[QUOTE=mlees]
It’s OK to vote for Obama because you think he is more likely to be successfull in solving African American issues compared to Hillary or McCain (by comparing the individuals involved).
But it’s not OK to assume that no white candidate will (which is how the OP framed his hypothesis, by naming no names).
[/QUOTE]
Nor is it OK to assume that Obama would attempt to ameliorate black problems, or that he would be competent at doing so.
If a person’s skin color is X, then he probably has characteristic Y. So he isn’t a good candidate for the job.
Sorry. Next!
Regards,
Shodan
[QUOTE=you with the face]
So it is racist if you vote for the white candidate who you think can fix black problems? According to Little Nemo’s argument (which my post was in response to), that would be racist.
[/QUOTE]
I guess I wasn’t clear enough.
If you vote for Ted Kennedy because you think he has a proven record (or sounds sincere enough) in addressing civil rights issues, then no. You are using a different metric (either his past performance or his sincere demeaner) to make your judgement of him, and it is not racism, becuae you are not using skin color to make your decision.
If you think that a <insert skin color> candidate is more likely to be <insert adjective or adverb> in office than any given <insert different skin color> candidate, then you are holding a racial bias.
Note: You are allowed (in the U.S.) to vote for whom you please, based on any metric you wish. It can be based on the pattern your scrambles eggs makes on your plate one morning, for all the law cares. (And I favor the secret ballot method of democracy.) However, if you base your decision based on racial biases, and you go public about it, expect some folks to tsk-tsk (or at least disagree with) you a little.
The OP did not ask if Obama is better suited than McCain or Hillary in addressing (African American) civil rights issues. He made a blanket statement about different sub-groups of voters, and made a statement about the moral “right and wrong” of one compared to the other.
It seems to me to be understandable that a African American voter might feel that a black candidate is more likely to address the civil rights issues that affect them (the voter) than a white one. But I feel that that is an example of a racial bias or prejudice (racism is a bit strong without further info, IMO) held by that voter.
In a person who seeks to be intellectually honest with themselves, being able to perceive these biases in themselves is an important thing.
I did not say it was, unless you actually studied his voting record (assuming one exists) in the various offices he has held up to this point.
Pretty much any situation in life is based on comparitive advantage. It’s not what I have, it’s what I have in comparison to other people.
Let’s say I have a fixed income and live a comfortable middle class lifestyle. If I decided to move to an expensive city like Manhattan or Tokyo, I’d be poor. If I’m moved to Ascunsion or Kuala Lumpar, I’d be wealthy. But my income would have remained the same.
It works the same with thing like jobs and votes. As a white person, I benefit if there’s prejudice against black people. I have more job opportunities because I don’t have to compete against capable black applicants. More vote is worth more because black people aren’t allowed to vote.
I realize some people don’t like to think about things like this. They want to follow the easy path and figure that if something is immoral, it must not have any benefit for anyone. Thinking that something is hurting everyone makes it simple to condemn it. But I’ve never figured you can build morality on a foundation of comfortable lies. You have to acknowledge the truth about something in order to really condemn it. You have to understand that prejudice is wrong as a matter of principle even if you personally benefit from it.
[QUOTE=mlees]
I guess I wasn’t clear enough.
[/quote]
I understand what you are saying. If you assume that the black guy will take care of blacks better than the white guy just because of race, then I agree that’s prejudice and racism at work. But I’m not arguing that.
In the post you responded to, I was responding to Little Nemo’s idea about it being racist to vote in a way that helps your ethnic group. Even though he posits this about blacks voting for blacks, the meat of his argument really has more to do with helping one group being inseperable from “hurting” another. And I was pointing out the error in this view. It’s not automatically racist to vote with the intent of helping your group out.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
OK, delete “solely”. If you are using race to come to any conclusion about the person, then it’s racist. If you are don’t know the guy’s position on some issue, but you assume it will be “x” because of his race, then you are engaging in racism. There are no ifs ands or buts about it.
[/QUOTE]
On this line of reasoning, any time a X’s race contributes in any way to Y’s reasons for acting, Y is thereby a racist. This implies that racism is sometimes a good policy. Do you mean to imply that? Or rather, do you think that there are some ways race might contribute to one’s reasons that would make one racist, and other ways race might contribute to one’s reasons that would not make one a racist?
-FrL-
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Pretty much any situation in life is based on comparitive advantage. It’s not what I have, it’s what I have in comparison to other people.
Let’s say I have a fixed income and live a comfortable middle class lifestyle. If I decided to move to an expensive city like Manhattan or Tokyo, I’d be poor. If I’m moved to Ascunsion or Kuala Lumpar, I’d be wealthy. But my income would have remained the same.
It works the same with thing like jobs and votes. As a white person, I benefit if there’s prejudice against black people. I have more job opportunities because I don’t have to compete against capable black applicants. More vote is worth more because black people aren’t allowed to vote.
I realize some people don’t like to think about things like this. They want to follow the easy path and figure that if something is immoral, it must not have any benefit for anyone. Thinking that something is hurting everyone makes it simple to condemn it. But I’ve never figured you can build morality on a foundation of comfortable lies. You have to acknowledge the truth about something in order to really condemn it. You have to understand that prejudice is wrong as a matter of principle even if you personally benefit from it.
[/QUOTE]
I disagree, and this read makes things like the Civil Rights Act out to be more heroic than it was.
There is value to be sure in the existence of discrimination in one’s favour, but there are also serious drawbacks to such a system, including for those ostensibly benefiting.
For example, if discrimination prevented one group from obtaining employment, one would expect them to turn to anti-social activities simply to survive - and the disadvantage of living with the resulting crime, increased insecurity, etc. might well outweigh the advantage to any particular member of the other group in obtaining employment or other preferences.
Naturally, the disadvantages to the discriminated-against group are more evident; but a truly cynically self-interested person might well conclude that the advantages aren’t worth the costs, even for the discriminated-for group.
[QUOTE=you with the face]
I understand what you are saying. If you assume that the black guy will take care of blacks better than the white guy just because of race, then I agree that’s prejudice and racism at work. But I’m not arguing that.
[/QUOTE]
Woops, sorry. Sloppy reading on my part.
[QUOTE=Mijin]
Of course.
An example might be that a person may suspect that the very high tax rate for the wealthy is stifling the economy and hurting everyone.
Note that it’s not only rich people that believe taxes should be lowered for “upper income people”.
[/quote]
In that case, then, it seems to me that there are clearly legitimate reasons for a white person to prefer a white candidate because of race. For example, a white voter might feel that a black president would be more racially divisive.
Let me re-phrase my question then: Is it just as legitimate for a black person to vote for a black candidate for president because of race as it is for a white person to vote for a white candidate for NYC mayor because of race?
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
I realize some people don’t like to think about things like this. They want to follow the easy path and figure that if something is immoral, it must not have any benefit for anyone.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think many people believe this.
Imagine a playground full of kids. If you there’s a clique of kids who monopolize all the fun areas, like the see-saw, swings, and jungle gym, and push all the other kids away so that they are left with nothing except a patch a dirt to play in, then we, as outside observers, deem that to be immoral because it doesn’t jive with our sense of justice and fairness. This judgement has nothing to do with net benefit. The kids left in the dirt may not put up a fight at all, may never launch a revolution or turn into revenge-seeking criminals, and may actually learn to like their little dirt patch. We can still see that the setup is wrong.
The rich man steals all the poor man’s money. Most people would call this an immoral action even though it’s clear that the rich man is benefited by this crime.
This is the kind of spurious reasoning I’m talking about. Show me any studies that shows any correlation between ineligibility to vote and criminality.
If there is a connection between discrimination and crime, then wouldn’t ending that discrimination just push the lowest rung of white people over the crime line? By your reasoning there must have been some borderline white criminals who were able to stay just inside the law because of the unfair advantages they received from reverse discrimination.
The reality of life is that somebody is going to be on the bottom and somebody is going to be on the top. If you impose some arbitrary standard to place one person down at the bottom then you’re moving somebody else up higher than they would have been.
That’s the whole point of it being unfair. If it’s unfair against one group of people then it has to be unfair in favor of some other group, even if the advantage is just that they’re not being discriminated against.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
It works the same with thing like jobs and votes. As a white person, I benefit if there’s prejudice against black people. I have more job opportunities because I don’t have to compete against capable black applicants. More vote is worth more because black people aren’t allowed to vote.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure if you’re seriously saying this is true, or just saying some people THINK it’s true. If the latter, sure, some people are dolts. If the former, you are obviously wrong.
It’s just not necessarily the case that racist situations help people who are not the target of racism. Large-scale discrimination can have enormous, long-term negative effects on the entire population; if nothing else, the opportunity costs are unthinkably huge. If 30,000,000 black Americans are given no opportunities, you just lost 10% of your labour pool; that means that you lost 10% of all your best doctors, inventors, artists, statesmen, scientists, mathematicians, technicians, musicians, plumbers, bakers and accountants. That’s an enormous loss; a productive person doesn’t just consume a job, they produce. In fact, in a functioning economy like the USA, they produce more than they consume. The people who have jobs aren’t screwing you by occupying jobs, they’re helping you by making the country grow and prosper.
What if the next black guy denied a fair shot would be been the discoverer of the cure for cancer? Cold fusion? A working superconductor? Imagine if, instead of skin color, they denied opportunities to anyone whose last name started with a letter between A and F. Sure be a bummer if we didn’t have Norman Borlaug, Albert Einstein, and Charles Darwin, huh? Do you really think the loss of those men, and millions more like them, would be worth it is you didn’t have to compete against Darwin’s descendants for a shitty job?
You’re still operating on the assumption that there is only a fixed pie, and that only position along a continuum is relevant. That’s visibly, obviously not true; if it were true, then middle class people in the United States and other industrialized nations would be emigrating by the millions to Cote d’Ivoire and Bangladesh and other hopeless shitholes, since by the criteria you’ve set, they’d instantly be better off. But they don’t do that, because they wouldn’t be better off. Exactly the opposite is true; people leave THOSE places, even if they’re okay relatively speaking, to accept a lower rung on the totem pole in the USA, Canada, Australia and whatnot, because they’re better off that way. If middle class people moved the other way they’d be WORSE off, in the long run, because those places suck. Even if you’re briefly at the top, lording it over the really poor people, you’re still in a shithole, and the ramifications of everyone else being poor and downtrodden are significant. There’s more crime, more disease, cruddy slums, inept government, fewer economic opportunities, and more chances that your own little fortune will be lost by virtue of social or civil unrest. And a lot of the shitholosity of those places is due to bigotry.
Exclusion of groups of people - be it by race, caste, or whatever - ISN’T good for most of the rest of the people. It’s bad. The economic impact is just enormous, it’s socially corrosive, and it causes unrest and insecurity. I don’t have to use a moral argument to oppose racial inequality; I oppose it because it’s to my benefit that it be gotten rid of, even though it doesn’t affect me directly.
Again, I’d like to see a cite that anything you’ve said has any factual basis. Your argument is the same that was used for “trickle down economics” - it doesn’t matter if the wealthy get a disproportionate share of financial breaks because the economy’s going to grow so big that everyone’s share will be bigger. But as I pointed out, economics isn’t based on some objective external standard - it’s based on what you have compared to the people around you. A man making $100,000 a year when his neighbours are making $50,000 is the richest guy on his street. A man making $500,000 a year and living on Millionaire’s Row is the poorest guy on the street. And people do know this and act upon it. They may not be moving to Cote d’Ivoire and Bangladesh but they are moving to countries like Mexico and Panama for the very reasons I’ve described.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Again, I’d like to see a cite that anything you’ve said has any factual basis.
[/QUOTE]
You actually want a cite that Bangladesh is a shithole and that people from Third World countries want to move to rich countries more than the reverse? Are you serious?
No, it’s not even the slightest bit related to that.
Is that so?
So what’s the net migration rate between the United States and Mexico?
Look, we’re going to have to agree to disagree. I am just flabbergasted anyone would think that mass discrimination ISN’T bad for an entire nation. We clearly have completely different perspectives on how the world works, as well as the very existence of places like India or South Africa.
And, again, even if discrimation isn’t bad for the entire population, that still doesn’t mean voting to benefit a minority group is racist because it causes “harm” to the majority group. If we’re going to call that racism, then we should go on ahead and retire that word.
Black voters have proven their willingness to vote for white candidates and are not voting for Obama out of an aversion to the white candidate.
As ususal with this kind of thing, there is no symmetry in this. Voting against Obama because he is black is racist. Voting for him beause he’s the first viable black candidate in US history is not.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Black voters have proven their willingness to vote for white candidates and are not voting for Obama out of an aversion to the white candidate.
As ususal with this kind of thing, there is no symmetry in this. Voting against Obama because he is black is racist. Voting for him beause he’s the first viable black candidate in US history is not.
[/QUOTE]
We’re talking in general here, not about Obama. If someone votes for a person of a certain race because of that person’s race (either in part or in whole), then the voter is engaging in racist behavior. It’s not any more complicated than that. Now, it might be more understandable why minorities would want to vote for one of their own, but it’s still racist.
No, I was thinking more about a cite for any of this:
Except for the simularities.
Here’s what you wrote:
To which I replied that people do move to places like Mexico and Panama for the reasons I described. You’re the one who said if A were true then B would be happening. And I pointed that B was happening.
I’d be flabbergasted as well. Do you know anyone like that?
Unless, perhaps, you meant me. I said that discrimination is immoral. There’s no reason to think I like it. It’s just some people have to believe that if something is wrong it’s alright to attribute any evil to it without the necessity of evidence. And that refusing to swallow these unfounded claims means somebody is against the program as a whole.
“Racial discrimination is immoral and unjust and wrong.”
“And it causes cancer.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I heard that once. Racial discrimination causes cancer in lab mice.”
“I’ve never heard that. It seems a little unlikely. Do you have any proof of that?”
“Proof? PROOF? What kind of proof do I need that racial discrimination is bad! You’re the one that needs proof you racial discriminator!”
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Black voters have proven their willingness to vote for white candidates and are not voting for Obama out of an aversion to the white candidate.
[/QUOTE]
Some have. Others have never voted before in their life. They are clearly racists!
Agreed?
[QUOTE=brazil84]
In that case, then, it seems to me that there are clearly legitimate reasons for a white person to prefer a white candidate because of race.
…
Is it just as legitimate for a black person to vote for a black candidate for president because of race as it is for a white person to vote for a white candidate for NYC mayor because of race?
[/QUOTE]
I’ve been very clear about this.
Let me say it again: Voting for someone primarily on the basis of race is wrong, and rascist, always, for any permutation of races.
Please do not ask me this question again.
I’m currently trying to fathom your logic: why you began your post with “In that case, then…”.
I can only assume that you took my opinion that there may be legitimate reasons for a wealthy person to vote for tax cuts as a tacit admission that voting out of self-interest is legitimate.
When I actually gave reasons that were nothing to do with self-interest (or were for the ‘greater good’, which we don’t normally consider to be selfish).
One thing I have assumed is that by ‘legitimacy’, you’re asking a moral question.