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dahartyesterday at 4:47 PM1 replyview on HN

> that’s the very thing we decided is immoral

Racism is the thing we decided is immoral, actions based on belief that one group is inferior to another, not any and all notions of groups for any reason.

> Objectively, Black Americans are extremely privileged by virtue of being Americans. A redlined community in 1950s America was still better than my dad’s village in Bangladesh.

Whoa. They should be happy with what they have, and put up with racism and inequality here because there are poorer people somewhere else in the world? Some Blacks in 1950 couldn’t vote - they were “privileged”?


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rayineryesterday at 5:21 PM

> Racism is the thing we decided is immoral, actions based on belief that one group is inferior to another, not any and all notions of groups for any reason.

No, what we decided was wrong was using race as a salient factor to discriminate between people. That’s why all our laws use that word. The laws reflect the moral principle.

> They should be happy with what they have, and put up with racism and inequality here because there are poorer people somewhere else in the world?

You’re the one supporting a system of affirmative action that treats people unequally. My point is that, if your justification for that unequal treatment is the historical circumstances of people’s parents and grandparents, then it’s quite relevant that almost any applicant with roots in America has a huge head start over almost any applicant with roots in Asia, Africa, or the Middle East.

I’m not the one who brought up the redlining example. That’s an example invoked by proponents of affirmative action. But if you invoke that reasoning, you should follow it through to its logical conclusions. If a university is choosing between an applicant whose family home in America has reduced value due to redlining, and an applicant whose family home is in a literal third world village, then what’s the moral logic for giving an advantage to the first applicant?

> Some Blacks in 1950 couldn’t vote - they were “privileged

None of my grandparents could vote in 1950 because they lived in a colony. Nobody whose family comes from China, Vietnam, etc., has grandparents who could vote in 1950.

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