I feel that the younger generation has very little to no feelings of prejudice towards ethnic or sexual groups. I'm talking as a teenager myself. It's more the older people that generally discriminate.
It's possible that, over time, the problem will solve itself.
>Perhaps more important, though, researchers have found that men are prone to seeing discrimination as a zero-sum game. That is, they believe that discrimination against one group necessarily benefits another group and vice versa, so any policy that benefits African-Americans, for instance, harms whites, and any policy that benefits women amounts to discrimination against men. Fifteen years ago, younger men — and women of all ages — overwhelmingly rejected this view, but recent data shows that younger white men are now about as likely as older men to see discrimination as zero-sum.
Fifteen years ago one of the primary theories for equality was treating everyone equally with no distinction to race or gender. Liberty and individuals own ability to control their life was the agenda, and benefits of liberty should have been rather obvious for anyone that its not a zero-sum game. The abolishment of single-gender profession like that of the article, Rosa Parks and abolishment of racial segregation, and burning of gender specific clothing can all be said as a product of this theory and described as equality of opportunity.
The dominant theory today seems quite evident to be focused difference equality which is based on politics of action based upon treating people of different races and gender different but equal. Here local liberty and individuals freedom of choice can and often is sacrificed if the end result is predicted to provides less lower power differences in society. Affirmative action, diversity quota, and single-gender activities are all strongly associated with this under the concept of equality of outcome.
Trying to convince young white men to have less liberty and choices in life compared to others in order for society to have more balanced power distribution in the future is a quite hard sell, and I agree with those that describe that as discrimination. Trying to convince them to treat everyone as equals with no distinction to race or gender is not that hard, and by what I have seen in the last 15 years, already achieved in the age group that libeclipse mentioned. The observation in that linked article simply fails to acknowledge the different tactics used from 15 years ago vs now.
Yeah. They have gone through a schooling system full of 'positive' discrimination. As amusing as it is to say that I only have negative things to say about positive discrimination I actually feel that it is often terribly implemented, and that those who run round spouting such labels are often (though not always) the wrong people to be involved in enacting positive discrimination.
Before enacting any form of discrimination ask yourself this - is the group I am discriminating actually the group I want to target, or are they a proxy group?
It is all too easy to cite a gender paygap on the assumption that men and women both want the same things, but this isn't true. If you go to the wikipedia page [0] for 'Gender pay gap' you will find that direct discrimination is a very small part of the pay gap, and if you follow through to the EU links [1] you will find it is littered with the assumption that men and women should want the same things (work/life balance, family life, etc.).
To my mind the category of 'woman' is not a good one for assesing pay discrimination. It is an interesting proxy group yes, but it doesn't provide a useful means of going forward. You need to identify causes and treat the causes without discrimination from your proxy, only based on your member group.
Teaching negotiation strategies is a good thing to do, that treats a real problem. If you only teach women (as 'women in work' groups do) you create problems for men who aren't good, as they are now very likely to be the worst negotiators. If instead you use a real metric (say an evaluation for poor negotiation skills) as an entry requirement for the program you aren't hurting anybody and you are reducing one of the real portions of the gender pay gap.
In other words actually solving problems is hard and net positive, but using prejudices to simplify your problem is easy and can be zero-sum or even negative.
Some problems with your example of "teaching negotiation strategies":
- It assumes that discriminatory outcomes are solely created by behavioural differences (i. e. "Women would earn the same if only they were better negotiators"). While nobody is denying that behaviour is a contributing factor, it's hard to deny that there is some direct discrimination going on[0]
- It takes the existing structures as god-given, unchangeable fact, i. e. "Compensation is set in an adversarial negotiation".
- It assumes that the outcome of a process cannot be discriminatory if gender/race/age/... weren't direct inputs into the process, i. e. "we'd love to have more African-American engineers, but the Lacrosse-requirement has always been part of our hiring process".
- It places the full burden of change on the group that is discriminated against, i. e. "Teach women to act more like white men when negotiating".
- It fais to answer the question "What should I, an African-American, do to lower my chances of being shot at any random traffic stop?"
[0]: from your Wikipedia link: "A 2007 study showed that for identical resumes fewer replies were sent to men compared with women (it also showed that women do worse when they have children, while men do worse when they don't).[66] Another study showed more jobs for women when orchestras moved to blind auditions"
* the negotiation example was taken from the EU summary article as an example not based on the persons choice
* the gist of my argument is that people aren't all the same and have predispositions
* the 'stop yourself getting shot' argument is ridiculous. I was highlighting that discrimination based on proxy groups is bad. As for what to do if you are being discriminated against? Don't go for 'positive' doscrimination, identify the group you are being used as a proxy for and convince the people with power that you aren't them. Of course it isn't easy, but at least it doesn't shove thr problem onto somebody else.
"This actually seems to be moving in the other direction..."
That's not supported by the link you provided. That page says they're 'about as likely'. If it were moving in the other direction, it would instead say 'more likely'.
Moreover, the last sentence you quoted gets that info from a paper[0] which found no significant correlation of attitudes with age.
Even if it had found any correlation, the manner in which the survey was conducted wouldn't demonstrate that GP in incorrect. 99% of survey participants had graduated high school. It sounds like, though the authors claim the survey participants reflected the mix in the 2000 census, they've restricted their analysis to adults (18+ ?).
That might be because, in a lot of ways, it i̶s̶ can be true. If I (a white man) don't get selected for a job because of a diversity program that requires that x% of workers be a PoC, it does actively harm me because I would have (possibly) otherwise have been chosen for that job.
I'm not saying that this is always the case (or even that it usually is), but this scenario wasn't true 15 or 20 years ago.
For the record, as a social justice type, I think that the solution to diversity issues in the workplace isn't to enforce percentage figures - it's to figure out why the workplace isn't attracting members of X group, change it so that it is, and actively seek out applications from diverse communities. If you're doing everything right, you should almost naturally wind up with a diverse workplace. Of course, guess which of these choices is the cheapest and requires the least amount of change in culture. One can also be imposed top-down while the other requires cultural buy-in in the first place.
you should almost naturally wind up with a diverse workplace
That's a factual claim which implies that different groups of people are uniform in their preferences and thus you'd find equal representation of people across all fields. A lot of people find this to be an absurd proposition with a mountain of evidence to contradict it.
If cultural and workplace issues were the explanation for disproportionate representation in different workplaces then we would expect to see the countries which implement the most solutions to those issues have the most equal representations. In fact, what we see is the opposite. The Scandinavian countries have the best policies (generous child care, long parental leave, extensive anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training, board quotas) and yet they have even more gender self-segregation by occupation than other developed countries [0].
That's one interpretation, another one is that if you're that marginal of a candidate anyway you've probably benefitted a lot already by previous employers and institutions.
"but recent data shows that younger white men are now about as likely as older men to see discrimination as zero-sum."
This is not surprising.
In 1960, it's pretty easy to see how 'ending segregation' can be a win-win (or at least, not detrimental to 'whites'), and that a lot of social justice was needed to help people along.
In 2016, we still have more work to do, but a lot of progress can be made, and a Universities policy of requiring specific ethnic students to be accepted is technically definitely a 'zero sum' situation ... so it's not hugely surprising that public perception has shifted somewhat over time.
I'm not rationalizing it, I'm describing why perception has changed.
I you're a 'white guy' working in NYC in 1960, it's easy to see how desegregation is 'good thing' that doesn't challenge your status.
If you're a 'white guy' in Alabama in 2016, and know that 4% of the spots in your College have to go to 'people of colour' - in 2016, 50 years after desegregation wherein most people have at least some opportunity - you might be more likely to perceive that specific scenario as zero-sum.
I'm afraid you're in for a nasty shock. I used to believe the same - it wasn't until my late 20s that I began to realize quite how much prejudice remains in the world. Now I'm in my 30s I see it everywhere, and I'm shocked at how much I missed when I was growing up.
Not a snark - it is also possible that over time interactions with a few individuals could change you enough to ostracize entire groups - unless you explicitly guard against that.
This is the one I really don't relate to. There are plenty of terrible people in the world of every possible classification. I am always saddened when someone judges me because they had bad experiences with people of similar characteristics. I would never want to put someone else in that situation.
I've met lots and lots of horrible white dudes in the tech industry, but that doesn't stop me from assuming that new people I meet who fit that profile aren't terrible.
Perhaps none of the young people that you hang out with are bigots. Don't let that become a convenient excuse to ignore all the bigotry happening just outside of your sight--and, especially, far from progressive urban centers.
" It's more the older people that generally discriminate."
I believe younger people are often ageist, and also discriminate based on ideology, behaviours etc..
I also believe that though younger people have no resentment towards other races/genders, that they may have some systematically racial behaviours they are not yet developed the 'self awareness' of.
Finally, I'd suggest that a lot of 'systematic racism' - which definitely exists - may not be as perniciously bad as we think - it may have more to do with 'self selecting' behaviours. In Toronto, there is a strong 'Chinese community', 'Italian community'. They tend to stick to themselves a little more. Basically all of the 'roofers' in my hood were Italian. It's a stereotype but true. They hire their buds, and buds of buds. Nothing wrong with that. (I lived in the 'Italian community' and felt like an outsider, though I never minded it). When this kind of soft ethnocentrism is exhibited by a 'majority group' - it might be perceived as something different, i.e. derogatory, or 'racist'.
I think that the subject of this article would make a really great film ...
It's very useful for people with followers to promote an out group. This is just as true of high school politics as presidential elections. "It's them damn foreigners!" Tends to quickly move into racial or ethnic lines.
He means people discriminate on many other qualities and factors: age, class, profession, religion, appearance, language, grammar, accent, weight, education, political party, musical taste, programming language, text editor, etc...
It's possible that, over time, the problem will solve itself.