Those doors of opportunity you mentioned are now open to all, in every legal sense. The only impediments now are those inside each of us, and those cannot be changed by legislating a new set of discriminatory laws.

Again, we seek the same results. We only differ on the means to the end.

Tim Wise, a white anti-racism educator has an intersting take on racial preferences and Affirmative Action. He wrote and I quote:

“Ask a fish what water is and you’ll get no answer. Even if fish were capable of speech, they would likely have no explanation for the element they swim in every minute of every day of their lives. Water simply is. Fish take it for granted.

So too with this thing we hear so much about, “racial preference.” While many whites seem to think the notion originated with affirmative action programs, intended to expand opportunities for historically marginalized people of color, racial preference has actually had a long and very white history.

Affirmative action for whites was embodied in the abolition of European indentured servitude, which left black (and occasionally indigenous) slaves as the only unfree labor in the colonies that would become the U.S.

Affirmative action for whites was the essence of the 1790 Naturalization Act, which allowed virtually any European immigrant to become a full citizen, even while blacks, Asians and American Indians could not.

Affirmative action for whites was the guiding principle of segregation, Asian exclusion laws, and the theft of half of Mexico for the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny.

In recent history, affirmative action for whites motivated racially restrictive housing policies that helped 15 million white families procure homes with FHA loans from the 1930s to the ’60s, while people of color were mostly excluded from the same programs.

In other words, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that white America is the biggest collective recipient of racial preference in the history of the cosmos. It has skewed our laws, shaped our public policy and helped create the glaring inequalities with which we still live.”

I believe Wise to be essentially correct in his assesment and that this society fails to measure or correct the inimical effects of generations of institutional racism against people of color.

Affirmative Action as currently constructed is not a cure all, but it opens the doors of opportunity to disadvantaged groups that otherwise would remain closed. To close those doors now is an endorsement of prejudice and discrimination in the name of a doctrine of color blindness that isn’t genuine.

Thanks for your comments Red, its been a pleasure.

Racism is a plague not reserved only for white people. It infects members of every race. To deny that is to deny reality.

And as a conservative, I can state that I’m fully aware that “traditional” racism still exists, and must be combatted.

Where we differ is in regard to the solution. At this point in history, the legal roadblocks to equality of opportunity have been removed. What’s left is to break down the “hearts and minds” racism that remains. I see Affirmative Action programs as roadblocks to this goal. Such programs separate people rather than allowing them to come together.

Affirmative Action is also insulting to minorities, in that it is an insidious form of institutional racism. Such programs have at their root the assumption that minorities cannot compete, cannot succeed, cannot win without a legislated head start. How terrible that is to make such negative assumptions about people’s capabilities.

Dr. King was quite clear in his speeches and writings that Affirmative Action and its progeny of whatever name were not only laudable, but required to achieve full equality in a racist society. He wrote and I quote:

“The white liberal must affirm that absolute justice for the Negro simply means, in the Aristotelian sense, that the Negro must have “his due.” There is nothing abstract about this. It is concrete as having a good job, a good education, a decent house and a share of power. It is, however, important to understand that giving a man his due may often mean giving him special treatment. I am aware of the fact that this has been a troublesome concept for many liberals, since it conflicts with their traditional ideal of equal opportunity and equal treatment of people according to their individual merits. But this is a day which demands new thinking and the re-evaluation of old concepts. A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him, in order to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis.”

For conservatives to place an overarching burden on the black family without a concomitant responsibility on the society lets those responsible for the facilitation of prejudice off the hook.

I am not delusional when I state the continued and persistent existence of racism. By racism I mean the traditional anti-minority kind, not the reverse racism that only exists in the minds of some conservatives.

Anything less than a full-throated defense of Affirmative Action is a denial of the suffering, segregation, and enslavement of generations of African Americans.

I welcome your response and the opportunity to dialog with you. Your blog is provocative and well maintained.

Yeah, there were some server issues yesterday that wreaked havoc with the timestamps. All should be well now. – Admin

Speaking of education, I’m finishing a book by one of my favorite authors, Thomas Sowell. In Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Sowell puts a nuclear bomb in the whole issue of teaching ‘race pride’, and injecting ‘cultural sensitivity’ into education and detonates it, splattering all this nonsense into smitherines.

Sowell is so darn lucid and thorough in his research (as he always is), that this book should be required reading in every highschool, and especially every college African and/or African American studies department.

Sowell has done the research, and the research says that being ‘culturally sensitive’ does NOT help blacks achieve. Teaching and expecting excellence found in the majority population (white or whatever the majority of a particular country is) is what causes achievement. Likewise, ‘keeping it real’ is actually keeping it real dumb, and this destructive black cultural identity is actually a result of the Southern redneck culture which was imported from Europe.

Lowering standards only aids those who believe that blacks and other poorly performing minorities are inferior. Success in America has nothing to do with the color of ones skin or cultural background. It has everything to do with embracing hard work and applying oneself, no matter one’s cultural background.

True, there will always be those among us who will hate us for the color of our skin, etc. But this is no excuse for not reaching for excellence and being judged by the same standards as the majority population. Blacks are capable of this. Sowell has the facts to prove it. But facts are like cryptonite to those who preach victimhood.

I wasn’t trying to offer a book review on a book that I have not read completely. (The book did come out a couple of years ago, and I am sure I heard him on NPR for an hour or something and looked at the book but not read it)

I was only trying to point out the arguments, I think are different.

At first I thought the argument was an argument my analogy – such as the murder/abortion analogy. At least everyone believes murder it wrong, but not everyone buys the analogy.

The problem with a Murray analogy is that you are starting with Murray, and all of his books are controversial.

At second quick glance – and I admit I only spend a few minutes and not much thought typing out posts – it looks like you are only a borrowing one small idea from Murray – his idea about holistic standards also helping white-males.

Any argument is strong when it is based on FEWER assumptions, and there is no need to base any of your augment on Murray’s entire book – just his one small idea

Murray does have a lot of scientific critics, beyond the ideologists who just yell racist.

Sort of a PS: my eldest son is engaged to be married to a woman with three daughters. Her eldest daughter was 14 when their relationship started, and was getting Ds and Fs in school. He was convinced that she could do better, and told her he’d pay her $100 for each A she got. She got straight As the next semester, and has been a straight A or B student since. He pays her every semester. Pricey, but effective!

You can’t possibly have enough meetings to cover every ethnic and/or racial group individually, but you can cover the largest groups, and then have a catch-all group meeting.

That’s the beauty of my theory – it will work for anyone in a poverty situation, regardless of skin color. I am currently student teaching at a low-SES, majority-minority school in Texas. I sat in on parent/teacher conferences, and most guardians/concerned relatives (not all are actual parents) showed up. Some parents are involved, at least to the point to talking to their child’s teacher. However, a lot of the kids with the worst problems (academic and otherwise) are the ones who didn’t show up. One student lives with grandparents, and they both work all the time, and don’t speak English (don’t get me started on the immigration aspect – that’s for another thread). He wears brand-name clothes, but he can’t read on grade level – no one lives in the home with him that can help him with his school work. Another student, one of the best in this class, is also from a home without English-speaking adults – the student translated for her mother during the conference.

Like I said, the solution is stable, two-parent households where at least one parent takes the necessary time to work with their child on academics. Part of a stable household is no illegal drug use or excessive use of alcohol. Again, creating these kinds of households is the solution, but I have no idea on how to make it happen.

You do have a point about child development and academic success. Did the mother consume alcohol or drugs during the pregnancy? Did the mother get proper nutrition during the pregnancy? Did the child get proper nutrition during early life? My research paper was on students at-risk for reading problems – the research shows that students who fall behind early tend to stay behind. Early interventions work for most children at-risk for reading problems, but they need to be identified early and that often doesn’t happen. Once identified, they need to actually get that extra help. Kids that are at-risk are usually those that aren’t read to as small child, and have little or no exposure to the printed word. Personal observation has shown me that those students who have difficulty reading are going to have problems in every academic area. If you can’t read, not only will you score poorly in reading, but also writing, science, social studies, and yes, even math. If you can’t read at grade level, you can’t read your grade level textbooks in any academic content area. It’s a big problem, and the solution is a strong support network for the children at home. Teachers aren’t some magic bullet to fix these problems.

The basic problem, as far as I’m concerned, is unstable home life. Fix that, you fix the other problems. Two parent households are better able to provide for physical necessities of food, clothing and shelter, but also support for their academic needs. More support outside of the classroom for academics, the student will be much more likely to perform well in school. Perform well in school, and you are more likely to perform well on tests like the ACT & SAT. Perform well on those tests, and you meet the appropriate academic standards at respectable institutions of higher education (both public and private). Problem solved. This problem can’t be fixed overnight, and I don’t know how to fix these broken families, but that is where I think it HAS to start.

Duplicate post gone! – Admin

I never stopped and thought about this before, but you are so right. Given the fact that there are vastly more whites (in absolute numbers), living in poverty in the US, there would be a great many whites vying for the holistic approach/hard luck stories category along with minority applicants. So, if it was simply a question about the degree of suffering on an individual level, a consistently applied holistic approach may not work to increase black enrollment.

For example, you may have many many refugees from Asian countries who are now denied admission to top Cailfornia colleges because they are overrepresented when admitted through rigoroous academic standards alone, but if their 2390 SATs get topped off with stories of tragedy and deprivation, they will surely be unbeatable.

Hmmm…