Scott Alexander

I've lived in plurality black neighbourhoods twice in my life, and although they had their problems, I never felt afraid for my life.

I assume there is some much worse 99% black horribly poor ghetto where I would feel afraid for my life, but I also imagine that there are some horribly poor 99% white towns where blacks feel afraid for their lives, and the difference between if you're white, have some prudence about living in the horribly poor 99% black ghetto, versus blacks are a hate group and you should flee from them, is the difference between good justifiable reasoning and racism.

I'm fine with admitting that we tolerate low-res caricature unsophisticated statements on other topics in a way that we don't tolerate them on race, but different topics suggest different levels of caution.

If you asked me where the kidney is, I would answer with different levels of sophistication depending on whether you were curious versus about to perform surgery.

A country where 25% of the population is chomping at the bit for race war is a place where you should use high sophistication for race-related statements.

And yes, I agree that woke people also fail at this and are blameworthy.

And the word for when people in that particular country instead use culpably low-resolution and unsophisticated statements is racism.

And although in general I try not to use it so I don't have to get into interminable debates like this one, I don't think it's wrong to use it here.

Back to the text.

Does that mean Adams should have been cancelled and lost his livelihood?

I'm against this sort of cancellation full stop, so I say no.

I think it's a dumb opinion, and maybe a bit evil in the complicated sense where it's hard to disentangle evil from ignorance.

But many people hold opinions of approximately that level of badness, and it's not worth hating them all.

Footnote.

Although I don't think Adams' cancellation was fair according to normal human logic, I think it had a certain odd sort of cosmic justice.

4chan's deployment of the it's okay to be white slogan was, maybe literally, out of Adams' book.

Say something completely inoffensive, make sure everyone knows it has a secret offensive meaning, then retreat back to, what?

You're upset at our totally inoffensive thing?

How silly, when anyone calls you out on it.

This maneuver didn't fool woke people at all.