You know, Ramanujan, for someone named after one of the greatest mathematicians ever, you don’t seem to writing logically. You’re forgetting Hispanics, who, as far as I know, were not enslaved by the Evil Whites™.
Actually, they were prevented. There were laws preventing Chinese from owning land, special taxes on Chinese fishermen, corporations were forbidden to hire Chinese, and so forth. Cite. The reason for the stereotypical Chinese laundry was that they were excluded from so many other industries that they opened laundries almost by default, since this did not require land ownership or capital equipment.
In return, perhaps you would provide a cite showing that the inability or unwillingness of blacks to form an intra-community economy is the direct cause of their relatively disadvantaged status in the twenty-first century?
Sorry - also incorrect. That was the basic purpose of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, as well as legislation designed to exclude Chinese women from immigrating, even wives. Racists of the period hoped that they would build the railroads, and then go home, without forming a community.
OK, lets look at this then. You seem to be saying that other immigrant groups have, more or less, assimilated in to the mainstream culture. From this, you conclude that affirmative action is racist.
Take this one step further for me then. To what do you attribute the fact that Black people seem not to have successfully assimilated, and what (if anything) should we do about it?
This OP is a train wreck, but it seems to me that ExecutiveJesus has good intentions.
Perhaps you should lurk some more and post occasionally when you have something to add before attempting to start threads on thoroughly covered topics such as this. Your conservative ideology means you will have to play it safe at first because of the liberal leanings of the SDMB. Any mistakes you make will be quickly pointed out by a dozen posters, as you can plainly see.
rjung - shame on you.
Binarydrone:
Affirmative action is treating a certain group of people differently based on race. That is what makes me conclude that it is racist.
I don’t know specifically what you mean by “successfully assimilated”. But, isn’t AA meant to even out the financial differences? Not assimilate?
There is (almost) financial parity and equality between blacks and whites that are married. It’s the fact that so many blacks are unmarried with children that they aren’t financially as successful as whites. Ironically, it’s mostly because of government social programs that this is the case. It’s funny that you look to another liberal solution when that’s what caused the problem.
Oh, and since Asians and Jews are more financially successful than whites, what (if anything) should we do about it?
Setting aside, for the moment, that we are all going to simply assume as a given that the cause of poverty among Black people is Liberal government social programs, there is still a problem with your theory.
Programs such as HUD, or Welfare are income based not race based. The two do not compare. Now, if we want to just say that one Liberal program failed, so lets throw them all out we can do that. I just don’t think that the reasoning holds.
So, the question again is this: Why have other groups that have immigrated to the USA had more success in fully participating in this golden land of promise than have Black people?
Cultural differences, by and large. If I could wave a magic wand, and change the dreams of young blacks away from show business and professional sports to engineering and chemistry, the problems of blacks in America would disappear within twenty years.
Immigrant groups who have “made it” in the US have done so largely by following the classic American dream - work hard, save your money, delay gratification, and make damn sure your children get the best education you can afford. And don’t expect anything to be handed to you.
Certainly there was (and is) prejudice against Jews. But there are very few quota systems or outreach programs for Jews in the US, and this is mostly because (in my view) the stereotypical Jewish mother brags to her friends about “my son the doctor”, not “my son the high school basketball star”.
No, it doesn’t always work out. But when you are talking about large groups of people, you talk about the averages, and the averages generally come out as expected (if the groups are large enough).
What should we do about it? Mostly, nothing. Blacks have come a long, long way in the last hundred years or so (as have other groups for whom affirmative action is suggested), and most of that progress came long before affirmative action was a gleam in Jesse Jackson’s eye.
But I think affirmative action is counter-productive, if you want genuine racial equality. Thomas Sowell talks about some of the problems with that approach, specifically what happens when black students are almost systematically over-matched in universities. The students who could succeed in a solid but second level school are sent instead to schools where only a handful of the top performers can succeed. This leads to several results, all bad -
[ul][li]The students suffer the uneasy resentment of thinking they have been given something they don’t deserve, because of the color of their skin (or whatever characteristic led them to be chosen for special treatment).[/li][li]Everyone else at school who sees their work sees that, on average, the ones who got in under affirmative action don’t do as well as everyone else. It is very hard, under those circumstances, not to be pushed toward the conclusion that there is something wrong with them. Students who started out with correct opinions about the inherent equality of the races are being indirectly indoctrinated with exactly the opposite conclusions. This can’t help anything. [/li][li]You generate resentment among the non-favored classes. Almost by definition, to say “We don’t have enough A around here - go try to hire some” also means “We have too many non-A around here- go hire someone else”. And the minute you consider any other factor besides qualifications, you are setting those you hire up to be resented - because they got in for some non-relevant factor. Then every mistake they make is going to be attributed to their non-relevant status. Did you know that one of the people who got into medical school ahead of Alan Bakke became an anesthesiologist - and had his licence suspended for gross incompetence? Is it because of affirmative action? Maybe not - maybe. [/li][li]And the real problem comes when you have already recruited all the people who meet your qualifications who are also whatever color/gender/X-factor you are looking for - and you still have “statistical under-representation”. What else can you do except lower the standards and hope to avoid getting sued? Certainly some of that under-representation is going to be due to prejudice. But not all - do you really think society is better off when statistical fluctuation is a federal offense? [/ul][/li]
Racism is a terrible thing. But discrimination is a crime committed only and always against individuals - not groups. And you cannot make up the difference caused by discrimination against one individual by discrimination against another. Because they are the same thing.
Injustice is injustice. Judging someone by the color of their skin, or some other non-relevant factor, is injustice. You don’t fix it by doing more of it. You fix it by stopping it.
Executive Jesus, one can’t help but believe that you have also failed to inform yourself about the justifications for affirmative action at higher education institutions.
Given the way you’ve addressed tomndebb, however, I’m not sure I’m interested in making up for your lack of education.
That “state school” gibe was HILARIOUS though! Where do you get your fabulous material?
After jumping into the thread with an answer, I asked a question of you in return.
and since Asians and Jews are more financially successful than whites, what (if anything) should we do about it?
This is a valid question. Why do you ignore it? If the government must step in because blacks aren’t as successful as whites, then why not step in when whites aren’t as successful as Asians and Jews?
I don’t want this to turn into a hijack on the merit or lack therof of all Liberal social programs, but I do want to address this quick.
The two do compare. The blacks in America, IMHO, had no chance of success until the success of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s. After the playing field was leveled, blacks had a chance at being successful in our society. It was during the 70’s and 80’s that these blacks could have been joining the ranks of the prosperous. However, it was also during this time that the Liberal programs like welfare and public housing were being formed. Blacks, tending to be poor, were the main victims of these programs.
I’m sure glad that my Irish ancestors weren’t “given” housing projects and welfare payments when they arraived in Boston. If so, our plight might not have been so different.
Whenever this debate comes up, I always think of two studies that were recently done that suggest that perhaps those professing that racism would be dead in the workplace but for that pesky affirmative action reverse discrimination thing should question their assumptions.
The first study was actually debated in the SDMB when it came out. It concerned the relative callback rates for resumes that were comparable or identical in qualifications. Some of the resumes had “white” names, the others had “black” names. The results are pretty well set forth in the Krueger piece.
The second study, more recent, has the interesting finding that a white applicant for an unskilled job who reveals a criminal conviction during the initial interview is slightly more likely to be called back for a second interview than an African-American applicant who does not reveal a criminal record.
So, I’m not willing to pronounce us a color-blind society just yet.
OK, the two “different” questions that I ask are facets of the same inquiry (i.e. Why is it that Black people do not seem to be doing as well as other groups that are comprised of immigrants or decedents of immigrants). Pick one and run with it. As to the question that you accuse me of ignoring, I am going to need for you to cite for me that this is true before I take a run at it. I have been tooling around the Census Bureau’s website, and so far have not had much success in determining if this is true or not.
More to the point, I get that you are against affirmative action and anti-liberal/social programs in general. Fine. Is it your position that there is not a problem; are you saying that the problem exists but that it will self-correct if we do nothing? In short, what is your position?
You find this persuasive? You had to go all the way back to 1871 to find a riot in which 19 Chinese were killed–in an article that goes on to identify increasing participation of the Chinese immigrants in the California economy following that riot. You then post a reference to the exclusion acts (which are not under dispute) while showing no evidence that Chinese intra-community economy was ever seriously threatened.
Where is the “equivalent” treatment of the Chinese to the forcible destruction of multiple black villages throughout the South and West between 1870 and 1925? Where are the “equivalent” white-on-Chinese riots that match the total destruction of the black financial district in Tulsa, OK, and the black business district of Springfield, IL along with similar episodes throught the country in the first two decades of the 20th century? When the Mississippi flooded in 1923, blacks were impressed into work gangs to save white property while the black property was destroyed by the flood. When Chinatown was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, there was a movement to isolate and remove the displaced community. However, there was no effort to drive them away by terror tactics and when other cities offered to take in the refugees, the band of San Franciscans who had sought to eliminate them were compelled by others in the city to give up the idea for financial reasons. Where is the persistent record of terrorist lynchings carried out against ethnic Chinese that continued through the 1920s, 1930s, and even into the 1950s and 1960s (although finally reduced in number)? 19 killed in a riot in 1871? When the whites rioted against the blacks in Detroit in 1943, over 40 deaths were reported and the white riot was blamed on the blacks.
In a separate point, it should be noted that the Chinese maintained a trans-Pacific economic exchange that allowed workers in the U.S. to support family in China when times were good and allowed those in China to provided support when times, here, were bad. Blacks, having had their cultural ties forcibly destroyed during importation were further prevented from finding support from the “old country” because those lands were being exploited as colonial empires by the Europeans. (China was abused by the Europeans, but was never forced to become a colony with a mercantilistic economy.)
Chinese (and Japanese) suffered serious abuse in the U.S. for years, but their experience was different than that of blacks and the specific forces exerted on the black community were deliberately intended to deprive them of wealth and education. The forces exerted against the Chinese community permitted the development of wealth and permitted education. The forces exerted against blacks deprived them of either.
No, it’s to compensate for past and continuing discrimination against certain minorities.
The assumption that they cannot compete fairly is yours, the anti-affirmative action stance, as you and EJ continually demonstrate. And that view is trivially racist.
Acorns and oaks. You can line up all the Jews, Chinese and Irish ever murdered racially in this country and it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what blacks have endured.
Of course that’s your own straw man, not the prevailing reasoning for affirmative action.
It’s not (A) < (B) that triggers gov’t action as this argument presumes; it’s the insidious prejudice and discrimination that is the cause of (A) < (B). The gov’t steps in to mitigate this.
Why is it that a race riot in 1871 is too long ago to bother about in considering anti-Chinese discrimination, but slavery, which always get brought up when we discuss affirmative action, ended several years earlier than that? Why is the statute of limitations on evidence of discrimination so different for blacks and other groups?
Again - read the cites. The Alien Land Laws were not overturned until 1947. The Exclusion Act was not repealed until 1943. The Anti-miscegenation Law was not nullified until 1948. All occuring during roughly the same period as the first major cracks began to appear in Jim Crow with the desegregation of the US armed forces in 1948.
Given the plethora of anti-Chinese economic measures, and the restrictions on immigration of Chinese women, to claim that there was no attempt to threaten the economic organization of Chinese immigrants is unsupported by the evidence.
Not that this kind of claim is uncommon among advocates of AA. To admit that other groups, never benefitted by affirmative action, suffered roughly equivalent mistreatment and still managed to succeed, is to threaten the special status of the groups protected under AA. Chinese, Jews, and other minorities never got special breaks or outreach programs, and they managed to make into the mainstream. For blacks, however, this is considered impossible, and thus they need (and will always need) special consideration. Which, as I said, I consider a racist assumption.
Which is why stuff like this:
no longer carries much sting.
One side says that blacks can compete fairly when given an equal chance, and that people should be evaluated as individuals - on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. The other side says no, that all blacks are hot house flowers who cannot be expected to do what other immigrants have done thru out the centuries, and that they will always need special favors from their generous betters.
Which side looks to be treating blacks as equal adults, and which as dependent children?
This is only part of it. Businesses and higher education institutions also believe that they cannot fulfill their missions as well if they do not have a diverse set of workers/students. Call it selfish, if you will. But it’s not all about helping the “disadvantaged” or “making up for” past ills. It’s also about making the corporation more successful and more versatile, and making the university better able to give the sort of education it believes all its students deserve.
Honesty, I am aware that black students get the attitude described earlier, and it sucks. It’s also ignorant. It’s not like every black/native american/hispanic kid on campus got in solely because of special programs. The kid sitting next to you in class doesn’t know whether or not you would have been admitted anyway. To assume that you needed help–and that a low quiz grade is evidence that you shouldn’t be here–is a pretty slimy kind of prejudice. Disgusting that you have to put up with it. Just remember it’s a quite an indictment of that kid’s logical reasoning skills, and makes me wonder how the hell HE got admitted.
An 1871 riot is not “too long ago” to have been evil. (Nor was it the only example of white-on-Chinese violence.) However, your later claim that other groups "suffered roughly equivalent mistreatment " fails the test of accuaracy in light of the fact that I can demonstrate far greater harm inflicted on the black community on multiple occasions in much more recent history. You’d like to pretend that the harm inflicted was “roughly equal” so you put a single riot from 132 years ago against multiple riots, (with far greater death tolls and much greater police complicity), that have been repeated far more refcently along with lynchings and other acts of terror. That does not make the treatment “roughly equal.”
My only reference to slavery was to the destruction of cultural ties and trans-oceanic mutual support. Each of those problems continued long after the 13th Amendment.
The Chinese immigrants were never subjected to having whatever businesses they did establish destroyed to taken away from them in the manner that blacks have suffered. You have provided no evidence of any similar event to the Tulse riot.
Again, the point is not that no other group has suffered, but that the specific actions taken against the black community have been more frequent, more violent, and more recent. And while Asians have, indeed, been placed under onerous economic conditions, they were not compelled to give up what they had already achieved. Only the American Indian has suffered more harsh treatment than the blacks and I would note that (barring the ocassional casino situation), they are in worse shape than the black community.