Aseahawkfan wrote:What do you mean racism? This word gets tossed around a lot. It does not mean what you think it means. Racism has a very specific meaning that gets used far too often.
In the application I was using it, what I meant by racism is an employer using a person's race as one of the determining factors in the interviewing, hiring, or promotion of a candidate or employee. But call it by whatever term you like, ie discrimination, biased, or whatever.
Aseahawkfan wrote:You can ensure adequate representation within government without racism. When you appoint someone of a particular skin color or ethnic background to ensure adequate representation, it is not racist. Racism implies you think someone is inherently superior because of their race. That is not what is occurring when the government is taking measures to ensure adequate representation.
Then fine. Use whatever term you find appropriate to characterize the process I described above. Let's not get hung up on semantics.
Aseahawkfan wrote:It is documented fact that America was a very racist nation with whites taught they are superior to every other minority group. This affected the ability of minority groups in America to obtain jobs, build wealth, enter the education system, and nearly every aspect of American life for hundreds of years. It also created a de facto system that caused whites to hold all the economic and political power for years. It was only by policies that directly required representation in the government and the economy that caused this to change.
If the power based that allowed white racism and specifically white male racism to flourish without some good people who were also white males to realize this was occurring and take steps to dismantle it including programs like affirmative action, then this nation would still be in a very dark place.
And it is not racism at all the measures these folks took to make that change happen. It was a necessary countermeasure to the existing racism that was causing power to be concentrated within a single group of people aka white males. This is all documented fact and not disputable.
Now in the modern day the question becomes have we sufficiently torn down this system that existed where we no longer need these measures? Given I'm certain that you are not a racist Riverdog, I think you fall into this category of thinking. And that I somewhat agree with. There has to be a point where we take of the guard rails that we built to dismantle racism and let the nation move forward without the level of social engineering that was required to dismantle the racist hierarchy that was originally built.
I personally don't know if we reached this level yet. I'm pretty sure we will reach it. Things are way better than your and my parents generation. But not sure we're there yet. That is why I'm fine that Brown obtained the position because her becoming a Supreme Court Justice takes us one step closer to when we can remove the measures taken to counter the original problems in our nation.
We'll get there. Not likely in your lifetime, but at some future point. We're moving in the right direction. I'm ok with you and mykc arguing the counterpoint because I think it is all of our hopes that we reach the point where race doesn't matter and isn't necessary policy point for either party as adequate representation occurs naturally.
I agree in part with what you're saying. Sometimes people have to be force fed medicine if we want them to be cured. But as I asked I-5, how do you define a person's race? Is Patrick Mahomes black or white? Back in the 60's when they created Affirmative Action, there weren't very many mixed marriages so it was pretty easy to tell. But not anymore. There were 4 blacks in my HS graduating class of 1973, and all 4 married white spouses and had bi-racial children. My brother married an Ethiopian, so his two boys are both bi-racial. The same is true of Asians and Hispanics. Native American tribes have had to go all the way down to 1/8 NA blood to define who qualifies to be a member of their tribe. That means that 1 out of 8 of your great, great grandparents, born as long as 150 years ago that you almost certainly never knew, was a Native American. Are we going to do that with African Americans? Can't you see how nonsensical dividing people by their race is?
The other problem is that you are not eliminating race based discrimination, you're displacing it. I truly believe that one of the reasons why Donald Trump resonates with so many older white men is because, rightly or wrongly, they see themselves as having been discriminated against at various points in their lives in favor of a minority or female. We all know that "Make America Great Again" is code for "Make America White Again." Whether you think that sentiment is right or wrong, we have to admit that it exists and needs to be dealt with if we ever want to get over this ugly divide that has split the nation. Eliminating that type of favoritism might be a very small step in healing those scars. Biden's declaration that he was going to appoint a black female to SCOTUS dredges up memories of their own perceptions of having been discriminated against.
And by the way, I do appreciate your assessment of me not being a racist. There's no way I could have enjoyed my life like I am, working with and associating with the people that I have, if I were a racist.