Should Trump Resign Over "Hellhole" Comment?

[rogue06]

People keep talking about who gets the most out of that plan, but not a lot of folks are giving proper credit to the folks paying for it.

Thanks, grandkids!

It is always amusing when a liberal pretends to complain about spending. Or talk about who is "paying" for something when someone is allowed to keep a bit more of their own money.

[Darth Executor]

I am aware of the widspread rejection of the concept of white/male privilege among those of the far right.

Anad the run of the mill right. and the center. and the center left...

[carpedm9587]

At issue is why we might be morally obligated. Liberals believe it's because of critical race theory, and they want to guilt whites into giving their resources to blacks.

No - we are morally responsible because a fellow human being is in need, and (in some cases) there is systemic injustice/discrimination that needs to be addressed. I provided two examples.

[carpedm9587]

I think it's more or less true that Christians (and other theists) ought to have this sense of moral obligation, but if you were discussing this with your fellow atheists, what is it in the atheist worldview that they should feel the same sort of obligation?

Our desire to live in a better world, with sustemic injustice eliminated or minimized.

Couldn't an atheist simply default to moral nihilism, and deny that they have any such obligation altogether?

Some could. Some do.

Seems to me that you'd likely have to be a humanist in order to retain the sense of obligation you're referring to.

I'm not sure how you define "humanist." Anyone who values life, liberty, trust, and health and lives in a community will likely arrive at this same moral code.

I don't deny that this is likely true, but since you didn't actually link to any study, it's hard to tell how the testers came to their conclusions. It'd be interesting to find out if evaluators were not so much racially biased, as they were biased against certain names in general.

The specific study I was referencing is here: [/QUOTE]

I'm not sure how you define "humanist." Anyone who values life, liberty, trust, and health and lives in a community will likely arrive at this same moral code.

I don't deny that this is likely true, but since you didn't actually link to any study, it's hard to tell how the testers came to their conclusions. It'd be interesting to find out if evaluators were not so much racially biased, as they were biased against certain names in general. So, for instance, would they be just as dismissive of old sounding names like "Ebenezer", "Bertha", and "Gladys", as much as they are names like "Jamal", "Taniqua", and "LaKeisha". Certain "black" names are sort of a point of fun poking, even among other black people. So, for instance, Key and Peele have a couple of skits that poke fun at the subject,

The resume study I cited is here. I referred specifically to black names, but the study looked at multiple ethnic/racial groups. The results were consisent for names with strong ethnic/racial links. The results dovetail with several other incidents we have seen examined, including black people having more difficulty getting accepted for a rental on AirB&B, or getting renters if they were advertising a property/room. Just as with this study, when they remove racially identifying information (picture, distinctive name, etc.), the "problem" disappears.

Not everything is racist - and (IMO) the left jumps too quickly to attributing racism to thinks that are not racist. But we ALL have some degree of implicit racial response, from extremely mild to severe. Racism IS still alive and well in our world and in our country, and it is not always conscious. Even people who think they do not "have a racial bone in their body" are often subject to racially biased responses and are not even aware of it. I include myself in this. There is a marvelous project in which an objective means for measuring the degree of this response is provided. Each of us can do it. I have done it for myself, and found that, despite having two black children, I still struggle a bit with racial/ethnic bias.

The objective measurement was discovered using the concept of cognitive dissonance. It turns out, if we are asked to match two things, the time it takes us to make the match is less when the two things have a perceived affiliation, and it takes us a bit longer when the two things create a cognitive dissonance within us. So the test first measures our ability to match simple things, like classifying a set of words (friend, love, hate, ugly, harm, joy) with "bad" or "good." Then it requires associating a black/white set of pictures of faces with the words white, and black. For each, the time to make the matches is measured as a baseline. Then the software repeats the test, but this time it pairs the concepts, so you have to go through the list of words and associate them with "white or good" and "black or bad." Then you have to do it again, this time associating them with "white or bad" and "black or good." The exercise is not designed for us to be making a definitive statement about the words themselves, but rather to measure our response time in making the classification. It turns out, if we have no implicit bias at all, we should be able to associated the words with "white or good" as fast as we do with "black or good," and with "black or bad" as fast as we do with "black or good." If we DO have implicit bias with respect to one race of the other, the times will differ. How badly we are experiencing congnitive dissonance, reflecting implicit bias, translates into more time required to make the associations. The methodology has been been verified using multiple cognitivie disonance pairings. They have tests for religios bias, ethnic bias, etc. It is a VERY self-revealing test. If interested, you can find it here: https://www.tolerance.org/profession...or-hidden-bias

Anecdotally, my mother, who works as a church counselor at a largely black church finds that when she's doing announcements, speaking at funerals, or doing counseling, she needs to write down most inner city black people's names phonetically, so she can get it right. The pastors in the church, who are themselves black, find her ability to pronounce the names correctly absolutely amazing, and have told her that they often struggle with the names themselves.

Also wonder if the issue with names might not be more a class-oriented issue than a specifically racial bias. What do studies find about those applicants who have passed the pre-screening phase? Do they also suggest that black applicants are consistently set aside for white applicants?

No - I don't think these are the take-aways from the study.

[carpedm9587]

Is it? Are you sure that you wouldn't display the same exact bias'?

The same phenomena is long known in poli sci - people tend to vote for anglo-saxon names. Here's the thing - it was true regardless of the voter's race. Blacks were just as likely to vote with that bias as whites.

A lot of factors come into play - and most are psychological, not sociological. We tend to prefer similarity. We tend to prefer authority. We tend to prefer quality. We tend to prefer traditional patterns (generational voting for example). We tend to get into ruts (blacks deliberately preferring whites as candidates probably fell into this category as late as twenty years ago).

Studies showing that something is affecting preference do not necessarily indicate racism - mere bias isn't the same thing at all as prejudice.

You wondered at the back lash over 'white privilege' - I find that telling because that's the exact kind of bias your studies likely demonstrated. You don't see it as an inherently racist terminology - but of course, that's exactly what it is. Regardless of your intention it's a backhanded way of calling people racists. Worse, it applies the label arbitrarily and unfairly. You can't help being born white and male - but you most certainly can help taking an prejudiced attitude toward an entire race. That, by the way, includes your own.

If you really want to improve society, lose the derogatory terminology. It's just as racist as the N word whether or not you realize it. You already see the evidence that it is inflammatory so don't split hairs over 'racist' - inflammatory is just as counter-productive.

As for the track thing, it's a bad analogy. A better one would use steps forward and back. But try doing it with the same list and having those who don't meet the criteria take a step back - which is very much the condition of things like having only one parent at home, divorce, and other behaviors. I'd use a version with steps forward for innate traits in some cases, and behavioral matters either forward or back as appropriate. You would get a very different but more realistic picture of how these things affect society.

I never claimed that racial bias was limited to white people. It is, as best I can tell, universal - differing only in degree - not in actuality. See my response to Adrift. There is a marvelous test for this.

[Mountain Man]

No - we are morally responsible because a fellow human being is in need, and (in some cases) there is systemic injustice/discrimination that needs to be addressed. I provided two examples.

That's critical race theory in a nutshell. That you refer to certain situations as "injustices" rather than simply circumstances says it all.

[JimL]

That's critical race theory in a nutshell. That you refer to certain situations as "injustices" rather than simply circumstances says it all.

How about we call them unjust circumstances?

[NorrinRadd]

... Certain "black" names are sort of a point of fun poking, even among other black people. ...

I have repeatedly searched in vain for a clip of Franklyn Ajaye decades ago on a late-night talk show, doing a bit about how black names often sound like they were chosen off labels in a pharmacy.

[Darth Executor]

How about we call them unjust circumstances?

bad luck is not injustice, period

[Mountain Man]

How about we call them unjust circumstances?

No, because "unjust" suggests that there is a guilty party. If someone is black and poor, that's not unjust, that's just their circumstance.

[JimL]

No, because "unjust" suggests that there is a guilty party. If someone is black and poor, that's not unjust, that's just their circumstance.

Was being facetious. Doesn't matter what you want to call it, we just have different political, social, points of view. We liberals it would seem generally take the more christian perspective concerning the role of government, whereas conservatives take a more, well, how shall i say, a more satanic perspective I guess.

[Darth Executor]

We liberals it would seem generally take the more christian perspective concerning the role of government

Christ never once agitated for government aid.

[JimL]

Christ never once agitated for government aid.

In the fictional tale, he never agitated against it either. Its is however how the early christians lived.

[Cow Poke]

In the fictional tale, he never agitated against it either. Its is however how the early christians lived.

The Christians lived by taking care of one another because they loved one another, not by government assistance, because of some tax plan.

[Starlight]

And your statement about plentiful labor and lower wages is understood - but reflects a business world that has one metric: money. I do not subscribe to that view for the same reason that I do not subscribe to the view that my only priority in life is my family. They are my highest priority, but there are times that I have asked my family to sacrifice, sometimes even painfully, because someone with a greater need than ours, who was not able to meet that need themselves, needed our help. Like people, a business occupies a social niche, and I subscribe to the philosophy that businesses have both financial and social obligations.

When a business drops wages below a "living wage" because labor is plentiful and they CAN, they are ignoring the impact on the people that are working for them, who are now receiving less than they need to survive, but are still working full time. They are forcing parents to get multiple jobs, compromising their ability to be present to their family. The impact is significant. They are, in effect, putting money above people. It is not the way I believe an ethical business should operate. It is not the way I have ever run my business. If I used that ethic, I could have been a millionaire several times over by now. I have always worked b the ethic that I will not make my fortunes on the backs of others. I pay people who do the same things I do the same amount I get paid, less only a modest amount to cover my costs for coordinating the activity, maintaining the client accounts, etc. The lowest paid people in my organization are paid at least a living wage, and I have repeatedly reduced my own salary (which is generous) before I will reduce theirs.

I cannot justify CEOs/COOs/CIOs that walk away with tens and hundreds of millions when the lowest paid members of their organization are struggling to put food on the table, clothe themselves and their children, maintain shelter, and ensure adequate healthcare. If everyone is being paid a living wage, then I don't CARE how much the owners pocket. I do not have a negative opinion of rich people; I have a negative opinion of rich people who made their money at the unjust expense of others. I recognize that businesses sometimes have to make hard decisions. I have lived through that. Sometimes, the decision is "cut people, cut wages, or die." I am simply saying, if the decision is to cut wages, the philosophy I outlined above should (ethically) govern.

I want to take the time to say kudos for your post here.

Ironically it wouldn't take much to expand that into a great little sermon on living out Christian values in businesses (well for use in churches in my country anyway, the US 'Christians' don't seem to have nearly as much interest as US atheists do when it comes to living out moral values).