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Re:GitHub, fuck your name change by jfengel on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @01:57PM (#26494697)
What's also easily weaponized is the tendency to assume that they don't have them. Observing one's own implicit bias takes work, while denying they exist is easy. Being asked to look makes you feel put-upon, and that feeling is easily turned into grievance.

So if you're on the lookout for weaponization, be sure to look around widely. None of us is immune to having our "common sense" flattered.

Re:GitHub, fuck your name change by robertlagrant on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @02:42PM (#26495225)
Introspection, reflection, and self control have been valued for millennia. It's thinking you can read someone else's mind that's new.
Re:GitHub, fuck your name change by jfengel on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @02:57PM (#26495396)
It's true. The constant accusations of "virtue signaling" are novel. "You don't really mean what you say; you just want people to think you believe it". It's quite annoying, but I soldier on.
Re:GitHub, fuck your name change by robertlagrant on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @03:42PM (#26495931)
I wasn't talking about accusations of virtue signalling. Being holier than thou is also a well worn path.
Re:GitHub, fuck your name change by mplanchard on Wednesday March 17, 2021 @05:13PM (#26496851)
So it seems like you're arguing against a point that I'm not making and a perception I don't hold, so it's hard for me to engage here.

Almost (probably everyone) has biases. That is nothing new, and I would think is uncontroversial. Allowing your biases to dictate your behavior in an uncritical way can be damaging, either for yourself or others. That I also think should be uncontroversial.

People who grew up in a given culture tend to have shared biases. Some of those will be useful, some will be harmful. This is not to say they that every member of that culture shares those biases. My guess is that what you're talking about is the tendency to assume that a particular member of some culture has a bias that is common in their culture as a whole (for example, to use a US-specific example, if I assume that any Southerner I meet is biased against socialistic ideas). This is clearly not always going to be accurate, but may be an assumption made for safety's sake when you're in a vulnerable population and you know that those biases can be damaging to you (if I'm secretly a communist living in the South, it may be better to hold that in on average to avoid problems).

I think the reason these conversations may seem "targeted" at well-off white people in the current cultural context isn't because other groups don't have biases (they do!), or that every white person holds a given bias (they don't!), but because well-off white people on average hold more power, and therefore their biases are as a consequence more likely to cause harm.

And also, sure, I'm sure there are people who go overboard with all of this, but that is true of literally any position. Letting the extremists define the discourse isn't going to help anything.