If there’s hidden segregation in education, as it was with Jews in USSR, then universities doing less of it will become better over time.
(I mean - this effect has sort of receded by now, but in today’s Russia all education kinda slowly rots. There are exceptions, which are mostly connected to specific passionate people.)
And affirmative action is hard to do right, and from what I’ve heard, it’s not done right in the USA.
The right way is similar to support groups and employment help groups.
Having a list of protected groups is wrong for two reasons - it doesn’t protect at all those who haven’t made it into that list, first, and making a group protected also cements its definition, makes an arbitrary border for it, second.
So - applying force, as in such laws, may feel intuitively more powerful, but it’s not.
Also laws meant to protect may actually in obscure ways cement a certain group’s disadvantaged position. The best policy is no special cases and minimization of blocking and gatekeeping, so that if for members of some group things don’t work somewhere, there’s enough alternatives so that they’d find a way. That is harder, but known to work. Unlike preferential treatment.
There is a comment with percentage of Asian students here too, where they are represented more than in population. Is there no racism against Asians? Is there any affirmative action in their favor?
Your theory is sound except for the glaring ommision of the existence of racism. That’s why “”“preferential”“” <–(needs more quotes) exists, because in America, systemic racism absolutely does
If there’s hidden segregation in education (…) then universities doing less of it will become better over time.
They are totally ignoring the fact that systemic racism is self reinforcing.
E.g. if one group of parents have enough cash on hand to enroll their children in tutoring when they need it, and impressive extra curricular activities when tutoring is unnecessary, then the children of those parents will have stronger university applications than the children that have to work part time jobs. This perpetuates racially inequality.
It’s not difficult to understand. It doesn’t even require racial prejudice.
That would be socioeconomic class more than race, and I completely agree. In fact, race doesn’t have anything to do with it, other than the historical facts of America meaning there’s a racial skew to poverty. Targeting poverty ("wealth privilege) would therefore disproportionately benefit African-Americans, without needlessly excluding the poor from other demographics and continuing to perpetuate the idea that skin colour is somehow the most important thing about people.
In a system where inherent racism didn’t exist that would work, are you assuming that the current system wouldn’t disproportionately skew the beneficiaries to the existing racial bias for some reason ?
That just gives you the same problem, a step down in the chain.
Systemic racism doesn’t start once you hit a threshold of income, targeting the poor will still skew towards whatever biases exist in the system.
disproportionately benefit African-Americans
Either you don’t understand why African-Americans would need additional help or you are framing it that way on purpose.
By what metric are you getting “disproportionate” ?
continuing to perpetuate the idea that skin colour is somehow the most important thing about people
It sounds like systemic racism is over so we can all just go back to seeing everyone as equals. /s
Again, either you have a fundamental misunderstanding or are purposely framing it that way.
To be clear, these measures aren’t “skin color is most important so let’s base policy on that aspect”
they are closer to
“The system is actively using skin colour and ethnicity to detrimentally target people who should really be equal in standing, let’s not pretend that that isn’t happening and try to address it”
To clarify, I don’t believe in the creation of any deliberately biased system, but I believe the main societal issue is overwhelmingly one of wealth disparity.
I’m not assigning a moral value when I use the phrase “disproportionate benefit”. I’m alluding to the disproportionate degree of poverty experienced by African-Americans. Poverty relief should therefore benefit them more. If there was no differential distribution of wealth with respect to race, the benefits of poverty relief would be neutral with respect to race.
Additionally, the person I responded to is very clearly describing a situation related to a student’s socioeconomic status. I absolutely believe some kind of “blind” application process is necessary to minimise the impact of a number of possible prejudices held by the admissions team.
To clarify, I don’t believe in the creation of any deliberately biased system.
As in you don’t believe it’s possible for a biased system to exist or you don’t think it’s possible to do it deliberately, something else ?
but I believe the main societal issue is overwhelmingly one of wealth disparity.
I agree, and the idea of providing a baseline humanitarian standard of living isn’t impossible it’s just very unlikely without some hefty and painful foundational changes to how societies are currently working.
I’m not assigning a moral value when I use the phrase “disproportionate benefit”. I’m alluding to the disproportionate degree of poverty experienced by African-Americans. Poverty relief should therefore benefit them more. If there was no differential distribution of wealth with respect to race, the benefits of poverty relief would be neutral with respect to race.
Additionally, the person I responded to is very clearly describing a situation related to a student’s socioeconomic status. I absolutely believe some kind of “blind” application process is necessary to minimise the impact of a number of possible prejudices held by the admissions team.
Fair enough, it seems i entirely misunderstood what you meant, my apologies.
No worries, thanks for replying. When I say I don’t believe in them, I mean I don’t believe we (i.e. society) should create those systems. Unfortunately I absolutely believe we do create them, both deliberately and inadvertently.
Yes what I described is class but as we agree there is a strong racial correlation of class in America. There is also racial prejudice which makes it more difficult for some racialized people to develop strong university applications, eg less encouragement to participate in certain extra curriculars. Racial prejudice that affected a parent’s career can affect multiple generations.
I’m not a racialized person. My parents are the same age as Ruby Bridges, but didn’t have to face racial discrimination in their careers. In 2018 My parents helped my wife and I buy a house (they gave us a loan against what they expect to leave us in their will, ie when they die we owe the estate $x0,000 dollars plus interest, but our inheritance is expected to exceed that amount). We still have a mortgage, but we were able to buy a house in the city in 2019. This is going to help my children get into university because they are going to be closer to extra curricular activities and summer jobs. This would not have been possible if my parents faced racial discrimination in their careers that suppressed their earnings.
I grew up in an affluent neighbourhood without really being exposed to racism or stereotypes. Also without really meeting people that had experienced racism. I would have agreed that we should focus on class because racism is only historical and will sort itself out when the old people die. I was wrong.
Race and racism divides the working class against itself, we can’t ignore it, but we can’t fixate on it either. We need to simultaneously advance working class interests, AND the interests of people disadvantaged by racism, because we need unity.
E.g. if one group of parents have enough cash on hand to enroll their children in tutoring when they need it, and impressive extra curricular activities when tutoring is unnecessary, then the children of those parents will have stronger university applications than the children that have to work part time jobs. This perpetuates racially inequality
(Repeated cuz it’s good, and i believe in helping people with special requirements)
Gosh, you’re pretty arrogant huh? Ignorant peeps usually are.
Is “systemic” racism, where the parents have less money because racism is systemic too high a bar for your iq to clear?
Not every racialized person reports experiencing racism. That can be for various reasons, one of the potential reasons is that they haven’t experienced racism. Although I guess in that case they wouldn’t be a racialized person… just a person of colour.
No, no, don’t give up on me just yet! I need to know how you started off acknowledging racism and then forgetting it by the end of your comment! Please advise my clearly ignorant take
If there’s hidden segregation in education, as it was with Jews in USSR, then universities doing less of it will become better over time.
(I mean - this effect has sort of receded by now, but in today’s Russia all education kinda slowly rots. There are exceptions, which are mostly connected to specific passionate people.)
And affirmative action is hard to do right, and from what I’ve heard, it’s not done right in the USA.
The right way is similar to support groups and employment help groups.
Having a list of protected groups is wrong for two reasons - it doesn’t protect at all those who haven’t made it into that list, first, and making a group protected also cements its definition, makes an arbitrary border for it, second.
So - applying force, as in such laws, may feel intuitively more powerful, but it’s not.
Also laws meant to protect may actually in obscure ways cement a certain group’s disadvantaged position. The best policy is no special cases and minimization of blocking and gatekeeping, so that if for members of some group things don’t work somewhere, there’s enough alternatives so that they’d find a way. That is harder, but known to work. Unlike preferential treatment.
There is a comment with percentage of Asian students here too, where they are represented more than in population. Is there no racism against Asians? Is there any affirmative action in their favor?
Your theory is sound except for the glaring ommision of the existence of racism. That’s why “”“preferential”“” <–(needs more quotes) exists, because in America, systemic racism absolutely does
Yeah I agree with you.
When they said:
They are totally ignoring the fact that systemic racism is self reinforcing.
E.g. if one group of parents have enough cash on hand to enroll their children in tutoring when they need it, and impressive extra curricular activities when tutoring is unnecessary, then the children of those parents will have stronger university applications than the children that have to work part time jobs. This perpetuates racially inequality.
It’s not difficult to understand. It doesn’t even require racial prejudice.
That would be socioeconomic class more than race, and I completely agree. In fact, race doesn’t have anything to do with it, other than the historical facts of America meaning there’s a racial skew to poverty. Targeting poverty ("wealth privilege) would therefore disproportionately benefit African-Americans, without needlessly excluding the poor from other demographics and continuing to perpetuate the idea that skin colour is somehow the most important thing about people.
In a system where inherent racism didn’t exist that would work, are you assuming that the current system wouldn’t disproportionately skew the beneficiaries to the existing racial bias for some reason ?
That just gives you the same problem, a step down in the chain.
Systemic racism doesn’t start once you hit a threshold of income, targeting the poor will still skew towards whatever biases exist in the system.
Either you don’t understand why African-Americans would need additional help or you are framing it that way on purpose.
By what metric are you getting “disproportionate” ?
It sounds like systemic racism is over so we can all just go back to seeing everyone as equals. /s
Again, either you have a fundamental misunderstanding or are purposely framing it that way.
To be clear, these measures aren’t “skin color is most important so let’s base policy on that aspect”
they are closer to
“The system is actively using skin colour and ethnicity to detrimentally target people who should really be equal in standing, let’s not pretend that that isn’t happening and try to address it”
To clarify, I don’t believe in the creation of any deliberately biased system, but I believe the main societal issue is overwhelmingly one of wealth disparity.
I’m not assigning a moral value when I use the phrase “disproportionate benefit”. I’m alluding to the disproportionate degree of poverty experienced by African-Americans. Poverty relief should therefore benefit them more. If there was no differential distribution of wealth with respect to race, the benefits of poverty relief would be neutral with respect to race.
Additionally, the person I responded to is very clearly describing a situation related to a student’s socioeconomic status. I absolutely believe some kind of “blind” application process is necessary to minimise the impact of a number of possible prejudices held by the admissions team.
As in you don’t believe it’s possible for a biased system to exist or you don’t think it’s possible to do it deliberately, something else ?
I agree, and the idea of providing a baseline humanitarian standard of living isn’t impossible it’s just very unlikely without some hefty and painful foundational changes to how societies are currently working.
Fair enough, it seems i entirely misunderstood what you meant, my apologies.
No worries, thanks for replying. When I say I don’t believe in them, I mean I don’t believe we (i.e. society) should create those systems. Unfortunately I absolutely believe we do create them, both deliberately and inadvertently.
That’s an interesting perspective.
You think they’d form on their own? or we shouldn’t be getting to the point where they are needed or something else entirely ?
Yes what I described is class but as we agree there is a strong racial correlation of class in America. There is also racial prejudice which makes it more difficult for some racialized people to develop strong university applications, eg less encouragement to participate in certain extra curriculars. Racial prejudice that affected a parent’s career can affect multiple generations.
I’m not a racialized person. My parents are the same age as Ruby Bridges, but didn’t have to face racial discrimination in their careers. In 2018 My parents helped my wife and I buy a house (they gave us a loan against what they expect to leave us in their will, ie when they die we owe the estate $x0,000 dollars plus interest, but our inheritance is expected to exceed that amount). We still have a mortgage, but we were able to buy a house in the city in 2019. This is going to help my children get into university because they are going to be closer to extra curricular activities and summer jobs. This would not have been possible if my parents faced racial discrimination in their careers that suppressed their earnings.
I grew up in an affluent neighbourhood without really being exposed to racism or stereotypes. Also without really meeting people that had experienced racism. I would have agreed that we should focus on class because racism is only historical and will sort itself out when the old people die. I was wrong.
Race and racism divides the working class against itself, we can’t ignore it, but we can’t fixate on it either. We need to simultaneously advance working class interests, AND the interests of people disadvantaged by racism, because we need unity.
I entirely agree!
(Er whoops)
deleted by creator
It’s not difficult to understand, except it’s wrong in experience.
(Repeated cuz it’s good, and i believe in helping people with special requirements)
Gosh, you’re pretty arrogant huh? Ignorant peeps usually are.
Is “systemic” racism, where the parents have less money because racism is systemic too high a bar for your iq to clear?
Sheesh.
Not every racialized person reports experiencing racism. That can be for various reasons, one of the potential reasons is that they haven’t experienced racism. Although I guess in that case they wouldn’t be a racialized person… just a person of colour.
My comment literally starts with comparison to Jews in USSR. If that’s glaring omission, I think some systemic education issues have already got you.
No, no, don’t give up on me just yet! I need to know how you started off acknowledging racism and then forgetting it by the end of your comment! Please advise my clearly ignorant take