(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best specific demographic studies

I would really like to read what others have to say! I even decided to look up in the book I use to teach Intro to Anthropology and there's no definition of wealth! Egad! Checked some of the other intro-like textbooks and there's no definition either!


In any case, I am even more interested in the "maximizing utility/fun".

It's been a loooong time since I took a full blown Economics class (we talk about Economics in Anthropology, but always from an anthro perspective).

>The more technology an individual has the more varieties of goods can be consumed and hence welfare would be better

This is assuming then that fun and utility lie within goods (and not just goods but a variety of them). I think this is a troublesome perspective, and centered in modern industrialized notions of an economy.

But, your question takes me to the notion of an "Original Affluent Society" by Marshall Salihns^1 ^2 . He defined affluence as having more than enough of what you need to satisfy your consumption needs (notice how "wealth", a modern notion, is avoided). You create affluence by either:

1. producing a lot (like Western capitalist society)
   or
   
2. desiring little (like many hunter-gatherer societies)
   
   So, for example, Robert Lee^3 studied the Ju/'hoansi --his study was one of the inspirations for Sahlins' "Original Affluent Society". Lee found that they spent around 20 hours per person per week collecting what they need to consume (food)-far less time than agricultural and industrialist societies (although you can argue that they don't spend as much time in collecting food, but in collecting what they need -money or goods-- to then get food and other foods).
   
   So, foraging societies use their culture to construct a niche where they desire less, but all they desire is fulfilled, in abundance, by their environment.
   
   
   To directly answer your questions:
   
   >What is the definition of wealth?
   
   It seems there is an idea that wealth follows the layman notion of having an excess of what is valuable in a society. So a variety of goods, although valuable in US culture, might not be as valuable as in other places. Although, we can talk about how that might be influenced through culture contact --that's for another post!
   
   >Is a technologically improved society better off than a hunter-gather/primitive one?
   
   I think this is a loaded question. "Better off" is qualitative and subjective. If you are placing value on the variety of goods and the consumption of goods, then I guess a "technologically improved" society is better off. If you take into consideration the cultural norms that dictate how the society values, then probably they are on the same playing field --each society in their own contexts.
   
   
   Disclaimer: Many have critiqued that Lee and others only considered food acquisition as work and did not take into consideration food processing and cooking. From wiki^4:
   
   >When total time spent on food acquisition, processing, and cooking was added together, the estimate per week was 44.5 hours for men and 40.1 hours for women, but Lee added that this is still less than the total hours spent on work and housework in many modern Western households^5.
   
   
   Edit: I think the last paragraph in the first link I provided nails it:
   
   Assuming poverty as a lack of wealth:
   
   >The world's most primitive people have few possessions. but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilisation. It has grown with civilisation, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation that can render agrarian peasants more susceptible to natural catastrophes than any winter camp of Alaskan Eskimo.

Congrats you are doing race.

You carry many assumptions into this it kind of hard to know where to start. First off that those who do not get in with the current tests are lazy. Bam labeled, stored, done. The issue is much much bigger than that. Not to mention the forever long stereotype of lazy blacks/Hispanics and the slacker white boy who has oh so much "potential". The next assumption that is inherent much through all of reddit is that the top smartest people are the ones entitled to the top public education. The divergence is how do you test smart? You can't standardize critical reasoning which is why the standards boards proposed interviews. Back in the USSR they had interviews with professors before you could get into college but after you passed the standardized test. Anything was fair game and for the most part you were given problems you could never solve. The idea was to have a professor look and see at HOW you struggle, see where your brain moves and how fast it gets there as a predictor of possible success. Which yet again brings us to standardized tests that everyone loves to rally against. For the most part the test only measures how well you prepared for the test and in that it is valuable. It shows a student's commitment or ability for rote memorization. Given that k-12 education is nothing but an ever increasing staircase of rote memorization it would certainly seem that a test like that would be apropos. Yet again the issues with both interviews and standard tests lay in who is interpreting them and what they are looking for. Much like colleges it would seem from this article that those high schools that did interviews looked for intangibles that are quite frankly human resources level of bullshit.

Another interesting implication that could be made is that hard work IS merit. That if you work hard enough you deserve to be in these schools. That really ends up being a value call and to be honest when drawing upon such a large student body as that of NYC I would say it really shouldn't be. Hard work as merit is a last resort. Work you can teach, you can force it on the students if they actually want to be there. Merit as a test is something that sits perfectly well in Eastern cultures since the times of bureaucracy exams. Chinese immigrants grew up in a society that has favored exams as a tool for social mobility for longer than America has existed so when asked to take an exam for social mobility do you not think that it in some way favors them? Shit Chinese public school are even more competitive with even more rigorous exams and let's not even get started on the rigors of the Japanese college entrance exams.

This is what I feel you and the writer and a lot of people are missing in your definition of bias and something the city is trying to bring up. First off that everything is biased but that entrance exams are also very skewed not necessarily towards wealth but to certain cultures. In first generation immigrants like those described in this article I feel that this exam taking culture could still be very well alive depending on country of origin because honestly you can't just say Asian...it doesn't work at all to describe the multitude of different countries. Filipino and Vietnamese people are almost nothing like the Chinese in their culture and ways but yet you can throw them into one group and say they're good at ____.

Glad I refreshed before posting, you answer is much more complete than mine. I'm going to add in terms of making friends with similar interests, you have to be willing to participate in the things they want to do and ask them to join you in activities you like. Some people will say no, but in general you don't know if you like a particular activity unless you try.

"Just joining clubs" just gives you exposure to new people. You still have to do the legwork for actually making friends there. It's not really much different from meeting people anywhere else, it just gives you some starter conversational topics.

If you're lacking the social skills to feel comfortable having deeper conversations with others, that's where you need start. Like any other skill it takes practice, and practice builds confidence, and confidence makes you more comfortable. Restricting conversations to banter has to do with your insecurities not theirs.

With racial politics, people just aren't aware of them, and don't want to be preached at, as they're not in a position to contribute. You have to put in a little extra work when you're trying to get to those topics. Think intersectionality and start there. When people feel heard about their issues, they're much more willing to hear about ours. Then at least it's a conversation everyone can partake in. After that initial work, you'll know which one of your friends are allies willing to have these types of conversations, and which are not. I've personally found women to be a little more sympathetic about these issues than men, since you don't have to deal with the MRA and hotep crowds. Adding to what BSworld777 said, you also run into people who only care about the issues that personally affect them. So they're all for advocating for issues that gay men may face, but not issues that gay men of colour face. Same for feminism. You get people who care about feminism, except when an issue doesn't affect them as much as women of colour. (Don't be one of these people! It's really easy to fall into that trap.)

If you've not read it yet, I'm going to recommend "So you want to talk about race by Ijeoma Oluo". It's a book I've almost religiously been recommending people read this past year, as it's the best introduction to intersectionality I've found that I've actually been able to get people to engage with.

(PS - I enjoyed your reading blog post on the portrayal of women in The Boondocks)

I'm not a conservative, but as someone living in the UK I don't think it's fair to compare David Cameron's politics to that of the American Republican party. The usual consensus over here is that our conservative party, the Tories, are politically more in line with the Democrats in America. Over here the Republicans come across as totally batshit.

>I believe that to be be a conservative and to support gay rights are not mutually exclusive. They, in fact, can go hand in hand if we look at it through the correct lens.

I completely agree. And Cameron's statement, which you quote, makes that case perfectly. In fact one of the best conservative arguments in favour of gay marriage I've read was Virtually Normal by Andrew Sullivan. He shows that from a socially conservative point of view, gay marriage makes a whole lot of sense, and that gay marriage is absolutely something that conservatives can, and should, support. The book is over 15 years old, but many of the points he makes are still being thrown around in discourse today.

But having said that I don't see how you, as a gay person, can support the Republican party.

>I believe politics doesn't need to always be black and white

Which is precisely what the Republican party would have you believe. Not only do ~74% of Republicans oppose gay marriage (compared to ~34% of Democrats ~40% of Independents), but Republican supporters have made it quite clear that they do not even want any gay people in their party. Case in point.

The Republican party quite literally hates you.

When I initially came out, I was religious (Lutheran), and I actually came out with the help of my campus pastor in our Lutheran Student Community. I continued active participation in my religious community, and most of my pastors after that time were aware of my identity, so don't ever feel as if there's no place for you in religious communities. In the US, at least, mainline protestant denominations (Lutheran, Anglican/Episocopal, Presbyterian, UCC) often tend to be much more accepting than so-called "nondenominational" or Evangelical churches, but there aren't hard and fast guarantees.

(Just as full disclosure, I'm no longer religious, but it has nothing to do with my coming out, and much more to do with other philosophical changes and ideas.)

There has been a lot of good advice in this thread, so I really don't feel the need to repeat it. I do, however, want to share few resources that might be helpful:

• Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality - This book by Andrew Sullivan is probably my favorite work about homosexuality and being gay. If you have a chance to read nothing else, this would be my recommendation. It presents four arguments from four different perspectives for and against homosexuality, then addresses what Sullivan feels are their flaws and where they are misapplied. Sullivan then attempts to synthesize his own philosophy of what it is to be gay. It's something that is a bit of a cliche, but this book really did change my life. (Sullivan is a gay Catholic political conservative — the real, intellectual kind, not the reactionary kind — who is married to a man, and while I don't always agree with him, I adore his writing and value his perspective.)
  
  
• What The Bible Really Says About Homosexuality - This is a very good book covering the theological angle, looking at passages in the Bible, and analyzing the various translations and apparent meanings of the handful of passages that ever touch on homosexuality. I read this when I first came out. Eventually, when you come out to your family, this may be a helpful resource for them, as well. (As others have said, until you are financially independent, you should probably not come out to them.)
  
  
• God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships - I've not read this book by Matthew Vines, but I have heard very good things about it. It may be helpful both now and down the line.
  
  In your situation, I understand it may be hard to get these books or read them, but if you can do so privately and safely, I'd highly recommend them as avenues for exploring your identity and giving you a theological and philosophical frame to think about your identity from. I'm not sure if you're worried about disapproval or punishment from divine or human sources when you say, "I'm afraid my own religion will punish me for something that I can't control," but in either case, you may find these helpful.

Well, the all-caps titles here are panel titles, the names quoted are panelists and the stuff quoted after their names are generally presentations or, at best, working paper titles. A lot of it probably doesn't exist anymore, outside the pages of these programs. I don't know where you could find an archive of these programs outside of the personal files of people who attended these things, except perhaps in a special collections department somewhere or maybe the NWSA archives. University libraries are gold mines but finding out what they even have can be tricky, and getting access to it can, too.

The books are a bit easier, often they are available on Amazon. Marxism and the Oppression of Women is still in print, as is The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer. Patriarchal Precedents is not, and so you can guess that it shows up less in the gender studies curriculum today.

I personally would be very interested in minutes from the panel entitled "BUILDING FEMINIST THEORY," since it was a discussion including Sandra Harding (now at UCLA), Mary O'Brien (who founded the Feminist Party of Canada), and Nancy Hartsock (who authored a book subtitled Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism), and they were talking about

> how feminist theory should reconstitute progressive politics in general--not just "women's issues"--while also transcending the limitations of Marxism.

There's just so much to unpack there--obviously it's pretty silly to aim at "transcending the limits" of Marxism if one does not feel limited by it, and one would not feel limited by it were one not a somewhat conscientious adherent! And indeed feminist theory has in many ways reconstituted progressive politics in general since the 1980s. So it's very, very frustrating to me when people make these sweeping claims about what is or is not "influential" as if they have any real idea where ideological trends come from. Almost everything we think is the result of someone making a concerted effort to get lots of people to think that thing, but it is usually someone who has long since been forgotten (or memory-holed), and it is almost always an irrelevant academic before it is a politician who gets their name put into the books. Maybe it has always been thus; I sometimes wonder if we would be quite so cognizant of Aristotle, had there not been an Alexander the Great.

Anyway, I am rambling. If you have a particular thing you're looking for, pay a visit to a quality university library--state libraries might do in a pinch, but universities are the real repositories of knowledge. Inter-library loan is a researcher's best friend, second only to a good special collections librarian. Amazon is sometimes helpful also, though certain texts have gotten remarkable pricey over the years, I've found!

I'll preface this by saying you're not actually arguing against what I'm saying as opposed to what you wish I was saying, it is a bit frustrating.

I never said Europe was multi-racial before the 19th century, simply that race wasn't a factor as much, and that the concept of whiteness didn't exist. Take for example Spain. Spaniards were considered both Spaniards and Christians, that was how they were defined. It didn't really matter that they had a duskier skin tone. Same thing with Sicilians and Neapolitans.

>Your point about these few that served in leadership positions (name one after the collapse of Rome and before the 19th century) once again does not dispprove my point at all. They were exceptions, not the norms. They were a tiny percentage of the population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas-Alexandre_Dumas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Petrovich_Gannibal (Pushkin's ancestor to boot)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_de%27_Medici,_Duke_of_Florence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estevanico

There's more. Of course they weren't the majority, they're nowhere close to be even today, and it's unlikely it'll change for some time yet. But the fact is that physical appearance wasn't that big of a deal if you had skills and ideas to offer.

>The idea that a shared identity wasn't facilitated by a shared appearance is ridiculous. Our whole system in Europe between the fall of Rome and the modern era had one of its most basic pillars on the concept of continuity of generations. From King to peasant, the idea of family and inheritance was central. [...]

I never argued against this, merely that religion, origin and allegiance were far more important determinants. If you were black or moorish back then, sure you got some odd looks and you'd always be apart and special, but there wasn't that racialist bent you find in the 19th century. You weren't considered necessarily "inferior" and generally monarchs welcomed strangers to their court, using their skills and cultural innovations to improve their realm. Examples could be Peter the Great travelling around Europe to learn shipbuilding, the Austrians adopting (or at least popularising) coffee after the Battle of Vienna, where large Ottoman stocks were seized and so on and so forth. And this is just in a European context, there's many more examples elsewhere of successful cultural integration.

>[...] To put it down to what you say would deny the existence of nations in the first place. We would all become some generic and bland culture, with no heart or sole, no sense of inclusiveness that builds the nation.

If you're interested in how nations form, I strongly suggest reading the following:

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities

Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism

*Anthony D. Smith, Ethno-Symbolism and Nationalism: A cultural approach

Please don't think I'm just title dropping, but nations and nationalism happen to be topics close to my heart, and in academia, the essentialist approach has been largely discredited. The three authors above present a range of opinions that could interest you. I personally prefer Anthony Smith combined with a conflict driven approach to the formation of nations (basically, nations form because they encounter other nations and thus define themselves in comparison to them. I can expand more on this in another post.)

>No, it is well established amongst the elite in Europe. The majority of people in Europe want reduced immigration. Wanting immigration is really at this point an extremist idea.

I'm not saying that people do not debate whether or not there should be less or more immigrants, merely that almost no one is advocating closing the borders and taking in no immigrants at all. After all, unless natality rates rise across the West, we will have to keep "importing" immigrants.

>And if we accept mass non-white immigration, then we can say good bye to that. Any invasion breaks the continuity of generation (as I noted, there remains an issue with the British identity as a result of the Anglo-Saxon invasion), but one which leaves such a visible break is bound to bring an end to nations.

I disagree, it merely means that the British identity will change. Strangely enough in Canada we don't seem to have half the issues you have with your ethnic immigration, and we are basically a nation of immigrants, many of which are non-white.

>As I say, the biological fact of race is irrelevant. It is the pysical appearance. Europe has always been white. We might be about to see a huge upheaval in the demographics of our continent, and with that will come and end to our continuous and historic culture, just as happened with the collapse of Rome.

And this is the thing. You don't actually disagree with this point. You know this will change culture, to the point at which it is unrecognisable. It will be something new. The difference is, I don't want this to happen, and you do.

Okay, this is the point where I explain my actual position, which I've alluded to in my earlier posts. Having discussed Rome, I think I clearly highlighted the difference between taking small bits of culture from different people here and there and using them to enhance your own culture (Republic-Early Empire) versus uncontrolled hordes of migrants rampaging through your territory (late empire). One does not lead necessarily to the other.

The original topic was about small enclaves (Chinatowns) and the integration of small parts of other cultures to enhance the dominant culture.

This is what I support: Limited immigration with an open-minded policy, in order to create the best culture possible, while maintaining the historical and cultural heritage (especially the language) of the dominant culture.

I never said mass immigration was desirable. On the other hand I did take a historical perspective by saying that given the current rates of immigration and the increase of mixed marriages, the British culture in a few decades/centuries will look very different than it does now, and might even not be majority white as opposed to mixed. It's just how things are, as our world becomes more inter-connected, boundaries become more malleable, especially with communication technologies.

Finally, we should see other cultures as potential sources of wealth. Take what is good for us, then leave the rest. We're already doing it daily. Look at all the sushi shops around, hell, Manchester even has a Curry Mile (though I believe Curry was invented in Britain by Indian immigrants, correct me if I'm wrong there). Shisha bars, alcohols from everywhere around the world, world litterature etc...

I am not very knowledgeable about Argentina but as a Venezuelan that's currently researching my country's history in depth, in particular economic history, I may be able to answer about it.

To understand Venezuela, you must understand its oil industry. By the turn of the 20th century, Venezuela was politically unstable and heavily indebted. A civil war and skirmishes with local caudillos made the country a hot mess to rule over, and political and economical growth was going slowly.

Enter Juan Vicente Gomez. Second-in-command for President Cipriano Castro, he seized power from him in 1908 as the latter went abroad for surgery. And until his death in 1935, he oversaw the change from a crop-based economy to an oil-exporting one, and it would remain as such till today. He was the first one to direct the oil revenues to modernization and infrastructure development, while taking a large cut for himself and his cronies. The concession-based model for mining and oil extraction that would last until the 1970s, along with minuscule taxation, allowed the foreign companies to take abroad most of the profits from the oil.

Although the Natives and Spaniards knew about the presence of oil beneath the surface thanks to oil seeps, industrial drilling did not take place until the 1910s, due to an increased demand from industrialization and the advent of the internal combustion engine. And in 1922, the oil well Barroso II blew out, spewing a hundred thousand barrels of oil per day for nine days into the air, which was a wonderful PR move by the oil to announce its bountiful presence, and a beacon for foreign companies (i.e. Shell, Esso, British Petroleum) to start large-scale drilling and, soon, refining. In less than a decade, Venezuela would become the third largest oil producer, and largest exporter, in the world.

As mentioned before, the State did not really partake on this bonanza, making most of its income by selling concessions to drill. Political pressures towards democracy and a fair share of the revenues had to wait until Gomez's death in 1935. The country began a slow transition towards democracy and in 1943, it was codified into Law that the State would receive half of the profits from the oil industry. An even bigger share meant larger projects, and with the advent of the first truly democratic government of Romulo Gallegos in 1948, the country was already planning or working on massive public projects: Caracas' University City, housing and government offices, industrial development, bridges...

Around this time, a military government by Marcos Perez Jimenez took hold, ruling between 1952-1958. Oil revenue was essentially unchanged, but modernization and development became a matter of prestige and national security. Also around this time, there was a serious discussion on what to do with the oil revenue. Ultimately the "Sowing the Oil" concept, developed by Arturo Uslar Pietri, dominated. That means that the best way to invest the oil revenue was to invest in the people and the country; via the aforementioned massive public projects but also funding public education, healthcare, and culture, as well as working to export refined goods and not crude oil, and invest on other industries (most notably steel).

By 1961, with democracy properly restored, the country was prosperous. A few years before, the Venezuelan Bolivar was the highest valued currency in the world. ^^1 A welfare state was in place, ensuring the oil revenues were distributed among the people. Politically, a two-party system took hold, which did not allow for much change. And collusion between the parties, as well as the ridiculous amount of state revenue, allowed corruption and inefficiency to flourish. But as long as the oil kept flowing, this could be maintained, and the people were happy.

In 1976, oil was fully nationalized, and PDVSA, the State's oil company, began operations. Venezuela was known at this time as the "Saudi Venezuela", with a high quality of life and an enviable position in Latin America. But shortly thereafter, in the 1980s oil glut, coupled with mismanagement, inefficiency, and corruption, as well as a political desire to keep the welfare state in place, led to bad fiscal and economic policies such as devaluing and fixing an exchange price for the Bolivar and ballooning public debt. The system was unsustainable, and the situation worsened until the nation required a bailout from the IMF. This proved wildly unpopular, and led to massive protests, two coup attempts and an impeachment and, ultimately, inflation and worsening economic conditions that led to the rise of Hugo Chavez in 1998.

This basically covers 20th century Venezuela. I highly recommend watching the three-part El Reventon documentary about the Venezuelan oil history, if you can find it in English. For a more general Latin American woes, including Argentina, Open Veins of Latin America is great for history, but... iffy on economic theory. For a more economic view, Guide for the Perfect Latin American Idiot is a direct counter for the economic theory on that book, and I believe the two ought to be read together.

1. Thanks to /u/moontroub and /u/definitely_notme for requesting sources. Turns out it's an urban legend. The Venezuelan Bolivar had a fixed exchange rate of 3.35 VEB to USD between 1941 and 1961.

I have started and erased this comment three times now.
Basically, I don't remember how or when I first realized trans men existed. There was someone on my freshman year of high school bus who was female assigned but male identified--he used to just tell people he was actually a boy and that was that. For some reason while I clearly remember that (lo these cough 20 years later), I only vaguely had a sense that kid had anything to do with me. I'm generally pretty avoidant, so I walled off that part for as long as I possibly could.

I remember meeting some trans kids at the Chicago pride parade in like 1997--but again, while some part of my brain understood superficially that they were some variety of trans, I wouldn't let myself process it at all. I think I posted on some planetout / AOL trans threads, but not from supportive or self-identifying place at all, but more of a "trans critical" place.
My freshman year of college I finally had semi-privacy and a fast internet connection in my own dorm room...but I don't remember using it to research trans issues at all. I was involved in ...Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco fan sites / list servs, and there were totally some trans folks on those, but I explained them away to myself as experimenting kids. HOW FUCKING IN DENIAL CAN YOU BE?????

That was the year Matthew Shepard was murdered, and I was on a small midwestern campus and was a super visible queer, and I remember we had a candlelight vigil and a guy in a pickup truck screamed at us, and for me being "gay" was more important socially that those weird gender rumblings that were going on. Strangely enough I briefly dated someone there who also went on to transition ftm, and we never even talked about what a few years later would take over our lives. lol.

At some point that same school year, I was back with my soft butch high school girlfriend (I was a big fan of butch-butch pairings), and we were in a Borders Bookstore in suburban Milwaukee and holding hands or whatever, and these two middle aged gay guys walked up to us and told us we were adorable and handed us a book they said would be "perfect" for us--it was called Dagger: On Butch Women (http://www.amazon.com/Dagger-Butch-Roxxie-Linnga-Due/dp/0939416824) and it was like a dollar or something because it was already a kind of old book (1994...and this would have been 1999) BUT AND HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART:

THERE WERE A WHOLE TWO CHAPTERS OR SO ABOUT TRANS MEN (were those gay guys my guardian angels???)

granted, why were trans men in a book about "butch women"--well, we could debate that, but it was definitely more of a 90s thing, and I can't explain it at all.

And that book had Michael Hernandez in it, and even then he was a big bad bald bearded dude, and I hadn't even realized you could take, like, testosterone and stuff. So that book was very valuable, though it also hindered a bit because it was already out of date and talked about things like mail-order pants stuffers made out of industrial foam that some dude in California would carve into a wang for you (I'm not even kidding) or Morris Designs surgical vests as binders. It was a far, far different world when we had to like send a check to a weird address we found in a book and hope they sent us the thing.

alright, this is already too long and too personal.

I am a white, feminist, woman artist/academic who does activist art in solidarity with social movements, including Black Lives Matter and immigration activists in my city. For me the key is solidarity. Solidarity is based on mutuality and accountability across difference, on disrupting the idea that you (as a white person) know best, challenging power dynamics that influence knowledge (and art) production and reception, and so on. As a primer, I'd recommend reading a little bit about how feminists of color think about solidarity. This body of writing has really important insights about the do's and don't's of white feminists when representing, or working with communities of color, and it'd likely be very relevant to your concerns about doing art that is meaningful and not appropriative (or worse, violent). One recommendation is Chandra Mohanty's writings on solidarity (e.g. her book "Feminism Beyond Borders"). \

Anyway, if I am doing art that is not speaking to political issues, or that isn't about racism/colonialism or that isn't borrowing stylistically from other cultural groups, I generally feel fairly free to do/make/sell what I want. However, if I am doing art that is about race, state violence, colonialism, etc, I feel there is a very different ethical imperative to avoid the harms you're concerned about. Here are a few key things I'd recommend thinking about when doing that work:

1. If you are trying to do anti-racist art work that supports anti-racist social movements, you should be in direct conversation with those movements. Ask what type of work would be useful to them. Build relationships. Listen to their own articulations of what they need and think about ways to amplify and center their voices. If they say they don't want you to do art about their lives/activism, respect that and don't do it. Having these relationships will make your work better, more impactful, and will provide an avenue for people to hold you accountable when you make mistakes. This is the mutuality/accountability side of doing work in solidarity.
   
   
2. Always ask yourself if your work will cause new pain to people you are trying to support. A good example of this is the recent debate about the painting of Emmitt Till's body, which was done by a white woman. As many feminists of color have written about, white people (including white feminists) ofter perpetuate the glorification and consumption of black death and pain. Doing art that depicts violence against black and brown bodies often reproduced trauma for people of color. Be very careful not to do this. Within my own art and scholarship, for example, I make an explicit choice not to write about graphic details of violence against black bodies, even though my work addresses state violence.
   
   
3. Develop your own style and be careful not to simply adopt art forms that are unique to particular cultural groups. Yes, artists take inspiration from all over, but there is a long history of white people taking the unique cultural crafts and art forms of other people's cultures and profiting off of them--even as people of color may be derided for those exact same forms of expression. If you start turning a profit by weaving kente cloth or painting Mexican sugar skulls, you are treading into appropriation. Don't do it. There are plenty of ways to be creative--even to pay homage--without stealing art forms that are distinctive to an already marginalized group.
   
   
4. If you are doing art that draws from the stories, experiences, or images of people of color, think critically and creatively about how you will do this without being purely extractive. Did you get permission to use someone's image or story? Did you talk to them about how the art will look and where it will be shared? Do you have any plans to redistribute profits you earn through the use of their image/experiences/ideas/etc? Who benefits, and how? I know that art is not a well-paying enterprise and the idea of sharing profits can be difficult for poor artists. Even so, these questions matter. If you turn a profit on art that depicts black experiences or pain, for example, you should be very, very thoughtful about how those profits are used. If sharing monetary proceeds from the sale of art is not possible, then at the very least think about other ways that you can give back--ideally though direct conversations with people impacted by the art work. Don't just assume that it's okay to take other people's stories/images because you want to "raise awareness", unless they have explicitly said this is what they want. For myself, in all the work that I do that addresses state violence, BLM, or immigration issues, a portion of the proceeds are donated to organizations/activists doing that work. Other techniques I use to address this include: giving free prints to the person who featured in the art work, offering time/skills to do art for protests or other events, and directly collaborating with people to create art that tells their stories (e.g. doing comic strips narrated by BLM activists).
   
   
5. Don't be afraid to turn the gaze onto whiteness, white supremacy, and the sources of the forms of violence people of color are experiencing. As a white person, you are in a unique position to do this work. It is important that our art (or writing, scholarship, etc) doesn't only focus on the pain caused by racism/colonialism, but that it also turns the gaze onto the systems and people that perpetrate this. Whiteness shouldn't be invisible in conversations about racism. This "A Syllabus for Making Work About Race as a White Artist in America" offers an excellent list of art activities and exercises for white artists to do that encourage them to think about race in relation to white supremacy.
   
   I know that was a long answer. The point is, there are ways to do this, but do your homework, be thoughtful, be careful, and do the work in solidarity with communities of color whose stories are implicated in your work. Feel free to PM me if you want to know more about the specific way I've navigated this--it's something I've written about, but I don't want to share the full article here.

> Can you give me a source of someone who disproved him and summarize their findings?

Yeah. Just so we're clear, we're talking about Herrnstein & Murray's 1994 book, The Bell Curve. As I'm sure you already know, this book, and its co-author Charles Murray, are among Stefan Molyneux's favorite sources of information about inherited racial differences in IQ.

If you've only heard of The Bell Curve from right-wing pundits, then you may not know that the book generated a brief but intense debate when it was first published. The debate was intense because the authors' claims were controversial. And the debate was brief because everyone quickly realized that the book was trash. The authors probably already knew this, because they declined to publish any of their findings in peer-reviewed journals. In fact, they declined to permit any kind of review prior to the book's publication. In the world of science, this is extraordinarily shady behavior.

As far as I know, The Bell Curve hasn't been in press for at least ten years. Which is a good indication that no one (on the left or the right) cared at all about what Herrnstein and Murray had to say. And that was the state of affairs until a few years ago, when the book's sections on racial differences in IQ seemed to capture the imagination of Stefan Molyneux.

Anyways, for those engaged in the practice of statistics and/or social science, The Bell Curve is infamous as a case study in bad science. The key issues are as follows:

• General intelligence. Herrstein and Murray's conclusions are based on Spearman's notion of "general intelligence" or g, which dates back to 1904. The science has always been dodgy, and the psychometric validity of g was questioned long before The Bell Curve. Psychologists were already moving toward multi-dimensional models of intelligence by the time the book was written. The best critique of g is probably still Stephen Jay Gould's Mismeasure of Man. The revised edition from 1996 has a couple chapters that directly disprove claims about g made by Herrstein and Murray.
  
  
• Statistical and psychometric methods. Complex data analysis always involves subjective decisions. It's the responsibility of the analyst to provide solid rationale for these decisions. Or in the absence of such rationale, to provide what's known as a "sensitivity analysis" to assess the impact of these decisions. Herrstein and Murray did neither of these. Instead, they analyzed data with arbitrary weighting schemes and with arbitrarily chosen subscores from an aptitude test called the AFQT. And they provided inadequate justification for their choice of weights and subscores. Perhaps unsurprisingly, their findings disappeared when different weights and subscores were used in the same analysis. (That work is documented in this book and in this paper.) These days, we'd call this "p-hacking." And it is a serious breach of scientific ethics.
  
  
• Intellectual laziness. No one disagrees that there are racial differences in IQ. That's obvious from the data. The key issue is whether these differences are due to genetic inheritance, or whether they are due to factors like income, education, and environment. In a rare moment of intellectual honesty, Herrnstein and Murray say: It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences. What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on that issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not justify an estimate. Which is a nice way of saying "please believe us even though we don't know what we're talking about." That's an acceptable thing to say in some contexts, but not when you're arguing in favor of IQ-based public policy. This quote is taken directly from the book, so I'm not going to provide a link.
  
  During the mid-to-late nineties, a lot of smart people wasted a lot of time disproving nonsense in the The Bell Curve. If you're curious about this stuff, I suppose you could start with this book from 1995.
  If you'd like to see a more recent genomics-based disproof of some of Herrstein and Murray's claims, here is a paper from three years ago. The upshot is that there is way more science opposed to the book than in favor of it. And this would be obvious to any "intellectual" who took a moment to learn about his or her sources. Of course I'm referring specifically to Stefan Molyneux, who has no reservations about accepting The Bell Curve at face value, despite the fact that it is full of outdated science, bad statistics, and sheer fantasy.
  
  Now do you understand why I question anyone who takes The Bell Curve seriously?

The debate has been going of for a long time in queer theory. You might be interested in researching essentialist/constructivist conceptions of sexuality. In the west, many of us are essentialist, insomuch as we believe there is such thing as a gay person. There is an essence to being gay, and you either are gay or you're not. The idea in modern times was first proposed by Karl Heinrich Ulrich, who was himself gay in the late 1800s. He referred to gay people as "urnings" which he describes as men with female spirits. He had a different word for lesbian. Later, Karl Maria Kertbenny, took the idea and came up with the word homosexual and from there, the academic Magnus Hirschfeld (also gay) gave the idea some academic legs.

Before that, there was no such concept as a "homosexual." There were men and there were women. And sometimes men slept with men and sometimes women slept with women, but those men would often go on to marry women or not and there was just much more fluidity. That's not to say that homosexuality was accepted back then, its just that the concept of same sex love being an immutable definitive trait wasn't a thing.

The politicization of sexuality made this worse. We adopted a narrative that we were "born this way." because it was easier to sell equal rights to the masses if we could tell them we couldn't control it.

Constructivists on the other hand, believe that sexuality is a social construct and that there is no such thing as a "gay person." There is just a person and they like what they like. And just like people's preferences for things, sometimes they change. And sometimes they don't. The reason that men are more rigidly gay or straight is a product of socialization. Notice that there is much more fluidity in female sexuality than male.

I remember when I was deciding to come out as gay, I recognized (and still do) that I am somewhat attracted to women. But that socially, it's much less likely I will find a wife if I date and fuck men, because women like your friend will always think that I'm secretly gay. I'm not secretly anything. If I like you, I like you! Similarly, in the gay community a lot of guys are put off by bi guys because they're really "straight" or they're "closet cases." Men are socialized to pick gay or straight and stick to it. Women, not so much. My lesbian roommate is avowedly lesbian and she fucks guys from time to time. She refuses to call herself bi. So be it.

So, yes... sometimes people can discover they're gay later in life.

I suggest

History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault

Queer by Choice by Vera Whisman

One Hundred Years of Homosexuality by David Halperin

This looks like an interesting read. I'll have to pick this up, but my Kindle backlog is already building as it is.

Interestingly, I saw this by him as well.

>The impact of intellectuals' ideas and crusades on the larger society, both past and present, is the ultimate concern. These ideas and crusades have ranged widely from racial theories of intelligence to eugenics to "social justice" and multiculturalism.

>In addition to in-depth examinations of these and other issues, Intellectuals and Race explores the incentives, the visions and the rationales that drive intellectuals at the highest levels to conclusions that have often turned out to be counterproductive and even disastrous, not only for particular racial or ethnic groups, but for societies as a whole.

Probably a good read given the Hernandez/Cross tweets regarding NYS some people [like myself] find to be offensively condescending.

>Spoils system dates from 1830, and if you saying "as currently practiced" AND using spoils system as an argument against it is acknowledgement that both today's version of democracy and yesterday's version of democracy is flawed then I can easily infer that democracy is intrinsically flawed.

No argument from me on that front. All forms of governance are intrinsically flawed. To think that we can devise an ideal system that applies across all time and space is a fool's errand.

>It is not.. If anything, this demonstrates that social inequalities cannot be amended through social policies. Meritocracy is by definition a system which promotes stark inequality....(snip)

Meritocracy is generally thought to be linked to social mobility. I can't say I've read Clark's book, though it does look interesting. Perhaps I will put it on my to read list, with the caveat that said list is already fairly long. I'm not so sure about using surnames as a way to trace mobility, though. In any case, this skirts the point that hereditary aristocracies prohibit any mobility to the top echelons of power. But if meritocracy by definition promotes "stark inequality," there is no way to debate this point. You have just defined it to be true -- it is circular.

>Aristocracy may be incompatible with meritocracy in the practical sense, but it is compatible in the theoretical sense.

Great, so aristocracy is not meritocratic in the real world. State socialism sounded great on paper too, until Stalin and co. showed up on the scene.

>Furthermore, hereditary aristocracies are not refuted, but instead confirmed, by the increasing insight in what constitutes intelligence and how it is heritable by people such as Clark and Wade (and the infamous Bell Curve).

First, see my comment above on the misuse of heritability figures. I will not comment further on Clark since I am not familiar with the book. As far as Wade goes, I can't say I've read that either. However, H. Allen Orr, a biologist I find to be trustworthy in his reviews, has written a fairly negative review of the book. I think the most important point in there is that Wade himself notes that his work in the second half of the book is built on speculation and is not backed by hard evidence. As for Herrnstein and Murray, I have read that one (granted, a long time ago), but it has been dissected in numerous books and an APA task force, so I won't flagellate that dead horse into a bloody pulp.

But, none of this is even relevant if you admit that aristocracy and meritocracy are incompatible in "the practical sense." This seems obvious from how well our allegedly hyper-intelligent inbred aristocratic overlords governed in the Medieval and early modern periods. So you can have your theoretical debates about the magic of monarchy, I won't begrudge you that. But this debate seems increasingly pointless.

Those who are playing politics with the disabled. I could say politicians but there's more than just them.

Right. And those can be turned into economic benefits. For example, from Deaf Gain, they gave examples of a city government specifically hiring deaf police officers to monitor their security camera (with their keen eyes!) and Goodyear and the Firestone specifically hiring deaf workers (with their swift fingers!).

EDIT: For those who are curious about Deaf Gain, here's a good post on it.

I'm sorry, I must disagree. He continually glossed over their depravity, making them seem like they were great people, almost to the point of veneration, up until they beat him up at the end. He went in with a notion of what he wanted to find, found it, and wrote about it. Not only that, but he was drunk/high almost the entire time he was writing it, so I highly doubt the validity of anything he says. I've read a lot of great literature and bad literature in my day, and that falls under bad lit.

If you want a good, properly done, unbiased, and well written ethnographic work that draws you into the lives of people in a shitty place in life, read Brothel or Sidewalk. If you want to read a piece of yellow gonzo journalism, pick up Hell's Angels.

My major critique is not so much that that he was biased (which he was), but that he wrote in a very fragmented style that wasn't lucid. You can write in such a style and be a great author (e.g. Kurt Vonnegut), however, he constantly sturggled to draw his fragments together. He hopped about sequentially without rhyme or reason, leaving stories half told and interjecting quotes between fragments that had nothing to do with the story. While some of his works might be great, I do not by any means consider Hell's Angels to be a great piece or journalism, literature, fiction, fantasy, or writing.

I can't speak for BBES, but respectful allies are usually welcome.

If you want learn more than you'll get out of a Reddit thread, I find So You Want to Talk About Race? is a great primer for people who want to understand, and are looking for a place to start.

It all depends what specifically you are interested in and how far your current knowledge goes. There are some great books that provide gneral overviews in question form, "Everything you want to know about Indians but were too afraid to ask" by Anton Treuer provides a super basic starting place on a variety of topics. His brother, David Treuer, wrote a great book called "Rez Life" that puts a very intense and personal touch on the issues to sovereignty and land management that many tribes have to deal with.

Some interesting stuff I've read lately:
"Blood Politics: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma"

"Conquest; Sexual Violence and American Genocide."

"Holding Our World Together: Ojibwe Women & The Survival of Community"

Economics:

Reservation "Capitalism"

Buffalo, Inc.

Political/Policy Issue Books:

A Whale Hunt discusses Makah Whaling.

High Stakes Discusses gaming & the Seminole in Flordia.

I could probably go on forever. I spend too much money on books.

> There's something wrong with you if you don't see what's wrong with that subreddit.

That's an easy way to marginalize my view without providing any substantial counter-arguments why your proclamation is true.

> You waste your time harassing people for making unPC comments you don't like

Maybe you need to read about the monstrous history behind those "unPC" comments.

> There's nothing nice or fun about you.

Yeah, there's nothing nice or fun about institutionalized, systematic rape, forced sterilization, and cultural genocide. It's beyond repulsive when the destruction of culture has been codified into law.

> That subreddit is worthy of study as a psychosis.

Questioning the sanity of people has been a long-time attempt to quiet people who challenge others' worldviews. I find it very ironic that you insinuate that partipants of that subreddit suffer psychosis. History shows us that white supremacy isn't some insane, extremist view--no, in fact, the supremacy of whiteness pervades our everyday life. As a minority, I can tell you how subtle forms of the ascendancy of "white" values trump many other cultures' values. The logic that white people/westerners use is circular. "Our values are better because we're better because our values are better because we're better because our values are better...so screw everyone else's way of life/cultural values and practices!" Believe that your values are better isn't wrong in and of itself--but asserting that and then forcing "lesser" people to conform to your way of life IS wrong.

I've attempted to address your properly, and all you've done is insult and call into question SRS's sanity. That doesn't sound very mature to me. In fact, it appears you are, to borrow your own words, "recoiling into a repugnant immaturity."

I see your point, but do you think that a bunch of queer kids sitting at a restaurant will even get on the news? The civil disobedience you're referring to in previous posts worked because the people doing it weren't supposed to be there - just existing in those spaces was enough to cause a commotion. Fortunately, we're not banned from CFA, so just sitting there won't be as shocking and thought provoking as it was in the 1960s.

Some LGBT people see themselves as virtually normal and want only to be assimilated fully into heterosexual society. Others of us, myself included, are uninterested in appearing "respectable" to the people that oppress us and would rather have our queerness acknowledged openly. I'm not going to tell you how you should live out your sexuality, but please try to see where we're coming from and why we don't think hiding our sexuality is a winning strategy for real progress.

Thank you for your perspective! I wanted to recommend a book that you might find interesting as to the difficulties in engaging white people in discussions on race. I found it especially enlightening regarding the language used in such discussion: Racism without Racists: Colorblind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States.

And here's a PDF I found (looking for the book link) that is a little bit of a preview to the material in the book by the same author: The Linguistics of Color Blind Racism

Edits: formatting, cutting down to size.

> This is an excellent sobering book, very easy to read because its anecdotal. Many of the people in this book could be family and neighbors, these stories are so real and familiar. What stands out is the astonishing lack of social trust. I'm not sure many of our favorite classical marxist theorists have really tackled how to create class consciousness among these types of individuals, or a society packed with them.
> https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Short-Working-Class-Adulthood-Uncertainty/dp/0190231890

Dude. I'm trying to help you and provide some information but you seem really dug into the "I'm not a racist" knee-jerk defensiveness. I might suggest a couple of books if you really care about learning about this stuff. These should get you started.

https://www.amazon.com/You-Want-Talk-About-Race/dp/1580056776

https://www.amazon.com/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/dp/B07D6XQQRY

If you're looking for inspiration, these two books are great places to start:

https://www.amazon.com/State-Native-Nations-Conditions-Self-Determination/dp/0195301269

https://www.amazon.com/Rebuilding-Native-Nations-Strategies-Development/dp/0816524238/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=TF9GCDSDMVKDAX8FZ04B

Check your local library, they may also have those books. If you live on Rosebud Sinte Gleska should have them, or they can get them on loan from one of the other SD universities.

I highly suggest reading some Thomas Sowell, I think you might enjoy him.

http://i.imgur.com/CGFrk9k.jpg

This would be a good place to start in light of the Ferguson stuff. Black Rednecks & White Liberals by Thomas Sowell - Here is the audio version available on Youtube for free.

Intellectuals and Race -
Thomas Sowell

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy - Thomas Sowell

My recs for someone who is just getting into Feminism:

• Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
  
• Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation
  
• Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV
  
• Women's Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings

Every single "person with similar views as nolimitsoldier" I have encountered has always fallen into 1 of the following groups.

1. "12-24 Naive" This is the age where people tend to dismiss feminism without taking any initiative to learn about new and old feminist theories. I understand why so many people in this group so readily believe misconceptions about feminism. It is due to lack of knowledge or background regarding the new and old feminist theories. Also why nolimitsoldier believes all feminists think they are artists / photographers is beyond me. I blame the countless people who don't take the time to learn about the concepts and definitions regarding feminism and much of the media. Isn't until people mature and take the initiative to learn about feminism and realize that modern societies are still patriarchal, misogynist, and sexist.
   
   
2. "Man Eaters" This misconception is the standard among those who still disregard feminism. Most I have met lack any true knowledge on the feminist theory and believe the myth that all feminist are hairy man hating lesbians. Feminists come from all background and genders so this couldn't possibly true. This stereotype is false. Myth:Feminists are man hating lesbians
   
   
3. "Corporate" Again more misconceptions. People complain about feminism, woman, etc, while not understanding what feminism has to do with the plight of the woman. At the end of the day it'll depend on the person and the person they're respecting if they're a good leader or not. Because believe it or not people come from all different backgrounds and cultures! It just goes against our cultured societal beliefs that women can be good leaders. **A side example of this is the iron my shirt incident with Hillary Clinton
   
   
4. "more bullshit" The definition of feminist varies in each textbook but they all mean the same thing in the end: people seeking the equal treatment of women. Men already dominate the world. This hasn't allowed women to dominate or control men in any way. And feminists aren't seeking the domination of men, we are seeking the equality of genders.
   
   To learn more about feminism you can read or watch the following websites,books, or videos:
   
   Youtube Videos or Channels:
   
   

• Tony Porter:A Call to Men
  
• Feminism Survey:Men on the Street
  
• Missrepresentation Documentary Trailer
  
• Joss Whedon's Equality Now speech
  
• Feminist Frequency
  
• Trixie Films
  
  Websites/Blogs:
  
  
• Finally Feminism 101
  
• Feminist Frequency
  
• Geek Feminism
  
• The F-Word
  
• Feminist Peace Network
  
• Gender Across Borders
  
• Feministing
  
• Feministe
  
• Tiger Beatdown
  
• Feminist Teacher
  
• The Feminist Hub
  
• Lipstick Feminists
  
  Books:
  
  
• Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by Bell Hooks
  
• Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings
  
• Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine
  
• Gender Knot Revised Ed: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy by Allan G. Johnson
  
• Feminist Theory: A Reader by Wendy Kolmar
  
• The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory
  
• Third Wave Feminism: Expanded
  
• Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women's Movement
  
• Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity by Chandra Talpade Mohanty
  
• Defending Our Dreams: Global Feminist Voices for a New Generation
  
• Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation
  
• Enlightened Sexism by Susan J. Douglas
  
• Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape
  
• The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today by Kat Banyard
  
• Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune
  
• Transforming a Rape Culture by Emilie Buchwald, Pamela Fletcher and Martha Roth
  
• Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Ulrich
  
• Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power

Not everyone who lacks a house wants one. That was an interesting take away from when I read this really good book in college.

So you aren't open-minded about the idea that racial discrimination against people of color isn't comparable to racial discrimination against white people. Got it. Glad I didn't waste my time arguing. If you ever want to educate yourself, this is a good place to start.

Well, here's a good resource on the science behind implicit biases:Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. Notice that this isn't even critical theory, this is simply social science research demonstrating how otherwise good and moral people can inherit biases, racist/sexist/or what have you, without knowing they possess these biases.

Feminist critiques of video game culture take this kind of research for granted. It's something we've known about for a long time. We can then build off of that and point out what the gender biases in video game culture are. When a feminist criticises video game culture, she is not implying that video gamers by and large are all sexist pigs who think women should go back to the kitchen. Feminists are criticising the implicit biases that we don't even realize we have that portray women in sexist ways, sexist imagery we don't even recognize as sexist.
When the majority of PC gamers react to feminists, they react to the idea that feminists are calling them all sexist pigs. And this reaction stems from an ignorance of what feminists are actually saying. And when this kind of ignorance gets passed around in a circle jerk fashion like on this subreddit, you can probably start to understand why those of us who do read this stuff get so damn angered and venomous in our tone.

Another great resource is racism without racists. Same general idea. How many of us have inherited racist attitudes and values without ever even realizing it. And we can test for these racist attitudes with some rather sophisticated techniques available in the social sciences.

That's where I'm coming from. I apologize for my tone.

The most recent publishing I would begin with is The Tolerance Trap or Queer by Choice.

In summary, they represent changes made in Queer studies of the past five years which criticize how the current LGBT movement have become severely misguided outside the original challenges of gender and sexuality offered by LGBT academics during 1950-80s, which were not motivated by genetic determinism [born-this-way argument].

Essentially the LGBT political movement in the early 1900's rested on this notion that sexuality is biological truth, despite scientists never fully advocating this and evidence that early environmental factors still play a role; this notion became internalized and unchallenged leading to sexuality developing into a comprehensive biological identity similar to being a women or african-american. The issue still remains that no conclusive evidence has proven that sexuality is anything more than genetically predisposed (with environmental factors also having influence). A double-edged sword comes along with that since many undesirable things, such as schizophrenia and alcoholism, also have genetic predispositions.

These newer books, as well as contemporary Queer theorists in their line, want to challenge the moral claims of sexuality and develop out Queer morality that have nothing to do with biological aspects. In effect sexuality could be a personal choice rather than a genetic punishment. Some queer theorists I have talked with are critical towards the LGBT categorization system, which require and reinforce the uneven foundations of genetic determinism for authentic meaning. Personally, I believe the system hyperinflated nonsense; sexual preferences should not constitute personal identity in that degree.

Some earlier works I would recommend is "Compulsory Heterosexuality" by Adrienne Rich or The History of Sexuality by Foucault. But I would add that Foucault's historical record [which has some problems] is not as important as his critique; One Hundred Years of Homosexuality by Halperin is seen as the better alternative to defend Foucault's views. These theories, however, are within the postmodern era and carry significant problems that are associated throughout the tradition.

I highly recommend Sex and Social Justice by Martha Nussbaum, which argues that so far our history has supervised sexuality rather than proven anything resembling moral truth.

I think you might appreciate this book: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1580056776/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_XjDzCb2ZYMA9J

You might find this book interesting; it's about homeless people making a living by selling books or magazines on the street.

Michael Warner, gender theorist, against gay marriage for sexual liberation reasons, calls it “Trouble with Normal”
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674004412

The original “conservative” case for gay marriage on gay marriages being “virtually normal”
http://www.amazon.com/Virtually-Normal-Andrew-Sullivan/dp/0679746145/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345952112&sr=1-1&keywords=virtually+normal+sullivan

Read this one in grad school, might have some relevant topics.
https://www.amazon.com/Sidewalk-Mitchell-Duneier/dp/0374527253

Not sure how modern you're looking for, but "How the Other Half Lives" is a well known book about the slums of the late 1800s.

Deaf Gain by Bauman and Murray for sure.

There's always an in-between option, or a both option. You may wish to check out the book Dagger: On Butch Women which, in spite of its name, covers a good range of butch afab gender identity.

Recently read this book: Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty

Author talked about how neoliberal economics (deregulation, eroding social safety net) makes life much more uncertain, and thus stressful, on young adults.

Basically - the whole "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" line where society constantly says you, and only you, and responsible for your fate, regardless of circumstance. Very anxiety-inducing.

And the this book: Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging talks about how humans, on a fundamental evolutionary level, are communal creatures. "We have a strong instinct to belong to small groups defined by clear purpose and understanding--"tribes." This tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society, but regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival.

The State of the Native Nations: Conditions under U.S. Policies of Self-Determination by Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development is a decent book with a large overview of the things you are looking for.

And Rebuilding Native Nations: Strategies for Governance and Development by Miriam Jorgensen is also a good choice.

Both of these books come from a policy position, but have Native voices within them and contain a variety of examples.

The Pew Research Center found that a significant majority of whites voted for Trump, regardless of their education level or economic status. To paraphrase Ijeoma Oluo, the election wasn't just about race, but race was a factor.

https://www.amazon.com/Measured-Lies-Bell-Curve-Examined/dp/0312172281

https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Genes-Success-Scientists-Statistics/dp/0387949860

https://www.amazon.com/Inequality-Design-Cracking-Bell-Curve/dp/0691028982

https://www.amazon.com/Bell-Curve-Debate-Russell-Jacoby/dp/0812925874

https://www.amazon.com/Bell-Curve-Wars-Intelligence-Republic/dp/0465006930

Here is one: https://www.mqup.ca/blog/secwepemc-people-land-laws/

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Here: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1138585866/?coliid=I2UL77UTJ47BF0&colid=3VO89QG4XNLG3&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

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Brazil: The latin american idiot that think anti-america, anti-europe, vote for populist politicians, and propagate a dirt-dumb form of socialism. Usually you see them wearing a t-shirt with che's picture on it.

You can do worse than reading Stephen Jay Gould if you'd like to understand the world. There was also this balanced view:

https://www.amazon.ca/Bell-Curve-Debate-Russell-Jacoby/dp/0812925874/

Of course you don’t see or feel the privilege. And this is absolutely no fault of your own. You’ve had it your whole life. To you it’s perfectly normal, expected, it’s the status quo and it is invisible to you.

I had this very discussion with my uncle-in-law a little while back. He couldn’t understand how people of color and people in poverty can’t live “the American Dream” simply by working hard (ie “pull yourself up by your bootstraps). He kept pointing out the challenges in his own upbringing and how he had overcome them “all on his own.” He just could not see how his upper middle class upbringing which included a working father and stay at home mom both of whom were college educated, four bedroom house in a good neighborhood, and private schooling with after school tutoring had afforded him a level of privilege not available to people in poverty.

So here is my challenge to you. Go and find a black man any black man and ask them about how they have experienced racism and discrimination in their own lives; ask him how he responds to being pulled over by a cop. Find a poor family of color using government assistance and ask them about how they are talked to by everyday people while they work two full time jobs and go without food to make sure their kids have dinner. Go and find a person who speaks with a Spanish accent and ask them how often they are told to “go back where they came from.” Go and find a woman working in the same position as you do and ask her what her salary is. Go and ask a woman what she does to protect herself when she has to go out alone at night.

Then ask yourself why YOU have never experienced those things. The answer is because you are a white male. Still don’t believe me. Then pull out a book and read. Here are some great books that will educate you to the condition of people of color:

• Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal
  
• Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
  
• So You Want to Talk About Race
  
• The Hate U Give
  
  These are just a few examples. There are Oh so many more. Before you discount the idea of privilege make sure you educate yourself about the condition of the people under your feet.
  
  YOU may not be putting people down to pull yourself up, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t start higher up the ladder than they did.

Doesn't have much to do with graffiti/street art, but your comment on the broken window theory reminded me of this. That theory was not a very grounded one in either economics or any of the social sciences, and is considered by more than a few anthropologists as more damaging then helpful.

I'm having some issues finding information on desegregation experiences in schools (USA, particularly private schools in the north-east).

This article is the best one I've found so far. As far as books go, I read Going to School in Black & White but it wasn't really what I was expecting. So You Want To Talk About Race was an excellent (if not always enjoyable) read though. I've also read a few general books on the civil rights movement, and more articles/blog posts than I can name.

Also looking for books about "The Stanley Plan" in Virginia.

Would anyone be able to point me towards some more resources? I'll take anything really: timelines, anecdotes, books/biographies or speculation (just label it as such). I'm also looking for information from both perspectives (white vs PoC)... and I'm aiming for realism, not happy go-lucky unicorns that fart rainbows. There is a reason that (it seems like) a lot of the first PoC admitted to previously white schools transferred out after all, and while I can make some guesses about the reasoning that's all it would be.

For background -

>!This is for a Harry Potter -ish story set at Ilvermorny during the 60s, with the assumption that Rappaport's Law essentially banned muggle-borns from the school until it's repeal in '65, and discrimination is a pretty big theme. A lot of it revolves around the whole blood purity thing, the racism that those muggle-born kids learned from society/parents and how those things interact. Also: the squib marches, voldemort's rise and first wizarding war from a foreign perspective, the civil rights movement and how that effects MACUSA's policies, and so on. Yes, the story spans a few years :D!<

• Only defining characteristic is Black skin color (skinny Black guy looks nothing like the deeply muscular athlete)
  
• Caption's central idea is a status argument
  
• Black guy is serving white people
  
  If your comment was genuine, you have a civic responsibility to read this 5-star, easy to understand book so you can learn how to not be an accidental racism apologist.

> So why do you feel that if you can't have kids you shouldn't get marriage

What is the purpose of marriage if not to have a couple capable of procreation joined for life?

> Based on your use of the words sanctimony I would guess it's due to religious beliefs, which is fine it's your right to believe whatever you like, but does that give you the right to stop others from getting married?

No. I am but one vote and one opinion. The decision about who should be married and who should not is a government decision that is swayed by a majority vote.

> What negative impacts on society will there be if gay marriage is legalised?

Think back to the 1950s, when illegitimacy and cohabitation were relatively rare. At that time many asked how one young woman having a baby out of wedlock or living with an unmarried man could hurt their neighbours. Now we know the negative social effects these two living arrangements have spawned: lower marriage rates, more instability in the marriages that are enacted, more fatherless children, increased rates of domestic violence, increased modern poverty (that is, those within modern societies living below the poverty line), and a vast expansion of government welfare expenses.

Another effect will be that sexual fidelity will be detached from the commitment of marriage. That's not just my opinion. Andrew Sullivan, who is (according to his website) a Gay Rights Advocate, wrote a book called Virtually Normal and in it he wrote "Among gay male relationships, the openness of the contract makes it more likely to survive than many heterosexual bonds...There is more likely to be a greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman. … Something of the gay relationship's necessary honesty, its flexibility, and its equality could undoubtedly help strengthen and inform many heterosexual bonds.".

I read that to say "Even if we gay men do marry, it won't mean anything, because we always have a desire to look and play outside the martial bounds". But you'll probably say I'm taking that out of context....

So let's go medical. Let's look at how the Society of the Protection for Unborn Children say that Same-sex 'marriage' has negative effects and cites a lot of International research.

I can't speak for what's going on here, but in the 1970's it was pretty common for First Nations women to be forcibly sterilized. It was a practice supported by the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare that was inspired by the population control movement. There are stories of women going in for tonsillectomies or to have an appendix removed and leaving with a lubal litigation. Doctors would also lead women to believe that the surgeries were reversible. Losing a license would only occur if the woman had access to means of filing a grievance. Oftentimes information and resources are hard to come by, and even if they are available undocumented women would likely avoid "causing trouble" for fear of deportation. *Also, just remembered that this article is about prisoners. Women in prisons have even less agency.

There are lots of books written on the subject, but anyone interested should check out Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide

I can't really help your internal qualms but I can suggest books that might help.

Sociology undergrad here. Went through a huge anti-racist-militant phase and now I'm still that but covert. The most crucial problem a lot of PoC have with racism is that they have no words or dictation to find out what exactly is bothering them. Racism is carefully crafted that way to be. It's pedantic, however, to argue whether or not that is purposefully done or not. We can acknowledge that it's a product of racism (the inability to have a dialogue about it).

THE BOOKS

Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America

• This will probably resonate the most with you because it's the more frequent amount of racism we experience. It's a different critique because instead of addressing the right's racism, it addresses the left's supposedly openness and diversity.
  
  The New Jim Crow
  
  
• This book was written by a lawyer who first completely dismissed the idea that there was still a racial caste system in the U.S. However, her research told her otherwise as she investigated the ways that the 5th amendment was violated on a federal level, how prison populations are used for manual labor at low pay that equates to a modern day-covert form of slavery, and how prison populations count as 2/3rds or 3/5ths a person for a state's population.
  
  Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class
  
  
• This approaches racism in how it's affected and formed our modern day political institutions. It talks about how politicians use racism to convince white voters to vote against their own best interests.
  
  Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood, 3rd Edition
  
  
• This book was written by a Catholic priest who followed two groups of poor income boys; one group was majority white and one group was majority black. It's both a academic and personal account of his observations on how these boys grew up over three decades. An incredible longitudinal study that is both objective and genuine.
  
  If you're serious about understanding race and ethnic relations, you'll read tese books. If you need any advice on starter chapters I have a few.