h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I must agree that political correctness is a pain. Just today I got moderated for a post I made back in Janruary. The post is here: F123979?thread=I must agree that political correctness is a pain. Just today I got moderated for a post I made back in Janruary. The post is here: F123979?Thread=365677&post=4661490 post #120. I was only quoting a Monty Python song, as that was what we were all doing. Perhaps I should have made it more apparent that it was a song, but it was obvious to all those people on the thread that it was. I've said far more offensive things on my time here that I actually meant, but instead I get moderated for quoting a comic song.

I don't think political correctness is a pain. Most of the time I think it is just common politeness.

And I'm not very keen on your song quotes either. Not Monty Python's finest hour.

And the fact that it's a quote is hardly relevant. If you had quoted from "The very best of the third Reich marching songs" you would still expect to get moderated, right?

sprout

'However racism is not just about what one individual does to another. It is also (hugely) about what groups of people do'

A group is composed of individuals; group actions are reducible to individual actions.

'there is no doubt that the people who hold the collective power in Britain are white.'

However, being white doesn't make them use their power in a racist manner.

Could we have some sort of proposed definition of 'culture' here? The subtle distinction between the culture of the country I live in and how its inhabitants actually act seems to have eluded me.

>>
WD, does that mean you feel you weren't qualified?
<<

Far from it. The application/admissions event was less likely in my particular case, as I was one of the first to be given in interview (however, that I suspect was more due to the fact I put Cambridge down as one of my choices...). But knowing those who have been on such panels, I was shocked to find that such a policy operated - which led to the comment in the post above. It is not a matter of whether I feel qualified - I do feel qualified to do the job which I have trained for in the past 5/6 years. However, I want to be chosen on the basis of ability - rather than have things made easier because I am not white.

The point is - my year started out with 320 people. 5 years down the line, there are about 250 people. Somewhere in between, several people were thrown out after failure of exams, but most dropped out when they realised that this was not the subjects for them. Indeed, some people may have been given a place out of a quota-system, or through the 'old-boys/gals' network. But no-one should be condemned to do a 5-year course that they will hate either purely to fill a quota, or because you know the Dean.

>>
The fact remains that if it weren't for affirmative action in the past, as a woman and non-white you wouldn't have been able to train (women and non-whites were formally excluded from medical schools in the past. Gender, race, and class politics (aka political correctness) changed this).
<<

However, and I can only speak from my personal experience in medical school selection, it is not required now. It has now got to the point in your previous post, where this is not required any more - yet this still happens.

It has helped - it's now had the required effect, now it is no longer required, therefore discrimination should be on the grounds of ability, and the quota system should be disbanded.

As I have said before, I am still shocked that it still operates within medical schools.

Stay ,
WD

No, because "The very best of the third Reich marching songs" (can you buy that, I'd be very interested if you could) is full of racist songs. They were writen by racists, for Racists. If I was to quote that, then yes, I'd be supporting racism.

But the Monty Python song is a comic song. It is an insult on racist people, it does not support them. It is a song writen by non-racists for non-racists. Hence, me quoting the song is an attack on racism itself. I can understand how people could be offended by it, but they must understand that it's a joke.

>> I refer you again to the word 'forcibly'.<<

Perhaps you could define forcibly. If I were to take it literally I would assume you feel that if you don't see ethnic difference some harm will be done to you?

>>>
'I would say again that the reason it is kept in people's faces is because most white people see the world as white.'

If we're having it impressed upon us that we are of the 'white' group, in contradistinction to those who are not, then yes, there will be a white perspective through which we see the world (if that's what you meant). <<<

See I think that white people see the world as white because they have set up their culture to do this. NZ Maori for instance live in two cultures (often quite comfortably) - their own, and the dominant culture they live in (in this case it's white). I'm not sure why white people in the main don't want to do this.

I really don't see the value in not being able to perceive ethnic difference. That is not racism. Racism is when one (individual or group) discriminates negatively against another (individual or group) on the basis of race or ethnicity.


I'm also thinking we are using words somewhat differently. I notice you attempted some definitions earlier in the convo. Maybe we need to go back to that. I'm using race to mean ethnicity (as defined by blood and culture) as there is only one racial group of homo sapiens.

The fact that white people often can't/won't identify themselves ethnically is a problem from my perspective.

I would think when it comes to the crunch that most people would say thay are in favour of political correctness. There just seems to be more cases of it being used without common sense. For example, head teachers who want to ban sports day as they think the 'weaker' contestants will suffer lasting psychological damage. Or complaints that shows like 'Who wants to be a millionaire' do not attract enough contestants from ethnic minorities.

I am surprised the subject hasn't really been tackled on H2 before. Am I right in saying that many people are a little wary of tackling the subject ?

>>I am not convinced that that "In what ways am I racist" question is a good tool.

By implying that all whites are racist either collectively or individually, it takes the sting out of the label of being a racist. 'Racist' is a big word and should be reserved for those people who are actively discriminating.
<<

Sprout, all I can say is that people who work in this area use that as a tool. I agree that hate racism is particularly vile, but I also feel that denial of institutional racism doesn't help the situation. In fact it compounds it, if we say the only racism that exists is the really obvious one.


I'll see it I can find some references tomorrow about the anti-racism work.

I think we've had one go at it before, some time ago?

Kea - why does everyone need to identify themselves ethnically? Why do I have to put myself in a box? Are we not already classified enough, by our job, our origins?

It reminds me a bit of journalists trying to ask Tiger Woods 'what he was' when he first emerged on the scene. If I recall well, he refused to be pigeon holed, and simply said that he was from a diversity of cultures.

sprout

Wouldn't it be more productive to ask 'in what ways am I Xist' where X is sexist, racist, elitist or whatever? That way you are less likely to offend any group and the emphasis is more on each individual.

Or put even better "In what ways do I discrimate against any individual?" which emphasizes the focus on empowering each individual IMO.

WD, I'm with you now . I thought you were objecting to affirmative action totally.

I don't really know what the situation is here. I do know that women have held at least 50% of the places for some years now. It'd beinteresting ot see if that is still because of affirmative action.

~~~

>>"However racism is not just about what one individual does to another. It is also (hugely) about what groups of people do"

A group is composed of individuals; group actions are reducible to individual actions<<

Not necessarily RFJS. For instance once something gets written into legislation (or government policy even) it can be very difficult for individuals to change. Such change usually happens because groups of individuals get organised and work together collectively.

People don't operate in isolation. Their beliefs and actions are influenced by the culture/s they live in.



>>'there is no doubt that the people who hold the collective power in Britain are white.'

However, being white doesn't make them use their power in a racist manner. <<

No, but if the laws and policies are inherently discriminatory then people can act in a way that discriminates without even being aware of it.

Also, the fact that the laws and policies are written from a white cultural perspective plays a large part in why the situation benefits whites more than others.


>>Could we have some sort of proposed definition of 'culture' here? The subtle distinction between the culture of the country I live in and how its inhabitants actually act seems to have eluded me. <<

I'd be happy to have a conversation about this.

I don't really understand the second sentence though. Care to clarify?

I have to go to bed right now, but maybe tomorrow we could discuss this?

In the meantime I would suggest it might be useful to start seeing the country you live in as having many cultures in it. And that the culture that runs the show happens to be made up of predominantly white people and is apparently not very good at understanding itself culturally (I'm assuming you live in an English speaking country).

I can;t help wondering if they'd had computers in the 15th century if we wouldn;t be discussing the the same issues with regards to Lancastrians and Yorkists.

Kea:
Sorry, I don't understand the reference to wife beating.
"Have you stopped beating your wife yet" is a classic closed question if you say yes, you imply you have been beating your wife, if you say no, theen you admit you still are. Either way you admit to the action.

"Thankfully many white people understand that their passive acceptance (or denial) of racism.."
This seemed to me to say that there are two sorts of white people, those who understand that their "passive acceptance (or denial)is" and those who don't. Either way, the central point, that 'their' acceptance or denial of racism is a big problem is still valid.
This indicates only 2 camps with no option of a third. I belong to a third, that which does not passivly accept or deny racism.

But perhaps not an issue since no-one else picked up on it so lets leave it be.

"In what ways do I discrimate against any individual?"
I don;t have a problem with discriminating against an individual. I do this all the time, usually because they are rude obnoxious people that I don't want to be be anywhere near.
But to say 'In what ways am I racist' is presuming that I *am* racist. I disagree with that approach. To start with 'am I racist' and then go to 'What does racist mean' and 'do i exhibit any of those characteristics' and if I do then move to 'in what way do i exhibit them' is , to me, a more meaningful way to progress. But even then there is a problem because those who do not wish to offend others are more likely to pick through the arguments until they find a way in which they might be, whereas those who are offensive in a Xist way are either going to say 'No I'm not' and leave it there, happy at their own rightiousness, or say 'Yes, so what?' meaning that those who are do nothing about it and those who aren't needlessly persecute themselves because of some perceived wrong.

Ok, not sure what the rpely to this will be, but I'm gonna ask anyway.
Is Racism actually the problem?
What I mean is, is it not just a high level symptom of something deeper, that being the need to belong, and the need to blame *someone* for all the ills in our life. Be that women, men, africans, asians, japanese, russians, americans, the Nobility, them next door or aliens. Some people are happy to say 'I'm German, Your Polish, hi lets learn about each other' whereas others might see people from the next village down the road as a threat and 'them'. Seems to me that the problem is the externalising of fault onto 'them' where 'them' is any convenient group of people easily identified and demonised.

Sorry if that is a bit gibberishy but I have to run to catch the bus soon

>>Kea - why does everyone need to identify themselves ethnically? Why do I have to put myself in a box? Are we not already classified enough, by our job, our origins?<<

It's not so much that you _have_ to. It's just that often in conversations like this white people have a difficult time understanding themselves ethnically and I see a correlation between that and a difficulty understanding why ethnicity is important to non-whites.

Beside which, understanding our ethnicity can be a really good thing - for us.

In NZ white people have been forced (there's that word again ) to look at this simply because Maori stood up and said "This is who we are, who are you?" For quite some time we didn't know what to say. We are starting to figure it out, and interestingly in the context of this conversation, a large part of that is understanding ourselves as a culture distinct to the Pacific (and not being a British post-colony which is how we saw ourselves for along time).

As well as this being good for our own spirit, it also helps us to see what Maori have been on about for the last 150 years. We couldn't really see it before.

So I'm not saying that you specifically have to understand your own ethnicity. I'm suggesting that it may be a useful tool to have at times.

I do think as a people, that cultures need to understand themselves better though, especially when they are sharing a land with other cultures.

~~~

>>
Wouldn't it be more productive to ask 'in what ways am I Xist' where X is sexist, racist, elitist or whatever? That way you are less likely to offend any group and the emphasis is more on each individual.
<<

Spinks, yes I think one can also usefully ask "in what ways am I sexist?', or "in what ways am I classist?" etc.


>>...Or put even better "In what ways do I discrimate against any individual?" which emphasizes the focus on empowering each individual IMO.<<

I still think that it's possible to be racist etc against groups, not just individuals though.


I really do have to go to bed. Thanks for the interesting and stimulating debate

>>
WD, I'm with you now . I thought you were objecting to affirmative action totally.
<<

That's Kea - I'm not against affirmative action (perhaps I should have made that more clear), but once the action has worked, it should not be needed any more. I'm not sure why it is still operating, as it has evidently worked

>>
I don't really know what the situation is here. I do know that women have held at least 50% of the places for some years now. It'd beinteresting ot see if that is still because of affirmative action.
<<

It's now getting to a 60% female contigent in my medical school, which does throw up a whole different set of issues entirely...

Stay ,
WD

'Perhaps you could define forcibly.'

Consider the leaflet that started this debate: in order to obtain the information about employment it contained, it was necessary for the reader to view images that had, we suspect, been chosen substantially on racial grounds, and stimulated at least one person to think of them in racial terms; (s)he _had_ to view these images as a part of reading the leaflet, and by lacking the option of receiving the information in a non-racially-charged form was thereby 'forced' to receive it in a form that encouraged thinking about the people depicted in terms of their racial groups above all else.

'See I think that white people see the world as white because they have set up their culture to do this. NZ Maori for instance live in two cultures (often quite comfortably) - their own, and the dominant culture they live in (in this case it's white). I'm not sure why white people in the main don't want to do this.'

I'm inclined to think people naturally set up cultures that accord with their way of thinking -- it would be remarkable if they didn't -- rather than the other way around. The culture then has a reinforcing effect, particularly where education is concerned. I wonder whether the idea of a 'white culture' is more applicable to New Zealand, where it applies in contraistinction to the Maori culture within the dominant culture you describe. As a Brit, I'm used to thinking in terms of British, or more broadly Anglo-Saxon, or still more broadly Western culture. Different ethnic groups in this part of the world were for centuries all the same colour, and differentiated by language and culture, so the idea that there is such a thing as 'white culture' sounds strange to me. One speaks of French culture, German culture, and so on, and for most of their history they've been the cultures of white people, but they've long been defined in contradistinction to each other. Culture is vastly more complex than race.

'I really don't see the value in not being able to perceive ethnic difference.'

I'm not calling for colour-blindness; I'm questioning the value of catgorisation by race, both as part of an attempt to counterbalance the effects of racism and, in general, as a perceptual tool anterior to the perceived individual (i.e. the person seen as an instance of a racial group, rather than racial identity being seen as an aspect of the person).

'there is only one racial group of homo sapiens'

I'm not an anthropologist, but I think the usual term is 'species'.

Unless you were referring to the 'human race'. At any rate, the term 'race' is in use to refer to subdivisions of homo sapiens, and you can and do use it; so it has a practical value even if its precise meaning is debatable.

Three pages in 8 hours, talk about a hornets nest.

Hi everyone. Just to put you in the picture I'll tell you that on job applications I tick the box [white-British/black-Carribean]

The word race has no precise meaning because its not a precise word, FRJS.

Its used in the bible for tribe. By the Third Reich for ethnic group and by your casual racist for people with different coloured skin.

Which are you lot using it for?

The song is offensive because it contains an offensive word, Godben.

I going to say this once most of you are racist. I fully understand that you may not harbour hatered for people of other ethnicities, but the fact that you use the word race so often shows that you do share some attitudes. Furthermore and far more importantly that some of the ideas you resist and openly decry allow racism that is rife within this country to continue.

You do not need to feel guilty about this. I wouold not want you to. It is a useless destructive emotion and will not really help anyone. I would like it if you and others took the time and were willing to learn some things that might alter you're preconceived ideas on this subject.

I know plenty but not everything and there are lots of issues I dont have time to address right now but Kea knows her stuff too. She's not out to get any of you but honestly she has been talking straight with you lot over the las few pages.



OK the first post:

I got some leaflets from the job centre yesterday.

Looking through the leaflets I noticed that for every white person represented there is a person from an ethnic minority - approximate percentage 50/50.

Sure, it would be racist to have nobody represented from ethnic minorities but a 50/50 ratio? This doesn't reflect the ratio in society at all!

Maybe it represents something else?

Ever consider that it might reflect that people from ethnic minorities need to use job centres more than the white population of this country?

Or that within ethnic minorities there is a peception that government bodies do not care for them and therefore statistically ethnic minorities under-subscribe to the service and that this is a drive to say that "the goverment is no longer as racist as you once knew it was, lets all get involved"?

Shouldn't I be waving and shouting the racist card to claim that my ethnic group isn't being accurately represented?

Maybe you should. Did the ratio of browner faces make you feel alienated? Has it put you off using the job centre? If either of these is really true you should be making you voice heard.

Is it political correctness gone mad. Political correctness is the idea that we do and say things in a way that reflects the truth.

The leaflet is exhibiting that the service is there for everyone and shouild be equally used by all, but some groups for reasons I will have to go into later need it more than others. So no I dont think its political correctness gone mad.

one love

'For instance once something gets written into legislation (or government policy even) it can be very difficult for individuals to change. Such change usually happens because groups of individuals get organised and work together collectively.'

Indeed -- and the collective actions of both the government and the collective break down into the actions of individuals. Put individuals together and you have a group; the group isn't an entity in its own right, distinct from the individuals that compose it. The actions of a group are the actions of its members; for example, when a legislative body passes a law, this action breaks down into x% voting in favour, y% voting against, and z% abstaining. These actions can themselves be analysed in more detail: why each person voted in the way (s)he did. Possibly I didn't make it clear that I was using the word 'reducible' in a somehwat technical sense.

'People don't operate in isolation. Their beliefs and actions are influenced by the culture/s they live in.'

Quite -- yours included; but presumably you still regard your beliefs as representing objective truths. (Certainly that's the impression I get from your arguments.) The cultures are themselves human constructs; their languages, their writings, their art, and so on are all the work of individual humans. So cultures too do not exist outside the actions of individuals. I don't mean that people are so 'individual' as to be unaffected by influences external to them; I mean that cultures do not have an existence outside human thoughts, and actions, and creations. What can it mean to ascribe racism to a culture but that it can be ascribed to some of these thoughts, actions, creations...? If you were to point to the culture specific to a given group and call it racist, but were unable to point to a single instance of a member of that group's discriminating against people because of their race, a single artwork or piece of writing produced by a member of that group that portrayed any race in a negative light, and so on, what could you say made that culture racist? If a culture can be racist, that is because people can be. Except, perhaps, if you have a definition of 'culture' that proves me wrong.

'No, but if the laws and policies are inherently discriminatory then people can act in a way that discriminates without even being aware of it.'

It is the holders of power -- both the politicians and the popular majorities (in countries where they have political influence) to whom they're responsible -- who are responsible for what the laws and policies say; and it's the State's job to make sure they work as they're supposed to, and the electors' job to keep an eye on the State. I doubt that the 'examined life' will ever be a popular one, but it is not within my experience that the statute books determine when people shall or shall not examine their actions.

'Also, the fact that the laws and policies are written from a white cultural perspective plays a large part in why the situation benefits whites more than others.'

However, this is a by-product of intellectual limitations, rather than the consequence of an intention to favour whites. If I happen not fully to succeed in any endeavour, I am not said to be discriminating in favour of those who profit most from my failure; the inadequacy of the outcome is a product of chance and/or my own limitations.

'In the meantime I would suggest it might be useful to start seeing the country you live in as having many cultures in it.'

Depending on how you use the word 'culture'. On one level there is a British culture, on another there are different cultures within it, and on another it is a part of what is sometimes losely termed 'Western culture'. I should like to add that I find it a touch ironic to be given this suggestion by one who has so frequently referred to 'white culture'.

'And that the culture that runs the show happens to be made up of predominantly white people and is apparently not very good at understanding itself culturally.'

May I ask how you have come by the superior understanding of white Britons that qualifies you to assert this?

'And that the culture that runs the show happens to be made up of predominantly white people and is apparently not very good at understanding itself culturally.'

May I ask how you have come by the superior understanding of white Britons that qualifies you to assert this?

Just a little one before tea.

You dont have to be dead to look and know what its like.

Us the British we hate ourselves. It is only recently that we started a reinvigorated St georges day celebration. We turn up our noses at British quisine and laud the French and Italian alternatives while we most enjoy foreign dishes on a friday night that means curries not welsh food.

Ask what Caribbean music is and you will hear ska, reggae and calypso. Yet some Britons look down their noses at punk, pop, and folk as not real music. While to some people Elgar and other classical stuff is pretty much unknown.