OPENING UP THE ELITES Presenting powerful new data, a researcher advocates "class based" affirmative action that credits students for overcoming backgrounds. http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/02/ets
Sounds better than the current system of arbitrarily favoring one who happens to have the correct skin tone. I think of all the absurdities of life, none glow so brighly as the notion that a young man of African ancestry, the son of a wealthy entrepreneur, having been born a couple decades after the federal Civil Rights Act of '64, would get the nod for a prestigious school--grades and other academics being equal--over a kid of Euro ancestry who was born to small town hickville parents who never graduated from high school, who went bankrupt a couple years before the kid applied for college. By the way, I'm that white kid, that's my status: first in family to graduate from high school, only one in family (to second cousin) to get a 4 year degree, dirty little Kansas podunkville kid, no money in the family at all, everybody poor poor poor, blue collar to the hilt, paycheck to paycheck, folks live in a $29,000 house, sis lives in a $15,000 house (yes, they exist in small town low class America). Why the heck should Bill Cosby's or Colin Powell's wealthy kid--who calls famous, influential people by their first names and went to the exclusive prep schools--get an affirmative action boost over me? I'd like to have that one explained.
Don´t get me wrong, Little Fauss, but it is not about money really, it is more about opportunity. I am sure your family was supportive with your ambitions, and provided a loving and caring environment to nurture you. Many underpriviledged families, on top of their economic problems, all they have seen in their lives is alcoholism, drug consumption, woman beating... How could someone born into that environement could make a career? I think that is what those special aid seeks to repair. Of course, it is preposterous that some middle and upper class members use their race to get an easy, free ride. Nevertheless, doesn`t it feel nice to look back and see you did all that by yourself?
I know what you're saying, I'm sure that's the theory behind these good liberal programs, but I'm trying to figure out where any of those ills you describe is a minority problem as opposed to a class problem. These well-meaning liberal politicians' sole experience with the underclass typically comes from once-an-election cycle photo ops in which they make awkward little tappity taps on a nail at a Habital for Humanity site. Course, as soon as the cameras shut down, they're whisked into the waiting limo and taken to $500 a plate dinners with wealthy benefactors. I've noticed that Jimmy Carter is the only liberal in existence who actually knows how to swing a hammer--he's earned my respect. I have none for Ted Kennedy and his crowd. If they really knew anything about those people they were trying to help through social engineering, they'd realize that addiction and abuse are not minority problems. They're class problems. They just need to come take a look in my midwestern town and see the fatalism, the abused women, the meth heads with missing teeth, the [paycheck to paycheck families. This stuff knows no color line. And it's insulting that elites who are far removed from the problem think they can draw those lines along color bounds. My family may not have struggled with alcoholism and abuse (though it was far from perfect) but that doesn't prove anything. Example: I had a friend in grad school who was working on her Masters in Math, very bright woman. None in her lilly white family had ever gone to college, and they were not supportive of her, either financially or emotionally, when she decided to go. Her dad can only be described as a kamikaze alcoholic, drunk pretty much evry single day. He was extremely abusive, once even set fire to the house out of spite. Her mother was, of course, an abused enabler. My friend came from an environment of blue collar big city despair and abuse. After receiving her Masters, she was teaching for a major university and lamenting the dedication of students in a minority bridge-to-college program that the university had set up. One of her colleagues chided her, saying that she couldn't understand what it was like for these kids, because their parents hadn't attended college or had a good home or all the advantages she'd had. She didn't say a word. People just assume that if you're white, you're privileged, if you're black, you're not. And that's exactly what affirmative action assumes. But it's a wrong-headed assumption. Makes no sense.
Maybe she should have. More people need to understand this -- thanks for sharing your personal story. -=Steve=-
To answer your question, little faus, the theory is that there's a built in racist bias against some minorities. The courts ruled that a catalyst was needed to more quickly make the playing field fair for the minorities that are being discriminated against. It is not the politicians that really did this it was the courts. This was not intended to solve the problem that you describe which is financial classes having different levels of opportunities. Please note that I'm not arguing for or against quotas. I'm just trying to inject some factual accuracy into the discussion.
Bill, I understand the notion behind it, I've bounced around the courts a bit and read my share of Supreme Court and federal court decisions. It's just that I disagree with their presumptions. We are two full generations clear of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the 24th Amendment. There is no more government discrimination--save that against the majority. I understand affirmative action in the context of a world in which official government discrimination ruled the day just a few years back, I understand it in the context of remediating past ills against a particular person or class of people. In other words, I have no huge issue with it in the world of 1975, when there was no shortage of adults running around who'd grown up in a world of Jim Crow laws. But today, for a young man or woman who has known no Jim Crow in their lifetime, and only hears about it like a distant relic through grandpa, what about their skin tone should qualify them for special treatment? Let me put it this way: I have a couple of dear friends who have five children. Two of them are adopted, and they are black. They are all raised in the same environment, with the same economics, schooling, and opportunities. They will likely have similar life experiences and accomplishments. Why is it then, that when the black sons are applying for college, they would qualify for special consideration over the white sons? By what rationale? Overall, I'm trying to come to terms with two things: 1). Why is it that we draw these affirmative action lines along skin tone, which I think one could statistically demonstrate is completely dwarfed by the effect of class upbringing--which as I said, knows no color--as a predictor of poverty and the need for government aid? and, far more interesting to me... 2). When there exists no institutionalized government discrimination whatsoever, all having been outlawed decades ago, by what constitutional standards, what constitutional provisions, do judges decide that one color shall be allowed special consideration to remediate purely private discrimination in society (at least that which can not reasonably be said to touch upon that old bugaboo "interstate commerce")? I can think of no constitutional grounds for it. Why can I think of none? Because there are none. And for that matter, why should they choose racial discrimination as the private societal ill they are going to solve? Why not religious? Why not short people? Ugly people? The federal courts are not saddled with the job of remediating purely private societal ills, that is not their duty, they really have no right to even consider them. Their job is to ensure that the federal and state governments adhere to the Constitution. And that is all.
Hi little faus, like I said, I'm not going to argue whether or not affirmitive action is still valid. I really don't know nor have an opinion. I was simply responding to your statement about politicians that appeared to blame them for affirmitive action. (I'm not considering judges to be politicians in this context.) As well as the apparent argument that there is some discrimination based on financial class that somehow nullifies affirmative action's ability to carry out it's intent. Your latest post seems to do a much better job, IMHO, of addressing the issue of affirmitive action versus reverse discrimination. That is are the opportunities available to all races now without affirmitive action sufficiently similar that it would be most fair to abolish affirmitive action? I believe that this is the crux of the matter.
