5 ms·

I’m not American so I may have a hard time following but can someone please explain why counting people by race isn’t deeply racist? Also this echos the numeru

by rougka 4y ago

I’m not American so I may have a hard time following but can someone please explain why counting people by race isn’t deeply racist? Also this echos the numerus clausus system that deeply hurt Jews in the name of ‘overrepresentation’, why does anyone think this is any different?

rectang 4y ago
Pretending to be race blind just means giving racists free rein. "I don't see race therefore no racism could have occurred."
warent 4y ago
The information is voluntary. Individuals can submit a census with their race/ethnicity as "Prefer not to specify" The data can be used to help find if people are getting proper representation, etc. Racism is rooted in superiority. This is more like, race-consciousness, which is rooted in humane treatment and empathy
- rougka 4y ago
  What is weird to me that this is a racist approach to society, racist as in believes that race is the way society is structured as opposed to for example a marxist class system and racist in its belief that fixing this should be done on a race by race basis I guess for me these statistics would be easier to digest if they were centered around poverity: e.g. How many cars did your family own, size of childhood home or something of that sort
  - taveras 4y ago
    It seems that you consider employers keeping track of employee race, ethnicity, and gender data discriminatory. Employers are required to provide this data to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: the federal agency charged with enforcing federal law which makes workspace discrimination illegal. This agency came to exist through the legendary Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was supported by Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, along with Presidents JFK and LBJ. You'd be forgiven for not understanding American politics. But any American would be foolish to consider that race and ethnicity do not play a role in how our society is structured after over 200 years of slavery and nearly 100 years of Jim Crow. Racism has been a poison built into the structure of our country's institutions, and being race conscious is a part of the cure.
    - 411111111111111 4y ago
      > It seems that you consider employers keeping track of employee race, ethnicity, and gender data discriminatory. That's not what I understood from their comment. I think a lot of controversy on the topic stems from people defining racism differently. From how I remember - racism was initially about categorically treating people differently depending on their race. That still exists in some areas/workplaces etc but has been mostly solved from a societal viewpoint. What were now arguing about as racism is no longer the categorical mistreatment/favoritism and instead what people end up with, while ignoring the way how we got there - and that issue is indeed incredibly hard to solve. Fwiw, I agree with the initial statement by them: statistics around race are always inherently racism and don't really show issues unless you drill down into the localities (checking racial representation in localities, as there is where the initial racism continues to exist). The other issues have to be solved differently, as they're not about race and more about how that person got into that position (which might be caused from the initial racism, but that's unlikely to be the reason limiting them today)
      - rectang 4y ago
        > I think a lot of controversy on the topic stems from people defining racism differently. From how I remember - racism was initially about categorically treating people differently depending on their race. That still exists in some areas/workplaces etc but has been mostly solved from a societal viewpoint. This is the John Roberts "our country has changed" perspective. There is definitely not consensus across US society for it. It is a view strongly held by some and strongly rejected by others, correlating largely with political affiliation. There's not even consensus that discrimination is bad. About all you can say is that spouting explicitly racist views is no longer accepted in polite society. > What were now arguing about as racism is no longer the categorical mistreatment/favoritism and instead what people end up with, while ignoring the way how we got there - and that issue is indeed incredibly hard to solve. The struggle today is the same struggle it's always been. The same factions who opposed having laws punishing discrimination passed decades ago are arguing for the dismantlement of those laws today. Those factions didn't accept that the discrimination those laws outlawed was problematic before, and they still don't today.
  - naijaboiler 4y ago
    Like you rightly said, you are not American. So it's really different for you to conceptualize or understand how deeply and integral racism is woven into every element of US. Reports like that helps make it visible to us so we can at least try to address it if we choose to. What you're doing is akin to blaming a mirror for putting a scar on your face. No the mirror isn’t the scar or the cause of the scar.
mmarq 4y ago
I found it extremely annoying when I went to the doctor in the UK and they asked what my race was. First because my racial background is nobody’s business and it’s an information that historically has only be used against me. Second because, if it is a scientific and relevant fact, a doctor should be able determine it without my uneducated opinion. After more than 10 years, I came to accept it as an almost innocuous quirk of the English-speaking mind, something akin to the Italians complaining about pineapple pizza.
honkdaddy 4y ago
I'm not American either, but after having lived here for a couple years, I can say that across the board, Americans are _obsessed_ with race. Folks on both the right and left continuously come up with new and interesting ways to pit people against each other for the colour of their skin, it's almost surreal how pervasive it's become.
wbsss4412 4y ago
Counting people by race has its benefits and it’s drawbacks. While the point you bring up is valid and of concern, on the other side, if you don’t measure things on the basis of race you don’t have any idea how much of and effect racism may play a role in the thing you are measuring. If we didn’t already have the concept of race I certainly wouldn’t want to conjure it up out of thin air, but in a country where we openly and explicitly discriminated against people on the basis of their race within the lifetime of my still living parents, it’s not something you can simply ignore the effect of and just hope they go away.

by rougka 4y ago

rectang 4y ago

Pretending to be race blind just means giving racists free rein. "I don't see race therefore no racism could have occurred."

warent 4y ago

The information is voluntary. Individuals can submit a census with their race/ethnicity as "Prefer not to specify" The data can be used to help find if people are getting proper representation, etc. Racism is rooted in superiority. This is more like, race-consciousness, which is rooted in humane treatment and empathy

rougka 4y ago
What is weird to me that this is a racist approach to society, racist as in believes that race is the way society is structured as opposed to for example a marxist class system and racist in its belief that fixing this should be done on a race by race basis I guess for me these statistics would be easier to digest if they were centered around poverity: e.g. How many cars did your family own, size of childhood home or something of that sort
- taveras 4y ago
  It seems that you consider employers keeping track of employee race, ethnicity, and gender data discriminatory. Employers are required to provide this data to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: the federal agency charged with enforcing federal law which makes workspace discrimination illegal. This agency came to exist through the legendary Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was supported by Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, along with Presidents JFK and LBJ. You'd be forgiven for not understanding American politics. But any American would be foolish to consider that race and ethnicity do not play a role in how our society is structured after over 200 years of slavery and nearly 100 years of Jim Crow. Racism has been a poison built into the structure of our country's institutions, and being race conscious is a part of the cure.
  - 411111111111111 4y ago
    > It seems that you consider employers keeping track of employee race, ethnicity, and gender data discriminatory. That's not what I understood from their comment. I think a lot of controversy on the topic stems from people defining racism differently. From how I remember - racism was initially about categorically treating people differently depending on their race. That still exists in some areas/workplaces etc but has been mostly solved from a societal viewpoint. What were now arguing about as racism is no longer the categorical mistreatment/favoritism and instead what people end up with, while ignoring the way how we got there - and that issue is indeed incredibly hard to solve. Fwiw, I agree with the initial statement by them: statistics around race are always inherently racism and don't really show issues unless you drill down into the localities (checking racial representation in localities, as there is where the initial racism continues to exist). The other issues have to be solved differently, as they're not about race and more about how that person got into that position (which might be caused from the initial racism, but that's unlikely to be the reason limiting them today)
    - rectang 4y ago
      > I think a lot of controversy on the topic stems from people defining racism differently. From how I remember - racism was initially about categorically treating people differently depending on their race. That still exists in some areas/workplaces etc but has been mostly solved from a societal viewpoint. This is the John Roberts "our country has changed" perspective. There is definitely not consensus across US society for it. It is a view strongly held by some and strongly rejected by others, correlating largely with political affiliation. There's not even consensus that discrimination is bad. About all you can say is that spouting explicitly racist views is no longer accepted in polite society. > What were now arguing about as racism is no longer the categorical mistreatment/favoritism and instead what people end up with, while ignoring the way how we got there - and that issue is indeed incredibly hard to solve. The struggle today is the same struggle it's always been. The same factions who opposed having laws punishing discrimination passed decades ago are arguing for the dismantlement of those laws today. Those factions didn't accept that the discrimination those laws outlawed was problematic before, and they still don't today.
- naijaboiler 4y ago
  Like you rightly said, you are not American. So it's really different for you to conceptualize or understand how deeply and integral racism is woven into every element of US. Reports like that helps make it visible to us so we can at least try to address it if we choose to. What you're doing is akin to blaming a mirror for putting a scar on your face. No the mirror isn’t the scar or the cause of the scar.

mmarq 4y ago

I found it extremely annoying when I went to the doctor in the UK and they asked what my race was. First because my racial background is nobody’s business and it’s an information that historically has only be used against me. Second because, if it is a scientific and relevant fact, a doctor should be able determine it without my uneducated opinion. After more than 10 years, I came to accept it as an almost innocuous quirk of the English-speaking mind, something akin to the Italians complaining about pineapple pizza.

honkdaddy 4y ago

I'm not American either, but after having lived here for a couple years, I can say that across the board, Americans are _obsessed_ with race. Folks on both the right and left continuously come up with new and interesting ways to pit people against each other for the colour of their skin, it's almost surreal how pervasive it's become.

wbsss4412 4y ago

Counting people by race has its benefits and it’s drawbacks. While the point you bring up is valid and of concern, on the other side, if you don’t measure things on the basis of race you don’t have any idea how much of and effect racism may play a role in the thing you are measuring. If we didn’t already have the concept of race I certainly wouldn’t want to conjure it up out of thin air, but in a country where we openly and explicitly discriminated against people on the basis of their race within the lifetime of my still living parents, it’s not something you can simply ignore the effect of and just hope they go away.