Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   It's puzzling indeed. I'm trying to think how you could create an exam
> > which would be disadvantageous to black people, and I can't think of anything.

> There are certain tests you can give that would discriminate. Perhaps blacks 
> are more poor or worse educated, so if you asked about proper grammar or 
> financial questions, you could discriminate.

  Even if that's so (ie. black people in the US having in average a poorer
education), I don't see how it's discriminating against blacks per se.
If anything, it would be "discrimination" against uneducated people (if
such a thing is feasible). Any person, regardless of skin tone, would score
poorly in such a test. How is this discrimination against black people?

  If the problem is that black people are in average more uneducated, the
proper solution to that problem is not to dumb down admission tests (which
in itself ought to have rather negative consequences related to job
performance and perhaps in some cases even safety), but to educate them.
(If black people, for whatever reason, do not *want* to get educated, well
that's hardly a problem with the fire department, is it?)

  In fact, if the reason for the justice system to demand dumbing down the
tests so that black people can score better is because they are uneducated,
I see an irony here: By trying to be "politically correct" and offer "equal
opportunity", the justice system is actually openly admitting that black
people are uneducated compared to white people. What kind of message is
this sending to the population?

> I remember reading about this - they had to drop the test a couple of years 
> because none of the blacks who applied for the promotion that the test 
> enabled actually passed the test.

  How is that the fire department's fault or problem? If they are applying
the exact same test equally and fairly to all applicants, that's the very
definition of non-discrimination.

  Discrimination is when some people get preferential treatment over others.

> Note that in this country, the simple fact that blacks don't pass the test 
> makes it very difficult to legally claim the test isn't "discriminatory" in 
> the sense that this article means it. Folks claiming that don't have to 
> prove there's something biased on the test. You have to prove there's some 
> other reason that skin color corresponds to success rate.

  Hate to sound like an antimulticulturalist again, but it really doesn't
surprise me in the modern world that when a protected minority scores poorly,
the fault cannot be said to be in that minority, but in the test instead
(completely regardless of how the test is performed). If the protected
minority scores poorly, the test *must* be discriminatory in some way,
there's no other explanation.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message