I'm less familiar with American demographics, but I agree with the overall principal. Here in Canada we have IMO an even more severe segregation and unequal opportunity for Aboriginal peoples. It's severe enough up here though that not only are communities segregated by living on reserves with their own separate schools, but we have separate school divisions, and even their reporting and funding lines are different from all other schools.

That adds up to an enormous amount of differential treatment. Replacing that with equal opportunity though is much more desirable than 'waiting' till the school system has already failed kids and then 'lowering the bar' in one way or another to help them get into university.

In Canada I think our supreme court has done as at least 1 disservice greater than you guys though in making race a required consideration in sentencing. The appropriate section of sentencing:
"In sentencing an aboriginal offender, the judge must consider: (a) the unique systemic or background factors which may have played a part in bringing the particular aboriginal offender before the courts; and (b) the types of sentencing procedures and sanctions which may be appropriate in the circumstances for the offender because of his or her particular aboriginal heritage or connection."
The goal is to address the over-representation of aboriginal people in prisons. The effect however, is ultimately discriminatory as well. Before you dismiss the discrimination against whites as ok because it balances things out as is the 'goal', that's not the only affect. Another problem in Canada is the over-representation of Aboriginal peoples as the victims of crime, because most violent crime is between parties that are related. So on the whole crimes committed against Aboriginal people will on average be sentenced more leniently...

Failing to address the real underlying unequal opportunity can't corrected by more inequality later to balance the scales. In Canada, our attempt at it are too lesson the sentencing of people with unequal backgrounds, but the expense of victims that also faced those same unequal backgrounds...

And that 'corrective' inequality is also creating similar resentment amongst white people here too. People don't like their kids not getting into a school of choice potentially because of a race based distinction, but they like it even less to see a crime committed against them treated more leniently because of race.

Try reading again. You have it totally backwards.

When was I insulting or dismissive? Because it was unforseen that educated people would elect a bombastic insulting sexist popularist con man who was obviously lying to them simply because he wore a red hat and tie? Those are facts, not opinion. Many of them are saying how much they regret it now.

I offered solutions you appeared to agree with, like funding lower education so everyone has a decent, if not equal, opportunity to get an education.
Using race as ONE criteria amongst many for admission is not ideal, as I said, but until a better system for identifying and addressing financial and societal issues that stymie opportunities for people often based on their pigmentation is created, it's the best we've got.

What we don't have is what you imply is the problem.....rich white men with 1570 SAT scores (old school SAT, I don't know how it's scored now) and 3.9 gpas are not being turned away from Yale to make room for indigent African American women with 990 SATs and 2.7 gpas...but the Latina woman with 1550 and 3.6 gpa earned while raising 2 siblings and holding a full time job, yeah, she gets the slot, and that's proper. One skewed test that benefits one privileged group is hardly a decent measure of their work ethic or intelligence....often it's only an indication they hired the right student to take the SAT for them. There were at least 3 hired test takers out of 30 students taking the PSAT when I took it, we talked afterwards.

It is the right (and people making the arguments you are) who are far more insulting and dismissive of non white people's frustrations at being racially discriminated against....to a level and consistency exponentially higher than the trifling discriminations whites suffer. That doesn't mean some whites don't suffer some deleterious effects, it means they come out way ahead in the discrimination game.

You wish to ignore all racial discrimination and racial obstacles except that single instance you can point to where it doesn't come out in your favor, then suddenly racism IS a problem that needs eradicating....but only the kind that harms white guys, forget the myriad of insurmountable racist mountains non whites climb daily, both institutional and societal, this speed bump for whites is unconscionable and must be removed immediately!

Come back and whine about institutional anti white bias when anti white racism permeates every facet of your life but not when your race doesn't give you a free leg up that one time. Maybe talk to your right wing friends about why funding education for others is good for you as step one towards eliminating programs like this that address inequities in opportunities, and giving the less fortunate extra opportunity to overcome their situation is good for all. After reasonable basic educational opportunities are available for all, schools will still take the student's home life, finances, and extra curricular activities into account....with luck that will be on an individual basis eventually, but that's not likely until education reforms occur that give everyone an opportunity to display their skills on a more level field..

1) Yes, but that's much more easily said than done, and many people disagree too. I feel that it's far cheaper to pay to educate other people's children (I have none) and have them become far more productive citizens than it is to insist (despite all evidence to the contrary) that hard work overcomes all obstacles, and everyone is capable of doing the work required for success. This theory removes responsibility to help others and puts blame squarely on those who've failed. Convenient, but just wrong.

2) In a vacuum, that makes sense, but not in real life. The refusal to acknowledge the disparities in opportunity to prepare for that singular performance is where the racism lies.
It's actually illegal to use just race over performance merit in most places as I understand it. Ethnicity/gender are usually only one small part of the equation. If they could be replaced with a numerical opportunity score, used to modify performance scores,
I would support that, but good luck figuring that one out to anyone's satisfaction.

3) Yes, people always resent being forced from a position of power. I do think it's important to constantly revisit the issue to insure policy doesn't foster inequities, particularly since that's the point of the policies, eradicating inequities.

4) Predicting the naive would be suckered by a professional con man telling them platitudes, sure, but predicting so many of the educated would go along for short sighted, purely tribal reasoning, that's tougher.

5) Certain groups of people have been claiming white men are the downtrodden powerless whipping boys since the 60's. It's getting closer to true, but we aren't near there yet, it just seems that way to those less socially powerful than their fathers. Sure, there are outliers where the white male gets the shaft due to race, but we still come out well ahead in the balance by any objective set of criteria..

Sure, that's true, but it's also proof that race and economic inequality are not parallels.

Funny, he's claiming he's discussing racial inequality but actually talks about economic inequality.

Sam B is carefully stepping around a more important issue than geography here---income inequality. Rural areas are more likely to have a lower incomes, and be without proper coverage in a for-profit system.

Years ago I saw 'The Business of Being Born,' and found it pretty shocking how hospitals treated childbirth as an opportunity for profit. It is a well done doc, if you're curious.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0995061

That was quite good.

But man, that 4th issue is a doozy. Learning that "hard work pays off" is difficult when it just really doesn't, at least not anymore. Massive income inequality, zero class mobility, and on and on. We feel like relatively easily replaceable cogs in a relatively pointless machine because WE ARE.

We hear lots of stories about people that manage to buy in, feel like they are doing something important and making a real impact, enjoy some period of good job satisfaction...

...and then all too often, they end up looking like saps when the company that they work for gets bought out by some massive faceless corporation that doesn't value their years of loyal service at all, at which point they get replaced by A) a robot, B) an outsourced sweatshop laborer in a 3rd world country that can be payed a fraction of the local rate, C) a younger and more compliant hire that will inevitably have a massive turnover rate, but who cares because there are plenty more where that came from, or D) the cokehead nephew of the new CEO that needs a job to keep him out of trouble, and hey, might as well keep things in the family, right?

Maybe I'm just a bitter, late Gen-X'er.

Back when she started them, perhaps, but it still seems odd to me for HER to perpetuate the separate and unequal methodology that had worked so hard against her....different times....and I'm weird.

Today, as the article mentioned, there's not really good reason besides "girl power-female empowerment", which I find as distasteful as the idea of male only "boy power" races, which don't exist as far as I see outside of Iran.
Conversely, if little girls might need girl only racing to feel comfortable, why can't little boys feel the same and so get boy only races? Being ridiculed by girls for being a slow or odd runner hurts boys the same as the reverse hurts girls, no?
Most marathon finishers are women, they've proven they can and will run with men anywhere, but still today often men can't run with them.

Why does no one ever seem to want the pendulum of inequality to stop in the middle?

"[I] didn't watch the Ted talk, sorry. Too long to make a point for me."

Then you missed the entire argument.

Everything you said is moot in the face of Lawrence Lessig's talk.

This kind of thinking: "Granted, neither choice is usually good, but one is definitely less bad....and far more sane and rational."Is completely missing the point.

If you are continuing to see this this as a partisan problem, you do not grok this issue.

You should not be choosing between "terrible and slightly less terrible." You should be choosing between "good and better."

I reiterate: The roots of this issue in the US go deeper than partisan "Dems vs. Reps" politics. This issue is money in politics.

"I want you to take hold, to grab the issue you care the most about. Climate change is mine, but it might be financial reform or a simpler tax system or inequality. Grab that issue, sit it down in front of you, look straight in its eyes, and tell it there is no Christmas this year. There will never be a Christmas. We will never get your issue solved until we fix this issue first."

Here's a video referencing a Princeton study that backs up Lessig's arguments pretty well.



As an aside, Lawrence Lessig tried to run for president last year...

No worries, I wasn't calling you out on it, just curious to be honest.

I know it's not a popular opinion but I'm of the mindset that crime statistics should be more thoroughly collected and made public via an open data initiative. I guess the question is what would be done with the statistics? Do black communities have more incidents of violent theft? Are pedophiles more likely to be white? Do police really shoot more unarmed black people than white? Does it happen more at night or during the day? Are the offending officers always white? How long have they been in the job (is inexperience an issue, etc)?

I guess the real question is that, while knowing this information would allow us to make more informed statements about police shootings and violent crime in general, would it really help us address the core problems like social and financial inequity, education, cultural differences, etc?

Obviously data collection would need to be standardized and the presentation of it anonymized, with geographic areas generalized so as not to impact things like property values, etc.

The need for something like UBI is due to the runaway inequality caused by 'supply-side' thinking like Reaganomics and neo-liberalism.

I agree. When racism is so institutionalized it may require a racist response to get to equality. I just think we need to be honest about it so, when equality is neared, we can end ALL institutional racism.

To be clear, I identified as a feminist for around 25 years before realizing how the group as a whole didn't want fairness and equality because they wouldn't ever address an inequality they benefit from. Why would I work against my own interests for a group that never has my interests or well being, or even fairness and equality as a goal?

That's something else....gender equality.
True feminists will never fight to end an inequality they benefit from, neither will a mascilinist.
Those wishing to support gender equality should avoid supporting either sexist movement.

I take the view of SDGundamX that it's intended to be contextual based on the speaker but trying to force this kind of nuance into public discourse is a losing battle.

I also think the tack of shunning people / getting them fired for use the word hatefully is the wrong tack. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, just publicly and repeatedly call them an asshole.

Language arguments distract from the real driver of racism, income inequality. I suspect outright racial hatred - notions of racial inferiority/subjugation while still obviously present, are in decline.

I would instead guess the rate of police deaths, employment discrimination and many other biases are linked to the assumption that poorer means 'more likely to be a criminal'.