(05-06-2021 10:36 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 10:15 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 09:52 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 07:37 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 07:02 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Woke racism is a systemic problem

(Our local SJWs may skip reading this, but if they do read it, I would like their opinions on the policies noted.)




America's woke Left lectures the rest of the population almost daily that racism is evil, and that they are the ones fighting it. Yet, their ugly and racist reactions to Senator Tim Scott's (R-SC) speech demonstrate that the woke Left is no different from the very racists they condemn.

Democrats in Congress wrote a special clause in the "American Rescue Plan," a federal COVID-19 relief package, instructing the secretary of agriculture to provide debt relief to farmers based not on concrete needs but on the color of recipients' skin.

At the local level, Democratic Oakland, California Mayor Libby Schaaf, announced last month that the city would hand out a monthly guaranteed payment to its Black and Indigenous families and other people of color ("BIPOC," as it is commonly referred to). But poor whites who live below the poverty line are not eligible.

According to The New York Times, woke "experts" openly spoke about how letting the older populations who are also whiter die helps "level the playing field." An infectious disease expert at Harvard even argued that teachers weren't essential workers because "they are often very white."


"white supremacy manifests itself in a focus on finding the right answer and demanding students to show their work." For the woke Left, anyone who insists that "2+2=4" is a white supremacist.

But the California Department of Education is moving full-speed ahead to eliminate calculus from high school curricula and cancel all gifted programs for high-achieving students. The movement is driven by the woke Left's crass belief that Asian students are over-represented in those programs, based on statistics such as this: "In California in 2004-2014, 32 percent of Asian American students were in gifted programs, compared with 8 percent of White students, 4 percent of Black students and 3 percent of Latinx students." Canceling gifted programs to prevent Asian kids' domination is the kind of anti-Asian bigotry that the woke Left doesn't want to admit.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines racism as policies and practices that "result in and support an unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race." By this definition, what the woke Left practices is racism. It seems that everything the woke Left does, regardless of its rhetoric, will result in unfair advantage for some and harm for others based solely on race.

related article

Got half way through before I stopped reading as I checked the source of this claim. From that article:

Quote: “Teachers have middle class salaries, are very often white, and they have college degrees,” he said. “Of course they should be treated better, but they are not among the most mistreated of workers.”

Yea, that clearly doesn’t argue that they are not essential workers because they are white, but the author spins that quote past the point of logic.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes...t.amp.html

The “woke” left often goes too far, and I think we’re starting to see some on the left begin to push back on that. But when an opinion piece contains such a glaring mischaracterization of a quote, it’s trash.

BTW - who are the SJWs on this board? Name calling isn’t exactly a good way to foster honest conversation...

The article was from Newsweek which as far as I know is not a biased publication. I know nothing about the author.

I am sorry you think SJW is name-calling. Interesting you would see that as a pejorative.

Everybody here is for social justice, but the ones who are most likely to support certain actions in the name of social justice, like many of those in the article, are the ones farthest to the left. But absolutely, nobody here is a social injustice warrior. At least in my opinion/definition.

I tend to agree with the Cambridge definition above. I think nobody should be advantaged or disadvantaged due to race - whether that race/ethnic origin is white, black, Asian, Hispanic, mixed, whatever. Some people do consider this brand of evenhandedness to be racist, and think policies discriminating on behalf of one race or another are better. Certainly a ripe topic for debate.

It was an opinion piece, which are inherently that, an opinion. I looked up the author and she is a senior contributor at The Federalist. But not really sure why that matters, or it being published in Newsweek matters. I pointed out a clear mischaracterization of a quote...

LOL at you trying to spin that SJW is not name calling or a pejorative. When have you ever heard of someone using it in a positive way? My experience is that it is used to attack people who others view as going to far in advocating for social justice causes.

The author can try and advocate for the definition of racism to minimize the negative connotation that has historically been associated with it, in order to neuter the term and try and fling it back on to a group of people she disagrees with. But she ignores and doesn't highlight the Cambridge definition that does just that:

- harmful or unfair things that people say, do, or think based on the belief that their own race makes them more intelligent, good, moral, etc. than people of other races

- the belief that some races are better than others, or the unfair treatment of someone because of his or her race

Merriam-Webster offers these definitions:

- belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
- behavior or attitudes that reflect and foster this belief : racial discrimination or prejudice
- the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another

But even so, defining programs that preference one group over the other, regardless of all historical context, as -ist (racist, sexist, etc.) is likely a very shallow take on the subject.

I do think, in a similar vein, we need to be careful that those programs do no create an environment where they become racist, sexist, etc. Do certain advantages or encouragements for group X begin to actively discourage or harm group Y as a whole in a systemic way. But we shouldn't cry "that's racist!" every time we see a portion of a program provide encouragement for things like women owned small businesses, veteran owned businesses, black owned businesses, etc.

So you reject out of hand my explanation. Good to know that you know my mind better than I do.

would you have preferred it if, instead of SJW, I had asked for the opinions of leftists, left-wingers, liberals, activists, or "The Left"? If so, consider the proper term as substituted.

I think SJW, like right winger, has certain connotations in the minds of some people. But I think we all here support the idea of racial equality. I, personally, don't support policies that discriminate on the basis of race - any race, and I know some here do - including some of the polices in the article. I guess in my mind, most SJWs are supporters of certain race-based policies that I, a different kind of advocate for equality, consider to be discriminatory. My solution is simple: treat everybody the same. Radical concept.