Rolling 2015 Thread on Race

one of her claims was this:

The court opinion also noted that Dolezal claimed that the university’s decision to remove some of her artworks from a February 2001 student exhibition was “motivated by a discriminatory purpose to favor African-American students over” her.

i think it was the whole kit and kaboodle... she alleged discriminating on the basis of race, sex, and the fact that she was pregnant/a single mom.

xpost

xpost, yes i think she alleged a number of discriminatory acts, on the basis of race but also other stuff

the "kitchen sink" approach to discrimination litigation

well this proves that whatever else she is, she is definitively American

kit, kaboodles, and kitchen sinks and everything.

yeah the interesting/hilarious thing is she's sort of by her very being relying on some notion of non-arbitrariness in the idea of "race" but then she does things that completely essentialize the idea, and she's living out these two incompatible notions that "i can choose my race" and "race is fundamental to this society" at once.

throw in the whole nine yards and you've got yourself a lawsuit

xpost

xpost, yes i think she alleged a number of discriminatory acts, on the basis of race but also other stuff

the "kitchen sink" approach to discrimination litigation

― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Wednesday, June 17, 2015 12:48 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

tbf this is how litigation works, you throw every conceivable and non-frivolous claim you have and see what sticks

kit, kaboodles, and kitchen sinks and everything.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 June 2015 17:51 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she brought lots of 'k's

one of her claims was this:

The court opinion also noted that Dolezal claimed that the university’s decision to remove some of her artworks from a February 2001 student exhibition was “motivated by a discriminatory purpose to favor African-American students over” her.

― 龜, Wednesday, June 17, 2015 12:45 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Playing a really long game of "If you can't beat them, join them".

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/06/17/rachel_dolezal_was_raised_by_strict_fundamentalists_the_revelation_sheds.html

i mean duh, tell us something we don't know

off. i figured there was something like that in her background. i know of some families like that. in one case they adopted several "troubled" teens but would be very quick to boot them out if they made one transgression (including mixing with the opposite sex in evenings).

i mean, oof.

Pity, I liked 'Off'.

there's something really depressing about putative generosity that can be exhausted so easily.

it's that time when we are called upon to have that talk with each other that we never have. apparently.

"Or, at the very least, perhaps we can use Ms. Dolezal’s story, puzzling as it is, as an opportunity to have a candid, lively, long-delayed, public conversation about the knotty meanings of race and racial identity, and how it has confounded our nation’s best aspirations. Perhaps we may yet move beyond the imprisoning boxes we have made."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/opinion/rachel-dolezals-unintended-gift-to-america.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

which is just gonna make me think about Onion headlines forever:

http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/america-needs-to-have-a-superficial-conversation-a-11408

http://www.theonion.com/article/open-dialogue-two-americans-having-about-race-pret-33316

she gave us all a gift!

b/c god knows americans never talk about race

:)

iirc one segment talks about race while another talks about how much it hates talking about race.

^

http://www.ebony.com/news-views/last-rachel-dolezal-thinkpiece-ever-065#axzz3dMDXfWhS

http://news.yahoo.com/hollywood-moguls-arm-candy-du-jour-goodbye-asians-140116995.html

what

Serial yoga-teacher dating even has become a thing. Venice-based TV writer-producer Steven Pearl admits he started dating yoga teachers about two years ago. "The proliferation of yoga classes in L.A. means more teachers, and many are actresses, dancers — all working their minds and, of course, their bodies. Their look is very appealing: fitted clothes, fresh faces, utterly unpretentious, no makeup. They're more wholesome and approachable. Suddenly, my guy friends are all talking about dating yoga teachers. And most of the best studios are in neighborhoods with tons of entertainment people: West Hollywood, Venice, Brentwood."

Who epitomizes beta better than a yoga teacher?

i'm sure i already don't but what shows does steven pearl put out, i want to never see them

tbh I lost it at "old Chinese quantum physics"

worth quoting in full

Relationship expert Dr. Jeremy Nicholson sees the phenomenon in a more basic, evolutionary way: "Men are always interested in attractive, pleasant, feminine women for mates. What shifts are the groups of women allowed and encouraged to be attractive, pleasant and feminine. At certain points in the Hollywood culture, the women who embodied those characteristics to men were primarily Asian. In the current culture, yoga instructors now are a source of healthy, attractive, feminine women."

Alpha men teaming up with yoga teachers chimes with Eastern philosophy, offers Dr. Pat Allen, an L.A. relationship expert: "In old Chinese quantum physics, men had yang bodies: They build, they create. Women receive. Alpha men have a very tough time committing to alpha women. They'll have an alpha mistress but not an alpha wife. Alpha men do better with beta women: sensitive, empathetic and kind. Who epitomizes beta better than a yoga teacher?”

i'm gonna post this picture of Dr. Jeremy Nicholson i don't care how huge it is

http://attractiondoctor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/DrNicholson2.jpg

Man, they'll give a doctorate in relationships to just about anyone these days.

attractiondoctor.com

http://drpatallen.com/

omg these fucking charlatans ps is this woman dead, someone shake her

Uh.....this news is horrible. This redneck Charles Manson is way more of a terrorist threat to US safety than Isis.

nell irwin painter: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/opinion/sunday/what-is-whiteness.html?smid=tw-share

This is the first piece I've ever read that advocated for a white identity that didn't automatically make my skin crawl

you don't consider white Americans to identify particularly strongly with their ancestral racial/national identities? maybe my experiences are totally skewed (wouldn't be strange obv) by returning yanks but even so ime white Americans p much always identify as, under that umbrella, eg German, Irish, polish, w/e- often as a primary identity and not just as ancestry

In the 1970s, long after they had been accepted as “white,” Italians, Irish, Greeks, Jews and others proclaimed themselves “ethnic” Americans in order to forge a positive identity, at a time of “black is beautiful.” But this ethnic self-discovery did not alter the fact that whiteness continued to be defined, as before, primarily by what it isn’t: blackness. i think this is a bold but inaccurate claim.

kudos

i hate the alpha/beta shit to the point where when i read it i want to break things. it completely devalues the "beta" or "feminine" qualities -- i.e. "sensitive, empathetic, and kind" for dr pat allen, l.a. relationship expert -- in a condescending bullshit way, as if those qualities imply weakness instead of strength.

sorry i am kind of veering back to the earlier discussion. i just think it's worth noting how gross and dehumanizing that way of seeing the world is. it's misogynistic and also a recipe for self-loathing, as i am guessing people who spout that stuff worry a lot about whether or not they are an "alpha". the people who spout this stuff should hate themselves of course, but for different reasons.

you don't consider white Americans to identify particularly strongly with their ancestral racial/national identities? maybe my experiences are totally skewed (wouldn't be strange obv) by returning yanks but even so ime white Americans p much always identify as, under that umbrella, eg German, Irish, polish, w/e- often as a primary identity and not just as ancestry

― designated hitler (darraghmac), Sunday, June 21, 2015 6:56 PM (2 hours ago)

identity is one thing, perception by others is another

During normal everyday waking life, white Americans give little thought to their ancestral racial/national identities. However, put them in Europe and let them talk to Europeans and they are more than willing to identify themselves with some or other European ancestral national identity, unless their ancestry (as often happens) is so hopelessly mixed and effaced as to be unidentifiable.

'Celtic' in that piece seems exclusively to signify Irish Catholic.... which might well be accurate in context.

we could poll the white Americans of ILX to see how much ethnic affinity they feel to their ancestors

you don't consider white Americans to identify particularly strongly with their ancestral racial/national identities? maybe my experiences are totally skewed (wouldn't be strange obv) by returning yanks but even so ime white Americans p much always identify as, under that umbrella, eg German, Irish, polish, w/e- often as a primary identity and not just as ancestry

― designated hitler (darraghmac), Sunday, June 21, 2015 5:56 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It depends! I know lots of people who do identify that way, but it's not universal and, unless it's a link to a remembered relative of the last few generations, it's largely constructed.

I personally identify as generically white. I think a great-great-grandparent was an immigrant, but the rest of my family has been in the same general area for six or seven generations and I can't even trace the genealogy that easily past the midwest.

corn people

p much

My oldest US ancestors a) moved onto land cheated off Native Americans and/or cleared of Native Americans and b) owned slaves. The slave owners were also major Revolutionary War combatants who turned over a great deal of assets to fund said war. This did not include the slaves, who were left to other relations in their wills. I've thought about this A LOT and despite those ancestors fighting for union in the Civil War and accepting abolition (obvs), I am not interested in doing any sort of dance around the facts any longer.