honestly this is one of the reasons i stick around massassi, amazingly enough i learn stuff here.
i think there is a great deal of misunderstanding and ignorance among the general public surrounding institutionalized racism and affirmative action. it also seems like there is a lot of resentment and blame being tossed around by both sides... BOTH sides, that is hindering lasting progress from being made.

im going to be honest, i STILL don't fully understand affirmative action. there is a lot of seemingly contradictory information out and about on it. but this thread has actually prompted me to find out more about it rather than just wave it off and say "seem like 'reverse discrimination' to me"

Reverse racism is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of, and I talk to gbk every day in the chat.

Oh you guys are arguing about the term, ok, yeah its all racism in the end, I thought all of you seriously thought for a second that discrimination against racial majorities didn't exist. WOOSH that was a close one.

Three other white males and I, and four black males apply at a company that is hiring 4 employees. All of the white males have more experience, higher degrees and lets say, for fun, score way higher on a qualifiyng exam. We get the job, the black males say thats racism and at least 2 of them need to be hired.

That'd be my 10 second attempt at an example of "reverse racism" or just "racism".

Three other white males and I, and four black males apply at a company that is hiring 4 employees. All of the white males have more experience, higher degrees and lets say, for fun, score way higher on a qualifiyng exam. We get the job, the black males say thats racism and at least 2 of them need to be hired.

That'd be my 10 second attempt at an example of "reverse racism" or just "racism".

In my opinion I don't think capitalism can partake in any part of racism. Does anything honestly think someone within a position of power would sacrifice efficienty and extra profits just to keep the black man down?

Three other white males and I, and four black males apply at a company that is hiring 4 employees. All of the white males have more experience, higher degrees and lets say, for fun, score way higher on a qualifiyng exam. We get the job, the black males say thats racism and at least 2 of them need to be hired.

That'd be my 10 second attempt at an example of "reverse racism" or just "racism".

In my opinion I don't think capitalism can partake in any part of racism. Does anything honestly think someone within a position of power would sacrifice efficienty and extra profits just to keep the black man down?

I'll clarify, as a courtesy.

Quoting a (cartoon of a) black man to desperately try to prove you're not racist, huh? The usual last grasp of a racist losing a conversation.

-A conversation that has so little merit by this point that gently making fun of the partakers really is the only appropriate step to take.

fyi, this would be illegal. it's illegal now, and it was illegal when obi_kwiet spent three pages of this exact thread arguing about it.

So not only is it a bad example, it's anecdotal evidence, and even worse it's fiction. So I'm not exactly sure what your example is supposed to be saying other than the fact that you don't seem to think that black people deserve jobs.

We also talked about this earlier in the thread. I think I even provided a 2x2 matrix game that predicts rational employers will pay black employees less than the clearing wage.

As Jon`C has pointed out, this example is a complete fiction and not grounded in any actual knowledge of the complex body of law governing racial discrimination in employment practices. I'll clarify, as a courtesy. In particular, the inclusion of a qualifying exam makes your hypothetical ridiculous. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is not unlawful racial discrimination for an employer to act on the basis of a professionally developed employment test that is not itself racially discriminatory.

The black applicants' only hope, really, would be to show that the employment test has a disparate racial impact. Since you've made these hypothetical black applicants so hopelessly underqualified compared to their white superiors, yeah, they're probably **** out of luck.

Honestly, Couchman, why would you even think that American employment law would force employers to hire the obviously underqualified black applicants you've described over the obviously better qualified white applicants you've described?



This has, of course, been addressed earlier in the thread, but I'll do you the favor of a brief summary so you don't have to keep floundering about: Racial discrimination can be rational. An employer hiring on purely rational bases will hire a white person over an equally qualified black person because of various statistics that show that all else held equal, a black employee is more likely to be arrested and more likely to be late for work.

Wait... are you saying that I'm trying to prove that I'm not a racist? I never said anything of the sort. I know for a fact that I'm a racist. I try to keep it in check and not be unreasonable about it, but I'm a realist, dude. We're all racist.

Thats a bold thing to say, so even though I disagree I'll still respect you for admitting it. At least you try to keep it in check instead of walking around with chewing tobacco in your mouth and screaming "WHYYYEE POWUR!" and have a confederate flag tattoo, in your garage (where you sit next to your guns), your bedroom and on your car like 99.9999999999% of the young white males all do in the town where I grew up and recently left.

I just really really really really really hate ghetto culture, and since I live in the Buffalo area, and when you drive downtown all you see is rundown houses and kids placing dice in the street where on the otherhand theyre all wearing fancy jewelry and have the latest air jordans, it REALLY bothers me. So I can easily say I respect more white than black people in the area that I've seen, just because of cultural, and not racial reasons. That was confusing, so ill summarize: I don't hate the black people I know because theyre black, I hate their ghetto culture and not their skin color. Of course, white people can be ghetto trash too.

This is what I'm talking about, and this makes you a racist.

EDIT: Furthermore, I would like to thank you for illustrating my point so perfectly. You're saying that you don't hate black people, you just hate the way the ones who live near you. You don't hate them because of the fact that they're black, you hate them because of their culture. Is it really that hard for you to understand why that's racist?

Thats a bold thing to say, so even though I disagree I'll still respect you for admitting it. At least you try to keep it in check instead of walking around with chewing tobacco in your mouth and screaming "WHYYYEE POWUR!" and have a confederate flag tattoo, in your garage (where you sit next to your guns), your bedroom and on your car like 99.9999999999% of the young white males all do in the town where I grew up and recently left.

This is why I think it's so difficult for me to get through to people on the everyone's a racist idea. This is not what I am talking about.



This is what I'm talking about, and this makes you a racist.

EDIT: Furthermore, I would like to thank you for illustrating my point so perfectly. You're saying that you don't hate black people, you just hate the way the ones who live near you. You don't hate them because of the fact that they're black, you hate them because of their culture. Is it really that hard for you to understand why that's racist?

im going to have to disagree with you here antony. ghetto, is ghetto, is ghetto. dumb ass "thug" mentality spans all cultures and races. dont believe me? just ask the idiotic ghetto white supremacists who mugged me and my wife a couple years ago.
is this a prejudice based on socioeconomic status? ...quite possibly, racist though? sorry but nope.

Yes, it is a prejudice based on socioeconomic status, not saying I hate poor underprivaledged people, just ones who embrace it as a lifestyle to be proud of and trying to be gangsters

Of course I trusted the black guys in my platoon in boot camp. Well, the one guy was worthless, but that didn't have anything to do with his race.

The thing is, at the same time, when I was a bartender, I hated any time a group of black people came to the bar to order. Why? Because they tend to order stupid expensive drinks and not tip. It was a characteristic that reached nearly across the entire spectrum of black customers. There were occasional ones that overtipped, because they knew that not tipping was, for some reason, a part of black culture. I'm not saying that only black people didn't tip, or that the people who didn't tip did so because they were black. I'm saying that there's no way around drawing a connection from "large group of black customers" to "I'm not getting a tip, and I'm going to be pouring a bunch of shots and making complicated drinks out of top shelf liquor". That makes me a racist. I didn't hate serving them because they were black. I hated serving them because they didn't tip. It just so happens that that majority of people who don't tip are black, and the majority of black people don't tip. Nevertheless, it still makes me a racist.

Everyone has prejudices. The problem is when people justify their prejudices, by saying, "but it's because of this or that, so it's not racist." No, it's still racist, you're just trying to rationalize your racism. Being prejudiced is a nearly universal thing. People will always fail to understand, or flat out disagree with people of other cultures, and that breeds prejudice. I guess you could call it passive or active racism, or some ****. Passive being that you acknowledge the difference in culture, and even if you hate it, you just let it go. Active being, because some guy doesn't tip, you burn a cross in his yard.

Everyone sees racism as an all or nothing game, and it's just not so. Like I've said a million times in this thread, everyone is racist, and there's nothing you can do about it. Being racist doesn't mean you commit hate crimes or anything. It just means you judge people, or make assumptions about them based on their skin color. And several of you who claim not to be racist are saying that either you do exactly that, or are completely fine with other people doing that (in the case of racial profiling).

Three other white males and I, and four black males apply at a company that is hiring 4 employees. All of the white males have more experience, higher degrees and lets say, for fun, score way higher on a qualifiyng exam. We get the job, the black males say thats racism and at least 2 of them need to be hired.

That'd be my 10 second attempt at an example of "reverse racism" or just "racism".

In my opinion I don't think capitalism can partake in any part of racism. Does anything honestly think someone within a position of power would sacrifice efficienty and extra profits just to keep the black man down? Hell no, rich white dudes don't love themselves because they aren't black, they love themselves because theyre rich. Greed > Racism, everytime. If having a black boss over white employees creates more profit than the vice versa, hell yeah he will take that option.

As Jon`C has pointed out, this example is a complete fiction and not grounded in any actual knowledge of the complex body of law governing racial discrimination in employment practices. I'll clarify, as a courtesy. In particular, the inclusion of a qualifying exam makes your hypothetical ridiculous. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is not unlawful racial discrimination for an employer to act on the basis of a professionally developed employment test that is not itself racially discriminatory.

The black applicants' only hope, really, would be to show that the employment test has a disparate racial impact. Since you've made these hypothetical black applicants so hopelessly underqualified compared to their white superiors, yeah, they're probably **** out of luck.

Honestly, Couchman, why would you even think that American employment law would force employers to hire the obviously underqualified black applicants you've described over the obviously better qualified white applicants you've described?