U.S. Politics

[StefanAVFC]

8 minutes ago, Xela said:

Very true about SA but that was down to Apartheid, which is thankfully gone now. Is being white that much more of an advantage now? I genuinely don't know? 

 

3 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

OK, put it this way- would you rather be a poor white South African, or a poor black South African?  

Is the question.

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, Rodders said:

the privilege word is a terrible red herring, an example of poor labelling. Preface it with "rich" and it's true, but then the point is effectively more of a class-based wealth distinction. Poor people / those struggling regardless of colour should all be allies in the same fight if the target is trying to get ahead in life, not getting bogged down in a hierarchy of disenfranchisement argument. I mean sure even at the lower levels I'm sure statistics will still advantage the white males, but those stats are pretty cold comfort to people living on the edge of poverty struggling to find a job. Telling them, "well on average you're still more privileged and more likely to have better luck in areas, X,Y,Z" would obviously invite a disparaging and perhaps colourful response. It means shit all if you're also struggling as much as their neighbour, and displays an awful lot of tactlessness on those bringing it up. ( I know you're not advocating it Stefan, just adding my thoughts on it ) 

 

That said as for the positive discrimination bit, I have no real problem with that, depending upon how it's handled. Two wrongs not making a right is a glib retort to the consequences of centuries of racial and male-based dominance. It might be unfair on the individual, but it's not on the collective. The dickheads in the past caused the mess. The mess is still there. The dickheads are long since dead. Who takes responsibility for sorting out the mess? Everyone, and if in some instances to help at least provide an image of hope that means involving some preference for minority groupings then so be it. You can't just leave it to making a couple of laws outlawing the old crap, and say, well we'll leave it to these issues to evolve naturally, slowly and so forth. There is a reason jobs are not open only to white males, they don't - in the collective sense - need it. 

Ingrained suspicions and prejudices take time to improve sadly, and I don't see why those who've been on the wrong end of the stick for so long should be made to wait unnecessarily longer for other people to change their long held views / traditions about the capacities for minorities / women to do a job. As long as you're not employing a lemming idiot to do a skilled job, and otherwise the qualifications are similar, holding a place available for a woman or an other minority grouping to assist the redressing of old injustices is healthy. It is collective responsibility, and having some awareness of why figures have been skewed in the past. There are still strong perceptual bias' that go against women more generally for example, and regulations are actually needed to provide the genuine equality of opportunity spoken. 

Obviously in an ideal world you wouldn't have any of this, but in an ideal world you wouldn't have all the history we've had either. 

 

Great post. The U.S. is very odd, there's a huge urban/rural divide for the most developed country the world has ever seen. Huge swathes of the country are still stuck in the mid 20th century it seems. In the cities, there is an undoubtable disparity that exists between white people and everyone else...but it just can't be translated in the same way to the rural areas of the country. Not only does that dynamic exist in the same way at least, the rural whites are almost as disadvantaged as everyone else.
 
The conversation to be had should be more nuanced, especially with some parts of the left being very heavy handed with their critiques and parts of the right being very reactionary. As we've seen all that does is alienate the working class and push them towards voting for someone like Trump.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Keyblade

[Rodders]

6 hours ago, Awol said:

I've snipped out two things from your post.

On the first point you seem to be saying the sins of the father (or realistically of the great great grandfather) must be born like stigmata by the son.

I wonder do you hold post war generations of Germans and Japanese to this standard, or only single out your own countrymen to carry the mark of the beast? Why is that? 

The second point sounds like deeply patronising racial stereotyping. Whites don't need help it's all the others that do, how could they possibly make progress unless whitey gives them a leg up? 

Personally I think attitudes like that are part of the problem. 

In response to your first point, surely it's not up for debate that prior generations are responsible for entrenching division and a network that closed the door to undesirable outsiders (however that's defined) that skews future chances for prosperity wildly against certain groups ( inc. Non educated whites etc ). I emphasise not blaming individuals, or descendants directly but in opening up long closed doors, the starting point for the poorer of all colours, women, gays etc is going to be far behind. I think the state should bear the collective responsibility in the same way it would for other past injustices. Regulating a shift in attitudes is necessary to help move broader cultural acceptance of changing norms. ( It's not cool to be racist etc )

And people should also recognise more generally that mistakes have occurred and should be learned from. I think people who are pissed off with a perceived sense of being ignored should look in part to the past. Not that they should be ignored but just because there is a growing push to advocate for others doesn't preclude sympathy for struggling white / 'natives' (hate that term) either. Sometimes to my eyes when people complain about the attention on feminism or stuff like black lives matter / black history month or whatever it mabey it strikes me a little bit like the child who complains that there is a mothers day and a fathers day but no childrens day to which both parents retort "everyday is childrens day!"  The talk of white working class doesn't really help much either that only serves as divisive rhetoric - the sense of being ignored or let down is surely based mostly on their economic circumstances - and as per original post white working class, black working class etc, should all be in it together. 

Editing to try and clarify the above, part of the problem seems to be people taking views have based on what they see i.e what the media predominately talks about, and I admit this hasn't helped much - lot's of talk about a perceived 'their' problem, not so much about 'our' problem, and no doubt this perception has partly fuelled 2016. But what is the "white problem?" there's a poverty problem, there's a jobs problem, a class problem, but nothing specifically white about any of those? Semantics and language has failed the debate a little bit though, maybe where an emphasis on minority problems has accidentally created a perception that there's no white poor problem to worry about. 

 

Edit again: and yes the principle applies anywhere generally. Germans bore collective responsibility for the past without needing to feel individually guilty of war crimes.

And on the 2nd point, I would say that until there is less disparity relatively speaking between the haves and have nots in terms of access to education and professions then yes some ( lightly done, not heavy handed ) help is fine. The intention is not to demean people, everyone wants to get ahead on their own merits, but some in built acknowledgement of the consequences of the past is appropriate.

 

Edited November 21, 2016 by Rodders

[sexbelowsound]

if the question was would you rather be black or white in America then im pretty sure the vast majority will take their chances being white though.

[Keyblade]

If the question is who would you choose if you were from the city, then the answer is cut and dry imo. The very fact that we're comparing rural whites to urban blacks says it all tbh.  

[chrisp65]

I'm not able to back this up right now, I might later (probably won't).

Isn't there a proven case that blinded CV's and job applications lead to a much more diverse workforce?

Strip out the names, addresses, photo's, age and all those other things that aren't relevant to many jobs and all of a sudden Winston Kodogo from Brixton gets a much better success rate when applying for jobs. It's not consciously deliberately 'racist'. Most successful applicants probably just mirror most recruiters.

 

[ender4]

Basically being poor anywhere is sh!t, and being rich is good 

[snowychap]

13 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Winston Kodogo from Brixton

...being in possession of an offensive wife...

Edited November 21, 2016 by snowychap

[sexbelowsound]

I remember watching a debate around the time of brexit and the audience for the most part had been typecast. Artsy Farty Hipsters for the left, Taxi drivers for the right etc. 

Anyway, this black fella from London who was for Brexit stood up and said "I've applied for 500 jobs and can't get a single one" because of immigration.

Now this raises confusing yet interesting questions. 

1) how can you be against something that your family took advantage of?

2) Are you not getting jobs because of immigrants or is it for other reasons? Racism, shit Cv or references etc?

What I got out of it though was how progressive our country feels compared to America that this fella felt comfortable enough to be for Brexit and against the things that his family had benefited from.

Edited November 21, 2016 by sexbelowsound

[villa4europe]

On 11/17/2016 at 08:07, TrentVilla said:

Its a token gesture though surely? They will just be consultants, advisors etc. They will still influence policy for personal reward even if it has to take a different form or they have to wait a little longer for it.

 

or they'll get sales jobs at his hotels  

[snowychap]

14 minutes ago, sexbelowsound said:

how can you be against something that your family took advantage of?

I think there's been some research into attitudes towards immigration held by immigrants, with a quick search here's an example:

Quote

Abstract

This article develops a model of immigrants’ attitudes towards immigration. We focus on two competing motivations to explain these attitudes: while kinship, solidarity, and shared experiences with other immigrants should lead to more favorable attitudes towards immigration, formal integration into a new society may create a new allegiance to the host country that produces more critical views toward immigration. Using the European Social Survey (ESS) 1–5 data collected 2002–11 in 18 West European democracies, coarsened exact matching (CEM), and multilevel estimation techniques, our analyses reveal that foreigners support immigration more than natives. However, newcomers who have acquired citizenship in their host countries are more skeptical about the consequences of immigration and admitting new arrivals than noncitizen immigrants. This negative relationship between citizenship and support for immigration is particularly pronounced among those who are dissatisfied with their host country’s macroeconomy.

 

Edit: Though actually they claim in the fuller text that

Quote

little cross-national research exists on what immigrants themselves think of immigration

so perhaps there isn't much!

Edited November 21, 2016 by snowychap

[villakram]

on the electorial college

http://michaelpramirez.com/without-the-electoral-college.htm

[Mantis]

Interesting map although it hasn't got the proportions right. Wyoming for example is the least most populous state yet is relatively big on there?

Edited November 21, 2016 by Mantis

[villakram]

21 minutes ago, Mantis said:

Interesting map although it hasn't got the proportions right. Wyoming for example is the least most populous state yet is relatively big on there?

I suspect you're right as it's done by a cartoonist, but I think it gets the general spirit of things correctly.

Though, it is a plot of votes cast in this election, so maybe this is telling us a lot about who didn't vote also! 

[chrisp65]

2 hours ago, snowychap said:

...being in possession of an offensive wife...

I was hoping somebody would know it. Good man.

 

[Mantis]

1 hour ago, villakram said:

I suspect you're right as it's done by a cartoonist, but I think it gets the general spirit of things correctly.

Though, it is a plot of votes cast in this election, so maybe this is telling us a lot about who didn't vote also! 

I'm pretty sure Georgia and North Carolina (both with a population of 10 million each) voted more than Wyoming and Montana (population 1.6 million combined)

[villa4europe]

why have they never tried to change it? i understand why it exists but the civil rights act made it outdated 50 years ago

[limpid]

3 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I'm not able to back this up right now, I might later (probably won't).

Isn't there a proven case that blinded CV's and job applications lead to a much more diverse workforce?

I've read (or heard a podcast) in the last few weeks about a series of auditions for orchestra members investigating whether there was an (unwitting) discrimination based on perceived gender. It was pretty clear that there was a strong bias towards male performers, regardless of the gender of the person conducting the audition. I've no idea where I was reading it though, so I'll have to leave it anecdotal.

From memory they focused on this one as it was unusual. Most blinded interview studies show a correlation to select people like the interviewer.

[Rodders]

4 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I'm not able to back this up right now, I might later (probably won't).

Isn't there a proven case that blinded CV's and job applications lead to a much more diverse workforce?

Strip out the names, addresses, photo's, age and all those other things that aren't relevant to many jobs and all of a sudden Winston Kodogo from Brixton gets a much better success rate when applying for jobs. It's not consciously deliberately 'racist'. Most successful applicants probably just mirror most recruiters.

 

 

http://public.econ.duke.edu/~hf14/teaching/povertydisc/readings/bertrand-mullainathan2004.pdf 

That from a few years ago suggests a racial bias in applications for jobs

https://diversity.illinois.edu/SupportingDocs/DRIVE/Gender and Racial Bias in Hiring-1.pdf 

that one shows the blind application improves the field for women and the section on race cites the above study, also having just seen limpid's post, from this article: 

Quote

Studies by Correll and Benard (2005) and Correll and Paik (2006) show that female job applicants are penalized for being mothers, while otherwise identical male job applicants are rewarded for being fathers.  In one interesting natural experiment, Goldin and Rouse (2000) found that after symphony orchestras switched from auditions where the gender of a musician was visible to a procedure where musicians auditioned behind a screen, the rate of hire of female musicians increased by approximately 25%.  Studies have also found that female university faculty receive 3 more negative teaching evaluations than their male counterparts from both male and female students (Sinclair and Kunda 2000).  Letters of recommendation for female faculty applicants have been found to be shorter, contain fewer descriptions of their research accomplishments, give more emphasis to their teaching ability, and raise more doubts compared with letters for male faculty applicants (Trix and Psenka 2003).  

 

Quote

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/2193-9012-1-5

Is a bit more mixed in it's findings for example:

Quote

In the Netherlands, two experiments took place in the public administration of one major Dutch city in 2006 and 2007. The experiments focus on ethnic minorities. More specifically, a distinction is made between applicants with and without foreign (i.e., non-Western) sounding names. Bøg andKranendonk (2011) emphasize in their study the lower callback rates for minority candidates with standard applications, but their analysis also reveals that these differences disappear with anonymous job applications. With regards to job offers, however, the authors do not detect any differences between minority and majority candidates—irrespective of whether or not their resumes are treated anonymously. This indicates that even with standard applications, discrimination against minorities in interview invitations disappears at the job offer stage.

 

and one more for luck 

https://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/~/media/Files/documents/executive-development/unc-white-paper-the-real-effects-of-unconscious-bias-in-the-workplace-Final

 

only quickly skimming that, but it's useful to illustrate that unconscious bias' is ubiquitous, so having some form of mitigation approach to offset that is useful

 

. Favouring like minded people is a pretty common one fwiw, ( so intuitively, and in generalising terms, people will feel unconsciously more comfortable hiring people who are like them, doesn't make them massive racists or sexists, they're  just following an instinct towards homogeneity and a perceived safety in "knowing" these people, better than those from apparently different backgrounds ) 

 

Edited November 21, 2016 by Rodders

[chrisp65]

13 minutes ago, limpid said:

I've read (or heard a podcast) in the last few weeks about a series of auditions for orchestra members investigating whether there was an (unwitting) discrimination based on perceived gender. It was pretty clear that there was a strong bias towards male performers, regardless of the gender of the person conducting the audition. I've no idea where I was reading it though, so I'll have to leave it anecdotal.

From memory they focused on this one as it was unusual. Most blinded interview studies show a correlation to select people like the interviewer.

 

it's a slightly waffley read, but New York Times

Quote

Researchers from the University of Chi­cago and M.I.T. created phony résumés with the same qualifications, giving half of them black-sounding names (Lakisha Washington and Jamal Jones) and the other half white-sounding names (Emily Walsh and Greg Baker). Those with ‘‘white’’ names received 50 percent more callbacks for interviews than those with ‘‘black’’ names.

The article does reference orchestra auditions. It says that back in the day orchestras were almost entirely male. A few orchestras noticed this and blinded the auditions...

Quote

Researchers from Harvard and Prince­ton took notice and studied the results; they found that blind auditions increased the likelihood that a woman would be hired by between 25 and 46 percent. In fact, with blind auditions, women became slightly more likely to be hired than men. Confident that they would be treated fairly, female musicians started applying in greater numbers.