4 ms·
Of course I would have doubts about pulling causality out of something as complicated as this, but here is an interesting paper that talks about a few possible
by taxicab 6y ago
Of course I would have doubts about pulling causality out of something as complicated as this, but here is an interesting paper that talks about a few possible mechanisms [1]. The big ones it seems are:
- Inflexibility in when people may vote; The types of jobs people have access to has a racial bias. Black people tend to have jobs where they literally aren't allowed to leave during they which means they can't stop by the polling location during off hours. This can make polling places deal with larger peaks in predominantly black areas.
- Partisan resource allocation; predominantly black regions tend to lean democrat and so in republican areas they may receive fewer resources to deal with voting.
- Voter ID laws; These also have a racial lean and can clog up regions where they are enacted. Minorities also tend to have a more difficult time gaining access to IDs for voting and so people may have to come back multiple times or be turned away.
- State voting laws; Regions vary with who has access to early voting, vote by mail, etc. These tend to have a racial bias as well.
[1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w26487?sy=487 https://www.nber.org/papers/w26487?sy=487
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoDiscrimination due to working times, location, and ability to show ID are not racist. They may affect black people disproportionately, but they also affect millions of whites and other races too. Those things seem to have more to do with economic status than race to me.
- matthewmacleod 6y agoI’m fed up seeing this kind of shallow dismissal. This is a particularly egregious example; you are a hair away from saying “discrimination that affects <race> disproportionately is not racist”. I mean, you’re basically describing redlining (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining) - a textbook case of a “we all already agree that this is racist and it’s not particularly controversial” concept. You don’t need a law that says “Black people can’t vote” in order to have racist policies!
- evgen 6y agoThe mechanism by which modern racists work is to find categories that are not strictly racial but which have a very strong racial correlation and then apply restrictions and barriers on this correlated category while claiming to not be acting with racial bias. What is changing is that people are starting to see right through these and courts are also starting to exhibit basic statistical literacy with regards to these tactics.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y ago73% of all arrests are male[0]. This imbalance does not mean that there is systemic bias against men, though. It means they commit more arrestable actions. [0] https://www.drugwarfacts.org/node/986 https://www.drugwarfacts.org/node/986
- matthewmacleod 6y agoThe goalposts are over here.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoI don't quite understand what you're trying to say here. Can you please clarify?
- okaram 6y agoThey do not have to be racist, but, in the USA, they usually are. Republicans know that minorities, and black people in particular, heavily favor democrats, and will enact policies that directly affect them. For an example when they said the quiet things out loud, check NC, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-carolina-voter-id/
- danaris 6y agoTaxicab's first post explicitly stated that the study they linked found race to be significant even after controlling for economic status. It's about race.