[The E]

Oh look, it's almost as if you're not the first one to bring that up

[Phantom Hoover]

maybe that's because it's a reasonable point to bring up or something!

[MP-Ryan]

Come on, I was speaking correct english there. I was specifically *not* saying you were being reductionist, I was saying that you were incorrectly deriding her reductionism.

That's my reading comprehension fail, sorry =P  However, I stand by my derision of the reductionism.

About all the rest I agree with you. Except for one minor point, where I don't necessarily agree with, but just to point out it's more a question of faith than just pure "logical reasoning", which is when you state that to solve racism we should never confront it directly.

I think there's a confusion here of sorts, and it's not exactly yours but still. On one hand, we could even call the economy in the US "racist" itself, in the sense that there's a really wide economical gap between blacks and whites that is perhaps much more obvious than in other countries. Now we can confront this by saying "let's not call blacks as blacks, let's just discuss poverty in general", which is basically avoiding the race question directly but rather to solve it indirectly. If inequality and immobility could tank somehow without one mention of race per se, then the question of race would be over by itself, the dream would be fulfilled, etc.,etc.

Personally speaking, I also think this is the best course of action. However, if one is slightly more paranoid, one could eventually get to the conclusion that any promoter against equality, against immobility, etc., is not only engaged in class struggle (the rich against the poor) but also in a racist struggle (I don't want no blacks in my condo!). It's really easy from this point to politicize racism, as it's so glaringly obvious when people discuss how any criticism of Obama is racist in itself (and many other examples). IOW, what muddles the issue is that for the greatest part, the "class struggle" in the US awkwardly shares a very similar Vonn diagram with the "race struggle".

It would be better if one could disentangle them, but as it is...

I've read this three times and I'm still not entirely sure what the first three paragraphs are driving at.  Yes, the overlap between class issues and race issues in the United States is quite significant, but all the more reason to treat the symptoms that drive racism generally than focus on 'racial' differences which inevitably lead to more racism.

Humans naturally define in-groups and out-groups in our way of thinking.  Reduce the otherness of certain people, and they suddenly become part of the in-group.  Most racism is driven by socioeconomic issues; some is driven by religious and cultural differences - in all cases, highlighting similarities over differences is how racism is best fought, not perpetuating the stereotypes, which is what the author of the OP piece insists on doing.

[MP-Ryan]

Obligatory Scalzi: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/

His point is legitimate, but it still doesn't correct for socioeconomics and culture.  Straight, white male is not the easiest 'setting' in some countries, though it certainly is in the American experience.

What he - and the original author in the OP - neglect to confront is how socioeconomics are brutally confounded with race.  Part of the reason why African Americans in particular experience regular racism in the United States is because of the socioeconomic legacy of slavery.  Canada has a similar problem with aboriginals - much of the racism directed at aboriginals has more to do with socioeconomics than their race (evidenced in part by certain reserves that are socioeconomically quite prosperous and where there are far fewer racial conflicts between the aboriginal population and the general population).

Most racism is driven not by identifiable racial characteristics, but by the socioeconomic stereotypes associated with it.  Sure, straight white males appear to have it easier than nearly everyone else in the United States, but that's because they are stereotyped as middle-class, conformist, and socially successful.  There are a lot of straight white males in the prison system in particular that would strongly - and rightly - disagree that they have it easier than anyone else.

As I keep saying over and over - racism is all about defining an out-group.  As a society, we tend to define our outgroups by what we most value.  What Western societies most value is social and economic success.  Minorities experience the catch-22 of lower socioeconomic success and visible status as an outgroup, which are self-reinforcing and create poverty traps.  Interestingly though, poverty traps exist for most immigrant populations as well, so visible 'race' is clearly not the over-arching factor.  Race is instead a convenient shortcut for us lazy Homo sapiens to define our outgroups, which really aren't about visual characteristics at all.  Think of some of the common racist stereotypes associated with African Americans - lazy, poor, single-parent family, criminal, uneducated, drugs/gangs/violence.  Notice what all of those stereotypes have in common?  And here's the other interesting part - go to virtually any country where a certain visible minority experiences constant and oppressive racism, and you will find that almost those exact same factors are applied to that minority in that country.  This is why I advocate that the best way to tackle racism is to tackle the social problems associated with it, and not really talk about racism at all.  Human outgroup shortcuts fall apart when the only differences between the in-group and out-group are so minor as to be meaningless.  Even some of the worst [closeted] racists often have friends who are visible minorities - it's because when there are no differences but your racial heritage, racial heritage no longer matters.

TL;DR - Anyone who tries to argue racial issues while refusing to acknowledge socioeconomic realities that contribute to racial politics (or how racial politics are driven by socioeconomics) is doing it wrong.

[Polpolion]

Obligatory Scalzi: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/

I really want to disagree with him but I've casually made the very same analogy myself on several occasions. I hope it's not just me thinking that Scalzi is increasingly condescending in his articles on the subject.

maybe that's because it's a reasonable point to bring up or something!

Class and wealth aren't included in the difficulty because they can change intragenerationally; phenotype is comparatively immutable. This is where the analogy breaks down, essentially for the reasons MP-Ryan suggests. There are limits to any analogy and I don't think it makes it a bad analogy, I just think it limits how you can use it. Scalzi clearly isn't making an exhaustive, robust reflection on privilege.

[Phantom Hoover]

Class and wealth aren't included in the difficulty because they can change intragenerationally; phenotype is comparatively immutable.

Whereas gender and sexual orientation aren't?

[Polpolion]

Class and wealth aren't included in the difficulty because they can change intragenerationally; phenotype is comparatively immutable.

Whereas gender and sexual orientation aren't?

Aren't what? I would say gender and sexual orientation are things that are largely difficult to change in comparison to class and wealth.

[Phantom Hoover]

uh, i misread 'intra'

but: i see "class and wealth are easy to change!" used a lot in ways that presuppose a lot more social mobility than actually exists, especially in america

[Polpolion]

uh, i misread 'intra'

but: i see "class and wealth are easy to change!" used a lot in ways that presuppose a lot more social mobility than actually exists, especially in america

Yes, I'm not making a remark on the ease of mobility in and of itself, only on its ease in comparison to changing the other things we've mentioned.

[Phantom Hoover]

Well see this is kind of why I dislike use of analogies like this: he dismisses class as a 'stat' and so as fundamentally different from 'difficulty', where I would say it's still pretty similar to racial, gender and sexual inequality and shouldn't be kept separate like that.

[Polpolion]

Yeah, you really can make arguments for it either way. I can totally see why it would make sense to include it, and it's a perfectly valid thing to do. You'd just wind up saying it's analogous to a different game, which is a bit beyond the scope of the analogy. Which is a problem considering he went to that level of detail in the analogy without explaining it all that well.

[Luis Dias]

Perhaps adding the ability to buy in-game purchases as the rich kid some are, is a more consistent way to look at the analogy. One could imagine a MMO where buying stuff really would make a lot of things easier, while the kid who enters the game because it's a free-to-play (for he has no money at all) would have to work a lot harder.

I've read this three times and I'm still not entirely sure what the first three paragraphs are driving at.

Mostly the idea that there's a self-perpetuating cycle between racism and economic ostracism, in the sense that it is quite easy to recognize a poor, just look at his color!, and thus he/she gets a harder life, whereas if one's a white poor, he is still able to fool someone into thinking that perhaps he's /she's not as poor as it seems, there's ambiguity there, whereas if one's black he/she's most probably just poor and can be dismissed, even if he/she isn't! And these kind of self-reinforcing dynamics just reinforce the notion that economic policies can be "racist" by themselves.

Solving the problem by tackling only one thorn could be enough, but it's still a profession of faith to me.

For instance, if this was true, then one could argue that there was already sufficient time for this gap to close. Milton Friedman used to argue that the "black problem" was going to solve itself out due to simple but inevitable market forces. If for instance a certain company discriminated against hiring blacks, then the "wage price" for blacks would diminish (they would become a cheaper workforce for there would be more supply of it), and they would be then hired by non-discriminatory companies who would then compete against the discriminatory ones. The latter would be cheaper and thus more profitable, and thus would drive out the former out of the marketplace, getting rid of racism in a kind of an automated fashion. But this hasn't happened. The reason why is simple: companies do not look only to the wage of their employees in a hyper-rational manner. They are more complex and inherit all the societal prejudices within their corporate brand, which is what is then bought by the racist society at large.

Likewise, handing out money and so on might not be sufficient, and it even be counter-productive. To that end, the "47%" of "takers" could be rethorically substituted by "black thieves" or any other kind of unspoken truths (or spoken in unpublicited conferences) that everyone was however pretty much aware of.