Maybe some here are unable to see the problem with that because they, as Loren claimed, do believe non-white people are inferior, and seek to help us in what they imagine is our inferiority.
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White Liberals Present Themselves as Less Competent in Interactions with African-Americans
- Thread starter thebeave
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Maybe some here are unable to see the problem with that because they, as Loren claimed, do believe non-white people are inferior, and seek to help us in what they imagine is our inferiority.
thebeave
Contributor
What I find amusing (and disturbing) about all this is that its the liberals are the ones that have ranted on for many years about the evils of racial profiling and stereotyping, and yet they are the ones stereotyping and profiling black people as less competent, while the conservatives are treating them much more as equals. More evidence that I think I'm living in the Bizarro world.
Agreed. We have also seen more and more illiberals on the left calling for different treatment based on race, rather than based on anything meaningful. "safe spaces" for minorities reminiscent of "separate but equal"? Check. Different entrance standards for schools? Seen that too. Government cabinets being formed by race? Check. It really is headed to bizarro world if we don't stand up to it.
laughing dog
Contributor
Code switching is code switching. Professionals ought to effectively communicate with their clients. If that means conscious code switching that is what professionals do.
However, my point - which appears to be incapable of acknowledge by some posters - is the code switching does not imply that the speaker thinks the listener is inferior in anyway.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Quite honestly, I don't understand what your questions are meant to be getting at, but I'll try to answer one at least (in bold) nonetheless.
One thing that can be done on a group basis is outreach. So, after identifying groups which have characteristics which result in them being disadvantaged and/or under-reprepresented (in, say, higher education for example, or in certain jobs) one can implement preferential policies to especially encourage people from particularly these groups to work towards and apply for places or posts.
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Jarhyn
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The fact is, racial differences don't matter. These differences come down almost entirely to cultural provenance, language differences, and behavioral expectations arising from both culture and language quirks. You bow to someone raised in Japan. You shake the hand of someone raised in Sweden. And similarly, there is a special way of interacting and "fitting in" with someone born in "urban America". You speak the language of the people you are speaking to, to the best of your abilities, perhaps not verbally, but contextually.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Overstatement. Check.
Gosh that didn't take long. Only a handful of posts since I last suggested overstatement was your apparent modus operandi in the politics forum.
I'm guessing the sort of future dystopia that keeps you awake at night trembling under the duvet is one in which Dr Who is played by a woman.
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ronburgundy
Contributor
Sadly, more bad "science" coming out of social psychology. In the first study with the political speeches, the "competence" words were words taken from lists of words used to convey one's own "status", "dominance", and level in the "social hierarchy". Lower scores did not imply the candidate tried to make themselves look incompetent, just that they did not make and effort to emphasize their own social dominance.
Plus, the audiences that Repub and Dem candidates would have spoken to would differ in important ways. The Dems spoke to almost twice as many mostly-minority audiences as the Republicans did. The audiences were only counted as "mostly-minority" if there was something about the location or the group that allowed the researchers to assume it was mostly nonwhite, such as a speech about Cuban Independence Day or to a mostly minority rural town, etc.. Candidates speak mostly to groups they think they have a shot at winning, which would inherently mean the Dem and Republicans are speaking to different subsets of minorities. Dems would be more likely to speak to just a general audience of black Americans where education levels are low. Repubs are more likely to either speak to very select minority groups that lean Republicans b/c they are business owners (who are also more educated) or Cubans who lean republican and are twice as likely to have a college degree than Hispanics in the US overall.
Besides, Republicans showed almost the same difference in how they spoke to white vs. minority audiences. The difference in their score was 55 points vs. 63 for the Democrats. The only reason the difference did not reach statistical significance for the Republicans is because their sample size was much smaller, due to only giving 14 speeches to minority audiences in 25 years that the study looked at.
As for the other studies using samples of college students, they do not actually have the people interacting with real people and do not actually manipulate the race of the fictional interaction partner. Instead, they manipulate the name given to this fictional persons as either "Emily" or "Lakisha". IOW, the name designed to indicate the person is "black" was a highly uncommon name that has never been among the top 1000 names for US born babies, whereas Emily is the #1 most common name among current college age people.
That means Lakisha is not even common among American blacks, and there is a high probability it is used mostly by mothers who are lower in education relative to average blacks. Plus, the name is Swahili in origin and thus hits the English speaking ear as being foreign.
If you are speaking to a person who is plausibly a non-native English speaker wouldn't it make sense to use "happy" rather than "euphoric"? And yes, that is the choice research subjects were given. They were given specific words to choose between, and all the words categorized as "competent" were less common words less likely to be known by someone with less education or who speak English as a second language. Note that the research effects were tiny, often non-significant and inconsistent, and the samples were small. So, if even a couple of liberals interpreted "Lakisha" as possibly being a non-native English speaker, this would easily account for the results. So, what it likely means is that liberals are more likely to consider the language skills of their audience and try to avoid confusion just for the sake of appearing smart. What it definitely does not tell us is anything about how liberals view or speak to "black people", since the name "Lakisha" is atypical for black people and indicates things other than race.
Plus, the audiences that Repub and Dem candidates would have spoken to would differ in important ways. The Dems spoke to almost twice as many mostly-minority audiences as the Republicans did. The audiences were only counted as "mostly-minority" if there was something about the location or the group that allowed the researchers to assume it was mostly nonwhite, such as a speech about Cuban Independence Day or to a mostly minority rural town, etc.. Candidates speak mostly to groups they think they have a shot at winning, which would inherently mean the Dem and Republicans are speaking to different subsets of minorities. Dems would be more likely to speak to just a general audience of black Americans where education levels are low. Repubs are more likely to either speak to very select minority groups that lean Republicans b/c they are business owners (who are also more educated) or Cubans who lean republican and are twice as likely to have a college degree than Hispanics in the US overall.
Besides, Republicans showed almost the same difference in how they spoke to white vs. minority audiences. The difference in their score was 55 points vs. 63 for the Democrats. The only reason the difference did not reach statistical significance for the Republicans is because their sample size was much smaller, due to only giving 14 speeches to minority audiences in 25 years that the study looked at.
As for the other studies using samples of college students, they do not actually have the people interacting with real people and do not actually manipulate the race of the fictional interaction partner. Instead, they manipulate the name given to this fictional persons as either "Emily" or "Lakisha". IOW, the name designed to indicate the person is "black" was a highly uncommon name that has never been among the top 1000 names for US born babies, whereas Emily is the #1 most common name among current college age people.
That means Lakisha is not even common among American blacks, and there is a high probability it is used mostly by mothers who are lower in education relative to average blacks. Plus, the name is Swahili in origin and thus hits the English speaking ear as being foreign.
If you are speaking to a person who is plausibly a non-native English speaker wouldn't it make sense to use "happy" rather than "euphoric"? And yes, that is the choice research subjects were given. They were given specific words to choose between, and all the words categorized as "competent" were less common words less likely to be known by someone with less education or who speak English as a second language. Note that the research effects were tiny, often non-significant and inconsistent, and the samples were small. So, if even a couple of liberals interpreted "Lakisha" as possibly being a non-native English speaker, this would easily account for the results. So, what it likely means is that liberals are more likely to consider the language skills of their audience and try to avoid confusion just for the sake of appearing smart. What it definitely does not tell us is anything about how liberals view or speak to "black people", since the name "Lakisha" is atypical for black people and indicates things other than race.
ruby sparks
Contributor
just on the topic of 'Lakisha'. I wasn't familiar with the name. apparently, it was most commonly given (in the USA) in 1977.
Don't let the sharp peak fool you. The vertical scale is very stretched. The name never broke into the top 200 in terms of popularity and is currently outside the top 1000.
https://www.behindthename.com/name/lakisha/top/united-states
Emily, apparently was the number 1 most popular name given to a girl in the USA for 12 years in a row (1996-2011 inclusive) and has not been outside the top 20 since 1987.
https://www.behindthename.com/name/emily/top/united-states
I did find another (2003) study (finding racist indicators in employer responses to job application resumes) in which Lakisha was also chosen to represent 'black, American and female', and Emily to represent, 'white, American and female' (same choices as in the OP studies).
Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination
https://www.nber.org/papers/w9873
(In case anyone is interested, 'Greg' and 'Emily' got 50% more callbacks).
Don't let the sharp peak fool you. The vertical scale is very stretched. The name never broke into the top 200 in terms of popularity and is currently outside the top 1000.
https://www.behindthename.com/name/lakisha/top/united-states
Emily, apparently was the number 1 most popular name given to a girl in the USA for 12 years in a row (1996-2011 inclusive) and has not been outside the top 20 since 1987.
https://www.behindthename.com/name/emily/top/united-states
I did find another (2003) study (finding racist indicators in employer responses to job application resumes) in which Lakisha was also chosen to represent 'black, American and female', and Emily to represent, 'white, American and female' (same choices as in the OP studies).
Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination
https://www.nber.org/papers/w9873
(In case anyone is interested, 'Greg' and 'Emily' got 50% more callbacks).
ruby sparks
Contributor
In case anyone is interested, 'Greg' and 'Emily' got 50% more callbacks.
I just posted that twice, in bold and in a contrasting colour, for those readers who may have trouble spotting such things the first time around.
I just posted that twice, in bold and in a contrasting colour, for those readers who may have trouble spotting such things the first time around.
I can see that.
And what racial characteristic renders an individual disadvantaged? This seems to head directly into the finding of the OP.
You also didn't answer thi directly, though i suppose your answer did address it indirectly:
Not an overstatement. A factual observation raised by another poster I agree with. Any criticism whatsoever from me you shall henceforth call an overstatement. I know your game now. And your adhom potshots don't make you look any better to me. You have your moments, that's not them. You can do better.
laughing dog
Contributor
The statement "It is really headed towards"bizarro world" is not a factual observation, but an opinion. You really ought to be able to do better.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Black skin?
Seriously, I really don't see what your point is, and I don't even understand the racial proxy question.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Only when I consider it an overstatement.
Hey, even you agree that the 'threat from the left' is much less in real terms than the 'threat from the right', yeah? That's what I'm referring to when I say overstatement. I'm not saying there's no valid issues concerning the left. But let's keep them in perspective and proportion. I don't know quite what you meant about 'bizarro world' but my guess is that in the USA at least, we are not talking about two threats anywhere close to each other in terms of scale and that the current 'world order' is probably not about to be replaced, or possibly even seriously challenged.
ruby sparks
Contributor
And I'll add something. You know as well as I do that the sort of criticisms of the left which you routinely and persistently engage in are coincidentally the same ones that the right exaggerates to smear anything remotely resembling the 'not right', let alone the actual left, of which there is dang all in the USA, and that as such you are doing the right a service and doing a very good impersonation of them.
On balance, despite having regular doubts, I am still, on balance, crediting you with much more authentic motivations than many here, who see you as a faux-progessive and faux-liberal and faux other things. This requires me to believe you when you say you are only attacking the excesses of your own 'side' (broadly speaking) for benign purposes.
But it's not easy. A lot of the time it's like pulling teeth to get you to see the broader picture in the round and spend at least a little bit of your time here acknowledging that there are much bigger trends in most of the issues you choose to focus on, and that they trend the other way to your worries about them.
Take this thread for example. Anyone arriving from mars would be forgiven for thinking that the big problem with racism in the USA was that some liberals may exhibit slight unconscious bias regarding it, or that attempts to do something for blacks was going to bring about the apocalypse. Quite honestly, my guess would be that any martian visitors are indeed going to think the world is bizarro already, and maybe not for the same reasons you have.
On balance, despite having regular doubts, I am still, on balance, crediting you with much more authentic motivations than many here, who see you as a faux-progessive and faux-liberal and faux other things. This requires me to believe you when you say you are only attacking the excesses of your own 'side' (broadly speaking) for benign purposes.
But it's not easy. A lot of the time it's like pulling teeth to get you to see the broader picture in the round and spend at least a little bit of your time here acknowledging that there are much bigger trends in most of the issues you choose to focus on, and that they trend the other way to your worries about them.
Take this thread for example. Anyone arriving from mars would be forgiven for thinking that the big problem with racism in the USA was that some liberals may exhibit slight unconscious bias regarding it, or that attempts to do something for blacks was going to bring about the apocalypse. Quite honestly, my guess would be that any martian visitors are indeed going to think the world is bizarro already, and maybe not for the same reasons you have.
Asserting this doesn't make it true. You're still calling it a good thing to discriminate against those who have done nothing wrong and received no special benefit.
ruby sparks
Contributor
I doubt there are very many if any whites in America who have not received any benefit at all. Sure, some may also be very disadvantaged.
For the umpteenth time, I will use an example from my country. Quotas for joining the police, in order to redress a severe imbalance in favour of protestants and against catholics. Many protestants made the exact same arguments as you. And yet, they reluctantly bit the bullet and agreed to let it happen, and as a result of the policy, there are far fewer policing problems, and trust me, ours were (and occasionally still are but much less often) on a par with yours.
Sometimes Loren, the greater benefits for society as a whole can outweigh the drawbacks for a small number of individuals.
Also, what you are talking about there is essentially reverse racism, and a blind man speeding by on a horse could see that that can't be equated to its counterpart, majority racism by those with more of the power and privilege.
The problem with this is that you are assuming the ongoing discrimination. Showing that there are some out there who discriminate is not enough, it takes widespread discrimination to have much of an effect because otherwise the victims can simply go elsewhere.
When you interpret race as an indication that you need to dumb down that's a sign of racist thought. Someone who isn't racist would see no reason to dumb down just because someone wasn't Asian or white.