America's racial divide is a dangerous farce (interview, enemies, Christmas)
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Could that be a factor? Yes, although I am not so sure that a lot of that is cultural bias.
Having spent a lot of time and later living in Thailand, I have to tell you how often I saw otherwise successful Americans fall flat on their faces in Thailand. For example, be a "farang" (foreigner) in Thailand and try getting a driver license. You don't know the Thai language. But there are 2 physical tests you have to do. One is obvious -- it tests how fast you can slam on the brakes. The other two tests are not at all obvious. But they have a nice little video to show you that explains what those tests are testing and how to be successful. Only problem -- the video is in Thai.
Or try teaching American idioms to foreign students. What's lacking is a frame of reference.
And then, we have minority students in this country that do not have the same points of reference as majority students. And we wonder why they don't do as well.
Would you like a hot?
Could you make me a soda?
Have a pop.
Red hot or white hot?
Or take a group of minority students whose parents work 2 full time jobs each to make ends meet down to the National Mall (7 miles from their home) and have them ask, "What's that!?!" "Oh, that's the Washington Monument." Meanwhile, a third of your students have summered in Europe.
I am not sure abouth the people in the depth of Africa, but most of the world (not speaking about people living here) has all it takes to grasp most of American idioms if they do not deal with sports the rest of the world ignores. World is getting progressively uniform. Using soda vs pop to explain social hierarchies is amusing at best. If they will start to manufacture humans on an assembly line there will be plenty of variability in human clones to justify why some should parasitize on and exploit others because the driving force behind human social evolution is parasitism. Finding a technical rationale for this or that pecking order is not even an issue. There is always something to explain why some are more deserving than others.
Could that be a factor? Yes, although I am not so sure that a lot of that is cultural bias.
Having spent a lot of time and later living in Thailand, I have to tell you how often I saw otherwise successful Americans fall flat on their faces in Thailand. For example, be a "farang" (foreigner) in Thailand and try getting a driver license. You don't know the Thai language. But there are 2 physical tests you have to do. One is obvious -- it tests how fast you can slam on the brakes. The other two tests are not at all obvious. But they have a nice little video to show you that explains what those tests are testing and how to be successful. Only problem -- the video is in Thai.
Or try teaching American idioms to foreign students. What's lacking is a frame of reference.
And then, we have minority students in this country that do not have the same points of reference as majority students. And we wonder why they don't do as well.
Would you like a hot?
Could you make me a soda?
Have a pop.
Red hot or white hot?
Or take a group of minority students whose parents work 2 full time jobs each to make ends meet down to the National Mall (7 miles from their home) and have them ask, "What's that!?!" "Oh, that's the Washington Monument." Meanwhile, a third of your students have summered in Europe.
Agree completely. There is a major aspect of competency in the form of "cultural intelligence", which really is a measurement of how similar you are to the natives.
Some of that can be acquired over time via study or immersion, but cultural differences have an immense amount of staying power, which is why they persist even inter-generationally. This is why there is so much concern over assimilation.
I am not sure abouth the people in the depth of Africa, but most of the world (not speaking about people living here) has all it takes to grasp most of American idioms if they do not deal with sports the rest of the world ignores. World is getting progressively uniform. Using soda vs pop to explain social hierarchies is amusing at best. If they will start to manufacture humans on an assembly line there will be plenty of variability in human clones to justify why some should parasitize on and exploit others because the driving force behind human social evolution is parasitism. Finding a technical rationale for this or that pecking order is not even an issue. There is always something to explain why some are more deserving than others.
Yes, I understand the actual definition perfectly. Inherent differences certainly impact cultural or individual achievement, absolutely that is a fact. Well proven. We all have various advantages that are the product of our differences.
However, do those differences DETERMINE achievement? That is the crux of "racism". If someone believed that merely because you are (insert some race here), that you can't do "x", then that would in fact qualify as a belief consistent with racism. But here's the thing: I don't think anyone believes that. I'm also not seeing anyone saying that because of group differences, that their race has a right to dominate any "inferior" races. On that topic "inferior" is a very subjective term. If you're placing value judgements on group differences, then there is the problem. Differences shouldn't be presented as being pejorative and recognizing differences and being honest doesn't need to include hurtful characterizations of differences as inferior/superior. Some people are short and others are tall - would it be reasonable to suggest that short people are "inferior" to tall people? Unless you're playing basketball or changing a lightbulb, where the only differences that height renders are in utility or ability.
It is interesting though that definition 2 includes "discrimination" as a synonym. So in the sense that someone uses the term to have that meaning, there is a whole lot of stuff that is racist. Like Affirmative Action and racial quotas. So that one is thorny.
Well I haven't personally measured the gravitational constant either, but I believe that to be correct as well. The idea that unless you have personally engaged in empirical examination of a natural process or property, that it renders the findings of those who have as mere "belief" is ridiculous.
Race is most definitely not just a social construct. That's just liberal dogma, which liberals don't even themselves believe, or they wouldn't base their ideology on promoting racial differences and racial identity.
How do you square this statement with the definition that you yourself posted? Where is that in there?
Yes, blacks lag socioeconomically in part because of the IQ gap. Sorry to break it to you, but that's reality, not "racism". Does that mean that the IQ gap is responsible for 100% of the socioeconomic lag? No. But its one factor of many, and its a factor that can be demonstrated to lag ALL racial groups. (in other words, IQ is a predictor of socioeconomic success). So to posit that blacks don't lag because of it, would be to make the claim that somehow, there is a mechanism exempting them from the same effects felt by people in other racial groups. There is no mechanism proposed for this.
The reason why this is important right now, in the post-Civil Rights era, is that while all forms of State-sponsored discrimination against blacks have been eliminated, and state-sponsored discrimination in FAVOR of blacks has been instituted, it hasn't magically erased the socioeconomic gaps caused by that legacy driven by segregation and slavery. And when people see that, they have the immediate (and wrong) reaction that because there is still a gap, there must also still be "systemic racism" that is responsible, when it isn't the case at all.
The problem with right now, and the last 20 years, and the future, is that as technology continues to drive value into the "information economy" and makes manual labor and jobs that don't require a lot of cognitive skills less valuable, that gap is only going to persist (and possibly even grow).
The answer does not lie in trying to equalize outcomes, because that is never going to happen. Income inequality is due to inequalities elsewhere in the system, all the stuff that winds up translated into economic value. Increasingly what we see is that an increasing amount of value is derived from cognitively demanding processes and tasks, and because the "human capital" that produces this is unevenly distributed in the population, that continues through the system.
There are of course some small ways you can "give" people more human capital - through education, for example, but its an additive process, leveraging what is already there. You can't leverage what isn't there, only what is there.
When you "level the playing field" by ensuring that all students, regardless of race, have the same access to education, that is one way of establishing equality. But its equality of opportunity, which is not going to EVER translate to equality of outcome.
Hope that helps some people understand why the attempts by the left to blame all group differences on the bogeyman of racism are spurious, divisive, and unhelpful, and can never solve the "problem" they cite - which is not a problem at all, but rather just the perception of the natural distribution of human capital. Leftists will rant and foam at the mouth that all the differences in achievements between cultures and civilizations are somehow all due to racism. Occasionally a more thoughtful liberal will actually attempt to find other explanations, and write books like "Guns, Germs and Steel", which argue that race has no effect and its nothing but a crapshoot of natural resources and local environmental conditions that is actually responsible. Which is certainly an interesting perspective but actually *weakens* the argument that race is only a social construct and enhances the traditional model of evolutionary biology which postulates that it is in fact the long periods of geographic isolation and exposure to unique environmental conditions across many generations that creates variations within and between species (ie, race).
You have engaged in the fallacy of composition. While it might be true that we do not need to proof gravity, to know that it works as said, that does not mean such is true, therefore, of all science and theories. In other words, because you know gravity exists, without needing to prove it, does not, therefore, mean that no proof is needed to know other science or theory.
Testing is observation....not explanation. Testing IQ does not explain why some races have higher scores than others. It could be nutrition, it could be cultural bias, it could be psychological programming that gets people to buy into their own inferiority.....kind of like the nocebo effect. I mean, to see blacks dominant the sprints in the Olympics does not prove that blacks are genetically superior, innately, as sprinters. There are many other possibilities. Whites used to dominate long distance running prior to the 80's and the science of the time tried to use science to say that it was because of race. Specifically, blacks had more fast twitch muscles while whites had a higher percentage of slow twitch muscle fibers. Fast forward to now and black people from Kenya and Ethiopia dominate distance races....not whites.
See....here is what you are missing. Blacks on the planet have the greatest genetic diversity of any so called race of people.....at least that is what science says. I do not KNOW that it is true. However, if it is true then the black race has all type of variations, from high fast twitch, to high slow twitch, to high IQ to low IQ.
Like astronomers who build ever-larger telescopes to peer deeper into space, population geneticists are probing the human genetic code in unprecedented detail, confirming our origns in Africa, where today the most genetically diverse range of people reside. The work underlines why the scientific establishment recoiled at the claim by DNA pioneer James Watson that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". The furore led the Nobel laureate to abandon a recent book tour of Britain and the studies published in the journal Nature show why it was meaningless to talk about "Africa" in a discussion of the genetics of intelligence, since the continent has the biggest variation of DNA on the planet, reflecting how it was the cradle of humankind and that the DNA of its inhabitants has evolved and changed there the longest.
That is not an argument. You just dont like what I type yet you cannot argue it rationally.
Well, you've been lucky and a little spoiled. When you've taken IQ tests, or achievement tests, or filled out job applications, or credit card applications, all that has been done in your native language. Foreigners don't have that benefit.
And while English may be the native language of America's inner cities, the environment is not the same for some kids and adults as it is for others. But perhaps you've never noticed that. When I've worked with really poor minority kids they've used language that I didn't understand, because -- if you study linguistics -- oppressed minority groups in any culture almost always develop a sub-language that belongs to them. And the reason they do that is so they can own something exclusive. It makes people like you feel on the outside, just as you have made those people feel on the outside. If you eventually begin to understand that America is not one great level playing field, that will be just dope...to coin a phrase. Not everyone comes from a white bread part of our culture.
First, I've watched people responsible for hiring decisions ALWAYS say that the minority candidate isn't the best qualified, when in reality the "best" candidate is often a very subjective decision. Guess those non-hired have to just go back to picking cotton.
Second, what does "best qualified" even mean? You act as if that's something that is totally objective. It's not. For example, when I was up for promotion to principal, one of the teachers on the committee didn't want me as principal, but in the end voted for me. His reason" "When you walked in wearing that olive suit, I just 'saw' a principal".
Third, you assume (in the second paragraph) that a person of a certain race, sex, religion, or national origin who didn't get the job wouldn't have succeeded anyway. Hardly true. I ended up hiring second and third choices many a time, and they did just fine.
Well, obviously, people who take race into account in hiring are wrong. They are doing their company a disservice.
Many jobs have pretty well defined requirements. To work as an electrical engineering you need a EE degree. To be a CPA you need an accounting degree. Etc. To be a teacher you need a teaching degree. If you need experience, don't bother to apply if you haven't any. Either you have a requisite qualification or you don't. Interviews, individual and team, are also useful in evaluating an applicant's qualifications. What has he worked on? Has he been promoted? Does he seem like someone you'd be comfortable working with?
In many cases, it's possible to get references on applicants from people you trust. Or the applicant is known within the industry.
Clothes make the man, to an extent. An applicant who makes a professional appearance, as you must have, is one up on those who don't. And there's nothing wrong with that. Obviously, a responsible person would not run a hiring operation like a beauty contest. But someone who dresses neatly an appropriately gives an indication that he can maintain a professional atmosphere at work.
I've hired 2nd choices as well. And in general they were fine. Hiring decisions are fraught. Look at the NFL draft an you can see how uncertain these efforts can be. But like in the NFL, a competent manager can avoid the busts and mistakes that can cost a company a lot of money and time. But only if he observes the rule that only qualifications matter. Race, sex, religion etc. are irrelevant.
Well, obviously, people who take race into account in hiring are wrong. They are doing their company a disservice.
Many jobs have pretty well defined requirements. To work as an electrical engineering you need a EE degree. To be a CPA you need an accounting degree. Etc. To be a teacher you need a teaching degree. If you need experience, don't bother to apply if you haven't any. Either you have a requisite qualification or you don't. Interviews, individual and team, are also useful in evaluating an applicant's qualifications. What has he worked on? Has he been promoted? Does he seem like someone you'd be comfortable working with?
In many cases, it's possible to get references on applicants from people you trust. Or the applicant is known within the industry.
Clothes make the man, to an extent. An applicant who makes a professional appearance, as you must have, is one up on those who don't. And there's nothing wrong with that. Obviously, a responsible person would not run a hiring operation like a beauty contest. But someone who dresses neatly an appropriately gives an indication that he can maintain a professional atmosphere at work.
I've hired 2nd choices as well. And in general they were fine. Hiring decisions are fraught. Look at the NFL draft an you can see how uncertain these efforts can be. But like in the NFL, a competent manager can avoid the busts and mistakes that can cost a company a lot of money and time. But only if he observes the rule that only qualifications matter. Race, sex, religion etc. are irrelevant.
That depends on the goals of the company.
You see, first you say there are well defined requirements, and in the same paragraph you bring in concepts that are very subjective such as does he seem like someone you'd be comfortable working with. Clothes.
Well, obviously, people who take race into account in hiring are wrong. They are doing their company a disservice.
Many jobs have pretty well defined requirements. To work as an electrical engineering you need a EE degree. To be a CPA you need an accounting degree. Etc. To be a teacher you need a teaching degree. If you need experience, don't bother to apply if you haven't any. Either you have a requisite qualification or you don't. Interviews, individual and team, are also useful in evaluating an applicant's qualifications. What has he worked on? Has he been promoted? Does he seem like someone you'd be comfortable working with?
In many cases, it's possible to get references on applicants from people you trust. Or the applicant is known within the industry.
Clothes make the man, to an extent. An applicant who makes a professional appearance, as you must have, is one up on those who don't. And there's nothing wrong with that. Obviously, a responsible person would not run a hiring operation like a beauty contest. But someone who dresses neatly an appropriately gives an indication that he can maintain a professional atmosphere at work.
I've hired 2nd choices as well. And in general they were fine. Hiring decisions are fraught. Look at the NFL draft an you can see how uncertain these efforts can be. But like in the NFL, a competent manager can avoid the busts and mistakes that can cost a company a lot of money and time. But only if he observes the rule that only qualifications matter. Race, sex, religion etc. are irrelevant.
From what I see....just as an employee....the likability factors makes a huge differences as well. You can have the best credentials, but if people are not comfortable with something about you, you are not going to get hired in a tight job market where there are plenty of other candidates. I mean, if it was all about qualifications....there would be no need for interviews and they would just pick based upon who looked best on paper.
Given that....likability is subjective. It has to do with your ability to make others feel comfortable and at ease. I think white people are more comfortable with white people and black people more comfortable with black people, only because we are often raised in mostly white or mostly black environments.....at least when I was growing up. The problem is whites have had a head start and own most of the major businesses....and plus its way more whites than blacks....meaning that blacks have to make white feel comfortable to get hired and promoted more so than whites have to make blacks comfortable in order for whites to be hired and promoted.
Thus, left alone.....things will generally favor whites unless counter measures are instituted to offset the legacy impact. Things in motion will continue in that motion until and unless acted upon by opposite forces. The motion of racial inequality will continue to favor whites when no action at all is taken to create opposite force to the momentum accrued from the past.
From what I see....just as an employee....the likability factors makes a huge differences as well. You can have the best credentials, but if people are not comfortable with something about you, you are not going to get hired in a tight job market where there are plenty of other candidates. I mean, if it was all about qualifications....there would be no need for interviews and they would just pick based upon who looked best on paper.
Given that....likability is subjective. It has to do with your ability to make others feel comfortable and at ease. I think white people are more comfortable with white people and black people more comfortable with black people, only because we are often raised in mostly white or mostly black environments.....at least when I was growing up. The problem is whites have had a head start and own most of the major businesses....and plus its way more whites than blacks....meaning that blacks have to make white feel comfortable to get hired and promoted more so than whites have to make blacks comfortable in order for whites to be hired and promoted.
Thus, left alone.....things will generally favor whites unless counter measures are instituted to offset the legacy impact. Things in motion will continue in that motion until and unless acted upon by opposite forces. The motion of racial inequality will continue to favor whites when no action at all is taken to create opposite force to the momentum accrued from the past.
And that's the way it was in my school when I became principal. Our student body was about 25% minority. Our teaching staff was approximately 1% minority. In other words, our faculty did not at all represent our community.
But it isn't just schools. Many major corporations have programs to cultivate more minority hiring...and in the long run, it works for them.
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