White privilege poll.

[laughing dog]

White privilege can proven to exist by purely empirical observation. How else could so many stupid white people be found in positions of power and influence? What are the alternative explanations?

Unfortunately, there are really stupid people of all races in positions of power and influence.

Try to focus - the observation is about "so many" not "there is at least one".

A nice theoretical exercise would be to empirically define "really stupid" and "positions of power and influence" and then take a random sample and compare the demographics of the sample to that of the population as a whole. Absent that, casual empiricism will simply wallow in aesthetic preferences.

 

[ruby sparks]

But the hostility to the idea of white scholarships shows that White Privilege is demonstratively false.

Lol.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

To the extent that there is a lasting effect it's attitudes passed from parent to child.

OMG. Garbage. And an insult to boot.

Look, if you really, actually don't have a clue about this, maybe you shouldn't post?

On second thoughts, keep posting. More laughs in the politics thread are always welcome.

If it's discrimination why don't immigrant blacks suffer like native-born blacks?

Why does race disappear as a factor when you properly control for socioeconomic factors?

 

[Worldtraveller]

A simple simple of white privilege:

https://pressrun.media/p/when-the-press-buried-obama-for-ebola

 

[ruby sparks]

If it's discrimination why don't immigrant blacks suffer like native-born blacks?

You should, in fact must (unless you have memory problems) know what the response to that (itself questionable in the first place) question is because you've been given it before, including by me.

You routinely engage in denialism. There is really not much more to say.

Except, just to make it worse, most of the data you ever cite is complete shite into the bargain. That one you recently posted about police shootings was a joke.

Why does race disappear as a factor when you properly control for socioeconomic factors?

Race does not tend to disappear when socioeconomics are controlled for, except in Lorenland, because (newsflash) there's still racism out there. Sheesh. You talk bollocks, mate. Total bollocks. Every single day you post here. It's pathetic to watch, actually. And a disgrace, imo.

 

[Worldtraveller]

To the extent that there is a lasting effect it's attitudes passed from parent to child.

OMG. Garbage. And an insult to boot.

Look, if you really, actually don't have a clue about this, maybe you shouldn't post?

On second thoughts, keep posting. More laughs in the politics thread are always welcome.

If it's discrimination why don't immigrant blacks suffer like native-born blacks?

Why does race disappear as a factor when you properly control for socioeconomic factors?

What does properly controlling for socioeconomic factors look like?

Are you saying wealthy black people don't get:
- pulled over more than whites
- the cops called on them for driving through their own neighborhood
- the cops called on them while going into their own fucking house?

These are just a few of the things I've seen reports of in the last couple years.

I can get you lots (and lots) more if you really continue to pretend (?) to be so fucking ignorant.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It was intentionally a bit satirical but satire is generally a reductio ad absurdum intended to make a point.

Personal experience: In the late 1970s I applied for a job at a large company (AT&T). The hirer told me that he wold like to keep my application on file for some future opening because I was the most qualified applicant but he couldn't hire me for the position they were trying to fill because a minority was needed to meet the mandated quota. My 'white privilege' didn't help me.

A few weeks later, I got a call from them telling me that they had a new opening but I had already found another job.

Strange thing about this is, black people aren't at fault for that (not saying you are blaming them). It was necessary because there was a time companies like AT&T would not hire blacks. It took financial force from the law to make them do it. Whether or not it's still needed today is debatable (I side with it not). Yet today when affirmative actions comes up I see anecdotes like yours being perceived (not by you but by racist buffoons) as less qualified people getting the job based on race. That is not how it was intended. It was so qualified minorities aren't disregarded because of their color at a time when they actually were being discriminated against in favor of (in many cases un)-qualified whites. It doesn't mean that someone less qualified gets the job based on their color. Whether that is actually how companies are doing it is beyond my ability to confirm.

Exactly. Such racially mandated quotas were needed at the time to 'level the playing field'. They seem to me to have done a fair job of doing exactly that. The fact that a few people were 'inconvenienced' (for the greater good) by companies complying to the letter of the law is just an unfortunate side effect.

Which is where I stand, also. AA was a necessary evil, it's long past having done it's job. It's now an easier ride for those who would have made it anyway while doing nothing about those it purports to help. Prosecute actual discrimination, but don't determine that by headcounting! Where there is still a real issue is with voting, though--the Republicans are engaged in large-scale discrimination against blacks (although it pretty much just a proxy for voting Democrat.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Exactly. Such racially mandated quotas were needed at the time to 'level the playing field'. They seem to me to have done a fair job of doing exactly that. The fact that a few people were 'inconvenienced' (for the greater good) by companies complying to the letter of the law is just an unfortunate side effect.

Except that there are no quotas. That's just a hobby horse.

Did you not read the inner quote of your own message? You have a specific example of racial discrimination and yet you claim it doesn't exist.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It was intentionally a bit satirical but satire is generally a reductio ad absurdum intended to make a point.

Personal experience: In the late 1970s I applied for a job at a large company (AT&T). The hirer told me that he wold like to keep my application on file for some future opening because I was the most qualified applicant but he couldn't hire me for the position they were trying to fill because a minority was needed to meet the mandated quota. My 'white privilege' didn't help me.

A few weeks later, I got a call from them telling me that they had a new opening but I had already found another job at a different company.

AT & T voluntarily committed to building a strong and diverse workforce, which has been a fairly successful and lucrative project for them. They are not, however, the nation's only employer or capable of hiring everyone who needs a job or promoting everyone in need of a promotion. Nor is it in their power to eliminate structural inequalities such as disparate educational opportunities, lack of healthcare, and disproportionate experiences of crime, that affect people long before they start seeking a job. Even within AT & T, despite their good intentions, diversity thins as you start looking at upper management as opposed to entry level positions, though I do not think this is for lack of trying. Not everything is under their control.

On a more personal note. I think you've got one hell of a case of sour grapes, claiming workplace discrimination when they literally called you back to offer you another job, which you didn't need because you had one by then. You are incredibly blind to your own privilege, and obviously have no idea what it is like to look for work if you don't fit the unspoken profile of hireability. Hint: They don't call you back. And you don't have mutliple concurrent job opportunities to choose from like you're at a goddamned career buffet. You were in no way harmed by this experience, and could not have been harmed by this experience, yet you're nursing an inexplicable grudge. Privilege in a nutshell.

He gave you a smoking gun of racial discrimination and you're complaining that he's being unreasonable.

Note that this is how most discrimination turns out--there are plenty of other choices, the loss of one is no big deal. Discrimination only had power when most everyone did it. These days it only has power when there's only one choice. (For example, voting as I brought up in my earlier post.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Exactly. Such racially mandated quotas were needed at the time to 'level the playing field'. They seem to me to have done a fair job of doing exactly that. The fact that a few people were 'inconvenienced' (for the greater good) by companies complying to the letter of the law is just an unfortunate side effect.

Except that there are no quotas. That's just a hobby horse.

There were in the 1970s. Today the EEOC will quickly investigate and respond to any complaint of employment discrimination if needed. It is a softer control than the original mandated quotas but no company wants the EEOC on their back so they make extreme efforts to insure they stay within the EEOC guidelines.

Exactly. My former employer kept a bad employee because he was one of only two blacks working for the company and they figured it was cheaper to keep cleaning up the machines (he was going to dodgy sites and contaminating work computers. This was long before the days of ransomware and the like, the machines didn't have write access to programs on the server, thus it was only a headache, not a serious threat) than risk the EEOC.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If it's discrimination why don't immigrant blacks suffer like native-born blacks?

You should, in fact must (unless you have memory problems) know what the response to that (itself questionable in the first place) question is because you've been given it before, including by me.

You routinely engage in denialism. There is really not much more to say.

Except, just to make it worse, most of the data you ever cite is complete shite into the bargain. That one you recently posted about police shootings was a joke.

Why does race disappear as a factor when you properly control for socioeconomic factors?

Race does not tend to disappear when socioeconomics are controlled for, except in Lorenland, because (newsflash) there's still racism out there. Sheesh. You talk bollocks, mate. Total bollocks. Every single day you post here. It's pathetic to watch, actually. And a disgrace, imo.

I've already given multiple examples. You're the one in denial.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A simple simple of white privilege:

https://pressrun.media/p/when-the-press-buried-obama-for-ebola

The Republicans engaged in some pretty major manipulation of the press and the press has a big problem with reporting "this isn't an issue". I don't think it's a racial issue at all.

 

[Trausti]

Systemic racism is the White Evilness that nobody can actually see or measure, but that you must take on faith is the cause of everything bad.

 

[ruby sparks]

I've already given multiple examples. You're the one in denial.

How on earth could race, in the USA, disappear as a factor, Loren? How could that happen? There'd have to be no racism, and no effects of racism, in the USA.

 

[Trausti]

I've already given multiple examples. You're the one in denial.

How on earth could race, in the USA, disappear as a factor, Loren? How could that happen? There'd have to be no racism, and no effects of racism, in the USA.

Yeah, it hasn’t disappeared. I was a poor white boy who was bused to the inner city for integration. I got to experience it daily.

 

[Testy Calibrate]

I did not say they had the same categories as now.



But again, I did not say that, nor was that my interpretation.

Please do not try to put words in my mouth.

If the races have always been perceived the same way by all peoples regardless of context.....

I don't know where you got that from either. I didn't say it.

It must be Straw Man Sunday in your neck of the woods.

Maybe, but I read your post the same way. Aristotle did not make a case that there were 2 categories of people where black and white were the two main categories or even that race was distinct from geographic territory and the cultures of those places. If you are just saying that he could identify shades of skin tone, then you aren't really making a point afaict.

 

[Testy Calibrate]

I don't think you can understand white privilege without incorporating the study of socioeconomic class. Absent class issues, the "white race" and "black race" would never have been invented to begin with. It is and always was a cynical idea, meant to divide the working poor against each one another and stave off rebellion against the aristocracy. The true power brokers have enough education to know that biology doesn't really work the way folk taxonomies of race would have you believe (and it shows, when you look at how they treat impoverished whites) but when you have a considerable economic stake in the perpetuation of a bad idea, it's not hard to convince yourself of it.

The idea of different races is a social construct. It is only one of the concepts being used to divide the poor and the middle class against themselves for the benefit of the 1% top earners. That is the purpose of the culture wars too; law and order, abortion, gun rights, drugs, terrorism, religious differences, etc. have all been hyped to scare people and to divide people.

There is no biological evidence that supports the very basis of the concept of race, that behavior is different between people who exhibit the small differences that constitute "race." I don't think that there is anyone here on this discussion board that uses that argument anymore.

Now the argument that I hear most often now is that it is the cultures of some of the different minority races that are toxic and that condemns them to underachievement and poverty. I am still waiting for someone to tell me why there is a separate culture for the different "races," which I see is due to the majority culture imposing the toxic culture on minorities.

the idea of a social construct is not obvious without some in depth consideration and some reading material.

 

[Emily Lake]

Yes, of course white privilege exists. In and of itself, privilege isn't a bad thing. So let's figure out a way to extend those privileges so they are available to other people as the normal standard.

 

[Trausti]

Yes, of course white privilege exists. In and of itself, privilege isn't a bad thing. So let's figure out a way to extend those privileges so they are available to other people as the normal standard.

Treat everyone as individuals and not obsess about group membership?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Yes, of course white privilege exists. In and of itself, privilege isn't a bad thing. So let's figure out a way to extend those privileges so they are available to other people as the normal standard.

Treat everyone as individuals and not obsess about group membership?

That's like telling short people to just be taller.

On second thought it's not like that. It's like telling people we're all the same. We're not.