From Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to Be an Antiracist :
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
If there were ever a classic illustration of the point that "two wrongs don't make a right," this is surely it.
While the word, "discrimination" has devolved into a presumed evil, discrimination is a necessary and - if you'll pardon the truth - good thing. Employers discriminate among the applicants who are more qualified and less qualified, between employees who are capable of assuming greater responsibilities and those who are not. Selective schools discriminate among those who are capable of doing superior work and those who are not. Coaches discriminate among those who can run faster, jump higher, and change directions most capably. This is all good discrimination.
But to discriminate on the basis of factors that have no relevance to the desired outcome...race, ethnicity, corpulence, sexual affectation, religion, political leanings, and so on...those are evil discrimination. And it doesn't matter whether the discrimination is IN FAVOR of one group or to the disadvantage of a group, it is still evil.
"We" have spent generations figuring out how to evaluate people's abilities and capacities without actually placing them (or others) in harm's way. This what testing is for, whether it is an intelligence test, an aptitude test, a general knowledge test, a strength test, a memory test, or whatever. Even the best tests may fail in a particular instance because of factors not measured. For example, brilliant SAT scores are no guarantee of college success and terrible SAT's are no condemnation to failure in college. But the SAT is one of the most consistently accurate tools devised by Academe to predict college performance. To say that, for an Asian student, they must score XXX on the SAT to be acceptable, but if they are African American, then a score dramatically lower is acceptable is...bullshit.
Because, humans are not wired that way. In a 2017 essay in Nature Human Behaviour, research on the psychology of fairness indicated what we already know, to wit, that “humans naturally favor fair distributions, not equal ones, and that when fairness and equality clash, people prefer fair inequality over unfair equality.” So when you DISCRIMINATE for one demographic or against another demographic in order to achieve "equality," NOBODY IS SATISFIED.
Contrary to what IXK has written, discrimination today cannot remedy past discrimination. The elimination of evil discrimination, while retaining constructive/good discrimination is the ticket to future satisfaction, even if "equality" is never achieved. In a fair, non-discriminatory regime, some Asians will fail and some African Americans will succeed, but EVERYONE must agree that the deck is not stacked, otherwise the Asian who fails (or is not accepted) will believe that s/he was the victim of discrimination and the African American who succeeds will be PRESUMED to be the beneficiary of inappropriate discrimination (to achieve "equality"). Who wins? Nobody.
It was not for nothing that that Federal agency was called, the Equal Employment OPPORTUNITY Commission, and not simply the Equal Employment Commission.
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
If there were ever a classic illustration of the point that "two wrongs don't make a right," this is surely it.
While the word, "discrimination" has devolved into a presumed evil, discrimination is a necessary and - if you'll pardon the truth - good thing. Employers discriminate among the applicants who are more qualified and less qualified, between employees who are capable of assuming greater responsibilities and those who are not. Selective schools discriminate among those who are capable of doing superior work and those who are not. Coaches discriminate among those who can run faster, jump higher, and change directions most capably. This is all good discrimination.
But to discriminate on the basis of factors that have no relevance to the desired outcome...race, ethnicity, corpulence, sexual affectation, religion, political leanings, and so on...those are evil discrimination. And it doesn't matter whether the discrimination is IN FAVOR of one group or to the disadvantage of a group, it is still evil.
"We" have spent generations figuring out how to evaluate people's abilities and capacities without actually placing them (or others) in harm's way. This what testing is for, whether it is an intelligence test, an aptitude test, a general knowledge test, a strength test, a memory test, or whatever. Even the best tests may fail in a particular instance because of factors not measured. For example, brilliant SAT scores are no guarantee of college success and terrible SAT's are no condemnation to failure in college. But the SAT is one of the most consistently accurate tools devised by Academe to predict college performance. To say that, for an Asian student, they must score XXX on the SAT to be acceptable, but if they are African American, then a score dramatically lower is acceptable is...bullshit.
Because, humans are not wired that way. In a 2017 essay in Nature Human Behaviour, research on the psychology of fairness indicated what we already know, to wit, that “humans naturally favor fair distributions, not equal ones, and that when fairness and equality clash, people prefer fair inequality over unfair equality.” So when you DISCRIMINATE for one demographic or against another demographic in order to achieve "equality," NOBODY IS SATISFIED.
Contrary to what IXK has written, discrimination today cannot remedy past discrimination. The elimination of evil discrimination, while retaining constructive/good discrimination is the ticket to future satisfaction, even if "equality" is never achieved. In a fair, non-discriminatory regime, some Asians will fail and some African Americans will succeed, but EVERYONE must agree that the deck is not stacked, otherwise the Asian who fails (or is not accepted) will believe that s/he was the victim of discrimination and the African American who succeeds will be PRESUMED to be the beneficiary of inappropriate discrimination (to achieve "equality"). Who wins? Nobody.
It was not for nothing that that Federal agency was called, the Equal Employment OPPORTUNITY Commission, and not simply the Equal Employment Commission.
