Will Shetterly's Blog, page 44

So, kid, you want a shot at the old gunfighter? Advice to left identitarians who want to come after me.

I don't go out to fight with left identitarians and neoliberals anymore, but every now and then, one comes gunning for me. I'm writing this for the next one. Kid, you're hoping to make a name for yourself, so listen up. I'll help you do better than the kids who came before you, not because I see anything special in you, but because I don't. I've been at this so long the usual scenario bores me.

People who say "Jews, Italians, and the Irish weren't white" don't understand the difference between whiteness and Protestantism

I tweeted In the US, Jews, Italians, and the Irish were always racially white but tribally Not Protestant. People who say they became white miss the fact that you cannot change your race, but who may join a tribe can change, which is what happened to the US’s white not-Protestants. I suspect the reason is religious differences are generally seen as unimportant today, with the exception of

Four things Nikole Hannah-Jones doesn't know about race and class in the US

The following tweets from a woman whose twitter bio announces that she writes about "race in the U.S. from 1619-present" were even more surprising than the things I noted previously. 1. Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted: I replied, "Respectfully, read more history. Poor white men could not vote at first either. Property was the first requirement." Race reductionists cannot grasp that our

Things I learned from tweeting with Nikole Hannah-Jones

I was just in a long and much-too-distracting but still informative twitter war that began when I made this tweet citing How Obama Destroyed Black Wealth: Numbered for convenience, not importance: 1. "Bemused" really wasn't the right word. I hates that, I do. But, as Twain noted, sometimes you reach for lightning and get a lightning bug. 2. When lots of identitarians attack me, I get more

The first three black female superheroes to star in their own comics from major publishers

In a different universe, DC Comics published the first book with a black female superhero as the headliner, but in our universe, their plan for a Vixen series in 1978 was cancelled at the last minute, not because of racism or sexism, but because DC was facing financial hard times, so they cancelled all their new books and a few existing ones as well. In our world, these are the first three

If Basic Income can't work, why did Finland and Canada kill their tests before they had finished?

Two tests were begun, then cancelled early by conservative governments. The only conclusion I can draw is they were afraid the tests would prove Basic Income works. Basic Income Experiment Killed in Ontario, Canada, Igniting Complaints | Fortune: Ontario, Canada has scrapped its experiment with basic income—a hot but largely untested idea for reducing poverty—before any results could be

Two useful studies found most Americans of all races reject "Political Correctness"

Large Majorities Dislike Political Correctness - The Atlantic In 'political correctness' debate, most Americans think too many people are easily offended | Pew Research Center

Did I gaslight an identitarian friend? or To Crusaders, God's deniers are Satan's liars

I'm fairly tolerant of political disagreement, so long as you're not hurting anyone and not in a position to change the law, but I've lost a few identitarian friends over the years because their beliefs require constant validation. Believers in subjective religions, whether theistic or atheistic, need to stay in the company of fellow believers. I don't mean to sound glib—I miss the people I

Orwell on virtue-signalling and toothpaste-sellers

John Halle shared this on Facebook: Here's the beginning of Orwell's review of a forgotten book by a self-described supporter of Indian independence which both defines and describes virtue signaling in something like a pure form. Unfortunately, it's not available as text so can only post an image from google books. It's enough to give an idea-which is that even back then, the same tendencies

Emma Bull’s response to people who ask why men rape

"Men don't rape. Rapists rape." —Emma Bull