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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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I'm guessing the legal fig leaf is "Black Affinity Housing residents, representing all diverse identities." So they don't explicitly say "black people only" or even "no straight white males." Everyone understands that's what it means in practice, but to challenge it you'd have to bring a lawsuit with evidence that they have demonstrated racial bias in their admissions, which would require first of all a sufficient number of white men to apply solely for the purpose of creating a legal case. And I'd further guess that seeing a spate of white men applying, they'd demand a "statement of black affinity" that mouths all the right words about wanting to learn how to unpack their white privilege and engage in anti-racist work, etc. Assuming you then get a few white guys who'd pass that filter, they'd accept a couple and then would be able to claim they are not practicing racial discrimination.

Not a whole lot different from how businesses who wanted to discriminate back in the day would invent various devices to keep out black people or women without saying "no blacks or women."

Is this where disparate impact comes in?

"This housing isn't exclusively for whites, just for people who happen to check all these extremely white-coded boxes" wouldn't fly, would it?

It probably wouldn't fly when/if it eventually reaches a court.