Trouble with rasfc

[aquaeri]

Last night, I began three separate rants against David Friedman's racism, and gave up, because nearly every attempt would invoke Godwin's Law. But I mean, when someone thinks Larry Summers was on the money with his suspicion that the shortage of female engineers is an intrinsic biological problem, and James Watson was on the money with his

Comments

[green_knight]

I'm surprised at Nicky's reaction, because she's generally good folk - I've known her for years, met her in person, and she writes about girls who can do just as much as the boys as a matter of course. She also usually has a low tolerance for bullshit.

I can understand that she got offensive when her kid was deemed to be homophobic (might have been thoughtless, but that doesn't make him homophobic - just a bad judge of words); but I don't understand why she's defending JLC and ripping into zeborahnz

I concur on DF - he's in his sixties, in a position of priviledge, and all advice and requests to at least mend his manners even if he won't change his mind have perled off him in the past.

JLC is becoming more dogmatic and less pleasant as time goes by, to the point where I find it impossible to have a normal conversation with him - every time I disagree he reaches for one of two replies: 'oh, you dislike me anyway' (quickly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy!) and 'well, that's how I am, you just have to put up with it because I shall not amend my words to mean the same thing as everybody else means by them.'

[aquaeri]

The vibe I get from Nicky is "You don't know how good you've got it, now shut up". My problem is I grew up believing that, and now it's becoming clearer to me that although things are better, it's important not to shut up, because some of the stuff still out there is insidious, not really in consciousness, and it's nasty.

(I don't know what to think. I was pretty left-wing when I was younger, and was assured I'd get more conservative as I got older. This does not seem to be remotely what's going on for me.)

We're going to have to disagree about the homophobia thing. Yes, the kid is thoughtless, but that's exactly part of what makes the situation so homophobic to me.

DF is a crackpot. Now he is holding forth on IQ with The Bell Curve as his source of reference. If I was trying to parody him, I couldn't have come up with that. It does put his fondness for Larry Summers and James Watson into perspective.

My personality flaw (I want to understand everything as much as possible) is really kicking in because I desperately want to understand how a human being can be like that.

[ailbhe]

(I don't know what to think. I was pretty left-wing when I was younger, and was assured I'd get more conservative as I got older. This does not seem to be remotely what's going on for me.)

Me either! I'm getting pretty extremist as I age. Of course, I'm not even 30 yet, but even so...

[aquaeri]

Well, I've now passed 40, and I'm turning into an opinionated and probably very irritating older woman. Because, so much stuff is so broken! It's so obvious! Why is everyone okay with all this capitalistic "free market" put-the-blame-on-the-individual crap which is fundamentally anti-human! etc etc

Thanks for putting me on your flist - I suspect I wasn't on because I joined alt.poly around the time you left - so I knew (from lurking) who you were and you had no clue who I was.

[zeborahnz]

I don't understand why she's defending JLC and ripping into [info]zeborahnz

I think she believes that, by being too radical, I will inspire a counter-reaction that will be harmful to women's rights.

I don't think she's noticed that the harshest counter-reaction I've inspired has come from her.

I can understand both that point of view (I once somewhat sympathised with it) and that lack of perception (certainly when I'm angry I don't notice how much of a git I get). Neither thing is confined to discussions of privilege.

So while I'm angry at the attitudes being expressed I'm not angry at any individual in the thread.

Also, California! Hard to be angry today.

[aquaeri]

Yes, I think some of that is going on. And I think her reaction is the strongest, because the unclued-in just remain unclued-in and confused about what's being said, whereas I think Nicky actually understands what we're trying to point at, and doesn't like the implications of how far away that place still is.

But, yes, yay! for California.