Once again, disparate outcomes being presented as proof of discrimination.
Is this like the redlining where it turns out to be socioeconomic, not racial?
This is a hugely common fallacy employed by racists from both ends of the spectrum.
Confusing correlation with causation.
Tom
And then some delight in Ignoring what conditions created the current "socioeconomic" balance, which then feeds racists and their correlation/causation issue "at each end of the spectrum".
It shifted from being explicit to being "Minnesotan" about it. Which is to say, they do stuff that will get the effect while making it very difficult to reveal their behavior as explicitly linked to that goal.
Of course racism created it, I don't see anyone denying that. That doesn't mean you can fix the problem by removing the racism, or that the continued existence of the problem shows the racism is continuing.
You're the doctor in the ER prescribing a seat belt for a broken arm.
So your solution is to keep the racism?
To me that seems like going to the ER for a heart attack and hearing that it can’t be a heart attack because they’re all full up with heart attack patients.
Everyone is trying to evade my point.
Measuring the results of racism is not proof that racism exists
now, it's only proof it existed at some point in the past. The eternal reliance on irrelevant "evidence" is pretty much an admission that there isn't a problem now. If there's good evidence of
current racism, present it! Make sure to control for socioeconomic factors--something which almost no such research does.
Racism still exists. I'm really sorry that this is so but it is absolutely true that racism still exists. I hear it frequently in my very nice relatively blue state. It's a fact. I believe you believe what you're writing about racism being over but it isn't. I won't argue with you that what you see as irrelevant 'evidence' is in fact, evidence. You seem to be a data driven person but when it comes to data supporting a conclusion you don't believe in, out come the scare quotes. But let's go along with what you're saying: there is no more racism.
But you seem to accept that today, we are still dealing with the negative effects of racism.
So let's frame it this way: Think of the horrors of racism in all of its forms, from acknowledged enslavement of people who were born in Africa and their descendants, to unacknowledged enslavement of Native Americans and Chinese people who were treated as far less than human and very disposable when imported to work on the railways, the interment of Japanese Americans during WWII which was more about racism and a land grab as it was for 'security' reasons. We'll ignore the way that Hispanic peoples, including those who have lived in what is now the US since well before the US existed as the US, and people who 'look' Arabic or Jewish or Muslim or Sikh or (fill in whatever you like) are treated--as illegals, as terrorists, as not possibly living in this nice neighborhood or being able to afford to shop here or having only earned their spot in an elite college or job or whatever because of affirmative action and not because of their own talents, abilities and hard work. We'll pretend that all stopped and doesn't happen any more.
Data demonstrates that populations of people are still suffering from the effects of such 'past' discrimination. These ill effects include greater incidences of some illnesses, of some mental illnesses, illiteracy, joblessness, poverty, homelessness, crime victimization, just for starters.
Those are all problems we, as a society, still must deal with. Failing to deal with these issues creates a tremendous drag on our economy, for one thing. It hampers the ability of our schools to do their best for children not so burdened by legacies of poverty, and 'past' discrimination.
So your solution is to keep the racism?
Loren and I are arguing to end the racism, at least the institutional, systemic racism.
Your solution is to ramp it up.
Tom
Not at all.
It seems to me that you and Loren are interested in just saying: no more racism without actually ending racism.
Especially if it means that white men are no longer at the front of the line to receive all that is good.
No. We are not convinced that there is still a problem that can be addressed by things like affirmative action. We see innocents being harmed and no corresponding good being done.
While I do not like affirmative action in the first place it was probably the best solution
at the time--the path of the lesser evil. A lesser evil is still an evil, though, and should not be used any longer than necessary--and it looks like it's being used
far past the point where the benefit is worth the harm. At this point it's perpetuating the problem, not solving it.
I don't see any 'innocents being harmed' except that persons of color and sometimes women are assumed to have earned their places in whatever school/job you care to mention because of affirmative action.
There are no benefits you say? I look around me and see a world that looks a lot different than the one I grew up in because now I see teachers and professors and doctors and lawyers and politicians and architects who are not the same white men I always saw and knew to expect in those jobs.
So do my kids. So do all the generations since I was a kid. Unless they do not realize that it is their own racism and lack of imagination that allows them to see that women and persons of color make fine astronauts, doctors, lawyers, judges, professors, business people, politicians, POTUS and Supreme Court Justices.