toxico wrote:
black runner wrote:
I always see you use the rationale that discussion on the board is “just what you might talk about on a long run.”
Have you ever been on a long run with a black person and turned to them and said, “hey, do you think black people are less intelligent and that’s why they commit more crimes?” Or “do you think black fathers abandon their families and that’s why black people are violent,” or “Hey! Black Lives Matter are terrorists, right?” Because these are all topics that have been on this board and repeatedly appear in posts and threads.
I don’t think you would ever dare say this things on a run to a black person. Besides it being so far beyond the bounds of civility, I think you and every other white bro on this board would be scared of what would happen. I dare you in actual life to walk up to a group of black people and “just start an interesting conversation” about whether they’re animals. You would never.
So if you know it’s wrong in person then why is it fine on a message board? If you wouldn’t dare say it to a black person’s face on this mythical long run, what makes it cool and not cowardly and disgusting to foster spaces where people feel comfortable saying these things?
Nobody can stop you saying it, but your pretence that this is just idle conversation like people have all the time on runs either shows that you hang out with some seriously disturbing people in person, or that you simply refuse any responsibility for what you actually condone being said. And then accept that black people are not being unreasonable or sensitive or ridiculous to not enjoy being called unintelligent primitives.
@black runner, You are right on both that such thoughts are voiced on here and that they are offensive, but you might be underestimating the number of adults who genuinely have similar kinds of questions and need an outlet to freely discuss them even if only to eventually arrive at the same viewpoints as those considered politically correct. You wouldn’t be so mad if your child wanted to know answers to such questions, would you? You would be compassionate and patient with them. Of course, there is a point beyond which you can’t change an adult person’s thinking, but on the other hand, it’s also easy to make someone dig their heels in simply because they are made to feel attacked and stupid for their thoughts. That’s just human nature. I’ll take your own example below to illustrate why these “idle conversations” are better had openly than suppressed.
On race and intelligence: Some of your examples are caricatures, but only partially so. We live in a society where certain types of questions are not investigated by the academic elite because no one respectable cares to know the answers to them, and further more, if anyone voices politically incorrect thoughts like “are there correlations between intelligence (however measured) and race?”, they get canceled (e.g., Nobel laureate James Watson). The reality is that we truly don’t know, and I mean exactly that, i.e., it is entirely possible even that black people are more intelligent than lighter skinned people, or the other way round, or that there is no statistically significant difference. We do know that there are differences in disease proneness and use those race-based factors in medical treatment for example. We also have empirical evidence that makes it not unreasonable to think that certain black people are more or less good at sports like running, swimming, etc. So why is it not possible that there are differences in traits considered more cerebral?
The answer is that it is possible but we as a society have chosen to believe in the equalness of humanity simply because the world is a happier place full of hope and potential for every person of every color. As a person of color, I too prefer this world view. But we pretend like that is not an adopted point of view, but is some kind of scientifically established ground truth. This collective pretense is not obvious to everyone and sometimes needs conversation and clarification, especially since most people are not statistically trained to disambiguate the effects of race, poverty, and historical subjugation on outcomes like crime and societal accomplishment.
You may disagree with my point of view of course. But do you find my thoughts offensive and me “seriously disturbing” as a person?
LMAO this has to be a joke?
Race science is mired with pseudo science. It's hard to get a good genetic markers for race even. Plenty of scientists do studies on human genetic and phenotypic variation but dont use "race" as an assortment category because it's not rigorous. It's used primarily by racists and charlatans trying to force data into their world view. To make claims about socially sensitive issues, you must have solid data you are confident in, no one (who is a good scientist) in pop. gen. or the polygeneic scoring fields trusts their data enough yet to make claims along racial lines...
Also... Watson was not cancelled for his "questions" on this matter. He was "cancelled" for repeatedly being an a55hole to people in his field and betting his fame would protect him... eventually it didn't.