Imagine if we treated age like sex/gender. Suppose we had “age” to describe biological reality and a word like “Ubleck” to describe how one feels. Maybe you’re an active 60 year old or a “mature for your age” 17 year old. So you have an Ubleck that is on a spectrum. 1/
You recognize that age and Ubleck are distinct, but in practice you want everyone to refer to you by your Ubleck. Birthday parties, Date of birth related things, access to voting/alcohol, access to age-segregated sports, age related dating events, etc.
Jul 31, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
People continue to be confused about why left wing gender theory only horseshoes back to conservative/traditional gender roles. It’s an unavoidable consequence of the belief system, even if they aren’t aware of it 🧵
Conservatives frequently believe in a man and women’s duty, how they should conduct themselves, dress, navigate society and relationships, etc. This not only reflects the belief men and women are very different but wants to emphasize this fact through society’s inner workings.
Nov 12, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
🧵 The problem with debating those who endorse CRT is that it doesn’t matter if they do or do not understand the ideas. I mean, sure, many of the critics don’t understand the ideas either, but many do. 1/
2/ if you get into an argument with an endorser who doesn’t understand the ideas, you just get the usual “it’s just about teaching history,” or “it’s just about treating people nice,” etc. So you get nowhere because the game is to take the moral highground, not the theory.
Nov 8, 2021 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Phoebe Cohen, known for the quote (in response to the Dorian Abbot saga) about intellectualism and rigor being a white thing offers “clarification.” What you’ll find is scripture in Mad Libs style. Let’s go through this gem 🧵
Phoebe begins the ritualized “risk is greater for everyone who isn’t a white man” line for commenting on Abbot, despite that clearly not being the case given what these people are allowed to get away with. More formally, anyone not aligned with Theory is at the most harm.
Nov 1, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Quick thread: I’d like to point out that comparisons to the CR are not as historic analogs. No one thinks the state is coming after farmers, obviously, because the cultural and historic context is entirely different. The similarities is in mindset.
Whether the issue is coming from the state or from “the academy” (actually, more broadly, cultural and corporate institutions) is also historically relevant but not the point when we draw upon human and group psychology to explain the trends we see.
Mar 9, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
We don’t talk enough on the Woke tactic of “Playing Stupid” or “It’s just __” dialect.
*Target was looted, that’s pretty bad*
“It’s just a store, imagine being black”
“why are libraries removing books that offended a few people?”
“Is just a book, libraries always remove books”
“why was the actor removed for saying white privileged isn’t real!?”
“It’s just a acting job, besides no one has the right to that big job anyway.”
“Okay, why was that person fired for disagreeing with DEI training”
“people always get fired. Employers can do that”
Mar 9, 2021 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
This is the kind of thing that will catch on soon but it’s a pretty bad paper upon casual inspection. Basically, not unlike anything that is “White __”
How exciting that you are not building on something that doesn’t exist.
Sep 8, 2020 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
The problem here resides more in the word “system” than “racism,” although people focus on the latter. It is never clear what the “system” is, but systems like capitalism, education, prison, health care, science, etc., if we agree to call them systems (I don’t) can’t be racist.
It is possible that attitudes are widespread enough to call it systematic. The law can be a system. Segregation era laws were structurally racist. But attitudes and laws can change at sub-generational timescales, so what you are left with is individuals who lag or never catch up.
Jul 6, 2020 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I disagree only with item (1) in the always reasonable Cathy. I’ll explain in this thread.
First, I have no doubt the claim was “false” in the sense of being incorrect, but we don’t know how false it was in being intentionally incorrect. After all, we have well-known dialogue before the video, that does not paint Christian in the most elegant of lights
Jun 16, 2020 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
This shouldn’t be that difficult. But it is. And I’m not one of these free speech absolutist people, or even think that a lot of the culture war stuff today is best framed in those terms. But quick thread.
Of course language is powerful and can be dangerous or harmful. Language is how humans spread ideas, knowledge, and has produced ideologies in which people justify witch hunts, genocide, slavery, torture, murder, etc. language in a crowd can be used to create calm or tension.
Feb 16, 2020 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
Quick thread on "colorblindness" and principles. Some people, the identity politicians, really hate the concept of "not seeing color." Others think they are just "following the data" (of course, we can do some circles here)
The core argument by people who can summarize their position of "I don't see color" is usually that they want a society in which the social significance of skin color, etc. is minimized. It's not a denial of racism or even the need for centering race in a discussion of unfairness
Feb 3, 2020 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
If you want to understand how postmodern Critical Theory can impact children, consider this text, "Critical Race Theory in Teacher Education" tcpress.com/critical-race-…
We will take a brief tour into the Sixth sense...yes that one with Bruce Willis
Remember the famous scene, "I see Dead People." Here it is.
What we actually see here is power. The powerful Bruce Willis is gaslighting a kid who sees dead people. How is this like whiteness? The book tells us:
Jan 13, 2020 • 41 tweets • 12 min read
I want to add to recent threads on intersectionality by taking you on a tour through Crenshaw’s essay, and highlight why at least I think it is somewhere between trivially true material (that contributes nothing academically) or mostly untestable strings of words.
Now just in case all the blue checks come out to tell everyone why I don’t understand it, I’m going to screenshot important sections for them to follow along. At the very least, we will come to explore why the militant defense of this work is very odd.
Sep 24, 2019 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
Welcome to new followers who saw my climate & Social Justice thread. Here is another thread: this on the subject of “canceling” and mobbing versus intense criticism from many people. You will see examples of this from the predictable types
First, it is important to know that playing dumb is a widely used strategy when it comes to this “PC is just civility, canceling is just criticism” stuff. It is widely employed, and it works among themselves for two reasons, and is potentially compelling to observers for one more
