• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Black unemployment: Highest in 27 years

Why are we looking at unemployment in terms of race? What is the point?
Don't bother asking. I haven't been able to get a solid answer from anyone either.

They just keep bickering back and forth about something that isn't even on topic anymore........

This thing has moved FAR from the original topic.
 
And even farther down the road people developed a moral compass and then wrote it into religious texts.

The Constitution is a paper describing the rights, duties, organization, restrictions, etc. of the people and the government of the United States. The 1st Amendment prohibits Congress form prohibiting the free exercise of religious belief and from establishing a state religion. Religion is a PERSONAL belief, and not a STATE issue.

But religion was an important part of many of the lives of many of the founders and I can't believe you don't think it had an influence on their actions and public morality.
 
The Constitution is a paper describing the rights, duties, organization, restrictions, etc. of the people and the government of the United States. The 1st Amendment prohibits Congress form prohibiting the free exercise of religious belief and from establishing a state religion. Religion is a PERSONAL belief, and not a STATE issue.

But religion was an important part of many of the lives of many of the founders and I can't believe you don't think it had an influence on their actions and public morality.

Oh I do think people have learned lessons about morality from religion. But that doesn't make religion the necessary vehicle for those lessons.
 
Why are we looking at unemployment in terms of race? What is the point?

So as to prove how racist white folks are; that black folks can't make it without the help of the do-gooders; justify billions in government handouts to the black community, keeping them on the plantation; create more votes for the Libbos.
 
Oh I do think people have learned lessons about morality from religion. But that doesn't make religion the necessary vehicle for those lessons.

If we accept suggest or assume the existence that Christian morals have had a positive effect on America's societal morals, it hasn't been through the imposition of laws, it has been through the affect in individual character, primarily believers. Where laws have been established that parallel religious dictates, they have generally (I'm sure there are some exceptions) been arrived at through rational thought and reason as being beneficial to society, not via a religious dictate.

Do you agree?
 
If we accept suggest or assume the existence that Christian morals have had a positive effect on America's societal morals, it hasn't been through the imposition of laws, it has been through the affect in individual character, primarily believers. Where laws have been established that parallel religious dictates, they have generally (I'm sure there are some exceptions) been arrived at through rational thought and reason as being beneficial to society, not via a religious dictate.

Do you agree?

No, I don't agree. I think that religious dictates are just a codification of moral rules that developed long before modern day religions were conceived. So I think it's wrong to say that morality comes from religion. Rather, religion came from morality. Certainly the Greeks had a finely developed ethical sense long before Jesus was born.
 
No, I don't agree. I think that religious dictates are just a codification of moral rules that developed long before modern day religions were conceived. So I think it's wrong to say that morality comes from religion. Rather, religion came from morality. Certainly the Greeks had a finely developed ethical sense long before Jesus was born.

So, you think we're going in the right direction by throwing America's Christian belief system out with the bath water, and replacing it with another belief system in the form of moral relativism?
 
So, you think we're going in the right direction by throwing America's Christian belief system out with the bath water, and replacing it with another belief system in the form of moral relativism?

My 2 cents: I'm an Atheist and I think we're going in the wrong direction by destressing the Christian foundation of American society.
 
Do you have any proof to back up your argument?

Also, just because there is some affirmative action does not change the fact that most of the nation's political and economic power is held in the hands of white men.

Only that he worked there and at that time, and on several occasions he mentioned that blacks and women were what was being hired the most. He saw it. He worked with them. Nobody ever said that most of the power wasn't held in their hands. And least of all me as one thing for sure, I am not that niave to believe any different. I am telling you how it was, believe it or not.
 
Last edited:
My 2 cents: I'm an Atheist and I think we're going in the wrong direction by destressing the Christian foundation of American society.

Agreed, but you simply can't control people effectively with only government rules. If Stalin couldn't get it done, I doubt it will happen in any sort of "free" society. However, if you have everyone more or less on the same sheet of music as far as their behavior goes, and Christianity probably has this figured out better than anyone else ...then you have a chance of a society that doesn't have make a court case of every tiny bit of social dysfunction.

I'm not religious...so, I don't have a dog in this fight. I just want to see America be successful long term. The big difference between my views and the views of most other self described "atheists" is that I'm not down on those people who ARE religious.
 
The issue that's dominated our discussion has been group stereotype and its accuracy and that's something that I believe has to be addressed by the affected community. They created the stereotype, speaking in terms of groups, and so I have no responsibility for trying to undo something I had no part in creating. This means that I reject efforts to force private institutions to ignore their own self-interests and pretend that this stereotype information doesn't exist. That information is either accurate or it's not. In a large society like ours there will always exist diverse strategies for how to address such issues and this creates a competition of approaches. If the stereotype information is inaccurate then those companies which ignore it altogether will be hiring fabulous employees while the companies who heed the stereotype will be bypassing these fabulous employees and instead hiring applicants who are not as talented. If the stereotype information is accurate, then the reverse scenario applies. The point is that the process will lead to a better understanding of truth and falsity. There will be winners and losers in the ranks of companies. Also keep in mind that this is mostly applicable to people just entering the workforce, for as people gain experience their performance history speaks much more authoritatively than group stereotypes, so the good performers will rise and the bad performers will sink.

In a nutshell, companies have already had too much freedom stripped away from them. I'm opposed to all anti-discrimination laws which impinge on freedom of association. I'm kind of a liberty extremist in that regard, not too many go as far as me. Governments, which must govern for us all, must be fair and non-discriminatory, but people should have the unrestricted right to form the associations of their choice. You're probably getting a clue about how I feel about your question of more equal opportunity programs being forced on companies. :)

I was meaning equal opportunity employment, as in title 7 of the civil rights act. I am inferring from your above quote that you are against such a measure.

My position is that they shouldn't feel differently and if they do feel differently I believe it's because they're used to the status quo. A 17 year old driver is being judged not on his driving record but on the driving record of his peer group. I'm ok with that because I believe companies should be able to do this but I still recognize that a price falls on the good and careful 17 year old driver.

As for the barbership restricting clientele only to white people, I say go for it. They should have the right to exercise their freedom of association and people can exercise their choice of whether to patronize the establishment or take their business to their competitor who doesn't discriminate. I don't think that that white barbershop would stay open for business for very long but I do think that they should have the freedom to form their own associations without associations being forced upon them. With freedom comes consequences.

Insurance companies do not discriminate based on race either. They could easily find statistics of drivers of different race and ethnicity and charge them different premiums based on such information. Why do they not do something like that? The fact is racial discrimination is looked upon much differently.

That's why the barbershop would go out of business. Now, 60 years ago this would not have been the case in many places, why?

Some problems don't have easy solutions. I can't see how penalizing employers by holding them legally responsible for ignoring information which can save them money is a preferable outcome. Better to let the marketplace of ideas battle it out. Some employers and their human resources departments won't believe in the value of stereotypes. Good for them. They can hire people just as though there was a law forcing them to ignore stereotypes. They can now reap the gains or suffer the losses which result from making their choice of hiring strategy.

Ignoring what information? We need to be clear because we both agreed that stereotypes are most likely to be used when there is little information about the individual. We also agreed that this is more of a societal problem than one of individual employers. We can sit here and analyze all day what hire practices could be done to save money, to take advantage of poor hiring by others, etc, but at the end of the day the fact is that most of these hiring practices are being done already. The fact is that the way different societal institutions are set up place ethnic minorities, such as blacks, at a disadvantage in the labor market. One significant and identifiable one is stereotypes. We can see this fact by looking at the OP. Blacks have a significantly higher unemployment rate than whites. You have basically contended that this is because these stereotypes are reality, aka they are valid. I say that they may be valid but unreliable. I think that my opinion has more weight because we only use stereotypes if there is little other information, such as in the labor market. Due to the lack of information, this is clearly a problem in the labor market that cannot be fixed by individual employers or potential employees, otherwise we would not have black having persistently higher unemployment. Your argument that the market will work this out has no weight considering higher black unemployment has been the case for all of modern history.
 
My 2 cents: I'm an Atheist and I think we're going in the wrong direction by destressing the Christian foundation of American society.

But, you're a rightward leaning individual. You can't comprehend trampling on another person's rights.
 
Yeah, that's pretty much what I said above. Unfortunately a lot of kids don't have the benefit of good parents.

"progressive policies" encourage bad parents to breed at high rates
 
We can look elsewhere for examples of how other societies are dealing with the cancer of multiculturalism. Do you favor this type of solution as is being proposed in Ontario:


Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberals plan to entice businesses into hiring new immigrants with a $10,000 tax credit.

But an audio recording of a conference call, heard by QMI Agency, reveals that a senior Liberal strategist is concerned about "potential blowback" if the opposition portrays the election goodie for newcomers as an affirmative action plan.

Another strategist says the program would be capped to prevent it from running amok.

The conference call was held Sunday - one day before the Liberals unveil their election platform.

The tax credit apparently addresses the complaint from newcomers that they struggle to get work experience in Ontario.

It's unclear how well the program would be received by Ontarians, who were skeptical about affirmative action programs introduced by Ontario's former NDP government in the early 1990s.​


Silly Canadians. They didn't learn from our problems and they purposely loaded a syringe with cancer cells and injecting their society. Now they're dealing with a self-inflicted problem. Their solution is to have Canadian taxpayer money being spent on enticing employers to favor newcomers to Canada instead of hiring the best qualified candidates for the job thus disadvantaging native born Canadians in the job application process.

Do you imagine that something like this proposal is needed here?

Several points:

1. I do not regard multiculturalism as a cancer.
2. I am not saying the best qualified person should not get the job, I am just saying that the current system places some at a disadvantage.
3. A $10,000 tax credit is extreme.
4. Laws should prevent discrimination, not place incentives to hire specific groups of people.
5. I do not favor what is in that article.
 
"progressive policies" encourage bad parents to breed at high rates

progressive policies have nothing to due with high birth rates

I suggest looking at India and its slums as an example, or those in Africa or Brazil. Not bastions of progressive policies yet many have very high birth rates
 
So, you think we're going in the right direction by throwing America's Christian belief system out with the bath water, and replacing it with another belief system in the form of moral relativism?

Another false dichotomy. Deemphasizing a fictional religious construct doesn't mean ushering in moral relativism.
 
progressive policies have nothing to due with high birth rates

I suggest looking at India and its slums as an example, or those in Africa or Brazil. Not bastions of progressive policies yet many have very high birth rates


The answer is crystal clear : adopt a conservative mindset (media would have to be included here)- throw away the liberal experiment - and knuckle down for some hard choices. Retool, the education system.

Complete moral reboot.
 
One significant and identifiable one is stereotypes. We can see this fact by looking at the OP. Blacks have a significantly higher unemployment rate than whites.

We also see that there are lower unemployment rates for post-grads than for college graduates, and lower unemployment rates for college graduates than high school graduates, and lower unemployment rates for high school graduates than for high school drop-outs. Skills and intelligence are very clearly significant confounding variables in the race-focused unemployment analysis.

So a comparison of black-white in terms of unemployment needs to equalize for lower levels of black education level and mean level of group black IQ. We do see that when IQ is controlled for that income disparity evaporates, so it's plausible that in an environment where there is no discrimination being detected with regards to pay that there also would be some reduction in unemployment levels when skill and intelligence are controlled for.

It's completely fine to note that blacks have a higher level of unemployment than whites. The interesting question to me is why this is so. If some parties wish to suggest that this is because of discrimination, then I want them to prove that this is so, not simply assume it as the null hypothesis.

You have basically contended that this is because these stereotypes are reality, aka they are valid. I say that they may be valid but unreliable.

And I acknowledge your point and agree with it. As I noted, this is a process of probability which says nothing about any individual.

I think that my opinion has more weight because we only use stereotypes if there is little other information, such as in the labor market. Due to the lack of information, this is clearly a problem in the labor market that cannot be fixed by individual employers or potential employees, otherwise we would not have black having persistently higher unemployment.

We would still see that even in an environment devoid of stereotypes, see the first part of my comment. I will agree with you that this contributes a part of the problem, but it certainly is not the whole problem.

Your argument that the market will work this out has no weight considering higher black unemployment has been the case for all of modern history.

Racial wage disparity disappeared back in the 1970s when cognition as a confounding variable is controlled. Report from MANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS:


The Myth of Racial Discrimination in Pay in the United States

The analyses of the General Social Survey data from 1974 to 2000 replicate earlier findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that racial disparity in earnings disappears once cognitive ability is controlled for. The results are robust across many alternative specifications, and further show that blacks receive significantly greater returns to their cognitive ability than nonblacks. The trend data show that there was no sign of racial discrimination in the United States as early as 1970s. The analyses call into question the necessity of and justification for preferential treatment of ethnic minorities.​


The market will sort this out. There are a lot of people in positions of authority who are responsible for hiring and who believe that stereotypes are nothing more than useless trash. They will be entirely neutral in the hiring process. All of the research I've seen shows that there is a varied environment in the labor market when it comes to stereotypes and purported discrimination, meaning that most employers are not discriminators. This means that there are two fundamentally different processes at work - one or the other must be more successful than the other.

Secondly, the information scarcity which drives the usefulness of stereotypes applies mostly to applicants who can't provide disconfirming information. People with good work histories, irrespective of race, have the tools to invalidate the stereotype when they face a potential employer. Now the million dollar question is what proportion of these job applicants who have accumulated work histories confirm the stereotype compared to the proportion which disconfirm the stereotype. There's little that can be done for individuals who present work histories which confirm the stereotype for they are not being judged by stereotype, they are being judged as individuals based on their own work history.
 
We also see that there are lower unemployment rates for post-grads than for college graduates, and lower unemployment rates for college graduates than high school graduates, and lower unemployment rates for high school graduates than for high school drop-outs. Skills and intelligence are very clearly significant confounding variables in the race-focused unemployment analysis.

So a comparison of black-white in terms of unemployment needs to equalize for lower levels of black education level and mean level of group black IQ. We do see that when IQ is controlled for that income disparity evaporates, so it's plausible that in an environment where there is no discrimination being detected with regards to pay that there also would be some reduction in unemployment levels when skill and intelligence are controlled for.

It's completely fine to note that blacks have a higher level of unemployment than whites. The interesting question to me is why this is so. If some parties wish to suggest that this is because of discrimination, then I want them to prove that this is so, not simply assume it as the null hypothesis.

And I acknowledge your point and agree with it. As I noted, this is a process of probability which says nothing about any individual.



We would still see that even in an environment devoid of stereotypes, see the first part of my comment. I will agree with you that this contributes a part of the problem, but it certainly is not the whole problem.



Racial wage disparity disappeared back in the 1970s when cognition as a confounding variable is controlled. Report from MANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS:


The Myth of Racial Discrimination in Pay in the United States

The analyses of the General Social Survey data from 1974 to 2000 replicate earlier findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that racial disparity in earnings disappears once cognitive ability is controlled for. The results are robust across many alternative specifications, and further show that blacks receive significantly greater returns to their cognitive ability than nonblacks. The trend data show that there was no sign of racial discrimination in the United States as early as 1970s. The analyses call into question the necessity of and justification for preferential treatment of ethnic minorities.​


The market will sort this out. There are a lot of people in positions of authority who are responsible for hiring and who believe that stereotypes are nothing more than useless trash. They will be entirely neutral in the hiring process. All of the research I've seen shows that there is a varied environment in the labor market when it comes to stereotypes and purported discrimination, meaning that most employers are not discriminators. This means that there are two fundamentally different processes at work - one or the other must be more successful than the other.

Secondly, the information scarcity which drives the usefulness of stereotypes applies mostly to applicants who can't provide disconfirming information. People with good work histories, irrespective of race, have the tools to invalidate the stereotype when they face a potential employer. Now the million dollar question is what proportion of these job applicants who have accumulated work histories confirm the stereotype compared to the proportion which disconfirm the stereotype. There's little that can be done for individuals who present work histories which confirm the stereotype for they are not being judged by stereotype, they are being judged as individuals based on their own work history.

As usual you cherry pick your sources who often seem to be quite controversial and/or lightly regarded, to support your racist views, while suggesting that your sources are mainstream. In this case your argument seems to rest entirely on a paper by Satoshi Kanazawa wherein he concludes that the overwhelming evidence of racial pay disparity can all be explained by the lower ability of black respondents to pick synomyms for words. Apparently the reasoning is that if you can't come up with a bunch of synomyms for words, you must be stupider than someone who can. Even assuming this is true (which seems highly dubious), why he thinks this is more significant than the color of their skin is unexplained. Also interesting was his paper about why black women are considered less attractive, which has generally been panned as junk science. Perhaps that's why he was dismissed from writing for Psychology Today? His "thought experiment" about a President Anne Coulter dropping 35 nuclear bombs on the ME as a response to 9/11 was certainly ... interesting.
 
Last edited:
As usual you cherry pick your sources who often seem to be quite controversial and/or lightly regarded, to support your racist views, while suggesting that your sources are mainstream.

How about Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman. Is he mainstream enough for you? The same analytic process is discussed in his work.


Understanding The Sources Of Ethnic And Racial Wage Gaps And Their Implications For Policy

Minority deficits in cognitive and noncognitive skills emerge early and then widen. Unequal schooling, neighborhoods, and peers may account for this differential growth in skills, but the main story in the data is not about growth rates but rather about the size of early deficits. Hispanic children start with cognitive and noncognitive deficits similar to those of black children. They also grow up in similarly disadvantaged environments and are likely to attend schools of similar quality. Hispanics complete much less schooling than blacks. Nevertheless, the ability growth by years of schooling is much higher for Hispanics than for blacks. By the time they reach adulthood, Hispanics have significantly higher test scores than do blacks. Conditional on test scores, there is no evidence of an important Hispanic-white wage gap. Our analysis of the Hispanic data illuminates the traditional study of black-white differences and casts doubt on many conventional explanations of these differences since they do not apply to Hispanics, who also suffer from many of the same disadvantages. The failure of the Hispanic-white gap to widen with schooling or age casts doubt on the claim that poor schools and bad neighborhoods are the reasons for the slow growth rate of black test scores.​


This makes a world of sense if we assume that employers are rewarding performance and are honest players in the labor market. The assumption underlying your world view is that employers are damn, dirty discriminators out to unjustly punish minority employees.
 
How about Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman. Is he mainstream enough for you? The same analytic process is discussed in his work.


Understanding The Sources Of Ethnic And Racial Wage Gaps And Their Implications For Policy

Minority deficits in cognitive and noncognitive skills emerge early and then widen. Unequal schooling, neighborhoods, and peers may account for this differential growth in skills, but the main story in the data is not about growth rates but rather about the size of early deficits. Hispanic children start with cognitive and noncognitive deficits similar to those of black children. They also grow up in similarly disadvantaged environments and are likely to attend schools of similar quality. Hispanics complete much less schooling than blacks. Nevertheless, the ability growth by years of schooling is much higher for Hispanics than for blacks. By the time they reach adulthood, Hispanics have significantly higher test scores than do blacks. Conditional on test scores, there is no evidence of an important Hispanic-white wage gap. Our analysis of the Hispanic data illuminates the traditional study of black-white differences and casts doubt on many conventional explanations of these differences since they do not apply to Hispanics, who also suffer from many of the same disadvantages. The failure of the Hispanic-white gap to widen with schooling or age casts doubt on the claim that poor schools and bad neighborhoods are the reasons for the slow growth rate of black test scores.​


This makes a world of sense if we assume that employers are rewarding performance and are honest players in the labor market. The assumption underlying your world view is that employers are damn, dirty discriminators out to unjustly punish minority employees.

Seems like a credible source, but unfortunately his thesis doesn't support your argument as it doesn't address the critical factor of parenting.
 
Seems like a credible source, but unfortunately his thesis doesn't support your argument as it doesn't address the critical factor of parenting.

Who gives a **** about parenting with respect to wage levels and hiring standards in the employment market? What matters for this discussion is the presence and validity of a factor which pertains to the issue of racial disparity in the job market. WHY that factor exists, while an interesting question, is outside the scope of this discussion.
 
Who gives a **** about parenting with respect to wage levels and hiring standards in the employment market? What matters for this discussion is the presence and validity of a factor which pertains to the issue of racial disparity in the job market. WHY that factor exists, while an interesting question, is outside the scope of this discussion.

I thought you might care, since your second source clearly tracks disparate performance "by the time they reach adulthood", which is heavily influenced by parenting. Heckman casts doubt on the idea that poor schools and bad neighborhoods account for the disparity, but he doesn't seem to account for family cohesiveness and parenting.

Keep searching, man. I'm sure there's something in your eugenics collection that will hold up better.
 
Back
Top Bottom