I agree with Hyperelastic here. You are very narrowly defining affirmative action so that you can minimize its impact.
As a practical matter, if two guys apply for a job at a major corporation, exactly identical in every respect exept that one guy is black and one is white, the black guy has the edge in the vast majority of cases. Not directly from any law or even because the company has an official quota or policy favoring blacks. But because the corporation bigwigs want to appear progressive and because they are more afraid of being sued by blacks armed with stats showing the black employment is not up to par than they are of being sued by white guys who were rejected for jobs. So they’ve made “diversity” one of the key goals of the company, and by hiring the black guy the local guys get brownie points towards their diversity goals, and avoid trouble if someone is asking around about why there aren’t enough blacks employed here. And a similar situation prevails in other circumstances as well, e.g. schools etc.
That’s how it is, from my experience and that of others. If you want to deny it that’s fine too - I don’t have any concrete proof - but it’s a mistake to point to this or that law and pretend that this is the real issue, IMHO.
That said, your random black guy in this country is less likely to be exactly identical to the random white guy, for many reasons, some of which are beyond his control. So if you are a person who focuses on equality of races in a larger sense, and feels that these are meaningful groups that need to be equalized on average, then this type (or any other type) of AA has some rationale. But if the question is whether a white guy has some justification in thinking that he has to try harder than a black guy to break even, the answer is frequently “yes”.
The cite you provided isn’t a peer-reviewed article, it’s a paper presented at a conference called “RACE AT WORK - Realities of Race and Criminal Record in the NYC Job Market.” Call me a cynic, but it appears they already have their minds made up on the issue.
Reading the report, I can see exactly how they got the results they did, and I can see why their results don’t apply to the job market in general. They looked exclusively at jobs that require face-to-face interaction with the general public (salesman, waiter, receptionist). It is well known that companies hire people for those jobs who are demographically similar to the people they’re likely to encounter. A car dealership in Harlem is going to have black salesmen, a jewelry store in San Mateo is going to have Chinese salesmen, and a restaurant in Palm Springs is going to have white waitresses. Whether this itself is ethical is another discussion, but these jobs represent a very small part of the job market and are overall distributed among the races in exact proportion to the population, because dealers will try to have enough salesmen/women of a particular race to cover all customers of that race.
So, all you’ve gotta do to collect a bunch of data “proving” discrimination is to have black people apply for salesman jobs at places where the clientele is overwhelmingly white. Which is probably exactly what these guys did. I could “prove” the exact opposite by having a bunch of guys from West Virginia apply for jobs to sell diamonds on West 47th in NYC. I don’t care whether they have a Ph.D. in geology, they’re not gonna get hired.
This study says practically nothing about the job market in general. Try applying for a job as an engineer with Boeing. If your resume says you were in the Society of Black Engineers, you’re going to get a call back. I’m involved in that kind of hiring process all the time and this is just the way it is. HR will call a person like that back without even running the resume by the hiring manager.
In addition to the valid points made by Hyperelastic in his/her response, I would also note that the study appears to have been done with small businesses, while I specifically said “large corporation”. The reason being that the dynamic that I discussed is far more of a factor with large corporations. (Small businesses are not generally the focus of class action lawsuits, EEOC complaints, or publicized campaigns about these issues.)
Also, it’s unclear whether the people being tested knew what the test was and what their own feelings about it were. Because if the interviewees knew what the test was testing, and if they themselves agreed with the general notion that blacks face discrimination, they would inevitably act in ways that would bias the test. (IOW, a black interviewee who believes that blacks face discrimination in employment is not going to do his best to make a good impression, knowing that if he gets a positive response it will undermine his position.)
It’s also unclear to me from a quick look whether these people applied for jobs at minority owned businesses. There are a lot fewer minority owned businesses than white owned ones (more true of blacks than Latinos) but there’s more discrimination of this sort among minority businesses. (I remember reading years ago in the NYT about how public policy people believed helping minority businesses was a great way to improve minority employment because minority business owners had a “philosophy” of employing their own, and I was thinking how bigotry in a white becomes philosophy in a minority member.)
It is not a marriage. If it were ,it would be a million of them. Some would iron out their differences and grow together. Some would fail miserably due to ingrained bias. But overall there would be varying degrees of success and failure. You simplify to buttress your slanted feelings.
When it comes to frank discussions about race, the last word is Frank Sweet. His essays are well researched, detailed and based on the best data available.
If you really want to discuss this issue, read all of his essays:
The US is quite unusual among the countries of the Americas in that it’s used punitive laws, extralegal violence, including ethnic cleansing to maintain two separate, distinct groups. So the natural merging of populations that took place everywhere else was artificially shut down, with a massive legal apparatus and outright terror.
In Mexico, by contrast, descendants of African slave intermarried so thoroughly into the general population that they disappeared as a separate group.
Both white identified and black identified Americans are heavily invested in the binary status quo, and most of us believe things about what we call race that are demonstrably untrue.
IMHO, a productive frank discussion on race should follow certain guidelines:
No one-upmanship game. No “My great-grandfather came here with nothing on his back but he made it without any help.” No “The [Insert Model Minority of Choice] faced horrible discrimination such as [Insert Specific Act of Oppression], but you don’t hear them whining.” It does nothing to advance the conversation, IMHO, and is often based on faulty reasoning and ignorance.
No unreasonable personalization of the issue. This does not exclude one from using anecdotes to illustrate a point. It might be relevant in the conversation for me to mention, let’s say, how tracking in integrated schools has had detrimental effects on minority kids and mention the fact that I almost got sucked down the tubes myself because of it. Or how, if I were a white guy, I don’t feel particularly welcomed at predominately black venues. But using phrases like “I didn’t own any slaves” or “I’m not a racist” obscure the fact that the conversation is about generalizations, the collective experience of groups, rather than individuals.
Listening to the other side with non-jumpy knees. If I say I’ve been discriminated against and I cite instances that I believe support my conclusion, it is not necessary for someone to tear me apart as if I’m in a court of law. Just listen. Likewise, if someone has had only negative experiences with a group of people and they are expressing frustration because of it, it is also good that they be listened to. Of course, people can debate with each other about the merits of what the other is saying–just because someone says something happened doesn’t mean they should be believed. But simply listening, hearing someone out, and trying in earnest to be as empathetic as possible, goes a long way in advancing the dialogue.
Being 100% honest and being 100% open to receiving honesty. I believe everyone on this planet is prejudiced to some degree, and we need to recognize this before we can have a serious discussion about racism or whatever. Like, I know a guy at work who regularly thumps his chest about how progressive and non-racist he and his family is. I believe him. But when I once told him that I think everyone is prejudiced, he vehemently disagreed with me, citing his progressive background. But if his progressiveness shields him from harboring prejudice, why does he constantly deride people with certain accents (those associated with poor people, often times) or talk so horribly about the SUV-driving surbanites he lives around? Why does he talk so meanly about fat people? He’s prejudiced but doesn’t see it because, in his eyes, he can rationalize his feelings (people who don’t speak proper English are usually lazy and stupid…people who drive SUVs are probably mean ole conservatives…fat people are greedy slobs). No one is free from prejudice, whether it be racist, sexist, classist, or whatever. It can even be self-directed. If you can’t even imagine that you yourself might be part of the problem, how can anything be fixed? And if you can’t listen to someone confessing to harboring prejudice without jumping all over them, then you too are part of the problem.
Remember that when talking about race matters in the US, it is not fair to exclude history from the conversation. History might be 150 years ago, or it might be 50 years ago. (Watched this thing on CNN the other day, about a woman who was rejected from her state college in 1950 because of her race, despite being her HS salutatorian. She went on to work as an elevator operator and then as a janitor. The entire path her life took was altered by that one act of discrimination). Whatever happens to your parents affects you; it’s not like the legacy of racism is wiped out with a new generation. You might inherit their distrust, their resentment, their disillusionment, and their fatigue. A frank discussion about race requires that both parties recognize this and at least try to empathize. It is not very thoughtful to say, “But it didn’t even HAPPEN TO YOU!!” because when you are brought up in a family where the stories are often repeated and the emotions haven’t been properly dealt with by the direct victims, it is almost like it did happen to you. And it’s not thoughtful to lump distrust and wariness due to first-hand encounters with racism with the distrust and wariness stemming from lack of experience with and misunderstanding of the “other”.
Related to the above and No. 1 and 2, we have to recognize that the power of racism is not equally distributed. In a frank discussion, it’s not productive to trade instances where both parties were discriminated against or victimized. Person A was called a nigger once when he was riding bikes as a youngster. Person B was called a honkey while visiting a bar in a black neighborhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both stories are interesting. But is name-calling really what we want to talk about? Does the fact that both people have stories mean that everyone is equally harmed by racism? No.
We need to stop trading “war” stories and focus on how we can fix society as a whole. It starts with removing the taint that surrounds race matters and going out of our way to break out of our comfort zones. Get to know people who are not in your demographic group. Learn how to listen to other people’s experiences without taking offense or acting defensively. Try to talk rather than argue. Be compassionate, understanding, and forgiving. It’s not a simple thing, but it’s a possible thing. I have had frank discussions before, both online and in real life, and I left feeling like we had accomplished something. But the thing is, you have to want to do it. And most people simply aren’t.
monstro, that was an excellent thoughtful post. Very much appreciated.
I remember when I worked in FL in the early 80s I was surprised at the racism I saw. I invited a black mechanic to the bar I was playing in and he thought I was mocking him. When He realized I wasn’t kidding he told me he wasn’t allowed in there at night.
We almost got fired because I danced with a black girl. I also realized I was subject to the anger and resentment of blacks simply because I was white. They didn’t know me. I just represented the whites of their own bad experiences.
I’m reminded of the story we heard after Obama was elected. A woman who was the former college roommate of Michelle confessed that she and her mother had pushed for room reassignment because of Michelle’s race. Instead of being the friend and roommate of the 1st lady she was the racist ex roommate.
I didn’t read the linked article beyond your quote, because it’s mathematically impossible to be 500% less likely to do anything.
Let me say one other thing about this kind of “research”. The first report was written by a professor of sociology from Princeton. That research was so flawed, even an unsophisticated hillbilly like me was able to dismantle it in about five minutes. Yet the author (a white woman) was somehow able to get tenure at Princeton. Do you know how difficult it is to get tenure at a place like Princeton in, say, physics? It’s like making an NFL team. Yet in sociology, you can evidently get tenure, provided you have a point of view acceptable to other sociologists, even if your research skills are the equivalent of the East Stroudsburg Pee Wee Football League. This is the kind of discrimination, or bias, that drives the angry white male nuts, and it’s got little to do with affirmative action, narrowly defined. The average Rush Limbaugh fan may not be able to identify exactly what was wrong with the Princeton study, but he knows the results are hooey, ridiculously exaggerated. Same with the “500% less likely” claim. And it makes him hate liberal intellectuals from Princeton and love Rush Limbaugh. Not exactly a positive outcome.
I don’t claim that job opportunity is fair for everyone everywhere; that would be foolish. But do you really want a “frank discussion” that consists of professors of sociology arguing with Glenn Beck? That is a discussion I would rather not have. Race is one issue that I find is far, far better understood and dealt with by the average person than by the thought leaders or elites or whatever you want to call them.
You did not dismantle anything. You think you did. I found another study from a peer reviewed journal like you requested so you would get beyond attacking the study. Instead, you find a way to disparage an entire field of study because it comes to conclusions you do not like. What is the equation for employment discrimination? That’s right, it does not exist, and not everything can be broken down to a simple mathematical expression.
Just wondering, what is your experience with the tenure process in sociology at top universities? My guess is there are some people that are pretty offended on this board at your characterization.
Regarding the bias that you speak of that drives the angry white male nuts, based on how you portray them, they have no interest in anything opposing their view. Instead of thinking about the implications of a study showing their view might be misinformed, they pick out an arbitrary issue from the study that they do not fully understand, declare it incorrect, and then declare the entire study incorrect. They just “know” that a study is wrong? What kind of approach to a discussion is that?
Not sure what you are getting at with bringing up Beck and Limbaugh. Of course I would not want to include them. They include themselves because it is so profitable for them. What gets their listeners more riled up than being afraid that a black is going to get a job over them?
Considering how misinformed the average person is (black and white), and how the average person likely bases her worldview off of anecdotes that allow her to believe what she wants, I’m going to have to disagree. By no means am I advocating for a decree from the ivory tower, but studies like the above are critical to a frank, factual discussion.
My explanation is that a number of interrelated social factors tend to have this effect. Among the proximate causes is the disproportionate arrest and conviction of black males for all crimes, and especially drug crimes. (Cite.) That factor – the wildly disproportionate imprisonment of black men – can itself be broken down into a number of causes, some of which are traceable to racist policies. That’s why we talk about a cycle of poverty: poverty, crime, broken families, and other factors all inter-relate and feed on each other. And many of those factors are the result of racist policies of the past and present.
Many conservatives believe that when open state-sponsored racism ended in the 1960s, suddenly the next generation was free of its effects. Humbly, I think this is a naive view of the complexity of social phenomenon, which is ironic, since one of the virtues of Conservativism is the Burkean recognition that social phenomena are complicated and multi-layered and cannot be controlled by passing a bill or two.
In your worldview, is the phenomenon you cite the result of irreducible moral failing, or are you able to point to actual causes for the cultural phenomenon you identify? If so, what are these causes?
I’m glad someone else said this first. If there is to be “a frank discussion on race,” black social pathology has to be discussed. It should also be acceptable to speculate about the relationship between genes, IQ, success in life, crime, and - yes - race.
Before the civil rights legislation was signed liberals were aware that blacks peformed less well in school than whites, and that they had higher rates of crime and illegitimacy. They thought that this was due to racial discrimination, and that when racial discrimination was outlawed blacks would soon perform and behave like whites.
Since the civil rights legislation was signed, black academic performance has improved very little, if at all. Black crime and illegitimacy have increased. If there is to be a frank discussion of race, one should be able to mention these facts, and ask for explanations. The alibi of “white racism” is becoming increasingly implausible.
Whenever the topic of crime, and especially black crime, is raised, liberals try to change the subject to “non violent drug offenses.” To begin with, and most obviously, blacks have a murder rate that is seven times the white murder rate. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/race.cfm
Because the murder rate is a good indicator of all violent and property crimes, I am confident that blacks have comparably high rates of armed robbery, mugging, burglary, and so on.
Also, what is a “non violent drug offense?” Drug dealers are very violent men. What percentage of convicts are in prison because of the possession of an illegal drug for private consumption? I do not know the answer to that question. I invite anyone to supply it, but I would like for the answer to be documented. I am confident that the answer is very small.
BTW, I am not using “liberals” as a term of derogation. I am liberal on economic issues, as my nickname suggests.
Everywhere in the world they live blacks have considerably higher rates of crime and illegitimacy than whites and Orientals. This has always been true. I think this is due to “irreducible moral failings” that are caused genetically. I would like to be proven wrong. Meanwhile, shouting “Racist!” at me won’t change my mind.
Got a cite for this? I sincerely doubt this is true. Even a cursory glance at nationmaster for the per capita murder rate or rapes per capita debunks your claim.
There is no possible way to know that. You are just pulling this out of your ass. Such things have not been recorded throughout history, and even if the were, the current stats don’t bear out your claim.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but how do you define the word "racist"such that you would not be included in that group? Let’s look at the text book definition:
You said you believe certain “irreducible moral failings”, that are caused genetically, are responsible for Black inferiority. Putting aside the fact there is no evidence for such a statement, don’t you think that pretty much fits the definition of a racist?
Do you have any cite for this? IMO part of the issue is seperatism. Although blacks gained their technical rights in the 60s there was still a suppression of rights and the exsclusion of blacks for decades following. I think in countaries that are more inclusive and less seperatist you’ll see the stats change.