When Constitutional Worlds Collide

levypa wrote:

"The Civil Rights Acts and, in particular Title VII, are our attempt to redress past wrongs visited upon minorities by the majority. In htis regard, we've come a long way. We may yet have a long way to go."

Who is "we?" I've never owned a slave. I've never supported a Jim Crow law. I've done nothing to subjugate a minority population, and neither has anyone I know.

I've also never *met* a slave, and those who benefit from the Civil Rights Act today often have never themselves lived in a town with "separate but equal" services.

This creates the same situation that southern US caucasians experienced before the civil war: After generations of privilege at the expense of another group, those privileges are expected, and seen to be an entitlement rather than just an advantage.

How do race-conscious quotas undo the long-gone past of slavery? The fact that I suspect everyone who reads that question will know that it is rhetorical underlines the problem it addresses: Nothing changes history. Racism now will never undo racism of the past. Somewhere along the line, nobody thought to mention the old addage, "Two wrongs don't make a right."

Caucasians today deserve better than affirmative action just as much as ethnic africans deserved better than Jim Crow fifty years ago. Numbers do not justify a hypocrisy in principles.

"With experience as my guide, I doubt our Congress is up to the task of social tinkering in this nuanced area."

Why wouldn't they? Isn't "social tinkering" exactly what the provision against "disparate impact" in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act attempts to accomplish?

james.free wrote:

"There is a cost to perpetuating this myth, however. We will continue to be confronted with race-baiters who insist that there is no explanation for the disparity in outcomes that occurs between races or genders. We will miss out on opportunities to take advantage of our genetic differences. For example, we've long seen advertisements for cholesterol medications include disclaimers that black women are more susceptible to heart disease. This is a rare acknowledgment of a race/gender based inferiority that we tolerate because the knowledge saves lives."

The example you give is an example of a medical *difference* associated with race, yes, but that does not necessarily make it a medical "inferiority." To use an example of my own, consider sickle-cell anemia. This is a potentially deadly blood disorder that results in mis-shapened red blood cells that, because of their deformity, easily clump together in the individual's vascular system and form clots. The condition is caused by a genetic trait that is recessive to the trait that results in normally-shaped red blood cells. By your logic, this genetic condition represents a race-based "inferiority," as the trait that causes sickle-cell anemai is found most often in those of ethnically african descent, particularly if that african descent traces back to the western edge of the continent. There is a reason why this "inferiority" became so prevalent there in the first place, however: Many parts of western Africa have areas that are rife with malaria, and, ironically, the same trait that is associated with sickle-cell anemia is also associated with an increased resistance to the malaria strains of the area. Over the eons, sheer natural selection has favored *carriers* of the sickle-cell anemia trait, as they obtain some level of protection from malaria from the recessive allele while the dominant allele keeps the phenotype of sickle-cell anemia from being expressed. Because of this, sickle-cell anemia continues to appear more often in those who are ethnically african.

"It all boils down to the classic argument about government protecting people from themselves. It's no different than the fear people have of someday using DNA tests to determine whether a person is intelligent enough for a job or an academic program."

Either you have never seen "GATTACA," or you missed the moral of the story: The proper test to see if someone is competent for a job or academic program is to actually see what he can do, and you'll never find that in a molecule. One's DNA does not reduce *anything* to predestination. All that a DNA test can tell you is a bell curve of possibilities on the form that the body it builds will take. *Where* on that bell curve the individual in question eventually falls is entirely dependent on the choices he makes in his life *after* he is born.

james.free wrote:

"We've seen and acknowledged that men are stronger than women. We've seen and many have acknowledged that blacks make better basketball players. Certainly there are exceptions to all these rules, but they are the norms. Acknowledging these, it is highly irrational to assume that there are no intellectual differences that correlate to race or gender. We embrace this absurdity because we realize that our society is too immature to deal with reality justly."

Wrong. What is highly irrational is to assume that variations in morphology predict variations in behavior. Why do you say that blacks make better basketball players? It's my understanding that *taller people* generally make better basketball players (although exceptions to even *this* rule have shown themselves), regardless of what race they happen to be. From my perspective, there are far better factors to attribute a high rate of african americans in basketball (or in other organized sports for that matter; basketball isn't the only one). Socially, sports leagues are commonly seen among african american families as the most expedient way for their children to go to college. From there, the desire to use athletics as an avenue to success may or may not be continued to a career in a professional league. Some organized sports see a high percentage of african american athletes because those reflect just as much the proportions among people who actually *seek* to participate in sports at that level as it does the desires of the leagues themselves for players of a particular body type. One side represents the supply of players, and the other side represents the demand, with the actual choices by the leagues of who joins as a player affected by the make-up of players from which they have to choose. Recruitment of players doesn't happen in a vacuum; the best basketball player the world might ever see might be caucasian, but the world will never know it if he never seeks a career in the sport. The claim that it is because "blacks make better basketball players" is an assumption on your part that is not backed by any science of which I am aware. No race holds a prestigious place on a height curve, and I can introduce you to many short african americans and many tall caucasians to prove it. That those caucasians never ended up in the NBA has more to do with what they have desired for their careers than with anything else. *That* is reality. It's not as simple and clear-cut as what you present, but that doesn't make it any less true. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that professional sports leagues are somehow immune from the observed effects of labor economics as a whole. With the emphasis you've placed on the sciences so far, however, I doubt you would go so far as to claim this.

james.free wrote:

"We understand a decent amount about genetics and how genes are passed down through generations generally in clusters. This science tells us something - that it is unlikely to the point of absurdity to expect that people who are radically different in appearance should average to the same capability in all aspects of intelligence."

Really? Would you care to enlighten me on how the science of molecular biology "tells us" any such thing? In order to demonstrate the genetic patterns in human appearance, genes must be associated with each particular aspect of that appearance - such as a gene associated with the way a body will produce melanin for the skin, for example. With that in mind, would you care to direct me to the publication most handy to you of any study that similarly links a particular gene or group of genes to variations in intelligence? You claim that the science does this. Would you care to demonstrate *specifically?*

Wrong, greymatter. At the time, the policy of the New Haven Fire Department was that any officer who passed the test was eligible for promotion, while anyone who failed it was not. Then, *of those that were eligible by passing the test,* the department would fill all available positions by starting with the candidate who scored highest and working its way down the list. Under this method, if, hypothetically, the department had more positions to fill than people who passed the test, some positions would have to go unfilled, because there would be no more *eligible* candidates.

Such a hypothetical situation was not the case here, though. On the contrary, in this particular case, New Haven had only twenty positions available to be filled, but many more candidates showed themselves to be eligible by passing. After starting with the highest scorer and working down the top twenty names, none of the candidates to *actually be promoted* were african american. After seeing this, the New Haven Fire Department scrapped the results as a whole, fearing a law suit by those african american candidates who had either failed the test or passed it but just not to place themselves in the top twenty.