This is a linkpost for http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/black-lives-matter.html
Is it fair? No. Is it racist? Also no.
Agree, and I think this is a really important and overlooked implication, that two tribes will talk past each other on. Unfair discrimination persists even with rational, non-racist, greedy capitalist.
A less charged example would be life insurance policies. Almost everyone would agree that mortality tables are acceptable; almost everyone could also imagine themselves getting older, and could imagine themselves as above average with in their group. The insurer will rationally charge the older group more premium. Atypical healthier older people within this group have experience unfair discrimination and the insurer is rationally non-prejudiced.
So when one tribe says that markets will punish racist, it doesn't fix unfair discrimination. And when other tribe says that there is unfair discrimination, that doesn't mean there is rampant racism. I personally feel a lot of compassion towards atypical individuals within a disadvantaged group, but how could we improve?
I personally feel a lot of compassion towards atypical individuals within a disadvantaged group, but how could we improve?
Well, do we want to fix the problem, or only to reduce its visibility?
By "reducing visibility" I mean solutions where some individuals are still discriminated more than others, but the numbers don't show up when you do the statistics by race. As a reductio-ad-absurdum example, having cops additionally shoot a few innocent white people would fix the race statistics. I can imagine a few less obviously absurd solutions which w...