6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal I'm White' • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by yummyfajitas » Wed, May 06, 2015, 6:43 PM UTC

happyscrappy wrote: post #168

yummyfajitas wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should highly privileged blacks be favored over underprivileged Indians? http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-t... (Note: privileges the black Oaklandians were born with include the right to work in the US, a highly functional education system where teachers show up to work, 24/7 running water and power, etc.)

Charity should begin at home.

Why does geographic proximity trump other possible orderings? E.g., why not "charity should begin with people of the same race as me" or "Charity should begin in my church"?

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

#182

Post by kaa2102 » Wed, May 06, 2015, 6:47 PM UTC

LordKano wrote: post #164

contergan wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Education statistics cut both ways. Ask the question this way. Are Brittany McKnight and John Wilson more employable than Lukwesa Nakazwe and Hijani Lungo? Yes and it is obviously about race. Why? On average, Africans immigrants are more highly educated than native born Caucasians. It's not about education. It's not about statistics. It's about racism. There have been studies where researchers submitted resumes with…

Survivorship bias. I went to a happy hour a week ago right after the Baltimore riots when a real estate exec starting going on and on about how blacks just needed to work harder - like many different immigrants.

This is survivor ship bias - comparing immigrants who left hell for the American Dream vs people living an American Nightmare. This is akin to comparing Olympic gold medal winners to members in a high school band. A better comparison would be comparing people of a similar socio-economic level in different countries.

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

#183

Post by hyperpape » Wed, May 06, 2015, 7:15 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #136

hyperpape wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I'm too quick to assume my experience is universal on this point. At school growing up, the white people were fairly mixed in actual ethnic background. Statistically, though, any researcher would consider Italian white if they used "white" as a category. Would it be too personal to ask what she meant? Was she taken for Hispanic, or did people use anti-Italian stereotypes?

The 2nd. She was not welcome everywhere in town; she was viewed with suspicion in stores; her family's social circle was several notches lower than expected from her fathers' position (scientist at Los Alamos Natl Labs).

I'm sorry to hear that.

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

#184

Post by LordKano » Wed, May 06, 2015, 7:34 PM UTC

kaa2102 wrote: post #182

LordKano wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education statistics cut both ways. Ask the question this way. Are Brittany McKnight and John Wilson more employable than Lukwesa Nakazwe and Hijani Lungo? Yes and it is obviously about race. Why? On average, Africans immigrants are more highly educated than native born Caucasians. It's not about education. It's not about statistics. It's about racism. There have been studies where researchers submitted resumes with…

Survivorship bias. I went to a happy hour a week ago right after the Baltimore riots when a real estate exec starting going on and on about how blacks just needed to work harder - like many different immigrants. This is survivor ship bias - comparing immigrants who left hell for the American Dream vs people living an American Nightmare. This is akin to comparing Olympic gold medal winners to members in a high school…

I thoroughly enjoy those kinds of situations.

I use them to either get the person to re-evaluate their thinking or admit in public that they're just a racist.

One of my fiance's family friends works for the FBI and we were discussing racial profiling. He didn't understand why innocent people object to it. I explained to him that I'm not a criminal and it's always be a negative experience if someone treats me like I am one.

He asked if it doesn't make me feel safer to know that law enforcement is doing its job. I explained that if their only reason to suspect me of anything is the color of my skin, that it's racist and that I already know that I'm not a criminal. I wasn't a criminal yesterday. I'm not likely to become a criminal tomorrow and if law enforcement is wasting time, both theirs and mine, by bothering me; they're not out there actually catching criminals. I saw the expression on his face change. That thought had never occurred to him. The discussion ended with him conceding that he had never considered that before.

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

#185

Post by tzs » Wed, May 06, 2015, 7:41 PM UTC

paulhauggis wrote: post #80

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…

Okay, then we need to remove all stereotypes: republicans are rich old men that want to hurt the poor people, religious people don't like gays, anyone that didn't vote for the current president MUST be racist, if something it's written in PHP..it must be terrible because the language is terrible, the police are all racist and want to kill unarmed black men. I could go on. There are plenty of stereotypes and generaliz…

> If I'm a police officer going into a neighborhood that has had multiple crimes, shootings, and deaths, and the perpetrators were black, I'm going to be extra careful if I see someone that is black doing anything suspicious. This is just being smart.

OK, but note that this has a side effect of innocent blacks getting stopped and questioned with a higher probability than innocent whites (where by innocent I mean not doing whatever activity it was you suspected them of when you stopped them). Ans since you are going in extra cautious about blacks, if you find something that is borderline between worth charging them for or letting them off with a warning, you'll probably be more likely to charge a black and let a white off. Result: among blacks and whites doing the exact same things, blacks are more likely to acquire a criminal record...

...

> Of course there is a stigma of a criminal record. There should be, because it's not a good thing. If there are two applicants, 1 with a criminal record and one with slightly worse experience and no criminal record..I'm going to chose the latter every time. Sorry, but if you don't want to be judged on your criminal record, don't commit crimes.

...which you want to use to avoid hiring them.

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

#186

Post by emodendroket » Wed, May 06, 2015, 8:52 PM UTC

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #177

emodendroket wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since we're talking etymology in the grayed out bottom of a HN thread, did you know that the word "slave" comes from the Latin "sclavus" that means "Slav" and is therefore offensive to people of Slavic ancestry? Will you stop using it now that you know? I hope not, but it goes to show the absurdity of putting hurt feelings before reason. You're literally arguing against your own reasoning.

"Nigger" is not a terrible word because it means "black" as it always did. "Slave" is not a terrible word because it means "a person that is the property of another" now, even though it meant "Slav" at some point in the past. BTW, since "literally" became the synonym of its antonym what's the point in using it any more?

No, I mean, you are quite literally, in the traditional sense of that word, arguing that etymology is more important when the modern meaning of the word is offensive, and that the modern meaning of the word is more important when the etymology is offensive. No, that word is not offensive because of the etymology meaning "black;" consider that using the term "black" is not at all offensive.

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

#187

Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, May 06, 2015, 9:05 PM UTC

simonjw wrote: post #66

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…

The second half of the parent comment states the problem is if you treat people differently based on those assumptions. Guessing that someone called Jamaal is probably black is like guessing that someone called Sue is probably female.

I was going to say "Johnny Cash kind of destroyed that last one", but on reflection, he really didn't. Sue is still probably female, despite Johnny Cash...

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

#188

Post by stefantalpalaru » Wed, May 06, 2015, 9:54 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #186

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nigger" is not a terrible word because it means "black" as it always did. "Slave" is not a terrible word because it means "a person that is the property of another" now, even though it meant "Slav" at some point in the past. BTW, since "literally" became the synonym of its antonym what's the point in using it any more?

No, I mean, you are quite literally, in the traditional sense of that word, arguing that etymology is more important when the modern meaning of the word is offensive, and that the modern meaning of the word is more important when the etymology is offensive. No, that word is not offensive because of the etymology meaning "black;" consider that using the term "black" is not at all offensive.

You seem to believe that "nigger" means something different than "black" nowadays. What's this new meaning?

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

#189

Post by erydo » Wed, May 06, 2015, 10:40 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #151

erydo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Nobody meets you and says: "While it's reasonable, in a Bayesian sense, to conclude that someone with a 'black' name like mine grew up in a low-income, low-education household, in fact both my parents have graduate degrees and are high-income professionals." A lot of those assumptions that people make, while statistically justified, will never be rebutted in individual instances because it's socially impractical to d…

Yes. That's what I was trying to say with the "morally wrong because having and acting on those expectations reduces the opportunities given to members of those groups" bit. Creating uphill battles doesn't allow the situation to improve.

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

#190

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, May 06, 2015, 10:47 PM UTC

cafard wrote: post #174

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2nd. She was not welcome everywhere in town; she was viewed with suspicion in stores; her family's social circle was several notches lower than expected from her fathers' position (scientist at Los Alamos Natl Labs).

I'd have supposed Los Alamos, what with the laboratories, to be more cosmopolitan than Denver; yet so far as I know, that didn't happen in Denver. To be sure, I didn't have a particularly elevated social circle, and maybe the people at the Denver Country Club had some issues. But as far as I know, most people in Denver sorted ethnicities into Black/Chicano/Anglo.

Strangely, once Hispanic folks 'from the valley' were allowed on base (to clean and drive etc), Italians moved up. The Hispanics were the new bottom of the heap.