Something that bugs me about the identity politics and the debates around it is that the end goals of the movement are never really discussed. What are the ultimate goals of LGBT? Of #BlackLivesMatter? Of feminism? How are these ultimate goals articulated, and then how do we get there from here?
To me, apathy should be the final goal. Are you a woman? I don't care. Are you black? I don't care. Are you gay? I don't care. Some other identity? I don't care. That's not to say that people shouldn't care about those close to them, to a degree. An example would be if I'm trying to play matchmaker, knowing the sexual preferences of both matches is important, and shouldn't be ignored. In public life, however, it shouldn't matter. Someone I don't know and will probably never meet is gay? OMG STOP THE PRESSES! Actually, no, I just don't care, and neither should you.
One of the problems with current identity politics is that I think they loose sight of the goal. Instead of trying to make the identity of the class unimportant, they make it the ONLY important attribute. Arguments can hinge on whether the person making the argument is white, black, LGBT (and indeed which of the letters they identify with), man, or woman. The way I see it, the argument should not be based on the identity of the writer. We shouldn't care. If the argument is from personal experience, it may matter, but that is just an anecdote, so there is no way to evaluate it objectively anyway.
I think that a decent part of the population is getting to the apathy point. I would like to think that I'm more or less there. The problem for me is that social justice types tend to bring up these identity politics so that they can't be ignored. Why should I care more about the plight of women than men? Or blacks more than whites? Instead of trying to get people to care about other people, the social justice advocates will try to get us to care about blacks specifically, or women specifically, or gays, lesbians, bi, and trans. But not about people generally. Aren't blacks, women, LGBT people too? They aren't people any more or less than white men. In order to combat prejudice they end up espousing prejudice.
Showing posts with label Race. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Race. Show all posts
Friday, August 28, 2015
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
The Only Diversity that Matters
The only diversity that matters is diversity of thought. For all the talk about diversity, it is always about the diversity of the superficial. Racial diversity and gender diversity rather than diversity of opinion and diversity of thought. This leads to the appearance of diversity without any actual diversity.
Sure, there is a case that people of different races have different perspectives on issues from their different background. Women probably experience life at least somewhat differently from men and vice versa (I would be very surprised if men and women experienced life in the exact same way). Blacks have different experience than whites, and so on. But that doesn't mean that having some black people in a group makes it diverse. You also need diverse opinions from the black community, as well as diverse opinions from every other community. No racial group has uniform ideas, and to think that you can capture the true diversity of humanity by checking racial boxes is naive.
Just as an illustration, if you take Thomas Sowell and Milton Freidmen (black and white), you will have less diversity of thought than if you had Milton Freidman and Bernie Sanders (white and white). Similarly, you have less diversity of thought if you had Jesse Jackson and Bernie Sanders (black and white) than if you had Jesse Jackson and Thomas Sowell (black and black). To have true diversity, you need to have people from all backgrounds of both race and politics, because that more fully captures the different perspectives of the issue.
It could be argued that because there are a minority of, say, conservative blacks, that this is a perspective that should not be included. But that looses the point about diversity. We should examine the perspectives of the unusual, because they are perspectives that the majority hasn't had the chance to examine. Just because the majority thinks something, doesn't make them right. In fact, we should give minority opinions extra examination, because we are most likely to suffer from confirmation bias in favor of the majority opinion.
Sure, there is a case that people of different races have different perspectives on issues from their different background. Women probably experience life at least somewhat differently from men and vice versa (I would be very surprised if men and women experienced life in the exact same way). Blacks have different experience than whites, and so on. But that doesn't mean that having some black people in a group makes it diverse. You also need diverse opinions from the black community, as well as diverse opinions from every other community. No racial group has uniform ideas, and to think that you can capture the true diversity of humanity by checking racial boxes is naive.
Just as an illustration, if you take Thomas Sowell and Milton Freidmen (black and white), you will have less diversity of thought than if you had Milton Freidman and Bernie Sanders (white and white). Similarly, you have less diversity of thought if you had Jesse Jackson and Bernie Sanders (black and white) than if you had Jesse Jackson and Thomas Sowell (black and black). To have true diversity, you need to have people from all backgrounds of both race and politics, because that more fully captures the different perspectives of the issue.
It could be argued that because there are a minority of, say, conservative blacks, that this is a perspective that should not be included. But that looses the point about diversity. We should examine the perspectives of the unusual, because they are perspectives that the majority hasn't had the chance to examine. Just because the majority thinks something, doesn't make them right. In fact, we should give minority opinions extra examination, because we are most likely to suffer from confirmation bias in favor of the majority opinion.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
#Transracial: Cognitive Dissonance in the Cultural Narrative
So Shaun King has been trending on twitter as the next public "Transracial" person after Rachel Dolezal. There have been articles attacking pointing out that he is white from the conservative side, and articles from the left saying rebutting that. At this point, I haven't seen any rebuttal about his father being white, only a rebuttal of the police reports and other secondary claims (car accidents and number of children). With Rachel Dolezal, there wasn't much room for refutation, since her biological parents came forward and said that she was white. The birth certificate on the Breitbart article is credible, then there is no other point that needs to be made about this case.
But there is something about the claim of transracialism that seems to have liberals in a bind. In my cultural anthropology course in college (or university if you are outside the US), we were told that race is a social construct, not a biological fact. But then there is a question of who gets to choose what race we are? Lets claim that society, in the aggregate, chooses for us. How does that change an individual's ancestry? It doesn't, and it can't. If we take race as purely a social construct, then transracialism is just someone adopting the social identity of another race. No big deal. Except that isn't what happens. The people who claim to be another race are somehow lying. They can't be transracial because they aren't 'actually' black/asian/whatever, because their parents weren't.
There is some truth to the claim that race is a social construct, but it is clearly not purely a social construct. There has to be some basis for it. Bill Clinton and George Bush will not be considered African American. We can correct people who get our race wrong, and we back it up with the biological evidence: "My parents are from xyz, not uvw." If race is a social construct, the transracialism is not a big deal. But identity politics is so obsessed with race and gender that being transracial changes your status, and the fight becomes whether you are allowed to assume the label of an 'oppressed' group, or if you are more oppressed for not being taken seriously about it.
I personally think that we would be better off leaving the identity politics behind, and strive to treat everyone with respect. If race is a social construct, won't it go away if we start ignoring it? Then transracial will have no meaning.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Institutional vs Cultural Privilege
When getting into discussions about things like affirmative action, feminism and general identity politics, I find that the topic of privilege comes up a lot. White men are privileged, which is why they are at the top of society or in power in various positions. They have privileges to which they are blind, and to combat this, programs like affirmative action are necessary. Suppose we take this as a given, that white men are privileged over everyone else. There are, however, no laws which explicitly privilege white men over other groups (at least as far as I know). There are no legal disputes which hinge on the color of the skin as a matter of law. The privilege that white men enjoy is not an institutional privilege. It is not codified in the rules at the legal institutions, or in any major institutions generally. Instead, privilege must be social or cultural, not institutional.
First, let me be clear: whites most definitely did benefit in the past from institutional privileges, and it would be stupid to think otherwise. Slavery and Jim Crowe laws are clear examples of this. Whites were given advantages in laws and rights. Today, there are no such laws that make this distinction between whites and blacks. Whites are no longer institutionally privileged. The privileges that white men have are therefore cultural and social. Cultural and social privilege is very hard to correct, and I'm not sure that anyone really knows a good way to go about it.
Cultural privilege is something that cannot be corrected institutionally, because it will create backlash. Affirmative action tries to combat the socio-cultural privilege of being white and male with an institutional privilege and preference for other demographic groups. This, instead of making the problem better, creates additional cultural privilege for the white men. Why? Because the white men who made it managed to do it without help from the system. Everyone else? They got help. They couldn't hack it on their own merits. This new white male privilege now exists because they are viewed as having achieved, as making it through an institution that is biased against them.
You see some of this happen in the tech industry nowadays, with articles saying that white men are privileged for being taken seriously for their achievements. The problem is that the proposed solution just makes that problem worse. Creating institutional privileges for the 'underprivileged' just give the culturally privileged additional privileges.
First, let me be clear: whites most definitely did benefit in the past from institutional privileges, and it would be stupid to think otherwise. Slavery and Jim Crowe laws are clear examples of this. Whites were given advantages in laws and rights. Today, there are no such laws that make this distinction between whites and blacks. Whites are no longer institutionally privileged. The privileges that white men have are therefore cultural and social. Cultural and social privilege is very hard to correct, and I'm not sure that anyone really knows a good way to go about it.
Cultural privilege is something that cannot be corrected institutionally, because it will create backlash. Affirmative action tries to combat the socio-cultural privilege of being white and male with an institutional privilege and preference for other demographic groups. This, instead of making the problem better, creates additional cultural privilege for the white men. Why? Because the white men who made it managed to do it without help from the system. Everyone else? They got help. They couldn't hack it on their own merits. This new white male privilege now exists because they are viewed as having achieved, as making it through an institution that is biased against them.
You see some of this happen in the tech industry nowadays, with articles saying that white men are privileged for being taken seriously for their achievements. The problem is that the proposed solution just makes that problem worse. Creating institutional privileges for the 'underprivileged' just give the culturally privileged additional privileges.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Affirmative Action
Talking about affirmative action in this country is an easy way to have an angry debate. Just come out against it, and a whole bunch of (usually) liberals will jump down your throat and call you a racist. The problem is that the current system of affirmative action, and certainly all the simple, easy ways of doing it, are racist.
The first problem with affirmative action is that it is usually trying to fix the problem far too late. College admissions should be based entirely on merit and what the student can bring to the campus. It is certainly possible that the traditional measures of merit are fundamentally flawed, and should be reworked. This, however, is a problem with the measures of merit being inaccurate, not necessarily discriminatory. Rather than 'fix' the problem right before college, it would make a lot more sense to fix the problems with the education system before college. This way, the students who 'need' affirmative action now will be able to get in on their own merits.
It is also certainly possible that the admissions departments are biased, but there are other ways to get around this, rather than have a selection directly based on race. One would be to have all evaluations of the candidate take place without the name or any other identity markers (gender, for example). This can't solve discrimination at interviews, but it might help isolate the type of discrimination, and show how much is due to race and gender, and how much is due to merit.
One of the problems that those in favor of affirmative action tend to ignore is an effect later on, that changes the perceptions regarding the group benefiting from the discrimination. If people know that an institution practices affirmative action, then the people in the group receiving the benefits will be perceived by some as marginal. The phrase of 'You only got in because of ...' is something that friends of mine have heard, and part of the problem is that institutions publicize that they practice admitting traditionally lower qualified applicants based on race or gender. This sheds doubt on every member of the group that is benefiting from the affirmative action, as any of them could be below the requirements of what it would take a candidate who did not benefit from affirmative action. This hurts both those in the group who benefited from affirmative action who could have gotten in, and those who would have gotten if they were not displaced.
When affirmative action is done wrong, it can also have an even worse problem, by perpetuating the stereotypes that the program was supposed to oppose. If no candidates from the traditionally dominant group are admitted, and the traditional measures of merit are accurate, then what will tend to happen will be that the group that benefited from affirmative action will tend to be at the bottom of the class, rather than dispersed more evenly throughout the class. This will mean that the experiences of the students will generally be that the traditionally dominant group is better at academics than the group that benefited from affirmative action, leading to a perpetuation of racist or sexist stereotypes.
As I said before, this requires that the traditional measures of merit are accurate, and it is certainly possible that they are not. But I think it is highly unlikely that the measures of merit are completely wrong, or have no value, otherwise schools that didn't use them would be just as good as those that didn't, and I don't know of any school with an admissions policy that doesn't use at least some of the traditional measures of merit (GPA, SAT, ACT etc.). What makes more sense than adding something like race to the admissions would be to attempt to reform the traditional measures of merit so that they can more accurately measure the attributes that they intend.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Thoughts on Ferguson
This is not the most timely of posts, but at this point, nothing on my blog is timely. I've been mulling over what to write about this for a little while, and the additional time has allowed the emotions to run down.
As far as I can tell, the two major camps on this issue are as follows:
Opinion 1: A Ferguson cop shot an innocent, unarmed black kid for walking in the street.
Opinion 2: A Ferguson cop shot a black thug who had just robbed a store, and was charging him.
These two opinions as stated here are obviously the simplified forms of the longer narrative, but I think that they serve as a useful distillation. There are also a few facts that both sides (except for the most extreme) can agree on. The Ferguson police officer did shoot an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, six times. There was at least one shot fired inside the car. Michael Brown had just previously robbed a store.
These facts are not really disputed at this point, but the real story is definitely the aftermath. The initial statements and evidence did not include the information about the robbery, or any forensic evidence of where Brown was shot, just leaving the shooting of an unarmed black teen. This instigated protests against the police, using the phrase 'hands up, don't shoot' as a rallying cry. Some destructive individuals decided to use these protests as a jumping off point to loot and vandalize some local stores. This lead, somewhat predictably, to a larger police response.
In some ways, I think the police response is the bigger story, and it has highlighted something that Libertarians have been talking about for years: the militarization of the police force. Suddenly the mainstream press started to care about the use of military equipment and resources by the police. In a most ironic twist, the people who were saying that we need more gun control, and that self defense with a gun is not needed because of police, were now saying that the police are brutal and should not be trusted, but protested.
There has also been a lot of discussion about the race aspect of the conflict. The population of Ferguson is mostly black, and the police are mostly white. I think that certainly plays a part in this, but I think that the power of the police is more significant. We should not be trusting a police force just because they share skin colors with the people that they are supposed to be policing. We should be holding them accountable.
One measure that I think is reasonable for the police (or any public official) to take is personal cameras. While I can understand that some operations (undercover, for example) would require the removal of the camera (assuming that you consider those necessary, which I'm not sure if I do), I think that police should have to wear cameras and microphones that record all of their activities. While it would be a breach of privacy for the officers on duty, it is a sacrifice that should come with having legal power over others. The citizens that are interacting with the police are already at risk of legal action, but this would mean that the officer would have to tell the truth about any incident they report, rather than being able to embellish or fabricate the scenario.
Some police departments are experimenting with this already, like in New Orleans. I hope that this particular trend continues so that we can better hold law enforcement accountable.
As far as I can tell, the two major camps on this issue are as follows:
Opinion 1: A Ferguson cop shot an innocent, unarmed black kid for walking in the street.
Opinion 2: A Ferguson cop shot a black thug who had just robbed a store, and was charging him.
These two opinions as stated here are obviously the simplified forms of the longer narrative, but I think that they serve as a useful distillation. There are also a few facts that both sides (except for the most extreme) can agree on. The Ferguson police officer did shoot an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, six times. There was at least one shot fired inside the car. Michael Brown had just previously robbed a store.
These facts are not really disputed at this point, but the real story is definitely the aftermath. The initial statements and evidence did not include the information about the robbery, or any forensic evidence of where Brown was shot, just leaving the shooting of an unarmed black teen. This instigated protests against the police, using the phrase 'hands up, don't shoot' as a rallying cry. Some destructive individuals decided to use these protests as a jumping off point to loot and vandalize some local stores. This lead, somewhat predictably, to a larger police response.
In some ways, I think the police response is the bigger story, and it has highlighted something that Libertarians have been talking about for years: the militarization of the police force. Suddenly the mainstream press started to care about the use of military equipment and resources by the police. In a most ironic twist, the people who were saying that we need more gun control, and that self defense with a gun is not needed because of police, were now saying that the police are brutal and should not be trusted, but protested.
There has also been a lot of discussion about the race aspect of the conflict. The population of Ferguson is mostly black, and the police are mostly white. I think that certainly plays a part in this, but I think that the power of the police is more significant. We should not be trusting a police force just because they share skin colors with the people that they are supposed to be policing. We should be holding them accountable.
One measure that I think is reasonable for the police (or any public official) to take is personal cameras. While I can understand that some operations (undercover, for example) would require the removal of the camera (assuming that you consider those necessary, which I'm not sure if I do), I think that police should have to wear cameras and microphones that record all of their activities. While it would be a breach of privacy for the officers on duty, it is a sacrifice that should come with having legal power over others. The citizens that are interacting with the police are already at risk of legal action, but this would mean that the officer would have to tell the truth about any incident they report, rather than being able to embellish or fabricate the scenario.
Some police departments are experimenting with this already, like in New Orleans. I hope that this particular trend continues so that we can better hold law enforcement accountable.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Identity Politics - My General Objections
I find identity politics to be extremely poisonous for a number of reasons, but in this post I want to cover my most generally applicable objections, which can be applied to any identity politics.
My biggest objection to identity politics is very fundamental. An argument presented by a person is valid or invalid regardless of their identity. Identity can change experience, but it cannot change logic. If the logic of an argument is bad, it doesn't matter who is making it. If a debate excludes anecdotal data, then no argument should be prefaced with 'As a ___, I think ___.' If they are presenting their experience, then that is anecdotal data at best, and should be excluded, and their identity can only contribute context to their experience, which is not admissible anyway, as it is anecdotal.
One of the big dangers of anecdotal evidence is that it allows for a great deal of confirmation bias. Anecdotes are single cases, which can be cherry picked, and because of this, it is possible to discount the ones that clash with your worldview, while latching on to the ones that confirm it. This just makes it easier for people with opposing worldviews to talk past each other, and never make any progress, and never addressing the fundamental issues.
Confirmation bias is especially bad when paired with identity politics, because once a particular identity narrative becomes the established lens through which someone views their experience, it is very difficult to shake off. For example, if someone views their experiences through a victim narrative, their challenges are because they are persecuted or oppressed, while their successes are just luck. Changing the lens through which they view the experiences can drastically change the conclusion that they reach from their own experience.
Identity politics seems to me to revolve a lot about generalizing a particular group's experiences in to a single narrative. While it might not be intended this way, it seems to me to be a different means of stereotyping, as there is a sense of shared experience from sharing some particular identity. This is not the most troubling part to me. What really troubles me is when arguments are invalidated by the color of someone's skin, or their sexual orientation, or their genitals. And it is not just those outside of each group that is not allowed to comment. The people within the 'accepted' group who express opinions which are contrary to the established view of the rest of the group are branded as 'traitors' of some variety.
Currently, this is very one sided. Groups that are viewed as 'oppressed,' (nonwhite, nonmale, nonhetero), are allowed to speak against the norm of their group (but still run the risk of being called 'traitors' of various kinds). White hetero men are only taken seriously and only have their arguments addressed if they are in favor of the narrative that the 'oppressed' group presents, unless they do it by citing one of the aforementioned 'traitors.' Speaking against a point of view held by one of the victim groups can get one of the 'oppressors' labeled as a misogynist, racist, homophobe, transphobe, chauvinist, sexist, or any number of other slurs, even when those slurs are by no means warranted. Are there people who fit those descriptions? Yes. But random people should not be automatically labeled for challenging the established narrative from the outside.
One of the big dangers of anecdotal evidence is that it allows for a great deal of confirmation bias. Anecdotes are single cases, which can be cherry picked, and because of this, it is possible to discount the ones that clash with your worldview, while latching on to the ones that confirm it. This just makes it easier for people with opposing worldviews to talk past each other, and never make any progress, and never addressing the fundamental issues.
Confirmation bias is especially bad when paired with identity politics, because once a particular identity narrative becomes the established lens through which someone views their experience, it is very difficult to shake off. For example, if someone views their experiences through a victim narrative, their challenges are because they are persecuted or oppressed, while their successes are just luck. Changing the lens through which they view the experiences can drastically change the conclusion that they reach from their own experience.
Identity politics seems to me to revolve a lot about generalizing a particular group's experiences in to a single narrative. While it might not be intended this way, it seems to me to be a different means of stereotyping, as there is a sense of shared experience from sharing some particular identity. This is not the most troubling part to me. What really troubles me is when arguments are invalidated by the color of someone's skin, or their sexual orientation, or their genitals. And it is not just those outside of each group that is not allowed to comment. The people within the 'accepted' group who express opinions which are contrary to the established view of the rest of the group are branded as 'traitors' of some variety.
Currently, this is very one sided. Groups that are viewed as 'oppressed,' (nonwhite, nonmale, nonhetero), are allowed to speak against the norm of their group (but still run the risk of being called 'traitors' of various kinds). White hetero men are only taken seriously and only have their arguments addressed if they are in favor of the narrative that the 'oppressed' group presents, unless they do it by citing one of the aforementioned 'traitors.' Speaking against a point of view held by one of the victim groups can get one of the 'oppressors' labeled as a misogynist, racist, homophobe, transphobe, chauvinist, sexist, or any number of other slurs, even when those slurs are by no means warranted. Are there people who fit those descriptions? Yes. But random people should not be automatically labeled for challenging the established narrative from the outside.
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