# State Initiative Seeks to Outlaw Racial Data -- How do you vote? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 25, 2002, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597 "2002-04-25T18:38:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2002, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597/41 "2002-05-02T00:53:43Z")
> [@](#): > > I do think that if you go out of your way to help one of your friends, and not another, that you are treating the former as more important than the latter. However, a more accurate description of outreach programs would be: If you go out of your way to help one of your friends _whom you have injured_, and not another _whom you have not injured_, then you are not treating the former as more important than the latter, simply rectifying an injury. If the injury was directed by perceived race, then the aid should be directed by the same criterion–especially since the effects continue to linger directly in response to the injury. ---
**Author:** ![iconoplast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3d9bf3/32.png) [@iconoplast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iconoplast)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2002, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597/42 "2002-05-02T17:10:43Z")
**Polycarp** , **tomndebb** , thank you for clarifying the point I was trying to make. > [@](#): > > …then you are not treating the former as more important than the latter, simply rectifying an injury. That was almost exactly what I was trying to demonstrate. ---
**Author:** ![tclouie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/838e76/32.png) [@tclouie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tclouie)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2002, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597/43 "2002-05-03T09:47:33Z")
“California voters – by a nearly 3-to-2 ratio – favor a proposed ballot measure that would largely prohibit state and local governments from classifying people by race or ethnicity, according to a new Field Poll.” Hmmm, this link seems to have expired. Since I can’t access the actual percentages, I’ll guess that it’s between 55% and 59% approval, which is not an insurmountable margin this early in the campaign, especially compared to the early leads held by Propositions 187, 209 and 227. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2002, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597/44 "2002-05-03T13:14:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\* Alternatively, the majority is tired of being held accountable for maintaining their discriminatory practices. > > Just a different perspective. \*\* But not a better one. Try to make your contempt for your fellow citizens a little less blatant, Tom. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2002, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597/45 "2002-05-03T13:24:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\* Not at all. I am stating quite clearly that the majority has received benefits to their current status because of previous discriminatory practices and that they do not wish to examine too closely those practices or their results. \*\* No, not all of them and perhaps not even most of the majority --you mean whites, of course–benefitted. There have been and still are plenty of poor whites in the U.S., and there have been plenty of whites in both Europe and North America who were exploited and brutalized as badly as any slave. To assume that whites are always privileged is racism. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2002, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597/46 "2002-05-03T13:51:28Z")
> [@](#): > > To assume that whites are always privileged is racism. And if I ever make the claim that “all” whites have benefitted, you may correct me. The white majority in the U.S. (meaning the largest number of the largest identifiable group) has benefitted from racist practices. Beginning with fortunes built on slavery (that “trickeled down” to the rest of the economy), continuing through the policies of exclusion in hiring and among labor unions that allowed white European immigrants to secure jobs and keep them that were denied to blacks, to the related policies of “last hired; first fired” applied to those blacks who were permitted to work in competitive jobs, as well as the deliberate sub-par funding of black schools and the tendency to deny blacks admission to colleges, the general level of financial security and advancement by whites has been made with the deliberate oppression of blacks. I make no statement that any individual white was given wealth or power by the subjugation of blacks. I certainly make no claim that all whites have or every white has a better life because of the oppression of blacks. However, the majority of whites had less competition for jobs, education, and cash among each other because blacks were excluded from the competiton for over 300 years. 40 years of uneven effort to rectify that have not removed the _general_ benefits that the majority (as a group, with whatever individual exceptions) has used to secure their own place in the social structure. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2002, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597/47 "2002-05-03T14:00:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Try to make your contempt for your fellow citizens a little less blatant, Tom. I have no contempt for my fellow citizens. The remark to which I responded was heavily tilted to one side. I simply posted a remark tilted to the opposite side for balance. I doubt that either expression has much in the way of “truth” about it, but if we’re going to allow bumper stickers instead of thoughts on this thread, then there should be one for both sides. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2002, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597/48 "2002-05-04T00:41:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > Is he discriminating against the rest of us who did **not** have our homes destroyed by Floyd, or is he redressing a harm by attempting to make the playing field more level as between those with non-destroyed homes who might be in the market for another home vis-a-vis those who are actively seeking a home to replace the one they had which was destroyed? Are the two mutually exclusive? If we are to excuse discrimination on the basis of it being used to address perceived injuries, then that opens the door for all sorts of rationalizations, such as that the Jim Crow system was simply trying to recoop the costs incurred in bringing the slaves to the US. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2002, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597/49 "2002-05-04T01:14:15Z")
> [@](#): > > such as that the Jim Crow system was simply trying to recoop the costs incurred in bringing the slaves to the US. Well, that hardly flies as a rationalization for anything, as slavery was a self-supporting system that had already repaid its up-front “shipping costs” and nothing in Jim Crow actually acted as a repayment for anything. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2002, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597/50 "2002-05-04T01:20:10Z")
I thought that the term “rationalization” has the connotation of “something that doesn’t stand up to logical scrutiny”. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2002, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597/51 "2002-05-04T02:00:03Z")
True, but it generally implies a certain plausibility before logic is applied to it. I’d have a hard time seeing anyone accept the Jim Crow scenario even in passing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/state-initiative-seeks-to-outlaw-racial-data-how-do-you-vote/105597.md?page=2)