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

#221

Post by saraid216 » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 8:21 PM UTC

binarycheese wrote: post #185

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?

Slavery lasted for 400yrs(+).

Slavery when, where, and how? The term is surprisingly broad, when you actually look into details, and can easily span all of remembered human existence.

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

#222

Post by stickfigure » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 8:21 PM UTC

tg3 wrote: post #199

stickfigure wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To me that's a clear pattern that deserves to be corrected.

While there is a damnable travesty present, it's not clear to anyone what the pattern is or how to correct it. Many other poor places have gotten rich; many ethnic enclaves thrive. It's an absurd stretch to look at this chart and draw any conclusion whatsoever about the merit of Affirmative Action.

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

#223

Post by saraid216 » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 8:22 PM UTC

ta12121 wrote: post #166

rayiner wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If the US government wants to atone for its immoral actions in the past it should pay reparations not institute a system of race based discrimination. If, on the other hand, the US government wants to help disadvantaged people gain a level economic footing with the rest of the population they should use a much better predictor of disadvantage than skin color.

> If the US government wants to atone for its immoral actions in the past it should pay reparations not institute a system of race based discrimination.

How much money do you think a few generations' of slavery is worth?

> If, on the other hand, the US government wants to help disadvantaged people gain a level economic footing with the rest of the population they should use a much better predictor of disadvantage than skin color.

Would you like to suggest one?

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

#224

Post by MordinSolus » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 8:33 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #131

MordinSolus wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AA doesn't correct for immediate need, it corrects for the fact that people growing up in unpriviledged environments lack advantages. So poor white folks never grow up in unpriviledged environments? You're providing no justification for why AA is race based instead of socio-economic based.

The first sentence is just bad statistics. Obviously all that's required is that "more" poor black kids grow up in unpriviledged environemnts (something that I assume you agree with) to have a problem worth correcting. You can't disprove a correlation with a single counterexample. And why must I "justify" that it be "race based"? There's a problem. It's a solution. It works, if imperfectly. I'd like to see a better o…

> (Not least because one of it's biggest problems is that it pisses off entitled white kids like you and starts pointless internet flames like this.)

> Right now all you're doing is whining.

Stop the nonsense.

I'm going to specifically look at college admissions since it's a pretty interesting area. Specifically, I want to point out a passage from here (the article itself is worth reading): http://www.tnr.com/book/review/disadvantages

> Moreover, some universities have been successful in maintaining racial diversity despite a ban on using race in admissions. At UT Austin, which was forbidden by a lower court from considering race between 1997 and 2003, a class-based affirmative action plan, combined with a plan to automatically admit students in the top 10 percent of their high school class, resulted in a net increase in racial diversity. In 1996, prior to the ban on race, African Americans and Latinos made up 18.8 percent of the freshman class. In 2004, under the socioeconomic and top 10 percent plan, the combined representation had risen to 21.4 percent.

Not only is such policy less racist, but it is more effective!

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

#225

Post by silverbax88 » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 8:43 PM UTC

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…

We absolutely need affirmative action, based on race, based on gender, and based on ANY disenfranchised group.

Corporations and colleges are still biased against race, because the demographics of corporations do not reflect the population as a whole, and if they were hiring correctly, they would.

On other words - if 20% of the general population of 300 million people is a certain race, it stands to reason that corporations and colleges should mirror that. But they do not. The applicant ration is the same, but the actual hiring ratio is much, much smaller. Where do work? In an office? Stand up and look around and tell me if 20% of your coworkers are black. It should be pretty close.

It isn't.

No engineer or mathematician would argue this - if everyone hired entirely based on qualifications your workforce would directly represent the population at large.

Law of averages in a perfectly unbiased hiring world would make this so.

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

#226

Post by rmc » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 8:45 PM UTC

jivatmanx wrote: post #203

rmc wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define & measure disadvantage? You suggest income, but then that ignores: (a) debt (b) medical costs (Joe & Jim have the same income, but Joe has cancer and has to pay $LOTS per month, has less energy etc. Who's more disadvantaged?) (c) where one lives (Joe & Jim have same income, but Joe lives near where possible jobs are, Jim needs a 2 hour bus journey) (d) existing assets (Jim has a new car and partner…

Assuming that poverty alleviation programs are consolidated, than using the shorthand of race for disadvantages on only the education portion does not actually reduce paperwork/costs. The strong and convincing argument for affirmative action is that African Americans and Indians have been severely wronged in the past and should be recompensed. But what about would Hispanics, more recently immigrants who never suffere…

Assuming that poverty alleviation programs are consolidated, than using the shorthand of race for disadvantages on only the education portion does not actually reduce paperwork/costs.

Oh? Care to elaborate?

When I said "reduce paperwork", I mean it's less paperwork to evalulate and classify people based on race (since looking at a photo for 30 seconds will get you the answer 95% of the time (or some other high percentage)), vs. if you looked at income. To classify people based on income you have to look at lots of different forms and letters and statements etc.

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

#227

Post by Locke1689 » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 8:50 PM UTC

clicks wrote: post #212

Locke1689 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Haven't noticed that I often do -- every once in a while I will misspell a word because the correct spelling "looks wrong." I've noticed that it often feels like the effects of semantic satiation[1] -- perhaps the two are cognitively related? Usually I will catch it when I have a spell checker on hand, but I didn't when I was writing that comment.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation

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

#228

Post by gsibble » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 8:51 PM UTC

patrickgzill wrote: post #115

Summary: a lot of black people voted for Obama, giving him the edge in certain states.

Actually, he didn't win any of the states discussed in the article.

He did however get a huge majority of the black vote which probably propelled him to win in the swing states of NC and OH.

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

#229

Post by rmc » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 8:55 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 problem with affirmative action is that it is based on race. It is racist.

There are several definitions of racism, one is essentially "making references to someone's race and implying everyone in that group is the same (in some attribute)", or more simply "anything based on race". Lots of people like this definition because it's a nice, simple and objective defintion and it means black people in the USA can be racist to white people, or that affirmative action is racist. I think this is the definition you're using.

There's another definition, which is that racist actions are actions that's designed to maintain & reinforce the institutionalised power structure among races. Right now, if modern USA life was a video game, "white male" would be an easier difficulty level than "black male". There are statistically less problems for the "white male" group. Racist actions is talk that re-enforced that imbalance, and attempts to undo the power imbalance is not racist. This definition is harder for some people to accept because it means that you need to look at yourself and think about what power imbalances you might be benefiting from, and it means that affirmative action is not racist, and attempts to stop is could be construed as racist (since stopping affirmative action can re-enforce power imbalances). This is the definition I use.

So no, affirmative action isn't racist.

America needs to put race on the sidelines and start thinking in terms of class.

Totally agree. Classism is a real and big problem.

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

#230

Post by i386 » Thu, Nov 08, 2012, 8:55 PM UTC

praptak wrote: post #19

arethuza wrote: post #2

I've been fascinated with geology ever since I realised that it is really history on an epic scale (living in Edinburgh also helps) - one book that really opened my eyes to the subject is Richard Fortey's The Earth: An Intimate History : http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Intimate-History-Richard-Fortey/...

There is a book that connects large-scale geology with the human-scale history by arguing how the former affects the later. It's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond.

For the lazy, the BBC did a television adaption of it that was quite good