Originally Posted by alanbikehouston
Hitler came to power in Germany, and George Wallace came to power in Alabama, by exploiting the human weakness of looking at one human being, and assuming that person is just a clone of a "proto-typical" Jew, African-American, or German "Aryan", not a "unique" human being, with a mixture of talents and weaknesses that is as unique to that one person as his person's fingerprints or his DNA.
If we relied upon US census data, the "proto-typical" pale skinned middle-aged man you see on the bus should be of European descent, be 5 feet, 9 inches tall, weighs 180 pounds, have 2 1/2 years of college, made $54,000 last year, be married, and has 1 1/2 kids.
Yet, a man who is an EXACT match for the census data's "average man" may not exist in your neighborhood. The "average" White man, just like the "average" Black man is an imaginary statistical construct that has no relevance when dealing with just one person. Statistical averages about any group of people have ZERO validity as applied to one person.
What is the "evil", in today's America, of seeing one individual person as being the "average" representative of some mythical "group", rather than as one unique individual?
A few months ago, a study was published about corporate hiring practices. Sample resumes were rated by personnel experts as showing "strong" candidates for typical entry level jobs for new college graduates. The only significant differences in the resumes was the NAME of the applicant. Some had names that were clearly male. Some clearly female. Some clearly Hispanic. Some were "classic" WASP names, such as "Christopher Danforth", and some were stereotypical African-American names such as "Laqwanda Washington"
The study showed that the "Christopher Danforth" resumes got plenty of offers for "face to face" interviews. The resumes that had African-American names got the fewest offers for interviews by FAR. Then the resumes were switched and names were switched. When employers who were eager to interview "Christopher Danforth" got the SAME resume from "LeRoy White", their interest dropped to a very low level. The personnel screener was "assigning" races to applicants, and then thinking "White guys make good computer analysts, and Black guys don't. I'll just interview White guys".
And, that same personnel manager was the kind of person who would also likely think "but, ya have to hand to those people - Black guys can dance really good and they make great basketball players - and that guy Will Smith cracks me up - but, I am not gonna interview one of THEM for a computer analyst postion".
A corporate personnel screener who refuses to interview minorites or women for certain types of jobs is making the same type of logical error that has been seen in forty posts in this thread. Human accomplishments are not achieved by a "race", or an "ethnic group" or a "nationality. Surgery is only done by the one person holding the knife. The Black race does not "make" a free throw. Shaq alone "makes" (or does not make) his free throws.
The imaginary "Black race" was not playing basketball against an imaginary entity known as the "Italian race" or the "Argentine race". The Olympics basketball games featured selected players from each country, all of whom had talents far beyond those of the average guy of any background. And, the USA sent guys who just did not play as well as the guys sent by Italy and the guys sent by Argentina.
And, to the best of my knowledge, none of the basketball players who won a medal at this Olympics had a father, uncle, or grandfather win an Olympic medal in basketball. Their medal were THEIR victory, not the victory of a set of genes, or the victory of an ethnic group.
Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Ted Williams all succeeded in their chosen fields at the highest possible levels. And, their parents and off-spring were just normal, average folks. Again, genetics is good at breeding field corn. And, is utterly useless in predicting what any one person might have to offer society.
Eradicating ethic and genetic stereotyping does not require rocket science. You can (and should) teach this to a four year old: get to know each person as a unique individual. Appreciate what each person has to offer. Don't judge a person what a person has to offer merely by who their father was, or the color of their skin.