, but by definition, it doesn't end there if it comes to my attention. That's because I don't pay a lot of attention towards seeking out this kind of stuff. If I notice it, it means it has gone beyond me making that personal decision into people spreading outrage about what someone might have said or might think. And to me, that's pretty much in the same boat as people being outraged by some people on Big Brother trying to get non-black people kicked off or whatnot.

I don't think it's unreasonable per se. I do think it's silly and often unhealthy because of how far it goes and the divides it helps to make amongst people, and I do think it definitely has ties to the overall outrage situation. It's outside of your personal circle of control. It doesn't directly affect you. It's not worth worrying about, at least to me, of course. I see a little but not a lot of difference in the original Big Brother example and people that worry about what all of these celebs say one way or the other, which it seems like you might agree with from your last statement, but I'm not entirely sure.

Of course, because the "outrage machine" and the "fear machine" are the same thing.

It's not a coincidence that both are thriving right now. Any and every  kind of conflict is being fomented at the moment.

If there's a narrative that can divide people right now, it's being intentionally stoked, on all sides of the debate. As long as it can divide people, the flames are being fanned to wildfire levels.

As for your arbitrary distinction of people who "do things" vs people who "say things", I think that's a completely disingenuous position. People are angry at Chris Pratt for a number of reasons, primarily being associated with a very anti LGBTQ+ church.

It's perfectly reasonable for someone to not want to support the work of someone who aligns themselves with hateful values. This isn't unreasonable. He doesn't have to "do something" illegal to a queer person to have people disapprove of him. That's a separate matter from whether or not they "over react" in their outrage.

So they do remain separate issues.

There's the legitimacy of not wanting to support someone because of their behaviours, whether they be statements, associations, or actions. And then there's the magnitude of the response.

Fear and outrage aren't aligned with any political side, they're endemic in virtually every cultural exchange right now, it's just easiest to see how absurd it is in the arguments you least agree with.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

I mean, it is interesting and worth consideration. That's why I posted in the thread at all. If it were completely pointless to me, I probably wouldn't have posted anything. I fully realize people's reactions to it are representative of their perspectives. So, people who are all upset at people kneeling in protest reveals at least how little they value the thing that is being protested for - less police violence. They value the "respect" of the flag above that. It's telling about what their motivations are.

Again, all I'm saying is that I find the whole thing very interesting and a little telling on anyone who gets truly outraged over things like that. You see it on the left with outrage over celebs that supported Trump. I mean, my thoughts are just, who cares. If I'm interested in some form of art or entertainment, I'll watch it. If I'm not, I won't. I just think the whole concept of outrage, regardless of if I agree with the political stance or points of the people expressing outrage or not is really strange. I get that I'm somewhat unique in thinking this way, but that just makes it more interesting. I wonder what kind of lives people live where they appear to be just waiting to pounce on someone with some position or the other who is in the public spotlight and says something they don't agree with.

Okay, well this is two very different issues.

First, the outrage general comes from living in a state of fear. Anger is never a primary emotion, it can't exist on its own, it's always a reaction to something, which is almost always fear or shame.

Because fear is perpetually fomented these days, it's natural that huge amounts of the public are responding with fear, and subsequent anger and outrage.

If you aren't feeling that way, it means you are likely less affected by the constant onslaught of fear triggers being aimed at you on a daily basis. But that's an unusual response. It may feel normal because it's your response, but it's not how most people respond to the perpetual parade of fear.

That said, this is a separate issue from not wanting to support a celebrity who does something you find loathsome. It's a totally reasonable thing to not want to directly contribute to the profits of someone whose behaviour offends you.

Some people make the argument "well I separate the art from the artist", or something like that, but that attitude is what gives horrible people power. People caring more about the product than the person is how Kevin Spacey was untouchable as long as he was a valuable commodity.

If you had two flower shops in your neighbourhood and you knew one of the flower shop owners was convicted of defrauding the local seniors in a phone scam, you probably would probably buy flowers from the other shop.

Now, to *you* being a Trump supporter may not be the biggest offense out there, but to some, it's a very legitimate reason to not want to contribute to someone's wealth.

Also, this kind of boycotting is directly something that's being marketed to them as the "right thing to do" by the fear and rage machine in the first place. And so the wheel spins on and on.

I would agree that I'm not impacted by all of the fear that's peddled and propagated as much as others and that I can see it's abnormal.

I don't agree with the bolded statement. I think it is somewhat different, but I don't think it is very different. I see the desire to find and seek outrage as being at least somewhat similar (and actually pretty similar in my mind).

First I want to clear something up - you mentioned multiple examples of someone doing something which I did not go into at all in any of my examples. For instance, you mention Kevin Spacey who committed criminal actions. It felt like you were associating what I said with "how Kevin Spacey was untouchable as long as he was," but I only mentioned situations where someone said something not when they did something. I won't support someone who sexually assaults someone....of course. He did something. The hypothetical flower company did something through fraud.

I will say that Trump was probably a bad example, because it's not really the outrage I was thinking about since supporting him is more of an overall statement. I was trying to think of something from the liberal side of things. I guess maybe the backlash against Chris Pratt could be an example.

Anyways, I do agree that simply choosing to not financially support someone who has a political stance different than yours is not exactly the same thing as the outrage machine I'm thinking about that I believe has become ridiculous. However, it rarely ends with one person making a single, personal decision. Or, it may end there a lot, but by definition, it doesn't end there if it comes to my attention. That's because I don't pay a lot of attention towards seeking out this kind of stuff. If I notice it, it means it has gone beyond me making that personal decision into people spreading outrage about what someone might have said or might think. And to me, that's pretty much in the same boat as people being outraged by some people on Big Brother trying to get non-black people kicked off or whatnot.

I don't think it's unreasonable per se. I do think it's silly and often unhealthy because of how far it goes and the divides it helps to make amongst people, and I do think it definitely has ties to the overall outrage situation. It's outside of your personal circle of control. It doesn't directly affect you. It's not worth worrying about, at least to me, of course. I see a little but not a lot of difference in the original Big Brother example and people that worry about what all of these celebs say one way or the other, which it seems like you might agree with from your last statement, but I'm not entirely sure.

Of course, because the "outrage machine" and the "fear machine" are the same thing.

It's not a coincidence that both are thriving right now. Any and every  kind of conflict is being fomented at the moment.

If there's a narrative that can divide people right now, it's being intentionally stoked, on all sides of the debate. As long as it can divide people, the flames are being fanned to wildfire levels.

As for your arbitrary distinction of people who "do things" vs people who "say things", I think that's a completely disingenuous position. People are angry at Chris Pratt for a number of reasons, primarily being associated with a very anti LGBTQ+ church.

It's perfectly reasonable for someone to not want to support the work of someone who aligns themselves with hateful values. This isn't unreasonable. He doesn't have to "do something" illegal to a queer person to have people disapprove of him. That's a separate matter from whether or not they "over react" in their outrage.

So they do remain separate issues.

There's the legitimacy of not wanting to support someone because of their behaviours, whether they be statements, associations, or actions. And then there's the magnitude of the response.

Fear and outrage aren't aligned with any political side, they're endemic in virtually every cultural exchange right now, it's just easiest to see how absurd it is in the arguments you least agree with.

I guess on this one, we'll have to agree to disagree with the doing versus saying/associating thing. You call my distinction of doing something versus saying something or having associations an arbitrary distinction and that it's a disingenuous position. That seems, well, ridiculous to me. It doesn't seem that arbitrary to me at all to not equate Kevin Spacey's actual action of assault with Chris Pratt being associated with a particular church. You can argue they are both bad, and that's fine. One is an order of magnitude worse than the other one, and I think the line in the sand of someone doing something - specifically committing a serious crime is a pretty easy line to draw and to say it's reasonable to distance yourself from one and at least a little bit of an overreach to distance yourself from the other, but again, we can certainly agree to disagree.

I highly agree with your last statement that I bolded. It's beyond politics and it's not even a "sides" thing. As you said, it's pretty much in every cultural exchange right now, and it's kind of depressing to me.

[maizefolk]

I highly agree with your last statement that I bolded. It's beyond politics and it's not even a "sides" thing. As you said, it's pretty much in every cultural exchange right now, and it's kind of depressing to me.

If I had to summarize this into a difference of kind rather than a difference of degree:

1) When person A finds person B's actions or ideas distasteful or immoral, they tend to avoid that person or denounce them. This has been true probably at least as long as humans have had language, if not longer.

2) In some societies if person A finds person B's actions or ideas distasteful or immoral person A shuns or denounce anyone who does not shun or denounce person B. Call it the Scarlet Letter effect. Some people genuinely thought Hester Prynne was evil and worthy of shunning. Other people may not have, but they still shunned her simply because if they didn't they'd find themselves shunned as well.

It's easy to denounce "cancel culture" or the outrage machine when its targets are things you don't genuinely believe were wrong, so a better example is a case where the act in question was something I believe was extremely wrong. I used to work for a person who, it turned out, was taking sexual advantage of their direct reports. This was in an academic setting so we're talking specifically about trainees. People whose careers in my field could be easily ruined by a bad reference from their mentor.

It wasn't something I was aware of at the time. Although in retrospect I should have realized. It came out after I'd already moved on to another position. The person in question lost their job (as they should have). But after it happened I found a lot of relationships in my field that I thought were solid to be remarkably strained. Until I realized that the problem was that people were waiting for me to say that I thought my old supervisor was really bad and deserved what happened to them.

So then I just started preemptively bringing it up whenever I interacted for someone for the first time post-the-news-breaking: "Did you hear about Dr. X? It's sickening." And then those professional relationships started working again.

These were things that I genuinely thought. But because the news bothered me as much as it did, my first instinct was not to say them or to talk about it at all. And it turned out failure to actively denounce this (genuinely bad and evil act) was enough to cause a fair number of problems for me professionally.

I've since wondered a lot about what I would have done in the same situation if the act in question hadn't been one I genuinely saw as evil. Would I have been willing to take a stand on principle? Or would I have said the right words to remain a full fledged member of my professional community even if it meant denouncing and shunning someone I didn't think had done anything wrong?

I don't know the answer.

[Metalcat]

I guess on this one, we'll have to agree to disagree with the doing versus saying/associating thing. You call my distinction of doing something versus saying something or having associations an arbitrary distinction and that it's a disingenuous position. That seems, well, ridiculous to me. It doesn't seem that arbitrary to me at all to not equate Kevin Spacey's actual action of assault with Chris Pratt being associated with a particular church. You can argue they are both bad, and that's fine. One is an order of magnitude worse than the other one, and I think the line in the sand of someone doing something - specifically committing a serious crime is a pretty easy line to draw and to say it's reasonable to distance yourself from one and at least a little bit of an overreach to distance yourself from the other, but again, we can certainly agree to disagree.

I highly agree with your last statement that I bolded. It's beyond politics and it's not even a "sides" thing. As you said, it's pretty much in every cultural exchange right now, and it's kind of depressing to me.

I never said that some people's behaviours aren't clearly worse than others, I'm saying it's unreasonable to draw a line that someone can only take action to not support a person if their conduct amounts to criminal activity. That's a ridiculously high bar to set for not wanting to contribute to the profit of someone.

Plenty of people have turned away from celebrities for spouting totally legal (in the US), but flagrantly hateful racist comments. Which seems completely reasonable to me. Or is saying racist comments "doing something" by your measure, even if it's not a crime? If so, where exactly is the line? Racist comments bad? But giving large sums of money to groups that are deeply offensive is okay?

It's entirely reasonable to not want to give money to someone who hold values you find morally reprehensible. In fact, it's totally reasonable to not want to give money to someone whose values you find only mildly disagreeable. Hell, it's perfectly fine not to give money to someone just because you don't like their general countenance. No commerical entity is entitled to anyone's discretionary spending.

So no one is obligated to spend money supporting the careers of people they don't like.

If I dislike Chris Pratt, which I really do. It doesn't hurt anyone that I choose not to watch his movies. He doesn't need to be a criminal for me to justify not wanting to give him money.

What's a separate issue is if I take my personal antipathy towards Chris Pratt, and spew a virtual megaphone of hate online against him and try to recruit others to boycott him as well.

That's how these are totally separate issues. If you insist that I am not entitled to curate what I spend money on according to my values, then yeah, we will have to agree to disagree. Nothing you say will ever make me feel like I am not perfectly reasonable not wanting to financially support anyone I don't like, for whatever reason.

Where the big question mark is is how much dislike and disdain is appropriate. And that is becoming harder and harder to gauge as the background level of fear and outrage is so deafening, that all frames of reference for appropriate response have disappeared.

That's really where the issue is. Outrage has become utterly meaningless in the din of its constant presence. When everything is offensive, nothing ever manages to stand out for being truly offensive except to those who are already offended, and all persuasive power of outrage disappears, which then basically creates an environment where offensive behaviour becomes ironically more acceptable. Which is exactly what we've seen.

[Roland of Gilead]

I agree with many of you that this is just a stupid scripted reality TV show, but a lot of people do watch it.

The observation I make from watching the events unfold is that the white cast members who were voted out seem to be color blind, which is an admirable thing.  They were shocked when voted out and only came to realize they were the last remaining white people in the game when presented with it in the jury house.   If you believe this and don't think that CBS would just stoop to paying them to say things, then we have a younger generation here who see people without taking in to account their skin color.

Organizing an alliance purposely formed to ensure a black person wins destroys some of this color blindness...it has to, right?  Assuming that a person next season is aware of this season, won't they at least wonder if they should side with the five white people in the house to vote against the five black people such that the balance is not shifted?  They may not voice it for fear of being called a racist, but it has to be in their mind. 

It is great that a black person will win this season of big brother but I think it comes at a cost of destroying some of the color blind gains made in the younger generation.

In the end, it is just a game show and hopefully stays that way.

[iris lily]

I agree with many of you that this is just a stupid scripted reality TV show, but a lot of people do watch it.

The observation I make from watching the events unfold is that the white cast members who were voted out seem to be color blind, which is an admirable thing.  They were shocked when voted out and only came to realize they were the last remaining white people in the game when presented with it in the jury house.   If you believe this and don't think that CBS would just stoop to paying them to say things, then we have a younger generation here who see people without taking in to account their skin color.

Organizing an alliance purposely formed to ensure a black person wins destroys some of this color blindness...it has to, right?  Assuming that a person next season is aware of this season, won't they at least wonder if they should side with the five white people in the house to vote against the five black people such that the balance is not shifted?  They may not voice it for fear of being called a racist, but it has to be in their mind. 

It is great that a black person will win this season of big brother but I think it comes at a cost of destroying some of the color blind gains made in the younger generation.

In the end, it is just a game show and hopefully stays that way.

Look OP, being “color blind” is considered discriminatory in many circles. I’m not gonna educate you or argue with you about it, I am just cluing you in.

[Roland of Gilead]

Look OP, being “color blind” is considered discriminatory in many circles. I’m not gonna educate you or argue with you about it, I am just cluing you in.

So if you raise a group of toddlers in a secluded environment who happen to be of mixed races and these toddlers grow up not realizing they should view each other differently based on skin color, that is considered discriminatory?

Are we just doomed to always need to categorize and treat people differently based on race?

[former player]

Look OP, being “color blind” is considered discriminatory in many circles. I’m not gonna educate you or argue with you about it, I am just cluing you in.

So if you raise a group of toddlers in a secluded environment who happen to be of mixed races and these toddlers grow up not realizing they should view each other differently based on skin color, that is considered discriminatory?

Are we just doomed to always need to categorize and treat people differently based on race?

Sadly, at some point on the journey to becoming an adult and exercising adult powers in the world those toddlers need to grow up to recognise that other people treat people differently based on race and that this can (and often does) result in discrimination which they may need to take action to overcome.

[iris lily]

Look OP, being “color blind” is considered discriminatory in many circles. I’m not gonna educate you or argue with you about it, I am just cluing you in.

So if you raise a group of toddlers in a secluded environment who happen to be of mixed races and these toddlers grow up not realizing they should view each other differently based on skin color, that is considered discriminatory?

Are we just doomed to always need to categorize and treat people differently based on race?

You can research this question yourself. There is this thing called “google”.

[Roland of Gilead]

You can research this question yourself. There is this thing called “google”.

It does not seem like a topic that can be definitively answered on a search platform.

You can also search for things like "does God exist" but you may or may not answer your question.

[iris lily]

You can research this question yourself. There is this thing called “google”.

It does not seem like a topic that can be definitively answered on a search platform.

You can also search for things like "does God exist" but you may or may not answer your question.

If you are looking for a “definitive” answers in the race wars, ha.

Hahah. Hahahah. Ha

Ha.

Google will serve you if you wish to read about the idea that  “color blindness” is a form of racial discrimination.

[GuitarStv]

Look OP, being “color blind” is considered discriminatory in many circles. I’m not gonna educate you or argue with you about it, I am just cluing you in.

So if you raise a group of toddlers in a secluded environment who happen to be of mixed races and these toddlers grow up not realizing they should view each other differently based on skin color, that is considered discriminatory?

Are we just doomed to always need to categorize and treat people differently based on race?

Human being evolved as clannish creatures, and groups of people typically have a tendency to break down upon lines.  Skin colour/hair colour/physical features are simply an easy dividing line to pick . . . but many others have been used as well - dress, religion, accent, place of birth, etc.  Insider/outsider segregation repeats itself over and over and over again in human history.

I'm unclear if we're doomed to always need to categorize and treat people differently based upon race, but it seems likely that we will always have some need to categorize and treat people differently.  Recognizing this fact is part of what helps us use our logic and reason to overcome this predilection or at least limit it's negative effects.

[Master of None]

You can research this question yourself. There is this thing called “google”.

It does not seem like a topic that can be definitively answered on a search platform.

You can also search for things like "does God exist" but you may or may not answer your question.

If you are looking for a “definitive” answers in the race wars, ha.

Hahah. Hahahah. Ha

Ha.

Google will serve you if you wish to read about the idea that  “color blindness” is a form of racial discrimination.

Well I guess I can post the book again which is all about color blind racism. Give it a read or a listen. Shines a light on a lot of your questions. Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America 5th Edition by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva.

[charis]

Parents who (try to) teach their children to be color blind are doing a disservice to their children and society.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

I guess on this one, we'll have to agree to disagree with the doing versus saying/associating thing. You call my distinction of doing something versus saying something or having associations an arbitrary distinction and that it's a disingenuous position. That seems, well, ridiculous to me. It doesn't seem that arbitrary to me at all to not equate Kevin Spacey's actual action of assault with Chris Pratt being associated with a particular church. You can argue they are both bad, and that's fine. One is an order of magnitude worse than the other one, and I think the line in the sand of someone doing something - specifically committing a serious crime is a pretty easy line to draw and to say it's reasonable to distance yourself from one and at least a little bit of an overreach to distance yourself from the other, but again, we can certainly agree to disagree.

I highly agree with your last statement that I bolded. It's beyond politics and it's not even a "sides" thing. As you said, it's pretty much in every cultural exchange right now, and it's kind of depressing to me.

I never said that some people's behaviours aren't clearly worse than others, I'm saying it's unreasonable to draw a line that someone can only take action to not support a person if their conduct amounts to criminal activity. That's a ridiculously high bar to set for not wanting to contribute to the profit of someone.

Plenty of people have turned away from celebrities for spouting totally legal (in the US), but flagrantly hateful racist comments. Which seems completely reasonable to me. Or is saying racist comments "doing something" by your measure, even if it's not a crime? If so, where exactly is the line? Racist comments bad? But giving large sums of money to groups that are deeply offensive is okay?

It's entirely reasonable to not want to give money to someone who hold values you find morally reprehensible. In fact, it's totally reasonable to not want to give money to someone whose values you find only mildly disagreeable. Hell, it's perfectly fine not to give money to someone just because you don't like their general countenance. No commerical entity is entitled to anyone's discretionary spending.

So no one is obligated to spend money supporting the careers of people they don't like.

If I dislike Chris Pratt, which I really do. It doesn't hurt anyone that I choose not to watch his movies. He doesn't need to be a criminal for me to justify not wanting to give him money.

What's a separate issue is if I take my personal antipathy towards Chris Pratt, and spew a virtual megaphone of hate online against him and try to recruit others to boycott him as well.

That's how these are totally separate issues. If you insist that I am not entitled to curate what I spend money on according to my values, then yeah, we will have to agree to disagree. Nothing you say will ever make me feel like I am not perfectly reasonable not wanting to financially support anyone I don't like, for whatever reason.

Where the big question mark is is how much dislike and disdain is appropriate. And that is becoming harder and harder to gauge as the background level of fear and outrage is so deafening, that all frames of reference for appropriate response have disappeared.

That's really where the issue is. Outrage has become utterly meaningless in the din of its constant presence. When everything is offensive, nothing ever manages to stand out for being truly offensive except to those who are already offended, and all persuasive power of outrage disappears, which then basically creates an environment where offensive behaviour becomes ironically more acceptable. Which is exactly what we've seen.

You may not have said that some people's behaviors aren't clearly worse. But here's what you did say "As for your arbitrary distinction of people who "do things" vs people who "say things", I think that's a completely disingenuous position.". If I am reading this correctly, you're declaring that it's arbitrary - i.e. there is no reason for me to make such a distinction and it's disingenuous - i.e. I'm not being sincere about it. I find both of these comments to be odd and the second one off-putting.

Making a distinction on whether or not someone has done something, specifically a criminal act or even just an action that's morally troubling- in how I generally evaluate the seriousness of something in terms of whether or not it's worth a serious, concerted effort to make sure they are not in a position to be an actor or musician or whatever anymore - such as for Spacey is....well..... not arbitrary. You may not agree with it, but it's kind of a pretty reasonable line to draw in my opinion. If someone does something criminal or something I consider really bad, then I'm willing to agree it should go beyond me just saying, "eh, I'll probably avoid this guy in my personal viewing" or I might if I'm feeling like it or whatever to "yeah, this guy should just never be in the public spotlight again in a celebrity role." The outrage machine level of, this guy should be able to earn a living doing something, but he's lost the right to do it in a celebrity setting, full stop, is a pretty high bar for me.

For the disingenuous part, that's why I assumed we were going to have to be on an agree to disagree situation. I don't know what I said that made you think I wasn't being sincere, but if you think that, there's little reason for me to continue. I don't know how to convince you and don't feel inclined to try to do so. I know I haven't been insincere.

As for the rest of it, I don't think we're in disagreement on a lot of it. I may have been a little unclear at the beginning. I was talking about outrage as expressed not a person's choices of where to spend money. I had hoped to clear it up when I said "However, it rarely ends with one person making a single, personal decision. Or, it may end there a lot, but by definition, it doesn't end there if it comes to my attention. That's because I don't pay a lot of attention towards seeking out this kind of stuff. If I notice it, it means it has gone beyond me making that personal decision into people spreading outrage about what someone might have said or might think. And to me, that's pretty much in the same boat as people being outraged by some people on Big Brother trying to get non-black people kicked off or whatnot."

If it ends with someone making a personal decision to not watch a Christ Pratt movie, it's almost certainly not going to come to my attention. I'm talking about the things that I notice, which by definition means it's gotten into the outrage machine level. Does it merit it? Maybe. If it's criminal assault, it does in my opinion. If less than someone actually doing something, there's a pretty good chance I'm going to think it's not worth the outrage. This is my line in the sand, and I'm completely ok with it. I do agree wholeheartedly that the overall outrage situation makes these distinctions much more challenging and does make it harder to be outraged when something truly merits it.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

I highly agree with your last statement that I bolded. It's beyond politics and it's not even a "sides" thing. As you said, it's pretty much in every cultural exchange right now, and it's kind of depressing to me.

If I had to summarize this into a difference of kind rather than a difference of degree:

1) When person A finds person B's actions or ideas distasteful or immoral, they tend to avoid that person or denounce them. This has been true probably at least as long as humans have had language, if not longer.

2) In some societies if person A finds person B's actions or ideas distasteful or immoral person A shuns or denounce anyone who does not shun or denounce person B. Call it the Scarlet Letter effect. Some people genuinely thought Hester Prynne was evil and worthy of shunning. Other people may not have, but they still shunned her simply because if they didn't they'd find themselves shunned as well.

It's easy to denounce "cancel culture" or the outrage machine when its targets are things you don't genuinely believe were wrong, so a better example is a case where the act in question was something I believe was extremely wrong. I used to work for a person who, it turned out, was taking sexual advantage of their direct reports. This was in an academic setting so we're talking specifically about trainees. People whose careers in my field could be easily ruined by a bad reference from their mentor.

It wasn't something I was aware of at the time. Although in retrospect I should have realized. It came out after I'd already moved on to another position. The person in question lost their job (as they should have). But after it happened I found a lot of relationships in my field that I thought were solid to be remarkably strained. Until I realized that the problem was that people were waiting for me to say that I thought my old supervisor was really bad and deserved what happened to them.

So then I just started preemptively bringing it up whenever I interacted for someone for the first time post-the-news-breaking: "Did you hear about Dr. X? It's sickening." And then those professional relationships started working again.

These were things that I genuinely thought. But because the news bothered me as much as it did, my first instinct was not to say them or to talk about it at all. And it turned out failure to actively denounce this (genuinely bad and evil act) was enough to cause a fair number of problems for me professionally.

I've since wondered a lot about what I would have done in the same situation if the act in question hadn't been one I genuinely saw as evil. Would I have been willing to take a stand on principle? Or would I have said the right words to remain a full fledged member of my professional community even if it meant denouncing and shunning someone I didn't think had done anything wrong?

I don't know the answer.

I really appreciate your story. It is a great example of what I'm thinking of, at least, when it comes to this concept. As you said, everyone, everywhere avoids people that bother them. That's not new.

I can't imagine that this forced echo chamber of everyone must not just not disagree but overtly agree with something has been around forever has it? If so, I haven't seen it. And I'm seeing it a lot now. To make it worse, I see it much more with the kids I'm working with, making me anecdotally think it's only getting worse with the younger generation (old guy alert, I know). Again, though, that's anecdotal.

[PKFFW]

I agree with many of you that this is just a stupid scripted reality TV show, but a lot of people do watch it.

The observation I make from watching the events unfold is that the white cast members who were voted out seem to be color blind, which is an admirable thing.  They were shocked when voted out and only came to realize they were the last remaining white people in the game when presented with it in the jury house.   If you believe this and don't think that CBS would just stoop to paying them to say things, then we have a younger generation here who see people without taking in to account their skin color.

Organizing an alliance purposely formed to ensure a black person wins destroys some of this color blindness...it has to, right?  Assuming that a person next season is aware of this season, won't they at least wonder if they should side with the five white people in the house to vote against the five black people such that the balance is not shifted?  They may not voice it for fear of being called a racist, but it has to be in their mind. 

It is great that a black person will win this season of big brother but I think it comes at a cost of destroying some of the color blind gains made in the younger generation.

In the end, it is just a game show and hopefully stays that way.

Perhaps an interesting question to ask is why the people of colour in the house believed their best chance of winning would be to band together and vote out those not in their group.  Maybe, for some unfathomable reason, their life experiences led them to believe forming an alliance with others who shared the common trait of skin colour rather than trusting in the "colour blindness" of others in the house was their best bet.

[swiper]

Parents who (try to) teach their children to be color blind are doing a disservice to their children and society.

I think you are wrong. I think we should work toward a future where aspects like skin color, gender etc are as mundane as the kind of icecream you like. 

To that end, I think the left's infatuation with defining problems as in-group binary powerstrugles (wokeness) and forcing this narrow-minded (imo) morality is a tactical mistake and actually threatens values like compassion and equality/fairness that I hold dear.

on the bb thing: manufactured drama, i don't care. 

[Kris]

Parents who (try to) teach their children to be color blind are doing a disservice to their children and society.

I think you are wrong. I think we should work toward a future where aspects like skin color, gender etc are as mundane as the kind of icecream you like. 

To that end, I think the left's infatuation with defining problems as in-group binary powerstrugles (wokeness) and forcing this narrow-minded (imo) morality is a tactical mistake and actually threatens values like compassion and equality/fairness that I hold dear.

on the bb thing: manufactured drama, i don't care.

Most of my POC friends have expressed to me that white people teaching their children to be “color blind” are actually only teaching them to be blind to the systems that oppress POC.

[EvenSteven]

Parents who (try to) teach their children to be color blind are doing a disservice to their children and society.

I think you are wrong. I think we should work toward a future where aspects like skin color, gender etc are as mundane as the kind of icecream you like. 

To that end, I think the left's infatuation with defining problems as in-group binary powerstrugles (wokeness) and forcing this narrow-minded (imo) morality is a tactical mistake and actually threatens values like compassion and equality/fairness that I hold dear.

on the bb thing: manufactured drama, i don't care.

Says the person who's entire existence has been dedicated to stealing from a person of color!

[swiper]

Says the person who's entire existence has been dedicated to stealing from a person of color!

haha thats well put!

[Roland of Gilead]

I can see now the idea of being "color blind" could lead some to excuse or ignore oppression.  I do get that and understand that slogans like "all lives matter" do detract from the point "black lives matter" was trying to make.

In the world of something like this game show though, I do not see how all of this has a good future outcome.

If I am playing next season and I am a white person who actually values $750,000, I am going to remember that the black people aligned with each other to vote out the white people.  I can't think that I am the only person having this thought.   If I get the chance, heck yeah I am going to make sure to vote out the black people before they gain a majority in the house.  To me, this seems also racist but a probable realistic outcome and not really healthy for fostering future positive race relations.

[Metalcat]

I can see now the idea of being "color blind" could lead some to excuse or ignore oppression.  I do get that and understand that slogans like "all lives matter" do detract from the point "black lives matter" was trying to make.

In the world of something like this game show though, I do not see how all of this has a good future outcome.

If I am playing next season and I am a white person who actually values $750,000, I am going to remember that the black people aligned with each other to vote out the white people.  I can't think that I am the only person having this thought.   If I get the chance, heck yeah I am going to make sure to vote out the black people before they gain a majority in the house.  To me, this seems also racist but a probable realistic outcome and not really healthy for fostering future positive race relations.

You're talking like there's some kind of cohesive organization behind how black people behave, as though they all get a regular newsletter as to what conduct will and won't piss off the white folks around them, and how best to serve "the cause".

It sounds like you are assuming that black people, as a monolith all have the same agenda, which they absolutely do not.

This is a common refrain I hear "If these minorities want to be respected, they're going about it wrong". That's kind of a concerning way to talk about a population that has and is currently being victimized. Demanding that victims behave like ideal victims, to me, seems unreasonable.

They don't have a central organization with a political strategist training everyone how to be media savvy so that they can "earn" the respect and dignity that the world refuses to give them.

This is not an interest group, it's a disparate population of human beings from all walks of life, all regions, all backgrounds, who are very loosely connected by a commonality of having legitimate reason to be terrified and angry.

So consider seeing it from that perspective. Consider trying to connect with the human experience of feeling constantly fearful and frustrated, and then imagine some white person taking issue with you "failing" to behave the "correct way" to earn their respect as a result.

[OtherJen]

I can see now the idea of being "color blind" could lead some to excuse or ignore oppression.  I do get that and understand that slogans like "all lives matter" do detract from the point "black lives matter" was trying to make.

In the world of something like this game show though, I do not see how all of this has a good future outcome.

If I am playing next season and I am a white person who actually values $750,000, I am going to remember that the black people aligned with each other to vote out the white people.  I can't think that I am the only person having this thought.   If I get the chance, heck yeah I am going to make sure to vote out the black people before they gain a majority in the house.  To me, this seems also racist but a probable realistic outcome and not really healthy for fostering future positive race relations.

Uh...you were as concerned about potentially poor race relations when they went in the other direction on previous seasons, right? I'll assume that you were. Perhaps you started a nearly identical thread and I missed it.

On reality TV shows like ‘Big Brother’ and ‘The Bachelor,’ race becomes impossible to ignore (Chicago Tribune)

For much of its 18-year, 40-season run, “The Bachelor” franchise stood firm against repeated calls — and a contentious legal challenge — to feature a Black lead. Since its 2000 debut, “Big Brother” has regularly featured predominantly white casts, and Black houseguests have complained of being targeted and bullied.

Although “Survivor,” “America’s Got Talent,” “America’s Next Top Model” and other reality series have also come under fire for troubling racial dynamics, the “Bachelor” franchise and “Big Brother” have consistently drawn criticism for their handling of race, including from their own contestants. As recently as last season, “Big Brother’s” Kemi Fakunle publicly condemned “degrading and threatening comments” from her fellow houseguests, while Rachel Lindsay, who became “The Bachelorette’s” first Black lead in 2017, spoke out earlier this year about the series' need for a “diversity makeover.”

[uniwelder]

I have recently been reading through, Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. A lot of the context in the book really opened my eyes to my own color-blind racists behaviors. It's very difficult to unlearn the bias you have from the environment you grew up in, but I am happy that I have started making concentrated efforts to improve. I often have to pause and question the thoughts running through my mind and where they were coming from. No, these are what you would think as "outwardly racists" thoughts, but touch on color-blind racism. For too long I've had the privileges' to ignore racism and racists behaviors due to not being effected by it. It's harder than I care to admit, but I would encourage anyone to do the same. This is just a suggestion of an area to explore if you would like to follow Malcat's advice.

I have the audiobook version downloaded just now.  Its a 12 hour listen, so I'll get back to update when its through-- sometime next week?

I finished the audiobook version of Racism without Racists yesterday.  I think the first few chapters were the most informative--- blind racism, systemic racism, statistics and discrepancies.  The middle chapters sound like they're lifted from a phd dissertation and are an analysis of interview questions of people's beliefs and experiences.  The final chapters are the author's thoughts on Black Lives Matter, the Obama presidency, 2016 election, and closing thoughts on overcoming racism. 

I wish I stopped after the first few chapters, as I didn't get much from the remainder of the book.  The author is extremely liberal (I expect liberal considering the subject matter, but not to the author's extreme) and describes Obama as "right of center" on his policies.  I was hoping for something a bit more objective, as well as substance (there was one chapter that discusses reverse racism, but not addressing this particular issue) that relates directly to this thread topic.  It guided the author's interpretation of interview responses as well, which he pulled many for examples to support his points.  Here are two I would have interpreted differently---

"Lee complained about the monotony of his neighborhood because “it was all white people, but we live pretty close to Washington DC, and there’s a lot of culture there, I mean”.  Therefore, for Lee, culture, which he defines narrowly as music, food, and arts, was the prerogative of DC, an area that was more than 2/3 black at the time of the interview.  For Lee then, blacks and latinos have culture, but whites, who are not regarded as a race, do not."  For clarification, when the author says 'whites, not regarded as a race', he means Europeans created the term of race to describe others.

"Some of these people could be classified as being opposed to inter-racial marriage even though they didn’t say so.  For example, Deana’s answer to the interracial marriage question was, “I don’t have an issue with it at all.  I personally don’t date people of another race, so its difficult for me to say, but I don’t think, I can’t see myself marrying someone of another race, but we have friends that are in inter-racial relationships."  The author places Deana into a category 3-4 on scale of 0-6 for racism on that particular issue.

I imagine I'll be criticized here because I haven't changed my view on the matter after completing the book.  I was already aware and agree with the issues brought up in the first few chapters, though the book went through it in much more depth.  Educating yourself on the issue isn't a guarantee to become enlightened as to why this type of discrimination should be accepted.

[GuitarStv]

The author is extremely liberal (I expect liberal considering the subject matter, but not to the author's extreme) and describes Obama as "right of center" on his policies.

Yes?  That sounds correct though, not extremely liberal.

Obama was right wing on military action, immigration, cut funding to NASA, extended most of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, and nationwide implemented the right wing solution to public health care that was developed by Republicans.  He flip-flopped on gay rights (eventually supporting gay marriage), did nothing at all related to gun control, .  He was moderately left on the environment and provided modest legislation to regulate financial institutions (although not as substantial as Glass-Steagle).

So, in all . . . slightly right of center sounds correct based on his actions in office.

[maizefolk]

The author is extremely liberal (I expect liberal considering the subject matter, but not to the author's extreme) and describes Obama as "right of center" on his policies.

Yes?  That sounds correct though, not extremely liberal.

Obama was right wing on military action, immigration, cut funding to NASA, extended most of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, and nationwide implemented the right wing solution to public health care that was developed by Republicans.  He flip-flopped on gay rights (eventually supporting gay marriage), did nothing at all related to gun control, .  He was moderately left on the environment and provided modest legislation to regulate financial institutions (although not as substantial as Glass-Steagle).

So, in all . . . slightly right of center sounds correct based on his actions in office.

Relative to the average american voter's political views at the time of his election (and reelection, though both his views and the views of the voters had moved a bit to the left in those four years) Obama was moderately left of center.

Relative to the political views in non-US western democracies (e.g. western/central Europe + Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) at the time of their elections every single US president in my lifetime has been right of center, whether moderately so or extremely so.

This is an argument that can go on for long and fruitless threads. But for discussing US political debates, I'd argue the center defined by US voters is more important than the center defined by people in a narrowly defined segment of the rest of the world.

Relative to temperature expectations for where where I live, my guess is your daily temperature is almost always below average. Yet, my asserting your daily temperatures are below average without context is not useful information and certainly not a compelling argument against the existence of global warming.

[Metalcat]

The author is extremely liberal (I expect liberal considering the subject matter, but not to the author's extreme) and describes Obama as "right of center" on his policies.

Yes?  That sounds correct though, not extremely liberal.

Obama was right wing on military action, immigration, cut funding to NASA, extended most of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, and nationwide implemented the right wing solution to public health care that was developed by Republicans.  He flip-flopped on gay rights (eventually supporting gay marriage), did nothing at all related to gun control, .  He was moderately left on the environment and provided modest legislation to regulate financial institutions (although not as substantial as Glass-Steagle).

So, in all . . . slightly right of center sounds correct based on his actions in office.

Relative to the average american voter's political views at the time of his election (and reelection, though both his views and the views of the voters had moved a bit to the left in those four years) Obama was moderately left of center.

Relative to the political views in non-US western democracies (e.g. western/central Europe + Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) at the time of their elections every single US president in my lifetime has been right of center, whether moderately so or extremely so.

This is an argument that can go on for long and fruitless threads. But for discussing US political debates, I'd argue the center defined by US voters is more important than the center defined by people in a narrowly defined segment of the rest of the world.

Relative to temperature expectations for where where I live, my guess is your daily temperature is almost always below average. Yet, my asserting your daily temperatures are below average without context is not useful information and certainly not a compelling argument against the existence of global warming.

Fair, but I think Steve's point is that the author saying that Obama is slightly right of center is a totally fair statement to make. The author isn't ridiculous for making that totally reasonable, defensible statement, and pp seems to be citing it as something that discredits the author somehow.

It's fine if the author is perceived as far more left wing than pp is can relate to, and if he doesn't subscribe to those beliefs, but specifically, calling Obama "right of center" could reasonably be said by literally anyone on the political spectrum in the right context. Even a staunch, right wing American could reasonably say that if they were objectively talking about global world leaders.

[uniwelder]

The author is extremely liberal (I expect liberal considering the subject matter, but not to the author's extreme) and describes Obama as "right of center" on his policies.

Yes?  That sounds correct though, not extremely liberal.

Obama was right wing on military action, immigration, cut funding to NASA, extended most of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, and nationwide implemented the right wing solution to public health care that was developed by Republicans.  He flip-flopped on gay rights (eventually supporting gay marriage), did nothing at all related to gun control, .  He was moderately left on the environment and provided modest legislation to regulate financial institutions (although not as substantial as Glass-Steagle).

So, in all . . . slightly right of center sounds correct based on his actions in office.

Relative to the average american voter's political views at the time of his election (and reelection, though both his views and the views of the voters had moved a bit to the left in those four years) Obama was moderately left of center.

Relative to the political views in non-US western democracies (e.g. western/central Europe + Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) at the time of their elections every single US president in my lifetime has been right of center, whether moderately so or extremely so.

This is an argument that can go on for long and fruitless threads. But for discussing US political debates, I'd argue the center defined by US voters is more important than the center defined by people in a narrowly defined segment of the rest of the world.

Relative to temperature expectations for where where I live, my guess is your daily temperature is almost always below average. Yet, my asserting your daily temperatures are below average without context is not useful information and certainly not a compelling argument against the existence of global warming.

Fair, but I think Steve's point is that the author saying that Obama is slightly right of center is a totally fair statement to make. The author isn't ridiculous for making that totally reasonable, defensible statement, and pp seems to be citing it as something that discredits the author somehow.

It's fine if the author is perceived as far more left wing than pp is can relate to, and if he doesn't subscribe to those beliefs, but specifically, calling Obama "right of center" could reasonably be said by literally anyone on the political spectrum in the right context. Even a staunch, right wing American could reasonably say that if they were objectively talking about global world leaders.

I didn't mean to use 'right of center' to discredit the author, but as a way to give context to his political leaning.  While the first portion of the book is objective, the remainder is very subjective, and I think its important to know where the author is coming from.