Patterico's Pontifications

3/21/2021

Constitutional Vanguard: Is “Whiteness” a Public Health Crisis?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 6:28 pm



I would have thought such a silly question answers itself. A fellow named Damon Young, who sometimes writes for the New York Times, agrees . . . but his answer is different from mine. My take:

[T]he above conversation reminds me of the conversation I imagined myself having with the kind of person who wrote Young’s piece at The Root — or better yet, a woke white person who subscribes to such a philosophy:

Woke Person Whose Race Does Not Matter: Hey, let’s have a conversation about race!

Me: Um, OK.

WPWRDNM: So anyway, I think whiteness is a plague on society!

Me: I just remembered I have something else to do.

WPWRDNM: No problem. Let’s resume the conversation soon!

Me: Sorry, I have something else to do then too.

Enjoy, and subscribe.

43 Responses to “Constitutional Vanguard: Is “Whiteness” a Public Health Crisis?”

  1. The first thing that cries out is that the Atlanta shooting could have as easily been done by a Black man as a White man. Trumpist or Bernie Bro. Klansman or crusading journalist. Or, excepting the ease of access to guns, but an illegal immigrant or escaped convict.

    Sexual addiction and mental illness don’t know Park Place from Park Bench, Beverly Glen from 6th & San Pedro. It could have been any crazy man pissed off at the women of the world. That many victims were Asian has more to do with a stereotype than with race.

    But don’t let any crisis go to waste, and don’t wate the chance to manufacture a crisis.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  2. Talking to a woke person about race is like striking up a conversation about religion with the Inquisition. It’s not going to any way but one.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  3. That many victims were Asian has more to do with a stereotype than with race.

    No stereotype. Market dominance. The Asian sex traffickers dominate that branch of prostitution. The way the Colombian cartels control(led?) cocaine traffic and the Mexican cartels heroin and marijuana.

    nk (1d9030)

  4. Stereotypes are always based on empirical observation.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  5. It wasn’t just sexual addiction. It was that he was very much into getting honored by his church as a role model – but it seems like, along the way, he forgot the 6th commandment (or Genesis 9:5-6)

    He undertook a commitment to just one thing. Or to look like he did.

    Wel, you could say that, but did he expect not to get caught?

    Sammy Finkelman (03c829)

  6. The one in my neighborhood is nothing like the ones in Atlanta. No garish neon and posters of scantily-clad women. No signage at all, in fact. Blacked out store front with only the street number on the door, and the girls and their protectors (who seem to turn over more than the girls do) hardly ever seen. The customers are. Walking down the street, cellphone in hand, peering at door numbers.

    nk (1d9030)

  7. Pew research: Democrats believe minorities face more discrimination then whites. White republicans believe they face much more discrimination then do minorities.

    asset (240cb3)

  8. The public health crisis starts at the border with illegals getting covid relief funds. You people have ruined this country.

    mg (8cbc69)

  9. One has to wonder whether there was any point when Damon Young thought to himself, gosh maybe this is just a useless racist tirade that lacks any sense of proportion or redeeming character….naaaahhh, print it. Where would one even start to engage Young’s “argument”? He must have re-read it, right, and saw nothing that was hyperbolic, poorly supported, or inflammatory. I guess this is just more intellectual Twinkees and Ho-Ho’s….really designed not to honestly engage and be thought provoking….but to create a sugar high in the perpetually aggrieved….and a prolonged eyeroll in the rest. Damon Young doesn’t want to talk about race….I mean not really….he wants to be a racist….and believe that it’s somehow different…maybe even noble. I guess I’ll choose to not become too upset by it…being a free country and all…..and a man has to make a buck somehow, right? But it’s troubling that the New York Times….who didn’t publish this…..cultivates and promotes writers like this….as if a bit of reverse racism is owed or what is good for the goose.

    AJ_Liberty (a4ff25)

  10. First, the piece you’re responding to is horrible. The easy conflagration of white with white supremacy is offensive. His condescension on the subject is insulting, and worst of all I can’t see that he contributed any new thoughts or ideas at all with his essay.
    Second, the way Aaron Rupar reported the sheriff’s statement, if not technically a lie, should be a career ending mistake. Given your chisel like flexibility on transparency in journalism I was expecting more on that.
    Third, I think an initial conclusion that the targeted murder of 8 Asian people in multiple locations by 1 person was motivated by race is fair. I think as we’ve learned more it’s more correct to conclude that the race of the victims is only part of the reasons he killed them. Even this might be wrong, and I’m open to evidence that he was equally comfortable dehumanizing women of other races. But right now it looks like he was a sex addict who saw Asian women not as people, but as objects that existed to provide him with sexual gratification. Until more evidence about his motivation is available, I think it’s more correct to conclude that race was one of the reasons if not the only or primary reason.

    Time123 (c9382b)

  11. One has to wonder whether there was any point when Damon Young thought to himself, gosh maybe this is just a useless racist tirade that lacks any sense of proportion or redeeming character….naaaahhh, print it. Where would one even start to engage Young’s “argument”? He must have re-read it, right, and saw nothing that was hyperbolic, poorly supported, or inflammatory. I guess this is just more intellectual Twinkees and Ho-Ho’s….really designed not to honestly engage and be thought provoking….but to create a sugar high in the perpetually aggrieved….and a prolonged eyeroll in the rest. Damon Young doesn’t want to talk about race….I mean not really….he wants to be a racist….and believe that it’s somehow different…maybe even noble. I guess I’ll choose to not become too upset by it…being a free country and all…..and a man has to make a buck somehow, right? But it’s troubling that the New York Times….who didn’t publish this…..cultivates and promotes writers like this….as if a bit of reverse racism is owed or what is good for the goose.

    AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 3/22/2021 @ 4:57 am

    It was terrible. Everything in the essay was communicated the headline and the context. It provided no new thoughts or ideas.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  12. Time123, I find this part of your comment @10 fascinating:

    But right now it looks like he was a sex addict who saw Asian women not as people, but as objects that existed to provide him with sexual gratification.

    1. What did these women provide him except a brief physical encounter for sexual relief in a back room at a $100 a pop? Would you say that a heroin addict dehumanizes his dealer by seeing him not as people but as an object to provide his fix?

    2. And what on Earth makes you think that he saw “Wow, Asian!” and not “Wow, a woman!”? Six of the eight women were Asian, but that’s the nature of that business. The sex traffickers recruit in Far East and Southeast Asia and ship the women here. The heroin addicts I knew in rehab bought their stuff from black dealers in the ghettoist ghetto of Chicago. Was that like a black person fetish?

    I keep seeing this new feminist (is it woke too?) attitude towards prostitution and it makes me shake my head. In the old days, the Sisterhood would turn up its nose at the women who sold the Feminine Mystique for cold, hard cash instead of engaging in the complex mating rituals that resulted in a nest and hatchlings and tried to put them (the women) out of business directly with Blue Laws. Now, they target the men, dehumanizing them (the men) by refusing to even grant them natural sexual urges and treating them as perverts, fetishists and victimizers of women for showing up with a $100 bill instead of flowers, candy and dinner reservations.

    nk (1d9030)

  13. 12. nk (1d9030) — 3/22/2021 @ 7:01 am

    2. And what on Earth makes you think that he saw “Wow, Asian!” and not “Wow, a woman!”?

    He reportedly told acquaintances that sex with Asians was safer.

    Sammy Finkelman (03c829)

  14. He reportedly told acquaintances that sex with Asians was safer.

    And he is probably right. They are less likely to have contracted AIDS* through intravenous drug use than American streetwalkers. Additionally, the services usually provided in massage parlors are less likely to involve the exchange of bodily fluids.

    *Isn’t “discrimination” against HIV-positive persons a federal hate crime, though? I read somewhere where it is but I had had already my fill of outrage for the day so I didn’t look it up.

    nk (1d9030)

  15. It’s still not a fetish. I buy my cheeseburger and fries at Franksville instead of McDonald’s because I know the people and I know they cook clean. It’s still a cheeseburger and fries that I’m in the mood for.

    nk (1d9030)

  16. Time123,

    I find this part of your comment @10 fascinating:

    Thank you.

    But right now it looks like he was a sex addict who saw Asian women not as people, but as objects that existed to provide him with sexual gratification.

    1. What did these women provide him except a brief physical encounter for sexual relief in a back room at a $100 a pop? Would you say that a heroin addict dehumanizes his dealer by seeing him not as people but as an object to provide his fix?

    I think your analogy is deeply flawed. First Selling sex isn’t the same thing as selling bubble gum. Secondly, the people literally getting screwed at a ‘health spa’ aren’t the people with power in the situation. Third power over women can be a component of sex addiction.

    2. And what on Earth makes you think that he saw “Wow, Asian!” and not “Wow, a woman!”? Six of the eight women were Asian, but that’s the nature of that business. The sex traffickers recruit in Far East and Southeast Asia and ship the women here. The heroin addicts I knew in rehab bought their stuff from black dealers in the ghettoist ghetto of Chicago. Was that like a black person fetish?

    Dude killed a bunch of Asian women. At this point the claim that it was coincidence is on whoever asserts that it’s a coincidence. White and black sex workers are readily available in Atlanta but I’m open to finding out that it was a coincidence. Additionally, the criminal enterprise you describe would be an example of systemic racism. Finally the stereotype of Asian women as subservient sexual servants is a real thing, and racist. Not saying that everyone that’s attracted to Asian women is racist, but that stereotype sure is. At this point I don’t think he was mainly motivated by hatred of Asian’s as a group.

    I keep seeing this new feminist (is it woke too?) attitude towards prostitution and it makes me shake my head. In the old days, the Sisterhood would turn up its nose at the women who sold the Feminine Mystique for cold, hard cash instead of engaging in the complex mating rituals that resulted in a nest and hatchlings and tried to put them (the women) out of business directly with Blue Laws. Now, they target the men, dehumanizing them (the men) by refusing to even grant them natural sexual urges and treating them as perverts, fetishists and victimizers of women for showing up with a $100 bill instead of flowers, candy and dinner reservations.

    Like everything it’s complicated and not every sex worker is a victim. If you’re very bored you can go find feminists fighting among themselves about this. But if you think a horny dude sticking into a 19 year old in the country illegally who sleeps on a mattress in the back of the spa isn’t victimizing her you’ve lost your mind. It’s true she had choices along the way and could choose not to work that night. But that’s usually the same thing as choosing not to eat and to be physically abused. Below is a link to a news story that shows my characterization is fact based. The strategy of targeting the John rather than the prostitute is an interesting one that hasn’t bene proven to be effective yet. You can find women who sell sex because they want to, take pride in their work, and have full agency. But the guy that showed up at that health spa with 100$ wasn’t engaging in free exchange with an equal. They were rapping a slave. Seems reasonable to me that people strongly motivated to improve the lives of women as a group (e.g. feminists) would be opposed to a system that keeps women in servitude so they can be rapped.

    https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/crime/indian-river-county/2019/02/21/human-trafficking-florida-massage-parlors-vero-beach-sebastian/2920354002/

    Police said victims, identified in court records as Jane Does, lived inside the spas and worked as prostitutes. Some stayed for days, others for months. None were allowed to leave on their own. They did not have their own vehicles and generally spoke Mandarin or Cantonese, not English. Currey said many came from China on temporary work visas, indebted to the the brokers who helped them reach America, but believing legitimate jobs awaited them. “Some of them are trying to make a better life for themselves,” he said. “These people truly are stuck.” They were shamed, intimidated and taught not to speak to law enforcement or immigration officials.

    Time123 (36651d)

  17. Thank you for the explanation, Time123.

    Additionally, the criminal enterprise you describe would be an example of systemic racism.

    I believe the racket bosses are Asians, too. Triads and yakuza are still a thing, although less visible these days. Their recruiters would definitely need to be, and not to all that much of a lesser extent the managers over here too.

    nk (1d9030)

  18. @16. I thought the cartel analogy that somone — I think nk — used elsewhere was a good one. If the dude was a drug addict from a border town and decided to murder cartel members who supplied him with the vice that tormented him, they’d be Mexican. Wouldn’t mean he was racist against Mexicans. Or would it? Would you argue that in such an analogy the murderer of Mexican cartel is racist?

    I would not argue that the women weren’t victims caught up in an evil exploitative system. Of course they are. I just don’t think it’s a given that the evil nutjob murderer is racist.

    JRH (52aed3)

  19. @18,

    I just don’t think it’s a given that the evil nutjob murderer is racist.

    Again, i’m open to the argument that he wasn’t racist. What evidence do you have to support that?

    Time123 (c9382b)

  20. Thank you for the explanation, Time123.

    Additionally, the criminal enterprise you describe would be an example of systemic racism.

    I believe the racket bosses are Asians, too. Triads and yakuza are still a thing, although less visible these days. Their recruiters would definitely need to be, and not to all that much of a lesser extent the managers over here too.

    nk (1d9030) — 3/22/2021 @ 8:05 am

    Any time my friend.

    I think many of them are, but that doesn’t make the system not racist.

    Time123 (36651d)

  21. The presumption here is that the killer shot cute Asian sex workers. He did shoot Asians. But none of the people listed here fit the expected category

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56446771

    Appalled (1a17de)

  22. @21. Awful. Children robbed of moms and dads. Evil. Saying a prayer.

    JRH (52aed3)

  23. Additionally, the criminal enterprise you describe would be an example of systemic racism.

    The toleration of the enterprise by TPTB who are looking the other way, taking bribes, etc, is clearly racism, along the lines of the “They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls” quote from The Godfather. But internally it’s not.

    The activities of the Asians in the business, both the women and the organization, is probably sexism and some other pathologies, but if there is such a thing as same-race racism we need a different word for it.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  24. The activities of the Asians in the business, both the women and the organization, is probably sexism and some other pathologies, but if there is such a thing as same-race racism we need a different word for it.

    Falls under systemic racism. It’s driven by a system that’s in place, and not the bigotry of the participants.

    Time123 (36651d)

  25. Heh! As if all the social complexities and hang-ups surrounding the procreative urge were not enough ….

    nk (1d9030)

  26. Heh! As if all the social complexities and hang-ups surrounding the procreative urge were not enough ….

    nk (1d9030) — 3/22/2021 @ 10:16 am

    If it was easy monkey’s would do it…wait….

    Time123 (c9382b)

  27. I don’t see how whiteness is a public crisis at this time, not with the percentage of white Americans steadily decreasing.

    Well, maybe a crisis for the racists whites, but not the wokies.

    Hoi Polloi (15cfac)

  28. Sing it, Tom!!!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgASBVMyVFI

    “Step up and shake the hand; of someone you can’t stand…” – Tom Lehrer

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  29. Falls under systemic racism. It’s driven by a system that’s in place, and not the bigotry of the participants.

    When everything is racism, nothing is.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  30. Falls under systemic racism. It’s driven by a system that’s in place, and not the bigotry of the participants.

    But then, when blacks use the N-word among themselves (which they do casually) they are racists?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  31. Falls under systemic racism. It’s driven by a system that’s in place, and not the bigotry of the participants.

    But then, when blacks use the N-word among themselves (which they do casually) they are racists?

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/22/2021 @ 12:26 pm

    That’s a point of debate among black people. Some feel that it is a racist thing to do because it keeps a term alive that only has negative connotations. Other’s feel that when black people use to other black people they’re re-purposing the term and robbing it of it’s power to cause pain.

    I think both groups agree that it’s offensive when white people use it. Which most white people are OK with, but there are some out there upset that they can’t use the term without causing offense.

    Time123 (c9382b)

  32. The guy is a racist and feels virtuous doing so. He’s no different than the Nazis were scapegoating Jews and other ethnic minorities to blame for whatever he feels ails him.

    NJRob (f03c04)

  33. It’s just one example of the anti-white verbiage peddled all over.

    DN (eb9ca3)

  34. I think that, for lefties. “Whiteness” is a social and ideological construct, not a biological or scientific categorization. So they’re not looking at a white person’s skin and saying : “that’s bad,” or white people are bad. I *think* they are saying the categorization of people into races by skin color has led to bad things because it has led to the marginalization and domination of people groups (Africans, Native Americans, etc). So saying “whiteness” is bad, isn’t saying people of european ancestry are bad (at least, I don’t think so — though it does seem so sometimes).

    I personally am still trying to understand it and have avoided dealing with it because it seems dumb and harmful. It seems like a foregone conclusion looking for evidence. But “Whiteness” to a lefty isn’t synonymous with white people. At least they tell themselves that.

    JRH (52aed3)

  35. JRH,

    It’s skin color. I’ve heard enough times for them to say “you’re white so you have no say” to believe them .

    And I’m being polite by re-wording their vulgar remarks.

    NJRob (03cb1f)

  36. @34 I think you’re right about they way they are trying to use “whiteness”, but I think it’s bad terminology. OTOH, every other way I can think of to accurately describe what they are talking about takes like 50 words.

    Nic (896fdf)

  37. Oh, I dunno, Nic. It sounds like the new “bourgeoisie” to me. The way the hippies used “bourgeoisie”. Not necessarily like Karl and Friedrich.

    But “father’s name on birth certificate” would also work, I think.

    nk (1d9030)

  38. @37 As a genX person, I can’t say that I’ve every had a particularly rosy view of hippies. They grew up to be cocaine-addled stock-brokers and people who packaged bad mortgages into investment “opportunities”.

    And I know you are being facetious, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think that people who are using “whiteness” in that way are basically talking about people who either have a certain level of advantages both historically and currently in society (in comparison to people in a similar situation but don’t have whatever advantage is currently under discussion, so, like, a poor white straight dude might have an advantage over a poor white straight woman or a poor black straight man, who might have an advantage over a poor black gay man. YMMV.) and don’t realize it or the ways race effects people in the current day and/or people who do realize it and intend to maintain their advantage and/or people who become offended when a conversation appears regarding how they might have an advantage.

    IDK, that’s my best guess.

    Nic (896fdf)

  39. Dang that nature and that nurture that give some people an advantage that other people, with a different nature and a different nurture, do not have. Dang them, dang them, just dang them all to heck! And dang that whiteness value system that allows it! Just dang it all!

    nk (1d9030)

  40. I think that, for lefties. “Whiteness” is a social and ideological construct, not a biological or scientific categorization. So they’re not looking at a white person’s skin and saying : “that’s bad,” or white people are bad. I *think* they are saying the categorization of people into races by skin color has led to bad things because it has led to the marginalization and domination of people groups (Africans, Native Americans, etc). So saying “whiteness” is bad, isn’t saying people of european ancestry are bad (at least, I don’t think so — though it does seem so sometimes).

    I personally am still trying to understand it and have avoided dealing with it because it seems dumb and harmful. It seems like a foregone conclusion looking for evidence. But “Whiteness” to a lefty isn’t synonymous with white people. At least they tell themselves that.

    JRH (52aed3) — 3/22/2021 @ 4:24 pm

    You might have a point, but you’re giving the Root article way to much credit as it makes no effort to draw any distinction between skin color and a social construct.

    Time123 (cd2ff4)

  41. Slavery and Jim Crow and discrimination of course affected family history – and is responsible for the higher number of criminals among blacks, which is real. But that is neither here nor there, except to make the point that it may not be continuing racism that explains any inequalities, and it can’t be remedied by people being better people. There’s a long carryover of history. Black people still tend to sit in the back of the bus, even though it’s not been a rule anywhere since the mid-1960s (maybe that’s finally fading away) and fewer black people learn how to swim. This also affects things that matter more.

    All anyone can do is treat people fairly, give people more chances to succeed, and avoid snap judgments.

    Sammy Finkelman (03c829)

  42. The esteemed Mr Finkelman wrote:

    Slavery and Jim Crow and discrimination of course affected family history – and is responsible for the higher number of criminals among blacks, which is real.

    Slavery ended 156 years ago, and Jim Crow was killed in the 1960s, back when I was in elementary school. I’m now retired.

    Only the elderly grew up under Jim Crow; we’ve had a few generations since then.

    The Dana in Kentucky (fa23a0)

  43. 42. All that is true but it had consequences, especially in people being poorer, and less educated. And all sorts of things.

    Now there is someone arguing that tax code (!) is unfair to blacks. Her argument seems to be – I mean the part that is good – is that, even when adjusted for income and status – homes owned by blacks don;t go up in value but go down once a community is 10% black. This is actually the free market, but what happens is that prices do not get bid up, like happens most other places because the vast majority of potential buyers are not interested in living in a majority black community. (even when it is safe and getting whiter she could add) So she wants real estate gains to be taxed. Or at least capital losses to be deductible, like on stocks.

    and she argues that becaue Jim Crow existed in the past – I’m improving her argument – black families are poorer and that has consequences. An average – maybe not so average now – white professional has college tuition paid for bu their parents. A black person coming from a poor family, borrows. And money moves up to earlier generations, to support the parents and not down from parents to children.

    She wants gifts and inheritances to be taxed as income. Anpther thing she wants: An annual tax credit for families whose wealth (how computed?) is below the median. She’d really prefer a tax credit for descendants of slaves but says the Supreme Court wouldn’t uphold it.

    Maybe she could argue there was a time – circa 1945 to 1973 – when families, if treated right, could accumulate wealth. But no longer. That’s not really true either. Maybe you could say 1995. But schools in many places were horrible after about 1965. If she’d modify her argument, and not call everything race, she’d be more accurate.

    Her own mother registered with a false address to get her better schooling after one particular miserable teacher at their integrated school didn’t want a black girl (her sister) to get better grades than the top white child or something. She and her sister were very good students. She graduated from high school at age 16 in 1976. And she won a full scholarship to Fordham University because her father was laid off during New York city’s fiscal crisis in 1974-5. So the family income was briefly lower. Her father was a plumber. For the first 20 years of his career the Jim Crow plumbers union which locked him out (she doesn’t say how but it probably demanded apprenticeships which allowed private discrimination) wouldn’t let him in so he had to go to work for a non-union employer. That resulted in lower income and o retirement or health benefits. To buy his first house he needed help from his employer (what kind of help – statement of intention to continue to employ him or just W-2s going back more years than he’d saved? That may have had nothing to do with his race but might have had something to do with inexperience.) Later he went to work for the New York City Housing Aurhority.

    Sammy Finkelman (3997eb)


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