But don't you acknowledge that that statistic is a bit strange? Don't you wonder why it is that the majority of drug offenders/drug users are white and the majority of prisoners from drug crimes are black?

Sure, we should focus on ways to tackle drugs which don't involve sending people to jail, but isn't that statistic by itself, strange? How do you think reducing the total number of people taking drugs would fix the disparity between white people and black people going to jail for committing the same crime?

What about the studies that show that people with white sounding names with exactly the same qualifications as people with black sounding names are more likely to get job interviews? Doesn't that seem strange as well or is that just BS?

I don't think about it, if I did I would probably look at it from a perspective of location, lots of white users in suburbs where less people care or even look, more black users in cities where there's more pressure on the police to arrest. But those don't interest me, you're looking at statistics and you're losing the individuals. You're reaching to solve the problem but you're ignoring the people in front of you that need it.

I'm more interested in WHY they turn to drugs, because that's how you STOP it. Is it gang related? Peer Pressure? Lack of something to do so they get High? Escapism? Pushing themselves down to keep from dealing with problems?

Instead you're looking at statistics and looking at it from a racial issue, maybe it's not, maybe it is but you're not seeing the right angle of it. Is it the circulation of harder drugs through areas where more black users are? Are they more frequent users so it's harder to ignore?

The names thing, honestly I never heard, and as a retail worker, it also seems pretty strange, and it's very hard to navigate job interviews for specific information, I mean, look at how much info you see to 'nail' an interview, and how they can differ. I honestly can't tell you that, nor am I actually qualified with information that would give me any specific insight. I've seen people turned down because they've rubbed a person the wrong way, I've put applications away from some people who on paper seem qualified but in person they don't. Paper statistics don't tell the whole story.

I guess if it doesn't interest you, it doesn't interest you. As it doesn't effect you, I can understand why it wouldn't interest you. This was a topic that interested me a lot so I studied it a bit in uni. Just to clarify a couple of issues:

1. Whilst there are a disproportionate number of black people arrested for drug offences, there are also a disproportionate number of black people jailed for drug offences. So it is not just the higher arrest rates that is a problem, it is the higher incarceration rates.
2. You ask if there is a circulation of harder drugs through areas where there are more black users. The answer is no, there are actually more harder drugs in white areas - hence more white drug users of harder drugs (although fewer convictions).
3. Are black people more frequent users? Again, no. White people are, yet fewer arrests and convictions.
4. Is drug taking gang related? Possibly, I didn't know white gangs were a major problem, but maybe they are and maybe they are the reason why white people take more drugs, but I don't know if white gangs explains why they get incarcerated less.

For mine, the solution is quite simple. Legalise drug use and put systems in place to treat those who become addicted. That doesn't resolve the underlying racial biases that the US (and Australian) legal systems have, however.

Regarding the job interview study. Again to clarify, the issue wasn't about interviews at all. The author of the study submitted two identical job applications (save for the name). The job applications that appeared to be from people with white names received interview requests (not actual interviews) far more than the job applications from people who appeared to have black names. The name was the only difference.

I appreciate you are trying really hard to not look at these things from a racial perspective, but maybe that is a possible explanation for the disparity.

I'm not looking at it from a racial standpoint because I refuse to look at it from a statistical standpoint. I'm looking at it from a personal standpoint, I'm looking at their indicidual stories, because when you look at statistics, you lose EVERYTHING about them except what goes onto a census form, and I've seen those, I've seen so many of those that they blurred together after a while.

I look at the personal because I can't help numbers, numbers are big, numbers are intimidating, numbers mean that you spend time looking at them, discussing, trying to find meaning in them. When honestly? Isn't it better to be helping someone? Isn't all of this talk about social justice actually helping people? Individual people with their own stories, their own drives and ambitions that lose meaning when they get looked at as party of a group of numbers. Hell there may be people who are driven to drugs, and crime, and drinking because they become convinced by people who are looking at the numbers that there isn't any help for them, because people aren't looking at THEM.

I'll admit, I have no interest in numbers, you can go on about statistics and you'll lose me. But sit someone down in front of me, let me hear their story, and my attention is as sharp as a freshly made knife. People interest me, greatly, I love people watching, I love reading forums and poking people because it interests me. But the most important thing is each person as individuals, not as groups, because individuals are varied, think about it, how many billions of people on this planet are there, and no two people perfectly alike.

I'm going to be perfectly blunt with you since you seem incapable of grasping this—the comic in question is at least a month older than Brad Wardell's tweet. Here's the comic being brought up on September 30th. Here's the tweet on the 1st of November. This isn't self-defense; this is twisting the dates and dishonestly juxtaposing images in order to create a false narrative that the person was offered a job because they made a tasteless comic. If the parties in question were reversed, you would be crying harassment.

When did that stop being racism and start being privilege? Am I privileged for living in a country where I don't have to worry about cartels decapitating me? Am I alone in finding it damaging to deflect racism by calling it white privilege instead of the prejudice against black people that it is? I also find concepts like "rape culture" and "toxic masculinity" damaging because they act as handy scapegoats that allow people to deflect lapses in personal responsibility by blaming it on culture instead of their own failings.

I say it proves he liked the artist's work, which goes against Brad's backpedal that he was neutral or non-inquisitive.

Do you realize that's pretty much exactly what I feel that you are doing? If you have a specific complaint then please bring it up, but you're defending two people I happen to have had interactions with and think I know to a small degree. What makes you think you know better because the CHS and Brad I'm familiar with both like to stir shit up and use half-truths?

Are you seriously trying to say that a patriarchy doesn't exist? Not form, extent or effect, just that it does actually exist and it worth discussing?

and...
then what? You've provided the beginnings of a sketch of a character. How am I supposed to form any kind of judgement on the character or your talents as a storyteller without any context or depth? There's nothing there for me to critique.

Were are you going with this? Wouldn't the issue not be about how sexist or not the character is but whether it's worthy of respect? If you created this character only because you were lazy and just wanted an sympathetic object, then it would be justifiable to say your story is sexist and horrible, no? If you succeeded in bringing enough life into this character so that she became more than a convenient object of the plot then perhaps some ethical journalist will give you a good review, right?

I wasn't addressing particulars. I didn't ask about the particulars of drug crime policy. All I'm talking about right now is a disparity of numbers. Factual information only at this point. You just spend a lot of effort, including a touching yet irrelevant personal story in not acknowledging a measurable disparity. It doesn't matter what your interests or suppositions are if you do not take the first step of acknowledging that the disparity exists without qualification. This may be why some people have given you curt replies to the effect that you even have to ask.

You have to acknowledge the issue first. It makes you sound like you are deliberately evasive. No buts, howevers, or attachments of any kind to the basic ideas of a disparity between race or gender. We're not even getting to any qualitative or value judgement, just simply that patriarchy is an actual thing. Racial inequity is an actual thing. Gender inequity is an actual thing. Whether or not they are positive, negative or inert is the second step. But if you can't take the first step then you can't have a conversation about them. And it makes you look like you are denying they exist when they are measurable and tangible.

Personally, I don't think it stopped being racism. I think you'll find TwilightBard thinks it never started being racism. I can't answer for him on that.

I wasn't saying it was "privilege", I was just encouraging TwilightBard to think about those issue and maybe question why they happen. Its for him to decide whether it is racism, privilege or something else. I personally don't use the term privilege but I don't think "privilege" and "racism" are mutually exclusive terms.

I don't think you are privileged for living in an area where you don't have to worry about cartels decapitating you. Perhaps someone who did live in such an area would have a different view.

Dude, I could play your game and say by that logic you are a rape apologist. It would be unfair, cos that's not what you mean, and if you want to be literal rapes may not involve any sleeping with, but then again, they might right?

It is possible Brad liked the guys work, if that's what you want me to agree, yet that does not prove anything about genteel manners, especially related to subjectively offensive art which had been censored and was therefore not available at the time.

It's also probable Brad likes the guys tweets, or was just talking. That thing humans do, even with perfect strangers. I'm talking to you, but if you say that proves I like you I'm going to lol. :)

Possibly, but their opinion doesn't really change what it is. Say you're in a restaurant and everyone but you has their soup spat in. They may view you as privileged for being the only one who didn't have to deal with that, but it doesn't change the fact that the root of the problem is the restaurant having incredibly poor standards. Getting mad at you in that hypothetical scenario does nothing to solve the problem.

That's the problem with these ridiculous labels. Recently Jonathan McIntosh posted a video about the "25 Invisible Benefits of Gaming While Male" that included a number of different people in the gaming and game journalism industries. What's the point of pointing this out to us if they're the ones in a position to change it? They can simply hire more women if this is a huge issue, but instead they continue to lament inequality they themselves are partially responsible for. Labels like "privileged" seem to exist solely to shift the blame from them onto us and blame culture for their own failings.

Folks, there is such a thing as disparate impact. It is the law in the U.S., and forms the basis for affirmative action or title IX (related to all these rape on campus topics).

Disparate impact assumes some unjust causal mechanism, discriminatory. This is not actually proven, rather it's interpreted.

I can't speak for others, but when I critique the idea of patriarchy, it's because the discriminating causing the difference observed may not be discriminatory. Humans have sexes, and sexual differences exist.

Quick example, there is no discriminatory cause in observing female life expectancy is longer than male. It follows the disparate impact that life insurance is more expensive for men is not discriminatory, since there is zero subjectivity involved. Insurance companies are discerning, discriminating, and just doing their job.

Now imagine I can prove the life expectancy gap is due to conscription being sexist. Insurance policies are still not discriminatory. You can suggest their methods change and consider life expectancies for age groups rather than whole pop, but if they insist on the simpler method, that's still fine. Go and outcompete them ;)
(Made up numbers, I don't actually know which numbers insurance providers use - let's say average women le is 65yr average male is 60yr, because men die much more often while young, women of 40 le is say 68, men of 40 le may be also 68)

Disparate impact is bad law. It was a decision related to IQ tests that brought it into being. A decision that I could argue caused African Americans to lose good job opportunities. They would get the job if tested individually, instead employers need to decide based on broad average perception and then are forced to tilt by affirmative action. Stupid...


Funny, I could say the same about Zoe and Anita... it's like they're all human. Whoa, mindfuck...

By the way inequity, inequality are different things.

If you like understanding this stuff, check these links. Top notch. I'll reply to your reply later.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/25/race-and-justice-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/03/framing-for-light-instead-of-heat/

I guess when someone described me as being privileged, I don't see it as them getting mad at me, I just see it as them stating that I get certain benefits that they don't get - like the benefit of not being stopped by police for no apparent reason.

I personally think I am privileged given that I live in a country that has freedom, security, good electricity, running water, sewerage, etc. A huge part of the world doesn't have that. If someone from a third world country describes that as living a privileged life, I would agree with them.

I don't think they are the ones in a position to change these alleged benefits of gaming while male. Whilst there were a few influential people in that video, I don't think they control the industry. They don't control EA or Activision. I also don't think hiring more women would deal with the issue. You can't just hire female job applicants. They need to be qualified. If there are no qualified female applicants, maybe we need to look at why that is. Do women need to be encouraged to go into gaming, or less discouraged? I don't know that they do.

In addition, a lot of the criticism was directed towards, rightly or wrongly, the way some gamers treat each other. Hiring women wouldn't necessarily resolve that issue.

Lets look at the first two points in the video:

1. We can be indifferent to harassment that women face. I think both men and women can be indifferent to harassment towards others (men or women), so I don't think this is a valid point.

2. We are not told that video games are not intended for us because we are male. Nobody has ever said that to me. I have seen comments from some people saying that gaming is for men, not women. Actually, here is a quote from a PM I received a while ago: "All Feminists are Man haters It's Obvious! they are usually Lesbians also. Look at the way she attacks Our last bastion Gaming it's like we can't have Anything" Its certainly not the predominant view, but in my experience there are people out there who hold that view.

I don't see that hiring more women would resolve either of those issues.

Maybe it's simply I don't view the world the same way as everyone else does, maybe it's the fact that everyone has different goals in life. Some people want families, some people want careers, some people want to travel, others want religious fulfillment. For everyone it's different, and we get these at certain times. Some people spend years before they realize what they want out of life, and some find fulfillment in things they thought they didn't want at all. Hell sometimes those moments are fleeting, maybe they're meant to spur us on. But no, I don't consider the idea that there's this 'force', for lack of a better term, this societal drive that holds people back. Individuals may have trouble, or may cause trouble, but that's based on the person. That doesn't mean society doesn't have it's common ills, but even those happen because of individuals.

How is it that I only had one person who looked at the description and wasn't uncomfortable with this?

The idea behind it was I basically described to you Guybrush Threepwood of Monkey Island fame. He's incompetent, he's useless, he's barely funny, he's abused, blown up, killed, tied to a stone and thrown off a dock, laughed at, mocked mercilessly, all of the things that we want to protect people from, he deals with. And it never deters him. My concern is that a lot of people are focused too much on violence against women, or sexual violence or sexual gaze to actually care about these people as characters, it comes across as to feeling like a checklist.

Here's the thing about characters, to you they might be planned out, the person knows every step that's going to happen to them, everything has a purpose. For me, it's not, every character lives and breathes in their own way, from Bayonetta to Kratos to Zelda to Yukiko Asagi. They have their own goals, their own beliefs and a certain randomness to their lives.Some of them are bad, others aren't. Again, maybe it's because I have a very unique view of the world and people, I think we've forgotten a few things about being people, especially in the rush to be more politically correct.

I'll be fair, I told the story for a reason. A lot of what I saw for privilege comes across as stereotypical, even your explanation went to play with numbers and statistics instead of looking at the people. It's part of the big problem I have with this level of social justice, it talks a lot, it looks at statistics, but it doesn't DO anything on a level people can benefit from.

My Uncle was white male, who always had people cooking for him, driving him to work and to bowling, on the surface he sounds like someone who has a lot going for him in life, it sounds like a life of luxury. What I'm trying to encourage is to look beyond that, look at the personal story before you make a judgement. That privilege comes with a cost, everything comes with a cost. Just because you can't see it, just because it's different from your cost doesn't make it any less a cost.

People are different, that comes with a price, like I said there are billions of people, not one exactly the same, even twins have their differences. Stereotypes and talk of vague privilege understands none of that. Good people will be good people, assholes will be assholes, and everyone else will be everyone else. And all will do it in their own way.