OT: Did the NBA just open up a can of worms?
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/04/29/boot-sterling-nba-team-owners-ma…
I posted yesterday that trying to remove Donald Sterling could back fire on the NBA as Sterling won't go quietly into the night. He's always had a chip on his shoulder and if he believes he has been unfairly targeted, as I can bet he has here right or wrong, that he could possibly use a scorched earth strategy to counter the NBA's punishment. It has already been reported that Sterling told a Fox reporter that he will not sell his team
Don't think for a minute that he's the only creepy character in the NBA. The owners have to vote to have him removed. Some of those owners might want to think twice about their votes as I am betting there are stories about them that they do not want out in the public.
And certain players should also be careful. We already know that many of them aren't the most honorable, ethical or racially tolerant as we would think.
The NBA is a very seedy place.
As they say, be careful for what you wish for.
The flip side to all of this is that the NBA guarantees that Donald will get a more than fair price for his team to leave quietly. And then Magic Johnson and his billionaire white investors will have their team.
That's fine, you're justifying the hatred of entire groups for no reason other than they share the same skin color as bad people from the past. That's a really progressive idea.
Of course, I also think its telling that you didn't care to comment on the 3/5 compromise or slavery or, you know, the killing of black people for no reason.
Hey remember that? You switched gears (because when you're losing...!) back to institutional racism. I'm not discussing institutional racism because its not a real thing. Its a made up catch all phrase that is used as a crutch. Bomani Jones demonstrated this perfectly yesterday: Donald Sterling is a racist who was charged with housing discrimination! Therefore housing discrimination causes black people in Chicago to kill other black peopl! Boom, Institutionally Racisimized!
Slavery was real. Jim Crow was real. Institutional racism is not. I'll let you get back to understanding hatred of groups based on the past and fantasies as it seems to be a passion of yours.
You are pretty thoroughly embarrassing yourself. I would suggest you stop, but by all means continue talking. It only helps to further bury you.
Like I said, by all means, keep going.
April 30th, 2014 at 11:05 PM ^
duh!
I suggest taking a good luck at:
Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination (NBER Working Paper No. 9873)
It's a pretty good look at just how institutional racism works and causes problems today.
I've seen this many, many times and it doesn't make sense. What is racism? Its the belief in superiority of one group over another or a hatred of a group for no reason other than race.
What is the institution in this case? Employers? Who are the employers? Are they white? Black? Asian? Native American? Hispanic? Samoan? This information isn't included because it would likely create a scenario the people running the study wouldn't want to have to report.
What if each different race/group of employers were more likely to call back names that sounded like they came from a similar race/group? That would demonstrate tribalism, which is incredibly common throughout the world and thus the whole report would fall apart. I know the idea of white people being more comfortable around white people makes people nervous, but think of it from each other group's perspective. Would you fault black people for being more comfortable around black people? Hispanics around Hispanics?
Did they test "proper" white names against country names? Would Wyatt and Billy Ray do as well in call backs when compared to William and Mark? Somehow I doubt it. With black employers, would Wyatt and Billy Ray do as well as Jerome and Malik?
So no, this doesn't prove institutional racism exists, its just a half-assed study that was created so that the people behind it could probably get more funding for finding the "right" result.
I've seen this many, many times and it doesn't make sense.
If you've seen it so many times - why is it you appear to have never read any of these papers? You ask a bunch of methodology questions... that are addressed in the very paper you claim to have seen "many, many times".
What is racism?
A belief in inherent superiority/inferiority based on the non-biological social construct of race.
What if each different race/group of employers were more likely to call back names that sounded like they came from a similar race/group?
I thought you'd read this "many, many times".... yet you're so ignorant of the details of the study. Interesting.
That would demonstrate tribalism, which is incredibly common throughout the world and thus the whole report would fall apart.
Racism - like nationalism, is just a form of tribalism.
Don't bother with him.
He couldn't find a clue if it was stapled to his forehead in a room full of mirrors.
Right... because we don't know anything, at all, about the statistical distribution of race among employers.
Let me guess - you don't think polls using random sampling can accurately measure things either, right?
...and science NEVER proves anything. It isn't in the business of proof. This is EVIDENCE of institutional racism.
If I sample enough people, and my sampling criteria is statistically "random" - is my sample representative or not?
If you really want to have a discussion of this and are open to the possibility of being wrong you should go over to reddit.com/r/changemyview and make a thread stating that you don't believe institutional racism exists and people will be more than happy to have a discussion with you.
It's heavily moderated and they don't tolerate any sort of abuse there. Just discussion that is relevant to the topic.
My take on it is, if you want to have this discussion, MGoBlog is not the forum in which to have it.
If you're looking for real and honest dialogue where people will stick to the topic at hand and you will not be judged for your opinions, create a account on reddit. It's very simple. You don't even need an email. It can just be throwawayaccount77667545434.
Then go to the subreddit /r/changemyview (http://reddit.com/r/changemyview), and make a thread stating you don't think institutional racism exists. List the reasons why you don't think it exists and be prepared to defend your argument.
I think that it seems as if you don't have a very good grasp on what institutional racism is in the first place. You seem to be under the impression that it's necessarily an active sort of thing. It can be wholly incidental.
You were provided with one piece of data and rather than at least mulling it over you did that thing people do where they demand research set to such ridiculous specifications that it is borderline impossible for anyone to produce.
Things like housing discrimination for black people are real. There is a reason Donald Sterling was fined a record amount for his totally insane practices, and if you think that sort of thing isn't widespread, I've got a bridge to sell you.
Look at stuff like prison sentencing, stop and frisk of even arrest rates.
Here is an article on the crack epidemic:
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2010/08/03/data-show-racial-dispari…
What the study found is that in 1994 even though white people make up the majority of crack users, through some weird alchemy 84.5% of defendants convicted in crack cases were black as opposed to 10.5%. It's the same way across the board with every single drug. White people use drgs as often, sometimes more than blacks, yet somehow black people are arrested and convicted of drug use at a disparity that is shockingly absurd.
Look at this study on racial profiling:
http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/racial-profiling2011/th…
The breakdown is essentially...
-
Per 10,000 residents, the Black stop rate was 3,400 stops higher than the White stop rate
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Frisked Blacks were 42.3 percent less likely to be found with a weapon than frisked Whites
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Consensual searches of Blacks were 37 percent less likely to uncover weapons, 23.7 percent less likely to uncover drugs, and 25.4 percent less likely to uncover any other type of contraband than consensual searches of Whites
So black people were far, far, far more likely to get stopped, but the data shows that they were far less likely to carry a weapon. I'm sure that now we're aware of the situation, police will adjust accordingly and begin to severely reduce the amount of black people they stop, while increasing the amount of white people they stop, right?
Even a report from the 2003 Guidance Regarding the use of Race By Federal Law Enforcement Agencies basically admitted that racial profiling is both racist and ineffective:
- "Racial profiling" at its core concerns the invidious use of race or ethnicity as a criterion in conducting stops, searches and other law enforcement investigative procedures. It is premised on the erroneous assumption that any particular individual of one race or ethnicity is more likely to engage in misconduct than any particular individual of another race or ethnicity.
- Racial profiling in law enforcement is not merely wrong, but also ineffective. Race-based assumptions in law enforcement perpetuate negative racial stereotypes that are harmful to our rich and diverse democracy, and materially impair our efforts to maintain a fair and just society."
http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/documents/guidance_on_race.pdf
So despite that admission, it still happens basically everywhere.
Look at the controversial NYPD Stop and Frisk policy via this report:
http://www.nyclu.org/publications/report-nypd-stop-and-frisk-activity-2…
- "Of blacks and Latinos who were stopped, 57.5 percent were frisked, while 44.2 percent of whites who were stopped were frisked. Yet, a weapon was found in only 1.8 percent of blacks and Latinos frisked, as compared to a weapon being found in 3.8 percent of whites frisked. These figures strongly indicate that race is a factor in officer decisions to frisk a person."
Here is a comprehensive overview of multiple reports indicating how minorities unfairly targeted and how they are treated more unfairly once they've been detained:
http://www.civilrights.org/publications/wrong-then/traditional.html
- A U.S. Department of Justice report on police contacts with the public concluded that in 1999, African Americans were 20 percent more likely to be stopped than White Americans, and 50 percent more likely than Whites to have experienced more than one stop.19 Police were more than twice as likely to search an African American or Hispanic driver than a White driver.20
- In the three-year period from January 1995 to December 1997, Blacks comprised more than 70 percent of the drivers stopped and searched by the Maryland State Highway Patrol, although they made up only 17.5 percent of the overall drivers (and overall speeders).21 These disparities were explained by a state document called the "Criminal Intelligence Report," which contained an explicit policy targeting Black motorists.22
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A study of traffic stops on the New Jersey Turnpike between 1988-1991 found that Blacks were 35 percent of those stopped, though only 13.5 percent of the cars on the turnpike had a Black occupant and Blacks were only 15 percent of all traffic violators.23 A 1999 State Attorney General's Report studying Turnpike stops and searches in 1997-1998 concluded that almost 80 percent of searches involved Blacks and other minorities.24
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In the early 1990's, an investigation of the practices of the Volusia County, Florida Sheriff's Department revealed that although Blacks or Hispanics were only five percent of the drivers on a portion of I-95 that ran through the county, they were nearly 70 percent of drivers stopped on that stretch of highway. Blacks and Hispanics were not only stopped more than Whites, they were also stopped for longer periods of time than Whites.25
Even more stuff from the report...
- to a Department of Justice survey of 1999 traffic stops, officers found contraband more often when they searched Whites than when they searched African Americans (17 percent versus eight percent).58
- In 2000, New Jersey State troopers found contraband during stops of White-driven vehicles 25 percent of the time, while they found contraband during stops of Black-driven vehicles 13 percent of the time and Latino-driven vehicles only 5 percent of the time.59
- According to the GAO report on U.S. Customs Service practices, while Black female U.S. citizens were nine times as likely to be x-rayed following a frisk or pat-down as White female U.S. citizens, they were less than half as likely to be found to be carrying contraband after these x-rays.60 According to the New York Attorney General's Report on NYPD "stop and frisk" practices, stops of minorities were less likely to yield arrests than stops of Whites. The NYPD arrested one White New Yorker for every eight stops, one Hispanic New Yorker for every nine stops, and one Black New Yorker for every 9.5 stops. The statistics for stops engaged in by the NYPD's plain clothes Street Crimes Unit were even starker - this unit stopped 16.3 Blacks per arrest, 14.5 Hispanics per arrest, but only 9.7 Whites per arrest.61
- Recent data from the LAPD indicates that while White pedestrians were stopped and searched by LAPD less per capita than Black or Hispanic pedestrians, the hit rates for all three populations were about the same: 21 percent of White pedestrians who were searched by LAPD were found in possession of evidence of a crime, as compared to 22 percent of Blacks and 20 percent of Hispanics.62
- Traffic stop data from Massachusetts from April 2001-November 2002 reveals that 16 percent of Whites searched were charged with a drug offense, as compared to 12 percent of Blacks and 10 percent of Hispanics, despite the fact that both Blacks and Hispanics were stopped and searched more than Whites.63
- Because police will look for drug crime among Black drivers, they will find it disproportionately among Black drivers. More Blacks will be arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and jailed, thereby reinforcing the idea that Blacks constitute the majority of drug offenders. This will provide a continuing motive and justification for stopping more Black drivers as a rational way of using resources to catch the most criminals.76
- And, indeed, this prophecy has come to pass. As noted earlier, while Blacks are just 12 percent of the U.S. population and 11 percent of drug users, and despite the fact that racial profiling yields no more (and often fewer) arrests of minorities than of Whites for drug crimes, Blacks are 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted for drug offenses.77 Similarly, while Hispanics make up about 13 percent of the population and 10 percent of illicit drug users, they are 37 percent of the overall prison population.78 Moreover, more frequent stops and then arrests of minorities also result in longer sentences for minorities because disproportionate arrest rates generate more extensive criminal histories for minorities, which in turn influence sentencing outcomes.79
So that's just a fraction of the evidence we have for just that one singular issue. It's clear that there is by definition, institutional racism playing out in our country in terms of who gets profiled and stopped.
There is even more information like this on prison sentencing once they have been found guilty of a crime, and break downs of all of that info too.
Then you have plenty of issues like de facto segregation caused by white flight destroying a lot of the tax base in neighborhoods, which creates a shit spiral that only gets worse over time. Stuff like hiring practices, equal pay for equal work, admissions into uniersities. and all sorts of other stuff that get thrown into the pot
This post is already long enough as it were, so I'll stop here.
TL;DR
Kidding haha.
Good post and a lot of info. I'll be honest, I wasn't really expecting a full on discussion. The profiling stats dealing with driving are definitely a point I need to brush up on. I'll say that everything else in your post I've argued about with other people over and over again and it ends up being a stalemate with no one budging, so I'm not going to do that here. I will say that if there's evidence of institutional racism that is actually based solely on race, it seems that racial profiling while driving is certainly the place that creates the most illogical disparities). So while the rest of the post (and the previous study, which I didn't dismiss offhand, I'd simply seen it numerous times before) can be explained and its really just a matter of whether or not you accept that explanation or not, that is definitely an area that I hadn't researched. It seems to tell close to the whole story (though I would like to have a better picture of how stops work, i.e. what are people being pulled over for?) and would actually follow the defintion of what institutional racism is.
Again, appreciate the response.
the donald sterling housing discrimination issue is the textbook definition of institutionalized racism. donald sterling's housing options constitute an "institution." he is discriminating on the basis of race.
....are coming off like someone who is unconvinced of the existence of the sun because you've never sat on it.
Then we're talking about semantics.
The Moon is made of cheese.
No it's not.
How do you know? Have you ever been to the moon?
No, but we've sent astronauts there and we've collected plenty of moon rocks that we've subsequently analyzed.Here is the relevant data and information. We know for a fact that the moon isn't made of cheese.
How do you know that that isn't just all made up by the government as some sort of conspiracy? Did you see the moon rocks for yourself? How do you even know that they're from the moon? I don't even believe we've been to the moon. That sounds totally ridiculous to me. I think you're being duped my friend, by unverifiable evidence.
Oh boy. So what sort of evidence would it take for me to convince you that the moon isn't made of cheese?
Well, I would need to travel there in a rocket and I would need to be certain that it wasn't some sort of super duper Hollywood magic, special effects type stuff either. I would need to step off the rocket and collect the moon cheese myself, and it must never leave my sight. Then I will need to eat that moon cheese. If the moon is in fact rock, I will know immediately. If it is cheese, the same. That is how you can prove it to me.
OK. We will set it up and meet all of your specifications...
...It was merely a particularly hard and inedible type of cheese!
Tribalism is an inherent human trait that we evolved long ago. It isn't just "prevalent" throughout the globe - it exists in every human being.
The nice thing is - the definition of "tribe" is easily malleable and changeable. It can be nation, religion, race, ethnicity, or even taste Death Metal... and we can change it.
If tribalism exists based on "race" - whether it's "preference for ones group" (which is saying people from ones own group are superior because of their ability to fit in to the existing group) or downright "whites are superior"... it's racism.
A person who says he feels more comfortable around his own race is not necessarily a racist. He's just engaging in racism. Even people who aren't racist occasionally engage in acts of racism.
That being said - it's important to avoid conflating "race" and "ethnicity". People generally feel more comfortable around people of their own ethnicity due to familiarity.
Sorry man, but that is not racism and you saying it is just cheapens the meaning of the word.
Any belief in an inherent inferiority/superiority based on race is racism.
If you choose to be around people who grew up in the same circumstances and environment as you - that is choosing familiarity based on common ethnicity.
If you choose to be around people of the same RACE because you're assuming they'll share your ethnicity - you're assuming race is determinant.
Someone who grew up in the ghetto choosing to hang with folks from the ghetto - that is choosing ethnicity.
Someone who is white choosing to hang with white folks because they're white (and not because of common background/ethnicity) is engaging in racism.
I knew one of the grad students that worked on this but somehow I never saw the final version of the paper.
Of course it's not impossible for minorities to be racists. But racism is inextricably intertwined with power. It matters far more if someone like Donald Sterling, who is a public figure, has billions of dollars, and who employs many people of various races, is a racist, than it does if someone with very little power, money, or influence is a racist. It's not excusable in either case, but the societal impact is different.
Currently, far more white people than black people play significant roles in this country's power structure. And furthermore, very few black people can rise to a position of power while being openly racist, whereas it's relatively easy for a white person to do so. As a result of all this, we have a situation in which virtually all the most "important" racists in the country are white people who hate on minorities.
So yes, it's certainly possible for minorities to be racists. But it's misleading to bitch and moan about how the media spends all its time harping on white racists while ignoring black racists. They do that because there are no black racists who are sports team owners/senators/company presidents/etc.
April 30th, 2014 at 10:40 AM ^
"a common view distinguishes prejudice from racism, holding that racism is best understood as 'prejudice plus power' because without the support of political or economic power, prejudice would not be able to manifest as a pervasive cultural, institutional or social phenomenon."
April 30th, 2014 at 10:45 AM ^
April 30th, 2014 at 10:49 AM ^
You thought wrong.
If a KKK member is not in a position of power then he is a bigot and a white supremacist.
April 30th, 2014 at 10:55 AM ^
I also never realized we had a committee who determined what constitutes racism and what doesn't.
April 30th, 2014 at 10:57 AM ^
...about which word should apply to which situation.
But can we at least agree that there's a difference between Joe Blow thinking he's better than people of another race and Donald Sterling making decisions about who to evict on the basis of their race?
April 30th, 2014 at 10:55 AM ^
Racism has nothing to do with defamation. It is a person in power using that power to keep people of a certain race or certain races down and/or out. That's why it's mostly white folk who are responsible, since they got a head start within capitalism before minorities/women could legally own land or vote and had and have significant advantages as a result. Is racism an only white thing? No. But it's a mostly white male thing.
If you want to talk prejudice or bias, almost everyone's guilty.
April 30th, 2014 at 10:17 AM ^
I see what you're saying with regard to racist undertones in the "care more" and "work harder" language, but as far as number of criminals in the NBA vs the NHL, that seems like a claim that could be statistically verifiable.
April 30th, 2014 at 10:08 AM ^