Protests against police violence towards black population in the U.S.

[TikiTaka]

That was my first thought, but my take is slightly different than yours. I don't know how much data is skewed by top 1% or 2% of households who collectively account for 40% of the wealth in the USA I think (top 1% has wealth equal to lower 80% of the population collectively and top 10% account for 70% of the total wealth). The income disparity is also similar.

I don't think taking a starting out point at the same level will tell a complete story regarding toll of having to face discrimination and bias entire life. E.g. a wealthy black person would face more racial discrimination than his counterparts from other races belonging to poorer background. But from class inequality perspective he is privileged. We can not go down the slippery slope of pitting the class privilege against race discrimination. Both are big problems and one doesn't cancel out the other.

I'm not pitting anything against each other. Here my perspective was purely from a wage inequality perspective and my take on what's behind it. Of course, just looking at wages will not tell the whole story.

Yes on the class basis it is stagnating or decreasing for everyone. On the top of that when you add bias, prejudice and discrimination, it becomes far worse. E.g. the chances of a black facing police brutality or stiffer sentences is not going to decrease because there are people other races/ethnicities who are also poor and stagnating.

There are multiple factors at work. Systemic racism is one of the prominent one is something That can't be denied.

Agreed. Again, i was simply pointing out the flaws in the charts. The title clearly talks about racism, but the charts do not reveal what is behind those inequalities. I'm sure racism plays a part, as do other factors. If we assume that the increasing wage gap is mainly due to the the increased concentration of wealth in the top percentiles, how is that by default attributable to racism? If the wage gap between white households increases by similar proportions, is that also attributable to racism? Then of course, that a black person faces lower upwards mobility to begin with, is a huge problem, but the article doesn't mention those things.

Agree. Over time it compounds if not solved.

Yeah i think what some people fail to realize is that when all those smaller things compound, a lot of things have to go right for one to succeed. But there are so many things that can go wrong over time.

 

[matty]

Again, you are seeking simple answers to difficult questions.

I don't think any of your answers are overly complicated. it's not as vague as you make it out to be.

Let me give you a stat that has been proven a few times. Given two identical resumes, a black-sounding name doesn't get selected for an interview.

is this proven through experiments? im curious to see how they proved it

THIS is the discrimination here. this is the only "smoking gun" I can find in your answer.
the other circumstances such as growing up in a poor area are not discrimination, its a different problem, albeit with ancient connections to discimination

The African immigrants who migrate to US don't have any of the above baggage.

they often have "blacker" sounding names though

this is what I was getting at early when I suggested it was about class.
you accept here that black people can make it if there is an assumption that they are highly educated and maybe from an upper-class background in Africa, while there is discrimination towards black people growing up in America because presumably, they are assumed to be the opposite to that

 

[TikiTaka]

is this proven through experiments?

https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/workshop/leo/leo16_starr.pdf

 

[matty]

https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/workshop/leo/leo16_starr.pdf

hmmm, its complicated
this isnt as simple as refusing an application merely because a person is black though
it is refusing because the employer thinks theres a higher chance that they come from this community described below

then is a cultural problem within the African American community of not prizing the education. Which is a chicken and egg situation. There is a lack of access to good education and that lack of access then justifies lack of interest in education.

Now add to that a volatile mix of higher crime rates, disproportionately higher incarcerations rates (during most productive years of life), lack of opportunities for upward mobility, poor social safety net. Then as an African American born and living in the inner city or poorer neighborhoids you are being asked to take the stairs while others get to take escalators or elevators (lifts).

If the above is taken to be true
Im NOT saying its correct to refuse a person a job application solely because their name implies a higher probability that they come from this community
but it appears to me that you will never be able to eliminate the selection issue until you tackle the social issues
ie. by investing into those communities, maybe getting large companies to put their base there and offer employment to the community etc. and gradually that stigma will begin to taper off

 

[matty]

this isnt as simple as refusing an application merely because a person is black though

the reason i say this by the way, is because, for example, the Irish traveler community have a history of prejudice in Ireland, as well and it is for similar reasons. they were associated with crime, poverty, etc.
and the thing is, when i was growing up in the 80s, most people's contact with the traveling community was not positive, you were either being attacked, robbed, or scammed. that's just how it was, and im saying this from first-hand experience. so there is a "once bitten, twice shy" element to it.
Thankfully the economic boom brought a lot of prosperity to the community and quite a lot of them went on to become fairly high earners, indistinguishable now from mainstream society, and I'm glad to say that there is a lot less discrimination now, however, there will always be some, and it will take generations to essentially die off before it does.

and for the record im not saying black people in america are like that! but as the report above mentions, the discrimination is based upon a stigma around crime

 

[matty]

What is wrong in leveling the playing field?

I think small percentage of quotas are necessary

Diversity goals are necessary to boost underrepresented in the short term.

There is nothing wrong with leveling the playing field in principal
but the question is where you attempt to level it.
If you level it by giving a quota to a person who is hiring people, then you are creating an unequal system at the point of hiring.

To give an example.
my friend was hiring 12 new engineers for a company
He is told by his superiors that out of his selections he must choose 6 females and 6 males
in order to meet a diversity goal.
In the end, 30 males applied for the job and 4 females applied.
So, an individual male in that situation has, at best a 1 in 5 chance, while the female basically has a guaranteed job (unless my friend is going to get in trouble with his superiors)
that is an unequal system. Nobody is born racist or sexist, so each person should be entitled to a fair shot.
I think it's actually unfair on the women also, any one of the 4 women has the right to feel she got the job because she was the best, not merely because she was a woman.
So this kind of initiative is a great way to create discontent and even tension between different social groups

one caveat to this might be policing and government, because they are supposed to represent the people they serve. there is a good argument for it in the case of black and white Americans,the USA in fairness, has a history of state racism, between blacks and whites

 

[azana]

So the question that needs asking is why there weren't enough women who had been able to gain the qualifications to apply for the job. Why weren't they gaining the places at universities and so forth? I doubt it's because most didn't want to. Many women would have been discouraged or discriminated against lower down the chain. Of course it's not hte whole answer, but it's part of it. And I'm biased for having seen so many incompetent white males gain promotions in the workplace in my profession! (and some incompetent white females too, they're catching up ) Quotas aren't perfect, but in politics, for example, they provide some balance with the old boys' networks for securing pre-selections.

As for racism, it's endemic in the US, in Australia; I tend to agree with Offbeat's posts while definitely recognising some good points made by others. Much can't be quantified - being stopped more at security points, random police stops and so forth. There are some similarities with sexism, when men often can't see and don't realise some of its manifestations - I get it the car and the seatbelt crosses uncomfortably across my neck as it's designed for a male body and driver posture; I'm going running along a narrow path and two people coming in the other direction don't move to let me pass but do so for a male; I get stopped by airport security in Australia for extra checks about 90% of the time I come through (hey, single woman - easy target!) and watch males and couples sail past; men slow down their voices and speak more loudly in case I can't understand basic instructions (I mean, I only have four degrees and diplomas...); at a tourist site the gift t-shirts are only in male styles... Anyway, this is what I imagine it must be like to be black, or indigenous, and so forth, suffering all of these invisible humiliations and examples of discrimination that aren't obvious to those who don't experience them. My students, a large number of whom are south Asian, including many very dark Sri Lankans, tell me stories of treatment they've received in public which make me feel ashamed.

Well, didn't want to get involved in a heated (but thankfully very civil ) discussion but just had to get it out!

 

[matty]

So the question that needs asking is why there weren't enough women who had been able to gain the qualifications to apply for the job.

I agree.

I doubt it's because most didn't want to

well, we don't know this for sure, people vote with their feet.
I think we can give equal opportunity to everyone at the starting line, but then we have to respect their choices at the finish line, even if we dont completely understand it. and I don't believe anyone completely understands it

like, why are there more male Djs than female DJs? there are no gatekeepers in the DJ business, no college, no interivews. and its not because female Djs dont get a warm welcome, on the contrary its often seen as an added bonus to be female, and more power to them!
I just dont think everything has to be seen as a "problem"

and thats what I see today, more and more things are being attributed to the "opressor/ opressed" paradigm.
and if this is a mis diagnosis then the treatment will only do harm, just like a mis diagnosis in medical terms.

As for racism, it's endemic in the US, in Australia,,,,Much can't be quantified - being stopped more at security points, random police stops and so forth. There are some similarities with sexism, when men often can't see and don't realise some of its manifestations

agreed

 

[Offbeat]

I'm not pitting anything against each other. Here my perspective was purely from a wage inequality perspective and my take on what's behind it. Of course, just looking at wages will not tell the whole story.

Agreed. Again, i was simply pointing out the flaws in the charts. The title clearly talks about racism, but the charts do not reveal what is behind those inequalities. I'm sure racism plays a part, as do other factors. If we assume that the increasing wage gap is mainly due to the the increased concentration of wealth in the top percentiles, how is that by default attributable to racism? If the wage gap between white households increases by similar proportions, is that also attributable to racism? Then of course, that a black person faces lower upwards mobility to begin with, is a huge problem, but the article doesn't mention those things.

Yeah i think what some people fail to realize is that when all those smaller things compound, a lot of things have to go right for one to succeed. But there are so many things that can go wrong over time.

i agree with you about what you term as flaws in the charts. Statistically the charts are accurate but don’t give a clear picture vis-a-vis disparities that result from class vs the race. I didn’t mean you are pitting the two. What I meant is that someone else can seize upon those charts to say the discrimination is class based and not race based. We are saying it is both.

 

[bailar y tocar]

I'm interested to know your view as to, what stage of the sequence does the discrimination happen? and who is doing the discriminating?
is this happening at the hiring stage? ie African Americans get to the job interview but never get hired?
or they never get to the interview, in fact, they didn't pursue this career option at all for economic reasons? maybe couldnt access the colleges?


presumably those people are black, so...why did they make it and natives didnt?
this would suggest that if prejudice exists in the system that its not about the skin color per se. that there is something else at play , right?

Where are you located? In US we have about 12-13% of the population that are black. We also have had record low black unemployment during Trump's presidency. At any rate, if the company is relatively small, it would make sense that only a few blacks were employed there based off of being 12-13% of the population. Of course, in some professions blacks are over-represented (rap and r&b music, basketball, american football, olympic runners, etc. etc), and in some, they are probably under-represented due to a multitude of factors, least of which is likely to be racism. anecdotal evidence from one job, even over time, can't confirm or deny whether the lack of black employees was due to prejudice.

The discrimination happens in pre-school, grade school and secondary school. After that it is too late to embark on a professional career in STEM.
My comment was based on professional employees. Professsional employees are people who have at least a college degree but almost always a graduate degree, a masters, PhD etc in their field of study. Starting salaries for such professionals out of school range from $50,000 to $100,000+ depending on the field. The range goes from Biology PhD as low as 50K and EE from elite school as high as 100K in corporate Development, R&D, Quality, Regulatory positions.

There is not discrimination in hiring on account of skin color as evidenced by African or South Indian employees.

If anyone has ever met an EE or ChemE or Molecular Biology PhD who is African American, you could ask them how many other African Americans professionals they have met in their field.

The corporations I worked for were all S&P 500 companies with 30,000-120,000 employees and global operations in all inhabited continents of the planet.

 

[Offbeat]

is this proven through experiments?

Yes.

they often have "blacker" sounding names though

No. They have African sounding names. Which is no different than a foreign sounding names


In the American context (USA or NA) that would mean foreign sounding names. Certain names can be easily distinguished such as Eastern European, South Asian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Hispanic; if the person has interacted with them or comes from cosmopolitan areas like either coasts of the country. Distinguishing other non-western names is difficult.

Culturally in USA certain names are associated more with African-Americans.

you accept here that black people can make it if there is an assumption that they are highly educated and maybe from an upper-class background in Africa, while there is discrimination towards black people growing up in America because presumably, they are assumed to be the opposite to that

Class privilege can help overcome some racial discrimination but not all. What background person from Africa has is moot because by time he reaches USA shores, he has already beaten the odds. That beating the odds has got more to do with conditions in Africa than anything in the USA.

If you are forced to climb the stairs because an access to elevator is denied, a few will eventually reach the 50th floor and some will give up or not make it.

Exceptions don’t cancel out generalities.

 

[bailar y tocar]

So the question that needs asking is why there weren't enough women who had been able to gain the qualifications to apply for the job. Why weren't they gaining the places at universities and so forth? I doubt it's because most didn't want to. Many women would have been discouraged or discriminated against lower down the chain.

It is people like you (teachers) and their institutions who set the stage for what students eventually aspire to.
Girls are across the board better at math early on. In middle school they start to fall behind (age 12-14)*.
Eventually many are discouraged in pursuing technical careers. That is changing these days because science teachers have recognized this problem. Today Chemical Engineering at the college level is slightly more female than male. However Electrical Engineering is still 90%+ male.

The problem is much much worse for African American kids. Teachers in those schools are tasked with educating and in some areas even with raising children in their care as the parents are absent and the grandparents are overwhelmed. The situation in many of these poor, underfunded school districts is dire.

*Note: I read somewhere that girls who go to all girls schools do not experience this dropoff. OTOH, boys who go to co-ed schools do better. So co-ed appears to benefit boys at the expense of girls unless teachers counter the effects, i.e. shushing the boys and calling on the girls more.

 

[Offbeat]

but it appears to me that you will never be able to eliminate the selection issue until you tackle the social issues
ie. by investing into those communities, maybe getting large companies to put their base there and offer employment to the community etc. and gradually that stigma will begin to taper off

Yes. Definitely. But the resources are finite. How do you fairly do what you proposed above. This why the questions against affirmative action comes up. There are unintended consequences and there is a feeling from others that something is being taken away for them to do exactly what you propose above.

A dollar invested in one disadvantaged community raises the question from other the disadvantaged community. Policy making in democratic systems with multiple levels of govt is very messy. Take a completely different disadvantaged community like the homeless. People in one of the most liberal areas have been pressuring the politicians at the city level to solve it, the businesses want to solve it, the businesses want to solve it, special taxes and surcharges have been created to solve it, yet the rate of homelessness grows in SF and LA. Part of it is unaffordable housing costs that result from policies, part is underfunded or defunded mental health and de-addiction resources and part of it is larger systemic issue where the income inequality is rising. Classic example where all sides want to reduce a problem but misplaced policies can’t. Other issue is what is considered moral hazards and counter intuitive policies that do work. E.g it has been shown than if some drugs were given to the homeless (many are addicted), they will stay in the shelter and not be homeless on the road again. But it rankles many people that tax payer money should be used to provided drugs to keep homeless off the streets even though it is more effective. A similar argument happened when clean syringes were provided for free to reduce AIDS spread but eventually became a widely adopted policy.

 

[Offbeat]

like, why are there more male Djs than female DJs? there are no gatekeepers in the DJ business, no college, no interivews.

Have you asked the female DJs. I don’t know about salsa (there are more female DJs now than ten years back), but yes I have heard female DJs in general complain about how they aren’t given equal opportunities and how hard it is for a woman to break into male dominated network of organizers/DJ network. In general it is difficult for a woman to break into male dominated field.

 

[Offbeat]

It is people like you (teachers) and their institutions who set the stage for what students eventually aspire to.
Girls are across the board better at math early on. In middle school they start to fall behind (age 12-14)*.
Eventually many are discouraged in pursuing technical careers. That is changing these days because science teachers have recognized this problem. Today Chemical Engineering at the college level is slightly more female than male. However Electrical Engineering is still 90%+ male.

The problem is much much worse for African American kids. Teachers in those schools are tasked with educating and in some areas even with raising children in their care as the parents are absent and the grandparents are overwhelmed. The situation in many of these poor, underfunded school districts is dire.

*Note: I read somewhere that girls who go to all girls schools do not experience this dropoff. OTOH, boys who go to co-ed schools do better. So co-ed appears to benefit boys at the expense of girls unless teachers counter the effects, i.e. shushing the boys and calling on the girls more.

Another complicated topic. I think in the USA women have started to outperform men in education. Not only in the USA, in the countries like Iran and India too. There are more woman graduating from the college (bachelors) than men.

This doesn’t mean the barriers and institutional discrimination against women has come down. This is inspite of the system stacked against them. That is as a group they are more motivated.

The white men college graduates as a group earn more than their peers from other races and gender. As I said all these have complicated factors where the legacy of discrimination manifests today in different ways.

 

[Latinjazz]

As I said before I think USA is the least racist country in the world. Almost all other countries have more degree of racist attitudes or discriminate against foreigners or their non-majority population.

I am rather curious about it - free from emotions. Where do you get this conclusion from?
Are you thinking about specific countries? Or how you you get to this superlative? Because of so many cultures living in it?

 

[Offbeat]

I am rather curious about it - free from emotions. Where do you get this conclusion from?
Are you thinking about specific countries? Or how you you get to this superlative? Because of so many cultures living in it?

I didn’t know so many people would focus on that statement . It wasn’t based on any study or anything I heard an expert say. I am basing it on my experience growing up on different continents, traveling to more than five dozen countries, talking to the local people and friends in other places. Was I discriminated against in any of those countries? No. But you do know which countries have overt racism against which groups. E.g. Almost every country in Asia has an overt racist prejudice and bias against a black (African descendent) person. Asia stretches from Japan to Middle East. Japan discriminates based on gaizen (foreigners) vs nihozen (our people) but it is very covert and matter of attitude. Japanese is most homogenous society as you can find I think. The Israel discriminated against black Jews from Ethiopia and other places. Not to speak of political discrimination against its Palestine population. Many middle eastern countries discriminate against the south Asian work force / immigrants the same way Hispanics and Mexicans get discriminated in USA. UK has its colonial past that shad reflected in discrimination against the Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who have settled there for generations. A famous quote I heard and like about someone questioning why people from former colonies are “here” (in the country that colonized them). Someone answered we are “here”, because you were “there”. A very apt answer in countries like Britain and France that have multiple generations of ethnicities from their former colony. I guess we don’t have to get into the issues discrimination faced by south Asian descendants in UK, or North African descendent in France it Belgium, or the discrimination in Germany against the Turks. For god sake Europe was almost outright hostile to Turkey joining the EU.

When it comes to conquerors wiping out and continuing to discriminate against the indigenous people, all of the new world the Americas, Australia and New Zealand have very shameful history. Canada, New Zelaland and Australia are still struggling to right the historical wrongs. The South America doesn’t even pretend to try.

So that leaves sub-Saharan African that has no one to discriminate against. Not really. Like in many other countries there is discrimination there too based on religious, regional and tribal affiliation. Remember horrible Hutus vs Tutsi civil war/genocide in Rawanda ? ( the ironic part is the Hutus and Tutsis were artificially created constructs by the British during colonization). The apartheid in South Africa or religious based conflicts in the central and west Africa.

Other than Antarctica which continent is left .

Till recently and through the 20th century, the USA offered best chances of upward social mobility to immigrants and individual members of disadvantaged communities. It has least restrictive laws in my opinion for the foreigners to proper and succeed. Canada may be a close second.

I think when we look at discrimination and racism we have to look at it from different lenses:

- internal discrimination within the locals themselves
- discrimination against outsiders/foreigners/immigrants
- redressal mechanisms against individual discrimination
- anti-discriminatory laws in the books
- enforcement against discriminatory practices
- systemic and institutional discrimination
- people’s attitude in general against those who are different from themselves.

Taking all of above together I think USA does better or may be it is my bias. I think North Americans as a community and USA as a place is overall more tolerant than other equivalent large communities like Western Europeans, Russians and Eastern Europeans, Indians, Middle East, Chinese, Japanese, SE Asia, and Latin Americas.

 

[Offbeat]

How the Karen Meme Confronts History of White Womanhood

It follows in a long and troubling legacy of white women in the United States weaponizing their victimhood

time.com

 

[Offbeat]

'People Will Insist That They are Not Racist': Robin DiAngelo on 'White Fragility' and the Way Forward | KQED

Robin DiAngelo, the author of 'White Fragility,' has a message for white people in the Bay Area: "all white people are complicit with racism." Here, she says, is where to go from there.

www.kqed.org

 

[1derpalm]

Maybe I'm not reading things or missing context but I feel that there is a lot if denim or misunderstanding of the severe racial issues in the U.S (and sometimes Canada but it is more low key). In my small canafian city I have black friends who are far better people than I, and they have talked about issues they've had, and we're the "liberal" neighbor.
The fact is the situation is Grim in the U.S. its been going on forever. They didn't learn after the Rodney King incident almost 30 years ago. People are defending the cops actions. I believe the roots are being encouraged to spin out of control to create anti-black sentiment.
Latinos are being detained at the border, split from families. He can't even tell the difference between the different ethnic groups. Most Americans don't. Anti-Muslim sentiment encouraged. People think Muslim is a race. Don't care to be corrected. A popular song has "I don't know the difference between Iraq and or an" (in the video it shows people skilfully singing along to that part).
The current president should have openly condemned the act and demanded justice. Instead he is hiding in his bunker. He's an idiot. A smart, rich idiot. That's not a political opinion. Its fact. He's not only a product of the environment but he is also cultivating the environment.