Mixed Feelings About Affirmative Action

I agree. Although I understand such laudible goals as diversity, the truth of the matter is that there shouldn't be a set number of any race or some quota or some bonus that an African american or asian american or latin american or hispanic or anglo american or anyone else receives over any other group of people. It is just wrong in my mind.

In my mind, the problem begins and ends with public schooling. Until the schools of the inner cities are brought up to par with the schools of the suburbs, the lack of racial diversity will justify the use of affrimative action in some people's mind.

 

Quotas or set numbers are illegal so you can just stop worrying your pretty little head about that.

 

Please. Can we at least be honest about this? Look at the University of Texas School of Law before and after.

 

Yes. Let's be honest.

Quotas are illegal. The definition of quota is a pre-set number. This is different from attempts to acheive diversity. Let's be honest, and get our definitions straight.

 

That poll pretty much describes every public policy program -- people support things in theory but then don't like the nitty gritty when they get into what the theory means. For example, the poll question "Do you support lower taxes if it means lower payments to welfare programs?" always scores high, but every question that actually defines those welfare programs specifically (Social Security payments, Medicare / Medicaid, etc.) scores very badly.

As far as AA is concerned, we've been through this to death. I'm not for allowing thoroughly unqualified people into public universities, but the problem is that anti-AA people want to define this category of "most qualified" as if the public university admissions system can be objectively reviewed through academic history, which I don't believe is true. For example, Bill Bradley scored something like 850 or 900 on his SATs, was admitted to Princeton exclusively because of his basketball skills, but went on to be a Rhodes scholar. The ultimate test of these programs shouldn't be at admission; it should be at graduation and beyond.

[rant] I just get pissed that these white kids act like their lives are over because they failed to get admitted to UM Law, like somehow they're standing up to The Man. That's just pathetic. This country is run by white people, primarily for white people. Whites have nearly all the money, the best property, the best jobs, and overall the best opportunities for advancement. I've never been followed by rent-a-cops in a mall, been asked to pay a restaurant check in advance of getting my food, been pulled over by traffic cops for DWW (driving while white), had an open taxi pass me by, or had a woman clutch her purse when she walked by me. My life is great as a white guy and wouldn't trade for another race in a second. These people who are angry at UM shouldn't direct their anger at the blacks who are trying to make their way to the table for the first time ever; they should be angry at themselves for not taking advantage of the massive number of opportunities that whites have to network and improve their lot which others don't have. I don't see anyone signing up to get skin treatments to make them look black like C. Thomas Howell in Soul Man. Grow up and get on with your lives. [/rant]

 

I agree that obie's middle paragraph defines one of the key issues in this debate...

 

Next, please explain what the definition of "is" is.

 

No, I can't. It is pretty easy to see the differences in a system designed to keep a race down and another trying to give many different people enhanced opportunities. But perhaps turning it into a simple cliche is the only way you feel comfortable describing it.

I'd challenge you to read some of the amicus briefs in the UofM case.

 

Terrific response. I doubt you can come up with anything better than this.

I'd refer you to the line of cases regarding affirmative action which distinguish between quotas. Or maybe, like George Bush in the elections, you feel better blurring the distinction.

 

But how did Bush get into Yale exactly? Gore into Harvard? Why aren't conservatives upset about this? AA is but one anti-meritocratic feature of America. A pretty small one, actually.

 

I agree.

It's interesting that the US history has been caught up in race distincitions, seemingly more than class distinctions. We are obsessed with the "finality" of race, but we can always dream to be rich, when we will be able to have the edge.

 

I'm glad you liked it. Now write a brief on the difference between "is" and "IS"

 

Can you get it through your head that the person who stole that spot is at least as likely to be someone like George Bush or Al Gore? Why doesn't that bother you? Does this have something to do with tinkle ( ) down economics?

 

First of all, thanks for acknowledging this. It's amazing to me how many white people seem to think that there are no color differences other than the ones that blacks hoist upon themselves.

My parents divorced when I was young, my father never paid a dime in child support, my post-divorce family was reliant on welfare for about two years, and my single mother never earned more than $22K a year. Yes, I felt privileged growing up.

Then what's the solution? Every school could strictly admit the top 2,000 / 4,000 / whatever SAT test scores, but as you say above, we are not a color-blind society when it comes to economics, opportunities, or school systems now, so how does a completely "color-blind" system help the situation?

 

This is nonsense. Even if AA had complete and total support there would still be cases. Individuals who feel they were cheated out of a spot would sue. Becuase people sue.

Finally, college admissions offices are very proud of their successes in diversity. The Ivey league and Michigan and Cal and Stanford would love all of you to fuk off and let them (oh my god, the actual people who are closest to the institutions and the education of their students) decide who will make up the best student body possible. But in this case, you call it social engineering, when BR has correctly pointed out that there has always been this social engineering.

 

Awww, your white guilt is just so touching...or pathetic. I can't figure out which.

 

Your eyes are showing a bit too much from behind the white sheet. Next time, get a tailor to make the eyeholes.

 

White guilt and calling me a Klansman? Did somebody just get their new issue of The Nation?

 

Blame racism, not AA

When we fix the way public elementary and high schools in this country are funded to give many minority school kids the same educations as kids in rich and predominantly white suburbs get and level the playing field during those years, then a lot of the problems regarding what whites believe is the unfairness of AA will go away by themselves as the minority kids get an honest chance to prove they have earned the right to be where they are. I suspect that part of the reason many whites don't want to fix the problem at the elementary and grade school levels is precisely because they're afraid that the minority kids will prove that on a level playing field they CAN compete with the rich kids and then the white parents won't have anyone to bitch at when Junior doesn't get that scholarship because could no longer rely on the wealth of his suburb's school district to give him an unfair advantage.

Until then, AA (as flawed as it may occasionally be) is still better than rewarding the original racism and institutionalized bigotry that made it necessary. If you want to get angry and self-righteous at someone, get pissed off at the racists and bigots who continue to make AA necessary rather than at AA itself for trying to address the worst of the unfair imbalances in our educational system which make our promise of "equal opportunity" such a sad joke to so many minority kids.

 

Just responding in kind. I would have expected better from you than calling white guilt, T-WUB.

 

Re: Blame racism, not AA

I couldn't agree more.

I couldn't agree less. Many whites don't want to fix the problem because the problem works to their advantage. Here in Texas for instance, my parents pay probably (just estimate off the top of my head) 4-5 times more in property taxes than residences in inner cities. This is the reason why they don't want to fix the problem. They want to reap the reward of the higher costs, rather than bear the higher costs for equalities sake.

If AA is adopted solely to compensate for the horrible condition for inner city schools, than race is not the determining factor, the school is. Sure, race is a nice little shortcut that works most of the time, but if you want to truly balance the inequities of schooling, then base it on the school the child attended and not race.

 

Please lower your expectations.

I happen to think that each AA program should be decided on its merits individually rather than debating AA as a concept. Some work, some don't. Some are fair, some aren't. I don't think castigating every whitey that stands up to what he thinks is an unfair program is the right approach. Sure, some of them need to get kicked in the ass, and given the "life ain't fair" speech, but some of them do have a legitimate beef.

And, sorry, I should have said "Metros guilt" instead of "white guilt".