[mhuffman]

>despite the vast amount of empirical data

Well, your examples seem pretty cherry-picked and not necessarily generally empirical (ie. lots of embedded subjectivity).

Now your first link is more interesting and is usually the one that everyone pulls out as "absolute proof" that discrimination is live and well in modern hiring against Black people.

I wonder, though, how much of this is in the bias of the experimenters when they selected "Black sounding names" and how much is just unfamiliarity with an "unusual" (and by this I mean rare) name and how much is the knee-jerk reaction to a name (basically real prejudice).

For example the actual most common names for Black children in the US are – Jacob, Emma, Michael, Ava, William, Emily, etc. And I suspect they are not choosing those names on purpose.

On the other hand, my ex's sister named their son "Air Jordan" (for his first name) and their daughter Cinnamon for her first name. And I personally have great uncles with the real first names of "Snapbean" and "Squawk" (I am not joking).

None of these people are Black, but how do you imagine their resumes are accepted at large (or small) companies?

So I am wondering how much is prejudice against the person and how much is prejudice against the name?

[throwbacktictac]

I'm genuinely missing your point. It sou d like you're insinuating that the lack of a "normal" name is a good reason to disqualify someone from a job opportunity. That possibly implies that the resume screen uses someone's name as a discriminating factor and I don't think that it should be.

[ponow]

> I don't think that it should be

Why is it your choice to make? When you hire someone, you're hiring everything they bring to the table. You might be wrong in your interpretation, but it's what you've got. So perhaps you find names beyond the pale, but why not dress codes too? Names and many other characteristics involve human choices well beyond genetics.

You do realize that the orchestras used to hire blind, that is, the audition was done with the musician hidden behind a curtain and all other factors withheld, so that the only factor that was perceivable was the sound of the music from the musician, in an effort to remove bias. And New York Times in the last year or two had an editorial decrying this as unfair, because it didn't give the correct outcome of reducing underrepresentation. The DIE crowd does not want fairness and equality of opportunity; they want equality of outcome. They want diversity hires, not hires of the maximally strong candidates.

[Spivak]

> The DIE crowd does not want fairness and equality of opportunity; they want equality of outcome

I always find it weird that people see this is a bad thing. Equality of outcome is equity. Extra time for people with learning disabilities is equity, ada regulations is equity, hearing aids, glasses, booster seats, handicaps in golf and chess, giving bus seats to the elderly are all equity. Equity is the thing we naturally strive for in basically all aspects of life. Provide aid when we can, receive aid when needed.

> They want diversity hires, not hires of the maximally strong candidates.

That's not what affirmative action is, it's recognizing both the systematic and individual disadvantages that someone experienced and, potentially, depending on what they are, realizing that they have more potential than meets the eye. It's like basing hiring decisions entirely on leetcode challenges and putting on your blinders on not realizing that the people who have the time to waste on leetcode is a skewed sample of the population.

Who is the more impressive student? Alice who had a stable suburban comfortable upbringing and went to prestigious private high school and got a 34 on her ACT, or Bob who grew up with a single father, went to a public high school in an high needs district, had to work a part time job after school and babysit his little brother every day before his dad got home and got a 29?

The above is an example of an individual disadvantage, now apply that same logic to systematic disadvantages.

[rayiner]

> Who is the more impressive student? Alice who had a stable suburban comfortable upbringing and went to prestigious private high school and got a 34 on her ACT, or Bob who grew up with a single father, went to a public high school in an high needs district, had to work a part time job after school and babysit his little brother every day before his dad got home and got a 29?

The kid with the higher score is a more impressive student. But there might certainly be a justification for giving the kid who had a tougher road to get there a leg up.

But that’s different from what we’re doing, where we apply racist assumptions and treat certain minorities as if they’re all from single parent homes, regardless of whether that’s true for the individual.

[Spivak]

> treat certain minorities as if they’re all from single parent homes

That’s not what you should have taken from that example at all, which is specifically why I used two white coded names. The point is that people grok individual disadvantages easily and giving them a leg up feels natural, and the same reasoning should be applied to systematic disadvantages.

> regardless of whether that’s true for the individual.

What you’re describing is looking at privilege through the lense of intersectionality, which nobody disagrees with.

[LawTalkingGuy]

> intersectionality, which nobody disagrees with.

Cough. Intersectionality assumes that people's problems are the problems of their identities, and that their identities are the ones visible to others. Black, short, etc.

Identity politics seems purpose-built by "allies" to explain why the allies don't actually listen to the people they're helping.

For instance, Thomas Sowell isn't treated as an individual who disagrees with BLM's policies instead he's declared to be a defective or traitorous black man who isn't part of the real black people group.

[rayiner]

> That’s not what you should have taken from that example at all, which is specifically why I used two white coded names

What’s a “white coded name?” Most Black people have names similar to other Americans. E.g. here are the top names by ethnicity for babies in NYC in 2013: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/vs/baby-names-.... The top 3 Black baby names are Ethan, Jayden, and Aiden. Playgrounds in Park Slope are full of kids with those names.

[LawTalkingGuy]

> Equity is the thing we naturally strive for

If equity was our standard we wouldn't give eyeglasses to anyone because blind people can't see at all.

Instead we strive for equality, where everyone is able to use the best devices they or their insurance can provide regardless of others. I can get glasses to restore my vision to 25/20 even if yours never was 20/20.

> That's not what affirmative action is, it's recognizing both the systematic and individual disadvantages

Affirmative action doesn't treat people as individuals. It's specifically about using people's visible identities (whether or not they do!) to determine how they're treated. Under affirmative action a rich black man would get a job before a poor white man and it would be defended by its supporters as undoing systematic obstacles even if the recipient never encountered those obstacles themselves.

> people who have the time to waste on leetcode

Why do we hate people who teach themselves a skill? Why is it literally considered a negative these days?

> a skewed sample of the population

They're individuals, not population samples.

> Who is the more impressive student

If I was running a scholarship this would be the criteria because it would indicate who would get the most out of the resources. If I'm hiring them to fit a defined role I only care about their current skills, not where they started.

[mhuffman]

>I'm genuinely missing your point

Yes, you are missing my point. I am not insinuating anything, I am stating directly that some people might be biased against unusual (to them) names. Names that are difficult to say, spell, etc. depending on the language, or just out-right stereotypical prejudice with a name (which is what these studies just assume). I am not saying that any of this is ok, people rarely get to pick their names. What I am saying is that it might not all be based on the color of people's skin.

[joshuamorton]

Reducing racial bias to solely and precisely "skin color", and not the cultural biases that come with it is itself missing the point.

Begin biased against Black skin is a problem (and is the important bit in some instances). Being biased against "Black" names is also a problem, even if you can devise situations where the name is attached to a person who doesn't have Black skin. And both are racism, because they are directed at people based on the assumption that they are in a particular ethnic group, even if that assumption is wrong.

[LawTalkingGuy]

> Being biased against "Black" names is also a problem, even if you can devise situations where the name is attached to a person who doesn't have Black skin. And both are racism, because they are directed at people based on the assumption that they are in a particular ethnic group, even if that assumption is wrong.

You assume a racist motive in your scenario, but what if the bias is actually towards all unfamiliar names, only some of which are black names?

The specter of racism is so great that people are expected to be free from every potential bias because it could be race-equity related somewhere.

[joshuamorton]

"I'm not biased only against Black people, I'm actually biased against anything that is sufficiently non-white" (in this context, since we're talking about a study of conventionally WASP-y vs. black names) is not the slam dunk you think it is. And it's still racist.

> You assume a racist motive in your scenario

No, I don't assume any motive whatsoever. I'm talking only about actions.

[einherjae]

I read the above as a way of saying that names may not necessarily be a good proxy for race specifically. Not as a comment on whether discrimination based on names is right or wrong.

You are of course entirely right that it shouldn’t matter in the decision process, unless the job at hand is “person named John”. But a point to raise is that this holds for positive discrimination as well, if the goal is to increase the number of X minority employees, then you cant optimize for that by selecting for X-sounding names if that’s a bad proxy.

[n4r9]

I'm not sure it matters, in the sense that both feel like an example of "systemic" racism (as referred to above). It may not be the recruiter/interviewer's intention to be prejudiced, but it is the outcome of the system.

[bjourne]

I have just one question; how many Israeli Palestinians and Indian dalits are named Air Jordan?

[mhuffman]

Well, I purposely pointed out the first link. Regarding the others, I think there are deeper historical, social, and religious issues that go beyond the racial problems in the US and I don't have any type of deeper insight on those.