Texas State Newspaper writer fired for racist column

[Tribble]

@ Straha

Also, do you think the change you are advocating for can happen without violence? If not, do you feel that violence would be acceptable to achieve what you are looking for?

[Ziggy Stardust]

Part of that means coming to terms on some basic concepts, the concept that the article being discussed advances is: Whiteness is not okay. Part of that is: White people being here is a historical wrong, it should be undone. Once that's settled the details of how to undo are complicated and require an intense hashing out and dialogues, that's fair. But it doesn't change the principle that whiteness ought be undone. I don't think to defend any one of many possible paths to do this to defend the question, as the article does, that Whiteness ought not be.

<snip>

There is a disease, it needs to be cured. We can hash out the cure after come to the same page that it needs to happen because those are two different discussions.

Quoted this primarily because I think it is a concise summary of the main argument you've been making.

I think the problem with this ontological construct of "whiteness" is that it is is conceptualizing "whiteness" as an immutable and indivisible entity, when in reality it is a rather fluid (and evolving) concept. Historically, for example, we've seen the categorical boundaries of "whiteness" shift in response to other social, cultural, and/or economic phenomena; Irish and Italian communities, for example, have changed from being "non-white" to "white" in the way they relate to race (from a structural standpoint, not a genetic one, I mean).

This begs the question, if "whiteness" as a construct can change over time, then why is complete destruction of the current structure the only possible solution to the problems it poses, as you claim? If it can be shown that other structural changes in society can have profound enough effects to force a re-orientation of the parameters of the construct, doesn't that imply the possibility that the construct in and of itself is more an emergent property of the system than some permanent underlying principle?

The notion that "whiteness" is really just a function of class struggle (and more specifically the response of the ruling class to such a struggle in order to maintain societal control) is pretty old hat in this field of inquiry, as I'm sure you are aware.

Of course, you could easily argue that the example of the Irish and Italians is not a fair comparison with the experience of colonialism or slavery, and that the socio-economic forces that allowed for local re-definition of "whiteness" with respect to these communities are likely insufficient to overcome the far more massive structural impediments imposed upon African-Americans. But it seems to me that once we allow for at least limited, local changes in the notion of "whiteness" over time, there's no a priori reason why we can't at least entertain the notion for larger changes that don't necessitate complete destruction.

[Soontir C'boath]

If I may answer the question myself, I think continuing multiculturalism as well as acting on economic equality will be the answer. New York City as liberal as it is considered, is still frankly racist against blacks even if we don't admit or realize it, but as generations of different humans continue to intermingle inside cities as well as small town America we will continually see a shift in perception especially for whites that leave small town America for the city life. Also, it's only really been the past half century or so that immigration from non-white nations have come and it will likely take several more decades if not centuries to mix properly in which then black is just another color. It does have to come with economic equality for minorities like blacks as well so they they can escape or better yet, improve their neighborhoods further.

The other and more active path is of course mass constant protests that may just as well devolve into riots which is a matter of when if nothing changes.

Of course, you could easily argue that the example of the Irish and Italians is not a fair comparison with the experience of colonialism or slavery, and that the socio-economic forces that allowed for local re-definition of "whiteness" with respect to these communities are likely insufficient to overcome the far more massive structural impediments imposed upon African-Americans. But it seems to me that once we allow for at least limited, local changes in the notion of "whiteness" over time, there's no a priori reason why we can't at least entertain the notion for larger changes that don't necessitate complete destruction.

No, it's not a fair comparison because immigration of poor folks who come "to take your job and lower your wages" has always been problematic. The shift is mainly due to the fact that people from non-white nations started to come in greater numbers which gave them an easier target to bullseye on.

Little Italy may have served its purpose as a safe haven for a time for the Italians fresh off the boat, but it is now a shadow of what it once was. The same cannot be said for black neighborhoods.

[Straha]

Straha, do you think that the change you are hoping to see could realistically happen anytime in the near future?

I don't know.

I don't mean that to duck the question. It's a fair question. I just don't know. I'm reminded of something Ursula Le Guin said: "We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings." I take heart in that.

Also, do you think the change you are advocating for can happen without violence? If not, do you feel that violence would be acceptable to achieve what you are looking for?

Frantz Fanon would say that Violence is inevitable and good. Wilderson would probably say it's inevitable and ongoing around us. He goes out of the way to not be prescriptive about things like this.

If you mean violence from above... Obama being followed Trump is no coincidence. The White majority in the United States (and the rest of the World) has a hair trigger and uses it frequently and without warning. There will probably be attempts at violence from above.

If you mean violence from below... I don't know. I don't think there needs to be. I'm hopeful in many ways. But, I don't think I would bet too strongly against it either.

[Straha]

I think the problem with this ontological construct of "whiteness" is that it is is conceptualizing "whiteness" as an immutable and indivisible entity, when in reality it is a rather fluid (and evolving) concept. Historically, for example, we've seen the categorical boundaries of "whiteness" shift in response to other social, cultural, and/or economic phenomena; Irish and Italian communities, for example, have changed from being "non-white" to "white" in the way they relate to race (from a structural standpoint, not a genetic one, I mean).

Paul Frymer makes the argument pretty powerfully that while certain communities may have been seen through suspect eyes by White people already in the United States legally and nationally they were still viewed as White and were afforded opportunities and protections thereof. For him, and for others, the internecine fights inside Whiteness were often skirmishes around economic claims (access to neighborhoods and jobs) and not structural antagonisms that define the Settler-Colonial process. That's why when those economic pressures alleviated on the Italians and Irish those issues receded from popular consciousness while Black ghettoes and anti-Black policing never went away.

This begs the question, if "whiteness" as a construct can change over time, then why is complete destruction of the current structure the only possible solution to the problems it poses, as you claim? If it can be shown that other structural changes in society can have profound enough effects to force a re-orientation of the parameters of the construct, doesn't that imply the possibility that the construct in and of itself is more an emergent property of the system than some permanent underlying principle?

Because you have to win the claim that Whiteness' fluidity is productive and not pernicious. Just about every historical shift in Whiteness was a way for it to justify its future existence and shield itself from introspection, and it often let people in to maintain a consensus based on oppression. I don't see why we should give it another chance at that.

The notion that "whiteness" is really just a function of class struggle (and more specifically the response of the ruling class to such a struggle in order to maintain societal control) is pretty old hat in this field of inquiry, as I'm sure you are aware.

I may be a Wobbly but I don't buy that.

Of course, you could easily argue that the example of the Irish and Italians is not a fair comparison with the experience of colonialism or slavery,

Pretty much on the nose there.

and that the socio-economic forces that allowed for local re-definition of "whiteness" with respect to these communities are likely insufficient to overcome the far more massive structural impediments imposed upon African-Americans.

Also here.

But it seems to me that once we allow for at least limited, local changes in the notion of "whiteness" over time, there's no a priori reason why we can't at least entertain the notion for larger changes that don't necessitate complete destruction.

Why should we? What good is there in the concept of Whiteness that we ought preserve?

[Alkaloid]

I haven't been able to find a link to the article, just the retractions so if someone has one they could post I'd appreciate it.

Straha, I'm not going to pretend to be well educated enough to argue the terminology with you, but could it be said that the 'White' and 'Black' cultures you're referring to here could be more accurately described as 'American white/blackness'? I find that anecdotally, one thing I see in Australia is indigenous youth, especially in cities, beginning to associate more strongly with what I can only really describe as 'Black American' culture rather than indigenous cultures. That's really a superficial observation on my part at best, and I have no doubt that it is in no small part due to the almost complete lack of decent education about culture or history in Australia generally, but at the same time it fits a pattern across the western world and particularly the Anglosphere of 'American' culture slowly but surely drowning other regional cultures, indigenous or not.



On an entirely unrelated topic, one reason I'd like to read the column is that but the reaction to it I suspect it fits a an unfortunately common pattern that the left, and I think particularly the American left is falling into at the moment. That is, one where a person actively damages their movement by not only failing to engage the public, but doing so in such a way that they leave their entire cause massively exposed for a retaliatory strike from their target, or anyone else who feels the need to take a shot at them. In this case, even if the article is written entirely in good faith (although given my exposure to student politics and journalism of all stripes I suspect there is a good chance the article was written and the editors made the decision they did specifically to troll a certain student body) and is technically correct in the philosophical context, it's can be rolled out for the next decade any time someone wants to have a shot at, say, Black Lives Matter. "Back people hate white people and want to exterminate us because of our DNA" might be a disingenuous argument, but it is and easy argument to make and it resonates with the otherwise unengaged a whole lot more than the four odd pages of posts here do. Now they have an article they can point to for 'proof' as well.

This doesn't just apply to race, or published articles either. Talking about economic theory with no other selling point doesn't help you engage someone who has never learned about economics in a theoretical fashion, and covers most voters. Talking about how great the work antifa does is becomes pointless because most centrists are already afraid of antifa. They need to exist, but the only time most people should ever even consider them is when the countercharge some brownshirts and crack their skulls, brining them up any other time just remind most people that there is a group of 'scary' black clad 'thugs' associated with the left.

Mainstream left movements seriously need to start publicly dissociating themselves from people who actively damage their cause. Tolerance of ideas is great, but at some point you need to sell yourself as a potential leader to an entire population, you can't just preach to the converted. That means taking control of the way you present yourself to the world, and not allowing that message to be distorted. to do that, you need to get some reins on people who publish articles that are stupidly vulnerable to effective retaliation, it includes moving away from idiots who think they are advancing their cause by wearing black hoodies and vandalising the local shopping centre, and even in some circumstances people like TRR and his paranoid histrionics. (Note that this doesn't mean no protesting. Movements like BLM and the women's marches are important and useful, but they do need to be coordinated)

It's a pretty brutal calculation, but it's one of the reason the current brand of white supremacy has been able to rise. Even if they don't disagree with some militia in the backwoods who are looking for someone to lynch the won't let them selves be obviously associated with them. They know that would scare off the centrists, and they need centrist apathy if not support to succeed. The only way to counter that is to make your movement more appealing to centrist than theirs, and step one in that is not allowing yourself to look scary or stupid unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

[Thanas]

A.) Historical acts of conquest involved, as a rule, a recognition of preexisting legal relationships to land and preexisting governmental structures. To use the example of Britain, the successive conquests all recognized that there were preexisting governments there and mostly simply replaced the top structures of those governments. So when William the Conqueror comes in he might kill the King and kick out some nobles but the majority of the old nobility sticks around while the government changes its functioning language. Further, when William the Conqueror comes in the vast majority of the people who live in England are left there. Their relationships to their lords and their relationship to land is recognized as legitimate. Put simply: the conquest establishes itself on historical continuity that recognizes the existence and history of England. This sort of approach is how most conquests operate across Eurasia, even groups like the Mongols recognize the legitimacy of the governments they are deposing and often continue those relationships. The times where this is not true, the first Crusade for instance, are noted historically as being aberrant and often abhorrent to outside observers.

A nitpick:
Even in Europe the instances where previous ties to the land where not honoured were increasing during that time - usually tied to religion. See for example the treatment of the moors in spain, the hugenots in France, the Catholics in the Dutch Netherlands, Protestants/Catholics/Others in England and both Catholics and Protestants in the HRE after the principle of cuius regio, eius religio got enacted. This was treated as abhorrent by enemy states, but the principle that conquest may follow people relocation is not an uncommon one in the 15th century onwards. Your examples are all true for the middle ages but this is not when colonialism happened.


And it also might have been more common than you think during the middle ages, especially with how slavs treated their conquests and during migration periods accompanied by military force, for example the treatment of the Vendish people.

[Simon_Jester]

This conversation is absolutely fascinating because it seems like there are two sides using two different dialects of academic English who are using words that connote absolutely different meanings to each other. Having interacted with people of both sides, it's interesting because I can somewhat imagine they probably want the same thing, but that language barrier prevents any sort of understanding.

In my opinion, a faction can only go so far in the direction of postmodernism before it winds up at the Tower of Babel- unable to coordinate a large project because of mutually unintelligible subfactions.

Furthermore, it's unclear what Straha personally actually wants, since he appears to be cheerfully presenting the opinion of someone else he disagrees with about important things as though it were his own, and cheerfully using those opinions to justify yet other opinions that he himself has said are actively torpedoed by the use of a single solitary word within them ("DNA").

As to Straha, unfortunately all I have time to reply to right now is his reply about what he'll say later when he has more time...

Like, not a semi-metaphorical postmodern construction of "race war" where the losing side has a bunch of people unfairly thrown in jail and has to live in the crappy neighborhoods and the police unjustly shoot several thousand people a year. The literal kind of war. where large, organized bodies of armed men round up people by the millions and evict them from the country at the point of the bayonet. The kind where, when predictable resistance to such events arises, blood runs in rivers in the streets.

I'm going to respond to you in full later, I just want to flag that the way you have this written comes across as you minimizing both the carceral state and police shootings of Black Men. At best it's jarring, at worst it's... Beneath you and probably should be, at the least, addressed and revised.

See, the reason I'm "minimizing" it is because while it is objectively terrible and should end literally as soon as possible, a real war of extermination or expulsion between large racial groups is something like 100 times worse.

It's like the difference between getting mugged and getting murdered. Mugging is terrible. Anyone who personally experiences a mugging has personally experienced a bad thing that may harm them grievously. No one deserves to get mugged. It is a bad thing. If all muggings stopped literally tomorrow, that would be entirely, unambiguously a good thing.

And yet, I would rather be mugged a hundred times than simply straight-up killed. Most mugging victims agree with me, which is why when they are given the choice "your money or your life," they choose "money."

If I saw a group of people start promoting the idea that the correct response to muggings was for all mugging victims to stalk their muggers and later commit murder-suicide with said muggers... I would have a lot of objections to that. Not because mugging is not bad, but because there is such a HUGE distance on the continuum of 'badness' between the outcomes "somebody gets mugged" and "two people are dead."

...

Many of your philosophical positions on this issue seem to have an element of binary, dualistic thinking: things are either bad, or not-bad. Correcting a bad thing is not-bad. Different bad outcomes aren't necessarily commensurate, so all you do is pick whatever feels like a good way to 'fix' a bad thing, and by definition whatever consequences result are fine because correcting a bad thing is not-bad, so you can just post a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ emoji about the consequences and breeze past them.

Me, I see degrees of badness on a continuum, because I have to, because I cannot simply say "well, muggings are bad, and murders are bad too, so meh, it's okay if a bunch of murders occur in a probably-failing attempt to prevent muggings."

So basically, if you are uncomfortable with me 'minimizing' the carceral state and police killings of thousands of innocents, don't suggest an alternative that's likely to end in something like the Rwandan genocide.

Because yes, I will explicitly affirm that I consider the carceral state and police killings of thousands of innocents to be relatively minor, compared to the prospect of a scaled-up version of the Rwandan genocide happening all over North America. I was not the one who put that much worse option on the table, though. I am not raising it as some kind of red herring or distraction. I am objecting to it because it is the consequence I perceive logically following a course of action someone else seems to think is a good and just remedy for the carceral state.

Like, not a semi-metaphorical postmodern construction of "race war" where the losing side has a bunch of people unfairly thrown in jail and has to live in the crappy neighborhoods and the police unjustly shoot several thousand people a year. The literal kind of war. where large, organized bodies of armed men round up people by the millions and evict them from the country at the point of the bayonet. The kind where, when predictable resistance to such events arises, blood runs in rivers in the streets.

I'm going to respond to you in full later, I just want to flag that the way you have this written comes across as you minimizing both the carceral state and police shootings of Black Men. At best it's jarring, at worst it's... Beneath you and probably should be, at the least, addressed and revised.

This is why I don't like the lesser of two evils mentality. As long as there's always something worse possible or dare I say just imaginable for that matter, the current status quo of injustice turns to be justifiable as long as there's even a bad peace to be had. It's the kind of thinking where as long as you don't rock my boat, things are ok, but that's simply not true for many others.

No see, that's completely missing my point, which is that I am responding to the specific ideas of a specific group

I wouldn't be trotting out this "well, the carceral state is less bad than the Rwandan genocide!" argument just any old time. It is not a generic defense I bring up every time someone says "hey, we should do something about the carceral state, because it is super shitty." In fact, I don't think I've ever brought it up that way in my life. My usual reaction to "we should do something about the carceral state" is "yes, yes we should."

It is specifically something I point out because I am specifically worried about the specific, detailed consequences of a single idea. Namely, the idea of races being ineluctibly pitted against each other so that the only option is eternally escalating violence and the deliberate blowing up of any 'bridges' that might enable dialogue between the two sides.

Because see, that kind of approach tends to lead to millions of people butchering each other with machetes and mountains of skulls. And moreover it doesn't even work if the goal is to secure the rights of the minority. Because when it comes down to a machete-butchering contest, the side with more numbers and resources tends to "win" by butchering all its enemies.

So basically that's it.

If someone says "we should fight the carceral state with mass amnesties/judical reform/abolition of the plea bargain/you-name-it," most of the time I wind up agreeing.

If someone says "we should fight the carceral state by burning our bridges, salting the Earth, and starting the countdown to a genocidal race war of all against all," I wind up disagreeing, for the same reason I'd be opposed to treating a case of pneumonia by removing the patient's lungs. It's not that pneumonia isn't objectively very bad, it's that in spite of that badness, the condition of having no lungs manages to be even worse!

[ray245]

I don't know.

I don't mean that to duck the question. It's a fair question. I just don't know. I'm reminded of something Ursula Le Guin said: "We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings." I take heart in that.

I just feel like there's a difference between making an academic argument and translating that into an actual successful policy. I'm not sure if Ursula Le Guin's quote about the divine right of kings becoming rejected is a good example. The notion of a divine right is merely replaced by other ideologies that can be equally, if not more brutal.

Policies are very rarely a result of pure principle or morals. They are very much an accommodative process in trying to construct an environment where different groups can meet on some middle ground.

[Soontir C'boath]

Simon, my interpretation of Straha's argument does not level as far as you think you do. As I read it, the point he is trying to make is that before any actual reforms and reparation can truly occur, white people must recognize that they do not belong to the lands they have taken over OR that they recognize that their ownership of the land is to be met with the feeling of at the very least unease since as it stands, whether the people on this board identify with or not, it is an ingrain part of the American White identity on the whole that needs to be dispelled. Not that they as a people need to be deported or destroyed.

And it is an ongoing war as we speak as we've seen with the Dakota Access Pipeline wherein the due process in approving it was disregarded by Obama and stalled it long enough to let Trump take the blame. Native land is still to this day being taken away from them. Which furthers Straha's point that we cannot treat these circumstances as historical and we have to recognize that before moving on. I myself find it's a crucial concept that needs to be observed and recognized before we can truly fight for reform. Otherwise, we all, myself included, are just belching hot air.

[Soontir C'boath]

This doesn't just apply to race, or published articles either. Talking about economic theory with no other selling point doesn't help you engage someone who has never learned about economics in a theoretical fashion, and covers most voters. Talking about how great the work antifa does is becomes pointless because most centrists are already afraid of antifa. They need to exist, but the only time most people should ever even consider them is when the countercharge some brownshirts and crack their skulls, brining them up any other time just remind most people that there is a group of 'scary' black clad 'thugs' associated with the left.

It is interesting that you bring up Antifa, because they are a fantastic example of how the opposition can disingenuously label them falsely. They are not a violent group, but they have certainly been played up as being as such in the media which does furthers your point that the left cannot allow their movements to be distorted, but in the end, they are whether they tip toe or not. This has already been done with BLM as well and why we have Blue Lives Matter.

[Soontir C'boath]

Now, I didn't include a response to the charges of violence and up-punching in the previous post since that seems to be more of a derailment of the thread from what was actually discussed, but I will now. Let me start by saying that I have no clue whether Fax, Simon, etc or even Straha, are white. However, I will say that the reaction to Straha and the article as a call to violence is indicative of the starting point the conversation can be had wherein the threat to white identity is already considered a violent attack which lines up with what I have read from other people who have tried to have a constructive conversation. It is a starting point that is not just inherent in racists, but in regular folks as well.

Though I will say, I find it is on similar lines to how people who may agree with racist policies, but do not consider themselves racist, because they see those policies as uplifting and helpful rather than harmful. When people disagree and call them out on it, they are then left wrongfooted and have their identity attacked that seems or will become physical in their mind which is a response that is not surprising, but at the same time cannot be avoided as we see in this thread as we would like. I really wish I can remember where I've read about this so I can post about that kind of reactionary response here.

[Simon_Jester]

Now, I didn't include a response to the charges of violence and up-punching in the previous post since that seems to be more of a derailment of the thread from what was actually discussed, but I will now. Let me start by saying that I have no clue whether Fax, Simon, etc or even Straha, are white. However, I will say that the reaction to Straha and the article as a call to violence is indicative of the starting point the conversation can be had wherein the threat to white identity is already considered a violent attack which lines up with what I have read from other people who have tried to have a constructive conversation. It is a starting point that is not just inherent in racists, but in regular folks as well.

I'm not worried about the threat to white identity.

I'm worried about trying to have a conversation with people who are actively trying to sabotage the rules of order of the conversation in the interests of triggering a race war. Especially if it's a race war that the sympathetic side would probably lose due to sheer weight of numbers.

Simon, my interpretation of Straha's argument does not level as far as you think you do.

I am genuinely unable to parse this sentence; either it uses common English words in a manner I am unfamiliar with, or it elides some words that were rather important to the meaning.

As I read it, the point he is trying to make is that before any actual reforms and reparation can truly occur, white people must recognize that they do not belong to the lands they have taken over OR that they recognize that their ownership of the land is to be met with the feeling of at the very least unease since as it stands, whether the people on this board identify with or not, it is an ingrain part of the American White identity on the whole that needs to be dispelled. Not that they as a people need to be deported or destroyed.

The problem is that no clear boundary is being drawn between:

1) "Whites should stop feeling like they have a perfect right to monopolize the fruits of a land that their ancestors stole from others and developed with the help of slave labor,"
2) "Whites owe a great deal more consideration than they now give to the rights and interests of racial minorities, who were abused horribly in the past and are still being abused on an ongoing basis in ways civilized society ought not tolerate for a moment,"
3) "Whites should not live in North America,"
4) "Whites are evil mutants who are an abomination upon the Earth," and
5) "Whites should die."

I consider (1) and (2) to be objectively correct. But (3), (4), and (5) are at best super fucking unhelpful to literally everyone, there are a diverse array of reasons to consider such statements both false and useless, and they are massively disruptive to any useful conversation that is to be had about race.

Among other things, minorities promoting positions like (3) through (5) are sending a subtle message to the majority: "You'd better hope and strive to ensure we never have the power to act on these beliefs." That message is making it significantly harder to sell people on (1) and (2). Even if absolute loathing and eternal resentment against the unjust actions of whites is totally justified for said minority, the reality is that people promoting arguments like (3) through (5) are pissing in the collective Cheerios of their own side.

And that's a bad thing.

And it is an ongoing war as we speak as we've seen with the Dakota Access Pipeline wherein the due process in approving it was disregarded by Obama and stalled it long enough to let Trump take the blame. Native land is still to this day being taken away from them. Which furthers Straha's point that we cannot treat these circumstances as historical and we have to recognize that before moving on. I myself find it's a crucial concept that needs to be observed and recognized before we can truly fight for reform. Otherwise, we all, myself included, are just belching hot air.

See, if that's all Straha wants to say, then 90% to 95% of his verbiage is actively undermining his own thesis.

If the point is "we need to admit that injustices against racial minorities are ongoing and severe, and are not only some kind of monstrosity out of the mythic past," then that is a noncontroversial position. My concern here is that the choice of which arguments to advance and defend, and the ambiguity of key terms like "oppression" and "violence" and "conversation" are being used to support the "motte and bailey" approach to argumentation. In which a narrow and highly defensible claim is used to 'stake out' the underlying territory and act as though one has proved other, sweeping and indefensible, assertions. Equivocating between the two positions then becomes a way of selectively avoiding criticism of the indefensible claim.

So I am not very sympathetic to the idea that someone said something along the lines of "y'know, hitting 200 million people with an ethnic cleansing campaign wouldn't be that bad, because it happened before and it would just be remedying a past wrong to do it again" is just trying to say "we need to be mindful of ongoing abuses against racial minorities."

I mean sure, maybe he said that too, but that didn't sound to me like what he was saying primarily.

[Simon_Jester]

The problem is that Straha is trying to defend positions that include "I hate you, you shouldn't exist" and "your kind should be forcibly expelled from the country, it's only fair."

I believe that such positions have no place at the table. If only because as a practical matter, they lead to warfare, because to physically act on such opinions entails violence, and people tend to defend themselves against violence with more violence, at which point the discussion breaks down.

...

Lots of other positions DO have places at the table, including positions many whites are uncomfortable with.

For example, "white people owe every Indian a comfy living forever" strikes me as totally fair. I would be quite happy with a system under which every person of sufficient Native American ancestry (I don't know what fraction, and it would take some thinking to make it fair) receives a guaranteed minimum income equal to, say, the 75th percentile of American individual incomes, forever.

Now, that's just money. That wouldn't erase the realities of the massive ethnic cleansings and genocides that made the continent what it is. But it would at least begin to approach a condition that we could in good faith describe as "we're trying to make things fair."

And it could plausibly be implemented without re-enacting the Rwandan genocide, which is a big plus. I'm not down with trying to re-enact the Rwandan genocide, especially since the side with more machetes would probably win, and that would not serve the goal of justice for Native Americans.

...

"White people owe black people reparations for slavery" strikes me as totally fair. along similar lines. The only sensible conversation to have on topics like this are "exactly who qualifies and to what extent," and "how much can we actually afford without gutting our economy in a way that would 'fix' an injustice by creating an even worse problem?"

The answer to "how much can we afford" is not some disingenuous excuse to say "a pittance," by the way. I mean what I'm saying. I'm simply saying that there would probably have to be some limit on the reparations budget, if only so we don't forget to maintain the roads, or to run the schools, or to keep the postal service running, and so the economy doesn't collapse into a state that can't provide anyone with anything.

...

My problem here is very specifically and concretely with eliminationist stances of any kind, and to viewpoints that are incompatible with a non-eliminationist stance.

Because if we try to apply a sort of Kantian universal imperative thinking to eliminationism, the result is a bloody-handed war of all against all. And realistically, one that will be won by whoever has the most guns, which is not what we want and certainly not a good way to achieve justice for minorities.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Paul Frymer makes the argument pretty powerfully that while certain communities may have been seen through suspect eyes by White people already in the United States legally and nationally they were still viewed as White and were afforded opportunities and protections thereof. For him, and for others, the internecine fights inside Whiteness were often skirmishes around economic claims (access to neighborhoods and jobs) and not structural antagonisms that define the Settler-Colonial process. That's why when those economic pressures alleviated on the Italians and Irish those issues receded from popular consciousness while Black ghettoes and anti-Black policing never went away.

Under this model, what then is the precise definition of "whiteness"? On its face, it seems dangerously close to a No True Scotsman fallacy, where the construct is redefined to fit the hypothesis. I admit I'm not overly familiar with Paul Frymer's work so I apologize if I misinterpret his words, but it seems to me that a lot of his theories around the intersections of land policy and race during the westward expansion of the United States actually support my interpretation more than yours ... though I'll return to that point in a second.

Because you have to win the claim that Whiteness' fluidity is productive and not pernicious. Just about every historical shift in Whiteness was a way for it to justify its future existence and shield itself from introspection, and it often let people in to maintain a consensus based on oppression. I don't see why we should give it another chance at that.

What historical shifts are you referring to, specifically? It seems to me that the 20th century has seen a productive trend in Whiteness' fluidity, even if a relatively moderate one. One can readily acknowledge the oppressive structures inherent in, say, the Reservation system while still acknowledging that it is less pernicious than the outright genocide that had previously been the norm. One can acknowledge the great advances of the Civil RIghts Movement while also still acknowledging that anti-black racism is still a major problem.

Further, this line of reasoning is still making the implicit assumption that Whiteness is a structural force with agency, rather than an emergent property of a more complicated cultural and economic system as I had alluded to in my previous post. To return to the Irish/Italian example, why would we a priori assume that their shift in status was due to a pernicious attempt by Whiteness to further its own interests rather than the natural evolution of the construct in response to changes in the underlying cultural/economic system?

I may be a Wobbly but I don't buy that.

Regardless of whether or not you buy it, are you at least familiar with the basic argument? It's not a perfect model by any means, nor am I endorsing it as the "correct" one, but it's still a valid and well-discussed one.

Further, to return to Paul Frymer, it seems that his work is at least broadly in line with this argument. He notes the ways in which the land policy during westward expansion was wielded as a means of control, to reinforce the existing power structure. Government policies like the Homestead Act and Armed Occupation Act were used to engineer a settlement policy to enforce social order and undermine resistance to that order among the oppressed. This doesn't sound all that different from what I said.

Why should we? What good is there in the concept of Whiteness that we ought preserve?

That depends on how precisely we are defining "whiteness" doesn't it? And whether you are interpreting it as a structural entity in and of itself or rather as an emergent property.

For example, a very unprincipled way to define "whiteness" is as an umbrella term for every bad thing that currently exists in American society, regardless of the specific mechanisms that give rise to those things. If you define "whiteness" that broadly, it becomes useless to talk about preservation or destruction of the construct, because it ignores the basic fact that there will always be bad elements of society just due to the inherent nature of how such structures operate (unless we move the discussion to technological singularity and post-scarcity, but that's clearly making a completely different type of argument). That definition has absolutely no use, even academically; it's so broad that all you are doing is arguing semantics over whether we call bad things "bad things" or "white things", and telling everyone that we should destroy "bad things" isn't exactly a coherent philosophy.

[Simon_Jester]

Just off the top of my head... Are the works of Mozart part of "whiteness?"

If not, why not?

[Tribble]

Just off the top of my head... Are the works of Mozart part of "whiteness?"

If not, why not?

Would something like music depend on whether or not it is being used as a tool for oppression? Or is the mere fact that any music which originated from outside North America and from a "white" culture means that it is inherently part of the problem and should be removed?

[Simon_Jester]

See, my thought here is that getting a workable definition of 'whiteness' would be a lot easier with some test examples. Easy enough to say that unjust imprisonments and police beatings of minorities are part of whiteness, then say whiteness needs to die. Question is how much needs to die with it for it to be dead, if we're defining the problem as "whiteness" and not "racism."

[loomer]

Just off the top of my head... Are the works of Mozart part of "whiteness?"

If not, why not?

Presented without comment, but with much giggling.

[Simon_Jester]

Well see, I'm not really worried about random babbling by random people. What I'm getting at is, does "whiteness" as a... thing... get defined to include things like cultural artifacts of overwhelmingly racial-white societies? Where is the boundary between "this thing is a part of the bad institution of whiteness" and "this is a thing white people happen to do, or happened to do at some time, but that is not intrinsically part of 'whiteness?' "

[loomer]

The problem is that a very great deal of the dialogue around Whiteness is defined by discourse not much higher or refined than the ol' Black Mozart there. It's why it's hard to get a read on where the boundaries lie, especially when we step outside the work of academics and critical theorists with an actual clue and into the broader use of the terms. It's where the unironic 'White people (without differentiation from Whiteness and white skin) have no culture' stuff comes from. Same phenomenon that ruined privilege discourse.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd settle for knowing how Straha defines the term, if he's going to be present to debate using it.

The main reason for this is because one of those basic rules for "have productive discussions that aren't just one person browbeating another for shits and giggles" is "don't equivocate between different meanings of words, and don't equivocate between advancing a 'narrow' argument versus advancing a 'broad' one."

Arguments whose rhetorical content is on the level of "well, we all agree that a ham sandwich is better than nothing, but clearly nothing is better than eternal happiness, so a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness!" don't belong at the grownups' table.

...

Terms like "whiteness" and "black culture" are vulnerable to this problem. And I suspect this is deliberate on the part of both amateur and professional race theorists. Because there's almost no incentive to invent new, clearly defined terms that don't result in ambiguity when used in the context of existing terms. And by exploiting new terms that are thus ambiguous, if you're deft enough and smug enough, you can say pretty much whatever you want, while denying your opponent any chance to even make a coherent counter-argument.

See my mention of "motte and bailey" argumentation from earlier. That's how you get arguments like:

"Religion shouldn't have a role in politics, it leads people to do terrible things and enforce their will on others. Religious people get mean when they're in power."

"Hey, I just believe in revering God, my conception of the natural love, harmony, and order in the universe, according to what I feel deep in my secret heart!"

"Oh, well that's okay, guess I can't argue with that."

Then the faithful go right back to agitating to have all the gays dragged off to re-education camps, having successfully used the 'motte' of "I believe in love and faith" to maintain control of the 'bailey' of "I have a right to enforce upon society all the values and prejudices of a mean-spirited old televangelist who got them from another mean-spirited old televangelist who got them from..."

Here, "God" is the term being defined very ambiguously. When "we should do what God says" needs defending, the term is defined to mean something most reasonable people wouldn't object to heeding; when the concept doesn't need defending it gets defined very differently.

...

And yes, this kind of thing can/does ruin privilege discourse. Privilege is a great concept, and very useful in discussing how things work. Until you hit a tragedy of the commons as people start deliberately abusing its ambiguity as a weapon, saying "everyone in this group is terrible because they're privileged," or "I am right and the person I'm talking to is wrong specifically because they're privileged" or "my intersection of minorities is more disprivileged than your intersection of minorities, therefore I get to pull metaphorical rank on you."

At which point one has to try and rein things in, and one finds it very hard to do so, because the people trying to use the concept of privilege as a bludgeon have the easy recourse of running back to the noncontroversial definition of privilege as parables about dogs and lizards.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Terms like "whiteness" and "black culture" are vulnerable to this problem. And I suspect this is deliberate on the part of both amateur and professional race theorists. Because there's almost no incentive to invent new, clearly defined terms that don't result in ambiguity when used in the context of existing terms. And by exploiting new terms that are thus ambiguous, if you're deft enough and smug enough, you can say pretty much whatever you want, while denying your opponent any chance to even make a coherent counter-argument.

Indeed, this is one of the major criticisms of the type of race theory Straha is talking about even in academic circles. It is a fundamentally postmodern line of inquiry that rejects the notion of even the possibility of objective truth, relying on narrative rather than any notion of generating and testing rational hypotheses about the way these ontological systems operate. It also often falls into some version of the slipper slope fallacy (or perhaps another one): a common tenet of these theories is that since Western legal systems have in the past been used to codify racist laws, the entire notion of Western legal jurisprudence (and Enlightenment thinking in general) is in and of itself inherently racist and beyond redemption.

It is, ironically, often criticized with being a racist philosophy to boot. Besides the fact that it relies on an essentialist view of race, whereby the experiences of all people who belong to a certain category (black, white, whatever) are reduced to that of some sub-group of that category, it also has a long history of anti-Semitism and anti-Asian overtones (even, arguably, anti-Hispanic, since "Latino critical race theory" arose as a competing narrative specifically in response to the fact that the traditional race theorists ignored the experience of non-black minorities).

That isn't to say that there hasn't been interesting or worthy philosophical work coming out of this field, but the notion that it is unequivocally the "right" way to understand race and power structures (as Straha appears to be arguing) is patently absurd.

[Straha]

I haven't been able to find a link to the article, just the retractions so if someone has one they could post I'd appreciate it.

Straha, I'm not going to pretend to be well educated enough to argue the terminology with you, but could it be said that the 'White' and 'Black' cultures you're referring to here could be more accurately described as 'American white/blackness'? I find that anecdotally, one thing I see in Australia is indigenous youth, especially in cities, beginning to associate more strongly with what I can only really describe as 'Black American' culture rather than indigenous cultures. That's really a superficial observation on my part at best, and I have no doubt that it is in no small part due to the almost complete lack of decent education about culture or history in Australia generally, but at the same time it fits a pattern across the western world and particularly the Anglosphere of 'American' culture slowly but surely drowning other regional cultures, indigenous or not.

There are certainly other people who would be better suited than I to discuss Australian Indegenous culture and the way colonization has effected it. I think there is something about the... rootlessness, perhaps, of Black culture in America that makes it appeal to listless teenagers across cultures.

Whiteness, the structural framework that legitimates and furthers the Settler-Colonist project, is not just an American (North and South) phenomenon, indeed it predates America by sometime. It's also the structural position inside societies that allowed for colonization to take place in Africa and Australia. Those positions were often more extreme than America's as in South African colonial states and even in Australia until the mid-70s (i.e. White Australia, the lack of bans on Racial discrimination, and the Flora and Fauna act). The antagonism in America is distinct but not unique.

Blackness is certainly not just an American concept. See the Above, and also South American politics in Brazil, Guyana, the Caribbean, et al. I will flag I'm not qualified to discuss the nuance(s) of those particular sites.

Mainstream left movements seriously need to start publicly dissociating themselves from people who actively damage their cause. Tolerance of ideas is great, but at some point you need to sell yourself as a potential leader to an entire population, you can't just preach to the converted.

I think Soontir dealt with this pretty well, I'm going to use this to elaborate a little on an argument he made about how the structure of race means that protests are read as fundamentally destabilizing but anti-black violence isn't. You call on the Left to disavow Anti-Fa and other violent groups. Okay. Will you call on Liberals, Centrists, and the Right to disavow the Police, Criminal Justice System, and Prisons?

There has been ample documentation for generations, and especially in the past five years thanks to DoJ reports, that Police (especially urban police) engage in systemic violence disproportionately targeting Black people, both in terms of shootings and physical violence but also in terms of enforcement tactics. The District Attorneys and Courts then punish Black defendants with disproportionate number of convictions compared to White defendants and sentence them to far harsher punishments. (The plea bargaining process often makes this speedy, offering white defendants little or no punishment while forcing Black defendants into a Hobson's choice of prison or penury during trial followed by a likely prison stint.) While police who kill Black people by and large escape punishment and, often, even trial. The prisons themselves are violent horrifying messes and often sites of servile labor of a majority black populace.

Minority trust in Police and the system is low, and complaints rage about this. Generations of reform have achieved precious little, and rampant militarization and pushback from the police towards reformist groups is doing nothing to lessen the violence. Yet they are recognized by the political elite as not just as legitimate entities but groups beyond reproach. The most common defense is that it is a few bad apples forgetting both the sheer staggering amount of statistical data that proves it's systemic not contingent and that the end of the phrase is "A few bad apples spoil the bunch."

So, if the Left must disavow its 'violent' actors because they are seen as threatening must the liberal/centrist/conservative wings denounce the police? If the answer is no, that the police have be to recognize and protected through moderate 'reform' as opposed to abolition or fundamental reconstitution (for instance, abolishing prisons, rampantly changing the criminal justice system, and forcing police to operate within a new and very restrictive role) then how can they be setting themselves up as leaders of communities who are victims of the police?

A nitpick:
Even in Europe the instances where previous ties to the land where not honoured were increasing during that time - usually tied to religion. See for example the treatment of the moors in spain, the hugenots in France, the Catholics in the Dutch Netherlands, Protestants/Catholics/Others in England and both Catholics and Protestants in the HRE after the principle of cuius regio, eius religio got enacted. This was treated as abhorrent by enemy states, but the principle that conquest may follow people relocation is not an uncommon one in the 15th century onwards. Your examples are all true for the middle ages but this is not when colonialism happened.

All of those groups were pre-existing inside the state. They were already under jurisdiction to the France/the Netherlands/et al. and then had rights taken away from them that recognized the continuity of both the Government they were under and also recognized that there was a rupture that allowed for the violence to be committed on them. Put more simply: There was no conquest, they were already inside and subject to laws.

Violent as that is I think that's fundamentally different than the arrival of Colonists in the Americas where it was treated as if things had been discovered ex nihilo and where people were subject to control where they had never been subject before.

The expulsion of the Moors from Spain is, perhaps, the most telling here. Moorish rights in Aragon, for instance, were recognized for generations while laws were gradually changed to expel them. That process of recognition, legislation, and expulsion never happened in the Americas because it jumped straight to expulsion.

[Thanas]

All of those groups were pre-existing inside the state. They were already under jurisdiction to the France/the Netherlands/et al. and then had rights taken away from them that recognized the continuity of both the Government they were under and also recognized that there was a rupture that allowed for the violence to be committed on them. Put more simply: There was no conquest, they were already inside and subject to laws.

Violent as that is I think that's fundamentally different than the arrival of Colonists in the Americas where it was treated as if things had been discovered ex nihilo and where people were subject to control where they had never been subject before.

The expulsion of the Moors from Spain is, perhaps, the most telling here. Moorish rights in Aragon, for instance, were recognized for generations while laws were gradually changed to expel them. That process of recognition, legislation, and expulsion never happened in the Americas because it jumped straight to expulsion.

Then I think you really need to take the part about spanish colonialism out of this argument, because they recognized existing structures and existent nobility. For example, just look up the dukes of moctezuma.