Blacks Still Suffer Discrimination and Oppression

Take race completely out of the equation (which is how a truly non-racist society would operate) and answer me this:

If you had your choice between two candidates for a junior management job and one had graduated from Cambridge, the other from, say, Cal State Irvine, all else being equal, who would you pick?

I don't know. You tell us. To prove racism, you've got to show that well-qualified blacks in the organization have been consistently passed over.

As I've said (repeatedly), the number of blacks going into business 30 years ago was probably very, very small. Hence, very few blacks today have the track record necessary to become Fortune 500 CEOs.

Also, as I said in my first post, the indicator whether things are improving is not the absolute number but the trend. Blacks are increasing in number among senior management....does that mean that these companies are just becoming a little less racist?

Upon reflection, I think you could be mistaken on the argument from scarcity. It may not be that "very few blacks were going into management thirty years ago." Thirty years ago was 1977, and significant numbers of blacks had been going into management for many years.

I'll cite the following, which I found just now in the Internet:

See: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_22_100/ai_80162955

Incidentally, this cite actually tends to paint a more sympathetic of Nixon than I did in one of my postings in this or a related thread. However, its main point is to show that significant numbers of blacks participated in management to such an extent that banks were run by blacks even as early as the 1970's. Further, if it's true that more than thirty years ago, corporations were in a position to be legislatively mandated to use black enterprises, it remains puzzling why, more than thirty years later, so much of Corporate America is still so thoroughly dominated by whites.

Let me get this straight...

You actually link to an article (from black-owned Jet Magazine, no less) entitled "50 years of progress: blacks in business and politics 1951-2001" to back up your claim of racism? An article whose first paragraph is...

(Red emphasis mine) With that, you have been PWNED. You have just produced a link that validates every claim I've made.

If we're using Reilly as an example, then it doesn't matter what level of progress what achieved over the last 40 years. It only matters what level of progress was achieved in '75, when Reilly started with the company. Regardless of how many black Cambridge graduates (or any Cambridge graduates, for that matter) have been hired by GM since, Reilly still has the advantage that comes with starting earlier.

Is this five year old article the only source you could find? After reading the site's Front Page I'm starting to suspect a certain slant may be prevalent on finalcall.com.

Seems that is more your opinion than an objective conclusion based upon reading the article.

Wish Mr. Hutchinson had offered a few reasons why he considers this true.

If it has nothing to do with race what's the point of the article?

So suspecting racism where none exists is deeply unsettling for many blacks?

So, where's the problem again?

There's no such university as Cal State Irvine. There's UC Irvine, which is what you might have been thinking of. UC Irvine is actually highly respected for its academics. But I do understand your intended point.

Even so, I think you've missed mine. As I stated:

Further comment: You're making a straight-line analogy based purely on a quantitative argument. You're assuming, in other words, that the field is predominantly saturated with so many white candidates that even the least qualified white at the relevant level of accomplishment is more likely to be hired than the most qualified black candidate simply because of the scarcity of such blacks. But, to the extent that representation of blacks is literally zero at the highest levels of management, this argument is implausible unless the further supposition is made that the quality of the highest available percentile of whites is generally superior to quality of the same percentile of blacks. It is difficult to believe that, after forty years of supposed progress, there are still so many more qualified whites than blacks that virtually no blacks from the quantities that are available are competitive with whites at or near the top echelons in Corporate America.

However, the only real way to determine whether your theory is correct is to conduct a scientific study of the comparative quantities of black and white applicants with similar experience typically available to top American corporations. Such an empirical study might already have been conducted, and it would be of interest to see the result. I am highly dubious that such study would prove your argument to be true.

Nonsense. I'm surprised you would make such a foolish argument. The achievement of "monumental progress" does not mean that equity has been achieved. No one would dispute, for example, that civil rights laws have made a "monumental" difference to the South, but to say that race relations in the South are equitable is quite a different matter. Similarly, to discount discrimination, oppression, and racism based on the words "monumental progress" would be to manifest an almost unbelievable naivete' -- to be charitable.

Your statement makes me question where you really have a good sense of the relationship between mere chronological development, on one hand, and the measurement of progress in accordance with equitable ideals, on the other. It seems to me that you don't.

The number of blacks going into business in 1977 was "very, very small"? Why do you continue to make this statement? As I've repeatedly noted, blacks have owned businesses for decades. Blacks owned banks and businesses of such caliber that white corporations could be required to do business with them even as early as the 1970's under Nixon. Does this suggest to you that only "very, very small" numbers of blacks went into business thirty years ago?

Wouldn't your entire argument be defeated by a showing that a large number of blacks were highly successful as early as the 1950's and progressing through the 2000's -- based on an allegation in the article you attempted to use against my position above?

Absolute equity is not achievable. And acknowledged progress gives lie to the notion that any remaining inequality is attributable to racism.

You're making the claims about racism, I'm showing you "monumental progress."

I should've added "in comparison to the number of whites." If there was a 20:1 or 50:1 ratio of white to black business majors in 1977, it would follow that there should be about a 20:1 or 50:1 ratio of white senior managers to black senior managers today.

Very, very small in proportion. Do you think blacks went into business in the same proportion as whites?

That's clearly false. "Monumental progress" can be made, as I said, without negating the existence of racism. Would you not agree that "monumental progress" has been made in race relations in the South? If you do, would you feel confident in claiming that, because of this, there exists no racism in the South? Further, while absolute equity may not be achievable, we are nowhere near achieving the level of equity where that consideration becomes an issue.

See above. Once again -- great advances can be made without saying anything about the remaining progress that must be made.

Think of it this way: On a scale of one to ten, ten being absolute perfection, "monumental progress" could be made from one to six. However, levels seven, eight and nine, let alone ten, still remain. In like manner, major progress still needs to be made before equity, or the maximum possible elimination of inequitable discrimination, is achieved.

As I said, there needs to be an empirical study. However, I've already indicated some difficulties I have with your quantitative argument (relating to the percentile issue and the understatement of black achievement, respectively). At the risk of repeating myself, if virtually none of the top managers of our top companies are black, rather than a number proportionate to the ratio you suggested, then it could only be true that even the best black businessmen are not as qualified as the best white businessmen. Since we take it as given that this latter conclusion cannot be true, the premise must be the result of inequity.

However, since you've proposed that there are in fact specific ratios that should apply, we now have benchmarks by which to measure corporate equity. It is my strong suspicion that those thresholds will actually serve to show that discrimination does exist.

It's hard to say.

Before I leave this subject, I will emphasize that, as implied in my comment concerning the straight-line nature of your analysis, your argument implies to me a perfectly rational elasticity in the supply of qualified candidates that seems incompatible with common sense.

I am going to point something out that should be obvious to everyone:

The fact that we still have racism in this country, and that if affects people, is self evident. Jim Crow may not be alive anymore, but we are still dealing with ghettos (that just arent officially enforced now) etc etc etc.

The only question is how much is it affecting the population in a statistically meaningful sense.

But how much of the ghetto is forced on the by The Man and how much of that is because the people living there aren't taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to them and are making bad decisions?

Ghettos aren't race-specific, you know. There are areas in every country, state, every city, where the poor and uneducated seem to congregate, where people seem stuck in a cycle of poverty.

If blacks in senior management positions is your measure of equity and there are more and more blacks in senior management positions, well...

What more can or should be done other than eliminating barriers? If blacks are perfectly free to pursue management and fewer of them (proportionally) do than whites, I don't see that society has any further obligation in the matter.

You have to show there's discrimination before you try to eliminate it. You haven't. You've shown that blacks are under-represented among senior management of major corporations. You have NOT shown that is in any way the result of racism. And you have been provided with a plausible alternative explanation that cannot be easily discounted.

But we won't wait for that before we scream "discrimination" and "oppression," will we?

Dictates of PC aside, you cannot assume that black and white businessmen as groups are equal in ability. Since experience is built from the ground up, it may be that black businessmen (as a group) have less experience in Fortune 500 companies than many of their white counterparts. It stands to reason that, decades ago when the barriers came down, whites still had more "ins" with the existing management structure (i.e., it's easier to get a management internship with a company if your dad is one of its senior management).

Ratios in and of themselves prove nothing. They only suggest.

Obviously, since you believe that wherever the reality departs from the statistics, racism can be the only cause. Your philosophy is just the tired old quotas-for-equality nonsense.

Simple case: suppose there's an opening for a senior manager at GM. The CEO says "We really should try to improve our corporate equity, people. Let's hire a minority or disadvantaged person for the job!" So, they get a lot of resumes. Finally, they're almost settled on a black executive with an impressive track record. Just as the CEO is about to approve his hire, another executive pulls out a similar resume. The CEO looks it over and, indeed, it is as impressive as the black executive's. "But why should I hire this person over the black gentleman?" the CEO says. "Well," says the executive, "blacks are only 13% of the population. Women are 50%. Although we have neither in our senior management team, we're far more under-represented in terms of women than we are of blacks. We should give the job to a woman instead...and this woman's credentials are as good as the black man's."

Who is it more fair or equitable to hire? By your logic, aren't they continuing to discriminate against whichever group is not represented by their selection?

You cannot claim racism by merely saying "there's too few X in the senior management at Y." That's reductivist thinking. You must show that there are plenty of comparably (or superiorly) skilled blacks who have been unreasonably passed over so that whites may have those jobs.

I think that this begs the question. There's no showing that fewer blacks pursue careers in business than whites by the indicated margin. Further, even if it were so, this fact does not militate against the existence of discrimination, past or present.

Discriminatory effects indicate the possibility of either ongoing or residual effects of intentional or other forms of discrimination. The approach that presumes that there is no discrimination is not borne out by the evidence of our very eyes, but in contradiction to it. The remedy for such discrimination is obvious: Affirmative action.

But you yourself have made the argument strongly implies that it was the historical disparity in the acceptance of black into white business power structures that is to blame. How is this not implicative of discrimination?

Did Thomas Paine wait for an empirical study? Was his famous pamphlet justifying the American Revolution entitled, "Empirical Study"?

I find this explanation Lamarckian in its fallacy. There is nothing to suggest that pressures against black involvement means that individual blacks cannot be as capable by virtue of experience.

Based on your example, it is clearly more equitable to look at the entire corporate structure to assure that it approximates the composition of the population. In a truly equitable world, there would be fifty-plus percent representation of top corporate executives who were women, thirteen percent who were black, and so forth. The fact that there isn't indicates that there are factors causing inequities. I'm not sure that this does anything but weaken your proffered rationalization of the status quo.

You approach the issue with the presumption that discrimination was a thing of the past. But this approach is fallacious, since our experience shows that discrimination still exists even where, as you claim, it is only as a consequence of the past.

But this argument proves to much, since by this measure, equity itself is reductionist.

Another Excelsius crock of shit.

The author of this drivel is Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who can't even maintain his own website.



It's published in the Final Call, which is Louis Farrakhan's "newspaper" that they peddle at intersections for the Nation of Islam.



What a bunch of crap.

I guess it was too much to expect you to Google "Earl Ofari Hutchinson."

I you had, you'd have found his website:

http://www.earlofarihutchinson.com/

Dumbass.

Link

Great editorial standards, jackass.

Your response indicates that you are unable to dispute that Hutchinson does have his own website.

You've also selectively excerpted some of Hutchinson's credentials. He's also written nine books. Have you?

Five actually. Mine actually sold, though. Big difference.

This whole editorial column is a bunch of unsupported assertions, unoriginal and pedestrian complaints, and the standard line of victimology from the Nation of Islam types.

May as well post Ann Coulter columns.

Still not as good as nine. You're confident yours sold better than Hutchinson's? And if so, would you consider yourself the Jacqueline Susann of libertarian gun-owner types? Inquiring minds want to know.

Quality trumps quantity, Enterpriser.

Yep

No, I've written books on entrepreneurship and business. Books people actually read and buy.


The fact you cite the works of a Nation of Islam columnist is very telling.

Bully for you. So you write self-help books that you claim sell better than Hutchinson's, whose books you think no one reads, and obviously making you, a white guy who makes jokes about the word, "Nigeria," eminently qualified to speak to the socioeconomic conditions of blacks, and particularly more so than a black man whose written nine books on the black condition. So goes, at least, your argument.

Not a particularly good one, old bean.

"the black condition"

Y'know, I somehow thought the legendary Enterpriser would be more impressive than this.

Not to gloat, but back in TBBS, early 2002, I was the one that helped Enty lose his modship.

Have you thought of telling him?

And this is relevant to the issue of black discrimination and oppression how?

Why should I care? I am not Black.

If someone accused me of being Enterpriser, I could disprove that accusation quite easily, considering more than one person around here knows Enterprisers real life identity. Hence, your continued denial of these accusations without actually (and easily) refuting them is more than enough proof for me.