Talk:Discrimination

Sex Gender and Gender Identity Discrimination

I think that it is extremely important to recognize that the Sex Gender and Gender Identity section has almost nothing on the transgender community. I hope that someone with knowledge will expand this.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 08:15, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course this raises all of the usual questions. Is it a behavior (whether chosen or per innate tendencies), or is it a membership in a group/category, or the latter created by the former. North8000 (talk) 12:22, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Ask the people who have committed suicide over it. I know what they will tell you. Anyway that is irrelevant my point is that discrimination againist the Transgender Genderqueer and Intersex community is completely ignored with nothing more than a single sentence about the discrimination that trans people face.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 13:11, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't dispute any of that. I think that it should be included as you propose. My point was just to make sure that we don't promulgate a double standard which this article has always been on the brink of which is essentially saying that politically correct discrimination is not discrimination. North8000 (talk) 13:20, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I asked for more coverage on this quite a while ago. I am terrible at research but I still feel that the Sex Gender and Gender Identity section has almost nothing on the transgender community. -Rainbowofpeace (talk) 08:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

"State discrimination vs. free market discrimination"

This entire section reads like a libertarian opinion piece and I'm not really up to the task of rewriting it. There is a total of three sources that are cited repeatedly in both subsections. Two have a clear anarcho-libertarian slant (as do their own sources), but the other I don't have access to.

• Linda Gorman, "senior fellow at the Independence Institute in Golden, Colorado"—a conservative think tank. A quick Google search for linda gorman independence institute confirms that her favorite dead horse is "big government".
• Robert P. Murphy, "Senior Fellow in Business and Economic Studies at Pacific Research Institute"—another conservative think tank. Googling robert p murphy pacific research also brings up some anti-global warming and anti-environmentalist propaganda.

Honestly, I'd like to just remove the section because to me it's obviously propaganda, but that wouldn't be very NPOV of me. Anybody? Eris Discord | Talk 00:22, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd have to say I agree with the above. Came to the talk page specifically for the purpose of seeing that this issue was addressed. 99.55.165.173 (talk) 03:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

"Majority" vs "Advantaged"

There is currently a paragraph in the lede reading "Discrimination is not always against a disadvantaged group. When a majority group (whites, males, heterosexuals, rich etc.) is discriminated against because they are a member of this group this is usually called reverse discrimination."

Recently, anonymous user 216.105.70.83 made this edit noting "Males and the rich are not majorities". In response User:Rainbowofpeace made this edit responding "A majority or minority isn't alway numerical but what is the dominant group or subordinate group in a particular hierarchy."

I meant to make a mediating edit then, but overlooked it until someone deleted that paragraph today (and Rainbowofpeace rightly restored it). My mediating edit addresses 216.105.70.83's correct point that males and the rich are not majorities, while keeping the point the paragraph is making about males and the rich being (as Rainbowofpeace put it) dominant groups. The logical structure of that paragraph is contrasting disadvantaged groups with their opposite; "majority" is clearly not the correct term to use there, as (despite Rainbowofpeace's edit summary) majority groups can be disadvantaged (there are more poor than rich, for example, but the poor are certainly disadvantaged compared to the rich) and conversely minority groups can be advantaged; "dominant", as Rainbowofpeace puts it, would be fine with me; but the obvious choice for contrasting "disadvantaged" is "advantaged", which I use.

Now User:North8000 has reverted that claiming "You can't be serious about defining those as categorically advantaged groups. For starters, it conflicts with the second half of the sentence." I am at a loss to understand this complaint.

It seems North8000 is arguing that sometimes being discriminated against makes a group non-advantaged. By that logic, sometimes being discriminated in favor of would make a group non-disadvantaged, and e.g. the mere existence of affirmative action programs would magically make the groups those favor no longer disadvantaged because something is now in their favor. But the sentence as it stands already disagrees with that. The entire purpose of that sentence is to contrast "whites, males, heterosexuals, rich etc" with "disadvantaged" groups, and say that such "non-disadvantaged" groups are nevertheless sometimes discriminated against, and that there's a name for that.

I am only trying to state that more clearly for technical accuracy, not trying to make that point myself; the sentence already asserts that as-is, just inaccurately, as males and the rich, and in some places even whites, are not majorities, but are still socially dominant or advantaged groups. If North8000 wants to argue with that sentence existing at all, please go right ahead, but that's a different argument than what word to use in it.

--Pfhorrest (talk) 02:15, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you and its not easy trying to make sound contributions to articles which have a small cabal of uncompromising editors who think they WP:own the articles they edit and who scare off anyone whose ideas they personally reject. Too many folks like that on wikipedia. best of luck Peter morrell 07:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that it defines whites, males, heterosexuals etc. (categorically) as "advantaged groups". This definition is unsourced, POV and often wrong. As a sidebar I was pointing out that even the second half of the sentence refutes such a categorical statement....wherever there is "reverse discrimination" those are the dis-advangaged groups in those situations. A minor wording change could fix this problem, and since it is a statement buried in the preface (i.e. not the main statement of the statement) it would not even affect the main statement that is there. North8000 (talk) 14:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

But the entire paragraph was contrasting whites, males, rich, etc, with "disadvantaged groups", and saying that sometimes it is the former who are discriminated against in favor of the latter. But by your reasoning, it is not possible to favor a "disadvantaged group" over [whatever we call the inverse set of such groups], because in favoring them they become, in that context, the advantaged group.

I think it's clear that the paragraph is talking about whether a group is broadly or typically advantaged or disadvantaged; without saying anything about whether e.g. affirmative action policies are good or bad, I think we can all agree that on average (in the US for example) rich white men are overall or usually at an advantage over poor black women, even if in some circumstances (e.g. when affirmative action is in action) the latter would be favored over the former. And that that's clearly what's meant when the poor, blacks, women, etc, are called "disadvantaged groups", both in the first sentence of that paragraph and in common usage all the time; not that nothing ever goes their way, but that things less frequently go their way.

By that usage, there is nothing wrong with calling the rich, whites, men, etc, likewise "advantaged groups", and I don't think anybody is going to be honestly confused by this usage. There is however something clearly wrong with calling a group which is far outnumbered by its inverse set, like the rich, a "majority"; I can't imagine anybody who would claim that the majority of people are rich.

In other words, if you object to calling the rich, white, and men "advantaged groups", you should be the same logic also object to calling the poor, blacks, and women "disadvantaged groups"; and then what language are we going to use to speak of "reverse discrimination" in distinction from other discrimination? You might want to make a point of that -- that discrimination is discrimination regardless of who it is for or against -- but in that case there's nothing special to say about "reverse discrimination" and so the whole paragraph has to go.

Judging from your edit and comment history I presume that you do want to say that there is such a thing as discriminating against rich, whites, men, etc, and that it is not only actions disfavoring the poor, blacks, women, etc which count as "discrimination". I have no objection to that, in fact I think it's a good point to make; but we need something to call the two supersets. The line is clearly not along minority/majority lines if the poor (a majority) and blacks (a minority) are on the same side. So if we don't say advantaged/disadvantaged, what do we say? I'm honestly open to alternatives, but we have to give both sides of the equation equal treatment. --Pfhorrest (talk) 16:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

First, I'm a bit confused. The problematic sentence (which you are arguing in favor of) which I said merely needs tweaking is completely GONE because YOU took it out. (????) That confusion aside, the tweaked version could read something like:

"Discrimination is not always against a disadvantaged group. When a group that is normally considered to be advantaged is discriminated against, that is often called reverse discrimination.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:54, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I deleted it expecting it to be reinstated, because nobody had commented on the talk page here and had instead simply reverted my edit without addressing my points, so it appeared you all were only paying attention to edits, not talk.

If you want to put "normally considered to be" in front of advantaged, then logically it needs to go before "disadvantaged" too, because if reverse discrimination ever happens then the "disadvantaged" groups are sometimes favored and are therefore, by your logic, not categorically disadvantaged. But it would be unwieldy to say: "Discrimination is not always against a group normally considered to be disadvantaged. When a group that is normally considered to be advantaged is discriminated against, that is often called reverse discrimination." We need a concise but accurate pair of terms to use. Rainbowofpeace's word "dominant" would work in place of "advantaged", but the only antonym I can think of is "submissive" which definitely doesn't work in context. We should look into what the standard sociological terms used to describe "rich, whites, men, etc" in contrast to "poor, blacks, women, etc" are (if they aren't just "advantaged"/"disadvantaged"). --Pfhorrest (talk)

Well, if you guys just keep talking this through here, then I feel sure you can reach a happy compromise, from which the article will be all the better. best of luck! Peter morrell 07:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Removal of reverse-discrimination case material

On second thought, I agree with Hairhorn's removal of the material, including by reverting my re-instatement. Upon a re-read of the article, I noticed that it has done a pretty good job of staying at the higher/more general level. Something this specialized might start messing that good pattern up, so it's fine (and, in hindsight, even preferable) with me that the material stays out. North8000 (talk) 13:06, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Sexual Preference

You can say if you are hetro- or homo- sexual. Any mental alarm bells going off? 203.11.71.124 (talk) 04:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

You can also paint yourself a certain skin color, pretend you are of a certain religion, imitate a disability, or pass as a certain sex. That dosn't not make you one of the above. Sexual Orientation is a matter of who you are attracted to and if you could just choose whether to be gay, straight, bisexual, or asexual why would anyone be homosexual with so much homophobia and why would there be so much suicide in the Gay Lesbian or Bisexual community.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 01:53, 4 March 2012 (UTC)