[bitwize]

The thing about racism is, a system can be racist without being explicitly so. Even without Jim Crow laws and segregation, even assuming everyone is perfectly colorblind, the historical context where there were slavery and Jim Crow laws for hundreds of years means that whites wield considerably greater social capital than blacks, and that means they have a significant social advantage.

The amelioration for this is equity, or as you call it "positive discrimination". That means -- yes, holding whites back so that blacks have an opportunity to step forward. Blacks need greater advantages in order to achieve social parity with whites. It is also exceedingly shameful that one of the easiest ways to repair the damage caused to blacks' pool of social capital -- slave reparations -- was never considered by the U.S. government.

[Zababa]

Thank you for the clear and honest answer, that's what I was looking for.

> Even without Jim Crow laws and segregation, even assuming everyone is perfectly colorblind, the historical context where there were slavery and Jim Crow laws for hundreds of years means that whites wield considerably greater social capital than blacks, and that means they have a significant social advantage.

How do you reconcile this view with the fact that asians were also discriminated against, but now do better than whites? The way you described it, there is a perverse incentive for people at the bottom to stay at the bottom. Is that considered a problem? That perverse incentive might trap them even more at the bottom, is that being considered? Are those views, in a way, close to universal income? As in, the idea is that you raise the absolute bottom at which you can fall in society? Some kind of glass floor, as opposed to the glass ceiling?

Again, no judgement on those views or any others. I'm thankful for your straightforwardness.

[bitwize]

> How do you reconcile this view with the fact that asians were also discriminated against, but now do better than whites?

There are places where blacks do better than whites. In the Bronx, New York, the standard of living went up because of an influx of Afro-Caribbean immigrants who made more than the local white population. But minorities with an earned advantage are outside consideration of equity policy, which is focused on providing unearned advantage for certain minority groups to compensate for centuries of unearned advantage held by whites.

> The way you described it, there is a perverse incentive for people at the bottom to stay at the bottom. Is that considered a problem?

No. Iron rule of 2020s American politics: Statements that may give power to "the enemy" if they were true are always to be considered false, and even taboo to talk about. To give an example, consider the following statement: There exist cisgender biological men who are very willing to put on a dress and pose as transgender women, for the purpose of creeping on women in ladies' restrooms. Without even an accusative reference to a particular purported transgender woman, this statement MUST be considered false, and even transphobic hate speech, because if true it would make policymakers hesitate to pass laws mandating that transgender people be permitted to use the facilities that match their stated gender identity.

Here's another one: The risk of serious side effects from getting the COVID vaccine is far less than the risk of serious complications from catching COVID. Watch the right squirm at that one, and even shout you down for proposing it, because to them accepting it means implicitly legitimizing Biden's vaccine mandates.

"Perverse incentives for people to stay at the bottom" sounds an awful lot like Reagan's "welfare queens" rhetoric from the 1980s, which was widely considered racist and even a "dogwhistle" (a coded statement designed to appeal to far-right racist without raising alarm among decent people), so discussing such perverse incentives is pretty much off the table in American policy discussion.

[Zababa]

Thanks again for all the explanation and the civil conversation. I guess the only things that stays a mystery for me is why the focus on race, especially when you said that they focus on poor people inside that group?

[chucksmash]

Race was the deciding factor in doling out these injustices historically.

Skin color is probably not how we would choose to classify people if we were starting from scratch today, but if poor white people always got to use the front door and well-to-do black people had to use the side door, to say "we're fighting for the right of everybody both rich and poor to be allowed to walk in through the front door" is a true statement that misses the problem.

[legolas2412]

I've always felt that America always looks everything from the lens of race. Class problems specially are casted as a race problem. I personally think this is the leftover of 1960-70s, when class differences were a taboo because of the red scare, and race differences were being fought against for civil rights. The end result is that even in legitimat class differences like in access to education, it is only seen through the lens of race.

[ziml77]

I'm not sure that holding people back in an attempt to boost up others will amount to anything good. If you hold white people back to give black people a chances, the white people are going to hate black people that much more. It's certain to lead to worse issues with racism.

[Zababa]

I'm not sure that's a given. For example, does paying taxes that depend on how much you earn leads to more hate and more issues?

[legolas2412]

Different treatment based on something you can't control like your race is discrimination. And very few people like discrimination, specially against themselves