White Liberals Present Themselves as Less Competent in Interactions with African-Americans

[Mumbles]

However, the reality is that taking the shortsighted approach means the aid is basically wasted.

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No, you can't help distorting anything you don't agree with.

You seem to miss my point: it is pointless to try to encourage an uneducated, desperate population to play the long game, when that is a position that is utterly unable to penetrate the ignorant but intuitive "things are shitty now, so I need help now."

If we want to make things better, we need to start by easing up the shittiness of that life, so that there is room in the undereducated life to plan further than the next meal.

In other words, you are saying poverty can't be solved.

Again, there's a perfectly clear precedent for doing exactly this, using government aid, in the US - it's white people.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In other words, you are saying poverty can't be solved.

No, I'm saying "living in poverty" has to be solved before we can even START to address "the factors which lead to generational poverty".

Yes, it costs more than just throwing money at the education problem, but there isn't a choice. We let the disease run rampant, we even helped it along with some smallpox-blanket shaped student loans. But now we either have to treat those affected by the largess of the rent seekers in addition to vaccinating against it in new case s or the problem will just continue to spread.

The problem with this is that unless people spend money wisely you can't lift them out of poverty. They get a windfall, it's soon gone. They get aid, it's soon gone.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In other words, you are saying poverty can't be solved.

Again, there's a perfectly clear precedent for doing exactly this, using government aid, in the US - it's white people.

You seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking being poor (which is a lack of money) is the same thing as poverty (which is fundamentally a matter of attitude, the lack of money is a symptom.) Poor people can be helped with money, those in poverty can't be.

 

[Jarhyn]

In other words, you are saying poverty can't be solved.

No, I'm saying "living in poverty" has to be solved before we can even START to address "the factors which lead to generational poverty".

Yes, it costs more than just throwing money at the education problem, but there isn't a choice. We let the disease run rampant, we even helped it along with some smallpox-blanket shaped student loans. But now we either have to treat those affected by the largess of the rent seekers in addition to vaccinating against it in new case s or the problem will just continue to spread.

The problem with this is that unless people spend money wisely you can't lift them out of poverty. They get a windfall, it's soon gone. They get aid, it's soon gone.

... And so you keep providing aid. What makes you think ANY single or short term aid would even start to address the problems that sustain generational poverty? It's literally caused by kids not seeking education and well paying jobs because their parents are not capable of securing regular, sustaining employment. It would be entirely painless for 99% of us.

 

[Jarhyn]

In other words, you are saying poverty can't be solved.

Again, there's a perfectly clear precedent for doing exactly this, using government aid, in the US - it's white people.

You seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking being poor (which is a lack of money) is the same thing as poverty (which is fundamentally a matter of attitude, the lack of money is a symptom.) Poor people can be helped with money, those in poverty can't be.

You are painfully, comically wrong about that. It isn't a matter of "attitude" at all, at least not for most. It's a problem of education and employability. If you want children growing up in poverty to not continue living in it, you need to provide what is necessary to not be forced to decide between your family or yourself

 

[ruby sparks]

Here's the thing, their claims about racism in hiring can be true, and yet their experiments still not "show" that those claims are true. It is critical to keep these things separate. If the methodological problems are real, then by definition, the studies do not "show" what they claim, because that would require that there are not plausible (and in this case probable) alternative explanations. Do you think that some employers are less likely to give a call back to a non-native English speaking or foreign born applicant? Do you think that some employers would sometimes read an unfamiliar name rooted in a foreign language in infer (whether consciously or not) that the person might be non-native speaking or foreign born? If your answer to these questions is "yes" (and rationally it should be), then the logically neccessary conclusion is that the results observed in these studies would have emerged even in a world without anti-black discrimination. Data only "show" that a claim is true, if the data would only have plausibly emerged in a world where that claim is true. Thus, these data do not show the claim is true, despite the fact that the claim might be true anyway and that you might have other basis to believe it is true.

I think there is basis to think that there is racial discrimination in hiring, but I don't think there is a sound basis to believe that the prevalence of it has not declined at all in the last 30 years. In fact, there is indirect evidence that makes this claim implausible, such as evidence that racist beliefs have significantly declined during that period, that blacks have become more educated, with many more blacks holding positions of authority and respect, including on being elected and reelected president, which was unthinkable in the 1980's. Given that racist assumptions and feelings about blacks would be the mechanism behind hiring discrimination, this makes it implausible that hiring discrimination has not declined.

In contrast, what would be less likely to have declined over the years would be employer motives to not hire non-native English or foreign born applicants. Which makes this mechanism not only plausible, but a more plausible explanation for the lack of change in the size of the difference in callbacks observed in those studies over time.


You have other reasons, perhaps very good ones, to think that employers have a bias against black applicants. That doesn't mean that racial discrimination is the best explanation for these particular data, particularly the lack of decline in the observed result, which is the main reason you posted the meta-analysis to being with.

Other than things I have already offered, some more points in support of what I just said might be, for example, (a) that I read that the use of 'ethnic names' has supporting prior research to suggest that it is a useful indicator of the relevant attitudes,

That research merely shows that if you ask people to decide whether someone named "Lakisha" is more likely to be black or white, most people will say "black". But the baby registry data also show, that only 1 in a 1000 blacks are named Lakisha and only a small % named with other such race-signalling names. Which means the names signal being a special non-representative sub-set of that race. Plus, nothing in that prior research addresses that those names also signal other things only incidentally correlated with race, such as language skills, education quality, cultural background, etc.., and they are just much less familiar words and simple lack of familiarity produces subtle negative feeling like anxiety that could easily tip the scale in a some cases.

(b) that even if the 'ethnic names' resumes is not a perfect approach, it still has a lot going for it, not least the amount of control that can be exercised over all other aspects of the material used, (c) the 2 studies I have read most closely do seem to be pretty rigorous, such as in questioning their own limitations (although not the main one you have highlighted) and trying to correct for things like possible publication and write-up bias,

They are rather dismissive of the limitations they briefly mention, and then go right on making strong causal conclusions. And the limitations I'm bringing up would be rather obvious to any expert in the field, so their failure to deal seriously with them suggests a deliberate effort to avoid noting the more serious flaws with their methods.

(d) the results of 'in person' alternative type of studies, which of course may suffer from slightly different potential limitations, do seem to corroborate the 'blind resume' studies, (d) despite all that you say (and I have noted it) if we accept that 'there is racism' I still think it would be overall slightly odd if it was not going on in this sphere of human activity,

This relates directly to my first point above. You are using other information and data outside these studies to support the general conclusion of racism in hiring (which is fine and rational to do), but then using that to decide that these studies empirically show that this conclusion is true (which is not valid to do). What the studies empirically demonstrate and what you think is true due to other information are separate things. And note that even if you think racism would have to have some impact on hiring that doesn't support the conclusion of this meta-analysis that this impact has not changed in the last 30 years.

and finally, (e) even if the 'African-sounding' names do trigger a (possibly automatic or subconscious) response, and even if in some cases this prompts the reader to think 'possibly foreign', this may still at the very least indicate some sort of 'othering' bias

Sure, but it's a very different type of "othering", especially when it conjures the ideas that the person may have limited proficiency with the language essential for them to perform their job effectively.

and since the names are African-sounding and not for example Irish- or Russian-sounding, it may still be indicative of a racial bias in terms of a particular ethnicity.

Sure, this might be true and it might not be true. The studies do not show either way. They merely provide data consistent with that hypothesis but also consistent with several other hypotheses for which we also have other prior information to suggest are true. My ability to predict someone's gender from their name is consistent with me being psychic, but because it is also consistent with other highly plausible explanations, it does not show I am psychic or even qualify as evidence of it. And while you have more a priori reason to doubt that I am psychic that is a separate issue from when the data in question show.

Also, you just unwittingly hit upon a very simple method that would vastly improve these studies that none of these researchers has bothered to try all these decades: Simply make the "white" names foreign sounding names from predominantly white countries like Russia. What does it say about the competence of the researchers in this area that in 30 years, virtually none (and maybe truly none) have even bothered to mention this issue of the foreign/language implications of the "black" names, let alone bothered to improve their method by using "white" names with similar foreign/language implications?

To briefly sum up my response to much of the above, I would go back to my comment about not knowing how much weight to give to your concerns about the methodology. In a nutshell, although you have in particular been stressing the alternative possibility that the employers might have thought the applicants were foreigners, you haven't actually given me any good reason to think it likely to have been the case.

All that said, if as you put it, "the domain of research on racial discrimination has suffered greatly from being dominated by ideologues" then all bets would be off. That, actually, is quite a damning claim, but I have no way of assessing it other than to say than I can see how it could be true. I would be curious to know if you would go as far as to suggest that that sort of bias (which I'm provisionally assuming you are suggesting is in favour of finding racism, rather than the opposite sort of bias) is why photos and/or explicitly-stated ethnicities are not part of such studies, for example. Or if not that, then why do those items (which, on the face of it, would seem likely, as you say, to improve the methodologies) not seem to be used more often nowadays?

Well, the early studies that did use more explicit race information (like the study I referenced) did not reliably show discrimination and sometimes showed reverse discrimination. Given that the methods researchers switched to as at least if not much more problematic in allowing causal inference, it is hard to imagine and honest intellectual justification why they would not at least give equal weight to both types of approaches and evaluate theories in light of all the data. Which leaves some kind of motivation to find a different result as a rather plausible account.

As I understand it there were very few studies, and of course they are by now 40 years out of date.

Also, the audit ('in person') studies do make race explicit, and I can't see a good reason to discount them.

I obviously cannot know whether the poor quality of research and lack of serious consideration of the methodological problems is due to incompetence, deliberate dishonesty, and a mix of the two. Perhaps the use of racial names seemed honestly like a good idea at first and was just another way of approaching the problem, and when it gave more desired results than more direct manipulations of race, researchers came to preferred it.

What I do know is that this is just one example of this example of the lack of rigor and honest dealing with methodological problems in the field of racism research. The glaringly obvious problems with measures of "implicit racism" are another, and arguments about those problems almost always come from outside the field with racism researchers continuing to employ the methods and make unqualified conclusions about people racism from the data. Another is that almost all studies only use white participants. This may be b/c when non-white participants are also used they show the same pattern of results, and this undermines the conclusion that the observed response is motivated by racist beliefs rather than some other factor only incidentally associated with race.

Again, it is slightly hard to buy into the idea that there is some sort of widespread disinclinaton to make race explicit. If there were, there wouldn't be any 'in person' audit studies.

There are right wing ideologues who occasionally put out papers to disprove racial discrimination. However, they don't do original empirical research, but rather are usually people with an economics background who take existing large datasets and conduct complex multivariate correlational analyses on them. They are often employed by right-wing "Think-tanks" like the Heritage Foundation.

But studies on racism that actually design and conduct empirical experiments happen almost entirely within academic social science departments like sociology, social psychology, and ethnic studies. And the research is done by people who chose to make a career out of studying racism, because as in all the sciences, people specialize and most do all their research within a rather narrow subfield. There are very very few conservatives in those departments at all, let alone those who chose to make a career of the sort who would want to manufacture evidence of non-discrimination. Mostly that is because right wingers generally dismiss the social sciences (and academia in general) as not being a valuable or respectable profession. This is partly b/c reality has a liberal bias, so conservatives tend to devalue science to seeks to reveal that reality. But also b/c people aren't going to make a career out of trying to debunk a particular hypothesis, partly b/c that's just not enough motivation and partly b/c it's nearly impossible to get research published in any area of social science when your data show null results (e.g., no effect of race on the outcome measure). Then, of course, there is the "ironic" problem of a person who does research that supports conservatives views having to be hired by people who are overwhelmingly liberal to extreme left and who are in favor of policies like AA that use race to increase minority representation.

I take this point, up to a point, but it is rather speculative and conjectural in a 'well they would, wouldn't they?' sort of way. So again, I'm not sure how much weight to give it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem with this is that unless people spend money wisely you can't lift them out of poverty. They get a windfall, it's soon gone. They get aid, it's soon gone.

... And so you keep providing aid. What makes you think ANY single or short term aid would even start to address the problems that sustain generational poverty? It's literally caused by kids not seeking education and well paying jobs because their parents are not capable of securing regular, sustaining employment. It would be entirely painless for 99% of us.

You're trying to fill a bottomless pit. It has to be fillable before it makes sense to fill it.

 

[Jarhyn]

The problem with this is that unless people spend money wisely you can't lift them out of poverty. They get a windfall, it's soon gone. They get aid, it's soon gone.

... And so you keep providing aid. What makes you think ANY single or short term aid would even start to address the problems that sustain generational poverty? It's literally caused by kids not seeking education and well paying jobs because their parents are not capable of securing regular, sustaining employment. It would be entirely painless for 99% of us.

You're trying to fill a bottomless pit. It has to be fillable before it makes sense to fill it.

Bullshit. The pit has a bottom. The bottom is "a level of food, shelter, and medical security that won't go away if you as a child leave to go to school."

It lasts 60 years, and goes away when the child is on their own and supporting themselves.

 

[Mumbles]

In other words, you are saying poverty can't be solved.

Again, there's a perfectly clear precedent for doing exactly this, using government aid, in the US - it's white people.

You seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking being poor (which is a lack of money) is the same thing as poverty (which is fundamentally a matter of attitude, the lack of money is a symptom.) Poor people can be helped with money, those in poverty can't be.

Um, no. Poverty is simply a lack of access to resources like food, education, and shelter - all of which are measured in the US by simple wealth, as they can all be bought with enough money. TO say that "Poverty" is an attitude is an absurd redefinition that you invented for your own purposes.

 

[laughing dog]

The problem with this is that unless people spend money wisely you can't lift them out of poverty. They get a windfall, it's soon gone. They get aid, it's soon gone.

... And so you keep providing aid. What makes you think ANY single or short term aid would even start to address the problems that sustain generational poverty? It's literally caused by kids not seeking education and well paying jobs because their parents are not capable of securing regular, sustaining employment. It would be entirely painless for 99% of us.

You're trying to fill a bottomless pit. It has to be fillable before it makes sense to fill it.

Where do you get this inane and inhumane dribble?

 

[Trausti]

You seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking being poor (which is a lack of money) is the same thing as poverty (which is fundamentally a matter of attitude, the lack of money is a symptom.) Poor people can be helped with money, those in poverty can't be.

You are painfully, comically wrong about that. It isn't a matter of "attitude" at all, at least not for most. It's a problem of education and employability. If you want children growing up in poverty to not continue living in it, you need to provide what is necessary to not be forced to decide between your family or yourself

No. It's IQ. People with average to above IQ's aren't in poverty. Or, they don't stay there for long. LP is correct. Many of us were once "poor," i.e, little to no money. Myself included. But we didn't have the mindset that we stay there.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

You seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking being poor (which is a lack of money) is the same thing as poverty (which is fundamentally a matter of attitude, the lack of money is a symptom.) Poor people can be helped with money, those in poverty can't be.

You are painfully, comically wrong about that. It isn't a matter of "attitude" at all, at least not for most. It's a problem of education and employability. If you want children growing up in poverty to not continue living in it, you need to provide what is necessary to not be forced to decide between your family or yourself

No. It's IQ. People with average to above IQ's aren't in poverty. Or, they don't stay there for long. LP is correct. Many of us were once "poor," i.e, little to no money. Myself included. But we didn't have the mindset that we stay there.

That isn't even coherently tied to what Loren wrote. It isn't purely attitude if you admit that you had the right attitude but were still in poverty. So your post is gobbledeeguck. If such persons as yourself got into poverty due to bad luck, then not only can bad luck persist a long time, but it can persist indefinitely, such as medical and other conditions. A lot of regions in the world also suffer poverty due to circumstances beyond the individual. Some could get lucky enough to get out but other people like you and Trump block them from that ability. They may have the right attitude but, there you go...calling their countries shitholes and so forth.

 

[Trausti]

No. It's IQ. People with average to above IQ's aren't in poverty. Or, they don't stay there for long. LP is correct. Many of us were once "poor," i.e, little to no money. Myself included. But we didn't have the mindset that we stay there.

That isn't even coherently tied to what Loren wrote. It isn't purely attitude if you admit that you had the right attitude but were still in poverty. So your post is gobbledeeguck. If such persons as yourself got into poverty due to bad luck, then not only can bad luck persist a long time, but it can persist indefinitely, such as medical and other conditions. A lot of regions in the world also suffer poverty due to circumstances beyond the individual. Some could get lucky enough to get out but other people like you and Trump block them from that ability. They may have the right attitude but, there you go...calling their countries shitholes and so forth.

Attitude = IQ. See South Korea. Once as impoverished as Haiti.

 

[laughing dog]

You seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking being poor (which is a lack of money) is the same thing as poverty (which is fundamentally a matter of attitude, the lack of money is a symptom.) Poor people can be helped with money, those in poverty can't be.

You are painfully, comically wrong about that. It isn't a matter of "attitude" at all, at least not for most. It's a problem of education and employability. If you want children growing up in poverty to not continue living in it, you need to provide what is necessary to not be forced to decide between your family or yourself

No. It's IQ. People with average to above IQ's aren't in poverty. Or, they don't stay there for long.

Do you have any actual relevant evidence that is not anecdotal to substantiate this observation?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking being poor (which is a lack of money) is the same thing as poverty (which is fundamentally a matter of attitude, the lack of money is a symptom.) Poor people can be helped with money, those in poverty can't be.

You are painfully, comically wrong about that. It isn't a matter of "attitude" at all, at least not for most. It's a problem of education and employability. If you want children growing up in poverty to not continue living in it, you need to provide what is necessary to not be forced to decide between your family or yourself

No. It's IQ. People with average to above IQ's aren't in poverty. Or, they don't stay there for long. LP is correct. Many of us were once "poor," i.e, little to no money. Myself included. But we didn't have the mindset that we stay there.

I think it's related to IQ but certainly not one-to-one.

Most well-to-do people were once poor as university students.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No. It's IQ. People with average to above IQ's aren't in poverty. Or, they don't stay there for long. LP is correct. Many of us were once "poor," i.e, little to no money. Myself included. But we didn't have the mindset that we stay there.

That isn't even coherently tied to what Loren wrote. It isn't purely attitude if you admit that you had the right attitude but were still in poverty. So your post is gobbledeeguck. If such persons as yourself got into poverty due to bad luck, then not only can bad luck persist a long time, but it can persist indefinitely, such as medical and other conditions. A lot of regions in the world also suffer poverty due to circumstances beyond the individual. Some could get lucky enough to get out but other people like you and Trump block them from that ability. They may have the right attitude but, there you go...calling their countries shitholes and so forth.

He understood what I was talking about. While it's not exactly what I wrote it's the same idea, just expressed quite differently and it's certainly not gobbledygook.

In third world shitholes society may be so fucked up that people can't climb out. (And "shitholes" is a reasonable description--it's describing a very messed-up economy.) However, this isn't the case anywhere in the western world--if you can earn you can climb unless you are too burdened. And almost all of those too burdened got there by their own actions--having children they weren't in a position to afford.

 

[laughing dog]

[
He understood what I was talking about. While it's not exactly what I wrote it's the same idea, just expressed quite differently and it's certainly not gobbledygook.

I would agree it is not gobbledygook. It is just run of the mill conservative/bigoted babble. Poverty (normally understood) is not perfectly or even closely related to IQ. The ability to earn is not necessarily related to intelligence.

 

[ruby sparks]

No. It's IQ.

Maybe that is indeed a relevant consideration here.

Just not necessarily in the way you think it is.

 

[Mumbles]

No. It's IQ. People with average to above IQ's aren't in poverty. Or, they don't stay there for long. LP is correct. Many of us were once "poor," i.e, little to no money. Myself included. But we didn't have the mindset that we stay there.

That isn't even coherently tied to what Loren wrote. It isn't purely attitude if you admit that you had the right attitude but were still in poverty. So your post is gobbledeeguck. If such persons as yourself got into poverty due to bad luck, then not only can bad luck persist a long time, but it can persist indefinitely, such as medical and other conditions. A lot of regions in the world also suffer poverty due to circumstances beyond the individual. Some could get lucky enough to get out but other people like you and Trump block them from that ability. They may have the right attitude but, there you go...calling their countries shitholes and so forth.

Attitude = IQ. See South Korea. Once as impoverished as Haiti.

And you have yet to show the "attitude" or "IQ" over time of either one. IOW, you have no data and are simply yelping.

(I'll also note that both the US and France were, until very recent history, extremely hostile towards Haiti, and interfered wildly in order to drive the country into poverty - much as the US did in many Central American countries that are today effectively lawless.)

 

[Trausti]

Attitude = IQ. See South Korea. Once as impoverished as Haiti.

And you have yet to show the "attitude" or "IQ" over time of either one. IOW, you have no data and are simply yelping.

(I'll also note that both the US and France were, until very recent history, extremely hostile towards Haiti, and interfered wildly in order to drive the country into poverty - much as the US did in many Central American countries that are today effectively lawless.)

Source.

Now compare the respective national IQ. No high GDP nation has a low IQ. What is true of nations is true of individuals.

And please recall that Korea, in contrast to Haiti, was devastated by two Japanese invasions at the end of the 16th century. (The Japanese were not the only invaders.) It was a client state of the Qing. Then it was occupied by the Japanese in the first half of the 20th century. Then razed to the ground in at the start of the 1950s. Yet, in one generation it (the South non-socialist part) became a global economic power; Samsung, LG, Kia, Hyundai, Lotte. It did this despite having little natural resources. It only had its people.