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[W:148] Affirmative Action promotes systemic racial discrimination.

Paradoxical said:
Sounds like I hit a nerve.
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Ha. Nope just my amusement. It's like you love being wrong . Fascinating really.
I mean I have a lot of fun diagnosing here.
Is it narcissistic personality disorder.
Delusional psychosis..
Etc..
 
jaeger19 said:
Ha. Nope just my amusement. It's like you love being wrong . Fascinating really.
I mean I have a lot of fun diagnosing here.
Is it narcissistic personality disorder.
Delusional psychosis..
Etc..
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My condolences then.
 
I am for the most part in favor of Affirmative Action, but there aren't any easy answers.

Okay, so let's assume you own or are the CEO of a business that is intrinsically dangerous. Let's say it's a steel mill.

Your engineering department is small and entirely or almost entirely white. Because it's always been that way.

Your floor employees are disproportionately people of color.

An engineer retires, and you are now critically short-handed. You get two resumes on your desk. One is from a white dude with 20 years of experience, and the other is a black dude with a rock solid set of scores in engineering school but no practical experience. You have the budget to hire one of them.

Affirmative Action gives you incentive to hire the black dude, who is also cheaper due to his lack of experience, but he's more or less on his own. If he makes mistakes, the people on the floor (again, mostly POC) will be exposed to additional risk to life and limb. Which is no small thing in a steel mill.

If you hire the white dude, his experience makes him cost more but there is less risk to the floor employees, but you have once again established that your upper echelons are white, and will remain so until the next engineer retires, whereupon you will be faced with the same dilemma.

What is the ethical solution?
 
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Hamish Howl said:
I am for the most part in favor of Affirmative Action, but there aren't any easy answers.

Okay, so let's assume you own or are the CEO of a business that is intrinsically dangerous. Let's say it's a steel mill.

Your engineering department is small and entirely or almost entirely white. Because it's always been that way.

Your floor employees are disproportionately people of color.

An engineer retires, and you are now critically short-handed. You get two resumes on your desk. One is from a white dude with 20 years of experience, and the other is a black dude with a rock solid set of scores in engineering school but no practical experience. You have the budget to hire one of them.

Affirmative Action gives you incentive to hire the black dude, who is also cheaper due to his lack of experience, but he's more or less on his own. If he makes mistakes, the people on the floor (again, mostly POC) will be exposed to additional risk to life and limb. Which is no small thing in a steel mill.

If you hire the white dude, his experience makes him cost more but there is less risk to the floor employees, but you have once again established that your upper echelons are white, and will remain so until the next engineer retires, whereupon you will be faced with the same dilemma.

What is the ethical solution?
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Affirmative action doesn't give you an incentive.
So lets stop that myth:

"Affirmative action regulations specifically state that goals "do not provide … a justification to extend a preference to any individual, select an individual, or adversely affect an individual's employment status, on the basis of that person's race, color, religion, sex or national origin."

https://hr.uoregon.edu/employee-lab...action/affirmative-action-myths-and-realities
 
jaeger19 said:
Affirmative action doesn't give you an incentive.
So lets stop that myth:

"Affirmative action regulations specifically state that goals "do not provide … a justification to extend a preference to any individual, select an individual, or adversely affect an individual's employment status, on the basis of that person's race, color, religion, sex or national origin."

https://hr.uoregon.edu/employee-lab...action/affirmative-action-myths-and-realities
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Guess who gets you a tax break?

I'm not against this. I'm just saying that you don't always have an easy answer.
 
Hamish Howl said:
I am for the most part in favor of Affirmative Action, but there aren't any easy answers.

Okay, so let's assume you own or are the CEO of a business that is intrinsically dangerous. Let's say it's a steel mill.

Your engineering department is small and entirely or almost entirely white. Because it's always been that way.

Your floor employees are disproportionately people of color.

An engineer retires, and you are now critically short-handed. You get two resumes on your desk. One is from a white dude with 20 years of experience, and the other is a black dude with a rock solid set of scores in engineering school but no practical experience. You have the budget to hire one of them.

Affirmative Action gives you incentive to hire the black dude, who is also cheaper due to his lack of experience, but he's more or less on his own. If he makes mistakes, the people on the floor (again, mostly POC) will be exposed to additional risk to life and limb. Which is no small thing in a steel mill.

If you hire the white dude, his experience makes him cost more but there is less risk to the floor employees, but you have once again established that your upper echelons are white, and will remain so until the next engineer retires, whereupon you will be faced with the same dilemma.

What is the ethical solution?
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that's an excellent hypothetical question but rarely is going to mirror real life.
 
Hamish Howl said:
I am for the most part in favor of Affirmative Action, but there aren't any easy answers.

Okay, so let's assume you own or are the CEO of a business that is intrinsically dangerous. Let's say it's a steel mill.

Your engineering department is small and entirely or almost entirely white. Because it's always been that way.

Your floor employees are disproportionately people of color.

An engineer retires, and you are now critically short-handed. You get two resumes on your desk. One is from a white dude with 20 years of experience, and the other is a black dude with a rock solid set of scores in engineering school but no practical experience. You have the budget to hire one of them.

Affirmative Action gives you incentive to hire the black dude, who is also cheaper due to his lack of experience, but he's more or less on his own. If he makes mistakes, the people on the floor (again, mostly POC) will be exposed to additional risk to life and limb. Which is no small thing in a steel mill.

If you hire the white dude, his experience makes him cost more but there is less risk to the floor employees, but you have once again established that your upper echelons are white, and will remain so until the next engineer retires, whereupon you will be faced with the same dilemma.

What is the ethical solution?
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When in the real world does AA influence hiring decisions? I've hired lots of people over the years, of various 'races', and there was never any AA policy I was aware of (other than non-discrimination) which had the potential to influence my hiring decisions.
 
LessBiased? said:
When in the real world does AA influence hiring decisions? I've hired lots of people over the years, of various 'races', and there was never any AA policy I was aware of (other than non-discrimination) which had the potential to influence my hiring decisions.
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When your company gets that nice fat WOTC tax credit.
 
It's worth noticing that race is never mentioned, but that economic factors that are predominant among ethnic groups are.
 
Hamish Howl said:
Guess who gets you a tax break?

I'm not against this. I'm just saying that you don't always have an easy answer.
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Hmmm.. i dont have to guess.
A WOTC target group..

"WOTC targeted groups include: 1) Qualified IV-A recipient; 2) Qualified Veteran; 3) Qualified Ex-Felon; 4) Designated Community Resident; 5) Vocational Rehabilitation Referral; 6) Summer Youth Employee; 7) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP "food stamps") recipient; 8) Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipient; 9) Long-term Family Assistance recipient; and 10) Qualified Long-term Unemployment recipient.

Please point out the tax break for "hiring black guy. "

Look.. you don;t really know what you are talking about.

Beyond the fact that there is no tax break for "hiring the black guy".
There are so many issues with your example.

Like why is their only two applicants for a position that you have known you have to fill for probably at least 6 months. (a retirement). ?

In affirmative action.. the question you would ask is why do you only have two applicants and only one thats a minority? Then you would examine your recruitment practices to see if why you may be missing candidates.. particularly of minorities and women.

Affirmative action is not "hire the black guy over the white guy".
 
RealityChecker said:
Affirmative Action (AA) began with an presidential executive order by JFK back in 1961. Over time AA has evolved into laws and regulations that support systemic racism. Paradoxically the intent of AA was it was supposed to undermine racial discrimination. Like so many progressive left programs AA actually creates systemic racial discrimination and undermines individual liberty. No doubt the intent of AA was to reduce race based discrimination, but the effect of AA is now the only form of government promoted and condoned race-based discrimination. AA is immoral and conflicts with the civil rights laws which were intended to outlaw and discourage racial discrimination. AA seriously undermine merit and demands people be judged less on objective qualifications and more based on race, ethnicity, and gender indenity.
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One way to look at it is in practical terms, based on odds. Say that 2/3 of the time systemic racism has resulted in a given Black person a disadvantage relative to a given white person. Well, in that case, affirmative action for the Black person would bring about a net decrease of injustice 2/3 of the time, and a net increase 1/3 of the time. So, you'd be improving the situation twice as often as you'd be worsening it. I think that's the implicit line of reasoning of those who favor race-based affirmative action: they get that it's not perfect, but they expect it'll help more than it hurts.
 
Mina said:
One way to look at it is in practical terms, based on odds. Say that 2/3 of the time systemic racism has resulted in a given Black person a disadvantage relative to a given white person. Well, in that case, affirmative action for the Black person would bring about a net decrease of injustice 2/3 of the time, and a net increase 1/3 of the time. So, you'd be improving the situation twice as often as you'd be worsening it. I think that's the implicit line of reasoning of those who favor race-based affirmative action: they get that it's not perfect, but they expect it'll help more than it hurts.
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One problem is that it's quite hard to measure how much it helps or hurts overall. There are a lot of interacting factors besides 'race' which influence outcomes.
 
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