Why do they object? Because they have to have an opinion EVERYTHING

Watching news with an acquaintance - for every story on the news he had some comment - either it was "the worst thing in the world" or it was "great" - there was no middle ground or indifference. There was an opinion on everything even if it would never affect him.

I think that might be separate issues: all-or-nothing thinking with a large dose of ego (his opinion matters why?).

Did the acquaintance seem to have the same understanding as you about what the news subjects were? Did you have a shared understanding of what the words meant?

Repubs and many conservatives are such snowflakes, they are triggered by basically any bloody word or phraseology that wasn't fully accepted in the usa in the 1950s.

Words change, culture changes. Sometimes it is for the better, sometimes not. Demographics change and that's gonna affect ALL of our lives. Get over it.

Me?
I find evil objectionable. I find cowards objectionable. I find bullies objectionable.

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More often than not, it isn't the choice of words. You are talking about a group of people who need a boogeyman to blame their problems on.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
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I'm of the camp where words matters. So I get bothered a bit when an intended definition get lost or miscontrued or just open to lots of ambuguity.

"Defund the police" is a good example. At face value it sounds like it's just taking money away from police. It doesn't necessarily communicate the intended meaning that it's a re-allocation of funds to other areas that are better at dealing with disruptive people where the behavior is due to mental issues rather than criminal intent. But that's a mouthful.

"Cancel culture" is another phrase. I liked the interpretation that said it should be referred to as "Consequence culture".

But dealing w/the what words mean keeps lawyers* in business.

*Partly why I like the field I'm in (analytics), where the logic and outcomes are expressed, unambiguously, in terms of equations and code. Lots can be said and done in that framework.

i think i wrote the same on another thread, but i'll repeat myself here if so.

i've noticed that increasingly some people are using the word 'cancel' in places where we used to use terms like "criticize," or "hold accountable" or "allow to be exposed to natural consequences."

as i understand it, "cancelling" started as a social action some time ago, when people would (for instance) decide to boycott the sponsors of a media personality who advanced positions that those people found odious. it wasn't particularly partisan - i remember people doing this to ellen degeneres and don imus alike.

but recently i think trump jr was saying something like, "it was bad optics for cruz to go to mexico, but i'm not joining in calls for him to be cancelled." what? what does that even mean? he's a senator - he doesn't get "cancelled," he gets voted out. and if by cancelled you mean "criticized for making what we all seem to agree was a poor choice," than 'cancelled' is now meaningless.

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____________________________________
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So you're telling us to not be so thin-skinned? :-)

Neither of your examples above trigger me, as I had to google the first one (wow, that gave me a headache, but OK) and I get what most people mean by DTP. But it's a great example of extremism. "Defund the Police" is a provactive term and I can see why people get upset about it, because the words and intent are different. So, yeah, maybe word choice does matter. But Defund the Police gets eyeballs and fits on a protest sign.

As for cancel culture, the complaint I have is that if you are not perfectly aligned to the wokeness cause, whatever it is, or if you have lived an imperfect life and did something stupid once, then you're called out and ostracized. Again, extreme, 1:0 thinking.

To illustrate my point above, let's take the phrases "black lives matters" and "all lives matter."


I'm not going to explain what either of them mean because it's 2021, and if someone doesn't know what they mean by now, then they don't want to know. When one equates "black lives matters" to mean "only black lives matter" yet never complained about breast cancer charities for not caring about forms of cancer, or if they replied with "all lives matter," but never actually attended an all lives matter fund raiser or protest, then I'm pretty sure we can assume that it's not the choice of words that's the problem.

Don't let the right control your language, because there is no end to it until they get a conservative world order. They do not care about you and your words.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
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There have always been lines that can't be crossed and a group of people that determine if those lines have crossed. "Cancelling" is not something new and the people that complain about "cancel culture" the most are more than happy to "cancel" people, they are generally acting in bad faith. You don't see them screaming that Colin Kapernick was canceled or the Dixie Chicks, they are fine with that.

Lets face it, not too long ago you would have been "cancelled" for saying you were gay or even supporting gay rights.

Traditionally those lines have been decided by the privileged and those in power determined if those lines have been crossed. Now that has changed. Suddenly those that lacked privilege and power suddenly have a voice in the lines and if they are crossed. Those that used to have that power see it as a threat to their power and are upset. So the lines are changing.

Is it possible that this next paradigm may be over zealous? Possibly. Is it obvious that the old way of doing thing was absolutely terrible and allowed abuse and all sorts of misdeeds to be perputated by power? Fucking hell yes. Having the power to "cancel" someone being concentrated in a limited number of individuals, that lets face it were very homogeneous, just allowed so much abuse.

I think having more people involved in where the lines are is a good thing. Even if there are negatives, they far outweigh the negatives of the old systems.

if you want to be listened to, use a word or phrase that is precise, original, with few priors attached

if you want to rally people, use the slogan, the more baggage the better

Defund the police means, defund the police.

If you want to talk about reallocating resources, or even just bolstering non-police emergency resources, say that. When you leave words open to interpretation they can mean anything you want them to and that's where we run in to problems.

It's like me saying "CallMeMaybe is a jerk" but, that phrase actually means that we just have different opinions, so Im ok with the phrase because I know what it actually means. Even though many other people might hear that phrase and think that you are a jerk because it is repeated often enough.

Just for clarification I am not actually calling anyone a jerk...

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Yes, it does.
I think it shows either laziness, inability or malice if an adult doesn’t bother to use the appropriate word for the context.

Baby-Talk or Teenage speak unfortunately are considered to be cool and engaged. Doesn’t work so much in an adult environment (other than entertainment), where words matter and have consequences
I won‘t elaborate on the malice aspect.

And increasingly there is, ‘like....like...’ the lack of proper education to built a vocabulary.

But I am just an outsider looking in.

I think the difference between cancelling and holding accountable is that the cancel crowd is quick to cancel with very little evidence. People have lost jobs and livelihoods and had their names destroyed over unproven allegations. That is just not right. It's one thing to say "so and so is a bad person for x reason" and another entirely to make sure that person loses their job, receives death threats and so on without them even having a day in court.

A good friend of mine was accused of raping a girl in highschool. He was dragged out of class in handcuffs, not allowed to graduate, his family kicked him out of their home... And it wasn't even true. The girl admitted to it years later. That is what is wrong with cancel culture.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Defund the police has the various knee-jerk interpretations. I imagine there would a whole different reaction, from law enforcement and their supporters, if the phrase had been "Re-fund the Police". As in, reallocate funds to train cops to deal with mental health issues.

Totally. The phrase "defund the police" wasn't used by accident or because it was catchy. It is used to create division and threaten. The intent is very clear.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

I agree in a sense, but the people who coined the term would probably say the "division and threats" were already there. And they just decided to engage in the conflict by threatening public funding. Instead of responding with violence, knee-to-neck, etc.

There are elements of "cancel crowd is quick to cancel with very little evidence" in this story about an incident at a college a few hours from where I live. If the story is accurate, the janitorial and cafeteria staff didn't get a very fair shake on this one, IMO.

https://www.nytimes.com/...&pgtype=Homepage

I'll also say, there are many in the 'woke' crowd who do mean exactly that: defund the police. And so words do matter, and intent does matter. There is the 'defund the police' crowd and the 'more social services' crowd and their aims and views are different. They should be classified differently and discussed as real solutions differently. But they're not, they're conflated and so the aims of fairly extreme types are intermingled with those of more reasonable, center-left folks.

I kinda disagree.


I think it came about because people were EXTREMELY pissed off at what the police were doing in their communities, and then combined that with the realization that people themselves were funding the police (and the police idiocy) with their own tax dollars. Hence, 'defund the police.' It is not a big stretch to see this if one has ever been pissed by any government or corporate overreach.

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Can you explain what these phrases mean to you, and what white supremacy has to do with math? Genuine question.

I've talked about this particular thing before. One issue is when we expect someone to be fired from their current job wholly unrelated to the offense. And frequently completely different from the one they had at the time of the offense.

Gina Carrano(sp?) is an idiot. If your employer has warned you before about your behavior you don't turn the dial to 11. And the things she is saying are stupid. But does she never get to work again? Does she only get written out of this show? If she makes a pretend apology (because we know she isn't at all sorry about what she said so an apology is pointless) can she be cast in the future? What is the connection between what she did and the job she has?

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

But for the folks' that were pissed off, what did that accomplish for them? It just made the other side push back. Furthermore, it opened the door (for the right) to push their message that the result of "Defund the Police" is criminals running amok. If you want to win "hearts and minds", Defund the Police was a poor phrase to run with if there was interest in solving the issue constructively.

Of course, in hindsight, it was a not a good choice. (Of course, how many of us have made thousands of decisions in our lives that in hindsight were not good choices ... I can't claim innocence there ...)

But that was a simple phrase and it made for a "good" slogan ('good' in that it was short and it moved people -- just imagine folks yelling, "Take some funds from the police and use those to fund on-call mental health counselors !!!" "Take some funds from the police and use those to fund on-call mental health counselors !!!" "Take some funds from the police and use those to fund on-call mental health counselors !!!" -- not sure that would have worked too well ...)

But those were the imprecise words chosen for the slogan. In hindsight, definitely not a good choice.

And I'm not defending it, only that I perfectly understand the anger that created it in the moment.

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The good choice would (should) have been to go with or pivot to "Re-fund the police!".
The aggrieved crowd would be on board as it calls for the reallocation. The Police could easily respond with ok, give us the money and we'll use the dollars towards mental and racial sensitivity training. No one turns down funding/money. And the politicians could take credit and say, "See, Unity". Instead, we have what we have of the butt-hurt and the butting of heads.

Yes. Also if you want to change people's minds don't use phrases that are backhanded insults. Use language that appeals to their sensibilities.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I agree.

I have seen so many posts(including one today that I strategically avoided as I have better things to do than argue all day) where people argue against cancel culture, political correctness or some such nonsense. The reality is that the world doesn't revolve around any single one of us. Other people have different perspectives and recognizing that as the case as opposed to acting as though you are being mistreated is the sign of being a mature adult.

Case in point, I've referred to Jeep Cherokees by their name for as long as I can remember. I just heard that some folks from the Cherokee Nation have asked Jeep to change the name. I never once, in my entire life, thought that the use of the name on the vehicle was offensive. Never even thought about it. Now that I know, I think it merits consideration. Why the hell not? But I feel no guilt, I'm not ashamed. When I know better, I try to do better. Keep that up for 60/70+ years and you can improve a whole helluva lot. But there is no reason for guilt.

Or I could pout, cry about wokeness and keep pissing someone else off just so I don't have to admit any wrongdoing(intentional or otherwise). There was a time when blacks were referred to as the N word. Then colored. Then Negro. Then Black. Then African American. Now it appears we are back to Black. Don't even get me started on my confusion over the LGBTIQ+ stuff with all the pronouns. But I try to listen, learn and treat/address people in a way that is kind. If you can't appreciate that I am trying to be respectful, that's on you. But over the years, I can't remember ever going through that. Because just trying says you care and I have found that marginalized folks are in general quite skilled at discerning who is acting as a friend and who is acting as a foe.

When you know better, do better. Be kind to and respectful of your fellow humans out there.

Agree. It's like an effective marketing slogans 101. In and of itself, MAGA was pretty good as a slogan. Who could argue against it at face value?

"Defund the police". (Flat No). BLM (No, all lives matter). As slogans, there's an obvious counter/reaction begging to be called out. Instead, "Re-fund the police". "Our Lives Matter". Those would have been better and more effective at limiting counter arguments and not creating further division. And just as easily fit on a placard/banner.

I think you are clearly demonstrating an important issue here. People's biases make certain language appeal to them, but they think it is universal.

For example, you seem to believe that MAGA was somehow a better slogan that nobody could argue against. That obviously reveal certain biases on your point that you are not aware of. Of course people could argue against it. When was America great for Black people? When was it great for gay people? Women? What exact time are you thinking America can be like again?

Also, for some reason you have a problem with Black Lives Matter as a slogan. How do you argue against that exactly? It is pretty clear that society does not value black lives as much as others, so the slogan is to emphasize that black lives matter. They don't say only black lives matter.

mmm some people see the 'again' part as dog whistle to a time when the non dominant elements of the culture knew their place.

but that isn't blatant, which makes it a very effective slogan for the group using it

Democrats should have used GOP tactics and hammered them endlessly for suggesting that America isn't great right now.

Just replying to the last entry.

I run a manufacturing plant (I'm the Plant Manger) that looks like the UN. Every race, every religion, and every sexual orientation (I assume). We all get along fine because none of that is discussed. People talk about the difference between equality and equity. I understand the difference in theory, but in practice it all comes down to simply doing the same thing every time to everyone, and holding everyone to the same standard. We don't ignore the differences, we just don't use them to differentiate anyone.

In my personal life I belong to a group of bikers (we call ourselves a bike club but really we are just a bunch off older men with expensive bikes that ride together) and I am one of the few that could honestly put "white - non-Hispanic" on the census form. That was not by design or intent, it is just the crowd that I fell into. We are all professionals, with careers and status in the community. Doctors, lawyers, and business people, and race never comes up. We ride together, we go out to dinner with our families, we do things in the summer together, and it simply never comes up. Occasionally something happens that makes us laugh - We were all waiting for a table at a restaurant and the person seating everyone assumed my wife and I were not with the group we were in, and tried to seat us separately and ahead of the bigger group. We declined and then everyone made a joke about needing to hang with us so they could get seated early or hail a taxi.

Call me naïve it you want, but getting along with each other is pretty simple. You will see race, religion, and sexual orientation, that is unavoidable, but that should not be what differentiates you, and you should not use it to differentiate yourself.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

I doubt that would have made any difference. Any right wing pundit would have followed with, "What they are saying that YOUR lives don't matter," and then we'd be explaining THAT away as a "bad slogan idea."

America, in general, is going through it's Jackie Robinson phase, and it's going to be a matter of time before enough people die off, and the rest get used to it.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
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Your workplace is similar to mine, except that we're not in manufacturing. I sometimes jokingly call myself the token white American. And the experience is the same.

As was my high school track team, which was ~50% white, 50% black. Or all the times I played pickup basketball in college (a lot), which was pretty close to 50/50, or a club I used to hang out in that was 50/50.


The problem arrises when its much less diverse, or there's a power imbalance. I've been saying for a while that the only real cure for racial tensions in the US will be the browning of America.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
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Yes, ok, fair point. Absolutes don't apply, there are always exceptions, and things can also viewed on a relative basis.

Biases or perspectives, here's a couple of examples that inform my views to your question:

I was listening to an interview of Lonnie Bunch last night. He's the Secretary of all Smithsonian museums. Formerly head of the African-American Art Museum (where my wife had some interactions w/him given her line of work, so we were both listening). Phenomenal leader/person. He can better articulate times and greatness of AA art/culture and the AA museum in DC's intent is to showcase some of that. Granted, there are also the painful lows including in the present time and Lonnie and others are calling that out as well. It's not absolute, and there are relative differences. My point (and to your question) is that Yes, here in the US, there is/was greatness for Black people.

I look at my kids and their interactions and see positives..... Like my wife, daughter is into the arts and has multiple friends and adult interactions with folks that are gay. Also, son shrugged about his hockey teammate being gay. No big deal to them. I look at these reactions and interactions and feel pretty good at the tolerance we have today relative to what it was like when I was their age; and/or relative to what I hear it's like outside the US. To be clear, I'm not saying all is hunky dory and there aren't issues.

On the MAGA slogan thing. Emotionally loaded now/today to be damaged goods. For something equivalent, look at - "RTG, Return To Greatness". Easy to run with. Can inspire, and get people on board with etc. Sure, one can say, what do you mean "return"?, weren't we great already? etc. But on face value, it's a good one. Could work for a sports team as well as any other grouping. My point is that on face value, it's an easy one to enlist support.

On BLM, as a slogan, it was too easy for people to interpret that as *only* BLM -- because the exclusivity that is suggested makes it easy to misinterpret. And that's what happened vs. the intent of calling out B was to emphasize the plight face by Blacks. So what happened is a ton of energy wasted to clarify the intent and fighting for support.

I'm not black (or white). But if I and a bunch of folks of my particular racial-mix-constitution were similarly aggrieved to march down an avenue, B-LM wouldn't work (not being black), but we could go with "Our Lives Matter!". And I could even engage other passive bystanders that aren't my mix to join in with a call, "C'mon now ... say it with me.... Our Lives Matter...Our Lives Matter". And they could, because saying "Our" works. Imagine the power of *everyone* chanting that in support of my particular racial-mix*.

Shouldn't matter, but people wonder anyway -- I don't know what I would label myself and kids racially..... We're a mix of Asian, Spanish (Spain and SA), White (European). Plus I grew up in different countries as a kid - UN brat. Depending on who my daughter is hanging out with she has easily been thought of as Italian, Persian, Hispanic, Asian, White. I will say, all of that has given me and family a "unique" perspective (healthy bias?) on social issues - racial and otherwise.

It always matters. Part of effective communications is understanding your audience. Like someone mentioned earlier, if you're looking to start national discussion about an important topic; you phrase things one way. If you're looking to stir up voter passions and fundraising; you phrase it a different way. If you're looking to piss off your ideological opposition; you might phrase it yet another way.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

As someone who has been right leaning his whole life until a few years ago, who never voted for Trump, and I consider myself a centrist who is leaning more left lately, I find it amusing that both left and right think they are as pure as the driven snow, and the other side is the devil.

You bet your ass that a right wing pundit would follow with that. So would CNN/MSNBC, etc. do the exact same thing in the other direction.

Since I took a step back from side and try to look at issues individually, it's crazy how much 'brainwashing' occurs on both sides while everyone points at each other and says they're idiots, they're brainwashed, etc., while sitting in the opposite, but similar echo chambers.

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~Brad

As any marketer knows, phrasing and knowing the audience matters -- for dimensions that are important.

I was saying knowing my race shouldn't matter - e.g. what if you can't label my race? How would you message me differently?

As an undergrad, I had a prof (Poli Sci, International Law class), that I noticed seemed to looking at me a little too intently/oddly. Then after one lecture, he asked me to stick around. He explained that he's been trying to figure out my race/ethnicity. He had travelled all over, and took pride in being able to identify students' backgrounds based on their looks and accents, etc. but he can't figure me out. Had a nice chat and I liked the course a lot.

So, before vs. after knowing my race - that shouldn't and didn't change how he taught the course, or me specifically.

Yep, and it's not just a sleazy salesman or politician skill. As a military leader, I know I have to deliver a particular message differently when talking to a group of senior personnel, than I would when delivering the same message to a group of younger junior personnel. I know I have to communicate a point differently to my peers than I would to a 3 or 4 Star Admiral.

When people develop slogans or chants or messaging that they think is great, and it somehow falls flat or generates a bunch of hate and discontent; it's frequently because that messaging was developed to appeal to the people delivering the message, without sufficient thought to the people who would be receiving the message. Preaching to the choir, as they say.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I don't doubt the CNN/MSNBC does something similar. I, honestly, have virtually no exposure to those channels.

If you ever want to have a discussion about crazy liberalism gone bad, we can talk about my experiences from when I was a high school teacher and why I left education.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
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Replying to no one in particular (myself, I suppose, technically....)


Yes, words matter.
Yes, how you phrase something effects how you communicate ideas.
Yes, how you market your movement is important.
And, yes, I'll agree that "defund the police" was a particularly bad slogan.


Having said all of that, people have brains and access to the internet, and it shouldn't be hard to figure out what these phrases are supposed to mean regardless of what first impressions they make. more importantly, we have journalists who are supposed to do that for us.

Which brings us to Fox News and right wing radio/internet. Don't think for a second that the problem with Tuck Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Alex Jones, Dave Rubin, Fox & Friends, etc. is that the slogans were poorly thought out and that it was hard to understand the intended purpose of them. They're not idiots, and if they had any intention of "finding common ground," they wouldn't keep doubling down on their straw man arguments YEARS after they should have figured out what the actual arguments are.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
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As someone who has looked at every single issue individually (and not through a right/left lens) his whole life, I would generally agree.

For example, I think Obama was a pretty decent president. But I had some severe misgivings about certain of his actions (like his administration's rabid and unjust pursuit of patriotic whistleblowers) and when I shared those misgivings with certain democratic leaning folks (not here), damn, they reacted with remarkable venom. Just like trumpists who react similarly when trump is criticized.

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To the extent it wasn't right (unproven allegations), the affected should be able to win large cash settlements in court.

Back to whomever said it should be "consequence culture" not "cancel culture" (I think you hit the nail on the head).

Anyone claiming to be "cancelled", pretty much did something to deserve it and they are trying to deflect from being held accountable for what they did. Or they use the excuse "people have been doing it for years and not being punished, and now I am being punished". Sorry, the fact that people have been able to get away with bad actions with no consequences for years does not guarantee you are insulated from consequence for perpetuity. Because that would mean we are never allowed to change anything (which at the end of the day, is exactly what people who currently have the upper hand want, nothing to change so they can continue to always have the upper hand).

Because for example, if an employer fires you and says it was because of reason X and reason X can be proven to be untrue, pretty much at a minimum you can get your job back and likely also a lot of walking around money to boot (we have a court system to enforce fair treatment, including the 14th Amendment for "equal treatment under the law"). And to the extent reason X was true, you are being held accountable for bad actions and what is "not right" about that?

You may be oversimplifying in some cases. There were more than a few of these “cancel” cases where the call for cancellation came after something was dug up from decades earlier. The person had already suffered the normal consequences of their behavior, in many cases had grown and changed as a result, but were still the subject of cancellation efforts from the current pack of overly virtuous social media juries. Or the person had engaged in behavior that was considered perfectly acceptable by the standards of 20 or 30 years ago, but is being judged by the new standard of today’s same juries.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Take the real life example of my friend.

In his last year of highschool, he hooked up with a girl at a party. She was later embarrassed by the attention that incident was getting her and she claimed that he raped her. Police were called, he was taken out of school by the cops and that was the last time he was allowed in school. No graduation, no chance to say bye to friends, etc. His family was quite religious and kicked him out upon hearing "what he had done". He had trouble finding work and I believe had to be on a registry. It took years to clear his name. By that time he was maybe 25 and just wanted to move on with his life. He didn't go after the girl for money, he had already lost the most valuable thing to him (time, his youth, etc).

Until then, he was known as a sex offender. He lost friends, family, opportunities etc. I don't care how much walking around money you can have awarded to you when it all shakes out (if the girl even had any to pay him), you still have to live your life in the meantime.

So no, not everyone who has been cancelled has done something to deserve it. Far from it. And not every bad action means someone should be cancelled. Cancelling is such a weirdly permanent way to punish. I've certainly done some hurtful, shitty things in my life. I've certainly grown from them and tried my best to right wrongs. Had I been 'cancelled' within my social group, what opportunity is there for growth and reconciliation? If you're cancelled what are you supposed to do, just crawl in to a hole and die?

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Long Chile was a silly place.

The canceling you mention seems to be quite a bit different than the canceling of MyPillow guy or even Trump and his impeachments—or someone who engages is a racist tirade at a kid drawing BLM with chalk on the sidewalk. “Cancel” seems to cover a wide swath of consequences for a wide range of behaviors.

It does, which is why I feel we should be careful and hesitant in it's use. I'm not against taking away someone's platform under overwhelming evidence of their wrongdoing.

However, what I see most often online is something like "Hey, this business treated me shitty and I think it's because of my race/gender/orientation, let's shut them down!!"

The weaponization of this cancel movement is truly frightening.

So, yes, it's one thing if a person is loudly proclaiming from the rooftop what a POS they are (my pillow guy). It's entirely another if there is a lack of certainty. I don't like how quick people are to promote cancelling, and I don't like how it doesn't leave any room for the cancelled to possibly redeem themselves. In general I question why people are so quick to paint with a very broad brush.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Frankly I thought the spin on Gina's comments were a little over the top, unless of course it was combined with a history of stuff that she's said (which I'm not really aware of).

One of my pet peeves is when someone says. "here's an analogy involving the holocaust," and people respond with, "that's anti-semtic" regardless of what teh analogy actually meant.

Here's the actual quote:

"Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors... even by children... Because history is edited, most people today don't realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?"


I think there's some truth to her point, and also think that there is a decent bit of hyperbole and over dramatization of it, I don't really see how anything in here was anti-Jew unless there's some obvious dog whistle that I'm completely missing, or if it was the last straw or something.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
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I think the objection to Carano’s comments were that she was casting modern Republicans in the role of the German Jews in her analogy. I also think there’s a substantive difference between hating someone for their politics, and hating someone for their ethnicity, which is recognized in the fact that we have ethnicity as a protected characteristic in our country and don’t have a similar protection for political belief.

Both types of hatred are counterproductive and bad, but I think there’s a clear difference between them.

Yes, Carano’s comments were overblown. They were overblown because she stepped afoul of the same social justice juries when she made a comment that was deemed as careless with regard to transgenders. That episode was even more ridiculously overblown.

---

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I agree with this point.

I think you and I are in agreement, but I just want to restate it. While casting modern Republicans in the role of German Jews is absurd, this seems to be a new standard for "canceling" based on "racist comments.".....and sadly kind of proving her point, to a degree.

Frankly I think her detractors thought, "what an absurd comment" and then remembered it as "something something Jews something something Nazis" and then thought the worst of it.


Side note: a local bar owner offered up a menu item called the Levine Lunch which was going to be a plate of pickles for $0.25. It was to bypass a requirement to have food with your drink (they were trying to reduce bar hopping during the pandemic).

His facebook page blew up over his "transphobic comments." Apparently people thought that it was mocking levine because pickles are like penises, or because transwomen like (or don't like) pickles because of some hormone they take that has something to do with pickles.....or something.

None of this was true. I literally was talking to the owner when he came up with this idea. Levine was the one who proposed the rule to the governor, who implemented the law. Pickles were chosen because they're cheap.

Nevertheless "something something transexual something something I'm trying to get around the rules"

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Yep. Something, something, Jewish, something..... ANTI-SEMITIC. Something , something, Black,...... RACIST. Something, something, woman,......MISOGYNISTIC.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Wow, really ???

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I am curious, how did he clear his name?

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I'm honestly not sure of those details. I'll have to ask him.

---

Long Chile was a silly place.

So you think there is absolutely zero truth to her point? Like 100% of it was not only exaggerated, but completely wrong?

Or do you think that you disliked her point so much that you won't accept that anything she said had any truth to it, regardless of whether or not there is actually truth to it?


And for the record, I am not siding with her in anyway.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I did not like, or dislike, her point. The much bigger problem is, she made no point.

People hate and/or dislike one another for thousands of different reasons. But that has nothing to do with the holocaust, where a group of people of a certain ancestry and religion, that had been discriminated against for hundreds of years, was chosen as a convenient scapegoat and then killed by the millions.

How that connects to a trumpster hating his Biden-loving neighbor (or vice versa) completely eludes me.

It is like saying "WWII was a crazy bad war. How is that any different from two neighbors shooting at each other over a disagreement?"

It's an inane and completely irrelevant comparison. There is simply nothing there, it's just completely bizarre. She had no point at all.

---

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She made a pretty clear point. You may not like it, but that doesn’t mean she had no point.

Her point was that the Holocaust and WWII didn’t start out at full on war and genocide. It started as one group convincing individual people to hate their neighbors based on religion/ethnicity. And that she sees the current hatred being directed at Trump supporters as analogous, and a dangerous first step down a bad road.

As I said, I don’t agree with her analogy. But there really shouldn’t be much confusion what her point was intended to be.

---

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Slowguy explained it well. If you still don't understand my position after reading his post, get back to me.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I’m pretty ambivalent about your story. I have no real reason to believe it’s true or false. I haven’t encountered any stories like his in my life. It’s possible that it’s true, but it’s the one-off.

I’m not sure that recanting a rape allegation means a lot. It means something, certainly. But the downside for women for pursuing a rape allegation is pretty big. I personally know of unreported rapes in high school, college, and law school. I just spoke with my cousin last week and learned his daughter was sexually assaulted in the last 3 months in the Navy. She chose to report anonymously (no possibility of criminal charges) so she can have access to counseling. Her assailant is in her same company (?), and while she doesn’t like seeing him, she doesn’t want to have to transfer away. I guess she’s going through a pretty hard time.

Anyway, I don’t really care to get into a discussion in this thread on this topic.

Thanks, I do understand his explanation, but l do not see Carano's point, because she made no point. Her analogy made no sense.

One can TRY to connect ANYthing to nazi germany and the holocaust, but her example had no relevance at all. Her analogy made as much sense as my laughable WWII example in my previous post.

I understand what she was trying to say, but Carano created a worthless, pointless analogy. It's her right of course to say dumb things, but it's my right to say WTF

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I don't want to derail this, but 2 suggestions. Sexual assault in schools:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GBNHGi36nlM

Sexual assault in the military:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3fBaFQk6aE0

Neither are an easy watch and, in both cases, the true evil is in the cover ups. But knowledge is power.

---

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It's possible that it's true? Seriously? If I was telling the opposite side of that story, telling you about my female friend who was assaulted at a party in highschool, would that be your response too?

This is definitely going on a tangent so maybe something that can be in another thread, but, my friend's experience is far from a one off situation. There have been some high profile cases of similar stories. Remember the duke lacrosse team?

There are plenty of women out there perfectly willing to ruin innocent men's lives.

I'm not trying in any way to minimize what women deal with regarding sexual assault. But, we can't blindly believe one side over another and rush to accuse people one way or another. I certainly wouldn't want my daughter to be in your cousin's daughters shoes. But I'm equally sure you wouldn't want your son (if you have one) to be in my accused friend's shoes either.

---

Long Chile was a silly place.

and...



i see your points (quotes above taken from 2 of your posts). but i'm not so sure i agree any longer, in the context of america's divisions, that there is a firm line between politics and religion (and perhaps ethnicity). while i understand carano's point, i think she's got it backwards. starting in 1994, with newt gingrich, along with the rise in AM hate radio (limbaugh notably), the people who were the cause of all your personal failures were women, and democrats.

i think you can see that among a lot of republicans there has been a morphing (blending) of religion and republicanism, and now trumpism, sort of like when a new religion imposed on an old, and you get a durable blend of orthodoxy and paganism.

this new trumpo-christianity has replaced the apostle's creed, and you may as well print it on the back of the week's program handed to you as you enter church. there is no more evangelical christianity in america. it's gone. to be fair to believers - and i mean believers, not those who check a "christian" radio button - this religion was always supposed to be a small persecuted insurgency, separate from govt, rendering unto god what is god's. evangelicalism renders unto trump what is god's. today's true christian insurgency is not arrayed against democrats, but against evangelicals.

what are religions and ethnicities other than tribes? can you tell the difference between a serb and a croat? an armenian and a turk? what we have, today, is a quarter century of hate spewed by right winger loudmouths. not disagreement. hate. there is no real difference between evangelicalism and trumpism. you can't parse between them. this is a tribe.

but the hate has been there for a long time, stoked by right wing provocateurs. trump gave it a megaphone, and brought haters out of the closet. he made right wing hate respectable. the reason so many christians and republicans were willing to abandon everything we thought they believed in to side with trump is because we didn't understand what they really believed in all along.

so, i'm not so sure anymore that in our present environment that meaningful difference between politics and religion exists. trumpo-christians have formed something that smells and tastes like a religion, and they have decided that coastal elites, educated women, and so on form the "tribe" of infidels that stand in their way. (which explains why no republican senators will vote for wildly popular legislation, if it's proposed by the infidel party.)

hate is hate.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Bingo.

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There are plenty of times in our Country's history that are filled with such rancor and division. This is really nothing new for us

Your perpetuating such division with posts such as this just furthers the divide

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Steve

Haha! You see!?

Your first respondent to your post is one of your most ardent acolytes. if you keep curating this forum in the manner you do you'll soon be left with nothing but like minded adherents. No real conversation. Just a endless self licking ice cream cone of hatred.

enjoy

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Steve

These two positions contradict each other.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

it's not a divide. it's a war declared by one side on everyone not on that side. republicans have been self-styled as the party of personal responsibility. the only thing that will heal us is for us all to take personal responsibility. to self-examine. to look at the fruit of our actions to date, and the likely future consequences of our behavior. to ask ourselves what are our core beliefs. as in, to list, to write down, the 5 or 6 things that we believe in most ardently, as they pertain to public life. and then ask whether our beliefs and actions comport with our list of imperatives. for me, in no particular order, it's:

- an adherence to democracy, to governors subject to those they govern, to the right of people to vote, the fidelity of our democratic institutions.
- personal liberty, the opportunity for upward mobility, appropriate regulation, goverment that serves the people and the mission, not the institution of government.
- protection for the weak and the oppressed.
- the empowerment of the young through a robust education.
- recognition of america's status as a haven for the downtrodden and persecuted, with a sober calibration of its capacity to absorb immigrants, and the institutions necessary to enforce and empower immigrant and border policy.
- a recognition of america's strategic needs, and a government empowered to effectuate those needs.

i don't think you'd disagree very much with this list of mine. if you hate me because i live on a coast and went to college, then you miss a big opportunity for friendship.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Translation:

"Slowman, that post was spot on, but it makes my team look like the bad guys, so I'm going to say whatever I need to say to make it look like YOU'RE the bad guy in order to make your statement look less credible."

Ben Shapiro would be proud.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Ok, if someone says, "WWII was a crazy bad war. How is that any different from two neighbors shooting at each other over a disagreement?"


I understand what the speaker thinks that they are getting at.

But the actual statement (the above one about WWII) still makes zero sense.

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I don't "hate" you at all brother of mine

I grew up on the same coast and share many of the same experiences and values. I too went to college--although some would argue mine was not a 'real' college.

You're seeing more and more people dropping out of this forum and our collective conversation because of the militancy of a few here. When you take such a drastic stance as you've done in these last few posts---abandoning all sense of measure--then it just exacerbates the declind of this forum into yet another cesspool of one-sided political drivel

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Steve

Barry Barry Barry

Go away and set up another straw man to tilt at--or run another fartlek.

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Steve

my sense is that you have a lot of grievance ongoing. a lot of complaints. you don't like how the forum is moderated, however in your personal experience i've pretty much been on your side, when you've been attacked. so, i don't know what the complaint would be. those who've left are generally invited to leave, involuntarily, and rather than dropping out they invariably try to sneak back in. i don't have any animus toward anyone on any political side. i just want civil convo, and an adherence to some pretty basic rules. there have been an equal number of righties and lefties over the past few months who just... couldn't... live with those rules, and they've been uninvited without respect to political skew.

i don't think what i've written in the "last few posts" is "drastic." it's my point of view. if you disagree, rather than attack me personally, how about just writing your point of view? on, you know, what i wrote, rather than on me personally?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Funny, I was going to say the same thing to you.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

A bit over the top here. For sure Dan took a position worthy of meaningful debate with some taking sides in support or in opposition. Acolytes will line up or acolytes will disagree and choose to defend their opposition or they may leave. I say if they leave, then they have no valid response or they just wish to remain ignorant of what others think. You mention that history of our nation says not as big a deal as dan makes out. Pergra to expound.

I am sorry if you take my criticism or admonition for a "attack" It's not meant as such

I value this site and the ongoing collective conversation. I've tremendous admiration for what you've done here and with your business endeavors.

Folks often talk about Soldiers fighting for 'Freedom" or "Democracy" and while i agree with that and believe in the oath i swore to the Constitution---what I often thought I was out there defending was the right; the opportunity; the system that would allow someone to rise up and become better. To build a business and make a life. To employ people. To make something that someone wanted. To raise a family and be without fear or want.


Along the way I've valued this forum and its ongoing conversations. And I applaud you for its creation and maintenance. What i see now is a few militants who're skewing things so far that there are no real conversations going on and many folks whose opinions i valued are leaving or have stopped posting. That makes me sad.

You're a smart guy. You can do better

---

Steve

My knees and back are shot.

To many parachute jumps onto hard runways and long long night marches with heavy ruck. No more running for me. I do row three times a week tho on my C2.

---

Steve

That's not analogous to anything she said.


What she did say, however, WAS much more closely analogous to the actual events that took place in the lead up to the Holocaust.

Again, both slowguy and I disagree with her position. I only stated that there is SOME truth to it, but it's not as far apart as 80 million people dead vs 2 people shooting at each other.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

While this is often true, I don't think it's actually the people you are talking about.

There are a lot of people with strong opinions, and even though many of us may be wrong on occasion, and in some cases maybe even often, but those opinions are generally put forth with good faith arguments, and honest debate.

Then you have trolls, often here just to trigger the libs.

Your problem seems to be with the former, not the latter.

It's not the method that bothers you, but the "team" the person is on.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

No worries.

I just think that her 'analogy' was such a huuuuuge stretch that it made no sense to me.

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This is a conversation about conversations. I hear you say that things are being pushed too far. You say people are dropping out, there’s militancy, and we’ve abandoned all sense of measure. These are strong words.

When I read slowman’s post, I didn’t come away with a similar feeling. I thought he was saying that it’s time to reflect on our values and write down our 5 or 6 defining rules for ourselves. It seems really reasonable to me— and a good idea for EVERYONE, left or right.

It’s a wonderful idea to write down the parameters I will enforce on myself for my own behavior. It’s responsibility and self-determination. It’s empowering and honorable.

The divide right now is pretty much a low boil if you look at the history of the US. But it is definitely at a high point of the last 40 years.

From the mid-60's to around 2008 there was a consistent push towards less racial animus. It was very public and very consistent. Racist acts were more and more against social norms and more and more likely to get called out on the spot as despicable. So much so that SCOTUS CJ John Roberts said we were living in a post-racial world. Clearly he was mistaken.

And now we have a certain group of people who are intent on ramping up the racial animus. And give support to those who commit racist acts, normalize the behavior as not only acceptable but correct and complain that they are being unfairly cancelled when in fact they are just facing the consequences of their actions.

It is the people who are doing this that are furthering the divide, not the people who point it out.

---

I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

See? Unity!

---

''The enemy isn't conservatism. The enemy isn't liberalism. The enemy is bulls**t.''

—Lars-Erik Nelson

No surprise here. You've openly and repeatedly mocked the concept of understanding people you disagree with. Not sure why anyone would expect this to be the exception.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

We've had physical fights on the floor of the US Congress. When charitable historical records say the fight eventually dissolved into laughter it was only because a Wisconsin representative tried to bowie knife William Barksdale (from Mississippi) but failed when he seized his hair to knife him on the floor of Congress but found Barksdale's hair to be not but a toupe!?

I will continue to decry the state of this forum and those that have chosen to leave it do to the militancy of a few extremists here.

and Dan's countenance of those few.

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Steve

People in glass houses ...

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It’s telling that you didn’t address the substance of j p o’s post, but instead told an old anecdote and then stated that you’ll carry on your (misplaced) whining.

You have shown us all that you are purely tribal, which makes it all the more ironic when you decry divisions and call for better discourse.

You claim to be a defender of the constitution, and yet you have been silent for months, nay years, as your tribe commits acts contrary to it.

It's pretty clear you don't understand what that phrase means or refers to.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

This is a compelling post. Not being a person of color, I maybe might have somewhat agreed in the early 2000s with this opinion (although the two W. Bush presidential terms were pretty tumultuous in terms of how people reacted to his incompetent foreign policy moves.)

But I wonder if the reality was that there was only a tiny, tiny push to less racial animus.

And maybe what changed approx in 2008 was that first, yes, we got a black president.

But we also had a change of technology where more and more people had powerful video cameras in their pockets and then those people had the ability to share those videos widely. And that showed all of us (who were not people of color) that in actuality our society was indeed still very vicious to non-white people, and that was a disturbing eye-opening moment for both the left and the right.

---

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Shouldn't you be skiing in Gestaad or sailing the Caribean in a yacht---while telling us lesser folks how to act, live and vote?


* I hear there's a partial eclipse of the sun up in Nova Scotia!?

---

Steve

Yup, clearly.

---

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Once again, you don’t address the issues.

I have to hand it to you,...you are the LR king of tangential non sequiturs.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

They left because they were snowflakes who could dish it out but couldn't take it.

This thread is a great example. Your big gripe is that slowman laid out facts about evangelicals hypocritically hitching their wagon to Trump and the rightwing radio hate machine.

Golly. You'd think he changed his winter coffee cup and wished you a happy holidays.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I see it the exact same way. There was a time when being racist was something to obscure. Now it is a badge of honor.

Specifically with regards to “white supremacy math” - what I find objectionable is that the people charged with teaching kids how to take derivatives and find square roots, instead feel that they can promulgate their political views in a public school setting (which is supposed to be apolitical in theory).

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

Are you saying that teaching math in a way that is respectful to human dignity is a political view? That just seems like a basic job requirement for any teacher.

There is a fundamental problem with your view here. You are saying that addressing biases in education is promulgating some political view. But if you believe that is what is happening, then not addressing them (what you are proposing) is simply promulgating a different political view.


So you appear to actually support political views in school, as long as they are ones you agree with.

I got my math degree from UCLA in 1997. I did not feel that my human dignity was disrespected. I don't know anyone from my cohort who felt disrespected, although plenty of us were challenged by having to take 2 years of linear algebra.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

Perhaps I don't believe that there are material biases? At least neither myself nor my spouse or my kids have really noticed them through our combined 60+ years or so of going through schooling.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

I've a equivalent degree from the Quadratic Equation. Not that you would want me to build anything for you

We're dancing around a question asked by a hyper soccer Mom in San Diego?

there is no satisfying that phoneme---she will dash on to the next shiny object in public discourse.

---

Steve

I like it ^ don’t think many will get it.

Wow, really large sample size there. Are you suggesting that your evidence is better than an actual study, with larger sample size and more rigorous analysis? Also, maybe are not the best judge of if there was bias?

Carly Rhey

and

Carly Simon will get it

---

Steve

---

Steve

My parents taught me that those, who want to find something to be outraged by, will likely succeed. That's all. If you feel that your kids will benefit from being taught math in a way that's different from the way top schools in Europe and Asia have taught it for centuries - it is totally your choice. Just don't be upset if these antiracist math classes produce students who can spot a microagression from a mile away, but struggle with multiplying matrices. I've made my choices, and that's enough for me.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

I think the two of you should figure out what each other is talking about before continuing the pissing match. I don't know what white supremacy math is, either, but I'm also not going to assume that I know.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
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From what little research I've done, there are probably multiple definitions. However, there are apparently educators who claim that teaching math to students as having right and wrong answers is indicative of the white supremacist patriarchy. I think the term of art is "Equitable Math." In Oregon, the school district's manual on Equitable Math stated "getting the right answer" and having students "show their work" were signs of "white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom."

If the concern of a teacher is to teach while treating her students with the general respect and consideration that should be afforded to any person in general, I'm good with that.

If the concern of a teacher is to develop curriculum that more closely mirrors a student group's life experience than some other group (i.e. adding bushels of corn for a rural student body vs adding city blocks for an urban group), I'm good with that as well.

If the concern of the teacher or school board is not to teach math, but rather to upset the entrenched white supremacist patriarchy, then I think they're probably focused on the wrong thing and maybe blaming the wrong factors.

---

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

As you probably know I used to be a high school math teacher. I wouldn't be at all surprised if what you said above was true, and it reminds me of one of the major reasons why I left teaching.

*sad face*

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
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“Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners.” - George Carlin

I don’t think we’re talking about political correctness here. We’re talking about words that people of different backgrounds use to describe things, and having an openness to different meanings in order to get past the differences in vocabulary.

If political correctness is saying only one particular term is correct, then I’m suggesting that there are multiple correct terms. Don’t insist on your own word— build goodwill by being flexible with words.

This was just an idea— a little like word empathy. Instead of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes to imagine what their experience is like, put yourself in someone else’s vocabulary to discuss an idea.

Yes Dan it's just the Right being divisive...the snow driven Left is a kumbaya circle of peace & love man.

The Rules

"Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have."

"Never go outside the expertise of your people."

"Whenever possible go outside the expertise of the enemy."

"Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."

"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."

"A good tactic is one your people enjoy."

"A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag."

"Keep the pressure on."

"The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. "

"The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition."

"If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative."

"The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative."

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. "

Quotes? Attribution?

Dan will know.

i don't know. but i'd be obliged for a response to what i wrote, rather than a deflection from what i wrote. or, no response at all is also fine.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

None of your quotes are hate related. Your point being?

Your simplistic talking point only confirms you have zero understanding of what actual fascism is.

If you’re going to have a private conversation with Dan, perhaps you could send him a private message?

I don’t know what you’re talking about with all your quotes, but I suspect you want him to defend something you believe is indefensible.

I’ve seen this tactic before when I’ve heard the argument that summer riots and looting somehow caused Trump’s MAGA crowd to attack Congress. It’s an effort to shift blame and force a person who is critical of the MAGA attack to defend the summer riots, minimize the summer riots, or condemn candidates or leaders who didn’t “do enough.”

I don’t like bringing in tenuously connected events and framing the argument so that one is asked to defend the indefensible. It’s a dishonest argument.

The summer riots were not the proximate cause of the MAGA attack on Congress. Applying the legal reasoning behind the defenses of justification and excuse to the facts, it is clear that the summer riots do not excuse or justify the MAGA attack. The left candidates and leaders were not a bigger causal force of the summer riots than Trump, Trump’s DHS goons, and Trump’s white supremacist supporters.

Dan previously posted about examining and deciding upon a personal set of rules for politics. The beauty of deciding your own criteria for political beliefs is that you don’t have to defend anyone but yourself.

"The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so," the document for the "Equitable Math" toolkit reads. "Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict."

Oregon promotes teacher program that seeks to undo 'racism in mathematics' | Fox News

I did a little internet research and I'm probably more confused now then the kids that are supposed to be learning Mathematics in Oregon.

As a background so you don't have to look up my posts, I'm the Plant Manager for a big manufacturing facility. I have 22 year in the Navy Nuclear Power Program and a degree in Applied Mathematics, as well as an MBA.

As best I can tell, forcing kids to learn math a certain way is forcing White Supremacy on them. I'm not sure how that conclusion was drawn and everything I read simply states something similar to what I quoted above.

I understand that in pure mathematics there are often several ways to get the correct answer. If you have ever watched a video put out by Presh Talwalker, the guy behind the website "Mind Your Decisions" he will show how to solve certain problems using different techniques. At that level of mathematics that is fine because the audience has the prerequisite background to understand that there is more than one correct way to skin a cat. There is still only one correct answer.

I have never taught mathematics at the junior high (6 through 8 grade) level but I suspect that allowing students to go off on their own tangent to solve those problems would create a mess in the classroom. At that level there is only one way to solve a problem, the way the teacher feels is best. Regardless of how a problem is solved, in pure mathematics there is only one right answer. In my professional world you have to be able to get that answer every time, and to quote Rickover, "If you can't write it down you don't understand it." That is especially true in mathematics. If you don't show your work you didn't solve the problem.

Lastly, I don't see how any of that is a white supremacy indicator. Much of the foundations of mathematics today were laid out by people who were not white. In fact, I would bet that if you go back to the very beginning of modern mathematics you would find that the majority of modern mathematics was put down on paper by non whites, and every one of them showed their work.

What I see developing here is a generation from that area that can't work in the hard sciences world when they grow up, and that is a travesty.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

i looked into this a little, and the narrative surrounding "equitable math" is facepalmingly woke. however, in gentle pushback, i do think there's a grain of something valid in the notion of teaching anything - math included - in a manner that gets the theses across. what i mean is, it's not up to the teacher to deliver the material. it's up to the teacher whether the student learns the material.

i have often wanted to teach applied math in workshops up here at the compound, where kids come up and stay, glamping style, for a week or so, and we build something, and we have to engineer the thing we build, as a way to show kids that: 1) math has practical applications that you can't avoid in later life; and 2) there's an organic way that math, physics, engineering is knitted into our lives. we are all engineers, by nature, and the disciplines are ways of expressing the concepts we already use instinctively.

i don't know that math is immune from the charge that teaching methods could be tailored to fit the student, rather than making student's adapt to the teaching method. obviously teaching history through the white mans lens to black, latino, and native americans is a problem. i don't know that the same isn't true, to a lesser degree, for the sciences. not that science is inherently subject to racism, rather that i'd like to better understand whether there's a variance in the way disparate cultures are taught to uptake concepts.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

i'm not sure why you addressed your post to me, but i'm glad you did. our posts arrived on the site at about the same time. i agree with you that there's only 1 right answer. i guess i do question, tho, whether there's more than 1 way to get into a kid's head the mechanics needed to get at that right answer.

i was fasttracked through math in HS, taking trig as a junior and calculus as a senior. and then off into college. but i had to go back and relearn trigonometry in my professional life because i needed that discipline, and all i was in HS was a professional test taker. i learned to recognized patterns, and the patterns allowed me to succeed in taking the test. i never really understood what i was being taught.

i think teaching math must be a real skill. i just effing love teaching. i love the whole idea of teaching. teaching, learning, principles of teaching. i'm highly enthused by the theory of teaching to those in different cultures. i guess that is the motivation for my post above.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

My kids learned math under the common core plan, which was implemented when my older boy was in first grade with Mrs. Healy. My mom-friends complained bitterly nonstop about the new way to do math. It involved new methods using sets of 10. A good book that I read at the same time to my kids that captures that style of teaching math is called The Grapes of Math. It’s a good book.

Saul Alinksy my man ... minus 3 points

Should I bother or will you just call me a Trump supporter despite all the evidence to the contrary? (Rules 5,6,8,11 and 13 combined)

You go on a tangent about provocateurs on the right stoking hate while completely ignoring the divisions created by the Left which IMO gave rise to the provocateurs on the Right even having a voice.

The Rules are the foundation for the modern Democratic Party's playbook (Dukakis was the last candidate to not be tainted by it IMO). Bill Clinton started to use some of it due to Hillary (wrote her thesis on Alinsky) Gore less so but he uses Clinton operatives, Obama grew up politically in literally where the Rules originated, Hillary see above, Biden tainted by Obama (and they are relatively moderate in their utilization compared to down ticket usage).

But windy those meanies on the Right. Well around 2009 the Tea Party aka the original provocateurs (they at least had a pretense of Conservative values) started using the Rules (I mean they literally handed out the fucking book at meetings) and began deploying the tactics. Well damn if it didn't work for them too both internecine and in attacking the Left. The the fringes of both parties were like damn girlfriend and here we are.

The fundamental principles are to denigrate and diminish your opponent while isolating them as the enemy, basically creating the tribes you reference. Over time the denigrating and polarization morphs into hate on both sides, as both the action and reaction and here we are.

And no I don't think we can pull back unless there is a fundamental change to the strategies of both parties.

Those are empty words coming from someone who once said, “I fucking despise the Left!”

Oh, and what evidence is there that you don’t support Trump? All I ever see is you defending him while simultaneously claiming you’re not defending him. Please cite the posts where you’ve criticized him?

what i mean is, it's not up to the teacher to deliver the material. it's up to the teacher whether the student learns the material.
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Err... what?

It is absolutely up to the teacher to deliver the material. And how to deliver the material. And to decide whether the student learns the material. And to determine to what degree the student learns the materials. And to change their delivery system if it's determined that the students aren't learning it at an acceptable level.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

I think Dan’s saying that the teacher’s responsibility doesn’t end at simply delivering information. They have, as you described, responsibility to make sure the students learn, which includes more than just delivering the material.

That said, depending on school district and State, the ability to vary delivery of information is frequently more restricted than people might think. Add to that the fact that there simply isn’t enough time or resources to teach every individual student with an individual plan. There has to be some standardization to curriculum and delivery methods.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

You’re blaming the left for the conduct of the right. You cannot claim excuse or justification for the conduct of the right.

To be excused, you would have to show that the current GOP lacks intent for their bullshit or is otherwise unable to be responsible for the bullshit. That is clearly not the case.

To be justified, you would have to show that the current GOP’s conduct is thought to be right or promotes a socially desirable value. Ignoring the authority of the decisions of our judicial branch and attacking the legislative branch is not right. You cannot say the GOP promotes our democracy.

My kids attempt to blame each other for their own mistakes, too. George was snotty to Henry three weeks ago. So Henry was snotty and physically intimidated George today. Does Henry get a pass? No.

It is not my responsibility to answer for George when I hold Henry to account. George is not on trial. Did George err three weeks ago? It’s possible. Did the Clintons err many years ago? It’s possible. But it is Trump and the insane GOP that is on trial today.

first, i'm not a student of saul alinksy as you obviously are. second, if obama is tainted by alinksy because of where he lived, then you are too. third, newt gingrich wants his talking point back. you are flailingly struggling to find a way to defend your tribe down at CPAC, and everyone here - even many of our traditional righties - are shaking their heads at you.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

i suspect the better teachers try their best to deliver material in a way that's absorbable by the students. i guess we'll just disagree on this.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

This piece is true.

I was in a school district where they had a committee write the lesson plans for the math teachers in the district. So not only were you told that the kids needed to know the Pythagorean theorem by the end of the semester, but on what day they were going to learn it, and exactly what methods and explanations you were going to use to get them to learn it.

It was a shitty idea by an authoritarian who thought she was going to revolutionize the way math was taught in our little farm town........but I digress.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
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Having more that a little experience in this area (teaching varied folks pretty challenging motor skills in high pressure environments), absolutely, decent teachers tailor and adjust the method of teaching to the student's needs. And there is any easy feedback loop to utilize: is the student mastering the skill? No, then the teacher needs to try a different teaching method. Is the student mastering the skill with the new teaching method? No, then the teacher needs to try yet another teaching method. And so on,

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That may be ideal, but the basic truth is that this frequently isn’t how schools (public schools in particular) work. Teachers frequently are told what to teach, when, and how. And they are required to move students through the curriculum at a certain pace, in order to get through all the material by the end of a semester or year. It’s nice when a teacher can identify that a student needs a different teaching method and can find the time to deliver that, but many teachers don’t have that skill set or the extra time to offer.

As with any program, if you work it at small scale, you tend to have flexibility to provide a customized product whether that be custom clothing, custom business solutions, or custom learning experiences. If you work on a large scale, and especially when you get government involved, you are going to get a more standardized product. It’s difficult if not impossible to get around that.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

That is all very true.

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So the answer is no I shouldn't have bothered

You may not be a student but you're a practioner as evidenced by your post.

Instead of becoming reflexively indignant at Hawley's posts I invite you to evaluate the veracity of his position objectively

I think I understand your point, but let me quote Brownie28's question from page 1 and I'll elaborate on my point.


I'll echo Brownie28's request to explain what you mean by these two phrases. I don't know how you define "white supremacy math" or how that would look in a classroom. Absent that definition, I would have to withhold judgement on your assertion that "teaching styles that are disrespectful to human dignity" is equivalent to some nebulous concept of "white supremacy." It's hard to be empathetic to something one doesn't understand. Perhaps I could put myself in your shoes if I knew what you meant.

What does seem more important to you is manners, which is what brought the Carlin quote back to mind. Like others, I can't recall any math class where I felt any student was disrespected through teaching styles [There was that one teacher who hit a kid over the head with a stapler, but that's another story].

I think how something is taught is less important than what is being taught. I'd rather have a strict teacher from whom I would learn more than an easy-going teacher from whom I would learn less. Putting a priority on how a student is treated rather than what they learn falls squarely into the category of political correctness, in my book.


Yesterday's Real Time with Bill Maher focused on what's being taught in the NY city area schools. Here's a five minute clip.

Lord have mercy. I won’t watch 5 minutes of Megyn Kelly. But I’ll try to answer your question.

There was a discussion about the LA unified school district and a plan they had to address racial equity issues. Someone who read the whole thing (not me) said the term “white supremacy math” was in it. The phrase floated around in my brain for a few days, and the OP was the result. Voila!

Manners are included in my interests, but my interests include the legal right of all students to have the opportunity to reach their potential. Being polite but unhelpful isn’t good enough. If particular words, phrases, interactions, and teaching styles are effective for only one particular group of students, then I think teachers should be encouraged and trained and supported to use other words, phrases, interactions and teaching styles that will reach the other groups of students.

As the teachers on this forum can attest, teachers receive training days to learn about various plans to better educate kids. I’m pretty sure the definition of “white supremacy math” would be discussed and explained in that LAUSD training. For our purposes, I thought my definition was probably good enough.

I should add that I’m glad that you and others (Alex Korr & his family) have not felt marginalized or negatively impacted by teaching styles.

Please don’t assume your experience is the same for everyone else.

If we think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we know that feeling safe, welcomed, respected is necessary before optimal learning can happen.

I got all of those things first from my parents, not my teachers. We may have grown up poor, but I had great parents. Not everyone does. Expecting teachers to make up for poor parenting is unrealistic.

Consider another idea.

T talent
O opportunity
E effort

A person's potential is a combination of at least these three things. While I agree that everyone should have the same opportunities, there are far too many variables to guarantee equitable outcomes. Not everyone is capable of the same achievement.

I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing. I’m talking about safety, welcome, and respect. Parents don’t make that at school. I suppose that fits into the “opportunity” that schools provide.

However, I agree that not everyone is capable of the same achievement. I would like to see everyone achieve their potential (through effort). To do so, they need to be safe, welcomed, and respected.

CallMeMaybe wrote:

Lord have mercy. I won’t watch 5 minutes of Megyn Kelly.

Wise move.

Kelly talked about how she pulled her kids out of a New York City private school, because the “leftist” school was teaching her children “social justice stuff”. She claims the school was trying to convince her kid to be Transgender.


Kelly pushes nonsense like this because she knows her income is dependent on the outrage machine being fed fake grievance.

Sure. This is commonly said, but really it is just excuses.

I worked within a rigid curriculum provided by the US govt (the FAA), but l was still able to considerably tailor my teaching approach within that framework to attain success with each student.

Even within a rigid framework, if one wants to get results, one can get results. The teacher just needs to be able to adapt their approach. But the teacher has to want to.

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If you think your training experience with the FAA is comparable in scope or breadth with public school education for our kids, I think you might need to reconsider.

Whether you like it or not, my post wasn’t “excuses.” It described the conditions many teachers are working with.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

No worries, but I am quite familiar with those conditions, as I have worked in a number of calif public schools (including in middle school math classes, including those with many ESL students). So I speak from personal experience.

Yes, as Dan said, it is absolutely up to the teacher to deliver the material. But, as he also said, there is still plenty of flexibility to change their delivery system if it's determined that the students aren't learning it at an acceptable level. And good instructors and teachers do this automatically even if they have to do it within a govt mandated framework.

This is ain't rocket science. It is just decent teaching.

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It’s nice that you had that experience in CA. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for many teachers in other places.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Actually, calif has one of the most extensive and burdensome curriculum requirements in the nation.

Do you have experience teaching in public schools?

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As usual, you’re unwilling or unable to even consider that anything might be different from your personal experience.

Not sure why you would even spend time in a discussion forum when you openly disdain the very concept of understanding viewpoints that disagree with your own.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Not at all.
Not sure if you noticed above, but that is why I was asking about your experience.

What is your experience in the public schools?
When you were teaching, were you highly constrained by external rules or curricula?

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This is an interesting perspective to me. To be honest I can think of a very few occasions where any of the Reps/Conservatives I know where offended by someone using a word or phrase. I do know MANY reps and conservatives that have gone off the rails because someone decided that they shouldn't use a word or phrase which is entirely different than being triggered by a phrase.

To the contrary the left has been notoriously touchy about the usage of words and being triggered. LGBTQ, LantinX, Xer,Xe are all examples applying only to gender and the list goes far bigger than gender and I've seen many examples of people loosing there grip on life because they were not called by whatever pronoun they desire to be called by. Atheists are generally on the left and many of them shat themselves every time someone wishes them Merry Christmas.

Me? In order for what you say to effect me in anyway I have to respect you. Respect is earned, not given. People who I respect generally respect me and thus tend to not do and say things they know I dislike. People that do not respect me and I do not respect....can say whatever the fuck they want.

~Matt

That is weird, because the real christians that I know don't even celebrate american christmas anymore, they actively campaign against it, since it is of course originally a pagan holiday.

That is trend that I have been noticing, but I don't live in all of america, just in the midwest. (I gotta say that caveat because other snowflakes here have complained that I do not have work and life experience in every single US state, so therefore my perspectives are inherently geographically limited.)

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I was literally driven out of my school for not following the "approved teaching methods." The "methods" I was using were called "outdated."

Despite my kids having the highest test scores in the district in only my 3rd year of teaching, I was placed on a performance improvement plan and had it extended twice, and was denied tenure.

No I wasn't showing up late, or hitting on the students, and yes, I could have been a little more diplomatic. The bottom line is the district had a "cutting edge" approach to teaching math, but instead of allowing that plane to crash into the mountain, I did exactly what you suggest. I did what needed to be done to get my kids to learn, and learn they did. And I got driven out for it.

Not every school is the same, but slowguy is right on this. In a lot of schools in a lot of subjects these days, there's not a lot of flexibility.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
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Good to know.

Can you say more about what happened to you? Were you tenured? How long had you been teaching? What area of the usa? How were you driven out exactly? How were you not diplomatic? Any other details that you can share with harming anyone else's confidentiality?

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I think everyone can agree that our teachers and schools should exemplify those ideals.


I'd ask you, as well, not to assume it isn't. With only one abusive teacher in all of my schooling, I think my experience is likely to be fairly representative of the country as a whole, or we would have far more news stories about teachers and school systems than we already have.

To circle back around, that 4th-grade teacher of mine who surely broke our trust in her did indeed use a teaching style that was "disrespectful to human dignity." In no way was this a racial thing in our classroom, so using a racially-charged phrase like "white supremacy" to describe what she did is not only false but unnecessarily adds a racial component to a situation where there was none. Those two phrases are not equivalent.

I listened to a recent interview with a French sociologist, and here is part of her take on the American phenomenon of cancel culture.

"So, for us [French], cancel culture is perceived as the citizens who authorize themselves to regulate public expression outside the laws, which, for us, is totally illegitimate. It means, for us, cancel culture is censorship by citizens, which is totally contrary to our laws and to our customs… Laws are protective. Laws protect freedoms, because the mob is not protective of freedoms." Nathalie Heinich

The French have strict laws regarding discriminatory speech, while we have the First Amendment. They use the government to censor, while we have the mob.

YOU not being diplomatic?! Can't even imagine :-)

I live in the Midwest as well. Conservatives and Republicans have been making fun of the "Triggered" left and "Political correctness" for decades.

I also grew up a "Real Christian" and the "Trigger" was never Christmas but rather Xmas which was was always, largely mistakenly, as Christ being taken out of Christmas. I was however not allowed to celebrate Halloween which was indeed "Satan's Holiday". One year my two older brothers and I where allowed to dress up as a tooth paste, a tooth and a brush. Another, even more humiliating time I went to a church halloween party which my mother insisted on going to incase the church had been corrupted and I was a Bee and she was a leaf....we were beeleafers....

Again, in my experience the right tends to be comprised of blue collar working class and some uber rich people. These people generally are not "Triggered" by much and tend to make fun of "Snowflakes" that are. These are generally people that get their hands dirty and work and have little time to run around being "Offended" by people using this word or that.

In fact the entire "God, Guns and Country" seem to be the antithesis of what you seem to be seeing.

That being said I do think the entire country is spiraling in to "I'm a whiny little bitch" territory so maybe you're seeing early signs of things I'm not.

~Matt

Yeah, but I wasn't saying that anyone is "a whiny little bitch", only that real christians are definitely morphing. The most avid ones, especially the ones that like drumpf and all, they now don't even celebrate american christmas anymore, they actively campaign against it, since it is of course originally a pagan holiday. Which the christians have recently learned in their churches. And after they get over their triggering, they then don't want to celebrate a pagan holiday. Or, at least, this is the logic that I have been hearing out here from real christians.

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I’m getting confused. When you say “real” Christians, do you mean Jesus Christians or Republican Christians? Which ones are rejecting the Christmas celebration?

Also, didn’t Trump say that Biden would take away Christmas?

Are you seriously asking me to believe that your experiences in school in America should be taken as the rule for all American students?

If so, then we should conclude our discussion.

To be honest, I'm not sure. These are the 'new right' extreme christians, which many many mild christians have sadly morphed into in the last decade or so.

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There's not much more to the story. Tenure normally comes after 2 years. I was not offered tenure after 2 years, but instead was offered to have my performance improvement plan extended.

I taught in a high school in rural MD.

I was "driven out" by being placed on a performance improvement plan indefinitely (they are supposed to be one semester long. I was to be extended for my 3rd semester) and not offered tenure.

The bottom line is, they wanted someone to tow the line and I wasn't doing it. They needed to prove that their new cutting edge methods were going to revolutionize mathematics, and I was showing them that traditional methods were more effective as some 3rd year teacher was out performing the district by......uh......actually teaching math.

I could go on about all the looney stuff the school was trying. The point is, as slowguy said, a lot of schools don't give teachers much flexibility in how they teach.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
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If you believe the majority of American schools and teachers are white supremacists, just say so.

You’re bonkers if you think I’m saying that a majority teachers are white supremacists. I don’t think that. But I do think you’re bonkers, so I’m done talking with you.

Did you read the letter sent from her sons private school? Or that her kindergartner had an assignment to write to the Cleveland Indians that their mascot was racist? If you don't think these types of things are being 'taught' in the more progressive school districts then you just haven't been paying attention.

This seems relevant:
https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/is-it-racist-to-expect-black-kids


I again ask what I did on the first page:
Can you explain what these phrases (“white supremacy math” and “math teaching styles that are disrespectful to human dignity”) mean to you, and specifically what white supremacy has to do with teaching math? Genuine question.

Do you believe her claim that the school was trying to convince her kid to be Transgender?

No, I don't. Do I think there are schools which are putting too much emphasis on the gender spectrum and exploring sexuality and discomfort in your own body for fairly young kids? Yes, and I'd be willing to bet that's what Megyn is talking about.

Nathalie Heinich is Art specialist.


When she is not talking about Art she is a far-right nut who spews nonsense. She is Islamophobic, homophobic, and has repeatedly been caught spreading lies. It is comical that you use her on the topic of cancel culture and freedom. She has campaigned to get people she disagrees with fired and thinks that gay couples should not have the same rights as straight couples.


Your spin on French hate speech laws is deliberately misleading.

Is this your opinion? If not, I’d love to see as much ammo as you have.

There is zero indication that any program like Megyn claimed exists. She spun it as recruitment and indoctrination, that they were trying to get them to “come on over.” Such nonsense.


The fact is NYC public schools are encouraged to incorporate "LGBTQ history, reading books by LGBTQ authors" and take care to make sure "sexual health curriculum is inclusive of all identities,". Bad faith actors like Megyn try to spin this into recruitment. No, your kids are not going to "catch the gay"

Cm’on man. Everyone knows that you can’t catch the gay. That’s ridiculous. It’s not a communicable disease. But, sure, you can teach it If you just try hard enough. Because sexual attraction is definitely a learned behavior. It’s also something that can be unlearned which is why the gay conversion camps pence is such an aficionado of have been so universally successful and globally acclaimed.

That’s just science.

In my opening post, I talked about how people define words differently. I said that a person could say “disrespect” and mean something as serious as racism. Disrespect can also be something fairly benign. In order to understand the meaning of “disrespect” in a conversation, I need to think about context, which actually includes the life experiences of the other people speaking. If I fail to consider who is saying something, I’m not using all available information to know what we’re talking about.

Applying this idea that words can be interpreted in various ways, I said that “white supremacy math” could mean the same thing as “math teaching styles that are disrespectful to human dignity.”

I concluded my opening post to ask whether thinking more about the various meaning assigned to words might help us. Rigid thinking is the opposite of what I’m asking for.

I’m not here to call anyone names. I’ve been very careful to avoid doing that— I’m not even here saying that any bad conduct is intentional. So, I am not condemning teachers as white supremacists. I’m not condemning rigid thinkers as anything. I’m suggesting that a habit of thinking more about the life experiences of marginalized groups might improve communication.

I'm just wondering if there's "white supremacy math" are the hard sciences all "guilty" of the same?

What it boils down to is though there are approaches that can be biased against minorities, there is no "white supremacy math." As mentioned earlier in this thread, most of the math we teach didn't even come from white people.

It's math. Not history or literature. Whoever coined the phrase "white supremacy math" was just so woke that they felt bad that math was being left out of the discussion of racism.

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From what I saw scanning the document, what makes it "white supremacy math", at least in part, is the notion that there are right and wrong answers, that you're expected to able to come up with the answer on your own without help from others, and that you have to "show your work".

Her kids were in NYC private schools, I don't think we know what they're doing there - as I said, I can't imagine any kind of trans 'conversion' program which she somewhat alluded to.

I never said kids are going to catch the gay. Don't misconstrue my words. What I said, exactly, is this:
Do I think there are schools which are putting too much emphasis on the gender spectrum and exploring sexuality and discomfort in your own body for fairly young kids? Yes, and I'd be willing to bet that's what Megyn is talking about.

I have no evidence of this, my son and future child are both pre-school (and unborn) age. But the NYC policy above does suggest that some of this may be happening.

Do I think kids should be learning about complex sexual and gender subjects in elementary school? No, I do not. Megyn's concerns were larger than just this one point, and I generally take issue w/ some of the other points and this one is of lesser concern to me, but I do think that, aside from generally being inclusive of all the kids and teachers, elementary school kids should not spend time on these complex subjects.

I have seen no valid evidence of it either. Usually the folks making these claims are bad faith actors who want the LGBTQ community to be invisible so they push fake claims and wail about an imaginary gay/trans agenda.

OK - and with all of the above said, what does any of this have to do with teaching math, and 'white supremacy math' or even 'math teaching styles that are disrespectful to human dignity'?

Do you agree that there are actual, acceptable answers to various math equations and certain methods to reach those answers. And that
1 - as a student you either have the knowledge and tools to calculate the agreed upon answer or not
2 - that basic math skills are used throughout life and industry and help propel rockets and build structures
3 - therefore it's important for anyone to understand basic math, and for anyone interested in certain STEM and related professions to be intimately familiar with more complex math structures

So having said all that, what exactly is being talked about with 'white supremacy math' and your preferred 'math teaching styles that are disrespectful to human dignity'? I truly am still at a loss.