Do you believe there’s an inherent intelligence advantage confered by race or are you posting stuff without thinking?
Regards,
Shodan
Of course I don’t think that. Since I haven’t suggested a white person is more likely to be successful than a black person in any of aforementioned professions, there really is no (sane) reason for you to ask me that question.
Are there disproportionately more white doctors, etc? Yes. That doesn’t mean that any given white person has a better shot at making it as a doctor, etc. than any given black, as the raindog suggests is the case for blacks when we’re talking about sports/rap. Anyone who thinks racism is a Thing of the Past and everybody is equal kumbaya should be onboard with this basic truth.
Now what do you think? Do blacks have an advantage over whites when it comes to sports? Yes or no.
Do you believe there’s an inherent physical advantage conferred by race or are you posting stuff without thinking?
There could be many advantages or disadvantages to affecting the ability to enter a professional field that would be independent of intelligence. you with the face merely pointed out the underlying fallacy regarding the raindog’s assertion by posting its converse. the raindog did not identify the source of the disparity in race ratios and neither did you with the face. Dragging only a single aspect–intelligence–of the possible filters and supports into the discussion will probably derail this mess even further.
People make interesting assumptions based on the area being studied. When I was digging up information about Afrocentrism, I was writing a report about historical revisionism, I ran across one Afrocentric scholar who wrote about racism in academia and noted how surprised many people were when they found out he was white. Admittedly I was guilty of this as well.
I think people unfairly gave you a hard time about your experience with academic racism. It certainly exist, I was certainly guilty of it by assuming what someone’s race was based on their academic work, and I think your experience simply reflects the reality.
Though if it makes you feel any better, I assume anyone with a degree is competent in their field until proven otherwise. It’s safer that way.
Marc
Exactly! Now for those astute 4th graders who want to know the odds, we can share with them that any given child will make it or not on the factors you listed above. (and many others, like training, nutrition, dedication etc)
We can also share with them that black athletes can expect a more than fair chance of becoming a professional athlete vis a vis their white counterparts, and that the statistics bear this out; that blacks are overrepresented in the field of professional sports.
Exactly! I’ll take your word for the math, and assume they were loose and for the purpose of making a point.
While it doesn’t ‘prove that racism is a thing of the past’ they can be assured that if they have the requisite natural ability, drive and training they can expect little or no “institutional racism.”
IOW, the race based barriers to entry have been removed. Other barriers, like the fact that there literally hundreds of thousands of kids, white and black, competing for only hundreds of jobs, will remain, and we will tell them that. We’ll let them know the odds of becoming a professional athlete are long indeed, but because of the sacrifices of people like Jackie Robinson, and many others, they can expect it to be fair to every child, black and white.
If, despite their best efforts, they come up short, they will be comforted by the fact that they were denied based on ability, not race.
Thanks for sharing, Tom. I knew you’d come around.
Disproportionately? Hm…
Your attempt at irony is seriously misplaced, given that you ignored the reason why blacks appear (in your view) to be “overrepresented” which is that a larger percentage of them are making the effort to enter the world of sports. Once the overt 1950s barriers had fallen, they were able to be “overrepresented” in the manner that Irish, Italians, etc. were “overrepresented” previously, while they remain underepresented in other fields based on many different factors–including the institutional racism you keep pretending does not exist.
Okay, point taken. Take out doctors and substitute US Senators.
My point, as I hope you can see, remains the same.
So do we have your permission to tell these kids that blacks have a “less than fair” chance of becoming successful politicians, engineers, doctors, and lawyers when compared with their white counterparts, since the stats “bear this out”?
Does it even make logical sense to talk to fourth graders about being professional athletes, regardless of race? Genetics will dictate whether the kids will be even able to compete past high school (and by that I mean things like height, weight, and so forth). I don’t know the exactly stat I read back in the day, but I believe it was something like 4 percent of collegiate athletes make it to the professional leagues.
Those are lottery numbers. I think that’s a conversation you can have with very good college athletes, but talking about professional athletics like it’s something that good ol’ stick-to-it-iveness and hard work will have the same effect for everyone… that’s a little disingenuous.
I’d think it’s much more intelligent to discuss things like engineers and doctors with those kids. Those are professions one can aspire to much more realistically than pro sports.
And while we’re talking about professional athletics, let’s talk about coaching and management as well. All the barriers there have been toppled, right, because there’s adequate representation in the player ranks! Oh, wait a minute…
And as much as the raindog will likely bring up the example of Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy (which is progress), I would suggest looking at the coaching ranks, and how long it took for guys like Marvin Lewis to get a shot at the big time. Again, I’m not going to deny that there is progress being made but I think someone acting as if representation in the player ranks is equal to the elimination of institutional barriers is indeed in denial.
I didn’t ignore the reason at all. In fact, you didn’t present it either. Take note: How athletes “get there” is a separate issue than how they’re treated once they get there. If you’re suggesting that blacks migrate to sports because the barriers are lower than other endeavors—that “institutional racism” effectively “pushes” blacks to the field of sports I’d say, “Let’s talk about that. Let’s identify what those barriers are.” (which is exactly what I’d like to do next)
In the meantime, once blacks are herded into sports and entertainment they are treated quite well, especially vis a vis their white counterparts, who covet and compete for the same positions.
And so you pointed out the very long odds that a black child would face in becoming a professional athlete. I simply agreed.
The terminal flaw in your argument—which was off point anyway–was that the odds, no matter how long, are only relevant if a white child faced lower odds based on race.
But they don’t.
And that is the irony you missed.
How do you know white kids would not face lower odds if they were pursuing sports instead of professional degrees?
We have already seen that the people on the lowest end of the economic spectrum tend to bunch up on sportsthen trail off after their group stops being the lowest tier. If a bunch of kids from some random white ethnic group decided to go for sports, I suspect that we would see blacks pushed out of several sports. (Check out the discussions regarding the Caribbean basin guys “taking over” baseball some time.)
I didn’t think it was necessary, but it appears that we need to define “institution.”
My argument is not that racism doesn’t exist, nor has it ever been. Rather, it exists in levels and areas that are no where as pervasive as is suggested. IOW, racism is overstated by huge margins; often by sincere people who have been conditioned, if not coached, to see racism in every nook and cranny; in most cases where it doesn’t exist, or can’t be known. These sincere [if misguided] people are both black and white.
Often, however, the one crying "Racist!"is intentionally using the bitter legacy of discrimination to cover for poor behavior; poor record sales due to diddling boys, slaugthering one’s ex-wife and boyfriend, slugging a Capitol Police Officer, beating your wife (think both Jim Brown and James Brown), or simply beating a traffic ticket or being fired for poor performance. (of which there are many)
So it is my contention that “racism!” is levied many more times than it actually happens.
But nothing is more compelling that racism that is systemic, that is part of the fabric of an organization. This is racism that is cohesive, that is *pervasive *, that is organized. The term Institutional Racism suggests structural racism, systemic racism, racism that is woven into the fabric of an organization, a racism that is held in common by a signifcant amount, if not the majority, of the members of the group.
So I was never being clever or careful. For the purpose of this discussion I define the following as institutions:
- The Sports and Entertainment Industries
- The Media
- Higher education; collectively Colleges and Universities
- The Police
- Congress
- Local Politics, including City Councils, School Boards etc.
- Schools, K-12
- Business
Of course, those are not the only institutions, nor am I planning to talk about each one. But they share in common that they are a group of people centered around a common purpose. They are centralized around common governance, and most serve the public.
That is hardly a “limited definition.”
Now if you wish to broaden the definition to include any group of disparate people, of any size, and call that an “institution” I’d say you’re playing word games to ampilfy the term, and to make what racism that does exist sound more menacing.
If I understand this definition correctly, “In the same way, institutional racism includes the various underlying customs, patterns of behavior, and assumptions, spoken and unspoken, regarding race relations.”, I’d say you will be hoisted by your own petard. If the definition of institution is so broad as to include the whole of The United States, you will need to establish that not a few hundred thousand, or even millions, but the majority of 300 million people are patently racist to establish that the United States is institutionally racist.
On your best day, that won’t happen.
Pick your poison, and let’s forge ahead.
I don’t. I don’t suspect it would help them at all however. There is a finite amount of jobs available. And the applicant pool already exceeds the available positions by a wide margin. In fact, now that most major sports are recruiting in Latin America, Europe and even Asia, the competition is harder than ever. The pool of white applicants would have to be exponentially larger to increase their actual numbers of [signed] players. I suspect that number would be greater than all the kids currently playing. And while that may increase their representation in major sports, I don’t think it would improve the odds for any given player. IOW, the increase of applicants would have to be disproportionately higher than the accepted athletes. The odds would probably fall, while raw numbers went up.
At any rate, theres no way to know this.
I just don’t know about this. At first blush, it seems to me that there are too many other observable variables that make this impossible to handicap.
Yea, wait a minute.
Anybody want to tell us how many black head coaches there are in each of the NBA, NFL and MLB?
Of course it is necessary. And you are still playing the game that “institutional” must refer to a specific and formal institution (although you have, at least, finally provided your definition).
I deny that that is the meaning of the phrase as employed by forty years of people who have examined the concept.
Go back and read what I actually wrote and then explain which specific “institution” (by your limited if late definition) applies to the institution of marriage.
So what? I agree that people have done this, but your extended tu quoque hardly provides evidence that racism is not harming people; it simply indicates that some people are willing to game the system based on a recognition that the system does harm many people.
In a discussion regarding whether some undetermined number of white people deliberately deny or are simply unaware of the effects of racism, your running in here to decry the use of the charge (with rather few qualifiers and a lot of overbroad charges of your own) puts you pretty clearly in the camp of the deniers.
My Spidey Senses are picking up vibes that you’re not wanting to be pinned down, for fear the fragility (if not chicanery) of the term “institutional racism” in your care might be exposed.
But I’m not shadow boxing with you. I’m not playing “We can’t find the racist because we can’t find the institution.”
It seems absolutely germaine to the discussion of institutional racism, or racism in general, whether racism exists in the institutions that affect our lives—like higher education, like the police, like Congress et.al.
And that’s just what I’m going to do. If you wish to define institution by not defining it, have at it.
But it sure will look alot less imposing thundering off your keyboard in the future.
For Pete’s sakes, why? We’re having a discussion about racism. What in the world does your arcane non-relevant journey into the Ohio Revised Code,and Catholic Canon Law have to do with this discussion?
Whatever. I haven’t denied the existence of racism. I have challenged you and others to show it to me, to no avail.
What are you doing, taking lessons from DevNull?
I have explained that institutional racism is a patterrn of culture that results in racist decisions.
I have noted at least two examples of such racism.
You are the one dancing around pretending that there is nothing to see while you deliberately look away every time it is pointed out.
I’m pleased to report to my fellow Dopers that our investigation into The Arts, Sports and Entertainment industries revealed no structural, systemic, or institutional racism.
Not that we didn’t try, mind you.
The findings:
-
The most compelling evidence is that the major sports aren’t fairly represented by minorities among head coaches. That went both uncited, and unconfirmed. (I think that was Hippy Hollow)
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The most virulant, however, was the charge that the disparity between crafts that use brains (doctors, lawyers) and those that use brawn (running backs) is proof positive of institutional racism. Now it seems to this reporter that where they got on the societal bus, as opposed to where they got off, addresses this [perceived] disparity. So for now we will shelve this item and will pick it back up soon.
What we can say, is that if you are gifted enough, and driven enough, you can expect a fair shake in professional atheltics, regardless of your race.
Now the average Doper would rather choke on a ham bone than acknowledge that institutional racism doesn’t exist in some part of American Society, so the best we could get was tomndebb’s comment " It appears that you want to deny one phenomenon in this country by atttacking it where it ain’t…" We’ll take it.
Now it seems that every other post includes a charge that someone here (that someone being me) denies that racism exists. It would appear that alleging that racism doesn’t exist everywhere is the same as saying it exists nowhere. For those witout an ax that needs grinding, that seems silly. For the ax grinding crowd, I’ll add this qualifier:
Certainly at PGA headquarters, or scurrying through the halls of Yankee Stadium, or at Motown, or at Warner Bros Studios Lot B, there are racists. Maybe lots of them. But they are not making policy. They are a rag tag bunch of misfits, and miscreants. They are a petty group, practicing an ageless, timeless craft. Yet they have been overcome by good people everywhere, so much so that they are a minority in this country.
The score so far:
Civil Rights: (read:decency) 1
Institutional Racism: 0
Hopefully later today we’ll lay siege to another American Institution in search of Institutional Racism…
Then why did you ask it of the raindog?
Then I am sure you agree that you with the face is incorrect to drag in a single aspect - physicality - of the possible filters and supports into the discussion.
Regards,
Shodan