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[Antsan]

Maybe they're racist and think blacks have a victim complex by nature or something?

[Bauglir]

We're on this again, eh?

So, yeah, to start off, what I've seen suggests that she's a fraud, not a transracial person. The reason being, she seems to be doing a good job of making it about money instead of about her. So I'm not too inclined to say that she's an innocent victim here; looks more like somebody trying to exploit good-faith efforts to make the world a better place for her own financial gain. But, I don't actually know her or her history well enough to make that claim definitively, so that's all armchair reasoning and doesn't mean much. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt; I don't want to be in the business of helping out witch hunts for people who "aren't really" members of whatever identity you want to talk about.

She still did something wrong, here.

An organization like the NAACP (or, for that matter, a scholarship aimed at black people) exists for a particular purpose. It's aimed at working to help people who've been victims of some kind of discriminatory harm on account of their race. Because of that, promotion to higher levels of authority can take into account membership of that group of people. That is, their experience on the receiving end of whatever social fuckery we want to talk about qualifies them to better understand what needs to be done to address it. I wouldn't say it's a necessary qualification, or a sufficient one; it wouldn't be at all strange for a white person to reach a level of high authority in the NAACP. And if she did her job well, then it's a purely procedural problem, and we probably shouldn't be talking about her in particular at all.

This is especially true in an organization dealing with racism, which has some deeper impacts than some other issues might (say, gender). By that, I mean that you have issues like family income or education that are persistent and have their own immediate consequences. So you've got all the psychological issues of segregation, but on top of that you're poorer and less likely to finish school. Somebody who is transracial, and the existence of that is something I'm happy to grant because why the fuck not, simply doesn't have those problems in the same way because they're exempt from the social patterns that would ordinarily have fucked them over at birth. They may have their own, to be sure! For example, the insistence that they don't exist and are just mentally ill people.

But if you spent the first couple of decades of your life being judged white by society, didn't have the economic disadvantages of being born to a black family imposed on you, and so on and so forth, then for the purposes of working for an organization that works against the harm you never experienced, it's dishonest to imply that you have. It's not that there's some biologically inherent quality to black people that sets them apart from white people, here, or that white people shouldn't be allowed to work for the NAACP or whatever, it's that there is a valid difference in experience here, or at least that's what settles the matter for me.

Then again, I'm a pretty privileged white dude. So! Happy to hear responses. For example, I'm not entirely sure how to reconcile this with questions of safety.

[Sheb]

Yeah, I agree with you, rich blacks didn't really experience the socio-economic impact of being black and shouldn't have the right to call themselves blacks.

[Bauglir]

Not what I said! Try again, your strawman was a bit hasty.

EDIT: Actually, I might try to address this. If you've already posted by the time I finish I'll move it over to a proper reply.

PROMISED EDIT:

So, most importantly, I'm not saying a damn thing about what people should or should not be allowed to call themselves. I'm quite happy to accept whatever labels people want to apply to themselves, but in some contexts it doesn't matter what you call yourself, compared to what society calls you.

Also, there's a fairly significant difference between "Dodged one of the particular problems being black tends to impose" and "Was never black for the purposes of any problems being black tends to impose". A rich black person is likelier to have friends or relatives who are black and poor than a rich white person, for example - cultural osmosis happens a fair bit easier in that sort of context. For a more controversial example, I'd probably say that a transwoman is probably better equipped to talk about bullying among boys in school than a transman, even if that particular transwoman was never bullied.

But, on the other hand, if the transman in question happened to offer particularly eloquent and insightful commentary, I wouldn't reject it because of his identity. Because nuance is fun!

[TD1]

I disagree with positive discrimination. I can see its benefits, of course, but to get something not because of what you can do but because of what you are, be it gender or race, disagrees with me.

For example, you may say that such a percent of people in a mechanics business must be female, so now jobs are being reserved for people who want it less, and are only taking it because their gender enables them to.

The argument for, of course, is that it helps prevent discrimination, but fighting fire with fire doesn't seem the way to go.

[Sheb]

He, I was just joking. As a European, I find this fixation on race actually quite intriguing.

[Frumple]

A rich black person is likelier to have friends or relatives who are black and poor than a rich white person, for example - cultural osmosis happens a fair bit easier in that sort of context.

... so if the person in question is white, but manages the same degree of osmosis (or is black, and doesn't), then...?

Likelihood isn't certainty, and there's definitely non-black folks that have enough exposure to their particular plights to be able to understand and empathize to the same degree as a particularly trod upon black person (and, of course, black folks that have basically no connection to the disadvantaged portions of the demographic in question).

I mean, it sorta' seems like you're saying nuance is fun, and then saying there's a minimum level you require before nuance gets to kick in. Which... trends or generalities are nice for talking about trends or generalities, but they're pretty damned useless when talking about a person. Might not apply to the original situation being talked about (though the fact that the person in question actually managed to run the apparent ruse as long as they did says things), but still.

[Bauglir]

... so if the person in question is white, but manages the same degree of osmosis (or is black, and doesn't), then...?

Then the person in question has run afoul of the down side of having job qualifications in the first place; that they're just proxies for the qualities you're actually looking for when hiring. That doesn't make it okay to make up work history or whatever.

trends or generalities are nice for talking about trends or generalities, but they're pretty damned useless when talking about a person.

What about when we're talking about a person's experience with trends or generalities? Because that's what culture is - trends and generalities. And, here, exposure to culture is relevant. My point about nuance is that it's not as simple as drawing a line between people and groups.

EDIT: Actually, I guess that wasn't the context in which I brought up nuance. Short memory, sorry. Wow.

So, while what I just said is basically true, it's also true that a person's identity isn't, strictly speaking, why we should take what they say or not seriously. What they say is the only thing that really matters there. As with all things, however, we implement qualifications that don't necessarily tell us anything about what they've said or done but help us figure out who's likely to be saying things we should care about and hey look it's trends and generalities, which are things that have exceptions and nuance and so on and so forth.

[Descan]

I disagree with positive discrimination. I can see its benefits, of course, but to get something not because of what you can do but because of what you are, be it gender or race, disagrees with me.

For example, you may say that such a percent of people in a mechanics business must be female, so now jobs are being reserved for people who want it less, and are only taking it because their gender enables them to.

The argument for, of course, is that it helps prevent discrimination, but fighting fire with fire doesn't seem the way to go.

Except the problem that that is supposed to address is people who DO want to, for example, become a mechanic, but because of conscious or unconscious prejudice on the part of the employer, are unable to get one. That whole experiment where they send the exact same resumes, except with a "white dude," "black dude," "white woman," "black woman," name on them, and getting different results, skewed in favour of men and white, that experiment comes to mind. They don't get a chance to do that job. Whether it works or not is another matter, I haven't seen any data on that myself, but the idea is simply "person wants to do job, but gets walled out because of gender/race/identity/etc. Force employer (public sector only, by the way, unless it's in-house regulations by the company doing the hiring!) to have a certain number of said race/gender/identity workers."

[Bauglir]

"person wants to do job, but gets walled out because of gender/race/identity/etc. Force employer (public sector only, by the way, unless it's in-house regulations by the company doing the hiring!) to have a certain number of said race/gender/identity workers."

I don't know how it works in Canadia, but down here in Jesusland that particular model is illegal for implementation in the public sector. Race can be a factor, but you can't have any process that could conceivably make it the deciding factor. So you can't have, for example, racial quotas or point systems with a bonus for race in admissions to universities that receive government financial support, which is all the ones worth mentioning. Gender's a bit wonkier in the abstract, for fairly arcane reasons that boil down to "The government can get away with more gender discrimination than it can racial discrimination", but quotas are still forbidden.

Of course, scholarships funded by things that aren't the government are fine, and so on and so forth, so you can still have things like financial aid targeted specifically at minorities - it just can't come from the public sector.

[Mr. Strange]

That whole experiment where they send the exact same resumes, except with a "white dude," "black dude," "white woman," "black woman," name on them, and getting different results, skewed in favour of men and white, that experiment comes to mind.

...try to encourage model of resumes that don't have such distinctions? It's been tried in public education when students apply to schools and only their academic records and test scoors are reviewed.

[Graknorke]

You kind of need to have the applicant's name on there. Otherwise how would you know who you want to hire?

[Sheb]

Well, yes and no. There was a case brought to the Supreme Court (Fischer v. UT Austin). It was sent back to a Federal Court fo rreview, and the court ruled that the quotas were legal (although with much legalese about "holistic approach" that flew over my head.

In effect if, race if only one of many factors included in the decision of whether or not to accept a student it's ok.

But anyway, that wasn't my main point. What I wanted to do was to offer a different justification for Affirmative Action. By forcing an institution to accept people from a certain demographics, it helps break the stereotypes holding that demographic back.

I used to be very skeptical of affirmative action until I read Poor Economics by E. Dufflo. There she report the results of an experiment she did in India. (.pdf of the paper here)

India at some point decided to reserve one third of village chief position for female candidate. The villages on which a female chief would be forced were selected at random, allowing for a nice randomly controlled trial. The results was that village which had a female chief forced unto them were much more likely to elect a female chief in their own in the future. Affirmative actions led to people realizing that women actually can make decent chiefs.

So yeah, affirmative action can be a good and effective tool, if used right. Among other things, I think that laws mandating affirmative action should be limited in time: the goal is to strike a blow against prejudice, not entrench a system of quota.

[Descan]

As far as I know, that kind of thing would be railed against (and probably stricken down) as an undue regulation on companies if it originated from the feds or state governments.

[Sheb]

There is a nice article in the New Yorker about euthanasia in Belgium. Apparently, it's getting really common in the Flemish part (5% of all deaths). The article tend against euthanasia (at least against the ease with which it is available in Belgium), but is insightful and interesting. Food for though there.