08-20-2020, 08:36 PM
(08-20-2020, 04:01 PM)hollodero Wrote: I guess mainly everyone else might be tired of it. But whatever :)
I try to give an answer in one piece though, sorry for leaving out quite a bit. Regarding examples from around the '60s, I'd argue that it isn't the '60s any more and so some of the arguments used back then no longer apply in a similar fashion. I guess I get what you're trying to get at. Take an argument, show how this argument can lead to certain developments and trains of thoughts that then were used to disenfrachise black people, hence be warned of said argument. Which ok sure is fair, but see above. This, in the end, is no longer about restricting access of blacks to marching bands and all kinds of other entities. These times are indeed over. I'm not saying racism is over by any stretch of the imagination, but the circumstances have changed too much still to really use these examples effectively, imho. That's why I say "far fetched".
Of course I apply that especially to the argument that VPs should be chosen on the grounds of merit and not on the grounds of race and gender. A merit-based argument is not per se bad or dubious because it got misused. You brought the example of black QB's, and that imho is an example how a distinctly not merit-based (but race-based) system was used to disenfranchise black QBs. Nowadays, that doesn't really happen on a similar scale, nowadays this is mainly a strictly merit-based decision. I would not be fine with my team out of hand committing to a black QB and then checking the options available. I want the best QB, black or white or whatever.
The problem with a different approach imho is the following, and again I have to somwhat change the scenario here. It's like when our academic world discovered the importance of gender equality. Which lead to trying to achieve the goal of having 50% females in influential positions in our universities. Which I guess is just fine and probaly the right thing to do when there are roughly 50% of female applicants. It is, however, imho a very bad idea if there are only 15% female applicants. One can of course argue that well, there are only 15% applicants because women were detained by a patriarchalic system from getting into science for a long time, and this might very well be true. On the other hand, being forced to choose from a 15% pool will lead to a drop-off in quality, and this is exactly what actually happened in the field of natural sciences here.
And yes, I absolutely see a point of concern there when it comes to affirmative action. Sure, I completely am fine with preferring a black person in principle. I also have zero problem though, for example, if there's a fire department full of white people for whatever reason and a chief still chooses a white person to hire because he had the best credentials and was the best fit. It might be actually dangerous to think of color and diversity ahead of merit. In the same sense, I wish that my surgeon got the job based on merit, and not because the hospital felt there were too few black surgeons around so they just had to hire one. If he's just as capable as any other applicants, sure, take the black one and increase diversity, I'm all for it. But when you commit to it in advance, this is all but a guarantee.
VP of the most important country in this world? Yeah, to me, same thing. Committing to a black female, I am just not so keen on that kind of thinking and I try to explain why. And even if you find many examples of how that approach was misused, led to additional thoughts and approaches that were discriminatory etc., I am not willing to abandon the thought itself.
Lastly, I just mentioned the oscars as an example of how many emotions often flow into these things. It is a really bad example in one sense (because no doubt the film industry overlooked black people for a long time and probably in some extent still does), but the extent of months-long indignation about that still was a bit much. At this time I watched quite a lot of American TV, and yeah at the 10.000th mention of rampant racism as exemplified by this oscar scandal, I just thought, ok, enough already, don't just jump on any example and exaggerate it that extremely. And I still think it was too much, it's just the oscars and some people are just too eager to find racism everywhere. This I can't quite lay out on an argumentatively sound manner, it's just a feeling of mine and I should not have gone there in the first place, but I did, so here we are :)
What you're encountering here is the political extremes in this country and how obsessed they are with race. To the far left race is a cudgel to attack opponents and to force the kind of diversity you alluded to above, quality of the applicant be damned. To the far right race isn't even an issue, it's something to be ignored at best, except when a particular example or category (violent crime immediately leaps to mind) helps them diffuse the cudgel being wielded by the far left.
Most US citizens have no issues with people of different ethnicities. I've long been either the only, or one of the few, white men at my workplace. At one location, in which I was one of two white men, one of the older, black, clerks approached me and called me by the other gentleman's name. When I corrected her with my actual name she stated, "Oh, you're the other one", which I found funny for a reason that apparently perplexed her. Point being, most of us inhabiting the middle, which doesn't get a lot of attention these days, don't have an issue with race. We certainly acknowledged that in some cases it holds people back and in others it is used to unduly advance people, but by in large we just live our lives and treat each other like human beings.
Unfortunately both extremes will never let that be the end of it. The left's particular brand of insanity is in ascendancy now, hence the stated reason for the VP pick that your correctly criticize. Just don't expect someone who approves of that reason to ever begin to understand the reason you have issues with it. Because you're European you're given a bit of leeway. Trust me when I say if you were an American someone would already have called you a racist for raising the exact same questions. You bore witness to that phenomena first hand in that rioting thread.
