Is tolerance intolerant?

[Angrboda]

I agree.  Benny, you're a dick.  3 out of 5 TV doctors agree.

No doubt.  That's why my wife ran away and my dog divorced me.  I feel the same about you.  <3

The obvious stated and replied to, then why don't you say what particular methods YOU would enact to make things more fair?  By what specific criteria would YOU tell one student he's narrowly missed his dream, and another that he's got a path to his dream because of melanin?

I'm officially staying out of it. But you knew that already. So why ask?

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Still dismissing the reality of systemic discrimination, I see.

Anyway, who assigned you as the authority on these matters? You act like you know more than the people who have been devoting their lives to working on solutions to these problems.

Cherry-picking posts to support your prejudices toward me is bad manners.  I've explicitly agreed that there's real race-based discrimination.

As for authority-- this is a forum thread, and this is the direction it has gone.  We are here to share ideas-- of which, given how important you seem to think the subject is, you've had a pretty profound lack.

I could list (and have) at least half a dozen strategies for addressing the clusterfuck of stats that are weighted against the black demographic, while not requiring racial profiling as an essential mechanism.  And this is the biggest danger of racial profiling at the point of entry (say into Harvard)-- it's a piss-poor substitute for the very important programs and incentives which would be required to make a general change in real achievement levels which would actually wipe out those biases.  What the US needs is to be pumping out young black Einsteins, not to ignore a kid for 17 years and then shoo him into Harvard on a race-based balancing policy.

Do you think prospective employers are saying, "Well, gee golly, a Harvard degree.  We'd be lucky to have this guy!" or are they thinking, "Hmmmm. . . how can we get our hands on this guy's SAT scores to see if he was shooed in on a balancing policy?"  Or. . . more likely. . . they've just going to steer clear because they don't know if the guy's credentials match real academic ability?

Sure, you'll cry racism again, and you won't be wrong.  But policies that are based on racial profiling are going to compound the effect, because real achievements, when they are made, will be clouded by doubts about their legitimacy, and that should be painfully and immediately obvious to anyone who has a brain-- "authority" or not.

While I don't know specifically which programs or strategies you're talking about, nor that the goal is black Einsteins, if education and policies aimed at addressing things like black poverty are on that list, then affirmative action is a much more cost effective strategy toward achieving equality in our society. The other methods work, but cost so much money that the cost is almost prohibitive. In addition, affirmative action is an effective and cheap method of getting there. Maybe cost shouldn't be the only consideration, but it certainly needs to be among the considerations in choosing how to address racial inequity. If you are thinking of methods that are both as effective as affirmative action and as cost effective, then I haven't seen you mention them. Matter of fact, I don't recall any alternatives being offered by you. What alternatives do you have in mind?

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Since affirmative action doesn't do this, it seems like a silly thing to wonder about.  While Whitey fears reverse racism...as is the case with so many other fears like it, it's unfounded.  Between equally qualified candidates, in education or on the job...the white guy gets it the crushing majority of the time.  Affirmative action policies are the only thing that gets either category even close to representative of our demographics.  Since that's the issue that affirmative action policies are enacted to remedy, it seems like they're a swell solution to that problem.  This entire line of questioning is a tiresome exercise in sticking your head in the sand.

What it does is devalue the real achievements of actual black academics, by giving "also ran" trophies to students who are accepted on the basis of skin color despite lower grades or entrance exam scores.  Harvard attendance by black students up?  Great!  Problem solved, right?  Except it's not, because employers (quite rightly) know that the academic requirements for entrance were likely skewed, and they will have a very hard time sorting out the truly academic gifted from the shoo-ins.  Racial profiling will ironically have the effect of making a black Harvard degree seen as less valuable than a white one.

How does one measure "devalu[ing] the real achievements?" What metric are you using here, and what evidence do you have that this is an actual effect being felt in society? To quote the oft repeated phrase, "citation needed." I will also point out that, whatever effect it has on the perception of the affirmative action recipient, which may be negligible, that perception and effect will not likely carry over to the children of the affirmative action recipient. However, the benefits of affirmative action will carry over to the children. And that is a key part of the utility of affirmative action, and something that I haven't seen you address, except in the breach by noting that the carry over between generations resulting from black poverty is formidable. As a recent article noted, the most gifted among the poor graduate at a lower rate than the least gifted of the rich. All things being equal, it is better to be the child of well off parents than simply having talent. It seems you've been making the case for affirmative action, rather than against it, because you've been largely ignoring the generational effects.

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I'll also point out that a parallel problem occurs in industry and politics. Women are under-represented on corporate boards and in certain industries, and also among the Republican party in terms of elected Republican officials. What exactly is your remedy for Republicans? Suck it up? Ignore the problem because promoting female politicians would in some way lead to a devaluing of women politicians? Male Republicans should wear dresses? A massive re-education campaign for Republican voters should be undertaken, complete with re-education camps ringed with barbed wire and Russian style Gulags? What is your answer to them, benny? And how are you going to address the disparity in female participation at high levels of corporate leadership? Or are you just content to see things stay as they are?

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I'll also note that this "from the cradle" approach that you seem to be vaguely advocating would have to start with subsidizing poor mothers because racial inequality starts in the womb with fetal development. Yet this is precisely what society, read: racists, don't want to do. How exactly are you going to get this from the cradle approach off the ground, what does it look like, how is it going to work, and how are you going to convince people who are opposed to it (conservatives, sexists, and racists) to support it?

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Affirmative action is not an "also ran" trophy.  You really...really.......... need to scrub that shit right out of your mouth and mind, lol.  It's not only wrong, it's the propaganda of a bunch of sheet wearing sister fuckers, lol.

On what basis are black kids getting accepted to Harvard, when their school grades and SAT scores are an order of magnitude lower than those of Asian kids?  See, my view is that a university is an academic institution, and that applications should be accepted based on their academic achievements and potential.

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I can think of a dozen way in which such graduates might attack the statistical clusterfuck I was talking about, and if there's a statistical shift in any of those stats due to affirmative action, then I'll (a) be happy to hear it; (b) be proven wrong.
-Graduates from prestigious law schools (like Harvard) could return to poor communities to do pro bono, and could keep those dads out of jail
-Med school graduates could canvas for donations for drug-treatment facilities
-Programmers could train teams of teachers in the basics of robotics programming, and for a couple million dollars, you could have many thousands of kids with the required resources

None of these address the problem of prenatal inequality which I mentioned above. What graduates of prestigious schools do with their degrees is not something you can mandate. It would be great if all billionaires gave 10% of their wealth to charity, but suggesting it as a social policy, besides being unlikely to be adopted, would be stupid. The same with what med school graduates could do. The only viable suggestion here is sending teachers out into poor communities. The problem is that we're already doing that and it isn't working. Because of racism and segregation's lingering effects, the rich white kids get the good teachers and the money, and the poor black kids like those in Detroit get the shaft. So none of your suggestions are worth anything.

Got anymore bright ideas?

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-and again with the white grievance.  That you can't distinguish the therapy from the cancer is a you problem. That's it, that's all...there's really nothing else to this.  You're wrong, and determined to remain so.  Affirmative action doesn't exist to hold the white man down..and it doesn't hold the white man down.

You keep saying this, in argument to who, exactly?  The straw man you keep putting up for me?

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.............but that's your privilege showing, again.

My mom grew up on a native reserve (I'm 1/8 Penobscot or maybe 1/4 depending on who you ask) when she was small, and then lived in a farming community with my grandmother.  I was epileptic, and my medicine made me so stoned that I never really had a real friend until I was about 8.  I was passed around from grandparent to uncle to grandparent when i wasn't with her, and went a fair number of days with only one meal (usually Ichiban noodles) when I was with her.  I spent (as I've mentioned before) a couple years on the street full-time, and on-and-off it for a few more.  I'll spare you the list of things that happened to me during that time, but I can assure you that it wasn't an advantageous situation for a young person.

But yep, I have a noticeable melanin deficiency.  Tell me all about my privilege, asshole.

Is this the "black people can't be racist" argument, because, a) it doesn't work, and b) it's stupid, and c) it's at best anecdotal, and d) yeah, it is really stupid.

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Aw, poor racist is super hurt that he's being ridiculed for his racist positions.   I suppose you ought to be able to realize how hurtful those racist positions are, then, and how they cause others to feel?

Naaaaah, just fucking with you, I know that you're just bitching.  Carry on.

Yeah, I'm sure that my attempts to discuss daycare, preschool and prison release programs along with the importance of encouraging real achievements right from the start are heartbreaking to all those negatively affected by those ideas.  I'm sure my position that if America doesn't get its shit together, and if the next black Einstein is left on the street corner due to a lack of opportunity, America will be fucked-- that's pretty hurtful, too, right?

I know your attempts to pigeonhole me as an alt-right KKK sympathizer make your smugness a little more gratifying.  And I know from experience that you'll just keep cranking out the insults.  But smugness isn't going to help your grandkids much when they're learning Chinese.

The only thing you're succeeding in doing is showing that you're all the dick that Gae has said you are.

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I was practically a bride of Obama.  I thought-- here we are.  We've got a black president in the US, the Dems have total control.  The people are fully mobilized and feeling inspired.  He's going to put everyone to work, he's going to rectify problems with sentencing, he's going to get pot legalized, he's going to bring the country together.

Now, I feel that was America's last chance.  I'll bet $100 Trump wins re-election by starting a war last-minute, and spend the next 4 years working out how to melt all the ice caps and start Armageddon.

I still don't like identity politics, though.

Studies show that Trump's victory owes itself largely to race based and sex based prejudices. What exactly was it you were going to do to fix things again?

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Identity politics as a way of identifying victim groups and restoring them to equality is the wrong path, in my opinion.  I just don't think things should ever be framed in that way.  But identity politics as a way of targeting and deliberately holding back a demographic leads to gas ovens and bodies swaying from branches.  I think both are potential dangers to a stable society based on liberty and equality of opportunity-- but the latter is explicitly evil, much more immediately dangerous, and is a clear violation of the principles of the US constitution, right from the opening declaration.

Congratulations on your Godwin.