Category: privilege

7 Okay, now drop what you’re doing and go read THIS

December 14, 2011
by Crommunist
· anti-racism · blog · critical thinking · privilege · race · racism

Maybe I should give up the blogging game and just re-direct everyone’s attention to what other, better writers are doing. Ta-Nehisi Coates, a brilliant writer on matters racial and historical gives us a different grasp on the same story as last night’s ridiculousness. In this piece, which is definitely worth reading in its entirety, he implores us to employ what he calls a “muscular empathy”:

This basic extension of empathy is one of the great barriers in understanding race in this country. I do not mean a soft, flattering, hand-holding empathy. I mean a muscular empathy rooted in curiosity. If you really want to understand slaves, slave masters, poor black kids, poor white kids, rich people of colors, whoever, it is essential that you first come to grips with the disturbing facts of your own mediocrity. The first rule is this–You are not extraordinary. It’s all fine and good to declare that you would have freed your slaves. But it’s much more interesting to assume that you wouldn’t and then ask “Why?”

A few years ago there was a murder on a Greyhound bus. A severely deranged man took a knife to the throat of one of his fellow passengers and severed the man’s head. The rest of the passengers fled and trapped the assailant inside the bus until police could arrive.

I cannot count the number of people who declared themselves to be the reincarnation of John Rambo, and the many ways in which they would have stepped in and stopped the murder rather than fleeing the grisly scene. To all of them I replied “unless you are specifically trained to run TOWARD someone with a knife, you would have done exactly what everyone else on that bus did – tried to save yourself.” The trick is not to simply assert that we are better people, and therefore racism is beneath us – it’s to train ourselves to run toward problems rather than away from them. It’s to reprogram the way we think about not only ourselves, but the situations that produced us.

It’s to build our empathy muscles.

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3 Everyone drop what you’re doing and go read this

December 14, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · privilege

Greg Laden absolutely FRICASSEES an article that, if privilege was a liquid, would be dripping with it:

Much of this may be true. Certainly, libraries often do have computers and kids can have access to those computers. And so on and so forth. But, again, we need a reality check. There are three things you need to know. First, the Po Black Kids in the inner city already knew this. If you have ever gone to an inner city library you would know that they know it. If you go to the library in the inner city before it opens on the weekends you’ll see this line of Po Black Kids outside and around the block, regardless of weather, waiting to get into the library. There, they are herded into waiting areas by the library staff and eventually given access to the computers, several at once, for limited periods of time.

Reality one: They know this and are doing it. Reality two: The 1%, in all their wisdom, have worked the system so that libraries around the country are generally closing, not expanding. The anti-tax lobby has shut down library after library. There is more and more need for what you are telling the Po Black Kids to make use of, and less and less of those resources to go around. And Reality three: They have been using the free technology all along, and it has helped, but it is not enough.

I swear, I miss ONE LOUSY DAY and Greg scoops me on the juiciest privilege puff piece I could hope for. Luckily, he got to it before I did, because he did a much better and more patient job than I would have. Go read it. He’s good.

33 Politically INcorrect? As though that was a good thing…

December 12, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · critical thinking · crommunism · gender · privilege · race

Over the past couple of months I have become more active on Twitter. While at first I used it primarily as a secondary RSS feed, with automatic updates for these blog posts, after a while I began to use it as a way of getting politics updates and rapid news on the Arab Spring uprisings. From there, it was a slippery slope down to constant updates from various Occupy sites and recording artists I particularly like.

As I’ve become more active (and after moving from the outer realms of anonymity to FTB), I’ve been steadily picking up followers of my own. Most are atheist/skeptics who I assume follow me because of the consistent reminders I put at the bottom of each of these posts. Others have, I presume, seen my full-throated defenses of Occupy or election reform politicians in the United States, or caught me uttering a particularly clever bon mot and thought I was worth checking out in greater detail.

I was perusing my list of followers one afternoon when I came across one who described hirself as, among other things, “politically incorrect”. This struck me as sort of an unusual thing to brag about. I have, on occasion, been caught describing myself as an “asshole”, because while I am constantly dissecting my language, I very rarely mince words. This is not bragging about my lack of restraint, but is intended as more of a wry observation on our tendency to prioritize tone over substance when evaluating each other.

The phrase ‘political correctness’ was common parlance in my upbringing during the late ’80s and early ’90s. By then, however, it had begun taking on a decidedly negative connotation – something akin to ‘thoughtcrime’. The spin on it was that whiny liberals were hopping up and down on semantics, getting hot under the collar over linguistic non-issues. Plain spoken folks were, as a result, forced to tiptoe across a minefield to make even the simplest of points. Political correctness was a muzzle that prevented the free exchange of ideas, and to buck the trend and declare oneself ‘politically incorrect’ was a bold and courageous move.

Even typing that made me feel ill. … Continue Reading

25 Africentric school approved in Toronto

November 22, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · culture · education · news · privilege · race

There are periodically – not often, mind you, but occasionally – points in race conversation when I am tempted to throw up my hands and say “you’re white, and you don’t get it! Just accept that I am right!” Oftentimes race issues require so much unpacking – privilege, history, demographics, sociology, the list goes on – that a seemingly innocuous topic or opinion actually takes a monumental effort to resolve.

Of course my “job”, as someone who blogs explicitly about race as I do, is to do such unpacking so that anyone can walk their way through the argument. Most of the time I am game for this, particularly if I can refer the person back to some article or another that I’ve written in the past. I recognize that the conversation doesn’t get completely explored in the span of a single blog post, and I get e-mails from people telling me that my work here has helped them change their minds about some race issue or other (those are really appreciated, by the way).

But there are periodically points in this conversation where I just want to cop out and say “because I’m black and I’m right, dammit!” One of those times has just reared its nuanced and complex head: … Continue Reading

3 Why are you hitting yourself? Part 7: Summary

November 7, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · conservativism · critical thinking · privilege · psychology · science

This is part 7 of an ongoing discussion of a paper by Jost, Banaji and Nosek discussing System Justification Theory. Read Part 1. Read Part 2. Read Part 3. Read Part 4. Read Part 5. Read Part 6.

So on Thursday I finished up with the last sections of the paper, but I didn’t get to do the wrap-up post that I wanted to (time crunch – abstract submission deadline followed by dinner immediately after work, with friend who then asked for a full explanation of the entire OWS movement… it was a long day for my brain). So I’m going to take this opportunity to bring this series to a conclusion.

Why System Justification Theory?

Older psychological models to explain human behaviour focussed on the relationship between individual ego motivation, and group allegiance. The central understanding was that people would tend to demonstrate in-group favouritism and out-group hostility. In the same way we tend not to see ourselves as bad people but vilify the actions of others, we would do the same for groups with whom we did and did not feel allegiance.

The problem with this theory is that it fails to explain a common and seemingly-inexplicable finding: that people often tend to demonstrate an asymmetric bias toward people in high-status groups, even to the point of abhorring their own group. If it was a rare occurrence, we could just chalk it up to “well some folks is crazy”, but when it’s consistently observed in many different populations under experimental conditions, it becomes something that needs looking at. … Continue Reading

4 Why are you hitting yourself? Part 6: SJT writ large

November 3, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · gender · privilege · psychology · race · religion · science · skepticism

This is part 5 of an ongoing discussion of a paper by Jost, Banaji and Nosek discussing System Justification Theory. Read Part 1. Read Part 2. Read Part 3. Read Part 4. Read Part 5.

We left off exploring the consequences of conflicts between how we see ourselves in context of a group, and of how we see the society we live in. There is, the authors suggest (and demonstrate as described in the previous 5 installments of this series), a strong drive within us to reconcile our self of self-worth, in-group approval, and societal outlook. It has the somewhat idiosyncratic effect of causing us to harbour ideas that may work directly to our detriment, but allow us to align these three desires (through the use of stereotyped thinking). Aside from resulting in the advantaged staying at the top, it also leaves those at the bottom with increased psychological issues.

Up until now, our exploration of the specific hypotheses stemming from System Justification Theory has been focussed on individual-level attitudes and effects. In the final section of the paper, the authors explore some of the larger themes that are explained, at least in part, by the desire to approve of the status quo. Most skeptics will be familiar with the concept of cognitive dissonance – it refers generally to a brain state in which we are trying to reconcile two contradictory beliefs. Believers in a deity have pioneered a wide variety of methods to resolve cognitive dissonance – the most popular is the notion of “faith”: recognizing that something is logically impossible but believing it anyway. Throughout this whole discussion, but particularly in the previous installment, we see cognitive dissonance being a key component of the wacky outcomes of SJT. … Continue Reading

5 Why are you hitting yourself? Part 5: this post is entitled

November 3, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · health · privilege · psychology · science

This is part 5 of an ongoing discussion of a paper by Jost, Banaji and Nosek discussing System Justification Theory. Read Part 1. Read Part 2. Read Part 3. Read Part 4.

We left off last week discussing the relationship between where one stands in the power dynamic, and how we see those at the top. If we are part of the high-status group, we have an implicit bias toward ourselves, where as those in the low-status group have an out-group – which also favours those at the top. When pressure is high to justify the status quo, we reach for stereotypes and facile explanations to rationalize why things are the way they are. Interestingly, insofar as this effect (called system justification) is identical to political conservativism, we see these biases exacerbated in people who confess to being conservative.

One of the advantages of having the kind of education I did (broad-based – a hard science candy shell with a delicious nougaty humanities core) is that I can draw on a variety of analogies when trying to impart unfamiliar concepts. Most of you have taken at least some science courses, so you will perhaps be familiar with Boyle’s Law which states, among other things, that gas will expand to fill its container. It’s that concept I want percolating in the back of your mind as we charge forward through our exploration of System Justification Theory. … Continue Reading

15 Why are you hitting yourself? Part 3: this post contains implicit content

October 27, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · LGBT · privilege · psychology · race · racism · science

This is part 3 of an ongoing discussion of a paper by Jost, Banaji and Nosek discussing System Justification Theory. Read Part 1. Read Part 2.

We left off last week looking at the ways that factoring in someone’s desire to approve of the way the world works (“I like things the way they are”) will lead her to defend the status quo, even if that status quo puts her at a disadvantage. The authors suggest 5 different mechanisms by which this effect might be seen: 1) rationalizing observed events by seeing the likely as the desirable; 2) using stereotypes to rationalize differences in power between groups; 3) using stereotypes more often when there is a cognitive ‘threat’ to the status quo; 4) accepting explanations regardless of their legitimacy; and 5) misremembering those explanations as being more legitimate than they are. When these factors work in parallel, we can explain much of the seemingly-idiosyncratic ways in which members of disadvantaged groups will sometimes defend the very system that holds them down.

In this installment, I will be delving into their discussion of what is one of the recurrent themes within my own analysis of racism: the fact that many of these mechanisms operate below the level of conscious awareness. Freud postulated the existence of three separate agents within the mind: the ego, the superego, and the id. His argument was that while conscious beings were able to be aware of their actions, many of the things that influence our behaviour happen without our even realizing it. While this idea has been around for decades and has a great deal of face validity, it is often ignored when we examine why people around us behave the way they do (another psychological concept called the Fundamental Attribution Error). … Continue Reading

2 Occupy Vancouver – a second perspective

October 17, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · First Nations · history · news · politics · privilege

This morning I alluded to a fact about the “Occupy Vancouver” movement, indeed the Occupy movement as a whole, that has not yet pierced the popular narrative – the fact that we are choosing to ‘occupy’ land that is already occupied in a very real way. Vancouver, the city I love, is basically existing in a perpetual and overblown state of “squatter’s rights”, wherein the land is governed by people who have no legal claim to it. The irony, therefore, is that the act of standing up for the little guy is happening on land that is owned by the littlest guys in society, by the same people who have a hand in that group’s oppression.

I consider myself a First Nations ally, in the same way that I consider myself a LGBT ally or a women’s rights ally – I am aware that there are serious problems about which I have a superficial understanding. I come to this particular position by recognizing the vast and numerous similarities between Canada’s First Nations and the struggle for mainstream acceptance of black people. My support for the recognition of their rights is, in my mind, no different than my fight for equality for myself. My role as an ally is simple: to advocate when I can, and listen when I am being spoken to. In that vein, I would like to offer this signal boost to what I think is a phenomenal article about some of the ‘forgotten’ issues underlying Occupy Vancouver:

… Continue Reading

10 News blast: the race edition

September 28, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · history · privilege · race · racism

Yesterday there were a bunch of stories that, each on their own, would have made for excellent blog posts. However, in the interest of not deleting them because of insufficient time to address them in depth, I presented them all to you with a brief comment. The week has not gotten any longer, nor my schedule any freer, so I am going to do the same this afternoon, this time about race stuff:

UC Berkeley Campus Republicans host racist bake sale:

Campus Republicans at the University of California Berkeley have cooked up a storm of controversy with their plans for a bake sale. But it’s not your everyday collegiate fundraiser they’ve got in mind. They’ve developed a sliding scale where the price of the cookie or brownie depends on your gender and the color of your skin. During the sale, scheduled for Tuesday, baked goods will be sold to white men for $2.00, Asian men for $1.50, Latino men for $1.00, black men for $0.75 and Native American men for $0.25. All women will get $0.25 off those prices.

“The pricing structure is there to bring attention, to cause people to get a little upset,” Campus Republican President Shawn Lewis, who planned the event, told CNN-affiliate KGO. “But it’s really there to cause people to think more critically about what this kind of policy would do in university admissions.”

Not being able to do this story full justice pains me, because nobody is more deserving of being torn a new asshole on the internet than Shawn Lewis right now. First of all, this isn’t an original idea – these kinds of bake sales happen all the damn time. But, because people are morons, they don’t bother to adapt their approach or their argument when it has been thoroughly skewered. Many people have been bringing up the idea that people should just round up a bunch of Native American women, take all the baked goods, and then sell them at a profit. That would, perhaps, better approximate the history of racial ‘fairness’ in the United States (albeit in reverse). Stunts like this, which are inaccurately named ‘satire’, serve to illustrate how lopsided the treatment of different racial groups has been throughout the history of the Americas, and how certain people simply refuse to get it.

Banana thrown at black hockey player

The NHL called it “stupid and ignorant.” Flyers winger Wayne Simmonds said he was “above this sort of stuff.” A banana came out of the stands in London, Ont., on Thursday night as Simmonds was skating towards Detroit goalie Jordan Pearce in a pre-season shootout. Simmonds is black.

This is the thing about racists: they’re just so funny! Hahaha! A banana! Get it? He’s black! Black people are like apes! Apes like bananas! HAHAHA!

The sigh-inducing aspect of this story is the number of people who took to the internet to defend the guy who threw the banana. “What if he was just planning on eating it, but then got angry and threw it?” Not only would it be a staggering coincidence that someone brought in a whole shit-ton of bananas to a hockey game and just happened to have one left right at the end of the game (through overtime, no less) when the only black person on the ice was taking a solo penalty shot, but who the fuck brings fruit to a hockey game? What is this guy, some kind of health nut with an anger-management problem and an ironic sense of timing?

On a positive note, it is being condemned by pretty much everyone in clear, unequivocal terms, and hasn’t seemed to ~~phase~~ faze Simmonds much [seriously, Crommunist? What the fuck, dude? – props to Beauxeau]. Also, he scored the goal, and Philadelphia won the game 4-3.

Africville Trust director loses her job

The controversial new executive director of the Africville Heritage Trust is out of the job already. Carole Nixon has stopped working for the organization, but trust chairwoman Daurene Lewis wouldn’t say Wednesday if Nixon had been fired. “She’s no longer with the organization, and this is a personnel matter and any speculation (on that) would have to remain confidential,” Lewis said in an interview.

Regular readers will remember this story from last week. Carole Nixon was appointed the director of the Africville Trust in Halifax. One of the issues swirling around the appointment is that while the story of Africville is essentially the generations-long oppression of a black minority by an unforgiving white majority, Carole Nixon is a white woman. It is an interesting story where compelling arguments can be made on both sides: can an outsider truly represent the values of a community, particularly this one? Is it right to restrict jobs to only those of the ‘correct’ race or nationality?

All that discussion has been rendered hypothetical by this dismissal, which may not be for the reason you suspect:

Newspaper clippings from the St. Catharines Standard in Ontario outlined Nixon’s departure from four jobs, including her firing as executive director of the Burlington (Ont.) Downtown Business Improvement Association in 1989 and the City of Toronto’s employees association in 1995. In 2000, the Standard reported, she abruptly stepped down as executive director of the St. Catharines Downtown Association, and in 2002, she was reportedly fired as development director in Watertown, N.Y.

This one’s going to court, I’d imagine.

If someone wants to pay me to do this full-time, I will be able to devote the requisite amount of attention to each of these stories and more that cross my desktop. Until such time, you’ll just have to make do with these brief summaries and my sincere apologies.

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