Unitended racism

Legend responds to me:

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The government decides on a policy

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Huh? The government can "decide on a policy" all it wants, it doesn't mean jack squat. They're called "non-binding resolutions" and the government does it all the time. What matters is the law that comes out. Now, the debate that happens during the passage of the law will be looked at. After all, no law is perfect and complete. It helps to know what the intent of Congress was in writing the law. But what is the final point is what the law is.

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pay particular attention to clause 153 which states:

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This clause permits an employer to take a protected characteristic into consideration
when deciding who to recruit or promote, where people having the protected characteristic are
at a disadvantage or are under-represented. This can be done only where the candidates are
equally qualified, and the clause does not allow employers to have a policy of automatically
treating people who share a protected characteristic more favourably than those who do not.

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So:
if I have two equally qualified candidates and I promote the white one because he's white I'm being a racist.
if I have two equally qualified candidates and I promote the asian one because he's asian I'm taking positive action.

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Huh? Didn't you read your own source? So your second part is illegal by your own rules. It would certainly be illegal under US law.

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You're all arguing that AA goes to quotas.

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where did I say that.

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Did you or did you not say: If you can't remember your own argument....

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Heck, the U of M even did it without knowing it!

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And the law was on the side of those who were discriminated against. You seem to be upset over this.

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If anything protected the whites, it was the good judgement and common sense displayed by the Supreme Court.

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Which was the entire point of the law. The same law that protected the non-whites and the women also protected the men. You seem to be upset that the law came to the defense of people.By your logic, we should do away with the entire legal system since people keep breaking the law.

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But..hang on...I thought us white males already had a massive advantage in the workplace, as AA proponents claim, so why the need to protect us?

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Because discrimination can happen in any direction. The fact that it doesn't often happen to white males doesn't mean it never does. And the U of M case is precisely that: White males were being discriminated against and the very law you're complaining about is what protected them.

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To even imply that the motivation -any motivation- behind AA was to protect white males is simply laughable.

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To think that affirmative action doesn't seek to include white males is pathetic. There's a reason that it talks about "race" and "sex" rather than "blacks" and "women." In ensuring that those who are in the minority get a fair shake, we cannot go overboard in the other direction and start punishing the majority. They have to be protected, too.

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Just because someone has legal recourse against it doesn't mean that the policy isn't inherently racist or sexist.

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Huh? That's precisely what it means. If the law protects the majority from being discriminated against just as much as the minority, how can it be biased against either?

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Simply when it actively encourages discrimination based on race or gender.

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But the very actions you are claiming it "encourages" are explicitly illegal. How can legislation "encourage" something it directly and specifically states you're not allowed to do?If I tell you not to do something and you do it, how is it my fault?

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Don't even get me started on 'hate crimes'. Another messed-up, thought-crime legislation to appease the PC gods.

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Huh? "Thought-crime"? Since when has anybody anywhere been punished for mere thought? You seem to have forgotten that you have to commit a crime. And just like all other crime, your intent is taken into account. That's why we have the distinction between first degree and second degree murder: The former involves pre-meditation while the latter is about reckless disregard. But by your logic, we shouldn't recognize any difference. In fact, there's no such thing as "murder." There's only "manslaughter." And that concept of "self-defense"? That's about what you were "thinking" and thus is to be abolished as a defense. If someone dies as a result of your action, it doesn't matter that you thought your life was in danger. How "PC" to consider people's thoughts in evaluating what happened.Would you be happier if we called it "terrorism"? Because that's what it is. Surely your complaint isn't about what its called, is it?

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So you somehow believe that the fact that the courts called two direct applications of AA policy illegal destroys my argument?!

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No, I believe the fact that the courts pointed out that what they did was NOT AA destroys your argument.If I tell you not to do something and you do it anyway, how is that my fault?

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The white firefighters were racially discriminated against because of AA guidelines.

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No, they weren't. Remember, nobody was denied a promotion. You haven't actually read the case or know the history, have you?Hint: Did the Supreme Court follow precedent or did they create new precedent?

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ahem...[*cough, cough*]...

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Didn't you read your own source?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Legend responds to me:

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Actually, the use of quotas had been prohibited back in 1978 in the Bakke vs Regents case

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And the U of M case involved actions that took place in the 90s. This had been settled law for decades.

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To claim that racial quotas are prohibited because of AA laws is disingenuous.

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Do you have any idea what the function of judicial review is? It is to interpret the law. Therefore, the claim that racial quotas weren't originally prohibited by AA only shows that you know nothing about jurisprudence.

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Because the AA law didn't by itself protect them, Bakke vs Regents did back in 1978.

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The Bakke decision didn't create any law. It clarified what the already extant law meant. Therefore, it protected them via AA law. No law can possibly anticipate every possible situation that might ever come along. That's the entire point behind judicial review: To let us know how the law applies to specific circumstances.

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The very law which fosters discrimination against white men is barring one method of discrimination.

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Huh? If the law is protecting white men from discrimination, how can it possibly be "fostering" discrimination against them?If I tell you specifically and directly not to do something and you do it anyway, how is that my fault? How on earth did I "foster" your forbidden behaviour?

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They already knew that racial quotas were illegal and had known it for the last 30 years. The crux of the case was to determine if the U of M's point system was effectively a racial quota. THAT's WHAT WON THEIR CASE.

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Huh? Your first sentence completely destroys your point, you know: It had been known for decades that quotas were allowed. The U of M actions were found to be a quota and thus illegal. The very law that you're upset about is what protected the white males.How dare affirmative action law protect people it was designed to protect!

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The students won their case because of the Bakke vs Regents case.

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And Bakke didn't strike down any law. You keep saying that AA leads to quotas but quotas are unconstitutional under Bakke and AA is still the law. Therefore, AA cannot possibly lead to quotas for if it did, Bakke would prevent it from being law.

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if A = my "racist policy encourages racist action" argument.
B = your "math is sometimes applied incorrectly" supposition
and P = the "bad application doesn't invalidate the framework" property.

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you've inferred that A (like) B && B (has) P => A (has) P.

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But you haven't established weak analogy. My point is that A is false, not that A has P. Affirmative action is not racist, therefore it is not a "racist policy encouraging racist action."

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Really? Wierd....From the link in the OP:

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The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race,

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I haven't actually read the case nor know the history. Do you have a better link? In the case where a person doesn't even know that the something exists and you telling them of it makes them aware of it, but you tell them not to do it in such a poor way that they mistakenly start doing it, then there's something wrong with the way you told them and its partially some fault of yours that they began doing it.

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I don't know anything about AA laws. The bosses here don't know much about AA laws. Actually, I don't think I know anyone in person who knows what the AA laws are supposed to have us do in our day-to-day activities. But it does have people scared shitless to discipline the minorities too much or to promote the majority too much.Here's how I began to hate AA:A job in the past I got to start working on the night shift. There was one guy there working that shift and as they were getting busier, the work wasn't getting all done so they decided to hire another person (me). I come in and do 75% of the work while the other guy does the other 25%. I could easily do all the work by myself and in some cases the other guy is actually slowing me down. The problem was that he was too slow to get all the work done, not that there was too much work for one person. It turns out that later they need to cut one person from the night shift. I tell the boss that I could easily do all the work by myself and didn't need another persons help. The bosses reply was that they didn't want to do that because they thought it would look bad if the brought in me, a young white guy, and then fired the other guy, an old black man.They were scared to do it because of the existance of AA laws.Granted, they were probably misunderstanding the law, actualyl I don't even think they really had an understanding of it at all. Like I said, I don't think I know anyone who does. Its like scare tactics or something. Its shitty.

That is shitty, and perhaps people in a position to hire/fire someone should take a short course on the intentions and application of AA laws, but the fact that people don't take the time to learn about the law means the law should be done away with. Unknowingly breaking the law is not a defense, you still broke the law.In Wisconsin, it is legal to make a right turn on a red light or to make a U-turn unless either action is expressly prohibited by a sign. If I drive in another state which has a different law, and not knowing that the law is different, I make a right turn on a red light and get pulled over, I'm still liable to pay a fine. Why? Because I broke the law and didn't make the effort to know what the law was. Ignorance is not a defense. If someone doesn't know how to apply AA, ro what AA says, then that's their fault, not the law's. Curiously, you began to hate a law that would protect you against this sort of discrimination instead of the people who were openly practicing discrimination. Strange.

Its too bad the business world doesn't work that way.BTW, do you have a link for such a course? I think you meant to say that it DOES NOT mean that the law should be done away with, but I was not advocating that anyways. I know all about that. St. Louis is on the border of IL and MO. I was specifically trained, in IL, that it is legal to make a left turn at a light after the green has gone through yellow and to red if you find yourself stuck out in the middle of the intersection. I found out the hard way that that is illegal in MO. Well, if the law is poorly written and poorly implemented, and it requires people taking a class to perform their basic work function in regulation with the law, then that law is a shitty one. They were openly practicing discrimination because of the existence of the AA law.

Yeah, like traffic laws. It's a great thing we don't have some sort of driver's education class we need to go through to learn those laws, or they would be shitty indeed.In fact, we have so many laws with so many nuances and variations that it often requires people who will be specializing in one area, or operating under one set of laws to have more than a passing familiarity with them. That's just how it works. No, I don't. I'm sure some exist, but a company may have to ask for them directly to come host a seminar or something. I'm not sure. I could look for you if you're really interested, or perhaps someone else posting here knows of such a course. It really is. And there's a lot about how business "works" that I find too bad. In Wisconsin, it's technically illegal, but everyone does it (including the cops) so unless you have a pissed off or very strict cop on your tail, you'll prolly get away with it here. I doubt the law is written poorly, it's probably just written in legalese, which is a language that requires deep study to discern...not to mention the right staff with runes and the moon has to be approaching the vernal equinox on the last thursday of a 31 day month...but that doesn't mean it's written poorly.As for implementation, that's left to the individual companies/agencies doing the hiring, and as such, the quality of said implementation is dependent on the diligence of the hiring agency. They were openly practicing discrimination because of their misunderstanding of the AA law. Again, it's not the law's fault, it's still theirs. They could have easily found out if what they were doing was wrong if they had looked at the actual law, rather than relying on what they thought it might have said...maybe.Another traffic law. It's illegal to pass on the right on a one lane road. So, for instance, you can't pass a tractor by driving on the shoulder of the road. This is unsafe and a good law. Now, if someone only hears the "No passing on the right" part of the law and assumes they can't pull into the right most lane of a highway to get past a slow moving vehicle and end up being late to a job interview, thus missing out on the chance to get a great job, should the person be angry at the law, or the fact that they misunderstood it?

Yes it did. But, repeating myself once again, the U of M weren't aware that they were breaking the law because they weren't expicitly setting racial quotas. What they did was to set up a points per seat system which amounted to a racial quota.
As far as they were concerned they were keeping to the letter of the law but also, more importantly, to its spirit which was to promote minority candidates. Which they succesfully did.This is what Judge Friedman wrote on the case:

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While the law school has not set aside a fixed number of seats, there is no principled difference between a fixed number of seats and an essentially fixed minimum percentage figure.

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You do understand the difference between 'technically' and 'effectively', 'expicitly' and 'implicitly' don't you? Yo do understand that although they didn't 'actually' fix a number of seats they 'essentially' did ?It's like asking you to prevent someone from entering a public building against their will. But you're not allowed to hit them. So you trip them up, they fall and break their leg. As far as you're aware you're fine: you didn't directly hit them and you achieved the objective of stopping them. Ofcourse you indirectly hit them, so you did break the rules albeit in a roundabout kind of way. Is it exclusively your fault or is there also something wrong with the rules which ask you to prevent certain people from entering the building?I can think of a number of ways of preventing someone from entering a building. Almost all of them are illegal or immoral or both. Almost all of them involve some degree of violence. I'd say that rules which require me to prevent someone from entering a building promote violence and thuggish behaviour, wouldn't you? Whether the rules prohibit one form of violence is really neither here or there, the fact remains that the rules do promote violence.Similarly, AA laws promote racist actions. Whether the actions involve setting up a quota or a points system or any other discriminatory practice -legal or illegal- is besides the point.
One cannot promote one person in front of another because of their race without taking some form of racist action, legal or not. Yes, but the means you are allowed and encouraged to use are predominantly racist. ?!....[bangs head against wall]......but that's what I've been saying all along: the U of M mistakenly put a quota in. This doesn't change the fact that they did it to fulfill the directive of the law. 'Bad' laws encourage people to do 'bad' things! Laws that promote racism encourage peple to take racist actions. You're getting sucked into the whirlpool of your own arrogance again. These bundle of sticks ("fasces") were an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrates and were used for corporal and capital punishment. That's why the word "fascist" is used to denote people who will use or favour authoritarian or dictatorial methods. Nationalism and xenophobia weren't associated with the term until after the rise of 20th century 'fascism' movements which also happened to be nationalistic and xenophobic. Hence, the original meaning of the word relates to the yielding of authoritarian power. You've advocating direct state intervention in order to achieve specific workplace demographics, without any consideration for the employer's opinion, goals or circumstances.
You're supporting laws (AA) which causes misery through unfair treatment to thousands of people just because it matches your ideology and belief system and it's the 'right' thing to do.
You're treating opponents to your position like small-minded racist bigots in an attempt to shout them down and gain the high moral ground.
You're treating opponents to your position contemptuously and dismissively, with your *blinks* and your *chuckles* in an attempt to ridicule them.So yes, you do exhibit the tendency to impose autocratic control, push for dominance of your ideology despite the human cost and employ dictatorial methods to suppress opposition.
On the plus side, you're not as bad as other people I've debated with. "Junior, you must eat some sweets to keep your blood sugar up but you can't get any cookies from the cookie jar."
You then go off to do something and when you come back, you find a cookie in Junior's mouth:
"Didn't I say not to get any cookies?"
"Oh, but I didn't get this cookie off the cookie jar! I found it on the foor. You didn't say I couldn't eat cookies off the floor and you did say I had to have something sweet"That's a more apt analogy. Objective achieved and rules not technically broken. nice manoeuvre! You did ofcourse totally ignored the part where I claimed how accessible computers are these days with free public access at most public buildings, overall higher computer ownership and paid-access at interent cafes and such. Lack of ownership doesn't mean lack of access! BTW you really must stop using statistics like a machine gun, hoping that the opponent will take cover from the barrage of numbers and start using them instead as a sniper rifle, to target specific points.So you're seriously suggesting that a minority person who want to look at the job boards can't get access to a computer for an hour or so? I find that a very unrealistic and somehow deluded view. Huh? NO IT ISN'T! Qualifications and skills have to do with one's suitability for a particular job, perceived 'advantages' or 'disadvantages' based on someone's race or colour have NOTHING to do with one's suitability for a particular job. They are as objective as you can get. You can measure skills. In my company everybody gets the same technical tests. Everybody's measured against the same standard. It doesn't get more objective than this.You still haven't answered my question about who's more 'disadvantaged'.
a) A Korean person who hasn't bothered to learn English,
b) an Asian person who wanted to learn English but was unable to, or
c) a white European who wanted to learn English but was unable toPlease also tell me how you measure their disadvantage. How many 'disadvantage points' does each get? and why? that's all very nice but it doesn't address the issue I raised:If I state that employers have the right to choose whoever they think is most suitable for the job and that person is white then I'm a bigot.
If I state that employers have the right to choose whoever they think is most suitable for the job and that person is gay, then I'm a...what exactly?so, what is it ?? Edited by Legend, : No reason given.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Which is why promoting someone because of their race is expressly forbidden. In fact, this is the entire point behind AA. People were promoting people because they were white males. This was seen as racist, so they made a law that says it is illegal to promote someone because of their race or sex. The fact that people misunderstand that to mean "promote a black person over a white person" is not the fault of the rule. It may be a fault of the educating about the rule, but getting rid of this rule would make the things you don't like legal, whereas this law makes the things you don't like illegal.Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

No it's not! This is clause 153 of the UK Equalities Bill 2009:

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This clause permits an employer to take a protected characteristic into consideration when deciding who to recruit or promote, where people having the protected characteristic are at a disadvantage or are under-represented.

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No, the entire point of AA is precisely to promote someone because of their race, gender or ethnicity. Until white persons are declared to be disadvantaged or under-represented, promoting a black person over a white one is the direct result of the rule!

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

I have no knowledge of UK's version of AA. I was speaking only about AA as enforced and used in the US.But the clause you state still doesn't say a person can be promoted because they are black or "disadvantaged" it merely says that a person's race or gender can be a factor weighed along with everything else, including aptitude and ability.Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

err...you missed the first sentence. Let me point it out to you:

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This clause permits an employer to take a protected characteristic into consideration
when deciding who to recruit or promote, where people having the protected characteristic are
at a disadvantage or are under-represented.

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You can't automatically treat people who have protected characteristics favourably, but in individual cases you are encouraged to favour one over another based on their race, ethnicity or sex amongst other things.
Which is a textbook example of discrimination. Also note how it covers selection ("who to recruit or promote") and not advertisement. ugh?? how the hell did you infer that this means that "AA goes to quotas"?! I must have stated at least a dozen times in this thread that there are many ways to apply AA and quotas is one of the most obvious ones. Argue what I write not what you think I write! bollocks! The entire point of the AA law is to promote under-represented minorities. The SCOTUS had the good sense to see that the U of M were effectively, though not explcitly, setting a quota. Setting quotas is illegal thanks to the Bakke case, 1978. The AA law simply reflects this judgement. Claiming that the AA laws protected the whites is disingenuous and misleading. The whites were protected because of Bakke and the good judgement of SCOTUS and NOT because of a law which owns its existence to the notion that minorities should be given special treatment for being minorities. How the hell does a law that expicitly dictates the promotion of minorities over the majority, protect the majority?! stop flogging that dead horse again! I was actually talking about the Avon Fire Service case in the UK. And the day when being a white male becomes a protected characteristic you'll have a valid point. Until then you're just talking out of your arse!

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Not gonna happen. Rrhain just will not do that.I can't tell if its by choice or not though. If it is, then he's the biggest douche at EvC. If it isn't, then he has some kind of mental problem.I've found its better to just avoid him.

Judicial Review means the courts look at the law and try to determine, if not the letter then the intent of the law. The intent was to curb discrimination, and thus they rightly saw that discriminating against whites was contrary to the intent, so while the law may have originally seemed to encourage discrimination against white males, the court realized this was not what the framers of the law wanted and thus refined it to outlaw quotas. This is how the legislative and judical processes interact and make laws better. No one can forsee every consequence of a law or how every person may misinterpret a law. They try, but it almost always comes down to a court case that sets precedent and begins to build up a mountain of real-life examples to display how the law should work.In America, AA, as has been refined by cases such as Bakke, outlaws discrimination, whatever group of people may be in question.The fact that this law goes to intent, which is internal, means it will be difficult to enforce, and so one way to determine if people are being discriminated against is to look at the racial and sexual makeup of a particular group of people and trying to determine if that make-up is representative of the larger population that could have been selected. If it is strongly out of whack, it's an indication that discrimination was taking place. This works just as well if its a lot of white people being promoted over blacks, or a lot of black people being promoted over whites. In essence, if a hiring manager is behaving correctly and looking at qualifications only, the racial make-up should represent the racial make-up of the pool of qualified applicants.If you can think of a better way to stop discrimination, present it and we can debate the merits and problems with it. Go ahead, I dare ya.

No, the problem is that 1. You have no idea why someone else was hired over you. It is easy for minorities who were fairly not given a job because of lack of experience to pull the race card because companies are so terrified of litigation that they'll generally cave in under pressure.We therefore have a crux and an impasse to deal with.Who polices the abuse? How can we prove someone was not hired because of their race rather than their overall lack of experience or general disposition (come across as having a bad attitude, indifferent, lazy, etc)? Or how can you prove there were no racist motives in the decision? It comes down to a he said/she said thing.This is alot like sexual harrassment cases. It used to be that because it was so serious an issue, even the very mention of it by a woman was grounds enough to believe her. That's not fair to the male who very well may be the victim, not the victimizer, to a vindictive woman. The very same thing can and does happen with race/employment issues.The only way to really know is if you see a disproportionate amount of minorites not hired even though they have more experience or expertise, not merely that not alot of minorities work at company X. Because perhaps not many applied in the first place. So what are they supposed to do, track down minorities to keep the government out of their business? Other than that it is an easy card to play for minorities.Secondly, AA focuses entirely on race. It's not merely counterintuitive, it perpetuates the very thing they want to do away with.To be honest I 'd be horribly offended knowing that I got a job because I'm a minority. Worse yet, why would I want to work for a company that only gave me the position because I'm of a certain gender, race, or creed?Society has dealt with this issue far better than anything else. It is like societal acceptance of nicotene use. It is becoming unpopular to smoke, which is a complete 180 degrees from where it began. It's the same with racism.The problem practically resolved itself. And if it doesn't, so what? How can you tell a soveriegn and private businesses that they can't hire whomever they want? Racism isn't a crime, but it is socially unacceptable.I also would estimate that if certain minorities don't get a job because of prejudice, I would say that it has less to do with race than it does cultural differences. If someone comes across as a thug, regardless of race, that person is sending a red flag, "Hey, I'm going to be a problem if you hire me. So why even bother with the hassle?" That is regardless of race.

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"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

That's an unsettling statement. There are dozens of reasons why the demographics of selected candidates won't reflect the demographics of qualified candidates. Assuming that racism is the cause is ludicrous and, frankly, quite ominous. It moves us well into thought crime territory where one is condemned for their assumed intent, based on circumstantial evidence.I used to work for a manager who hated a particular regional accent, he thought it was common and he also thought that customers wouldn't be comfortable with it (he was probably correct). All other things being equal, he would reject candidates who had that accent. As it happened, this accent was mainly prevalent among white people, so no problem there I suppose. But let's hypothetically assume that this accent was the jamaican/west-indies one. What would happen then? One would see more black candidates being rejected than white ones. That woudln't mean that he was racist, but following your reasoning he would be assumed to be racist, with all the consequences this entails.Believing that the racial makeup of the candidate group should be reflected in the selected group is naive, unrealistic and ignores a number of other factors that affect the selection process. I already have! Back in Message 42 I vividly supported Asgara's statement :

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I don't believe we'll ever be able to level the playing field at the end of the game until we concentrate on leveling it at the START of the game.
Level out educational opportunity, access to technology at an early age, pay teachers what they're worth.

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Racism springs from ignorance and fear. Educating people removes ignorance and reduces fear.Also: remove race, ethnicity and colour from the employment equation. If people keep thinking that their race or colour makes a difference (for good or for bad) racism will continue to live on. Laws like AA feed racism, they fan its fire.If you're just looking for an easy, quick fix then sorry, there isn't any.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"