Thoughts on social justice. (New attempt at failed Pit thread, minus the well poison.)

Great Debates
21

I agree with every word of this, but disagree that that’s what’s happening in this thread. The reason I keep resorting to analogies is that my best honest efforts at expressing what I’m talking about are still leading to people – who I believe aren’t doing it on purpose or out of any sense of malice – ascribing aspects to the concepts I’ve tried to directly state that are just straight-up not there. It’s the same sort of thing you’re talking about here.

So, direct response and then analogy. The direct response is that, yes, time and effort are limited. Human nature is not such that people are capable of doing infinite things. Every good thing can and should be accomplished EVENTUALLY, but A) we can’t even know what all the good things ARE unless we discuss it and get everyone’s ideas about it, and B) not all the good things are equally as good.

And, analogy: imagine you and I are friends (I’d like that) and we like to go out to restaurants. There are a bunch of places in our city that we haven’t tried. You’ve heard of restaurants I haven’t, and vice versa. But the nature of human existence is that one person can eat at one place at one time, and while we can certainly eat at every place eventually, since we want to eat together, it’s worth talking about where we think we ought to eat tonight. We do so, and decide that Mexican and Thai both sound good to us, but eating at the sixtieth Mexican grill sounds less interesting than trying out that new Moroccan place (that I didn’t know existed until we talked about it and you told me), and neither of us has ever tried Moroccan. THEN, our friend Joan decides she’s gonna drag the kids to a Chinese buffet none of us has been to, and she’ll let us know how it is. This is that; nothing more and nothing less; it’s just a more important version because we’re at a time in history when there are more restaurants than ever.

First off, sorry about not addressing it; I wasn’t ignoring you, but as I stated in that thread and further explained here, I didn’t feel that my further participation was accomplishing anything positive. That’s why I opened this.

Second, I am not TELLING anyone what their priorities ought to be. I am trying to get them to acknowledge that priorities are an actual concept, and then have a discussion about which x-thousand restaurants we ought to eat at today. In the other thread, crowmanclouds named a whoooole bunch of really good ideas that he was gonna do that day, which all sounded great and are things people can do in the span of a day. I or you or anyone else could, though, talk to him about even MORE awesome things he could do, and if he decided that one of those sounded more important to him than the stuff he was going to do, then great. (If not, then great, too.)

Discussing priorities is not the same as trying to impose one’s will on others about them. Neither is it saying that we can all only do one thing. It’s saying "all right, today some of us are gonna do x, others are gonna do y, And by the way here are a bunch of letters you didn’t even know existed so we can do even MORE great stuff; but since we do need to pick what we do today – which can and should be a bunch of different stuff for each of us – we can talk like reasonable adults to figure out what that stuff is.

It’s a discussion and it’s learning from each other. That’s what I meant when I said “come, let us reason together.”

22

But much of the question in this case isn’t ‘what restaurant are we going to eat at?’ If I’m going to extend your analogy, the question is more either ‘how do we get people to come eat out at any restaurant at all, when they’re comfortable staying at home?’ or ‘how do we get the people who never eat anywhere other than MacDonald’s to try any of these fascinating new restaurants?’ or even ‘how do we get people to recognize the existence of restaurants?’

Telling people that statues and renaming should be at or near the bottom of the list most definitely is telling people what their priorities ought to be.

ETA: And none of that addresses trying to see the problem as a whole, which the statues are a part of.

23

Your verbose “analogy” seems to be premised on the notion that I’m incapable of understanding that there are some things in life where choosing to do one thing entails a choice not to do something else. Believe it or not, I know that. I realize that if I can’t simultaneously go to two different restaurants for dinner.

That model does not apply to social change. Social change is something that occurs through increasing momentum, where one avenue of activism energizes and inspires more people to get involved, to support and engage in other avenues of activism. It’s the opposite of zero-sum. It’s about making people think, winning hearts and minds, building momentum, not about energy budgeting.

24

[ETA]…and your failure to understand the nature of social change (momentum, not a zero-sum choice from a menu) is why people wouldn’t accept your desire to draw a distinction between “toppling statues is right but a low priority” and “toppling statues is wrong”… and thus why your prior thread was a trainwreck dominated by you expressing how upset you were that people kept misunderstanding you.

25

You may be right, but I find analogies are distracting both in general and in the case of this thread. Specifically, I’m having trouble understanding if you’re advocating anything in particular or merely talking about how to discuss things.

26

[quote=“GMANCANADA, post:16, topic:915553”]
As far as extending this analogy to the state of US race relations: speaking for myself: as a +50 year old white guy from Canada, I don’t have nearly the hubris that would allow me for a even a second to think I can possibly comprehend what it’s like to be a American black person in 2020.[/quote]

You’re a rational human being. Surly you’ve heard or read black people describe what life is like for them, right? Because if we can’t possibly comprehend (empathize) with what other people are going through, we’re probably not going to solve any problems.

27

Folks, I think the truth is this: Tearing down statues is at the bottom of the list of useful things to do. But attempts to do more useful things have failed so they’re down to this. I’m sure nobody things tearing down statutes is going to solve any problems but at least it’ll get people who wouldn’t otherwise pay attention to actually pay attention. I think it’s rather silly to wag fingers at anyone and tell them they’re not being helpful by tearing down those statues. They’re not stupid and they know tearing the statues down isn’t a magical solution that will end racism and bring economic prosperity. But they have our attention now.

28

Yes, we do seem to be in agreement on most of your points, as I took your core premise to basically be that as individuals we have no right to tell historically oppressed and abused minorities how they should feel.

I thought my agreement was clear from my post, but you still seems to be very defensive and argumentative. Since I rarely read The Pit, I assume this is the typical tone of posts there, which is unfortunate.

If I’m wrong, that’s not your core premise and there is something to debate, is it perhaps possible to more concisely state exactly the point you’d like to “Great Debate” or discuss?

29

It crosses my mind that prior to now when you heard of statues being pulled down, it was hailed as a good thing - it was a sign that the populace was rising against the dictator and throwing them out. Sometimes the US military would be on the scene helping.

When the statues come down, that’s a message to the people the statue represents that their time is coming to an end; that the populace has had enough. While the statues stand, the people they represent can say with confidence they are in control.

The sooner we pull the statues of racist fuckers down, the better. They don’t embolden the racist fucks as much as the racists fucks in washington do (and they too should be pulled down), but every visible sign that killing blacks is okay means more dead blacks.

30

I agree, and have read articles and stores and do empathize, but I disagree with you in the sense that reading a book or news story or watching a documentary is not the same as living it every day for your entire life.

I have successful black colleagues who have been pulled over many times simply because they’re black and they’re driving an expensive car. I drive the same car and I’ve never once been pulled over.

Even though I hear their stories and do my best to empathize, it will never the same as experiencing it.

31

Pulling down statues is a message to TPTB that something needs to change before we run out of statues.

32

I have to admit that I read your OP twice and I still have no idea what point you think you are making. Even your arguments make no sense. If I see a helicopter in a tree, I might think that the pilot fucked up, or that it got shot down, or that a flock of birds hit it, or lightning struck, or any of a hundred things. We can make guesses based on experience for trivial matters, but for most important things actual evidence trumps guesses. Making evidence-free guesses based on experience is exactly what gets people of color killed at a rate three times that of whites.

Others have made excellent points about the powerful symbolic meaning of statues honoring traitorous bigots. It’s hard to think of a worse example to trot out for criticism for not being a strongly worded letter in the Times. Which again brings me back to failing to understand what in the world you’re talking about.

33

I’m glad it’s not just me who can’t follow the plot in this thread. :smile:
Maybe I should have read the spoiler.

34

Ok, let me try again. There are three main points here. (Well, I’d call it two and one side point, but let’s keep it simple.) No analogies.

One. We should all say all of the cool shit we each think would be helpful stuff for people like (but also including people other than) Black Lives Matter to try to accomplish, because none of us has thought of everything and there’s a lot, lot, lot of stuff that needs to be done. Then we can all give whatever each of us wants to give of ourselves, to whichever of those zillion things we feel like doing.

Two. We should acknowledge that, while all of those zillion things are good, some of them are MORE good than others, and even collectively we are not capable of doing all of them at the same time, especially since we have evil enemies. (See point 3.) If it doesn’t look like I’m advocating for anything, it’s that it doesn’t really matter what I think, when I’m not who’s important here. People are dying and getting beaten in the streets for being who they are. They get to say what’s most important. They don’t HAVE to tell me or you or anyone WHY they think that, but if they did, it would help me (us) understand and give us more energy to support those causes.

Three. (What I’d call the side point.) We have evil enemies. They and we are pretty close, historically, to tied right now in the main fight (voting for government control.) We SEEM to be building a lot of momentum, but then again, last time we actually ran the tests, the winner was the single most stupid and evil creature I have had the displeasure of seeing. (Well, the most stupid; evil goes to Mitch McConnell.) If those enemies can, however wrongly, convince the swing votes to vote for them, then they win. And, if they can make us look stupid – and we shout down everyone who questions us at all, while the enemy brings them to the dark side because they have cookies – we are damaging our cause and helping those zillion good things not to happen, because Trump is the fucking president again. And some of us are doing a fair bit of that and should stop.

That. Analogies were for illustration because, when I tried stating literally all of this in the other thread, it was a communication fail of the highest order and I was trying to figure out a way to stop people from misunderstanding me. Analogies, in my experience, help with that, but “directly state what the hell you are talking about” is ALWAYS a fair request, so here you have it.

35

Have you thought about spending less time dictating 3 points on this message board, and instead, going out and doing actual things that might help?

36

…I’m not dictating anything? I do do good, but I’d prefer to do better, and I know I don’t know the best about how. I’m asking for perspective on what those things might be, and for insight on why if it’s available, because I think that helps us all.

Oh, and to clarify this, I certainly don’t imagine that points one or two should happen in this thread. If I’m advocating for any specific action here, it’s that if YOU, or the next poster, think that action x needs more attention than it’s getting and that I or others could be of any use, it would be awesome if you’d say that in another thread, because what the fuck do I know but then I’d know more.

Edit: Oh, and point three needs saying because some loud voices on our side are increasingly insistent on deciding that anyone who so much as asks a question are secretly the enemy in disguise, and that provably, in some cases, MAKES them so. That is bad and should stop.

37

Fair enough. But pick something to do, and then say “Hey, I’m doing this, who wants to join me?” If you did that, or asked this board “What can I do?” and then thought about the answers that would be good too. I mean, if you say “I spent 10 minutes on this and the other OP in between helping the homeless or whatever” than that’s great! If you spent a lot of time trying to explain your reasoning to a message board, then just forget it. You seem like someone that wants to help people. Explaining your reasoning here is not helping. If you think people worrying about statues is a waste of time, then that’s what you think. Pick something that you think is better and do it, and ask for others to help you.

38

This is the part I don’t get. I know people are saying that analogies are confusing the point, but I’m going to drop another one because it’s pretty straight-up direct and on point, rather than being about helicopters. It’s also the only way I can think of to illustrate without causing bad feelings by looking up real-life examples.

Let’s say you do advocacy work for Planned Parenthood as well as other charities. And let’s say I know you, and think you’re a good guy (which analogy is extended to most of the posters on this board), and I ask you one day what’s a good idea for charity work. You say, “Planned Parenthood.” I ask you why. You tell me you don’t owe me an explanation of jack, and I should either jump on board or go pound rocks. I try and ask a follow-up question, and you tell me to just pick something at random that I think I ought to do, if PP isn’t good enough for me.

That does not seem to me like an effective advocacy technique, nor does telling me to pick a cause at random. I asked YOU because I thought, as a known charity worker, you might be able and willing to try to explain which charity you thought was most worth my money and time. If you did that, I wouldn’t think you meant that all other charities were worthless.

“Pick something that you think is better and do it, and ask for others to help you” is exactly what I’m asking the readers of this thread to do right now. I’m asking people on a discussion board to discuss things, and provide us all with information we didn’t have about things we can do that are important, because the world seems to be in a very “get important shit done” mode and I’m not arrogant enough to assume I know what the most important shit is.

I could just go pick a random cause, and I think I’d do okay, but I also think we’d all be better off if we reasoned together about what we could all do better, and accepted the reality that we just plain can’t do everything at once. We can do thousands of things, but there are millions that need doing, and if you or anyone else (most importantly the people actually being affected and beaten and dying) know of something others like me don’t, then explaining it might convince us to help with THAT instead of a random task.

Also, if you’re the sort who assumes anyone who asks you for reasoning is a troll – which you, manson, are NOT doing, to be clear, but it does happen rather more than it ought to – then that is not actually helping. If anyone would like examples of
our side devouring their own, drop the classic “Cite?” and I’ll swing a dead cat around the internet and hit a few dozen.

I don’t know how else to explain it.

39

Oh, you also sort of asked about what charity work I do besides arguing on the internet. Fair cop. Only reason I didn’t mention it in this thread is because doing so in the other thread made it look like it’s about me, when that’s the opposite of what I think. But since you did ask, to quote myself, “I’m a BLM-marching, Planned Parenthood donating, pro-UHC-protesting, public-education-demonstrating-in-front-of-the-Supreme-Court speechmaking liberal fooldaddy.” I care; just let’s all share opinions on what to care about, and THEN we can all pick, with better information.

40

But I wouldn’t tell you that. If you ask for someone’s opinion and they say “I don’t owe you an explanation of jack” then that person is a moron.

A person who truly believes in what they are doing to help people would tell you “I help out Planned Parenthood because I think they do good work. They provide advice, medical procedures and [whatever]”

Then they would say “You want to help that cause?” and then you pick whether or not you want. It’s not that difficult.