There's something that bothers me about the ideology.
All right, there's a lot of somethings that bother me about it, but I doubt a conversation regarding the lack of scientific support for the idea would go anywhere (they're not likely to listen, and I'm not exactly willing to be persuaded by any of their arguments either.)
So for the sake of the following post, I will concede the point...
Most people have some awareness of the bell curve these days. The notion that any measurable trait is generally distributed in a bell shape:
That is, most people will center around the middle... and a few exceptional people are at the extremes of good and bad. Talented and incompetent, smart and dumb.
If you wanted to compare two populations, and say that one is generally better than the other, the distribution would probably look something like this:
Maybe even this:
And here's the thing. Someone at the top of the left bellcurve will still do better than a number of people in the right bellcurve. Even in my final example here, which shows a very clear 'superiority' (which is a subjective concept in the first place, but I won't digress) in the population on the right, an outlier from the left bellcurve will still do better than over half the population in the right.
In other words, Serena Williams is still probably going to kick your butt in tennis, especially since skill is as much about effort and training as it is about innate talent, and she's definitely been putting in the effort.
So if white supremacy were true, what difference would it even make? Employers are supposed to want the best person for the job, and that 'best person' could still be someone of another race. Their effort and talent might have put them in the top percentile for their group, after all.
The only way it would make a difference is if the bell curves had no overlap at all, if every single person in the distribution to the right (even the least talented) was better than every single person on the left (even the best).
It's, quite frankly, unbelievable BS.
I get the fear underlying some of this... I only mean 'some'. It's tough to worry about finding a job (as I continue my own efforts at job hunting, I know this all too well.)
And when you're struggling, it's easy to wonder if other factors are keeping you from being where you want to be. I mean, if I put a more masculine version of my name on my resume would I have gotten more callbacks by now? Research indicates it's likely, and changing their name may work for minority candidates too. (I haven't, mostly because I'm not sure I'd want to work at a place that only considered me because they thought I was a guy... but as the hunt continues I admit it's tempting.)
Still, life being a terrible struggle doesn't make it okay to create a system that essentially considers all people of a particular race or ethnicity to be somehow less than all white people.
Serena Williams would still kick your butt at tennis, Mohammed Ali in boxing, Bruno Mars in singing, Alexandre Dumas in writing, and George Washington Carver in botany.
All right, there's a lot of somethings that bother me about it, but I doubt a conversation regarding the lack of scientific support for the idea would go anywhere (they're not likely to listen, and I'm not exactly willing to be persuaded by any of their arguments either.)
So for the sake of the following post, I will concede the point...
Most people have some awareness of the bell curve these days. The notion that any measurable trait is generally distributed in a bell shape:
That is, most people will center around the middle... and a few exceptional people are at the extremes of good and bad. Talented and incompetent, smart and dumb.
If you wanted to compare two populations, and say that one is generally better than the other, the distribution would probably look something like this:
Maybe even this:
And here's the thing. Someone at the top of the left bellcurve will still do better than a number of people in the right bellcurve. Even in my final example here, which shows a very clear 'superiority' (which is a subjective concept in the first place, but I won't digress) in the population on the right, an outlier from the left bellcurve will still do better than over half the population in the right.
In other words, Serena Williams is still probably going to kick your butt in tennis, especially since skill is as much about effort and training as it is about innate talent, and she's definitely been putting in the effort.
So if white supremacy were true, what difference would it even make? Employers are supposed to want the best person for the job, and that 'best person' could still be someone of another race. Their effort and talent might have put them in the top percentile for their group, after all.
The only way it would make a difference is if the bell curves had no overlap at all, if every single person in the distribution to the right (even the least talented) was better than every single person on the left (even the best).
It's, quite frankly, unbelievable BS.
I get the fear underlying some of this... I only mean 'some'. It's tough to worry about finding a job (as I continue my own efforts at job hunting, I know this all too well.)
And when you're struggling, it's easy to wonder if other factors are keeping you from being where you want to be. I mean, if I put a more masculine version of my name on my resume would I have gotten more callbacks by now? Research indicates it's likely, and changing their name may work for minority candidates too. (I haven't, mostly because I'm not sure I'd want to work at a place that only considered me because they thought I was a guy... but as the hunt continues I admit it's tempting.)
Still, life being a terrible struggle doesn't make it okay to create a system that essentially considers all people of a particular race or ethnicity to be somehow less than all white people.
Serena Williams would still kick your butt at tennis, Mohammed Ali in boxing, Bruno Mars in singing, Alexandre Dumas in writing, and George Washington Carver in botany.
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