The (re)definition of the word racist

[SimpleDon]

Don't forget: Islam is a race too, hence bigotry against Muslims = Racism!

Like the people who insist on calling copyright infringement 'theft', the redefinition of 'racism' is a transparent ploy to skew the narrative.

Support for my contention that the concept of race is the problem. It is poorly defined.

 

[SimpleDon]

I so enjoy these semantic argument threads. I don't have much to add to this one, I am happy as always with the dictionary definition of the word "racism."





The first two in a google search for "racism definition." The first is unattributed, the second is from Dictionary.com.

A key element in both is the idea that one race is superior to another. How do you then call AA racism?

No one is saying that minority races are superior to the *hite race. It is not being done because of hatred or intolerance directed toward the *hite race. It is being done not to disadvantage members of the *hite race. It is being done to try to undo a small part of the legacy of 400 years of the *hite race believing that they were "superior to another race or races" "and has the right to dominate others" resulting in "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."

Or perhaps you guys have different definition of the word from the one in the dictionary?

Your second defintion does not require promotion of beliefs about a race. "a policy" that promotes "discrimination" is sufficient and AA policies explicitly do this. Also, This is the first definition given by Merriam Webster online:
"racism: poor treatment of or violence against people because of their race."

Not hiring or admitting a person to college because they are white (which is what AA policies do) fits that definition perfectly. You are limiting racism to something that only applies to beliefs. It applies to other things as well, including actions and policies that prescribe various actions. The problem with the OP is that it goes to the other extreme of ignoring the belief and personal action applications of the term and defines it only in terms of policy actions and only those designed to benefit the racial group with the most overall social/political power. Racist policies are both racist and because they are policies carry power. Thus, some racism does entail use of power, and actually AA is among them. The problem is that most racism is not in the form of policy of gov power, but in the form of individually held beliefs and actions which are equally accessible to about equally practiced by members of all ethnic groups.

No, number 2 includes the phrase, "based upon or fostering such a doctrine" referring to the doctrine in definition 1, which includes the presumption of superiority. Reading comprehension fail.

But yes, AA does discriminate against whites, but legally.

 

[ronburgundy]

Your second defintion does not require promotion of beliefs about a race. "a policy" that promotes "discrimination" is sufficient and AA policies explicitly do this. Also, This is the first definition given by Merriam Webster online:
"racism: poor treatment of or violence against people because of their race."

Not hiring or admitting a person to college because they are white (which is what AA policies do) fits that definition perfectly. You are limiting racism to something that only applies to beliefs. It applies to other things as well, including actions and policies that prescribe various actions. The problem with the OP is that it goes to the other extreme of ignoring the belief and personal action applications of the term and defines it only in terms of policy actions and only those designed to benefit the racial group with the most overall social/political power. Racist policies are both racist and because they are policies carry power. Thus, some racism does entail use of power, and actually AA is among them. The problem is that most racism is not in the form of policy of gov power, but in the form of individually held beliefs and actions which are equally accessible to about equally practiced by members of all ethnic groups.

No, number 2 includes the phrase, "based upon or fostering such a doctrine" referring to the doctrine in definition 1, which includes the presumption of superiority. Reading comprehension fail.

The only comprehension fail is on your part. The semi-colon before "discrimination" means that it is an independent clause and distinct idea. The discrimination does not need to be based in fostering beliefs of superiority. Also, you predictably ignored the equally valid dictionary definition I provided which makes no reference to beliefs, only to actions by which a person's race is used to determine how they are treated.

But yes, AA does discriminate against whites, but legally.

Correct, and "legally" merely means backed by the power of the government, which mean it is race-based discrimination that uses government power to treat people better or more poorly depending upon their race. Thus, it is racism by both the dictionary definition I provided and by the "discrimination" clause of the one you provided. In fact, it even meets the overly narrow "racism + power" criteria that many pro-AA defenders try to argue for since its enshrinement in law means it uses the coercive power of government to promote and even require racist actions.

 

[ronburgundy]

This is an easy issue to get confused over.

Racism means what people generally thinks it means, the only issue is context. In the sense of evaluation of individuals, then yes it doesn't matter if a person has power or not. The grumbly old guy on the street corner may have little or no power, but that doesn't make him any more or less of a bigot.

However, racism is not just a problem at the individual level. In terms of society, social change, institutions. social policy, etc. etc. you also deal with racism. The point here is to deal with situations which actually harm people.

No one denies that racism when combined with power is racism and can have more harmful impact. The argument is against those (curiously absent from this thread) who have and do argue that racism is not racism unless it is combined with power and unless that power is of the particular type of abstract group-level aggregate power differences between the groups, but that may not apply directly to the actual persons involved in a particular racist exchange.
Racism and power are separate things. They can both interact or have independent impacts that are harmful. Thus, as with every area of rational thought identifying distinct factors that can but don't always operate together is central to developing valid and pragmatically useful understanding.

In addition, the " + power" part is often problematic because it is only defined at that group level, ignoring the fact that in actual situations the power difference at a group level is not the same (and can be the opposite) of the power difference at the individual level at which the racist exchange is actually occurring. The group level power differences only relates to group level differences in harm but fails to capture the total amount of harm done by racism. Most of that occurs at the individual level. Each racist act reinforces and legitimizes all other racist acts, thus even when done by a person with less power it reinforces racism done by those with more power. It is individual people that people interact with and are impacted by, not group-level statistical aggregates. All people have psychological and emotional influence over nearly all others, and an individual can harm another via racist acts, regardless of whether the aggregate harm goes more strongly in the opposite direction. IOW, all acts of racism are harmful to both the target of that racism and many other people, including even the racists own group via validation of racism in general.

Finally, much of the power differences that influence the group level impact of racism arise from nothing more than mere numbers of people in each group within that society. There is nothing wrong with this. It is just a aspect of reality that cannot and should not be changed. Thus, it is not power but the racism part of the equation that is the problem and mutable, and only by consistently recognizing as a problem to always be admonished and avoided, and yet something contributed to by inherent aspect of human cognition, do we have any hope of containing it. This requires defining it at the individual psychological level.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Redefinition of the wold racism

If that's true, then why are we purposely and knowingly screwing over the Chinese now (e.g. college admissions) just like we did a century ago?

I am absolutely amazed at the obsession that people have with college and medical school admissions and the horrible injustice of not basing admissions solely on merit in the form of SAT scores and MCAT scores.

The reason we focus on this is that this is the best data we have on the problem.

I have written to great extent on this subject in other responses here. Short form: Test scores are one of many considerations that go into admissions and higher scores don't mean that someone is more qualified. Maintaining a balance from different population groups is certainly a valid consideration, especially for the medical schools.

If the criteria are legitimate they should publish them and the weighting.

Instead the schools have clammed up about matters when the evidence came out.

Furthermore, when discrimination is banned by law they just turn around and find another way to discriminate (the top x% admissions rules.)

I have waited in vain for the most obvious and blatant affront to merit based college admission to be attacked with anything like even 1/10th the ferocity that race based admissions are attacked. I am of course talking about legacy admissions. Perhaps one of you who so fiercely oppose race based admissions can explain why you accept or at least never mention legacy admission, which is a class based system?

Colleges do legacy admissions to attract donors. So long as they bring in enough total money (tuition + donations) to more than pay the cost and there aren't enough to cause a watering-down of the classes they do very little harm because they're taking up additional slots that they created rather than displacing other students.

 

[Metaphor]

I am absolutely amazed at the obsession that people have with college and medical school admissions and the horrible injustice of not basing admissions solely on merit in the form of SAT scores and MCAT scores.

I haven't said that and nor do I believe it.

You have a choice, SimpleDon. Stop implying I or anyone argued that only SAT and MCAT scores ought to matter for medical school admissions, or produce evidence that I claimed such a thing.

I have written to great extent on this subject in other responses here. Short form: Test scores are one of many considerations that go into admissions and higher scores don't mean that someone is more qualified.

Higher scores on MCAT, all other things being equal, means that one has more medical aptitude. This is not surprising, since the MCAT has been crafted to measure this exact construct and has been refined over many years.

But whatever has led you to imagine that I think MCAT and GPA are the only legitimate criteria for medical school admissions? I have never said it and don't believe it.

I have never said it and don't believe it.

Maintaining a balance from different population groups is certainly a valid consideration, especially for the medical schools.

Why is it a valid consideration? It sounds like a ludicrous consideration to me.

I have waited in vain for the most obvious and blatant affront to merit based college admission to be attacked with anything like even 1/10th the ferocity that race based admissions are attacked. I am of course talking about legacy admissions. Perhaps one of you who so fiercely oppose race based admissions can explain why you accept or at least never mention legacy admission, which is a class based system?

Not only do I oppose legacy admissions (I can hardly believe there is such a thing, frankly, but then, I don't live in the basket-case system of University admissions that is America), but I have said so numerous times. I further oppose admissions that have nothing to do with academic merit, like being able to throw a football real hard.

Perhaps it is the same reason that you support intentionally disadvantaging the poor and the middle class to artificially boost the incomes of the already wealthy?

Yes, we discriminated horribly against the Chinese. We also discriminated horribly against the Irish before them and we discriminated horribly against the Italians after them. And yet these groups rose above the discrimination thrown at them to boost the *hites. They did it differently, the Irish and the Italians did it by assimilating, sometimes after only a single generation. The Chinese did the opposite, they went into insular communities, built them economically and socially in spite of the discrimination from the *hites, until they could no longer be ignored and marginalized.

But it took the Chinese many generations to accomplish, generations during which we lost much as a nation of the contributions that they might have made. Discrimination is a horrible waste of human resources.

And, breathtakingly, despite knowing and understanding that discriminating by race harms everyone, you advocate it.

The obvious question is why haven't the other minorities been able to duplicate the example of the Chinese or the Italians and the Irish? I can think of some reasons.

But why bother? There is widespread acceptance among everyone here that legal discrimination against any group for any supposed reason is harmful to that group.

No, it's worse than that. It is harmful to everyone in society, including the group that ostenisbly 'benefits' from the discrimination.

It is sufficient that so-called racial minorities were legally discriminated against in order to boost the fortunes of others, a legacy of which a their decendents have been unable to escape. Just like the Chinese this represents a waste of human resources. It is not unreasonable to try to help them, for all of our benefits.

Discrimination does not boost society's fortunes. We are all the poorer because people discriminated by race in the past.

Every single time someone would have been given a slot but wasn't because of race, society was made poorer. Literally economically poorer, because someone who was not the best person for the job and was not the most meritorious placed an opportunity cost on all of society.

 

[arkirk]

I haven't said that and nor do I believe it.

You have a choice, SimpleDon. Stop implying I or anyone argued that only SAT and MCAT scores ought to matter for medical school admissions, or produce evidence that I claimed such a thing.

I have written to great extent on this subject in other responses here. Short form: Test scores are one of many considerations that go into admissions and higher scores don't mean that someone is more qualified.

Higher scores on MCAT, all other things being equal, means that one has more medical aptitude. This is not surprising, since the MCAT has been crafted to measure this exact construct and has been refined over many years.

But whatever has led you to imagine that I think MCAT and GPA are the only legitimate criteria for medical school admissions? I have never said it and don't believe it.

I have never said it and don't believe it.

Maintaining a balance from different population groups is certainly a valid consideration, especially for the medical schools.

Why is it a valid consideration? It sounds like a ludicrous consideration to me.

I have waited in vain for the most obvious and blatant affront to merit based college admission to be attacked with anything like even 1/10th the ferocity that race based admissions are attacked. I am of course talking about legacy admissions. Perhaps one of you who so fiercely oppose race based admissions can explain why you accept or at least never mention legacy admission, which is a class based system?

Not only do I oppose legacy admissions (I can hardly believe there is such a thing, frankly, but then, I don't live in the basket-case system of University admissions that is America), but I have said so numerous times. I further oppose admissions that have nothing to do with academic merit, like being able to throw a football real hard.

Perhaps it is the same reason that you support intentionally disadvantaging the poor and the middle class to artificially boost the incomes of the already wealthy?

Yes, we discriminated horribly against the Chinese. We also discriminated horribly against the Irish before them and we discriminated horribly against the Italians after them. And yet these groups rose above the discrimination thrown at them to boost the *hites. They did it differently, the Irish and the Italians did it by assimilating, sometimes after only a single generation. The Chinese did the opposite, they went into insular communities, built them economically and socially in spite of the discrimination from the *hites, until they could no longer be ignored and marginalized.

But it took the Chinese many generations to accomplish, generations during which we lost much as a nation of the contributions that they might have made. Discrimination is a horrible waste of human resources.

And, breathtakingly, despite knowing and understanding that discriminating by race harms everyone, you advocate it.

The obvious question is why haven't the other minorities been able to duplicate the example of the Chinese or the Italians and the Irish? I can think of some reasons.

But why bother? There is widespread acceptance among everyone here that legal discrimination against any group for any supposed reason is harmful to that group.

No, it's worse than that. It is harmful to everyone in society, including the group that ostenisbly 'benefits' from the discrimination.

It is sufficient that so-called racial minorities were legally discriminated against in order to boost the fortunes of others, a legacy of which a their decendents have been unable to escape. Just like the Chinese this represents a waste of human resources. It is not unreasonable to try to help them, for all of our benefits.

Discrimination does not boost society's fortunes. We are all the poorer because people discriminated by race in the past.

Every single time someone would have been given a slot but wasn't because of race, society was made poorer. Literally economically poorer, because someone who was not the best person for the job and was not the most meritorious placed an opportunity cost on all of society.

Every time we disqualify anybody for education whether it be for MERIT OR RACE, you are just admitting there isn't enough educational opportunity around...so somebody has to go wanting. Rather than scrapping over a few slots, how about increasing our efforts to educate everybody as well as we possibly can. This is not happening in America today and we all know about the profit seeking diploma mills and high price public educational facilities, and the student loan vultures. So we beat up on each other on the basis of denial and avoidance of the fact our educational facilities are inadequate. The pinch point in all of the professions is in the educational system...underfunded, poorly managed, and in seeking elite distinction, shutting the door to those without money.

 

[SimpleDon]

No offense, but a black person calling a white person "honky" does not cause as much emotional damage because there is no ugly history of injustice invoked by the use of those words.

And this new-fangled definition of racism used by the FOX News crowd exists solely so that they can claim that white people are suffering just as much injustice as African-Americans despite everything we see on the news every day. The redefinition of racism that seeks to divorce racism from history exists solely so that privileged people can claim that they are also victims and therefore don't have to stop inflicting injustice on unprivileged groups.

Who cares how much emotional damage it causes? That's unrelated to whether or not the term is being properly used.

The term "honky?" How do you improperly use "honky?"

 

[dismal]

The term "honky?" How do you improperly use "honky?"

When the car broke down during rush hour, the intersection became very honky.

 

[SimpleDon]

No offense, but a black person calling a white person "honky" does not cause as much emotional damage because there is no ugly history of injustice invoked by the use of those words.

And this new-fangled definition of racism used by the FOX News crowd exists solely so that they can claim that white people are suffering just as much injustice as African-Americans despite everything we see on the news every day. The redefinition of racism that seeks to divorce racism from history exists solely so that privileged people can claim that they are also victims and therefore don't have to stop inflicting injustice on unprivileged groups.

You're confused: it's the people who think racism = racism + power that are redefining the word.

As are the people who are squeezing the implication of superiority of one race over another out of the definition of the word also redefining the word.

Defining the word as meaning anything that considers race in any form in kind of a "we are all racists" unsatisfying way that undercuts the impact of the word as well as its meaning.

Yes, the fact that so often there is clarification by saying "institutional racism" and "racism + power" undercuts the argument that these are included in the definition of the word "racism." But in the same way the phrase "reverse racism" undercuts the "we are all racists" definition if we consider race in any form, if we ignore the implication of superiority.

 

[ronburgundy]

You're confused: it's the people who think racism = racism + power that are redefining the word.

As are the people who are squeezing the implication of superiority of one race over another out of the definition of the word also redefining the word.

Defining the word as meaning anything that considers race in any form in kind of a "we are all racists" unsatisfying way that undercuts the impact of the word as well as its meaning.

Yes, the fact that so often there is clarification by saying "institutional racism" and "racism + power" undercuts the argument that these are included in the definition of the word "racism." But in the same way the phrase "reverse racism" undercuts the "we are all racists" definition if we consider race in any form, if we ignore the implication of superiority.

The very idea that only some groups can be racist is itself racist and even includes the notion of racial superiority. Racism is a negative trait widely viewed as a moral failing, thus having it makes one inferior compared to not having it. Thus, they idea that only people of some groups can have it, is itself an idea of racial superiority. Meaning of the word is not at all undercut by the idea that all people can have or even do have some degree of racism. There is still massive variability between individuals, regardless of group membership, in the degree to which they manifest it, make efforts to control it, act upon it, are the target of it, etc.. All people have some degree height, and even if various groups had the same average and distribution of height, it would still be an extremely important and meaningful variable.

Does "red apple" undercut the fact that the thing is an apple? No. It merely specifies the particular sub-type of apple and/or the particular way that the apple is manifested. Same for institutional racism, which does not lessen the fact that it is a form of racism, but rather clarifies the type and manner of manifestation.

As to "superiority", how that plays out depends upon whether the thing that is racist is a belief, an action, a policy, etc.. If one treats a person in a superior manner to another person, based on their respective races, then that fulfills the central meaning of racism, regardless of whether their is an accompanying belief about racial superiority. Such beliefs are racist beliefs, but feelings and actions can also be racist without being based in such beliefs.

A cop has an unconscious fearful reaction to black people and shoots them without sufficient provocation as a result. Such racist actions and emotions are frequently unaccompanied by any actual belief in the general racial superiority of one race over others. Emotional reactions and physical actions need not be based in anything that would qualify as a belief. Thus, according to your attempted narrowing of the definition to require beliefs about racial superiority, these feelings and actions would not be racism or caused by racism. Does that seem reasonable from either an intellectual or pragmatic standpoint?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The term "honky?" How do you improperly use "honky?"

That Chinese guy just committed a drive-by shooting of a group of Mexicans because they insulted the Prophet Mohammed. What a honky.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The term "honky?" How do you improperly use "honky?"

Traffic in most third world cities is very honky.

 

[Trausti]

The term "honky?" How do you improperly use "honky?"

Traffic in most third world cities is very honky.

Office furniture can be HONky.

 

[SimpleDon]

AA does not only discriminate against Whites, it discriminates against Asians. Also, as your own example shows, it also discriminates by gender.

Asians are discriminated against in college and medical school admissions only if you believe that test scores establish the most qualified students. But this has never been the case. I think that I have explained this in this post or one in this thread. Short form,

• Test scores are for establishing that the candidate can do the academic work required.
• Each school establishes the minimum scores that they feel that meets this standard.
• All of the candidates who score above the minimum are assumed to be capable of doing the work required.
• The school moves on to other criteria that they have for admissions.
• My son is a doctor. When he applied to medical school he gained points because,
  • He speaks Spanish.
  • He volunteered in a hospice while in school
  • He took a much more rigorous undergraduate degree, Chemical Engineering
  • From an academically hard school, Georgia Tech
  • He lives in the city, not the suburbs
  • He had strong recommendations from doctors who knew of his long time desire to go into medicine
• And yes, race is a factor in medical school admission, we need doctors of all races.
• Just as we need engineers, teachers, accountants, lawyers, etc. of different races.

The argument for that those with the highest scores are the most qualified leads to the strangest aberration of college admissions. The desire of some colleges to increase their US News and World Report ranking. Accepting people who you know aren't qualified for this reason alone.

Discrimination that was enshrined in law, truly horrible laws. If you or anyone else has a better way to do this please speak up.

That's rather like using leeches to treat coeliac disease, then demanding 'a better way' to treat coeliac disease from other people before you'll stop using leeches. A better way to treat coeliac disease is to stop using leeches, that is, literally do nothing. The leeches aren't treating the coeliac disease and they never could.

I don't think that it is a disease to try to compensate for this damage. It is like saying that the civil rights laws solved all of the problems with racial discrimination, that they eliminated the legacy of the legal discrimination and besides those same laws made it illegal to try to compensate for the damage.

Do you believe that there are people alive today who are still suffering from the legacy of the legal discrimination that ended fifty years ago?

Do you believe that there are people who are poor today only because their parents were poor?

Do you believe that there are are people who are rich today only because their parents were rich?

I don't believe that it is a very effective way to do it. If I was asked, and I haven't been, I would advise the descendants of those treated so horribly to look past race and to broaden their efforts to solving the problem of poverty for all of the poor.

It doesn't do it at all. Those who were discriminated against and enslaved in the past cannot be made whole. Those who were discriminated against and still alive ought to be compensated, and they should pursue it in a court of law. Discriminating against Asians in medical school admissions doesn't help Black people who are long since dead. It doesn't even help Black people who are alive. Everyone is made poorer when decisions are based on race and not merit, and that includes AA.

You missed the point entirely. I don't think that we should be pursuing race based goals. I believe that more blacks are poor today not because of the legacy of slavery but because of legal discrimination that continued up to the 1960's and discrimination by individuals that lasts up until today.

Discrimination costs the nation a lot. It wastes human resources. People who can make a contribution are denied the chance because they are raised in poverty.

A static social structure has the opposite problem too. A lot of truly incompetent people are in powerful positions because of the accident of birth to a wealthy family. Think W. Bush, would he have been president if he hadn't been born wealthy? If he hadn't gone to Yale and Harvard on legacies and family influence? And his father, a veteran heading out across the country to make it on his own with nothing but a wife, a baby, a used Plymouth containing all of his worldly possessions, and, oh yes, a 3 million dollar bank letter of credit signed by daddy.

But the problem is best handled to try to get rid of poverty for all of the poor, not just minorities. It is certainly within our capacity to do. This is the richest country in the world. Other countries with much less resources than what we have have eliminated poverty for those who work.

The biggest problem that we face is the obsession that nearly one half of the population of the nation has with using the economy and the economic policies of the country to direct ever increasing amounts of the income of the nation to the already rich at the cost of the poor and the middle class. It makes no sense.

This obsession does prove that the economic policies of the nation do change the income distribution within the economy. All we have to do is to reverse slowly the policies that take income from the poor and the middle class and give it to the already rich.

And it doesn't help that one of the two major parties in the country depends on the votes of the remaining racists in the country. This calls into question everything that they do that might touch upon these questions. I am of the opinion that these problems won't disappear in the country until the racists are gone. They teach their children to be racists, there is no other place to learn it now. And as long as one party has to accommodate the racists they have to accommodate racism and neither will go away.

Those that benefit from AA are going to have to decide this. But I believe that in the long run it is better to eliminate race based programs entirely, to deemphasize race as a divider of the people in society.

Like any decision where factors other than merit influence selection, we are made all the poorer by AA.

AA is like nepotism. While there are people who are selected who otherwise wouldn't have been, and they therefore benefit, since the best person was not selected, everyone else loses, including society as a whole. Even the person selected on nepotistic grounds may feel pressured in their performance expectations, knowing they weren't the best candidate, and not achieve the same job satisfaction that they would have had they achieved it on merit. And of course even the person who has the plum job based on nepotism is part of the society that lives with other plum jobs that are also given away on nepotistic grounds, and that society is harmed.

The point is not that AA is an imperfect way to compensate for the legacy of slavery. Compensating for the legacy of slavery is literally impossible. The point is that AA is actively harmful to those living, including members of races it is ostensibly discriminating for.

What a ridiculous thing to say, that we can't compensate for the legacy of legalized discrimination that once again, didn't stop with the 13th amendment. We have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that we can shift the income distribution to increase the income of the already wealthy by lowering the incomes of the other people. All that we have to do is to reverse those policies.

You are full of spite against ACA for college admissions. Do you care to offer a sentence or two as to why there is no principled outrage on the right for the distorting effects of legacy admissions?

And I seriously doubt that your claim that AA seriously harms anyone, much less the ones that it is designed to help. I don't think that it is very effective. It doesn't provide much help at all.

It is not especially helpful for example, to accept someone to college that hasn't been adequately prepared in high school. It doesn't help some who developed slowly because they didn't have enough to eat. The criminal justice system is a poor substitute for adequate parenting. These are for the most part the problems that result from poverty. These are not problems that affect the middle class. The obvious solution is to eliminate poverty for everyone.

It is another day in paradise when I can brag on my kids!

Your daughter has achieved much she ought to be proud of on her own merits. This is marred by the fact that she will given more plum offers, and given the 'royal treatment', compared to similar-achieving male colleagues, because she has a vagina and they do not.

Precisely how discriminating against men helps undo the 'legacy of slavery' I'm sure I don't know.

That explains a lot about your confusion here. Women have been discriminated against too. This is why they are covered by AA. And once again, legal racial discrimination lasted for a hundred years after slavery was abolished.

And yes, I am proud of my daughter. I am an engineer, I hired a lot of engineers. No matter what they pay her she is worth more. In no way are her accomplishments marred. Her mother, my wife, is also an engineer. She had to fight every inch of the way just to become an engineer, an underpaid one. She had to start her own company to get the salary that she deserved. My daughter can look at her AA inflated check as delayed partial payment for her mother's battles.

Much of the anti-AA discussion here including yours that centers on the idea of merit, implying that there is some mechanism in the economy that justly pays workers based on what they are worth. I be interested in what you think that that mechanism is, if this is the case with you.

 

[dismal]

Asians are discriminated against in college and medical school admissions only if you believe that test scores establish the most qualified students.

I would say any objective measure, really, but we don't even have to agree. Stop asking students their race and let the chips fall where they may.

 

[Metaphor]

Asians are discriminated against in college and medical school admissions only if you believe that test scores establish the most qualified students.

Holy shit, SimpleDon. You are too smart to be mistaken, so stop persisting with this lie.

I have never said, and do not believe, that test scores alone 'establish' the most qualified students.

If the only way for you to justify the continued presence of AA is by spreading this lie, you ought to be able to recognise how tenuous your justification is.

But this has never been the case. I think that I have explained this in this post or one in this thread. Short form,

You don't have to 'explain' to me why I'm wrong about something I don't believe and never claimed. I have never claimed, and don't believe, that only test scores establish who should be admitted to medical school. Stop pretending I did claim it and do believe it.

• Test scores are for establishing that the candidate can do the academic work required.
• Each school establishes the minimum scores that they feel that meets this standard.
• All of the candidates who score above the minimum are assumed to be capable of doing the work required.
• The school moves on to other criteria that they have for admissions.

• 
  
  Evidently, they do not. If this is what happened, you would not see differential admission rates with higher GPAs and higher MCAT scores. You do. That means, while there is definitely a floor under which no student will be accepted, higher scores cause mean a higher chance of selection.
  
  

  [*]My son is a doctor. When he applied to medical school he gained points because,
  

  • He speaks Spanish.

  • 
    
    Additional language proficiency seems like a good criterion, if there is a proven need for that specific language skill.
    
    SimpleDon, whatever makes you believe I think other, non-test criteria are not valid?
    

    ...
    [*]And yes, race is a factor in medical school admission, we need doctors of all races.

    
    Why?
    
    

    [*]Just as we need engineers, teachers, accountants, lawyers, etc. of different races.

  
  Why?
  
  

  The argument for that those with the highest scores are the most qualified leads to the strangest aberration of college admissions.

  
  Who made that argument?
  
  

  I don't think that it is a disease to try to compensate for this damage.

  
  You misunderstood the analogy. I did not say treating the damage was like disease. I said the damage was like having coeliac disease, and AA to past racial discrimination is like 'treating' coeliac disease with leeches.
  
  

  It is like saying that the civil rights laws solved all of the problems with racial discrimination, that they eliminated the legacy of the legal discrimination and besides those same laws made it illegal to try to compensate for the damage.

  
  You cannot compensate for the effects of discrimination based on race by more of the same.
  
  

  Do you believe that there are people alive today who are still suffering from the legacy of the legal discrimination that ended fifty years ago?

  
  Of course.
  
  

  Do you believe that there are people who are poor today only because their parents were poor?
  
  Do you believe that there are are people who are rich today only because their parents were rich?

  
  Of course.
  
  

  You missed the point entirely. I don't think that we should be pursuing race based goals. I believe that more blacks are poor today not because of the legacy of slavery but because of legal discrimination that continued up to the 1960's and discrimination by individuals that lasts up until today.

  
  Either you are defending discrimination based on race or you are not. It's one thing to defend AA acknowledging it discriminates by race. It's another to defend AA by trying to show that it doesn't discriminate based on race. Both positions are absurd and immoral, but it beggars belief that anyone could look at a program designed to discriminate by race and pretend it doesn't discriminate by race.
  
  

  What a ridiculous thing to say, that we can't compensate for the legacy of legalized discrimination that once again, didn't stop with the 13th amendment.

  
  Those who are dead cannot be compensated. Those who are alive can and should be compensated.
  
  

  You are full of spite against ACA for college admissions. Do you care to offer a sentence or two as to why there is no principled outrage on the right for the distorting effects of legacy admissions?

  
  Why don't you ask 'the right'? Or do you want me to defend positions I disagree with?
  
  

  And I seriously doubt that your claim that AA seriously harms anyone, much less the ones that it is designed to help. I don't think that it is very effective. It doesn't provide much help at all.

  
  Of course it harms everyone. You can pretend that discrimination by race harms no-one, but you'd be wrong. Of course, you don't believe it harms no-one, because discrimination by race harmed black people all over your country, and you've said it.
  
  

  That explains a lot about your confusion here.

  
  I am not confused, SimpleDon.
  

  And yes, I am proud of my daughter. I am an engineer, I hired a lot of engineers. No matter what they pay her she is worth more.

  
  Obviously. And my nieces and nephews are the cutest kids in Australia and probably the southern hemisphere.
  
  

  In no way are her accomplishments marred. Her mother, my wife, is also an engineer. She had to fight every inch of the way just to become an engineer, an underpaid one. She had to start her own company to get the salary that she deserved. My daughter can look at her AA inflated check as delayed partial payment for her mother's battles.

  
  So....instead of compensating the person who was discriminated against, AA compensates someone else. And instead of the person or firm who did the discriminating paying the compensation, a random firm or persons are required to do it.
  
  

  Much of the anti-AA discussion here including yours that centers on the idea of merit, implying that there is some mechanism in the economy that justly pays workers based on what they are worth. I be interested in what you think that that mechanism is, if this is the case with you.

  
  Workers are paid what the market will bear.
  
  I'm not going to change your mind. You either believe that AA discriminates by race and that discrimination is okay (along with a whole host of other related beliefs like discriminating by race today actually compensates people who were discriminated against by race in the past), which is an immoral position to take, or you believe that AA does not discriminate by race, which is a belief so catastrophically absurd that rational argument is beyond its reach.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Traffic in most third world cities is very honky.

Office furniture can be HONky.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Asians are discriminated against in college and medical school admissions only if you believe that test scores establish the most qualified students.

I would say any objective measure, really, but we don't even have to agree. Stop asking students their race and let the chips fall where they may.

Exactly. Use race-blind tests and you're not going to be discriminating.

 

[arkirk]

I have often marveled at how we can have pages of rants about something like affirmative action and completely miss the point that medicine for example should be something that is widely taught and there simply are not enough educational facilities to meet our needs or the needs of students who would admirably practice medicine if they only had the chance. We seem obsessed with scarcity and seem to do everything possible to maintain scarcity for the masses. Do we want to improve conditions for all of society or only "those who can afford" the improvements? We are not valuing the right kind of things and place too much on social standing to properly address any of our mutual social problems.

Medicine and other needs are expensive simply because we have not as a society valued these things sufficiently to address them as social needs and produce enough of them to make them practical. So we have people waiting a month for a doctor visit...three months for a driver's license test, and sometimes longer for admission and treatment for something like drug addiction. The more basic the human need, the more threatening the lack of remedy is, the more we have so called conservatives saying what they always say: "Not everybody can have this. It is just too costly." Then they busy themselves making sure these things stay costly.