[daviross]

It's odd to attach "contributing to toxic divisiveness" to someone pattern-matching, rather than the people creating the pattern.

It's all signaling & identification, so if you don't want people seeing a Thin Blue Line flag & going "maybe that's not somewhere I want to be", talk with the thin-blue-line people & get them to stop doing the things that make some people want to avoid them.

[whimsicalism]

> It's odd to attach "contributing to toxic divisiveness" to someone pattern-matching, rather than the people creating the pattern.

Eh, don't really like this concept as a general principle. 'Pattern-matching' can often just be discrimination.

FWIW, I think it is fine to make inferences based on what flags people are flying and avoid overly patriotic people.

[silicon2401]

Let's see if you're consistent

> if you don't want people seeing a predominantly black neighborhood & going "maybe that's not somewhere I want to be", talk with the people living in black neighborhoods & get them to stop doing the things that make some people want to avoid them.

Do you still think there's nothing wrong with prejudice, or in your words, pattern-matching?

[Spivak]

The difference that hasn’t been addressed, which to me is fundamental, is that we’re talking specifically about behaviors done intentionally whose purpose is to signal membership into specific tribes.

I don’t know what the right way to address this because it’s become extremely common to not organize under explicit banners but instead make your membership known by not subtle dog whistles to maintain, again, not subtle plausible deniability. Like everyone does it! I could fill your screen with just the liberal/left/blue whistles I know about. This will always suck for the people who aren’t announcing their membership but the alternative is being ignorant to the groups de facto organizing.

[daviross]

Consistency is overrated. I could substitute words in anybody's statement to make them sound terrible.

And besides, I specified 'signaling & identification'. I may have missed where people were being born with thin-blue-line flags as birthmarks.

On the other hand, maybe you've got a point. I should be able to walk into any gun shop in the country with a "John Brown was justified, Sherman didn't go far enough" t-shirt & not see so much as a dirty look.