The Liberal Blind Spot
&gt; What were your honest, visceral, reactions to each of these statements?<p>Let me add some:<p>Attractive white woman says that low income white man stole something from her. What will happen?<p>Black woman and white woman each comment that babies of their own race are the prettiest babies. What will happen?<p>Power dynamics are fluid and contextual.<p>&gt; Helping groups isn&#x27;t the same as discrimination.<p>It is. The only cases where it makes a difference are inherently zero sum or net negative, because if they weren&#x27;t then the racial preference wouldn&#x27;t have been necessary to reach the same outcome.<p>&gt; Watch that video and tell me, with a straight face, that 90% of US prison populations are black men because they commit more crimes, and not because they simply are arrested more often.<p>90% of US prison populations are men. Less than half of those men are black men. Black men are, however, highly overrepresented in part for the reasons you suggest.<p>&gt; Girls do as well as boys in engineering and programming, and yet many cultural pressures push them away -- not least of which are the attitudes of boys (and other girls) toward girls who seem to &quot;geeky.&quot; Is it bad to have programs that encourage girls to follow STEM career paths?<p>It depends on the nature of the program. Does the program mitigate the cultural pressures? Good. Does the program make girls &quot;special&quot; and give them things not available to the boys? Not good.<p>&gt; It was <i>far</i> easier for me to get where I am because I&#x27;m privileged, and I&#x27;m not going to poke fun at people who are trying to help those who aren&#x27;t.<p>Which is why it&#x27;s a lot easier to tell how much help someone needs based on where they are right now rather than the color of their skin or whether or not they have a penis.