It's Kamala!

[Dill]

(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. 

Another thoughtful Hollo post. Here I just want to clarify my example selection. If you are left with the impression my marching band example was meant to "still apply" in some direct sense, then I may not have managed my presentation well. My examples, taken together, make more sense if one agrees that 1) past actions have "set the table" for our present problems and continue to shape our politics, laws and policies in ways impossible to understand separately from their history; and 2) understanding the current complexity of race issues in the US requires recognizing an uneven development in racial progress, with the problem largely non-existent in some sectors and institutions, but still serious in others--particularly those which determine access to wealth and power--and evident in unequal healthcare outcomes, judicial treatment, and political representation. Remember that we still cannot get the US Congress to pass anti-lynching legistlation. You are probably this forum's foremost expert on Trump's racism--and often marvel at how MILLIONS could vote him into the nations top office. My posts and examples, taken together, are trying to do justice to this complexty. 

Think of a continuum of racial segregation/suppression which begins with the overt, legal kind, which is then complicated when its legal rationale is declared unconstitutional. The marching band example illustrates a moment which is past. I did not introduce it to say "See how Blacks are (still) mistreated!" That overt discrimination is precisely what cannot be done effectively anymore, in part because of the way such decisions are monitored in universties and other institutions, both in house and out. I am not worried about marching bands anymore. So why mention the mention?

Beyond placing a marker for the abovementioned continuum, it sets up a contrast with the next example, regarding law school. Freshman musicians and football players in the '50s-60s likely had opportunity to become as good as their white competitors, even coming from poor, segregated high schools.  Not so with law. Unlike most of the rest of the world,  the US puts students through four years of college before law school. At that point of law school (or any graduate school) application, whether one comes from a good school or bad, and whether one's parents have resources, plays a determining role in who is "objectively" qualified to enter. I chose the Texas example because its director was an actual segregationist who recognized the merit argument would, at the graduate level, accomplish what the law could not. No question of what the guy REALLY thought about merit. The actual segregationsts are now long retired or dead, but the merit standard remains to this day part and parcel of a STRUCTURAL problem constituted by the historically unequal racial access to education and wealth. Your surgeon example fits in here.  OF COURSE we want a doctor to be qualified, best qualified, if possible. But do we also want equal access for all to the training that creates "best qualified"? Is merit just a natural endowment? If there is not equal access then why not? That takes us back to history, to a wealth/power distribution contstructed by 400 years of affirmative action for whites.

In respect of the aforementioned structural problem, these times are indeed NOT over. Affirmative Action was one way of addressing the problem across a range of institutions. But it also generates a great deal of white grievance, which is politically exploited, in part by driving the "merit" argument. "Overt racism is long gone. Why can't we follow the example of MLK and look past race. Most whites don't care about race. This political focus on race is just keeping racism alive long after it is really dead. That's the 'real' racism!" etc. 

I bring up the example of Black quarterbacks in part to show how far we have come and to show where, indeed, affirmative action concerns may indeed be misplaced. I.e., the example was clearly NOT to claim that what once happened is still a problem, but an example of how that moment has largely passed in that one institution (NFL), at least regarding players. And because it has passsed, we don't hear, for example, of groups demonstrating or writing letters signed by celebrities to the Bengals organization because they did not choose a Black quarterback in the draft and have never had one so "now it's time."  Not so for the Oscars, however, and perhaps the film industry as a whole. That's why there ARE complaints when Blacks are not chosen for this or that category.  And not so for other institutions. And you understand this. I note your post #205 above and its brief summary how inequity emerges in policing. We saw protests in Ferguson because there was real inequity; we don't in the NFL (at level of players) because there isn't. This makes me want to look closely at those sites where protest occurs--including the Oscars and in the fight over political nominations.

Progress against the racism and racial status quo has been uneven. One can point to he military and the NBA and the Post Office and news commentators and say "Look, integration!" And that makes it easier to say "Racism is history, and the 'real' racists are keeping it alive for their own political purposes." Many ordinary white folks don't belong to the Klan and don't often think much about race--until politicians and journalists and activists start talking about "systemic racism" and "white privilege" and protesting. Then historical knowledge, or lack thereof, plays a great role in determining their response, how they explain these puzzling protests. 

You recognize that "those times" are past (overt discrimination in marching bands and the nfl draft), and I agree. You also recognize that racism--systemic racism--is still alive, a political issue. And I agree. Where we disagree is over the degree to which the "merit" argument still functions to divert focus from unequal access and preparation. I could agree that efforts to deal with or neutralize that argument may be ham-handed and produce backlash. The public discussion is complicated by people in different camps who over simplify. I cannot agree that our national politics is like the NFL though. That's where we need to be especially careful in deploying the merit criterion, when merit has been there and been repeatedly overlooked, even by people calling themselves "progressives." The Halle Berry example has some slight analogy to vp here. At some point, even the progressives start wondering why, with so many people of seemingly equal merit, the white ones just keep getting chosen, year after year. A concern arises that "merit" is covering a subconscious racial bias. In politics more so than the Academy Awards, that sense of "overdue" will eventually override the "best player available" strategy. I suspect that is why Biden announced his two criterion for vp ahead of time. It also signals his party is more prepared to recognize and address such concerns than a largely white party whose partisans boast "merit" as their standard. I don't this pick is at all analogous to the Bengals passing over Burrows to get a black quarterback.