Racism

[Yeekim]

I've hit upon this highly cited paper -
https://www.nber.org/papers/w8524.pdf

and am currently looking through the citations for discussions, rebuttals etc

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cites=14087286868025879467&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en

My first thought is that the usual folks will point to "racial heterogeneity" and the other usual folks will point to "racial animosity".

Racial animosity in the US makes redistribution to the poor, who are disproportionately black, unappealing to many voters.

As I said, feels like common sense.
What decidedly does not feel like common sense (at least to me) is how the American Left seems to have gone all "Welp, people are too racist to accept equal treatment [of races]... let's try to sell them positive discrimination [of minorities] instead!"

 

[Timsup2nothin]

.
Are these discriminatory? I don't think they are.

You don't?

The language of the Fair Housing Act is not discriminatory, but enforcement of it certainly has been...as was intended. No less than the president of the United States have been singled out for refusing to rent to black people. Hardly any cases have been pursued against people refusing to rent to white people. If I refuse to rent to someone "because they smell," they have recourse if they are black and I will have to prove that I am being honest about my reasons. If they are white they will be told they should just take a shower. Many people would call that openly discriminatory.

Similar arguments have been forwarded, routinely, regarding the EEO act.

As I recall, when black kids were being bused into white schools there were a bunch of white parents, my own included, who claimed it was discriminatory.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Exactly, so why throw around such sweeping claims? They only help to obfuscate the picture. Sure racism can play a part in it, but the reason can just as likely be Americans' (somewhat misplaced) belief in the workings of free market capitalism.

There is a large segment of the American electorate who shore up their flagging belief in free market capitalism by the simple application of "it may not be perfect, but it's keeping the minorities down and that's a good thing." There's a lot of desire to pretend those people don't exist, or that they do not play a major role in the electoral process, but they actually do, on both counts. Short of outright savagery I do not see a practical solution to this problem that can be applied without investing generations of time.

 

[brennan]

I'm not really in a position to comment about the failures of implementation of policy in the US. I'm just arguing for more safety net and more re-distribution, and the removal of structural inequalities.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm not really in a position to comment about the failures of implementation of policy in the US. I'm just arguing for more safety net and more re-distribution, and the removal of structural inequalities.

Understood. The issue I have with a small part of what you said is that structural inequalities do, in fact, have to be removed. They can't just be ignored in hopes that they will disappear. When those structural inequalities have built up through an accretion process over the course of a dozen generations just saying "okay, we're playing on a level field now" isn't going to make it so. It's hard, and it's messy, and it takes a long time. Hopefully less time than it did to collect such a tilt in the first place, but it sure isn't happening overnight.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

I think we can all disagree on that

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/civilized said:
A civilized society or country has a well developed system of government, culture, and way of life and that treats the people who live there fairly

Thanks for bringing in an institutionalized racist statement! :]

Racism is based exactly on this old dichotomy: barbarians vs civilized.

E.g., for Nazis Jews were barbaric force ruining civilized societies or they tried to image them this way.

 

[brennan]

...i'm not sure how you see my call for structural inequalities to be removed to be different from your call for structural inequalities to be removed?

 

[metatron]

[...]both racism and sexism,[...]

Please don't do that.

Don't mix and match racism and sexism.
Compared to the victims of racism in America you as a white woman are insanely privileged.
Just... you know... don't.

Case in point:
In the Beto O'Rourke thread i went larping on a faux apartment hunt for one Ms. Congresswoman elect Ocasio-Cortez.
It was all fun. @Silurian and i played a little. All good.
But... since i know how to use my time well ( ), i had to go back the next day and research schools in Anacostia and Fairlawn more thoroughly.
I had quite a misreable morning.

Oh... oh... oh...

I can't put into words how much education (or lack thereof) in the US saddens me, how dubious, how wrong, how evil it looks to me.

Remind me again, how white women in America are being screwed out of UDHR 26.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

...i'm not sure how you see my call for structural inequalities to be removed to be different from your call for structural inequalities to be removed?

Perhaps I misinterpreted something. Are you not opposed to affirmative action?

@metatron

While "don't mix sexism and racism" is a reasonable request in a thread titled "Racism," in general a position of "well, as long as racism is worse let's ignore sexism" is pretty much untenable.

They are additive, after all.

 

[brennan]

I've hit upon this highly cited paper -
https://www.nber.org/papers/w8524.pdf

and am currently looking through the citations for discussions, rebuttals etc

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cites=14087286868025879467&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en

My first thought is that the usual folks will point to "racial heterogeneity" and the other usual folks will point to "racial animosity".

They only consider one factor (that being poor is a matter of luck) as an impact when they model explanations for why Americans oppose more 'welfare' (see end of section 4). This is a bit off when they've discussed several others - whether the poor are lazy, whether there is a belief in social mobility etc. And makes the conclusion "we are very confident that race is critically important to understanding US-Europe differences." look questionable.

People like Orwell and Steinbeck were pointing out in prominent literature that America (in particular) had/s a culture that demonised the poor several decades ago. And back then the poor they were writing about were predominantly the white working class. Trying to pretend that this can only be explained by race seems counter-factual.

Are you not opposed to affirmative action?

Removing structural inequalites, like having inherited wealth; better education and healthcare (due to inherited wealth); better connection to opportunities through your well-off parents; better acquaintance with the expected etiquette in good opportunities, through family class; having the right upper-class accent etc. etc. None of these require affirmative action.

 

[sophie]

I'm not really in a position to comment about the failures of implementation of policy in the US. I'm just arguing for more safety net and more re-distribution, and the removal of structural inequalities.

As has been repeatedly pointed out on these boards: efforts at explicitly colorblind re-distribution policies end up helping white people at the expense of minorities.

A straightforward example of this would be The National Housing Act of 1934, a bill intended to make it easier for all Americans to receive affordable loans resulting in redlining policies that effectively locked minorities out from access to home loans and exacerbated the racial segregation in American cities that persist to this day.

This is the redline map drawn for Chicago in 1934

And this is the racial makeup of Chicago today:

This is the redline map drawn for Oakland

Here is a map of Oakland today

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Removing structural inequalites, like having inherited wealth; better education and healthcare (due to inherited wealth); better connection to opportunities through your well-off parents; better acquaintance with the expected etiquette in good opportunities, through family class; having the right upper-class accent etc. etc. None of these require affirmative action.

Perhaps not, if you have some effective way to remove them overnight. If you don't then the best that can be done in the interim is a countering offset like affirmative action.

 

[Cutlass]

What is discriminatory about an even playing field?

Please explain how you would get to an even playing field.

 

[MaryKB]

I'm not going to dignify a question right now of which is worse, I feel that's totally beside the point and an attempt to derail, and that's not what I was talking about anyway. I was comparing similarities, and I feel what I was saying is valid, how you see so many things in common between racism and sexism, and I believe most racists are probably also sexists. And like for one thing you have people denying it exists, and trying to maintain a status quo where white men remain on top, and women face obstacles very much like African Americans do. And part of learning to empathize with others is finding ways you can relate; I'm obviously not black, so I don't know what it's truly like, but I am a woman who lives with a type of discrimination, and so I can use that to help myself better try to appreciate what someone else goes through, so I feel my point was valid. I also made that particular comment because the woman in my cartoon I posted is also obviously black, so this works for both, you know what I mean?

I feel that lecture I received was too much, I feel it really dismisses women's issues, and you're also totally wrong in your statements.

Thank you @Timsup2nothin, your messages here have been very thoughtful.

 

[HoloDoc]

Boy did this thread blow up overnight...

@HoloDoc, I was surprised you "liked" his Malthusian post in the Yemen War thread, I hope you now realize that post was a Trojan Horse to start talking about the...uh...main ideas in his post in this thread, right?



It is a waste of time debating with him, is a scientific racist committed to the idea of legit biological distinction between the races.

You know, it's entirely possible I did that by accident. I use a touchscreen, and I know for a fact I have accidentally liked posts before, then been unable to find where I did it.

Or he accidentally typed something intelligent. I dunno?

Your plan to end racial segregation in America is.. eugenics?

You have to admit, they'll never see it coming.

Also, Bulworth method sounds pretty good.

Khan Noonien Singh Approves this method!

And yet he married a genetically inferior female.

If you wanna argue that, I'll gladly argue against you

I vote we compromise, and @Timsup2nothin is permitted to rip the heads off children, but only if they wander into a PvP zone.

Please explain how you would get to an even playing field.

Lord of the Flies.

 

[red_elk]

Weird, why Lenin runs in suite and without socks...

 

[brennan]

Perhaps not, if you have some effective way to remove them overnight. If you don't then the best that can be done in the interim is a countering offset like affirmative action.

Please explain how you would get to an even playing field.

The only way to get rid of them overnight is by revolution. And that has a poor track record in so many ways (which is why I prefer the tag 'democratic socialist' to 'marxist').

Good suggestions for tackling them in the medium term (over a few decades) include progressive taxation (including wealth taxes and higher inheritance tax), nationalised health services and a comprehensive social security system, universal education and legislation enshrining equal rights (including workers' rights to collective bargaining). UBI is an idea that needs more large scale trials.

Proper taxation of existing wealth, as opposed to income, is a biggie that has not been addressed properly anywhere in the West afaik. The post-war consensus was a damn thorough start on many of them, especially in Europe, but is currently in retreat under right-wing pressure.

Introduction of systems that purport to be redistributory, but actually have obvious wealthy or middle-class beneficiaries (a good example from the UK was the ridiculous 'Help-to-Buy' scheme) are a problem as well, as others have intimated, they do not undermine the principle however, merely show that it can be abused by the wealthy.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Boy did this thread blow up overnight...

And is nowhere near as far off the rails as I expected when I made the first reply...yet.

I just want to say before this goes predictably off the rails...

Congratulations to all for not letting the "I'll just jump in here and defend racism until the thread gets closed" usual suspect succeed.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Good suggestions for tackling them in the medium term (over a few decades) include progressive taxation (including wealth taxes and higher inheritance tax), nationalised health services and a comprehensive social security system, universal education and legislation enshrining equal rights (including workers' rights to collective bargaining). UBI is an idea that needs more large scale trials.

Proper taxation of existing wealth, as opposed to income, is a biggie that has not been addressed properly anywhere in the West afaik. The post-war consensus was a damn thorough start on many of them, especially in Europe, but is currently in retreat under right-wing pressure.

Introduction of systems that purport to be redistributory, but actually have obvious wealthy or middle-class beneficiaries (a good example from the UK was the ridiculous 'Help-to-Buy' scheme) are a problem as well, as others have intimated, they do not undermine the principle however, merely show that it can be abused by the wealthy.

I certainly won't oppose this. I do think that when you try to apply things like "legislation enshrining equal rights" in the US you run afoul of just how unequal they currently are in practice so the enshrinement process is messier than you credit, which is how things like affirmative action happen, but that's a smaller matter than warrants major dispute.

 

[metatron]

and I believe most racists are probably also sexists.

In your worldview i have to count as a "sexist". I just have to.
You''ll have a very hard time to peg me as a racist though.
So we shall start a running count:
One.

and trying to maintain a status quo where white men remain on top

I was talking about education and about the disgrace and crime against humanity that is the public school system in the United States.
White men are not on top of that.
White women are, and have been for decades.

and women face obstacles very much like African Americans do.

No, you don't.
White women do in no way "face obstacles much like African Americans do".
In fact that is thing one should not say.

And part of learning to empathize with others is finding ways you can relate; I'm obviously not black, so I don't know what it's truly like, but I am a woman who lives with a type of discrimination

A type. It's a very different type. It differs in virtually every dimension, in fact.