So, lets talk about racism for a minute

[SEXTON HALE]

It would be intresting to see these perks of being aboriginal revoked.
The backlash of seconary discrimination would be countered by the backlash of initial discrimination.
They might even just cancel each other out.
But rather violently as in the case of most opposite forces coming into contact with each other.

 

[Agayek]

Extremely different is questionable. What constitutes extreme?

Well I don't think an unbiased study is very possible. The kids would need to be raised in a similar environment, have a good sample, things like that.

When did "extremely different" come into the picture? I certainly never said it. I said there's likely less differences between races than there are between sexes. How'd you extrapolate extremely different from that?

Also, an unbiased study is very much possible. Go to the inner city of any large American city and you will find people of every race and creed you can imagine, all living in more or less the same conditions since birth.

The problem is that the issue is so charged that any study that looks into it is going to be tainted by something. There's simply too much social outrage to be had if it comes back and says "yes, generally whites are smarter than blacks" or whatever. Whoever actually conducts the study (assuming it says something like that) would be out of a job within a week, which is why it hasn't happened yet. It's too much of a risk for minimal gains.

 

[Agayek]

More over, there is consistent anecdotal evidence that suggests the very opposite. Some of our best and brightest scientists in a wide variety of fields are breaking new ground who all come from very different ethnic backgrounds. Maybe the problem lies less with someone's skin color and more to do with someone's financial background. It just seems way more plausible than what he suggests.

I actually agree with you on this one. Knowledge and experience are completely indifferent to genetics and have far more to do with upbringing and money.

What I was trying to get at is that the different races are fundamentally different physically. As such, their brains are almost certainly wired differently. One's not more intelligent than the other, just like a woman isn't smarter than a man, their brains simply work a little differently. I just needed to point out that outright dismissing the chance of there being differences in brain chemistry/structure between the races is idiotic at best, since nigh-everything else is different.

 

[lacktheknack]

Look at the situation in Australia.


White Australians have far greater life expectancies, higher paying jobs, (and higher employment in general), and higher incomes than the Aborigines of Australia.

Some people look at this and think it is sad. I am one of them.

But some of these people take it a step further to respond to the great disparities in Australia between Aborigines and other racial groups, (lets face it, it isn't only whites that have it better than the Aborigines), and try to give them advantages that others don't have so they can catch up, which they would theoretically do given some amount of time, (and one wouldn't expect it to be short given the hard time the Abos have had. I certain;y can't deny that.) But the thing is, the idea of affirmative action here is based on the assumption that aborigines have equal genetic drive to achieve materialistic things and intelligence to whites, Chinese, Indians, etc, and therefore won't need the support forever. I'm not sure this is the case.

I'm going to get a warning for this most likely but that's ok.

I think society should accept that some racial groups are generally better at certain things, so we shouldn't give them special advantages to achieve things in society that, even if it were made slightly easier for them, (compared to groups of people doing well), STILL would not catch up as a people. There are millions of animals on the earth and we have all evolved and are currently evolving. Is it so hard to believe that there are groups of homo erectus/humanoid beings in certain areas of this vast world who have generally significantly lower intellect than other groups of people?

http://jewamongyou.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/aboriginal-vs-slav.jpg?w=510

Guess which skull is the European's and which belongs to the Aborigine. Its not conclusive but it illustrates what I'm trying to say in the general sense.

By the way, I'm just generalizing. I'm sure there are Aborigines who are smarter than I am. Just not on average. If this still makes me a racist, which I imagine it probably does, then let it be so.

You do realize that there's more or less no connection between intelligence and brain size, right?

And that the marginal difference favored SMALL brains.

Your example is invalid.

At any rate, I blame nurture, not nature. Should an Aborigine grow up in identical conditions to a successful Caucasian, I fully believe he would have similar success.

EDIT: Balls, I should Google old knowledge before flaunting it. Still, the intelligence gained from a significantly larger brain is marginal, and the science is fairly inconclusive. So your example is still invalid.

EDIT EDIT: And your example is MOAR invalid, as JoJo pointed out.

 

[Woodsey]

http://jewamongyou.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/aboriginal-vs-slav.jpg?w=510

Even forgetting the rest of your post for a moment, I'm very dubious of that image, which for anyone-else reading is this:

(Supposedly a comparison between an aboriginal skull and a slav skull).

For a start it comes from a blog labelled as "Jew among you" and is apparently dedicated to "race realism". I did a reserve Google image search to find out where it had originally came from and among nuggets like Stormfront and some Nazi forum I found the original source from early 2009, over a year before your link was made:

http://ricercares.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/

It's in Spanish but a quick translate brings up the skulls true identity, human vs Neanderthal! You've been caught red-handed.

And so it was that my arse fell off from laughing.

Fucking classic.

snip

Are you British? The way you phrase things makes me think you're American, but most Americans couldn't give a rat's arse about British politics.

OT: Affirmative action is imperfect, I don't think it should be completely disregarded (this is not to say I think it should exist forever, or that it needs to exist forever). You can complain that having affirmative action for the past few decades is unfair, but that's countering 100s of years of far more severe affirmative action for whites (which we still benefit from).

 

[manic_depressive13]

"I do have the moral high ground", says it all. You have missed the point, I am not calling you insincere, I am saying the opposite: your unswerving belief in your own moral superiority is dangerous and should not be enshrined in law. The law is not your servant, the law is amoral and should reflect the beliefs of all society and protect all society, minority and majority equally. It is no less morally correct to say "from this point forward all people are equal" instead of "these people had a hard time in the distant past so now we must hand them an unfair advantage" but you can't even contemplate that. The law is there to protect us from my prejudice, your prejudice, all prejudice, not to bulldoze poltically correct nonsense into being. Anyway, the silliness about vegetarians, animals and meat suggests you are very young, I expect you'll grow out of it and see the world isn't just black and white, as much as I wish it was, but many shades of grey. Have a good day.

I'm sorry but what? The law isn't amoral, nor should it be. You contradicted yourself in the one sentence. "It reflects the beliefs of all society". What sort of beliefs? Oh right! Moral and ethical beliefs. Nice to see proof that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

And I must be young because I'm a vegetarian? You're the one who doesn't seem to understand that past events can have future consequences.

Good day to you too.

 

[Woodsey]

Are you British? The way you phrase things makes me think you're American, but most Americans couldn't give a rat's arse about British politics.

OT: Affirmative action is imperfect, I don't think it should be completely disregarded (this is not to say I think it should exist forever, or that it needs to exist forever). You can complain that having affirmative action for the past few decades is unfair, but that's countering 100s of years of far more severe affirmative action for whites (which we still benefit from).

I am British, English even! Too true - only we would give a monkey's about our somewhat insular politics.

I'd hope you'd notice as I put "s" in and not "z" and everything! : )

We call it "positive discrimination" here, where as you guys call it "affirmative action" but must admit both terms seem a bit scary to me! I really think State quotas based on race for anything are dangerous. Anyway, sensible arguments abound on both sides, at least in our strand of the thread! I guess that's why we vote!

I'm British too, was just wondering.

(And 'positive discrimination' and 'affirmative action' =/= quotas.)

 

[Agayek]

I'm sorry but what? The law isn't amoral, nor should it be. You contradicted yourself in the one sentence. "It reflects the beliefs of all society". What sort of beliefs? Oh right! Moral and ethical beliefs. Nice to see proof that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Not going to get into the rest of it, but he's right insofar as the law is supposed to be (emphasis here cuz it's important) amoral. It's a set of rules set forth by the society as a limitation on people so that the society can continue to function. It's not supposed to be amenable to any one person's morality or sense of justice.

Now, in practice, it's almost always a reflection of the majority moral code. If that's good or bad is not something I'm qualified to discuss, so I won't comment on it. The base idea of legal theory though is that it is "above" morality, because morality is subjective, and law simply doesn't work as a subjective system.

 

[manic_depressive13]

I'm sorry but what? The law isn't amoral, nor should it be. You contradicted yourself in the one sentence. "It reflects the beliefs of all society". What sort of beliefs? Oh right! Moral and ethical beliefs. Nice to see proof that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Not going to get into the rest of it, but he's right insofar as the law is supposed to be (emphasis here cuz it's important) amoral. It's a set of rules set forth by the society as a limitation on people so that the society can continue to function. It's not supposed to be amenable to any one person's morality or sense of justice.

Now, in practice, it's almost always a reflection of the majority moral code. If that's good or bad is not something I'm qualified to discuss, so I won't comment on it. The base idea of legal theory though is that it is "above" morality, because morality is subjective, and law simply doesn't work as a subjective system.

How can you have laws completely devoid of a moral basis? The very idea that people should not murder others people is a moral ideal. It's not a universal truth. It's just something that the majority of society deems morally reprehensible. If you were to write laws free of some subjective morality you would simply have no laws.

 

[Agayek]

How can you have laws completely devoid of a moral basis? The very idea that people should not murder others people is a moral ideal. It's not a universal truth. It's just something that the majority of society deems morally reprehensible. If you were to write laws free of some subjective morality you would simply have no laws.

No it's not. "Thou shalt not murder" is not a moral stance, in any way, shape or form (though most every moral theory has incorporated it).

What it is is a baseline that is required for a society to function. People must be able to continue to live, otherwise the society collapses and no one can get anything done. And that is the purpose of law: to protect, organize, and further the society as a whole.

Any given society has a handful of basic tenants that you will find in every culture, regardless of time period, religion or moral beliefs. In essence, this boils down to: a) do not use violence against other members of the society, b) contribute towards the future of the society, and c) defend the society from outside aggression.

These three base principles have defined the core of every legal system (even the uncodified ones used by tribal villages and the like) since the dawn of human history, and morality does not factor into any of them.

Now, as I said, in practice most legal systems become a reflection of the majority's moral views. This is the natural progression of having a majority, and I really can't comment if it's better or worse. That's rather irrelevant when it comes to jurisprudence though.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2176104

Here's a link if you want to do some reading. The main point I wanna make is on the first page though:

Positive laws do not rest upon moral laws and common notions of justice furnish no court of appeals from the decrees of the State. The average man confounds law and morality, and identifies the rules of law with the principles of abstract justice. The jurist has to separate these, to show how law differs from morality, and wherein it is independent of it.

Edit: To make it more clear, I am not disagreeing with you that laws have a moral basis. The vast majority of current laws do in fact have a moral basis in the morality of the society. What I'm trying to get at is that law and legal theory are, and should be, separate from morality. Laws are not always right, nor is the right thing always legal. One should never ascribe morality to law (or worse, derive their morality from the law).

 

[ElPatron]

Affirmative action is the worst kind of racism, because if you claim to be against it you become labeled as a racist by bleeding heart left-wingers.

 

[RoonMian]

One more time: There are no different races dividing the human race. People are not dogs or horses. And that is a scientific fact. Geneticists have determined that the genetic variations inside a certain ethnicity (white middle-europeans or natives of the Amazonas delta) are far greater than the differences between the averages of two wildly different ethnicities when compared.

And the fun part is: Anthropologists have basically known that for as long as there is anthropology since you get the same results by measuring physical features making the whole race theory a gigantic fallacy in the best of cases. In the worst it was a hoax to justify the artrocities done by (mostly) white europeans to everyone else in the last 300 years.

I don't like affirmative action. I hate its existence. But something has to be done because since while it is not a racial problem that Aboriginies in Australia have a tough standing in society (I'd really love to punch that guy who posted the two skulls) or muslim kids with a "migration background" have one in Germany it still is a problem. A social problem needing a social solution.

So you're an Australian born with black skin into a family of Abroginies. That basically means you're pretty likely to be fucked. You're chances on a higher education are a lot slimmer than if you were white. You're a lot less likely to be able to rise through social classes than other people. And that is a fact you can hardly escape from and is determined the moment you're born. At least to me that is not acceptable. It goes against any notion of social justice and human rights.

It isn't even a problem of what white people did to them in the past. It's not even about making up for something. It's not about reconciliation. It is about rectifying a tilt in society that is not compatible with our western idea of democracy and human rights.

I don't have a better solution than affirmative action for that. I would just not tie it to the colour of the skin but I don't knowthe actual statistics on that one, maybe tying it to being an Aboriginie is the most efficient way to go about it in Australia. But to those who would do away with affirmative action just like that... What would your solution look like? Just let them fall of the bandwagon? Ever seen the movie "District 9"? That shit is allegoric.

(Sorry for shoddy English, not my first language.)

 

[Agayek]

I don't have a better solution than affirmative action for that. I would just not tie it to the colour of the skin but I don't knowthe actual statistics on that one, maybe tying it to being an Aboriginie is the most efficient way to go about it in Australia. But to those who would do away with affirmative action just like that... What would your solution look like? Just let them fall of the bandwagon? Ever seen the movie "District 9"? That shit is allegoric.

My solution would be to provide (extremely well) state-funded educational systems and placement-assistance programs in the areas such people tend to live in (inner cities, et al). Then it's up to them to make use of it and better themselves, and no one is being discriminated against.

Really, this kind of issue is generally more economic than racial. The only reason is appears racial is because of the systematic oppression and racism that was exhibited by previous generations. I wouldn't restrict it to Abos any more than I would restrict it to blacks or whites. Just fund good schools and the like in the poorer areas, and it would do wonders for furthering their lot in life, without actively discriminating against anyone.

That's my take on it anyway.

PS - Your English is better than several native speakers I've met.

 

[Matthew Kjonaas]

Affirmative Action is a good idea in theory, but there are some key problems with it, specifically the idea that a workplace or a college needs to have X amount of a minority to be diverse enough, and I don't think that it clearly helps end racism.

Agreed since if two people are at the same skill level but one is only proffered because they come from a group it leaves a lasting disadvantage the longer it goes on.

 

[RafaelNegrus]

Affirmative Action is a good idea in theory, but there are some key problems with it, specifically the idea that a workplace or a college needs to have X amount of a minority to be diverse enough, and I don't think that it clearly helps end racism.

Agreed since if two people are at the same skill level but one is only proffered because they come from a group it leaves a lasting disadvantage the longer it goes on.

I'll quote this one, but many people on here have been saying the same sort of thing. Affirmative Action makes no sense if one thinks of it in terms of making up for past actions, but what it's meant to counteract is racism that we continue to see. That racism typically manifests itself when looking at candidates for jobs and the like, in which minorities are seen as less qualified even when they aren't. The issue is that racism is a relatively subconscious thing, and to stop that requires something stronger than just anti-discrimination laws.

Here, take some U.S. unemployment statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm
White unemployment rate March 2012 7.5 percent
Black unemployment rate March 2012 13.7 percent
Asian unemployment rate March 2012 6.2 percent

And I know that this comes into a economic problem as well, as people from poor backgrounds are less likely to have good educations, but if there weren't any racism in the system we wouldn't be seeing these differences, at least not s pronounced as they are.

 

[ElPatron]

Yeah, no. More or less the same conditions? Not buying it. I don't buy that racism won't exist there for instance. And if it does... conditions have changed for those affected. Plus it totally ignores influences from the rest of the world.

Yes, people live in more or less the same conditions. Don't buy it if you don't want.

I mean look at the Treyvon Martin case...first reports by the media would have us believe that Zimmerman was a drunken redneck who just couldn't wait to shoot a black kid. Then it came out "Oh wait...Zimmerman is hispanic and not some drunken white guy? Oh...OH! Well he's not really a hispanic either! He's a WHITE-hispanic!!" "Yeah, but we're still boned because he's a registered democrat and not a republican." "Wellll fuck..."

I hated the whole "skittles and ice tea" thing. It's stupid to argue what Treyvon was carrying if he was beating the shit out of Zimmerman's head. Not to mention the doctored photos, showing pics of Treyvon when he was younger, or even the edited 911 call that made Zimmerman look racist.

Someone even made a drawing of Zimmerman in a uniform with a KKK hoodie. Really? A Hispanic in the KKK?

The police even said that it had been a textbook defensive shot, but the media still tried to cause an outrage in the black community. I seriously hope that there won't be riots in Florida.

 

[Agayek]

If there is no extreme difference, then why bother replying to me? If there is none then zombie's point is irrelevant.

Because you're outright dismissing the entire possibility that people with entirely different cultural, genetic and biological backgrounds can have differences in their mental faculties, and that's completely idiotic. You're so caught up with "EVERYONE IS EQUAL IN EVERYTHING, WAAAA" that you're dismissing logic and reason entirely.

Is there a significant difference in mental ability between races? I don't know (and will gladly say that it's unlikely), and moreover I don't really care. The fact remains however, that it is entirely possible that there is, and dismissing it out of hand because you don't like the implications is patently ridiculous. Until there is hard, scientific evidence that there is no significant difference, dismissing the possibility of such is just plain stupid.

Yeah, no. More or less the same conditions? Not buying it. I don't buy that racism won't exist there for instance. And if it does... conditions have changed for those affected. Plus it totally ignores influences from the rest of the world.

Racism is irrelevant when it comes to determining the physical differences. All that matters is the conditions under which the brain developed. Thus, take a random sample from a place where a large collection of people of a wide variety of races all live together (meaning in very similar conditions), and you can have a decent, objective, unbiased study of the physical differences in brain chemistry and structure between the races.

Doubtful that bias leans in that direction as much as you'd like to suggest. Just check the wikipedia article that was mentioned. You'll find people who gave exactly those conclusions, but their research was found to be less than stellar.

So what you're saying is that you agree with my point that there hasn't been unbiased research on the matter. Got it.

Also, I'm not suggesting anything. I said exactly what I mean: No one's done unbiased research because there's a risk they might discover a finding the public doesn't like and be out of a job. It's not important enough for people to be willing to risk their livelihoods for it, and as such there haven't been unbiased studies on the matter. They might find that blacks are smarter than whites, or that whites have better spatial awareness than asians, or anything of the sort, and when they publish it, someone is inevitably going to get offended and demand that they be fired for misrepresenting their race. Any studies done into the matter thus far have almost entirely been of the type where the conclusion is decided before the experiment even begins and are thus entirely pointless.

Personally, I highly doubt there will be any more of a difference between races than there is between sexes (read: think differently, not any better or worse).

 

[Dansen]

Here we go people social darwinism at its finest! Lets give a big round of applause to everyone here at the Escapist!

...this thread really should be locked...

 

[Agayek]

You're just saying that because you want there to be a difference. I can play that game too, see? Also note that cultural backgrounds aren't simply inherited and I never said they didn't influence performance on a test.

Again with the ad hominem attacks. I don't want there to be a difference, because frankly I don't give a flying fuck if there is a difference.

The only thing I have said in this entire thread is that it is a possibility that must be considered (and an unlikely one at that). Dismissing it without evidence is just as ridiculous as believing it without evidence.

Dismissing it as a real thing until it's shown isn't absurd. Note that the current concensus is that there isn't. Until that changes no reason to go with your pet theory that there is a difference(see I can make stuff up too).

1) It's not my pet theory. I don't know how many times I have say it: I DO NOT THINK THERE IS A DIFFERENCE. I think it's a possibility, no more and no less.

2) Dismissing anything as a possibility without evidence in either direction is absurd at best and outright idiotic at worst. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be a difference in brain chemistry between races or it could be a teapot orbiting Jupiter. It doesn't matter. It's still a possibility. Accepting something as possible does not mean accepting it as likely or inevitable though, and that's something you apparently still need to figure out.

Racism matters when it comes to how they are raised. Ever hear of this amazing thing called 'nurture'? You seem clueless about how tests are done anyway and what might influence them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%26_intelligence#Stereotype_threat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%26_intelligence#Education

See, here's the thing, I have never once said anything about intelligence. Everything I have said has been about the actual physical structure of the brain. Know how you test that? Strap your volunteers into an MRI for a bit and ask them questions and see how the brain reacts to it.

Beyond that, it's not terribly hard to eliminate those biases you linked with a properly designed study. For the first one, simply don't let them know you're testing intelligence. Just include the intelligence test as part of a more general test and don't let them know the intelligence part is the important bit.

For the second,that's why I said go to the inner cities where everyone has grown up under similar conditions. How many times do I need to say it? People who grow up in the same neighborhood are going to have very similar levels of education on average, especially in the inner city areas where you're (sadly enough) most likely to get an appropriately high level of ethnic diversity.

The other issues in that article you link can also be addressed but I can't be fucked with coming up with what-ifs all day.

So you're admitting you didn't read the bit where I pointed out people did try to come to those conclusions and were mostly found wanting in their research. Okay.

Dude, again, I FUCKING AGREE WITH YOU ON THIS ALREADY. There has never been unbiased research into the matter (that I've seen at least), thus any studies already done are tainted by bias and are fucking completely useless and should be ignored.

I don't know how I can make this any more explicit. The topic is far too charged and people are far too sensitive about it for anyone to be willing to perform/fund an unbiased study, because there's a risk the results will not be to someone's liking and then they will be out of a job. Forever. Until such a study happens, saying it's true or false with any degree of certainty on the matter, is completely ridiculous. All you can do is say your opinion on the matter, and unfortunately opinions have no bearing whatsoever on fact.

You've somehow got it into your head, because I don't agree with you that it's completely impossible and that there is no inherent physical differences between a Mongoloid, a Negroid, and a Caucasoid, that I'm the Grand Wizard of the local branch of the KKK. Get the fuck over yourself. People are inherently different. Steven Hawking is smarter than both of us combined, and whatever Olympic athlete you care to name is stronger. Why is the existence of such a distinction so abhorrent to you? If the color of a person's skin or structure of their skull is different, it's highly likely other things are different as well. What these things are, I don't know nor do I care, but saying that there can't possibly be a difference in natural ability between different races of humanity is completely ridiculous and flies in the face of everything we know about evolution.

 

[Altorin]

Racism in the real world is based on silly ideas that don't hold up. It's based on the idea that some races are better at different things, and if you take away social factors, it's just not true - human is human. Race only has a correlation link between these "traits" that races apparently have over other races, not a causal link. Asians are "good at math" because they value education over socializing - that's a cultural things. Jews are good with money because their ancestors were FORCED to be money lenders, so banking has been in their families for a LONG time. If you look at any trait, and you'll find a social or cultural reason for it before you have to start looking at their DNA for some racial link.

and after reading some of the other responses on this thread, I think I'll just leave this here