Really. What year do you think racism ceased to exist in America?
I agree. Anyone can be a racist and anyone can be the target of racism. That’s why I said it’s important to look at the patterns. If you see one incident, you can write it off as a possible fluke. If you see a hundred similar incidents, you should begin to get concerned. If you see a million similar incidents, you should either admit it’s racism or become a conservative.
People are targeted by racism because of their membership in a group. Therefore, treating racism as a group issue is the best way to combat racism.
I agree that a racist solution would be a bad solution. But I’m pretty sure we have different definitions of what the word racist means.
I never said it did. And while problematic MORE racism is not the solution. Collective punishments and rewards are unjust are they not?
And racist actions like affirmative action and that debate is still besides the point regarding the intellectual inconsistency of holding the simultaneous views that race is both fake and real depending on a political calculation.
Different people are impacted differently due to bigoted actions. Instead of using a very blunt tool to fix the impact of racist or discriminatory action using a precise tool to help people who need help is not only more just but it’s an easier sell.
This race based quota thing that an Asian group is suing about in Ivy League schools is going to cause a lot of grief when the US Supreme Court finally makes a decision. And rightfully so.
The correct way to fix an imbalance is not to immediately make things equal. If you start with a scale that has 15 lbs on one side, and 5 on the other, you can’t fix that by constantly adding 1 lb to both sides. You will have to be unbalanced for a while until things are equal. That said, we don’t want to just add those 10 lbs right away, as it takes time and resources. The other scale needs help, too*. So we give it just a little more. And we keep on givinv it a little more.
That is the nature of racism. To fix the problem, we will first have to get all other races to parity with white people. Then we can go about being equal. But we also don’t want to not help everyone else, because poor white people need help, too. So we help all of them, but non-whites a little more, and eventually things will be balanced.
Only then can we do things evenly. Doing otherwise will mean that one side will always be 10 lbs more than the other.
*admittedly, this is where the metaphor breaks down. But stay with me.
It would solve problems caused by present and future injustices, which would be a huge improvment.
I’m not sure how anti racist activists became so fond of racial categorization according to skin tone. It’s the source of the problem but somehow you don’t want it to go away.
It’s the source of the problem - the continuing source of the problem.
And yeah, if everyone suddenly became blind to race, things would be better. We wouldn’t have an opportunity to solve past racial injustices, but it would probably be better and things would have a bit more of a chance to even out. The problem is that attempts to be “colorblind” generally are nothing of the sort! Rather, they demand that institutional solutions to racism be discarded, while offering nothing to actually combat the discrimination that PoC face on a near-daily basis. In practice, colorblindness robs us of the ability to acknowledge that racists gonna racist, denies the lived experience of PoC, and takes away our abilities to systematically push back against that racism.
I’m not following. Be specific. Give examples of where race is redefined on politics concerns. And how do you distinguish between ambiguity is race based on the nature of it being imprecise, versus ambiguity based on politics views?
It’s like an emergency room triage.
Yes, everyone should be treated equally, but everyone should not receive equal treatment. You would not expect the person that comes in with a broken leg to receive the same treatment as someone who comes in with severe chest pains, would you?
So, why would the remedies for unequal treatment of demographics need to always be the same, when the problems they face are not?
It seems the conservative solution is to continue to place weights on the already heavy end of the scale, under the theory that some of them may fall off to the other side.
WTF are you talking about? Where do I suggest we ignore bigotry?
Well damn. I thought I was on to something! What if they wrote his message down in a book that everyone could read at anytime? That would surely cut down on the misunderstandings, wouldn’t it?
That’s a good question, but for it to be relevant, you would have to show where I suggest that you suggested that we ignored bigotry.
Now, ignoring the effects of bigotry is a different matter, and that is exactly what you are suggesting when you say that we should combat racism without considering the effect of racial inequality.
Good idea. If he was quoted as saying “Love your neighbor, as yourself”, then nothing could go wrong.
What goal is it that you think affirmative action is trying to achieve" This may be the source of our different positions on affirmative action.
Do you foresee a time when this goal would be achieved short of proportionate representation in education, wealth, employment, etc. by race?
Did the authorities arrest the stabber or look the other way?
Not to excuse racism but white racists used to be pretty good at hating Asians. But that changed. Why and how do you think that happened? Did they start to favor Asians and lavish them with income and education and all that stuff because they just wanted to make black people look bad?
In America, anti black racism has always been different in character and vehemence from every other type of racism, save perhaps anti Native American sentiment.
- White racists don’t hate Asians any more?
- And your alternate plan to replace affirmative action is…?
What unequal treatment have Hispanics suffered that Asians have not? Hispanic communities are more or less on the trajectory that most other immigrant groups have seen throughout our history. The African American an American Indian case are unique.
People act like affirmative action today is about remedying the past. Its not, not anymore. Its about giving advantages to whoever isn’t doing well at the time based on race (and not on whether the actual recipient of the preference). So we end up giving advantages to black students but the ones that reap the benefit of AA are middle class black, frequently the children of immigrants who were never subject to that long history of oppression.
If you want to help poor people, then help poor people. Don’t help black people and think you have helped poor people.
If you want t help the descendants of slaves then help the descendants of slaves. Don’t help Nigerian immigrants and think that you have helped the descendants of slaves.
If you want to help black communities then help poor black communities, don’t help poor Hispanic communities and think you have helped poor black communities.
I think your last line negates the point you are trying to make.
What “massive advantages” did Asians start with?