[dahart]

Yep. Maybe a little bit like a sports handicap, you’re not trying to give someone a better chance of winning than everyone else, you’re trying to give them equal chances based on historical data.

Gemini gave me an okay analogy: “If a pendulum is knocked permanently off-center by a structural bend or a magnetic field, the only way to center it again is to apply an equal and opposite force. Affirmative action policies attempt to apply this counter-weight to straighten the broader societal scale.”

I’m not sure but is there a question about whether we actually had pre-existing unfairness? Blacks got the legal right to vote in 1965. Before that was effectively institutionalized racism, fully entrenched cultural bias, right?

[rayiner]

Discriminating against an individual based on their race is a moral wrong, unlike applying pressure to a pendulum. So your example doesn’t work because it doesn’t raise the disputed moral question.

Our system of morality and justice operates on individuals, not groups. It’s fundamentally mistaken to view the issue in terms of a pendulum that represents group outcomes.

[dahart]

> Discriminating against an individual based on their race is a moral wrong

People pick partners based on race. Is that morally wrong?

> Our system of morality and justice operates on individuals, not groups.

What do you mean? Class actions don’t exist? Did I imagine the 19th amendment?

[graemep]

> People pick partners based on race. Is that morally wrong?

Depends on their reasoning. If it is that they are attracted to people with a particular physical appearance that correlates with race, then its not morally wrong. If you are doing so because they do not want to pick a partner who they believe is of an inferior race, that is morally wrong.

[dahart]

Exactly. It depends. It’s not a given.

[rayiner]

> people pick partners based on race. Is that morally wrong?

Wrong, but not illegal.

> What do you mean? Class actions don’t exist?

You can’t have class actions based on pre-existing groups (say, “Italians”). You have to define the group in a way that provides a high level of certainty that all class members were subject to the harm that’s the basis for the suit.

[dahart]

> Wrong, but not illegal.

Why is racial preference in partner wrong?? Who agrees with this anywhere?

[rayiner]

Maybe I’m out of touch, but 20 years ago expressing a racial preference for dating would’ve gotten you labeled a racist. Is this some new Gen Z thing?

[dahart]

Saying you have a preference is creepy. Having one and making decisions based on that is absolutely normal and always has been, and is not immoral, contrary to your claim. The vast majority of marriages globally are same race marriages.

[freejazz]

>You can’t have class actions based on pre-existing groups (say, “Italians”). You have to define the group in a way that provides a high level of certainty that all class members were subject to the harm that’s the basis for the suit.

Yeah, and?

No response on the 19th amendment?

[AnimalMuppet]

There were things like redlining, where blacks could only buy housing in certain areas. Those areas also tended to have worse schools, so the next generation of blacks was less well educated than whites of equivalent intelligence. That led to worse jobs, which led to worse financial outcomes, which led to living in worse parts of town, which led to the next generation having less education...

So, yes, there was pre-existing... "unfairness" may be too strong for some of it; it wasn't all unfairness. Some of it was the effects of past unfairness, even if the (deliberate) unfairness was no longer present. The pendulum was in fact bent, to at least some degree.

But I like the analogy, because you only apply the counterforce until the pendulum is straight. Then you stop. Things were bent enough that affirmative action may in fact have been necessary. But it should not be necessary forever. Even if it was the right thing to do, there comes a time when the right thing to do is to stop.

(Then you get into "is now the right time", and things get a whole lot murkier...)

[rayiner]

Even if an individual’s condition today reflects historical injustices to groups, that doesn’t justify discriminating between individuals today based on their group. To your redlining example: it’s true a black american who inherits a house may have lower home equity than a white american who inherits a house. But isn’t the white american who didn’t inherit anything worse off than both? You can’t lump white americans together based on a group generalization—that’s the very thing we decided is immoral.

The historical argument also doesn’t survive attempts to generalize its underlying principles to immigrants. Objectively, Black americans are extremely privileged by virtue of being americans. A redlined community in 1950s America was still better than my dad’s village in Bangladesh.

Finally, your argument demolishes how affirmative action is actually practiced. Its biggest beneficiaries are immigrants and their children, in particular hispanics. That produces a very unfair result under your logic, because latin america is solidly middle income, and was even more so in the 20th century. In 1990, Mexico’s GDP per capita was ten times higher than India’s and China’s. Yet colleges and corporations discriminate in favor of “hispanics” descended from Spanish conquistadores, and against “asians” whose parents grew up in third world villages.

[graemep]

Your reasoning is exactly why I loathe any step towards this sort of thing in the UK. You cannot infer disadvantage from a simple racial categories. For example, the majority of South Asians I know in the UK have affluent and/or well educated parents. On the other hand I know there are people whose parents were poor educated, spoke English as a second language, went to schools in bad areas, etc. If you try to balance by ethnic group its the former who will get the most advantage from it. The Asian side of my ancestry was both more affluent, and had more people go to university than the white side.

As the article says the best universities here look at predicated A levels grades, their own admissions tests, and interviews. From what I have heard at open days etc. they are often clear that they do not care about ethnicity or skills at sports.

[dahart]

> that’s the very thing we decided is immoral

Racism is the thing we decided is immoral, actions based on belief that one group is inferior to another, not any and all notions of groups for any reason.

> Objectively, Black Americans are extremely privileged by virtue of being Americans. A redlined community in 1950s America was still better than my dad’s village in Bangladesh.

Whoa. They should be happy with what they have, and put up with racism and inequality here because there are poorer people somewhere else in the world? Some Blacks in 1950 couldn’t vote - they were “privileged”?

[rayiner]

> Racism is the thing we decided is immoral, actions based on belief that one group is inferior to another, not any and all notions of groups for any reason.

No, what we decided was wrong was using race as a salient factor to discriminate between people. That’s why all our laws use that word. The laws reflect the moral principle.

> They should be happy with what they have, and put up with racism and inequality here because there are poorer people somewhere else in the world?

You’re the one supporting a system of affirmative action that treats people unequally. My point is that, if your justification for that unequal treatment is the historical circumstances of people’s parents and grandparents, then it’s quite relevant that almost any applicant with roots in America has a huge head start over almost any applicant with roots in Asia, Africa, or the Middle East.

I’m not the one who brought up the redlining example. That’s an example invoked by proponents of affirmative action. But if you invoke that reasoning, you should follow it through to its logical conclusions. If a university is choosing between an applicant whose family home in America has reduced value due to redlining, and an applicant whose family home is in a literal third world village, then what’s the moral logic for giving an advantage to the first applicant?

> Some Blacks in 1950 couldn’t vote - they were “privileged

None of my grandparents could vote in 1950 because they lived in a colony. Nobody whose family comes from China, Vietnam, etc., has grandparents who could vote in 1950.

[BrenBarn]

> No, what we decided was wrong was using race as a salient factor to discriminate between people. That’s why all our laws use that word. The laws reflect the moral principle.

I think this discussion shows that there is fundamental disagreement about that. Many people believe that our laws as written do not reflect the moral principles they ought to reflect (and that the implementation/enforcement of those laws often does not even reflect the principles they supposedly encode).

[graemep]

> almost any applicant with roots in America has a huge head start over almost any applicant with roots in Asia, Africa, or the Middle East.

I think you are overstating your case. You are right in principle because it is true of some people so race is not a reliable marker of privilege, but most South Asians I know in western countries are from families that were better off than many Americans, and did not face the racist laws that black Americans did.

> None of my grandparents could vote in 1950 because they lived in a colony.

Most former British colonies were independent by then. India and Pakistan became fully independent in 1947 and had a degree of self-rule and elections for decades before that.

[rayiner]

> but most South Asians I know in western countries are from families that were better off than many Americans

Affirmative action doesn’t look at a specific individual’s economic history. Virtually everyone who benefits comes from a family that’s better off than most Americans. Don’t forget that there’s lots of affluent black americans. They make up 8-9% of millionaires in the U.S. And don’t forget hispanic people: the Harvard data shows they got a preference nearly as strong as the one for black applicants. There’s a huge population of affluent immigrants from latin america for these programs to draw from.

And remember that, for asians, status is different from financial condition. My family was high status in Bangladesh. But my dad took a boat to school during monsoon season, and the school had no walls.

You mention “racist laws.” But asians faced terrible non-material injustices. My parents lived through a genocide of 300,000 bangladeshis by the pakistani military. Millions of Indians died in famines. Most of my sister in law’s family was killed by communists. This was all in the 20th century. I don’t think we should be weighing these injustices against each other. But that’s exactly what these affirmative action programs are doing when they give a huge preference to a black applicant over an otherwise identical asian applicant.

[selimthegrim]

Exactly who was East Pakistan a colony of in 1950 and who was denying them the franchise?

[selimthegrim]

OK I see you meant in the US.

[freejazz]

> Nobody whose family comes from China, Vietnam, etc., has grandparents who could vote in 1950.

So those countries should deal with those issues, then? I really don't understand how you are allowed to post so much all over this website. No less in such an intentionally obtuse and argumentative manner.

[dahart]

> You’re the one supporting a system of affirmative action that treats people unequally

No, and you’re intentionally escalating things and I don’t appreciate it. I’ve been more than clear already that I don’t necessarily support affirmative action, and that I’m aware it has downsides and have acknowledged multiple times that it can have unintended consequences.

Unequal treatment already existed before affirmative action. That is the reason that affirmative action exists, and it is what affirmative action intended to fix. You have yet to acknowledge that fact in this discussion.

[dahart]

Yes! Exactly. Affirmative action should naturally end itself if it works. The goal is to equalize opportunity and stop preferential treatment, not to hang on to preferential treatment.

Well said, it does need to stop eventually. Now might be the right time, even if we’re not all the way there, given all the problems and unintended consequences and all the backlash.