Harry, for bein’ a bright guy who clearly can think faster than the average bear you sure do sandbag.
You have a pretty obvious-event blatant-netprint.
Given those two points-and your ability to know all white people are conspiring to prevent your success because you are black i think you wouldn’t break a mental sweat figurin’ this out.
I’m wondering, half out loud-that your primary purpose here is to make a self fulfilling and prophetic “told you so, I knew it all along” by positing-in the very imperative- a coercive definition of racism full well knowing you would receive pushback-which you with magnanimous grandiloquence attack as “malformed rejoinder”.
You are harvesting fodder-for proof that your idea of racism is RIGHT, and then I suspect you are using this energy to feed your anti-cop, anti-trump, anti-white, even anti-american animus.
Now, assuming you are actually capitalizing from a sub culture that glorifies all these things, I might be drawn to wonder about your motives. Remember, you recently expounded here about that “appearance of evil” thing-are you certain you have “clean hands” before calling out all that is white, all that is right about America being a nation of laws-one which requires law enforcers? Your virtual world mirrors-or is it perhaps harbinger-of the reality around you?
I listen to what Jaray writes-and he seems to have a way of not offending everyone-and is taken seriously. But offending everyone-then demanding everyone acquiesce to your prowess-and if they don’t, accuse them in a self-prophetic AHA! see-I TOLD you I was right does not seem to be as effective. Not sure if you can hear what I’m trying to say-to say without offense, appearance of evil, or appeasement for some false-peace sake.
I’ve told you before-I appreciate you-but take umbrage with some of the things you do.
I hope and pray you try understand. Might be useful. If not, oh well, just more malformed rejoinder. I also pray I remain the kinda guy that declares
“be glad I’m not the kinda guy that would dare say i told ya so…!”
peace
Jaray, I guess I see racism the way Jesus saw adultery. You did not h ave to do the act to commit the deed. You can “look” on a woman and commit adultery with her.
So, just because you do not have power, does not mean you cannot be a racist in your mind.
Harry is actually quite the racist. From a previous thread: If you are white, and there is another white somewhere “in the known universe” being racist, you are racist too. The color of your skin determines whether you are racist. Seems to be the definition of racism to me.
Harry, I will not respond to your comment on this post.
Allen,
Is seems that every new post from Harry confirms what you said now. I said it too. He is the painter and he is just progressively unveiling his portrait. It’s not possible to keep a reasonable conversation with him since he considers white people to be ALL racists by definition, and no other race (skin color) has racists among them.
Do you thing that only “fools” will continue the dialog with him?.. LOL
Thanks for the compliment. Anything I posses, it’s because God was incomprehensibly and undeservingly kind.
I had to look up the word “sandbag,” because, while I’ve heard of it, and heard it used, it’s not a part of my idiolect.
The definition I see says, “coerce or bully.”
Is that how you’re using it?
If so, how do I coerce? By what series of actions?
(I’ve asked about that word, instead of bully, because a) you’ve accused me, before, of being coercive, and b) saying that I bully, or am one, would, to me, just be whiny.)
To “coerce” is to “persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats.”
If these words line up with your intent, what do you mean when you say I sandbag; i.e., coerce?
I have no idea what that means.
Please explain.
I have a question for you: Why do you keep talking about what I know, in areas where I have already said I don’t posses such knowledge?
You just spoke to me of “your ability to know all white people are conspiring to prevent your success because you are black.”
I’ve never said such a thing, or anything like it. So, there’s no way that you could equitably be charging me with such a sentiment.
I want to be clear: This doesn’t make me angry, or ill-willed. I just feel that it’s needless, careless, and time-wasting.
As should be clear, I take a fair amount of care with what I say. I respond to every question. I think about what I write, and I work to only make claims I can support.
I don’t care if people agree with me, or disagree with me. (In truth, I’d rather that they disagree with me; see below.) But, whatever they do, I’d like a good, robust discussion. Those only happen if everyone involved does a certain kind of work.
From the volume of what you’ve written in this post, the structure of the writing, the amount of time it took you to publish it, and the fact that you did it after saying you’d be off the web for a week, I suspect you wrote it in a state of relative agitation; kind of a huff, albeit one that diminished as you got the the end of the post. I could be incorrect.
Even if this is the reason that you are reaching for things I’ve never said to make your points—because you’re working fast and just want to get it out—you should avoid doing so. All it does is slow down the process. You’re creating rhetorical sludge. You shouldn’t mutually gunk up our efforts with this manner of reply.
Despite your bruised prose, I think I can meaningfully respond to this:
I talk about race in the way that seems coherent to me.
The ideas that I commonly espouse—for example…
• Racism has a sole functional form: White supremacy.
• White supremacy is a global system.
• All non-white people are victims of white supremacy.
• If racism is white supremacy, this means that the first, minimum requirement to be a racist is that one be white.
• The racists (white supremacists) dominate non-white people in all nine areas of people activity: economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, and war.
… seem sensible to me. They didn’t always. But they do now.
They may seem odd, shocking, or incoherent to you. I expect that they at least seem oppositional to what you, and many here, especially many here who are white, hold to be true.
But they conform with my outlook, and with my experience. I believe them to be true.
However…they may not be true.
So, my expectation is that, if these ideas I hold are false, that, in a debate forum like this one, those who oppose their veracity should, by a clear and logical process, be able to derail and decimate them. This seems reasonable to me. It’s a standard assumption of argumentation.
However, like I said to @GeorgeTichy the other day, ad hominem attacks do not a counter-argument make. In fact, the minute one who opposes your viewpoint starts name-calling, it’s safe to say that they’ve run out of ideas.
So, to the charge that I’ve argued, “full well knowing [I] would receive pushback,” yes: I certainly suspected I would. I’m a Black male, and I’ve been one a long time. I certainly didn’t expect white people, here, to agree with me on racial issues. That’s why they’re racial issues.
But, like I said, I don’t want “pushback.” I want those who disagree with me to tear my arguments to pieces.
So, take my “racism discussion + potluck” argument, for example. It’s very simple, and easy to understand. It doesn’t have many “moving parts.”
The thoughtful, logical, white counter-respondent—especially if they are not a racist—has just two options.
They can say:
a) “Your analogy, and/or its underlying argument, is flawed, for this (or these) logical reason(s),” then supply that reason (or those reasons)
or
b) “I have seen such discussions/demonstrations as you name, and see them all the time,” while supplying proof.
Of course, I say “counter-respondent,” because a respondent does have a third option: They can agree with the argument’s conclusion.
However, what counter-respondents, here, have done, for the most part, is either, 1) ignore the analogy—simply not address it—or 2) attack me.
I don’t see why, in a discussion forum about racism, I should be blamed for making the questions too hard. None of them are as hard as racism (i.e., The Maximum Maxim).
Also:
Re: your charge of me offering “a coercive definition,” I think these words are nonsensical; like saying “sexually assaultive wood paneling.” If you’ve got a better definition, say what it is.
As well, what you call “magnanimous grandiloquence” is just semantic precision. I have no interest in, years from now, someone reading these words and wondering what I meant. I wish you would show similar concern.
I’m interested in developing a counter-racist system of elementary logic. It doesn’t have to be mine. It just has to work.
So, like the scientists who say it would have been more exciting had they not found the Higgs boson, because this means they would have to re-think the Standard Model, I would far more like, in this forum, to come up against someone who reduces my arguments to rubble.
Also, imagining I possess an “anti-cop, anti-trump, anti-white, even anti-american animus,” to me, merely suggests that, at best, you’re not paying attention.
But, from my perspective, what I’m doing is either pointing out the inconsistencies in counter-arguments, or, as I do from time to time, with folks as varied as @Jaray and @ajshep, approving of what’s been said to me.
That is, for a very long time, @ajshep has been stating that I “think all white people are racists.” I’ve challenged him to prove this with evidence; e.g., a quote. He couldn’t. That’s because I’ve never said this.
Then, two days ago, on August 8, he wrote:
I wrote back:
I felt like a proud papa.
This is a “community through conversation.” So, discussion is how we build “the ties that bind.”
I disapproved of you, bigtomwoodcutter, @elmer_cupino, and loubama77 each putting a “Like” heart on Hansen’s, old-timey racist post, and like Paul to Cephas, I opposed all of you to your faces. Conversation.
All of you pushed back, but in completely different ways. Conversation. I wrote back to all of you, also in a varied manner; I didn’t respond to @elmer_cupino the same way I did to loubama77, even though, technically, they had both committed the same incipient act, and both said they had reasons for doing so. Conversation.
In fact, @elmer_cupino insisted that I apologize to you all for what I’d written about you. I did so immediately, and without reservation. Conversation.
What this means is that I am responding to everyone here, individually, in real-time. So, when you say:
I’m not sure I can, but maybe if you say it again, in a different way, or, better, tell me what you think I should do, or do differently, in simple, clear language, I can respond.
What needs to be clear, because I haven’t expressly said this, is, to me, none of this is personal.
I haven’t called anyone here a racist, though I’ve been called one by a few people.
Every time someone posts to me, I don’t go, “Oh, you again….” I’m glad to have the exchange.
To me, it’s all about the ideas. I know not everyone feels that way.
I appreciate the humility of this statement.
My position isn’t, “I told you so.”
My position is that I not only live with the material, but work with it professionally. This means that, when it comes to race, like I told @2humBaby, you’re probably not going to be able to come up with something that I’ve not heard before
If I say something with which you disagree, however, you, or anyone, can say, “I don’t understand,” “I don’t agree,” “This is difficult for me; it’s a view I’ve not heard before,” “What would Jesus think of what you’re saying?”, or anything else. I can accommodate these responses.
I didn’t blast loubama77. I saw from where she was coming. I’m not, “one size fits all.”
This doesn’t mean I’m not going to say that racism is white supremacy. But it does mean that I will go as far as anyone wants to go, in order to explain why I believe this to be true. All the while, I invite you to disagree.
However:
Suppose you appear to engage me, on-list, or off-, by offering counsel about what I’m saying.
Then, when I reply, you say, “I have no intent to continue arguing on this issue, much less in private.” Full stop.
I am going to respect your wishes. However, I may not give your on-list responses much breathing room. I say this, because, to me, that reply means, not only do you not take what I’m saying seriously, but that you’re not here for conversation.
As I often say IRL, please let me know your questions, comments, suggestions, or complaints.
You don’t have to do so, @ajshep. As you will see, I don’t need your response in order to show that what you’ve written is both untrue and nonsensical.
The problem is that you are misremembering the challenge that I gave you.
The original challenge was based on @Timo’s assertion, and my response, below:
@Timo didn’t reply, as is typical, but you jumped in. You and I had this exchange, then, we also had this one.
Now, I know that, after the forum closed, you went back into the latter response, and wrote a whole bunch of new text; the overwhelming majority of it. Thus, presumably, like Jean-Claude Van Damme in a Pablo Francisco joke, you’ve declared yourself the winner, again.
This is within your right, of course. However, again:
a) I didn’t see your replies, because, the forum had closed. So, I didn’t get to tear apart your answers and improve them.
b) Apparently, by that point, you did not recall, or misunderstood, the details of my challenge to @Timo, which you’d taken up.
The outcome, thus, is that, now, you suffer the misfortune of plying @Jaray with this obscene conjecture—“Harry is actually quite the racist. … just because you do not have power, does not mean you cannot be a racist in your mind.”
In other words, I’m a mind racist. (Sounds like a MCU superhero!)
This sounds silly. I can’t say enough bad about it. I hope that you don’t perform this weird, alternative version of prooftexting when assembling your sermons.
If you say there are “hundreds of millions of DAILY white-black exchanges that are clearly not racist,” you should be able name at least one—though, probably, at least two, actually, since you claim a plurality.
You should do this while being able to both a) explain why it’s not racist, and b) do so within a definition of racist that bears falsification. Like mine.
Plus, “painter…portrait….” @GeorgeTichy, you’re actually going for some poetry here. I appreciate it. It adds variance to your replies, which are typically unresponsive and machine-like.
What I mean is that when you post to me, you don’t engage what I say, but merely repeat the worn catchphrases you’ve probably always held, but that have been outdated by better ideas. It’s as though you simply don’t know how to respond.
It’s unfortunate. You sound like Richard Dawkins, bowing out of a debate with William Lane Craig by feigning outrage over Craig’s theological position on the conquest of Canaan, instead of merely admitting Craig would cream him like corn.
I wish you’d just say, “I don’t know how to reply to these arguments,” since, by your monotony, it’s becoming obvious you don’t.
It also seems prideful. It’s as though you think you can’t learn anything, or are so infuriated by my claims that, now, all you can do is say I’m a racist.
(Note: I have never said that you are a racist. This gives me a kind of rhetorical advantage that, if you’re honest, you must acknowledge; see, by analogy, Godwin’s Law.)
Name-calling, ad hominem attacks, etc. are not only laughable, but a sign of weakness. I suspect that you are above this.
For as long as anyone replies to posts that are nonsensical and a truly vicious attack on ALL white people (racism at work!), we will see the repetitive posting of the same attacks over and over again.
I am curious to see how many times will Spectrum allow the repetition of the same Beautiful Statement saying that all whites are racists, and only whites are racists… Seventy times seven???
The encounter in Jerusalem between Paul and Cephas as recorded in Acts 15 was by all accounts an epic blow-out. And by your own acknowledgement of opposing “all you you to your faces” “like Paul to Cephas,” your words, proves what I have said earlier that you all along have denied, that you are one angry person. I tell my patients not to say anything while angry as it can only exacerbate the situation. Let us pass. As God told Cain, control your emotions or it will control you.
This is exactly the mechanism behind those of who are verbal and emotional abusers. But the equation implies that you can only give what you have. No one gives out apples if they only had oranges. It is a fantasy to think otherwise.
@GeorgeTichy, we have yet to see @Harry_Allen say “all whites are racists.” If you have a direct quote you can send us or if you are referring to someone else, please let us know. As for the idea that “only whites are racists,” this is an opinion, and one that is shared by a large number of sociologists and other academics who study this issue. You don’t have to agree with it, but it is not an ad hominen attack. However, what some of the commenters have been doing toward Harry are ad hominen attacks. Shall we delete those? Shall we close this entire thread early because several of you seem unable to remain civil toward each other?
You may not like that Harry responds at length to other people’s comments, but having read his comments for several years now, I have yet to find where he has engaged in ad hominen attacks against anyone; where he has been anything less than respectful even when he disagrees.
No one is forcing you to engage with him. Or to engage around him in the way you did in this comment by trying to call on us to suspend/ban him. You don’t get to curate the comments section to just those people you agree with. That’s not conversation. I don’t know either you or Harry personally, but I can say I 100% prefer his way of communicating in this comment section over yours. Seeing both of you comment over the years, I’ve only seen him push forward or against ideas, while you frequently belittle and make fun of commenters who disagree with you, pull threads wildly off-topic, and make numerous comments like this one, asking us to intervene, simply because you disagree with someone. It’s inappropriate, and frankly, I’m tired of it. Stop trying to manipulate the moderators into turning the comment section into a place that’s only welcoming to you and those you agree with.
I would ask that you take a hard look at your own behavior here before pointing the finger at someone else again.
I see you gave my a “like.“ Thank you very much. However you might want to reconsider your gift of “like” as that is exactly how I got our good friend Harry’s @Harry_Allen attention. He was against my privilege of exercising my God-given right of self expression. You are welcome to “cancel” your “like” without repercussions. “Cancel culture” has been the recent theme these days.
@webEd,
I read your post attentively a couple of times. Thanks for the input.
Just a few brief comments on a few issues:
Absolutely! Any ad hominem comment should be deleted. Start with mine,please.
That was NOT the call. You are putting words in my mouth. My point was - and still is - about having the idea that only whites are racist being defended over and over again when it’s an absurd concept. Apparently you support it, even saying that it, “is shared by a large number of sociologists and other academics who study this issue.”
Apparently I missed something in my readings and working with people throughout my entire life. Yet to be seen…
Manipulate? Are you kidding? Anyone knows that you guys cannot be manipulated, and I wouldn’t try that either. My comment was not about manipulation or a suggestion for suspension. Repeating an opinion is not a violation in itself, I know that. Anyone has the right to do it without incurring in any violation of rules. My comment was based on the belief that a baseless concept was being presented/defended continuously/unendingly. I was not aware, though, that the concept had solid foundation. I am glad you clarified it, because there was not one single other voice that I saw defending the idea; so many frequent posters just became completely silent on the issue, they gave up discussing the matter. Which I am going to do as well.
Thanks, again, for your input and reprimand. I will certainly submit to the rules of this site.
You are correct, he never says those words, but has clever ways of implying it is so. Here is an entry where he describes “Racist”. I personally cannot see how any white could be excluded! Btut I leave that to you. It is from One Ask Behind:
Racist =
(1) A white person who, directly or indirectly, speaks and/or acts, in a manner that helps to establish, maintain, expand, and/or refine, the practice of White Supremacy (Racism), at any time, in any place, in any one or more areas of activity, including Economics, Education, Entertainment, Labor, Law, Politics, Religion, Sex, and/or War.
(2) A White Supremacist.
(3) A person [white] who practices White Supremacy (Racism).
(4) Any white person, who is mentally or physically able to speak, and/or act, to eliminate White Supremacy, but who does not do so.
Racist Suspect, and/or Suspected Racist =
(1) Any person classified as “white,” and/or “Caucasian,” who exists any place in the known universe, at the same time that any person classified as “non-white” exists, and functions, in direct or indirect subjugation to persons who practice White Supremacy (Racism).
(2) Any person classified as “white,” and/or “Caucasian,” who exists, and/or who had existed, during a time when White Supremacy (Racism) is, and/or was, practiced among the people of the known universe.
(3) Any person classified as “white,” and/or “Caucasian,” who, during any socio-material condition dominated by White Supremacists (Racists), has not proven, by both word, and deed, to the Victims of White Supremacy (nonwhite people), that he, or she, is not a White Supremacist.
(4) Any person classified as, and/or generally functioning as, “white,” and/or “Caucasian,” who is suspected of practicing Racism (White Supremacy), by any person who is “non-white.”
(5) Any white person who receives social and/or material “benefits” as a direct or indirect result of White Supremacy (Racism), but, who does not utilize all of those social and/or material “benefits” to help to eliminate White Supremacy.
(6) Any person classified as “white” and/or “Caucasian,” who, during any socio-material condition dominated by White Supremacy (Racism), attempts to engage in any form of sexual intercourse, and/or “sexual play,” with any non-white person.
HA
“In he known universe”!
I gave the example of me cleaning my black tenants’ toilets, when sewage covered the floor of the apartment. He said that came under ‘5’ above, and was racist. (I am still working on the benefit) No. 4 in the first section is pretty inclusive.
Scoiolgists and Academics are always arguing. Here is an interesting chart from an article saying that about half of all studies are erroneous:
Espeically in he humanities are many papers just opinion.
I just noticed the table itself is misleading! The relative risk are small on the present side, and large on the cause side! better watch what I post! I will leave the table up though, for it demonstrates a point.
Good observation.
I’ve noticed at least 2 things
When the subject comes up, people seem to get defensive.
Or
People get quiet. (notice my questions weren’t answered)
The system (capitalism) is almost a fundamental belief with some.
Makes me wonder - a lot.
I’m starting to wonder if it’s similar to the sale of indulgences of old. (It was the sale of indulgences that built St. Peter’s in Rome).
The capitalism being practiced today is not unlike the days leading up to the Great Depression. A few people at the top controlling the wealth.
Maybe we can get Arkdrey into the conversion, but his posts on this are a bit obscure.
Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system devised. Whether it is the American brand or Chinese brand, it works. It has to managed. But billions have been lifted. It is an amazing system.
The down side is that often a few control much wealth. But the lower classes still benefit immensely. There has been nothing like it.
I’m a mind racist. (Sounds like a MCU superhero!)
