It's virtuous because it acknowledges reality, and the reality is that society does not treat all groups equally, and that there are still systemic barriers in place. It also acknowledges that targeted campaigns working on relatively homogeneous groups are probably the most effective.
The point of the whole civil rights movement wasn't just to extend all political and economic rights on paper to the black population and then just leave it at that. The point was to extend justice and fairness to all Americans. Anyone who takes a look at the last 40 years of American History can understand that that has not happened.
Unfortunately, since the systemic barriers are both externally enforced AND to a degree internally self inflicted, any attempt to address some of the self-inflicted barriers will be "discriminatory".
Good job asking a loaded question in what was I guess your attempt at appearing rational. (In case you don't see it, its analogous to a reporter asking someone: "why did you murder and rape that girl behind the shed")
Racial discrimination isn't inherently bad. Doctors "racially discriminate" regarding certain treatments such as heart disease, hypertension, etc because of their disparate prevalence among minorities. So whether discrimination is bad depends on the context and whats being accomplished. "Discriminating" against whites and men (fucking laughable) in an attempt to create a safe and welcoming environment for a severely underrepresented group is a positive use of discrimination.
A loaded question is when you try to misrepresent someone's point of view. Am I missing something, or did you not agree with the basic premise (Racial discrimination isn't inherently bad)?
I would argue your doctor analogy is flawed in that doctors don't racially discriminate, but biologically discriminate. I guess I can see why you would think that.
> So whether discrimination is bad depends on the context and whats being accomplished.
I agree, but I still haven't seen a good argument for racial discrimination. Can you cite examples of where racism was good for society? I'm willing to keep an open mind about it, but I think in the long run, segregating ourselves is not the right way forward. Maybe this is too disney, but I'd like to live in a world where we can disregard race and reach out to whoever needs it.
My dad is a doctor (who felt it necessary to go over every trial he has helped run). They do discriminate explicitly on race (as well as other factors). Saying that this racial discrimination is biological is equivalent to saying that their are significant biological differences between the races. Although this is true in some cases (mostly genetic diseases), more often race is relevant as a proxy for social and cultural positioning. In practice, I suspect that if racism was stamped out of society at general, then there would be no medical benefit to racism in medical desisions.
> This entire thread is about "discrimination" for the purposes of introducing black girls to programming. Is that not a positive for society?
Are you justifying racism via economic output? I've seen this line of reasoning go horribly wrong before..
Obviously teaching people how to be productive is good. But what about teaching people to discriminate against others? If we were to argue from principle, I would agree that racism is not a virtue. That said, I don't adhere to principled reasoning 100% of the time and would be happy to help "black girls" code.
Quit trying to intellectualize your racist approach to moral righteousness. It's coming across as desperate. If you have a principled argument to make, now would be a good time. If all you have is more false analogies then I think I've had enough.
A non-black girl/boy comes along and says that they want to participate, too. The black girls/their instructors tell them to piss off because they are not black and a girl to boot? If this is not racist, I don't know what is.
How about a program for any children under a certain age - be they black or not? If they wanted to include more of the under-represented minorities in the program, they could promote it more heavily in the areas where the minorities tend to live/congregate. Such approach would achieve a similar goal without being racist.
