US history is not 100% power struggles. And within a power struggle, the folks punching down aren’t always the 1%.
If my brother had said “do you think implicit bias in some tests is an example of white supremacy” I would have agreed.
But, he didn’t say that. He just said meritocracy.
How are you judging this “merit” that you think is somehow separate and pristine?
Also, this was in the contrct of a school teacher, so I think that would be relevant.
I see I failed to respond to this, as I thought you were just being obtuse. Now, I am just not certain with you, so I will give an obvious example:
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I don’t think your words are right (I don’t think they convey what you want to convey – allow me to whitesplain…).
I don’t think the tests are made that way on purpose, to make it harder for people who don’t live in the mainly white parts of America.
Replace “supremacy” with “privilege,” maybe, since the tests are made assuming the white parts of America are the same as the other parts, and the results favor white kids in part because of it.
Or, replace “supremacy” with “blindness.”
I’m not sure what you mean by separate and pristine. If you’re asking me to come up with a test in which all races score the same I can do that- just score by percentile within a race.
But, that’s not even the claim. The claim was that a philosophy that values talent and skill and production is already racist. And the context was not there, it was just my brother talking to me.
You are very wrong here, and are definitely “whitewashing” the history and initial design of standardized testing.
The first tests were made to show the superiority of white over blacks, and shockingly, they showed exactly that.
These were not “race blind” accidents or accidental bias.
The racism that was/is inherent in this country accepted it all as true, and continues to provide coverage of these actions as just "happenstance " and an accidental outcome of a bias system that just wasn’t aware of it’s own bias.
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Issue with that short sentence is that it asks the question “why is it racist?” And whoever says it has to provide the reasons, instead of simply responding, “Well, I guess you’re a racist if you don’t understand.”
I just didn’t know what you meant. I didn’t know if you thought we were going to regress in some particular way (maybe???), or if you meant bad things will keep happening (definitely.)
I also think it’s worth looking at the example closely. Like-- what exactly did that kid learn in history class? And how does it compare to classes taken at other schools/times.
there are very few areas where objective measures actually exist. fastest at running 100m, yes. who can lift the most weight, yes. who is better at sales…depends on how hard the people you were selling to were, but maybe that one has something. who is a better actuary/teacher/person for this other role…it gets complicated fast and subjectivities and proxy values have to be used.
so when you say “talent and skill” are those things measurable objectively or does the person deciding have to use something less objective as the measure? I’m not saying that any individual decision based on those things is inherently wrong. but in the collective I can see how decisions based on subjectivities can be hostile/less favorable to some more than others.
I agree 100%. It’s a problem that needs to be dealt with. It’s a real pickle.
But the solution isn’t, “the desire for talent is racist”.
This was my point.
Sorry if I was being too direct with SV and asking what exact metric they where referring to for their meritocracy.
Just in case anyone thought I was making up the fact that the SAT was designed to be racist, and is far from meritorious
Are they still that way?
agree. but the list of things that are used to indicate “talent” can be. a person not willing to investigate or consider that the measures/indicators in place could be flawed as hostile to whole categories of easily described people just might be…well, there’s no objective measure, but the indicator is that such a person is defending something that could be racist.
Yes.
The entire concept if standardized testing is based in this fallacy.
And that is why many schools are moving away from them.
Depends on what “talent” is desired.
Simple example: “I want to hire out of college only people with Ivy League degrees.”
Yes, that is “talent.” It is also cutting out a lot of talented minorities.
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I guess, but the Ivy’s also cut in a lot of talented minorities. They are are a lot less white than the general population (and a lot less white than the actuarial population.)
I don’t think Ivy’s are a useful example here since they represent a tiny elite, but “white supremacy” doesn’t describe them at all.
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What is the “concept” of standardized testing?
Also, surprised that some other company has not been formed to compete against this obvious market inefficiency.