From: cfthb@ux1.cts.eiu.edu (Howard Black)
Subject: Re: Discrimination and anti-discrimination laws
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 16:25:36 GMT
Organization: Eastern Illinois University

In article <DRW.92Dec11163325@euclid.mit.edu> drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:

>But the discrimination against gays isn't as intense as
>it is against blacks.  Yes, there are gay-bashings, etc., but it's

    Define "intense".  There are many more people killed every month
because they are gay than because they are black.  

>easier to keep being gay undercover.  There's even the weird statistic
>that the average gay person (or is it household?) makes a lot more
>money than the average person.  (Though that's likely to be affected

    So what?  Does this mean that they more deserve to be bashed?  Or that
bashing them is somehow less serious??

>by who defines themselves to be gay.)  The extension of
>anti-discrimination laws should be done rather sparingly, because of
>the costs that such laws impose.  And if and when the prejudice

    How 'bout you weight these costs against the cost to the gay community
of *not* passing them?  You wouldn't be a white, het male, would you?

>against a particular group declines to a relatively low level, that
>group should be stricken from the anti-discrimination laws.

    By this logic, you should immediately support inclusion of gays into
anti-discrimination laws, since prejudice against them is so amazingly
high.  Do you?

>There's been a lot
>of mixing in the American population, although it officially doesn't
>exist -- The average American "White" is of something like 10% African
>ancestry, and the average American "Black" is of something like 25%
>European ancestry.  American Whites are considerably darker (on the

    Please cite a source for this unbelievable nugget of "fact".

>average) than the northern European population that they are
>supposedly derived from.  American Blacks are considerably lighter
>than the west African population.
>
>Of course, you are right to ask why assimilation would start now, when
>it hasn't happened for the preceeding 300 years.  The reason is, I
>think, that the wall of prejudice has started to crack in a lot of
>little ways, and that is going to cause a lot of larger cracks in the
>next generation or so.  The situation of American Blacks is a lot
>better than it was 40 years ago.  Well, situation of the middle class
>ones, that is.  (The poor blacks are doing worse, but that's another
>question.)  40 years ago, the number of middle-class blacks (middle
>class in terms of income) was vanishingly small.  Now, they are about
>1/3 of all blacks.  (And rising reasonably rapidly.)  And the number
>of inter-racial marriages is going up significantly.  In cities like
>New York, there are a lot of people of "mixed" racial background, when
>classified by the standard American racial system.  (Such people tend
>to get themselves classified under whichever race is most expedient at
>the moment, which leaves affirmative action programs in a quandry!)

    Perhaps you could condense the preceding stream-of-illogic into two ro
three sentences.  Even using your own questionable statistics, your point
is not supported.

>Comparing the American Blacks to other minorities, they seem to fit
>the standard model reasonably well, if you pretend that they arrived
>in the US about 1960.  Three generations after that (around 2020 or
>2035), we will start to resemble Jamaica, where they don't seem to
>have "races" at all.

    Not a chance.

-- 
   ******************************************************************
     Howard Black                             cfthb@ux1.cts.eiu.edu
     Department of Chemistry                  Eastern Illinois Univ. 
Newsgroups: alt.politics.sex