5 ms·

I mean that you need to acknowledge the concept of race. Say you're facing a 10% unemployment rate in some city. If you treat everyone as an equal individual, t

I mean that you need to acknowledge the concept of race. Say you're facing a 10% unemployment rate in some city. If you treat everyone as an equal individual, the solution will be some combination of economic changes, lowering taxes, increasing subsidies, whatever. Now imagine 90% of the unemployed are black, in a city where blacks are the minority. Clearly there is more than an economic problem here. Promoting individual rights is not going to help, because all races have identical rights in this scenario, and businesses should always have the right to not hire someone. The solution would depend on the underlying problem, but it might very well involve giving some sort of temporary advantage based on race. The parent comment advocated forgetting all race, religion, gender labels, but we can't do that until everybody agrees to let those labels go. Until then, we need to acknowledge race and gender so that we can recognize when a problem exists, and address it. From a colorblind perspective, race is already solved, right? All races have equal rights, discrimination based on race is illegal, legally we're all good.

innguest 12y ago
You seem to only be able to think from the perspective of central planning. I invite you to stop invoking this earthly "god" and give people a chance. Can you give me an example of how a town where 90% of the unemployed are black could possibly come into being in the free market where voluntary trade and contracts are enforced by the governments courts (and there are no group-membership based laws)? I'll give you the beginning. Once upon a time there was a town where all sorts of races lived in (no one bothered to count because these people learned the lessons of Nazis using Dutch records to kill Jews and they didn't want that again). Then you fill in the blanks, then all of a sudden without government interference in the market, 90% of the unemployed are black. I eagerly await your reply.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  Without granting that your premise is either meaningful or coherent, racism in the population could easily explain it. The absence of group membership based laws doesn't impy the absence of group membership based attitudes that are implemented through individual decisions.
- burkaman 12y ago
  It's not all of a sudden. And I'm not talking about super blatant racism where every business owner is like "I don't like those black folks so I just won't hire them". It's not all of a sudden because in the US, we had slavery and then Jim Crow. There was never a time where everyone lived equally, and then all of a sudden all the black people were unemployed. They've always been disproportionately poor, uneducated, unemployed, and that's a really tough cycle to get out of. And it's not blatant racism. A black guy with a Harvard MBA doesn't have much of a problem getting a job in this town. But there's still plenty of subtle, unconscious racism. A black guy is more likely to be rejected for any given job than a white guy with a comparable resume. There's plenty of studies on this issue, here's the first one I found: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=422902 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=422902 The employer here doesn't hate black people, they just decided to hire the white candidate for a reason they probably wouldn't be able to put their finger on. These black people don't have any business connections, so it's a lot harder to get internships and jobs. Half the adults they know when they're in college are unemployed or in jail. This is more of a poverty problem than a race problem, but race still plays into it. You can't get a job in your dad's office like your white friends did, because your parents were constantly passed over for jobs like that. These black people have a much harder time starting their own business. Their family doesn't have any money, and they seem to have more trouble getting a loan than white people do. I want to reiterate that this is not all of a sudden. There has never been a time in the US where all races lived in equality and harmony. If 90% of the unemployed are black, it's probably always been that way, right up until none of them were unemployed because they were all slaves.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
How is that fair though. You make a statistical restitution of sorts but if there are 20 jobs and 100 candidates of equal standing. 50 candidates fit one biological classification (A) unrelated to the job and the other 50 fit another (B). How is it fair then to ensure that a certain number of A > B get the jobs available? Why is it that when the number [getting the jobs] A < B by design it is wrong, but when A > B it's right. Moreover what you appear to be arguing is not even that the candidates have equal standing with regard to ability to perform the roles but that you should select A > B even if on average candidates in group B are more able to fulfil the job requirements. So now you reject candidates who are more able to do a job simply because they fit unrelated classification A. How is that discrimination good? Why is it alright to antagonise people now because of their race when it wasn't in the past; don't you think that will just foment ill will and a greater focus on irrelevant biological classifiers? We shouldn't discriminate against a poor person because they're poor and in group B, we should offer opportunities for all poor people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps regardless of unrelated biological classifications. By this means we will remove needless discrimination rather than shift it around. If, in order to make restitution you feel that there are excessively many poor people from one group, then make more opportunities available to all poor people. That way all those who wish to take advantage can do so regardless of whether their earlobes are attached or whatever hangup you have.
- burkaman 12y ago
  No, you misunderstand me, the solution would not be to force companies to hire some percentage of black people, or anything like that. Companies should hire whoever is best for the job. But it is absolutely fair to address the reasons black people are so disproportionately unemployed. Is it because employers are unconsciously discriminatory when evaluating candidates? Yes, according to a a few studies. What can we do about that? I don't really know, but helping poor people in general will not solve this problem. Is it because particular communities have been caught in a cycle of poverty and lack of education for centuries, because of slavery and segregation? Yes, often it is. You are not racist, you had nothing to do with those crimes, but unfortunately the antagonism of the past is still very much affecting the people of today. It is not antagonistic to address these longstanding issues. Again, I don't know the solution, but it might involve offering college scholarships specific to black people. It might involve some kind of affirmative action. These ideas are not antagonistic to non-black people, even if a white guy gets rejected from a college that accepts a less-qualified black guy. We cannot treat everyone equally when some people are starting so far behind. Yes, we should offer opportunities for all poor people, but that won't do enough. Biological classification A is at a huge disadvantage, and all the people responsible for it are dead, so we can't punish them or make them fix it. We have to try to fix it.

innguest 12y ago

You seem to only be able to think from the perspective of central planning. I invite you to stop invoking this earthly "god" and give people a chance. Can you give me an example of how a town where 90% of the unemployed are black could possibly come into being in the free market where voluntary trade and contracts are enforced by the governments courts (and there are no group-membership based laws)? I'll give you the beginning. Once upon a time there was a town where all sorts of races lived in (no one bothered to count because these people learned the lessons of Nazis using Dutch records to kill Jews and they didn't want that again). Then you fill in the blanks, then all of a sudden without government interference in the market, 90% of the unemployed are black. I eagerly await your reply.

dragonwriter 12y ago
Without granting that your premise is either meaningful or coherent, racism in the population could easily explain it. The absence of group membership based laws doesn't impy the absence of group membership based attitudes that are implemented through individual decisions.
burkaman 12y ago
It's not all of a sudden. And I'm not talking about super blatant racism where every business owner is like "I don't like those black folks so I just won't hire them". It's not all of a sudden because in the US, we had slavery and then Jim Crow. There was never a time where everyone lived equally, and then all of a sudden all the black people were unemployed. They've always been disproportionately poor, uneducated, unemployed, and that's a really tough cycle to get out of. And it's not blatant racism. A black guy with a Harvard MBA doesn't have much of a problem getting a job in this town. But there's still plenty of subtle, unconscious racism. A black guy is more likely to be rejected for any given job than a white guy with a comparable resume. There's plenty of studies on this issue, here's the first one I found: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=422902 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=422902 The employer here doesn't hate black people, they just decided to hire the white candidate for a reason they probably wouldn't be able to put their finger on. These black people don't have any business connections, so it's a lot harder to get internships and jobs. Half the adults they know when they're in college are unemployed or in jail. This is more of a poverty problem than a race problem, but race still plays into it. You can't get a job in your dad's office like your white friends did, because your parents were constantly passed over for jobs like that. These black people have a much harder time starting their own business. Their family doesn't have any money, and they seem to have more trouble getting a loan than white people do. I want to reiterate that this is not all of a sudden. There has never been a time in the US where all races lived in equality and harmony. If 90% of the unemployed are black, it's probably always been that way, right up until none of them were unemployed because they were all slaves.

pbhjpbhj 12y ago

How is that fair though. You make a statistical restitution of sorts but if there are 20 jobs and 100 candidates of equal standing. 50 candidates fit one biological classification (A) unrelated to the job and the other 50 fit another (B). How is it fair then to ensure that a certain number of A > B get the jobs available? Why is it that when the number [getting the jobs] A < B by design it is wrong, but when A > B it's right. Moreover what you appear to be arguing is not even that the candidates have equal standing with regard to ability to perform the roles but that you should select A > B even if on average candidates in group B are more able to fulfil the job requirements. So now you reject candidates who are more able to do a job simply because they fit unrelated classification A. How is that discrimination good? Why is it alright to antagonise people now because of their race when it wasn't in the past; don't you think that will just foment ill will and a greater focus on irrelevant biological classifiers? We shouldn't discriminate against a poor person because they're poor and in group B, we should offer opportunities for all poor people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps regardless of unrelated biological classifications. By this means we will remove needless discrimination rather than shift it around. If, in order to make restitution you feel that there are excessively many poor people from one group, then make more opportunities available to all poor people. That way all those who wish to take advantage can do so regardless of whether their earlobes are attached or whatever hangup you have.

burkaman 12y ago
No, you misunderstand me, the solution would not be to force companies to hire some percentage of black people, or anything like that. Companies should hire whoever is best for the job. But it is absolutely fair to address the reasons black people are so disproportionately unemployed. Is it because employers are unconsciously discriminatory when evaluating candidates? Yes, according to a a few studies. What can we do about that? I don't really know, but helping poor people in general will not solve this problem. Is it because particular communities have been caught in a cycle of poverty and lack of education for centuries, because of slavery and segregation? Yes, often it is. You are not racist, you had nothing to do with those crimes, but unfortunately the antagonism of the past is still very much affecting the people of today. It is not antagonistic to address these longstanding issues. Again, I don't know the solution, but it might involve offering college scholarships specific to black people. It might involve some kind of affirmative action. These ideas are not antagonistic to non-black people, even if a white guy gets rejected from a college that accepts a less-qualified black guy. We cannot treat everyone equally when some people are starting so far behind. Yes, we should offer opportunities for all poor people, but that won't do enough. Biological classification A is at a huge disadvantage, and all the people responsible for it are dead, so we can't punish them or make them fix it. We have to try to fix it.