5 ms·

What exactly is the goal of the 'woke' as it pertains to race or gender? If success to them looks like an equal number of white/black/asian/women it's an unreac

What exactly is the goal of the 'woke' as it pertains to race or gender? If success to them looks like an equal number of white/black/asian/women it's an unreachable goal. According to the 2020 census: 57.8% of Americans are white, 16.3% are hispanic, 12.2% are black, and 5.9% are asian. It seems as plain as day that even if we could remove racism from the equation, it's more likely that whites will make up more share than others. As far as women in tech for example, yes there are very few of them. But is that because we discourage girls from getting into tech or simply because they, as a group naturally gravitate towards other kind of work? Nobody complains that there are too few men in nursing or too many women in nursing (my wife is in a nursing program and it is dominated by female students.) As of 2010, 14.4% of active duty US military personnel are women, 30% are minorities. What exactly is their definition of 'success'? In my mind it's equality of opportunity. I don't care what color your skin is or what gender you are - are you the best candidate from a 'doing the work' perspective. To me that should be the goal.

zionic 5y ago
Their goal is not equality of opportunity, it is equality of outcome. They’ll willingly sacrifice anyone in the top 50% to elevate the lowest of the low, no matter how little they try or deserve it. This is broadly true in all leftist policy, from higher education to taxation to the way we structure kindergarten. Success, achievement, and work ethic are to be admonished. Leftist pseudomorality establishes the victim as the highest achievable social status, rewarding those who take more from society than give to it.
- sebastianconcpt 5y ago
  I'd add to what you said that it's an apparent goal, because it's goal isn't concrete nor fixed. It's an impossible always changing imaginary that always needs more power and more obedience. Everything is about grabbing the power to produce behavioral control to keep them in power.
- GiorgioG 5y ago
  > They’ll willingly sacrifice anyone in the top 50% to elevate the lowest of the low, no matter how little they try or deserve it. > This is broadly true in all leftist policy, from higher education to taxation to the way we structure kindergarten. Success, achievement, and work ethic are to be admonished. Leftist pseudomorality establishes the victim as the highest achievable social status, rewarding those who take more from society than give to it. Maybe you should spend some time away from the news media and consider how we're all being bamboozled by the both parties, "right" and "left". Consider reading freely available "The Three Languages of politics" (summary here: https://quillette.com/2018/08/08/the-three-languages-of-politics-a-review/ https://quillette.com/2018/08/08/the-three-languages-of-poli... and enlighten yourself as to why the conservatives and progressives can never agree - because they're not talking about the same things. The democratic and republican parties take advantage of this because once you're talking their language, you'll never be convinced to switch sides. If anything can bring this country down it's both of these parties tearing us apart. I'm an independent and I've voted for both parties over the years. Don't be a lemming - these two parties are just vying for power, anything the 'little people' like us get is just a side-effect.
czzr 5y ago
For your first question - equal to their share of the population. So blacks should be ~12% of all Harvard students, for example, as opposed to the current 6%.
nsilvestri 5y ago
To begin with, no reasonable person is saying there should be a completely even balance in proportions of race in any field, for exactly the reasons you point out. The problem is that in reality, certain "merit-based" programs such as workplaces or colleges don't also align with the racial demographics of the general public, and it's a discrepancy that should make you ask "why?". The problem with a blind "merit-based" approach is that it doesn't make any attempt to understand why what we'd expect in a perfectly egalitarian world isn't what we see in reality. Studies on biological differences between race and gender show no or very small differences that can't fully explain these gaps. Other factors, such as a family's wealth, do show significant changes to the opportunities provided to a person during their lives. As it so happens, we can also see (from the US Census data you bring up) that there are wealth and income disparities between race. And now we're hiring/accepting college students/etc. Of course we want to only hire qualified people, but a disproportionate number of people of certain races were not given the opportunity to get those skills already. So we're stuck in a cycle where the people most likely to succeed are the ones who are already in this cycle of success, often due to their parents having been given those opportunities as well. So in order to actually _meet_ the expectations of racial composition (because as mentioned earlier, perfectly egalitarian expectations would be close to the proportions in the general population), we simply can't turn a colorblind eye to people's race. Breaking the cycle requires attention to be paid to people's race. Merit ignores context. The hard part about this is that it comes off as saying that you should treat people differently because of their race. And that's pretty much what it is. It would require some level of sacrifice by the privileged, at least temporarily, in order to bring everybody back to equal footing. And humans are not good with things that don't seem fair. On a different note regarding gender, there is not particularly strong evidence backing the argument that women simply "naturally gravitate towards other kind of work". Studies have shown some psychological differences in preferences of the kind of work, but it doesn't not explain the disparity we see in STEM as a whole. Of course, there are not the same multi-generational explanatory powers behind gender as there are for race, but there are other factors, largely rooted in the ideas that there are both explicit and implicit societal expectations for women that lead them towards other kinds of careers.
- GiorgioG 5y ago
tchaffee 5y ago
> If success to them looks like an equal number of white/black/asian/women it's an unreachable goal It's not the goal. You've created a strawman and wasted your own time fighting it. > In my mind it's equality of opportunity. I don't care what color your skin is That doesn't magically erase that they grew in up in a racist society that does care what color their skin is. It's insulting to many people of color to hear "I don't care what color your skin is". An appropriate and honest response from a person of color might be "Must be nice. I wouldn't know what that's like because I never had the privilage of not caring what color my skin is". Probably not the great start you were hoping for. It sounds like you want imagine the starting line was in the same place for every person who arrives to you as a candidate. When in fact some people got to you with a head start. Ignoring the starting line does the opposite of creating equality of opportunity. But ignoring the starting line is far simpler. And even useful for those who benefit from maintaining the status quo. The best candidate for the work might just be the person who arrives less qualified and slightly behind the winner. Someone who started from far behind and almost caught up. If racism exists outside your interview, then equal opportunity at your interview must take into consideration that someone's race might have put up many obstacles on the long journey that got them to your interview. Let's do a thought experiment. You're in a room with 57 white people and 12 black people. Those are the numbers you used. 10% of people in the room are racist. Every racist in the room gets to insult every person of the other race one time. Do the math. How many times is each white person insulted? How many times is each black person insulted? Is there "equality of opportunity" for everyone to leave that room and head to a job interview with the same level of self esteem? Multiple that by a lifetime. If US demographics were in fact 50% white, 50% black, it would make things far easier to understand. Living in a society where race matters and you are hugely outnumbered is something the majority will always have great difficulting in relating to. By not caring what someone's skin color is, you're passing over candidates who worked far harder to get where they are compared to someone who had fewer obstacles. Of course not every obstacle in life comes from race and some people of color may have even experienced a life of privilage. So let's take a deaf candidate applying to your job. Like skin color, it's not something they chose nor something they can change. It very likey created obstacles for them in life that you never experienced. Would you treat them the same as non-deaf candidates? Speak to them with your back turned perhaps? Or would you adapt to who they really are?

zionic 5y ago

Their goal is not equality of opportunity, it is equality of outcome. They’ll willingly sacrifice anyone in the top 50% to elevate the lowest of the low, no matter how little they try or deserve it. This is broadly true in all leftist policy, from higher education to taxation to the way we structure kindergarten. Success, achievement, and work ethic are to be admonished. Leftist pseudomorality establishes the victim as the highest achievable social status, rewarding those who take more from society than give to it.

sebastianconcpt 5y ago
I'd add to what you said that it's an apparent goal, because it's goal isn't concrete nor fixed. It's an impossible always changing imaginary that always needs more power and more obedience. Everything is about grabbing the power to produce behavioral control to keep them in power.
GiorgioG 5y ago
> They’ll willingly sacrifice anyone in the top 50% to elevate the lowest of the low, no matter how little they try or deserve it. > This is broadly true in all leftist policy, from higher education to taxation to the way we structure kindergarten. Success, achievement, and work ethic are to be admonished. Leftist pseudomorality establishes the victim as the highest achievable social status, rewarding those who take more from society than give to it. Maybe you should spend some time away from the news media and consider how we're all being bamboozled by the both parties, "right" and "left". Consider reading freely available "The Three Languages of politics" (summary here: https://quillette.com/2018/08/08/the-three-languages-of-politics-a-review/ https://quillette.com/2018/08/08/the-three-languages-of-poli... and enlighten yourself as to why the conservatives and progressives can never agree - because they're not talking about the same things. The democratic and republican parties take advantage of this because once you're talking their language, you'll never be convinced to switch sides. If anything can bring this country down it's both of these parties tearing us apart. I'm an independent and I've voted for both parties over the years. Don't be a lemming - these two parties are just vying for power, anything the 'little people' like us get is just a side-effect.

czzr 5y ago

For your first question - equal to their share of the population. So blacks should be ~12% of all Harvard students, for example, as opposed to the current 6%.

nsilvestri 5y ago

To begin with, no reasonable person is saying there should be a completely even balance in proportions of race in any field, for exactly the reasons you point out. The problem is that in reality, certain "merit-based" programs such as workplaces or colleges don't also align with the racial demographics of the general public, and it's a discrepancy that should make you ask "why?". The problem with a blind "merit-based" approach is that it doesn't make any attempt to understand why what we'd expect in a perfectly egalitarian world isn't what we see in reality. Studies on biological differences between race and gender show no or very small differences that can't fully explain these gaps. Other factors, such as a family's wealth, do show significant changes to the opportunities provided to a person during their lives. As it so happens, we can also see (from the US Census data you bring up) that there are wealth and income disparities between race. And now we're hiring/accepting college students/etc. Of course we want to only hire qualified people, but a disproportionate number of people of certain races were not given the opportunity to get those skills already. So we're stuck in a cycle where the people most likely to succeed are the ones who are already in this cycle of success, often due to their parents having been given those opportunities as well. So in order to actually _meet_ the expectations of racial composition (because as mentioned earlier, perfectly egalitarian expectations would be close to the proportions in the general population), we simply can't turn a colorblind eye to people's race. Breaking the cycle requires attention to be paid to people's race. Merit ignores context. The hard part about this is that it comes off as saying that you should treat people differently because of their race. And that's pretty much what it is. It would require some level of sacrifice by the privileged, at least temporarily, in order to bring everybody back to equal footing. And humans are not good with things that don't seem fair. On a different note regarding gender, there is not particularly strong evidence backing the argument that women simply "naturally gravitate towards other kind of work". Studies have shown some psychological differences in preferences of the kind of work, but it doesn't not explain the disparity we see in STEM as a whole. Of course, there are not the same multi-generational explanatory powers behind gender as there are for race, but there are other factors, largely rooted in the ideas that there are both explicit and implicit societal expectations for women that lead them towards other kinds of careers.

GiorgioG 5y ago

tchaffee 5y ago

> If success to them looks like an equal number of white/black/asian/women it's an unreachable goal It's not the goal. You've created a strawman and wasted your own time fighting it. > In my mind it's equality of opportunity. I don't care what color your skin is That doesn't magically erase that they grew in up in a racist society that does care what color their skin is. It's insulting to many people of color to hear "I don't care what color your skin is". An appropriate and honest response from a person of color might be "Must be nice. I wouldn't know what that's like because I never had the privilage of not caring what color my skin is". Probably not the great start you were hoping for. It sounds like you want imagine the starting line was in the same place for every person who arrives to you as a candidate. When in fact some people got to you with a head start. Ignoring the starting line does the opposite of creating equality of opportunity. But ignoring the starting line is far simpler. And even useful for those who benefit from maintaining the status quo. The best candidate for the work might just be the person who arrives less qualified and slightly behind the winner. Someone who started from far behind and almost caught up. If racism exists outside your interview, then equal opportunity at your interview must take into consideration that someone's race might have put up many obstacles on the long journey that got them to your interview. Let's do a thought experiment. You're in a room with 57 white people and 12 black people. Those are the numbers you used. 10% of people in the room are racist. Every racist in the room gets to insult every person of the other race one time. Do the math. How many times is each white person insulted? How many times is each black person insulted? Is there "equality of opportunity" for everyone to leave that room and head to a job interview with the same level of self esteem? Multiple that by a lifetime. If US demographics were in fact 50% white, 50% black, it would make things far easier to understand. Living in a society where race matters and you are hugely outnumbered is something the majority will always have great difficulting in relating to. By not caring what someone's skin color is, you're passing over candidates who worked far harder to get where they are compared to someone who had fewer obstacles. Of course not every obstacle in life comes from race and some people of color may have even experienced a life of privilage. So let's take a deaf candidate applying to your job. Like skin color, it's not something they chose nor something they can change. It very likey created obstacles for them in life that you never experienced. Would you treat them the same as non-deaf candidates? Speak to them with your back turned perhaps? Or would you adapt to who they really are?