Simple answer- if you're demanding that government or some other entity treat you more favorably than it does other people, the onus is on you to show why you deserve such special treatment. The default setting is that we should all be treated equally.
People seeking to overturn a discriminatory program don't have any burden of proof on them- the burden is on the side supporting the discrimination.
So basically, black people have to prove that discrimination is occurring, where as white people can be taken on their word.
Your attempt to weasel out of this is by saying, "White people don't have to prove that they are being discriminated against, because we already know that they're being discriminated against."
You're relying on circular logic.
AA, by its very nature, discriminates based on race. That's kind of the whole damn point of AA- it gives one group an advantage based on race. Or do you disagree? So, people supporting AA are supporting a system that is designed to dicriminate against people whereas people who oppose AA are supporting a system that eliminates that dicrimination.
The onus is on the person demanding special treatment to make their case, not on the person who argues for equal treatment for all.
You make this statement as if proof hasn't been offered. Lots and lots of proof. You may refuse to acknowledge it, but it's been presented it, so you don't get to say this and expect us to take you seriously.
No, you haven't shown any proof that black person X deserves special treatment because he has personally been discriminated against. The fact that black people, as a group, tend to be less wealthy is meaningless. If you want special compensation, you personally have to show why you deserve it.
That's not what you're arguing for! You're assuming equal treatment exists and it does not.
You are standing on the top step, looking at the black people on the ground next to you and asking why they need help reaching the top shelf.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Hey Tim, I'm still waiting for you to provide a citation that the University of Wisconsin gives free tuition to Asian people solely for being Asian, regardless of income.
Thanks!
I claimed they gave a full ride to a Vietnamese kid I knew personally because he was Vietnamese(cause he didn't need the $ thats for damn sure). Not that it was some universal policy, just that its example of the flawed nature of race as a "need for assistance" marker.
But heres an example from the engineering college(which would probably exclude Asians).
New Freshman LEED (Leaders in Engineering Excellence and Diversity) Scholarship (formerly the Diversity Affairs Scholarship)
Class Level: Freshman Students
Major: Any in Engineering
Number of Awards: Varies
Amount of Award: Varies
Application Deadline: March 15
(Adobe Acrobat PDF application form)
Eligibility: Underrepresented minority students and women of all ethnic backgrounds
Contact: Libby A. Lee, Diversity Affairs Office, lalee@engr.wisc.edu.
There are the 2 requirements:
Attend the college offering the scholarship
Be a Minority / Women
So a Vietnamese kid scored a scholarship, and you got the idea that it was entirely because he was Vietnamese. And not because he was a good engineer.
Guess what? People with money still apply for scholarships. This happens with white people as well.
Doesn't take a genius to imagine the firestorm the inverse of this scholarship would cause, aka white / male exclusive.
What firestorm?
Basically, people called out the college republicans for being douchebag attention whores. Which they are. But I don't see anyone in that article acting particularily enraged.
AA, by its very nature, discriminates based on race.
So does society in general. Which we have proven on numerous occasions.
Strangely, you have absolutely no problem with that.
You have no problem with white privilege. You only have problems when people dare to take that white privilege away from you.
Why does a black person have to prove that he was specifically discriminated against, where as white people merely have to prove a general disadvantage? Why are black people being held to a higher standard?
You still haven't answered this question.
A black person can prove that 50% of black people are being discriminated against, but he doesn't have a case, because he can't prove that he specifically is part of that 50%.
Where as a white person merely has to prove that AA decreases his overall odds of getting into college by 1%, and apparently that white person does have a case, even though he he can't prove that he is in that 1%.
Simple answer- if you're demanding that government or some other entity treat you more favorably than it does other people, the onus is on you to show why you deserve such special treatment. The default setting is that we should all be treated equally.
People seeking to overturn a discriminatory program don't have any burden of proof on them- the burden is on the side supporting the discrimination.
So basically, black people have to prove that discrimination is occurring, where as white people can be taken on their word.
Your attempt to weasel out of this is by saying, "White people don't have to prove that they are being discriminated against, because we already know that they're being discriminated against."
You're relying on circular logic.
AA, by its very nature, discriminates based on race. That's kind of the whole damn point of AA- it gives one group an advantage based on race. Or do you disagree? So, people supporting AA are supporting a system that is designed to dicriminate against people whereas people who oppose AA are supporting a system that eliminates that dicrimination.
The onus is on the person demanding special treatment to make their case, not on the person who argues for equal treatment for all.
You make this statement as if proof hasn't been offered. Lots and lots of proof. You may refuse to acknowledge it, but it's been presented it, so you don't get to say this and expect us to take you seriously.
No, you haven't shown any proof that black person X deserves special treatment because he has personally been discriminated against. The fact that black people, as a group, tend to be less wealthy is meaningless. If you want special compensation, you personally have to show why you deserve it.
AA is already special compensation, applied to a large group, to address problems that apply to the entire group. The specific harm is past racism and current racial biases. You keep trying to invalidate AA by saying that if the harm can't be specifically attributed on an individual basis, when, by nature, systemic racism is less about individual instances of racism and more about widespread bias against a group. The onus really isn't on our side to show individual harm when we are quite able to show systemic harm aimed at minorities. Your insistence on only individual cases constituting actual harm leads to invalidating statistical data that shows clear trends of racial bias.
So basically, stop being a disingenuous goose. You're not stupid, and you should stop pretending that you're too dense to understand what the proof presented means.
Hey Tim, I'm still waiting for you to provide a citation that the University of Wisconsin gives free tuition to Asian people solely for being Asian, regardless of income.
Thanks!
I claimed they gave a full ride to a Vietnamese kid I knew personally because he was Vietnamese(cause he didn't need the $ thats for damn sure). Not that it was some universal policy, just that its example of the flawed nature of race as a "need for assistance" marker.
But heres an example from the engineering college(which would probably exclude Asians).
New Freshman LEED (Leaders in Engineering Excellence and Diversity) Scholarship (formerly the Diversity Affairs Scholarship)
Class Level: Freshman Students
Major: Any in Engineering
Number of Awards: Varies
Amount of Award: Varies
Application Deadline: March 15
(Adobe Acrobat PDF application form)
Eligibility: Underrepresented minority students and women of all ethnic backgrounds
Contact: Libby A. Lee, Diversity Affairs Office, lalee@engr.wisc.edu.
There are the 2 requirements:
Attend the college offering the scholarship
Be a Minority / Women
Doesn't take a genius to imagine the firestorm the inverse of this scholarship would cause, aka white / male exclusive.
Scholarships like this often exist to increase diversity in a field. Why do you have a problem with this goal? Moreover, why do you think you should be entitled to have a shot at a scholarship like this? Do you think you should also be entitled to special consideration because your dad was an alumni or because he gave a million dollars to the school? Where is the outrage against that sort of affirmative action?
To put the discussion with Modern Man in another framework:
We know that businesses contribute to pollution. We know that pollution causes people to get sick. Therefore, we create laws to regulate pollution from businesses.
In the libertarian ideology, this is wrong. If people get sick due to pollution, then they should sue for damages. Anti-Pollution laws are therefore unnecessary.
The problem is that the harm from businesses that pollute is non-specific. You may have a higher chance of getting asthma because of the local paper plant, but you can't specifically prove that your asthma was caused by pollution, and you can't prove that the pollution in question came from the paper plant. There are no absolutes. Only probabilities.
This is what affirmative action boils down to. A specific law designed to address a non-specific injustice.
Just in response to "holding blacks to a higher standard"
I think its more, holding the goverment to a higher standard. If the goverment is going to inact policy that favors one group over another, you better be able to show the (in this specific case) disenfranchised group why this is occuring.
The 1% of white people being disadvantaged by AA is different then the 50% of blacks being disadvantaged by society. The goverment isnt the cause of that second scenerio.
I mean, itd be one thing if in school a bully picked on me. But it would be another thing if the school inacted policy requiring me to be picked on.
EDIT:
The above example isnt really a fair comparison. It would be like inacting increased taxes on ALL car companies because most cars increase pollution. Is car company A responsible for some increased pollution, maybe, but without testing and knowing for sure, it doesnt seem fair to penalize them.
Just in response to "holding blacks to a higher standard"
I think its more, holding the goverment to a higher standard. If the goverment is going to inact policy that favors one group over another, you better be able to show the (in this specific case) disenfranchised group why this is occuring.
The government isn't the cause of people being uneducated.
Therefore, the government shouldn't be the source of public education.
The government isn't the cause of why some students can't afford breakfast and lunch.
Therefore, the government shouldn't bother supplying subsidized breakfast and lunch programs.
The above example isnt really a fair comparison. It would be like inacting increased taxes on ALL car companies because most cars increase pollution.
Except that, again, you as a white person can't prove that you were a specific "victim" of AA.
Huh? How is that remotely actually adressing my point?
Again, a much more close comparison to what I actually said would be to say "the goverment isnt the cause of people being uneducated, therefor the goverment shouldnt hit educated people in the head to make them dumber." But all these discussion in analogies is just silly. It keeps getting in the way of actual discourse.
We can all draw up silly, insulting versions of what the other is saying all day long.
Except that, again, you as a white person can't prove that you were a specific victim of AA.
No, i cant. But if anyone is a "victim" of goverment policy, thats bad policy.
Now we can debate whether or not anyone is a victim, but if your going to conceed that anyone is being victimized, the defense that "but its a lot less then the amount of blacks that are every day!" is not going to hold up.
We dont elect folks to inact policy thats main objective victimizes black people. If AA does infact do so to whites it needs to be modified or ended.
Again, a much more close comparison to what I actually said would be to say "the goverment isnt the cause of people being uneducated, therefor the goverment shouldnt hit educated people in the head to make them dumber."
So white people are being physically injured as a result of AA?
Your point is that the government shouldn't correct for something unless they're directly the ones at fault for it occurring in the first place.
The logic behind that point is rather silly, as government corrects for things that they didn't cause directly all the damned time.
i.e., the government isn't the reason that poor people can't afford to give their children breakfast. But the government will still institute free breakfast programs for poor people.
If that's the case, then why can't the government open up doors to minorities who would otherwise have all the doors closed on them?
AA, by its very nature, discriminates based on race.
So does society in general. Which we have proven on numerous occasions.
Strangely, you have absolutely no problem with that.
You have no problem with white privilege. You only have problems when people dare to take that white privilege away from you.
Why does a black person have to prove that he was specifically discriminated against, where as white people merely have to prove a general disadvantage? Why are black people being held to a higher standard?
You still haven't answered this question.
A black person can prove that 50% of black people are being discriminated against, but he doesn't have a case, because he can't prove that he specifically is part of that 50%.
Where as a white person merely has to prove that AA decreases his overall odds of getting into college by 1%, and apparently that white person does have a case, even though he he can't prove that he is in that 1%.
Why are black people held to a higher standard?
Because the white person can go this policy (AA) negatively effects me based solely on my race. There's a targetable cause for that 1% change. Its a cause-effect relationship, in your 50% case you don't specify a causal agent.
If a black person applied to buy a condo from a condo developer and it came out that the condo company discriminated against minorities(in demonstrable way) they would have a case for compensation: against the condo company. Not against everyone in the country, or everyone who has ever lived in a condo, or even everyone currently living in that condo complex.
Were a school to construct a 'points policy' that deducted points from black people for being black so 1% fewer got it, should they be allowed to sue to end it?
No, i cant. But if anyone is a "victim" of goverment policy, thats bad policy.
Now we can debate whether or not anyone is a victim, but if your going to conceed that anyone is being victimized, the defense that "but its a lot less then the amount of blacks that are every day!" is not going to hold up.
The "victimization" is a slight loss of white privilege.
Instead of having a 50% statistical advantage over minorities solely for being white, now you might only have a 40% statistical advantage over minorities for being white.
AA opponents see this as victim hood, not because they're at a disadvantage compared to the minority, but because they're at a disadvantage compared to their prior status.
Because the white person can go this policy (AA) negatively effects me based solely on my race.
Right now, you have an unfair advantage due to being white.
Any policy that attempts to take away your unfair advantage will negatively affect you based on race.
For instance, giving the right to vote to black people through the voting rights act negatively affects you, because it means that your vote gets canceled out by black people voting for the opposing party.
Making it illegal for businesses to overtly discriminate against minorities negatively affects you, because it makes it harder for you to find work.
The mere fact that something negatively affects you does not make it wrong. Unless you're saying that black people shouldn't be allowed to vote.
How exactly do we undermine your unfair advantage without having any negative effect on you?
If a black person applied to buy a condo from a condo developer and it came out that the condo company discriminated against minorities they would have a case for compensation: against the condo company.
You have faith in perfect markets that do not exist.
In the real world, people who discriminate have plausible deniability.
You have unfair white privilege based solely on being white.
How exactly do we correct that, without negatively impacting you?
If you receive a stolen Xbox for Christmas, how exactly do we correct that, without returning the Xbox to the original owner?
You're trying to assert that correcting for a racial injustice is morally equivalent to promoting a racial injustice, because both actions are based on race and both actions will have impacts. It's like saying that returning the Xbox from you is just as bad as taking the Xbox from the original owner, because in both cases, you are taking an Xbox. It's a silly argument.
AA isn't even demanding white people pay actual money that they ought to pay in compensation.
You know whats great about being white? All the money my polish peasant farmer ancestors who emigrated here in the 1900s made from slavery. Let me tell you back in the old country everyone has a mansion that makes Tara look like a a double wide. Hell my kin there probably still have house servants, even if they did sell off the family potato plantation.
Plus Polish people have never been discriminated against in the US. My Great-Grandparents got off the boat and used their slave money to move into a lovely house in the nice part of town, and then used their high-paying executive jobs to buy a summer house in Martha's Vineyard. Hell my grandfather didn't pay a dime for school thanks to the polish scholarship fund, he even got to take a few cruises around the Pacific before enrolling. Like a year off to backpack in Europe, except with boats.
Noone is saying because you're white you were necessarily rich or had great social connections. But you did gain small subtle advantages because of your whiteness that black people in your position wouldn't have. If you really think your (white) polish great-grandparents endured as much discrimination and hardship as a similarly situated black person in their time, then you are a gigantic silly goose. Just THINK about what you're implying here...
valiance on
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
To put the discussion with Modern Man in another framework:
We know that businesses contribute to pollution. We know that pollution causes people to get sick. Therefore, we create laws to regulate pollution from businesses.
In the libertarian ideology, this is wrong. If people get sick due to pollution, then they should sue for damages. Anti-Pollution laws are therefore unnecessary.
The problem is that the harm from businesses that pollute is non-specific. You may have a higher chance of getting asthma because of the local paper plant, but you can't specifically prove that your asthma was caused by pollution, and you can't prove that the pollution in question came from the paper plant. There are no absolutes. Only probabilities.
This is what affirmative action boils down to. A specific law designed to address a non-specific injustice.
well
to extend the metaphor, the particular anti-pollution laws would have to be ones which tax all actors and industries, polluters or not, for the costs of repairing the damage (which might have been principally caused by now-defunct businesses centuries ago).
to extend the metaphor, the particular anti-pollution laws would have to be ones which tax all actors and industries, polluters or not, for the costs of repairing the damage (which might have been principally caused by now-defunct businesses centuries ago).
AA applies in the case of tie breakers, which means that any white who claim to be affected by AA were marginal to begin with. Since they're marginal to begin with, it's also fair to say that they probably wouldn't have as much opportunity if they had been born a different color.
In other words, the people most likely to be negatively impacted by AA are also the same people who are most likely to be positively impacted by pro-white bias.
Schrodinger on
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
to extend the metaphor, the particular anti-pollution laws would have to be ones which tax all actors and industries, polluters or not, for the costs of repairing the damage (which might have been principally caused by now-defunct businesses centuries ago).
AA applies in the case of tie breakers, which means that any white who claim to be affected by AA were marginal to begin with. Since they're marginal to begin with, it's also fair to say that they probably wouldn't have as much opportunity if they had been born a different color.
In other words, the people most likely to be negatively impacted by AA are also the same people who are most likely to be positively impacted by pro-white bias.
maybe, but the point is that the people being punished are almost never themselves the bad actors and often not even particularly the recipients of the continuing privilege.
arguably, the whites harmed by affirmative action are predominantly those from rather low socio-economic stations. i mean, let's be honest, "marginal candidate" usually indicates someone with a poor education who very likely didn't have great "white" opportunities in the first place.
i support practical affirmative action because i think that having one race of people as a massively declined socioeconomic class is tearing our nation apart in a lot of ways. but i think it's just too glib and blithe to pretend as though the leveling mechanisms themselves are going to be easy or fair themselves, or that the concerns of people on the other side of them are illegitimate.
Except that people who discriminate will always have plausible deniability, thanks to the fact that they generally practice aversive racism, rather than overt racism. Aversive racism means, "If I can come up with a non-racial excuse to discriminate against the black guy, then I will subconsciously act on it." In the real world, you will never see a case of two perfectly identical candidates applying for the exact same position, one black and one white. Which means that you can almost always make a non-racial excuse for your actions. If the white candidate has a higher SAT score but a lower GPA, you can insist that you valued raw aptitude. If the white candidate has a higher GPA but a lower SAT, you can insist that you valued consistency and hard work.
And, of course, there's the "2 a.m. rule." It's not that LaTosha was less qualified for that job, or anything, but she just didn't fit in with the company culture. I mean, is this the person you want to get stuck working on a project with at 2 a.m.? There's Bob, who's a fan of the Seahawks just like you, and you feel comfortable chatting and hanging out with him, but...well, you just don't have much to talk about with LaTosha. Everybody agrees that Bob's just more likeable.
But it's not racism and we're not hiring Bob just because he's white!
Re the U of Michigan cases, another thing that came to light was that Michigan gave preferences to a) children of alumni and b) applicants who already had a sibling attenting. I think the outrage over that one lasted all of 2.903 seconds. Because letting in iunqualified white people is cool, as long as you think they'll fork over some money as a result.
mythago on
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
AA isn't even demanding white people pay actual money that they ought to pay in compensation.
You know whats great about being white? All the money my polish peasant farmer ancestors who emigrated here in the 1900s made from slavery. Let me tell you back in the old country everyone has a mansion that makes Tara look like a a double wide. Hell my kin there probably still have house servants, even if they did sell off the family potato plantation.
Plus Polish people have never been discriminated against in the US. My Great-Grandparents got off the boat and used their slave money to move into a lovely house in the nice part of town, and then used their high-paying executive jobs to buy a summer house in Martha's Vineyard. Hell my grandfather didn't pay a dime for school thanks to the polish scholarship fund, he even got to take a few cruises around the Pacific before enrolling. Like a year off to backpack in Europe, except with boats.
Noone is saying because you're white you were necessarily rich or had great social connections. But you did gain small subtle advantages because of your whiteness that black people in your position wouldn't have. If you really think your (white) polish great-grandparents endured as much discrimination and hardship as a similarly situated black person in their time, then you are a gigantic silly goose. Just THINK about what you're implying here...
And was that small subtle advantage more or less than the 'whiteness correction factor' accounts for???
Which is why "white" is a stupid fucking way to measure this advantage, and terrible criteria for doling out corrective measures. If a white person is at 110% the poverty level and a black person is at 90% poverty level, you don't skim 10% from the white guy and go boom now your equal(since all white people owe all black people $ according to mask), Racism eliminated!
There are 2 components of 'white' privilege.
1) Generational accumulated wealth
2) Not getting actively discriminated against
1) Doesn't apply to all white people, and conveniently enough is something equally easy to evaluate as race on an application. Hell its actually easier since yearly household income or poverty level is easier to evaluate than worthiness of receiving race-hardship-correction-credits (Is a black kid from the burbs less 'black unprivileged' than one from Cabrini Green? The race check-box doesn't say.)
2) Is already illegal. Its like taxing every man a bit, to compensate all women, because men rape women(statistics say its so). What they are doing is already a crime, I shouldn't be punished for other peoples illegal actions. If my landlord discriminates against Mexicans, you shouldn't kick me out of my apartment, you should take his house(or make the effect Mexicans my landlords). Is that harder? Yep, but so is actually investigating most crimes, rather than just say arresting the nearest vaguely similarly looking minority and calling it a day.
And just to cover the Xbox example, an Xbox is a discrete thing. If someone steals your opportunity, you can sue them for that and be monetarily compensated, ala a wrongful termination lawsuit. Theres no need to find the benefactor(when someone wins a termination suit the courts don't order the firing of whoever filled their position cause they wrongly benefited). Then again there isn't really one for an Xbox either, cause you can just make the thief purchase you a new one, thus making you whole. Does the other person have an undeserved Xbox(??), maybe but you have your Xbox now, and the criminal is out an Xbox so it all sums out. And that analogy just got stretched to tearing.
maybe, but the point is that the people being punished are almost never themselves the bad actors and often not even particularly the recipients of the continuing privilege.
arguably, the whites harmed by affirmative action are predominantly those from rather low socio-economic stations. i mean, let's be honest, "marginal candidate" usually indicates someone with a poor education who very likely didn't have great "white" opportunities in the first place.
Except they have better opportunities than a black person from a similar background. That's the point.
Will a white dude who grew up in a bad neighborhood and served 18 months in prison for selling cocaine have a hard time finding a job? Sure.
But the thing is, the data shows that he will still have an easier time finding a job than a black dude with no prison sentence at all.
Where did that advantage come from?
It didn't come from having more money.
It came from being white.
A low income white dude is actually more likely to get hired because of his race than a rich white dude. Why? Because the rich white dude is more likely to be competing with other white dudes, where race is less of a factor. The poor white dude will be competing against poor black dudes, where his race is more likely to give him an edge.
Affirmative action applies in cases where you have an essential tie, and the decision could go either way. Objectively, there isn't a clear reason to pick one candidate over the other. The studies have shown that when these scenarios occur, white people will almost always get the nod, due to the inherent biases of society. AA says, "Look, we need to be more aware of when these scenarios occur, and we should create some circumstances where the black guy will get the nod in order to balance these out."
The people who are most likely to be "punished" by AA are the same people who are the most likely to be rewarded in every circumstance outside of AA.
1) Doesn't apply to all white people, and conveniently enough is something equally easy to evaluate as race on an application. Hell its actually easier since yearly household income or poverty level is easier to evaluate than worthiness of receiving race-hardship-correction-credits (Is a black kid from the burbs less 'black unprivileged' than one from Cabrini Green? The race check-box doesn't say.)
2) Is already illegal. Its like taxing every man a bit, to compensate all women, because men rape women(statistics say its so). What they are doing is already a crime, I shouldn't be punished for other peoples illegal actions. If my landlord discriminates against Mexicans, you shouldn't kick me out of my apartment, you should take his house(or make the effect Mexicans my landlords). Is that harder? Yep, but so is actually investigating most crimes, rather than just say arresting the nearest vaguely similarly looking minority and calling it a day.
1) Income and wealth are two different things.
2) The fact that something is illegal doesn't mean that it's hard to address. Most public schools have rules against bullying, so of course, bullying never happens, right? (Hint: Racism is far harder to address than bullying is, because not only is the victim rarely made aware of the reason why they're being discriminated against, but the perpetrator might not be aware of it either).
Once again, you're relying on a delusional view of the markets where we have access to perfect information and perfect objectivity. Where someone can subject their landlord to a "racism test" that turns green when he pees on it. That is not how the real world works.
Why is it that white people who never dealt with racism first hand are always the first to think that they understand how to solve for and address it? You don't have any idea what you're talking about, your suggestions don't make any sense, you have no incentive to see it go away, and you actually stand to lose in the event that it ever does. So why in the world would we even believe that you are genuinely motivated to end racism, much less that you have the actual answer for it?
This is what white privilege is. You assume that since you're white and you haven't had to deal with racism personally, you're now qualified to give other people advice on how they can avoid it as well.
And just to cover the Xbox example, an Xbox is a discrete thing. If someone steals your opportunity, you can sue them for that and be monetarily compensated, ala a wrongful termination lawsuit.
I once talked to a police officer who said told a story about how they tracked down a bike thief with a bunch of stolen bikes. They also managed to track down the owners. Unfortunately, as the owners neglected to write down the serial numbers to prove ownership, there was nothing they could do. The bike thief was allowed to keep his stolen property.
This is how the real world works. It's not some fantasy where the good guys and the bad guys were specific hats and then the vigilantes come in to make everything right. Sometimes, the bad guys know how to cover their tracks. What's your solution when this happens?
Why do you assume that any time that racism happens, the boss specifically says to the applicant, "I'm not hiring you because we don't like colored folks," thus making it easy for a lawsuit?
The real world does not work that way. Stop making your "solutions" on the assumption that it does.
But pretty similar in terms of advantages you can purchase, maybe you can inherit a nice house in the burbs and live there on 20k a year, but its not likely.
2) The fact that something is illegal doesn't mean that it's hard to address. Most public schools have rules against bullying, so of course, bullying never happens, right? (Hint: Racism is far harder to address than bullying is, because not only is the victim rarely made aware of the reason why they're being discriminated against, but the perpetrator might not be aware of it either).
Once again, you're relying on a delusional view of the markets where we have access to perfect information and perfect objectivity. Where someone can subject their landlord to a "racism test" that turns green when he pees on it. That is not how the real world works.
Why is it that white people who never dealt with racism first hand are always the first to think that they understand how to solve for and address it? You don't have any idea what you're talking about, your suggestions don't make any sense, you have no incentive to see it go away, and you actually stand to lose in the event that it ever does. So why in the world would we even believe that you are genuinely motivated to end racism, much less that you have the actual answer for it?
Sorry, I misread "Minorities only" as "Perspectives and solutions" in the thread title.
On a more serious note:
"I've never dealt with racism"
All the beneficiaries of AA I have personally encountered: lived where I lived, went to the school I went to, and were in comparable financial situations to my family. I wonder why I have a negative view of AA. Its basically a way for suburban minorities to get into better schools and/or pay less tuition because of their race.
Sometimes, the bad guys know how to cover their tracks. What's your solution when this happens?
Why do you assume that any time that racism happens, the boss specifically says to the applicant, "I'm not hiring you because we don't like colored folks," thus making it easy for a lawsuit?
The real world does not work that way. Stop making your "solutions" on the assumption that it does.
You are basically arguing for racial profiling. What if we can't stop the terrorists cause they can cover their tracks? There isn't a terrorist pee stick. What if they don't talk about Allah and bombs while walking through customs, thus making them easy to spot?
The " What if GROUP does ILLEGAL THING in a way where we can't stop them easily so: POLICY" argument, is extensible to just about anything, just pick a group and a stereotype(supported by statistics if it makes you feel better), and go to town. I'll get you started
The Japanese: are spies : intern them
terrorism suspects: know about terror plots: water-board them
1) Not being discriminated against based on race/religion/sex/etc is a right
2) It is wrong to curtail peoples rights based solely on statistical correlations
therefore
It is wrong for colleges to discriminate against white applicants, based on the statistical presumption that they were advantaged over black applicants
Disagree with 1) and the whole thread is moot. Disagree with 2) and lets just say police departments will have a much higher 'solved' crime rate(till they run out of minorities to jail).*
It an argument based on principle, not nebulous ends justifies means reasoning. "Flying while Muslim" and "Being Brown in AZ" both have statistical justifications, they are immoral policies because of the principles they violate. Me not having an alternative solution doesn't make them suddenly moral. AA fails the same tests.
Notice how this still leaves room to help those disadvantaged because they grew up poor/had a single parent/attended a bad school? Which covers every minority who isn't at least middle class, living with both their parents, in suburbia.
* Alternatively you could maybe try asserting that ALL minority applicants are at a disadvantage to ALL white applicants. But to head that off, Obama's kids vs trailer park white kid from Georgia.
But pretty similar in terms of advantages you can purchase, maybe you can inherit a nice house in the burbs and live there on 20k a year, but its not likely.
The authors surmount such difficulties themselves by using the relatively new Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data set to measure individual net worth (all wealth) and net financial assets (net worth minus housing equity and automobile value) as they artfully describe the trend of deepening economic inequality between the races since the 1980s. This theme is extended further in chapter four, in which two startling findings are highlighted: (a) though Black income has consistently hovered at around 60% of White income, Black wealth is only one-twelfth of White wealth; and (b) Black financial assets are, at the median, zero!
Sorry, I misread "Minorities only" as "Perspectives and solutions" in the thread title.
On a more serious note:
"I've never dealt with racism"
All the beneficiaries of AA I have personally encountered: lived where I lived, went to the school I went to, and were in comparable financial situations to my family.
Yes. The difference is, you could serve an 18-month prison sentence for selling cocaine, and still have a better chance of finding an entry level job than them. Moreover, your parents would have an easier time finding work than their parents, which would mean that all other things being equal, your parents should be in a better financial situation. Even if your parents and their parents end up working at the same job, your parents will have an easier time bouncing back in the event that they get fired.
Because surprise, surprise: Racism isn't simply a matter of where you live, or what your financial situation is. Racism is a matter of race.
What if we can't stop the terrorists cause they can cover their tracks? There isn't a terrorist pee stick.
Except that terrorist attacks can be readily identified after the fact. That's the entire point of terrorism. It wants to draw attention to itself. Meanwhile, racist hiring practices are easy to deny and almost impossible to identify, because they can always come up with a non-racist excuse for their before.
Your analogy is invalid. Your relying on the assumption that racism is just as easy to spot after the fact as a car bomb attack. Guess what? It isn't! If a car bomb attack occurs, people will know about it with 99.9% certainty.
If a boss has a bias against black people and is less likely to be impressed by a black dude with good SAT scores, there's a good chance that not even the boss himself is aware of the bias, so how is anyone else supposed to catch him?
The Japanese: are spies : intern them
terrorism suspects: know about terror plots: water-board them
Yeah, because AA takes white people and locks them in prison. Your analogy is so good here!
Oh wait, it doesn't. All it does is say "White people are at a slightly lower probability of not getting accepted here, to offset their much higher probability of getting accepted everywhere else."
Your analogy fails on three counts:
1) You can't identify any specific white people being "punished" here, because we are only talking probabilities.
2) If the mere existence of probabilities alone meets the burden "punishment" for white when it comes to AA, then mere existence of probability alone should meet the burden of "theft" when it comes to the white guy getting hired over the black dude. i.e., if you want to argue that you are being punished by AA because of a statistical disadvantage solely for being white, then I can just as easily say that the only reason you have your current just is because you are rewarded by racism because of the statistical advantage of being white. In other words, the punishment fits the crime. Both are statistical probabilities.
If you insist that you are being punished because of probability, then you are confessing to your guilt. If you deny your guilt based on probability, then you would have to deny that you being punished. Otherwise, you are once again holding black people to a much different standard than you hold yourself to. You are saying that black people are guilty of undeserved benefits from AA due to a statistical enhancement, while refusing to acknowledge that the same is true for yourself. You are saying that you being directly punished based on a statistical probability, without acknowledging that they are being punished.
3) There is no "punishment." Even in the worse case scenario, the worse thing that will happen to the white people in question is an extension of the status quo (not getting into college). Which is where they were before, and which would have likely happened to them anyway even if there wasn't an AA program to begin with.
Why is a white guy getting rejected from college equivalent to being water boarded, but the same thing doesn't hold true for an equivalent black guy?
Once again, you're holding black people and white people to completely different standards.
Me not having an alternative solution doesn't make them suddenly moral. AA fails the same tests.
False equivalency is false. I can say that your face is like a nail, but that doesn't justify me hitting you in the head with a hammer. You can insist that not getting into your top pick for college is equivalent to water boarding, but that doesn't make the analogy sound.
You seem to think that water boarding is wrong because it attempts to address an injustice, and therefore, anything that attempts to address an injustice is wrong. When in reality, water boarding is wrong because it is torture.
Water boarding would still be water boarding regardless of your race, and regardless of the motive behind it. If someone picked a white guy at random and water boarded him, without any accusations of terrorism, it would still be seen as wrong.
But for some reason, not getting into college is only equivalent to water boarding if you're white. If a black kid doesn't get into college, then it is no longer water boarding.
Why is that?
It's because your analogy sucks.
Also, because you're holding black people to a different standard than you hold yourself to.
* Alternatively you could maybe try asserting that ALL minority applicants are at a disadvantage to ALL white applicants. But to head that off, Obama's kids vs trailer park white kid from Georgia.
This is a stupid standard.
So Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks can't claim racism, because there were probably a few white people in America who had it worse than they did.
Is that about right?
Why do all of your arguments rely on holding black people and white people to a different standard?
When I make the argument that black people are discriminated against and that white people have an easier time finding work based solely on skin color, I don't compare an inner city black kid to Jenna Bush. I compare an inner city black kid to an equivalent inner city white kid, or to an inner city white kid who served 18 months in prison.
Meanwhile, when you try to make examples on how poor inner city white kids have it just as hard, you have to draw comparisons to Barack Obama.
BTW, you still haven't answered the question, Tin.
You have a statistical advantage over an equally qualified black dude, based solely on being white.
How do as a society correct that statical advantage without putting negatively impacting you? How do we correct a probability without correcting a probability?
To make another analogy, let's suppose that someone hacked a slot machine, so that it has a 50% better chance of paying off than it normally would. You start playing for a while, before the casino catches on. They allow you to keep your winnings up til now, but they insist that the machine will have to be reset so that the payoff will return to normal.
This is basically what life is. There are no guaranteed wins, and there are no guaranteed losses. What we do have are probabilities. The person who hacked the machine didn't hack it to win all of the time, and he didn't hack it to lose all the time. He merely hacked it so that it would win more often than it normally would. Some of your winnings may be legitimate, but many of your winnings are not.
When the casino insists that they should reset the machine, you insist that this is unfair. Because now you'll be negatively impacted by the adjustment, and it "punishes" you by reducing your odds of winning. You insist that it's unfair for the casino to re-adjust the machine, because "two wrongs don't make a right." You insist that it's unfair because by adjusting the odds, the machine may cause you to lose games that you may have legitimately won (Completely ignoring all the games you're currently winning that you should have legitimately lost). You insist that it's unfair, because it is no longer in the spirit of meritocracy, and now throws certain things to chance (Ignoring the fact that you're in a casino, and it was never a meritocracy to begin with.).
Instead, you insist that the game resume as normal, and that the casino objectively develop a system to objectively measure which games you would be winning if there was no hacking in place. You state that if they can definitively prove an individual round is illegitimate, than you will be happy to concede the winnings for that particular round. For instance, if the machine gives you a jackpot twice in a row, then you are willing to concede that one of those jackpots might be an error.
The casino replies by telling you that your proposal is stupid. Because even though they know that a great deal of your winnings are illegitimate, it's impossible to say which specific rounds are illegitimate. Because again, they are working with probabilities, not absolutes. You reply by insisting, "Look, just because it's hard to identify which specific games are illegitimate, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try. Otherwise, it's like you're trying to water board me. Now I know what it feels like to be in a Japanese internment camp!"
That's because you're a silly goose.
You have a personal self-interest to keep racism going, and you're trying to convince minorities that they must hold themselves to an impossible burden of proof if they want to see it end. A standard that you refuse to hold yourself to. Why is that?
Why is it that white people who never dealt with racism first hand are always the first to think that they understand how to solve for and address it? You don't have any idea what you're talking about, your suggestions don't make any sense, you have no incentive to see it go away, and you actually stand to lose in the event that it ever does. So why in the world would we even believe that you are genuinely motivated to end racism, much less that you have the actual answer for it?
This is what white privilege is. You assume that since you're white and you haven't had to deal with racism personally, you're now qualified to give other people advice on how they can avoid it as well.
While I agree with the rest of this, I'm going to have to argue against the bolded part. This falls into the trap of assuming that race relations are a zero-sum game. Society as a whole has much to gain from ending racism. After all, things tend to run more smoothly when the most skilled and competent person available is doing some job, rather than the most skilled and competent white person. Claiming that white people as a whole will lose out in the end just further pushes the racist narrative.
So, I really dislike affirmative action, but not because I'm some whiny white boy.
The real problem for underprivileged minority communities is not racial bias in the hiring process (which is not to say it's never an issue), but poverty and lack of access to quality education.
I see affirmative action as a sort of half measure. Rather than address the real problems, which affect people early on in life, it's much less work to just give them some advantage later on. The problem with half measures is it allows people to say (and believe) they've done something meaningful when they really haven't. "Look, we gave the black people affirmative action. It's not our fault they're still poor."
Yeah, where in the US political system, its a constant battle not to add new grievances to the disadvantaged, I cannot see a time where there is an active and noticable shift in assisting them.
So, I really dislike affirmative action, but not because I'm some whiny white boy.
The real problem for underprivileged minority communities is not racial bias in the hiring process (which is not to say it's never an issue), but poverty and lack of access to quality education.
I see affirmative action as a sort of half measure. Rather than address the real problems, which affect people early on in life, it's much less work to just give them some advantage later on. The problem with half measures is it allows people to say (and believe) they've done something meaningful when they really haven't. "Look, we gave the black people affirmative action. It's not our fault they're still poor."
What say you on the linked findings (try here for starters) that men with "identifiably black" names are more disadvantaged in hiring than white felons? I realize you say it's not never an issue, but it IS an issue and many AA policies are an attempt to remedy that inherent disadvantage.
More to the point, what specific AA practices that are currently in existence are you saying you dislike? Because as discussed previously in this thread, even the act of stripping names from a resume in order to prevent employers from knowing they are hiring a woman or visible minority falls under the umbrella of AA.
BTW, you still haven't answered the question, Tin.
You have a statistical advantage over an equally qualified black dude, based solely on being white.
How do as a society correct that statical advantage without putting negatively impacting you? How do we correct a probability without correcting a probability?
It is unjust to strip people of their individual rights based on demographics alone.
Because evaluating people based on statistics about their race is racial profiling, by definition.
So is racial profiling alright or is Freedom from discrimination not a right? Which one are you choosing, because your position requires 1 of them.
hint racial profiling violates freedom from discrimination, so theres really only 1 choice.
It is unjust to strip people of their individual rights based on demographics alone.
Having a 100% chance of getting into college is not an individual right that you are being stripped of.
Especially when you never actually had a 100% chance of getting into college in the first place.
Please explain why a white person not getting into college is equivalent to water boarding, but a black man getting into college is not.
So is racial profiling alright or is Freedom from discrimination not a right? Which one are you choosing, because your position requires 1 of them.
Handicap lanes discriminate against anyone who isn't handicap.
Therefore, handicap lanes are wrong.
I mean, I can understand why discriminating against the handicapped is wrong. But clearly, discriminating against non-handicapped people is just as bad!
Is that the logic you're using today?
BTW, You still haven't explained how you can consider yourself "punished" but not "guilty" under the same standard. If you are being "punished" because you have slightly lesser odds of getting into college for being white, than you are also "guilty" of abusing your white privilege for having significantly greater odds of finding work. In which case, the "punishment" suits the "crime." If the fact that you have significantly greater odds of finding work does not constitute guilt, then neither does AA constitute punishment. Yes, you may not be personally responsible for discrimination. But that's morally equivalent to knowingly buying stolen goods. You didn't personally steal them, but you are taking advantage of it.
Why is this "punishment" considered a "punishment" only when it happens to white people? Why isn't it considered a punishment when it happens to black people?
Why are you so certain that you are being "punished" by AA based on your race, but also so certain that you are not benefiting from white privilege? That doesn't make any god-damned sense.
You can't have it both ways.
You can't hold black people to a different standard than you hold yourself to.
You can't claim to be against discrimination, and then treat black people and white people differently.
You can't say, "Well it's okay when black people have a smaller chance of opportunity, but I'll be damned if the same thing happens to me!"
It is unjust to strip people of their individual rights based on demographics alone.
Having a 100% chance of getting into college is not an individual right that you are being stripped of.
Especially when you never actually had a 100% chance of getting into college in the first place.
Please explain why a white person not getting into college is equivalent to water boarding, but a black man getting into college is not.
NOT BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST IS AN INDIVIDUAL RIGHT! By penalizing white applicants the colleges violate that right.
You can't espouse equality and demand racially codified preferential treatment.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited October 2010
Actually, you know what Schrodinger:
I see your point. If you can demonstrate an unfairness in one area (say hiring) that is consistent and isn't going away, I don't see a corrective measure in the other direction elsewhere being necessarily a bad thing. You can kill affirmative action when the biases go away. I don't mind it that much once I account for the disadvantages that are explicitly racial.
So, I really dislike affirmative action, but not because I'm some whiny white boy.
The real problem for underprivileged minority communities is not racial bias in the hiring process (which is not to say it's never an issue), but poverty and lack of access to quality education.
We keep seeing this argument. "I don't benefit from white privilege, I'm poor!" I know that it may sound intuitive, but it's the opposite of true.
There are two components of white privilege. 1) Pro-White bias, where people prefer to higher you over the black guy. 2) Inherited wealth and status that comes from decades of access to programs and opportunities that black people did not have access to.
#1 is an advantage of white privilege based purely on racism. Where as #2 would still be advantageous even if there was no racism in the system. AA opponents tend to focus exclusively on #2, while ignoring #1, even though we've posted numerous studies showing that #1 is a very real phenomenon.
AA opponents will argue, "I am in the same socio-economic level as most black people, therefore, I am unlikely to benefit from white privilege." Wrong. Basically, the lower your income -> the more likely you are to compete directly against minorities -> the more likely you will get the job because of racism.
In other words, your whiteness isn't going to stand out at a fortune 500 company, and it's not going to give you an edge because most of the other possible candidates are equally white. But your whiteness is going to stand out if you apply for entry level work at the local fast food joint, where a lot of the other candidates will be minorities.
A white dude who served an 18-month sentence for selling cocaine will still benefit greatly from white privilege, enough to have a better chance of being hired than a black dude who is crime free. So the whole "I'm disadvantaged, therefore, I don't benefit from white privilege" argument doesn't fly. The opposite is true.
Here's the other point: How likely is it that the white drug dealer will apply for college at a university? Pretty unlikely. Which means that there is almost no chance that he will ever be negatively effected by affirmative action. All the industries that he competes in will already have plenty of minorities already at work, so they will never have to worry about having to increasing their diversity. No one ever says, "Gee, how do we insure that we have more qualified black people applying to be a frycook?" As a white person, you are far more likely to benefit from discrimination than you are likely to be "harmed" by AA.
NOT BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST IS AN INDIVIDUAL RIGHT! By penalizing white applicants the colleges violate that right.
So is it unfair to penalize non-handicap people by having handicap lanes and handicap bathrooms?
Aren't we discriminating against non-handicap people?
Do free breakfast programs at school for the needy discriminate against families who pay their taxes? Why should tax payers be punished just because someone else is poor?
Do gas taxes to pay for roads discriminate against people who drive? After all, just because I buy lots of gas, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm tearing up the road. Maybe I'm driving back and forth in my own driveway. Maybe I siphon all the gas from my tank when I get home and use it to power my generator.
You can't espouse equality and demand racially codified preferential treatment.
Setting up shelters for battered women is wrong and detrimental to equality, because these shelters discriminate against men.
The best way to maintain equality is to shut down these shelters and to encourage them to continue living with their abusive husbands.
Sure, they'll still get the shit beaten out of them, but at least it won't be codified. And that makes it all okay.
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That's not what you're arguing for! You're assuming equal treatment exists and it does not.
You are standing on the top step, looking at the black people on the ground next to you and asking why they need help reaching the top shelf.
So a Vietnamese kid scored a scholarship, and you got the idea that it was entirely because he was Vietnamese. And not because he was a good engineer.
Guess what? People with money still apply for scholarships. This happens with white people as well.
What firestorm?
Basically, people called out the college republicans for being douchebag attention whores. Which they are. But I don't see anyone in that article acting particularily enraged.
So does society in general. Which we have proven on numerous occasions.
Strangely, you have absolutely no problem with that.
You have no problem with white privilege. You only have problems when people dare to take that white privilege away from you.
Why does a black person have to prove that he was specifically discriminated against, where as white people merely have to prove a general disadvantage? Why are black people being held to a higher standard?
You still haven't answered this question.
A black person can prove that 50% of black people are being discriminated against, but he doesn't have a case, because he can't prove that he specifically is part of that 50%.
Where as a white person merely has to prove that AA decreases his overall odds of getting into college by 1%, and apparently that white person does have a case, even though he he can't prove that he is in that 1%.
Why are black people held to a higher standard?
AA is already special compensation, applied to a large group, to address problems that apply to the entire group. The specific harm is past racism and current racial biases. You keep trying to invalidate AA by saying that if the harm can't be specifically attributed on an individual basis, when, by nature, systemic racism is less about individual instances of racism and more about widespread bias against a group. The onus really isn't on our side to show individual harm when we are quite able to show systemic harm aimed at minorities. Your insistence on only individual cases constituting actual harm leads to invalidating statistical data that shows clear trends of racial bias.
So basically, stop being a disingenuous goose. You're not stupid, and you should stop pretending that you're too dense to understand what the proof presented means.
Scholarships like this often exist to increase diversity in a field. Why do you have a problem with this goal? Moreover, why do you think you should be entitled to have a shot at a scholarship like this? Do you think you should also be entitled to special consideration because your dad was an alumni or because he gave a million dollars to the school? Where is the outrage against that sort of affirmative action?
We know that businesses contribute to pollution. We know that pollution causes people to get sick. Therefore, we create laws to regulate pollution from businesses.
In the libertarian ideology, this is wrong. If people get sick due to pollution, then they should sue for damages. Anti-Pollution laws are therefore unnecessary.
The problem is that the harm from businesses that pollute is non-specific. You may have a higher chance of getting asthma because of the local paper plant, but you can't specifically prove that your asthma was caused by pollution, and you can't prove that the pollution in question came from the paper plant. There are no absolutes. Only probabilities.
This is what affirmative action boils down to. A specific law designed to address a non-specific injustice.
I think its more, holding the goverment to a higher standard. If the goverment is going to inact policy that favors one group over another, you better be able to show the (in this specific case) disenfranchised group why this is occuring.
The 1% of white people being disadvantaged by AA is different then the 50% of blacks being disadvantaged by society. The goverment isnt the cause of that second scenerio.
I mean, itd be one thing if in school a bully picked on me. But it would be another thing if the school inacted policy requiring me to be picked on.
EDIT:
The above example isnt really a fair comparison. It would be like inacting increased taxes on ALL car companies because most cars increase pollution. Is car company A responsible for some increased pollution, maybe, but without testing and knowing for sure, it doesnt seem fair to penalize them.
The government isn't the cause of people being uneducated.
Therefore, the government shouldn't be the source of public education.
The government isn't the cause of why some students can't afford breakfast and lunch.
Therefore, the government shouldn't bother supplying subsidized breakfast and lunch programs.
Except that, again, you as a white person can't prove that you were a specific "victim" of AA.
Again, a much more close comparison to what I actually said would be to say "the goverment isnt the cause of people being uneducated, therefor the goverment shouldnt hit educated people in the head to make them dumber." But all these discussion in analogies is just silly. It keeps getting in the way of actual discourse.
We can all draw up silly, insulting versions of what the other is saying all day long.
No, i cant. But if anyone is a "victim" of goverment policy, thats bad policy.
Now we can debate whether or not anyone is a victim, but if your going to conceed that anyone is being victimized, the defense that "but its a lot less then the amount of blacks that are every day!" is not going to hold up.
We dont elect folks to inact policy thats main objective victimizes black people. If AA does infact do so to whites it needs to be modified or ended.
So white people are being physically injured as a result of AA?
Your point is that the government shouldn't correct for something unless they're directly the ones at fault for it occurring in the first place.
The logic behind that point is rather silly, as government corrects for things that they didn't cause directly all the damned time.
i.e., the government isn't the reason that poor people can't afford to give their children breakfast. But the government will still institute free breakfast programs for poor people.
If that's the case, then why can't the government open up doors to minorities who would otherwise have all the doors closed on them?
Because the white person can go this policy (AA) negatively effects me based solely on my race. There's a targetable cause for that 1% change. Its a cause-effect relationship, in your 50% case you don't specify a causal agent.
If a black person applied to buy a condo from a condo developer and it came out that the condo company discriminated against minorities(in demonstrable way) they would have a case for compensation: against the condo company. Not against everyone in the country, or everyone who has ever lived in a condo, or even everyone currently living in that condo complex.
Were a school to construct a 'points policy' that deducted points from black people for being black so 1% fewer got it, should they be allowed to sue to end it?
The "victimization" is a slight loss of white privilege.
Instead of having a 50% statistical advantage over minorities solely for being white, now you might only have a 40% statistical advantage over minorities for being white.
AA opponents see this as victim hood, not because they're at a disadvantage compared to the minority, but because they're at a disadvantage compared to their prior status.
Right now, you have an unfair advantage due to being white.
Any policy that attempts to take away your unfair advantage will negatively affect you based on race.
For instance, giving the right to vote to black people through the voting rights act negatively affects you, because it means that your vote gets canceled out by black people voting for the opposing party.
Making it illegal for businesses to overtly discriminate against minorities negatively affects you, because it makes it harder for you to find work.
The mere fact that something negatively affects you does not make it wrong. Unless you're saying that black people shouldn't be allowed to vote.
How exactly do we undermine your unfair advantage without having any negative effect on you?
You have faith in perfect markets that do not exist.
In the real world, people who discriminate have plausible deniability.
Why is it wrong to ban black people from voting?
You have unfair white privilege based solely on being white.
How exactly do we correct that, without negatively impacting you?
If you receive a stolen Xbox for Christmas, how exactly do we correct that, without returning the Xbox to the original owner?
You're trying to assert that correcting for a racial injustice is morally equivalent to promoting a racial injustice, because both actions are based on race and both actions will have impacts. It's like saying that returning the Xbox from you is just as bad as taking the Xbox from the original owner, because in both cases, you are taking an Xbox. It's a silly argument.
Noone is saying because you're white you were necessarily rich or had great social connections. But you did gain small subtle advantages because of your whiteness that black people in your position wouldn't have. If you really think your (white) polish great-grandparents endured as much discrimination and hardship as a similarly situated black person in their time, then you are a gigantic silly goose. Just THINK about what you're implying here...
well
to extend the metaphor, the particular anti-pollution laws would have to be ones which tax all actors and industries, polluters or not, for the costs of repairing the damage (which might have been principally caused by now-defunct businesses centuries ago).
AA applies in the case of tie breakers, which means that any white who claim to be affected by AA were marginal to begin with. Since they're marginal to begin with, it's also fair to say that they probably wouldn't have as much opportunity if they had been born a different color.
In other words, the people most likely to be negatively impacted by AA are also the same people who are most likely to be positively impacted by pro-white bias.
maybe, but the point is that the people being punished are almost never themselves the bad actors and often not even particularly the recipients of the continuing privilege.
arguably, the whites harmed by affirmative action are predominantly those from rather low socio-economic stations. i mean, let's be honest, "marginal candidate" usually indicates someone with a poor education who very likely didn't have great "white" opportunities in the first place.
i support practical affirmative action because i think that having one race of people as a massively declined socioeconomic class is tearing our nation apart in a lot of ways. but i think it's just too glib and blithe to pretend as though the leveling mechanisms themselves are going to be easy or fair themselves, or that the concerns of people on the other side of them are illegitimate.
And, of course, there's the "2 a.m. rule." It's not that LaTosha was less qualified for that job, or anything, but she just didn't fit in with the company culture. I mean, is this the person you want to get stuck working on a project with at 2 a.m.? There's Bob, who's a fan of the Seahawks just like you, and you feel comfortable chatting and hanging out with him, but...well, you just don't have much to talk about with LaTosha. Everybody agrees that Bob's just more likeable.
But it's not racism and we're not hiring Bob just because he's white!
Re the U of Michigan cases, another thing that came to light was that Michigan gave preferences to a) children of alumni and b) applicants who already had a sibling attenting. I think the outrage over that one lasted all of 2.903 seconds. Because letting in iunqualified white people is cool, as long as you think they'll fork over some money as a result.
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And was that small subtle advantage more or less than the 'whiteness correction factor' accounts for???
Which is why "white" is a stupid fucking way to measure this advantage, and terrible criteria for doling out corrective measures. If a white person is at 110% the poverty level and a black person is at 90% poverty level, you don't skim 10% from the white guy and go boom now your equal(since all white people owe all black people $ according to mask), Racism eliminated!
There are 2 components of 'white' privilege.
1) Generational accumulated wealth
2) Not getting actively discriminated against
1) Doesn't apply to all white people, and conveniently enough is something equally easy to evaluate as race on an application. Hell its actually easier since yearly household income or poverty level is easier to evaluate than worthiness of receiving race-hardship-correction-credits (Is a black kid from the burbs less 'black unprivileged' than one from Cabrini Green? The race check-box doesn't say.)
2) Is already illegal. Its like taxing every man a bit, to compensate all women, because men rape women(statistics say its so). What they are doing is already a crime, I shouldn't be punished for other peoples illegal actions. If my landlord discriminates against Mexicans, you shouldn't kick me out of my apartment, you should take his house(or make the effect Mexicans my landlords). Is that harder? Yep, but so is actually investigating most crimes, rather than just say arresting the nearest vaguely similarly looking minority and calling it a day.
And just to cover the Xbox example, an Xbox is a discrete thing. If someone steals your opportunity, you can sue them for that and be monetarily compensated, ala a wrongful termination lawsuit. Theres no need to find the benefactor(when someone wins a termination suit the courts don't order the firing of whoever filled their position cause they wrongly benefited). Then again there isn't really one for an Xbox either, cause you can just make the thief purchase you a new one, thus making you whole. Does the other person have an undeserved Xbox(??), maybe but you have your Xbox now, and the criminal is out an Xbox so it all sums out. And that analogy just got stretched to tearing.
Except they have better opportunities than a black person from a similar background. That's the point.
Will a white dude who grew up in a bad neighborhood and served 18 months in prison for selling cocaine have a hard time finding a job? Sure.
But the thing is, the data shows that he will still have an easier time finding a job than a black dude with no prison sentence at all.
Where did that advantage come from?
It didn't come from having more money.
It came from being white.
A low income white dude is actually more likely to get hired because of his race than a rich white dude. Why? Because the rich white dude is more likely to be competing with other white dudes, where race is less of a factor. The poor white dude will be competing against poor black dudes, where his race is more likely to give him an edge.
Affirmative action applies in cases where you have an essential tie, and the decision could go either way. Objectively, there isn't a clear reason to pick one candidate over the other. The studies have shown that when these scenarios occur, white people will almost always get the nod, due to the inherent biases of society. AA says, "Look, we need to be more aware of when these scenarios occur, and we should create some circumstances where the black guy will get the nod in order to balance these out."
The people who are most likely to be "punished" by AA are the same people who are the most likely to be rewarded in every circumstance outside of AA.
1) Income and wealth are two different things.
2) The fact that something is illegal doesn't mean that it's hard to address. Most public schools have rules against bullying, so of course, bullying never happens, right? (Hint: Racism is far harder to address than bullying is, because not only is the victim rarely made aware of the reason why they're being discriminated against, but the perpetrator might not be aware of it either).
Once again, you're relying on a delusional view of the markets where we have access to perfect information and perfect objectivity. Where someone can subject their landlord to a "racism test" that turns green when he pees on it. That is not how the real world works.
Why is it that white people who never dealt with racism first hand are always the first to think that they understand how to solve for and address it? You don't have any idea what you're talking about, your suggestions don't make any sense, you have no incentive to see it go away, and you actually stand to lose in the event that it ever does. So why in the world would we even believe that you are genuinely motivated to end racism, much less that you have the actual answer for it?
This is what white privilege is. You assume that since you're white and you haven't had to deal with racism personally, you're now qualified to give other people advice on how they can avoid it as well.
I once talked to a police officer who said told a story about how they tracked down a bike thief with a bunch of stolen bikes. They also managed to track down the owners. Unfortunately, as the owners neglected to write down the serial numbers to prove ownership, there was nothing they could do. The bike thief was allowed to keep his stolen property.
This is how the real world works. It's not some fantasy where the good guys and the bad guys were specific hats and then the vigilantes come in to make everything right. Sometimes, the bad guys know how to cover their tracks. What's your solution when this happens?
Why do you assume that any time that racism happens, the boss specifically says to the applicant, "I'm not hiring you because we don't like colored folks," thus making it easy for a lawsuit?
The real world does not work that way. Stop making your "solutions" on the assumption that it does.
On a more serious note:
"I've never dealt with racism"
All the beneficiaries of AA I have personally encountered: lived where I lived, went to the school I went to, and were in comparable financial situations to my family. I wonder why I have a negative view of AA. Its basically a way for suburban minorities to get into better schools and/or pay less tuition because of their race.
You are basically arguing for racial profiling. What if we can't stop the terrorists cause they can cover their tracks? There isn't a terrorist pee stick. What if they don't talk about Allah and bombs while walking through customs, thus making them easy to spot?
The " What if GROUP does ILLEGAL THING in a way where we can't stop them easily so: POLICY" argument, is extensible to just about anything, just pick a group and a stereotype(supported by statistics if it makes you feel better), and go to town. I'll get you started
The Japanese: are spies : intern them
terrorism suspects: know about terror plots: water-board them
1) Not being discriminated against based on race/religion/sex/etc is a right
2) It is wrong to curtail peoples rights based solely on statistical correlations
therefore
It is wrong for colleges to discriminate against white applicants, based on the statistical presumption that they were advantaged over black applicants
Disagree with 1) and the whole thread is moot. Disagree with 2) and lets just say police departments will have a much higher 'solved' crime rate(till they run out of minorities to jail).*
It an argument based on principle, not nebulous ends justifies means reasoning. "Flying while Muslim" and "Being Brown in AZ" both have statistical justifications, they are immoral policies because of the principles they violate. Me not having an alternative solution doesn't make them suddenly moral. AA fails the same tests.
Notice how this still leaves room to help those disadvantaged because they grew up poor/had a single parent/attended a bad school? Which covers every minority who isn't at least middle class, living with both their parents, in suburbia.
* Alternatively you could maybe try asserting that ALL minority applicants are at a disadvantage to ALL white applicants. But to head that off, Obama's kids vs trailer park white kid from Georgia.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3626/is_199510/ai_n8717946/?tag=content;col1
The authors surmount such difficulties themselves by using the relatively new Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data set to measure individual net worth (all wealth) and net financial assets (net worth minus housing equity and automobile value) as they artfully describe the trend of deepening economic inequality between the races since the 1980s. This theme is extended further in chapter four, in which two startling findings are highlighted: (a) though Black income has consistently hovered at around 60% of White income, Black wealth is only one-twelfth of White wealth; and (b) Black financial assets are, at the median, zero!
Yes. The difference is, you could serve an 18-month prison sentence for selling cocaine, and still have a better chance of finding an entry level job than them. Moreover, your parents would have an easier time finding work than their parents, which would mean that all other things being equal, your parents should be in a better financial situation. Even if your parents and their parents end up working at the same job, your parents will have an easier time bouncing back in the event that they get fired.
Because surprise, surprise: Racism isn't simply a matter of where you live, or what your financial situation is. Racism is a matter of race.
Except that terrorist attacks can be readily identified after the fact. That's the entire point of terrorism. It wants to draw attention to itself. Meanwhile, racist hiring practices are easy to deny and almost impossible to identify, because they can always come up with a non-racist excuse for their before.
Your analogy is invalid. Your relying on the assumption that racism is just as easy to spot after the fact as a car bomb attack. Guess what? It isn't! If a car bomb attack occurs, people will know about it with 99.9% certainty.
If a boss has a bias against black people and is less likely to be impressed by a black dude with good SAT scores, there's a good chance that not even the boss himself is aware of the bias, so how is anyone else supposed to catch him?
Yeah, because AA takes white people and locks them in prison. Your analogy is so good here!
Oh wait, it doesn't. All it does is say "White people are at a slightly lower probability of not getting accepted here, to offset their much higher probability of getting accepted everywhere else."
Your analogy fails on three counts:
1) You can't identify any specific white people being "punished" here, because we are only talking probabilities.
2) If the mere existence of probabilities alone meets the burden "punishment" for white when it comes to AA, then mere existence of probability alone should meet the burden of "theft" when it comes to the white guy getting hired over the black dude. i.e., if you want to argue that you are being punished by AA because of a statistical disadvantage solely for being white, then I can just as easily say that the only reason you have your current just is because you are rewarded by racism because of the statistical advantage of being white. In other words, the punishment fits the crime. Both are statistical probabilities.
If you insist that you are being punished because of probability, then you are confessing to your guilt. If you deny your guilt based on probability, then you would have to deny that you being punished. Otherwise, you are once again holding black people to a much different standard than you hold yourself to. You are saying that black people are guilty of undeserved benefits from AA due to a statistical enhancement, while refusing to acknowledge that the same is true for yourself. You are saying that you being directly punished based on a statistical probability, without acknowledging that they are being punished.
3) There is no "punishment." Even in the worse case scenario, the worse thing that will happen to the white people in question is an extension of the status quo (not getting into college). Which is where they were before, and which would have likely happened to them anyway even if there wasn't an AA program to begin with.
Why is a white guy getting rejected from college equivalent to being water boarded, but the same thing doesn't hold true for an equivalent black guy?
Once again, you're holding black people and white people to completely different standards.
False equivalency is false. I can say that your face is like a nail, but that doesn't justify me hitting you in the head with a hammer. You can insist that not getting into your top pick for college is equivalent to water boarding, but that doesn't make the analogy sound.
You seem to think that water boarding is wrong because it attempts to address an injustice, and therefore, anything that attempts to address an injustice is wrong. When in reality, water boarding is wrong because it is torture.
Water boarding would still be water boarding regardless of your race, and regardless of the motive behind it. If someone picked a white guy at random and water boarded him, without any accusations of terrorism, it would still be seen as wrong.
But for some reason, not getting into college is only equivalent to water boarding if you're white. If a black kid doesn't get into college, then it is no longer water boarding.
Why is that?
It's because your analogy sucks.
Also, because you're holding black people to a different standard than you hold yourself to.
This is a stupid standard.
So Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks can't claim racism, because there were probably a few white people in America who had it worse than they did.
Is that about right?
Why do all of your arguments rely on holding black people and white people to a different standard?
When I make the argument that black people are discriminated against and that white people have an easier time finding work based solely on skin color, I don't compare an inner city black kid to Jenna Bush. I compare an inner city black kid to an equivalent inner city white kid, or to an inner city white kid who served 18 months in prison.
Meanwhile, when you try to make examples on how poor inner city white kids have it just as hard, you have to draw comparisons to Barack Obama.
Seriously dude, WTF?
You have a statistical advantage over an equally qualified black dude, based solely on being white.
How do as a society correct that statical advantage without putting negatively impacting you? How do we correct a probability without correcting a probability?
To make another analogy, let's suppose that someone hacked a slot machine, so that it has a 50% better chance of paying off than it normally would. You start playing for a while, before the casino catches on. They allow you to keep your winnings up til now, but they insist that the machine will have to be reset so that the payoff will return to normal.
This is basically what life is. There are no guaranteed wins, and there are no guaranteed losses. What we do have are probabilities. The person who hacked the machine didn't hack it to win all of the time, and he didn't hack it to lose all the time. He merely hacked it so that it would win more often than it normally would. Some of your winnings may be legitimate, but many of your winnings are not.
When the casino insists that they should reset the machine, you insist that this is unfair. Because now you'll be negatively impacted by the adjustment, and it "punishes" you by reducing your odds of winning. You insist that it's unfair for the casino to re-adjust the machine, because "two wrongs don't make a right." You insist that it's unfair because by adjusting the odds, the machine may cause you to lose games that you may have legitimately won (Completely ignoring all the games you're currently winning that you should have legitimately lost). You insist that it's unfair, because it is no longer in the spirit of meritocracy, and now throws certain things to chance (Ignoring the fact that you're in a casino, and it was never a meritocracy to begin with.).
Instead, you insist that the game resume as normal, and that the casino objectively develop a system to objectively measure which games you would be winning if there was no hacking in place. You state that if they can definitively prove an individual round is illegitimate, than you will be happy to concede the winnings for that particular round. For instance, if the machine gives you a jackpot twice in a row, then you are willing to concede that one of those jackpots might be an error.
The casino replies by telling you that your proposal is stupid. Because even though they know that a great deal of your winnings are illegitimate, it's impossible to say which specific rounds are illegitimate. Because again, they are working with probabilities, not absolutes. You reply by insisting, "Look, just because it's hard to identify which specific games are illegitimate, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try. Otherwise, it's like you're trying to water board me. Now I know what it feels like to be in a Japanese internment camp!"
That's because you're a silly goose.
You have a personal self-interest to keep racism going, and you're trying to convince minorities that they must hold themselves to an impossible burden of proof if they want to see it end. A standard that you refuse to hold yourself to. Why is that?
While I agree with the rest of this, I'm going to have to argue against the bolded part. This falls into the trap of assuming that race relations are a zero-sum game. Society as a whole has much to gain from ending racism. After all, things tend to run more smoothly when the most skilled and competent person available is doing some job, rather than the most skilled and competent white person. Claiming that white people as a whole will lose out in the end just further pushes the racist narrative.
Steam: pazython
The real problem for underprivileged minority communities is not racial bias in the hiring process (which is not to say it's never an issue), but poverty and lack of access to quality education.
I see affirmative action as a sort of half measure. Rather than address the real problems, which affect people early on in life, it's much less work to just give them some advantage later on. The problem with half measures is it allows people to say (and believe) they've done something meaningful when they really haven't. "Look, we gave the black people affirmative action. It's not our fault they're still poor."
MWO: Adamski
What say you on the linked findings (try here for starters) that men with "identifiably black" names are more disadvantaged in hiring than white felons? I realize you say it's not never an issue, but it IS an issue and many AA policies are an attempt to remedy that inherent disadvantage.
More to the point, what specific AA practices that are currently in existence are you saying you dislike? Because as discussed previously in this thread, even the act of stripping names from a resume in order to prevent employers from knowing they are hiring a woman or visible minority falls under the umbrella of AA.
Because evaluating people based on statistics about their race is racial profiling, by definition.
So is racial profiling alright or is Freedom from discrimination not a right? Which one are you choosing, because your position requires 1 of them.
Having a 100% chance of getting into college is not an individual right that you are being stripped of.
Especially when you never actually had a 100% chance of getting into college in the first place.
Please explain why a white person not getting into college is equivalent to water boarding, but a black man getting into college is not.
Handicap lanes discriminate against anyone who isn't handicap.
Therefore, handicap lanes are wrong.
I mean, I can understand why discriminating against the handicapped is wrong. But clearly, discriminating against non-handicapped people is just as bad!
Is that the logic you're using today?
BTW, You still haven't explained how you can consider yourself "punished" but not "guilty" under the same standard. If you are being "punished" because you have slightly lesser odds of getting into college for being white, than you are also "guilty" of abusing your white privilege for having significantly greater odds of finding work. In which case, the "punishment" suits the "crime." If the fact that you have significantly greater odds of finding work does not constitute guilt, then neither does AA constitute punishment. Yes, you may not be personally responsible for discrimination. But that's morally equivalent to knowingly buying stolen goods. You didn't personally steal them, but you are taking advantage of it.
Why is this "punishment" considered a "punishment" only when it happens to white people? Why isn't it considered a punishment when it happens to black people?
Why are you so certain that you are being "punished" by AA based on your race, but also so certain that you are not benefiting from white privilege? That doesn't make any god-damned sense.
You can't have it both ways.
You can't hold black people to a different standard than you hold yourself to.
You can't claim to be against discrimination, and then treat black people and white people differently.
You can't say, "Well it's okay when black people have a smaller chance of opportunity, but I'll be damned if the same thing happens to me!"
You can't espouse equality and demand racially codified preferential treatment.
I see your point. If you can demonstrate an unfairness in one area (say hiring) that is consistent and isn't going away, I don't see a corrective measure in the other direction elsewhere being necessarily a bad thing. You can kill affirmative action when the biases go away. I don't mind it that much once I account for the disadvantages that are explicitly racial.
We keep seeing this argument. "I don't benefit from white privilege, I'm poor!" I know that it may sound intuitive, but it's the opposite of true.
There are two components of white privilege. 1) Pro-White bias, where people prefer to higher you over the black guy. 2) Inherited wealth and status that comes from decades of access to programs and opportunities that black people did not have access to.
#1 is an advantage of white privilege based purely on racism. Where as #2 would still be advantageous even if there was no racism in the system. AA opponents tend to focus exclusively on #2, while ignoring #1, even though we've posted numerous studies showing that #1 is a very real phenomenon.
AA opponents will argue, "I am in the same socio-economic level as most black people, therefore, I am unlikely to benefit from white privilege." Wrong. Basically, the lower your income -> the more likely you are to compete directly against minorities -> the more likely you will get the job because of racism.
In other words, your whiteness isn't going to stand out at a fortune 500 company, and it's not going to give you an edge because most of the other possible candidates are equally white. But your whiteness is going to stand out if you apply for entry level work at the local fast food joint, where a lot of the other candidates will be minorities.
A white dude who served an 18-month sentence for selling cocaine will still benefit greatly from white privilege, enough to have a better chance of being hired than a black dude who is crime free. So the whole "I'm disadvantaged, therefore, I don't benefit from white privilege" argument doesn't fly. The opposite is true.
Here's the other point: How likely is it that the white drug dealer will apply for college at a university? Pretty unlikely. Which means that there is almost no chance that he will ever be negatively effected by affirmative action. All the industries that he competes in will already have plenty of minorities already at work, so they will never have to worry about having to increasing their diversity. No one ever says, "Gee, how do we insure that we have more qualified black people applying to be a frycook?" As a white person, you are far more likely to benefit from discrimination than you are likely to be "harmed" by AA.
So is it unfair to penalize non-handicap people by having handicap lanes and handicap bathrooms?
Aren't we discriminating against non-handicap people?
Do free breakfast programs at school for the needy discriminate against families who pay their taxes? Why should tax payers be punished just because someone else is poor?
Do gas taxes to pay for roads discriminate against people who drive? After all, just because I buy lots of gas, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm tearing up the road. Maybe I'm driving back and forth in my own driveway. Maybe I siphon all the gas from my tank when I get home and use it to power my generator.
Setting up shelters for battered women is wrong and detrimental to equality, because these shelters discriminate against men.
The best way to maintain equality is to shut down these shelters and to encourage them to continue living with their abusive husbands.
Sure, they'll still get the shit beaten out of them, but at least it won't be codified. And that makes it all okay.
Right?