Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old • Hacker News Board

Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old

#191

Post by rayiner » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 6:51 PM UTC

clarky07 wrote: post #183

vec wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the absolutely most qualified person for a whole bunch of things is disproportionately often white and male. And even if we as a society wake up tomorrow magically not racist or sexist at all, that will be the case for the foreseeable future simply because white men have disproportionate amounts of money and connections. Hiring through AA is _intentionally_ suboptimal. The whole point is to give members of d…

Instead we discriminate against the poor white guy from the ghetto growing up with a single mom? Brilliant. That guy had none of the supposed white male advantages. Hire/accept people based on their merits. If you want to take into account overcoming adversity that's fine with me. But picking someone based on the color of their skin, be it white, black, or other, is wrong, and it's racist.

Let's argue based on aggregate statistics instead of individual situations. I don't see why otherwise rational/scientific people feel the need to debase themselves by talking about edge-case individual examples when it comes to things like this.

Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old

#192

Post by tg3 » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 6:58 PM UTC

iy56 wrote: post #178

dharmach wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are willing to wash their hands off their ancestors' sins but without realizing the booty they keep enjoying from the same ancestors. How fair is that a guy shackled for years is freed suddenly and asked to participated in a race as an equal?

So we should shackle the other guy for a few years to compensate? Two wrongs don't make a right.

No, but ignoring prior wrongs also don't make them right. The goal should be to try to make the shackled man whole again, not just free. To give him what he needs to participate in society as if he had never been shackled. It doesn't take much statistical or anecdotal evidence to see that we are a long way off from that ideal scenario.

Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old

#193

Post by Locke1689 » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 6:59 PM UTC

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #89

rayiner wrote: post #41

I think this is a great answer to people who ask why we still need things like affirmative action. Here you have a continuing demographic phenomenon that can be traced directly back to slave ownership patterns hundreds of years ago. It should be noted also that the black belt is also a terribly poor stretch of the country. Unfortunately, it appears that socioeconomic patterns are imprinted more deeply than anyone wou…

The problem with affirmative action is that it is based on race. It is racist. In fact it isn't just based on race, it is based on skin colour - since some mixed black-white people with white skin can be discriminated against. America needs to put race on the sidelines and start thinking in terms of class. You should help the disadvantaged or poor regardless of their great great grandparent's struggles. Affirmative a…

The issue here is that affirmative action conflates two separate things. One element of affirmative action is correction for economic disenfranchisement. You're right that maybe we should look at this more broadly and attempt a more race-neutral approach.

However, the second horn seeks to correct for prejudice and descrimination, not poverty. This is not necessarily heavy-handed correction, like quotas, either. For example, one of the most effective instances is the enforcement of blind auditions for orchestras. Almost immediately after the rule was instituted, the demographics of major US orchestras shifted hugely. The point is to correct for latent, perhaps even unconcious, descrimination.

To understand how even unconcious descrimination can be self-reinforcing, consider someone hiring a new software developer. If they have a team of middle-class white male software developers and a middle class white male software developer applies, they have to give almost no thought to how they will integrate with the team. Sure, there are your corner cases, but we all share a lot of the same cultural background. With vulnerable groups, it's not the same. It requires some thought. Since we all don't like to expend mental energy on something we're not really thrilled about doing in the first place (reading resumes, interviewing, hiring), it's just so much easier to pick the white male and be done with it. By putting counterbalances in place we don't have to actually favor anybody, we just have to reduce the forcing function in the system that pushes us towards the status quo.

Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old

#194

Post by arrrg » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 7:00 PM UTC

clarky07 wrote: post #145

arrrg wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about until there no longer is any significant racism that systematically disadvantages black people?

Instead we have a system that systematically disadvantages non black people. Just stop discriminating. Either way. No reason to have one or the other have an advantage. We just had a black man elected to his second term as president, so I think that's a pretty good sign we aren't that racist. This wouldn't have happened a few decades ago.

Uhm, that's not how it works.

If you are white the odds are massively stacked in your favor. That doesn't mean you can't lose, but it's less likely. All AA does is fudge the odds a bit in the other direction. No more.

Just stopping to discriminate would do nothing – because that's for the most part not the reason why the odds are stacked against minorities. Structural racism is the reason. Society is constructed in a way that leaves minorities with less opportunities, that decreases their odds. Individuals changing their behavior cannot address that problem.

Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old

#195

Post by arrrg » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 7:06 PM UTC

grannyg00se wrote: post #167

arrrg wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, counteracting racism (which has to happen based on race, any other way doesn't make sense) is most certainly not racist. AA is not reparations, it tries to correct for existing racism.

"...has to happen based on race..." That is racism. And there are other ways. You punish people who are racist and you acknowledge that as the reason for their punishment, but you help people based on their situation . If they happened to be in that situation because of previous racism, that in no way has to be taken into account in how they are treated going forward to help their current situation. Sorry, but as soo…

Ok, if you want to play semantic games then let's play semantic games. If you think any policy based on race is racism I will for the sake of the argument accept that weird definition and say that the racist AA policy is super awesome and that I full-heartedly support that racism. I'm a racist for AA!

Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old

#196

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 7:08 PM UTC

ShawnBird wrote: post #150

alxp wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is racist by the fact that it is based on race. Your definition is too simplistic. Racism isn't just prejudice based on race. Racism requires a power imbalance. Acting to counteract an institutional imbalance caused by racism is not "just anotehr kind of racism."

The focus on race in racism is, in part, due to people acknowledging race as a thing. There is nothing more significant about skin color than hair color but we don't have programs to help out blondes and we don't talk about 'the blonde vote'.

[deleted]

Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old

#197

Post by astine » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 7:10 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #41

I think this is a great answer to people who ask why we still need things like affirmative action. Here you have a continuing demographic phenomenon that can be traced directly back to slave ownership patterns hundreds of years ago. It should be noted also that the black belt is also a terribly poor stretch of the country. Unfortunately, it appears that socioeconomic patterns are imprinted more deeply than anyone wou…

That strikes me as terrible reasoning. People living in these communities (as well as others in the deep south) have generally lived in these communities for generations and will likely continue to do so even no matter how much affirmative action you enact. That slavery is the original reason that they are where they are is irrelevant because it hasn't been the reason for generations.

Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old

#198

Post by rayiner » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

_casperc wrote: post #111

king_jester wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that race and class are heavily intersectional, right? That rates of poverty are higher for non-whites, right? Also, helping people who are affected by institutional racism is not racist, it is an attempt to correct for existing racism.

You are not helping people because of their race, so why use that to select who gets help? There are rich black people as well as there are poor white people.

Think of this mathematically. We did something very wrong at time T = 0. It is a matter of fact that economic wrongs are self-perpetuating and long-lived. Thus, at time T = 450, you can isolate, statistically, some economic disadvantage in any black person who can trace their lineage back as being affected by that original wrong at T = 0. It doesn't matter how rich they are--they would be incrementally richer had that wrong not occurred.

At the same time, the poor white person benefited from that original wrong, and you can isolate, statistically, some economic advantage to him tracing back to that original wrong. It doesn't matter how poor he is, he would be incrementally poorer had that wrong not occurred.

Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old

#199

Post by tg3 » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 7:15 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #128

Karunamon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethnic Chinese in China were not subject to systematic oppression like blacks in the USA not even a century ago. That is a pattern, and it has far reaching effects.

Odd that you didn't mention the systematic oppression of Chinese in the USA. However, that's beside the point. My point is that whatever the far-reaching effects of slavery, it's not clear that this specific geographic distribution is one of them - many cultures tend to clump together naturally even without systematic oppression (see: american expat communities around the world). Slavery may have chosen the original…

He mentioned that ethnic Chinese in China were not subject to systematic oppression (which is debatable, especially depending on your definition of "ethnic Chinese", it's a big country).

I think the point he's making is that the same areas which were populated by black slaves under systematic oppression 150 years ago were populated by poor blacks under systematic discrimination 50 years ago and are populated by poor blacks today. To me that's a clear pattern that deserves to be corrected.

Re: Obama's Secret Weapon In The South is 129 Million Years Old

#200

Post by drharris » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 7:15 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #112

drharris wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, it's a story at best. The article claims that Plankton -> Soil -> Slaves -> Black People don't move -> Obama support. The first 2 connections are obvious, but the second two do not necessarily connect in any rational way. It's like saying Bedrock -> Highrises -> ???? -> Obama. The first connection works, but the other two would be pure speculation at best.

You read it as more than a storey. Ok. What's mysterious about people staying in the same place for generations? My people have been in Iowa since the Civil War too.

Well, it not only implies that black people don't move, but white people DO move. Either that or it assumes that the ratio of black to white was much greater than it likely was. It also assumes a lot of other things.