Why do so many immigrants come to the US if it's racist?

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You might believe the bolded but that doesn't make it true. Things like affirmative action are attempts to rectify the problem but so far efforts to reduce the problem haven't eliminated it. Not all institutional bias is officially mandated and the people who perpetuate it will rarely admit to their contributions even as they're sitting in the restaurant celebrating not having to hire a qualified applicant.

Nobody said she wasn't qualified. But the point is that they had like 500 applicants and they had to select 1 person. So basically they had to ignore the rest of 499 applicants and just hire her, because she is black.

If they already had several black professors they wouldn't feel obliged to hire someone on the basis of their race because they'd already be able to claim their representation was adequate. If the problem didn't exist nothing would need to be done to attempt to solve it. Do you suggest we just ignore the issue of representation and allow racist hiring practices to ensure that issue never improves?

First of all, the university where there was that black woman applicant was UC Berkeley. So its pretty hard to believe that UC Berkeley would have racist hiring practices, since it is well known to be very left liberal. Also, when I was an undergrad at UC Berkeley, most of my physics professors were Asian (although there were some white professors too) yet none of them were black, as you have guessed. So you can't really say that they are singularly racist against blacks without being racist against asians. A lot more plausible explanation is that they don't have that many black people among applicants, because blacks either choose some field other than math or physics, or they end up failing at some point.

I think this happened on the level of undergrad, long before they ever were in a position to apply for professorhood. When I was taking upper division math and physics classes I only remember two black students. Now, you can't blame this on racist college admission, because of affirmative action. And, in fact, when I took city planning class because of breadth requirenment, there were a lot more black students there. So yes black students were admitted to university, they just didn't become math or physics majors. And as far as declaring a major, once you are at a university, you can declare any major you like. So you can't blame their "choice" of major on racism.

Also I remember when I was in Mississippi, two of my officemates were from Iran and the third one was from China. Now, if there is anybody that people would currently be racist against, that would be people from Iran. Plus, Mississippi is reputed to be one of the most racist states. Yet those students from Iran were still accepted into graduate school to Mississippi. At the same time, I haven't seen black math or physics graduate students, not even in Berkeley. So if you are still going to insist that everything is due to racism, you would have to argue that somehow blacks are even more hated than people from Iran, despite everything that is going on. As you see, that just gets absurd.

The way in which racism "might" be relevant is that, due to the racism few decades ago, the parents of black students are poor and are not able to provide them adequate education. But, again, ask yourself what about other minorities. For example, Jews were persecutted in Europe throughout millenia and the discrimination against them stopped pretty much after world war 2 when people felt sorry for them due to holocaust. But, despite all that, they are very successful. For example, half of the noble price winners are either Jews or half Jews. So why is that Jews were able to succeed despite the historic discrimination and blacks couldn't?

Now I am not denying that what historically happened to parents and grandparents might make it harder to be able to afford education and so forth. But at the same time, with enough effort, it is possible to overcome this, as the example of Jews illustrates. In America they already did plenty of things to black people to help them recover from the historic disadvantage: affirmative action and so forth. But there is only so much other people can do. At some point blacks have to just try and help themselves, or not.

I don't doubt that Berkeley tries, that said it would also be a matter of how much autonomy each department has in hiring whether or not having good intentions at the top makes a difference within each department.

It doesn't matter what the top level administration wants done if the little cliques beneath can flat out ignore any directives on the matter.

You've devolved into victim blaming and insisting racism can't possibly be a factor because some other group has had a different experience. Of course it's not worth considering that different minorities are subjected to different stereotypes and negative attitudes. It isn't just mere one dimensional hate.

I guess because one solution has been tried for awhile that clearly is evidence that the problem either doesn't exist or is all their fault because reasons you won't dare specify.

Most people can't tell a jew apart from other people simply by looking at them, while with a black person, most people can tell with a single glance that yes, this person is black. Therefore, black people are more likely to be spotted by racists than Jews, and if those racists happen to be hiring or in some other position of power, it's easier for them to cause trouble for the target of their racism if they want to.

I'm not saying this is the only reason, but it's gotta be one of the reasons.

The thing is that the population of Berkeley as a whole is left wing. Look for example at the vote statistics: https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/iss ... icle/45173 There are more people from Berkeley that vote for 3-rd party than for Trump.



I know that the stereotypes are different. But the result is the same: they don't want to hire them. So why is it that some groups are able to overcome this and still succeed while others can't?



If you want to suggest something that was never tried before, then go ahead and suggest it: I am all for it. But doing more of the same thing feels rather pointless.

I don't know how it is in Finland, but here is my experience between Russia and America. So in Russia they know how to spot a Jew; in America they don't. That is tied to the fact that in Russia they think of Jew as a genetic group while in America they tend to think of it as a religion. Also in Russia there is a lot more antisemitism than there is in America. So I guess what this tells me is that people who find it important to recognize a Jew, they can learn how. Americans simply don't find it that important.

But like I said I don't know about Finland. From what you told me earlier, Finland is more like Sweden than like Russia. I been to Sweden only very briefly for a physics conference and I haven't been to Finland at all. So I am sure you know it better than me.

In any case, in this day and age when everything is by computer, the appearance won't matter until the interview. I guess the way blacks disclose themselves is that, at least in America, they ask about race in the application form. But that is meant to help blacks rather than hurt them. Like that black applicant for a professor position is a good example of this.

From what I've understood, in USA there are entire neighborhoods and areas that have mostly black people living in them, so just seeing an address can lead to discrimination. And I think names can too in some cases; some names are way likelier to belong to an immigrant or someone whose parent was an immigrant than someone whose been in the country for generations. Though I suppose this one might be a smaller problem in USA than where I'm from since USA is known as a melting pot of cultures.
I didn't know they ask about race in job applications in the USA. Here it would be considered racist... and you know, even if the purpose of asking for the race is to help racial minorities, it's just as easy to use that information for racist purposes.

No, racism totally exists but thats a very different thing than saying that the USA is a "racist" country. I've been to racists countries. The USA isn't one.

There are areas with "higher concentration of blacks", that is true. But it is not anywhere close to 99%, so it won't be safe to say that someone is black just because they are living in that area. As a matter of fact, my mom lives in one of such areas. But clearly she isn't black, she just didn't have enough money to buy a house in a richer area. And as it happens most of her neighbors are white too (except for one house where there are blacks) but that is just her little street that is white; then the street next to it has lots of blacks. Incidentally, one of the professors with whom I worked on a joint paper also recently moved to that area and he is white as well.



Again that is often not the case. One example that comes to mind is I was talking to a woman with last name Wright. Then later I heard of some black activists with that name. But that woman certainly wasn't black. How can different races get the same last name, I really don't know. My only theory is that maybe at some point someone decided to change their last name, and then they just passed their new last name to their children.

By the way in Russia it is a lot easier to find the ethnicity based on the last name. For example, one can distinguish an ethnic Russian from ethnic Jew based on the last name. And if someone has a last name such as Wright, then it is clear they are immigrant (since neither ethnic Russians nor ethnic Jews would have such a name if they live in Russia). But I guess in America its a lot harder: you can't even distinguish white from black as the above example illustrates.



Yeah, exactly. In the US it is a lot harder to tell by the last name because it is a melting pot.

So what about Finland, what is it like? Can you typically tell ethnicity based on the last names? Is discrimination common in Finland?



I believe that section is optional. But I am not sure about it, I haven't really thought about it. I simply just answer that I am white, so it never occurred to me to think of what if someone doesn't want to answer.

That is exactly my point. Thank you.

I never said racism doesn't exist. Every country has some proportion of racists in it. My whole point was that it is incorrect to say that USA is a racist country as a whole.

You're welcome to insist that but that's not the experience others have reported.

Political districts are gerrymandered to disenfranchise minority voters throughout much of the country.
There are substantial differences in per capita wealth and most other economic indicators.
White supremacists have repeatedly used violence against their opponents without facing any significant consequences.
There are institutional biases within law enforcement that lead to some communities not feeling safe reporting crime.
There are institutional biases within law enforcement that lead to some communities constantly being subjected to more scrutiny than others on the basis of stereotypes.

That's just a handful of systemic issues off the top of my head. But hey, we can pretend it's not racism and that there's some other valid explanation for why this situation exists if it protects your feelings.

If America was truly a racist country, how dod we elect a black man twice?

We definitely still have issues with systemic racism, though.

You say that like Obama's presidency resolved all of the systemic issues.

The systemic issues and the backlash generated whenever there's attempts to discuss them are why I don't hesitate to call countries like the US or Canada racist countries instead of just countries filled with racists. The racism isn't a bug, it's a feature. It was baked in from day one and that legacy continues to be relevant.

No, I didn't, obviously.

Pick your battles more carefully. We both agree that systematic racism exists, I just disagree with the terminology you're employing.