Majority of White Americans Say They Believe Whites Face Discrimination

SummerMadness

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Majority of White Americans Say They Believe Whites Face Discrimination
A majority of whites say discrimination against them exists in America today, according to a poll released Tuesday from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

"If you apply for a job, they seem to give the blacks the first crack at it," said 68-year-old Tim Hershman of Akron, Ohio, "and, basically, you know, if you want any help from the government, if you're white, you don't get it. If you're black, you get it."
You can talk about perception ("they seem to") and then look at the statistical studies, which demonstrates that notions of widespread discrimination against whites is not true.
 

Redac

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The most specific forms they refer to are discrimination in favor of non-whites in things like college admissions and job hiring and promotion. So unless affirmative action and corporate "diversity initiatives" have stopped being a thing, maybe there's something there.
 
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SilverBear

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The most specific forms they refer to are discrimination in favor of non-whites in things like college admissions and job hiring and promotion. So unless affirmative action and corporate "diversity initiatives" have stopped being a thing, maybe there's something there.
Can you provide actual examples to support this claim?
 
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SummerMadness

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Well, if everything was based on meritocracy, Whites and Asians would be doing even better so.....................but maybe meritocracy is racist.
If it were a meritocracy, African Americans and Hispanics would also do better. The thing is, it's never been a meritocracy and that has hurt everyone who is not part of the privileged majority group.
 
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samir

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Majority of White Americans Say They Believe Whites Face Discrimination
You can talk about perception ("they seem to") and then look at the statistical studies, which demonstrates that notions of widespread discrimination against whites is not true.

Affirmative action mandates discrimination against white people. There have been numerous occasions where employers turn down applicants and deny promotions to the most qualified simply because they are white. The evidence is overwhelming that white people and Americans are discriminated against in America.
 
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SummerMadness

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Affirmative action mandates discrimination against white people. There have been numerous occasions where employers turn down applicants and deny promotions to the most qualified simply because they are white. The evidence is overwhelming that white people and Americans are discriminated against in America.
No it doesn't, but that fiction is what accounts for the findings in this survey. I'm guessing Abigail Fisher didn't get into UT Austin because she was white...
 
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Redac

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If it were a meritocracy, African Americans and Hispanics would also do better. The thing is, it's never been a meritocracy and that has hurt everyone who is not part of the privileged majority group.
This assumes that every group performs at roughly the same level as every other group, and so a true meritocracy would necessarily more or less reflect the population at large.

It all seems rather circular. America is not a meritocracy because group X underachieves. Group X underachieves because it's not a meritocracy.
 
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SummerMadness

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This assumes that every group performs at roughly the same level as every other group, and so a true meritocracy would necessarily more or less reflect the population at large.

It all seems rather circular. America is not a meritocracy because group X underachieves. Group X underachieves because it's not a meritocracy.
I am referring to the fact that having a "black-sounding" name results in fewer callbacks for employment despite the same credentials. If it were a meritocracy, the name would not affect employment opportunity.
 
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Audacious

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Affirmative action mandates discrimination against white people. There have been numerous occasions where employers turn down applicants and deny promotions to the most qualified simply because they are white. The evidence is overwhelming that white people and Americans are discriminated against in America.
Affirmative action actually helps white people by curving us above Asians, who do much better as a demographic.
 
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football5680

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If it were a meritocracy, African Americans and Hispanics would also do better. The thing is, it's never been a meritocracy and that has hurt everyone who is not part of the privileged majority group.
Not really. How could everybody do better if the jobs went to the best people regardless of race? If the most intelligent people with the best test scores got the jobs, the job market would be dominated by Whites and Asians. The gap between whites and blacks is not even close and only a small amount of blacks could even compete with the average white.

Equality should mean that people have the same opportunities, not outcomes. The government forcing companies to hire and promote inferior candidates for the simple fact that they happen to be Black or Hispanic is discrimination. The bar should not be raised or lowered based on your race. Do you think it is right that Asians must score 400 more points on their SAT than blacks students to get admitted into Harvard? Keep in mind that Asians are a minority group so your "privileged majority" cliche won't work.
 
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SummerMadness

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Not really. How could everybody do better if the jobs went to the best people regardless of race? If the most intelligent people with the best test scores got the jobs, the job market would be dominated by Whites and Asians. The gap between whites and blacks is not even close and only a small amount of blacks could even compete with the average white.
Because the most qualified people would get the job then, and as shown in the link you ignored, the name of the applicant will not be factored.

Equality should mean that people have the same opportunities, not outcomes. The government forcing companies to hire and promote inferior candidates for the simple fact that they happen to be Black or Hispanic is discrimination. The bar should not be raised or lowered based on your race. Do you think it is right that Asians must score 400 more points on their SAT than blacks students to get admitted into Harvard? Keep in mind that Asians are a minority group so your "privileged majority" cliche won't work.
I think it's funny that you are arguing that the black kids are taking away the spots of the Asian kids. The first problem is the assumption that black kids are taking something away from Asian kids, it's simply a racist divide and conquer trope that has been used for years. Asian kids aren't getting into Harvard because of mediocre white students like Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump getting into Ivy League universities as well as over 30% of the students being legacy admissions. Asian kids, more specifically the children of immigrants, are being held back because white parents demand to remove meritocracy when they are no longer dominating. It is why Ivy League universities like Harvard have always kept out the "undesirables":
In 1905, Harvard College adopted the College Entrance Examination Board tests as the principal basis for admission, which meant that virtually any academically gifted high-school senior who could afford a private college had a straightforward shot at attending. By 1908, the freshman class was seven per cent Jewish, nine per cent Catholic, and forty-five per cent from public schools, an astonishing transformation for a school that historically had been the preserve of the New England boarding-school complex known in the admissions world as St. Grottlesex.

As the sociologist Jerome Karabel writes in "The Chosen" (Houghton Mifflin; $28), his remarkable history of the admissions process at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, that meritocratic spirit soon led to a crisis. The enrollment of Jews began to rise dramatically.By 1922, they made up more than a fifth of Harvard's freshman class. The administration and alumni were up in arms. Jews were thought to be sickly and grasping, grade-grubbing and insular. They displaced the sons of wealthy Wasp alumni, which did not bode well for fund-raising. A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard's president in the nineteen-twenties, stated flatly that too many Jews would destroy the school: "The summer hotel that is ruined by admitting Jews meets its fate . . . because they drive away the Gentiles, and then after the Gentiles have left, they leave also."

The difficult part, however, was coming up with a way of keeping Jews out, because as a group they were academically superior to everyone else. Lowell's first idea—a quota limiting Jews to fifteen per cent of the student body—was roundly criticized. Lowell tried restricting the number of scholarships given to Jewish students, and made an effort to bring in students from public schools in the West, where there were fewer Jews. Neither strategy worked. Finally, Lowell—and his counterparts at Yale and Princeton—realized that if a definition of merit based on academic prowess was leading to the wrong kind of student, the solution was to change the definition of merit. Karabel argues that it was at this moment that the history and nature of the Ivy League took a significant turn.

The admissions office at Harvard became much more interested in the details of an applicant's personal life. Lowell told his admissions officers to elicit information about the "character" of candidates from "persons who know the applicants well," and so the letter of reference became mandatory. Harvard started asking applicants to provide a photograph. Candidates had to write personal essays, demonstrating their aptitude for leadership, and list their extracurricular activities. "Starting in the fall of 1922," Karabel writes, "applicants were required to answer questions on 'Race and Color,' 'Religious Preference,' 'Maiden Name of Mother,' 'Birthplace of Father,' and 'What change, if any, has been made since birth in your own name or that of your father? (Explain fully).' "
But sure, keep fueling the lie that it's those dang black kids hurting the Asian kids. Whenever someone crows on about "meritocracy," it is quite interesting that they only complain when it involves Blacks or Hispanics.
 
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Redac

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Because the most qualified people would get the job then, and as shown in the link you ignored, the name of the applicant will not be factored.
This still does not necessarily imply parity in outcomes even if names were totally ignored.

I think it's funny that you are arguing that the black kids are taking away the spots of the Asian kids. The first problem is the assumption that black kids are taking something away from Asian kids, it's simply a racist divide and conquer trope that has been used for years. Asian kids aren't getting into Harvard because of mediocre white students like Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump getting into Ivy League universities as well as over 30% of the students being legacy admissions. Asian kids, more specifically the children of immigrants, are being held back because white parents demand to remove meritocracy when they are no longer dominating. It is why Ivy League universities like Harvard have always kept out the "undesirables":
But sure, keep fueling the lie that it's those dang black kids hurting the Asian kids. Whenever someone crows on about "meritocracy," it is quite interesting that they only complain when it involves Blacks or Hispanics.
Interesting. Then you learn that the single most overrepresented and privileged group at elite universities is not "whites" broadly. It's Jews. Non-Jewish whites are actually underrepresented relative to achievement in many of these schools.

Not expecting many threads on "Jewish privilege", though.
 
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Nithavela

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Of course whites face discrimination.

Everyone faces discrimination, no matter their gender, their race, their sexual preference, their favorite pet, everyone is discriminated against in matters small and big, from insignificant comments to life-changing opportunities being denied.

The only thing that's debatable is how much discrimination one faces relativ to other people, and I'm not convinced that white americans have it even close to worst.

The thing is, though, that one only really sees the discrimination that they themselves and their close friends experience, so perception of discrimination is skewed.
 
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football5680

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Because the most qualified people would get the job then, and as shown in the link you ignored, the name of the applicant will not be factored.
Sure, but two wrongs don't make a right. If somebody is more qualified, they should not be rejected because of their name or because a company is being forced by the government to meet a quota of people belonging to a certain race.

I think it's funny that you are arguing that the black kids are taking away the spots of the Asian kids. The first problem is the assumption that black kids are taking something away from Asian kids, it's simply a racist divide and conquer trope that has been used for years. Asian kids aren't getting into Harvard because of mediocre white students like Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump getting into Ivy League universities as well as over 30% of the students being legacy admissions. Asian kids, more specifically the children of immigrants, are being held back because white parents demand to remove meritocracy when they are no longer dominating. It is why Ivy League universities like Harvard have always kept out the "undesirables":
But sure, keep fueling the lie that it's those dang black kids hurting the Asian kids. Whenever someone crows on about "meritocracy," it is quite interesting that they only complain when it involves Blacks or Hispanics.
I wasn't really even trying to make the argument that blacks are taking away spots from Asians, it was an expression of my point. I could have said whites instead and all I would have to do is switch the 400 to 350. When it comes to people like Kushner and Ivanka, they shouldn't get in just like the blacks whose test scores are hundreds of points below the competition. The average white is underrepresented in the workforce based on their qualifications while other races are over-represented and it is because the government forces them to discriminate, ironically in the name of anti-discrimination.
 
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CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN

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I remember people pointing to the election of Obama as evidence that blacks aren't victims of racist discrimination so maybe 44 white presidents count for the same, X's 44?
I don't get that thinking. Black people can go to school. So no discrimination. But they also get kicked to the places with horrible education. And people seem to think of black people. As thugs. Especially on this forum.
 
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Aryeh Jay

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I thought that everyone knew that the White Evangelical Christian Heterosexual was the most discriminated group on the planet followed closely by the White Anglo Saxon Protestant.
 
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samir

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I thought that everyone knew that the White Evangelical Christian Heterosexual was the most discriminated group on the planet followed closely by the White Anglo Saxon Protestant.

I can't think of any groups that have suffered more discrimination than the two you mentioned.
 
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