The Culture War: Dreams of a Better World

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Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Kraps posted:

Seems you've already figured out what's wrong with Trump supporters (according to you), what's the point of this thread?

For you to defend your ideology my good chum! What do you people want? And I do mean honestly want, not the "politically correct" version where we all just dogwhistle "Prosperity for Americans" and pretend it means all of us.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 15:12

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 11:00

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Brainiac Five posted:

How do you sell people on the idea they shouldn't murder?

It took a war and soldiers occupying their towns afterward to stop the south from literally owning human beings, and they've been pissy about it ever since. Basically, you'll never convince everyone using moral or ethical arguments. Sometimes, you have to kick them in the teeth until they stop doing something so egregious.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 18:28

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Someone post the Hitler "just want to eliminate the Jews" comic.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 18:31

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Brainiac Five posted:

Thank you for reiterating the argument for the necessity of violence in a justice system.

I'd more say it's a firm argument for the existence of and monopoly on State violence (state as in government itself) to safeguard society. The breakdown is that we let the individual states and counties have their own standards of enforcement, leading to horrible corruption and systemic racism.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 18:36

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Frosted Flake posted:

I'm Black. Guess which side is the only one that has given me poo poo about my "blackness" or is open about expecting me to say or think certain things because of my race.

I have had better conversations about the merits of communism with conservatives than the other guys, and about race relations too.

What's your opinion on the targeted voting laws from Republicans explicitly intended to reduce Black voter turnout? How about Black Lives Matter being equated with the assumption that supporting said message means you want police to die?

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 18:47

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

The Kingfish posted:

Maybe don't focus on "calling people out" and focus on your own behavior instead? Just a thought.

That'd sure make it nice and covenient for the Trumpstaffel wouldn't it? Silence is assent and all that?

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 19:08

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Realtalk though; someone calling you out for stupid poo poo like microaggressions or cultural appropriation (and actually calling you out and not just talking to you about it) doesn't invalidate anti-racism as a concept or platform. Acting like they do is just an excuse to discard an already uncomfortable truth about yourself.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 19:15

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Frosted Flake posted:

Here's my call-out story:

I know someone who was shunned for wearing her engagement ring. Her fellow activists thought it was heteronormative and so a symbol of straight privilege, unfeminist because it was the equivalent of a dowry "like her father being offered a cow in exchange for her", and that she was reinforcing the patriarchal institution of marriage.

Personally, I would have been happy for her and focussed on her work as an activist. How did turning away a good activist help fight the patriarchy exactly?

Your friend was shunned by morons who are also lovely activists. It doesn't invalidate Feminism as a concept or something that needs activism.

The Kingfish posted:

I don't think anyone here is trying to invalidate anti-racism as a concept or platform.

E: depends on what your conception of "anti-racism as a platform" is I guess.

It depends. The phrase "this is why Trump was elected" is pretty indicative that the person posting it is dismissive of legitimate causes due to imagined or anecdotal College Activists.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 19:21

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Brainiac Five posted:

Why would you think otherwise? Why else would people continue to maintain structural racism if it obviously hurt them? Are white people all suicidal?

It's about perception. There's the standard denial of reality; "I don't benefit from anything, black people are just whiny" and there's the more honest but internal "if they get more, it means someone takes it from me." It doesn't matter that neither of these things are actually true. Perception is reality to the average person.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 19:27

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

rudatron posted:

How many stories of 'lovely activists' is it going to take, before people entertain the idea that something may be wrong with activist culture, in particular, the way it's essentially been 'professionalized'? Or are we going to pretend this problem cannot exist, ever?

I was where you are a while back. These people annoy the everloving gently caress out of me. But outside of online circles, and possibly college, where do you see this happening? I've never once encountered it in "the wild." Hell, I'd be too busy lauging and livestreaming the whole thing while doing my best Sir David Attenborough impression to get mad. In other words, they don't really exist in any capacity. They're a propaganda piece delivered by Fox and Co. to invalidate civil rights.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 19:31

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Tesseraction posted:

The question is, how do you stop assholes being assholes? They're clearly class conscious but opt instead to take an unhelpful method of activism. What can you do to stop them while respecting freedom of speech?

Mock them. Relentlessly and with great numbers of their peers. Especially if you can get a well known activist to help.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 19:34

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

thechosenone posted:

A question, do you think this works in general?

It works when it's done by your peer group, but not by outside or rival groups.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 19:39

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

thechosenone posted:

Alright, so then how do you convince someone in a group you are not a part of?

Cultural force and demographic shifts. And for the worst examples, deployment of the 101st Airborne.

As in, there is no convincing them. You have to go around the social conservatives of the day*, every time. Every major instance of social progress, from abolition to gay marriage, has been using the force of law, backed up by the legitimate threat of enforcing said law.

The people to convince are those in the center. The moderate and the unafilliated are the people you need to convince.

*This changes with generation. An abolitionist from the 1800's would be horribly conservative to our eyes. Tomorrow, it might be us. We will also deserve the boot in the rear end to get with the program, as our grandchildren define their boundries.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 20:02

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Frosted Flake posted:

Having a culture where ambitious people climb socially based on their ability to fracture organizations they are members of is not conducive to ever accomplishing anything.

What are the benefits of call-outs?

Calling out an individual for their behavior in a group, is done for a few reasons. One; it draws attention to the action or statement and points out its negative implication. Two; It removes the ability for the individual responsible for the action or statement to assume that everyone, through their silence, agrees with his or her action/statement. Three; It reinforces the social norms of decency in polite conversation.

Probably more, but I'm busy.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 21:54

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

thechosenone posted:

I mean, if that is how we change people's minds, wouldn't racist people have done that to non-racist people, 'correcting' them before they could grow into their own? If reason doesn't work, how can we expect to out emotion them, when they are more emotional then us? how can we out violence them, when they are more violent then us?

It just seems like if we can't get people to defect to our side, and they outnumber us, then how are we supposed to win?

The same way we've always won. With grindingly slow progress, tiny victories over generations that add up to a whole goddamn lot when taken from an overall view. Occasionally by using the army on Southerners.

edit* And to be less flippant and address your first point, yes that's exactly how racists acted toward non-racists when they were the majority. The Civil Rights era was a goddamn street brawl compared to today, when being a "race traitor" could get your family killed. We still won that fight. So today, being an open racist is considered impolite even in the south. Some are mad about that, and they rush to Trump like he's the second coming of N.B. Forrest. The rest of his voters (to be clear, voters are not the same as his supporters) are just your standard Republican. They don't mean folks any particular harm, they could just care less if minorities or gay folks live or die.

Talmonis fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jan 10, 2017

# ¿ Jan 10, 2017 22:21

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Anti-intellectualism running rampant "up in this piece," if I have my youth slang correct.

Or; "Pfft stupid experts. My gut feelings are better than so-called 'science.' I mean, they call 'em theories for a reason, right?" :smug:

# ¿ Jan 11, 2017 07:03

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

The many nice "Academics" with doctorates in their fields that people here rail against most certainly are.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2017 07:10

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Higsian posted:

So, having defeated the racists in that particular run of battles, you decided it would be a good idea to adopt the tactics they used against you?

You know racism is bad dude, so why are you trying to imply that racists using a tactic is any kind of validation for using it yourself? Especially when it's been a losing strategy for them for years. You've literally swapped roles within certain circles so that racists are the ones "being prosecuted" and you're the authority telling them how it is and attacking them when they step out of line.

The older I get the more convinced I am that the progressive side of the culture war has formed its own orthodoxy such that real progressives get shunted to the side while conservative culture warriors on either side duke it out. Someone upthread mentioned that it's likely our position will be the conservative position of the future, but I think that poo poo already happened. Maybe the old conservatives held out just too long and we didn't get a proper hand-off, or maybe society split so far apart that 2 different parallel societies formed their own conservative movements. Either way it sure feels like we're stuck fighting 2 different conservative movements and it really sucks.

Framing social pressure as "the same tactics" is disengenuous. The rule was through fear and power. Social pressure was the gloved hand that made it easier for people to just ignore their consciences and stay quiet. Threats of economic isolation, murder and terror were the real "tactics" of the right from 1860-1970's. Social pressure to not marry outside your race, to poo poo on immigrants and fear black folks stopped working, because the majority of people don't believe that anymore. Outside of severely homogenous districts, people interact with "the other" enough to know that they're not a boogeyman.

Secondly, fighting racism, homophobia and sexism are not in any way "conservative." At least while equal rights still elude us as a nation.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2017 15:58

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Frosted Flake posted:

Getting suckered into fights about trans bathrooms when the vast majority of people have never seen a transperson is missing the commonality of nearly everyone being hosed over on other issues. If you form a coalition, have "regular" people supporting you because you support them in their struggles then you can say "oh by the way we need you to help out on this".

The Women's march is a great example. Help these "regular" women understand Black issues once they are there marching with you instead of shunning them so you have lost their support entirely.

Your "shoot the hostage" idea is pretty poo poo man. The grusome intent behind the so called bathroom bills, outside of the hush-hush economic aspect, is that trans-women (specifically, as they don't give a gently caress about trans-men) will be forced to go into a men's room where they'll be mocked, attacked, beaten, raped and likely murdered, with the idea that they'll "learn not to be trans around REAL America" and go hide in their homes or pretend to be men. That's the actual effect of such a law. Innocent people will die, purposefully, by conservative hands. Again. Telling vulnerable people "nah, gently caress it, we have better things to do than 'engage' them over it" is crass to the point of lunacy.

And here's the thing; If you're a white worker (Hi! That's me and mine!) and you take offense that someone with a voice cares about blatant attempts to hurt already vulnerable people instead of your personal issues, you're a lovely person who didn't take any proper lessons away from Sesame Street as a child. Nobody said they won't help you. Democrats have been trying for years and you just scream at them for not performing impossible magic tricks to "make it be 1955 again," and vote in the very people who offshore your poo poo and burn down your infastructure. But because someone dared take a loving knee at a football game to protest the literal murders of unarmed black men by police around the country, you get indignant and need to "punish" the liberals for such a slieight. gently caress that, and gently caress you (you being the proverbial selfish, myopic Trump supporter).

# ¿ Jan 11, 2017 19:41

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

On the subject of tone policing; I think a good portion of the disconnect there might be an understandable bout of hyper-vigilance. That activists are so gun-shy because of the near infinite amount of bad faith trolls that belch forth from the bowels of the internet any time race is mentioned. My personal experience with "tone" being seen as important was watching my parents. Men and women dressed as professionals and giving speeches were always given a chance to be heard, regardless of subject, while anyone looking disheveled or talking in slang were immediately dismissed as hippies or worse. They HATED Rush Limbaugh, because of his loud, unpleasant and combative tone. They were repulsed by Jimmy Swaggart and other self-rightous and pompous men talking down to them. But if you could make an impassioned speech without appearing unhinged? They'd follow Jim Jones to hell. They would complain about rioters, using all manner of charged racial dogwhistles, while praising local protests for staying peaceful.

It's through that lens that I see tone. It echoes "respectability" politics a lot. They're shockingly classist, while being lower middle class themselves.

As for this thread; I think a few people have raised some valid points that were immediately shot down by folks I agree with, in what I see as hyper-vigilance. We really aren't doing ourselves any favors screaming at coalition members for their heresies. I don't care if someone thinks gay sex is icky, so long as they support gay rights and keep that poo poo to themselves. I see a lot of those type of people. They get defensive when called out on things they don't realize they're doing, especially if it's done in an angry way. It's not enough to make them just up and turn into Republicans mind you, but it makes us look bad. I try to soothe those tensions. To remind folks that it's not them personally, but a symptom of the problem itself. We need each other, now more than ever. We need every slightly racist schmuck with good intentions voting in favor of civil rights, we need them calling out the rebirth of fascism and talking down their peers. We might know full well that it's not the fault of undocumented immigrants that wages are low, but that's not obvious to someone at the low end. There are plenty down there who don't want to break up families and round people up; they just want to make sure their family doesn't go hungry. We need them speaking out against the Trumpstaffel when they rear their snakelike heads to talk of walls and tracking, because it's obviously not right.

Ok, I've rambled enough for now. TLDR; we need each other. The infighting has to stop. Rudatron and K.M. and Stone Cold, I appreciate you. Your positions aren't as far as they seem. We don't even need to like each other, so long as we work together to stop the rise of the alt-right.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2017 20:27

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Seperatism and segregation are disgusting.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2017 15:28

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Peven Stan posted:

And do what? Cast their lot in with white liberals? Nearly every Asian American "leader" towed the liberal line for years and what is there to show for the community when it comes to progress? Immigrant groups are better off organizing political power within our own communities as opposed to assimilating into the other, "good" kind of whiteness.

You're helping the right divide what remains of the American left into racial blocs, making it much easier to run roughshod over the lot of us. Those white liberals are casting their lot in with you as well. Spitting in the faces of people who don't oppose your goals is tantamount to political suicide.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2017 15:34

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Peven Stan posted:

Bullshit, no white liberals have ever stood up for asian people, who are the "model minority" and therefore ok to attack.

For example, liberal hollywood constantly forces asian american actors into coon roles that are degrading and humiliating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWCaCpEKwSA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bs0D1SQUPU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtDU_1hbqWI

Arch-liberal Lena Dunham can't stop talking poo poo about Asian people on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/lenadunham/status/90660103879016448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Lena Dunham's terrible orientalist article on Japan

The obsession with known annoying person Lena Dunham on this forum will never cease to amaze me.

Ok, so aside from the Hollywood example, what are the issues facing Asian-Americans that white liberals have "never stood up for"? One that I've read was that they're denied public assistance based on stereotypes of being 'successful,' which seems like something that any liberal would get behind.

Is it the admissions offices of universities changing the rules to stop Asian American acceptance rates harming white students?

It seems like "white Liberals" is an odd target of specific ire from a lot of folks here. Not 'white moderates' or even 'white conservatives' but actual Liberals who at least supposedly support equal rights, feminism, etc. Is it an implied statement that real "white Liberals" don't exist, and are just Republicans in disguise or somesuch?

# ¿ Jan 13, 2017 18:00

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

This election has made us go collectively mad it would seem. Rather than circling the wagons, we here in the online sphere are seemingly backbiting one another and doing everything in our power to break the coalition for good. If we do that, the reign of far right lunacy will have only begun.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2017 18:17

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 11:00

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Jerry Manderbilt posted:

whats your opinion on data disaggregation, my friend

because chinese in particular can't expect anyone else�white liberals, black folk, latino folk, non-asian chinese folk�to stick up for us when we only give a poo poo about hollywood (or for some, whining about white dudes dating asian women or why asian dudes can't land a date that hawt 10/10 blonde cheerleader), can't even condemn those within our community who march for "justice for peter liang" or who lobby against data disaggregation bills that southeast asians and pacific islanders fight hard for, etc. makes us all look like selfish twits not worth anyone's time, you know? doesn't help that it tarnishes the credibility of non-chinese asians either

Just read up a bit on data disaggregation, and holy poo poo is that needed. What's going on that so many kids from southeast asia are having that drastic of a graduation disparity?

# ¿ Jan 13, 2017 21:02

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