(09-16-2014 02:51 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  In the context of studies that show hiring bias in favor of whites, it's not far from what you wrote: "not necessarily racism (by any common definition) because rather than exclude someone who is different, they merely prefer someone who is more similar."

So you're applying one person's context about hiring to my context (primarily) about marriage?

Yes, It's QUITE far from what I wrote. It's insulting and I don't appreciate it.

Race is but one of many ways that people can be different... and in the article I linked... while race is certainly 'genetic'... I'd note that the entire study looked at single-nucleotide polymorphism in 825 non-Hispanic white American couples. Race wasn't an issue at all. Arguably, people weren't even aware of why they selected their spouse over a random, similar person.

Yes, while selection of a spouse is different in many ways from selection of an employee, it is STILL a preference based on subconscious genetic data that we never had access to yet still somehow obviously impacted our decision.

Unless you're planning on conducting genetic mutation on the entire population, I think you'd need to somehow control for these other factors, which the linked studies do not do. By only selecting non-hispanic white couples, this study controlled for race.

I can't tell you how to do that in Chicago's studies... but unless an employer SAYS that they didn't hire someone because of race, I don't know of any other way to 'prove' that race, and not musical taste or height or fit of the suit or some unknown genetic similarity was the determinant.

I'll give you a simple example... In the Greg or Lakisha study that was linked... Do you know any black people named Greg? Do you know any white people named Lakisha? I assume your answers are yes and no... or perhaps many and very few. So while I understand why you'd assume Lakisha is black, why do you assume Greg is white? Isn't the preference pretty obviously at least POSSIBLY about the more familiar sounding name and not necessarily because of the assumed race?

Run the same study with Greg and Gunter and I'm willing to bet that Greg wins as well... Do you know any black men named Gunter? Run it as Apple and Emily and I bet the more common, but arguably LESS white sounding Emily wins. Helmut and Jamal (two equally 'foreign' sounding names) MIGHT provide some meaningful data but they don't do that.

(09-16-2014 04:22 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  So you're applying one person's context about hiring to my context (primarily) about marriage?

Your post quoted his and specifically stated "the 'answer' to a number of those studies..." And even in your most recent post, you are raising objections to the studies about hiring.

The thing that you said was: "not necessarily racism (by any common definition) because rather than exclude someone who is different, they merely prefer someone who is more similar."

The thing that I said was: "I'm not racist, but I just like white people better than black people."

I should have said "they" to make it clear that I was talking about the same "they" that you were. With that clarification I guess people can decide for themselves whether they think my statement is "QUITE far from" yours.

Oh, after reading your last post, then re-reading your earlier post, then re-reading your last post, you originally meant "familiar" to specifically refer to familiar names. Okay, I misunderstood you and I apologize.