Magnitude would be a more objective or quantifiable measure of the significance.
e.g. That guy is significantly taller than the average person. What does that mean? 10%? 20%? 100%? An actual height measurement would describe the magnitude of the significance.
And how does one objectively quantify "racism"?
Allow me:
"Aside from outlawing formalized bigotry, many progressives believe that things haven’t improved all that much. "
So...you do see the difference between his claim here and what you said on the previous page? There's a difference between saying progressives don't recognize racial progress at all...and saying that they don't think things have improved much.
As I explained the last time we talked about this, racism + other variables (e.g. sexism) explains it.
So...in your mind, there's a tremendous number of employers (it would have to be tremendous to explain the disparity across groups of the size in the study) who are a combination of racist towards blacks and sexist towards men? And somehow black women escape the racism part...and white men escape the sexism part...
You're correct in saying that's an explanation...it just doesn't have any evidence for it. That, and it's pretty ridiculous.
He took one quote from one author who was making a somewhat different (albeit related) point. He didn't ask that author any follow up questions for clarity, nor did he ask anybody else to express their opinions.
I honestly don't think he needed to quote mine progressives on this one. He could've, but progressives have obviously made racism a big part of their narrative for a reason...and that reason is evident in the fact that they describe so many social differences in terms of race and racism.
Even assuming that he accurately reflected the views of that one author at HuffPo (who was also an undergrad at the time, I might add), he made no attempts to establish that the HuffPo author's views were in any way representative of a larger population.
So what are you arguing here? That progressives don't actually see racism as one of the most important issues in the US today? That they don't see it as the main cause of nearly every outcome for minorities that is in some way less than the outcomes of whites?
I don't know - I'm not a sociologist. I would imagine that there are ways to measure trust of any kind. (this kind of info would be relevant not just to social scientists but also to folks in marketing).
You can invent a measure...and then rank people's trust using that measure, but it's entirely subjective.
So, if I had to guess, I would measure a population to determine their baseline levels of trust in a variety of institutions (including police); I would implement comprehensive monitoring of all police interactions (for the purpose of collecting good data); and then I would wait until an incident happened (e.g. questionable shooting) that could conceivably erode the public's trust in the police. Then I would look at the police interactions for a period of time after the incident to determine if there were any changes noticeable (e.g. more resisting, fewer calls made). If, for example, fewer 911 calls are made despite crime rates staying constant, then that would be a clue that residents might trust the cops less.
And how would you know if the incident that occurred (the police shooting) wasn't a result of that "baseline" level of trust to begin with?
What I'm saying is...if you observe that black people call the police less often, in spite of living in areas of higher crime rates...how would you know if that was because of a lack of trust in police and not some other factor? For example, fear of retaliation from criminal elements? Or a pervasive cultural bias against calling the police on criminals (aka snitching)?
You might be able to say that there was a connection between trust in the police and calls after the one incident...but you wouldn't be able to say whether or not negative interactions with police were in fact the reason blacks call them less.
No, they're not unique to black families, but they are bigger problems, statistically, among the black community than they are among other communities.
That still doesn't make them cultural factors. Poverty is an economic factor. Fatherlessness (essess) could potentially be a cultural factor, if there's a cultural reason for it....like a cultural prevalence of not pulling out and abandoning your children (not saying that's thing, just trying to come up with examples...it's hard to think of a good one) but not if it's a result of personal choices (like going to jail for armed robbery).
We're talking about attitudes and behaviors that are largely related to beliefs when we're talking about cultural factors. If young black boys are more likely to hold the belief that they can have a career playing basketball than young white boys...that leads to the kind of behaviors which explain why there's such a prevalence of black men in the NBA.
I know. I also know he doesn't really define what these cultural elements are or could be, except for a fear of "acting white".
That's because they're typically hard to identify without looking (doing the research)...and right now that kind of research would be poison for a sociologist's career.
But given that those researchers controlled for education, income, and neighborhood (all of which are huge factors in "culture"), and still found a big gap for black boys, it would seem that "acting white" might not be as big a factor as he'd like to think.
I'm sorry...what was the educational control there? That they got the same degree? Went to the same school?
I'm only asking because it isn't hard to control for the other two...but education is a little tricky.
And I'm not quite sure what you're saying about culture here...are you saying that if a black man and white man grew up in the same neighborhood (roughly) and went to the same schools...and their parents had roughly equal incomes...they'd end up with the same culture?
Yeah, sure, it sounds silly on its surface. But if there's a strong correlation between it and these negative outcome, then maybe it's indicative of something. You don't get to rule it out just because you think it's stupid.
I can actually...there may be a strong correlation between the height of grass on people's lawns and negative outcomes for blacks, but that doesn't mean one has anything to do with the other.
Implicit bias has been shown to have somewhere between little and no effect on actual behavior...and that's coming from those guys at Harvard who made a big deal out of testing for implicit bias to begin with. That, and Google doesn't know the race of the person who typed a n-bomb into the search engine.
There is a reason why our researchers used such a poor method for determining "racism" though....and it has to do with them deciding racism was going to be their conclusion before they started.
You see, we tend to find blacks with the worst outcomes in poor urban areas...but we also know that these are typically not the most racist parts of the nation. So that presents a bit of a quandary of the conclusion we want to draw involve racism against blacks. We would need to find some goofy measure for racism....instead of doing the logical thing and actually polling people on racist ideas.
I remember us having conversations, but I don't remember that study, nor can I find it online. Can you give me the link to it again?
I had it bookmarked on my old phone...give me a chance to look after this post.
You're so polite and reasonable iluvatar lol....it makes arguing with you less fun.
Yes, he says that racism exists, but he assumes that both the immigrant and the non-immigrant groups experience the same racism: "But despite being subjected to the same racist treatment by local whites". I don't know what evidence Sowell provided for this in his book, but I'm skeptical. It is not at all uncommon for immigrants to be treated one way and natives of the same color to be treated another way. In France, for example, it works in the other direction - native French blacks are accepted, while black immigrants from North Africa are discriminated against.
In fairness, this is how I and everyone I've ever seen discuss the issue has viewed racism. It doesn't matter if you're a homeless bum...or a senator...if you're black you've supposedly dealt with the same harassment from police, suspicion from shopkeepers, rejection from employers. That's been how the issue of racism has been framed since racism has been an issue.
So, for you to claim that there's some kind of special racism which affects one group of blacks but not another...looks like special pleading. It looks like you're trying hard to make racism fit the data...when it clearly doesn't.
I'm not going to say it's impossible...but I'm going to say it's unfounded. You'd need to show that some distinction between these two groups of blacks exists in the minds of the racists in their lives...and I'm pretty sure that's not happening.
Additionally, in the next paragraph, he sort of hand-waves away immigrant self-selection, which can be a huge factor.
Could you explain what you mean by this?
Yes, it would be. It just wouldn't be the only factor.
Again...you're special pleading. I'm not saying that, for example, there's no differences between how a group of Chinese are treated and a group of Hmong...but I am saying that when it comes to those racist towards asians, there's no real differences.
In the first paragraph of what I quoted. He describes how the West Indian slaves were given incentives to work for themselves, while American slaves weren't. Those American slaves were deprived of that autonomy because of racism and racially-based oppression.
So...you're saying the cultural differences that exist now are because of differences between how they experienced racism long ago....?
Why would I balk at that if it looked like a viable explanation?
What do you mean "if"? How is it any less viable than the argument you're making now about the West Indian immigrants and native born blacks?
Poverty and fatherlessness aren't aspects of culture? AFAIK, they're aspects of poverty culture.
Again, poverty is an economic factor...and one can be dirt poor and still be a father, he just won't also be a provider.
