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> And of course that white person had innumerable advantages their entire life This is the problem. You don't know this, and you can't tell this just from the
by orthecreedence 4y ago
> And of course that white person had innumerable advantages their entire life
This is the problem. You don't know this, and you can't tell this just from the color of someone's skin.
A white man can grow up in a trailer park with a drunk, abusive father. A black woman can grow up in a loving, upper middle class family in the suburbs.
Skin color is only a fractional indication of someone's experience.
- peter422 4y agoA person can both have advantages in society and yet have specific situations in their life that are much more impactful. You could have used the same arguments in 1860... Not all black people were enslaved, some were quite prosperous in fact! Therefore there was no benefit to being white.
- rootusrootus 4y agoAnd thus the exact problem. It's okay to observe that a whole class of people enjoy a privilege. Where it goes off the rails is when you use that knowledge to discriminate against individuals in an attempt to correct the historical injustice.
- peter422 4y agoAnd thus we perpetuate the injustice indefinitely! Your essential argument seems to be that once an injustice is over one generation old, it is as if it never happened, no matter if the after effects continue to cascade into modern day. You cannot just magically pretend an individual is not part of a society.
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- catiopatio 4y ago
- yibg 4y agoWhat's the proposed solution? Put a finger on the scale against the privileged group? By how much? for how long? Lumping any race together and treating it as the same is a problem in my view.
- peter422 4y agoAnd ignoring it altogether is better? I don't have a magical solution, but I also am not going to flip out everytime a private company chooses to give some type of minor preferential treatment to historically underprivileged groups to attempt to balance out systemic inequities. I can't say with complete confidence one way or the other if Twilio's policy is right or wrong but I can say with confidence a lot of the critiques are both in bad faith and lack any real attempt in understanding the rationale behind the policies.
- yibg 4y agoIf there is an unfairness in obtaining opportunity, either lack of education opportunity or whatever, that seems like the right thing to address. Not at the end of the process and then trying to tilt things.
- peter422 4y agoThat reminds me of what happens when we see a house on fire: We let it burn to the ground (don't want to upset the status quo of the house on fire), then say we'll make a few small tweaks to the building codes to prevent any house fires in the future. A major problem should be tackled in all of the areas where there is injustice. The beginning, the end and the middle.
- yibg 4y agoThat's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying (in my opinion), there are other areas more worthy of investment that for whatever reason the populous aren't behind. How about we provide easier and cheaper access to education? More after school programs, child care, social safety nets etc so that disadvantaged groups don't stay disadvantaged.