There are a number of visual examples that help explain the difference between equality, equity and justice. But this one I particularly like:

https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/gq2n31/inequali...

It seems like you are finding it hard to understand what makes racism systemic, white restaurant owners are not an oppressed group, nobody is being racist against them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism

Why do you assume only impact is on white restaurant owners?what about Asian, Mexican, Iranian, etc restaurant owners who are being charged a fee for delivery based only on their skin color?

Are black restaurant owners an oppressed group?

Black households have about $5000 in wealth. When considering the fact that they are owed 40 acres and a mule in reparations, remember that each black household should be worth upwards of $800,000 (~$20k per acre).

Ask yourself if education, poverty, healthcare, loans, housing, etc... would be an issue if they were actually paid what we all collectively owed them. I expect some portions of the racism would still exist but economic empowerment is always a potential gamechanger.

Seems uber is trying to help fix that gap themselves. I commend them for at least trying something novel.

Being a person of color in the US absolutely means you are confronting systemic racism throughout your life. So absolutely, yes, compared to white restaurant owners. Example: If you are black, you are less likely to get a small business loan, and if so you are likely to get worse rates [1]. They also are encountering more resistance to accessing COVID-19 bailout funds [2]. These are just two examples specific to being a business owner, not to mention the systemic racism they face as individuals.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/16/black-owned... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/business/minority-busines...

Why would they single out black people out of all people of color and other disadvantaged groups?

A lot of minorities are running restaurants.

>Why would they single out black people...

Black people are the least rewarded early investors in the startup we call the USA.

They have more right to be in this country than any group other than Native Americans, a large % are in fact descendants of native Americans but are not recognized as such due to a paper genocide and deportation program carried out by the govt of the US in the early 20th century.

No other minority group is in this position. Anyone who has studied the history knows the country still owes a tremendous outstanding debt to this group of people.

People still seem unaware of these basic facts... And we've had black history month for how many years?

The education system in America is truly lacking and it shows when it comes to the topic of race/racism which is a key part of our economic history and inextricably tied to the history and development of US capitalism.

The definition of racism is not treating a race different from others. Racism is a belief that one race is better or worse than others, and the politics that arise from that belief. Recognizing that a group has been treated unfairly and compensating for it is not racism.

A more accurate term is "racial discrimination". Doesn't make it any more palatable.

Strictly speaking racism is the view that different races of human even exist.

Yay! I am a racist then. And you go tell the black guys they do not exist.

I think the point Scarblac was trying to make is that by the biological definition of race, there is only one human race, and all human belong to it. We have historically said that Black people, White people, Asian people, whatever, belong to different races, but that's not accurate and it is that error that lets racist ideas (in the discriminatory sense) to exist. Those "race" categorizations have no basis in biology and have shown to be flexible over time. A hundred years a go, an Irish person would not have been considered white, and a Spanish person might have. Today the Irish man is white, and the Spaniard might be called a Latin.

I think it's better to say that race exists, but it's a cultural construct, not a biological reality. It's clear that in the USA the largest part of people with black or dark brown skin color have a shared history and culture that comes from the capture of native African population. They clearly have something in common, and they exist as a group. The term "race" is problematic, but it's the best one we have.

Please don't write inflammatory comments that spread misunderstanding and disinformation.

I'm very skeptical of this move, its sustainability in the medium term, and I overall really dislike Uber as a business, but equality is NOT the point.

Society is already unequal, you cannot wish it away with a magic wand.

The way to address inequality, is to think in terms of equity:

http://betterbikeshare.org/2019/10/24/equity-vs-equality/

Also, this is obviously not an example of racism. Racism can be defined as:

"prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."

The term that you're looking for is Affirmative action, defined as:

"Affirmative action is a policy in which an individual's color, race, sex, religion or national origin are taken into account to increase opportunities provided to an underrepresented part of society"

Seems like Uber is thinks black businesses are not capable of competing in a free market without a handout. Based on your definition, it is explicit racism.

Its a form of economic reparations. When it comes to all the forms of racism blacks have experienced over the past few centuries I find it funny that this is what offends people, "subsidized deliveries".

The reason you think that is because you're assuming the free market is 1) free and 2) treats everyone equally, which is not the case.

Treated equally in a food ordering service? Show me where it says “restaurant owned by a black person” in the Uber app allowing people to discriminate when ordering food.

Quoting a message from this thread:

> If you are black, you are less likely to get a small business loan, and if so you are likely to get worse rates [1]. They also are encountering more resistance to accessing COVID-19 bailout funds [2]. These are just two examples specific to being a business owner, not to mention the systemic racism they face as individuals.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/16/black-owned.... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/business/minority-busines....

How do we live in a free market? Corporations get bailed out all the time for poor business decisions.

I'm thinking in terms of equity, and it still seems pretty unfair that my local Mexican restaurants are being discriminated against.

Take one simple example: urban redlining. Urban redlining wasn't that long ago. Many white boomers (and hence their children) so clearly benefited from it at the expense of black people. So it's a bit rich to put in place blatantly racist policies, which allowed enormous wealth accumulation at the expense of another group, and then quite literally within the same lifetime when those policies have been banned, and the wealth accumulation has already happened, shout "Why is it so hard to fathom we all deserve to be treated as equal??"

I think this Uber Eats policy is both bad policy and dumb, but I also think that pretending legal racism that only ended in my parents' (still alive) lifetime doesn't have a huge effect on society, not to mention ongoing institutionalized racism the current protests are meant to address.