Why Group-Based Disparities Are Not Necessarily Directly Related To Discrimination

Discussion

Zach Goldberg:

"Group disparities ≠ discrimination

The data presented here poses challenges for the notion that outcome disparities between racial groups necessarily signify discrimination. First, if large outcome gaps can endure between groups—including between different European ancestry groups—even in the absence of discrimination, how can it be concluded that those between whites and African Americans are entirely or even mostly the product of discrimination? On what basis can we be confident that their outcomes would equalize in the absence of discrimination when outcomes are far from equal between groups that hardly faced discrimination? Next to which group(s) would African Americans have placed in Figures 1-2 if not for ‘systemic racism’? French Canadians? Portuguese? Russians? Hell, why not the Chinese or Indians?

Second, if African Americans are systemically penalized on account of their race, why does this ostensible bias vanish when controlling for cognitive ability? More specifically, why do whites and African Americans of the same ability level have statistically indistinguishable life outcomes?

Of course, many of these questions can be avoided by narrowly focusing on the disparities between whites and African Americans and ignoring all the rest; and/or by examining racial disparities without controlling for important confounding variables. This is what proponents of ‘systemic racism’ theory typically do, and it is at least partly what makes the narrative so compelling (if superficially so).

But the truth is that group disparities are likely inevitable in any genetically and culturally diverse population. And this is especially likely to be the case in countries like the US, where immigrant groups (voluntary and involuntary) have typically varied in how they compare (in terms of ability, skills, education etc.) to the average person in their populations of origin. The point is not that discrimination can’t contribute to disparities, but that large disparities exist, emerge, and persist even in its absence (we only don’t pay attention to them because the ancestry groups in question were never or are no longer politicized). The upshot is that it may be impossible to determine the relative contribution of discrimination to disparities. As such, the claim that disparities between whites and African Americans are entirely the product of discrimination (or the fault of ‘white people’) is essentially unfalsifiable and should have no weight in determining public policy. Likewise, the assumption that lingering effects of historical discrimination must matter because we’re not far removed from segregation is also dubious. Those who hold this assumption need to ask themselves: at what point can we finally say that we’re far enough removed from Jim Crow that it no longer exerts a meaningful influence on the outcomes of African Americans? If the answer is ‘when outcomes between them and whites have equalized’, then you’re effectively committing to a standard that may not be possible to meet (and not for want of trying, but for much the same or similar reasons that it isn’t met between the Dutch and Chinese). And anything short of equality of outcomes will always be taken as ‘evidence’ that the effects of systemic racism are still operative.

To be sure, none of the above entails that nothing can or should be done to address the consequences of inequality and improve the quality of life for all. It only means that, rather than pointlessly obsessing over group disparities and blaming and penalizing groups that ‘do too well’ to artificially uplift those that don’t, we should focus on raising the floor for everyone. And this entails catering to the needs NOT of ancestral groups, but of individuals—be they of Dutch, Acadian, or African ancestry. "

(https://zachgoldberg.substack.com/p/exposing-the-group-disparities-discrimination)