4 ms·

These are all statistical measures. For any one individual may not see the benefits of these privileges. Grouping everybody into their race and statistics will

These are all statistical measures. For any one individual may not see the benefits of these privileges. Grouping everybody into their race and statistics will tell you there is variation. That's unavoidable. There are thousands of homeless white men in my city. Maybe police interactions might be calmer for them, but what does it matter for somebody whose life is sliding downhill often by their own addictions? This is why the focus on race seems like such a distraction to me. We could be helping the poor when we're still too busy discussing race and ethnicity.

Timon3 3y ago
> These are all statistical measures. For any one individual may not see the benefits of these privileges. Grouping everybody into their race and statistics will tell you there is variation. That's unavoidable. Some variation is unavoidable, but statistically significant variation isn't! Why should people in those underpriviledged groups accept a society which gives them fewer chances? > There are thousands of homeless white men in my city. Maybe police interactions might be calmer for them, but what does it matter for somebody whose life is sliding downhill often by their own addictions? Yes, it does matter? If police interactions are calmer and you live longer, you have more chances to turn your life around. We as a society have more chances to help them. > This is why the focus on race seems like such a distraction to me. We could be helping the poor when we're still too busy discussing race and ethnicity. We should help the poor, and we should work to remove disparities between races and ethnicities. Why are those things opposed in your mind?
- swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
  1) Many people of that race may be independently wealthy and do not need help. Grouping people by race is a bad measure of “need” 2) I haven’t heard realistic plans for actually helping people of a specific race. Helping poor people seems achievable, helping black people sounds presumptuous. 3) Race itself is a nebulous grouping with many edge cases. 4) You could easily find other ways to group people to locate “disadvantage”. Religion is an easy one, but affirmative action based of religion sounds quite discriminatory. 5) The focus on race is actually just racist. People’s difficulty of life is not measured by privilege but by actual experiences.
  - Timon3 3y ago
    > 1) Many people of that race may be independently wealthy and do not need help. Grouping people by race is a bad measure of “need” But people are being treated badly due to their race. Why can't we use race as one criterium to decide who needs help? Why do we have to pretend that racism isn't a real social thing that affects peoples lives? > 2) I haven’t heard realistic plans for actually helping people of a specific race. Helping poor people seems achievable, helping black people sounds presumptuous. Well, if you define these plans as unrealistic you're not going to find realistic plans. But affirmative action for example is a very realistic plan - so much so that it is (or was) reality! > 3) Race itself is a nebulous grouping with many edge cases. Sure, but people are being treated badly due to those nebulous groupings with many edge cases. Why do we have to ignore that? > 4) You could easily find other ways to group people to locate “disadvantage”. Religion is an easy one, but affirmative action based of religion sounds quite discriminatory. Do you have statistics showing that a similarly statistically significant difference exists between different religions? > 5) The focus on race is actually just racist. People’s difficulty of life is not measured by privilege but by actual experiences. "The people who identify racism are the real racists!" isn't as good of an argument as you think. People have different experiences due to their race. Attempting to find ways to curb that isn't "racist", it's "normal social behavior".
    - swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
      > But people are being treated badly due to their race Unfortunately, I do not think you can force racists to stop being racist. Bigotry is perfectly legal. > affirmative action for example is a very realistic plan It's also kinda racist. > people are being treated badly due to those nebulous groupings This is one of the valid reasons to discuss race. However, I do not see why this means people need "help". What kind of help? How are you going to help? I still have no answers.
      - Timon3 3y ago
        > Unfortunately, I do not think you can force racists to stop being racist. Bigotry is perfectly legal. Why should the affected groups, or society at large, accept this? Why shouldn't we band together to try to make things fair in light of this fact? > It's also kinda racist. Can you explain why? You cited MLK Jr. earlier. He didn't think that AA is racist. Where do you disagree with his position? > This is one of the valid reasons to discuss race. However, I do not see why this means people need "help". What kind of help? How are you going to help? I still have no answers. No, you've gotten answers, you just don't like them. I've explained pretty clearly why this means people need "help", what kind of help and so on.
Volundr 3y ago
> We could be helping the poor when we're still too busy discussing race and ethnicity. Why not both? I expect you'd find the cross-section of people who want to, say, give black people better medical outcomes, and those who support helping the homeless and poor is quite large. I feel like "what about the poor" reliability shows up when discussing helping brown people, but as soon as something is designed to help the poor the same politicians show up to condem it as entitlements or socialism. I've seen no evidence to suggest that anyone trying to better minority outcomes has ever actually distracted from implementing programs to help the poor.
- swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
  What do you think should be done to help underprivileged races? The focus on race breeds inaction because we insist something must be done before we have any idea how to solve it. Focusing on minorities isn’t helpful either because minorities includes demographics that are doing quite well.
  - Volundr 3y ago
    Well for example we already discussed that black people have worse health outcomes, we could perhaps study why that is and focus on fixing those things, ex through outreach programs. Assume we can fix poverty entirely. We already live in a world where, accounting for income, black people have worse health outcomes than whites. Why do you assume helping poor people will fix that? Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume we'd now love in a world where no one is poor , and black people still are underserved by our healthcare system? How do you propose fixing it if we can't acknowledge the racial disparities? > The focus on race breeds inaction because we insist something must be done before we have any idea how to solve it. Bull. We aren't unable to implement programs help the poor because people dare mention race. Plenty of people are trying to push for programs to help the poor regardless of race. It's not the people who acknowledge that black people are more likely to be poor standing in the way.
    - swagasaurus-rex 3y ago

Timon3 3y ago

> These are all statistical measures. For any one individual may not see the benefits of these privileges. Grouping everybody into their race and statistics will tell you there is variation. That's unavoidable. Some variation is unavoidable, but statistically significant variation isn't! Why should people in those underpriviledged groups accept a society which gives them fewer chances? > There are thousands of homeless white men in my city. Maybe police interactions might be calmer for them, but what does it matter for somebody whose life is sliding downhill often by their own addictions? Yes, it does matter? If police interactions are calmer and you live longer, you have more chances to turn your life around. We as a society have more chances to help them. > This is why the focus on race seems like such a distraction to me. We could be helping the poor when we're still too busy discussing race and ethnicity. We should help the poor, and we should work to remove disparities between races and ethnicities. Why are those things opposed in your mind?

swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
1) Many people of that race may be independently wealthy and do not need help. Grouping people by race is a bad measure of “need” 2) I haven’t heard realistic plans for actually helping people of a specific race. Helping poor people seems achievable, helping black people sounds presumptuous. 3) Race itself is a nebulous grouping with many edge cases. 4) You could easily find other ways to group people to locate “disadvantage”. Religion is an easy one, but affirmative action based of religion sounds quite discriminatory. 5) The focus on race is actually just racist. People’s difficulty of life is not measured by privilege but by actual experiences.
- Timon3 3y ago
  > 1) Many people of that race may be independently wealthy and do not need help. Grouping people by race is a bad measure of “need” But people are being treated badly due to their race. Why can't we use race as one criterium to decide who needs help? Why do we have to pretend that racism isn't a real social thing that affects peoples lives? > 2) I haven’t heard realistic plans for actually helping people of a specific race. Helping poor people seems achievable, helping black people sounds presumptuous. Well, if you define these plans as unrealistic you're not going to find realistic plans. But affirmative action for example is a very realistic plan - so much so that it is (or was) reality! > 3) Race itself is a nebulous grouping with many edge cases. Sure, but people are being treated badly due to those nebulous groupings with many edge cases. Why do we have to ignore that? > 4) You could easily find other ways to group people to locate “disadvantage”. Religion is an easy one, but affirmative action based of religion sounds quite discriminatory. Do you have statistics showing that a similarly statistically significant difference exists between different religions? > 5) The focus on race is actually just racist. People’s difficulty of life is not measured by privilege but by actual experiences. "The people who identify racism are the real racists!" isn't as good of an argument as you think. People have different experiences due to their race. Attempting to find ways to curb that isn't "racist", it's "normal social behavior".
  - swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
    > But people are being treated badly due to their race Unfortunately, I do not think you can force racists to stop being racist. Bigotry is perfectly legal. > affirmative action for example is a very realistic plan It's also kinda racist. > people are being treated badly due to those nebulous groupings This is one of the valid reasons to discuss race. However, I do not see why this means people need "help". What kind of help? How are you going to help? I still have no answers.
    - Timon3 3y ago
      > Unfortunately, I do not think you can force racists to stop being racist. Bigotry is perfectly legal. Why should the affected groups, or society at large, accept this? Why shouldn't we band together to try to make things fair in light of this fact? > It's also kinda racist. Can you explain why? You cited MLK Jr. earlier. He didn't think that AA is racist. Where do you disagree with his position? > This is one of the valid reasons to discuss race. However, I do not see why this means people need "help". What kind of help? How are you going to help? I still have no answers. No, you've gotten answers, you just don't like them. I've explained pretty clearly why this means people need "help", what kind of help and so on.

Volundr 3y ago

> We could be helping the poor when we're still too busy discussing race and ethnicity. Why not both? I expect you'd find the cross-section of people who want to, say, give black people better medical outcomes, and those who support helping the homeless and poor is quite large. I feel like "what about the poor" reliability shows up when discussing helping brown people, but as soon as something is designed to help the poor the same politicians show up to condem it as entitlements or socialism. I've seen no evidence to suggest that anyone trying to better minority outcomes has ever actually distracted from implementing programs to help the poor.

swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
What do you think should be done to help underprivileged races? The focus on race breeds inaction because we insist something must be done before we have any idea how to solve it. Focusing on minorities isn’t helpful either because minorities includes demographics that are doing quite well.
- Volundr 3y ago
  Well for example we already discussed that black people have worse health outcomes, we could perhaps study why that is and focus on fixing those things, ex through outreach programs. Assume we can fix poverty entirely. We already live in a world where, accounting for income, black people have worse health outcomes than whites. Why do you assume helping poor people will fix that? Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume we'd now love in a world where no one is poor , and black people still are underserved by our healthcare system? How do you propose fixing it if we can't acknowledge the racial disparities? > The focus on race breeds inaction because we insist something must be done before we have any idea how to solve it. Bull. We aren't unable to implement programs help the poor because people dare mention race. Plenty of people are trying to push for programs to help the poor regardless of race. It's not the people who acknowledge that black people are more likely to be poor standing in the way.
  - swagasaurus-rex 3y ago