Is there a reason we can't solve the equality issue for historically marginalized groups, then fix the systems again to address the smaller set of folks who were disadvantaged by the changes?
Basically, can we Zeno's paradox our way most of the way there, solving and disadvantaging smaller and smaller sets of people?
If you want to put more money into educational support for children where neither parent went to college or makes more then $x - I'm all in favor. But when you can easily measure those things, why then conflate it with race? If certain racial groups fall into those disdavtaged categories, they will automatically benefit. But maybe poor hard working white, or indian, or Chinese parents are dubious about giving additional benefit to the middle class or rich people who happen to be of a certain race? To take a specific example, why should a university prefer to accept one of president Obama's kids ahead of the child of a Chinese butcher or shopworker, all other things being equal?
I would prefer that the state treats every one equally, instead of trying to equalize something as elusive, hard to measure and outside of any sensible government mandate, as good fortune (or lack of bad fortune) in one's life.
I don't think you quite understand here. There are ways of helping out marginalized groups, with their specific problems, and still treating everyone equally.
For example, when there are laws that are passed, that make sexual harassment in the workplace illegal, this disproportionally helps out women, with this problem that they mostly face.
But, even though, yes, this helps this marginalized group, it is still equal. Sexual harassment is still illegal, whether it happens to either men or women, but passing such a law does help this marginalized group more.
How does being queer interact with being from West Virginia, or being poor and and having celiac.
There's just too many factors, you cannot just calculate them all, because they are not independent variables.
I can tell you with near certainty that the apartment building has more concrete. Even if I've never been inside it.
Likewise, I can't measure the amount of challenge I faced (they were significant), I can't tell you the amount of challenge a trans kid faces. I can tell you with near certainty the trans kid faces more.
You don't need to measure, you don't need to be exact. Opportunity is wildly uneven right now. We can absolutely level things, and worry about whether we over corrected later.
When will we know we’ve solved it? When outcomes are equal? When 100.00% of unequal outcomes can be explained as the outcome of individual and family choices? When 99% can be explained?
How should we treat inter-generational wealth and property ownership? If I’ve worked all my life, lived prudently, carefully spent less than I earned, should I be able to pass along only my old baseball mitt to my kid? Maybe $100? Maybe $100K? Maybe $2M and the paid-off house under the condition he takes care of his mother? If one kid gets a musty baseball mitt and another a house and $2M, is that OK or not? One kid gets a house and another a house and a live-in elderly mother; equal?
Different people feel differently, even if they’re both “all for solving the equality issue”.
Let's fix the injustices we are aware of today. (E.g., the effects of racist housing policies that depressed wealth for generations of Black Americans.) As soon as we're no longer able to point to obviously and deeply unequal opportunities, then we can stay figuring out how to know when we're done.
To build a coalition, you have to get the coalition to agree on a goal and a path or at least the right first step(s). Maybe some of them believe that nationalizing public education is a shorter path; others believe that early childhood nutrition is their preferred way to make fastest progress; still others believe that race must be explicitly excluded because it’s an imperfect proxy; others want race to be front and center in the discussion because they think it’s more than just a proxy. If you think X is more important than Y, you may not want to sign up for “Y first; then after we do Y then maybe we’ll consider X.”
This goes triple when X and Y both require some common resource. If it was possible to fix all of the apparent inequalities at once, it’s fair to ask why hasn’t it already been done? I think the answer is usually that you don’t have enough “oomph” to do everything at once, especially when there’s a risk and low appetite for over-correcting to create new inequalities from the program designed to eliminate them.
Coalition building is hard, even among people who 70+% agree on how things ought to be.
This is standard triage procedure, we don't halt all treatment until we've sorted through every possible procedure the hospital could provide. Instead, we look for areas that need our attention now and try to get them at the front of the queue.
Triage staff aren't seeking the best, most optimal first patient. They are trying to identify problems that need our attention.
Doing nothing is not always a sensible default.
That's the sense in which doing nothing is a sensible default for a career politician who wishes to extend their career.