[quote name='mykevermin']I'll go easy on you for being a first timer here, and only pick on this one point. Besides, I can finally get to play some GTA in a bit.
In this case, yes. Think of racial minority status as having a "social penalty" that goes along with it. You're more likely to get pulled over, more likely to be followed by loss prevention in stores, less likely to be hired or promoted for jobs, and so on.
The absence of that social penalty is, in fact, a social
privilege. The privilege to not be followed or pulled over, the privilege to be hired - not because you *ARE* white, but because you *AREN'T* black.
That's a good thing. The current (again, repeated and predictable) patterns of hiring bias in this country show, time and again, blacks are discriminated against. For every act of discrimination, then, there is someone who gained a job, a raise, a promotion - or an apartment, or a mortgage - precisely because they weren't black. Had they been black, they would have likely been turned down. That's the current way things work: affirmative action that gives whites the advantage.
There are ample and repeated audit studies that demonstrate just how pervasive and deep racism continues to run in this country. I'd like to see the contrary one you mentioned earlier in this post.[/quote]
I'm sure your local library has a copy. If you have access to online book databases they should have one as well.
Also, saying that one group of people have any real advantage simply because someone else has a disadvantage is inane.
Going back to my affirmative action example: Minorities lose because they are wrongfully accepted into a college that is too advanced for them. Well, whites must make out like bandits, then, right!
Wrong! Some of those minorities took up spots that would've otherwise been for white students (that's the entire point of affirmative action in colleges), and those white students have to go somewhere, so they go off to a college one tier lower than they would've otherwise gone, and acquire less knowledge than they otherwise could have.
Well, since whites just lost, looks like minorities won!
You can't have a general rule like you are saying when there are solid, concrete examples to the contrary. Just because someone else has a disadvantage doesn't mean I have an advantage. If I was "pulled over while driving black" as the common excuse is, the ticket (or whatever they try to give) can be contested in courts, and most (all?) police cars are equipped with cameras and such nowadays. You could also possibly sue for harrassment if it happened as often as you claim it does, which would turn this into an advantage instead of a detriment.
As for the "blacks get paid less" deal, if a black person knows that the average person makes $X and they are looking for a job, they may be lowballed (more than a white) because they are black. I think this is wrong. However, it is EVERYONE'S job to know how much they are supposed to be making; companies aren't going to pay you what you are worth just because they feel like it. If the company has a good ROI on you, white or black, they are going to hire you. It costs them money to be racist, and companies don't like throwing money, and possibly PR, out the window.
I'm not saying racism doesn't exist, I'm just saying that it isn't as widespread as a lot of people think.
ing families always push them into medical shit. I wish more of those families would be open to them doing entertainment. It would be nice to see more Asian chicks and guys acting.
, I shit you not (if you don't believe me, go to your local university book store and look up Medical Microbiology 5th Ed. by Murray, Rosenthal, and Pfaller; turn to chapter 65 on retroviruses and then look at page 666.
