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Mark Haslett
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Posted: 09 February 2024 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

As time goes by and we grow to adulthood, people can become sensitive to flaws in their youthful thinking. When this happens within a member of a privileged majority, it is right an proper to expect that person to grow more sensitive to minorities. "Political correctness" is helpful to someone who needs support making that kind of adjustment. It's helpful to tell Archie Bunker what black people prefer to be called.

Extrapolating that sensitivities can grow out of control and that making people be politically correct can destroy good will is an effective way to attack that kind of effort. But it can also just be the voice of someone who just doesn't want to make an effort.

I've never heard of "transracial" thinking, though it calls familiar things to mind (like the history of "passing" or the woman who became head of the local NAACP in Washington State only to be "outted" as white). I'm not sure if it's a "woke" term or a "clinical" word for the psychology of people who want to be seen in a different racial category than genetics would classify them.

Edited by Mark Haslett on 09 February 2024 at 10:54pm
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James Woodcock
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Posted: 10 February 2024 at 1:07am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

This is really complex. I remember the case a few years ago of someone
saying she was black & turning out to be white. But the person said she felt
black & thus identified as black.
There was a big outcry about it.
I’ve seen the comparison between this & the whole transsexual debate
come up more & more recently.

& I have to say… I don’t know.
If someone says they are one thing, then that’s their choice. I do get
concerned when there is a demand to redefine others because of this
though - so using the term ‘people who menstruate’ I found so, so difficult.
I have concerns about sports & especially refuges. Safe spaces have barely
been created & there are valid concerns that they are already being lost -
whether people agree with those concerns or not, the debate should be
allowed to be had without fear of recrimination.

Is there a difference between identifying as the opposite sex & identifying
as a different race? In scale, not as a social acceptable thing, but in scale?
Can any argument be made for the one that does not apply to the other?

Such a complex issue, from both aspects. Muddied by many, many factors
& many, many emotions. Not to mention vested interests.

The problem is, it is neigh impossible to have a reasoned debate about any
of this because it will, invariably, degenerate into loud, nasty language, with
pile ons happening from both directions. There would be legitimate
concerns for both sides, but we so rarely get to talk about them before
aggression kicks in.
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Bill Collins
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Posted: 10 February 2024 at 8:00am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I remember the white female identifying as black, and the
outcry too James. As for cultural appropriation, isn't that
how knowledge and education spread and the human race
progressed? Does it matter if a black person straightens
their hair, or a white person wears cornrows? Is white
people rapping or playing RnB cultural appropriation?
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Steven Brake
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Posted: 10 February 2024 at 8:45am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

James Woodcock wrote: This is really complex. I remember the case a few years ago of someone saying she was black & turning out to be white. But the person said she felt black & thus identified as black.

------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------
SB wrote: Rachel Dolezal.

I think self-id is largely nonsense at best, and dangerous at worst. There may well be people who genuinely suffer from some kind of dysphoria about their race or sex (not "gender"), but it largely seems to be more about narcissism. 

------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- -

Bill Collins wrote: As for cultural appropriation, isn't that
how knowledge and education spread and the human race
progressed?
------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------
SB wrote: Yeah, "cultural appropriation" is another stupid idea. As a Scot, should I feel outraged when non-Scots sing "Auld Lang Syne" at New Year? :)


Edited by Steven Brake on 10 February 2024 at 8:47am
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Trevor Smith
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Posted: 10 February 2024 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

See: the recent Buffy Sainte-Marie kerfuffle.
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James Woodcock
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Posted: 10 February 2024 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Could it be argued that pretty much most music involves some degree of
cultural appropriation? What about language?
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 10 February 2024 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

To get a bit racial here, and perhaps I've been reading too much James Baldwin, there seems to have been something wrong with white people for quite awhile. I say this as a very white person myself. The flight away from traditional first names culturally by many seems like one symptom of it to me. Not saying it's not understandable, but it is kind of the flip side of the extreme white superiority goof balls that have been around a long time.

I can't really know if a lot of Japanese people are trying to 'be' white, or black people, what they used to call 'Oreos' among themselves... that seems to have gotten maybe better while 'we' whites have gotten a bit crazier? Or is it just the internet helps fringe people find each other and feel egged on in their shared goal by numbers? I saw a 'pro' self-injuring site years ago with people there encouraging self-harm and cutting.

I was thinking too of these people who want not to be human beings of any kind... perhaps most of you are aware of the anthropomorphic 'furry' cult thing often involving going out in public in their alter ego mascot-like animal suits? Now that's beyond even disowning whatever sub-race you happen to be born into but rejecting the human race. I'm sure there must be some non-white 'furrys', but white people not wanting to be white has some kinds of deep roots. Is it perhaps a bit like U.S. citizens wearing a Canadian flag when traveling abroad? I'm sure this could be a great time to be a psychologist... a bit like a sitcom even. Paging Dr. Bob Hartley! :^)

I do have some trepidation about educating about 'trans' anything in elementary schools, that seems to be a battleground often in the news lately. Where does informing turn to promoting? It would be a child with other problems that could be 'guided' towards something tragically not at all right for them. In so far as there were a self-directed trans child at school, not having known much about it but having sought out info on their own/with family, then there can be steps to integrate and educate others. I talked to a school mate of a pretty famous actress, you'd all definitely know her name, and she was in the inter-sexed/androgen insensitivity syndrome, an XY female, spectrum. She had a separate change room for sports and some kids in her class knew something about it. At some point like many people born with physical differences surgery was possible, maybe hormones too and it's just a small detail of her past for almost everyone who knows (the 'God never makes mistakes' know-it-all types excluded I'm sure). I think most of us are adult enough to face the diversity and variety that has always been just not always widely know (there are even people born with something like a bird has; a single orifice 'down there'). The other path is what happened to the first 'sex-change' recipient long before Chrisine Jorgensen who was murdered by Nazis in Weimar era Berlin as part of a violent attack on the Magnusson research facility and library. Indenti-kit marching monoracial populaces with everyone else eliminated or sterilized? Er, no thanks, I'll pass on such absolutism.

I would have a hard time accepting that confirmation of someone as a race other than they were born as is as life or death an issue as that involving sex/gender, but I expect the term 'race dysphoria' would accurately apply. I may even have met a few Japanese comics/animation fans that would fit that; who would talk about how great they think Japan and Japanese culture is to the point of (to me) leaving reality to quite a degree, often including hate and condemnation for the culture they have been born into. And that's from obsessing over big-eyed and pointy chinned cartoon characters with fruit-colored hair randomly effected by strange winds even in space?

Or perhaps we can just make white 'cool' again? Say it carefully, I'm white and I'm, er, sort of alright? Maybe the Japanese with 'corrected' eyes could help on the campaign...

Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 10 February 2024 at 6:33pm
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Wallace Sellars
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Posted: 10 February 2024 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Another thing that makes conversations like this tricky is not recognizing the difference between ethnicity, nationality and race.
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James Woodcock
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Posted: 10 February 2024 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Very good point Wallace
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 10 February 2024 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Japanese is nationality and race.

I wrote someplace else about gender/sex and everything I wrote was passed over in favor of telling me to learn the distinction between the two and loads of 'likes' for the person saying that (where they had 'likes'), so sometimes I feel kind of talked over on certain subjects. I'm old enough I can probably never be perfectly 'woke'.

I used to look upon drag queens as either someone making fun of women, or a kind of black face, but... I can appreciate the impersonation art/acting aspect. Sometimes one is wisest to say "this is something I personally cannot entirely understand" without harsh judgement.

This is something I cannot personally understand... and I'm not 'not understanding' to offend.
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Petter Myhr Ness
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Posted: 10 February 2024 at 11:03pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

We're all human beings. We're all here for a very brief period of time. Nothing we do matter in the large scale of things. So let people be whatever they want to be, if it makes them happy. As long as it's not at the expense of other people. 
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 10 February 2024 at 11:12pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

But, does the race they are 'adopting' have a say? A lot of Native Americans are saying Buffy Sainte-Marie took a place from them at their expense.
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