5 ms·

Enforcing racial hiring quotas is probably the worst way to address inequalities amongst minority groups. It enforces the stereotype that minorities are inferi

by beloch 12y ago

Enforcing racial hiring quotas is probably the worst way to address inequalities amongst minority groups. It enforces the stereotype that minorities are inferior and don't deserve the jobs their appearance has given them. If you look at, for example, blacks in the U.S., two things stand out rather starkly: Poverty and incarceration rates. On average, kids in wealthy, stable, two-parent families do better than kids in poor single-parent households. Poverty and incarceration rates for blacks in the U.S. are significantly higher than for whites or asians. To compound matters, schools/teachers in poor areas are often of poorer quality than schools in rich areas. The U.S. has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. The for-profit prison system and complicit judges/politicians have created this sad state of affairs. This needs to change. One way to accomplish this might be for state and federal governments to take control of the prison system. More public funding needs to be directed towards schools and youth programs in poor areas. More money needs to be focused on easing poverty. Give these kids back their parents, reduce the desperation of extreme poverty their families experience, and give them quality education. Do all this, and we won't still be talking about race-based hiring practices a generation from now. In general, children are an investment in the future and the U.S. has not been investing in all children equally. Edit: Note that I am Canadian. Disproportionate incarceration, poverty, and inferior schooling are all problems faced by (many) first nations communities up here, only with the added difficulty that acting to change any of these is guaranteed to turn into a political fecal-storm. The feds recently tried to improve the education system, but it basically blew up in their faces and undermined the AFN (assembly of first nations) in the process.

xienze 12y ago
> Give these kids back their parents What exactly does this mean? The government didn't create all those single parent households. I mean, who exactly are you blaming here?
- bluthru 12y ago
  Racial profiling, three strikes rule, and the drug war for starters.
  - xienze 12y ago
    Pales in comparison to baby daddies up and leaving the household. That's a cultural problem.
    - bluthru 12y ago
      I'd say it's more of an economic problem. Sex is free. The pill, IUD, nuvaring, and other forms of low-effort birth control are not. Combine that with the fact that a lot of poor young women have nothing to give their lives purpose except a baby, and all of a sudden single-parent demand is created for procreation.
    - trustfundbaby 12y ago
      > Pales in comparison to baby daddies up and leaving the household Thats an interesting assertion. Do you have any data to back that up? ... because I'd posit that these cultural "problems" that you mention a. pale in comparison to the cumulative effect of Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of explicit racist housing policy from the federal government b. are probably a side effect of a.
      - NoPiece 12y ago
        The best data to support his assertion is the out of wedlock birthrate. Up until the 60s, in spite of all the horrific racism, the out of wedlock birth rate was still below 20% for african americans. As of 2010, it was 73%. http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/files/2013/06/moynihan-births-wedlock.jpg http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/files/2013/06/m...
        trustfundbaby 12y ago
        Right, but you could look at the incarceration rates and mortality rates for young black males which probably coincide with that spike for the explanation. Women aren't going to not have children just because there are no men to marry, (my opinion here) as long as they can have children they will try to raise them on their own if they have to. I'd argue that slavery, racism and institutionalized discrimination, which led to packing blacks into housing ghettos or poorer neighborhoods in addition to heavy policing because of all that is the cause of what you're seeing and not the other way around. Additionally, as you can see the rates of out of wedlock births has exploded all around (white rates went from 2% to 30%, notably white society has collapsed from this astounding increase) which means that it is probably also pretty accepted by society which makes it more likely to happen.
- jowiar 12y ago
  Well, in the case of some of them, it did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...
tootie 12y ago
The idea behind quotas isn't that minorities are inferior and need help, it's that they are equal and being discriminated against unless the law prevents it.
Gustomaximus 12y ago
> One way to accomplish this might be for state and federal governments to take control of the prison system. While I'm not saying this is wrong, given there is a privatized system I've always thought; If the prison is private they should pay the prisons an absolute minimum fee for running costs and large bonuses based on re-offence rates. Something like if a prisoner has held a job and not re-offended in the 3 years post release they get a significant bonus. At the moment it there is an incentive to keep them criminals so you'll see them back for even longer stays. And given past behaviour in this industry I imagine this thinking is in action at some penitentiaries.
yummyfajitas 12y ago
Bringing up things like poverty or parental education is a red herring. An Asian student from a family earning $0-10k has a higher average SAT math score than a black student from a family earning $70k+. (Data was leaked from the college board in 1995. I'm not aware of more current data - anyone else? Specifically, I'm looking for a data set which slices some sort of outcome score by (race, income) pairs.) http://theunsilencedscience.blogspot.in/2013/10/black-suits-gowns-skin-sat-scores-by.html http://theunsilencedscience.blogspot.in/2013/10/black-suits-... I'm not sure what you mean by "easing poverty" or "desperation...their families experience". Could you explicitly list what good/services poor children lack which cause them to underperform?
- trustfundbaby 12y ago
  > An Asian student from a family earning $0-10k has a higher average SAT math score than a black student from a family earning $70k+. This is true but heres something to consider, my feeling is that Asian Americans are what I consider newer immigrants to America. My understanding is that they actually started to come here in large numbers after 1965 when the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments eliminated racial/nationality-based discrimination in immigration quotas. Why is this important? I think that you'll find that if you compare the SAT scores of Asian Americans to recent black immigrants to the United States (Nigerians, Ghanaians and jamaicans for example), you might find that their scores are much closer than your initial comparison. The reason for that is what I call the immigrant effect ... explained by this quote from a David Brooks NY Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-drives-success.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=2&referrer=&assetType=nyt_now http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-drives... "Group success in America often tends to dissipate after two generations. Thus while Asian-American kids overall had SAT scores 143 points above average in 2012 — including a 63-point edge over whites — a 2005 study of over 20,000 adolescents found that third-generation Asian-American students performed no better academically than white students"
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    My only point is that parental income is not driving force behind racial achievement gaps. Perhaps immigrant status is the driving force behind the Asian/Black and Asian/White gaps. But then what causes the Asian/Mexican gap? Also, if you have data showing Nigerian/Ghanaian/Jamaican immigrants do as well as Asians, or the original source for Amy Chua's data, I'd love to see it.
mh_yam 12y ago
>>> More public funding needs to be directed towards schools and youth programs in poor areas. More money needs to be focused on easing poverty. Give these kids back their parents, reduce the desperation of extreme poverty their families experience, and give them quality education. Do all this, and we won't still be talking about race-based hiring practices a generation from now. There is an enormous amount of public funding going to these very things right now and it doesn't seem to have changed anything. The stereotypical black family (missing father, poor single mother) is not the result of a lack of action on the part of government. The government did not cause parents to abandon their children. It is the result of the changing message of mass media, celebrity icons, and social trends-from one that rewards integrity, and hard work to one that glorifies violence, 'thug' culture, and insubordination.
- brown_ghost 12y ago
  >>>The stereotypical black family (missing father, poor single mother) is not the result of a lack of action on the part of government. It's not lack of action...our crazy drug policies are a direct contributor to this situation, and it's by design.

by beloch 12y ago

xienze 12y ago

> Give these kids back their parents What exactly does this mean? The government didn't create all those single parent households. I mean, who exactly are you blaming here?

bluthru 12y ago
Racial profiling, three strikes rule, and the drug war for starters.
- xienze 12y ago
  Pales in comparison to baby daddies up and leaving the household. That's a cultural problem.
  - bluthru 12y ago
    I'd say it's more of an economic problem. Sex is free. The pill, IUD, nuvaring, and other forms of low-effort birth control are not. Combine that with the fact that a lot of poor young women have nothing to give their lives purpose except a baby, and all of a sudden single-parent demand is created for procreation.
  - trustfundbaby 12y ago
    > Pales in comparison to baby daddies up and leaving the household Thats an interesting assertion. Do you have any data to back that up? ... because I'd posit that these cultural "problems" that you mention a. pale in comparison to the cumulative effect of Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of explicit racist housing policy from the federal government b. are probably a side effect of a.
    - NoPiece 12y ago
      The best data to support his assertion is the out of wedlock birthrate. Up until the 60s, in spite of all the horrific racism, the out of wedlock birth rate was still below 20% for african americans. As of 2010, it was 73%. http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/files/2013/06/moynihan-births-wedlock.jpg http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/files/2013/06/m...
      - trustfundbaby 12y ago
        Right, but you could look at the incarceration rates and mortality rates for young black males which probably coincide with that spike for the explanation. Women aren't going to not have children just because there are no men to marry, (my opinion here) as long as they can have children they will try to raise them on their own if they have to. I'd argue that slavery, racism and institutionalized discrimination, which led to packing blacks into housing ghettos or poorer neighborhoods in addition to heavy policing because of all that is the cause of what you're seeing and not the other way around. Additionally, as you can see the rates of out of wedlock births has exploded all around (white rates went from 2% to 30%, notably white society has collapsed from this astounding increase) which means that it is probably also pretty accepted by society which makes it more likely to happen.
jowiar 12y ago
Well, in the case of some of them, it did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...

tootie 12y ago

The idea behind quotas isn't that minorities are inferior and need help, it's that they are equal and being discriminated against unless the law prevents it.

Gustomaximus 12y ago

> One way to accomplish this might be for state and federal governments to take control of the prison system. While I'm not saying this is wrong, given there is a privatized system I've always thought; If the prison is private they should pay the prisons an absolute minimum fee for running costs and large bonuses based on re-offence rates. Something like if a prisoner has held a job and not re-offended in the 3 years post release they get a significant bonus. At the moment it there is an incentive to keep them criminals so you'll see them back for even longer stays. And given past behaviour in this industry I imagine this thinking is in action at some penitentiaries.

yummyfajitas 12y ago

Bringing up things like poverty or parental education is a red herring. An Asian student from a family earning $0-10k has a higher average SAT math score than a black student from a family earning $70k+. (Data was leaked from the college board in 1995. I'm not aware of more current data - anyone else? Specifically, I'm looking for a data set which slices some sort of outcome score by (race, income) pairs.) http://theunsilencedscience.blogspot.in/2013/10/black-suits-gowns-skin-sat-scores-by.html http://theunsilencedscience.blogspot.in/2013/10/black-suits-... I'm not sure what you mean by "easing poverty" or "desperation...their families experience". Could you explicitly list what good/services poor children lack which cause them to underperform?

trustfundbaby 12y ago
> An Asian student from a family earning $0-10k has a higher average SAT math score than a black student from a family earning $70k+. This is true but heres something to consider, my feeling is that Asian Americans are what I consider newer immigrants to America. My understanding is that they actually started to come here in large numbers after 1965 when the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments eliminated racial/nationality-based discrimination in immigration quotas. Why is this important? I think that you'll find that if you compare the SAT scores of Asian Americans to recent black immigrants to the United States (Nigerians, Ghanaians and jamaicans for example), you might find that their scores are much closer than your initial comparison. The reason for that is what I call the immigrant effect ... explained by this quote from a David Brooks NY Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-drives-success.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=2&referrer=&assetType=nyt_now http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-drives... "Group success in America often tends to dissipate after two generations. Thus while Asian-American kids overall had SAT scores 143 points above average in 2012 — including a 63-point edge over whites — a 2005 study of over 20,000 adolescents found that third-generation Asian-American students performed no better academically than white students"
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  My only point is that parental income is not driving force behind racial achievement gaps. Perhaps immigrant status is the driving force behind the Asian/Black and Asian/White gaps. But then what causes the Asian/Mexican gap? Also, if you have data showing Nigerian/Ghanaian/Jamaican immigrants do as well as Asians, or the original source for Amy Chua's data, I'd love to see it.

mh_yam 12y ago

>>> More public funding needs to be directed towards schools and youth programs in poor areas. More money needs to be focused on easing poverty. Give these kids back their parents, reduce the desperation of extreme poverty their families experience, and give them quality education. Do all this, and we won't still be talking about race-based hiring practices a generation from now. There is an enormous amount of public funding going to these very things right now and it doesn't seem to have changed anything. The stereotypical black family (missing father, poor single mother) is not the result of a lack of action on the part of government. The government did not cause parents to abandon their children. It is the result of the changing message of mass media, celebrity icons, and social trends-from one that rewards integrity, and hard work to one that glorifies violence, 'thug' culture, and insubordination.

brown_ghost 12y ago
>>>The stereotypical black family (missing father, poor single mother) is not the result of a lack of action on the part of government. It's not lack of action...our crazy drug policies are a direct contributor to this situation, and it's by design.