[lolinder]

I don't think anyone here is denying that there is a correlation, but there's a very legitimate question over whether policy should target the correlated trait (skin color) or the hardship itself (poverty) when trying to fix the problem.

[asveikau]

The issue is, a lot of problems have been nominally "fixed". But the black community on average has not caught up with the gaps created and re-enforced by these earlier systems. eg. They didn't get to participate as much as white peers in housing booms due to redlining, blockbusting, etc. So if you started out European-American in 1930 [random 20th century year], or having the same wages and being black in that same year, odds are pretty good descendants of the latter are doing poorer, due to multiple racist housing policies.

[lolinder]

If they haven't caught up, that's presumably true as measured by several concrete metrics, correct? So the question still is: why target skin color (the correlated trait) instead of those metrics?

I'm not staking out a position here, I haven't made up my mind myself. I'm just pointing out that OP raised a valid point which you didn't really address.

[johnnyanmac]

It's a hard question to answer because the two are entertwined. Hence the term socio-economics.

Poverty is disproportionately in minorities' court due to historical discrimination based on skin color. That doesn't mean that there aren't poor white people. But it does mean that actions targeting minorities end up overlapping a lot with poverty.

The main reason it's relatively easy to target skin color is, well, visuals. Another can of worms in and of itself, but for the most part it's pretty easy to look at a certain minorities and pin them as such.Meanwhile financials are private and it's not like every millionaire is driving a fancy car with a suit and tie.

[lolinder]

> actions targeting minorities end up overlapping a lot with poverty

Yes, but they also have a false positive rate (rich minorities) and a false negative rate (poor white people) that is much higher than a properly administered means test.

Given this, and given how controversial race-based affirmative action is, it's worth questioning whether attempting to sort based on race as a sort of shortcut to sorting based on economics is doing more harm than good. If we could implement a race-blind affirmative action program that got bipartisan support, could we not solve poverty faster than if we continue to alienate one side by insisting on excluding poor white people?

> The main reason it's relatively easy to target skin color is, well, visuals. Another can of worms in and of itself, but for the most part it's pretty easy to look at a certain minorities and pin them as such.Meanwhile financials are private and it's not like every millionaire is driving a fancy car with a suit and tie.

Why should a goal of an affirmative action system be to be able to make the accept/reject call based on a quick glance at the applicant's photo?

We already ask college students to provide an assessment of their means for the FAFSA, and about 3/4 do so. It's not long or complicated, and I see no reason why a similar system couldn't be used for a means-based admissions process.

[johnnyanmac]

> If we could implement a race-blind affirmative action program that got bipartisan support, could we not solve poverty faster than if we continue to alienate one side by insisting on excluding poor white people?

The issue is that it's hard to make something "race blind". Not without essentially making a lottery system in the process with how little data you're given. The moment you give high school data, you give approximate data on your area, which means your area's demographic and economonics. If we could have a world where standardize grades and national test scores it may be possible to pull it off (btw: national test scores also correlate with income levels, especially since they cost money/time to take and can be taken multiple times. IQ tests have also shown their bias). But as is it is a utopic dream.

>Why should a goal of an affirmative action system be to be able to make the accept/reject call based on a quick glance at the applicant's photo?

It's not just a photo. your race is considered a public statistic. You can opt to say "prefer not to answer" but I imagine 95%+ of applicants to report it.

It's the exact opposite of finances, and it's not as easy to grab that data even as a public institution. I don't think submissions offices even get that data to consider. Should they get that data? I don't know. I think we can imagine a dozen ways that can help and also be a complete catastrophe. That's a much larger topic of discussion.