We have some experience with that in this country. It's called affirmative action--or by opponents "reverse discrimination". As articulated by President Lyndon Johnson, who first adopted it for federally funded institutions, it wouldn't be fair to people who had been kept in chains all their lives to bring them to the starting line of the race and say okay, you're free to compete with the rest. There had to be some way to compensate them first for the disadvantages that put them in an uncompetitive condition. Affirmative action, the way he introduced it, wasn't supposed to be about direct preferences and quotas, but "goals" were okay. Employers were to make sure that they got the word out to minorities as well as the white applicants who used to be favored by the "old boy" network. And if the work force continued to look lopsided instead of racially balanced, the feds would demand a good explanation. Soon private institutions, especially universities, got into the act. The Supeme Court, in Regents v. Bakke struck down racial quotas but gave approval to considering race as a factor in achieving "diversity". Is that "fair"? Woke people might say "yes, but it doesn't go far enough to redress the inequities created by a long history of slavery and segregation". Whites like yourself might say "no", because it puts you and your kids at a competitive disadvantage in college admission and employment, and neither they nor you were the ones directly involved in inflicting the injury. But the woke comeback is "they benefited from it" through "white privilege". Of course, plenty of whites in my part of the country are pretty underprivileged, so that argument is a little hard to apply to them. But by and large, there is some truth to it. What Is White Privilege, Really? Understandably, though, it's a controversial subject, and an argument which isn't likely to be settled by facts and figures. Politics is the arbiter of such conflicts, and where matters like that are involved the argument is likely to be heated. And waiting in the wings is the even bigger, more controversial issue of reparations. I personally think that affirmative action has been generally a good thing, in giving us a sizeable class of well-educated minorities in the sciences, professions and arts who can serve as leaders and role models for the rest. But the price has been political friction.
That's a comprehensive and nuanced summation of one of the major issues. I don't disagree with it solely because it puts me at a disadvantage but because I'm not convinced it's the best way to redress past injustices. Some can and do achieve success despite starting in an "uncompetitive condition". Why is that? I would like to see the causes examined more closely rather than just broadly racism or exploitation without any deeper analysis. Another concern I have is the resentment that comes from seeing someone given the same things you had to work hard for without earning them. The flip side of the cartoon Molly posted. I'm still thinking about how to respond to it. It presents a complex problem as if it's absolutely obvious what the right thing to do is and any difference of opinion is reprehensible. In my view the cartoon is ultimately just one take, whose premises are deeply questionable. Not wrong per se but far less settled than the artist wants to admit.
Racism is bad policy. It's always wrong. Just because it's now racism practiced against Caucasians doesn't make it right. The past cannot be changed or fixed. Only the future is malleable - proceeding with any kind of racist policy only dooms the future to be just as problematic as the present, if not worse. This, of course, means that people don't get extra gifts because of their race - so reeeee! As Eric Cartman once hollered out, "Race War!".
Data for African Americans is statistically significantly worse in health outcome's, income, poverty, education, and crime. That’s true in red states and it’s true in blue states. It’s true in urban and rural areas and it’s true in the north, south, east and west. It’s true for as long as we’ve kept records. If people actually had equal opportunity this would not be true
Of course the cartoon isn’t comprehensive. It’s a cartoon. It does illustrate a valid point though. White straight Christian men benefited from bigotry in America. Even past the legally formal bigotry those benefits persist. Anyone *can* succeed in America but the odds of success are highly correlated with race. There’s only two possible reasons - there are only internal or external causes and likewise it’s either okay or it’s not that your odds are a function of race. If it’s not okay we have to do something different than we’re currently doing
If we play a coin flip game, heads I win and tails you win 10 times and I win 7, then lucky me. If we okay that game 500,000,000 times and I win 70% the only possible explanations are I’m better at flipping coins or the coin isn’t fair. That outcome cannot be explained by math if our abilities are equal and the coin is fair
I have a theory. People dragged over here in chains and kept ignorant as a matter of official policy, then emancipated but subjected to government policies in southern states to keep them in a subordinate position, and subjected even in the north to racial prejudice, were at a singular disadvantage in trying to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Add to that, the conspicuous difference in appearance from the dominant white population, making it easy to identify them and to attribute their economic deficiencies to racial inferiority. First generation Immigrant groups like the Irish, eastern Europeans, and Italians also encountered initial fierce discrimination, but were able to overcome it more readily because they already had western European cultures and looked less different from the Anglo-Saxon elite. I should admit at this point that I'm Native American (Chickasaw), writing to you from sunny Oklahoma because the U.S. government uprooted my ancestors from their homeland east of the Mississippi and dumped us here to fend for ourselves as best we could. We were able to get by because we were already sedentary agriculturalists who had assimilated lots of western European ways before the event occurred. It's my impression (possibly reflecting my own biases) that the plains tribes have done less well in this state because their traditional nomadic economy and culture were so different from that of the dominant U.S. & Oklahoma ways that it was much harder to assimilate. So be grateful that you were born with the cultural advantages and skin color to make your hard work pay off without undue obstacles. I think Molly has already answered that one adequately. It is a complex problem. The cartoon is no more simplistic though than the "welfare queen" image of unemployed chislers perpetuated by the late Ronald Reagan.
I think this is 100% right. We like to think that formal racism is ancient history but the civil rights act is in one lifetime and it wasn’t until the 70s that women could get a credit card with the husbands consent. What we’ve done as a nation to Native Americans is and continues to be horrific and shameful
Two major considerations I weigh in trying to sort out the complexities are Christian morality and political feasibility. Christian Morality. If I ask myself "What would Jesus do?" it seems clear to me He would be compassionate to the poor and disadvantaged. Matthew 19:21; 25:35. Compassion and concern for the poor and the underdog is a value running throughout the Bible. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4; 2 Corinthians 8:9; Deuteronomy 15:11;Proverbs 21:13; Psalm 82:3-4; Leviticus 23:22. I don't find similar concern for billionaires. On the other hand, I don't think we need to be promoting freeloaders. 2 Thess. 3:10. Political feasibility. In a country divided by politics and culture, it doesn't seem prudent at the present time to proceed with radical redistributive reforms to correct past injustices. Face it. we'll be lucky to get through another presidential election without another insurrection. Our divisions make us vulnerable to foreign adversaries. National unity and healing must be the paramount concerns. I'm a left-leaning centrist at heart.
Do you really think this is just a matter of just the left being all wrong? Do you see banning books and limiting women’s rights as healing measures?
I trust you enough to have a balanced conversation on those issues if you're interested. Books are not being banned but some have been deemed inappropriate for certain ages. There are competing interests at play that we can debate, calling it book banning is deliberate misrepresentation of what is happening. Same with the "don't say gay" bill. That's not what it says, it's a deliberately inflammatory spin. If you want to discuss the details of it fine but that name got such traction and meant vast swathes of people felt there was no need to investigate the issue further just label DeSantis and his supporters bigots. Laws that demand voter registration - a perfectly reasonable measure - get labelled voter suppression, abortion restrictions get rebranded as limiting women's rights over their bodies and so on. Each of these cases are examples of competing interests that require detailed and nuanced discussions that the parties involved will likely never agree on but pretending the other side has no valid argument or countervailing interest is disingenuous at best.
Yeah I’m not interested. That’s a lazy, horse shit rationalization for obvious bigotry. The books deemed inappropriate, removed from schools, you might say banned from the school, are not random. They have specific culture war content that’s consistent with the language of the don’t say gay bill. DeSantis has not hidden who he is. The state is filled with anti-lgbtqia legislation and is labeled by civil rights groups as having the worst lgbqt laws. Where are they on conversion therapy? The voting laws are also utter bullshit. They’re enacted directly in response to minority participation and Republican losses and greatly disproportionately impact minority dominated districts. That’s where polling locations that existed for decades were removed only after Biden, who I personally don’t like won. Ironic too that absentee voting, mail-in voting and early voting are totally okay in solid red Utah, 94% white, but are not unacceptable security and integrity risk in diverse Georgia. Spare me the fake sanctimony of an intelligent nuanced discussion. It’s flat out unapologetic bigotry
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/03/desantis-appointee-thinks-tap-water-makes-people-gay/ “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”: Ron DeSantis's Florida Prepares Its Next Attack on Black and LGBTQ+ Students As DeSantis inches closer to an expected presidential run, his allies in the state's Republican-led legislature are set to look at bills that would prohibit educators from using students’ preferred gender pronouns and eliminate diversity programs in higher education, among other provisions.- Prohibit using gender programs? From the party of small government? DeSantis’ record toward LGBTQ people is worse than Trump’s | Column Florida’s controversial law that prohibits teaching and discussion related to sexual orientation and gender identity in K-3 public school classrooms is a half-assed cover for bigotry. Can I mention Martha Washington? Is that discussing sexual orientation? Of course not. The law is meant to only apply to gay couples Florida battles federal LGBTQ protections
CRT btw, the 5 decades old law school theory which is suddenly now a problem that DeSantis openly hates, is just simple math. It’s the coin flip game I referenced above. If African Americans perform worse in every category everywhere, maybe you should consider systemic causes. That’s CRT
Yes all that is happening. And there are reasons for each. What I don't understand is how quickly the brain gets jettisoned and the "hate, bigotry, persecution" narrative is instantly adopted when in truth it's disagreement. Differing opinions. Listen for a second, maybe even think. Then make your case. If it's so wrong it shouldn't be hard to argue against. Some people think the earth is flat, I think it's round. That doesn't make them awful people they just see things differently for whatever insane reasons.
Seeing the earth as flat is not discriminatory toward a protected class. It doesn’t strip anyone else’s rights to believe the earth is flat. Do you mean to equate flat earthers with this? Is equal rights an opinion? Do minorities in Florida and in America actually have less rights now? I as a woman do. Is that the same as flat earth theories? Do you actually believe I haven’t thought about this? Is that the impression the multiple specific examples I gave gives off? Did I not make a case??????? I count like 8 specific examples I gave. What specific examples did you cite? How is this not mansplaining? i personally think if someone supports discrimination then bigotry is exactly the right word. I am not willing to reduce discrimination to a difference of opinion. Should a teacher in Florida be able to refer to Martha Washington as George Washington’s wife? Isn’t that discussion of sexual orientation? Why is it okay for heterosexual couples? Should the same teacher in Florida be able to mention Achilles asked to have his ashes placed in the same urn as his friend Patroclus?
Say the flat earth party passed a law banning all international travel. That would take away my rights and I would vehemently disagree but I wouldn't jump to assuming they hate me. They may be concerned and perhaps have my best interests at heart, they're just wrong. When I said listen, think, make your case I was talking generally. You have made many compelling arguments that I'm working through in my mind how to respond to.
Round earthers are not a federally protected class. Gender identity is. What if they kept making different laws to strip away your rights and even suggest round earth conversion therapy which was denounced by doctors as dangerous and ineffective? How many anti-round earth laws need to be proposed before you start to believe what they’re obviously telling you Belief that you are helping is not an excuse for discrimination. It’s a rationalization for it
