'Straight White Male' is the Real World's easiest difficulty setting

jdzappa wrote:
And no one is saying that you are responsible for their actions. But the loot and plunder that you have inherited because your ancestors stole remains tainted goods. Attempting to fix the imbalances that plunder has put on our society is justice, not discrimination.

Are you saying all wealth in America was by default stolen, and not created through hard work or innovation? That's a completely illogical way of looking at things, and also assumes the economy is a zero-sum game where rising wealth among some people must come directly at the expense of others.

I'm also not sure that just because some rich neighbors are racist means every wealthy person is racist. May I ask, what part of the country are you from? Working in high tech in Seattle I've met plenty of millionaires and even billionaires who exhibit none of the behaviors you described.

White america has benefited for generations because we kept slaves in chains, the pittance of affirmative action that goes on barely does much of anything, but it's the small step we can take to help make a more just world.

Then let's figure out better ways of doing things. Just to go back to the Annapolis discussion, here would be some of my proposals:

1. There are plenty of minority students who do better than their white counterparts academically, especially when it comes to critical math/science skills. Why are these students not choosing the academies? Are there ways to make the academy more enticing to minority students who might otherwise go to MIT or Stanford or Harvard?

2. Actively recruit minority candidates from among the enlisted ranks. That way, you could at least get diverse candidates who have proven themselves in combat, even if their academic scores are not quite as good.

3. Bolster the Junior ROTC programs in poorer school districts so that candidates have help/mentorship before they get to college.

Does the bolded idea still not give preferential treatment to minorities? Are you OK with that since they were given a more accurate way of proving themselves? I'm not trying to be snarky there or anthing, I'm legitimately curious.

jdzappa wrote:

Are you saying all wealth in America was by default stolen, and not created through hard work or innovation?

No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that our ancestors got a huge influx of cash, influence and capital by enslaving a race, and denying the benefits we have received through inheriting those spoils is oblivious and illogical.

So far, in this discussion, I have seen you present hyperbolic arguments at least three times, now. "We inherited stolen goods" <> "Everything you have is stolen". "You are wrong to compare Irish and black oppression" <> "you're a spoiled rich white kid who's never had a tough day in his life" and "Your angle on prejudice in this country is a little imbalanced" <> "You are neo-nazi." I do appreciate that you are, at least, asking for clarification, here. But I find myself frustrated when trying to communicate a nuanced discussion of the complexity of race relations and see it automagically reduced to a single offensive exaggeration. You are, of course, allowed to present your arguments however you would like, but I do hope that you'll consider avoiding those kinds of reductions if we continue this.

That's a completely illogical way of looking at things, and also assumes the economy is a zero-sum game where rising wealth among some people must come directly at the expense of others.

When I take five dollars from you and invest it in a business, and you later get a job at that company, it does not, in any way, create a justification for the theft or forgive the fact that it was your five dollars to begin with. Of course economics is not zero sum, and of course the standard of all people can be raised, but I think I'd avoid claiming that sweatshop workers are lucky to have jobs.

I'm also not sure that just because some rich neighbors are racist means every wealthy person is racist.

More hyperbole. The existence of a single non-racist person does not, in any fashion, mean that racism does not exist. Nor does the existence of racist employers mean that I can determine all businesses are racist. What I can do is say that racism is a factor, and that is exactly what I said.

May I ask, what part of the country are you from? Working in high tech in Seattle I've met plenty of millionaires and even billionaires who exhibit none of the behaviors you described.

And I know millionaires who exhibit none of those traits as well. See above. (And for the record, I am in Northern Alabama)

Then let's figure out better ways of doing things. Just to go back to the Annapolis discussion, here would be some of my proposals:

I have no problem with your proposals. But I have no problem with existing efforts to normalize representation in large institutions to more closely reflect that of the general population.

The existance of a poor person does not invalidate the institutional biases against people of color.

No, but what it DOES mean is that having rich parents doesn't make you rich, and having poor parents doesn't make you poor. It improves the odds of both, but neither is fixed in stone, and over a few generations, talent will even things out.

By that logic, we shouldn't help people whose homes were robbed, because that promotes thievery.

Look. The problem is racism, right? Racism is where you make determinations about someone's fitness or desirability based on their perceived skin color.

So why on earth is doing MORE of that going to STOP that process from happening?

You can't fix this problem by reversing the polarities. You need to not have polarities at all. The problem is having polarity, not which side is which.

Help people because they are poor. Tax people because they are rich. If you say to someone "you are a black person, and therefore I will give you money and/or other benefits", you make being black important. It becomes a valid differentiator between people, when in truth, no substantial differentiation can actually be made. If you say, instead, "you are a poor person, and so I will give you money and/or other benefits", then you're dealing in the world of factual data, not subjective racism. You're not perpetuating racism anymore, but lo and behold, you're still helping the victims of racism automatically.

Racism is a lie, and all fruit of that tree is poison. Reverse racism is just as poisoned as the original fruit.

Make opportunities as equal as we can, and fix the horrendous justice system, and everything will work itself out. It always has, for every immigrant group in every country, but especially in America.

And if we don't fix the justice system, nothing else we do will matter very much.

Does the bolded idea still not give preferential treatment to minorities? Are you OK with that since they were given a more accurate way of proving themselves? I'm not trying to be snarky there or anthing, I'm legitimately curious

That idea was to address the legitimate point of wanting officers who better represent their subordinates. I have no idea how much the Navy promotes officers from its enlisted ranks, so maybe this is happening already. And those candidates would have the benefit of proving they can excel in the military environment.

You are, of course, allowed to present your arguments however you would like, but I do hope that you'll consider avoiding those kinds of reductions if we continue this.

I'm sorry if I've come off as hot-headed. I guess by GWJ standards I came off more as a jerk than passionate. If we're going to have conversations about white privilege, those conversations must absolutely include class and other background factors instead of "white male is the easiest difficulty."

Make opportunities as equal as we can, and fix the horrendous justice system, and everything will work itself out. It always has, for every immigrant group in every country, but especially in America.

Well said. Maybe we should look at why many immigrant groups (white and non-white) prosper while a significant portion of the African American population does not.

I've discussed this before, but the way the Army handled this problem, a decade or two ago, was to institute remedial training.

The problem they were having was that very few of their black candidates were passing the tests for Major. They just didn't have the verbal and mathematical skills required. So they started a big program to instill these skills in the lower ranks, and were largely (completely?) successful in bringing black candidates up to the required standard. And they had no further problem at higher ranks, either. Once they'd gotten over the hurdle at Major, it was very equal after that.

That's how you do it right. You don't drop the standards. You bring the candidates up to the level you need. Dropping standards just means you end up putting incompetent people in jobs they can't handle.

Malor wrote:

No, but what it DOES mean is that having rich parents doesn't make you rich, and having poor parents doesn't make you poor. It improves the odds of both, but neither is fixed in stone, and over a few generations, talent will even things out. .

Similarly, having parents with brown hair does not mean you will have brown hair, but the odds of it are greatly increased. This affects nothing.

You are smart enough to understand this is a logical fallacy. Just because something can happen, that does not mean the odds are in its favor. We have a problem in this country, and while you are right it will work itself out over generations, it is grossly unfair to those alive now. It's akin to when I hear people claim that the emancipation proclamation and the civil war were unnecessary and morally wrong, and the slavery issue would have worked itself out eventually. Injustice needs to be addressed within the lifetimes of those who are oppressed.

Look. The problem is racism, right? Racism is where you make determinations about someone's fitness or desirability based on their perceived skin color.

So why on earth is doing MORE of that going to STOP that process from happening?

And when there is cancer in the body, we poison it with radiation and chemicals to fight the cancer, knowing full well that the healthy result is the goal, not the deadly cure. Sometimes we do things to repair disfunction that we would never enact on a healthy system. No one believes that we will be eternally addressing this issue. But we can certainly help stop this bleed with a little infusion.

You can't fix this problem by reversing the polarities. You need to not have polarities at all. The problem is having polarity, not which side is which.

You fallaciously presume this is "reversing polarities". If we were, truly, reversing the polarities, we would be putting white people in chains and selling their labor to the next 10 generations of black folk. We're not. We are attempting, in a very minor manner, to help ensure that the areas where people of color have been discriminated against have some tools in place to help balance out that discrimination in the short-run. We're hoping, and it appears to be working, that if we can help ease the affects of that discrimination, we can accelerate the pace by which our society stops this travesty. We have certainly seen great leaps in the past 50 years, but the 60 years before that didn't that kind of evolution.

If you say to someone "you are a black person, and therefore I will give you money", you make being black important.

You seem to be fixated on individual cases instead of the general societal trends. If one considers racism to be a disease that infects a portion of our society, then pointing innoculation at the people who are most likely the victims of that disease means we are more likely to treat the disease. It's not that black is important.. it's just the segment of the population that has been most affected.

It becomes a valid differentiator between people, when in truth, no substantial differentiation can actually be made. If you say, instead, "you are a poor person, and so I will give you money and/or other benefits", then you're dealing in the world of factual data, not subjective racism. You're not perpetuating racism anymore, but lo and behold, you're still helping the victims of racism automatically.

Ah, if racism were only evident in money, that might be an actual way to approach it. But racism results in more losses than just dollars. And, quote frankly, there are already some programs in place that do just that. Anti-discrimination policies are just a small boost to these existing programs.

Malor wrote:

It improves the odds of both, but neither is fixed in stone, and over a few generations, talent will even things out.

You know, your conclusions are pretty close, but the beginnings of your arguments are so astonishingly naive, historically false, and borderline offensive it's tough to see where we both get similar answers.

For the record, picking people for the naval academy not based on test scores tainted by racism is "making opportunities as equal as we can." If you can agree that statistically black people are as smart as white people, I think it's safe to reject the idea that black people from one school are inherently dumber than white people from a different school.

OG_slinger wrote:

That's why I asked you to consider a world where the Irish, whom you identified with, were systematically discriminated against for centuries the way blacks were instead of the generation or two that actually happened (before the Irish became the backbone of many cities police and fire departments and the power brokers of political machines).

Oh, the Irish were still discriminated against for far longer than a generation or two, and it wasn't before what you're talking about, it was during. They seized power, often though illegal and anti-democratic means such as those political machines: the whole reason the Irish became the backbone of many police and fire departments is because those were jobs that could be handed out as political patronage. In fact, blacks were often privileged in the 19th century by employers who saw them as a labor force with which to undercut the Irish.

The Irish just went around burning things and killing people--often black people--to get their way. Nothing was handed to the Irish in this country, but then again, the Irish didn't exactly play by the rules to get where they are.

What the Irish *really* benefited from is operating before the FBI made corruption at the state and especially the city level much more difficult, and from being located in the Northern cities as opposed to the rural South (think of things like the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration). Ever notice the KKK keeps the hell away from urban areas?

jdzappa wrote:

I'm sorry if I've come off as hot-headed. I guess by GWJ standards I came off more as a jerk than passionate. If we're going to have conversations about white privilege, those conversations must absolutely include class and other background factors instead of "white male is the easiest difficulty."

Not hot-headed... just... reductionist. And while the crux of your argument revolves around the single injustice that brought you into this debate, it seems you're willing to accept plenty of injustice as long as it happens to victims of "the system" and not to victims of an individual policy. Still, this entire post addresses the idea that there is rather serious injustice in "the system" that is ignored by people of privilege..

As the original piece said, "White male is the easiest difficulty", but it doesn't mean it's not difficult for any given individual. It doesn't mean there isn't class issues. It doesn't mean there aren't gender issues. It simply states that white males, on average, start off with the best stats on average. Some will roll all threes. Some will roll 18s. But we should recognize that we get a racial bonus and stop pretending we don't.

jdzappa wrote:

Are you saying all wealth in America was by default stolen, and not created through hard work or innovation? That's a completely illogical way of looking at things, and also assumes the economy is a zero-sum game where rising wealth among some people must come directly at the expense of others.

I'm not sure if you simply don't know enough about the history of America when you say something like this or if you honestly believe that things that happened in the past have absolutely no impact or bearing on today.

More to your question, no, not all wealth in America was stolen.

But you seem to be completely overlooking the point that, because of slavery, a great deal of wealth and economic development generated over the centuries actually was actually stolen because blacks were never reimbursed for their labor. All that wealth went either to the person who owned them or, tangentially, the people who benefited from that free labor in the form of lower prices.

It also means that practically the entire US economy benefited from slavery. After all, someone had to sell supplies and manufactured goods to people who owned slaves. Someone had to purchase all that cotton, transport it North and then to England. Someone had to be hired to chase down escaped slaves and more. All of this meant that there likely wasn't a dollar in our economy that didn't have the taint of slavery on it.

Can a forensic accountant trace how much of a rich person's or company's wealth came from slavery like Nazi gold? Not likely. But that doesn't change the fact that a significant chunk of America's economy and a lot of our economic development came from the stolen labor of slaves.

No one is pointing a finger at particular rich people and saying "you're racist because you're rich." They're simply saying that our society benefited from slavery and their stolen labor powered the economic development of the country for a long time.

Flowing from that is all the lost wealth and economic development that would have happened if slavery had not existed and every black was paid a market wage for their labor or allowed to start a business if they had the skill for it.

jdzappa wrote:

Then let's figure out better ways of doing things.

This is the better way to do things. That a handful of marginal white candidates get inconvenienced is a small societal price to pay. And I say marginal because if they were truly exceptional candidates they would never have been bumped. And I say inconvenienced because, as you pointed out, your hopes and dreams and future weren't destroyed because you didn't get into the Naval Academy.

Allowing minority candidates in who might not have all the qualifications of their white male counterparts isn't a disservice as you claimed. It's not because your SAT score or GPA isn't the final arbiter of how good of solider--or doctor, or businessman, or whatever--they're going to be. You may be correct that some of those candidates flunk out, but that also means that some don't. And that means there's one more minority graduate than there would have been before. That's a good thing for everyone.

It's also ironic that your sense of "a standard is a standard" came from the same institution that had to be forcefully desegregated. The only reason why it has and promotes that mentality today is because it was ordered to stop being racist by Truman. And even 60 years later there still are far fewer black officers than the percentage of overall troops that are black...

OG_slinger wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Are you saying all wealth in America was by default stolen, and not created through hard work or innovation? That's a completely illogical way of looking at things, and also assumes the economy is a zero-sum game where rising wealth among some people must come directly at the expense of others.

I'm not sure if you simply don't know enough about the history of America when you say something like this or if you honestly believe that things that happened in the past have absolutely no impact or bearing on today.

More to your question, no, not all wealth in America was stolen.

But you seem to be completely overlooking the point that, because of slavery, a great deal of wealth and economic development generated over the centuries actually was actually stolen because blacks were never reimbursed for their labor. All that wealth went either to the person who owned them or, tangentially, the people who benefited from that free labor in the form of lower prices.

It also means that practically the entire US economy benefited from slavery. After all, someone had to sell supplies and manufactured goods to people who owned slaves. Someone had to purchase all that cotton, transport it North and then to England. Someone had to be hired to chase down escaped slaves and more. All of this meant that there likely wasn't a dollar in our economy that didn't have the taint of slavery on it.

Can a forensic accountant trace how much of a rich person's or company's wealth came from slavery like Nazi gold? Not likely. But that doesn't change the fact that a significant chunk of America's economy and a lot of our economic development came from the stolen labor of slaves.

Maybe it would help to further situate this in historical context. Like you say, that cotton went to England. The difference between America and other western industrialized countries is we couldn't just dump our former slaves during decolonization. A place like England could just say to a place like India "see ya later!"

If we're going to bring slavery into this, it isn't so much about white vs. black as it is about colonial exploitation.

CheezePavilion wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Are you saying all wealth in America was by default stolen, and not created through hard work or innovation? That's a completely illogical way of looking at things, and also assumes the economy is a zero-sum game where rising wealth among some people must come directly at the expense of others.

I'm not sure if you simply don't know enough about the history of America when you say something like this or if you honestly believe that things that happened in the past have absolutely no impact or bearing on today.

More to your question, no, not all wealth in America was stolen.

But you seem to be completely overlooking the point that, because of slavery, a great deal of wealth and economic development generated over the centuries actually was actually stolen because blacks were never reimbursed for their labor. All that wealth went either to the person who owned them or, tangentially, the people who benefited from that free labor in the form of lower prices.

It also means that practically the entire US economy benefited from slavery. After all, someone had to sell supplies and manufactured goods to people who owned slaves. Someone had to purchase all that cotton, transport it North and then to England. Someone had to be hired to chase down escaped slaves and more. All of this meant that there likely wasn't a dollar in our economy that didn't have the taint of slavery on it.

Can a forensic accountant trace how much of a rich person's or company's wealth came from slavery like Nazi gold? Not likely. But that doesn't change the fact that a significant chunk of America's economy and a lot of our economic development came from the stolen labor of slaves.

Maybe it would help to further situate this in historical context. Like you say, that cotton went to England. The difference between America and other western industrialized countries is we couldn't just dump our former slaves during decolonization. A place like England could just say to a place like India "see ya later!"

If we're going to bring slavery into this, it isn't so much about white vs. black as it is about colonial exploitation.

And while we're at it, can we just accept that the world is a very, very different place than 150 years ago and stop trying to hold our ancestors to different ethical standards that didn't really exist at the time?

And for the record - both the ill-gotten gains of the Nazis and the Southern Plantation owners were largely wiped out.

Not hot-headed... just... reductionist. And while the crux of your argument revolves around the single injustice that brought you into this debate, it seems you're willing to accept plenty of injustice as long as it happens to victims of "the system" and not to victims of an individual policy. Still, this entire post addresses the idea that there is rather serious injustice in "the system" that is ignored by people of privilege..

If you go back to the original posts, I was a big critic of the original Op-ed from the beginning. The Naval Academy issue was just one example. I'm also not sure why you think I'm ok with general injustice - I am not.

jdzappa wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

Maybe it would help to further situate this in historical context. Like you say, that cotton went to England. The difference between America and other western industrialized countries is we couldn't just dump our former slaves during decolonization. A place like England could just say to a place like India "see ya later!"

If we're going to bring slavery into this, it isn't so much about white vs. black as it is about colonial exploitation.

And while we're at it, can we just accept that the world is a very, very different place than 150 years ago and stop trying to hold our ancestors to different ethical standards that didn't really exist at the time?

And for the record - both the ill-gotten gains of the Nazis and the Southern Plantation owners were largely wiped out.

It's tough because I'm back in a tricky spot with this comment. On the one hand, I think you're wrong about this. On the other, I think the people telling you that you are wrong are pointing out the wrong reasons why you're wrong. I'm not sure I can make that point without getting accused of arguing semantics. So maybe I'll just keep my trap shut.

OG_slinger wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Once again you go back to talking about things that would break me. Don't you see how that's insulting?

Just as insulting as

This is totally not related, but this sort of statement bugs me. I am going to go on a limb here, but jdzappa's intent was not to insult you. However, this statement here definitely shows you were aiming to insult him. Get back at him. Zing him good and take him down a peg!

When you do this, how can you be taken seriously? In what manner are you arguing in good faith, and not just looking to fight?

And surprise, surprise. Turned in to a dogpile on the guy.

Stephen_Clarke wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Once again you go back to talking about things that would break me. Don't you see how that's insulting?

Just as insulting as

This is totally not related, but this sort of statement bugs me. I am going to go on a limb here, but jdzappa's intent was not to insult you. However, this statement here definitely shows you were aiming to insult him. Get back at him. Zing him good and take him down a peg!

When you do this, how can you be taken seriously? In what manner are you arguing in good faith, and not just looking to fight?

And surprise, surprise. Turned in to a dogpile on the guy.

While there's definitely an element of "but you did it too" in there, I don't think OG's intent was to zing him back.

Stephen_Clarke wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Once again you go back to talking about things that would break me. Don't you see how that's insulting?

Just as insulting as

This is totally not related, but this sort of statement bugs me. I am going to go on a limb here, but jdzappa's intent was not to insult you. However, this statement here definitely shows you were aiming to insult him. Get back at him. Zing him good and take him down a peg!

When you do this, how can you be taken seriously? In what manner are you arguing in good faith, and not just looking to fight?

And surprise, surprise. Turned in to a dogpile on the guy.

I've seen quite a few people trying to de-escalate the tone of the argument, including jdzappa at times. I haven't seen very many people willing to come to the defense of his position. Does that mean that the larger number of people who disagree with it should silence themselves, in the name of fairness?

I'm with Malor here. Without racism, "whites" would still be favored because of their social and financial positions, but then that would be classism, not racism, and the privilege would shift to financial class only, not race and financial class together. It won't remove all unfair advantage in the world, but removing one (racism) is a good, solid goal to go for; though presumably, we're also shooting for sexism as well.

momgamer's (and other women's) experiences, however, imply that sexism is in a far more dire place in a region where we can readily make a difference: gaming. The problem there is that I do not know how much sexism is justifiable or even desirable. Women are different from men and treating them in identical fashion will be problematic for everyone alike. I certainly don't want to go in for a pap smear annually!

LarryC wrote:

Women are different from men and treating them in identical fashion will be problematic for everyone alike. I certainly don't want to go in for a pap smear annually!

Well, gaming is an easy one. If you're playing a game, and treat someone any differently because they're female? You're an idiot, to the back of the line, please.

Because any of the sh*t that people would complain that you should not do to people because they're female? You shouldn't be doing at all. (Vicious trash talk, being a condescending ass because they may be less skilled, so on.) Not exactly rocket science here.

Socially, it's not all that much harder. They have different medical problems, and sometimes wildly different life goals, but the end result is very similar. Don't be an asshole. That's a lot of problems fixed right there. And, bonus, it makes you less of an asshole to people who are different from you overall.

Someone with the proper perspective, help me out here: Is there anything I'm missing here? Generally, acting like a decent human being, and not treating people worse because they're different covers it.

There is the part where we have to be mindful of differences. In my locality, the toilets for women are frequently of the same size as that for men. This is impractical and unacceptable, since they can't use urinals (or won't due to social expectations? Don't really know). At the very least, the design should incorporate as many stalls as the men's stalls plus the number of men's urinals.

I have to allot more time for my female companions to use the toilets, simply because of the lines. This is a difference in terms of treatment and expectation. Justified?

From a gaming perspective, I have to say that it's insufficient to merely not be an asshole. I feel that we should be exerting a pushback on the people that are acting in unacceptable ways.

Kannon wrote:

Someone with the proper perspective, help me out here: Is there anything I'm missing here? Generally, acting like a decent human being, and not treating people worse because they're different covers it.

Seems reasonable to me!

In my opinion, if a person wants to make an effort to not be sexist, the best possible thing they could do is ask and listen! A lot of the most damaging sexism comes from people assuming that they know what women want and need, assuming that all women fit a stereotype, etc. And some of it unfortunately comes from well-meaning people who do not realize they're being sexist.

(Originally that paragraph said "men" and not "people" but then I remembered how many women are unfortunately extremely sexist and part of the problem.)

This goes both ways too -- there are plenty of harmful stereotypes of men and there is certainly unfair discrimination against men who do not fit certain stereotypes.

Stephen_Clarke wrote:

This is totally not related, but this sort of statement bugs me. I am going to go on a limb here, but jdzappa's intent was not to insult you. However, this statement here definitely shows you were aiming to insult him. Get back at him. Zing him good and take him down a peg!

When you do this, how can you be taken seriously? In what manner are you arguing in good faith, and not just looking to fight?

And surprise, surprise. Turned in to a dogpile on the guy.

No, I wasn't aiming to insult him. He said he was offended by something he said and my above statement was to express my similar feelings for the points he was trying to make: that white men now face discrimination at levels that were effectively equal to what blacks face/faced and that essentially every minority candidate would naturally be less qualified than a similar white candidate.

My statement was simply an attempt for him to see the what this entire thread is about: white male privilege.

When a black person doesn't get in to the Naval Academy, that's just the natural state of things because they simply don't have the qualifications, intelligence, what have you. But when a white candidate doesn't make it, it's discrimination organized at the highest levels of the government (and it's naturally assumed to be done at the express orders of our first black President because everyone knows that when Obama's not being a secret Muslim socialist, he's spending all his time figuring how to get even with whitey).

jdzappa wrote:

And while we're at it, can we just accept that the world is a very, very different place than 150 years ago and stop trying to hold our ancestors to different ethical standards that didn't really exist at the time?

And for the record - both the ill-gotten gains of the Nazis and the Southern Plantation owners were largely wiped out.

The obsession with guilt is something that is only in your head, jdzappa. I've never brought it up. No one's trying to track down families or companies built on the wealth of stolen black labor and dispense some form of justice.

And 150 years ago there most definitely was a similar ethical standard running through the country that we hold today. Anti-slavery societies in America can be traced back to 20-odd years before the Declaration of Independence was written. From that spark of very modern ethical thinking came all the laws and political machinations that finally ended in the Civil War. You can see that with the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, which banned slavery outright from what is now known as the Midwest. You can see that with the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, which did exactly what it's title said. You can see it with the Missouri Compromise of 1850, which ensured that all the new states that would be formed from the Louisiana Purchase would not allow slavery. America of 1860 wasn't a country where everyone thought that owning another human was hunky-dory.

You keep failing to connect things that happened in the past as being why things are the way they are today and because of that you can't see the need for affirmative action policies.

LarryC wrote:

There is the part where we have to be mindful of differences. In my locality, the toilets for women are frequently of the same size as that for men. This is impractical and unacceptable, since they can't use urinals (or won't due to social expectations? Don't really know). At the very least, the design should incorporate as many stalls as the men's stalls plus the number of men's urinals.

Which doesn't fall under how I see sexism, that's proper planning. If you expect X number of people, Y of which are male and Z of which are female, you'd plan bathrooms accordingly. If you expect twice as many female customers, it seems reasonable to plan accordingly. Which, because of space-efficiency, may end up with larger women's bathrooms for the same approximate usage. (I can't come up with a not-horrible analogy here, so I'll skip it.)

Thing is, you'd do the same with pretty much anything else. Family-based restaurants have a lot more booths than little one or two seat tables or bar seating.

LarryC wrote:

I have to allot more time for my female companions to use the toilets, simply because of the lines. This is a difference in terms of treatment and expectation. Justified?

Okay, the phrasing broke the question. "Because of the lines", is completely fair, you'd do the same thing if the men's bathroom had a line around the corner.

Other than that, it's one of those odd corner cases that biology does make a difference. It's still a small difference, though, and not enough to really make a huge difference in treatment.

LarryC wrote:

From a gaming perspective, I have to say that it's insufficient to merely not be an asshole. I feel that we should be exerting a pushback on the people that are acting in unacceptable ways.

Completely agreed. Couldn't find a pithy way to work that in, though. Considering you've never seen me spectacularly go off the rails at someone being a jackass in-game, suffice to say, I practice this quite often. (When I had the resources to, I also ran a couple of game servers where being a jackass would get you spectacularly and summarily booted from the server. They were very popular for a reason, I imagine.)

I don't understand. How can anyone hold the opinion that merit is or ever has been the only factor to getting into the service academies? You are not even allowed to apply unless you can curry a sponsorship from one of your congresscritters, the Vice President, or the President. This has always been a requirement.

And as someone who was blocked from applying to the Air Force Academy by that very requirement, I see the current running anecdote and raise you with mine.

If you live on a state where your senators and representatives are extremely conservative, females face an uphill battle getting those. In the early eighties, it was an extreme uphill battle. I have no way to know for certain, but since I was accepted to Yale with a partial merit scholarship from the university itself (along with my other qualifications) I have a sneaking suspicion I would have been able to compete for a place on my merits had I been able to get sponsorship.

Look. What happened to someone two generations ago doesn't matter in the present. Not at all. No crimes were committed against today's children, and cries of 'but they don't have XXX' means that they don't match some imaginary hypothetical future that could never be proved anyway. Going down that path is an endless fustercluck, because you can always imagine something different.

Rather, what actually matters now is that some people are very poor. They have terrible schools, and terrible living conditions. It does not matter how they got there. If you think that a poor black person is more deserving than a equally poor white person, then you are racist as f*ck.

It doesn't matter what happened fifty years ago. The people that did that stuff are mostly dead. What matters now is fixing problems, and making sure that the systems we create to do so won't create the same problems they're trying to solve.

The one way you absolutely cannot fix racism is with more racism.

And I've heard the argument that, "well, you're white, so of course you want to change the rules about race NOW, because for the first time, you're starting to go into the minority." The implication there being that racism is okay, and that I should be actively punished for having white parents. That's just more racism. It's more of the same crime. And committing terrible crimes against the children of newly-defined criminals just results in endless cycles of retribution and race wars.

I want a future where, as MLK said, children are judged by the content of their character. And setting up any governmental institution that awards benefits or not based on the color of their skin is in direct opposition to that goal.

Now I've read through the rest of the posts.

zappa, I'm sorry for your frustration, but I need you to understand that I feel the same way every single day. I have to struggle every day to simply be heard in both my personal and professional lives. My viewpoint is constantly devalued, my input ignored.

When I read posts like yours it feels like yet another attack. And I have to step away and try to stay reasonable.

Malor wrote:

Look. What happened to someone two generations ago doesn't matter in the present. Not at all.

That is an exceptionally difficult statement to accept when we absolutely know that the income and education level of your parents matter greatly to how successful you will be. When your grandfather was denied a good education, barred from getting a decent paying job, or prevented from getting a loan to start a business or buy a house based on the color of his skin it's really hard to say that that isn't going to have any effect whatsoever on his children and grandchildren.

OG_slinger wrote:
Malor wrote:

Look. What happened to someone two generations ago doesn't matter in the present. Not at all.

That is an exceptionally difficult statement to accept when we absolutely know that the income and education level of your parents matter greatly to how successful you will be. When your grandfather was denied a good education, barred from getting a decent paying job, or prevented from getting a loan to start a business or buy a house based on the color of his skin it's really hard to say that that isn't going to have any effect whatsoever on his children and grandchildren.

Yep. Ignoring the fact that poverty, while obviously not genetic, has a strong hereditary correlation, is "racist as f*ck," as Malor puts it.

I should point out that I am not making a statement pro or con on Affirmative action. The point - and this really cuts to the point of privilege - is that we currently have an unequal society that has been unequal for so long it's almost impossible to make it equal without those in privilege feeling like something has been taken away.

This argument came up in the 60s when new busing schedules were used to forcibly de segregate schools, and it's being used now to complain about admission to the Naval Academy.

Again - if we can all agree that black people are as good as white people at stuff, and if statistically, test scores contradict that...shouldn't we reject the test scores as flawed?

Malor wrote:

Rather, what actually matters now is that some people are very poor. They have terrible schools, and terrible living conditions. It does not matter how they got there. If you think that a poor black person is more deserving than a equally poor white person, then you are racist as f*ck.

While I appreciate what can only be the 126th attempt to make false equivocation in this thread, I'd like to point out that affirmative action programs are not, in fact, about saying who is more deserving. It's about attempting to offset an inequal playing field. And while poverty and social standing are definitely issues that tend to transcend race, they certainly don't trump it. A white poor person will, generally speaking, have fewer hurdles than non-white poor people. Really, the word "deserving" there is attempting to shift things into more easily attackable territory, intentionally nor not.

I just read a good article today that, although not directly about race, is pretty clearly applicable here. A small taste:

But this ideal, appealing as it may be, runs up against the reality of what I’ll call the Iron Law of Meritocracy. The Iron Law of Meritocracy states that eventually the inequality produced by a meritocratic system will grow large enough to subvert the mechanisms of mobility. Unequal outcomes make equal opportunity impossible.

This is pretty clearly true in my experience. Look at SAT prep classes, expensive private tutoring, legacy admissions. The (mostly white) elite has entrenched itself, rendering "merit-based" policies pretty meaningless. Some race-based affirmative action is not nearly enough to overcome these structural imbalances, but it's surely better than nothing.

Malor wrote:

If you think that a poor black person is more deserving than a equally poor white person, then you are racist as f*ck.

But it's not just the lack of wealth that is disadvantaging black people in our society (although that certainly plays a part). Black folks also experience racism, both direct and indirect, throughout their lives. Right? I'd absolutely say that a poor black kid has more obstacles in his way than a poor white kid. If that kid succeeds despite those obstacles, he or she is probably pretty exceptional, no?

[Edit: Um, what Bloo Driver said.]