My Grand Unifed Theory of Racism

[grumbler]

Yi, your grand unified theory of racism doesn't seem to address structural racism.

Probably because I don't really know what it means.  Please educate me.

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=structural+racism

[viper37]

The story about the black lady and old white lady at Buckingham Palace made me think. 

Racism is different treatment for different ethnic/racial groups.

People should be treated as people, regardless of skin color.  If you treat black people one way and white people another you're racist and you're wrong. 

That's why I said I didn't see the evidence of the white lady's racism. 

We need at least two data points to determine if someone treats groups differently.  We don't know if the white lady would have treated a white person differently in the same situation.

I don't feel any white guilt.

I'm not responsible for slavery, or Jim Crow, or lynchings.  I didn't do those things.  In my mind when I first meet a black person we both come in with clean slates.  If they start off telling me I'm responsible for this things we will not agree.  MLK said he had a dream of a world in which people were judged on the content of their character, not on the color of their skin.  That's a great dream, and it should go both ways.  Judge me for me, not for my yellowish-white skin.

Not all accusations of racism are true.

Both in real life and on the internet I've seen countless examples of people claiming to be the victim of racism when to my way of seeing things it has nothing whatsoever to do with racism.  If you get arrested for shoplifting or handcuffed and pulled off an airplane for being drunk and stupid, that has nothing to do with race.  It has to do with your actions and their repercussions.

Political Correctness disagrees with the preceding statement.

There are people, well-intentioned people, who either believe that any accusation of racism by a member of a protected class is true, or stay silent and change the subject when faced with a false accusation of racism, out of "solidarity" or sympathy. If these people were willing to call bullshit once in a while false accusations of racism might diminish.

Real harm is caused by false accusations of racism.

People can be cancelled, rendered persona non grata.  Expelled from polite society.  It's not fair to do this to non-racist people.  They are people too.

Individuals are not inferior but cultures and societies can be.

I dislike the way mainland Chinese jump lines and act noisy and vulgar when visiting foreign countries.  I dislike the way hillbilles roll coal and beat their wives and drink too much and smoke too much meth and get in bar fights and vote for Trump.  This doesn't mean that every single member of these groups acts in this way but there are negative tendencies that I find disfunctional which are perpetuated because their in groups find these behaviors acceptable or commendable.  Similarly with black urban/ghetto/hip hop culture.  "Keeping it real" can mean making babies and bailing, fighting, committing crime.  Littering for Hod's sake.  I want people to stop keeping it real.

Racial profiling is iffy.

I sympathize with members of high crime groups who don't commit crimes and object to disproportionate attention being focused on them.  Black shoppers being followed by store security is a prime example.  I would probably be offended if it were me.  The flip side is that focusing enforcement on high crime groups is the most efficient use of resources.  Most bang for the buck.  It's intuitively silly to randomize the people who are pulled out of the airport line for further screening.  This issue is not going to disappear. The rebirth of stop and frisk and the introduction of AI into crime prevention means that profiling will get more precise but will always involve false positives.

That's all for now.

I agree with some of your points.  I disagree about racial profiling being an efficient use of resources.  It is not.  Race, as in skin color, isn't a valid indicator or willingness to commit crime in itself.  You need different data than that.  A white man raised in a high crime predominently black neighbourhood could very well belong to a criminal gang run by black men.  And your racial profiling totally exclude white collar crimes.  And you don't account for mix-race either.  Sorry, not a valid use or human resources.  Nor a valid data point to enter into AI learning algorythm. 

There are much more important factors, like drug use, prior criminal arrests for similar crimes, known affiliations, which weapons (if any) the person posess, online activities, threats being made, complaintes received, etc, etc,

Also, the royal affair may have involved a good dose of snobbery on top of racism.  Meghan being a simple american commoner divorcee never helped her cause.

[DGuller]

When it comes to hot button issues such as racial profiling, I don't think it's possible to know whether it works or not.  Can you imagine being a researcher doing a study on whether racial profiling works, and having the same willingness to publish a study with an affirmative conclusion as you would be publishing a negative conclusion? 

I think you're going to need a really huge asbestos suit, to cover the really huge steel balls of yours, to weather what's going to come your way.  Unfortunately, the effect of such an environment is that none of the studies on this topic can be considered scientific, because they're not conducted with the unbiased mindset.

[Tamas]

Does it even matter if it works? If it works it's largely because of historical racism, I think.

In Hungary I think this is very clear with the gypsies. Centuries spent shun into the underclass with still heavy racism, I am very certain racial profiling on gypsies would be efficient. But how is it a solution? Create massive barriers from having them enter society and then conclude that since they cannot enter they deserve to be shunned out? How is that helping anyone on the long run? But I think it does create this terrible feedback loop where as an indivudal you ARE correct to assess that you need to be more distrustful of gypsies since odds are they are from the very fringes of society. But this behaviour of course means all of them are pushed to those fringes irrespective of their merits.

It's a tough nut to crack.

[Admiral Yi]

Does it even matter if it works? If it works it's largely because of historical racism, I think.

In Hungary I think this is very clear with the gypsies. Centuries spent shun into the underclass with still heavy racism, I am very certain racial profiling on gypsies would be efficient. But how is it a solution? Create massive barriers from having them enter society and then conclude that since they cannot enter they deserve to be shunned out? How is that helping anyone on the long run? But I think it does create this terrible feedback loop where as an indivudal you ARE correct to assess that you need to be more distrustful of gypsies since odds are they are from the very fringes of society. But this behaviour of course means all of them are pushed to those fringes irrespective of their merits.

It's a tough nut to crack.

I think a useful strategy for the law abiding member of a stigmatized group is to signal one's difference from the group.  Things like the way you dress, the way you talk, etc. can signal to the world that while you are from the same place as the others your behavior is different.  Pulling up your pants for example.  Sagging is based on glorification of prison culture.  I wouldn't want to hire someone who sagged and if I managed a retail store that's the person I would keep an eye on, until I had evidence to the contrary, either anecdotally from my own experience or more formally.

I worked a temp job one time in DC with a girl with an Irish accent.  I made some comment about gypsies or being gypped and she corrected me with "traveler" (which at the time I didn't know was a thing).  I never asked her about it, but I like to think she was an Irish traveler who immigrated to the US in order to escape the stigma.  That's a strategy.

Which doesn't work if your group follows you.  Like the Russian mob moving into Brooklyn.

Which is not to say this makes the moral ambiguity disappear.

[DGuller]

Does it even matter if it works? If it works it's largely because of historical racism, I think.

In Hungary I think this is very clear with the gypsies. Centuries spent shun into the underclass with still heavy racism, I am very certain racial profiling on gypsies would be efficient. But how is it a solution? Create massive barriers from having them enter society and then conclude that since they cannot enter they deserve to be shunned out? How is that helping anyone on the long run? But I think it does create this terrible feedback loop where as an indivudal you ARE correct to assess that you need to be more distrustful of gypsies since odds are they are from the very fringes of society. But this behaviour of course means all of them are pushed to those fringes irrespective of their merits.

It's a tough nut to crack.

It matters a great deal if it works.  For one, it will help identify the real problem.  Is the problem that people are making erroneous connections between race and some outcomes?  Or is the problem that these connections are real, but self-reinforcing because people are acting on them?  These are two completely different problems.

The problem with decreeing that the problem is the first one is twofold.  The first problem is that you're now making it a question of statistics.  If you can statistically prove that it's in fact not erroneous to profile, then you're in the clear?  The second problem is that if this decree runs counter to people's experiences, then you're solving nothing at all, and are just making people justifiably more cynical about any public pronouncements on this topic.

[Josquius]

Well yeah. Race isn't the factor that truly makes the difference.
Oversimplfiying but if someone from the shit neighbourhood is say 5% likely to be a criminal irrespective of race vs 0.5% from elsewhere in town, its still worth noting that half of the black people in your city live in that neighbourhood so there's a bigger chance a random black person  will be one of these crooks.

Consider the profiling also usually looks at men of a certain age who dress a certain way and the odds of getting a crook is boosted.

The problem is of course though in doing this you have a better chance of spotting a crook then with a complete roll of the dice you're also bothering a lot of innocent people who fall afoul of your checklist. People who get this from everyone, not just you.

I would say the problem is in poor incentivisation of the security guard doing the profiling - he has had it put to him that increased odds of stopping one theft is worth bothering 50 innocent black guys.

The incentive should be swayed away from this so not intimidating customers whilst at the same time providing a level of security is what we get.

Further complicating on this is where race can become a factor. Being treat like shit your whole life being a big factor in being more likely to turn to crime, some criminal gangs seeking to recruit based on race, etc...

[Admiral Yi]

I would say the problem is in poor incentivisation of the security guard doing the profiling - he has had it put to him that increased odds of stopping one theft is worth bothering 50 innocent black guys.

The incentive should be swayed away from this so not intimidating customers whilst at the same time providing a level of security is what we get.

That's dumping the load on some poor underpaid schlub.  The fairer way to do it for the suits at corporate to fine tune their algorithm then train the schlubs.

[Zoupa]

I think a useful strategy for the law abiding member of a stigmatized group is to signal one's difference from the group.  Things like the way you dress, the way you talk, etc. can signal to the world that while you are from the same place as the others your behavior is different.  Pulling up your pants for example.  Sagging is based on glorification of prison culture.  I wouldn't want to hire someone who sagged and if I managed a retail store that's the person I would keep an eye on, until I had evidence to the contrary, either anecdotally from my own experience or more formally.

So your advice to the stigmatized group is to change their behaviour?

You imply that their behaviour is the reason for the stigmatization?

Dude I like you but you sometimes sound like you're from the 1950s. Wtf.

And what advice can you give to racists? Because your advice mainly seems to be aimed at the victims here, basically telling the girl to pull down her miniskirt.

[Admiral Yi]

So your advice to the stigmatized group is to change their behaviour?

You imply that their behaviour is the reason for the stigmatization?

Dude I like you but you sometimes sound like you're from the 1950s. Wtf.

And what advice can you give to racists? Because your advice mainly seems to be aimed at the victims here, basically telling the girl to pull down her miniskirt.

Yes.

I state the bad actors in the group are the reason for the stigmatization.

I've already stated my advice to racists: treat everyone the same.

My advice to the other victims here (the store owners) is to refine their algorithms so you have fewer false positives.

[garbon]

Cool. I'll start wearing a tuxedo everywhere that I go.

[Zoupa]

Your "treat everyone the same" advice to racists negates the need for the victims to change their behaviour.

I suggest we as a society, work on changing the perpetrators instead of the stigmatized.

[Josquius]

This is kind of something that happens.
Look to Burberry in the early 2000s for instance. It built up huge charva associations and heavy criminal links through this.
Bans on burberry popped up in places and the brand really dropped out of fashion with decent people.

The trouble is... So we are letting criminals dictate what we can and can't wear?
If there's a spate of crimes by guys in white shirts then we all have to stop wearing white shirts?

And I don't think it's so easy as having better algorithms. So much of this stuff is deep seated unconscious bias. I don't think security people are specifically told to target young black guys. It's just something that has been culturally installed in them.
Unconscious bias training and all that sort of thing can help of course. But as well as directly tackling the problem I do think a lot of success can be had by seeming to ignore it and instead adjusting what we encourage and discourage in such a way that it reduces the desire to profile as a handy mental shortcut.

[Admiral Yi]

Your "treat everyone the same" advice to racists negates the need for the victims to change their behaviour.

I suggest we as a society, work on changing the perpetrators instead of the stigmatized.

I don't understand the question.

Why not both?

[viper37]

I think a useful strategy for the law abiding member of a stigmatized group is to signal one's difference from the group.  Things like the way you dress, the way you talk, etc. can signal to the world that while you are from the same place as the others your behavior is different.  Pulling up your pants for example.  Sagging is based on glorification of prison culture.  I wouldn't want to hire someone who sagged and if I managed a retail store that's the person I would keep an eye on, until I had evidence to the contrary, either anecdotally from my own experience or more formally.

If cops pull you over because you are a black man driving a luxury car, how do you change that?  Don't get rich?  Don't maximize your abilities?

Look, I don't mind arbitrary police stops like that, especially if they have reason to be suspicious (a planned hit near a gang/mafia member, a legitimate description of a suspect that looks like the guy they check "tall black man in mid 20s", they suspect the person just got out of the bar while they are under a no alcohol restriction, etc), but racial profiling in itself serves no purposes but to enrage honest people*.  And criminals just don't care.


*And white people get pissed when they are harassed y their government, I can tell you that firsthand.   Thankfully, I never had problem with the police itself.