And it's stance on slavery: "There shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage or Captivitie amongst us unles it be lawfull Captives taken in just warres, and such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of god established in Israel concerning such persons doeth morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be Judged thereto by Authoritie."
The Constituion of Massachusetts (1780) also banned slavery.
This is inconsistent with your characterization of the Puritans.
I'm worried that this will just breed deeper resentment among a socially fractured lower class that would be stronger were it more unified. I'm white though, I know what my thoughts on these issues are worth.
Here on HN I believe this to be true. But the frighteningly common viewpoint today among progressives today is that white people are not allowed to have a voice when discussing topics of race. This isn't a fringe opinion, there's been bestselling books[1] on the topic.
It's because you're not poor, and you're not in Oakland. You have absolutely no facts about the situation, but you're here anyway, "just worried" about hypothetical people you don't know and haven't even gathered statistics on. You've got no idea why they're offering this to poor blacks in Oakland, and you're just gonna take a guess.
And you're promptly validated in that by other non-poor non-Oaklanders who tell you -- and I'm quoting here -- that your lack of experience is "100%" equivalent to those who do have experience.
That's the problem here: not your whiteness, but the outrage you feel at being excluded from a decision in which you've got no information and no stake. That stems from all of the things at once: your whiteness, your maleness (go ahead, tell me I'm wrong about that), and all the other dimensions along which people get excluded from things and simply never happen to you.
And instead of saying, "Tell me more", you tell everybody that your opinion is devalued solely because of the color of your skin, so that all of the other people in this room full of middle-class white men will tell you that it's wrong to exclude you.
I know you've long since stopped listening to me, but I'm nonetheless going to make a suggestion: the next time you're "just worried" about something, consider whether you've done anything to assuage that worry. Without that, it looks like you're just trying to inform the Oakland City Council of something that it already knows -- because it's literally the only thing you know about it.
That's correct. You're going to have to learn what it's like to be told "You don't know what you're talking about, and your guesses are in fact not as good as the expertise of other people".
The fact that this is so hard for you to hear is the reason that we're having this discussion. People in the majority are have become accustomed to not just having opinions, but to have their opinions override those of other people because they are the majority.
They've gotten used to being told to shut up, and now majorities are starting to learn how that feels. It's not great.
Why did you say "just worried"? I didn't say "just worried," I said "worried," your quote is trying to frame me as a Karen and it's inaccurate.
What about my response made you think I'm "outraged"?
"that your lack of experience is "100%" equivalent to those who do have experience." - no one in this thread said this, so I'm curious who you're quoting.
All of your quotes are false. You're trying desperately to wedge this into a narrative that just isn't there.
"Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded as normal practice within society or an organization. It can lead to such issues as discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power, and education, among other issues."
The Oakland municipal government (organization) is discriminating by race for benefits that will impact housing, access to healthier food, etc.
This is an attempt at undoing institutional racism. The average black family is 10x poorer then the average white family. I'm sure you would agree that is also systemic racism. The quickest/most simple way to fix that systemic racism is to directly give wealth to black families like this.
>This is an attempt at undoing institutional racism.
"We're achieving peace by expanding our global war." You're using scary 1984 logic here.
>The average black family is 10x poorer then the average white family.
Not sure what the actual numbers are but they don't matter. We'll assume it's true.
>I'm sure you would agree that is also systemic racism
Not necessarily. The existence of inequity does not mean the system is inherently unequal. This is the fatal flaw in your logic.
>The quickest/most simple way to fix that systemic racism is to directly give wealth to black families like this.
This is illogic based on a falsehood. Race should NEVER be a factor here, it should only be poverty level or class. The simplest way to get rid of systemic racism is... to get rid of systemic racism (enact legislation to remove Jim Crow as an example) which we have. Introducing systemic racism by definition does not fix the problem it only makes it worse.
If we want to combat poverty (inequity), then the UBI should go to the poorest among us. If the bottom 10% of society ends up being 80% Black, that's okay.
> "We're achieving peace by expanding our global war." You're using scary 1984 logic here.
Funny, I feel like you are the one doing that. "Ending systemic racism is racism" is basically what you are saying. Except your argument is that wealth inequality by race somehow isn't systemic racism?
> Not necessarily. The existence of inequity does not mean the system is inherently unequal. This is the fatal flaw in your logic.
Okay, so let's follow this. The system is equal meaning that it's a meritocracy you mean? Or what do you mean? If the system is equal, why is there a wealth gap between black people and white people? Is it because black people are inherently worse at earning wealth?
>Except your argument is that wealth inequality by race somehow isn't systemic racism?
My argument is, find examples of systemic racism and we can both ally against it. Correlation != Causation.
>The system is equal meaning that it's a meritocracy you mean?
Point to specific laws that are systemically racist and we can say yes, the system is racist. Implementing UBI and discriminating by race is by definition introducing institutional racism into the system.
>If the system is equal, why is there a wealth gap between black people and white people?
If the system is white supremacist, why do Asians, Jews, Nigerians, etc. out perform whites?
>If the system is equal, why is there a wealth gap between black people and white people?
A straightforward answer to that would help me follow your logic. If you can't give me that, I don't think I'll be able to understand where you are coming from.
If the system is white supremacist, why do Asians, Jews, Nigerians, etc. out perform whites? Why are there any variations in weath between anyone, or intra-race?
The fact of the matter is, this is all immaterial. The most logical and least racist way to combat the inequality is to give assistance to the less fortunate, regardless of their race, gender, religion, etc. Otherwise, you're just being racist.
> Point to specific laws that are systemically racist and we can say yes, the system is racist.
This is an incomplete view of “the system.” You’re leaving out biases in enforcement of the laws and prosecution and conviction rates, and other practices that are not prohibited by law but effectively reinforce racism.
Redlining is an example of what I mean by the last one. There are laws against it now that were put into place because it was a social problem, not a legal one.
Those disproportionately affected by "the system" in the past will be disproportionately poor. Those who are disproportionately poor will be disproportionately helped by a UBI system that does not discriminate. QED.
> "If the system is equal, why is there a wealth gap between black people and white people?"
A perfectly logical and unbiased reason for this could be that it takes time to equalize (a lot of wealth is passed on between generations). Just because "discrimination" and other things ended, doesn't mean the next generation magically does the same as other groups. And this has nothing to do with racism in the present.
Well, this is a fine answer, but by definition, that means that the system is still racist while it is equalizing. The whole idea of things like this UBI is to speed it up. It's also very questionable that it will equalize without some sort of outside force acting on it (like this type of thing).
Stupid people seem incapable of understanding how color-blind solutions are able to still address racial disparities.
If you were to, say, implement a program to help poor people, rather than "people of color," then to the extent that "people of color" are overrepresented among the poor, then so, too, would the solution disproportionately assist "people of color."
The benefits would be:
1.) we don't enter an infinite teeter totter of people arguing on behalf of the victimization of their identity groups
2.) we actually arrive at an equilibrium more rapidly
3.) we don't institutionalize the concept of race, and reinforce the idea that the color of your skin is a concept worthy of being categorized by
4.) we stop treating race as a proxy stand in for privilege, or competence (which is exactly what racists do), and instead target the direct thing that race was proxying
5.) by targeting the actual thing we're trying to remediate, we help all people affected by it, rather than limiting ourselves to the identity groups with the best PR. we also don't unnecessarily target people who belong to those identity groups and aren't actually in need of assistance, but are perceived to be simply by association through the color of their skin
Just to reiterate: assume 1/6 people in a city were "people of color." Assume that 4/6 people who were poor in the city were "people of color." If you add a policy to help the poor, without considering race at all, 4/6 of the people that you help are going to be "people of color," despite them only being 1/6 of the population. It automatically targets the people who are affected disproportionately...
I understand your points and think they are fair in general.
But leading with “stupid” makes you sound uninformed, and your theories are misaligned with longstanding sociopolitical climate in Oakland (not saying they don’t still apply). In fact, all participants must have a child minor, and be at or below 50% of median Bay Area income poverty line. 50% of participants must be 138% below federal poverty line. So the fact, not assumption, is 6/6 poor people of color are being targeted.
And yes, that is unfair to poor white people in Oakland, and it’s unfortunate that the sociopolitical climate in Oakland allows for it. But color-blind policies still yield such inequities. Case in point, affluent SF and Marin county residents flocking to vaccination pop-ups in poor neighborhoods where there are no eligibility screens.
We should keep debating these things (it’s healthy for addressing the problems) but I don’t think any idealistic approach will ever be politically or logistically successful.
Update: another factor is that this is philanthropically supported, and my assumption is that they either required or signed off on race-based programming. So if you are the mayor, are you saying no to free money for your constituents?
> So the fact, not assumption, is 6/6 poor people of color are being targeted.
If this is how the demography played out when just filtering by economic criteria, so be it. I have no issue with something disproportionately affecting populations. I do, however, have an issue with using race as a criteria for almost any decision.
> But color-blind policies still yield such inequities. Case in point, affluent SF and Marin county residents flocking to vaccination pop-ups in poor neighborhoods where there are no eligibility screens.
I didn't say to not use eligibility screens, I said to not use race as criteria. If you use economic criteria, people from Marin aren't going to be eligible.
> I don’t think any idealistic approach will ever be politically or logistically successful.
You think economic eligibility is idealistic? Also, you think racial eligibility is not?
> So if you are the mayor, are you saying no to free money for your constituents?
If the government is involved in any capacity, yes, I think that's reasonable. I think the government should be forbidden from using race as a criteria in any of its decision making. If it's purely private philanthropy, I obviously think they should be able to do what they want, but I still object to it for all of the reasons I've outlined.
> You think economic eligibility is idealistic? Also, you think racial eligibility is not?
I think income eligibility is an imperfect proxy just like race eligibility. But my actual point was that color/race-blind approaches are idealistic in places and spaces where colorist and racial activism is baked into the historical and contemporary fabric of society (e.g. Oakland).
> If the government is involved in any capacity, yes, I think that's reasonable. I think the government should be forbidden from using race as a criteria in any of its decision making.
This where I disgree, respectfully. If the government was a willing partner in explicit discrimination based on race from slavery > Jim Crow > New Deal > mass incarceration, then it should be a willing partner in righting the inequities created.
I can see the other argument that this evidence of exactly why we shouldn't have race-based approaches, but I feel this is an apples to oranges comparison. Assuming government-sponsored racism ended with the Civil Rights Acts of the 50s and 60s (which I don't believe) then your are looking at 300 years of policy and practice prejudiced against people of color vs. ~70 years of policy (and slowly adopted practices) either neutral or prejudiced in favor of people of color.
Anyways I feel like I'm condensing a complex topic, and this isn't the forum or format for me to go deeper. (not that I won't continue responding your questions)
> If the government was a willing partner in explicit discrimination based on race from slavery > Jim Crow > New Deal > mass incarceration, then it should be a willing partner in righting the inequities created.
The claim is that slavery, red-lining, Jim Crow, War on Drugs, etc, will have either specifically targeted black Americans, or disproportionately had a negative impact on them. That negative impact will have manifested in specific problems, like low intergenerational wealth.
So if red-lining, for example, resulted in less black Americans whose parents were able to establish a lineage of intergenerational wealth, and were therefore less likely to be able to buy a house themselves, the problem still doesn't need to be framed in terms of race. The government was absolutely wrong to have a policy in place which discriminated on the basis of race, but again, the problem can be entirely addressed by going after the specific problem.
If 10 black people are unable to buy homes because of red-lining, 1 Asian is unable to buy a home because they were an asylum seeker that came to the country with nothing, 1 white person is unable to buy a home because they were born to a single parent who is addicted to drugs, and 1 Latino is unable to buy a home because they started their education speaking English as a second language and struggled through school...I don't actually care what put them in that position. But if you come up with a program that indiscriminately assists people in being first-time homeowners, the black people in this hypothetical become the primary beneficiaries of the color-blind policy. To say, "well, sorry Asian person, but less things were done to historically marginalize people that look like you than were done to the people that look like them, so we're not going to help you," is a horrible policy. It has all of the same pitfalls as any other racist policy. And the color-blind solution not only undoes the negative impact of redlining by helping the people who were impacted by it, but if you are actually concerned with racial retributive justice (which you shouldn't be), it is also allocating a disproportionate amount of resources in order to help the victims of that racial policy. So the government pays for its mistakes either way, but this way it does it without continuing to legitimize the concept of race, and without the massive imprecision that arises from using race as a proxy.
There is no legitimate reason for any decision to be made on the basis of race, period.
American universities are a source of salaries and unending job security for a group of activist professors, who fall into categories of activism that help bolster the reputations of the institutions of being compliant with Title IX to maintain federal funding.
These Title IX driven activists care about women and black people. Not very much about Latinos or Asians, because historically Asians aren't underrepresented at universities, and therefore aren't a Title IX liability. They don't care about Latinos because they don't have the political clout in the Democratic party that black voters do, and are markedly underrepresented in the party considering they are a larger demographic group in the US.
These activists are the foundational cornerstone for seeding activism into government. Poor whites in trailer parks don't have professional activists at universities to stand up for them. Therefore programs like this come along, and Latinos, poor whites, poor Asians are all ignored. It's explicitly racist, and we can thank the university administrators for employing these people and giving them free time and salaries combined with an unending stream of gullible students, many of whom have no business being in an educational institution due to them being mediocre at best high school students.
> Stupid people seem incapable of understanding how color-blind solutions are able to still address racial disparities.
This is a targeted demonstration program specifically for the purpose of providing concrete support for the argument that guaranteed income, a color-blind policy that the sponsoring organizations are dedicated to promoting, is effective in mitigating systemic problems facing communities of color.
That is, while your complaint is (if somewhat inflammatorily phrased, given the strong historical basis on which notionally color-blind solutions are deeply distrusted) not entirely unreasonable in the abstract, it is profoundly ignorant to direct it at this project considering that the project’s premise is exactly in line with it, and the distrust for such approaches that you paint as stupid is exactly what the project aims, with regard to a particular policy, to overcome.
I don't understand how this is a demonstration of a color-blind policy mitigating systemic problems facing communities of color; it's not a color-blind policy. In what way is this policy meant to overcome distrust of color-blind solutions?
> I don't understand how this is a demonstration of a color-blind policy mitigating systemic problems facing communities of color; it's not a color-blind policy.
It’s a demonstration to the communities in question and their advocates that what they would get in a GMI would mitigate problems in those communities, as a way of overcoming the resistance in those communities to the approach. The approach that is being advocated is color-blind, the issue this program is targeted at overcoming is not.
Yes, a broad color-blind GMI itself would be an even-better way of making that point, but its a lot more expensive for donation-funded charities to execute, especially when a large portion of the audience they hope to rally behind the idea is resistant to it.
This is a tool for chipping away at that resistance. And its specific shape has been shaped by interaction with the exact people whose resistance it is targeted at.
> I don't understand how this is a demonstration of a color-blind policy mitigating systemic problems facing communities of color; it's not a color-blind policy.
It’s a demonstration to the communities in question and their advocates that what they would get in a GMI would mitigate problems in those communities, as a way of overcoming the resistance in those communities to the approach. The approach that is being advocated is color-blind, the issue this program is targeted at overcoming is not.
Yes, a broad color-blind GMI itself would be an even-better way of making that point, but its a lot more expensive for donation-funded charities to execute, especially when a large portion of the audience they hope to rally behind the idea is resistant to it.
This is a tool for chipping away at that resistance. And its specific shape has been shaped by interaction with the exact people whose resistance it is targeted at all.
Doesn't this math only work if the majority of poor people are POC? If the majority aren't, and you end up giving more white people, you still will end up with POC being disproportionately poorer compared to white people. If you want to get straight to targeting the actual thing you want to remediate, what you need to do is eliminate unjust wealth inequality altogether.
If the math doesn't work out in such a way that POC are disproportionately benefited by helping poor people...then that would mean that POC weren't overrepresented amongst the poor.
I can understand that they hope to reduce the income gap between different races, but I don't understand why that means the selection criteria should include race.
I would think that it makes more sense to select based on 'wealth' (income, capital, etc.) instead. Since people of colour are disproportionately represented in the poorer population, this would help to reduce the income gap between races (since more people of colour are accepted into the program), without excluding the few white families that could also really benefit from this.
> Guaranteed income is often used interchangeably with Universal Basic Income (UBI) — the difference between the two is that *guaranteed income has qualifications* or requirements to participate.
I wasn't expressing an opinion on the validity of UBI for specific groups. I think that's less crazy than some might think, after all most proponents of UBI suggest at least initially limiting it to a city/state/country. I can even understand wanting to call the Oakland progr UBI, as it is similar and that's a known term. I find inventing a new term "Guaranteed Income" when it plainly isn't to be absurd.
(By the way, I didn't know it was necessary to note quotes came from TFA if not attributed)
I didn’t mean to imply that you were opining on the program itself, only that my reply was limited to noting the contradiction between the article title and the distinction it makes in the body. They are basically saying “our title is a misnomer.”
“Guaranteed minimum income” is an existing term, and a more accurate one for what this currently is. UBI means “available to all citizens,” and while there’s some leniency for pilot programs, which this appears to be, it is unclear from the article if the goal is to transition to a true UBI.
I generally assume the same thing about quotes, I only thought it was worth mentioning due to the title discrepancy, so I was surprised to see it in the article itself, and since this is a hot-button issue I think fewer people will read the full article before commenting.
This is explicitly racist. It discriminates based on race, which is the only acceptable definition of “racist”. The city of Oakland should not be involved in this program at all and I hope someone takes them to court over it.
This sounds bad, I agree. But let's take a look at the program's website, a primary source, instead of relying on reporting alone. [1]
Tl;dr It's funded by private donations, run by local organizations, and is a pilot to conduct research. It's not taxpayer money being handed out preferentially, and it's not UBI.
"Oakland Resilient Families is 100% funded by philanthropic donations. To date we have raised $6.75 million, at least 80% of which will be distributed directly to families over the next 18 months."
"Is this the same thing as a Universal Basic Income (UBI)?
No. UBI is meant to go to everyone and provide enough of a payment to cover all basic needs, whereas a guaranteed income is meant to provide an income floor but not meant to be a replacement for wages and can also be targeted to those who most need it. UBI would provide everyone - regardless of income - with equal cash support (often instead of existing social benefits). Oakland Resilient Families is intended for low-income BIPOC families and therefore is by definition not “universal.” Additionally, a central research focus for this project is to determine how a guaranteed income can enhance and expand the existing social safety net rather than replace it."
"The 600 randomly selected families will fall into two groups. Both groups will receive the same amount of money, participate in optional research surveys and interviews, and measure a similar set of outcomes related to economic and household wellbeing. The primary differences between the two groups lie in how they are structured in terms of location, income level, and research design."
The headline is carefully crafted to generate maximum outrage. I don't agree about aid being based on anything other than need. But at the same time, it's not for me to say how other people spend their money.
Sidestepping the obviously controversial bit, a big problem with doing this is that UBI is relatively new and not well-understood, so so a program that targets a specific group is bad for both itself and the concept of UBI because it only collects very specific data that are easily dismissed because of selection bias.
It distresses me that many of the comments here lament this UBI program because it targets POC and I think, perhaps, they are looking at this situation as if it were somewhere else in the country/world, or they don't live/haven't lived in a minority community. As a current and longtime resident of West Oakland, who grew up in the city next door, I find nothing wrong with targeting this towards POC in the city, because, as the mayor framed it, this is about promoting equity in the city: a city that has, historically, seen many awful things done to their minority communities (by all levels of government and private enterprise).
What kinds of things am.I referring to? Here's a cursory list:
1) White flight take jobs and money out of the area, into towns and cities over the hills, and also into more affluent parts of the city
2) "Redevelopment" carves up the neighborhood: hwy 980 isolates West Oakland from downtown; 880 (former Cyprus Freeway) slices the neighborhood in half; BART lops off an additional portion near the port. (I can't emphasize how badly this messed up the neighborhood.)
3) The Black Panthers started a few blocks from here, on Peralta Street, as a way for the residents to defend themselves from police abuse and empower the community; they are all but destroyed by the Feds' COINTELPRO.
4) Not specific to the neighborhood, still The War on Drugs is worth mentioning. Need I say more about that?
These things that happened a generation or two ago, they still resonate down through to the present in this community. I see it outside my window: my black and brown neighbors scrape to get by. This UBI program isn't supposed to fix it all, it's just a small step in the direction of balance.
> It distresses me that many of the comments here lament this UBI program because it targets POC
It shouldn't distress you. I am one person (of unknown quality) but I have found the comments to be perfectly fine. Aside from the pedantic arguments (universal versus guaranteed) which offer no viewpoint of the policy, every commenter wants to improve the lives of their poor, black and brown neighbors. They just also want to improve the lives of their poor, white neighbors as well.
Is it so bad a thing to want to extend a good thing (which you support) to include more people? Isn't that the definition of inclusivity? Should it matter if a statistical measure (the racial wealth gap) changes more slowly so long as more people get the chance to live a dignified life?
Edit: I want to clarify I'm not asking these questions rhetorically. I genuinely want to understand your perspective.
I feel like the Bay Area consistently has the resources and brainpower to do the right thing, yet it always does the exact wrong thing with the best intentions.
A fundamental issue with UBI is getting broad support for it. The U part of UBI is universal for a reason. By making the income universal you get broader support. All human beings want the guarantee of some baseline support to fall back on in bad times ... even the wealthiest people can imagine losing everything. That's why they would support UBI.
But if you make the U stand for "Us Only" as in some small chosen group ... then there will not be broad support. It will literally be seen as taking from Sean to pay Shanice. It won't be sign as a baseline right for everyone.
Oakland has basically set back UBI by doing this nonsense. First of all, I'd like everyone to stop calling Oakland's program UBI. Its not UBI. Its just a bribe to shore up this particular politicians base in a city that is majority Black voters.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mayflower_passengers
https://archives.lib.state.ma.us/bitstream/handle/2452/20824...
There were no Africans at all on the Mayflower.
EDIT: The Massachusetts Body of Liberties seems to be the first body of legal code in Massachusetts https://www.mass.gov/service-details/massachusetts-body-of-l...
And it's stance on slavery: "There shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage or Captivitie amongst us unles it be lawfull Captives taken in just warres, and such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of god established in Israel concerning such persons doeth morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be Judged thereto by Authoritie."
The Constituion of Massachusetts (1780) also banned slavery.
This is inconsistent with your characterization of the Puritans.
?
https://www.amazon.ca/Longer-Talking-White-People-About-eboo...
We must push back.
While the poor people of color will still feel that they are not privileged because 76% of millionaires are white.
It's because you're not poor, and you're not in Oakland. You have absolutely no facts about the situation, but you're here anyway, "just worried" about hypothetical people you don't know and haven't even gathered statistics on. You've got no idea why they're offering this to poor blacks in Oakland, and you're just gonna take a guess.
And you're promptly validated in that by other non-poor non-Oaklanders who tell you -- and I'm quoting here -- that your lack of experience is "100%" equivalent to those who do have experience.
That's the problem here: not your whiteness, but the outrage you feel at being excluded from a decision in which you've got no information and no stake. That stems from all of the things at once: your whiteness, your maleness (go ahead, tell me I'm wrong about that), and all the other dimensions along which people get excluded from things and simply never happen to you.
And instead of saying, "Tell me more", you tell everybody that your opinion is devalued solely because of the color of your skin, so that all of the other people in this room full of middle-class white men will tell you that it's wrong to exclude you.
I know you've long since stopped listening to me, but I'm nonetheless going to make a suggestion: the next time you're "just worried" about something, consider whether you've done anything to assuage that worry. Without that, it looks like you're just trying to inform the Oakland City Council of something that it already knows -- because it's literally the only thing you know about it.
I understand it's cathartic telling off white males for having opinions, but truly I don't think the case you're making here holds any water.
The fact that this is so hard for you to hear is the reason that we're having this discussion. People in the majority are have become accustomed to not just having opinions, but to have their opinions override those of other people because they are the majority.
They've gotten used to being told to shut up, and now majorities are starting to learn how that feels. It's not great.
What about my response made you think I'm "outraged"?
"that your lack of experience is "100%" equivalent to those who do have experience." - no one in this thread said this, so I'm curious who you're quoting.
All of your quotes are false. You're trying desperately to wedge this into a narrative that just isn't there.
As stated elsewhere, this is by definition institutional racism.
It is though.
Wikipedia:
"Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded as normal practice within society or an organization. It can lead to such issues as discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power, and education, among other issues."
The Oakland municipal government (organization) is discriminating by race for benefits that will impact housing, access to healthier food, etc.
It is 100% by definition institutional racism.
"We're achieving peace by expanding our global war." You're using scary 1984 logic here.
>The average black family is 10x poorer then the average white family.
Not sure what the actual numbers are but they don't matter. We'll assume it's true.
>I'm sure you would agree that is also systemic racism
Not necessarily. The existence of inequity does not mean the system is inherently unequal. This is the fatal flaw in your logic.
>The quickest/most simple way to fix that systemic racism is to directly give wealth to black families like this.
This is illogic based on a falsehood. Race should NEVER be a factor here, it should only be poverty level or class. The simplest way to get rid of systemic racism is... to get rid of systemic racism (enact legislation to remove Jim Crow as an example) which we have. Introducing systemic racism by definition does not fix the problem it only makes it worse.
If we want to combat poverty (inequity), then the UBI should go to the poorest among us. If the bottom 10% of society ends up being 80% Black, that's okay.
Funny, I feel like you are the one doing that. "Ending systemic racism is racism" is basically what you are saying. Except your argument is that wealth inequality by race somehow isn't systemic racism?
> Not necessarily. The existence of inequity does not mean the system is inherently unequal. This is the fatal flaw in your logic.
Okay, so let's follow this. The system is equal meaning that it's a meritocracy you mean? Or what do you mean? If the system is equal, why is there a wealth gap between black people and white people? Is it because black people are inherently worse at earning wealth?
Stop projecting. You're the one literally calling for systemic racism.
>"Ending systemic racism is racism" is basically what you are saying.
Complete opposite. I'm saying "ending systemic racism is ending racism that's systemic."
>Except your argument is that wealth inequality by race somehow isn't systemic racism?
My argument is, find examples of systemic racism and we can both ally against it. Correlation != Causation.
>The system is equal meaning that it's a meritocracy you mean?
Point to specific laws that are systemically racist and we can say yes, the system is racist. Implementing UBI and discriminating by race is by definition introducing institutional racism into the system.
>If the system is equal, why is there a wealth gap between black people and white people?
If the system is white supremacist, why do Asians, Jews, Nigerians, etc. out perform whites?
>If the system is equal, why is there a wealth gap between black people and white people?
A straightforward answer to that would help me follow your logic. If you can't give me that, I don't think I'll be able to understand where you are coming from.
If the system is white supremacist, why do Asians, Jews, Nigerians, etc. out perform whites? Why are there any variations in weath between anyone, or intra-race?
The fact of the matter is, this is all immaterial. The most logical and least racist way to combat the inequality is to give assistance to the less fortunate, regardless of their race, gender, religion, etc. Otherwise, you're just being racist.
This is an incomplete view of “the system.” You’re leaving out biases in enforcement of the laws and prosecution and conviction rates, and other practices that are not prohibited by law but effectively reinforce racism.
Redlining is an example of what I mean by the last one. There are laws against it now that were put into place because it was a social problem, not a legal one.
That’s all I was doing. I’m all for UBI with the “U” intact.
A perfectly logical and unbiased reason for this could be that it takes time to equalize (a lot of wealth is passed on between generations). Just because "discrimination" and other things ended, doesn't mean the next generation magically does the same as other groups. And this has nothing to do with racism in the present.
If you were to, say, implement a program to help poor people, rather than "people of color," then to the extent that "people of color" are overrepresented among the poor, then so, too, would the solution disproportionately assist "people of color."
The benefits would be:
1.) we don't enter an infinite teeter totter of people arguing on behalf of the victimization of their identity groups
2.) we actually arrive at an equilibrium more rapidly
3.) we don't institutionalize the concept of race, and reinforce the idea that the color of your skin is a concept worthy of being categorized by
4.) we stop treating race as a proxy stand in for privilege, or competence (which is exactly what racists do), and instead target the direct thing that race was proxying
5.) by targeting the actual thing we're trying to remediate, we help all people affected by it, rather than limiting ourselves to the identity groups with the best PR. we also don't unnecessarily target people who belong to those identity groups and aren't actually in need of assistance, but are perceived to be simply by association through the color of their skin
Just to reiterate: assume 1/6 people in a city were "people of color." Assume that 4/6 people who were poor in the city were "people of color." If you add a policy to help the poor, without considering race at all, 4/6 of the people that you help are going to be "people of color," despite them only being 1/6 of the population. It automatically targets the people who are affected disproportionately...
But leading with “stupid” makes you sound uninformed, and your theories are misaligned with longstanding sociopolitical climate in Oakland (not saying they don’t still apply). In fact, all participants must have a child minor, and be at or below 50% of median Bay Area income poverty line. 50% of participants must be 138% below federal poverty line. So the fact, not assumption, is 6/6 poor people of color are being targeted.
And yes, that is unfair to poor white people in Oakland, and it’s unfortunate that the sociopolitical climate in Oakland allows for it. But color-blind policies still yield such inequities. Case in point, affluent SF and Marin county residents flocking to vaccination pop-ups in poor neighborhoods where there are no eligibility screens.
We should keep debating these things (it’s healthy for addressing the problems) but I don’t think any idealistic approach will ever be politically or logistically successful.
Update: another factor is that this is philanthropically supported, and my assumption is that they either required or signed off on race-based programming. So if you are the mayor, are you saying no to free money for your constituents?
If this is how the demography played out when just filtering by economic criteria, so be it. I have no issue with something disproportionately affecting populations. I do, however, have an issue with using race as a criteria for almost any decision.
> But color-blind policies still yield such inequities. Case in point, affluent SF and Marin county residents flocking to vaccination pop-ups in poor neighborhoods where there are no eligibility screens.
I didn't say to not use eligibility screens, I said to not use race as criteria. If you use economic criteria, people from Marin aren't going to be eligible.
> I don’t think any idealistic approach will ever be politically or logistically successful.
You think economic eligibility is idealistic? Also, you think racial eligibility is not?
> So if you are the mayor, are you saying no to free money for your constituents?
If the government is involved in any capacity, yes, I think that's reasonable. I think the government should be forbidden from using race as a criteria in any of its decision making. If it's purely private philanthropy, I obviously think they should be able to do what they want, but I still object to it for all of the reasons I've outlined.
I think income eligibility is an imperfect proxy just like race eligibility. But my actual point was that color/race-blind approaches are idealistic in places and spaces where colorist and racial activism is baked into the historical and contemporary fabric of society (e.g. Oakland).
> If the government is involved in any capacity, yes, I think that's reasonable. I think the government should be forbidden from using race as a criteria in any of its decision making.
This where I disgree, respectfully. If the government was a willing partner in explicit discrimination based on race from slavery > Jim Crow > New Deal > mass incarceration, then it should be a willing partner in righting the inequities created.
I can see the other argument that this evidence of exactly why we shouldn't have race-based approaches, but I feel this is an apples to oranges comparison. Assuming government-sponsored racism ended with the Civil Rights Acts of the 50s and 60s (which I don't believe) then your are looking at 300 years of policy and practice prejudiced against people of color vs. ~70 years of policy (and slowly adopted practices) either neutral or prejudiced in favor of people of color.
Anyways I feel like I'm condensing a complex topic, and this isn't the forum or format for me to go deeper. (not that I won't continue responding your questions)
The claim is that slavery, red-lining, Jim Crow, War on Drugs, etc, will have either specifically targeted black Americans, or disproportionately had a negative impact on them. That negative impact will have manifested in specific problems, like low intergenerational wealth.
So if red-lining, for example, resulted in less black Americans whose parents were able to establish a lineage of intergenerational wealth, and were therefore less likely to be able to buy a house themselves, the problem still doesn't need to be framed in terms of race. The government was absolutely wrong to have a policy in place which discriminated on the basis of race, but again, the problem can be entirely addressed by going after the specific problem.
If 10 black people are unable to buy homes because of red-lining, 1 Asian is unable to buy a home because they were an asylum seeker that came to the country with nothing, 1 white person is unable to buy a home because they were born to a single parent who is addicted to drugs, and 1 Latino is unable to buy a home because they started their education speaking English as a second language and struggled through school...I don't actually care what put them in that position. But if you come up with a program that indiscriminately assists people in being first-time homeowners, the black people in this hypothetical become the primary beneficiaries of the color-blind policy. To say, "well, sorry Asian person, but less things were done to historically marginalize people that look like you than were done to the people that look like them, so we're not going to help you," is a horrible policy. It has all of the same pitfalls as any other racist policy. And the color-blind solution not only undoes the negative impact of redlining by helping the people who were impacted by it, but if you are actually concerned with racial retributive justice (which you shouldn't be), it is also allocating a disproportionate amount of resources in order to help the victims of that racial policy. So the government pays for its mistakes either way, but this way it does it without continuing to legitimize the concept of race, and without the massive imprecision that arises from using race as a proxy.
There is no legitimate reason for any decision to be made on the basis of race, period.
These Title IX driven activists care about women and black people. Not very much about Latinos or Asians, because historically Asians aren't underrepresented at universities, and therefore aren't a Title IX liability. They don't care about Latinos because they don't have the political clout in the Democratic party that black voters do, and are markedly underrepresented in the party considering they are a larger demographic group in the US.
These activists are the foundational cornerstone for seeding activism into government. Poor whites in trailer parks don't have professional activists at universities to stand up for them. Therefore programs like this come along, and Latinos, poor whites, poor Asians are all ignored. It's explicitly racist, and we can thank the university administrators for employing these people and giving them free time and salaries combined with an unending stream of gullible students, many of whom have no business being in an educational institution due to them being mediocre at best high school students.
This is a targeted demonstration program specifically for the purpose of providing concrete support for the argument that guaranteed income, a color-blind policy that the sponsoring organizations are dedicated to promoting, is effective in mitigating systemic problems facing communities of color.
That is, while your complaint is (if somewhat inflammatorily phrased, given the strong historical basis on which notionally color-blind solutions are deeply distrusted) not entirely unreasonable in the abstract, it is profoundly ignorant to direct it at this project considering that the project’s premise is exactly in line with it, and the distrust for such approaches that you paint as stupid is exactly what the project aims, with regard to a particular policy, to overcome.
It’s a demonstration to the communities in question and their advocates that what they would get in a GMI would mitigate problems in those communities, as a way of overcoming the resistance in those communities to the approach. The approach that is being advocated is color-blind, the issue this program is targeted at overcoming is not.
Yes, a broad color-blind GMI itself would be an even-better way of making that point, but its a lot more expensive for donation-funded charities to execute, especially when a large portion of the audience they hope to rally behind the idea is resistant to it.
This is a tool for chipping away at that resistance. And its specific shape has been shaped by interaction with the exact people whose resistance it is targeted at.
It’s a demonstration to the communities in question and their advocates that what they would get in a GMI would mitigate problems in those communities, as a way of overcoming the resistance in those communities to the approach. The approach that is being advocated is color-blind, the issue this program is targeted at overcoming is not.
Yes, a broad color-blind GMI itself would be an even-better way of making that point, but its a lot more expensive for donation-funded charities to execute, especially when a large portion of the audience they hope to rally behind the idea is resistant to it.
This is a tool for chipping away at that resistance. And its specific shape has been shaped by interaction with the exact people whose resistance it is targeted at all.
I would think that it makes more sense to select based on 'wealth' (income, capital, etc.) instead. Since people of colour are disproportionately represented in the poorer population, this would help to reduce the income gap between races (since more people of colour are accepted into the program), without excluding the few white families that could also really benefit from this.
> Guaranteed income is often used interchangeably with Universal Basic Income (UBI) — the difference between the two is that *guaranteed income has qualifications* or requirements to participate.
It’s an explicitly inflammatory and inaccurate title. (I’m not weighing in on the content here.)
(By the way, I didn't know it was necessary to note quotes came from TFA if not attributed)
“Guaranteed minimum income” is an existing term, and a more accurate one for what this currently is. UBI means “available to all citizens,” and while there’s some leniency for pilot programs, which this appears to be, it is unclear from the article if the goal is to transition to a true UBI.
I generally assume the same thing about quotes, I only thought it was worth mentioning due to the title discrepancy, so I was surprised to see it in the article itself, and since this is a hot-button issue I think fewer people will read the full article before commenting.
Tl;dr It's funded by private donations, run by local organizations, and is a pilot to conduct research. It's not taxpayer money being handed out preferentially, and it's not UBI.
"Oakland Resilient Families is 100% funded by philanthropic donations. To date we have raised $6.75 million, at least 80% of which will be distributed directly to families over the next 18 months."
"Is this the same thing as a Universal Basic Income (UBI)?
No. UBI is meant to go to everyone and provide enough of a payment to cover all basic needs, whereas a guaranteed income is meant to provide an income floor but not meant to be a replacement for wages and can also be targeted to those who most need it. UBI would provide everyone - regardless of income - with equal cash support (often instead of existing social benefits). Oakland Resilient Families is intended for low-income BIPOC families and therefore is by definition not “universal.” Additionally, a central research focus for this project is to determine how a guaranteed income can enhance and expand the existing social safety net rather than replace it."
"The 600 randomly selected families will fall into two groups. Both groups will receive the same amount of money, participate in optional research surveys and interviews, and measure a similar set of outcomes related to economic and household wellbeing. The primary differences between the two groups lie in how they are structured in terms of location, income level, and research design."
The headline is carefully crafted to generate maximum outrage. I don't agree about aid being based on anything other than need. But at the same time, it's not for me to say how other people spend their money.
[1] https://oaklandresilientfamilies.org/about
1) White flight take jobs and money out of the area, into towns and cities over the hills, and also into more affluent parts of the city 2) "Redevelopment" carves up the neighborhood: hwy 980 isolates West Oakland from downtown; 880 (former Cyprus Freeway) slices the neighborhood in half; BART lops off an additional portion near the port. (I can't emphasize how badly this messed up the neighborhood.) 3) The Black Panthers started a few blocks from here, on Peralta Street, as a way for the residents to defend themselves from police abuse and empower the community; they are all but destroyed by the Feds' COINTELPRO. 4) Not specific to the neighborhood, still The War on Drugs is worth mentioning. Need I say more about that?
These things that happened a generation or two ago, they still resonate down through to the present in this community. I see it outside my window: my black and brown neighbors scrape to get by. This UBI program isn't supposed to fix it all, it's just a small step in the direction of balance.
It shouldn't distress you. I am one person (of unknown quality) but I have found the comments to be perfectly fine. Aside from the pedantic arguments (universal versus guaranteed) which offer no viewpoint of the policy, every commenter wants to improve the lives of their poor, black and brown neighbors. They just also want to improve the lives of their poor, white neighbors as well.
Is it so bad a thing to want to extend a good thing (which you support) to include more people? Isn't that the definition of inclusivity? Should it matter if a statistical measure (the racial wealth gap) changes more slowly so long as more people get the chance to live a dignified life?
Edit: I want to clarify I'm not asking these questions rhetorically. I genuinely want to understand your perspective.
A fundamental issue with UBI is getting broad support for it. The U part of UBI is universal for a reason. By making the income universal you get broader support. All human beings want the guarantee of some baseline support to fall back on in bad times ... even the wealthiest people can imagine losing everything. That's why they would support UBI.
But if you make the U stand for "Us Only" as in some small chosen group ... then there will not be broad support. It will literally be seen as taking from Sean to pay Shanice. It won't be sign as a baseline right for everyone.
Oakland has basically set back UBI by doing this nonsense. First of all, I'd like everyone to stop calling Oakland's program UBI. Its not UBI. Its just a bribe to shore up this particular politicians base in a city that is majority Black voters.
I'm so glad I've moved away from the Bay.