4 ms·

Because more blacks are poor, not (directly) because the color of their skin.

by nomdep 6y ago

DoreenMichele 6y ago
And how is it 'more blacks are poor' persistently across the nation for hundreds of years having nothing to do with the color of their skin? Blacks are last hired, first fired. There is a history of laws being written to explicitly and intentionally exclude them and not all those laws have been expunged from the books. Redlining and similar practices are well documented. I don't know how anyone can suggest that poverty is the root cause of poor outcomes for Blacks and is wholly unrelated to their skin color and deny that skin color has any connection as a root cause when we know for a fact it does. We know for a fact that there is a long history in this country of Blacks being actively and intentionally denied access to the same things as Whites in this country because of the color of their skin.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  > Blacks are last hired, first fired. Sounds like you don’t have much exposure to large companies these days. If anything it’s the opposite. You’re incorrect that there are any racist laws remaining that might influence hiring, unless you are referring to govern contracts, in which minority owned businesses are given preference. It is silly to introduce historical artifacts as though they are the situation today.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    Black people account for about 12% of the U.S. population, but occupy only 3.2% of the senior leadership roles at large companies in the U.S. and just 0.8% of all Fortune 500 CEO positions https://www.cbsnews.com/news/black-professionals-hold-only-3-percent-of-executive-jobs-1-percent-of-ceo-jobs-at-fortune-500-firms-new-report-says/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/black-professionals-hold-only-3... A close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities. At $171,000, the net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150) in 2016. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining... There are still laws on the books that were written expressly to exclude Blacks. https://wset.com/features/special-reports/racists-laws-are-still-on-the-books-in-virginia-but-why https://wset.com/features/special-reports/racists-laws-are-s... If hiring practices have changed at big companies in recent years, it doesn't mean Blacks have achieved equality yet by any stretch of the imagination.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      I know you know how statistics work, and you know this isn’t evidence of what you’re suggesting. I don’t know why anyone pretends that these stats suggest that companies are being racist about hiring. Having been involved with hiring for several of the major tech companies, and being aware of the DEI targets at others, I can tell you that they are fighting over non-white male and non-indian male talent. It’s simply not true. Given that you’ve seemingly been out of the workforce for some time, I don’t know why you insist on being so adamant about how hiring works. As for laws on the books, you found a historical artifact that has no legal effect, which the article you linked explains. It’s a reminder of a racist past, yes. These reminders will always exist in our society, and while it makes sense to continue to scrub them from legal documents over time, it’s not a good faith argument to cite such a thing as though it has any legal effect today. To be intellectually honest, you should also be upset that virginia makes it illegal for unwed couples to live together. It’s also illegal to kill a sasquatch in Washington. In Kansas, it’s illegal to put ice cream on cherry pie. To falsely say that blacks are hired last and fired first in America is not only preposterous, but extremely counterproductive to the outcome you’re presumably looking for. This is just inventing bogus reasons for Americans to feel hostile towards each other, and discouraging more people from even trying.
      - DoreenMichele 6y ago
        I don’t know why anyone pretends that these stats suggest that companies are being racist about hiring. That isn't anything I said. I don’t know why you insist on being so adamant about how hiring works. That's not what I'm doing. You latched onto that as a thing to argue with me about in a way that ignores everything else I say and is a tactic that looks very bad faith. It looks like it is hand waving off known widespread racial bias in the name of "this one detail you said is inaccurate." It's like attacking someone over a misplaced comma to imply they are stupid without bothering to engage anything they have said. What I originally said is just that this is not shocking and talked about generally known statistics and you are latching onto "This woman knows nothing about hiring and I am going to dog her to the ends of the earth about that while pretending it is a good faith argument and overlook how shitty and racist it looks to deal with her in this fashion." This is a routine thing that whenever racism, sexism and similar come up, someone wants to go to town and nitpick something in a way that looks extremely dismissive of the very existence of the problem because they want to argue they aren't guilty of something. Some people have an expression for that along the lines of "moves to innocence" -- in other words, it is vastly more important to most White people to insist "I'm not a racist and I don't do that and that's not how hiring works" than to actually talk about how racism does work and how to remedy it. Defending their own claimed innocence is their highest priority rather than working on understanding how racism persists and what needs to be done to remedy it. "Last hired and first fired" was very much a known and standard thing for a lot of years and you have not provided any citations and I haven't gone looking because this style of arguing is so bad faith I don't want to engage it by agreeing that I need to "prove" that long-known practice remains true. There can be lots of ways that still happens without any hiring managers intentionally discriminating against Blacks. There are lots of ways that someone can be effectively removed from the pipeline before it gets to the point of applying for a particular job which is one of the things that contributes to people fighting over the few qualified candidates who do apply and have certain traits.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Common, even employment statistics for last year show that white males gained while black women lost the most. It is not just racism/sexism but, seriously, white people are not oppressed.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      I think you also know better than that when it comes to how statistics work. And I don’t know why you’re telling me that white people are not oppressed. That isn’t related to my comment.

Because more blacks are poor, not (directly) because the color of their skin.

by nomdep 6y ago

Because more blacks are poor, not (directly) because the color of their skin.

And how is it 'more blacks are poor' persistently across the nation for hundreds of years having nothing to do with the color of their skin? Blacks are last hired, first fired. There is a history of laws being written to explicitly and intentionally exclude them and not all those laws have been expunged from the books. Redlining and similar practices are well documented. I don't know how anyone can suggest that poverty is the root cause of poor outcomes for Blacks and is wholly unrelated to their skin color and deny that skin color has any connection as a root cause when we know for a fact it does. We know for a fact that there is a long history in this country of Blacks being actively and intentionally denied access to the same things as Whites in this country because of the color of their skin.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
> Blacks are last hired, first fired. Sounds like you don’t have much exposure to large companies these days. If anything it’s the opposite. You’re incorrect that there are any racist laws remaining that might influence hiring, unless you are referring to govern contracts, in which minority owned businesses are given preference. It is silly to introduce historical artifacts as though they are the situation today.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Black people account for about 12% of the U.S. population, but occupy only 3.2% of the senior leadership roles at large companies in the U.S. and just 0.8% of all Fortune 500 CEO positions https://www.cbsnews.com/news/black-professionals-hold-only-3-percent-of-executive-jobs-1-percent-of-ceo-jobs-at-fortune-500-firms-new-report-says/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/black-professionals-hold-only-3... A close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities. At $171,000, the net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150) in 2016. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining... There are still laws on the books that were written expressly to exclude Blacks. https://wset.com/features/special-reports/racists-laws-are-still-on-the-books-in-virginia-but-why https://wset.com/features/special-reports/racists-laws-are-s... If hiring practices have changed at big companies in recent years, it doesn't mean Blacks have achieved equality yet by any stretch of the imagination.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    I know you know how statistics work, and you know this isn’t evidence of what you’re suggesting. I don’t know why anyone pretends that these stats suggest that companies are being racist about hiring. Having been involved with hiring for several of the major tech companies, and being aware of the DEI targets at others, I can tell you that they are fighting over non-white male and non-indian male talent. It’s simply not true. Given that you’ve seemingly been out of the workforce for some time, I don’t know why you insist on being so adamant about how hiring works. As for laws on the books, you found a historical artifact that has no legal effect, which the article you linked explains. It’s a reminder of a racist past, yes. These reminders will always exist in our society, and while it makes sense to continue to scrub them from legal documents over time, it’s not a good faith argument to cite such a thing as though it has any legal effect today. To be intellectually honest, you should also be upset that virginia makes it illegal for unwed couples to live together. It’s also illegal to kill a sasquatch in Washington. In Kansas, it’s illegal to put ice cream on cherry pie. To falsely say that blacks are hired last and fired first in America is not only preposterous, but extremely counterproductive to the outcome you’re presumably looking for. This is just inventing bogus reasons for Americans to feel hostile towards each other, and discouraging more people from even trying.
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      I don’t know why anyone pretends that these stats suggest that companies are being racist about hiring. That isn't anything I said. I don’t know why you insist on being so adamant about how hiring works. That's not what I'm doing. You latched onto that as a thing to argue with me about in a way that ignores everything else I say and is a tactic that looks very bad faith. It looks like it is hand waving off known widespread racial bias in the name of "this one detail you said is inaccurate." It's like attacking someone over a misplaced comma to imply they are stupid without bothering to engage anything they have said. What I originally said is just that this is not shocking and talked about generally known statistics and you are latching onto "This woman knows nothing about hiring and I am going to dog her to the ends of the earth about that while pretending it is a good faith argument and overlook how shitty and racist it looks to deal with her in this fashion." This is a routine thing that whenever racism, sexism and similar come up, someone wants to go to town and nitpick something in a way that looks extremely dismissive of the very existence of the problem because they want to argue they aren't guilty of something. Some people have an expression for that along the lines of "moves to innocence" -- in other words, it is vastly more important to most White people to insist "I'm not a racist and I don't do that and that's not how hiring works" than to actually talk about how racism does work and how to remedy it. Defending their own claimed innocence is their highest priority rather than working on understanding how racism persists and what needs to be done to remedy it. "Last hired and first fired" was very much a known and standard thing for a lot of years and you have not provided any citations and I haven't gone looking because this style of arguing is so bad faith I don't want to engage it by agreeing that I need to "prove" that long-known practice remains true. There can be lots of ways that still happens without any hiring managers intentionally discriminating against Blacks. There are lots of ways that someone can be effectively removed from the pipeline before it gets to the point of applying for a particular job which is one of the things that contributes to people fighting over the few qualified candidates who do apply and have certain traits.
- watwut 6y ago
  Common, even employment statistics for last year show that white males gained while black women lost the most. It is not just racism/sexism but, seriously, white people are not oppressed.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    I think you also know better than that when it comes to how statistics work. And I don’t know why you’re telling me that white people are not oppressed. That isn’t related to my comment.