Positive Discrimination

[paigetheoracle]

Positive discrimination leads to resentment as it's not earned and works against the group or individual, therefore, selected. Equal treatment is truly fair and not resented. It's like suing someone for millions of dollars for damages, for a fault partially you're own (Choice - you didn't have to be where you were, doing what you were doing and adult responsibility is accepting this). Yes, support someone who supported you as an individual or member of your society and became ill or injured through this sense of duty, until death but not over the top 'whinging' (me over all others - I get millions, they get left to rot in the gutter with no help): This is a follow up to another thread on political correctness that I erroneously posted on The Philosophy and Humanities forum (should have been here too).

[InfiniteNow]

First point: Discrimination is discrimination. It's silly to say "positive" or "negative."

 

Second point: There are already two PC threads on this site. Why did you open a third?

[hallenrm]

The title of this thread touched me indeed! let me explain why.

 

In the part of the world that is the abode for my body, a certain class of people have enjoyed positive discrimination for ages, only because they were born in certain families.

 

simultaneously there were/are others, perhaps much more numerous, who have suffered negative discrimination.

 

the result is the glaring social inequalities.

 

what is still more disturbing is the trend where the members of the majority community claim that they are suffering because of positive discrimination that the minority communities enjoy in the modern political state.

[paigetheoracle]

First point: Discrimination is discrimination. It's silly to say "positive" or "negative."

 

Second point: There are already two PC threads on this site. Why did you open a third?

 

I didn't invent the terms, just used them to delineate something I wanted to say or haven't you heard them before? (I live in Britain and if you're an American [or from somewhere else] they might not be used over there, where you live).

 

I opened this thread to make this particular point - why did the other two open their threads and did you complain about the second or just the third?

[Racoon]

right paigetheoracle.. Its a British thing.

I researched it a bit, and found a few articles on it.. here is an abrreviated explanation/analysis... :eek2:

 

Heres the Url, but I am unsure if you can view it, its from Infotrac database

 

http://web5.infotrac-college.com/wadsworth/session/458/382/89451807/18!xrn_3_0_A140959241

 

Personnel Today, Jan 17, 2006 p10

Is there a case for positive discrimination? Michael Millar.

 

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 Reed Business Information Ltd. Positive discrimination is illegal. But could it make our workforces more representative of society? Michael Millar investigates.

 

Last week, Personnel Today revealed that Trevor Phillips, the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), was backing a recruitment company that was catering for graduates from a "visibly non-white background". This was a clear case of positive discrimination, which is contrary to the Race Relations Act 1976.

 

The firm, Rare Recruit-ment, subsequently changed the wording on its website and declared its services were open to all. But while Rare's 'cut-off point' for applicants breached the Act, it is not difficult to see the merit in what it was trying to do: give employers the opportunity to search a pool of talent that traditionally they may have ignored.

 

The official Labour Force Survey shows that, for men, the difference in employment rates between ethnic minority groups and the general population is just under 20%. This means services provided by the likes of Rare are vital, according to the firm's backers.

...

But employers with similarly honourable intentions have found themselves on the wrong side of the law.

 

Somerset and Avon Police is being investigated by the CRE after reports revealed it had rejected 186 white applicants because its workforce was "over-represented by white men".

 

Would it be so bad to allow positive discrimination if it helps to create a workforce that is more representative of the community?

 

This is particularly relevant for public sector services such as the police, which face tough government targets on the number of officers with ethnic minority backgrounds they should employ.

...

Positive discrimination in job selection because of gender is unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act (1975). But this begs the question again of whether or not discriminating against male candidates would be a 'quick-fix', allowing women to rapidly occupy jobs they thought would never be available to them.

 

This argument doesn't hold water with Alison Hodgson, chairwoman of the Association of Graduate Recruiters. She believes it is much more constructive and healthy to base recruitment decisions on talent.

 

"Quotas are the stuff of last century. The world of work has moved on so much," she said. "Colour is a red herring - what should be important is what skills you need to build your business."

...

Disincentive

 

However, Bothwick believes this still doesn't make a case for allowing positive discrimination, which she said could actually act as a disincentive to those it is trying to help.

 

"Most organisations won't support positive discrimination and most candidates won't either. Would you like to know you're only in a job because of the colour of your skin?" she asked.

 

"Where businesses have identified a gap in the reach of their recruitment and there is specialist advice available it is worth pursuing, but not to the detriment of anyone else. It's about finding the brightest talent from the biggest pool."

 

Even the EOC, despite its damning survey findings, agrees that positive discrimination should give way to positive action.

[paigetheoracle]

what is still more disturbing is the trend where the members of the majority community claim that they are suffering because of positive discrimination that the minority communities enjoy in the modern political state.

 

Do you mean the majority are discriminated against by the minority? (Rich by poor I assume you mean). Well I personally don't want much out of life and hey presto haven't got it either! (big houses/fast cars/million dollars in the bank etc). The thing is that the rich may well not suffer from problems of deprivation but they can suffer from overindulgence. A modest life leads to modest problems and a wanton one to large problems. I personally just want to sit and think about things in thoughtful meditation but have noise pollution inflicted on me from outside by those who want you to know what they have (more is less). This is a psychological problem for me and a psychiatric one for them but they don't realize it (projection based on feelings of inferiority). Understanding their situation doesn't help mine. Sorry this is getting too wordy for me. Soyanara!

[InfiniteNow]

I didn't invent the terms, just used them to delineate something I wanted to say or haven't you heard them before? (I live in Britain and if you're an American [or from somewhere else] they might not be used over there, where you live).

That's a good point. I was using short hand to indicate that the descriptor at the front of the term is not always appropriate. Another example is people saying "reverse psychology." There's nothing reverse about it... it's all just psychology. Same with discrimination.

 

Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination. Separation of objects based on characteristics believed to be common among those objects.

 

I opened this thread to make this particular point

Which is what?

 

why did the other two open their threads and did you complain about the second or just the third?

Simply trying to guide you into becoming a better poster. One of the previous threads was closed due to lack of scientific input and general emotional ranting. The other thread I referenced remains open.

 

If the purpose of this thread is unique, please make more clear what the difference is. Otherwise, the moderators may join the two into one.

 

 

Cheers. :eek2:

[munch]

Just wanted to remind everyone that discrimination isn't by itself a bad thing. Remember back when people used "good discrimination" instead of "good judgement?" Admittedly, the modern use of the word is mostly negative, but it's still ok to discriminate based on talent, history, work ethic, etc.

In its usual context, sex, age, race, whatever, I agree that discrimination is usually a bad thing. I say usually because I can think of a few examples where this kind of discrimination would be useful. Say for example a doctor of some sort needed a receptionist for his clinic in Chinatown, and he had a choice between a Chinese and a white woman with equal abilities. He would want to hire the Chinese woman so his clients would feel more comfortable. That's racial discrimination, but both the receptionist and clients would be better for it. Or consider an Express (trendy 20-something clothing) store. I'd rather buy a revealing halter top from someone my age than from someone older than my grandma. (Not that I would, I'm just saying.)

In short, there is such a thing as positive discrimination.

[InfiniteNow]

Interesting point munch, but I do not really think your examples made clear the positive aspect of it.

 

Another potential route might be to discuss the classification of things. All the way back to the first few life forms distinguishing between ouch and not ouch, the ability to identify and attribute meaning to things, to "discriminate" between them is very beneficial. This is easily noticable when discriminating between food choices as something potentially poisonous or something potentially healthy.

 

This is a bit more abstract, however, from the discrimination being discussed here, but is worthy of discussion all the same.

 

It's when discrimination is done with no real information about the object of discrimination that it causes problems. To believe that one can be pidgeon holed by their appearance, their gender, their religion, their location, the car the drive or the shirt they wear or the food they eat... that's just wrong.

 

We'll always have more in common than we have different.

[munch]

It's when discrimination is done with no real information about the object of discrimination that it causes problems. To believe that one can be pidgeon holed by their appearance, their gender, their religion, their location, the car the drive or the shirt they wear or the food they eat... that's just wrong.

 

I agree with you there. The point I was trying to make is that in certain rare cases, discrimination can be helpful. In most cases, though, discrimination is a bad thing.

[TheFaithfulStone]

An interesting thread, and one that I have some experience with.

 

Suffice it to say, that where I went for high-school nearly everybody qualified for "reverse discrimination."

 

But did everybody get it? Ohhhh nooo...

 

Instead what happens is this - there is a trait, which has absolutely nothing to do with your abilities - but does tend to be an indicator that you may have been getting the shaft for the last hundred and fifty years or so.

 

Let's just put it in concrete terms - the rich (mostly white) kids can (mostly) afford to go to college even with average grades and middling test scores. The poor (mostly black) kids (mostly) can't.

 

Now, there aren't any scholarship strictly for white people (and there shouldn't be) but there are a few strictly for black kids - and they are generally awarded to the best and the brightest of the subset.

 

This actually has the opposite of the intended effect - the best and the brightest of the "minority" community get all of the good scholarships and opportunities - while the "average" of the disadvantaged get left out in the cold. By contrast, the "average" of the already pre-advantaged students get to keep their advantages.

 

Do we see how this in fact increases the perceived differences between different classes of people with ZERO real differences?

 

Let's say we had 100 people, 75 have red hair, 25 have brown. You give everybody with red hair a dollar. Then you give the top 20% another dollar (assume they're evenly distributed.) Okay - you've now got 15 red haired people with 2 dollars, 60 with one dollar. 5 brown haired people with one dollar, and 15 with nothing. Now you say, well, that doesn't seem fair - let's give the top twenty percent of the browns another dollar to even things out - so that's five extra dollars - only it's the same five people so you now have 5 brown hairs with two dollars - and fifteen who've still got nothing.

 

Now, of course, the world doesn't really work like this - because not all red haired people are going to start out with a dollar, and not all brown haired people are going to start out with nothing - but in general - it shows how "affirmative action" hurts the community it's intended to benefit. (Add to it the fact that having the dollar in the first places means you're more likely to get another, and you see how quickly this gets out of control.)

 

It has nothing to do with "being a handout" or "not being responsible." In general, those kind of excuses have the subtext of "but I should get that!"

 

By way of example, the valedictorian in my class accounted for fully 50% of the merit aid awarded to a class of nearly 500 people.

 

The playing field is already not level, and dumping money on the part that's already nearer the summit only serves to build a big cliff of cash thats even harder to clamor over from the bottom.

 

That said - you can't just do nothing, can you?

 

TFS

[sebbysteiny]

What a great thread. I've given this a lot of thought and I have some original theories. Will post more soon.

 

As a taster, what is the difference between a man who puts money into an organisation to beat up a minority and someone else who puts money into an organisation to protect that minority? They are both, on superficial examination, racist which leads to the absurd conclusion that anti-racism is racism.

[sebbysteiny]

I wanted to put my theory today, but I've been distracted by other threads. I will try tomorrow.

 

Needless to say, this thread is fundamentally different from all 'political correctness' threads and the resolution of this apparant moral paradox is highly relevent for understanding almost all areas of political science and goes straight to the heart of our society and everything we stand for.

 

Oh, and TheFaithfulStone....

 

Damned good point. Quality point from me. I hope somebody will continue discussing the implications of this.

[munch]

Now, there aren't any scholarship strictly for white people (and there shouldn't be)

 

Speaking as a white college student, I've been curious about this point for a while. I've heard people say that white-only scholarships are fundamentally wrong, but I've never heard a convincing argument supporting this view; it's introduced as a fundamental truth. I'd appreciate if someone could enlighten me. Just please don't say "racism" and leave it at that. In my opinion, it's racism to have race-based scholarships at all. Keep in mind that there would be serious repercussions if a non-race-based scholarship made race a mandatory question. In every scholarship I've ever seen, including the private ones, race has always been an optional question. And it's not like choosing not to answer marks you as minority. I never answered the question out of fear that, if faced with a choice between me and a minority, whover chose would pick the minority to boost their percentages and show the world they weren't racist.

Wow, that paragraph ran a lot longer than I intended.

Point is, a lot of good topics in your post, FaithfulStone. I'm just looking for a reason why white-only scholarships are inherently bad.

[munch]

I get it! You make a new line every few sentences to make your post more readable! :hihi:

 

I actually did get a scholarship (which I ended up turning down) that, though it didn't state it explicitly, was white-only. That was the Ivgvar Olafson (made-up name) memorial scholarship, which was only available to people of Finnish descent who went to the University of Minnesota.

 

While I was applying to colleges, I got the feeling that white males were really the most discriminated-against group in terms of both scholarships and admissions.

 

I remember searching countless websites for scholarships I could apply for, and not qualifying for most of them. Out of 10 scholarships, I'd estimate 4 were for women only, 4 were for minorities, and 1 was for both. The amount of financial aid for the perceived victims of discrimination was stunning. I invite anyone to try to find an academic or need-based scholarship and see if this is still true 3 years later.

 

I had good reason for not identifying race on college applications, as I mentioned earlier. Public schools are all held to quotas stating that they had to enroll X amount of minorities. Identifying myself as white only put me at a disadvantage. Most private universities have similar policies, in order to keep funding from whatever sources wouldn't support a racist university.

 

The only places being white might help were the Old Boys' Clubs at Ivy League colleges. I say "might" because the only way it could help is if you were either "old money" or rich enough to become a potential donor to the college. As a middle-class Midwesterner from a 4th or so generation immigrant family, I wasn't rich enough or respectable enough to qualify for the Old Boys' benefits.

 

(I'm not trying to disrespect Ivy league schools. There's a reason they made up my top two out of five choices. It's not athletics. :) )

 

Ideally, available scholarships would be given out without consideration of race, and be based on merit and need. To continue with TheFaithfulStone's model, that would mean the people with no money at the start would be given a dollar, evening the field partially if not completely. Money would then be doled out based on academic prowess.

 

I probably get negative points for being the first to mention Martin Luther King, :D but he put it so well: "One day my children will be judged not by the color of their skin..." you know the rest. His dream didn't include his kids getting preferential treatment based on race, only that they be treated as equals.

 

There's so much more I want to say, but it's way past my bedtime and I'd just end up rambling at this point.

 

:) <== current state of my brain

[sebbysteiny]

Racism and Positive discrimination

 

Introduction

 

I first considered this point (once again) from a discussion I had over the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. My opponent (for want of a better word) accused Israel of being a racist state. However having been to Haifa and other cities, it was obvious Jews and Arabs get equal treatment. Also, there is not one law that is based on race in the whole state of Israel: except one. Israel’s immigration policy gives people with one Jewish grandparent an immediate passport, but for those without a Jewish grandparent, one has a similar asylem and immigration policy to other Western countries.

 

The point put to me was that Israel is therefore a racist state because it has a law that discriminates in favour of one race to the detriment of all the other races. However that law is the founding principal of Zionism and its entire purpose is to protect the Jewish community from global anti-Semitism. It was infact chosen by Hitler since that was the very criteria necessary to guarantee a place in the gas chambers of Auschvitz. It seemed to me that the law’s sole purpose was to fight racism and not be it.

 

The moral stakes couldn’t be higher. On the one hand, you have a policy which might be racist, which is the most disgusting ideology humanity has created which leads to immense suffering possibly even genocide, and on the other hand you have a policy which might be the exact polar opposite of racism as it tries to stop such suffering wherever it may be found.

 

I thought it would take only about five minutes to resolve this dilemma. Boy was I wrong.

 

So to simplify this problem, I decided to retreat behind a more clear cut example by trying to distinguish between an obviously bad racist action of funding an orginisation whose aim is to beat up black people on the streets, and an obviously good anti-racism action of funding an orginisation trying to stop such black people from being beaten up in the streets.

 

To my horror, even in this extreme situation, the problem did not go away. Those funding the anti racism orginisation were engaged in an activity that discriminated in favour of blacks to the detriment of all other races, and were therefore apparently being racist too.

 

What the hell was going on here? Is the difference between good and evil, racism and anti-racism, a fiction? Does the entire moral compass of Western Society fall apart? After all, it is our disgust of racism and our desire to stop it wherever it may be that separates us from the Nazis. Is David Cameroon a mini Hitler for trying to get more women and minorities into his party? Is Tony Blair? Is Martin Luther King nothing more than a racist bigot?

 

The Problem

 

Eventually I realised that to be anti-racist one has to try and stop one particular race from being victimised. It does not matter how you do it, you must spend a disproportionate amount of resources (time or money) on one race over another. This is discrimination in the same way that spending the education budged exclusively to white schools is discrimination as was done in Apartheid South Africa. So does that mean our entire moral compass collapses?

 

Eventually I hit on the idea of positive discrimination. Could it be that positive discrimination would cover all anti-racism and morally correct efforts whist racism (or negative discrimination) would cover all the racist and morally wrong actions?

 

If so, it would explain why both actions appear to be very similar, since they are both discrimination. But if this concept is to be anything other than an intellectual fudge, there must be some principal that distinguishes one from the other.

 

My solution

 

In this solution, I will use some of the following as illustrative examples.

a) i) an orginisation set up to beat up black people on the streets.

ii)an orginisation to protect black people from being beaten up.

:lol: i) an orginisation set up to give Jewish people better access to contacts of the successful members of that community.

ii) a synagogue.

c) i) disproportionate spending on education in majority Christian areas.

ii) disproportionate spending on education in minority Muslim areas.

iii) disproportionate spending on or against education in minority Jewish areas.

d) i) giving money to a Muslim charity.

ii) giving money to a charity in America designed to improve education in a Christian school.

e) i) an academic boycott of Jewish students in Nazi Germany.

ii) an academic boycott of white South African Universities in Apartheid South Africa

iii) an academic boycott of Israel, American or British Universities in consequence of their government’s foreign policy.

 

If I am right, then (excluding b and d) the i's should be racism and the ii’s should be positive discrimination. bi and ciii should provide interesting insight in its own right, and quite clearly b ii should not be described as racism.

 

There are two types of racism: firstly, where one race is specifically targeted for unequal treatment (which I will call ‘direct racism’); and secondly where one race is specifically targeted for favourable treatment (which I will call ‘indirect racism’).

 

So my first criteria for an action to be ‘racist’ is that the policy must have a ‘victimised race’. To be a victimised race, that race must be subjected to a real and practical disadvantage to other races as a direct consequence of the policy. ‘Real and practical’ means, when considered with all other factors, that race has a disadvantage competing with other races. Simply having less of an advantage than it would otherwise have is not enough; it must put that race into a second class position. This covers direct racism.

 

So ai is a racist organisation because it means that black people will be more likely to be beaten up putting the black community at a real and practical disadvantage. However, aii is not racist because there is no victimised race. The whites aren’t disadvantaged in any way whatsoever.

 

However this is not enough to help with c. ci is a racist act, but it gives one race favourable treatment rather than victimising another. It is therefore indirect racism.

 

So it seems my first criteria can successfully distinguish direct racism from positive discrimination and indirect racism. Now one must find a second criteria to distinguish between positive discrimination and indirect racism. Allas this is even harder.

 

My first attempt for finding the second criteria is this: Is there a race that is put at an unfair advantage? By ‘advantage’, again, I mean a ‘real and practical’ advantage: simply having less of a disadvantage when all other factors are considered is not enough.

 

If we apply this to ci, we see that the spending gives the majority Christian real and practical advantage so it is indirect racism (it’s working!!). But in cii, since Muslim minorities in all countries in the Western World are disproportionately unsuccessful, at first glance it appears the Muslim Community would not have a real and practical advantage so it is not racism.

 

Further examples and unsolved problems

 

Up until now, this has worked. But problems start to arise with ciii :). The Jewish community is disproportionately successful in all communities in which it settles). This is because the desire to work hard and learn and never give up are immensely strong in Jewish culture. Whist it would be good if all cultures have this work ethic, they don’t. Clearly the Jewish community (at the moment) would be given a real and practical advantage if disproportionate money was invested in their education. But what happens if the government compensates for this by underfunding Jewish community education (direct discrimination)? Alternatively, one could argue that equal funding gives the Jewish community a real and practical advantage and it is therefore indirect racism. But surely anything but equal treatment is clearly racism? Dealing with the indirect discrimination point, one can say the advantage of the Jewish community is not unfair since there is nothing stopping other cultures from having a similar work ethic. The solution is thus not to bring the Jewish community down but to bring other cultures up so it is not indirectly racist. However I am totally stumped regarding the direct discrimination problem.

 

There are other unresolved issues to. di and dii could be considered racist, or positive discrimination. But at the same time, could it not be said that people have a right to support their own community?

 

I suspect the answer to this lies by suitably defining the word ‘unfair’. Perhaps there could be a closed list of advantages which would be considered to be ‘fair’. The word ‘unfair’ could also be inserted into the first criteria for direct discrimination. But I admit, beyond this, there is still fog. However what I have presented can distinguish between right and wrong in 95% of cases.

 

bi and bii I will analyse in a later post, but essentially they give the Jewish community an advantage of social networking over the other communities. Of course this could apply to the Muslim community and the Christian community as well. But one only needs to step onto a University Campus to see that such organisations are widespread. Are they racist? If they are, then are places of worship racist? And if not, what separates such an organisation from obtaining a beach?

 

I will give these issues all more thought and hope to put up another post soon.

 

More Criteria

 

A third criteria that must be considered is whether the target race of the policy has a real and practical need which needs protecting. If so, then it is must be positive discrimination. This may not be necessary if the first two criteria (when finalised to iron out the above problems) becomes sufficient to make the distinction without need for this third criteria, but it could nevertheless be useful to make sure we have the correct solution.

 

Lastly, I want to talk about the phantom factor of intent. One could try and say (as one does in the criminal law) that the difference between a legitimate and an illegitimate act is intent. However, even Adolf Hitler was only intending to make the world a better place. He might have said something like the German people were so oppressed by the Jewish conspirators that there was a genuine need for the final solution. One can only conclude that intent is irrelevant. An action is either racist or not racist and it makes no difference what the perpetrator was trying to achieve. This means that if an academic boycott is a racist measure, it does not matter that the people trying to propose this are only trying to do what they believe to be good. Afterall, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Does that mean that anybody proposing a racism measure IS a racist?

 

Hopefully, I will finish what I began and post a complete solution soon.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Stebby, Christian Muslim and Jewish are not (always) races.

 

You can choose to be any one of those things - but you don't (with rare exceptions) get to choose your race.

 

Religious discrimination is a bad thing, to be sure, but it's not "racism."

 

One more thing - your post is EXTREMELY theoretical - and most of the examples you give are not really germane to the current discussion.

 

How do your classifiers work when applied to the specific situations the rest of the thread was largely about.

TFS