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To what end is that important? A “group” doesn’t feel the pain, individuals do.
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Exactly. This is why I refuse to list my background on any form unless forced to do so. People must ultimately be assessed individually.
Of course a history of oppression should be discussed and racists and bigots who discriminate based on group identity should be vigilantly attacked and marginalized. But the reaction to oppression based on group discrimination isn't further focusing on groups instead of individuals. That's a tennis match of identity politics.
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And this sort of analysis can be used to say “look this one black guy got to be a VP at a bank, so why is this other black guy sitting on a stoop at 3 in the afternoon?” And that’s bullshit because they both had a million facts hit them and lead to where they’re at.
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2. Again, people are impossibly unique. And a lot of life is random.
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I was talking with a white man about affirmative action in colleges. His kids had just been born and he felt it was very wrong and unfair to white kids. I told him about 3 young black men I knew who were applying to college at that point and who didn’t have fathers in their lives (and this is one example I know the no dad thing could be an overblown stereotype, but it was true for these 3). And I said you cannot say these kids are on equal footing with say, my son. And white guy asked “whose fault is that?”
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The truly honest answer would require an assessment of each kid's circumstances.
I know we have to govern and make policy using shortcuts like "groups," but it's really loose, and terribly unreliable. I support affirmative action because I think there needs to be redress and racism persists. I'm even inclined to support reparations if we could statistically come up with an amount of lifetime earnings lost. But again, this stuff is wildly unreliable in comparison to simply assessing people individually.
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And the question gave me pause- maybe it’s society’s as the legacy of racism carries over? Or maybe it’s the fathers for not being there? Or maybe it’s the mothers for having a kid with a guy who bails? But who gives a fuck- the kid isn’t at fault and that’s who is living with the harm. So point is why dream up stats, when the potential harm from the stat is bad, and the stat misses any legit point?
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I agree. But the stats come into play when people become fixated on groups, backgrounds, etc. The Left is doing that on steroids at the moment, and the Right is loving every minute of it, because it's the debate that they've wanted to engage forever. Nothing makes a bigot happier than a discussion of people as groups. It's the bedrock of their thinking.
Harris makes the excellent point in his podcast that the end game is to think of people exclusively as individuals. It's not possible at the moment, but that doesn't mean we should abandon that aim. And we certainly shouldn't backslide into thinking of ourselves as members of some group first, individuals second.
