The problem with Black Lives Matter

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I'm still waiting for my claim for reparations due me from the Norman Conquest.

With interest I make that....

.... a quite interesting amount.

It wasn't a minor conquest, btw.

25% of my fellow nationals were obliterated (some would say, ahem, a harrowing experience), and ALL the land confiscated without a by-your-leave or penny piece in exchange.

The reparations to Britons from Saxon invasion comes first though - including returning of stolen land - so you better start packing...

 

[Senethro]

Aha, yes, and perhaps the neanderthal part of my DNA should petition the H. sapiens part of my dna and seek weregilt, personal vengeance and reparations. Very droll, yes?

I'm hearing a lot of "they did it too!!!" and no actual recommended courses of action.

It's not "they did it too", it's a general point about there being nothing unique about the way Europeans treated non-European peoples.

Possible communication difficulties here....

Moving on means getting over this disgusting self-pity and victim mentality that aflicts some people. It means letting bygones be bygones and treating people based on how they act, not on the color of their skin. It means not asking for completely idiotic things like reparations for stuff that happened before anyone alive was born, and which was not in anyway unique to a single group anyway.

Aright imagine I've taken a map of world nations of GDP per capita and across america/Europe I've written "lets let bygones be bygones. btw we require special access to your resources for our corporations and if you don't we'll call in your debt" and then across africa I've written "disgusting self-pity and victim mentality".

If by supporting the status quo you mean supporting a Republic where all citizens have the exact same legal rights and obligations, then damn straight I support the status quo. And damn straight I oppose any schemes to give special privileges to groups based on their ethnic origin, be it in the name of moronic and a-historic reparations or anything else.

and insert a chart of American wealth by household against race here....

Your ideal is not the status quo, but is sometimes falsely claimed as such in order to shut down legitimate dissent.

 

[metalhead]

The whole point is that citizens in the American republic do not have the same legal rights and obligations, along axes of both wealth and race. That describes a Republic which does not exist.

The Republic which exists is one where certain groups have imposed upon them stricter obligations, and in return receive fewer rights. Supporting that status quo is to support the opposite of what you profess to support.

 

[luiz]

Aright imagine I've taken a map of world nations of GDP per capita and across america/Europe I've written "lets let bygones be bygones. btw we require special access to your resources for our corporations and if you don't we'll call in your debt" and then across africa I've written "disgusting self-pity and victim mentality".



and insert a chart of American wealth by household against race here....

Your ideal is not the status quo, but is sometimes falsely claimed as such in order to shut down legitimate dissent.

I don't get what a map of nations GDP per capita has to do with anything. I'll note that some of the richest nations in the world are neither in Europe nor North America - think Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, UAE, Qatar, etc.

I'll also note that in the US, the highest earning households are not white, but actually Asian. If we look at ancestry, Indian Americans are the richest subgroup in the US, and earn in average almost twice as much as Irish Americans and 40% more than German Americans. Other Asian groups dominate the top spots.

So much for inherent advantages of being white.

The whole point is that citizens in the American republic do not have the same legal rights and obligations, along axes of both wealth and race. That describes a Republic which does not exist.

The Republic which exists is one where certain groups have imposed upon them stricter obligations, and in return receive fewer rights. Supporting that status quo is to support the opposite of what you profess to support.

I think the legal rights of all ethnic groups are the same in most democratic Republics in the world.

That doesn't mean the outcomes are the same. Be it for historical reasons, or cultural ones. In the US, for example, Asians do much better than everyone else.

Edit : which is not to say racism doesn't exist. Of course it does. But it is not this dominant feature of society some people think it is.

 

[metalhead]

De jure equality is meaningless if there is not de facto equality. That was the whole reason why "separate but equal" was struck down. Segregation laws had to specifically prescribe that blacks and whites be provided equal accommodations, or else they would not pass muster under the Equal Protection clause. In theory, everyone had the same legal rights. In practice, however, segregation led to persistent, across the board problems for black people in every corner of society. From education to housing, even things as simple as access to hotels and restaurants, segregation provided unequal outcomes despite legal requirements that each group be given equal rights and equal legal standing.

Here is a very illuminating article on all of the racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system. You acknowledge that outcomes are not the same, which basically admits that there is not equality in practice despite equality under the law. My question to you then is, whether it is a dominant feature of society or not - isn't this inequality a problem that we should seek a solution to?

 

[luiz]

De jure equality is meaningless if there is not de facto equality. That was the whole reason why "separate but equal" was struck down. Segregation laws had to specifically prescribe that blacks and whites be provided equal accommodations, or else they would not pass muster under the Equal Protection clause. In theory, everyone had the same legal rights. In practice, however, segregation led to persistent, across the board problems for black people in every corner of society. From education to housing, even things as simple as access to hotels and restaurants, segregation provided unequal outcomes despite legal requirements that each group be given equal rights and equal legal standing.

Here is a very illuminating article on all of the racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system. You acknowledge that outcomes are not the same, which basically admits that there is not equality in practice despite equality under the law. My question to you then is, whether it is a dominant feature of society or not - isn't this inequality a problem that we should seek a solution to?

Different outcomes don't necessarily warrant any specific action, specially because there will always be different outcomes. For examples, Indian Americans are on average vastly richer than white Americans, earning twice as much as some major white subgroups such as Irish Americans. Do you think we need specific policies that aid white Americans overcome this gap? Or give preferential treatment to white Americans to make up for their vast income and education disadvantages vis-a-vis Indian Americans?

I don't think so. Clearly the explanation for the massive difference in outcome is not anti-white discrimination, but other factors.

An enormous part of the gap between blacks and whites can likewise be explained by factors that have nothing to do with race. Geographical distribution being a huge one. Historical and legacy factors also playing a huge role.

A simple table that shows us the wealth or income gap between whites and blacks means precisely nothing. There's a huge income and wealth gap between say whites of Connecticut and whites of Mississippi too. Note that there are far more blacks in Mississippi than Connecticut, and this matters a lot for average income numbers. There's also a huge wealth gap between whites with rich grandparents and whites with poor grandparents. For obvious reasons, far more whites had rich grandparents than blacks.

Even if there was no racism or discrimination whatsoever in the US right now, geographical distribution and family capital would alone mean a huge disparity between whites and blacks. So what? There are huge disparities between different white groups too.

 

[metalhead]

Social scientists find racial disparities across the board even when controlling for economic factors. You're trying to come up with an alternative explanation, but that explanation has already been disproven. There is proven inequality specifically tied to race. That is reality. So given that reality, do you think it merits action or not?

 

[luiz]

Social scientists find racial disparities across the board even when controlling for economic factors. You're trying to come up with an alternative explanation, but that explanation has already been disproven. There is proven inequality specifically tied to race. That is reality. So given that reality, do you think it merits action or not?

Actually, I studied many panels on income in the US during grad school, and found that indeed once you control for just a few key factors, racial disparities fall dramatically. The numbers usually presented by the press are simple averages, and mean precisely nothing as I said. Whatever disparities exist which are really attributable to race, they are only a small fraction of the numbers usually floated about. This is of course known by any social scientist.

That said, when utilizing classical controls, it's true that race remains a statically significant variable in the US. But that doesn't "prove" that race plays a role as you say, because obviously we can't control for all possible non-racial factors.

But let's say race plays a role. It's definitely a small one compared to say geography (average income in the richest US state is about 100% superior to average income in the poorest state). It's definitely also dwarfed by other factors such as parental educational level. So would I create a race-specific policy? No. There are far more important drivers of inequality than race, and race-specific solutions are inherently unfair and do a lot of collateral damage.

 

[metalhead]

I'm not talking about income. Correcting for racial bias in other areas, areas where it makes more sense to do so and is not disruptive, would mitigate income disparities significantly, if not eliminate them altogether.

You still have the enormous problem of wealth inequality, but I have a very simple and non-race-specific solution to that problem.

 

[Berzerker]

The Republic which exists is one where certain groups have imposed upon them stricter obligations, and in return receive fewer rights. Supporting that status quo is to support the opposite of what you profess to support.

Maybe Democrats and Republicans shouldn't be lecturing others about rights and systemic racism

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Aha, yes, and perhaps the neanderthal part of my DNA should petition the H. sapiens part of my dna and seek weregilt, personal vengeance and reparations. Very droll, yes?

Your DNA is the proof that your kind has oppressed and assimilated these poor innocent helpless neanderthals. You should give yourself 30 whips before you go to bed tonight.

 

[Berzerker]

a Zulu legend admits their ancient ancestors killed the apemen

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I'm no brain genius but aren't there like, a lot more white people in the United States. The fact that those lines are so close together doesn't say what I suspect you think it does.

Actually a bit of basic maths shows that if both racial groups commit murders at the same rate, and each individual murder victim is selected entirely at random, then the number of cross-racial murder victims would be exactly the same for each group, regardless of the relative sizes of the groups. So the fact that one group has 3 times as many victims is actually significant.

 

[Lexicus]

Social scientists find racial disparities across the board even when controlling for economic factors. You're trying to come up with an alternative explanation, but that explanation has already been disproven. There is proven inequality specifically tied to race. That is reality. So given that reality, do you think it merits action or not?

Kinda reminds me of when people bring up sunspots in global warming debates.

 

[Senethro]

Actually a bit of basic maths shows that if both racial groups commit murders at the same rate, and each individual murder victim is selected entirely at random, then the number of cross-racial murder victims would be exactly the same for each group, regardless of the relative sizes of the groups. So the fact that one group has 3 times as many victims is actually significant.

Be absolutely sure what you're saying here. As in, go and read the source for context about those numbers relative to the total number of murders. Significant how?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Be absolutely sure what you're saying here. As in, go and read the source for context about those numbers relative to the total number of murders. Significant how?

I'm just refuting the "but there's so many more white people!!" argument because it isn't mathematically sound.

 

[Senethro]

Yeah, and you're not looking at the overall murder rate to see if the difference is actually significant.

Never mind that murders are not random....

 

[metalhead]

Given how people are distributed by race, there are going to be far more potential "random" white victims for a given black person to murder, than there are going to be potential "random" black victims for a given white person to murder.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Yeah, and you're not looking at the overall murder rate to see if the difference is actually significant.

Never mind that murders are not random....

I'm not looking at lots of things. I'm just countering two spurious claims based on poor maths.

Significant how?

Sorry, missed this, I thought it said "significant now?". Significant as in statistically significant as in an outcome that doesn't tally with a purely racially non-biased murdering pattern.

And I haven't read the context of the graph because the OP neglected to link to anything and I haven't seen it anywhere else.

 

[Senethro]

I'm not looking at lots of things. I'm just countering two spurious claims based on poor maths.



Sorry, missed this, I thought it said "significant now?". Significant as in statistically significant as in an outcome that doesn't tally with a purely racially non-biased murdering pattern.

And I haven't read the context of the graph because the OP neglected to link to anything and I haven't seen it anywhere else.

You're making a poorly supported claim to counter what you consider a poorly supported claim.

Statistically significant how? Using what methods? Because I think you're making a false (and unevidenced) claim to statistical significance because as you admit you haven't looked at the wider context.

Try google on the source included in the image. Its the top result.