Bullshit. This is about the right remedy to racism, not whether racism was bad. Logic fail.
No, of course not. That’s a false dilemma. AA is not the only solution.
Don’t put words in other people’s mouths.
No it’s not.
Of course you can have racism without power. Racism is simply prejudice based on race. It’s wrong even when it means well.
Not at all. Don’t play that game.
Of course it would unfair. Do you actually think it would be fair? Are you trying to make my point for me?
What ridiculous double-speak.
There are many advantages and disadvantages in society, past and present. You can’t fix them all. Why do we even have SATs? Why not just admit students based on how many historical factors they can list?
Uh-oh - you’re starting to think!
First of all, it’s NOT slavery, but past racism that matters. But no matter - the more you try to “target” AA, the more you’ll wade into all the details and realize how absurd the attempt is. You’ll have point systems for who has a slave in their family tree, or two slaves, or three. But deduct points if there’s a white person or two in the family tree. Then the white applicants get points for being Irish, since they were discriminated against, but if only their mom is Irish, that’s worth half a point. That only scratches the surface of the lunacy of trying to quantify disadvantage. And every time you do, that just creates a new injustice, until you target it even more, to the point of absurdity.
No. I don’t accept that. You may not commit gross injustice in an attempt to fix past injustice.
No it’s not. You pretend it is, but 5 white dudes didn’t get in because of your policy. Explain to them why. Don’t dodge.
Like hell it doesn’t. There’s NOTHING in a race-based policy to stop it.
Explain why.
My indignation is not selective.
Yes. So I oppose using race. You?
No. Classes of people are a group of individuals. They are hurt as individuals when you discriminate against them as a group. This is the fundamental reason that racism is wrong.
This is not about “esteem.” Esteem doesn’t get you into college, SAT scores do (to simplify). Blacks who get good scores get into college, do they not?
But you don’t fix that by judging white people negatively!
Really? You need me to tell you that? Come on. Tell me exactly what would prevent that from happening. And why it shouldn’t happen.
Of course they are being punished. Stop pretending otherwise.
People should be judged by their qualifications, not their race.
“White privilege” doesn’t mean every white person is ahead of the game. Nor does it mean there weren’t other disadvantages in their life or their past. Treating someone just by their race is evil, even if you mean well.
So should we have AA for sentencing? Whenever a white person is sentenced, add five years to the sentence just to fix the disparity?
So if one of my ancestors was in a wheelchair, can I have a special ramp?
If it makes you feel better, I’m a Democrat and a “liberal” on many other issues.
No. It’s not.
It just makes it easier because you don’t see the effects. But a white person doesn’t get a job because of the racial preference.
Why force it on those who do?
Sounds like more than a wee bit.
Really? How exactly? Explain how your polices don’t go too far, but some others might. Tell us exactly how you draw that line.
What’s the difference?
So what? I strongly support anti-discrimination law. Your point is irrelevant to this debate. One is wrong and the other is right.
Okay, so should we have AA in elections? Black and women candidates automatically get an extra 5% of the vote when the results are counted?
If not…WHY NOT?
Dude, you need to start a blog.
Uh, no. When affirmative action was abolished in the UC system, it lead to a huge change in the racial makeup of the student body, but not much change in the gender makeup. Affirmative action, at least in the quota system as it was given, was causing racial discrimination but not gender discrimination, or at least very little.
I’d be perfectly happy to see our politicians ending the war on drugs, reducing prison sentences, and offering black kids access to a decent K-12 education right now. If you search, you’ll see that I’ve started threads on those topics.
Don’t dodge questions please.
In addition to AA for women and minorities in elections, maybe we should have it for the Olympics. Teams with histories of disadvantage due to racism - or anything else for that matter - would get to start a few seconds earlier in races or something. No doubt Haitians suffered from disadvantage, so why not give them a leg up in competition, for instance?
Well then the answer is for them to stop discriminating, isn’t it?
This has been explain 100 times by this point. I can and have explained it to you, I can’t comprehend it for you.
Of course it is. Every decision we make requires discrimination. You seem to be only complaining (loudly) about one type that is only used as a corrective measure.
Not in all cases. Should a casting director be able to only hire White actors to play Superman? Should a Chinese restaurant be sued for hiring Asian waiters? Should Lorne Michaels be sued for specifically looking to hire a Black woman? Is anyone who has a racial dating preference racist?
You misunderstood. You claimed slavery and other wrongs of the past were over, and implied that since the people who were directly affected or involved are dead, that there is no person that needs to be made whole. That is wrong because the damage wasn’t just done to the individuals kept as slaves, but to a class of people who still suffer to this day because Blackness is viewed negatively in large part due to that past discrimination.
Of course esteem gets you into college. No selective college just goes on test scores and resumes. Do you even understand how college admissions works, or the history of testing?
This is just selective framing. It’s like arguing you are being punished for being childless or unmarried because tax benefits are given to people in those groups. You may be able to mathematically justify using it to look at quantitative metrics, but it makes no sense to pretend people in the out groups are aggrieved.
Because at present, AA typically affects people on the margins. Black millionaires and poor, toothless White people generally don’t interact or compete for similar things for a variety of reasons. Yes, it could happen, but so could a lot of unlikely things not worth basing policy on.
If you choose to view punishment as not getting the exact same thing someone else got, then you have a pretty distorted world view.
What qualifications, and what do you do if those qualifications are skewed and affected by race?
I’ll give you another example. At many highly selective colleges, they get tons of suspiciously perfect resumes and scores from a handful of Asian countries. As a result, a “perfect” student from China may not be held in as high esteem as a US student with the same qualifications. Do you think that is fair? Is that racist or bigoted?
Now what if the basis for this difference was that it is known that the prep school one of these students went to is known for rampant grade inflation? Or what if it is know that on average, student A will have access to SAT prep material, courses, instructors, etc. that student B doesn’t have. Does that score of student A indicate the same level of ability as someone who scored the same without access to all that stuff?
You are the only one using the term evil, or failing to understand the very basic concept. Just answer this basic question. Would the average White person be better or worse of if they were Black?
Did this make sense to you when you typed it?
Is that because women had already made significant gains, or because AA didn’t work for them? If you are implying the latter, there is a huge body of evidence to suggest you are wrong about that.
AA didn’t cause racial discrimination, people did (and do). How often were women assumed to be inferior and unqualified when they got to college? How often are resumes with female names thrown out despite similar qualifications? I think they disparate treatment here is pretty clear, and speaks to the results we see, in addition to the narrow definition of AA that is incorrectly used and the vitriol people on the right have for the program.
So why did you say AFTER?
Another example from ignorance. The Olympics does that functionally by accepting competitors from a number of noncompetitive countries. Look at the list of Olympic medals from Sochi. Eighty-eight nations participated, 26 won medals, and more than half the medals went to 6 countries. Croatian (for example) athletes were already given a leg up by being invited in the first place. Do you really think there wasn’t a Russian who didn’t make it that was better than a Croatian who did in pretty much every event? What do you think the 100m field would look like if it were just based on time? Similarly, what do you think Harvard’s class would look like if it were only based on scores and the like? I can pretty much guarantee is would be mostly full of people from India and China. Do you think that would be ideal and fair?
Either way, despite this discrimination, we rarely hear people like you complain about how the Olympics are unjust and unfair. Mostly because we recognize that that is not the sole point of the Olympics. It’s not only to rank people in their sports based only on performance. Similarly, college is not just about accepting the most “qualified” candidate. Not only because of the above, but also because “most qualified” is basically a nonsense phrase at that point.
YOU CANNOT STOP DISCRIMINATING. Why is this so hard to get. Look up the word:
You cannot pick and choose amongst things without “recognizing a distinction”. The only thing you can do is choose criteria (distinctions) that are relevant and somewhat measurable. There is no reason why race, which in the arenas we talking about, isn’t relevant, and shouldn’t be used to discriminate. To not do that, you either view it as being a non-factor, or you are stupidly and conveniently committed to ignoring reality.
No it hasn’t. Dodge.
But racial discrimination is wrong. Correct?
Oh, please. Of course not in those situations. That’s not the issue here.
So every wrong of history must be made right? When are we giving back our land to the American Indians?
SHOULD esteem get you into college? Racial esteem?
Bullshit. There is nothing in an AA policy that says this.
No I don’t. You just can’t admit that your policies actually hurt people while they try to help others.
Grades and test scores. If skewed by race, you fix the high schools that make them that way.
Huh? Now you want to discriminate against Asians because sometimes they cheat?
But now you’re talking about things that are known. Pointing to any black and saying you KNOW they were disadvantaged or that a white was advantaged, just based on race, isn’t something you can know. And you end up leaving out hundreds of other factors.
But this is not about averages. This is about individual people.
We could just as easily use your logic to discriminate AGAINST blacks. The “average” black is more likely to commit crime, for instance. Should we use that information to exclude them from jobs as a security risk?
No - that’s the POINT. It’s your logic.
Bullshit. That’s not comparable to AA, at least not to quotas. (I have no problem with other forms of AA - seeking out better opportunity.)
With quota-based AA, it would be like giving Croatia a 5-second lead in a race. Or automatically putting them in the finals without competing.
Do you actually believe the 100m isn’t based only on time?
Of course. Why not?
DO NOT pull this shit with me. Do not tell me what you think I believe, or judge me on what you haven’t heard me say.
OF COURSE YOU CAN. You can stop discriminating based on certain factors, such as race. Of course you discriminate based on other factors. Just not race. We all know what discrimination means, thanks.
Jesus, do you read what you type?
A fucking KKK member could say the exact same thing!
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
P.S. I looked and couldn’t find any evidence that anything other than merit in a sport is used to qualify a country’s competitors for the Olympics, other than the host country having the right to at least one spot in each sport.
I call bullshit on that one until I see evidence.