October 16, 2023

"The 63-year-old educational consultant and psychotherapist is part of a small but increasingly vocal group of people who favor phasing out racial categories...."

"Yet they recoil at the idea of being confused with people who call themselves 'colorblind,' those 'who are trying to deny that there is racism in the world,' [Carlos] Hoyt said. The government must account for harms caused by 'race,' but without resorting to debunked categories that suggest it is biological, he said. Hoyt read aloud the Census Bureau’s caveats, that 'the racial categories included in the Census Questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country, and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically.' He sighed. 'To recognize that race … is a false concept but to keep doing it anyway, there’s something intellectually problematic about it.'... There’s a principle in psychotherapy that says you don’t take away a client’s defenses unless you have something to replace it with, because it’s serving a purpose, right?' said Hoyt...."

From "Race isn’t real, science says. Advocates want the census to reflect that. A small but vocal group of professionals and academics imagine a future where categories don’t matter" (WaPo).
"To tide Americans over to a more egalitarian time, Hoyt and others suggest that people use alternatives for self-description. For example there’s 'classified [insert racial category ],' '[insert racial category]-identified,' and Hoyt’s personal preference, 'racialized [insert racial category],' which refers to the way in which one is perceived or what has been done to a person, in contrast to who one is down to a debunked genetic notion. Such descriptors could still allow the government to account for possible harms caused by modern and historic discrimination, Hoyt and others believe."

That is, instead of saying "I am black" or "I am white," you would say "I am racialized black" or "I am racialized white." It seems to me that once you add that extra word — "racialized" — you're calling attention to something wrong that has been done to you. I would think that this method of "tiding us over" — if it were accepted — would drive people toward a preference for colorblindness. And yet they "recoil at the idea of being confused with people who call themselves 'colorblind.'" 

51 comments:

SGT Ted said...

"Yet they recoil at the idea of being confused with people who call themselves 'colorblind,' those 'who are trying to deny that there is racism in the world,'

People who call themselves colorblind don't deny there is racism. Colorblindness is the way to get rid of racism.

tim in vermont said...

All taxonomy is political.

Tank said...

Of course, race is biological. We are truly awash in never ending bullshit. Race is simply about who your biological ancestors are. Biology is science. We are living through a time of anti-science.

Sebastian said...

"Race isn’t real, science says."

Except when progs want it to be.

"A small but vocal group of professionals and academics imagine a future where categories don’t matter"

Careful, there. You don't want to become colorblind racists, now, do you?

Anyway, it's all for show. Who's got the power to wield the categories, is all.

Mason G said...

"A small but vocal group of professionals and academics imagine a future where categories don’t matter"

Good luck with that. Too much money in the race hustle to give it up.

n.n said...

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

That said, diversity of individuals, minority of one. #HateLovesAbortion

n.n said...

Diversitism (e.g. racism, sexism, congruence, classicism) is a clear and progressive problem engendered by pride and prejudice (PP).

Josephbleau said...

I am not trying to rain on parades, but the Wapo repeats the trope that since humans share 99.9% of dna there are no different races. This is a non scientific statement. The statement says “I think .1% is pretty small so everyone is the same.” Much less that .1% of dna can cause all kinds of diseases and physical characteristics so very small changes in dna can have powerful effects, and a dna test can accurately predict what % of the three classical races you are characterized by. Humans and apes share 98.8% of dna and humans are greatly different than apes, so I guess we have some bounds, 1% is important but .1% is not.

I would prefer that there were no races, I think races are just big tribes. And humans typically don’t like other tribes than their own.

Stan Smith said...

The way to stop discriminating by race is to STOP DISCRIMINATING BY RACE. Every time you label by race, you are perpetuating racism.

Night Owl said...

In summary, they don't recognize race until they want to. Or to put it another way, they recognize racial differences except when they don't want to. And if you don't understand that, then you're a racist.

Bob Boyd said...

Experts say there's no such thing as witchcraft, but don't worry, people will still be able to enjoy hunting down witches and burning them for many years to come.

Rosalyn C. said...

When I was a child if someone was a Colored Person, Negro, African American, or Black (take your pick) I would assume that person's economic and educational status was below mine, and that person was living in poverty. Race=diminished status. That was true of every Black I ever met. The use of the n word was solely the domain of bigoted whites, mostly low class whites, as far as I knew. Now the use of the n word is largely the domain of other Blacks, at least what I experience through the media.

Previously long held assumptions about race and economics are no longer true. IMO that's the basis of this discussion. To identify as Black can infer an identity on a person which can be completely inaccurate. Focusing on race is especially irrelevant when considering the lives of the Black upper class, who represent about 12% of US Blacks. I've noticed this situation living in progressive, high income largely white areas, the Blacks I encounter now are far more affluent than I am. Having assumptions about them based on race is nonsensical and frankly insulting.

see:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_upper_class

The Crack Emcee said...

'To recognize that race … is a false concept but to keep doing it anyway, there’s something intellectually problematic about it.'

That made me laugh out loud. White people invented America's false concept, that we all are stuck living under, and tripping over, as we clumsily try to move forward. But you can't say that - we must pretend we're all responsible for it - so I can only imagine some of the eye-rolls blacks my color and darker would be reduced to if forced to say "I am racialized black". It reminds me of when I was selling cars in Utah, and I got hired by a dealership that made me watch a computerized guidance on race, so I wasn't at risk for discriminating against myself. I expected a manager name Kafka to come walking out at any moment.

Like the Zionists leaving Palestine, paying the reparations and getting this shit over with would be so much simpler.

Gospace said...

Problem with this is that “race” is real. Generally recognized as 3 categories- Caucasian, Mongoloid (or Asian, take your pick), and Black. You can generally tell at a glance which category someone falls into. Now if you want to call it “breed” instead of race, or something instead of race, feel free. Getting Han to agree with you might be difficult. BTW, most Han don’t recognize Blacks as being human, and definitely not Australian aborigines. But that’s another story.

And within those 3 categories ethnicity is real. Since I can’t post photomemes here- I have learned that white racists can’t tell one Asian person from another. To them, every Asian is Chinese. #racism

When you say white, do you mean Slavic, Germanic, Caucasian, Latin, Turkic, Celtic, Scandinavian or can’t you tell?
I can usually get it right with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Pacific Islander, and other. And if a bunch of assorted Pacific Islanders are hanging around it’s usually pretty easy to find the Guamanians. As far as white people go, I’m American and most of us are blithely unaware of the differences between various white tribes. Yet in the UK people can tell at a glance whether someone is Irish, English, Welsh, or Scottish. And the Italians whether you’re North, South, or Sicilian. And so on. In Africa tribal membership at a glance. And Han know if you’re Han or something else- even if your family has been in the USA for generations as long as there’s no breeding outside the Han.

And even though American is not an ethnic group, the entire world knows if an American has been dropped in their midst. Not from looks but by how we behave and interact.

So if a glance can identify your racial/ethnic group, does this mean there are other measurable differences? Like intelligence? Or athleticism? No. But it also doesn’t mean it . Let me know when East Africans stop dominating long distance races and West Africans sprints. And when an Australian aborigine becomes a chess grandmaster.

Undeniable fact: Judging people as individuals and evaluating them by tests and performance will result in unbalanced racial AND sexual distribution in every profession in the world. The reality of that trumps ideology or philosophy.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

"Science" does not say that race isn't real. Science curated by culture says that.

If you squint hard enough, you can make anything look like anything.

Owen said...

“ 'To recognize that race … is a false concept but to keep doing it anyway, there’s something intellectually problematic about it.'... ”

Either this guy is too coy to call out rank bigotry, or he can’t quite see the idiocy for what it is.

He really seems unaware of the old definition of insanity: doing the same [evil, stupid, useless] thing over and over, and expecting a different result.

SGT Ted nails it.

Dave Begley said...

The Dems won’t stand for this. We will soon “find out” that old Carlos Hoyt was involved in gang rapes in high school.

The Dem party demands identity politics.

Christopher B said...

If they're talking about the arbitrary and often simply nonsensical 'race' classifications used by the US government, they're not wrong.

Aggie said...

I would just like to say that there is no such thing as red hair.

Rosalyn C. said...

Any native born Jewish citizen of Israel who therefore has a legal right to live in Israel is by definition a Zionist, (a recently minted slur invented by anti-semites) according to Crack, and they should leave their country of origin to make bigoted Arabs happy. You might think that a person who has suffered from bigotry and the idea that people can be discriminated against based on race, religion, or national origin, would be highly sensitive and alert to avoid that malady; but you'd be wrong. Isn't it a little bit hilarious that he presumes he has the authority to decide where Jews can live their lives and he demands reparations for his ancestors being forced by others where to live and work without their consent?

JK Brown said...

Race is a construct by the elite American Ivy status university professors who created eugenics and only abandoned their theories when the Germans used their "academic" papers as the basis for their genocide. But the Census took up the fundamentals in the early 20th century and maintained race to support their elite status university graduates and the Democrats of Woodrow Wilson and FDR admins.

Robert Marshall said...

Crack says "paying the reparations and getting this shit over with would be so much simpler"!

As Jesus Quintana said in The Big Lebowski: "Laughable, man!"

It's not a question of whether the reparations would be demanded more than once; it's only a question of whether it would be annually, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily or hourly. You'd never get that shit over with, gahr-ann-teed.

Hell, we've been paying reparations for years (AFDC, food stamps, Sec. 8 housing, AA, DEI, etc., etc., etc.), but that doesn't count shit against the "debt," now, does it? There is no "over with" for the reparations folks. They go back 160 to 400 years ago to establish the debt, so good luck on that full and final and complete discharge and satisfaction language in the release!

Laughable, man!

Original Mike said...

"Yet they recoil at the idea of being confused with people who call themselves 'colorblind,' those 'who are trying to deny that there is racism in the world,'"

Blogger SGT Ted said..."People who call themselves colorblind don't deny there is racism. Colorblindness is the way to get rid of racism."

The left, represented here by WaPo, know that's what we think. But why accept that others may have a different opinion than yourself when you have an opportunity to call them racists instead. The left really are a bunch of dishonest shits.

Original Mike said...

"Race isn’t real, science says. "

I've been hearing this for years, (without the recently obligatory 'science says') but I can't imagine what is meant by it. Of course race is real. All you need are a pair of eyes. Actually, one will do.

Michael P said...

Most people are smart enough to see that there is, in fact, a genetic and biological basis for the race classifications they use. What is missing is a set of objective bright lines: there are inherently border cases. But the same logic -- and not coincidentally, used by many of the same people -- says that there is no such thing as an A student, or a reckless driver, or a bully, or a thief.

Mason G said...

"Hell, we've been paying reparations for years (AFDC, food stamps, Sec. 8 housing, AA, DEI, etc., etc., etc.), but that doesn't count shit against the "debt," now, does it?"

Not to mention the "Take What You Want Under $950" exemption in California and the "Mostly Peaceful Protest" 100% off discounts held in various places around the country that have been called by some "reparations".

Black Lives Matter Chicago Organizer Defends Looting: 'That's Reparations'
BY KHALEDA RAHMAN ON 8/12/20 AT 4:27 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/black-lives-matter-chicago-defends-looting-reparations-1524502

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

How dreary to still have to have the straw man argument used to articulate your “new way.” Exactly who’s out there saying “racism doesn’t exist”? No one. That’s who.

The Crack Emcee said...

Rosalyn C. said...

"Any native born Jewish citizen of Israel who therefore has a legal right to live in Israel is by definition a Zionist, (a recently minted slur invented by anti-semites) according to Crack, and they should leave their country of origin to make bigoted Arabs happy."

Bigoted Arabs? When some loser from Brooklyn has more of a right to live there over a Palestinian, who was born and raised there, and their families have been there for centuries? Most of those Zionists can't claim more than a few generations there. What makes them so important that they can abuse people like this in order to live amongst them? Are they aspiring to be zookeepers now? Prison wardens? It's too easy to see why people call Israel an apartheid state, running an open air prison, for you guys to keep pretending that's called "living".

planetgeo said...

As problematic as it's going to be for a lot of politicians and opportunistic grievance groups, it's only a matter of time before racial identification is pretty much irrelevant if not impossible. In fact I can already point out some school districts in Los Angeles where such tidy classifications no longer can handle the job.

And if you think about it there's a darn good reason. The expanding human population and the increasing mobility across borders is rapidly intermingling the human race. For thousands of years, this was pretty much impossible. But in the last century in particular, with the advent of air travel and personal car ownership, racial and ethnic mixing has hit the frappe button. And L.A. is like the Cuisinart for the human gene cocktail.

It won't be the last. Over the next century or two, racial mixing will make racial identity a trick question for more and more people.

Bummer for politicians. Blessing for the human race, which someday will look back on this era and shake their heads.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Lots of money to be made by leftwing guilt& victim machinery. CRT LGDBQ-STUV they-them speech crime goon squads...

The Crack Emcee said...

Robert Marshall said...

"It's not a question of whether the reparations would be demanded more than once" - but whatever other outrageous, cockamamie thing you can imagine to pull out of your ass - to actually hold us to - merely because your twisted brain is corroded with so much bullshit you actually think your cartoon assumptions are the basis for our reality.

The Crack Emcee said...

Robert Marshall said...

"Hell, we've been paying reparations for years (AFDC, food stamps, Sec. 8 housing, AA, DEI, etc., etc., etc.)"

This is the white man's ploy called "reparations are whatever I say they are". They weren't called reparations, and no one received them as reparations, and no one even intended them as reparations, but - when pressed to the wall - white men immediately decide that they already paid reparations, and those were it. Blacks just didn't get the memo.

I've been on this blog over 10 years. How many times have we seen this? Some white guy jumps up and decides that if he farts, he can turn around and say "That was reparations, you just missed it"?

I asked yesterday and I'll ask again today: Are you guys sure millennials are the only ones with a sense of entitlement?

Yancey Ward said...

I have long advocated that white people identify as black on the census form.

Hubert the Infant said...

Here is a free speech question. I believe that everybody has the right to say pretty much whatever he or she wants to say, but that there should be consequences. In the wake of the Hamas attacks which affected me greatly, I find rocean and The Crack Emcee's Jew-baiting quite distasteful. I believe they are doing this -- even more than they usually do -- to tweak the sensibilities of those of who find anti-Semitism offensive, in the hope that we will abandon Professor Althouse's blog.

Is it wrong for me to ask they they be banned? If they are not, then I will stop visiting this site. If I wanted to subject myself to stupid hateful comments like these, I could just stand in Harvard Yard.

Thanks.

Joe Bar said...

I remember, in high school, reading sci-fi novels about future societies where there was no racial distinction. You see, by that time, all the the races had co-mingled, until there was no distinction. It turns out, at least in the short term, it's not that easy.

I am of mixed race (White/Asian). It never was noticed, until I moved to my current home, near Richmond, VA. Apparently, race is a really big deal here. Black women, especially, feel motivated to call me out. "Want are you?". I have heard that many times. Also, I have had people just ignore me. My wife didn't believe my stories, until it happened right in front of her. Its always folks of a certain heritage.

Remember the hue and cry about anti-Asian hate crimes? Who's doing that. Elon Musk isn't wrong.

Readering said...

Hope I live long enough to leave race blank in next census.

Amadeus 48 said...

So, are we going with a unidirectional one drop rule? Or are we going to go with quadroon, octoroon, etc.? At some point this all becomes obviously ridiculous in our open and dynamic society where all sorts of people marry each other or at least shack up.

According to 23andMe, at some point between 1680 and 1720, Amadeus 48 had an East African person enter the family tree. If true, I am more African than Elizabeth Warren is native American. But, apart from laughing at Elizabeth Warren, who cares? Not me. Not my family. Maybe some race-obsessed academic.

If they are giving out reparations, though, I want mine. My people have suffered enough.

tim maguire said...

The Crack Emcee said...
'To recognize that race … is a false concept but to keep doing it anyway, there’s something intellectually problematic about it.'

That made me laugh out loud. White people invented America's false concept,


Race is a false concept invented by white people…I think we’ve reached peak Crack.

Jersey Fled said...

Tag: More BS that "science says"

The Crack Emcee said...

tim maguire said...

"I think we’ve reached peak Crack."

No, that's peak America.

The Crack Emcee said...

Hubert the Infant said...

"I find rocean and The Crack Emcee's Jew-baiting quite distasteful. I believe they are doing this -- even more than they usually do -- to tweak the sensibilities of those of who find anti-Semitism offensive, in the hope that we will abandon Professor Althouse's blog."

"More than they usually do"? First, you must provide evidence that I was talking about this before the Hamas attack. That I have come on this blog before and made any attempt to talk about the Middle East situation. It's simply a lie, because those attacks affected you more than they did me, so you decided - hair on fire - I should pay some price for that. Feeling a little fascist, now, are you? Have you heard me call for "consequences" for anybody who disagrees with me? Have you heard me telling anybody to shut up? Have you heard me calling for the blog owners to shut anybody up? Who do you think you are?

This is why I don't like Zionists. You people are out of your fucking minds.

The Crack Emcee said...

Readering said...
Hope I live long enough to leave race blank in next census.

Moving to France, are you?

The Crack Emcee said...

Joe Bar said...

"Black women, especially, feel motivated to call me out. "Want are you?". I have heard that many times,..."

Korean. You're pretty, what are you? How hard is that?

Remember the hue and cry about anti-Asian hate crimes? Who's doing that. Elon Musk isn't wrong."

And, every time, you conveniently forget that you're in America, that was born with a nest of race shit - and an education system that routinely fails black people - subjects I've never heard Elon talk about, because he wasn't here, so somehow thinks he came to someplace more enlightened than South Africa, because it was we blacks who campaigned to free Nelson Mandela when whites here and there were totally against it. Does Elon also explain the whole American blacks are from Egypt thing, or is he actually as clueless, about the country he lives in, as you sound?

The Crack Emcee said...

I think you guys don't read my blog so you can make baseless assumptions about me. A few days ago it was claimed I don't make good music. Today, Hubert the Infant said I engage in "Jew-baiting" - not honest criticism of Zionism - when I'd told you I'd been working at an "activist" synagogue - "trying to stop war in the Middle East" - and what a wonderful experience I thought it was. I WROTE IT DOWN FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE ALSO

Here's one with me, and my antisemitic heart, discussing Luke Ford, AKA the New Jew

Praising Einstein and Maurice Sendak (“We were the ‘chosen people,’ chosen to be killed?”) and much much more.

Anyway, keep line kids. Your willful ignorance will get the best of you yet.

Amadeus 48 said...

If a man can identify as a woman, anyone can identify as anything. So, tell me about this reparations thing. I might go that way.

In the meantime, go forth and prosper, my fellow tigers. Your king grants you free will.

tim maguire said...

The Crack Emcee said...
tim maguire said...

"I think we’ve reached peak Crack."

No, that's peak America.


Really? Do I have to hold your hand and walk you through it? The statement "white people invented the concept of race" is self-refuting because it requires that the category "white people" predate the categorization of people into races such as white.

Peak Crack.

Anthony said...

"There are no races, only clines." -- Frank Livingstone

JAORE said...

""Race isn’t real, science says."

Except when progs want it to be."

Bingo!

Sure, let's allow men to be women when it is to their advantage. Let's use race to divide when it's an advantage. And when it's not an advantage.... DO OVER!

The Crack Emcee said...

tim maguire said...

That's peak America.

"Really? Do I have to hold your hand and walk you through it?"

No, but that assumption is peak America, too.

"The statement "white people invented the concept of race" is self-refuting because it requires that the category "white people" predate the categorization of people into races such as white."

And you don't know that, at one time, this country was being preserved for the white race - by white people - correct? I just made that up? It's a black trick that I'm trying to play on you?

dbp said...

""Race isn’t real, science says."

Why do papers print such obviously untrue things?

Most people can easily categorize other people into racial groups. If it wasn't real, how come most people will agree on which category a given person should have? Further, something like 23 and me can do the same thing and will agree with the above.

LakeLevel said...

I have some actual science to share. I worked somewhere where we had access to images of millions of images of children who were photographed with extreme color control, meaning a gray card and controlled lighting were used to make sure actual color was recorded. We were studying skin color to separate skin from clothing for reasons I won't go into here. Here is the interesting part. When we looked at the skin color of first graders, taken in winter (no tan, no makeup), and we found that people of different "races" all had the same color skin. By this I mean when the color was separated into luminance and chrominance, the color information (chrominance) had no significant difference between the "races". So... anyone who says skin color is different between the "races" is full of shit.