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Because I've served on admissions committees and worked with organizations designed to diversify academic and public institutions? Right now, being black is a huge bonus, and if you're wealthy, black, and able to perform moderately well in school and on tests, you can basically pick where you want to go to college.
I'll put it like this. As a middle-class black student with a 1510 SAT (back when it was out of 1600), I got into every single school I applied to, including 2 Ivies, with generous scholarships (including several scholarships targeted solely at people of color). A white student with equal grades would not be able to say the same.
I literally had professors telling me how excited they were to diversify their department when I was applying to graduate school (where my admissions success was basically the same, no rejections, even to Ph.D. programs with 5-10% acceptance rates).
It's patronizing, and it's an inefficient way to help those who need it. I didn't need the help. I was better than most students on my own merits, and I had enormous advantages as well. We need a better system.
You could call that 'cherry picking'.
Don't underestimate yourself, you're all you've got.
If for whatever reason the administration needs to diversify, they'd rather have you. However you would've gotten in on your own merit I'd imagine.
So when I did the college road trip, you mean to say that my ease of admissions were not in fact based on my very high scores, my elite prep-school but just the fact that I was black? That's a very dangerous proposition to make and one that means your achievements will always have an astrisk by them using your line of thinking.
The better question to ask is why is there such disparity (or at least not representation) in academia and college among blacks if all things truly are equal.
Like me, you should consider yourself lucky and talented. But you are indeed in a small number, the 'Talented Tenth' so to say.
It is. And I can acknowledge the issue of systemic inequality, I just don't think the racial angle is the correct angle to approach it from. Which is my problem with AA.
Very well said. It is a band-aid.
I wouldn't say I'm afraid to think about race - just that I don't think it should take effect on a governmental level. But that just comes down to my beliefs on the role of government versus yours.
Attack the problem of poverty and as you said, it will have a disparate impact on certain races.
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Wealthy blacks benefit from resources that are unavailable to poor white students.
I know.
Is not the bar lowered when wealthy black students score extra points because they have been coached/ tutored to the ACT and SAT?
No, it's not AA for whites. It is colorblind based on education etc. Disparities may contribute to unequal outcomes, but it's not AA. You want to fix the problem not by improving the condition of blacks, but by promoting them above equally qualified whites in the name of fairness. Sorry, that's not a solution.
No. It benefits rich people.
Oh really? Where did I say that?
Okay, I get where you are coming from.
Because you are unable factually and/or intellectually to refute the questions you asked for, you simply turn them into a "well if blacks did it, there are blacks," etc. Really that's the best you can do?
Lowering the bar for whites is not AA for whites, that's your logic.
Sorry Sam, it's over your head again.
No need for any more dialogue, as I stated earlier, your intellectual capital has been spent.
It should have been spent and not floundered on a denial of facts and reality.
Don't underestimate yourself, you're all you've got.
If for whatever reason the administration needs to diversify, they'd rather have you. However you would've gotten in on your own merit I'd imagine.
So when I did the college road trip, you mean to say that my ease of admissions were not in fact based on my very high scores, my elite prep-school but just the fact that I was black? That's a very dangerous proposition to make and one that means your achievements will always have an astrisk by them using your line of thinking.
The better question to ask is why is there such disparity (or at least not representation) in academia and college among blacks if all things truly are equal.
Like me, you should consider yourself lucky and talented. But you are indeed in a small number, the 'Talented Tenth' so to say.
Your ease of admissions was not because of one thing or another, but because an accumulation of factors. Your race likely factored into things enormously. When Michigan got taken to the Supreme Court over their affirmative action policies, it was revealed that being black (worth 20 points) was a bigger advantage that having a perfect score on the SAT (worth 12). Just food for thought. I think the SAT is trash honestly, but given how much college and universities masturbate over their average SAT scores, the fact that ones blackness was worth almost double that is quite telling.
As far as the "Talented Tenth" comment, this is the whole notion I'm fighting again. It's obviously the most elitist, intellectually bereft aspect of Du Bois' thought, and yet it is the concept (along with that of ambivalence, or cultural hybridity) that the black elite have held onto tightly than anything else. It allows them to pretend that their success is tantamount to the success of the group at large, at a time when the black population is cleaving sharply along class lines.
I think one has to realize that a percentage of the truly poor black people, will not be successful in college because, they refuse to learn the fundamentals, refuse to answer the questions correctly because they know their class mates will have a problem with it. They don't have an environment where they can see beyond their circumstances, no mentors, no peers to emulate.
Unfortunately it seems many urban school systems suffer from these circumstances.
I agree. I won't say 'refuse' but many ofthese schools don't have fertile learning environments.
My wife is a professor and a statician and unfortunately the grade of many minorities don't always rise above their peers even in suburban settings and after controlling for SES, so it's not even as simple as throwing money at the problem.
Eugenics? Coming from an physician who made it out of the inner city, I doubt that.
It's a complex and multi-factorial interaction between differences in peer pressure, selective enforcement or reinforcement by the teachers and even differentials in expectations.
Your ease of admissions was not because of one thing or another, but because an accumulation of factors. Your race likely factored into things enormously. When Michigan got taken to the Supreme Court over their affirmative action policies, it was revealed that being black (worth 20 points) was a bigger advantage that having a perfect score on the SAT (worth 12). Just food for thought. I think the SAT is trash honestly, but given how much college and universities masturbate over their average SAT scores, the fact that ones blackness was worth almost double that is quite telling.
As far as the "Talented Tenth" comment, this is the whole notion I'm fighting again. It's obviously the most elitist, intellectually bereft aspect of Du Bois' thought, and yet it is the concept (along with that of ambivalence, or cultural hybridity) that the black elite have held onto tightly than anything else. It allows them to pretend that their success is tantamount to the success of the group at large, at a time when the black population is cleaving sharply along class lines.
No, it is your duty that as a member of the talented tenth you must help others not as fortunate as you. This is so that one day, it will be commonplace and expected for blacks to be high achievers and even over-represented in some areas, much like asians are today.
You could even do a retrospective longitudinal study using case-controls of blacks who got in on the bubble with AA vs whites with similar but slightly higher scores and correlate that with career advancement or salary twenty years out...that would definitely be a paper that would garner attention
Okay, I get where you are coming from.
Because you are unable factually and/or intellectually to refute the questions you asked for, you simply turn them into a "well if blacks did it, there are blacks," etc. Really that's the best you can do?
Lowering the bar for whites is not AA for whites, that's your logic.
Sorry Sam, it's over your head again.
No need for any more dialogue, as I stated earlier, your intellectual capital has been spent.
It should have been spent and not floundered on a denial of facts and reality.
Let me make this very simple for you. Your assertion is that black people are more likely to be disadvantaged (poor/uneducated). Fine. I suggest we help all poor/uneducated people (which will disproportionately help blacks). But that's not good enough for you, you insist we should only help black people, and not only that, we should help a rich black person over a poor white person.
No it is your divine right that as a member of the talented tenth to help others not as fortunate so that one day, it's commonplace and expected for blacks to be high achievers and even over-represented, much like asians in some fields.
I don't know anything about divine rights, but I think that your notion of elite leadership is kind of backwards. I want to help people less fortunate than myself, and I see a system that only helps people like me. I want to change that, rather than pretend that black faces in high places is good enough. I think our current President has done more to tear down that notion than anything else I could possibly say.
By the way, I don't quite get the comparison between Asians and Blacks...schools are falling over themselves to recruit blacks, but being Asian is actually a detriment in a lot of places. Blacks aren't expected to overachieve, in fact it's usually the opposite. The fact that the game is rigged against so many of us just makes those of us who do succeed seem like stark rebukes to those who do not. Blacks in America are doing quite poorly, but because the halls of power have opened up to a few of us, we've become deluded. Some double consciousness. I don't think Du Bois would be very proud.
Let me make this very simple for you. Your assertion is that black people are more likely to be disadvantaged (poor/uneducated). Fine. I suggest we help all poor/uneducated people (which will disproportionately help blacks). But that's not good enough for you, you insist we should only help black people, and not only that, we should help a rich black person over a poor white person.
Textbook racism.
Intellectual Honesty, proven not to be a strong point of yours.
Quote:
you insist we should only help black people
Quote:
we should help a rich black person over a poor white person.
On second thought, no, it's not intellectual dishonesty.
Intellectual Honesty, proven not to be a strong point of yours.
Mark, calling me stupid and dishonest over and over doesn't make it so, it only shows your own childishness.
I suggest equal opportunity regardless of race. You disagree. Anyone with half a brain reading this knows what that makes you, so I am satisfied. Have a nice day.
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Blacks are not as smart as Whites
