Newsletter article about unconcious bias

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I’d like to discuss ancient Greek history. When the Greeks voted, they were given a white marble and a black marble. To signal an affirmative vote, a person placed a white marble in the clay jar. To vote against something, they dropped the black marble in the jar. This is the origin of our vocabulary words whitelist, blacklist and blackballing.

This is a case where the unidentified speaker claimed unconsious bias when none is present. To infer that these phrases show racial bias is to be ignorant of the facts of history. There is NOTHING racial about these phrases, except in the minds of overly sensitive people who *believe* there is a racial connotation.

The solution to this problem is education and I will be glad to have this conversation with anybody who challenges me over these phrases.

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KV-F, haroldmacphersonjr, HiFlyer, Charlie, wavy, Cee Arr, Fred, DriftyDonN, OscarCP

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Here’s a couple positive ones.   “Black Gold”., oil.    “Black belt”,  A high ranking martial artist.   “In the black,” Means your business is making money rather then losing money.

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HiFlyer, Charlie

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Unfortunately, common sense and logic have been losing the battle for some time and has finally left the premises.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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HiFlyer, Charlie

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dhdoyle ( #2280179 ): “The solution to this problem is education and I will be glad to have this conversation with anybody who challenges me over these phrases.”

Sure: Let me try this (but if you really wanted to start a conversation on this particular point, maybe it would be better to start a separate thread also here in “Rants.”)

Education is the solution; the problem is that school “education”, from secondary to universitary, tends to fail people seriously when it comes to providing them with a historical perspective. And an interest in reading history books without prompting, in particular books on philosophy and other serious subjects where the reading does not lead to making more money, or overcoming one’s neurosis, or making lots of friends, or getting a great job. And did I mentioned reading newspapers? But coming out of a nice pointed-red-brick and white-plaster building fronted by an ancient-greek styled colonnade, wearing a cap and a gown and carrying in one hand a nicely printed piece of paper that says “you are educated” often does create the unfortunate illusion that such is the case. One that is very hard to shake, but something that is essential to do in order to actually learn anything of real importance about the world and about oneself. Without that, the result is narrow mindedness, lack of self criticism and unexamined bigotry. The unexamined life is… not much of a life. What has all this to do with PC, whitelisting/blacklisting and retaining unconscious biases? In my opinion, practically everything.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
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KV-F, haroldmacphersonjr, HiFlyer, Charlie, Fred

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Thanks. Only problem is it doesn’t fit the MSM agenda. Very good job at research and hopefully it may help tamp down the falsehoods being jammed down our throats by hatemongers of both sides.

Kudos!

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HiFlyer

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[Fred]

One might awaking up in the night and reading this thread, and become a bit positive to see some light shining at the horizon.

Thank you all

Regards

* _ ... _ *

• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by Fred.

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HiFlyer

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This has nothing to do with history or words, it’s about how we perceive, react to and treat others in our world. How each of us chooses to use language to do this is a personal preference and doesn’t need any ranting to either confirm or decrie others choice.

cheers, Paul

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HiFlyer, wavy, Myst

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Actually Paul T is half right. Political Correctness is about people trying first to put in place and then to apply policies that change the way we do things. That is political action. Political action with desirable consequences requires good intentions, but also knowing why the things one feels that have to be changed are the way they are; to know that, those undertaking such political action also should know, first of all, how those things came to be that way, if the results are to be beneficial.

But as I already wrote in my previous comment, if someone would like to discuss political correctness and education, please, start a new thread and I’ll be happy to join the discussion there.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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