In the end their lack of belief in general help doesn't and shouldn't matter. Last I checked there's no biological differences that make it so they need targeted outreach of any kind.
That's a very ill-informed opinion, a one-size-fits-all approach that has failed throughout history.
For example, I worked in emergency management and it's pretty well known that Chicanos don't respond to traditional channels for information on disasters. If a Spanish-speaking meteorologist says "evacuate," they won't listen, because in their country, people of authority and their pawns will regularly lie to you. A more suitable response is to get on Telemundo or Univision and get a recognized figure to make appeals to them based on the family, and how they need to save their children to get out of harm's way.
In the end their lack of belief in general help doesn't and shouldn't matter. Last I checked there's no biological differences that make it so they need targeted outreach of any kind.
That's a very ill-informed opinion, a one-size-fits-all approach that has failed throughout history.
For example, I worked in emergency management and it's pretty well known that Chicanos don't respond to traditional channels for information on disasters. If a Spanish-speaking meteorologist says "evacuate," they won't listen, because in their country, people of authority and their pawns will regularly lie to you. A more suitable response is to get on Telemundo or Univision and get a recognized figure to make appeals to them based on the family, and how they need to save their children to get out of harm's way.
Good thing they're not in their country then. It makes me wonder why they even bother leaving their country physically if they're not going to leave it mentally and psychologically.
But by all means, lineup Jlo to do the disaster warning PSAs because people aren't willing to let go of the past they tried to escape by coming here.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CAMILLA: You, sir, should unmask.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
Good thing they're not in their country then. It makes me wonder why they even bother leaving their country physically if they're not going to leave it mentally and psychologically.
But by all means, lineup Jlo to do the disaster warning PSAs because people aren't willing to let go of the past they tried to escape by coming here.
That's very stereotypical. I suppose Jews in the US who migrated here are supposed to forget all about the Holocaust, because that was in the past and a long time ago. Their opinions on policy, both domestic and foreign, should not be based on that fact. Israeli-Americans shouldn't have an opinion at all on US-Israeli policy.
And JLo? Really? That's extremely bigoted and assumes that Chicanos listen to anyone who is remotely Latino. No Chicano would listen to an American pop star for disaster information.
Good thing they're not in their country then. It makes me wonder why they even bother leaving their country physically if they're not going to leave it mentally and psychologically.
But by all means, lineup Jlo to do the disaster warning PSAs because people aren't willing to let go of the past they tried to escape by coming here.
That's very stereotypical. I suppose Jews in the US who migrated here are supposed to forget all about the Holocaust, because that was in the past and a long time ago. Their opinions on policy, both domestic and foreign, should not be based on that fact. Israeli-Americans shouldn't have an opinion at all on US-Israeli policy.
And JLo? Really? That's extremely bigoted and assumes that Chicanos listen to anyone who is remotely Latino. No Chicano would listen to an American pop star for disaster information.
Haha ok, sure. You might want to get your ducks in a row here, you're all over the place.
Jews whose families were affected by the Holocaust don't seem to have a problem with responding to disaster warnings. Let me check real quick, nah they're good. They don't even bother checking to see who gave the notice as long as its credible. Credibility assured? Ok we're out of here.
See they came here, as have immigrants from all over the world and they did one very important thing: they integrated. They kept their culture and traditions, the things that actually matter and are important to them and also integrated themselves into our society, made critical decisions on what to bring and what to leave behind, what standards and sources to trust.
From what you said latinos haven't. They've just uprooted physically but they're still back home in mind and psyche, making zero attempt to integrate and actually let go of the BS that made them leave. They're living the "When in Rome, do as the Germans do" life and frankly that's fine, it's on them.
We shouldn't be jumping through hoops to accomodate every stupidity like this. This isn't a Survival of the Fittest notion, it's a Demise of the Dumb one. People that perpetually live in the past and refuse to step out of it, engage in critical trust building and then get swallowed by a Tornado or whatever frankly deserve it. It's the most pathetic society that attends to each cultures eccentricities and coddles them like children in these sort of things. This is just the same as when Black people don't call the police when crimes have been committed because "we don't do that." Grow the **** up.
Way to overreact on the Jlo comment by the way. See my last sentence of the previous paragraph.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CAMILLA: You, sir, should unmask.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
Haha ok, sure. You might want to get your ducks in a row here, you're all over the place.
Jews whose families were affected by the Holocaust don't seem to have a problem with responding to disaster warnings. Let me check real quick, nah they're good. They don't even bother checking to see who gave the notice as long as its credible. Credibility assured? Ok we're out of here.
See they came here, as have immigrants from all over the world and they did one very important thing: they integrated. They kept their culture and traditions, the things that actually matter and are important to them and also integrated themselves into our society, made critical decisions on what to bring and what to leave behind, what standards and sources to trust.
From what you said latinos haven't. They've just uprooted physically but they're still back home in mind and psyche, making zero attempt to integrate and actually let go of the BS that made them leave. They're living the "When in Rome, do as the Germans do" life and frankly that's fine, it's on them.
We shouldn't be jumping through hoops to accomodate every stupidity like this. This isn't a Survival of the Fittest notion, it's a Demise of the Dumb one. People that perpetually live in the past and refuse to step out of it, engage in critical trust building and then get swallowed by a Tornado or whatever frankly deserve it. It's the most pathetic society that attends to each cultures eccentricities and coddles them like children in these sort of things. This is just the same as when Black people don't call the police when crimes have been committed because "we don't do that." Grow the **** up.
Way to overreact on the Jlo comment by the way. See my last sentence of the previous paragraph.
Reading helps. I wasn't referring to disaster warnings, I was applying your idea to Jews whose families have lived through the Holocaust and Israeli-Americans who have opinions on foreign policy. The parallel there (and pay attention to this) is that Jews whose families have lived through the Holocaust and Israeli-Americans share commonalities with Latinos in that they've had a common experience due to culture or history, and that policymakers and bureaucrats need to pay attention to these differences.
When a president is campaigning in Jewish communities, he or she will appeal to the US-Israeli relationship? Why? Because Jews are culturally connected to Israel. When Jews came here they did not renounce their Jewishness. Would you want Jews to renounce their Jewishness because it's Merica and we're supposed to give up all of our histories to be absorbed into a Borg-like nationality?
Chicanos do not trust authorities, and it's not just the ones in Mexico. It's also the government that says to kick out all illegals and politicians who say Spanish is the language of the ghetto. It is a country where signs were put up saying "No Mexicans need apply," a country where cops get away with dumping Mexican suspects into a bayou with handcuffs on and letting them drown, a country where house prices force them into polluted areas and when they try to get answers on what is making them sick causes them to get stonewalled. But hey, trust the government on this one.
And I find it VERY interesting that you're telling Chicanos to trust the government on disaster response when huge portions of the population don't trust the government, the Congress, the president (who they believe is a Muslim socialist), etc. People distrust the government to the point of irrationality, but I guess when that distrust comes from a brown person they need to go back home, and when it's Bubba from East Texas it's a-ok.
Reading helps. I wasn't referring to disaster warnings, I was applying your idea to Jews whose families have lived through the Holocaust and Israeli-Americans who have opinions on foreign policy. The parallel there (and pay attention to this) is that Jews whose families have lived through the Holocaust and Israeli-Americans share commonalities with Latinos in that they've had a common experience due to culture or history, and that policymakers and bureaucrats need to pay attention to these differences.
When a president is campaigning in Jewish communities, he or she will appeal to the US-Israeli relationship? Why? Because Jews are culturally connected to Israel. When Jews came here they did not renounce their Jewishness. Would you want Jews to renounce their Jewishness because it's Merica and we're supposed to give up all of our histories to be absorbed into a Borg-like nationality?
Chicanos do not trust authorities, and it's not just the ones in Mexico. It's also the government that says to kick out all illegals and politicians who say Spanish is the language of the ghetto. It is a country where signs were put up saying "No Mexicans need apply," a country where cops get away with dumping Mexican suspects into a bayou with handcuffs on and letting them drown, a country where house prices force them into polluted areas and when they try to get answers on what is making them sick causes them to get stonewalled. But hey, trust the government on this one.
And I find it VERY interesting that you're telling Chicanos to trust the government on disaster response when huge portions of the population don't trust the government, the Congress, the president (who they believe is a Muslim socialist), etc. People distrust the government to the point of irrationality, but I guess when that distrust comes from a brown person they need to go back home, and when it's Bubba from East Texas it's a-ok.
Follow your own advice, reading helps. The disaster thing is a specific example of the very cultural biases due to history that you're talking about.
No, they really don't have to appeal to their specificness. This is identity politics which is probably the lowest form of it there is. Every group needs it's little pat on the back, made to feel special and appreciated, blah blah. It's BS, policy should be broad based and generic enough to cover everyone, it's an overzealous and hyperinvasive political system that things people need to be coddled through official act or policy.
I'm not talking about campaigning here. Going to a specific place and talking about what's going on there, sharing the cultural climate and highlighting why it is good and important is fine but the practice of identity politics especially in framing policy or platform is a sham. We have miles upon miles of laws on the books because of ideas like this which is basically overgoverning.
Most Jews are connected to Israel, not all. There's a reasonably large segment of them that can't stand Israel and want nothing to do with it. They tend to be Democrats. Hmmm. I never said renounce their Jewishness or their Latino heritage but guess what? Your "Latinos don't respond to traditional channels of communication on disasters" bit isn't a genetic trait, that's a LEARNED trait that has become part of their cultural practice due to circumstances where they're from. Honestly I don't blame them in many ways but to up and leave, immigrate to the US and make NO effort to let go of that is bull****, and apologizing for them doing it and giving it the thumbs up is the same.
Since it's not a genetic trait, it's completely up to them to let go of it, but they refuse so again: Demise of the Dumb.
Oh I know people distrust the government, I'm one of them. Yet that still doesn't make me blanket disregard everything that is said. Critical appraisal and thought goes into things and I base the results and my actions on that.
It's not ok when Bush says things, trust me. You can look at my posting history to see how much bashing of him and his family I've done.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CAMILLA: You, sir, should unmask.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
Chicanos do not trust authorities, and it's not just the ones in Mexico. It's also the government that says to kick out all illegals and politicians who say Spanish is the language of the ghetto.
Seriously I'm sick and tired of liberals conflating supporting immigration laws with racism. That's total BS and really drives home the point that political correctness is first and foremost about shutting down honest discussion and demonizing opposing viewpoints. There are plenty of good reasons to want to deport illegal immigrants that have nothing to do with racism of xenophobia.
It is a country where signs were put up saying "No Mexicans need apply," a country where cops get away with dumping Mexican suspects into a bayou with handcuffs on and letting them drown, a country where house prices force them into polluted areas and when they try to get answers on what is making them sick causes them to get stonewalled. But hey, trust the government on this one.
Al those things are illegal and would outrage the vast mojority of Americans where as in Mexico the corruption is just a part of everday life, don't pretend for a second those two countries are equivalent. Allthough I will admit we have a seen a weakening of the rule of law under Obama that will lead to a great deal more corruption the two nations are still worlds apart.
Losing an advantage over other certain people does not always mean you're getting shafted.".
Um, I'm losing something for no other reason but to placate someone else.
Conversely, bringing a disadvantaged person up to your level of opportunity isn't necessarily going to affect you, since this isn't a 100% zero-sum matter.
Great, help people only for them to compete with me making my life harder.
Just because someone is gaining something, doesn't mean another person must "lose".
Just because someone is losing something, doesn't mean another person must "gain".
The whole goal is to take this advantage....that I have. Now you are arguing my advantage is not that signficant that I will not notice losing it?
I assume you're referring to your SES. In which case, you're part of the population that we need to stop chucking under the bus. Remember, there are multiple kinds of "Privilege".
No, I'm talking about you taking my white american privilige. (reminder I'm playing a devil's advocate here).
EDIT: Society gives me $100 in spite of me rejecting it....now society says you do not deserve that or it's unfair that you got it, let me take a part of it and give it to someone else. Sorry, jack, you have no right or moral ipearative to take something I've obtained legally, morally and ethically by being born white and in America. I do not see an argument you can make that says it would be immoral or unjust to protect my advantage.
From what you said latinos haven't. They've just uprooted physically but they're still back home in mind and psyche, making zero attempt to integrate and actually let go of the BS that made them leave. They're living the "When in Rome, do as the Germans do" life and frankly that's fine, it's on them.
We shouldn't be jumping through hoops to accomodate every stupidity like this. This isn't a Survival of the Fittest notion, it's a Demise of the Dumb one. People that perpetually live in the past and refuse to step out of it, engage in critical trust building and then get swallowed by a Tornado or whatever frankly deserve it. It's the most pathetic society that attends to each cultures eccentricities and coddles them like children in these sort of things. This is just the same as when Black people don't call the police when crimes have been committed because "we don't do that." Grow the **** up.
While, homogenizing mental frameworks and collective attitudes is a nice notion, it's hardly realistic or applicable. We know from experience that you can't force reform or change on cultural or collective mindsets. If a society or community is going to change, it must happen internally. People tend to resist outside forces telling them to change. I think you're failing to understand that these people don't share the same kind of brain as you or I. Their experiences and cultural memes have fostered a distrust for government authority of any kind. This is not something you can simply say "oh, well they'll just have to change then." It's not that simple.
In your tornado example, we already know that the Latino population will not react to mainstream sources telling them to evacuate, but you have to do something to relocate this population. Letting them remain ignorant of a real danger and writing off any deaths in that population as "stupidity" is not ethically permissible. Not wanting people to die if there's something that can reasonably be done is not "coddling."
Follow your own advice, reading helps. The disaster thing is a specific example of the very cultural biases due to history that you're talking about.
No, they really don't have to appeal to their specificness. This is identity politics which is probably the lowest form of it there is. Every group needs it's little pat on the back, made to feel special and appreciated, blah blah. It's BS, policy should be broad based and generic enough to cover everyone, it's an overzealous and hyperinvasive political system that things people need to be coddled through official act or policy.
I'm not talking about campaigning here. Going to a specific place and talking about what's going on there, sharing the cultural climate and highlighting why it is good and important is fine but the practice of identity politics especially in framing policy or platform is a sham. We have miles upon miles of laws on the books because of ideas like this which is basically overgoverning.
Most Jews are connected to Israel, not all. There's a reasonably large segment of them that can't stand Israel and want nothing to do with it. They tend to be Democrats. Hmmm. I never said renounce their Jewishness or their Latino heritage but guess what? Your "Latinos don't respond to traditional channels of communication on disasters" bit isn't a genetic trait, that's a LEARNED trait that has become part of their cultural practice due to circumstances where they're from. Honestly I don't blame them in many ways but to up and leave, immigrate to the US and make NO effort to let go of that is bull****, and apologizing for them doing it and giving it the thumbs up is the same.
Since it's not a genetic trait, it's completely up to them to let go of it, but they refuse so again: Demise of the Dumb.
Oh I know people distrust the government, I'm one of them. Yet that still doesn't make me blanket disregard everything that is said. Critical appraisal and thought goes into things and I base the results and my actions on that.
It's not ok when Bush says things, trust me. You can look at my posting history to see how much bashing of him and his family I've done.
Except disaster preparedness is a LOCAL duty, not federal. It's not a federal problem until the mayor/county judge goes through the traditional channels until it reaches FEMA. It is the DUTY of local emergency managers to make damn sure that knowledge reaches people so they can get out of harm's way. And if it's a local response, it needs to be tailored to the local communities. Putting your fingers in your ears and telling people to become your idea of what an American should be is dangerous.
There are huge portions of people on the Texas Gulf Coast with people as Anglo as can be and their attitude when a hurricane the size of the Gulf of Mexico is barreling towards them is "I ain't leavin, ain't nobody gon' tell me what to do." That's a part of their culture. And those people need to be educated as much as Vietnamese shrimpers and Latinos, to save lives. You're asking for people to die because of ideological purity of what an American should be. Emergency managers' first goal should be to protect all residents facing a natural or technological hazard.
Seriously I'm sick and tired of liberals conflating supporting immigration laws with racism. That's total BS and really drives home the point that political correctness is first and foremost about shutting down honest discussion and demonizing opposing viewpoints. There are plenty of good reasons to want to deport illegal immigrants that have nothing to do with racism of xenophobia.
Al those things are illegal and would outrage the vast mojority of Americans where as in Mexico the corruption is just a part of everday life, don't pretend for a second those two countries are equivalent. Allthough I will admit we have a seen a weakening of the rule of law under Obama that will lead to a great deal more corruption the two nations are still worlds apart.
Did I say I was for illegal immigration? The fact that I used the word "illegals" instead of "undocumented migrants" or whatever people are calling them these days should speak volumes.
Where are you reading this stuff about Mexico and the US being equivalent?
While, homogenizing mental frameworks and collective attitudes is a nice notion, it's hardly realistic or applicable. We know from experience that you can't force reform or change on cultural or collective mindsets. If a society or community is going to change, it must happen internally. People tend to resist outside forces telling them to change. I think you're failing to understand that these people don't share the same kind of brain as you or I. Their experiences and cultural memes have fostered a distrust for government authority of any kind. This is not something you can simply say "oh, well they'll just have to change then." It's not that simple.
In your tornado example, we already know that the Latino population will not react to mainstream sources telling them to evacuate, but you have to do something to relocate this population. Letting them remain ignorant of a real danger and writing off any deaths in that population as "stupidity" is not ethically permissible. Not wanting people to die if there's something that can reasonably be done is not "coddling."
Actually I have the same kind of brain as them, as I don't trust the government either but that lack of trust on my part doesn't make me just blank out everything that is said by it, especially things said in times of crisis. Listen first then judge, it's funny that people are defending blind prejudice because it's against the government and it's minorities doing it.
I never said it'd be simple, I said it'd be necessary because that's part of the entire integration process and if we were serious about the integration process we wouldn't be dancing around cultural insecurities and allowing them to exist perpetually. At some point you have to let go of whatever the hell it is that's causing all of that, and if they're not willing to do so then the presentation of the hard reality of its necessity by having one solid uniform presentation on things is more than reasonable on this nations' behalf.
I know it must happen internally but as long as the choice is there NOT to change, then the appearance of things is that will be what is chosen. Otherwise what this country ends up doing is playing appeasement to sensibilities everytime something comes up and especially in moments of crisis that's the last thing that we can be doing and operate effectively.
Special treatment, accomodation or effort on their behalf is out of line. Continuity of message in a crisis especially one with a small window of time to act in means one voice, one message with updates as necessary. Not this BS of ok we've given our American message, now let's bring in the slew of minority representatives so they can actually trust what is said. It's stupid. If those people want to designate amongst themselves people in their own community to engage in this so difficult trust, then that'd be fine but bending over backwards to fluff up people who've made no effort to integrate and let go of the past they came here to escape is absurd.
Haha ethnically permissible, that's a good one.
Edit: Oops, read that last part wrong. It's still funny.
Except disaster preparedness is a LOCAL duty, not federal. It's not a federal problem until the mayor/county judge goes through the traditional channels until it reaches FEMA. It is the DUTY of local emergency managers to make damn sure that knowledge reaches people so they can get out of harm's way. And if it's a local response, it needs to be tailored to the local communities. Putting your fingers in your ears and telling people to become your idea of what an American should be is dangerous.
There are huge portions of people on the Texas Gulf Coast with people as Anglo as can be and their attitude when a hurricane the size of the Gulf of Mexico is barreling towards them is "I ain't leavin, ain't nobody gon' tell me what to do." That's a part of their culture. And those people need to be educated as much as Vietnamese shrimpers and Latinos, to save lives. You're asking for people to die because of ideological purity of what an American should be. Emergency managers' first goal should be to protect all residents facing a natural or technological hazard.
No, it's not dangerous at all. Messages should be the exact same regardless of who they're spoken to and what language they're spoken in. Funneling information to local organizations that help spread it is fine but that's really the extent of it, there should be a primary source and if secondary word of mouth or extra actions are taken in a non official capacity, that's fine.
No, I'm not asking people to die. You're not very smart. I'm asking that standardized and typical channels of crisis communication be listened to and accepted, which seems to be a cultural impossibility for some because of what they went through in the past and are unwilling to get over, mainly because they have no reason to with people like you advancing the "everyone has their own unique spokesperson so they feel safe and cozy in catastrophe" line.
Flame infraction. - Blinking Spirit
There's a reason that danger signs, signals, sirens and modes of communicating hazards are uniform: so they can be recognized by everyone. That's the premise under which I operate but I might be biased due to the fact that even if I have a problem with the government I'm able to make my own evaluation of what they're saying to determine if it's BS or not. I'm 40% Romanian and last I checked I didn't need some officially approved gypsy warning me about danger in order for me to accept it, and neither should anyone else. If you're that stubborn or dumb your life might be lost, people have been hurt or died for their refusal to change uncountable millions of times before so that'd be nothing new.
I'm not going to cry over that or feel any differently and it's important as a whole that continuity of message and its deliverance through official channels be maintained and that we get out of the business of identity politics and its hopscotch games.
CAMILLA: You, sir, should unmask.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
Actually I have the same kind of brain as them, as I don't trust the government either but that lack of trust on my part doesn't make me just blank out everything that is said by it, especially things said in times of crisis. Listen first then judge, it's funny that people are defending blind prejudice because it's against the government and it's minorities doing it.
I actually don't particularly care that they're minorities. I just don't think that your argument is sound.
I never said it'd be simple, I said it'd be necessary because that's part of the entire integration process and if we were serious about the integration process we wouldn't be dancing around cultural insecurities and allowing them to exist perpetually.
You know what would really help foster change in the Latino community? Making the barrier for entry to become a legal citizen (I don't believe in the "undocumented" soft language. The "undocumented" are here illegally.) not so insanely high. The fact is many of the people we're talking about simply don't have the resources to pull it off, I honestly can understand difficulty with integration. A lot of these people don't feel like Americans, so they don't act like Americans. I'm saying that it makes sense why they wouldn't trust the same system that makes the barrier for entry to not be deported so high.
I know it must happen internally but as long as the choice is there NOT to change, then the appearance of things is that will be what is chosen. Otherwise what this country ends up doing is playing appeasement to sensibilities everytime something comes up and especially in moments of crisis that's the last thing that we can be doing and operate effectively.
You recognize change within a social group must happen internally but then you say they won't change if they have the choice not to. So, what's the solution then? Give them a Hobson's choice? How? What legislation would you enact from the outside to change the culture from the inside?
Special treatment, accomodation or effort on their behalf is out of line. Continuity of message in a crisis especially one with a small window of time to act in means one voice, one message with updates as necessary. Not this BS of ok we've given our American message, now let's bring in the slew of minority representatives so they can actually trust what is said. It's stupid. If those people want to designate amongst themselves people in their own community to engage in this so difficult trust, then that'd be fine but bending over backwards to fluff up people who've made no effort to integrate and let go of the past they came here to escape is absurd.
They "make no effort to integrate" because they are given no reasonable opportunity to do so. This is my contention with your argument. You want them to get over their cultural predispositions but fail to recognize the circumstances as to why those predispositions are allowed to propagate. This image of a "slew of minority representatives" just strikes me as hyperbole.
Haha ethnically permissible, that's a good one.
I'm not sure why you find that funny. Let's say you're the Mayor of a city. There is a major natural disaster predicted to travel right past your city (let's just use a hurricane as an example.) Your situation is this: You have a group of people who don't respond well to mainstream outlets and you have everyone else. You job is to make sure as many people as humanly possible react appropriately to this incoming hurricane. What do you do? Would you not try and do everything in your power to make sure this group of people took you seriously? How exactly is it permissible to write it off as "they wouldn't listen" without making an attempt to appeal to them? I don't see it as "special treatment," at least, not in the context you're using it. I see it as trying to make sure people don't ****ing die.
The weaknesses that you're saying are recognized aren't the perogative of the government to engage in addressing. This is the place of private initiatives and local communities organizing their efforts and resources, and why a robust federal government isn't well suited to addressing the needs of communities because a blanket approach is more prone to miss important details to specific areas, be less accountable and the tailored approach plays the game of winners and losers. It argues for stronger state and local governments which are not only more immediately accountable to the local citizens but also is front and center in both interacting with citizens and planning solutions suitable to the situation. If there's going to be tax dollars spent it should be the people of specific communities spending their own taxes on their own problems and solutions.
That's a fair argument. I didn't specify that it had to be the federal government doing it, did I? A community-by-community approach would probably be much more effective, as the degree of differences will vary by the local communities.
However, my caveat would be that, as the federal government is culpable for the institutionalization of slavery or other historic practices, it falls on the federal government to at least address it in part. Since many of the states with the greatest inequities take more money from the federal government than they contribute, it's hard to take the feds out of it.
I'm not a fan of all inclusive health metrics or any of that type of thing. Obviously a specific group that is bottoming out or something of the like needs to take actions but the actions should come from within, from their own leadership and their own outreach.
That kinds of thing is happening, but it should be complementary to other means. The faster we make the changes, the better we will be overall.
In the past people just accepted that their down position wasn't going to change unless they changed it themselves and if they stuck together with their families and local communities. Now they look to people who live hundreds of miles away and ask them to organize a plan to fix their problems so they can keep on watching tv, doing whatever it is they do and not take active roles in the problems they deal with. The contrast of this and the results of it can't be overstated and it's helped create the explosion in the power of politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats beyond anything the world has ever seen. It's not healthy nor acceptable to a free society in any way.
I think this is a gross overgeneralization and I think you're romanticizing the notion of the pioneer spirit, here. There will always be people who are happy to take free handouts, but anything I've read pretty much says the same thing, people would rather be working than not. You can't forget in the 'old days' that people often starved to death or died of preventable diseases, too, which conveniently weeded out lots of the people who failed.
I'm all for racially distinct communities, I'm a big traditionalist in many ways and that is one of the biggest examples of sustaining and passing on traditions and identity. National integration while a fine effort can't ever be so pervasive that it mutes away ethnic qualities and racially distinct communities are huge in safeguarding this.
Distinct cultural identities are fine. But when part of that cultural identity is 'can't trust healthcare institutions' or 'school won't do anything for me', and those cultural mores are rooted in a history of institutionalized discrimination, it's a problem that should be addressed.
Your last bit about Katrina is probably my outlier. Natural disasters deserve to be addressed as a whole by everyone but I think that is also something that finds itself outside the crux of the majority of our back and forth.
My only point was to show the consequences of allowing a population to flounder behind.
Why should I not protect the advantage I've obtained? Seems to me if I have this advantage, I can only suffer if I support policies that seek to mitigate it.
My question in return is how does other people's success mitigate yours?
Statistics alone are morally neutral; no statistic justifies anything without a concurrent moral argument. In order to justify some attempt to change a statistic, you need the statistics, plus a piece of moral logic that says that your attempt to dork around with the statistics is justified, plus a piece of means-end logic that shows your proposed intervention will have the effect that is underwritten by the moral logic.
Oh, I think you're getting me mixed up here. We live in a country that's founded on the principles of freedom with a strong emphasis on equality within the framework of a capitalist system. When I see an imbalance that would indicate that either everyone isn't being treated equally or a particular cultural or social issues are creating a problem for a social group, I want to try and correct that imbalance. Does it need to get more complex than that? I want the system to run as it claims it does.
But if my crime is hyperbole, yours is being cagey and deceptive about your actual position.
I know conceding points is incredibly abnormal on debate, but I'd hardly call it deceptive. You all convinced me that 'white privilege' was a fallacious argument.
Obviously I'm not a robot and I have my own biases, but I've been pretty clear from the start on where I stand and why. It's only the attempts to explain it or justify it that have varied, and when I concede a point, but it doesn't change my overall position, I reformulate my argument. That's how a debate works without becoming an exercise in stonewalling.
I'm not quoting it here but you talk about the issues of the studies. If there is an institutional problem in academia, that'd be something I want to address, but the only example you provided was a case where you yourself mentioned the mistake had numerous errors. I don't doubt that there is a bias in academia about a variety of issues, but the lack of research is, at best, a side issue to the discussion at hand.
Do one or more welfare recipients suffer harm when welfare funding is reduced so that the upper class can get a 1% tax break? After all, we're not taking money out of their pockets, are we? Just giving them less than they would have gotten. No harm 'tall there, no sir.
You're drawing an inaccurate comparison. To frame this in terms of my actual argument, it'd be like rich people not getting a 1% tax break because poor people have donated to other poor people.
By your tone I assume you believe this statement is as ridiculous as I do. It's interesting that you bring this up because it gets into proportionality. 1% of a poor person's income isn't the same as 1% of a rich person's income, something you apparently agree with. So why is it different when talking about social groups that aren't divided by wealth? How is welfare for the poor ethically different from social programs targeting disadvantaged minorities?
Yes, until you make it non-arbitrary by providing moral reasoning. The (true) fact that left-handed men earn on average 5% more than righties doesn't seem to spur any social justice crusade, nor should it. Because, in addition to all of the other fallacies we've been talking about, it's arbitrary.
Talking of fallacies, left-handed men aren't a social group with their own culture. If you had talked about the Asian population, maybe we would have had something to talk about.
But let me humor you anyway, because I think you're at least partly right that I'm being 'cagey' because every little nuance of what I believe doesn't occur to me to write down every time.
Let's think about South Africa here for a minute. A place where the minority population has historically had a significant social and economic advantage. By your own logic, is this a reasonable situation?
And at least here in the US, public health, you'll notice, is not all that it might be. Don't assume that because it happens to be the case that you do something, it's the right or best thing to do.
I'm not sure you understand what I'm talking about when I say public health.
But you're right, assuming because it works in one area doesn't mean it works in every area.
There is no doubt that my sample is skewed. Attempting to draw a general statistical inference from that is going to be hopeless, which is why it's a good thing I'm not trying to do that.
Look, I feel like you're just not listening to me. I am certainly dealing with a statistically unique corner of the universe -- but so is everyone else! You've never met an average white person in your life. Such a person does not exist. Everyone deviates from statistical norms in significant ways. Us weirdos out here on the fringe are still human beings! You can't mistreat us because we don't fall into the middle of the curve!
Now who is being cagey? You can't tell me that individuals are all that matter, but that talking about individuals is uselessly anecdotal. Of course the 'average person' doesn't exist. But it's ridiculous to argue that we can't make decisions based on statistical likelihoods.
You can't push the fat man onto the train track! It's wrong!
The problem with this argument is that you're still implying that a failure to help an individual is the same as actively participating in their injury. It isn't, by any moral or ethical standard. Helping a disadvantaged group is not the same as holding back another group. You are crying unfair because the rules are supposed to be fair, but you're doing it in a situation where the field of play is slanted.
Sure, I wouldn't push the fat man onto the tracks, but that isn't the same as not saving him from the train, leaving one person die to use limited resources to do the most good is part of my job. So please don't patronize me.
How does a welfare recipient suffer when his welfare check is reduced so that more money can be devoted to Social Security?
Well, 'welfare' isn't any one individual sum. I suppose that individual would have to make due with their Medicare/Medicaid, Food Stamps, Unemployment, etc.
Fairness is a moral concept, and since you haven't articulated -- in fact, have outright denied that you are taking -- a moral stance here, you simply have no basis for saying which things are or aren't fair. This is a bare assertion.
Fine, you're right that I've been avoiding the issue, so lets talk ethics.
Fairness is an ethical concept, so let me talk about the ethics of the situation here. Fairness is really only an ethical norm that refers to standards that are recognized as fair by all those affected by them.
Two other concepts that are important here are consistency and proportionality.
Consistency is treating like groups alike, which is what you're arguing and would be perfectly valid, if the groups we're discussing were alike. But I haven't heard you argue against the social and cultural differences between the white and black population in this context, so unless you have a new argument that the white and black population are the same or close enough, I'm not sure how you can think your approach is consistent.
Proportionality is, essentially, keeping things within reason. Since you're more of an expert on that than I am, how much total financial aid does each of your college's students receive? How much of that, would you say, is race-based in origin?
1) The vicious cycle of poverty -- where people get stuck in low socioeconomic bands because all of their productive time is devoted to maintaining their status quo rather than advancing it -- is a moral evil; humankind is better off the more opportunities people have to lift themselves out of this.
2) For a person in this situation, receiving a first-rate education can help mitigate this phenomenon and lift them out of the cycle.
Therefore, 3) We help humanity the most and do the most moral good (that college financial aid possibly can) when we allocate our resources so as to give the highest number of first-rate educations to the highest number of the neediest people.
I would absolutely agree, if socioeconomic status was the only factor at play.
What I'm not sure you're getting is that the value of race-based funding is more than just getting that single student to college. The paper I posted does mention that funding isn't the only reason black enrollment is low, I'm not foolish enough to assume that.
And one could attempt to figure out the reason that the black attendance percentage is lower. Then one could use moral logic to decide whether or not that reason is actually a problem -- and if it is, address it in a morally sound fashion without throwing virgins into the volcano to please Pele.
Obviously funding isn't the only reason attendance or even graduation rates are so much lower around the black population. As far as all the reasons, there are lots of theories and even a lot of evidence to support some of them, but the reality is that there is only so much you can do. What the funding does is help break through those barriers. We can't make a families care about education. We can't make them keep their kids home at night to avoid gang activity, there are a lot of things we can't do and only a few we can.
And you keep making a false dichotomy with your hyperbole. The two options aren't sacrifice someone or be 'fair'. It's perfectly possible to target a population without harming another population, at least directly.
No, it's a snarky allusion toward what I'll call normalcy, borrowing Blinking Spirit's phrase. When you walk into Wal-Mart, the greeter will say "Hello, welcome to Wal-Mart, how are you today?" But that's Anglo-normalcy, isn't it? If you're Japanese, he should say "Konichi-wa." If you're Hawaiian, he should say "Aloha kakahiaka." If you're a member of the Catawba tribe, he should say "Tanake tineyedo." In fact he should probably have an array of costumes at the ready, as well as familiarity with a wide array of sign languages as well as body language and dances. But he doesn't, and so the cycle of white male heterosexual ooppression just goes on and on.
Oh I see, it's a fallacious comparison to the American system as a whole. It's funny, but wrong. Obviously, as a whole, we share a certain set of cultural norms just as smaller social groups do. But this ignore proportionality, obviously the ability to provide considerations for a small population of five purple interpretive dance-speakers is less significant than the considerations for the largest minority group in the country.
In addition, you've got the argument framed wrong anyway. It'd be more like Walmart gives English lessons to everyone who doesn't speak it so that they can be greeted. And then the English speakers complain and ask why these other people get English lessons and they don't.
BTdubs, The governments do have to do all those things (at least, I mean, provide translations in as many languages as we have populations).
My question in return is how does other people's success mitigate yours?
How does my success mitigate a black persons?
I think we're getting a little meta here. Your success doesn't mitigate a black person's success or lack there of. It's not an antagonistic relationship, or at least my view of the issue isn't. I see the norm and I want the minority population to at least reach the norm.
My question in return is how does other people's success mitigate yours?
How does my success mitigate a black persons?
I think we're getting a little meta here. Your success doesn't mitigate a black person's success or lack there of. It's not an antagonistic relationship, or at least my view of the issue isn't. I see the norm and I want the minority population to at least reach the norm.
but, in my devil's advocate acceptace of white advantage, I'd be losing it...
No, it's not dangerous at all. Messages should be the exact same regardless of who they're spoken to and what language they're spoken in. Funneling information to local organizations that help spread it is fine but that's really the extent of it, there should be a primary source and if secondary word of mouth or extra actions are taken in a non official capacity, that's fine.
No, I'm not asking people to die. You're not very smart. I'm asking that standardized and typical channels of crisis communication be listened to and accepted, which seems to be a cultural impossibility for some because of what they went through in the past and are unwilling to get over, mainly because they have no reason to with people like you advancing the "everyone has their own unique spokesperson so they feel safe and cozy in catastrophe" line.
Flame infraction. - Blinking Spirit
There's a reason that danger signs, signals, sirens and modes of communicating hazards are uniform: so they can be recognized by everyone. That's the premise under which I operate but I might be biased due to the fact that even if I have a problem with the government I'm able to make my own evaluation of what they're saying to determine if it's BS or not. I'm 40% Romanian and last I checked I didn't need some officially approved gypsy warning me about danger in order for me to accept it, and neither should anyone else. If you're that stubborn or dumb your life might be lost, people have been hurt or died for their refusal to change uncountable millions of times before so that'd be nothing new.
I'm not going to cry over that or feel any differently and it's important as a whole that continuity of message and its deliverance through official channels be maintained and that we get out of the business of identity politics and its hopscotch games.
Messages should be the same regardless? Then how do you explain the difference between disaster warnings from emergency managers in non-tribal jurisdictions and tribal jurisdictions? In tribal jurisdictions there is an integration between the tribal LEPC/EM and elders. These are people who are the first Americans, and the way disasters are communicated are different than in non-tribal jurisdictions. Maybe we should use tribal jurisdictions as the model for how emergency managers across the country to use, and if anyone doesn't like it, tough.
And the idea that all messaging is the same across cultures is quite frankly false and Eurocentric. In African-American communities, you go to the churches. In Latino communities you appeal to the family and cultural authorities. We all have different experiences in this country, which is one of the strengths of the United States. You're asking to standardize the American experience, which is overly simplistic (again, gnostic worldviews and the similarity to communistic "Russification" of Central Asia).
Messages should be the same regardless? Then how do you explain the difference between disaster warnings from emergency managers in non-tribal jurisdictions and tribal jurisdictions? In tribal jurisdictions there is an integration between the tribal LEPC/EM and elders. These are people who are the first Americans, and the way disasters are communicated are different than in non-tribal jurisdictions. Maybe we should use tribal jurisdictions as the model for how emergency managers across the country to use, and if anyone doesn't like it, tough.
And the idea that all messaging is the same across cultures is quite frankly false and Eurocentric. In African-American communities, you go to the churches. In Latino communities you appeal to the family and cultural authorities. We all have different experiences in this country, which is one of the strengths of the United States. You're asking to standardize the American experience, which is overly simplistic (again, gnostic worldviews and the similarity to communistic "Russification" of Central Asia).
What is the "American" nation, by the way?
Except this isn't a tribal nation, it's the United States of America, a Constitutional Republic based on the premise of rule of law. Tribal jurisdictions are irrelevant to this particular discussion, we base nothing on them.
My entire problem with this particular moment in the thread is the idea that there needs to be extra efforts made to communicate vital emergency/disaster information to people because of biases they acquired elsewhere and are unwilling to relinquish now that they're here. Talk about self fulfilling and self perpetuating prophecies.
No, lets add extra steps to the process requiring critical time, resources and effort to engage in. Real smart. You know, since seeing a disaster warning on tv from officials and appraising it as trustworthy or not is too much effort to make with no motive or interest to engage in.
Outside of emergency and disaster situations I really don't care if there's all these extra steps as long as it's not a big stretch to make it happen. But there's crunch time considerations that must be made and really no one has the time, energy or interest in engaging cultural insecurities when something serious is going on. It's at that point that uniformity is in everyones' best interest until the emergency has passed.
I am asking to standardize the American experience on things that there's really no need to have anything differently. This whole special snowflake tripe is fine on far too many things to layout here but in dealing with official communications especially the likes of disasters and other emergencies one uniform standard is best. As any soldier will tell you there is no chance for confusion when official actions of these kind are handled in known, predictable and easy to understand ways.
But of course we live in the special snowflake age, so people don't even know what those official actions are anymore. It's telling when communities do their monthly emergency air siren tests and you see people looking around wondering what the hell that sound is. Herp, derp, durp. Their cultural background must preclude them from learning those things too.
The American Nation? Um, that's pretty obvious. Not only the geographic boundaries but history, laws and traditions that comprise it. They're very important and should not be forsaken for any reason.
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CAMILLA: You, sir, should unmask.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
Except this isn't a tribal nation, it's the United States of America, a Constitutional Republic based on the premise of rule of law. Tribal jurisdictions are irrelevant to this particular discussion, we base nothing on them.
My entire problem with this particular moment in the thread is the idea that there needs to be extra efforts made to communicate vital emergency/disaster information to people because of biases they acquired elsewhere and are unwilling to relinquish now that they're here. Talk about self fulfilling and self perpetuating prophecies.
You do realize that's kind of exactly what European colonizers did, right? You are literally complaining that the indigenous populations didn't change their culture to become more like the outsiders culture and then in the same breath complaining that people should become more like the host. Guess who was here first? Hint: Not Europeans.
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Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
Like I discussed with Tiax, this is a deliberately simplified model, intended to strip away complicating variables and get to the heart of the question of what our goals and priorities are. If there is a reason for targeting black children that lies in the complexities but is not found in the simplified model, that's an interesting discovery, isn't it? It eliminates several arguments that are commonly seen here and elsewhere, such as the innate desirability of balanced statistics.
Incidentally, I had actually considered talking the possibility that the drowning risk for blacks was based on other factors besides or beyond the lack of swim education, as a bit of a pedantic foray into how statistics can be tricky. But I decided it wasn't worth it and just stuck with the clean model of drowning being a single-variable function of swimming ability.
So it's not completely accurate to say that as a parent of a black child, your child is three times more likely to drown. You're not the parent of a statistical average, or of a randomly selected child about which nothing else is known. You're the parent of your child, with individual risk factors that you can learn about and exercise some control over; possibly the city government or community center can help you with that. But the help ought to be distributed with equal priority to every kid who displays the same risk factors. Now, in my simplified model, the only risk factor was pure inability to swim. Obviously, reality is more complex. But even in the real world, blackness is not a risk factor in its own right. Neptune is colorblind.
This is still problematic, Blinking Spirit. You're right, neptune is colorblind, but the context of the world we live in isn't. A straightforward model lacking context is, of course, going to show that traits only associated with the context of our culture are irrelevant.
I could just as easily say a bullet is equally likely to kill both a white child and black child when fired in their direction. Therefore, we should invest equally in bullet proof vests for all children, rather than targeting anyone in particular. If real life were a math problem, they'd both have the same risk for being killed by bullets. But reality tells a different story. In fact, blacks represent half the total victims and offenders of gun homicide, despite only being 12.7% of the population. But would you seriously argue that we should only allocate our resources to combating gun violence in the black population in proportion to their size? Thia is what you and Crashing00 are suggesting.
Okay, so it's clear my argument is completely muddled at this point, so let me rephrase for simplicity and clarity's sake.
The Fair Model Advocates are stating:
- That the social group to which an individual is a part of is irrelevant to their overall need
- That by targeting aid to needy individuals in a disadvantaged social group, we are, indirectly, harming other needy individuals not in that social group
- That it is immoral to harm other needy individuals for the sake of a needy and disadvantaged social group
- Therefore, the only fair model is to distribute funds to all eligible recipients without heed to context
I'm arguing:
- That the social group to which an individual is a part of is relevant in establishing the context of their need
- That trying to impose fair rules on an unfair system is still unfair
- That by targeting aid to needy individuals in a disadvantaged social group we are making a long-term investment in balancing the source of their disadvantage
- That the targeted aid to disadvantaged social groups is only proportionate to their need nor does it excessively draw from aid to the population as a whole (meaning it is ethically permissible)
- Therefore, a 'fair' system would needs to balance the already unfair landscape with the potential harm, not ignore one in favor of the other
The Fair Model Advocates are stating:
- That the social group to which an individual is a part of is irrelevant to their overall need
- That by targeting aid to needy individuals in a disadvantaged social group, we are, indirectly, harming other needy individuals not in that social group
- That it is immoral to harm other needy individuals for the sake of a needy and disadvantaged social group
- Therefore, the only fair model is to distribute funds to all eligible recipients without heed to context
I don't think this is an accurate summary. Mostly because it makes a shortcut that I think most of the "fair model advocates" would object to -- notably the shortcut of skin colour = social group.
By targeting skin colour you are not targeting social groups, you are targeting traits correlated with social groups. Which is not the same thing.
The Fair Model Advocates are stating:
- That the social group to which an individual is a part of is irrelevant to their overall need
- That by targeting aid to needy individuals in a disadvantaged social group, we are, indirectly, harming other needy individuals not in that social group
- That it is immoral to harm other needy individuals for the sake of a needy and disadvantaged social group
- Therefore, the only fair model is to distribute funds to all eligible recipients without heed to context
I don't think this is an accurate summary. Mostly because it makes a shortcut that I think most of the "fair model advocates" would object to -- notably the shortcut of skin colour = social group.
By targeting skin colour you are not targeting social groups, you are targeting traits correlated with social groups. Which is not the same thing.
Ah, I didn't mean to imply that. Thanks for pointing it out, because I want an accurate reflection of the argument. Yes, there is a difference between 'black' as a social group and black as a racial characteristic. However, none of the arguments so far really brought that up so it slipped my mind to make the distinction.
That's actually a good argument, as I doubt I'll find anything solid either way about how many dark-skinned people that we refer to as 'black' actually belong to 'black culture'. When I say 'black people', it's shorthand for black culture.
However, in the population groups we're talking about, especially in predominantly black communities, I think the the number of 'in no way affected by or part of black culture' errors would be pretty slim.
[ANECDOTE]Having worked in the inner city in a predominantly black EMS company with predominantly black patients has given me some insight, at least in my area, to the fact that, in general, black skin tone qualifies you for 'black culture', even if you aren't a descendant of slaves or even African. [/ANECDOTE] There are tons of sub-groups that overlap 'black culture', and trying to define them all would take way too long and simply wouldn't be efficient or proportional to the potential for error that a black person who has never been disadvantaged in their life but nonetheless is low SES might slip through.
That's actually a good argument, as I doubt I'll find anything solid either way about how many dark-skinned people that we refer to as 'black' actually belong to 'black culture'. When I say 'black people', it's shorthand for black culture.
The problem with your shorthand (in this case, not in general usage) is that it's not being interpreted by most people as referring to culture, but rather to skin colour. This is most likely the case because of the topic of the thread.
However, in the population groups we're talking about, especially in predominantly black communities, I think the the number of 'in no way affected by or part of black culture' errors would be pretty slim.
Possibly, but by the same token soceo-economic targeting is (arguably) more accurate at targeting the negatively affected group, and is more fair racially. The argument isn't "we shouldn't help impoverished blacks". The argument is "we should help all impoverished people".
[ANECDOTE]Having worked in the inner city in a predominantly black EMS company with predominantly black patients has given me some insight, at least in my area, to the fact that, in general, black skin tone qualifies you for 'black culture', even if you aren't a descendant of slaves or even African. [/ANECDOTE] There are tons of sub-groups that overlap 'black culture', and trying to define them all would take way too long and simply wouldn't be efficient or proportional to the potential for error that a black person who has never been disadvantaged in their life but nonetheless is low SES might slip through.
You're missing the problem. The problem isn't that targeting black individuals (skin tone) is missing some black individuals (skin tone). The problem is that it's targetting at the wrong thing. Yes, you more often hit what you wanted to than not becuase the target overlaps with what you actually wanted to hit. But there are other, better, means of targeting what you actually wnat to hit (low SES).
And now that I sound like someone who wants to go out and shoot black people....
I could just as easily say a bullet is equally likely to kill both a white child and black child when fired in their direction. Therefore, we should invest equally in bullet proof vests for all children, rather than targeting anyone in particular. If real life were a math problem, they'd both have the same risk for being killed by bullets. But reality tells a different story. In fact, blacks represent half the total victims and offenders of gun homicide, despite only being 12.7% of the population. But would you seriously argue that we should only allocate our resources to combating gun violence in the black population in proportion to their size? Thia is what you and Crashing00 are suggesting.
You're making the same mistake that Vorthospike did when he suggested that the swim class ought under fair distribution to be 75% white because 75% of the total population is white rather than 50% white because 50% of the kids who can't swim are white. If blacks represent about half the total victims of gun homicide, then about half of the total resources devoted to preventing gun homicide, distributed colorblindly but based on real risk factors, will end up going to people who happen to be black. Do you find this distribution reasonable, or would you like more than half the resources to go towards half the homicides?
- That trying to impose fair rules on an unfair system is still unfair
Begs the question. "Unfair system" implies that racial discrimination against blacks is still going on. Obviously when that's the case we need to terminate it with extreme prejudice. But there is a difference between an uneven distribution and an unfair one, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with an uneven distribution. I asked a question a while back that I still haven't seen anybody answer: would the moral situation be better, worse, or identical if the same number of children drowned, but they were more evenly distributed among the races?
Or for another example, look at the distribution of breast cancer between men and women. Lots of women get it, only a handful of men do. Obviously in the aggregate a lot more medical resources are going to go to women with breast cancer. But it certainly doesn't follow that any single woman patient ought to receive more resources than any single male patient (given that their cancer is the same severity and so on, of course). We wouldn't say to the man, "You are a lower-priority patient than the woman because we're trying to even out the distribution of breast cancer between the sexes." We're just trying to eliminate breast cancer from everybody.
I don't want to strawman you too hard, but normally this is the point where people point out that breast cancer is not the result of past unfair behavior but the drowning rate is. And still I have yet to hear a good explanation for why the reason for the uneven distribution actually matters how we should handle it going forward. What if breast cancer were? What if the drowning rate weren't? Shouldn't we do the same thing for people in need regardless of how they got that way?
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
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That's a very ill-informed opinion, a one-size-fits-all approach that has failed throughout history.
For example, I worked in emergency management and it's pretty well known that Chicanos don't respond to traditional channels for information on disasters. If a Spanish-speaking meteorologist says "evacuate," they won't listen, because in their country, people of authority and their pawns will regularly lie to you. A more suitable response is to get on Telemundo or Univision and get a recognized figure to make appeals to them based on the family, and how they need to save their children to get out of harm's way.
Good thing they're not in their country then. It makes me wonder why they even bother leaving their country physically if they're not going to leave it mentally and psychologically.
But by all means, lineup Jlo to do the disaster warning PSAs because people aren't willing to let go of the past they tried to escape by coming here.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
That's very stereotypical. I suppose Jews in the US who migrated here are supposed to forget all about the Holocaust, because that was in the past and a long time ago. Their opinions on policy, both domestic and foreign, should not be based on that fact. Israeli-Americans shouldn't have an opinion at all on US-Israeli policy.
And JLo? Really? That's extremely bigoted and assumes that Chicanos listen to anyone who is remotely Latino. No Chicano would listen to an American pop star for disaster information.
Haha ok, sure. You might want to get your ducks in a row here, you're all over the place.
Jews whose families were affected by the Holocaust don't seem to have a problem with responding to disaster warnings. Let me check real quick, nah they're good. They don't even bother checking to see who gave the notice as long as its credible. Credibility assured? Ok we're out of here.
See they came here, as have immigrants from all over the world and they did one very important thing: they integrated. They kept their culture and traditions, the things that actually matter and are important to them and also integrated themselves into our society, made critical decisions on what to bring and what to leave behind, what standards and sources to trust.
From what you said latinos haven't. They've just uprooted physically but they're still back home in mind and psyche, making zero attempt to integrate and actually let go of the BS that made them leave. They're living the "When in Rome, do as the Germans do" life and frankly that's fine, it's on them.
We shouldn't be jumping through hoops to accomodate every stupidity like this. This isn't a Survival of the Fittest notion, it's a Demise of the Dumb one. People that perpetually live in the past and refuse to step out of it, engage in critical trust building and then get swallowed by a Tornado or whatever frankly deserve it. It's the most pathetic society that attends to each cultures eccentricities and coddles them like children in these sort of things. This is just the same as when Black people don't call the police when crimes have been committed because "we don't do that." Grow the **** up.
Way to overreact on the Jlo comment by the way. See my last sentence of the previous paragraph.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
Reading helps. I wasn't referring to disaster warnings, I was applying your idea to Jews whose families have lived through the Holocaust and Israeli-Americans who have opinions on foreign policy. The parallel there (and pay attention to this) is that Jews whose families have lived through the Holocaust and Israeli-Americans share commonalities with Latinos in that they've had a common experience due to culture or history, and that policymakers and bureaucrats need to pay attention to these differences.
When a president is campaigning in Jewish communities, he or she will appeal to the US-Israeli relationship? Why? Because Jews are culturally connected to Israel. When Jews came here they did not renounce their Jewishness. Would you want Jews to renounce their Jewishness because it's Merica and we're supposed to give up all of our histories to be absorbed into a Borg-like nationality?
Chicanos do not trust authorities, and it's not just the ones in Mexico. It's also the government that says to kick out all illegals and politicians who say Spanish is the language of the ghetto. It is a country where signs were put up saying "No Mexicans need apply," a country where cops get away with dumping Mexican suspects into a bayou with handcuffs on and letting them drown, a country where house prices force them into polluted areas and when they try to get answers on what is making them sick causes them to get stonewalled. But hey, trust the government on this one.
And I find it VERY interesting that you're telling Chicanos to trust the government on disaster response when huge portions of the population don't trust the government, the Congress, the president (who they believe is a Muslim socialist), etc. People distrust the government to the point of irrationality, but I guess when that distrust comes from a brown person they need to go back home, and when it's Bubba from East Texas it's a-ok.
Follow your own advice, reading helps. The disaster thing is a specific example of the very cultural biases due to history that you're talking about.
No, they really don't have to appeal to their specificness. This is identity politics which is probably the lowest form of it there is. Every group needs it's little pat on the back, made to feel special and appreciated, blah blah. It's BS, policy should be broad based and generic enough to cover everyone, it's an overzealous and hyperinvasive political system that things people need to be coddled through official act or policy.
I'm not talking about campaigning here. Going to a specific place and talking about what's going on there, sharing the cultural climate and highlighting why it is good and important is fine but the practice of identity politics especially in framing policy or platform is a sham. We have miles upon miles of laws on the books because of ideas like this which is basically overgoverning.
Most Jews are connected to Israel, not all. There's a reasonably large segment of them that can't stand Israel and want nothing to do with it. They tend to be Democrats. Hmmm. I never said renounce their Jewishness or their Latino heritage but guess what? Your "Latinos don't respond to traditional channels of communication on disasters" bit isn't a genetic trait, that's a LEARNED trait that has become part of their cultural practice due to circumstances where they're from. Honestly I don't blame them in many ways but to up and leave, immigrate to the US and make NO effort to let go of that is bull****, and apologizing for them doing it and giving it the thumbs up is the same.
Since it's not a genetic trait, it's completely up to them to let go of it, but they refuse so again: Demise of the Dumb.
Oh I know people distrust the government, I'm one of them. Yet that still doesn't make me blanket disregard everything that is said. Critical appraisal and thought goes into things and I base the results and my actions on that.
It's not ok when Bush says things, trust me. You can look at my posting history to see how much bashing of him and his family I've done.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
Seriously I'm sick and tired of liberals conflating supporting immigration laws with racism. That's total BS and really drives home the point that political correctness is first and foremost about shutting down honest discussion and demonizing opposing viewpoints. There are plenty of good reasons to want to deport illegal immigrants that have nothing to do with racism of xenophobia.
Al those things are illegal and would outrage the vast mojority of Americans where as in Mexico the corruption is just a part of everday life, don't pretend for a second those two countries are equivalent. Allthough I will admit we have a seen a weakening of the rule of law under Obama that will lead to a great deal more corruption the two nations are still worlds apart.
Um, I'm losing something for no other reason but to placate someone else.
Great, help people only for them to compete with me making my life harder.
Just because someone is losing something, doesn't mean another person must "gain".
The whole goal is to take this advantage....that I have. Now you are arguing my advantage is not that signficant that I will not notice losing it?
No, I'm talking about you taking my white american privilige. (reminder I'm playing a devil's advocate here).
EDIT: Society gives me $100 in spite of me rejecting it....now society says you do not deserve that or it's unfair that you got it, let me take a part of it and give it to someone else. Sorry, jack, you have no right or moral ipearative to take something I've obtained legally, morally and ethically by being born white and in America. I do not see an argument you can make that says it would be immoral or unjust to protect my advantage.
calling liberals loons=not okay
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While, homogenizing mental frameworks and collective attitudes is a nice notion, it's hardly realistic or applicable. We know from experience that you can't force reform or change on cultural or collective mindsets. If a society or community is going to change, it must happen internally. People tend to resist outside forces telling them to change. I think you're failing to understand that these people don't share the same kind of brain as you or I. Their experiences and cultural memes have fostered a distrust for government authority of any kind. This is not something you can simply say "oh, well they'll just have to change then." It's not that simple.
In your tornado example, we already know that the Latino population will not react to mainstream sources telling them to evacuate, but you have to do something to relocate this population. Letting them remain ignorant of a real danger and writing off any deaths in that population as "stupidity" is not ethically permissible. Not wanting people to die if there's something that can reasonably be done is not "coddling."
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Except disaster preparedness is a LOCAL duty, not federal. It's not a federal problem until the mayor/county judge goes through the traditional channels until it reaches FEMA. It is the DUTY of local emergency managers to make damn sure that knowledge reaches people so they can get out of harm's way. And if it's a local response, it needs to be tailored to the local communities. Putting your fingers in your ears and telling people to become your idea of what an American should be is dangerous.
There are huge portions of people on the Texas Gulf Coast with people as Anglo as can be and their attitude when a hurricane the size of the Gulf of Mexico is barreling towards them is "I ain't leavin, ain't nobody gon' tell me what to do." That's a part of their culture. And those people need to be educated as much as Vietnamese shrimpers and Latinos, to save lives. You're asking for people to die because of ideological purity of what an American should be. Emergency managers' first goal should be to protect all residents facing a natural or technological hazard.
Did I say I was for illegal immigration? The fact that I used the word "illegals" instead of "undocumented migrants" or whatever people are calling them these days should speak volumes.
Where are you reading this stuff about Mexico and the US being equivalent?
Actually I have the same kind of brain as them, as I don't trust the government either but that lack of trust on my part doesn't make me just blank out everything that is said by it, especially things said in times of crisis. Listen first then judge, it's funny that people are defending blind prejudice because it's against the government and it's minorities doing it.
I never said it'd be simple, I said it'd be necessary because that's part of the entire integration process and if we were serious about the integration process we wouldn't be dancing around cultural insecurities and allowing them to exist perpetually. At some point you have to let go of whatever the hell it is that's causing all of that, and if they're not willing to do so then the presentation of the hard reality of its necessity by having one solid uniform presentation on things is more than reasonable on this nations' behalf.
I know it must happen internally but as long as the choice is there NOT to change, then the appearance of things is that will be what is chosen. Otherwise what this country ends up doing is playing appeasement to sensibilities everytime something comes up and especially in moments of crisis that's the last thing that we can be doing and operate effectively.
Special treatment, accomodation or effort on their behalf is out of line. Continuity of message in a crisis especially one with a small window of time to act in means one voice, one message with updates as necessary. Not this BS of ok we've given our American message, now let's bring in the slew of minority representatives so they can actually trust what is said. It's stupid. If those people want to designate amongst themselves people in their own community to engage in this so difficult trust, then that'd be fine but bending over backwards to fluff up people who've made no effort to integrate and let go of the past they came here to escape is absurd.
Haha ethnically permissible, that's a good one.
Edit: Oops, read that last part wrong. It's still funny.
No, it's not dangerous at all. Messages should be the exact same regardless of who they're spoken to and what language they're spoken in. Funneling information to local organizations that help spread it is fine but that's really the extent of it, there should be a primary source and if secondary word of mouth or extra actions are taken in a non official capacity, that's fine.
No, I'm not asking people to die. You're not very smart. I'm asking that standardized and typical channels of crisis communication be listened to and accepted, which seems to be a cultural impossibility for some because of what they went through in the past and are unwilling to get over, mainly because they have no reason to with people like you advancing the "everyone has their own unique spokesperson so they feel safe and cozy in catastrophe" line.
Flame infraction. - Blinking Spirit
There's a reason that danger signs, signals, sirens and modes of communicating hazards are uniform: so they can be recognized by everyone. That's the premise under which I operate but I might be biased due to the fact that even if I have a problem with the government I'm able to make my own evaluation of what they're saying to determine if it's BS or not. I'm 40% Romanian and last I checked I didn't need some officially approved gypsy warning me about danger in order for me to accept it, and neither should anyone else. If you're that stubborn or dumb your life might be lost, people have been hurt or died for their refusal to change uncountable millions of times before so that'd be nothing new.
I'm not going to cry over that or feel any differently and it's important as a whole that continuity of message and its deliverance through official channels be maintained and that we get out of the business of identity politics and its hopscotch games.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
I actually don't particularly care that they're minorities. I just don't think that your argument is sound.
You know what would really help foster change in the Latino community? Making the barrier for entry to become a legal citizen (I don't believe in the "undocumented" soft language. The "undocumented" are here illegally.) not so insanely high. The fact is many of the people we're talking about simply don't have the resources to pull it off, I honestly can understand difficulty with integration. A lot of these people don't feel like Americans, so they don't act like Americans. I'm saying that it makes sense why they wouldn't trust the same system that makes the barrier for entry to not be deported so high.
You recognize change within a social group must happen internally but then you say they won't change if they have the choice not to. So, what's the solution then? Give them a Hobson's choice? How? What legislation would you enact from the outside to change the culture from the inside?
They "make no effort to integrate" because they are given no reasonable opportunity to do so. This is my contention with your argument. You want them to get over their cultural predispositions but fail to recognize the circumstances as to why those predispositions are allowed to propagate. This image of a "slew of minority representatives" just strikes me as hyperbole.
I'm not sure why you find that funny. Let's say you're the Mayor of a city. There is a major natural disaster predicted to travel right past your city (let's just use a hurricane as an example.) Your situation is this: You have a group of people who don't respond well to mainstream outlets and you have everyone else. You job is to make sure as many people as humanly possible react appropriately to this incoming hurricane. What do you do? Would you not try and do everything in your power to make sure this group of people took you seriously? How exactly is it permissible to write it off as "they wouldn't listen" without making an attempt to appeal to them? I don't see it as "special treatment," at least, not in the context you're using it. I see it as trying to make sure people don't ****ing die.
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Annul is really good in EDH
That's a fair argument. I didn't specify that it had to be the federal government doing it, did I? A community-by-community approach would probably be much more effective, as the degree of differences will vary by the local communities.
However, my caveat would be that, as the federal government is culpable for the institutionalization of slavery or other historic practices, it falls on the federal government to at least address it in part. Since many of the states with the greatest inequities take more money from the federal government than they contribute, it's hard to take the feds out of it.
That kinds of thing is happening, but it should be complementary to other means. The faster we make the changes, the better we will be overall.
I think this is a gross overgeneralization and I think you're romanticizing the notion of the pioneer spirit, here. There will always be people who are happy to take free handouts, but anything I've read pretty much says the same thing, people would rather be working than not. You can't forget in the 'old days' that people often starved to death or died of preventable diseases, too, which conveniently weeded out lots of the people who failed.
Distinct cultural identities are fine. But when part of that cultural identity is 'can't trust healthcare institutions' or 'school won't do anything for me', and those cultural mores are rooted in a history of institutionalized discrimination, it's a problem that should be addressed.
My only point was to show the consequences of allowing a population to flounder behind.
My question in return is how does other people's success mitigate yours?
Oh, I think you're getting me mixed up here. We live in a country that's founded on the principles of freedom with a strong emphasis on equality within the framework of a capitalist system. When I see an imbalance that would indicate that either everyone isn't being treated equally or a particular cultural or social issues are creating a problem for a social group, I want to try and correct that imbalance. Does it need to get more complex than that? I want the system to run as it claims it does.
I know conceding points is incredibly abnormal on debate, but I'd hardly call it deceptive. You all convinced me that 'white privilege' was a fallacious argument.
Obviously I'm not a robot and I have my own biases, but I've been pretty clear from the start on where I stand and why. It's only the attempts to explain it or justify it that have varied, and when I concede a point, but it doesn't change my overall position, I reformulate my argument. That's how a debate works without becoming an exercise in stonewalling.
I'm not quoting it here but you talk about the issues of the studies. If there is an institutional problem in academia, that'd be something I want to address, but the only example you provided was a case where you yourself mentioned the mistake had numerous errors. I don't doubt that there is a bias in academia about a variety of issues, but the lack of research is, at best, a side issue to the discussion at hand.
You're drawing an inaccurate comparison. To frame this in terms of my actual argument, it'd be like rich people not getting a 1% tax break because poor people have donated to other poor people.
By your tone I assume you believe this statement is as ridiculous as I do. It's interesting that you bring this up because it gets into proportionality. 1% of a poor person's income isn't the same as 1% of a rich person's income, something you apparently agree with. So why is it different when talking about social groups that aren't divided by wealth? How is welfare for the poor ethically different from social programs targeting disadvantaged minorities?
Talking of fallacies, left-handed men aren't a social group with their own culture. If you had talked about the Asian population, maybe we would have had something to talk about.
But let me humor you anyway, because I think you're at least partly right that I'm being 'cagey' because every little nuance of what I believe doesn't occur to me to write down every time.
Let's think about South Africa here for a minute. A place where the minority population has historically had a significant social and economic advantage. By your own logic, is this a reasonable situation?
I'm not sure you understand what I'm talking about when I say public health.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_health
But you're right, assuming because it works in one area doesn't mean it works in every area.
Now who is being cagey? You can't tell me that individuals are all that matter, but that talking about individuals is uselessly anecdotal. Of course the 'average person' doesn't exist. But it's ridiculous to argue that we can't make decisions based on statistical likelihoods.
The problem with this argument is that you're still implying that a failure to help an individual is the same as actively participating in their injury. It isn't, by any moral or ethical standard. Helping a disadvantaged group is not the same as holding back another group. You are crying unfair because the rules are supposed to be fair, but you're doing it in a situation where the field of play is slanted.
Sure, I wouldn't push the fat man onto the tracks, but that isn't the same as not saving him from the train, leaving one person die to use limited resources to do the most good is part of my job. So please don't patronize me.
Well, 'welfare' isn't any one individual sum. I suppose that individual would have to make due with their Medicare/Medicaid, Food Stamps, Unemployment, etc.
Fine, you're right that I've been avoiding the issue, so lets talk ethics.
Fairness is an ethical concept, so let me talk about the ethics of the situation here. Fairness is really only an ethical norm that refers to standards that are recognized as fair by all those affected by them.
Two other concepts that are important here are consistency and proportionality.
Consistency is treating like groups alike, which is what you're arguing and would be perfectly valid, if the groups we're discussing were alike. But I haven't heard you argue against the social and cultural differences between the white and black population in this context, so unless you have a new argument that the white and black population are the same or close enough, I'm not sure how you can think your approach is consistent.
Proportionality is, essentially, keeping things within reason. Since you're more of an expert on that than I am, how much total financial aid does each of your college's students receive? How much of that, would you say, is race-based in origin?
I would absolutely agree, if socioeconomic status was the only factor at play.
What I'm not sure you're getting is that the value of race-based funding is more than just getting that single student to college. The paper I posted does mention that funding isn't the only reason black enrollment is low, I'm not foolish enough to assume that.
Obviously funding isn't the only reason attendance or even graduation rates are so much lower around the black population. As far as all the reasons, there are lots of theories and even a lot of evidence to support some of them, but the reality is that there is only so much you can do. What the funding does is help break through those barriers. We can't make a families care about education. We can't make them keep their kids home at night to avoid gang activity, there are a lot of things we can't do and only a few we can.
And you keep making a false dichotomy with your hyperbole. The two options aren't sacrifice someone or be 'fair'. It's perfectly possible to target a population without harming another population, at least directly.
Oh I see, it's a fallacious comparison to the American system as a whole. It's funny, but wrong. Obviously, as a whole, we share a certain set of cultural norms just as smaller social groups do. But this ignore proportionality, obviously the ability to provide considerations for a small population of five purple interpretive dance-speakers is less significant than the considerations for the largest minority group in the country.
In addition, you've got the argument framed wrong anyway. It'd be more like Walmart gives English lessons to everyone who doesn't speak it so that they can be greeted. And then the English speakers complain and ask why these other people get English lessons and they don't.
BTdubs, The governments do have to do all those things (at least, I mean, provide translations in as many languages as we have populations).
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
How does my success mitigate a black persons?
calling liberals loons=not okay
The standard to which the forum moderators apply the rules here.
I think we're getting a little meta here. Your success doesn't mitigate a black person's success or lack there of. It's not an antagonistic relationship, or at least my view of the issue isn't. I see the norm and I want the minority population to at least reach the norm.
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[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
but, in my devil's advocate acceptace of white advantage, I'd be losing it...
calling liberals loons=not okay
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Messages should be the same regardless? Then how do you explain the difference between disaster warnings from emergency managers in non-tribal jurisdictions and tribal jurisdictions? In tribal jurisdictions there is an integration between the tribal LEPC/EM and elders. These are people who are the first Americans, and the way disasters are communicated are different than in non-tribal jurisdictions. Maybe we should use tribal jurisdictions as the model for how emergency managers across the country to use, and if anyone doesn't like it, tough.
And the idea that all messaging is the same across cultures is quite frankly false and Eurocentric. In African-American communities, you go to the churches. In Latino communities you appeal to the family and cultural authorities. We all have different experiences in this country, which is one of the strengths of the United States. You're asking to standardize the American experience, which is overly simplistic (again, gnostic worldviews and the similarity to communistic "Russification" of Central Asia).
What is the "American" nation, by the way?
Except this isn't a tribal nation, it's the United States of America, a Constitutional Republic based on the premise of rule of law. Tribal jurisdictions are irrelevant to this particular discussion, we base nothing on them.
My entire problem with this particular moment in the thread is the idea that there needs to be extra efforts made to communicate vital emergency/disaster information to people because of biases they acquired elsewhere and are unwilling to relinquish now that they're here. Talk about self fulfilling and self perpetuating prophecies.
No, lets add extra steps to the process requiring critical time, resources and effort to engage in. Real smart. You know, since seeing a disaster warning on tv from officials and appraising it as trustworthy or not is too much effort to make with no motive or interest to engage in.
Outside of emergency and disaster situations I really don't care if there's all these extra steps as long as it's not a big stretch to make it happen. But there's crunch time considerations that must be made and really no one has the time, energy or interest in engaging cultural insecurities when something serious is going on. It's at that point that uniformity is in everyones' best interest until the emergency has passed.
I am asking to standardize the American experience on things that there's really no need to have anything differently. This whole special snowflake tripe is fine on far too many things to layout here but in dealing with official communications especially the likes of disasters and other emergencies one uniform standard is best. As any soldier will tell you there is no chance for confusion when official actions of these kind are handled in known, predictable and easy to understand ways.
But of course we live in the special snowflake age, so people don't even know what those official actions are anymore. It's telling when communities do their monthly emergency air siren tests and you see people looking around wondering what the hell that sound is. Herp, derp, durp. Their cultural background must preclude them from learning those things too.
The American Nation? Um, that's pretty obvious. Not only the geographic boundaries but history, laws and traditions that comprise it. They're very important and should not be forsaken for any reason.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
You do realize that's kind of exactly what European colonizers did, right? You are literally complaining that the indigenous populations didn't change their culture to become more like the outsiders culture and then in the same breath complaining that people should become more like the host. Guess who was here first? Hint: Not Europeans.
I could just as easily say a bullet is equally likely to kill both a white child and black child when fired in their direction. Therefore, we should invest equally in bullet proof vests for all children, rather than targeting anyone in particular. If real life were a math problem, they'd both have the same risk for being killed by bullets. But reality tells a different story. In fact, blacks represent half the total victims and offenders of gun homicide, despite only being 12.7% of the population. But would you seriously argue that we should only allocate our resources to combating gun violence in the black population in proportion to their size? Thia is what you and Crashing00 are suggesting.
Okay, so it's clear my argument is completely muddled at this point, so let me rephrase for simplicity and clarity's sake.
The Fair Model Advocates are stating:
- That the social group to which an individual is a part of is irrelevant to their overall need
- That by targeting aid to needy individuals in a disadvantaged social group, we are, indirectly, harming other needy individuals not in that social group
- That it is immoral to harm other needy individuals for the sake of a needy and disadvantaged social group
- Therefore, the only fair model is to distribute funds to all eligible recipients without heed to context
I'm arguing:
- That the social group to which an individual is a part of is relevant in establishing the context of their need
- That trying to impose fair rules on an unfair system is still unfair
- That by targeting aid to needy individuals in a disadvantaged social group we are making a long-term investment in balancing the source of their disadvantage
- That the targeted aid to disadvantaged social groups is only proportionate to their need nor does it excessively draw from aid to the population as a whole (meaning it is ethically permissible)
- Therefore, a 'fair' system would needs to balance the already unfair landscape with the potential harm, not ignore one in favor of the other
Where are you trying to go with this?
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I don't think this is an accurate summary. Mostly because it makes a shortcut that I think most of the "fair model advocates" would object to -- notably the shortcut of skin colour = social group.
By targeting skin colour you are not targeting social groups, you are targeting traits correlated with social groups. Which is not the same thing.
Ah, I didn't mean to imply that. Thanks for pointing it out, because I want an accurate reflection of the argument. Yes, there is a difference between 'black' as a social group and black as a racial characteristic. However, none of the arguments so far really brought that up so it slipped my mind to make the distinction.
That's actually a good argument, as I doubt I'll find anything solid either way about how many dark-skinned people that we refer to as 'black' actually belong to 'black culture'. When I say 'black people', it's shorthand for black culture.
However, in the population groups we're talking about, especially in predominantly black communities, I think the the number of 'in no way affected by or part of black culture' errors would be pretty slim.
[ANECDOTE]Having worked in the inner city in a predominantly black EMS company with predominantly black patients has given me some insight, at least in my area, to the fact that, in general, black skin tone qualifies you for 'black culture', even if you aren't a descendant of slaves or even African. [/ANECDOTE] There are tons of sub-groups that overlap 'black culture', and trying to define them all would take way too long and simply wouldn't be efficient or proportional to the potential for error that a black person who has never been disadvantaged in their life but nonetheless is low SES might slip through.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
The problem with your shorthand (in this case, not in general usage) is that it's not being interpreted by most people as referring to culture, but rather to skin colour. This is most likely the case because of the topic of the thread.
Possibly, but by the same token soceo-economic targeting is (arguably) more accurate at targeting the negatively affected group, and is more fair racially. The argument isn't "we shouldn't help impoverished blacks". The argument is "we should help all impoverished people".
You're missing the problem. The problem isn't that targeting black individuals (skin tone) is missing some black individuals (skin tone). The problem is that it's targetting at the wrong thing. Yes, you more often hit what you wanted to than not becuase the target overlaps with what you actually wanted to hit. But there are other, better, means of targeting what you actually wnat to hit (low SES).
And now that I sound like someone who wants to go out and shoot black people....
You're making the same mistake that Vorthospike did when he suggested that the swim class ought under fair distribution to be 75% white because 75% of the total population is white rather than 50% white because 50% of the kids who can't swim are white. If blacks represent about half the total victims of gun homicide, then about half of the total resources devoted to preventing gun homicide, distributed colorblindly but based on real risk factors, will end up going to people who happen to be black. Do you find this distribution reasonable, or would you like more than half the resources to go towards half the homicides?
Begs the question. "Unfair system" implies that racial discrimination against blacks is still going on. Obviously when that's the case we need to terminate it with extreme prejudice. But there is a difference between an uneven distribution and an unfair one, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with an uneven distribution. I asked a question a while back that I still haven't seen anybody answer: would the moral situation be better, worse, or identical if the same number of children drowned, but they were more evenly distributed among the races?
Or for another example, look at the distribution of breast cancer between men and women. Lots of women get it, only a handful of men do. Obviously in the aggregate a lot more medical resources are going to go to women with breast cancer. But it certainly doesn't follow that any single woman patient ought to receive more resources than any single male patient (given that their cancer is the same severity and so on, of course). We wouldn't say to the man, "You are a lower-priority patient than the woman because we're trying to even out the distribution of breast cancer between the sexes." We're just trying to eliminate breast cancer from everybody.
I don't want to strawman you too hard, but normally this is the point where people point out that breast cancer is not the result of past unfair behavior but the drowning rate is. And still I have yet to hear a good explanation for why the reason for the uneven distribution actually matters how we should handle it going forward. What if breast cancer were? What if the drowning rate weren't? Shouldn't we do the same thing for people in need regardless of how they got that way?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.