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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2017 21:19:08 GMT -5
Sure. You don't have to support your points. You won't convince me that way, but apparently you don't care.
So...
Yeah. That was fun.
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Post by Christine on Oct 22, 2017 21:24:12 GMT -5
Admittedly, this does not specifically address how people of color are dealt with in the lecture hall, but it does confirm institutions of higher learning are not discrimination-free safe zones. The same benighted attitudes about Blacks which abound and thrive in the larger society continue to flourish in academia. Which is what I was specifically asking about, because (1) that's the problem "progressive stacking" is supposed to address and (2) shifting every argument to "But racism exists!" serves no purpose except soapboxing. I don't understand how, after experiencing 12 years of primary school and all the racism therein (if you accept the reports), the idea that assistance from universities in the form of giving people of color priority in speaking is not going to help to mitigate this problem. It's attempting to create a counter-environment to the one experienced for the last 12 years. (My only criticism is, what about the ones who don't get to attend university? Maybe we should be implementing something a bit sooner, eh?) This is not soapboxing. This is about trying to address a real issue. If you think stacking is a bad idea, say why it's a bad idea. Why doesn't it help? (You seem to be allowing that it might have some merit, at least. Correct me if I'm wrong.)
IMO, the soapboxing is the "regressive liberal SJW" spiel.
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Post by Amadan on Oct 22, 2017 21:24:37 GMT -5
I don't see any upside of sharing my anecdotal stories with strangers. There's way too much oversharing online. If I wanted you to know my personal info I'd send you a friend request. No one is asking for your personal info. But you want people to accept something is true, not just for yourself but in general, because you say it is. No one else gets away with that unchallenged, so why would you?
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Post by Amadan on Oct 22, 2017 21:27:50 GMT -5
Which is what I was specifically asking about, because (1) that's the problem "progressive stacking" is supposed to address and (2) shifting every argument to "But racism exists!" serves no purpose except soapboxing. I've offered significantly more evidence there is a problem in academia of racism which progressive stacking is a method employed to address than you have offered any evidence there's no need for it. I've shown you mine. Show me yours. Otherwise, you have nothing to add but only wanted to be included in the thread. No one has disputed that racism is a problem in academia. We're all aware that progressive stacking is supposed to address it. You have show zero evidence that it actually does. There have been a number of arguments for why it does not. You are making your usual error of labeling your opinions and opinions you agree with as "evidence."
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Post by Optimus on Oct 22, 2017 21:38:49 GMT -5
I'm convinced that you are actually a parody account. The ham-fisted race-baiting, the egregious sexism/misogyny, and the continual hypocritical contradictions that lack any semblance of self-awareness...it can't be real. There is absolutely no reason anyone here should ever take anything you say seriously either in the past or ever again. You take me very seriously, Opty. If you didn't you'd simply ignore me instead of whining and ranting when you get called on your hypocritical crap. "Hypocritical." You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. You keep mindlessly throwing around the term "hypocritical" about me, yet you've never actually shown any evidence of me being hypocritical and can't ever identify what I've said that is hypocritical. You just use the word haphazardly, like the bot of a parody account would do, mistakenly thinking you've actually made a point. Meanwhile I have shown countless examples of you being hypocritical, self-contradictory, making egregious logical fallacies and sloppy arguments, being misogynistic, race-baiting, etc. You keep telling yourself that and I'll keep waiting for you to actually provide some concrete evidence that your and Dr. Cabrera's claims about the potential use of "progressive stacking" in college classrooms isn't complete unverifiable, strawman bullshit. Now, go ahead and respond about how you "don't have to" give any proof and that you don't care what I or anyone else thinks and how you're "not here to prove anything to anybody" blah blah blah...
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Post by Christine on Oct 22, 2017 21:39:25 GMT -5
No one has disputed that racism is a problem in academia. We're all aware that progressive stacking is supposed to address it. <snip> There have been a number of arguments for why it does not. Yes. There was the one where Cass was offended by the merest hint of being "helped" There was the one where Opty said no one raises their hand in his class anyway There was the one about "what about all the alienated white guys" Outside of those, I can't recall any arguments supporting the idea that progressive stacking doesn't address racism. I could have missed one, though.
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Post by Amadan on Oct 22, 2017 21:46:33 GMT -5
I don't understand how, after experiencing 12 years of primary school and all the racism therein (if you accept the reports), the idea that assistance from universities in the form of giving people of color priority in speaking is not going to help to mitigate this problem. It's attempting to create a counter-environment to the one experienced for the last 12 years. (My only criticism is, what about the ones who don't get to attend university? Maybe we should be implementing something a bit sooner, eh?) This is not soapboxing. This is about trying to address a real issue. If you think stacking is a bad idea, say why it's a bad idea. Why doesn't it help? (You seem to be allowing that it might have some merit, at least. Correct me if I'm wrong.) Let's talk about Affirmative Action. (This is not a tangent. Bear with me.) Most people are either for or against Affirmative Action both because they have a misunderstanding of what it actually is/is supposed to be, and because they see how it's actually implemented. A liberal professor friend of mine once gave me the AA lecture he gave his grad students at the start of every semester. He was proud of the fact that they would typically come in with attitudes ranging from skepticism to hostility (the white ones, anyway) and by the end of his lecture, he'd have converted them to believing that AA actually made sense. He did the same for me. I won't try to summarize his entire lecture, because it's not my field, but basically he described a very sensible regimen of evaluating outcomes - i.e., is the number of non-white people graduating college proportionate to the population? How about the grading curve? If there are inequitiies, let's study them and find out if they are happening because of implicit or explicit biases. Etc. If not enough black people are being admitted to a university, look at the criteria, look at the rejection and acceptance rates for whites and blacks, find out if black people are being screened for factors other than not being as good as the white applicants. All really quite reasonable approaches that anyone who's actually against racism would have a hard time disagreeing with. Here's the problem: what most people think of as AA is how it actually gets implemented: quotas. Because the above method is really difficult and time-consuming and expensive, and it's much easier to say "If the number of white students admitted is too high, obviously there is racism so we need to reduce the number of white students." Some people are cool with that. Maybe you're cool with that. I'm not, but I like to see programs implemented in a way that shows empirical efficacy. Back to progressive stacking. The idea sounds good in theory. Marginalized voices are often suppressed. White guys have privilege. Obviously, racism and sexism means white guys have probably been taking up more than their fair share of classroom time all through school, so let's remedy that by giving everyone else a fair chance to be heard. The problems are that the last part of the above paragraph is much less certain than the first, and that a sensible implementation of "progressive stacking" in the classroom would be something like, pay attention to the rate at which people get called on according to their race and gender and keep it proportional (or even disproportionately in favor of non-white people if you really think that is necessary), but also factor in things like maybe Whitey McWhite Dude really does have expertise in this area or has shown himself to usually have good insightful comments? As opposed to just blindly calling or not calling on people according to their race and gender? But given our experience with AA, what will actually happen is what we saw from our pretentious little TA who is the subject of this thread: ignore white men as much as possible and pat yourself on the back for being so progressive. So, why do I think progressive stacking is a bad idea? Because first of all, it was not originally designed for the classroom, it was designed for organizational purposes in progressive spaces. Now you're taking it into the classroom on the theory that all classrooms should be SJ spaces and run according to a progressive SJ model in which racism and sexism is assumed. (Again, maybe this makes perfect sense to you. I object to it, and not because I think trying to remedy racism and sexism is bad.) And second, because I doubt that the specific phenomenon it addresses is actually really a problem (that teachers tend to always pick the white dudes and ignore everyone else). And third, I seriously doubt that self-appointed SJW TAs are any more qualified to properly implement "progressive stacking" than they would be to administer a properly run AA program.
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Post by Christine on Oct 22, 2017 22:02:38 GMT -5
Now THAT is an argument, I am compelled to say. Thank you, Amadan. Must sleep now but will consider and respond.
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Post by Optimus on Oct 22, 2017 22:03:19 GMT -5
No one has disputed that racism is a problem in academia. We're all aware that progressive stacking is supposed to address it. <snip> There have been a number of arguments for why it does not. Yes. There was the one where Cass was offended by the merest hint of being "helped" There was the one where Opty said no one raises their hand in his class anyway There was the one about "what about all the alienated white guys" Outside of those, I can't recall any arguments supporting the idea that progressive stacking doesn't address racism. I could have missed one, though. I think we're starting to drift/red-herring way from the crux of the original argument. My argument against "progressive stacking" is that it supposedly tries to address a specific, widespread problem (i.e., that anyone who isn't a white male isn't getting called on adequately in class specifically because they are not a white male and that this has significant, demonstrable negative effects on those students) that has not been demonstrated to actually exist. People have asserted it, but continuing to repeat something without evidence will not make that thing true. It is a far-left educational version of a coffee enema from an anti-vaxxer claiming that it will cure you of your vaccine-injury. Except, not only has the anti-vaxxer not provided evidence that the coffee enema can even treat a vaccine-injury, they haven't even bothered to provide evidence that a vaccine injury exists in the first place. Does racism exist in our culture? Of course. Does it exist on some college campuses in the US? Of course. Is it widespread to the point of being systemic? Aside from a few isolated incidents in the news lately, I don't believe so and have seen no convincing evidence that it is (although the news media loves to make things seem worse and scarier than they actually are), but that's certainly a debatable point. Is racism on college campuses so pernicious, widespread, and "systemic" that it is a common and blatant practice among a significant swath of college professors (the majority of whom are liberal) who are so racist that they regularly call primarily on white male students who raise their hands and ignore every other student from every other group? Hell no and I've seen absolutely no evidence of this at all. Would "progressive stacking" help to solve this type of problem? Doubtful, and I've seen no evidence that it is effective for these purposes, which goes back to the point that there's been no evidence offered to even establish that this problem even exists in the first place. Prove that there is a widespread problem in college and university classrooms of white males with their hands raised being overwhelmingly called on more often, and at the expense of, every other non-white-male student in those classrooms across the country, and then prove that "progressive stacking" can actually improve those outcomes without negative side effects, and then I might take the notion seriously. Until then, the entire issue is fictitious and has been pulled out of someone's ass. To quote Hitchens, "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
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Post by nighttimer on Oct 22, 2017 22:04:09 GMT -5
You answered three minutes after I posted. Did you read the links? The reason for progressive stacking isn't necessarily that POC are wildly raising their hands and not being called on. (Did anyone actually claim this?) The point is to let previously unheard voices be heard--and yes, to even give them priority. They HAVE been ignored. That's why I posted the link regarding racism in primary schools. That's why I posted the link regarding racism happening right now on campuses. University classrooms can help to balance the scales for POC. I honestly do not understand why this is so offensive. Oh, I do. But nobody wants to say it or put it in writing because the Internet never forgets. Which is what I was specifically asking about, because (1) that's the problem "progressive stacking" is supposed to address and (2) shifting every argument to "But racism exists!" serves no purpose except soapboxing. Yes. Racism exists. Sexism exists. That doesn't mean that every goddamn thing in the universe is attributable to racism or sexism. Nor does it mean that any action that vaguely purports to wave a hand in the direction of racism is a good one. Absent a better suggestion from you, I'll stick with the one in play. Thanks for admitting racism and sexism exists. Some of us already knew that. Every goddamn thing in the universe isn't attributable to racism or sexism. That's no reason to wait for you or anybody here to tell me what is. Pour me a glass of Pappy Van Winkle neat and maybe I will. But probably I won't because to share my irrelevant and unimportant anecdotes proves nothing except I have them. I don't know when you were in school, Cassandra. You said something about 1958, but I thought you were a little younger than that. I'm asserting racism in academia is still a thing. Either you accept it or you don't. Sure. You don't have to support your points. You won't convince me that way, but apparently you don't care. So... Yeah. That was fun. I have supported my points. I can't make you read or understand or reach the same conclusions as I have. No, I don't care about convincing you if convincing you means swapping tales of days gone by. That's pleasant enough in a casual conversation, but we're not simply shootin' the shit. I was asked to "support" my points by Amadan and once delivered he rejected it. You didn't even acknowledge it, so what's the use in trying to convince you? It wasn't fun. Not even a little bit.
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Post by nighttimer on Oct 22, 2017 22:13:09 GMT -5
You take me very seriously, Opty. If you didn't you'd simply ignore me instead of whining and ranting when you get called on your hypocritical crap. "Hypocritical." You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Fixed that for ya. You're welcome. Sure you have, champ. You just keep basking in your own brilliance. I'll be over here recalling how bent out of shape you were when I informed you how your boy James Damore was a KKK-slurping sucker. <Insert sad trombone sound here> Not anybody, Opty. Just you.
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Post by Amadan on Oct 22, 2017 22:17:18 GMT -5
No, I don't care about convincing you if convincing you means swapping tales of days gone by. That's pleasant enough in a casual conversation, but we're not simply shootin' the shit. I was asked to "support" my points by Amadan and once delivered he rejected it. You didn't even acknowledge it, so what's the use in trying to convince you? You did not support your points. You posted links to a couple of articles talking about how racism exists in academia. Which was not in dispute, and not what I asked you to support. Stop claiming your arguments are being ignored or rejected when you aren't actually addressing the topic. You were about as on-target as if I had said "Japanese were a threat in World War II so interning Japanese-Americans was the right thing to do," you asked for proof, and I provided a couple of articles about Pearl Harbor and the Rape of Nanking.
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Post by nighttimer on Oct 23, 2017 5:29:46 GMT -5
I have supported my points. I can't make you read or understand or reach the same conclusions as I have. No, I don't care about convincing you if convincing you means swapping tales of days gone by. That's pleasant enough in a casual conversation, but we're not simply shootin' the shit. I was asked to "support" my points by Amadan and once delivered he rejected it. You didn't even acknowledge it, so what's the use in trying to convince you? You did not support your points. You posted links to a couple of articles talking about how racism exists in academia. Which was not in dispute, and not what I asked you to support. Stop claiming your arguments are being ignored or rejected when you aren't actually addressing the topic. You were about as on-target as if I had said "Japanese were a threat in World War II so interning Japanese-Americans was the right thing to do," you asked for proof, and I provided a couple of articles about Pearl Harbor and the Rape of Nanking. See above where I repeat what you clumsily edited out of the quote, slick. I'm supposed to take seriously a guy who says I'm not actually addressing the topic who just scribbled a screed about affirmative action and what he thinks about it? That's not the topic either and seriously who cares what you think about affirmative action? You have provided nothing to prove how eeeeevil progressive stacking is only demonstrates yet again your slippery evasiveness and craven intellectual dishonesty. That's always been your fallback move. Demand proof and then reject it out of hand because it doesn't conform to your ever-shifting guidelines and weasel out of replying by demanding more evidence. Feed the troll, please. You can't pick the argument apart because you're not clever enough to do so, but you can snort "Bah! Insufficient! Rejected."Enjoy your drinking game with yo' drunk buddy.
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Post by robeiae on Oct 23, 2017 8:10:09 GMT -5
Would "progressive stacking" help to solve this type of problem [the supposed problem of white males being the only ones with a voice in classroom environments]? Doubtful, and I've seen no evidence that it is effective for these purposes, which goes back to the point that there's been no evidence offered to even establish that this problem even exists in the first place. Imo, this is the crux of the matter. The TA's systematic approach to addressing this supposed problem should be evaluated in the same way as any other offered solution to a supposed problem First and foremost, the problem has to be defined and demonstrated. This one has been defined; it has yet to be demonstrated. But even if we allow that the problem is real, that doesn't mean this solution would actually represent a working solution. One of the things that is important here--touched on by Opty already--is what exactly being "called on" means in this context, because there is a difference in calling on someone who is actively asking to be called on and calling on someone who is sitting quietly on their hands. Now, sometimes eliciting participation from students who are simply shy can be a great thing. And I would agree that apparent "shyness" in academic settings can be a result/response to racism/sexism, perceived or otherwise. But can also be a response to other issues of self-worth, like intelligence (which true enough, can also be related to race, sex, background, etc.). I'll wager that we all knew kids in our younger years who avoided getting called on at all costs, but were extroverts outside of the classroom (and the reverse, as well; I'm remembering some scenes from The Bad News Bears). In these cases, calling on these "shy" students can have exactly the opposite effect: it can reinforce a student's feelings of inadequacy (I think Opty linked to a study in this regard). However, I think--as I already noted--that these issues are different in different levels of academia. And what we're talking about here is college, right? So again, I think this TA's approach is not only stupid and without merit (because there's no actual evidence to show that it does have merit), but also completely inappropriate from a practical and legal standpoint. People who are paying to take a class can't be treated differently in that class, can't receive less instruction, simply because of their race or sex. That seems beyond obvious to me. And I guess that's a real problem here that goes beyond this one incident: a supposed intelligent person like this TA is unable to grok just how wrong she is.
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Post by Amadan on Oct 23, 2017 8:33:54 GMT -5
See above where I repeat what you clumsily edited out of the quote, slick. The fact that you claimed to have supported your points? You always claim to have supported your points, the same way you use the word "evidence" when what you mean is "my opinion." That's a diversion. There was a point to that discussion, which everyone else got. So did you, but you evaded it with more "Who cares what you think?" listening-to-the-sound-of-your-own-keyboard banging for the pleasure of engaging in personal attacks. Again. I have evaded nothing. I have directly addressed every question. Intellectual dishonesty is characterizing my arguments as "Progressive stacking is eeeeeeevil." Everyone else is capable of addressing this topic with nuance and acknowledgement that other people are engaging in good faith. Your projection may amuse you, but it is convincing no one. Not at all what's happening. You know this, too. Rob and I disagree as often as we agree. Also, I don't drink. ETA: Oh, you were probably referring to Opty. We don't disagree so often. But I still don't drink. Now post some more irrelevant personal attacks. That will definitely convince everyone you're the smart one and not the troll.
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