Free choices and category representations

I had not thought about this in a long time but someone mentioned it today.  From Black People Less Likely by Scott Alexander.  It is from the old Slate Star Codex before the New York Times tried to deplatform him for being an independent thinker.

Alexander is a polyamorist and is responding to an accusation that the polyamorist community must be racist because African-Americans are underrepresented in that community.  A fairly specious and pedestrian accusation but Alexander does it the courtesy of treating as a real issue.  And, as he always does, he goes to the data.

The article constantly equivocates between “the problem is that polyamory is too white” and “the problem is that the media portrays polyamory as too white”, which is kind of a weird combination of problems to be discussing in a media portrayal. But it seems to eventually settle on a thesis that black people really are strongly underrepresented.

For the record, here is a small sample of other communities where black people are strongly underrepresented:

Runners (3%). Bikers (6%). Furries (2%). Wall Street senior management (2%). Occupy Wall Street protesters (unknown but low, one source says 1.6% but likely an underestimate). BDSM (unknown but low) Tea Party members (1%). American Buddhists (~2%). Bird watchers (4%). Environmentalists (various but universally low). Wikipedia contributors (unknown but low). Atheists (2%). Vegetarian activists (maybe 1-5%). Yoga enthusiasts (unknown but low). College baseball players (5%). Swimmers (2%). Fanfiction readers (2%). Unitarian Universalists (1%).

Can you see what all of these groups have in common?

No. No you can’t. If there’s some hidden factor uniting Wall Street senior management and furries, it is way beyond any of our pay grades.

And to be clear, which I suppose I have not been, this is a population, statistics, history and culture issue.  Taking one set of identities (such as race, religion, class, ethnicity, etc.) and trying to pair them with some statistically small and eclectic set of affiliative communities (bird watchers) is always going to throw up under and over-representations.  Its not a law, but it might as well be one.

Alexander is merely focusing on race because that it is the accusation being made.

He has a list of eight reasons why disparate representation might arise and why these usually have little or no clear relationship to demonstrable bigotry.  

His is an important argument but I was more interested in his examples of significant underrepresentation.  There is always also the mirror issue of overrepresentation in elective activities, not addressed here.

In all these instances, we mostly have people making free choices for their own reasons and it is not inherently obvious why any of this should be considered concerning much less warrant intrusive governmental intervention.