it’s one thing to debate “the existence of race as social construct” in the rarefied heights of the philosophy of social science and quite another to appropriate the statement as a catchphrase allowing one to change nothing about the world as it exists before us.
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Good points, and it drives me crazy when I hear people say this. I would add that “I don’t see race” is also saying “I don’t recognize a component of your identity” and so dehumanizes people in an entirely different way.
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It’s also a dog whistle. I’ve seen it used too many times as part of the “I’m the least racist person, but I’m going to defend the racist status quo because it favors me” denialism. To be antiracist, you have to see color, it’s the only way to recognize the things that are wrong.
It’s a bad look for so many reasons.
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I remember the post and am pretty sure I hearted it, as I read it in the anthropological context. Of course, I am notorious for giving people way too much benefit of the doubt.
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Piling on the reasons it sucks, I mean, it’s also just amazingly self-centered.
“I don’t see race”
“It’s not about you”
"But… but… I only care about myself? "
That’s the dynamic I feel from it whenever it comes up.
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Context matters. In a post about the anthropological history of humankind, that statement is very different than in a post about racism, which this one was.
The same way that saying “all lives matter” in, say, an ER is a very different thing that at a BLM protest.
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As a one time anthropologist, thankyou! Anthropology itself grew out of extremely racist roots, something that most good anthro programs cover in some depth. We, possibly above all disciplines, have known sin…
And acknowledge it. And don’t chirp up, even when we think we might have some good basis to-- we know exactly how toxic and dangerous this stuff is. The Nazis, for example, were just implementing accepted19th Century anthro theorizing.
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User OrangeTide anonymized at user request.
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User NickyG has been suspended for posting off-topic, derailing comments in topics. This user had been banned for this behaviour before, but it looks like the lesson didn’t take.
We wish them luck in finding a new home out amongst the stars of the Forumverse.
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User prooftheory has been given a brief timeout for thoroughly derailing an 80-post topic so thoroughly that more than half the replies were about their take, and the demand to have their take heard. This is commonly referred to as Sealioning, and not only does it not contribute to the overall conversation, but worse, it prevents much else happening in the topic as a result.
You are more than welcome to have an opinion and defend it, but unless you created the topic or are somehow involved in the subject matter, please don’t make the topic all about you.
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User RandomHumanBeing has been banned after managing four posts in four years, all of which managed to be flagged and fall afoul of “The rude will be eaten first”, but so infrequently that the slow-motion trolling wasn’t obvious until now.
30 Likes
Now that’s dedication.
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Just because a T rex can’t see you when you move slowly enough doesn’t mean it can’t smell you…
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theGhoulman has been given a timeout for telling off BBS members. Rhetorical or not, find other ways to express your opinion than with insults, please.
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User Joaquin_Vargas anonymized at user request.
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User Pheckphul has been ejected from the BBS for failing to understand the difference between a moral wrong and a legal wrong, and proscribing the former no weight while letting us know that they feel that members who believe otherwise do not deserve to be heard, serve on a jury, or otherwise be a part of civilized society.
I wish the user well on their quest towards totalitarianism, though I wager they will not be pleased with the end result should they find it.
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User jonathan_colvin has been banned for, repeatedly over some time, posting replies in topics involving the transgender community that have both resulted in significant derails of those topics here. Additionally, those replies have also resulted in repeated calls from members of the BBS who identify as transgender to have them removed for containing statements that attempt to portray themselves as “reasonable” but happen to be the bigoted stances used by others to attack that same community instead.
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User jmzero has been suspended a second (and final) time for going after users who disagree with them, then blowing up at getting moderated for the behaviour.
Our luckdragon made the first suspension temporary; this will not be repeated by me.
You may now consider yourself free of your bad choices in 2014 and that original ban:
“I deeply regret posting on this terrible, terrible forum.”
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You mean to say that after all that time of infrequent posting since 2014, (which at a glance, mostly consisted of making irrelevant complaints) that gentleposter didn’t seem to learn any valuable lessons about interacting with this community?
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