[rayiner]

> Who is the more impressive student? Alice who had a stable suburban comfortable upbringing and went to prestigious private high school and got a 34 on her ACT, or Bob who grew up with a single father, went to a public high school in an high needs district, had to work a part time job after school and babysit his little brother every day before his dad got home and got a 29?

The kid with the higher score is a more impressive student. But there might certainly be a justification for giving the kid who had a tougher road to get there a leg up.

But that’s different from what we’re doing, where we apply racist assumptions and treat certain minorities as if they’re all from single parent homes, regardless of whether that’s true for the individual.

[Spivak]

> treat certain minorities as if they’re all from single parent homes

That’s not what you should have taken from that example at all, which is specifically why I used two white coded names. The point is that people grok individual disadvantages easily and giving them a leg up feels natural, and the same reasoning should be applied to systematic disadvantages.

> regardless of whether that’s true for the individual.

What you’re describing is looking at privilege through the lense of intersectionality, which nobody disagrees with.

[LawTalkingGuy]

> intersectionality, which nobody disagrees with.

Cough. Intersectionality assumes that people's problems are the problems of their identities, and that their identities are the ones visible to others. Black, short, etc.

Identity politics seems purpose-built by "allies" to explain why the allies don't actually listen to the people they're helping.

For instance, Thomas Sowell isn't treated as an individual who disagrees with BLM's policies instead he's declared to be a defective or traitorous black man who isn't part of the real black people group.

[rayiner]

Intersectionality also reframes all minority politics in terms of a framework defined by white people according to white people’s political priorities. It creates a framework where you “center POC” voices—but only if they agree with white people. To further your example, Justice Clarence Thomas is treated as unrepresentative of Black people even when his views are typical of a southern Black man. About half the Black people in his home state of Georgia oppose abortion, and Black people nationwide have similar views on same-sex marriage as Republicans. When Justice Thomas votes to overturn racial preferences in college admissions, he’ll be attacked as a tool of white supremacy—even though most Black people also oppose using race as a factor in admissions and jobs.

By contrast, progressive POC are always presented as representative of their race even when they’re not. Ilhan Omar is held up as the face of Islam in America. But there’s way more Trump voting Muslims than ones who are as far left as Omar.

[selimthegrim]

Gullah Geechee black nationalism is typical of a Southern black man?

[rayiner]

> That’s not what you should have taken from that example at all, which is specifically why I used two white coded names

What’s a “white coded name?” Most Black people have names similar to other Americans. E.g. here are the top names by ethnicity for babies in NYC in 2013: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/vs/baby-names-.... The top 3 Black baby names are Ethan, Jayden, and Aiden. Playgrounds in Park Slope are full of kids with those names.

[tptacek]

Don't be tendentious. There are obviously black-coded names, and decades of research about black-coded names.

[rayiner]

Yes, but he’s applying the inverse here: asking me to assume that a non-Black coded name doesn’t refer to a Black person. That rests on the stereotype that most Black people have Black-coded names.

[selimthegrim]

As someone who belongs to a Muslim family living in this country since the 1920s, I for once have to drop my jaw, side with rayiner and point out that you’re being the tendentious one (many such names like Jamal are in fact held by “whites” and non Blacks too)