Identity Politics and Life
Interestingly enough, even the president of the United States isn’t immune from the discussion of identity politics and racism. It seems that he is even leaning into it by pledging that the next Supreme Court justice will be a black woman. As the link points out and as everyone kind of knew going in, there was much protesting. Some people have called it reverse discrimination. Then again, it is not completely out of the realm of possibility for conservatives to also play identity politics. Amy Coney Barrett replaced Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Clarence Thomas replaced Thurgood Marshall. I’m sure those were just coincidences.
What exactly is systemic racism and what can we do to combat it? When institutions and companies make extra efforts to be diverse are they in fact participating in reverse discrimination? These are excellent questions and questions we don’t have easy answers for.
Unless there is a compelling reason, each institution, company, or organization should reflect the overall demographic breakdown of the community it is in. There are notable exceptions where we look foolish for arguing otherwise. Hooters is not going to hire male wait staff. The vast majority of teachers, garbage collectors, and soldiers will be skewed to one gender or another. The vast majority of professional and amateur athletes won’t be a representative sample either.
So, do we make specific efforts to be inclusive when those efforts might stack the deck for a particular position? That of course depends on the specific reason why someone like Biden might be restricting his search. The law impacts different groups in different ways. The court currently has three women on it. It has one African American. Adding an African American woman adds both of those perspectives.
When we measure the presence of racism based on the measurement of the outcome we often paint with a very broad brush. Yesterday, I mentioned the NFL. Jack Easterby was hired by the Texans in 2019 as an executive vice president. Without going into specifics on him we could simply say that it was a position he had never held before.
So, how in the blazes did he get such a position? Obviously, he knew some people and one thing led to another. That’s usually how these things work. The trouble is that when the vast majority of owners and executives are white then the “he knew someone” usually translates into hiring of another white guy. People hire people they are comfortable with or already know. It doesn’t make them a racist per se, but the outcome is a negative one for people of color.
Easterby got his start as a character coach of sorts. A character coach should be adept at relating to players and other employees. They should be comfortable with him. If a majority of the players are African American then wouldn’t it make more sense to have a character coach that is African American? Of course, they hired someone else to be a character coach when Easterby was promoted. He is someone Easterby knew and of course he is also white.
I don’t have any easy answers. This isn’t to say that men can’t relate to women or vice versa. This isn’t to say that people of color can’t relate to white people or vice versa. This isn’t to say that someone that came from money can’t relate to someone that didn’t or vice versa. If relating to special populations is a considerable part of the job then whether or not someone can represent that special population has to be a serious consideration. If we continue go with the “guy we know” then that isn’t likely to happen.
In the 4th paragraph you wrote: “The court currently has two women on it.” As much as I would like to not have to count Amy, since her viewpoint does not seem to reflect women’s lives or concerns, she is there with Sonia and Elena.
1Three women on SCOTUS, man, three women, including one wise Latina whose dissents help sustain my will to live these days.
People hire people who look like the people who had the jobs before. Remember Amazon’s attempt at using machine learning to vet resumes? They had to shut down the project when they ended up with all white men because that’s who had the jobs before. They just codified in tech what’s been going on for centuries. And the beat goes on…
2Thank you for catching that. I guess I didn’t count Amy Coney Barrett since she really doesn’t represent women. It’s been fixed.
3I went to a high school where the football team was two thirds African American but they couldn’t seem to find even one coach out of the eight who looked like two thirds of the players. That was in the late seventies. Same demographic at the school today. But now they’ve got a whole ONE African American line coach. Of course, a couple of the other coaches are related to each other or went to school with the most of the other coaches.
Cozy.
A non diverse coaching staff hasn’t made them state champs or even county champs— but who knows if they ever would be big time winners even if they had more black coaches. I know for a fact nobody will ever find out. And as the coaching comfort zone hasn’t seemed to bother the boosters. . . . . . Seems high school can resemble the toddler pool to the NFL.
The more things change the more a whole lot of people want things to stay the same. Cozy.
4@ Angela #4,
There are a number of factors in addition to racism. Lovie Smith one of the Texans assistant coaches. He is African American. He hired his son as one of his assistants. What’s funny is that a number of people raised their eyebrows over the obvious nepotism. Yet, you can find children on staffs all the time. This time it just happened to benefit a person of color.
5I think it’s interesting that you don’t have to be a lawyer to be one of the Supremes. There are all sorts of biases, and that could be seen as one too. I’m sure Ted Cruz will dissect all of them for his dumb tweets and podcasts.
6“Amy Coney Barrett replaced Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Clarence Thomas replaced Thurgood Marshall.”
Let it be noted, however, that neither Amy Coney Barrett nor Clarence Thomas is fit to shine their predecessor’s shoes. That said, I’m all for a diversity of viewpoints, which is certainly not what we have now. A black woman Supreme Court Justice would provide that, and be a historic first.
7In spite of my anarcho-commie leanings, I think Biden made a big mistake in this. He should appoint a woman of color, but he should not have announced it in advance. It would have reduced the weeks of wailing and screaming from the usual apes, and restricted it to the period after her name is announced. Now we’ll have the “reverse discrimination” howls, mostly coming from people who can’t spell the word “law” even if you spot them two letters.
For some years I chaired my department’s graduate admissions committee. Only 14% of researchers in my field are of the female persuasion. I mentally decided that any US woman applying would be admitted, unless there was a strong reason to reject her. While males had to present a convincing case that they should be admitted. But I only revealed this to my colleagues when I retired. There were howls and moans about how that must have damaged the department, depriving it of what surely would have been better students. Unfortunately for those professor, I came equipped with data tracking the students over years, how many completed the degree on time, how many went on to highly successful careers. Then how less successful the male students were in aggregate (and how we had two male graduates who have gone on to become infamous for sex harassment, being fired or forced to resign from their positions).
But you can be sure that if I had announced my informal policy in advance, I could never have implemented it!
8Surly Professor:
– good on you for having an affirmative enthusiasm for minority candidates, as marked by gender. My Dad, active in a professional association for engineers, worked extensively to overcome barriers in education, hiring, promotion, and professional recognition of women. He quietly mentioned those efforts were some of the most challenging and least successful of his career (which was 1947-1982 while working, and then less and less intense efforts until about 1987).
– As a former member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a VP who had been part of additional selection processes, I’m pretty certain Biden understood what would happen — good and bad — from his announced preference. Without that announced position, he very well might not have come back from early setbacks in his candidacy to become the nominee, and it is entirely possible his narrow win in Georgia and perhaps other states would not have happened without the enthusiasm of Black women.
9