
Is everybody a racist? - DiabloD3
https://aeon.co/essays/unconscious-racism-is-pervasive-starts-early-and-can-be-deadly
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sokoloff
Project Implicit has an online test to try to surface your individual level of
latent bias.
[https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/](https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/)

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thescribe
Is there a reason to believe this test corresponds to bigoted attitudes?

It measured me as less biased the second time I took it, so this test not only
measures bias, it cures it.

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thescribe
Does everyone hold the conscious belief in the inferiority of groups based on
racial characteristics? Clearly not.

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gizmo
No, but unconscious biases can have equally pernicious consequences.

Take tech for example. When hiring companies select for candidates with
"culture fit" and that effectively rules people out based on their
race/ethnicity or religion. Those people get fewer opportunities as a result
which results in lower compensation. It's very difficult to judge who is
qualified for a job and who is not. So people take shortcuts. Reject those who
didn't graduate from a good college. Reject those who didn't get the right
internships. Reject those who don't have relatable hobbies and life goals. All
of these hiring shortcuts effectively discriminate against qualified
minorities, even if the intentions of all involved are pure as snow.

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kabouseng
And yet all these shortcuts have argumentatively a moderate to strong
correlation to job performance. Also there is from my understanding very
little discrimination toward asian minorities, wouldn't the same "shortcuts"
also then discriminate against them, yet asians are seen as hard working and
smart employees...

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gizmo
Whether there is a correlation is immaterial. I'm saying that it's immoral and
discriminatory to judge an individual by extrapolating from group
characteristics.

(And there is a ton of discrimination against Asian and Asian-American tech
employees, for instance the degree at which they get promoted to management
positions: [http://fortune.com/2015/05/06/silicon-valley-asians-
report/](http://fortune.com/2015/05/06/silicon-valley-asians-report/))

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calibraxis
Good article! We're all racists to some extent; that is, if your society's
racist, you'll have to internalize its bizarre logic in order to function.
(It's like sexism; I'd better know how not to transgress gender dress codes,
or even I'll be in big trouble. God forbid you naively transgress the dominant
political economic system... you'd face state violence embodied by bureaucrats
with guns...)

Those people who say, "I don't see race; my best friend is X!" at the very
least don't understand a big part of their best friend's life...

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honua
I'm glad to see more things like this on HN.

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merpnderp
Race is a bullshit social construct that needs to be irradicated.

Luckily with globalization and massive migration it's well on its way out.

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Ericson2314
Why are you so optimistic? I can't think of a single example of two ethnically
distinct / reproductively isolated but geographically intermixed groups that
merged after centuries of staying isolated.

Even places like Brazil, where race is more of the sort of spectrum one would
hope would convolve away, have plenty of issues that aren't abating.

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merpnderp
Are you saying that after 100 years of mind bogglingly fast improvement on
this issue (in terms of the history of humanity) we've stopped improving?
Hardly.

