This is racist, right?

[Derived Absurdity]

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/ ... bout-putin" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And yet Kennan's advice remains virtually as relevant today as it was 75 years ago. Of course, had the Soviet collapse facilitated a truly democratic flowering, this would not be the case. But that didn't happen. It probably couldn't have happened, despite the noble intentions of Boris Yeltsin, Bill Clinton, and Jeffrey Sachs. It was probably too much to ask a basically medieval country to become modern in a decade. Instead, Russia reverted to its primal self, to Vladimir Putin, whose compact with the Russian people is a somewhat attenuated version of Josef Stalin's own. Kennan, it seemed, had figured out the whole game before we even started to play it.

I mean, seems pretty straightforwardly racist to me. But it's about Russia, so I guess not.

[the_dork_lord]

I'm not sure what this guy is trying to say. That Russia is unstable? This seems like a lot of words to make that point.

[Derived Absurdity]

His point is that Russia is terrible and evil and America is wonderful and good. But I just thought that passage above was... icky. Dafuq does "primal self" mean? How is that remotely okay to say? What would it mean if someone said Iran had a "primal self"? It would be just another way of deploying the racist trope that Arabs can't handle democracy. But since this is Russia, I guess it's acceptable.

[phe_de]

Since Russian is not a race, it's not racist.
Unless he is racist against Caucasians; and this includes Germany, who behaved worse than Russia after 1919.

[BruceSmith78]

I hate to say it, but I sort of agree with phe de, well at least his first sentence. I don't think racism against caucasians is even worthy of the term. It's like calling a pond an ocean. This is more like statism.

However, I think there might be a point to be made that saying countries that don't follow the West's lead and build a democracy are primal and medieval is a racist statement, as even though he's talking about Russia here, this rhetoric can then be applied to a lot of countries primarily populated by minorities. And for much of his audience, that's precisely what will happen. In that sense he's perpetuating racism, so it is racist.

So I don't agree with phe de?

[BruceSmith78]

Also, I think Iranians are Persians, not Arabs, and technically Arabs and Persians are all white, at least from a genetics perspective, but race as it's applied in racism is really a social construct, so the fact that they're genetically white doesn't matter.

[Derived Absurdity]

Okay, but anti-Slav bigotry from white Europeans has been a significant force for centuries. Would it not be racism to describe Hitler's views of Slavs as "subhuman" or Untermenschen? It's collective dehumanization of an entire group of people which has been used as justification for centuries of oppression and violence. I mean, the word "slave" comes from "Slav".

As you said race is a social construct so I'm not sure that it matters if Slavs fall under the genetic/anthropological category of Caucasian. It ("Slavic") is an arbitrary category used to justify collective oppression, like other racial categories. If one thought Jews were white, that wouldn't mean anti-Semitism wouldn't be a form of racism.

[OpiateOfTheMasses]

I think this is "angels dancing on the head of a pin" territory as to whether it's racism, cultural bias or some other form of hatred. The bottom line is that it's bigotry to malign an entire group of people based on some arbitrary characteristic.

[Derived Absurdity]

Um... wow. Forget the OP, I just read this.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... inton.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So I guess we're at a point now where exhibiting blatant racism like this is just... okay. It's not banished to the margins anymore, it's written by a "respectable" pundit in New York Magazine. I don't even know the world anymore. I thought explicit racism was considered bad.

[Gendo]

Um... wow. Forget the OP, I just read this.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... inton.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So I guess we're at a point now where exhibiting blatant racism like this is just... okay. It's not banished to the margins anymore, it's written by a "respectable" pundit in New York Magazine. I don't even know the world anymore. I thought explicit racism was considered bad.

I am so very, very confused.

Does that page contain 2 unrelated articles mashed into 1? First there's a bunch of stuff about how terrible a candidate Hillary Clinton was. Ok, good so far. Then a bunch of stuff about how horrible and insane Donald Trump is. Ok, still with you.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, there's a racist rant against Asians and Jews. HUH???? Was that supposed to have anything whatsoever at all to do with the article? Did the author accidentally cut and paste the wrong set of text to insert the last section of his article? Did he get knocked out from behind while typing and replaced with someone else?

[Derived Absurdity]

No, that's apparently just his style. I don't get it either.

I would say it's less a racist rant against Asians and Jews and more of a racist rant against blacks and Hispanics using Asians and Jews as his cudgel. (Of course, Asians and Jews are also severely damaged by this guy's thinking patterns, but they weren't his primary targets.) White people in America have been doing that for about forty years.

[Gendo]

I don't get how that's a style. Unless his intent is just to ramble on about a bunch of topics that are on his mind, one after another. But in that case, why have 2 completely related sections first, before randomly going somewhere else without any segue?

[phe_de]

I don't get how that's a style. Unless his intent is just to ramble on about a bunch of topics that are on his mind, one after another. But in that case, why have 2 completely related sections first, before randomly going somewhere else without any segue?

I just looked at some other columns of his; and it seems to be the norm. Like when he talks about Trump's foreign policy (or lack of coherence in it), and then concludes with an article about sexuality and gender.

Maybe Andrew Sullivan (the columnist) has a certain space to fill every week; and if he can't keep to one subject, he just fills it with other stuff.
If Nymag gives him a platform and is ok with the subjects, so be it.

[Anakin McFly]

That guy seems to believe that it's not possible for marginalised groups to be racist or sexist against their own or other marginalised groups of people - like with his earlier comment that since so many women voted for Trump over Clinton, misogyny obviously had nothing at all to do with it. I'm disturbed that an apparently respected writer is making internet-teenager-level arguments.

Asian-Americans, like Jews, are indeed a problem for the “social-justice" brigade.

I've never seen anyone in that brigade think so.

I mean, how on earth have both ethnic groups done so well in such a profoundly racist society? ... Yet, today, Asian-Americans are among the most prosperous, well-educated, and successful ethnic groups in America. What gives?

Vast swaths of Asian Americans are living deep in poverty, but they're not the ones people talk about because they spoil their model minority narrative. Plus not having to deal with the aftermath of slavery and Jim Crow, and how many Asian Americans are relatively new arrivals who were often already the best and brightest of their respective countries, plus how racism doesn't work unilaterally across all non-white groups, plus the history of Asian-Americans being specifically propped up in order to be used as examples to criticise black people, etc.

Regarding the OP - the answer hinges completely on how you define 'racism' and 'race'.

[BruceSmith78]

I think this is "angels dancing on the head of a pin" territory as to whether it's racism, cultural bias or some other form of hatred. The bottom line is that it's bigotry to malign an entire group of people based on some arbitrary characteristic.

I was gonna respond with something like this, but laziness is a bitch. I've never heard the angels dancing on the head of a pin thing either.

[Derived Absurdity]

Yet more blatant, explicit racism from respectable establishment media with no one noticing because it's directed against our Official Enemies. I hate this country.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... ff75b48503" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Boomer]

Just read through that article on North Korea quickly so perhaps I missed something, but what exactly was racist in the article?

Comparing North Koreans to ants and robots?

[Derived Absurdity]

Saying an entire country is robotic and basically comparing it to an infestation is racist, yes. Especially when you use the orientalist label "hermit kingdom". Asians are not robots or bugs, they're humans.

I don't know if bigoted generalizations against entire countries populated by non-whites is racist, but I'm going to keep calling it racist until we get a better word for it.

Edit: I have a hard time believing this person would so easily and cavalierly slander Denmark or Canada or whatever as ant colonies or some shit, is what I'm saying.

[Anakin McFly]

I didn't know that 'hermit kingdom' was an orientalist term. It's been applied to non-Asian countries too, and South Korea also uses the term to describe North Korea. So while its origins may have been orientalist, I don't think it still has those connotations - this is the first time I've heard otherwise.

I also hear similar terms for North Korea used here by Asian people/media. It's complicated because of Western influence and all that, but describing people of North Korea as robotic isn't necessarily racist or suggesting that it's got anything to do with them being Asian, even though stereotypes add another layer to that.

Regardless, I've been meaning to ask - what's your take on North Korea? Are things as bad there as the media makes it seem? How much of that is propaganda, where there may be lots of people who are happy there but whose voices are being deliberately silenced?

[OpiateOfTheMasses]

I think things are pretty bad in North Korea for the average "man in the street". Everything I've seen about the place makes me think of 1984 - they are constantly under surveillance, anyone not deemed to be sufficiently patriotic will be questioned, their "military first" policy is perpetually leading to shortages of common goods and food throughout the country and they are dependent on foreign aid to avoid mass starvation.

Of course the brain washing of everyone from birth will help - if they're taught that "this is the way things should be" and "this is great" repeatedly enough it will help many people belief it (even if only partially). And the lack of access to the internet, foreign TV, films, books or any other media will severely limit what they can compare their lives too. But many of them will hear things and see things and rumours will go around and they will be aware...

I'm reminded of when the previous Kim Jong... Il? (was it?) died and the whole country burst into "spontaneous" mourning for several days. There were reports of people "going missing" after the secret police picked them up because they hadn't been crying enough. I wouldn't want to have to worry about upset people think I am when one of our heads of state dies...

[Derived Absurdity]

Regardless, I've been meaning to ask - what's your take on North Korea? Are things as bad there as the media makes it seem? How much of that is propaganda, where there may be lots of people who are happy there but whose voices are being deliberately silenced?

Well, it's really complicated. I know at least in the states, virtually everything we hear about North Korea is ruling class propaganda. (Of course, everything we hear about all our Official Enemies is ruling class propaganda, but it's taken to an extreme with North Korea.) There's a cute thing some people made up called the North Korean Law of Journalism, which states that "editorial standards are inversely proportional to a country's enemy status". Meaning the US media can make up absolutely anything it wants to to about a country with zero journalistic pushback, as long as that country is a designed enemy of the United States. There's even a Wikipedia page detailing how unreliable the coverage of North Korea is, and how it passes through a lot of distorting filters before it reaches American ears. And there's a lot of debunked myths that are "reported" and credulously repeated by many people (like Opiate) about North Korea, so it's hard to know what's true and what's not.

There's also a lot of necessary historical context to how North Korea behaves which most people are completely ignorant of. For example, "This Must Be the Place" by Dave Chaddock records how the US used biological weapons on North Korea and murdered tens of millions of its people not that long ago, a significant chunk of its population, and tried to cover it up for decades. It's forgotten in America, but not in North Korea. Here's a quick review of it: https://shadowproof.com/2015/03/28/book ... ver-since/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Another book I liked is "The Crimes of Empire" by Carl Boggs, which detailed how America essentially wiped North Korea off the map.

Here are some articles that give some historical overview:

http://apjjf.org/-Charles-K.-Armstrong/ ... ticle.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://gowans.wordpress.com/2007/03/03 ... rth-korea/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.thenation.com/article/this- ... vocations/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.globalresearch.ca/an-antidot ... korea/1663" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://valtinsblog.blogspot.com/2017/04 ... QJtf_nyvIU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You can't understand how North Korea works without this historical context. And I wouldn't 100% trust these articles either, but at least they give another perspective.

As for how life in North Korea is now - well, I mean, I don't know. There are many reporters who have said it's not the dystopian cartoon hellworld it's made out to be, even though it is still pretty bad. And lots of "defectors" who have given us stories about how awful it is have had their stories completely fall apart. Basically... trust no one.

So that's my take. Shit's complicated, yo. I don't really know what to believe, except that my instinct is to support the abused underdog and in the battle between North Korea and the United States... well.

[Anakin McFly]

Thanks for the links.

Yeah, I never know who to trust either - especially when many writers are themselves trustworthy people acting in good faith but using sources that are misleading. It's frustrating how difficult it can be to get to the truth of almost anything, given the layers of intentional and unwitting myths and how the average person doesn't have the time or ability or knowledge to delve that deep into anything and discern what is true.

Not to mention that it's always terrifying to think that probably everything you know is a lie. It's difficult to function that way, so ignorance is bliss (and in most cases harmless and thus the best utilitarian option). I'm still inclined to believe that most people are not evil, including world leaders, because it often seems that actions that result in evil are instead driven by negligence, ignorance, carelessness, insensitivity, greed, recklessness, narrow-mindedness, lack of foresight and other smaller sins, and good people unaware of how their individual actions are part of a bigger plan of destruction; where perhaps things like the Holodomor might fall under those categories. But that's the faith I still have in humanity.

[Boomer]

Saying an entire country is robotic and basically comparing it to an infestation is racist, yes. Especially when you use the orientalist label "hermit kingdom". Asians are not robots or bugs, they're humans.

Eh, no it's not. There's zero indication those comments have anything to do with North Koreans' ethnicity, and context plus basic logic says it has everything to do with the regime they live under. When looking at the metaphors, ants being drones basically serving their queen and robots being programmed automatons, I think the comparisons are quite apt considering they North Koreans are subjugated to being part of a cult of personality to a psychotic tyrant.

I don't know if bigoted generalizations against entire countries populated by non-whites is racist, but I'm going to keep calling it racist until we get a better word for it.

Why not just stick with "bigotry"? Granted, I don't think the comments are bigoted, either, but it would be easier to argue than "racism". Further, I don't think adopting a policy of calling things racist at the drop of a hat does anything to actually combat racism. I'd argue it does quite the opposite, actually.

Edit: I have a hard time believing this person would so easily and cavalierly slander Denmark or Canada or whatever as ant colonies or some shit, is what I'm saying.

I can't imagine why he would. The difference in human rights violations and current standing in world politics between North Korea and those two countries are multiple orders of magnitude apart.

[Derived Absurdity]

Not to mention that it's always terrifying to think that probably everything you know is a lie. It's difficult to function that way, so ignorance is bliss (and in most cases harmless and thus the best utilitarian option).

Word.

That's genuinely disturbing to me. As I learn more about the world, the one thing I learn above everything else is how little it's even possible for one person to know things. I've become radically skeptical of my ability to actually know anything to any meaningful degree. I can't think of a good phrase for it... it's like an empirical existential crisis. It almost makes me want to give up on attempting to be an informed person and just live in a cave.

I mean, like in science. There's this thing with the replicability crisis and how like 60% of scientific papers can't be replicated. Entire fields like psychology are basically being thrown into question. In medicine people have claimed that "most published research findings are false". There might be entire scientific disciplines that rest on false foundations. And due to the corporatization and politicization of science (which has been a major problem since the Manhattan Project at least), you can't just think scientific findings are true, even if they're well-supported. I know science is self-correcting and all, but sometimes it takes an extremely long time to self-correct. And even after that we get our knowledge of scientific findings through the media, which distorts them 99% of the time.

And even then, just because something is scientific consensus doesn't mean it's actually true. I'm currently reading a book called "How Emotions Are Made", which purports to show that emotions are socially constructed rather than biologically innate. It's very interesting, and I don't know how true it is 'cause I'm only halfway through, but the fact that it's getting good reception among other researchers is fucking terrifying to me. I mean, if this book is true, that means basically everything we've known about emotions for thousands and thousands of years has been false. If you can't be sure you know basic things like "emotions are biologically innate", what can you think you know? You can't be sure of freaking anything. It's terrifying.

And it goes for other things... the media, history, statistics, academia in general... just things in general. And that's not even getting into your own mind... the unreliability of your memory, your perceptions, cognitive biases, and whatever.

It just makes me accept that humans weren't actually meant to know things, just eat and sleep and fuck each other. That's what I should be trying to do instead.

[Anakin McFly]

I know that feeling.

I get disillusioned with non-mainstream news as well because a lot of them also make stuff up, and are more likely to be run by individual journalists who don't have any form of checks and balances preventing them from slipping in their own questionable views. Others are just sucky journalists who can't do maths, like one local blogger who didn't know how to count and thought he had uncovered a government conspiracy to steal our money (which they might still be doing, just not the way he thought).

I read something about how evolution actually selects against truth. Partly because people who are able to manipulate facts to their benefit are more likely to survive and thus pass those traits on to future generations, and because everything we know - including science and first-hand experiences - are all filtered through the medium of human perception and biases and agendas. Trying to discern truth may therefore be a losing battle, which is something I find deeply disconcerting and yet oddly freeing. Maybe our goal instead when it comes to changing the world isn't so much about parsing truth from lies, but on figuring out how to ease suffering regardless of what the truth may be. You don't need facts to know when someone is hurting. There's all that evidence showing for example how facts aren't that useful in changing most people's opinions, because we tend to subconsciously dismiss those that don't fit our worldview. Whereas the primary factor in reducing racism is having close relationships with people of other races, and likewise with homophobia etc, where when we care about people who are dealing directly with those problems, we're more likely to care as well and fight to change things.

And perhaps facts (inasmuch as we can determine them) are for educating people after they have changed their minds, rather than as a tool to change their minds.

[phe_de]

Regardless, I've been meaning to ask - what's your take on North Korea? Are things as bad there as the media makes it seem? How much of that is propaganda, where there may be lots of people who are happy there but whose voices are being deliberately silenced?

I don't know much about North Korea, and I know that relying on fear-mongering articles from the Washington Post, or Marxist-Stalinist propaganda from various blog sites, is not a good idea.

But I believe that there is a good measure for determining how sucky a country is: The foot vote.
Meaning: How many people are trying to get in, vs. how many people are trying to get out?
And there, things are not looking good for North Korea.

The following article may be biased (I don't know), but it mentions that North Korea has laws against its citizens leaving the country.
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/ ... ed-country

Especially the following passage speaks volumes.

North Korea imposes very strict migration controls on the entries and exits of foreigners and of its citizens. Despite being a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights since 1981, North Korea does not uphold Article 12(2) of the law, which states, "Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own."

Instead, North Korea has long regarded unauthorized departure as an act of treason. Individuals who are caught emigrating or helping others to cross the border illegally are detained in political penal-labor colonies, known as kwan-li-so. Prisoners serve anywhere between two to seven years in these camps, where rates of torture and death are notoriously high.

Despite these mobility restrictions, the size of refugee flows from North Korea, particularly to China and countries in Southeast Asia and Mongolia, overwhelms immigration flows to North Korea from these countries.

In contrast, the USA don't prevent their citizens from leaving. And the USA are an immigration country.

So, if I have to decide which country is suckier, PDRK or USA, my vote goes to PDRK.

[Derived Absurdity]

I don't know much about North Korea, and I know that relying on fear-mongering articles from the Washington Post, or Marxist-Stalinist propaganda from various blog sites, is not a good idea.

muh golden mean

[Anakin McFly]

But I believe that there is a good measure for determining how sucky a country is: The foot vote.
Meaning: How many people are trying to get in, vs. how many people are trying to get out?

Numbers of those trying to get out, maybe, but people's desire to enter a country depends almost wholly on propaganda and tourism advertising.

Meanwhile, look what I found.
"Are men who like Asian women pedophiles?"
http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/4455506/1/

The title says it all, but you can click the thread for more racism racial realism.

[phe_de]

Meanwhile, look what I found.
"Are men who like Asian women pedophiles?"
http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/4455506/1/

The title says it all, but you can click the thread for more racism racial realism.

From the guy who advanced the "hypothesis" that white men who like Asian women have pedophile tendencies?
It's stupid; but I'm not sure it's racist.

[CashRules]

But I believe that there is a good measure for determining how sucky a country is: The foot vote.
Meaning: How many people are trying to get in, vs. how many people are trying to get out?

Numbers of those trying to get out, maybe, but people's desire to enter a country depends almost wholly on propaganda and tourism advertising.

Meanwhile, look what I found.
"Are men who like Asian women pedophiles?"
http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/4455506/1/

The title says it all, but you can click the thread for more racism racial realism.

I like the guy who said "A man should be taller than his woman." That's some good stuff right there. But at least it's okay if his woman is only an inch shorter but then I wonder if he would allow her to wear high heels.

[Anakin McFly]

From the guy who advanced the "hypothesis" that white men who like Asian women have pedophile tendencies?
It's stupid; but I'm not sure it's racist.

The racism was in:

1) suggesting that the only men who could possibly find Asian women attractive are pedophiles (because Asian women are naturally unattractive...?)

2) the implication (intended or otherwise) that all men including Asian men who are attracted to Asian women have pedophilic tendencies. Even limiting this to non-Asian men doesn't make it much better, because sexual attraction simply doesn't work that way. Carrying their logic to its end, it would be equally appropriate for an Asian man to be attracted to an 11 year old white girl and an 18 year old Asian girl, which is ridiculous.

3) the implication that all Asian women look like children, wtf. There's a very huge difference between a prepubertal Asian girl and a sexually mature woman, just as there is between an average Asian woman and Asian porn stars specifically made up to look and behave like young girls.

4) related to the above, treating the infantilisation of Asian women as natural, despite the continuing stereotype of Asian women as submissive, feminine, childlike, docile beings eager to serve men, and that's both inaccurate (speaking as someone who knows thousands of Asian women) and pretty racist

5) comments on that thread about how maybe (white) women are less interested in Asian men because they're less likely to be pedophiles, which completely ignores the historical emasculation of Asian men in Western culture, as well as how this phenomenon is specific to the contemporary Western world.

6) There's such a huge physical variety within the Asian population (largest racial demographic on the planet, yo), whereas they seem to be holding the image of young, nubile, girlish Asian women as not the minority but representative of their entire race


There's also a difference between suggesting that pedophilic tendencies might be at play in men (including Asian men) who are attracted to infantilised portrayals of Asian women - I'd be very suspicious of that too - and saying outright that anyone who's attracted to Asian women is a pedophile. Not to mention the question of what that would make people who are attracted to actual Asian children.

[Anakin McFly]

Meanwhile, this article makes me uncomfortable, as do the attitudes it criticizes: http://ricemedia.co/does-the-amdk-truly-exist/

which both stem from the interesting racial dynamics that result when white people here both receive discrimination for being a foreign minority (stealing our jobs and our wimmen) as well as preferential treatment due to white privilege*.

But how the author then decides to investigate this by asking white men here if they feel they're treated better or worse due to their race is a really weird and non-objective approach.

*There have been a handful of fascinating articles written on the dynamics of racial privilege here, like this: http://www.newmandala.org/the-double-ca ... privilege/