Talk:Minority group/Archives/2012

"Modal Minority" Section?

I removed this section because it was largely incoherent. If there's useful information here that someone can reword, I've included the original text below. Sgchem (talk) 19:15, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Modal minorities

That groups of people which specialized with new shapes or their skin color or faces physiognomy or thier clothes ,but this kind of minorities not distinguished upon ideal classification.Just be specialized more than be minority sometimes !!!

South Africa

I do not understand why mentioning blacks in South Africa belongs to a minority group discussion ? Does this mean that a minority group implies being oppressed rather than being a majority of the population ? During Apartheid Black people never used to describe themselves as a minority group and I am pretty sure that there are many such cases throughout the world. This article has a severe American leaning world view, if the minority group is a sociological minority as the article mentions at the beginning, then there should be a separate Wikipedia entry named sociological minority.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Dear Nicola Smolenski, I am quite confused about your deletion of my edit. You say that what I put is not what is in the source. Please read para 37 of the source, in particular "the Advisory Committee notes at the same time that the rules governing the composition of some authorities at the State level is such as to legally exclude persons belonging to national minorities from accessing these political posts. This is for instance the case with regard to the tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which according to Article V of the Constitution shall consist of one Bosniac, one Croat and one Serb." In what way am I misquoting the source? A Roma or a Jew is clearly excluded from being elected to the Presidency. Unless of course that they decide to deny the fact that they are Roma or Jew and identify themselves instead as Bosnian, Croat or Serb. Nobody should be expected to deny their identity, it is a violation of the CoE Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities to which BiH is a party, and in any case the candidate would probably be rejected by the electorate of the ethnic group to which they were claiming to adhere. I look forward to having a constructive debate with you about this! Spinach charm 11:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

affirmative action and other issues

I made some edits on this section. The debate about AA often focuses exclusively on quota policies which are not the best form of AA and is what brings it into disrepute. Also added to the section on religious minorities. And changed the bit about Quebec secessionism - replaced "assimilate" with "integrate" - I am sure that if English speaking Canadians tried to assimilate the Quebequois (in fact it is happening indirectly anyway), it would promote secessionism, not defuse it! Spinach charm 10:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

With the exception of a few ambiguities relating to the confusion between numerical and sociological minorities that can be easily corrected with edits, the article Minority describes a minority group --a sociological, not a mathematical, concept. I'm removing the redirect to minority, and redirecting the Minority page here. Niko481 22:24, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Neutral POV

This article is slanted towards affirmative action, and claims that minorities are treated awful. First off, it's not true. Minorities treat majorities awful, and liberals try to suck up to minorities. Same with the media. If a black (or other minority) person says something racist about a white person, you will never hear about it. But if it is the opposite, you will never hear the END of it. Also, this article is slanted and should be fixed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.226.26.89 (talk) 18:38, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Numerical vs. Sociological Minority

I would like to see some evidence for the claim that "a sociological minority is not necessarily a numerical minority". Certainly this is in contradiction to the commonsense definition of the term, as well as the dictionary definition (see [1]). Brianberns (talk) 03:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Here in Houston, everyone still uses "minorities" to refer to non-Anglos despite Hispanics being the numerically largest racial group. (Example: [2]). But this could just be a reference to the national demographics. DanBishop (talk) 00:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Blacks in South Africa?

I'd like to know if 'Feagin (1984)' (reference 2 in the article) specifically mentions black South Africans as an example of a minority group. I'd be surprised if it did, given that they make up approximately 80% of the population! I realise there's a difference between 'political minorities' and 'numerical minorities', but even so to use the word 'minority' in that case really seems like a stretch to me, even under the apartheid system. (Especially since white South Africans are listed on the dominant minority article.) Anyway, if this example isn't mentioned in the reference, it should be removed as original research. Robofish (talk) 21:51, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems reasonable to me. The article needs serious cleaning up, but it does make clearly the point that a minority need not be defined in numeric terms. Black South Africans would therefore be an apt example.

I don't have access to the origional text though so I cannot answer your more specific question. Cheers Andrew (talk) 23:57, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Needs attention

{{expert-subject}} This article is in serious need of reworking! I don't have time at the moment, unfortunately. Meclee (talk) 04:26, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Objectivism?

The whole section about objectivism and individual vs group rights feels out of place in this article, so I decided to be bold and cut the whole thing. The original text is below in case anyone wants to restore it. I could see it fitting here if it is discussed in any peer-reviewed sources, or maybe if someone wants to put together a list of objections to the concept of minority status and has more than this one item to include in it. But in its current state this just looks like someone trying to advertise objectivism (or at least this aspect of it) in a place where it's likely to grab attention, regardless of relevance.

And whatever action anyone takes in response to my edit (or my comments here), please let's keep it focused on good editing and not on anyone's opinions about Ayn Rand. Psychojosh13 (talk) 13:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Opposing views from Objectivists

Adherents of Ayn Rand's laissez-faire philosophy of Objectivism regard every person as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to one's life, a right derived from his/her nature as a rational being. Objectivism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence among people, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members. The principle of individual rights is the only moral base of all groups or associations. Since only an individual person can possess rights, the expression "individual rights" is a redundancy (which one has to use for purposes of clarification in today’s intellectual chaos), but the expression "collective rights" is a contradiction in terms. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).

Potheads?

I took out the part about cannabis smokers being persicuted in the "cannibis prohibition period". How can that be in the same sentance as Jews in the Holocaust and Blacks with Jim Crow? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.70.116.230 (talk) 02:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)