The strategy I'm talking about gives to poor and disadvantaged people regardless of their race, so if a ton of blacks are poor then they will receive the majority of the benefits.
But as an additional benefit middle and upper class minorities won't get advantages they don't need. You also won't require people to "prove" their ethnicity to be granted these benefits (or discriminated against because they aren't for example "black enough").
Here is a fun question: Exactly how black do you have to be to get affirmative action right now? Do they have like a colour wheel? How does that even work?
You said: "Affirmative action should exist; but it should be entirely based on parental income, growing up in a poor area, or other disadvantaged indicators. Not race, not ethnicity, and not gender. These things don't prove you're poor or disadvantaged." which seems quite reasonable.
He said: "Also, helping people who are affected by institutional racism is not racist, it is an attempt to correct for existing racism."
Your statement doesn't seem to acknowledge things in society contributing to future problems.
So he is saying that you have to counter current institutional *isms which still exists today. Otherwise the current biases of today will just contribute to the population of disadvantaged people of tomorrow. I think you need both approaches. Kind of a PID controller kind of solution to the problem.
I do agree with him though, you don't repay racisms of the past and present with more racism in the opposite direction.
Also, use of the legal system to remedy institutional and societal problems has really only been effective to introduce marginal change in the face of existing problems, so its not an overall solution to the problem, just a small part.
> I do agree with him though, you don't repay racisms of the past and present with more racism in the opposite direction.
This would of course assume that it is possible to be institutionally racist against the predominant white culture in the US, which is not possible. In that sense, a policy such as affirmative action is not racist and instead is a policy that combats racism.
Having a quota of minorities is passive because it's a fire and forget rule that must be met. That is still being racist, because you are discriminating applicants success based on ethnicity.
Reactive laws is really just judicial. You can't write a fire and forget rule of law and have it be anything but a passive manipulator of public policy, it doesn't have reactionary change based on circumstances like courts do.
> Also, use of the legal system to remedy institutional and societal problems has really only been effective to introduce marginal change in the face of existing problems, so its not an overall solution to the problem, just a small part.
You don't solve the hostile behaviors of cultures and groups by being racist. You solve it by criminalizing their racism and punishing those who are bigoted.
> This would of course assume that it is possible to be institutionally racist against the predominant white culture in the US, which is not possible. In that sense, a policy such as affirmative action is not racist and instead is a policy that combats racism.
I'd argue the MLB is institutionally racist against white people. There is a tremendous cultural racism thinking it requires high melanin skin content (not even necessarily African heritage) to be good in basketball. And that is a permeating cultural force that a lot of people don't argue against, they just "assume black people are better at basketball". Or how Asians are better at math because they are Asian, and not because they had strict parents who lauded over their studies.
There is plenty of institutional anti-white racism. White people can't be "street" or ideas like "white people can't dance". They are institutional, not of white culture, but other cultures. It doesn't mean it isn't racist if the majority population isn't in the culture that purports it.
I'm not saying there isn't tremendous institutional racism and sexism in the US. I'm just saying inverse bigotry that replaces merit with skin color, ethnicity, or gender is inherently wrong. When ethnic minorities and women experience less math, science, and intellectual learning, you go where they aren't getting that and give it to them, you don't take what is inherently not racial and make it so.
Racism exists, but trying to fight it with more racism is not going to help reduce the focus on race, and until people stop identifying race as a good way to classify a human, racism won't go away.
Your definition is too simplistic. Racism isn't just prejudice based on race. Racism requires a power imbalance. Acting to counteract an institutional imbalance caused by racism is not "just anotehr kind of racism."
And you can act to counteract an institutional imbalance caused by racism without furthering racism. Focus on something else. Race is being reinforced as an accepted means to classify people and that is the root cause of the problem.
"Racism is usually defined as views, practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into distinct biological groups called races and that members of a certain race share certain attributes which make that group as a whole less desirable, more desirable, inferior or superior."
Wikipedia.
What your quote says: "...practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into groups called races."
I don't see how my definition is all that far off.
That's the important part. "Using race as a classification upon which you base your actions" is not by definition racism. Just as using sex as a classification upon which to base actions is not sexism. There is a requirement that those classifications must be used to discriminate or suggest that another group is superior in order for it to be racism or sexism.
Thus your definition is wrong because you selectively ignored a key part of the actual definition.
This completely flies in the face of the history of racism and racism systems in the US. The most raw and visceral forms of slavery and de-facto slavery in the US are most certainly based on power imbalance. Being disproportionately affected by laws and economic policy drafted by mostly white political bodies is a power imbalance. Direct, physical actions by police forces and governments against communities of color is a power imbalance. All of these things are institutional problems regarding race the US faces today and all come back to fundamental power imbalance.
> And you can act to counteract an institutional imbalance caused by racism without furthering racism.
Absolutely true, and policies such as affirmative action do not further racism but rather attempt to fix a small aspect of it.
> Focus on something else.
This is a total derailment. Institutional oppressions are highly linked to racism, to ignore it is to dismiss the criticisms and voices of people of color point this power imbalance out.
I didn't say racism can't exist with power imbalance, I said it doesn't require it. Obviously racism, combined with a power imbalance is worse than racism without the power imbalance. But choosing who you hang out with based solely on skin color is also racist - no power imbalance.
"policies such as affirmative action do not further racism..."
Yes they do, by encouraging people to think that making decisions based on race is acceptable and in fact encouraged by the government.
"This is a total derailment. Institutional oppressions are highly linked to racism, to ignore it is to dismiss the criticisms and voices of people of color point this power imbalance out."
I didn't say it should be ignored. I said it shouldn't be the focus. You can acknowledge that racism and oppression is a problem. You can punish those who make decisions based on race, and you can show that making race an issue in your decisions is wrong - by not continuing to do it.
At the same time, the poor white person benefited from that original wrong, and you can isolate, statistically, some economic advantage to him tracing back to that original wrong. It doesn't matter how poor he is, he would be incrementally poorer had that wrong not occurred.