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Of course, there was that bit recently where some arm of the US gov't said that discriminating based on criminal record might be illegal because minorities have

Of course, there was that bit recently where some arm of the US gov't said that discriminating based on criminal record might be illegal because minorities have proportionately more criminal records, making discrimination based on criminal record, racism. So I no longer know which way is up in regards to this stuff.

zorpner 11y ago
I think the overall point should be that no way is clearly up -- it seems obvious that corporations shouldn't be forced to act unprofitably, but not only does that often reinforce systemic racism (in this case), you end up with e.g. insurers shouldn't have to cover preexisting conditions, felons should be permanently out of a job (and thus essentially forced back into crime), et cetera. Or should that be the government's role, and how do we reconcile that with the common wisdom that private enterprise is more efficient (or desirable)? These are complex, subtle issues. The most important thing is to distrust anyone telling you that the answer is "obvious", which so far is most of this HN thread.
tamana 11y ago
Black people are more likely to be convicted of drug crimes even when they use drugs at the same rates as white people. Similar for traffic crimes. Many crimes are poverty-related theft for subsistence, which rich people never need to be tempted with (as they get handouts from their parents) aren't particularly relevant if someone gets a job that eliminates poverty. And childhood poverty is correlated to race. So yeah, screening by criminal record is intertwined with structural racism.
- tmptmp 11y ago
  >>Many crimes are poverty-related theft for subsistence Is poverty an acceptable justification for crimes? If yes, there are many issues: how much poor one should be to justify this? how much rich the other person (whom the poor one robbed) should be to justify this? What are the acceptable reasons why the poor one remained poor in the first place? what kind of reasons/ways how the rich become rich due to/using are acceptable to make the rich person a right target for the society to accept his/her being robbed by a poor is justifiable? What about the poor ones giving birth to children when they know they cannot afford things, and then they rob others to justify that they did this for their children and did so out of poverty? and so on. There are many, many such issues. I am not saying that there are not any racism related issues but just trying to hide everything behind racism and/or trying to sideline such issues is not going to help either the black people or in general the USA. edit: added more examples.

zorpner 11y ago

I think the overall point should be that no way is clearly up -- it seems obvious that corporations shouldn't be forced to act unprofitably, but not only does that often reinforce systemic racism (in this case), you end up with e.g. insurers shouldn't have to cover preexisting conditions, felons should be permanently out of a job (and thus essentially forced back into crime), et cetera. Or should that be the government's role, and how do we reconcile that with the common wisdom that private enterprise is more efficient (or desirable)? These are complex, subtle issues. The most important thing is to distrust anyone telling you that the answer is "obvious", which so far is most of this HN thread.

tamana 11y ago

Black people are more likely to be convicted of drug crimes even when they use drugs at the same rates as white people. Similar for traffic crimes. Many crimes are poverty-related theft for subsistence, which rich people never need to be tempted with (as they get handouts from their parents) aren't particularly relevant if someone gets a job that eliminates poverty. And childhood poverty is correlated to race. So yeah, screening by criminal record is intertwined with structural racism.

tmptmp 11y ago
>>Many crimes are poverty-related theft for subsistence Is poverty an acceptable justification for crimes? If yes, there are many issues: how much poor one should be to justify this? how much rich the other person (whom the poor one robbed) should be to justify this? What are the acceptable reasons why the poor one remained poor in the first place? what kind of reasons/ways how the rich become rich due to/using are acceptable to make the rich person a right target for the society to accept his/her being robbed by a poor is justifiable? What about the poor ones giving birth to children when they know they cannot afford things, and then they rob others to justify that they did this for their children and did so out of poverty? and so on. There are many, many such issues. I am not saying that there are not any racism related issues but just trying to hide everything behind racism and/or trying to sideline such issues is not going to help either the black people or in general the USA. edit: added more examples.