Users often report submissions from this site and ask us to ban it for sensationalized articles. At /r/nyc, we oppose blanket banning any news source. Readers have a >responsibility to be skeptical, check sources and comment on any flaws. You can help improve this thread by linking to media that verifies or questions this article's claims. Your link could help readers better understand this issue. If you do find >evidence that this article or its title are false or misleading, contact the moderators who will review it.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Face palm

Third sentence makes mentioned of Latinx/e communities. If there is one way to ensure Latinos won’t participate in the workshop, it’s to throw the term Latinx around.

[removed]

Dumb white guy here who really doesn't want to ask this IRL to my friends but why is LatinX so unliked?

It's a term created by super progressive white people who then told Hispanic people that it's the proper term for them. Coupled with the fact that X doesn't really work for Spanish speakers and you have a classic example of white people bullshit.

There a few studied out there about how the majority of the Hispanic community either doesn't know about the term or don't care for it at all.

I work in advertising and had to present a write up on the term. Half my team is Hispanic, bunch of Dominicans and a Cuban and they all hate the term.

Edit: Cause I know where I got my data from:

https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/

As a non-White person, the amount of self-hating White progressives is insane to me. Why can't they respect other cultures and build them up without attack themselves? You don't need to attack White people to respect Black people or Hispanics or Asians or whatever.

Respect and cultural/racial tolerance are not a zero sum game. The second we start saying any group is "harmful", we start heading down a dark path of elevating others above each other because of their skin color or ethnic heritage.

Honestly, this is the stuff that makes me wonder if I need to plan to have my kids attend private school the entire way. A large chunk of the public school system seems to care more about this than getting kids to up standard in reading, writing, and math.

Ahhh gotcha, yeah that makes sense. Thanks!

Reading the actual description of the workshop, I see nothing wrong with it. If people get offended by the FACT that "white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all others groups are compared" in the United States, then you're just denying reality.

Just the title alone is racist I mean if there was a class on the harmful effects of blackness there would be protests also. Just stop playing the division game with race or gender.

Well if you go to another country where another race customs are the standard should people not be offended also? There's plenty of races customs and traditions that are celebrated in America. It's just a group of bitter super left wings that wants everyone to stay in their own lanes in terms of culture, fashion and music well also saying we need to blend and mix together. It's really a head scratcher because in order for the blending everything becomes available for use to everyone

Asks question to become knowledgeable on a current topic - gets downvoted. Nice /s

[deleted]

This isn't Seattle keep those shit workshops out of here. People don't like being part of your experiment in the latest "progressivism" that is cooked up each semester.

Instead of using the term white why don’t you use the term dominant culture like you do in every other country? Why not celebrate what things we have in common instead of lecturing us into groups that only solidifies grievances and grudges?

Bc we’re easier to control when divided

oh man don't watch this then

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4941153/user-clip-kamau-kambon-calls-extermination-white-people

Is fighting the language because it has gendered terms. Very few work both ways [calor, sarten, etc.] and that bothers these people.

No real self respecting latino, specially ones that weren't born here would let that fly.

Remember that plenty of languages (like farsi) are already gender neutral, but the countries that speak them don’t have gender equality (Iran)

What is the Farsi for " rights for all humans regardless of their religious or sexual orientation"?

I missed that day in Farsi class.

I'm not an educator, Social Worker or UFT member, so I won't profess mastery or even familiarity with the syllabus. That said... If one were to hold a seminar about the harmful effects of "Jewishness/Blackness/Femininity" etc. It would be rightfully panned. I don't see how this topic is even considered appropriate. Bashing an entire race is wrong, is it not?

Wait, so what were you all saying about CRT in schools just being in our imagination?

Your self-flagellation whip looks very worn, time to get a new one!

If I learned anything from those low-budget company videos I am forced to watch, this sounds like discrimination to me. How is this not already a lawsuit, HR?

Progressive white person here: I think most of us don’t think this way. We’re trying to understand and internalize the role while people as a group have played in the repression of people of color. But, as always, some people take it too far. So it becomes a practice of public self-flagellation and sanctimony. Holier-than-thou liberals are pretty exhausting

People from outside a culture are trying to shape another cultures language by inserting a word that makes zero sense being in there. I really wish they would stop trying to make Latinx a thing. It’s total cringe.

Probably wise. It's not appropriate to have a workshop on "the harmful effects of race X"

[removed]

[removed]

Internalize the role… What a bunch of crap. Golden rule , treat others as you wish to be treated. Simple. No more of this crap

As a white liberal, I get very frustrated with how often the perception of liberal philosophy is defined by the right. I can simultaneously recognize problems in our national systems and how that impacts the people without feeling personal guilt as though I was responsible for creating said system. I can also recognize my responsibility to work towards a better and more equitable future without assuming guilt or personal responsibility for other peoples actions or hatred.

Respect isn’t a 0 sum game, but the point of this instruction isn’t about something as mundane as “respect.” It’s about policies and systems and a good faith effort to break systems that are discriminatory in their nature. You can be as pleasant as punch, and still hold up systems that benefit the group in power at the expense of others.

Or, the people offended don’t like to confront the results of the history of this country on people of color and would prefer to perpetuate it and return us to a state where we’re “less than” by pretending that people of color are “bitter” and racist and have nothing to complain about.

Who is that guy and why should I care?

Because we’re not in every country. We’re in the United States where the “dominant culture” is white evangelical. If you’re making comparisons across nations that would make sense, but this was speaking to the US specifically.

Self-flagellation? Oh, you think I’m white and that somehow talking about a fact that has existed in this country for centuries is somehow beating up white people? Let me guess, you’re the type of person that would support removing race from teaching the history of slavery and civil rights in the US.

1. I am assuming you have internet access as you replied, so check out your favorite search engine and type his name in there.
2. I didn't ask you to, so apologies if you felt this was directed at you.

Just know that the answers you get here will be colored by biases. That’s going to be the case whoever you go to, but Reddit is particularly awful in general when it comes to discussions that the general demographic can’t relate to.

This article approaches it a lot more even handedly than you’ll find in this sub.

https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/a28056593/latinx-meaning/

So your answer is “this is a clickbait link to someone with no power and influence that you should get upset about!”

How is this an “attack on white people?” Read the actual description and not the Post’s interpretation of it.

HR is probably the one putting it together

حقوق همه انسانها صرف نظر از گرایش مذهبی یا جنسی

Talking about race isn’t itself racist. In fact, ignoring race in a country with our history generally works to the detriment of minorities. It is a fact that because white people are the dominant race in this country and because of the history we have, it’s the culture of white protestants that is held up as “American.”

This is not a racist claim or a knock against white people in general.

Bashing an entire race is wrong. The workshop doesn’t appear to do that. But the Post wants you to believe that anyway.

I am making comparisons across countries. These talks about whiteness have been becoming mainstream in every English speaking country with a white majority. Countries generally speaking that have for the last 50 years been some of the most accepting and progressive nations in history. I think focusing on what binds us is much preferred over what differences we have. It’s much healthier for the country and makes it much easier to reshape the dominant culture to something we can all feel that we are part of.

>I think most of us don’t think this way.

I don't disagree but but by letting it slide, you are approving it. Silence is complicity.

I legit might only have 1 kid because it looks like i’m going to have to send them to private school($$$) just to give them a normal-ass education. These lame, out of touch granola white people need to be pulled aside and told no one obsesses more about race than them. Being “one of the good” self-hating whites is so annoying, obnoxious and patronizing. They are egomaniacs with superiority complexes and aren’t even aware of it.

Just do what teachers have always done—teach your students to treat everyone with kindness, compassion and respect. Or be a total dipshit that every normal person mocks inside their home and hold a seminar explaining why posting a gif of oprah is engaging in digital blackface.

The only thing these unlikable nutbags accomplish is giving the right ammunition.

But the workshop was talking about the U.S.. Not Japan, or South Korea, or Malaysia, or India - all countries that have issues and negative history with minorities to varying degrees. So it makes sense to use the term “White” given what they were addressing.

Further, discussing how what defines “American” culture in this country is often based in white Protestant terms is stating a fact. It’s not an attack on white people. But it’s something to be cognizant of if your goal is actually being accepting and progressive and identifying what binds us.

> and you have a classic example of white people bullshit.

This really sums up so much so perfectly.

It's the only acceptable form of "White Saviourism" in the Modern Age.

As "allies," these obviously "privileged" and "virtuous" upper-middle-class white folks will save all of us from prejudice.

All while assuring us that DROPPING standards for "brown people" and "Colored People-sorry-I meant-People of Color," is definitely the way forward for them.

I reject "Person of Color" or "Brown Person" or "Black Person," from these condescending "Progressives." It's another way to say the "N-Word," in my book and it's supremely hypocritical of them to treat us like we CAN'T do it ourselves, can't succeed, can't do math, can't read, can't show up on time, etc.

Disgusting!

Can you give me a definition of "Whiteness" that isn't racist?

Because, so far, what I have seen from "Progressives" about the topic of "Whiteness" is that it includes concepts like "Meritocracy," "Punctuality," and "Doing Math correctly."

Is it "Progressives" understanding that these are not Human traits, but only tied to "Whiteness?" How is that not racist?

I’m going directly by how the workshop description defines it:

>Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups are compared. Whiteness is at the core of understanding race in America. Whiteness and the normalization of white racial identity throughout America’s history have created a culture where nonwhite persons are seen as inferior or abnormal.

Anyone that has ever made the argument that poor Irish and Italian immigrants weren’t considered white when they immigrated to this country en masse at the end of the 19th century logically believes how this woman defined “Whiteness.” This isn’t a racist definition.

nice, is basically like saying "yo" in NYC right?

Sorry for posting from that rag, C-Span has truly gone to shit.

The history is not entirely true. The term was originated by non-binary queer Latino who wanted a term that they could own in a very harmless way. It was then co-opted by super progressive white people to push onto everyone else.

so now we have far-right racist police and now far-left racist teachers?

“User created clip.”

Okay, so it didn't air on C-Span.

Is just a big silly goof

I’m so over the anti white racist ideology of this city. The media and progressives need to think about what is fair and what is just more racist bullshit. You can lift up other people without hating whites

[removed]

>It's a term created by super progressive white people who then told Hispanic people that it's the proper term for them.

Wrong.

It's kinda not true though.

>That said... If one were to hold a seminar about the harmful effects of "Jewishness/Blackness/Femininity" etc. It would be rightfully panned.

Yes, if it was a different thing then it would be different.

What the hell is the e? Did they create a new term now?

Serious question. Why is people of color okay but not colored people? It's literally the exact same thing.

They are addicted to outrage and self-righteousness. Ironically, they fuel the far-right directly and endanger the disadvantaged groups they claim to care about as a result.

I don't hear Latin people using it. And my friend is dating a Quebecoise. Note the feminine "E". Masculine is Quebecois. We don't get to change other peoples' languages to suit our sensibilities. Sorry.

How is it not an attack? What else am I supposed to conclude? If it wasn't a problem, we wouldn't need a seminar in how to deal with it, no?

??? The non Jewish population of NYC is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. I'm a native and with the exception of a few Scandinavians in Bay Ridge, have never met a native born WASP New Yorker. Since this is the UFT, and since it's about educators in the NYC public school system, whatever the "Dominant" history in America may be (and we disagree), it's not "White Protestant" here.

Anyone from any group who spews hate -towards any group- should be a matter of concern.

There are more Roman Catholics in this country than any single Protestant denomination. And some of the "mainstream" Protestant groups are pretty Progressive- with rainbow flags, lesbian pastors, etc. Get real...

If you’re white and I say you’re white - is that an attack on you?

First, this is talking about the U.S. as a whole, not NYC specifically. NYC is most certainly more a melting pot than the rest of the country. Second, nyc public school teachers are mostly white (54% I believe) teaching student body that is overwhelming people of color (80%). It makes sense to have a workshop where teachers can explore how “whiteness” as defined by the workshop, may inform how their responding to cultural differences amongst students.

Are you really going to argue that Catholicism in the US hasn’t had its own issues with regard to mainstream acceptance?

I would in so far as until Biden, we went 60 years in between a Catholic (roughly 25% of the population) was elected. But that's not the issue here. You're saying that the "mainstream culture" is white Evangelical and I'd argue that it isn't; that White Protestants are divided (Episcopalians are disproportionately influential and represented, for example) between mainline and more Evangelical groups. That said, if one were to lump in Catholics (not quite accepted, as you put it) with mainline Protestants, the Evangelical influence is diminished. Throw in Jews and Moslems (3% each -or 6%), some Buddhists and the unaffiliated. and White Evangelicals aren't that much of a force. For instance, New England has a very WASPY and disproportionately influential influence on America. It's definitely not Evangelical. Sorry

I don't even know what "whiteness" is. I've never seen myself as "white". I don't feel any affinity to people just because we have the same color. In fact, if anything, I probably would have to say that I'm the least familiar with and least comfortable around "White Progressive" transplants, who are completely foreign to me. I'm more familiar with other native New Yorkers, regardless of their background- Jewish, Puerto Rican or black, It doesn't matter.

And I can tell you being from Brooklyn...Greeks and Italians don't have much in common with Irish people. No one defines themselves as "white", and if they did, no one has demonstrated what "whiteness" means or how it's harmful.

I don't care what you call me. I don't identify as white. I'm an American first, Roman Catholic second, New Yorker third.

That being said...if I was or did identify as white , what exactly are harmful effects of whiteness? Can you explain that to me? Are there harmful effects of being Mexican? Asian? Jewish? Or is it just "whiteness" that has "harmful effects"?

Is calling something "nonsensical bullshit" the same as "hate"? If so, guilty as charged!! /s

According to the self-loathing purple-haired $300,000 Barnard gender studies degree holders those silly latinxs don't know how to speak their own language.

Or how about you ask a native speaker and not the oprah herd, pendejx?

The soft bigotry of low expectations

I have a theory that a lot of white progressives grow up in super white, essentially segregated suburbs. They grow up in a bubble, are probably a bit racist themselves (nothing super vitriolic, I’ve just noticed they all seem to be terrified of areas like the Bronx or non-trendy BK that are predominantly POC). They then move to big, naturally diverse cities to “educate people” who were already coexisting in relative peace with one another, many being first and second generation Americans themselves. They fail to realize that it is in fact them, their parents, grandparents, etc back in Wisconsin who perpetuated racism and segregation. It’s like they can’t accept the fact that they were raised in de facto segregation, so they have to project their experience on everyone else.

And when they can’t afford to live in an all-white neighborhood in NYC in their mid thirties, they move back to Wisconsin. Can’t make this shit up.

“White people” are not a group stop it with this nonsense. 7th generation Americans from the Midwest say this because they’re a monoculture. An Albanian from the Bronx has more in common with a Puerto Rican from Harlem than they do with someone from an all-white football town in Ohio.

Grow up and stop projecting.

So they'll just rebrand it but say the same things in the workshop, cool. Problem not solved

Harmful effects of Billionaires buying out politicians is what we should be mad about.

That's a good start

Sort of, yes.

See, "Latinx" was created in the US by English speakers. It is practically unpronounceable in Spanish or Portuguese. But it was created because there are nonbinary Latin people who do feel they are not represented by the grammar and gender inherent to their languages.

So while "Latinx" was made outside of Latin America, within it, the term "Latine" has been taking precedence. It's a word actually made by Latin people in Latin America to reflect their experiences, and it fits much more easily into the languages than "Latinx" does.

In my opinion, in English, we can just use "Latin" to describe a nonbinary or nongendered person or concept (in the same way we refer to "Latin America"), but in Spanish or Portuguese "Latine" would be more appropriate.

The same reason we're told to use "enslaved person" instead of "slave" or "homeless person" instead of "bum": it's a concept called "people first language" that popped up in the last fifteen years or so

So, here's my interpretation.

"White" as a concept and as a group didn't really exist until the 19th century. You would be Irish or German or Greek or Albanian or whatever. But as legal systems begin to deny rights to say, black or Chinese people, we needed a word to effectively refer to people who maintained their full enfanchisement.

As such, the "harm" of whiteness is because it was created relatively recently with the express purpose of denying others rights. You're not bad for being pale skinned, but if you self identify as "white" that's because you do so because of a history of racism.

You may have heard someone say "there's no such thing as white culture" which kind of ties into this. Because "white" as a group was basically invented as a catch all for "the pale skinned people we don't enslave", there really is no culture that binds these disparate groups; there may be French or Italian culture or even a pan European culture, but those are not "whiteness".

You didn't answer my question. What are the "harmful effects" of a culture whose ties are at best tenuous? Why does it have "harmful effects" and not other ethnicities' cultures? Why is something that came to being as you put it in the 19th century (in the means of enslavement, which was banned and eliminated by 1865) and improved upon through the Civil rights SCOTUS cases, Civil Rights movement and Civil rights laws over 60 yeas ago, still so harmful as to need seminars to overcome it? I'm not being obtuse. I simply can't get my head around this.

Because whiteness is not an ethnicity and it's not a culture, that's the point.

The only reason the concept of "whiteness" exists is to put it atop other groups, be they black or "yellow" or "red". If you don't believe that "white people" are inherently superior to any other group, there's literally no reason to identify as white and no reason to cling to a white "identity" as opposed to whatever ethnic groups you actually come from. This is contrasted with, say, black identity, which have a few shared narratives and experiences irrespective of where those ethnic groups called home (one of those narratives of course, being "we were taken from our urheimat against our will").

Let's pretend for a second we're not talking about ethnicity and talking about something like music. There are jazz fans, metal fans, rock fans, rap fans, country fans, pop fans, etc. It's absolutely fine to like heavy metal, it's no better or worse than jazz or pop! But let's say someone arbitrarily took pop, rap and rock music and grouped it together as "Super Music" and said those genres are inherently better than other kinds of music.

If you ran into someone who called themselves a "super music fan" instead of a "pop fan", would you not surmise that they identify as such because of a perceived superiority? That's basically "whiteness", the idea of "whiteness" emerged from racism and it has no meaning or no currency outside of the context of racism, and within the context of racism, whiteness is placed "at the top" for, again, arbitrary reasons.

Does that make any more sense?

EDIT: Also, whiteness did not begin with enslavement. It began with the ideas of scientific racism, which was used to justify slavery, but existed independently of it. For most of human history, we were fine enslaving others who looked like us, it was only in modernity that we needed justification for why it was ok to enslave people, and we came up with the psuedoscience of race and how some races were "better" than others.

That makes sense, ye the Latinx term I find people use to just describe any person from Latin America male/female or otherwise which just always sounded weird to me

You haven't explained anything. The answer to your question is No. I'm really not understanding you. That was a confusing explanation.

Moreover, a casual study of the history of the North African Barbary Pirates and their enslavement of Europeans (which prompted a fledging US Naval response by Thomas Jefferson) shows that if religion is justification for enslavement, people will use it. If race is, they'll use it. People will make up justifications.

Moreover, even with a 99.8% similarity, there are subtle differences between races. That's a scientific fact. For example, there are hereditary conditions (e.g Tay-Sachs, Sickle Cell Anemia, Cystic Fibrosis) that exist in some races but not others.

> You haven't explained anything. The answer to your question is No. I'm really not understanding you. That was a confusing explanation.

Could you please tell me what you're having trouble understanding, then?

>Moreover, a casual study of the history of the North African Barbary Pirates and their enslavement of Europeans (which prompted a fledging US Naval response by Thomas Jefferson) shows that if religion is justification for enslavement, people will use it. If race is, they'll use it. People will make up justifications.

So, two points.

1. I never said white people weren't enslaved. I'm part Greek, trust me, you're not pulling some "gotcha" on me by pointing out a time when a dark-skinned people enslaved a fairer skinned population. However, the European slaves of the Barbary Pirates were pretty much all used in a naval capacity and never became a significant minority in North Africa, unlike the African slaves of the Americas. In fact, very few of the people captured by Barbary pirates were enslaved, most were ransomed back to their communities. The Barbary pirates didn't want slaves, they wanted ransom, slavery is just what they did with the few no one was willing to pay for.

2. The whole reason Africans were enslaved was also based on religion. At first they were not enslaved based on race or skin color, but because they were "pagans" or "Muslims" (they didn't enslave other Muslim populations like the Turks or Arabs because they had armies and guns and could defend themselves, and the Native Americans were dying too fast to diseases that came from first contact with Europeans). It was only later, after both captured slaves and natives in Africa were Christianized, did race become the justification for their continued slavery.

>Moreover, even with a 99.8% similarity, there are subtle differences between races. That's a scientific fact. For example, there are hereditary conditions (e.g Tay-Sachs, Sickle Cell Anemia, Cystic Fibrosis) that exist in some races but not others.

See, here's where you're wrong, again. "Race" is made up, it's merely a conflation of culture and phenotype. Things like Tay-Sachs, Sickle Cell Anemia or the "Asian Flush" are rampant in certain populations, but those say nothing about "races", which are a category that pretty much popped into existence in the 17th century, reached their apex in the 19th, and have returned to obscurity just like other bunk science theories like Phlogiston or Geocentrism because we have other, better attested theories to explain the extant phenomena.

You're really going out on a limb. Let's get back in our lanes. The UFT seminar was ill advised. It should not have been offered. If race is a social construct as you say, then having a seminar on a racial construct ("whiteness") is absurd; having a woman of hispanic heritage (which in itself defies racial categorization, as Mark Texiera,A/Rod and Big Papa Ortiz are all "Latin") is an even bigger absurdity. Suggesting that "whiteness" is somehow pernicious is an absurdity.

The whole thing is a black eye on the Union (which I happen to generally support btw).

>If race is a social construct as you say, then having a seminar on a racial construct ("whiteness") is absurd;

Economics is a social construct. Ethics are a social construct. Business is a social construct. If all of these justify seminars, then why shouldn't the construct of whiteness? How else shall it be deconstructed?

>having a woman of hispanic heritage (which in itself defies racial categorization, as Mark Texiera,A/Rod and Big Papa Ortiz are all "Latin")

In addition to being of Greek heritage I'm also of Hispanic heritage, so let me say it bluntly; "Hispanic" is not a race. It's an ethnolinguistic group. There are Hispanic people across the globe with ancestry from Europe, Africa, the Americas, East Asia, the Middle East, and countless others. And Hispanic and Latino are also different concepts; A Spaniard is Hispanic without being Latino, a Brazilian is Latino without being Hispanic. Someone is Hispanic if they have ancestry in a Spanish-speaking country, someone is Latino if they have ancestry that includes a Romance language speaking population of the Americas (yes, that includes the Quebecois and Haitians; it's not about race). Saying someone is "Hispanic" says about as much about their ancestry as saying someone is "Anglophone."

>Suggesting that "whiteness" is somehow pernicious is an absurdity.

Whiteness is, itself, an absurdity; it has no basis in reality, but exists solely as a meme. But you and I both know memes can be pernicious.

It’s really tragic that you feel you cannot ask it IRL. And that’s just another symptom of a deeper problem I’ve been noticing.

In my opinion, one of the biggest damages caused to society in modern times happened because of white people (mostly politicians) who were acting or being omissive because of shame or guilty.

"Economics is a social construct. Ethics are a social construct. Business is a social construct. If all of these justify seminars, then why shouldn't the construct of whiteness? How else shall it be deconstructed? I'm going to leave it out that kissing your sister or mother- is almost universally prohibited, as is cannibalism. We can argue about small isolated communities in remote places practicing them, but in the overwhelming majority of the world, it's prohibited; taboo in fact. One could say that it's not a just social construct, but a universal truth.

Are there seminars on the evils of economics? The evils of ethics? The evils of Business? (maybe at the risible Young Socialists Club, but nowhere else).

Setting aside that I doubt that any French speaking Canadians (including Quebecois, who are different from Acadians or Metis) identify as "Latino"...If Quebecois are in fact "Latino", there are a lot of people in Upstate New York and New England of Quebecois ancestry who should be getting "diversity points" or at least changing their census designation.

And while we're at it...since I agree with you that "Hispanic" is an ethnolinguistic designation, why are there diversity points being added to a purely *Gallego (*pure European ancestry) person from Mexico, Argentina or Cuba? Turn on Univision and see- these people are not mestizo, Indio, or anything. They might be of a fairer complexion than a Greek/Latino such as yourself.

Why does language qualify? What has historically been done to the Brazilian community in the US? Why make a designation of "Latino" at all?

>Are there seminars on the evils of economics? The evils of ethics? The evils of Business? (maybe at the risible Young Socialists Club, but nowhere else).

I mean, yeah? You basically described three 100 level philosophy classes. Do you think that the concepts of ethics, business or economics are in and of themselves unassailable or above critique?

>Setting aside that I doubt that any French speaking Canadians (including Quebecois, who are different from Acadians or Metis) identify as "Latino"...If Quebecois are in fact "Latino", there are a lot of people in Upstate New York and New England of Quebecois ancestry who should be getting "diversity points" or at least changing their census designation.

>And while we're at it...since I agree with you that "Hispanic" is an ethnolinguistic designation, why are there diversity points being added to a purely Gallego (pure European ancestry) person from Mexico, Argentina or Cuba? Turn on Univision and see- these people are not mestizo, Indio, or anything. They might be of a fairer complexion than a Greek/Latino such as yourself.

I don't understand your point here. New Yorkers of Quebecois or Acadian ancestry absolutely should self-identify as Latino if they want. I don't know if you're aware of this, but most government forms and other information based on them like college applications these days ask you your "race" and then "ethnicity", so it's a two part question. So you can tick something like "White, black, Asian, Native american, Pacific Islander" and then the next question is "Are ethnically Hispanic yes/no"? So that way you can have a white guy like Charlie Sheen or Cameron Diaz count as Hispanic, there's no problem with that and we've been doing it that way for decades.

> Why make a designation of "Latino" at all?

The designation of "Latino" was not made in the Americas nor by Americans. During the French Empire's conquest of Mexico, they created the concept of "Latinoamerica" as an attempt to gain allies among the former colonies of Spain and Portugal, a piece of propaganda that the colonial descendants of France, Spain and Portugal had a shared cultural heritage stretching back to ancient Rome to contrast them against the Anglo-Americans of Canada and the United States. It's all political, and it's all arbitrary, as referenced above.

It's one thing to argue that a particular economic system (e.g. Communism) or a particular ethical system (e.g.relativism/situationalism) is evil. It's quite another to suggest that economics itself, or that ethics itself, is evil.

And if it's "all political/arbitrary", then the seminar itself is bullshit. Thanks for making my point.

They can't, it's too lucrative. Book sales, speaking fees, etc.