I can't imagine anyone considering this sexist, except perhaps in a very literal, entirely benign way.
However, I wonder if anyone would feel differently if you had only girls and you were sad not to have a son. Is it possible for a man to express that thought without it having patriarchal overtones?
@james-k Yeah, I generally find them more clever than enjoyable, actually. Plus I'm too old (and my kids are a bit too young) to have any nostalgia going on for these particular theme songs.
My wife and I have been working our way through the Midsomer Murders series (from Masterpiece Mystery) -- nothing special but enjoyable enough. But occasionally it catches me off guard with its sly humor. Case in point: yesterday we watched an episode that involved a kid playing a violent video game, which figures into the murders, and I was waiting for the inevitable connection to be drawn between playing such game and committing actual acts of violence. Sure enough, it came at the end, but it was offered by the junior detective (whose role generally is to make simplistic, unsophisticated judgments that the senior detective proves wrong). The senior guy then responds (with a wink at the audience): "Yes, when killing becomes entertainment, we all seem to lose touch with reality." That was awesome, and completely unexpected.
I'm very far from being an expert on this stuff, but it seems like if this were an issue with the unions, then the management would be talking about how they'd love to make changes but the unions are in the way. In most of these stories it seems like management is insisting that the cops did nothing wrong. Which ultimately seems like a much bigger problem than the cops' original actions themselves.
Well, I think it depends on exactly who we're talking about and what we mean by "racism". Obviously there's the really odious sort of racism involving a belief that black people are inherently inferior and not worthy of respect -- those people are out there and I wouldn't try to defend them. There are also some people whose impressions are formed by their day-to-day experience -- e.g. a white police officer who sees the city jail cells dominated by black males is apt to draw conclusions based on this statistically limited dataset, without thinking about root causes and the vicious cycle people mentioned above.
But there are also the people whose impressions of the "angry young urban black man" are formed mostly by what they see in the news, TV shows, movies, etc., and what they hear from their like-minded neighbors -- you can call these people "racist" if you want, but to me it's a mistake to conflate them with the people who are actively hostile to black people in general. Sure, they're not doing statistical analysis, but to some extent they're doing the same sort of largely faulty but understandable risk assessment that we see in non-racial areas (e.g. the perceived risk to letting kids roam the neighborhood unsupervised, as was discussed here a while ago). IMHO, many in this last group are "reachable", but not if you just dismiss their fears and lump them with the truly hateful racists. Going back to your hypo, I think many people in this group would actually change their minds if there was such a dramatic change in the incidence of crime among young black males -- such a shift couldn't help but be reflected in the news and popular culture.
This is begging the question - one who sides with MacDonald doesn't have to think that race is the determinant, just that regardless of the underlying cause, it's perhaps a reasonable heuristic to treat this particular category (note: not just blacks in general, but young black males in particular) differently than other categories.
The whole debate that's referenced by Dennis and by the Cathy Young article he linked to is the extent to which the black community should explore the ways in which the negative attitudes towards this "demographic category" are amplified by the actions and culture of that category. This is not to say that racism isn't part of what's going on here, but it is to say that racism isn't the whole story and that just shouting "racist!" is unlikely to be productive. Do you disagree?
Mike, if you were magically transported back in time a few millenia, to a society where "slavery is wrong" was not axiomatic, how would you go about demonstrating the rightness of that statement? How helpful would it be for you to call freedom from enslavement a "moral right" or "human right" without a pre-existing consensus for that belief?
the American black population could have a five-year run of committing zero crimes… and it would barely move the needle for a lot — perhaps even most — people
Well, that's the big question. Leaving aside the unfortunate phrasing, MacDonald is saying that what we're dealing with isn't really racism per se but understandable reactions to the fact that the "young black male" demographic category is responsible for an out-sized percentage of crimes in many cities. You're saying that it's racism pure and simple. Is there any real evidence for either your or MacDonald's assertion that doesn't depend on pre-existing assumptions and beliefs? Does it really have to be all one or the other?
It's not just the MMLs who are responsible for the perceptions of "libertarians" -- it's also liberals who are reflexively hostile to libertarianism and who thus tend to treat the least reasonable elements of that class as representative.
This is not a slam on liberals in particular -- it's common enough among all sorts of ideological groupings. I see it with religion especially -- some conservatives are happy to join with Muslim extremists in the claim that "true" Islam is naturally extremist, dogmatic atheists stand with the fundamentalist christians in considering literalism as the only proper way to read the Bible, etc.
With this dynamic, the reasonable members of the class are dismissed as practically non-existent or as not "true" members of it at all, or they're told that if they want the perceptions to be different then they should damn well speak up.
I don't see that at all -- DesJarlais says he's anti-abortion, and re the allegations, he's variously either denying them or saying that he's subsequently seen the light. How is a pro-lifer supporting a candidate like that in anywhere near the same ballpark as an ethical vegetarian owning a slaughterhouse?
The shorthand way you say, “that kind of killing is just wrong” is to call it murder. As in “meat is murder” or “hey, hey, LBJ; how many kids did you kill today?” Or, for that matter, “abortion is murder.” Saying that doesn’t mean that you intend to treat everyone associated with the act as if they were literal murderers. It means you want to awaken people’s consciences to the fact that, if they really thought about the situation, they’d see that murder is not an inapt description. It means you want to change the world so that, one day, slaughtering a pig, or carpet-bombing a city, or having an abortion would be seen, socially, as an abominable act.
I suppose it's the same as sales in general -- no one really expects you to be 100% candid about the "product" you're selling, but there's a range from Acceptable to Tolerable to Scummy to Illegal. Maybe for charities we push the lines to the right somewhat, but overall the range is still there. I'm sure when you're doing that sort of work, there's a huge temptation to push the envelope though.
As for reputational consequences, I suppose that's possible but it would require someone actually being in country and seeing the gap between the pitch and the real situation -- could happen (whistleblower? competing charity?) but not a very high probability. As opposed to selling a tangible product that purchasers will be able to compare to what they were sold, these folks probably have good reason to believe that no one will ever be the wiser.
My daughter spent a month in a 3rd-world country putting together a brochure for an organization that provided housing and educational services there. Her job involved getting pictures that emphasized hunger and deprivation over contentment and optimism, and providing write-ups along the same lines, even though many of the people being served weren't especially miserable.
A friend of hers doing similar work in another country told her that one guy would throw coins into a public trashcan when kids were around and then take pictures of the kids fishing around for the money -- in the marketing materials it was strongly suggested that the kids were digging in the trashcans for scraps of food.
I guess you can rationalize this sort of thing when it's for a good cause (I'm sure it's effective), but it sure does feel slimy.
IMO the main problem with “look how far we still have to go on race” posts is that most of the time they're really "look how far those ignorant retrograde bastards over there still have to go on race" posts.
Oh, on a totally unrelated note, I uploaded that simple commenter-ignoring script I mentioned a long while ago to GreasyFork here.
I worked as a cashier at a seafood restaurant, and while I don't remember getting a specific range, my sense was that anything over a couple of bucks would be questioned (and of course any underages would be expected to be balanced out by overages in the long run).
The person who trained me also taught me to feel free to pocket any significant overage (after all it would just end up in the boss's pocket otherwise). One night I thought I was $60 over and took it home, but somehow I completely forgot to count a pile of money, and I got a call next day asking what happened. I professed ignorance and it was chalked up to some unscrupulous person swiping from the cash drawer when no one was looking. Not my proudest moment. Especially since the money I legimately earned from the job was windfall enough for teenage me and I hardly needed the extra.
Here it is. I'm skeptical, but it's an interesting theory.
While googling for that, I came across this post that pointed out the incongruous reactions of several liberal, worker-friendly professors at Yale to the grad student unionization effort back in 1995 (hint: not positive). I was mixed up in that as well (luckily I wasn't TAing when the grad student strike was called, so I was spared any difficult decisions), and the two professors I mostly dealt with reacted with a mixture of bemusement and disdain (but neither of them were liberals).
My denomination does require a couple of faith statements for membership, but the pastors make it clear to prospective members that they don't enforce any particular interpretation of those statements (e.g. you can think of God as a metaphor and Jesus as a teacher of wisdom). I don't know how typical this is, though -- I go to a very liberal New England church.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Am I Being Sexist?”
I can't imagine anyone considering this sexist, except perhaps in a very literal, entirely benign way.
However, I wonder if anyone would feel differently if you had only girls and you were sad not to have a son. Is it possible for a man to express that thought without it having patriarchal overtones?
On “Disney Afternoon!”
@james-k Yeah, I generally find them more clever than enjoyable, actually. Plus I'm too old (and my kids are a bit too young) to have any nostalgia going on for these particular theme songs.
"
Oops, left off the http -- let's try that again...
"
Ducktales Slow Jam
On “Sunday!”
My wife and I have been working our way through the Midsomer Murders series (from Masterpiece Mystery) -- nothing special but enjoyable enough. But occasionally it catches me off guard with its sly humor. Case in point: yesterday we watched an episode that involved a kid playing a violent video game, which figures into the murders, and I was waiting for the inevitable connection to be drawn between playing such game and committing actual acts of violence. Sure enough, it came at the end, but it was offered by the junior detective (whose role generally is to make simplistic, unsophisticated judgments that the senior detective proves wrong). The senior guy then responds (with a wink at the audience): "Yes, when killing becomes entertainment, we all seem to lose touch with reality." That was awesome, and completely unexpected.
On “On Ferguson”
I'm very far from being an expert on this stuff, but it seems like if this were an issue with the unions, then the management would be talking about how they'd love to make changes but the unions are in the way. In most of these stories it seems like management is insisting that the cops did nothing wrong. Which ultimately seems like a much bigger problem than the cops' original actions themselves.
"
@kazzy
Well, I think it depends on exactly who we're talking about and what we mean by "racism". Obviously there's the really odious sort of racism involving a belief that black people are inherently inferior and not worthy of respect -- those people are out there and I wouldn't try to defend them. There are also some people whose impressions are formed by their day-to-day experience -- e.g. a white police officer who sees the city jail cells dominated by black males is apt to draw conclusions based on this statistically limited dataset, without thinking about root causes and the vicious cycle people mentioned above.
But there are also the people whose impressions of the "angry young urban black man" are formed mostly by what they see in the news, TV shows, movies, etc., and what they hear from their like-minded neighbors -- you can call these people "racist" if you want, but to me it's a mistake to conflate them with the people who are actively hostile to black people in general. Sure, they're not doing statistical analysis, but to some extent they're doing the same sort of largely faulty but understandable risk assessment that we see in non-racial areas (e.g. the perceived risk to letting kids roam the neighborhood unsupervised, as was discussed here a while ago). IMHO, many in this last group are "reachable", but not if you just dismiss their fears and lump them with the truly hateful racists. Going back to your hypo, I think many people in this group would actually change their minds if there was such a dramatic change in the incidence of crime among young black males -- such a shift couldn't help but be reflected in the news and popular culture.
"
This is begging the question - one who sides with MacDonald doesn't have to think that race is the determinant, just that regardless of the underlying cause, it's perhaps a reasonable heuristic to treat this particular category (note: not just blacks in general, but young black males in particular) differently than other categories.
The whole debate that's referenced by Dennis and by the Cathy Young article he linked to is the extent to which the black community should explore the ways in which the negative attitudes towards this "demographic category" are amplified by the actions and culture of that category. This is not to say that racism isn't part of what's going on here, but it is to say that racism isn't the whole story and that just shouting "racist!" is unlikely to be productive. Do you disagree?
On “A Really Simple Theory of Moral Rights”
oops, obviously meant to reply to Mike Schilling below...
"
Mike, if you were magically transported back in time a few millenia, to a society where "slavery is wrong" was not axiomatic, how would you go about demonstrating the rightness of that statement? How helpful would it be for you to call freedom from enslavement a "moral right" or "human right" without a pre-existing consensus for that belief?
On “On Ferguson”
Well, that's the big question. Leaving aside the unfortunate phrasing, MacDonald is saying that what we're dealing with isn't really racism per se but understandable reactions to the fact that the "young black male" demographic category is responsible for an out-sized percentage of crimes in many cities. You're saying that it's racism pure and simple. Is there any real evidence for either your or MacDonald's assertion that doesn't depend on pre-existing assumptions and beliefs? Does it really have to be all one or the other?
On “The Two Libertarians”
It's not just the MMLs who are responsible for the perceptions of "libertarians" -- it's also liberals who are reflexively hostile to libertarianism and who thus tend to treat the least reasonable elements of that class as representative.
This is not a slam on liberals in particular -- it's common enough among all sorts of ideological groupings. I see it with religion especially -- some conservatives are happy to join with Muslim extremists in the claim that "true" Islam is naturally extremist, dogmatic atheists stand with the fundamentalist christians in considering literalism as the only proper way to read the Bible, etc.
With this dynamic, the reasonable members of the class are dismissed as practically non-existent or as not "true" members of it at all, or they're told that if they want the perceptions to be different then they should damn well speak up.
On “The Third Conversation”
Foo = go
Foo^2 = Foo*go
Foo^2-go^2 = Foo*go-go^2
(Foo+go)(Foo-go) = go(Foo-go)
(Foo+go) = go
Foo+Foo = Foo
2Foo = Foo
2 = 1
On “The Epistemology of the Question Universe”
This reminds me of the muffin joke:
So, two muffins are baking in an oven. One muffin turns to the other and says, "Man, it's hot in here!" The other says, "Holy shit, a talking muffin!"
On “Do Pro-Lifers Really Believe that Abortion Is Murder?”
I don't see that at all -- DesJarlais says he's anti-abortion, and re the allegations, he's variously either denying them or saying that he's subsequently seen the light. How is a pro-lifer supporting a candidate like that in anywhere near the same ballpark as an ethical vegetarian owning a slaughterhouse?
"
See Noah Millman on this -- especially:
On “The Second Most Immoral Job I Ever Had”
I suppose it's the same as sales in general -- no one really expects you to be 100% candid about the "product" you're selling, but there's a range from Acceptable to Tolerable to Scummy to Illegal. Maybe for charities we push the lines to the right somewhat, but overall the range is still there. I'm sure when you're doing that sort of work, there's a huge temptation to push the envelope though.
As for reputational consequences, I suppose that's possible but it would require someone actually being in country and seeing the gap between the pitch and the real situation -- could happen (whistleblower? competing charity?) but not a very high probability. As opposed to selling a tangible product that purchasers will be able to compare to what they were sold, these folks probably have good reason to believe that no one will ever be the wiser.
"
My daughter spent a month in a 3rd-world country putting together a brochure for an organization that provided housing and educational services there. Her job involved getting pictures that emphasized hunger and deprivation over contentment and optimism, and providing write-ups along the same lines, even though many of the people being served weren't especially miserable.
A friend of hers doing similar work in another country told her that one guy would throw coins into a public trashcan when kids were around and then take pictures of the kids fishing around for the money -- in the marketing materials it was strongly suggested that the kids were digging in the trashcans for scraps of food.
I guess you can rationalize this sort of thing when it's for a good cause (I'm sure it's effective), but it sure does feel slimy.
On “Orlando, Law Enforcement, the KKK, and “Post-Racial America””
IMO the main problem with “look how far we still have to go on race” posts is that most of the time they're really "look how far those ignorant retrograde bastards over there still have to go on race" posts.
Oh, on a totally unrelated note, I uploaded that simple commenter-ignoring script I mentioned a long while ago to GreasyFork here.
On “Big Monday 2014”
But isn't that line of attack basically ruled out by the fact that the administration already granted an exemption to non-profits?
"
Actually 5-2 (and not 1st Amendment but RFRA) -- two justices would rule against Hobby Lobby without reaching this point. See Volokh.
On “The Adjuncting of Academia: Reflections on the Increasingly Temporary Nature of Work”
(i made the mistake of including two links in a comment -- hoping some kind front-pager will fish it out of the filter for me...)
On “A Customer Service Worker’s Confession”
I worked as a cashier at a seafood restaurant, and while I don't remember getting a specific range, my sense was that anything over a couple of bucks would be questioned (and of course any underages would be expected to be balanced out by overages in the long run).
The person who trained me also taught me to feel free to pocket any significant overage (after all it would just end up in the boss's pocket otherwise). One night I thought I was $60 over and took it home, but somehow I completely forgot to count a pile of money, and I got a call next day asking what happened. I professed ignorance and it was chalked up to some unscrupulous person swiping from the cash drawer when no one was looking. Not my proudest moment. Especially since the money I legimately earned from the job was windfall enough for teenage me and I hardly needed the extra.
On “The Adjuncting of Academia: Reflections on the Increasingly Temporary Nature of Work”
Here it is. I'm skeptical, but it's an interesting theory.
While googling for that, I came across this post that pointed out the incongruous reactions of several liberal, worker-friendly professors at Yale to the grad student unionization effort back in 1995 (hint: not positive). I was mixed up in that as well (luckily I wasn't TAing when the grad student strike was called, so I was spared any difficult decisions), and the two professors I mostly dealt with reacted with a mixture of bemusement and disdain (but neither of them were liberals).
On “Everything I Believe about Religion, Part I: Fun Is Epistemologically Dangerous”
My denomination does require a couple of faith statements for membership, but the pastors make it clear to prospective members that they don't enforce any particular interpretation of those statements (e.g. you can think of God as a metaphor and Jesus as a teacher of wisdom). I don't know how typical this is, though -- I go to a very liberal New England church.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.