Racist - The Bear and Badger

GooberTheHat

davyK wrote:

hunk wrote:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/02/joe-biden-supreme-court-nominee-right-reaction-black-female-nominee Also relevant to the misogeny thread. Interesting to see republicans react to the possibility of a black female judge elected to the supreme court. It's shameful and quite telling....

Stating " I am going to appoint a black woman" to any job is getting things off to a bad start.

It undermines whoever gets the job straight away.

Only if you don't think there are any black women that are qualified and of the required quality to do the job.

I_R

It seems ridiculous to pretend that the best person is getting this job any more any way. The whole thing has been political for as long as I've been aware of it, but Americans do like to mytholigise their institutions.

Diluted Dante

I think it bears repeating from that article:

Let’s remember: 115 people have been appointed to the court in its 232-year existence – seven have not been white men. Seven.

Yossarian

Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court. Brett Kavanaugh.

RedDave2

davyK wrote:

hunk wrote:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/02/joe-biden-supreme-court-nominee-right-reaction-black-female-nominee Also relevant to the misogeny thread. Interesting to see republicans react to the possibility of a black female judge elected to the supreme court. It's shameful and quite telling....

Stating " I am going to appoint a black woman" to any job is getting things off to a bad start. It undermines whoever gets the job straight away.

I would probably normally agree but I think in this situation there is a fair case to be made that while qualifictaion for the role is vital (although as Yoss said ... Brett got on there) the panel should refelct America and there is no Black Woman there. There is One Black Man and Five Female Judges. There's a "gap in the market" and as long as the person is also qualified than I think its worth making that argument.

Fuck it, put it up to the likes of Fox... if the person is qualified than aint that enough?

b0r1s

This best person for the job is a crock of shit and always always comes from middle class white men. Who interviews the “best person”? Another white guy. Another white guy who can bond over chats about the good old days and their par at golf during the interview process. “You’ve got the job”.

davyK

It's the announcement that does the damage. A supreme court should reflect the population of a nation.

Being mischevious here, but what is the purpose of selecting a black woman? Is it so that decisions would be different or is it window dressing?

Without bias, any group would eventually reflect the makeup of the population. The fact that it isn't means there is bias. There could be cultural influences too such as the makeup of the legal student population.

Of course there is bias. It's the old argument of positive discrimination to try and correct things. I'm not convinced that it does any good.

There was an attempt to use that mechanism to correct the makeup of the NI police force re protestant/catholic ratios. It helped the figures initally but didn't work in the long run. It is still at 70/30 with a 50/50 population.

RedDave2

Again , normally I would agree with you but I think given what it represents maybe it's warranted.

To hopefully give their perspective to future rulings
To make black woman feel they are represented on the court.
By having more than one black person, further reduce the tokenism aspect.

davyK

Politics gets in the way of something like a supreme court appointment too.

It's back to my old chestnut of education. It's a generational thing to really fix something like this. How boys and girls relate in schools is problematic enough. Race needs addressed too.

Funkstain

davyK wrote:

It's the announcement that does the damage.

That reflects badly on those who feel they've been "damaged"

A supreme court should reflect the population of a nation.

Yes. In which case where are the latinX judges

Being mischevious here, but what is the purpose of selecting a black woman?

So that there is more diversity leading to better recombinant decision making. White male judges may be highly capable but they share similar blind spots in terms of experience and knowledge and culture. Black female judges can help them with that.

Is it so that decisions would be different or is it window dressing?

The former. Wider, more diverse experiences lead to better idea sharing and growth lead to better outcomes

Without bias, any group would eventually reflect the makeup of the population. The that it isn't means there is bias.

And it's to correct that 'bias" (aka racism and sexism) that this kind of decision needs to be made

There could be cultural influences too such as the makeup of the legal student population. Of course there is bias. It's the old argument of positive discrimination to try and correct things. I'm not convinced that it does any good. There was an attempt to use that mechanism to correct the makeup of the NI police force re protestant/catholic ratios. It helped the figures initally but didn't work in the long run. It is still at 70/30 with a 50/50 population.

There may well be arguments about how positive discrimination works in different scenarios. In this one, the Supreme Court, it is vitally necessary to have a court that better represents the people who have to live with its judgements; and in all cases, more diversity leads to better decisions due to more ways of looking at things because of different backgrounds and experiences and ways of thinking about things.

Of course all of this is assuming the black judge to be appointed has expert competence and experience (already more than you can say about the white male judges appointed by Trump), which I think is safe to assume?

edit: not necessary. retracted with apologies

Funkstain

There is no need to find ways of defending horrible people and horrible opinions like those on found on the US Right. Appointing a black woman judge (which btw does not much to impact the so-called "partisan arithmetic" of the court's make-up) is a great move with a wide variety of benefits and has nothing to do with "best person for job" stuff in terms of experience and qualifications and absolutely everything to do with best person for the job in the contextual circumstances

Diluted Dante

davyK wrote:

It's the announcement that does the damage. A supreme court should reflect the population of a nation.
Being mischevious here, but what is the purpose of selecting a black woman?

See your previous sentence.

Yossarian

Excellent posts, Funk.

davyK

The announcement does the damage. It undermines whoever is selected. They are the token black person/woman/gay/disabled whatever.

I doubt the person wants selected under that criteria either.

The selection process needs changed , not the candidates.

hunk

But, what if say the selection pool is 80-90% white middle/upper class male and 10-20% other.
Won't the 'selection process' reflect the majority population of the selection pool rather than the national make up?

How can one address this issue without upsetting the majority of the selection pool mentioned above?

hunk

Also, if the judiciary has trouble grasping my above post you just know they are shit and ill fitted for the supreme court.

poprock

hunk wrote:

But, what if say the selection pool is 80-90% white middle/upper class male and 10-20% other. Won't the 'selection process' reflect the majority population of the selection pool rather than the national make up? How can one address this issue without upsetting the majority of the selection pool mentioned above?

You can’t address that quickly without being accused of tokenism, which is what’s happening. You need to address it long term by creating a more equal society (providing access to education and opportunities at every level of the legal profession). And you aren’t likely to get that without more diversity represented at the top, so you do a bit of tokenism to get things started.

Or at least, I think that’s a fair oversimplification.

Funkstain

Again. It only undermines the candidate in the eyes of those who would always have undermined them. For the rest of us, it's extremely clear to see that this is way past due

If you think for example that had this decision been kept quiet, and then "voila" turns out black woman judge best for job wouldn't have attracted EXACTLY the same reaction then you're being obtuse or naif.

If you think that a "better" selection process, which as Hunk says would almost certainly result in the status quo without "interference" or correction like this, would result in more black judges then again obtuse or naif.

People have funny ideas about positive discrimination. Often libertarian "people just need to take their opportunities and try harder" people, who recognise that it's "harder" for minorities but that the best person for the job is the best person for the job and that's that. As if there is some objective measure (IQ, is one they often fall back on, which is sinister) that determines "best" judgement.

If you want better decisions, you need diversity: of background, of experience, of ways of looking at problems and opportunities. This is regardless of arbitrary measures of "status quo" white man competences

mistercrayon

I think they can pick whoever they want get the image they want without essentially undermining the idea of what they’re doing by stating it so bluntly. It’s really bad. No minority appointment benefits from having this luggage imo. I am not convinced a person wants to be hired under a cloud that they might have been second best but met some agenda of a benefactor.

It’s premium spit it out of the side of your mouth virtue signalling by Biden - when it’s all said and done the victory is lessened for the person who gets the job while Biden attempts to bask in the glory of it.

Let me be a bit more clear - I think someone like Kavanaugh isn’t going to give a shit because the guy is a drunk bum and getting a job for life. A person who has worked their ass off harder than anyone else I think will appreciate less that they’re getting a favour if it comes with diminishment of the role.

Funkstain

Whether Biden gets glory or not is beside the point. The victory would be lessened, if they chose to see it like that, whether the criteria had been pre-announced or not, because accusations of tokenism were bound to follow whichever route they take.

You need to try and see it differently: as a necessary corrective, as a force for better decisions from a severely undiverse supreme court. Everything else is just noise, and a lot of it is unsavoury

Yossarian

mistercrayon wrote:

I am not convinced a person wants to be hired under a cloud that they might have been second best but met some agenda of a benefactor.

When talking about Supreme Court justices, I’m not sure it’s possible for this to be avoided.

Lord_Griff

Just hire 5 white people, 2 Hispanic, 1 black, and 1 half Asian. Solved.

mistercrayon

He’s basically stated on the record it’s an unfair completion. If you can’t see how that would make it worse than I’m not really convinced about your other points.

Yossarian

Why is it automatically unfair? Are you suggesting that there is no black woman qualified for the role?

Lord_Griff

Whoopi Goldberg?

GooberTheHat

He made the commitment to appointing a black women to the supreme court as part of his election campaign, so the only suprise should be "politician keeping their promise shocker".

mistercrayon

Don’t be fucking stupid.

@yoss.

Yossarian

Then why is it automatically unfair?

Lord_Griff

This feels like the time mummy and daddy were screaming at each other and all I wanted them to do is look at how far I could slide on my knees.

GooberTheHat

Funks point about "the best candidate for the job" within the wider context of society addresses the question of fairness.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories