[wat0n]

Are you still beating that greasy stain on the road that once upon a time was a horse???

They have treatments now for compulsive/obsessives.

Will you contribute with an a cogent argument to this thread at last?

Care to explain how do other Western countries manage to be more egalitarian than the US without doing away with neutrality of the law?

[Rugoz]

More specifically, it reads that neutrality of the law does nothing to close existing gaps

What neutrality? There's affirmative action. The law is biased against Asians and Caucasians.

[wat0n]

What neutrality? There's affirmative action. The law is biased against Asians and Caucasians.

Honestly, there's a fair amount of nuance there too. AA only operates in the way you are thinking when the qualifications for the job are matched. It's not a racial/ethnic quota as some people claim from time to time and those are in fact illegal in the US.

The real problem with AA though is that it doesn't actually seem to fix the problem it purports to fix. Since qualifications are meant to be matched, what happens when there are no minority applicants with the necessary qualifications for the job?

[late]

Will you contribute with an a cogent argument to this thread at last?

Ok, you're a propagandist, just a really bad one.

[wat0n]

Ok, you're a propagandist, just a really bad one.

I'd say the OP was a poor propaganda attempt. One that got demolished as I began to actually cite papers written by CRT proponents themselves.

So will you provide a cogent argument as to why should we ignore the writings of CRT scholars themselves?

[Rugoz]

Honestly, there's a fair amount of nuance there too. AA only operates in the way you are thinking when the qualifications for the job are matched. It's not a racial/ethnic quota as some people claim from time to time and those are in fact illegal in the US.

The real problem with AA though is that it doesn't actually seem to fix the problem it purports to fix. Since qualifications are meant to be matched, what happens when there are no minority applicants with the necessary qualifications for the job?

I thought AA is relevant for universities, not jobs in the private sector.

[Pants-of-dog]

CRT describes everybody in terms of their racial groupings, and allocates characteristics based on that grouping. This is inherently racist.

No, that is incorrect.

I don't think they HAVE been discussed; merely blankly stated. There HAS been examples of racial inequity, but there has been NO evidence that this is down to white racism, as opposed to -say - black 'culture'. CRT brushes ALL such discussions under the carpet WITHOUT any scientific discussions (indeed, it poo-pooh's scientific analysis in favour of fairy tales), and it's proponents just accuse you of being racist (without evidence) for even proposing it.

America is the most non-racist country on the planet. The unproven accusations of 'systemic racism', based purely on inequity rather than analytic evidence, merely belies CRT's origins: Marxist Theory of oppression.

Please prove that examples of systemic racism have not been discussed in this thread, Thanks.

Here's another thing; modern proponents of CRT suggest that being non-racist is not enough. To be innocent of racism, you have to actively lobby against racism, and indulge in personal Maoist 'struggle sessions'. To fail to do this means that you are passively accepting 'the racist system', and therefore that you are a racist.

This is typical of a philosophy that rejects formal logic and the scientific method and believes in fairy tales. It's like saying that unless you actively fight against Burglary, then you are yourself a Burglar !

Please provide evidence for this claim.

[late]

No, that is incorrect.



Please prove that examples of systemic racism have not been discussed in this thread, Thanks.



Please provide evidence for this claim.

They'll keep repeating that nonsense until they can start hanging the uppity again.

[wat0n]

I thought AA is relevant for universities, not jobs in the private sector.

Not for the private sector, but for the government itself...

[Fasces]

You don't need to do away with neutrality of the law to close socioeconomic gaps.

Eh, kind of. What CRT describes is the difference between the idealism of racism and the realism of racism. The racist ideal can be largely stamped out of laws, and largely has in the USA, without addressing the real outcome.

Take for example a law banning basketball within the city limits. This is not explicitly a racist law, and applies to all races equally. Culturally, African Americans may play more basketball, but even then, there is nothing inherent in their racial identity that makes basketball some sort of racial thing. This is not a racist law, consequently, despite perhaps disproportionately affecting a specific group, but it has real outcomes. This is one form of how racism is perpetuated despite legal neutrality, according to CRT, albeit a sort of obvious example.

Let's take a different example, one more subtle. Rather than banning basketball, I decide I want to support ice hockey by giving youth ice hockey leagues a small subsidy. Again, there is nothing inherently racist about this - black folks are perfectly capable of playing ice hockey, just like white folks. However, there are real barriers at play here: ice hockey is a much more expensive sport to play, with significant infrastructure costs for the community as well as upfront costs for individuals who want to play in the form of skates, sticks, and so on. If I pass a law giving a financial grant to ice hockey stadiums, this money, by default, will go to more affluent communities where there is more of a demand for ice hockey because such communities and individuals residing in them can afford these costs. Again, none of this is intrinsically racist - affluence is not race. Nonetheless, because of historical idealistic racist laws, such as redlining, or other laws that contributed to community segregation and the wealth gap, this neutral, non-racist law does exclude, according to CRT folks, black people and perpetuate gaps in racial equality.

As such, neutrality in the law which ignores outcomes, such as a law providing subsidies to youth ice hockey leagues, nonetheless perpetuate racist outcomes, unless the law comes with disproportionately higher spending in less affluent communities to address that gap by building ice rinks or providing free equipment. A 'neutral law' which does not proactively address gaps is, in effect, not neutral. That's CRT in a nutshell.

In education, this is why CRT proponents are often against measures like standardized testing. Of course testing itself isn't racist; yet the increased resources available to non-black and more affluent communities (which, unfortunately in the US, these terms are often synonymous) for private tutoring, extra study time, more quality study time, better libraries, etc etc that are left over from eras where laws were less neutral still remains. Unless laws supporting standardized testing include portions to address existing achievement gaps, they ultimately perpetuate those gaps and these non-racist legislators, enacting race-neutral laws, are still nonetheless perpetuating the ripple effects of yesterday's racist policies down the generations.

[Gardener]

No, that is incorrect.

No, it IS correct.

Please prove that examples of systemic racism have not been discussed in this thread, Thanks.

Go back through 50 pages of posts ? No thanks. I'll give you a challenge though: give me three examples of 'Institutional Racism' in the USA ?

Please provide evidence for this claim.

Look up the works of IBRAM KENDI. His premis is that if you are NOT an 'anti-racist', then you are a racist. There is no such thing in his CRH universe as a 'non-racist'.

[Fasces]

give me three examples of 'Institutional Racism' in the USA

1. School district funding determined by individual districts with a ban on bussing and a strong legacy of redlining even to this day.

2. Disparate policing / police presence in segregated-by-legacy-redlined districts, even accounting for economic levels and crime rate.

3. Disparate criminal justice sentencing on the basis of racial group. Judges are given leeway to determine statutory punishments rather than having punishments be codified by law and consistent across all individuals.

[Godstud]

@Fasces
Don't forget:

The United States’ History of Segregated Housing Continues to Limit Affordable Housing

The roots of housing discrimination, particularly as it affects black Americans, extend deep into the nation’s history.10 Slavery shaped the early housing options for blacks who were brought to a new world for plantation labor. Over time, as slavery was replaced by institutional and economic forces that limited African American participation in civic and community life, their housing choices followed a pattern of inequality in keeping with their status in the nation. Well into the middle of the 20th century, write Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton in their seminal 1993 book American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, residential segregation of black Americans was “an almost permanent feature of housing patterns in the United States.”11
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues ... e-housing/

[Pants-of-dog]

No, it IS correct.

Go back through 50 pages of posts ? No thanks. I'll give you a challenge though: give me three examples of 'Institutional Racism' in the USA ?

The wealth gap.
Unequal access to quality education.
The current wave of voting restrictions.

Look up the works of IBRAM KENDI. His premis is that if you are NOT an 'anti-racist', then you are a racist. There is no such thing in his CRH universe as a 'non-racist'.

Please provide a quote of this person explaining their views. Thanks.

[wat0n]

Eh, kind of. What CRT describes is the difference between the idealism of racism and the realism of racism. The racist ideal can be largely stamped out of laws, and largely has in the USA, without addressing the real outcome.

Take for example a law banning basketball within the city limits. This is not explicitly a racist law, and applies to all races equally. Culturally, African Americans may play more basketball, but even then, there is nothing inherent in their racial identity that makes basketball some sort of racial thing. This is not a racist law, consequently, despite perhaps disproportionately affecting a specific group, but it has real outcomes. This is one form of how racism is perpetuated despite legal neutrality, according to CRT, albeit a sort of obvious example.

Let's take a different example, one more subtle. Rather than banning basketball, I decide I want to support ice hockey by giving youth ice hockey leagues a small subsidy. Again, there is nothing inherently racist about this - black folks are perfectly capable of playing ice hockey, just like white folks. However, there are real barriers at play here: ice hockey is a much more expensive sport to play, with significant infrastructure costs for the community as well as upfront costs for individuals who want to play in the form of skates, sticks, and so on. If I pass a law giving a financial grant to ice hockey stadiums, this money, by default, will go to more affluent communities where there is more of a demand for ice hockey because such communities and individuals residing in them can afford these costs. Again, none of this is intrinsically racist - affluence is not race. Nonetheless, because of historical idealistic racist laws, such as redlining, or other laws that contributed to community segregation and the wealth gap, this neutral, non-racist law does exclude, according to CRT folks, black people and perpetuate gaps in racial equality.

As such, neutrality in the law which ignores outcomes, such as a law providing subsidies to youth ice hockey leagues, nonetheless perpetuate racist outcomes, unless the law comes with disproportionately higher spending in less affluent communities to address that gap by building ice rinks or providing free equipment. A 'neutral law' which does not proactively address gaps is, in effect, not neutral. That's CRT in a nutshell.

In education, this is why CRT proponents are often against measures like standardized testing. Of course testing itself isn't racist; yet the increased resources available to non-black and more affluent communities (which, unfortunately in the US, these terms are often synonymous) for private tutoring, extra study time, more quality study time, better libraries, etc etc that are left over from eras where laws were less neutral still remains. Unless laws supporting standardized testing include portions to address existing achievement gaps, they ultimately perpetuate those gaps and these non-racist legislators, enacting race-neutral laws, are still nonetheless perpetuating the ripple effects of yesterday's racist policies down the generations.

Yes, I understand that argument. It's also a fallacy, since what they are railing against then is poverty and not simply racism.

Under their reasoning, a rich black person would still be entitled for subsidies meant for the poor, because the person is black. Under their reasoning, a black female US Senator is more vulnerable than the white trailer park boy from Wyoming simply because the latter is a white male. And as such the rich African American would get anti poverty relief while the poor white person would not.

Another issue, is that they are assuming those differences are necessarily or only a result of past racism by the law. That's not always the case either.

At last, those notions of disparate impact (yes, this is already something considered by US law) need to balanced out against other criteria. For instance, African Americans are less likely to get a driver's license, yet I don't think this means one should simply do away with making sure people actually know how to drive before allowing them to. This is not racist, despite the racial differences in the probability of getting the licenses.

[Fasces]

Yes, I understand that argument. It's also a fallacy, since what they are railing against then is poverty and not simply racism.

You use "fallacy" in a very weird way. I don't disagree with your post, in any case, but it's possible for a single issue to be examined by multiple frameworks at one time. It is simply a lens, a tool for discourse like any other.

Under their reasoning, a rich black person would still be entitled for subsidies meant for the poor, because the person is black. Under their reasoning, a black female US Senator is more vulnerable than the white trailer park boy from Wyoming simply because the latter is a white male. And as such the rich African American would get anti poverty relief while the poor white person would not.

I think this is rather disingenuous though. Most proponents of CRT I've seen also advocate for an intersectional understanding of privledge that would account for these issues. I'm sure Twitter extremists exist, but that's Twitter.

[wat0n]

You use "fallacy" in a very weird way.

Why is it weird?

By the way, I understand you are simply trying to explain the reasoning by CRT proponents without necessarily advocating for it.

I don't disagree with your post, in any case, but it's possible for a single issue to be examined by multiple frameworks at one time. It is simply a lens, a tool for discourse like any other.

The problem is that this framework is not the proper one to examine and correct income/wealth inequality. Reducing them to a mere racial issue is not really getting into the problem at all, even if there is some correlation with race

A different issue is that of reparations, namely, if the government should compensate people for past government-sanctioned discrimination. This isn't really about income inequality (some rich people could perfectly be eligible, some poor people would not), this is a matter of compensation. And this is a lot more than simply about race, as one could reasonably make the case for including even some specific groups of what are now regarded as whites under this framework who were not really seen as such back in the day (e.g. descendants of Irish and Italian immigrants from the 19th century) and one would also need to draw distinctions in terms of how badly was each group treated (e.g. African Americans in free states were not treated as badly as those living in slave states, even if both groups were discriminated against at the time).

[Fasces]

The problem is that this framework is not the proper one to examine and correct income/wealth inequality.

That's not really its purpose, or wasn't at the time it was first explored.

It was a reaction to the problem of intent - specifically during the Nixon era - as a man's intent is inherently unknowable. You can never know what they truly believe or what's in their heart. They can claim to be non racist, but if they regularly and continously support policies over their career that don't address or even widens the equity gap between black and white, then their actions speak to their intent regardless of their words. CRT was a framework that allows such an analysis to take place and help identify racists hiding behind a veneer of neutrality, particularly racists involved in law or political proceedings.

This is Arguably important knowledge to know if you're trying to negotiate a fair deal in an adverserial legal/political system, such as the one in the US (which member of the city council can I approach for approving this new community center; will this prosecutor be amenable to a plea bargain for my client; etc). Some folks you can't just ever expect a fair deal from, whatever they may say, or if a man with a long history of anti black action approaches with what appears to be a good deal, maybe serve as a red flag of sorts.

For example: we first should recognize two realities in the US: 1) communities are gerrymandered, often along racial lines. 2) pork barrel spending is a reality of political compromise. If a non-racist politician continuously denies spending in majority-black communities, again and again and again, on the grounds that affirmative spending in that way is racially biased and that they think a similar amount of spending should be earmarked to poor white communities simultaneously (which maybe raises the cost of the bill beyond an affordable amount) because its really an affluence problem rather than a racial problem; then black leaders and activists, who are themselves beholden to delivering results to their constituents, can use CRT to identify these patterns and know not to waste political energy pursuing a deal with that individual. This, to me, seems perfectly rational.

[wat0n]

That's not really its purpose, or wasn't at the time it was first explored.

It was a reaction to the problem of intent - specifically during the Nixon era - as a man's intent is inherently unknowable. You can never know what they truly believe or what's in their heart. They can claim to be non racist, but if they regularly and continously support policies over their career that don't address or even widens the equity gap between black and white, then their actions speak to their intent regardless of their words. CRT was a framework that allows such an analysis to take place and help identify racists hiding behind a veneer of neutrality, particularly racists involved in law or political proceedings.

This is Arguably important knowledge to know if you're trying to negotiate a fair deal in an adverserial legal/political system, such as the one in the US (which member of the city council can I approach for approving this new community center; will this prosecutor be amenable to a plea bargain for my client; etc). Some folks you can't just ever expect a fair deal from, whatever they may say, or if a man with a long history of anti black action approaches with what appears to be a good deal, maybe serve as a red flag of sorts.

For example: we first should recognize two realities in the US: 1) communities are gerrymandered, often along racial lines. 2) pork barrel spending is a reality of political compromise. If a non-racist politician continuously denies spending in majority-black communities, again and again and again, on the grounds that affirmative spending in that way is racially biased and that they think a similar amount of spending should be earmarked to poor white communities simultaneously (which maybe raises the cost of the bill beyond an affordable amount) because its really an affluence problem rather than a racial problem; then black leaders and activists, who are themselves beholden to delivering results to their constituents, can use CRT to identify these patterns and know not to waste political energy pursuing a deal with that individual. This, to me, seems perfectly rational.

CRT goes well beyond just that, however. It's a legal theory and as such it deals with interpreting the law and not simply political strategy.

In your example, it would be rational to focus on race precisely because those black politicians are in fact aiming to deliver results that benefit people based on their race, while the other non-racist politician has a different goal of dealing with socioeconomic issues and helping low earners regardless of their race. That has nothing to do with how the courts interpret the law.

[Fasces]

I feel that isn't as seperate a category as you're implying - politics and law are quite linked. It's relation to legal theory is linked to disparate sentencing, and like politics in the US, the justice system is also an adversial system.

Identifying which courts and prosecuters harbor unconscious biases against black defendants and identifying which legal institutions disproportionately affect black individuals negatively also, eventually, require political solutions to solve adequately.

At the end of the day, part of the professional responsibilities educators and lawyers assume in the US, when getting accredited for work, involves a responsibility to defending the interests of their students or clients through advocacy and activism where necessary. CRT being applied as a critical lens toward the law used to identify latent racism and turned toward political activism is a necessary extension of that framework.