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6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal I'm White'

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Re: 6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal I'm White'

#111

Post by kaa2102 »

the8472 wrote: post #57
kaa2102 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely unreasonable. When you say it "works out more often than not" I would ask "For whom?" Many snap judgments based on race lead to the death of unarmed black men and women. Studies have shown that resumes with black-sounding names get fewer callbacks and we treat black men like white men with a criminal record. Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873 N…

You are conflating the observation that a person who has a name predominantly used by african-americans is most likely african-american with further, discriminating, acts based on that observation.

"We are blind to our blindness." Where do the generalizations stop?

Re: 6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal I'm White'

#112

Post by mc32 »

anthonymartinez wrote: post #33
Kenji wrote: post #6

I don't think the other people are at fault here. I think it's reasonable to assume that someone with a stereotypically black name is black, just like it's reasonable to assume that a random IT professor is male based on the fact that 90%* actually are. As long as you owe up to your error when you notice it (and e.g. apologize). It's a reasonable optimization that works out more often than not. The problem only start…

I would push back on that view and say other people are absolutely at fault here. if thats not something we can't or won't own up to as a society, then we will have to continue to live with the consequences of stereotyping which, good and bad, harm us all in many subtle and not-so-subtle ways. difficult, but necessary.

It's asking much to not generalize, generally. Like, are you going to ask why you go on green and stop on red every time you come to a light? Not all red lights mean stop.

I think we can artificially not think of ethnicity when hearing names, but simultaneously realize people can choose non ethnic names or ethnic, not withstanding new immigrants. And, it's not clear that when people do internalize ethnicity and name associations that it results in negative outcomes. There was a recent study which contradicted previous studies when they controlled for other factors.

In any event, people make all kinds of assumptions and are often wrong, but we don't call them out because we have not become 'conscious' of them, till someone points them out.

Re: 6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal I'm White'

#113

Post by kaa2102 »

contergan wrote: post #60
kaa2102 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely unreasonable. When you say it "works out more often than not" I would ask "For whom?" Many snap judgments based on race lead to the death of unarmed black men and women. Studies have shown that resumes with black-sounding names get fewer callbacks and we treat black men like white men with a criminal record. Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873 N…

>Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? That's impossible to say on an individual level, but it is very likely. If you phrase the question differently, there's a pretty clear answer: >On average, are two white people more employable than two black people? Without knowing any further info about the possible candidates - Yes. Looking at education statistics in the US, it becomes clear pretty quickly…

I think you missed the point that the studies actually found that black-sounding names got more callbacks despite having the same credentials, e.g., degree, GPA, etc.

Re: 6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal I'm White'

#115

Post by JoeAltmaier »

hyperpape wrote: post #105
nashequilibrium wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit, I've heard white ppl talk shit about Jersey Shore and use racial slurs against Italians. Secondly look at the Silicon Valley numbers for diversity, how many Asian vs Black? So your point no black interaction == no asian interaction is incorrect.

Regarding minority populations: it's not equivalent. But it is often the case. Think Texas, New York City, Los Angeles, or Chicago. People talk shit or joke about the French, Italians, Germans too, but French and German people are considered white. Same with Poles and Italians. Those stats you gave did not consider people of Italian or German descent as non-White.

Hm. My wife (Italian descent) reports differently. During her southwest upbringing she was treated as anything but white. I guess it depends upon your environment.

Re: 6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal I'm White'

#117

Post by foldr »

beachstartup wrote: post #108
foldr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that the name is disadvantageous because it makes people think that he's black, and black people cannot stop being black. In other words, if you're actually black, then you can't escape racism just by changing your name. I'm not sure what you mean by "political tastes". I'd have thought pretty much everyone was opposed to e.g. refusing to rent an apartment to someone because of their name, or bec…

> In other words, if you're actually black, then you can't escape racism just by changing your name. no shit sherlock. but changing your name to a neutral sounding one, no matter what your race, will get you in the door at a much higher rate, where you are actually able to present yourself and your abilities instead of having your resume, application, submission, or email summarily tossed in the trash for no reason o…

Changing your name might help, though it's sad that anyone should have to do this.

I was replying because you (a) seemed to be missing the OP's point and (b) were coming close to blaming victims of racial discrimination for not changing their names.

Re: 6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal I'm White'

#118

Post by lotsofmangos »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #95
commandar wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, I can kind of understand the point he's getting at. Similar issue: I worked with someone via email for several months thinking they were female because their name is Kim before a coworker mentioned "uh, pretty sure Kim's a dude." You run into similar issues with e.g., women named Chris. I don't think being thrown by situations like that makes anyone look like an idiot. Looking at it from an ethnic p…

> Ideal world, sure, we wouldn't make assumptions about identity based on names. But it happens. I'm not sure that there is an answer that'd make everyone happy, to be honest. Of course we would, unless in the ideal world names would be uniformly distributed among population in a completely random way. But they're not. The only problem here is seeing reasonable inference from a known probability distribution as ethic…

Wasn't meaning ethics, just the risk of looking silly over time.

If you tend to make a lot of assumptions about someone just from their name before encountering them, then you are pretty much guaranteeing that you are going to get burnt a lot over time, unless you don't meet many people, as it simply isn't that good a guide.

Re: 6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal I'm White'

#119

Post by scarmig »

krapp wrote: post #63
calibraxis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our bureaucratic preoccupation with racial and gender categories is much like those who segmented bloodlines into Untouchables, or royalty. (As if it was ever impressive to be related to some glorified dictator called a "king".) Consider that, depending on your racial category, it may be ok for the US state to choke you to death in public. Even just to speak normal English, you have to basically surveil into people's…

>it may be ok for the US state to choke you to death in public. For a certain value of 'ok' that accepts that most Americans find such behavior repellant, and that it's not actually legal (much less mandated by the state) for cops to murder people for being of the 'wrong race' (despite it being, apparently, easy for them to get away with.)

And the Soviet Union also had a wonderful constitution that enshrined legal protections for bodily integrity, religious practice, freedom of speech and thought...

Re: 6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal I'm White'

#120

Post by erydo »

rayiner wrote: post #77
Kenji wrote: post #6

I don't think the other people are at fault here. I think it's reasonable to assume that someone with a stereotypically black name is black, just like it's reasonable to assume that a random IT professor is male based on the fact that 90%* actually are. As long as you owe up to your error when you notice it (and e.g. apologize). It's a reasonable optimization that works out more often than not. The problem only start…

Using name is a reasonable way to optimize figuring out someone's race. The question is: why are we trying to figure out someone's race? If you're talking about reducing effort, isn't the easiest thing to just not ponder the question of someone's race? People wouldn't bother to try and answer that question if they didn't care about what the answer was. Now, the fact that people care is not in and of itself evidence o…

That's roughly right in a moral sense, but in a Bayesian sense I don't think it's unreasonable. If race (or background or country of origin, etc.) and some attribute (education, wealth, etc.) are correlated, and names and race are correlated, it's intuitive that names and that attribute are likely correlated.

It's a huge problem when you reverse the process and say, "Despite evidence of having X attribute, I'm going to treat you as though you don't because you belong to a set where X attribute is less common." So overlooking someone's resume because of their race/class/background/etc. is absolutely racist and unreasonable. Having a biased expectation a priori, however, is not necessarily unreasonable. However it may be morally wrong because having and acting on those expectations reduces the opportunities given to members of those groups who are outside the norm, which in turn reduces the group's ability to change those correlations and expectations.

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