Content tagged with "social-justice"

Embedded Racial Bias
Blog Post
January 4, 2015
218

Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions: A good roll up of studies which show that embedded, perhaps subconscious racism is alive and well. Lots more in the article, including some analysis as to why this happens.

Feeding Children in Mali
Blog Post
December 26, 2015
367

I read a book recently called Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts. The book was just okay, but it contained a chilling story that I don’t want to forget. The book was written by a motivational speaker, and a master of the story and anecdote. We apparently volunteered in the Third World, and…

The High Cost of Being Poor
Personal Blog
Blog Post
May 21, 2009
272

A sobering summary of how hard it is to be poor, and why it’s so hard to break out of poverty. You don’t have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe’s, where the middle class goes to save money. You don’t have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner…

The (Original) Problems of Haiti
Personal Blog
Blog Post
January 15, 2010
372

I’m more than a little amazed that I stumbled on this article. A divided island: the forces working against Haiti: For years, I have wondered about this very question: why has the Dominican Republic done fairly well, while Haiti is a trainwreck, given that they share the same island? Last year I…

Political Representation Among the Lower Class
Personal Blog
Blog Post
August 28, 2011
242

Economic Inequality and Political Representation: Here’s some light reading for the weekend. I examine the differential responsiveness of U.S. senators to the preferences of wealthy, middle-class, and poor constituents. My analysis includes broad summary measures of senators ‘ voting behavior as…

Solving the Working Poor
Personal Blog
Blog Post
April 15, 2006
721

Improving the plight of the working poor can be a trickier problem than you think.

The State of Aid in Africa
Personal Blog
Blog Post
April 4, 2009
275

Foreign aid sometimes backfires and makes things worse over the long term.

The Stupidity of the Rooney Rule
Personal Blog
Blog Post
January 4, 2011
392

The NFL’s Rooney Rule is ridiculous. It says that teams have to interview minority coaches for open coaching positions. This leads to ridiculous situations like this: Another indicator [that the 49ers have hired Jim Harbaugh] is that the 49ers are rapidly trying to interview Oakland OC Hugh Jackson…

Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack
Personal Blog
Blog Post
January 22, 2012
459

Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack : If you see left-wing conspiracies everywhere, then best to stay far away from this essay. it’s a discussion about the generally unacknowledged racial privilege given to whites, written by a professor Al Wellesley who has also examined the gender privileges given to…

When the Majority Feels Oppressed
Personal Blog
Blog Post
March 5, 2011
565

Here are two things I’ve learned: I’ve wondered about this phenomenon for a long time, and I’ve come to this conclusion: it’s considered somehow inappropriate for a majority to campaign for their majority views. There are more whites than non-whites in this country, and more straight people than gay…