Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Tag: Racism

If You Really Hate DEI & Actually Want Merit, There Is A Way

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On January 23, 2025

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There’s a lot of pushback on DEI these days, with some major companies ending their DEI programs. This has been tied into the competence crisis, which is bullshit.

Let’s put the idea that there isn’t massive discrimination to rest. There have been many studies. One found that identical resumes from people with black names vs. people with white names had half the interview requests. A meta-study found the effect less overall: 24%.

Now I don’t know if DEI overcomes that, but modern studies don’t find any less of a gap, so I’m guessing “no”, though the effect on promotion may be more significant.

The obvious solution is to do something similar to the how orchestras evaluate musicians: they place them behind a screen, and they play their music. The evaluators don’t know who’s playing, or anything about them.

Modern technology makes this viable: wipe the resume of any identifying remarks and do the same with any testing. Have the interview with an avatar with a computer masked voice. If you really want to evaluate entirely on merit: their record and their abilities, that would be the way to do it.

The counter-argument is “cultural fit” and I’m not going to say that there’s nothing to it. The evidence is that diverse teams improve quality at the cost of speed and increased conflict but the benefits don’t accrue for teams which don’t work together much. If you’re doing something you already know how to do, where quality isn’t much of a factor, speed is and team members don’t interact much anyway, then there’s a case for “cultural fit” teams. But if you’re dealing with uncertainty, or quality is more important than speed, then a diverse team is probably better.

(Amusingly the evidence is that startup funds perform less well without diversity, but silicon valley hates diversity and prioritizes fit, which is one reason for their under-performance the last couple decades since the tech-bros took charge.)

I’m not a huge fan of DEI. It introduces a variable that shouldn’t matter. Problem is that variable already matters, and DEI is an effort to counter people hiring less competent people because of prejudice.

But there is another solution: one that prioritizes merit, at least for hiring (and it could be extended to some types of promotion decisions). Decisions based on blinding out gender and race.

If the real issue is merit and not something else, this is the obvious way to go. Strange how rarely it is suggested.

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Is Hypocrisy Preferrable to Honesty?

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On June 2, 2016

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Ok, this.

Right. Now, Bill Clinton, whom some call the “first Black President” signed a crime bill based on the myth of teen (black) superpredators, which included three strikes laws and a huge amount of money for local policing and prisons.

That crime bill was emulated and led directly and indirectly to huge incarceration of blacks, massive-over policing of black communities, and the destruction of black families.

What Bill Clinton DID, which Hillary Clinton supported, was terrible for African Americans. Absolutely devastating.

Now, no question, Donald Trump is saying shit important people aren’t supposed to say. I despise racism, and Donald is saying a lot of racist shit.

But the Clintons did stuff that terribly hurt poor black communities. Now, maybe Bill loved blacks but just happened to accidentally fuck them sideways. That’s certainly possible. I don’t know the man’s soul. But his actions towards blacks were terrible.

I don’t know if honest racism is better, in the sense that it makes racism more socially acceptable. But it does have the simple virtue of being honest and getting it out. American politics has been driven by racism since, well, forever. But there is a hypocritical stream of racist action and rhetoric from Nixon that has never ended.

It was all dog-whistle. Say “welfare moms” and wink, and voters knew you were saying blacks. Welfare Reform was also about punishing blacks (poor whites just got caught in the crossfire).

America’s economic history since the end of the post-war era can be read in racial terms. Blacks came to the city, whites fled to the suburbs, and enough of them switched votes to Republicans (the Reagan Democrats) to elect Reagan, in order to keep their suburban home prices up.

This is all of a piece.

Racism is stupid. It is contemptible. But few politicians have done more harm to blacks than Clinton or Mario Cuomo, the great Liberal governor with his three strikes law.

So I’m not going to get super-worked up that Trump is honestly saying what many think, and the attitudes which “liberal” politicians acted upon.

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In Light of Eric Garner

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On December 5, 2014

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Understand this, if you understand nothing else:

the system is working as intended.

It is true that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a sandwich, and it is tempting to blame the prosecutor, Donovan.  Certainly he made a decision, but he made the decision that the system wants: police are almost never prosecuted for assault or murder and on those rare occasions that they are, they almost always get off.

Donovan did what the legal system wanted him to do.

As for the police in question, well, they did what the legal system wants them to do, as well:

“Get away [garbled] … for what? Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I’m tired of it. It stops today. Why would you…? Everyone standing here will tell you I didn’t do nothing. I did not sell nothing. Because every time you see me, you want to harass me. You want to stop me (garbled) Selling cigarettes. I’m minding my business, officer, I’m minding my business. Please just leave me alone. I told you the last time, please just leave me alone. please please, don’t touch me. Do not touch me.”

” I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe,” he said, as officers restrained him.

What you will hear defenders of the police say is “he was non-compliant.”

Non-compliant.

If a police officer tells you to do anything, you do it immediately.  If you do not, anything that happens to you, up to and including death, is your problem.

The legal system exists, today, to ensure compliance.

Graph of incarceration in the US over time

From Wikipedia

American oligarchical society rests on people not effectively resisting.  All gains now go to the top 10%, with the rest of society losing ground.  Incarceration rates blossom in 1980, which is also the year that the oligarchical program is voted in and becomes official.  (Trickle down economics can be understood no other way.)

Any part of the population which is inclined to resist, must be taught that it cannot resist.  Get out millions to demonstrate against the Iraq war: it will not work. Protest against police killings of African Americans, it will not work.

Nothing you do will work.

You will comply, and you will learn that resistance is futile.

strikes over 1000The more outside the mainstream you are, the more you will learn it.  African Americans, Latinos, poor whites (in that order.)  Those who are fundamentally authoritarian, but somewhat opposed to the system (like the Bundy ranch) are treated more carefully (though the militia movement has its martyrs).  But the fundamental lesson of life is to do what your lords and masters tell you to, and to not protest any law or order, no matter how nonsensical, trivial, or unjust it is.

Three strikes laws and the end of judicial discretion are about this.  During the 80s the legal system was taken away from the judges and given to the prosecutors and the police. Almost all sentences are plea-bargained: the person with almost all the power in the system is the prosecutor.  He or she is judge and jury for the vast majority of cases, and even when a case does go in front of a judge, the judge’s discretion is extremely limited.  Your third crime stealing a bike?  Too bad, we’re throwing the key away.

Compliance when given specific orders and learned hopelessness about protest or organizing are the aims.  Ordinary citizens must understand that they cannot change the system if elites do not agree with the changes they want made.  If they try, they will be arrested and receive a criminal sentence, meaning they can never again have a good job.

In this system the wolves or goats identify themselves.  An injustice is committed, people protest and the most aggressive protestors (which doesn’t always mean violence) are arrested.  Certainly the organizers are.  Those people are, as a result, usually destroyed economically even if they aren’t locked up for years.

The system is doing what it is meant to do.  It teaches compliance, it teaches hopelessness and it identifies those who will not obey laws that don’t make sense (marijuana possession, for example), or who will fight or organize against the system and then it destroys them economically and often psychologically through practices like solitary confinement and prison rape.

The system will not change until those who want it to change have the raw power to force it to change, because it does serve the interests of its masters by destroying or marginalizing anyone who is actually a danger to oligarchical control of the system.

Race is an effective tool in this system, dividing the lower classes (and almost everyone is lower class now) against each other.  No matter how bad a poor white’s life is, well hey, he ain’t black.  He or she can feel superior to someone, can have someone to kick down at.

And understand this, most of what police are paid in is social coin: the right to demand immediate obedience and fuck people up; the solidarity of the blue line; the feeling of belonging and power, is what makes the job worth having for (probably most) of the people who are now attracted to it.

Being a thug; having social sanction to be a thug, is enjoyable to a lot of people. Since that’s what cops get to do, those are the sort of people who tend to be attracted to the job.  The police are the biggest toughest gang around, and belonging to them has most of the rewards of gang life, without the dangers of going to jail.

Working as intended

 

 

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