Drewbahr's recent activity

  1. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    Why is that at all reasonable?

    Why is that at all reasonable?

    1 vote

  2. Comment on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shoots and kills a woman during the Minneapolis immigration crackdown in ~society

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    You can volunteer with local aid groups. You can donate to aid groups doing the work where you can't volunteer your time. You can call your politicians and say your piece. I feel, and have felt,...

    You can volunteer with local aid groups.

    You can donate to aid groups doing the work where you can't volunteer your time.

    You can call your politicians and say your piece.

    I feel, and have felt, the same way you do. The best cure for that hopelessness that I've found is to get active, even a little bit. Because you're right, getting out is hard, for a lot of reasons (I've looked into it too).

    I wish there was something that you/I/we could do, all at once, that would set the course. But we're not in those positions, we can't take on that responsibility or else it will crush us (I've been there too). We can only do what little things we can do, and that is enough.

    10 votes

  3. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    I don't have answers for you. What I will say is, in my opinion it hasn't been implemented or executed in The United States for long enough. We're talking about generational changes. You can't...

    I don't have answers for you. What I will say is, in my opinion it hasn't been implemented or executed in The United States for long enough. We're talking about generational changes. You can't expect 400+ years of oppression to be lifted or reversed in 40 years. And if there's one thing Americans are good at, it's not understanding how long things can take.

    I should know, I'm an American.

    The issue I have here is - how do you evaluate those goals? When is it enough? Or how do you avoid a situation in which affirmative action doesn't work that well to achieve its goals or works really well in one aspect but causes issues in other aspects, and its proponents say "well we just need to wait longer until it works" while advantages plateau but problems deepen? These issues don't seem to be defined or debated openly on either side.

    I think the problem is in thinking that all it will take is a single, perfect policy. That doesn't exist. Anytime policy changes are made, there will be "winners" and "losers" due to how folks choose to implement them, or in some cases choose not to implement them. There were plenty of schools that were de facto segregated well into the 2000s, despite segregation formally ending decades prior.

    What should happen is, a policy gets made, and data is acquired to verify its efficacy. If it's effective in one area but is generating negative consequences elsewhere, you amend the policy to correct those issues. It's an iterative process, one that will make mistakes but will also improve outcomes over the long term.

    Instead, what we have are politicians that seek to implement these changes, facing off against politicians that will adamantly refuse to consider them at all - then undo them and reverse them when they have the political power to do so. We don't have a continuing, iterative process towards equity; we have people losing their rights right now because there's a political will to undo any progressive work done since 1776.

    And you can't really blame it only on right wing populism, because they only exploited opinions that already existed - especially working class tends to be socially conservative pretty much across cultures regardless of current political leadership, and the groups that opposed progressive policies that seem clearly unfair from some point of view seemed to be wider than just working class in the US, that's a generator for backlash.

    I hate to say it but you and I agree, for the most part. I absolutely blame right-wing populism, but you're right that they "only exploited opinions that already existed". There's A LOT of racism in The United States - as I've said, it is foundational to the country - so when groups started framing it as "Asians are losing college admissions to Black people" or "Immigrants are taking your jobs", they are specifically playing to the inherent racism in this country. And quite frankly, I only ever see the right-wingers doing this play.

    But when we go back to the example of working class people in Appalachia, sizeable groups lived in company towns and were economically exploited before proper worker protections emerged, so they have similar issues in this area. I'm not discounting the other problems you mention, but similarly to poor Asians these people are going to rightfully feel it's unfair.

    But again, it's not "unfair". Yes, working-class people in Appalachia have been given a shit hand. But Affirmative Action standards were not created just to put any ol' Black, Asian, or other racialized person into college or into a job without qualifications. They were created specifically to ensure equal hiring and admission practices, given appropriate qualifications.

    In fact, that's one of the reasons why Affirmative Action and other DEI programs are being killed by the current administration. They (the white supremacists in power) have claimed that people were getting their jobs/admissions/etc without proper qualifications, over the "better skilled" white people. This simply isn't true, never has been true.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on "Ai ni, laoji": China's Gen Z is breaking tradition by learning self-love (English) in ~health.mental

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    I think there's a few steps between "treat yourself to a milk tea" and the "fuck you, got mine" attitudes of the US in the 80s ... not to mention, cultural differences.

    I think there's a few steps between "treat yourself to a milk tea" and the "fuck you, got mine" attitudes of the US in the 80s ... not to mention, cultural differences.

    7 votes

  5. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    The point of affirmative action and similar policies is to actually establish fairness, not to make the scales uneven. It exists/existed because there is a bias against non-white people in hiring...

    The point of affirmative action and similar policies is to actually establish fairness, not to make the scales uneven. It exists/existed because there is a bias against non-white people in hiring and academia, and it sought to make hiring practices more representative of the population.

    I'm on mobile so I'll flesh this out later, on a proper computer.

    EDIT: Now I'm on a proper computer.

    We need to define what the word "privilege" means in this, any arguably any, context. When people talk about things like "white privilege", it doesn't (necessarily) mean that they're financially stable. It doesn't mean that they're given things because they're white. "White privilege" refers to the fact that "white" and whiteness is considered to be "the default" in American culture. It refers to the fact that most white people don't have to worry about their family being murdered when a cop shows up at their door. It refers to the fact that most white people don't have to worry about how "ethnic" their name sounds on a job application.

    Affirmative Action is often viewed through an economic lens, much as has been done here. The notion that because there's poor white people living alongside rich Black or Asian people, that must mean that Affirmative Action is somehow providing benefit to people that don't always need it. There's the classic "they're an AA hire" comment that follows around anyone that isn't white that finds themselves in any upper-tier corporate position.

    But Affirmative Action, in my opinion, needs to be looked at from a more societal lens. Non-white people throughout American history have been held back from being able to acquire generational wealth. Yes, there are rich Black families, rich Asian families, poor white families ... all of those are true! But go back in time just a couple of generations, and ask the same question - how many rich Black families were there in the early 20th Century? How many rich Asian families were there in the 1800s?

    Affirmative Action sought to correct some of those imbalances - not by giving benefits to Black or Asian people only, at the expense of white people; but rather, by raising up non-white people so that they can be on the same footing. Culturally, it has the added benefit of putting people of color into positions that they, historically, have been kept out of - meaning, those "good ol' boys clubs" where you only see white people, now have a spattering of Black, Asian, and other ethnicities. Given a long enough timeline, it would mean that it's no longer unusual to see them there. It goes from "they're a DEI hire" to "they're a hire", because it's no longer unexpected to see people of color in those roles.

    I'm reminded of a comedian talking about the Black Lives Matter movement, and how there was a very outspoken side of people against it. They would loudly shout "ALL LIVES MATTER", complaining about the focus on Black people where white people were killed more frequently in the USA, or complaining "WHAT ABOUT ASIAN PEOPLE" or the like. The comedian pointed out that the term "Black Lives Matter" said only that - that Black lives matter. Not that they matter more. Not that only they matter. Just that they matter. And people got stirred into a craze over it.

    I know people will say that ethnicity doesn't exist - humanity is one group. Genetically, everyone everywhere is indistinguishable. "Race" is an invention and shouldn't matter or exist. And I agree with all of that! The trouble is, in the United States race does exist. Ethnicity does exist. It has for centuries and is foundational to everything this country is based on.

    I think the end goal, for everyone, is probably for the world, if not just The United States, to become truly colorblind. Ideally, it shouldn't matter what color your skin is, what shape your eyes are, what texture your hair is. But we don't live in that world right now. We have to acknowledge that these differences exist (even if only politically!), and we have to fight against the injustices being wrought against people based on them.

    The goal was never to create a place where only Black, or Asian, or anyone else gets benefits at the expense of everyone else. It was simply to create actual equity, to level the playing field.

    6 votes

  6. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    Once you realize that the term "white" has little, in reality, to do with skin color, and more to do with political power, it starts to make more sense. Irish weren't white until they were. Same...

    Once you realize that the term "white" has little, in reality, to do with skin color, and more to do with political power, it starts to make more sense.

    Irish weren't white until they were. Same with Italians, same with Greeks, same with Germans at various points.

    Whiteness (and race generally) has always, always been a slippery categorization tool, intentionally flexible to create and adjust in and out groups.

    9 votes

  7. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    Maybe the fact that those voices are the ones getting banned is telling too.

    Maybe the fact that those voices are the ones getting banned is telling too.

    4 votes

  8. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    If someone is going to wade into a heated and challenging topic, it's best to do it in a less haphazard way. And if one does it haphazardly, it's best to be willing to eat crow and acknowledge...

    If someone is going to wade into a heated and challenging topic, it's best to do it in a less haphazard way. And if one does it haphazardly, it's best to be willing to eat crow and acknowledge that they fucked it up.

    I've done it before - waded into conversations and situations that I was underprepared for, on topics that go certain directions. I've been called out on where I use imprecise language, said something racist or some other -ist. And I take those circumstances as learning opportunities - to do better, to be better.

    If these sorts of threads keep popping up, and Tildes continues to shed people from marginalized or underrepresented backgrounds and/or with other perspectives, then it does say something about the "homogeneity" here.

    6 votes

  9. Comment on Hacktivist deletes three white supremacist websites live onstage during hacker conference in ~tech

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    You don't have to step forward to defend Nazis. You just don't. You don't have to celebrate that their website(s) were taken down, but you certainly do not ever need to defend them.

    I am not looking forward to being "that guy who defended nazis" but since no one steps forward...

    You don't have to step forward to defend Nazis. You just don't.

    You don't have to celebrate that their website(s) were taken down, but you certainly do not ever need to defend them.

    6 votes

  10. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    You'll kindly note the caveat that I said "many if not most". Most might be too far, but many does not feel inaccurate. The United States is a big place, and policing did not develop from a single...

    You'll kindly note the caveat that I said "many if not most". Most might be too far, but many does not feel inaccurate.

    The United States is a big place, and policing did not develop from a single point outward. It developed, as you've said before, when people began forming polities. Colonial police forces may have had their origins in European/British police models, but the same can't be said of everywhere in the United States. There are police departments whose origins were those slave patrols.

    As soon as a law is laid down, the question of how a polity enforces that law (ultimately through monopoly of violence) is answered with some sort of police function.

    Slavery was legal for a very long time, and is arguably still practiced today; refer to the prison population and the overrepresentation of Black people in prison. If slavery was legal, then enforcement of that law - of slavery - becomes a police function. Vis-a-vis, slave patrols - based on this definition - can be considered police functions.

    5 votes

  11. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Things exist as they do today because of how they were formed, and the reasons behind their formation. I don't think we can, or should, separate what police is today from what it was intended to...

    Things exist as they do today because of how they were formed, and the reasons behind their formation. I don't think we can, or should, separate what police is today from what it was intended to do from its inception.

    People want to feel safe. But we need to ask ourselves who feels safe when the police are present? The answer is going to depend on who you are, how you are profiled, where you are, your local police force, and so many other factors that are directly informed and influenced by the history of the region.

    I once wondered why my area, demographically, had so few people with Asian ancestry and/or from Asia when compared to the major metropolitan areas that are a few hours north and south of me. On the one hand, there's an obvious answer - those are major metropolitan areas, of course they'll have more people and have more "critical mass" of sorts. But still, sandwiched between them is my city, with less than 1% of its population being folks identified through the census as Asian or Asian American.

    Turns out, where I live had the largest KKK rally in Washington state, once upon a time. They also enforced the Asian Exclusion Act and forced everyone of Asian ancestry out of the county. Even though the city I live in self-identifies as "liberal", "progressive", "left-leaning", etc. ... it doesn't really matter, because of the history of the area. Hell, the city only formally apologized for its enforcement of Asian exclusion a few years ago - nearly a century after the fact.

    All of this is to say, you can't just say "we're better now, we're different, times are different" when you're only a couple of generations out from segregation, and the effects of policies from centuries ago are still being felt today, actively, by everyone.

    You say well-disciplined officers are put through training and held to de-escalation standards, despite the fact that the de facto training manual for so many police officers has been "On Killing". Many police officers aren't trained to de-escalate - they are, in fact, trained to escalate first. Of course it varies from cop to cop, and region to region, but on the whole the police are not simply a force meant to protect people. Legally, the SCOTUS has said they do not have to! The police are there to enforce laws, not to serve and protect.

    There's a lot of room for improvement and for change, and I don't claim to know any of the answers. What I do know is that something needs to change, and simply throwing more money at it, isn't it. Civilian oversight and good governance are great ideas, necessary ideas, that fall short without cultural change and legal change that would require cops to stop shooting first.

    9 votes

  12. Comment on How do you report an entire topic? in ~tildes

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    I've been involved in threads where my own replies have been deleted, along with others, when things got too heated. Coincidentally, it was most recently in a thread very much like the one in...

    I've been involved in threads where my own replies have been deleted, along with others, when things got too heated. Coincidentally, it was most recently in a thread very much like the one in question.

    I understand I'm a common denominator, so we can just leave that observation there.

    I think maybe it's time for me to leave.

    8 votes

  13. Comment on How do you report an entire topic? in ~tildes

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    I'll take it into consideration. EDIT: Amusingly, that page suggests one course of action towards a potentially contentious edit or article is to remove it immediately.

    I'll take it into consideration.

    EDIT: Amusingly, that page suggests one course of action towards a potentially contentious edit or article is to remove it immediately.

    6 votes

  14. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    I was recommended to read the book by the very sorts of people you're claiming would have denounced me for reading it. You really should read it, if only because Ibram X. Kendi is a good author...

    I was recommended to read the book by the very sorts of people you're claiming would have denounced me for reading it. You really should read it, if only because Ibram X. Kendi is a good author with a compelling viewpoint.

  15. Comment on How do you report an entire topic? in ~tildes

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    When the thread was initiated, it wasn't just "when has progressivism gone wrong", it was "when has progressivism and wokeism gone wrong". I've only ever heard of "wokeism" used in a pejorative...

    When the thread was initiated, it wasn't just "when has progressivism gone wrong", it was "when has progressivism and wokeism gone wrong".

    I've only ever heard of "wokeism" used in a pejorative manner. So I interpreted the thread's intention in that manner.

    I don't think I was wrong then, and it's debatable if I'm wrong now. Regardless, the point is moot as the thread exists.

    12 votes

  16. Comment on How do you report an entire topic? in ~tildes

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    Then it's a good thing I don't have the ability to shut down a conversation. It's not my call. Never has been, never will be. All I can do, is point out a thread, a topic, a post, whatever - point...

    Then it's a good thing I don't have the ability to shut down a conversation. It's not my call. Never has been, never will be.

    All I can do, is point out a thread, a topic, a post, whatever - point it out when it has the potential to cause harm, and say my piece. Which is what I did.

    Other threads have been removed for similar circumstances throughout my time here on Tildes, and I'm still failing to see how me pointing out a potential problem point to the power(s)-that-be is me "shutting down a conversation".

    I do not have that ability.

    10 votes

  17. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    It is always worth pointing out that the history of police forces in the United States goes back, in many if not most places, to slave patrols. There's also the Supreme Court ruling that police...

    It is always worth pointing out that the history of police forces in the United States goes back, in many if not most places, to slave patrols. There's also the Supreme Court ruling that police offers do not, in fact, have to "protect and serve" their communities.

    In many of the cases in the United States where a police officer murdered a person, the police did outnumber the person they killed. One notable example is George Floyd, whose murder initiated much of what we've been talking about throughout this thread and elsewhere in the USA. He was one guy, and there were at least two cops there; one stood by while another murdered George Floyd.

    Cop shootings aren't much different - it's very, very rarely one cop against one (or more) other people. It's often multiple cops shooting to kill. Look up "Killology", "On Killing", and David Grossman. They aren't being trained to subdue perpetrators, to capture people. They are being trained to kill people via military conditioning. And due to the way military equipment finds its way into the hands of local police forces, we now have police trained with military training, and increasingly equipped with military equipment, to do what ... bust someone for drug dealing?

    I live in a small-ish city, and our police have at least one MRAP. A few years back we had a protest of several folks living on the streets camping outside of our local government building, protesting sweeps and mistreatment. The police responded by posting snipers on nearby rooftops and threatening violence.

    I don't know what the answer is, but the answer in my opinion can't be "just keep doing what we're doing, and give them more money to do it."

    14 votes

  18. Comment on How do you report an entire topic? in ~tildes

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    And I think it's pretty haughty of you to think that my intention was to shut down a conversation because it "doesn't align with my opinions." I saw, and continue to see, harm present and...

    And I think it's pretty haughty of you to think that my intention was to shut down a conversation because it "doesn't align with my opinions." I saw, and continue to see, harm present and potential throughout the topic in question. I wanted the ability to flag that conversation to Deimos for consideration towards removal. I (and you!) can do the same towards any post, any number of posts, throughout the site here.

    What I didn't want to do, was flag all 100+ posts for potential removal. Which is why I reached out here, asking how you can flag a topic, rather than flag every post within it individually. I got the direction I wanted/needed.

    10 votes

  19. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    When I said "punching down" I meant to imply that it felt like the point of the thread, at its inception, was to point the finger at non-white people and claim that their hiring was due to...

    When I said "punching down" I meant to imply that it felt like the point of the thread, at its inception, was to point the finger at non-white people and claim that their hiring was due to "wokeism" - a term which has since been removed from the original post.

    It seems like the thread has wandered away from that (imo) original intention, which is for the better.

    I have a lot of thoughts about the implementation of progressive policies when it comes to racism and other -isms, about what has and hasn't worked - but the framing of this thread didn't encourage me to participate. And given reception to my views here and elsewhere, I'm reluctant to share in any significant way anyway. It's made all the more difficult when I browse mostly on my phone.

    My lack of participation with social is my own fault, in the end.

    I see the parallel you're making between congestion pricing and progressive policies working, but again - given the original context behind this thread as I read it, I don't know if I'd make a clean comparison to that, with things like diversity, equal opportunity, and other racially-focused progressive efforts.

    4 votes

  20. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    Drewbahr
    Link Parent
    If you didn't read the book, you shouldn't be making claims about it, imo.

    If you didn't read the book, you shouldn't be making claims about it, imo.

    5 votes