5 ms·

I don't deny they exist, but they have been marginalized in society. They don't hold any significant power in terms of holding people back.

by starkd 4y ago

foobarbecue 4y ago
The problem isn't overt racists so much as subtle, persistent bias, which absolutely holds people back in very significant ways. See my comment about my grandmother. And... unless you're in a marginalized minority group, you really aren't in a position to know how racist people are. Oh yeah, I just remembered, we also recently had a president for four years who was overly racist. Remember his attacks on Judge Curiel? Remember Mexicans "are rapists"?
- starkd 4y ago
  Not true. Any body can understand it. It's a basic human empathy characteristic. Telling people they are not in a position to know anything about it, is merely an attempt at thought control by disregarding their opinions. It's not really a discussion.
  - tpoacher 4y ago
    Indeed. This is the fallacy of special pleading: https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Special%20Pleading.html https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Special%20Pleading....
  - amrangaye 4y ago
    I don’t think this is correct. Just yesterday I was thinking about the many brave white people who fought as abolitionists to end the slave trade, risking their lives. But they could never truly understand what it was to be a slave, because they went home at the end of the day, whereas the slaves were not only forced to work without pay, they were also bred like horses, with the “strongest” ones forced to mate to make strong slaves. It doesn’t mean the abolitionists can’t understand and sympathize and even work at great personal risk to free slaves. So yes maybe anybody can “understand” it as you said - I’m not debating that. But it’s completely different to live with the constant humiliation and discrimination, getting things said and done to you that are not illegal, that ghe discriminating group then dismiss as you being a snowflake etc. So yes you’re right anyone can empathize. But I don’t think that’s what OP is saying. You really cannot fully understand unless you live it. Just like you cannot understand true poverty in African countries, when you’ve spent your whole life living in a (relatively) rich one.
    - starkd 4y ago
      So, what's your point? Do they need to actually suffer in the same way in order for justice to be achieved? Because that's the implication he is essetnially driving at. The important thing is those abolitionist recognized a moral wrong for what it was and strove to counter it. To insist in such a way that they can never understand not only invalidates their efforts but only tries to set the stage for some kind of further remediation. But maybe that's their aim, to make sure it is never ultimately remedied and preserve the well of victimhood. How else can you read that.
      - amrangaye 4y ago
        You’re making it either / or and it’s not. I can feel sympathetic to the Uyghurs, fight for their rights, canvass my representatives, donate to charities etc. But I (a black African man) can never truly know or experience what the average Uyghur goes though day to day, because I just haven’t lived it. So no, when we say that, we are not “excluding” anyone - in fact the more allies a minority has, the more likely they will achieve equality. But lived experience is different.
        starkd 4y ago
        Not what I said. I'm saying why else harp on the fact that white abolitionists could not understand their lived experience other than to disparage their contribution. I have no dispute with the idea that someone is unable to understand another's lived experience in the same way, because that's self evident. It is a truism. Why even say it other than to invalidate their contribution? Because thats essentially what they are doing.
    - wenc 4y ago
      As a POC I relate to your point of view and lived experience certainly provides us sensitivity to certain issues that would not be front of mind for people who don’t share those experiences. However lived experience can also introduces biases — for instance, would you trust a court of law to deliver justice if the victim was also judge and jury? That lived experience which provides sensitivity and also can make one too close to the matter at hand to see things clearly. I think people with and without lived experiences can pull together and make positive contributions. I say this because there are so many examples of solutions proposed by people with lived experience that are utterly counterproductive, because they shut out the voices of those without lived experience but who might have balancing views drawn from the broader human experience.
- scarby2 4y ago
  > And... unless you're in a marginalized minority group, you really aren't in a position to know how racist people are. My experience is that people are more likely to share racist views with other people of their ethnic group but would likely never be overtly hostile to a person of a different race. Also, I think if you are in a marginalized group it's extremely hard to disambiguate racism from general assholery. If you don't get hired for a job you'll never know if it was because the interviewer was racist or because he just didn't like you
- mbostleman 4y ago
  <<And... unless you're in a marginalized minority group, you really aren't in a position to know how racist people are.>> Does this mean that it is not empirically measurable then? That would explain a lot because actual data is what I find missing from the claims of how prevalent racism is.
  - foobarbecue 4y ago
    I certainly didn't mean to discredit empirical studies. I meant to remind a white guy saying that in his experience racists "don't hold any significant power in terms of holding people back" that if he was black, he might have a different experience. As for empirical data, there's tons. Maybe start with this Brookings report since it's on the topic of the OP (housing) https://www.brookings.edu/research/biased-appraisals-and-the-devaluation-of-housing-in-black-neighborhoods/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/biased-appraisals-and-the...
    - mbostleman 4y ago
      This study, by it's own admission in the summary, does not have a cause for the 23% net difference in house values (55% gross, 23% remaining after adjusting for home quality, maintenance, and other market characteristics). Specifically: "The question is: What explains this? We don’t know with any precision. In our paper, we reviewed literature on racial bias and pointed to its potential as an explanation, writing: “Our findings are generally consistent with the widespread presence of anti-Black bias.” We left it for future work to explore some of the relevant mechanisms that link bias to valuations and quantify their importance." So the thought is that it MIGHT be bias (a bit presumptuous then to title the study "Biased appraisals..."). And we are waiting on future studies to actually provide the causal link. But even if every bit of the 23% delta is caused by racial bias, we need to consider the trend. As far as I can tell every important sociological data point on this matter (employment, wealth, marriage, laws, etc.) has been improving decade after decade. I don't know what numbers this same study, or one equivalent to it, would reveal from say 5 or 7 decades ago, but I assume it would have been substantially worse. All of which is to say that proposing a narrative that racism is rampant and getting worse does not seem to be supported by the data. To the contrary, it would seem that it is less than it's ever been and continues to decline. EDIT: To be clear, I am not suggesting you or anyone here is proposing a narrative that racism is rampant and getting worse. But I think it's safe to say that proposal is prevalent in pop culture.
- HonestOp001 4y ago
  Your claim of overt racism is incorrect, it was shaped from the filter of the news media. I would recommend that you look outside the bubble and look at the framing. A great example was how shutting down travel at the start of Covid-19 was seen as racist. Yet, there should have been no issue as it was the only thing we can do in our global environment to slow the situation. Yet, the people in charge came up with that as racist.
  - foobarbecue 4y ago
    This is purely observation. A few examples that come to mind: "When Mexico sends its people, ... they're rapists." - Donald Trump That time he said April Ryan (reporter) should "go set up the meeting" with the congressional black caucus for him. Shithole countries. The Muslim ban. Which for a while people around him tried to get him to pretend wasn't a Muslim ban, but really wanted to keep using those words, so he did. I don't have any complaints about shutting down travel over COVID-19. It should have happened sooner, and I don't know anyone who ever disagreed with that. On the other hand, he did go out of his way to unneccessarily try and rename COVID the "China virus," which sure looked like racial scapegoating to me. But, I would say that his mysogyny is much worse. And, his love for dictators. ("love" being his term)
bayesian_horse 4y ago
If you believe that, you should look more into the history of ethnic discrimination in the US. "Holding people back" is a systemic issue, and one that is still present. But it is already bad enough that Afroamericans had been kept from acquiring wealth by various means, judicial and extrajudicial for much of the last century. They are closing the wealth gap, but extremely slowly. Ignoring that history is part of a basically racist system.

I don't deny they exist, but they have been marginalized in society. They don't hold any significant power in terms of holding people back.

by starkd 4y ago

I don't deny they exist, but they have been marginalized in society. They don't hold any significant power in terms of holding people back.

foobarbecue 4y ago

The problem isn't overt racists so much as subtle, persistent bias, which absolutely holds people back in very significant ways. See my comment about my grandmother. And... unless you're in a marginalized minority group, you really aren't in a position to know how racist people are. Oh yeah, I just remembered, we also recently had a president for four years who was overly racist. Remember his attacks on Judge Curiel? Remember Mexicans "are rapists"?

starkd 4y ago
Not true. Any body can understand it. It's a basic human empathy characteristic. Telling people they are not in a position to know anything about it, is merely an attempt at thought control by disregarding their opinions. It's not really a discussion.
- tpoacher 4y ago
  Indeed. This is the fallacy of special pleading: https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Special%20Pleading.html https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Special%20Pleading....
- amrangaye 4y ago
  I don’t think this is correct. Just yesterday I was thinking about the many brave white people who fought as abolitionists to end the slave trade, risking their lives. But they could never truly understand what it was to be a slave, because they went home at the end of the day, whereas the slaves were not only forced to work without pay, they were also bred like horses, with the “strongest” ones forced to mate to make strong slaves. It doesn’t mean the abolitionists can’t understand and sympathize and even work at great personal risk to free slaves. So yes maybe anybody can “understand” it as you said - I’m not debating that. But it’s completely different to live with the constant humiliation and discrimination, getting things said and done to you that are not illegal, that ghe discriminating group then dismiss as you being a snowflake etc. So yes you’re right anyone can empathize. But I don’t think that’s what OP is saying. You really cannot fully understand unless you live it. Just like you cannot understand true poverty in African countries, when you’ve spent your whole life living in a (relatively) rich one.
  - starkd 4y ago
    So, what's your point? Do they need to actually suffer in the same way in order for justice to be achieved? Because that's the implication he is essetnially driving at. The important thing is those abolitionist recognized a moral wrong for what it was and strove to counter it. To insist in such a way that they can never understand not only invalidates their efforts but only tries to set the stage for some kind of further remediation. But maybe that's their aim, to make sure it is never ultimately remedied and preserve the well of victimhood. How else can you read that.
    - amrangaye 4y ago
      You’re making it either / or and it’s not. I can feel sympathetic to the Uyghurs, fight for their rights, canvass my representatives, donate to charities etc. But I (a black African man) can never truly know or experience what the average Uyghur goes though day to day, because I just haven’t lived it. So no, when we say that, we are not “excluding” anyone - in fact the more allies a minority has, the more likely they will achieve equality. But lived experience is different.
      - starkd 4y ago
        Not what I said. I'm saying why else harp on the fact that white abolitionists could not understand their lived experience other than to disparage their contribution. I have no dispute with the idea that someone is unable to understand another's lived experience in the same way, because that's self evident. It is a truism. Why even say it other than to invalidate their contribution? Because thats essentially what they are doing.
  - wenc 4y ago
    As a POC I relate to your point of view and lived experience certainly provides us sensitivity to certain issues that would not be front of mind for people who don’t share those experiences. However lived experience can also introduces biases — for instance, would you trust a court of law to deliver justice if the victim was also judge and jury? That lived experience which provides sensitivity and also can make one too close to the matter at hand to see things clearly. I think people with and without lived experiences can pull together and make positive contributions. I say this because there are so many examples of solutions proposed by people with lived experience that are utterly counterproductive, because they shut out the voices of those without lived experience but who might have balancing views drawn from the broader human experience.
scarby2 4y ago
> And... unless you're in a marginalized minority group, you really aren't in a position to know how racist people are. My experience is that people are more likely to share racist views with other people of their ethnic group but would likely never be overtly hostile to a person of a different race. Also, I think if you are in a marginalized group it's extremely hard to disambiguate racism from general assholery. If you don't get hired for a job you'll never know if it was because the interviewer was racist or because he just didn't like you
mbostleman 4y ago
<<And... unless you're in a marginalized minority group, you really aren't in a position to know how racist people are.>> Does this mean that it is not empirically measurable then? That would explain a lot because actual data is what I find missing from the claims of how prevalent racism is.
- foobarbecue 4y ago
  I certainly didn't mean to discredit empirical studies. I meant to remind a white guy saying that in his experience racists "don't hold any significant power in terms of holding people back" that if he was black, he might have a different experience. As for empirical data, there's tons. Maybe start with this Brookings report since it's on the topic of the OP (housing) https://www.brookings.edu/research/biased-appraisals-and-the-devaluation-of-housing-in-black-neighborhoods/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/biased-appraisals-and-the...
  - mbostleman 4y ago
    This study, by it's own admission in the summary, does not have a cause for the 23% net difference in house values (55% gross, 23% remaining after adjusting for home quality, maintenance, and other market characteristics). Specifically: "The question is: What explains this? We don’t know with any precision. In our paper, we reviewed literature on racial bias and pointed to its potential as an explanation, writing: “Our findings are generally consistent with the widespread presence of anti-Black bias.” We left it for future work to explore some of the relevant mechanisms that link bias to valuations and quantify their importance." So the thought is that it MIGHT be bias (a bit presumptuous then to title the study "Biased appraisals..."). And we are waiting on future studies to actually provide the causal link. But even if every bit of the 23% delta is caused by racial bias, we need to consider the trend. As far as I can tell every important sociological data point on this matter (employment, wealth, marriage, laws, etc.) has been improving decade after decade. I don't know what numbers this same study, or one equivalent to it, would reveal from say 5 or 7 decades ago, but I assume it would have been substantially worse. All of which is to say that proposing a narrative that racism is rampant and getting worse does not seem to be supported by the data. To the contrary, it would seem that it is less than it's ever been and continues to decline. EDIT: To be clear, I am not suggesting you or anyone here is proposing a narrative that racism is rampant and getting worse. But I think it's safe to say that proposal is prevalent in pop culture.
HonestOp001 4y ago
Your claim of overt racism is incorrect, it was shaped from the filter of the news media. I would recommend that you look outside the bubble and look at the framing. A great example was how shutting down travel at the start of Covid-19 was seen as racist. Yet, there should have been no issue as it was the only thing we can do in our global environment to slow the situation. Yet, the people in charge came up with that as racist.
- foobarbecue 4y ago
  This is purely observation. A few examples that come to mind: "When Mexico sends its people, ... they're rapists." - Donald Trump That time he said April Ryan (reporter) should "go set up the meeting" with the congressional black caucus for him. Shithole countries. The Muslim ban. Which for a while people around him tried to get him to pretend wasn't a Muslim ban, but really wanted to keep using those words, so he did. I don't have any complaints about shutting down travel over COVID-19. It should have happened sooner, and I don't know anyone who ever disagreed with that. On the other hand, he did go out of his way to unneccessarily try and rename COVID the "China virus," which sure looked like racial scapegoating to me. But, I would say that his mysogyny is much worse. And, his love for dictators. ("love" being his term)

bayesian_horse 4y ago

If you believe that, you should look more into the history of ethnic discrimination in the US. "Holding people back" is a systemic issue, and one that is still present. But it is already bad enough that Afroamericans had been kept from acquiring wealth by various means, judicial and extrajudicial for much of the last century. They are closing the wealth gap, but extremely slowly. Ignoring that history is part of a basically racist system.