This Is My Racism

Time and time again, studies demonstrate that we are all a little bit racist. Another commenter pointed out that the Implicit Association Test is a nice introduction to this research. You can take a test here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Unconscious discrimination is a serious source of hardship for minorities and it's important to be aware of our bias. This is what the author of the article is getting at, and he is correct in the central point.

However, we live in a culture where racists are the scum of the earth, fired from their jobs, ostracized, hated universally. You can even be fired from your job if you defend someone that's a racist [1]

Given how hated racism is in our culture right now, debate about racial issues is skewed in three ways. First, we might not take the side of the privileged in an issue because we fear we are being unconsciously racist. Second, we might not take the side of the privileged in an issue because we fear we might be called a racist, and, if not immediately fired from ours jobs, at least shunned. Finally, we might not take the side of the privileged in an issue, because even if taking their side would be technically correct, the privileged already have enough privilege, so to say, and by speaking out in favor of them we might be weakening the forces which are working hard to eliminate racism from society as much as possible.

These biases can be just as unconscious. And they obscure the truth.

Parent is also speaking out of fear. He has come to believe that acknowledging the existence of implicit racism, is the same as always siding with the minority in every case. Even in cases where the minority is clearly in the wrong.

If you value truth, this is an abomination. If you value truth enough, it's something to get extremely angry about. By heavily downvoting parent's post, you are confirming these exact fears, while ignoring the true criticism hidden within. You are turning people away from the movement to eliminate racism, or at least making them less enthusiastic. And therefore you are doing more to slow the eradication of racism than posts like parent's ever would.

Can we upvote parent for his bravery in speaking out against the bias our culture currently has? And calmly and rationally debate his concerns? That would be infinitely more convincing than the downvote button.

[1] http://www.gamerevolution.com/manifesto/turtle-rock-communit...

So the subsidy argument falls apart. If it doesn't cost the city money overall and white people end up paying more both for housing and in taxes then the problem with redlining lies elsewhere. (I am not trying to defend redlining, by the way.)

So, no I don't think the subsidy argument falls apart.

The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police.

One way of appreciating that stark disparity, ProPublica's analysis shows, is to calculate how many more whites over those three years would have had to have been killed for them to have been at equal risk. The number is jarring – 185, more than one per week.

ProPublica's risk analysis on young males killed by police certainly seems to support what has been an article of faith in the African American community for decades: Blacks are being killed at disturbing rates when set against the rest of the American population.

Our examination involved detailed accounts of more than 12,000 police homicides stretching from 1980 to 2012 contained in the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Report. The data, annually self-reported by hundreds of police departments across the country, confirms some assumptions, runs counter to others, and adds nuance to a wide range of questions about the use of deadly police force.

Colin Loftin, University at Albany professor and co-director of the Violence Research Group, said the FBI data is a minimum count of homicides by police, and that it is impossible to precisely measure what puts people at risk of homicide by police without more and better records. Still, what the data shows about the race of victims and officers, and the circumstances of killings, are "certainly relevant," Loftin said.

"No question, there are all kinds of racial disparities across our criminal justice system," he said. "This is one example."

http://www.propublica.org/article/deadly-force-in-black-and-...

You still have the problem that subsidies are generally thought to cost money. If redlining makes the city money it goes from "this is evil and doesn't work economically" to "this is evil but it makes money."