So Is This Racism?

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ugabuga

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Hi, I have been reading some of your topics on here and have injoyed quite a few. I have noticed that the more popular one's here have to do with race and racial issues.

So I came across this news story today and wondered if this is in any way is racism? I myself don't know, but I myself am not a scientific expert the way many of you guys are.

So is this racism?

Army Effort to Enlist Hispanics Draws Recruits, and Criticism

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: February 9, 2006
DENVER — As Sgt. First Class Gavino Barron, dressed in a crisp Army uniform, trawls the Wal-Mart here for recruits, past stacks of pillows and towers of detergent, he is zeroing-in on one of the Army's "special missions": to increase the number of Hispanic enlisted soldiers.

He approaches a couple of sheepish looking teenage boys in the automotive aisle and seamlessly slides into Spanish, letting loose his pitch: "Have you ever thought about joining the Army?" "Did you know you can get up to $40,000 in bonuses?" "I'm from Mexico, too. Michoacán."

In Denver and other cities where the Hispanic population is growing, recruiting Latinos has become one of the Army's top priorities. From 2001 to 2005, the number of Latino enlistments in the Army rose 26 percent, and in the military as a whole, the increase was 18 percent.

The increase comes at a time when the Army is struggling to recruit new soldiers and when the enlistment of African-Americans, a group particularly disillusioned with the war in Iraq, has dropped off sharply, to 14.5 percent from 22.3 percent over the past four years.

Critics say recruiters, who are under pressure to meet quotas, often use their charm and an arsenal of tactics, including repeated calls to a recruit, lunch at a favorite restaurant and trips to the gym. The Army also parades rigged-out, juiced-up Hummers wherever youths gather as promotional tools.

While the military emphasizes that it works to enlist all qualified people, not just Hispanics, military experts say that bringing in more Latinos is overdue. Hispanics have long been underrepresented in the Army and in the military as a whole. While Latinos make up 10.8 percent of the Army's active-duty force, a better rate than the Air Force or Navy, they account for 14 percent of the population as a whole.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/n...fc581180571a86&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
 
ugabuga said:
Hi, I have been reading some of your topics on here and have injoyed quite a few. I have noticed that the more popular one's here have to do with race and racial issues.

So I came across this news story today and wondered if this is in any way is racism? I myself don't know, but I myself am not a scientific expert the way many of you guys are.

So is this racism?

Army Effort to Enlist Hispanics Draws Recruits, and Criticism

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: February 9, 2006
DENVER — As Sgt. First Class Gavino Barron, dressed in a crisp Army uniform, trawls the Wal-Mart here for recruits, past stacks of pillows and towers of detergent, he is zeroing-in on one of the Army's "special missions": to increase the number of Hispanic enlisted soldiers.

He approaches a couple of sheepish looking teenage boys in the automotive aisle and seamlessly slides into Spanish, letting loose his pitch: "Have you ever thought about joining the Army?" "Did you know you can get up to $40,000 in bonuses?" "I'm from Mexico, too. Michoacán."

In Denver and other cities where the Hispanic population is growing, recruiting Latinos has become one of the Army's top priorities. From 2001 to 2005, the number of Latino enlistments in the Army rose 26 percent, and in the military as a whole, the increase was 18 percent.

The increase comes at a time when the Army is struggling to recruit new soldiers and when the enlistment of African-Americans, a group particularly disillusioned with the war in Iraq, has dropped off sharply, to 14.5 percent from 22.3 percent over the past four years.

Critics say recruiters, who are under pressure to meet quotas, often use their charm and an arsenal of tactics, including repeated calls to a recruit, lunch at a favorite restaurant and trips to the gym. The Army also parades rigged-out, juiced-up Hummers wherever youths gather as promotional tools.

While the military emphasizes that it works to enlist all qualified people, not just Hispanics, military experts say that bringing in more Latinos is overdue. Hispanics have long been underrepresented in the Army and in the military as a whole. While Latinos make up 10.8 percent of the Army's active-duty force, a better rate than the Air Force or Navy, they account for 14 percent of the population as a whole.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/n...fc581180571a86&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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No, because Mexicans are moving into the country at a high rate. They make excellent recruits.
 
Racism means treating certain people differently from the way you treat everyone else because they belong to a particular race. It doesn't matter whether you're treating them better, because that just means you're treating all the other people worse because of their race(s).

Suppose a black man is walking down the sidewalk in a typical American city with a white majority. He politely ignores all the white people he sees. Suddenly another black man is walking toward him, a complete stranger. He smiles and says, "Hi." That's racism. He is being less friendly to the white people just because they are white.

Suppose an American of European ancestry is working in Beijing. Walking down the sidewalk, he politely ignores all the people who are obviously of Asian ancestry, even though he speaks enough Chinese to make friendly chatter. He spots another person of obvious European ancestry, walks over to him and starts a friendly conversation in English. It turns out the guy is German and speaks no English, so he answers him in Chinese. A man of obvious Asian ancestry stops and speaks to him in English; it turns out that he is an American tourist who speaks no Chinese, visiting the land his great grandparents immigrated from.

Do you see the problem with racism? Even if you're doing something you believe is innocuous or even kind, you can easily be making incorrect assumptions about people if you assume that all people of a certain race are alike in some important way.

There may be Euro-Americans in Denver who would love to know about the opportunities in the Army. To ignore them and offer the opportunities to Latinos just because they are Latinos is racism.

This country went through about three decades of affirmative racism. (They called it "affirmative action.") We tried to make amends for hundreds of years of singling black people out for bad treatment by suddenly singling them out for good treatment. The problem with that was that we were giving jobs to black people when they may not have been the best qualified candidates, so it reduced the efficiency of our organizations. We were also teaching black people a strange lesson: that they didn't have to do well in school or get a lot of experience because we'd give them jobs anyway.

It was an experiment. For a long time we'd been teaching white people that we didn't need to do well in school or get a lot of experience because we'd get jobs anyway, jobs that some black person might be better qualifed for. That wasn't good either, and we forgot the old rule that two wrongs don't make a right.

But since it didn't last very long--just a moment in the age of earth's civilization--we muddled through and probably no permanent harm was done. One good thing came out of it. White people got to learn what it feels like to be discriminated against.

It's all racism, the specifics don't matter.
 
Ricky Houy said:
No, because Mexicans are moving into the country at a high rate. They make excellent recruits.
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If Mexicans are being recruited for war so that less American lives would be lost.

Is that racism?
 
spuriousmonkey said:
That would most likely be racism if you define americans as 'white americans'.
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Why would you only say "That would most likely be racism if you define americans as 'white americans"

What about black or Asian Americans?

The point is that the US government it targeting one certein race of people to fight a war for America.
 
black, white, asian is all ok. It is just that 'white' americans hold the power positions in american society. I haven't seen a black or asian president yet for instance. Hence my reference to 'white'.
 
That's because white candidates are deemed to be less risque by their parties. They are the 'neutral' candidates. More votes.

You will hardly ever see a leader not belonging to the majoity race of his country.
 
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Major Side Step:

(There are more white women than men. Still no female president in the US - and there will never be one I think)
 
Major Side Step:

The point is that the US government it targeting one certein race of people to fight a war for America.

Is this not racism?
 
Spurious,

Very few women enter politics.

Speaking of which.. Canada had a female prime minister once. She lasted 6 weeks :D
 
ugabuga said:
If Mexicans are being recruited for war so that less American lives would be lost.

Is that racism?
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If that was the case then it would be more of a stereotype with a little bit of facist views. But Mexicans are good rrecruits. Plus they are Americans. So in reality Americans are still dying.
 
Xerxes said:
Spurious,

Very few women enter politics.

Speaking of which.. Canada had a female prime minister once. She lasted 6 weeks :D
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The Finnish president, Tarja Halonen, was re-elected recently for a second term. Not to mention margeret thatcher.
 
Thatcher.. that scum. I think she is proof that we are no better off with female leaders than males.
 
Tarja Halonen is ok. She wasn't even married when she was elected (got married afterwards), and she is seeing Conan O'Brian soon because he helped winning her the election alledgely.
 
Hispanics aren't really a "race" however; they're simply an ethnic group who have common linguistic, cultural, and/or geographical ancestries.

...

The US's armed forces are recruiting whoever they can right now... and it has nothing to do with racism or preference; such arbitrary ratios of ethnic subtypes to defense enlistment populations really don't indicate anything useful.

...

The confusion of "race" and ethnicity is profound, and enshrined in the west with idiocies such as "hate crime" legislation, skewed census data, "EO" legislation, and the plethora of institutionalized- cultural, social, political, theological, and linguistic memes.

"Black Power"

"White Supremacy"

"Racial Awareness" (objectively, that's an oxymoron)

It's all the same lunacy, underneath; none of it scientific or objectively true.
 
Well, to consider the question in a certain aspect:

- Is the one who despises "hatred" and "bigotry" a bigot?​

Once in a while, I encounter this notion, and it does not quite make sense to me. Hanging tightly to something irrational, e.g. "I hate blacks because they're gonna rape my daughter," makes no realistic sense. The conditions under which such a fear becomes nearly automatically true suggests close acquaintance with blacks: most rape survivors are previously acquainted with their rapist. And while there is no accounting for the breadth of diversity among individuals and how they think, I would generally assert that the rejection of irrational racial and ethnic standards will find better rational justification.

Likewise, we might question whether there is an underlying rationale for such a tactic by the armed services, and whether that rationale is valid. In this case, what is the difference between "racism" and "target marketing"? And here the question becomes even more complicated.

Would a black person be more trusting of a black face recruiting? Would not an Hispanic person be more trusting of an Hispanic recruiter? I remember an old TV advert for Oldsmobile in which they had a clownish-looking black man and his attractive wife get into a sedan; the license plate read "DENTIST". Well and fine, at least it didn't say "GANGSTA". Is it racism, then, to put a black face behind the wheel of an Oldsmobile in order to make black people feel included in the desired market? To the other, is it racism on the part of blacks if they buy Oldsmobiles in response to such a campaign? There is a Jeep Commander spot in circulation these days that has this incredible "blaxploitation" tone about the way the voice says, "Commander".

Which raises the sticky question: If the black person trusts a black face, or if the Hispanic trusts an Hispanic face, is that racism? Is there a valid rationale that describes such an increased trust? Is it akin to skinny women trying to sell clothes and makeup to the obese, or are obese women obsessed with body image and bigoted against the thin if they are disgusted by the heroin-chic and waif blitzes? Does the use of "plus-sized" models merely reflect a market communication demand, or does it somehow constitute buckling to the loud voice of a market that lacks self-discipline?

Is any of this analysis fair to begin with? For instance, do blacks really trust black faces more? There is some research, though I'm pressed at this time to provide a resource, that suggests even blacks learn culturally to distrust black faces. And yet "white America" is well aware of a sense of the "black community", a certain social solidarity that the middle and upper economic strata have some difficulty comprehending. Is the Hispanic regard for Hispanics similar to or different from the black community?

On a basic level, I fall in with the idea that we are viewing something more akin to target marketing, and may be purely so. To the other, while a black man might be more prone ot choose a cigarette, for instance, pitched by a black face, we also know that certain tobacco companies both pitched menthol smokes to black America while suppressing data reflecting the increased risk associated with the product. If the armed services undertakes a greater degree of slickery and deception than is usually accused of its recruiters, there may be a case here for racism. But if we consider that Hispanics appear to be underrepresented as a demographic proportion within the ranks, it well may be wise to consider them an untapped or underexploited market. After all, was the Lucky Strike Green Ball sexism, or adept marketing? And can a market-oriented society function properly without making certain distinctions?

In the end, it depends on policy details we are not privy to, and also the conduct of recruiters both individually and collectively. But the most basic suggestions are more about marketing than racism.
 
It's not racism because recruiters do this to all races, trying to sucker them into joining. Recruiters are complete scum, IMO.

- N
 
tiassa said:
- Is the one who despises "hatred" and "bigotry" a bigot?​
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One who embraces those qualities is, while one who lacks or opposes those qualities would logically deserve some other label.

...

As I've stated elsewhere, racism is most simply defined as "the belief in races" because there is no scientific basis to assert that there is more than one Human race, and hasn't been for some 30,000 years. It is a proven fact that there is more variation within Human karyotypes than between phenotypes; this means that there is more genetic distance between just the tallest and shortest dark skinned Humans, than between the average dark and light skinned Human. It is therefore illogical to evaluate "race" on extrinsic characteristics; our greatest differences are within our genetic subgroups, not between them.

I've been waiting for my detractors to supply a working definition of race, but it likely won't happen; all they have had so far is discredited pseudoscience, ad hominem, illogical rhetoric, and hand-waving and bald assertion.

Cheers
 
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