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

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

#211

Post by tdfx »

rayiner wrote: post #191
clarky07 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think poor, white people are an edge case. As of 2007, 9.9% of the white, non-hispanic population lived in poverty (compared to 27.6% of black people and 26.6% of hispanics). The numbers are lower, but they are far from edge cases. The source of adversity in the human experience is not solely rooted in race.

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

#212

Post by clicks »

Locke1689 wrote: post #193
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

Sorry, a small off-topic question: why did you again and again misspell 'discrimination'? You sound too educated to make the mistake -- and I'm not aware of any alternative spellings of the word. So, why did you spell it that way? I'm just genuinely curious.

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

#213

Post by shantanubala »

astine wrote: post #201
shantanubala wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> undo bad things that happened long ago with other injustices First, you are implying that affirmative action is unjust, which it is not . Affirmative action does not mean that an unqualified worker replaces a qualified worker because of race. Affirmative action means that equally qualified workers are then selected to be as representative of the population as possible. This has the added benefit of making sure civi…

"Affirmative action means that equally qualified workers are then selected to be as representative of the population as possible." Maybe this is what Affirmative Action means to you , but not to everyone. In fact, the University of Texas is currently at court regarding this very issue, where the university intentionally admitted minority students at the expense of white students who were otherwise better qualified in…

This is certainly tricky, and obviously a judge is the one to make the final decision for the US, but I'll stick by my interpretation of the Civil Rights Act for now :-)

Obviously, there is always the problem of having a profession where the demand hasn't been met by the supply of skilled workers (like programming!) which takes time before it balances a bit more, and this is where the idea of racial quotas breaks down considerably.

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

#214

Post by mullingitover »

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.

> Instead we have a system that systematically disadvantages non black people.

Can't tell if I'm getting trolled here...

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

#215

Post by brudgers »

numo16 wrote: post #165
rabid_fish wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but reply to this thread. I grew up in L.A., came to Iowa for college and stayed. Am now in my late 30's. Was not affiliated with any party when I caucused for Obama the first go 'round. Iowa is an interesting political crossroads for the nation. We have a large percentage of the population above 65 - 15% ( http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-09.pdf ) - and still rural - 36% as of 2010 ( ht…

> We are somewhat socially liberal - gay rights are making headway here - and fiscally conservative - our state sales tax is 6%. Based on this everything else you mentioned about Iowa, it seems like it would be a great state for third party candidates to try to upset the two party balance.

Neighboring Minnesota elected Jesse Ventura Governor in 1998. He ran as part of Ross Perot's Reform Party.

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

#216

Post by king_jester »

Karunamon wrote: post #205
king_jester wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

shantanubala did a good job talking about some of your points, so I don't have any thing particular to add. However, the fact that you see something wrong with providing help in finding employment for native people speaks volumes about how you feel about native peoples with regard to how they interact in US society. You call decisions that include race as a factor as discrimination, but that ignores the long legacy a…

>However, the fact that you see something wrong with providing help in finding employment for native people I didn't say this. I said that stating a racial preference in an employment advertisement is wrong and discriminatory regardless of the noble aims of the reasons those ads exist. >That you yourself took a position to defend normative ideas that actively perpetuate real, actual violence and harm What the actual…

Well, you directly said you found racial preference for native people in job ads is "wrong on a number of levels" (originally phrased as a rhetorical question). But we know that native people suffer in a systemic way in US society, so they do need targeted help and policies on the basis of race in order to allow them to have the equal participation in society they deserve (and to help them not be disproportionately affected by violent crimes).

Institutional racism isn't just about discrimination, but rather prejudice combined with power. This isn't just about attitudes alone, as we are talking about real policies and incidents that are a direct reflection of racist attitudes. This instance of a job ad with a stated preference for native peoples is discriminatory, yes, but that is wholly acceptable given the state the US and its policies have put native peoples in.

The notion that affirmative action is racist or unfairly discriminatory is a perpetuation of the current racist institutions in the US. It supposes that the experience of people of color is not valid, and that their experiences and lives do not need nor deserve any consideration, ignoring the institutional oppressions that effect them. In the absence of targeted programs to help people affected by institutional racism, that kind of structural oppression thrives.

> Saying that all discrimination is wrong perpetuates violence and harm??

Your message isn't just that all discrimination is wrong. You quite clearly took aim at the behavior of and policies directed towards minorities as wrong or unjust. This ignores the main point: the behavior and policies of the majority have been wrong and unjust, and small programs and policies to help start to correct this are totally and wholly appropriate. This isn't about treating the majority (read: white) population unfairly, but looking at the numbers, seeing how the policies, laws, and enforcement of laws supported by that majority have negatively affected people of color at rates much higher than whites, and taking action to begin to address that.

You scoff at a job ad mentioning they give a preference native applicants, but are thinking about the long history of blood and violence that has occurred and continues to occur to those people? Of course they deserve a better shot at a job (not too mention they deserve much more). The notion of unfair discrimination towards whites as a result of affirmative action policies for jobs and education is a false equivalence.

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

#217

Post by Natsu »

rayiner wrote: post #110
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 justification and rationale for race-based affirmative action is somewhat different from anything favoring people of low socioeconomic class generally. It has to do with correcting specific and massive historical wrongs in which our government was complicit, not lifting up disadvantaged people generally. Conflating the two is a little silly. If I destroy your house, you're not going to be happy if I make amends t…

The question isn't if we should fix the mistakes of the past, but how. Helping all disadvantaged people, without regard to their skin color, will disproportionately help whoever has been disadvantaged the most in the past. That's a good thing.

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

#218

Post by Natsu »

arrrg wrote: post #134
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's accept that rational; but that does leave one question: when does this end? If we have no way to measure the damage then how do we measure the resolution of the damage? Do we continue this for 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 years? Or do we simply never end it? Do we try to "correct" it so there are literally no poor people of a particular ethnicity? How realistic is that?

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

How do you measure that?

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

#219

Post by Natsu »

tdfx wrote: post #211
rayiner wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think poor, white people are an edge case. As of 2007, 9.9% of the white, non-hispanic population lived in poverty (compared to 27.6% of black people and 26.6% of hispanics). The numbers are lower, but they are far from edge cases. The source of adversity in the human experience is not solely rooted in race.

Just curious, but what do you get if you multiply those percentages by the size of those groups?

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

#220

Post by alecst »

arrrg wrote: post #195
grannyg00se wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...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!

Obviously not every policy based on race is racist, but affirmative action does advance a particular set of races. Call it whatever you want, but I think what the above poster has said is that to advance one race is to handicap another.
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