First thing's first: KEEP. THIS. SHIT. CIVIL. If you can't talk about race without resorting to childish insults and rude generalizations or getting angry at people who don't see it your way, leave the thread.
With that said, I bring you to what can hopefully be the general thread about race.
First, a few starter questions.
- How, if at all, do you feel your race affects your everyday life?
- Do you believe that white people (or whatever the majority race in your area is) receive privileges simply because of the color of their skin. How much?
- Do you believe minorities are discriminated against for the same reason? How much?
- Do you believe that assimilation of cultures is better than people trying to keep their own?
- Affirmative Action. Yea, Nay? Why or why not?
Also, a personal question from me.
- Why (in my experience, not trying to generalize) do white people often try to insist that they aren't white? I can't count the number of times I've heard "I'm not white, I'm 1/4th English, 1/4th German, 1/4th Scandinavian 1/8th Cherokee, and 1/8th Russian," as though 4 of 5 of those things aren't considered "white" by the masses. Is it because you have pride for your ancestry, or an attempt to try and differentiate yourself from all those "other" white people? Or something else altogether?
edited 30th May '11 9:16:04 PM by Wulf
They're usually written by people actually of the ethnicity they're writing about though. And that's kind of the problem, that it's the only niche minority authors in the US are really allowed to break out in. It might be a form of Positive Discrimination, and it might have been Fair for Its Day in that back then it was what passed as a form of representation, but for it to never progress beyond that is tokenizing. Whereas white authors generally have a lot more freedom with their subject matter, and so if they want to have a minority as their protagonist they don't face the same kind of scrutiny as someone out to educate people on racial issues.
It's only been recently that people are starting to realize that hey, maybe, for example, Chinese American authors have more stories to tell than Typical American, Fifth Chinese Daughter, or The Joy Luck Club. Maybe some of us want to tell fantastical stories like Jin Yong, or stories where being Chinese is completely incidental. I remember Sharysa bringing something up earlier in this thread about wanting to do a more conventional story with an Asian American protagonist but had it rejected by publishers because they assumed anything starring an Asian American hero has to be about racial issues. It's a self-reinforcing problem as Minority Show Ghetto points out.
Which is kinda why it's perplexing when various corners of the social justice activism protest white allies as inherently Mighty Whitey and to be rejected on principle, and that for white content creators to utilize nonwhite characters as protagonists and therefore contribute to increased representation is cultural appropriation that should be stopped, like what Bryke got accused of over Avatar. No, we need that representation, and if white content creators who have the kind of creative freedoms we don't are willing and able to utilize their privilege to help with that, then I'm willing to accept it as a step forward and not backward.
edited 31st May '16 12:03:04 PM by AlleyOop
No longer a forum herald
Thus I decree that everyone is hereby required to read all of the books by Octavia Butler. 
(I should probably check out the ones I haven't yet.)
Speaking of scifi, has anyone here read Nnedi Okorafor's books? I've heard pretty good things about them.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I haven't read them, but I can say that does sound like a cool concept for a sci-fantasy.
The Mod with the Migraine
I don't remember seeing this talked about, but the Extra Credits web series did a video about The Division and just how unintentionally racist
it is in the actual gameplay mechanics. Stumbled across it on You Tube and thought people here would enjoy seeing it.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
I don't own sound on my computer so no videos but I do own The Division. Could you summarize. I'm pretty sure I agree but I'd like to know what's being said anyway.
edited 31st May '16 9:42:24 PM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
It's the Problematic Meaning in Mechanics video. I think it's been posted in The Division's forum thread as well.
Basically, it calls out the SHD's ignorance of due process being portrayed as heroic until it's revealed that you weren't the first Agent to go rogue in the Dark Zone (although this is not mentioned in the video). And the Unfortunate Implications of the enemies' (Rioters and Cleaners in particular) character designs.
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
I didn't go through the tokenism myself, but a LOT of minority authors are told that their first novel should be an "ethnic" story to break into the market, because traditional publishers are afraid that people can't accept a Chinese-American author who starts out writing fantasy or crime-drama instead of "the story of my family's immigration" (or a fictional story about fictional immigrants) for the eight millionth time.
When you get into new media like crowdfunding publishing, Youtube, and online writing websites, it's making a LOT of progress into being more inclusive. We don't have to deal with the stodgy old white men fretting about "ethnic people writing ethnic stories," so we can write whatever the hell we want and if people like it, they like it.
And I absolutely agree that white writers, casting directors, etc, should take initiative on getting more diversity out there as well as having minority writers doing their thing.
Grr... <3
My experience with publishing is limited. But, isn't the whole idea behind a penname that you can take on any persona you want to sell your fiction? If they won't accept your book because of the colour of your skin, the publisher is forgetting how authorship works.
I'm pretty sure a lot of minority writers have taken white pen-names, but the entire point of minority-writer visibility is to KEEP our names. It's not special for white people to do what they want, because they're the default.
But if the next generation of writers sees that Christopher Chen's play "The Late Wedding" is inspired by Invisible Cities, and it's crazy and surreal but it's also kickass, then that opens a LOT of pathways for us. It's physical proof that we don't HAVE to write "ethnic" stories just to get our foot in the door.
The Mod with the Migraine
Equality in education is still struggling, as minority students are more likely to be suspended - in preschool.
That's clear from the startling revelations in the latest Education Department report released Tuesday. Entitled the Civil Rights Data Collection, the survey is conducted biennially. This one surveyed 50 million students in 95,000 schools during the 2013-2014 school year. It shows how much African-American and Latino students still lag in terms of opportunities. The disparity "tears at the moral fabric of our nation," Education Secretary John B. King Jr. told reporters.
"What sets the U.S. apart from any other country is the idea that opportunity is universal," he said. "These data show that we still fall far short of that ideal." Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing at least 15 days of school. Nationwide, 6.5 million students were absent for that duration during the 2013-2014 school year. Among high school students, the numbers are worse: One in five. This is troubling because students who miss school are likely to fall behind and eventually drop out.
Schools suspended minority students more often than white students, and it starts very early — in preschool. In preschool, black kids were 3.6 times more likely to be suspended than white kids. In K through 12, black students were 3.8 times more likely to be suspended. Will things improve? Perhaps. A new federal law, Every Student Succeeds Act, requires states to review school disciplinary stats to reduce excessive suspensions.
The study found schools with large numbers of black and Latino students offered fewer classes in calculus, algebra II, chemistry and physics. This was the case with gifted classes too. Blacks and Latinos made up 42% of the student body in schools with gifted classes, and yet they made up just 28% of students enrolled in gifted classes.
Counselors: Around the nation, 1.6 million kids attended schools that have a law enforcement officer but no counselor. And Asian, black and Latino students were more likely to be among those kids. Officers: Among high schools with more than 75% black and Latino students, 51% had an officer. Another startling stat: A black student was 2.3 times more likely than a white student to be referred to or arrested by an officer.
Nearly 800,000 students were enrolled in schools where 20% of the teachers didn't meet all the requirements for a state license. And once again, blacks and Hispanics were more likely to attend such schools. The same is true when it came to experienced teachers. Students of color were more likely than white students to attend schools with teachers who were in their first year of teaching.
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
Think Progress on the fallout of a Breitbart "journalist"'s visit to DePaul University.
So it was already bad before, and they merely made it worse.
And really, I probably have to do a bit of soul searching if it turns out that it's actually possible to get yourself a cushy life by getting invited to spew out a couple of garbled sentences completely composed of snarl words at universities by barely-covert white supremacists.
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
Wait, according to that article, Milo (not gonna bother trying to spell his last name) is openly gay? A few minutes earlier, I was musing to myself over whether or not there were gay Trump supporters. I didn't think they were actually a thing.
It's one thing to make a spectacle. It's another to make a difference.
He's had some really nasty things to say about lesbians, and if I recall he's against gay marriage. It's surprisingly less uncommon than you'd think given Dolce and Gabbana's comments the year before.
vicarious
Apparently there's also a sizable Hispanic support for Trump too so *shrugs*
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
He has an... odd perspective on being gay, though.
Although it's ultimately hard to sympathise with whatever self-hatred he has when you see the neo-Nazis he was trying to pander to go "nope, we're not trolling, and we do mean to get rid of you, gay Jew".
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
United Earth
The pink-on-yellow David star... They get the shower first.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
The Mod with the Migraine
He's said he would appoint SC judges that would strike down SSM. Though I doubt they can retroactively reverse a ruling like that and not lose all legitimacy.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Shop Owner
In my opinion they were wrong to stop him, he is quite objectionable, but in my appreciation of the facts, the correct course of action is to stop controversial speakers from being invited, after they are invited, they shouldn't be protested out.
United Earth
Personally, I find the editing suspiciously glurgy and the reactions overblown; the narrative is just too convenient. And I'd like to read more about the science there. Like, what does 30% English even mean, precisely?
edited 9th Jun '16 12:38:49 AM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Grr... <3
Yeah, they got a genetic ancestry test and somehow they're all crying and what is that music supposed to be saying.
Probably, they are treating English as a genetic ethnicity. So there will be one standard genetic makeup for british people, possibly calculated off an average of the genetic codes of people with confirmed long term ancestries in the british isles.
The major problem, of course, is that the genetic code will be similar to other identified ethnicities and not so similar to yet others, so you can't simply measure the percentage of similarity to get an ancestry breakdown.
An SNP is that thing which is either A, T, C, or G in the genetic code, at a specific location.
That is enough that each genetic ethnicity may have hundreds of unique polymorphisms. If about 30% of those polymorphisms from the british ethnicity match, then you being 30% british is a good first estimate. Refinements may be called for.
Autosomal means everything but the X and Y chromosome.
Disclaimer: not a doctor.
edited 9th Jun '16 6:16:34 AM by war877
The Mod with the Migraine
In another example of institutional-ish racism, you can't get a therapist if you're black or poor.
To study whether therapists had biases, researchers hired actors to record voice messages for 640 therapists in New York. In all the messages, the actors read scripts saying they had been feeling down, had insurance and would like to make an appointment. The scripts varied the names, vocabulary and grammar to reflect race and class differences. For example, the name Amy Roberts was supposed to indicate that the caller was a white middle-class woman, whereas Latoya Johnson was used for a black middle-class woman. The scripts for working-class individuals used more slang and some grammatical errors.
The researchers waited one week for the therapists to return the calls, which went to a voice mailbox created for the study. The researchers recorded whether the therapists agreed to see the new client and whether they could accommodate the desired time, which was a weekday evening.
Middle-class black women and men were about 30% and 60% less likely, respectively, than their white middle-class counterparts to hear back from a therapist agreeing to see them. Working-class individuals fared even worse: Women and men, regardless of race, were about 70% and 80% less likely, respectively, to get an appointment, compared with white middle-class individuals.
"Psychotherapists are not immune to the same stereotypes that we all have, and I think they could become even more relevant for psychotherapists than for other professions [both medical and nonmedical], because they are embarking on this intimate, potentially long-term relationship with these [clients]," said Heather Kugelmass, a doctoral student in sociology at Princeton University. Kugelmass is the author of the study (PDF), which was published Wednesday in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
A large survey in 2015 found that 40% of physicians in the United States had biases about their patients, most commonly because of their emotional problems and weight, but income level and race were also on the list. Research suggests that these biases affect the quality of care that patients receive. Although studies also suggest that biases could prevent primary care doctors from accepting patients, no one had explored the effect of stereotypes on therapists' willingness to see patients.
The current study found that therapists' response rate was low in general, with only 44% returning the call. In many cases, the therapist left a message saying he or she did not have availability: Only 15% of inquiries resulted in a therapist offering an appointment time. Therapists were less likely to call back if the clients sounded black and working-class. Only 34% of black working-class individuals got a call back, compared with 49% of black middle-class and 51% of white middle-class individuals.
"As consumers, or potential consumers, of mental health care, we would like to think that everyone deserves a response," Kugelmass said. Overall, 28% of the middle-class white individuals seeking care were offered an appointment, compared with 17% of the middle-class black group and 8% of the working-class white and black groups. The lack of therapist availability is particularly grim when you think about the hypothetical patients, Kugelmass said. They communicated their insurance coverage, indicated the time they would like to see the therapist and politely asked for a return call, yet few of them received one, and even fewer got an appointment. "[Working-class people] are facing a difficult and probably unexpected obstacle to care," Kugelmass said.
"The findings of this research are not at all surprising to me," said Dr. Joseph R. Betancourt, director of the Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. "It completely falls in line with research not only in health care but in other areas," said Betancourt, who was not involved in the current study. Research has found racial discrimination in many sectors of the economy, including in housing rentals and auto lenders.
Part of the reason for the discrimination could be because the vast majority of mental health care providers are white and "might feel less of an affinity or ability to care for somebody who is different," Betancourt said. Only 5% to 7% of mental health care providers in the United States are racial or ethnic minorities, he added. "Diversifying the community of mental health care providers would go a long way," Betancourt said. Other steps that he said can and should be taken are to teach therapists-in-training about their stereotypes in graduate school and to audit therapists routinely, as the current study did, to make them aware if they are excluding certain groups from their care.
"I bet if you asked any individual [in the study] if they limited access, they would say 'absolutely not, I see everybody,' " Betancourt said. Making people aware "would start to move us in the right direction," he added. Even though the current study included only therapists in New York, the trend would probably be the same anywhere in the United States, Betancourt said. "You have so many studies that find a trend that it is hard to argue it is just a phenomenon of where you are," Betancourt said.
I must be one of the lucky ones, considering I've had multiple therapists over the years. Most of them were good, and most of them were white.
It's one thing to make a spectacle. It's another to make a difference.
Honestly I'm beginning to see stories like those as a combination of some half-hearted apology brought on by guilt of what the white creator's (let's assume they're white) ancestors may have done to black people and a gross overcompensation as a result of that same guilt. It feels as if the creator is saying to black people "i'm sorry for how my people have treated you, i'm sorry for how much better we have it than you today, please don't hate me," more than anything.
It's one thing to make a spectacle. It's another to make a difference.