CDZ Is Affirmative Action racist?

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"Is Affirmative Action racist?"

No,

 

[320 Years of History]

I would consider the belief that a minority group is unable to excel without your help a rather racist belief and [that belief underscores what] inspires AA.

Were that the sole driver behind affirmative action programs, I'd concur with you, but it is not, so I don't.

Name another.

The short is that while it is racist to say "minorities cannot excel because they are minorities," that is, because they are non-white, it isn't racist to say "minorities cannot excel because the majority group's racism doesn't make available to them the opportunities that would permit them to excel."

To be honest, I have yet to find anything that suggests or affirms that the underlying principle of AA programs is anything other than ensuring that the opportunities available to each racial class of citizens is equal among those classes. I also have yet to see any AA critics identify a means by which, in a culture suffused with racism, what other/better means of ensure comparability of opportunity among the favored and unfavored racial groups.

• A central premise underlying affirmative action is that, over time, absent discrimination, a contractor's workforce will generally reflect the gender, racial, and ethnic profile of the labor pools from which the contractor recruits and selects.

-- Source: MIT

• Affirmative action policies initially focused on improving opportunities for African Americans in employment and education.
• In 1961, President Kennedy was the first to use the term "affirmative action" in an Executive Order that directed government contractors to take "affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."

-- Source: National Conference of State Legislatures

As President Lyndon Johnson said in 1965, "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair." President Johnson's speech stated the rationale behind the contemporary use of affirmative action programs to achieve equal opportunity, especially in the fields of employment and higher education.

The emphasis is on opportunity: affirmative action programs are meant to break down barriers, both visible and invisible, to level the playing field, and to help make sure everyone is given an equal break. They are not meant to guarantee equal results -- but instead proceed on the common-sense notion that if equality of opportunity were a reality, African Americans, women, people with disabilities and other groups facing discrimination would be fairly represented in the nation's workforce and educational institutions.

If and when a time comes that it appears that the majority race, as a class of citizens, is suffering as a result of AA programs, I would alter my view about the merit of AA and advocate modifying its provisions. Presently, all I've seen is some individuals in the majority class claiming that they, as individuals, were denied "this or that" opportunity, and citing AA as the reason they were. Even accepting their assertion of causality, I still don't see evidence suggesting or confirming that the majority class, as a whole, is denied access to opportunities. Since AA was initiated as one means of ameliorating a class level problem, and since AA measures its effectiveness at providing equity in access to opportunities at a class level, the nature and extent to which it fails or introduces problems/inequities of its own causing must also be measured at a class level.


Other:
As a member of the majority race in the U.S., I've raised three kids, each of whom graduated in the top five of their classes (top five in number) and with 95th percentile or higher standardized test scores, and so on. They each applied to several colleges/universities. One of them got accepted at every school to which he applied. The other two got into some and not into at least one of others.

Why did they all not gain acceptance all the schools to which they applied? We don't know. For at least one school, we know it had nothing to do with AA because the school isn't in the U.S. That having happened, I've come to think that some share of white folks who gripe about the impact of AA just don't get that even absent AA, they may nonetheless have been denied the opportunity they didn't receive, but since AA does exist in the U.S., it's an easy target on which to blame their woe. To those folks, I say "cry me a river....somewhere else."

 

[Fishlore]

Is Affirmative Action racist? I think it is. The whole issue is that minorities, mainly black people, use this to not get somewhere on merit, like non-minorities do, but to get somewhere based on the colour of their skin....with the quotas etc.

So, Affirmative Action by it's very nature therefore, is actually racist.

If by "racist" you mean shaped in whole or part by issues of race, then affirmative action is racist. BUT there is scarcely a law on the books in all the long history of the United States which is not similarly racist because America's Constitution and its laws have been racist from the git-go.

What some people don't realize is that the XIII Amendment did not "end" racism in the American system, nor did the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The racism in our laws was created by, and in turn sustains, the racism in our society, in our families and in our minds.

Our racist past is like those lead pipes in Flint, that taint and poison everything that passes through them unless deliberate, conscious purification and filtration efforts are made. Affirmative action is such an effort.

How is the American Constitution racist?

For starters, the Constitution not only allowed slavery, it allowed whites to vote "for" slaves by the three-fifths rule.

After the Civil War, slaver by state law was ended with the XIII Amendment; however, the continuing control of the electoral process kept blacks from equal representation. Lack of federal standards in education, taxation, employment allowed Jim Crow to continue racist laws in Southern States. The federal government remained controlled by the South out of proportion to the number of Southern (white) voters through the Electoral College and the arcane rules of the House and Senate. These discriminatory structures remain in place to this very day.

 

[Lucy Hamilton]

Is Affirmative Action racist? I think it is. The whole issue is that minorities, mainly black people, use this to not get somewhere on merit, like non-minorities do, but to get somewhere based on the colour of their skin....with the quotas etc.

So, Affirmative Action by it's very nature therefore, is actually racist.

If by "racist" you mean shaped in whole or part by issues of race, then affirmative action is racist. BUT there is scarcely a law on the books in all the long history of the United States which is not similarly racist because America's Constitution and its laws have been racist from the git-go.

What some people don't realize is that the XIII Amendment did not "end" racism in the American system, nor did the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The racism in our laws was created by, and in turn sustains, the racism in our society, in our families and in our minds.

Our racist past is like those lead pipes in Flint, that taint and poison everything that passes through them unless deliberate, conscious purification and filtration efforts are made. Affirmative action is such an effort.

How is the American Constitution racist?

For starters, the Constitution not only allowed slavery, it allowed whites to vote "for" slaves by the three-fifths rule.

After the Civil War, slaver by state law was ended with the XIII Amendment; however, the continuing control of the electoral process kept blacks from equal representation. Lack of federal standards in education, taxation, employment allowed Jim Crow to continue racist laws in Southern States. The federal government remained controlled by the South out of proportion to the number of Southern (white) voters through the Electoral College and the arcane rules of the House and Senate. These discriminatory structures remain in place to this very day.

Thanks for elaborating on this. So, the solution is what, to re-write the American Constitution, which I think in itself would be Un-Constitutional.

 

[320 Years of History]

Is Affirmative Action racist? I think it is. The whole issue is that minorities, mainly black people, use this to not get somewhere on merit, like non-minorities do, but to get somewhere based on the colour of their skin....with the quotas etc.

So, Affirmative Action by it's very nature therefore, is actually racist.

If by "racist" you mean shaped in whole or part by issues of race, then affirmative action is racist. BUT there is scarcely a law on the books in all the long history of the United States which is not similarly racist because America's Constitution and its laws have been racist from the git-go.

What some people don't realize is that the XIII Amendment did not "end" racism in the American system, nor did the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The racism in our laws was created by, and in turn sustains, the racism in our society, in our families and in our minds.

Our racist past is like those lead pipes in Flint, that taint and poison everything that passes through them unless deliberate, conscious purification and filtration efforts are made. Affirmative action is such an effort.

How is the American Constitution racist?

For starters, the Constitution not only allowed slavery, it allowed whites to vote "for" slaves by the three-fifths rule.

After the Civil War, slaver by state law was ended with the XIII Amendment; however, the continuing control of the electoral process kept blacks from equal representation. Lack of federal standards in education, taxation, employment allowed Jim Crow to continue racist laws in Southern States. The federal government remained controlled by the South out of proportion to the number of Southern (white) voters through the Electoral College and the arcane rules of the House and Senate. These discriminatory structures remain in place to this very day.

What are you talking about?

The "three-fifths rule" was about how populations were counted and had nothing to do with voting or how votes were counted. It had to do with how heads were counted in determining the quantity of representatives states, in particular Southern ones, would have in the U.S. House of Representatives.

When Constitutional Convention delegate Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed that congressional representation be based on the total number of inhabitants of a state, delegate Charles Pinckney of South Carolina agreed saying “blacks ought to stand on an equality with whites….” Pinckney’s statement was disingenuous since at the time he knew most blacks were enslaved in his state and none, slave or free, could vote or were considered equals of white South Carolinians. Other delegates including most notably Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania argued that he could not support equal representation because he “could never agree to give such encouragement to the slave trade…by allowing them [Southern states] a representation for their negroes.”
-- Source: The Three-Fifths Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed​

 

[TNHarley]

yes

 

[FA_Q2]

Is Affirmative Action racist? I think it is. The whole issue is that minorities, mainly black people, use this to not get somewhere on merit, like non-minorities do, but to get somewhere based on the colour of their skin....with the quotas etc.

So, Affirmative Action by it's very nature therefore, is actually racist.

If by "racist" you mean shaped in whole or part by issues of race, then affirmative action is racist. BUT there is scarcely a law on the books in all the long history of the United States which is not similarly racist because America's Constitution and its laws have been racist from the git-go.

What some people don't realize is that the XIII Amendment did not "end" racism in the American system, nor did the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The racism in our laws was created by, and in turn sustains, the racism in our society, in our families and in our minds.

Our racist past is like those lead pipes in Flint, that taint and poison everything that passes through them unless deliberate, conscious purification and filtration efforts are made. Affirmative action is such an effort.

How is the American Constitution racist?

For starters, the Constitution not only allowed slavery, it allowed whites to vote "for" slaves by the three-fifths rule.

After the Civil War, slaver by state law was ended with the XIII Amendment; however, the continuing control of the electoral process kept blacks from equal representation. Lack of federal standards in education, taxation, employment allowed Jim Crow to continue racist laws in Southern States. The federal government remained controlled by the South out of proportion to the number of Southern (white) voters through the Electoral College and the arcane rules of the House and Senate. These discriminatory structures remain in place to this very day.

What are you talking about?

The "three-fifths rule" was about how populations were counted and had nothing to do with voting or how votes were counted. It had to do with how heads were counted in determining the quantity of representatives states, in particular Southern ones, would have in the U.S. House of Representatives.

When Constitutional Convention delegate Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed that congressional representation be based on the total number of inhabitants of a state, delegate Charles Pinckney of South Carolina agreed saying “blacks ought to stand on an equality with whites….” Pinckney’s statement was disingenuous since at the time he knew most blacks were enslaved in his state and none, slave or free, could vote or were considered equals of white South Carolinians. Other delegates including most notably Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania argued that he could not support equal representation because he “could never agree to give such encouragement to the slave trade…by allowing them [Southern states] a representation for their negroes.”
-- Source: The Three-Fifths Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed​

And that is essentially the same thing. Those blacks were counted under the amount of representation that the state itself would yield in the house and for voting for the president. Blacks were not allowed to vote. Ergo, whites controlled not only the proportion of the vote that extended to them because of the population of whites but also the proportion of votes that was extended to the state because of the black population.

In essence, they voted for them. That 3/5ths still garnered additional representation but it only extended that representation to those that were actually able to vote.

 

[320 Years of History]

Is Affirmative Action racist? I think it is. The whole issue is that minorities, mainly black people, use this to not get somewhere on merit, like non-minorities do, but to get somewhere based on the colour of their skin....with the quotas etc.

So, Affirmative Action by it's very nature therefore, is actually racist.

If by "racist" you mean shaped in whole or part by issues of race, then affirmative action is racist. BUT there is scarcely a law on the books in all the long history of the United States which is not similarly racist because America's Constitution and its laws have been racist from the git-go.

What some people don't realize is that the XIII Amendment did not "end" racism in the American system, nor did the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The racism in our laws was created by, and in turn sustains, the racism in our society, in our families and in our minds.

Our racist past is like those lead pipes in Flint, that taint and poison everything that passes through them unless deliberate, conscious purification and filtration efforts are made. Affirmative action is such an effort.

How is the American Constitution racist?

For starters, the Constitution not only allowed slavery, it allowed whites to vote "for" slaves by the three-fifths rule.

After the Civil War, slaver by state law was ended with the XIII Amendment; however, the continuing control of the electoral process kept blacks from equal representation. Lack of federal standards in education, taxation, employment allowed Jim Crow to continue racist laws in Southern States. The federal government remained controlled by the South out of proportion to the number of Southern (white) voters through the Electoral College and the arcane rules of the House and Senate. These discriminatory structures remain in place to this very day.

What are you talking about?

The "three-fifths rule" was about how populations were counted and had nothing to do with voting or how votes were counted. It had to do with how heads were counted in determining the quantity of representatives states, in particular Southern ones, would have in the U.S. House of Representatives.

When Constitutional Convention delegate Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed that congressional representation be based on the total number of inhabitants of a state, delegate Charles Pinckney of South Carolina agreed saying “blacks ought to stand on an equality with whites….” Pinckney’s statement was disingenuous since at the time he knew most blacks were enslaved in his state and none, slave or free, could vote or were considered equals of white South Carolinians. Other delegates including most notably Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania argued that he could not support equal representation because he “could never agree to give such encouragement to the slave trade…by allowing them [Southern states] a representation for their negroes.”
-- Source: The Three-Fifths Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed​

And that is essentially the same thing. Those blacks were counted under the amount of representation that the state itself would yield in the house and for voting for the president. Blacks were not allowed to vote. Ergo, whites controlled not only the proportion of the vote that extended to them because of the population of whites but also the proportion of votes that was extended to the state because of the black population.

In essence, they voted for them. That 3/5ths still garnered additional representation but it only extended that representation to those that were actually able to vote.

That's one hell of a big stretch....

 

[FA_Q2]

I would consider the belief that a minority group is unable to excel without your help a rather racist belief and [that belief underscores what] inspires AA.

Were that the sole driver behind affirmative action programs, I'd concur with you, but it is not, so I don't.

Name another.

The short is that while it is racist to say "minorities cannot excel because they are minorities," that is, because they are non-white, it isn't racist to say "minorities cannot excel because the majority group's racism doesn't make available to them the opportunities that would permit them to excel."

To be honest, I have yet to find anything that suggests or affirms that the underlying principle of AA programs is anything other than ensuring that the opportunities available to each racial class of citizens is equal among those classes. I also have yet to see any AA critics identify a means by which, in a culture suffused with racism, what other/better means of ensure comparability of opportunity among the favored and unfavored racial groups.

And that is likely the impasse that we are at. I really do not see much of a difference in the two positions. One is outright racist and the other is racist by virtue of believing that the minority group is unable to overcome this nebulious 'system' that is keeping them 'down.' I can understand what you are saying though and perhaps it is just the aversion that I have in eliminating the individual and appealing to the group which is really what that statement is based on. I think that thought process is caustic as hell as well - it makes the individual nothing more than a victim of circumstance rather than one that can and does overcome those circumstances.

• A central premise underlying affirmative action is that, over time, absent discrimination, a contractor's workforce will generally reflect the gender, racial, and ethnic profile of the labor pools from which the contractor recruits and selects.

-- Source: MIT

Yes, and that is exactly what I said earlier. The only think it fails to mention is WHY one feels the necessity to ensure this outcome is achieved and the WHY is what makes something racist or not.

The example given was actually rather ironic and highlights one of the underlying problems with AA. The above statement is flatly false and that is a fact. Absent racism the labor force DOES NOT roughly equal the makeup of the labor pool available. This is because cultural and biological factors play a large role in jobs as well. The are I lkived in as a child was predominately Asian and my father ran a construction company from that area. We were actually approached by the state because my father was obviously a racist - he did not hire very many Asians at all. Of course the central problem was that there were no Asians that were looking for work in drywall - aside from the fact that it is not really a position that goes well with the culture, there are also very few Asians that I know that were capable of hefting a 140lb, 12 foot set of drywall on their shoulder and carrying it up 3 flights of stairs for 8 hours. That is not even touching on the number of women in the field. Mexicans on the other hand make up a LOT of the workforce in construction. Discrimination was never the issue - the issue was the people willing AND able to do the work.

• Affirmative action policies initially focused on improving opportunities for African Americans in employment and education.
• In 1961, President Kennedy was the first to use the term "affirmative action" in an Executive Order that directed government contractors to take "affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."

-- Source: National Conference of State Legislatures

As President Lyndon Johnson said in 1965, "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair." President Johnson's speech stated the rationale behind the contemporary use of affirmative action programs to achieve equal opportunity, especially in the fields of employment and higher education.

The emphasis is on opportunity: affirmative action programs are meant to break down barriers, both visible and invisible, to level the playing field, and to help make sure everyone is given an equal break. They are not meant to guarantee equal results -- but instead proceed on the common-sense notion that if equality of opportunity were a reality, African Americans, women, people with disabilities and other groups facing discrimination would be fairly represented in the nation's workforce and educational institutions.

Ad if that was what AA was then there would be no issue. That is no longer the case. AA essentially boils down to meeting quotas.

If and when a time comes that it appears that the majority race, as a class of citizens, is suffering as a result of AA programs, I would alter my view about the merit of AA and advocate modifying its provisions. Presently, all I've seen is some individuals in the majority class claiming that they, as individuals, were denied "this or that" opportunity, and citing AA as the reason they were. Even accepting their assertion of causality, I still don't see evidence suggesting or confirming that the majority class, as a whole, is denied access to opportunities. Since AA was initiated as one means of ameliorating a class level problem, and since AA measures its effectiveness at providing equity in access to opportunities at a class level, the nature and extent to which it fails or introduces problems/inequities of its own causing must also be measured at a class level.


Other:
As a member of the majority race in the U.S., I've raised three kids, each of whom graduated in the top five of their classes (top five in number) and with 95th percentile or higher standardized test scores, and so on. They each applied to several colleges/universities. One of them got accepted at every school to which he applied. The other two got into some and not into at least one of others.

Why did they all not gain acceptance all the schools to which they applied? We don't know. For at least one school, we know it had nothing to do with AA because the school isn't in the U.S. That having happened, I've come to think that some share of white folks who gripe about the impact of AA just don't get that even absent AA, they may nonetheless have been denied the opportunity they didn't receive, but since AA does exist in the U.S., it's an easy target on which to blame their woe. To those folks, I say "cry me a river....somewhere else."

You can tell them to 'cry me a river' all you want but that certainly does not acknowledge that such a perception is rather caustic. It is akin to shoving your fingers in your ears and yelling nanananana.

None of my arguments have had anything to do with how AA may or may not disadvantage whites or others that are not included. As a matter of fact, they center on the exact opposite - I think AA now serves to harm those it intends to help more than it actually serves to help them.

 

[FA_Q2]

Is Affirmative Action racist? I think it is. The whole issue is that minorities, mainly black people, use this to not get somewhere on merit, like non-minorities do, but to get somewhere based on the colour of their skin....with the quotas etc.

So, Affirmative Action by it's very nature therefore, is actually racist.

If by "racist" you mean shaped in whole or part by issues of race, then affirmative action is racist. BUT there is scarcely a law on the books in all the long history of the United States which is not similarly racist because America's Constitution and its laws have been racist from the git-go.

What some people don't realize is that the XIII Amendment did not "end" racism in the American system, nor did the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The racism in our laws was created by, and in turn sustains, the racism in our society, in our families and in our minds.

Our racist past is like those lead pipes in Flint, that taint and poison everything that passes through them unless deliberate, conscious purification and filtration efforts are made. Affirmative action is such an effort.

How is the American Constitution racist?

For starters, the Constitution not only allowed slavery, it allowed whites to vote "for" slaves by the three-fifths rule.

After the Civil War, slaver by state law was ended with the XIII Amendment; however, the continuing control of the electoral process kept blacks from equal representation. Lack of federal standards in education, taxation, employment allowed Jim Crow to continue racist laws in Southern States. The federal government remained controlled by the South out of proportion to the number of Southern (white) voters through the Electoral College and the arcane rules of the House and Senate. These discriminatory structures remain in place to this very day.

What are you talking about?

The "three-fifths rule" was about how populations were counted and had nothing to do with voting or how votes were counted. It had to do with how heads were counted in determining the quantity of representatives states, in particular Southern ones, would have in the U.S. House of Representatives.

When Constitutional Convention delegate Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed that congressional representation be based on the total number of inhabitants of a state, delegate Charles Pinckney of South Carolina agreed saying “blacks ought to stand on an equality with whites….” Pinckney’s statement was disingenuous since at the time he knew most blacks were enslaved in his state and none, slave or free, could vote or were considered equals of white South Carolinians. Other delegates including most notably Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania argued that he could not support equal representation because he “could never agree to give such encouragement to the slave trade…by allowing them [Southern states] a representation for their negroes.”
-- Source: The Three-Fifths Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed​

And that is essentially the same thing. Those blacks were counted under the amount of representation that the state itself would yield in the house and for voting for the president. Blacks were not allowed to vote. Ergo, whites controlled not only the proportion of the vote that extended to them because of the population of whites but also the proportion of votes that was extended to the state because of the black population.

In essence, they voted for them. That 3/5ths still garnered additional representation but it only extended that representation to those that were actually able to vote.

That's one hell of a big stretch....

Streach?

It is not a stretch at all. To illustrate:

Three communities share voting and they have decided to do so based on the population in their respective areas. They decide that each 1,000 people gives them a single representative. In each area there are 10,000 people. In one they and all are allowed to vote for their 10 representatives. In another, they decide that the poor are not allowed to vote and have a population of 5,000 poor and 5,000 middle class and up that are allowed to vote. Those 5,000 vote on the 10 representatives that are elected. In the last, they decide that only white people are allowed to vote. They have 8,000 whites and 2,000 'other.' Those 8,000 vote for their 10 representatives.

This is similar to how it worked with the 3/5ths rule. The total representation is selected based off the TOTAL population however only those that were in the correct 'class' were allowed the vote. In the above example I think you would be hard pressed to state that the latter 2 areas were not giving the representation of the 'wrong' class to the 'correct' class (poor to middle class and other to white). Those people were counted as part of the whole in order to garner that representation but were not allowed to select it. If they were simply not counted then that might be different but then the second community would only garner 5 representatives and the last 8.

 

[Staidhup]

No argument in that affirmative action was the immediate political solution and racist, however, failed to address the central core at the hart of the problem, that of education. Accountability, teacher competency, and measurable results were swept under the rug for the benefit of those demanding more and more money to deliver mediocre results. How is it that private and charter schools manage to graduate competent college ready students at the same time public school system struggles to even graduate literate students? One key factor is parent involvement, the second is the quality of teachers. Why if everything is equal is an Asian, Hispanic, Caucasian, Native American, or Back person judged not on accomplishment and ability but on race as a preference in college admission? The political justification dictating affirmative action defeats the objective of educating students and preparing them to be constructive citizens.Tax payers deserve better, accountability and measurable results based on competency and ability.

 

[320 Years of History]

If by "racist" you mean shaped in whole or part by issues of race, then affirmative action is racist. BUT there is scarcely a law on the books in all the long history of the United States which is not similarly racist because America's Constitution and its laws have been racist from the git-go.

What some people don't realize is that the XIII Amendment did not "end" racism in the American system, nor did the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The racism in our laws was created by, and in turn sustains, the racism in our society, in our families and in our minds.

Our racist past is like those lead pipes in Flint, that taint and poison everything that passes through them unless deliberate, conscious purification and filtration efforts are made. Affirmative action is such an effort.

How is the American Constitution racist?

For starters, the Constitution not only allowed slavery, it allowed whites to vote "for" slaves by the three-fifths rule.

After the Civil War, slaver by state law was ended with the XIII Amendment; however, the continuing control of the electoral process kept blacks from equal representation. Lack of federal standards in education, taxation, employment allowed Jim Crow to continue racist laws in Southern States. The federal government remained controlled by the South out of proportion to the number of Southern (white) voters through the Electoral College and the arcane rules of the House and Senate. These discriminatory structures remain in place to this very day.

What are you talking about?

The "three-fifths rule" was about how populations were counted and had nothing to do with voting or how votes were counted. It had to do with how heads were counted in determining the quantity of representatives states, in particular Southern ones, would have in the U.S. House of Representatives.

When Constitutional Convention delegate Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed that congressional representation be based on the total number of inhabitants of a state, delegate Charles Pinckney of South Carolina agreed saying “blacks ought to stand on an equality with whites….” Pinckney’s statement was disingenuous since at the time he knew most blacks were enslaved in his state and none, slave or free, could vote or were considered equals of white South Carolinians. Other delegates including most notably Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania argued that he could not support equal representation because he “could never agree to give such encouragement to the slave trade…by allowing them [Southern states] a representation for their negroes.”
-- Source: The Three-Fifths Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed​

And that is essentially the same thing. Those blacks were counted under the amount of representation that the state itself would yield in the house and for voting for the president. Blacks were not allowed to vote. Ergo, whites controlled not only the proportion of the vote that extended to them because of the population of whites but also the proportion of votes that was extended to the state because of the black population.

In essence, they voted for them. That 3/5ths still garnered additional representation but it only extended that representation to those that were actually able to vote.

That's one hell of a big stretch....

Streach?

It is not a stretch at all. To illustrate:

Three communities share voting and they have decided to do so based on the population in their respective areas. They decide that each 1,000 people gives them a single representative. In each area there are 10,000 people. In one they and all are allowed to vote for their 10 representatives. In another, they decide that the poor are not allowed to vote and have a population of 5,000 poor and 5,000 middle class and up that are allowed to vote. Those 5,000 vote on the 10 representatives that are elected. In the last, they decide that only white people are allowed to vote. They have 8,000 whites and 2,000 'other.' Those 8,000 vote for their 10 representatives.

This is similar to how it worked with the 3/5ths rule. The total representation is selected based off the TOTAL population however only those that were in the correct 'class' were allowed the vote. In the above example I think you would be hard pressed to state that the latter 2 areas were not giving the representation of the 'wrong' class to the 'correct' class (poor to middle class and other to white). Those people were counted as part of the whole in order to garner that representation but were not allowed to select it. If they were simply not counted then that might be different but then the second community would only garner 5 representatives and the last 8.

It's a stretch because the 3/5ths rule determined how many positions were available to be voted on (by whoever is permitted to vote). It had nothing to do with representation for the folks in the "wrong class" "in essence" or in fact voting for anyone or anything. It had everything to do with Southern states wanting to boost their quantity of Congressional votes and thereby have control of Congress. The easiest way to ensure that was to count their slaves as part of the population based used to determine the quantity of Congressional representatives apportioned to each state.

Take a look at the population ratios of pre-Civil War Southern states. Some Southern states had more slaves than white folk, and you can "bet your bottom dollar" the Congressional representatives from no Southern state gave a tinker's dam about what their so-called "wrong class" constituents deserved, needed or wanted from a legislative standpoint. For white male landowners in the South, aka plantation owners because that's basically what one did with land in the South back then, it was about having control over one's land and property, control over the state legislature which was comprised of men just like oneself, and control over the federal government, control that had to be shared with folks in the North who were largely opposed to slavery (in part because it wasn't critical to their economic livelihood) regardless of whatever else they thought about black folks.

The central focus of the 3/5th rule -- the extent of representation (and thus control) slave states had in the federal government -- materialized again in the debate over the Missouri Compromise. The simple fact is that hundreds of square miles of Southern land was occupied by small handfuls of white folks and if the quantity of vote-eligible whites were the determining factor to the quantity of votes in Congress, slavery would have been outlawed well before the Civil War, or the Civil War would have happened sooner.
.
I think folks these days just don't "get it" -- in part because history books don't generally tell it -- sometimes when it comes to how early U.S. Southerners thought of their slaves and slavery. I recall as a teen getting into a heap of trouble for taking one of my paternal great grandmother's (second or third, don't recall which) cousin's diary to school for a history assignment. Even now, though I don't recall the exact language of it, I have no trouble recalling my cousin's writing about how important her husband thought it was that more slave states be admitted to the country to make sure their fortunes were kept secure from those factory owners up north who didn't understand what it takes to make a living in the South. All she wanted, however, was for him to be home with the family and to run things. And that was not because she didn't know how to run things or didn't care about the national politics of the matter; she just didn't like having to be one to punish people and deal with that sort of thing. She had to get along with the slaves who worked in and around the house and who took care of the kids. She didn't want to be the person who had to discipline a field slave who might be close with a house slave who may in turn take it out on her kids. She needed "a way out," so to speak.

(The only reason I remember that is because at the time Daddy -- who was then and surely still is a bigot -- was trying to show me that even though our forebears had slaves and didn't want to see the end of slavery, we weren't "all bad." LOL At the time, I thought "Okay. Maybe you're right and maybe that counts for something." Now, I'm like, "Really? Is "not all bad" nonetheless more than sufficiently reprehensible and those people well deserving of our opprobrium?")

 

[FA_Q2]

How is the American Constitution racist?

For starters, the Constitution not only allowed slavery, it allowed whites to vote "for" slaves by the three-fifths rule.

After the Civil War, slaver by state law was ended with the XIII Amendment; however, the continuing control of the electoral process kept blacks from equal representation. Lack of federal standards in education, taxation, employment allowed Jim Crow to continue racist laws in Southern States. The federal government remained controlled by the South out of proportion to the number of Southern (white) voters through the Electoral College and the arcane rules of the House and Senate. These discriminatory structures remain in place to this very day.

What are you talking about?

The "three-fifths rule" was about how populations were counted and had nothing to do with voting or how votes were counted. It had to do with how heads were counted in determining the quantity of representatives states, in particular Southern ones, would have in the U.S. House of Representatives.

When Constitutional Convention delegate Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed that congressional representation be based on the total number of inhabitants of a state, delegate Charles Pinckney of South Carolina agreed saying “blacks ought to stand on an equality with whites….” Pinckney’s statement was disingenuous since at the time he knew most blacks were enslaved in his state and none, slave or free, could vote or were considered equals of white South Carolinians. Other delegates including most notably Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania argued that he could not support equal representation because he “could never agree to give such encouragement to the slave trade…by allowing them [Southern states] a representation for their negroes.”
-- Source: The Three-Fifths Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed​

And that is essentially the same thing. Those blacks were counted under the amount of representation that the state itself would yield in the house and for voting for the president. Blacks were not allowed to vote. Ergo, whites controlled not only the proportion of the vote that extended to them because of the population of whites but also the proportion of votes that was extended to the state because of the black population.

In essence, they voted for them. That 3/5ths still garnered additional representation but it only extended that representation to those that were actually able to vote.

That's one hell of a big stretch....

Streach?

It is not a stretch at all. To illustrate:

Three communities share voting and they have decided to do so based on the population in their respective areas. They decide that each 1,000 people gives them a single representative. In each area there are 10,000 people. In one they and all are allowed to vote for their 10 representatives. In another, they decide that the poor are not allowed to vote and have a population of 5,000 poor and 5,000 middle class and up that are allowed to vote. Those 5,000 vote on the 10 representatives that are elected. In the last, they decide that only white people are allowed to vote. They have 8,000 whites and 2,000 'other.' Those 8,000 vote for their 10 representatives.

This is similar to how it worked with the 3/5ths rule. The total representation is selected based off the TOTAL population however only those that were in the correct 'class' were allowed the vote. In the above example I think you would be hard pressed to state that the latter 2 areas were not giving the representation of the 'wrong' class to the 'correct' class (poor to middle class and other to white). Those people were counted as part of the whole in order to garner that representation but were not allowed to select it. If they were simply not counted then that might be different but then the second community would only garner 5 representatives and the last 8.

It's a stretch because the 3/5ths rule determined how many positions were available to be voted on (by whoever is permitted to vote). It had nothing to do with representation for the folks in the "wrong class" "in essence" or in fact voting for anyone or anything. It had everything to do with Southern states wanting to boost their quantity of Congressional votes and thereby have control of Congress. The easiest way to ensure that was to count their slaves as part of the population based used to determine the quantity of Congressional representatives apportioned to each state.

Take a look at the population ratios of pre-Civil War Southern states. Some Southern states had more slaves than white folk, and you can "bet your bottom dollar" the Congressional representatives from no Southern state gave a tinker's dam about what their so-called "wrong class" constituents deserved, needed or wanted from a legislative standpoint. For white male landowners in the South, aka plantation owners because that's basically what one did with land in the South back then, it was about having control over one's land and property, control over the state legislature which was comprised of men just like oneself, and control over the federal government, control that had to be shared with folks in the North who were largely opposed to slavery (in part because it wasn't critical to their economic livelihood) regardless of whatever else they thought about black folks.

The central focus of the 3/5th rule -- the extent of representation (and thus control) slave states had in the federal government -- materialized again in the debate over the Missouri Compromise. The simple fact is that hundreds of square miles of Southern land was occupied by small handfuls of white folks and if the quantity of vote-eligible whites were the determining factor to the quantity of votes in Congress, slavery would have been outlawed well before the Civil War, or the Civil War would have happened sooner.
.
I think folks these days just don't "get it" -- in part because history books don't generally tell it -- sometimes when it comes to how early U.S. Southerners thought of their slaves and slavery. I recall as a teen getting into a heap of trouble for taking one of my paternal great grandmother's (second or third, don't recall which) cousin's diary to school for a history assignment. Even now, though I don't recall the exact language of it, I have no trouble recalling my cousin's writing about how important her husband thought it was that more slave states be admitted to the country to make sure their fortunes were kept secure from those factory owners up north who didn't understand what it takes to make a living in the South. All she wanted, however, was for him to be home with the family and to run things. And that was not because she didn't know how to run things or didn't care about the national politics of the matter; she just didn't like having to be one to punish people and deal with that sort of thing. She had to get along with the slaves who worked in and around the house and who took care of the kids. She didn't want to be the person who had to discipline a field slave who might be close with a house slave who may in turn take it out on her kids. She needed "a way out," so to speak.

(The only reason I remember that is because at the time Daddy -- who was then and surely still is a bigot -- was trying to show me that even though our forebears had slaves and didn't want to see the end of slavery, we weren't "all bad." LOL At the time, I thought "Okay. Maybe you're right and maybe that counts for something." Now, I'm like, "Really? Is "not all bad" nonetheless more than sufficiently reprehensible and those people well deserving of our opprobrium?")

I don't really see how any of that has anything to do with what I stated.

None of that was in contention. All I really said is that such states got increased representation solely because they had slaves and that representation went to the white voters that would have otherwise not had it. As such, I did not think it was unreasonable to state that those whites had essentially garnered that representation for themselves which existed solely because the slaves. The point is rather immaterial to the thread at large though and I think we are getting drug off track with it.

 

[Pogo]

Can't agree there. Simply mentioning a race is a simple classification, same as "blond" or "female" or "tall".

"That guy" --- not racist.
"That black guy" --- not racist.
"That black guy stole my car" --- not racist.
"That black guy stole my car because that's what blacks do" --- Racist.

But many think saying "that black guy" and "that black guy stole my car" is racist, because they'd say "why do you have to mention his colour?"

This is what I mean, it's getting silly now.

First, there's no question that assigning the causal generalization found in the fourth statement reflects, if not racism, clear and unfair bias. Would the speaker of such a remark be racist or simply not get out enough or something else? I don't know...I know only that I'd immediately end all unnecessary personal interaction with a speaker of a remark.


"Why must one mention race?" is not an unreasonable question to ask (with regard to the two middle statements), and, IMO, the reasonableness of asking it (or volunteering the race of the person who stole the car) depends on context. When the cops are trying to collect information to find the thief, the person's race, if known, is a relevant data point to share with them. In conversation where the thief's race has nothing to do with it, the critical listener has to wonder (even if they don't ask) why did the speaker share that the person involved was black.

Simply because it serves as an easy, ready and obvious identifying adjective. If there are several people in a group it's clearly easier to refer to "the black guy" (being the only one in the group) than to say "the guy over there with the yellow shirt, about three people to the right of the potted plant".

There's nothing inherently racist when used as a simple identifier, any more than referring to "guy" would be sexist. Racism (and sexism) require a value judgment. The phrase "that black guy" doesn't contain one.

 

[320 Years of History]

What are you talking about?

The "three-fifths rule" was about how populations were counted and had nothing to do with voting or how votes were counted. It had to do with how heads were counted in determining the quantity of representatives states, in particular Southern ones, would have in the U.S. House of Representatives.

When Constitutional Convention delegate Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed that congressional representation be based on the total number of inhabitants of a state, delegate Charles Pinckney of South Carolina agreed saying “blacks ought to stand on an equality with whites….” Pinckney’s statement was disingenuous since at the time he knew most blacks were enslaved in his state and none, slave or free, could vote or were considered equals of white South Carolinians. Other delegates including most notably Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania argued that he could not support equal representation because he “could never agree to give such encouragement to the slave trade…by allowing them [Southern states] a representation for their negroes.”
-- Source: The Three-Fifths Clause of the United States Constitution (1787) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed​

And that is essentially the same thing. Those blacks were counted under the amount of representation that the state itself would yield in the house and for voting for the president. Blacks were not allowed to vote. Ergo, whites controlled not only the proportion of the vote that extended to them because of the population of whites but also the proportion of votes that was extended to the state because of the black population.

In essence, they voted for them. That 3/5ths still garnered additional representation but it only extended that representation to those that were actually able to vote.

That's one hell of a big stretch....

Streach?

It is not a stretch at all. To illustrate:

Three communities share voting and they have decided to do so based on the population in their respective areas. They decide that each 1,000 people gives them a single representative. In each area there are 10,000 people. In one they and all are allowed to vote for their 10 representatives. In another, they decide that the poor are not allowed to vote and have a population of 5,000 poor and 5,000 middle class and up that are allowed to vote. Those 5,000 vote on the 10 representatives that are elected. In the last, they decide that only white people are allowed to vote. They have 8,000 whites and 2,000 'other.' Those 8,000 vote for their 10 representatives.

This is similar to how it worked with the 3/5ths rule. The total representation is selected based off the TOTAL population however only those that were in the correct 'class' were allowed the vote. In the above example I think you would be hard pressed to state that the latter 2 areas were not giving the representation of the 'wrong' class to the 'correct' class (poor to middle class and other to white). Those people were counted as part of the whole in order to garner that representation but were not allowed to select it. If they were simply not counted then that might be different but then the second community would only garner 5 representatives and the last 8.

It's a stretch because the 3/5ths rule determined how many positions were available to be voted on (by whoever is permitted to vote). It had nothing to do with representation for the folks in the "wrong class" "in essence" or in fact voting for anyone or anything. It had everything to do with Southern states wanting to boost their quantity of Congressional votes and thereby have control of Congress. The easiest way to ensure that was to count their slaves as part of the population based used to determine the quantity of Congressional representatives apportioned to each state.

Take a look at the population ratios of pre-Civil War Southern states. Some Southern states had more slaves than white folk, and you can "bet your bottom dollar" the Congressional representatives from no Southern state gave a tinker's dam about what their so-called "wrong class" constituents deserved, needed or wanted from a legislative standpoint. For white male landowners in the South, aka plantation owners because that's basically what one did with land in the South back then, it was about having control over one's land and property, control over the state legislature which was comprised of men just like oneself, and control over the federal government, control that had to be shared with folks in the North who were largely opposed to slavery (in part because it wasn't critical to their economic livelihood) regardless of whatever else they thought about black folks.

The central focus of the 3/5th rule -- the extent of representation (and thus control) slave states had in the federal government -- materialized again in the debate over the Missouri Compromise. The simple fact is that hundreds of square miles of Southern land was occupied by small handfuls of white folks and if the quantity of vote-eligible whites were the determining factor to the quantity of votes in Congress, slavery would have been outlawed well before the Civil War, or the Civil War would have happened sooner.
.
I think folks these days just don't "get it" -- in part because history books don't generally tell it -- sometimes when it comes to how early U.S. Southerners thought of their slaves and slavery. I recall as a teen getting into a heap of trouble for taking one of my paternal great grandmother's (second or third, don't recall which) cousin's diary to school for a history assignment. Even now, though I don't recall the exact language of it, I have no trouble recalling my cousin's writing about how important her husband thought it was that more slave states be admitted to the country to make sure their fortunes were kept secure from those factory owners up north who didn't understand what it takes to make a living in the South. All she wanted, however, was for him to be home with the family and to run things. And that was not because she didn't know how to run things or didn't care about the national politics of the matter; she just didn't like having to be one to punish people and deal with that sort of thing. She had to get along with the slaves who worked in and around the house and who took care of the kids. She didn't want to be the person who had to discipline a field slave who might be close with a house slave who may in turn take it out on her kids. She needed "a way out," so to speak.

(The only reason I remember that is because at the time Daddy -- who was then and surely still is a bigot -- was trying to show me that even though our forebears had slaves and didn't want to see the end of slavery, we weren't "all bad." LOL At the time, I thought "Okay. Maybe you're right and maybe that counts for something." Now, I'm like, "Really? Is "not all bad" nonetheless more than sufficiently reprehensible and those people well deserving of our opprobrium?")

I don't really see how any of that has anything to do with what I stated.

None of that was in contention. All I really said is that such states got increased representation solely because they had slaves and that representation went to the white voters that would have otherwise not had it. As such, I did not think it was unreasonable to state that those whites had essentially garnered that representation for themselves which existed solely because the slaves. The point is rather immaterial to the thread at large though and I think we are getting drug off track with it.

The first paragraph is what has to do with what you wrote. I do not see at all how, by slaves counting as 3/5ths of a person each, any extent of representation or votes in turn accrues to those 3/5ths persons, namely the slaves. Whatever votes in Congress those 3/5ths persons made possible by existing, they had nothing to do with the actual 3/5ths persons voting...that is the 3/5ths rule didn't allow for 300 slave individuals to have 180 votes in any election.

 

[FA_Q2]

And that is essentially the same thing. Those blacks were counted under the amount of representation that the state itself would yield in the house and for voting for the president. Blacks were not allowed to vote. Ergo, whites controlled not only the proportion of the vote that extended to them because of the population of whites but also the proportion of votes that was extended to the state because of the black population.

In essence, they voted for them. That 3/5ths still garnered additional representation but it only extended that representation to those that were actually able to vote.

That's one hell of a big stretch....

Streach?

It is not a stretch at all. To illustrate:

Three communities share voting and they have decided to do so based on the population in their respective areas. They decide that each 1,000 people gives them a single representative. In each area there are 10,000 people. In one they and all are allowed to vote for their 10 representatives. In another, they decide that the poor are not allowed to vote and have a population of 5,000 poor and 5,000 middle class and up that are allowed to vote. Those 5,000 vote on the 10 representatives that are elected. In the last, they decide that only white people are allowed to vote. They have 8,000 whites and 2,000 'other.' Those 8,000 vote for their 10 representatives.

This is similar to how it worked with the 3/5ths rule. The total representation is selected based off the TOTAL population however only those that were in the correct 'class' were allowed the vote. In the above example I think you would be hard pressed to state that the latter 2 areas were not giving the representation of the 'wrong' class to the 'correct' class (poor to middle class and other to white). Those people were counted as part of the whole in order to garner that representation but were not allowed to select it. If they were simply not counted then that might be different but then the second community would only garner 5 representatives and the last 8.

It's a stretch because the 3/5ths rule determined how many positions were available to be voted on (by whoever is permitted to vote). It had nothing to do with representation for the folks in the "wrong class" "in essence" or in fact voting for anyone or anything. It had everything to do with Southern states wanting to boost their quantity of Congressional votes and thereby have control of Congress. The easiest way to ensure that was to count their slaves as part of the population based used to determine the quantity of Congressional representatives apportioned to each state.

Take a look at the population ratios of pre-Civil War Southern states. Some Southern states had more slaves than white folk, and you can "bet your bottom dollar" the Congressional representatives from no Southern state gave a tinker's dam about what their so-called "wrong class" constituents deserved, needed or wanted from a legislative standpoint. For white male landowners in the South, aka plantation owners because that's basically what one did with land in the South back then, it was about having control over one's land and property, control over the state legislature which was comprised of men just like oneself, and control over the federal government, control that had to be shared with folks in the North who were largely opposed to slavery (in part because it wasn't critical to their economic livelihood) regardless of whatever else they thought about black folks.

The central focus of the 3/5th rule -- the extent of representation (and thus control) slave states had in the federal government -- materialized again in the debate over the Missouri Compromise. The simple fact is that hundreds of square miles of Southern land was occupied by small handfuls of white folks and if the quantity of vote-eligible whites were the determining factor to the quantity of votes in Congress, slavery would have been outlawed well before the Civil War, or the Civil War would have happened sooner.
.
I think folks these days just don't "get it" -- in part because history books don't generally tell it -- sometimes when it comes to how early U.S. Southerners thought of their slaves and slavery. I recall as a teen getting into a heap of trouble for taking one of my paternal great grandmother's (second or third, don't recall which) cousin's diary to school for a history assignment. Even now, though I don't recall the exact language of it, I have no trouble recalling my cousin's writing about how important her husband thought it was that more slave states be admitted to the country to make sure their fortunes were kept secure from those factory owners up north who didn't understand what it takes to make a living in the South. All she wanted, however, was for him to be home with the family and to run things. And that was not because she didn't know how to run things or didn't care about the national politics of the matter; she just didn't like having to be one to punish people and deal with that sort of thing. She had to get along with the slaves who worked in and around the house and who took care of the kids. She didn't want to be the person who had to discipline a field slave who might be close with a house slave who may in turn take it out on her kids. She needed "a way out," so to speak.

(The only reason I remember that is because at the time Daddy -- who was then and surely still is a bigot -- was trying to show me that even though our forebears had slaves and didn't want to see the end of slavery, we weren't "all bad." LOL At the time, I thought "Okay. Maybe you're right and maybe that counts for something." Now, I'm like, "Really? Is "not all bad" nonetheless more than sufficiently reprehensible and those people well deserving of our opprobrium?")

I don't really see how any of that has anything to do with what I stated.

None of that was in contention. All I really said is that such states got increased representation solely because they had slaves and that representation went to the white voters that would have otherwise not had it. As such, I did not think it was unreasonable to state that those whites had essentially garnered that representation for themselves which existed solely because the slaves. The point is rather immaterial to the thread at large though and I think we are getting drug off track with it.

The first paragraph is what has to do with what you wrote. I do not see at all how, by slaves counting as 3/5ths of a person each, any extent of representation or votes in turn accrues to those 3/5ths persons, namely the slaves. Whatever votes in Congress those 3/5ths persons made possible by existing, they had nothing to do with the actual 3/5ths persons voting...that is the 3/5ths rule didn't allow for 300 slave individuals to have 180 votes in any election.

It increased the overall representation of that location by 180 persons and then divided up the votes to select them to others. The 3/5 did create more votes - more votes in the house and in the electoral college that were selected by the same smaller group.

 

[320 Years of History]

Can't agree there. Simply mentioning a race is a simple classification, same as "blond" or "female" or "tall".

"That guy" --- not racist.
"That black guy" --- not racist.
"That black guy stole my car" --- not racist.
"That black guy stole my car because that's what blacks do" --- Racist.

But many think saying "that black guy" and "that black guy stole my car" is racist, because they'd say "why do you have to mention his colour?"

This is what I mean, it's getting silly now.

First, there's no question that assigning the causal generalization found in the fourth statement reflects, if not racism, clear and unfair bias. Would the speaker of such a remark be racist or simply not get out enough or something else? I don't know...I know only that I'd immediately end all unnecessary personal interaction with a speaker of a remark.


"Why must one mention race?" is not an unreasonable question to ask (with regard to the two middle statements), and, IMO, the reasonableness of asking it (or volunteering the race of the person who stole the car) depends on context. When the cops are trying to collect information to find the thief, the person's race, if known, is a relevant data point to share with them. In conversation where the thief's race has nothing to do with it, the critical listener has to wonder (even if they don't ask) why did the speaker share that the person involved was black.

Simply because it serves as an easy, ready and obvious identifying adjective. If there are several people in a group it's clearly easier to refer to "the black guy" (being the only one in the group) than to say "the guy over there with the yellow shirt, about three people to the right of the potted plant".

There's nothing inherently racist when used as a simple identifier, any more than referring to "guy" would be sexist. Racism (and sexism) require a value judgment. The phrase "that black guy" doesn't contain one.

Exactly....as I wrote earlier, context has a lot to do with why and when the question "why mention the person's race" is a relevant question.

In this venue, proximity to potted plants or wearing polka-dotted ponchos is just as irrelevant as is the race of the "guy who stole your car." In other circumstances, it is entirely convenient and efficient to mention the race of a person whom one is discussing or describing. Similarly, as you were illustrating a point, I get why you mentioned the race as you did, just as were I to tell the tale of my having been mugged some time back, the race of the muggers isn't relevant and I wouldn't share it here unless asked to do so, but I absolutely would tell the cops what my assailant's race was.

 

[320 Years of History]

That's one hell of a big stretch....

Streach?

It is not a stretch at all. To illustrate:

Three communities share voting and they have decided to do so based on the population in their respective areas. They decide that each 1,000 people gives them a single representative. In each area there are 10,000 people. In one they and all are allowed to vote for their 10 representatives. In another, they decide that the poor are not allowed to vote and have a population of 5,000 poor and 5,000 middle class and up that are allowed to vote. Those 5,000 vote on the 10 representatives that are elected. In the last, they decide that only white people are allowed to vote. They have 8,000 whites and 2,000 'other.' Those 8,000 vote for their 10 representatives.

This is similar to how it worked with the 3/5ths rule. The total representation is selected based off the TOTAL population however only those that were in the correct 'class' were allowed the vote. In the above example I think you would be hard pressed to state that the latter 2 areas were not giving the representation of the 'wrong' class to the 'correct' class (poor to middle class and other to white). Those people were counted as part of the whole in order to garner that representation but were not allowed to select it. If they were simply not counted then that might be different but then the second community would only garner 5 representatives and the last 8.

It's a stretch because the 3/5ths rule determined how many positions were available to be voted on (by whoever is permitted to vote). It had nothing to do with representation for the folks in the "wrong class" "in essence" or in fact voting for anyone or anything. It had everything to do with Southern states wanting to boost their quantity of Congressional votes and thereby have control of Congress. The easiest way to ensure that was to count their slaves as part of the population based used to determine the quantity of Congressional representatives apportioned to each state.

Take a look at the population ratios of pre-Civil War Southern states. Some Southern states had more slaves than white folk, and you can "bet your bottom dollar" the Congressional representatives from no Southern state gave a tinker's dam about what their so-called "wrong class" constituents deserved, needed or wanted from a legislative standpoint. For white male landowners in the South, aka plantation owners because that's basically what one did with land in the South back then, it was about having control over one's land and property, control over the state legislature which was comprised of men just like oneself, and control over the federal government, control that had to be shared with folks in the North who were largely opposed to slavery (in part because it wasn't critical to their economic livelihood) regardless of whatever else they thought about black folks.

The central focus of the 3/5th rule -- the extent of representation (and thus control) slave states had in the federal government -- materialized again in the debate over the Missouri Compromise. The simple fact is that hundreds of square miles of Southern land was occupied by small handfuls of white folks and if the quantity of vote-eligible whites were the determining factor to the quantity of votes in Congress, slavery would have been outlawed well before the Civil War, or the Civil War would have happened sooner.
.
I think folks these days just don't "get it" -- in part because history books don't generally tell it -- sometimes when it comes to how early U.S. Southerners thought of their slaves and slavery. I recall as a teen getting into a heap of trouble for taking one of my paternal great grandmother's (second or third, don't recall which) cousin's diary to school for a history assignment. Even now, though I don't recall the exact language of it, I have no trouble recalling my cousin's writing about how important her husband thought it was that more slave states be admitted to the country to make sure their fortunes were kept secure from those factory owners up north who didn't understand what it takes to make a living in the South. All she wanted, however, was for him to be home with the family and to run things. And that was not because she didn't know how to run things or didn't care about the national politics of the matter; she just didn't like having to be one to punish people and deal with that sort of thing. She had to get along with the slaves who worked in and around the house and who took care of the kids. She didn't want to be the person who had to discipline a field slave who might be close with a house slave who may in turn take it out on her kids. She needed "a way out," so to speak.

(The only reason I remember that is because at the time Daddy -- who was then and surely still is a bigot -- was trying to show me that even though our forebears had slaves and didn't want to see the end of slavery, we weren't "all bad." LOL At the time, I thought "Okay. Maybe you're right and maybe that counts for something." Now, I'm like, "Really? Is "not all bad" nonetheless more than sufficiently reprehensible and those people well deserving of our opprobrium?")

I don't really see how any of that has anything to do with what I stated.

None of that was in contention. All I really said is that such states got increased representation solely because they had slaves and that representation went to the white voters that would have otherwise not had it. As such, I did not think it was unreasonable to state that those whites had essentially garnered that representation for themselves which existed solely because the slaves. The point is rather immaterial to the thread at large though and I think we are getting drug off track with it.

The first paragraph is what has to do with what you wrote. I do not see at all how, by slaves counting as 3/5ths of a person each, any extent of representation or votes in turn accrues to those 3/5ths persons, namely the slaves. Whatever votes in Congress those 3/5ths persons made possible by existing, they had nothing to do with the actual 3/5ths persons voting...that is the 3/5ths rule didn't allow for 300 slave individuals to have 180 votes in any election.

It increased the overall representation of that location by 180 persons and then divided up the votes to select them to others. The 3/5 did create more votes - more votes in the house and in the electoral college that were selected by the same smaller group.

Yes, and as I said, that's quite a stretch...you'll recall that what was written was that "in essence" the 3/5th black folks voted for the additional representation when in reality all that happened was the black folks just happened to be born in a place that counted their head. They didn't get/have a say, a vote, in anything.

 

[xband]

You can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink.

 

[Kalki]

Affirmative action is institutionalized racism against whites in white nations. Very strange and counter intuitive. Smells fishy. What will the next stage of it be? Make it illegal for whites to assert their identity and retain their identity and nation states?