• Senal@programming.dev
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    5 days ago

    In a system where inherent racism didn’t exist that would work, are you assuming that the current system wouldn’t disproportionately skew the beneficiaries to the existing racial bias for some reason ?

    That just gives you the same problem, a step down in the chain.

    Systemic racism doesn’t start once you hit a threshold of income, targeting the poor will still skew towards whatever biases exist in the system.

    disproportionately benefit African-Americans

    Either you don’t understand why African-Americans would need additional help or you are framing it that way on purpose.

    By what metric are you getting “disproportionate” ?

    continuing to perpetuate the idea that skin colour is somehow the most important thing about people

    It sounds like systemic racism is over so we can all just go back to seeing everyone as equals. /s

    Again, either you have a fundamental misunderstanding or are purposely framing it that way.

    To be clear, these measures aren’t “skin color is most important so let’s base policy on that aspect”

    they are closer to

    “The system is actively using skin colour and ethnicity to detrimentally target people who should really be equal in standing, let’s not pretend that that isn’t happening and try to address it”

    • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      To clarify, I don’t believe in the creation of any deliberately biased system, but I believe the main societal issue is overwhelmingly one of wealth disparity.

      I’m not assigning a moral value when I use the phrase “disproportionate benefit”. I’m alluding to the disproportionate degree of poverty experienced by African-Americans. Poverty relief should therefore benefit them more. If there was no differential distribution of wealth with respect to race, the benefits of poverty relief would be neutral with respect to race.

      Additionally, the person I responded to is very clearly describing a situation related to a student’s socioeconomic status. I absolutely believe some kind of “blind” application process is necessary to minimise the impact of a number of possible prejudices held by the admissions team.

      • Senal@programming.dev
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        4 days ago

        To clarify, I don’t believe in the creation of any deliberately biased system.

        As in you don’t believe it’s possible for a biased system to exist or you don’t think it’s possible to do it deliberately, something else ?

        but I believe the main societal issue is overwhelmingly one of wealth disparity.

        I agree, and the idea of providing a baseline humanitarian standard of living isn’t impossible it’s just very unlikely without some hefty and painful foundational changes to how societies are currently working.

        I’m not assigning a moral value when I use the phrase “disproportionate benefit”. I’m alluding to the disproportionate degree of poverty experienced by African-Americans. Poverty relief should therefore benefit them more. If there was no differential distribution of wealth with respect to race, the benefits of poverty relief would be neutral with respect to race.

        Additionally, the person I responded to is very clearly describing a situation related to a student’s socioeconomic status. I absolutely believe some kind of “blind” application process is necessary to minimise the impact of a number of possible prejudices held by the admissions team.

        Fair enough, it seems i entirely misunderstood what you meant, my apologies.

        • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          No worries, thanks for replying. When I say I don’t believe in them, I mean I don’t believe we (i.e. society) should create those systems. Unfortunately I absolutely believe we do create them, both deliberately and inadvertently.

          • Senal@programming.dev
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            3 days ago

            That’s an interesting perspective.

            You think they’d form on their own? or we shouldn’t be getting to the point where they are needed or something else entirely ?

            • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              I think some degree of meritocracy (i.e. recognition of a skills hierarchy) is necessary for human advancement, but as it currently stands it’s impossible to separate that out from wealth privilege. If I had the answer, I’d make sure to tell everybody.

              There’s a million other processes by which wealth favours the accumulation of wealth, and it’s largely this “logic of capital” that results in the formation of class hierarchies and entrenched inequality/capital enclaves.

              That’s probably secondary to geography in the first instance, e.g. wealth in the form of agricultural surpluses and the use of grain as a fungible commodity and proto-currency.

              At this point a huge amount of wealth redistribution seems like a good start, and if it all flows back to the top, which I’d expect it to, then it’ll just need redistributing again.