Tuesday Sober Thread: All In The Name Of Diversity

Say HUH?!? I highly doubt that ANYBODY on here is using that line of thinking. What most people are saying is that more qualified people lose out because of AA, they lose out often and it does happen regardless of what anybody's opinion is. I'm sure lots of "protective class" members out there get hired if they're the right ones for the job.

However, if somebody is better than them at said job or they're just plain not right for it (i.e a shitty worker), then they shouldn't. End of story.

EDIT: That New Haven story I keep hearing about in this thread is a perfect example why AA is not a good thing. How can a non-retarded human being think something like that is justified?

 

You all knew I would have shit to say about this sort of thing. As an added bonus (?) my gf works in college admissions, so I've seen both sides of it.

I'm roughly in favor of affirmative action.

I don't agree with quotas -- I think they're an inexact and blunt tool wholly unsuited to such a delicate and contentious issue. However, I do support considering somebody's background when it comes to college. or hiring, or even being on a basketball team.

If I have a basketball team, and I have one slot left, and I have the option of picking 6'7 Ricky Davis, who is a supremely talented player but hasn't really worked hard at any level (and is in fact famous for eating terribly and getting drunk the night before games and eating whatever he wants to) or 5'8 Dustin McWhitey, who has scrapped and worked hard at every level to put up 75% of the stats that Ricky can, well, I'm going to choose the latter. Judging people is ridiculously hard, and somebody's background should always play a part in how you judge them.

As for people saying, "I don't see color, I just see people," I admire you. But you have to realize that not having to see color is the definition of white privilege. I know a whole lot of minorities who love to talk about race, and not one of them has ever had the luxury of saying, "I don't see color." The unfortunate part is, job and college admissions are often a zero-sum game, and it really sucks to get passed over for somebody who you feel like is less qualified. I get it. But just because you're not racist doesn't mean we live in a post-racial society, and affirmative action is one way of redressing the ills caused thereby.

There is a real, tangible downside to being black, and it's not just about cabs. It's about a culture that tells you that you're not as good as a white person, and that doesn't change overnight. There might not be Jim Crow anymore, but think about the people STILL LIVING who had to drink at separate water fountains? This isn't ancient history, this is my grandmother. And my great-grandmother, who are both still alive. It's not all good just because we've got a half-black president.

I still don't believe in a "extra points" or "quota" system, because culture is about much more than skin color. I think a poor white student who lost everything in a Mississippi flood and still managed to do pretty well deserves a spot more than a Oprah's (hypothetical) child, who had access to every test-prep and educational edge. But pretending that we can just say, "oh, it's all even now, the playing field is level" is naive at best.

 

Part of the reason AA is necessary (I'll get to my actual thoughts on it in a moment) is human nature.

A white, 40 year old male is in charge of HR and hiring at a firm. Two employees come in, one black and one white. Black guy has a slightly better resume (higher GPA, more activities), and the interviews were basically identical. However, for some reason, HR guy feels compelled to hire the white guy. Why? White guy looks like the HR guy, and in the interview, HR guy just felt more comfortable with white guy. He isn't outwardly or naturally racist, but his human nature makes him more comfortable around people who look like him, and this bias causes him to hire slightly less qualified white guy over slightly more qualified black guy. HR guy would scream that he isn't racist and that isn't why he hired white guy, and he may believe that with all his heart, but the reality he is ignoring his own human nature, and all of our human nature is that we generally feel more comfortable around familiar people and, barring that, around people who look like us and like the people we grew up with. If you're a white guy who grew up in a white neighborhood with nothing but white friends in your white school, chances are good that you're going to feel much more comfortable giving an interview to white guy than to black guy, and that comfort in the interview will be translated to you feeling the interview went better with white guy than black guy (unless, of course, white guy is clinically retarded or just a giant douche, or black guy is a genius and so far superior to white guy that there is no doubt who to hire). The thing is, AA will correct for this, and ensure that black guy gets the job. Of course white guy is going to feel screwed, and white HR guy is going to be pissed that he couldn't hire who he wanted, but the reality was that black guy was more qualified anyway, and were it not for the human element, he'd have gotten the job anyway.

It goes the other way, too. If a black guy is doing the hiring, and two candidates are white and black, with the white guy being slightly more qualified, I'd bet anything the black guy would get the job. Again, it is human nature, not right or wrong, just the way we are wired.

Unless we set up a system where the hiring individual can't physically SEE the interviewee or know anything about their race and cultural background, AA is a necessary evil. In an ideal world, a firm would take applications, resumes, and CVs (obviously without race being on the form) and conduct phone interviews or some other way of interviewing without actually seeing the other person. While this won't completely eliminate the racial aspect, it will dramatically reduce it. Unfortunately, very few firms hire that way.

This can also go the opposite way. White guy is hiring, and a black and a white guy are interviewing. White guy is slightly more qualified. However, white guy doing interviews doesn't want to be seen as racist, so he hires black guy. Again, race (and fear of being called a racist) has caused HR guy to hire the wrong person. This is, for all intents and purposes, what AA does. AA is a law that corporations use so that they won't be called racist/sexist. "See, we totally hire black/hispanic/women!"

Which way is better? I honestly don't know, but at the moment, I do think AA is a necessary evil, mostly because there are WAY more white people in charge of hiring than there are black or Hispanic people. Maybe once that evens out, AA won't be as necessary, but until then, AA is (sadly) needed.

All of that being said, AA does overstep its bounds, and frequently. I do think there are cases where it is complete bullshit, and yes, I feel that the best person for the job should absolutely get the job one hundred percent of the time, without exception. AA is not a perfect system, but I think it is at least slightly better than no system at all.

The problem is that we don't live in a vacuum or in a perfect world. We live in a world where human nature will dictate our behaviors, and unfortunately human nature makes all of us feel slightly more anxious or uncomfortable talking to people who look different, even if it is completely unconscious.* You will always feel more comfortable talking to people who look like you, and who look like those you grew up with. White guy growing up in a white neighborhood? You'll feel more comfortable talking to a white guy. Black guy who grew up in a black neighborhood? You'll feel more comfortable talking to a black guy.

*Obviously, there are exceptions (white guy who grew up in a black neighborhood will probably feel comfortable talking to black guys) to every rule, but don't go red dot me to say "I'm totally not racist!" I'm not saying you're racist, I'm saying you're subject to the same human nature that every single other human being is, and to deny this is to deny your humanity.

 

Oh, and no affirmative action system worth its salt would ever promote the underqualified.

Ever.

So let's move away from THAT strawman: it's not about promoting the underqualified, it's about choosing between a bunch of people who are ALL qualified. Part of it is hiring underrepresented folks, and part of it is actually going out and looking for qualified applicants of all stripes who may not have even been aware.

Malcolm Gladwell is kinda a hack, but he touches on pretty important stuff sometimes. Like D26 said, people that would never have thought they were biased show biases time and time again: men who can't see the performers are much more likely to hire female orchestral members than men who can see them. The same people who thought they were bias-free were entirely shocked by their OWN blind responses.

 

Affirmative action is not a cure.

But it DOES treat one of the symptoms. Yes, we should be treating the underlying diseases of lackluster families, shitty education, and entrenched thinking. That doesn't mean that we can't attack some of the symptoms at the same time -- it's not an either/or thing.

 

Food for thought: economists have repeatedly shown that merely having a "black name" makes one much, much less likely to be hired.

The article in question is titled "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment in Labor Market Discrimination." I'll give you a hint: the answer is yes.

After randomly assigning "black" and "white" names to resumes (using census data to determine which names are most race-biased in assignment) and sending them out in response to listings, they found that all else being equal, a "black" resume was called back for an interview 50% less often.They also found that while having a higher-quality resume led to 30% more call-backs for white names, the effect was only 8%.

So much for the level playing field.

Different groups lead to different output. Women, blacks, Asians, etc. all have access to cultures and experiences that a white male can access only indirectly if at all. We don't know what it is like to be ______. It helps to have a wider variety of voices on staff or on campus.

 

Well, for one, it's impossible for two candidates to be equally qualified. I'm simply saying that a candidates "qualifications" are utterly useless most of the time without some sort of context. AA attempts to understand that. I think it can be helpful, although some implementations are not.

You can't know. That's true. But my point was simply that people who thought they were being entirely objective were not. And, as has been alluded to, hiring/college/etc. biases are almost always likely to disenfranchise black people because of who is doing the hiring.

I'd actually be willing to buy that white players can get unfairly looked over when it comes to basketball teams. If that's the case, why not think more critically about team construction?

If AA is being implemented lazily, it's going to suck. As with most things.

As far as people being aggravated, I don't know what to tell you. People don't often just abandon their privilege without feeling annoyed. That's not a good counter-argument -- there were people who were miffed when slavery ended, and when women got the vote, and when schools were integrated. If gays could get married tomorrow, lots of people would be disgruntled, and that doesn't even affect them. People simply being disgruntled is not a counter-argument to anything, at all.

 

I accept the majority of your argument in theory Nom, but the point those against AA are trying to make is that no, it's NOT just a strawman that AA promotes under qualified people simply because they are a minority. That actively happens, all the time. You yourself admit that such an organisation isn't worth it's salt, and that is in fact the type of organisation in place. Saying it's wrong doesn't mean it's not true. Either hold everyone, white, black, brown, yellow to the higher standard, or hold all those same people to the lower standard.

I understand the arguments being made for subconscious bias and I agree, the vast majority of people would probably be shocked and dismayed by their own responses were they tested. And for conscious bias, of course none here are so naive as to think it doesn't exist. It's a very real and absolutely unacceptable problem.

We have 2 different debate topics going in this thread. I think if the first issue of lowering the bar for under qualified people due to minority status could be resolved, there's not one board member here that wouldn't support an organisation to resolve the issues that the AA supporters in this thread are talking about. AA in it's current form is doing nothing to resolve that very real problem being faced by minorities all the time, and only exacerbating resentment with it's current ham handed approach.

 

If unqualified people are consistently being hired, then a.) that organization is going to fail, and b.) their understanding of affirmative action is lazy and shitty.

I don't support that. A lot of people are lazy and shitty when it comes to diversity, and it hurts them and, by extension, society at large. We should seek to reform or dismantle those structures.

But.

But.

That doesn't mean that we can just say, "hire the most qualified person, regardless of color! I don't see race!", because it isn't realistic. For one, it is still a very different thing to be a minority in this society, and having that background informs literally everything you do. You don't have the option of ignoring it. For another, hiring managers have unconcious biases, even though they might be good people. For a third, two people are never, ever exactly equally qualified. It just doesn't happen, because everybody's experience is different.

 

I'm beginning to think I could have solved all of my problems by applying to go to school at Howard.

 

AA isn't just about fairness in choosing candidates. It's recognizing that it's still a uniquely difficult thing to be a minority in this society, and that provides its own context. I'll try to give you a personal example, that might (hopefully) prove illuminative.

You don't hate black people. I don't hate white people. I'm going to assume both of those things are true, even though the second one is pretty spurious. Let's just go with it.

If you went into a bar, and you were the only white person there, you might note it. You might even feel slightly uncomfortable, especially if people were clearly noting it or pointing it out. If you did this twice in one week, it might be fairly noteworthy, no? It's the sort of feeling that you might travel to experience.

This happens to me every week. Now, of course, I've grown used to it, and it's a fairly innocuous example, but here's the kicker: people still do see color. And it's not just about names on a resume.

 

We are making the same arguments, and simply stressing different aspects of it. I don't disagree that there is a need for some sort of levelling of the playing field, I am simply arguing that the system as it is now is incapable of such a thing. AA in it's current form is kinda like communism. Great on paper, almost impossible to implement.

I respectfully re-word my stance to be: I don't support AA in it's current incarnation, it is fucked up and not resolving any real issue those in a minority face today. That being said, I DO wholeheartedly support the need for there to be some sort of system in place to prevent mullet sporting West Virginians from never allowing a black man in college.

You win this round, sir.

 

I bought a t-shirt at my sister's graduation from there a few weeks ago. They told me it would be mailed within a week, and I still haven't heard from them.

Am I saying that they were only accredited because they were black, and they're unqualified to run a school?

Who knows, Frebis. Who knows.

 

I know this is meant to be a joke, but you know that Howard and other HBCUs do accept white students, right?

 

Of course I do. I just want to have a leg up on the admission process because I'm white.

I'm not sure how much sense this would make for me to go there, because based on the article you posted I could never put that I went to Howard on my resume.