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Viliam comments on Rationality Quotes Thread January 2016 - Less Wrong
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Oh, really.
"Gay pride" was, I take it, the granddaddy of them all. It doesn't seem difficult to think of some successful gay people, but here in case you're having trouble is a very short list. Oscar Wilde, world-class playwright. Tim Cook, CEO of the world's most successful company. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, prime minister of Iceland. Benjamin Britten, greatest English composer since Purcell. Freddie Mercury, rock star. Alan Turing, mathematician, computer pioneer and helped win WW2.
"Black pride" is a thing, I guess. Martin Luther King, social and political reformer. Barack Obama, president of the world's only superpower. Desmond Tutu, archbishop. Toni Morrison, Nobel-winning writer. Neil deGrasse Tyson, astronomer and TV star. Louis Armstrong, jazz musician.
Those are actually the only two major "pride movements" I know of. There are "white pride" and "straight pride" movements, kinda, but they're quite different in character and I think in motivation, and in any case I don't imagine you'll have any difficulty thinking of successful white and straight people.
I expect there's such a thing as "trans pride", but transness is much rarer than gayness or blackness and was socially unacceptable for longer. (Hence: fewer of them, and more obstacles to their becoming successful.) Still, off the top of my head I'll name Wendy Carlos, musician, and Sophie Wilson, engineer, both of whom were world-famous (as men) for things that had nothing to do with gender identity before coming out as trans.
What pride movements were you thinking of that don't have examples of successful people to look at?
I'm not an expert on the history of these things, but according to Some Guy On The Web the first "black pride" event in the US was in 1991 and the first "gay pride" one was in 1970.
Here's a tip for you. If you wish to be seen as someone who simply follows the scientific evidence where it leads and sees that black people are on average of lower intelligence than white people, rather than a garden-variety racist, you might do better not to pretend that no black people are genuinely really good at anything. (Seriously, Louis Armstrong, notable only for being able to play jazz at all despite the handicap of being an inferior black person? Really?)
I think this says more about what you're prepared to be impressed by when it's done by gay people, than about what gay people have achieved.
You wish to deny that Tim Cook is a good example of a successful gay person? OK, then. I'll just remark that it's not a very uncommon opinion that Cook was as critical to Apple's success as Jobs.
Certainly not for the same reason, since no one is claiming that gay people (or black people or any other category of people) are responsible for all that's good in mathematics, or literature, or music, or business, or whatever.
Well, there's a thing named after him that I'd guess more than half of all professional mathematicians have heard of. That's better than most of us manage. But sure, he's a long way from being Gauss or Riemann.
I don't see that there's anything very bad about a country naming its mathematical institutions after its best mathematician, even if he's not on anyone's top-10 list. (I'd have expected you to be keen on national pride -- or does that only apply to some nations?)
The original question was not about "impressive" but about "successful". Are you willing to agree that being elected President of the United States constitutes success?
The actual original words: "so then need to attach yourself vicariously to the success of other white people". As I say: success rather than excellence as such.
For this purpose, it doesn't matter whether you consider him "one of the worst", nor whether he is objectively "one of the worst" (whatever that might mean). It matters whether he's someone black people might attach themselves vicariously to the success of. Looking at the relationship between race and political affiliation in the US, it seems unlikely that most black Americans would consider Obama "one of the worst US presidents".
(Of course the whole "vicarious attachment" thing is just one guy's analysis of what "white pride" movements are about. I don't know whether he's right about "white pride" movements, still less whether something similar is true of "black pride" or "gay pride" or whatever. The application of his words to other __ Pride movements was yours, not mine.)
How about Michael Jordan? Usain Bolt? Chuck Berry?