GOP Senate Blocks Resolution Condemning White Supremacy

[Machismo]

Did anyone even see the text of the resolution? 10 minutes of googling came up with a bunch of copypasted articles and not one of them has a link to the resolution itself. Knowing the kind of hacks that write these "resolutions", it was probably some nonsense that had nothing to do with white supremacism in the best case and something intentionally or unintentionally racist against the minorities it purports to protect in the worst case.

Surely you have evidence to back up such a claim... right?

[Ivanstone]

White supremacy = author shot
No white supremacy = author is not shot
Author wasn't shot so there's no white supremacy. There are groups who want to bring about white supremacy (supremacists), but supremacy itself does not exist

The majority of politicians, business executives, police and gun owners are White Christian Men. You don't need to shoot people to maintain control. You just need to make sure that money is concentrated in the above four groups of people. The author of the resolution doesn't need to be shot because their resolution has been rendered powerless.

Hell even if it was passed not much would change. It might make some people feel better but it wouldn't come close to breaking the vice grip that White Supremacists have on the US. Its like Trump being asked to criticize the Proud Boys. A smarter person would've done it and then proceed to do nothing. All Trump did was make people angry just like McConnell is doing with the resolution.

[Afrospinach]

Surely you have evidence to back up such a claim... right?

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-...bill/5602/text

It does seem like a load of redundant asswaffle but I have no idea what these things are supposed to look and sound like.

[Endus]

Cool, so white supremacists don't control the country.

Honestly, hard to make that claim.

There are observable, objective differences between demographic outcomes along racial lines, particularly between blacks and whites in the USA (though not uniquely). This is simply a fact, and anyone denying this is lying.

When it comes to why that's the case, we have two real options;
1> Those non-white groups who have worse outcomes are just less good than whites. This is straight-up racism.
2> The systems in society tend to privilege white citizens, and disadvantage people of color, in broad terms, due to historical legacies and racism and a whole bunch of other little things.

Since #1 is just racism, let's focus on #2.

Do you support overhauling and reforming society to eliminate those inequities? Then you're fine. If you oppose doing so, however? Your position is explicitly defined in maintaining an inequitable primacy for white Americans. That's white supremacy. That makes you a white supremacist.

Every single person who isn't supporting reform on these issues is, arguably, a white supremacist. It's just that white supremacy has a spectrum of violence and overtness, and the USA is currently relatively low on that front, compared to say Nazi Germany. But it's still white supremacist. Just a bit more "polite" about it.

[Wildberry]

Since #1 is just racism, let's focus on #2.

Why are we discounting #1 just because it's "racist."

Is it really significantly less likely that groups of people (for whatever reason) might have different outcomes because they're different, rather than society and institutions still being haunted with the legacy of racism despite the prevalent efforts of the anti-racism crusades?

I think #1 warrants consideration at the very least, no matter how hard ideologues might want to brush it off. It's certainly no less ridiculous on it's face than the latter supposition.
[Infraction]

[Antiganon]

Why are we discounting #1 just because it's "racist."

Is it really significantly less likely that groups of people (for whatever reason) might have different outcomes because they're different, rather than society and institutions still being haunted with the legacy of racism despite the prevalent efforts of the anti-racism crusades?

I think #1 warrants consideration at the very least, no matter how hard ideologues might want to brush it off. It's certainly no less ridiculous on it's face than the latter supposition.

You really want to go with "black people are just predisposed to be poor because they are underachievers compared to white people"?

That's really the hill you want to die on?

[Wildberry]

You really want to go with "black people are just predisposed to be poor because they are underachievers compared to white people"?
That's really the hill you want to die on?

Well it's either:
"Black people act differently than white people for whatever reason, thus face different outcomes."
or
"We need to reconfigure our entire society to fit around this minority of the population, and it must be a radical transformation given the failure of previous well-intentioned anti-racism activists."

If you're seriously proposing the latter, we ought to actually examine the former rather than just arrogantly dismissing it as a possibility. So yeah, I'll die on that hill.

[Antiganon]

Well it's either:
"Black people act differently than white people for whatever reason, thus face different outcomes."
or
"We need to reconfigure our entire society to fit around this minority of the population, and it must be a radical transformation given the failure of previous well-intentioned anti-racism activists."

If you're seriously proposing the latter, we ought to actually examine the former rather than just arrogantly dismissing it as a possibility. So yeah, I'll die on that hill.

I mean there are pretty clear systemic reasons if you actually look:

Poor homeownership rates among minorities in decent neighborhoods due to redlining, which leads to...

Majority minority neighborhoods with significantly lower median home values resulting in lower property taxes, which leads to...

Underfunded schools in majority minority neighborhoods creating a disparity in education opportunities, which leads back to...

Worse job prospects for minorities, leading to a lower accumulation of generational wealth, most readily observable in homeownership rates.

That doesn't even get into the police issues with racial profiling and differing treatment of white and minority offenders for the same offenses, not to mention mandatory minimums for "black drugs" like crack being significantly harsher than the mandatory minimums for "white drugs" like powder cocaine.

Do some research if you actually want to understand the issue. Or feel free to continually out yourself as a racist if it floats your boat.

[Felya]

"Black people act differently than white people for whatever reason, thus face different outcomes."

No... it’s not whatever... the word you are looking for is innate... innate, which is what you said, has a very limited scope. Thus there are limited reasons... all whatever does, is hide the reality of what you are saying.

"We need to reconfigure our entire society to fit around this minority of the population, and it must be a radical transformation given the failure of previous well-intentioned anti-racism activists."

White people are not inherently racist... there is nothing to fit around any minority. It’s time to treat all American people as the majority.

#L2Populism

If you're seriously proposing the latter, we ought to actually examine the former rather than just arrogantly dismissing it as a possibility. So yeah, I'll die on that hill.

If you post either, you might just be racist.

[Elegiac]

Is it really significantly less likely that groups of people (for whatever reason) might have different outcomes because they're different, rather than society and institutions still being haunted with the legacy of racism despite the prevalent efforts of the anti-racism crusades?

Yes, considering the existence of said groupings that aren't actually reflective of anything in reality (i.e. race not actually being a thing) is itself evidence of systemic racism.

Shocker.

[Wildberry]

No... it’s not whatever... the word you are looking for is innate... innate, which is what you said, has a very limited scope. Thus there are limited reasons... all whatever does, is hide the reality of what you are saying.

No, if I were looking for the word "innate," I'd have simply used the word "innate." You're not a psychic, and you don't know whether or not I was referring to "Race as a biological phenomenon and resulting differences between the races," "Disparities in lifestyle practices and cultural attitudes between White and Black America," or any number of things. Instead of LARPing online as some anti-Racist inquisitor, you could've simply not posted some trashy, bad faith attempt at a "gotcha" and just asked me. I get that sort of stuff gets in the way of the Radlib circlejerk you guys are infamous for, though.

White people are not inherently racist... there is nothing to fit around any minority. It’s time to treat all American people as the majority.
#L2Populism

Breaking: Man who claims America is racist suddenly believes America is not racist when it's a convenient weapon to use against a strawman!

If you post either, you might just be racist.

Or I might not be, and that's just a meaningless term that's supposed to terminate discussion.

Why would any normal, well-adjusted person be remotely comfortable with presumably large scale social reforms when this is the sort of response that fairly inoffensive questions are met with?

Yes, considering the existence of said groupings that aren't actually reflective of anything in reality (i.e. race not actually being a thing) is itself evidence of systemic racism.

Shocker.

Actually, that's not really the case, and the consensus of field-relevant experts isn't exactly as solid as you might like it to be. I look forward to the inevitable snippy comment with an opinion poll centered in America which gives Cultural Anthropologists the same weight as geneticists, though!

I mean there are pretty clear systemic reasons if you actually look.

I mean, you've provided no evidence that "systemic racism" is the cause here, and our society needs radically reconfigured as a result. All you've managed to say is "Blacks have bad outcomes, and so they have bad outcomes." Okay, and?

due to redlining

I'm willing to actually have this conversation, but it's a timesink, I've been awake for quite a while at this point, so we'll see how you do on the other things before getting into that (Regardless, I'll be picking it up tomorrow).

Underfunded schools in majority minority neighborhoods creating a disparity in education opportunities
Worse job prospects for minorities, leading to a lower accumulation of generational wealth, most readily observable in homeownership rates.

So we'll start with income. Racism isn't necessary to explain group differences in income. Blacks actually make more money than whites when education, cognitive skill, marital status and the region someone lives in are controlled for.


(Neal and Johnson)

Now racism might account for differences in those variables, but it's still important as a foundation that group income differences flip in the opposite direction when not controlling for racism.

Regarding educational opportunity, Murray and Rueben calculated spending per pupil for US schools between the years 1972 and 2002. They found:

“In 1972, the ratio of nonwhite to white spending was .98; this trend had reversed by 1982, as spending per pupil for nonwhite students was slightly higher than for white students in most states and in the United States as a whole and has been for the past 20 years”

So since 1982, spending on non-white students has been greater than spending on white students.

Richwine revisited this and found that spending on black students was 1% greater than spending on white students, while spending on Asian and Hispanic students was a few percentage points lower.

These differences in spending are reflected in school characteristics. Cocoran et al. found that, generally speaking, blacker schools have smaller classes, more experienced teachers who have more formal education and who receive more pay.

Proponents of "Systemic Racism" cite data showing that blacker school districts receive less funding than average. This is true but within school districts blacker schools receive more money and thus black students go to better funded schools than white students. (Ejdemyr et al.)

Presumably you're going to want me to touch on college so:
Based on aggregated data from 20 previous studies, when comparing people of equal qualifications, Blacks are roughly 21 times more likely than Whites to be admitted.
Arizona State, University of Virginia Law, University of Nebraska, William and Mary, University of Arizona Law, William and Mary (Different year), Berkeley, University of Virginia Undergrad, University of Michigan, University of Maryland, North Carolina State, SUNY, Miami, UCLA, US Naval Academy, University of Washington, Ohio State, US Military Academy, George Mason.

For what it's worth, it's been estimated that the proportion of white students attending selective colleges would increase from ~66% to ~75% if admissions were based solely on test scores. (Carnevale et al.)

And because I know that despite what we covered about school funding earlier, I'm going to hear about biased test scores, because of poverty so:
So here's "The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education:"

But there is a major flaw in the thesis that income differences explain the racial gap. Consider these three observable facts from The College Board's 2005 data on the SAT:
• Whites from families with incomes of less than $10,000 had a mean SAT score of 993. This is 129 points higher than the national mean for all blacks.
• Whites from families with incomes below $10,000 had a mean SAT test score that was 61 points higher than blacks whose families had incomes of between $80,000 and $100,000.
• Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139 points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level, and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose income was less than $10,000.

(Same Journal, different year)

Generational wealth will have to primarily be handled in a discussion on redlining, but for what it's worth regarding the intersection with education:

Minorities in general are more likely to receive grants and scholarships, despite the fact that Whites are no more likely to have their parents pay for their College. (Kantrowitz), (Brown)

Overall it certainly doesn't seem like educational opportunities are being denied by "racists" or "racist structures." If anything resource distribution seems to favor minorities.

So we've noted that racial income differences are flipped by controlling for blatantly obvious determinants of income. Naturally, to have an income at all you first have to be employed & many believers in the "Systemic racism" conspiracy theory like to think that companies avoid hiring minorities for "racist" reasons.

I mean, right away that's sort of difficult to reconcile with the diversity initiatives we see corporations gleefully taking part in. I'd love to link data saying X% of, say, Fortune 500 companies are doing diversity drives and Y% have set targeted diversity goals. I'm not immediately aware of any data on that, but I think anyone engaged in good faith would certainly have to concede that these sorts of initiatives have picked up steam.

Even aside from that it's definitely hard to reconcile the idea that racism explains the unemployment gap when, for the first half of the 20th Century, when White Society was significantly more racist than it is today, whether one believes that progress still needs to be made, or we've elimintaed racism, there was virtually no gap in unemployment between Blacks and Whites. (Fairline and Sundstrom)

Additionally, some of the gap appears to be voluntary on their part, Walter Williams, in his book "Race and Economics" notes:

“During 1979-1980, the National Bureau of Economic Research conducted a survey in the ghettos of Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Only a minority of the respondents were employed, yet almost as many said it was easy or fairly easy to get a job as a laborer as said it was difficult or impossible; and 71 percent said it was fairly easy to get a minimum-wage job.”

I'm sure I'll hear about the Resume Callback stuff, so I'll just address that, too.

So for starters, the highest callback disparity I'm aware of is ~1.5 (a little less, but I'm rounding up) I'll just provide your own source for you, since I'm vaguely aware of it (Jacquemet-Yannelis 2011)

All this means in practical terms is that, for every 10 resumes a White person sends, a Black has to send 15. I don't really like that in a vacuum, but how much extra work is that really? Is it really trivializing the issue, when the issue is indeed trivial?

I mean, with just this information alone, one might argue that this is simply the price of well-intentioned affirmative action policies. Is it the end of the world to have to send out more resumes, if employers are (rightly or wrongly) trying to account for the fact that minority applicants may have gotten a leg up in University admissions?

It certainly wouldn't be a concern without grounding in reality. From the 2002 National Adult Literacy Survey we find that:
-In terms of being able to read and understand documents:
i. A White college dropout will outscore a Black with a postgraduate degree.
ii. A Black with a postgraduate degree won't be significantly better than a White with a GED
-In terms of writing ability White college dropouts outperform Black post-grads
-In terms of quantitative ability:
i. A White with no college education almost has parity with a Black BS/BA
ii. A White college dropout will outscore a Black post-grad.

Is sending out 15 applications for every 10 the White guy sends out really that big of a trade off? Mind you, the 1.5 is the absolute highest I'm aware of, others place it lower (Deming-Katz 2016) (Agan-Starr 2016)

The Agan-Starr study is worth noting in particular, because it shows that, if an employer knows whether or not the applicant in question is a criminal, the disparity drops. You could argue that's unfair and inherently racist, since they assume "Blacks are more likely to be criminals," but Blacks are more likely to be criminals.

That doesn't even get into the police issues with racial profiling and differing treatment of white and minority offenders for the same offenses,

As far as racial profiling, Blacks are more likely to commit crime. Why not fish where the fish are likely to bite?

Regarding the sentencing disparity, from “Racial, Ethnic and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the US Federal Courts”
-72.9% of all cases follow standard sentencing guidelines.
-When strictly following sentencing guidelines, blacks got 2.43 months more on average than whites for the same crime when prior criminal background was controlled for.
-Hispanics got 0.71 months less than whites.
-In cases where Judges deviated from sentencing guidelines blacks got 5.5 months more than whites.
-Blacks on average serve 64.09 months for their offense, thus, judge discretion increases their sentence by 4.8% (Whites are used as a baseline)

The literature on the sentencing disparity is pretty muddled overall, but we really don't see the evidence for these wild swings in sentence length, as some would claim. What "large" gaps exist seem to be a function of prior convictions not being controlled for.
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.)


Though it is worth noting that there is one study which claims that controlling for IQ actually accounts for disparities.

not to mention mandatory minimums for "black drugs" like crack being significantly harsher than the mandatory minimums for "white drugs" like powder cocaine.

You mean the ones Black lawmakers pushed for? As noted by Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy documents in “Race, Crime, and the Law.”

I'll just end on:

Do some research if you actually want to understand the issue.

[Elegiac]

Actually, that's not really the case, and the consensus of field-relevant experts isn't exactly as solid as you might like it to be. I look forward to the inevitable snippy comment with an opinion poll centered in America which gives Cultural Anthropologists the same weight as geneticists, though!

That's nice, there's no genetic basis for race either.

[Adam Jensen]

If white supremacists controlled the country, BLM protests would have received the Belarus treatment
Condemning white supremacy where it doesn't exist is what marginalizes people into white supremacists movements in the first place and causes them to exist

"WHITE SUPREMACY IS BAD!"

Oh! I didn't get shot! HURRAY! RACISM IS OVER!

[Endus]

No, if I were looking for the word "innate," I'd have simply used the word "innate." You're not a psychic, and you don't know whether or not I was referring to "Race as a biological phenomenon and resulting differences between the races," "Disparities in lifestyle practices and cultural attitudes between White and Black America," or any number of things.

Here's the thing.

Every single one of those "any number of things" is, fundamentally, rooted in racism. Systemic or direct.

Otherwise, you are making an argument for some innate inferiority. Which, again, is just direct racism.

There isn't a magical race-realism world where you get to argue that minority groups deserve their worse outcomes for some arcane reason that's magically not based in racism but totally just their fault because context doesn't matter apparently. That idea's just a lie used to cover up racism.

The rest of your post was just trying to find reasons to blame minority groups for their less-than-equal outcomes, or to cherry-pick data to misrepresent the overall trend, and neither of those are reasonable counters.

[Elegiac]

Here's the thing.

Every single one of those "any number of things" is, fundamentally, rooted in racism. Systemic or direct.

Otherwise, you are making an argument for some innate inferiority. Which, again, is just direct racism.

There isn't a magical race-realism world where you get to argue that minority groups deserve their worse outcomes for some arcane reason that's magically not based in racism but totally just their fault because context doesn't matter apparently. That idea's just a lie used to cover up racism.

The rest of your post was just trying to find reasons to blame minority groups for their less-than-equal outcomes, or to cherry-pick data to misrepresent the overall trend, and neither of those are reasonable counters.

Really, all the numbers demonstrate is that incrementalism doesn't work when the system is fundamentally built on a structure of oppression and exploitation.

Colonialism is a bitch.

[Wildberry]

That's nice, there's no genetic basis for race either.

You can post that all you like, the evidence isn't currently trending in your favor though.

[Elegiac]

You can post that all you like, the evidence isn't currently trending in your favor though.

Curious how it's trending one way or the other when I just said there's no evidence for it, lol.

"X group has different outcomes" isn't evidence when the issue is that the fact "X group" exists as a concept is evidence of a system of racism. The idea of race is inherently tied up with the notion of white superiority and always has been.

This is why when countries attempt to westernise they also have a tendency of picking up ethnonationalism, as we saw in Meiji Japan and as we're now seeing in India and China.

[Endus]

Really, all the numbers demonstrate is that incrementalism doesn't work when the system is fundamentally built on a structure of oppression and exploitation.

Colonialism is a bitch.

Incrementalism can work, but it's a fool's errand to just do one small thing and argue "let's see if that fixes everything forever".

Systemic racism, like climate change, is what's called a "wicked problem". It came about due to hundreds or thousands of myriad inputs. Expecting a single correction to fix it is . . . just wrongheaded to such a degree that anyone making that claim seriously does not actually want to solve the issue.

[Felya]

No, if I were looking for the word "innate," I'd have simply used the word "innate." You're not a psychic, and you don't know whether or not I was referring to "Race as a biological phenomenon and resulting differences between the races," "Disparities in lifestyle practices and cultural attitudes between White and Black America," or any number of things. Instead of LARPing online as some anti-Racist inquisitor, you could've simply not posted some trashy, bad faith attempt at a "gotcha" and just asked me. I get that sort of stuff gets in the way of the Radlib circlejerk you guys are infamous for, though.

All of those are innate and racist... I don’t care if you are racist. Strange victim complex flex...

But, I do think you should care more about being racist, than people who think you are racist.

- - - Updated - - -

You can post that all you like, the evidence isn't currently trending in your favor though.

Genetics don’t trend... they are innate.

Also, uhm... the more they post, the more it trends... even if it’s incremental...

[Wildberry]

Here's the thing.
Every single one of those "any number of things" is, fundamentally, rooted in racism. Systemic or direct.
Otherwise, you are making an argument for some innate inferiority. Which, again, is just direct racism.

Just so we're clear, you're willing to chalk up differences in, say, something as inoffensive as Culture as being either irrelevant or rooted in "racism," correct?

Regardless of what the woke think, I'm simply suggesting we explore every avenue before radically transforming society on the basis of race. Especially when the radical reforms that actually need to happen are rooted in class (and, though I'm significantly more optimistic this can be done without radical structural changes, environmentalism), and we should be infinitely more concerned about the damage post-industrial Neoliberalism has inflicted on the vast majority of people.

There isn't a magical race-realism world where you get to argue that minority groups deserve their worse outcomes for some arcane reason that's magically not based in racism but totally just their fault because context doesn't matter apparently. That idea's just a lie used to cover up racism.

Who said anything about "deserve?" Ideally, everyone deserves to be able to live comfortably. That doesn't change the fact that we seem to be jumping to conclusions if we consider every disparity between races in various outcomes to be the result of "racism," which is becoming increasingly more nebulous and ill-defined.

The rest of your post was just trying to find reasons to blame minority groups for their less-than-equal outcomes, or to cherry-pick data to misrepresent the overall trend, and neither of those are reasonable counters.

I'm not blaming anyone, if anyone's actually taking up the action of "casting blame" it's the people who believe in the "Systemic Racism" conspiracy theory. As far as cherry-picking data, you're more than free to respond. It's sort of an odd criticism coming from someone who presumably aligns with the crowd that believes "Blacks use drugs at the same rate as Whites, but are in jail for it more often!" and so on, all of which seem supported by pretty faulty evidence. I don't want to put words in your mouth, so if you differ from any of the standard "anti-racist" lines, please feel free to let me know.

- - - Updated - - -

All of those are innate and racist... I don’t care if you are racist. Strange victim complex flex...

One of those things is "racist" in that race is acknowledged. Even then, it ought to be explored. To suggest that differences in culture are "racist" is quite the stretch, though.

But, I do think you should care more about being racist, than people who think you are racist.

It's definitely a tall task to worry about a label being slapped on me by a bad faith wokescold. I don't think I'm up to it!

Genetics don’t trend...

Did I say that?