Apparently Barack "isn't black"

[nomadthethird]

Yes, race and fashion are really similar, thanks for pointing that out.

 

[poetix]

I feel bad for the U.K. I really do.

As soon as people begin making some progress so women and minorities can get ahead, you inevitably have a backlash of anti-intellectualism where White Men get all hot and bothered over the fact that people no longer want to hand over all the world's power to them. "Gender" has to be real, see, because a) most people think it is, and that's good enough, and b) if it isn't, then my puny sexuality has no grounds in "reality" boohoo.

Go read Maxim or Stuff and leave us horrible PC race disbelievers to ourselves.

You are now ranting at someone who thinks almost the exact opposite of what I think (and pretty much the opposite of what I've actually said I think), which is quite funny really. Isn't the internet wonderful?

 

[nomadthethird]

Yeah. FFS. This was a good thread for a page or two.

But isn't this what always happens when there's a good thread on here about race or gender or difference general?

Somebody comes on and gets all upset because people have dared to assert that pretending that race is some sort of biological fact is destructive.

Yeah, it's stupid. But it's like clockwork.

 

[nomadthethird]

You are now ranting at someone who thinks almost the exact opposite of what I think (and pretty much the opposite of what I've actually said I think), which is quite funny really. Isn't the internet wonderful?

I asked you who these horrible PC people were? Your only example, to my knowledge, were people who agreed with Judith Butler and some queer theorists. If you believe that race is not a fact, but a social construct, whither the howling about others who agree with you?

Social construct and "real" are not necessarily mutually exclusive categories, after all.

 

[jambo]

In a sense this whole question is about meta-linguistics isn't it? Who are these people saying Obama is 'not black' or 'not black enough', and what do they mean by it and does it matter? Is it so interesting that some people say stupid things? Are there really that many of them? My guess would be that john eden is right that the general perception in the US is that he is black. And I think we can agree that he will have at least some awareness of what it means to be black in the US.

 

[jambo]

As soon as people begin making some progress so women and minorities can get ahead, you inevitably have a backlash of anti-intellectualism where White Men get all hot and bothered over the fact that people no longer want to hand over all the world's power to them. "Gender" has to be real, see, because a) most people think it is, and that's good enough, and b) if it isn't, then my puny sexuality has no grounds in "reality" boohoo.

Gender is real in that people treat it as real so it has effects. Isn't that the sense in which we are allowing ourselves to talk about 'race'?

 

[waffle]

He's not going to be a revolutionary, but barring the possibility of a revolutionary being elected president, I'm more than glad to accept Obama's policies as an alternative to the ones we've had for the past 25 years.

Perhaps I'm being premature in asserting that "he will soon become" a lapdog of the liberal status quo; rather, he is in serious danger of becoming so: he's already being advised to water down his supporters' expectations (with the Democratic Leadership Council's William Glaston exclaiming, "expectations are sky-high", prefiguring Obama's future role as a steadying centrist).

I have no idea who Le Colonel Chabert is ....

HaHaHaHaHaHaHa!. If only. Actually, I think Poetix is just being facetious: Chabert is a Jewish American heiress (daughter of a former CEO of one of the US' big three TV networks) residing in Paris (though not the May '68 one), an, erm, 'old-fashioned' self-righteously social-realist Trotskyist (when she takes on a 'cause' [the "Zizek is a fascist" one has been continuing for at least the past 3 years], it's best to leave the room ... ).

 

[nomadthethird]

In a sense this whole question is about meta-linguistics isn't it? Who are these people saying Obama is 'not black' or 'not black enough', and what do they mean by it and does it matter? Is it so interesting that some people say stupid things? Are there really that many of them? My guess would be that john eden is right that the general perception in the US is that he is black. And I think we can agree that he will have at least some awareness of what it means to be black in the US.

I think he has quite a bit of awareness of what it means to be black, but I'm not so sure he's perceived as black rather than mixed.

You have to understand how many people here are mixed and how common it is and how much "mixed-racial" heritage is a part of how people talk about race in the U.S. for the past 20 years or so. I think hardline "race is a fact" racists probably tend to think of Obama as black only. Most other people see him as culturally sort of sitting the fence, so to speak, based on his life experiences and certain advantages and achievements.

I think the reason Obama didn't make an issue of his "blackness" is because he knows that it would have been detrimental to civil rights issues were he to play his blackness as many play the "race card", as a shortcut to credibility among black voters. Also, he didn't need to--he could run on issues alone and win. And that's what made his victory so sweet. He won because he was a great candidate, not because he was a token black candidate. This is the sort of victory black people have been dreaming of.

Some people think it's equally huge that a son of an immigrant was elected. There are so many ways in which his victory was helpful to race relations in the U.S.

 

[Mr. Tea]

But you can look at an Italian person and say "hey, s/he has dark hair, and eyes, and a certain look that makes it obvious that he's Italian and shares genes with other Italians" just like you can say "that person looks black" or jamaican, or whatever...ethnicity is not the same as race

OK, agreed so far:

ethnic groups are groups that share common religion and nationality and culture...I think talking about difference w/r/t humans makes much more sense in terms of a less abstract grouping system such as ethnicity. Ethnicity acknowledges the cultural basis of difference, and the geographical basis of shared genes. It's not a perfect way to talk about difference, but I think it's less problematic than using "race" without challenging its conceptual basis.

I guess I would define race, then, as "the genetic component of ethnicity", i.e. that which makes an Italian look Italian and a Norwegian look Norwegian (and a Kenyan look Kenyan, etc. etc. etc.). I think it's fallacious and dishonest to say that anyone who acknowledges this must necessarily assume that intellect or personality type is similarly correlated - because such things are a) influenced hugely by circumstances of upbringing (diet, education, home life and so on - all of which have a big socioeconomic aspect) and b) in many ways a product of the wider cultural norms of that society - and furthermore c) that even to the extent that such things have a genetic component, it's bound to be far more complicated than something like skin colour or hair type. Though of course there are people who do believe there is such a correlation - well, so much for them. I don't.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Can people maybe try and sideline the bitchiness, one upmanship, willy waving, tit for tat, point scoring, snappy comebacks, pseudo stalking, personality clash, snideness?

Dude, this in an internet forum!

 

[nomadthethird]

Gender is real in that people treat it as real so it has effects. Isn't that the sense in which we are allowing ourselves to talk about 'race'?

Yeah, of course.

I don't understand what's at all wrong with Judith Butler's ideas, because she's merely describing the process by which gender identity comes to be constructed. This construct is entirely real.

But from what Poetix seems to be saying, he doesn't believe that the two ideas are reconcilable. I can't really tell *what* Poetix is saying, tbf.

 

[nomadthethird]

OK, agreed so far:


I guess I would define race, then, as "the genetic component of ethnicity", i.e. that which makes an Italian look Italian and a Norwegian look Norwegian (and a Kenyan look Kenyan, etc. etc. etc.). I think it's fallacious and dishonest to say that anyone who acknowledges this must necessarily assume that intellect or personality type is similarly correlated - because such things are a) influenced hugely by circumstances of upbringing (diet, education, home life and so on - all of which have a big socioeconomic aspect) and b) in many ways a product of the wider cultural norms of that society - and furthermore c) that even to the extent that such things have a genetic component, it's bound to be far more complicated than something like skin colour or hair type. Though of course there are people who do believe there is such a correlation - well, so much for them. I don't.

But wait--Italians, Norwegians, Kenyans, aren't a race. That's not what the word means, and the concept is different. I have no problem with the idea that there's a genetic component to ethnicity, it's just that I don't think the concept of race is useful in discussing this component.

 

[nomadthethird]

Jewish American heiress (daughter of a former CEO of one of the US' big three TV networks) residing in Paris

Don't I wish. I'm flat broke.

 

[jambo]

I think he has quite a bit of awareness of what it means to be black, but I'm not so sure he's perceived as black rather than mixed.

OK

You have to understand how many people here are mixed and how common it is and how much "mixed-racial" heritage is a part of how people talk about race in the U.S. for the past 20 years or so. I think hardline "race is a fact" racists probably tend to think of Obama as black only. Most other people see him as culturally sort of sitting the fence, so to speak, based on his life experiences and certain advantages and achievements.

I think the reason Obama didn't make an issue of his "blackness" is because he knows that it would have been detrimental to civil rights issues were he to play his blackness as many play the "race card", as a shortcut to credibility among black voters. Also, he didn't need to--he could run on issues alone and win. And that's what made his victory so sweet. He won because he was a great candidate, not because he was a token black candidate. This is the sort of victory black people have been dreaming of.

Some people think it's equally huge that a son of an immigrant was elected. There are so many ways in which his victory was helpful to race relations in the U.S.

Yes I think we are all mostly aware of all that. And we have ethnically mixed people and running water in the UK too, for the time being anyway.

But I was going back to the OP really, the issue at hand being that 'some people' were saying that BO is not black or not black enough and what that means.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Don't I wish. I'm flat broke.

Hang on, a year ago you were waving your wad in Vimothy's face! What gives?

 

[waffle]

Gender is real in that people treat it as real so it has effects. Isn't that the sense in which we are allowing ourselves to talk about 'race'?

This is very similar to the hyperstitional argument, isn't it? As soon as these ‘fictions’ are produced ("constructed"), they function in and as reality. As a result, it isn’t that belief in race produces race as "a biological fact", but rather that such belief produces equivalent effects to those the reality of race would produce.

 

[Mr. Tea]

That's not what the word means, and the concept is different. I have no problem with the idea that there's a genetic component to ethnicity, it's just that I don't think the concept of race is useful in discussing this component.

Well then ultimately it seems we agree. I think you were assigning the word 'race' a definition that was 'harder', or at least more old-fashioned, than the one I was using - I mean, that's the definition you were assigning to my usage of the term. As I said at the time in the 'bell curve' thread, it's a bit like the word 'atom': it's an ancient word which is still used, but the concept it encapsulates is very different from that which was assigned to it by the first people who coined the term.

 

[nomadthethird]

Hang on, a year ago you were waving your wad in Vimothy's face! What gives?

First, I never waved anything in anyone's face. I made a point that everyone who makes a lot of money doesn't necessarily deserve it (I was a pretty lousy employee everywhere I worked.) Then Vimothy translated the amount of salary I made from dollars into pounds somewhere along the line. I made a lot of money, especially for my age, but I spent even more.

As I've already said, I stopped going to my job in protest after I sat in a meeting with the Crestor brand team at Astra-Zeneca and the fuckers LAUGHED about the fact that it was shutting down people's kidneys. This had just happened to my grandfather. It was a sore subject. I was pissed. It was hard enough to write pharmaceutical grants for "medical education" "research" publications, even harder to watch these companies bribe doctors into prescribing shit, and even worse to be asked to lie on grant apps. I'd had it. So one day I stopped going so they'd fire me.

My grandmother died the day after Christmas, then my 23-year-old cousin died a few months later in a substance-related car accident. This precipitated all kinds of problems I was having already. My therapists told me I'd be unhappy until I did something I really wanted to do so I decided to apply to medical school. I'm only working sporadically at "off the books" jobs.

 

[nomadthethird]

This is very similar to the hyperstitional argument, isn't it? As soon as these ‘fictions’ are produced ("constructed"), they function in and as reality. As a result, it isn’t that belief in race produces race as "a biological fact", but rather that such belief produces equivalent effects to those the reality of race would produce.

Exactly.

 

[nomadthethird]

I suppose my bad experiences at work have made me very suspicious of "fact and figures" from researchers. I've seen firsthand how the "numbers" game works in Big Science and it's scary what passes as good work. This has made me even more suspicious of institutions and institutional analysis than I ever was...

Hence me questioning Vim's graphs whenever he posts them :slanted: