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> Discrimination in selecting who to interview is absolutely a form of discrimination. Exactly. That's what the parent comment is saying. But they are thinking

> Discrimination in selecting who to interview is absolutely a form of discrimination. Exactly. That's what the parent comment is saying. But they are thinking about the entire funnel, not just the end of it. By the time a slate of candidates reaches a company's hiring process, there has already been an immense selection bias against minority candidates. Two people growing up in different places (not different cities, but different neighborhoods within the same city) have lived in completely different worlds. Their schools are different; their health care is different; their safety is different; their opportunities are different; the people they know are different. And much of the time there's a stark racial difference in the makeup of those places. Historically this was very much intentional; but even if it were no longer intentional, the effects won't dissipate for a long time. So when you get a slate of candidates that all happen to be white, it's not just a random coincidence. Imagine if a slate of candidates were all black. That would seem kind of odd, right? Now obviously the best thing would be to fix all the other environmental factors that led to an all-white candidate slate. But that's not going to happen any time soon. So a good thing to do is apply some pressure on the funnel to elevate candidates that just barely miss out. In other words, candidates that are strong, but, say, don't know anyone that works at microsoft (no surprise there... two worlds) or perhaps don't think they're good enough. The article points to a rising black employee population has some kind of evidence of injustice, but, if the company works harder to find qualified black candidates then obviously the percentage would rise. Unless we think that skin-color is a predictor of performance (ugh, I hope no one actually does) then improving a hiring process would result in an employee population that more closely matches the demographics of the population at large.

knewter 4y ago
A person that truly believe this would find themselves advocating for an increase in the interview pool of West Virginian / Appalachian white kids. I have seen exactly zero people suggest that. That's how I know it's made up.
tomp 4y ago
This is a nice way to excuse your racism. A lot of people use this perverted logic. But at the end of the day, it's still evil racism. Different "worlds" (neighbourhoods, schools, health care) doesn't happen because of skin color, it happens because of wealth/poverty. So if you apply a racist filter on top of the (implicit) wealth filter, you're just being racist against poor Asian & white people.
- guhidalg 4y ago
  Ya you are, but you know white people and Asians are less likely to be poor compared to Hispanics and African Americans so reality is fighting against your argument.
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    Reality isn't fighting against their argument as long as a single white or Asian poor person exists. It still means an approach is punching a part of the population further down. These things aren't mutually exclusive, stop trying to project them as such.
  - ponow 4y ago
    No it isn't.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    > Ya you are, but you know white people and Asians are less likely to be poor compared to Hispanics and African Americans so reality is fighting against your argument. Yet there are more white people in poverty than black people in the US. If we are trying to give opportunity to impoverished people we would judge by poverty. If we want to live in a racist society then we would judge by race.
    - adamwk 4y ago
      > Yet there are more white people in poverty than black people in the US Where are you people getting these stats? This is being repeated elsewhere and is not based in reality at all.
      - jimmygrapes 4y ago
        https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2022/demo/income-poverty/p60-277.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2022/demo/income-poverty/... You may be thinking of poverty rates or proportional percentages if you think the above is untrue. The data is there for you to manipulate for your purposes as you wish, though.
luckylion 4y ago
> Two people growing up in different places (not different cities, but different neighborhoods within the same city) have lived in completely different worlds. The top comment doesn't care about that at all, skin color is all that matters. It's about group identity, not differences in backgrounds. They'd give Obama's daughter "a foot in the door" over the daughter of some white hillbillies that is the first in her family to finish high school. Because obviously: group identity is paramount.
faeriechangling 4y ago
>The article points to a rising black employee population has some kind of evidence of injustice I agree, it is incoherent for people to say that certain racial groups being over-represented doesn't mean the system isn't fair, but blacks suddenly being hired is evidence the system isn't fair. >So a good thing to do is apply some pressure on the funnel With racism... and honestly this entire process is annoyingly indirect... just apply a racial quota and don't BS me. > Now obviously the best thing would be to fix all the other environmental factors that led to an all-white candidate slate. People sure are obsessed with this narrative that affirmative action is all about preventing too many whites from getting jobs. This isn't the 60s, most of the people who are getting the bump are asian not white and it's not even close. This narrative doesn't work because it's nearly impossible to explain how asians ended up in the span of around a century ended up way behind whites and getting discriminated against to shooting past them in income. > Unless we think that skin-color is a predictor of performance (ugh, I hope no one actually does) If you claim that people can get worse healthcare, worse schools, worse safety, worse opportunities, and know less connected people and still think they perform equally at a job? Well you actually are still predicting performance, you're predicting that certain groups are stoic supermen. Whereas other groups are a bunch of losers who couldn't even be better at their job despite growing up with every advantage in the world. So not only have you not gotten away from predicting performance based on skin colour, now you're also predicting privilege based on skin colour, so you've doubled your race based assumptions. Personally I'm just so done with the racist theories and the mental gymnastics people play around this data. If people want to reserve jobs for people of different identity groups, fine, lets do it for the sake of racial harmony so we can all sing songs together holding hands interracially in a circle.
- ponow 4y ago
  > it is incoherent for people to say that certain racial groups being over-represented doesn't mean the system isn't fair, blacks suddenly being hired is evidence the system isn't fair Incorrect, for these aren't the same thing: one has existed for a long time and the other is a sudden change. The latter begs an explanation, and it's there: deliberate management manipulation of the candidate pool. It's therefore understandable that co-workers will see such hires/promotions as based in part on factors beyond performance.
nonethewiser 4y ago
> By the time a slate of candidates reaches a company's hiring process, there has already been an immense selection bias against minority candidates. Maybe, maybe not. In either case, two wrongs don't make a right. If you want to eliminate discrimination then you need to stop discriminating. The solution is not to counter-discriminate, it's to remove the discrimination further up the funnel, to use your analogy.
hbrn 4y ago
> Imagine if a slate of candidates were all black. That would seem kind of odd, right? Why would that be odd? It does happen in sport, and nobody cares (nor should they). > So a good thing to do is apply some pressure Why is it good? Author talks about not being able to hire for several months due to lack of DIE candidates in the pipeline. Of course a giant like Microsoft can afford to waste resources, but for a lot of startups doubling down on DIE means to literally die.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  > Imagine if a slate of candidates were all black. That would seem kind of odd, right? In the US? Well yeah. Black people comprise 1% of college graduates. White people are 60%.
- rrradical 4y ago
  > Why would that be odd? It does happen in sport, and nobody cares (nor should they). Why would that be odd? You just quoted the author as saying they looked for months to find non-white candidates and failed. Do you work in tech? That's the norm. If someone tried to hire for a tech position and got a slate of entirely non-white candidates, that would be entirely remarkable. > Why is it good? It's good because if your hiring funnel doesn't represent the general population then it is biased and therefore sub-optimal. It's good because we enslaved a population for generations and then tried as hard as possible to keep them out of the middle class, and I think that's a bad thing.
  - hbrn 4y ago
    > if your hiring funnel doesn't represent the general population then it is biased So 0.1% of engineers in the funnel should be Amish and 18% should be younger than 14. There might be a flaw in your logic. Jokes aside, this is maliciously reductive. There's too many factors contributing to the funnel (location, sourcing channels, employer, job preference, hiring market state) that makes predictions about funnel virtually impossible. But you already know it. You're not here for the truth, you're here to push your ideology. > It's good because we enslaved a population for generations My ancestors were thousands of miles away from US territory when slavery happened. In fact, it is quite likely they were slaves themselves. And yet you're saying I'm supposed to pay the price for your crimes just because of my skin color. That sounds quite racist to me. Luckily, my skin is not only white, it's also thick.
nonethewiser 4y ago
> Imagine if a slate of candidates were all black. That would seem kind of odd, right? In the US? Well yeah. Black people comprise 1% of college graduates. White people are 60%. It doesn't help when students are under-qualified for the schools that they get into. It hurst every party.
- slt2021 4y ago
  Black people are being scammed by colleges. Colleges happily admit everyone and hand out diplomas in return for ridiculous tuition (only made possible thanks to student loans) and graduate folks with very little prospect of getting jobs and repaying loans. In the end black people with diplomas end up college educated with fancy but useless degree, still underemployed, with giant student loans accruing % every day and living paycheck to paycheck. Literally modern servitude reinvented, what an irony
PathOfEclipse 4y ago
You should read some Thomas Sowell. He should help cure you of your "cosmic justice" aspirations. https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Cosmic-Justice-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0684864630 https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Cosmic-Justice-Thomas-Sowell/dp... https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1541645634 https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sow... https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1594031436 https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell... https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/ https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell... The very idea that, in a just world, outcomes along various lines of demarcation between groups of humans would be roughly even has zero evidence to support it. In fact, all of history, as well as the state of the universe itself, testify that this should not be the case! Never has there ever been equal outcomes between any groups in history. The world is complex, and the causes for disparity are too numerous to list and impossible to even attempt to measure or tease apart in their impacts. Sowell has written about numerous causes of disparity between groups that have nothing to do with racism or any societal injustice, and the above book examples are just a small portion of what he has written. What leftists like to do is over-simplify the world to fit their pre-conceived notions. If there is racial disparity, it must have been caused by systemic racism! Therefore, we must fix it through systemic racism in the opposite direction! This kind of thinking is broken, flawed, and completely incorrect to the core, and acting on it simply leads to more injustice, more unfairness, and more disparity of different kinds. It is an ideology born of intellectual pride, moral vanity, and an utter lack of wisdom.
- feoren 4y ago
  > The very idea that, in a just world, outcomes along various lines of demarcation between groups of humans would be roughly even has zero evidence to support it. Actually it has as much evidence as you have time. Take a big bag of fair dice, and split them randomly into two groups. Actually, split them however you want, whatever "lines of demarcation" you choose. Then roll them and apply literally any measure of literally any statistical outcome you want. Oh shit, it turns out: in a just world, outcomes along arbitrary lines of demarcation are roughly even! Every time! > Never has there ever been equal outcomes between any groups in history. So? You need to assert that history has been just to different groups for this to be evidence to support your statement about what happens in a just world. Are you asserting that history has been just? Think hard before you answer this one. > What leftists like to do is over-simplify the world to fit their pre-conceived notions. Sure, like my dice example. Except the problem is, for my dice example to be wrong, you need to specify a reason why some dice roll differently than others, and you need to split the groups based on this reason. Remember: any arbitrary split must necessarily have roughly equal outcomes in a just world. If the world is just, any clear variance from equal outcomes must be due to some intrinsic differences in the dice themselves. Let's say we split humans into two groups based on whether their birthday is an even or odd number (day of the month). This is a line of demarcation between groups of humans. Let's use your first sentence here: > The very idea that, in a just world, outcomes along various lines of demarcation between groups of humans would be roughly even has zero evidence to support it. So this is where we disagree, right? I assert that these two groups would have roughly the same outcome in almost any measure. It's a clearly arbitrary line. But you say there's no evidence to support that. Really? Really? Do you really believe that the odd-birthday group would be significantly different in outcome than the even-numbered, in any way? Of course not. In literally any "outcome" measure you could come up with, these two groups are indistinguishable. Let's say we split humans into two groups based on biological sex. Would we expect to see any differences in any outcomes? Of course: there are differences in average height, muscle mass, sexual preferences, arrangement of sex organs, etc. There are actual intrinsic differences between these groups that account for some differences in outcomes, even in a just world. Now let's say we split humans into two groups based on skin color. Uh-oh. We see huge differences in outcomes here. Can we explain it by intrinsic differences? Careful. There are really only two options here: either the world is not just, or skin color is not arbitrary. Asserting the second is literal racism: you're saying there's something naturally different about people with black skin that accounts for their vastly greater rates of poverty even in a just world. That's textbook racism, and, even worse, plain-old incorrect. It's also simply not logically necessary, because we know the world has not been just. Very, very not-just to that particular group, in fact. > If there is racial disparity, it must have been caused by systemic racism! Such a vapid strawman argument. This bullshit only works if we've never actually observed systemic racism. Slavery, the Greenwood bombing, segregation, Jim Crow, police slayings -- those are not hypothetical events dreamed up by "leftists" to account for racial disparity we observe. Systemic racism did happen, and in many cases is still happening, and then later we observe that there is also racial disparity. These "leftists" go "hey, maybe the racial disparity we see now has something to do with all that systemic racism that was going on for hundreds of years" and you pretend like this is some unfounded conclusion-jumping? Your train of pseudo-reasoning, like that of so many other racism-apologists, only works if you conveniently ignore the actual multi-hundred year history of actual racism that actually happened. So many of your points sound completely asinine when you re-read them with that in mind.
hbrn 4y ago
> or perhaps don't think they're good enough Or perhaps it is not your business to decide what blacks should think? Imagine if you're hiring in a region where blacks are 10% of the population, but only 1% of resumes you receive are black folks (and if your pool of candidates is low, 1% can literally mean zero candidates). Your mindset seems to be "those poor blacks don't understand which jobs they should apply to. I know better than them, I'll help them". You still think you are superior to them. You're not a hateful racist, you're a virtuous racist. Still a racist though.
giantg2 4y ago
Generally agree that the problem is larger. However, I think this quick fix could result in a net negative. "So a good thing to do is apply some pressure on the funnel to elevate candidates that just barely miss out." Imagine you're one of the non-minorities who worked hard and misses out because of an artificial pressure. How do I explain to my kid that all else equal they will lose to another candidate because of not being a minority (assume this is similar to minorities of the past; however the results are mixed)? What's the point of trying hard in school? What's the point of working hard at work? These are the types of questions I'm starting to struggle with in real life. Teach the kid the same stuff I was taught (lies), or disillusion them that the world is not a meritocracy, truth and honor count for nothing, hard work may or may not pay off, etc?
- boppo1 4y ago
  >disillusion them that the world is not a meritocracy, truth and honor count for nothing, hard work may or may not pay off, etc? They'll pick it up all on their own.

knewter 4y ago

A person that truly believe this would find themselves advocating for an increase in the interview pool of West Virginian / Appalachian white kids. I have seen exactly zero people suggest that. That's how I know it's made up.

tomp 4y ago

This is a nice way to excuse your racism. A lot of people use this perverted logic. But at the end of the day, it's still evil racism. Different "worlds" (neighbourhoods, schools, health care) doesn't happen because of skin color, it happens because of wealth/poverty. So if you apply a racist filter on top of the (implicit) wealth filter, you're just being racist against poor Asian & white people.

guhidalg 4y ago
Ya you are, but you know white people and Asians are less likely to be poor compared to Hispanics and African Americans so reality is fighting against your argument.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  Reality isn't fighting against their argument as long as a single white or Asian poor person exists. It still means an approach is punching a part of the population further down. These things aren't mutually exclusive, stop trying to project them as such.
- ponow 4y ago
  No it isn't.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  > Ya you are, but you know white people and Asians are less likely to be poor compared to Hispanics and African Americans so reality is fighting against your argument. Yet there are more white people in poverty than black people in the US. If we are trying to give opportunity to impoverished people we would judge by poverty. If we want to live in a racist society then we would judge by race.
  - adamwk 4y ago
    > Yet there are more white people in poverty than black people in the US Where are you people getting these stats? This is being repeated elsewhere and is not based in reality at all.
    - jimmygrapes 4y ago
      https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2022/demo/income-poverty/p60-277.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2022/demo/income-poverty/... You may be thinking of poverty rates or proportional percentages if you think the above is untrue. The data is there for you to manipulate for your purposes as you wish, though.

luckylion 4y ago

> Two people growing up in different places (not different cities, but different neighborhoods within the same city) have lived in completely different worlds. The top comment doesn't care about that at all, skin color is all that matters. It's about group identity, not differences in backgrounds. They'd give Obama's daughter "a foot in the door" over the daughter of some white hillbillies that is the first in her family to finish high school. Because obviously: group identity is paramount.

faeriechangling 4y ago

>The article points to a rising black employee population has some kind of evidence of injustice I agree, it is incoherent for people to say that certain racial groups being over-represented doesn't mean the system isn't fair, but blacks suddenly being hired is evidence the system isn't fair. >So a good thing to do is apply some pressure on the funnel With racism... and honestly this entire process is annoyingly indirect... just apply a racial quota and don't BS me. > Now obviously the best thing would be to fix all the other environmental factors that led to an all-white candidate slate. People sure are obsessed with this narrative that affirmative action is all about preventing too many whites from getting jobs. This isn't the 60s, most of the people who are getting the bump are asian not white and it's not even close. This narrative doesn't work because it's nearly impossible to explain how asians ended up in the span of around a century ended up way behind whites and getting discriminated against to shooting past them in income. > Unless we think that skin-color is a predictor of performance (ugh, I hope no one actually does) If you claim that people can get worse healthcare, worse schools, worse safety, worse opportunities, and know less connected people and still think they perform equally at a job? Well you actually are still predicting performance, you're predicting that certain groups are stoic supermen. Whereas other groups are a bunch of losers who couldn't even be better at their job despite growing up with every advantage in the world. So not only have you not gotten away from predicting performance based on skin colour, now you're also predicting privilege based on skin colour, so you've doubled your race based assumptions. Personally I'm just so done with the racist theories and the mental gymnastics people play around this data. If people want to reserve jobs for people of different identity groups, fine, lets do it for the sake of racial harmony so we can all sing songs together holding hands interracially in a circle.

ponow 4y ago
> it is incoherent for people to say that certain racial groups being over-represented doesn't mean the system isn't fair, blacks suddenly being hired is evidence the system isn't fair Incorrect, for these aren't the same thing: one has existed for a long time and the other is a sudden change. The latter begs an explanation, and it's there: deliberate management manipulation of the candidate pool. It's therefore understandable that co-workers will see such hires/promotions as based in part on factors beyond performance.

nonethewiser 4y ago

> By the time a slate of candidates reaches a company's hiring process, there has already been an immense selection bias against minority candidates. Maybe, maybe not. In either case, two wrongs don't make a right. If you want to eliminate discrimination then you need to stop discriminating. The solution is not to counter-discriminate, it's to remove the discrimination further up the funnel, to use your analogy.

hbrn 4y ago

> Imagine if a slate of candidates were all black. That would seem kind of odd, right? Why would that be odd? It does happen in sport, and nobody cares (nor should they). > So a good thing to do is apply some pressure Why is it good? Author talks about not being able to hire for several months due to lack of DIE candidates in the pipeline. Of course a giant like Microsoft can afford to waste resources, but for a lot of startups doubling down on DIE means to literally die.

nonethewiser 4y ago
> Imagine if a slate of candidates were all black. That would seem kind of odd, right? In the US? Well yeah. Black people comprise 1% of college graduates. White people are 60%.
rrradical 4y ago
> Why would that be odd? It does happen in sport, and nobody cares (nor should they). Why would that be odd? You just quoted the author as saying they looked for months to find non-white candidates and failed. Do you work in tech? That's the norm. If someone tried to hire for a tech position and got a slate of entirely non-white candidates, that would be entirely remarkable. > Why is it good? It's good because if your hiring funnel doesn't represent the general population then it is biased and therefore sub-optimal. It's good because we enslaved a population for generations and then tried as hard as possible to keep them out of the middle class, and I think that's a bad thing.
- hbrn 4y ago
  > if your hiring funnel doesn't represent the general population then it is biased So 0.1% of engineers in the funnel should be Amish and 18% should be younger than 14. There might be a flaw in your logic. Jokes aside, this is maliciously reductive. There's too many factors contributing to the funnel (location, sourcing channels, employer, job preference, hiring market state) that makes predictions about funnel virtually impossible. But you already know it. You're not here for the truth, you're here to push your ideology. > It's good because we enslaved a population for generations My ancestors were thousands of miles away from US territory when slavery happened. In fact, it is quite likely they were slaves themselves. And yet you're saying I'm supposed to pay the price for your crimes just because of my skin color. That sounds quite racist to me. Luckily, my skin is not only white, it's also thick.

nonethewiser 4y ago

> Imagine if a slate of candidates were all black. That would seem kind of odd, right? In the US? Well yeah. Black people comprise 1% of college graduates. White people are 60%. It doesn't help when students are under-qualified for the schools that they get into. It hurst every party.

slt2021 4y ago
Black people are being scammed by colleges. Colleges happily admit everyone and hand out diplomas in return for ridiculous tuition (only made possible thanks to student loans) and graduate folks with very little prospect of getting jobs and repaying loans. In the end black people with diplomas end up college educated with fancy but useless degree, still underemployed, with giant student loans accruing % every day and living paycheck to paycheck. Literally modern servitude reinvented, what an irony

PathOfEclipse 4y ago

You should read some Thomas Sowell. He should help cure you of your "cosmic justice" aspirations. https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Cosmic-Justice-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0684864630 https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Cosmic-Justice-Thomas-Sowell/dp... https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1541645634 https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sow... https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1594031436 https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell... https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/ https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowell... The very idea that, in a just world, outcomes along various lines of demarcation between groups of humans would be roughly even has zero evidence to support it. In fact, all of history, as well as the state of the universe itself, testify that this should not be the case! Never has there ever been equal outcomes between any groups in history. The world is complex, and the causes for disparity are too numerous to list and impossible to even attempt to measure or tease apart in their impacts. Sowell has written about numerous causes of disparity between groups that have nothing to do with racism or any societal injustice, and the above book examples are just a small portion of what he has written. What leftists like to do is over-simplify the world to fit their pre-conceived notions. If there is racial disparity, it must have been caused by systemic racism! Therefore, we must fix it through systemic racism in the opposite direction! This kind of thinking is broken, flawed, and completely incorrect to the core, and acting on it simply leads to more injustice, more unfairness, and more disparity of different kinds. It is an ideology born of intellectual pride, moral vanity, and an utter lack of wisdom.

feoren 4y ago
> The very idea that, in a just world, outcomes along various lines of demarcation between groups of humans would be roughly even has zero evidence to support it. Actually it has as much evidence as you have time. Take a big bag of fair dice, and split them randomly into two groups. Actually, split them however you want, whatever "lines of demarcation" you choose. Then roll them and apply literally any measure of literally any statistical outcome you want. Oh shit, it turns out: in a just world, outcomes along arbitrary lines of demarcation are roughly even! Every time! > Never has there ever been equal outcomes between any groups in history. So? You need to assert that history has been just to different groups for this to be evidence to support your statement about what happens in a just world. Are you asserting that history has been just? Think hard before you answer this one. > What leftists like to do is over-simplify the world to fit their pre-conceived notions. Sure, like my dice example. Except the problem is, for my dice example to be wrong, you need to specify a reason why some dice roll differently than others, and you need to split the groups based on this reason. Remember: any arbitrary split must necessarily have roughly equal outcomes in a just world. If the world is just, any clear variance from equal outcomes must be due to some intrinsic differences in the dice themselves. Let's say we split humans into two groups based on whether their birthday is an even or odd number (day of the month). This is a line of demarcation between groups of humans. Let's use your first sentence here: > The very idea that, in a just world, outcomes along various lines of demarcation between groups of humans would be roughly even has zero evidence to support it. So this is where we disagree, right? I assert that these two groups would have roughly the same outcome in almost any measure. It's a clearly arbitrary line. But you say there's no evidence to support that. Really? Really? Do you really believe that the odd-birthday group would be significantly different in outcome than the even-numbered, in any way? Of course not. In literally any "outcome" measure you could come up with, these two groups are indistinguishable. Let's say we split humans into two groups based on biological sex. Would we expect to see any differences in any outcomes? Of course: there are differences in average height, muscle mass, sexual preferences, arrangement of sex organs, etc. There are actual intrinsic differences between these groups that account for some differences in outcomes, even in a just world. Now let's say we split humans into two groups based on skin color. Uh-oh. We see huge differences in outcomes here. Can we explain it by intrinsic differences? Careful. There are really only two options here: either the world is not just, or skin color is not arbitrary. Asserting the second is literal racism: you're saying there's something naturally different about people with black skin that accounts for their vastly greater rates of poverty even in a just world. That's textbook racism, and, even worse, plain-old incorrect. It's also simply not logically necessary, because we know the world has not been just. Very, very not-just to that particular group, in fact. > If there is racial disparity, it must have been caused by systemic racism! Such a vapid strawman argument. This bullshit only works if we've never actually observed systemic racism. Slavery, the Greenwood bombing, segregation, Jim Crow, police slayings -- those are not hypothetical events dreamed up by "leftists" to account for racial disparity we observe. Systemic racism did happen, and in many cases is still happening, and then later we observe that there is also racial disparity. These "leftists" go "hey, maybe the racial disparity we see now has something to do with all that systemic racism that was going on for hundreds of years" and you pretend like this is some unfounded conclusion-jumping? Your train of pseudo-reasoning, like that of so many other racism-apologists, only works if you conveniently ignore the actual multi-hundred year history of actual racism that actually happened. So many of your points sound completely asinine when you re-read them with that in mind.

hbrn 4y ago

> or perhaps don't think they're good enough Or perhaps it is not your business to decide what blacks should think? Imagine if you're hiring in a region where blacks are 10% of the population, but only 1% of resumes you receive are black folks (and if your pool of candidates is low, 1% can literally mean zero candidates). Your mindset seems to be "those poor blacks don't understand which jobs they should apply to. I know better than them, I'll help them". You still think you are superior to them. You're not a hateful racist, you're a virtuous racist. Still a racist though.

giantg2 4y ago

Generally agree that the problem is larger. However, I think this quick fix could result in a net negative. "So a good thing to do is apply some pressure on the funnel to elevate candidates that just barely miss out." Imagine you're one of the non-minorities who worked hard and misses out because of an artificial pressure. How do I explain to my kid that all else equal they will lose to another candidate because of not being a minority (assume this is similar to minorities of the past; however the results are mixed)? What's the point of trying hard in school? What's the point of working hard at work? These are the types of questions I'm starting to struggle with in real life. Teach the kid the same stuff I was taught (lies), or disillusion them that the world is not a meritocracy, truth and honor count for nothing, hard work may or may not pay off, etc?

boppo1 4y ago
>disillusion them that the world is not a meritocracy, truth and honor count for nothing, hard work may or may not pay off, etc? They'll pick it up all on their own.