I know you are not for it but that's the reality.
I think you strongly exagearate the extent that it is the reality. And I think you prescribe the wrong treatment for it but we have gone around on that point before.
You sound like the black boxers on the Chris Rock show tonite. According to them, there can never be a good white boxer.
"There can never be a good white boxer (or black hockey player or whatever)" is racist. Saying "blacks tend to be better boxers", or "most good boxers tend to be black", is not racist if the facts back you up.
There are genetic differences between people but there are not any significant genetic differences between races.
There are genetic differences that control skin color, hair color, eye color, tendencies to height and weight, to a lesser extend facial features. I don't think those are the only differences. I think most of the genetic differences are so small that they are not significant when thinking about one person and what he or she might be able to do (the differences between people of any ancestral group are much larger then the differences between groups for the most part) but they do lead to overall trends where one group has more of some ability then another. On top of the genetic differences there are cultural and other differences that make some groups more likely to be good at certain things then other groups. If you have total fairness and no racism you still will not get proportional representation in most areas.
My point is that things viewed anecdotally are not always what they seem to be. The things that make one group better than another group tend to be culture driven, not genetic.
I think some of them are both. Also even when they are culturally driven they are still real and would result in some groups having more indviduals that can meet certain standards in some areas then other groups.
A lot of them........not all of them.
Almost all of them.
Frankly, this is racist talk and its best you figure out why it is.
Is truth a defense against the charge of racism? Or is even pointing out actual differences between people still racist even if it is true?
I think applying it to an indvidual would be racist. Saying that Bob can not play basketball because he is white, or John can not play hockey because he is black would be racist (and flase as well). But saying that more good basketball players are black and more good hockey players are white is not.
I don't think the authors of The Bell Curve were racist even if their conclusions do turn out to be false because they where making an honest attempt to learn and present the truth, not an attempt to attack on race or another.
Tim this stuff (groups tending to vote certain ways) has been known for decades.
Read carefully. I wasn't disputing that groups tend to vote in certain ways that are different from other groups. This isn't limited to racial groups. Men vote differently then women, wealthy people vote differently then the middle class who vote differently then the poor. People in cities vote differently then people in the suburbs who vote differently then people in rural areas. None of this makes any of them any less an individual or means that they should be treated mainly as a member of a group.
"Not in any consistant or wide spread way."
Yes, big time.
Another situation where continuing to reply would result in a "yes they do", "no they don't", "yes they do" conversation.
Its a simple fact that understates the problem.
It wasn't nor was it meant to be a discription of a problem. It was an observation of reality. In 1950 the average black American might have been pretty poor but he was in a lot better situation then the average black person in 1866. The reason I brought this up was not to say that the average black person in 1950 had everything fine and nothing to worry about. It was rather a direct response to your comment that things did not get better for black people until affirmitive action. The reality is most of the improvment in the wealth and security of black Americans happened before AA became wide spread.
Tim |
