Do you think having different opinions, experiences, and backgrounds is something that should be left out of decision making?
Can you see any value in making sure the army is diverse to make sure it still can recruit, integrate, and retain people from all over the US and not just people from one specific background?
This is honestly a very grey area and could be taken too far, but there seems to be clear benefits to having armed forces that everyone feels represents them. And that's worth at least some impact on effectiveness, right?
The African-Americans I've talked to and whom I've read often say the opposite, and I haven't heard any agree. What I hear is, 'it doesn't matter who you are or what you've done, you are always just Black in the eyes of the police (and society)', and that there is often no way for an observer to distinguish rich from poor (as if that should matter anyway).
For example, African-Americans driving expensive cars are pulled over and suspected of being drug dealers. I've read many stories of African-Americans being pulled over for nothing - an experience I've never had.
No doubt that still happens but I don’t know how common that is? There is a lot of race-baiting going on in the press which may give a skewed perspective of reality. For example, research shows that white police officers aren’t more likely to shoot a black suspect than police officers from another race. [1] But that’s not what the media tells us. The constant focus on race also makes people paranoid. “Was that guy just a dick or was he racist?”
But that is not the point. A black man that went to Harvard and is now working for Goldman Sachs has more in common with a white Goldman Sachs employee than with a black factory worker. They read the same kind of books and newspapers, drive the same kind of car, live in the same kind of neighborhood, …
>>research shows that white police officers aren’t more likely to shoot a black suspect than police officers from another race. [1] But that’s not what the media tells us.
I've never heard anything about this. The point isn't the color of the person holding the gun, and its weird that you think it is.
I don't think that's important. The media does. Only when a white police officer mistreats or shoots a black person is the media eager to report it, emphasizing the race of everyone involved. When the opposite happens coverage isn't nearly as big or even non-existent. The implicit message is that white cops are racist.
Any reference to "the media" seems undefined. Journalists in just the US come from tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of organizations, of all sorts of size, quality, focus, partisanship (amount and direction), etc. etc. There is a cacophony of voices.
> No doubt that still happens but I don’t know how common that is?
It's very well covered, researched, and discussed; ignorance doesn't relieve the problem or dismiss it.
> There is a lot of race-baiting going on in the press which may give a skewed perspective of reality.
That's your claim, a trendy one in some circles to blame 'the media', but it's not really substantiated, even by one study. African-Americans - the people with direct experience of it - have been telling the world about it for generations. Racism is getting worse as many people openly embrace it, including rapidly increasing hate crimes, overt statements by national leaders and other 'influencers', and far more. And every time, throughout history, the problem of racism is met with the same response - an effort to shut down the complaints.
> A black man that went to Harvard and is now working for Goldman Sachs has more in common with a white Goldman Sachs employee than with a black factory worker.
Probably not when they're pulled over, but ignoring the difficulty getting to that point is a bit silly.
"Inside Goldman Sachs Group Inc., 1,548 U.S. executives, senior officials and managers run the bank. Of that group, 24 are Black men and 25 are Black women."
Ironic that you claim this when a Harvard professor was treated much more like a common criminal than a member of an elite institution. Perhaps it's not the color of skin in your example that matters, but the financial and social class.
You don't seem to grasp what I'm saying. This professor is part of the elite. He has elite friends, elite interests, elite ideas about society. It's not because he experienced racism that he suddenly has the same worldview as a black factory worker.
The idea that someone with a different skin color automatically has different views, which I believe is the whole implicit idea behind diversity being positive for society, is just plain wrong.
The point is that even working at the pinnacle of American education, a black man, no matter how many degrees, how many letters, how much money in the bank, is treated the same as a black janitor. Assumed guilty by the police, treated like dirt.
I love when elites talk like "Yeah, I'll speak with your mama outside".
It's entirely plausible that a white person who was accused of breaking into their own home would not be arrested for disorderly conduct afterwards, because they wouldn't view the event as being part of a larger narrative against their race. All of that could happen without anyone actually doing anything wrong.
> The average net worth of Black families is $142,330 — or just one-seventh of the $980,550 in wealth accumulated by white Americans, according to a new study from LendingTree that draws on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2020 Economic Policy Institute report, and various Federal Reserve reports.
> The median net worth of both shows similar disparities. The median wealth for Black families is $24,100, or about one-eighth of that for white families at $189,100, according to the study.
It's the not Armed Forces to make sure it's diverse in the terms you're talking about. The first thing they do in boot camp is breakdown the individual and create a team player. It doesn't matter what color you are, where you are from, you are all on the same team. Your life literally depends on the person next you. If you remove the colorblind meritocracy that military should be you are putting everyone's lives in danger. Diversity in the antithesis of what a sound fighting force is looking for.
There are only 2 stable fixpoints: meritocracy and sectarianism, with meritocracy being merely metastable. Trouble is, sectarian armed force don't win wars. At worst they engage in civil war. Your logic is unassailable, sadly few people bother to acquiesce the consequences.
It's a remedy for existing discrimination. For example, if for a job we have 100 candidates in group A and 100 in group B, and we only hire from group A, then requiring some hiring from group B likely increases the hiring based on merit and decreases discrimination.
The odd thing is a lack of concern for the decades and centuries of discrimination that continue today, and only focusing on criticizing remedies for it. When do we see posts on HN addressing the former?
>For example, if for a job we have 100 candidates in group A and 100 in group B, and we only hire from group A, then requiring some hiring from group B likely increases the hiring based on merit and decreases discrimination.
This is borderline disingenuous. In the vast majority of institutions accused of discrimination because of disproportionate representation, the underrepresented groups are already underrepresented among applicants. Especially in the military - what proportion of military applicants have historically (or contemporaneously) been female?
More importantly, your repeated justification for discrimination against white males is predicated upon the dangerous and ubiquitous conflation of equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. There is absolutely no reason to expect one to imply the other in a diverse, even perfectly meritocratic civilization. Culture heavily influences career/employment goals.
That's one of the major issues with the entire diversity movement. The bulk of evidentiary support for reverse racism comes from statistical underrepresentation, which is effectively impossible to conclusively blame on discrimination.
Equal representation is not a viable goal at least because, ignoring other reasons, not all demographics are equally interested in all jobs.
Again, we keep looking for alternative explanations, like an obsession, like climate change denial. What are we avoiding? There's plenty of evidence, all over, of racial and gender discrimination.
Then pick the best of this overwhelming evidence and present that alone.
The logic in your comment implied the discrepancy was enough to assume discrimination w/o any reference to evidence.
> why are people looking for every theoretical possibility
Are you talking about my comment? Your own comment ("if for a job we have 100 candidates in group A and 100 in group B...") is a theoretical, so that's why I countered with one. Present evidence of prejudice specific to the topic at hand and I can comment more tangibly one that.
It's like climate change denial or the theory of gravity: I'm not reestablishing the facts for the 10 billionth time. Racism has been extremely well researched, documented, and discussed for generations.
What, exactly? "Racism" and it's very existence, or specifically it's effect on the topic at hand
?
You haven't really established what it is you are arguing, let alone any of the facts/research specific you allude to, specific to that argument.
And no, soft science subjects like this are not like hard-science topics like global climate or gravity. It feels like you only include this to paint me as some kind of "Racism denier" or something. I don't deny racism exists, I just don't accept that as an argument that means it must be the cause of every unequal outcome.
