Discrimination -- the reality

[Elixir]

over 90% of government income(taxes) were paid by white people.

Source, please? I suspect you're playing fast and loose with made-up stats.
Here are some that are not made up (source):

• In the second quarter of 2020, white households—who account for 60 percent of the U.S. population—held 84 percent ($94 trillion) of total household wealth in the U.S.
• Comparatively, Black households—who account for 13.4 percent of the U.S. population—held just 4 percent ($4.6 trillion) of total household wealth.

One might think that the wealth of people in a segment that is the recipient of a "gigantic transfer of wealth" would be at least as well-off as the segment from which that wealth was allegedly taken. But no - the vast inequity persists, and shows little signs of abatement.

 

[pood]

Here are more inconvenient facts.

 

[Elixir]

Here are more inconvenient facts.

The thing that's bugging me here is Tom's strident assertion that he's "not saying it's wrong" that blacks receive more so-called entitlement money than whites. He's not "saying" it, he is just strongly directly and unmistakeably implying it.

 

[laughing dog]

There is a difference between systemic, persistant, ongoing and even generational discrimination - and possible, once or twice prejudgment.

I know you know the difference. I also know from your comments that you deny the difference exists.

No. I'm saying there exists systemic discrimination against white men.

I generally don’t bother to engage with your rants because you use picayune pedantry to create argument and blow up a single instance of a mild case of a thing to distract from the larger picture of systemic problems and avoid addressing them. I believe that you genuinely emotionally believe this is the Biggest Crime Evah and that fixing this and solving this Egregious Effrontery against White Men should be the very first thing fixed before anyone even Looks Sideways at the long term systemic systems that have trapped generations into poverty with no holdings, savings or estate to pass on to offspring.

I get that you see it that way. I have no interest in tilting at your windmill. You go right on thinking that your one case of a manager noticing that your department has been cutting out women and minorities for years

My department hasn't been doing anything of the kind. That is a baseless assertion.

should not be addressed because it might make life harder for a white man

The man that was discriminated against was not white.

and instead should continue to make it harder for everyone else so you can protect him. You go ahead and believe the solution is to perpetuate your all male or mostly male department

My department is neither male nor mostly male.

so that no white male ever has to “join the club” or be affected by the long term discriminatory system.

I’ve heard you say it often enough. You don’t think discrimination happens to women and people of color,

What? When have I ever made such a claim?

you don’t think discrimination harms anyone but white men.

When have I ever made such a claim?

Hearing you say it again and again is not engaging or entertaining. And that’s why I usually choose to not answer your “Just Asking Questions” pedantic posts, and why I prefer to not open any thread you start - it’s all the same grievance porn.

I write for engaging with people who are not you - other contrbutors or lurkers on this board. Systemic discrimination against women and people of color exists and is ongoing and has been cumulative. The few white men who end up experiencing for the first time what we have been facing all our lives leave me with a reaction based on their reactIon. If they say, “holy shit this sucks harder than I ever imagined, let’s fix this systemic mess, starting with people who have been harmed the most!” Then I say welcome aboard, yeah, let’s fix this. If they say, “wanh wanh, I don’t care that you’ve been harmed, I’ve never cared about the issue until it hit me and now *I* want to be First In Line to be Fixed!” Then I say, “sorry son, I’m still working on helping the people who have been harmed the most and for the longest. Get in line.”

I will not promising him a magic white male unicorn that everything will get fixed in a way tha guarantees he will never experience a scintilla of harm that all those around him have been shouldering his whole life. That’s your schtick.

Rhea, when you deny that men or white people can and do experience systemic discrimination, despite institutions openly practising it, I can see your attitude and value system. You don't need to explain yourself.

Your assertion about systemic discrimination against white men has little evidence to support it. Yes, you have your anecdotes from your limited experience in Australia. But, Australia is not the world.

 

[pood]

Welfare myths shattered.

 

[TomC]

Source, please? I suspect you're playing fast and loose with made-up stats.

Perhaps you missed the part of my post where I described the time frame.
Nothing about 2020.
Close to 20 years earlier.

But your information suggests the same thing.
Tom

 

[TomC]

Here are more inconvenient facts.

The thing that's bugging me here is Tom's strident assertion that he's "not saying it's wrong" that blacks receive more so-called entitlement money than whites. He's not "saying" it, he is just strongly directly and unmistakeably implying it.

Since y'all are now discussing what I must mean, even when it's the opposite of what I post, I'll just leave y'all to it. Enjoy your faux outrage.
Tom

 

[Elixir]

Here are more inconvenient facts.

The thing that's bugging me here is Tom's strident assertion that he's "not saying it's wrong" that blacks receive more so-called entitlement money than whites. He's not "saying" it, he is just strongly directly and unmistakeably implying it.

Since y'all are now discussing what I must mean, even when it's the opposite of what I post, I'll just leave y'all to it. Enjoy your faux outrage.
Tom

Feel free to correct the impression you've made, if it is only a very strong 'appearance'.
If you are unable to do so, the result is as one would expect; you come across as disingenuous.

 

[TomC]

Here are more inconvenient facts.

The thing that's bugging me here is Tom's strident assertion that he's "not saying it's wrong" that blacks receive more so-called entitlement money than whites. He's not "saying" it, he is just strongly directly and unmistakeably implying it.

Since y'all are now discussing what I must mean, even when it's the opposite of what I post, I'll just leave y'all to it. Enjoy your faux outrage.
Tom

Feel free to correct the impression you've made, if it is only a very strong 'appearance'.
If you are unable to do so, the result is as one would expect; you come across as disingenuous.

I'd hate to spoil your fun.
Bless Your Heart.
Tom

 

[Rhea]

No. I'm saying there exists systemic discrimination against white men.

should not be addressed because it might make life harder for a white man

The man that was discriminated against was not white.

so that no white male ever has to “join the club” or be affected by the long term discriminatory system.

I’ve heard you say it often enough. You don’t think discrimination happens to women and people of color,

What? When have I ever made such a claim?

you don’t think discrimination harms anyone but white men.

When have I ever made such a claim?
[…]
Rhea, when you deny that men or white people can and do experience systemic discrimination, despite institutions openly practising it, I can see your attitude and value system. You don't need to explain yourself.

Your assertion about systemic discrimination against white men has little evidence to support it. Yes, you have your anecdotes from your limited experience in Australia. But, Australia is not the world.

The way the argument goes here is this:

If minorities and/or women experience discrimination at a rate of once per week, or once per day, or even, charitably, once per month, and
If men experience discrimination at a rate of once per year, especially due to the effects of trying to diminish discrimination, or once per job hunt - maybe once every other year? Then

This discrimination against men or white men Is The Worst Condition Possible And Must Be Stopped! It mus be stopped FIRST.

We note that those complaining bitterly about the poor male applicant, and this is the pattern every time, will only complain when the discrimination happens to the male (usually white) applicant. We notice that they do not write blogs or post on fora or share on facebook or speechify at political campaigns when systemtic discrimination happens against women and minorities. They have had nothing to say on those. They then of course, appear affronted at the idea that they don’t recognize discrimination against minorities (“When have I said that?!?”) but they clearly act on the idea that it is only a problem for men/whitemen because that is the only time they raise their voice. So one can easily, repeatedly and predictably see that the only time they object is when it happens to men/whitemen.

Then they will claim that those working to correct the problems are failing to acknowledge the travesty of the pain of the white male grievance. But we’ve repeated over and over that yes, we see the issue, but it is not the biggest issue, it is not the most harmful issue and it is not the longest existing issue and so we don’t prioritize it, obviously. And they come back with, “see you don’t care about discrimination.”

And that’s the pattern.

Point out the picayune, rare instances. Give them unmerited outsized importance. Belittle the existing discrimination and dismiss it as unimportant. Blame others for not prioritizing the newest, least egregious systemic discrimination. Continue to never acknowledge the existing discrimination. Do all possible to stop the identification and correction of it.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[Elixir]

This discrimination against men or white men Is The Worst Condition Possible And Must Be Stopped! It mus be stopped FIRST.

Absolutely right. It's very much like the venerable "job creator"/trickle-down trope. How the hell do you expect white men to be able to let their money be appropriated and given to black people, unless they start out with ALL the money to begin with?

Oh wait - THEY DID!

... never mind.

I'd hate to spoil your fun.

Part of the problem is your delusion that dealing with your disingenuousness is in any way "fun" for anyone but yourself.

 

[laughing dog]

First, the IRS does not publish statistics on taxes paid by race. So any claim about taxes paid by race is drawn by inference or incomplete data source. I have little doubt that over the past _____ years (you fill in the blank) that most white people paid more in income taxes than black people because there are more white people and that the average income of white people is significantly higher than that of black people. But that really is not terribly important, because that conclusion ignores the underlying structure of income statistics which was designed by white people based on the needs (or complaints of ) white people.
While I am no longer familiar with income maintenance data at the federal or state level, but I believe that up until the 2000s, more white people received "welfare" than black people. So, I doubt TomC's claim about the welfare receipts by race.

 

[laughing dog]

No. I'm saying there exists systemic discrimination against white men.

should not be addressed because it might make life harder for a white man

The man that was discriminated against was not white.

so that no white male ever has to “join the club” or be affected by the long term discriminatory system.

I’ve heard you say it often enough. You don’t think discrimination happens to women and people of color,

What? When have I ever made such a claim?

you don’t think discrimination harms anyone but white men.

When have I ever made such a claim?
[…]
Rhea, when you deny that men or white people can and do experience systemic discrimination, despite institutions openly practising it, I can see your attitude and value system. You don't need to explain yourself.

Your assertion about systemic discrimination against white men has little evidence to support it. Yes, you have your anecdotes from your limited experience in Australia. But, Australia is not the world.

The way the argument goes here is this:

If minorities and/or women experience discrimination at a rate of once per week, or once per day, or even, charitably, once per month, and
If men experience discrimination at a rate of once per year, especially due to the effects of trying to diminish discrimination, or once per job hunt - maybe once every other year? Then

This discrimination against men or white men Is The Worst Condition Possible And Must Be Stopped! It mus be stopped FIRST.

We note that those complaining bitterly about the poor male applicant, and this is the pattern every time, will only complain when the discrimination happens to the male (usually white) applicant. We notice that they do not write blogs or post on fora or share on facebook or speechify at political campaigns when systemtic discrimination happens against women and minorities. They have had nothing to say on those. They then of course, appear affronted at the idea that they don’t recognize discrimination against minorities (“When have I said that?!?”) but they clearly act on the idea that it is only a problem for men/whitemen because that is the only time they raise their voice. So one can easily, repeatedly and predictably see that the only time they object is when it happens to men/whitemen.

Then they will claim that those working to correct the problems are failing to acknowledge the travesty of the pain of the white male grievance. But we’ve repeated over and over that yes, we see the issue, but it is not the biggest issue, it is not the most harmful issue and it is not the longest existing issue and so we don’t prioritize it, obviously. And they come back with, “see you don’t care about discrimination.”

And that’s the pattern.

Point out the picayune, rare instances. Give them unmerited outsized importance. Belittle the existing discrimination and dismiss it as unimportant. Blame others for not prioritizing the newest, least egregious systemic discrimination. Continue to never acknowledge the existing discrimination. Do all possible to stop the identification and correction of it.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

You cannot begin to imagine what it is like to see that your position at the apex is sinking and that you are no longer the necessary center of the universe. Our white male egos are fragile to start, but this revelation shakes us to very core of our being. For some it drives their support for maniacs like Mr. Trump. For some, it means whining about inconsequential issues like Greta Thurnberg's views or misgendering people.

Of course, not all men see these changes in the social hieracrchy as bad or wrong or evil or even worth complaining over. Some of us white men welcome it or see it as a natural evolution of our social structure.

So please, have a bit of sympathy for some of us white males. As a group, we may not deserve it, but some of us desperately need it.

 

[Toni]

….the gigantic transfer of wealth from white people to black people called "government entitlement" …

Could you document this alleged ”gigantic transfer” with raw data and actual numbers, please?

Thanks.

Not with any precision, but the fundamental concept is easy to grasp.
Income disparities.

I read a broad strokes report on government spending once. I believe it was in the NAACP magazine, The Crisis. This was so long ago I still had dead tree magazine subscriptions.
Roughly, over 90% of government income(taxes) were paid by white people. About 50% of "means tested income support"*,(welfare) was paid out to black people. This was over the course of 40-50 years. Many many trillions of dollars.

I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong or unfair about it. But the transfer of wealth from white taxpayers to black recipients is trillions of dollars. It's simply a function of income disparities.
Tom

I think you are confusing transfer of funds with transfer of wealth.

But going along with your way of thinking, enslaved people transferred enormous amounts of wealth to white people by virtue of their uncompensated labor. Post Cuvil War, black people continured to enrich white people through their under compensated labor, thriugh violence ( see Tulsa riot of 1921) , through theft of assets and wealth and through an entire system of wealth management codified in a plethora of zoning laws, labor laws, restrictions on employment and education, and so forth.

And you want to consider fading a few dollars on the floor of people who were impoverished by policy a tremendous transfer of wealth.

 

[TomC]

Part of the problem is your delusion that dealing with your ingenuousness is in any way "fun" for anyone but yourself.

Responding to what I actually post would be a start in resolving your delusion about what I meant and believe.
Tom

 

[Elixir]

In the late 1800s gold mining took off in Colorado.
A lot of labor came from China; many Chinese came seeking gold for themselves, but were run out of mining towns and camps, so they found work in the employ of the whites who owned the claims. Of course working conditions were beyond horrible, so with their usual deference to human decency, white lawmakers intervened to soften, if not working conditions, then at least the conscience of those claim owners who were abusing Chinese. For instance, there was a practice of sending a Chinese person to place and light the dynamite that was much used in the mines. Lots of them were dying in the process, and many others were being beaten, starved and otherwise abused to death. So laws were passed to reduce the carnage. For instance, they instituted a 50 cent fine for killing a Chinaman.

Since that time, so much wealth has been 'taken' from white men and 'given' to Chinese people, that the second wealthiest ethnicity in America is Taiwanese, and Chinese overall rank 15th, ahead of Swiss, Swedish and many other more deserving whiter types.
This "transfer of wealth" dwarfs what has happened to/for black people over the same time frame, but for some reason bigotry against Asians has only recently raised its ugly head again to the extent that anyone pays attention to it. And I still don't hear white people broadly complaining about how the Chinese are taking their hard earned cash. Just black people.
It's almost as if Asians aren't as scary to white people as black people are.
Go figure.

 

[Metaphor]

And I picture the boss’ boss, looking at a deparment of 29 women and one man and saying, “you cannot have another male….”

Oh wait, no. The boss’ boss would not have said that if the department were already gender diverse. So there must have been a problem that caused it to be said. A problem of the hiring history favoring men.

The problem is that my boss's boss is under pressure from his bosses, all the way up the line, because my department has a gender equity policy that is applied at the team level.

My department is more than 50% women. The number of women is not the problem. It is the distribution of women and men that the gender czars have a problem with.

This is denied, of course. It always is. “Oh we never discriminate! It’s just random chance that we never hire women!”

No, who we hire is not random chance. It is a function of whoever is the strongest candidate of the people that have applied.

Metaphor states that the department in question is less than 50% male. And implies that there is no reason of any kind that the boss’ boss has a reason to seek to increase gender diversity.

He has a reason--he is a senior executive and his bosses are no doubt breathing down his neck about gender equity targets.

It’s possible that the boss’s boss is trying to correct for another, even worse department and help the compan as a whole overcome its discrimination problem.

My department has a discrimination problem - in fact the entire public service does - against white men.

The results showed that overall, de-identifying applications at the shortlisting stage does not appear to assist in promoting diversity within the APS in hiring. Overall, APS officers discriminated in favour of female and minority candidates.

Now in this case, the boss’ boss even said that if extraordinary circumstances presented, they could override the corrective directive. But the team still claims, “nothing extraordinary, just whatever caused the boss’ boss to need a correction should not be corrected. We need a male candidate, and you’ve discriminated against him. You’re terrible.“

This is baseless slander. We did not need a male candidate or claim we needed one.

It’s always excuses about the current candidate, not balancing with the ones last week and the week before. “I only have too complain about today, and then I never had to address my hiring biases.”

This is baseless slander.

 

[Metaphor]

that yes, we see the issue,

But that's a falsehood. You specifically deny the issue. You specifically say there is no evidence at all that the issue is happening.

but it is not the biggest issue, it is not the most harmful issue and it is not the longest existing issue and so we don’t prioritize it, obviously. And they come back with, “see you don’t care about discrimination.”

And that’s the pattern.

Point out the picayune, rare instances.

You are begging the question. You are already excluding the possibility of systemic discrimination against whites and males. You are assuming it is 'rare', 'picayune'.

Give them unmerited outsized importance.

You are begging the question. How have you evaluated the importance of the claim?

 

[Bomb#20]

Could you document this alleged ”gigantic transfer” with raw data and actual numbers, please?

Well, you could start by adding up 100% of all wealth owned by American black people. That is truly a gigantic amount by most measures, and every penny of it was “transferred” over the last ~160 years.

Are you suggesting that in the last 160 years American black people did not produce any wealth?

Prior to that, black people didn’t own stuff.

I must have missed history class the day they told us all of the United States was the South and the Civil War was fought between the Confederacy and nobody.

 

[Bomb#20]

In the late 1800s gold mining took off in Colorado.
A lot of labor came from China; ...

Since that time, so much wealth has been 'taken' from white men and 'given' to Chinese people, that the second wealthiest ethnicity in America is Taiwanese, and Chinese overall rank 15th,

I see you put a couple of words in quotation marks. Whom were you quoting? Who is it that claims Taiwanese-Americans or other Chinese-Americans are wealthy because wealth was given to them and taken from white people?

Your arguments are drenched in zero-sum-game mentality. Economics is not a zero-sum game.

ahead of Swiss, Swedish and many other more deserving whiter types.

Whom are you accusing of racism, and what's your evidence against them?