The Wow I Can't Believe That News Story Thread

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Scientific racism is absolutely not simply an American thing, even if it did take hold especially deeply here for obvious reasons, but do you think Whoopi's ignorance of it means phrenology will make a come back? Stop gesturing at your point and actually make it.

If you believe in phrenology you need your head examined.

Originally Posted by jadis

My point, repeatedly stated, is that the US race discourse of the 2020s offers a worse than useless grid of intelligibility for Nazism.

I don't even want to know the chain of inferences that led you to assume I somehow implied that scientific racism was "simply an American thing."

oxymoron

Originally Posted by The Batlord

You did not repeatedly state that. You said that US race discourse was essentialist and then posted an example of someone simply not understanding the Nazis' views on race, which doesn't even sound like essentialism unless you see something I don't. Your point is incoherent and weird.

And did not explain to us plebs what essentialism - which I have never heard of before now - actually is. Despite being asked to.

Originally Posted by jadis

The point that the US race discourse is noted for imposing rigid, reified, essentialist categories on the wider world - and that WG's statement is a prime example of just that - is not remotely controversial for anyone NOT swimming in the cesspit of activist talk regurgitated on podcasts and gaming streams by some of the least intelligent people in America.

Everything I say should be incoherent and weird to you. Had there been a frictionless understanding between us, notwithstanding differences in background and education levels, then... it would be an illusion promoted by me because I want to have sex with you. That would've been the only explanation.

Or that you're gay. And have very low standards.

Originally Posted by Chubbysailorvenus

Ethnicity is real, race isn't real so it's whatever racists decide it is.

At least in America discrimination against the Irish, the Italians, the Slavs and other ethnic groups we now identify as white ceased because in other to keep black people and other minority groups in the margins we had to make sure white people remained the majority so we made whiteness more inclusive. Jews have always been an outlier, in modern times they have become somewhat accepted by the mainstream as white but enough people continue to see them as outsiders, they exist in this grey area and it's part of what makes them such a popular scapegoat for extremists and conspiracy whackjobs of all kinds.

If Neo-Nazis got their precious white ethnostate there would immediately be a civil war over who is really white, whiteness is something that was simply made up to exclude others and when people's identity hinge entirely on excluding others they will move the goalposts so they can keep doing that.

You're exactly right. It will turn into "degrees of whiteness", with some arbitrary criteria used to determine who is "really white", perhaps those with blue eyes and, I don't know, blonde hair?

Also have you seen this?

American Nazis in Florida

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

If you believe in phrenology you need your head examined.

oxymoron

And did not explain to us plebs what essentialism - which I have never heard of before now - actually is. Despite being asked to.

Or that you're gay. And have very low standards.


You're exactly right. It will turn into "degrees of whiteness", with some arbitrary criteria used to determine who is "really white", perhaps those with blue eyes and, I don't know, blonde hair?

Also have you seen this?

American Nazis in Florida

Racial essentialism is basically that races have characteristics that are inherent and cannot be changed. Someone who was a racial essentialist would point to average IQ scores to show that black people are naturally dumber than white people because of their genes, whereas someone disagreeing with them would say that those differences were because of socio-political factors like wealth disparity leading to a difference in education levels, among other things.

[Trollheart]

I see. Thank you for that. Sounds bloody stupid but at least now I know.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

I see. Thank you for that. Sounds bloody stupid but at least now I know.

Well European and American white folk needed a reason why it was not just acceptable but morally good for them to rule over non-white folk without feeling like monsters. They need us to bring our enlightened white civilization to them so that they can be elevated by our magnificence. It's not about smart ideas it's about convenient ideas.

[Queen Boo]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Also have you seen this?

American Nazis in Florida

It's the same old song and dance as Jan 6. Once it comes to light that all those truckers the right are calling heroes are actually Nazis (and it already is) they will automatically switch to "it was all Antifa actually".

These bozos have no shame.

[The Batlord]

Thank God Xena is the exact same show but better.

[Queen Boo]

I know right?

Only reason people from my generation even know who Kevin Sorbo is is because we had to sit through Hercules as we waited for Xena to come on.

Lucy Lawless has proven herself to be a vastly superior human being as well, not that being a better person than Sorbo is a high bar to clear but seriously look up her activism work she's pretty badass.

[The Batlord]

I mean I still loved Hercules but watching some dude stand there and punch things was still less cool than the ultimate boob ninja.

[Queen Boo]

Xena is an icon for pretty much every trans lesbian who grew up in the 90s, for obvious reasons.

[jadis]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

I mean you talk about essentialism and then show someone not essentialising race. Maybe explain why saying Jews are white people is essentialising? Saying that Jews are inherently greedy or black people are inherently criminal or Asians are inherently good at math is essentialising.

Ahh I see: I meant “essentialist” as a property of discourse, as opposed to “historicist”. A discourse that's by definition ahistorical and deals in essences and reifications as opposed to a discourse that in some sense refers to or allows for historical contingency and specificity. I was not implying WG was guilty of stereotyping the Jews somehow or that the US race discourse tends towards that. That, indeed, would’ve been very strange and anti-historicist.

Another way of saying it is that it's a metahistorical or metadiscursive comment, not one against racial stereotyping.