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The author switches from using the term 'white' to 'privileged' halfway through the article to describe the parents who campaigned against the scheduling change
by gnarbarian 8y ago
The author switches from using the term 'white' to 'privileged' halfway through the article to describe the parents who campaigned against the scheduling changes.
>One of the first things they showed us was a photo of the parents who had protested against the schedules devised by the algorithm. Nearly all of them were white. The majority of families in the Boston school system are not white. White families represent only about 15 percent the public school population in the city.
followed by:
>Optimizing the algorithm for greater “equity" also meant many of the planned changes were "biased" against families with privilege.
Since the author didn't clarify what they meant, or differentiate between them I am assuming they used the two terms interchangeably.
One funny thing I noticed. You could argue that since white families only constitute 15% of the public school population these changes disproportionately negatively affect a minority group.
- manofstick 8y ago"Minority" is not the opposite of "Privileged". When we speak of wanting to assist minorities this is when they are disadvantaged minorities. i.e. they are the opposite of privileged. Please don't just play word games.
- gnarbarian 8y agoAhh but word games are par for the course in these discussions. A recent example is the humanities redefinition of 'racism' to mean 'power and privilege', instead of 'discrimination or bigotry based on race'. Don't disproportionate negative consequences constitute a disadvantage? Especially when faced with the existing issues of being a minority in a school system? Who really is disadvantaged here? You can compound that with the new racism definition and I'm starting to wonder where all this supposed privilege is.