These are all statistical measures. For any one individual may not see the benefits of these privileges. Grouping everybody into their race and statistics will tell you there is variation. That's unavoidable.
There are thousands of homeless white men in my city. Maybe police interactions might be calmer for them, but what does it matter for somebody whose life is sliding downhill often by their own addictions?
This is why the focus on race seems like such a distraction to me. We could be helping the poor when we're still too busy discussing race and ethnicity.
> These are all statistical measures. For any one individual may not see the benefits of these privileges. Grouping everybody into their race and statistics will tell you there is variation. That's unavoidable.
Some variation is unavoidable, but statistically significant variation isn't! Why should people in those underpriviledged groups accept a society which gives them fewer chances?
> There are thousands of homeless white men in my city. Maybe police interactions might be calmer for them, but what does it matter for somebody whose life is sliding downhill often by their own addictions?
Yes, it does matter? If police interactions are calmer and you live longer, you have more chances to turn your life around. We as a society have more chances to help them.
> This is why the focus on race seems like such a distraction to me. We could be helping the poor when we're still too busy discussing race and ethnicity.
We should help the poor, and we should work to remove disparities between races and ethnicities. Why are those things opposed in your mind?
1) Many people of that race may be independently wealthy and do not need help. Grouping people by race is a bad measure of “need”
2) I haven’t heard realistic plans for actually helping people of a specific race. Helping poor people seems achievable, helping black people sounds presumptuous.
3) Race itself is a nebulous grouping with many edge cases.
4) You could easily find other ways to group people to locate “disadvantage”. Religion is an easy one, but affirmative action based of religion sounds quite discriminatory.
5) The focus on race is actually just racist. People’s difficulty of life is not measured by privilege but by actual experiences.
> 1) Many people of that race may be independently wealthy and do not need help. Grouping people by race is a bad measure of “need”
But people are being treated badly due to their race. Why can't we use race as one criterium to decide who needs help? Why do we have to pretend that racism isn't a real social thing that affects peoples lives?
> 2) I haven’t heard realistic plans for actually helping people of a specific race. Helping poor people seems achievable, helping black people sounds presumptuous.
Well, if you define these plans as unrealistic you're not going to find realistic plans. But affirmative action for example is a very realistic plan - so much so that it is (or was) reality!
> 3) Race itself is a nebulous grouping with many edge cases.
Sure, but people are being treated badly due to those nebulous groupings with many edge cases. Why do we have to ignore that?
> 4) You could easily find other ways to group people to locate “disadvantage”. Religion is an easy one, but affirmative action based of religion sounds quite discriminatory.
Do you have statistics showing that a similarly statistically significant difference exists between different religions?
> 5) The focus on race is actually just racist. People’s difficulty of life is not measured by privilege but by actual experiences.
"The people who identify racism are the real racists!" isn't as good of an argument as you think. People have different experiences due to their race. Attempting to find ways to curb that isn't "racist", it's "normal social behavior".
> But people are being treated badly due to their race
Unfortunately, I do not think you can force racists to stop being racist. Bigotry is perfectly legal.
> affirmative action for example is a very realistic plan
It's also kinda racist.
> people are being treated badly due to those nebulous groupings
This is one of the valid reasons to discuss race. However, I do not see why this means people need "help". What kind of help? How are you going to help? I still have no answers.
> Unfortunately, I do not think you can force racists to stop being racist. Bigotry is perfectly legal.
Why should the affected groups, or society at large, accept this? Why shouldn't we band together to try to make things fair in light of this fact?
> It's also kinda racist.
Can you explain why? You cited MLK Jr. earlier. He didn't think that AA is racist. Where do you disagree with his position?
> This is one of the valid reasons to discuss race. However, I do not see why this means people need "help". What kind of help? How are you going to help? I still have no answers.
No, you've gotten answers, you just don't like them. I've explained pretty clearly why this means people need "help", what kind of help and so on.
I'm trying to take your reply in good faith, but I'm really not understanding. Can you walk me through your thought process? The earlier discussion was:
>>> But people are being treated badly due to their race
>> Unfortunately, I do not think you can force racists to stop being racist. Bigotry is perfectly legal.
> Why should the affected groups, or society at large, accept this? Why shouldn't we band together to try to make things fair in light of this fact?
So the court helped black people in regards to the bigotry of racists by "preventing universities from being racist". Your solution to racism is to treat everyone equally - which in turn means that black people just have to accept the bigotry of racists. So your solution is for them to just suck it up. Am I understanding you correctly?
"Your solution to racism is to treat everyone equally"
Yes. This is the logical solution. The way to end X is that everybody stops doing X. It's very clear, simple, and I'm sure you would agree with virtually all values of X.
Wow, so it really is just "suck it up". Do you really not understand how problematic this line of thought is for those who are being discriminated against? Or do you just think that the only racism in this world is affirmative action, and minorities aren't being discriminated against?
Why are you ignoring my point? I've brought it up multiple times. Instead of just repeating your position you could, you know, respond to my argument regarding your position.
“Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”
Do you think it should be eliminated? Then why are you arguing against its elimination? Why do you claim to think it should be eliminated? Why should I be convinced that you actually believe it should be eliminated?
I will repeat the point once more, please directly engage with it.
Earlier in this comment tree the other user wrote:
> Unfortunately, I do not think you can force racists to stop being racist. Bigotry is perfectly legal.
I agree with this, so the presupposition for the rest of the comment chain is that this statement is agreed upon, unless otherwise specified. I pointed towards this statement multiple times and asked: if this means that minorities will be discriminated against (since the agreed upon statement is that racists will still exist), and the attempt at "positive discrimination" is forbidden, they are simply discriminated against. What is your solution to this problem? How do we help them to no longer face discrimination under your proposed solution?
I don't think you have a solution, as you have so far failed to bring one up (even though I asked this question multiple times). So far, your position is equivalent to "they just have to suck it up". Can you finally offer a different position?
Exactly - your only solution is for them to "suck it up". You don't offer any other solution, or even acknowledge the problem. Glad we got to an agreement, even if it took repeating things 4 times!
And your "solution" is to increase the amount of discrimination? The doing of nothing at all, which you're accusing me of promoting, is obviously absolutely better than that.
I don't think it makes sense to discuss potential solutions with you, as you've already shown that you're not interested in solving the problems of minorities. Why would you not just call any potential solution "racism" if it doesn't equally benefit the whole population?
> We could be helping the poor when we're still too busy discussing race and ethnicity.
Why not both? I expect you'd find the cross-section of people who want to, say, give black people better medical outcomes, and those who support helping the homeless and poor is quite large.
I feel like "what about the poor" reliability shows up when discussing helping brown people, but as soon as something is designed to help the poor the same politicians show up to condem it as entitlements or socialism.
I've seen no evidence to suggest that anyone trying to better minority outcomes has ever actually distracted from implementing programs to help the poor.
Well for example we already discussed that black people have worse health outcomes, we could perhaps study why that is and focus on fixing those things, ex through outreach programs.
Assume we can fix poverty entirely. We already live in a world where, accounting for income, black people have worse health outcomes than whites. Why do you assume helping poor people will fix that? Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume we'd now love in a world where no one is poor , and black people still are underserved by our healthcare system? How do you propose fixing it if we can't acknowledge the racial disparities?
> The focus on race breeds inaction because we insist something must be done before we have any idea how to solve it.
Bull. We aren't unable to implement programs help the poor because people dare mention race. Plenty of people are trying to push for programs to help the poor regardless of race. It's not the people who acknowledge that black people are more likely to be poor standing in the way.
Outreach programs can't be part of the solution? Why not? The suggestion was based on studies that found a high amount of distrust of the medical system.
