Edit: To those saying he apologized. Yes, he did - but only to a specific subset of those he insulted: ""First and foremost I extend my deepest and most sincere apologies to my Jewish sisters and brothers for the hurtful and divisive words that came out of my mouth during my interview with Richard Griffin,''"
Antiwhite statements are okay because whites are the oppressors and are in privledged positions of power. We need more Jews in leadership positions at influential organizations like media companies. Then we can promote more Jewish tolerance
> Nick Cannon apologized Wednesday night for comments he called "hurtful and divisive" after the television host and producer was dropped by ViacomCBS for remarks the company called anti-Semitic.
First sentence from your link, seems like maybe you are just trying to be controversial.
There are additional examples, but posting them and discussing the normalization of anti-white racism is "flamebait" and will get your account suspended on HN for "ideological battles".
In any case the fact that he hasn't been completely cancelled speaks to the unique status that anti-white racism has over other forms.
It is better to point out how it is counterproductive and offer better arguments on the table. Because we won't bring "balance" by stomping on some other ethnic group, or fall into even more generalization about groups of people.
> Instead of firing him, though, Google is moving Bobb into a STEM-focused role.
That's surprising, but I think it's good. He's obviously not viable in the diversity role, but there's no reason to go ballistic over a 15 year old blog post.
A major goal of a diversity leader in a tech-focused company like Google is to influence the behavior of engineers. A fellow engineer is often able to do that far more effectively than someone without a strong technical background.
> but there's no reason to go ballistic over a 15 year old blog post.
While I agree in principle I hope this is part of a new trend rather than an exemption for this case because his content is so much more offensive than anything Teen Vogue editor Alex McCammond ever said.
I don’t know. I’m not Jewish, but I’d have trouble working with someone with views like that. I guess if they were extremely contrite and enough time had passed since they had said it (and no other incident since then).
Sounds like you're the one with the problem then. He barely said anything offensive, just misspoke - if you look at the full blog post text, the intent is clear.
Yeah, seems like a good compromise. There's a big difference between "we don't want our spokesperson to say X" and "we want to make people saying X unemployable". I wish the second didn't happen at all. I wish all people saying things hateful to me could find nice jobs and get assimilated into live & let live. What else should I wish, that they'd die poor in a ditch and their kids too?
That's several steps beyond what most in society are capable of foreshadowing.
A society of mad kings (on all political sides) who want anyone not like them "taken away" with little solutions on actually fixing the problems that caused the disagreement.
I'm a Jew. If he apologized publicly and it was a long time ago, I think it would be ok. We have to be able to give people second chances and the ability to evolve their views. If someone was a neo nazi as a youth and grew out of it and regretted their past then they should be allowed to live a normal life. Preventing this just leads to more radicalization.
While in sentiment I agree with you, this is not being applied consistently throughout society. We are currently in an environment of maximum consequences, no tolerance afforded. Until something pulls us back from the brink, it needs to be that way consistently or more tensions will be inflamed.
You are not wrong in that enforcement is definitely applied inconsistently and with extreme bias with regards to race and gender. I struggle with the correct approach to take though and if its cracking down on everyone or hoping that this at least is a crack in the door and people will realize the current trend of punishing people for decades old comments is wrong and should be stopped. Unfortunately it is likely that the rules will just continue to be unevenly enforced stoking anger and further dividing people.
There’s lots of circumstances where you’ve gotta accept that your coworkers might believe offensive things. Imagine being a gay man and finding a devout Muslim on your team who wholeheartedly believes it’s wrong to be gay - if she’s willing to treat you respectfully and not bring it up at work, would you insist she be fired?
C'mon, if we go back 20 years, I'm sure A LOT of Americans wrote and said unspeakable things about middle eastern people. Same goes for a lot of Iraqi and Afghani people, after the invasion.
Point is - war and conflicts brings out emotions, and people say things they necessarily don't mean under normal circumstances.
What's more, people mature and change. The person you were 10-20-30-xx years ago, isn't necessarily the person you are today.
Being Jewish has nothing to do with Israeli state policy. Is that so difficult to understand? Some German living in the US in early 40s was not responsible for Nazis. What is wrong with people?
Lately it's seems to me simple logic has no correlation with technical ability. You're not a general genius Bob, you're just good at computers.
If that's the quote, damn, that is sooo wrong. Aside from the overt antisemitism, just replace whoever he is talking about with "X".
For any X, when they live constantly among existential threats, in particular other petro-states, who explicitly state that you should be "wiped off the map" and who use and fund impoverished neighbors to instigate and wage proxy wars against you, you should be extremely concerned if you and your nation do NOT prepare strongly by taking up arms in defense of themselves.
Characterizing a necessary defense posture as some kind of blood lust is just sick and ignorant.
Possibly, but the second statement points at the contrast between being a Jew and being an Israeli. For the "global lead on diversity strategy and research" of one the world's giant corporations, it's remarkably insensitive, of course, but then again, written 13 years ago.
Sadly the moment you call out Israel's human rights violations and ethnic cleansing you get automatically branded as antisemitic on all major social media and by most mainstream outlets too.
We'll have to agree to disagree as I have yet to see an example of this on HN. In my experience 100% of submissions (and comments) critical of Israel gets spammed by people saying it is antisemitism.
Most but not all apparently, though I don't think it's as bad as the one you reply to seems to imply. E.g. there's already some 'a lot of anti-Israel is also antisemitism' sentiment creeping in in some comments, without data to back that up.
I think you misunderstood me (or I don't understand what you are trying to say here). I was just pointing out concrete examples of the 'You are in a tread this very moment that shows proof of his opinion' since you replied to that by asking 'In what way?'.
Yep, my experience too. Critics of Israel get called antisemitic too easily, moderated down here on HN too. On the other hand, people who defend atrocities committed by IDF get easy pass, openly defending stuff like: "the IDF is really gentle in killing civilians (collateral damage)", they nicely warn Palestinians "we're going to destroy your house, so please leave in 5 minutes", or "be silent while we bulldoze your house", etc.
Back on topic, the blog post title is definitely offensive, you can't label people like that. Maybe it was a bad tongue-in-cheek,
thinking about it, I don't think you can even say Israelis or citizens of Israel, since not all people have the same political views or support the same solution of the "Palestine problem".
There is a lot of disingenuous stuff to go around, in all directions.
Antisemitism, antizionism and anti Israel sentiments relating to current events are distinct in purely theoretical terms. One does not imply the other and they often are distinct in practice. IRL though, they're very often intermingled.
The banal example is the PNA president's doctoral thesis, that the holocaust was faked to justify zionism. Most Israel critics and all antizionists define/use the term "zionism" entirely differently to how zionists use(d) it... Very often these draw from, or are similar to new world order conspiracy theories, most famously "the protocols." Speaking of old tropes, The Protocols are regularly republished in Islamic publications today. I ran across it once in a random indonesian magazine, for example. This obviously has roots in the Israel Palestine conflict, not antisemitism. Anti Semitism is not part of indonesian culture.. but intermingling.
It is true that anti-antisemitism organisations, jews, especially those with ancestral ties to europe can be paranoid about antisemitism and see it where it doesn't exist. It's also true that they often have a better eye, and recognise actual antisemitism where others don't. We know the old stereotypes and libels.
A lot of it is contextual. The vast majority of Israelis (myself included) do not suspect antisemitic motives in Palestinians, no matter what "Jews be like X" stuff they say. Antisemitism doesn't mean animosity towards Jews (or semites). It is a specific, european cultural phenomenon that persisted for a long time, and still exists. Many of its features or ostensibly banal. I'm not american, but I think "why is blackface racist" is an analogy of sorts.
For "proof" look at unmoderated comments sections of many/most anti-zionist posts. You'll find obvious, unmasked antisemitism very commonly.
This is not apologetics, nor does it mean that criticism of Israel is inherently anti semitic, invalid or unacceptable. It also doesn't mean that people are never unjustly accused of antisemtitism.
> The vast majority of Israelis (myself included) do not suspect antisemitic motives in Palestinians
Speak for yourself, I'm Israeli as well and most Israelis don't agree with you. There is antisemitism among Palestinians and there is Islamophobia among Israelis (though to a lesser degree in my opinion), wishing it away won't make it go away
I know it’s fashionable to support the perceived “oppressed”, but you really have to be at the pinnacle of ignorance to think it’s Israel, the target of ethnic cleansing, is the perpetrator. Palestinians are welcome in Israel with full rights, and they make up about 20% of the population. There are zero jews welcome in Palestinian territory.
I don’t think people who criticize Israel are anti-semetic, but they seem to be almost always completely ignorant of the situation and history of the region, so their comments are unintentionally offensive to anyone even vaguely familiar with it.
Being Jewish is also multi-tiered because it's associated with both a religion and an ethnicity. I'd love to popularize being thought of Ashkenazi and not Jewish. I don't have a familial bond with Israel for probably 17 centuries and I don't really care if I ever did. My culture is more strongly associated with Eastern Europe and we were run out of town on a rail 100 years ago.
Yes, but the average American also thinks of an Ashkenazi Jew when they think of a Jew, and has no idea that Sephardim & mizrahim even exist, even if they don't know the words for any of it.
If you were your ancestors who were "run out of town on a rail" you would care very, very deeply about your familial bond to Israel. Like yours, my family was run out of town. Unlike yours, many in my family did not run fast enough. If only there was a place they could run to either as first resort or when quota had been reached in other places. If only there was a place that could make running a specific people out of town a very costly pursuit for those who were making those people run.
Israel is and will always remain the eternal Homeland of the Jewish people. Am Yisrael Chai.
There are plenty of non-zionist people who survived the Holocaust, it is disingenuous to paint caring about Israel as the natural, inevitable reaction to the Holocaust.
The whole concept of having a natural "homeland" because of your DNA/ethnicity/race is bullshit, land doesn't care what color your skin is or what religion you practice.
The majority were not zionist, including my family. The Holocaust changed that.
The premise of zionism was never "having a natural "homeland" because of your DNA." The premise of Zionism was that Jews could not stay in Europe, particularly in the age of nation states. Most commonly, this was referred to as "The Jewish Question."
The majority of secular Jews believed in emancipation. The majority of religious jews believed that only god could create the Jewish state. They were also skeptical of Zionism's desire for secular Jewish identity.
That said, my grandparents never referred to themselves as zionists. Before the war, zionism just meant "want a jewish state to exist." Foreign politicians (eg Churchill) were referred to as zionist for this reason. After the war, it generally meant exuberance about zionists political ideologies of the time. Founding Kibbutz, farming, hebrew language revival, etc. "Zionists" wanted to take hebrew names, for example. Today, "zionist" just means Israeli patriotism.
The Holocaust definitely changed how the majority of people felt, but it doesn't mean that I can't be critical of that sentiment.
Bundism also continued to exist after the Holocaust, albeit in a diminished form.
"premise of Zionism was that Jews could not stay in Europe" -> the creation of a state where citizenship is granted explicitly on the basis of your ethnicity, in the form of a "right of return" is 100% the premise I suggested.
I don't think you can't be critical of that sentiment.
I do dispute that it was a a sentiment at all, at least in grandparents' case. It wasn't ideology either. It was just a fact. They couldn't stay in europe. A right of return to a Jewish State^ was the only practical way to survive, besides conversion. My grandfather considered that route, as an atheist, but his first wife dissented. He also looked very Jewish. That was their conclusion att. You are free to disagree.
The majority of post war immigration was non ideological. There wasn't much daylight between ideological and non-ideological zionism, for the most part.
It also (in my opinion, this time) proved true for 1.5 million people who found that they could not stay in Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, etc. The new world wasn't an option for them, as it had been for many europeans.
I might agree with you that nation states, or the common form of nation state, isn't ideal. It is quite terrible in its purist form. However, I don't see why this criticism is so often leveled at Zionism exclusively. I'm also Irish, and have never heard such a criticism of Irish Republicanism. Besides that, lots of countries' have rights of return, ethnonational symbolism, etc.
Meanwhile, most Israelis supported South Sudanese and Kurdish independence for similar reasons. Me included. I think that Kurds have been screwed since the fall of the Ottomans, because they ended up without a state. Lebanon was founded on this premise. Pakistan. Lots of examples
^Zionism originally called for a homeland, not necessarily a state, and hoped to achieve this as cultural autonomy and migration rights under Ottoman sovereignty. Nation States were not the norm, when zionism was first conceived.
I don't know your grandparents, so really can't hope to prevail in any discussion about what their sentiments were.
I don't dispute that most of this immigration was non-ideological, I wasn't trying to suggest that it wasn't. Nor am I opposed in any way to Jewish immigration to Israel.
Moreover, racial & ethnic separatism is a very common and understandable reaction to oppression. But I still remain critical of it - just as I would be if Black people in the United States established a separate Black state in North America.
The crime, in my view, was the insurgency, bombings, and driving out of the British following their announcement that they planned to transition Palestine into an independent, multi-racial state with majority-rule. Fighting against that goal in order to form an ethno-state is, in my view, analogous to what the white minority in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia pulled after similar British announcements around their colonial state. The primary difference is that Israel remains, Rhodesia no longer does.
> I'm also Irish, and have never heard such a criticism of Irish Republicanism. Besides that, lots of countries' have rights of return, ethnonational symbolism, etc.
My understanding is that Irish republicanism is not based on the same principles as Zionism, namely there is no opposition for a multi-ethnic/racial state with majority democratic rule.
There is quite a lot of similarity between the two movements, current antagonism aside. Language revival being the most commonly noted. IDK what you would consider "principles of," but they're both nation state ideologies of the time... as opposed to republican universalism (a la france) of previous centuries.
It is also true that ireland was segregated along religious/national lines, and that protestants in ROI (I am catholic-jewish-atheist, as the old joke goes) are nonexistent today. They were about 25% before independence. Driving out protestants is emphatically not a principle of irish republicanism. Many/most founders of Irish Republicanism were, in fact, protestant. Most emigrated, moved north or converted in the generation following independence. There is some dark, rarely mentioned parts of our history of that time.
I'll also note that driving out arabs is emphatically not a principle of zionism, never was. The coming of the nation state had other ideas. zionism started in the ottoman period, and aspired to cultural autonomy of a kind that was practiced there. A nation state goal was adopted after France and Germany decided this was the future of the region.
People seem to forget how mixed Europe was before the wars, before nation states. Poland was about 50% polish. Jews, Germans and other minorities made up the rest. Its now 99% Polish-catholic. My grandfather's region (now eastern Slovakia) were Slovaks, Jews, Czechs and Ukrainians in a "majority-minority" mix. Now 99% Slovak. All of mainland europe shares this history.
When the Ottoman empire fell, giving way to nation states, same. Greek & Turkish ethnic "exchange." The Syriac & Armenian genocide. Yugoslavia & multiethnic arab countries segregated more recently. India, despite Gandhi's efforts. Etc. Empires were more multicultural than the current states.
I'll note that the philosophical distinction between universalism and ethno nationalism is barely noticeable in actual history.
Re: racial & ethnic separatism
Seeing independence as synonymous with racial & ethnic separatism is a leap. But, as I said, but if it applies to Israel it applies to half the world. In Israeli law, now and since founding, there is no preference or limits on any citizen. The only preferential law is the right of return. Actual discrimination, especially during wars, is a real thing. It is a failure though, not an ideal.
Rhodesia practiced apartheid and only allowed whites to vote. Israel never practiced apartheid, and all citizens can vote.
During the 1948 war about >1m palestinians became refugees, most ending up in the Jordanian or Egyptian parts of Palestine. >1m european jewish refugees arrived from europe and >1m arab-jewish refugees who were forced out of various countries. Thats how the demographics came to be. There was never a time when israel, as an independent state, had a jewish minority.
That's the argument certain Native Americans use to say that they are the only ones whose home is America. Do you see how this argument makes you look?
Saying that Israel is a jewish homeland does not necessarily mean that it is not anyone else's home. It does to some, but they are an extreme minority. It's also contrary to our declaration of independence.
I'm not american, but I'll hazard a guess that "certain Native Americans" who take this position are also more often assumed than real.
The history of Israel is centered around a rebellion to prevent the other people who lived there from getting joint rule. Just look at the history - this is the document that prompted the Jewish insurgency in mandatory palestine. [0]
Let me hazard a guess that I know the history of my own country better than you. That doesn't make me right, but don't be condescending.
"history of Israel is centered around" - bollocks.
First, the main faction, which later became the government, did not "rebel" against the British Empire. In fact, they offered to contribute troops and enforced a truce on the grounds that the UK was fighting nazis. It was a minority faction that fought the British, both before and after this event.
Second, nothing about the white papers had anything to do with voting rights. There were no voting rights during the British period. Arabs had voting rights in Israel once Israel existed, but that's neither her nor there. The "rebellion" was about immigration restrictions. More to the point, it was about emigration restrictions, cutting off the last escape route out of the third reich.
Third, the "Palestinian Civil War," as the British called it, had started 10 years prior, shortly after the first partition of Palestine. It started when it became clear the French & British were going to chop the region into nation states and skedaddle.
> It was a minority faction that fought the British, both before and after this event.
The people actively involved in fighting are going to be a minority in any rebellion you would ever study.
> First, the main faction, which later became the government, did not "rebel" against the British Empire.
They were clearly opposed to the idea of a state with joint rule between different ethnic groups. What is the Jewish Resistance Movement if not a rebellion against the British mandate?
It is disingenuous to suggest that they did not "rebel", indeed, I have an older friend who has recounted blowing up British police stations as a member of the Palmach, which was not the minority faction.
> There were no voting rights during the British period. Arabs had voting rights in Israel once Israel existed, but that's neither her nor there
Most post-British former-colonies had majority rule voting rights. You're right (and I was wrong) that the white paper didn't explicitly address that, but it did address the creation of a multi-ethnic state.
You've got the history garbled. The Palmach enforced a truce during this period. I suppose you could call Etzel rebels. They aren't the ones who formed the State of Israel, or led the majority militia. There were also jerusalemite militias insurrecting. against British rule and bedouin rebels in Transjordan. A lot of people disliked the British presence. Palmach didn't like them either, but they declared a truce so long as they were fighting Nazism.
None of the fighting had anything to do with anything but migration, with the primary emphasis on getting Jews out of the Reich. Ships being returned to Italian ports were the main incendiary. You are caught up the the boilerplate, which preceded any document from that era. It was the British trying to square the circle of contradictory promises made to different factions. Jews & Arabs. Hashemites & Bedouins, etc.
It's also not the beginning of anything, neither conflict with the British or Arabs. It's certainly not what the country is "centred on." Most notably, it's the only time Jewish militias fought one another.
Who care about insurrection against Britain anyway? Why?
Sure, if you only look at the first 5 years after the white paper. Post-1945, the Palmach were actively bombing police stations & bridges, I know this for a fact, my friend/acquaintance was literally there doing this, he disliked Etzel/Irgun, but they were both fighting the British at that point.
I acknowledge the darkness of history and a desire for security in territory owned by the group you identify with. However, Israel is now repeating history by displacing present-day non-Jewish people who also have familial bonds to the territory.
Despite the downvotes this post has a point - if you want to protect your religion/ethnicity you have to do it yourself.
Rise of anti-semitism in Europe - nothing is done
Jews seek safety in other countries - immigration denied
Holocaust happens - world sympathizes and moves on
Israel is under no illusions as to what happens if they don’t have a home and defend it. I kind of don’t blame them for ignoring the worlds criticisms.
Generally we don't justify US military funding on the basis of "protecting the White race." The strongest military in the world will be representing a majority non-white nation in a decade or two.
>Generally we don't justify US military funding on the basis of "protecting the White race."
Someone should probably tell all the people invaded and oppressed by the USA that it's gotten woke now and white supremacist settler-colonialism is over.
I have absolutely no interest in protecting my ethnicity. Plenty of ethnicities have gone extinct and I fully expect most extant ethnicities (and religions) to fade away eventually too. No one will be upset when there are no more Jews any more than they miss Manichaens or Hittites. Borders and superstitions serve no practical purpose. To be clear, I'm not advocating genocide or violence of any kind. I'm just saying attrition is inevitable.
Why? We were run out of Israel on a rail too. Ancestry of any kind means nothing to me. Sunk cost. As far as I'm concerned, my ancestral homeland is New York. And I'm pretty happy with that. My wife's parents are from Korea and they had a rough time there. They think of New York as home too. Speaking of new ethnic identities, I think of my kids as being Neoamerican.
Ashkenazi is just an old hebrew word for German. If you strip away both Germany (the HRE, more specifically), and Judaism then the term doesn't have much meaning. At least, not as an identity that people have assumed historically.
Ashkenazi Jews before the war just called themselves Jews, with secular emancipationists often appending nationality.
The etymology of the word "Ashkenazi" is irrelevant (argument from etymology is a fallacy), as for a long time now the word has been used in a different, wider meaning. And Ashkenazi is a valid distinction versus e.g. Sephardi Jews: Ashkenazi Jews used a different reading for Hebrew, adopted different codes of dress, employed different structures of doctrinal authority and hermeneutics of Scripture, etc.
Naturally under the Ashkenazi umbrella there were people of different cultures (and different degrees of assimilation to the surrounding non-Jewish population), but those Jews were still more similar to one another than to non-Ashkenazi Jews.
I'm not arguing the etymology. I'm just saying that "Ashkenazi, as a demonym would be a new idea historically. I have no problem with people forming new identities.
It's also not about accent. There are distinct Sephardic reading styles. It's not technically doctrinally different either, at least formally. In religious terms, distinctions are termed is "customary/minhagim" which are lower on the hierarchy.
In any case, etymology is not far off the mark. Ashkenazi judaism isn't just named after germany, it originated in the HRE and Ashkenazim spoke a German dialect.
My grandmother was a native polish speaker, secular, and would not have identified as "askenazi" before the war. She identified as polish, strongly, and was as comfortable in a sephardic synagogue as an ashkenazi one. My grandfather, a Yiddish speaker, was more comfortable in an ashkenazi synagogue. Most are mixed, these days, whatever the majority is.
>>People can be critical of the state of Israel, but they should not be antisemitic.
As long as you (the general you, not you specifically) subject all countries that (allegedly) mistreat their citizens or neighbouring countries to the same level of criticism. When you single out the world's only Jewish state for criticism it looks kinda racist.
Israel heavily disputed its responsibility to help with vaccination efforts of the same arabs of the territory it's annexing, so yeah, that's not great.
That's sort of like asking in what way are African-Americans treated differently under US law. Sure, the law may appear to be equal for all legal members of society, but that doesn't mean in practice it works like that.
The settlement doctrine, removal of Arabic as an official language, and language specifically about Israel being Jewish that were passed in 2018 are also instances where the law actually does diverge for Arab citizens. [1]
There's a pretty decent breakdown of why Israel officially meets the international requirements to be considered an Apartheid state here as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MknerYjob0w
You can't even describe other states as "the world's only German state", or "French state" or "Polish state", "Russian state" etc. because racism, so what are we even talking about?
1. There's a lot of irony in your statement, since Jewish people were slaughtered and horribly mistreated in those other countries simply for being Jewish. So how have they not been ethno-states... or at least "anti-specific-ethno states"?
2. There are plenty of countries that are dominated by Islam, and yet their right to exist isn't generally questioned.
Yes, they used to be. That's usually how nations are born - around common ethnicity.
And that's the point, everyone else got criticized for it except for Israel, which has a bipartisan support (at least in America). And any critique of Israel being a Jewish state is somehow portrayed as a double standard against Jews. At the same time you can freely attack white, non-Jewish people on the basis of what European and American governments did without any fear of repercussions. Not saying that there should be repercussions, because I support free speech, just pointing this out.
The first part of your comment refers to Jews as ethnicity and the second as religion.
As I said, Israel conflates being a Jew with the state of Israel. And as such, people associate Israel with Judaism. That’s not offensive if it’s by design. You can’t have your cake and eat it to.
Anyone writing something so inflammatory ought to approach this topic with more nuance though. If you're willing to write that you should also be willing to get it right, from a purely factual perspective.
It would not be entirely far-fetched to compare the status of Arab Israelis with the status of Coloureds in South Africa during late apartheid: Coloureds had some rights (including enfranchisement well before Blacks did), more than Blacks did, but were still pretty systematically discriminated against compared to Whites.
In Israel right now, Arab Israelis have fewer rights than Jewish Israelis do--notably in land rights, where pre-1967 land ownership claims are only legally recognized if you're Jewish, not Arab. That a coalition government has just now been formed with an Arab Israeli party for the first time in Israel's history, largely because it's the only way a coalition could be formed that doesn't include Netanyahu, doesn't invalidate the fact that legal discrimination still exists in Israel, let alone Israel's blatantly illegal actions vis-à-vis Palestine.
The real apartheid in Israel is not against its Arab population (although by various means a good part of it doesn't even have citizenship). The real apartheid is what happens in the occupied territories, where Jews enjoy all the benefits and protection of their citizenship while Arabs are deprived of any rights.
Yes, there is an association and a Head of Diversity should be smart enough to not generalize based on this association; it's failure to satisfy the core requirement of the professional role.
Well it was published 14 years ago. He was probably in college or something when he wrote it. Not giving him a pass or anything, just pointing out he didn’t write in while in his current role.
He didn't clean it up when starting in the role, he damaged the (employer) brand he was expected to protect/develop as part of his role, he got re-assigned to a different role, which is arguably a reasonable consequence.
It’s easy to spot people who know less than nothing about the situation when this word shows up. Israel is literally not an apartheid state. “Palestine” is literally an apartheid state. This is a demonstration of supreme ignorance.
Definition of apartheid: "a rigid former policy of segregating and economically and politically oppressing the nonwhite population"
Arabs and Jews are both white but I am guess that in your analogy you are referring to segregation of those groups, correct me if I misinterpreted your specific version of propaganda.
In apartheid South Africa, whites and blacks didn't live in the same areas and blacks couldn't vote.
Taking a look at the countries around Israel, in Egypt there used to be 100,000 Jews, they were mostly forced out by president Nasser, there are less than 20 left today.
There are no Jews in Saudi Arabia. During the Gulf War when US military forces were stationed there, the Saudis allowed Christian worship services but prohibited Jewish worship services for the military personnel, Jews had to hold services in ships offshore.
There are no Jews in Jordan. There are less than 20 Jews in Syria. There are around 100 Jews in Lebanon.
There are 1,900,000 Arabs in Israel, that is around 20% of the population. They have full voting rights, around 16% of the parliament in Israel are Arabs. They enjoy full civil rights.
Describing Israel as an apartheid state is anti-Jewish, and it is ridiculous.
> Definition of apartheid: "a rigid former policy of segregating and economically and politically oppressing the nonwhite population"
I find this a very curious definition. Why should the skin color of the oppressed population matter? Googling it returns this dictionary entry[1]:
> (in the Republic of South Africa) a rigid former policy of segregating and economically and politically oppressing the nonwhite population.
> any system or practice that separates people according to color, ethnicity, caste, etc.
So the definition you quoted only applies in the context of South Africa, in general apartheid refers to any system or practice that separates people according to color, ethnicity, caste, etc..
The word apartheid is an Afrikaans word (Afrikaans is a Germanic language spoken in South Africa) that was used as an election slogan by a South African political party that implemented complete segregation and racial classification in South Africa in the 1950s.
If you are not making a specific comparison to the former racial policies of South Africa, there are better words to use.
Although I know over time, meanings change, so that words like anti-Semitic, racist, fascist, etc. all just become synonyms for "bad" or "things I don't like".
Even within Israel there are of course fringe groups (e.g. Naturei Karta) and such, but unfortunately, the reality is that while it wouldn't suit most Jews for Judaism to be conflated with Zionism, it suits most zionists, so they try to further that notion.
Edit: To be clear I'm addressing the Judaism x Zionism aspect of this comment thread, not the blog post in the topic post.
Another part of the problem is when the criticizers forget that Zionism got a huge boost after pogroms on Jewish communities across Europe.
So, by criticising Zionism in a middle of a self defense operation in Gaza (as they see it), you look like you don't know its roots and look like they ignoring the Jewish right for self defense.
Speaking with these people on clubhouse recently, I can say they absolutely believe
1) Hitler was right,
but (contradictorily)
2) The Holocaust/Progroms were exaggerated,
and finally
3) there was never any instances of strife in the region before the forming of the state (and if there was it was always the Irgun and nobody else ever).
I’m not saying all people who criticize Israel believe the above but many of the people in “The Balance” room who criticized Israel appeared to.
> However part of the problem is that zionists within the state of Israel work really hard to blur this distinction.
> So, by criticising Zionism in a middle of a self defense operation in Gaza (as they see it), you look like you don't know its roots and look like they ignoring the Jewish right for self defense.
Yes, this is an excellent example of exactly that sort of blurring that GP was talking about, thanks.
What do the military actions of the state of Israel have to do with the "Jewish" right to self defense? Many Jews don't live in Israel and Israel contains many non-Jews.
People can be critical of the state of Israel, but they should not be antisemitic.
Theoretically, I guess, but it's really strange how the one tiny country in the whole world that has a Jewish-dominated society is so often a target for complete destruction.
Many of the same countries that have all but eliminated their own Jewish populations somehow find Israel's very existence to be unpalatable, going after them in the UN, in their state-sponsored media, and through military/terroristic acts.
So, sure. You could be critical of Israel but not be antisemitic. But as a matter of probability, a lot of people who criticize Israel are also antisemitic.
There's plenty of states with ongoing ethnic strife, and they do face a lot of deserved criticism. However I can't really recall popular, internationally supported calls for their abolition altogether.
The age of state again has not much to with it: for example Lebanon is younger than Israel and has a rich history of ethnic/sectarian conflict. Now there must be people who want to abolish Lebanon, but somehow you never hear them.
What people usually find particularly offensive is the de-facto annexation and settlement of territories that exceed the UN resolution that created the State of Israel, along with the complete imbalance in both military power and casualties of both sides. It's not just ethnic/sectarian conflict. In many aspects, it would qualify as genocide.
Well, Syria is just across the border with genocide (not just as rhetorical device) very much ongoing. Military imbalance a plenty. Anyone up for dissolving it yet?
Hell, even outright Nazism wasn't deemed a reason enough to dissolve Germany (although at some point it was seriously considered).
I don't think anyone is advocating for the dissolution of Israel. While the Syrian government is doing appalling things to its own people, I don't think we want to use "We're better than Syria" as the bar here.
The Israeli government and its people need to take a hard look at what it is doing, whether they'd like to be subjected to it by a foreign military power, and how they'd react against it. If they wouldn't like it, and if they would react violently against it, then I believe we'd have a lesson to learn and understand what Palestinians are experiencing and why a more peaceful solution would be a more constructive way to move forward. Some of the pain points can be immediately addressed.
And Germany was, in fact, dissolved into two smaller and very different countries for a long, long time after WWII. Their own wounds and the memory of the horrors they perpetrated, and the lesson that very normal people can do unimaginable evil is a tough one to learn, but one we must learn nevertheless if we decide to be better than our ancestors.
I don't think anyone is advocating for the dissolution of Israel
That's exactly what many advocate. It's in the charter political documents of the Palestinian ruling authorities. Major US politicians hold this position who receive a lot of political and media support. Notable celebrities have tweeted/said "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". What do you think they mean by that besides the utter destruction of the state of Israel?
whether they'd like to be subjected to it by a foreign military power
Since the Israelis only are responding to being attacked, I fail to see how they're in any way being hypocritical.
So only True Scotsman are to be considered respectable? Rashida Talieb, Ilhan Omar, and other overt anti-semites who appear regularly on national media aren't "respectable"? Let me know when they're abandoned by the media and their own party like Steve King was for making racist-adjacent statements.
A single-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians share the same rights and live under the same democratic government.
The attempt to make this about body counts and not the initiation of hostile military action baffles me. But I disagree with "ineffective". People in Israel are being injured and dying in rocket attacks. That's not ineffective. And then if you want to think this through a bit more, you'd realize that the degree to which it is ineffective is due to the fact that Israel counter-attacks to destroy the ability of Hamas/PLO terrorists to attack them. If they didn't respond to the degree that they do, there would be more Israeli casualties.
>Sorry. I meant nobody respectable is suggesting that. Not even the respectable Palestinians.
BDS is doing so precisely in the guise of
>A single-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians share the same rights and live under the same democratic government [and gerrymandered borders and immigration policy to create a Palestinian majority]
We can’t continue with forced evictions and settlement of occupied territories like it’s nothing because it’s wrong and serves as an excuse to radicalism for increasingly violent responses.
There is an elephant in the room and we must acknowledge it’s there so we can deal with it.
Germany was partitioned between rivalling occupation forces, and neither did dissolve the bit of German state they held on. There is little doubt that either party would have preferred the whole Germany on their side, but dissolution was never on the table.
And yes, plenty people do advocate for dissolution of Israel, it's in fact a mainstream (but not the only one) position among pro-Palestinian activists.
Nothing to do with Israel's recent creation, many states have been created recently without them being targeted by neighbours for mass destruction and genocide.
What makes it strange is sense of normalcy people (sorry, I mean racists) have about a sense of white / Islamic supremacy over Jews, that makes them think it's ok to say things like 'we will wipe every Jew off the face of the planet' etc.
I believe you, but too many people use the line, I'm not antisemitic, I'm just criticizing the government as a scapegoat to excuse obvious antisemitic behavior.
The vast majority of people are criticizing the government not the population. It’s unusual for people to consider a nation’s population rather than their government because a nation’s population is largely irrelevant. It’s not random Americans that have a history of overthrowing democratically elected governments, it’s the US government that does so etc.
Israel’s government, like all governments, does plenty of things people disagree with and as such often gets legitimate criticism on it’s own merits.
Sure, but Americans aren't randomly attacked when abroad or out doing normal things, like getting food out or drinks.
And yet, Jews are today. It wasn't too long ago that people marched in Charlottesville chanting jews will not replace us. Now there's a massive rise in violence
> Sure, but Americans aren't randomly attacked when abroad or out doing normal things, like getting food out or drinks.
Yes, they are. The US State Department issues travel advisories over such issues. It’s safer to travel in many places as a Canadian rather than American.
That’s true but severely understates antisemitism both historically and currently. Americans does not and have not faced the kind of discrimination that Jews have.
Jews and Israel should have no connection. Attacking Jews for what Israel does is just incredibly wrong.
Let’s be very clear, any criticisms of Israels actions should not apply to Jews as a race, people or religion and even more so not be used as an excuse to harm or treat any single Jewish person negatively.
I've not met many. But I have met plenty of people who deliberately conflate criticism of Israel with criticism of Jews in order to easily dismiss criticism of the former.
I'm part Jewish.
This. You can be critical of Israel's actions. You can also be critical of Israel's existence specifically as a nation that discriminates against non-Jewish citizens. None of this means you are an anti-semite who wants the destruction of Israel, let alone Jews.
By and large, for example, the UN security council resolutions that the US keeps single-handedly vetoing are not calling for any destruction. They simply condemn Israel's violent behavior.
Of course one can. Except for the fact that often people scapegoat their criticisms with a line like I'm not antisemtic, I'm just criticizing the government. Which typically comes just before an anti semetic comment is made.
It's also an entirely an uneven playing field. No other country is condemned and attacked by the international community as often, and as widely despite other countries' far worse offense.
Criticisms of Israel is unique and direct and no other country is held to the same standard.
How much of a joke is it that Saudi Arabia was on the human rights commission at the UN for so long. Or the lack of similar statements against China for their decimation of Uighurs.
This isn't a finger blaming game, its recognizing that the UN demonstrates a massive bias against a single country with standards that no other nation has to face
This is technically true but ignores the complexity of the situation, which is that Israel is essentially at war with groups such as Hamas, which call for Israel's destruction and deny its right to exist. When Hamas starts firing rockets at Israeli civilians, it just isn't clear what response critics prefer Israel show. Israel has little choice but try to destroy and degrade the infrastructure used to fire those rockets. Israeli violent behavior is in response to attack on its civilian population. Ignoring this while criticizing Israel seems strange to me
We will never know but I believe this current conflict was provoked by Israel with heavy police presence outside the mosque in Jerusalem.
For what it is worth I have visited Israel and the West Bank, and my sympathies are with Israel as the only democracy in the region.
That does not mean I cannot criticize when it acts wrongly. Sure the whole conflict is incredibly difficult with no easy solutions, but some people want to use it to stay in power.
Of course Hamas is not better, but that is not the expectation for Israel.
Your comment is a straw man because I never claimed that you couldn't be critical of Israel but not be antisemitic. In fact, I said it's theoretically possible. I just find that in practice, people who show their hand at being antisemitic seem to try to hide behind the whole anti-zionist/antisemitic distinction.
Based solely on the merits, you'd think that Israel's ethno-state bona fides wouldn't be any worse than dozens of other countries'. In fact, they're far less problematic. You can be Arabic/Muslim in Israel and rise to the highest levels of government with full rights of citizenship. I can point to many other countries where that wouldn't be the case for ethnically/religiously mal-aligned individuals. But somehow those other countries aren't constantly in the news cycle for defending their ongoing right to exist.
> Theoretically, I guess, but it's really strange how the one tiny country in the whole world that has a Jewish-dominated society is so often a target for complete destruction.
Because it’s a colonial ethnostate, with massive support from the United States. Israel (the colonial ethnostate) should not exist. Palestine is not an ethnostate, it is the name for the multicultural, multi-ethnic state who rightfully controls the area occupied by Israel, before British colonialism and subsequent invasion and occupation of the territory.
This is incredibly ignorant of the history of the region. It’s also patently untrue. The amount of misinformation that westerners propagate about Israel and “Palestine”, which has never been a country, constantly amazes me.
Yes, except for the "westerners" bit. People from everywhere conflate this issue - even people living in the region. Check out The Ask Project on youtube, tons of people on all sides of the issue are misguided or simply wrong - and they live there.
> The Palestinians in Gaza never controlled the land.
Doesn't that just mean “they were never powerful”? If they were living there, does it matter who was in power? English rule never stopped the Welsh being Welsh, or Wales from “belonging to” them. (I don't know how applicable this analogy is to this situation – probably not very, given there isn't a territorial dispute over who should have Wales.)
it’s a colonial ethnostatePalestine is not an ethnostate
That's a strange view on the situation. Let's say I give you a choice.
1. Be a practicing Jew living in Palestinian-controlled territory.
2. Be a practicing Muslim living in Israel.
I'd definitely choose 2, choosing 1 would be suicide.
who rightfully controls the area occupied by Israel
The Jewish people were the indigenous people of that territory. In what way do they not rightfully control and occupy Israel?
> The Jewish people were the indigenous people of that territory. In what way do they not rightfully control and occupy Israel?
When? The region of Palestine was majority Muslim when Israel was founded. That your ancestors lived in a region doesn't give you any rights to it. If anyone has a birthright to a region, it's those who were born there and no one else.
> The Jewish people were the indigenous people of that territory. In what way do they not rightfully control and occupy Israel?
My maternal ancestry is of the Bering Strait islander and First peoples. Does that make me an indigenous person for the entirety of Americas and thus give me the right to control and occupy the entirety of America and expel all the "recent" migrants? Because that's the equivalent of claiming a blond haired blue eyed German Ashkenazi with a couple of generations in New York is somehow indigenous to the area of historic Judea and thus has the right to expel a different tribe of Semitic people who have only been there for say what, a thousand years?
I'm no expert but doesn't the Torah directly say that the Jews took Canaan from the Canaanites as directed by Yahweh? Wouldn't that make Canaanites the actual indigenous people of that territory? So would Canaanites thus be accorded the right to control and occupy that territory using your logic?
> The Jewish people were the indigenous people of that territory.
No. Even according to their/our [1] own mythology, the indigenous people were the Canaanites.
[1] I am ethnically Jewish. My parents were both born in Israel (except that it was still Palestine at the time). I grew up speaking Hebrew. But I do not self-identify as a Jew and I am highly critical of the conduct of the state of Israel. It has quite clearly become an apartheid state, and think that is reprehensible. But I am also a descendant of Holocaust survivors, so I am mindful of the very real historical oppression of Jews, and the importance of Israel is pushing back against that oppression. It's a very thorny problem with very few unambiguous protagonists. But no matter how you slice it, promulgating falsehoods like that Jews are the indigenous people of Palestine is unhelpful.
> The Jewish people were the indigenous people of that territory. In what way do they not rightfully control and occupy Israel?
This is a fictional narrative constructed to justify the state of Israel. It has no basis in historical fact -- there never existed a Jewish ethnostate in the territory known as Palestine, this is a modern construction. Regardless, I don't believe in ethnostates -- of any ethnicity, anywhere.
Seeing how the actual Declaration of Independence promulgated by the actual would-be founders of Palestine states that "The State of Palestine shall be an Arab State and shall be an integral part of the Arab nation", I think you failed to clear your non-ethnostate theory with the relevant people.
A colony of what empire exactly? Jews were a group of massacred refugees.
> massive support from the United States
There is no massive support from the United States actually, at least not monetary. There is military help that is needed because Israel's enemies want to destroy it, still to this day. And it's not that big compared to Israel's gdp (4 billion to 400 gdp = 1%) and is completely meaningless to the U.S budget. The other support is vetoing U.N decisions that constantly target Israel. Which is needed for the same reason the military aid is needed.
> Israel (the colonial ethnostate) should not exist
Should the U.S exist? Last I checked California used to be part of Mexico - why isn't it being returned to it's rightful owners? How about West Europe? Maybe it should be dismantled and have all it's assets transferred to Africa? I've never heard anyone say stuff like that but when it comes to Israel sure let's destroy the evil ethno state.
The US doesn't have a law that says "you can immigrate and be a citizen but only if you are white"
Also, the US wasn't born out of a revolution against equal voting rights for people regardless of national origin, Israel, like Rhodesia at the time, was.
In both cases, minority groups rebelled against British attempts to impose majority-rule democracy, Israel has just succeeded more than Rhodesia did at the time.
I thought it was the UN that decided the country should be split into two states, where one would have a Jewish majority and the other would have an Arab majority. When did people rebel against imposing a majority-rule democracy?
Last time I checked Israel just changed the prime minister after having an election, while Palestine had its last election in 2006 and chose a party that literally killed its opponents.
I'm on my phone, so the history lesson is going to be pithy.
The Jewish insurgency in mandatory Palestine was prompted by British indications that it was going to create a multi-racial, democratic state in Palestine, as they did in many of their other colonies once they departed. I believe there was a policy white paper published but I don't recall the name.
After substantial British civilian/government worker deaths at the hands of insurgent bombs (ie. King David Hotel bombing), the British retreated and gave it to the UN, who did the partition.
> Palestine had its last election in 2006 and chose a party that literally killed its opponents.
I may be misremembering, but I believe a large reason elections haven't been held since then was because the party elected in 2006 was ejected in a coup by the party supported by the US and Israel.
So, 14 years since an election in Palestine, and Netanyahu has been prime minister for 14 years.
> The US doesn't have a law that says "you can immigrate and be a citizen but only if you are white"
Israel doesn't have that law either, there are black Jews and Indian Jews and white Jews as you probably know. Israel is an anomaly because of 2000 years of persecution that culminated in the holocaust. Maybe when there is no more any antisemitism (yeah, right) Israel will happily dismantle itself. Until that day it seems to me quite clear why Jews need a nation state.
> Should the U.S exist? Last I checked California used to be part of Mexico - why isn't it being returned to it's rightful owners?
Yes, the U.S. is also a colonial state. Not all states owe their existence to colonialism and occupation, but the U.S. is definitely one of them. We committed a genocide on an unimaginable scale, and took all the line of the people whose territory this was rightfully theirs. Not a good example of states to emulate.
> How about West Europe? Maybe it should be dismantled and have all it's assets transferred to Africa?
Its colonial territories in Africa should have been, and were, transferred to Africa.
Who is actively calling for the dismantling of the United States? No one. But Israel is fair game.
> Its colonial territories in Africa should have been, and were, transferred to Africa.
How is that enough though when comparing with the much more minor "crimes" Israel did? Israel displaced 700000 people as part of a brutal civil war where it also suffered major casualties. Belgium, Germany, France and others destroyed millions of Africans and robbed their nations. How is it enough for them to simply retreat from their colonies? If you actively call out for Israel to be dismantled I would expect for Europe to at least give away 50% of it's wealth to the people it destroyed. That sounds somehow fair to me or at least morally consistent.
If what happened 73 years ago in Palestine must not be forgiven I don't see why everybody else gets a pass.
> Who is actively calling for the dismantling of the United States? No one. But Israel is fair game.
Because we "won". There are almost no indigenous people left in the United States, because we killed nearly all of them and destroyed their culture and civilization. I hope that this does not happen to Palestinians. For those indigenous people that remain, I definitely support greatly expanded rights and territory.
> If you actively call out for Israel to be dismantled I would expect for Europe to at least give away 50% of it's wealth to the people it destroyed.
One could argue on the number and logistics, but I absolutely support stronger European reparations for the damage done by colonialism.
> For those indigenous people that remain, I definitely support greatly expanded rights and territory.
Huh? What expanded rights some tiny resorts? Give them everything back - it's theirs. Even if there are only 1 million of them left make a referendum and ask them if you are allowed to stay.
Also California is Mexican!
Boy we have a lot of fixing to do!
But basically I can infer from what you're saying this isn't about morals at all but about how strong you are. The U.S is super strong so no one calls for it's destruction (at least not seriously). Israel is tiny and weak and surrounded by enemies that want to see it go down. That's what this is about.
It's not about taking example from the US, it's about how popular it is to say that Israel shouldn't exist while many other countries had a much worst history. Not many of the places people live in now were empty when their ancestors arrived there.
More importantly, I keep hearing about the Israeli colony and am a truly interested to know what empire my family are representing. As far as I heard they were massacred pretty much everywhere and came to Palestine with literally nothing, some being jailed in Cyprus by the Brits to prevent them from entering the country. No one told them about the big empire that was backing them up.
If you believe "Israel should not exist", you have to account for what would happen if it didn't. What would happen to the Jews who live in the Hamas-controlled "multicultural, multi-ethnic state" that would inevitably replace it? We all know the answer: they'd be killed. That's why people who call for the non-existence of Israel (anti-Zionists) are considered anti-semitic. If you support a position that leads inevitably to the death or displacement of millions of Jews, you are an anti-semite.
I never said I support a genocidal Arab ethnostate, that's extremely offensive. I support no ethnostates, no colonialism, and no occupation in the region.
Ok, but what you fail to recognize, is that the best way to do what you want, is for there to be 2 separate, independent states, controlled by each of their respective population.
A single state solution is not going to have good consequences.
>But as a matter of probability, a lot of people who criticize Israel are also antisemitic.
This is a meaningless statement though. We can expect that nearly anyone that's antisemitic would be critical of a country run and mostly inhabited by Jewish people.
It becomes a problem when people try to extrapolate that fact to dismiss every criticism of Israel as "this guy's probably just antisemitic."
Its only true as a matter of probability throughout the entire world because its true in a particular region that has an enormous population padding those statistics.
There is antisemitism everywhere in some amounts and it is wrong like all forms of bigotry. However, in many countries, such as the US, you are just as likely to run into a person that criticizes Israel for reasons that have nothing to do with the religion of its inhabitants. You are still free to think that they are wrong, but people should stop using accusations of bigotry as a weapon to silence people simply for disagreeing with them. If you want to call someone a bigot, its pretty important to make sure you are right about it.
And for the record when it comes to that Israel/Palestine conflict I think neither side is even close to being innocent. I don't give a shit about their religions I just want families to stop being murdered by the actions of two shitty governments.
"people should stop using accusations of bigotry as a weapon to silence people"
Huh? Are you seriously calling someones words who feels victimized, a weapon? Are you seriously holding fear of actual violence to an unsubstantiated standard?
"If you want to call someone a bigot, its pretty important to make sure you are right about it."
Please show me one other form of bigotry accusation you hold to the same standard.
This perspective is almost certainly a blindspot. Im not certain - but I definitely would not rely on you to stand up or defend folks from actual antisemitism.
How do people even think, let alone say these things and not get called out by everyone immediately?
Do you actually and critically think this is true or even appropriate to say?
>Huh? Are you seriously calling someones words who feels victimized, a weapon? Are you seriously holding fear of actual violence to an unsubstantiated standard?
The idea of figuratively describing something as a weapon isn't new or unusual. I'm not even sure what you mean by the second sentence. I was talking about people defaulting to claims of bigotry at any sign of criticism. If every criticism of Israel, even legitimate criticisms not coming from a sense of bigotry, makes a person feel victimized then there is something wrong with that person. If words cannot be used as a weapon exactly how do criticisms of Israel make a person feel victimized?
>Please show me one other form of bigotry accusation you hold to the same standard.
I hold all forms of bigotry accusations to the same standard. The example given was basically "a lot of people exist that are antisemitic so we can assume that criticism of Israel is probably antisemitic." Which is an argument that's basically uses the same sloppy logic that actual bigots use to justify their beliefs. Calling someone a bigot can have severe consequences for that person whether they are actually bigots or not. The key part of that sentence is that it can have consequences when they are not guilty. Yet people throw accusations around assuming someone's intentions simply because they said something they don't like. That's wrong so its important to try to only make those accusations against people that are actually bigots. I'm not sure how that's controversial. Some people do this because they genuinely think that anyone that criticizes a thing they like is a bigot. However, some people know better and intentionally falsely accuse people of being antisemitic because they know that it makes people afraid to voice their opinions. Thus, I called it a figurative weapon.
>but I definitely would not rely on you to stand up or defend folks from actual antisemitism.
Well whether you rely on me or not I will do the right thing if a genocidal antisemitic political party attempts to take over US politics. In the meantime, if I see people doing bigoted things I will stand up for people being targeted. Like I always have. This is kind of what I was talking about though, you seem to have labelled me as an enemy of yours simply because I suggested that there are people that criticize Israel for reasons other than antisemitism. There is no government in the world that doesn't sometimes deserve to be criticized.
>Do you actually and critically think this is true or even appropriate to say?
I don't understand. Are you saying its impossible to be critical of Israel without being antisemitic?
To be clear, what I was saying wasn't intended as a defense of the person OP was about. I think that the Google employee's letter was poorly worded and offensive. I don't know if he's antisemitic, but the phrasing saying that "Jews have an insatiable appetite for war" comes across as bigoted to me. It could be the result of poor phrasing causing someone to say something that they didn't mean, but it might not be. I can't blame someone for interpreting his statement as antisemitism because it was an overtly antisemitic statement. He could be a different person today, but no one made him publish that.
"I was talking about people defaulting to claims of bigotry at any sign of criticism."
The idea that antisemitism is used to silence criticism of Israel is meant to do exactly that, victim shame them into silence - its an outrageous accusation without any factual basis.
I don't know anyone that defaults that way about every criticism of Israel...but there are many types of critiques that are clearly antisemitic - for example blaming Jews or even Israelies collectively for their governments actions - or holding Israel to a standard you dont hold anyone else to or leveling criticism at Israel with no attempt to even get the facts on the ground correct.
Can a claim of antisemitism be taken at face value without accusing the victim of weaponizing it to silence criticism of Israel?
Why are you looking for reasons to dismiss accusations of anti semitism?
Why isn't your default compassion and understanding?
I disagree with this. There are certain things that the Israeli government have done that are worthy of being criticised - the same can be said for every government in the world. Brushing off all criticism as antisemitism is unhelpful.
This tactic of saying "oh try to find Israel on the map, it's so tiny, oh poor state of Israel" is often pushed by Zionists, also often trying to link anti-zionism with anti-semitism.
I saw a talk with Ruth Wisse, a professor at Harvard University pushing this narrative.
If Israel weren't Jewish, nobody would care about it. You can go line by line describing Israel and its so-called "atrocities" and I'll show you countries that are far more appropriately accused of those types of atrocities... yet those other countries never make it into the international news cycle.
I'm not Jewish. I'm not religious.
But the singling out of Israel by political/antisemitic forces has not escaped my notice.
China vs the Uighurs and Tibetans? India vs Pakistanis? Pakistan vs Indians? Russia vs Chechnya? Spain vs the Basque people? Canada in the 80s vs native people (we had an article just the other day)? The US vs black people?
Plenty of countries get criticised for their treatment of minorities when they do something wrong.
You're making my point. China is literally wiping out the Uighurs. There's no hair-splitting or propagandizing about it. They're committing actual genocide. But besides a few mentions here and there, the international community is doing nothing about it. If it were at all proportional, the stories and condemnation should be in the news every day.
But instead, we see more media coverage in a single day of Israel's counter attacks from rocket fire than we do for a year of Uighur genocide.
The news gets bored. It's why settlements don't make the news but it makes the news when it rises to armed conflict. Israel has already been pushed out of the news cycle by Belarus here.
There were plenty of news stories about the Uighurs last year.
The international community is not doing much about Israel either.
If it weren't for oil and the Suez canal, nobody would care about Israel's genocide either.
The area currently has geopolitical importance. Once global warming makes the canal less relevant, and renewables replace oil, Israel will get to wipe out the Palestinians in peace
Nah, what will happen is that after renewables replace oil and the Palestinians keep firing rockets, people like you will find a new spin to claim that some grave injustice is being done because the Israelis defend themselves.
Anyone who looks at the power dynamic knows the truth of the saying: If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace. If the Israelis put down their weapons, they would be slaughtered.
> But as a matter of probability, a lot of people who criticize Israel are also antisemitic.
Agreed. In practice, antizionists (folks who believe that Israel shouldn't exist) virtually are virtually always antisemitic. Whatever you think of him, Bret Stephens makes a pretty insightful analogy that it's like how there could theoretically be segregationists that aren't racist, but they don't exist in practice.
That said, there's a distinction to be made between antizionism (i.e., "Israel shouldn't exist") and criticism of Israel (e.g., "Israel's settlement policy violates human rights"). The former is de facto (but not de jure) antisemitism while the latter is not.
EDIT: I'm getting a lot of downvotes for this, I'm guessing I've offended a lot of people who identify strongly with antizionism/antisemitism. My intention wasn't offense, but rather observation. That said, I make no apology for any offense taken--enjoy my Internet Points! (:
You are terribly correct. It reminds me of the left claiming Islam is a peaceful religion because only a ~third (whatever the numbers they allege) support violence and a much smaller fraction perpetrate it. Unfortunately, your claim is unquantifiable, so, as evidenced by your replies, the people who hate Israel vehemently deny any anti-semitism.
If you're taking the position that the actions of some people who follow some version of a religion to be defining for it, every religion is the religion of war, including atheism.
At that point, it's not a very interesting statement
I'm most certainly not "taking the position that the actions of some people who follow some version of a religion to be defining for it", and I'm perplexed as to how you reached that conclusion. That's quite a ridiculous claim and quite a ridiculous inference as well. But we agree that that particular statement is not very interesting!
The author may have a valid point, but expressed it in a condescending manner. If a Jewish diversity officer wrote a blog post saying "If I were black, I would prioritize fixing black-on-black crime" as a criticism of BLM, would you give them the same defense?
That said, it's still a dumb thing to be cancelled over. Everyone has been an asshole to someone else at some point in our lives. Why do people feel the need to socially shame people publicly for an offense over a decade ago?
>Why do people feel the need to socially shame people publicly for an offense over a decade ago?
Because they're playing a game of Moral Supremacy one-upsmanship. In the long run, everyone who plays this game must lose, because were all humans. But in the short term this game can be quite lucrative in terms of attention getting, internet points, and money.
Can you quote where exactly they are "conflating the state of Israel and Jewish people and lumping it all together."?
>Plenty of Jewish people that live both inside and outside of Israel are critical of the state.
Is this not exactly what this thought experiment of an article is talking about? Trying to put themselves on the shoes of a Jewish person who is critical of Israels politics
Honest question here - how do you criticize Judaism the religion without being called a bigot? Christians and Muslims are fair game for discourse. Is the Jewish religion and its followers not fair to criticize? They have many of the same arcane and backwards beliefs as other Abrahamic religions.
I don't know how to answer your question, but a thing to keep in mind is that Jewish people are usually less than 1% or 2% of the population. For example (in France), I'm worried about Christian and especially Muslim homophobia, but Jewish not so much because it's way easier to navigate around. I don't even have anecdotal evidence of Jewish presence or absence of homophobia because I didn't meet many of them.
Edit because I realized I may not have been clear: what I mean is that in a lot of country Christian and Muslims are in power. For Jewish people, it's the case in one country, and there's not much big minorities like there are Muslim minorities in Chrisian countries and the opposite.
Israel, a nation with a strong national identity, a small nation not a multinational organisation, generally governed by right wing governments, hugely successful in terms of meritocracy, good entrepreneurial spirit.
Filled with a nation of people persecuted for millenia, who have been victims of racism forever, who yet become massively successful, and don't act like victims.
Yes, I understand it's a ridiculously annoying example that counters every woke left ideal. Can't blame the woke for being anti semitic.
His bigotry goes beyond that. Kamau Bobb's blog posts were almost exclusively about White and Jewish people, and the theme throughout is the mistreatment by them of Black Americans. There is a very clear tone of distaste for white and Jewish people in his posts.
Search for the word "white" or "Jew" in his blog [1] posts to see for yourself.
Since Google supports "cancel culture", Kamau Bobb needs to be fired.
> The cost of elite education for our children is extraordinary. I dropped my beautiful black star into a sea of white children and it hurt.
> among the increasing number of white women holding leadership roles in the academy and in the public and private sector, they surely see younger versions of themselves in the next generation of white girls. It is a natural instinct to want the very best for them.
> In a nation with a history such as ours, that imagery is connected to a much longer and darker legacy – a legacy where white men have abused black women and girls with impunity.
> I do not need to be convinced that diversity and excellence are intimately interwoven. But what of my White counterparts? I really do not know how White people learn about Black or Hispanic people in ways that are honest
> Perhaps it is time to focus the inquiry on our White counterparts. They may well feel marginalized by the shortage of academic inquiry into the complexity of their changing American citizenship alongside people of color. Their sense of self-efficacy may be undermined by their pending loss of majority status.
> I was learning about the resilient spirit of black people in America in the context of white American barbarism.
> It is still true that white people kill black people in America with impunity.
Being jewish does not mean you are a zionist. Being a zionist does not mean you are jewish (many evangelicals in the US's "south" are staunch zionists).
You can want the palestinians to have basic human rights and still be pro-Israeli state.
Internal and external criticism is important and welcome, but when the only democratic country in the hostile region, that's constantly fighting for its existence, becomes the world's punching bag, you have to wonder why it is. Does UN's human rights council obsession with Israel [1], while turning a blind eye on real atrocities in murderous regimes like Iran, North Korea, Turkey, Russia, etc., makes sense to anyone with a common sense?
BTW, I don't think most people who use the term Zionism in a negative context actually understand what it means. It's just the desire of Jews to live in its historic homeland - Israel, in a peaceful coexistence with its neighbors.
How so? I just gave the gist of the term Zionism, as described by Theodore Herzl, the father of the movement. The demonization of this innocent ideology is by itself a form of anti-Semitism, a modern one.
Of course not, only those who choose to adopt this ideology, I didn't assume anything about ALL Jews. But that's not the point, my point is that those who identify as anti-Zionists either do not understand what Zionism means, or they are plain modern anti-Semites in a poor disguise.
He is black, and there is a double-standard -- but don't dare call that racist. It's all absurd, but it's actually good to see examples of "you become the thing you hate". Hate is a horrible, corrosive emotion. We see it a _lot_ these days -- people who become emotionally entangled and lost in their activism against racism (the mob encourages this mindset, as in that state, critical thinking is turned off). They then become hateful and racist themselves.
These incidents can hopefully (but doubtfully) cause some reflection about "why the hell do we even have 'diversity officers' in a software company? Maybe we're getting results opposite of what we sought. After all, we created the role with the silly title just to virtue-signal, in the first place."
I think you're spreading FUD. People get reassigned instead of fired pretty regularly in response to PR. Please cite sources instead of making conjecture that this was due to race. At least leftists come with sources to back up their claims of racial discrimination, however flimsy the evidence is, it actually exists.
Notice a pattern here? I wasn't talking about cops and teachers who have unions with political clout. Cops have done a hell of a lot worse then go on racist rants just to be reassigned. It's not apples to apples.
But just to be over the top obnoxiously clear. I'm talking about the private sector.
The reason a disproportionate number of these articles are regarding public sector employees is because public institutions are publicly accountable, and therefore generally must respond to a controversy. A private sector firm is under no obligation to state how it is resolving a matter with an employee and may find it advantageous in terms of public image and legal liability to simply not comment if the employee has not been terminated. Having said that, here are a couple of private individuals.
Feel free to additionally move the goalposts as you wish, but the point remains that the insinuation that some HN'ers are making that the only possible reason he isn't facing forthwith termination is his race doesn't seem inarguably the case.
"Following a video post on Instagram in which the hunky Guardians of the Galaxy star insisted followers turn up the volume on their devices rather than simply read the subtitles in order to get the full experience, members of the deaf community pointed out that such a remark is exclusionary and, simply put, offensive to suggest that only those who can hear are able to experience something to its fullest potential."
Equating that post to the link's anti-Semitic remarks seems like a stretch.
No idea who the other guy is but yes, you might have found an example. I have no doubt there are some out there. I could point you to the short novel length list of times it went the other way though.
Somewhat tangential, but who is the right kind of person for a diversity job? What does a job well done look like? Changes in hiring? Changes in company culture?
I'm skeptical of roles with a "my job is to care about X" kind of definition. That includes, for example, "customer advocate" and similar, especially someplace as complicated as google. I don't think they can have much success beyond the surface level.
EDIT: lets maintain a presumption of good faith. Assuming that you actually care about diversity...
The purpose of the role is to be able to show that you have a diversity officer. Whether or not that actually helps diversity, or helps at all--is secondary.
Diversity training may help change people's attitudes, but you're right on the nose about actually hurting.
The real reason enterprises spend money on Diversity Training is because it provides Faragher-Ellerth protection from damage claims— even if racist conduct within the company has been accepted by the court.
By having diversity training, corporations ensure that victims of racism do not receive financial restitution.
It kind of is. He talks more about things like corporate lawyers etc which fit the name "goon" more, but I think the more general point is people you have to employ because other companies employ them. What category would you put it under?
Good point. But a serious company in which everyone is a nice person could still have D&I specialists like a training expert in charge of improving the masses or a statistician/manager in charge of monitoring and reports.
"Diversity and inclusion" as a separate function is mostly an exercise in giving the rest of the company cover. In my experience the people in these orgs have very little power to do anything, they just recieve the complaints, empathize, and then nothing happens.
As an example, I went to our head of D&I with a complaint about HR violating human rights law in our jurisdiction. They said "oh that sucks" and I never spoke to them again. I could have gone to a tribunal and argued about it, but instead I ignored HR, and shortly after left the company because I kept having to fight them about what seemed like baseline "inclusion" stuff. The D&I staff were mostly busy making promotional materials about the few successful marginalized people at the organization, despite our terrible stats.
It starts with an acknowledgement that the company has a problem with X. That's actually incredibly hard, because there's nobody in the company willing to say "I'm anti-X". If they did, you'd just fire them and call it a job well done.
Instead, you need to realize that the problem with X is that it's no individual's fault, but the cumulative effect of a lot of little things. Each of those little things is easily dismissed as irrelevant. The job of the X Officer is to care about all of those things at once.
That doesn't make their job easy. Simple changes rarely fix the problem -- if they could, you'd have already done them. They require large changes that often seem antiproductive, especially when you've defined "productive" in ways that you're convinced are objective but just happen to systematically be anti-X.
A common example: coding tests. "We don't exclude women. It's just that men happen to be more on both ends of bell curves, so it's just too bad that far more men pass this test than women. The test is objective, after all." Except that the test doesn't really test what you do for a living. So why insist on it? Is it because you're sexist, or just lazy? I'm tempted to call it the latter, but if it's pointed out by an "X Officer", they'll be accused of affirmative action, misanthropy, etc.
A diversity officer will lose more battles than they win, so it's hard to say what a job well done looks like. In a lot of ways they're doing their job well just by making people actually oppose them out loud. Their best victories look like things other people consider discriminatory against them, because the things that discriminate against them are intolerable while the things that discriminate against other people are just things that happen.
The hope is that collectively they'll put enough people in enough positions of authority to be able to gradually diminish the constant throb of small injustices that collectively have brought about an overwhelming white maleness to all authority positions. Even a large company is only a tiny fraction of society, so it takes the full cumulative effect over decades to actually achieve genuine success.
I hope that answers your question. It's not an easy thing to describe, and it's easy to dismiss the problems they're trying to fix and not worth solving.
My question was more tactical than anything. Coding tests and hiring are a good example. Is a general purpose "diversity officer" likely to understand hiring, coding tests and such to improve on this?
An understanding of abstract issues, like bell curves and bias in testing generally is one thing. Getting into the nitty gritty, dealing with objections and finding alternatives is another. Don't you need someone that understands coding tests, coding, technical hiring and such to make a difference? A nondiscriminatory hiring method is objectively better, even if you don't care about diversity.
A person in authority, but removed from the actual task at hand seems like a recipe for box ticking, to me. I believe it could work for blatant, simple misogyny. For deeper issues like hiring process, don't we need subject experts?
Leaving workplace diversity aside, say the issue is application design. An application doesn't work well for people of different cultural or educational backgrounds? Don't we need someone with both an understanding of UIs and an understanding of those needs? I don't see how authority can lead someplace good. People who have never dealt with UIs have terrible ideas about how to improve them.
>I hope that answers your question. It's not an easy thing to describe, and it's easy to dismiss the problems they're trying to fix and not worth solving.
I appreciate you wading in. Most of the other comments have been quite depressing. I think what we need is more presumption of good will, and to try and carry less baggage from previous experience. People can be wrong but not bad people. They can come around. There are multiple routes to getting where we want to go. That's not to say no one is ill willed.
Lastly, I think not seeing a solution often leads to not seeing the problem... even though it's logically backwards. I also think that a deep awareness of problems leads to seeing solutions. I don't think you can use authority alone and force people to find solutions to problems they don't care about, or believe in. The problem they'll actually try to solve is "how do I me this person leave me alone."
Their best victories look like things other people consider discriminatory against them ... The hope is that collectively they'll put enough people in enough positions of authority to be able to gradually diminish the constant throb of small injustices that collectively have brought about an overwhelming white maleness to all authority positions.
Well, thanks for admitting that diversity officers are just a massive power play by the hard left to take control of every institution by creating hatred of men and white people.
BTW, given almost the entire software industry now does use coding tests during interviews, you are seriously claiming everyone who does this is either sexist or lazy, with no other possibilities. Do you realize that this is how pro-diversity people end up getting such a bad name? You are willing to make sweeping accusations of sexism against entire industries.
There's no way to ever satisfy people like you except by literally giving women jobs to do nothing all day, just so you can say you have lots of women. These attitudes are so grotesque, so deeply morally wrong, that it will one day be you being cancelled for them.
Can you explain what this mythic “throb of injustice” is that keeps the white man in power?
What I experience today is:
* government policy that is openly racist against white and asian men (affirmative action)
* Racist “diversity” campaigns today that are veils for “we want less white men but can’t straight up say that.”
* Hate from people of color, since the narrative is my “white male privilege” is the only reason for any success in my life. Every other major contributor to it is sidelined.
I have also still not found someone able to explain why white male leadership is a problem when it well reflects the entry workforce 40 years ago. Current diversity metrics for new grads will feed up management chains in 40 years and so on.
These are tangible policies and sentiment I can point to that directly and overtly discriminate against me because of my identity. Your comment tries to paint a rosy picture of doing so. There is no thought to my economic background, how hard I’ve worked, etc. Just you’re a white privileged man so you deserve less opportunity for leadership positions.
It seems incredibly and overtly racist to me, but I’m open to changing my mind.
Will be interesting to see how Google handles other old examples of people writing things perceived to be offensive. Apple clearly has taken the opposite approach, with the firing of Antonio Garcia Martinez. While the google employee's comments are clearly anti Semitic, one can hope he has changed since then and give him another chance. We are too quick to condemn people for life due to their past mistakes. With that said though, a diversity role is probably not going to be an ideal spot for him going forward and re-assigning him is good.
Plenty of time... the totalitarian principle of QM notwithstanding, not everything not forbidden is compulsory at a macro level; academia is not a deterministic machine for yielding studies given the appearance of a phenomenon. Otherwise I'd ask you to provide some studies quantifying "plenty of time".
I feel 13 years should at least be producing nonfiction essays or something that passes for journalism. It took 4 years for 5000 trump books to come out. 13 years for the upending of racism towards being against the whites should be plenty, too.
Regarding Garcia Martinez, I am still surprised "straight male" is such a disadvantage that being POC doesn't buy enough oppression points to allow you to criticize white women. Then again, maybe it's more that being Hispanic specifically isn't enough. I have a hard time imagining a black man getting fired for the same comments.
Slightly shocking that he didn't get fired. (yet?)
They fired Damore for writing an email that was tone-deaf, insensitive, but largely supported by research.
Bobb goes on a clearly antisemitic rant, and just gets reassigned.
Is Google inconsistent, or has their policy on how to deal with these things changed over the past few years?
>Is Google inconsistent, or has their policy on how to deal with these things changed over the past few years?
Simple explanation is Google's Democrat-leaning leadership are more aligned with Bobb than Damore (in the US, the left are generally anti-Israel while the right support it, and the left are pro-affirmative-action while the right oppose it).
Why does this statement sound sexist? Is it true? I feel like I should disagree on principal, but honestly I've remotely no idea if this is true or false.
I thought the data was that there are differences, but they're so small that the average man and average woman overlap in the majority of their characteristics.
> women's innate biological tendency towards neuroticism
What the actual...
Are you serious right now? Men kill women and other men at much, much higher rates than women kill men or other women. What does that say about the the "innate biological tendencies" of men?
I was seeing how far people would go with Damore, and it really saddens me how much my comment was upvoted. People here are the type of people I work with... they all hold these views?
Of course, now that I've clarified, I expect the Damore-types to downvoted my comment, it peaked at +5.
It is not universally acknowledged. Case in point, during the 2016 campaign, people asked if a woman could be trusted with the nuclear codes, but no one questioned whether a man could be trusted with them.
This is the correct answer. The amount of anti-semitism shown during this recent Hamas Israel conflict in the woke left has been very worrying. We are likely to see a big resurgence of anti-semitism in the next period. It's more and more socially acceptable on the left.
Street harassment or violence against visibly Jewish individuals has nothing to do with “criticism of Israel” though, and it did spike and has been increasing based on news articles and counts of reported incidents. https://www.jta.org/2021/05/21/united-states/antisemitism-in...
I am curious how much actual vs perceived anti-semitism there is. I've seen more people conflate "Criticism of the state of Israel" with "criticism of Jewish people" and further still with "discrimination against Jewish people" than I have seen actual antisemitic sentiment on the left.
Damore doubled down on defending the document and asserted his right to publish it. At that point, he made himself a walking Title VII violation and tied Google's hands. Whether management wanted to fire him or not, the legal cost of retaining him was going to exceed his value as an individual contributor.
As far as I can see, Bobb is doing everything he can to work with Google to avoid the further creation of a hostile work environment. It might not be enough, but for now it seems to be worth more to the company to keep him than to fire him.
There may be one aspect, however, where your observation about relative American tolerances for hostile-environment-creating speech matters. Hostile work environment is partially decided by fellow employee's reaction to behavior. If the average Googler is, in fact, less tolerant of biological essentialism than antisemitism, that could create a corporation where one speech is punished more hardly than the other. But I think we ought not to discount the reaction of the separate actors in these two stories once caught in the spotlight.
They are entirely consistent. They succumb to pressure from their far left employees, which don’t like insensitivity to the Jews, but abhor any take that conflicts with their “diversity = equal outcomes” nonsense. There is no room for thought even remotely consistent with conservatism, whether or not it’s consistent with scientific consensus.
> far left employees, which don’t like insensitivity to the Jews,
The far left doesn't like insensivity to Jews? Which far left are you thinking of? In the US, the far left is the most reliable source of public anti-Semitism. (Note specifically that I said public. I'm not going to try and divine whether rightwing anti-Semitism is worse in private, which it very well may be.)
The first link is about Germany. I specifically mentioned the US. It's also about anti-Semitic _violence_, not public statements, another thing that I made sure to clarify. I'd be pretty comfortable guessing that anti-Semitic violence is more right-skewed, incl in the US.
Your second link is interesting, thank you. Caputo in particular is a good example of anti-semitism among rightwing public figures. It doesn't dispute my impression that anti-Semitism (and other racism) on the left is much more acceptable in public statements than rightwing public anti-Semitism; it just claims that the media disproportionately focuses on leftwing anti-Semitism (possibly true).
I don't think complaining about Internet votes is particularly constructive, but this is more of an insight than a complaint: the downvotes on my original comment are a perfect reflection of how inanely most people engage with topics like these. There are "good guys" and "bad guys", and the "good guys" don't do any of the bad things. I don't use the phrase anti-Semitism reflexively, and think it's often wielded as a bludgeon, particularly in the context of criticism of the Israeli government. But the idea that one would be surprised at anti-semitism on the far left, like the comment I responded to, is ridiculous.
Damore held and advanced his beliefs while working for Google. Bobb went on his "rant" (actually just one instance) back in 2007 and has recanted his beliefs. So the disparate treatment is based on disparate behavior, which isn't on its own an inconsistency nor necessarily a policy change.
A blog post from 13 years ago.. which has since been removed.. is different from an email sent internally.
Hopefully nobody will hold me accountable to all the slashdot comments I wrote 10-15 years ago. Taken out of context, I've probably made fantastically horrific statements too.
Literally within the past day, along with the rest of his entire blog. This post was still online yesterday!
I also don't see any form of public acknowledgement or apology anywhere on his site or twitter. Perhaps he made one but I just can't find it. I'm not sure how people are affirmatively concluding that his views have changed so substantially since this post.
> Taken out of context
The full post speaks for itself. Nothing is taken out of context here; he's directly making offensive statements about all Jewish people based on stereotypes and actions of the Israeli government, which literally has no relation to the majority of Jewish people in the world.
> Is Google inconsistent, or has their policy on how to deal with these things changed over the past few years?
Nope, they're being very consistent if you use the correct ideological goggles, change Bobb's color palette and first name a little and we would have another Damore-like shitshow.
I think the blog post is definitely worse than Damore's email (although I thought it was pretty crappy in itself), but you're talking here about a blog post from 2007 and an email that was sent via company channels while he was working there.
I can only imagine Bobb was quite apologetic and a lot more aware of how terrible his conflations are there than he was in 2007. That's also 14 years of time to have solid evidence that he no longer holds such myopic views.
No Damore sent supposedly confidential feedback when solicited to do so by diversity trainers. That content so enraged the diversity staff they leaked it to the rest of the company. Perhaps Damore was naive in thinking the feedback about diversity training was welcome or confidential, but he definately did not send a company-wide email to anyone.
He was using company resources to respond to a company request for him to provide feedback to a company event.
When the company asks you "tell me what you think about the content of our diversity training, we promise your response is confidential and we are interested in hearing what you have to say", and you respond with an evidence based argument that the diversity training is incorrect, then this is a very different situation from the head of diversity making public comments on a blog. Remember Damore was a non-management developer.
If you are going to fire people for their views, which is what apparently Google has no problem doing, then the Damore situation is much less justifiable than this situation and the person with the offending views was not even fired.
I don't have all the facts, but this article [1] seems to refute your accounting.
The memo was initially sent to Diversity Training, then after a non-response, Damore himself circulated to a wider internal audience.
According to Google [2], he was fired because portions of his memo were found to be a violation of Google's Code of Conduct, specifically "each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination."
But again, this all misses the point--a 2007 blog post when you were not an employee is much different than sending a memo internally while on the clock.
That seems like a pretty shallow distinction considering Google's "bring your whole self to work" policy and cultural norms. People at Google regularly expressed far more controversial opinions than Damore's using company resources on company time. Further, the explicit rationale for canning Damore was not that he was expressing himself on company time or with company resources, but rather the patently false notion that his criticisms of the company constituted a hostile work environment.
Of course he was only fired because he was criticizing popular regressive policies and that provoked the wrath of employees who identify with those kinds of policies, and management decided it was easier to give in to the authoritarians (indeed, Google's management the authoritarian employees in question are probably not distinct groups--they certainly overlapped).
In Damore's case: He was asked to privately(?) provide his thoughts to the company(hence while employed and on company time).
Bobb's case: He decided to write a blog post. No-one asked him nor compelled him to share his thoughts.
My view is that firing people over views and opinions is dumb as long as they are not trying to force their views and opinions on other people in the workplace.
On the other hand, my view is that one's views and opinions are private and don't need to be spewed everywhere, hence why I have a dim view of social media(notes the irony/hypocrisy of posting this on HN).
"Damore emailed his memo to the organisers of Google’s diversity meetings in early July. When there was no response, he started sending the document to Google’s internal mailing lists and forums, eager for a reaction."
This is the Guardian telescoping and generalizing with it's usual rigor.
There were two diversity trainings, both requesting feedback. There was no email there was a google doc, a link to which was sent as part of a feedback form in the trainings and then shared with a larger group called "skeptics" created for these types of discussions at the request of Damore's manager.
Read the timeline, so he shared it on a forum, he persisted with it through the month via various channels (who were all seemingly dismissing him, and I'd say that in itself is a huge failing on their end considering his autism), then he shared it another forum, several days later an anonymous source leaked it. So his legal testification of events isn't at all far from the Guardian's one paragraph summary.
Meanwhile, your initial summary of it was that he sent confidential feedback to the diversity team after a training session which pissed them off so much that they leaked it to screw with him.
> called "skeptics" created for these types of discussions at the request of Damore's manager.
No, at the suggestion of a random person who was a manager. Not damores manager.
And the skeptics group has nothing to do with diversity, is open to anyone, and by sharing with the group, functionally meant that the doc was emailed to hundreds or thousands of people.
That's not true. Damore posted his document to larger and larger making lists (it was essentially ignored on the first two or three) until it finally got a reaction. He shared it with thousands of people.
Damore held and advocated for those beliefs so much so that he communicated them within the company at the time of his firing, and then legally disputed his firing.
Bobb wrote something which he has since recanted, 10 years ago, outside of Google's official channels?
> They fired Damore for writing an email that was tone-deaf, insensitive, but largely supported by research
Damore was asked for his feedback on Google's diversity policies, and that's exactly what he provided.
Most of Damore's critics haven't actually read his memo[1], but rather formed an opinion based on the character assassination campaign against him, a campaign his employer publicly sided with.
Over the 4 years since the controversy I've asked countless Damore critics to point to the specific part of his memo that was tone-deaf, insensitive, or bigoted. I'm still waiting for an answer.
People take issue with the following, but I don't recall Google confirming/denying if it is true:
I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices:
● Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race
● A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates
● Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate
● Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scrutiny in the reverse direction (clear confirmation bias)
● Setting org level OKRs for increased representation which can incentivize illegal discrimination
To my knowledge Google has never challenge the accuracy of those claims, and such practices are commonplace in many tech companies in the name of "diversity".
Do you think purposely hiring X group is a bad practice? From what I understand, it's not enough to say "we'll hire X if they're better than Y". When you don't actually have any X at the moment, your company might not be very welcoming to X, and so they won't join. So you purposely go out of your way to hire extra X, to account for the lower acceptance rate.
The common response is "that's not fair to Y, you should be hiring only based on quality, not on X or Y". But the issue is if you only hire on quality, but the quality X candidates don't join, then you're actually losing out on quality. So instead, you lower quality requirements, with the goal that overall you're actually promoting quality in the end, by working towards an environment where quality _is_ the only determining factor, and removing the current factors that work against X candidates.
What about this do you disagree with?
Note: This kind of handwaves over what "X won't join is". There's a lot of nuance to this. It may be that X grows up thinking the job isn't for them, because they always see Y in those types of jobs, and never bothers to try that job. It may be that X tries to join, but the people hiring them all Y, and favor Y instead because it's familiar to them, and the rest of the company is Y. It may be that X joins, but they feel uncomfortable that everyone is Y, and quits. There's a lot of different factors that goes into what discrimination looks like, which is why affirmative action is a lot more than just company policies.
Beyond your handwaving absurdity, is there any empirical evidence at all that lowering the quality bar for X ends up actually raising quality in the end? Because it sounds like a bunch of unicorn fairytale nonsense to me.
I believe that people should be treated as individuals, not collectivized into groups based on immutable characteristics like ethnicity.
I believe that while "reverse-discrimination" has become commonplace in the name of diversity, it is unfair, divisive, counterproductive, and illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
I'm not accusing you of making this argument, but the assumption that a particular ethnic group can't compete on a level playing field is deeply condescending towards those groups. It's "the soft bigotry of low expectations".
If that is the line of thinking, that certain races are naturally predisposed to playing basketball, then I could see why Google took issue with insiuating that certain genders are naturally predisposed to be engineers.
I didn't claim that certain races are naturally predisposed to playing basketball, I just quoted an uncontroversial statistic and asked whether it could only be explained by discrimination.
I don't entirely disagree with you. But by the same token, trying to treat everyone as an individual without acknowledging disadvantages due to race, gender, etc isn't a good idea either.
For instance, I'm trans. I'm not openly out when searching for jobs / at work, because I fear I will be discriminated for it. If I saw a company already had several trans people, and they were seeking trans people out and asking them to apply, I would maybe change my mind.
Should companies treat everyone as individuals, and say "if trans people wanted to work here, they need to apply"? Because that's how you get no trans people applying, and that perpetuates the cycle of "I can't come out, no one else in the world is trans". Sure, it would be better if companies didn't have to advocate for diversity, but until society doesn't have stigmitism, real or imagined, against minorities, then I don't think it's wrong to help them on the basis of their identity.
I'm sorry to hear that you are fearful of discrimination and it has discouraged you from seeking employment. That's wrong and unfair.
I have no problem with companies going out of their way to advertise that they are welcoming to all, whether black, trans, white, gay, young, old, etc, and that candidates will be judged on merit.
But I do have a problem with holding people to a different standard because of their ethnicity, gender, gender identity, or any other inborn characteristic that's irrelevant to their ability to do the job.
I don't get it. He's pointing out five problems with Google's efforts. I don't know whether they're correct or not, but I don't see anything here to criticize. If these are true, and they seem plausible, they do need to be fixed.
Within the context in which the claim was made, it's "not even wrong". Lots of the claims in the Damore memo are similarly better to characterize as "not even wrong" rather than "false".
> Doesn't seem like something he would assert without a cite.
Non-native English user here, it seems the word "neurotic" has some connotation that the trait "neuroticism" doesn't? And that's why it's received so poorly?
"Neurotic" does have a negative connotation in common usage, but it's also the term used by personality psychologists, it's the 'N' in the OCEAN personality model. It means "risk averse".
He suggested that biological differences between the sexes (rather than bias/discrimination) are the reason why women are underrepresented in the tech industry.
It’s not hard to understand why many people find this offensive.
Here’s the direct quote if you need it: “I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.”
That’s why I used the word “suggested”, which is exactly what he did, in a section prominently titled “Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech”.
Parsing his sentence for tiny nuances like that isn't very helpful IMHO, but I'll indulge you.
His exact words are "these differences may explain". He doesn't say "these differences may PARTLY explain". If I say that A may explain B, the reasonable implication is that A may fully explain B. So, yes, he does suggest that non-bias causes are the only causes.
Just to be clear: I don't think this makes any real difference. The reaction to his email would've been the same either way. But the fact remains that your interpretation of the quote isn't supported by the actual words he used.
If a holistic reading of Damore's memo reinforced the idea that he was trying to deny the possibility of bias/discrimination, then perhaps you could call your inference a "reasonable implication." But the opposite is true, Damore repeatedly tries to represent the uncertainty and possibility of multiple causes. This is true even in the single sentence you quoted.
Given this, I do not think it is a reasonable implication to turn "may explain" to "may fully explain."
It's hard for me to believe this distinction doesn't matter given that his critics always seem to specifically call out his "denial" of bias/discrimination when they want to paint him in the most unflattering light (even the NYT: https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1360626887035338752).
> Damore was asked for his feedback on Google's diversity policies, and that's exactly what he provided.
> Most of Damore's critics haven't actually read his memo[1], but rather formed an opinion based on the character assassination campaign against him, a campaign his employer publicly sided with.
I completely agree, but in a corporate setting one can be truthful, accurate, have good intent, and yet still be tone deaf and insensitive. The bar for insensitive is very low in this context.
I think with a fair and honest reading of his letter & the context that it came up in, its clear that he was trying to contribute in a positive way to the discussion & effort.
This is why the inconsistency between these two cases is so remarkable. Antisemitism, even if from years ago, and not related to company business, is pretty damning (esp for someone leading D&I efforts).
Meanwhile, an attempt, albeit executed in a politically naive way, to positively contribute to a discussion led to a firing & character assassination.
> I completely agree, but in a corporate setting one can be truthful, accurate, have good intent, and yet still be tone deaf and insensitive. The bar for insensitive is very low in this context.
If a fair and honest reading of his memo reveals that he had good intent, and the memo was scientifically accurate - and yet he was fired and publicly vilified for it, then isn't describing it as "tone deaf and insensitive" a form of victim-blaming?
It seems similar to pointing out that the victim of a sexual assault was dressed provocatively.
"... statements about immutable traits linked to sex - such as women's heightened neuroticism and men's prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution - were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment..."
7 billion people in the world. I don't think the global lead on diversity strategy role should be going to someone who wrote an elaborate essay in which he was clearly anti-Semitic. He graduated university in 1994 - it's not like he was a kid when he was writing these words.
Who else has he helped discriminate against based on their ethnicity or views?
This guy expressed views that would reasonably call into question whether or not he would do the position he was in. Merely the appearance of such views might make it impossible for him to be able to e.g. get the respect of communities he might have to work with as part of his role.
For many other positions I would agree with you, but not a position like this.
You can't be openly racist in your private life, and have it not be a problem in your professional life managing and hiring people at a job. The idea that you think it shouldn't is weird. If I think that social netowrks are garbage that should be regulated out of existence and their operators jailed (in my private life, on my blog), should it affect my job at Facebook?
What if I believe in my public private life that Russia should rise up and destroy the west for its decadence and weakness - should it affect my job in the CIA?
This guy is the head of diversity. His job description involves him ideally having a) having a certain open state of mind b)the trust of the people he is dealing with. So this blog post disqualifies him since it demonstrates he lacks trait a) and he will most likely be lacking b) in the future making him totally useless at his job. So this is not a punishment, just a consequence of past misdeeds. If this man had been born white, the consequence would have most likely been that he would have never received this role in the first place. So i don't see how this is different in any way
Only the purest of the pure can lead a diversity effort. And it doesn’t count unless you were pure from the beginning. Growing to overcome past problems is not sufficient.
>Growing to overcome past problems is not sufficient.
Their assumption is moreso that we cant grow to overcome past problems. So the only way to build themselves up is to tear others down.
Thats why the popular "anti-racism" philosophy is so antithetical to and ignorant of the lives and philosophies of many of the greatest civil rights leaders such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T Washington, and MLK.
Could you point me to the paragraph in question? I've read the article a few times now, and I don't see
A) anyone described as anti-racist or
B) anything saying people who do racist things cannot grow.
Sorry! Somehow I managed to paste completely the wrong link, and now it is too late for me to edit my previous comment. I realise now that scrolling down on that website automatically loads new articles and updates the address bar.
Here[0] is the article I had meant to link to.
Ah man… I really feel bad that you read the wrong article a few times after I unwittingly mislead you. I'm genuinely sorry about that.
I'm going to have to start asking for better sources on antiracism than a white woman who makes a career out of corporate "diversity training." Like, of course that's her entire thesis.
White fragility is a very useful concept, for sure. But the way DiAngelo uses it seems to be more focused on making white people hem and haw and feel guilty for even trying instead of doing mutual aid, reading theory, forming community, anything actually helpful or useful.
If I wanted to set up a strawman, that's exactly what I'd do.
In case anyone finds this, I should probably clarify that my beef is with DiAngelo specifically rather than with CRT in general. I think that what she puts forth leads to unhelpful, performative activism, and I think she characterizes Black people erroneously as a monolith. In my opinion, the end result is white people getting bounced off of important work by one excessively moralizing book with a profit motive. For this and other reasons White Fragility is being taken off of some antiracism reading lists.
I'll probably read her new book that's coming out soon, but my prior assumption is that it's more of the same. I hope to be proven wrong.
I remain unconvinced that CRT is at all constructive and I find it peculiar that you recognise it as erroneous to characterise black people as a monolith when this is exactly what CRT does.
My perspective aligns neatly with that describe here[0].
As Trevor Phillips would say[1], Critical Race Theory is exactly the idea I would invent if I were a racist.
Could you expand on that? Are Phillips’ (a decorated former MP, and the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, and also a black man) positions on racism invalid in your view? Is he unqualified? Are you better qualified? Or do you just find his views heretical?
Oh absolutely, and that was never my claim. That is however the implicit claim of Critical Race Theorists. It’s a racist claim, which is why I’m challenging your support for it now.
> That is however the implicit claim of Critical Race Theorists.
You have provided evidence that it is the implicit claim of exactly one critical race theorist.
> which is why I'm challenging your support for it now.
This is a strawman. I began this discussion by pointing out that this very claim is counterproductive, which is why I'm not a fan of DiAngelo's work. Reasoning in the abstract about marginalized groups and the systemic issues they tend to face is not the same as asserting that they individually have all the same views or background.
Ah, thanks for the corrected link, I appreciate it. I hate when websites do that, it's super confusing.
I actually agree with her here, but I don't think that's the same as saying that racist people can't get better:
> While citizens can work on addressing racism, they can never be free of it, she said.
“We don’t arrive and now we are not racist,” DiAngelo said.
In her view (and mine), becoming "not racist" isn't really a thing that happens and then you're done, and you don't have to worry about not being racist anymore. Rather, it's an ongoing effort, the same way being a kind person or a hard worker is. In this understanding, "all white people are racist" is not a condemnation of white people or an attempt to cast white people as inherently bad or irredeemable. Rather, it's meant as a wake-up call - "Yes, all white people, even you, believe racist things and sometimes act in racist ways." If you want to be anti-racist, it is important to recognize these things within yourself and improve them, in the same way that you work to improve the world outside you.
Since this is a different definitional understanding (semantics?) than the person who says "I'm not racist," it can be a tricky point to communicate properly without being misunderstood or taken out of context.
I don't agree with all of DiAngelo's points or writing, but on this core one, I think she's not too far off the mark.
I mean sorry, but no amount of context to "all white people are racist" is going to make people see the nuance.
It's a stupid statement no matter the explanation.
And honestly even the intent at bwst is advocating purity over practice, her point will waste a lot of resources on people who are more or less on board with said idea of anti-racism but are flawed.
It's worse than that, only the purest of the pure can be employed. Look at Apple's recent mob firing of Antonio García Martínez. Who made the mistake of writing a best selling and critically acclaimed book just 5 years ago. Featured as one of NPR's best books of the year, recommended by NYT, Washington Post, etc. But now it's suddenly a fireable offense.
“An irresistible and indispensable 360-degree guide to the new technology establishment.... A must-read.” New York Times
“Incisive.... The most fun business book I have read this year.... Clearly there will be people who hate this book — which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read.” New York Times
“Reckless and rollicking... perceptive and funny and brave.... The resulting view of the Valley’s craziness, self-importance and greed isn’t pretty. But it’s one that most of us have never seen before and aren’t likely to forget.” Washington Post
“Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel.”
“PMMess, as we’ll call her, was composed of alternating Bézier curves from top to bottom: convex, then concave, and then convex again, in a vertical undulation you couldn’t take your eyes off of. Unlike most women at Facebook (or in the Bay Area, really) she knew how to dress; forties-style, form-fitting dresses from neck to knee were her mainstay.”
“Out of nowhere British Trader informs me she is once again pregnant; the calendar math takes us right back to my move- out imbroglio in December, our last tryst after a breakup desert of nonintimacy. After a brief debate, British Trader confirms her desire to keep the child, whatever my thoughts on the matter. It occurred to me that perhaps this most recent experiment in fertility—and the first—had been planned on British Trader’s part, her back up against the menopause wall, a professional woman with every means at her disposal except a willing male partner—in which case I had been snookered into fatherhood via warm smiles and pliant thighs, the oldest tricks in the book.”
“To make an analogy, a capped note is like having to seduce five women one after the other, while an equity round is having to convince five women to do a sixsome with you. The latter is exponentially harder than the former.*
* The women analogy breaks down in that, unlike with women, the more investors you seduce into your moresome, the more likely others are to join. This is an expression of the lemming-like nature of tech investors, most of whom scarcely merit the title.”
Out of context excerpts from a 500 page book written in the style of Hunter S. Thompson is not compelling evidence to anyone but the mob and those seeking to be offended. People who have actually read the book don't find them to be so problematic, including the reviewers at New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, Techcrunch and others who gave the book a big thumbs up.
if you hang around long enough, you can watch the woke eat the woke. what is "pure" changes, and some who have delighted in getting scalps in the past will have theirs taken by someone else once the goalposts change.
i'm thinking there is a decent chance trans-racialism will eventually become woke
The sadly-deceased Mark Fisher wrote a piece called "Exiting the Vampire Castle" about at least a portion of this problem.
Essentially, you gain "cred" by publicly taking down a more powerful figure than yourself. It's the problem of diablerie in Vampire: The Masquerade in that, once accepted, you create a set of rewards and initiatives that foster a constant churn of figures eager to snipe at those above them, to drain them of their woke cred and get at least a little for yourself in an act called "critique." Of course, there's only so much blood/cred to go around so figures rise and fall as these very public lives are examined for any kind of transgression: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." Twitter and Tumblr are not exactly structured for careful, nuanced thought and so produce an endless stream of hot takes which, when gone cold, can be mined for evidence.
And so the revolutionaries are declared counter-revolutionaries and come to be the next layer of corpses in the mass graves they have dug, Khmer Rouge style.
I find the best solution is to simply never use a social media account attached to your real identity.
Innocent comments taken out of context or a general changing of accepted speech can turn a decade old bit of text into damning evidence of bigotry, racism, or any other ism.
The problem with autodelete or timed content is with caching services. There are a number of sites that allow you to see deleted comments. If a social media service is large enough, I imagine the same will be created.
Once something is on the internet, it is always on the internet.
I really can't tell if this is right or wrong. On one hand, these comments are hurtful and obviously stupid. On the other hand, this post is 13 years old. We all say or think stupid things sometimes, especially when we're naive about a topic. Isn't it possible his stance has changed? All this publicity now may have ruined this guy's career forever, all because the scribbled down some random stupid thoughts more than a decade ago?
Downvote me, but I am truly sorry for him. Stuff like this makes me never want to post on the public web under my real name, who knows what will be marked as "offensive" a few decades from now.
This is how it works now, yes it's extreme.
But if you say something demeaning over women or blacks the response is much much worse. Here the guy just got transferred to another cushy job with big pay, not even fired. Jews are fair game unfortunately
> All this publicity now may have ruined this guy's career forever,
You do seem to live in extremely polite and enlightened world where just a transfer is ruining career. Out in real world today one would have their ass out of job instead of mild reprimand for such blog post.
Thank you. Everyone on this thread should read the original words instead of the pull quotes. I am a staunch progressive and am afraid to make my own comment on his words. We are living through a strange political moment.
Thanks for linking that. It puts the issue in perspective. To be honest, I'm amazed that a blog post like that can make someone lose his job as a "head of diversity." Apparently, diversity at Google means that people should never voice critical opinions about the Israeli government, not even privately.
For me, the lesson to learn from this is that to never apply for a job in the US or for a job for a large US company. That's easy for me to say, though, since I'm working as a philosopher in academia and these are not wanted or needed in corporations anyway.
this isn’t just criticizing israel. this is criticizing all jewish people as being war hawking hypocrites unable to remember history who don’t care about anyone but themselves. it’s clearly antisemitic. and if he wanted to make this about israel it should have been phrased “if i were an israeli” which still isn’t accurate cause not everyone in israel suppported this
maybe the lesson is if you are going to make sweeping, negative, generalizations about a population you are probably going to look like an idiot. and especially if you feel the need to publish them to the world
While I wouldn't put it the same way he did, calling this "clearly antisemitic" goes way over board and is in my point of view unacceptable. Besides, albeit regrettable, it is common for Israelis to mix up their religion with political matters, too.
The kind of ferocity with which people reject other people's opinions and evaluate them to the highest possible moral standards once they disagree with them is a special kind of modern savagery. We're talking about a blog post this guy wrote ten years ago as a private person. Maybe he even changed his opinion or regrets the way he phrased it then?
If I understand what you're saying, you're setting aside the context that [the state of Israel exists and has a controversial military doctrine], and reading the Google guy's post as specifically targeted at people who share the Jewish faith?
if i understand what you’re saying, your setting aside the direct text from the article which targeted the jewish people and reading the google guys post as specifically being about israel?
The fact that he ends the essay with "If I were a Jew..." and not "If I were an Israeli..." makes it pretty clear to me which group he is referring to. Especially considering the author's other comments praising bigots like Louis Farrakhan
Though not every anti-Israeli is anti-Jewish, fact is, most ardent ones are anti-Jewish.
BTW. Anti-Jewish bigotry [ethnic Arab racism and/or religious Islamic intolerance] by Arab Muslim Goliath middle east against the 'other'... is the root cause of "conflict" at least since the Ottomans banned the FALASTIN periofical for racism in 1914. Then the hate mongering by ex Mufti al-Husseini (invertor of the cry 'itbakh al-Yahud' and years later the: 'Kill the J..s wherever they are") in the 1920s pogroms --especially against non-Zionist pious Jews, as in 1921 and 1929-- through his and Ahmad Shukeiri aiding Hitler in WW2. [Yes, that Shukairy who justified the Holocaust in 1946; in 1956 still said Palestine is nothing but southern Syria, first PLO chairman; has invented the apartheid slander in oct. 1961, infamous for his genocidal plans as in "none of them will survive," pre-1967].
____
"Jews Urge Arabs To Shun Bigotry..."
Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
July 18, 1930, Page 7:
'JERUSALEM, July 17.--Deep emotional feeling marked the Jewish representatives' final addresses before the League of Nations Wailing Wall commission today. In stirring terms the Jews appealed to the Moslems not to be influenced by religious bigotry but to seek a settlement of the present dispute as generously as possible.'
____
"Haj Amin el‐Husseini Dies; Ex‐Palestine Grand Mufti," The New York Times, July 5, 1974:
'In 1952 the Mufti explained ... This land, he pointed out, had belonged to the non‐Jewish peoples of Palestine ...'
____
Hamas senior jihadist in his interview to Sky News on May 24, 2021 openly said, the Jews don't "belong" there, as it is all Arab Muslim land:
'“You are not a citizen. We are the owner of this area – Arabic area. This is well known as an Islamic area.”…'
Interesting. I wasn't sure about blacks' position relative to jews on the oppression stack. I guess jews are actually above them (i.e. blacks cannot criticize jews the way they can whites)? Was this always the case? As I recall, Louis Farrakhan gets away with worse.
It's not a competition to get to the bottom of the oppression ladder, i can imagine nothing more dystopian then a chart ranking minorities with an "opression" score or something.
The left’s obsession with cancel culture and conducting archeological digs on past comments, tweets, etc is coming back to bite them. I think removing this guy was the right thing to do, BUT I also think a major company like Google needs to set an example: Something someone tweeted more than ten years ago should no longer be relevant and should be ignored. However until that standard is set as example by a major company, we are going to see this dig up and burn for some time.
How far is it OK and relevant to look back for dirt in someone's posting history? 20 years? 30? Rants to their college newspaper? High school yearbook? Today's sensitivity yardstick is much less forgiving than it was in decades past. It's getting to the point where it is safest to just not participate at all, in case something you say today becomes taboo in 30 years.
In 1998 I was running around Italy telling people that Joseph Smith translated magic transdimensional golden plates that a disembodied Native American spirit materialized for him.
Six years later I became an atheist. I've been an atheist for 17 years now.
As someone who has personally undergone an extreme change in disposition on something so fundamental with respect to how one views the cosmos, what you did or said 14 years ago is only relevant to me insofar as what your transformation story has been.
More than anything though, I want to know what person you have become today. Bonus points if you used to think the opposite of what you think today, because you've managed to really grok that state of mind and figured out how to get out of it.
Sorry, but if you think it was the right thing to do to remove him, then you agree with the methods, you're just showing your hand at not liking the things that most people are "cancelled" over.
These are rules that you've invented, not every "cancellation" results in a firing even for people posting actually racist stuff. Indeed, there are plenty of people with racist posts who are routinely not fired by these companies.
The contradiction is pretty clear - the guy is decrying these tactics, but still saying this person should be fired using exactly those same tactics.
I can see where you got that implication, it wasn't the intention of my comment - the last few line of the blog post are obviously anti-semitic.
I probably should have used the word "really" rather than "actually", as I was trying to contrast the minor response with the harm of the offense, not contrast other racist things with this racist thing.
It's not a contradiction in the slightest. It's possible to disagree with a belief/norm system while still respecting those that adhere to it as reasonable moral entities. This is the foundation of Enlightenment pluralism: you can coexist peacefully with those that have different worldviews, managing the behavior of each group only when it affects others (eg, you can pray to whomever you want, but you can't burn witches at the stake). But if they don't adhere to their own belief system when inconvenient, then absolute normative judgments about their behavior become appropriate (like the one you're making in the quote below).
> you're just showing your hand at not liking the things that most people are "cancelled" over.
Honestly, it feels like you're projecting here a little. Seeing a demand for consistency as hypocrisy only makes sense if moral consistency isn't a term in your moral calculus.
Given this, perhaps an example that's coded in the opposite direction politically will make it clearer. Imagine a critic of legacy admissions in prestigious universities that pay lip service to meritocracy and equal opportunity. Now imagine that critic getting even more incensed when a university decides to reverse their usual racial preferences and refuses to admit black legacy candidates. Would this critic be a hypocrite? Does it make any sense to say, "it's a contradiction to complain about legacy admissions and also complain about avoiding specific legacy admissions"?
Obviously not. They set the rules, and they're refusing to play by them. This is a different, and stronger, complaint than simply not liking the stated rules.
Google is not threatened by "cancel culture". What are people going to do? Get them banned on Twitter? Won't happen, and that's the extent of the possible damage.
Google does this because someone in the corp didn't like what this guy said, and canned them. People do that because they have beliefs. In the U.S. firing people, protesting, and overall underhanded methods are also a Hallmark of "the right" whenever someone does something they don't agree with. Or have we forgotten that the overwhelming majority of day to day business isn't conducted on Twitter?
I think we should try to avoid it at all costs, because otherwise we can't keep a liberal society. Being able to think and express yourself risks offending others. I do not like what this guy had to say, but I'd rather he not get sacked - same with people on the 'opposite' side of the debate. It's gross but we have to stick up for people to be allowed to say gross things.
Something they wrote and then hosted without retraction for 14 years.
Your library of work is on you. Reviewing it, and adding contemporary commentary where needed is again, up to you. If you don't, people assume you still believe it.
This wasn't some woke slip of syntax, he was very literally holding all Jews accountable for Israel's actions. It's a deeply anti-Semitic set of comments. Even without his position, he should have known better.
Notably, Kamau Bobb removed ALL of his blog posts over from his personal website. It looks like some people on Twitter began looking through all of his blog posts and finding controversial opinions.
In my opinion, the 1619 Project is a racist and decisive project and has no place at Google, and Kamau Bobb was a public supporter of that.
So if Google is going to support "cancel culture", then Kamau Bobb should have no place at Google, or any major tech company, whatsoever.
Both US parties try and "cancel" things they don't like. It's not related to one party or the other. [0] Also, "cancel culture" isn't some new concept. Humans have rebuked and ostracized each other forever.
[0] Or are we forgetting when people lost their minds about "happy holidays" and starbucks' cup design change? Or Colin Kaepernick? Etc. I don't see how anyone can say it's related to one political party in one country.
It's not but right now it's a common talking point that only the left practices "cancel culture" so you will see it surfacing in many discussions online.
What I have learned in recent years is how shockingly accepting of antisemitism people apparently are on both sides of aisle. Growing up in a prominently Jewish neighborhood in Minnesota I never really encountered it until maybe ten years ago.
The fact that he was just shifted rather than fired in this political environment speaks volumes.
How so? The norm in human society is to accept that people can grow and learn with time. The fact someone can be fired or shifted because of something like this said 14 years ago speaks volumes of the power of cancel culture and says nothing about antisemitism.
The fact that he felt qualified to lead a diversity team (whatever that might mean), with the knowledge that he authored such an article speaks volumes about his moral compass and lack of conscience.
It is incomprehensible to me how anyone could judge someone on something they said 14 years ago when it would likely instantly be explained today that that wasn't what he meant and isn't his opinion today anyways. This is a perfect example of people wanting to ruin other people's lives without so much as listening for one minute to what the victim have to say - because yes, this is making him a victim, persecuted for something that might very well be a misunderstanding.
It's one thing the we see persecution by anti-Semitic people against jews -we are used to that sadly- but that it equally often happens the other way around from people who surely knows better is mind-blowing.
> It's the blanket statements about Jewish people that I'd call anti-semitic.
I find those inappropriate too- I think he might have gotten carried too far in making his point. However, on one hand I think it's an understandable slip: after all, Israel calls itself the Jewish homeland and often tries to extend criticism it receives to all Jews (by calling it antisemitic). This with little objection from Jews elsewhere. On the other hand, "antisemitic" is a very strong accusation: are we sure there aren't middle grounds, such as calling something inappropriate or incorrect, without associating it straight away with one of the worst mass murders in history?
> However, on one hand I think it's an understandable slip: after all, Israel calls itself the Jewish homeland and often tries to extend criticism it receives to all Jews (by calling it antisemitic)
“Some racists justify racism by equating their racism with their race and calling criticizing of their racism an attack on their race” doesn’t even begin to justify, excuse, or mitigate racism against that race. That’s what all racists of all races do, and if we accept that as a justification for racism all racists will be justified by other racists.
But again, "racist" is a very grave accusation, are you sure that a single inappropriate sentence (missing possibly just a qualifier, "Israeli Jew") at the end of a more articulated argument is enough to qualify someone as a racist?
> But again, "racist" is a very grave accusation, are you sure that a single inappropriate sentence (missing possibly just a qualifier, "Israeli Jew") at the end of a more articulated argument is enough to qualify someone as a racist?
I didn’t describe someone as racist, I described an argument as racist (the difference is the same as that between a dumb idea and an idea from a dumb person.)
And the argument would be racist even with “Israeli Jew”. It would be possible to rewrite it while retaining some of the ideas in it and not be racist, but it would be a major revision that I don’t think anyone would view as cosmetic.
Doesn't stop them trying. They've already successfully managed to broaden the definition of antisemitism to include criticism of Israel. To the point where nowadays, if someone is accused of it, you have to check if it's antisemitism or "antisemitism".
It's the boy who cried wolf, but embodied in a nation state.
Reading his blog post it seems to me like he is commenting on Israeli state politics and the extremists within its borders rather than "any" jew. Yes he uses the word jew in a general way, which of course is unfortunate as Israel does not solely consist of jewish people.
His points are presented without hyperboles, and while they certainly do not paint Israels state politics in a good light, how is this anti semitism (which in wikipedia is defined as "hostility to, prejudice, or discrimination against Jews")?
Antisemitism is of course as inexcusable as any other form of racism, but criticism of a country's or groups political views and policies is not hate nor discrimination.
In my opinion his removal is an overreaction, but with how polarizing this subject I don't see how it could have gone any other way.
Anti-Zionists deny being anti-Semites, claiming they make a clear distinction between Israel as a political entity and Jewish people in general, and are only against the former.
Bobb conflated Israeli politics with Jewishness and thus making the latter responsible for the actions of the former.
The fact that Israel defines itself as a Jewish state does not mean that all Jews see themselves as Israelis or are pro-Israel.
It is like criticising Arabs for the actions of Saudi-Arabia, or any other Arab (or Muslim) country, which is unfortunately an recurring theme in the West and justifiably regarded as a form of racism (Islamophobia).
I'm trying to understand what he did that was so wrong? He (correctly imo) called out Israel for its violent tendencies. The only mistake he made that I can see is he conflated Israel with the Jewish people generally. But Israel has a massive propaganda campaign leading people to do exactly that (an attack on Israel the country is an attack on Jewish people in general).
If that blogpost was the same, but said Israel, instead of the Jewish people; would there be any issue with it today?
I really don't know much about the Jewish faith or how it interplays with Israel, so I'm just trying to understand where all the anger is coming from. I feel like Israel is acting in bad faith on public forums too, which makes everything more complicated for somebody unfamiliar with it all.
EDIT: Reading more comments I think I get the gist of the controversy, he insinuated all Jewish people should feel guilt for the actions of Israel? I agree that's wrong, but I understand how somebody could come by that belief. Israel themselves have fostered the narrative that Israel represents the Jewish people by constantly conflating an attack on Israel as an attack on the Jewish people.
> in a culture where all white people are guilty for slavery, this mindset makes sense to me
Not all white people are guilty of slavery, and virtually no one thinks that they are.
Essentially all American white people continue to materially benefit from a long history of systematic racism in America [0], including slavery, state-mandated and state-tolerated post-slavery subjugation and segregation. Heck, many living white Americans are direct beneficiaries of overt discrimination in public programs, not to mention systematic, coordinated private discrimination.
People who oppose acknowledging the latter point like to set up the former as a convenient strawman.
[0] which is not to say all are in a good absolute position, or even not structurally disadvantaged on balance; systematic racial discrimination isn’t the only structural bias in American society.
> Essentially all American white people continue to materially benefit from a long history of systematic racism in America [0], including slavery, state-mandated and state-tolerated post-slavery subjugation and segregation. Heck, many living white Americans are direct beneficiaries of overt discrimination in public programs, not to mention systematic, coordinated private discrimination.
I come from a family of poor farmers in the South. I've done some genealogical digging, and thus far I've found three 16-24 year old members of my family who died in the Confederate war. We never owned slaves; service was mandatory back then, either through law or social pressure.
Approximately ~600-700,000 people died in the Civil War. This country has made sacrifices for African Americans and racial equality, more than any other country on Earth. It will never be enough.
No matter how much they give, apologize, change the rules, white Americans will never shed their "original sin." Because of my white skin, I "continue to materially benefit" from "systemic racism," and yet, where are these benefits? I come from a place riddled with opiate addicts and alcoholism. Most of the younger people don't make it out, they have to score much higher than African Americans applying to the same colleges (as do Asians).
Everyone was on board with MLK's dream of equal opportunity for all. Racial discrimination was clearly a bad idea. But, in the last 10 years or so, some people have realized that "racism" is perhaps the most powerful bludgeoning tool in the US. Now, MLK is outdated, the new movement is about racial revenge.
Like a lot of poor farmers rent or share farm equipment today, poor farmers overwhelmingly rented slaves at critical points in the growing cycle in antebellum rural South. Slaves were expensive, about $100k each in today's money, so poor farmers rented them just like any farm equipment today can be rented by those that don't have the capital to buy outright. Use of slaves was ubiquitous, even among those who didn't outright own the slaves.
What would MLK say about billionaires using identity politics to distract the working class from any kind of solidarity? That's what I believe is happening here. A lot of identity politics started after Occupy Wall Street.
A racially divided nation is profitable, and it's much harder for workers to organize.
He had choice words for white moderate push back against change for racial equality, even if it's ugly in the moment to said white moderates.
> I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
> I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
As for connections to Occupy Wall Street, my view as some one connected to the scenes is that they're orthogonal, and instead both rise from the beginnings of a generational shift in existing power structures.
> "One unfortunate thing about Black Power is that it gives priority to race precisely at a time when the impact of automation and other forces have made the economic question fundamental for blacks and whites alike. In this context a slogan 'Power for Poor People' would be much more appropriate than the slogan 'Black Power'."
Martin Luther King, Where Do We Go from Here, 1967
In the context of 1967, he's talking about taking to the streets and creating a separate black nation in a concept called "black separatism". Nothing about that is against the idea of a company making sure that they have a diverse set of employees across the structure of the company, if we can stay on topic. Nothing about it rails against "identity politics". He's not saying, if you read the whole book (which you should, it's fantastic), that the black struggle doesn't require a different set of tactics from the poor white struggle. Only that there exists some overlap that would be served by making sure that every person in America makes a good living (in addition to other separate struggles). Particularly since black separatism in a lot of cases meant leaving the US and the society that was built using quite a bit of under(or simply un)paid labor and the wealth that belongs to all here.
I'll give you that anyone saying that _only_ corporate identity politics can solve racial issues in America is blowing smoke up your ass, but honest looks at why companies as their employees become richer trend white and male is an important component of the fight for racial equality.
> Because of my white skin, I "continue to materially benefit" from "systemic racism," and yet, where are these benefits?
Less likely to be arrested or incarcerated, less likely to be stopped or harassed by police, less likely to be denied a job or mortgage. Those are some of the major systemic privileges White people have that Black people don't in the U.S. The statistics are pretty stark.
Read the paper, as it's not just those two names. Black names are undeniably discriminated against at the earliest points of the employment process.
This is something I like to bring up, since it's a great example of a microcosm of discrimination that it's easy to not think about. There's a black saying that blacks have to work twice as hard to get half as far, and the data seems to be remarkably close to that assessment.
The statistics are pretty stark if you start with the incorrect assumption that "all men are created equal." This is, quite simply, not the case, and will never be the case. Of course, hell will freeze over before anyone accepts that "horrific" truth.
I'm sure you recognize different dog breeds, and possibly know that certain dog breeds are known to act a certain way. This is due to generations and generations of artificial-selection in breeding. Herding breeds were designed for herding, German Shepherds were designed for herding and protection, Shitzus were designed for companionship.
You probably wouldn't expect to see a Shitzu herding sheep. That does not, in any way, make Shitzu's "less than" a herding breed, they're just built for a different function. Shitzus evolved in environments where companionship was prioritized over herding, obviously.
And yet, when it comes to humans, we choose not to acknowledge this fact: geography influences evolutionary pressures, and evolutionary pressures influence the humans that evolved there. You see this in culture too. Cultures evolve just like the humans that belong to them do, and it's a big soupy mess of genetics influencing behavior/culture, and behavior/culture influencing genetics.
Expecting African Americans to act like neurotic white protestants is fundamentally racist, you're trying to shove a square peg in a round hole. Human diversity is real, except it goes beyond skin color. On average, racial groups exhibit similar behavior, across socioeconomic spectrums. Racial groups evolved in similar geographic regions, they are optimized for survival in those regions, around those people.
"All men are created equal" is perhaps the most harmful lie ever told.
>Less likely to be arrested or incarcerated, less likely to be stopped or harassed by police
Communities which experience more crime tend to interact more with law enforcement. The perpetrators of those crimes, who generally come from the same communities as their victims, tend to get arrested and incarcerated in proportion to their rate of criminality. Most murder in the US is committed by black men [1], and mainly concentrated in a handful of poor urban areas: St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, Oakland, etc. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) [2][3], widely seen as the gold standard for data on criminal victimization, confirms that violent crime is simply a larger problem in America's urabn black communities compared to the white, Asian, and Hispanic communities. Rates of arrest, conviction, and incarceration reflect this.
It is no longer the 1960s. Body cameras and smartphones are everywhere. Racism has been taboo for decades. Police know that if they unjustly shoot or abuse a black person, there's a good chance their careers and lives as free citizens will be over. The notion that law enforcement arrests and incarcertates more black people mainly due to racial antipathy, rather than that community's starkly higher rate of criminal violence, is not supported by evidence.
Tracing back through history, the forces which led to the present situation such as slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and redlining were undoubtedly racist and systemic. However, these systemic forces are now gone. They have even been replaced in many areas by systemic counter-forces, such as in university admissions [4], law school admissions [5], med school admissions [6], access to government debt relief [7], and access to the COVID vaccine [8]. The problems which bedevil many black Americans today- disproportionate poverty, broken families, drug addiction, all resultant criminality- would appear to be the results of historical inequities, not ongoing systemic racism.
> Communities which experience more crime tend to interact more with law enforcement. The perpetrators of those crimes, who generally come from the same communities as their victims, tend to get arrested and incarcerated in proportion to their rate of criminality.
Over-policing and racial profiling is a large cause of the increased criminality. The base rate of illegal drug use is fairly similar for all races but arrests and convictions have been much higher for Blacks and other minorities for quite some time [0][1].
> The notion that law enforcement arrests and incarcertates more black people mainly due to racial antipathy, rather than that community's starkly higher rate of criminal violence, is not supported by evidence.
Actually, traffic stops are biased against minorities despite a similar base rate of infraction [2] yet this increases the rate at which Black people interact with police which compounds the harm caused by statistically harsher reaction to infractions. Further, sentencing is influenced by race in complex ways for which there is unfortunately limited data [3] but Blacks tend to receive longer sentences and be at risk of minimum sentences [4].
The root causes of violent offenses are even more complex and although income disparity, childhood trauma/abuse/neglect, and oppression are all potential causes I haven't found good sources with solid statistics to dig into that.
In America, it's better to be born white and poor than black and poor. Data from field after field backs this up - economics, healthcare, policing, housing, to name a few.
Further, I don't think you can exactly call losing the Civil War "making sacrifices for racial equality." If I've got my boot on somebody's neck, and I won't take it off until pushed off by force, my skinned knee isn't a sacrifice that I made so that my victim can get up.
Flippantly, it's entirely possible for someone to be both paranoid and to have enemies.
People who are poor, and especially those that live in rural areas, face serious difficulties. But minority Americans face those same problems, plus racism.
"Everyone was on board with MLK's dream of equal opportunity for all. Racial discrimination was clearly a bad idea."
Everyone? Clearly a bad idea? I could rustle you up a big stack of people who disagree. Weirdly, many of them are poor and rural---you'd think they would see the common cause and join together, but no. On the other hand, there's the old joke about everyone having to have someone to look down on; they may be white trash, but at least they're not black.
> The statistics are pretty stark if you start with the incorrect assumption that "all men are created equal." This is, quite simply, not the case, and will never be the case. Of course, hell will freeze over before anyone accepts that "horrific" truth.
> I'm sure you recognize different dog breeds, and possibly know that certain dog breeds are known to act a certain way. This is due to generations and generations of artificial-selection in breeding. Herding breeds were designed for herding, German Shepherds were designed for herding and protection, Shitzus were designed for companionship.
> You probably wouldn't expect to see a Shitzu herding sheep. That does not, in any way, make Shitzu's "less than" a herding breed, they're just built for a different function. Shitzus evolved in environments where companionship was prioritized over herding, obviously.
> And yet, when it comes to humans, we choose not to acknowledge this fact: geography influences evolutionary pressures, and evolutionary pressures influence the humans that evolved there. You see this in culture too. Cultures evolve just like the humans that belong to them do, and it's a big soupy mess of genetics influencing behavior/culture, and behavior/culture influencing genetics.
> Expecting African Americans to act like neurotic white protestants is fundamentally racist, you're trying to shove a square peg in a round hole. Human diversity is real, except it goes beyond skin color. On average, racial groups exhibit similar behavior, across socioeconomic spectrums. Racial groups evolved in similar geographic regions, they are optimized for survival in those regions, around those people.
> "All men are created equal" is perhaps the most harmful lie ever told.
Just to fast forward the discussion for some people so they know the conclusion noofen is leading toward.
Thanks. Their comment is (flagged) (dead), which is one of my least favorite parts of HN. For a site that doesn't let you delete comments after two hours because it believes you should stand by what you say, it structurally removes your most egregious comments from view. That allows dog whistle arguments to fester and comments that mistakenly go mask off to be conveniently hidden quickly from the general discourse.
I get where you're coming from and it took me (a white person from the US) a long time to wrap my head around what most progressives talking about responsibility and the US's history of slavery were really trying to say. Let me try to explain with an analogy.
Your grandfather dies. In his will, he leaves you his house, which has been in your family several generation. It's a nice place, better than the crappy apartment you live in, and it's yours now by all rights, so you move in.
When you do, you discover to your delight that you water bill is zero dollars every month. What a nice bonus! Free water from the tap!
One day, when poking around the basement, you discover the secret to this mystery. Apparently one of your ancestors many years ago dug a secret tunnel over to the neighbor's house put a T on their water main, and ran a pipe back to your house. Your water isn't free. Your neighbors have been paying for it the whole time.
In fact, they have even known this and been trying to tell you. But, you know, you were so busy getting settled in and dealing with all the stuff in your own life that their discussion about "water equality" never really registered for you. It's not that you didn't care (you love equality), you just didn't think it had anything to do with you.
So what is your moral position today?
It is not one of guilt. You didn't put that sneaky pipe in. And while, yes, you certainly took some showers with free water, at the time you honestly didn't realize that anyone was paying for it. There was no malice on your part.
You could argue that since it's your neighbors who are suffering from the jacked up water bill, they should be the ones to pay to cut that pipe and remove it. After all, you didn't cause the problem, and you don't have any personal incentive to fix it. You aren't trying to steal their water, it's just the way your plumbing happens to be set up.
At the same time, your neighbors are actually poorer than you, in large part because they have been paying your water bill the whole time. It feels pretty selfish to expect them to foot the plumbing bill to get it fixed.
So I think that you bear a responsibility to fix the plumbing because you now own the house. And you have some moral obligation in the sense that those who are most able to do a thing bear some obligation to their community to do that thing. If we're all in this together, then we give back to society in the ways we best can. Since you can more easily afford to the fix the plumbing (all those months of free water let you save up some cash), you should be the one to do so.
Now, granted, there are certainly some progressives (of all races) who take the history of slavery in a guilt/shame direction. If you're white, you're just supposed to feel bad. We should all be walking around in hairshirts as a penance for the sins of our fathers. There is a real weird Catholic guilt vibe in some progressive circles today.
But I think for most, it's not that. And the most charitable interpretation of people saying that whites today bear responsibility for slavery is just what my example here says: we have some ownership over the institutions that benefited from slavery, and we have a greater capacity to amend that problem, thus responsibility to do that falls on our shoulders.
The most compassionate way to look at this is as an opportunity. What a great thing it is to be in a position to help address one of the most grievious injustices in the United States.
I reject this way of thinking because it groups second generation Irish immigrants with those who inherited wealth from the days of slavery.
I get that you're trying to be charitable but there really isn't a valid defence for an ideology that tries to slap a label onto heterogeneous groups of people with nothing in common beyond their skin tone. It is a racist way of thinking and should be called out as such.
> I reject this way of thinking because it groups second generation Irish immigrants with those who inherited wealth from the days of slavery.
I understand that this is an extremely sensitive topic that can make it hard to reason about. People never feel good when accusations—false or not!—start flying. And once those kind of intense feelings get involved, it's hard to lower your defenses and try to read what people say charitably.
The point of my comment was entirely that it is not about guilt. None of us living today bear responsibility for historical slavery in the US, even those whose ancestors owned slaves. How can I be considered at fault for something that happened literally before I existed? How could I have caused that?
(Edit: I realize now that my analogy where the house is inherited obscures that. I think the analogy would work better if I said you won the house in a lottery.)
What we carry is not guilt from the past but responsibility for today. Because of that history of slavery, many institutions today still unfairly benefit white people. (In my analogy, the pipe continues to deliver water long after the person who unfairly plumbed it has died.) Because of those benefits, white people today have more power as a group generally than Black people do.
It is today's unearned benefits and the greater capacity to remedy them that places responsibility on white people in the US, not any bloodline that traces back to slaveowners.
We should fix racism today because it's wrong and because we can. We bear a moral obligation to people living today to give them the more just world they deserve.
"many institutions today still unfairly benefit white people."
When it comes to the criminal justice system, I'm mostly there with you. Although, it is wrong to call it pro-white, and the pro-white narrative comes from the ideology that I was criticizing. It is anti-black and anti-poor. The reason it is not merely pro-white is that the system treats Asians, Hindus, etc, well even though they're not white and even though there's not many officers from these demographics.
Beyond that, I struggle to believe it, but perhaps you can fill me in if I'm missing something.
As an example, in what way are institutions biased in favor of poor rural white people?
Their entire culture hates them (music, movies, media) and they are quotad out of universities and flashy career paths. To add salt on the wound their manufacturing jobs are shipped overseas.
This reality on the ground is the near opposite of any kind of institutional privilege of the sort you're talking about. In some cases (e.g soft quotas) this is demonstrable institutional racism working against white people.
> Although, it is wrong to call it pro-white, and the pro-white narrative comes from the ideology that I was criticizing. It is anti-black and anti-poor.
I think it's both pro-white and anti-black. When you dig back through US history, you see plenty of evidence of both a belief system that whites are the best (and thus deserve to have power over other races) as well as that blacks are particularly deserving of their lowest status. Other races and ethnicities form a more complex middle ground. In many places and times there simply weren't a great enough quantity of those members of those groups for any well-defined cultural claim to be made.
I don't think your average 19th century Virginia farmer had a strong opinion one way or the other about the relatively inferiority of, say, the Sami people because they'd never even heard of one. Whites in almost all parts of the US by necessity had to incorporate blackness into their culture because—thanks almost entirely to the slave trade—blacks were so present in much of the country and were enshrined in its laws and institutions.
> As an example, in what way are institutions biased in favor of poor rural white people?
"Poor", "rural", and "white" are three ways to slice demographics and the way they interact can sometimes illuminate and sometimes obscure.
I think most of what you're seeing is that it generally sucks to be poor and rural, full stop. In 1910, there were about 13 million US farm workers. Today there are about 3 million. In 1979, there were close to 20 million manufacturing jobs. Today it's around 12 million.
This disproportionally hurts whites because black people have historically concentrated in urban areas (often driven by trying to escape anti-black racism). So it's easy to have a vivid image of how much it sucks for some opioid addicted country-music blaring coal-rolling white dude living in a trailer in Appalachia compared to some hip black guy riding the subway in NYC listening to billionaire Kanye's latest album.
But that's comparing different cohorts. The real question is what is it like for a poor, rural, black person? Black people make up only 3% of the population of West Virginia, but 28% of its prison population. (Whites are 93% of the state, but 65% of prisoners.)
Meanwhile in NYC, black people are 16% of the state population but 53% of its prison population. The median household income for white people is $80,300, for black people it's $42,600.
So, yes, I agree that poor rural folks have gotten the short end of the stick since neoliberalism took over. And their perception of relative worsening is something that we should look at. (I think it's one of the primary drivers of the Tea Party, Trumpism, the alt-right, etc.) While their anger at black people is misplaced and wrong, I can empathize with where it's coming from. It hurts to feel that others are moving ahead while you yourself are not.
But at the same time, it has always been hard to be black in the US and it's still hard. Here's a fun (spoiler: not fucking fun at all) guessing game to play if you don't already know the answer: When was the last lynching in the United States?
If you were naive, you might guess the late 1800s when Jim Crow laws were rife and the country was still coming to grips with emancipation. Maybe you'd guess the 1930s when the KKK was flourishing. You would hope it wasn't the 1950s when economic prosperity and blacks and whites fighting together in WWII should have brought us together. Hopefully no later than the 1960s when the Civil Rights Act was signed.
Actually, it was 1981. His name was Michael Donald. He was 19 years old and was chosen at random by KKK members angry about an unrelated murder trial "to show Klan strength in Alabama".
He was killed by poor rural whites who were this close to getting away with it completely until the FBI got involved.
"When you dig back through US history, you see plenty of evidence of both a belief system that whites are the best"
I'm referring to the criminal justice system today. Is there reason to think it's more pro-White than pro-Asian or pro-Hindu?
I only see evidence that the system today is anti-Black and anti-poor.
I accept the historical examples you've given of pro-white attitudes, but I'm hoping to discuss today's reality since that's the point of contention.
"I think most of what you're seeing is that it generally sucks to be poor and rural, full stop"
You're right that this is most of it. But I believe there is unique institutional racism specifically directed towards poor rural white people in particular.
The soft quota they face in employment and education and the hatred and derision uniquely directed towards them in particular (and towards no other group) from all cultural institutions.
The white quota in the workforce, for example, is there to be filled by inner city whites with the right pedigree and right social values. The white quota in higher education makes it difficult for rural whites without the same early educational opportunities to have a chance, whereas a black rural person (even if they're a recent immigrant) will have an easier time, all else equal, for no other reason than they have the right skin color.
From my perspective, this is evidence of institutional discrimination, but it runs in the opposite direction to what's claimed.
"Meanwhile in NYC, black people are 16% of the state population but 53% of its prison population."
I don't see this as evidence for institutional bias that exists today that's pro-white.
Hindus do better than Whites in general. Is the system pro-Hindu?
Nigerians immigrants do well. Is the system pro-Nigerian?
Differential outcomes are not evidence that today's system is pro-white.
There's certainly a historical legacy of slavery and discrimination that helped to create these inequalities. But it's not evidence for much beyond that if we're discussing the institutions of today.
> But I believe there is unique institutional racism specifically directed towards poor rural white people in particular.
I don't know what to tell you, man. I pointed out that the incarceration rate of blacks is dramatically higher in the US state that likely has the greatest concentration of poor white people.
> derision uniquely directed towards them in particular (and towards no other group) from all cultural institutions.
Sure, Hollywood makes fun of them, but I don't think that has a particularly significant material effect on the quality of their lives. (Though it does make them really angry and more politically active.)
> Hindus do better than Whites in general. Is the system pro-Hindu? Nigerians immigrants do well. Is the system pro-Nigerian?
There is significant selection bias here in that immigrants are not a uniform sample from their ethnicities.
"pointed out that the incarceration rate of blacks"
This doesn't change the reality of the anti-white institutional discrimination examples that I highlighted.
And again, disparate outcomes aren't evidence of current discrimination or bias for or against any group.
You could be right that Hindus do well in the criminal justice system because of selection bias, and whites do well because of specific pro-white bias that Hindus don't benefit from. But the burden of proof is on you to show that that's true. Do poor Hindus or poor Asians do worse than equally poor Whites? If you could show something like this, then you will have convinced me that the criminal justice system is pro-white.
The only actual evidence I've seen is that the criminal justice system is anti-Black, and that evidence has nothing to do with disparate outcomes. Beyond that I haven't seen any evidence.
it's impossible to "fix racism" until people stop profiting from trying to "fix racism." nobody tries to actually fix anything regarding racism, politicians etc. use it as a talking point. 99.99% of the country isn't racist and doesn't like racism and wants it gone, everyone's on board, but somehow nothing ever improves, and, in fact, it sure seems like things just get worse. profit motives need to go, no idea how to accomplish this though.
> it's impossible to "fix racism" until people stop profiting from trying to "fix racism."
Would you say that it's impossible to fix climate change until people stop profitinng from trying to fix climate change? Is it impossible to fix infant mortality while doctors profit from saving infants' lives?
There is something to what you're saying. There's a process that goes like:
1. People who dislike X want to fix X.
2. In order to put a lot of time into fixing X, they seek out work that pays them to do it.
3. In the process of that work, they build up a lot of expertise.
4. Now they have a natural incentive for X not to be fixed so that they can continue to make money from their expertise.
This is a real thing. A perverse incentive that arises basically in all cases where bad things require deep expertise to fix.
I see very little evidence that this incentive is powerful enough to dwarf the massive desire to fix X for most problems.
Most oncologists are not out there blowing cigarette smoke into people's faces to ensure their job security. Dentists are not plying kids with candy. Most people fighting against racism are not so callous as to completely undermine their own deeply held convictions just to keep themselves employed.
> in fact, it sure seems like things just get worse.
Things looking worse is often a sign of them getting better. You never saw news articles about the environment in the mid-1900s when pollution and industrialization was at its worth. It didn't become visible until people cared enough and had enough power to make it visible.
The "me too" movement isn't about sexual abuse becoming more prevalent, it's about victims finally having enough power to be able to shine a light on it. If we weren't hearing about Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and Bill Cosby, that wouldn't mean they weren't still abusing. It would mean they were continuing to abuse with inpunity.
people want to fight for change, but if they got the change they wanted, then there would be nothing more to fight for. politicians and other powerful people (I realize I'm speaking very generally here) recognize this and use it to create a perpetual motion grifting machine. people enthusiastically donate money to causes and the money ends up largely going nowhere near the people it's supposed to help. we elect the First Black President of the United States of America, thinking that surely, at some point in his eight years of Presidency, he'll do something to directly help black Americans... and then nothing happens, and, well, maybe the next guy will do it. I'm 30 and I've seen this cycle repeat for at least the half of my life I've been vaguely conscious about politics. at some point we have to recognize that the politician-promised solutions that are always around the corner are not in fact ever coming, and we need to hold them thusly accountable. until then, there is no grift more personally profitable than paying lip service to the desire to fix major societal problems, then doing jack shit about them for elected term after elected term, only to go right back to the useless lip service around re-election time. we need some kind of serious political movement that holds elected officials to task for what they claim to want to accomplish. until this happens, we're going to be stuck in the same endless cycle of not-getting-shit-done forever, with people re-electing the same people over and over again solely based on how good their ideas sound when vocalized.
we can hardly define racism fairness and justice today let alone "fix" it. as for change, I'm happy to support any change that empowers people, treats people compassionately, and removes discrimination. that is unlike the solutions I see put forward by the so called anti-racists.
Whiteness is a social construct, you're absolutely right. It's one that our society and institutions consistently reward, though.
Maybe the Irish person is the first guy's roommate or spouse - they didn't directly inherit the free water from their direct ancestors, but they're still getting free water from next door.
I think the main issue isn’t that people don’t recognize that discrimination exists, they’re just annoyed at who it’s being targeted at and how it [not] working.
One main thing is that white people as a whole need to atone for slavery, even though the vast vast majority (poor southerners, northerners, immigrants from after the civil war) had nothing to do with it. And secondly, that race is used to only talk about the issues facing black people, not whites. Poor white people (in WV, the South, etc.) are just as poor as black people, yet get no help in things like university admissions or job placements.
And for Asians (inc. Indians), they (disclaimer: I am of Asian descent) also receive material disadvantages (I have zero chance of getting into an Ivy League, nor will I ever receive assistance programs for minorities) so that black people have a level playing field. Positive discrimination works, but not in its current form.
> Israel themselves have fostered the narrative that Israel represents the Jewish people by constantly conflating an attack on Israel as an attack on the Jewish people.
Israel’s attempts to equate itself and its current policies with the Jewish race and identity are definitely a reason (an additional reason, on top of many others) to be disgusted at the governing regime of the State of Israel and its government, but they aren't an excuse, even a little bit, for the bigotry against Jews qua Jews for Israeli policy (indeed, that is rewarding the violent bigotry of the Israeli regime, which actively seeks the protection of whataboutism that being able to paint opposition to its apartheid and lebensraum policies as anti-Semitic provides.)
The Israeli government, Israeli Jews, Israelis, and Jews are different groups, and the actions of the first don’t justify hatred of any of the latter groups, all of which include fierce opponents of pretty much any action you might blame thw first for.
I think you and I are on the same wavelength, and I appreciate your take on this issue. It's tricky looking from the outside in with all of the misinformation though (hence my mention of the Israeli propaganda). And I definitely agree, nothing justifies antisemitism (to be honest, I really don't understand it either). I hate to be critical in these situations because I don't want to lend credence to those who'll jump in and pretend I'm on their Jewish hate train.
Compare Israel to its close neighbourhood, the US or even France and the UK. Israel exists in the ME, what's the West's excuse for fighting in different continents? And his text goes much further than that.
>If that blogpost was the same, but said Israel, instead of the Jewish people; would there be any issue with it today?
It would be grossly inaccurate, but saying dumb stuff wouldn't be enough to get people to call for his removal.
>Israel themselves have fostered the narrative that Israel represents the Jewish people by constantly conflating an attack on Israel as an attack on the Jewish people.
It's not a particular surprise that people who are drawn to attack Jews attack Israel too. Maybe if critics of Israel took pains to separate themselves from the antisemites rather than excusing them, more people would see a difference between critics and actual antisemites. If instead their only resort would be to argue bad faith, well, people would see that too.
>If that blogpost was the same, but said Israel, instead of the Jewish people; would there be any issue with it today?
The whole problem with the blog post is that he did was stereotyping millions of people (the majority of whom don't even live in Israel) as being bloodthirsty killers based on the actions of the Israeli government. Imagine how wrong it would be to write a blog post about Idi Amin and coming to the conclusion that African-Americans are inherently violent.
Note that “diversity head” does not mean “head of the company’s diversity efforts” here - that’s a different person, Melonie Parker. It’s not super clear to me what this guy’s role actually was.
> If I were a Jew today, my sensibilities would be tormented. I would find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the long cycles of oppression that Jewish people have endured and the insatiable appetite for vengeful violence that Israel, my homeland, has now acquired. This reconciliation would be particularly difficult now, in November, 79 years after Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass. The anniversary of this dreadfully monumental day in my history would bring me pause. It would force me to reflect on the legacy of extraordinary human suffering. I might wonder how the vicious eruption of cruelty in the mid-twentieth century has influenced the shape of my identity as a Jewish person and our collective identity as Jewish people.
> Suffering and oppression typically give rise to sympathy and compassion among the oppressed. I can look upon the sufferer and know that, “there but for the Grace of God, go I.” During this period I might well reflect on the redemptive qualities of suffering that my people have learned through a ghastly set of lessons. I would not have to reflect alone, I could read the lessons explicitly from Elie Wiesel, Anne Frank, or Chaim Potok. I would conclude that my Jewish faith and the history of my people render me closer to human compassion; closer to the instinct to offer healing to hurt, patience to anxiety and understanding to confusion.
> I don’t know how I would reconcile that identity with the behavior of fundamentalist Jewish extremists or of Israel as a nation. The details would confuse me. I wouldn’t understand those who suggest that bombing Lebanon, slaughtering Lebanese people and largely destroying Beirut in retaliation for the capture of a few soldiers is justified. I wouldn’t understand the notion of collective punishment, cutting off gas, electricity and water from residents in Gaza because they are attacking Israel who is fighting against them. It would be unconscionable to me to watch Israeli tanks donning the Star of David rumbling through Ramallah destroying buildings and breaking the glass.
> I would be confused in concept too. My faith would lead me to believe that Israel is the homeland of my people. My intellect would convince me that it cannot be that simple. The faith and reason of the Palestinians or of Muslims cannot simply be baseless. I would have to believe that the degree of animus, vengeance and violence that they now carry is not rooted in their identity, but rather in their experience; in the sordid nation shuffling and rebuilding that took place after World War II. It must be rooted in their hurt, in their sense of displacement, abandonment and hopelessness.
> My reflections on Kristallnacht would lead me to feel that these are precisely the human sentiments that I as Jew would understand; that I ought to understand and feel compelled to help alleviate. It cannot be that the sum total of a history of suffering and slaughter places such a premium on my identity that I would be willing to damn others in defense of it.
> If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself. Self defense is undoubtedly an instinct, but I would be afraid of my increasing insensitivity to the suffering others. My greatest torment would be that I’ve misinterpreted the identity offered by my history and transposed spiritual and human compassion with self righteous impunity.
Thanks for the full context. Much of the reaction here is due to his mistake of placing 'If I were a Jew' when based on the rest of the essay I'd estimate he meant to say 'If I were Israeli'. Had he done so the tea shop would still have all its crockery intact.
Absolutely on the nose. I'd go a step further - if he had said "If I were Isreael", then he's imagining being policy maker directly responsible, instead of merely being a citizen.
It's not empathy to put one's self in someone else's shoes, but then dismiss the viewpoint that comes with wearing those shoes. This is simply another version of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy.
Moreover, using collective guilt as an underpinning of any political stance is garbage. It's not enough to say racists and racist policies are bad - white people are collectively guilty, regardless of their own personal behavior and history. It's not enough to say Israel's out of line with their policies - all Jews are collectively guilty. So on and so forth. And it's alienating and insulting to anyone sympathetic policy-wise, but don't want to be lumped in with bad actors.
After reading the post this is the same impression I get. His views don't seem that different from someone like Noam Chomsky, just not articulated as well.
Let's see here... If you suggest there might be biological differences between men and women, you get fired. If you advocate for the "elimination of the Jewish problem", you get, uh, 'reassigned'.
That’s an...incredibly poor and uncharitable reading of his argument.
It’s not a good essay but he definitively isn’t advocating for a genocide - and indeed is arguing against Israel committing a genocide in slow motion. At worst he is conflating Zionists with Jews, an unfortunate generalization which is anti Semitic but nowhere near the mental image most people have of anti Semitic behavior.
Additionally he made these comments 13 years ago and not on company property. Assuming the offenses were equal performing one more than a decade ago vs. last week on a company system is always going to have a different response. Your comparison isn’t a fair one.
I hope the current progressive correct-thinkers realize the takes they make today have to hold up over a decade from now, otherwise the next wave is going to cancel them.
And that is why I stopped calling myself a progressive years ago. In my youth I thought progressive meant trying to continually better yourself and your community. Now the focus seems to be on cancelling any viewpoint that conflicts with yours. The new trend of digging further and further back in the past makes it even more counter to my previous beliefs of the word
I just don't understand this viewpoint as it completely ignores the history of humanity. "Cancel culture" has been used for many centuries to silence dissenters. Take a look at Galieleo as an example. He was excommunicated or "canceled" by religious organizations that held the primary means of power. He was even forced to recant his positions by these groups.
Is the cancellation of Galileo by the Church a good example? A way a civilized society should function?
If not, if we consider historical examples like these as failures of past societies, then things "not being any different than today" suggests our society is also failing.
My response was around "cancel culture" being a new phenomenon, as posed by the parent comment. I am not suggesting that this is a good or bad behavior, just that it has existed for a long time and nothing is new about it.
So, yes, in the context of my post the Galileo example is a good example IMO.
It is not different than today. I think instead of the word changing I just grew up and had a reality check. Progressive means following culturally approved thoughts, when in my youth I thought it meant pushing boundaries and trying to better the world (even if it meant the occasional wrong think to get a different perspective)
The scale. In the past you had to watch what you said about those who had the power to hurt you. Now you can have your life derailed by people you've never met and never will, who's only power is being popular in some community you may have never heard of (and may not even exist until years from now).
I will address this in the spirit with which it was intended.
Cancellation, back then, was largely top-down, driven by kings and popes. The current form of cancellation emerges from below, pressuring larger organizations to fire people and denounce them. And as I have mentioned elsewhere in this, those calling for cancellation derive increased status when their attempts succeed.
It's a bit more equivalent to witch hunt mania than papal disapproval.
The causal connection here being, of course, "someone's watching me at all times, judging". Such heavy self-censorship, wed to brutal paranoia, necessarily leads to an erosion of "self", a loss of personal culpability. Submission to a higher power – conveniently represented by its clergy.
It's the same playbook, repeated across millennia and societies. The Soviets in 1930s-40s played it out too, with chilling adroitness. They didn't call themselves religious (quite the opposite), but you can easily know the pattern by its fruits.
One of the most striking things when reading about the French Revolution is seeing some of the original key agitators for Revolution being eventually denounced as insufficiently revolutionary, and some of them even being killed for being considered counter-revolutionary.
Extreme violence against leadership figures makes conflicts end sooner because leadership is incentivized not to be a target. True believers die in the tumult, compromisers rise up and rebalance.
A Napoleonesque figure appearing soon. On Twitter, probably.
Only half joking. After a certain time, most people get tired and afraid of constant paranoid vigilantism and start searching for protection. Any protection.
And whoever gained positions of power from the previous tumult, will seek immunity from further revolutionary tumult, which is easiest to achieve by suppressing the worst Robespierres and ossifying the new structures.
From an outside perspective, it is striking how much the woke wave is waning compared to 2020. Trump is gone from Twitter, so a constant irritant has been removed, and people are starting to having a bit of a hangover. Plus the new rulers of the nest need a bit of calm for political business as usual.
>From an outside perspective, it is striking how much the woke wave is waning compared to 2020. Trump is gone from Twitter, so a constant irritant has been removed, and people are starting to having a bit of a hangover.
The ongoing self-recrimination in the media over the mass insta-dismissing a year ago of all COVID19 lab leak discussion—despite zero new evidence[1]—being one prominent example of the above, of course.
[1] I don't mean to imply that I don't believe in the theory. On the contrary, I was amazed and alarmed to see how a year ago even stating that SARS-CoV-2 being accidentally leaked from the Wuhan labs was not impossible was censored by social media as "disinformation" and denounced by regular media as already having been "debunked", as opposed to a reasonable hypothesis worthy of exploration. My point is that, as far as I know, there is zero new evidence available today to support the reasonableness of said hypothesis versus a year ago. The only difference is that Trump is no longer in the White House.
>My point is that, as far as I know, there is zero new evidence available today to support the reasonableness of said hypothesis versus a year ago. The only difference is that Trump is no longer in the White House.
The major difference I see now is that a number of major US media networks reported that the US intelligence community views lab leak as a feasible scenario now, one of their two main ones.
He was not canceled by progressives. Equating anti-Zionism and anti-semitism is generally an anti-progressive stance in the US. This is progressive principles being morphed into a weapon to be used against progressives.
banannaise's point is that the rhetorical weapons used by the left to bludgeon its enemies can and are being used by others. As esyir said, "It's hard to feel any sympathy when that chicken comes home to roost".
If progressive people create a weapon known as cancellation, then they absolutely deserve it when the same weapon is used against them. They created the new normal.
She also called her comments "deeply insensitive". How bent out of shape are you going to get over what a 17 year old says? "Sorry you're offended" is much closer to accurate. I'm nothing like 17 year old me and if you asked me to take present day responsibility for that person I would tell you to toss off.
How much did you do at 17 that you aren't proud of today?
> How much did you do at 17 that you aren't proud of today?
Not that much. For sure I made some mistakes, as I continue to do, but I'd stand by what I did at 17. I didn't (for example) write down plainly racist statements and then publish them on the internet. I didn't do anything comparable to that.
Do you believe racism is an incurable ill, or in any way related to ones lived experiences and education? I have met (and still know) plenty of people that are varying degrees of racist, and the majority of it involves some pretty fundamental ignorance. In some cases people are outright indoctrinated into racism. I have no idea if this particular person was desrving of cancellation or forgiveness, but I can personally imagine someone at 17 writing racist sentiments, and genuinely repenting and growing out of that. I can imagine someone at 25, or 35 doing the same. I can appreciate it is hard to imagine that a person can change their world view, yet it certainly happens all the time.
I agree with this but don't believe it relates to the grandparent's comment, which implied that we should accept shameful behaviour from 17 year olds because it is an innate part of being 17 years old. I object to that idea.
(Is suffering indoctrination shameful? And, as you say, that is not unique to 17 year olds.)
> Today I was reminded of some past insensitive tweets, and I am deeply sorry to anyone I offended. I have since deleted those tweets as they do not reflect my views or who I am today.
So yes
> "Sorry you're offended" is much closer to accurate.
is correct.
Only when her plum new editor job was threatened did she offer something more than "sorry you're offended".
> How bent out of shape are you going to get over what a 17 year old says?
Quite bent out of shape actually. Someone that harbors those kinds of views and has no history of having confronted it nor examples to the contrary should not be a position to influence the minds of millions of young children. You might argue that she's worked in anti racist/diversity efforts, but that's not good enough. People are often racist against specific races and not others. She has no examples of having shown growth in her racism specifically towards Asians.
> I'm nothing like 17 year old me and if you asked me to take present day responsibility for that person I would tell you to toss off.
Good thing you don't decide who gets to be editor in chief of an influential publication.
> How much did you do at 17 that you aren't proud of today?
Nothing actually. I was quite the goody two shoes.
That argument makes no sense to me either. We should excuse racism from 1 year prior to the age of majority absent any evidence of growth? Nah, I don't agree with that.
>> Today I was reminded of some past insensitive tweets, and I am deeply sorry to anyone I offended. I have since deleted those tweets as they do not reflect my views or who I am today.
> So yes
>> "Sorry you're offended" is much closer to accurate.
> is correct.
It is not though. In her twit she actually admitted that she was offensive, while “Sorry you’re offended” should be read as “I am sorry to hurt your feelings but I stand my ground”
> In her twit she actually admitted that she was offensive, while “Sorry you’re offended” should be read as “I am sorry to hurt your feelings but I stand my ground”
"“Sorry you’re offended”" a priori concedes that what was said is offensive because it acknowledges that the recipient was offended.
I explain in detail why they are effectively the same here
You're twisting "I am deeply sorry to anyone I offended" into "Sorry you're offended".
Those are obviously different phrases with different meanings and intents. You might want to reevaluate your beliefs, because this is a glaring mistake with troubling implications.
> You might want to reevaluate your beliefs, because this is a glaring mistake with troubling implications.
No, you might want to re-evaluate your beliefs, because these are superficially different phrases. The intent may be the different, but the avoidance of responsibility is the same.
The top few articles I googled quoted her as saying: “I’ve apologised for my past racist and homophobic tweets and will reiterate that there’s no excuse for perpetuating those awful stereotypes in any way.
“I am so sorry to have used such hurtful and inexcusable language. At any point in my life, it’s totally unacceptable.” Backlash against her initial comments seem to be that she characterized her tweets as insensitive rather than using the word racist, which seems important but certainly pedantic.
> Today I was reminded of some past insensitive tweets, and I am deeply sorry to anyone I offended. I have since deleted those tweets as they do not reflect my views or who I am today.
"some past insensitive tweets" as a euphemism for racist tweets
"I am deeply sorry *to anyone I offended.*" (my emphasis with asterisks) => sorry if you were offended
So when it first came out, she gave the least amount of effort necessary to make it go away. Only when it threatened her plum new job did she offer anything simulating genuine remorse.
I see. I don't agree, but to make sure I understand -- she should have said "racist" tweets instead of "insensitive tweets" right? I think that is a reasonable ask. However how should she have worded the appology? It sounds like you take issue with "sorry to anyone I offended"? I am familiar with "sorry you were offended" but would not have interpreted her wording in that way -- e.g. the former is a direct apology and admittance of wrongdoing towards another on her part, while "sorry you were offended" is a typical avoidance of apology. Genuinely I would like to understand. To fully state my interpretation, I would guess she was genuinely sorry but was unaware of the most suitable way to appologize for it.
> she should have said "racist" tweets instead of "insensitive tweets" right? I think that is a reasonable ask.
yes
> However how should she have worded the appology?
"I am deeply sorry" would have been good. Or, "I am deeply sorry for < some variation of "what I said" or "my racist tweets">".
I'm don't agree with
> the former is a direct apology and admittance of wrongdoing towards another on her part
When I read "sorry to anyone I offended", it is not an unconditional apology. She is not apologizing for what she did. She is apologizing *to those she offended*.
Which is to say she is apologizing not for what she did but for the offense she caused.
There is a crucial difference there. The former is taking responsibility for what she said. The latter, at best, makes no comment on whether or not what she said was wrong; at worst, makes a comment that what she did was not wrong but that she is only sorry because people took umbrage with it. From her words alone, we know she thinks what she said was "insensitive" and that she is apologizing to those that are "offended". If she's only acknowledging that her words are insensitive, it makes that sense she's apologizing directly to and only to those that she offended, which is why she would qualify her apology as such. This is not a statement that acknowledges that her words, in and of themselves, were wrong.
In that regard, she may not be avoiding an apology in the absolute terms, but more importantly, as in all other cases where people only apologize for the offense, she is not (at the very least directly) acknowledging that what she did was intrinsically wrong, she is merely responding to the outrage.
So you might say
> I would guess she was genuinely sorry
and you could be right, but when I read what she wrote, that does not come across.
This
> the former is a direct apology and admittance of wrongdoing towards another on her part
does not come across at all when I read
> I am deeply sorry to anyone I offended.
To get that kind of interpretation, I would have to do some mind reading instead of taking her words for what they are.
The only line is to scrub everything you have ever written with your real name off the internet. Someone will get offended by your writing and, eventually, you will lose your job and be exiled.
To be fair, we don't know who made the decision to reassign him. It might have been a HR decision in preemptive fear of bad press instead of an actual demand by any group.
Also, solidarity for palestinians is pretty widespread among progressives and left-wings in general. I think a push to cancel him for this entry would more likely come from right-wing, pro-Israel groups if anything.
I think the point is that the blog post is not really a big issue if you're an average engineer, but as head of DEI it's not a great look, hence the re-assignment.
His old posts are more than just solidarity with Palestinians or criticism of the Israeli government (which obviously should never get anyone fired).
> If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself. Self defense is undoubtedly an instinct, but I would be afraid of my increasing insensitivity to the suffering others.
It’s really hard to read stuff like that and not feel attacked as a Jewish person. I know it’s an old post and people change, but I don’t want people walking away from this thread thinking someone lost their job for merely being critical of Israel. That just feeds the cycle of distrust and makes it harder to discuss.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 388 ms ] threadEdit: To those saying he apologized. Yes, he did - but only to a specific subset of those he insulted: ""First and foremost I extend my deepest and most sincere apologies to my Jewish sisters and brothers for the hurtful and divisive words that came out of my mouth during my interview with Richard Griffin,''"
First sentence from your link, seems like maybe you are just trying to be controversial.
In any case the fact that he hasn't been completely cancelled speaks to the unique status that anti-white racism has over other forms.
“ those without dark skin "have a deficiency" and have acted as "savages" throughout history. He references "Jewish people, white people, Europeans“ ”
> Nick Cannon apologizes for anti-Semitic remarks after firing
That's surprising, but I think it's good. He's obviously not viable in the diversity role, but there's no reason to go ballistic over a 15 year old blog post.
So that the engineers who have to comply with the policies and orders this guy sets or sets in motion feel better about it.
While I agree in principle I hope this is part of a new trend rather than an exemption for this case because his content is so much more offensive than anything Teen Vogue editor Alex McCammond ever said.
A society of mad kings (on all political sides) who want anyone not like them "taken away" with little solutions on actually fixing the problems that caused the disagreement.
I'll take hostile work environment for 1000, Alex.
Thing is, I wouldn't want to work with this person at my company period.
As long as he can keep his work and private lives seperate, and doesn't let these opinions infiltrate the work life, all is fine.
Just like kinky sex is fine for someone at home, but a fireable offence if done in the office.
If I saw him write stuff like this in an internal memo, that would be the time to fire him.
But no HR department will recommend firing him for the size of his dildo collection, unless of course he brings it to work...
Point is - war and conflicts brings out emotions, and people say things they necessarily don't mean under normal circumstances.
What's more, people mature and change. The person you were 10-20-30-xx years ago, isn't necessarily the person you are today.
Lately it's seems to me simple logic has no correlation with technical ability. You're not a general genius Bob, you're just good at computers.
“If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself”
For any X, when they live constantly among existential threats, in particular other petro-states, who explicitly state that you should be "wiped off the map" and who use and fund impoverished neighbors to instigate and wage proxy wars against you, you should be extremely concerned if you and your nation do NOT prepare strongly by taking up arms in defense of themselves.
Characterizing a necessary defense posture as some kind of blood lust is just sick and ignorant.
The guy should be fired.
Plenty of Jewish people that live both inside and outside of Israel are critical of the state.
People can be critical of the state of Israel, but they should not be antisemitic. His comments are offensive for this reason.
Sadly the moment you call out Israel's human rights violations and ethnic cleansing you get automatically branded as antisemitic on all major social media and by most mainstream outlets too.
Sorry, why is it a "social media" problem if there isn't unanimous agreement on a certain issue in the comments?
Back on topic, the blog post title is definitely offensive, you can't label people like that. Maybe it was a bad tongue-in-cheek, thinking about it, I don't think you can even say Israelis or citizens of Israel, since not all people have the same political views or support the same solution of the "Palestine problem".
Antisemitism, antizionism and anti Israel sentiments relating to current events are distinct in purely theoretical terms. One does not imply the other and they often are distinct in practice. IRL though, they're very often intermingled.
The banal example is the PNA president's doctoral thesis, that the holocaust was faked to justify zionism. Most Israel critics and all antizionists define/use the term "zionism" entirely differently to how zionists use(d) it... Very often these draw from, or are similar to new world order conspiracy theories, most famously "the protocols." Speaking of old tropes, The Protocols are regularly republished in Islamic publications today. I ran across it once in a random indonesian magazine, for example. This obviously has roots in the Israel Palestine conflict, not antisemitism. Anti Semitism is not part of indonesian culture.. but intermingling.
It is true that anti-antisemitism organisations, jews, especially those with ancestral ties to europe can be paranoid about antisemitism and see it where it doesn't exist. It's also true that they often have a better eye, and recognise actual antisemitism where others don't. We know the old stereotypes and libels.
A lot of it is contextual. The vast majority of Israelis (myself included) do not suspect antisemitic motives in Palestinians, no matter what "Jews be like X" stuff they say. Antisemitism doesn't mean animosity towards Jews (or semites). It is a specific, european cultural phenomenon that persisted for a long time, and still exists. Many of its features or ostensibly banal. I'm not american, but I think "why is blackface racist" is an analogy of sorts.
For "proof" look at unmoderated comments sections of many/most anti-zionist posts. You'll find obvious, unmasked antisemitism very commonly.
This is not apologetics, nor does it mean that criticism of Israel is inherently anti semitic, invalid or unacceptable. It also doesn't mean that people are never unjustly accused of antisemtitism.
Speak for yourself, I'm Israeli as well and most Israelis don't agree with you. There is antisemitism among Palestinians and there is Islamophobia among Israelis (though to a lesser degree in my opinion), wishing it away won't make it go away
What I'm saying is that antisemitism is a distinct thing.
I don’t think people who criticize Israel are anti-semetic, but they seem to be almost always completely ignorant of the situation and history of the region, so their comments are unintentionally offensive to anyone even vaguely familiar with it.
My point is we are a long way away from that, despite how many Ashkenazi Jews live in the US.
Israel is and will always remain the eternal Homeland of the Jewish people. Am Yisrael Chai.
The whole concept of having a natural "homeland" because of your DNA/ethnicity/race is bullshit, land doesn't care what color your skin is or what religion you practice.
The premise of zionism was never "having a natural "homeland" because of your DNA." The premise of Zionism was that Jews could not stay in Europe, particularly in the age of nation states. Most commonly, this was referred to as "The Jewish Question."
The majority of secular Jews believed in emancipation. The majority of religious jews believed that only god could create the Jewish state. They were also skeptical of Zionism's desire for secular Jewish identity.
That said, my grandparents never referred to themselves as zionists. Before the war, zionism just meant "want a jewish state to exist." Foreign politicians (eg Churchill) were referred to as zionist for this reason. After the war, it generally meant exuberance about zionists political ideologies of the time. Founding Kibbutz, farming, hebrew language revival, etc. "Zionists" wanted to take hebrew names, for example. Today, "zionist" just means Israeli patriotism.
Bundism also continued to exist after the Holocaust, albeit in a diminished form.
"premise of Zionism was that Jews could not stay in Europe" -> the creation of a state where citizenship is granted explicitly on the basis of your ethnicity, in the form of a "right of return" is 100% the premise I suggested.
I do dispute that it was a a sentiment at all, at least in grandparents' case. It wasn't ideology either. It was just a fact. They couldn't stay in europe. A right of return to a Jewish State^ was the only practical way to survive, besides conversion. My grandfather considered that route, as an atheist, but his first wife dissented. He also looked very Jewish. That was their conclusion att. You are free to disagree.
The majority of post war immigration was non ideological. There wasn't much daylight between ideological and non-ideological zionism, for the most part.
It also (in my opinion, this time) proved true for 1.5 million people who found that they could not stay in Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, etc. The new world wasn't an option for them, as it had been for many europeans.
I might agree with you that nation states, or the common form of nation state, isn't ideal. It is quite terrible in its purist form. However, I don't see why this criticism is so often leveled at Zionism exclusively. I'm also Irish, and have never heard such a criticism of Irish Republicanism. Besides that, lots of countries' have rights of return, ethnonational symbolism, etc.
Meanwhile, most Israelis supported South Sudanese and Kurdish independence for similar reasons. Me included. I think that Kurds have been screwed since the fall of the Ottomans, because they ended up without a state. Lebanon was founded on this premise. Pakistan. Lots of examples
^Zionism originally called for a homeland, not necessarily a state, and hoped to achieve this as cultural autonomy and migration rights under Ottoman sovereignty. Nation States were not the norm, when zionism was first conceived.
+The downvotes are not from me.
I don't dispute that most of this immigration was non-ideological, I wasn't trying to suggest that it wasn't. Nor am I opposed in any way to Jewish immigration to Israel.
Moreover, racial & ethnic separatism is a very common and understandable reaction to oppression. But I still remain critical of it - just as I would be if Black people in the United States established a separate Black state in North America.
The crime, in my view, was the insurgency, bombings, and driving out of the British following their announcement that they planned to transition Palestine into an independent, multi-racial state with majority-rule. Fighting against that goal in order to form an ethno-state is, in my view, analogous to what the white minority in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia pulled after similar British announcements around their colonial state. The primary difference is that Israel remains, Rhodesia no longer does.
> I'm also Irish, and have never heard such a criticism of Irish Republicanism. Besides that, lots of countries' have rights of return, ethnonational symbolism, etc.
My understanding is that Irish republicanism is not based on the same principles as Zionism, namely there is no opposition for a multi-ethnic/racial state with majority democratic rule.
There is quite a lot of similarity between the two movements, current antagonism aside. Language revival being the most commonly noted. IDK what you would consider "principles of," but they're both nation state ideologies of the time... as opposed to republican universalism (a la france) of previous centuries.
It is also true that ireland was segregated along religious/national lines, and that protestants in ROI (I am catholic-jewish-atheist, as the old joke goes) are nonexistent today. They were about 25% before independence. Driving out protestants is emphatically not a principle of irish republicanism. Many/most founders of Irish Republicanism were, in fact, protestant. Most emigrated, moved north or converted in the generation following independence. There is some dark, rarely mentioned parts of our history of that time.
I'll also note that driving out arabs is emphatically not a principle of zionism, never was. The coming of the nation state had other ideas. zionism started in the ottoman period, and aspired to cultural autonomy of a kind that was practiced there. A nation state goal was adopted after France and Germany decided this was the future of the region.
People seem to forget how mixed Europe was before the wars, before nation states. Poland was about 50% polish. Jews, Germans and other minorities made up the rest. Its now 99% Polish-catholic. My grandfather's region (now eastern Slovakia) were Slovaks, Jews, Czechs and Ukrainians in a "majority-minority" mix. Now 99% Slovak. All of mainland europe shares this history.
When the Ottoman empire fell, giving way to nation states, same. Greek & Turkish ethnic "exchange." The Syriac & Armenian genocide. Yugoslavia & multiethnic arab countries segregated more recently. India, despite Gandhi's efforts. Etc. Empires were more multicultural than the current states.
I'll note that the philosophical distinction between universalism and ethno nationalism is barely noticeable in actual history.
Re: racial & ethnic separatism
Seeing independence as synonymous with racial & ethnic separatism is a leap. But, as I said, but if it applies to Israel it applies to half the world. In Israeli law, now and since founding, there is no preference or limits on any citizen. The only preferential law is the right of return. Actual discrimination, especially during wars, is a real thing. It is a failure though, not an ideal.
Rhodesia practiced apartheid and only allowed whites to vote. Israel never practiced apartheid, and all citizens can vote.
During the 1948 war about >1m palestinians became refugees, most ending up in the Jordanian or Egyptian parts of Palestine. >1m european jewish refugees arrived from europe and >1m arab-jewish refugees who were forced out of various countries. Thats how the demographics came to be. There was never a time when israel, as an independent state, had a jewish minority.
I'm not american, but I'll hazard a guess that "certain Native Americans" who take this position are also more often assumed than real.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939#Content
"history of Israel is centered around" - bollocks.
First, the main faction, which later became the government, did not "rebel" against the British Empire. In fact, they offered to contribute troops and enforced a truce on the grounds that the UK was fighting nazis. It was a minority faction that fought the British, both before and after this event.
Second, nothing about the white papers had anything to do with voting rights. There were no voting rights during the British period. Arabs had voting rights in Israel once Israel existed, but that's neither her nor there. The "rebellion" was about immigration restrictions. More to the point, it was about emigration restrictions, cutting off the last escape route out of the third reich.
Third, the "Palestinian Civil War," as the British called it, had started 10 years prior, shortly after the first partition of Palestine. It started when it became clear the French & British were going to chop the region into nation states and skedaddle.
The people actively involved in fighting are going to be a minority in any rebellion you would ever study.
> First, the main faction, which later became the government, did not "rebel" against the British Empire.
They were clearly opposed to the idea of a state with joint rule between different ethnic groups. What is the Jewish Resistance Movement if not a rebellion against the British mandate?
It is disingenuous to suggest that they did not "rebel", indeed, I have an older friend who has recounted blowing up British police stations as a member of the Palmach, which was not the minority faction.
> There were no voting rights during the British period. Arabs had voting rights in Israel once Israel existed, but that's neither her nor there
Most post-British former-colonies had majority rule voting rights. You're right (and I was wrong) that the white paper didn't explicitly address that, but it did address the creation of a multi-ethnic state.
None of the fighting had anything to do with anything but migration, with the primary emphasis on getting Jews out of the Reich. Ships being returned to Italian ports were the main incendiary. You are caught up the the boilerplate, which preceded any document from that era. It was the British trying to square the circle of contradictory promises made to different factions. Jews & Arabs. Hashemites & Bedouins, etc.
It's also not the beginning of anything, neither conflict with the British or Arabs. It's certainly not what the country is "centred on." Most notably, it's the only time Jewish militias fought one another.
Who care about insurrection against Britain anyway? Why?
I was quite under the impression that the canonical stance of progressive politics was that they're right about that!
Rise of anti-semitism in Europe - nothing is done
Jews seek safety in other countries - immigration denied
Holocaust happens - world sympathizes and moves on
Israel is under no illusions as to what happens if they don’t have a home and defend it. I kind of don’t blame them for ignoring the worlds criticisms.
What should white people be doing if they want to protect their race?
Why the hell does all this tribalist & essentialist nonsense become acceptable when discussion turns to Israel?
Just like the IDF does which has non Jewish member's.
Someone should probably tell all the people invaded and oppressed by the USA that it's gotten woke now and white supremacist settler-colonialism is over.
See the difference?
Ashkenazi Jews before the war just called themselves Jews, with secular emancipationists often appending nationality.
Naturally under the Ashkenazi umbrella there were people of different cultures (and different degrees of assimilation to the surrounding non-Jewish population), but those Jews were still more similar to one another than to non-Ashkenazi Jews.
It's also not about accent. There are distinct Sephardic reading styles. It's not technically doctrinally different either, at least formally. In religious terms, distinctions are termed is "customary/minhagim" which are lower on the hierarchy.
In any case, etymology is not far off the mark. Ashkenazi judaism isn't just named after germany, it originated in the HRE and Ashkenazim spoke a German dialect.
My grandmother was a native polish speaker, secular, and would not have identified as "askenazi" before the war. She identified as polish, strongly, and was as comfortable in a sephardic synagogue as an ashkenazi one. My grandfather, a Yiddish speaker, was more comfortable in an ashkenazi synagogue. Most are mixed, these days, whatever the majority is.
This is Orientalist as fuck.
As long as you (the general you, not you specifically) subject all countries that (allegedly) mistreat their citizens or neighbouring countries to the same level of criticism. When you single out the world's only Jewish state for criticism it looks kinda racist.
The settlement doctrine, removal of Arabic as an official language, and language specifically about Israel being Jewish that were passed in 2018 are also instances where the law actually does diverge for Arab citizens. [1]
There's a pretty decent breakdown of why Israel officially meets the international requirements to be considered an Apartheid state here as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MknerYjob0w
[1]https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/31/17623978/israel-jewish-n...
Can we assume you cede the point regarding ethnicity?
2. There are plenty of countries that are dominated by Islam, and yet their right to exist isn't generally questioned.
And that's the point, everyone else got criticized for it except for Israel, which has a bipartisan support (at least in America). And any critique of Israel being a Jewish state is somehow portrayed as a double standard against Jews. At the same time you can freely attack white, non-Jewish people on the basis of what European and American governments did without any fear of repercussions. Not saying that there should be repercussions, because I support free speech, just pointing this out.
The first part of your comment refers to Jews as ethnicity and the second as religion.
That way you can’t criticize Israel without being labeled and anti-Jewish semite. Nothing he posted was offensive. Israel is an apartheid state
> “If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself”
How about that?
Israel is an apartheid state.
With skillful public relations and political lobbying you can, at least to a very large degree.
In Israel right now, Arab Israelis have fewer rights than Jewish Israelis do--notably in land rights, where pre-1967 land ownership claims are only legally recognized if you're Jewish, not Arab. That a coalition government has just now been formed with an Arab Israeli party for the first time in Israel's history, largely because it's the only way a coalition could be formed that doesn't include Netanyahu, doesn't invalidate the fact that legal discrimination still exists in Israel, let alone Israel's blatantly illegal actions vis-à-vis Palestine.
It’s easy to spot people who know less than nothing about the situation when this word shows up. Israel is literally not an apartheid state. “Palestine” is literally an apartheid state. This is a demonstration of supreme ignorance.
Definition of apartheid: "a rigid former policy of segregating and economically and politically oppressing the nonwhite population"
Arabs and Jews are both white but I am guess that in your analogy you are referring to segregation of those groups, correct me if I misinterpreted your specific version of propaganda.
In apartheid South Africa, whites and blacks didn't live in the same areas and blacks couldn't vote.
Taking a look at the countries around Israel, in Egypt there used to be 100,000 Jews, they were mostly forced out by president Nasser, there are less than 20 left today.
There are no Jews in Saudi Arabia. During the Gulf War when US military forces were stationed there, the Saudis allowed Christian worship services but prohibited Jewish worship services for the military personnel, Jews had to hold services in ships offshore.
There are no Jews in Jordan. There are less than 20 Jews in Syria. There are around 100 Jews in Lebanon.
There are 1,900,000 Arabs in Israel, that is around 20% of the population. They have full voting rights, around 16% of the parliament in Israel are Arabs. They enjoy full civil rights.
Describing Israel as an apartheid state is anti-Jewish, and it is ridiculous.
I find this a very curious definition. Why should the skin color of the oppressed population matter? Googling it returns this dictionary entry[1]:
> (in the Republic of South Africa) a rigid former policy of segregating and economically and politically oppressing the nonwhite population.
> any system or practice that separates people according to color, ethnicity, caste, etc.
So the definition you quoted only applies in the context of South Africa, in general apartheid refers to any system or practice that separates people according to color, ethnicity, caste, etc..
[1]: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/apartheid
The word apartheid is an Afrikaans word (Afrikaans is a Germanic language spoken in South Africa) that was used as an election slogan by a South African political party that implemented complete segregation and racial classification in South Africa in the 1950s.
If you are not making a specific comparison to the former racial policies of South Africa, there are better words to use.
Although I know over time, meanings change, so that words like anti-Semitic, racist, fascist, etc. all just become synonyms for "bad" or "things I don't like".
However part of the problem is that zionists within the state of Israel work really hard to blur this distinction.
You can see for example arguments being made in that sense in this debate here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1VTt_THL4A
Or the French parliament deciding that anti-Zionism is antisemitism: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/french-parliamen...
Even within Israel there are of course fringe groups (e.g. Naturei Karta) and such, but unfortunately, the reality is that while it wouldn't suit most Jews for Judaism to be conflated with Zionism, it suits most zionists, so they try to further that notion.
Edit: To be clear I'm addressing the Judaism x Zionism aspect of this comment thread, not the blog post in the topic post.
So, by criticising Zionism in a middle of a self defense operation in Gaza (as they see it), you look like you don't know its roots and look like they ignoring the Jewish right for self defense.
1) Hitler was right,
but (contradictorily)
2) The Holocaust/Progroms were exaggerated,
and finally
3) there was never any instances of strife in the region before the forming of the state (and if there was it was always the Irgun and nobody else ever).
I’m not saying all people who criticize Israel believe the above but many of the people in “The Balance” room who criticized Israel appeared to.
> So, by criticising Zionism in a middle of a self defense operation in Gaza (as they see it), you look like you don't know its roots and look like they ignoring the Jewish right for self defense.
Yes, this is an excellent example of exactly that sort of blurring that GP was talking about, thanks.
What do the military actions of the state of Israel have to do with the "Jewish" right to self defense? Many Jews don't live in Israel and Israel contains many non-Jews.
Theoretically, I guess, but it's really strange how the one tiny country in the whole world that has a Jewish-dominated society is so often a target for complete destruction.
Many of the same countries that have all but eliminated their own Jewish populations somehow find Israel's very existence to be unpalatable, going after them in the UN, in their state-sponsored media, and through military/terroristic acts.
So, sure. You could be critical of Israel but not be antisemitic. But as a matter of probability, a lot of people who criticize Israel are also antisemitic.
You don’t think there’s anything about it’s recent creation that makes this a special case?
There's plenty of states with ongoing ethnic strife, and they do face a lot of deserved criticism. However I can't really recall popular, internationally supported calls for their abolition altogether.
The age of state again has not much to with it: for example Lebanon is younger than Israel and has a rich history of ethnic/sectarian conflict. Now there must be people who want to abolish Lebanon, but somehow you never hear them.
So when some are shouting to end Israel, it’s not unreasonable to think the next step is finish the genocide.
What people usually find particularly offensive is the de-facto annexation and settlement of territories that exceed the UN resolution that created the State of Israel, along with the complete imbalance in both military power and casualties of both sides. It's not just ethnic/sectarian conflict. In many aspects, it would qualify as genocide.
Hell, even outright Nazism wasn't deemed a reason enough to dissolve Germany (although at some point it was seriously considered).
The Israeli government and its people need to take a hard look at what it is doing, whether they'd like to be subjected to it by a foreign military power, and how they'd react against it. If they wouldn't like it, and if they would react violently against it, then I believe we'd have a lesson to learn and understand what Palestinians are experiencing and why a more peaceful solution would be a more constructive way to move forward. Some of the pain points can be immediately addressed.
And Germany was, in fact, dissolved into two smaller and very different countries for a long, long time after WWII. Their own wounds and the memory of the horrors they perpetrated, and the lesson that very normal people can do unimaginable evil is a tough one to learn, but one we must learn nevertheless if we decide to be better than our ancestors.
That's exactly what many advocate. It's in the charter political documents of the Palestinian ruling authorities. Major US politicians hold this position who receive a lot of political and media support. Notable celebrities have tweeted/said "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". What do you think they mean by that besides the utter destruction of the state of Israel?
whether they'd like to be subjected to it by a foreign military power
Since the Israelis only are responding to being attacked, I fail to see how they're in any way being hypocritical.
Sorry. I meant nobody respectable is suggesting that. Not even the respectable Palestinians.
> "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". What do you think they mean by that besides the utter destruction of the state of Israel?
A single-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians share the same rights and live under the same democratic government.
> Since the Israelis only are responding to being attacked
The said attacks are extremely ineffective. They always were, since well before Iron Dome became operational.
So only True Scotsman are to be considered respectable? Rashida Talieb, Ilhan Omar, and other overt anti-semites who appear regularly on national media aren't "respectable"? Let me know when they're abandoned by the media and their own party like Steve King was for making racist-adjacent statements.
A single-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians share the same rights and live under the same democratic government.
Voting residents in the region don't agree with you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant
The said attacks are extremely ineffective.
The attempt to make this about body counts and not the initiation of hostile military action baffles me. But I disagree with "ineffective". People in Israel are being injured and dying in rocket attacks. That's not ineffective. And then if you want to think this through a bit more, you'd realize that the degree to which it is ineffective is due to the fact that Israel counter-attacks to destroy the ability of Hamas/PLO terrorists to attack them. If they didn't respond to the degree that they do, there would be more Israeli casualties.
BDS is doing so precisely in the guise of
>A single-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians share the same rights and live under the same democratic government [and gerrymandered borders and immigration policy to create a Palestinian majority]
There is an elephant in the room and we must acknowledge it’s there so we can deal with it.
And yes, plenty people do advocate for dissolution of Israel, it's in fact a mainstream (but not the only one) position among pro-Palestinian activists.
It also has a surprisingly long list of separatist movements[0], which it has has thus far refrained from bombing with US-funded F16s.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_move...
What makes it strange is sense of normalcy people (sorry, I mean racists) have about a sense of white / Islamic supremacy over Jews, that makes them think it's ok to say things like 'we will wipe every Jew off the face of the planet' etc.
I am critical of some of Israel’s behavior, but by no means calling for its complete destruction.
The vast majority of people are criticizing the government not the population. It’s unusual for people to consider a nation’s population rather than their government because a nation’s population is largely irrelevant. It’s not random Americans that have a history of overthrowing democratically elected governments, it’s the US government that does so etc.
Israel’s government, like all governments, does plenty of things people disagree with and as such often gets legitimate criticism on it’s own merits.
And yet, Jews are today. It wasn't too long ago that people marched in Charlottesville chanting jews will not replace us. Now there's a massive rise in violence
Yes, they are. The US State Department issues travel advisories over such issues. It’s safer to travel in many places as a Canadian rather than American.
Let’s be very clear, any criticisms of Israels actions should not apply to Jews as a race, people or religion and even more so not be used as an excuse to harm or treat any single Jewish person negatively.
By and large, for example, the UN security council resolutions that the US keeps single-handedly vetoing are not calling for any destruction. They simply condemn Israel's violent behavior.
It's also an entirely an uneven playing field. No other country is condemned and attacked by the international community as often, and as widely despite other countries' far worse offense.
Criticisms of Israel is unique and direct and no other country is held to the same standard.
How much of a joke is it that Saudi Arabia was on the human rights commission at the UN for so long. Or the lack of similar statements against China for their decimation of Uighurs.
This isn't a finger blaming game, its recognizing that the UN demonstrates a massive bias against a single country with standards that no other nation has to face
For what it is worth I have visited Israel and the West Bank, and my sympathies are with Israel as the only democracy in the region.
That does not mean I cannot criticize when it acts wrongly. Sure the whole conflict is incredibly difficult with no easy solutions, but some people want to use it to stay in power.
Of course Hamas is not better, but that is not the expectation for Israel.
Based solely on the merits, you'd think that Israel's ethno-state bona fides wouldn't be any worse than dozens of other countries'. In fact, they're far less problematic. You can be Arabic/Muslim in Israel and rise to the highest levels of government with full rights of citizenship. I can point to many other countries where that wouldn't be the case for ethnically/religiously mal-aligned individuals. But somehow those other countries aren't constantly in the news cycle for defending their ongoing right to exist.
Because it’s a colonial ethnostate, with massive support from the United States. Israel (the colonial ethnostate) should not exist. Palestine is not an ethnostate, it is the name for the multicultural, multi-ethnic state who rightfully controls the area occupied by Israel, before British colonialism and subsequent invasion and occupation of the territory.
Moreover, why is this a strong rejoinder? Black South Africa was never recognized as a country either, does that mean there was no moral concern?
However Before Israel there was the British mandate. Before that Ottoman Empire.
The Palestinians in Gaza never controlled the land.
Doesn't that just mean “they were never powerful”? If they were living there, does it matter who was in power? English rule never stopped the Welsh being Welsh, or Wales from “belonging to” them. (I don't know how applicable this analogy is to this situation – probably not very, given there isn't a territorial dispute over who should have Wales.)
Not necessarily. It could also mean that the people living in Gaza today were not historically from Gaza but were from Egypt or elsewhere.
That's a strange view on the situation. Let's say I give you a choice. 1. Be a practicing Jew living in Palestinian-controlled territory. 2. Be a practicing Muslim living in Israel.
I'd definitely choose 2, choosing 1 would be suicide.
who rightfully controls the area occupied by Israel
The Jewish people were the indigenous people of that territory. In what way do they not rightfully control and occupy Israel?
Isn't choice 1 called being a settler? As far as I know they make up 10% or so of the Jewish population in the region, a far cry from suicide.
When? The region of Palestine was majority Muslim when Israel was founded. That your ancestors lived in a region doesn't give you any rights to it. If anyone has a birthright to a region, it's those who were born there and no one else.
What matters is who's being born there now, not where your grandparents were born
My maternal ancestry is of the Bering Strait islander and First peoples. Does that make me an indigenous person for the entirety of Americas and thus give me the right to control and occupy the entirety of America and expel all the "recent" migrants? Because that's the equivalent of claiming a blond haired blue eyed German Ashkenazi with a couple of generations in New York is somehow indigenous to the area of historic Judea and thus has the right to expel a different tribe of Semitic people who have only been there for say what, a thousand years?
I'm no expert but doesn't the Torah directly say that the Jews took Canaan from the Canaanites as directed by Yahweh? Wouldn't that make Canaanites the actual indigenous people of that territory? So would Canaanites thus be accorded the right to control and occupy that territory using your logic?
No. Even according to their/our [1] own mythology, the indigenous people were the Canaanites.
[1] I am ethnically Jewish. My parents were both born in Israel (except that it was still Palestine at the time). I grew up speaking Hebrew. But I do not self-identify as a Jew and I am highly critical of the conduct of the state of Israel. It has quite clearly become an apartheid state, and think that is reprehensible. But I am also a descendant of Holocaust survivors, so I am mindful of the very real historical oppression of Jews, and the importance of Israel is pushing back against that oppression. It's a very thorny problem with very few unambiguous protagonists. But no matter how you slice it, promulgating falsehoods like that Jews are the indigenous people of Palestine is unhelpful.
This is a fictional narrative constructed to justify the state of Israel. It has no basis in historical fact -- there never existed a Jewish ethnostate in the territory known as Palestine, this is a modern construction. Regardless, I don't believe in ethnostates -- of any ethnicity, anywhere.
A colony of what empire exactly? Jews were a group of massacred refugees.
> massive support from the United States
There is no massive support from the United States actually, at least not monetary. There is military help that is needed because Israel's enemies want to destroy it, still to this day. And it's not that big compared to Israel's gdp (4 billion to 400 gdp = 1%) and is completely meaningless to the U.S budget. The other support is vetoing U.N decisions that constantly target Israel. Which is needed for the same reason the military aid is needed.
> Israel (the colonial ethnostate) should not exist
Should the U.S exist? Last I checked California used to be part of Mexico - why isn't it being returned to it's rightful owners? How about West Europe? Maybe it should be dismantled and have all it's assets transferred to Africa? I've never heard anyone say stuff like that but when it comes to Israel sure let's destroy the evil ethno state.
Also, the US wasn't born out of a revolution against equal voting rights for people regardless of national origin, Israel, like Rhodesia at the time, was.
In both cases, minority groups rebelled against British attempts to impose majority-rule democracy, Israel has just succeeded more than Rhodesia did at the time.
Last time I checked Israel just changed the prime minister after having an election, while Palestine had its last election in 2006 and chose a party that literally killed its opponents.
The Jewish insurgency in mandatory Palestine was prompted by British indications that it was going to create a multi-racial, democratic state in Palestine, as they did in many of their other colonies once they departed. I believe there was a policy white paper published but I don't recall the name.
After substantial British civilian/government worker deaths at the hands of insurgent bombs (ie. King David Hotel bombing), the British retreated and gave it to the UN, who did the partition.
> Palestine had its last election in 2006 and chose a party that literally killed its opponents.
I may be misremembering, but I believe a large reason elections haven't been held since then was because the party elected in 2006 was ejected in a coup by the party supported by the US and Israel.
So, 14 years since an election in Palestine, and Netanyahu has been prime minister for 14 years.
Israel doesn't have that law either, there are black Jews and Indian Jews and white Jews as you probably know. Israel is an anomaly because of 2000 years of persecution that culminated in the holocaust. Maybe when there is no more any antisemitism (yeah, right) Israel will happily dismantle itself. Until that day it seems to me quite clear why Jews need a nation state.
Yes, the U.S. is also a colonial state. Not all states owe their existence to colonialism and occupation, but the U.S. is definitely one of them. We committed a genocide on an unimaginable scale, and took all the line of the people whose territory this was rightfully theirs. Not a good example of states to emulate.
> How about West Europe? Maybe it should be dismantled and have all it's assets transferred to Africa?
Its colonial territories in Africa should have been, and were, transferred to Africa.
Who is actively calling for the dismantling of the United States? No one. But Israel is fair game.
> Its colonial territories in Africa should have been, and were, transferred to Africa.
How is that enough though when comparing with the much more minor "crimes" Israel did? Israel displaced 700000 people as part of a brutal civil war where it also suffered major casualties. Belgium, Germany, France and others destroyed millions of Africans and robbed their nations. How is it enough for them to simply retreat from their colonies? If you actively call out for Israel to be dismantled I would expect for Europe to at least give away 50% of it's wealth to the people it destroyed. That sounds somehow fair to me or at least morally consistent. If what happened 73 years ago in Palestine must not be forgiven I don't see why everybody else gets a pass.
Because we "won". There are almost no indigenous people left in the United States, because we killed nearly all of them and destroyed their culture and civilization. I hope that this does not happen to Palestinians. For those indigenous people that remain, I definitely support greatly expanded rights and territory.
> If you actively call out for Israel to be dismantled I would expect for Europe to at least give away 50% of it's wealth to the people it destroyed.
One could argue on the number and logistics, but I absolutely support stronger European reparations for the damage done by colonialism.
Huh? What expanded rights some tiny resorts? Give them everything back - it's theirs. Even if there are only 1 million of them left make a referendum and ask them if you are allowed to stay. Also California is Mexican! Boy we have a lot of fixing to do! But basically I can infer from what you're saying this isn't about morals at all but about how strong you are. The U.S is super strong so no one calls for it's destruction (at least not seriously). Israel is tiny and weak and surrounded by enemies that want to see it go down. That's what this is about.
More importantly, I keep hearing about the Israeli colony and am a truly interested to know what empire my family are representing. As far as I heard they were massacred pretty much everywhere and came to Palestine with literally nothing, some being jailed in Cyprus by the Brits to prevent them from entering the country. No one told them about the big empire that was backing them up.
A single state solution is not going to have good consequences.
Just fanning the flames, let’s work together to find a solution instead of gaslighting.
This is a meaningless statement though. We can expect that nearly anyone that's antisemitic would be critical of a country run and mostly inhabited by Jewish people.
It becomes a problem when people try to extrapolate that fact to dismiss every criticism of Israel as "this guy's probably just antisemitic."
Its only true as a matter of probability throughout the entire world because its true in a particular region that has an enormous population padding those statistics.
There is antisemitism everywhere in some amounts and it is wrong like all forms of bigotry. However, in many countries, such as the US, you are just as likely to run into a person that criticizes Israel for reasons that have nothing to do with the religion of its inhabitants. You are still free to think that they are wrong, but people should stop using accusations of bigotry as a weapon to silence people simply for disagreeing with them. If you want to call someone a bigot, its pretty important to make sure you are right about it.
And for the record when it comes to that Israel/Palestine conflict I think neither side is even close to being innocent. I don't give a shit about their religions I just want families to stop being murdered by the actions of two shitty governments.
Huh? Are you seriously calling someones words who feels victimized, a weapon? Are you seriously holding fear of actual violence to an unsubstantiated standard?
"If you want to call someone a bigot, its pretty important to make sure you are right about it."
Please show me one other form of bigotry accusation you hold to the same standard.
This perspective is almost certainly a blindspot. Im not certain - but I definitely would not rely on you to stand up or defend folks from actual antisemitism.
How do people even think, let alone say these things and not get called out by everyone immediately?
Do you actually and critically think this is true or even appropriate to say?
The idea of figuratively describing something as a weapon isn't new or unusual. I'm not even sure what you mean by the second sentence. I was talking about people defaulting to claims of bigotry at any sign of criticism. If every criticism of Israel, even legitimate criticisms not coming from a sense of bigotry, makes a person feel victimized then there is something wrong with that person. If words cannot be used as a weapon exactly how do criticisms of Israel make a person feel victimized?
>Please show me one other form of bigotry accusation you hold to the same standard.
I hold all forms of bigotry accusations to the same standard. The example given was basically "a lot of people exist that are antisemitic so we can assume that criticism of Israel is probably antisemitic." Which is an argument that's basically uses the same sloppy logic that actual bigots use to justify their beliefs. Calling someone a bigot can have severe consequences for that person whether they are actually bigots or not. The key part of that sentence is that it can have consequences when they are not guilty. Yet people throw accusations around assuming someone's intentions simply because they said something they don't like. That's wrong so its important to try to only make those accusations against people that are actually bigots. I'm not sure how that's controversial. Some people do this because they genuinely think that anyone that criticizes a thing they like is a bigot. However, some people know better and intentionally falsely accuse people of being antisemitic because they know that it makes people afraid to voice their opinions. Thus, I called it a figurative weapon.
>but I definitely would not rely on you to stand up or defend folks from actual antisemitism.
Well whether you rely on me or not I will do the right thing if a genocidal antisemitic political party attempts to take over US politics. In the meantime, if I see people doing bigoted things I will stand up for people being targeted. Like I always have. This is kind of what I was talking about though, you seem to have labelled me as an enemy of yours simply because I suggested that there are people that criticize Israel for reasons other than antisemitism. There is no government in the world that doesn't sometimes deserve to be criticized.
>Do you actually and critically think this is true or even appropriate to say?
I don't understand. Are you saying its impossible to be critical of Israel without being antisemitic?
To be clear, what I was saying wasn't intended as a defense of the person OP was about. I think that the Google employee's letter was poorly worded and offensive. I don't know if he's antisemitic, but the phrasing saying that "Jews have an insatiable appetite for war" comes across as bigoted to me. It could be the result of poor phrasing causing someone to say something that they didn't mean, but it might not be. I can't blame someone for interpreting his statement as antisemitism because it was an overtly antisemitic statement. He could be a different person today, but no one made him publish that.
The idea that antisemitism is used to silence criticism of Israel is meant to do exactly that, victim shame them into silence - its an outrageous accusation without any factual basis.
I don't know anyone that defaults that way about every criticism of Israel...but there are many types of critiques that are clearly antisemitic - for example blaming Jews or even Israelies collectively for their governments actions - or holding Israel to a standard you dont hold anyone else to or leveling criticism at Israel with no attempt to even get the facts on the ground correct.
Can a claim of antisemitism be taken at face value without accusing the victim of weaponizing it to silence criticism of Israel?
Why are you looking for reasons to dismiss accusations of anti semitism?
Why isn't your default compassion and understanding?
This tactic of saying "oh try to find Israel on the map, it's so tiny, oh poor state of Israel" is often pushed by Zionists, also often trying to link anti-zionism with anti-semitism.
I saw a talk with Ruth Wisse, a professor at Harvard University pushing this narrative.
If Israel weren't Jewish, nobody would care about it. You can go line by line describing Israel and its so-called "atrocities" and I'll show you countries that are far more appropriately accused of those types of atrocities... yet those other countries never make it into the international news cycle.
I'm not Jewish. I'm not religious.
But the singling out of Israel by political/antisemitic forces has not escaped my notice.
Plenty of countries get criticised for their treatment of minorities when they do something wrong.
But instead, we see more media coverage in a single day of Israel's counter attacks from rocket fire than we do for a year of Uighur genocide.
There were plenty of news stories about the Uighurs last year.
The international community is not doing much about Israel either.
The area currently has geopolitical importance. Once global warming makes the canal less relevant, and renewables replace oil, Israel will get to wipe out the Palestinians in peace
Anyone who looks at the power dynamic knows the truth of the saying: If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace. If the Israelis put down their weapons, they would be slaughtered.
Agreed. In practice, antizionists (folks who believe that Israel shouldn't exist) virtually are virtually always antisemitic. Whatever you think of him, Bret Stephens makes a pretty insightful analogy that it's like how there could theoretically be segregationists that aren't racist, but they don't exist in practice.
That said, there's a distinction to be made between antizionism (i.e., "Israel shouldn't exist") and criticism of Israel (e.g., "Israel's settlement policy violates human rights"). The former is de facto (but not de jure) antisemitism while the latter is not.
EDIT: I'm getting a lot of downvotes for this, I'm guessing I've offended a lot of people who identify strongly with antizionism/antisemitism. My intention wasn't offense, but rather observation. That said, I make no apology for any offense taken--enjoy my Internet Points! (:
At that point, it's not a very interesting statement
Most russians have nothing to do with putin's regime and it's hackers. Those hackers' nationality may not even be russian. Yet, "russian hackers".
There are scientists deeply upset with state of official science, indians disagreeing with what fellow indians do, and so on.
That said, it's still a dumb thing to be cancelled over. Everyone has been an asshole to someone else at some point in our lives. Why do people feel the need to socially shame people publicly for an offense over a decade ago?
Because they're playing a game of Moral Supremacy one-upsmanship. In the long run, everyone who plays this game must lose, because were all humans. But in the short term this game can be quite lucrative in terms of attention getting, internet points, and money.
>Plenty of Jewish people that live both inside and outside of Israel are critical of the state.
Is this not exactly what this thought experiment of an article is talking about? Trying to put themselves on the shoes of a Jewish person who is critical of Israels politics
— Voltaire
Edit because I realized I may not have been clear: what I mean is that in a lot of country Christian and Muslims are in power. For Jewish people, it's the case in one country, and there's not much big minorities like there are Muslim minorities in Chrisian countries and the opposite.
Filled with a nation of people persecuted for millenia, who have been victims of racism forever, who yet become massively successful, and don't act like victims.
Yes, I understand it's a ridiculously annoying example that counters every woke left ideal. Can't blame the woke for being anti semitic.
What happened in the recent past to American Jews on university quotas and discrimination is now happening to Asian Americans.
The issue is both cases showcase upwards mobility by investing in your future generations. Going against the left belief social mobility is dead.
Search for the word "white" or "Jew" in his blog [1] posts to see for yourself.
[1] http://kamaubobb.blogspot.com/
Since Google supports "cancel culture", Kamau Bobb needs to be fired.
> The cost of elite education for our children is extraordinary. I dropped my beautiful black star into a sea of white children and it hurt.
> among the increasing number of white women holding leadership roles in the academy and in the public and private sector, they surely see younger versions of themselves in the next generation of white girls. It is a natural instinct to want the very best for them.
> In a nation with a history such as ours, that imagery is connected to a much longer and darker legacy – a legacy where white men have abused black women and girls with impunity.
> I do not need to be convinced that diversity and excellence are intimately interwoven. But what of my White counterparts? I really do not know how White people learn about Black or Hispanic people in ways that are honest
> Perhaps it is time to focus the inquiry on our White counterparts. They may well feel marginalized by the shortage of academic inquiry into the complexity of their changing American citizenship alongside people of color. Their sense of self-efficacy may be undermined by their pending loss of majority status.
> I was learning about the resilient spirit of black people in America in the context of white American barbarism.
> It is still true that white people kill black people in America with impunity.
...and he's been accused of racism before: http://kamaubobb.blogspot.com/2011/08/accused-of-being-racis...
It goes on and on...
Being jewish does not mean you are a zionist. Being a zionist does not mean you are jewish (many evangelicals in the US's "south" are staunch zionists).
You can want the palestinians to have basic human rights and still be pro-Israeli state.
BTW, I don't think most people who use the term Zionism in a negative context actually understand what it means. It's just the desire of Jews to live in its historic homeland - Israel, in a peaceful coexistence with its neighbors.
[1] https://unwatch.org/updated-chart-of-all-unhrc-condemnations...
You're doing the same thing this Googler is accused of. Assigning some characteristic/desire to the whole class of people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism
Yes it's very strange isn't it, I wonder what the reason could be
These incidents can hopefully (but doubtfully) cause some reflection about "why the hell do we even have 'diversity officers' in a software company? Maybe we're getting results opposite of what we sought. After all, we created the role with the silly title just to virtue-signal, in the first place."
Also we didn't see the entire context..
I think, you shouldn't. Unless you're a head of diversity. Then you must be.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
The original post is at https://web.archive.org/web/20210602000424/https://www.kamau... , including the final paragraph, which begins
>If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself.
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/2018/12/20/orlando-officer...
https://www.wtxl.com/news/local-news/assistant-principal-at-...
https://www.wgvunews.org/post/black-detroit-police-officer-r...
https://www.kwtx.com/content/news/Waco-ISD-hires-teacher-who...
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/16/sheriffs-chief-of-sta...
But just to be over the top obnoxiously clear. I'm talking about the private sector.
Jerry Saltz got away with just an apology after homophobic tweets: https://twitter.com/jerrysaltz/status/1024338014871474176
Chris Pratt apologizes after making offensive Instagram post, no major further repurcussions:
https://www.sammichespsychmeds.com/chris-pratt-signs-apology...
Feel free to additionally move the goalposts as you wish, but the point remains that the insinuation that some HN'ers are making that the only possible reason he isn't facing forthwith termination is his race doesn't seem inarguably the case.
Equating that post to the link's anti-Semitic remarks seems like a stretch.
No idea who the other guy is but yes, you might have found an example. I have no doubt there are some out there. I could point you to the short novel length list of times it went the other way though.
I'm skeptical of roles with a "my job is to care about X" kind of definition. That includes, for example, "customer advocate" and similar, especially someplace as complicated as google. I don't think they can have much success beyond the surface level.
EDIT: lets maintain a presumption of good faith. Assuming that you actually care about diversity...
Or even hurts.
The real reason enterprises spend money on Diversity Training is because it provides Faragher-Ellerth protection from damage claims— even if racist conduct within the company has been accepted by the court.
By having diversity training, corporations ensure that victims of racism do not receive financial restitution.
https://content.next.westlaw.com/Document/I0f9fbe84ef0811e28...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
This is not Graeber's description of "goon"
> I'm skeptical of roles with a "my job is to care about X" kind of definition.
Reframing it a bit (admittedly slightly off, but to get the point across):
"Who is the right person for a job all about caring about race?"
...I don't think anyone seeking that role should be hired for it.
As an example, I went to our head of D&I with a complaint about HR violating human rights law in our jurisdiction. They said "oh that sucks" and I never spoke to them again. I could have gone to a tribunal and argued about it, but instead I ignored HR, and shortly after left the company because I kept having to fight them about what seemed like baseline "inclusion" stuff. The D&I staff were mostly busy making promotional materials about the few successful marginalized people at the organization, despite our terrible stats.
Instead, you need to realize that the problem with X is that it's no individual's fault, but the cumulative effect of a lot of little things. Each of those little things is easily dismissed as irrelevant. The job of the X Officer is to care about all of those things at once.
That doesn't make their job easy. Simple changes rarely fix the problem -- if they could, you'd have already done them. They require large changes that often seem antiproductive, especially when you've defined "productive" in ways that you're convinced are objective but just happen to systematically be anti-X.
A common example: coding tests. "We don't exclude women. It's just that men happen to be more on both ends of bell curves, so it's just too bad that far more men pass this test than women. The test is objective, after all." Except that the test doesn't really test what you do for a living. So why insist on it? Is it because you're sexist, or just lazy? I'm tempted to call it the latter, but if it's pointed out by an "X Officer", they'll be accused of affirmative action, misanthropy, etc.
A diversity officer will lose more battles than they win, so it's hard to say what a job well done looks like. In a lot of ways they're doing their job well just by making people actually oppose them out loud. Their best victories look like things other people consider discriminatory against them, because the things that discriminate against them are intolerable while the things that discriminate against other people are just things that happen.
The hope is that collectively they'll put enough people in enough positions of authority to be able to gradually diminish the constant throb of small injustices that collectively have brought about an overwhelming white maleness to all authority positions. Even a large company is only a tiny fraction of society, so it takes the full cumulative effect over decades to actually achieve genuine success.
I hope that answers your question. It's not an easy thing to describe, and it's easy to dismiss the problems they're trying to fix and not worth solving.
My question was more tactical than anything. Coding tests and hiring are a good example. Is a general purpose "diversity officer" likely to understand hiring, coding tests and such to improve on this?
An understanding of abstract issues, like bell curves and bias in testing generally is one thing. Getting into the nitty gritty, dealing with objections and finding alternatives is another. Don't you need someone that understands coding tests, coding, technical hiring and such to make a difference? A nondiscriminatory hiring method is objectively better, even if you don't care about diversity.
A person in authority, but removed from the actual task at hand seems like a recipe for box ticking, to me. I believe it could work for blatant, simple misogyny. For deeper issues like hiring process, don't we need subject experts?
Leaving workplace diversity aside, say the issue is application design. An application doesn't work well for people of different cultural or educational backgrounds? Don't we need someone with both an understanding of UIs and an understanding of those needs? I don't see how authority can lead someplace good. People who have never dealt with UIs have terrible ideas about how to improve them.
>I hope that answers your question. It's not an easy thing to describe, and it's easy to dismiss the problems they're trying to fix and not worth solving.
I appreciate you wading in. Most of the other comments have been quite depressing. I think what we need is more presumption of good will, and to try and carry less baggage from previous experience. People can be wrong but not bad people. They can come around. There are multiple routes to getting where we want to go. That's not to say no one is ill willed.
Lastly, I think not seeing a solution often leads to not seeing the problem... even though it's logically backwards. I also think that a deep awareness of problems leads to seeing solutions. I don't think you can use authority alone and force people to find solutions to problems they don't care about, or believe in. The problem they'll actually try to solve is "how do I me this person leave me alone."
Well, thanks for admitting that diversity officers are just a massive power play by the hard left to take control of every institution by creating hatred of men and white people.
BTW, given almost the entire software industry now does use coding tests during interviews, you are seriously claiming everyone who does this is either sexist or lazy, with no other possibilities. Do you realize that this is how pro-diversity people end up getting such a bad name? You are willing to make sweeping accusations of sexism against entire industries.
There's no way to ever satisfy people like you except by literally giving women jobs to do nothing all day, just so you can say you have lots of women. These attitudes are so grotesque, so deeply morally wrong, that it will one day be you being cancelled for them.
Can you explain what this mythic “throb of injustice” is that keeps the white man in power?
What I experience today is:
* government policy that is openly racist against white and asian men (affirmative action)
* Racist “diversity” campaigns today that are veils for “we want less white men but can’t straight up say that.”
* Hate from people of color, since the narrative is my “white male privilege” is the only reason for any success in my life. Every other major contributor to it is sidelined.
I have also still not found someone able to explain why white male leadership is a problem when it well reflects the entry workforce 40 years ago. Current diversity metrics for new grads will feed up management chains in 40 years and so on.
These are tangible policies and sentiment I can point to that directly and overtly discriminate against me because of my identity. Your comment tries to paint a rosy picture of doing so. There is no thought to my economic background, how hard I’ve worked, etc. Just you’re a white privileged man so you deserve less opportunity for leadership positions.
It seems incredibly and overtly racist to me, but I’m open to changing my mind.
Nevermind that this position has an unwritten rule that it must be occupied by a minority.
What did they expect?
WRONG THINK ALERT - get the army of snowflakes and flag this persons comment. ohh wait somebody did already.
I... can't help but think that, had he been a member of a different demographic, he would have just plain been fired.
White: Guilty until proven innocent, and even then, still guilty.
Person of color: No, that’s wrong, people of color cannot be racist or prejudice, what they said was taken out of content by someone who is racist.
That’s the new paradigm.
Racism, prejudice, and bigotry, of any kind, by anyone, is just wrong.
it's beyond stupid, especially for a company that works with Dr Dre
I'm starting to notice a pattern.
They fired Damore for writing an email that was tone-deaf, insensitive, but largely supported by research. Bobb goes on a clearly antisemitic rant, and just gets reassigned.
Is Google inconsistent, or has their policy on how to deal with these things changed over the past few years?
I’m pretty sure if he were another person talking the same way about other people he’d have gotten fired unceremoniously.
And I doubt they have recalibrated how they deal with controversial opinions.
Simple explanation is Google's Democrat-leaning leadership are more aligned with Bobb than Damore (in the US, the left are generally anti-Israel while the right support it, and the left are pro-affirmative-action while the right oppose it).
I thought the data was that there are differences, but they're so small that the average man and average woman overlap in the majority of their characteristics.
The comment was an experiment, I was somewhat appalled to see I got upvoted for that here.
Absolutely a fireable offense to inject that sort of discourse into a professional workplace imo.
What the actual...
Are you serious right now? Men kill women and other men at much, much higher rates than women kill men or other women. What does that say about the the "innate biological tendencies" of men?
I was seeing how far people would go with Damore, and it really saddens me how much my comment was upvoted. People here are the type of people I work with... they all hold these views?
Of course, now that I've clarified, I expect the Damore-types to downvoted my comment, it peaked at +5.
Who?
> no one questioned whether a man could be trusted with them.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/14/politics/trump-nuclear-author...
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-na-trump-finger-...
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a47436/t...
I'm surprised you never heard anyone question Trump's temperament regarding control over nukes.
Where is the apartheid? Is letting the Palestinian Authority govern Gaza and the West Bank apartheid?
Damore doubled down on defending the document and asserted his right to publish it. At that point, he made himself a walking Title VII violation and tied Google's hands. Whether management wanted to fire him or not, the legal cost of retaining him was going to exceed his value as an individual contributor.
As far as I can see, Bobb is doing everything he can to work with Google to avoid the further creation of a hostile work environment. It might not be enough, but for now it seems to be worth more to the company to keep him than to fire him.
There may be one aspect, however, where your observation about relative American tolerances for hostile-environment-creating speech matters. Hostile work environment is partially decided by fellow employee's reaction to behavior. If the average Googler is, in fact, less tolerant of biological essentialism than antisemitism, that could create a corporation where one speech is punished more hardly than the other. But I think we ought not to discount the reaction of the separate actors in these two stories once caught in the spotlight.
The far left doesn't like insensivity to Jews? Which far left are you thinking of? In the US, the far left is the most reliable source of public anti-Semitism. (Note specifically that I said public. I'm not going to try and divine whether rightwing anti-Semitism is worse in private, which it very well may be.)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/far-right-extremists-blam...
https://www.bendthearc.us/announcing_howtofightantisemitism_...
Your second link is interesting, thank you. Caputo in particular is a good example of anti-semitism among rightwing public figures. It doesn't dispute my impression that anti-Semitism (and other racism) on the left is much more acceptable in public statements than rightwing public anti-Semitism; it just claims that the media disproportionately focuses on leftwing anti-Semitism (possibly true).
I don't think complaining about Internet votes is particularly constructive, but this is more of an insight than a complaint: the downvotes on my original comment are a perfect reflection of how inanely most people engage with topics like these. There are "good guys" and "bad guys", and the "good guys" don't do any of the bad things. I don't use the phrase anti-Semitism reflexively, and think it's often wielded as a bludgeon, particularly in the context of criticism of the Israeli government. But the idea that one would be surprised at anti-semitism on the far left, like the comment I responded to, is ridiculous.
Hopefully nobody will hold me accountable to all the slashdot comments I wrote 10-15 years ago. Taken out of context, I've probably made fantastically horrific statements too.
Kind of hard to claim diversity matters when you install a demonstrable racist at the top.
Who else is he discriminating against that we just haven't found yet?
Literally within the past day, along with the rest of his entire blog. This post was still online yesterday!
I also don't see any form of public acknowledgement or apology anywhere on his site or twitter. Perhaps he made one but I just can't find it. I'm not sure how people are affirmatively concluding that his views have changed so substantially since this post.
> Taken out of context
The full post speaks for itself. Nothing is taken out of context here; he's directly making offensive statements about all Jewish people based on stereotypes and actions of the Israeli government, which literally has no relation to the majority of Jewish people in the world.
Nope, they're being very consistent if you use the correct ideological goggles, change Bobb's color palette and first name a little and we would have another Damore-like shitshow.
I can only imagine Bobb was quite apologetic and a lot more aware of how terrible his conflations are there than he was in 2007. That's also 14 years of time to have solid evidence that he no longer holds such myopic views.
Bobb's blog post was from 2007.
When the company asks you "tell me what you think about the content of our diversity training, we promise your response is confidential and we are interested in hearing what you have to say", and you respond with an evidence based argument that the diversity training is incorrect, then this is a very different situation from the head of diversity making public comments on a blog. Remember Damore was a non-management developer.
If you are going to fire people for their views, which is what apparently Google has no problem doing, then the Damore situation is much less justifiable than this situation and the person with the offending views was not even fired.
The memo was initially sent to Diversity Training, then after a non-response, Damore himself circulated to a wider internal audience.
According to Google [2], he was fired because portions of his memo were found to be a violation of Google's Code of Conduct, specifically "each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination."
But again, this all misses the point--a 2007 blog post when you were not an employee is much different than sending a memo internally while on the clock.
1: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/16/james-dam...
2: https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/diversity/note-empl...
Of course he was only fired because he was criticizing popular regressive policies and that provoked the wrath of employees who identify with those kinds of policies, and management decided it was easier to give in to the authoritarians (indeed, Google's management the authoritarian employees in question are probably not distinct groups--they certainly overlapped).
Do you have proof of this?
In Damore's case: He was asked to privately(?) provide his thoughts to the company(hence while employed and on company time).
Bobb's case: He decided to write a blog post. No-one asked him nor compelled him to share his thoughts.
My view is that firing people over views and opinions is dumb as long as they are not trying to force their views and opinions on other people in the workplace.
On the other hand, my view is that one's views and opinions are private and don't need to be spewed everywhere, hence why I have a dim view of social media(notes the irony/hypocrisy of posting this on HN).
Except that wasn't why he was fired.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/16/james-dam...
There were two diversity trainings, both requesting feedback. There was no email there was a google doc, a link to which was sent as part of a feedback form in the trainings and then shared with a larger group called "skeptics" created for these types of discussions at the request of Damore's manager.
You can read the timeline here: https://www.dhillonlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/201804...
Meanwhile, your initial summary of it was that he sent confidential feedback to the diversity team after a training session which pissed them off so much that they leaked it to screw with him.
No, at the suggestion of a random person who was a manager. Not damores manager.
And the skeptics group has nothing to do with diversity, is open to anyone, and by sharing with the group, functionally meant that the doc was emailed to hundreds or thousands of people.
The guardian is correct.
Bobb wrote something which he has since recanted, 10 years ago, outside of Google's official channels?
Damore was asked for his feedback on Google's diversity policies, and that's exactly what he provided.
Most of Damore's critics haven't actually read his memo[1], but rather formed an opinion based on the character assassination campaign against him, a campaign his employer publicly sided with.
Over the 4 years since the controversy I've asked countless Damore critics to point to the specific part of his memo that was tone-deaf, insensitive, or bigoted. I'm still waiting for an answer.
[1] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices:
● Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race
● A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates
● Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate
● Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scrutiny in the reverse direction (clear confirmation bias)
● Setting org level OKRs for increased representation which can incentivize illegal discrimination
The common response is "that's not fair to Y, you should be hiring only based on quality, not on X or Y". But the issue is if you only hire on quality, but the quality X candidates don't join, then you're actually losing out on quality. So instead, you lower quality requirements, with the goal that overall you're actually promoting quality in the end, by working towards an environment where quality _is_ the only determining factor, and removing the current factors that work against X candidates.
What about this do you disagree with?
Note: This kind of handwaves over what "X won't join is". There's a lot of nuance to this. It may be that X grows up thinking the job isn't for them, because they always see Y in those types of jobs, and never bothers to try that job. It may be that X tries to join, but the people hiring them all Y, and favor Y instead because it's familiar to them, and the rest of the company is Y. It may be that X joins, but they feel uncomfortable that everyone is Y, and quits. There's a lot of different factors that goes into what discrimination looks like, which is why affirmative action is a lot more than just company policies.
https://blog.capterra.com/7-studies-that-prove-the-value-of-...
I believe that while "reverse-discrimination" has become commonplace in the name of diversity, it is unfair, divisive, counterproductive, and illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
I'm not accusing you of making this argument, but the assumption that a particular ethnic group can't compete on a level playing field is deeply condescending towards those groups. It's "the soft bigotry of low expectations".
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-06-24...
For example, 74% of NBA players are black - compared to just 13% of the US population.
Is this disparity evidence that the NBA is discriminating against non-black players?
For instance, I'm trans. I'm not openly out when searching for jobs / at work, because I fear I will be discriminated for it. If I saw a company already had several trans people, and they were seeking trans people out and asking them to apply, I would maybe change my mind.
Should companies treat everyone as individuals, and say "if trans people wanted to work here, they need to apply"? Because that's how you get no trans people applying, and that perpetuates the cycle of "I can't come out, no one else in the world is trans". Sure, it would be better if companies didn't have to advocate for diversity, but until society doesn't have stigmitism, real or imagined, against minorities, then I don't think it's wrong to help them on the basis of their identity.
I have no problem with companies going out of their way to advertise that they are welcoming to all, whether black, trans, white, gay, young, old, etc, and that candidates will be judged on merit.
But I do have a problem with holding people to a different standard because of their ethnicity, gender, gender identity, or any other inborn characteristic that's irrelevant to their ability to do the job.
Within the context in which the claim was made, it's "not even wrong". Lots of the claims in the Damore memo are similarly better to characterize as "not even wrong" rather than "false".
> Doesn't seem like something he would assert without a cite.
I can find a cite for literally anything.
Male: 2.68 SD: 0.65
Female: 2.94 SD:0.67
d: 0.39
Non-native English user here, it seems the word "neurotic" has some connotation that the trait "neuroticism" doesn't? And that's why it's received so poorly?
But when a academic term (that is closely related to a negative word) is used, some on the same side refuse to understand and get butthurt instead.
E.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23122068
It’s not hard to understand why many people find this offensive.
Here’s the direct quote if you need it: “I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.”
Your paraphrase says "the reason" and "rather than bias/descrimination", suggesting both certainty and only a single cause.
How do you reconcile this difference between your paraphrase and Damore's quote?
Nowhere does he suggest they are the only causes, or that bias/discrimination do not exist.
His exact words are "these differences may explain". He doesn't say "these differences may PARTLY explain". If I say that A may explain B, the reasonable implication is that A may fully explain B. So, yes, he does suggest that non-bias causes are the only causes.
Just to be clear: I don't think this makes any real difference. The reaction to his email would've been the same either way. But the fact remains that your interpretation of the quote isn't supported by the actual words he used.
Given this, I do not think it is a reasonable implication to turn "may explain" to "may fully explain."
It's hard for me to believe this distinction doesn't matter given that his critics always seem to specifically call out his "denial" of bias/discrimination when they want to paint him in the most unflattering light (even the NYT: https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1360626887035338752).
> Most of Damore's critics haven't actually read his memo[1], but rather formed an opinion based on the character assassination campaign against him, a campaign his employer publicly sided with.
I completely agree, but in a corporate setting one can be truthful, accurate, have good intent, and yet still be tone deaf and insensitive. The bar for insensitive is very low in this context.
I think with a fair and honest reading of his letter & the context that it came up in, its clear that he was trying to contribute in a positive way to the discussion & effort.
This is why the inconsistency between these two cases is so remarkable. Antisemitism, even if from years ago, and not related to company business, is pretty damning (esp for someone leading D&I efforts). Meanwhile, an attempt, albeit executed in a politically naive way, to positively contribute to a discussion led to a firing & character assassination.
If a fair and honest reading of his memo reveals that he had good intent, and the memo was scientifically accurate - and yet he was fired and publicly vilified for it, then isn't describing it as "tone deaf and insensitive" a form of victim-blaming?
It seems similar to pointing out that the victim of a sexual assault was dressed provocatively.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K1JRtRYBLyhhgkJLXnW2Nxjo5Bn...
"... statements about immutable traits linked to sex - such as women's heightened neuroticism and men's prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution - were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment..."
This guy in his private life wrote some nasty blog posts. That shouldn't impact his professional life. Nor vice versa.
This blog post isn't sufficiently against the law to end up with him in prison. Yet this is a case of extrajudicial punishment.
Unless there is any evidence of him bringing that thinking into his work, he shouldn't be punished.
Who else has he helped discriminate against based on their ethnicity or views?
For many other positions I would agree with you, but not a position like this.
What if I believe in my public private life that Russia should rise up and destroy the west for its decadence and weakness - should it affect my job in the CIA?
Their assumption is moreso that we cant grow to overcome past problems. So the only way to build themselves up is to tear others down.
Thats why the popular "anti-racism" philosophy is so antithetical to and ignorant of the lives and philosophies of many of the greatest civil rights leaders such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T Washington, and MLK.
Who are they? The people who believe racism exists?
Those who fight racism with racism and call it anti-racism or reverse-racism.
Those who use hate, blame, and punishment as their tools of power, rather than love, forgiveness, and self/community empowerment.
Those who focus on division rather than unity.
[0]: https://www.ocpathink.org/post/does-race-massacre-silence-sh...
Here[0] is the article I had meant to link to.
Ah man… I really feel bad that you read the wrong article a few times after I unwittingly mislead you. I'm genuinely sorry about that.
[0]: https://www.ocpathink.org/post/whites-will-always-be-racist-...
I'm going to have to start asking for better sources on antiracism than a white woman who makes a career out of corporate "diversity training." Like, of course that's her entire thesis.
White fragility is a very useful concept, for sure. But the way DiAngelo uses it seems to be more focused on making white people hem and haw and feel guilty for even trying instead of doing mutual aid, reading theory, forming community, anything actually helpful or useful.
If I wanted to set up a strawman, that's exactly what I'd do.
I'll probably read her new book that's coming out soon, but my prior assumption is that it's more of the same. I hope to be proven wrong.
My perspective aligns neatly with that describe here[0].
As Trevor Phillips would say[1], Critical Race Theory is exactly the idea I would invent if I were a racist.
[0]: https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/commentary/how-leftis...
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb2iFikOwYU
You have provided evidence that it is the implicit claim of exactly one critical race theorist.
> which is why I'm challenging your support for it now.
This is a strawman. I began this discussion by pointing out that this very claim is counterproductive, which is why I'm not a fan of DiAngelo's work. Reasoning in the abstract about marginalized groups and the systemic issues they tend to face is not the same as asserting that they individually have all the same views or background.
I actually agree with her here, but I don't think that's the same as saying that racist people can't get better:
> While citizens can work on addressing racism, they can never be free of it, she said. “We don’t arrive and now we are not racist,” DiAngelo said.
In her view (and mine), becoming "not racist" isn't really a thing that happens and then you're done, and you don't have to worry about not being racist anymore. Rather, it's an ongoing effort, the same way being a kind person or a hard worker is. In this understanding, "all white people are racist" is not a condemnation of white people or an attempt to cast white people as inherently bad or irredeemable. Rather, it's meant as a wake-up call - "Yes, all white people, even you, believe racist things and sometimes act in racist ways." If you want to be anti-racist, it is important to recognize these things within yourself and improve them, in the same way that you work to improve the world outside you.
Since this is a different definitional understanding (semantics?) than the person who says "I'm not racist," it can be a tricky point to communicate properly without being misunderstood or taken out of context.
I don't agree with all of DiAngelo's points or writing, but on this core one, I think she's not too far off the mark.
It's a stupid statement no matter the explanation.
And honestly even the intent at bwst is advocating purity over practice, her point will waste a lot of resources on people who are more or less on board with said idea of anti-racism but are flawed.
“An irresistible and indispensable 360-degree guide to the new technology establishment.... A must-read.” New York Times
“Incisive.... The most fun business book I have read this year.... Clearly there will be people who hate this book — which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read.” New York Times
“Reckless and rollicking... perceptive and funny and brave.... The resulting view of the Valley’s craziness, self-importance and greed isn’t pretty. But it’s one that most of us have never seen before and aren’t likely to forget.” Washington Post
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_Fiction_Bes...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_Nonfiction_...
“PMMess, as we’ll call her, was composed of alternating Bézier curves from top to bottom: convex, then concave, and then convex again, in a vertical undulation you couldn’t take your eyes off of. Unlike most women at Facebook (or in the Bay Area, really) she knew how to dress; forties-style, form-fitting dresses from neck to knee were her mainstay.”
“Out of nowhere British Trader informs me she is once again pregnant; the calendar math takes us right back to my move- out imbroglio in December, our last tryst after a breakup desert of nonintimacy. After a brief debate, British Trader confirms her desire to keep the child, whatever my thoughts on the matter. It occurred to me that perhaps this most recent experiment in fertility—and the first—had been planned on British Trader’s part, her back up against the menopause wall, a professional woman with every means at her disposal except a willing male partner—in which case I had been snookered into fatherhood via warm smiles and pliant thighs, the oldest tricks in the book.”
“To make an analogy, a capped note is like having to seduce five women one after the other, while an equity round is having to convince five women to do a sixsome with you. The latter is exponentially harder than the former.*
* The women analogy breaks down in that, unlike with women, the more investors you seduce into your moresome, the more likely others are to join. This is an expression of the lemming-like nature of tech investors, most of whom scarcely merit the title.”
—Antonio Garcia Martinez
Sam Harris and his conversation with Antonio covers the whole thing in more depth: https://samharris.org/podcasts/251-corporate-cowardice/
https://www.obama.org/diversity/
i'm thinking there is a decent chance trans-racialism will eventually become woke
Essentially, you gain "cred" by publicly taking down a more powerful figure than yourself. It's the problem of diablerie in Vampire: The Masquerade in that, once accepted, you create a set of rewards and initiatives that foster a constant churn of figures eager to snipe at those above them, to drain them of their woke cred and get at least a little for yourself in an act called "critique." Of course, there's only so much blood/cred to go around so figures rise and fall as these very public lives are examined for any kind of transgression: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." Twitter and Tumblr are not exactly structured for careful, nuanced thought and so produce an endless stream of hot takes which, when gone cold, can be mined for evidence.
And so the revolutionaries are declared counter-revolutionaries and come to be the next layer of corpses in the mass graves they have dug, Khmer Rouge style.
EDIT misread "racialism" as "radicalism"
Innocent comments taken out of context or a general changing of accepted speech can turn a decade old bit of text into damning evidence of bigotry, racism, or any other ism.
Once something is on the internet, it is always on the internet.
This vigilantism has to stop.
Downvote me, but I am truly sorry for him. Stuff like this makes me never want to post on the public web under my real name, who knows what will be marked as "offensive" a few decades from now.
You do seem to live in extremely polite and enlightened world where just a transfer is ruining career. Out in real world today one would have their ass out of job instead of mild reprimand for such blog post.
[1]: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1392756490138791937?s=20
https://web.archive.org/web/20210601160519/https://www.kamau...
I cycle my reddit nicks every 2 months or so.
I've cleaned out everything that I've posted as a teenager (even though I am a sensible person)
Not taking any chances. Saw the writing on the wall with Damore.
I should probably axe this nick but I've grown fond of its upvotes. So whatever :P
Always assume you've been dox'd.
For me, the lesson to learn from this is that to never apply for a job in the US or for a job for a large US company. That's easy for me to say, though, since I'm working as a philosopher in academia and these are not wanted or needed in corporations anyway.
maybe the lesson is if you are going to make sweeping, negative, generalizations about a population you are probably going to look like an idiot. and especially if you feel the need to publish them to the world
The kind of ferocity with which people reject other people's opinions and evaluate them to the highest possible moral standards once they disagree with them is a special kind of modern savagery. We're talking about a blog post this guy wrote ten years ago as a private person. Maybe he even changed his opinion or regrets the way he phrased it then?
____
"Jews Urge Arabs To Shun Bigotry..." Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES. July 18, 1930, Page 7:
'JERUSALEM, July 17.--Deep emotional feeling marked the Jewish representatives' final addresses before the League of Nations Wailing Wall commission today. In stirring terms the Jews appealed to the Moslems not to be influenced by religious bigotry but to seek a settlement of the present dispute as generously as possible.'
____
"Haj Amin el‐Husseini Dies; Ex‐Palestine Grand Mufti," The New York Times, July 5, 1974:
'In 1952 the Mufti explained ... This land, he pointed out, had belonged to the non‐Jewish peoples of Palestine ...'
____
Hamas senior jihadist in his interview to Sky News on May 24, 2021 openly said, the Jews don't "belong" there, as it is all Arab Muslim land:
'“You are not a citizen. We are the owner of this area – Arabic area. This is well known as an Islamic area.”…'
Steve jobs had just launched the first iPhone when he made that blog post. That feels like a life time ago.
Six years later I became an atheist. I've been an atheist for 17 years now.
As someone who has personally undergone an extreme change in disposition on something so fundamental with respect to how one views the cosmos, what you did or said 14 years ago is only relevant to me insofar as what your transformation story has been.
More than anything though, I want to know what person you have become today. Bonus points if you used to think the opposite of what you think today, because you've managed to really grok that state of mind and figured out how to get out of it.
Just from reading your one-line description of mormonism, I can tell you are 100% completely genuine. What's the equivalent for Bobb?
Just saying "I regret having posted that" isn't quite the same. Maybe wearing a yamika for a few years would do it, I don't know.
Your entire comment is a contradiction.
The left either needs to:
1. Play by their own rules (in this case, fire the guy)
2. Stop doing it to their political opponents
The contradiction is pretty clear - the guy is decrying these tactics, but still saying this person should be fired using exactly those same tactics.
To me that speaks volumes.
I probably should have used the word "really" rather than "actually", as I was trying to contrast the minor response with the harm of the offense, not contrast other racist things with this racist thing.
> you're just showing your hand at not liking the things that most people are "cancelled" over.
Honestly, it feels like you're projecting here a little. Seeing a demand for consistency as hypocrisy only makes sense if moral consistency isn't a term in your moral calculus.
Given this, perhaps an example that's coded in the opposite direction politically will make it clearer. Imagine a critic of legacy admissions in prestigious universities that pay lip service to meritocracy and equal opportunity. Now imagine that critic getting even more incensed when a university decides to reverse their usual racial preferences and refuses to admit black legacy candidates. Would this critic be a hypocrite? Does it make any sense to say, "it's a contradiction to complain about legacy admissions and also complain about avoiding specific legacy admissions"?
Obviously not. They set the rules, and they're refusing to play by them. This is a different, and stronger, complaint than simply not liking the stated rules.
Google does this because someone in the corp didn't like what this guy said, and canned them. People do that because they have beliefs. In the U.S. firing people, protesting, and overall underhanded methods are also a Hallmark of "the right" whenever someone does something they don't agree with. Or have we forgotten that the overwhelming majority of day to day business isn't conducted on Twitter?
Your library of work is on you. Reviewing it, and adding contemporary commentary where needed is again, up to you. If you don't, people assume you still believe it.
This wasn't some woke slip of syntax, he was very literally holding all Jews accountable for Israel's actions. It's a deeply anti-Semitic set of comments. Even without his position, he should have known better.
In my opinion, the 1619 Project is a racist and decisive project and has no place at Google, and Kamau Bobb was a public supporter of that.
So if Google is going to support "cancel culture", then Kamau Bobb should have no place at Google, or any major tech company, whatsoever.
[0] Or are we forgetting when people lost their minds about "happy holidays" and starbucks' cup design change? Or Colin Kaepernick? Etc. I don't see how anyone can say it's related to one political party in one country.
The fact that he was just shifted rather than fired in this political environment speaks volumes.
It's one thing the we see persecution by anti-Semitic people against jews -we are used to that sadly- but that it equally often happens the other way around from people who surely knows better is mind-blowing.
How is that hard to understand?
(Also, let's not pretend there aren't a lot of non Israeli Jews defending Israel whatever it does).
The author of the post under discussion made statements about Israel and about Jews.
It's the blanket statements about Jewish people that I'd call anti-semitic.
I find those inappropriate too- I think he might have gotten carried too far in making his point. However, on one hand I think it's an understandable slip: after all, Israel calls itself the Jewish homeland and often tries to extend criticism it receives to all Jews (by calling it antisemitic). This with little objection from Jews elsewhere. On the other hand, "antisemitic" is a very strong accusation: are we sure there aren't middle grounds, such as calling something inappropriate or incorrect, without associating it straight away with one of the worst mass murders in history?
“Some racists justify racism by equating their racism with their race and calling criticizing of their racism an attack on their race” doesn’t even begin to justify, excuse, or mitigate racism against that race. That’s what all racists of all races do, and if we accept that as a justification for racism all racists will be justified by other racists.
I didn’t describe someone as racist, I described an argument as racist (the difference is the same as that between a dumb idea and an idea from a dumb person.)
And the argument would be racist even with “Israeli Jew”. It would be possible to rewrite it while retaining some of the ideas in it and not be racist, but it would be a major revision that I don’t think anyone would view as cosmetic.
It's the boy who cried wolf, but embodied in a nation state.
His points are presented without hyperboles, and while they certainly do not paint Israels state politics in a good light, how is this anti semitism (which in wikipedia is defined as "hostility to, prejudice, or discrimination against Jews")?
Antisemitism is of course as inexcusable as any other form of racism, but criticism of a country's or groups political views and policies is not hate nor discrimination.
In my opinion his removal is an overreaction, but with how polarizing this subject I don't see how it could have gone any other way.
Bobb conflated Israeli politics with Jewishness and thus making the latter responsible for the actions of the former.
The fact that Israel defines itself as a Jewish state does not mean that all Jews see themselves as Israelis or are pro-Israel.
It is like criticising Arabs for the actions of Saudi-Arabia, or any other Arab (or Muslim) country, which is unfortunately an recurring theme in the West and justifiably regarded as a form of racism (Islamophobia).
If that blogpost was the same, but said Israel, instead of the Jewish people; would there be any issue with it today?
I really don't know much about the Jewish faith or how it interplays with Israel, so I'm just trying to understand where all the anger is coming from. I feel like Israel is acting in bad faith on public forums too, which makes everything more complicated for somebody unfamiliar with it all.
EDIT: Reading more comments I think I get the gist of the controversy, he insinuated all Jewish people should feel guilt for the actions of Israel? I agree that's wrong, but I understand how somebody could come by that belief. Israel themselves have fostered the narrative that Israel represents the Jewish people by constantly conflating an attack on Israel as an attack on the Jewish people.
Not all white people are guilty of slavery, and virtually no one thinks that they are.
Essentially all American white people continue to materially benefit from a long history of systematic racism in America [0], including slavery, state-mandated and state-tolerated post-slavery subjugation and segregation. Heck, many living white Americans are direct beneficiaries of overt discrimination in public programs, not to mention systematic, coordinated private discrimination.
People who oppose acknowledging the latter point like to set up the former as a convenient strawman.
[0] which is not to say all are in a good absolute position, or even not structurally disadvantaged on balance; systematic racial discrimination isn’t the only structural bias in American society.
I come from a family of poor farmers in the South. I've done some genealogical digging, and thus far I've found three 16-24 year old members of my family who died in the Confederate war. We never owned slaves; service was mandatory back then, either through law or social pressure.
Approximately ~600-700,000 people died in the Civil War. This country has made sacrifices for African Americans and racial equality, more than any other country on Earth. It will never be enough.
No matter how much they give, apologize, change the rules, white Americans will never shed their "original sin." Because of my white skin, I "continue to materially benefit" from "systemic racism," and yet, where are these benefits? I come from a place riddled with opiate addicts and alcoholism. Most of the younger people don't make it out, they have to score much higher than African Americans applying to the same colleges (as do Asians).
Everyone was on board with MLK's dream of equal opportunity for all. Racial discrimination was clearly a bad idea. But, in the last 10 years or so, some people have realized that "racism" is perhaps the most powerful bludgeoning tool in the US. Now, MLK is outdated, the new movement is about racial revenge.
And I would dig into MLK's thoughts on economic justice a bit more. The white washed view ignores his belief that equality couldn't be achieved even within the bounds of capitalism. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/21/economic-e...
And I say this all as another poor white boy from the deep south.
A racially divided nation is profitable, and it's much harder for workers to organize.
> I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
> I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
As for connections to Occupy Wall Street, my view as some one connected to the scenes is that they're orthogonal, and instead both rise from the beginnings of a generational shift in existing power structures.
Martin Luther King, Where Do We Go from Here, 1967
I'll give you that anyone saying that _only_ corporate identity politics can solve racial issues in America is blowing smoke up your ass, but honest looks at why companies as their employees become richer trend white and male is an important component of the fight for racial equality.
still kinda nuts to me that this isn't widely acknowledged.
Less likely to be arrested or incarcerated, less likely to be stopped or harassed by police, less likely to be denied a job or mortgage. Those are some of the major systemic privileges White people have that Black people don't in the U.S. The statistics are pretty stark.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w9873
if yes, then how is this associated with racism?
This is something I like to bring up, since it's a great example of a microcosm of discrimination that it's easy to not think about. There's a black saying that blacks have to work twice as hard to get half as far, and the data seems to be remarkably close to that assessment.
I'm sure you recognize different dog breeds, and possibly know that certain dog breeds are known to act a certain way. This is due to generations and generations of artificial-selection in breeding. Herding breeds were designed for herding, German Shepherds were designed for herding and protection, Shitzus were designed for companionship.
You probably wouldn't expect to see a Shitzu herding sheep. That does not, in any way, make Shitzu's "less than" a herding breed, they're just built for a different function. Shitzus evolved in environments where companionship was prioritized over herding, obviously.
And yet, when it comes to humans, we choose not to acknowledge this fact: geography influences evolutionary pressures, and evolutionary pressures influence the humans that evolved there. You see this in culture too. Cultures evolve just like the humans that belong to them do, and it's a big soupy mess of genetics influencing behavior/culture, and behavior/culture influencing genetics.
Expecting African Americans to act like neurotic white protestants is fundamentally racist, you're trying to shove a square peg in a round hole. Human diversity is real, except it goes beyond skin color. On average, racial groups exhibit similar behavior, across socioeconomic spectrums. Racial groups evolved in similar geographic regions, they are optimized for survival in those regions, around those people.
"All men are created equal" is perhaps the most harmful lie ever told.
Communities which experience more crime tend to interact more with law enforcement. The perpetrators of those crimes, who generally come from the same communities as their victims, tend to get arrested and incarcerated in proportion to their rate of criminality. Most murder in the US is committed by black men [1], and mainly concentrated in a handful of poor urban areas: St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, Oakland, etc. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) [2][3], widely seen as the gold standard for data on criminal victimization, confirms that violent crime is simply a larger problem in America's urabn black communities compared to the white, Asian, and Hispanic communities. Rates of arrest, conviction, and incarceration reflect this.
It is no longer the 1960s. Body cameras and smartphones are everywhere. Racism has been taboo for decades. Police know that if they unjustly shoot or abuse a black person, there's a good chance their careers and lives as free citizens will be over. The notion that law enforcement arrests and incarcertates more black people mainly due to racial antipathy, rather than that community's starkly higher rate of criminal violence, is not supported by evidence.
Tracing back through history, the forces which led to the present situation such as slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and redlining were undoubtedly racist and systemic. However, these systemic forces are now gone. They have even been replaced in many areas by systemic counter-forces, such as in university admissions [4], law school admissions [5], med school admissions [6], access to government debt relief [7], and access to the COVID vaccine [8]. The problems which bedevil many black Americans today- disproportionate poverty, broken families, drug addiction, all resultant criminality- would appear to be the results of historical inequities, not ongoing systemic racism.
[1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
[2] https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/ncvs.html
[3] https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/revcoa18.pdf
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/affirmative-action-50-...
[5] https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/do-underrepresented-minorit...
[6] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-chart-illustrates-graphic...
[7] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/wisconsin-dairy-farmer-sue...
[8] https://khn.org/news/article/vermont-gives-blacks-and-other-...
Over-policing and racial profiling is a large cause of the increased criminality. The base rate of illegal drug use is fairly similar for all races but arrests and convictions have been much higher for Blacks and other minorities for quite some time [0][1].
> The notion that law enforcement arrests and incarcertates more black people mainly due to racial antipathy, rather than that community's starkly higher rate of criminal violence, is not supported by evidence.
Actually, traffic stops are biased against minorities despite a similar base rate of infraction [2] yet this increases the rate at which Black people interact with police which compounds the harm caused by statistically harsher reaction to infractions. Further, sentencing is influenced by race in complex ways for which there is unfortunately limited data [3] but Blacks tend to receive longer sentences and be at risk of minimum sentences [4].
The root causes of violent offenses are even more complex and although income disparity, childhood trauma/abuse/neglect, and oppression are all potential causes I haven't found good sources with solid statistics to dig into that.
[0] https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rdusda.pdf [1] https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2019.3054... [2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/suspect-citizens/A399F1... [3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228718440_Reassessi... preprint; 2013 publication is behind a paywall. [4] https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Fartic...
Truly life changing benefits.
Further, I don't think you can exactly call losing the Civil War "making sacrifices for racial equality." If I've got my boot on somebody's neck, and I won't take it off until pushed off by force, my skinned knee isn't a sacrifice that I made so that my victim can get up.
People who are poor, and especially those that live in rural areas, face serious difficulties. But minority Americans face those same problems, plus racism.
"Everyone was on board with MLK's dream of equal opportunity for all. Racial discrimination was clearly a bad idea."
Everyone? Clearly a bad idea? I could rustle you up a big stack of people who disagree. Weirdly, many of them are poor and rural---you'd think they would see the common cause and join together, but no. On the other hand, there's the old joke about everyone having to have someone to look down on; they may be white trash, but at least they're not black.
> I'm sure you recognize different dog breeds, and possibly know that certain dog breeds are known to act a certain way. This is due to generations and generations of artificial-selection in breeding. Herding breeds were designed for herding, German Shepherds were designed for herding and protection, Shitzus were designed for companionship.
> You probably wouldn't expect to see a Shitzu herding sheep. That does not, in any way, make Shitzu's "less than" a herding breed, they're just built for a different function. Shitzus evolved in environments where companionship was prioritized over herding, obviously.
> And yet, when it comes to humans, we choose not to acknowledge this fact: geography influences evolutionary pressures, and evolutionary pressures influence the humans that evolved there. You see this in culture too. Cultures evolve just like the humans that belong to them do, and it's a big soupy mess of genetics influencing behavior/culture, and behavior/culture influencing genetics.
> Expecting African Americans to act like neurotic white protestants is fundamentally racist, you're trying to shove a square peg in a round hole. Human diversity is real, except it goes beyond skin color. On average, racial groups exhibit similar behavior, across socioeconomic spectrums. Racial groups evolved in similar geographic regions, they are optimized for survival in those regions, around those people.
> "All men are created equal" is perhaps the most harmful lie ever told.
Just to fast forward the discussion for some people so they know the conclusion noofen is leading toward.
Your grandfather dies. In his will, he leaves you his house, which has been in your family several generation. It's a nice place, better than the crappy apartment you live in, and it's yours now by all rights, so you move in.
When you do, you discover to your delight that you water bill is zero dollars every month. What a nice bonus! Free water from the tap!
One day, when poking around the basement, you discover the secret to this mystery. Apparently one of your ancestors many years ago dug a secret tunnel over to the neighbor's house put a T on their water main, and ran a pipe back to your house. Your water isn't free. Your neighbors have been paying for it the whole time.
In fact, they have even known this and been trying to tell you. But, you know, you were so busy getting settled in and dealing with all the stuff in your own life that their discussion about "water equality" never really registered for you. It's not that you didn't care (you love equality), you just didn't think it had anything to do with you.
So what is your moral position today?
It is not one of guilt. You didn't put that sneaky pipe in. And while, yes, you certainly took some showers with free water, at the time you honestly didn't realize that anyone was paying for it. There was no malice on your part.
You could argue that since it's your neighbors who are suffering from the jacked up water bill, they should be the ones to pay to cut that pipe and remove it. After all, you didn't cause the problem, and you don't have any personal incentive to fix it. You aren't trying to steal their water, it's just the way your plumbing happens to be set up.
At the same time, your neighbors are actually poorer than you, in large part because they have been paying your water bill the whole time. It feels pretty selfish to expect them to foot the plumbing bill to get it fixed.
So I think that you bear a responsibility to fix the plumbing because you now own the house. And you have some moral obligation in the sense that those who are most able to do a thing bear some obligation to their community to do that thing. If we're all in this together, then we give back to society in the ways we best can. Since you can more easily afford to the fix the plumbing (all those months of free water let you save up some cash), you should be the one to do so.
Now, granted, there are certainly some progressives (of all races) who take the history of slavery in a guilt/shame direction. If you're white, you're just supposed to feel bad. We should all be walking around in hairshirts as a penance for the sins of our fathers. There is a real weird Catholic guilt vibe in some progressive circles today.
But I think for most, it's not that. And the most charitable interpretation of people saying that whites today bear responsibility for slavery is just what my example here says: we have some ownership over the institutions that benefited from slavery, and we have a greater capacity to amend that problem, thus responsibility to do that falls on our shoulders.
The most compassionate way to look at this is as an opportunity. What a great thing it is to be in a position to help address one of the most grievious injustices in the United States.
I get that you're trying to be charitable but there really isn't a valid defence for an ideology that tries to slap a label onto heterogeneous groups of people with nothing in common beyond their skin tone. It is a racist way of thinking and should be called out as such.
I understand that this is an extremely sensitive topic that can make it hard to reason about. People never feel good when accusations—false or not!—start flying. And once those kind of intense feelings get involved, it's hard to lower your defenses and try to read what people say charitably.
The point of my comment was entirely that it is not about guilt. None of us living today bear responsibility for historical slavery in the US, even those whose ancestors owned slaves. How can I be considered at fault for something that happened literally before I existed? How could I have caused that?
(Edit: I realize now that my analogy where the house is inherited obscures that. I think the analogy would work better if I said you won the house in a lottery.)
What we carry is not guilt from the past but responsibility for today. Because of that history of slavery, many institutions today still unfairly benefit white people. (In my analogy, the pipe continues to deliver water long after the person who unfairly plumbed it has died.) Because of those benefits, white people today have more power as a group generally than Black people do.
It is today's unearned benefits and the greater capacity to remedy them that places responsibility on white people in the US, not any bloodline that traces back to slaveowners.
We should fix racism today because it's wrong and because we can. We bear a moral obligation to people living today to give them the more just world they deserve.
Beyond that, I struggle to believe it, but perhaps you can fill me in if I'm missing something.
As an example, in what way are institutions biased in favor of poor rural white people?
Their entire culture hates them (music, movies, media) and they are quotad out of universities and flashy career paths. To add salt on the wound their manufacturing jobs are shipped overseas.
This reality on the ground is the near opposite of any kind of institutional privilege of the sort you're talking about. In some cases (e.g soft quotas) this is demonstrable institutional racism working against white people.
I think it's both pro-white and anti-black. When you dig back through US history, you see plenty of evidence of both a belief system that whites are the best (and thus deserve to have power over other races) as well as that blacks are particularly deserving of their lowest status. Other races and ethnicities form a more complex middle ground. In many places and times there simply weren't a great enough quantity of those members of those groups for any well-defined cultural claim to be made.
I don't think your average 19th century Virginia farmer had a strong opinion one way or the other about the relatively inferiority of, say, the Sami people because they'd never even heard of one. Whites in almost all parts of the US by necessity had to incorporate blackness into their culture because—thanks almost entirely to the slave trade—blacks were so present in much of the country and were enshrined in its laws and institutions.
> As an example, in what way are institutions biased in favor of poor rural white people?
"Poor", "rural", and "white" are three ways to slice demographics and the way they interact can sometimes illuminate and sometimes obscure.
I think most of what you're seeing is that it generally sucks to be poor and rural, full stop. In 1910, there were about 13 million US farm workers. Today there are about 3 million. In 1979, there were close to 20 million manufacturing jobs. Today it's around 12 million.
This disproportionally hurts whites because black people have historically concentrated in urban areas (often driven by trying to escape anti-black racism). So it's easy to have a vivid image of how much it sucks for some opioid addicted country-music blaring coal-rolling white dude living in a trailer in Appalachia compared to some hip black guy riding the subway in NYC listening to billionaire Kanye's latest album.
But that's comparing different cohorts. The real question is what is it like for a poor, rural, black person? Black people make up only 3% of the population of West Virginia, but 28% of its prison population. (Whites are 93% of the state, but 65% of prisoners.)
Meanwhile in NYC, black people are 16% of the state population but 53% of its prison population. The median household income for white people is $80,300, for black people it's $42,600.
So, yes, I agree that poor rural folks have gotten the short end of the stick since neoliberalism took over. And their perception of relative worsening is something that we should look at. (I think it's one of the primary drivers of the Tea Party, Trumpism, the alt-right, etc.) While their anger at black people is misplaced and wrong, I can empathize with where it's coming from. It hurts to feel that others are moving ahead while you yourself are not.
But at the same time, it has always been hard to be black in the US and it's still hard. Here's a fun (spoiler: not fucking fun at all) guessing game to play if you don't already know the answer: When was the last lynching in the United States?
If you were naive, you might guess the late 1800s when Jim Crow laws were rife and the country was still coming to grips with emancipation. Maybe you'd guess the 1930s when the KKK was flourishing. You would hope it wasn't the 1950s when economic prosperity and blacks and whites fighting together in WWII should have brought us together. Hopefully no later than the 1960s when the Civil Rights Act was signed.
Actually, it was 1981. His name was Michael Donald. He was 19 years old and was chosen at random by KKK members angry about an unrelated murder trial "to show Klan strength in Alabama".
He was killed by poor rural whites who were this close to getting away with it completely until the FBI got involved.
I only see evidence that the system today is anti-Black and anti-poor.
I accept the historical examples you've given of pro-white attitudes, but I'm hoping to discuss today's reality since that's the point of contention.
You're right that this is most of it. But I believe there is unique institutional racism specifically directed towards poor rural white people in particular.The soft quota they face in employment and education and the hatred and derision uniquely directed towards them in particular (and towards no other group) from all cultural institutions.
The white quota in the workforce, for example, is there to be filled by inner city whites with the right pedigree and right social values. The white quota in higher education makes it difficult for rural whites without the same early educational opportunities to have a chance, whereas a black rural person (even if they're a recent immigrant) will have an easier time, all else equal, for no other reason than they have the right skin color.
From my perspective, this is evidence of institutional discrimination, but it runs in the opposite direction to what's claimed.
I don't see this as evidence for institutional bias that exists today that's pro-white.Hindus do better than Whites in general. Is the system pro-Hindu?
Nigerians immigrants do well. Is the system pro-Nigerian?
Differential outcomes are not evidence that today's system is pro-white.
There's certainly a historical legacy of slavery and discrimination that helped to create these inequalities. But it's not evidence for much beyond that if we're discussing the institutions of today.
I don't know what to tell you, man. I pointed out that the incarceration rate of blacks is dramatically higher in the US state that likely has the greatest concentration of poor white people.
> derision uniquely directed towards them in particular (and towards no other group) from all cultural institutions.
Sure, Hollywood makes fun of them, but I don't think that has a particularly significant material effect on the quality of their lives. (Though it does make them really angry and more politically active.)
> Hindus do better than Whites in general. Is the system pro-Hindu? Nigerians immigrants do well. Is the system pro-Nigerian?
There is significant selection bias here in that immigrants are not a uniform sample from their ethnicities.
And again, disparate outcomes aren't evidence of current discrimination or bias for or against any group.
You could be right that Hindus do well in the criminal justice system because of selection bias, and whites do well because of specific pro-white bias that Hindus don't benefit from. But the burden of proof is on you to show that that's true. Do poor Hindus or poor Asians do worse than equally poor Whites? If you could show something like this, then you will have convinced me that the criminal justice system is pro-white.
The only actual evidence I've seen is that the criminal justice system is anti-Black, and that evidence has nothing to do with disparate outcomes. Beyond that I haven't seen any evidence.
Would you say that it's impossible to fix climate change until people stop profitinng from trying to fix climate change? Is it impossible to fix infant mortality while doctors profit from saving infants' lives?
There is something to what you're saying. There's a process that goes like:
1. People who dislike X want to fix X.
2. In order to put a lot of time into fixing X, they seek out work that pays them to do it.
3. In the process of that work, they build up a lot of expertise.
4. Now they have a natural incentive for X not to be fixed so that they can continue to make money from their expertise.
This is a real thing. A perverse incentive that arises basically in all cases where bad things require deep expertise to fix.
I see very little evidence that this incentive is powerful enough to dwarf the massive desire to fix X for most problems.
Most oncologists are not out there blowing cigarette smoke into people's faces to ensure their job security. Dentists are not plying kids with candy. Most people fighting against racism are not so callous as to completely undermine their own deeply held convictions just to keep themselves employed.
> in fact, it sure seems like things just get worse.
Things looking worse is often a sign of them getting better. You never saw news articles about the environment in the mid-1900s when pollution and industrialization was at its worth. It didn't become visible until people cared enough and had enough power to make it visible.
The "me too" movement isn't about sexual abuse becoming more prevalent, it's about victims finally having enough power to be able to shine a light on it. If we weren't hearing about Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and Bill Cosby, that wouldn't mean they weren't still abusing. It would mean they were continuing to abuse with inpunity.
Maybe the Irish person is the first guy's roommate or spouse - they didn't directly inherit the free water from their direct ancestors, but they're still getting free water from next door.
One main thing is that white people as a whole need to atone for slavery, even though the vast vast majority (poor southerners, northerners, immigrants from after the civil war) had nothing to do with it. And secondly, that race is used to only talk about the issues facing black people, not whites. Poor white people (in WV, the South, etc.) are just as poor as black people, yet get no help in things like university admissions or job placements.
And for Asians (inc. Indians), they (disclaimer: I am of Asian descent) also receive material disadvantages (I have zero chance of getting into an Ivy League, nor will I ever receive assistance programs for minorities) so that black people have a level playing field. Positive discrimination works, but not in its current form.
Israel’s attempts to equate itself and its current policies with the Jewish race and identity are definitely a reason (an additional reason, on top of many others) to be disgusted at the governing regime of the State of Israel and its government, but they aren't an excuse, even a little bit, for the bigotry against Jews qua Jews for Israeli policy (indeed, that is rewarding the violent bigotry of the Israeli regime, which actively seeks the protection of whataboutism that being able to paint opposition to its apartheid and lebensraum policies as anti-Semitic provides.)
The Israeli government, Israeli Jews, Israelis, and Jews are different groups, and the actions of the first don’t justify hatred of any of the latter groups, all of which include fierce opponents of pretty much any action you might blame thw first for.
As always in these sorts of things (and life in general, really), judge for yourself https://web.archive.org/web/20210602000424/https://www.kamau... . The final paragraph begins
>If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself.
Compare Israel to its close neighbourhood, the US or even France and the UK. Israel exists in the ME, what's the West's excuse for fighting in different continents? And his text goes much further than that.
>If that blogpost was the same, but said Israel, instead of the Jewish people; would there be any issue with it today?
It would be grossly inaccurate, but saying dumb stuff wouldn't be enough to get people to call for his removal.
>Israel themselves have fostered the narrative that Israel represents the Jewish people by constantly conflating an attack on Israel as an attack on the Jewish people.
It's not a particular surprise that people who are drawn to attack Jews attack Israel too. Maybe if critics of Israel took pains to separate themselves from the antisemites rather than excusing them, more people would see a difference between critics and actual antisemites. If instead their only resort would be to argue bad faith, well, people would see that too.
The whole problem with the blog post is that he did was stereotyping millions of people (the majority of whom don't even live in Israel) as being bloodthirsty killers based on the actions of the Israeli government. Imagine how wrong it would be to write a blog post about Idi Amin and coming to the conclusion that African-Americans are inherently violent.
Repeated here for clarity:
> If I were a Jew today, my sensibilities would be tormented. I would find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the long cycles of oppression that Jewish people have endured and the insatiable appetite for vengeful violence that Israel, my homeland, has now acquired. This reconciliation would be particularly difficult now, in November, 79 years after Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass. The anniversary of this dreadfully monumental day in my history would bring me pause. It would force me to reflect on the legacy of extraordinary human suffering. I might wonder how the vicious eruption of cruelty in the mid-twentieth century has influenced the shape of my identity as a Jewish person and our collective identity as Jewish people.
> Suffering and oppression typically give rise to sympathy and compassion among the oppressed. I can look upon the sufferer and know that, “there but for the Grace of God, go I.” During this period I might well reflect on the redemptive qualities of suffering that my people have learned through a ghastly set of lessons. I would not have to reflect alone, I could read the lessons explicitly from Elie Wiesel, Anne Frank, or Chaim Potok. I would conclude that my Jewish faith and the history of my people render me closer to human compassion; closer to the instinct to offer healing to hurt, patience to anxiety and understanding to confusion.
> I don’t know how I would reconcile that identity with the behavior of fundamentalist Jewish extremists or of Israel as a nation. The details would confuse me. I wouldn’t understand those who suggest that bombing Lebanon, slaughtering Lebanese people and largely destroying Beirut in retaliation for the capture of a few soldiers is justified. I wouldn’t understand the notion of collective punishment, cutting off gas, electricity and water from residents in Gaza because they are attacking Israel who is fighting against them. It would be unconscionable to me to watch Israeli tanks donning the Star of David rumbling through Ramallah destroying buildings and breaking the glass.
> I would be confused in concept too. My faith would lead me to believe that Israel is the homeland of my people. My intellect would convince me that it cannot be that simple. The faith and reason of the Palestinians or of Muslims cannot simply be baseless. I would have to believe that the degree of animus, vengeance and violence that they now carry is not rooted in their identity, but rather in their experience; in the sordid nation shuffling and rebuilding that took place after World War II. It must be rooted in their hurt, in their sense of displacement, abandonment and hopelessness.
> My reflections on Kristallnacht would lead me to feel that these are precisely the human sentiments that I as Jew would understand; that I ought to understand and feel compelled to help alleviate. It cannot be that the sum total of a history of suffering and slaughter places such a premium on my identity that I would be willing to damn others in defense of it.
> If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself. Self defense is undoubtedly an instinct, but I would be afraid of my increasing insensitivity to the suffering others. My greatest torment would be that I’ve misinterpreted the identity offered by my history and transposed spiritual and human compassion with self righteous impunity.
> kamau
It's not empathy to put one's self in someone else's shoes, but then dismiss the viewpoint that comes with wearing those shoes. This is simply another version of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy.
Moreover, using collective guilt as an underpinning of any political stance is garbage. It's not enough to say racists and racist policies are bad - white people are collectively guilty, regardless of their own personal behavior and history. It's not enough to say Israel's out of line with their policies - all Jews are collectively guilty. So on and so forth. And it's alienating and insulting to anyone sympathetic policy-wise, but don't want to be lumped in with bad actors.
It’s not a good essay but he definitively isn’t advocating for a genocide - and indeed is arguing against Israel committing a genocide in slow motion. At worst he is conflating Zionists with Jews, an unfortunate generalization which is anti Semitic but nowhere near the mental image most people have of anti Semitic behavior.
Additionally he made these comments 13 years ago and not on company property. Assuming the offenses were equal performing one more than a decade ago vs. last week on a company system is always going to have a different response. Your comparison isn’t a fair one.
I hope the current progressive correct-thinkers realize the takes they make today have to hold up over a decade from now, otherwise the next wave is going to cancel them.
How is this any different than today?
If not, if we consider historical examples like these as failures of past societies, then things "not being any different than today" suggests our society is also failing.
So, yes, in the context of my post the Galileo example is a good example IMO.
Cancellation, back then, was largely top-down, driven by kings and popes. The current form of cancellation emerges from below, pressuring larger organizations to fire people and denounce them. And as I have mentioned elsewhere in this, those calling for cancellation derive increased status when their attempts succeed.
It's a bit more equivalent to witch hunt mania than papal disapproval.
It's the same playbook, repeated across millennia and societies. The Soviets in 1930s-40s played it out too, with chilling adroitness. They didn't call themselves religious (quite the opposite), but you can easily know the pattern by its fruits.
A chilling lesson for today.
Only half joking. After a certain time, most people get tired and afraid of constant paranoid vigilantism and start searching for protection. Any protection.
And whoever gained positions of power from the previous tumult, will seek immunity from further revolutionary tumult, which is easiest to achieve by suppressing the worst Robespierres and ossifying the new structures.
From an outside perspective, it is striking how much the woke wave is waning compared to 2020. Trump is gone from Twitter, so a constant irritant has been removed, and people are starting to having a bit of a hangover. Plus the new rulers of the nest need a bit of calm for political business as usual.
The ongoing self-recrimination in the media over the mass insta-dismissing a year ago of all COVID19 lab leak discussion—despite zero new evidence[1]—being one prominent example of the above, of course.
[1] I don't mean to imply that I don't believe in the theory. On the contrary, I was amazed and alarmed to see how a year ago even stating that SARS-CoV-2 being accidentally leaked from the Wuhan labs was not impossible was censored by social media as "disinformation" and denounced by regular media as already having been "debunked", as opposed to a reasonable hypothesis worthy of exploration. My point is that, as far as I know, there is zero new evidence available today to support the reasonableness of said hypothesis versus a year ago. The only difference is that Trump is no longer in the White House.
The major difference I see now is that a number of major US media networks reported that the US intelligence community views lab leak as a feasible scenario now, one of their two main ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Free_Beacon
So yeah, doesn't really seem like a case of progressives eating-their-own
It's hard to feel any sympathy when that chicken comes home to roost.
Alexi McCammond's tweets as a 17 year old were made in 2011. She had already publicly apologized for them in 2019.
James Gunn's old tweets were from 2011.
Josh Hader's social media posts were from 2012, while in high school.
Hartley Sawyer's tweets were from 2014.
Where is that line?
How much did you do at 17 that you aren't proud of today?
Not that much. For sure I made some mistakes, as I continue to do, but I'd stand by what I did at 17. I didn't (for example) write down plainly racist statements and then publish them on the internet. I didn't do anything comparable to that.
What were y'all doing at 17?
Mostly really awkward attempts at being sexually active. Surely some of it cancelable. Just like most other 17 year olds.
(Is suffering indoctrination shameful? And, as you say, that is not unique to 17 year olds.)
https://twitter.com/alexi/status/1197290613701513217
> Today I was reminded of some past insensitive tweets, and I am deeply sorry to anyone I offended. I have since deleted those tweets as they do not reflect my views or who I am today.
So yes
> "Sorry you're offended" is much closer to accurate.
is correct.
Only when her plum new editor job was threatened did she offer something more than "sorry you're offended".
> How bent out of shape are you going to get over what a 17 year old says?
Quite bent out of shape actually. Someone that harbors those kinds of views and has no history of having confronted it nor examples to the contrary should not be a position to influence the minds of millions of young children. You might argue that she's worked in anti racist/diversity efforts, but that's not good enough. People are often racist against specific races and not others. She has no examples of having shown growth in her racism specifically towards Asians.
> I'm nothing like 17 year old me and if you asked me to take present day responsibility for that person I would tell you to toss off.
Good thing you don't decide who gets to be editor in chief of an influential publication.
> How much did you do at 17 that you aren't proud of today?
Nothing actually. I was quite the goody two shoes.
That argument makes no sense to me either. We should excuse racism from 1 year prior to the age of majority absent any evidence of growth? Nah, I don't agree with that.
It is not though. In her twit she actually admitted that she was offensive, while “Sorry you’re offended” should be read as “I am sorry to hurt your feelings but I stand my ground”
"“Sorry you’re offended”" a priori concedes that what was said is offensive because it acknowledges that the recipient was offended.
I explain in detail why they are effectively the same here
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27389282
Those are obviously different phrases with different meanings and intents. You might want to reevaluate your beliefs, because this is a glaring mistake with troubling implications.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27389282
> You might want to reevaluate your beliefs, because this is a glaring mistake with troubling implications.
No, you might want to re-evaluate your beliefs, because these are superficially different phrases. The intent may be the different, but the avoidance of responsibility is the same.
“I am so sorry to have used such hurtful and inexcusable language. At any point in my life, it’s totally unacceptable.” Backlash against her initial comments seem to be that she characterized her tweets as insensitive rather than using the word racist, which seems important but certainly pedantic.
What she said in 2019 when it first came out was
https://twitter.com/alexi/status/1197290613701513217
> Today I was reminded of some past insensitive tweets, and I am deeply sorry to anyone I offended. I have since deleted those tweets as they do not reflect my views or who I am today.
"some past insensitive tweets" as a euphemism for racist tweets
"I am deeply sorry *to anyone I offended.*" (my emphasis with asterisks) => sorry if you were offended
So when it first came out, she gave the least amount of effort necessary to make it go away. Only when it threatened her plum new job did she offer anything simulating genuine remorse.
yes
> However how should she have worded the appology?
"I am deeply sorry" would have been good. Or, "I am deeply sorry for < some variation of "what I said" or "my racist tweets">".
I'm don't agree with
> the former is a direct apology and admittance of wrongdoing towards another on her part
When I read "sorry to anyone I offended", it is not an unconditional apology. She is not apologizing for what she did. She is apologizing *to those she offended*.
Which is to say she is apologizing not for what she did but for the offense she caused.
There is a crucial difference there. The former is taking responsibility for what she said. The latter, at best, makes no comment on whether or not what she said was wrong; at worst, makes a comment that what she did was not wrong but that she is only sorry because people took umbrage with it. From her words alone, we know she thinks what she said was "insensitive" and that she is apologizing to those that are "offended". If she's only acknowledging that her words are insensitive, it makes that sense she's apologizing directly to and only to those that she offended, which is why she would qualify her apology as such. This is not a statement that acknowledges that her words, in and of themselves, were wrong.
In that regard, she may not be avoiding an apology in the absolute terms, but more importantly, as in all other cases where people only apologize for the offense, she is not (at the very least directly) acknowledging that what she did was intrinsically wrong, she is merely responding to the outrage.
So you might say
> I would guess she was genuinely sorry
and you could be right, but when I read what she wrote, that does not come across.
This
> the former is a direct apology and admittance of wrongdoing towards another on her part
does not come across at all when I read
> I am deeply sorry to anyone I offended.
To get that kind of interpretation, I would have to do some mind reading instead of taking her words for what they are.
The only line is to scrub everything you have ever written with your real name off the internet. Someone will get offended by your writing and, eventually, you will lose your job and be exiled.
Also, solidarity for palestinians is pretty widespread among progressives and left-wings in general. I think a push to cancel him for this entry would more likely come from right-wing, pro-Israel groups if anything.
> If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself. Self defense is undoubtedly an instinct, but I would be afraid of my increasing insensitivity to the suffering others.
It’s really hard to read stuff like that and not feel attacked as a Jewish person. I know it’s an old post and people change, but I don’t want people walking away from this thread thinking someone lost their job for merely being critical of Israel. That just feeds the cycle of distrust and makes it harder to discuss.