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> Beyond that, many Americans, especially whites with no more than a high school education, have seen worsening health: As my research with my wife, the Princet

> Beyond that, many Americans, especially whites with no more than a high school education, have seen worsening health: As my research with my wife, the Princeton economist Anne Case, has demonstrated, for this group life expectancy is falling; mortality rates from drugs, alcohol and suicide are rising Yet in 2018, most diversity initiatives still focus on race regardless of socio-economic background.

gcb0 9y ago
you wish. in california high paying companies and universities the talk is still gender. when even rich white woman need a movement, and they do, you realize how behind schedule the US is.
- badwulf 9y ago
  > when even rich white woman need a movement, and they do They don't, they just need to learn a highly valued skill like everybody else.
kevingadd 9y ago
Diversity is a completely different subject from poverty. They're both subjects worth addressing. Poor black people in the deep south and poor white people in the deep south still live different experiences even if they're both having a hard time. Rich african americans get treated differently from rich white people. This isn't a contest. We need to fix everything.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  >This isn't a contest. Isn't it though? I mean to a certain extent policy and even corporate 'diversity initiatives' are a matter of priority - first we even the ground for women, then minorities, then maybe gender id is next? I don't see the Ivy League rushing to ensure that their campus maintains wealth-diversity in the same way they ensure racial diversity. Maybe we really do need an Oppression Olympics, then we can sort out which group is most in need of help and prioritize them (I'm biased, I think it's going to be the poor.)
  - kevingadd 9y ago
    If your diversity initiative isn't providing all the different types of diversity you're looking for, you either expand it or start new initiatives. It's worthwhile to push your company (or university)'s race balance closer into alignment with the overall population's, and it's also worthwhile to try and strike a reasonable gender balance, in hopes that you're not locking people out of opportunities based on race or gender. It's also worthwhile to make sure there are opportunities for people from lower-income backgrounds. The fact that some people are "losers" in this society (by modern capitalism's nature as a contest to see who can accumulate the most wealth at the expense of others) doesn't mean that diversity initiatives have to be a contest. You can run diversity initiatives with the goal of helping people who are otherwise excluded, and one of those can absolutely be aimed at helping people from low-income backgrounds. Likewise, once someone is in the workplace, they might still need help. Maybe your standard pay scale isn't enough for a single parent with 4 kids, because he doesn't have affordable access to childcare services for his kids. Maybe one of your employees is wheelchair-bound and you could make it a lot easier for her to stay at your company if you adjusted the office floor-plan so it's easier for her to navigate. Laws and regulations are (at least sometimes) built with this in mind, but the results will be way better if you tackle these issues directly instead of getting forced to do it by government decree.
  - sp332 9y ago
    I think the point is to get rid of the hierarchy altogether. If you don't have a system of oppression, you don't need to argue over who to point it at.
    - workthrowaway27 9y ago
      You can't get rid of hierarchy. It's a natural part of human relationships and how humans organize themselves into societies. To think otherwise is absurd.
      - sp332 9y ago
        You can certainly avoid building your whole society to perpetuate and amplify inequalities between people. The U.S. constitution was a good step forward but let's not stop challenging inequality where we see it.
- moreorless 9y ago
  > Rich african americans get treated differently from rich white people. I am neither a rich white male nor a rich black African American. Can you please elaborate on how they are treated differently?
  - grasshopperpurp 9y ago
    >Racial slur sprayed on LeBron's house: 'It's tough being black in America' https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/sport/lebron-james-racist-graffiti-incident/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/sport/lebron-james-racist-gra...
    - supreme_sublime 9y ago
      When I see these things I'm always skeptical. I doubt LeBron did that himself, but there are TONS of hoax "hate crimes". Especially the ones that seem to be picked up by the news seem to end up being hoaxes. We saw it recently in Canada with the girl who supposedly had her hijab cut, but it ended up being a lie. Who knows why she lied, perhaps for attention, maybe her mother put her up to it.
  - Trill-I-Am 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_contr...
  - acdha 9y ago
    Ta-Nehisi Coates had a tragic example of a college friend who was casually killed by a police officer: https://www.npr.org/2015/12/29/461337958/ta-nehisi-coates-on-police-brutality-the-confederate-flag-and-forgiveness https://www.npr.org/2015/12/29/461337958/ta-nehisi-coates-on... https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/6967/ https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/6967/ The gist is that being a college educated, affluent son of a doctor wasn’t enough to avoid being seen as a dangerous criminal. That simply doesn’t happen to rich white men at anything like the same rates – the average mass shooter is arrested with more care than that! Sometimes this is national news (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_contr...) but other times it’s just constant low-level stuff. As a white guy, I’ve never had a cab driver avoid picking me up; that’s very much not true for many black men even if they’re much better dressed.
woodruffw 9y ago
Here we go again. Race correlates strongly with socioeconomic background. Insofar as diversity initiatives are actually attempting to improve the lives of disadvantaged people in this country, arguments like yours amount to relative privation. Heart disease kills more people than lung cancer, but there's nothing wrong with raising money to research lung cancer.
- simonsarris 9y ago
  > Race correlates strongly with socioeconomic background. Yeah all he's saying is that socioeconomic background correlates even more strongly with socioeconomic background. And keeping it in economic terms has the additional plus of keeping the correlation consistent as times change.
  - woodruffw 9y ago
    Sorry for the late response. > Yeah all he's saying is that socioeconomic background correlates even more strongly with socioeconomic background. This is a reasonable observation, but the ought that's implicit in it is not. Heart disease correlates more strongly with death than lung cancer; does that mean it's wrong in some sense to donate to lung cancer research over heart disease? To make my opinion more material: individuals have the right to make independent decisions within a broad moral framework. It's not wrong for individuals to personalize the good they do (in this case, in the form of racial justice) so long as what they're doing really is good.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- badwulf 9y ago
  > Race correlates strongly with socioeconomic background. If it correlates strongly, then why not just ignore race and look at socioeconomic background instead? > disadvantaged people in this country They are helping only a specific subset of "disadvantaged people in this country". > Heart disease kills more people than lung cancer, but there's nothing wrong with raising money to research lung cancer. A better analogy would be: smoking increases your chance for cancer, instead of saying smoking is bad in general you say that certain cigarette brands are bad.

gcb0 9y ago

you wish. in california high paying companies and universities the talk is still gender. when even rich white woman need a movement, and they do, you realize how behind schedule the US is.

badwulf 9y ago
> when even rich white woman need a movement, and they do They don't, they just need to learn a highly valued skill like everybody else.

kevingadd 9y ago

Diversity is a completely different subject from poverty. They're both subjects worth addressing. Poor black people in the deep south and poor white people in the deep south still live different experiences even if they're both having a hard time. Rich african americans get treated differently from rich white people. This isn't a contest. We need to fix everything.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
>This isn't a contest. Isn't it though? I mean to a certain extent policy and even corporate 'diversity initiatives' are a matter of priority - first we even the ground for women, then minorities, then maybe gender id is next? I don't see the Ivy League rushing to ensure that their campus maintains wealth-diversity in the same way they ensure racial diversity. Maybe we really do need an Oppression Olympics, then we can sort out which group is most in need of help and prioritize them (I'm biased, I think it's going to be the poor.)
- kevingadd 9y ago
  If your diversity initiative isn't providing all the different types of diversity you're looking for, you either expand it or start new initiatives. It's worthwhile to push your company (or university)'s race balance closer into alignment with the overall population's, and it's also worthwhile to try and strike a reasonable gender balance, in hopes that you're not locking people out of opportunities based on race or gender. It's also worthwhile to make sure there are opportunities for people from lower-income backgrounds. The fact that some people are "losers" in this society (by modern capitalism's nature as a contest to see who can accumulate the most wealth at the expense of others) doesn't mean that diversity initiatives have to be a contest. You can run diversity initiatives with the goal of helping people who are otherwise excluded, and one of those can absolutely be aimed at helping people from low-income backgrounds. Likewise, once someone is in the workplace, they might still need help. Maybe your standard pay scale isn't enough for a single parent with 4 kids, because he doesn't have affordable access to childcare services for his kids. Maybe one of your employees is wheelchair-bound and you could make it a lot easier for her to stay at your company if you adjusted the office floor-plan so it's easier for her to navigate. Laws and regulations are (at least sometimes) built with this in mind, but the results will be way better if you tackle these issues directly instead of getting forced to do it by government decree.
- sp332 9y ago
  I think the point is to get rid of the hierarchy altogether. If you don't have a system of oppression, you don't need to argue over who to point it at.
  - workthrowaway27 9y ago
    You can't get rid of hierarchy. It's a natural part of human relationships and how humans organize themselves into societies. To think otherwise is absurd.
    - sp332 9y ago
      You can certainly avoid building your whole society to perpetuate and amplify inequalities between people. The U.S. constitution was a good step forward but let's not stop challenging inequality where we see it.
moreorless 9y ago
> Rich african americans get treated differently from rich white people. I am neither a rich white male nor a rich black African American. Can you please elaborate on how they are treated differently?
- grasshopperpurp 9y ago
  >Racial slur sprayed on LeBron's house: 'It's tough being black in America' https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/sport/lebron-james-racist-graffiti-incident/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/sport/lebron-james-racist-gra...
  - supreme_sublime 9y ago
    When I see these things I'm always skeptical. I doubt LeBron did that himself, but there are TONS of hoax "hate crimes". Especially the ones that seem to be picked up by the news seem to end up being hoaxes. We saw it recently in Canada with the girl who supposedly had her hijab cut, but it ended up being a lie. Who knows why she lied, perhaps for attention, maybe her mother put her up to it.
- Trill-I-Am 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_contr...
- acdha 9y ago
  Ta-Nehisi Coates had a tragic example of a college friend who was casually killed by a police officer: https://www.npr.org/2015/12/29/461337958/ta-nehisi-coates-on-police-brutality-the-confederate-flag-and-forgiveness https://www.npr.org/2015/12/29/461337958/ta-nehisi-coates-on... https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/6967/ https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/6967/ The gist is that being a college educated, affluent son of a doctor wasn’t enough to avoid being seen as a dangerous criminal. That simply doesn’t happen to rich white men at anything like the same rates – the average mass shooter is arrested with more care than that! Sometimes this is national news (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_contr...) but other times it’s just constant low-level stuff. As a white guy, I’ve never had a cab driver avoid picking me up; that’s very much not true for many black men even if they’re much better dressed.

woodruffw 9y ago

Here we go again. Race correlates strongly with socioeconomic background. Insofar as diversity initiatives are actually attempting to improve the lives of disadvantaged people in this country, arguments like yours amount to relative privation. Heart disease kills more people than lung cancer, but there's nothing wrong with raising money to research lung cancer.

simonsarris 9y ago
> Race correlates strongly with socioeconomic background. Yeah all he's saying is that socioeconomic background correlates even more strongly with socioeconomic background. And keeping it in economic terms has the additional plus of keeping the correlation consistent as times change.
- woodruffw 9y ago
  Sorry for the late response. > Yeah all he's saying is that socioeconomic background correlates even more strongly with socioeconomic background. This is a reasonable observation, but the ought that's implicit in it is not. Heart disease correlates more strongly with death than lung cancer; does that mean it's wrong in some sense to donate to lung cancer research over heart disease? To make my opinion more material: individuals have the right to make independent decisions within a broad moral framework. It's not wrong for individuals to personalize the good they do (in this case, in the form of racial justice) so long as what they're doing really is good.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
badwulf 9y ago
> Race correlates strongly with socioeconomic background. If it correlates strongly, then why not just ignore race and look at socioeconomic background instead? > disadvantaged people in this country They are helping only a specific subset of "disadvantaged people in this country". > Heart disease kills more people than lung cancer, but there's nothing wrong with raising money to research lung cancer. A better analogy would be: smoking increases your chance for cancer, instead of saying smoking is bad in general you say that certain cigarette brands are bad.