Diversity?

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https://youtu.be/yRAPlH6jRdE?si=gYFfgAIzCQH6w8ni

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Simon_Webb

Let's not lose sight of how disinformed Simon Webb is. The man merely regurgitates disinformation from the reactionary fringe and can't be considered a credible expert on anything that he discusses; it's only a question of if he actually believes the incorrect claims he makes throughout his videos or if he knows they're BS.

The language is kind of old-timey, but he's not wrong. At least not in this corner of the US. I started my schooling at the very end of the local desegregation efforts around here and got free full-time Kindergarten as part of it. I was one of the first students to attend my elementary school for all 6 years in something close to 15 years.

It's definitely the case that diversity isn't at all evenly defined. Somehow bisexuals still don't exist in proportion to how many of us there are, there's a complete and utter failure to recognize what white ethnicities managed to avoid ethnic cleansing in the US, and even though the battles between the various Indians and the US Government went on into the '70s there's basically no acknowledgement of that. Not to mention that there are still white people in parts of Appalachia that are living in conditions that you'd be more likely to associate with the 3rd world than a developed country, when people think of modern poverty, they're far more likely to think of the inner city, where the folks at least typically have water, electricity and access to food and education.

Then there's the degree to which things like the Cass Report have been just absolutely buried due to activists being concerned that children might not be provided with gender affirming care if the science doesn't back it. It seems to me that if the science doesn't back it for children, there should be real questions asked about what the point of offering medical treatment that isn't backed in any research really is.

20 years ago, I could point out the BSness of some of this stuff, like that the conditions on slave ships has nothing to do with modern black people in the US having health problems, or that there's really no such thing as white privilege going back centuries the way people like to imply, because there was no "white" group going back that far, Even into the '70s there were a bunch of "white" people that were on the receiving end of ethnic jokes and there was a real question when JFK ran for President as to whether a Catholic could even be trusted not to turn over things to the Pope. Or, back in the '40s when you had German-Americans, Italian-Americans and Chinese-Americans, amongst others, that were thrown into American concentration camps along with the Japanese-Americans that were sent there.

It really goes on and on, none of this is particularly commonly acknowledged because it gets in the way of the drive for inclusion, which oddly enough leaves out anybody that doesn't have a bunch of loud-mouthed advocates pushing for inclusion.

!	Cornflake wrote:
	I was in two minds whether to remove this thread altogether - Webb's Rational Wiki page is disturbing enough; the man seems to espouse most things disallowed on WP. But I'll let it run, for now, on the understanding that his poisonous views are discussed and not promoted here.

Most bigotry is rooted in the former, rather than the latter.

Of course there is no direct causal link here. Insofar at these two things get lumped together, it is in terms of both being manifestations of the long history of Black people being treated as subhuman.


The idea of "white" and "black" races goes back to the 1600's. As soon as this idea was invented, the "whites" had privilege, relatively speaking. That was the whole point -- to justify lifelong slavery for the "blacks." (See Whiteness is an invented concept that has been used as a tool of oppression. See also How White People Became White! and The invention of whiteness: the long history of a dangerous idea.)


Yes, all of this happened. None of it means Black people weren't oppressed in other ways.


How? I don't see how it hinders the drive for inclusion.


Yep. It sure is helpful to have "a bunch of loud-mouthed advocates" fighting for one's rights. This certainly doesn't prove that what the "loud-mouthed advocates" are saying is BS. It just proves that there are other groups (such as the poor rural Appalachians you mentioned) in need of some "loud-mouthed advocates" too.

On the other hand, some groups have managed to win acceptance without a lot of "loud-mouthed advocates" or other fanfare, just by assimilating and gradually becoming a familiar presence.

But those groups were the lucky ones. Such an approach doesn't work for all groups.

For example, without "loud-mouthed advocates," we'd still have slavery.

That's not super relevant to a health class at school. The reason why black folks have health problems is due to a combination of medical care and access to proper nutritious food. Slavery has nothing to do with that.

This is rather disingenuous. It wasn't until WWII when Europeans found enough commonality to stop engaging in wars every few generations that would wipe out 20-30% of the men of fighting age. This whole idea that there was a white ethnic group didn't happen until well after the 19th century and you can sort of track it with the waves of immigration as more and more people were considered to be white enough to let in. It was horribly racist, but that sort of a thing did have an impact in terms of how society organized along racial lines. With significant ethnic exclaves existing well into the 19th century for various white ethnic groups.


I never said they weren't, but there is at least some awareness of what black folks have been through. It's just that what they went through in the last 150ish years is just not that different from what other groups have gone through.


If diversity is a good thing, then it should really apply relatively equally to all groups. The college I work at has an affinity group for just about everybody other than white men. It's both hypocritical and counterproductive to refuse to see diversity in white groups and expect to get any cooperation at all. The days where white people were really doing that much better than the rest of the population are a thing of the past, and most of the time the differences are attributable to a few people at the very top or by failing to making apples to apples comparisons.


Which isn't at all true. The economics of slavery meant that the sort of chattel slavery would have gone extinct on it's own by now. The main reason why it still existed when the civil war was fought was that the cotton gin made it cheap enough to continue, but the machinery to cheaply handle an entire field was always going to come and with it an end to slavery. The civil war and the abolitionists did hasten it's demise, but the import of slaves had ended decades before the civil war

As far as the formula goes, it's worked for just about every group that's used it. Sure, at the end of it there's pretty much always a handful of key court rulings, but you make it sound like it's this thing that worked for a few groups and can be discounted. It's worked for basically every group, although a few have required significantly more time than others.

This is a bizarre claim. The Cass Report has been pretty much blindly accepted by the political class, despite the criticism it has received from scientists over its methodological failings, obvious political motivations, and departure from the scientific consensus. Indeed, the political class has gone further than the Cass Review, with both the Conservatives and Labour deciding to ban puberty blockers despite the Cass Review not recommending that course of action.

Unfortunately there is a disconnect between the activist political class and the scientific evidence, but it's the exact opposite of the one you're claiming. We're in a bizarre situation where anyone taking a rational, evidence-led approach is being painted as an "activist", while the activists are imposing their ideology on our healthcare system for no reason other than naked transphobia and because it's politically correct.

I'm i the US, and I probably should have pointed out that I'm talking about the US mainly because that's what I have the most experience with. Around here, there's a bunch of activists that are rabble rousing over the fact that kids might not be allowed to get the treatments due to a law in Tennessee that's being challenged in courts. So, at least around here, it's not something that the political elites necessary support and I may well be bubbled on this issue, but I do see a ton of the people around me that view any effort to regulate trans adjacent things as being transphobic. Some of it does have clear research backing it up like the use of preferred pronouns and names, some of it doesn't really have an established benefit/consequence like proactively asking everybody to out themselves.

The Cass Report typically hasn't even been brought up when I hear people debating whether medical care should be adult only, or include children. (Clearly, I mean things like medication rather than psychological treatment)