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[KittyTac]

Well you see, I believe in equality. I believe treating certain races preferentially is inherently wrong. But fair enough. Still think it's... It just doesn't seem morally right to me. I don't know why. Maybe because it is racist because treating races preferentially is the definition of racism. I don't think affirmative action is the right way.

Also all farmers need help not only socially-disadvantaged farmers. If the bill extended to all farmers then I wouldn't mind. And it would still level the playing field wouldn't it?

[scriver]

Yeah, but that would be socialism

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Affirmative action is essentially just means-testing, using demographic as a rough estimate of need. Whatever your thoughts on means-testing, it’s hardly beyond the pale.

[KittyTac]

Equality in that case is watching one guy stab the other guy, then offering each of them a bandage. It's equal and fairer, sure, because all wounds matter, not just the sucking chest wound the other guy has right now.

If you want another real-life example of redlining and racism destroying generational wealth in socially disadvantaged communities, have a look at the city of Milwaukee, which manages to be one of the most segregated cities in the country, primarily because of malicious loan practices or flat-out loan denial to people of color preventing any kind of upwards mobility or property ownership. They were denied loans needed to start businesses to grow on basis of skin color, giving it instead to white people, and now that those businesses and properties are worth many times more, being part of the heart of one of the state's major cities, there's a wealth divide.

Well yes one wound matters more but there's no reason not to help both. Also it's stupid to say that the white farmers were personally responsible for discrimination instead of the authorities.

Also you ignored my point about farmers in general being in a bad spot. So yes they all need aid.

[scriver]

That's why you base these things on wealth instead of race. If any group is overrepresented in relation to their capita in that target group then they still benefit correspondingly more.

And yes, it's racist. It's literally making legislation based on race. You can argue that not all racism is bad, but you can't argue that that isn't racist.

All in all this just showcases how internalized racist liberalism is in the American "left". Can't conquer unless you keep dividing. Have to keep sowing hate between white and black poor people.

[KittyTac]

Also you ignored my point about farmers in general being in a bad spot. So yes they all need aid.

Also fucked over farmers with his trade war, but Republicans didn’t care when they had to almost triple aid for farmers to offset the damage that did.

Anyhow, socially-disadvantaged farmers tend to be of the small-to-medium variety rather than the corporate owned:

And believe me, I know farmers are in a bad spot, I read the stories about farms dumping out literal tons of milk because the cheese demand dropped when lockdowns hit restaurants.

I'm fairly certain that aid going to 'socially disadvantaged' farmers as one feature of the bill does not make it the only feature of the bill aiding farmers. Cool your jets.

Well if the bill offers other aid too then I also have less of a problem. I only have a problem if it's just affirmative action. If there's a roughly-equal level of aid I don't mind. And yes I know the Reps fucked up there.

That's why you base these things on wealth instead of race. If any group is overrepresented in relation to their capita in that target group then they still benefit correspondingly more.

And yes, it's racist. It's literally making legislation based on race. You can argue that not all racism is bad, but you can't argue that that isn't racist.

All in all this just showcases how internalized racist liberalism is in the American "left". Can't conquer unless you keep dividing. Have to keep sowing hate between white and black poor people.

This.

[Iduno]

Well yes one wound matters more but there's no reason not to help both. Also it's stupid to say that the white farmers were personally responsible for discrimination instead of the authorities.

No problem, they aren't taking the money from white farmers.

[KittyTac]

Well yes one wound matters more but there's no reason not to help both. Also it's stupid to say that the white farmers were personally responsible for discrimination instead of the authorities.

No problem, they aren't taking the money from white farmers.

I was responding to Naxza's analogy which I felt was kinda flawed. I know they aren't.

Anyways I'm going to sleep. Might backread and respond to whatever gets thrown at me and scriver in the morning. Good night.

[hector13]

That's why you base these things on wealth instead of race. If any group is overrepresented in relation to their capita in that target group then they still benefit correspondingly more.

And yes, it's racist. It's literally making legislation based on race. You can argue that not all racism is bad, but you can't argue that that isn't racist.

What is the alternative?

Non-whites in the US have been discriminated against for literally centuries and that discrimination is built into the DNA of the various arms of government from the national right on down to the local level. The country was built on it, frankly.

With that in mind:

All in all this just showcases how internalized racist liberalism is in the American "left". Can't conquer unless you keep dividing. Have to keep sowing hate between white and black poor people.

You and I both know I lack the necessary tact and ability to challenge this adequately, but I can’t really leave it.

The left in this very specific instance are trying to raise non-white poor people (as well as some poor white people, mind you) up to the level of white poor people. It’s difficult for me to accept a position that argues against helping someone take a few steps forward when they start 10 steps behind the starting line because it is disadvantageous to someone who started on the line.

At the risk of being accused of what-aboutism, Republicans across the land are attempting to suppress the vote by passing legislation to limit access to absentee ballots. That’s going to affect non-white people a lot more, both in terms of their ability to vote as well as the quality of candidates who stand (if a certain demographic won’t or can’t vote, you won my waste time trying to appeal to them).

On the one hand you have the left treating non-whites differently because they’ve been treated as subhuman for hundreds of years, while you had the right treating them differently because, so far as I can tell, they don’t gain anything from supporting them, what with less than a fifth of registered Republican voters being non-white, according to Pew Research Center.

[McTraveller]

This has been discussed before. I'll repeat my take again, because I feel it's likely to be similar to where others are at philosophically.

I used to be in the group that finds affirmative action and similar to be unfair because it is basing favor disproportionately to one group over another.  But then I realized that my timeframe was too small: the "system" for so long has been overwhelmingly unfair in one direction that in order to make things fair in the longer timeframe, things have to be "unfair" in the other direction to effect meaningful change.

Put simply:  If you have a total population split say 60/40 by some trait, but when selecting from that population you end up with a 90/10 split, the only way to get back to 60/40 in a reasonable timeframe is to have something like a 10/90 split in the short term.

It's also worth noting that the concept that "fairness" on a collective level does, in fact, mean that things will likely be unfair in particular individuals' circumstances in some situations, for instance in college admissions.

For things like loans though - that's completely made up since the supply of loans is much less physically constrained than the supply of slots in a particular educational institutions.

[Dostoevsky]

This semi-recent piece of news may also be helpful in thinking about all this:

U.S. farm profit in 2020 will rise to a seven-year high after government-aid payments doubled amid the coronavirus pandemic and trade disputes, the Department of Agriculture said.

The latest data show the increasing dependence of growers on government assistance after three years of trade and Covid-19 aid on top of traditional subsidies. Farmers face a murky outlook next year if the Biden administration adjust payments.

Direct government aid, accounting for 39% of net farm income, rose to a record $46.5 billion from $22.4 billion last year.

That is to say, it's not like the BIPOC aid in this bill is the only aid currently going to farmers. This is just extra help for certain communities that generally have a combination of historical lack of aid and sometimes trouble accessing current aid.

[scriver]

That's why you base these things on wealth instead of race. If any group is overrepresented in relation to their capita in that target group then they still benefit correspondingly more.

And yes, it's racist. It's literally making legislation based on race. You can argue that not all racism is bad, but you can't argue that that isn't racist.

What is the alternative?

Non-whites in the US have been discriminated against for literally centuries and that discrimination is built into the DNA of the various arms of government from the national right on down to the local level. The country was built on it, frankly.

With that in mind:

All in all this just showcases how internalized racist liberalism is in the American "left". Can't conquer unless you keep dividing. Have to keep sowing hate between white and black poor people.

You and I both know I lack the necessary tact and ability to challenge this adequately, but I can’t really leave it.

The left in this very specific instance are trying to raise non-white poor people (as well as some poor white people, mind you) up to the level of white poor people. It’s difficult for me to accept a position that argues against helping someone take a few steps forward when they start 10 steps behind the starting line because it is disadvantageous to someone who started on the line.

At the risk of being accused of what-aboutism, Republicans across the land are attempting to suppress the vote by passing legislation to limit access to absentee ballots. That’s going to affect non-white people a lot more, both in terms of their ability to vote as well as the quality of candidates who stand (if a certain demographic won’t or can’t vote, you won my waste time trying to appeal to them).

On the one hand you have the left treating non-whites differently because they’ve been treated as subhuman for hundreds of years, while you had the right treating them differently because, so far as I can tell, they don’t gain anything from supporting them, what with less than a fifth of registered Republican voters being non-white, according to Pew Research Center.

What's the alternative? If there's people ten steps behind then you target people 10 steps behind. If those people are 95% black then they target every relevant black person and every other person who's also ten steps behind. That's how you fight class divides solidaristically without trying to reinforce race conflicts.

[Vector]

Another example of affirmative action.

[Rolan7]

I used to be really resentful of affirmative action by the way.  "Just treat everyone equally now in the present" makes common sense, particularly as a young person in the precarious situation of working through college.  It can be truly difficult to count one's blessings when trying to navigate one's particular difficulties.  So to see other people getting aid just for "the color of their skin" breeds resentment - it's a significant optics issue, I'll give Scriver that!

I suggest that it's kinda like triage after a disaster.  If I'm badly hurt and in a lot of pain, but I get a low-priority code and the medics focus on other people, then it's perfectly natural for me to be hurt, confused and resentful of the medics and their patients.  One can even conceive of a situation where I'd be correct!  They could actually be persecuting me, and I could literally die because of that!  Or, potentially, those other people could have more critical injuries.  I don't know, I'm not a medic and I'm a bit distracted trying not to die.

Imagine how I might feel if the medics were clearly spending more time on people of some evident group.  A common religious group even.  Those [X] medics must be looking after their own first, as always...

Then later, looking back, I might (IF my conclusion was wrong!) find out that the disaster was an anti-religious hate crime.  That those victims needed more care because they were the primary target of the attack.  My situation was still awful, but theirs was statistically much worse, and so they were prioritized for care.

I hope this didn't come off as condescending, I'm just trying to workshop accessible metaphors because optics and rhetoric are more important than changing minds on this forum.  I also want to point out and maybe explain why I understand resenting affirmative action and, indeed, resenting people of color for their special opportunities.  I obviously don't stand by that now, but I think I understand why *I* and many others felt that way.

A simpler, popular metaphor is of a footrace where one runner is hindered at the beginning, then unable to catch up later once allowed to run freely.  It doesn't really capture the vicious cycle of poverty and the self-sustaining wealth of land ownership (the loans for which were denied) - things are actually *worse* than it depicts - but maybe it helps show why focusing only on the present is not inherently fair.

[Lord Shonus]

That's a bad example, because triage doesn't work like that. If, for example, a synogague is bombed, most of the worst wounded will be Jews. This means that most of the people in the "prioritize aid" category (as well as in the "too late, can't waste the time on someone we can't save" one if it is bad enough to have one) will be Jews, but the severity of the wounds is the only factor in that decision. They're not going to ignore a badly-wounded Gentile in favor of a less badly-wounded Jew just because that was the target.


Affirmative Action is a form of social and economic triage that assumes that the minority groups in question automatically fall into the "prioritize aid" category. There is merit in this, but there's a reason it is a controversial issue even among the minority groups in question.