Business Rights versus Employee Rights: The Discrimination Talk Side Project

[atreyue]

[quote name='mykevermin']My biggest problem is that you admit there is a problem with racial discrimination, and whether you think it is individual, aggregate, or something in between, you express *zero* interest in doing something about it. That's the beautiful thing about being white; no need to hope or work for change in any way, shape, or form if the status quo benefits us, right?[/QUOTE]

I could easily say that the beautiful thing about being white is that you have no need to worry or wonder about whether any of the changes you make for others truly helps them because none of it actually has any effect on your status quo. Let other people take care of themselves; in fact, force them to do it. That's how they learn and grow.

 

[bmulligan]

[quote name='mykevermin']My point was that the exaltation of the individual you so often bring up in constitutional terminology is invalidated by the very notion of the electoral college. [/quote]

The "individual" is not invalidated, or whatever that means, by the electoral college. Just becuase we don't directly elect the president, doesn't mean our votes don't count.

Please, explain to me how "all whites" have to "pay the price," and "all blacks profit." Not every person will apply for a job where there are competing races; not every person will seek housing in a neighborhood that is racially heterogeneous.

I will give you a shining example of my point. Geroge bush was only elected by half the population, yet we all have to live under his administration, i.e., we all pay the price. Just as All whites aren't racist, AA treats all whites as if they are, or were in the past by taking away a so-called "advantage". It also treats all blacks as if they are disadvantaged, even if they aren't. Such a government policy doesn't consider individual circumstance, it looks at your race and judges you on that factor. It is, by definition, racist in premise.

My biggest problem is that you admit there is a problem with racial discrimination, and whether you think it is individual, aggregate, or something in between, you express *zero* interest in doing something about it. That's the beautiful thing about being white; no need to hope or work for change in any way, shape, or form if the status quo benefits us, right?

Wrong again, myke. I do have interest about changing racial attitudes, it is not *zero*. I prefer to do it on an individual basis instead of by dictatorship and decree. I don't choose to deal with people on a racial level and catagorize them according to their skin color. You're the one doing that. You're the one keeping us seperate and dividing us along racial lines. The funny thing is that you think dividing us into groups for study and rectification is helping erase the divide.

I don't deal or judge people becuase of how dark or light their skin color is or where their ancestors came from. I admonish people when they do such things, or I choose not to deal or do business with them. I have the power to change things in my sphere of influence. What I don't do is choose to control other people as you do. I consider people who want such power evil.

 

[bmulligan]

I love this guy...

[quote name='atreyue']I'm actually 6 years out of college, and things are no different in the workforce. School was simply an analogy. My 'psychological uncertainty' is due to the pervasive idea that you and most other 'learned' (this is more of a socioeconomic stratification than any kind of cut on you, btw) people have that blacks just can't do it without your help, or at least your consideration of our special circumstances. How can I measure my academic achievements? By my grades? When the english teacher grades me differently from the white kids in the class because he knows or thinks that I haven't had as much exposure to grammatical correctness, he's not helping me because he's not teaching me the correct way. Nor are my grades an accurate representation of my achievements. That's no different from the fact that most workplaces will allow a black person to curse, have outbursts, sexually harrass women, show up late to work, dress inappropriately, threaten physical violence, spend less time on work, etc. because 'that's just what they do' or 'they don't know any better', so the white person should really 'be more tolerant of cultural differences'. No one outgrows the childhood habit of trying to see just how much you can get away with before a line is crossed, so this lack of true objectivity black people in the workforce as well. The only way to make a positive change is to get rid of the entire idea of helping everyone else o damn much. Welfare has damaged the black community immensely. Anyone who thinks differently should move to the ghetto for a while to see things realistically instead of through the comfortable lens of mutable statistics and self serving rationale.[/QUOTE]

Oh, no. You can't possibly disagree with Affirmative Action, we're only trying to help you ! You're just digging a deeper hole for yourself, atreyue, becuase myke will only deepen his resolve that you are just a freak of nature who doesn't represent the *true* "aggregate" black community.

Myke is relieving his guilt for being white. The nice thing about affirmative action and policies like this is that they're clean and dry. There's no need to interact with blacks and share experiences with them and get to know people for who they are. you can just sit back, relax, and know that your government policy is doing all the work for you to eliminate racism. It's so nice to be white, myke. We can solve everyone's problems with a little government money and intervention into people's personal lives without having to do it ourselves.

 

[mykevermin]

[quote name='bmulligan']The "individual" is not invalidated, or whatever that means, by the electoral college. Just becuase we don't directly elect the president, doesn't mean our votes don't count.[/quote]
Are you specifically ignoring my point that I'm discussing that the very notion of elected officials invalidates the individualism you claim the constitution embraces? All I'm saying is this: the structure of the US government exists for both aggregates and individuals. I'm not saying only one or the other. Our votes don't count in the sense that the aggregate of votes influence the person who represents us at state and federal levels. If the individual was to be the be-all, end-all level of analysis according to the constitution, all of us would have a direct vote on every pressing government matter (which thus shows yet another example of how exalting the individual makes government more complicated and difficult to run than if we aggregate our votes in representatives.

I will give you a shining example of my point. Geroge bush was only elected by half the population, yet we all have to live under his administration, i.e., we all pay the price. Just as All whites aren't racist, AA treats all whites as if they are, or were in the past by taking away a so-called "advantage". It also treats all blacks as if they are disadvantaged, even if they aren't. Such a government policy doesn't consider individual circumstance, it looks at your race and judges you on that factor. It is, by definition, racist in premise.

You ignored everything I pointed out about people who won't experience contentious situations where there is a racial divide. Just because I live under a government where a law is in place doesn't immediately mean I'm affected by it in a substantial way. The broad strokes and willfill ignoring of points I'm making is what really gets on my nerves, if you want to figure out how to push my buttons, bmulligan. It is taking a perfectly logical point/argument, ignoring it, and putting forth precisely the same argument you did in the last post without any further development/argument/proof.

Wrong again, myke. I do have interest about changing racial attitudes, it is not *zero*. I prefer to do it on an individual basis instead of by dictatorship and decree. I don't choose to deal with people on a racial level and catagorize them according to their skin color. You're the one doing that. You're the one keeping us seperate and dividing us along racial lines. The funny thing is that you think dividing us into groups for study and rectification is helping erase the divide.

I don't deal or judge people becuase of how dark or light their skin color is or where their ancestors came from. I admonish people when they do such things, or I choose not to deal or do business with them. I have the power to change things in my sphere of influence. What I don't do is choose to control other people as you do. I consider people who want such power evil.

Well, that's just where we differ. I was reading a paper last night that argues for a theoretical treatment of race and racism as a matter of the social structure (instead of an individual-level pathological condition); if you're interested, PM me an email address and I'll forward it on.

I am curious, though; in another thread you admitted to the existence of racism that people are accustomed to in their lives; it is a racism that they are not aware of, but one that is persistent in their words and deeds. How do you define this racism, and how do you counteract it individually (in particular if people aren't willing to entertain their possible racism, and seem to consider racial differences as innate, rather than socio-historically constructed)?

I'm curious what you would have done to eliminate Jim Crow legislation, and how you would have considered treating the differences in racial experiences (quality of jobs, education, income and wealth) that still remained a day after the Civil Rights Act passed.

 

[mykevermin]

[quote name='atreyue']I'm actually 6 years out of college, and things are no different in the workforce. School was simply an analogy. My 'psychological uncertainty' is due to the pervasive idea that you and most other 'learned' (this is more of a socioeconomic stratification than any kind of cut on you, btw) people have that blacks just can't do it without your help, or at least your consideration of our special circumstances. How can I measure my academic achievements? By my grades? When the english teacher grades me differently from the white kids in the class because he knows or thinks that I haven't had as much exposure to grammatical correctness, he's not helping me because he's not teaching me the correct way. Nor are my grades an accurate representation of my achievements. That's no different from the fact that most workplaces will allow a black person to curse, have outbursts, sexually harrass women, show up late to work, dress inappropriately, threaten physical violence, spend less time on work, etc. because 'that's just what they do' or 'they don't know any better', so the white person should really 'be more tolerant of cultural differences'. No one outgrows the childhood habit of trying to see just how much you can get away with before a line is crossed, so this lack of true objectivity black people in the workforce as well. The only way to make a positive change is to get rid of the entire idea of helping everyone else o damn much. Welfare has damaged the black community immensely. Anyone who thinks differently should move to the ghetto for a while to see things realistically instead of through the comfortable lens of mutable statistics and self serving rationale.[/QUOTE]

Do you have data to back up your arguments about what blacks are allowed to get away with?

I disagree that welfare can be singled out as destructive to black communities. I would argue that it hasn't helped a great deal; I'd also argue that economic disincentives to marry (with an unemployment rate over 30% for working-age black males, and persistently lower-paying jobs for those who do work, any financial incentive to marry is eliminated, and thus the big bad terrible social-structural racism leads to real aggregate level differences in marriage rates). These changes also impact the percent of children born to single parents, and the unemployment raises the % of deadbeat fathers. It's not a disagreement with the "Culture of Poverty" argument that people make, but, rather, a disagreement with the circular logic people make (that any poor choice made at the individual level for blacks has created aggregate - there's that word again! - level changes in patterns of behavior based on race, which in the case of blacks is attributed to a "culture of poverty;" in short, the culture is the beginning and the end of the causal model, something of a logical impossibility.

There exists a residential concentration of blacks in impoverished urban areas; locations of poor jobs (as the industry left decades ago, leaving little more than McJobs), poorer education, and little opportunity for upward mobility. Do you really think that eliminating welfare will motivate people to self-fulfillment they would have not acheived before? What proof do you have that this policy would work? What other factors do you think are valuable when considering how to eliminate the vast racial differences in attainment?

 

[electrictroy]

I feel about as much sympathy for Microsoft saying, "My taxes are too high" as I do for Bill Gates or Donald Trump saying the same thing. Money = power. These businesses/rich persons need to be restrained from abusing that power.

There exists a residential concentration of blacks in impoverished urban areas; locations of poor jobs (as the industry left decades ago, leaving little more than McJobs), poorer education, and little opportunity for upward mobility.

Solution - get the heck out of the city. Suburban jobs (even at McDonalds or WalmarT) are generally better paying & provide more opportunity to move upwards. Why stay in the middle of a decaying city? I would not.

 

[bmulligan]

You ignored everything I pointed out about people who won't experience contentious situations where there is a racial divide. Just because I live under a government where a law is in place doesn't immediately mean I'm affected by it in a substantial way.

But you are still subject to that law whether it's applied at that moment or not.

The broad strokes and willfill ignoring of points I'm making is what really gets on my nerves, if you want to figure out how to push my buttons, bmulligan. It is taking a perfectly logical point/argument, ignoring it, and putting forth precisely the same argument you did in the last post without any further development/argument/proof.

First you have to put forth a logical argument. It seems socialogists are the masters of restating their argument without any real development. It's how they fill up space on their research papers.

Well, that's just where we differ. I was reading a paper last night that argues for a theoretical treatment of race and racism as a matter of the social structure (instead of an individual-level pathological condition);

I rest my case from my last stament above. Let me just reiterate that any 'social structure' you care to construct on paper is made up of individuals and is not it's own entity. It's something you can't seem to grasp.

I'm curious what you would have done to eliminate Jim Crow legislation, and how you would have considered treating the differences in racial experiences (quality of jobs, education, income and wealth) that still remained a day after the Civil Rights Act passed.

How about using the legal system for what it was intended. Oh, wait, that's what was done. I'm right again. And as you know, I'm not a communist type, like you, who believes in the redistribution of wealth. But hold on, we'll get to reparations after you get a schooling on Jim Crow laws.

"Crow" laws were enacted in response to a social system gone awry. Blacks and whites were actually congregating in cities, restaurants, and neighborhoods. Then, a bunch of social engineers got together and decided to make some laws that would make things the way they should be. They decided to strip the business owner of the right to serve whomever he wanted to. Disallow the property owner to rent to whomever he chose. Punish people who made free decisions on free assembly. They punished blacks and whites for transgressions. They had good intentions. You are the new social engineer with good intentions.

If you really want to make things right, I'm sure a better conciliatory gesture would be to pass an amendment making black persons worth 9/5ths of a person. Let's equalize the disadvantage they had during the period they were denied the right to vote and were considered less than a person. Let's say for 200 years as an arbitrary number? Better yet, let's make the proportions less or more when we determine how black they really are.

It's mighty white of you to offer some jobs to the poor blacks that need you to do their fighting for them but you should really step up to the plate and stand for real reparations, that is if you have any integrity to adhere to your principles.

 

[PittsburghAfterDark]

I'm convinced that Mykey's liberalism is seeded in a deep, deep internal remorse that he's (I'm guessing here, who knows if he'd admit I'm right.) a young guy, going to college (I assume grad school as well.), with parents that can make a partial or significant contribution to his education, scholarships or grants cover the rest of his tuition and he feels a bit guilty about the opportunity his life has given him. He's had teachers and professors spout off liberal ideology in regards to race, misguided notions that pay/status/unemployment gaps are a result of America being a racist/classist society where only outcomes need to be measured and not opportunity. I'm also willing to bet you he's never taken any courses in regards to business, marketing or economics. However he's had many sociologist/political type teachers who never worked in the real world lecture about the inherent evils of concentrated wealth (Without knowing how it was created in the first place.), know about racism from reading academic papers and statistics they mold to fit their desired meaning (Michael Moore Syndrome.) and as a result of this he's worldly.

I'd go further in saying the most substantial job he ever held was a summer or semester internship and in the paying world has never made more than $12 an hour and then only at a part time job.

Unfortunately despite the picture I have painted in my head, right or wrong, I'll give him credit for being one of the more reasonable persons on this board. Not in that he and I agree much but he's willing to back up his positions with several paragraphs of his personal beliefs. However far off base I find him to be at least you can communicate with him.

Ulike the rest of the people here who successfully go through their posting lives contributing two sentences of flames followed by ***INSERT VERB HERE*** yourself PAD!

 

[electrictroy]

Well Drocket you and I both know the mentality of people like Bush & Co. with money to those who don't or who have less of it.

I understand what it's like to have little money. Been there. Done that. What I don't understand the mentality of people who think it's okay to STEAL from their neighbors. Everytime you take money in the form of a gov't handout, you are stealing money from your neighbors' wallets.

 

[bmulligan]

[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']I'd go further in saying the most substantial job he ever held was a summer or semester internship and in the paying world has never made more than $12 an hour and then only at a part time job.

Unfortunately despite the picture I have painted in my head, right or wrong, I'll give him credit for being one of the more reasonable persons on this board. Not in that he and I agree much but he's willing to back up his positions with several paragraphs of his personal beliefs. However far off base I find him to be at least you can communicate with him.

Ulike the rest of the people here who successfully go through their posting lives contributing two sentences of flames followed by ***INSERT VERB HERE*** yourself PAD![/QUOTE]


I like myke. Probably because he's like me and can ramble obsessively about a topic for paragraphs at a time. He's completely level headed most of the time, at least until we get to the emotional core of an issue, then he just gives up. I always pictured Myke as an older guy, probably with kids, but he's obviously employed in academia and has been brainwashed to believe in the liberal mantra of pseudo-self sacrifice.

I think Alonzo is the college bumpkin who's led the easy insulated life. Probably never done a hard days work in his life and will never have to. At least myke has a reasonable grounding in reality and life experience. Alonzo just shoots his mouth off with the most outlandish shit sometimes and I just have to call him on it becuase no one else will.

And Troy, you're setting yourself up to be a PAD lover, I'd be careful.

 

[mykevermin]

[quote name='bmulligan']I like myke.[/quote]

Probably because he's like me and can ramble obsessively about a topic for paragraphs at a time.

?

He's completely level headed most of the time, at least until we get to the emotional core of an issue, then he just gives up.

I give up? I'm not so sure about that. I think that we've reached an impasse on the topic in this thread, that's all. I also take social/political issues very passionately, and find that if I approach a thread with a great deal of frustration (not the kind that electrictroy elicits, mind you), then I'd best step away for a day or so. I should point out that I'm glad you aren't like Msut77, or whomever it is that posts some vs forum flamebait-oh-i-got-you-now zinger, only to bump the thread two hours later claiming victory because the other person(s) have not yet responded.

Oh yes, the impasse (I need to work on the organization of my writing). You stress the individual, while I focus on the aggregate. I don't think that either of us has an ironclad case of one's inherent superiority over the other. I certainly rescind anything I said to indicate that your consideration to focus on eliminating bigotry/racism/whathaveyou on an individual level to be a worthless pursuit, or those points where I baited you with calling you a racist. That having been said, my approach to society is, in many cases (but certainly not all) that the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" (or however it goes). I'm tempted to ramble, but rather than try to keep up with this thread (my apologies, but I have non-forum things to do, and I feel we're not going to get any farther with each other), I'll just repeat that I don't think either of us is going to get anywhere with each other.

I always pictured Myke as an older guy, probably with kids, but he's obviously employed in academia and has been brainwashed to believe in the liberal mantra of pseudo-self sacrifice.

Hmm. I'm just under a month into my 27th year (I'm just approaching a point of cultural disconnect with undergraduates, so I'm beginning to feel old due to my surroundings), no kids (though married), and a doctoral student (which coincides with employment, if you can call the stipend from an assistantship a "wage"). As far as pseudo-self sacrifice is concerned, if that's how you want to frame a recognition of and desire to eliminate forms of inequality, then so be it. I think your claim of efforts to focus on individuals could likewise be argued to hinge on notions of "self-sacrifice" (if, as a business owner, you chose to not hire someone outstandingly qualified for a position because they wore a "Skrewdriver" shirt and carried a copy of "The Tuner Diaries" everywhere they went). That may not be likely, but to deny any concept of "self-sacrifice" denies the very existence of difficult decisions and hardships in one's life. I sincerely doubt life's been that good, either to you or anyone else.

I think Alonzo is the college bumpkin who's led the easy insulated life. Probably never done a hard days work in his life and will never have to. At least myke has a reasonable grounding in reality and life experience. Alonzo just shoots his mouth off with the most outlandish shit sometimes and I just have to call him on it becuase no one else will.

Well, truth be told, I wish I had travelled more.

 

[bmulligan]

[quote name='mykevermin']As far as pseudo-self sacrifice is concerned, if that's how you want to frame a recognition of and desire to eliminate forms of inequality, then so be it. I think your claim of efforts to focus on individuals could likewise be argued to hinge on notions of "self-sacrifice" (if, as a business owner, you chose to not hire someone outstandingly qualified for a position because they wore a "Skrewdriver" shirt and carried a copy of "The Tuner Diaries" everywhere they went). That may not be likely, but to deny any concept of "self-sacrifice" denies the very existence of difficult decisions and hardships in one's life. I sincerely doubt life's been that good, either to you or anyone else.
[/QUOTE]

Life is what you make of it and to me, it's been pretty good so far. Pseudo-self-sacrifice isn't the best label for the aggreagate liberal school of thought infused by osmosis into just about everyone in an American university, but it's the best sweeping generalization I could come up with.

I don't believe in self-sacrifice. I believe in selfishness and being honest with one's self about it. The only thing that would make me 'sacrifice' my own life would be to protect my wife and child (and the one to soon be) and that wouldn't be a sacrifice. Sacrifice is giving up something of greater value for something of lesser value. Doing the opposite isn't sacrifice, it's a rational action.