Talk about a hole with no bottom.

Is this an undercover socialism thread?

relax folks, just talking with someone why Black enrollment at the state university lags Black demographics. I just didn't want to confine the discussion to affirmative action in the college admissions process.

Lol. Typical. Ending racism must of course be socialism because redressing centuries of barbaric treatment obviously is socialism

Probably the best solution is to take all the racists and deport them

Seems like a "strong alumni network" is a rather soft way to achieve continued white dominance. I'm thinking stuff along this line.

@Ogion, your proposal ties in nicely with your "block player feature." But you're being too lenient. Why not shoot them?

How about the prevalence of racism? When the criminal justice system acts like an extension of the Klan, resumes with black names get a third of the resumes that typical white sounding names do and black borrowers nearly always get charged higher rates and on and on, there are practically no areas of society that aren't heavily tipped in favor of white people.

Good ones, Ogion,
1. but not sure which part of the criminal justice system you're thinking about. Jury by ones peers can cut both ways.
2. It'd be nice if resume names were "masked" before HR sees them.
3. Seems like the interest rate issue could be fixed by proper audit.

@Hauta, do you think affirmative action (or positive discrimination, as the British call it more candidly) creates less or more interracial hatred in a society?

1. All of them. It's been shown statistically in a zillion different ways. There isn't a single racially equitable part of the justice system. The application is harsher and with fewer rights based on race at every single level.
2. But they aren't. And of course there is racially disparate treatment at interviews and in the work place. As I said before, the only solution is to get rid of the racists.
3. Not really, because a lot of banks know damn well what they're doing. There have been a zillion audits and studies but with limited enforcement (who ever heard of a banker going to jail for stealing?) nothing changes

And that's only the beginning.

Well, zmaj, among racists, it doesn't do anything, since those people are pretty hate filled anyway. If it wasn't affirnative action it'd be immigration or something contrived reason. For everyone else, it doesn't make much difference

Affirmative action imo seems to cause more harm than help at this point because it raises specter that any Black who has succeeded did so only by AA. I prefer to throw money etc at underperforming school districts (financed by wealthier districts) until high school performance equalizes.

@Hauta, that would definitely be a better solution than AA. Still, I don't think it's primarily a money issue, or even a rights issue.

That's absolute bollocks unsupported by any data, Hauta. Why ensuring a good education for all (ooh more socialism!) is worthy it isn't going to happen in The US. Maybe we can dismantle affirmative action when the educational barriers are addressed but not before. Affirmative action actually costs virtually nothing and simply acts to counterbalance the systemic biases that otherwise control. Racists of course only think that African Americans who succeed do so due to Afirmation Action, but the problem there is once again with the racists not the students. Those people are going to come up with some fake bullshit regardless. The solution is to get rid of the racists, not to target the program's addressing injustice.

Yes, it is in large measure a money issue. Heavily minority schools get nowhere near the finding white schools do. The US is damn near an apartheid state in that regard

@Hauta, you said that Black enrollment at the state university lags Black demographics, which I'm sure is true. What interests me, however, is whether Black self-confidence lags behind Black empowerment. It's impossible to measure, but it's crucial in my opinion.

When Denmark was under German occupation, Piet Hein wrote this poem:

Losing one glove
is certainly painful,
but nothing
compared to the pain
of losing one,
throwing away the other,
and finding
the first one again.

The first glove is freedom, the other one is self-respect. When the US was still racist, I'm sure many Blacks lost the other glove, too. A lack of self-respect can be learned from one's parents, even if the child is more free than they were.

I believe that's the root of the problem. It can't be resolved with money or anything the state can throw at Blacks. They'll have to work it out themselves, as they're already doing. It just takes time.

@zmaj "when the US was still racist"


HAHAHAHAHAHA! What planet are you on?

The root of the problem is that far too many whites are racist and far too many others look the other way.

Blaming black people is bullshit. You wouldn't last a day, Zmaj.

I mean officially racist, of course. But I think Hauta realized that.

@Ogion, I'm sorry, but I've given up on having a serious discussion with you. Snarling at others is not my idea of a good time.

Well, it's still plenty officially racist as well. But that's not really the issue here. The problem is entirely that US society is very very friendly to racists.

Fine. As long as you're pretending that racism is somehow a thing of the past or a non-issue, you aren't really engaged in serious discussion anyway. For my part, I have a zero tolerance position on fake news and unsubstantiated bullshit. Post your proof or expect a strong response.

I suppose it hasn't occurred to youblack "self-confidence" might lag because of systemic biases and constant micro and macro aggression. Of course, black "empowerment" lags for similar reasons.

Again, the problem isn't black people. It's white racists. No racists? No problem. Any solution that isn't focused on the root cause of the problem is a waste of effort.

@zmaj, the Hein poem is appreciated. Thanks!
Yup, the assumption of the thread is that racism exists and that it is expressed in ways that might not even be intentionally racist, e.g. Old boy network.
@ogion identified several areas that are intentional and I hope he comes up with more that are not racist but end up supporting continued white dominance, nonetheless.

@hauta, a lot of the mechanisms I identified aren't necessarily consciously racist, but result from implicit bias. You can't address implicity bias without addressing the narratives in society, but when you try to shift that, you invariably get the "PC" backlash by the many, many people who like those racist narratives and want to continue them, either consciously or not. Again, the solution here can only come from improving white attitudes. Without that, the rest either won't happen for lack of political will, or won't do much good. (I am reminded how Sandra Day O'Connor graduated from Stanford at the top of her class and could only get a job as a secretary at a law firm. No amount of affirmative action in college admissions were going to help if the corporate culture is profoundly (in this case) sexist. I mean, Barack Obama was one of the very top law students in the nation, and yet the racists denigrated him at every move and still dismiss and denigrates his every accomplishment. It is so incredibly transparent what's going on there.

So, all the funding and affirmative action in the world will only go so far as long as a critical mass of whites tolerate and/or express racism. You can be talented, accomplished, and skilled in every way, but if you have to be twice as good as a white guy at every single stage of our career, ther'es a hard hard cap on your "empowerment" due to informal barriers.

One of the most racist institutions is teacher seniority in hiring and retention and assignments. When I was a student in LAUSD teachers avoided assignments in south central Los Angeles. They used seniority to stay in the west side and SV valley schools.

@Ogion, Assuming America becomes majority-"minority", what becomes equalized first, elected representation or representation in the marketplace? Also, will Whites be treated as fairly as Mandela treated Whites in South Africa?

It is the suppressive ideas of those who support the politics that Ogion esposes that keep the hopes and dreams of those who would rise above their circumstances and find success and fulfillment in life.

That is a long way to go. Judging from California which has been majority minority, I might hazard a guess that political representation comes first. Whites still disproportionately control both though A minority with legacy power can rule for a long time.

It's going to take a few more generations to significantly change. White males have been in power so long that it will take time to build a base of minority and females to rise through the ranks to replace them. It's a built in bias in the system where there aren't a lot of qualified candidates because they were kept out of the selection pool.

It's why there are so few women and minority CEOs at major companies. The positions in the next tier below where they are picked from are mostly still white males.

Politicians will get replaced first because you can bypass the candidate pool with enough supporters.