Affirmative Action

[thessalonian]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1305671305' post='2243008']
Again, ([i]I think this is now the fifth time I've made this point[/i]) nobody has convinced me how a company who is made up of 99% white employees can be discriminating against white people. I honestly just don't get it.
[/quote]

Who ever said they were. What a ridiculous comment. As to whether or not they were discriminating against blacks that would depend on whether the company was in Northern Minnesota or Southern Georgia. What I find perplexing is the oppisite from you, that those companies in Northern Minnesota must hire 50% blacks and that is not somehow discriminatory if they don't.

[thessalonian]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1305666818' post='2242967']
Again, could we please not call each other racists, even as a joke? As tempting as it is, DON'T GO THERE.

Personal attacks are not nice or conducive to discussion.
[/quote]

It was a flipping joke. Get a grip.

[dairygirl4u2c]

plus it doesnt matter where the company is, even if it's in the heart of black communities... if there's 99% whites there, but they're all better qualified, they should continue to get the job.
only when qualifications are about equal should race be considered.

[dUSt]

If we are talking about theories, and what would be the best practices in some type of perfect utopia, I'd probably agree with all of you. Yes, in theory, companies should hire based on qualifications. Yes, in theory, employers should never consider race as a factor. Beautiful. You are all such optimists.

Unfortunately, I live in the real world. Race is a factor, like it or not. The reality is, affirmative action only makes a small dent in countering widespread racist hiring practices that exist in real life. So, continue to try to convince me what would work in a perfect fantasy world, but until I go crazy, I'll choose to keep supporting real life solutions based on real life things.

Thanks!

[MissScripture]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1305689071' post='2243088']
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ppisOulgG0[/youtube]

I win. Don't even try to top it. Just close the thread in tribute to my pwnage.
[/quote]

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1305684858' post='2243068']
My dog is racist.
[/quote]


I have seen racist dogs.



My dog is not racist, but is uniformist. Obviously she had a bad experiance with a policemen and now whe just doesn't trust anything in a uniform.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1305760593' post='2243357']
If we are talking about theories, and what would be the best practices in some type of perfect utopia, I'd probably agree with all of you. Yes, in theory, companies should hire based on qualifications. Yes, in theory, employers should never consider race as a factor. Beautiful. You are all such optimists.

Unfortunately, I live in the real world. Race is a factor, like it or not. The reality is, affirmative action only makes a small dent in countering widespread racist hiring practices that exist in real life. So, continue to try to convince me what would work in a perfect fantasy world, but until I go crazy, I'll choose to keep supporting real life solutions based on real life things.

Thanks!
[/quote]


So where are all these racist guys who do the hiring, becuase my unemployed white male friends and I would love to at least take advantage of their crappy and sinful selves.

My reality is that my older sister was beaten up, almost daily fpr being white, so much so that she painted herself with black shoe polish becuase " black is beautiful, and white is ugly", My family was terrorized for years for being white, at 8 years old I was held down by a group of black teenagers and had a used heroin needle put to my vain and threatened to have air injected in it,if I didn't pay a toll to walk onmy own street, 3 months later it was a gun in my mouth.

My friends, and I ( 1 black catholic, me, and 2 mixed race boys) were in a constant state of conflict with the black gang ( mark was black, but he was catholic, so he too was out), starting at about 6 years of age.

My family had black men standing , with guns out in the open, in our driveway when we came back from midnight Mass or Christmas morning.

As an young adult after having my formation house closed from under me by the retreating Oblates of Mary Immaculate, I came home, I went to The Carmalites, the order which had my parish, thier formation house was there, at my parish, I asked about it, I had always been interested in the Carmelites, and was more than a little disillusioned about the Oblates, I was told directly, to my face, that I was not the right color for thier formation house, non hispanics need not apply.

As an working man, I have been repeatedly passed over for women and minorities, who were not only not as qualified on paper, but had never gotten the types of results I had gotten. One more than one occasion I was told, directly,that had I been black I would have gotten the Job.

Currently I am unemployeed, my job was taken and given to a woman, whose performance was inferior to mine.

How exactly are those things not racial and or gender discrimination?

Edited May 19, 2011 by Don John of Austria

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1305689071' post='2243088']
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ppisOulgG0[/youtube]

I win. Don't even try to top it. Just close the thread in tribute to my pwnage.
[/quote]
Dude, you were supposed to keep that vid private. I wish those pa[s][/s]nts still fit me...

Edited May 19, 2011 by Laudate_Dominum

[thessalonian]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1305760593' post='2243357']
If we are talking about theories, and what would be the best practices in some type of perfect utopia, I'd probably agree with all of you. Yes, in theory, [b]women and men s[/b]hould get married before having children. Yes, in theory, government should never consider [b]sexual orientation [/b]as a factor. Beautiful. You are all such optimists.

Unfortunately, I live in the real world. [b]Sexual Orientation [/b]is a factor, like it or not. The reality is, [b]gay marriage[/b] only makes a small dent in countering widespread discrimination against [b]homosexuals [/b]that exist in real life. So, continue to try to convince me what would work in a perfect fantasy world, but until I go crazy, I'll choose to keep supporting real life solutions based on real life things.

Thanks!
[/quote]


Sorry to have altered your post above but there is a lot of things you post could be altered to. Fact is that one sin of discrimination (you do agree it is a sin for whites to do it) is being justified by another sin. We can't "make up" for the injustices of the world with other injustices. Sorry. Women get pregnant out of wedlock. Oh, gee that shouldn't have happened. Well then the child shouldn't exist. There are all kinds of ways of dealing with immoral issues. The hard solutions are the moral ones. Yes, we should do something about discrimination. Free college education to all poor people. All for it. But don't put color in the equation as your no better than the ones who do it in the first place and ignore the harm that it does in real life and real families that you deny above.

Edited May 19, 2011 by thessalonian

[Winchester]

[url="http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/there-is-no-third-way"]This is applicable. And it wins.[/url]

[MithLuin]

I like Michael's response to that article:

[quote]As a European, I sense there is a profound difference between us on the meaning of freedom

It would appear that, to an American, freedom primarily means being free from interference, especially government interference and coercion. To a European, freedom primarily means sharing in the government.

The American Revolution was a rebellion against an external power, the British Crown; thereafter, strong local feeling often led to Government, especially the Federal Government being seen as, in some sense, an external power.

In Europe, by contrast, in the wake of the French Revolution, government action was seen by the citizens, as the consummated result of their own organized wishes. Of course, Europeans can be very readily persuaded that self-serving deputies are betraying the people’s mandate, in the service of special interests; in fact, the political class is held in great contempt. Nevertheless, no one believes that curbing the powers of government is desirable, or even imaginable: the government is the appointee and agent of the people; to curb the government’s powers is to curb their own.

This is why a French Catholic writer like the famous Dominican Lacordaire could say that “Between the weak and the strong, between the rich and the poor, between the master and the servant, it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free.”

This, too, especially in countries with a Civil Law tradition, leads to a different approach to property rights, well summed up by Mirabeau: “Property is a social creation. The laws not only protect and maintain property; they bring it into being; they determine its scope and the extent that it occupies in the rights of the citizens.”

Now, Catholic Social Doctrine was largely developed by Europeans, who presupposed this understanding of the state.[/quote]

In other words, the government is not by definition a robber climbing the fence, but in [i]most[/i] circumstances would be seen as a neighbor entering by the gate.

This does not mean that I think the current gov't or laws are teh!bestest!evah!!111 There's certainly room for improvement. In fact, society in general has clear room for improvement....

[MithLuin]

[quote name='thessalonian' timestamp='1305807825' post='2243551']
Fact is that one sin of discrimination (you do agree it is a sin for whites to do it) is being justified by another sin. We can't "make up" for the injustices of the world with other injustices. Sorry. [/quote]

Of course discrimination is unfair and wrong. [b]Dust[/b]'s argument (all along) has been that affirmative action in practice is [i]not[/i] an example of discrimination. He's not saying that 'a little bit of discrimination is okay'....he's saying that the current laws do [i]not[/i] constitute an example of discrimination. Of course you are free to disagree with him, but don't misunderstand his position.


[b]Don[/b], if you want to find people who will hire you 'cause you're white', then it's best to look for employers who graduated from the same high school or college as you did. It's not unusual for people to hire someone with a similar background to themselves, because they are more familiar and comfortable with this.

[Winchester]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1305815780' post='2243571']
I like Michael's response to that article:



In other words, the government is not by definition a robber climbing the fence, but in [i]most[/i] circumstances would be seen as a neighbor entering by the gate.

This does not mean that I think the current gov't or laws are teh!bestest!evah!!111 There's certainly room for improvement. In fact, society in general has clear room for improvement....
[/quote]
"Most", although questionable, is the operative word.

[thessalonian]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1305816163' post='2243574']
Of course discrimination is unfair and wrong. [b]Dust[/b]'s argument (all along) has been that affirmative action in practice is [i]not[/i] an example of discrimination. He's not saying that 'a little bit of discrimination is okay'....he's saying that the current laws do [i]not[/i] constitute an example of discrimination. Of course you are free to disagree with him, but don't misunderstand his position.


[b]Don[/b], if you want to find people who will hire you 'cause you're white', then it's best to look for employers who graduated from the same high school or college as you did. It's not unusual for people to hire someone with a similar background to themselves, because they are more familiar and comfortable with this.
[/quote]


I understand his position. I refuse to accept his changing of the definition of discrimination any more than I am in favor of changing the definition of marriage and therefore will not cater to it.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1305816163' post='2243574']
Of course discrimination is unfair and wrong. [b]Dust[/b]'s argument (all along) has been that affirmative action in practice is [i]not[/i] an example of discrimination. He's not saying that 'a little bit of discrimination is okay'....he's saying that the current laws do [i]not[/i] constitute an example of discrimination. Of course you are free to disagree with him, but don't misunderstand his position.


[b]Don[/b], if you want to find people who will hire you 'cause you're white', then it's best to look for employers who graduated from the same high school or college as you did. It's not unusual for people to hire someone with a similar background to themselves, because they are more familiar and comfortable with this.
[/quote]



I ment that more as a tongue in cheek thing, then I kind of got annoyed by the whole "living in reality thing" and got more serious.

I hear all the time about these people who hire others based on their whiteness, yet I have never met one, ever. So I am curous as to where they all are.


It wasn't a serious statement, just a reaction to the statement I hear all the time that in my experiance has no basis in reality.