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Posted by: vidcapper Sep 1 2017, 06:48 AM

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/loreals-first-transgender-model-munroe-11091764

L’Oreal’s first transgender model Munroe Bergdorf claims ‘all white people’s existence is drenched in racism’


*****

ISTM that stereotyping people on the grounds of skin colour is a pretty accurate definition of racism, so she has surely just done exactly what she is accusing others of.

Posted by: Harve Sep 1 2017, 07:11 AM

Can we add 'ISTM' to the profanity filter tho.

Posted by: Soy Adrián Sep 1 2017, 08:11 AM

In response to the title:

No, it's not.

Posted by: vidcapper Sep 1 2017, 08:37 AM

ISTM it was just as well I didn't include the Mail's version of the story, then.

Posted by: Klaus Sep 1 2017, 08:44 AM

i still don't know what ISTM means

Posted by: vidcapper Sep 1 2017, 08:44 AM

How come? Is that abbreviation now deemed un-PC now?



How about 'double standards' then?

The problem is not so much what she is saying, but that she is accusing *every* white person of being racist, which necessarily includes all of us here who abhor racism.

Posted by: Iz~ Sep 1 2017, 09:11 AM

Yes.

That and being a condescending way of weaseling out of fully committing to your statements.

Also, to expand on Soy's point, no, because it's talking about the social norms that have come about through the history of ethnicities where white people have been advantaged by their ability to seize... everything and that should be pretty well acknowledged.

Posted by: vidcapper Sep 1 2017, 09:43 AM

'It Seems To Me'

It's similar to IMO : 'In My Opinion'



Since when - and who decides which words & phrases are on the 'banned' list?

Even if you're just opening up a topic for discussion?



But how do you quantify if, or how much, any given white person has benefited from oppression? Clearly someone descended from labourers has had little or no gain, whereas a person whose inherited wealth was derived directly from the slave trade has benefited greatly.

Also, which specific 'social norms' do you refer to?

Posted by: Qassändra Sep 1 2017, 11:49 AM

Do you really think the advantages of empire were entirely individual and only went to families? We live in an exceptionally wealthy country which built much of that wealth on the exploited riches of the world's biggest empire. There's a reason the British working class are broadly better off than, say, the Austrian working class.

British Petroleum, Barclays, HSBC, pretty much the entirety of the North West, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol - all companies, cities, regions built off the fortunes of the resources we exploited by invading and occupying Commonwealth nations. That in turn generated other economic activity. Once we disestablished that empire our cities and towns had the economic base from that wealth to manage the transition and produce the country we see today.

Do you really think you're the first person to ask these questions? Don't you have even the slightest bit of intellectual curiosity to think past the first argument that comes into your head?

Posted by: jafetsigfinns Sep 1 2017, 11:53 AM

Claiming that every living white person's existence is drenched in racism is as big of a blanket statement as they get. Besides let's not forget that black people selling and buying black slaves was also a huge thing in the slave trade so lets not start condemning people for their ancestors' actions, mkay?

Also how in the world is "It Seems To Me" un-PC? lmao. I just can't.

Posted by: Qassändra Sep 1 2017, 12:02 PM

And even if you interpret the statement as "all white people are racist", that isn't a remotely controversial concept for psychologists. There's legions of evidence through implicit association test studies that almost all white people have at least unconscious biases against black people (or those of other minorities) - regardless of whether they'd consider themselves racist or not.

Nobody likes to consider themselves racist, so unconscious bias means we latch onto other reasons why we discriminate against somebody of another colour, but the reasons will often be things that we happily allow to go by if someone of our own race had them (to take the most famous example, how often people will leap to justify cases where black people are killed while being arrested by the police that will typically go along the lines of "well they did something wrong so they deserved it" when they wouldn't ever dream of arguing it was okay for a white person to be killed without trial for carrying drugs).

Just because it's an unconscious bias that we all have doesn't mean we can't do anything about it. What it means is that we have to make a conscious effort to be guided by our better angels and self-examine whether our judgements on somebody may be influenced by their skin colour and whether we might not give someone of our own race doing the same the benefit of the doubt.

Posted by: Qassändra Sep 1 2017, 12:06 PM

Are you really going to attempt to argue that Africa was enriched by the slave trade in the way America and Europe were? And racism goes beyond just the slave trade. There were another good 150 years of empire after Britain stopped trading in slaves.


It's not 'un-PC', it's just a grating tic of his.

Posted by: Iz~ Sep 1 2017, 12:17 PM

We need to control the way people speak and abbreviations that annoy me are first on that list (but no, I'm joking, it's not). And yes, the grating tic stuff. Besides, vidcapper, you always claim you're "sardonic".

Yes, yes, it isn't just white people who've done terrible things to other races in the name of empire, the Japanese did plenty to try and catch up in their imperial phase and every people group that had an empire was oppressive in some way towards those different from them. But given Europeans conquered so much of the world and took it upon themselves to exploit those they conquered for material gain, that's the principal impact that's been left upon the world and it's still being felt as countries that could have been on a par with Western civilisation are behind and less developed because of the poor situations they were left in - the few that were relatively untouched or were let go of empire relatively early in East Asia and the Americas (and even then for America, only after the near complete genocide of the indigenous peoples) are in much better positions today than Africa and South Asia.

Posted by: Qassändra Sep 1 2017, 12:26 PM

I mean, if your explanation for why Africa and South America are so starkly worse off isn't down to empire (and if it is, why is "all white people's existence in the nations that benefited from that" controversial?), then your explanation can only really be race-based*. Which, uh, might possibly affirm Munroe's point a bit.


(unless of course there are other entirely coincidental factors you want to suggest that mysteriously apply near-universally across those continents along race lines, in which case i'm ALL EARS)

Posted by: jafetsigfinns Sep 1 2017, 12:31 PM

That's not what I said, but like Iz just said: It wasn't just white people who did terrible things in the past. I just honestly don't understand how this unconscious racist bias talk and saying that every single white person's existence is drenched in racism is going to help solve the problem. I just don't understand how saying that "because some white people are racist the rest of them must be as well" is any better than any other stereotype about race, gender or sexuality.

Posted by: Qassändra Sep 1 2017, 12:43 PM

It's finding that the vast majority of white people have unconscious prejudices against those of other races, regardless of whether or not they'd consider themselves racist - that isn't a stereotype, that's hard evidence which comes out whenever these things are tested. It's not that hard to understand. It helps us to solve the problem by establishing the starting point that all of us are prone to making judgements and decisions on a racist basis without realising it. Once we have that starting point, we can make a concerted effort to check ourselves - am I really making this judgement or decision entirely for this reason? Without that starting point, plenty of people will carry on discriminating without even pausing. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is being discriminated against by someone who doesn't even know that they're doing it - are you telling me you don't see how it's of any use to at least get them to the starting point of being aware they might be doing it?

These aren't just pie in the sky theories - they're solid evidence that is borne out in the discrimination that reveals itself on a systematic level when you look at the statistics. It's why "blind" recruitment policies always find a stark difference when employers look at CVs without knowing the race and name of the applicant. None of those people will have consciously thought "I'm not hiring that person because they're black" - they'll have found justifications for doing so that they wouldn't have made for an equivalent white person. We know these kinds of things happen because of the http://natcen.ac.uk/our-research/research/a-test-for-racial-discrimination-in-recruitment-practice-in-british-cities/ that show they don't when the exact same CVs are submitted as if they were for someone white!

Posted by: vidcapper Sep 1 2017, 02:23 PM

My position is - I simply don't subscribe to the self-hating left-wing PC ideology.

Like every moral person, I feel regret over what was done in the name of the British Empire, but I feel no guilt over it. Guilt implies direct responsibility, which obviously cannot apply to actions that occurred centuries back.




I can only point out that not *every* result of imperialism is negative - the Monty Python 'What have the Romans ever done for us?' scene illustrates that point.




But if it's unconscious, then we can hardly be blamed for it - and besides, unconscious prejudices are not restricted to Caucasians.

Posted by: Brett-Butler Sep 1 2017, 03:15 PM

...and she's been sacked. I guess that L'Oreal realised that white folk buy shampoo.

Posted by: Qassändra Sep 1 2017, 03:36 PM

Munroe's point wasn't about guilt or direct moral responsibility for the British Empire. It was that we have all benefited from racism. Which part of that was wrong or hypocritical?


It's not about blame, it's about doing what we can to overcome it. And no, they're not confined to Caucasians, but as the race which broadly dominates positions of power and the world economy it means that our unconscious prejudices are the ones which have the most impact on other races.

We know that it has a detrimental impact. To jump to the get-out clauses on finding out about unconscious prejudice rather than taking the approach of "right, this is a tendency we lapse into which hurts other people - what can we do about it to mitigate this?" is to effectively say you're fine with other races being disadvantaged as a consequence of tendencies we know about because que sera sera. That's the point at which it starts to step across from an unconscious prejudice to a conscious one.

Posted by: popchartfreak Sep 1 2017, 07:40 PM

just to underline Qassandra's point about subconscious racism, even "leftie" students display this in rating their uni lecturers - latest stats suggest non-white and non-male profs get consistently less marks than white males.

Many people are overtly bigoted (yes including some non-whites, but that isn't anything to offer as an excuse for centuries of oppression or downright extermination from most of the big "white" nations). Given the historical actions of white nations over the last few centuries, then treating everyone fairly is the very very least that can be expected.

Since I was a child I have been embarrassed and angry at the unfairness of racism. I also spent 2 years in a non-white country as a child, where it was easy to find on occasion you were the only white face on a bus for instance, which made me feel like a bit of an insecure outsider even though everyone spoke English to at least a small degree - and incidentally a country that overthrew it's British colonial roots following the Japanese invasion, and that existed as a massive UK-enriching key port and armed forces base.

The impact on me has been to go out of my way to be more considerate and cut a bit more slack towards non-majority people, as it's the least we can do for what our ancestors did. This is not "self-hating" this is "non-self-loving".

As for the "what have the Romans" quote being dragged out inappropriately again, this is shortly before a bunch of non-Romans get crucified. The Romans are in power. They have the money. Everyone else is subservient and making comments about infrastructure (designed to help the Empire, built by slaves) being in some way some sort of coherent argument that everything's all right then cos we got fab straight roads and shit-houses by way of compensation for being slaves and all, really DOES miss the point. Python is NOT about justifying inequality, it's about ridiculing the ruling classes and anything else that needs taking down a peg.

Missing the point muchly.

Posted by: Qassändra Sep 1 2017, 08:04 PM

I find the idea that it's "self-hating" to consider whether we may have wronged people in the past (even if inadvertently) for the colour of their skin and think how we can avoid doing so again in the future pretty depressing. Humility, admitting we can be flawed and making an effort to learn from that and work against our worst impulses - to me those are traits that make you a stronger, more well-rounded person, not weaker or "self-hating".

The idea that the obsession is that more than anything else what we should be feeling is guilt is misplaced. What good is guilt on its own? Certainly not much to the people bearing the brunt of this kind of discrimination. Guilt is just an indulgent and self-hating emotion if it's in isolation. That's where you get the horrid performative "I have wronged!" breast beating that comes off as just a salve for the conscience instead. Guilt's only of use if it impresses on you any pain you've caused others and as a spur to make amends, to no longer be part of the problem and avoid hurting others in the same way again in the future. Guilt is pointless without change.

Posted by: Meatball Cody Sep 1 2017, 08:16 PM

Honestly if all Muslims are getting the blame for their radical counterparts wrecking havoc on the streets, the white people should take responsibility for any bigotry that any one of them displays. It's only fair.

Posted by: Brett-Butler Sep 1 2017, 09:35 PM

Bit of a false dichotomy there, one is an ideology and the other is a race, although I can understand why you would want to make the equivalence.

Posted by: Qassändra Sep 1 2017, 09:48 PM

White supremacy is as much an ideology as radical Islam.

In any case, the distinction feels pretty moot - the people going "send 'em back" about attackers more often than not born and raised in the UK and saying that secular relatives of theirs should be fired from jobs at Heathrow certainly aren't approaching things as if they're all too fussed on the distinction between race and religion.

Posted by: jafetsigfinns Sep 2 2017, 12:07 AM

But that's just adding to the problem, and not helping get rid of it. The vast majority of muslims should NOT be getting the blame for the actions of a very small portion of radical extremists and the same should go for white people and a small portion of racist idiots.

Posted by: popchartfreak Sep 2 2017, 08:13 AM

..and I'd add I'm quite happy to spread the analogy to all bigotry. Like blaming all straight people for gay bigotry by some, religious bigotry against specific religions by some from competing religions etc etc

End of the day it's bigotry of one sort or another to lump groups of people together because of the actions of individuals from those groups - or in most cases, not even actions, just looking for excuses to justify bigotry.

Posted by: vidcapper Sep 2 2017, 08:15 AM

An acknowledgement that it's not just white people that can be racist.



The stereotyping 'all' part.




Which inevitably leads to two possible conclusions :

1. That there is bias in marking against non-whites.
2. That they are genuinely less able than their white counterparts.

The first conclusion can best tested by having worked marked independently & anonymously, to eliminate bias.

The second one is far harder to assess, because even to suggest it is considered racist.




But only knuckle-dragging extreme-right loons blame all Muslims for the crimes of a few extremists.

Posted by: popchartfreak Sep 2 2017, 06:30 PM

It's a survey based on opinions of students of the staff, not exam marking and actual results. It may also be warped by the one of the supposed reasons behind the survey, which is to put up costs for students who over-egg some courses.

Logically, since it's more difficult to do well if you aren't a white male in the world of work, minorities should in theory be better than non-minorities in order to achieve the same. One would assume that it's an inbuilt unconscious (or conscious) bias by enough students to reduce the marks of minorities, though clearly not all students or they would get very poor results instead of marginally less-good than white males.

Your definition of knuckle-dragging extreme right loons is beautiful as it encompasses half of the British press and the current White House staff. Case proven m'lud. Thanks.

Posted by: Qassändra Sep 3 2017, 01:38 AM

I'm really not sure what part of this you find so hard to understand. We live in a country and society that is much wealthier for the riches it gained from empire and slavery. Even the poorest in this country are better off than the poorest in most other developed countries without those histories because of the societal benefits (a stronger economy, better infrastructure) that have come from that wealth. Even if you don't necessarily have those benefits at a given time, you have more opportunities than the poorest elsewhere because of those benefits. Calling that a stereotype is just nonsensical.

Posted by: jjake Sep 3 2017, 03:17 AM

i've known online munroe for many years now from the sidelines and i think she asks a lot of good questions but i'm confused as to why she ever agreed to model for l'oréal in the first instance

sort of self defeating

Posted by: vidcapper Sep 3 2017, 05:57 AM

My definition of extreme-right is clearly rather narrower than yours - I refer only to groupings like neo-Nazis, KKK, BNP, 'Britain First' etc - not anyone who is part of the political Establishment.



Is it?

White people are expected not to make prejudiced statements, and are castigated if/when they do, so why should non-whites be considered for immunity from the same ostracism? The idea that whites 'deserve' prejudice against them for the actions of their ancestors will just perpetuate the cycle of injustice.

Posted by: Qassändra Sep 3 2017, 06:36 PM

You really seem completely incapable of understanding that "whites have benefited from racism" is not a 'prejudiced' statement but merely an unambiguous statement of fact akin to saying what a country's GDP is, so I don't know what more I can say on this really. Particularly when you make up quotes like saying whites 'deserve' prejudice against them. Who said that? Where?

Posted by: vidcapper Sep 4 2017, 10:27 AM

That's not a lot different from saying they benefited from the Romans, or the Vikings, who incidentally both used similar methods to the British Empire.

To be fair, Britain *was* one of the first European countries to abolish the slave trade.



I wasn't quoting anyone - I never claimed to be.

Posted by: popchartfreak Sep 4 2017, 11:40 AM

1. You SAID: "But only knuckle-dragging extreme-right loons blame all Muslims for the crimes of a few extremists"

So presumably you agree that the statement is wrong and you need to clarify that certain groups who aren't OFFICIAL card-carrying members of far-right groups also hold those views, such as "Muslim-banning" Trump (who clearly DOES take the view that Muslims from countries that he doesn't have property interests in are terrorists, not to mention asserting that cities in the UK are no-go areas due to Muslims) and the UK right-wing press, who push anti-muslim stories (mostly made-up BS) constantly.

Alternatively the statement is correct, and so is my assertion that it's a beautiful description of politicians like Trump and Farage (recall his immigrant poster?) who blatantly DO blame all Muslims for the crimes of a few extremists and use that to scare people they wish to manipulate.

2. Everybody is subject to the same discrimination law in the UK, whites or non-whites. That some (white people) choose not to prosecute ANYONE who contravenes it is not the fault of non-whites or other whites, that's individuals not doing their job. As others have already said, NOBODY IS SAYING WHITES DESERVE PREJUDICE BECAUSE OF HISTORY. That's your flawed interpretation of the statement "Minorities deserve the SAME rights and opportunities, ESPECIALLY given racist history".

You manage to infer statements that aren't there, or alternatively contradict yourself, in one short sentence. I think we are all "100%" in noting a lack of clarity in your statements.