Physical Revue says "Whiteboards are Racist"

[MigL]

 

On 5/26/2023 at 10:26 PM, iNow said:

I’m tired of all this extremism trying to make things better and not be snarky while doing it.

'Better' is subjective.

And here I thought cheese was off-topic

Edited May 28, 2023 by MigL

[Intoscience]

I prefer a white board over a black one. I can use multiple coloured pens on a whiteboard and you don't get that awful screeching noise whilst writing on one.  

[mistermack]

Apologies if someone's already made this point, I haven't read through the thread. 

But I absolutely hate a black screen with white print, on a monitor or tv. It leaves me disorientated, and I get persistance of image on my retina. (If that's the correct term.) It's an unpleasant experience. I never found that in my school days, with white chalk on a blackboard. Maybe it has come on since. 

But in any case, a video screen is much blacker than the blackboards were in the old days so the contrast is more extreme. 

[Intoscience]

18 hours ago, mistermack said:

Apologies if someone's already made this point, I haven't read through the thread. 

But I absolutely hate a black screen with white print, on a monitor or tv. It leaves me disorientated, and I get persistance of image on my retina. (If that's the correct term.) It's an unpleasant experience. I never found that in my school days, with white chalk on a blackboard. Maybe it has come on since. 

But in any case, a video screen is much blacker than the blackboards were in the old days so the contrast is more extreme. 

Is your preference prejudice or have racial implications?

The argument that I have witnessed by some people is that, even though your intent is not in any way this way, just the action of preferring one colour over another makes it so.   

[dimreepr]

3 hours ago, Intoscience said:

The argument that I have witnessed by some people is that, even though your intent is not in any way this way, just the action of preferring one colour over another makes it so.   

Really? I hate purple, but I love Prince... 😉

I love you too, man; but green is my favourite colour...

[MigL]

10 hours ago, Intoscience said:

The argument that I have witnessed by some people is that, even though your intent is not in any way this way, just the action of preferring one colour over another makes it so. 

And you can neg rep him if you choose, but if you've read the whole thread, he does seem to have a valid point.

On 5/15/2023 at 1:18 PM, Phi for All said:

This commentary addresses the widespread use of racist language in discussions concerning predatory publishing. Examples include terminology such as blacklists, whitelists, and black sheep.

I'm not implying that Phi thinks in such a way, but the commentary he quotes does.

Phi's comment about steering the ship in the opposite direction, on the other hand, implies fighting racism with racism, which to me, is a non starter.
The ship only needs steering in the opposite direction to arrive at the same place, IOW, equality of outcome, while taking away opportunity from some to rght past wrongs, and which, to me, is also a non starter.
I much prefer keeping the ship sailing straight; there is no guarantee of equality of outcome, but it provides for equality of opportunity  for all
What you make of this opportunity is up to you..

[Phi for All]

20 minutes ago, MigL said:

Phi's comment about steering the ship in the opposite direction, on the other hand, implies fighting racism with racism, which to me, is a non starter.

Just so we're clear, a possible solution like no-interest government loans for people who've been denied loans due to racist practices, are you saying it's a non starter because it gives preferential treatment, so you claim it's fighting racism with racism? If so, it would seem anything that's done to correct past mistakes is a non starter for you. You just want to keep doing the same things, sailing the same direction, and that's what will help, do I have this right?

[MigL]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

a possible solution like no-interest government loans for people who've been denied loans due to racist practices, are you saying it's a non starter because it gives preferential treatment

Those are two different thoughts you're confusing together.

I'm not against giving loans to people who've been denied loans because of racist practices. That's wrong; everyone should have equal opportunity to get a loan.
But when you give one person  preferential treatment by giving them an interest free loan, solely based on race, that is the very definition of racism, and you are continuing the practice that made the mess in the first place.

The only way your idea flies is if you are after equality of outcome; and you still haven't presented an argument as to why that is a desirable outcome ( i'll wait, you may convince me ).
The outcome I'm interested in acheiving is equality of opportunity, simply because I'm of the opinion that some measure of personal responsibility, once you have equal opportunity as everyone else, should determinepeople's lives.

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

But when you give one person  preferential treatment by giving them an interest free loan, solely based on race, that is the very definition of racism, and you are continuing the practice that made the mess in the first place.

Not necessarily. The bit that is missing is the aspect of systemic racism, where differential outcomes are baked into the system. Unless these are all abolished and all (or at least most) disadvantages are removed (e.g. certain races are not mostly contained in underserviced areas), race-based adjustments are basically a crude band-aid to address the systemic issues.

It is really not a symmetric issue. If it was, being racist would not even be a problem anymore (except for not being socially acceptable) and we would not look at differential outcomes. The issues are ingrained and generationally perpetuating.

That being said, one could of course try to find a finer grained adjustment, but typically that requires too much effort for most folks, so we are then back to either crude band-aids or pretending that there are no issues to address.

1 hour ago, MigL said:

The only way your idea flies is if you are after equality of outcome; and you still haven't presented an argument as to why that is a desirable outcome ( i'll wait, you may convince me ).

Two folks do the same thing, one is successful, the other is not. Fine, randomness is part of the system. A few million folks do the same thing. Some are thriving, others are failing badly. Now you look at skin color and you realize that despite all other things being equal, way more folks with darker skin color are ending up in the bad outcome bin. Is that good?

The historic explanation of these outcomes was simply that black folks are dumber and make bad decisions. The more data was collected, the less likely this explanation is. So research has now focused on systems rather than just individual decisions that may affect outcomes and many elements have been rather robustly identified contributing to these issues. Many of them because many seemingly race-neutral laws, rules and practices, are in fact disadvantaging certain parts of the population, for example.

I will also add that "racism" has been a bit of a problem in common usage as folks often think about what it means in very different ways. Without properly defining the context, it easily becomes a semantic battle.

[Intoscience]

8 hours ago, Phi for All said:

it would seem anything that's done to correct past mistakes is a non starter for you.

Mistakes should be corrected no one is arguing this. We are just questioning the methodology. 

It seems that in some aspects its like fighting fire with fire.  

5 hours ago, CharonY said:

Two folks do the same thing, one is successful, the other is not. Fine, randomness is part of the system. A few million folks do the same thing. Some are thriving, others are failing badly. Now you look at skin color and you realize that despite all other things being equal, way more folks with darker skin color are ending up in the bad outcome bin. Is that good?

The historic explanation of these outcomes was simply that black folks are dumber and make bad decisions. The more data was collected, the less likely this explanation is. So research has now focused on systems rather than just individual decisions that may affect outcomes and many elements have been rather robustly identified contributing to these issues. Many of them because many seemingly race-neutral laws, rules and practices, are in fact disadvantaging certain parts of the population, for example.

I will also add that "racism" has been a bit of a problem in common usage as folks often think about what it means in very different ways. Without properly defining the context, it easily becomes a semantic battle

I don't disagree with any of this, my question is around the methodology to correct the systems. The band aid you mentioned earlier is when the systems are made bias towards the disadvantage groups by disadvantaging the successful groups. This seems like a hypocritical tactic, that's all. 

[MigL]

People with disabilites have always been disadvantaged in society.
The situation has slightly improved for them by providing for equal opportunities through increased accessibility, anti-discrimination laws, etc.
Would anyone suggest making able bodied people disabled to right past wrongs ?
Why would we think it appropriate to do so in the case of racism and its wrongs ?

15 hours ago, MigL said:

The outcome I'm interested in acheiving is equality of opportunity, simply because I'm of the opinion that some measure of personal responsibility, once you have equal opportunity as everyone else, should determinepeople's lives.

The bolded part is the key.

[zapatos]

19 minutes ago, MigL said:

Why would we think it appropriate to do so in the case of racism and its wrongs ?

I believe the impasse between you and some others simply lies in where the focus is. You are focusing on the trees while others are focusing on the forest.

Here is an example to illustrate my point.

You see unfairness in a particular situation, say, a black individual getting preference over a white individual for an academic opening.  

Others see unfairness in the big picture, say, many thousands of academic openings over the past 100 years where whites received preference over blacks.

I think all will agree that at the moment we have an unfair distribution of academic positions that favor whites.

If we follow your solution to the problem (make all selections fair for all) then eventually (maybe 50 years when we get to the point where all positions have been distributed fairly) there will be a fair distribution of academic positions.

If we follow their solution (preferential selections) then eventually (maybe 25 years when we get to the point where the people in the academic positions mirror what would have happened had things been fair all along) there will be a fair distribution of academic positions.

It seems your focus is on the individual, where the focus of others is on society, not that either side is ignoring the concerns of the other. 

Note: I am not saying everyone has these exact beliefs. Besides academics this could apply to loans, housing, police protections, etc. I am only using this example to illustrate where each side is coming from. We seem to continue to repeat the same arguments over time without ever making any headway.

[Phi for All]

15 hours ago, MigL said:

Those are two different thoughts you're confusing together.

I'm confusing nothing (except you, perhaps).

15 hours ago, MigL said:

I'm not against giving loans to people who've been denied loans because of racist practices. That's wrong; everyone should have equal opportunity to get a loan.
But when you give one person  preferential treatment by giving them an interest free loan, solely based on race, that is the very definition of racism, and you are continuing the practice that made the mess in the first place.

But the white folks were given preferential treatment for a long time. You can end that practice to give equal opportunity to all, but you've done nothing to make it up to the people of color who suffered while the practice existed. You're just saying, "Oooops, you caught us, that was wrong, we'll stop doing this now that we've benefited heavily from it!" This has been the white solution for a loooooooong time. Apologize afterwards, but do nothing to make amends.

This is about regulations that kept POC from benefiting from the same system white people do. Single-family zoning was regulated to segregate POC from the white communities, and home ownership means a huge difference in net worth. White regulators turned housing in the US into a de jure system that's basically unconstitutional, according to the 5th, 13th, and 14th amendments. Even if you change the zoning laws, you still have generations of POC who were unfairly discriminated against. I'm unsure why you think some kind of reparation is reverse discrimination, but what I do know is that your stance ensures NOTHING will be done.

Let me ask you this. If it's found that a company has been discriminating against black employees by not paying them the same as their equally skilled white employees, is it discriminatory in your view to compensate them? IOW, if this company paid their black employees $30K per year for five years while the white folks made $50K, do you think it would be reverse discrimination to pay those black employees $70K per year for the next five years to compensate them? With reparations, ALL the employees make $500K in 10 years.

16 hours ago, MigL said:

The only way your idea flies is if you are after equality of outcome; and you still haven't presented an argument as to why that is a desirable outcome ( i'll wait, you may convince me ).
The outcome I'm interested in acheiving is equality of opportunity, simply because I'm of the opinion that some measure of personal responsibility, once you have equal opportunity as everyone else, should determinepeople's lives.

I don't agree with this premise. The only thing the typical solutions do is to stop a specific predatory tactic, without considering the damage done by those tactics. If a farmer destroys a field by planting the same crop every year without rotating them, the solution isn't to just stop planting that crop. You need to also do what you can to make the soil fertile enough for all the things you want to grow.

9 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Mistakes should be corrected no one is arguing this. We are just questioning the methodology. 

It seems that in some aspects its like fighting fire with fire. 

You mean like modern forestry, or fighting oil well fires? Are you arguing against the use of controlled burns and backfiring? Do you question the methodology of explosives to put out an oil well fire?

Sorry, but this argument falls flat for me. I understand that you're really saying, "Sorry, I know I inadvertently helped burn you, but two wrongs don't make a right, so I think it's wrong for you to burn me back", but it just comes off as "You caught me, let's move on and I won't do it again" to my ears.

[StringJunky]

The idea of financially compensating individuals for past ethnic wrongs is a nice but naive gesture. The people that needed compensating, and to whom restitution was deserved, are not with us. Compensation comes by treating those with us now hereonin as equals. It seems to be an American peculiarity to put a fiscal price on unquantifiable things like hurt.

[zapatos]

2 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

The people that needed compensating, and to whom restitution was deserved, are not with us.

So let's say your parents had $1 million and intended to pass it on to you when they died. Before they die, it is unjustly taken from them by the government. Do you feel that since your parents are now gone, and thus can not get the restitution they deserve, that there is no need for the government to give the money back to you rather than to your parents?

Giving restitution to families is very much a part of our system. If a company is negligent, and as a result an employee or customer dies, they company is forced to make amends to the family who thus suffers financially due to the unjust death. I would argue that the family is also deserving.

[StringJunky]

18 minutes ago, zapatos said:

So let's say your parents had $1 million and intended to pass it on to you when they died. Before they die, it is unjustly taken from them by the government. Do you feel that since your parents are now gone, and thus can not get the restitution they deserve, that there is no need for the government to give the money back to you rather than to your parents?

Giving restitution to families is very much a part of our system. If a company is negligent, and as a result an employee or customer dies, they company is forced to make amends to the family who thus suffers financially due to the unjust death. I would argue that the family is also deserving.

You have specific details in that case. This would be too vague.

[Phi for All]

11 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

You have specific details in that case. This would be too vague.

And you're generalizing in the other case. Is financial compensation for past ethnic wrong in every case? Or is this being dismissed because it seems like "fighting fire with fire"?

48 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

The idea of financially compensating individuals for past ethnic wrongs is a nice but naive gesture. The people that needed compensating, and to whom restitution was deserved, are not with us. Compensation comes by treating those with us now hereonin as equals. It seems to be an American peculiarity to put a fiscal price on unquantifiable things like hurt.

But it shouldn't ONLY be that. The US passed the Civil Liberties Act in 1988 under Reagan, and in 1990 representatives of Bush I's administration acknowledged that the US was wrong to put Japanese-Americans in internment camps at the beginning of WWII, vowed to spend funds to educate Americans about this wrong, and gave checks for $20,000 to survivors. Unfortunately, later administrations reallocated the funding for educating students about the internment, but in general it was seen as a successful example of ethnic reparations.

[StringJunky]

12 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

And you're generalizing in the other case. Is financial compensation for past ethnic wrong in every case? Or is this being dismissed because it seems like "fighting fire with fire"?

But we have to generalize, we are talking about a whole ethnic group. Individual cases should be dealt with on their merits

[Phi for All]

1 minute ago, StringJunky said:

But we have to generalize, we are talking about a whole ethnic group. Individual cases should be dealt with on their merits

I meant that you're generalizing about financial compensation for ethnic wrongs always being a bad thing. 

[StringJunky]

4 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I meant that you're generalizing about financial compensation for ethnic wrongs always being a bad thing. 

Right. No. Treating it as a 'class action' (I think it's called) is what I meant.

[zapatos]

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

You have specific details in that case. This would be too vague.

Not vague at all. People are alive today who were adversely affected financially by the Federal Government of the US. They can show evidence of, for instance, being denied loans for housing that went to white people. How much specific detail do you require?

[MigL]

3 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Let me ask you this. If it's found that a company has been discriminating against black employees by not paying them the same as their equally skilled white employees, is it discriminatory in your view to compensate them?

Most definitely they should be compensated for any short-changed compensation.
It is owed to them under the law, and the concept of equal opportunity.
ItBut again that is not what we are considering.
Take Zap's academic positions example, PoC have been denied these positions in the past. Your solution is to grant a disproportionate amount of academic positions to PoC, at the expense of other races, since there are only so many positions available.
That is well-intentioned, but clearly discriminatory and racist, as the selection process is based on 'race'.

I ( my opinion ) don't see how you fix the problem of discrimination by using more  discrimination.
It smacks of the Trrumpian idea ( sorry about the unfair comparison ) that you solve the problem of gun violence with more guns.

[Sensei]

Quote

Physical Revue says "Whiteboards are Racist"

Chatbot was used to replace journalists.... ?

 

There is more of this kind of "madness" recently e.g.

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/james-bond-novels-edited-racism-1235536164/

"James Bond Novels Edited to Remove Racist Content"

Will Robinson Crusoe also be rewritten too?

 

Edited May 31, 2023 by Sensei

[zapatos]

7 minutes ago, MigL said:

I ( my opinion ) don't see how you fix the problem of discrimination by using more  discrimination.

In the case of academic positions, Affirmative Action is not intended to 'fix the problem of discrimination'. The intention is to make amends to a class of people for previous bad acts. It is true that some will be harmed in that case as there are only so many academic positions to go around. 

If done right, AA can minimize the pain inflicted on the current generation while still helping the previous generation who was harmed. We have to decide if we want to spread the pain around, or just allow it to stay where it began, with the minorities.

[CharonY]

2 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Right. No. Treating it as a 'class action' (I think it's called) is what I meant.

I am not entirely sure where the issue is. These types of compensation (e.g. victims of Nazis) have been successfully done in the past. One could squabble about the precise mechanism, but it does not seem like fundamental issue.

1 hour ago, MigL said:

Take Zap's academic positions example, PoC have been denied these positions in the past. Your solution is to grant a disproportionate amount of academic positions to PoC, at the expense of other races, since there are only so many positions available.
That is well-intentioned, but clearly discriminatory and racist, as the selection process is based on 'race'.

And again, this is an issue of not looking at the big picture. What search committees are doing is not a blanket discrimination against overrepresented folks. Basically, the system is already set up to benefit certain folks (hence the overrepresentation) and if we just continue, there is no good reason to believe that this will revert itself. I.e. despite there not being an over discrimination, the system remains discriminatory. There are many reasons for that, ranging from bias to structural issues that won't be addressed if there are not enough participants form the affected groups.

Also note, that as you mentioned, all decisions are discriminatory, as positions are limited. So you rank folks according to something. And as we all know, there is no clear objective ranking of folks (if we are really honest). Now what is not happening is that folks are hired just because of their ethnicity or gender. Rather, among a qualified pool of applicants, the committee might find that they lack representation of a given group which could support their mission and decide to hire accordingly (again, among a group of qualified candidates).

Educationally this is really important, as in natural sciences, female authority persons are still underrepresented and you often see that in attitudes among the students (despite the fact that female students are overrepresented in some disciplines).

If we state that all discrimination is bad, then obviously hiring procedures don't make sense, and we should just implement lotteries. If we state that only racial discrimination is bad then, (and it goes a bit to the paper in question in OP) then we first need to see what kind of racial discrimination is still baked into the system. Just because we do not perceive it as present, it does not mean it is not there. It just means we assume it to be the norm, which is what hurt folks. The loud supremacist racism is also bad, of course, but they are visible and can often be addressed directly. Implicit bias and systemic discrimination is a different, and arguably more urgent matter.

It is like only focusing on furuncles, because they are ugly and visible, while ignoring chronic heart disease.