"Try to see it my way,
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong.
While you see it your way
There's a chance that we may fall apart before too long.
We can work it out,
We can work it out."John Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1965
The song title is "We can work it out." The means to that agreement, the Beatles sang, was for her to see things his way. Yeah, right.
Today's post, like yesterday's, is about stepping out of one's own frame of reference and seeing what problems the other person -- or other country -- faces. It requires empathy. It requires seeing oneself in the position of the other person. To cite lyrics from another song of the same era, from the rock musical Hair, it is
"Easy to be hard.
Easy to be cold. . . .
Easy to say no
Easy to be proud."
Herbert Rothschild is a former college professor, now retired, in apparent good health. He recognizes his own good fortune and privilege. He steps outside his own frame of reference to write about affirmative action and privilege. For decades, he has been an advocate for peace, justice, and the environment.
In 2015, when I was writing a weekly column for The Daily Tidings (RIP), I took the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to reflect on affirmative action. I ended the column with the following prediction: “Next term the U.S. Supreme Court will end all affirmative action programs based on gender, race, and ethnicity but leave the ADA requirements intact.” My prophecy was seven years premature, but unfortunately accurate. Here is that column. I’ve added a new ending.
Like the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the ADA forbid discrimination against specified groups of people, but it went much farther. It required covered employers to make reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities, and imposed accessibility requirements on public facilities. In other words, it mandated affirmative action.
Such affirmative action was extraordinarily expensive. Buildings had to be retrofitted with electric lifts to accommodate the physically challenged. Sidewalk curbs had to be cut for the same reason. Colleges and universities had to hire helpers for their visually and hearing impaired students. Those were just some of the adjustments. The list is lengthy.
I’m not complaining. It was fair and intelligent public policy. It corrected past injustice, and it brought hitherto wasted talent into schools and workplaces. Interestingly, few people challenged that view. I never heard any public complaints about this affirmative action program despite its enormous cost.
Contrast that with the earlier resistance to affirmative action for women and especially for people of color, resistance that frequently reached into the courts.
The charitable view of the contrast is that we White men couldn’t see the analogies. It was obvious to us that we had created a world tailored to those without physical or mental disabilities, so we knew we couldn’t “level the playing field” (a much-used phrase in affirmative action discussions) for the blind or the paraplegic, say, just by declaring that we would no longer hold their condition against them in hiring, promotion, or admissions decisions.
But far too many of us didn’t realize that we lived in a tailored to White men, a world which couldn’t change meaningfully just by declaring that from now on we would be gender- and color-blind. Long before the nation was founded, a thorough-going affirmative action program had existed for us. We created it, we maintained it—since we were the ones making almost all the hiring, promotions, and school admissions decisions—and we hugely benefited from it.
--- --- ---
Readers have noticed a higher than usual number of Guest Posts. I am grateful to Guest Post authors. We get by with a little help from our friends. I have been busy and distracted getting baby Cabernet, Malbec, and Pinot Noir grapes up and alive. And in doing so, working alongside young men and foolishly trying to keep up, I re-injured an old hernia, yet another distraction.
 |
| Pinot Noir |
[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com and subscribe. The blog is free and always will be.]
28 comments:
Racism has been a major issue in this country since before it was a country. We fought a war over it. Things have gotten better – Blacks are allowed to vote and Whites can no longer lynch them with impunity – but we still have huge disparities in wealth, education, employment, housing, health, incarceration and more.
The far-White resent the notion that such systemic inequality might be evidence that racism remains a problem. They dismiss Affirmative Action as “reverse discrimination” and the pursuit of social justice as “wokeness.” They feel threatened by minorities expecting the same privileges as Whites.
Sometimes things are called racist because that’s what they are by definition.
What I never hear, and did not hear in Herb’s guest post, is a specific description of exactly how the claimed discrimination in favor of white males operates.
How does scoring high on a test to get into a selective high school discriminate in favor of white males (especially given that Asian students score higher than those white males)?
How do blind auditions for positions in symphony orchestras discriminate in favor of white males (even though those additions have resulted in an increase in female orchestra musicians)?
How do the SAT and ACT tests discriminate in favor of white males. Even though claims of cultural bias against those tests have been answered and fixed decades ago?
And yet, advocates for affirmative action criticize all three as “racist” practices.
The general principle of their reasoning seems to be (as far as I can tell) that if blacks do not do “well enough“ on some criterion, then the criterion is ipso facto “racist“, regardless of the actual cause of the “disparity.“
This is terrible reasoning Followed to its logical conclusion, it’s a demand for racial quotas everywhere based on demographics. It’s a demand for lowering the standards for specific racial groups.
Even the advocates of this line of reasoning do not follow it everywhere. There is no demand for more Asians in the NBA, or more white people doing hip-hop. It always goes in one direction only.
My own field, software engineering, is constantly pressured and criticized for not having “enough“. This is a totally objective field: either your code works, or it doesn’t; either it is small and elegant and easy to maintain, or it’s a bloated mess that’s a nightmare to understand. Are we supposed to ignore the quality of the code and hire on the basis of race instead?
Until very recently, there were decades in which the field was desperate for talent. If there were actually a huge pool of talent that some companies were discriminating against, other companies would immediately have taken advantage of that and hired those people, regardless of what color their skin was.
Is it actually “racism“? Show me the mechanism. Just quoting the numbers doesn’t prove anything.
The White-Black gap in test scores has narrowed since 1970 as Black cultural and economic opportunities have improved. It still persists but would continue to improve if their situation does. Contrary to the claims of pseudoscientists such as Charles Murray, who has been quoted here in the past, such disparities are not evidence of genetic inferiority.
The mechanism is so endemic as to be invisible. Like air for humans. Like water for fish.
Here is my case in point, and it requires me to use language I am uncomfortable with. The word White. I am in a mixed race marriage. I have a mixed race son. My sense is that race is largely a cultural attribution. There is more genetic variation within Africa than among everyone else everywhere. Yet we mostly lump all Africans within a single race. It is a bit like there being 63 colors in the Crayon box and we called them all a single color, African. Then we take the remaining color, #64, and we divide it up into Italian, Mexican, Arabic, Chinese, several variations of Jewish, etc. Ok, having said that, let me say that my experience is so universal among farm owners as to be utterly uncontroversial.
White farmworkers are marginal at best. Hispanic ones are immeasurably better. It isn't even close. Do I think Hispanic farmworkers have deep DNA differences? No. Not at all. I think it is absorbed and infused into the culture and it shows up as work ethic and pride in doing good work. White Americans -- most of them -- consider it someone else's work. Not for them. Too hard. Degrading, maybe. I do farm work. It is hard, sweaty sometimes, and you get dirty. It is where food comes from. It is 100% honorable. I was brought up doing it. So were some segment of Hispanic workers, so for them it is good, honorable work, so they show up on time and do the job.
Is it "racial"? No. It is cultural, but it is associated with ethnicity, at least in 2023 in rural America.
It does not surprise me that Michael Trigoboff, who comments here frequently and well, was brought up to want to be a great student, to do well in college, to go to Med school, to then transfer to Computer Science. The only real surprise is leaving Med school. It isn't color of skin that led him on that path. It was culture, and a culture so pervasive he drank it in with mother's milk and breathed it in the air. So, too with the Hispanic farmworkers. In a generation that cultural assumption may be lost for Hispanics. Their kids are playing video games, not helping Dad at the farm, and that cultural assumption that farm work is good and honorable may be lost.
But it is cultural, not racial. And culture is embedded into language, into behaviors, into everything. It is systemic. I dont doubt there were lots of Ashkenazi Jewish farmworkers in Ukraine in 1890. Very few now. Did the "race" change their DNA? Their native ability? No. The cultural expectations changed. It was systemic.
How ‘bout the practice of hiring a person whose family has been kept down for generations over a white male, when both applicants are “equally” well qualified for a job? Would you call that reverse discrimination, Michael T? I wouldn’t; I’d call it only right, only fair.
Ditto for choosing someone from, say, Guatemala, whose culture has been largely destroyed by USA's overthrow of yet one more democratically elected government.
Responding to Mike:
My point has never been that disparities are proof of genetic “inferiority.” My point has been that we do not know that disparities conclusively prove racial discrimination. There are other factors that could be at play. Cultural ones, for instance.
The demand that we assume that disparities conclusively prove racial discrimination is a demand that we act as though we know that there are no other factors. We do not know any such thing.
In particular, since you brought it up, we do not know one way or another, whether there are genetic differences in intelligence. Given the emotional charge of this topic, no one is ever going to do that research, and we are never going to know. That’s OK with me. I don’t need to know anything about that. I just need not to have it demanded of me that I act as though I know the answer to a question that I do not know the answer to.
Response to Peter:
If what we are talking about is culture, whose culture are we talking about? Whose culture leads to a low representation of blacks in software engineering? It’s certainly not my Jewish American culture, nor is it the culture of software engineers. We need specifics about the cause, not just vague analogies about fish and water.
Here is an example of the culture of software engineers. Do you see “systemic racism” in it?
——————
The Zen of Programming
The computer center is empty,
silent except for the whine of the cooling fans.
I walk the rows of CPUs,
my skin prickling with magnetic flux.
I open a door, cold and hard,
and watch the lights dancing on the panels.
A machine without soul, men call it,
but its soul is the sweat of my comrades.
Within it lie the years of our lives:
disappointment, friendship, sadness, joy,
the algorithmic exultations,
the long nights filled with thankless toil.
I hear the echoes of sighs and laughter.
And in the darkened offices,
the terminals shine like stars.
© Geoffrey James, The Zen of Programming
How ‘bout the practice of hiring a person whose family has been kept down for generations over a white male, when both applicants are “equally” well qualified for a job? Would you call that reverse discrimination, Michael T? I wouldn’t; I’d call it only right, only fair.
I might do the same for applicants that were “equally qualified.” But it’s very rare for qualifications to be exactly equal; it might have to be identical twins, who, by definition would be of the same race.
M T, I’ll hope, and assume, that no answer means you agree with me. Thank-you, and welcome home!
Malcolm,
I did answer. Peter was busy.
Regarding “The demand that we assume that disparities conclusively prove racial discrimination.”
I have never heard any such demand. The only demand being made is for the disparities to be addressed. As Michael T. says, the disparities are likely due to cultural differences. Those cultural differences are a result of hundreds of years of discrimination. Let’s fix it.
Michael also says that he never suggested the disparities were due to genetic inferiority and then claims, “we do not know one way or another, whether there are genetic differences in intelligence.” In fact, the scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups. “Race science,” the old idea that race is a biologically causal trait, may live on as an ideology of hate. But as an academic matter, it’s been discredited. As I said, some things are called racist because they are.
Michael. T. Sorry about that. Of course it’s rare for qualifications to be exactly equal, but since all applications are at least sonewhat subjective, two applicants could be equal within the margin of error.
Same to Mike. Whites, Orientals, and Blacks almost certainly have SOMEWHAT different IQ's; why wouldn’t they? It may be small enough to be difficult to measure, but to say different is like saying all whites, or all blacks or Orientals are of the same intelligence as each other.Ridiculous!
BTW, I think my bonafides make it clear that I am no racist!
Regarding “The demand that we assume that disparities conclusively prove racial discrimination.”
I have never heard any such demand. The only demand being made is for the disparities to be addressed.
And there’s the demand, right there. If we don’t know why the disparities exist, how do we know there is anything we need to “address“?
Suppose, for instance, women are (on the average) less interested in computer programming than men. There is very good evidence for that (URL below, for those afraid to click). If women tend not to like programming, and as a result there are fewer women programmers, there is nothing to address, unless you want to force women into careers they are not interested in.
Michael also says that he never suggested the disparities were due to genetic inferiority and then claims, “we do not know one way or another, whether there are genetic differences in intelligence.” In fact, the scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups.
There is “no evidence,“ because the study has not been done. The study has not been done because the whole area is too toxic. The “scientific consensus” is to stay as far away from this issue as possible. Does anyone around here think that the NIH or NSF would fund a study like that?
I am happy with “don’t know,“ because I don’t know. I wouldn’t even care except for the ongoing pressure from social justice warriors to eliminate all “disparities“ as though we actually knew what we actually don’t know.
A “disparity“ would only need to be addressed if the relevant ability were evenly and randomly distributed throughout the population. We don’t know whether that’s the case, and no one is going to be brave or foolish enough to try to find out in the foreseeable future.
“Race science,” the old idea that race is a biologically causal trait, may live on as an ideology of hate. But as an academic matter, it’s been discredited.
“Discredited” in this context means that a social taboo has been erected around the idea, enforced by condemnation and ostracism. What it does not mean, is that the idea has been disproven by any valid and verifiable scientific investigation.
As I said, some things are called racist because they are.
… says our local enforcer of the taboo, who wields the word “racist” as a bludgeon, and continues to insist that we believe the issue has been scientifically (as opposed to socially) settled.
—————
a link you can copy and paste:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/
Enough time wasted. It's like debating evolution with a fundamentalist, or trying to convince an anti-vaxxer that the Covid vaccine could be a lifesaver.
Yes, folks, differences in intelligence do exist between individuals, but not between races. There is no master race, delusions to the contrary notwithstanding.
Of course there’s no master race. But your dogmatic reaction to the fact that there’s bound to be at least small differences between races puts you in the camp of the creationists and anti vaxxers.
It seems like MT has a rigid, meritocratic worldview: that the world is a level playing playing field and everyone has the same opportunity. “Let the best performers flourish and be judged based on objective, binary success criteria”. If that’s truly his view, then it’s good he did not take the medical school path because humanity is not so neat and tidy.
My sister runs a tutoring business in Roseberg called Learning Matters. They use quantitative methods to help students develop fluency and mastery of subjects where they formerly struggled. Stories of poor students having progressed 3-4 grades in 6 months are not uncommon. An illiterate 25 year old is now a teacher. Students go from passive, low-self esteem to engaged and energetic, excited to learn.
They now own their education. It’s inspiring to see. Hidden intelligence unlocked. Personal failures turned to bright futures.
This is not a pitch for that particular business (although it’s worth pitching) but seeing examples of transformed lives has reinforced to me that personal circumstances, social systems and institutions often fail to help, or block people from reaching their untapped potential. This little business (and those like it) can fundamentally pivot a person’s trajectory in life.
We live in a flawed and unfair world. Michael obviously drew the “long straw” and chance (or providence) favored his success. The noble aim of affirmative action, ADA and other initiatives is to try to remove some of those obstacles. It is perfect? Of course not. But Michael’s meritocratic ideal is short-sighted if our goal of living is making the world a better place (of course that’s not everyone’s goal)
Mike Steely, apparently incapable of responding to any of my points, bails out with a few of his usual insults.
No, I do not believe in a “master race“. That was the Nazis, who would’ve happily killed me and all my relatives off, and did their best when they had a chance.
As far the difficulty of being able to convince someone to change what they believe, my strong suggestion to Mike is that he go and look in the mirror.
Bye, Mike.
An overlooked part of these issues is the role of capitalism/corporate behavior - the Chamber of Commerce aspect.
The Chambers have always put corporate profits over people, and they still do. It's ruining this country.
OK, Michael wants his points addressed, but not being as windy as he is:
1) If we don’t know why the disparities exist, how do we know there is anything we need to “address“?
We do know why they exist. Since that’s already been discussed, no need to repeat it.
2) There is “no evidence,“ because the study has not been done.
Of course it has. There’s an excellent article on the subject in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/02/the-unwelcome-revival-of-race-science
‘Nuff said.
And to Malcolm: “your dogmatic reaction to the fact that there’s bound to be at least small differences between races”
That’s not a fact. But you’re right, I’m pretty dogmatic. I believe there’s really only one race, the race of humanity. I just wish we’d start acting like it.
1) If we don’t know why the disparities exist, how do we know there is anything we need to “address“?
We do know why they exist. Since that’s already been discussed, no need to repeat it.
No, we don’t know why. Did you read the article from the Atlantic that I posted a link to? Read it and tell me why you think that the percentage of female engineers is lower in Scandinavia (which has low enforcement of traditional gender norms), and higher in India (which has high enforcement of those norms). It’s the opposite of what you would expect, right?
You claim that “we do know“. So tell us, Mike, what do we know about this particular datapoint?
2) There is “no evidence,“ because the study has not been done.
Of course it has. There’s an excellent article on the subject in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/02/the-unwelcome-revival-of-race-science
I just read the article. It’s not a scientific study. It can be accurately summarized as, “science doesn’t know, but we disapprove of the idea“. The article has a lot of handwaving about how many genes there are, and how little we know about them and how they interact. It debunks some simple theories about genetics and intelligence. Fair enough.
At this point, we don’t know what the genetic contribution to intelligence is, but that’s a long way from saying that we know that there is no genetic contribution to intelligence, or what its magnitude might be.
You’re entitled to your own opinion; you’re not entitled to your own science.
Mike, as long as we adopt the belief that there’s only the HUMAN race, obviously you’re right. I like the idea, too, though I don’t think we’re any more likely to eliminate skin color (among other features currently assigned to the different races) than we are hair color, facial hair, etc.
Cop, “Jones, please describe the person who shot your friend”.
Jones, “well, he/she had skin. And he/she had regular hair, or not. He/she was average in every other way. Oh, he/she had some kind of weapon which went 'BANG'”
The idea that there are no genetic differences between the races is ridiculous:
* skin color
* hair color/curliness
* eye shape
* sickle cell anemia
Could intelligence be part of it? We don’t know. Given the racial and political dynamics surrounding that question, we are not going to find out anytime soon. Asserting that we already know the answer is an act of political ideology, not science.
Michael, your article is irrelevant. We're discussing disparities between Blacks and Whites in wealth, education, employment, housing, health, incarceration and more - the result of hundreds of years of oppression.
Malcolm, is that really the best description you can give of a human being?
Mike,
You can refuse to engage, but that doesn’t make my points go away.
Yes, all kinds of horrible things were done to black people in this country over centuries. A subset of black people in this country are living in conditions of concentrated poverty, and it would be a good thing to help them.
The question is, how to help them. I do not think that lowering standards of competence and excellence is the right way to help them. I do not think that assuming the cause of any “disparity” is racist discrimination is the right way to help them. I think we need to be smart and careful about what we do, because so many of the things that have been tried since the 1960s have failed.
You can subtly and passive-aggressively continue to call me a racist for thinking this way, but by now it may have dawned on you that I don’t care. If that’s all you’ve got, you’ve got nothing.
Yeah, it is steely. Being from Tralfamador, the only experience I’ve had with Homo (sapiens? Hah!)is with the approximately 1/3 of the participants in this blog.
Even to us aliens, it’s darn obvious that, taking a small sample of blacks (and we’ve yet to figure out why a quadroon, or even an octaroon, is labeled as black. REALLY?? 7/8 white, and still called a black?) Humans, especially the racists, are a very weird species.
Anyway, measure the IQ of a million blacks, and average the results to, say, 100 places. Same with whites. Unless you foolish humans think the two averages are going to be the same, my point is proven.
Best I can do. In the words of your god-like former President, “seen one, you’ve seen them all”! Any of you cunning humanoids know what they/them/those was referring to?
Michael -
Pointing out there's no evidence Blacks are not genetically less intelligent is like saying there's no evidence the Clintons didn't commit murder. Cute, but meaningless.
We all know Blacks have been viciously discriminated against in this country and the civil rights bill didn't suddenly make prejudice disappear. All I'm saying is they deserve a leg up. If you find that offensive, who cares?
Over and out.
Unwilling to engage in a logical manner, Mike draws irrelevant analogies instead.
I have stated many times, including today, that people trapped in concentrated pockets of poverty ought to be helped; but not by watering down standards of competence and excellence.
If “a leg up“ means something like, “You didn’t do that well on the evalution, but you get to be a neurosurgeon anyway because diversity“, then I am definitely against it
Post a Comment