Facts are Cool

[jimhines]

After reading John Scalzi’s post on SWM being the lowest difficulty setting in the game of life, and then reading the 800+ comments, I figured I’d join the crowd who decided to write a response. So I’ve dug up some information for those commenters who seemed to completely lose their minds…

I’ve done my best to find reliable, objective sources for

Comments

[cathschaffstump]

And you know, to start things off, it's always good to talk about educational opportunities, especially for people who have yet to explore this issue.

NOT for supremacists.

http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com/

If you can't make the conference, at least you can learn where to find out more.

Catherine

[tooth_and_claw]

I don't understand the logic of "acknowledgment of racial disparity = being racist". I really, really don't. I get people *think* they are being more fair when they say they don't see sex or color, and I get that people think they would never discriminate despite all evidence to the contrary. But I cannot cognate why someone would think discussing these things perpetuates them. Can anyone explain?

[akiko]

Because acknowledging that race exists, to these people, is Bad. If you pretend race doesn't exist, you can pretend that racism doesn't exist. Discussing race means you're reifying it, see.

[jimhines]

It hurts my brain too. I came across the "You're being racist by talking about race!" argument in Scalzi's comments, and ... just WTF? Best guess is that it comes from the mindset that you're supposed to be colorblind, and therefore any open acknowledgement or discussion of race is racist, regardless of context or content.

Which ignores all of the problems with the "colorblind" approach...

[rimrunner]

I think it does. I can just remember, when I was very young, that this was still sort of the conventional wisdom, and I think maybe people around my age (mid 30s) and older might have this lingering notion that the colorblind approach is the best. (I actually heard this from a co-worker in her 60s during a diversity training last year. The diversity coordinator, bless her, treated the assertion with grace and tact. I'm sure she's heard it all before

[sksperry]

I have no doubt that everything you say is true. All I know is that careerwise, as a member of Canada's Military anyone can have what I have no matter thier minority status, gender and sexual preference. (Okay, handicapped people--maybe not.)
As a matter of fact, if you're a woman or a visible minority the military would try harder to recruit you, offer you more incentives to enlist, and give you bonus points on your evaluations just because. Your odds of being promoted are better. Of course, the big draw back is you have to be in the military.

[akiko]

In the US military, women are raped, and when they report it, they're ignored.

[sksperry]

Which is why I'm thrilled to be Canadian. As a former recruit instructor, I had at least one male recruit thrown out of the military for coping a feel on a female recruit.

[jimhines]

Once again, I am sad that LJ has no "Like" button for me to click...

[_ocelott_]

Yesterday Karen Healey wrote a fantastic post in response to the "ok, I'm privileged... what do I do?" question.

[starcat_jewel]

Scalzi framed it in video-game terms, which is fine. But I think there's one bit that might be clearer in a role-gaming context: Straight white men get an automatic +3 on all Luck rolls.

Another piece of this is that the American mythos doesn't recognize the Luck factor. You're supposed to be able to do well just by hard work and determination; this is what powers the vanity-publishing industry, among other things. Skill is de-emphasized, and the value of "being in the right place at the right time" even more so. But in real life, Luck plays an important part for everyone, and straight white men have an automatic Luck advantage.

[mtlawson]

I'll agree to that Luck modifier, although it might be set a tad low.

[rimrunner]

My recent commute listening was The Drunkard's Walk, which is all about randomness, so I've been thinking a lot lately about this very thing. There's a large homeless encampment near my house in Seattle right now, and a rather vocal subset of neighbors who insist that the people living there are doing so because they want to be in the circumstances they're in. Otherwise, they wouldn't be there, right?

Or, equally pernicious, the idea that if you're in a bad situation you deserve it as a consequence of making bad choices-which completely ignores both the luck factor and that those with resources are better able to recover from bad decisions. I've made equally boneheaded decisions as some of my poorer friends, but they've suffered more for theirs than I have for mine. To say that they "deserve" that suffering and I don't strikes me as cruel.

[barbarienne]

Indeed! And yet, if people with bad luck and bad circumstances manage to "rise above" them and succeed, they still don't get any extra appreciation!

The same sort of people who would contend that disadvantaged people are at the bottom by choice, don't see any difference in the achievements of, say, a black man raised by his single mom and his grandparents making it to the highest political office in the USA before the age of 50; and a white guy born to wealthy-wealthy-wealthy parents who handed him a job that he turned out to kind of suck at anyway, and yet still he got to hold that same office (and another one of his ilk is the current challenger for the office).