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American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

economist.com

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Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#521

Post by nonethewiser »

kenjackson wrote: post #65
kube-system wrote: post #18

Yeah, I agree that it is important to take into account disadvantages that people may have unfairly experienced due to no fault of their own. But, why do we need to use race as a proxy? Presuming something about someone based on their skin color is prejudice regardless of your intentions. If people are disadvantaged, let's measure those disadvantages directly and adjust for those factors.

The main rationale is that it is complicated. :-) Controlling for income doesn't work well, because whites at the same income level tend to have much more wealth than blacks at the same income level. Controlling for wealth, blacks still tend to poorer access to resources (clean water, prenatal care, etc...). It would be a great achievement if we could simply say that poor blacks were finally as well off as poor white…

If you can't determine if someone is disadvantaged then I guess they aren't. Labeling someone disadvantaged because of their skin color is just racism. In fact, if ANYTHING is racism, it's that.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#522

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

kmeisthax wrote: post #297
Test0129 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I object to the use of "white privilege" on first principles: Interpreted literally, it implies all whites are privileged. This is categorically untrue. It encourages racism through associating an immutable trait with a negative word. "White privilege" is no more true than saying "Jewish privilege" or "Asian privilege" when referring to trends that do not reflect the whole. For the latter two one would be accused of…

"White privilege" means that you fit in the particular mold that American society pours and casts people out of. Nothing more and nothing less. If you want to object to the jargon on the grounds of being jargon, fine, but I've yet to find better terminology than this. It doesn't mean that all white people are rich, it means that poor white people are in less of a shitty situation than equally-improverished black peop…

>If you want to object to the jargon on the grounds of being jargon

"Jargon" like that is not accrptable. Would you allow it for any other group? And many people use the term white privilege to mean an intrinsic power held by white people as a result of their oppression of blacks. So you are wrong on all acounts.

>but I've yet to find better terminology than this.

It's hard to come up with a name for something that barely exists in tbe first place. "You're zip-code is privileged" doesn't invoke the same guilt does it?

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#523

Post by klipt »

civilized wrote: post #392
gnicholas wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Supreme Court is not deciding anything with regard to sex-based discrimination right now. I would be surprised if it even mentioned anything in dicta (non-binding comments not necessary to the holding) about this topic. Also, if/when the question comes up, there is a different standard for sex-based discrimination than race-based. The former is subject to intermediate scrutiny, whereas the latter is subject (in g…

It seems ridiculous for it to turn out that way. Let's make sure we have enough men in college, but it's wrong to increase the Black representation?

Sex and race are just treated differently by law. The supreme court wouldn't allow drafting only black people, but it does allow drafting only men.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#524

Post by Consultant32452 »

DoctorOW wrote: post #69
Consultant32452 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when the elites did a Jedi mind trick on the Occupy Wall Street folks and made them change their focus to race and what bathroom people get to use. It was remarkable.

My idea of this is only anecdotal but anyone I personally know involved with occupy couldn't give a shit who is in what bathroom.

My anecdata is that as soon as the mega-corporations started waving their pride flags and doing race sensitivity training the masses on my FB/Twitter feed changed their emoji usage right along with them. To be fair this is the same people who immediately forgot that black lives mattered when they traded their BLM fist emoji for a Ukraine flag.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#525

Post by nonethewiser »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #215

These sorts of quotas generally do nothing but paper over the fundamental problems and truths that affect various groups. It's a way of concealing failures of education and culture. By making admissions blind to anything but merit (we can talk about how to define merit, of course), it forces people earlier in the chain of causes to confront failure close to home. By keeping responsible parties in the hot seat, you st…

This seems so plainly obvious. I wonder why people don't see it. It seems like there is often a battle between empathy and reason, with empathy winning out. I wish it would stop being taught as an absolute virtue.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#527

Post by nonethewiser »

notch656a wrote: post #141
kareemsabri wrote: post #21

Race is very easy to focus on without making any structural changes in society. A black man was president. So long as it's the right black man, it doesn't change much.

There is still structural codified racism within US borders. For instance, it's illegal for non-native US nationals/citizens to own most property in American Samoa, in effect perpetuating racism against outsiders who are also US nationals.

It's also defacto legal (but probably not truly legal) to discriminate by race in education and work.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#528

Post by boppo1 »

thejman5200 wrote: post #468
blinkingled wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol few years ago I got LBJ's from local library and made sincere effort to read through - it was humongous. I could not carry on after a week.

I dont really care if George RR Martin ever finishes Winds of Winter. But I will be immensely disappointed if Robert Caro dies before finishing the last LBJ book. He already somehow wrote 3,000+ pages in 40 years and hasn't even reached LBJ's passage of Medicare, Civil Rights, and Vietnam. He's 87 but still working on it apparently.

What inspires a person to dedicate their lives to such an intricate biography of someone else?

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#529

Post by RigelKentaurus »

zhoujianfu wrote: post #518
RigelKentaurus wrote: post #437

Indian-American father here, living in the Bay Area. My wife and I came to this country with a few hundred dollars between us and have worked hard to reach where we’re at. We're far from privileged. I am 100% against affirmative action on the basis of race. I think there should be some measure of AA on the basis of economic status. It's quite personal for me this year. My 17-year old is applying to universities to st…

I just wanna say… apply to Harvey Mudd! Way better than those ivies anyway!

We're definitely applying there!

Someone asked why he has to apply to elite STEM schools -- he will get a great education anywhere. That may be true, but he's one of those kids who love to be surrounded by people smarter than him and be inspired by them. It's weird but the harder the class, the more fun he seems to have. He wants to be challenged in college. He will thrive at Mudd.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#530

Post by nonethewiser »

OOPMan wrote: post #493

Coming from South Africa, AA leaves a bad taste in my mouth as there it went hand in hand with massive amounts of corruption. Maybe a ZA issue tho?

AA leaves a bad taste in my mouth as someone who thinks racism is bad.
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