[danbruc]

The point that you (appear) to have made, and I am reacting to, is that ignoring the problem is the best way to address it, and I think that is demonstrably ineffective.

I think you are misunderstanding the point treehau5 wanted to make. I think he wants to say the same thing as I [1], we should take action to boost disadvantaged groups in order to close existing gaps as quickly as possible but that should be done in away that avoids focusing on the distinction one wants to go away. It is not about ignoring an existing issue, it is about not additionally emphasizing it.

What good is it, if you want to get rid of racial bias, to point out the race in a context where it does not matter at all? Maybe you could argue that there are people believing that black people made no significant contributions to our world and you are trying to correct that but that does not seem a very strong argument to me.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13707121

[libertymcateer]

The (now deleted) comment said:

> I understand the sentiment, but I also understand that if you truly want to get rid of racial bias, gender bias, whatever else bias completely, then not paying it mention in any sphere is how you get there.

I do not see how that is open to interpretation and it appears to run entirely contrary to your point.

[danbruc]

If you interpret »not paying it mention in any sphere« broadly enough as not talking about it and not doing anything against it, then yes, it would mean ignoring the issue.

My interpretation as a non-native English speaker focused on »mention« and so I did not interpret it as excluding any actions. But with you pointing this out and after having a second look I can see how »in any sphere« could make the point stronger than what I thought.

I the end I am neither in the position to judge what the correct interpretation of the phrase is, nor what statement treehau5 actually intended to make. I of course stand by my point, whether it is the same one treehau5 wanted to make or not.

[libertymcateer]

I argue about words for a living, so I am always happy to hear competing interpretations.

However, here it is pretty clear to me, and likely why he deleted his post, that he meant "we should just ignore it." Which I don't think is a particularly defensible position.

[tomp]

That is correct.

There are black people who are very privileged (e.g. Obama) and white people who are very unprivileged (e.g. the homeless). So focusing on race will inevitable lead to bosting outcomes of some privileged people and ignoring other non-privileged people.

A better way to solve this problem would be to focus on people from disadvantaged backgrounds (== poor), regardless of race.

[libertymcateer]

No, it is not correct. The problem, as above, is not just the socioeconomic background of an individual - it is about whether the power structures in society are, themselves, full of people who bear animus toward unimportant birth-characteristics of certain people - not merit characteristics, not moral characteristics, not regarding intelligence or achievement, but simply being born to parents of a certain ethnic or religious heritage.

The playing field is not level. I truly do not know why this point is so hard to communicate.

You can be the wealthiest, smartest black man alive - you are never going to be a grand dragon in the KKK. That should be quite obvious.

Now back down from that hyperbolic example - what about being a black man in the Mormon Clergy? That was impossible until very recently.

Now what about being a black man as a corporate CEO? Definitely doable. There have been 14 such individuals in the history of the Fortune 500: http://fortune.com/2017/01/16/black-women-fortune-500/ # But it may be less doable depending on the organization. Don't you see there is a continuum here? That the qualifications of the individual, including their privilege, are irrelevant when the ladder that individual is trying to climb has a "no [characteristic] need apply" sign at the third or fourth rung? Why is this so hard to understand?

# Note that this is a pretty low number.