I would like to reiterate that it’s pretty rich that multiple people who are probably native English speakers have decided to call me racist over that remark. If it helps, I can assure you that race was not at all on my mind when I made that comment, and indeed I’m quite willing to listen to people who display competent moral reasoning, regardless of demographics.
I’m sorry you felt offended by my comment. A few points:
I do not think you’re a racist or were trying to be racist, or that race was on your mind when making that comment. I thought you were feeling misunderstood by titotal and mistakenly thought this was a good way to push back. I said there are no upsides and plenty of downsides to your comment and suggested that you be more direct with your actual problem with titotal instead. “If you’re feeling hopeless about conversing with someone or feeling misunderstood, say that instead.”
Your defense about this being the most charitable interpretation you can think of doesn’t engage with any of the points above. A “charitable” explanation that is unlikely to be relevant even if true is just not worth much, nor did you ask your question in a way to make it easy for an actual non-native speaker to admit to a potential vulnerability if that was going on. I read your comment as a passive-aggressive “Can’t you read?” attack which carelessly used language issues as a shield against being called out for being an attack.
I’ve seen a previous similar comment you made and ignored it at the time, especially since (as you say somewhere here) you could have easily been a non-native speaker yourself. But because it had seemingly moved from a one-off comment to a pattern that you thought was justified, I’m glad I pushed back on it.
I did not call you racist and neither did Akhil. We called out issues with your comment. I hope you are mindful of the difference.
I am sympathetic to a general point about native speakers scolding a non-native speaker for not being inclusive enough in their language, but you are making some assumptions in applying it here.
As an unrelated point, I personally hope whether you listen to someone or not isn’t founded on whether they display competent moral reasoning, but I’m unsure what you meant by this.
I read your comment as a passive-aggressive “Can’t you read?” attack which carelessly used language issues as a shield against being called out for being an attack.
Yes, this is an accurate reading. Except I dispute “carelessly.”
I did not call you racist and neither did Akhil. We called out issues with your comment. I hope you are mindful of the difference.
Hmm sorry how is the following statement not a claim that I was being racist, at least in that incidence?
unacceptable comment, steeped with condescension and some racism.
If I say someone is doing something unacceptably racist, this is not exactly a subtle accusation! I mean, it’s possible someone isn’t overall racist in most ways but is racist in a specific way (eg think of an overall progressive voter/parent who still tries to persuade their children to not marry outside of their race). But I also contest that I was being racist in that comment specifically.
Let’s imagine your charitable hypothesis was true and titotal was a non-native speaker who misread some comments due to lack of familiarity with the language. When they pushed back on something you said, you condescendingly asked them if they were a native speaker and ignored everything else they said. This is a tactic with a racist element.
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.
2. Also called in·sti·tu·tion·al rac·ism [in-sti-too-shuh-nl rey-siz-uhm, -tyoo-], struc·tur·al rac·ism [struhk-cher-uhl rey-siz-uhm], sys·tem·ic rac·ism [si-stem-ik rey-siz-uhm] . a policy, system of government, etc., that is associated with or originated in such a doctrine, and that favors members of the dominant racial or ethnic group, or has a neutral effect on their life experiences, while discriminating against or harming members of other groups, ultimately serving to preserve the social status, economic advantage, or political power of the dominant group.
Can you clarify whether you think my comment fits into (1) or (2), or both? Alternatively, if you think dictionary.com’s definition is not the one you were using, can you pull up which alternative definition of racism you and/or Akhil were invoking when you made your comments?
Ok, in that case your claim is that my sentence is part of a “policy, system of government etc...that favors members of the dominant social group?”
Can you explain what prompted it?
I do not view my actions as racist, at least in this instance. If the claim is accurate, I need to reflect more on how to be less racist. If the claim is inaccurate, then, well, I also have some other reflection to do about life choices.
Linch, I believe you wrote elsewhere here that you wish people had engaged with you charitably, instead of focusing on possibly flawed word choice. I have tried to do this with you, although I feel you haven’t always returned the favor (uncharitable assumptions about my motivations/background, mischaracterizing my comments). You contested there was an element of racism in your comment and I gave you a simple, non-legalese outline of why I think so. In response to this, instead of engaging with my point, you asked me an extremely basic question about how to define racism, a question I had already partially addressed multiple times in how it applies here.
My gut reaction was that this was a defensive reaction and you weren’t interested in engaging, you just wanted to seem not racist and win an online debate.
Of course, my gut could be wrong. So I asked you where you were coming from. And I’m glad to hear you seem to be genuinely interested in learning whether you made mistakes here.
Unfortunately, I am not interested in the type of debate you’re setting up. I gave you a simple outline earlier of where I was coming from and you are welcome to engage with it.
I don’t personally view your comment as racist, but it feels like you’re trying to understand why someone might, so here’s a take.
Here’s a thing that I think is true: your comment came across as dismissive because it didn’t engage with the substance of what had been said. Instead, it seemed to dismiss someone’s substantive comments on the basis of their command of English. Consequently, it came across as a personal attack and specifically as dismissively disrespectful. (To be clear, I’m not saying this was your intention in making the comment; here I’m making a claim about how it came across, or at least how it will have come across to some readers)
Now let’s just focus on it as a dismissal for a moment (that is, let’s just focus on the role it plays as a dismissal despite the fact that this wasn’t the role you were intending it to play). This sort of dismissal might strike some as racist for two reasons:
1. Because there is a (very imperfect) connection between race and native grasp of English, this sort of strategy for dismissal of a person’s substantive views is likely to disproportionally impact people of certain races and is likely to reinforce existing factors that mean such people are dismissed/disrespected/not-adequately-heard. (This is perhaps particularly crucial given that English is one of a small number of languages that is disproportionately important for having power)
2. Because of 1, this strategy is (I suspect) actually deliberately used in many cases as a form of racist dismissal. At the very least, many people will perceive that this is so. Consequently, statements like this take on a certain sort of cultural meaning and carry with them certain consequences (for example, if someone has been racistly dismissed in this way many times before, it will be more hurtful to them to face this sort of dismissal again, and so the sentence comes to be particularly harmful to people who have experienced racist attacks).
Given 1 and 2, this sort of statement occupies a certain place in a set of norms around discourse: it is a member of a class of statements that reinforces racial disparities, that harms people disproportionally from certain races, and that is used as a dogwhistle to describe racist dismissal as something else. I think this does roughly fit the second definition of racism that you point to (or, at least, the more complete version of this that recognises that systemtic racism can be about not just policies or systems but also about the role played in broader social norms).
For myself, I buy at least some of the above, and think it might mean it was worth commenting on the way that your commenting could be upsetting to some. I wouldn’t personally chose to describe the comment as racism, because I think this is too easily read as a comment on a person’s intention and virtue, rather than some sort of comment about the place of the statement within a broader societal context. And as I’m confident your intentions here were good, I personally would avoid this description.
So I do understand this is not your actual position and you’re trying to explain someone else’s position. Nonetheless I’m going to try to argue against it directly:
Because of 1, this strategy is (I suspect) actually deliberately used in many cases as a form of racist dismissal...for example, if someone has been racistly dismissed in this way many times before, it will be more hurtful to them to face this sort of dismissal again
As a non-native speaker, I think I have literally never been dismissed in this way[1]. So I suspect you’re setting up an imaginary problem. But I only have anecdotes to go off of rather than data; if someone has survey data I’m willing to update quickly.
I think this does roughly fit the second definition of racism that you point to (or, at least, the more complete version of this...[emphasis mine]
Here’s where I’m coming from: I think you are bending over backwards to support what I view to be a blatantly false claim. In modern left-leaning American culture, “racist” is one of the worst things you can call someone, I’m surprised so many people would stand for me being called that based on such scant evidence, and I’m currently reflecting on whether it makes sense for me to continue to devote so much of my life to being in a community (see EDIT [2]) that finds this type of thing permissible.
For myself, I buy at least some of the above, and think it might mean it was worth commenting on the way that your commenting could be upsetting to some.
I’m not surprised my comment is upsetting to the intended target (what I perceive as poor reading comprehension by people who know better), and/or to people who might choose to take offense on others’ behalf. If anybody genuinely feels unwelcome for object-level race or ethnic-related reasons based on my comment, I’m deeply sorry and I’m happy to apologize further publicly if someone in that position messages me about it and/or messages one of the forum mods to relay the message to me.
And as I’m confident your intentions here were good, I personally would avoid this description.
Thank you. To be clear, I do appreciate both your confidence and your reticence.
EDIT: A month + in, no one has ever messaged me saying that they felt unwelcome for object-level race- or ethnic-related reasons. This feels like confirmatory evidence that privileged native speakers in fact are doing the political move of “feeling offended on others’ behalf” instead of being willing to acknowledge (and/or defend) their own mediocrity. (See also anti-Asian rules passed in educational etc institutions in the name of “diversity”, which I’m pretty sure benefits white people much more than other ethnic minorities)
And to be clear I’ve experienced very blatant (though ultimately harmless) racism not too infrequnetly, as an argumentative visibly nonwhite person on the ’net.
EDIT: I’m afraid that came off too dramatically. I do view being involved in the community as a community pretty differently than being involved professionally. I still intend to work on EA projects etc even if I reduce eg EA Forum commenting or going to social events dramatically, and personal unpleasantness is not going to stop me from working in EA unless it’s like >10-100x this comment thread daily. (And even if I stop having jobs in EA organizations for other reasons I’d likely still intend to be effectively altruistic with my time and other resources)
I’m not really up for a long exchange here, as I find this sort of thing draining. So I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t reply further after this message.
As a non-native speaker, I think I have literally never been dismissed in this way. So I suspect you’re setting up an imaginary problem. But I only have anecdotes to go off of rather than data; if someone has survey data I’m willing to update quickly.
In text, at least, your English is notably better than the average native speaker, so I’m not convinced you’re representative here. Even setting aside your grasp of English, your obvious high intelligence would, I suspect, make it pretty hard to pull off dismissing you in this way, as would your willingness to speak your views. So I’m not convinced that the fact that you haven’t experienced this means that others haven’t.
That said, I accept that I have no actual data to point to.
In modern left-leaning American culture, “racist” is one of the worst things you can call someone,
I actually think this is importantly false (or, at least, importantly incomplete as a characterisation). Modern left-leaning culture really does distinguish between racism in the two senses that you quoted earlier. And when it comes to structural racism, saying that someone is racist (in the sense of having acted in a way that perpetuates and buys into racist structural norms) just isn’t a terrible thing to call someone.
I’ve heard multiple people saying that they think everyone is racist (ie. socialised into problematic norms that perpetuate racist discrimination) and also that they are themselves of course racist (because they too have been socialised in this way).
Structural racism is seen as a big deal by the left. It’s seen as worth correcting the influence of this on ourselves. But it’s not seen as a terrible accusation to acknowledge that a particular statement or behaviour was structurally racist (indeed, saying this can be helpful for allowing people to make progress in challenging the ways that structural racism has impacted their thinking).
Of course, a statement that someone is racist might be ambiguous, between the terrible reading and the structural reading, which is why I wouldn’t personally use it in the latter way. So I do wish we lived in a world where people wouldn’t call you racist for the things in this thread.
I’m surprised so many people would stand for me being called that based on such scant evidence
Setting aside my just-stated wish, my guess is that no-one intended to call you racist in the terrible sense. And, at the very least, my guess is that the reason people “stand for” Akhil’s comment is that they do not see it as an accusation of racism in the terrible sense.
I myself did not read it this way, despite (and I would actually say, because of) very much being steeped in the contemporary left. This is partly because Akhil commented on your comment rather than on you as an individual, and partly because I think the structural, rather than the terrible, claim is the more plausible accusation here (the accusation being something like: the statement is given meaning by a set of structural norms that developed because of racist attitudes and that perpetuates racial disadvantage). So I guess I felt like the charitable read of Akhil was that he wasn’t calling you racist in the terrible sense but rather was making a claim about structural racism.
For what it’s worth, I think it would be a real loss to the community if you chose to be less involved.
I would like to reiterate that it’s pretty rich that multiple people who are probably native English speakers have decided to call me racist over that remark. If it helps, I can assure you that race was not at all on my mind when I made that comment, and indeed I’m quite willing to listen to people who display competent moral reasoning, regardless of demographics.
Hi Linch,
I’m sorry you felt offended by my comment. A few points:
I do not think you’re a racist or were trying to be racist, or that race was on your mind when making that comment. I thought you were feeling misunderstood by titotal and mistakenly thought this was a good way to push back. I said there are no upsides and plenty of downsides to your comment and suggested that you be more direct with your actual problem with titotal instead. “If you’re feeling hopeless about conversing with someone or feeling misunderstood, say that instead.”
Your defense about this being the most charitable interpretation you can think of doesn’t engage with any of the points above. A “charitable” explanation that is unlikely to be relevant even if true is just not worth much, nor did you ask your question in a way to make it easy for an actual non-native speaker to admit to a potential vulnerability if that was going on. I read your comment as a passive-aggressive “Can’t you read?” attack which carelessly used language issues as a shield against being called out for being an attack.
I’ve seen a previous similar comment you made and ignored it at the time, especially since (as you say somewhere here) you could have easily been a non-native speaker yourself. But because it had seemingly moved from a one-off comment to a pattern that you thought was justified, I’m glad I pushed back on it.
I did not call you racist and neither did Akhil. We called out issues with your comment. I hope you are mindful of the difference.
I am sympathetic to a general point about native speakers scolding a non-native speaker for not being inclusive enough in their language, but you are making some assumptions in applying it here.
As an unrelated point, I personally hope whether you listen to someone or not isn’t founded on whether they display competent moral reasoning, but I’m unsure what you meant by this.
Yes, this is an accurate reading. Except I dispute “carelessly.”
Hmm sorry how is the following statement not a claim that I was being racist, at least in that incidence?
If I say someone is doing something unacceptably racist, this is not exactly a subtle accusation! I mean, it’s possible someone isn’t overall racist in most ways but is racist in a specific way (eg think of an overall progressive voter/parent who still tries to persuade their children to not marry outside of their race). But I also contest that I was being racist in that comment specifically.
Let’s imagine your charitable hypothesis was true and titotal was a non-native speaker who misread some comments due to lack of familiarity with the language. When they pushed back on something you said, you condescendingly asked them if they were a native speaker and ignored everything else they said. This is a tactic with a racist element.
Here’s the dictionary definition of racism:
Can you clarify whether you think my comment fits into (1) or (2), or both? Alternatively, if you think dictionary.com’s definition is not the one you were using, can you pull up which alternative definition of racism you and/or Akhil were invoking when you made your comments?
I’m surprised by this question. Can you explain what prompted it? I think I’ve been pretty clear that I don’t think your comment was motivated by (1).
Ok, in that case your claim is that my sentence is part of a “policy, system of government etc...that favors members of the dominant social group?”
I do not view my actions as racist, at least in this instance. If the claim is accurate, I need to reflect more on how to be less racist. If the claim is inaccurate, then, well, I also have some other reflection to do about life choices.
I will probably refrain from engaging further.
Linch, I believe you wrote elsewhere here that you wish people had engaged with you charitably, instead of focusing on possibly flawed word choice. I have tried to do this with you, although I feel you haven’t always returned the favor (uncharitable assumptions about my motivations/background, mischaracterizing my comments). You contested there was an element of racism in your comment and I gave you a simple, non-legalese outline of why I think so. In response to this, instead of engaging with my point, you asked me an extremely basic question about how to define racism, a question I had already partially addressed multiple times in how it applies here.
My gut reaction was that this was a defensive reaction and you weren’t interested in engaging, you just wanted to seem not racist and win an online debate.
Of course, my gut could be wrong. So I asked you where you were coming from. And I’m glad to hear you seem to be genuinely interested in learning whether you made mistakes here.
Unfortunately, I am not interested in the type of debate you’re setting up. I gave you a simple outline earlier of where I was coming from and you are welcome to engage with it.
Take care.
I don’t personally view your comment as racist, but it feels like you’re trying to understand why someone might, so here’s a take.
Here’s a thing that I think is true: your comment came across as dismissive because it didn’t engage with the substance of what had been said. Instead, it seemed to dismiss someone’s substantive comments on the basis of their command of English. Consequently, it came across as a personal attack and specifically as dismissively disrespectful. (To be clear, I’m not saying this was your intention in making the comment; here I’m making a claim about how it came across, or at least how it will have come across to some readers)
Now let’s just focus on it as a dismissal for a moment (that is, let’s just focus on the role it plays as a dismissal despite the fact that this wasn’t the role you were intending it to play). This sort of dismissal might strike some as racist for two reasons:
1. Because there is a (very imperfect) connection between race and native grasp of English, this sort of strategy for dismissal of a person’s substantive views is likely to disproportionally impact people of certain races and is likely to reinforce existing factors that mean such people are dismissed/disrespected/not-adequately-heard. (This is perhaps particularly crucial given that English is one of a small number of languages that is disproportionately important for having power)
2. Because of 1, this strategy is (I suspect) actually deliberately used in many cases as a form of racist dismissal. At the very least, many people will perceive that this is so. Consequently, statements like this take on a certain sort of cultural meaning and carry with them certain consequences (for example, if someone has been racistly dismissed in this way many times before, it will be more hurtful to them to face this sort of dismissal again, and so the sentence comes to be particularly harmful to people who have experienced racist attacks).
Given 1 and 2, this sort of statement occupies a certain place in a set of norms around discourse: it is a member of a class of statements that reinforces racial disparities, that harms people disproportionally from certain races, and that is used as a dogwhistle to describe racist dismissal as something else. I think this does roughly fit the second definition of racism that you point to (or, at least, the more complete version of this that recognises that systemtic racism can be about not just policies or systems but also about the role played in broader social norms).
For myself, I buy at least some of the above, and think it might mean it was worth commenting on the way that your commenting could be upsetting to some. I wouldn’t personally chose to describe the comment as racism, because I think this is too easily read as a comment on a person’s intention and virtue, rather than some sort of comment about the place of the statement within a broader societal context. And as I’m confident your intentions here were good, I personally would avoid this description.
So I do understand this is not your actual position and you’re trying to explain someone else’s position. Nonetheless I’m going to try to argue against it directly:
As a non-native speaker, I think I have literally never been dismissed in this way[1]. So I suspect you’re setting up an imaginary problem. But I only have anecdotes to go off of rather than data; if someone has survey data I’m willing to update quickly.
Here’s where I’m coming from: I think you are bending over backwards to support what I view to be a blatantly false claim. In modern left-leaning American culture, “racist” is one of the worst things you can call someone, I’m surprised so many people would stand for me being called that based on such scant evidence, and I’m currently reflecting on whether it makes sense for me to continue to devote so much of my life to being in a community (see EDIT [2]) that finds this type of thing permissible.
I’m not surprised my comment is upsetting to the intended target (what I perceive as poor reading comprehension by people who know better), and/or to people who might choose to take offense on others’ behalf. If anybody genuinely feels unwelcome for object-level race or ethnic-related reasons based on my comment, I’m deeply sorry and I’m happy to apologize further publicly if someone in that position messages me about it and/or messages one of the forum mods to relay the message to me.
Thank you. To be clear, I do appreciate both your confidence and your reticence.
EDIT: A month + in, no one has ever messaged me saying that they felt unwelcome for object-level race- or ethnic-related reasons. This feels like confirmatory evidence that privileged native speakers in fact are doing the political move of “feeling offended on others’ behalf” instead of being willing to acknowledge (and/or defend) their own mediocrity. (See also anti-Asian rules passed in educational etc institutions in the name of “diversity”, which I’m pretty sure benefits white people much more than other ethnic minorities)
See also this Twitter poll https://twitter.com/LinchZhang/status/1708625779800867126
And to be clear I’ve experienced very blatant (though ultimately harmless) racism not too infrequnetly, as an argumentative visibly nonwhite person on the ’net.
EDIT: I’m afraid that came off too dramatically. I do view being involved in the community as a community pretty differently than being involved professionally. I still intend to work on EA projects etc even if I reduce eg EA Forum commenting or going to social events dramatically, and personal unpleasantness is not going to stop me from working in EA unless it’s like >10-100x this comment thread daily. (And even if I stop having jobs in EA organizations for other reasons I’d likely still intend to be effectively altruistic with my time and other resources)
I’m not really up for a long exchange here, as I find this sort of thing draining. So I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t reply further after this message.
In text, at least, your English is notably better than the average native speaker, so I’m not convinced you’re representative here. Even setting aside your grasp of English, your obvious high intelligence would, I suspect, make it pretty hard to pull off dismissing you in this way, as would your willingness to speak your views. So I’m not convinced that the fact that you haven’t experienced this means that others haven’t.
That said, I accept that I have no actual data to point to.
I actually think this is importantly false (or, at least, importantly incomplete as a characterisation). Modern left-leaning culture really does distinguish between racism in the two senses that you quoted earlier. And when it comes to structural racism, saying that someone is racist (in the sense of having acted in a way that perpetuates and buys into racist structural norms) just isn’t a terrible thing to call someone.
I’ve heard multiple people saying that they think everyone is racist (ie. socialised into problematic norms that perpetuate racist discrimination) and also that they are themselves of course racist (because they too have been socialised in this way).
Structural racism is seen as a big deal by the left. It’s seen as worth correcting the influence of this on ourselves. But it’s not seen as a terrible accusation to acknowledge that a particular statement or behaviour was structurally racist (indeed, saying this can be helpful for allowing people to make progress in challenging the ways that structural racism has impacted their thinking).
Of course, a statement that someone is racist might be ambiguous, between the terrible reading and the structural reading, which is why I wouldn’t personally use it in the latter way. So I do wish we lived in a world where people wouldn’t call you racist for the things in this thread.
Setting aside my just-stated wish, my guess is that no-one intended to call you racist in the terrible sense. And, at the very least, my guess is that the reason people “stand for” Akhil’s comment is that they do not see it as an accusation of racism in the terrible sense.
I myself did not read it this way, despite (and I would actually say, because of) very much being steeped in the contemporary left. This is partly because Akhil commented on your comment rather than on you as an individual, and partly because I think the structural, rather than the terrible, claim is the more plausible accusation here (the accusation being something like: the statement is given meaning by a set of structural norms that developed because of racist attitudes and that perpetuates racial disadvantage). So I guess I felt like the charitable read of Akhil was that he wasn’t calling you racist in the terrible sense but rather was making a claim about structural racism.
For what it’s worth, I think it would be a real loss to the community if you chose to be less involved.