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Author | Topic: The war of atheism | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
The problem with Crash's position isn't the idea that discrimination is exerted through the possession of privilege per-se. It is his insistence that a specific form of privilege is required in order to qualify as a specific sort of 'ism'. I think the following exchange demonstrates this:
Straggler writes: To qualify as sexist (according to your argument) does the privilege in question have to be gender privilege (rather than any other form of privilege)? If so - Can you provide a real-life example where a a woman has gender privilege specifically over a man (rather than being in possession of other forms of privilege such as socio-economic-privilege)? Because as I understand your argument a situation such as a female boss demeaning or mistreating a male employee because she considers men inferior to women wouldn't qualify as sexist because her privilege is professional-positional rather than sexual. Is this correct? Crash writes: I think that's probably fair. But again that seems like a situation you've constructed to confound a clear idea of the privilege differential, not something that actually happens. Typically discriminating against men on the basis of their sex isn't something women are ever in the privileged position to do. It's only in vanishingly rare circumstances where that's even possible. Straggler writes: No matter how rare it may or may not be be in practise you seem to have defined your way into a situation where a person behaving in a way that would very definitely legally qualify as sexual discrimination (and which all of the people you are arguing with here would recognise and classify as sexist) fails to qualify as sexual discrimination simply because the perpetrator happens to be a woman. And it is this sort of broad brush appraoch to applying 'privelige' that is the catalyst for the strong reaction you have received here. It's because your position is seen as leading to obvious absurdities such as a man-hating-boss mistreating male subordinates because of her anti-male prejudice not qualifying as sexual discrimination or sexism when by any sane definition it must (regardless of how rare such a situation may or may not be). I haven't discussed racial discrimination with Crash in this thread. But if you were to ask him to give an example of a black person racially discriminating against white people in present-day-America or put to him the scenario of a black boss in modern day America blatantly discriminating against white subordinates on the basis of their race he would be equally forced to contradict the fact that this is blatantly, and very definitely legally, a case of racial discrimination. Because in modern day America black people as a race don't possess the sort of race-privilege Crash requires for a black individual to be racist towards a white person no matter what other forms of power they may or may not have over them.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
I agree with you.
To determine whether racial discrimination has occurred using Crash's "model" you first need to sort the various races into a sort of hierachy of privilege. In modern America Crash would presumably put white at the top and black at the bottom with Hispanic, Indian, Oriental etc. jockeying for position between the two (this is the impression I get from his posts)
Crash writes: Racism is discrimination on the basis of race, and discrimination always refers to privilege. Crash writes: Privilege is all relative, which is why an Asian can be racist against a black person but not really against a white person. (Arguably, black people have the least racial privilege of the major races in the United States.) So if an Indian guy calls an oriental guy a slanty-eyed cunt and refuses to give him a job on the basis of the colour of his skin or an oriental guy calls an Indian guy a smelly-Paki and refuses to serve him in a restaurant due to his skin-colour then everybody here except Crash can see that both are racially discriminating and being racist. But in Crashland we have to ask whether Indians or Orientals have greater racial privilege in modern America before we can decide who is and isn't being racist.
Oni writes: It is utterly ridiculous. Yup.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
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Crash's use of the term "privilege" is derived from a certain sort of academic sociologists use. It is most commonly referenced in (some) feminist circles but can be applied to race, sexuality etc. etc. The following example is from a feminist blog mentioned earlier in this thread.
quote: quote: Feminism 101 Blog Thus in modern western society women cannot be sexist towards men because men as a class possess privilege based on sex. Thus in modern western society blacks cannot be racist towards whites because whites possess privilege based on race. In modern western society homosexuals cannot discriminate against heterosexuals on the basis of sexuality because heterosexuals possess privilege based on sexuality. And so on and so forth. As the wishy washy liberal that I am I'm not entirely un-sympathetic to the well-meaning intentions behind this attempt to definitionally provide some sort of redress for historically derived inequalities. But ultimately I think despite it's well meant intentions it actually achieves the opposite by classifying certain groups as victims. I also think foisting academic and ideologically driven definitions that contradict both common and legal conceptual meaning is doomed to failure. At the very least advocacy of these sociological-academic definitions is certain to inflame much derision outside the rarefied circles that they originate from because they just don't conform to the real world. Most notably in the form of discrimination laws that we all have to adhere to.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Scenario 1: An Indian guy calls an oriental guy a slanty-eyed cunt and overtly refuses to give him a job on the basis of the colour of his skin.
Scenario 2: An oriental guy calls an Indian guy a smelly-Paki and overtly refuses to serve him in a restaurant due to his skin colour. In the eyes of the law both of these are examples of racial discrimination. Everyone here except you recognises both acts as racist. 1) By the terms of your argument here which (if either) of the Indian guy or the Oriental guy possess race-privilege? 2) By the terms of your argument here which (if either) of the above scenarios qualifies as racial discrimination and is recognisably an act of racism?
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
It's the modern day US.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
New York City.
AbE - Given the pedantic clarity being requested I should also point out that by 'Indian' I mean a guy of Indian descent rather than native American. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
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Scenario 1: An Indian guy calls an oriental guy a slanty-eyed cunt and overtly refuses to give him a job on the basis of the colour of his skin.
Scenario 2: An oriental guy calls an Indian guy a smelly-Paki and overtly refuses to serve him in a restaurant due to his skin colour. Every participant in this thread, other than Crash, can identify these acts as obviously racist. Our accepted and evidence based method of identifying whether or not racial discrimination has taken place (i.e. the application of discrimination laws) would indisputably class these as acts of racial discrimination (in both the US and throughout the EU) Yet Crash's privilege "model" results in the following response when asked if the above scenarios constitute acts of racial discrimination:
Crash writes: I dunno. Scenario 3: A man-hating-boss is mistreating male subordinates because of her anti-male prejudice. Giving them the worst shifts, verbally abusing them, publicly demeaning them, making offensive comments about their appearance and sexuality. Crash's response when asked whether this constitutes sexual discrimination:
Crash writes: What makes it discrimination on the basis of privilege that accrues according to sex and therefore sexism? That's what I still don't get. Yet - again - The law and anybody with a sensible view of discrimination can recognise this as sexual discrimination and sexism. So on one hand we have Crash and his rather esoteric and obscure academic definition of discrimination. And on the other hand we have the real life application of discrimination laws. Unsurprisingly Crash has failed to convince anyone here that obvious, and indeed legally defined, acts of discrimination should be re-classified because some ideologically driven sociologists want to define things differently.
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