White Tiger bleg
I just saw “The White Tiger” on Netflix. As a film, it’s quality middlebrow entertainment, roughly comparable to Slumdog Millionaire. On the other hand, it’s a big step down from Parasite (which has a similar plot). But I’m not interesting in the artistic quality of the film, I wonder about its politics.
I noticed that one character was a female Dalit leader of a northern Indian state, who was enriching herself through corruption—presumably Mayawati.
And reading a recent post by Razib Khan, I noticed this comment:
Narendra Modi, India’s current Prime Minister, is no Nehru. While Nehru was a Kashmiri Brahmin Pandit, Modi comes from a so-called “backward caste.” Nehru earned a degree at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He then studied law at the “Inner Temple” in London. Modi received a third-class degree from the School of Open Learning at the University of Delhi. Nehru’s father was a wealthy lawyer who served twice as President of the Indian National Congress. Modi helped his parents run a tea stall at a railroad station.
This sounds a lot like the class (caste) conflict at the heart of the film. Indeed the lower caste protagonist (who carries the film) had to drop out of school in order to work in a tea shop. He becomes rather nationalistic and anti–Muslim. I won’t say more, as I don’t want to give away the plot.
A question for my Indian readers. How much of this film is a commentary on events in India that a viewer like me might overlook? Is it a stretch to think the main character somehow refers to Modi?
BTW, Razib Khan’s two part essay on Indian history is brilliant. While it’s long for a blog post, you’ll learn more about India than you would in many full length books. The final portion is a thoughtful meditation on the role that cancel culture has always played in science, right up to the present day. The following quote occurs toward the end, referring to the pressures that scientists face not to contradict cherished beliefs:
Such capricious conformity and mercurial manias are in the charter of the human condition; we’re mortal, we’re curious, we’re creative, we’re dogged, we’re social, we’re hubristic, we’re fragile, we’re clannish and we’re thin-skinned. But we’re all we have. Group identities and loyalties fluctuate and morph over the long-term. And present-day collective passions have a short-term sell-by date. The truth trundles inexorably along, regardless of whether we mortals mark it. . . .
The passions of the present will fade in their own time. Often, overnight. Scientists ignore the zeitgeist at their own peril, but posterity will reap the greatest rewards from those thinkers who wore its shackles most lightly. Their ultimate master is the truth, not the judgment of the public, or even their peers. Coming decades will likely deliver many more wondrous discoveries, each guaranteed to shock or offend some group or other’s sensibilities. But if the past teaches us anything, it is that the future is not built by those most exquisitely attuned to the whims of their age. The future is built by those who checked their data, consulted their own conscience, and insisted eppur si muove.
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26. January 2021 at 15:36
Dr. Sumner: I haven’t seen the movie yet, so take this with a grain of salt. The book was published in 2008 and at that time Modi was the CM of Gujarat and was notorious for Godhra riots but I seriously doubt that the author thought it was a commentary on him. He is not that different from other Hindu nationalist leaders that BJP has produced (maybe with the exception of AB Vajpayee). I read the book then and I am sure Modi’s name didn’t cross my mind mainly becuase the main character isn’t that different from many of the “big people” I have known growing up. I have no idea how far off the movie is from the book, so I will leave it at that.
27. January 2021 at 02:18
> Is it a stretch to think the main character somehow refers to Modi?
Yeah I think it’s a bit of a stretch. The book on which the movie is based is from 2008, and if I remember right, English-speaking india (to which the author and his readership belong), had no inkling that Modi’s rise to prominence on the national stage was just two general elections away. We certainly didn’t think of Modi when we read the story then.
Even now I certainly can’t see anything but the most tortuous connection between Balram Halwai and Narendra Modi. Either as characters or in terms of their life stories.
27. January 2021 at 05:50
Sumner, and his band of communist friends, want to destroy your individuality, your family, and your sacred honor. Federal reserve central planners, together with WEF actors, are contriving a brutal and dystopian future in which humanity is forced into Borg like assimilation.
In their world, your organs — and your life — will be harvested to the highest bidder. Ethnic groups that refuse to comply with the state will be forced to intermarry with other ethnic groups to remove their unwelcome features. Those who refuse will be castrated like the Uighurs. Facial recognition technology will be used in replace of IBM punch cards. Thoughts will become crimes.
But the spirit of Publius Valerius lives on!
We’re human. And we’re coming!
27. January 2021 at 06:01
This is true, which is why academics need to have the courage to speak out. Glenn Loury, Jordan Peterson, and a few others have … most have not.
And the more this nonsense continues, the more dangerous it becomes. Millions will die, because those in positions of power were too timid to place truth above the security of their jobs.
27. January 2021 at 06:09
This is the contradiction in your logic, that is baffling to me.
You despise cancel culture, yet you vote for Biden/Harris who believe in canceling culture. They just banned the term “China Virus” via executive order. That is a direct violation of the constitution.
Moreover, you publicly support BLM & ANTIFA, or at least BLM (if I remember correctly). BLM is a communist movement that seeks to wage a class war, and a race war, and they use cancel culture as their weapon.
It’s striking that you advocate for the same people who support this weaponization of our speech, yet you don’t like their actions?
Something here doesn’t make sense!
27. January 2021 at 07:21
Hysteria about “white supremacy” is the McCarthyism of our time (with no help from Joe Stalin). From “reds under the bed” we have gone to “white supremacists under the bed”. Guess what? It ain’t real. The richest ethnic groups in America are non-white. “White supremacy” is a useful myth however. One of the characteristics of our time is that hysteria is frequently inversely related to the facts. In China under Mao, “capitalist roaders” were supposedly everywhere and subverting everything. At that time, the number of actual “captialist roaders” (outside of jails and death camps) was around zero. China has vast number of very real “capitalist roaders” these days, but no hysteria. Hitler was hysterical about the supposedly omnipotent “Jews”. The power of penniless refugees is not apparent to me. Hitler knew better. Not to be outdone, Stalin had his “doctors plot” (also involving Jews) and his famous show trials. Khrushchev admitted that it was all a fraud. Now we have “white supremacy” and “racists under the bed”. The very magnitude of the mania shows how false it is. The dominants ideology of our time is “diversity” (really racial quotas). For ever real Klan sympathizer, America has 100 (or 1000) “diversity” fanatics determined to find the “reds under the bed” (make that “racists under the bed”). Racism is very powerful in America, PC racism that is. Just the facts. Let’s try college admissions. Quote “How much harder is it for an Asian-American applicant? Mr. Zhao and the complaint cite 2009 research by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade that found an Asian-American student must earn an SAT score 140 points higher than a white student, 270 points higher than a Hispanic and 450 points higher than an African-American, all else being equal. So if a white applicant scored 2160 on the SAT, lower than last year’s Harvard average, an Asian-American would need to hit 2300, well into the 99% percentile, to have an equal chance at getting in.” So racism is actually quite real in the U.S. Anti-Asian racism is pervasive and profound. If “white racism” and “white supremacy” were even trivially real, whites would be the richest group. The truth is otherwise and the numbers aren’t even close. Average family income for Indian Americans ($107,390), Jews ($97,500), Taiwanese ($85,566), all Asians ($74,245) is greater than Whites ($59,698). As can you see, non-white ethnic groups are at the top and Jews earn (far) more than non-Jewish whites. “White supremacy” is a useful myth however. Don’t give it up.
27. January 2021 at 07:49
Hi Scott – Unrelated, but wondering if you think the current price of Gamestop is reflective of an efficient market at work?
27. January 2021 at 08:08
I’m not sure how we got from you asking a question about whether a character in White Tiger represented Modi to bob cheering on the guy responsible for the second rape of the Sabines.
27. January 2021 at 08:12
Here is your daily dose of the Sumner/Biden/Harris regime hypocrisy.
1. In October, in reference to DJT administration, Biden said, “if you use executive orders, you must be a dictator”. Within the first two hours of his presidency, he signed 17 executive orders.
He has signed 37 as of today.
2. Harris and her communist cohort tell the American people to cancel their culture, and to stop appropriating other cultures (whatever that means), yet she plagiarized and appropriated Martin Luther King’s boyhood story – pretending that it was her own.
Anything to obtain power!
3. So called “experts” — really idiots — want you to get the vaccine, and then wear three masks because three masks increase efficacy from 75% to 90% (apparently the vaccine is worthless). However, on numerous occasions these promulgators have been seen without wearing even one mask. Indeed, CNN anchor, Chris Cuomo, was sent a demand letter by management saying: “you have been observed entering and exiting the building, and entering the elevator without the required face coverings. Even though staff members have asked you to comply with this requirement you have refused to do so”.
Is this the source of Sumner’s propaganda? A guy who tells you to wear three masks, but wears no mask! One rule for the plebes, one for the patricians.
4. Jimmy Carter, and the Carter Center, conducted research on Mail in Voting in 130 countries. They found mail in voting to be the least secure form of voting, and the most open to fraud. Jeff Bezos in September said this research was “absurd” and “out of touch”, and that there was nothing wrong with mail in voting. But now, miraculously, when it comes to Amazon employee “union voting”. Jeff Bezos demands in person voting!
The hypocrisy is overwhelming.
…..The good news is that Wall Street & Political insider cunts are learning how collusion can backfire. The reddit Game Stop purchasing was fantastic, and precisely how the American people (Sumner would call them Plebes) can “collude” to push back against these paper pushers.
Wake up folks. The communist class war, and little red books have arrived.
27. January 2021 at 09:16
Arjun and Pootam, Thanks for that information.
Peter, You say white supremacy doesn’t exist, and then point out that white controlled Ivy League colleges discriminate against Asians. Okay . . .
If your argument is that white supremacist political groups don’t currently hold a lot of power, that’s true. But Trump was a white nationalist, and he recently served as President of the US.
Mira, If you mean “are anti-EMH theories useful for deciding whether to go long or short Gamestock”, the answer is probably no. So in that sense the answer is yes, it’s consistent with the EMH. But keep in mind that EMH doesn’t tell us how much a stock should be worth, because it doesn’t tell us the future cash flows of Gamestock. The theory is almost useless as a tool for understanding fluctuations in Gamestock prices. It’s just a model of how you’d think about the problem.
27. January 2021 at 12:43
Even I don’t write (at least not often) anything I feel like regardless of what Scott wrote. Strange. Scott has become a Trump like figure to some here. I have to admit—I say this often but it is true—I do get a charge out of some of the stuff written even if—or especially if—-Scott is on the cutting board–bet he likes it sometimes too—for example “in their world (meaning India’s?)your organs will be harvested to the highest bidder”.–presumably by people like Scott.
I like Loury and Peterson—but what does that have to do with a movie about India?
Does Scott support BLM or Antifa? How could I have read this blog and never thought that before? Where did Henry get that from? Am I missing something central?
27. January 2021 at 13:01
I was wrong about henry! Sorry about that. It was “bob” who was into the organ harvesting fantasy.
@Scott. Trump was and still is white. He definitely had/has a nationalist streak—so in that sense he is a “white nationalist”. But I have said this before and I will say it again (who was the guy who said I repeat myself? I forget–but he gets a 1/4 touche) “nationalist” per se is perfectly good. In fact, the overwhelming majority of countries are “nationalist”. But we all know what Scott means—-because he has told us before—-it means “hitlerish”—not literally Hitler—but somewhere on that continuum. I understand why utilitarian free market economists (who I mostly agree with–mostly) have this tick about the word “nationalist”—-but if they took a few steps back and looked at the big picture—they would stop using that term in a derogatory way.
27. January 2021 at 13:22
Caste and class are not the same thing. Judging by this
One is born into a caste and will remain a member of that class in this lifetime. Even in strongly classed societies individuals may be elevated or be demoted in class.
It is common for Americans to be confused about this because in general in most places in the U. S. wealth is more important than class. We do have a class system in the U. S. The easiest way to identify someone in the upper class here is that members of the upper class are not allowed to fail. George W. Bush is a good example of that.
27. January 2021 at 13:53
It’s called a short squeeze Xu.
Unfortunately, this squeeze will result in more regulation against retail investors. But it shouldn’t!
Short selling has been out of control for years, and hedge funds and other vultures should not be bailed out.
He got caught trying to manipulate the market, left a paper trail of puts, and retailers nailed him.
If anything, this sends a message to other funds that if you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, and retail investors see you, then it’s game over.
Had he diversified, he wouldn’t have lost his clients money.
27. January 2021 at 15:24
Discrimination against Asians in Ivy League admissions is very real, but it is not on behalf of Whites. If Ivy League discrimination disappeared tomorrow, the number of White students would be roughly unchanged. Quote from “Fewer Asians Need Apply” (https://www.city-journal.org/html/fewer-asians-need-apply-14180.html). Quote
“Another study by Espenshade found that racial preferences for blacks and Latinos at elite colleges come almost entirely at the expense of Asian-Americans rather than whites.”
27. January 2021 at 15:26
Any easy way of understanding the results of racial quotas (the polite PC term is affirmative action), is that Asians are thrown under the bus on behalf of NAM’s (Non-Asian Minorities).
27. January 2021 at 15:48
Anyone wanting to understand the truth about ‘white supremacy’ and/or ‘white racism’ needs to consider the following facts. Of course, the very idea of considering ‘facts’ is racist for the ‘woke’.
All of the richest, most successful ethnic groups are dark-skinned minorities. Of course, Jews are considerably more successful than non-Jews.
Google gets 23,800 hits for “Tony Timpa”, 58,400 hits for “Justine Damond”, and 39,400,000 for “George Floyd”. Some lives count for a lot more than others. Some lives barely matter at all. Tony Timpa died at the hands of the Dallas police under circumstances somewhat similar to George Floyd (in many ways worse). Never heard of him? That’s exactly the point. Some lives just don’t matter. A lady by the name of Justine Diamond was killed by the Minneapolis police. Never heard of her? That’s exactly the point. Some lives just don’t matter
The New York Times actually hired a fanatical racist (Sarah Jeong) for its editorial board. Her history of bigotry was no obstacle to her getting the job. It may have even helped. Of course, she was no ordinary racist. Genocide advocate would be more like it
Quote “How much harder is it for an Asian-American applicant? Mr. Zhao and the complaint cite 2009 research by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade that found an Asian-American student must earn an SAT score 140 points higher than a white student, 270 points higher than a Hispanic and 450 points higher than an African-American, all else being equal. So if a white applicant scored 2160 on the SAT, lower than last year’s Harvard average, an Asian-American would need to hit 2300, well into the 99% percentile, to have an equal chance at getting in.”
In the USA, police are more likely to shoot whites than blacks. Check the actual research of Ronald G. Fryer and Joseph Cesario on this subject.
Every significant institution is the United States is more or less obsessed with “diversity” (really racial quotas). The list of “diversity” obsessed institutions obviously includes academia, the media, Hollywood, corporations, the military, government agencies, etc. The reality is that essentially no racism exists in the United States today. However, this is not quite true. Racism really does exist in America, anti-white and anti-Asian racism that is.
27. January 2021 at 15:50
Yes Peter S., there’s nothing better than being a black man in America.
27. January 2021 at 17:08
“You despise cancel culture, yet you vote for Biden/Harris who believe in canceling culture. They just banned the term “China Virus” via executive order. That is a direct violation of the constitution. ”
They banned…official documents/statements by federal agencies from using such terms. C’mon man.
Scott that he actually believes in free speech and debate. Most people, whether liberal or conservative, are instinctively in favor of ‘canceling’ views that they don’t like, i.e. cutting off the space given to air those ‘bad’ views. It’s only a small minority mostly of educated people who enjoy debating and intellectual combat who feel differently. Conservatives don’t have any real substantive support for more robust debate, they’ve just fallen behind ‘free speech’ as a way to respond when Trump says outrageous things. Yet, they want the federal government to decide what policies private companies can and can’t set for speech when those policies hurt Trump (of course liberals often want the federal government to dictate those companies’ standards as well).
Consider when the WSJ columnist Joseph Epstein penned his screed against Jill Biden’s EdD the WSJ piously talked about the villainy of ‘cancel culture.’ Ludicrous, given the actual content of the Wall Street Journal op-ed page. Liberals are already canceled from writing op-eds there unless they are like Bill Galston and spend most of their time attacking other liberals. The NYT has made some highly questionable moves towards canceling opposing views, but you can still regularly read op-eds that sharply criticize American liberalism and leftism.
27. January 2021 at 17:30
Michel Rulle,
The comment section is all you need to understand the sociology of Trumpism, or any populism for that matter, including hitlerism. You could be writing about banana peel and you’d get page long hysterical rants about pedophilia, the CCP, BLM and organ harvesting.
First time I came into contact with this pattern was in the late 80s when I met a then-70ish actual old Nazi. He had never been in the Nazi party, mind you, and always said he was no Nazi. He just happened to believe everything the Nazis had implanted in people’s brains. In WWII he got taken prisoner early on but the British, so he didn’t witness the downfall and monstrosities within Germany.
And he spent he rest of his life ranting and spewing hatred in private, saw Jews everywhere, claimed concentration camp pictures were actually of German POWs in the UK, that massacring resistants was justified because they were all a bunch of terrorists, that concentration camps were just labor camps for elites who had never worked a day in their life before. He’d call Jazz “noise without a score” and of course, it didn’t help that he saw it as black music. As of the 80’s in Europe, he claimed that unemployment was way higher than the statistics said, that the common worker was starving to death.
His deepest hatred was reserved for what he called “cosmopolitans”. Yes, even in the 30s, it was all about hating cosmopolitans, who he thought had oppressed and subverted the German people. Often times this was just a code word for “Jewish” and at the time, hysteria about satanic child murders by “the Jews” was also a big chunk of the folk lore of these people. QAnon really only ever was just a just copy-paste of the Nazi propaganda machine, all their pet fears replicated – communism, globalism, mix in pedophilia and child murders, and the heroic fight of the common people against the cosmopolitan “elites”, led by the messiah who will make the oppressed great again and usher in a new age of glory.
In this old Nazi’s mind, as today, it was all about one fundamental paranoia: that people of a different culture exist, and that they’re coming for you. So here you have it, this is your Scott’s comment section. It’s the same people except now they’re (presumably) American. Facts are utterly irrelevant, the mind is already filled with garbage, and has been closed forever.
27. January 2021 at 18:55
The future is built by those who checked their data, consulted their own conscience, and insisted eppur si muove.
But have Mr. Khan checked his data. Isaac Newton was absolutely conventional academic of his age, Maxwell didn’t have any problems with scientific establishment, Einstein had some trouble from some quarters, but he had vocal supporters from the very beginning. The whole quantum mechanics revolution happened over strenuous objections of classically minded physicists, but no one was “canceled” as far as I know. On the other hand, there are a lot of cranks rejected by establishment and for a good reason. Russeau and Marx had some trouble in their lives, but Smith seem to sail through without much personal grief. Darwin as well had a pretty smooth life. It doesn’t seem that deep thinking, in general, correlates with a troubled career.
27. January 2021 at 19:07
I disagree somewhat with the comments about Gamestop and the EMH. I have a lot of respect for the EMH, largely due to the influence of this blog and my years as a stockbroker, watching the markets daily.
The EMH is mostly true, but not nearly absolutely true. That is markets are not absolutely relatively more efficient than individual investors at all times. Beating the market consistently is difficult, and rare, but it happens.
Also, prices are not always based on even a consideration of fundamentals, such as PV is future earnings or dividends. That’s exactly what this situation with GameStop, AMC Theaters, Bed Bath and Beyond, Macy’s and other companies illustrates. This is social activism. The temporary opportunities that these boosts in capital afford will not permanently increase earnings for obsolete business models. GameStop will not sell physical game cartridges indefinitely, in the face of digital streaming. AMC will not fundamentally change the fact that the gap between the movie-going experience and the home movie experience continues to shrink. Macy’s, as an old, outdated department store, will not suddenly become trendy.
A key tenate of EMH is that prices are unpredictable, or with weaker versions, very hard to predict. I’m now looking to short many of the above, because these prices will fall when the activitists are satisfied they’ve squeezed the shorts as much as possible. This is very easy to predict.
27. January 2021 at 19:08
MBKA, It is a sad truth that if you replace ‘Jew’ with ‘White” you have the ideology of the ‘woke’ today. The same hatred. The same irrational bigotry. Back then it was the conspirital Jews who were responsible for every evil. Now we have ‘white racism’ and ‘white supremacy’ that are responsible for every evil. Some things never change.
That parallels between Nazism and Wokeism are rather clear. However, the links between Wokeism and Mao’s Cultural Revolution are actually better. For Mao’s fanatics, it was ‘capitalist roaders’, now it’s white supremacists. Fictions of course. But very popular fictions, for a while at least. Maoism included ‘struggle sessions’. Now we have ‘struggle sessions’ at the New York Times. See “The Struggle Sessions Are Real” (https://reason.com/podcast/2020/06/08/the-struggle-sessions-are-real/)
27. January 2021 at 19:16
msgkinds, trying to change the subject isn’t going to help you. The dominant (and very PC) forms of bigotry and racism in America are anti-White and anti-Asian. Those are just the facts. You don’t have to like them. E pur si muove.
27. January 2021 at 19:31
I was going to ask your opinion on the Reddit/GameStop controversy as well but Mira beat me to it. Calls are already going out (even by Nasdaq) to introduce new regulations to stop ‘this sort of thing’ from happening, which is vexing, as it isn’t clear that all those Redditor small time investors weren’t a corrective for a bad investment by a big hedge fund. May just be EMH in action.
27. January 2021 at 20:07
Peter,
you and your ilk have a persecution complex. Your main grievance is that you feel entitled to a certain position in life and society. You feel that you’re getting less and less of the respect you believe you’re due. Truth is, what you see happening is just that you’re becoming … like everyone else on the planet, that’s all. You claim that all these wokesters are snowflakes who think they’re so special, when they’re not. Truth is, those snowflakes… that’s you. You’re not special just because of your race or your passport.
See, I’m white too, and the vast majority of my life I’ve lived as a racial, cultural and political minority, in non-white, non-Western countries and in work environments that were often ideologically much to the left of myself. I am pretty confident that I lost employment opportunities, and possibly a chance to get a Green Card to the US many decades ago, because I shared non-PC views at the time, to people who then didn’t support me as a result. And yet. Win some, lose some. I’m still vastly privileged in many ways over so many others on this planet. I’m easily upper middle class. For every instance I might have been unduly discriminated against, there’s others where I might have been unduly favored. Where I was the privileged one. When I look at my life, it still is mostly a mixture of self inflicted losses and successes, and some random luck. Positive or negative discrimination were always there but they weren’t the main factor.
I can only recommend to stop obsessing that there’s this cabal out there to get you. Truth is, most of the time, no one cares about you. If you are where you are at in life, chances are, your own choices had something to do with it.
27. January 2021 at 20:51
Actually, I just placed a limit order to buy a put on GameStop. If the order isn’t executed, I’ll place another.
27. January 2021 at 23:28
@Peter S.,
I’d like to take advantage of having an unapologetic racist here to ask this question. If some blonde dude from Sweden converts to Judaism, is he still white? How about his kids?
28. January 2021 at 06:08
msgkinds, I love it. The new definition of ‘racism’ is using oogle statistics, quoting from the LA Times, and using NBER/PNAS. Wow. I guess if I say that 2+2 is 4 that is also ‘racist’.
Your obsession with Swedes, blond people, and Jews has been duly noted and it is very ugly (but not surprising).
Facts are clearly racist and we can not end racism until we abolish facts. That is obvious.
28. January 2021 at 07:37
@Peter S,
So you can’t answer the question? Let me ask it another way. Are Jews white? If not, why not?
28. January 2021 at 08:16
Mbka, You don’t have the slightest idea who I am and what I have done. I real life, I have had a successful career and don’t’ feel persecuted. However, I do have a certain affinity for facts and ideas that are now considered to be ‘racist’.
I believe that people should be judged by the ‘content of their character rather than the color of their skin’ (from MLK). That’s a ‘racist’ idea now, but was considered an ideal in the past. Now the ‘color of their skin’ is all that matters and you are ‘racist’ if you don’t know that.
Of course, if you don’t buy into the latest ‘woke’ BS, you are ‘racist’. Obviously. If you considered CRT (Critical Race Theory) to be mind-numbingly racist (which it is), you are racist.
If you don’t buy into the nonsense of Robin DiAngelo about ‘white fragility’ you are ‘racist’.
msgkings,
I did answer your question. You just don’t like the answer. My suggestion would be to try a mirror. You won’t like what you see and for very good reason. Asking questions like ‘are Jews White?” is textbook racism and anti-semitism. Very wrong, but not surprising coming from you.
28. January 2021 at 08:34
Why is Peter Schaeffer being vilified as a racist? You can read Coleman Hughes, Glenn Loury, Kmele Foster and a number of other black intellectuals, for example, making many of the same points about the pitfalls of woke-ism. For example, as this table shows, the dreaded white Americans don’t start appearing until Norwegian Americans show up at #11 in the household income detailed ancestry chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income#By_detailed_races (I have to point out that it is galling to see Scottish Americans a full 9 rankings above Irish Americans. Something needs to be done about that.)
28. January 2021 at 08:39
@Peter:
Nice try. You’re the one making very stark distinctions above between Jewish people and white people. I’m just trying to parse how deep your racism goes. Do converts count as white still in your categorizations?
It’s all in black and white (heh) on this thread. Care to explain this one? “All of the richest, most successful ethnic groups are dark-skinned minorities. Of course, Jews are considerably more successful than non-Jews.” Or this? “Average family income for Indian Americans ($107,390), Jews ($97,500), Taiwanese ($85,566), all Asians ($74,245) is greater than Whites ($59,698). As can you see, non-white ethnic groups are at the top and Jews earn (far) more than non-Jewish whites.”
Sounds like Jewish success doesn’t really apply to white supremacy in your eyes. Oh sorry, forgot to capitalize White.
28. January 2021 at 08:49
Carl, “I have to point out that it is galling to see Scottish Americans a full 9 rankings above Irish Americans”. How are Scottish Americans and Irish Americans defined? Most surveys I have seen show the reverse (Irish Americans are ahead of Scottish Americans).
That’s not surprising (that Irish Americans would be relatively) ahead. Very roughly stated, Scottish Americans tend to be rural, southern, and appalachian and Irish Americans tend to be urban and northern.
I should say that I am not Irish or Scottish, but did come from Chicago.
28. January 2021 at 09:03
I think they distinguish by brand of whiskey and whether the males of the household feel comfortable wearing a skirt.
28. January 2021 at 09:25
Msgkinds,
Lying and anti-semitism won’t make your situation any better. You are just digging your hole even deeper.
I wrote
“As can you see, non-white ethnic groups are at the top and Jews earn (far) more than non-Jewish whites. “White supremacy” is a useful myth however. Don’t give it up.”
And
“All of the richest, most successful ethnic groups are dark-skinned minorities. Of course, Jews are considerably more successful than non-Jews.”
Where I have even implied that Jews are not-White? You are just lying/making stuff up. In real life, some Jews are White, some are not. Sephardic Jews are typically from Arab countries and look like other Arabs. Ashkenazi Jews are typically from Europe and look like other Europeans. Chinese Jews (yes, they exist) are from China and look like other Chinese.
Sadly, wokeism and anti-semitism are two sides of the same coin. Time to replace the change in your pockets.
28. January 2021 at 09:54
@Peter,
The tell is you capitalizing the word “white”. One of us is racist, and it’s not me.
28. January 2021 at 10:31
Michael, You said:
“I was wrong about henry! Sorry about that. It was “bob” who was into the organ harvesting fantasy.”
Easy mistake to make, they submit comments from the same computer.
David, Yes, I know what caste is
Peter, You said:
“Discrimination against Asians in Ivy League admissions is very real, but it is not on behalf of Whites.”
Actually, it is.
mbka, Good comment. People don’t understand how much of the right represents aspects of the Nazi mindset, without literally being Nazis. The 35% of Germans who voted for Hitler were just ordinary people, people who would have voted for Trump in America. (Just as Communist voters in Germany would have voted for Biden.) Put people in stressful circumstances and that’s what comes out.
Peter, You said:
“However, the links between Wokeism and Mao’s Cultural Revolution”
I’ve made that comparison many times in this blog.
Mark, The idea that Gamestock suggests a need for more regulation is pretty insane. But then our whole society is pretty insane.
28. January 2021 at 12:08
Msgkinds,
You wrote “The tell is you capitalizing the word “white”.”
Take a look at my comments below. I have been highly inconsistent about capitalizing “white”. However, you obsession with the issue is quite revealing about the depths of your racism.
“Hysteria about “white supremacy” is the McCarthyism of our time (with no help from Joe Stalin).”
“Guess what? It ain’t real. The richest ethnic groups in America are non-white.”
“Now we have “white supremacy” and “racists under the bed”.”
“As can you see, non-white ethnic groups are at the top and Jews earn (far) more than non-Jewish”
“Discrimination against Asians in Ivy League admissions is very real, but it is not on behalf of Whites. If Ivy League discrimination disappeared tomorrow, the number of White students would be roughly unchanged.”
“Anyone wanting to understand the truth about ‘white supremacy’ and/or ‘white racism’ needs to consider the following facts.”
“However, this is not quite true. Racism really does exist in America, anti-white and anti-Asian racism that is.”
“MBKA, It is a sad truth that if you replace ‘Jew’ with ‘White” you have the ideology of the ‘woke’ today. The same hatred. The same irrational bigotry. Back then it was the conspirital Jews who were responsible for every evil. Now we have ‘white racism’ and ‘white supremacy’ that are responsible for every evil. Some things never change.”
“For Mao’s fanatics, it was ‘capitalist roaders’, now it’s white supremacists. Fictions of course.”
“The dominant (and very PC) forms of bigotry and racism in America are anti-White and anti-Asian. Those are just the facts. You don’t have to like them. E pur si muove.”
“If you don’t buy into the nonsense of Robin DiAngelo about ‘white fragility’ you are ‘racist’.”
28. January 2021 at 13:03
Scott, you said;
“Mark, The idea that Gamestock suggests a need for more regulation is pretty insane. But then our whole society is pretty insane.”
Yes, you’re quite right. As a former stockbroker, I saw the market regulations from the inside, and they often have the opposite of the intended effects, along with creating lots of friction and frustration for those inside the industry and their clients.
Take the accredited investor requirements, for example. They restrict investment in pre-exchange IPO offerings and some private venture capital opportunities. In the name of protecting small investors, there are minimum wealth and/or income requirements to be met to take advantage of such opportunities. So, small investors can’t purchase shares of SpaceX, for example, without the aid of a lawyer and the setting up of an LLC as a special purpose vehicle, if they don’t meet the accredited investor requirements. In practice, all this does is limit some of the best opportunites to the wealthy.
Or, take margin requirements. It’s not legal to directly buy stock shares with a credit card, or any other line of credit, other than a brokerage margin account. Yet many people start small businesses on credit cards. This is ostensibly to protect investors from themselves. Yet, is it riskier to start a small business on a credit card, or to invest in Google or Apple stock? Note that I don’t think it’s a good idea to use a credit card to invest, but I think people should have the freedom to finance investments as they see fit.
For a third example, there are restrictions on the advertising of investment performance that actually protect firms and individual managers that can only offer mediocre returns, though this is not the stated purpose of the restrictions.
Having no regulations would be much closer to optimal than the regulatory structure we have in the US investment management industry.
28. January 2021 at 16:00
Peter S. (and re: Carl)
your writing style is very aggressive, emotional, and screams “hurt”. I’m not actually sure what you believe because you seem to mix pointed provocative remarks with somewhat unclear verbiage. Example, you really made it sound like you believed Jews were non-white, but re-reading your comment, you may just have wanted to be provocative. Etc. At the end I don’t know anymore what you’re actually arguing for, save for being argumentative.
Side note, “White”, “Black” and “Asian” are spectacularly bad ways to distinguish ethnic groups. There’s many ethic groups that are “White”, from France to Scotland to Ukraine. “Asians” encompass Han Chinese and Indian Tamils. Australian Aborigenes and Nigerian Igbo are both “Black” etc. The ethnic groupings may be real, but assembling them by color categories is absurd. Don’t get me started about “Non-White”.
28. January 2021 at 16:21
AA (Affirmative Action) benefits NAM’s not whites. I already wrote (quoted)
“Discrimination against Asians in Ivy League admissions is very real, but it is not on behalf of Whites. If Ivy League discrimination disappeared tomorrow, the number of White students would be roughly unchanged. Quote from “Fewer Asians Need Apply” (https://www.city-journal.org/html/fewer-asians-need-apply-14180.html). Quote
“Another study by Espenshade found that racial preferences for blacks and Latinos at elite colleges come almost entirely at the expense of Asian-Americans rather than whites.””
However, we have other data points. Stuyvesant high school bases admissions entirely on a test (the SHSAT). Here is a typical quote
“Whose Side Are Asian-Americans On? – A proposal to integrate New York City’s top public high schools would be a boon to black and Latinx students—and a disaster for Asians.”
I can find only serious study of who benefits from AA (Thomas Espenshade and Chang Chung). See “The Opportunity Cost of Admission Preferences at Elite Universities” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/42956064?seq=1). Quote
“Espenshade and Chung found that if affirmative action were to be eliminated, the acceptance rates for black and Latino applicants would likely decrease substantially, while the acceptance rate for white applicants would increase slightly.
But more than that, what they noted was that the acceptance rate for Asian-American applicants would increase the most by far.
As the researchers explained, Asian-American students “would occupy four out of every five seats created by accepting fewer African-American and Hispanic students.””
Of course, you can believe whatever you like. However, the available facts don’t support your position.
28. January 2021 at 16:36
mbka, I actually wrote
“As can you see, non-white ethnic groups are at the top and Jews earn (far) more than non-Jewish whites.”
Those words imply that Jews are a subset of whites (which is essentially correct in US, but not worldwide)
I would the first to agree that “White”, “Black” and “Asian” are spectacularly bad ways to distinguish ethnic groups (your words).
You will note that the family income statistics were (in part) at a finer level of resolution.
“Average family income for Indian Americans ($107,390), Jews ($97,500), Taiwanese ($85,566), all Asians ($74,245) is greater than Whites ($59,698).”