The last time I mentioned Henry Louis Gates, it was in reference to skin color preferences at Harvard University, where Gates is a professor. See this post.
In July, he and Lani Guinier (Bill Clinton’s “Quota Queen”) wanted to commission a waste-of-time-and-money study to determine why black immigrants outnumbered and outperformed black Americans at the Ivy League school. Clarence Page, who is no conservative, offered a possible explanation: “Immigrant kids work harder.”
I don’t care too much for Gates’s ideas (that blacks need extra help to succeed), but I wanted to blog about his article, “Swallowing the Elephant.” He offers the usual explanation why blacks vote for Democrats and will continue to do so. From the New York Times (registration req.):
The moment when the Republican Party lost black America can be given a date: Oct. 26, 1960. Martin Luther King Jr., arrested in Georgia during a sit-in, had been transferred to a maximum-security prison and sentenced to four months on the chain gang, without bail. As The Times reported, John F. Kennedy called Coretta King, expressing his concern. Richard Nixon didn’t.
This is true. While doing research for a column titled “Why Courting the Black Vote Won’t Work”, I found pretty much the same thing. I wrote: “So why did blacks switch from voting for Republicans in large numbers to voting for Democrats? Some say it was President John F. Kennedy’s perceived sensitivity to the oppression of minorities that endeared him and the party to black Americans, and they’ve been voting for Democrats in droves ever since.”
Gates continues:
Some black Republicans will tell you that however important the legal reforms of the civil-rights era had been 40 years ago, blacks today will be well served by the party of school reform and faith-based programs, the party of the so-called ownership society. [So-called?] “These are going to be the pillars of the black community,” Condoleezza Rice told me. “In my little community in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 50’s and 60’s, there were black-owned businesses everywhere, and everybody owned their own homes. That made our community strong. We’ve got to get back to that….”What’s more, many blacks are evangelical Protestants, and tend to be more conservative than their white counterparts on “social” issues like gay rights and capital punishment. “The Democratic Party is not 90 percent more black friendly than we are,” Rove exclaims.
Why, then, are blacks such down-the-line Democrats? My Harvard colleague Michael Dawson, a descendant of a black Democratic congressman from Chicago, agrees with Rove that black people are socially conservative. But the issues they vote on are racial and, especially, economic.
First of all, I don’t like race politics and I don’t like Karl Rove’s “explanation.” As I’ve written time and again, the GOP should focus on its core principles and not waste time and energy on the “black vote.”
Now black liberals take issue with me every time I say that, and I’m certain one or more will comment on it. Courting groups based on religion or socioeconomic status is inherently different from seeking their votes based on skin color. Perhaps I haven’t articulated very well why this is so, but I’ll give it another try.
For too long skin color has been a handy excuse in this country. Blacks were systematically denied basic rights because of their skin color. Forty years after the demise of legal segregation, skin color is still used as an excuse. In this case, it is the reason special treatment is necessary, they claim. That is, because America is racist, we need government protection in the form of lowered standards in order to achieve. We’ve flip-flopped in four decades.
During the Civil Rights movement, blacks wanted to be first class citizens. Now that we have the rights others died for, some blacks want to return to second class citizenship by asking for and getting lowered standards.
One of the unintended consequences of race preferences is that blacks from other countries, not just whites, are putting affirmative action kids to shame. “Intellectuals” are trying to figure out why the lowered standards deal isn’t working, at least at Harvard. To me, it’s obvious. If you can get into a school with lower grades and scores than your white counterparts, there is no incentive to compete against them. You don’t have to anyway because you’re black! Apparently, blacks from other countries aren’t exposed to such warped (and demeaning) ideas.
Then again, how can one with less academic preparation compete with another who has a strong academic background? This is what preferences are designed to sidestep, and I think it is wrong. We need to raise the academic standards and expectations of black students.
Perhaps I’m putting too much stock in what black liberals think. We all have our opinions, and we usually stick with them. I’m attracted to race-neutral policies and repelled by racial ones, the same as I would be toward racist ones. That’s just the way I am. Given the history of divineness of race, I believe there are more important and less distracting factors to focus on.
Gates’s assessment that blacks vote on racial issues is correct, but he’s incorrect about the economic issues. What liberals mean by “economic issues” is not more business ownership or lower taxes, but ownership of other people’s money in redistribution of wealth schemes. Government contract preferences and every other social program you can think of are obvious devices to take from one to give to another.
And I don’t think blacks as a group are any more socially conservative than any other group. Opposing homosexual “marriage,” for example, doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is conservative. I’ll develop this idea later.
Bottom line: Gates’s article is a glimpse into the psyche of those who vote for liberals like John Kerry, even though they don’t like him, either. He talks to them about race and government programs ad nauseam, and apparently, that’s what black Democrats want to hear.
Update: Read what Tex the Pontificator has to say.
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If you can get into a school with lower grades and scores than your white counterparts, where is the incentive to compete against them?
And if you’ve been made — for whatever reason — to compete with people who have tested higher than you, doesn’t that mean the deck is now somewhat stacked against you?
The key is more rigorous education K-12 instead of the junk taught in government schools these days. The kids may get into Harvard, but at least they’ll have a sporting chance in life to make something of themselves.
It’s not about competing with whites at Harvard; students must be equipped to compete with all students at whatever school they attend. Look, there are no easy answers and I don’t claim to have any, but I know skin color policies, odious, distasteful and immoral, are not the answer.
Inertia for Democrats began with Roosevelt, long before Kennedy.
Although Roosevelt was insensitive to Blacks and prolonged the depression and supported unions that excluded Blacks, he gave them welfare benefits.
Following Kennedy, many Blacks have re-written history to make Roosevelt a hero – truly laughable. This only reinforces fantasy of Blacks that the Democratic party is on their side.
And, unfortunately, the adoption of Christianity by Blacks has been sabotoged by unscrupulous Black preachers – who take financial contributions from unscrupulous politicians (mostly Democrats) who buy time to campaign – in the churches (just blatant violation of separation of church and state).
So between Dems, unscrupulous preachers, and an ignorant electorate, Dems have won.
Off-topic and inflammatory. – Admin
Mr. Gates’ comments as to why Blacks vote for the Democratic party is preposterous. This educated man is trying to convince us that blacks vote for Democrats because Richard Nixon did not call Coretta Scott King after Dr. King’s incarceration? Give me a break. If this is the best that they could come with for not voting Republican then they should stay with the Democrats.
Racial preferences in the admissions process sets students up for failure, period end of story. To suggest that a black kid with inferior grades and SAT scores should get into Harvard over a white kid with better stats is reverse discrimination in my book, hence my advocacy against affirmative action. Maybe if black elites stopped advocating for Ebonics as a viable language and actually hold kids and their parents accoutable for their academic performance then maybe we wouldn’t need to have this discussion.
Immigrants, including black immigrants, are unfair competition because they realize the enormous opportunities offered by America. They demonstrated greater intelligence or motivation by coming to America than those they left behind. Here is a filtering process that forces our poor to compete with the cream de cream.
First of all, I don’t like race politics and I don’t like Karl Rove’s “explanation.” As I’ve written time and again, the GOP should focus on its core principles and not waste time and energy on the “black vote.”
I agree with this comment and want to add that it should apply to any group, not just blacks. As Arnold said at the GOP convention, “If you believe a person should be treated as an individual, not as a member of an interest group, then you are a Republican.”
Multi-culturalism has destroyed bonds and communication between so-called groups in our society and replaced it with a demeaning, anti-idividualism that creates a lowest common denominator for interaction.
Thanks for the insightful post, La Shawn.
As The Times reported, John F. Kennedy called Coretta King, expressing his concern. Richard Nixon didn’t.
It seems weird to me that this single incident could be responsible for Blacks voting Democrat. What about the fact that MLK day was signed into law under Reagan, or that Condi and Powell are black? Do these facts provide counter-incentive to vote Dem?
Come on y’all. You know good and well that Black folks didn’t start voting Democratic en masse just because Nixon didn’t call Coretta King. I believe there was a fellow in there by the name of Goldwater who may have had some influence, as well. And I think that there might have been some ex-Dixiecrats who, got uncomfortable with the direction the jackass was headed and hopped on Jumbo. I may be off base here, but I’m thinking that had a little bit to do with it, too.
True enough, politics is the lens we most often use to view history, but if we’re interested in getting at truth and not just refuting the ideas of the “opposition,” we should probably keep some windex handy.
Of course, Avery. It wasn’t a single event but a cumulative effect. No one should take what Gates or anyone says about that literally.
And I might add that Dixiecrats didn’t rush en masse to the Republican party, either.
Thanks for some reason Avery.
You saved me some typing.
So you were going to do a lot of typing because a couple of commenters asked a question about something they took literally? As I said to Avery, of course it wasn’t a single event. To get caught up in and debate that one point is a waste of time and energy.
Sorry LaShawn, but until I see the same “anger” and “disrespect” directed towards Jewish people who vote 85% of the time for Democrats, I’m going to “speak up.” Not only that, I will continue to wonder if there is more going on.
Except for the quote by Rove and his idea about the telephone call, I think Gate’s piece is on the weak side.
It’s as though you responded to something I didn’t even address. I’m certainly not trying to stop you from speaking up. I just didn’t understand why, after reading Gates’s column, my post and other comments, you’d focus in on two people asking why a single telephone call would turn blacks away from Republicans. That was all I was addressing.
“But the issues they vote on are racial and, especially, economic.”
Economic issues I can deal with, but consider the racial ones. Rich southern lawyer John Edwards spoke of two Americas in his run for the Democratic nomination. The second America of his is designed to rob black citizens and prevent them from self-betterment. If you have a sinking suspicion that there are two Americas, and a rich white guy from the South confirms it, then maybe you will vote for him. Will he really do anything about it? Maybe, but if you don’t vote for him, “another black church will burn” or something. It isn’t about civil rights, it is about human decency. Why are whites still so inhuman after all these years?
On a side note, I recall that Bill Clinton was called “black” because he supposedly felt the pain of his constituents, and yet he didn’t do a whole lot.
after reading Gates’s column, my post and other comments, you’d focus in on two people asking why a single telephone call would turn blacks away from Republicans. That was all I was addressing.
My focus wasn’t just on those 2, although I did write that Avery’s comments ended a response I was going to make along those lines. I was also going to comment on the “preferences” comments, but I’m tired of that conversation right now, so I cut that portion of my response.
Like you are tired of negative comments coming from “the left,” I am tired of negative comments about Blacks, no matter where it comes from. From my p.o.v., most of it is hyper-criticism.
But, to go with the “perferences” comments…
If you can get into a school with lower grades and scores than your white counterparts, where is the incentive to compete against them?
The incentive is graduating. The incentive is doing the best that you can do. Once you get in, you’re in, but you still have get through. There is no such thing as affirmative action for getting grades. However, there is a thing called “grading on the curve” which applies to the entire class. In other words, your comment is lacking.
To suggest that a black kid with inferior grades and SAT scores should get into Harvard over a white kid with better stats is reverse discrimination in my book,
Meanwhile, white kids with inferior grades, but connections get in. No comment ever on that one. Meanwhile, the Black kids who get in, are definitely cream of the crop.
Finally…
Maybe if black elites stopped advocating for Ebonics as a viable language and actually hold kids and their parents accoutable for their academic performance then maybe we wouldn’t need to have this discussion.
This comment is an example of how the U.S. has become a soundbite society. Instead of investigating the details to find out the full story, people get soundbites and comment on it.
The Ebonics situation wasNOT one of having teachers teach Ebonics or learn Ebonics to communicate with the students. It was an attempt to get teachers to teach students “standard English” by manipulating how students used Ebonics.
And it seems like people forgot that Jesse Jackson, Mfume, Sharpton, and others, denounced the idea.
Ok, let’s go here.
A Black student, with a C averge, gets into Harvard. The same C student gets into grad school with a C average.
Let that same Black person, as an adult, comments that he/she doesn’t read much, doesn’t pay attention to details, and gets others to look into the issues and summarize it for him.
People would yell and scream about the state of Blacks, wail against affirmative action, yada yada yada.
Yet for George W. Bush, silence.
But DarkStar, if you’re tired of comments from blacks like me, hypercritical or not, why in the world do you continue to read and comment on my blog? Why not save yourself the irritation? I don’t hang out at black liberal blogs for that reason. This blog is what I believe, and I use my own style of writing to get my point across. Why, please tell me, do you continue to read it?
And about George Bush, making unsubtantiated claims about him or any other individual – white or black – doesn’t change a thing. Skin color preferences are still wrong.
“Immigrants are unfair competition?”
Are you kidding me??? These immigrants come here poor, with little or no English skills and they get ahead because they work hard. They take nothing for granted and do not look for excuses or handouts. That is why they are successful. African-Americans miss the fact that hard work and determination is enough. The fact they get poor schooling is due to lack of parent involvement, and the belief that politicians that truly DON’T CARE will fix their problems for them. Lowered standards should be DEMEANING. I don’t want anybody lowering standards for me. Let me rise or fall on my own doing. I did not need nor want someone’s help in my education. People need to quit making excuses to be lazy and call it “racism.”
if you’re tired of comments from blacks like me, hypercritical or not, why in the world do you continue to read and comment on my blog
I read it and hear it every where. It’s not just from “The Right,” it’s from “The Left” as well.
And about George Bush, making unsubtantiated claims
Those claims have been substantiated. The comment I made about his lack of reading and detail came from him.
If you re-read my post, you’ll see that I asked about my site, not what you hear or read “everywhere” else. Why do you read my blog?
OH, I get on the “Black left” as well. So much that they consider me a polyanna about Blacks. But the same has been said by those on “The Right”.
Cuz I like intellectual challenge.
Are you kidding me??? These immigrants come here poor,
The legal immigrants who come here are most likely well educated and wealthy.
African-Americans miss the fact that hard work and determination is enough.
That’s funny. About 65% of Blacks are middle class or above. About another 15% are not poor but not middle class. The other 20% are “poor”.
Most aren’t poor, but African-Americans miss the fact about hard work? Blacks have the highest rate of small business creation right now, but Blacks miss the fact about hard work?
Sorry to intrude on your biases. Carry on.
darkstar-
you pretty much make the case. If the majority of black students were getting into elite colleges w/o aff. action, and an occasional one getting in with a/a or family connections, I don’t think it would be a big deal.
I am for a/a in the workplace because I think there are still too many racist people in control of handing out jobs. But college is a different story. Most of them desperately want minorities and until we start getting in on merit the vast majority of the time, it’s always going to be questioned or assumed that the only way most of us can get in is because of a/a.
DarkStar needs to explain why the African-American community continues to clamor and line up for entitlements as well as elect officials who continue to promise them. I took a recent survey in my classroom and almost none of my African-American students stated that their expectation was to make an “A” in my class or graduate and attend a 4 year school. And from researching other school districts, this is not a phenomenon that afffects only my school. And you still don’t address that lowered standards ARE demeaning. Who wants to get into a high profile school knowing they really didn’t measure up?
I would cordially invite DarkStar to visit my high-performing classroom of African-American and Hispanic students to see my “bias” at work. When it comes to education, you cannot afford to lower the playing field for these students. The modern economy demands that they meet the standards that all other students set.
Darkstar,
Legacy preferences are indeed “unfair” but they are not prohibited by the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment was passed and ratified to eliminate the uneven application of the law with regards to race.
Moreover, let me assume you believe that legacy preferences are unconstitutional. Let’s concede that for the sake of argument. Now, how does Affirmative Action based on race remain constitutional? Or is racial discrimination only unconstitutional when it’s against whitey? Enlightened viewpoint.
Or is your point that the world of is full of unfairness, so whitey (or more accurately, poor whitey) can go to hell?
You and your ilk praise the spirit and progress of the civil rights era, but you have abandoned the Constitution’s promise, and betrayed the spirit of the civil rights movement.
Chris, don’t make the mistake of thinking darkstars=blackstars.
Darkstars exist to suck in anything within their gravitational pull — altho Hawkins has recently been accused of having flip-flopped on his theories 8).
Likewise, DarkStar likes to suck the light out of any conversation, it doesn’t matter if it’s black or white, left or right.
In any case, keep up the good work with your kids. They can achieve anything they set their minds to, more so when properly armed with a good grasp of the fundmentals.
Darkstar,
Legacy preferences are indeed “unfair” but they are not prohibited by the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment was passed and ratified to eliminate the uneven application of the law with regards to race.
Moreover, let me assume you believe that legacy preferences are unconstitutional. Let’s concede that for the sake of argument. Now, how does Affirmative Action based on race remain constitutional? Or is racial discrimination only unconstitutional when it’s against whitey? Enlightened viewpoint.
Or is your point that the world of is full of unfairness, so whitey (or more accurately, poor whitey) can go to hell?
You and your ilk praise the spirit and progress of the civil rights era, but you have abandoned the Constitution’s promise, and betrayed the spirit of the civil rights movement.
Good topic.
Darkstar wants to know why blacks are “tainted” by association while Bush isn’t. Well, George Bush couldn’t possibly have received race preferences. Blacks graduating from universities with race preferenced admissions policies will all suffer regardless of whether they actually received preferenced admissions. This is one of the most insidious repercussions of such policies, a consequence much worse than the injustice it’s attempting to cure.
He apparently semi-believes this is a racist reaction. Not so. This is a natural human reaction. In a situation of uncertainty about whether an individual is really qualified, other individuals without such questions are going to look better. Thomas Sowell has written several columns on the topic. It seems many blacks accuse him of benefitting from race preferences, then crusading against them. He points out that he graduated from Harvard long before race preferences were instituted (1958), so everyone making this charge has simply assumed that a successful black must have been a preferences beneficiary. Are these commenters racist as well? Or are only whites who make the same presumptions as these blacks racist?
When you lower standards, achieving them is devalued. When you lower them only for certain groups the value to those groups is devalued.
The real question is why blacks have settled for such a pathetic response to a very serious problem. Blacks are underrepresented in elite universities because they are disproportionately unprepared. In some cases this is due to cultural factors. As a percentage, far more blacks concentrate on athletics and other non-academic pursuits. But it’s also because a disproportionate number of blacks attend pathetic, failing schools.
Unfortunately, what we refer to as the education system is more a government jobs program. As long as this continues the poor will disproportionately pay the cost. But who is fighting any change to the education system? Democrats, on behalf of the teachers (and the unions). I don’t know whether blacks need to change parties to effectively fight this issue. I suspect they could win the battle either way. But they need to start fighting for it.
University race preferences are window dressing designed to cover up the real problem.
MJ – If only I could be so reasoned and eloquent.
Amen MJ
“Blacks are underrepresented in elite universities because they are disproportionately unprepared. In some cases this is due to cultural factors. As a percentage, far more blacks concentrate on athletics and other non-academic pursuits. But it’s also because a disproportionate number of blacks attend pathetic, failing schools.”
This could be true, but if the NEA was funding the study, I would wonder whether they were just buying the results they wanted. If failure is measure by student performance divided by per pupil spending, then the states that don’t spend much and have a school where kids don’t learn may count as a bigger failure than a big-spending low results school. Proportionality isn’t a good measure of these things, because more blacks live in the South, where spending on education tends to be lower.
The use of the phrase ‘disproportionate representation,’ could be dangerous, because for instance, men are underrepresented in colleges, meaning that women are even further disproportionately in professorships.
There was a study released recently that deals with elite schools and whether they are really better for students. The link escapes me at the moment, but the idea is that maybe the selectiveness of the schools improves their results and concentrates the excellence, making it appear that the school causes the excellence when in fact they just selected for the excellence in choosing students.
The measurement of black students going or not going to select schools as a measurement of the success of a school system is probably self-defeating, because a good education can be found even without going to one at all. Low SAT scores and grades do not have to equate with failure, as there are different paths one can take. Of course high scores and grades are great, but if they are the end goal of education, then it hardly seems worthwhile. The learning is the thing. We care too much about diversity and funding.
DarkStar needs to explain why the African-American community continues to clamor and line up for entitlements as well as elect officials who continue to promise them.
For the same reason the white community continues to do so. In Maryland, Gov. Erhlich changed the state college scholarship program to favor students in need vs. students with great scores. The white community in Maryland had a fit.
I took a recent survey in my classroom and almost none of my African-American students stated that their expectation was to make an “A” in my class or graduate and attend a 4 year school.
The percentage of white Americans with a college degree is about 26%. The percentage of Black Americans with a college degree is about 12%. (That’s from memory).
It would appear that most whites and Blacks don’t have that expectation if the stats stay stable. Of course, for Blacks, the percentage of Blacks attending and graduating from college is on the upswing. (Well, that’s true overall, although for men it’s falling, but that’s true for white men as well).
And you still don’t address that lowered standards ARE demeaning.
Because most of the standards haven’t been lowered.
I would cordially invite DarkStar to visit my high-performing classroom of African-American and Hispanic students to see my “bias” at work.
DarkStar graduated from an engineering and science high school. If DarkStar had attended a Maryland state university, DarkStar would have entered as a sophomore. DarkStar’s child is in the first year of college. DarkStar’s child had a total of about $60K in scholarship offers.
Moreover, let me assume you believe that legacy preferences are unconstitutional. Let’s concede that for the sake of argument. Now, how does Affirmative Action based on race remain constitutional? Or is racial discrimination only unconstitutional when it’s against whitey? Enlightened viewpoint.
Viewpoint: as long as formerly all white universities have legacy preferences which give a leg up on Black students whose parents may not have been able to attend those universities, affirmative action should remain.
And only white people use the term “whitey.”
Chris, don’t make the mistake of thinking darkstars=blackstars.
Yawn.
Darkstar wants to know why blacks are “tainted” by association while Bush isn’t. Well, George Bush couldn’t possibly have received race preferences.
If a Black person graduated from college with a C average, there is no way none of you would have defended that Black person as being intellegent as people do for George W. Bush.
Blacks are underrepresented in elite universities because they are disproportionately unprepared.
You will never see or read me argue using proportional representation. Blacks don’t attend elite universities, even when “qualified,” because of cost. Black students rely on loans in far greater proportion than white students rely on loans.
Blacks “drop out” of college in much greater proportion because of funding issues than do white students.
DarkStar-
I applaud your academic efforts. Excellence is appreciated. Congratulations to your child for their efforts as well. Those “white people” in Maryland are idiots. With half of my students living in poverty, I agree financial aid should be based on need. Now, if you want to argue that African-Americans don’t attend based on cost, I can appreciate that argument. I think we need to quit pretending that many universities do not admit many minorities in order to make their campuses more diverse whose academic make-up is less qualified. This has been proven again and again in the court cases argued most recently before our Supreme Court. Those facts, combined with my independent research is why I attest that many minority students are admitted to universities based on their color rather than their academic abiliity. That represents lowered standards. Like LaShawn says, it is immoral, wrong, period.
“If a Black person graduated from college with a C average, there is no way none of you would have defended that Black person as being intelligent as people do for George W. Bush.” – Darkstar
Darkstar makes sense. Lots of sense.
My only real beef with those whole believe that race-based affirmative action policies should be eliminated stems from their easy rhetorical slide from “affirmative action discriminates against people” to “affirmative action allows undeserving Black people to pursue education and fail openly” to “affirmative action students and professionals can never be as skilled, as knowledgeable, or as useful as white people”. I do not wish to be unfairly cynical, but it’s like conservatives are simply masking their disdain for minority achievement in the Fourteenth Amendment, and calling it the promotion of equality under the law. I don’t believe that’s racist, in any sense, just disingenuous.
Again, I’m not trying to be unfairly cynical, but take this quote:
“African-Americans miss the fact that hard work and determination is enough. The fact they get poor schooling is due to lack of parent involvement, and the belief that politicians that truly DON’’T CARE will fix their problems for them. Lowered standards should be DEMEANING. I don’’t want anybody lowering standards for me. Let me rise or fall on my own doing. I did not need nor want someone’’s help in my education. People need to quit making excuses to be lazy and call it “racism.” – Chris Roberts
From there it moves to this:
“Blacks graduating from universities with race preferenced admissions policies will all suffer regardless of whether they actually received preferenced admissions. … This is a natural human reaction. In a situation of uncertainty about whether an individual is really qualified, other individuals without such questions are going to look better…. When you lower standards, achieving them is devalued. When you lower them only for certain groups the value to those groups is devalued.” – mj
Now, Mr. Roberts works in education, so while I’d never tell him or MJ what I believe their response to Black academic achievement should be, I would like to promote the idea that holding and justifying the widespread public belief in Black mental inferiority, an old and useless stereotype, only serves to further disenfranchise and separate Black people from not only the American political system, but also other American financial and social centers of influence. One can express distaste with affirmative action policies without calling Black people lazy. One can justify ending affirmative action policies without condemning all African American graduates of higher education attending universities in the post-Bakke world to second-class skill and knowledge levels without testing their productive values in the real world. Chris, MJ, no disrespect, but maybe you guys should try again.
The blanket statements concerning Black mental inferiority are not necessary, and only serve to promote the Black liberal view that opponents of affirmative action policies really only wish to see Black people poor, uneducated, and without political and economic self-determination, brute labor for American corporate elites. I honestly do not believe that; I think conservatives are more bothered by the La Shawn’s premise that redistribution of wealth or the opportunity for wealth by the Left is wrong. Lowering standards for racial minorities to achieve the redistribution is even more immoral, if I understand her correctly. However, especially in higher education, no one lowers standards for African American achievement. Cornell University, my alma mater, is both known and feared for its rigorous, strenuous academic curriculum. No one gained undue advantage over other students that was not garnered through hard work, determined study, and reading. Much, much reading.
Being Black never helped me at Cornell. Being determined to achieve never hurt me there. If people can’t disagree with affirmative action without hating Black achievement, then maybe affirmative action is a topic they should leave alone.
Sorry for the lengthy post.
No need to apologize for long posts, James. I appreciate your participation, and the bandwidth usage is on me!
Perhaps you’ll also be interested in my current post, “The Immorality of Race Preferences.”
I was! Thanks for letting me participate.
Fly by then I gotta jet…
[ From memory ]
The Hopwood vs Texas Law School case was an interesting “anti-affirmative action” case. In the end, Hopwood got compensation of $1. “The Right” looked at it as a verification of “reverse discrimination.” But here’s the details that people over looked:
1. Hopwood would have still been denied because her undergrad school was not an accredited school which was the requirement for entrance to the law school.
2.Whites with lower test scores than her scores were accepted to the school.
3. The lawyers for Hopwood didn’t prove that she was denied entrance because of her race. There were other entrance requirements that she did not meet.
Linda Chavez’s CEO does “reviews” of schools to see if they are discriminating against white students. They reviewed the University of Virginia, and based on the reviews, “determined” that Black students were getting in who weren’t qualified. The problem with her analysis, is that the Black student’s graduation rate matched those of white students.
What lowered standards?
Without even going into details about your comment, DS, I can say this right off the bat. Whether or not black students’ graduation rates matched whites (sure about that?), if they got in through a separate, skin-color based, less rigorous admissions track, it is still wrong. Read my latest post on the immorality of race preferences.
At UVa, for the period being looked at, yes.
Read it and I’ll generate a response when I have time.
I’m coding, and compiling and testing and…
Blacks definitely achieve in my classroom. I am not calling them lazy either. That is ridiculous. Since I didn’t graduate from an Ivy League institution, perhaps I am out of my league in trying to adequately express my opinion. :> I think blacks can achieve just as well as anyone else. My issue is that they aren’t being adequately equipped with the skills necessary to compete. Research by both Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and Star Parker conclusively show that black students are not graduating with the same educational skills as other students (white and asian). I am arguing that whatever the case, if they aren’t as qualified, then why should someone with better qualifications be denied? The solution is to fix the problem at the source and not at the end. I do not find my black students on the whole lazy, and I have plenty of white students who are lazier than any minority student I have. The problem I have is in expectations. My minority students expect less of themselves, and I consistently survey my class to find this out. So speaking from my perspective, it isn’t laziness, it is a lack of drive to achieve a lofty goal such as an Ivy League school. As I pointed out to DarkStar earlier, my minority students on a whole regularly state that their expectation for themselves is merely graduating from high school. I have a higher percentage of my white and asian students who state that college and post graduate is their expectation of themselves. The dropout and failure rates in my school district affirm this fact. Finally, affirmative action makes color THE ISSUE. I think that is wrong. We are supposed to be moving to an era where color is not the issue. I hate stereotypes. They are ugly and I do everything I can to dispel them in my classroom. As long as affirmative action exists, color will remain the issue.
LaShawn- my apologies for the length of the rant. It is so hard to stop when I get so excited about intellectual engagement.
DarkStar-
Let me get on the record as saying that the entire Hopwood case was a fiasco in my opinion. It’s intent was good, but it was doomed for failure for several of the reasons you listed. The white students who were getting in with less qualifications had no business being there. Period. I didn’t deserve to get into the grad program at UT I sought, and I didn’t. My wish is that we can fix the inequality problem without using affirmative action. Nothing more, nothing less. I want everyone to achieve their best.
Mr. Lamb:
Nowhere did I state nor do I believe blacks are mentally inferior. Maybe you should read again.
I said (a) blacks disproportionately have other priorities, and (b) blacks disproportionately suffer from the effects of lousy schools.
My comments about the effects of race preferences are not racial, they are mathematical and logical. To the extent admissions requirements are deemed important, those who were forced to meet higher standards will be deemed more worthy. This has nothing to do with race. While these standards don’t mean everything, if they mean nothing why are they used for university admissions?
Your inference that my position is blacks are “mentally inferior” and “lazy” is nothing but a smear. Perhaps people who can’t express opinions without implying anyone who holds other opinions are racist should avoid all discussions.
MJ, if you believe in any sense that African American graduates of major universities that practice affirmative action policies will always appear to employers as job applicants with “a situation of uncertainty about whether an individual is really qualified” – your quote – than I believe you are masking a belief in Black mental inferiority in your opinions on “natural human reaction” to lowering standards. I believe that opinion is rather sad.
You never said anything about Black laziness. You expressed an opinion that people who are accepted into institutions without affirmative action policies will always be viewed as more qualified than those persons who are viewed as matriculating into institutions with the use of affirmative action policies, whether or not that is actually the case. (”Blacks graduating from universities with race preferenced admissions policies will all suffer regardless of whether they actually received preferenced admissions.” – MJ) I find that notion repugnant, because it presupposes that the actions a person commits while involved in an institution are meaningless. Only how one gets into the institution is important to you, MJ. Your opinion on this subject gives this African American more reason to remember that while conservatives love to invoke Dr. King’s “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” line, few conservatives actually believe it.
Whether or not a African American enters an institution of higher learning through affirmative action policies or not, once they graduate, their should be no question concerning their abilities. Case closed. The reluctance to give educated African American graduates the chance to prove themselves because of general unspoken fears that affirmative action has allowed unqualified Negroes to secure meaningless educational credentials while further raising the academic credibility of those perceived not to benefit from affirmative action policies is, in my opinion, the modern permutation of the tired old Black mental inferiority stereotype. Whether or not you continue to believe in this, MJ, is entirely up to you.
Mr. Lamb:
What I said was “In a situation of uncertainty about whether an individual is really qualified, other individuals without such questions are going to look better.” I think this can fairly be interpreted as applying when two people in question have similar other charateristics, or when other qualifications are scant. In absolutely no circumstance can this possibly be interpreted as meaning all recipients will be judged below all non-recipients, except possibly to someone whose sole argument is attributing racist intent to anyone whose opinion differs from theirs.
In any case, this is a discussion about the effects of policy on perception, not about the actual qualifications of anyone. I have in no case said what a person does while at a university is irrelevant, only that the taint of racial preferences effects everyone who could possibly receive them. In addition, I gave the example of Thomas Sowell who has stated on several occasions that this has actually happened to him even though he could not possibly have been a beneficiary of race preferences. If this is not fact but rather my racism, why don’t you send him a note and tell him it didn’t really happen?
You may question my commitment to equal treatment by smear and innuendo, but you expicitly deny MLK’s “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” line every time you defend race preferences. The idea that lower standards lead to lower achievement is hardly unique to race relations. Yet somehow this principle routinely applied to a myriad of circumstances becomes racist when applied in a case involving race.
Your need to believe anyone who thinks differently than you is a racist is a sickness.
Nobody is questioning what happens after an African-American candidate gets the job and succeeds. The debate is about what happens before a minority candidate is chosen.
Affirmative Action has made everyone much more conscious of their hiring criteria. That being said, the success of a candidate does not justify the policy. The success or failure of Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State is not going to be the final determinant of whether hiring an African-American to coach at an SEC school is good policy(of course it is, there are great African-American coaches out there). He got the job because he was the best candidate. And his consideration as a candidate shows how far we have come since the clamoring for A-A began.
Two questions to think about:
IF affirmative action is a good policy, are we at a point of diminishing returns?
Is using one form of injustice to make equity for a long term injustice genuinely right?
I’ll be avidly waiting for the responses.
IF affirmative action is a good policy, are we at a point of diminishing returns?
If one looks at what is happening beyond the sound bites, no.
Is using one form of injustice to make equity for a long term injustice genuinely right?
Given most meet the standards, there is no injustice.
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