Hey, first off, thanks for the dialog. I’m very much enjoying this, and I think it’s helping me formulate my thoughts on a great many things. I hope you don’t think I’m being confrontational.

You asked me for numbers driven proof for my claims that racism works in systemic ways before. Do you know if there is something for how “Social justice is implemented on the ground?”. Just curious how this affects the implementation.

This is a great question, because it goes to the base of our disagreement. We are viewing the thing differently, probably because we’re seeing different stuff.

Part of that probably flows from social media feed curation, which tends to echo chamber everyone and create a bunch of different pictures of the world. In my feed, SJ sexism and racism are basically commonplace, if you go by a simple substitution metric. (substitute “black” for “white” … if it’s racist one way, it’s racist the other)

Also if we turn this around and look how racism “is implemented on the streets” in let’s say Charlotte’s Ville with people running cars into groups of people, I’d still prefer the group that asks white men to talk less. It sounds like in this progressive Democratic caucus the communication attempts have failed or require review. The discussions and meetings I have attended it were organized differently, instead of forbidding anyone to speak, the moderator would encourage People of color and women to speak first. Which has proven to create a more equal distribution of questions asked. (https://twitter.com/Ananyo/status/940542981999857664)

I think you’re guilty of false equivalence here. I would prefer any organized political meeting to any violent protest, no matter who’s doing the violence.

Charlottesville is an interesting case, which I think is worth of a deeper dive.

During one of two recorded phone calls Fields made to his mother from jail in the months after he was arrested, he told her he had been mobbed “by a violent group of terrorists” at the rally. In another, Fields referred to the mother of the woman who was killed as a “communist” and “one of those anti-white supremacists.”

Everything that dude did was wrong. But the funny thing about wrong actions is that the people doing the actions almost always think they’re right. That applies to the Nazis, the Monguls, the colonists, all the way down to today. Muslim terrorists, for instance, think they’re right, and you can’t end terrorism without trying to understand why terrorists think they’re right. Conservatives really miss the boat on this.

So let’s apply that framework to Charlottesville. That guy thought he was in the right because of things that had happened earlier at the protest. I’m projecting here, but based on my read, those things probably looked something like this:

Not at all a reason to drive a car into people.

Possibly, nay probably, just edgelord bullshit.

But I can’t seem to find anyone who identifies as Social Justice who would say this sign is inappropriate. That worries me, because it’s a bellwether for an increase in societal violence on the horizon. I would really like for everyone to chill out, because if the violence increases, that’s not only bad for everyone, it’s especially bad for the Blue Tribe.

We have seen good intentions create bad consequences loads of times. And exactly that is what speaks to much to me with the intersectionality and systemic racism approach. It basically says due to the systemic implementation in our society we are basically conditioned to treat people by their appearance, we shame our peers for their body types, gender, the color of their skin, ableness, etc. This also removes the blame, it should enable us to understand that we all have racist constructs in our minds that we reproduce unintentionally. When white folks are able to detach their feeling of offendedness when someone is telling them that what they are saying is racists, we could move on to the next level of the conversation. Unfortunately when we hear “what you are saying is racists,” we think oh that person thinks I’m evil when they actually only wanted to help us to identify unintentional racism. Why do most of us white folks react with defensiveness and deflection instead of acceptance and the willingness to learn more about the other person understanding of what we were saying there? Also interesting in that context: the Defense Mechanisms we know from psychology and how they are all on display in those discourses (https://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-defense-mechanisms/?all=1)

Okay, so be clear: All of this is true, in my opinion.

But this also means that if I hear a Social Justice person say something racist about white people, and I reply “what you are saying is racist,” they need to be willing to do the same thing.

“Yes but Bivol-Pavda has this other definition of racism where it’s impossible to be racist to a white person” is the exact kind of deflection you’re speaking of, and it’s commonly trotted out by Social Justice people for the exact psychological reasons (defense mechanisms) you’re referring to at the end of this paragraph.

If you agree with me on this point, please say so. It’s very hard to get SJ people to agree with me on this point.

I’m not sure I understand this, but I hope you can explain it to me:

Here is the list, which is based on an US experience/frame. Do some of those sound familiar to you?:

1. Do not give me feedback on my racism under any circumstances.

If you insist on breaking the cardinal rule, then you must follow these other rules:

2. Proper tone is crucial — feedback must be given calmly. If any emotion is displayed, the feedback is invalid and can be dismissed.

3. There must be trust between us. You must trust that I am in no way racist before you can give me feedback on my racism.

4. Our relationship must be issue-free — if there are issues between us, you cannot give me feedback on racism until these unrelated issues are resolved.

5. Feedback must be given immediately. If you wait too long, the feedback will be discounted because it was not given sooner.

6. You must give feedback privately, regardless of whether the incident occurred in front of other people. To give feedback in front of any others who were involved in the situation is to commit a serious social transgression. If you cannot protect me from embarrassment, the feedback is invalid, and you are the transgressor.

7. You must be as indirect as possible. Directness is insensitive and will invalidate the feedback and require repair.

8. As a white person, I must feel completely safe during any discussion of race. Suggesting that I have racist assumptions or patterns will cause me to feel unsafe, so you will need to rebuild my trust by never giving me feedback again. Point of clarification: when I say “safe,” what I really mean is “comfortable.”

9. Highlighting my racial privilege invalidates the form of oppression that I experience (e.g., classism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, transphobia). We will then need to turn our attention to how you oppressed me.

10. You must acknowledge my intentions (always good) and agree that my good intentions cancel out the impact of my behavior.

11. To suggest my behavior had a racist impact is to have misunderstood me. You will need to allow me to explain myself until you can acknowledge that it was your misunderstanding.

Are these intended to be “ways that white people dismiss accusations of racist behavior?”

If so, I think it’s a pretty valid list, and a pretty good indictment of how people avoid looking at their R(1) behavior. I’ve definitely seen some of this in action.

There are a few in there that have me scratching my head, though, so maybe you can clarify.

2. Proper tone is crucial — feedback must be given calmly. If any emotion is displayed, the feedback is invalid and can be dismissed.

Screaming and yelling at people will never, ever, ever produce any kind of positive communicative result, no matter what the issue is, no matter the context, no matter the participants. That’s a universal rule of communication about all things, not a way to uncritically dismiss criticisms of racism.

9. Highlighting my racial privilege invalidates the form of oppression that I experience (e.g., classism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, transphobia). We will then need to turn our attention to how you oppressed me.

I don’t understand what this one is supposed to mean at all. Is this in relation to a disagreement between intersectionalists?