Comment by datsci_est_2015
5 hours ago
And mainstream conservative justification, including the US Supreme Court, is that because this is not overtly racist in its design, but just coincidentally racist in its impact, it has plausible deniability. Basically an extension of the “racism is over” school of thought.
And an extension of the progressive / conservative disagreement between how a system is designed vs. the impacts of a system determines its fairness and justness.
Edit: funny, I pre-sniped the sibling responses to your comment.
I appreciate you called out the more fundamental disagreement here: "... the progressive / conservative disagreement between how a system is designed vs. the impacts of a system determines its fairness and justness."
I think a lot of people miss this or pretend that the conservative position is just old-school racism (although it definitely is sometimes). But there are really hard philosophical, ethical, and political questions at the base of a lot our political problems. I think it helps keep people from arguing past each other if they can find out where the really "hard" part of their political disagreement actually is.
It’s called disparate impact more specifically, but that term is unfortunately increasingly politicized as it’s inconvenient.
That's not "unfortunate". It was a deliberate choice. Any term used to describe the problem is treated as if it meant something bad, and then we're told we can't talk about it because it's "politicized". As if the entire point of the political process was about something other than resolving disagreements.
I highly recommend the video series "The Alt-Right Playbook" (in the sense of an expose, not a how-to) which has an episode dedicated to this, titled "Always a Bigger Fish". [0], which goes into how people might be talking "past" one-another.
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> Your conservative friend is often baffled as to what you're even trying to say when you point out there's not enough high-paying jobs or affordable health plans for everyone.
> There's not supposed to be. The system requires an underclass. Someone's gotta clean the toilets.
> Capitalism, then, is a proving ground: it's how you demonstrate where in the hierarchy you deserve to be. Do you have more than you need, or less?
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs&list=PLJA_jUddXv...
Conservative position is the old school racism, just with a dishonest excuse on top of it.
Those systems are not having disparate impats randomly. They were deaigned that way on purpose.
Your framing is fundamentally illiberal. Refraining from engaging using “well deep in your heart” excuses means you can self-righteously ignore any position you disagree with and never have to face real argument. And it is wonderfully non-falsifiable, so you can always use it!
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Progressive thinkers like Ibram X. Kendi believe every single policy issue must be evaluated on the basis of whether it happens to impact different races differently. Essentially turning the state into a gigantic social engineering project.
https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-racial-crossroads/
And the alternative for you is to just ignore that any law (or government action) has any different impact on race at all? Why are we arguing at the extremes? What alternative history must one subscribe to in order to believe that ignoring disparate impact won’t end in humans rights abuses? Have you even heard about something like how nuclear testing and proliferation disproportionately impacted the Navajo nation especially because they had absolutely no recourse against it? Are we just supposed to say “tough luck”? “Might makes right?” “Should’ve gotten a better lawyer?”
>And the alternative for you is to just ignore that any law (or government action) has any different impact on race at all?
I mean, every law will inevitably impact different groups at least a little differently. I'm not a fan of obsessing about race every time a law is written, no.
>What alternative history must one subscribe to in order to believe that ignoring disparate impact won’t end in humans rights abuses?
This seems like sloppy reasoning. If a person's rights are being violated, they ought to be able to make that argument in court without reference to disparate impact.
What we've seen in the US is the 90s "judge people as individuals" paradigm has been replaced by a "racial collectivism" paradigm. In recent years, this new paradigm was initially mainstream on the left, then became mainstream on the right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg
The "racial collectivism" paradigm is corrosive to individual rights, no matter who wields it. Furthermore, collectivist activity on the part of one ethnic group ends up being countered by collectivist activity on the part of other ethnic groups, in a doom spiral. The result is descent into hateful sectarianism. Scroll through X on any Tuesday to see what I mean.
>nuclear testing and proliferation disproportionately impacted the Navajo nation especially because they had absolutely no recourse against it? Are we just supposed to say “tough luck”? “Might makes right?” “Should’ve gotten a better lawyer?”
Consider a hypothetical where the town near the nuclear test has a population which is a perfect microcosm of the US in terms of race, gender, age, class, etc. No "disparate impact" argument can be possibly made in this hypothetical, since all of the racial "collectives" are equally harmed.
Does this change the fact that the nuclear tests are harming people? Or the best approaches to the problem?
Racial collectivism just isn't a good approach. People are more responsive to the needs of others when they view them as fellow humans or fellow citizens, not representatives of alien collectives.
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> turning the state into a gigantic social engineering project
What do you think the state is but a gigantic social engineering project?
I hate this line of thinking. It's hard to argue that Republicans are strictly racist when you have people like Tim Scott in respected positions. Literally Condoleezza Rice was the Secretary of State. If we are going to take racism seriously, race needs to be the causal mechanism... not culture, not politics.
The distinction between cultural differences and something like strict colorism make this a difficult issue to adjudicate. Correlation does not imply causation, and looking at nontrivial counter-examples should be helpful.
It's really difficult to argue the party's goal in gerrymandering is trying to prevent black people from gaining significant positions in government when the same party is electing and appointing black folks to significant positions in government.
I say this as a lefty.