"On White Privilege"

[nightflight]

But this is why we have people arguing for an education system which offers opportunity to all; that's one of the key agenda items in a social justice platform.

In the short term, sure, it's hard for disadvantaged groups to compete on merit. So put the educational supports in place, put the employment programmes in place, and so forth, so that merit can actually be recognised and cultivated.

So you're not in favor of lowering standards for women and minorities?

 

[Paidiske]

So you're not in favor of lowering standards for women and minorities?

No. Not at all; that serves nobody.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Good for you. I think that's fair. The 2 creeps I work for make over 150,000 a year each, and pay me less per hour than when they had my job. They haven't given us raises in ten years and took away the half a health benefit they had, in 2008 " because of the economy" and they have the gall to wonder out loud why our cars are junk. They believe they are Christians. I wonder.

There's a position above supervisor at my job that's roughly 20k more than I make a year....where they spend most of their days surfing the internet and talking gossip about agents and cases. I think they do maybe 2-3 hours of real work every day.

My job involves chasing known criminals with guns lol. Not possible criminals who might be armed...people who are definitely criminals and definitely armed.

You can probably imagine that after only a few years, someone in my position no longer feels like they have to justify anything to anyone...ever. Especially not the higher ups I'm required to justify my actions to.

I could go on...but I won't.

 

[SummerMadness]

Found it!

https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/2170-new-study-by-professor-david-s-abrams-confirms#.VyVs8pjn_qA

From that article...

"While the technique eliminates the problem of “unobserved variables” and demonstrates the salience of race, it has limits of its own. The results don’t show in which direction racial preferences tilt, whether in favor of blacks or whites."

It's really a good article and study...because it shows the complexity of showing "racial bias" in something like sentencing. It's not as simple as having a statistic that shows blacks are incarcerated or stopped more frequently than whites.

Consequently, while looking for this article, I found out some other facts. Did you realize that the discrepancy between whites and blacks in being charged with violent crimes (roughly 4x more for blacks, if I remember correctly) is a result of blacks committing violent crimes 4 times more often than whites? That's a research point that's almost universally agreed upon. Wanna hear another one? They haven't found any statistical correlation between the shootings of black men by police and the race of the cop. Black cops are just as likely to shoot black men as white cops are!

Wonderful, so they see the racial discrimination, but are not able to remove all uncertainty with their simulations. Nonetheless, they show that blacks are more likely to get harsher sentences and harsher judges are harsher toward African American defendants (but African American judges were less harsh).

If I had to guess, the guy who made the color wanted to make a color that looked like his flesh-tone. When he succeeded, he called it flesh tone...without realizing of course that his choice would become a symbol of oppression years later.

I guess if your arguing that companies like Crayola were run by one person?

If it's not a problem...why use it as an example? Generally when I use examples of a problem...I use problems. For this article, the author decided to choose a non-problem as an example of a problem (stupidly) and got called on it. I have no idea why you're continuing to defend it as an "example".

When you want the whole world to acknowledge a problem....(or at least all whites in the U.S. to acknowledge it)....it would make sense to pick an example less trivial and well....childish.

Someone asks for example of privilege and it was given. It does not matter if changes were made after people called attention to the problem, it is still a valid example. The article points out small things, and then describes larger issues, they were not saying that bandages are huge problem that prevent equality, but it reflects a disparity.

Additionally, someone posted a link to a product that matches skin tone to the bandage. That product, Trucolor Bandages, was released after this article.

Any initiatives that you're interested in pushing forward to end white privilege? Judging by your analogy here, that's the end goal isn't it?

Like increased diversity in television programming? Including more authors of color in literature classes while not relegating ethnic authors to specific months? Not creating separate aisles for black products, just including them with the other similar products? Including more training for someone like security, teaching them to look at behavioral measures instead of looking at skin color. There are numerous ways of tackling the problem, but it is more than a simple behavioral adjustment, part of it has to do with acknowledging the problem.

You'll probably find this shocking, but "Americanizing" names is something that just about every white ethnic group was expected to do...so they could find employment, avoid discrimination, fit in, etc.

I understand wanting to stand out, hang onto traditions, and so on...but there is a pattern amongst people who decide to do that. They tend to get left behind....it's human nature.

Shocking, the names chosen by African American kids are... American. Perhaps they're not trying to stand out, they're just choosing a name. They are American, how can you tell people they "Americanize" their names if they're already American? Just because immigrants changed their names as a result of discrimination does not mean the practice is acceptable.

And yet again, in this thread, people acknowledge and even give detailed examples of this privilege, but they just don't want to call it that.

 

[nightflight]

No. Not at all; that serves nobody.

Its what's done in America, often. And people who speak out against it are called "racists".

 

[Ana the Ist]

Job Skill and Black Male Wage Discrimination

If anyone would like a copy of the article, please PM me.

Honestly, I would just prefer examples of what jobs that blacks and whites have in which blacks are paid less.

 

[SummerMadness]

You could ask Michael Brown about that...if he were really looking forward to going to school like his parents claimed he was.

What does Michael Brown have to do with police doing unlawful and unjustified stops of African Americans?

 

[nightflight]

WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."

http://www.theonion.com/article/black-man-given-nations-worst-job-6439

 

[SummerMadness]

Honestly, I would just prefer examples of what jobs that blacks and whites have in which blacks are paid less.

Again, I can send you the paper if you'd like.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Wonderful, so they see the racial discrimination, but are not able to remove all uncertainty with their simulations. Nonetheless, they show that blacks are more likely to get harsher sentences and harsher judges are harsher toward African American defendants (but African American judges were less harsh).

Where did you get that idea? It doesn't say that anywhere in the article. Did you read the right one? Once again...

"While the technique eliminates the problem of “unobserved variables” and demonstrates the salience of race, it has limits of its own. The results don’t show in which direction racial preferences tilt, whether in favor of blacks or whites."

You seem like a reasonable person Summer, so I doubt you mischaracterized my article on purpose...but you clearly misunderstood it. I'll gladly address the rest of your post once we clear this up.

The article plainly states that they couldn't show that being black meant you received a harsher sentence....only that race was a factor sometimes.

 

[Ana the Ist]

What does Michael Brown have to do with police doing unlawful and unjustified stops of African Americans?

That was largely the claim given by black "witnesses" to the incident...that it was unlawful or unjustified. That was the narrative held by the media as well...until the facts came out.

That wasn't the point I was making though...the point had to do with the values embraced by young black men these days. He was a boy with the potential to do something good with his life...instead he decided to be a "thug" and engage in a series of bad choices and criminal behavior which ended in his death.

That brings us back to the point of personal responsibility. His situation can't be blamed on white privilege.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Again, I can send you the paper if you'd like.

Does it include examples of jobs? And we're looking at hourly wages...not yearly earnings or some other figure that can be thrown off by extraneous factors?

 

[SummerMadness]

Where did you get that idea? It doesn't say that anywhere in the article. Did you read the right one? Once again...

"While the technique eliminates the problem of “unobserved variables” and demonstrates the salience of race, it has limits of its own. The results don’t show in which direction racial preferences tilt, whether in favor of blacks or whites."

You seem like a reasonable person Summer, so I doubt you mischaracterized my article on purpose...but you clearly misunderstood it. I'll gladly address the rest of your post once we clear this up.

The article plainly states that they couldn't show that being black meant you received a harsher sentence....only that race was a factor sometimes.

I read the paper.

Although judges differ in the degree to which race influences their sentencing, we do not find evidence that observable characteristics such as judges' gender or age group significantly predict this differential treatment by race. Similarly, no systematic pattern emerges with respect to work history (such as whether the judge ever worked as a public defender). However, there is somewhat stronger evidence that the racial gap in sentencing is smaller among African American judges. Further, judges who are harsher overall (as measured by incarceration rate) are more likely to sentence African Americans than whites to jail.

We produce these unbiased data with a Monte Carlo simulation by sampling from the actual data but mechanically breaking the judgedefendant race link. We find that there is substantial excess heterogeneity in the empirical distribution of the racial gap in the incarceration rate. The quantitative impact of this gap on sentencing disparity is of considerable magnitude. If a defendant assigned to a 10th-percentile judge was instead sentenced by a 90th-percentile judge, the racial gap in the incarceration rate would rise by a full 18 percentage points.

It is also useful to consider potential legal policy implications in light of these findings. One goal of changes in policy could be to try to reduce or eliminate the excess interjudge heterogeneity in the racial gap. This analysis can inform how big an impact that sort of policy change would make. If the excess interjudge racial gap in incarceration were eliminated, the IQR of the racial gap in incarceration would drop from .11 to .07 (Table 9). This decrease represents a 36 percent reduction in the variability of the African American–white racial gap in incarceration due just to judicial assignment. The magnitude of this potential effect would decrease one element of the randomness in the judicial process and surely would increase confidence in the fairness of the court system.

Despite this interpretational limitation, our findings nevertheless raise important legal questions. Heterogeneity across judges in sentencing by race suggests that courtroom outcomes may not be race blind. This potential lack of partiality may be one source of the substantial overrepresentation of African Americans in the prison population. Understanding the sources of variation in the criminal justice system is an important first step toward reducing disparities of various kinds.

 

[Rick Otto]

That was largely the claim given by black "witnesses" to the incident...that it was unlawful or unjustified. That was the narrative held by the media as well...until the facts came out.

That wasn't the point I was making though...the point had to do with the values embraced by young black men these days. He was a boy with the potential to do something good with his life...instead he decided to be a "thug" and engage in a series of bad choices and criminal behavior which ended in his death.

That brings us back to the point of personal responsibility. His situation can't be blamed on white privilege.

I don't think white privilege has been exonerated any more than personal responsibility has been established. I see them co-existing.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I read the paper.

You're reading into it something that isn't there....

Your first quote shows that race affects judges' decisions. It doesn't say it negatively impacts blacks or whites or positively impacts them. It just says they show race is a factor.

Without reading the study itself, the second quote just shows that they think race will be less of a factor in judicial decisions if they have black judges judge black men and whites judges judge white men. Again, it's not saying blacks are sentenced more harshly than whites.

The third quote seems to just back up the second...when whites judge whites and blacks judge blacks...sentences are lighter.

What part of what you quoted here shows this....

"Nonetheless, they show that blacks are more likely to get harsher sentences and harsher judges are harsher toward African American defendants"

???

 

[SummerMadness]

You're reading into it something that isn't there....

Your first quote shows that race affects judges' decisions. It doesn't say it negatively impacts blacks or whites or positively impacts them. It just says they show race is a factor.

Without reading the study itself, the second quote just shows that they think race will be less of a factor in judicial decisions if they have black judges judge black men and whites judges judge white men. Again, it's not saying blacks are sentenced more harshly than whites.

The third quote seems to just back up the second...when whites judge whites and blacks judge blacks...sentences are lighter.

What part of what you quoted here shows this....

"Nonetheless, they show that blacks are more likely to get harsher sentences and harsher judges are harsher toward African American defendants"

???

Read the study then, the link is there.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I don't think white privilege has been exonerated any more than personal responsibility has been established. I see them co-existing.

That's fair.

Why do you think that the conversation is always about white privilege and not personal responsibility? If we just used C.F. as an example....I can show you thread after thread about white privilege the horrors that whites are responsible for.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Read the study then, the link is there.

I did...I didn't see that in the study at all. They quite clearly summarized their findings...and I quoted it for you twice now.

I think you may be confusing the notion that blacks do get harsher sentences with the notion that they're more likely to get harsher sentences.

This is besides the point though...I provided the study that i said I would. It shows, like I said, that race is a factor...but not who that factor favors. The article also does a great job explaining why you can't show discrimination....because there are too many factors to control for. You can't control for things like courtroom behavior or attorney skill.

You said that studies do control for enough things to show discrimination.

Do you ever find your study?

 

[Paidiske]

That's fair.

Why do you think that the conversation is always about white privilege and not personal responsibility?

I think because social realities - like white privilege - can be addressed on a communal level. Personal responsibility not so much; that needs to be addressed one-on-one.

I'm big on personal responsibility, but I'm hardly going to use a forum like this to address someone else's level of taking personal responsibility; that's much better done over a coffee in person, with some ability to also express care and support and encouragement for that particular person, don't you think?

 

[Rick Otto]

That's fair.

Why do you think that the conversation is always about white privilege and not personal responsibility? If we just used C.F. as an example....I can show you thread after thread about white privilege the horrors that whites are responsible for.

I hear ya, bro.
Personal responsibility cuts both ways, or at least we should hope so...
But who got fired for 9/11? Who went to jail for the bank failures?
I think the crimes of our race have at least kept pace with, if not surpassed our contributions.
White privilege is an easier target.
Hearing the blowback is the price of having it, but not having enough of it to be out of earshot, I guess.
I have a gay black friend who let's me affectionately call him "n---er Joe". I guess I earned it by being a true friend. That's his story, anyway. I would call that black privilege. I don't have the same relationship with the sax player in my band. He is straight hetero, and the son of a master sergeant. We are true friends, but a whole different sensibility.
That's probably the bottom line in all of this... sensibility.
I can take the heat.