I'm not sure I understand the Dyson quote you lead off with.
He uses this phrase "mark of ethical innocence." But if I step off the boat from Ukraine and benefit from white privilege, I really am absolutely "ethically innocent." I didn't choose the privilege, and can't waive it. And people have no ethical liability for things they cannot control.
He says that we should reject "moral equivalency of black and white views about race". There are two problems with this.
First: He tells us to pay more attention to "black views". But racial groups aren't monolithic. Which "black view" should we follow? Does this mean that progressive whites need to defer to Thomas Sowell's views?
But let's suppose that he means something like "majority view." It's reasonable to say "most people tend to err on the side of dismissing black views, and they should watch themselves." But it doesn't appear that that's what Dyson is saying. He describes the views, themselves, as being morally inequivalent. But this is saying that the morality of person A having a view is influenced by whether or not B does. And that can't be right.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-07 02:54 am (UTC)He uses this phrase "mark of ethical innocence." But if I step off the boat from Ukraine and benefit from white privilege, I really am absolutely "ethically innocent." I didn't choose the privilege, and can't waive it. And people have no ethical liability for things they cannot control.
He says that we should reject "moral equivalency of black and white views about race". There are two problems with this.
First:
He tells us to pay more attention to "black views". But racial groups aren't monolithic. Which "black view" should we follow? Does this mean that progressive whites need to defer to Thomas Sowell's views?
But let's suppose that he means something like "majority view." It's reasonable to say "most people tend to err on the side of dismissing black views, and they should watch themselves." But it doesn't appear that that's what Dyson is saying. He describes the views, themselves, as being morally inequivalent. But this is saying that the morality of person A having a view is influenced by whether or not B does. And that can't be right.