Perspectives #3

[kroxquo]

3. Here's one very accomplished woman's view on 'Systematic Racism'.
https://www.prageru.com/video/what-i-ca ... out-racism

The Horatio Alger myth has always been present in America. It is gratifying and uplifting to see it work in isolated cases such as Dr. Swain's. However for the vast majority of immigrants, African-Americans, and other members of the underclass it is just that - a myth. Dr. Swain is the exception, not the rule.

Nitpick -
Why can we not judge slave holders by modern standards when the earlier video judged the Democratic Party the same way?

[kroxquo]

4. Does racism still exist in our country? Anybody with any sense would say yes. But how much of a problem is it, really? (You might want to be careful with this one. The messenger has been called 'The black face of white supremacy' (among other things) by the major media. Probably because he ran for Governor of California and he had a chance of winning. So they had to smear him any way they could.)
https://www.prageru.com/video/is-america-racist

No sane person would say that racism does not exist in America anymore and I am glad that Mr. Elder acknowledges that. I'll admit that of the ones you've shared so far, this is the one that has intrigued me the most. Mr. Elder has what sound like legitimate studies to back up his points. The question I would raise is that of environment and opportunity. Why are Blacks more likely to commit crime? If cause can be rooted out, then the problem can be addressed. The statement about racism being part of America's DNA goes toward addressing that cause and not just the symptoms.

[kroxquo]

5. In the previous Sports thread, I mentioned the outright advertising and promotion of the BLM organization as one of the reasons I will not 'click' on any of the major sporting leagues any more. This guy has the same concerns and questions I do.
https://www.prageru.com/video/a-fathers ... ves-matter

This video uses the same tactic that Tucker Carlson has perfected - phrasing and posing loaded questions so that the answer seems to be self-evident without actually answering any of them. This does not in any way give any insight into what BLM is all about, only asking the questions that he wants answered.

[kroxquo]

6. I also stated that 'wokeness' has been taken too far and now is more harmful than beneficial. This guy expresses why he thinks so too.
https://www.prageru.com/video/how-to-en ... -privilege

My response to this is this - If you could exchange places with a person of color of the same socio-economic status that you have now, would you? I think that if most Whites were honest with themselves, they would say no. No white person that I know of has ever had to have "The Talk" with their teenage sons. Nearly every Black family I know has.

Nitpicks:
Pick and choose the last and most trivial of Peggy McIntosh's list. How about:
2. If I should need t o move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I want to live.
3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represent
6. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is
14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
16. 19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race
22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of race.

White Privilege is not about making someone feel bad or good. It is about acknowledging the disparity of opportunity in this country and trying to address it.


Having watched all of your recommended videos. I will agree with Bob and the others that there is very little here I haven't heard before; it is just presented in a more palatable manner. There were some things that raised my eyebrows, however. I hope you approached the videos I shared with an equally open mind.

[silverscreenselect]

White Privilege is not about making someone feel bad or good. It is about acknowledging the disparity of opportunity in this country and trying to address it.

What really bothers me is the refusal of so many right wingers to ignore consistent, repeated statistics in favor of isolated anecdotes. Statistics consistently show that blacks are significantly more likely to be redlined, significantly more likely to get stopped by police for minor traffic infractions, and other categories. This study even shows that people with ethnic-sounding names were significantly less likely to get an interview request based on an identical resume.

Economists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago this week unveiled a vast discrimination audit of some of the largest U.S. companies. Starting in late 2019, they sent 83,000 fake job applications for entry-level positions at 108 companies — most of them in the top 100 of the Fortune 500 list, and some of their subsidiaries.

In the study, applicants’ characteristics — like age, sexual orientation, or work and school experience — varied at random. Names, however, were chosen purposefully to ensure applications came in pairs: one with a more distinctive white name — Jake or Molly, say — and the other with a similar background but a more distinctive Black name, like DeShawn or Imani. What the researchers found would probably not surprise [an earlier researcher]: On average, applications from candidates with a “Black name” get fewer callbacks than similar applications bearing a “white name.”

This aligns with a paper published by two economists from the University of Chicago [almost 20 years ago]: Respondents to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago had much better luck if their name was Emily or Greg than if it was Lakisha or Jamal. This experimental approach with paired applications, some economists argue, offers a closer representation of racial discrimination in the work force than studies that seek to relate employment and wage gaps to other characteristics — such as educational attainment and skill — and treat discrimination as a residual, or what’s left after other differences are accounted for.

The Berkeley and Chicago researchers found that discrimination isn’t uniform across the corporate landscape. Some companies discriminate little, responding similarly to applications by Molly and Latifa. Others show a measurable bias. All told, for every 1,000 applications received, the researchers found, white candidates got about 250 responses, compared with about 230 for Black candidates. But among one-fifth of companies, the average gap grew to 50 callbacks. Even allowing that some patterns of discrimination could be random, rather than the result of racism, they concluded that 23 companies from their selection were “very likely to be engaged in systemic discrimination against Black applicants.”

There are 13 companies in automotive retailing and services in the Fortune 500 list. Five are among the 10 most discriminatory companies on the researchers’ list. Of the companies very likely to discriminate based on race, according to the findings, eight are federal contractors, which are bound by particularly stringent anti-discrimination rules and could lose their government contracts as a consequence. “Discriminatory behavior is clustered in particular firms,” the researchers wrote. “The identity of many of these firms can be deduced with high confidence.” For starters, discriminating companies tend to be less profitable, a finding consistent with the proposition by Gary Becker, who first studied discrimination in the workplace in the 1950s, that it is costly for firms to discriminate against productive workers.

The study found no strong link between discrimination and geography: Applications for jobs in the South fared no worse than anywhere else. Retailers and restaurants and bars discriminate more than average. And employers with more centralized personnel operations handling job applications tend to discriminate less, suggesting that uniform rules and procedures across a company can help reduce racial biases.

One study reported that when employers in New York and New Jersey were barred from asking about job candidates’ criminal records, callbacks to Black candidates dropped significantly, relative to white job seekers, suggesting employers assumed Black candidates were more likely to have a record. What makes the new research valuable is that it shows regulators, courts and labor lawyers how large-scale auditing of hiring practices offers a method to monitor and police bias. “Our findings demonstrate that it is possible to identify individual firms responsible for a substantial share of racial discrimination while maintaining a tight limit on the expected number of false positives encountered,” the researchers wrote. Individual companies might even use the findings to reform their hiring practices.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/29/busi ... ation.html

The italicized portion is especially significant. Right wingers rail about diversity training and practice on the theory that this is some form of political correctness. But as studies have shown, it's good business sense.

[kroxquo]

White Privilege is not about making someone feel bad or good. It is about acknowledging the disparity of opportunity in this country and trying to address it.

What really bothers me is the refusal of so many right wingers to ignore consistent, repeated statistics in favor of isolated anecdotes. Statistics consistently show that blacks are significantly more likely to be redlined, significantly more likely to get stopped by police for minor traffic infractions, and other categories. This study even shows that people with ethnic-sounding names were significantly less likely to get an interview request based on an identical resume.

My daughter Janneke has discovered that she gets far fewer calls than other people applying for the same job and is often met by people who are surprised she is white when she interviews.

[Bob78164]

4. Does racism still exist in our country? Anybody with any sense would say yes. But how much of a problem is it, really? (You might want to be careful with this one. The messenger has been called 'The black face of white supremacy' (among other things) by the major media. Probably because he ran for Governor of California and he had a chance of winning. So they had to smear him any way they could.)
https://www.prageru.com/video/is-america-racist

No sane person would say that racism does not exist in America anymore and I am glad that Mr. Elder acknowledges that. I'll admit that of the ones you've shared so far, this is the one that has intrigued me the most. Mr. Elder has what sound like legitimate studies to back up his points. The question I would raise is that of environment and opportunity. Why are Blacks more likely to commit crime? If cause can be rooted out, then the problem can be addressed. The statement about racism being part of America's DNA goes toward addressing that cause and not just the symptoms.

I found fascinating the study (performed during New York City's stop-and-frisk era and brought to my attention a year or two ago by Nate Silver's site) that found a much higher percentage of searches of people of color turned up nothing than was the case for searches of white people. That strongly implies that people of color are much more likely to be stopped unjustly. --Bob