Would you be able to give a brief explanation of the last time period where you would agree that police in many areas across the US treated the races differently? Surely you at least acknowledge that this was a problem in the past yes?

I would not be able to because I don’t know the answer to that question.

When was the last year that you would agree that systemic racism existed in the US?

I don’t agree with the premise of “systemic racism” as it has been provided here. I once thought it was the same as institutional racism: the US was certainly institutionally racist for most of its history, with laws explicitly discriminating for and against races. But absent those laws and institutions it becomes difficult to indict the system for racism. It’s actually a testament to the system that we’ve come so far.

The typical ploy of blaming Trump for the incompetence and failures of the states, the worst of which are governed by democrats. The fact is Trump is not allowed to govern the states. He cannot enact health policy in New York, for example.

It’s the same in Canada. Quebec was harder hit than British Columbia, and have diverging policies, each with their own health officers and laws. So one cannot blame Trudeau for Quebec without praising him for BC.

Oi @NOS4A2, have you buggered off because you understood a worked example of systemic racism and now want to forget the fact?

Nope. I remain unconvinced.

It would be doing much the same thing if it didn't record the ethnicity of the people "it" samples. It has a tendency to concentrate policing effort based on race regardless of whether it records ethnicity data. So long as the people "tested" for criminality are black or poor or from neighbourhood X, it allocates police effort more to black neighbourhoods (like or near X) over time. The algorithm "figures out" black=criminal from what it's fed and how it tells police to feed it.

If it’s not so much the skin colors of those involved, but the prevalence of criminality in certain neighborhoods, then it would appear that the results are a consequence of the criminality and not the skin-colors of the individuals involved. This isn’t to say that racist police wouldn’t misinterpret and abuse the data for racist reasons, of course.

That's the crucial thing though, a supposedly race indifferent algorithm does pick up on real correlations (poverty + nonwhite proportion in neighbourhood + crime rate). Those correlations it picks up are manifestations of systemic racism.

You find the same thing when you try making hiring work through a machine learning algorithm for assessing applicant competence, it picks up on systemic effects in the training data and enforces them through its predictions; the algorithm ends up a racist misogynist.

I’m not sure how those “correlations” are manifestations of systemic racism. Poverty and crime have myriad causes, none of which is limited to this or that race.

No one can deny that there is racism and discrimination in hiring practices, but such discrimination is forbidden by law and has been for quite some time, and there are legal, systemic and institutional means with which to find justice—systemic anti-racism.

If I understand you correctly it records and discriminates on the basis of race. If so then yes it is racist. I would even argue that the act of considering the races of those involved as some mitigating factor, especially if it is built into the algorithm, can only breed more racism.

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Does the system record and profile on the basis of race, and not some other factor?

If there is some part of the algorithm or data in that system that suggests police target certain racial groups, I would have to agree with you. But I cannot see those in the article. Is there something in that system that suggests certain racial groups should be policed heavier than others?

Is discrimination based on individual's birthplace, ancestry, culture, linguistic characteristics, explicitly racist (non-technical sense)?

If it was written into a law, and explicitly discriminates on these grounds, I would say it is.

Would you say forbiding discrimination based upon an individual's birthplace, ancestry, culture, linguistic characteristics, is a good way to prevent racism in a non-technical’ sense?

I think it helps, at least when it comes to employment. Can it prevent racist thinking and beliefs? Probably not.

Your intuitions are that "Let's ban all Trump supporters with approximately 3.4k posts who believe racism is predominantly propagated by putting people into race boxes who have approximately" explicitly targets you. And is Nos4a2-ist.

But your intuitions for "Let's enact policy that almost exclusively disadvantages blacks" are that it's not racist. Because it's not articulated in those terms.

You are not consistent.

It explicitly targets “Trump supporters with approximately 3.4k posts who believe racism is predominantly propagated by putting people into race boxes”, to be sure, and given that I am the only one here who fits that description, it’s clear that it targets me.

I have no intuitions for “let’s enact policy that almost exclusively disadvantage blacks” because I have seen no such policies. If there are such extant policies I’m welcome to hear them. In fact I’ve been asking for them.

Is it racist to discriminate against ethnic groups?

Given the conflation of race and ethnicity I would have to say it is. Whether technically it is or not I am not too sure.

Okay. Now let's say that it's anyone with approximately 3.4k posts who fit the criteria. Still targets you? Even though it's weakened to effect other people incidentally?

It certainly discriminates against a certain group of people while excluding others.

I’d love to hear your argument.

[

If there was another person who fit the criteria who wasn't you, would it cease to be made to target you?

It would still target me and people like me, sure.

It doesn't even refer to you. How can it target you?

I don’t see who else it could refer to.

Let's say we started banning Trump supporters with over 3.4k posts who believed that racism is propagated mostly through people categorising others into racial categories...

No, Nos, it's not directed at you. It would be a principle thing.

That’s the sort of discrimination I’m talking about and looking for. For example, this policy is racist:

“ No negro who is not in the military service shall be allowed to carry fire-arms, or any kind of weapons, within the parish, without the special written permission of his employers, approved and indorsed by the nearest and most convenient chief of patrol.”

This is an explicitly racist policy. So maybe you can help me out here: if the “system” is absent such policies, how is it racist?

Sounds to be more about ethnicity than race.

What was the point of that act in your opinion?

To forbid discrimination on the basis of national origin.

That’s right.

What kind of fuckstickery is this shit? You think policies need to declare themselves to be racist in order to be racist? Fuck off. You're not this stupid, from which one can only conclude that you're being deliberately shit, so stop being deliberately shit you fuckstain.

No, that’s not what I think. I think policies have to be explicitly racist in order for it to be racist, for instance Black Codes, Nuremberg laws or Apartheid.

I'm done now. Your constant reframing attempts are, as ever, frustrating.

You tried to connect me to Lee Atwater.

Show me an explicitly racist policy. If they aren’t explicitly racist, or they are not exclusive to this or that race, but are to be applied evenly to each and every individual, they are not racist, They are race neutral. If someone puts their finger on the scale of justices and they are applied for or against someone because of their race, that is the result of individual racists, not the law. Does this not compute to you?

No. Not affording anything except that the rhetoric that you espoused and your self admission of unawareness is apparent that your privilege, which is such that you do not experience that I, and other 45 million (plus or minus) blacks experience and have experienced are unaware or try not to be aware or reject the notion that such exists.

I don’t deny that racism exists. My unawareness was in regards to the existence of explicitly racial policies in America, which may exist beyond what I know. I know of one explicitly racial policy here in the government of Canada, which gives preference to “visible minorities” in hiring practices.

You understood it enough to try and reframe the discussion away from it.

You used an overused quote from god-knows-when to imply I am appealing to, or are appealed by, American racists. I still cannot see the connection between what I was talking about and what Lee Atwater was talking about, however.

I don’t get the connection you’re trying to make here.

The people you support know it exists and weaponise it to appeal to American racists. The denial you have of it? Their propaganda and euphemisms working exactly as intended.

I have never supported Lee Atwater. But do you agree with his theory?

Of course you can’t such is the life of the privileged and the ignorant. Normally I’d post articles and studies but considering I’ve heard that type of rhetoric before and have wasted my time I am not going to start again

If you want to afford me privilege because of my skin color be my guest. But I reject it.

You're wilfully ignorant.

Do you believe the same as Lee Atwater?

None of those policies explicitly discriminate between races (as far as I’m aware). As such, any racism that results is the effort of individual racists, not any inherent racism in the system itself. I just can’t see any way around this.

Obama brought the country out of the Great Recession, and was re-elected. I think that even Trump’s supporters realize on some level that he’s far too incompetent to deal with the current state of affairs.

Yet, there he is dealing with the current state of affairs, in a fashion I agree with, and in opposition to interests I despise. I could not have asked for a better job.

He said a lot more than that. One should watch the whole thing than rely on out of context quotes.

I am not confident in Trump’s re-election. So you will probably get your wish, if you haven’t lit the country in flames or torn it down by then.

Nah.

He simply is inept at leadership and a very ignorant person with huge personal flaws, even if he's a great populist orator for a certain type of crowd. Trump is not the culprit of the downfall of US leadership and Superpower status, he is just contributor that makes the downfall even more rapid.

And he’s still doing a better job than any grandiloquent, Ivy-league lawyer that has dominated the position until now. That’s the best part: I get to watch Trump reveal the ineffectiveness of establishment politicians, and a better country to boot.

Only a once-in-a-century pandemic could disrupt such a term, which is amazing considering all that was thrown at it. And here you guys promised us the next Hitler...

Why not? It would give conspiracy theorists a little red meat, for which they are probably starving given the collapse of it over the past couple years.

The Flynn case, the arguments, the rulings etc. is public knowledge.

How so? He pled guilty, and the judge at his sentencing advised him to be an actively better person lest his sentence be harsher than maybe Flynn was expecting - which he wasn't. So how was justice served?

He plead guilty to save his son from the same fate, and his family from financial ruin, arguing that he had been coerced into it and that the government had withheld exculpatory evidence. His case was, from top to bottom, unjust.

A win for justice. A US appeals court orders judge Sullivan to dismiss case against Michael Flynn.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/24/michael-flynn-trump-judge-court-case

Let’s hope this comes back to haunt the unelected, anti-Trump bureaucrats who have abused their power.

Everyone deserves his inheritance because that is the will of the bestower.