Philosophy Discussion Forums

LuckyR wrote: ↑January 29th, 2018, 3:44 am So what does the term "under qualified" mean? It means whatever you want it to mean.

No. This was covered in the legal cases provided. They are quite explicit.

Frost:

Oh but they were. That was the problem. With Affirmative Action, under-qualified (though generally otherwise intelligent) blacks were admitted into schools and classes operating at a level beyond their skill. They didn't magically become more skilled, and in order to avoid a PR nightmare of flunking the Affirmative Action students they were given passing grades.

Once again, the testing for a medical licence has not been altered to accommodate those who may have benefited from affirmative action. Students admitted under affirmative action did not magically become more skilled, they had to become more skilled through hard work and persistent effort. That is not to deny that some affirmative action students were passed along to keep the cogs moving, but the same is true of non-affirmative action students.

I've always thought the grading curve was ridiculous, but that doesn't change the systemic discrimination against better qualified students based on their race.

The curve is invisible, the norm established in terms of competency rather than excellence, and competency a declining value adjusted to match the student population.

The right has co-opted the terminology of the oppressed. If Bob or Betty did not get into FU it was not because they were discriminated against, but because they were not favored. Wealthy applicants may be favored, applicants whose parents are alumni may be favored.Athletes may be favored. Diversity applicants may be favored. Admissions is not simply a matter of picking students according to some standard of “best student” but rather “best student body”.

Burning Ghost:

Outrage seems to be the biggest driving force.

In general, yes. Those who are outraged and those who feed outrage.

Fooloso4 wrote: ↑January 29th, 2018, 12:32 pm Frost:

Oh but they were. That was the problem. With Affirmative Action, under-qualified (though generally otherwise intelligent) blacks were admitted into schools and classes operating at a level beyond their skill. They didn't magically become more skilled, and in order to avoid a PR nightmare of flunking the Affirmative Action students they were given passing grades.

Once again, the testing for a medical licence has not been altered to accommodate those who may have benefited from affirmative action. Students admitted under affirmative action did not magically become more skilled, they had to become more skilled through hard work and persistent effort. That is not to deny that some affirmative action students were passed along to keep the cogs moving, but the same is true of non-affirmative action students.

I've always thought the grading curve was ridiculous, but that doesn't change the systemic discrimination against better qualified students based on their race.

The curve is invisible, the norm established in terms of competency rather than excellence, and competency a declining value adjusted to match the student population.

The right has co-opted the terminology of the oppressed. If Bob or Betty did not get into FU it was not because they were discriminated against, but because they were not favored. Wealthy applicants may be favored, applicants whose parents are alumni may be favored.Athletes may be favored. Diversity applicants may be favored. Admissions is not simply a matter of picking students according to some standard of “best student” but rather “best student body”.

We seem to be changing the subject to deflect from the fact that U.S. Federal law permits discrimination against white people. As a person that thinks there is increasing discrimination against whites, the responses here only seem to confirm that concern, since the fact of laws that discriminate based on race are brushed off as no big deal. Imagine if it were a law that permitted the explicit discrimination against blacks...

Call me old fashioned, but any judgment based on race is racist. The new idea that racism requires power is absurd since it gives permission for any minority to be a racist yet think they are not because they are "oppressed." These are not good developments, and that concerns are simply brushed off is likely to feed the development of more radical opposition that will only further sour race relations.

Burning ghost wrote: ↑January 29th, 2018, 4:14 am Lucky -

Corruption exists. The world isn't perfect. If someone is "under qualified" it certainly does mean something. It means they are not qualified to do the job, in the sense that they've not shown any particular competence in this or that area. It does not mean that you need qualifications to get a job it means that qualifications are how we gauge general industriousness and technical knowhow in this or that area. The individual may fail to "qualify" in a number of other not related areas - such as personal disposition or general attitude.

There seems to be some grey area where "prejudices" are easily conflated with "preferences." People will generally not hire someone who they think will cause disruption within the work environment (unless that is there aim for some reason.) Given that we're mainly visual animals a lot of emphasis is put on physical appearance, which includes things like how serious they interviewee looks, how friendly they are, their sexuality, posture and such. All of this then plays into the interviewers experiences of people who physically compose themselves in a similar way to the interviewee. For a personal example of this you can most likely relate to this with sexual attraction. Once you've fallen for someone you tend to act toward people who present certain parts of their characteristics in a particularly positive way - the best we can do is be partly aware of these unconscious machinations, but not become overly obsessed with them.

It isn't particularly interesting to me because I'm not from the US. I would find it surprising if rich parents didn't do all they could, and pay for, the best start for their children. I don't think doing this is the "best" for all children, but it could be argued that for some such action may help them in the long term.

There is certainly danger in using educational institutions as a consumable product. I have been looking at both sides of that argument for sometime. It's difficult to say the least! When universities are paid more because more students pass the exam I find that worrying.

I apologize for being difficult to understand. I used the term under qualified because other posters used it. But I was trying to draw the distinction between it and unqualified. If an applicant needs to have X to be qualified those that don't have X are UNQUALIFIED. I agree they should not be accepted. Some try to stratify the group of qualified candidates, such that the bottom part of the qualified are "under qualified". That is an arbitrary distinction hence my comment on the meaning being open to anyone's definition.

It ends up being a clumsy sleigh of hand to attempt to hide the fact that all within the qualified group (even the last member) is, in fact qualified.

Frost wrote:Call me old fashioned, but any judgment based on race is racist.

You are old fashioned.

Seriously though:

What do you think (in principle) of the argument that these racist interpretations of the law/constitution are necessary until some kind of balance has been redressed (25 years is a figure I read somewhere, but I'm not sure when that starts from) and then they can be dropped and we can all relax and treat everybody equally? (Not much, I'm guessing, but I thought I 'd ask anyway.)

The argument is that if we don't temporarily favour certain sections of the population over others then the realities of wealth, influence and education being passed down through the generations mean that those sections of the population will never get a look in. Give 'em a leg up and then, once we're all on the playing field and properly kitted out with protective headgear and stuff, it's level from then on.

In answering this question, I ask that you keep it abstract. As I said, think about it in principle, and when I said "certain sections of the population" don't think too much about which sections of the population this means in practice.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 29th, 2018, 7:20 pm What do you think (in principle) of the argument that these racist interpretations of the law/constitution are necessary until some kind of balance has been redressed (25 years is a figure I read somewhere, but I'm not sure when that starts from) and then they can be dropped and we can all relax and treat everybody equally? (Not much, I'm guessing, but I thought I 'd ask anyway.)

I think policy that discriminates based on race is inherently racist. We are dealing with flesh-and-blood persons in real life, not abstract averages on reports.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 29th, 2018, 7:20 pm The argument is that if we don't temporarily favour certain sections of the population over others then the realities of wealth, influence and education being passed down through the generations mean that those sections of the population will never get a look in. Give 'em a leg up and then, once we're all on the playing field and properly kitted out with protective headgear and stuff, it's level from then on.

In answering this question, I ask that you keep it abstract. As I said, think about it in principle, and when I said "certain sections of the population" don't think too much about which sections of the population this means in practice.

In the state in which I live, when Affirmative Action was ended blacks started to better. Apparently, Affirmative Action on average resulted in higher dropout rates and lower performance in black university students. The problem was, they may have been in the top tier in the country, but they were mismatched with the school. I know this broke your rule of keeping it abstract, but to ignore that kind of information is a mistaken in such questions.

Second, in the past there were problems with immigration from European countries, that I think are completely forgotten in the U.S. Various European groups were considered human vermin with low IQs, etc. IQ tests confirmed this, and this is part of what spawned the progressive eugenics programs that sterilized thousands of “undesirables.” The problem is, after a couple generations they were pretty much like every other American. They were held to the same standard and were able to achieve the same sort of results with no special privileges.

There are also other disadvantaged or historically oppressed groups that have done extremely well with no special privileges granted. Ethnic Jews, Chinese, and Japanese are an excellent example. The Japanese were put in concentration camps and the Chinese were terribly abused in the 1800s, yet all groups now in fact have better wealth measures than non-hispanic white Americans. There are many similar examples in other countries, so it is not unique to the U.S.

So abstractly, you cannot battle racism with racism. A racist law is inherently racist because you are dealing with flesh-and-blood persons, not abstract averages on paper, and those individuals get discriminated against based on skin color. This can breed hostility and resentment, and it can harm targeted minorities by mismatching them with schools, employment, etc., and it can result in people questioning their achievements. There are many other effects, but I think overall it is harmful and no laws should discriminate based on the color of one’s skin.

Interesting points to think about. Not being from the US and not having researched the subject in depth I'll take you word for much of it. My experience where I live is certainly very different, presumably due to the different histories of our countries. A large proportion of ethnic minorities in the UK are (I think I'm right in saying) the descendants of immigrants from countries that used to be colonies of the former British Empire, now the Commonwealth. Although obviously Britain was intimately connected to the slave trade there is not that massive looming issue of slavery in the national history, as seems to be the case in the US.

In Britain these days the waves of West Indian immigration, and immigration from the Indian sub-continent, are now history. It's all about Eastern Europeans now.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑January 29th, 2018, 8:05 pm Interesting points to think about. Not being from the US and not having researched the subject in depth I'll take you word for much of it. My experience where I live is certainly very different, presumably due to the different histories of our countries. A large proportion of ethnic minorities in the UK are (I think I'm right in saying) the descendants of immigrants from countries that used to be colonies of the former British Empire, now the Commonwealth. Although obviously Britain was intimately connected to the slave trade there is not that massive looming issue of slavery in the national history, as seems to be the case in the US.

In Britain these days the waves of West Indian immigration, and immigration from the Indian sub-continent, are now history. It's all about Eastern Europeans now.

A lot of my information comes from Thomas Sowell. He wrote an excellent book Intellectuals and Race where he covers much of this. It is also interesting that the slave trade in the U.S. was relatively minor compared to other areas in the world.

The problem is, a free-market capitalist system is the best for integration, and socialist welfare systems are the worst. In the past in the U.S. we were much closer to a free-market system, which reached its peak in the late 1800s, but with increasing socialist policy integration becomes more and more difficult. One of the other issues in the U.S. is immigration from Mexico. At least most people I know don't care about Mexicans per se, but when they come here and get social benefits (legally or illegally) and don't work and just stay in their own little communities never learning English or otherwise integrating, all the while leeching off taxpayers, it causes conflict.

I agree with Frost here. It is a strange thing to say, but it is inherently true. The problem is we're struggling with the balance of dealing with a problem by both ignoring it until it goes away and tackling it head on.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, with what Pinker and many others say. There is always the problem of a political movement not being able to simply disappear once it has done its job.

All that said it would be ridiculous to suggest that certain countries and areas don't suffer from certain prejudices. I think it would make more sense in the law to simply say "prejudice" without the need to use the categories of sex, race, or social standing.

In the slave trade Brasil/Portugal were EASILY the worst. It is shocking that many people are completely unaware of this and that all the focus is on the US. The murderous attitude taken up in Brasil was more horrific than you can imagine. Over 40% of slave trade from Africa went to Brasil.