3 ms·

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 o

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
> 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?". > 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. Like all wicked problems, there are many reasons - not exclusively caused by one group. I'm the son of italian & french immigrants and I grew up in a poor neighborhood with many black/hispanic neighbors. I wasn't poor, I was middle class. In my observation (admittedly a relatively small sample), the differentiator between my peers (white and non-white, poor and not) was the parental emphasis or lack-thereof on education. My parents never made it beyond high school education, but it was assumed I was going to college. The friends (white and non-white) whose parents emphasized education have fared better than those who did not. How do you fix that? We can offer everyone the opportuntity to go get an education, but we can't change the parents' mindset to its importance. A stable home environment and an emphasis on education at home would do wonders to advance these inequalities. To be clear, I'm not saying it "their fault", but there is plenty of "blame" to go around. Let's give people a living wage. Let's stop treating K-12 school like a babysitting service, etc.
GiorgioG 5y ago
> 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. Isn’t that what affirmative action was supposed to be? Why stop at race? Why not with other physical attributes? Why not force NBA teams to hire short people, same goes for the NHL with their goalies, modeling companies with short/fat/old/unattractive people? People have attributes that give them advantages $ disadvantages. You can’t make everything fair.
- nsilvestri 5y ago
  The difference is that the examples you give are intrinsic factors to physical advantages. STEM/academics/work/etc. are extrinsic. Short people are worse at basketball or hockey because their genetics inherently disadvantage them. Underrepresented racial minorities and women are _not_ worse at STEM/academics/work/etc. because their genetics inherently disadvantage them.

GiorgioG 5y ago

> 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?". > 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. Like all wicked problems, there are many reasons - not exclusively caused by one group. I'm the son of italian & french immigrants and I grew up in a poor neighborhood with many black/hispanic neighbors. I wasn't poor, I was middle class. In my observation (admittedly a relatively small sample), the differentiator between my peers (white and non-white, poor and not) was the parental emphasis or lack-thereof on education. My parents never made it beyond high school education, but it was assumed I was going to college. The friends (white and non-white) whose parents emphasized education have fared better than those who did not. How do you fix that? We can offer everyone the opportuntity to go get an education, but we can't change the parents' mindset to its importance. A stable home environment and an emphasis on education at home would do wonders to advance these inequalities. To be clear, I'm not saying it "their fault", but there is plenty of "blame" to go around. Let's give people a living wage. Let's stop treating K-12 school like a babysitting service, etc.

GiorgioG 5y ago

> 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. Isn’t that what affirmative action was supposed to be? Why stop at race? Why not with other physical attributes? Why not force NBA teams to hire short people, same goes for the NHL with their goalies, modeling companies with short/fat/old/unattractive people? People have attributes that give them advantages $ disadvantages. You can’t make everything fair.

nsilvestri 5y ago
The difference is that the examples you give are intrinsic factors to physical advantages. STEM/academics/work/etc. are extrinsic. Short people are worse at basketball or hockey because their genetics inherently disadvantage them. Underrepresented racial minorities and women are _not_ worse at STEM/academics/work/etc. because their genetics inherently disadvantage them.