Ok I thought you were talking about how people should be treated, not how the law is applied. In that case I agree.
Like elfiii said, stereotypes are useful and for the most part appropriate.
I changed my answer a bit to entice a discussion.
I encourage you to do a truly scientific analysis of how accurate your use of stereotyping is. Pay more attention to the "Wow, that's surprising"'s and less to the "I knew it!!"'s (which is what we typically pay more attention to). It's a difficult exercise but it can be revealing.
I did it recently trying to guess the age, sex, and ethnicity of motorists in the distance. I told my brother in law who was with me what I thought they would be for the record. We had a good laugh at how bad I was at it.
Sometimes I try to guess if a black person will be an articulate speaker or not; at Kroger or at the bank. I think I'm pretty good at it but I live in the 'Hood and I was still surprised at how often I was wrong. I do the same test when I go out into the country with rural white people. I bat about the same, maybe around .600. Great for baseball, not so good for telling anything about strangers.
I bat about the same, maybe around .600. Great for baseball, not so good for telling anything about strangers.
If you have never met them and don't know them from Adam's off ox that's excellent. Throw in a 5 minute conversation and you can probably run it up to .950.
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I encourage you to do a truly scientific analysis of how accurate your use of stereotyping is. Pay more attention to the "Wow, that's surprising"'s and less to the "I knew it!!"'s (which is what we typically do). It's a difficult exercise but it can be revealing.
I did it recently trying to guess the age, sex, and ethnicity of motorists in the distance. I told my brother in law who was with me what I thought they would be for the record. We had a good laugh at how bad I was at it.
Sometimes I try to guess if a black person will be an articulate speaker or not. I'm pretty good at it but I live in the 'Hood and I was still surprised at how often I was wrong. I do the same test when I go out into the country with rural white people. I bat about the same, maybe around .600. Great for baseball, not so good for telling anything about strangers.
Better than assuming people are all the same so you can pat yourself on the back about how egalitarian and unbiased you are. There are a lot of folks who paid the ultimate price for doing that. Stereotypes are useful. We wouldn't be here without them. Even animals have them. It's a revolt against nature to try to do away with them. And they need not be accurate 100% of the time or even a majority of the time to be useful. My advice to those who are subjected to stereotypes that offend them is to take it up not with those who hold the stereotype but those who validate the stereotype and thereby perpetuate it.
Getting back to your original statement about an ideal of all people being treated equally. That might be ideal if all people were in fact equal in all regards. They are not. If they were there would be no reason for certain demographics in this country to require fast food workers work behind bullet proof glass. People should be treated as their behavior best warrants. Yes that's a sticky wicket fraught with inaccuracy and that is OK. If you look like a thug, dress like a thug, talk like a thug and walk like a thug and I see you coming I'm crossing over to the other side of the street. Every time. I don't care if 99 times out of 100 I sized you up wrong and you're really an educated law abiding individual that just happens to have a penchant for portraying yourself as something else. I'd rather get it wrong all those times than be the guy who didn't cross the street and ended up dead because he thought he shouldn't apply any stereotypes. In the end we are all doing our best to size up risk and act accordingly. Nobody gets it right all the time. That doesn't mean we should stop doing it.
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"The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." ~Plutarch
Better than assuming people are all the same so you can pat yourself on the back about how egalitarian and unbiased you are. There are a lot of folks who paid the ultimate price for doing that. Stereotypes are useful. We wouldn't be here without them. Even animals have them. It's a revolt against nature to try to do away with them. And they need not be accurate 100% of the time or even a majority of the time to be useful. My advice to those who are subjected to stereotypes that offend them is to take it up not with those who hold the stereotype but those who validate the stereotype and thereby perpetuate it.
Getting back to your original statement about an ideal of all people being treated equally. That might be ideal if all people were in fact equal in all regards. They are not. If they were there would be no reason for certain demographics in this country to require fast food workers work behind bullet proof glass. People should be treated as their behavior best warrants. Yes that's a sticky wicket fraught with inaccuracy and that is OK. If you look like a thug, dress like a thug, talk like a thug and walk like a thug and I see you coming I'm crossing over to the other side of the street. Every time. I don't care if 99 times out of 100 I sized you up wrong and you're really an educated law abiding individual that just happens to have a penchant for portraying yourself as something else. I'd rather get it wrong all those times than be the guy who didn't cross the street and ended up dead because he thought he shouldn't apply any stereotypes. In the end we are all doing our best to size up risk and act accordingly. Nobody gets it right all the time. That doesn't mean we should stop doing it.
I agree with almost everything you said. I disagree with how you began by implying that my examination of bias is some kind of virtue signalling. I understand the purpose and utility of in group out group bias. I also understand the utility and origins of stereotypes. But until I did the legwork I didn't know just how inaccurate I was. Now I know. Now I'm better informed. That's a good thing.
Some perfectly delicious and nonpoisonous frogs are brightly colored to mimic poisonous frogs. Often, psychopaths mimic kind, decent looking people to fool their prey as well. Don't lick frogs that look like that. I get it.
I thought we agreed that all people should be treated equally by the law. Are they? From whence might any discrepancy originate? I think we should continue to try to answer that question honestly and openly.
Last week I told one of my new friends that I thought he would be a racist redneck cracker because of the way he talked when I heard him the first time.
I thought we agreed that all people should be treated equally by the law. Are they? From whence might any discrepancy originate? I think we should continue to try to answer that question honestly and openly.
Generally speaking yes people are equal before the law although I can think of some laws that are explicitly discriminatory like affirmative action.
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"The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." ~Plutarch
It must be nice to have a built-in excuse for every negative thing that happens to you. It wasn't your behavior, it was that thing.
__________________ Son, I ain't sayin' what's right or wrong, I'm just sayin' how it is.....Black Oak Arkansas My uncle came running when he heard us screaming and pulled the monkey off me.....Fish Hawk
It must be nice to have a built-in excuse for every negative thing that happens to you. It wasn't your behavior, it was that thing.
I can't imagine that a disadvantage would be nice to have. I'm trying to give my daughter every advantage possible. I'm not going to lie to her and tell her that disadvantage doesn't exist. She is height disadvantaged and she will never dunk a basketball. If she wants to try to change the rules of basketball to minimize her disadvantage and maximize her advantage then she is more than welcome to. I wouldn't recommend she use her time that way but who knows, maybe she comes up with a new sport that's just as fun to play. If the new game allows more people to enjoy it and be successful at it then that's fine too.
In the late 70s. I took a job as a bill collector for a small finance co. my main area to collect from was 100 % black. I went out in the evening asking for money for bills to be paid. The area I collected in the police rode two to a car with the windows up. I was not afraid and never felt threatened. I was scared of some of the caucasian poor neighborhoods I collected in.
Dad was AF and it was the first integrated. I grew up with black children living on base with me and going to the same schools I did. I learned you got back what you put out. Treat any people with respect and they respond back the same way.
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Pain is nature's way of saying - don't do that.
In the late 70s. I took a job as a bill collector for a small finance co. my main area to collect from was 100 % black. I went out in the evening asking for money for bills to be paid. The area I collected in the police rode two to a car with the windows up. I was not afraid and never felt threatened. I was scared of some of the caucasian poor neighborhoods I collected in.
Dad was AF and it was the first integrated. I grew up with black children living on base with me and going to the same schools I did. I learned you got back what you put out. Treat any people with respect and they respond back the same way.
There's a thing in psychology called familiarity bias (the term is fairly self explanatory) and it influences how we regard many things, people included.
Set asides and preference programs in government contracting and minority targeted educational opportunities funded by tax dollars are also discriminatory.
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"The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." ~Plutarch
Set asides and preference programs in government contracting and minority targeted educational opportunities funded by tax dollars are also discriminatory.
Set asides and preference programs in government contracting and minority targeted educational opportunities funded by tax dollars are also discriminatory.
They were made to counter systemic racism. I didn't think systemic racism was real until I researched it and I found out it is.
Yes I know the phony justifications used by the advocates of such laws. Collectivized victims and collectivized guilt and punishment. Doesn't square very well with equal treatment under the law. Even if the justifications held true at best it amounts to an argument of two wrongs making a right. That's best case. Closer to the truth it's just government mandated discrimination intended to curry favor with people who have for decades made a profession out of playing victim.
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"The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." ~Plutarch
What happened to those guys seems very wrong. At this point I'm not going to assume that they were targeted because of racism but I'm not going to exclude it as a possibility either.
Have you got any black friends? Go someplace with them like a fancy mall or fancy store and pretend like you're not together. Stand at a distance and watch how people react to them.
I did this at the request of my black friend because I told him that he was overreacting. It's enlightening.
My new neighbor has a 15 year old adopted son from Somalia. He said he's concerned about the kinds of interactions his son might have with security or police. He worries that he doesn't know how to instruct his son on how to navigate in a world where people are suspicious of him because he never had to deal with that kind of thing himself. I've been told by ALL my black friends about "The Talk" they are given when they're young.
Hyperbole? Overreaction?
I said to my neighbor "I wish the guys that keep getting captured on video breaking into houses didn't look like your son so much of the time".
It's harder to get a loan with a black sounding name:
My brother and his friend had some rental properties and we would sit around and laugh as we made fun of the applications with Afrocentric names. They both challenged each other to rent to those applicants. It never happened and none of us are white. Being black in America presents unique challenges. That is all.
I dont like saying this as it sounds condescending. But yes I have many Black friends rich and poor. The wife and I have a very dear Black Couple that we visit with often in our home and in a lot of restaurants. I have an 83 year old Black gentleman, that I have taken to many restaurants that he would otherwise would have never been to. I have not seen anything close to what you are suggesting. Usually my old friend Virgil has everyone intrigued with the stories of the old days. Only place I have ever seen him treated badly was at the Veterans Hospital and it was very few whites involved in that poor treatment. I grew up in the Jim Crow South in the fifties and am currently writing a book dealing with how Blacks were treated in that time frame. My point was, that so many are too quick to believe everything bad that happens to them on racism. I have set in Restaurants being ignored, while the staff was waiting on other people. I dont have anything to blame that on. I have been treated like an idiot by Government Bureaucrats, dealing with every thing from Social Security issues, to getting a new car licensed. Every slight is not racist. Bad things happen to everybody, but we dont automatically have a slot to file it in. Below is a picture of Virgil and I at a restaurant. in a Bowling Green restaurant, and he will tell you he was treated like the Gentleman he is. He is 83 year old Veteran and knows what real racism is.
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