Are Merit Systems in Academia and Work a Method of Enforcing White Dominance?

[msmith537]

I don’t know. This all sounds like academic ivory-tower bullshit to me. The sort of thinking that you have to already be “privileged” to entertain. That is to say, if you have the “correct” background and achieve a certain amount of academic success, society will reward you with some cushy job that lets you pontificate on abstract societal issues in front of a room full of over-privileged dipshits.

At least in the “work” world, “merit” is often based on tangible metrics, such as sales figures or profitability or entrepreneurial skill.

@Kimstu

It’s this kind of whiny, foot-dragging reaction from so many white people when the problems of systemic racism are pointed out—“But this is antagonizing people whom you ought to be trying to get on your side!” “But I never lynched anybody!” “But WHAT ABOUT THE SUFFERINGS OF WHITE PEOPLE HUH WHAT ABOUT THAT?!?”—that earns so much well-deserved mockery at the fragility of oversensitive snowflakes. When you are just using concerns about class or wealth privilege as a screen to hide from valid points about racial privilege, it shows.

So what’s the solution? 3/5ths of every white dollar earned should be given to a minority because history hasn’t been “fair”? Employers should hire based on who is the blackest or brownest, rather than who is the most qualified?

Or maybe how about addressing the concept of “privilege”, independent of “race”? There will always be people who are able to achieve more, because of their talents. But what we should avoid as a society is the creation of an entrenched class structure where the wealthy have their own private schools, gated communities, private health care, private security and essentially live in a completely separate world from everyone else. I mean would it matter if such a privileged class reflected the demographic makeup of the country as a whole?

[Kimstu]

@msmith537

So what’s the solution?

I don’t think there is one single “the” solution to such a complex problem, and I don’t see why you’d expect there to be one. Except maybe in order to hypothesize absurdly unrealistic strawman non-solutions as an excuse for ignoring the problem in general.

@msmith537

3/5ths of every white dollar earned should be given to a minority because history hasn’t been “fair”? Employers should hire based on who is the blackest or brownest, rather than who is the most qualified?

Like I said.

@msmith537

Or maybe how about addressing the concept of “privilege”, independent of “race”?

Why not instead address both racial privilege and other kinds of privilege?

@msmith537

But what we should avoid as a society is the creation of an entrenched class structure where the wealthy have their own private schools, gated communities, private health care, private security and essentially live in a completely separate world from everyone else.

Yes, that’s one of the things we as a society should avoid (or, rather, should strive to dismantle now that it actually exists to a large extent). And we as a society should also avoid perpetuating an entrenched system of racial privilege.

There’s no reason we should use the former as an excuse to tapdance away from confronting and dealing with the latter.

[Lemur866]

@D_Anconia

Can people choose which race they’d like to be?

You know, it’s great that we have so many visitors to our planet who don’t know our Earth history and our strange hu-Mon concepts like race. I know you just arrived here five minutes ago, so I’ve got endless time to explain it all.

I mean you are just arrived here, right?

[DavidwithanR]

There’s a bait-and-switch going on in some posts on this thread - claiming that merit-based systems ought to be good enough for everyone, but making that comment in the context of systems that are actually based more on privilege than true merit.

[SamuelA]

@DigitalC

Of course! the real problem are the complainers are not the myriad of valid complaints they have! If they’d just shut up we’d all be getting along just fine!

Well, like I said, the complaining isn’t against racists. It’s against all white males. They are they bogeyman that everything else can be blamed on it seems. White women who were/are their enablers for the racist ones get a pass since girl power.

So even non-racist whites, who are the majority, are to be actively discriminated against. Since some of their granddaddies might have done something. When it comes time for jobs at Google we can’t be interviewing them cuz they are over-represented. Fuck qualifications, if you aren’t a minority or at least transgender you don’t get the job.

And the same story goes for Harvard and the rest.

And I know, most companies and most positions this isn’t the case. But the actual divide in America is primarily rich vs everyone else. Nearly all of the physical and financial resources of America - all the benefits - go to people who were clever enough to scam others through one trick or another.

[Gyrate]

@HurricaneDitka

We can get started right after she finishes dismantling Professor Privilege.

Presumably she earned her PhD and Professor title through hard work and merit. Are you against those now?

@WillFarnaby

Who is “white” and who is “black”?

Jack Black is white. Barry White was black.

@msmith537

So what’s the solution? 3/5ths of every white dollar earned should be given to a minority because history hasn’t been “fair”? Employers should hire based on who is the blackest or brownest, rather than who is the most qualified?

I refer you again to the TEN-POINT LIST OF SUGGESTED ACTIONS in the blog article the OP refers to, none of which are “Hey, let’s take stuff from white people and give it to black people!”.

@SamuelA

Well, like I said, the complaining isn’t against racists. It’s against all white males. They are they bogeyman that everything else can be blamed on it seems. White women who were/are their enablers for the racist ones get a pass since girl power.

What color is your strawman? It takes a truly special mindset to read “We need to be aware of the ways in which black people are disadvantaged and white people aren’t” and translate that into “WHITE MEN R t3h EvuLzzzz!!!11!!”.

[SamuelA]

#1.** Start having difficult conversations with white people in your circles. ** -

Well, this one immediately talks about black lives matter. As it turns out, the police wrongfully shoot white people at a distressingly high rate as well. So even if black people have it worse, “all lives matter” is more inclusive and more likely to get some traction. Powerful white people don’t want to be shot when they pull over and their hand twitches, either. So this one is wrong.

#2. Stop looking to people of color for information, guidance, and leadership. - Only the elite from a huge number of people are worth listening to. Some of these people are white. Some are asian. A smaller but nonzero percentage are other races. Does this mean you should go pick out the “less represented” people instead of going by merit, regardless of skin color? Elon Musk and Zuckberg and Sebastian Thrun all happen to be white. Also wrong.

#3. Speak up when you witness acts of bigotry, racism, privilege, etc. - Yes, but maybe it doesn’t openly happen much anymore. I’ve never actually seen outright discrimination except against white males.

#4. Check your own privilege, language, assumptions, and biases. - Sure I’ll try but I’d rather try to focus on the truth of things.

#5. Talk to your children about race, social justice, and valuing difference. - Sure as long as I cover how they may be discriminated against.

#6. Start organizing meetings in your neighborhoods, your communities, your churches, and your schools. - Not everyone has the kind of time from basic survival to do this. I’m also not a good contributor for this.

#7. Contact local government members, vote in local elections, show up to political meetings. - See #6

#8. Attend protests and rallies… but not if you aren’t willing to be arrested. - Yeah, fuck no. I need a job to survive and an arrest record lowers my chance of keeping one.

#9. Read, read, and then read some more. - No. Latest developments in AI are more useful.

#10. Listen, listen, and then listen some more. - As long as it isn’t bullshit.

[WillFarnaby]

@Lemur866

It depends, as you well know. White and black are categories with no distinct boundaries. According to some, one drop of African blood made you black. You could look white, blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin, thin lips…and if it was known that your mother was black, you were black.

Take Thomas Jefferson’s children with Sally Hemings. Sally Hemings mother was half black and half white. Her mother was therefore black. That made Sally Hemings black, even though her father was white and she was therefore 3/4th European. Note that her father was also her owner, and she was the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife. So she became the property of her sister, and when that sister died she became the property of her sister’s husband. And she had many children by her owner, all of them 7/8ths European ancestry, and all of them black and all of them slaves, despite being the children of the President of the United States.

So you know, it’s complicated. You’re socially white if the people who count perceive you as white. You’re socially black if the people who count perceive you as black. That’s how race works in this country, and why people say things like “race is a social construct”. Because if the 7/8ths white children of the President are black slaves, what else could it be?

Who are the “people who count”?

[Blalron]

@SamuelA

#4. Check your own privilege, language, assumptions, and biases. - Sure I’ll try but I’d rather try to focus on the truth of things.

As a poor white male, who is not in any position of power, what should I do to “check my privilege”? If it means I should be constantly second guessing myself on all interactions I have with people of color, that feels very close to being Original Sin.

[Gyrate]

@SamuelA

#1.** Start having difficult conversations with white people in your circles. ** -

Well, this one immediately talks about black lives matter. As it turns out, the police wrongfully shoot white people at a distressingly high rate as well. So even if black people have it worse, “all lives matter” is more inclusive and more likely to get some traction. Powerful white people don’t want to be shot when they pull over and their hand twitches, either. So this one is wrong.

Er, no. You’ve misstated the issue in order to make this about the feelings of white guys. Again. Have you noticed how frequently you do this? Perhaps we should have a difficult conversation.

#2. Stop looking to people of color for information, guidance, and leadership. - Only the elite from a huge number of people are worth listening to. Some of these people are white. Some are asian. A smaller but nonzero percentage are other races. Does this mean you should go pick out the “less represented” people instead of going by merit, regardless of skin color? Elon Musk and Zuckberg and Sebastian Thrun all happen to be white. Also wrong.

This is incoherent nonsense that, again, has nothing to do with the point being addressed.

#3. Speak up when you witness acts of bigotry, racism, privilege, etc. - Yes, but maybe it doesn’t openly happen much anymore. I’ve never actually seen outright discrimination except against white males.

Which says quite a lot about you and nothing about the amount of actual overt racism.

#4. Check your own privilege, language, assumptions, and biases. - Sure I’ll try but I’d rather try to focus on the truth of things.

And the truth of things is that your language and assumptions are filled with biases, and you are unaware of unearned advantages you may have over other people. As is true of everyone. You’re basically stamping your feet here and declaring “I don’t WANNA be aware of my unconscious biases!”. That’s not focusing on the truth; that’s doing everything to avoid it.

#5. Talk to your children about race, social justice, and valuing difference. - Sure as long as I cover how they may be discriminated against.

Yes, it’s all about you and how terribly you’re abused. Again.

#6. Start organizing meetings in your neighborhoods, your communities, your churches, and your schools. - Not everyone has the kind of time from basic survival to do this. I’m also not a good contributor for this.

And that’s everyone else’s problem? You wanted to know what could be done. This is something that can be done. If it’s not practicable for your situation that’s fine, but don’t dismiss it for everyone just because it’s not an option for you personally.

#7. Contact local government members, vote in local elections, show up to political meetings. - See #6

See my response to #6.

#8. Attend protests and rallies… but not if you aren’t willing to be arrested. - Yeah, fuck no. I need a job to survive and an arrest record lowers my chance of keeping one.

Yes, we get it. You don’t want to do anything; you just want to complain while calling everyone else “complainers”.

#9. Read, read, and then read some more. - No. Latest developments in AI are more useful.

So you’re choosing to remain ignorant on a subject you are nonetheless frequently willing to publicly opine on. Got it.

#10. Listen, listen, and then listen some more. - As long as it isn’t bullshit.

Is “bullshit” defined by you as “anything I disagree with”?

[SamuelA]

@Blalron

As a poor white male, who is not in any position of power, what should I do to “check my privilege”? If it means I should be constantly second guessing myself on all interactions I have with people of color, that feels very close to being Original Sin.

Exactly. Nearly all white males are poor or middle class, like the rest of the population. The rich and powerful ones are a small percentage.

What really pisses me off is apparently if I try to borrow a few phrases from black culture that succinctly match how I feel, that’s “cultural appropriation”. Ok, the N word is banned, but there’s lots of smaller things. Of course I can’t even call myself a honky or cracker, cuz that’s stealing too.

[Jasmine]

See “Working Hard” Is A White Lie, According To Penn State-Brandywine Professor (link to article) The two articles both come from what some would call right-wing websites.

First of all, this seems like an extreme LEFT web site, not an extreme RIGHT web site.

So, if “working hard” is a White racist lie, then lying around like a lazy slug is Black empowerment? It seems that is what is implied and, if so, her position itself is extremely racist.

I have a number of Black friends who have worked hard getting educated, trained, and lucratively employed. Their “hard work” has gained them status, beautiful homes, and a high standard of living overall. According to her, I suppose, they are “Uncle Toms”.

[Blalron]

@SamuelA

What really pisses me off is apparently if I try to borrow a few phrases from black culture that succinctly match how I feel, that’s “cultural appropriation”. Ok, the N word is banned, but there’s lots of smaller things. Of course I can’t even call myself a honky or cracker, cuz that’s stealing too.

Another thing: only white people can be guilty of this offense. If you’re a black person borrowing elements of white culture, appropriate to your hearts content.

[Gyrate]

@Blalron

As a poor white male, who is not in any position of power, what should I do to “check my privilege”? If it means I should be constantly second guessing myself on all interactions I have with people of color, that feels very close to being Original Sin.

Does it? Let me refer you back to an earlier post:

@Lemur866

And I honestly don’t get the idea that right-wingers have that if you’re white you’re supposed to feel guilty about white privilege. I’m white. I don’t feel the least bit guilty about white privilege. Nobody I ever met asked or expected me to feel guilty about being white. Learning about the history of slavery, or about Jim Crow, or about the Holocaust, or Stalinism doesn’t make me feel the least bit guilty, because I never enslaved anybody, I never too anyone’s right to vote away, I never sent the kulaks to the gulag, and I never shoved the Jews into the ovens. It was other people that did that.

There’s a big difference between feeling guilty about slavery and Jim Crow and white supremacy, and pretending that slavery and Jim Crow and white supremacy never happened. And maybe if you enslaved someone, setting them free would be a good thing to do. Not as good as never enslaving them in the first place, but setting them free is better than keeping them enslaved. Setting your slave free after years of bondage doesn’t bring you back up to zero though. It just takes you from negative ten to negative five.

You don’t have to feel guilty about being slavery, because barring a few examples nobody here enslaved anyone. Still, it’s pretty disingenuous to assert that you don’t have any advantages because you’re white. Oh, you had to work hard for everything, nobody handed you anything on a silver platter because you were white, so where’s your white privilege? Except you do admit that racism is still a thing, right? You do admit that just 50 years ago black people couldn’t vote in many parts of the country, and were met with violence when they tried to vote? That black people didn’t have property rights that white people were bound to respect, right?

So if you can admit that–you do admit that, right?–then the absence of that is what we call “white privilege”. If you want to call it “lack of black disadvantage” go right on ahead if it helps you understand it better, but it’s the exact same thing.

There you go. Does that help?

@Jasmine

First of all, this seems like an extreme LEFT web site, not an extreme RIGHT web site.

Are you sure you read that article correctly? The first links are to right-wing sites; Dr. Putnam’s sites are not what was being referred to.

So, if “working hard” is a White racist lie, then lying around like a lazy slug is Black empowerment? It seems that is what is implied and, if so, her position itself is extremely racist.

I have a number of Black friends who have worked hard getting educated, trained, and lucratively employed. Their “hard work” has gained them status, beautiful homes, and a high standard of living overall. According to her, I suppose, they are “Uncle Toms”.

Good news! She isn’t saying that “working hard” is a racist lie. Not even remotely. The OP and the articles cited have grossly misrepresented Dr. Putnam’s position. So you can relax.

[LAZombie]

It’s odd that merit systems work so well in sports. Or do whites eschew being professional athletes that get paid millions of dollars and lots of recognition? Almost all of the sports teams are owned by billionaire whites. You would think they would hire more whites if there is desire to enforce white dominance.

[Shodan]

Most of the work of overcoming white privilege, to the extent there is such a thing, has to be done by black people.

If you want white privilege, act white. Maybe AAVE is just as much a dialect as ASE. So what - if you want a job that doesn’t involve wearing a paper hat, you have to speak ASE. If you want the white privilege of not getting shot by the police, don’t resist arrest. (Or even, perish forbid, don’t break the law in the first place.) If you want the white privilege of having a job, do your homework, graduate, learn to do something people are willing to pay for, and then suck it up and go to work for The Man. You want the white privilege of not being poor, then don’t have children before you are married or before you can support them yourself.

One of the major reasons Hillary isn’t currently deleting emails from the Oval Office is because blacks didn’t vote for her. They didn’t vote for anyone, least of all Trump - they didn’t vote at all. They stayed home on Election Day and now they want to bitch about white privilege on their cell phones. Boo hoo - it’s almost as hard to get voter ID as it is to get food stamps.

I wonder if white progressives and blacks have thought thru how it sounds to say “black people can’t be expected to compete on merit with whites and Asians.”

Regards,
Shodan

[Gyrate]

@Shodan

Most of the work of overcoming white privilege, to the extent there is such a thing, has to be done by black people.

If you want white privilege, act white. Maybe AAVE is just as much a dialect as ASE. So what - if you want a job that doesn’t involve wearing a paper hat, you have to speak ASE. If you want the white privilege of not getting shot by the police, don’t resist arrest. (Or even, perish forbid, don’t break the law in the first place.) If you want the white privilege of having a job, do your homework, graduate, learn to do something people are willing to pay for, and then suck it up and go to work for The Man. You want the white privilege of not being poor, then don’t have children before you are married or before you can support them yourself.

One of the major reasons Hillary isn’t currently deleting emails from the Oval Office is because blacks didn’t vote for her. They didn’t vote for anyone, least of all Trump - they didn’t vote at all. They stayed home on Election Day and now they want to bitch about white privilege on their cell phones. Boo hoo - it’s almost as hard to get voter ID as it is to get food stamps.

I wonder if white progressives and blacks have thought thru how it sounds to say “black people can’t be expected to compete on merit with whites and Asians.”

Regards,
Shodan

So to sum up:

• All black people have to do is to stop being black.
• All of the problems black people face are their own fault.
• Liberals are the real racists here.
• “But her emails!”

Yes, that’s a constructive post right there.

[Shodan]

I’m glad you enjoyed it, although I would have preferred a more substantive response. In particular one that didn’t include “alls” that weren’t in my post.

Regards,
Shodan

[Blalron]

@Gyrate

So to sum up:

• All black people have to do is to stop being black.
• All of the problems black people face are their own fault.
• Liberals are the real racists here.
• “But her emails!”

Yes, that’s a constructive post right there.

You are strawmanning Shodan (except for his irrelevant side tangent about Hillary’s emails). He never said that black people need to stop having so much melanin in their skin. He’s pointing to certain behaviors which are more common per capita amongst blacks than whites. Crime, dropping out of school, out of wedlock births.

[iiandyiiii]

@Shodan

Most of the work of overcoming white privilege, to the extent there is such a thing, has to be done by black people.

In terms of individual action for those without this privilege to try and be successful, perhaps (or at least that might be one path to aid success). But many of us want to dismantle white privilege. That work will come largely from white people.

If you want white privilege, act white. Maybe AAVE is just as much a dialect as ASE. So what - if you want a job that doesn’t involve wearing a paper hat, you have to speak ASE.

That’s just restating the issue. I have the privilege that the dialect I grew up learning was not stigmatized as “improper English”. Even various mostly-white dialects other than SAE don’t have the same stigma as AAVE. I didn’t have to go to any effort to learn any way of speaking to aid my chance of success.

If you want the white privilege of not getting shot by the police, don’t resist arrest. (Or even, perish forbid, don’t break the law in the first place.)

The guy Sean Groubert shot didn’t break the law or resist arrest. And unless you believe that a video just happened to catch the only instance of this ever to occur, he wasn’t the only one.

Further, this also just restates the issue. I have the privilege of being less likely to be shot even if I break the law or resist arrest, due to biases in society and law enforcement. I have the privilege to be more likely to get the benefit of the doubt than most black folks.

If you want the white privilege of having a job, do your homework, graduate, learn to do something people are willing to pay for, and then suck it up and go to work for The Man.

I benefited from the privilege of better schooling, and having teachers that were less likely to belittle the dialect I spoke, and less likely to give me more severe punishments, and otherwise give me some degree of benefit of the doubt for misbehavior and similar.

You want the white privilege of not being poor, then don’t have children before you are married or before you can support them yourself.

I had the privilege of good sex education, along with all the advantages that made it a lot easier for me to get a good job, etc.

It was pretty damn easy for me to develop a decent life. That ease was a combination of many things – parenting, circumstance, etc., and also privilege. In order for every kid to not have to worry about a lack of privilege serving as an obstacle, white privilege (and other privileges) should be dismantled as much as possible.

One of the major reasons Hillary isn’t currently deleting emails from the Oval Office is because blacks didn’t vote for her. They didn’t vote for anyone, least of all Trump - they didn’t vote at all. They stayed home on Election Day and now they want to bitch about white privilege on their cell phones. Boo hoo - it’s almost as hard to get voter ID as it is to get food stamps.

I assume you mean turnout was lower, but I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Black turnout was lower in '16 than in '12 and '08… so what? Lots of demographics had lower turnout.

I wonder if white progressives and blacks have thought thru how it sounds to say “black people can’t be expected to compete on merit with whites and Asians.”

Regards,
Shodan

I haven’t thought it through because I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here or why I would ever say this.