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posted by janrinok on Saturday November 19 2016, @04:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the statistics-or-lies? dept.

Scott Alexander gives a great breakdown of Trump and how the portrayal of him as being "openly white supremacist" is probably (likely) wrong.

I stick to my thesis from October 2015. There is no evidence that Donald Trump is more racist than any past Republican candidate (or any other 70 year old white guy, for that matter). All this stuff about how he's "the candidate of the KKK" and "the vanguard of a new white supremacist movement" is made up. It's a catastrophic distraction from the dozens of other undeniable problems with Trump that could have convinced voters to abandon him. That it came to dominate the election cycle should be considered a horrifying indictment of our political discourse, in the same way that it would be a horrifying indictment of our political discourse if the entire Republican campaign had been based around the theory that Hillary Clinton was a secret Satanist. Yes, calling Romney a racist was crying wolf. But you are still crying wolf.

I avoided pushing this point any more since last October because I didn't want to look like I was supporting Trump, or accidentally convince anyone else to support Trump. But since we're past the point where that matters any more, I want to present my case.

He further states: "I realize that all of this is going to make me sound like a crazy person and put me completely at odds with every respectable thinker in the media, but luckily, being a crazy person at odds with every respectable thinker in the media has been a pretty good ticket to predictive accuracy lately, so whatever."

So do his claims hold up under scrutiny, is he manipulating the figures, or is he just a 'crazy person' ?


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Saturday November 19 2016, @05:31PM

    by Arik (4543) on Saturday November 19 2016, @05:31PM (#429480) Journal
    Islam is not a race, it's a religion. You join it by accepting the creed. You can later repudiate it and leave by rejecting that, even if you were born Muslim. None of that is true of a race, you cannot convert to or from a race, not in any possible reality, period.

    Hispanic is not a race either. Hispanic is a (US) ethnic designation. You are Hispanic (in the US sense) if you speak Spanish at home, grew up speaking Spanish at home, or at least one of your known ancestors did so, and you feel like calling yourself that. You could be of any race, and any religion as well, even though most Hispanics are Catholic.

    "White" is the only one of the three words you gave that can be argued to be a race. It's a classification that traditionally is seen as quite explicitly racial, although if you read some of the modern works you'll actually find people more and more using it as an ethnic designation instead, leading to even more confusion when two parties to the conversation are using it in two entirely different senses.

    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @05:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @05:53PM (#429493)

    > you cannot convert to or from a race, not in any possible reality, period

    Really? On what basis do you make that claim?

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:04PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:04PM (#429498) Homepage Journal

      I assume he bases it on the definition of the word "race".

      Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics.

      I suppose you'll be redefining it to suit your argument though. That's been very much in vogue lately.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:05PM (#429499)

        So, is it also your contention that is impossible to change race?

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:21PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:21PM (#429511) Homepage Journal

          Currently, yes. In the future there may come a day when a retrovirus can alter the DNA of each of your cells enough to change your race but that day is not today.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:31PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:31PM (#429522)

            Well, there are literally millions of examples of people changing their race.
            For example, Carol Channing. [biography.com]

            Its pretty funny you cited a dictionary definition of race without linking to that definition and then accused me making up a definition of race.
            Where did you get that definition from?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:18PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:18PM (#429595)

              http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/05/05/millions-of-americans-changed-their-racial-or-ethnic-identity-from-one-census-to-the-next/ [pewresearch.org]

              The researchers, who included university and government population scientists, analyzed census forms for 168 million Americans, and found that more than 10 million of them checked different race or Hispanic-origin boxes in the 2010 census than they had in the 2000 count. Smaller-scale studies have shown that people sometimes change the way they describe their race or Hispanic identity, but the new research is the first to use data from the census of all Americans to look at how these selections may vary on a wide scale.

              “Do Americans change their race? Yes, millions do,” said study co-author Carolyn A. Liebler, a University of Minnesota sociologist who worked with Census Bureau researchers.

              But clearly buzzard knows better than all of those people and the scientists who study them.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:43AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:43AM (#429764)

                Man, you're a fucking Genius with a capital G!

                What I need now is an official form with check boxes for the length of my penis, how many minutes I can last with 10 cheerleaders, and my yearly income. Three check boxes away from being able to change reality!

                "I have seen the top of the mountain ....... and it is good"

                - Butthead

              • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:15AM

                by Gaaark (41) on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:15AM (#429774) Journal

                Okay, so my car is a Corvette, but I sometimes call it a Yugo and sometimes a Ducati motorcycle.

                It's still a Corvette, though.

                --
                --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:40AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:40AM (#429781)

                  Since we aren't actually talking about cars, you fail.

                  In kindergarten you learned one simplified age-appropriate definition of race and despite growing up, your understanding never matured.

                  You know that definition that buzzard cut-n-pasted?
                  Do you know why he didn't include the URL?
                  Because the rest of the definition totally contradicts him.

                  Go ahead, google that definition. The link will take you right to the whole thing. He cited 1.1, take a look at 1.2.

                  Or don't. You seem more interested in rationalizing remaining ignorant of what all of science settled decades ago.

                  BTW, do you know what a definition of bigot is?
                  a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices

                  Being obstinately devoted to a child's definition of a word pretty much qualifies.
                  I'm guessing its not the only opinion of yours that would qualify. Seems to go hand-in-hand with a lot of other ones.

            • (Score: 1) by Arik on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:24PM

              by Arik (4543) on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:24PM (#429598) Journal
              She didn't change her race, she was born human and the best I know she still is.

              Just because racists are wrong about multiple races existing, though, doesn't mean that race is not a word that conceives of, that necessarily implies a biological division, indeed that is precisely their error - they reify social divisions and conceive of them as racial rather than social.

              If there were such a division, you certainly couldn't cross it without changing your DNA, and whatever race you attribute to Channing, it clearly never changed, at most it could be said to have been misidentified either in the first case or the second. Those are different things.

              --
              If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:32PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:32PM (#429604)

                > She didn't change her race, she was born human and the best I know she still is.

                Why should anyone take you seriously after that?

                You simply do not understand race. [nap.edu] You, like buzzard, think genetics determine race when in fact genes are only a small, superficial component of race and determinate of nothing in particular. Anyone who has actually studied race knows that to be true because racial distinctions are so arbitrary [vox.com] that they change on the timescale of decades.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:35AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:35AM (#429763)

              Wow. You do realize how full of shit you are right? You did not demonstrate a change of race:

              In her memoir Just Lucky I Guess (2002), Channing revealed that in 1937, when she was a 16-year-old about to head off to Bennington College, her mother told her that her father's birth certificate had marked him as "colored," as his mother had been black. It was an unexpected revelation for Channing, and she didn't make the information public for decades (a decision that allowed her to avoid the discriminatory treatment African Americans faced at the time).

              However, Channing didn't completely forget about her heritage, which she credits with giving her the impressive vocal range and agility that helped her succeed as a performer. In a 2002 interview with Larry King, she declared, "I got the greatest genes in show business."

              A clerical error and misinformation is very distinct from an actual state change. Five minutes before she knew, she still had her father's genes in her, and five minutes later she continued to do so. All that changed was her ignorance of it.

              You literally argued that ignorance once removed constitutes a physical state change. This is the one and the same principle that allows little children to fly in Neverland. You should've sprinkled your post with Pixie Dust.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:44AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:44AM (#429784)

                > Wow. You do realize how full of shit you are right? You did not demonstrate a change of race:

                Hey genius. Genes are not race. They are genes.

                Race is something that society both imposes on you and you express to society.

                Everybody thought carol channing was white. She never had to experience being treated as black. For everything that matters, she was white.

      • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:28PM

        by hemocyanin (186) on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:28PM (#429519) Journal

        Forget him. He's obviously trolling. And not very well.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:33PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:33PM (#429524)

          Not trolling. Trying to get lazy minds to make concrete statements of their beliefs so that those beliefs can be debated.
          Buzzard knows he's on really thin ice, that's why he's always trying to squirm out from making specific, falsifiable statements.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:22PM (#429512)

      What are you smoking and where can I get some?

  • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:23PM

    by q.kontinuum (532) on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:23PM (#429515) Journal

    While I agree with the distinction between genetic differences and religion, it is not possible for every Muslim to renounce his/her beleives. Apostasy [wikipedia.org] is punished in some countries by death or long prioson terms, in others by "only" losing custodial rights over the own children, inheritance etc. In other countries it might be completely legal and without sanction, but you can't generalize it.

    --
    Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:30PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:30PM (#429521) Journal

      Difficulty, even a death penalty, is not "impossible". If it was impossible to abandon Islam, there'd be no death penalty for doing it because it would be ... impossible.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:52PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:52PM (#429573)

        If you are that categorial things get a bit difficult, because with extensive plastic surgery, skin transplants, makeup, I am not sure it's impossible to change race.
        At the least Asian to Caucasian seems very plausible.