Because, on average, black people are more economically disadvantaged than white people.
Choosing to explicitly buy from black farmers will, on average, tend to support those with the least financial means out of the general population of farmers, whereas choosing to explicitly buy from white farmers will, on average, tend to support those who are already more financially advantaged.
One side is directly choosing to help those most likely to be economically disadvantaged, the other would be explicitly ignoring those with the least means in order to help those who already have the most, thus the situations are not quite comparable.
I personally would prefer an index that directly assessed farmers based on overall wealth to determine who you should buy from, but because that’s extraordinarily difficult to constantly update & maintain, verify, etc, it can just be easier to divide among racial lines since that still tends to produce a grouping that is relatively similar.
Should we just stop using statistics then? Numbers don’t matter if they are about people? (I genuinely want an answer here. Should we?)
Statistically, one societal class of people needs more support than the other to have the exact same quality of life, generational wealth, and opportunities. Thus, when deciding who to buy, in this case, produce from, it simply makes sense to purchase from the group most disadvantaged, until their disadvantage is no bigger than the other group, and we can then switch from buying from “small black farmers directly” to “all small farmers directly,” because all of them would then need a near identical level of support, financially speaking, to get the same outcomes.
Group A is historically not discriminated against, and now on average, has a net worth of $100,000.
Group B is historically discriminated against, and now on average, has a net worth of $80,000.
In both groups, some will own more or less than the average, but the largest number of poorer individuals reside in Group B, because the average is lower.
On a per person basis, everyone has $20,000 to spend. Should they give it:
Exclusively to Group A? (and “discriminate” against Group B, but raise their average net worth to $120,000)
Exclusively to Group B? (and “discriminate” against Group A, but raise their average net worth to $100,000)
Split evenly between the two? (bringing Group A’s average to $110,000, and Group B’s average to $90,000)
Which option is most likely to uplift the most poor people to a less poor status?
This is why your argument of “discrimination” doesn’t hold up. The choice to make a purchase from Group A while ignoring Group B only entrenches existing wealth disparities. The choice to make a purchase from both evenly keeps the wealth disparity where it is. The choice to buy exclusively from Group B eliminates the disparity.
This decision is not being made because of race on its own, it is being made because of the common socioeconomic context within which people of color often reside. If white people were the ones who had a history of economic discrimination, even if all other actions regarding past and current racism remained equal, then economically supporting the white farmers specifically would make the most sense, because they would be most economically disadvantaged.
You cannot have a meritocracy when people start on uneven ground, and there is a very demonstrable difference in existing generational wealth between the races, as a direct consequence of past injustices. The way we fix that as individuals, and as a society, is by doing what we can to elevate groups experiencing a disparity until they no longer do.
Of course there are, but as has already been shown through many attempts at creating welfare programs that directly test the means of the recipients, the administrative cost to provide funds to people based on highly specific factors about themselves (e.g. total net worth, rate of income, spending, cost to employ farm employees, profit margins, etc etc etc) can cost significantly more than blanket assistance.
It’s one of the reasons why UBI works so well compared to traditional welfare in administrative costs, since it doesn’t need to be means tested.
Now obviously this isn’t a one-to-one comparison, but let’s say we create an index just like the one at question here, but it’s specifically the “poor farmer’s index.” To do so, we need to:
Request extensive documentation from all farmers applying
Somebody then has to verify the net assets, income, expenses, etc of all farmers who apply to be listed in the index via that paperwork…
…and continue to verify that data over time, as it obviously changes year-to-year. The eligibility of every participant would have to be re-verified regularly, otherwise someone could become not poor, but stay in the index. This is a perpetual expense that grows linearly over time as more people are added to the index.
Who will do that work? Now somebody needs to be paid to do this, or spend many hours doing volunteer work just to verify eligibility. Now, in the end yes, that kind of system would be ideal for determining who needs the most help, and I would pick that system every time over a “black farmers index” if it existed in a functional form.
The problem is that it has significantly higher costs and requires consistent administration over time, something that is obviously hard to expect from a random volunteer project that, based on their staff information, only has 2 “Data Entry and Logistics” roles that are currently filled. Imagine two people handling the ingesting, data entry, and administrative tasks for all the farmers applying to this index across the entire United States, having to verify every single individual’s financial situation. It’s difficult, and costly.
So yes, as I stated just earlier in this comment, and in my original post, of course I’d prefer an index that directly assesses the economic viability of every individual. However, because doing so is costly, and we know that race is a good proxy for the estimation of general wealth, it makes sense to use that for a small, relatively inexpensive, independently run online site, that now only needs to verify one factor, that doesn’t change over time, to get a good enough approximation of lack of wealth.
This entire discussion revolves not around the ideals of what we should have, but what is feasible. If it is not feasible at the current point in time for such an organization to directly assess the needs of individuals, it makes sense to use a substantially cheaper to assess proxy, instead of not being able to have any index at all.
Because racism is the discrimination of someone based on their ethnicity. If you are choosing one person over another due solely to their ethnicity, isn’t that discrimination? Shouldn’t people be judged not by the color of their skin? Explicitly advertising that you are selective solely based on race is racism.
I have seen this discussion happen over and over again and a big part of the misunderstanding is some people in the US have the definition of racism also involving power and some don’t. If your definition is the former, it’s what allows people to say “Fuck white people” isn’t racist with a straight face. Before you ask someone if something is racist, ask them what they think racism is. It will save a lot of time and aggravation for everyone.
Some white people have no power and some black people have loads of it. Can we just stop this categorization of people by race for if they can or can’t do something?
How is this not racist? If there were a service where you could choose to buy directly from white farmers peoples would lose their minds
Because, on average, black people are more economically disadvantaged than white people.
Choosing to explicitly buy from black farmers will, on average, tend to support those with the least financial means out of the general population of farmers, whereas choosing to explicitly buy from white farmers will, on average, tend to support those who are already more financially advantaged.
One side is directly choosing to help those most likely to be economically disadvantaged, the other would be explicitly ignoring those with the least means in order to help those who already have the most, thus the situations are not quite comparable.
I personally would prefer an index that directly assessed farmers based on overall wealth to determine who you should buy from, but because that’s extraordinarily difficult to constantly update & maintain, verify, etc, it can just be easier to divide among racial lines since that still tends to produce a grouping that is relatively similar.
deleted by creator
Should we just stop using statistics then? Numbers don’t matter if they are about people? (I genuinely want an answer here. Should we?)
Statistically, one societal class of people needs more support than the other to have the exact same quality of life, generational wealth, and opportunities. Thus, when deciding who to buy, in this case, produce from, it simply makes sense to purchase from the group most disadvantaged, until their disadvantage is no bigger than the other group, and we can then switch from buying from “small black farmers directly” to “all small farmers directly,” because all of them would then need a near identical level of support, financially speaking, to get the same outcomes.
deleted by creator
Group A is historically not discriminated against, and now on average, has a net worth of $100,000.
Group B is historically discriminated against, and now on average, has a net worth of $80,000.
In both groups, some will own more or less than the average, but the largest number of poorer individuals reside in Group B, because the average is lower.
On a per person basis, everyone has $20,000 to spend. Should they give it:
Which option is most likely to uplift the most poor people to a less poor status?
This is why your argument of “discrimination” doesn’t hold up. The choice to make a purchase from Group A while ignoring Group B only entrenches existing wealth disparities. The choice to make a purchase from both evenly keeps the wealth disparity where it is. The choice to buy exclusively from Group B eliminates the disparity.
This decision is not being made because of race on its own, it is being made because of the common socioeconomic context within which people of color often reside. If white people were the ones who had a history of economic discrimination, even if all other actions regarding past and current racism remained equal, then economically supporting the white farmers specifically would make the most sense, because they would be most economically disadvantaged.
You cannot have a meritocracy when people start on uneven ground, and there is a very demonstrable difference in existing generational wealth between the races, as a direct consequence of past injustices. The way we fix that as individuals, and as a society, is by doing what we can to elevate groups experiencing a disparity until they no longer do.
deleted by creator
Of course there are, but as has already been shown through many attempts at creating welfare programs that directly test the means of the recipients, the administrative cost to provide funds to people based on highly specific factors about themselves (e.g. total net worth, rate of income, spending, cost to employ farm employees, profit margins, etc etc etc) can cost significantly more than blanket assistance.
It’s one of the reasons why UBI works so well compared to traditional welfare in administrative costs, since it doesn’t need to be means tested.
Now obviously this isn’t a one-to-one comparison, but let’s say we create an index just like the one at question here, but it’s specifically the “poor farmer’s index.” To do so, we need to:
Who will do that work? Now somebody needs to be paid to do this, or spend many hours doing volunteer work just to verify eligibility. Now, in the end yes, that kind of system would be ideal for determining who needs the most help, and I would pick that system every time over a “black farmers index” if it existed in a functional form.
The problem is that it has significantly higher costs and requires consistent administration over time, something that is obviously hard to expect from a random volunteer project that, based on their staff information, only has 2 “Data Entry and Logistics” roles that are currently filled. Imagine two people handling the ingesting, data entry, and administrative tasks for all the farmers applying to this index across the entire United States, having to verify every single individual’s financial situation. It’s difficult, and costly.
So yes, as I stated just earlier in this comment, and in my original post, of course I’d prefer an index that directly assesses the economic viability of every individual. However, because doing so is costly, and we know that race is a good proxy for the estimation of general wealth, it makes sense to use that for a small, relatively inexpensive, independently run online site, that now only needs to verify one factor, that doesn’t change over time, to get a good enough approximation of lack of wealth.
This entire discussion revolves not around the ideals of what we should have, but what is feasible. If it is not feasible at the current point in time for such an organization to directly assess the needs of individuals, it makes sense to use a substantially cheaper to assess proxy, instead of not being able to have any index at all.
Well why do you think it is? Genuinely curious
Because racism is the discrimination of someone based on their ethnicity. If you are choosing one person over another due solely to their ethnicity, isn’t that discrimination? Shouldn’t people be judged not by the color of their skin? Explicitly advertising that you are selective solely based on race is racism.
I have seen this discussion happen over and over again and a big part of the misunderstanding is some people in the US have the definition of racism also involving power and some don’t. If your definition is the former, it’s what allows people to say “Fuck white people” isn’t racist with a straight face. Before you ask someone if something is racist, ask them what they think racism is. It will save a lot of time and aggravation for everyone.
Some white people have no power and some black people have loads of it. Can we just stop this categorization of people by race for if they can or can’t do something?
deleted by creator
Your comment made me think of this: