Affirmative Action

[Lusankya]

I've been having a discussion with my friend on affirmative action. He views it as a form of racism, however I've been arguing that it can be justified on moral grounds as targetting a particular disadgantaged ethnic group could actually help more people for the same resource expenditure as targetting disadvantaged people in general. Minorites who become successful are far better role models for young disadvantaged people in their own ethnic group than successful white people are, so it saves money on having to inspire minorities to get an aducation and whatnot. This means that the money spent educating one black person could actually affect a larger number of people than money spent educating a white person from a similar background. Also if a large enough proportion of an ethnic group does not complete their education (such as with aborigines, who only have a 10% high school completeion rate here), then money can be saved on identification of people in need.

I've also been arguing that affirmative action has to take place in order to reduce racial discrimination, however he seems to believe that using race-based thinking to overcome racism is counter-productive. I threw him off with what I call my "Jew-test" ("Hitler is exterminating Jews. However giving Jews special visas to enter our country would be racial discrimination, so let's not do that."), however he still remains unconvinced that I'm right.

Strangely, he accepts that cultural difference must be taken into account, but he doesn't realise that in order to take this into account, you basically have to target your resources according to race, especially in the context of aboriginal affirmative action, which was the main context of our argument.

So are my views on affirmative action justified? Can it be more cost-effective than general poverty targetting? And is it counter-productive to counter racism with assistance to discriminated groups?

[AniThyng]

Being from Malaysia, which has the relatively unusual distinction of affirmative action for the *majority* race rather then (a) minority one, I'll have to say my personal opinion that in the long run, race-based affirmative action would tend to lead to increased racism down the line. Once the choice has been made, it becomes increasingly difficult to decouple the program from race and institute a blanket general program without inflaming sentiment, especially if said group remains disadvantaged. (laudable goals, terrible implementation-abuse of the system basically created a small class of obscenely rich Malays rather then the sizable middle class one would prefer)

It also has the negative effect of effectively damaging the confidence of people who honestly did succeed to break away from poverty to enter the middle class based on the program: did you succeed because you are capable, or because of the AA?

[Singular Intellect]

Affirmative Action is just another way of assuring minorities feel they need 'special help' in order to be on the same level as the majority ethnic population.

It treats minorities like cripples and handicapped people, so I fail to see why anyone would think it's a good idea.

People should be judged on the merit of their skills and capabilities, not the color of their skin, religion or upbringing.

Statistically speaking, it's inevitable that the larger/largest group is going to have more representation in any particular field.

Lusankya, even your arguement assumes a certain deficiency on part of the minorities, whereas you assume they must need individuals of their own specific ethnicity in order to feel as if they can "do the same thing" because their own self worth is so low.

So unless you can provide evidence to substantiate that minorities need to be treated like handicapped individuals, Affirmative Action is a negative attitude and should be disregarded altogether.

[brianeyci]

Bubble Boy is obviously one of those morons who thinks that equity is the same as equality, and that recognizing racism is the same as racism. I look forward to someone tearing him an asshole.

The part about communities needing role models indicating self-esteem issues is particularly hilarious. Also Bubble Boy doesn't seem to recognize that even in situations where whites are minorities, they make up the management, and much of management has absolutely no skill at all.

[Singular Intellect]

Hey, if people want to throw someone in management because of the color of their skin rather than verifiable skill and capabilities, I guess I shouldn't complan so long as the skin color is a minority representation, right?

[brianeyci]

Have you ever held a job?

Hiring managers do not have to choose between a slew of unqualified candidates. All the unqualified candidates are filtered out in seconds, usually by a secretary or underling, and what's left are qualified candidates. They make up a short-list. Then the hiring manager has to make a choice based on whether the person will be a good fit for the organization. Part of being a good fit means that if the company wants diverse opinions and backgrounds, they try and hire diverse people. If the entire team is white, and the company policy is to be an "Equal opportunity employer" then they might favor the black man.

You must think you're oh-so-smart pointing out that affirmative action is hiring due to an unquantifiable difference, when headhunters do that all the time already dickbrain, for good reasons.

[Singular Intellect]

Have you ever held a job?

Hiring managers do not have to choose between a slew of unqualified candidates. All the unqualified candidates are filtered out in seconds, usually by a secretary or underling, and what's left are qualified candidates. They make up a short-list. Then the hiring manager has to make a choice based on whether the person will be a good fit for the organization. Part of being a good fit means that if the company wants diverse opinions and backgrounds, they try and hire diverse people. If the entire team is white, and the company policy is to be an "Equal opportunity employer" then they might favor the black man.

Ah, yes, because any group of people from the same ethnic background can't have diverse opinions or backgrounds, right? Or better yet, two people from different ethnic backgrounds couldn't possibly share the same opinions and viewpoints, right?

You must think you're oh-so-smart pointing out that affirmative action is hiring due to an unquantifiable difference, when headhunters do that all the time already dickbrain, for good reasons.

Skin color is a very important qualification for...what was that again? Oh right, "differences"...gotcha. Right out of the racist's "just because" bible.

[Wedge]

People should be judged on the merit of their skills and capabilities, not the color of their skin, religion or upbringing.

Couldn't agree more, but for that to occur the employers should be bias-free. As things are evolving now, I think it is steadily getting better.

If I'm not totally wrong I think the primordial objective of A.A. is assuring that minorities get jobs. While this isn't a bad idea, I do think that the method employed by some is to force certain employers to fulfill some quotas of minorities percentage (for example 10% must be Black, 10% Asian, etc). While it helps getting people accustomed to see minorities in their workplace, it's for all the wrong reasons. Because people will think that they got their job, because of their colour and not their capabilities, regardless of how good they actually are (which would be true so some extent). In contrast a minority member winning his job by his own merit, will gain more respect. Now, how can you handle the problem when most employers are racist? And instead of selecting their workers for skill they do it for skin-colour? Maybe giving them an incentive like a discount in the insurance they have to pay for the employees that are from a certain minority?

[Patrick Degan]

Just keep in mind that before Affirmative Action, whites enjoyed the advantage known as the Old Boy Net, and practised exclusion of anybody who wasn't People Like Us.

[Darth Wong]

Opponents of affirmative action are assuming that without AA, the hiring landscape would be completely fair, with no advantage whatsoever conferred on the status of being white, male, or Christian.

And if you really believe that's true, you must be the most naive dipshit in the world.

[brianeyci]

So, is that a concession that judging people solely based on their minimal qualifications is for most jobs, impossible? Or are you going to weasel your way out of that one? Are you also conceding that your idea that people who need role models who share their same background having self-esteem issues is retarded?

Ah, yes, because any group of people from the same ethnic background can't have diverse opinions or backgrounds, right? Or better yet, two people from different ethnic backgrounds couldn't possibly share the same opinions and viewpoints, right?

You're pretty fucking dense. I made a claim that people from diverse ethnic backgrounds can have diverse opinions. That is not logically equivalent to the claim that people from the same ethnic background have the same opinions. It is not even the same as a claim that people from diverse ethnic backgrounds have the same opinions. Apparently you have never seen a Venn diagram before.

Skin color is a very important qualification for...what was that again? Oh right, "differences"...gotcha. Right out of the racist's "just because" bible. Rolling Eyes

Apparently the point that minorities must self-identify themselves completely escapes you. You seem to think that skin color is written on a resume, when the only way to fucking tell is the name or self-identification, especially for company specific forms which have a checkbox asking for self-identification as a minority. The fact that it's a willing program completely escapes you.

[brianeyci]

Opponents of affirmative action are assuming that without AA, the hiring landscape would be completely fair, with no advantage whatsoever conferred on the status of being white, male, or Christian.

And if you really believe that's true, you must be the most naive dipshit in the world.

Honestly I don't know where these fuckers climb out of. I must be the most street-adverse, insulated bookworm short of a total hermit, yet I see this. Probably because I've worked part-time, but I can't attribute it to only that because there's tons of people who work part time who are morons.

It takes a real whining fuck to complain about affirmative action when he's white and male. They totally miss the point that it's completely voluntary -- to the point that if a person is worried about his name revealing his ethnicity, he can change his name on his resume, and reveal almost nothing before the interview. And even then he can dress and act a certain way to reveal almost nothing -- but of course dickbrains will accuse those of being Uncle Toms and sellouts.

[Darth Wong]

I've been having a discussion with my friend on affirmative action. He views it as a form of racism, however I've been arguing that it can be justified on moral grounds as targetting a particular disadgantaged ethnic group could actually help more people for the same resource expenditure as targetting disadvantaged people in general. Minorites who become successful are far better role models for young disadvantaged people in their own ethnic group than successful white people are, so it saves money on having to inspire minorities to get an aducation and whatnot. This means that the money spent educating one black person could actually affect a larger number of people than money spent educating a white person from a similar background. Also if a large enough proportion of an ethnic group does not complete their education (such as with aborigines, who only have a 10% high school completeion rate here), then money can be saved on identification of people in need.

If people are talking about education subsidies, those are probably best applied to economically disadvantaged groups, ie- poor people.

I've also been arguing that affirmative action has to take place in order to reduce racial discrimination, however he seems to believe that using race-based thinking to overcome racism is counter-productive.

Does he explain why it's counter-productive? If there is a selection bias in a process and you apply a corrective counter-selection bias prior to that process, then the result should be more even; this is not rocket science.

Strangely, he accepts that cultural difference must be taken into account, but he doesn't realise that in order to take this into account, you basically have to target your resources according to race, especially in the context of aboriginal affirmative action, which was the main context of our argument.

I don't know much about aboriginal policies in Australia. Here in Canada, it's a mess: we give them a bunch of money and put them on reservations, with the condition that the money train stops if they leave the reservations and try to live like the rest of us. In effect, we pay them to stay away from us. This whole concept should be scrapped IMO; if the native reserves are viable, they should be able to survive without daily handouts from the federal government. If not, their residents should be treated like any other Canadian citizen.

[tim31]

It's been slightly more complicated than that in Australia. You can claim benefits if you are one sixteenth aboriginal(if Ando reads this thread he may be able to clarify or overturn that, but that's what I recall), but the Federal Government doesn't insist on them staying on their reservations(and native title claims are another ongoing issue), instead they move them around as needs dictate. For the 2000 Olympics they basically moved a lot of them out of inner city Sydney to regional areas, like the town I grew up in, which was already 50% aboriginal population. In community areas in the Northern Territory where they were left largely to their own devices with money coming in but the actual spending of that money unregulated, social issues became enough of a concern that last year the army was sent in to occupy(!!) these townships so that they could try and put a lid on things like drug and alchohol abuse, as well as stories of child and spousal abuse. Way to go, a knee-jerk reaction to a long standing problem in an election year(which didn't help the Howard Government's image).

I have heard opinions from Native Australians who have worked their entire adult lives that giving out money is never going to solve the problem, but no-one has any other answer, so they'll just keep doing that. New PM Kevin Rudd talks big, so I look forward to seeing what he this his government can do with it.

[ArmorPierce]

Hey, if people want to throw someone in management because of the color of their skin rather than verifiable skill and capabilities, I guess I shouldn't complan so long as the skin color is a minority representation, right?

Right... so much reverse racism going on... sucks to be a white male in america these days.

Just a little factoid, white women have benefited the most from affirmative action, not minorities

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The only thing I object about how affirmative action is used, is that some of the people allowed in are simply incapable of handling university work and they end up dropping out altogether. That's what happened in the University of Michigan, although the school won't admit it publicly.

The other is, that some schools actually penalise some of the other races in favour of others. There was this case at Princeton, if I recall correctly, about an Asian American suing the university after discovering the reasons for him or her being rejected, which was centered around the stereotype of Chinese.

[Surlethe]

And if you really believe that's true, you must be the most naive dipshit in the world.

Is there any hard evidence that there is an intrinsic selection bias? I'm curious because I've frankly never seen any, and the assumption is all too common that America is a pure meritocracy with status in life completely determined by hard work and uninfluenced by socioeconomic status or race.

[ArmorPierce]

And if you really believe that's true, you must be the most naive dipshit in the world.

Is there any hard evidence that there is an intrinsic selection bias? I'm curious because I've frankly never seen any, and the assumption is all too common that America is a pure meritocracy with status in life completely determined by hard work and uninfluenced by socioeconomic status or race.

I'm not sure what you are asking. Are you asking whether race plays a role without affirmitive action or with it?

[Surlethe]

I'm not sure what you are asking. Are you asking whether race plays a role without affirmitive action or with it?

Without. I think everybody wants to believe that race doesn't play a part in this "meritocracy", and people who are more idealistic and less cynical will believe that it doesn't, so I'm looking for some hard evidence that it does.

[Darth Wong]

And if you really believe that's true, you must be the most naive dipshit in the world.

Is there any hard evidence that there is an intrinsic selection bias?

You are seriously suggesting that racism has been conquered in America? A place where racism is so widespread that in many regions, interracial dating is still considered wrong?

I'm curious because I've frankly never seen any, and the assumption is all too common that America is a pure meritocracy with status in life completely determined by hard work and uninfluenced by socioeconomic status or race.

There is certainly plenty of evidence for racism itself. It seems fairly straightforward to conclude that in the presence of racism, racial bias in hiring would also be present. I don't know how you're going to collect statistical data on racial selection bias in hiring since there's no way to get reliable data on it. The people who do hiring certainly aren't going to check off "preferred applicant because he's white" on a survey.

[Mr Bean]

Without. I think everybody wants to believe that race doesn't play a part in this "meritocracy", and people who are more idealistic and less cynical will believe that it doesn't, so I'm looking for some hard evidence that it does.

It does, speak to any small business owner, thanks to federal guidelines, once you hit a certain level of employee's you have to find yourself a Black Friend, or a Native American Friend or a Female Friend. Depending on you field it's harder or easier to do this, as far as that goes yes race plays a huge factor, but only in certain federally mandated situations.


Other than that it's back to the individual in the company, if the HR people are bigots, then it's not likely for you to end up with any black people in your company, if their sexists, no women and so on. Finding evidence for that is going to be hard because if their is evidence of it, people get sued.

[Rogue 9]

Affirmative action based on race is bullshit, pure and simple. My aunt has adopted children, two of whom are black. Despite being raised in a fairly affluent home, they will be treated differently by college admissions from my aunt's white child or their cousins because of the color of their skin. One was adopted from Jamaica, the other from Haiti; you'd have a hard time proving that they have some history of oppression in the United States, yet this will tell them that they have somehow been oppressed, that they are inferior, and in short that they are victims because of the color of their skin.

If there is going to be affirmative action, it should be targeted at the truly disadvantaged, not at those who simply have darker skin regardless of their backgrounds or resources. That's the lazy way out, and a truly dangerous one for society.

[Darth Wong]

Affirmative action based on race is bullshit, pure and simple. My aunt has adopted children, two of whom are black. Despite being raised in a fairly affluent home, they will be treated differently by college admissions from my aunt's white child or their cousins because of the color of their skin. One was adopted from Jamaica, the other from Haiti; you'd have a hard time proving that they have some history of oppression in the United States, yet this will tell them that they have somehow been oppressed, that they are inferior, and in short that they are victims because of the color of their skin.

If there is going to be affirmative action, it should be targeted at the truly disadvantaged, not at those who simply have darker skin regardless of their backgrounds or resources. That's the lazy way out, and a truly dangerous one for society.

You're full of shit. How the fuck do programs aimed at poor people do anything about discrimination in hiring and promotion? Or do you believe that such racism is just liberal propaganda, with no basis whatsoever in reality? And what about states where there are almost no minority people? Does a university not have some incentive to add minorities, in order that the university experience will expose students to the diversity that they would otherwise never see in life? Or is diversity exposure not part of the mandate of a university in your world?

[ArmorPierce]

I find it funny how people like to pretend that racism does not exist any longer and that "racism" (affirmative action) in order to combat racism is inherently wrong and then they try to pulling on the string of idioms such as "It suggests that they need help" or "it suggests that they are inherently inferior" or other such dumb shit. They seem to think that the only reason for affirmative action is economical and if the economic problem was taken away there would be no problem.

[quote=bubble boy]Statistically speaking, it's inevitable that the larger/largest group is going to have more representation in any particular field. [/quote]

No shit sherlock, what does that got to do with anything? Affirmative action is a suggestion for companies working with the government to attempt to have a somewhat equal percentage of employees of different race/sex as is the application ratio.

[Rogue 9]

Affirmative action based on race is bullshit, pure and simple. My aunt has adopted children, two of whom are black. Despite being raised in a fairly affluent home, they will be treated differently by college admissions from my aunt's white child or their cousins because of the color of their skin. One was adopted from Jamaica, the other from Haiti; you'd have a hard time proving that they have some history of oppression in the United States, yet this will tell them that they have somehow been oppressed, that they are inferior, and in short that they are victims because of the color of their skin.

If there is going to be affirmative action, it should be targeted at the truly disadvantaged, not at those who simply have darker skin regardless of their backgrounds or resources. That's the lazy way out, and a truly dangerous one for society.

You're full of shit. How the fuck do programs aimed at poor people do anything about discrimination in hiring and promotion? Or do you believe that such racism is just liberal propaganda, with no basis whatsoever in reality? And what about states where there are almost no minority people? Does a university not have some incentive to add minorities, in order that the university experience will expose students to the diversity that they would otherwise never see in life? Or is diversity exposure not part of the mandate of a university in your world?

My own college experience told me diversity wasn't all that important to colleges; all the blacks were in the African-American center, the women were in the women's center, and the homosexuals were in the LGBT center. A segregationist would have fucking loved it. (Interestingly, there was no men's center, which is a massive violation of Title IX, but there you go. ) Regardless, where university admissions are concerned, someone with the resources and ability to get in and stay in will do so, skin color notwithstanding.

You can easily make a case for affirmative action in hiring (and prosecute the fuck out of anyone who refuses to hire people due to their race), but in university admissions? Why should a poor, inner city white kid get a big ol' fuck you when he needs help paying for his education while an affluent black or Hispanic student gets scholarships reserved for people of his skin color? If the end goal is equality of opportunity, that sure is a fucked up way of showing it.