Study: Black boys raised in wealthy households don't become wealthy adults but white boys do

@TatinG Maybe you should read Mismatch, which suggests that extreme affirmative action is actually harmful to black law school students because it makes them among the least able in their class and it makes it likely that they will not get instruction designed to help them pass the bar exam, because at elite schools most students are smart enough to pass without any instruction.

@partyof5 This may make you feel better. It’s a follow-up to the previous article. It gives me hope that awareness and effort from both sides can lead to better understanding. Even though it’s very frustrating, change takes time.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/ct-nvs-being-black-naperville-chief-st-0223-20170223-story.html

This sentence really resonated with me.

It’s what I was trying to say back in my post (#133 and 146). I think a good start is to try and understand these biases without jumping to the conclusion that all of these people have evil intentions…some do, some don’t. No one wants to be judged without initially being given the benefit of the doubt. Raising awareness without accusing/attacking individuals may help advance understanding and bring about the desired change.

Racist is as racist does. There is no such thing as “I unintentionally discriminate against black people when I’m hiring, but I’m not a racist.” If you discriminate against black people when you’re hiring, even if you don’t intend to, that makes you a racist, and it means it is YOUR PROBLEM to stop being a racist if you don’t want to be one.

^^^That’s a huge jump in your conclusion.
Everyone has bias from not liking someone’s looks, their actions,their opinions etc, and I don’t think that’s racist.
If you don’t like Chinese food, can I call you a racist?
I can think, well perhaps there’s something else about Chinese that you don’t like.

No, and you can’t call me biased either. But if you are biased against a certain race of people, and that bias leads you to discriminate against that members of that race, even if you discriminate unintentionally, then you are a racist.

I have seen many occasions that someone is accused of being a racist, I disagree with it. In today’s political climate, whoever screams the loudest is perceived to be correct.

^^@cbreeze, I think people really wanted to have honest discussions, they would stop calling people names. Once you start with the name calling, you are shutting people down. Maybe that’s the point of it, but if you’re actually trying to find solutions and have dialogue, then avoiding putting people into whatever “ist” box you’re choosing to select is a good start.

What if someone actually is racist? (e.g. the tiki torch marchers at Charlottesville and those who praised them, for obvious examples)

If you cannot say that someone or something is racist when he/she/it actually is racist, isn’t that “shutting people down”?

Is there some word we’re supposed to use instead of “racist” to describe racists? What is it?

I think if people wanted to have honest discussions, they wouldn’t try to shut down honest discussions because their feelings were hurt when people said racists were racists. I also think people need to get over the idea that someone has to have evil intentions (or, really, any intentions at all) in order to be a racist.

It’s like South Pacific, “You Have Yo Be Carefully Taught”

It’s a song describing how racism is taught from a young age. From memory it goes like this:

You to be taught from year to year,
To have it drummed in your dear little ear,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You have to be carefully taught.

You have to be taught,
Before it’s too late,
Before you are six, or seven or eight
To hate and fear,
People whose eyes are oddly made,
People whose skin is a different shade,
You have to be carefully taught.

This is when the heroine and supporting actor are trying to figure out why they are having such conflicted feelings about the Polynesians

I may have muffed some of it, but that’s the gist of my memory.

That is absolutely ridiculous. Are you serious with that?

Maybe if one thinks racism is no big deal. I think it’s a terrible thing, and I don’t take it lightly. When a word is used all the time, to describe large swaths of people who are assumed to have these thoughts, I think it waters down the meaning. When you group people you don’t like with the KKK and white supremacists, that makes the word meaningless.

Actually, if one claims not to like food of a particular ethnicity, I’d be curious about the person’s reasons. My relative dislikes Italian food if it’s made at a restaurant because he’s violently allergic to oregano, of all things. If the dishes are made without oregano, he loves it and is fine but if it’s made with an “ Italian seasonings blend” or canned tomatoes which may have such seasonings, he gets quite ill from it.

Another loved one is highly allergic to mint so has to avoid foods with even small amounts of mint in them. This makes her sad because it is a flavor she loved until this allergy surfaced at about age 50.

I’d also wonder if the person has had exposure to well prepared meals in the ethnicity in question because most ethnicicities have a huge range of dishes that have seasonings from mild to spicy, with a range of textures and accents.

Anyway, I do take discrimination and racism, sexism, agism, discrimination vs sexual orientation, etc seriously and would never link it to an individual’s food choices or preferences.

You missed my next sentence.

I am trying to demonstrate how utterly ridiculous sometimes people are being accused of being a racist.

Just like this sentence. It makes no sense at all.

This is the core of the disagreement: I say that someone is “racist” if they act in a discriminatory fashion, even if they do not intend to act in a discriminatory action. So, for example, the hiring manager that rejects the Jamal resume, even though they would have called back the same person if the resume said Jason, is “racist” under this definition. They didn’t intend to be racist, and they didn’t realize that they were subconsciously rejecting black people for being black, but they were.

For the purposes of this discussion, I’m willing to use another word to describe this. Please tell me what it is. But whatever the word I use, I will not give up insisting this person is acting wrongly, and they have the duty to realize they are acting wrongly, admit their wrongness, and take measures to stop acting wrongly.

I still don’t think you made your point well at all.

The word “racist” is not being used in an “utterly ridiculous” manner if it is describing a person who would call “Jason” in for a job interview but would not call “Jamal” in for the interview with an identical resume. If the ONLY difference here is the person’s impression that Jason is white and Jamal is black, his behavior is racist. It doesn’t dilute the power of the word at all to use it in this context. It’s very appropriate imo.

I’m sure this “subconscious” discriminatory behavior happens, but what a number of posters on this thread seem to be in complete denial about is that this happens on a conscious level and in a deliberate manner on a frequent basis in our society. I don’t see how it’s remotely possible to argue that it doesn’t, but clearly there are people in our society who refuse to acknowledge the racism that has permeated our society.

How about a “subconscious” forum example?

Why is University of Alabama Huntsville now the go-to big merit college suggestion even though Tuskegee University and Prairie View A&M offer better scholarships and are widely ignored by most when the subject of big merit comes up?

Here’s another example that makes clear that some discrimination is clearly subconscious. This is an example of gender bias rather than race bias, but it’s the same mechanism.

A researcher created a resume for fictitious biology major looking to be hired as a lab manager, a stepping-stone job for people with bio degrees, and then sent it out for evaluation to faculty members who would be in a position to hire such a candidate. “Jennifer” was rated as less competent and less hireable than “John.” The faculty said they’d be less likely to mentor Jennifer than John, and Jennifer’s offered starting salary was $26K to John’s $30K. Inferior Jennifer had exactly the same resume as superior John, except that hers was from a woman candidate.

https://ctl.yale.edu/sites/default/files/basic-page-supplementary-materials-files/science_facultys_subtle_gender_biases_favor_male_students.pdf

I have no doubt that the faculty members did not want to be biased against women candidates, and didn’t think they were biased against women candidates. Nevertheless, they were making sexist decisions. Female faculty were equally as sexist as male faculty.

When I was hired as the 1st female attorney in my law firm, the female secretaries had a hard time figuring out what to call me, though they were fine calling the names my age Mr X. They eventually got better about it, as we hired many more women attorneys after me. It takes time and effort and intention to overcome biases and people have to be aware of them but it IS uncomfortable—it was for me and the people in the firm, but we continue to get along well.

We need to focus on racist policies, not racist people. We can have good conversations if we focus on systems and not individuals. I posted very early in this thread that I am starting to believe that racist people are not real and that it’s the policies that turn people into racists instead of the other way around. My belief is not fully formed, but believe that it is a good pathway forward.