ignorabimus's recent activity

  3. Comment on US Congress approves bill banning TikTok unless Chinese owner ByteDance sells platform in ~tech

  8. Comment on Sociology’s race problem: Urban ethnographers do more harm than good in speaking for Black communities. They see only suffering, not diversity or joy. in ~humanities

    ignorabimus
    (edited )
    Link
    I read this essay a few years ago but was reminded of it by American Fiction (trailer) which criticises Hollywood for exploring only the oppression and suffering of Black people (essentially...

    I read this essay a few years ago but was reminded of it by American Fiction (trailer) which criticises Hollywood for exploring only the oppression and suffering of Black people (essentially reducing them to a passive victim role which deprives them of agency), rather than portraying them in the full depth that would humanize them.

    18 votes

  12. Comment on In Berlin, I experience icks I never thought possible in ~travel

    ignorabimus
    Link Parent
    I don't really think this is true, because I think there's a general understanding that the word is racist (any dictionary will include a label saying "derogatory/pejorative") among most English...

    To understand why it is not just bad but very racist to say the N-word, you have to be aquanted [sic] with US history on slavery.

    I don't really think this is true, because I think there's a general understanding that the word is racist (any dictionary will include a label saying "derogatory/pejorative") among most English speakers. Even if you think "the reasoning is US specific" the fact that other people think it's racist/offensive essentially makes it true, because they will know that a very large number of English speakers consider the term racist, so choosing to use it kind of says something about you.

    It's like how Germans hanging up Confederate flags can say wink, wink "I am not acquainted with the US history on slavery" but we all know that they're sending a very specific message.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on Fortress Europe isn’t working – Europe needs a workable migration strategy. Instead it’s attacking asylum seekers to placate the right. in ~misc

    ignorabimus
    Link Parent
    Obvious things: stop destabilising countries in Africa. For example here's a series of pretty damning comments from the EU's chief diplomat about the failure of EU 'strategy' in the Sahel where...

    However I think your point about EU is unfair, what should, we do

    Obvious things:

    The other thing about "we should get people that want to integrate" is in my mind kind of bad? I think if you rely on total assimilation your society is kind of an ethnostate. Immigrants tend to have a lot more drive, are often better educated and offer new perspectives on things? In many cases their societal structures for organisation are also worth learning from – for example Taiwan is so far ahead of Europe on technological progress that it's not even funny, and it could be worth trying to work out why they are so much better at it?

    3 votes

  16. Comment on Fortress Europe isn’t working – Europe needs a workable migration strategy. Instead it’s attacking asylum seekers to placate the right. in ~misc

    ignorabimus
    Link Parent
    I genuinely don't think you can deter people from making the crossing. If you want to deter people fleeing the Taliban or Bashir al-Assad's regime then you probably have to be brutal on a similar...

    I genuinely don't think you can deter people from making the crossing. If you want to deter people fleeing the Taliban or Bashir al-Assad's regime then you probably have to be brutal on a similar level. To some extent the EU is doing this, for example by funding Libya, Tunisia and Egypt to torture (I mean literally) migrants and by using Frontex to carry out pushbacks where migrant boats often overturn and the people drown.

    This totally undermines the EU's messaging on human rights which is a key part of its self-identity. This messaging becomes pretty hollow when you're overturning boats in the Meditteranean Sea and paying someone to torture refugees for you. I know Europeans like to feel they're better than the Americans because the Americans are "more racist" and have done things like Guantanamo bay, but really how is their treatment of migrants any different?

    Usually critics here say "they aren't refugees, they are economic migrants". I think there are enough refugees who want to come that even if you are able to deter all the economic migrants there will still be a large number of people who want to come. Even if that isn't true, the economic migrants are often coming from incredibly poor places which are also very dangerous (for example people in Africa who don't have access to clean water or enough food) and therefore you have to be sufficiently brutal to make people think it's worse to come than to stay in a place with low life expectancy, absence of food, etc.

    10 votes