Racism - A Sanity Check

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Yeah. Just like freeing the slaves was degrading. After all, if they were truly able, they'd have freed themselves

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I hardly think you can compare abolition to lowering the admission standards for certain groups based on skin color.And that's exactly what AA is: recognition that some minorities just aren't up to par. Sounds pretty degrading to me.This message has been edited by gene90, 09-21-2005 08:59 PM

Yeah so long as that playing field includes you getting advantages unavailable to everyone else.You don't want a fair playing field. You want everything to go your way, and if anyone else gets hurt. Tough cookies.A fair playing field means that those who have been disadvantaged get a helping hand, while those that have been unjustly thrust ahead have to give up 1 or 2 of their many many privledges.You're trying to suggest that everything is already balanced and any look at any of the statistics would show that is obviously falseBut, as I have post at least 5 times now, I'll post againWhere is your alternative solution?Stop bitching about how horrible the current system is and step up with something better. Not "Oh we should do it based on poverty". Give me a system by which we determine who is and who isnt poor. How do we let employers know that an applicant is poor? How do we test to see if they are complying with the system?

No, I assume that they have no suggestion at all, and thus, persons of all different races should be randomly distributed throughout different career areas. Then we agree at last - your skin color has no effect on what careers you're likely to choose or likely to apply for or likely to be able to do, and thus, if certain career areas favor certain races, its due to discriminatory hiring and not an artifact of the applicant pool.So what are we arguing about? You not understanding my position, I suppose. Yes, there is. It's the rule of the random sample. A truly random sample has, within statistical tolerances, the same distributions as the whole. This is basic statistics, Holmes. If you sample the height of 1000 people randomly chosen from a population, then the distribution of their heights in the sample will be more or less the same as the distribution of heights in the whole.If hiring people is a random sample of race, which it should be if racism is not a factor in hiring, then each employment area will have a distribution of races more or less equal to the population that they're drawing from.It's basic stats. In fact, the way that statiticans detect bias in samples is by detecting differences in distributions between a sample and the whole, or with other samples. If you know that the mean height in your whole is 180 cm, and your sample of 1000 has a mean height of 150 cm, then you know that there's a high likelyhood that your sampling process was biased. I don't recall saying that they don't. Reading problems? I have not ever called you a racist. What example? Your own? Yeah, Holmes, you're really hard-up, aren't you? I can tell you've really suffered from discrimination against your race. And if you think that context, even, is pro-reparations, you've still failed amazingly to communicate.I can accept that you support reparations, and that my view of your views on reparations was mistaken. I apologize for being mistaken. But if you think that at any point you accurately portrayed your views of reparations in that post, you're very much mistaken. I don't see what else needs to be said on the subject; it's pretty obvious that you pursue these little tangents because you cannot bear to be wrong on literally any subject, and that you'll chase after me or anyone to any extent to get them to yield on any dispute with you.Well, whatever. As much as I'd like to play that game with you I'm restricting it to certain topics - the ones that are on-topic on this thread. So allow me again to apologize for not being able to read your mind. Can we move on now? In regards to race, yes, they should be. If race has nothing to do with employment then a hire should be a random sample of race. That's what it means to take a random sample.It's basic statistics, Holmes. I'm not even going to respond to this. You're way off-base - you've completely mistated my argument once again, presumably to refute a straw-man. Well, good fucking luck with that. Remind me why I should bother to debate with you again? Hey, that won't stop you from trying to argue against your ludicrous straw-men, now will it? How about a new technique for you - you don't try to address my arguments until you understand them. How does that grab you? And you're the guy that castigated me a few weeks ago when I had the daring honesty to point out that I don't always read all your extraordinarily long posts? At least I was honest enough to admit that I don't catch every single word of yours. How about you extend me the same courtesy?Post 92. Try to get caught up already.

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Yeah so long as that playing field includes you getting advantages unavailable to everyone else.

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No, that's your assertion that there is something called "white privelige". We've asked Crashfrog to define that for us, and he told us it was "invisible".In other words, you're making it up.If you want to have privelige-based hiring practices, a good way to do it would be to give extra points to applicants that had little access to decent schools, for example. That'll help poor whites and blacks.Don't tell me that the gov't doesn't already have a definition for poverty. We have a Federal welfare system for crying out loud.My solution would be to simply hire the most qualified.This message has been edited by gene90, 09-21-2005 09:10 PM

I told you what it was, in post 92. Why don't you go back and read it?Why is it so hard for you to believe that you enjoy invisible priviledges? Don't you ever watch those ridiculous celebrity reality shows? Isn't it a huge joke in our culture, in fact, that so many of the wealthy and famous enjoy privileges that they take for granted?Why do you find it immediately risible that you yourself enjoy racially-based priviledges that you don't even think about? When was the last time you were pulled over because your car looked too expensive? But mostly blacks, which means that we'll have clowns on the right-wing like you asserting that it's still "racist."

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Why is it so hard for you to believe that you enjoy invisible priviledges

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Because I don't, and your trying to ask me to have faith in the idea that I do.

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But mostly blacks, which means that we'll have clowns on the right-wing like you asserting that it's still "racist."

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And why should I care what the clowns have to say?

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When was the last time you were pulled over because your car looked too expensive?

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I don't get pulled over because I obey speed limits and drive reasonably. But if the cops with radar guns can tell my race when I'm going 70 down the highway, they have a lot better vision than I do.

Fram Crashfrog's Post 92.

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The privilege you enjoy is that nobody considers you a failure to the white race because you live the way you do. Nobody considers you a negative example of being a white person.

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What?As opposed to what--a negative example of the Arab race?

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That's the priviledge.

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?

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Next time how about you do your own homework on white priviledge? God, you people.

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Beg your parden?

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Just because nobody's coming around to your houses with your hundred-dollars-just-for-being-white checks, you think that being white gets you nothing.

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Sorry Crashfrog, you're making an unsupported assumption.

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The truth is, all people should get the priviledges we enjoy as white people - the presumption of rationality, politeness, and solvency;

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Ummm...people don't get that "presumption"--or I don't give it to them. They earn it.

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the presumption of employment via merit and not via social programs;

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Oh, that's priceless."The presumption of employment via merit and not via social programs"Has it occured to you that people that get in on AA actually are employed because of social programs rather than merit?So in other words, the reason we need AA is because of white privelige.White privelige is people thinking you didn't get in on AA.Sterling.

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the presumption of having actually earned, not stolen or gained through government fraud, whatever luxury items we enjoy.

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Replace 'gained through government fraud' with 'gained through Affirmative Action' and evaluate that statement.It looks to me like you just said AA makes things worse, in some ways.

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You want to know what white privilege looks like? You need to understand that the priviledge will be invisible to you (that's another benefit)

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That's another reason I don't believe in it.This message has been edited by gene90, 09-21-2005 09:33 PM

That's not what I asked. When was the last time you were pulled over because your car looked too expensive?It's a simple question. Answer it, or don't.

What, that they don't give out checks to white people just for being white? If that's an unsupported assumption, color me pleased to be wrong. Where do I line up for mine? Yeah, in some ways, it does. I don't recall saying that AA was the perfect solution. And I'm still waiting to hear a better one from your side. I noticed that you completely ignored the most important question. After observing persons who humorously benefit from privilege that they take for granted and don't even think about, why is it so hard for you to believe that the same is true for you?When was the last time you were pulled over because your car looked too expensive?

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It's a simple question. Answer it, or don't.

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I answered it.My car isn't expensive enough to attract attention. And I don't drive in a manner that attracts attention. Never been pulled over.

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What, that they don't give out checks to white people just for being white? If that's an unsupported assumption, color me pleased to be wrong. Where do I line up for mine?

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No, Crashfrog, your unsupported assumption is that white privelige exists. When you tell me it's invisible and that I'm not supposed to see it it doesn't help your credibility in that regard.

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Yeah, in some ways, it does.

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If there were no AA, at least half of your previous statements in that 'white privelige' statement wouldn't be an issue. There would be no government programs to force less qualified people into positions. Therefore they would have to have earned what they had.

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After observing persons who humorously benefit from privilege that they take for granted and don't even think about

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Crashfrog, you're citing "celebrity reality television shows" as evidence.

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why is it so hard for you to believe that the same is true for you?

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Because it isn't.This message has been edited by gene90, 09-21-2005 10:02 PM

If you're willing to look, you can see it. I told you where to look.Your problem is that you're not willing to do that. So where's the discussion with you? No, as an example of how you readily acknowledge the same thing about other people that I assert about you and I.If you're not capable of understanding my posts then discussion with you is not going to be possible.

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No, as an example of how you readily acknowledge the same thing about other people that I assert about you and I.

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If you're not capable of understanding my posts then discussion with you is not going to be possible.

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You're essentially comparing the nation's whites to Paris Hilton.

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If you're willing to look, you can see it. I told you where to look.

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Your problem is that you're not willing to do that. So where's the discussion with you?

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Have you argued the existance of God recently, Crashfrog?

By this same logic, you think that welfare is for people who can't earn enough because they aren't up to par.People find themselves in situations. That causes of those situations are outside of their control. The remedy to those situations is available. And you want to restrict them because you want a bigger piece of the pie for yourself

Well that may be fine and dandy in Candy Land but out in the real world THAT DOESNT HAPPEN.Two identicle resumes, one with a "white sounding" name at the top, the other with a "black sounding" name at the top, the white resume gets call backs and interviews at a much higher rate.But there's no race factor here. Let's just hirer the most qualified, nevermind that all things being equal, that's always the white guy.