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Dec 12, 2021Liked by The 21st Century Salonnière

I’ve often thought that we’re playing with fire having these mandatory white affinity groups that are supposed to discuss “anti racism” Robin DiAngelo style. One day, somewhere, it’s going to backfire and the white group decide “actually we’re the oppressed ones.”

I mean, historically, segregating people and making whites super conscious of race hasn’t gone well.

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Dec 12, 2021Liked by The 21st Century Salonnière

I loved this post (and am working on a similar post for my own Substack). I have a rule for myself online: I allow all comments that are polite. This includes ideas with which I strongly disagree. I have a Facebook friend who is extremely anti-feminist (for example, he thinks that married women shouldn’t “take jobs away from men”), but so long as he is civil, I let him speak his piece. He grew up in a dysfunctional family and has dealt with poverty, unemployment, and health problems. His anti-feminism is not a great opinion to hold, to my mind, but it comes from a place of suffering, not of hatred.

A college friend gave me another terrific way to send potentially contentious conversations in a productive direction. He was a disciple of Milton Friedman, and I was (and am) a far-left Democrat. We agreed on basically nothing. But in one of our arguments, he said, “Can we agree that we both want the same goals, but we just have different ideas of how to achieve them?” That question has stayed with me, and I remind myself of it whenever “in-group vs. out-group” thinking starts to become a problem.

Thanks for starting the conversation!

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Dec 12, 2021Liked by The 21st Century Salonnière

Typo: I don't think Joe B is coming FROM my children ...

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