
Bogus Racism Charge Melts Down Elite Progressive Listserv - hirundo
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/white-fragility-racism-racism-progressive-progressphiles-david-shor.html
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throwaway6274
I remember a long time ago in middle school, I read a book called Red Scarf
Girl. It is a memoir by a girl during the Cultural Revolution in China. As a
middle schooler, I didn’t think too much about the book other than what
strange rules such a bizarre society had for how you could interact and what
you could say. But the book increasingly keeps coming to my mind lately.
During the Cultural Revolution, there were accusations that people were
“landlords” or related to landlords. Even rumors of having something to do
with the bourgeoisie was enough to elicit swift punishment from the other
members of society. If you weren’t vocal about being on the “right side of
history”, then you must be adamantly against it and were addressed as such,
either by peers or the government. A lot of accusations turned into witch
hunts against people, even if the charges were flimsy.

Anyway, I’ve often observed this same sort of behavior in extremist
progressive circles, but it sure appears to be spilling into the mainstream a
lot more everyday.

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m0zg
I think we're not in any danger of a true socialist revolution here seeing
that the Chopistani warlord Raz himself is literally an Airbnb landlord who
drives a Tesla with a trunk full of AR-15s. The moment anyone comes to him for
the actual money (from each according to his ability, after all, and he's
certainly able) they'll get punched in the teeth or shot.

Note how it's always someone else that needs to pay/atone/change, never the
"activists" themselves. It's always this amorphous "we". Not a single virtue
signaling white executive that I know of has resigned their position to
"increase diversity". Not a single white actor has foregone a role. And so on
and so forth all the way down the list. You know how many black people worked
in the building I worked in while at Google? Zero. You know how many I
interviewed in nearly a decade there? One. He was rejected (not by me though,
the guy did very well in my interview). Talk is cheap. Want something done
about it? Be the change you want to see in the world.

I come from a country where there was a socialist revolution. The entire
contingent of the current "movement" would meet a quick and brutal end after a
real revolution, because the moment you don't like something a real
revolutionary likes, you become a counter-revolutionary, and those are dealt
with quickly, with a bullet to the back of the head. Or, as was the case in
the Soviet Union, with tens of millions of bullets to tens of millions of
heads.

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throwaway6274
> Not a single virtue signaling white executive that I know of has resigned
> their position to "increase diversity"

Founder of Reddit: [https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/tech/alexis-ohanian-
reddit/in...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/tech/alexis-ohanian-
reddit/index.html)

~~~
m0zg
Not a real executive IIRC. He resigned from the BoD. And he's the only
prominent person to do something concrete and direct like that. The rest are
putting out PR releases and posting black squares to Instagram.

~~~
throwaway6274
I don’t disagree with you by the way. I find virtue signaling to be rather
useless (if not outright harmful to helping causes).

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ta1548177231
This reminds me of the james damore debacle a few years ago[1]. He simply
wanted to discuss facts. Those facts were seen as being too dangerous for
others' feelings and the feelings won.

America is quickly turning into personality cults and being dismantled into a
set of ideologies. The illusions required to make the ideologies true post
facto are being made into the "facts" and world views like science and logic
are being dismantled.

[1]:[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-
Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf)

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zozbot234
The "elite", regressive left is eating their own as it spirals down the drain
of culturally self-enforced "purity" norms? Color me thoroughly unsurprised.

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throwaway6274
It’s really weird because purity and shaming tactics used to be the domain of
the far right (hundreds of years ago). It’s now switched to the far left. I’m
a big believer in horseshoe theory. Born in a different household or time
period, these personalities would be strong advocates for the other side.

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quantified
Wow. I want to leave a thoughtful comment but I’m going to have to come back
later. I think the word “progressive” has been hijacked, like “hacker” has
been too.

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jhanschoo
I wonder what chain of reasoning it takes to consider such a tweet as racist.

If we thought blacks were reasonable people with agency, it is reasonable to
conclude that this would help their cause: it would be one additional data
point for the black community to decide on how to organize and communicate
their demands, and consider it relevant or not on its merits.

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VWWHFSfQ
Does this need to be here? Do we need the equivalent of /r/SubredditDrama on
HN?

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phasnox
It's ok if you don't find it interesting, but don't assume everyone else
thinks like you.

What's described in the article is a social phenomenon, worthy of study and
reflection. The plethora of consequences that come from it, are already
destroying the highest aspects of human thinking.

Left unchecked, and we will return to the dark ages. We are already seeing
witch hunts and modern book burning.

