What, exactly, is CRT?

[Toni]

Yeah.

The problem with CRT isn't only with genetics. We do not know how much influence, if any, genes have on racial disparities - and CRT apparently just denies any influence.

...

2. It denies not only any genetic influence on racial disparities...

​I'm not saying genetics is the issues I just keep bringing up genetics. Meanwhile you just want to talk about history and intentional systemic racism we know existed in the US for centuries and has lasted well into the 20th Century.

And right on into the 21st century.

The so called genetic differences is a pile of crap. There is more diversity within so called racial groups than between racial groups. In the US, this is particularly true as there has been very significant interracial procreation for the past 400 years or so.

 

[Jarhyn]

Yeah.

The problem with CRT isn't only with genetics. We do not know how much influence, if any, genes have on racial disparities - and CRT apparently just denies any influence.

...

2. It denies not only any genetic influence on racial disparities...

​I'm not saying genetics is the issues I just keep bringing up genetics. Meanwhile you just want to talk about history and intentional systemic racism we know existed in the US for centuries and has lasted well into the 20th Century.

And right on into the 21st century.

The so called genetic differences is a pile of crap. There is more diversity within so called racial groups than between racial groups. In the US, this is particularly true as there has been very significant interracial procreation for the past 400 years or so.

And as noted, the crucible of racial discrimination and racially disparate outcomes lends selection pressure specifically toward social and cognitive traits.

Not only do "they" have everything "we" have, "they" have more pressure selecting for it.

 

[Bomb#20]

The fact that the war on drugs was started for racist reasons has nothing to do with why it failed. And has nothing to do with it's solution, ie harm reduction.

"The reason it failed" are manyfold, and one of the groups who saw to it that it died was the group doing it so as to remove it's racially disparate effect within society.

CRT recognizes that the drug war us extremely racist in impact and effect. Hand wave all you want from Europe, but you are simply wrong: many in the US who oppose the drug war oppose it for reasons of racial equality, and this is a major point of contention in legalization bills, making sure communities of color are allowed a seat at the table in the transition to legal use.

The fact you think the drug war and it's end have nothing to do with race proves you have not been paying attention.

There's an end to the drug war? There are groups who saw to it that it died? It died? Awesome! Um, has anyone told the government about this?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Federal Charges Filed Following Record-Breaking Drug Seizure

As far as I can see the drug war is alive and flourishing. (And thanks to the "opioid crisis" it spawned, which is tailor made for giving it political cover when it addresses the "crisis" by viciously circularly worsening it, the drug war looks to be with us until the human race goes extinct...)

 

[Bomb#20]

I am asking for names, because your reply in the context of a debate with me gives the impression that you are criticizing me. ... Especially given that there is no "it's genetics" crowd in this thread.

Yeah.

The problem with CRT isn't only with genetics. We do not know how much influence, if any, genes have on racial disparities - and CRT apparently just denies any influence.

...

2. It denies not only any genetic influence on racial disparities...

​I'm not saying genetics is the issues I just keep bringing up genetics. <rest snipped>

You appear confused. Where the heck did AM ever "bring up" genetics? Pro-CRT posters here kept bringing up genetics. Then AM responded to them, because pro-CRT posters kept saying stuff about genetics that was unevidenced and in some cases already known to be wrong.

Well I guess AM just earned being put back on block.

If your goal is to protect your religious beliefs from contact with contrary reality, good strategy.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yeah.

​I'm not saying genetics is the issues I just keep bringing up genetics. <rest snipped>

You appear confused. Where the heck did AM ever "bring up" genetics?

Twice, I quoted it.

 

[Jarhyn]

Yeah.

​I'm not saying genetics is the issues I just keep bringing up genetics. <rest snipped>

You appear confused. Where the heck did AM ever "bring up" genetics? Pro-CRT posters here kept bringing up genetics. Then AM responded to them, because pro-CRT posters kept saying stuff about genetics that was unevidenced and in some cases already known to be wrong.

Well I guess AM just earned being put back on block.

If your goal is to protect your religious beliefs from contact with contrary reality, good strategy.

No, just to keep from dealing with people who egregiously deal in bad faith. I guess I am adding you to the list, now, too, seeing as how you question whether someone did something, where the post you quoted included the proof of them doing it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Exactly.

You're distributing sunscreen. You send it to the whites rather than the blacks, no question. The out-group difference is far greater than the in-group difference.

You're picking basketball players. You pick the tallest ones, the fact that you end up with a lot of blacks is expected but you don't look at skin color in making your selections. (There is a tiny out-group difference, useless for selecting players but it will substantially skew the results when you're comparing the very tail end of the curve.)



Exactly. Which is why I favor systems which do not let the decision makers even know what group the people they are selecting belong to. This will avoid the effects of both the racists and the "anti"-racists (who are actually also racists) trying to skew the selection.

The issue here being that we have every reason to believe a benefit to overall systemic quality will happen when the systemic racism is removed and we reach populational parity.

It's the same as we see in sports: when we stop artificial racism, we see that the people we filled the space with were absolutely NOT the best for the job.

I expect to see similar when the economic hobbles come off.

Deny it all you want, but having wealth somewhere in your family tree is an important resource, and one black people in general have FAR less of and for no good reason. That is a hobble.

You're assuming that systematic racism is the problem.

And you've presented that wealth argument before--the reality is most people inherit nothing meaningful. What they do get is the attitudes that come along with wealth.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem with CRT isn't only with genetics. We do not know how much influence, if any, genes have on racial disparities - and CRT apparently just denies any influence. But two other major problems are:

1. It redefines the term 'racism', but its proponents often jump from one definition to another, blaming innocent people of 'racism' in the English sense of the word.

2. It denies not only any genetic influence on racial disparities, but also any cultural influence that stems from anything other than social constructions of race. Of course, it may well be that people with cultural traits X - not related to the social construction of race - are more predisposed for economic and/or academic success (for example) than people with cultural trait Y, and also that as a result of history (e.g., immigrants from Korea have Korean-like cultural traits, and they tend to pass some of them on to their children), people of race A usually have cultural traits X, whereas people of race B usually have cultural traits Y (in the US, or the country in which CRT were used). The result would be a racial disparity in economic and/or academic outcome resulting from cultural traits other than the social construction of race. CRT just denies that this happens - at least, as described in this thread.

Exactly. We see Asians succeed for cultural reasons. There's such a cultural drive towards educational success that the Chinese government recently clamped down, putting pretty substantial limits on tutoring.

I don't think they're any smarter, but they sure as hell apply what they have more.

But wouldn’t you expect culture to play a role in selection? If for hundreds of years or millennia a culture rewarded a trait, say for high cognition, with greater reproductive success, would it be surprising that people from this population group had higher frequency for the trait than others? Was Darwin wrong?

Such evolution could happen but intelligence isn't enough of a reproductive benefit to have much effect in most cases. I do think it's responsible for the Ashkenazi jews having a higher intelligence, though--recognizing when to get out of dodge is a substantial survival advantage and for cultural reasons the advantage mostly stayed within the group rather than spreading through the population.

 

[Trausti]

Yeah.

The problem with CRT isn't only with genetics. We do not know how much influence, if any, genes have on racial disparities - and CRT apparently just denies any influence.

...

2. It denies not only any genetic influence on racial disparities...

​I'm not saying genetics is the issues I just keep bringing up genetics. Meanwhile you just want to talk about history and intentional systemic racism we know existed in the US for centuries and has lasted well into the 20th Century.

And right on into the 21st century.

The so called genetic differences is a pile of crap. There is more diversity within so called racial groups than between racial groups. In the US, this is particularly true as there has been very significant interracial procreation for the past 400 years or so.

 

[Jarhyn]

Exactly.

You're distributing sunscreen. You send it to the whites rather than the blacks, no question. The out-group difference is far greater than the in-group difference.

You're picking basketball players. You pick the tallest ones, the fact that you end up with a lot of blacks is expected but you don't look at skin color in making your selections. (There is a tiny out-group difference, useless for selecting players but it will substantially skew the results when you're comparing the very tail end of the curve.)



Exactly. Which is why I favor systems which do not let the decision makers even know what group the people they are selecting belong to. This will avoid the effects of both the racists and the "anti"-racists (who are actually also racists) trying to skew the selection.

The issue here being that we have every reason to believe a benefit to overall systemic quality will happen when the systemic racism is removed and we reach populational parity.

It's the same as we see in sports: when we stop artificial racism, we see that the people we filled the space with were absolutely NOT the best for the job.

I expect to see similar when the economic hobbles come off.

Deny it all you want, but having wealth somewhere in your family tree is an important resource, and one black people in general have FAR less of and for no good reason. That is a hobble.

You're assuming that systematic racism is the problem.

And you've presented that wealth argument before--the reality is most people inherit nothing meaningful. What they do get is the attitudes that come along with wealth.

No. I'm sorry, I am going to need you to point out where I said systemic racism is THE problem here in this post.

I have pointed to A problem. That problem I pointed to IS systemic racism. Definitionally, in fact. I have pointedly and explicitly impugned "lack of financial resources in a group of heritage" as a systemic element as a driver of continuing racial disparities.

The reality is that my parents are still alive. I have inherited nothing. And yet I still had access to a lawyer when I got a disorderly conduct charge (and so avoided jail and possibly prison for telecom fraud!). And yet I still had a place with food and free housing once I got bounced from the army for being gay. And yet I still had access to money for college. When I had my hernia surgery, I had no money in the bank to cover immediate expenses, until I got a small no-interest loan from, you guessed it, my parents.

When my husband had his laptop die, I was able to put out a collection with my friends and family; whole we got the repair for free, I had a whole new laptop in funds pledged, across two families.

I can only assume my experience is part and parcel with an average "apparent cis white male".

Of course this is not counting the thousands of dollars or the car I got from my grandpa when he passed.

If I was not a cis white male, I probably wouldn't have had internet or educational access to commit the telecom fraud but assuming I did, I would have been going to state prison.

I never would have had a cheap car in my early 20's to be chauffeured in (lol, I don't drive!), Nor would I have had the money needed to actually attain even the shoddy financial literacy I hold.

Now again you can deny it all you want but I had these things because my parents had money. And when they die, I will have a half million dollar home in a quiet suburb next to an amazing school district.

One thing that few black kids have is parents with money.

That's systemic.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

End the drug war (systemic criminalization of marginalized communities through targeting preferred substances within those communities).

While I agree with ending the drug war I don't believe it's being targeted racially. The targeting of crack is not because it's a black man's drug, but because crack is associated with a lot more serious crime than cocaine. The addiction is stronger and the people don't have the money to simply buy it--and the drug-related crime is mostly about the crime to buy the drugs.

End for-profit prisons (eliminating the incentive for the drug war and continued slavery).

Definitely agree.

Banning 'the box' (questions on pre-employment questionnaires which ask about prior involvement with law enforcement beyond the scope of the original punishment, thus enshrining permanence of such racially biased laws as the drug war).

No. It should be changed to "what crimes have you been convicted of". Arrests shouldn't count and it shouldn't be a binary. Companies quite legitimately do not want to hire workers that are likely to commit crimes at work.

Making higher education a right rather than a "privilege" (as a very large part of structural racism is tied up in education access, and lack thereof).

Community colleges have no admissions requirement beyond high school or GED. Nobody's being kept out other than by themselves.

Making it illegal to reference or even access racially revealing information to make distinctions in finance and housing (so as to prevent and end racially closed communities).

While I agree the information should be hidden the data doesn't say it's a problem. Occam's Razor: "Redlining" isn't about race, but about bankers looking at more than the bureaucrats desperate to find discrimination. The simplest explanation for the mortgage differences is that bankers consider expected appreciation in writing low-down mortgages.

And the list goes on. CRT identifies sources of systemic racism specifically so they can be fought against. I assume SOME people just beat their meat talking about what is or is not structural racism, but as for me and I assume most of the others who accept CRT as a description of reality we do it so we can understand how to change said reality.

CRT takes it on faith that the cause is discrimination, if it can't be found that means you didn't dig deep enough. The reality is discrimination is something you're bound to find if you dig deep enough--regardless of whether it's really there or not. Torture the data enough and you can make it show what you want.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Who is "we"? That contradicts all research on this issue that I am familiar with.

Note how the research carefully avoids considering the possibility that race is a proxy for socioeconomic status.

This is also manifestly untrue; there are many, many studies of human genetics that employ the very basic element of controlling for socioeconomic status. Do you people really think you can just say something on a topic you know nothing about, and it will become true somehow?

I also don't think you are thinking very clearly here about why it would even be possible to use race a consistent proxy for socioeconomic status, in the absence of systemic racism.

It only would be a proxy if there was racism at some time in the past. That doesn't prove current racism.

 

[Trausti]

You're assuming that systematic racism is the problem.

And you've presented that wealth argument before--the reality is most people inherit nothing meaningful. What they do get is the attitudes that come along with wealth.

No. I'm sorry, I am going to need you to point out where I said systemic racism is THE problem here in this post.

I have pointed to A problem. That problem I pointed to IS systemic racism. Definitionally, in fact. I have pointedly and explicitly impugned "lack of financial resources in a group of heritage" as a systemic element as a driver of continuing racial disparities.

The reality is that my parents are still alive. I have inherited nothing. And yet I still had access to a lawyer when I got a disorderly conduct charge (and so avoided jail and possibly prison for telecom fraud!). And yet I still had a place with food and free housing once I got bounced from the army for being gay. And yet I still had access to money for college. When I had my hernia surgery, I had no money in the bank to cover immediate expenses, until I got a small no-interest loan from, you guessed it, my parents.

When my husband had his laptop die, I was able to put out a collection with my friends and family; whole we got the repair for free, I had a whole new laptop in funds pledged, across two families.

I can only assume my experience is part and parcel with an average "apparent cis white male".

Of course this is not counting the thousands of dollars or the car I got from my grandpa when he passed.

If I was not a cis white male, I probably wouldn't have had internet or educational access to commit the telecom fraud but assuming I did, I would have been going to state prison.

I never would have had a cheap car in my early 20's to be chauffeured in (lol, I don't drive!), Nor would I have had the money needed to actually attain even the shoddy financial literacy I hold.

Now again you can deny it all you want but I had these things because my parents had money. And when they die, I will have a half million dollar home in a quiet suburb next to an amazing school district.

One thing that few black kids have is parents with money.

That's systemic.

True. The number of black children in single-parent homes is high.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But wouldn’t you expect culture to play a role in selection? If for hundreds of years or millennia a culture rewarded a trait, say for high cognition, with greater reproductive success, would it be surprising that people from this population group had higher frequency for the trait than others? Was Darwin wrong?

You don't understand evolution.

Two geniuses could have a child with an average intellect and two people of average intellect could have a genius for a child. Happens everyday.

They can, but neither outcome is common.

People living 30 thousand years ago had the exact same intellectual potentials as humans living today.

That I find very unlikely.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah, the trouble there is that adequacy at basketball isn't based on height. It is based on the ability to shoot a basketball or rebound.

Equal skill, the taller person will be the better basketball player.

Exactly. Which is why I favor systems which do not let the decision makers even know what group the people they are selecting belong to.

So you are for removing identifying markers of any kind, including name on resumes?

For large companies, yes. Resumes should be anonymized before reaching the people who make the hiring decisions. That's not feasible for small companies, though.

 

[Trausti]

But wouldn’t you expect culture to play a role in selection? If for hundreds of years or millennia a culture rewarded a trait, say for high cognition, with greater reproductive success, would it be surprising that people from this population group had higher frequency for the trait than others? Was Darwin wrong?

Your example is wrong. All human society and tribal structure across all of time has highly and efficiently selected for mental traits. There is no artificial selection pressure that would ever out-do that except perhaps racism itself: To make the selection pressure of humanity's primary adaptive trait any stronger, you would need to artificially increase adversity.

All traits are heritable. Please explain why cognition is somehow an exception.

 

[Trausti]

But wouldn’t you expect culture to play a role in selection? If for hundreds of years or millennia a culture rewarded a trait, say for high cognition, with greater reproductive success, would it be surprising that people from this population group had higher frequency for the trait than others? Was Darwin wrong?

You don't understand evolution.

Two geniuses could have a child with an average intellect and two people of average intellect could have a genius for a child. Happens everyday.

The human brain has not changed much in the short time humans have been around.

People living 30 thousand years ago had the exact same intellectual potentials as humans living today.

Would easily concede the point if anyone could explain why cognition - and uniquely cognition, apparently - is impervious to selection. But only in humans.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm not Lauren, but yes, that's exactly one of the things that has been proposed in the past by him and by me.

I'm not so certain how much value that would have. For one thing, things such as gender and race are usually apparent at interviews. For another, if one is really dedicated at only including people from X group or excluding people from Y and Z groups, most resumes have other 'tells' than name, etc. These could include where someone went to school, military experience, other job experiences, any membership in various organizations, etc.

For large organizations I would like to see the interviews anonymized, also. Communicate only by keyboard for anything that doesn't need to be hands-on.

You're not going to eliminate every tell but I don't think those are going to be substantial factors.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You're assuming that systematic racism is the problem.

And you've presented that wealth argument before--the reality is most people inherit nothing meaningful. What they do get is the attitudes that come along with wealth.

No. I'm sorry, I am going to need you to point out where I said systemic racism is THE problem here in this post.

CRT says it is the problem.

The reality is that my parents are still alive. I have inherited nothing. And yet I still had access to a lawyer when I got a disorderly conduct charge (and so avoided jail and possibly prison for telecom fraud!). And yet I still had a place with food and free housing once I got bounced from the army for being gay. And yet I still had access to money for college. When I had my hernia surgery, I had no money in the bank to cover immediate expenses, until I got a small no-interest loan from, you guessed it, my parents.

Most people would be able to stay with their parents in time of need.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Equal skill, the taller person will be the better basketball player.

So you are for removing identifying markers of any kind, including name on resumes?

For large companies, yes. Resumes should be anonymized before reaching the people who make the hiring decisions. That's not feasible for small companies, though.

So you choose height over the shorter guy that jumps higher?