PeterZ wrote:Ok, I made the statement regarding who benefited from slavery. Please show me who benefits today. Not being snarky. I truly don't understand how you are viewing this.
Alright, let's try this...
Progress of people over time is not a series of disconnected 100 yard dashes where you get born, you line up on the starting line with all the other people of your generation, then you all take off and see who wins.
It is a relay race. You build on what your parents built for you, and their grandparents built for them, and on and on. And It's not just direct relations... you build on what your *community* built for you, and the last generation of that *community* built for them...
For the first century of this country's "race" a bunch of the white runners chained the black runners to the starting line. And then when those chained up runners handed off their batons to their children they got chained there too. While all those white runners raced ahead and their children raced ahead. Some more than others sure. some far ahead, some barely ahead. But whatever progress they made was far more a matter of their individual effort and merit than those chained up folks.
Then for another many decades they took the chains off but encased their feet in concrete shoes...
And then the concrete shoes came off but they attached parachutes to their backs...
Etc...
Now say that after observing all of that going on for generation after generation we come along at this point in that relay and say "hold up. This is bullshit. We're going to give all the runners who had their previous generation partners sabotaged by other runners a boost, because THAT is equalizing the playing field and mitigating the effect of that earlier cheating"
Then have some of those other runners scream that they're losing their lead and it's not fair because THEY didn't chain up those guys at the starting line so they got to where they are in the race with NO BENEFIT OF CHEATING. And also all those runners you're helping happen to be minorities (because that's who got chained up) so you're making a decision to only help minorities so that's RACIST!
Is that or is that not a ridiculous statement that they did not benefit from the cheat? Whether they committed the cheat themselves? Or that acknowledging the people impacted by the cheating were of certain races is "racism"?
Even if we are talking about some white person who has absolutely no descendants who personally practiced slavery or who were even a little racist they all lived and worked in an environment that explicitly biased itself in their favor because they were white. And they enjoyed the benefits of that. They had that advantage. they got that little bit or great deal further ahead than they would have otherwise.
They were allowed to run.And that is the starting point their children got to kick off from. And on and on.
We can't legislate people to stop being racist. We can only create an environment that foster a belief that race is a characteristic of individuals but not a characteristic suitable to use for discrimination.
Quite right.
We can and do prosecute discrimination in many places. That address inequitable treatment. Only time and the consistent refusal to condone it will defeat a set of beliefs.
Again, quite right. But be realistic, it is almost impossible to track down and prosecute all the individual cases of racial discrimination. Especially by people who know better than to flaunt it. The resources simply do. not. exist.
So how do you keep it in check?
Affirmative action is more than simply prosecuting discrimination. It stipulates that advantages must be provided. When will this ever stop? If I am correct, it will never stop because racism is fostered. If you are correct, it will never stop because no amount of redress is sufficient to offset even a tithe of the horrors of slavery.
In the end affirmative action won't solve the problem of racism. Only the resolute refusal to treat people differently because of their race will do that.
Again, quite right. AA will never stop racism. But no it will not go on forever. Progress has been made and progress continues to be made on gradually reducing the imbalances in society caused by the systematic discrimination practiced by this country for most of it's existence. Eventually we will reach a point where AA is simply unnecessary not because racism has ceased to exist but because it has been sufficiently marginalized that there is no longer a need for the big hammer approach to keeping it in check.
We are just nowhere near that point today. This country practiced slavery for almost 100 years followed by another hundred or so of widespread and deep seated institutional racism and then decades more simmering widespread racism as people resisted the civil rights movement. Thinking we've even approached a level playing field this quickly is ridiculous. And recognizing we are nowhere near that point is not racist.