Hopewood, somehow, won even though there were white students who got into the law school with scores lower than hers and even though she graduated from a school that wasn’t accredited and even though she turned in her paperwork after the deadlines.

But I do believe in advertising to and encouraging people from non-traditional groups to participate in under-representative fields. I think institutions should seriously consider programs that prepare attract and retain such people and I am a BIG proponent of programs that adequately prepare such individuals to fully compete for those work/school spots.

For me the preparation to take advantage of an opportunity is the BIGGEST issue. And the sad fact is that our nation’s public education system does not equally prepare students. Students from lower socioeconomic rungs are consistently under-prepared. I can’t tell you how many bright, eager, but just-plain skills lacking students I have come across. In truth, it is a SES/class issue, but in this complex nation of ours, race and class issues overlap so much it is at time difficult to tease them apart.

I suppose that the State Department has dealings with some nations where a black face would serve the US better than a white one. Although I am not sure that is really how we should behave. Other than that reason, I would assume that Condi is talking about a general lack of interest among black students to pursue a career at State. But so what? There is no “wall” keeping blacks from State. Condi would be the first to spot it and hear about it. Colin Powell would have told her.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Perhaps the person who worked for years, outscored Darkstar [perhaps under even more socio-economically adverse circumstances] would have given EVEN MORE bang for the buck. But hey, why worry about the blood, sweat, and tears of another human being who may have spent their lives working towards a goal, only to see it snatched out from under their feet by government fiat.

Meanwhile, folks like Darkstar think it is their just desserts [you know, slavery and all that] Well, rational folks ask what slavery has to do with those who had the same opportunity as others?
While it is mandatory that every white person is labeled as a “person of privilege” despite the fact that whites have LESS access to early childhood education AND often grow up in rural areas that do not even offer AP courses, and certainly don’t come from urban areas with community organizers offering summer jobs and leadership organizations, the truth is that in 2008, the privilege thing is wearing thin.

As for Asians, the privilege notion is a travesty.

So, good on you, Darkstar, that you feel good about your success. As for me, I would feel a tad queasy wondering whether I had taken the opportunity away from someone who had worked harder and been more deserving. I don’t want something I have not earned in the objective sense. In real life, one can’t simply look at someone who made the best of their opportunity and categorically declare that it was worth it, because one has NO way to know whether the person who deserved it more would have made the the best of THEIR opportunity had it been offered.

My brother got perfect scores on his SATs, was a gifted athlete, worked full time through highchool, and grew up in poverty.

To me, it is a travesty that someone like Michelle Obama got into Harvard and my brother did not.

Yeah, he is a success now, a high profile neurologist and an electrical engineer…….BUT, there is no doubt that he earned the opportunities that the Obamas were handed on a silver platter [and are bitter about, no less].

So, yeah, it would be facile to say that no one wants to hear a white person talk about victimhood. After all, whites oughta get to experience the tragedy of black history. As we all know, two wrongs make a right. After all, who cares that someone scratched their way out of poverty, and achieved at extraordinary levels only to see their place given to someone who had simply not-made-the-grade.

Alright, to me, being a victim says that one is a failure because of others. That hardly describes the scenario I am presenting.

Make no mistake…I am NOT presenting a VICTIMOLOGY template.

In my scenario, the truth is that those who were denied opportunities succeeded IN SPITE of seeing their earned positions snatched by others. They are hardly victims. They are true successes.

But to say that their story cannot be told is a bastardization of history and free speech and reality.

SO, let’s tell the whole story which is that affirmative action largely benefits privileged blacks at the expense of poor Asians and to a lesser extent, poor whites.

In what universe does this make sense?????????

So, you go, Darkstar…savor every minute of your success. But, take a moment to think about kids that were smarter, worked harder, and came from worse socio-economic circumstances that saw their dreams drift away so that you could have opportunities they only dreamt about. Woo hooo!

I graduated in 4 years, even as an athlete. Did I care? Nope. But I should have done 5 years. My grades would have been higher, but I paid for the education.

The first 3 jobs I probably got help from AA. Did I care? Nope. Except in one job, I know I’d be hired back in a heart beat if the people I worked with were still around. On the one job where I wouldn’t, I burned bridges, on purpose, even though in my “specialized field” where you see the same people over and over again, most likely at different companies.

Do I care? Nope. And given my income, the government dang sure is happy. And if my daughter lives up to her potential, something I had some hand in, the government will be happy at her income as well.

Huh?! Where did you get that from?!

Please, anybody! Did anybody else read me that way?

I do think I would have had more job opportunity in state government if I had been a minority. State government definitely has and uses preferences and there were several people I worked with who’s skills were poor enough that I don’t think they could have gotten the job without the preferences.

I also saw a glaring difference between working for the government and working for private companies in IT. In government, the staff was very racially diverse. In IT, the racial mix has always been mostly white, quite a few Indians, and quite a few native-born Europeans. I can count on one hand the number of black people I’ve worked with in IT, same for Hispanic. Gender-wise, it’s mostly men, especially in the technical areas. I’m frequently the only woman on a team. Most women in IT are the multi-tasking manager types (the “Mom” roles).

Part of all of that I think is simply interest, or lack of it. I certainly haven’t been interested in the more technical work. Could it be that without racial and gender preferences, hiring is based on skill and experience alone? It could be geographic, the Denver area doesn’t have the black population that the southern and eastern cities do. But even at one of my clients in Atlanta, only one of the team members was black. And Denver certainly has a large Hispanic population, where are they in IT? Maybe kids aren’t exposed to the career in school so have no interest.

My nephew is half black and half white. What will his future be? I wish skin color didn’t matter so much after all this time, but it seems to.

Ward Connerly’s non-discrimination amendment is on our ballot this fall. It bases “affirmative action” on financial need, as it should be. I’ll be voting for it.

Look at comment #44.

Then look at THIS thread.

I have also seen blacks who play the HECK out
of the system to get what they want, then,
as H. L. Mencken predicted, immediately try
to bar other blacks, REGARDLESS OF THEIR
QUALIFICATIONS, from intruding on their
“spook who sat by the door” exclusivity.

The greatest tragedy of the last 40 years
for blacks is that they didn’t take advantage
of the freedoms that they won to BUILD THEIR
OWN INSTITUTIONS, starting with the most basic,
which is the FAMILY, next their NEIGHBORHOOD (and I mean that literally — their block, then their street, and next the community), and finally “the world”. What blacks have become is a caricature of this money worshipping society, ready to just fall down and WORHIP money (in the case of little Prosperity Pimp ministers — LITERALLY). When people value MONEY over all other values in life, they are not apt to have the HONOR to seek or accept a title only when they have earned it.

That is the gratest complaint that i have against those blacks who constantly bombard me with this OBAMA WORSHIP — I have NEVER voted for the GOP, and in the last 3 elections I have
voted LIBERTARIAN. Obama is an egotistical little back bencher who hasn’t been in the Senate long enough to know where the men’s room is. With the greatest gall (and to his credit no small measure of organizaional savvy) he is manipulated his way to a run for the presidency.

He is woefully unqualified — but SO WAS GEORGE W. BUSH. If George W. Bush were the son of a truck driver or a plumber he NEVER would have gotten into Yale; he would have served in Vietnam as a grunt (like so many other working class men of his generation); he would have been rejected for Harvard Business School (as was Warren Buffett), and he would NEVER have become president of the USA.

ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE GAME THE SYSTEM — blacks who think that their ability to do so based on quotas and AA, will do well to realize THAT game has just about PLAYED OUT.

Bravo, zipla. That’s it. You also spoke to it very well here:

“I think if I was in the audience I have probably avoided or have successfully maneuvered past the many things that plague the black community – so why are you [Ms. Rice] addressing those things to this audience. If I was at a conference about the State of the Community – and she was the keynote speaker, then yeah.”

This is like a non-white person going on Fox News degrading and disparaging “blacks”. Who there is going to care or offer rebuff. You’d likely get kudos or ^5’s.

As well, when I go to minister to the inner city, I don’t extol the virtues or non-virtues of, say, the Orthodox Jews that I work with so they might believe on Y’Shua as the Son of Yahweh, the logos, rhema, and dumanis. They likely don’t give a hoot about what Jews believe.

You address the people who need to be addressed in the company of those who have sincere and godly compassion and accountability for that subject matter and whatever fruits it may bear. In that vein, why Secretary Rice choose that venue is beyond me. Only she knows.

So is your point that you don’t want to be CONSIDERED a bigot, regardless of how you BEHAVE?