A few thoughts on rascism / affirmative action

[magoo]

Amazing. It took all those paragrahs to state a basic Rush Limbaugh principle.

DON'T click the picture on this link if you are a scary type person. http://www.muslimsout.org/videos/Videos.htm

[FlFishOn]

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The reason is that there is more trust in a homogenous environment and that fosters efficiency.

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Are you suggesting that perhaps our strength doesn't lie in our diversity? Off to re-education camp with you.

[RedBean]

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If I were the employer, though, and I knew I could get away with it, I would certainly hire the white guy, even if the black is slightly more qualified

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So basically, you are against affirmitive action, and instead are in favor of discrimination against blacks when they are more qualified than similar white applicants.

Call me crazy, but color shouldn't be a factor in the decision, and it should be based solely on who is most qualified-- whether white, black, purple, pink, or burnt orange.

[Darryl_P]

Hi Kick,

I've been around the world and I've seen plenty of people of all colors. I'm not the type to make a blanket statement like "whites are better than blacks" in an overall sense and quite frankly I don't even believe this, despite having been called a white supremacist bigot on numerous occasions.

However, I see nothing wrong with people of any color wanting to hang out with people of the same color. And if there's a company with a homogenous group of employees who think this way and need to work together on various projects, then it could very well be the case that keeping this homogeneity is a plus for the overall business vs. introducing diversity.

So my point is that there may be factors in a hiring decision that go beyond an individual's qualifications. The expected chemistry with other employees is also a factor in some situations. If those other employees feel more secure working with people of a similar ancestry to themselves, then that will impact the bottom line whether anyone wants to talk about it or not. A prudent businessman will take this, along with the other factors, into consideration IMO.

Note that my views are symmetrical on this matter. If a Silicon Valley company was developing some new computer product and felt it would be advantageous to hire only Chinese people, I wouldn't be outraged, nor would I think anyone else should be. After all, we are free to start up a competing company and try to put them out of business by simply being superior. And if we can't be superior, then hats off to them for producing a world class product. I'll be right there in line when they put it up for sale.

[Darryl_P]

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Are you suggesting that perhaps our strength doesn't lie in our diversity? Off to re-education camp with you.

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Not at all. I'm not advocating that everyone be like me. Maybe I'd be wrong and my homogenous company wouldn't be successful after all, but if this is the land of opportunity and freedom, I should at least be given a shot and not be quashed by discriminatory AA laws, don't you think?

Edit: If you were being sarcastic or making a joke, my apologies for missing it ... [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[hmkpoker]

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The only difference is that you have created a victim: the consumer, who now must be serviced by someone who was chosen for the job for any reason other than his qualifications.


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This is also a silly statement coming from a poker player. If the decision you have to make is truly a toss-up, then by definition it doesn't matter what you do, so there can't be any victims.

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The decision isn't a toss-up.

[Darryl_P]

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So basically, you are against affirmitive action, and instead are in favor of discrimination against blacks when they are more qualified than similar white applicants.

Call me crazy, but color shouldn't be a factor in the decision, and it should be based solely on who is most qualified-- whether white, black, purple, pink, or burnt orange.

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If all my employees thought this way, then I would agree. It really depends on the situation I suppose. In any case, I don't think the government should intervene since the market will eventually reward those businesses that make the best hiring decisions anyway.

[hmkpoker]

What you are saying is that, because he is more conducive to production, the person of similar race is actually more productive, given the social repurcussions.

There is actually some truth to this. A black worker may do more harm than good if he's working in a firm full of FlFishOn's friends.

This isn't something that can be remedied by a government order or social program, though. This is society's responsibility to wake up, and stop thinking that the black guy who just moved in is going to break into your house, steal your TV, pawn it and buy crack [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

[Darryl_P]

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The decision isn't a toss-up.

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Your scenario was about choosing between two identically qualified candidates, right? AA laws basically force the company to hire the black one, and you are saying this is unfortunate because race is being forced upon the employer as a factor when it shouldn't be. Is this a good paraphrasing?

If so, then how does the consumer lose out if the other choice would have involved someone with the same qualifications who would have done the same work to produce the same products/services at the same price????

[hmkpoker]

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Your scenario was about choosing between two identically qualified candidates, right?

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My scenario also assumed affirmative action didn't exist, and had nothing to do with AA. It had to do with pointing out the fallacy of using racial statistics in a vacuum.

I then went on to point out that you'll almost never have two employees that are equally qualified. AA isn't about giving black people the edge in a toss-up, it's about forcing businesses to hire based on race rather than qualifications, which can do nothing but hire less qualified people. That's what hurts the consumer.