Newsgroups: ut.general
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!csri.toronto.edu!clarke
From: clarke@csri.toronto.edu (Jim Clarke)
Subject: Re: "Joining the count"
Message-ID: <8903301755.AA07836@russell.csri.toronto.edu>
Keywords: Are you a visible minority?
Organization: University of Toronto, CSRI
References: <8903232049.AA29714@yorkmills.csri.toronto.edu> <89Mar30.123150est.8725@ois.db.toronto.edu>
Distribution: ut
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 89 12:55:42 EST

In article <89Mar30.123150est.8725@ois.db.toronto.edu> vassos@db.toronto.edu (Vassos Hadzilacos) writes:
>In article <8903232049.AA29714@yorkmills.csri.toronto.edu> clarke@csri.toronto.edu (Jim Clarke) writes:
>>[I said that I would not answer the Employment Equity Survey's question
>>about group identification.]

>Just because statistics have been (and are being) used as a tool of racists
>does not mean that *every* use of statistics can only serve racist goals....

I have no doubt that the survey will be used only to serve the best goals.
Nor do I object in principle to the collection of social data, or to the
statistical analysis of those data.

But the question being asked is meaningless.  Asking people to classify
themselves into racial groups in order to serve beneficial social purposes
is not more defensible intellectually than classifying them by decree in
order to serve evil purposes.  If a question is meaningless, you shouldn't
ask it, much less take action on the basis of any answers.

Now if you want to ask where I was born, that's different.
-- 
Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
              (416) 978-4058
clarke@csri.toronto.edu     or    clarke@csri.utoronto.ca
   or ...!{uunet, pyramid, watmath, ubc-cs}!utai!utcsri!clarke