Black woman on Supreme Court
I believe President Biden promised to nominate a black woman for the Supreme Court. Some Republicans say it is racist to do that since black women in America represent 6% of the population while say another white male would represent more like 35%? Personally I'm all for diversity and I assume if the courts are ideally non-political that it shouldn't matter who is on the highest court so long as they are qualified. I guess I'm asking is if kind of artificially adding diversity is a thing we do, isn't that making an assumption of the courts being politically biased? Is this just to the benefit of people who think it isn't fair even if it likely isn't that bad as politicians might suggest?
Comments (285)
Any racially motivated action is by definition racist. Choosing positions of competance requires competance in that respective domain to be the primary factor of selection, irrespective of race. Poltical office is not meant to represent racial demographics, and in this case, not even to represent people. This particular office is to represent current law, as written, and clearly defined, or reinterpreted in the case of clear ambiguity. This activity is inherently non-racial. Thus, to conclude that your primary factor of selection is race, as well as gender, is the kind of cognitive processing that escapes any rational description. Such a decision is clearly motivated by one's feelings on either a political topic, fear, need for admiration, insult, or some other inclination that has nothing to do with the official position in question. As far as non-biased governmental officials, you have to know what the government has done, right? The amount of people they kill, money they steal, freedoms they impinge? Government is institutionalized bias with a gun backing it that only it is allowed to use.
Hiring someone based on her race is the exact opposite of justice, is racist, is stupid, but works perfectly well for politics in the current age.
What coulda black woman possibly have to offer that a white male couldn't?
Exactly, and there'd be the additional benefit of a lack of racism.
Consider who it is that does the choosing, who it is that is elected as president... why, white men, of course. With one exception. SO of course it's only natural that white men, having been selected as the Best, will choose other white men to do such an important task.
White men are just better at getting the job, let alone getting the job done.
What's the job? Looking after white men as they get older, of course.
Of course, of course.
Good, good.
Next thing they'll want gun laws and stuff. Ridiculous.
And they got that vote on roe vs wade coming up. Serious stuff, no room for placating small minorities like blacks and women.
There is absolutely nothing 'natural' about the SCOTUS; it's an appointed office, so everything about it is "artificial" by definition.
The ethnicity, race, sex, and age matter some. What is REALLY important is whether the court is "conservative' (tending toward limiting the role of government, protecting corporations, limiting individual rights, etc.) or 'liberal' (tending toward accepting changes and enlargement of government's role, limiting corporations, expanding individual rights, etc.)
Liberal Americans are experiencing some of the great angst that conservative Americans experienced under the liberal Warren Court, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, 1953-1969.
Conservatives absolutely hated Earl Warren -- paying for "IMPEACH EARL WARREN" billboards along highways. It should also be noted that the Warren Court was all-white and all-male until Thurgood Marshall was confirmed in 1967.
How does Biden explain this statistical anomaly?
Explain why that "statistical anomaly" is relevant to Biden making an appointment to SCOTUS.
What if the court was expanded along racial and gender lines to have at least one representative from all groups in proportion to their ratio in the general population? Might be a large number of people on the court, but at least representation wouldn't be a political football anymore?
solution: surgical amputation. two legs and an arm should do it.
solution: members of proportionally mixed races.
bzzzz! wrong. those groups are over-represented.
If statistics is important, given that black women are 6% of the population, there should be 0.5 black woman judges among 9 SC justices.
Round down and there should be 0 black woman SC judges.
Round up and there should be 1 black woman SC judge.
Biden should choose a white-black mixed-race female SC judge, statistically speaking.
Basically (please do the math) 1 black women is taking up the seat of 2 mixed-race women! So, instead of having 2 women (mixed-race) SC justices for 2 consecutive terms (lifelong tenure, say 40 years), we have only 1 black woman!
You fear she won't take care of you?
One certainly asserts such a thing (you), yet provides no evience for such an acusation. You provided no evidence of this acusation, because there is none. In fact, I stated quite the opposite: Quoting Garrett Travers
I have no idea what anyone is thinking. But, I can rationally concluded that if someone is chosen for position that requires adept erudition within that given domain in the basis of immutable characteristics, that such a person is motivated by, at bare minimum, not the seat being fill by someone competent. And again, there's this issue you people seem to continuosly display in this "philosophy" forum. Instead of addressing my argument, I am insulted by you, as if that constituted either an argument, or something I give a shit about. Present an opposing argument to be assessed and discussed, or fuck right off.
Quoting tim wood
And of course I'm not, and I didn't object to anything, I analyzed the situation. Learn to read, your insults are getting annoying. I don't care if black women serve on the court. It is without a doubt racist to hire someone on that basis, no if's and's or but's. "He merely thinks such a person..." This sentence is inconsistent with your previous insults. You don't know what he thinks. And if he claims that the immmutable characteristic of skin color is a predicate for selection, first and before competence, you would have no reason to assume he was highering for qualification, you made it up entirely.
"no one is suggesting appointing anyone who is incompetent, except maybe Republicans."
I see, you're a partisan. Let me tell you something, dude. In the modern world there a two groups of people that deserve neither your favor, nor your comparative assessment. That would be democrats and republicans, who are fundamentally the same people in practice, that wish to do different things with their power. And the ones actually in power, make the ones you meet in public look like angels. But, as far as can be assessed rationally, it would be impossible for you, I, or anyone to accurately detect which of these two groups of people lie to us more often than the other. But, by all means, keep dick-riding for democrats if that's your wish.
Quoting tim wood
There is just her, there is no them, and I'm not connected to any such history in any manner. It would seem a mighty good and fine thing to do for any of the people involved in the history you reference, which I guess in this case, includes racist ass "You ain't black," Joe Biden. So, sure. But, I base my predilections on content of character, because that's rational, logically consistent, and universally applicable.
How's that? At what point did you determine there was racism within the Supreme Court solely on the basis that the men on the Court, who aren't Clarence Thomas I'll assume, are white..? What informs this notion?
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It provides less than what it takes. The state steals at least 25% of my labor-earnings (labor), while providing very few benefits to me, of which I do not want and did not ask for and have nope hope of recourse to deny. I accept the illusion of largesse, because I am not allowed to do otherwise. It is foisted upon me, not afforded. If the state were to afford me one favor, it would to never contact me involuntarily, or without the utmost urgency of need. Everything I need is provided by the market, not the state. In fact, I cannot think of even a single thing at this moment that is not actually produced and provided to me by the market, even that which is traditionally understood as provided by the state, but I can see with every pay-stub I get who is taking from me every single pay-period. I have the luxury of hating the state because I have executive function the exceeds the average capacity for apprehension of things like reason, which includes the ability to evaluate the history of states and their actions, and doing so makes one thing quite clear: The single greatest source of unjustified, flagitious mass murder, destruction, regression, and misery is beyond any plausible domain of deniability is the state as an institutionalized concept.
Quoting tim wood
That is correct. Some of the most competent people I have ever worked with were black, or otherwise of separate race. I had a Nigerian co-worker once who was the single most successful, intelligent human I've ever met. Taught me about elctro-magnetics and the beauty of construction. I'd give anything for him to come work with me again. I love competence, not form, intelligence and aptitude, not phenotype. The mere idea that there is a different standard than the one I just described is anathema to me.
Just put it to the test privately. Think about all of the things you use for survival on a daily basis that is provided to you by the market, including the things the state pays for with your money in transaction on your behalf, and tally that up against what the state actively provides that you use to survive. And yes, almost evrything I do has nothing to do with the state beyond securing sovereign borders to keep outside tyrants out, for which I'm thankful, even if we're not being threatened by any. That's all you get.
Quoting tim wood
I'm familiar with Hobbes, you study him extensively in rudimentary philosophy courses. Concepts that have been institutionalized and are characterized by having the sole monopoly on the application of lethal violence is the single greatest killer in history, not even questionable.
As a result of the sovereignty of individual boundaries being recognized between people, predominantly. Which implies people accruing property and trading it, or employing people to help create, or sell it for an agreed upon wage.
I make no such claim. I made some jokes to @Banno. I simply believe that this nomination is justified on the basis of potentially making this institution more diverse.
Very well, my apologies, must have misunderstood.
Quoting Tom Storm
Diversity as a standard for filling a Court seat with the responsibility of interpreting the law, and perhaps changing it? Skin color is a standard the supercedes competance? Supercedes honesty? Or, perhaps is on par with those standards?
No.
Very good, had me kind of worried. I like to think at least a good portion of my fellow man have some sense in their, at that at last this may be one place to find them all concentrated.
Don't bore me with mere reality!
In practice though the matter is far more complex. The law may be contradictory, judges have biases, there are certain legal principles that function not as hard and fast rules, but as 'rules of thumb', markers for the right direction without indicating some sort of outcome automatically. There may still be some kind of super judge, judge Hercules (Dworkin) who reaches the best legal outcome, but this judge has to be able to know all of the law, be versed in its principles and history and free from bias. In practice we do not have a judge Hercules, that is why there are more judges in a court than one usually.
Most legal scholars that I know of see legal interpretation more as a hermeneutic practice. One enters into legal interpretation from a range of presuppositions and assumptions one is only dimly aware. Textual interpretation, historical interpretation, systematic and teleological interpretation (the exact terminology is different in US systems but is not different in its operation) will result in an an outcome that seems the right interpretation in the case at hand and may bring one's own assumptions to light. However, if this picture is accurate, the integrity of the legal process is aided by the inclusion of multiple perspectives in order to make the background from which the law is interpreted as broad as possible. These different perspectives may inform one another. Now every lawyer is versed in the legal system and certainly a supreme court justice is. However, we cannot exclude the notion that a black woman may bring slightly different assumptions to the table enriching the process.
In conclusion Biden's preference is defendable from a legal point of view I would say, not primarily from the point of view of equal representation but because it enriches the background horizon from which the judges operate. @Ciceronianus point is well taken, they are not Herculeses, they are lawyers aka people with knowledge of the law. their task is still human all too human.
By the way welcome back @Benkei :p
That's true in some situations; in others, it isn't. Race and gender do not matter when you are hiring a hundred teachers; just got the best you can. The best person to be Pope, however, will be a Catholic male.
The Supremes are a special group. They generally will not answer in advance how they would rule on potential cases, so some other criteria has to be used for selection. If you want anti-abortion anti-gay justices, pick a conservative Catholic male. If you want more moderate views, pick a liberal Protestant or a Jew. If you want someone sensitive to the issues inherent in cases concerning race and gender, a black woman would be the best person.
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:cool:
Okay. I won't do it again.
Gotta love how non-Americans bash America for lack of diversity when they only need to look at their own country's High Court (of Australia) to see that the lack of diversity is much worse.
I'm not a Republican but I say it is racist because it automatically disqualifies Asians and other minorities but doesn't seem to reject a white man identifying as a black woman.
Second, all else equal, women live longer, so in terms of the political aspect of appointing middle aged Justices so that they can sit on the bench for 30-40 years, women win out there.
There are more important considerations, but they are less visible and less irreducible than race and sex in the context of American culture. Obviously a person can also hold values on relevant legal issues that are worlds away from the median values held by people of the same race/ethnicity/gender (e.g., Clarence Thomas holds some ideas that are arguably far from the median of "sane" people as a whole, let alone African Americans).
I don't think these are contradictions to the relevancy of race and sex. The question of relevant population groups being represented on the Court is different from popular opinion being represented. The first is essential to legitimacy, the second is not necissarily a good thing. In general, top legal scholars probably should have some nuanced opinions that cut across the popular will. The whole point of law is that it doesn't follow the will of crowds.
I would like to see another group more represented in US government; people not above retirement age. We should get that with this pick (albeit by a max of 10 years), but they will likely serve about half their term over the age of 65.
It boggles my mind that being less than a decade from being eligible for Social Security, 52, is generally considered "too young" for the Court. As if decline doesn't start in the 60s, or claims that clerks write all the decisions for the Court haven't been around for awhile. The GOP Senate leader is an octogenarian, as is the President, the Speaker of the House, and the defacto head of the far left in the country. Trump will be an octogenarian during his term if he runs again. He had the oldest cabinet in history, with an average age at retirement age. Fienstien took out papers for another six year term at 92.
I don't want to be prejudiced, but this seems like maybe the most relevant demographic split. It's perhaps why we have no leave for mothers at all, but direct transfer payments to the old, along with universal healthcare for the old, and debt (i.e., taxes to pay for services rendered to previous tax payers and paid later by the young), is over half the budget. Or why addressing global warming, an issue whose impact will peak in 30+ years, seems virtually impossible.
Why not an Asian trans-gender woman?
Because she is a man, and has no insight into the plight of the North American Black peoples.
Actually, the justice system is already perverse. It does not serve justice, and you can ask any lawyer and they will say the same thing.
The justice system is about finding "a" guilty person, regardless of his or her being truly guilty or not. If the court is satisfied that the person is guilty, they condemn him or her. What they find actually is unrelated to reality.
I wouldn't say the system is just—it clearly isn't—but that it ought to be. But it's true: the law serves only to protect the state's interest.
That is a very peculiar take on law. There are standards of evidence and if the evidence meets the standards the person is probably guilty. Necessarily guilty, no of course not. However a judge is not 'satisfied' simply because of some gut feeling.
Thanks Bert1. The post might also serve as a reply to NOS. It is not the color of one's skin that matters it is the perspective someone of color, or a woman, or a woman of color is more likely to bring to the table.
I don't think there is any guarantee of that. It improves confidence in the government.
Standards can be thrown out the window, however, in case of a Jury trial.
And I wasn't exaggerating when I said that the legal system's workers will say, "people come to court to seek justice. The law does not serve justice, it serves what it is convinced of it should serve." Or something to that effect.
If Jones sues Perez that Perez did not repay a loan; then it may be true, that justice would be served if Perez was forced to pay back Jones. But Jones is unable to provide a document or witnesses that Perez owes him that money. (Even if in reality Perez does.) Therefore justice is not served.
This is to you in its most simple terms.
I am not saying that people get hanged in random order or people get beaten up in police stations to sign a confession. I am saying that the court will accept what is given to it in an acceptable form... everyone else, and every other argument, can go screw him-/her-/itself.
I am not even saying it's a horribly bad system. ALL I AM SAYING is that the justice system is not in the service of justice. It is in the service of law.
That is one of the tasks of the courts. The Supreme Court doesn't do trials. Their main concern is to review cases from the POV of procedure and constitutional questions and to resolve conflicting rulings by lower courts.
A white man identifying as a black woman? Cute.
The law isn't quite the wacky, unprincipled, standardless, unpredictable, haphazard, amoral or incoherent system you may think it to be, intent on finding people guilty on any basis, and festooned with madcap juries running amuck without thought or guidance.
But as I've noted before, the law is simply the law. "Justice" to some isn't justice to others, and that makes the service of justice speculative and uncertain. But the law is always the law no matter what anyone believes. Think what you like of it and be damned.
As Justice Holmes noted to some poor lawyer appearing before him: "This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice." I think he was saying something along these lines..."Know something about the law before you slink into my courtroom, you buffoon, and waste time prattling about what you think is just or unjust."
All I good time. Have patience.
Well I do not agree with you that justice is not served, justice in this individual case is not served, but there is more at stake than the individual case. I will try to show that justice writ large, as in a just legal system, a legal system that leads in most cases to just outcomes is served.
Firstly you sneak in an assumption that judges cannot work with. That Jones in reality has a right to that money. That is not the way cases come for a judge, Jones claims Perez owes him money, Perez rejects the claim. How do we proceed?
A, We ask Jones to provide evidence to buttress his claim against Perez. The most common is a document, but there might also be a witness, in any case there are rules of evidence and the onus is on Jones because he makes a claim.
B. We go out of our way, leave no stone unturned, make inquiries into the bank accounts of both, look through every and all transactions, interviews neighbors, do psychological tests to assess the character of the two parties and we will not rest until eventually the truth comes out irrespective of the witness brought forward or a document of debt produced.
C. We see them in court and hear their stories and no matter what evidence presented, we just go for oir gut feeling. Whoever tells the more convincing story gets the claim awarded.
Now: option B. is most in accordance with finding the truth. We come as close to the truth as we can get and possibly Perez'deception comes to light. After a very time consuming, difficult and costly inquest, yes, the truth is finally out there. However, imagine the costs of such an operation, not only in money, but also in time and in hardship for the parties and possibly others who get investigated in the context of this inquiry. Even if it would be at all possible to find the truth, which is not a given at all, the justice system would be quickly overflow with cases. We would not have the manpower, or only against very high costs. those costs have to be subtracted elsewhere, say cancer treatments. A more truthful justice system might lead to a less healthy population. Moreover, notions like privacy, certainty, the right to closure of a dispute, would all be moot. Uncertainty will be rife because suddenly your money might be frozen because Perez claims it is his and first we have to leave no stone unturned to see whether this might be true. In that time we cannot let you make use of that money because you might hide it by transferring it to a third party. The money will be frozen for quite a while because the inquiry itself takes a long time and there is a huge backlog of cases... Owning money will become an uncertain business, leading to economically adverse consequences. People would demand more certainty before they engage in transaction. Remember we do not know a-priori who is right, I wish that was true! We are in a situation in which Joneses make claims on Perezes and sometimes Perez is right, sometimes Jones.
C. leads to arbitrariness. We hope judges are better at detecting deception and assessing the weight of different stories, but alas they are human and like I pointed out before biased and burdened by the background assumptions with which they read files, listen to stories, interpret mimicry and so on. Possibly it goes right mmore often than it goes wrong but it will go wrong and will lead to resentment and mistrust in the judiciary, eroding its legitimacy.
The only option is A. Beforehand the procedural requirements are stated one should meet in order to get your claim awarded. Since they are known beforehand and case after case saw judges require the same papers, parties know it. We know that when we lend a particular sum of money we should ask for a document, signed, that the sum of money is indeed owed. We know we need to provide a witness so we call in a third party (a notary for instance) who will oversee the transaction. Since we know it we will not have to go to court very often. We spare ourselves the trouble when we have no receipt, or otherwise a lawyer will tell you not to take the trouble. In turn we do ask for receipts when lending money because we know we will be asked for them. Third parties who are paid a sum by Perez can also trust on it that he really owes that money and there will not be some Jones who suddenly revindicates it, causing me the third party in good faith the trouble of being embroiled in law suits.
Of course, A in some cases lead to parties being cheated out of their money, but overall it leads to a more fair and free society in which people can know what they what need to do and can expect from each other. Three cheers for a procedurally consistent legal system!
Very nice of you to pretend to know what I think, coming up with opinions I did not say, and describing a process in a way I did not prescribe and then attributing all your maligned statements to me.
No, I won't go on the defensive only because you totally exaggerated and altered the thought I presented.
Shame on you for so derisively equating your imagination or malintent to what I actually said.
It takes just a little research to see that I wasn't blowing shit out of my mouth, like Ciceronianus claimed.
"On the Connection Between Law and Justice,
by Anthony D'Amato,*
26 U. C. Davis L. Rev. 527-582 (1992-93)
Abstract: What does it mean to assert that judges should decide cases according to justice and not according to the law? Is there something incoherent in the question itself? That question will serve as our springboard in examining what is—or should be—the connection between justice and law.
Legal and political theorists since the time of Plato have wrestled with the problem of whether justice is
part of law or is simply a moral judgment about law. Nearly every writer on the subject has either concluded that justice is only a judgment about law or has offered no reason to support a conclusion that justice is somehow part of law."
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=facultyworkingpapers
So if nearly every writer said the same thing as I did (by the way, this is not an argument, it is just an example of showing you that intuitive figuring out can beat societal indoctrination-- intuitive figuring out in my case, to bending to societal false dogma in your case) perhaps I am not as ill-witted, malevolent, blind and stupid as Ciceronianus claimed in his post earlier in this thread.
By-the-by: the writer of the article quoted partly has put forth an argument that law does serve justice. He opens his argument how most writers on law and justice are either convince that law does not serve justice, or in the least, can see no way to support a conclusion that law serves justice.
Again, this reference should not be seen as an argument to support my case. It is, instead, for you to consider that your socially ingrained adoration of law is viewed by many philosophers, including from Plato's time on, as a false, misplaced adoration.
For the record: I do believe that law has rigid and flexible prescribed criteria to make judgments. However, the criteria to make judgments is NOT to serve justice, but to serve the law. So the more you scream at me that law is not haphazard, it is not biassed, it is geared to be objective, then not only do I agree (because I do) but you are still saying things about the LAW, not about justice, and you fail to equate the two no matter how hard you try.
That's not what I asked nor does your reply answer my question as I stated it before you butchered it in your quoting of me.
But this is typical of how politics warps the mind in the same way that religion does. It turns it's constituents into hypocrites.
I can't tell if you're being silly or serious. At least you didn't butcher my question like Bitter did.
I don't think "cute" is the appropriate term here. "Insane" works me.
Hypocrisy is our collective default state.
(NB: As nearly seven decades of "Civil Rights gains" in America has more than amply demonstrated: 'equality without power-sharing', in effect, only perpetuates a system rigged in favor of status quo Class, Race & Sex/Gender inequality. Thus, the uptick in 'white backlash' at the mere mention of a non-traditional candidate (outside the 95% quota) for a position of real power.)
We could have an Asian trans-gender person; we could have an indigenous gay person, we could have a pissed off incel of whatever extraction. One barrier to having these types is that the supremes are usually selected from the cohort of experienced federal judges. There are not many Asian trans-gender, gay indigenous, pissed off Incel judges to start with, even fewer who are experienced. Maybe n=zero in that category.
Hence, have patience.
But were I appointing judges, I would not start with a transgendered person. The status of "transgender" is too unsettled at this point.
"Lex initusta non est lex" Thomas Aquinas. :brow:
I would have to read the article to see if it makes sense. However, there is a whole natural law tradition (I am no natural law theorist by the way, neither is Ciceronianus) that holds that law and justice are intimately connected. In any case it probably comes down to a definition of justice, or to the use we put it. I found my argument to be coherent, so if there is some sort of counter to it in the article I'd like to hear it.
Quoting god must be atheist
I am very sure they did not. Probably the debate the article referred to is between positivism and natural law. No author I have read (and those are quite a few) claim that having a procedurally sound legal system is unjust. What the debate is about probably is whether law as such should be law also if the law is unjust. Here I side with the positivists: law is law, no matter whether if it is just or unjust. Justice is not integral to the definition of law, I agree. However, that is a different claim than a procedural legal system does not serve justice.
See here on p. 21 "We saw earlier that Kelsen claimed that justice was, at best, a commentary about the
law (the idea of an "unjust law"), or in the special context of the administration of the law, a
concept that reduced to legality (according to Kelsen, the just administration of the law "means
legality"). In other words, Kelsen is saying that justice makes sense above the law (as a
commentary on it), or under the law. We can concede these uses of the term ''justice,'' and yet
maintain that they do not rule out the possibility of justice within the law in the sense that I've
been talking about it (justice as part of what directly influences the judge in deciding a case)."
I think I am on Kelsen's side, which when it comes to philosophy of law is not a bad side to be on. Though I agree justice in that specific case features in an court decision. I also do not know anyone who would disagree since the reign of the so called 'legists' in 19th century Europe. However, the article is certainly interesting and requires some thorough reading so I will give it a go when there is a bit more time. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
He actually seems to be in the natural law tradition arguing there is and should be a connection between law and justice. That is fine of course, however, he is hardly the only writer to make that point. I am also not arguing law can just forego concerns of justice, what I am saying pace the old Radbruch, is that legal certainty is itself necessary for law to function in a just way, meaning, bringing a just society closer. But by all means less discuss the article further!
@Benkei It is an adddiction Benkei.... now what I wonder is, what keeps you addicted, what is your poison?
White men through cultural socialization automatically think POC are less qualified and less competent than white counterparts. The bias of perceiving black women as inherently less than in comparison to other women and men runs deep. Look at all the reactionary weirdos thinking that because a black woman is being nominated to the supreme court that equal amount of assessment and evaluation on her qualifications aren't being considered.
But we've had plenty idiots on the supreme court for the last 4 centuries, so all of sudden "IQ" and stupid shit like that matters.
I agree. Glad at least Lindsay Gramm is on board with one potential candidate. Particularly since a Democrat senator had a stroke and will be not voting for a bit. I kind of wish there was no controversy with increasing the size of the court. Hopefully combined with a 20 year term instead of life.
Any way, what is Kelsen's Grundnorm if not another name for justice?
You would teach your grandmother to suck eggs, I see. That's an actual idiom, by the way, though it's peculiar enough to please me, so try not to take offense.
What are you saying here? That the system is inherently designed to be racist/sexist? That none of the last 250 years worth of appointees weren’t the most qualified?
Quoting 180 Proof
I’m not arguing that racism wasn’t applied in the past. Overt racism was the norm in this country until what ~50 years ago? But setting this up as some sort of revenge appointment, or reparation for past misdeeds is distasteful IMO. Biden’s just pandering to his base by calling attention to it. It actually makes it seem like the only reason this lady will be appointed is because of her race. In other words, it implies that if the appointment was made strictly by judging their qualifications she wouldn’t have gotten the job.
Quoting 180 Proof
Maybe, maybe not. I think it’s a stretch to claim that every black female judge has experienced workplace discrimination.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Ok, but that’s still discrimination based on religion and sex (and age as well, I believe). Just because that method may achieve the “best results,” doesn’t mean it isn’t discriminatory.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Not necessarily. It isn’t like a male can’t be sympathetic to the plights faced by females. There were also white activists during the Civil Rights weren’t there? This type of thinking implies that there are qualities that can only be possessed by people of a specific gender/race, which is just another form of race (or sex) essentialism, correct?
Only in 1984. Hopefully we will never come to that, but it appears that is where we are headed.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Fair points made on the trans- options, but ....
Quoting Bitter Crank
I was specifically asking why, if there were available Asian trans-women as viable options, why a black woman is the best person as someone that is sensitive to the issues inherent in cases concerning race or gender. You made it sound as if black women hold some special vantage point on the matter. But if you're saying that blacks are the only minority that we a viable pool to choose from then that makes more sense.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Sex, race, ethnicity, religion, class, education, etc. are not reliable indicators of political or judicial views. Those factors, plus social and professional experiences, are more reliable indicators of how someone will behave in the future. Nothing guarantees a specific opinion or behavior.
The American colonies and later the union of 13 colonies cum states, was never an egalitarian society. It still isn't. From before our beginning (in England) propertied men and of course white males were the beneficiaries of systems of education, social experience, privilege and power.
From the first justices down to the present, the largest group of qualified and (very important) well-connected individuals have been white males. Only recently (measured in decades) have any women, white, black, or asian, attained sufficient education, judicial experience, and connections to be considered for the court. That is not to say that there were never women who could have served on the court, but nominating them would have been a huge deviation from standard practice. The political system, after all, was composed exclusively or (lately) mostly white males.
In the last 30 or 40 years, that has begun to change.
In an earlier post I pointed out how much conservatives hated the court under Chief Justice Earl Warren (1950s and 1960s). Those hated liberal judges were all white males.
There are very conservative blacks and women who no political liberal or even moderate would think of appointing to the court. There may be, given time, asian transgender justices who no liberal or even moderate would think of appointing to the Supreme Court. Being asian and transgendered does not, as far as I know, also make one a justice interested in extending civil liberties, lessening corporate privilege, and so on.
What does make someone a liberal, if anything does, is class, education, and (most important) social experience.
That can't be. The Grundnorm is the norm that all other norms, rules and law, derive from. By definition it cannot be based on something else.
I was reading discworld novels when studying Kelsen and I thought the "turtles all the way down" was an apt metaphor for his Grundnorm. He never defined it and I thought it was a cop out to try to avoid saying something like, it's based on divine law, it's natural law etc. I didn't particularly like him. I liked Hart better.
I'm confronted with the Brno legal positivist school in my daily work actually. Kelsen lives on in Slovakia which for practical purposes totally sucks.
Assuming you're not disingenuous, your replies suggest you do not understand my post perhaps due to a lack of sufficient historical background on the issues of class race & sex/gender exclusion still at work in America. You're, of course, entitled your uninformed opinion, 'prick, which doesn't change the facts of the matter .
No no, my apologies. I wrote it wrong. The Grundnorm is not based on justice. The Grundnorm is simpy the norm all other norms derive their binding force from. Quoting Benkei
They are similar in my view. Just that for Kelsen a Grundnorm is an act of state. Hart with his more common law ancestry defines it not as an act of state but an act of legal professionals.
Turtles all the way down is an apt metaphor except that in law the turtle ends somewhere. Namely at that force that has the power to say "we the people..." etc. In the Westphalian order it is the state.
Quoting Benkei
Why are you confronted with the Brno legal positivist school? Not that I have an inkling of what they think in Brno, but it sounds cool. I am interested, please tell me more!
Well, I change the name of a company in the Netherlands and then refer to that new name in the share purchase documentation and resolutions approving that SPA. I then file it with the chamber of commerce, no problems. The proof of the name change is that first resolution. I just have to make sure everything is signed in the right order.
Now in Slovakia the new name doesn't exist until it's registered. Which takes about two weeks. If you're lucky. Legal facts only exist there if they're registered. Which is very annoying if nobody tells you beforehand and you're working on a time critical corporate restructuring.
Obviously I avoided the problem but it raised the following interesting question to me. If the SPA is between two Dutch entities and governed by Dutch law, what would've been the correct name of the Slovak company in the SPA if that would be signed between the Slovakian resolution to change the name and the registration in the public register?
Here's another idiom, meaning much the same as the one about sucking eggs: You would teach your grandmother to milk ducks. Even better, and less common.
I'd think it would be obvious that I'm something of a legal positivist, or perhaps American legal realist, having favorably quoted O.W. Holmes, Jr. on law and justice. Regardless, I've long thought it an error to conflate law and justice, and law and morality for that matter. I've tried, ever so hard, to explain that to clients over the years as well. So I'm afraid your arguments are quite familiar to me and have been for some time, and raise no concerns. Thus you purport to teach me, figuratively speaking, to suck eggs or milk ducks in locus avius as it were.
Exaggeration, by the way, can be a form of humor, as can irony. I get the impression humor is something unfamiliar to you, so I call it to your attention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AuCgkBmag4
I understand your post, but largely don’t see the relevance. The question is whether or not appointing a person to a position on the Supreme Court based on their race is racist. Not whether or not doing so is justified. My thought is that it is racist, because racism is defined as discriminating based on one’s race. If you would respond to the questions I’ve asked, perhaps we can have a conversation.
As it stands now, I fail to see your reason for denying this is racist. If Biden would have said he would appoint a white male, would you find that racist? Do you define racism differently than I do? You’ve talked a lot about how racism against blacks has, and continues to, occur, and how SCOTUS has basically been exclusively white males, but how does any of that justify your stance?
Clearly the nomination is, and always has been politically motivated. As to whether it's racist, let's be daring and innovative, and consult dictionary definitions of "racist."
Merriam-Webster (online):
"having, reflecting, or fostering the belief that race (see RACE entry 1 sense 1a) is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."
Dictionary.com:
"noun
a person who believes in racism, the doctrine that one's own racial group is superior or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.
adjective
of or like racists or racism:
racist policies; racist attitudes."
Cambridge English Dictionary (online):
"someone who believes that their race makes them better, more intelligent, more moral, etc. than people of other races and who does or says unfair or harmful things as a result:
Two of the killers are known to be racists.
She cannot understand how her husband could be branded a racist.
racist
adjective disapproving
coming from or having the belief that people who belong to other races are not as good, intelligent, moral, etc. as people who belong to your own race :
He furiously denied being racist.
They were the victims of a vicious racist attack.
racist remarks."
Collins English dictionary (online):
"NOUN
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others
2. an overt policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination
3. the maintenance of social, economic, and political structures that deny privileges and opportunities to members of certain racial groups
4. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races."
These definitions indicate that according to the most common usage, one is a racist if one believes members of a particular race, or one's own race, are better or superior to members of another race. I don't think it can be maintained, reasonably, that Biden or his administration want to nominate a black person based on the belief that black people are better or superior to white people. Is that what you maintain--the nomination is based on the belief the black race is superior to the white race?
You are not being racist. You are being obtuse.
The synonyms are too harsh to be applied to you on this particular instance, but they are tempting.
Your blunt, literalist interpretation of the word 'racist' makes it impossible for you to see any effort to ameliorate past racial discrimination as anything but more racism.
How do you plead?
:up:
:ok: ...
No. I’m maintaining that excluding all races and genders except black female from consideration for a position is racial (and gender) discrimination, which I equate with racism/sexism. Am I mistaken in equating the two?
Quoting Bitter Crank
I haven’t denied that this is an attempt at ameliorating past wrongs. I think it’s both. And I haven’t commented on whether or not it’s moral/immoral. That’s partly what I find interesting about this. Racial discrimination is typically on par with things like rape and murder when it comes to moral value, but in this instance racial discrimination can be argued to be good.
I honestly haven’t decided yet, but the optics are certainly awful. Whomever Biden chooses will now be viewed by some as the beneficiary to racial/gender discrimination. She herself may even believe that her skin tone and gender are the only reason for getting the position, which is unfortunate. Had Biden just kept his mouth shut and refrained from indulging in this political stunt, and simply appointed a black woman there’d be no issue. But instead it now seems that he’s doing this as a favor to black people and women, which implies that they otherwise are not qualified for the position.
Let me know if I’m misrepresenting you’re position, as that’s not my intention. From what I gather, you think acts, thoughts, policies, etc. can only be racist if they cause actual harm. You said that Biden excluding other races/genders from consideration only harms the “95% white make quota.” I take this to not count as actual harm. But, if there are other qualified people for this position of different races/genders are they not harmed by not being considered? Also, if there is someone who would do a better job than the woman he selects, wouldn’t that harm the public in general? This is a Justice of the Supreme Court who will, by its very design, be commenting and judging the most pressing judicial matters in the US. Shouldn’t Biden’s duty here be to ensure the best available person gets appointed?
I understand the subjectivity of determining who is best qualified, but unless there’s some reason to think a black woman is necessarily more qualified than other races/genders other races/genders should not be excluded from consideration. You’re suggestion that a black woman is likely more professional (i.e. qualified) than others due to her having to be because she likely experienced workplace discrimination is plausible, but unconvincing. Isn’t it equally likely that her experience of workplace discrimination creates a bias against those who are similar in some way to those who discriminated against her?
Based on the definitions I related, I don't think the nomination is racist. To be racist, it seems you must contend that a particular race is superior than another; that must be the basis of the distinction made. If the nomination isn't based on a belief in the superiority of a black woman over others because she's black or a woman, it doesn't appear to come within the definitions. I think you have an uncommon definition of racism.
I suppose the irony of that remark is lost on you.
Of course not, since no one is "entitled" to that job by "birth right". Besides, for at least the last century there have been many "other qualified people of different races/genders" than Straight White Christian Men not even considered for appointment to the high court; this historical "quota" has not materially harmed the 'qualified others' but, in fact, has in many ways materially harmed the American people in general and American jurisprudence in particular with the SCOTUS' experientially narrow and predominantly classist decisions.
:up:
Anyway, I deeply disliked corportate law ;) so back to my beloved Grundnorm and the issue of Natural law in the Amato article. Oddly enough it came up in the free will discussion so it is well worth spending some time on.. The Grundnorm first, indeed it is a sovereign act of law creation, the only one there is in the Kelsenian system. It is designed to end the ' turtles all the way down' one gets when following the steps of the legality of rules. It ends somewhere and it ends for Kelsen in a sovereign act of law creation. " I am the law!" to speak with Judge Dredd... It is an act by whoch a community establishes itself as a community under the law. It is itself not based on anything indeed but on a sovereign act.
No, I am not adoring the law as you say. I have read the article and I must say, so many words to state such an obvious thing! However I think the writer is mistaken, or at least not penetrating enough on a number of areas.
First of all. We are not in disagreement, certainly law and justice are intertwined. However, compare your case to his. In your case on Jones and Perez you smuggled in a hidden assumption, namely that we knew with certainty that Perez indeed owed money to Jones. In a court of law there are two types of rules, rules of substantive law (material law) which states what needs to be done. In this case Perez needs to repay the money. There are also rules of evidence, they belong to the realm of procedural, formal law and pertain what counts as evidence. In the case you present, there is some sort of a priori knowledge, but we do not have that. Therefore we need to allocate the burden of proof. It might well be than that the wrong party gets to keep the money because the other could not prove it. That is only unjust with the benefit of hindsight.
Now D'Amato's article is actually about something very different, it is about substantive law. He makes a couple of claims. With most I take no issue at all. The first is his contention that "We cannot do justice if we are blind to the law. It is critical to underline the 'facticity' of law. Law is a topographical fact just like a hill or valley or stream. It is something that exists. But it is not something that has normative power."
I do not agree with law not having normative power. It appeals to obedience by being issued as law and not as a command of a gang of thieves. That said, it is not the only precept that has normative power. there are notions, such as equality, equity, fairness, that hold normative power too and they can trump the normative power of the law. I also do not agree that law is a fact like a hill or stream. That is a silly comparison. It means that the law is simply an obstacle to overcome. It is not, it determines behaviour in a very different way. It makes an appeal to the reader of what he or she should be doing, not what they can or cannot do, as a physical impediment does. It orders our society and also signals mutual expectations. It also, and that is the crux of my argument defines what we see as justice. Amato thinks justice informs the law but the relationship is a deal more complicated than that. He gives the example of stealing oranges from a yard. It is our sense of justice he contends that makes us know we will not escape punishment. However, there is nothing inherently just in the institution of private property I would content. It came about through law ways, not even written law, probably customary law, but law nonetheless. We have just internalized it and called it 'justice'.
Secondly, he thinks that when a literal interpretation of the law leads to flagrantly unjust results we need to take recourse to justice and we also do. He cites the case of riggs v Palmer where the testator is murderer by the beneficiary and the courts did not award him the inheritance. He also uses this example in the hypothetical he constructed of the poor child being killed in an accident.
I think here he underestimates the resilience of the law and makes an appeal to some sort of category unnecessarily vague, justice. It is of course clear that in the hypothetical case the judges should acquit Alice. D' Amato thinks that this follows from justice concerns. However that leads to problems because than we have to conclude that when justice conflicts with law justice trumps law. However, our sense of justice is not always equal. Law as a whole system would than only be conditionally valid. Worse is that it sets up a false dichotomy. We would have to say that the conviction of Alice was legally right, but from a justice perspective wrong. Difficult to reconcile with the normative force of law. Fortunately there is another way.
I contend that the judges should acquit Alice not only out of justice concerns but out of legal concerns! That needs some more penetrating legal analysis. Alice crosses the white lines, but what are those white lines for? They are there to prevent accidents. The legal good they protect is the health of the participants in traffic. Alice crossed them to avoid damaging the health of a participant in traffic namely the darting child. She did exactly what the law wanted. A conviction would actually tell people not to do what the law wants, as the hypothetical also shows by presenting the case of Bruce. The verdict to convict Alice is not only wrong from a justice point of view, it is bad from a legal point of view. To that end Dworkin coined (or refined) the notion of legal principle. The law is not just what is on paper, below it there are principles at stake which lay embedded in the law. They determine whether violations of the law as it literally stands should b admitted or not. And indeed judges behave like that. They do not appeal to justice in order not to get into endless controversies but to legal principles as in the case Riggs v Palmer.
Of course such cases have been tried and we now have the ' lesser evils defense' in criminal law, appealing that you action might be justified because you averted a greater danger. It is now simply part of the law.
So what I have been trying to show you is that you mischaracterize law. It is not divorced from justice but justice emerges in a different guise, as a principle embedded within the law. The law of evidence may well be just even though in retrospect it may lead to unjust outcomes in a few individual cases. However the caricature you make out of law and lawyers, simply algorithmic rule followers, is a miss characterization. They are adapt at legal argument. If they reside in a sound legal order there will not be gross miscarriages of justice and when they occur the law and the judiciary should thoroughly self examine.
That's not how I understood Kelsen. Sovereignty is a norm itself so it becomes self-referential and, I'd argue, incoherent. So there's a turtle below sovereignty.
The article is called "Kelsen's theory of the basic norm" by Joseph Raz.... odd how this works or does not work.
So-called “positive” race discrimination suggests a belief in the inferiority of the races they are designed to help. But this nomination isn’t a form of affirmative action, and it isn’t clear that Biden thinks women with darker complexions are inferior.
Neither is it about racial justice. Biden worked really hard to filibuster Judge Janice Brown back in the Bush days, and threatened to do the same if she was ever nominated for Supreme Court. He actively and explicitly opposed the nomination of a black woman, so if it was about racial justice let’s just say he missed that opportunity 20 years ago.
Rather, it is about identity politics, in this case using race and gender to score political points in the hopes of retaining political power now and in the future, the ethics of racial discrimination be damned. You can see the justification of this form of discrimination in this very thread, complete with essentialist notions about her experience, different knowledge, and different ways of thinking, which are racist assumptions if I’ve ever seen them. So if it isn’t racist according to your definition, it soon will be.
Positive iscrimination is a way to redress past wrongs and an attempt at creating equal starting positions. It has nothing to do with inferiority or superiority.
Quoting NOS4A2
I guess he wants a black woman with a similar political agenda.
Quoting NOS4A2
That might be a practical concern of course, politicians like to appeal to their constituencies.
Quoting NOS4A2
Not different ways of thinking but different perspectives. Having different perspectives represented might lead to better in the sense of better informed legal judgments. In the US there is also the principle right of judgment before ones peers to be kept in mind. That does deal with equal representation. Considered in the long term would it not also be representationally fair if a woman of color gets a chance to shape the law of the land? That is, if one thinks that judgment is a matter of being held to account by a forum of peers. (I do not necessarily think it is, but in the US with its jury system this seems to be an entrenched principle of law)
Law is, as I have tried to show a hermeneutic enterprise in which the presence of a plethora of background assumptions is beneficial. Now it is not by necessity that a woman or a or a black person brings a different perspective to the table, but it is more likely than that a white man does.
You’d have to assume she’s been wronged, and base it on nothing other than the color of her skin. So already you place her on a lower rung in a racial hierarchy.
Upon what assumption do you assume she has a different perspective? I figure these assumptions are based on nothing other than pseudoscientific racial distinctions and nothing besides, but perhaps I’m wrong. I’m not lawyer, but I assume that the only perspective that matters in a court is the word of the law.
No I only need to assume that there is a privilege to being white. All in research I know of confirms that privilege.
Quoting NOS4A2
Because people with a dark skin color are treated differently then people with white skin color in certain societies, as I think if the case in the US. In any case the incarceration rates is disproportionately higher for blacks than for whites and yes they run a higher chance to be murdered and so on. The only thing that I need to make plausible is that she probably had different experiences in dealing with with others in US society than whites to make her perspective a useful addition. I think it is plausible that she had different experiences.
Quoting NOS4A2
Of course not. My assumption that there are differences in perspective is formed because I find it credible that based on cultural hierarchies reiterated in discourse and practice, black people have been subjected to different experiences in life from white people.
Quoting NOS4A2 indeed
Quoting NOS4A2
And you are again wrong. Read my discussion with mr Atheist. The law does not speak. Judges do, they interpret the law.
Just another racial hierarchy upon which you place people with darker complexions on a lower rung.
What does the spectrum of complexion have to do with culture?
The law does not speak, sure, but it is spoken. A judge cannot interpret her way out of it.
A fine example of a tokenist mentality. As if her judicial philosophy is irrelevant.
Very true. It probably is about tokenism for Biden in particular, and the democrats in general.
Is this an attempt to be clever or obtuse? Your assumption is that if Biden was concerned about racial justice he would not have opposed a black woman 20 years ago. As if being a black woman should have been sufficient to support her nomination, regardless of her judicial philosophy.
Do I need to spell it out further?
Added: Just in case I do, it is you whose mentality is tokenist.
I could care less what a judge looks like, what feigned group they “represent”. It is Biden, not me, who is making the symbolic effort of choosing a black woman for the court. Of course, you wouldn’t dare make such an accusation against Biden, would you?
Why is that? Because I think people with a white skin get hired easier, are less often deemed suspects in criminal cases, get shot by police less often, I somehow place people with a darker complexion on a lower rung? No I simply think there is a lot of prejudice against people with a darker skin and that that means they have fewer chances in life and are required to prove themselves more than people with a light complexion. Those are cultural traits.
Quoting NOS4A2
See my explanation above. There are cultural prejudices against people with darker skin.
Quoting NOS4A2
You are not a lawyer eh? Best leave it at that. I am not going into that because I am used to being paid to give legal education. What you can do is read a few pages back in the thread, read the article Atheist provided and my comments and you may have an inkling what lawyers can and cannot do. This remark is just intellectual laziness.
It was you who claimed that:
Quoting NOS4A2
Supporting the nomination of just anyone just because she is a woman and black is not what racial justice is about.
(https://civilrights.org/resource/oppose-the-confirmation-of-janice-rogers-brown/)
I see it like this: you've grouped people under superficial racial categories of which there is no scientific basis, look for the disparities between them, and use the results to position them, one on top of the other, in a hierarchy of superficial racial categories of which there is no scientific basis. That right there is the methodology that has unleashed racism upon the world. It results in assumptions about people on the basis of their complexion, in injustice, and finally, in racial supremacy and inferiority.
Assuming prejudice, both against and for, is the result of this methodology, I oppose it on the same grounds. We cannot in fact infer how much prejudice, discrimination, hostility, someone has faced by the mere fact of their complexion alone, for the same reason we cannot know what position they occupy in the economy, in ability, in intelligence, and so on. The assumptions we make about someone’s status based on which racial categories they happen to occupy are neither right or wrong, they’re “not even wrong”, to use the phrase. The fact of someone’s status becomes apparent only in other forms of inquiry, such as conversation, cooperation, mutual enterprise, etc.
While your ability to train students to give legal advice and draft documents are far superior to mine, I see no reason to abide by your authority in other aspects of law and Justice.
No I fully agree. That’s why I said Biden, nor anyone, cannot claim he is excluding other races for matters of racial justice. His past actions falsify this theory.
I still do not understand why you are accusing me of tokenism out of one side of the mouth, and then defending Biden’s tokenism outside of the other.
There is a yawning gap in your understanding. Biden opposed Brown's nomination because of her human rights record as detailed above. Being a black woman is not sufficient grounds for supporting a judicial nominee. To think otherwise is tokenism. To nominate a candidate who is a qualified black woman whose judicial philosophy and record he approves of is not.
I haven't grouped people, they are grouped by everyday social practices. There is no scientific basis for me being grouped among the category of Dutch people as well and I have to show a Dutch passport when I want to enter my country nonetheless. I am the first to agree with you that there is no scientific basis for the concept of race, but the historical categorization has present day consequences.
Redressing past wrongs and making starting positions qual is not the methodology that caused racism, thinking some races were inferior and some superior did.
Quoting NOS4A2
Of course we cannot know but we can compare candidates. We cannot know that the best lawyer will be a good supreme court judges but we think the chances are higher than with an inferior lawyer. We cannot know someone with a darker complexion had different experiences in life from a person with a light complexion, but it is likely given that people with darker complexion face discrimination and racially themes abuse more than do people with a pale complexion. Certainty is very rare to obtain, so we go about things in terms of probabilities.
Quoting NOS4A2
Sure, why take a lawyer's word for issues having to do with law? Me, I never take a doctors word for things having to do with medicine, imbeciles they are! Car mechanics, what do they know about cars anyway? Physicist about physics, don't even get me started on that one! What they think they bloody know about physics fits into my pinky it does!
You are hilarious sometimes. Just remember that the blanket statements about legal work you made in this thread immediately peg you as ignorant about law, not just about drafting documents, but about how law is practiced generally.
Well said.
There is a certain absurdity here, but I'm used to it. A couple things I do know: just because you're a black woman doesn't make you a liberal and the appointment of a black woman isn't going to remedy a whole lot of anything.
What the left needs is someone consistently left if they want to counter those consistently right.
It's encouraging to young black women.
Not to argue with the dictionary, but I am surprised at the emphasis on belief. In everyday language many acts are considered racist, typically any act that discriminates on the basis of race. But technically you seem correct.
Quoting 180 Proof
Yet a black female is somehow entitled to this position? Wouldn’t you agree that minorities have in fact been harmed by not being considered viable candidates for a plethora of positions? Do you agree with the equal opportunity acts?
Quoting 180 Proof
Right. And it was wrong that they were excluded. I would also say it was racist, but the dictionary disagrees.
I think racial discrimination has to be included here. It is the mechanism through which racist beliefs are put into practice, and the actual actions are what causes harm.
As we see in the current example, racist thoughts need not accompany racial discrimination, but that doesn’t make the act any less harmful, disadvantageous, or unfair.
No. A candidate from a pool of 'well-qualified black women' is preferred by an old white man who, by the way, owes his presidency in no insignificant part to black women voters and supporters.
My first post on this thread (p.1) references 'patriarchal white supremacy' precisely for the central fact you mention which has driven American political and social history into the dirt.
Yeah, I also believe in "world peace", but ... :roll:
No in this case the dictionary was right because in the past the candidates have been excluded because they were held to be inferior. Men were considered superior to women, whites to blacks and (protestant) Christians to all other religions. It was not just racism, but also sexism and cultural superiority.
Quoting Pinprick
I wonder what you intend to say with this. Maybe you think all discrimination is equal, but it isn't. It makes a difference whether you exclude someone on the basis of deeming that person inferior or whether you desire equal representation, or broaden the scope of perspectives or indeed correct for worse starting positions. Recial discrimination and profiling are real and that means less opportunities for certain people. Preferential treatment may be a way to mitigate against the prevailing cultural biases that hinder the full development of certain classes of people as opposed to others. You might think all discrimination is equal but that is not the case.
Quoting Pinprick
Why would preferential treatment be harmful, disadvantageous or unfair? It depends on the goals you want to reach and the fairness, advantage and desirability of these. Let's face it every job description contains preferential treatment of some sort. For instance the idea that your grades in uni make you a better lawyer and so you get hired easier. It advantages people who score good grades on exam questions... It says nothing about all kinds of other qualities.
Well, you have grouped people and have made assumptions about them according to their racial characteristics. But all I’m trying to say is these assumptions are the prerequisite to any social practice that groups them any further, to any racism, to any racial discrimination.
I’m not sure how one can redress past wrongs and make starting points equal through racial discrimination. This is because one is neither victim or perpetrator by the fact of her complexion or any other phenotype alone. In fact, assigning guilt and victimhood to people according to their racial features is a past wrong, also a present and future wrong, as is racial discrimination in hiring. It seems silly to me redress these past wrongs by applying them in practice.
Again, I bow before your expertise in law, and if I’m ever in the market for Dutch legal advice I’ll be sure to let you know.
I completely agree. Biden explicitly stated his nominee will be a black woman, all of which is irrelevant to qualifications.
I've always been baffled by this view, as I think it clear that what you're taught, especially in law school, has nothing to do with the practice of law. Perhaps someone who does very well in law school may make a good law professor, or a judge's clerk, or an associate in a large firm who spends time doing research and writing memos and briefs. It may prepare you for that, but more than that? Why would it?
Right, being black is irrelevant to qualifications. But not irrelevant to the makeup of the court.The woman he nominates will be black and qualified and will have a judicial philosophy that is not at odds with his own.
What ten white people? :chin:
Agreed, that is why I used it as an example of arbitrary classifications. When I applied to law firms they asked me to submit a list of grades. I was good at making exams so I became a legal theoretician at uni ;) Though being good at law exams says nothing about being successful at writing a PhD either...
Quoting NOS4A2
Be sure to contact me when you are puzzled about legal theory, that is my field. Your remarks about law are silly in general, not just in the case Dutch law. Your other points are just a repetition of moves.
Quoting NOS4A2
why would 'qualifications' whatever they may be, be the sole criterion that is relevant?
:blush:
And that’s fine, as long as the preference isn’t for white males? Why is preferring one race over another ok? Is it ok in any other situations?
Quoting 180 Proof
But what? There seems to be a contradiction in agreeing with a law that prohibits racial discrimination, and also agreeing with excluding all but one race from consideration.
Quoting Tobias
Perhaps, but I’m not going to try guessing what people believe.
Quoting Tobias
No, it’s that I think all racial discrimination is wrong. That is what leads to “95% white male quotas.” As long as racial discrimination continues how can there ever be equality?
Quoting Tobias
Those seem like two sides of the same coin. It isn’t like white people don’t “justify” their racism. By stating that a particular race is better to appoint to a position, for whatever reason, you imply the other races are inferior.
Quoting Tobias
The preferential treatment of white males over minorities has been harmful, disadvantageous, and unfair to them, has it not? I guess I’m a bit Kantian at times, and this doesn’t pass the imperative test. We know where this road leads. Repeating the same acts (racial discrimination) that caused this problem in the first place doesn’t sound like a solution.
Quoting Tobias
I have no issue with discrimination based on characteristics.
Yes that is what I mean. You think all racial discrimination is equally wrong, but it isn't. It matter what the motive for discrimination is and what the consequences are.
Quoting Pinprick
No it doesn't lead to 95% male quotas, not if give preferential treatment to black women. I think you would agree with me no?
Quoting Pinprick
What do you mean by equality? Equal representation? Well if that is the equality you mean we need to step up efforts of preferential treatment for all kinds of groups.
Quoting Pinprick
No of course not. White people justified their racism in the past by stating that other races were inferior. They did not justify it by arguments of equal representation or the need to diversify our perspectives. they could not since they thought their perspective was superior. right or wrong depend on context and argument. No preferential treatment policy makes that argument.
Quoting Pinprick
Most certainly.
Quoting Pinprick
Why not? It cannot be because "discrimination is wrong" because we always ddiscriminate on all kinds of grounds. You choose for instance who you want to hire and what your grounds for it are, who you want to allow in your house and so on. For Kant what matters is the motive. No we cannot want everyone to start favoring a certain group over another in other to attain dominance for your own group. If everyone one would do that we would get a war of all against all. However if the maxim is bringing about a more equal society it can, even by your own lights, because from your post it shows equality is important to you.
Quoting Pinprick
That is not a Kantian argument but a slippery slope fallacy.
Quoting Pinprick
Maybe not, but think about it and maybe that gut feeling will prove false. And of course it must end somewhere. However do we already have a society where people with darker skin have the same opportunities as people with paler skin? No.
Is this to be remedied by nominating another white male?
The racial makeup of a court is irrelevant to law and the function of a court. Not to mention, historically speaking, the only ones concerned with the racial makeup of the court were of the racist variety. This is reason enough to avoid race-based hiring or nominations, to say nothing of the ethics.
But now we have this quandary of “representation”, as if justice will be accessible so long as millions of people can point to a similar pigment in the epidermis of nine judges. Racism has enough narcissism built into it, why add more?
Mind your own business Canadian. :grin:
You are woefully uninformed. Neither the law nor the courts are racially neutral.
Apparently you are not familiar with Jim Crow laws or Thurgood Marshall.
It was certainly relevant wherever the law was unjust and the court racist, sure. But that’s no argument that it is now or ought to be.
I repeat, you are woefully uninformed.
You are unable to explain why the racial makeup of the court is relevant to law or the court’s function.
The reason is simple and should be obvious. There is a disproportionate number of black citizens who have been convicted and sentenced to prison. Those whose own experience, which includes that of family and friends, is closer to those who have been incarcerated are more likely not only to be aware of the disparity but to have suffered from it. Their judicial decisions are far more likely to this into consideration than those who receive, at worst, a slap on the wrist.
The fact that you, along with Chief Justice John Roberts, are isolated from and are unaware of such disparity, imagining that the days when the law and courts were unjust is in the past, is a powerful argument in favor of more racial diversity.
It’s equally harmful. I don’t think whoever is being discriminated against cares about the motive. That it harms them is all that matters.
Quoting Tobias
Well, right, but my point is that if this preferential treatment continued indefinitely, it would be the same thing, only the roles would be reversed. Instead of 95% white males we would have 95% black females.
Quoting Tobias
Equal treatment of others. IOW’s no discrimination based on things like race, sex, religion, socio-economic status, etc.
Quoting Tobias
This ideal is shortsighted in my opinion. Equal representation depends on equal interest in particular fields across all races, genders, etc. I have no reason to think that exists.
For example, suppose we wanted equal representation for female mechanics. Does this desire justify a trade school for mechanics only accepting female applicants? Do you think there’s just as many females that want to be a mechanic as males?
Now, this isn’t to deny that additional barriers may exist for certain demographic groups due to things like racism and sexism. And when that occurs it is unequivocally wrong, and work needs to continue to be done to improve the situation. But preferential treatment isn’t how to do so. Equality acts, like the equal opportunity laws I mentioned previously, is how you bring about change. If Biden were serious about this then why not extend these laws to cover appointed positions as well? We expect the average manager at business X to follow these laws, surely we should expect the same of our political leaders.
Quoting Tobias
Then why wouldn’t the preferential treatment of black females be harmful, disadvantageous, and unfair to other races/genders?
Quoting Tobias
The categorical imperative is to imagine what would happen if everyone acted in such a way at all times. So I’ll ask you. What would happen if everyone showed preferential treatment to black women all the time?
Quoting Tobias
Preferring one group over another doesn’t create equal opportunities.
Quoting Tobias
Maybe, and I truly hope it does, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Quoting Tobias
I agree, but the way to change this isn’t to bypass the process by selecting whichever group you prefer. There shouldn’t even be a group you prefer.
No, I’m not saying another white male should be selected. I’m not saying I have all the answers, but I’m sure someone smarter than me could come up with a way to hold people, Biden in this case, accountable for whoever they select. Maybe there should be a diverse group committee that decides instead of just one person. Maybe presidents should have to “prove” that the person they choose for a position wasn’t due to racism, nepotism, sexism, etc. The NFL has what’s known as “The Rooney Rule”, which admittedly has not worked out that well, but I think that has more to do with enforcement of the rule than anything else.
This is the role of the Senate.
Quoting Pinprick
It is not decided by one person, it is decided by the Senate, although it is not as diverse as many think is should be.
Quoting Pinprick
Again, this is the work of Senate. They have the power (or at least certain members do in some cases such as when Mitch arbitrarily blocked Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland and vowed to block any nomination by Biden if the Republicans have the majority in 2024), to approve or disapprove of a nomination. It is not a unilateral process.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
In sum: "equality" without power-sharing only camouflages and perpetuates systemic inequalities; Biden's appointment of a well-qualified black woman jurist to SCOTUS will be an instance of power-sharing by establishment White Men with Non-White Wo/Men and, thereby, another small step towards (securing) substantive equality in America. Do you agree? :chin:
:point: Are you for more power-sharing or less?
No, it is not obvious to me that someone who has been convicted and sentenced to prison, or who is similar in skin-tone to others who may have had such experiences (which is everyone), are better suited to the highest court in the land—nor is it obvious that someone’s epidermis can afford him some ability, or otherwise prohibit him, from taking such experiences into consideration.
Instead, it’s obvious to me that these insidious generalizations are born of race-thinking and other assumptions, all of it premised on bogus taxonomies. You want her skin color to matter, is the problem, like everyone else who tries to divide the species into such tenuous and superficial categories. There is some symbolic self-interest in it for you, perhaps even in most of us. But at the same time this grandstanding can only serve to maintain a division where there isn’t one. This division, at every step, is born of pseudoscience and hatred, and reified by activities such as this.
No it is not. Say you are robbed of your money by a gang of thieves. That is harmful. Every year that same sum of money is being taxed by the state. You are losing the same amount of money. Equally harmful? Of course not. So motives matter.
Quoting Pinprick
Yes, 'if'. But there is no reason for it to go on idenfinately because the motive is not superiority, but making starting positions equal. When that happens and they are more or less equal, there is no need for preferential treatment anymore. It is only harmful if you smuggle in some extra assumptions.
Quoting Pinprick
But on other criteria it is somehow miraculously fine? Equal treatment is a funny thing. Take traffic fines. In principles the fines are equal right? However, say millionaire has to pay a traffic fine of 100 dollars for a traffic violation. For the same traffic violation, a man or lady with two jobs who barely makes end meet has to pay 100 dollars as well. Who is more severely harmed by the apparently 'equal' traffic fines?
Quoting Pinprick
Because they are a marginalized group, others aren't, see above.
Quoting Pinprick
Well we would probably have a society such as ours but with black women at the helm instead of white man... If we can want this society we can also want that one. Anyway, that is not how Kant works. According to Kantian logic we have to find the root cause first as our maxim. That would likely be can we want a world in which everyone discriminates according to certain categories. And I think a point can be made that we have an imperfect duty not to discriminate and I would agree. However there might be other overriding considerations as imperfect duties are not absolute. I digress however.
Quoting Pinprick
Hoh! Pushing my mug of beer firmly on the table as if I made some kind of point!
Quoting Pinprick
I also do not. I am not a big fan of preferential treatment and do not know if it works but I see no harm in it in this case and some benefits sometimes. Mind you, not all the time. Policy is very context dependent.
Quoting Pinprick
I agree race is a bogus concept, but even though race is a bogus concept ,it caused divisions that last well into the present day. We want that changed, but it is as it is. In certain institutions as I have argued before, it is good to have a plethora of perspectives. That might well include black women, but might also include a Muslim, a person from the working class, somebody with autism or ADHD (provided they have the qualifications).
Right, it is not obvious to you, you are oblivious, as is clear from the following:
Quoting NOS4A2
One only need look at the disproportionate treatment of Blacks by law enforcement, the courts, and the prison system. But you can bury your head in the sand and pretend things are different, because systematic racism does not affect you because of your skin color.
Quoting NOS4A2
This is certainly part of it, but you have it backwards. "Race thinking" is not something new, created by those who recognize racial disparities, it is a response to racial hatred. Do you really not know this?
:up:
You look at the disproportionate representation of certain skin colors in prison, and then someone comes along and shows the same disproportionate representation in violent criminal activity such as murder. Any implications derived from these proportions are sinister, but false, because both use the specious race variable in order to make predictions about individuals. The fact remains that not all people you call Black or White have the same experiences as everyone else who occupies their position in the color spectrum. The fact remains that individuals, not races, are found in prison, commit crimes, are victims of crime, etcetera.
One of the potential nominees has a father who was cop, which falls outside your assumptions that, by virtue of her skin color alone, her experience is somehow “closer to those who have been incarcerated”. Not only is the assumption wrong, it’s odious; it assumes that her, her family, or her friends have been on the wrong side of the justice system by virtue of her skin color, when exactly the opposite is the case. False assumptions such as these are the direct result of methodological racism, just like every racist act, policy, or system throughout history.
How about looking at the difference in sentencing and punishment for the same crime? The "war on drugs" is a prime example.
Quoting NOS4A2
In a sense that is largely true, but not because of anything they may have done but because being Black puts them on the wrong side of the justice system with regard to how they are likely to be treated. The expression "driving while Black" comes from experience. An experience you will have no knowledge of unless you are aware of the need to educate yourself regarding such matters.
I started clerking at a law firm after my first year in law school. I enjoyed that far more than my time in the lecture halls. Oddly, my grades got better, but I think that's because the first year was devoted to the effort of trying to cram property, criminal, tort and other basic law into my bewildered mind. I remember one professor who taught labor law did so by reading to us a textbook he had authored. To be fair, things got better.
“Representation”—a single judge, by virtue of her skin-color alone, will represent all who happen to fall within these racialist distinctions—fits perfectly well in the Western tradition of superficiality versus depth, but serves as little more than a fig leaf in practice. To put to the side for now the argument that these distinctions were created and enforced by the enemy in the first place, to further enforce them on the implication that someone can only represent another so long as her pigment is similar (and as a corollary, that one is unable to represent another if her pigment is different) is as sinister as it is false. It is not true, in any case, but is also bound to set up everyone who believes in it for failure and disappointment.
The notion that race-based nominations can be used to "redress past wrongs" is of the same symbolic character. It redresses nothing. It neither brings to justice those who perpetrate such wrongs or seeks retribution for those who were wronged by them. And because it utilizes exactly what was wrong about these past wrongs—the prohibition of other races in favor of one—it is itself a wrong.
The irony of entrenching vast swaths of individuals under the false taxonomies and superstitions of white supremacy shouldn't be lost on us, but this is where collectivism allied with racism necessarily leads, as it always has. For my own tastes, wherever it is unethical to lobby against someone on the grounds of race, it is unethical to lobby in favor of someone on the grounds of race, and for the same reason. It seems to me that violating this principle is the problem to begin with.
Imagine a society that is 99% white and 1% black, but which has an all-black Supreme Court. What would you infer about that society?
I could infer nothing from such facts. What would you infer?
But you never mentioned the motivations of those who appointed them nor any other circumstance. If you do not want to know what I would infer from such facts, how about you argue what I ought to infer.
The primary fault with your reasoning here is that you speak as though 'race' exists in a vacuum. It is clear to everyone who takes this case seriously that race represents more than mere skin pigmentation. Generally speaking, it represents a marginalized segment of society. So you seem to be saying that you feel it is unethical to lobby for or against those in a disadvantaged position.
I also feel it is unethical to take advantage of those with a disadvantage, but I don't see how it's unethical to give advantage to those with a disadvantage. I can only assume that you do not value the principle of fairness, even though you fully understand the concept.
:up:
I speak of race as pseudoscience and superstition. The history of how this superstition was used to malign, exclude, and murder human beings is well documented. The assumption that any member of such taxonomies are either victim or perpetrator in some all-purveying race struggle are the direct result of the same thinking, and immediately falsified upon evidence to the contrary.
It cannot be confirmed from the mere sight of someone that he is disadvantaged or advantaged by virtue of these taxonomies. Your guesswork, premised on pseudoscience and superstition, sets you right on track to make the very unethical activities you claim to oppose.
These two sentences seem to contradict each other. Can you rephrase?
The superstition as it has been used leads one to false conclusions and unjust actions, such as the assumption that any member of such taxonomies are either victim or perpetrator in some all-purveying race struggle.
Yes, as you say, "I speak of race as pseudoscience and superstition. The history of how this superstition was used to malign, exclude, and murder human beings is well documented."
Quoting NOS4A2
This appears to contradict your statement that the history of how this superstition was used to malign, exclude, and murder human beings is well documented. Murder, for instance, requires a perpetrator and a victim. Are you saying that your own belief in history causes you to have false conclusions and unjust actions?
I don't understand the contention. A murderer has killed someone. How can others of the same taxonomy be perpetrators of murder if they did not kill anyone? A victim of murder is deceased. How can others of the same taxonomy be victims of murder if they are still alive? To confer guilt or victimhood to others beyond perpetrator and victim is a false conclusion and leads to unjust actions, in any case, but to confer them to one race or another is an absurdity.
In a nutshell, the word you used to describe this is superstition. False beliefs and biases that are advantageous to some and disadvantageous to others.
Do you want to claim that superstitions don't exist? Go ahead, I won't object.
None of this distracts from the principle of fairness though. I know that you know what fairness is. I know that you have a sense of fairness. You seem to have the superstition that you don't value fairness.
You’ve lost me.
I’ve misinterpreted what you mean by superstition? What exactly do you mean with that term in this context if not false beliefs and biases?
No, that’s fair. I don’t understand what you mean when you say I have a superstition that I don’t value fairness.
Do you believe that the false beliefs and biases that we’re talking about are advantageous to some and disadvantageous to others?
Well, yes.
Then wouldn’t it be fair to try rectifying the situation?
It would be fair.
Assuming there's a 'superstition' that black women are low status and being low status in America is disadvantageous, lobbying in favor of someone on the basis of gender/race could be seen as moral, specifically in the moral sense of fairness.
Keep in mind that this would be an effort to counteract superstition (and its associated disadvantages) and if there's a superstition that women of color are low status, this false belief would be counteracted by them occupying high-status positions in society, such as a Supreme Court justice.
If Biden’s pick is given advantage by eliminating an entire gender and other races from the process, it doesn’t follow that members of the another gender and other races should be given the same advantage.
I have the sneaking suspicion that Biden's picks will be strategically planned to primarily benefit his political career. I hope he nominates a black woman for the reasons that I've mentioned.
Quoting 180 Proof
It depends on how the power is obtained. The ends don’t justify the means.
Quoting Tobias
The difference in harm in this case is due to whatever trauma was inflicted by being robbed. So the examples aren’t comparable, imo. Maybe say a hacker takes money from your account and makes it seem like it’s legitimate taxation. In this case the harm is equal, because it’s the same amount of money you’re missing, right?
Quoting Tobias
If the act were “good” then no harm would come from doing it indefinitely.
Quoting Tobias
Yeah, criteria that actually makes a difference like education, skill level, competence, etc.
Quoting Tobias
Yeah, that’s a good point. At the moment I don’t have any reason to not go along with setting fines to a certain percentage of people’s wages. I’m not sure what this equates to in this context, but I’d also be fine with guaranteeing minorities/underprivileged consideration for positions. Maybe the president selects a handful of candidates that are diverse and then the senate narrows it down from there?
Quoting Tobias
Being discriminated against doesn’t only harm you if you’re part of a marginalized group.
Quoting praxis
I don’t see how it’s ethical to give an advantage to someone because of their race. Isn’t that how races became disadvantaged in the first place? White people were given advantages because they were white.
In this case, power-sharing is being granted constitutionally. No one has invoked "ends that justify unlawful means" (i.e. "means" which undermine – delegitimize – "ends"). Maybe I miss your meaning, 'prick; if not, however, then your comment is merely another non sequitur.
I've had it too. Quick recovery; be well.
I'm pretty sure they took advantage. It's not morally good to take advantage, is it?
Quoting Pinprick
No. The difference is in the legitimacy. The hacker steals your money and robs you.. The tax authorities tax the same amount of money as ordained by the government. The first is illegitimate, the second is because the authorities use it to fund projects for the common good and not to enricht themselves. (Of course if they do the harm is equal, but that only proves my point). What matters is the motive. It is a rebuttal of your "huh, every kind of discrimination is equal!" line. Only the most ardent anarcho capitalists and you apparently do not see the difference.
Quoting Pinprick
Hmm, do you take antibiotics when you are ill? And if you do, do you take them indefinitely? You might say 'ahh but antibiotics is not a good thing, but a necessary evil'. I would agree with you. Preferential treatment is not a good thing. but a necessary evil perhaps.
Quoting Pinprick
Why would that one 'actually make a difference' and the other one would not? It is all a matter of the goals you wish to attain. 'competence' may well be perspectival, bringing a dfferent perspective to the table may make the institution as a hole more competent.
Quoting Pinprick
Might be already how it informally takes place. I do not know how political appointment of judges actually works. We do not have it here. There might well be such procedures because the POTUS will only select a candidate acceptable to the senate majority.
Quoting Pinprick
It harms you more because you already have less options to begin with. That is what being marginalized means. See the point about traffic fines above.
Quoting Pinprick
No. Races became disadvantaged because some people thought they were superior to others and thought up this whole classification of peoples they subjugated, based on things like skin color, facial and bodily features etc. They did not become disadvantaged because of preferential treatment policies aimed at giving everyone an equal starting position, quite the opposite actually.
I just mean power-sharing doesn’t justify racial discrimination.
Quoting 180 Proof
Thank you.
Same difference. White people in power gave other white people advantages due to their race.
Quoting praxis
No.
Thank.
Quoting Tobias
Ok, I’m not getting this. Let’s say the amount stolen/taxed is $100. If I need that $100 to survive (for food, rent, whatever), I will suffer due to not having it, regardless of the reason why I don’t have it. Starving to death is starving to death. It’s not like my suffering will be alleviated or lessened somehow because I was taxed legitimately. I’M STILL STARVING TO DEATH!
Quoting Tobias
I’d actually say taking antibiotics isn’t a moral issue, but I see what you’re saying. You probably have a point here.
Quoting Tobias
Because one’s relevant to the requirements of the job. I’m sure you’re not suggesting certain races are better at certain tasks or possess certain skills that others do not, are you?
Quoting Tobias
Yes, but why would your goal be to promote one race over another? The goal should be to find a good SCOTUS justice, right?
Quoting Tobias
That makes sense, but I don’t believe being black, or white, necessarily means you have a “different” perspective. I mean, technically no two perspectives are alike, but it isn’t like only a black person can be just regarding issues of race.
Quoting Tobias
Right, but what’s the point? That discriminating against marginalized groups is worse than discriminating against non-marginalized groups?
Cutting someone’s hand off would not be as bad as drowning them, but that doesn’t mean we should overlook it. It’s still bad.
This…
Quoting Tobias
Lead to this…
Quoting Tobias
Policies/practices like refusing to hire minorities caused minorities to become marginalized. If these types of policies/practices would not have existed, then things would not have been as bad, even if the racist ideologies continued.
In the abstract, maybe not; you're objection, however, is both ahistorical and politically obtuse. Biden's selection of a well-qualified Black Woman jurist only begins to redress centuries-long legacy of state-sanctioned racial and gender exclusion. As I've pointed already, no harm is being done except maybe to fragile egos of entitled (mostly comparatively less or unqualifed) White Men who may feel slighted by not even being considered. Tell me, 'prick, how should substantive equality be achieved in 21st c. America without White Men power-sharing with (therefore deselecting other White Men in favor of) historically excluded Non-White Women & Men. :brow:
The first is in progress. Discrimination in theory is illegal, discrimination in practice is lessening. It's the second that positive discrimination seeks to address, the idea that the lack of back women on the supreme court is a harm resulting from prior (and to a lesser extent, continued) inequality.
So to whom has this harm accrued? Is it, by and large, black women who find themselves sufficiently qualified and experienced to be in the running for a supreme court placement? I can't see how. If she's got so far as to be considered, then the one barrier remaining is Biden's choice. Unless were making a claim that Biden is racist, then there seems, self evidently, to be no substantial harm having accrued to this particular person. Thus offering her a benefit by way of reparation is unnecessary.
The people who need benefits by way of reparation for the effects of past (and present) wrongs are, by definition, those suffering the specified harms. In terms of supreme court nomination, it would be those who, for example, couldn't even get a place at college because of systematicaly racist income inequality. That, by definition, is not any current supreme court nominee.
I don't think the accusation of political expediency is therefore misplaced. Nor do I agree that it "does no harm". Anything which is politically expedient does harm by allowing a token gesture to take heat off any real-world reparation for the harms systematic racism has caused.
As seems de rigueur these days for identity politics, some beneficiary is found who already belongs to the class of beneficiaries capitalism allows (the already privileged), and attention is drawn away from the class who actually suffer.
And how is anyone harmed to whom the campaign promise wasn't promised and who largely did not vote for said politician?
History matters. Political context matters. Ahistorical, decontextualized, hypothetical objections to POTUS keeping this particular campaign promise are vacuous exercises in rationalizing the status quo (aka "White grievence identity politics"). :mask:
The nature of the promise is the political expedience, not the keeping of it.
Quoting 180 Proof
Agreed. Now show that what I've said is such a thing. Otherwise your comment is, to use some buzzwords I've recently learnt, decontextualized and hypothetical.
The "politically expedient" thing to do would have been not to announce he intended to keep his campaign promise and leak out a list of men women white & nonwhite candidates, giving himself the cover of "credentials" to later nominate someone who'd be much easier to get through Senate confirmation with as many Repucblican votes as possible. Wtf are you high on, man?
You ducked the question of who's being harmed.
You also mention "reparations" which isn't remotely relevant to the issue at hand.
Then, in effect, you accuse POTUS, an old White Man, of "identity politics" when his candidacy and Administration is a repudiation of White Identity Politics. :shade:
I get...
...which is the sense in which I meant it. Making such a promise being aimed at maintaining the status quo (appearing to address reparation for systematic racism whilst avoiding taking the necessary steps), ie "...doing what is convenient rather than what is morally right"
Quoting 180 Proof
No, I addressed that...
Quoting Isaac
Quoting 180 Proof
I didn't accuse him of identity politics, I accused him of taking advantage of identity politics to avoid having to give reparation to those who actually suffer.
It's really not that complicated. There's only one front page, only one policy headliner, only one top slot in the political briefing agenda, only one keynote in the town hall speech, only one top question at the press conference...at any one time.
One of those slots can be given at any one time to reparation for systematic racism. The more slots taken up with meaningless token gestures, the fewer are taken up with advocating real change.
When kids are no longer working up to their waists in our fucking shit to pay for your next fucking iPhone, then I'll start giving a shit about which individuals in a group of extremely privileged individuals are slightly less privileged than some of the others.
No, that would be perverse. I'm talking about what he should have done. Passing commentary on his actions, as us without the power to influence decisions are wont to do.
What he should do from now is probably go ahead and appoint one of the preselected candidates, anything else would be shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Next time, if he wants to tick something off his "tackle systemic racism" to do list, perhaps he could stop American companies using child labour in Africa, write off their crippling debt, lower the unfair trade sanctions that hobble African farmers in the world markets...
...and just keep doing that until it's an ugly blot in our history books.
Then, maybe then, he could look back and check if black women are still underrepresented in the supreme court. My guess is he'll find they're not.
Well, you may be right. What I considered myself to be addressing was the issue of...
Quoting TiredThinker
...the answer being, no. It's nothing to do with re-balancing the court and everything to do with picking an easy token gesture to fill a front page with something which sounds like it's tackling systemic racism whilst being nothing more than papering over the cracks.
The ugly frontline of systematic racism is not an imbalance of skin tone in a few privileged institutions, it the systematic oppression of the poor (a massively disproportionate number of whom are people of color). Anything which is not directly tackling that issue is therefore deeply suspect in intent and at best an unhelpful distraction.
But maybe I should have taken the presumptions of the OP (that the selection was done out of a desire to re-balance the make up of the court) unchallenged and answered within the framework they set. You might have a point there. In that case, though, I've nothing to say.
If not to comment on its role as a distraction, who in their right mind could possibly raise a concern? They're all qualified, right? If we assume honorable intent on Biden's part, and If we assume other more serious actions against systematic racism were never on the cards, then I don't see a problem, but those two 'ifs' seem like the real issue to me.
Ideally it should start with equal opportunity, meaning access to quality education, healthcare, and so on. This would eliminate circumstantial (dis)advantages such as being born in poverty or of a particular race, gender, etc. A more equal playing field from which the best in a particular field can excel and advance through competition.
The other side of this is the issue of discrimination which exists now. I’m not naïve enough to believe I’m creative or smart enough to solve this problem, but the solution has to lie with more accountability. We don’t want things to devolve into a situation where anytime a white person hires/appoints another white person their accused of racism, and we also don’t want the difficulty of proving a person discriminated against someone else to be exploited. I think more people being involved in the process could help. It’s easy for one person to quietly dismiss applications from minorities, but having some sort of oversight committee that can question the person why they chose one person over another may help. Or, maybe having an organization similar to the NAACP that can actively promote qualified minorities would help. Or, maybe it wouldn’t, but I think these suggestions are at least more fair than showing favoritism for any specific group.
If whites only voted for white interests, there'd be no 14th Amendment, and we wouldn't have had the voter rights act that broke down Jim Crow.
Having a black woman on the SCOTUS would be a powerful symbol. Advocates of it are saying we need that symbol in prominence right now (after 4 years of Trump's pandering to white supremacists).
:cool:
There's an issue both ways as in it's "weird" for either position validly. Until a metric is developed so where sc nominees are picked more "objectively" then it's going to be political.
1. Hey, here's a judge, she's a black woman?
2. Hey, here's a black woman, she's a judge?
I don't know but I do find it strange that Mrs. Jackson doesn't seem to have a problem defining "black" but does have a problem defining 'woman". Is Biden sure he picked a black woman for the Supreme Court?
In Jackson's befuddlement when asked the question she seemed at least understand that it has to do with biology as she she said, "I'm not a biologist."
:up:
She is well aware of the trap that was laid. It has to do with the Republicans obsession with transgender people.
The biology of gender is not a simple matter of male vs female.
:up: I really like her.
If the nominee does not know whether they are a woman or a man, then perhaps they should recuse themselves from the nomination, as the President specifically asked for a woman.
Political Trap
Maybe it's not as easy as we think it is. How can Mrs. Jackson say anything to suggest that Biden was more interested in her vagina and breasts than her brain?
Do brains have sex? :wink:
It's simple really. From the standpoint of a lawyer or judge, a woman is, of course, whatever the law in question says a woman is, just as a man, or anyone or anything is whatever the law says it is. All else is irrelevant in assessing the legal qualifications of a person.
The US Senate hearings for US Appellate Judge KBJ this week were a disgraceful spectacle of under-qualified weak men triggered by an over-qualified strong woman for the express purpose of pandering to – soliciting campagn funds from – a Fox Noise audience of bigoted Grand Old Putin-Party base voters. :shade:
[quote=J. Welsh, Army-McCarthy Hearings 1954]Senator, have you no decency; at long last, Sir, have you no sense of decency left?[/quote]
Clearly not.
Wrong. It has to do with the extreme left's fetish with sex/gender and using it to make victims out of people to get votes. It also has to do with Republicans, Independents and moderate Democrats concern over how a warped sense of sex/gender is an infringement on the equal representation for women.
The extremists on the left are the ones over-representing trans-people which ends up misrepresenting both men and women. They are the ones that want to promise trans people special rights, not equal rights. And they are the ones that treat people who claim to be the opposite sex/gender differently than someone else claiming to be something that they are not that has nothing to do with sex/gender. When you take trans-people's claims without the same skepticism that you show others that make outlandish claims then you are the one's with an obsession with sex/gender.
Quoting Fooloso4
It's actually very simple, but in order to maintain the mass delusion, you have to create more lies which makes it seem more complicated than it actually is.
And yet you go on to give support for my point. She was not about to let the hearings turn into a dispute about transgender people.
Quoting Harry Hindu
It's not that simple. A bit of online research based on the scientific literature rather than religious or political claims will bear out that sex and gender are not binary.
Actually, you're proving mine. She wasn't asked about transgender people. She was asked to define a woman.
According to USA Today we can't determine the difference between a man and a woman, so how do we know that Biden nominated a woman to the supreme court, hence the threat of mis- and under- representing women. All USA Today did is pull the rug out from under the left's own push to nominate a black woman. This is what I mean by creating more lies and contradictions to cover for the mass delusion that has been created.
We all could see how Jackson wanted to answer the question with her reference to biologists. But her free speech was being limited by less than 1% of the population.
Quoting Fooloso4
Actually it is people like you who have become religious in accepting the claims by certain people without questioning those claims. Politics is like a religion in that it makes people out to be victims so that you can turn to Big Brother save you from being a victim. It is like a religion in that everyone on one side believes that they are the righteous and the other side are not. Politics = religion because they are both forms of group think. The left has essentially swapped one Big Brother for another.
Hence the trap. Why did Blackburn ask her to define the word woman? She brought up Lia Thomas, a transgender athelete.
Quoting Harry Hindu
All USA Today did is make a clumsy rhetorical argument that either misrepresents or misunderstands what is at issue. There is no ambiguity as to whether Jackson is a black woman.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Actually it people like me who studied biology long before this became a hot button issue. People like me who do question those claims and are aware that things are not always binary. People like me who think that what we should do in such cases is something that does not yield clear answers. People like me who know politicians will use this to their advantage.
Quoting Harry Hindu
This cuts both ways. It is not everyone and its both sides not one side. Has it escaped your notice that you are the one who with righteous indignation talking about "people like you"?
For the first time in 232 years white males will not make up the majority of Justices at SCOTUS. :up:
The term gender has often been used synonymously with sex in colloquial speech, but technically ‘gender’ is more or less used something like how we now use ‘race’.
Not always … be honest and give hard data. It is a minuscule number. It is like saying humans don’t always have five fingers, but we all know that people don’t tend to have more than five fingers on each hand. In all my life I have never met anyone with more than ten fingers.
I understand why it is a little weird though. It was probably a case of ‘this woman is really good’ and then they find out she is black and the politicians start thinking the usual nonsense. I think the Canadian Prime Minister did a far worse thing by appointing equal ratio of women to men when statistically it makes little sense as there are far more men than women in politics.
To be fair, I understand the argument that having more women represented at the top level will inspire other women to follow and believe they can do it. But that does seem both a little patronising and I think a small increase and active encouragement to het more women into politics would have been a better way to go. I could be wrong though, but no one has convinced me otherwise yet.
First of all, biology is not limited to human biology. There are animals that are hermaphrodites and that change sex. Non-binary Second, there is no agreed upon definition of interesex Here and Here. Third, the issue that was raised during the hearings was not about how many sexes there are but about gender identity.
Humans have two sexes and ten fingers.
Reminds me of Terminators (living tissue over metal endoskeleton). What if Jackson is really a white man in a black woman's body? :chin:
Have you seen the horror flick Get Out (2017)?
And this line of questioning, like most others, by the white-faced ministrel show – Gang Of Putin senators – had absolutely nothing to do with questioning and evaluating KBJ's judicial qualifications or substantive record as a Federal judge.
Biden was the one that made a point to nominate a black woman. How does anyone know that is what he did if "woman" cannot be defined?
What if I, a biological male, identified as a transgender male (a female that identifies as being a man?)
See my earlier response:
Quoting Fooloso4
And read my last response to you,note this part:
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes, exactly! It's all messed up, you see?
It's time for the birds and the bees, Harry.
First black woman on the SCOTUS! Yay!
In terms of sex (for humans) it is simply a matter of male and female.
You have acknowledged the difference between sex and gender. The issue at hand has to do with Blackburn's challenge to define the word 'woman'. Any such definition must take into account not just sex but gender.
While Ambiguous Genitalia is rare it is not non-existent. Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Children's Minnesota, and others in the US treat these conditions.
It is a not a matter of there being more than two sexes but of ambiguity as to whether the child is male or female. In any case, and despite the only thing you care about, Blackburn's question had nothing to do with how many sexes there are.
If Jackson started identifying as a male, wouldn't we have to refer to her as "Mr. Jackson"? You would then have the bizarre sentence: Mr. Jackson was the first black woman Supreme Court Justice.
Justice Jackson or Your Honor.
Take your pick, 3 or 6. But certainly never 2.
"XX" & "XY" in most mammals (i.e. human default), no?
Quoting Harry Hindu
Ain't no fucking "royal we" here, alt-right snowflake. Just don't "celebrate" if you were soooo confused by the preceedings. :victory:
[quote=Wikipedia]Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors considered masculine are influenced by both cultural factors and biological factors. To what extent masculinity is biologically or socially influenced is subject to debate. It is distinct from the definition of the biological male sex, as anyone can exhibit masculine traits.
Although often ignored in discussions of masculinity, women can also express masculine traits and behaviors. In Western culture, female masculinity has been codified into identities such as "tomboy" and "butch".[/quote]
That casts doubt on the womanliness of Justice Jackson. Black [s]woman[/s] in SCOTUS.
Then there's the matter of Justice Jackson's race. Is race limited to the color of the skin or does it also include certain characteristic worldviews of a race/ethnicity/people? Is there anything black in the way Justice Jackson is going to tackle issues presented to her? [s]Black woman[/s] in SCOTUS.
Exceptions, nonetheless, which prove the rule (re: extant sexually reproduced mammalian species).
:lol:
There are TWO sexes. There are males and females. There are exceptional cases where the lines are not so distinct (due to various defects).
Gender, like sexuality, is more flexible. But again, a women and men are generally the default across all cultures, but there is certainly more room for different terms there as the minority size is far, far larger than for sex distinctions. And the default for sexuality is extremely diverse and always has been - although shunned in most cultures at some point historically.
In terms of men and women, I think it is fine to go with trans men and trans women as well. I would certainly not simply except (scientifically) calling a trans woman a woman because it could cause problems medically and in some competitive sporting environments.
It is not massively complicated but some people wish to make it so and others wish to oversimplify it due to prejudices and hang-ups inherited from their personal experiences (or rather lack of them).
I am well aware of cases where males (in terms of chromosomes) have lived as females most of their lives whilst completely oblivious to the fact they are ‘male’ (in terms of chromosomes). I see no reason not to accept people in such cases as whatever they wish to be called (legally too). BUT these cases are nowhere near as common as people who are trans (different distinction completely as it is heavily focused on gender).
And to repeat, if we were to define a human scientific by visual prompts alone we would not say they have 0-12 fingers because there is a degree of normative classification within biology. It is not physics.
Sex, as a reproductive act, requires (for humans) two sex cells. This is a fact. To my recollection there are no instances of an immaculate birth that have been scientifically verified for humans? As for non-functioning body parts we may as well do away with the classification of males and just call them females with non-functioning nipples?
The constant hairsplitting is a very big problem and seems to give people a reason to interpret the more nebulous science of biology as a form of social science. No, no, no. Not having it. True enough there are grey areas everywhere but they are not vast areas and to declare that there are more than two biological human sexes is disingenuous and, in some circumstances a purposefully attempt, to use colloquial wordplay alongside different scientific contexts to spout nonsense.
It's time for the birds and the bees, Kentaji.
I was merely channeling her confusion in trying to answer the question of what a woman is.
Quoting 180 Proof
Of course, 180. You only see things in black and white, or right and left. There can be no room for anyone in the middle in your warped world-view. Anyone that doesn't agree with you MUST be alt-right. It's a pathetic waste of your wits.
They can make all the claims that they want. It's when they want to take away your rights to think differently than what they claim that crosses the line. The Dems are more of a threat to liberty and free-thought than the Reps are right now. It's what happens when you are too weak to think for yourself - you become a victim of political or religious ideology. The weak-minded need a Big Brother -whether it be god or government.
Hilarious. The critical theory dog and pony show that Republicans have been playing, at the confirmation hearing and elsewhere, seems to have gotten you all riled-up. Mission accomplished.
They both play that game. The fact that you only think that one side puts on a show for their constituents just shows how much of a pawn of the political parties you are. Ban all political parties. No more Ds and Rs next to candidates names so that people like you won't know what to think when it's no longer hand-fed to you
You’re a funny guy, Harry. :grin:
It is simply down to everyone else to assess their points carefully, clinically and as honestly as possible. If you think it looks wrong, sounds wrong and/or you have evidence to show/infer otherwise then you should speak up or we will all have ti suffer the consequences down the line.
As for Reps and Dems … I’m not American. As for a black woman getting a job she is capable of doing, great! Maybe no one will bat an eyelid about such a thing in a decade or two, just like people don’t make a deal about black actors or scientists being black.
The sooner we all get over ourselves and realize that we are much more than the identities the political parties label us as for their own benefit, the better.
No, Harry, just bigots – whether or not they disagree with me – who are apologists for 'status quo ante bigotry' like yourself (according to your history of posted replies to me).
I'm sorry, but since when is advocating for the abolition of political parties (and group-think in general), term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court and banning lobbyists, "status quo"?