Proxy Identity Politics

[Jolly_Penguin]

"cultural appropriation" seems to me another case of this proxy business. If a white guy grew up in Jamaica and had his hair in dreadlocks from birth along with many of his friends, and then moves to California, then based on his race alone is it right for people to accuse him of "cultural appropriation"? What if he was adopted as a baby by first nations parents and grew up with first nations siblings who were proud of their cultural roots. What if he then proudly wore a head dress in California. Is it right for him to be accused of "cultural appropriation"?

This proxy and category error stuff seems to apply to a wide variety of human experience. I don't see how it would ever be right or good.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

I think I see what you are saying. A racist bank manager could set requirements unnecessarily high knowing that it will disproportionately effect their disliked group, many of whom happen to fail to meet those requirements. Certainly could happen. It would be using income as a proxy for race, the reverse of what I was speaking of in the OP (race being used as a proxy for income).

Exactly.

Bans on head/face coverings when there was none before and where there has been a recent influx of Muslims comes to mind.

Yes, good example.

Or are you merely referring to particular groups inadvertently being disproportionately harmed by particular policies? If the latter, that is just reality and math really.

Well that's the tough part. In your hypothetical example we knew a priori that the bank manager was racist and implemented policies to that effect through the use of proxies. In reality, we don't have the prior information. We can look at the bank's records and derive the statistical credibility to determine that their practices were unfairly discriminatory to some protected class, but it is much more difficult to get all the way back to 'racist bank manager' - particularly if the proxies used are also closely tied to prudent banking practices.

aa

 

[ronburgundy]

Which means that all AA policies that in any way use racial categories in decisions are engaged is racism and racial discrimination for the no legitimate ends other than to directly determine the racial make-up of the people who benefit or not from the decisions.

Once you include the term "all", you are simply wrong. AA policies that promote recruitment of qualified candidates have legitimate ends.

It isn't wrong because the "all" only applied to the AA policies that I specifically stated "use racial categories in decisions", referring to the decisions to admit or hire a person. That doesn't include the policies you mention (ones that are not part of any of the various court cases) where no race information from actual applicants is collected or used and the policy is only a pre-application outreach with no impact on any part of the process once applications are received.

That said, even most of the policies the only seek to increase applications from qualified racial minorities are also racist. They are also typically rationalized on the grounds of trying to reach out to people who are less likely to bother to apply. However, they nearly always limit those groups to racial minorities without actually targeting specifically disadvantages segments of those populations and ignoring the empirical fact that qualified poor white kids are actually less likely to apply than many of the racial minorities that their efforts reach-out to. How many Universities that make an effort to reach out to kids in majority black inner-city high schools, make and equal effort to reach out to majority white high schools in poor and largely uneducated rural areas? The standard affirmative action outreach statement on calls for applications completely ignores this latter and highly under-represented group of students, and reads: "Women and minorities are encouraged to apply."

 

[laughing dog]

Once you include the term "all", you are simply wrong. AA policies that promote recruitment of qualified candidates have legitimate ends.

It isn't wrong because the "all" only applied to the AA policies that I specifically stated "use racial categories in decisions", referring to the decisions to admit or hire a person. That doesn't include the policies you mention (ones that are not part of any of the various court cases) where no race information from actual applicants is collected or used and the policy is only a pre-application outreach with no impact on any part of the process once applications are received.

That said, even most of the policies the only seek to increase applications from qualified racial minorities are also racist. They are also typically rationalized on the grounds of trying to reach out to people who are less likely to bother to apply. However, they nearly always limit those groups to racial minorities without actually targeting specifically disadvantages segments of those populations and ignoring the empirical fact that qualified poor white kids are actually less likely to apply than many of the racial minorities that their efforts reach-out to. How many Universities that make an effort to reach out to kids in majority black inner-city high schools, make and equal effort to reach out to majority white high schools in poor and largely uneducated rural areas? The standard affirmative action outreach statement on calls for applications completely ignores this latter and highly under-represented group of students, and reads: "Women and minorities are encouraged to apply."

I know at least 3 universities in my state that at least the same effort (if not more) reaching out to majority white HS in poor and largely rural areas than they do reaching out to majority black inner city HS. My guess is that most smaller out-state state schools are the same way.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Actually, that's something else at work.

The banks are "discriminating" against risky loans on property that is not expected to appreciate. To me that's simply being sensible.

Yes, if they are actually taking the time and effort to examine the individual situations of the claimants. But what if, as Athena claimed in that thread, they were simply assumed to not qualify because they were black? That'd be racism, right? So why is that same principle not applied across the board? And should it be? Is there any benefit I am not seeing from using these proxies?

While Athena claimed that that doesn't make it so. The place I have the best data on is the local case but from what I've seen it's representative. The only "discrimination" they could find was against low down payment mortgages in areas with little or no appreciation. Since these areas are predominantly black the regulators pounced on it as discrimination. However, no such pattern showed up for 80/20 loans and no such pattern showed up in better neighborhoods. Occam's razor says it's the circumstances, not the borrower.

Also, it doesn't require looking at individual circumstances. The data in the local newspaper was only broken down by zip code--but that was quite enough to see what was going on. There aren't really any individual circumstances to look at as you can't realistically measure the appreciation rate of a house. You need a large enough sample to have a decent number of transactions. I suspect the bankers were using something smaller than a zip code but I do not know.

 

[iolo]

The First Nations own what is now the United States, obviously. Give it 'em back and piss off back where you came from, if anyone will have you!

Should we reverse all the World' borders to 1492 or do you think US should be the only one? And what's so special about 1492?


As to Joly Penguin's OP, this policy is obviously ridiculous and yes, racist.

Where possible we should reverse 'em to the earliest known date where it'll work. Most people are living where their ancestors did. like the Palestinians. Obviously the colnialists will oppose it with all they have stolen, so it will never be easy. Best of abolish states and state borders.