One more policy that will drive more jobs overseas, but the outcome will be fair.

There are three possibilities:

1) there is something about blacks culture or genes that result in higher rates of of criminality (more kids born into single parent families, slightly more kids born with a propensity to discounting the future, etc.).

2) there is something about government that results in more blacks being caught and prosecuted than whites committing the same crimes (racist cops, arrest quotas in inner city areas).

3) there is something about Pepsi that results in blacks being rejected among evenly matched candidates.

From the data on display here, the ONLY hypothesis we can reject is #3. What's hilarious (in a disturbing way) is that if convictions are an illegitimate way to discriminate against people Pepsi is guilty of using this illegitimate tool to deny people employment...but the STATE is using this illegitimate tool to send people to jail.

Are convictions a legitimate tool or aren't they?

The hilarity is doubled when we realize that the same entity (the government) which is sending people to jail in grossly disproportionate numbers by race is upset that someone else is using a metric that the STATE ITSELF CREATED.

(ahem. pardon my shouting. I just hate hypocrisy.)

TJ, I was going to write something else, but I think the answer to your questions lies in the fact that the problem we are discussing didn't exist prior to 1965. Basically, most American blacks are living in the dependency culture that the government created for them. The EEOC action, which claims to be trying to fix a bad aspect of that culture, is itself just another part of the culture. It's "quo-forming" -- an action designed to give the appearance of reform, but which actually reinforces the status quo.

I dream of a day where the EEOC itself is sued for discrimination. How DARE they keep track of race to direct outcome based on their observation?

"...Moreover, in the case of the Negro there were special causes for the prevalence of crime: he had lately been freed from serfdom, he was the object of stinging oppression and ridicule, and paths of an advancement open to many were closed to him. Consequently the class of the shiftless, aimless, idle, discouraged and disappointed was proportionately larger.

In the city of Philadelphia the increasing number of bold and daring crimes committed by Negroes in the last ten years had focused the attention of the city on this subject. There is a widespread feeling that something is wrong with a race that is responsible for so much crime, and that strong remedies are called for. One has but to visit the corridors of the public buildings, when the courts are in session, to realize the part played in law-breaking by the Negro population. The various slum centres of the colored criminal population have lately been the objects of much philanthropic effort, and the work there has aroused discussion. Judges on the bench have discussed the matter. Indeed, to the minds many, this is the real Negro problem. (p. 241)

It seems plain in the first place that the 4 percent of the population of Philadelphia having Negro blood furnished from 1885 to 1889, 14 percent of the serious crimes, and from 1890 to 1895, 22 ½ percent. (p. 249)

It cannot be denied that the main results of the development of the Philadelphia Negro since the war have on whole disappointed his well-wishers. They do not pretend that he has not made great advance in certain lines, or even that in general he is not better off today than formerly. They do not even profess to know just what his condition today is, and yet there is a widespread feeling that more might reasonably have been expected in the line of social and moral development than apparently has been accomplished. Not only do they feel that there is a lack of positive results, but the relative advance compared with the period just before the war is slow, if not an actual retrogression; an abnormal and growing amount of crime and poverty can justly be charged to the Negro; he is not a large taxpayer, holds no conspicuous place in the business world or the world letters, and even as a working man seems to be losing ground. And this local problem is after all but a small manifestation of the larger and similar Negro problems throughout the land. (p. 43, chapter titled Influx of the Freedmen, 1870-1896)

W.E.B Dubois, 1899

I'm on the fence about this one from personal experience. Being of the black persuasion who grew up in poor neighborhoods, I have a larger number of ex-cons who are unemployed, working to get their lives back together. Yet a possession charge over 5 years ago has left them unemployable. This particular person tends to make it through multiple interviews before the background check, and then has been told that is the reason she is not hired. What do they do?

So, I'd have to agree with TJ on this one. And it leaves a lot of blacks unemployable. I guess I should tell them that they should sue, right?

Nikki, it's not that complicated to fix. Pay the $600-ish to file papers through an attorney to have their criminal record expunged. It will no longer show up in their record on a background check. Plenty of people have done this to move forward in their lives. Unless the court finds a reason not to, they'll clear the record.

The EEOC is applying the theory of "disparate impact." A standard definition ...

Hmmm.

There is no doubt that increasing the minimum wage will have a disparate impact on young blacks.

Goose, meet gander.

I'm on the fence about this one from personal experience. ... What do they do? -- NikkiG at March 21, 2013 1:42 PM

Basically any law today has "It's going on your permanent record" aspect to it.

I was convicted of a misdemeanor crime back in 1996. I had a semi-related incident in 2002. I made as stupid repeat of the first one in early 2009. The 96 and 02 incidents were still visible.

Then you get to the Megan's law cases. You were 18 and got caught fucking your 16 old girlfriend. You are now on the sexual predator list for life. You are now on a list with the thirty year old stepfather that fucked his 11 year old stepdaughter.

The judicial system is now so fucked up by special interests. I now avoid any interaction with the legal or judicial systems. If a cop steps up to talk to me, for any reason, I'm automatically looking for my fourth and fifth rights.

"There is no doubt that increasing the minimum wage will have a disparate impact on young blacks."

That's right - and, negatively. By devaluing the dollar, it will make it difficult to advance from menial jobs and increase the competition for those jobs.

Taking a step back from the details here...

What has our country become that it isn't even possible to know, without having a panel of lawyers, if a basic action is "legal?"

Build a shed in your yard - oops that might violate some EPA statute.

Hire the guy with the clean record versus the identically qualified guy who embezzled from his former employer - might be discrimination.

It's enough to make me want to move someplace very rural.