4 ms·

It's curious to me that you can make race a legal requirement for anything.

olliej 6y ago
Ideally you wouldn’t, but if there’s a long history of discrimination against that race/sex/orientation/identity then you need to do that to correct for the historical bias. I’d rather it not exist, but there isn’t really any other corrective measure you can make.
- pure_simplicity 6y ago
  That's simply a false dichotomy. You can very easily tailor social programs to help correct for the effects of historical injustice without resorting to discrimination by simply targetting the effect itself, not the group that was discriminated against. Any group that is disproportionally affected by the effect will be disproportionally helped by the alleviation and remediation of said effect. The argument that we need more racism because of racism is a vicious cycle. I hate all racism, no matter if it's well intentioned. The road to hell is all too often paved with good intentions. Groups do not endure injustice, individuals do. The moment we start thinking of people as competing groups rather than individuals, individuals become devalued and get thrown under the bus without regard for their unique personhood. Under a program like this a well to-do black immigrant who is not the product of a history of injustice would receive preferential treatment over a non-black person trapped in generational poverty who may have personally endured injustice. Why do white leftist think that blacks are dependent on special treatment from whites? Isn't that white supremacist in and of itself? They are still denying us the dignity of succeeding on our own merits on a level playing field.
- bleah1000 6y ago
  But what evidence is there that these kinds of projects actually help the people they are trying to help? I mean, not every black person in America today is descended from slaves. It's kind of racist to assume that if you see a black person, they must be a slave descendant. So this project is not necessarily going to benefit the people who were historically discriminated against. Additionally, how do you prevent this project from helping people who are already well off? Since people who have money, or the children of people with money, are more likely to be able to participate and do well. I would argue that there is a good chance that this will benefit rich (or well off) people, who happen to have a particular skin color.

Ideally you wouldn’t, but if there’s a long history of discrimination against that race/sex/orientation/identity then you need to do that to correct for the historical bias. I’d rather it not exist, but there isn’t really any other corrective measure you can make.

pure_simplicity 6y ago
That's simply a false dichotomy. You can very easily tailor social programs to help correct for the effects of historical injustice without resorting to discrimination by simply targetting the effect itself, not the group that was discriminated against. Any group that is disproportionally affected by the effect will be disproportionally helped by the alleviation and remediation of said effect. The argument that we need more racism because of racism is a vicious cycle. I hate all racism, no matter if it's well intentioned. The road to hell is all too often paved with good intentions. Groups do not endure injustice, individuals do. The moment we start thinking of people as competing groups rather than individuals, individuals become devalued and get thrown under the bus without regard for their unique personhood. Under a program like this a well to-do black immigrant who is not the product of a history of injustice would receive preferential treatment over a non-black person trapped in generational poverty who may have personally endured injustice. Why do white leftist think that blacks are dependent on special treatment from whites? Isn't that white supremacist in and of itself? They are still denying us the dignity of succeeding on our own merits on a level playing field.
bleah1000 6y ago
But what evidence is there that these kinds of projects actually help the people they are trying to help? I mean, not every black person in America today is descended from slaves. It's kind of racist to assume that if you see a black person, they must be a slave descendant. So this project is not necessarily going to benefit the people who were historically discriminated against. Additionally, how do you prevent this project from helping people who are already well off? Since people who have money, or the children of people with money, are more likely to be able to participate and do well. I would argue that there is a good chance that this will benefit rich (or well off) people, who happen to have a particular skin color.