In Defense of Intent

[Kalbear]

(though it's going to be hilariously sad when we find out that minority and women pedestrians are going to be hit by autonomous cars in the future because once again, devs didn't consider them in their testing set, which will mean that yes, car accidents are racist too in the future)

[The Marquis de Leech]

9 hours ago, DMC said:

Erm, no.  What we need to stop is deflecting the conversation concerning racial iniquity to some discursive navel-gazing debate between "maxims" of moral philosophy.  We can wax philosophical and even whip out the proverbial intellectual ruler all we want from Plato's virtue to Anselm's Monologion to Hume's is-ought problem to Kant's categorical imperative to J.S. Mill's enlightened utilitarianism - it's still got little to nothing to do with confronting systemic and institutional racism.

Why?  Well, first of all, Robin DiAngelo is not a moral philosopher, she's a sociologist and - more importantly - an educator.  The latter is where her work is coming from - the need to recognize and confront how we all (particularly white people) participate in perpetuating a racist system.  And then learn from it.  That's all!  The fact this is turned into a debate between the precepts of a bunch of old dead white guys would be amusing if it wasn't so sad.  DiAngelo doesn't give a shit about what these philosophers have to say not only because it's not her discipline, but because they don't have much to say about dealing with racism in the first place.  Hell, many if not most were fucking racist as all get-up if not outright white supremacists.

Moreover, DiAngelo readily admits and even emphasizes we all share implicit bias, including implicit racial bias.  As far as I can tell, she's never suggested her findings should be used as a framework for disciplinary action (let alone legal ramifications), and any "moral culpability" you feel when told your actions led to harm in perpetuating/sustaining racial iniquity should simply mean rectifying future behavior.  But instead let's take one example from her book and circle-jerk about consequentialism v intentionalism.

In a question about whether something is right or wrong (specifically about whether refusing to fill in a form is racially insensitive), I would have thought that we were dealing with an Ethical question. Silly me.

Frankly, what you are describing is Kafka-esque. Rather than fighting racism by not caring about someone's skin colour, we're all somehow pre-convicted of implicit racial biases, and need to walk on eggshells lest we offend someone by treating them the same way we would anyone else who is asking us to fill in a form. It's also patronising as hell towards the very people you're trying to help.

[Fury Resurrected]

1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

In a question about whether something is right or wrong (specifically about whether refusing to fill in a form is racially insensitive), I would have thought that we were dealing with an Ethical question. Silly me.

Frankly, what you are describing is Kafka-esque. Rather than fighting racism by not caring about someone's skin colour, we're all somehow pre-convicted of implicit racial biases, and need to walk on eggshells lest we offend someone by treating them the same way we would anyone else who is asking us to fill in a form. It's also patronising as hell towards the very people you're trying to help.

Oh please, everyone in this thread who is not cis, heterosexual, and white has disagreed with you. If you think you don’t have implicit racial biases you aren’t being honest with yourself or working to minimize the impact it has on others. EVERYONE carries racial bias. It is the work of everyone to try and do better in spite of that. By deciding we treat everyone the same (and we actually don’t), we refuse to listen to how we are failing in that. Don’t tell other people what is patronizing to them. That, in fact, is what’s patronizing.

[DaveSumm]

10 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

I think what this thread is missing is that almost always when people say “intent doesn’t matter, only impact does”- they are talking about unconscious racial bias and institutionalized racism. And in those cases, the perpetrators 100% should know better.

I’ve seen this kind of thing a few times in the thread and I’m not sure it qualifies as ‘unintentional’. By my own definition, if someone should’ve known better, then there’s intent there. If I took a gun with me everywhere I went and never bothered to learn anything about gun safety, and then an accident happened, I could plead I didn’t ‘intend’ that to happen. But I absolutely did intend to leave the house every day knowing full well I didn’t know what I was supposed to know. The risk I took was fully intentional, just not the outcome. 

So I think if you can ever apply the phrase ‘they should’ve known better’, then there’s intent; intent to continue living your life in ignorance. I don’t think you can apply that to genuine accidents (I trip and fall on a gun concealed in a bush and kill someone, say).

[Fury Resurrected]

9 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I’ve seen this kind of thing a few times in the thread and I’m not sure it qualifies as ‘unintentional’. By my own definition, if someone should’ve known better, then there’s intent there. If I took a gun with me everywhere I went and never bothered to learn anything about gun safety, and then an accident happened, I could plead I didn’t ‘intend’ that to happen. But I absolutely did intend to leave the house every day knowing full well I didn’t know what I was supposed to know. The risk I took was fully intentional, just not the outcome. 

So I think if you can ever apply the phrase ‘they should’ve known better’, then there’s intent; intent to continue living your life in ignorance. I don’t think you can apply that to genuine accidents (I trip and fall on a gun concealed in a bush and kill someone, say).

Genuine accidents are never what people are referring to when they say impact is all that matters. That’s the whole point the OP is missing here and is throwing out freak accidents as a red herring. My entire post was about how that phrase is commonly used and how people are misrepresenting it in this thread. Which is another situation wherein “they should know better” applies.

[DMC]

3 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

In a question about whether something is right or wrong (specifically about whether refusing to fill in a form is racially insensitive), I would have thought that we were dealing with an Ethical question. Silly me.

In a question that's OP is employing examples from an author that wrote a book called "White Fragility" - and then subsequently attacks her work - I would think it's important to emphasize the actual point of her work, which is about how structural racism remains the status quo.  More importantly, I would think it's crucial to understand why she is arguing that excuses involving intent on the subject is exactly the problem she's trying to confront - because white people are confusing and deflecting from a conversation on perpetuating racism with the "I didn't mean to" defensiveness in order to shut down any productive discussion.  So, this is what she's said about it:

Quote

As long as we define racism as individual acts of intentional meanness we will not understand it and we will only protect it. That definition is the root of virtually all white defensiveness and denial. And if that's how I defined racism I would agree that it's offensive to say that white people are racist. That is not racism.

So, yeah, silly you.  Further, for all the white people that respond to her argument in the exact way she's describing - instantly getting defensive and rushing to read up on old dead white guys like they're cramming for some horribly taught undergrad midterm to justify why racism somehow doesn't have anything to do with them, she explicitly reassures you she is not saying you are immoral for holding implicit racial bias:

Quote

“If your definition of a racist is someone who holds conscious dislike of people because of race, then I agree that it is offensive for me to suggest that you are racist when I don’t know you,” she writes. “I also agree that if this is your definition of racism, and you are against racism, then you are not racist. Now breathe. I am not using this definition of racism, and I am not saying that you are immoral. If you can remain open as I lay out my argument, it should soon begin to make sense.”

I don't think it's too controversial to admit that we all share implicit - which means subconscious - racial bias.  Your notion that it's somehow patronizing to say so is patently absurd, but I'll defer to you as the paragon of colorblindness.

Finally, if we're gonna try to find out the "ethics" of dealing with systemic racism, why exactly are we looking to Kant?  What pearls of wisdom did he have on confronting institutional racism?  It's been a while so I googled "Kant racism," and this came up as one of the top results:

Quote

"The white race possesses all incentives and talents in itself... The race of Negroes can be educated, but only as slaves... The [indigenous] Americans cannot be educated, they care about nothing and are lazy."

Yeah I don't know about you, but I don't find it particularly worthwhile consulting that guy when it comes to how to deal with systemic racism.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

I don't think it's too controversial to admit that we all share implicit - which means subconscious - racial bias.  Your notion that it's somehow patronizing to say so is patently absurd, but I'll defer to you as the paragon of colorblindness.

Is it wrong to seek a colorblind society?  To attempt to move forward and create societies where we can, at some undefined point in the future, ignore the artificially created distinctions of “race” that exist socially but not physiologically?

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Is it wrong to seek a colorblind society?

No.  But it's certainly wrong to suggest we're already there, or we don't need to confront implicit racism in order to get there.  Or to deflect from that effort by trying to shift the conversation to some "intent vs. impact" false dichotomy.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

No.  But it's certainly wrong to suggest we're already there, or we don't need to confront implicit racism in order to get there.  Or to deflect from that effort by trying to shift the conversation to some "intent vs. impact" false dichotomy.

Implicit biases exist, that is without question.  Is it possible to create a society where implicit biases do not exist?  Sociologically, is it possible for a human society to exist that doesn’t have some form of implicit bias?

 

[DMC]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Is it possible to create a society where implicit biases do not exist?  Sociologically, is it possible for a human society to exist that doesn’t have some form of implicit bias?

I don't think so, no.  Which is why it's important to always try to identify how such biases can perpetuate systemic oppression of one out-group or another.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

I don't think so, no.  Which is why it's important to always try to identify how such biases can perpetuate systemic oppression of one out-group or another.

Is it possible for such identification measures to be used to change the power dynamics in a given society such that the power differentials favor those who have been oppressed over those who were formerly oppressors?  Is simple changing who engages in oppression in a society making that society better?

In other words given that implicit biases exist and will exist in all human societies to a lesser or a greater degree are we looking at an effort to create a society where implicit biases have a lower impact upon all within our society, are we creating a society with different implicit biases to change the existing power structure and place power within the hands of different people, some other third option that is a combination of the first two options, or something else entirely?

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

In other words given that implicit biases exist and will exist in all human societies to a lesser or a greater degree are we looking at an effort to create a society where implicit biases have a lower impact upon all within our society, are we creating a society with different implicit biases to change the existing power structure and place power within the hands of different people, some other third option that is a combination of the first two options, or something else entirely?

The existing power structure is white people, and especially white men, perpetuating systemic oppression - in part - due to implicit bias.  Let's try to fix that first, that's the reality and that's what DiAngelo is trying to deal with.  Which is precisely why she's focused on white fragility.  I know plenty of black people that hold implicit biases against whites, or Mexican-Americans against Puerto Ricans, or vice versa.  I think it's more than fair that our attention right now is best served to trying to resolve who's actually doing the oppressing and how. 

If David Shor or what's his name are victims of unfair treatment the other way around on an ad hoc basis, then fine - say so.  No one here is disagreeing with that!  But also don't ignore the fact of who is actually doing the oppressing and what threat we're actually under as some horseshit excuse to dismiss DiAngelo's thesis.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

The existing power structure is white people, and especially white men, perpetuating systemic oppression - in part - due to implicit bias.  Let's try to fix that first, that's the reality and that's what DiAngelo is trying to deal with.  Which is precisely why she's focused on white fragility.  I know plenty of black people that hold implicit biases against whites, or Mexican-Americans against Puerto Ricans, or vice versa.  I think it's more than fair that our attention right now is best served to trying to resolve who's actually doing the oppressing and how. 

If David Shor or what's his name are victims of unfair treatment the other way around on an ad hoc basis, then fine - say so.  No one here is disagreeing with that!  But also don't ignore the fact of who is actually doing the oppressing and what threat we're actually under as some horseshit excuse to dismiss DiAngelo's thesis.

I absolutely get that point.  

What I fear is that we aren’t reducing implicit bias, we’re simply changing which implicit biases society deems socially acceptable to turn a blind eye to.  

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

we’re simply changing which implicit biases society deems socially acceptable to turn a blind eye to.  

I think it's more which implicit biases are most important to confront.  You seem to be looking at it as a zero sum game when it's totally not, just prioritization.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

I think it's more which implicit biases are most important to confront.  You seem to be looking at it as a zero sum game when it's totally not, just prioritization.

Out of curiosity, are you suggesting some implicit biases are okay?

[DMC]

21 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Out of curiosity, are you suggesting some implicit biases are okay?

Not really.  Again, this is the wrong question.  Implicit bias is inherent and is never going to be completely eradicated, I think we can agree on that.  But in the current social context, it is incumbent on sociologists - and especially scholars whose expertise is multicultural education like Robin DiAngelo - to focus on the implicit biases that result in, rather obviously, by far the most social harm.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

17 minutes ago, DMC said:

Not really.  Again, this is the wrong question.  Implicit bias is inherent and is never going to be completely eradicated, I think we can agree on that.  But in the current social context, it is incumbent on sociologists - and especially scholars whose expertise is multicultural education like Robin DiAngelo - to focus on the implicit biases that result in, rather obviously, by far the most social harm.

I do see that point.  

Given that implicit bias is bad, in addition to knowing which implicit bias impacts society shouldn’t we seek to reduce the impact of implicit bias overall?

As you said, this isn’t a zero sum game.

[DMC]

20 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

shouldn’t we seek to reduce the impact of implicit bias overall?

Yes!  And the predominate impact of implicit racial bias - overall - is white people's upon BIPOC.  Can't help but feel you're trying to lawyer me into something with this line of questioning.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

Yes!  And the predominate impact of implicit racial bias - overall - is white people's upon BIPOC.  Can't help but feel you're trying to lawyer me into something with this line of questioning.

No, I’m not trying to “lawyer you” into anything.  I’m saying, only, that while addressing bias against people of color we can also seek to reduce the prevalence of implicit bias generally.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

No, I’m not trying to “lawyer you” into anything.

That's exactly what someone trying to lawyer me would say!!!

Obviously, yes, trying to reduce and/or confront implicit bias of all types should be a part of it.