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Of course AA is flawed, but the status quo is flawed too. That's the point of AA. It's supposed to be a counter weight to structural imbalances in order to let minorities get a foot in the door with the hopes that in the future it will not be necessary.

Note that I'm not claiming that AA works or is for the best, I really don't know. But just that you can't have this discussion honestly without acknowledging that there are subconscious biases working against certain groups of people. The whole basis of Maddox's quote assumes that people are objective and have no biases—that's a myth, just like the idea that all players in an economy have perfect information and are rational.

This is where the whole "check your privilege" thing comes in. From one white man to another, we are not qualified to judge how much hard work and talent is required for a woman or a black person to succeed and be recognized.

You could achieve just as much, and more, by using affirmative action to target people who are actually disadvantaged, i.e. the poor. It would target mostly the same people (blacks and hispanics), but not thosethat don't need assistance. Obama, a black man, surely needs help from the government much less than the genious poor white kid from the ghetto. Plus, it's not racist, so you win twice!

This is such a weak argument. It's misleading to include white people in the discussion of affirmative action, because, almost paradoxically, the program only strengthens the white-power hierarchy.

There are millions of things we can do to reduce racial inequality that don't involve discrimination against Asians: ending the drug war and funding rehabilitation programs, reducing police brutality and discrimination, ending for-profit prisons, voting rights for previously convicted, quality hospitals and healthcare access for the poor, funding mental health programs in urban neighborhoods, monitoring and reducing discrimination against colored people in the court systems, actually investing in poorer neighborhoods, funding quality public transportation, seriously funding low-income schools, enacting regulations against companies that take advantage of the poor (payday loans, for-profit colleges). The list goes on and on and on.

Affirmative action has effectively increased the white power structure in this country by reducing the power of Asians, while simultaneously used a delaying tactic for real justice for poor African Americans.

Otherwise interesting comment, but "colored people"? Seriously? Maybe you meant "people of color"? The former is evocative of Jim Crow, the latter a common term used by both races today.

Of course there are biases against minorities. It's a big problem, particularly with respect to police violence.

However, if you want to completely derail a reasonable discussion with a white male, just use that phrase: "check your privilege".

It'll work every time, guaranteed.

I'm open to listening to reasonable arguments for or against AA, but I'm not going to be told "check your privilege" by anyone and continue to take them seriously; "check your privilege" is a phrase which erases the individual and invalidates any personal struggles they may have gone through (extreme poverty, abuse, disability, learning disability, etc.).

Even by itself, "privilege" is a really terrible, loaded word. People like George Bush are privileged -- most white people are not.

Privilege is relative in general, not just relative to you. Somebody is to you as you are to George Bush.

I apologise if what I just typed seems obvious, but it seems to contradict your assertion that only Presidents of the United States of America are privileged.

> I apologise if what I just typed seems obvious,

No need to apologize, since what you've typed is far from obvious. To begin with, I did not assert that only Presidents are privileged. Not even close. For example, I would consider neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama to come from privilege like George Bush. And George Bush would have been privileged whether or not he was president. I would have thought that was obvious.

And if you're going to dive into relativity of life suckiness, they surely the white refugee child from a poverty-stricken family in the Caucasus, whose mother and father have been gunned down and most of her village killed, would be relatively unprivileged compared to almost any American, regardless of skin color. Same for the refugee child from war-torn Afghanistan, usually ranked as one of the very poorest and unhealthiest countries in the world, unless you decide to exempt South Asians from the magical category of "privileged".

>People like George Bush are privileged

I had to pick some meaning for this phrase to have. The 'like' here is problematic, because we are all like George Bush in many ways.

What did you mean to say here?

>And if you're going to dive into relativity of life suckiness, they surely the white refugee child from a poverty-stricken family in the Caucasus, whose mother and father have been gunned down and most of her village killed, would be relatively unprivileged compared to almost any American, regardless of skin color. Same for the refugee child from war-torn Afghanistan, usually ranked as one of the very poorest and unhealthiest countries in the world, unless you decide to exempt South Asians from the magical category of "privileged".

Yes, these are people who would think that you or I are privileged. I'm wondering why you think they're wrong.

> extreme poverty, abuse, disability,

This was me and, in America, I am still more privileged than a black person in my position when it comes to education, loans, work, law enforcement and discrimination in general.

You have no way of knowing whether or not this is true.

The way people come to the conclusion it's harder for black people to get loans is to throw out all the traditional lending criteria like credit history, income, and assets.

I[0] don't[1]? [2]

[3] [4]

[5]

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[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/bla...

[1] http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2015/05/27/blacks-leas...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/nyregion/15subprime.html?e...

[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/minorities-more-lik...

[4] http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/02/09/Study-shows-its-mo...

[5] http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/news/local/well-off-b... dayton specific

Nope. Like I said. You can only get there by ignoring lending standards.

EDIT: Did you even read the links you posted, or did you just do a quick Google search and copy links without reading?

>Even by itself, "privilege" is a really terrible, loaded word. People like George Bush are privileged -- most white people are not.

Yep. It's the apex fallacy.

> However, if you want to completely derail a reasonable discussion with a white male, just use that phrase: "check your privilege".

This is a typically a response of frustration when said white male does not realize that his entire worldview is shaped by never having experienced the situations that lead to the other's viewpoint.

If you want to have empathy sometimes you need to swallow your pride and just shut up and listen for a while. Because, frankly, no matter how much you believe in your own intellectual honesty, if you are a white male you don't know what it's like to be a woman or an oppressed minority, and you are better off for it. To say that only upper crust trust-fund twits like George Bush are privileged and all other white people have no privilege demonstrates that you emphatically do not understand what white male privilege is.

Sure it hurts to be dehumanized that way, but guess what, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the dehumanization that any black man in a major US city has experienced by the time he turns 18.

From one white man to another, we are not qualified to judge...

Why would you assume that an unknowable piece of information somehow supports one position over another?

And why doesn't this go the other way also - why aren't non-Asian minorities unqualified to judge how much hard work and talent is required for an Asian to succeed?

We all have to make decisions with imperfect information. That can be assumed outright with little contention.

Yes, AA is fundamentally flawed, but that is because it is a biasing correction to a pre-existing and difficult to manage bias. You might be tempted to think "if the goal is to eliminate bias, you shouldn't introduce more bias" but the fact is, a counter bias can mitigate another. No, it won't work in a utopia, but we don't live in a utopia. And maybe it can't even help create one. But it doesn't actually prevent any progress.

> "What is worrying is that the truly great minority leaders/thinking/doers/etc.."

Well, don't worry about the truly great leaders, thinkers, and doers. They are truly great, so they will overcome. It is results that make one great, not rewards.

Prove that there is in fact a 'bias' and not simply a reflection of the number of blacks and latinos who have the aptitude to become a doctor.

There is nothing about being a doctor that requires one to be a particular race or gender.

There is a pretty easy way to eliminate bias in medical school admissions: blind applications.

This is widely cited as a success for orchestral auditions (which resulted in women being hired at a higher rate) and a demonstration that bias exists, yet strangely the solution is opposed by most activists. It's almost as if those same activists are afraid a blind application process might reveal admissions are biased the other way for medical schools.

The problem is not a matter personal/selection bias, but of historical or cultural bias.

I.e., if some communities are given poorer educations, they will naturally perform worse when tested against it. The solution is not to exclude them from opportunities that value education, because then they will be incentivized to avoid furthering their educations. Additionally, a small amount of fear can cause a lot of damage.

If people have an impression that they can't get accepted because of their race, they tend to avoid even trying, which results in undervalued education, and more unqualified minorities. AA in this sense provides a measure of reassurance. (Even if people are racist, you may still get a job in spite of that, so you might as well still put in the effort.) Which is better than fostering whole minority culture that has given up on success. Because that tends to lead to crime, selfishness, and hopelessness.

Secondly, the goal isn't simply to hire the top performers. That's short-sighted. The goal is to produce a better performing society in the long run. To do that, your orchestra will have to hire worse performers for now.

...historical or cultural bias.

What you describe is not bias, it's some groups being actually less qualified.

Further, you don't even get the incentives right. If the message sent is "we let anyone qualified in without even looking at who you are", that provides incentives for anyone to acquire education.

If people have an impression that they can't get accepted because of their race, they tend to avoid even trying,

Given that Asians can't get accepted because of their race, yet keep trying, that doesn't appear to be true.

If your theory is true, at what point do you expect Asians to avoid even trying? When that point occurs and Asians don't avoid trying, will you change your views?

>What you describe is not bias, it's some groups being actually less qualified.

They are less qualified due to historical and cultural bias, not due to their race or gender.

As to the rest of your post: I disagree. Maybe it's time for you to bring out some reliable studies, because I am really not going to take your word for it.

What, specifically, do you disagree with or want a study for?

The claim that race-blind procedures generate identical incentives for identical black/asian students? That's not a study, it's a 2 line proof that could go on any econ 101 midterm.

If outcome(x.copy(race=asian))=outcome(x.copy(race=black)) for all x, then U(outcome(x.copy(race=asian)))=U(outcome(x.copy(race=black))) for any utility function U, thus marginal utilities (i.e. incentives) must also be identical.

Similarly, I'd be unable to come up with a study proving that d/dx x^2 = 2x. I guess you'd disagree with that claim too?

First, drop the bad attitude. I already know calculus, so obviously I won't disagree with what I already know.

But this:

> If the message sent is "we let anyone qualified in without even looking at who you are", that provides incentives for anyone to acquire education.

and this:

> Given that Asians can't get accepted because of their race, yet keep trying

I don't know to be true. So yeah, you'd need to prove them to me before I agree to them.

I gave you the proof of the former in the message you just replied to. It's not a citation, it's merely two lines of econ 101 math.

I'm not going to bother googling for the latter, since I'm sure that will be ignored as well.

Your equation doesn't actually capture human behavior, you know.

We aren't talking behavior, we are talking incentive. If you want to argue that different races behave differently in response to the same incentives, be my guest.

Perhaps leveling the playing field at the primary school level would do more good than introducing yet more racism higher up. As it is, the way we fund our primary schools perpetuates downward spirals and we are still talking about Affirmative Action as if it HASNT failed in almost all its predictions from decades ago. At some point, programs have to achieve measurable results or be stopped or reformed, not perpetuated for no good reason than "feeling good" that we are "doing something".

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wherewestand/reports/finance/how-do-...

The solution to racism is to institutionalize treating people as individuals and providing them with equal opportunity early on.

Maddox put forward a interesting question about women getting paid less then men- He said "You know how I know that this is bullshit? Because if there was a way companies could instantly save 30% of their wages and get the same output, who in their right minds wouldn't do it"

My thoughts on the actual issue are sadly ill-informed, but the logic here seems problematic: "People say X phenomenon occurs. You know how I know it doesn't? Because it seems like it would benefit the people in charge!"

Did I mis-understand the quote?

The implication is that companies would only hire women, as they are cheaper than men.

That's the idea. The problem is that it ignores other consequences. A company might save 30% on wages by hiring only women, and then find themselves with no clients because all of the potential clients are sexist.

For a more concrete example, consider the old South, and whether stores there unfairly discriminated against black people. The equivalent argument would be: this is obvious bullshit, because if there was a way companies could instantly expand their customer base by 30% (or whatever the proportion of black people living in the South was), who in their right minds wouldn't do it! This argument ignores the fact that a store which admits black people might lose a large portion of their white clientele.

Of course, the 30% figure is wrong. Women do earn 30% less than men, but not for the same work. Most of the earnings gap is because women work different jobs than men. There is a wage gap for the same jobs, but it's substantially smaller. But the fact that the conclusion happens to be correct doesn't make the argument not nonsense.

"Why should a native american kid who did shitty all through high school get to go to med school and a asian kid who got a perfect 4.0 and did extra curricular things not."

Maybe because you decide Native American was the safest race to use in your example? Also, your example is pretty much BS since you still have to make the school test minimums even with AA, and a Native American who did "shitty" isn't going to apply anyway.

fields like medicine should have only the best of the best getting through

I'd like to offer up the contrarian view. In music or basketball there is no way to arrive at the top unless you began studying your craft at the age of 3. Unlike high-level basketball or music at a very high level, medicine is quite plebeian, just watch your physician do his thing next time you get sick.

In everyday medicine good enough is in fact good enough, you don't need the very best to advance the state of the art. If it wasn't the case we'd hear that <insert ethnicity here> physicians are dangerous to life, and we'd see them lose their licenses more often than average.

Since you bring up basketball, should we have AA there also? I feel like asians, native americans and jews are being extremely discriminated against in the sport. Or is it OK to say 'fuck those other minoritys' in that case? If a applicant is jewish but misses 50% more freethrows over another identical black candidate, who should get the spot?

I agree with you that liability for abuse is not a significant problem with AA. I am not convinced one way or the other on the overall cost/benefit, but lean in favor of AA because it helps with my white guilt.

I am not knowledgable in race issues, but I can speak about students going to university from schools with lower average grades.

A student with BBB (for example) from a bad school will (on average) get a higher final degree score than a student with BBB from a very good school. This (to me) is not a surprise. Therefore universities sometimes offer lower grades to students based on their school, under the expectation the students will do as well at university.

Don't worry Dan, the word 'minority' has been redefined to not include Asians.

I was informed of this the other week by an Asian friend who's a college student. She mentioned it in passing like it was just basic knowledge.

People use the term "NAM", or non-Asian minority, to separate out minorities who are affirmative-action target populations from non-Whites as a whole.

When's the last time an unarmed Asian youth was gunned down in the streets by police officers?

When was the last time a huge unarmed criminal Asian youth tried to take the gun from a police officer?