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Comment by verylongaccount | Hacker News Reader

It seems that a large number of posters believe that discriminating against white men is okay because they enjoy "white privilege", whatever that is. Either you believe it is okay to discriminate against someone on the basis of their skin color or you don't. Attempts to redefine the word notwithstanding, those who subscribe to the former philosophy are known as racists.

It is hard to distinguish the anti-white vitriol I see on this page from the antisemitism of yesteryear. It was often said that Jews were over-represented in various occupations not because their industriousness, intelligence or other virtues, but because of devious trickery (they plot together to deprive others of opportunities). I fail to see how the arguments regarding white men are any different.

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> Either you believe it is okay to discriminate against someone on the basis of their skin color or you don't.

In most anti-discrimination policy discussions, the question being asked is not what colour ones skin is. It is whether the person belongs to an identifiable group that has suffered systemic prejudice.

The ordinary intention of anti-discrimination is to rectify past and prevent future wrongs, and in particular to break cycles of stereotype, poverty, and crime.

Colour of skin is incidental to the formula, being an identifiable group. The primary consideration for preferential bias is belonging to a group that has suffered prejudice.

One could as readily substitute for skin colour those discriminations founded upon language, hair colour, sexual orientation, height, and body shape, among many others. The factor itself is not an entitlement to preference; it is the history of prejudice and prospect of systemic improvement that determines suitability for discrimination.

The argument that white people are being discriminated against based on a formula that rectifies past wrongs and undoes future ones belies a misunderstanding of the purpose, benefit, and impact. One may only come to this conclusion by discounting those past and future wrongs that have been committed and will continue to be committed by a system with inherent biases.

> The argument that white people are being discriminated against based on a formula that rectifies past wrongs and undoes future ones belies a misunderstanding of the purpose, benefit, and impact.

That's perfectly absurd. Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination.

How do we measure wrongs? How do we "undo future wrongs"?

I can't. Totally cannot. 100% can't deal with your argument.

> I can't. Totally cannot. 100% can't deal with your argument.

I find it telling that you think it is my argument. What I wrote is neither mine nor an argument. It is a description of a theory.

> Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination.

Not all discriminations are equal.

To argue that all discrimination is discrimination is to give equivalence to police murdering for traffic violations and being denied the pole position on a job application. Both are wrong, but there are quantitative differences – they can be measured.

> How do we measure wrongs? How do we "undo future wrongs"?

We can measure the effect of discrimination by the number of people affected, and the impact a discrimination has on an individual. It's not an unknown problem; statisticians measure it on jobs, income, applications, promotions, employment types. The data exists or can be gathered, and it can ascribed monetary value ("damages" in law). No formula will be ideal in all cases, but that is not an excusable barrier.

Societies with affirmative action have in essence determined, whether founded or not, that the aggregate of prejudice against classes of victims outweighs the aggregate prejudice of attempting to correct it.

If you want to discredit the theory you must first understand that it is a widely published and peer reviewed theory of many facets of society and not just an argument from some guy on the internet. The theory is founded in the philosophy of law, and touches on many other aspects ranging from the relationship between culture and economics through criminology.

That same society at a different time determined slavery, jim crow laws and other prejudicial treatments were once okay just as it did affirmative action. An appeal to authority or populism doesn't make it good or right. It merely makes it lawful and/or socially acceptable.

There are many widely published and peer reviewed theories that turned out to be wrong after implementing them and empirically seeing that they are imperfect. There are scientific theories and there are non-scientific theories and the one you've put forth is squarely in the camp of non-scientific theory, which typically are hypotheses that lack the ability to be disproved.

I would like to think we can do better than replacing one system of prejudices with another. We've seen the pendulum swing both ways enough time now to better predict where the ideas contributing to momentum of the pendulum will lead to an over-correction and novel injustices.

I didn't think that first quote was your argument, I just thought it was the dumbest thing you said. I think it's silly that you believe that past wrongs can be rectified and that future wrongs are definitely going to happen, and that that invalidates the argument you presented about discrimination against white people not existing. Theory or argument, that's pedantry.

> Not all discriminations are equal.

Never said that.

I was implying that anything that was discrimination was wrong. Are you arguing the opposite?

> We can measure the effect [etc] and the impact [etc] and it can ascribed monetary value [etc]. No formula will be ideal in all cases, but that is not an excusable barrier. [emphasis mine]

You'll have to inform me then why there's debate on the ballpark percentage of the wage gap or even that it exists in general, just as an example. (not arguing for or against, but that there is a debate) And it is perfectly excusable for someone not to take action, or not to execute a very big action, if it is not the correct action, unless you think justice is necessarily coexistent with wrongful imprisonment.

And how do you pick who gets affirmative action anyway? I'm a Polish immigrant. My ancestors have been fucked 5 ways from Tuesday by just about every major happening in Europe. It was still 1989 when communism fell (only 27 years ago), and it left desolation and despair in its wake. Coming to the US, my parents and I had just about nothing.

And better yet, I'm not going to claim I deserve something. Because the world dealt me and everyone a shitty hand and the best I can do is play it, no matter the odds. Even if someone got a better hand than I did.

As a matter of interest, the school of thought you are describing is the Deontologists. In "Capitalism and Freedom" Milton Friedman captured this as:

> [Antidiscrimination] legislation involves the acceptance of a principle that proponents would find abhorrent in almost every other application. If it is appropriate for the state to say that individuals may not discriminate in employment because of color or race or religion, then it is equally appropriate for the state, provided a majority can be found to vote that way, to say that individuals must discriminate in employment on the basis of color, race or religion. The Hitler Nuremberg laws and the law in the Southern states imposing special disabilities upon Negroes are both examples of laws similar in principle to [antidiscrimination legislation]

This is in contrast with a focus upon either consequence or virtues. Deontological theory falls down on some observed economic scenarios. For example, banker bonuses are generally deontological in nature, and as a result paid out quarterly regardless of performance; a consequentialist or "virtuist" might formulate banker bonuses on practical timelines or overall long-term results, in contrast.

In any case, what I thought was a reasonably balanced emperical study by John Donohue is worth reading [The Law and Economics of Antidiscrimination Law] <http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... (it is the paper from which I drew Milton's quote).

Thanks for the well-reasoned reply, and for the excellent link. I apologize for having lost my cool.

Could you link me a paper describing the perspective you mentioned in your earlier comments? I'd like to try challenging my own beliefs.

It's my pleasure, I am glad you are interested in spending more time on the topic.

Here's an reasonable read on the US history and positions: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/affirmative-action/

I hope that helps and serves as a good starting position.

So you're telling me that it's okay to tell someone, X, from group A that they are being disadvantaged in favor of someone else, Y, from group B because Y belongs to group B and because years ago someone, M, from group A unrelated to X disadvantaged someone, N, from group B unrelated to Y. How is this right? X isn't responsible for any wrongdoing committed by M or others like M, so why should X suffer the consequences?

It's fine to rectify past wrongs when X is responsible for the past wrongs, but guilt by identity association with M is absurd. I'm mixed-race mostly caucasian that immigrated to the US from South America in the 1980s but look vanilla white to most. Please explain to me what past wrong me and others like me are guilty of here?

I am aware and fully understand the purpose and anticipated benefit/impact. A question worth asking is if those that propose a "formula that rectifies past wrongs and undoes futures ones" understand how that formula will produce present wrongs and foster unintended future ones? After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions[0]. You're merely converting one system with inherent biases for another with inherent biases. That is a non-solution the problem[1] you purport to fix.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with...

[1] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=problem

It wasn't uncommon to hear in Eastern Europe a short while ago that "Jews control the world" and that's why we should take their power from them. Clearly absurd, but that's how people felt. (And I'm not making points about the Nazis, I'm making points about Poland in 1989 during the fall of Communism.)

But now we hear "white men control the world," and are expected to take their power away.

Just because they're similar doesn't mean they're the same, I realize. But we should at least be self-aware about that similarity, because it means something.

I think you're misunderstanding the argument people make about the concept of privilege. Nothing about it is intentional in the standard sense. It's more that people behave to benefit themselves -- which is natural and fine -- and power has slowly accrued over time to white men more than to other types of people. The argument is not that white men are malicious, but that their traits are implicitly favored and promoted because we tend to gravitate toward and feel more comfortable around people who are similar to ourselves. Ergo, white men in power enable other white men to gain more power.

I understand perfectly. This is precisely what was (and is still to an extent) said of Jews.

> believe that discriminating against white men is okay because they enjoy "white privilege", whatever that is

> It is hard to distinguish the anti-white vitriol I see on this page from the antisemitism of yesteryear. It was often said that Jews were over-represented in various occupations not because their industriousness, intelligence or other virtues, but because of devious trickery (they plot together to deprive others of opportunities). I fail to see how the arguments regarding white men are any different.

It's because you don't even make an attempt to understand the terms of the debate. White privilege is a structural, societal-level advantage that white people have stemming from centuries of economic and cultural disenfranchisement of ethnic minorities, that while you personally can't change, can be worked towards overcoming it. Educate yourself before you throw Godwins around.

https://library.gv.com/unconscious-bias-at-work-22e698e9b2d#...

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case...

> Educate yourself before you throw Godwins around.

He's not invoking Hitler or Nazism, he's making a comparison between white privilege and anti-semitism. It's pertinent because of whites and Jews being races; it's not just a random invocation of whatever to win an argument. Not all anti-semites are Nazis. There are plenty of otherwise normal people who just randomly hate Jews for literally no reason.

There's a point there, and I think you missed it. (Please note I am not arguing for or against that point, just that you may have missed it.)

I also appreciate the "Educate yourself" thought-terminating cliche. It's an interesting one.

If you call an argument Godwinesque but turn out to be wrong, who has lost the argument?

Who exactly are you reffering to when you talk about "white people"? Anglo-Saxons/Saxons? Franks/Gauls? Celts? Slavs? Greco-Romans? Nordic people?

You're talking and generalizing an awful lot of people.

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