Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[Foolmewunz]

Just as a point of reference,... you're unlikely to see "Bubba" on a CV. It's about as likely as seeing "Skeeter". Generally, Bubba is a nickname and some people get so well-known by their nicks that they carry through to all their friends and relations.

Similarly, Billy Bob is quite likely to be William or Bill or Robert or Bob.

A regional manager for my company down in Dallas did once receive a CV for a "Misty Spray", though.

 

[shuttlt]

Just as a point of reference,... you're unlikely to see "Bubba" on a CV. It's about as likely as seeing "Skeeter". Generally, Bubba is a nickname and some people get so well-known by their nicks that they carry through to all their friends and relations.

Similarly, Billy Bob is quite likely to be William or Bill or Robert or Bob.

A regional manager for my company down in Dallas did once receive a CV for a "Misty Spray", though.

Fair enough. Having read a few CVs, I wouldn't be surprised if a few Bubbas put their nickname on their CV. Apropos of nothing, a good number of the Indians I've interviewed put made up names (still Indian looking) on their CV. It creates all kinds of confusion with HR and payroll.

 

[squealpiggy]

You still haven't told us what you think the difference is, friend. Is it a secret?

Class has to do with a range of different factors including but not limited to income. For example Paul McCartney is the richest musician in the world and has a knighthood but grew up in a working class family in Liverpool.

Class is related to lifestyle, background, upbringing, family status, education.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class

First, what Kevin Lowe said. Second, the study showed employers still called black names in high wealth zip codes less,

The study does a great job of demonstrating prejudice among employers related to names. We've already established that the content of the CV was sometimes ignored based on the name on the top, the address of the applicant is not going to be the next thing looked at. A company receiving a hundred resumes for a single position is going to sort them quickly to begin with based on whether or not they are qualified. Unqualified applicants are discarded. Then they would look at the other information including the name, the experience, the extra curricular interests. The address of the applicants is pretty much irrelevant.

But the study doesn't attempt to differentiate between the socio-economic circumstances of various names in the way Bertrand and Mullainathan did. Instead, it treats all uniquely black names as equal, which doesn't appear to be the case per the education data Bertrand and Mulainathan used. That's fine in a study, but using that sort of data for an actual employment decision would be racist.

It would be prejudicial. And it is prejudicial. But it has not been measured against names that indicate lower social class but are not distinctively black names. Therefore there is insufficient evidence to call it racism.

 

[shuttlt]

This article seems to imply there is a UK study doing essentially the same thing, but possibly without the flaws of the study we are discussing:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221370/Fake-CV-test-shows-employers-racially-discriminate-based-jobseekers-names.html

 

[Stout]

That video is one of the worst ones I've seen from Thunderf00t! It's barely coherent. He's almost right about avoiding being a victim by not behaving like a victim as a strategy for reducing your chances of being victimised by street crime but the video was a mess.

I'm certainly not going to spend a lot of time or effort defending the video. When I saw the clip of the black guy railing against the white woman on the elevator video, I was hoping that Thunderfoot was going to do something with it.

Like maybe a feminist version ( with help from the NRA, of course ) where the woman slowly slides her hand into her purse as he's listening to the dude's violent misogynistic rantings and wraps her hand around the grip of her pistol. The guy turns and unleashes his BOO!! and......

Over at FtB, there's an entry dealing with frat houses and partying. In the comments section, Aplusser, Great American Satan offers up this bit of insight in comment #34.

Also, at this point, yeah, I’d paint all atheists with the misogyny brush until they prove themselves good allies to progressive causes. I certainly wouldn’t mention my atheism as a reason why women should trust me.

What an idiot ! The first rule of misandry club is..........

So all atheists are "guilty until they prove themselves innocent" ? Not just allies ( read..lapdogs) but good allies who do what their told and accept the dogma without question.

Speaking of dogma without questions.

In post #61 the following story is offered up to reinforce just how "sexist" the fraternity setup is.

Interesting aside: Miami University in Oxford, Ohio has frat houses (and has had its share of troubling behavior from fraternities) but no sorority houses. Turns out there’s a local law that defines anyplace where more than some set number of women (2?) live together as a brothel. If it’s that easy to get rid of sorority houses because some bunch of old prudes didn’t like women, then it ought to be a piece of cake to get rid of frat houses where a number of actual crimes are likely committed on a regular basis.

I thought that was interesting too so agooglin' I went, and in less than 10 minutes proved it to be horse hockey.

....... it is easy to notice that no sorority houses exist on college grounds. Student opinions differ as to why. It's because a lady donated an extensive amount of money to the university with the stipulation that sororities couldn't build houses, right? Wrong. This never happened. What about the rumor that Oxford City Council considers a house a brothel if a certain number of women live in a single residence? Wrong again

Link

Oh..and it appears the girls at Miami like to party too.

 

[Empress]

Over at FtB, there's an entry dealing with frat houses and partying. In the comments section, Aplusser, Great American Satan offers up this bit of insight in comment #34.

What an idiot ! The first rule of misandry club is..........

So all atheists are "guilty until they prove themselves innocent" ? Not just allies ( read..lapdogs) but good allies who do what their told and accept the dogma without question.

Speaking of dogma without questions.

In post #61 the following story is offered up to reinforce just how "sexist" the fraternity setup is.

I thought that was interesting too so agooglin' I went, and in less than 10 minutes proved it to be horse hockey.

Link

There you go, expecting people to check the accuracy of things before asserting them. You need to walk back your google-privilege.

As for assuming that atheists are misogynists unless they prove otherwise: that is exactly the sort of comment that drives me so insane about so many of the plussers/FTBloggers. PZ has already tried to redefine atheism as something more than a lack of belief in gods, which is asinine on its face. Now not only is there more to it than that, we automatically hate women unless we do whatever it is they'll accept as proof that we're not. **** them.

 

[Dissolution]

Was that article that they're bashing written by a 16-year-old or was it intended as a parody?

 

[Ocelot]

This article seems to imply there is a UK study doing essentially the same thing, but possibly without the flaws of the study we are discussing:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221370/Fake-CV-test-shows-employers-racially-discriminate-based-jobseekers-names.html

Yuk Daily Mail. I need a shower. Here's the same study straight from the equine buccal cavity:

http://www.natcen.ac.uk/media/66476...n in recruitment practice research report.pdf

Seems to be very similar with regard to picking recognizably ethnic names.

It does seem to try to control for perceived social class.

Testing was carried out internally, with staff at
a number of locations, to establish whether these were generally recognised as
being from the anticipated ethnic group, of the anticipated gender, and whether
they were neutral with regard to age and social class.

However just because you've found one confounding factor and mentioned an effort to to control for it doesn't mean you successfully compensated for it or indeed any other confounders.

http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/psychology/ppl/amc/articles-pdfs/attrname.pdf

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-sty...eem-education-smoking-study-article-1.1002198

Though of course this is a tangled web - if the explanation for the variance is that the names used are perceived as less desirable in other aspects we then have the question of why these stereo-typically ethnic names happen to have other negative connotations. Is that typical for stereo-typically ethnic names or just a coincidence that such names were chosen.

 

[d4m10n]

That video is one of the worst ones I've seen from Thunderf00t! It's barely coherent. He's almost right about avoiding being a victim by not behaving like a victim as a strategy for reducing your chances of being victimised by street crime but the video was a mess.

I found his comparison of rapists to mountain lions particularly troubling.

No one thinks that mountain lions would benefit from a humanistic moral education, right?

Teach predators not to stalk their prey!

 

[d4m10n]

Back to the topic, I was wondering what the A+ adherents here felt about the fact that A+, once hoped to be a growing and influential "movement," is now just one Internet forum of ever-shrinking numbers, activity, and relevance?

If we limit ourselves to people promoting the A+ brand, then the answer is that the brand didn't catch on for various reasons, not least of which are the screaming caps lock of rage on the forums.

If we consider A+ more broadly as the acceptance of ideas from the online social justice memesphere into the freethought community, then I would say that "Atheism Plus" has been doing fairly well. Skepticon cut off CFI sponsorship, for example, because CFI was considered insufficiently pure. At least a half dozen prominent secular leaders have been accused of sexism or sexual assault. At this point, you'd be hard pressed to name a prominent national American freethought organization that hasn't been accused of oppression by someone writing at FtB or Patheos. The promotion of social justice callout culture proceeds apace, regardless of the A+ branding.

 

[colander]

Class has to do with a range of different factors including but not limited to income. For example Paul McCartney is the richest musician in the world and has a knighthood but grew up in a working class family in Liverpool.

So you propose that employers discard resumes of apparently wealthy people with black names because they think those black people must be prodigies who rose to immense financial success from a working class background, and they hate people from working class backgrounds?

what

 

[Daald]

I found his comparison of rapists to mountain lions particularly troubling.

No one thinks that mountain lions would benefit from a humanistic moral education, right?

Teach predators not to stalk their prey!

Why did you find it troubling? There is an issue with all arguments by analogy where people get fixated by the differences to miss the point of the analogy. It is obvious he made it so that he can relate personally to the subject he was talking about.

I mean his point has been made even on this forum many times. Recognize the factors that a rapists looks for and try to minimize them if you can. Not an earth shattering concept. The interesting thing in his video was that rapists apparently watch for body language to pick their victims (sort of like a predator).

P.S. I don't think that sociopaths would benefit from a humanistic moral education.

 

[shuttlt]

Double post.

 

[blutoski]

P.S. I don't think that sociopaths would benefit from a humanistic moral education.

In fact, best practice is to exclude them from group therapy sessions and similar talk therapy - educating them about victimization topics makes them more efficient predators.

 

[shuttlt]

So you propose that employers discard resumes of apparently wealthy people with black names because they think those black people must be prodigies who rose to immense financial success from a working class background, and they hate people from working class backgrounds?

what

Colander... i honestly struggle to see how you could not see that this is a disingenuous argument.

1. How do outliers, taken in isolation, prove anything? If a white person with a "black" name was discriminated against, would that prove there was no racism, or clasism, or what ever? A "black" name doesn't tell you with absolute certainty what race a person is, or what class a person is from, what education they have, or how much money they have. The point is it gives you a huge clue. Sure, Cletus may live on the right side of town, but he's still called Cletus.

2. You are also confusing wealth and class. Sure there is probably a corrolation, but it's not the same thing. You are equivocating.

3. Where do you get that they are discarding "apparantly wealthy" black CV's with black names? Ignoring the issue of wealth, names carry information about class, just as address does. The study doesn't tell you that this is going on. It very well may be, and probably is, going on, but this study doesn't show it. The point of this whole thing is that you can't easily seperate the names from the apparant race, class, wealth that they convey.

 

[colander]

Colander... i honestly struggle to see how you could not see that this is a disingenuous argument.

1. How do outliers, taken in isolation prove anything? If a white person with a "black" name was discriminated against, would that prove there was no racism, or clasism, or what ever? A "black" name doesn't tell you with absolute certainty what race a person is, or what class a person is from, what education they have, or how much money they have.The point is it gives you a huge clue. Sure, Cletus may live on the right side of town, but he's still called Cletus.

What percentage of the American white population is saddled with names that mark them as "lower class", friend? Not high at all, I'm afraid. It seems your beloved Cletus is himself quite the outlier.

Now then... how does it compare to percentage of the black population that is? A moment's thought should make clear that whether you want to call it racism or classism or Jiminey McBonersnort, this "name prejudice" has a massively disparate negative impact on black people.

2. You are also confusing wealth and class. Sure there is probably a corrolation, but it's not the same thing. You are equivocating.

Hardly. In America, the two are so highly correlated as to be nearly indistinguishable. Unlike McCartney's England, America has historically lacked markers of high social class that are separable from wealth. Well, there is one: all things being equal, it would seem that blackness is a significant detriment to one's ability to integrate into the upper classes.

3. Where do you get that they are discarding "apparantly wealthy" black CV's with black names. Ignoring the issue of wealth, names carry information about class, just as address does. The study doesn't tell you that this is going on. It very well may be, and probably is, going on, but this study doesn't show it.

Read it again.

 

[shuttlt]

What percentage of the American white population is saddled with names that mark them as "lower class", friend? Not high at all, I'm afraid. It seems your beloved Cletus is himself quite the outlier.

Sure, but whose fault is that? We've got a study that so far hasn't been challenged that suggests the names of white people in the US carries less information about class/wealth/socio-economic-status.

Now then... how does it compare to percentage of the black population that is? A moment's thought should make clear that whether you want to call it racism or classism or Jiminey McBonersnort, this "name prejudice" has a massively disparate negative impact on black people.

Do you have a study to prove it? We already have been quoting from a study that says names have little to do with life outcomes. If "John" is born is the ghetto, it's being born in the ghetto that's important. If "Shaniqua" grows up in Beverly Hills, it's being born in Beverly Hills that's important. To paraphrase one of the studies... take away the clues of names and addresses, it's not as if people with racist prejudices are going to be fooled once you get to the interview just because you have a "white" name.

Hardly. In America, the two are so highly correlated as to be nearly indistinguishable. Unlike McCartney's England, America has historically lacked markers of high social class that are separable from wealth.

Do people think Sarah Palin and her family are high class? Are her kids names common, regular names over there? Even if in America they are high class, you still moved from class to wealth. However much they are corrolated, they surely aren't the same thing?

Well, there is one: all things being equal, it would seem that blackness is a significant detriment to one's ability to integrate into the upper classes.

Perhaps, but that has nothing to do with the study we are talking about, or names.

Read it again.

I have read it. The study doesn't do what you claim.

In any case, none of this addresses the fact that you pointing out that some wealthy black people also have "black" names was entirely beside the point.

 

[squealpiggy]

I found his comparison of rapists to mountain lions particularly troubling.

No one thinks that mountain lions would benefit from a humanistic moral education, right?

Teach predators not to stalk their prey!

It was a very clumsy argument. The basic point that you can cut down your chances of being victimised by not behaving like a victim is broadly true and it's one of the things taught in women's self defense classes; walk confidently. But TF's attempt at drawing on his own experience was ridiculous.

So you propose that employers discard resumes of apparently wealthy people with black names because they think those black people must be prodigies who rose to immense financial success from a working class background, and they hate people from working class backgrounds?

No.

 

[colander]

No.

Then what is your non-racism explanation for why that is happening? So far, you have been unable to posit a relevant class distinction that is itself uncorrelated to race.

 

[colander]

Sure, but whose fault is that?

I don't know. Who is it that keeps bringing him up? You, I guess.

Do you have a study to prove it? We already have been quoting from a study that says names have little to do with life outcomes. If "John" is born is the ghetto, it's being born in the ghetto that's important. If "Shaniqua" grows up in Beverly Hills, it's being born in Beverly Hills that's important.

Are you now declaring that racism is not even a thing that exists apart from classism? Sorry, but it's pretty well established that black people born in the ghetto have a considerably harder time making a go of it than their white neighbors.

To paraphrase one of the studies... take away the clues of names and addresses, it's not as if people with racist prejudices are going to be fooled once you get to the interview just because you have a "white" name.

If true, what do you suppose that proves?

Do people think Sarah Palin and her family are high class?

They mostly don't think she's very refined, but refinement isn't too much of a barrier to success in America. Have you been, by any chance?

I have read it.

Perhaps you are thinking of a different study?

In any case, none of this addresses the fact that you pointing out that some wealthy black people also have "black" names was entirely beside the point.

It isn't at all.