We've been here before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc.

The problem is that the streaming services are increasingly vertical monopolies that are competing on the basis of their monopoly properties rather than their services. If you want to watch Star Wars, you're stuck with Disney regardless of what else they do with their service. The same with HBO and Game of Thrones, Paramount and Star Trek, etc.

As a consequence, the streaming services are focused almost exclusively on content rather than providing a better service.

> Do you understand that saying "black people like to play basketball" is prescriptive and "more black people play basketball than other races" is "descriptive*?.

A prescriptive statement is one where you're imposing a standard on others. A descriptive one is one where you're observing a difference.

> Do you understand that both of these statements are "racist" in the sense that they are making strong statements about race? As in the academic understanding of the term "racist"?

While you're welcome to make up your own definitions of words, don't expect the rest of the world - including academia - to accept them.

What you're trying to do is precisely what I cautioned against - redefine 'racism' as a way to shut down critical thinking.

Consider for a moment that we have statements from people who were actually there and who were experts in their job. Your response to them - despite having no context whatsoever and no expertise - that they were 'racist'. That's it - you've decided to end any inquiry into why those statements were made and what observations they reflected. You don't want more information. You just want to demonstrate moral superiority.

> "Black people are lazy" is a prescriptive statement, because "lazy" is not a trait that uniquely/inherently Maps on to the race of the person being described.

Almost no traits actually map onto race in an objective fashion. There's no actual reason that black skin should correlate with preferring basketball over ice hockey. It just so happens that we can observe this - and it is not racist to observe it.

In terms of the observations being made, saying "that's racist" is merely a way to shut down thinking about the issue and refusing to engage with why those statements were made.

I'd encourage you to consider the social classes within the groups named and what those various classes would have been doing during World War II other than working the docks. Because an Italian working the docks at Port Chicago and a black man working the docks at Port Chicago would have very likely have been drawn from different backgrounds if you stop to think about it.

What you - and many others - are doing is engaging in knee jerk prejudice. You're just assuming you know more about the situation than the people who were actually there. What you should be doing is trying to understand why they thought as they did - and reductive answers like "they were racist!" are never the correct ones.

No, I'm not. The Descriptive vs. Prescriptive distinction is about imposing a view vs. observing a view. What I'm talking about is that racial groups (as well as any arbitrary group) have observable differences and that the mere act of observing these differences is not, in itself, racist.

For example, you'll see a lot of people say "that's racist!" when you point out that Jews are wealthier than average or black people more likely to engage in crime. However, that use of racism is incorrect - and the overuse of it in this fashion ends up killing rational discourse.

While I doubt that they did rigorous research to reach those conclusions, the statements themselves are not inherently racist but could potentially be legitimate observations.

Contrast the two statements:
"White men like ice hockey more than black men" vs.
"That man cannot like ice hockey because he is black"

The first statement is very likely true - the fan base for ice hockey is primarily white men and relatively few black men are interested in the sport.

The second statement is the racist one - the assumption that the man's skin color defines his taste in sports.

Now, the statements you're describing could be based on racist assumptions rather than legitimate observations - but that doesn't make the statements themselves racist, merely the underlying assumptions.

The reason this matters is that, in science, there are a lot of observations about group differences that many people erroneously believe are racist despite being verifiable.

> Which advice do you think is more useful to a struggling young man?

To most young men? "You need to be a man" is far more useful advice.

These 'rigid gender roles' didn't just pop into existence like magic. They're the result of millennia of human experience. Do they apply well to everyone? No. But the fact that they're almost universal across human experience - bridging cultures that never had any contact with one another - should give you a clue that maybe there's an actual reason they exist beyond a mere quirk of our particular society.

Basically, you're trying to 'femsplain' how men work. There's a reason that boys raised without a father struggle so much in life - and it's because all they have are mothers that presume little boys think just like little girls. Well, some do. But most don't - and they are poorly served by treating them as little girls when they aren't.