Regressive NPC is regressive.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Insuring diversity is an impossible task. If I have a family, but don't marry a black woman and adopt a hispanic boy and and asian girl, does that mean I'm racist? At some point, practical matters must be considered.

Hmmm, I'm thinking on this now.
Meritocracy perpetuates whatever (related) inequalities have preceded it.
Meritocracy for college admission perpetuates any and all educational inequalities persons experienced beforehand. That is how one can call it racist.

It is racist because it looks racist. It simply would not provide opportunity for some groups because of other circumstances.

It probably has cultural roots. Asians are stereotyped for having tiger moms and involved family. The success of the children can rise on this. Asians will produce some high success on culture.

Black and brown people on the other hand, are quite disadvantaged in the US. As such, far fewer of this group will rise to the level of success as the first group.

Privilege is thinking something is not a problem because it is not a problem to you personally.

It is no small task to decide the best way to deal with this observable disparity. Setting quotas is one way of ensuring people from different "tribes" get a chance at the education offered by a specific institution. That may not be the best way. More solutions are needed to improve the situation. Racism is institutionalized in government, education, finance, the law, law enforcement, judicial sentencing, and in peoples' minds in the US. Given an equal footing among groups of people, a meritocracy could make sense because you would see people from every group rising to the challenge.

If "Privilege is thinking something is not a problem because it is not a problem to you personally," then isn't the notion of privilege, itself privilege? Thinking that all 'white people' have privilege is denying the problems of 'white people' because those who are not white don't have the same problems.

Everyone has some privilege. 'White privilege' has received an undue share of publicity, IMO.

Ok, lets focus on the poor, drug addiction, and how minorities are mistreated and fix those problems. We won't have to mention, ahem, and we can make things more equal at the same time. We would also need to make sure we teach our children to treat all people like people.

How? Is there really any way to eliminate poverty? If not, what good does focusing on them accomplish? Drug addiction is more practical, IMO, but around me (Philadelphia area) and the places I go (Maryland, Eastern West Virginia) addiction seems to be pretty equal. Obviously, that's not a scientific sample! "How minorities are mistreated" seems slippery to me. What has constituted a "minority" has shifted quite a bit over the last 150 years. Even if we focus on today, what you're really talking about is an unguided process that is difficult to specifically identify rather an individual group or person controlling anything. While I think all of the things you mention are honorable endeavors, its a bit like trying to fill a barrel without a bottom.

Teach our children to treat all people like people? Sign me up, I agree!

Listen to TED more. The data is there more than ever. Except for police, reporting is spotty at best and records can be purged (specific interest is in police involved shootings, there is no federal reporting requirement). The educated folks that come up with good solutions that address roots of problems are more numerous than ever. Fighting poverty reduces crime in poor neighborhoods, no race qualifier needed. Last come, first served succeeds for some when considering supported family relocation (support for poor families to move to a better neighborhood) while the current method is designed to help none of them (it is important to change children's residence location as young as possible and at least within the first 2 years of life to have a real positive effect on their lives, currently first come first served wait lists take years or a decade to get served.)

Ask yourself : "what if it was me?"

Doing something based solely on immutable characteristics is racist.

The leftist concept of tribe is by definition a racist concept. People have to be looked at as individuals and not members of a tribe.

Any policy based only on race, gender, ethnicity, or any other outward characteristic is a racist policy.

By your logic, an Asian child from a poor family should not get into say Harvard even if qualified, but Colin Powell's child should purely because of skin color. Even if Colin Powell's child is not as smart.

Each case should be evaluated based on circumstance and ability. Allowing someone who is not prepared to enter Harvard just to meet a quota is a sure path to failure.

Statistics have shown that students who go to a college above their ability, just to meet a quota, have a much higher chance of failure and a much higher stress level.

Equal opportunity does not mean equal outcome. Some people are just smarter, have a better work ethic, are more athletic, whatever. How a person looks should have nothing to do with what opportunities they are allowed.

Being sure to accept some people of a particular group is not based solely on immutable characteristics. It arises from treatment and conditions that happen before college.

People do have to be looked at as individuals. The fact remains that the group of black heritage are looked upon differently long before college and in many different areas of life. Teachers expect less, jail sentences are longer, negative assumptions are made, police are more brutal, societal decisions lead to poor black neighborhoods, and black people are often blamed for being poor.

There are plenty of policies that favor, advantage, and privilege white people.

If my logic says that, then I have poorly represented what I mean. (Colin Powell's child would need to be among the most meritorious of his "tribe" to be accepted). The idea is that all people being treated equal, we would see a more representative cross section of the public succeeding to the high standard of the best schools in the nation. All people not being treated equal, using only merit to admit people to college would be a policy to maintain an advantage to those groups with the privilege to receive the best schooling prior to college, i.e. racist.

Yup, we want people to be prepared for the college they attend. But, alas, we do not have the same opportunities based largely on skin color. But black folks do graduate Harvard, don't they?

I do not deny statistics. I think California recently changed Affirmative Action. The statistics changed a bunch, you describe the beforehand I think.

Some people are just smarter, skin color does not dictate this. Work ethic can be affected by many things. Childhood experiences can have a drastic affect. Maybe even the first 2 or 3 years. Skin color does not dictate work ethic. Culture affects childhood experiences, school affects childhood experiences, geography affects childhood experiences. The way someone looks should have nothing to do with the opportunities they are allowed at any age, especially 0 to 18.

Equal opportunity at the university level is just a band aid for all the shit that happens before that.

You state "Being sure to accept some people of a particular group is not based solely on immutable characteristics." By definition, if a requirement of membership to a particular group is color, gender, or ethnicity, that is an immutable characteristic.

If all the problems for people of color are prior to university then we should remove affirmative action at the college level and let only those who are qualified to attend. A level playing field as it were. Then we can focus on all these pre-university problems. That way when a person is ready for college, they will be prepared.

Since you feel that part of the problem is more related to the lack of good schools in minority neighborhoods, then why are the Democrats so against school vouchers. Would vouchers not allow parents to pick the best schools for their children? This should help level the playing field.

I don't blame poor people for being poor, I blame them for making bad life choices. It has been proven that in the U.S. if you graduate high school, don't do drugs, don't break the law, get a job, and don't have children without being married, you will not remain poor.

This is true for all races. The nice thing about this is that these are all choices that anybody can make. I am not saying it is easy, but there is nothing stopping people from making good choices. Nobody is forcing people to quit school, or do drugs, or get pregnant, or not get a job. When you make bad choices, you get bad rewards.
You also state that "There are plenty of policies that favor, advantage, and privilege white people." I would like you to point out and list these policies so that we can have them changed. Any policy that favors people by color is wrong, and I will stand by your side to change them. I just don't see any written or governmental policies that fit this narrative. So please educate me on this.

I am finding it difficult to find written policies today. I am finding that perpetuation of old notions and treatment are a vehicle to keep oppression going. I am finding that poverty-fighting measures are effective at reducing violent crime in poor white and poor black neighborhoods. Black persons live in poor neighborhoods at a much higher rate than white folks.

It would appear that written policies/laws (Jim Crow) are the low-hanging fruit when it comes to appearing to reduce racially unequal treatment.

In healthcare : race is a question on forms for medical treatment and background. Race is used as a proxy for other questions that could be asked. It is a poor proxy/indicator of health and conditions that would direct/inform treatment.

In Detroit, black persons in at least one particular neighborhood were denied affordable mortgage loans because "the loans weren't profitable enough". They were denied the primary wealth building tool used by Americans in the last century.

The war on drugs.
The felony conviction. -https://www.npr.org/2012/01/16/145175694/legal-scholar-jim-crow-still-exists-in-america

Reductions in neighborhood poverty appear to produce similar reductions in violent crime in white and black neighborhoods. -https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J134v09n03_03?journalCode=wpov20

In St. Louis, 29.5 percent of poor African Americans live in concentrated poverty. Among poor whites, just 1.6 percent do. Poor whites, in most major metropolitan areas, are spread out. Poor African Americans are not: -https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/12/black-poverty-differs-from-white-poverty/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.36b09a60af09
Assuming that there is no real smarts difference or actual disposition to crime, how are these outcomes so different?

For those of us who have witnessed the devastation that enforcement of the drug war has inflicted on communities of color, the Trump administration’s call for greater “enforcement” is clearly a dog whistle for the arrest, incarceration, and criminalization of black and brown people. -http://www.drugpolicy.org/blog/trumps-racist-law-enforcement-agenda

You don’t actually need laws—and you don’t even need racists—for these things to work. You don’t need outright racism, you don’t need outright slavery for the wealth gap to perpetuate. -https://splinternews.com/how-the-u-s-government-locked-black-americans-out-of-a-1819221197

"I am finding it difficult to find written policies today." That is my point. In the U.S. today, the idea that there is widespread institutional and systemic racism is not true. Any policies that discriminate are illegal. I am not saying that there is not racism or sexism, I am saying that institutional discrimination is illegal and if found there are legal remedies for it. So when people say there is widespread institutional and systemic racism in the U.S. today, I disagree and I always ask them to show me an example.

You also say that poverty-fighting measures are effective, but black people live in poor neighborhoods at a much higher rate. You are correct, but the reason for that is the war on poverty. There was and is a push to build "affordable housing" also known as section 8. So what you end up with are these large areas of subsidized housing units with a concentration of poor people in one area. The war on poverty has created the problem rather than helping. The war on poverty has also incentivized people to have children out of wedlock. It has driven the father out of the home and has destroyed the family structure. It has created generations of people who live off of welfare and have no incentive to better themselves. Poor people in this country today are far better off then middle-class people of the early 1900's, but there is no incentive for them to better themselves.

Your example of using race in medical treatment is "poor proxy/indicator of health conditions". Actually, it is an important indicator. There are conditions that affect minorities more, such as higher rates of heart disease and high blood pressure. There are also diseases that only affect certain races such as sickle cell anemia. Not everything race-based is about racism.

You bring up a point about mortgages. This was partially true, but I think it has mostly been eliminated. The reason banks were denying loans was not based on profitability. If the mortgage rate is x% it is x% no matter the race and is profitable. The problem was the default rate. The banks felt it was riskier to make loans in certain areas. It was a process called "RedLining". In fact, the recession of 2007-8 was partially caused by trying to fix this. The government was telling the banks that they would cover loans that were riskier and encouraged banks to make riskier loans. That is where you got the failures of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. However, redlining is illegal and banks have been sued over this.

Your statement on the war on drugs is 100% accurate. The war is drugs has not and will not work. I do not know the answer to the problem, but locking up large numbers of people is not the answer. More needs to be done on education, and treatment.

You also mentioned that reducing poverty in neighborhoods tends to reduce crime. I would argue that is the opposite. If you reduce crime, you will reduce poverty. A good example of this is Harlem in NYC. In 1994, Rudy Giuliani and his police commissioner William Bratton started a campaign called the "Broken Window Theory" where he increased the amount of police in Harlem. He cracked down on crime and lowered the crime rate. What then happened is that small business started moving back into Harlem since is was now safer. As more business moved in, more investments were made in the neighborhood and the poverty rate started to go down and quality of life increased. Today, Harlem is a thriving and growing area. That is why areas like the south side of Chicago and Detroit need more police and a crackdown on crime. Yet community organizers say that a concentration of police is racist. I sometimes wonder if these people like Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton don't want the problems to be fixed. If we eliminated these problems, Jackson and Sharpton would have to get real jobs. I also feel that same way about the Democratic party. If you look at LA, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, New Orleans, etc. These have been controlled by the Democrats for generations. Yet little has improved despite the billions of dollars spent. I sometimes think they don't want to eliminate poverty otherwise they lose their base.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

https://www.colorlines.com/articles/report-how-profit-bail-system-locks-black-people-debt
@your first paragraph.

Interesting article. I agree it does impact the poor much more and should be done away with. Currently, there are two bills in Congress to end this practice. They are called the No Money Bail Act. I also believe California has already passed a law ending money bail. Whether these bills will pass in Congress I don't know. From what I have read, a number of amendments are already being attached which may kill them.

Bail Bondsmen and Payday loans are both concepts which have a negative impact on the poor. Though they are legal, they do allow for individual discrimination. However, this is not the system it is individuals. I am sure if you show that a Bondsmen was discriminating, you could sue.

However, I would not call the practice of money bail an institutionally racist program. Just because the impact is greater on the poor, that doesn't mean it is racist. Everyone is entitled to bail that is set by a judge. There is nothing in the bail laws that have any race qualification. I am sure poor white people have the same problem. The inability to pay for something is not systemic or institutional racism.

It would be like you renting out your house. Just because somebody can not afford to pay your rent does not mean you are being discriminatory.

If many people in an institution, healthcare or police or courts etc, make decisions that affect people's lives that are consciously or subconsciously affected by race, would you call it institutional racism?

No, I don't think so. I believe systemic or institutional racism are policies, laws, or accepted processes that are racist/sexist.

My point is that people who say there is widespread systemic or institutional racism in the U.S. today are incorrect. There are laws, regulations, and processes, to help ensure that systems and institutions are no longer racist. The systems and institutions in the U.S. have never in history been less racist then it is today.

Is there still racism, of course. There are individuals who are racist from all races and colors. I don't know if that will ever end. I think it is a result of the tribe mentality and comes from not seeing people as individuals.

However, if these individuals are in positions of power and we can prove their racism then they need to be identified and removed from their position.

This is more aligned with what I was trying to say and less aligned with your view as I understand it.

"When white terrorists bomb a black church and kill five black children, that is an act of individual racism, widely deplored by most segments of the society. But when in that same city – Birmingham, Alabama – five hundred black babies die each year because of the lack of power, food, shelter and medical facilities, and thousands more are destroyed and maimed physically, emotionally and intellectually because of conditions of poverty and discrimination in the black community, that is a function of institutional racism. When a black family moves into a home in a white neighborhood and is stoned, burned or routed out, they are victims of an overt act of individual racism which most people will condemn. But it is institutional racism that keeps black people locked in dilapidated slum tenements, subject to the daily prey of exploitative slumlords, merchants, loan sharks and discriminatory real estate agents. The society either pretends it does not know of this latter situation, or is in fact incapable of doing anything meaningful about it."
-Carmichael and Hamilton, found on wikipedia.

As to your last point, trump.

Ok, you got me. A policy based on gender is sexist, not racist, but that is only semantics.
My point was that any policy that is based purely on an immutable characteristic is wrong.
Affirmative Action, no matter what the criteria, is discrimination against non-participating parties. As soon as you say this immutable characteristic alone gets you preferential treatment, you are discriminating.

I appreciate the discourse. It makes me think.

We have run out of replies on the other thread, so I have replied here.

Having read your last reply, you claim that it is institutional racism that caused the problem. However, you did not identify what institution is responsible.

What law, process, or institution is responsible for keeping people poor and living in slums? Are there laws that stop them from getting jobs? Are they not allowed to attend school or get an education? Have they been forbidden from exercising any right that you or I have?

I am not convinced that poverty is a result of racism. Especially since in the U.S. there is double the number of poor white people than there are black people. How did racism cause that?

Exploitative slumlords, merchants, loan sharks, and discriminatory real estate agents are individuals and not institutions or systems.
I didn't understand your Trump reference at the end. Sorry.

Those are not my words. I gave credit and said where I found it. The definition backs my view. Go back and read or just give up.

Institutional racism is a pattern of social institutions — such as governmental organizations, schools, banks, and courts of law — giving negative treatment to a group of people based on their race. Institutional racism leads to inequality; sociologists use the concept to explain why some people face unequal treatment or occupy unequal statuses. One historic example of institutional racism is the barring of African-American students from attending certain public schools, which limited the students' educational opportunities and helped prevent them from achieving a status equal to that of others. Institutional racism need not involve intentional racial discrimination. For example, individual judges might intend to impose similar sentences for similar crimes; yet if Caucasian people tend to receive lighter punishments, plausibly institutional racism occurs. -Chegg.com

-thoughtco.com refers back to Carmichael and Hamilton.
Nevertheless, institutions are just as capable of being racist. Institutions can behave in ways that are overtly racist (i.e., specifically excluding Blacks from services) or inherently racist (i.e., adopting policies that result in the exclusion of Blacks). Most of the underlying causes for the health inequities are due to institutional racism.
-https://academic.udayton.edu/race/2008electionandracism/raceandracism/racism02.htm

Don't feel bad. I left high school thinking racism was over. Over time I realized it was alive and well. Have you heard rap music? Maybe some is made up, but some is real. When institutions fail to treat all people equally, that is institutional.
GLHF

I will not argue that there hasn't been systemic and institutional racism historically. There was. My point is now, today, in 2018 this no longer is prevalent.

Even the article you referred says

"Institutional racism involves policies, practices, and procedures of institutions that have a disproportionately negative effect on racial minorities’ access to and quality of goods, services, and opportunities. "

The article explains what racism is, but there is no proof or evidence in the article that it is happening today.

Show me evidence that a bank, school or government agency today has policies, practices, and procedures that treat people of color differently and I will fight them with you. If this is happening, it is illegal and should be prosecuted.

The problem is people keep saying this is happening, yet can't prove it. Again, show me the evidence that this is happening and not just hyperbole.

If this was as rampant as you imply, then there should be a preponderance of evidence showing this. Yet I don't see that. I don't hear of thousands of lawsuits being filed, nor do I see FBI investigations going on.

It is easy to say that "there is systemic and institutional racism and that is why I am a failure. I am a victim of racism. " Prove it.

It also easier to blame the system for your failures that accept responsibility for your life. This whole victim philosophy of the left is getting old, and people are no longer buying it.

The evidence is not hard to find. Why are you claiming it doesn't exist without looking first.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/real-estate/2018/02/15/red-lining-home-loans/110436482/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertpearl/2015/03/05/healthcare-black-latino-poor/#31279aa78695
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30341731
https://ips-dc.org/americas-racial-wealth-divide-nothing-short-shocking/

https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/15/health/black-women-maternal-mortality/index.html

I have read all the links you posted, except the BBC one which the link did not work.

Out of all the links, the one I found most disturbing was the one on Redling. I agree that according to the article, it appears that Redlining may still be a practice. This is wrong and illegal. While I know that a lot goes into deciding who gets a mortgage, these statistics are worrisome. I would like to see a more thorough investigation of this. If this is happening, then yes I agree with you wholeheartedly that this is institutional racism and must be stopped.
The two articles on health didn't really prove racism. Not being a medical person I can't really argue either way. However, in both articles, they pointed out that a lot of the problems seem to be cultural and genetic. Higher instances of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, obesity, and cancer. They also pointed out the lack of availability of healthcare and how often people see a doctor.

The first set of problems seem to be more cultural and genetic. Not eating healthy foods, acceptance of obesity, and a genetic tendency to certain diseases. I don't think this is a result of racism. It may be related to being poor, but I really don't know. It would be telling to see the same statistics on poor white people.

The second problem, availability of healthcare is different. However, I don't think this is a result of racism, but rather a result of being poor. I would like to see the same statistic for poor white people. I would imagine it would be similar, but I don't know.

I will keep an open mind on this one and do more research.

cont.

The articles on wealth disparity and taxes are just misleading.

The one article states that the top earners will get a tax break of ~$66k while the bottom 20% get $107. This is misleading because it is using real dollars. In percentage terms, the tax cuts are exactly the same across all tax brackets. So if you are paying more in taxes, then the dollar amount is higher even though the percentage is the same.
What these articles failed to point out is that the top 1% of earners pay 38% of all income taxes. The top 10% of earners pay 51% of all income taxes. The bottom 48% of earners pay no income taxes at all. In fact, a lot of the bottom earners get an earned income credit which is not available to even the middle earners.
It also doesn't acknowledge that a lot of the top earners also own businesses which also pay taxes and provide jobs. When was the last time a poor person gave you a job?
The one article states that wealthy get more tax breaks than the poor. In fact, everybody gets the same tax breaks. Whether they can use them is the issue.
Most middle-class use the same tax breaks the rich use. Mortgage interest, property tax deduction, capital gains, donations, 401Ks or Roths, etc. Yes, the bottom earners can't use these, but most of the bottom earners don't pay taxes anyway.

As an economist, I can tell you that wealth disparity is not a problem. Some people make more money than others for lots of reasons. So what.

I could go on about how the "wealth disparity" in the U.S. is a phony talking point. Demonizing the rich is an easy target, but in the end, it is just jealousy. Why do you care if someone has more money than you? The idea that the rich are rich because they stole it from the poor is ridiculous? Most of the rich are rich because they made better choices, took more risks, or had better ideas. In some cases, they were just more athletic, had some musical or acting talent, or just were lucky.

I want to thank you for a very interesting and enlighting discussion. I have learned some things I did not know or understand fully.

While I still don't believe there is wide-spread systemic or institutional racism today, I have to agree with you that more has to be done. We need to work and find every last vestige of discrimination and destroy it. Race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual preference should never be used to give an advantage to one individual over another.

I agree. There are too many trolls here that do not want to discuss serious issues. I enjoy having a thought-provoking discourse.