A politically incorrect example of a mathematical theorem:
When someone (a white person) is accused of racism, and they say—“I’m not racist, some of my best friends are black,”—they often get a response like—“This is exactly what a racist would say.”
Translated to mathematics, the fact that a white person has black friends, is considered an evidence for hypothesis that the person is a racist. Now if this line of reasoning is correct, then according to the law of conservation of expected evidence, not having black friends should be an evidence against hypothesis that the person is a racist. Therefore the correct defense would be: “I’m not racist, none of my best friends is black!”
I suspect that in real life this defense wouldn’t work either, but at least it would provide an opportunity to notice a confusion.
It is not the fact that the person has black friends that is supposed to count as evidence of their racism. It is the fact that they say that they have black friends in response to an accusation of racism. The response is the evidence, not the fact (if it is a fact) that the response is reporting. So what would be evidence against the racism hypothesis is not saying things like “I’m not racist; some of my best friends are black.”
I’m not saying this is great evidence either, but it is not as obviously ridiculous as thinking that not having black friends is evidence against racism. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if saying “Some of my best friends are black” is anticorrelated with actually having black best friends.
Exactly. I think this XKCD is relavent. If someone accuses you of being a bad teacher, “It’s okay! I always wear a condom while teaching” is a bad response. However, “It’s okay! I never wear a condom while teaching” is even worse.
Those lines of thought should never even come up as something one would think to say.
It is not the fact that the person has black friends that is supposed to count as evidence of their racism. It is the fact that they say that they have black friends in response to an accusation of racism.
Exactly. The claim is not “You have black friends, therefore you are racist.” The claim is “You think ‘I have black friends’ is a relevant thing to mention in response to being called on your apparently racist comments or behavior. It isn’t.”
Oh, I agree. However, folks often take the claim “Hey, that thing you just said was kinda racist” as meaning “YOU ARE AN AWFUL RACIST SCUMBAG GO DIE IN A FIRE” and respond accordingly.
That’s not too surprising given that ① people generally don’t like receiving criticism of their views or actions, and get defensive; and ② many people seem to believe that only “racists” (a kind of person, usually found in Nazi or Klan uniforms) do, say, or believe racist things — and therefore that if someone says you did something racist, they are calling you “a racist” and thereby predicting that you’re going to go commit hate crimes.
It’s unfortunate though.
It probably doesn’t help that people use “racism” to mean several different things, including:
Racial prejudice — having false negative beliefs about people according to their race
Racial privilege — the situation where some people receive social, political, or economic advantages and others receive disadvantages on the basis of their race (see also: invisible knapsack)
Racial hatred — having malicious intentions towards people on the basis of their race
Notably, people can do racist₂ things — perpetuating racial privilege — without being racist₁ or racist₃.
Would you fail to be surprised based on evidence that people who say that don’t have black best friends, or because you agree with the implicit claim that that is a response a racist is likely to use?
Because it seems like there’s some circular logic going on somewhere. Possibly in the form of a societal feedback mechanism; non-racist people assume that’s a racist’s response to the question, and so don’t utilize it.
Not unless their skin is coal-black, no. For example, I was surprised to learn that Condoleezza Rice was considered “black”. Same with people of East Indian, Philippino or often even Chinese descent. Then again, I live in Vancouver, Canada, where race (however you want to define it) is basically a non-issue, so I don’t notice stuff like that, unless pointed out to me. Probably my personal blind spot, of course. A friend of mine (I’m pretty sure she is white) often refers to her acquaintances by their ethnicity when talking about them (“that Yemeni dude”), and I just stare blankly.
Well, as we all know, race is a purely social construct with no underlying biological basis; unfortunately, LWers are known for their very poor socializing skills and understanding of social norms. So shminux, a LWer, doesn’t know?
No, as I understand it, Lewontin’s fallacy is considered to be not the claim that there is no underlying basis, but that this is established by looking at raw percentages of between-group vs within-group variation.
Although I assume you aren’t being serious, remember that shminux claimed that he doesn’t notice hair, eye and skin colour. As far as I know, colour is not a purely social construct, althout if shminux were a continental philosopher, I could imagine him believing that it is.
In some culture you can find many people of any skin color on your social level. In other culture, things may be completely different. In different cultures people will notice different facts, because those facts will bring different number of bits of information.
For example, if there is exactly one black person in otherwise white town, and it is a well-known person (especially well-known for something that is somehow related with them being black—for example well-known as the billionaire prince from Nigeria), then obviously everyone remembers whether they have 1 black friend or 0 black friends in the town; and if they say otherwise, I would suspect hypocrisy.
Perhaps this all just shows that one should not blindly copy heuristics just because they worked in a different environment.
In my culture I can find people both straight and curly hair on every social level (and although I can’t say for sure there is no hair texture to status correlation, I am not aware of any prejudices with respect to this), but it never occured to me that I could be ignorant about whether my friend has straight or curly hair. Maybe I use “friend” too restrictively.
Yes, I might, as well as I might be ignorant about whether Michael Jackson was naturally white or black. I wonder why you consider this particularly relevant.
This happens to me as well—I was shocked recently when someone pointed out some people I interact with daily are on the black side of the spectrum. It just doesn’t occur to me.
Translated to mathematics, the fact that a white person has black friends, is considered an evidence for hypothesis that the person is a racist.
That’s a bit of a bad faith interpretation; I see it as meaning something more like “Having black friends is not sufficiently strong evidence to push you out of the ‘racist’ category”.
A bit as if I spent all day laughing and pointing at ugly and disabled people, and when someone called me an asshole I replied “I’m not an asshole, I helped an old lady cross the street last week”. Even assholes can point to examples of nice deeds they did, even racists can point to black “friends”.
Alternatively, the immediate statement “I’m not racist” is actually the evidence that you are a racist. The additional statement “Some of my best friends are black.” may or may not be evidence against racism, depending on context. It seems like one piece of evidence, but nothing stops you from taking it as two entirely different pieces of evidence and evaluating each one separately. Or alternatively, the mere context of the fact that the statement is immediate might be the indicator itself.
Consider: A person named John Doe does not even appear willing to consider that they might have, for instance, offended a person of another race with whatever they just did, and they just immediately deny that person of the other race is saying something plausible and start making excuses as to why they are wrong. Ignoring John Doe’s specific words for a moment, does that context make John Doe sound more or less likely to be racist?
There is a huge variety of alternatives one could offer as a defense against racism, and giving one rather than others inevitably provides evidence about the various features that get called racist. If the best defense someone can offer (assuming people lead with their best defenses) is “some of my friends are X,” that can be evidence of racism by indicating the absence of more persuasive defenses, perhaps one of these:
My spouse is X
My best friend is X
My best man/maid of honor was X
My roommate is X
I am 1⁄4 X
I have voted for X political candidates A, B, and C
I am a member of the pro-X political group A
I chose to live in an area with a high population of X
I send my kids to a mostly-X school
I don’t believe [false] racist-sounding claims A, B, C...
I don’t believe [true] racist-sounding claims A, B, C...
I believe [true] anti-racist-sounding claims A, B, C...
I believe [false] anti-racist-sounding claims A, B, C
I have a low score on the IAT for anti-X associations
I love X, an X saved my life in Iraq
I donate to charities that primarily help X folk
Haha, yeah, right [insert funny joke or self-deprecating humor as countersignaling]
I participated in the boycott against anti-Xers
Look at my demographic characteristics: in surveys and IAT studies people of my occupation, education level, religion, and political affiliations show low levels of racism, so your prior for me being racist should be low
This might actually be true. If you consider the categories of white people who would be most likely to have black people in their social network, what comes up is a list of categories correlated with racism (e.g. poverty, religiosity).
You’re forgetting an alternative here. The only possible non-racist thing to say is “I’m not racist, all of my best friends are black.” Clearly, no such person can be racist. Again, by conservation of expected evidence, having any non-black friends whatsoever is evidence of racism.
As I understand it, there is no non-racist thing a white person can say in some social circles. The best bet is something like “I’m racist, but trying to become less racist.”
Sadly, yes. And the best way to signal that you are trying, is to accuse other people.
And because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, it is best to start accusing others even before you are accused.
(To prevent possible misunderstanding: I believe that there is real racism and real racists; and I also believe that there is a status game played about this topic. And precisely because the racism is harmful, it would be good to distinguish between real racists and people who are simply not good enough at playing this status game; and also between people who genuinely help and people who are simply good at playing this status game.)
For a demonstrated historical example of something very similar:
There were (are?) social circles where there is no non-witch thing a presumed witch can say, nor any non-witch thing a presumed witch can do. There is no best bet: They will kill the presumed witches even if they “repent” and demonstrate willingness to correct themselves.
A politically incorrect example of a mathematical theorem:
When someone (a white person) is accused of racism, and they say—“I’m not racist, some of my best friends are black,”—they often get a response like—“This is exactly what a racist would say.”
Translated to mathematics, the fact that a white person has black friends, is considered an evidence for hypothesis that the person is a racist. Now if this line of reasoning is correct, then according to the law of conservation of expected evidence, not having black friends should be an evidence against hypothesis that the person is a racist. Therefore the correct defense would be: “I’m not racist, none of my best friends is black!”
I suspect that in real life this defense wouldn’t work either, but at least it would provide an opportunity to notice a confusion.
It is not the fact that the person has black friends that is supposed to count as evidence of their racism. It is the fact that they say that they have black friends in response to an accusation of racism. The response is the evidence, not the fact (if it is a fact) that the response is reporting. So what would be evidence against the racism hypothesis is not saying things like “I’m not racist; some of my best friends are black.”
I’m not saying this is great evidence either, but it is not as obviously ridiculous as thinking that not having black friends is evidence against racism. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if saying “Some of my best friends are black” is anticorrelated with actually having black best friends.
Exactly. I think this XKCD is relavent. If someone accuses you of being a bad teacher, “It’s okay! I always wear a condom while teaching” is a bad response. However, “It’s okay! I never wear a condom while teaching” is even worse.
Those lines of thought should never even come up as something one would think to say.
Exactly. The claim is not “You have black friends, therefore you are racist.” The claim is “You think ‘I have black friends’ is a relevant thing to mention in response to being called on your apparently racist comments or behavior. It isn’t.”
There’s a difference between being racist (or, more precisely, the popular perception of what being racist entails) and engaging in racist behavior.
Oh, I agree. However, folks often take the claim “Hey, that thing you just said was kinda racist” as meaning “YOU ARE AN AWFUL RACIST SCUMBAG GO DIE IN A FIRE” and respond accordingly.
That’s not too surprising given that ① people generally don’t like receiving criticism of their views or actions, and get defensive; and ② many people seem to believe that only “racists” (a kind of person, usually found in Nazi or Klan uniforms) do, say, or believe racist things — and therefore that if someone says you did something racist, they are calling you “a racist” and thereby predicting that you’re going to go commit hate crimes.
It’s unfortunate though.
It probably doesn’t help that people use “racism” to mean several different things, including:
Racial prejudice — having false negative beliefs about people according to their race
Racial privilege — the situation where some people receive social, political, or economic advantages and others receive disadvantages on the basis of their race (see also: invisible knapsack)
Racial hatred — having malicious intentions towards people on the basis of their race
Notably, people can do racist₂ things — perpetuating racial privilege — without being racist₁ or racist₃.
Would you fail to be surprised based on evidence that people who say that don’t have black best friends, or because you agree with the implicit claim that that is a response a racist is likely to use?
Because it seems like there’s some circular logic going on somewhere. Possibly in the form of a societal feedback mechanism; non-racist people assume that’s a racist’s response to the question, and so don’t utilize it.
My honest response to “do you have black (indian/chinese/..) friends?” is something like “no idea, I don’t usually notice hair, eye or skin color”.
EDIT: wondering about the downvotes… does it sound non-believable or something?
That is a great signalling response, but honest? You really don’t know whether your friend is black or white?
Not unless their skin is coal-black, no. For example, I was surprised to learn that Condoleezza Rice was considered “black”. Same with people of East Indian, Philippino or often even Chinese descent. Then again, I live in Vancouver, Canada, where race (however you want to define it) is basically a non-issue, so I don’t notice stuff like that, unless pointed out to me. Probably my personal blind spot, of course. A friend of mine (I’m pretty sure she is white) often refers to her acquaintances by their ethnicity when talking about them (“that Yemeni dude”), and I just stare blankly.
Well, as we all know, race is a purely social construct with no underlying biological basis; unfortunately, LWers are known for their very poor socializing skills and understanding of social norms. So shminux, a LWer, doesn’t know?
Not very surprising, actually!
I know race is a social construct, but no underlying biological basis? Isn’t this Lewontin’s fallacy?
No, as I understand it, Lewontin’s fallacy is considered to be not the claim that there is no underlying basis, but that this is established by looking at raw percentages of between-group vs within-group variation.
Although I assume you aren’t being serious, remember that shminux claimed that he doesn’t notice hair, eye and skin colour. As far as I know, colour is not a purely social construct, althout if shminux were a continental philosopher, I could imagine him believing that it is.
C’mon, color is totally a social construct!
There really should be a phrase for socially constructed divisions or elaborations of a continuous empirical space.
“self-fulfilling distinctions”?
This may be strongly culture-dependent.
In some culture you can find many people of any skin color on your social level. In other culture, things may be completely different. In different cultures people will notice different facts, because those facts will bring different number of bits of information.
For example, if there is exactly one black person in otherwise white town, and it is a well-known person (especially well-known for something that is somehow related with them being black—for example well-known as the billionaire prince from Nigeria), then obviously everyone remembers whether they have 1 black friend or 0 black friends in the town; and if they say otherwise, I would suspect hypocrisy.
Perhaps this all just shows that one should not blindly copy heuristics just because they worked in a different environment.
In my culture I can find people both straight and curly hair on every social level (and although I can’t say for sure there is no hair texture to status correlation, I am not aware of any prejudices with respect to this), but it never occured to me that I could be ignorant about whether my friend has straight or curly hair. Maybe I use “friend” too restrictively.
You might be ignorant about whether some of your friends have naturally curly or straight hair.
Yes, I might, as well as I might be ignorant about whether Michael Jackson was naturally white or black. I wonder why you consider this particularly relevant.
This happens to me as well—I was shocked recently when someone pointed out some people I interact with daily are on the black side of the spectrum. It just doesn’t occur to me.
This thread needs a mention of Stephen Colbert, one of whose running jokes is that he “doesn’t see race” [video].
That’s a bit of a bad faith interpretation; I see it as meaning something more like “Having black friends is not sufficiently strong evidence to push you out of the ‘racist’ category”.
A bit as if I spent all day laughing and pointing at ugly and disabled people, and when someone called me an asshole I replied “I’m not an asshole, I helped an old lady cross the street last week”. Even assholes can point to examples of nice deeds they did, even racists can point to black “friends”.
Alternatively, the immediate statement “I’m not racist” is actually the evidence that you are a racist. The additional statement “Some of my best friends are black.” may or may not be evidence against racism, depending on context. It seems like one piece of evidence, but nothing stops you from taking it as two entirely different pieces of evidence and evaluating each one separately. Or alternatively, the mere context of the fact that the statement is immediate might be the indicator itself.
Consider: A person named John Doe does not even appear willing to consider that they might have, for instance, offended a person of another race with whatever they just did, and they just immediately deny that person of the other race is saying something plausible and start making excuses as to why they are wrong. Ignoring John Doe’s specific words for a moment, does that context make John Doe sound more or less likely to be racist?
There is a huge variety of alternatives one could offer as a defense against racism, and giving one rather than others inevitably provides evidence about the various features that get called racist. If the best defense someone can offer (assuming people lead with their best defenses) is “some of my friends are X,” that can be evidence of racism by indicating the absence of more persuasive defenses, perhaps one of these:
My spouse is X
My best friend is X
My best man/maid of honor was X
My roommate is X
I am 1⁄4 X
I have voted for X political candidates A, B, and C
I am a member of the pro-X political group A
I chose to live in an area with a high population of X
I send my kids to a mostly-X school
I don’t believe [false] racist-sounding claims A, B, C...
I don’t believe [true] racist-sounding claims A, B, C...
I believe [true] anti-racist-sounding claims A, B, C...
I believe [false] anti-racist-sounding claims A, B, C
I have a low score on the IAT for anti-X associations
I love X, an X saved my life in Iraq
I donate to charities that primarily help X folk
Haha, yeah, right [insert funny joke or self-deprecating humor as countersignaling]
I participated in the boycott against anti-Xers
Look at my demographic characteristics: in surveys and IAT studies people of my occupation, education level, religion, and political affiliations show low levels of racism, so your prior for me being racist should be low
This might actually be true. If you consider the categories of white people who would be most likely to have black people in their social network, what comes up is a list of categories correlated with racism (e.g. poverty, religiosity).
You’re forgetting an alternative here. The only possible non-racist thing to say is “I’m not racist, all of my best friends are black.” Clearly, no such person can be racist. Again, by conservation of expected evidence, having any non-black friends whatsoever is evidence of racism.
As I understand it, there is no non-racist thing a white person can say in some social circles. The best bet is something like “I’m racist, but trying to become less racist.”
Sadly, yes. And the best way to signal that you are trying, is to accuse other people.
And because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, it is best to start accusing others even before you are accused.
(To prevent possible misunderstanding: I believe that there is real racism and real racists; and I also believe that there is a status game played about this topic. And precisely because the racism is harmful, it would be good to distinguish between real racists and people who are simply not good enough at playing this status game; and also between people who genuinely help and people who are simply good at playing this status game.)
An example of what you’re talking about on the positive side.
For a demonstrated historical example of something very similar:
There were (are?) social circles where there is no non-witch thing a presumed witch can say, nor any non-witch thing a presumed witch can do. There is no best bet: They will kill the presumed witches even if they “repent” and demonstrate willingness to correct themselves.
“Two plus two equals four.”
I should have been more exact—something like “In some social circles, there’s no way for a white person to demonstrate that they’re not racist”.
I’d guess that any such circle is anti-white racist, and so best avoided.
That’s exactly the kind of comment a racist would post!
(WARNING: THAT WAS A JOKE)