Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!crsp!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics Subject: Re: Discrimination and Affirmative Action Message-ID: <509@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Date: Tue, 25-Jun-85 13:07:03 EDT Article-I.D.: gargoyle.509 Posted: Tue Jun 25 13:07:03 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 26-Jun-85 07:24:09 EDT Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science Lines: 30 Xref: watmath net.women:6079 net.politics:9580 >Mr. Carnes leaps from prejudice to an intellectual belief in the >inferiority of another race or sex by acknowledging that he has to >treat blacks and women with kid gloves, rather than treating them like >anyone else. May I just interject a word into this interesting discussion of my psychology. No one said anything about kid gloves. The point is that ethnic group or sex is a significant datum about an individual. Ask a woman or black or Hispanic whether they ever think about being female or black or Hispanic. Does it ever cross their minds, do you suppose? If so, why should it not cross our minds, and even influence our actions? While I'm at it I would like to object once more to the use of the terms racism and sexism to mean simply prejudice or "thinking of people as groups" or whatever is the favorite usage of the deep thinkers at National Review or The Wall Street Journal. Loose talk is generally an index of loose thinking. Many blacks in the US are for understandable reasons prejudiced against whites -- that's why I am not given to taking casual strolls through many areas of Chicago's South Side. But I have never heard of a black racist in the US, unless there have been blacks who shared the beliefs of white racists. Racism is the belief, held by many honorable and sincere men such as David Hume, Thomas Jefferson, G.W.F. Hegel, and Louis Agassiz, that one ethnic group is "by nature" inferior, morally or intellectually, to another. This was "respectable" opinion among many whites in the 19th century. The scientific evidence for this belief is nonexistent. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes