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Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

It's possible I misunderstood this line:

> You can invent whatever system you want, like the one you proposed here, but if the outcome is disproportionate then it is, by definition, a racist system.

> Why? Because race is a construct. It’s fake. Factually speaking, the only differences between these constructed racial groups are things like hair texture and skin pigmentation. Anyone saying otherwise is lying to preserve the construct.

I read this as saying that any difference in outcomes is due to racism. My understanding of your argument is that if it were not for racism then all outcome curves would be identical across all racial categories, because there are no real differences between racial groups.

If that was misunderstanding, I apologize!

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Yes, probably a misunderstanding then. The line you quoted says disproportionate. It’s not saying “difference in outcomes” it’s saying “disproportionate outcomes.” And it’s not any outcomes. It’s outcomes that specifically control what is deemed as valuable in the society, in this case education, which is widely understood to be a gateway to success/wealth/improvement/empowerment/power/etc.

I understand that there are differences between cultures. But saying that a culture difference is the reason that a culture disproportionately lacks access to the things deemed of value in the society is blaming the disadvantaged for their disadvantage. That is literally racism. “You do not have the same access to education that white people do because your black culture prevents you from having it.” That is obviously preposterous. What prevents none-white races from having proportional access to education (or anything of value in the society) is the racist system. People do not inflict racism onto themselves. It is inflicted onto them by the race in power.

You'll notice that I've never argued that we reached the point where racist factors in outcomes have been eliminated—I've only ever argued that when we do reach that point, I expect to still see disproportionate outcomes in the way that we currently measure them, because we will still value different things across different cultures. And that's okay! I think a lot of our definitions of success are fundamentally flawed, and cultures prioritizing other things have a lot of value!

Just make sure that when talking about cultural differences (specifically in regards to race) you don’t imply that “some cultures” (you know which ones) don’t value prosperity/wealth. It comes off as … you know what.

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