Racism is alive and well in Britain

[Jekyll's Guest]

The problem I have with this is independent of the cause, there are profound differences in well-being across race groups. If we let people compete only on merit, minorities will continue to be vastly under-represented in jobs that foster well-being.

To come at your question from the other side, why should we be worrying about putting those with less merit in prime positions?

Also why do minority groups like Asian-Americans, who were treated like animals for a long time, do so well in modern America?

There has to be a line between encouraging people to improve themselves, and artificially lifting them up if they can't make the cut.

 

[TraneWreck]

My point is simply that in most cases the people applying for a job had nothing to do with the racism of the past either as persecutors or victims. Not giving someone a job because someone of their same skin color once treated someone of another skin color badly is racism regardless of the reasoning behind it. The only way to get rid of institutionalized racism is to get rid of institutionalized racism. Hire people on merit and deal with discrimination as individual cases.

That would be fine if absent Affirmative Action the opposite weren't true at a staggering rate.

If it really were the case that people would randomly choose betwen two equally qualified parties, then no need for the law. Obviously this isn't the case.

If you get rid of "reverse racism" as you call it, we're right back to de facto racism. This view that somehow only the government is capable of oppression is just silly. Affirmative Action policies are necessary because citizens will oppress based on gender and race unless forcibly stopped from doing so.

My law school class was exactly 50% men and 50% women. Even twenty-five years ago this would have been absurd. Affirmative Action played a significant role in that growth. And of the best 10 students in my class, 7 of them were women. The two people placed in Supreme Court clerkships were both women.

Those opportunities would not have been there without a commitment to leveling the playing field.

 

[bpesta22]

To come at your question from the other side, why should we be worrying about putting those with less merit in prime positions?

Also why do minority groups like Asian-Americans, who were treated like animals for a long time, do so well in modern America?

There has to be a line between encouraging people to improve themselves, and artificially lifting them up if they can't make the cut.

You're now getting at possible causes of the difference. I think the default model has always been blank slate (which to me is preposterous; but most everyone disagrees). I think we should focus on the effects (via AA) til science figures out and corrects the causes.

 

[Jekyll's Guest]

You're now getting at possible causes of the difference. I think the default model has always been blank slate (which to me is preposterous; but most everyone disagrees). I think we should focus on the effects (via AA) til science figures out and corrects the causes.

Is it a problem science can fix?

It seems largely sociological to me. Some time after the 60's mainstream American black culture turned anti-intellectual. I'm not sure why, up until then black Americans used education as a weapon to improve their lot in society, with great effect.

The only way this is going to turn around is a grass roots movement, lead by black Americans (because let's face it, whitey isn't welcome atm, and it comes off as interference, which kills any attempt dead).

I consider efforts like AA to be guilty feeling white people trying to stick a band aid on a gaping wound, and just upsetting any possible clotting.

When you get a generation of black Americans who want education badly enough to fight for it, things will turn around real fast, then and only then will you get your united colors of Benetton workplace

 

[Dragonrock]

That would be fine if absent Affirmative Action the opposite weren't true at a staggering rate.

If it really were the case that people would randomly choose betwen two equally qualified parties, then no need for the law. Obviously this isn't the case.

If you get rid of "reverse racism" as you call it, we're right back to de facto racism. This view that somehow only the government is capable of oppression is just silly. Affirmative Action policies are necessary because citizens will oppress based on gender and race unless forcibly stopped from doing so.

My law school class was exactly 50% men and 50% women. Even twenty-five years ago this would have been absurd. Affirmative Action played a significant role in that growth. And of the best 10 students in my class, 7 of them were women. The two people placed in Supreme Court clerkships were both women.

Those opportunities would not have been there without a commitment to leveling the playing field.

Okay, deal with cases of racism individually. In the courts rather than artificially raising a person because their grandfather had to be escorted into highschool.

I don't know how you can justify giving Fred the black guy preference over Bob the white guy simply because Fred's dad once had a cross burnt on his lawn.

 

[bpesta22]

But, at least in the USA, race is supposedly just one factor used in selection decisions. On paper, if two candidates are roughly equally qualified, it's ok to give one spot to the minority.

What else is there to do except say, tough, deal with the disparity until your kind value education enough to be the best qualified person?

Also, I dunno if science can fix it. I know nothing else will.

 

[Jekyll's Guest]

What else is there to do except say, tough, deal with the disparity until your kind value education enough to be the best qualified person?

Take all the money we dump in to feel good crap and funnel it purely to minority students with good grades and no money. Have a few nerds who couldn't play ball come home to visit in their shiny new cars, I guarantee that would help.

Trying to magically dredge up people who don't want to work for it doesn't benefit anyone.

 

[TraneWreck]

Okay, deal with cases of racism individually. In the courts rather than artificially raising a person because their grandfather had to be escorted into highschool.

I don't know how you can justify giving Fred the black guy preference over Bob the white guy simply because Fred's dad once had a cross burnt on his lawn.

Better than making up the difference with 400 years of white slavery...

 

[bpesta22]

Take all the money we dump in to feel good crap and funnel it purely to minority students with good grades and no money. Have a few nerds who couldn't play ball come home to visit in their shiny new cars, I guarantee that would help.

Trying to magically dredge up people who don't want to work for it doesn't benefit anyone.

Minority students with good grades are in the best position-- in the USA-- to get any job they want.

 

[Jekyll's Guest]

Minority students with good grades are in the best position-- in the USA-- to get any job they want.

Then why do we need AA?

Not enough minorities have good enough grades to get all the help available?

Um, tough?

If you're some poor hillbilly in the Appalachians you better work 3 times as hard as everyone else and earn a scholarship, because no-one is giving you a free ride.

 

[bpesta22]

Then why do we need AA?

Not enough minorities have good enough grades to get all the help available?

Um, tough?

If you're some poor hillbilly in the Appalachians you better work 3 times as hard as everyone else and earn a scholarship, because no-one is giving you a free ride.

Maybe good grades require more than just work ethic / motivation?

 

[Dragonrock]

Better than making up the difference with 400 years of white slavery...

I don't know anyone who has ever owned a slave so how is that relevant?

 

[Ziggurat]

If it really were the case that people would randomly choose betwen two equally qualified parties, then no need for the law. Obviously this isn't the case.

No it isn't. But one of the perverse aspects of modern liberalism it its simultaneous urge to use government intervention to both stop AND enable discrimination.

Some people are racist. Them's the breaks, and the reality is that we can't prevent people from being racist, or even from acting racist. But in a free market environment, competition punishes racism. If you favor one race over another in terms of hiring, in terms of whom you buy from, or in terms of whom you sell to, then you put yourself at an economic disadvantage compared to those who do not. In a non-free-market environment, though, racism is often cost-free. For example, let's say you're a landlord, and you are renting an apartment that is rent-controlled. The price is artificially low, which means that the demand will be greater than the supply. So you've got many potential tenants, and you can pick and choose between them, but not on price. Because of rent control, they all offer the same price. So it costs you nothing to discriminate between them on the basis of race.

Same with minimum wage laws: you can't hire the worker who will work for the cheapest, so you are again free to discriminate on the basis of race. Oh, of course you have to do it discreetly, but really, that's not hard to do. In fact, racism by white workers in the early 1900's was one of the major motivators for early minimum wage laws. That's not the intention today, but it's still an effect. Free markets don't prohibit racism, but they punish it. Often pretty effectively (enough so that South Africa had to make it illegal for whites to hiring blacks in many cases). Government interference in free markets often reduces or removes these corrective mechanisms. And the mechanisms government tries to use, such as affirmative action, do not eliminate racism and are of limited efficacy in reducing its effects.

If you get rid of "reverse racism" as you call it, we're right back to de facto racism.

We never left.

Affirmative Action policies are necessary because citizens will oppress based on gender and race unless forcibly stopped from doing so.

Well, first off, they aren't stopped from doing so, that just changes how it happens. And secondly, this presumes that nothing BUT government interference can provide effective incentives for people to not act racist. But that's not true.

As Leo Durocher, manager of the Dodgers, said to his players regarding hiring Jackie Robinson, ""I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a ****in' zebra. I'm the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What's more, I say he can make us all rich. And if any of you cannot use the money, I will see that you are all traded."

Money can be a very powerful incentive against discrimination.

 

[TraneWreck]

I don't know anyone who has ever owned a slave so how is that relevant?

You don't know anyone who directly benefited from owning a slave, yet the social advantage persists to this day.

Why should you get that advantage?

 

[Alt+F4]

Would you mind letting us know if you get the job?

I won't get the job as I don't live in the UK and don't have authorization to work there. I wanted to see if this part of the article linked in the OP was correct:

A council has been accused of discrimination after white people were barred from applying for two £18,000-a-year jobs.

It's an outright lie, white people are not barred from applying. After they offered me an interview, I quickly declined. I didn't want to waste their time.

 

[Ziggurat]

It seems largely sociological to me. Some time after the 60's mainstream American black culture turned anti-intellectual. I'm not sure why, up until then black Americans used education as a weapon to improve their lot in society, with great effect.

Part of it may be an unintended consequence of school desegregation and integration.

I consider efforts like AA to be guilty feeling white people trying to stick a band aid on a gaping wound, and just upsetting any possible clotting.

Particularly since such affirmative action is often cost free, if you're white AND privileged. In higher education, for example, you can still rely on "legacy".

 

[Jekyll's Guest]

Maybe good grades require more than just work ethic / motivation?

No, I'm pretty sure that's all it takes.

Now some people need an awful lot more of both to succeed, but there's still no magic formula. It's not the 20's, there is no great conspiracy to keep anyone down. It's other people at the bottom doing the pulling.

I grew up in a slum area, and my family went through all kinds of hell, because my parents saved up and bought their house, and I liked to read. We were 'uppity'. Ignorance likes company.

 

[dudalb]

Better than making up the difference with 400 years of white slavery...

WHite Liberal Guilt much?

 

[Jekyll's Guest]

Particularly since such affirmative action is often cost free, if you're white AND privileged. In higher education, for example, you can still rely on "legacy".

Never having been rich I couldn't say.

I am sick of some minorities equating 1% of white people with all the perks as the standard. Guess what, I'm white, and I'm not getting in ahead of Gerald Hendershot III either.

 

[TraneWreck]

Money can be a very powerful incentive against discrimination.

And yet every major Civil Rights initiative was put into place precisely because markets were 100% useless in dealing with such problems.

The bus boycotts ended with federal action, not market correction. The schools had to be forcibly desegregated, and even though massive protests throughout the South managed to get a few Woolworth's desegregated, those were all local phenomenon. Where there were no sit-ins, there was no desegregation, and their were vastly more businesses than protests.

But I enjoy this myth. Are you seriously arguing that a segregated business in modern Alabama would fail because they couldn't make money?