Why are those who're against Affirmative Action favor Ethnic Profiling?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Ganymede, Jan 5, 2010.

  1. Ganymede Valued Senior Member

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    Why are those who're against Affirmative Action favor Racial Profiling?

    There's been an intense debate percolating lately about profiling ethnic minorities at Airports. The main proponents advocating this policy are the very same people who're vehemently opposed to any racial based preferences. It's contradictory to conclude that race shouldn't be a factor when it comes to equal opportunity, but it should be a factor when criminality is concerned.

    I understand that certain ethnic profiles are more likely to commit certain crimes, but once you demand that ethnic profiling should be ratified into law you're contradicting yourself when you insinuate that only ones character should be considered, never his race - in all matters. It seems like Conservatives want to have it both ways. They're only in favor of racial preferences when it benefits their interests.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2010
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Profiling is more than ethnicity.
     
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  5. Ganymede Valued Senior Member

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    You were saying?
     
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    True profiling includes more than racial identity, although it always has taken race into account. We have to profile and we have to include race among many other factors.

    Profiling taking only race into account and no other factors isn't really profiling, it's just racism.
     
  8. Ganymede Valued Senior Member

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    Since you're intentionally trying to derail the subject I'm debating let me simplify it for you. I'm debating why people who oppose affirmative action, favor racial profiling. Is that clear enough for you? Here's an example.


    http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute....blyman-calls-for-ethnic-profiling-bill-video/

    Now, here's a quote where he completely contradicts himself.

    Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...es_shoot_down_school_integ.html#ixzz0blS1E2YG

    This is what I mean Spider. Do you understand now? Why are those who're against affirmative action favor ethnic profiling?
     
  9. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Because as long as it involves taking away rights, conservatives are all for it. If it benefits people, they hate it.
     
  10. Cowboy My Aim Is True Valued Senior Member

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    I have a lot of reservations about profiling, but I don't think that it's fair to compare it to affirmative action.

    1) Being profiled at the airport or wherever may be inconvenient and embarrassing, but the effects aren't as potentially long-lasting as losing out on a job to affirmative action. Keep in mind that there aren't a lot of people who are seriously arguing that people who "look like Muslims" should be banned from air travel. I'd rather be delayed 30 minutes at the airport because I fit some stereotyped "description" than lose out on a good job for that same reason.

    2) Applying for a job usually involves resumes, interviews, tests, references. This gives the "powers that be" in the HR department a chance to actually find something out about your abilities and character. People involved in airline security generally have a lot less information to go by.

    We could just as easily ask, "Why are those who're against profiling often okay with affirmative action?"
     
  11. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    I don't disagree entirely with what you wrote, but I think this underestimates the costs of racial profiling. It's not just "Oh well, there's 30 minutes gone forever" it is "Oh well, relegated to second class status, AGAIN, and, did that motherfucking glorified security guard just tell me I was stupid?" It creates an atmosphere where it is acceptable to hassle people based on race.

    When searches are applied randomly (or better, universally), then the process can be relatively benign, if a pain in the ass. When you empower a small cadre of people and ask them specifically to target a people of a particular skin color, unless the screeners are *also* of that skin color (and often even then) you create an "us" versus "them" mentality in the minds of everyone involved.

    It's similar to the dynamic of famous Stanford prison experiment, and any one of the "darkies" who complains is basically just asking to be treated even worse than the already bad treatment you can expect for the profilees generally.

    From a standpoint of system design, any system of profiling needs to be carefully set up and monitored, and complaints from the profilees need to be taken deadly seriously. Heads have to roll if an issue ever crops up...and I don't think that kind of system of controls and feedback mechanisms is what anyone intends here. If Muhammed Jamal Akbar complains that Phil got rough with him, we're likely as not to assume Phil was in the right unless Mr. Akbar has pretty conclusive evidence to the contrary. That kind of seemingly reasonable system tends not to be one in which the average joe (or, in this hypothetical, Phil) is going to conscientiously avoid abusing his power or displaying empathy for the second class citizens we've told him it's his job to target.

    I don't think humans are good enough beings for the system to be either as kind or gentle as you suppose, and that ignores the broader spillover into the general culture. If brown skins are less equal in airports, then that attitude is likely to migrate. If the government can be wary of them in an airport, then surely security guards should be on alert when they see them in the mall, or a bank, or on the subway. If it makes sense to profile them in one public space that might bbe an attractive target, why should any of us letr our own guards down in other such places? Again, I can imagine setting up a system where only the government has the right to profile, but unless I am punished swiftly, surely, and harshly for unauthorized profiling, there is a reasonable chance that I will be alert for racial cues on the theory that the government knows what it is doing.
     
  12. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    No, those types have no record of opposing "any" racial preferences. The vehemence is strictly limited to those programs that would benefit minorities. That they use the rhetoric of race-blindness when arguing against any system that might benefit a minority should not fool anybody, at this late hour.

    Indeed it is, and that doesn't even seem to bother the "conservatives." So we conclude that they don't really take their "race-blind" rhetoric seriously, and only employ it in a cynical way when attacking programs that would benefit non-white people.

    In other words, they are racists.

    Now watch how much they freak out at that label, despite having enthusiastically walked the walk for so long.
     
  13. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    You're really reaching, here. Affirmative action treats individuals as interchangable drones defined by their race. And it does this in a situation in which specific knowledge about the individual is readily available. It is racist and wrong.

    But screening at an airport is, as you well know, an entirely different situation. We are dealing with large groups of people about whom we have very limited knowledge and a limited amount of time in which to make a decision.

    Given that we are currently involved in a conflict with extremist members of a particular religion and that most of the terrorists have also been of a particular race/ethnicity, it's idiotic to ignore the obvious and not take a closer look at people who fit the "profile" of the previous terrorists. That profile includes (but is not limited to) race, ethnicity and religion.
     
  14. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Profiling is more than race. You can be profiled simply because you traveled through or spent time in certain countries whereas another member of the same group doesn't raise any flags. It means paying more attention to people coming from a certain background yes, meaning they are less likely to pay close attention to a Finnish middle aged woman but they might scan a young Finnish man who's a convert and spent time in 'red flag' countries. Western men who travel from South East Asia often have their computers confiscated as there is a high incidence of illegal material involving children being smuggled out. There are profiles for drug smugglers etc so why not for suspected terrorists?
     
  15. CutsieMarie89 Zen Registered Senior Member

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    Maybe the airlines just need to crack down on everybody. Men, women, children, pets and all. Racial profiling is wrong. Being a victim of it more than once and also being denied opportunities because of my race, I can say that it hurts just as much. Affirmative action is a fair comparison to racial profiling. But I was definately angrier when I was profilied, than when I got a sorry try again next year letter.
     
  16. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    I agree with that too, but with affirmative action you are also dealing with hidden discrimination that cannot be easily uncovered. Whenever someone selects a white candidate over a minority, there is almost always some reason that you could claim with a straight face was the basis for the white guy winning, even if race was the real reason. Worse, the person doing the hiring may be unaware of the bias himself. When they conducted studies sending out resumes under "American names" (John Williamson, Lisa Jacobs, etc) and resumes under "ethnic/racially suggestive" names (for example Laqwanda Smith, Pedro Jimenez, Jemal Waters, etc.), employers granted interviews to the Americanized versions at a rate of something like 10 to 1, even though the resumes used were identical.

    I don't think that happens because employers knowingly turn away ethnic candidates, I think it happens because prejudices color one's impression of the candidate in subtle ways. Affirmative Action, if well calibrated, can overcome these subtle biases.

    On the other hand, if we profile in airports, why not trains? Why not malls? Terrorists blow up marketplaces and nighclubs all over the world. I am not sure why we place 100 (or more) times the emphasis on airplanes as we do these other things. The main reason I suppose is that we got used to airport security after the hijackings in the 1970s, and so this seems like a small step forward, whereas other screenings would seem like a bigger change.

    There are more than one million airline passenger worldwide each year, how many of those are going to be subjects of a terrorist attack while flying? A few hundred? (And that is possibly high, as I am not sure, on average, that we can expect one airliner to be attacked per year.) If you were in the suspect class, would you happily be subject to these procedures based on those numbers? I would not.

    Now consider, of the passengers that are subject to a terrorist attack while flying, how many were the subject of Arabic attackers? Some of the high profile attackers of airliners were not Arabs: Jose Padilla was Latino, the Shoe Bomber was white (and part Jamaican), and the Nigerian who sparked the recent demand that we discriminate against Arabs was black. They were all Muslims, but Arabs. To me, that suggests that our enemies are not selecting Arabs for these things, but specifically looking for Muslim non-Arabs. But bend over, law abiding people of Arabic descent, because there may be something up there, and we aims to dig it out of you.

    We can't take a bottle of shampoo on a plane anymore, because people are irrationally afraid of terrorism. It's been said that the terrorists want to change our way of life. When we start discussing disregarding the dignity of others based on their race or ethnicity, it's pretty clear that some people are happy to let the terrorists do that much.
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2010
  17. navigator Registered Senior Member

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    Well said!


    I think if your going to be singled out for a special hassle you should also get a special benefit.

    If the resources are focused on a small group, the ones with a pattern of blowing up airplanes, the higher security path could be faster and more convenient, minus the intrusiveness.
     
  18. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    It's still racism, it's trying to correct for a subtle, perhaps even unintentional injustice with an blatent, intentional injustice.
    When was the last time a train, mall, marketplace, or nightclub in the US was hit by a terrorist? Ever?
    Would I object to being inspected more closely if I were Muslim? No. I'd be pissed off at the extremists for giving us all a bad name, not for the people trying to prevent the plane from being blown up.
    Most of the measures they've taken are idiotic. Especially this recent no getting up in the last hour of the flight. What, is that the only time a plane can be blown up?
     
  19. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    Where there is subtle injustice, then correcting that cannot be itself unjust. If an employer refuses to hire me because I am black, but claims it's for other performance based reasons, it is not unjust for for the government to level the playting field.

    Taking benefits away from white people is only unjust when the playing field is already level. Affirmative Action is invoked when those using it believe that is not the case.

    I think there is a flaw in your thinking. When it comes to airports you indicate that limited access to other information is a good enough reason to invoke invidious racial profiling, yet when limited information affects hiring, you object to far less invidious racial distinctions being made.

    The argument from history is a logical fallacy, especially in this case. Just because something has not hapopended before does not make it incapable of occurring, and that is especially true when those events can only be said not to have happened "here" and have occurred elsewhere.

    It is odd to think that you may actually believe that, in the U.S., only airplanes are at risk, and nothing else. When was the last time a nuke was used to kill anyone terrorists (or anyone else other than the U.S.) ever? Well, I guess we can stop worrying about nuclear weapons then and leave Iran to its obviously peaceful nuclear program. Of course that kind of argument misses the mark.

    I do not believe that is normal human psychology (which is to be annoyed at both the extremists and the people discriminating against you because of the extremists).

    Again, it's also normal hiuman psychology for the people conducting the searches to see the people being searched as adversaries, a view not at all helped by the hostility generated by the unpleasantness of being serached. Hence the Standford prison experiment devolved into acts of sadism in just a few days (and even the researchers didn't inistiallt take note of how perverse things had become).

    That is a silly rule, yet the silly rules don't strike me as an assault on our values in the same way as racial profiling does (though they are a symptom of the fact that Americans are behaving irrationally when it comes to terrorism). It's one thing to uselessly jump though hoops. It's another thing to accept that, in order to attain a miniscule reduction in a threat, we need to sacrifice justice on the alter of security.

    Racial profiling is a bigger threat to the American way than terrorists. Terrorists may kill people, but American ideals will quite certainly survive that. What American ideals cannot survive is a blatant disregard of American ideals by America. Ben Franklin is often quoted as saying that those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither, but there should be a special circle of Hell for those who sacrifice another's liberty for their own security, especially when the increase in that security is de minimis at best.
     
  20. Scaramouche Registered Member

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    Profiling includes many things, including country of origin (Nigeria is kicking up a fuss at the moment about it), religion, and more.
     
  21. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    No it doesn't.

    How is that different than college admissions or hiring, exactly?

    Given that we are currently living in a society defined by a history of overt racial oppression and manufactured, entrenched inequality and that most of the oppressed have also been of a particular race/ethnicity, it's idiotic to ignore the obvious and not take a closer looks at people who fit the "profile" of the oppressed.

    That, or it's outright racist. Take your pick.

    Likewise with affirmative action.

    One wonders if you even know what the word "racism" means.

    Let's say you steal $100 from your neighbor, get caught, and the court orders you to pay him back $150. Are you going to call that injustice? After all, the state is taking money from you by force; isn't that theft, regardless of what the history that led up to it is?
     
  22. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    The average person flies only a few times in their life. I think I've flown maybe four times in my 43 years. I know many people who have flown even fewer times than that. So being a bit more inconvenienced than the average person when you're at the airport isn't really going to have that much effect on your life. And the potential benefit of said inconvenience could be that your life is saved.

    On the other hand, most of us work every day. Being denied a job because of your race will, therefore, have a very large impact on your life. And discriminating against some white guy because some black guy was discriminated against in the past (or even in the present day) is racist.
    Ever see the movie Traitor? The terrorists in that movie have a plan to blow up 50 buses at the same time all over America. An undercover operative manages to change the terrorists orders so that all 50 suicide bombers end up on the same bus and only blow up each other (and the unlucky driver).

    And the TV show 24 has shown multiple possible avenues of terrorist attacks.

    So yes, there are many alternate targets terrorists could hit. Fortunately, for whatever reason, terrorists in the US seem fixated on airplanes.

    It does almost make you wonder if they're trying to get us to only pay attention to airplanes so we'll not be ready for the next major strike against.......whatever.
     
  23. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    Yes it does.
    Because, as mentioned before, flying has a trivial impact on your life. Whereas your job or college has a huge one.
    Discriminating against someone now because some other guy was discriminated against in the past is outright racist and idiotic.
    That would be justice. It's dealing with a wrong commited by an individual and forcing him to make restitution. Affirmative action is more like some black guy steals from me, and the court then orders some other random black guy to pay me back.
     

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