Can someone unpack the proposed contrast between “race is a social construction” and “race is not real”? To me, those two ideas can be held at the same time. Admittedly, sometimes they are not. That is, social constructivism does not reify concepts, but rather acknowledges that some people hold them as real. Sometimes that is then accepted as a social reality, and at other times this is still held as separate from reality. There are varying definitions of social constructivism. Just looking for clarity here.
Hi Rivkah, Constructivist eliminativists would argue that race is socially constructed and must be eliminated; skeptical eliminativists argue that race is not real and must be eliminated. A podcast that helped me to better understand race philosophies is available from the Forum on Workplace Inclusion with Dr. Sheena Mason (a skeptical eliminativist) where she unpacks some of the race philosophies "How Different Philosophies of Race Can Help us Heal." Give it a listen at: https://forumworkplaceinclusion.org/p72/ and also check out Dr. Mason's work at: https://www.theoryofracelessness.org/
Thank you, very helpful! I did not read closely enough - I now see you had already named constructivist elminativists as a possibility under Constructivism. I will follow through with your links. Cheers!
Hi Laura, Thank you. It was difficult to choose representative authors and to summarize these complex ideas in a table but I gave it my best shot! Hopefully, the Table and Figures are useful starting points for beginners and horizon expanders and food for thought for those more familiar!
A unifying problem in how much of academia, education, and elite progressive culture generally deals with race is the almost total lack of concern for empirical evidence.
Every time we do any kind of science we find all sorts of surprising results and social/cultural interventions are one of the places are intuitions are most likely to be wrong. Yet, no one seems to think we need empirical support before demanding investment in various changes to behavior, pedagogy etc etc..
For instance, consider the issue of trying to stamp out terminology like "master/slave.". OTOH it probably does upset some people. OTOH if you make it more salient and demand change some ppl with no racist, offensive etc motivation will be unconvinced while the increases salience will mean that the people they work with will take more offense (it changes social meaning of the term). So when does this have good/bad effects? I dunno but it bothers me no one seems to care. Yes, there are various papers on some effects of affirmative action effects but no one seems interested in even advancing any particular theory about why it should be done (any given theory will recommend it in different circumstances).
I get it that this is because for the loudest people the goal isn't to make changes that actually fix our racial problems but to signal their moral virtue on the subject. But I think lots of less loud ppl do want to make things actually better and if we made concern with empirical evidence itself something necessary to signal virtue I think lots of good could be done.
Unfortunately, I feel that the fact that the racial justice movement has strong ties to academic disciplines that can be almost hostile to empirical/scientific results makes this hard.
If you keep eating the cheeseburger, saying the cheeseburger isnt actually making you fat because fat is a made up concept that doesnt exist, you'll start to blame mcdonalds for making you fat. When you refuse to face reality, you will look from a proximal cause which doesnt actually have anything to do with the real reason.
If you do not accept reality, you can't heal the situation. That goes for mental illness as well. Right now the anti-racists and "race isnt real" people are in a delusion that differences among groups dont exist due to genetics, which is provably false, and you could easily sit down and work it out in your head.
First you have to have the correct diagnosis. Then you can fix. If you pretend race isnt real and try to fix issues among groups or between groups without accountaing for it, you're going to be aiming at the moon and hitting the ocean.
Mar 2, 2023·edited Mar 2, 2023Liked by Free Black Thought
The sentence structure, choice of words etc., made this a difficult read. I hope the author speaks more plainly when interacting with the typical K-12 teacher. Still, I'm glad I stuck it out.
The images attached to the article and the supporting references were, however, excellent. Thank you for them, Tabia.
I am glad you are out there Tabia, seeking to engage educators in traditional critical thinking rather than applying critical theory. I get that you are smart and well educated. We need you to be accessible too. Children's souls are at stake and being sacrificed by DEI activist before they have the the ability to choose; that's Evil.
Evil flourishes when good people observe and do nothing. I pray your work enables more to see clearly so they will act.
Mar 2, 2023·edited Mar 2, 2023Liked by Free Black Thought
Hi PatriotD, I am thankful that the tables and figures are accessible to you; may they be put to great use. Please share them widely to promote critical thinking and questioning whenever and wherever the terms race, racism, and racial equity are used. The Race Ideologies Resources are also visual based resources to use with teachers and students. You may find them at: https://tinyurl.com/RaceIdeologiesResources
Mar 15, 2023·edited Mar 15, 2023Liked by Free Black Thought
I came to this from your Tucker interview. I had some trouble unpacking Fig. 1 & 2, but I find the analysis of race(ism) is a helpful re-cognition of contemporary "anti-racism" approaches, and most importantly it seems to point to a 180 degree (or orthogonal) prescription for what ails us. Some of the language around "Is race real/not real" leads me to think that race is real (in the social sense as having an impact on the world), but not true. So it is a "real falsehood" in the same way flat eartherism isn't true but real in that people believe/d it. Imagine if, rather than simply proving that the earth was round and moving on, we absorbed ourselves in the horizonless project of freeing ourselves from pernicious flat earth bias, identifying with it and so on, we would be keeping the idea alive long past its expiration date. Thank you, I will check out your resources to learn more about your work and that of Dr. Mason.
Thank you for taking the time to break this issue down with research and critical thought. It's refreshing to see someone willing to speak up to show that there ARE other ways to move towards greater diversity, equity and inclusion than the current neo-constructionist models which foment racism. I was not previously aware of the skeptical eliminatavists model by name; however, from what I've learned in reading your works, I would say it most accurately reflects Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's thoughts on race. Models of equity and inclusion which are built on categorizing and separating people into groups inherently discriminate by their categorization. In contrast, thoughtful consideration of the concept of self reveals that we are each truly unique and the color of one's skin is no more a basis for identity than the color of eyes, or hair, or the size of our hands or any other physical trait we carry. Seeing and honoring other humans as individuals and offering respect and lovingkindness to all seems to be a much better model to eliminate both individual biases and systemic ones.
Mar 8, 2023·edited Mar 8, 2023Liked by Free Black Thought
Greetings All, It was brought to my attention that the video of the De Anza Latinx Association (DALA) and De Anza Asian Pacific American Association (APASA) racialized affinity group members demanding my immediate termination at the June 13, 2022 meeting of the Foothill-De Anza Board of Trustees meeting which was linked in my article references has now been made private; however, you may view it at the updated References and Appendix file link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Lt00i-WMfutZBEglLYfcWGTs5WJS3ckw/view?usp=sharing
Some months ago I read "Classified" by David Bernstein, which is about racial and ethnic classification in the law through time, and it seems like groups usually push for the creation of a racial/ethnic category for the purpose of getting benefits or more effective representation which will lead to benefits. Even if one agrees with the idea of skeptical eliminativism, it's at odds with the incentives provided by racial classifications continuing to exist.
At my school, for example (A California community college), we have a Black Student Success Center. Black students can go there to get tutoring, resources, help on writing resumes and applying to colleges, stuff like that. At the nearby LGBT Pride Center some faculty have decided to hold some of their office hours specifically at the Pride Center. I don't know if other faculty are doing something similar for the Black Student Success Center, but in either case it's taking office hours meant to be available for all students and making them available to some. Of course, it's not OFFICIALLY exclusive. Technically all are welcome, but do you really think a white student is going to have the temerity to get help at the Black Student Success Center when that will likely be seen as taking time away from black students getting help?
As long as these incentives exist, as long as there's political power and resources to be gained from reifying the concept of race, it's going to be a hard sell to make people give it up.
I definitely need to read this a couple more times, print it out, and highlight it. This should be study material for anyone working within the spheres of this subject matter.
I may be wrong but it seems to me that Equity is not a value it’s a tool. It is an enforcement mechanism for Diversity and Inclusion that is outside of “current laws and morality”.
They're telling us race isnt real as if there's something wrong and bad about being different groups of humans who evolved in different lands and gained something special for each group
Can someone unpack the proposed contrast between “race is a social construction” and “race is not real”? To me, those two ideas can be held at the same time. Admittedly, sometimes they are not. That is, social constructivism does not reify concepts, but rather acknowledges that some people hold them as real. Sometimes that is then accepted as a social reality, and at other times this is still held as separate from reality. There are varying definitions of social constructivism. Just looking for clarity here.
Hi Rivkah, Constructivist eliminativists would argue that race is socially constructed and must be eliminated; skeptical eliminativists argue that race is not real and must be eliminated. A podcast that helped me to better understand race philosophies is available from the Forum on Workplace Inclusion with Dr. Sheena Mason (a skeptical eliminativist) where she unpacks some of the race philosophies "How Different Philosophies of Race Can Help us Heal." Give it a listen at: https://forumworkplaceinclusion.org/p72/ and also check out Dr. Mason's work at: https://www.theoryofracelessness.org/
Thank you, very helpful! I did not read closely enough - I now see you had already named constructivist elminativists as a possibility under Constructivism. I will follow through with your links. Cheers!
Hi Clarence Wilhelm Spangle - I’m curious why you included this comment here.
This is great! But I'm surprised you didn't include Greg Thomas among the skeptical eliminativists.
Hi Laura, Thank you. It was difficult to choose representative authors and to summarize these complex ideas in a table but I gave it my best shot! Hopefully, the Table and Figures are useful starting points for beginners and horizon expanders and food for thought for those more familiar!
A unifying problem in how much of academia, education, and elite progressive culture generally deals with race is the almost total lack of concern for empirical evidence.
Every time we do any kind of science we find all sorts of surprising results and social/cultural interventions are one of the places are intuitions are most likely to be wrong. Yet, no one seems to think we need empirical support before demanding investment in various changes to behavior, pedagogy etc etc..
For instance, consider the issue of trying to stamp out terminology like "master/slave.". OTOH it probably does upset some people. OTOH if you make it more salient and demand change some ppl with no racist, offensive etc motivation will be unconvinced while the increases salience will mean that the people they work with will take more offense (it changes social meaning of the term). So when does this have good/bad effects? I dunno but it bothers me no one seems to care. Yes, there are various papers on some effects of affirmative action effects but no one seems interested in even advancing any particular theory about why it should be done (any given theory will recommend it in different circumstances).
I get it that this is because for the loudest people the goal isn't to make changes that actually fix our racial problems but to signal their moral virtue on the subject. But I think lots of less loud ppl do want to make things actually better and if we made concern with empirical evidence itself something necessary to signal virtue I think lots of good could be done.
Unfortunately, I feel that the fact that the racial justice movement has strong ties to academic disciplines that can be almost hostile to empirical/scientific results makes this hard.
If you keep eating the cheeseburger, saying the cheeseburger isnt actually making you fat because fat is a made up concept that doesnt exist, you'll start to blame mcdonalds for making you fat. When you refuse to face reality, you will look from a proximal cause which doesnt actually have anything to do with the real reason.
If you do not accept reality, you can't heal the situation. That goes for mental illness as well. Right now the anti-racists and "race isnt real" people are in a delusion that differences among groups dont exist due to genetics, which is provably false, and you could easily sit down and work it out in your head.
First you have to have the correct diagnosis. Then you can fix. If you pretend race isnt real and try to fix issues among groups or between groups without accountaing for it, you're going to be aiming at the moon and hitting the ocean.
Did you mean to reply to me? I'm not seeing the connection.
The sentence structure, choice of words etc., made this a difficult read. I hope the author speaks more plainly when interacting with the typical K-12 teacher. Still, I'm glad I stuck it out.
The images attached to the article and the supporting references were, however, excellent. Thank you for them, Tabia.
I am glad you are out there Tabia, seeking to engage educators in traditional critical thinking rather than applying critical theory. I get that you are smart and well educated. We need you to be accessible too. Children's souls are at stake and being sacrificed by DEI activist before they have the the ability to choose; that's Evil.
Evil flourishes when good people observe and do nothing. I pray your work enables more to see clearly so they will act.
Hi PatriotD, I am thankful that the tables and figures are accessible to you; may they be put to great use. Please share them widely to promote critical thinking and questioning whenever and wherever the terms race, racism, and racial equity are used. The Race Ideologies Resources are also visual based resources to use with teachers and students. You may find them at: https://tinyurl.com/RaceIdeologiesResources
Already bookmarked them. 😀 Continue to fight the good fight and bless you.
This is incredibly informative! Thank you for this well-argued piece, I will keep it as a reference for further readings.
Wow
This is incredible
Thank you to both to you and FBT for this.
Also, my condolences and best wishes after your criminal firing at the hands of the college. I was appalled to hear the news.
Thank you, Steve. For those interested, more information is available at: https://nypost.com/2023/03/18/dei-director-harassed-by-school-for-questioning-policies/
I came to this from your Tucker interview. I had some trouble unpacking Fig. 1 & 2, but I find the analysis of race(ism) is a helpful re-cognition of contemporary "anti-racism" approaches, and most importantly it seems to point to a 180 degree (or orthogonal) prescription for what ails us. Some of the language around "Is race real/not real" leads me to think that race is real (in the social sense as having an impact on the world), but not true. So it is a "real falsehood" in the same way flat eartherism isn't true but real in that people believe/d it. Imagine if, rather than simply proving that the earth was round and moving on, we absorbed ourselves in the horizonless project of freeing ourselves from pernicious flat earth bias, identifying with it and so on, we would be keeping the idea alive long past its expiration date. Thank you, I will check out your resources to learn more about your work and that of Dr. Mason.
We heard you the first time.
Thank you for taking the time to break this issue down with research and critical thought. It's refreshing to see someone willing to speak up to show that there ARE other ways to move towards greater diversity, equity and inclusion than the current neo-constructionist models which foment racism. I was not previously aware of the skeptical eliminatavists model by name; however, from what I've learned in reading your works, I would say it most accurately reflects Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's thoughts on race. Models of equity and inclusion which are built on categorizing and separating people into groups inherently discriminate by their categorization. In contrast, thoughtful consideration of the concept of self reveals that we are each truly unique and the color of one's skin is no more a basis for identity than the color of eyes, or hair, or the size of our hands or any other physical trait we carry. Seeing and honoring other humans as individuals and offering respect and lovingkindness to all seems to be a much better model to eliminate both individual biases and systemic ones.
Greetings All, It was brought to my attention that the video of the De Anza Latinx Association (DALA) and De Anza Asian Pacific American Association (APASA) racialized affinity group members demanding my immediate termination at the June 13, 2022 meeting of the Foothill-De Anza Board of Trustees meeting which was linked in my article references has now been made private; however, you may view it at the updated References and Appendix file link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Lt00i-WMfutZBEglLYfcWGTs5WJS3ckw/view?usp=sharing
Some months ago I read "Classified" by David Bernstein, which is about racial and ethnic classification in the law through time, and it seems like groups usually push for the creation of a racial/ethnic category for the purpose of getting benefits or more effective representation which will lead to benefits. Even if one agrees with the idea of skeptical eliminativism, it's at odds with the incentives provided by racial classifications continuing to exist.
At my school, for example (A California community college), we have a Black Student Success Center. Black students can go there to get tutoring, resources, help on writing resumes and applying to colleges, stuff like that. At the nearby LGBT Pride Center some faculty have decided to hold some of their office hours specifically at the Pride Center. I don't know if other faculty are doing something similar for the Black Student Success Center, but in either case it's taking office hours meant to be available for all students and making them available to some. Of course, it's not OFFICIALLY exclusive. Technically all are welcome, but do you really think a white student is going to have the temerity to get help at the Black Student Success Center when that will likely be seen as taking time away from black students getting help?
As long as these incentives exist, as long as there's political power and resources to be gained from reifying the concept of race, it's going to be a hard sell to make people give it up.
I definitely need to read this a couple more times, print it out, and highlight it. This should be study material for anyone working within the spheres of this subject matter.
Bravo!
I may be wrong but it seems to me that Equity is not a value it’s a tool. It is an enforcement mechanism for Diversity and Inclusion that is outside of “current laws and morality”.
race transcendence means color-blindness. everything else is bullshit
If you give a link you shouldn't you make it possible to read the article ?
Thank you for making the article available.
You are SO right. Gender issues, as well. Development seems to have been discarded.
They're telling us race isnt real as if there's something wrong and bad about being different groups of humans who evolved in different lands and gained something special for each group