Uber Eats removes delivery fee for Black-owned restaurants
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But there’s an effort to redefine racism to include any policy that acknowledges race, as opposed to the normal definition that holds a policy is racist if it promotes the superiority of one race over another.
Semantic arguments are bad when they obscure and distract from the central point. But they are good when the distinction at issue is important to the issue at hand. In this case, the distinction is critical. In a world where widespread racism exists, but policies are not allowed to acknowledge race, then policy cannot address racism, thus it continues.
> ...keep discussion stuck in superficial and uninteresting places...
Sigh
Leaves me with so little hope. I guess we get to go around and around again on all this.
It's part of the general principle about canned arguments. Intellectual curiosity is all about diffs, and the diff between threads with canned arguments and threads without them is significant. The latter are much more interesting.
Setting aside the context for this discussion: I really love your way of putting this. I've always looked at a lot of things that way - especially reading non-fiction books. I read a lot, so I usually only take a way a few key points from a book - but it's those diffs to how I viewed the world before that are the important part.
Knowing what we know about Uber this all seems highly problematic.
In the final analysis, the law is interpreted by humans, and if a class of violation (like racism) is popular enough, the system finds a way to excuse it with hand-waving.
That's just for small businesses in general. When you look at purchasing entities such as the DoD and state governments, there are many such ways to identify ownership as belonging to a disadvantaged population.
And, will they do this for other minorities when they suffer discrimination at the hands of the state? How about poor people?
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
I won't consider Uber to be "good corporate citizen" for it. But it helps a bunch of small restaurants in a time period where margins are tight so net positive maybe?
At least they're putting money down on it vs just issuing some statement.
And we can enjoy the bright side of it, while not being naive.
This is a corporate PR stunt that has nothing to do with anything and that perpetuates racial discrimination.
This is awful.
As one party to an interracial gay marriage I say "no thanks."
While bashing "bad" racism is politically correct, bashing "good" racism is almost universally seen as taboo. Hence racism is immortal in America.
There is an economic justice part of US racism that is not addressed enough if at all... Black people have been literally robbed of their income/wealth regularly and often for a few centuries now. If companies want to stand up and try to help repair this lack of justice that we all inadvertantly benefitted from, this is one way to do it.
Just because the government (for at least 100 years) continues to drag its feet when it comes to reparations doesn't mean individual companies can't step up.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23433335
Reverse racism is a dull, simplistic and naive, and implementing it at the business level is illegal and likely unhelpful on a systemic level, not to mention that people don't spend their money based on the demographics of the company who made a product. Race also isn't the only protected class, no one seems to be mentioning women, people closer to retirement age or veterans.
I would be more impressed if uber set up offices in poorer areas regardless of demographics or lobbied for schools to have more uniform funding regardless of their neighborhood. Maybe they could have small business courses at their offices or teach people about car maintenance.
That all said, I was almost going to downvote your comment, but it made remember how much Uber actually has made a business model out of breaking the law in every country they are active in. Move fast and break things became move fast and break the law.
This seems illegal to me, but I really don't know. What are the laws surrounding race-based company promotions/discounts?
All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship, primary language, or immigration status are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.
I don't understand how an e-mail like that can even be written. Even if they don't follow through with the action, if that email were to leak it will become a (justified) PR disaster for the company (said company already had a PR disaster a few months before). I might expect a clueless intern to send it out, but not an experienced operations manager. Worse, none of the CS & marketing employees saw anything wrong with that and actually went ahead and posted reviews in their name.
Can they also find out things like religion or ethnicity?
Whether it’s corporate data collection or users checking a box, it seems like a good intention that is primed for manipulation - which I guess some companies might gloss over as long as it benefits them.
Very pertinent, internal take on the courts, BLM, Antifa, police, Covid, and current cases before the supreme court.
The aim is to surface black-owned restaurants. But the solution is to remove the delivery for those restaurants. Do they have a filter for restaurants with no delivery fee? Are they also tagging the restaurants to make it obvious which are in this scheme?
Secondly, how do you determine which restaurants qualify? Is it just applied to independent businesses or is it something larger chains can game as well? It seems full of holes at the foundation.
The whole thing screams of a marketing department that think they should do _something_ to make it look like they're supporting protests but put in the tiniest amount of effort they could manage.
This is just capitalism in action.
If Uber really wanted to help the Black community (and other minorities) how about actually treating their delivery drivers (a lot of which come from low-class backgrounds and part of minorities) fairly with decent wages and benefits?
How about a fair, transparent fee structure? As others have pointed out, the delivery fee is just one of many fees, the rest of which are conveniently hidden from the user and passed onto the restaurants which have no choice but to pay them because Uber Eats is one of a handful of delivery services and they're all equally scummy.
How about decent customer service that plays fair when things go wrong instead of fobbing the customer off and hope they don't do a chargeback? (not many people do which is why they get away with it)
People don't need or DESERVE special treatment, be it negative or positive, people deserve to be treated as equal.
I don't understand why is it so hard to fathom?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/16/black-owned... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/business/minority-busines...
The education system in America is truly lacking and it shows when it comes to the topic of race/racism which is a key part of our economic history and inextricably tied to the history and development of US capitalism.
A lot of minorities are running restaurants.
Black people are the least rewarded early investors in the startup we call the USA.
They have more right to be in this country than any group other than Native Americans, a large % are in fact descendants of native Americans but are not recognized as such due to a paper genocide and deportation program carried out by the govt of the US in the early 20th century.
No other minority group is in this position. Anyone who has studied the history knows the country still owes a tremendous outstanding debt to this group of people.
Ask yourself if education, poverty, healthcare, loans, housing, etc... would be an issue if they were actually paid what we all collectively owed them. I expect some portions of the racism would still exist but economic empowerment is always a potential gamechanger.
Seems uber is trying to help fix that gap themselves. I commend them for at least trying something novel.
I think it's better to say that race exists, but it's a cultural construct, not a biological reality. It's clear that in the USA the largest part of people with black or dark brown skin color have a shared history and culture that comes from the capture of native African population. They clearly have something in common, and they exist as a group. The term "race" is problematic, but it's the best one we have.
https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/gq2n31/inequali...
I'm very skeptical of this move, its sustainability in the medium term, and I overall really dislike Uber as a business, but equality is NOT the point.
Society is already unequal, you cannot wish it away with a magic wand.
The way to address inequality, is to think in terms of equity:
http://betterbikeshare.org/2019/10/24/equity-vs-equality/
Also, this is obviously not an example of racism. Racism can be defined as:
"prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."
The term that you're looking for is Affirmative action, defined as:
"Affirmative action is a policy in which an individual's color, race, sex, religion or national origin are taken into account to increase opportunities provided to an underrepresented part of society"
> If you are black, you are less likely to get a small business loan, and if so you are likely to get worse rates [1]. They also are encountering more resistance to accessing COVID-19 bailout funds [2]. These are just two examples specific to being a business owner, not to mention the systemic racism they face as individuals.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/16/black-owned.... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/business/minority-busines....
I think this Uber Eats policy is both bad policy and dumb, but I also think that pretending legal racism that only ended in my parents' (still alive) lifetime doesn't have a huge effect on society, not to mention ongoing institutionalized racism the current protests are meant to address.
Nice move, Uber!
1. At least in the US, this is quite blatantly illegal. Uber Eats is not stupid, they know this. Whether you take the charitable view (Uber knows this but they wish to push back against historical and systemic racism) or the uncharitable view (this is a bare virtue signaling ploy), Uber Eats is betting they what they get from doing this is worth more than eventually having to stop or get sued.
2. Personally, as someone who strongly supports the BLM movement, I find this beyond stupid. It doesn't solve the problem at hand, and it just plays into the further division of society that the right wing has played so masterfully into fomenting.
Now is an important time to learn, so please read.
Racism if the belief that race is the basis for determining that one group of people is superior to another group.
Specifically, it is NOT acknowledging that their are differences in the circumstances and opportunities people have based on race. Nor, necessarily, treating people differently based on acknowledging those differences.
Regarding Uber Eats... this policy isn’t racist simply because it treats black-owned restaurants differently.
Lesson over. The rest is just my opinion.
Uber eats’ policy it is divisive. It’s also tone-deaf (how does this help black people in their struggle to be treated like everyone else?). And —- I can’t know for sure from the information I have —- but I suspect racism lead to this poorly conceived policy, because of how divisive it is and how condescending it feels.
The policy should be more like, if you support black lives matter publicly then we will waive delivery fee.
This isn't the fact-check "lesson" you think it is; it just pedantic apologia for racial discrimination that shows your own narrow understanding of the situation more than anything else.
No surprise racism is as strong and prevalent as ever.
You will continue to be mystified and confused about why people are as upset as they are if you refuse to understand what the issue actually is.
Let's just start with the first thing: the idea that white nationalists separatists do not view white people as superior is nonsensical on its face.
> This isn't the fact-check "lesson" you think it is; it just pedantic apologia for racial discrimination that shows your own narrow understanding of the situation more than anything else.
I am sad you see it this way. We've got a long way to go. Just try to open up your mind a little. I feel you have the potential or you would not have even responded.
Funny, I feel the same way about your comment. The regressive, dehumanizing impulse most people have to squash everyone into "black guy" or "Asian woman" instead of "full human being whose life can't be reductively captured by their skin color or genitals" is at the root of both old-fashioned racism and the newfangled form you're so enthusiastic about.
> the idea that white nationalists separatists do not view white people as superior is nonsensical on its face.
I'd imagine the overlap is significant with white supremacists, yes. But racial-/ethnonationalists of every race and ethnicity exist, and they're not all supremacists. There's a memeplex out there that races shouldn't mix that's decoupled from any notion of superiority: for anyone not rightly ensconced in their bubble it's not very difficult to come across this in the wild in, eg, the black community. I'm assuming you don't think that every African-American or Japanese or Indian or Arab or Burundian racial essentialist also thinks that they happen to be the master race? If not, it seems absurd to conclude that whites are the one race for whom this belief exists but _never_ among people who doesn't also believe in racial supremacy.
(For what it's worth, I'm pretty opposed to racial separatism, but I'm not ignorant enough to think that it's the same thing as white supremacy. There's a difference between modern Japan and the Third Reich's views on race)
I am not redefining racism. Just look it up. Superiority based on race. Merriam-Webster:
: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
I’m not going to post a link. Just type racism into your favorite search engine. You’ve got to decide if you want to learn or not.
> I'm assuming you don't think that every African-American or Japanese or Indian or Arab or Burundian racial essentialist also thinks that they happen to be the master race?
Yes, people who are not white can be racist.
> There's a difference between modern Japan and the Third Reich's views on race)
Absolutely. It’s not like Nazi Germany owned a patent on racism. It could, and does, exist in Japan.