Talk:Prejudice plus power

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[edit] Should there not be a note that the definition is abusing mathematics?

The definition of Racism = Prejudice + Power implies:
1. Prejudice, Power and Racism are all measured in the same unit
2. Racism = Power, when Prejudice = 0
3. Racism = Prejudice, when Power = 0
... and some other even more nonsensical things like Power = Racism - Prejudice


should there not atleast be a mention of this abuse of mathematics in the article? - — Unsigned, by: bonbon / talk / contribs 18:22, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

As amusing as I find your ability to perform basic algebra, I'm thoroughly unamused by your understanding of everyday English. WalkerWalkerWalker 01:08, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


[edit] Anita Sarkeesian quote

So, umm, how would I comment that Anita's quote at the top of the page blatantly ignores that men can be sexist against men, such as with men in "unmanly" professions like nursing? CorruptUser (talk) 23:37, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I think you just did. And I think you make a valid point, though there are a number of more blatant examples that spring to mind. Personally though, I really don't like this I'm-gonna-arbitrarily-delegitimize-these-complaints-of-prejudice redefinition of terms to begin with. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 23:46, 2 September 42015 AQD (UTC)
Or women against men. Or women against women. Or $FOO against $BAR. Honestly, there are assholes in every crowd.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 23:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Anita is crucially helping everyone to differentiate who is the victim and who is the perpetrator before anyone even opens their filthy overprivilieged liar mouths and twists everything around where the world isn't a black-and-white binary equation. Thanks, Anita! Keep fighting the good fight. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 23:53, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
While I'm not keen on the prejudice + power re-definition of terms, there's certainly nothing about Anita's quote that is any more controversial than the plain application of this definition. If power is required to be racist, surely it's required to be sexist, too. Hence, your complaint has little to do with Sarkeesian or the quote and more to do with the very topic of the article. Phiwum (talk) 13:00, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

[edit] Prejudice plus power = Mainstream academia?

Is that weird-ass maths-abuse really a position of mainstream academia??--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 13:41, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

It's not. It's a term that occurs within academia, but it's nowhere near mainstream or accepted. It's not being taught out in schools for the children to apply on their peers so that they may find who is inherently at fault and not. There's no shortage of writers in academia using it, and there's no shortage of writers in academia rejecting it. It's controversial to say the least. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:50, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
I can't get much more information from a casual google scholar search. I'd understood that it was widely used. Controversy itself is not a perfect indicator that the idea is on shaky ground, even within academia (for example, mainstream forensic pathology still supports bite mark analysis, despite compelling evidence that it's laughably unreliable). What I get form this article is that it has a sensible use in certain academic contexts. Also - the casual definition would give institutional racism a pass, so clearly there is another definition in use somewhere along the line.Queexchthonic murmurings 13:56, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Actually, as someone who is studying this topic at a university level (albeit I'm no professor in it lol), this exact equation is part of the splitting up of the feminist movement. The 2nd wavers and the 3rd wavers are on completely different wavelengths when it comes to the validity of this equation, never mind when you mix in the postmodernists like Sarkeesian, who openly claim that atoms aren't what make up the universe (hello postmodernism... *sigh*). Any movement has a fringe, and this is the fringe of that movement, in my view. This isn't constructive anything. This is a ridiculous attempt at applying intersectionality by minimizing all variables, thus rendering the world nicely simple. The purpose of this equation is to assign blame per principle, and is meant to be a counterposition to recognizing any individual circumstances. I don't approve of that. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:02, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
I don't buy your characterisation. I don't see how it minimises variables at all, nor denies any individual circumstances. It seems as though it's largely a technical argument used to examine prejudice from a slightly different angle, and for precision in academic discussions. In any case, para 3 of the introduction was an unreadable mess. I've tried to tidy it up, but I imagine I've slipped some new errors in along the way. Queexchthonic murmurings 14:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Your addition looked good, I added to it as well. Also, the statement "sexism against men doesn't exist" is discriminatory, disqualifying, about as broadly combed and general as it comes (while also being eerily specific), and in my view it is an indefensible statement for anyone who wants a shadow of a hope to be able to claim egalitarian views. Like most hate speech, it tries to sell itself simply on pragmatism and simplicity. Well, the world isn't that simple. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:27, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
I don't really agree with the thrust of that addition - p+p does not, perforce, imply a shift away from individual responsibilities. If it implies a shift in responsibility at all, it's for society to give priority to tackling manifestations of prejudice with the most deleterious consequences. I don't think "sexism against men doesn't exist" is at all discriminatory as long as it's made plain that you're working with the p+p definition, and generalising for pithiness. Calling it hate speech is unsupportable hyperbole. Queexchthonic murmurings 14:42, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Equality is the polar opposite of saying that X only applies to members of Y. Per definition. She's literally saying "People with X between their legs can't Y". I hold that to be absolute garbage. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:44, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
And for the record, trying to defend that simpleton disqualifier by claiming that the point is just to focus the most deleterious manifestations of prejudice, by going after the extremely black-and-white grouping that clearly "does it all" (in this case, "men") isn't far off from neo-nazis who claim that they just want to focus the most deleterious manifestations of crime, by going after the extremely black-and-white grouping that clearly "does it all" (in this case, "negroes"). Yeah, it's not you who are making an ass out of yourself for sorting people left and right with glee thinking you've found the path to social justice. It's "that group" that you just drew up with a crayon that's the people who do the bad stuff anyways, it's their fault! You're just "calling it like it is" and have the balls to go after the real threat, no? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:54, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
What the hell are you blathering about? Your entire X and Y argument collapses if you let Y be 'take advantage of the social advantages generally afforded to people with X between their legs'. This is a discussion about definition, and yet you're trying to argue against definition B by saying that, if you use definition A, it's obviously wrong. Wat.
There's nothing anti-equality about recognising that some examples of inequality are more harmful than others. It doesn't even imply an invocation of the fallacy of relative deprivation. The correct attitude is to balance severity and responsiveness to intervention when drawing up policy. If there's an easy fix for a small problem, it's still a worthwhile. We know, for fact, that the local minority group suffers greater harm from prejudicial actions and attitudes than the local majority does from similar prejudices, because simple arithmetic implies a greater frequency of unpleasant encounters for the minority and the accumulation of experiences creates an atmosphere of exclusion. Affecting colourblindness with respect to race issues is just as discriminatory as affecting colourblindness is in any other area. It sounds like you're tacking dangerously close to the attitude of faux-egalitarians who think that pretending that imbalances don't exist somehow makes them disappear. Perhaps I'm not making myself clear - the moral failings involved in prejudice are equal, and the moral culpability of those with prejudices is equal, whatever side of the divide you're on, but the consequences of that prejudice differ greatly. If you accept that Bad Thing A has a greater impact on women (as a group) than on men (as a group), complaining when more effort is put into stopping Bad Thing A for women is classic whataboutthemenz tomfoolery. Applying the tools of epidemiology to a social problem does not equate to singling out particular groups for the five minutes hate. Queexchthonic murmurings 11:22, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm going to jump in here and say that all of my sociology textbooks use Power + Prejudice as the definition, so it's hardly a fringe position, but one accepted by extremely influential experts in the field, which gives it a certain weight that random assholes on the Internet just don't have. If I have to decide between "people on the Internet" and "experts in the field", I'm going to go with the experts, and thus, agree that power + prejudice is the proper definition. I'd go as far as to say that this entire article should be rewritten, because the denialism of science is just pouring out of it. --PosthumanHeresy (talk) 23:06, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

[edit] Pilgrim quotes

Looking in more detail at the criticism section, a lot of the Pilgrim quotes are actually irrelevant. His stated alternative definition doesn't include the prejudice part, so while his criticism of that alternative definition is on point it's unrelated to the article's subject. It should probably be trimmed out, if there's no other article we can transplant it to.Queexchthonic murmurings 13:58, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I think it's perfectly on topic. Part of the criticism of this equation is to slice its structure. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:04, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
What? Are you even reading it? Here is the alternative definition he uses: “a system of group privilege by those who have a disproportionate share of society’s power, prestige, property, and privilege,” No mention of prejudice at all. Not even close to the p+p definition. The second quote then says "to ignore the connection between racial hate and racism is to reduce the concept of racism to a useless theoretical abstraction.", which is true, but p+p certainly does not ignore racial hate because that's baked into the 'prejudice' part of p+p. Queexchthonic murmurings 14:32, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Just as I said, he is providing an alternate equation that overlaps certain variables with the first one. That's what you call "a variation". I agree that the RW text surrounding his quote could do with a clarification, but the quote itself is most certainly at home in this article. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:35, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
The criticism section header might need altering, then, if it's not actually criticising. FWIW, he misses the point entirely with "To argue that one must have power in order to be racist is to suggest that the man in Prichard, Alabama who called me a 'red nigger' and threw a rock at me was not a racist. A different explanation is that his poverty and lack of power made him susceptible to anti-black racism.". Lacking power in one or more ways does not negate the power he has in other ways. It's a classic logical blunder. That should go. Queexchthonic murmurings 14:51, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm not per se stuck around that section having to be called "criticism". It could be something akin to "Discussion" or "Alternate views". The point is that the article benefits from a pluralism of thought and related thought. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:57, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
True, but quoting someone saying something demonstrably wrong is only really if their mistakes are apposite to the article, which isn't the case here. Queexchthonic murmurings 15:07, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Again, I'm sure we could find a way to restructure the current article to make the presence of the Prilgrim quote, and other suitable quotes, carry their own weight as best as possible. I don't see a problem in that, and I'm open to suggestions. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 15:24, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps something along the lines of: "Pilgrim's quote (That quote) makes the mistake of assuming that privilege has only one dimension, and that someone equally as underprivileged as he in some respects could not be more privileged in others. However, he's right to point out that the underprivileged are at risk of being suckered into prejudicial thinking as a defence mechanism against their circumstances. Racism provides a way for people to feel superior to others, and attempts to remove that crutch can often be interpreted as an attack on what little they may have." ? Although that might fit better in Racism, I guess... Queexchthonic murmurings 15:51, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

[edit] "Cultural Marxism"

I don't see what's wrong with my take on it and why we should leave in the false "cultural marxism" accusations. Withoutaname (talk) 03:00, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

[edit] Citation Needed

Why are the mods so adamant that the claim that "Obviously, the majority of sexism is still against women by men" doesn't need any citation?--98.118.186.244 (talk) 04:29, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

This is RationalWiki. <-𐌈FedoraTippingSkeptic𐌈-> (talk) 04:37, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
So, if I said "Obviously, Jesus is The Way and The Truth and The Light" then that would need a citation because it's not part of RW's bellyfeel, but "Obviously, the majority of sexism is still against women by men" is? Even though the page has a quote by the woman who coined the term "sexism" with "Women are sexists as often as men" in bold letters.--98.118.186.244 (talk) 04:56, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Freud was the father of modern psychology but pretty much everything he ever thought is considered bullshit now. You can create a term of art and still be completely wrong about it. Plus, it could easily be refering to women being sexist against women due to internalized misogyny. --PosthumanHeresy (talk) 23:08, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
Okay then, perhaps a clarification that the statement is operating under the Prej + Power definition is in order. Maybe.SolPyre (talk) 16:29, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Or clarification that the statement is meant to apply to men&wymmin in the comfortable castes of the industrialized world? Alec Sanderson (talk) 16:35, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Thank you brother, for a second there I was being an idiot. There is already a clarification and the BoN citation needed is bullshit.SolPyre (talk) 16:54, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, big brother, for a second there I was wrongthinking. It's bellyfeel. Or is it doublethink since the article goes out of its way to emphasize Caroline Bird's quote that "women are sexists as often as men"?--63.138.31.162 (talk) 18:20, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Hank son Goku, signature lieutenant, four minutes after 1982. Gut-weevles! Infest twice market until the artifice of ghosts by liquified empathy resize Caroline Bird's quote that "women are sexists as often as men"?. SolPyre (talk) 14:13, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
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