You said “not so long ago, African-Americans were treated unfairly”. The implication is that this is not currently the case. If you believe that, then you are quite misinformed, and while I wouldn’t say you should avoid discussing race, you should probably avoid telling people anything about it.
The implication is that this is not currently the case. If you believe that, then you are quite misinformed,
Not so long ago, black people in the US were legally assaulted if they drank from certain water fountains, sat in certain bus seats. They were taxed but not allowed to attend many tax-supported facilities including schools and universities. A black man walking with a white woman on a public street risked death from lynching. White’s who spoke in favor of blacks were also at risk and had crosses burned on their lawns to illustrate the threat.
For all intents and purposes, everything in my previous paragraph is either non-existent or attenuated by well more than a factor of 100 in the current united states.
WHO is being pedantic arguing over a compact expression of this change which is a tangential point to another point the post was primarily about? And WHY do so many other lesswrongers jump on that particular pedantic bandwagon?
The mindkiller isn’t an excuse to jump on a bandwagon, it is something that the rational might wish to practicing resisting.
Perhaps I did not word my comment as well as I could have. Racism still exists, but my point was that in most circles it is not acceptable to assert that one race is more intelligent than another—and respectable scientists will go out of their way to prove that different races are equally intelligent, even skewing the evidence to do so.
Yes, I read that when you posted it in the great-grandparent. You seem to start addressing the point in the first sentence-plus-a-few-words, but the rest is an unexplained digression. What you wrote strongly implies that African-Americans are no longer treated unfairly, and this seems like the most reasonable interpretation of your words. Regardless of what your other points in the post may or may not be, I suggest you either reword the sentence to reflect your intent (or, if it already reflected your intent, take the advice of AndrewHickey and myself and become more informed on racial issues before commenting on them further).
I copied and pasted that paragraph because it seemed to respond to your criticism. I did not mean to imply that racism does not exist. Rather, I meant that it is no longer commonly accepted that black people are less intelligent.
You said “not so long ago, African-Americans were treated unfairly”. The implication is that this is not currently the case. If you believe that, then you are quite misinformed, and while I wouldn’t say you should avoid discussing race, you should probably avoid telling people anything about it.
Not so long ago, black people in the US were legally assaulted if they drank from certain water fountains, sat in certain bus seats. They were taxed but not allowed to attend many tax-supported facilities including schools and universities. A black man walking with a white woman on a public street risked death from lynching. White’s who spoke in favor of blacks were also at risk and had crosses burned on their lawns to illustrate the threat.
For all intents and purposes, everything in my previous paragraph is either non-existent or attenuated by well more than a factor of 100 in the current united states.
WHO is being pedantic arguing over a compact expression of this change which is a tangential point to another point the post was primarily about? And WHY do so many other lesswrongers jump on that particular pedantic bandwagon?
The mindkiller isn’t an excuse to jump on a bandwagon, it is something that the rational might wish to practicing resisting.
Perhaps I did not word my comment as well as I could have. Racism still exists, but my point was that in most circles it is not acceptable to assert that one race is more intelligent than another—and respectable scientists will go out of their way to prove that different races are equally intelligent, even skewing the evidence to do so.
Yes, I read that when you posted it in the great-grandparent. You seem to start addressing the point in the first sentence-plus-a-few-words, but the rest is an unexplained digression. What you wrote strongly implies that African-Americans are no longer treated unfairly, and this seems like the most reasonable interpretation of your words. Regardless of what your other points in the post may or may not be, I suggest you either reword the sentence to reflect your intent (or, if it already reflected your intent, take the advice of AndrewHickey and myself and become more informed on racial issues before commenting on them further).
I copied and pasted that paragraph because it seemed to respond to your criticism. I did not mean to imply that racism does not exist. Rather, I meant that it is no longer commonly accepted that black people are less intelligent.