[late]

"Let’s be honest about the painful reality: America has functioned as a full democracy — guaranteeing the franchise to all — for less than one human lifetime. In practice, our democracy is younger than me.

I was born in 1959, into an America rived by apartheid. When I was a child, the adults in my life were technically eligible to vote. However, in the Louisiana and Texas towns where I grew up, they were prevented from doing so by the social and cultural norms of the American South.

For me, this is no abstraction. I attended small-town Texas schools roiled by desegregation.

In grade school, I saw the vestiges of Jim Crow firsthand: the dilapidated old Negro facilities, the hanging tree adjacent to the courthouse, the swimming pool closed and filled with concrete in response to court-ordered desegregation.

And then, throughout my childhood, government and other institutions acted affirmatively to change. They began to redress the hypocrisy and harm, reckoning with the countless ways that they had protected power and privilege for some at the expense of others. From the wreckage of a lost century, they began building with laws and policies a more American United States.

The court’s decision also opens the door to numerous legal challenges of diversity programs across government, business and civil society — programs explicitly designed to mitigate what Justice Thurgood Marshall called a “legacy of discrimination” beyond the college campus.

And we should tell the truth about why diversity is now controversial: Opponents of diversity are opponents of any racial consciousness. They want to prevent us from understanding the ways that the past informs the present, from wrestling with the fullness and richness and complexity of our history.

Indeed, they wish to impose an ahistoric mythology on the American people that makes it harder, if not outright impossible, to address the many ways that Black and white still live in separate and unequal Americas."

The obvious presented for the oblivious..

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/opinion/affirmative-action-supreme-court-repeal.html

[wat0n]

Do Asians have worse personalities than other racial and ethnic groups, @late?

[Steve_American]

Do Asians have worse personalities than other racial and ethnic groups, @late?

"Personalities" are not the issue.

The issue is past discrimination.

Asians have the money, as a group, and the ability, to create their own elite Univ. for them to attend, where they get alumni preference.

.

[wat0n]

"Personalities" are not the issue.

The issue is past discrimination.

Asians have the money, as a group, and the ability, to create their own elite Univ. for them to attend, where they get alumni preference.

.

No.

Harvard considers "personal characteristics" as part of its admission process and it rated Asians with lower scores than Whites and all other racial groups. This is despite the fact that alumni assessments and interviews didn't do so.

Furthermore, Harvard admitted in the trial it was part of its admissions process to establish a soft quota.

It's interesting how history repeats itself, extracurriculars and personality assessments were introduced to establish a Jewish quota a century ago.

[Unthinking Majority]

And we should tell the truth about why diversity is now controversial: Opponents of diversity are opponents of any racial consciousness. They want to prevent us from understanding the ways that the past informs the present, from wrestling with the fullness and richness and complexity of our history.

Nah they just don't want to be discriminated against because of their skin colour. This is called racism. I think black people can empathize with that.

[Unthinking Majority]

"Personalities" are not the issue.

The issue is past discrimination.

Asians have the money, as a group, and the ability, to create their own elite Univ. for them to attend, where they get alumni preference.

.

Some people think the solution for past racial discrimination is more racial discrimination to make up for it. Agree to disagree on that one.

[Rich]

Some people think the solution for past racial discrimination is more racial discrimination to make up for it. Agree to disagree on that one.

Actually I won't. My disagreement is more fundamental. Past racial discrimination is not something that should be attempted to be solved. Modern human beings and our civilisations have evolved through discrimination. Cultural / tribal-racial and sex discrimination that goes back hundreds of thousands maybe millions of years. Classed based discrimination that we've had for thousands of years and morphological-racist discrimination that we've only had at scale for a few hundred years.

I certainly think the attenuation of inequality and increasing social mobility should be serious policy goals. But seeking to undo past discrimination and oppression is utterly demented. Take the question of rape. Should we make strong efforts to reduce the levels of rape in the present? yes of course. Should rape in the present carry a severe penalty when it's proven beyond reasonable doubt? Yes most certainly. But should we seek to undo past rapes? If you want to undo past rapes, the whole of humanity should kill itself. Because every human on the planet is the product of past rapes. Your very existence is predicated on the privilege and oppression of countless rapists. Your existence rewards those rapist oppressors for their "crimes".

[Potemkin]

Actually I won't. My disagreement is more fundamental. Past racial discrimination is not something that should be attempted to be solved. Modern human beings and our civilisations have evolved through discrimination. Cultural / tribal-racial and sex discrimination that goes back hundreds of thousands maybe millions of years. Classed based discrimination that we've had for thousands of years and morphological-racist discrimination that we've only had at scale for a few hundred years.

I certainly think the attenuation of inequality and increasing social mobility should be serious policy goals. But seeking to undo past discrimination and oppression is utterly demented. Take the question of rape. Should we make strong efforts to reduce the levels of rape in the present? yes of course. Should rape in the present carry a severe penalty when it's proven beyond reasonable doubt? Yes most certainly. But should we seek to undo past rapes? If you want to undo past rapes, the whole of humanity should kill itself. Because every human on the planet is the product of past rapes. Your very existence is predicated on the privilege and oppression of countless rapists. Your existence rewards those rapist oppressors for their "crimes".

Agreed. You cannot go back and fix the past. Instead of tearing down the statues of past slave-owners or brutal imperialists, instead of trying to erase the past, we should leave the statues in place, and just add a sign pointing towards them saying “racist asshole” or “mass-murdering scumbag”, and leave it at that.

[Godstud]

Past discrimination is irrelevant. We have to deal with what is happening today, and not what happened to an unenlightened and uneducated populace, decades ago. We cannot be held responsible for the sins of the past.

The facts are that racial discrimination is rare. The people that do display racism are usually punished by society at large, thru either social stigma, or legally.

@Potemkin By all means acknowledge the failings of people in the past, but put it in the context that in that time, it was normal to be racist, and have slaves, so we cannot measure them by the modern standards.

[late]

Agreed. You cannot go back and fix the past

We created a Black middle class.

Of course, that's in the real world..

[Pants-of-dog]

Past discrimination is irrelevant. We have to deal with what is happening today, and not what happened to an unenlightened and uneducated populace, decades ago. We cannot be held responsible for the sins of the past.

While @Potemkin is correct that we cannot fix the past and only learn from it, past discrimination is very relevant to our understanding of how racism currently manifests.

[wat0n]

We created a Black middle class.

Of course, that's in the real world..

Very arrogant. If the US is as racist as you think it is, it's their merit.

But it's also not historically accurate, as I'm sure you know: The US has always had a Black elite, even during slavery (in the North obviously).

[late]

Very arrogant.

It's the history...

"The African-American middle class consists of African-Americans who have middle-class status within the American class structure. It is a societal level within the African-American community that primarily began to develop in the early 1960s,[1][2] when the ongoing Civil Rights Movement[3] led to the outlawing of de jure racial segregation. The African American middle class exists throughout the United States, particularly in the Northeast and in the South, with the largest contiguous majority black middle-class neighborhoods being in the Washington, DC suburbs in Maryland.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_middle_class



The bad news is the Black middle class is in decline, but you can see it's rapid rise in the 1960s.

[late]

Not that I expect anything from the Right, but this is a lot more complicated than it looks. There will be a LOT of work done analyzing this case, but the scholarship has already started:

https://www.dorfonlaw.org/2023/07/its-not-as-bad-as-you-think-maybe-guest.html

[wat0n]

It's the history...

"The African-American middle class consists of African-Americans who have middle-class status within the American class structure. It is a societal level within the African-American community that primarily began to develop in the early 1960s,[1][2] when the ongoing Civil Rights Movement[3] led to the outlawing of de jure racial segregation. The African American middle class exists throughout the United States, particularly in the Northeast and in the South, with the largest contiguous majority black middle-class neighborhoods being in the Washington, DC suburbs in Maryland.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_middle_class



The bad news is the Black middle class is in decline, but you can see it's rapid rise in the 1960s.

That doesn't negate that it doesn't fit the progressive narrative that no progress has been made. If you think that's the case, then it most definitely is their merit (and it also is if you don't).

It also doesn't really negate the existence of a Black elite long before the Civil Rights Movement.

[Rich]

Agreed. You cannot go back and fix the past. Instead of tearing down the statues of past slave-owners or brutal imperialists, instead of trying to erase the past, we should leave the statues in place, and just add a sign pointing towards them saying “racist asshole” or “mass-murdering scumbag”, and leave it at that.

I find myself put on a limb on this issue. So the first thing I'd like to say that I used to have the same soggy liberal sentimental approach to history as the next progressive. And when I think back the first person that tried to challenge my views was not a far rightist but an ex member of the (British) "Direct Action Movement", an anarchist syndicalist orgnisation who was later to join the Revolutionary Communist Party, shortly before it disbanded, an unorthodox Trotskyist organistion that placed great emphasis on Lenin's "What is to be done?"

So I find it useful to check my privilege and the privilege of rest of current humanity before approaching history. It is not possible to calculate our privilege precisely. It is not possible to calculate our privilege to an order of magnitude, but I believe we can at a least calculate our privilege to an order of magnitude of an order of magnitude.

So for simplicity let us ignore other hominoids and place Adam and Eve, our first two homo sapiens at 3 hundred thousand years BC. Homo sapiens are apex creatures, the great limit to their thriving and expansion is other homo sapiens. Without resource limits, pre modern Homo Sapiens can easily double their population in a generation. Taking a generation as 30 years, this means that pre modern homo sapiens can easily increase their population by a factor of 10 in a century. This means over the last

302 thousand years without resource limits Adam and Eve should have expanded the population from 2 to
2 x 10 raised to the power of 3020.

However the population in 2000AD was only 6 x 10 to the 9. This means that on a level playing field, your chance of getting this modern incarnation would have been about
1 in 3 x 10 raised to the power of 3010.

That is a big number. A really big number. Imagine all the fundamental particles in a grain of sand, its an enormous number. Then imagine all the fundamental particles in the Earth, then imagine all the particles in the Solar System. Then imagine all the fundamental particles in all the solar systems in the milky way and then in all the galaxies in the known universe. So if you were a fundamental particle, it would be like every other fundamental particle in the known universe had to be genocided so as you could have your existence. Actually mathematically this doesn't even scratch the surface of your privilige but it'll do for a start.

I'm very happy to have my incarnation in 2023. I'm very happy that my pre modern ancestors didn't play fair. If I could go back in a time machine far from wanting to insult my ancestors for their rough treatment of their fellow human beings, I would want to say do what ever it takes to being me into existence. Do what ever it takes to climb to the top of the greasy pole of survival and reproduction.

[Potemkin]

I find myself put on a limb on this issue. So the first thing I'd like to say that I used to have the same soggy liberal sentimental approach to history as the next progressive. And when I think back the first person that tried to challenge my views was not a far rightist but an ex member of the (British) "Direct Action Movement", an anarchist syndicalist orgnisation who was later to join the Revolutionary Communist Party, shortly before it disbanded, an unorthodox Trotskyist organistion that placed great emphasis on Lenin's "What is to be done?"

So I find it useful to check my privilege and the privilege of rest of current humanity before approaching history. It is not possible to calculate our privilege precisely. It is not possible to calculate our privilege to an order of magnitude, but I believe we can at a least calculate our privilege to an order of magnitude of an order of magnitude.

So for simplicity let us ignore other hominoids and place Adam and Eve, our first two homo sapiens at 3 hundred thousand years BC. Homo sapiens are apex creatures, the great limit to their thriving and expansion is other homo sapiens. Without resource limits, pre modern Homo Sapiens can easily double their population in a generation. Taking a generation as 30 years, this means that pre modern homo sapiens can easily increase their population by a factor of 10 in a century. This means over the last

302 thousand years without resource limits Adam and Eve should have expanded the population from 2 to
2 x 10 raised to the power of 3020.

However the population in 2000AD was only 6 x 10 to the 9. This means that on a level playing field, your chance of getting this modern incarnation would have been about
1 in 3 x 10 raised to the power of 3010.

That is a big number. A really big number. Imagine all the fundamental particles in a grain of sand, its an enormous number. Then imagine all the fundamental particles in the Earth, then imagine all the particles in the Solar System. Then imagine all the fundamental particles in all the solar systems in the milky way and then in all the galaxies in the known universe. So if you were a fundamental particle, it would be like every other fundamental particle in the known universe had to be genocided so as you could have your existence. Actually mathematically this doesn't even scratch the surface of your privilige but it'll do for a start.

I'm very happy to have my incarnation in 2023. I'm very happy that my pre modern ancestors didn't play fair. If I could go back in a time machine far from wanting to insult my ancestors for their rough treatment of their fellow human beings, I would want to say do what ever it takes to being me into existence. Do what ever it takes to climb to the top of the greasy pole of survival and reproduction.

Never change, @Rich.

[Puffer Fish]

And then, throughout my childhood, government and other institutions acted affirmatively to change. They began to redress the hypocrisy and harm, reckoning with the countless ways that they had protected power and privilege for some at the expense of others.

I notice the Left is always very vague about what exactly the "oppression" was.
Probably because if we were to actually get into the details these alleged acts of oppression wouldn't actually sound so horrible or blatantly obviously wrong.

(the exception being slavery, of course)

[Potemkin]

I notice the Left is always very vague about what exactly the "oppression" was.
Probably because if we were to actually get into the details these alleged acts of oppression wouldn't actually sound so horrible or blatantly obviously wrong.

(the exception being slavery, of course)

Uh-huh.

[Unthinking Majority]

It's the history...

"The African-American middle class consists of African-Americans who have middle-class status within the American class structure. It is a societal level within the African-American community that primarily began to develop in the early 1960s,[1][2] when the ongoing Civil Rights Movement[3] led to the outlawing of de jure racial segregation. The African American middle class exists throughout the United States, particularly in the Northeast and in the South, with the largest contiguous majority black middle-class neighborhoods being in the Washington, DC suburbs in Maryland.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_middle_class



The bad news is the Black middle class is in decline, but you can see it's rapid rise in the 1960s.

The dip around 1977 coincides with the exploding interest rate and inflation crisis that began occurring that year. May have been exacerbated by the Reagan/Bush neoliberalism of the 80's and early 90's that shipped a lot of low-education manufacturing jobs overseas, and the crack epidemic of the 80's.

The early 90's bump coincides with the fall of the USSR in 1991 and the ensuing hot economy of the 1990's. The dip after 2000 coincides with the tech bubble economic crash, ensuing rising interest rates, and Dubya being elected, and then of course the 2008 recession/sub-prime bubble pop happened.