Today's moment of laughing so I won't cry
Apr. 7th, 2012 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
browngirlFortunately, I read "The Talk: Nonconservative Version" first, thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
supergee, but even that closely fitted parody didn't quite prepare me for "The Talk: Nonblack Version" in its stunning horribleness.
(12) There is a magnifying effect here, too, caused by affirmative action. In a pure meritocracy there would be very low proportions of blacks in cognitively demanding jobs. Because of affirmative action, the proportions are higher. In government work, they are very high. Thus, in those encounters with strangers that involve cognitive engagement, ceteris paribus the black stranger will be less intelligent than the white. In such encounters, therefore—for example, at a government office—you will, on average, be dealt with more competently by a white than by a black. If that hostility-based magnifying effect (paragraph 8) is also in play, you will be dealt with more politely, too. “The DMV lady“ is a statistical truth, not a myth. Check out that illustration -- that allegedly horrific lady looks quite a bit like I would were I rendered into a cartoon.
I could say a great deal about this clear, concise, jaw dropping portrait of what many, many of my fellow citizens think of me and my fellow Black people, and how it's phrased as a parody of the talk many of our parents give us in hopes of saving our lives, but I'll just say this: I learned in high school that, "intelligent and well-socialized black" (ugh) that I may be seen as, I very much didn't want to be "anyone's amulet against potentially career-destroying accusations of prejudice" and to this day seek out friends who aren't trying to befriend me in order to gain such. (The quoted phrases are from Point #13, by the way.)
I sincerely hope that Mr. Derbyshire's kids realize one day what a load of racist tripe their dad has given them, swathed in the guise of good advice like a nicely wrapped gift box containing a pound of rank shit.
supergee, but even that closely fitted parody didn't quite prepare me for "The Talk: Nonblack Version" in its stunning horribleness. (12) There is a magnifying effect here, too, caused by affirmative action. In a pure meritocracy there would be very low proportions of blacks in cognitively demanding jobs. Because of affirmative action, the proportions are higher. In government work, they are very high. Thus, in those encounters with strangers that involve cognitive engagement, ceteris paribus the black stranger will be less intelligent than the white. In such encounters, therefore—for example, at a government office—you will, on average, be dealt with more competently by a white than by a black. If that hostility-based magnifying effect (paragraph 8) is also in play, you will be dealt with more politely, too. “The DMV lady“ is a statistical truth, not a myth. Check out that illustration -- that allegedly horrific lady looks quite a bit like I would were I rendered into a cartoon.
I could say a great deal about this clear, concise, jaw dropping portrait of what many, many of my fellow citizens think of me and my fellow Black people, and how it's phrased as a parody of the talk many of our parents give us in hopes of saving our lives, but I'll just say this: I learned in high school that, "intelligent and well-socialized black" (ugh) that I may be seen as, I very much didn't want to be "anyone's amulet against potentially career-destroying accusations of prejudice" and to this day seek out friends who aren't trying to befriend me in order to gain such. (The quoted phrases are from Point #13, by the way.)
I sincerely hope that Mr. Derbyshire's kids realize one day what a load of racist tripe their dad has given them, swathed in the guise of good advice like a nicely wrapped gift box containing a pound of rank shit.
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Date: 2012-04-07 10:07 pm (UTC)When I was little, my very blond nanny left and was replaced by a Filipina woman who had been a dentist before she came to America. My brother and I were awful to Lulu, just terrible kids. Because she "looked different" than us. And our very white, very middle class parents informed us with a few forceful words/tuchus slaps that there was no reason to treat any human being as anything less than human, and we were both grounded for being shits.
While Derbyshire is a shitpuppet of the 45th degree, I want you to know that his "talk" is not one given in most white households that I know of.
He is hateful and wrong and I love you.
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Date: 2012-04-08 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-04-07 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-07 10:30 pm (UTC)i'm so sorry.
i got nothin.
this is just awful.
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Date: 2012-04-09 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-07 10:47 pm (UTC)*hugs you tightly*
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Date: 2012-04-09 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-07 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 04:35 pm (UTC)I firmly believe we can improve society bit by bit, or I'd collapse in a pile.
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Date: 2012-04-07 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-07 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-07 11:56 pm (UTC)(or so I just read :-)
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Date: 2012-04-09 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-04-09 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 12:52 am (UTC)I actually don't know which I think stinks more: this kind of overt and acknowledged condescension to demographic-group-not-one's-own, or a pretense of conviction that there's equality of ability and also equality of opportunity, with data either aggressively ignored or explained away.
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Date: 2012-04-09 04:41 pm (UTC)Ah, ability, and all its misshapen measures. Another essay I may write someday but am not writing now.
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Date: 2012-04-08 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-04-10 12:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 04:55 am (UTC)FWIW, no one in my family, immediate or extended, ever gave me any version of that talk, in part or in whole.
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Date: 2012-04-09 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-10 06:01 am (UTC)I know you know...this is just one of those things where I feel it's incumbent upon decent people to go on record as disavowing the bullshit.
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Date: 2012-04-10 07:11 pm (UTC)*hugs you reassuredly*
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Date: 2012-04-08 08:20 am (UTC)Derbyshire is not entirely wrong. He is correct, in that '“The DMV lady“ is a statistical truth, not a myth.' Statistically, there is a lot of data to back up his claim.
His conclusions, however, are shit. What creates this is the ENVIRONMENT, not GENETICS. And his idiocy can be easily pointed out simply by looking at our President.
The only way to change the environment is by aggressively fostering the instinctive attitudes we see in this thread- how one is treated should be a natural following to attitudes and behavior- not how much melanin just happens to be in your skin.
Pfaugh. Idiot.
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Date: 2012-04-08 01:20 pm (UTC)Of course Derbyshire managed to drag in a few bits of truth to decorate his shit sundae -- that's how he convinces himself, after all, and one of the ways he makes this dish more palatable to those who choose to swallow it. Also, nothing he's said here (including taking the DMV lady as typical of Black government workers as opposed to, say, people of any shade who are belligerently unsuited for their particular jobs) is new to me. It just continues in horribleness.
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Date: 2012-04-09 04:46 pm (UTC)If you weren't my friend I might be very cross with you indeed at how your response to this essay, and my dismay at it, was to rummage it to fish out the few nuggets of not-utter-shit from the dunghill. It's a wonderfully optimistic attitude, but it also could make someone in my position feel rather unheard in our visceral horror.
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Date: 2012-04-09 05:27 pm (UTC)It would have been handled better if we were in person.
mea culpa.
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Date: 2012-04-10 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 10:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 07:58 pm (UTC)I feel a bit sick; I can only imagine how nauseous and angry reading that shite must have made you. Please allow me to offer an internet hug and my sincere sympathy.
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Date: 2012-04-09 04:49 pm (UTC)But also there are many people who completely disavow his attitude, and of you all I am very glad. *hugs you back*
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Date: 2012-04-08 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-09 07:20 pm (UTC)while I think it's important for us all to stay educated on what's happening out in the world, I also think sometimes it doesn't help to read every hate-filled essay. Down that path lies madness and indigestion. But finding the balance between following along enough to be able to protest where is needful, and not so much that we make ourselves sick... I don't always know where that line lies, myself. I'm hugging you and angry with you.
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Date: 2012-04-10 07:10 pm (UTC)