[jpmcglone]

It’s more clear to me than ever now that the left and the right do not use the word “racist” the same way.

The left thinks of racism in terms of outcome and the right thinks of racism in terms of intent.

We could benefit from better language around these concepts, and honest dialogue about them too.

[dgzl]

> We could benefit from better language around these concepts

I believe this is a very under-rated problem today's public is facing. Not just these concepts, but many political terms are misused in today's climate, making for a conversationally ignorant population.

[hoaw]

I don't see how it is being misused. This sort of distinction is pretty basic e.g. philosophy. People simply disagree. More and more people not understanding the basics in favor of whatever they read on social media might be a problem though.

[hannasanarion]

Political terms are misused all the time. For example, "liberals" are constantly conflated with "leftists". Half of the population currently believes that "fake news" means "news that doesn't confirm my political preconceptions".

[dleslie]

I feel like a writer once discussed the power that exists in limiting and controlling the language used in public discourse... /s

[AnimalMuppet]

jpmcglone and dgzl were proposing the opposite of that. Newspeak eliminated words so that some ideas simply could not be expressed. They propose adding words so that dissimilar things can be distinguished from each other - to expand the things that can be (clearly) expressed.

[dleslie]

Yes, their concern is about the misuse and/or confusion of a limited lexicon. I understood that they propose adding words; and I suggested that there is power to be found in not doing so. It can be beneficial to some if we are unable to speak precisely and without misunderstanding. It can be beneficial to some to co-opt existing words for new uses.

[dgzl]

Doublespeak is too real.

[dleslie]

*Newspeak

[maceurt]

What I get from people on the left is that an unequal outcome is indicative of racism, however subtle that racism is. The only other explanations for an unequal outcome are biological differences between races (do not want to get into that) and races haves advantages over others from past history.

[hannasanarion]

Unequal outcome is not indicative of racism, it is racism. That's the point: racism is an outcome, not an intent. An unknowing, unfeeling beurocratic system can be racist, even if there isn't a speck of racial bias in the hearts of the practitioners and designers, simply due to historical quirks as you point out, or design mistakes.

[tomp]

So your argument is that Harvard is racist if it doesn’t discriminate against Asian applicants? So that they are not overrepresented among the student population?!

[hannasanarion]

No, my argument is that "it's just numbers! they don't have a soul!" is not a valid defense from accusations of racism, because the statistical systems can be racist in their design, and there is no "racist meter" you can apply to check. The only way to know if a system is fair or not is to check whether the results you're getting are the ones you want.

[toasterlovin]

FWIW, your usage of the the term 'racism' is not at all what most people mean when they use the term. The vast, overwhelming majority of people do not think in terms of systems. They think in terms of agency.

[113]

"vast, overwhelming majority of people"

You gonna back that up?

[tomp]

Right, and if you look at results, you see that there's too many Asian students, relative to their proportion in the general population. So how do you solve that? One way is to up the bar at the admissions, and require Asians to score better relative to other ethnicities, in order to be admitted. Do you think that makes the system fairer?

[tomp]

Other possible explanations include at least culture and background (parental wealth, connections and education), possibly others.

[maceurt]

That is what I meant by past history.

[dgzl]

There's a severe problem forming in today's outrage climate, and I'm not really sure how to even address it.

[notacoward]

I think that implies a symmetry that doesn't exist. Vanishingly few people care about effects but not intent, because intent inevitably leads to effects. This creates a continuum, not a mirror image: consider neither, consider only intent, consider both. Those on the left mostly consider both, with a few considering only intent. Those on the right mostly consider only intent, with a few (racists by any definition) considering neither.

Your formulation also misses another very important nuance. I don't think most people on the right don't consider effects. They mostly know that such effects exist, and quite often feel bad about that. However, they also believe that addressing only intent (or "procedural fairness") is sufficient to make those effects go away, and that more assertive measures create "reverse discrimination" and/or infringe upon liberty. I'm not going to argue whether they're right or wrong, but it's not about consideration. "Strategy" might be closer to the mark. Most on the right (not counting the true racists) do want to end racism. They just reject the left/center prescription for doing so.

[matt9189]

Broad statements about the left and right are divisive, ignoring the spectrum of beliefs, and this is not a good summary. Just as two examples, housing and education policies are frequently designed with the intent of segregation, though it is impossible to prove intent in most cases. And so, the actual outcomes need to be used in courts to demonstrate racist intent. No one will ever openly admit that they don't want the, for example (as this is common in these cases), poor, mostly black children in their school. But they will also actively ignore all of the research that shows a benefit to their own children with increased diversity. And so intent can be assumed. People will hurt their own families to defend their racist beliefs. Maybe we could use better language, but what is more important is using the language we have more clearly.

[gjs278]

when I went to school a poor black kid stole a portion of my lunch every single day in 2nd grade (stupid policy that you had to leave your lunch on an unattended desk, he knew which bag was mine and took the granola bar.) my parents moved me to a catholic school which had basically no black kids. the bullying was still there but nobody ever stole from me or really anyone else. no fights basically ever.

we move, I go back to a more diverse school. fights, my graphing calculator stolen... what’s the possible benefit of having poor people in your school? until social programs make it so my lunch doesn’t need to be stolen to feed a kid, I fail to see how the non poor students are better off.

[matt9189]

I am going to post this article from last year which covers a lot of the topics of re-segregation of schools through unique methods.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/magazine/the-resegregatio...

To touch on your point specifically, I am sorry you had such a poor experience. You are right when you say that social programs need to exist so that children are not hungry at school. Education is supposed to be the great equalizer and yet America has provided education almost only for the rich and has consistently attacked the poor. But I also feel bad for the kid who had to steal from you every day just so that he wasn't hungry at school. Education and wealth are a combined, intractable problem in a capitalist country, but there are hundreds of places making the problem worse.

[seizethecheese]

This problem exists accross disciplines. I heard someone defend the DSM manual as simply a way to standardize how psychiatrists think and talk about mental health issues. Otherwise, the field would be chaos.

Perhaps we need a DSM for society level malfunctions, with strict definitions?

[matt4077]

That’s not true.

It’s just that racist intend is almost always impossible to prove. Outcome therefore becomes a needed proxy, but only after excluding other factors, by, for example, normalizing for age and income.

Two landmark studies in this regard come to mind are (a) how the success rate at an orchestra doubled among women after auditions were changed to a “blind” format not allowing the decision-makers to see the applicants’ gender, and (b) how changing applicants’ names (and nothing else) could impact their chances to be invited to interviews.

[jpmcglone]

You use the word racist to mean two different things.

The basketball team being all black isn't racism and it isn't due to racism.

If I saw a basketball team (in the NBA) of all white people, I would suspect racism, but it's important to point out that the outcome (an all white NBA team) is NOT racist in itself. Even if it is likely due to racism.

So, I think we should stop calling the outcomes 'racist' and say what we mean: "I suspect this outcome is due to racism"

I think that will make the whole conversation a lot easier to have.

I don't think its advantageous to certain political entities, however, if we have this conversation. There is one party in particular that I think relies on people to believe that their problems are outside of their control, so that maybe they'll outsource the problem solving to the government.

Maybe I have it pinned all wrong, but I will never know if we can't talk about racism and outcomes of what may or may not be racism as two separate things.

[matt4077]

I fail to see a distinction b/w “racist” and “due to racism”. In any case, I feel large parts of society, including major media outlets, already tend towards caution, c. f. the reluctance in calling the President’s “both sides” comment “racist”, instead opting for “racially charged” or “insensitive” or similar.

> There is one party in particular that I think relies on people to believe that their problems are outside of their control, so that maybe they'll outsource the problem solving to the government.

That’s a rather unfair characterization of the Democratic Party. But I find it even more interesting to know why you feel the need to superficially obfuscate who you are talking about?

I’ve also provided two examples above that clearly prove that racism and sexism do exist. If gender-blind hiring doubles the chances of female classical musicians, aren’t they right in pointing the finger at that result and complaining about white men playing life on easy?

But apart from such narrow situations, most left-wing advocacy is decidedly altruistic: college students supporting a raising of the minimum wage aren’t doing so for their own benefit. Unless, that is, they are terribly pessimistic about their personal future. Neither are voters and politicians advocating for DREAMERs, who by definition are neither. Nor are Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Bloomberg, LIN-Manuel Miranda, or any number of billionaires or otherwise successful people advocating on behalf of the less fortunate.

[jpmcglone]

I obfuscated it because I knew you would pick the right party without me elaborating.

I don't think the left-wing advocacy is altruistic. If it was altruistic, it would promote altruism. It, instead, promotes redistribution of wealth.

Do you think redistribution of wealth is altruistic? How so?

[sgustard]

Given that AI has no "intent" for the foreseeable future, we can only judge AI in terms of outcomes.

Is a robot arm that kills anyone who stands near it a murderer?

[cmiles74]

Thinking of racism in terms of the intent is a way to take the issue less seriously, to force the issue into the realm of opinions and beliefs. If the intent of the perpetrator is the deciding factor, then it is always arguable that perpetrator's intent was not specifically racist; perhaps it was driven by a misunderstanding, etc. Since it was informed by misunderstanding, it isn't racist. And so on.

It's an old tactic, I don't think changing the terms will make much difference.

[blfr]

But racism is from the realm of opinions and beliefs.

[cmiles74]

A lot of people rationalize racist or discriminatory beliefs in such a way that they seem reasonable. Yet, when you judge their behavior as a whole, it tells a different story. The banker who consistently gives loans to people from [group x] but not from [group y] who have similar financial features. When we talk to the hypothetical banker, they may claim that "numbers don't tell the whole story", etc.

[jstanley]

Racism is discrimination based on race, everything else is not racism.

[danso]

How does that address the parent commenter’s assertion? Discrimination, whether intended or not, has the same outcome for the discrimated party.

[50656E6973]

Statistical differences in outcome cannot be automatically attributed to discrimination, though they frequently are

[hannasanarion]

Yes they can, because that's what "discrimination" means: differences in outcome due to uncontrollable irrelevant factors like race. Discrimination is an effect, not an intent. Racist intent is called "prejudice". Discrimination can be caused by prejudice, or it can be caused by something else, like a poorly considered algorithm.

[50656E6973]

No, that's pseudo-social-science because it falsely assumes outcomes are solely determined by external variables and is completely ignorant of internal variables, such as differing cultural values.

Some cultures value family life over money, others value money over family life, for example.

[StellarTabi]

It is racist if the data is built on 100s of years of racism and the ML is trained on a dataset poisoned by racism.

[cmiles74]

I think it's important to note that there is no algorithm that can have an "intent". If we are to agree that racism is a feature of intent, then there will never be a racist algorithm. Yet the outcome will still be discriminatory.

[malvosenior]

> If the intent of the perpetrator is the deciding factor, then it is always arguable that perpetrator's intent was not specifically racist; perhaps it was driven by a misunderstanding, etc. Since it was informed by misunderstanding, it isn't racist.

Are you saying that this is racism. Most people would define what you outlined as not rascist.

[cmiles74]

I'm saying that racism cannot be solely an issue of someone's intent, it needs to be evaluated by the outcome. An outcome is a fact that we can all observe. An intent is internal to a person, we can never get a clear view of a person's intent; at best we can make deductions as to a person's intent based on their behavior.

Claiming that racism can be evaluated only by the intent is simply moving the goal posts into an area where we can't clearly observe. It's a tactic.

In terms of this specific issue, algorithms by their very nature lack intent. Thus this particular argument has no validity; we can only judge the algorithm by it's results: the outcome.

[malvosenior]

> Claiming that racism can be evaluated only by the intent is simply moving the goal posts into an area where we can't clearly observe. It's a tactic.

Claiming racism is anything but intent is changing the definition of racism. Which is:

"prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."

If you start changing the definition of words to suit a political goal, only the people who already agree with you will listen.

[AnimalMuppet]

I agree, but cmiles74 has a bit of a point, too. Everyone short of the KKK (and maybe even them) will claim that their intent is pure. Lacking a foolproof way to judge others' hearts, all we have to go on is actions and their effects.

As I said, I agree with you. But our position can lead to hiding some genuine racism under the "unintentional" disguise. It also leaves unintentional systematic biases unaddressed. While those may not exist as often as the left claims, they do at least sometimes exist, and do need to be addressed.

[cmiles74]

I don't disagree. But I don't think we can judge the intent of people who are discriminating in a racist way, aside from simply asking them what the think their intent might have been. At that point it's very likely we'll be dealing with a rationalization or a half-truth because not only is there a stigma attached to racist behavior but in many cases it is illegal as well and there are other punishments to contend with.

If we need to accurately gauge their intent, that's not really possible. In the case of an algorithm we've divorced the process from the source of intent (the author of the algorithm), there is no intent to evaluate.

[toasterlovin]

The left also thinks of racism in terms of intent. But they think that outcome implies intent. That is the real difference, IMO.

[thosakwe]

Intent and impact are not always the same.

[gammateam]

and academics think of it as power imbalance of any majority power, separate from the census majority and minorities

and colloquially nobody thinks of it the same way, with themselves always exempt from being racist until convinced that their 'normal behavior' is considered racist and this does not change their view of their normal behavior 'so be it'

this is a challenge. at this point the word itself is polluted.