I am not beating you up LaShawn. I am making my 100% best effort to be a good boy!

HiRez, HiRez, HiRez. Just when things are going so nicely you have to go and say something like that. Good grief. For the peace of this Saturday morning, I’ll take it for what it’s worth: about 2 cents.

I also agree with the writer. You are being used by the conservative party as I have addressed before. Does this make it negative? I don’t believe so, as long as your vision is aligned with those whom are using you. I have this same situation going on down here, people look for vehicles to enact there desires.

To me it becomes a very personal issue, I would submit that as much as you hate race based evaluations and elevations based upon race that you are in effect the beneficiary of them in terms of popularity, access into certain media streams, and your acceptance by the conservative party with open arms.

As I believe I asked before, do you think if you were a white male conservative, that your writings or “blog” would be garnering a similar amount of attention? If you say no, then you too agree that it is your “race” the very thing which you decry being evaluated on, that is giving you a leg up in your journalistic endevours. If that is the case then what makes what is occuring with you in an informal manner, any different than what occurs in a formal manner through affirmative action?

As I said, I am with you on about 50% to 75% of the issues, but that other 25%, specifically in areas that I believe are directly related to the progress of African Americans in this nation I simply disagree. Affirmative Action is one of them.

http://www.dellgines.blogspot.com

But hey, that’s just me.

What does this say about the black community that wants even lower standards for blacks.

What a disservice when the white man, with some effort, is so easy to best.

BTW some of my best friends are white. Like my wife for instance.

“The theory that blacks should become more skilled and that will even the playing field is just that, a theory. In the real world, there are many other factors that go into hiring and advancing up the corporate ladder.”

It worked for the Jews who were heavily discriminated against in 1900. It was said then that if you were a Jew you had to be twice as good to get a job. OK. So why stop at twice? Why not three, four, ten times as good? And we have all benefitted from that.

Now because of Jew’s efforts to excell they get preferential treatment.

Affirmative action by their own efforts (not politics). What a novel idea.

Of course because of political AA it is often thought that the black candidate for a job is the inferior pick.

AA made sense in 1967 to break the log jam. I thought it might last 20 years. What was an advantage then is now a handicap.

I think the solution is preparing the kid to face the bully, not to stand beside him and fight for him, or to hobble the bully so the kid is on par with the tormentor.
In this context, that means making sure the students are prepared and ready to compete before sending them off to college.
How does lowering the standards help the kids in the long run, unless you lower all the others after that? And if you do, doesn’t that diminish the achievement?
When I played sports competively, if we weren’t fast enough, strong enough or savvy enough, we didn’t change the definitions and lower the bar so we could all have a shot of making it into the finals. The ones who were falling behind worked harder, practiced more and caught up; those who didn’t stayed behind and got left. Some of us had it easier than others, because of natural talent or a family tradition. Some had it harder, having to work to support themselves or their family, or had comitments to family (young siblings, sick or elderly family).
But the responsibilty the rest of the team had was to help those behind them whereever they could. Stay late and help them make their laps, work on developing weak skills or help take some of the burden off their shoulders at home. But those struggling athletes had to work for it or be left behind.
Anyway, that to me is what AA should be. Helping those who are falling behind because of a bad situation (who will also help themselves) to catch up and meet the requirements. Not to change the rules to meet their situation.
And it shouldn’t come into play once someone is an adult, because by then it is too late. The young adults Cassandra mentioned needed the help before they got to her class, when they were still in elementary and high school. They needed to build up their mental muscles and reflexes then, in the pre-season. Instead they were let into the play-offs without having the A-game that should be required.

But hey, that’s just me.
-SCSIwuzzy

That said, I was rather offended by Hirez’s assumption that a white person cannot “believe in” and “love” black people as much as he(?) does. I love and believe in PEOPLE, period. I’ve spoken to, worked with, and gone to school with some of the best people you would ever want to meet, of all races, but I have also had to deal with some of the most worthless excuses for human beings imaginable – again, of all races.

One of the hardest people I ever had to deal with, however, was a woman who worked with my wife in the mid-to-late 80’s. She was married to a man who made considerably more money then than I do even now, and the only reason she worked was to buy herself stuff and to keep from being bored, yet she was constantly harping on how we “couldn’t understand what it was like to grow up black”. Well, maybe I couldn’t, exactly, especially since there were about 5 black students in my whole high school, and four of them were from the same family, which was close friends with my family. On the other hand, how many people understand being a geek growing up in a redneck school? The (admittedly small number of) black students I knew were treated far better than I was by the other students. Ok, maybe I was never told something like “Y’all look the same to me”, but I was still excluded from things by other students because of being different, so I’m not totally lost on understanding the issue.

As far as Affirmative Action goes – fact is, there IS racism still in this country, I know some people who are. The problem with the way Affirmative Action is structured, however, is that it not only denigrates the very people it helps (if they back up and look at the implications of having to be ‘helped’), but it also makes worse the very problem it purportedly seeks to correct, because it generates resentment from the people who lose out to someone less qualified because of it. If you want to help out underprivileged people, whatever their race, set up tutoring assistance for students, beginning in primary school, adult education, and job training assistance for people of working age; don’t just force acceptance by an organization of a certain number of people of a certain race regardless of qualifications. That just lowers respect for the ones who really did not need the “help” in the first place.

Affirmative action has a rippling effect that goes far beyond the individual who is admitted (or not admitted because he or she is discriminated against).

That is the crux of Cassandra’s assertion that unprepared students have no business being allowed into the deep-end of the pool, before they are able to swim.

Perhaps “rippling” is not the optimal word, since it implies that the environment eventually attenuates the ripples. In the case of education, cascading or amplifying effect would be more apt.

Anyhoo.

The rippling effect actually begins in 1st grade, and systemically progressed that by graduation from HS, many are unprepared for college coursework. Hence the proliferation of remedial classes to get a student where they need to be in the first place. To say this is not demoralizing is crazy.

Much has been made of the failures of the public school system, suffice to say, AA is part and parcel of the problem within the education system.

Blacks are not the only group that is damaged by AA. AA, on occasion can be colorblind.

Colorblind??? Deaf students, as a group, are comprised of all races, yet they are served by the same mentality that says; “they can’t make it on their own, so we’ll have to level the field by dumbing down”. Here is a group that is discriminated not by race but by handicap, so it doesn’t matter if you’re Black or White [Disclaimer: the core of my direct involvement in the Deaf World took place between the 60s up until '82, so I'm not up on the latest codewords]

Instead of Ebonics, the Deaf have ASL–Ebonics equivalent of Signed English, ironically called American Sign Language, with its own syntax, grammar etc–also known as Amslan or American (Sign) Slang, cute eh. ASL is not to be confused as traditional Sign Language or Signed English, which is grammatically correct–there is a difference.

Anyway, ASL had its roots in the rise of the educational elites of the 70’s that said, instead of emphasizing the language of the marketplace–Business/Proper English–, it was necessary to give them their own language more fitting to their “culture”. My beef with the whole concept is that to get ahead in the real world, one needs to be able to deal in the real world. It’s one thing to be “bi-lingual”, using ASL at home or with friends, but in the classroom, they need to understand and use proper English.

As a result, Schools for the Deaf proceeded to churn out HS GINOs (Graduates In Name Only). That’s where I, as a student, interacted with them in community college both as tutor and translator, sometimes while taking the class myself as part of my own course load. Where possible, I would try to get assigned to a student that was taking something outside of my major, but was personally interested in, so it was sort of like auditing the class. So between taking my own classes, and working with the Deaf students, I generally spent 10 – 12 hours on campus everyday. At least I got paid well above the minimum wage, so it was a pretty good gig.

Usually I found it necessary to interpret, rather than translate, in order to help the students keep up–in the Deaf World, translate implies a literal word for word, while interpret gets the basic idea across. Hence translators are usually called interpreters.

As for tutoring, my experience was that the average Deaf–like Cassandra, most students were women, as were the translators/tutors–required an hour of tutoring for every hour of coursework. If scheduling permitted, the ideal schedule would have the tutoring session immediately following the class while the subject was still warm.

Then there were the foreign (Francophone) Deaf students, which believe it or not, were actually better prepared for higher education. Here, the emphasis was on ESL (English as Second Language). Technically speaking, one could claim English is the second language for most Deaf. Anyway, since English wasn’t my 1st, or even 2nd language, I got assigned to them as much as possible–for one student, it was a two-fer, in that it wasn’t necessary to take ESL classes, since I could do it on the fly and I was taking the English Comp/Lit classes anyway.

Also ideal, when having more than 1 student in a given class, that they be more or less equal in language skill, since the traditional language student got frustrated being interpreted to instead of translated. One of the girls would rather forego an interpreter and try to keep up by herself by lip-reading the instructor. Needless to say, without the coordinated triage by the Handicapped Student Services department, the failure rate for Deaf students would have been higher and most students end up in society underequipped, underemployed and consigned to being less than they could be.

Just as history is replete with examples of Blacks who have made it under Jim Crow, before CRA and AA, there are Deaf people that have made it without AA, ADA etc. In my give & take with Boy Wonder at UM, I gave him a prime example of being Black & Deaf in the 40/50s.

Bottomline, AA may have been noble in concept, just as Marxism was, but do we need it? No. Do we need to crank the academic standards back up? Yes. Anything less than rigorous is a disservice to the student and in the long run, damaging to society, as people are prevented from reaching their full potential.

Where does accountability/responsibility fit in regarding the students themselves? Nowhere really, since it was denied to them and alternatives fewer and farther between than for black students. We’ve met the enemy and it’s the liberal edcuation system.

I will leave this for you in the morning

I find it interesting that you don’t seem to entertain the possibility that there might be people in the world who might be willing to give black people a chance regardless of, or even because of their race. Here’s a real shocker for you: there are even conservatives who feel that way. Given two people with exactly equal qualifications, many conservatives would give the nod to a black job candidate.

For a number of reasons: call it white guilt, altruism, goody-two-shoes impulse, or just the desire to bridge a gap that makes us uncomfortable and that we’d like to put behind us.

If racism is as pervasive, burdensome, and hard to overcome as you maintain, how do you explain the thriving black middle class of today?

Better yet, how do you explain the prosperous black merchant class during the Jim Crow era? Because it existed. You can’t tell me they didn’t have more to overcome than modern blacks do. Yet they were able, in that time, to make money and get ahead.

The fact of the matter is that, by any objective sociological standard: teen pregnancy, divorce, drug use, literacy rates, you name it, blacks are worse off now than they were before the Civil rights act of 1964, and the welfare state is to blame.

It has destroyed the black family: the social infrastructure and values that made blacks successful under the harsh conditions they lived under then, and would really allow them to soar under today’s far better conditions.

The true burden on the shoulders of black men and women is the burden of trying to succeed without the support of a culture that values hard work and morals. Without God – traditionally the strength of the black family. To me, this is a tragedy.

Reference to orphans and widows in Scripture is usually in context of people of God taking care of their own, namely others in the church.

Christ came to heal sin sickness, not to make sure people get what they desire by way of worldy pleasures or what they believe is “fair.” His teaching specifically and directly contradict such notions. Remember that all Biblical references are contained within a context. You can’t just pick something that may or may not support your position. I berated John Kerry about this in March: http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2004/03/29/brstrongkerry-cites-scripture-to-battle-bush-viewstrong/

Cassandra…I appreciate your sentiment, and your attempt at compassion…but telling a kid who is getting beat up by a bully to just hang in there and fight until you win is irrational…and that is what you are saying…

Trust me, I believe in my people more than you ever will, and I love them more than you will ever comprehend. I believe in self-determism and the necessity of self-sacrifice of the great ones in our community to elevate the community as a whole.

That being said, there is a duality of responsibility that it seems you people just don’t understand. I hate to keep going back to the bible to prove my point, but being that pure social arguments are falling on deaf ears, maybe biblical arguments will open some minds.

Within the bible there has always been the duality of responsibility between civic leadership in the form of governmental authority and individual responsibility. This was never demonstrated more evidently than when Jesus went out alone to pray after John the Baptist died, and the people followed him. The bible said he had compassion on them because

“Mark 6:34 – And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. ”

Yet you had a political system in place that was dominate by a religious governmental structure, the lay Pharisees and the Higher Up Sadducees.

We know how Jesus addressed the religious leaders (White washed tombs, etc.) indicating a failure to minister to the masses.

But according to the model of compassion that you have, the ability to address and minimize the struggles of a people group who have been treated as no other in this nation, is…GET UP YOURSELF, PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY, etc. etc.

The number times in the bible Christ talks about looking after the poor and the widow and the orphan. I could go on and on.

My point being that there is a tremendous burden placed on the shoulders of the black men and women in america. Is there a critical need for self-determinism. Yes. Is there also a need for the government to correct the social injustice “SOCIAL” injustice past and present, I believe the bible would say so.

Good night.

They should not have been allowed to take the class in the first place. Some of them (in my opinion) should not have been in college. None of them were stupid. They all wanted to succeed, or they would not have been paying me.

There was almost no way, short of dropping all their other classes and studying full time, that they could make up for their lack of preparedness in time to pass.

How can that not be demoralizing?

Would it not have been better for them to be in a program that fit their academic level? Not their intelligence level, but their level of academic preparedness – you can only pour water into a glass so fast – too much too soon, and it just spills out.

They felt like failures when they couldn’t absorb the material fast enough. Because they were failing, the teacher had to make the tests easier for the rest of the class and the material got dumbed down (and if you don’t believe that happens, you’re crazy). Teachers get rated on their D/W/F rate. I know, because I was hired to teach supplemental courses to reduce those rates for high-risk classes.

Affirmative action has a rippling effect that goes far beyond the individual who is admitted (or not admitted because he or she is discriminated against).