For/Against Racial Discrimination?

[unspammable]

I've heard some arguments for and against racial discrimination. Let's examine two scenarios:

(1) Your kid has to walk every day through a neighborhood with a very high crime rate where 90% of the criminals are blacks. Do you tell him/her to try and avoid black people?

(2) You are hiring for an organization, and notice that 90% of hispanics are incompetent on the job after being interviewed. Do you decide to exclude further hispanic applicants?

Is discrimination justified in either case? Why or why not? I think almost everyone would answer 'yes' for (1), but I could be wrong.

[MC anunnaki]

1) I tell her to avoid the people in that particular neighbourhood. I will not tell her to avoid all black people since her mom knows some pretty hilarious black peeps.

2) No. I will include the 10 % of Hispanics who are not incompetent.

I discriminate against the lazy and stupid. No need to discriminate against a certain race.

[osservatore]

anunnaki said:

1) I tell her to avoid the people in that particular neighbourhood. I will not tell her to avoid all black people since her mom knows some pretty hilarious black peeps.

2) No. I will include the 10 % of Hispanics who are not incompetent.

I discriminate against the lazy and stupid. No need to discriminate against a certain race.

Perfectly agree with you.

[Hairless]

anunnaki said:

1) I tell her to avoid the people in that particular neighbourhood. I will not tell her to avoid all black people since her mom knows some pretty hilarious black peeps.

2) No. I will include the 10 % of Hispanics who are not incompetent.

I discriminate against the lazy and stupid. No need to discriminate against a certain race.

Good answer.

[asdf]

2) No. I will include the 10 % of Hispanics who are not incompetent.

This is impossible to determine. That's the point. If you knew who was competent at the interview before the even get the job, you'd know who to hire in the first place.

[nockwasright]

If it was proved that 90% of hispanics (whatever this word means) are incompetent to do the job the cost effective (hence right) policy would be to exclude hispanics applicants as it is not worth the cost to interview them.

All judgements are done on limited datas, always, also when you choose a spouse, a job, a hause. You have to presume and go by probability all the time. Making "informed" judgements is a cost. The more time and energy you spend to inform yourself, the more this judgement is costing you. It would be absurd to ask a company to include in its interviews members of a group who are 90% of times incompetent.

The fact that laws prevent you to discriminate by race is the proof that discriminating by race is reasonable.

[Ilmatar]

nockwasright said:

It would be absurd to ask a company to include in its interviews members of a group who are 90% of times incompetent.

Absurd indeed, and actually nobody does this. Companies thinking cost efficacy world wide do tend to read the CVs and applications before interviewing anyone. They tend to do some background check too before starting the interview process. Therefore truely incompetent applicants hardly ever get even interviewed for any job requiring specific skills. The choice is usually made between 3-4 applicants who are equally qualified.

The fact that laws prevent you to discriminate by race is the proof that discriminating by race is reasonable.

I personally think that discrimination laws do exists because there are still people who let their own prejudicies agains a certain group of people come into the way of reasoning. I've seen numerous situations like this.

[MC anunnaki]

^ What she wrote.

[DeLacroix]

(1) YES, but before that, I would drive him to school myself, every morning, and also pick him up every day, no matter how much work I have.

(2) NO, because I'd focus on the qualities needed for the job. I would not care about the race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or anything of this kind, I'd only care about competence. And as I know, competence is not related to race, religion, or gender.

[eufrenio]

These are two completely different situations, because 1) is a life or death situation and 2) is not. My advice is to tell your children the realities of life and not only the truth about the birds and the bees.
Avoiding black neighbourhoods and possibly black people altogether might be a rational choice in your country, if that country happens to be the USA (please specify, this is a international forum).
In other times and places, it´s possibly less straightforward. Let´s say that in country Z, group a) is to be avoided at all costs 99 % of the time, while group b) is a 50 % risk. It can also depend on the setting: for instance, having business with group c) might be risky but their neighbourhod could be alright?
In any case, discrimination is justified, just as long as the benefit of discriminating outweighs the cost. As Nock said, if it didn´t make sense the State wouldn´t intrude in such private matters.
Discrimination is just another word for choice, after all. We should be able to choose.
As to discrimination in hiring, I believe it should be entirely up to the company.
When a chairman hires his nephew, he´s also discriminating, but you rarely hear from those cases.

[unspammable]

I think it depends if race is the only criterion available for discrimination. If there are better criteria (such as standardized tests), use that. This is because it is unfair to exclude someone, even if it's just one person. For example, if you know a person very well, there is no reason to discriminate based on race.

In scenario (2), I think racism is unjustified for that reason. If you discriminate based on any criterion you want, obviously there will be contradictions. If 90% of hispanics are incompetent but 90% of females aren't, what if you have a female hispanic? What criterion will you choose? Sexism or racism?

For (1), it's a bit stickier. Since it's a life/death risk, your kid will have to discriminate based on something. If you tell him/her to avoid the black people in that particular neighborhood but not anywhere else, is that racism? One wonders, since this is different from telling him/her not avoid black people period.

[DeLacroix]

For (1), it's a bit stickier. Since it's a life/death risk, your kid will have to discriminate based on something. If you tell him/her to avoid the black people in that particular neighborhood but not anywhere else, is that racism? One wonders, since this is different from telling him/her not avoid black people period.

But if your kid has not the age yet to distinguish between "bad" blacks an "good" blacks, then it's better to tell him to not only avoid blacks, but all grown ups generally, no matter what is their race. After that, he'll learn by himself to distinguish between the "bad" ones and the "good" ones.
But honestly, though you know that they're not all criminals, you always have this phobia, transmitted by the cultural environnement, that grows with you.
For example here, people fear gypsies, maghrebians, an romanians. It's obvious that just a minority of them are criminals, but even though, when you're alone and you see a group of gypsies or maghrebians, you cross
the street. As for Gypsies, this phobia was transmitted by our parents, and grand parents. And the fear of maghrebians, romanians an recently latinos, is a direct consequence of the media who give too much importance an coverage to the crime committed by minorities. The last statistics say that foreigners make 50% of the convicts in our prisons. Then you can imagine the hysteria, such statistics can create.

[unspammable]

equilibrium said:

But if your kid has not the age yet to distinguish between "bad" blacks an "good" blacks, then it's better to tell him to not only avoid blacks, but all grown ups generally, no matter what is their race."

I already talked about 'alternate criteria', so let's assume the criminals in the neighborhood include kids as well as adults, and race is the only criterion you can work on.

equilibrium said:

But honestly, though you know that they're not all criminals, you always have this phobia, transmitted by the cultural environnement, that grows with you."

This is interesting. I think the question is: which is more important -- short-term safety, or long-term benefit? If there is a significant chance of your kid being hurt/killed, I think the former should have higher priority.

[nockwasright]

cheeks said:

Absurd indeed, and actually nobody does this. Companies thinking cost efficacy world wide do tend to read the CVs and applications before interviewing anyone. They tend to do some background check too before starting the interview process. Therefore truely incompetent applicants hardly ever get even interviewed for any job requiring specific skills. The choice is usually made between 3-4 applicants who are equally qualified.

Ain't that off the point.
The question under point (2) actually means, if there's an enthnicity that performs bad at a certain activity, is it correct to discriminate by race in choosing people for that activity? My answer was yes.

I personally think that discrimination laws do exists because there are still people who let their own prejudicies agains a certain group of people come into the way of reasoning. I've seen numerous situations like this.

All judgements are prejudices, meaning no judgement is done on basis of complete knowledge of facts as such knowledge is impossible.

Those laws are the effect of some people thinking themselves holier and wiser than others thus calling theirs rational judgments, others' prejudices, hence forcing their thinking on others and their property.

Most of the so called "prejudices" that would go in the way of reasoning of persons who however seem to understand things enough to set up activities that employ other people, are actually conforted by all statistics and common experience so they stand their ground much better than the actual prejudice that everybody, regardless of race age and gender, has the same potential.

People (and companies) do not wish to employ, lend money, rent a house to x ethnic group members because they experiment that the probability that such employees, borrowers, renters, have a high rate of non compliance. Unrational discrimination put people out of business. I don't see soccer teams which discriminate against blacks, how comes, are they the more enlightened companies or blacks play good soccer?

@wiseguy: If there's a much higher chance that a gypsy will be a criminal than everyone else, fearing a random gypsy is a rational fear, not a phobia.
If 1/10 of gypsyes is a thief, it means ever ten gypsyes you meet one should be a thief. So it just make sense to check your wallet all the time you see one. And rent your house to none of them. Also because he would have 30 relatives in town so on family reunions you get 3 thieves in your house.

[osservatore]

Dear Nockwasright

I can't disagree more with you.

My disagree regards the basis itself of your argument: i.e., many of what you label "so-called prejudices" aren't founded on anything.

But also your conclusions seem flawed to me.
Even if some prejudice against an ethnic group would be found to be based on some statistic, I believe it would be overly unfair to use it against individuals.

If you find that, put, Aleuts aren't good at mathematics, this should not be used as an argument agaisnt the assumption of an Aleut bank-clerk, who, for what you know, could possibly be the only Aleut good in counting money.

I mean, you should judge individuals basing on their own abilties, competence, inclinations and such.