Reverse Discrimination Case Goes to the US Supreme Court

[Ayrahvon]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Ayrahvon

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Craig234

I have a question I would like to ask you.

At issue are promotion tests. How is it in the best interest of the minority population to have to rely on people who cannot demonstrate the required expertise to direct the attempt to save their property and lives during a fire? Since a firefighter is likely to be at many fires in his career, there will be many opportunities to make decisions yielding less than desirable results if a person is in fact under qualified. So where is the balance point between the perceived good of promoting an assumed disadvantaged person to a position where his decisions might fail to save lives that might be saved by a more competent person? 1? 2? 10? Where is the balance of property damage too (and don't assume that insurance negates this as many people are under insured, particularly the "dis-advantaged, and many things are not replaceable).

Should AA be applied to doctors, lawyers, airline pilots, etc. because some people might be dis-advantaged and cannot pass the required tests?

Once again I feel like I have to re-iterate a point that isn't be made on this forum. Affirmative action would come into play with lawyers, doctors, and airline pilots who have similar to identical resumes and scores from which the employer should decide who gets employed. If someone is not qualified for a job they are not qualified, even with affirmative action.

Did you read the article?

Yes, I did. Did you read my initial post in which I showed how this sort of testing doesn't reflect the actual knowledge someone might have on a particular subject?

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Wow Craig. Although I respect your position, and have heard it before, you are so far off base. There is no reason whatsoever for anyone with the desire to do so to succeed in any way they want. You are almost advocating the past as a reason to fail. Take Oprah's story. She had absolutely everything going against her growing up. Not one spark of hope, yet look what she did. And she did it when racism was rampant. When it comes down to it the only reason someone (any color) doesnt succeed is one of two reasons: first, they arent cut out for it, or second, they didnt prepare enough.

Blackangst, anecdotes don't disprove the generalities. Because Joe Louis was a 'great success' as he defeated the Nazi fighter Max Schmelling, does that prove there was no injustice from racism in the 1930's? It's really a logical fallacy for you to cite Oprah as proving anything about the general situation, and not simply that *some* blacks were able to succeed greatly, while not disproving the situation for most.

The problem I think is that you - as I used to - really don't understand the effects of the history of racism, and so in good faith you try to say they don't exist.

I'm not sure how we're going to reach agreement, unless you develop more understanding of the situation, because I'm not planning to pretend it doesn't exist.

If it helps, I think you are intending well, and not racist in your position, just not informed enough about the hsitory and its implications.

To make a bad - and I worry even tasteless - analogy, it's a little like perhaps a century ago before psychology was as well understood, when rape might have been viewed by men as the same thing as a punch in the nose - an assault that's over with, so get on with things, and not having a clue why it might affect the woman for years to come - and even further victimizing her for her problems with it, by calling her 'weak'.

From your view, you think there's no issue. At least we understand what our disagreement is.

I have pointed out the fact that a family that is held back for a century plus on wealth, networkng and socializatin, education, etc., while others advance each generation, doesn't come out the end of tat century in the equal situation you describe. You simply don't care to get more informed about it, it seems, and to stick to the simple answer - which oh by the way does not work for reasons you have a hard time explaining, at getting to our goal of a society where you see blacks doing as well as others. You just don't understand, IMO.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: Craig234

So my defense is not for all affirmative action, on which I haven't really commented one way or the other. Rather I've discussed specifically black affirmative action.

.. and here is the problem.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus

You want to talk about family history?

Yes, I do, specifically regarding the *systemic racism against one group for centuries*.

Why don't we talk about Asian families then as well?

OK, let's. Asian families having nothing anywhere near in their history the history blacks have with racism. There was a period of Chinese racism (there were building our railroads), and we'll get to the Japanese in WWII in a moment, but there's nothing beginning to be comparable to the effects on blacks.

Look at Japanese families, especially ones who were here during WWII, and went to relocation settlements.

Yes, that was a one-time economic setback - not centuries of racism that harmed their 'culture', and prevented them generation after generation from advancement.

The cams did not destroy their culture, did not give them a long-term second-class role in society, didn not prevent their education outside those 4 year, rather than centuries.

Even the reason for the harm was less 'racism' in terms of believing them some inferior second-class race, than of the paranoia of war, short-lived.

How about Native American families, who for 200+ years have been given the shitty end of the stick?

I agree with you, and would like to see more done for Native Americans. That is an excellent example of where people today are in unequal situations directly from wrongs.

How about Irish families who were forced to live in ghettos?

The discrimination was neither as complete, but more importantly, as long-term as for blacks. Hence you do not see the legacy effects today as you do for blacks.

Let's remember as well for each of these examples, the difference between immigrants, who generally have more freedom, and the roots of slavery, a real lack of communities.

How about Middle Eastern families?

No history comparable to blacks.

What about Jewish families, who have been persecuted since the time of Jesus? How many times have Jews been subjected to racism, mass murders, exiled, persecuted, etc?

Their history in the US is not at all comparable to blacks. No other group is comparable.

That doesn't work for your arguement for AA though, so lets not talk about them. Forget the fact that Native American families spent hundreds of years in North America, and then when the Europeans came in the 15th century they got decimated. Until the 20th century, Native American families were constantly getting shit on by "the white man". Guess what, they took the crappy hand they were dealt and made the best of it.

Millenia, actually. The short answer is above. We could get into specifics - such as the diffference whereby Native Americans have had their own societies for a very long time (over a century), which does not compare much to the history of blacks living in second-class situations among whites for the century after the civil war - but the fact there are some simiarities and some differences for Native Americans doesn't seem all that useful to the discussion. I do think there are some important differences we could get into, though.

My point is, that AA is focused primarily on African Americans and "blacks" because they are "disadvantaged" (or whatever you want to call it). Just about every race, except Europeans for the most part, have had racisim hurt them. Non-white, non-black races for the most part have moved on, and tried to take those bad times and turn them into some sort of a positive outcome. How many Jewish people do you know that hate Germany, and feel entitled to something? How many Irish do you know who feel entitled to something? How many Japanese feel entitled to something?

I disagree - I don't think it's because they are disadvantaged', but because they are affected by the harms of the century of racism our nation chose.

No other group comes anywhere near the situation of blacks.

Show me the mass situations where Irish-Americans are hugely underrepresented in hirring because of the effects of past racist policies. Show it to me for Middle Easterners.

The only place I see in our society where such effects exist is for blacks, which makes sense given the unique massive centuries-long racism they alone were victims of.

AA serves no use, because if they wanted to make their lives better and become something they could. It's been done by almost every other race on this planet.

As I said before, this is you bing ignorant of the effects of the racism looking for some other explanation to make sense of it- and turning to racism for the answer.

I'll repeat what I said above, since you did not see it or did not understand it:

But when you look at a city where blacks are greatly disadvantaged, 20% of the population getting 2% of the rewards, how do you address that injustice?

One outlet if you don't understand the history is to turn to racism - "it must be their own fault." That's actually somewhat understandable when you lack the information.

PS: I realize AA targets all minorities, but I don't hear about women, Irish, Asian, M.E., Hispanic, Native Americans, etc throwing AA stuff out there all the time. Most non-black races don't go "I wasn't hired, so it must be because I'm (insert race here). It couldn't be because I'm not as qualified" and try to make everything about race (as a lot of African Americans try to do).

On the point of whether sometimes some blacks misuse the issue of racism and blame things having nothing to do with racism for things, absolutely they do.

It's terrible to watch an African-American person fail to take personal responsibility, and then blame the result, which is perfectly fair, on racism.

And it doesn't negate the issue of racism I described that there is that abuse. I understand that it's not easy to incorporate the invisible history of the centuries of racism into your views now, but that doesn't change the situation that I explained any more than other 'invisible' injustices were justified by ignoring them.

You want to *just* look at the United States/N America, okay.

Native Americans have been treated worse than blacks for longer periods of time. Jewish people throughout Europe and the Middle East (and Africa a bit as well) have had much worse/more done to their race than blacks. That's not the US though, so we won't discuss that.

You talk about "20% of the population, but 2% of the rewards", well there are many other races who that could be said about as well. You just *choose* to put on your monochromatic glasses and see the white/black issue only. Regardless of that though, do you really believe that just because they are 20% of the population they *deserve* 20% of the 'rewards'? I don't. If that were the case, then since I'm white I deserve ~75% of the 'rewards' (per the 2000 census data that shows ~75% of the population say they are caucasion/white). That's fine with me, I'll expect a check in 7-10 business days. Thanks.

 

[QuantumPion]

Originally posted by: Carmen813
I don't think it's time to get rid of it, but perhaps reform the way it works. Obama actually had some good ideas on it (imo). Basically he doesn't feel it is right his children would have an advantage over a white child who lives in poverty simply because of their skin color. He wants to make it based on socioeconomic background (well, that's a very broad would of describing it).

As long as it doesn't go against the government-enforced union monopoly of public schools, that is. Hence why he killed the voucher programs.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Ayrahvon
While I am no advocate of affirmative action I believe it would be ill-advised to remove it without putting another social reformation project in its place. Saying that it should be removed because of testing score by firefighters is just a continuation of faulty assumptions brought out by testing procedures. If people want to debate this I suggest that they look at the The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, and then look at how widely their work has been disregarded due to faulty logic and assumptions.

This case works much in the same way. Should I trust one firefighter over another because they did better on a written exam? Last I checked a job of a firefighter is to put out fires and help people caught in them. Do these test results reflect their ability to do their job in field? My gut reaction is no, it does not. The reason behind throwing out the test results is because intelligence can't be reduced to a single number, nor can you rank or order people in a given field from the results linearly. So while I don't deny that there should be changes to affirmative action, it should not be because of this.

I'd like to offer different opinion on some of this.

I don't discount the value of the written test - for even firefighters, but especially for the leadership positions in question here. I think such tests are an essential requireent.

The issue isn't that written tests are not important - it's what to do when you have groups of all races who *pass the test*, but whites pass it with higher scores.

One key concept of affirmative action is that it *does not* put unqualified people in positions, only qualified - but not the top-scoring - people.

That's part of the 'balance' in trying take some actions towards proportional representation, while not paying too high a price.

It's important to distinguish between qualified choosing people to meet a goal of proportional representation, and allowing *unqialified* people to be put in place.

This situation is saying, "this test to select from the qualified people is not meeting our goal for racial diversity, so we want to change the tool to another that does."

They are not saying they want to go so far as to let unqualified people who did not pass the test get promoted.

And I acknowledge the price paid by not choosing the top scoring people. It's unfortunate and I look forward to when it's not the caee.

In the meantime, we have to choose between that price, and the correction of the injustices done to blacks today by the history of racist policies.

If you are fine with having the effects of racism continue to keep blacks passing the test but absent from the promotions as whites score higher for generations to come - then you can defend not doing anything as the promotions continue to go to whites at much higher rates and blacks pay the price, even through they could fill the positions and be qualified.

We'd all like to see the situation where there's equality of opportunity - but not all of us recognize the costs to get there anytime soon.

I hate that the price has to be paid by whites, who feel like victims because they don't have any appreciation for the avantages a century of racism gave them.

They're happy to get the benefits - "hey, white buddy, we both got promoted - hope the blacks get better scores next time" - but not to give any of them up for equality. If I could directly show that the white's score was higher than a black person's because of 20 key differences fromthe racist policies, I'd have proven that he did not deserve the higher score or the promotion IMO - but it would hardly make him happy to give up the advantages, even though he wouldn't dream of choosing racist policies today.

What could replace affirmative action? As many have stated in this thread, affirmative action only aids one minority group in America and that in and of itself is discriminatory beyond belief.

It benefits every group who faces the harmful effects of centuries of intense racism here.

Oh, ya, that's only one group. If another group had the same type of harm, I'd include them.

In fact, in areas, I do. For example, gender bias has a history of underrepresenting women in science (Blackangst, you can replace your Oprah argument with Madame Curie here to disprove my point with anecdotal evidence). While the effects are not at all comparable to anti-black racism, it has made sense to try to get to more equality there by having 'affirmative action' programs that aggressively recruit women, that send out a message to women encouraging them, to counter the history and get things more equal.

It seems to be working as trends are moving that direction.

How would you feel if you had to constantly prove your worth while being undermined because people believed you got your job or position or into a school because of your ethnicity? People who get these positions often have to work harder than anyone else simply to disprove the reasoning that they only got the job because of affirmative action. I personally do not believe affirmative action puts people into positions they were not already qualified for in the first place but I understand this is a debatable topic.

Yes, there is a price.

The real problem with affirmative action is that it addresses the outcome, not the problem itself. The problem we face today is that education is not equal across the spectrum. I do not base this off of testing but off of common knowledge that poor sections of cities and rural areas of America are being provided sub-par funding and teachers for their schools. To make matters worse, in these areas the students often receive little to no help from their parents while having larger social issues to deal with at home. This is not a racial problem (although ethnic minorities are a larger percentage of the population in these areas) but a social problem to be dealt with by everyone within our society.

I agree with the later part. On the first, what's wrong with addressing outcome if that addresses the problem itself?

I watched a story on a black family who got access to a home in a nice neighborhood from affirmative action - and that opened the door to better schools and work, so in coming years they would get 'equal opportunity', a family that would not need more affirmative action; it was something that helped them get out of the ghetto racism put them in for the last several generations. The alternative is basically 'leave the ghettos in place, allowing past racism to keep them down'.

Clearly this is no easy task, and from what I've seen within my own state and across the country the task will only become more difficult. Here in Washington state, the education budget is getting hammered with gigantic cuts due to large deficits faced by the state. In many states singular districts pay different taxes towards education to support their district's schools. Poor districts often pay a much larger percentage towards giving their children a fair education but the problem is that they have so little taxes to pay that even with the larger percentage they are giving far less money to support their schools.

This is what racial and economic discrimination is in America. This is what people should be addressing, and if you were to take affirmative action away this is where our tax dollars should be focused in order to improve equality across the board in America.

So while we can squabble over the fairness of affirmative action and whether or not it hurts or helps people, all we are doing is ignoring the real problems we face today and slowing down the progression of our nation.

I agree with your pointing out the issue with unequal education. Fix that, and it's a better solution than affirmative action and reduces the need for it.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus

You want to *just* look at the United States/N America, okay.

Native Americans have been treated worse than blacks for longer periods of time. Jewish people throughout Europe and the Middle East (and Africa a bit as well) have had much worse/more done to their race than blacks. That's not the US though, so we won't discuss that.

Native Americans have a different and unique background. Genocide against them - tens of million slaughtered by various means - we can't bring them back.

They for over a century have had a very different situation than blacks. Both are victims of racial discrimination (I didn't say racism, because while there has been some racism against Native Americans, they were more 'in the way' than targetted as 'racially inferior', while blacks have been the victims of more consistent racism). You can promote a black fireman who passed a test with a lower score than a white; what do you for the Native American fireman who is on a reservation?

Different situation, requiring its own discussion. If you're just trying to somehow make a comment about the discussion on black affirmative action by using Native Americans for some sort of 'but what about them' argument, that's pretty pointless, and doedn't prove anything about blacks.

s for Jews, ok let's discuss the discrimnation they've faced. What's to discuss? Presumably, we agree that it happened, and that it was bad. And? What do you want to discuss?

You talk about "20% of the population, but 2% of the rewards", well there are many other races who that could be said about as well. You just *choose* to put on your monochromatic glasses and see the white/black issue only. Regardless of that though, do you really believe that just because they are 20% of the population they *deserve* 20% of the 'rewards'? I don't. If that were the case, then since I'm white I deserve ~75% of the 'rewards' (per the 2000 census data that shows ~75% of the population say they are caucasion/white). That's fine with me, I'll expect a check in 7-10 business days. Thanks.

No, you are ignoring the factor that the role of centuries of discrimnation causing an unequal paying field causes. Show me the whites with that history, and I'll agree.

But in the meantime, no, you can't show me how the 75% of white America gets less than 64% of the rewards - because it gets more, as could be predicted given the history of privilege. Oh, you don't like to admit the advantages you have gained at the expense of others, and you are probably not terrible aware of them, why pay attention to that - so just pretend they don't exist, and you are 'deserving for your own achievments entirely. They say ignorance is bliss - and this is a great example of why.

If you actually paid attention to the extent to which your advantages are directly from past racist policies, you would not like it that much. That's why this issue is a tough sell.

People are happy to acknowledge all day that other people did bad things, as long as it doesn't affect them in any way.

If you really believe in justice, then ask the question whether past racism is the clear cause of disadvantage today whereby there are sensible actions that can help correct that and get us closer to the 'color blind' society with equal opportunity, and where unequal outcomes are for reasons other than racism-caused disadvantage. I'm fine with all 7 promotions going to one race, when that's the situation.

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
You want to *just* look at the United States/N America, okay.

Native Americans have been treated worse than blacks for longer periods of time. Jewish people throughout Europe and the Middle East (and Africa a bit as well) have had much worse/more done to their race than blacks. That's not the US though, so we won't discuss that.

You talk about "20% of the population, but 2% of the rewards", well there are many other races who that could be said about as well. You just *choose* to put on your monochromatic glasses and see the white/black issue only. Regardless of that though, do you really believe that just because they are 20% of the population they *deserve* 20% of the 'rewards'? I don't. If that were the case, then since I'm white I deserve ~75% of the 'rewards' (per the 2000 census data that shows ~75% of the population say they are caucasion/white). That's fine with me, I'll expect a check in 7-10 business days. Thanks.

In society, if one group is dominant over others, one can come to two assumptions. First, that the dominant group is superior. Second, that the dominant group is oppressive. In a society where white men hold a disproportionate amount of power, to claim that there is no need for Affirmative Action, because there is no oppression, is to claim that white men are superior. It is to claim they are stronger, more intelligent, harder working, and have better personalities than everyone else, because there can be no other explanation for their success.

I reject this notion.

 

[Ayrahvon]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
You want to *just* look at the United States/N America, okay.

Native Americans have been treated worse than blacks for longer periods of time. Jewish people throughout Europe and the Middle East (and Africa a bit as well) have had much worse/more done to their race than blacks. That's not the US though, so we won't discuss that.

You talk about "20% of the population, but 2% of the rewards", well there are many other races who that could be said about as well. You just *choose* to put on your monochromatic glasses and see the white/black issue only. Regardless of that though, do you really believe that just because they are 20% of the population they *deserve* 20% of the 'rewards'? I don't. If that were the case, then since I'm white I deserve ~75% of the 'rewards' (per the 2000 census data that shows ~75% of the population say they are caucasion/white). That's fine with me, I'll expect a check in 7-10 business days. Thanks.

In society, if one group is dominant over others, one can come to two assumptions. First, that the dominant group is superior. Second, that the dominant group is oppressive. In a society where white men hold a disproportionate amount of power, to claim that there is no need for Affirmative Action, because there is no oppression, is to claim that white men are superior. It is to claim they are stronger, more intelligent, harder working, and have better personalities than everyone else, because there can be no other explanation for their success.

I reject this notion.

As everyone should, and in this regard it might be useful for people who are interested to read the AAA's position on race http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm

 

[Double Trouble]

Originally posted by: MotF Bane
Hopefully the Supreme Court gets rid of affirmative action at last.

Ding ding, hit the nail on the head in one shot.

Craig (and others who support AA) can summarize their position as follows: "racism is perfectly fine as long as it serves a purpose I deem worthy".

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
You want to *just* look at the United States/N America, okay.

Native Americans have been treated worse than blacks for longer periods of time. Jewish people throughout Europe and the Middle East (and Africa a bit as well) have had much worse/more done to their race than blacks. That's not the US though, so we won't discuss that.

You talk about "20% of the population, but 2% of the rewards", well there are many other races who that could be said about as well. You just *choose* to put on your monochromatic glasses and see the white/black issue only. Regardless of that though, do you really believe that just because they are 20% of the population they *deserve* 20% of the 'rewards'? I don't. If that were the case, then since I'm white I deserve ~75% of the 'rewards' (per the 2000 census data that shows ~75% of the population say they are caucasion/white). That's fine with me, I'll expect a check in 7-10 business days. Thanks.

In society, if one group is dominant over others, one can come to two assumptions. First, that the dominant group is superior. Second, that the dominant group is oppressive. In a society where white men hold a disproportionate amount of power, to claim that there is no need for Affirmative Action, because there is no oppression, is to claim that white men are superior. It is to claim they are stronger, more intelligent, harder working, and have better personalities than everyone else, because there can be no other explanation for their success.

I reject this notion.

Or it could also mean that thier own culture is part of the problem.

Young AA children look up to idiots like Chris Brown, 50 cent, etc. "Thug-life" is glamorized and women are degraded.

If a black kid speaks too "white" in school, he is made fun of by his peers.

The out of wed-lock birth rate for AA is the highest.

I dont see how evil whitey is responsible for any of this.

 

[marincounty]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
When I require the assistance of local safety forces, I always hope they send the proper racial mix. Having the best people to save my house or life is always secondary to racial balance. I'm sure people of any race would be comfortable with relying on second or third rate people directing the saving of everything they own or the lives of their loved ones as long as the proper quotas are adhered to.

I suppose you liked it better when the firemen were all drunken Irishmen? The racism in the SF fire dept was so obvious that the city had to implement AA in order to fix it.
Now they have an incompetent woman fire chief. Not caused just by AA, but by the continued racism and drunkeness of the fire dept.

Similar to the fact that all firemen now have to pass random drug and alcohol tests due to the past bad behavior of other firemen.

So many instituitions have a history of racism, that can't be fixed simply by a color-blind system today. Some effort has to be towards jump-starting minority participation.

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: Double Trouble

Originally posted by: MotF Bane
Hopefully the Supreme Court gets rid of affirmative action at last.

Ding ding, hit the nail on the head in one shot.

Craig (and others who support AA) can summarize their position as follows: "racism is perfectly fine as long as it serves a purpose I deem worthy".

Read my post above. I think Craig is well-intentioned, but he has also stated that women and people of color are inferior to white men (in different words). He thinks that diversity outweighs a (temporary) reduction of efficiency, which has reduced this thread to a value debate (diversity vs. capability of workers). Instead, I object to the racist and sexist premise that is underlying in this debate on Affirmative Action.

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
You want to *just* look at the United States/N America, okay.

Native Americans have been treated worse than blacks for longer periods of time. Jewish people throughout Europe and the Middle East (and Africa a bit as well) have had much worse/more done to their race than blacks. That's not the US though, so we won't discuss that.

You talk about "20% of the population, but 2% of the rewards", well there are many other races who that could be said about as well. You just *choose* to put on your monochromatic glasses and see the white/black issue only. Regardless of that though, do you really believe that just because they are 20% of the population they *deserve* 20% of the 'rewards'? I don't. If that were the case, then since I'm white I deserve ~75% of the 'rewards' (per the 2000 census data that shows ~75% of the population say they are caucasion/white). That's fine with me, I'll expect a check in 7-10 business days. Thanks.

In society, if one group is dominant over others, one can come to two assumptions. First, that the dominant group is superior. Second, that the dominant group is oppressive. In a society where white men hold a disproportionate amount of power, to claim that there is no need for Affirmative Action, because there is no oppression, is to claim that white men are superior. It is to claim they are stronger, more intelligent, harder working, and have better personalities than everyone else, because there can be no other explanation for their success.

I reject this notion.

Or it could also mean that thier own culture is part of the problem.

Young AA children look up to idiots like Chris Brown, 50 cent, etc. "Thug-life" is glamorized and women are degraded.

If a black kid speaks too "white" in school, he is made fun of by his peers.

The out of wed-lock birth rate for AA is the highest.

I dont see how evil whitey is responsible for any of this.

Translation: you do not believe white skin is superior, you believe white culture is superior. Well black culture is consumed by whites en mass, yet these whites do not face the same challenges as blacks. Either white children who look up to idiots like Chris Brown are superior to black children who do the same, or they are treated superior. Pick one.

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
You want to *just* look at the United States/N America, okay.

Native Americans have been treated worse than blacks for longer periods of time. Jewish people throughout Europe and the Middle East (and Africa a bit as well) have had much worse/more done to their race than blacks. That's not the US though, so we won't discuss that.

You talk about "20% of the population, but 2% of the rewards", well there are many other races who that could be said about as well. You just *choose* to put on your monochromatic glasses and see the white/black issue only. Regardless of that though, do you really believe that just because they are 20% of the population they *deserve* 20% of the 'rewards'? I don't. If that were the case, then since I'm white I deserve ~75% of the 'rewards' (per the 2000 census data that shows ~75% of the population say they are caucasion/white). That's fine with me, I'll expect a check in 7-10 business days. Thanks.

In society, if one group is dominant over others, one can come to two assumptions. First, that the dominant group is superior. Second, that the dominant group is oppressive. In a society where white men hold a disproportionate amount of power, to claim that there is no need for Affirmative Action, because there is no oppression, is to claim that white men are superior. It is to claim they are stronger, more intelligent, harder working, and have better personalities than everyone else, because there can be no other explanation for their success.

I reject this notion.

So the test results lie?

In November and December of 2003 the New Haven Fire Department administered promotional exams for Captain and Lieutenant.

New Haven paid $100,000 to a high stakes diversity testing firm, IO Solutions, Inc. of Illinois, to design the exams to be completely free of any racial bias. This is a necessary step these days in order to avoid charges of disparate impact upon protected minority groups -- and New Haven does have a large population of protected minority groups.


IO Solutions, Inc. is one of a few dozen firms which specializes in this kind of politically correct test design, and they are very good at it. According to court filings, IO Solutions did everything right in designing the New Haven fire department's promotional exams to be completely race-neutral, i.e., to not have a disparate impact upon selected, preferred skin colors.

Yet, when the New Haven FD administered the race-neutral tests in November and December of 2003, white firefighters scored so much higher than their black and brown counterparts that very few preferred minorities would have been promoted to the seven open Captain vacancies, nor to the eight open Lieutenant vacancies, if the exam scores were used.

New Haven's city charter requires that they follow a "rule of three" which requires that each open promotional position be filled from among the top three scorers on the exams.

If the "rule of three" were strictly applied to the 2003 promotional exams, it would have resulted in all of the open Captain and Lieutenant positions being filled by the best-qualified, highest scoring candidates.

Unfortunately the best-qualfied, highest scoring candidates turned out to be mostly white.

Oops.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Translation: you do not believe white skin is superior, you believe white culture is superior. Well black culture is consumed by whites en mass, yet these whites do not face the same challenges as blacks. Either white children who look up to idiots like Chris Brown are superior to black children who do the same, or they are treated superior. Pick one.

This is why progress cannot be made. Anytime someone has valid points, they are ran off by screams of racism.

Noone in this thread has mentioned anyone being superior to anyone else other than you. But I guess you will always interpret it how you want 😉


Next time a study comes out that says white people get skin cancer more often than Blacks or Asians, i'm going to say the author is racist for saying that minority skin is superior to white skin! :roll:

 

[Ayrahvon]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
You want to *just* look at the United States/N America, okay.

Native Americans have been treated worse than blacks for longer periods of time. Jewish people throughout Europe and the Middle East (and Africa a bit as well) have had much worse/more done to their race than blacks. That's not the US though, so we won't discuss that.

You talk about "20% of the population, but 2% of the rewards", well there are many other races who that could be said about as well. You just *choose* to put on your monochromatic glasses and see the white/black issue only. Regardless of that though, do you really believe that just because they are 20% of the population they *deserve* 20% of the 'rewards'? I don't. If that were the case, then since I'm white I deserve ~75% of the 'rewards' (per the 2000 census data that shows ~75% of the population say they are caucasion/white). That's fine with me, I'll expect a check in 7-10 business days. Thanks.

In society, if one group is dominant over others, one can come to two assumptions. First, that the dominant group is superior. Second, that the dominant group is oppressive. In a society where white men hold a disproportionate amount of power, to claim that there is no need for Affirmative Action, because there is no oppression, is to claim that white men are superior. It is to claim they are stronger, more intelligent, harder working, and have better personalities than everyone else, because there can be no other explanation for their success.

I reject this notion.

Or it could also mean that thier own culture is part of the problem.

Young AA children look up to idiots like Chris Brown, 50 cent, etc. "Thug-life" is glamorized and women are degraded.

If a black kid speaks too "white" in school, he is made fun of by his peers.

The out of wed-lock birth rate for AA is the highest.

I dont see how evil whitey is responsible for any of this.

Translation: you do not believe white skin is superior, you believe white culture is superior. Well black culture is consumed by whites en mass, yet these whites do not face the same challenges as blacks. Either white children who look up to idiots like Chris Brown are superior to black children who do the same, or they are treated superior. Pick one.

N yusef is right again! People throw around words like 'culture' far too lightly without understanding the significance of the term. OCguy has made a false association with Rap and African American culture as if the two are identical to each other. Rap as a style of music is not constrained to one ethnic group. While I don't condone what a lot of rappers sing about, there is plenty of rap that doesn't promote gang or sexual violence as well. The problem isn't what type of music someone listens to, it's what type of opportunities they have been provided with through their educations. As someone who attended multiple public schools across the United States I am well aware of the inconsistencies of the American public school systems and the discrimination to people because of it.

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
You want to *just* look at the United States/N America, okay.

Native Americans have been treated worse than blacks for longer periods of time. Jewish people throughout Europe and the Middle East (and Africa a bit as well) have had much worse/more done to their race than blacks. That's not the US though, so we won't discuss that.

You talk about "20% of the population, but 2% of the rewards", well there are many other races who that could be said about as well. You just *choose* to put on your monochromatic glasses and see the white/black issue only. Regardless of that though, do you really believe that just because they are 20% of the population they *deserve* 20% of the 'rewards'? I don't. If that were the case, then since I'm white I deserve ~75% of the 'rewards' (per the 2000 census data that shows ~75% of the population say they are caucasion/white). That's fine with me, I'll expect a check in 7-10 business days. Thanks.

In society, if one group is dominant over others, one can come to two assumptions. First, that the dominant group is superior. Second, that the dominant group is oppressive. In a society where white men hold a disproportionate amount of power, to claim that there is no need for Affirmative Action, because there is no oppression, is to claim that white men are superior. It is to claim they are stronger, more intelligent, harder working, and have better personalities than everyone else, because there can be no other explanation for their success.

I reject this notion.

So the test results lie?

In November and December of 2003 the New Haven Fire Department administered promotional exams for Captain and Lieutenant.

New Haven paid $100,000 to a high stakes diversity testing firm, IO Solutions, Inc. of Illinois, to design the exams to be completely free of any racial bias. This is a necessary step these days in order to avoid charges of disparate impact upon protected minority groups -- and New Haven does have a large population of protected minority groups.


IO Solutions, Inc. is one of a few dozen firms which specializes in this kind of politically correct test design, and they are very good at it. According to court filings, IO Solutions did everything right in designing the New Haven fire department's promotional exams to be completely race-neutral, i.e., to not have a disparate impact upon selected, preferred skin colors.

Yet, when the New Haven FD administered the race-neutral tests in November and December of 2003, white firefighters scored so much higher than their black and brown counterparts that very few preferred minorities would have been promoted to the seven open Captain vacancies, nor to the eight open Lieutenant vacancies, if the exam scores were used.

New Haven's city charter requires that they follow a "rule of three" which requires that each open promotional position be filled from among the top three scorers on the exams.

If the "rule of three" were strictly applied to the 2003 promotional exams, it would have resulted in all of the open Captain and Lieutenant positions being filled by the best-qualified, highest scoring candidates.

Unfortunately the best-qualfied, highest scoring candidates turned out to be mostly white.

Oops.

Just because a firm was contracted to produce a culturally neutral exam does not mean that it succeeded in doing so. Additionally, we do not know how relevant the test questions are to firefighting performance. It may be that by subjective standards (interviews, previous work experience), white firefighters are not as relatively superior. If an exam is incongruous with previous measures of performance, it would make sense to remove it from consideration when doling out promotions.

 

[Carmen813]

It should be based on socioeconomic status and individual circumstances not on race.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Carmen813
It should be based on socioeconomic status and individual circumstances not on race.

I could agree with that if all things in our society were based upon socioeconomic status and individual circumstances, not on race.

That's nowhere even remotely close to true though, and so here we are.

 

[Ayrahvon]

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: n yusef

Translation: you do not believe white skin is superior, you believe white culture is superior. Well black culture is consumed by whites en mass, yet these whites do not face the same challenges as blacks. Either white children who look up to idiots like Chris Brown are superior to black children who do the same, or they are treated superior. Pick one.

This is why progress cannot be made. Anytime someone has valid points, they are ran off by screams of racism.

Noone in this thread has mentioned anyone being superior to anyone else other than you. But I guess you will always interpret it how you want 😉


Next time a study comes out that says white people get skin cancer more often than Blacks or Asians, i'm going to say the author is racist for saying that minority skin is superior to white skin! :roll:

OCguy your points were never valid to begin with. To be technical your points made hasty generalizations when discussing African American culture and rap, which you took and made a false cause of (They listen to bad music and have bad role models, therefor they do worse in school) which is... another logical fallacy. When someone pointed out your faults you used an Ad hominem argument that didn't help you defend your original points (to be technical the Ad hominem could also be seen as a Red Herring, and Ad populum argument within the definitions of logical fallacies).

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: n yusef

Translation: you do not believe white skin is superior, you believe white culture is superior. Well black culture is consumed by whites en mass, yet these whites do not face the same challenges as blacks. Either white children who look up to idiots like Chris Brown are superior to black children who do the same, or they are treated superior. Pick one.

This is why progress cannot be made. Anytime someone has valid points, they are ran off by screams of racism.

Noone in this thread has mentioned anyone being superior to anyone else other than you. But I guess you will always interpret it how you want 😉


Next time a study comes out that says white people get skin cancer more often than Blacks or Asians, i'm going to say the author is racist for saying that minority skin is superior to white skin! :roll:

I am not saying there are no problems in the black community, in black culture in general or hip-hop music specifically. In fact, I am a very harsh critic of many aspects of it. However, to rule out any outside forces, or to think that black culture is only consumed by blacks is to be intellectually dishonest.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: Ayrahvon

OCguy your points were never valid to begin with. To be technical your points made hasty generalizations (logical fallicies) when discussing African American culture and rap, which you took and made a false cause of (They listen to bad music and have bad role models, therefor they do worse in school) which is... another logical fallacy. When someone pointed out your faults you used an Ad hominem argument that didn't help you defend your original points (to be technical the Ad hominem could be seen as a Red Herring, and Ad populum argument of logical fallacy).

:roll:

The only one of my points that was attacked was the music, FYI. 😉


If people like you and Creig were genuine about trying to help the misfortunate out, you would want it based on economics, not skin color.

If you think skin color should be the basis for anything, you can just go ahead and join the KKK or New Black Panther Party or MS13.

 

[Ayrahvon]

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: Ayrahvon

OCguy your points were never valid to begin with. To be technical your points made hasty generalizations (logical fallicies) when discussing African American culture and rap, which you took and made a false cause of (They listen to bad music and have bad role models, therefor they do worse in school) which is... another logical fallacy. When someone pointed out your faults you used an Ad hominem argument that didn't help you defend your original points (to be technical the Ad hominem could be seen as a Red Herring, and Ad populum argument of logical fallacy).

:roll:

The only one of my points that was attacked was the music, FYI. 😉


If people like you and Creig were genuine about trying to help the misfortunate out, you would want it based on economics, not skin color.

If you think skin color should be the basis for anything, you can just go ahead and join the KKK or New Black Panther Party or MS13.

I'm not even sure how I should respond to this faulty logic. Nothing I have said could even be remotely associated to the KkK or Black Panthers. The solutions I suggested in my larger post were that of educational stimulus. Not to any specific ethnicity but to general equality of educational options for every individual in America. My problem with your arguments and many other arguments being made against affirmative action in this thread is the faulty association with certain test results to actual knowledge. I was in no way stating that affirmative action is right, I was simply stating that the arguments against it are wrong. If people would actually read entire posts maybe they would understand that I haven't yet promoted the idea of affirmative action or any racial discrimination.

Edit: Actually I attacked the other points made as they were all hasty generalizations. If you want to state that they have more out of wedlock births than any other ethnicity in America I'd like to see the exact information regarding that. Is it per-capita, in what way was the survey done, what was their sample size? Is out of wedlock births a reflection of their intelligence of a greater American problem? (Is it even a problem?)

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: nobodyknows

Originally posted by: n yusef

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
You want to *just* look at the United States/N America, okay.

Native Americans have been treated worse than blacks for longer periods of time. Jewish people throughout Europe and the Middle East (and Africa a bit as well) have had much worse/more done to their race than blacks. That's not the US though, so we won't discuss that.

You talk about "20% of the population, but 2% of the rewards", well there are many other races who that could be said about as well. You just *choose* to put on your monochromatic glasses and see the white/black issue only. Regardless of that though, do you really believe that just because they are 20% of the population they *deserve* 20% of the 'rewards'? I don't. If that were the case, then since I'm white I deserve ~75% of the 'rewards' (per the 2000 census data that shows ~75% of the population say they are caucasion/white). That's fine with me, I'll expect a check in 7-10 business days. Thanks.

In society, if one group is dominant over others, one can come to two assumptions. First, that the dominant group is superior. Second, that the dominant group is oppressive. In a society where white men hold a disproportionate amount of power, to claim that there is no need for Affirmative Action, because there is no oppression, is to claim that white men are superior. It is to claim they are stronger, more intelligent, harder working, and have better personalities than everyone else, because there can be no other explanation for their success.

I reject this notion.

So the test results lie?

In November and December of 2003 the New Haven Fire Department administered promotional exams for Captain and Lieutenant.

New Haven paid $100,000 to a high stakes diversity testing firm, IO Solutions, Inc. of Illinois, to design the exams to be completely free of any racial bias. This is a necessary step these days in order to avoid charges of disparate impact upon protected minority groups -- and New Haven does have a large population of protected minority groups.


IO Solutions, Inc. is one of a few dozen firms which specializes in this kind of politically correct test design, and they are very good at it. According to court filings, IO Solutions did everything right in designing the New Haven fire department's promotional exams to be completely race-neutral, i.e., to not have a disparate impact upon selected, preferred skin colors.

Yet, when the New Haven FD administered the race-neutral tests in November and December of 2003, white firefighters scored so much higher than their black and brown counterparts that very few preferred minorities would have been promoted to the seven open Captain vacancies, nor to the eight open Lieutenant vacancies, if the exam scores were used.

New Haven's city charter requires that they follow a "rule of three" which requires that each open promotional position be filled from among the top three scorers on the exams.

If the "rule of three" were strictly applied to the 2003 promotional exams, it would have resulted in all of the open Captain and Lieutenant positions being filled by the best-qualified, highest scoring candidates.

Unfortunately the best-qualfied, highest scoring candidates turned out to be mostly white.

Oops.

Just because a firm was contracted to produce a culturally neutral exam does not mean that it succeeded in doing so. Additionally, we do not know how relevant the test questions are to firefighting performance. It may be that by subjective standards (interviews, previous work experience), white firefighters are not as relatively superior. If an exam is incongruous with previous measures of performance, it would make sense to remove it from consideration when doling out promotions.

The court seems to think they did. So do many of their prior customers apparently as well.

It would be very interesting to see what the exam questions were. I'd put money on them not being questions with racial bias like "If you're in a nice neighborhood responding to a house fire do you first:
A) put out the fire
B) look around for stuff to steal
C) put out the fire, then look for things that were "damaged by the fire" to take for "evidence"
D) who cares, it's whitey's house"

But hey what do I know?