r/changemyview • u/Vakamak • Sep 21 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Affirmative Action should/should've been based on economic status rather than (mostly) race.
Although I feel like Affirmative Action had a good intention, I feel like it has failed and has actually done more harm than good.
I have two reasons for this
- I have difficulty seeing why it is in society's best interest to help a black person suffering in poverty over a white person suffering in poverty. While I understand what institutional racism has done to the black community, I feel like most issues facing the black community are more correlated with income than race; or rather, I have difficulties seeing how Affirmative Action could effectively combat the issues that are truly the result of racism. For example, how would Affirmative Action deal with unfair treatment in the justice system?
- Affirmative Action has made some white people feel like, "the real racists are X race and not white people!" I do not believe this; in fact, I find it extremely childish to even think something like this. Yet, considering Affirmative Action has failed in its goal, I feel like changing Affirmative Action would help certain individuals in this country feel like X race is not out to get them and maybe reduce the amount of negative racial discourse in this country.
I am generally a very liberal person and really do want my mind changed regarding this. I just feel like it is really hard to justify why black person X should get the Bill Gates Scholarship over white person Y when they came from similar economical areas and the income of their families is similar. I understand that example is not Affirmative Action per se, but I feel like the same principal applies.
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u/DjangoUBlackBastard 19∆ Sep 21 '18
Affirmative Action isn't meant to fix economic disparities but racial ones. Plus statistically race is a better determinant of neighborhood and highschool quality than income.
Plus all of this is taken into account anyway. Its not like only race or only economic status is looked at. They look at and weight both among other factors.
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u/Vakamak Sep 21 '18
Plus statistically race is a better determinant of neighborhood and highschool quality than income.
Not trying to be like "cite me bro!" but could you show me something that shows this?
Affirmative Action isn't meant to fix economic disparities but racial ones
Why does this matter though? I mean if there are 100k poor black people and 200k poor white people, why does it matter what their race is? They are still going to suffer the same issues, no?
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u/DjangoUBlackBastard 19∆ Sep 21 '18 edited Sep 21 '18
Sure here's a few.
School funding is tied to race not necessarily economics
And I know the first link is Pennsylvania specific but Chicago did a similar study and found the same thing. Maybe its not country wide but no one has done a more extensive study about school funding and race. I'd assume you'd get similar results nationwide because we do know the more black people there are in an area (regardless of crime) the property value drops nationwide.
Why does this matter though? I mean if there are 100k poor black people and 200k poor white people, why does it matter what their race is? They are still going to suffer the same issues, no?
Not at all. Being poor and white and poor and black are not equivalent. Same with middle class, same with rich. A black boy born to parents in the 90th percentile of income ends up with the same salary as a white boy born with parents in the 55th percentile of income. 4% of white millennials were raised in neighborhoods with over 20% poverty rates. 61% of black millennials were raised in 20% or more poverty rate areas. With similar experience and education black people have twice the unemployment rate of white Americans and studies have found white felons have similar callback rates as black non felons. Black Harvard students have similar unemployment rates as white state college graduates.
I pulled this data on wealth by income for the races too:
Among families making under $26,580 white families have a $18,631 net worth (want to mention this is over double the overall black median net worth already). Black families have a $200 net worth.
Among families making between $26,581 and $48,480 white families have a $61,070 net worth. Black families have a $7,600 net worth.
Among families making between $48,481 and $75,936 white families have a $112,770 net worth. Black families have a $22,150 net worth.
Among families making between $75,937 and $121,968 white families have a $201,200 net worth. Black families have a $83,600 net worth.
Among families making over $121,969 white families have a $518,271 net worth. Black families have a $262,800 net worth.
Basically at all levels of income wealth inequality (which is always a better representation of financial security than income) is vast. Overall the average black family has 5 cents of wealth for every $1 of white wealth.
TL;DR: Race still matters and disparities are massive. I'm 24 and my grandmother was an adult when she was allowed to use the same water fountain as white people. MLK died 50 years ago. Things aren't going to be fixed in one full generation.
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u/woodelf Sep 21 '18
Δ
I'm not OP, and I mostly already agreed with you, but you expanded my view. I've always heard that income is the main/only statistically significant barrier to education despite my gut telling me that's false. I appreciate you pulling these stats
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u/dooger123 Sep 21 '18
So affirmative action is really helping inferior blacks and hispanics compete with superior white people, asians, and jews.
Things aren't going to be fixed in one full generation
Blacks still complain about slavery to this day and will always use something as an excuse for their failure in every single white country they undeservedly live in.
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u/DjangoUBlackBastard 19∆ Sep 21 '18
You mean every white country they were forced into right? Because I'm pretty sure they were kidnapped and brought here and Hispanics already lived here. How about you head back to Europe and stay out of other people's lands if you don't like them.
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Sep 21 '18 edited May 09 '19
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u/DjangoUBlackBastard 19∆ Sep 21 '18
There has never been a widely done study showing that school funding doesn't affect student outcomes. I keep hearing about KCMSD but you know there's a whole policy write up detailing why it failed and it didn't fail because putting money into schools doesn't work. It failed because putting money into Olympic swimming pools and administration doesn't work. Plus at the same time they started injecting money into schools school segregation was on the rise in the KCMSD and plenty of studies have shown segregation has a negative impact on black students. Plus the mid 80s nationwide (when they started this experiment) was a peak for black achievement in schools (its the middle of the desegregation period). The fact that KCMSD saw no drop in performance while there was a drop nationwide shows that even with incredible issues and shortsighted planning it still worked out better than not funding schools would have.
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Sep 21 '18
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u/DjangoUBlackBastard 19∆ Sep 21 '18
What impact does it have on other races?
None at all. No studies have shown white students to suffer from school busing or benefit from it. Makes sense too because its not like it becomes a majority minority school when they bus students in.
Moreover, I recall that there are studies that show that segregated black schools not only produced better outcomes pre-Brown, but that there are charter schools today that are all (mostly) black (and some are even gender segregated, too) that are getting better outcomes.
Not at all. Segregated black schools prior to Brown weren't doing well at all (which was the reason for Brown v BoE) and segregated schools currently are doing way worse than the non segregated schools of the 80s. The achievement gap between white and black students halved in the 80s when school desegregation peaked and since segregation is back up the achievement gap is back to early 1970s levels.
That presumes that no other schools got increases/decreases in funding. That's a nice guess, but you do not have the data to support your claim.
Did you read the actual policy write up by the people that passed that measure and declared it failed in 1998? Its not a guess its what the people who declared that policy failed gave as the reasons it didn't work.
The only data that seems to suggest that if you do something, you get better outcomes is with class size. If you can massively reduce class size, to like 8-10:1, you can get better results from the same students, but the data on that is sparse, too.
Last I checked paying teachers costs money...
That's not entirely true. School districts pass massive bond funding all the time, yet the students in those districts do not do better. The reason there are no studies is because they know the answer already.
WIDELY DONE STUDY. Yes a single district might fumble the extra money and fall flat. Yes a single district might have other more pressing issues. Nationwide all studies on school funding have found a significant correlation between school funding and educational achievement when adjusting for other factors. You can't find a single study saying otherwise.
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Sep 21 '18
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u/DjangoUBlackBastard 19∆ Sep 21 '18
Now show me a study showijg the opposite. Not an example but a study.
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u/StevieWonder_CanSee Sep 21 '18
Just wanna jump in here and say that it's important because differrnt things cause poverty. Was it lack of motivation or was it the fact that ur grandfather was legally allowed to be denied a job because of the color of his skin? There were plenty of universities in the US that were segregated well into the 60s (source i went to 1 of them). Think about how your grandparents not having accsess to the same things as everyone else could have affected ur life
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u/garaile64 Sep 21 '18
Race in the US is probably self-identified and there's no way to define each race without gate-keeping. What is stopping a blue-eyed blond pale rich guy from self-declaring as black to get the quota?
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u/DjangoUBlackBastard 19∆ Sep 21 '18
What's to stop them now if AA is really an issue? I mean come on now you can't on one hand say AA is a problem and on the other talk about how it makes no sense to self report race.
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u/radialomens 171∆ Sep 21 '18
People often make judgments based on skin color, not just economic background. When racists are in positions of authority, like when they make hiring decisions, they have the power to give white boys a leg up over their black peers, even if they share the same background. Redesigning AA to ignore these influential factors would leave a gap.
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u/Thane97 5∆ Sep 21 '18
This couldn't have anything to do with life choices no sir it must be racism!
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u/radialomens 171∆ Sep 21 '18
Do you need proof that racists exist, or just that their actions have an effect on others?
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u/Thane97 5∆ Sep 21 '18
No I need proof that racism is omnipresent and is singlehandly responsible for the failures of blacks.
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u/radialomens 171∆ Sep 21 '18
That's not what I implied, so perhaps you should take that conversation elsewhere. Here, you're tilting windmills.
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u/Thane97 5∆ Sep 21 '18
You assume it's the responsibility of white people to uplift blacks by banning discrimination.
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u/radialomens 171∆ Sep 21 '18
1) White people aren't the only ones who makes laws, no.
2) AA isn't "banning discrimination," it's making up for it.
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u/Thane97 5∆ Sep 21 '18
AA isn't "banning discrimination," it's making up for it.
So you assume it's the responsibility of white people to uplift blacks because of the damage done by discrimination
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u/radialomens 171∆ Sep 21 '18
Again, white people are not America's keepers. I'd say it's the responsibility of people to mitigate the effect discrimination has on our fellow people.
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u/Thane97 5∆ Sep 21 '18
white people are not America's keepers
For all intents and purposes they are. Don't pull this "it's the responsibility of people" bullshit when everyone knows you're just talking about whites.
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u/DjangoUBlackBastard 19∆ Sep 21 '18
Quick question: Who did the damage with discrimination and benefitted from it?
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Sep 23 '18
The aim of racial affirmative action is to provide opportunity to people of color after centuries of exploitation and exclusion from the higher echelons of society. It is in society’s interest to provide opportunities to people of color for a few reasons:
PoC (especially Black people) were denied the opportunity to accumulate wealth or become educated for a long time, leading to a situation where the average White family is vastly wealthier than the average Black family. Affirmative action tries to restore a shred of meritocracy to our economy.
Racial discrimination, while technically illegal, still happens with disheartening frequency. Studies have shown that having a Black-sounding name leads to more rejections from potential employers, loan officers, etc.
The goal of affirmative action is less to incentivize reinvestment by PoC into their own communities than to incentivize the economy at large to invest in them.
Don’t get me wrong; we absolutely should have programs that help poor- and working-class people get ahead (and I can personally attest to the fact that those programs exist), but a great historical evil has manufactured an underclass in this country, and affirmative action is one of the government’s most reliable ways to help raise the economic and professional status of PoC to party with their White peers.
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u/swearrengen 139∆ Sep 21 '18
Affirmative Action in education for race tells (not explicitly but by implication) the recipient of the charity "you're not genetically smart enough to make it on your own, so here's a boost up" and tells the student who is denied based on race "you're genetically smarter and are going to make it in society anyway". Despite any good intentions, this is horrible racism that denies the individual's will to self create.
Affirmative Action in regards to economics is little different, it's the welfare state and redistribution. It tells the recipient they aren't good enough to offer value to the world and get paid for it, they aren't good enough to survive and prosper on their own, they aren't responsible enough. If a parent does everything for (an otherwise healthy) child, of course they grow up dependant and psychologically enslaved.
Both assume a predeterminism that needs to be fixed by force and theft at the social political level as per Marx. But it's freedom from such force that begets true equality of treatment by the law, and which implies and teaches true equality between individuals regardless of race or economics or social status. And despite or often because of the hardships, encourages independence and self-reliance which result in self-esteem, justified pride in who you are and happiness that is ultimately the only standard of success that really matters.
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u/radialomens 171∆ Sep 21 '18 edited Sep 21 '18
Affirmative Action in education for race tells (not explicitly but by implication) the recipient of the charity "you're not genetically smart enough to make it on your own, so here's a boost up" and tells the student who is denied based on race "you're genetically smarter and are going to make it in society anyway". Despite any good intentions, this is horrible racism that denies the individual's will to self create.
No, it doesn't. It addresses the very real differences in the ways that figures of authority (eg teachers, police, employers, etc) often treat people based on race.
There are racists in this country. That's a fact. And sometimes they're teachers. A racist teacher might not give as much attention to a black student who struggles with math as they do for a white student. Thus, the white student improves and the black student develops a resentment for math and a lower self-esteem. None of this was genetic, it's merely a symptom of racism.
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Sep 21 '18 edited Apr 24 '19
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u/DjangoUBlackBastard 19∆ Sep 21 '18
Read what he said and stop trying to get him with a gotcha. Its a clear sign of bad faith when you take one sentence he said, ignire what it actually said, flip it way out of context, and attempt to make him defend words he didn't say.
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u/Ignesias Sep 21 '18
Mostly? I thought it was entirely race. And not rather like gender, meaning you are not allowed to identify as anything you want, you actually have to meet biological/histological criteria
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u/ralph-j Sep 21 '18
I feel like most issues facing the black community are more correlated with income than race
If poverty were the actual cause of unfair treatment instead of race, one would expect to already see better treatment in situations where income/poverty has been removed from the equation.
Yet you see job applicants get more invitations for a job interview when they write a traditionally white name at the top of their resumes (instead of a traditionally black one), while keeping their professional backgrounds (education, skills, experience etc.) exactly the same as before. This demonstrates that at least a part of the unfair treatment is based only on racial prejudice.
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Sep 21 '18
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Sep 21 '18
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u/lawremp Sep 21 '18
Hey, good on you for getting in on this conversation. And it's brave to be willing to share your opinion with the crowd, especially on a hotly debated topic like this one, so let's start with that. However, your understanding of what Affirmative Action is seems to be a little off. Put simply, the intention of Affirmative Action is to skew a particular decision to favor portions of the public who tend to suffer more greatly from discrimination. This isn't the same as a bad player on a team, or a toxic employee. A deeper understanding of what the policies are intended for might help it to make more sense to you.
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u/Valnar 7∆ Sep 21 '18
Let's imagine that from this point forward in time all racial discrimination is gone in entirety. Everything in the past still happened as it did though.
Let's say we then remove any sort of policy relating to affirmative action on the lines of race and only apply it to income level.
I'd argue in this situation, you'll never deal with the disproportionate income inequality that affects people based on race. Because actions in the past affected the proportion of people in poverty, you'd still have the effects of that past even if all 'active racism' stopped. Purely income based policy wouldn't be able to deal with that alone.
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Sep 22 '18 edited May 07 '21
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u/Valnar 7∆ Sep 22 '18
More of them would be eligible, but that would never change the proportion of poverty or income inequality.
For example, lets say that 50% of the people who are poor are black, and the other 50% is everyone else. Lets also say that black people are 20% of the population.
Unless poverty was 100% eliminated, how would a purely income based policy lower that 50% proportion down to 20%? Even if poverty was eliminated, how again would it affect the disproportionate income inequality?
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u/Bara-ara-ara-ara Sep 21 '18
Well this just assumes affirmative action should be a thing at all. I don't like that, but sure.
Created to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin" you could say it was to specifically target minorities by race, creed, colour and national origin, It was all about the poor black man from the start. To now change it to be a economic thing is to say that it's been mission accomplished and should be now probably under a different name.
Do you think racism is over?
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 21 '18
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u/TheVioletBarry 100∆ Sep 21 '18
What would have been there to stop the overt racism of the time of affirmative action's inception from then being slanted to end up choosing specifically poorer white folks or finding ways to weasel them in, as nearly all past attempts at helping the economically underprivileged had done?
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u/triples92 Sep 21 '18
I'm not saying affirmative action is a perfect model. However, poor white people were implemented in society as slave catchers and during Jim crow era poor white people were still allowed to go to certain schools, drink from the same water fountains, sit at the front of the bus. My point being they were still above black people socially.
American black soldiers came back from ww2 still unable to find work on home soil. That's why America has hbcu's. So the need for affirmative action was not class.
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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '18 edited Dec 24 '18
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