How do we fix the wounds in America?

Great Debates
201

Those of you who think Trump’s election shockingly exposes the fact that half the electorate is racist and sexist would do well to look at the following video and reflect upon the fact that the behavior demonstrated within is very likely responsible for the fact that Trump is in the White House. And then you might also consider that Trump wasn’t the only victor last November. The country overwhelmingly put Republicans/conservatives in control of virtually every aspect of political power in this country, and racism/sexism/Nazism is not the reason why.

Disclaimer: I already know this video has been out for a year or so. That fact means nothing however so there’s no point in bringing it up.

202

Not so much a party of hate, as a party of resentment.

The GOP message–mostly dog-whistled, though closer to explicit with Trump than with earlier iterations–is that the reason “you” aren’t King of the World is that Mexican guy who took your job and those black women who took your place at the college you were turned down by and those Muslims who are trying to change your culture and, most of all, those hoighty-toighty Elites who keep telling you what words you can and can’t use.

The GOP has promised to put all those horrible people where they belong: as dust beneath “your” feet.

…and this is a Big Lie. Trump has been sticking it to those groups as best he can (mostly through the efforts of the real work-horse of his Administration, Jeff Sessions). But they will never be dust beneath “your” feet. It’s a lie. *“You” will never become King of the World by somehow eliminating the existence of every Mexican, black, woman, Muslim, and Elite. *Ain’t gonna happen.

That GOP message is ugly and it’s a lie—a lie designed to exploit “your” resentments and fears. A lie designed to profit off “your” resentments and fears.

And that’s what the Democrats need to reveal to the great American ‘heartland.’

203

I’m curious how you reached this conclusion? I wasn’t there, and haven’t watched enough video of the day’s events to where I’d feel confident even hazarding a guess.

204

It is probably true that conservative strawman-fantasy caricatures such as the ones in your linked video (which you absurdly consider to be “demonstrated behavior”) played no small role in ginning up the usual conservative paranoid delusions about liberals and thus contributing to a Trump victory.

However, that’s a reflection on the incredibly ill-informed credulity of conservatives, rather than on the actual behavior of liberals.

For those not bothering to watch, Starving Artist’s link is a short video sketch by an Australian comedian about the alleged evils of modern education. Here are some of the more hilarious bits of dialogue that Starving Artist believes actually occur in “liberal” American college classrooms (in which he also apparently believes the participants use Australian English terms like “mark” for “grade”):

TEACHER: Now, our first question: One plus one.
NEW STUDENT: Two.
TEACHER: Incorrect. Yes?
OTHER STUDENT: Multiculturalism.
TEACHER: Well done, Simon […]

TEACHER: What is three times three?
NEW STUDENT: Nine.
TEACHER: Wrong. Yes, Penelope?
OTHER STUDENT: Gender equality.
TEACHER: Very good. […]

TEACHER: Now students, I trust you have all completed your research assignments. And remember, the student with the highest mark will fly to New York to present their paper at the World Mathematical Summit. [N.B. As a college math professor, I trust I don’t need to explain to anyone except Starving Artist that this is not something that actually happens in liberal college classrooms.] […]
NEW STUDENT: I’ve used Fourier transform in mathematical methods in electronics to analyze electro-diagrams of at-risk patients and calculate their risk of experiencing a heart attack. [I probably don’t need to explain to anyone except Starving Artist that as a description of actual mathematical research, this is incoherent gibberish. In conservative-speak, of course, it stands for “Hey I am a very smart STEM student excelling in traditional fields of study and my research project is obviously outstanding!”]

In short, any conservative stupid enough to believe that a video like this actually reflects any meaningful realities about current liberal education is indeed probably stupid enough to vote for Trump. But that’s not liberals’ fault.

205

Well it isn’t really hate. It’s just fear, that’s all.

206

Less than half, if voting for Trump = racist.

207

The hate-righters were the ones attacking and beating up unarmed peaceful protesters, sometimes several against one.

208

There were certainly many instances reported of leftists attacking right-wingers who weren’t posing an imminent threat to anyone, sometimes at grossly unfair odds. I don’t know of any credible claim to know exactly which side committed more unprovoked attacks. Of course, we do know that only one side contained a guy who thought it was cool to DRIVE A FUCKING CAR INTO A CROWD, and only one side’s official organizer applauded that act of terrorism. But then, I hear some of the other guys threw urine on some people and hit them with bike locks, so moral equivalency. Or something.

And really, who the hell cares what the final score was? Yes, we can all agree that beating up people who hold reprehensible views but don’t appear to actually be hurting anyone is bad.

But not all bad things are equally bad. Punching someone because he is a Nazi is just not in the same moral universe as punching someone because you are a Nazi. The one is a mistake that a decent person might make in a stressful situation, the other constitutes a rejection of the most basic notions of human decency.

So let’s stipulate that, say, 90% of the fighting was initiated by leftists. So what? Would that mean that they were more “in the wrong” than the guys parading outside the Jewish school with Nazi flags and assault rifles? Fuck, no.

209

Interestingly, I have only ever seen one specific reference to bike lock assault, when this turd hit three Trump supporters over the head with a bike lock at a rally in April (and was subsequently arrested and charged with assault).

So I don’t know if any antifa violence in Charlottesville involved any bike locks, but I’m guessing it’s just this one guy from back in the spring whose criminal behavior has now become a meme or something.

210

Are you aware of any antifa violence in Charlottesville, or is it your impression that left-wingers were only victims and never aggressors?

211

Of course you’re not responsible for slavery, Jim Crow, or anyone because of their race, but the fact is that black people today with the consequences of bygone generations. My mother - a generation removed from Gen X - is old enough to remember white and black water fountains, fire hoses being turned on people protesting for the right to vote, the murder of Medgar Evers, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., blacks being harassed, spit on, and requiring the protection of the national guard for the right to attend the same schools as whites. Even when legal segregation ended.

A black person demanding that you personally apologize for Jim Crow, or demanding 40 acres and a mule - okay yeah, that’s ridiculous. I don’t disagree either that in individual cases, black individuals don’t always help themselves. But it goes back to what I said earlier: an example or two, or two hundred, or two thousand doesn’t invalidate the fact that millions of black Americans were born into a world in which they are considered suspects for crimes, jailed for crimes that whites get probation for.

Frankly, I think a big part of the problem is that whites can’t for a moment understand what it means to be a minority in the United States. Not that America is uniquely racist, but it is unique in that a large number of people (a plurality, let’s call it) still buy into an ideology that lends itself to inequality. As my con-law professor once put it, “America is a society that believes in equal opportunity under the law (in theory) but not really in equality.” And that is not an insignificant part of the problem. When Americans buy into ideas like social Darwinism and a cut-throat type of capitalism in which winners survive and losers die, it naturally breeds tensions among people. And the brutal reality is that capitalism in America, historically, has been inextricably tied to exploitation of people, and that people who have been most easily exploited are those with darker skin tones. Capitalism and racism have gone hand in hand, and they are the fabric of America. Until whites can understand that and become more sympathetic and patient with black Americans (and anyone else for that matter), nothing will change.

212

:confused: Of course. Who has attempted to suggest (in the teeth of unambiguous video evidence, I might add) that antifa counterprotesters in Charlottesville didn’t engage in any violence? Certainly not me.

I was just pointing out that as far as I’m aware, the widespread trope of antifa assailants specifically using a bike lock as an assault weapon all seems to derive from one violent antifa protester doing so in an incident of several months ago. Feel free to correct that impression if you have evidence to the contrary.

213

I notice you cleverly left out the instances when the students hatefully/condescendingly attacked the normal person with sneers and idiotic accusations of bigotry every time he opened his mouth.

And if it’s your contention that I and other conservatives take the video literally, then you might want to look up the definition of ‘parody’ to help you understand.

And further, I notice you try to limit the offensive behavior parodied in the video to the classroom, when the reality is that it goes on everywhere.

Still, it’s an amusing little vid, albeit annoying to both sides although for different reasons, and I’d suggest that anyone interested look at it for themselves rather than be put off by Kimstu’s, uh, shall we say ‘abridged’, version of it, as it’s obvious he or she would clearly prefer you not look at it for yourself. To make it easy I’ll repost the link here.

214

The truth is always useful.

215

As far as silly strawman-fantasy caricature goes, those segments are no different from the parts I quoted. All the dialogue in the video is equally ridiculous and unrealistic conservative fiction about behavior they imagine to be “liberal”.

[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
And if it’s your contention that I and other conservatives take the video literally, then you might want to look up the definition of ‘parody’
[/quote]

I know the video is supposed to be some kind of parody. What I don’t get is why you are claiming, apparently in all sincerity, that this ridiculously unrealistic parody counts as “demonstrated behavior” persuasive enough to sway the real-life voting choices of conservatives.

I mean, if I want to explain what it is about conservative behavior that disinclines me to vote for conservatives, I reference instances of, you know, actual behavior of actual conservatives that I happen to disapprove of. As in, some kind of text or video documenting (that means actual documenting, not “parody”-pretend “documenting”) those real-life conservatives’ real-life words and actions.

I don’t link to, say, a freaking Atrocities of Doctor Doom comic book and whine “Look how awful this conservative behavior is! No wonder liberals won’t vote for conservatives when they behave like that!” Which would be just about as realistic as your attempt to characterize that “parody” video as representative of actual liberal behavior.

[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
And further, I notice you try to limit the offensive behavior parodied in the video to the classroom, when the reality is that it goes on everywhere.
[/quote]

Uh, in the first place, you’re the one who posted a link to a video sketch entitled “Modern Education” and set in a classroom. If you were so anxious to make it clear that you think the video is relevant to other contexts besides “Modern Education”, you maybe should have pointed that out?

In the second place, if you’re so detached from reality that you imagine a math teacher telling students that the answer to “three times three” is “gender equality” counts as a meaningful indictment of actual liberal behavior, I guess you could equally well interpret it to apply to any other made-up behavior you like, in the classroom or out of it.

[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
I’d suggest that anyone interested look at it for themselves rather than be put off by Kimstu’s, uh, shall we say ‘abridged’, version of it, as it’s obvious he or she would clearly prefer you not look at it for yourself.
[/quote]

Heck, on the contrary, I thought the video was hilarious, although perhaps not quite in the way the creator intended, and I’m just fine with people looking at it for themselves! Here, let me help you out with that by posting the link again for you. :slight_smile:

216

You do know this stupidity is not actual footage of a real classroom, right?

217

That’s not an answer to my question. Which, incidentally, appears to be a question no-one here has a cromulent answer for, and which by extension illustrates the challenges in fixing some of these social problems.

218

Yup, Starving Artist reassured us of that in post #213.

Still doesn’t explain why, if he wanted to lecture us about how terrible awful bad liberal behavior put Trump in the White House, he didn’t provide an example of actual liberal behavior that he considers so terrible awful bad, instead of this synthetic mockup of what conservatives like to imagine liberal behavior is.

219

Well, I’ll give it a go: The compelling reason for giving up one’s privilege which was unfairly bestowed by a long societal history of racist sexist homophobic etc. discrimination is because it’s morally the right thing to do.

I grant you that’s not a “compelling” reason in the sense of serving one’s immediate self-interest, but ISTM fairly compelling in an ethical sense.

After all, how can we say we believe in a fair and egalitarian society if we’re always adding a little mental caveat “as long as I get to keep the privileges I accrued from our long history of society being unfair and unequal in favor of people like me”.

How can we claim to support “equality of opportunity” while we go on seizing every advantage we can get from our historically rigged system designed to keep opportunities unequal?

So ISTM that the “why” of giving up one’s traditional privilege is the easy part. The tough bit is the “how”.

We can’t ever reliably quantify the net amount of our privilege advantages vs. disadvantages. Some of us are white but female; some of us are black but wealthy; some of us are white male but gay; etc. etc. etc. And mostly, all of these various privilege-bearing traits, both advantageous and disadvantageous, are things we can’t and wouldn’t change anyway.

So how do we give up our unfair privilege that we’ve benefited from at the expense of others, and how do we reclaim our fair share of the privilege that others have benefited from at our expense?

I don’t have a clue. Other than the basic maintenance tasks of—

  • trying to bear in mind the ways in which I have more privilege, so I don’t fall into the trap of believing that I owe everything I have to my own merits and effort (AKA “being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple”), and

  • also being conscious of the ways in which I have less privilege, so I know where I’m going to have to expect more obstacles to overcome—

I have no idea how we as individuals go about significantly changing our privilege status to be more fair to all.

I have some ideas about how we as a society can go about reducing unfair privilege disparities, but that’s a much slower process.

220

Why should I? This board is chock full of the kind of behavior that video is parodying, as are many if not most college campuses. The fact that you don’t believe it is perfectly in line with the blinders the left has had for years regading media bias and such things as its responsibility for the drug epidemic and skyrocketing crime rates in the aftermath of the counterculture revolution.

To their credit some of your own political compatriots hav tried to wise you up as well as to how your tactics of divisiveness and anger and villainization/hatred of anyone and everyone not yourselves has backfired and resulted in the huge and total Republican takeover of every branch of government in this country, and typically the response from the rest of the left has been to declare their every intention to double down and engage in even more of it.

Most of the people in this country can recognize very clearly the behavior being mocked in that video, and believe me, they don’t see it as much of a stretch at all.