Posted on 09/24/2014 10:41:35 AM PDT by Kaslin
How many times have we heard laments such as "women are 50 percent of the population but only 5 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs" and, as the Justice Department recently found, "blacks are 54 percent of the population in Newark, New Jersey, but 85 percent of pedestrian stops and 79 percent of arrests"? If one believes that people should be represented socio-economically according to their numbers in the population, then statistical disparities represent injustices that demand government remedies. Before we jump to conclusions about what disparities mean and whether they are indicators of injustice, we might examine some other disparities to see what we can make of them.
According to a recent study conducted by Bond University in Australia, sharks are nine times as likely to attack and kill men than they are women. If sinister motivation is attributed for this disparity, as is done in the cases of sex and racial disparities, we can only conclude that sharks are sexist. Another sex disparity is despite the fact that men are 50 percent of the population and so are women, men are struck by lightning six times as often as women. I wonder what whoever is in charge of lightning has against men.
Another gross statistical disparity is despite the fact that Jews are less than 3 percent of the U.S. population and a mere 0.2 percent of the world's population, between 1901 and 2010, Jews were 35 percent of American and 22 percent of the world's Nobel Prize winners.
There are other disparities that we might acknowledge with an eye to corrective public policy. Asian-Americans routinely score the highest on the math portion of the SAT, whereas blacks score the lowest. The population statistics for South Dakota, Iowa, Maine, Montana and Vermont show that not even 1 percent of their populations is black. In states such as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, blacks are overrepresented in terms of their percentages in the general population. When this kind of "segregation" is found in schooling, the remedy is busing.
There are loads of international examples of ethnic disparities. During the 1960s, the Chinese minority in Malaysia, where Malays politically dominate, received more university degrees than the Malay majority -- including 400 engineering degrees, compared with just four for the Malays. In Brazil's state of Sao Paulo, more than two-thirds of the potatoes and 90 percent of the tomatoes produced have been produced by people of Japanese ancestry.
Blacks are 13 percent of our population but 80 percent of professional basketball players and 65 percent of professional football players and among the highest-paid players in both sports. By stark contrast, blacks are only 2 percent of the NHL's professional ice hockey players. Basketball, football and ice hockey represent gross racial disparities and come nowhere close to "looking like America."
Even in terms of sports achievement, racial diversity is absent. In Major League Baseball, three out of the four hitters with the most career home runs are black. Since blacks entered the major leagues, of the eight times more than 100 bases have been stolen in a season, all were by blacks. In basketball, 50 of the 59 MVP awards have been won by black players.
If America's diversity worshippers see underrepresentation as "probative" of racial discrimination, what do they propose be done about overrepresentation? After all, overrepresentation and underrepresentation are simply different sides of injustice. If those in one race are overrepresented, it might mean they're taking away what rightfully belongs to another race. For example, is it possible that Jews are doing things that sabotage the chances of a potential Indian, Alaska Native or Mexican Nobel Prize winner? What about the disgraceful lack of diversity in professional basketball and ice hockey? There's not even geographical diversity in professional ice hockey; not a single player can boast of having been born and raised in Hawaii, Louisiana or Mississippi.
Courts, bureaucrats and the intellectual elite have consistently concluded that "gross" disparities are probative of a pattern and practice of discrimination. Given all of the differences among people, such a position is pure nonsense.
What’s the expression? ‘Correlation does not equal causation?’
Yeah, that’s it. That’s the ticket.
There are more women than men (IIRC) but there are more men in prison. Is that sexual discrimination, or is it something else?
No.
But try telling that to a race hustler or a radical “feminist” - or an anthropogenic global warming fanatic
Great article. A keeper.
Women can become mothers. Men have a zero percent chance of becoming pregnant.
I wants redistribuparations.
Blacks are 15% of the population but 95% of the players in the NBA.
Dr Walter E. Williams always hits the nail square on the head
Yes, it does. I want my football and basketball career as a white guy that the racist NFL and NBA has denied me. Where is my pigskin reparation?
Nothing is more pernicious than Egalitarian attacks on the realities of human differences. In place of respect for the achievements of those who succeed, Egalitarianism seeds group antagonism & hatred on a level that would never otherwise exist. At the same time, it embarrasses the achievers into abandoning the cultural verities that made the loftier aspects of their success possible.
Western Conservatives, who walk on eggs--as it were--rather than challenge the fantasy of human equality, are in the process of surrendering centuries of the upward endeavors of every Western Nation.
See The Greatest Mischief Ever Wrought.
William Flax
Procrustean egalitarianism.
Clearly whites aren’t raping enough black women, because virtually all black women are raped by black men. While those same black men rape a large percentage of white women.
Perhaps the government can come up with a program to correct that situation? Does Bill Clinton still have an office in Harlem?
Is there any other kind? Did anybody ever sit in a class with his or her equal on either side? We are all different--except for identical siblings--as are any two apples on the same tree.
Jefferson, in the Declaration was replying to that argument that the King ruled by divine right, not suggesting a leveling of the population. The part of the Declaration that is always quoted out of context by the Left, is an exposition of the compact theory of Government. The Founders were very familiar with it, as should be every student of English History, as Magna Carta is a prime example of the practical application of that theory.
William Flax
Exactly. And Locke echoed that sentiment when he said, in essence, that conservatives prefer liberty over equality. It was the faux egalitarianism of the French Revolution (founded on the Humanist ravings of Rousseau) that made it so bloody, while the American Revolution, based on Lockeian social contract, simply removed the encumbrances to liberty and let each man rise to his own potential. The French ideal punished those who dared excel; the American model left them free to enjoy their reward.
Look how far we’ve fallen. “Social justice” is just a turd in a bowtie, a euphemism for the punitive economic leveling we escaped at our founding.
Note how Leftist theories are always based upon wish lists--what they wish were true, rather than what is actually true. The only difference between Rousseau and the American Academic quack of today, is that Rousseau actually might have had an original idea once or twice. But the confusion of wishes & horses & figurative pigs growing wings, goes back a very long time.
They aren't "fanatics" or even "feminists" ...... but they are cold-blooded hustlers, and utterly deadly to society.
Prof. Williams destroys the first premise of most Leftist agitation.
Women get their nails done more frequently than men.
Are Nail Salons discriminating against Men?.............
Hmm....
Always, especially when Progressives do the statistics and cover them with that nice fudge they love so much.
IMHO
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