Comments

  4. Reginald Selkirk says

    Numbers? Details? Like these:
    COVID-19 surveys halted in Minnesota amid racism, intimidation

    A door-to-door COVID-19 testing survey has been halted due to multiple incidents in greater Minnesota of residents intimidating and shouting racial and ethnic slurs at state and federal public health survey teams…
    “We found that our white teams had a very different experience, a much more positive experience…”

  5. says

    I mean, Wells Fargo just had to pay out millions because they were caught discriminating about black people but sure, systemic racism doesn’t exist because that would hurt Mr Atheist Pants’s feelings.

  7. Rob Grigjanis says

    The proof of systemic racism requires pulling one’s head out of one’s arse, opening one’s eyes, and looking around for a few minutes. The first step seems problematical for Silverman.

  9. DanDare says

    Fuck a duck! All he has to do is review the data. There seems to be a fracture in his epistemology.

  10. John Morales says

    DanDare:

    There seems to be a fracture in his epistemology.

    Nah, just speciousness. He carefully sidesteps any epistemology, lest it betray his dogwhistle.

    Obs, the claim that just a belief in something doesn’t entail that something is veridical is applicable to everything and anything; it’s equally true that just because some people “are SURE there isn’t systemic racism” isn’t proof there isn’t.

    (Or: The insinuation that the conclusion is instead the basis is specious)

  11. unclefrogy says

    In this case I will take the word of the majority (if not all) black people that they experience what can only be described as systemic racism.
    I am not “black” so my experience and my perception are libel to be inaccurate with regards to racism though I do have experience with other kinds of prejudice.
    Is he scrambling to try and stay safe by appealing to what he thinks is the ascendant power in order to be safe.
    My reading of the relevant history starts with George Wallace standing in the door way it ended for him and the school house rather differently, I see no indication that the trend of history is going to reverse any time soon.

    @8 hahahahahah!!
    uncle frogy

  13. A Sloth named Sparkles says

    @ WMDKitty — Survivor

    More like desperate for money.
    I remember reading somewhere that the likes of Krauss & Silverman are doing this (defending bad rich people & racists etc.) because they’re desperate for more quote unquote “science funding”. Funding for research is hard, and without a lifeline like Epstein, they seem to do anything to some, even if it means kowtowing to far right think tanks.

  15. chrislawson says

    unclefrogy@11–

    I’m all for accepting the experiences of Black people in America, but you don’t need to take anyone’s word for it. The evidence for systemic racism is overwhelming. Silverman’s analogy is wilfully misleading. A far better analogy would be a creationist saying the firm beliefs of evolutionary researchers is not evidence for evolution — which would be a good argument if not for all that pesky actual scientific evidence.

    Here, for example, is one easy-to-Google Lancet paper that goes through the evidence for structural racism with over 9 references.

  19. unclefrogy says

    @15
    I know there is overwhelming evidence of “systemic racism” and a whole bunch of other un-categorized racism if i was to need it but I do not I am good with what those who are directly experience it telling me it exists their word is good enough for.
    I was making a reference to the tweet’s text. which seems to indicate that there is not any because no “numbers”
    only because he has not looked obviously or has not experienced racial discrimination.
    uncle frogy

  20. PaulBC says

    @15

    I’m all for accepting the experiences of Black people in America, but you don’t need to take anyone’s word for it. The evidence for systemic racism is overwhelming.

    Yes and yes.

    It’s also a reasonable null hypothesis because we know that the US was openly and proudly racist until recently. What mechanism would have suddenly made Americans stop being racist?

    I am willing to change my mind on anything, but you can tell a lot about a person by their contrarian positions. Why shouldn’t I take Black people at their word? I take a lot of people at their word when they make reasonable claims.

  21. antaresrichard says

    I believe it possible to FEEL bullets ripping into you, to FEEL the weight of a knee, to FEEL a job denial, to FEEL the unfounded suspicion and fear others hold, and its effects, to FEEL…

  22. lotharloo says

    He is a grifter. This is just rudimentary grifting in action. I am still waiting for him to convert to Christianity. “I used to be an atheist but …” sells really well.

  27. Samuel Vimes says

    Sorry, I typed “not-behind-a-paywall” when I meant “not-behind-a-login”‘ Me no brain good this morning.

  28. Kagehi says

    Thought Slime has a new video that explains these nitwits “logic”. The whole video is good, but the good bit, to me, is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIZ_3-i5FY4?t=758

    Short version – Its only institutional if its “stated policy”, and you can prove that the policy is specifically directed at specific groups. A dozen, hundred, thousand, million cases of police, or others, acting in a certain way isn’t “evidence”, its merely X number of single, unconnected, incidents (a few bad apples).

  30. littlejohn says

    The unspoken presupposition is that the only evidence of systemic racism is that some Black people hold that opinion. The foundation of his argument is utterly false, and cannot be built upon. We have no obligation to follow his argument further.

  31. tacitus says

    I am still waiting for him to convert to Christianity.

    Not necessary these days. All you have to be is the IDW’s or alt-right’s pet atheist, to get in on the grift. Remember, politics trumps everything.

  32. mnb0 says

    Is there anyone here who thinks that atheism prevents people from stupidity and dishonesty a la creacrap?

  34. Mrdead Inmypocket says

    I guess Silverman is right, our lived experience isn’t proof. Just because we feel like there is a disparity in something like, I dunno, judicial sentencing. There would still need to be a comprehensive study which accounts for variables like the severity of the initial charge, criminal history, community characteristics etc and shows definitively that institutional racism ‘permeates’ the judicial system. Unfortunately no such study has been recently completed and widely published which Silverman might have found if he had taken a few moments to google the term ‘institutional racism’ . It simply does not exist.

    I mean, who can know these things for sure. I’m glad someone like him was brave enough to bring forth this powerful gas light and shine a little logic on irrational beliefs. I’m grateful to have been disabused of my feels I tells ya. I’m going to try and internalize this.

    So when one of the little’uns, who can’t seem to nod off unless she’s being driven in a car, needs an evening ride. I know exactly what Silverman would be feeling in that situation too. He has anxiety, he has to pay mind to the danger of being pulled over by police every time he brings her out. Because there is no actual proof of systemic racism I know we both share the same level of anxiety. And here I was thinking that he probably wouldn’t have given a situation like that a second thought. Now I know my feels are misleading me. Boy do I have egg on my face.

  35. klatu says

    What are you all even doing, seriously trying to refute him? Everytime someone engages him, he wins.

    The absurdity of the claims made is obvious. Which is the entire point. It’s attention grabbing. It’s meant as advertisement / “virtue”-signalling for his fellow fascists. Silverman is trying hard to get in on the grift, using “normie” outrage as a signal boost to put himself on the map.

    Don’t give him the attention. Don’t let him become the next Shapiro or Rubin. The only people benefiting from this kind of spectacle are the assholes.

  36. PaulBC says

    @35 There’s a risk of just ignoring people. I remember seeing David Duke’s early forays into web-enabled racism in the mid-90s and considered it a joke. It was really a sign of terrible things to come (glad groups like SPLC aren’t as dumb as I was).

    Perhaps a better tack to take than engaging is “STFU. You know you’re lying.” But you can’t let verbal poison go unchallenged.

  37. tacitus says

    I don’t know about Silverman, but when I’ve seen others denying systemic racism exists, they usually conflate it with institutionalized or legal racism, arguing that since racial discrimination is illegal in this country, any racism minorities encounter is the result of personal bigotry and not part of a systemic problem.

    So if black people have to work 25% harder to find accomodation, and get a bank loan, and get a good deal on a car, and be accepted to college, and win a promotion, and avoid traffic stops, and avoid harassment by the police, it’s all the fault of individual racists, and not of the system that continues to enable them.

    Pretty sure that’s how they defend the indefensible.

  38. PaulBC says

    @37 Or more succinctly “I do not give a rat’s ass about any injustice that does not harm me personally.”

  39. PaulBC says

    And the fact that they will expend more words and intellectual effort than I have in @38 only shows that they attach a much higher priority on covering their own ass and appearing “rational” than on making anybody’s life better.

  40. says

    Silverman is defiant towards the experiences of other people, and isn’t including the experiences he is defying. I think of this as politically marking territory, referring to the thing disparagingly without engaging with it.

  41. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    only some people think there is systematic racism and because they are black, he can assert they are only expressing feelings? — he has his head stuck way up his a$$, pffft harrumph