Why Racial Disparities Do Not Prove Racism

AD Robles

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Hi, my name is Adam Robles and I wanted to do a video today about how to demonstrate racism because I've I've said a lot in a lot of my videos that a

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Statistical disparity does not prove racism and I wanted to explain what I mean by that and and I'm gonna give a hypothetical

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Example here and you know, we're gonna kind of work through this and see you know, how you would demonstrate racism

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Let's say that let's say that two families are looking for a loan Right, and one of the families is white and one of the families is

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Hispanic or black or whatever you know ethnicity you want to choose and They they're both looking for the same amount of loan.

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They have They have the same house that they want to buy or at least the house that cost the same whatever and They asked this guy for a loan and the guy says to the white family.

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Sure. You can have the loan and to the black Or Hispanic family. He says no you can't have the loan. So the question is is that racist, right?

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And you know, I think some people would be tempted to immediately say yes But I think that the only fair answer that we have is

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We don't know we need more information Right because there are a lot of variables that could be at play here besides just the skin color

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That could be the reason for one family getting a loan and one family not You know, so let's just say okay.

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Let's give you more information, right? So Let's say that both families have the same income, right?

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So both families make a hundred thousand dollars a year or something like that and Still the white family is getting a loan.

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The black family isn't is that racist? Well, we have more information now, right? So someone might be tempted to say oh, yeah, that's definitely racist but again,

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I think we need more information because there are still other variables that could be at play because let's say for example that The the

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Hispanic or black family had had a loan before that they defaulted on Well, the the person who's getting asked for a loan might be looking at that and saying hmm

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Well, if they've defaulted on a loan before there's a better chance of them doing it again So I don't want to lose my money and so I'm not gonna give them a loan

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So again, it could be nothing about race. It's just about sort of the the details So let's say that there wasn't anything like that.

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So let's say that there was they make the same amount of money They hadn't they had the same credit history Um, let's say that that those two things are the same now now is it racist if one family gets a loan and one family doesn't

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Well, we have more information now So it's starting to look like it might be but there still are other variables that could be at play

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Right. You don't know about the family's debt load Maybe maybe the black and Hispanic family has like ten loans already

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And so the and the white family has no loans already. And so the guys like well, how are they gonna pay for this? Their salaries are the same but they also have so much already that they need to pay for so I'm not so sure about that Let's say that those are the same two

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Let's say the debt load was the same and everything So you can keep going down the list and so you have to look beyond the skin color, right?

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You have to look at all of the details that are at play And so let's say that every single variable that we can think of is the same

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And so the white family has the same, you know, everything basically as the black family. Well at that point

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We might have enough to say, you know, there might be something else going on here There might be some kind of a racism going on here, but you see that takes work, right?

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That takes a lot of work You have to actually demonstrate that these things are all the same because as soon as there's one variable that is like well

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Yeah, it looks like this family might not, you know be as qualified for this loan as the other See at that point it's like well, is it really racism?

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It could be see see here's the thing let's let's just say that that there was a variable right like Like let's say that the the black family made $90 ,000 and the white family made a hundred thousand dollars

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And so the loan guys like well, I'm gonna give the loan to the guy who the family has a hundred thousand dollars

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Could he secretly be racist and being like, yeah Well, you know ninety thousand dollars a year is still enough to pay back this loan, but I just don't like black people

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So I'm not gonna give him the loan. That's possible. That is very possible, but you haven't demonstrated it yet.

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And so Again you like a very bare -bones statistical disparity is not enough to demonstrate racism

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It just isn't you have to do much more work to really demonstrate it. And again, this is just We don't need proof to demonstrate racism in everyday circumstances

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But if if you want, you know someone to do something about it if you want there to be some kind of a

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Action social action you have to demonstrate it. And so it takes a lot more work than just saying

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Oh, look at how many Hispanics are doing X versus whites, you know, like that's not enough

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That's very lazy and a lot of this stuff about institutional racism a lot of the statistics I see that supposedly prove it.

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They're just very lazy. It's very base level sort of just oh, well, there's a difference So it must be racism

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My brother and I were talking about about this recently and we were talking about our friends, right?

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And so when when we lived in Connecticut and when we lived in Maryland, we had a lot of friends of different ethnicities

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You know, we had a lot of white friends. We had a lot of you know, Indian friends We had a lot of black friends Asian, you know, the whole the works it was it was it was like the

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UN in these places and Then when he moved to Pittsburgh and when I moved to Vermont Basically, all of our friends are white all of them.

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And so the question is did we become racist over that time? Well, no, obviously not.

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Yeah, the reality is that most people in Vermont are white And so it makes sense that when

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I moved to Vermont Most of my friends are white now, you know, I mean most of people hang out with their white

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That has nothing to do with my opinions on friends I didn't have a kind of an epiphany where it's like, oh, well,

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I don't want to have any Muslim friends anymore Like no, it's not like that It's it's just because the reality of the situation is that the demographics here are largely white.

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And so that's how it works but if you are doing this sort of lazy sort of Statistical thing was like well, you know

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Adam had you know a lot of Ethnic friends in New York, but then he moved to Vermont and he all has white friends.

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So he must have become racist He must have decided doesn't like these ethnicities anymore. See that's the lazy way out.

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That's the lazy way out You know, you're not counting for all the variables. I moved to Vermont for completely different reasons

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Than you know who my friends were right? So again that if you're gonna talk about statistical

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Disparities and you're gonna try to relate that to institutional racism or systemic, you know racism You have to do the heavy lifting you have to do the hard work to demonstrate

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It can't just be this sort of surface level like oh, well, there's a difference in statistical disparities So there that proves the racism that that's just the lazy way out.

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And so You know, I'm still waiting. I'm still looking for someone to demonstrate Institutional racism to me and I just haven't seen it.

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What I see is a lot of lazy thinking I see a lot of sort of selective statistical, you know disparities that don't prove anything at all

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And so that's that's my whole point. I hope that was helpful I hope that kind of clears up why I say these things

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And if you have the proof if you have the statistical disparities that demonstrate

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Statistical or I'm sorry institutional racism, please show me I'm not against the idea out of hand

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I would if I'm wrong I would love to know that I'm wrong because if I'm being systemically and institutionally oppressed