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If you have punitive anti-drinking policy, and a racial group susceptible to that problem, it becomes a racist policy. There's alternatives that don't set peopl

If you have punitive anti-drinking policy, and a racial group susceptible to that problem, it becomes a racist policy. There's alternatives that don't set people with problems back even further.

Nursie 5y ago
Do these policies push people back even further? Again, I'm not familiar enough with the causes or effects of these policies to have a properly informed debate BUT on the surface it looks like these rules have been put in place in partnership with the communities in question, in order to try to help what is evidently a severe problem. But perhaps the reality is different. (Edit - perhaps I do have the read on this wrong, and these policies were not put in place with community agreement, in which case they should be changed. In other states such as Queensland the 'dry place' legislation is far more voluntary)
Gustomaximus 5y ago
What if the communities are the ones creating/supporting these policies? Are the being racist to themselves? As from my reading this is often the case. I'm not an expert in this field but it seems to me you are vastly oversimplifying the policy and without context. And using language like 'punitive' seems unfair as I dont see how this is a punishment, even if one were to believe it was misguided or ineffective. And I respect this policy has flaws and questionable value, while at the same time feel its fair to recognise it is being done in co-ordination with the community itself and and with altruistic intent. What are these other alternatives you mention? Please suggest. I suspect they come with a whole set of other flaws and failures as rarely is a solution to these problems without a flip side.
ErikVandeWater 5y ago
> If you have punitive anti-drinking policy, and a racial group susceptible to that problem, it becomes a racist policy. No it doesn't. A law does not become racist when one race disproportionately breaks it, otherwise every law everywhere would be racist.
- selcuka 5y ago
  It may or may not, depending on the context. If you make abortion illegal, for example, women will disproportionately break it. If you make it illegal to drunk drive, on the other hand, and if men are more likely to break it, that's a different case.
- jcims 5y ago
  >No it doesn't. A law does not become racist when one race disproportionately breaks it, otherwise every law everywhere would be racist. I think you'll find there are quite a few folks that disagree with you on this point, some feel that laws can be considered racist exclusively because of disproportionate impact on specific communities. Personally I think it just boils down to how people define the term 'racist'. When I was growing up (many moons ago), the term was used primarily to describe intent, but now it has expanded to include outcomes.
  - kevingadd 5y ago
    Intent is an increasingly imaginary concept when decisionmaking is partially or completely performed by neural nets and checklists. As such, outcomes end up being the important thing to examine.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      Agreed, but this cuts both ways. Intent has a lot of moral judgement attached to it - if we're redefining a word to be primarily about outcomes instead of intent, we should also drop the implied moral assertions around it.
      - kevingadd 5y ago
        Mmm, I'm not so sure. Certainly the things it means about the person responsible for the decision are a little different - lots of people accidentally put policies into place that harm minority groups, etc. But if the outcome is the same and a person in power chooses not to fix it, it really doesn't matter what their intent is, it's a moral failure not to help the people who need your help if you're able to do so. I don't really care whether they say slurs in their spare time with friends, I just want my elected (and un-elected) representatives to do what they can to prevent people from dying of starvation or preventable diseases.

If you have punitive anti-drinking policy, and a racial group susceptible to that problem, it becomes a racist policy. There's alternatives that don't set people with problems back even further.

Nursie 5y ago

Do these policies push people back even further? Again, I'm not familiar enough with the causes or effects of these policies to have a properly informed debate BUT on the surface it looks like these rules have been put in place in partnership with the communities in question, in order to try to help what is evidently a severe problem. But perhaps the reality is different. (Edit - perhaps I do have the read on this wrong, and these policies were not put in place with community agreement, in which case they should be changed. In other states such as Queensland the 'dry place' legislation is far more voluntary)

Gustomaximus 5y ago

What if the communities are the ones creating/supporting these policies? Are the being racist to themselves? As from my reading this is often the case. I'm not an expert in this field but it seems to me you are vastly oversimplifying the policy and without context. And using language like 'punitive' seems unfair as I dont see how this is a punishment, even if one were to believe it was misguided or ineffective. And I respect this policy has flaws and questionable value, while at the same time feel its fair to recognise it is being done in co-ordination with the community itself and and with altruistic intent. What are these other alternatives you mention? Please suggest. I suspect they come with a whole set of other flaws and failures as rarely is a solution to these problems without a flip side.

ErikVandeWater 5y ago

> If you have punitive anti-drinking policy, and a racial group susceptible to that problem, it becomes a racist policy. No it doesn't. A law does not become racist when one race disproportionately breaks it, otherwise every law everywhere would be racist.

selcuka 5y ago
It may or may not, depending on the context. If you make abortion illegal, for example, women will disproportionately break it. If you make it illegal to drunk drive, on the other hand, and if men are more likely to break it, that's a different case.
jcims 5y ago
>No it doesn't. A law does not become racist when one race disproportionately breaks it, otherwise every law everywhere would be racist. I think you'll find there are quite a few folks that disagree with you on this point, some feel that laws can be considered racist exclusively because of disproportionate impact on specific communities. Personally I think it just boils down to how people define the term 'racist'. When I was growing up (many moons ago), the term was used primarily to describe intent, but now it has expanded to include outcomes.
- kevingadd 5y ago
  Intent is an increasingly imaginary concept when decisionmaking is partially or completely performed by neural nets and checklists. As such, outcomes end up being the important thing to examine.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Agreed, but this cuts both ways. Intent has a lot of moral judgement attached to it - if we're redefining a word to be primarily about outcomes instead of intent, we should also drop the implied moral assertions around it.
    - kevingadd 5y ago
      Mmm, I'm not so sure. Certainly the things it means about the person responsible for the decision are a little different - lots of people accidentally put policies into place that harm minority groups, etc. But if the outcome is the same and a person in power chooses not to fix it, it really doesn't matter what their intent is, it's a moral failure not to help the people who need your help if you're able to do so. I don't really care whether they say slurs in their spare time with friends, I just want my elected (and un-elected) representatives to do what they can to prevent people from dying of starvation or preventable diseases.