A female-cast Ghostbusters reboot leads to a debate on race in r/movies (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
135 ups - 0 downs = 135 votes
322 comments submitted at 16:39:30 on Aug 3, 2014 by TheGraduation
A female-cast Ghostbusters reboot leads to a debate on race in r/movies (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
135 ups - 0 downs = 135 votes
322 comments submitted at 16:39:30 on Aug 3, 2014 by TheGraduation
that dude is really in there saying making an anti apartheid leader white is the same as making lil orphan annie black.
Usual nonsense from "colour blind" people, pretending not to see issues
Er, wait, what's wrong with being color blind? Treating people based on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin is kind of... not nonsense.
EDIT: Hey guys, so I'm apparently "doing too much" on this subreddit and don't have enough time to respond to everyone, so I'm gonna have to stop responding for now. Cheers!
Pretending that color doesn't exist denies the impact color has in reality, and makes you unconscious of your own innate biases (no matter how well meaning you are).
Would you treat someone in a wheelchair exactly the same as someone able bodied? Are you doing that first person any favors by pretending they aren't disadvantaged in any way?
> Would you treat someone in a wheelchair exactly the same as someone able bodied?
Hahahah. Having a different shade of skin is not like being wheelchair bound oh my god. It's disgusting to suggest so. Try tell that to someone with no legs.
This subreddit needs to be defaulted. The SRS here has gotten too strong.
Being color blind doesn't mean pretending color doesn't exist. It means not taking it into consideration when it's not relevant. If I'm getting someone foundation, I'm going to check it against their skin tone. But I'm not going to look at skin color to decide whether to sell a house to someone or anything like that.
And if you act like I described, then there are no "innate biases". Not sure where you're getting that.
As for the wheelchair thing, again, if it is directly related to the wheelchair, I take it into consideration, but I'm not going to make assumptions about, for example, intelligence or voting rights. Color blind=not grouping people together based on skin color, not completely erasing individual experiences.
Color blindness is referred to in cultural sensitivity programs as "pre-competent." Essentially, color blindness doesn't take into account the relevance that culture has on a person's life. Color can in fact be a small or significant part if a person's culture.
In essence, the idea of cultural and color blindness promotes "seeing all people as the same" when we aren't. The general consensus is that we should acknowledge that we have differences, but accept and welcome the positive benefits that their culture brings.
Not sure a cultural sensitivity program is the most reliable source of objective information.
Cultural relativism and color blindness aren't mutually exclusive anyway. And I think you are overestimating how much color has an influence on culture. I think most white Americans have more in common with black Americans than with, say, white Sami people.
Color blindness does not promote seeing all people as the same. It promotes not taking skin color into consideration over other factors like character, skill, life experiences, etc.
>life experiences
But not taking skin color into consideration here is turning a blind eye to the problems that our society had.
So you're saying that I should consider Beyonce more disadvantaged than my local homeless white man because skin color>life experiences and other factor...?
People of the same skin color have vastly different life experiences. I don't see what's wrong with acknowledging that.
I think you should read this. A rich black woman still has disadvantages that a poor white man does not. It's not an "add it up and see who wins" situation.
Just because Beyonce has the ability to largely brush off those problems should she want to, does not mean the problems don't exists.
Don't try to extrapolate "black Americans have unfair challenges that white Americans do not" into "every black person is worse off than any white person." It's crazy, and nobody is saying that.
>So you're saying that I should consider Beyonce more disadvantaged than my local homeless white man because skin color>life experiences and other factor...?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality
>"consider Beyonce more disadvantaged than my local homeless white man because skin color>life experiences and other factor...?"
Basically yes, and don't worry, these progressives have tons of fancy words and ways of rationalizing that attitude, truly pathetic if you ask me.
It's just that measuring people on their individual merits would be great if everyone did that or did so evenly. The problem with "color-blindness" is that I will never know what it's like to be white (seems awesome), and white people can't understand what it's like to be black or any color. A color-blind white person, using themselves as a metric, misses a lot of prejudices people of color face in his or her appraisal of that person.
Chris Rock for illustration
>And if you act like I described, then there are no "innate biases"
You can't act like you described. You can be the most progressive, anti-racist person, but you're still going to have certain biases because of years and years of societal and media conditioning.
There is actually a way to test innate biases, and not everyone has them (and some people actually have them in favor of minorities). So saying that it's impossible to be like that or that it can't be changed (looking at a photo of a black family on a picnic moves the bias toward black people, for example) is factually incorrect. So no, I'm not going to pretend I have innate biases if I don't.
>So no, I'm not going to pretend I have innate biases if I don't.
Before I answer your questions, I think you need to reread what I wrote. I said I was not going to pretend to have biases I don't have. Are you really objecting to that? So I should just assume that I'm racist from the get-go?
Furthermore, like I said, innate bias is incredibly flexible. It's not some monolithic, unconquerable thing. I think most intelligent adults can think themselves out of it without simply reversing the bias (ex: instead of saying "Well, I might be biased, so I'll give minority group X the advantage," simply ask yourself "How would I feel if my own group did the exact same thing?")
Now:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
This is the Implicit Association test. It has tests on pretty much all mainstream biases. If it's not mainstream, then what you said about societal and media influence shouldn't matter.
I really hope this doesn't come across as an "I have black friends" kind of argument, but since you asked:
I recall taking the one on black-white bias, gay-straight bias, and male-female bias. The only one in which I had an expected bias was the male-female one (associating male with work and female with home) and like I said, I'm pretty sure I can think myself out of that one (especially considering I am female).
I think it's a safe assumption to think that everyone is a little bit racist (queue Avenue Q song), so I think it's okay to admit that and thus okay to sea race. Maybe I'm just protecting, who knows.
> Being color blind doesn't mean pretending color doesn't exist. It means not taking it into consideration when it's not relevant.
You're mistaken, and the second sentence emphasizes it. The fact is, color is more relevant than you realize, especially when you haven't gone through most of your life being judged negatively because of it. "Color blindness," is a happy way to pretend that race matters much less than it really does.
> If I'm getting someone foundation, I'm going to check it against their skin tone. But I'm not going to look at skin color to decide whether to sell a house to someone or anything like that.
I assume what you're implying here is that race only matters when specifically relevant to physical characteristics. Unfortunately, our society isn't built like that, and never has been. To your example, people do consider race when selling a house, and have (and continue to) actively and deliberately hinder the ability of people of the "wrong" race (particularly African Americans) from home ownership or rentals. "Color blindness" says it's wrong to focus anti-discrimination efforts on African American victims, since it says it's wrong to involve race in decision making.
> And if you act like I described, then there are no "innate biases". Not sure where you're getting that.
So, even if you deep in your heart believe that racism is wrong, even if you try your hardest every day to treat everyone fairly, and even if you are a member of an underprivileged race, you likely carry a racial bias (e.g., even if you're black, you subconsciously associate negative assumptions with black people). This has been scientifically proven again and again, but there's a fantastic demonstration here if you want to see first hand instead of reading lots of dry papers. Try it out and you'll likely be very surprised by the results.
> As for the wheelchair thing, again, if it is directly related to the wheelchair, I take it into consideration, but I'm not going to make assumptions about, for example, intelligence or voting rights.
There's two problems here.
First, if you grew up in the western world, and especially if you grew up white in America, you are very unlikely to be able to judge exactly what is related to race. If you are a human who is not specifically educated on these matters, chances are very high you'll be wrong. This is what people are talking about when they deride "privilege." Think about the likely-fictional account of Mary Antoinette saying "let them eat cake." She wasn't saying that to dismiss the starving population, she just heard there were riots because there was no bread, and therefore concluded that in the absence of bread, cake should be available and suffice. It was absolutely unfathomable to her what the life of a French peasant was really like. The same is true in a large part for anyone growing up with any kind of privilege. It's so hard to think about experiences you have nothing in common with, and as a result, you color (no pun intended) your every decision in your own ignorance. (Read this, and maybe the article it's about).
Second, whether you like it or not, you probably do make assumptions about things like intelligence, unless you are constantly vigilant against it. By purely following your intuition (which is based very rapid subconscious decisions), you will almost certainly be wrong, and you will almost certainly convince yourself that you came to any conclusion rationally. By assuming you have no bias, you actually allow your bias to take control. I highly recommend Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow for some eye opening information on human cognition.
> Color blind=not grouping people together based on skin color, not completely erasing individual experiences.
The fact is, again, that this is just wrong. When you purposefully disregard race, you are erasing individual experiences. You are encouraging the creation of implicit groupings by ignoring them. There's more to racism than Jim Crow and the KKK.
Yeah, I'm not reading all of that. Especially based on the first few paragraphs which assume that an individual being color-blind means thinking everyone else is as well.
Also, re: the Implicit Association test: took it. No negative bias toward black people. And I like how you left out the fact that biases are changeable-- looking at a picture of a black family on a picnic pushes the bias in favor of black people. It's not some unavoidable, unchangeable fact. I think you are overestimating how hard it is to think around biases (just think "How would I feel if someone from my group did X?") or be "constantly vigilant" as you put it.
Anyway I keep on getting cut off from responding in this sub, so I won't be able to respond after this. So bye I guess!
Treating people as people no matter what their racial/ethnic background is is fine. I don't think anyone has a problem with that.
The problem comes in when you start ignoring racially-based problems in favor of homogenizing a group. Plus, some people actively embrace their race or ethnicity as part of who they are. It matters to them that they are black/latino/whatever. Being "color-blind" ignores all of that.
I mean, but people of any race can have "racially-based problems" so I'm not sure what you mean by that? If you mean stuff like poverty and discrimination, then not being color blind could mean that you ignore "privileged" groups that go through the same thing. And being color blind would be in opposition to that sort of thing. If you mean going to the doctor, getting cosmetics or hair treatment, then that would be on a person-to-person basis. I just don't see how it's a bad thing...
Here's an example: Black person says they wish there were more black heroes in movies. White person replies with something along the lines of "But why? A character's race shouldn't matter at all! I'm white and I watch movies with black heroes without being bothered by it, so why would it bother you to watch a movie with a white hero? I'm color-blind and you should be too!"
In this situation, the white person is completely ignoring the problem the black person mentioned (the fact that a vast majority of leading actors are white) with the faux-progressive attitude that it shouldn't matter because everyone should be color-blind. Okay, in a perfect world that person would be right! But it's not a perfect world and ignoring the problem won't make it go away. And, as with the example I used, 'color-blind' people often position themselves as more enlightened and progressive than people who want more minority representation (because caring about race at all is bad bad bad!) when the truth is under-representation of minorities in media DOES impact people negatively.
This reminded me of a similar discussion I had a short while back about gender issues, where the other person was saying they choose not to see gender because 'recognising that everyone has issues is true equality and giving one group special treatment is not' or some such thing. This was in the context of harmful stereotypes and how they affect women's progression in STEM fields, in a CMV thread about women in STEM, and it really just struck me that they had found a convenient way to ignore that the genders each have unique issues that should be addressed, while managing to make it sound progressive. Only I didn't know how to say as much without being a douchebag about it.
So thank you for this comment, you've helped me understand why this "I don't see gender/race" argument bothers me, and how to address it in the future!
No, because the color blind person would think that actors should be hired based on merit, not race. If a disproportionate number of actors are being hired for being white, a color blind person would be against that. (EDIT: Why am I being downvoted? This is relevant to the discussion. Do people actually think color-blind people advocate hiring white actors over black actors? Smh.)
The opposite position would mean hiring actors based on race rather than merit, which is racist.
Given the existing real world hiring discrepancy, you either have to admit that people are currently being hired (deliberately or unconsciously) because they're white, or claim that non white people are inherently bad actors. One of those two sounds kinda racist to me.
You can admit that other people are racist and still be color blind. I don't understand where you are getting these ideas. A color blind person would insist that people get hired based on merit and therefore would oppose hiring people because they are white. I literally just said that... I think you are assuming that if a person is color blind, they assume everyone else is as well, which is incorrect.
The first problem is that there's no "objective" test for acting talent and so we can never quite know if the number is "disproportionate". And, no matter how lopsided, some people will claim that that's the "natural" balance and it is fair. On the other hand, we know, empirically, that people are very bad at being actually color blind in other domains, even if they think they are. "Black sounding" names will be turned down more often on job applications, black people are assigned more negative adjectives by observers when acting out identical scenes, etc etc. And I'm confident that the people in these types of studies would strongly deny that they discriminate against black people.
While we can never know for sure who has more "acting talent", and we can't even directly measure the effects of blinding since you can't see something like an audition tape without being able to see someone's skin color, the majority of evidence favors a presumption that well meaning people still unconsciously discriminate based on race. And so if we want true (even talent weighted) equality we have to put some effort into it.
Exactly what we should and shouldn't do is a different, much more complicated debate, but can you see where people are coming from in saying that we should put some specific effort into it?
>The first problem is that there's no "objective" test for acting talent and so we can never quite know if the number is "disproportionate"
I am referring to disproportionate as in relative to the general population or the amount of people who applied. And if you do voice acting, there is definitely an objective (race-neutral) test. I think it's pretty safe to assume that people who apply for an acting position tend to have at least some skill and training. So if a certain number of qualified actors are consistently being hired disproportionately based on race, you can infer that there's prejudice going on.
>"Black sounding" names will be turned down more often on job applications
Which would all be things that color-blind people oppose. I would like to see names and races and all that made invisible to the people reading the application.
>And I'm confident that the people in these types of studies would strongly deny that they discriminate against black people.
Again, color-blind=/=assuming everyone is color-blind.
>Exactly what we should and shouldn't do is a different, much more complicated debate, but can you see where people are coming from in saying that we should put some specific effort into it?
I think that encouraging people to treat skin color the same as eye or hair color would be the most progressive thing to do. Encouraging people to change their attitudes makes more sense than forcing slightly different racism on people (hiring a person based on race above all else); that seems to do absolutely nothing to improve the situation. The only problem with color-blindness is that the change would have to be gradual.
EDIT: words
I find it pretty funny that you lit on eye and hair color as a model for race relations considering that those have the most variance among white people. Of course blue eyes vs. green eyes isn't treated like a big deal, because in the vast majority of those cases those people are white.
You want to talk hair? Shit man, the U.S. Army literally just put out new regulations for black women's hair that ignores years of history and practicality in favor of either having shaved or straightened. The army tried to treat black women "neutrally" by having their hair be normal - meaning tidy and straight ignoring the fact that straight hair is vastly more normal for whites and Asians than blacks. This is what we mean by institutional bias that isn't going anywhere, and why its important to have color visibility, not blindness, to change out definitions of normal
hair story - http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27626509
Well, I'd imagine one problem would be the difficulty of telling the difference between regular Mountain Dew and Mountain Dew Code Red if you don't have them stored in a labeled container.