Re: BELL CURVE CRITIC EXPOSED?
Frosch (dexter@aries.scs.uiuc.edu)
4 Feb 95 10:13:51 GMT
<jerrybro@uclink2.berkeley.edu> writes:
>dexter@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Frosch) wrote:
>> if you could give plausible reasons for your about-faces, i
>> would happily take back the above sentence. i have explained why
>> i do not find your reasons plausible.
>I continue to be nonplussed by your insistence on your initial
>interpretation of a single, ambiguous paragraph. I also am
>insulted by your rejection of a clarification I made in good
>faith. You as good as called me a liar.
yes.
>> you have given two different, and opposing, explanations of
>> why you wrote the inane sentence "black means african-american".
>> in your last post, you then claimed that you "didn't know exactly
>> what black means". you needn't think you are the only person who
>> is responding: huh?
>I didn't realize at first the stake you had in your interpretation
>of my meaning. My own approach in these matters is to demur to
>a person's clarification, since I'm not particularly interested in
>what total strangers think about things, but rather in the ideas they
>present to me. Moreover long experience has taught me how easy it
>is to misunderstand posts on the net. I find the position you've
>taken to be unbelievably arrogant and rude.
if i found your explanations credible, i would accept them, as
i have already written. i don't find them credible, for the simple
reason that you repeatedly contradict yourself.
>Fine: black means "African-American" to me as I usually use
>it. I imagine it means something like this most of the time
>here in the U.S. I have no idea of, nor any particular interest
>in, the possible uses to which the word "black" is put in
>other countries, and I was certainly not discussing these other
>uses. I admit that I did not give the context of my remarks.
>But I point out that that often happens, and that one of the
>points of dialogue as opposed to monologue is that such
>ambiguities can be cleared up. *Provided* clarifications are
>not perfunctorily rejected by someone who has fallen in love
>with her initial misperceptions. You've essentially stopped
>dead all meaningful conversation.
i don't know how you anticipate meaningful conversation when
you arbitrarily change your definitions from one post to the next.
as before, i am left with the impression that you post without
thinking, and are left looking for ad hoc explanations to justify
yourself afterwards.
>Furthermore I was e-mailed a description of the
>terms used by Australians for aborigines, and the main term
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>given was "abos", with a second, more polite term "natives".
i am aware of derogatory terms used in australia to refer to
aborigines. i imagine your distinction here between "australians"
and "aborigines" would be received with about as much gratitude.
you have in any case missed the intent of my post. i wrote about
a term that australian aborigines use for _themselves_.
>[...]
>> i am explaining why the ideas you are propagating here are
>> the material of pre-judgment (= prejudice, look up the etymology).
>> i very rarely call a person "a racist". i haven't called you that.
>Saying that someone's ideas are "the material of" something, sounds
>to me like a roundabout way to say that they are examples of it.
>Moreover, I don't see any real difference between "prejudice" (when
>it concerns questions of "race") and "racism", except that
>the latter term is more blunt. Of course, maybe "racism" means
>something different outside the U.S., I am careful to note. So as
>far as my understanding goes, you've said that I employ racist
>ideas. And what is a racist, but a person who employs such ideas?
whether you believe it or not, i haven't called you "a racist".
i am saying that you are writing things which spread pre-conceived
ideas about relations between ancestry, religion, matters of culture,
matters of nationality and a good few other things. any of those
things can be insulting and hurtful to the people you are talking
about, regardless of how good your intentions may be.
annette
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