Minority Groups "Special Rights"

[Belz...]

How many jobs have a 50% Quota?

What, you want exact numbers? They exist in many places, but I can't say in what proportion.

No, this is a cop out and not backed by research.

I'm not saying that hostile environments don't exist, especially in the lower-education fields. I'm saying that even if you eliminate that, which I support, the two sexes are still different.

They get less education in the basics at school

I'd like to know how that works. Are the classes not mixed? Back during my high school and college days (Canada), mandatory classes didn't differentiate.

How many Girls' Schools offer shop?

Girl schools? How many schools are segregated these days?

Men tend to actually behave better when multiple women are about.

That's generally true, yes.

Social Change comes because people force society to change.

Sure, but my point is that there are better ways to force it then by betraying the very principle you're trying to uphold (non-discrimination) to do it.

Again you go for the cop out.

I'm sorry, how is it a cop out? I thought I was addressing what you said.

Elite institutions like Stanford and Berkeley now report that about 50% of their introductory computer science students are women.

Yes but is it because of renewed interest, or AA?

If we take our poor black man who works hard and is hired, then the reality even under AA is that he was hired on merit

No, they hired him because he met the minimum requirements and was black. The other guy was more qualified but rejected because of his skin colour. How is that a strawman?

 

[Belz...]

Can you support that?

What, that Greece and China and India and Persia and Ethiopia and others all had men as warriors and providers and women as caretakers and baby machines? You're asking me for a cite for this?

 

[Belz...]

They could argue it but could they show evidence of it? i.e. a disproportionate level of white males not being hired?

Their argument would be that the majority is being affected instead of the minority. However, in fact it's the same number of people being affected, mind you.

 

[PhantomWolf]

For high profile: Yahoo and 80%. Currently being sued. I suspect it would take some lawsuits to get good view at issue...

The Government has demanded that Yahoo! have 80% minorities?

Anyway, AA is nonsense. It may have "Nice and good" intentions but it is same thing like policies/ideas of old. Just reversed. Nothing good can and will come from it. And misses a lot of real problems whose solutions would actually fix up a lot of things and help everybody. (uber-expensive education with massive debt, absence of some kinds of school, disparity between school districts,...) And also it "conveniently" forgets that not every job is interested to all groups equally. (like various manual labor - often messy, hard, often physically intensive and demanding)

AA is good just for breeding and sustaining: contempt, resent, devaluation of successful "protected". Also twists badly job market and education system.

Like many people you seem to be making the same mistake that AA is hiring minorities instead of white males. All the things you list above are a part of AA. AA is the removal of barriers to employment, starting with availability of education through to the removal of gender and race preferences in hiring. AA doesn't give women and minorities a boost over white males, it puts them on the same level so it's a fair playing field. It seems that there is a belief with a lot of people that woman and minorities are inferior and can't compete on a level field so they claim that AA boosts up these people to make up for the inadequacies that are perceived in them. The reality is that woman and minorities start with minuses against them just because of who they are in certain professions, AA forces those employers to stop giving preferred treatment to white males and treat everyone based on their merits by making sure that they actually have to consider on merit those they would usually reject based on gender or race.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Again with this wording. "Pretend". How do you connect what I said with this?

You believe in the face of evidence that your proposed solutions will work. How is that not pretending?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Another argument I heard about AA is that it treats minorities and women as people unable to make it in life without help. Now, I don't necessarily disagree with that, but again if laws+social change don't do the trick, what would be a solution that _doesn't_ involve reverse discrimination?

What is your proposal at getting through systemic racism and sexisism? The idea is to give them more opportunities in some areas to make up for the broad systemic lowered opportunities they face. You suggestion is to hope that racism and sexism just go away.

So what do you do to fight your unconscious racial and gender stereotyping of people?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Well, in Canada this doesn't seem to be much of a problem, but my experience is limited to only a couple of employers, one of which is government-level. However I see plenty of diversity in the larger cities and in private employ.

Again, the US seems to have a larger problem with this than, say, Europe or other western first-world countries, which is odd considering the US' immigration history.

Does it or does it just get more press that you notice?

 

[PhantomWolf]

What, you want exact numbers? They exist in many places, but I can't say in what proportion.

Yes I do want exact numbers because they are what your argument hangs on, that these percentages are unreasonable and so are screwing over people who would have gotten the job, but for the quota. The highest I know of is Sweden's 40% women in management. The Federal Trades people quote of just 9.7% women on Federal job sites. Considering they have a 10% application rate for Apprenticing, this shouldn't be hard to meet, but it seems that it is.

I'm not saying that hostile environments don't exist, especially in the lower-education fields. I'm saying that even if you eliminate that, which I support, the two sexes are still different.

I'm sure that your plumber would love to know that you consider his job to be "lower-educated". And yes,there probably would be a difference, likely quite significant, but why use that as an excuse to allow discrimination and harassment to continue and prevent certain people getting these jobs when they want to do them?

I'd like to know how that works. Are the classes not mixed? Back during my high school and college days (Canada), mandatory classes didn't differentiate.

Trade based courses like metal working and wood working were mandatory at your schools?

Girl schools? How many schools are segregated these days?

In the city I live in, 4 of the 5 Secondary Schools are segregated.

Sure, but my point is that there are better ways to force it then by betraying the very principle you're trying to uphold (non-discrimination) to do it.

Helping disadvantaged groups by providing education they haven't previously had access to, and removing other barriers that they face to getting employment in a field is not betraying the principles at all. It's making sure that everyone has an equal chance. I guess to those that suddenly find that they are no longer privileged and have to fight on a level field it might seem unfair, but that happens when your pedestal is kicked from under you.

I'm sorry, how is it a cop out? I thought I was addressing what you said.

You were going back to the "But how do we know they are really interested in doing it?" We know because of the numbers actually trying to get involved despite the barriers they face.

Yes but is it because of renewed interest, or AA?

AA starts with making education more accessible to and telling the targeted groups that they have a role in the profession, so yes it is due to AA and girls becoming more aware that they can have a place in STEM, sadly then they find out that the culture tries to preclude them from it.

No, they hired him because he met the minimum requirements and was black. The other guy was more qualified but rejected because of his skin colour. How is that a strawman?

Because this is zero to do with reality, it's a fiction you and others have created to strawman AA.

AA doesn't demand that a minority who scraps through is hired over a more qualified white male. Even if we look purely at quotas this says nothing about individual hires. The closest you might get is that a company who has two equally good candidates, one white, one black, and have a low "black quota" may decide to break the tie using the quota as the tie breaker, but the more likely scenario is simply that they will get enough Black candidates who are by merit worthy of hiring and in doing so they would fill or even over fill any quota required of them.

I guess this is unless you believe that blacks can't be better then whites on merit for certain professions?

 

[Belz...]

You believe in the face of evidence that your proposed solutions will work.

No, I don't. Again, aren't you getting tired of strawmanning people? I'm opposed to AA on moral grounds. It doesn't follow that I think another solution, or a lack of action, will bring about the changes we want.

What is your proposal at getting through systemic racism and sexisism?

First of all, individuals being racists or unknowingly discriminatory isn't "systemic". As for specific places where they have legislation or practices targeting minorities, how about making those illegal and enforcing the laws?

If that doesn't work, then as I said before, I don't have a solution. Further discrimination, however, is not the solution I favour, for the reasons I enumerated already. It'd be nice if you read what I posted rather than skim through it and determine "he disagrees with me" and build my arguments for me.

Does it or does it just get more press that you notice?

Ok, how do you suggest we test for that? Are you suggesting that, absent evidence, we assume that US-like racism exists everywhere in similar proportions?

 

[PhantomWolf]

Their argument would be that the majority is being affected instead of the minority. However, in fact it's the same number of people being affected, mind you.

If someone would have a gotten a job because of being a white male even though they had lower qualifications that a person of a minority who has better qualifications, but also the employer considers that person's race or gender as a negative giving the white male an advantage, then can you really say that they are equally effected because of the removal of considering a person's race or gender as a negative to the position?

 

[Belz...]

Yes I do want exact numbers because they are what your argument hangs on

What? How is my argument dependent on the number of places that require 50% proportions? I'm against the places where they DO have this quota, for the reasons I mentioned before.

that these percentages are unreasonable

Yea, because they assume that the target number _must_ correspond to the proportion of the population at large, without justification.

I'm sure that your plumber would love to know that you consider his job to be "lower-educated".

First of all, that's an appeal to emotion. "Oh, what you just said is offensive so it's wrong."

And yes,there probably would be a difference, likely quite significant, but why use that as an excuse to allow discrimination and harassment to continue and prevent certain people getting these jobs when they want to do them?

You tell me, since I never said that. This thread is becoming a very interesting example of someone's argument about a very specific thing being misrepresented as being about a much wider thing. Why would you do that?

Trade based courses like metal working and wood working were mandatory at your schools?

What is it with people and strawmen? I said that courses aren't segregated.

In the city I live in, 4 of the 5 Secondary Schools are segregated.

Interesting. Public schools over here are mixed, and private schools have transitioned to mixed as well.

Helping disadvantaged groups by providing education they haven't previously had access to

I'd like to tackle the reason as to why they didn't have access to it in the first place, too. It isn't normal or acceptable.

and removing other barriers that they face to getting employment in a field is not betraying the principles at all.

It is if you do it by discriminating against other groups.

It's making sure that everyone has an equal chance.

Picking someone because of their skin colour is not "equal". It's exactly what we're trying to combat.

You were going back to the "But how do we know they are really interested in doing it?" We know because of the numbers actually trying to get involved despite the barriers they face.

Do you have those numbers for most fields or just a few? How about the female-dominated fields?

AA doesn't demand that a minority who scraps through is hired over a more qualified white male. Even if we look purely at quotas this says nothing about individual hires. The closest you might get is that a company who has two equally good candidates, one white, one black, and have a low "black quota" may decide to break the tie using the quota as the tie breaker, but the more likely scenario is simply that they will get enough Black candidates who are by merit worthy of hiring and in doing so they would fill or even over fill any quota required of them.

Then why have a quota at all? The point of the quota is that if they don't meet it, they have to hire more black people. How are they going to go about doing that if not by picking them preferentially?

I guess this is unless you believe that blacks can't be better then whites on merit for certain professions?

That's actually one of the oft-mentioned criticisms of AA: it assumes that black people, for example, can't make it unless they're helped by the state.

And your accusation here is just one more example of taking the discussion off the rails. You're now accusing me of racism because of a hypothetical example. Fine, flip it around. What if a white man was picked over a more competent black one? Would that be ok if whites were a minority?

 

[Belz...]

If someone would have a gotten a job because of being a white male even though they had lower qualifications that a person of a minority who has better qualifications, but also the employer considers that person's race or gender as a negative giving the white male an advantage, then can you really say that they are equally effected because of the removal of considering a person's race or gender as a negative to the position?

First, as I said TWICE, this isn't the argument I'm making. I'm saying that arguing that discrimination is OK in some cases opens a can of worms we might not want to open.

Second, I consider people as individuals, not stereotypes or statistics. The individual is affected by the decision.

 

[PhantomWolf]

What? How is my argument dependent on the number of places that require 50% proportions? I'm against the places where they DO have this quota, for the reasons I mentioned before.

You haven't even shown that any places DO have this quota, you haven't come up with any numbers based on real quotas, just the ones you are pulling out of your hindquarters.

Yea, because they assume that the target number _must_ correspond to the proportion of the population at large, without justification.

Really? Women make up just 9.7% of the population of the US and 40% of the population in Sweden? See this is the thing, you keep making claims but never backing them up with figures.

First of all, that's an appeal to emotion. "Oh, what you just said is offensive so it's wrong."

No, it was pointing out another bias you have, this time against Blue collar workers.

You tell me, since I never said that. This thread is becoming a very interesting example of someone's argument about a very specific thing being misrepresented as being about a much wider thing. Why would you do that?

Your problem is that you are misrepresenting that thing, and when your arguments get applied to the reality instead of your strawman creation, you get upset about it.

What is it with people and strawmen? I said that courses aren't segregated.

You said, and I'll quote... "mandatory classes didn't differentiate."

Interesting. Public schools over here are mixed, and private schools have transitioned to mixed as well.

Which may or may not be a good thing, schools are changing in what they teach and allow as courses, which is a good thing, but there is still a long way to go.

I'd like to tackle the reason as to why they didn't have access to it in the first place, too. It isn't normal or acceptable.

So then you're for the part of AA that does exactly that?

It is if you do it by discriminating against other groups.

Removing a previously held privilege by disallowing the discounting of the non-privileged classes is not discrimination.

Picking someone because of their skin colour is not "equal". It's exactly what we're trying to combat.

This is not what AA does, it's a strawman you keep using and fighting against.

Do you have those numbers for most fields or just a few? How about the female-dominated fields?

Ask the Department of Labour. And as previously stated, I am more then happy to see AA for getting more men into what has traditionally been consider woman's work. For a start, doing so is likely to increase wages and working conditions for the women in the profession.

Then why have a quota at all? The point of the quota is that if they don't meet it, they have to hire more black people.

A quota forces them to actually consider black people (or women or whatever) equally on their merits instead of discounting them and pushing them out in favour of white males that continue the culture they have set up. Yes that likely will result in more black hires (or females or whatever), but not because it discriminates against white males, but rather because there will be those applicants that fit the quota who would be the best hire if not for being discounted because of their non-white male status. By removing the discrimination against them, they can then get the job by merit as they should do.

How are they going to go about doing that if not by picking them preferentially?

By picking them when they are the best candidate instead of overlooking them and taking the white guy instead because they'd fit in better.

That's actually one of the oft-mentioned criticisms of AA: it assumes that black people, for example, can't make it unless they're helped by the state.

When the field isn't level then why shouldn't the State help out by making it level so that black people and women can compete for jobs fairly instead of having a negative against them before they even apply for it?

And your accusation here is just one more example of taking the discussion off the rails. You're now accusing me of racism because of a hypothetical example.

It's wasn't an accusation at all it, it was pointing out that your underlying assumption has major flaw in it. Your hypothetical only works if no black can be superior to whites and so is incapable of getting a job by merit. As soon as you accept that blacks can get jobs on merit if they have a level playing field, then the entire argument against quota goes away, because merely by hiring on merit, those quota get filled, unless they are unreasonable to the number of minorities training and wanting to do that work, which is the other issue you have failed to actually show.

Fine, flip it around. What if a white man was picked over a more competent black one? Would that be ok if whites were a minority?

Flipping it doesn't change that it's a strawman by assuming that AA gives jobs to lesser qualified people purely on skin colour or gender rather then understanding that AA works by hiring minorities when they are the best ones to hire instead of discounting them and passing over them for a white guy that "fits into the culture better."

 

[PhantomWolf]

First, as I said TWICE, this isn't the argument I'm making. I'm saying that arguing that discrimination is OK in some cases opens a can of worms we might not want to open.

Yes I'm aware, and I keep trying to point out that you're arguing against a made up version of AA because your version is not how it is supposed to work. That's not saying that there might not be companies that do do it, but if there are it is because of them misunderstanding the laws and making incorrect policy around it, not because the law instructs them to do it, and they would be wrong for doing it.

Second, I consider people as individuals, not stereotypes or statistics. The individual is affected by the decision.

Individuals are affected by all sorts of things, AA isn't aimed at individuals, it's about overall numbers. This is why no individual position should be affected by AA. If a company is hiring and hires a minority over a better non-minority, then they are doing it wrong, not the law.

 

[ponderingturtle]

No, I don't. Again, aren't you getting tired of strawmanning people? I'm opposed to AA on moral grounds. It doesn't follow that I think another solution, or a lack of action, will bring about the changes we want.

That sounds like acceptance then.

First of all, individuals being racists or unknowingly discriminatory isn't "systemic".

All studies indicate otherwise.

Ok, how do you suggest we test for that? Are you suggesting that, absent evidence, we assume that US-like racism exists everywhere in similar proportions?

Not at all, each area is unique. But everyone responds in part based on their own accepted cultural stereotypes. Learning to recognise that in yourself is very hard.

 

[Belz...]

You haven't even shown that any places DO have this quota

Are you seriously saying you're not aware of any places with such policies? I'm not saying that _all_ places aim for 50% women. I'm saying that several do.

Really? Women make up just 9.7% of the population of the US and 40% of the population in Sweden?

I said FOR THE PLACES THAT AIM FOR 50%. Not those with different quotas.

No, it was pointing out another bias you have, this time against Blue collar workers.

What bias is that, now?

Which may or may not be a good thing, schools are changing in what they teach and allow as courses, which is a good thing, but there is still a long way to go.

If classes are mixed, how is there a long way to go? What way is there to go?

So then you're for the part of AA that does exactly that?

Which part of AA does exactly that?

Removing a previously held privilege by disallowing the discounting of the non-privileged classes is not discrimination.

Removing a previously held privilege by selecting people based on the colour of their skin is.

Ask the Department of Labour. And as previously stated, I am more then happy to see AA for getting more men into what has traditionally been consider woman's work.

What if you only get 8% of applicants who are men? How do you deal with that?

A quota forces them to actually consider black people (or women or whatever) equally on their merits instead of discounting them and pushing them out in favour of white males that continue the culture they have set up. Yes that likely will result in more black hires (or females or whatever), but not because it discriminates against white males, but rather because there will be those applicants that fit the quota who would be the best hire if not for being discounted because of their non-white male status.

It doesn't force them to consider black people. It forces them to hire them. How do you know that the ones they hire would otherwise be the best candidates? How does that work? Seriously, educate me.

Your hypothetical only works if no black can be superior to whites and so is incapable of getting a job by merit.

No it doesn't. It's a specific situation where it just happens that the white guy was more qualified. How does it follow that black people can't be more qualified? That makes no sense at all.

 

[Belz...]

That sounds like acceptance then.

I'm sure that trying to fit me into the "enemy" camp suits you just fine.

All studies indicate otherwise.

Ok, explain.

Not at all, each area is unique. But everyone responds in part based on their own accepted cultural stereotypes. Learning to recognise that in yourself is very hard.

See, there are some things we agree on.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

What if you only get 8% of applicants who are men? How do you deal with that?

You examine why you only got 8% male applicants and put in place policies to make your workplace more attractive to men and to get more than 8% of male applicants for the next vacancy.

 

[Belz...]

You examine why you only got 8% male applicants and put in place policies to make your workplace more attractive to men and to get more than 8% of male applicants for the next vacancy.

Why? And how?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Affirmative Action is one of the things I'm happy to admit being wrong about.

When the idea first started being bandied about, I didn't approve. On the face of it, positive discrimination is still discrimination, and discrimination based on race is still racism. It seemed to me to be treating the symptom rather than the cause, and that efforts would be better spent addressing, for example, socioeconomic disparities in the quality of public education.

But, y'know what? Underneath the face of it, maybe in the cheek meat of it, or one of those Halloween skulls that still have the eyes in them, the fact of the matter is it actually seems to be working as advertised. None of the doom and gloom about reverse racism, or businesses forced to hire mediocre candidates, has come to pass.* All of the stories about such that I've seen have turned out to be just white guys whining about being rejected. I was wrong. It works, and it works well.

I attribute it to two things:

1) The enforcement mechanism is individuals suing corporations on the basis of discrimination. There's no squad of neo-Liberals hovering behind every college board application, waiting to pounce like villains in a Chick Tract. AA only sees court room action as part of traditional discrimination suits. That makes it self-limiting, more of a shift in burden of proof than a violation in and of itself. Previously plaintiffs had to be able to find something like Trump's overt and explicit exclusion of minorities in order to have a case. Now it goes something like: if you didn't hire this black guy, and you aren't hiring other black guys, and you can't say how this black guy isn't qualified, just what are you doing to try and find black guys who are "qualified?"

2) Application processes are crapshoots. If ten people apply for a job, odds are five of them are perfectly qualified for it, and a hundred more qualified people saw the job but didn't bother applying. Colleges in particular receive hundreds of thousands of almost-interchangeable applications every year. There's some wunderkinder, sure, but there's no excuse for not being able to accept a reasonable diversity. If no minorities are acceptable candidates, it really is the case that you're not trying hard enough to attract them.

*I do know of one (anecdotal) case of reverse racism: a colleague of mine was on an explicit "diversity" fellowship, based on pulling himself up by his bootstraps from one of the poorest ghettos in the country. Every year, without fail, his fellowship would be rescinded because some knucklehead in HR noticed that he was a white male on a diversity ticket, and it would take a personal memo from his boss's boss's boss to get it reinstated.