Why is it only white people that are racist?

[Toni]

So in essence, BH is right in that racism is silly but because we have some many world wide problems stemming from it then sadly it is still very much an issue we all could do just a little more about even if it only to not do anything to make it worse than it already is by ripping out some of the only thing, a bit misguided as they are still, that are set to try and alleviate the negative effects of our own species-wide learned misperceptions.

I don't think racism is 'silly.' I think it serves at least one very good purpose: it gives one group a very good excuse to feel entitled to treat members of other groups as badly as they want, without considering the other group as actual human beings, with souls, humanity, intrinsic rights and responsibilities and intrinsic worth.

I think racism is actually a mind game people play with themselves in order to shore up their not very noble position.

In the US, before it was the US, we imported black Africans and treated them pretty much as somewhat more useful livestock, with the bonus that they could be trained to do more complex tasks and we could fuck them, literally, without it being too gross. Literally, they were sold and purchased against their will, stolen from their families, countries, language, culture, religion. From themselves. Purchased, traded, shipped like cargo, tossed overboard when they sickened and died, beaten and worse when they dared not comply with whatever was expected of them.

This is not how people treat one another. It's not. So, we have to create a different category for those whose labor, whose bodies we need for whatever purpose we have without thinking very much or at all if they are healthy, treated decently, given adequate food and shelter or medical care, given any options at all in their lives. If they are willing.

Because everyone likes to think well of themselves. And it's pretty much impossible to think well of yourself when you treat someone else like property, like livestock with a slightly more developed brain. So you tell yourselves, and each other and them that they aren't really human, they don't have the same needs and wants, they are like children. Bad children, children you don't like and don't expect to grow and gain independence. Or have agency in their own lives. Which are disposable, actually, although expensive to replace.

It's the same thing, really, that we did to Native peoples who lived in the Americas, the Chinese who were brought over to work on railways. The fact that they looked different: Africans, Asians, Native peoples--easier to identify, harder to identify with. Easier to distinguish who you could treat like livestock.

Yes, there were indentured servants who were treated badly. But who were given their freedom after their period of indenture was ended. And whose descendants, 50 or 100 years later, were fully integrated into society, although they did have their own neighborhoods, just as all immigrant populations, past and present, form to preserve whatever remains of their ancestral culture. We may have treated them inhumanely, but we recognized them as human.

And sure, we fought a war, freed the slaves, went through a Civil Rights Era while retaining some of the vestiges of our attitudes and beliefs that allowed us to treat people like livestock in the first place. We distance ourselves from slavery, from wiping out Native peoples, from how we treated Chinese and others imported for specific, back breaking labor. We encouraged the Chinese to go back where they came from--and some did. There were movements (and still are) to send former slaves and their descendants back to Africa--while failing to recognize that our European ancestors also came from Africa and that former slaves/descendants of slaves are no more part of the landscapes in Africa than we are. But out of site = out of mind, and we can forget about and forgive ourselves so much better when we don't have to see the evidence of our evil.

We can pretend that we don't recognize why blacks in America have not been able to completely overcome the stigmas and stereotypes--not to mention actual enslavement! in a few short years when our own ancestors from Ireland or Germany or Poland or Norway or wherever learned to blend in in just a generation or three. And isn't it great that we celebrate Octoberfest! and all those cute little festivals that dot the landscape: there's a festival to celebrate all of us: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Swiss, Chinese dragons in small town parades! and we even let the Hmong have their celebrations now, too. Who doesn't want to visit shops in China town, or Little Italy, or Korea Town. We just need to stay out of the black neighborhoods. Not safe. Dirty. Those people. Except for Harlem. Harlem's cool now.

We adopt kids from Korea and China--see? We're not racist! Plus, they're known to be tidy and clean and good at math.

Racism allows those of us who struggle with our place in life to feel a bit better about ourselves because at least there is someone we can look down on. It allows those of us who are in a position to do so to excuse the way we treat people we need to maintain our elevated status.

Silly isn't even close to the right word.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Does your post take into consideration the constellation it was in when you posted it?

Never mind. I had mistakenly thought you had some background in statistics.

Your reply to me and also to spike lets me know I was wrong.

I do have some background in statistics--the point was that your questioning of the data was utterly irrelevant. Differing numbers of applications will have no effect on the number of acceptances as it's possible to be accepted by multiple schools. Differing application rates could produce an effect in applications:attendance but that's not the data being considered.

 

[Toni]

Does your post take into consideration the constellation it was in when you posted it?

Never mind. I had mistakenly thought you had some background in statistics.

Your reply to me and also to spike lets me know I was wrong.

I do have some background in statistics--the point was that your questioning of the data was utterly irrelevant. Differing numbers of applications will have no effect on the number of acceptances as it's possible to be accepted by multiple schools. Differing application rates could produce an effect in applications:attendance but that's not the data being considered.

The fact that some individuals--roughly aggregated into demographic groups shown in the graphs--are more inclined to apply to multiple schools--or all schools than others. Personally, I do not understand why anyone would apply to every single Ivy, except ego. I cannot imagine that most Ivy admissions offices would not recognize and select against that.


This can skew statistics.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Never mind. I had mistakenly thought you had some background in statistics.

Your reply to me and also to spike lets me know I was wrong.

I do have some background in statistics--the point was that your questioning of the data was utterly irrelevant. Differing numbers of applications will have no effect on the number of acceptances as it's possible to be accepted by multiple schools. Differing application rates could produce an effect in applications:attendance but that's not the data being considered.

The fact that some individuals--roughly aggregated into demographic groups shown in the graphs--are more inclined to apply to multiple schools--or all schools than others. Personally, I do not understand why anyone would apply to every single Ivy, except ego. I cannot imagine that most Ivy admissions offices would not recognize and select against that.


This can skew statistics.

Does each school know what other schools a student applied to?

Your answers here feel like an extreme stretch to try to avoid the reality in that data.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Being squeezed out of a vagina is hardly anything to be proud about. Chinese nationalists aren't proud about being yellow. Muslims aren't proud about being brown. Being proud of being a specific colour I think is unavoidably racist. For the same reason I think black pride is problematic.

Yup. You should be proud of your accomplishments, not of how you were created.

It has nothing to do with 'how' you are created. It does have to do with being able to feel pride in your family. For example, I know that my grandfather was forced to support his own family at the age of 16 when his father died unexpectedly. They were farmers and in those days, farming meant a horse or mule and a plow. Lots of extremely exhausting labor. My grandfather took care of his mother and his younger siblings. Because of his sacrifice, his younger siblings all were able to attend school much longer than my grandfather, even earning college degrees, which was unusual at that time for anybody, much less the orphan children of a dead immigrant dirt farmer. I confess that I feel a sense of pride in knowing how much hard work and determination and frankly, stubborn refusal to give up it too my grandfather to survive and to ensure that his siblings survived and out-achieved him. Then there was the Great Depression, two young children and a very sick wife who died much too young. But he survived and his kids survived and did better than he did. These are not my accomplishments, but I look at my family and I see some of those characteristics through the generations: being willing to sacrifice in order for others to survive and even thrive. Being willing to do extremely difficult work and to take pride in that work, even if it did not bring you wealth and in fact, sometimes barely kept you fed.

In the United States, most black Americans are descended from ancestors who were stolen, forced into ships which sailed thousands of miles to a new land, were sold into slavery, beaten, used as beasts of burden or worse, forbidden to speak their own languages or practice their own cultural and religious beliefs and forbidden to learn to read and write, to own property, to marry as they chose, to have any agency over their own being. For generations. And after slavery ended, the rank prejudice against people who were formerly enslaved did not end but was codified into all sorts of laws, ensuring that any small progress would be hard fought and hard won. In my own lifetime, black people were murdered for registering to vote, for attempting to vote. For looking at a white woman the wrong way or being accused of such actions. In some places black people were forbidden to marry white people, attend the same schools or hospitals, drink from the same water fountains, eat at the same lunch counters, sleep in the same hotel rooms as whites. In every way possible, black people were told that they were less than, that they did not matter, that they could be snuffed out without any recourse.

With so much effort, so many laws concentrated on making certain that black people did not dare reach too high, that they were kept to the back of the line, the back of the bus, that their voices were silenced, it is pretty easy to see why white folks need to be reminded that the lives of black folk matter. Because pretty often, white people don't even notice the ways that we make sure they don't.

There's a difference between "pride of" and "pride for". You've conflated them. One is admiration of another's accomplishments that have somehow benefited you. The other is justified banging of your chest about something you've accomplished. Which one you mean has to be gleaned from context, rather than semantics. They can both be written the same way. But I hope you get the difference?

Example. I'm proud for Nelson Mandela. Just because he's a credit to his species, and makes me feel good about being human. But I don't claim, because I'm also a human that gives me special rights over others.

This btw is a problem in Western nationalism. They constantly confuse these. I've worked with loads of Indians. I've never met an Indian who got these confused. They're all proud about being Indian, but somehow manage not to be dicks about it. Dickishness seems pretty standard among Western nationalists.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Institutional Racism.

The use of WMD is prohibited, why are you presenting such strong evidence?

Evidence of what?

According to the stats, blacks had a lower acceptance rating percentage than Asians, Whites, and Hispanics. Only about 1/3 of black applicants were accepted into medical school. You look at the chart above and you think... OMG, nothing but dumby blacks gonna be doctors now. But the statistics don't tell us that is the case.

During this period, the acceptance rates by race were:
White - 47 to 49%
Asian - 43 to 46%
Hispanic - 40 to 44%
Black - 32 to 35%

So, for every 100 White applicants, about 48 were accepted. For every 100 Asian applicants, about 44 were accepted. For every 100 blacks, 33 accepted. So much for institutional racism!

According to this table, the average GPA in 2016-2017 of those accepted for blacks was 3.5 verses 3.7 for Whites and Asians. A 3.5 can be 2 B's, 1 B+, and 2 A's. A 3.7 is 3 B+'s, 2 A's. Where I went to school, there was no A-. We aren't talking a huge difference here, nor are we talking about anything else that goes in a grad school application.

 

[Toni]

Yup. You should be proud of your accomplishments, not of how you were created.

It has nothing to do with 'how' you are created. It does have to do with being able to feel pride in your family. For example, I know that my grandfather was forced to support his own family at the age of 16 when his father died unexpectedly. They were farmers and in those days, farming meant a horse or mule and a plow. Lots of extremely exhausting labor. My grandfather took care of his mother and his younger siblings. Because of his sacrifice, his younger siblings all were able to attend school much longer than my grandfather, even earning college degrees, which was unusual at that time for anybody, much less the orphan children of a dead immigrant dirt farmer. I confess that I feel a sense of pride in knowing how much hard work and determination and frankly, stubborn refusal to give up it too my grandfather to survive and to ensure that his siblings survived and out-achieved him. Then there was the Great Depression, two young children and a very sick wife who died much too young. But he survived and his kids survived and did better than he did. These are not my accomplishments, but I look at my family and I see some of those characteristics through the generations: being willing to sacrifice in order for others to survive and even thrive. Being willing to do extremely difficult work and to take pride in that work, even if it did not bring you wealth and in fact, sometimes barely kept you fed.

In the United States, most black Americans are descended from ancestors who were stolen, forced into ships which sailed thousands of miles to a new land, were sold into slavery, beaten, used as beasts of burden or worse, forbidden to speak their own languages or practice their own cultural and religious beliefs and forbidden to learn to read and write, to own property, to marry as they chose, to have any agency over their own being. For generations. And after slavery ended, the rank prejudice against people who were formerly enslaved did not end but was codified into all sorts of laws, ensuring that any small progress would be hard fought and hard won. In my own lifetime, black people were murdered for registering to vote, for attempting to vote. For looking at a white woman the wrong way or being accused of such actions. In some places black people were forbidden to marry white people, attend the same schools or hospitals, drink from the same water fountains, eat at the same lunch counters, sleep in the same hotel rooms as whites. In every way possible, black people were told that they were less than, that they did not matter, that they could be snuffed out without any recourse.

With so much effort, so many laws concentrated on making certain that black people did not dare reach too high, that they were kept to the back of the line, the back of the bus, that their voices were silenced, it is pretty easy to see why white folks need to be reminded that the lives of black folk matter. Because pretty often, white people don't even notice the ways that we make sure they don't.

There's a difference between "pride of" and "pride for". You've conflated them. One is admiration of another's accomplishments that have somehow benefited you. The other is justified banging of your chest about something you've accomplished. Which one you mean has to be gleaned from context, rather than semantics. They can both be written the same way. But I hope you get the difference?

Example. I'm proud for Nelson Mandela. Just because he's a credit to his species, and makes me feel good about being human. But I don't claim, because I'm also a human that gives me special rights over others.

This btw is a problem in Western nationalism. They constantly confuse these. I've worked with loads of Indians. I've never met an Indian who got these confused. They're all proud about being Indian, but somehow manage not to be dicks about it. Dickishness seems pretty standard among Western nationalists.

I don't think you understand American English as well as you think you do. To say nothing of my post.

I do take you as an expert in dickishness. I don't think it is confined to any group.

 

[J842P]

Institutional Racism.

The use of WMD is prohibited, why are you presenting such strong evidence?

Evidence of what?

According to the stats, blacks had a lower acceptance rating percentage than Asians, Whites, and Hispanics. Only about 1/3 of black applicants were accepted into medical school. You look at the chart above and you think... OMG, nothing but dumby blacks gonna be doctors now. But the statistics don't tell us that is the case.

During this period, the acceptance rates by race were:
White - 47 to 49%
Asian - 43 to 46%
Hispanic - 40 to 44%
Black - 32 to 35%

So, for every 100 White applicants, about 48 were accepted. For every 100 Asian applicants, about 44 were accepted. For every 100 blacks, 33 accepted. So much for institutional racism!

According to this table, the average GPA in 2016-2017 of those accepted for blacks was 3.5 verses 3.7 for Whites and Asians. A 3.5 can be 2 B's, 1 B+, and 2 A's. A 3.7 is 3 B+'s, 2 A's. Where I went to school, there was no A-. We aren't talking a huge difference here, nor are we talking about anything else that goes in a grad school application.

I cannot tell if you are being purposefully obtuse or seriously not understanding.

 

[Toni]

I do have some background in statistics--the point was that your questioning of the data was utterly irrelevant. Differing numbers of applications will have no effect on the number of acceptances as it's possible to be accepted by multiple schools. Differing application rates could produce an effect in applications:attendance but that's not the data being considered.

The fact that some individuals--roughly aggregated into demographic groups shown in the graphs--are more inclined to apply to multiple schools--or all schools than others. Personally, I do not understand why anyone would apply to every single Ivy, except ego. I cannot imagine that most Ivy admissions offices would not recognize and select against that.


This can skew statistics.

Does each school know what other schools a student applied to?

Your answers here feel like an extreme stretch to try to avoid the reality in that data.

It doesn't matter what schools know about applicants to other schools.

It DOES matter if 30% of Group A applies to every single Ivy league school or all of the top 20 medical schools while only about 5% of Group B and 4% of group C apply to so many schools and the remainder apply to the more common 3-10. Here, too, economics makes a difference more than talent. Medical school applications are expensive.

Medical schools (and good universities) look at what the student states they would like to accomplish at that particular school. If one wishes to be a neurosurgeon, it makes sense to apply to top ranked medical schools in that specialty, none of which are Harvard, for example. A thoughtful applicant will look at which schools most closely match their preferences in terms of specialties, training programs, residency programs, and so on, not merely which ones are ranked top medical schools (or universities).

Then again: most medical students I've known apply to schools which are relatively close to their families. It's economically more feasible plus students have the advantage of being nearer to the moral support of their families. Prospective students also look at whether a school is located in a large metropolitan area or not, what kind of climate, what kind of other amenities might be near the medical school/university.

If applicants only look at ratings, that would suggest to me that they were not interested in becoming excellent doctors but rather accumulating gold medals to give their families bragging rights. This is not someone who would make a good physician.

Finally, I will state that I have known more than one extremely intellectually brilliant student who decided to apply to medical school--and who did not get in, despite their stellar GPAs and MCAT scores. Because the admissions office gleaned what I knew quite well: they weren't really suited to the medical profession. Instead, they ultimately pursued careers that truly do suit them quite well. For instance, one earned a Ph.D. in mathematics and is enjoying a pretty great career in academia. I really like her and she's brilliant--probably one of the smartest people I've ever met--but she'd be a terrible doctor. And an unhappy one. Actually, she applied to medical school as an act of rebellion. Her parents are academics and she didn't want to get pigeonholed.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The use of WMD is prohibited, why are you presenting such strong evidence?

Evidence of what?

According to the stats, blacks had a lower acceptance rating percentage than Asians, Whites, and Hispanics. Only about 1/3 of black applicants were accepted into medical school. You look at the chart above and you think... OMG, nothing but dumby blacks gonna be doctors now. But the statistics don't tell us that is the case.

During this period, the acceptance rates by race were:
White - 47 to 49%
Asian - 43 to 46%
Hispanic - 40 to 44%
Black - 32 to 35%

So, for every 100 White applicants, about 48 were accepted. For every 100 Asian applicants, about 44 were accepted. For every 100 blacks, 33 accepted. So much for institutional racism!

According to this table, the average GPA in 2016-2017 of those accepted for blacks was 3.5 verses 3.7 for Whites and Asians. A 3.5 can be 2 B's, 1 B+, and 2 A's. A 3.7 is 3 B+'s, 2 A's. Where I went to school, there was no A-. We aren't talking a huge difference here, nor are we talking about anything else that goes in a grad school application.

I cannot tell if you are being purposefully obtuse or seriously not understanding.

I'm more curious as to why White and Asians representing 82 to 84% of those admitted into medical school is an indication of "institutional racism".

 

[J842P]

Evidence of what?

According to the stats, blacks had a lower acceptance rating percentage than Asians, Whites, and Hispanics. Only about 1/3 of black applicants were accepted into medical school. You look at the chart above and you think... OMG, nothing but dumby blacks gonna be doctors now. But the statistics don't tell us that is the case.

During this period, the acceptance rates by race were:
White - 47 to 49%
Asian - 43 to 46%
Hispanic - 40 to 44%
Black - 32 to 35%

So, for every 100 White applicants, about 48 were accepted. For every 100 Asian applicants, about 44 were accepted. For every 100 blacks, 33 accepted. So much for institutional racism!

According to this table, the average GPA in 2016-2017 of those accepted for blacks was 3.5 verses 3.7 for Whites and Asians. A 3.5 can be 2 B's, 1 B+, and 2 A's. A 3.7 is 3 B+'s, 2 A's. Where I went to school, there was no A-. We aren't talking a huge difference here, nor are we talking about anything else that goes in a grad school application.

I cannot tell if you are being purposefully obtuse or seriously not understanding.

I'm more curious as to why White and Asians representing 82 to 84% of those admitted into medical school is an indication of "institutional racism".

Because the evidence *clearly* shows that Asians, at the very least, are being institutionally disfavored by affirmative action. Your statistics in this thread have been entirely irrelevant: it doesn't matter what the absolute proportions are. You can look at the break-down in grades/mcats, which are the primary determinants of medical school admission. While the *distribution* of people accepted at each of those points is similarly weighted (and thus will have similar means), that doesn't mean that there isn't prima facie evidence of discrimination. You might argue that there are *other* reasons that might explain this discrepancy not related to discrimination based on race, but then, you would have other facts to deal with, like when states have done the natural experiment of banning discrimination based on race in college admissions, the Asian proportion of the student population *increases dramatically*. Again, that is prima facie evidence of discrimination. And if even that doesn't convince you, well then universities have *argued in court to continue to be able to discriminate based on race and have won*. So, even they admit to doing this.

It would be a lot better if you had the courage of your convictions and argued that it is fair and just that people can be discriminated based on race, rather than deny an obvious fact. Indeed, it is telling that you are trying so hard to deny this, since you probably feel that this would indeed be unjust.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I cannot tell if you are being purposefully obtuse or seriously not understanding.

I'm more curious as to why White and Asians representing 82 to 84% of those admitted into medical school is an indication of "institutional racism".

Because the evidence *clearly* shows that Asians, at the very least, are being institutionally disfavored by affirmative action. Your statistics in this thread have been entirely irrelevant: it doesn't matter what the absolute proportions are. You can look at the break-down in grades/mcats, which are the primary determinants of medical school admission. While the *distribution* of people accepted at each of those points is similarly weighted (and thus will have similar means), that doesn't mean that there isn't prima facie evidence of discrimination. You might argue that there are *other* reasons that might explain this discrepancy not related to discrimination based on race, but then, you would have other facts to deal with, like when states have done the natural experiment of banning discrimination based on race in college admissions, the Asian proportion of the student population *increases dramatically*. Again, that is prima facie evidence of discrimination. And if even that doesn't convince you, well then universities have *argued in court to continue to be able to discriminate based on race and have won*. So, even they admit to doing this.

It would be a lot better if you had the courage of your convictions and argued that it is fair and just that people can be discriminated based on race, rather than deny an obvious fact. Indeed, it is telling that you are trying so hard to deny this, since you probably feel that this would indeed be unjust.

I apologize if you somehow got the idea I said there was no race based policies. I'm actually arguing against the idea of 'institutionalized racism' existing. Asians make up nearly a quarter of med school acceptances. Whites, about 60%.

And as I noted, while the average accepted GPA for blacks and hispanics is 0.2 lower, that difference isn't a massive chasm, that some seem to imply it is, nor is it the end all to the application, which includes letters of recommendations, activities, among other things.

 

[Toni]

I cannot tell if you are being purposefully obtuse or seriously not understanding.

I'm more curious as to why White and Asians representing 82 to 84% of those admitted into medical school is an indication of "institutional racism".

Because the evidence *clearly* shows that Asians, at the very least, are being institutionally disfavored by affirmative action. Your statistics in this thread have been entirely irrelevant: it doesn't matter what the absolute proportions are. You can look at the break-down in grades/mcats, which are the primary determinants of medical school admission. While the *distribution* of people accepted at each of those points is similarly weighted (and thus will have similar means), that doesn't mean that there isn't prima facie evidence of discrimination. You might argue that there are *other* reasons that might explain this discrepancy not related to discrimination based on race, but then, you would have other facts to deal with, like when states have done the natural experiment of banning discrimination based on race in college admissions, the Asian proportion of the student population *increases dramatically*. Again, that is prima facie evidence of discrimination. And if even that doesn't convince you, well then universities have *argued in court to continue to be able to discriminate based on race and have won*. So, even they admit to doing this.

It would be a lot better if you had the courage of your convictions and argued that it is fair and just that people can be discriminated based on race, rather than deny an obvious fact. Indeed, it is telling that you are trying so hard to deny this, since you probably feel that this would indeed be unjust.

Really? Asians are disfavored? I honestly cannot understand how that is true. Asians comprise under 6% total of the US population and comprise about 19% of all medical students. The acceptance rate of Asians, Hispanics and Whites is very close and significantly exceeds the acceptance rates of black applicants.

http://www.aamcdiversityfactsandfigures2016.org/report-section/section-3/

The 2015 data did reveal some key trends. The medical school acceptance rate is a pivotal data point for applicants, undergraduate advisors, medical school admissions committees, and medical education policymakers. The 2015 medical school acceptance rate is 41.1%. Acceptance rates differ among select racial and ethnic subgroups. White (44%), Asian (42%), and Hispanic or Latino (42%) applicants all have comparatively similar acceptance rates. African American or Black applicants have a lower acceptance rate of 34%.

It seems unlikely that a 0.2 difference in GPA is actually indicative of academic ability or predictive of success in medical school.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm more curious as to why White and Asians representing 82 to 84% of those admitted into medical school is an indication of "institutional racism".

Because the evidence *clearly* shows that Asians, at the very least, are being institutionally disfavored by affirmative action. Your statistics in this thread have been entirely irrelevant: it doesn't matter what the absolute proportions are. You can look at the break-down in grades/mcats, which are the primary determinants of medical school admission. While the *distribution* of people accepted at each of those points is similarly weighted (and thus will have similar means), that doesn't mean that there isn't prima facie evidence of discrimination. You might argue that there are *other* reasons that might explain this discrepancy not related to discrimination based on race, but then, you would have other facts to deal with, like when states have done the natural experiment of banning discrimination based on race in college admissions, the Asian proportion of the student population *increases dramatically*. Again, that is prima facie evidence of discrimination. And if even that doesn't convince you, well then universities have *argued in court to continue to be able to discriminate based on race and have won*. So, even they admit to doing this.

It would be a lot better if you had the courage of your convictions and argued that it is fair and just that people can be discriminated based on race, rather than deny an obvious fact. Indeed, it is telling that you are trying so hard to deny this, since you probably feel that this would indeed be unjust.

Really? Asians are disfavored? I honestly cannot understand how that is true. Asians comprise under 6% total of the US population and comprise about 19% of all medical students. The acceptance rate of Asians, Hispanics and Whites is very close and significantly exceeds the acceptance rates of black applicants.

http://www.aamcdiversityfactsandfigures2016.org/report-section/section-3/

The 2015 data did reveal some key trends. The medical school acceptance rate is a pivotal data point for applicants, undergraduate advisors, medical school admissions committees, and medical education policymakers. The 2015 medical school acceptance rate is 41.1%. Acceptance rates differ among select racial and ethnic subgroups. White (44%), Asian (42%), and Hispanic or Latino (42%) applicants all have comparatively similar acceptance rates. African American or Black applicants have a lower acceptance rate of 34%.

It seems unlikely that a 0.2 difference in GPA is actually indicative of academic ability or predictive of success in medical school.

It's racism I say!!! I mean sure, you look at the GPA and MCAT scores and see blacks have lower average scores and a lower acceptance rating, but that still doesn't mean racism!!! RACISM!!!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Institutional Racism.

The use of WMD is prohibited, why are you presenting such strong evidence?

Evidence of what?

According to the stats, blacks had a lower acceptance rating percentage than Asians, Whites, and Hispanics. Only about 1/3 of black applicants were accepted into medical school. You look at the chart above and you think... OMG, nothing but dumby blacks gonna be doctors now. But the statistics don't tell us that is the case.

During this period, the acceptance rates by race were:
White - 47 to 49%
Asian - 43 to 46%
Hispanic - 40 to 44%
Black - 32 to 35%

So, for every 100 White applicants, about 48 were accepted. For every 100 Asian applicants, about 44 were accepted. For every 100 blacks, 33 accepted. So much for institutional racism!

According to this table, the average GPA in 2016-2017 of those accepted for blacks was 3.5 verses 3.7 for Whites and Asians. A 3.5 can be 2 B's, 1 B+, and 2 A's. A 3.7 is 3 B+'s, 2 A's. Where I went to school, there was no A-. We aren't talking a huge difference here, nor are we talking about anything else that goes in a grad school application.

Lets combine your data with the chart and see where it leads us: The only way that chart can be true and your data be true is if blacks are applying with considerably inferior scores.

You're obviously taking it on faith that they are equally qualified applicants. Faith belongs in a church, not school.

- - - Updated - - -

I cannot tell if you are being purposefully obtuse or seriously not understanding.

To understand would be to recognize blasphemy as truth.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The fact that some individuals--roughly aggregated into demographic groups shown in the graphs--are more inclined to apply to multiple schools--or all schools than others. Personally, I do not understand why anyone would apply to every single Ivy, except ego. I cannot imagine that most Ivy admissions offices would not recognize and select against that.


This can skew statistics.

Does each school know what other schools a student applied to?

Your answers here feel like an extreme stretch to try to avoid the reality in that data.

It doesn't matter what schools know about applicants to other schools.

It DOES matter if 30% of Group A applies to every single Ivy league school or all of the top 20 medical schools while only about 5% of Group B and 4% of group C apply to so many schools and the remainder apply to the more common 3-10. Here, too, economics makes a difference more than talent. Medical school applications are expensive.

Medical schools (and good universities) look at what the student states they would like to accomplish at that particular school. If one wishes to be a neurosurgeon, it makes sense to apply to top ranked medical schools in that specialty, none of which are Harvard, for example. A thoughtful applicant will look at which schools most closely match their preferences in terms of specialties, training programs, residency programs, and so on, not merely which ones are ranked top medical schools (or universities).

Then again: most medical students I've known apply to schools which are relatively close to their families. It's economically more feasible plus students have the advantage of being nearer to the moral support of their families. Prospective students also look at whether a school is located in a large metropolitan area or not, what kind of climate, what kind of other amenities might be near the medical school/university.

If applicants only look at ratings, that would suggest to me that they were not interested in becoming excellent doctors but rather accumulating gold medals to give their families bragging rights. This is not someone who would make a good physician.

Finally, I will state that I have known more than one extremely intellectually brilliant student who decided to apply to medical school--and who did not get in, despite their stellar GPAs and MCAT scores. Because the admissions office gleaned what I knew quite well: they weren't really suited to the medical profession. Instead, they ultimately pursued careers that truly do suit them quite well. For instance, one earned a Ph.D. in mathematics and is enjoying a pretty great career in academia. I really like her and she's brilliant--probably one of the smartest people I've ever met--but she'd be a terrible doctor. And an unhappy one. Actually, she applied to medical school as an act of rebellion. Her parents are academics and she didn't want to get pigeonholed.

Once again, I can see no connection between your argument and what you're attempting to prove.

That chart shows acceptances vs scores. How is how many schools they applied to relevant to this?

Which schools could conceivably be relevant if the real issue was inferior black students applying to inferior medical schools but why would we see the distribution we do?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And as I noted, while the average accepted GPA for blacks and hispanics is 0.2 lower, that difference isn't a massive chasm, that some seem to imply it is, nor is it the end all to the application, which includes letters of recommendations, activities, among other things.

It is a pretty big chasm as the scale is pretty compressed at the end.

Anyway, the real chasm we have a problem with is the very different acceptance rates for equally qualified students.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Really? Asians are disfavored? I honestly cannot understand how that is true. Asians comprise under 6% total of the US population and comprise about 19% of all medical students. The acceptance rate of Asians, Hispanics and Whites is very close and significantly exceeds the acceptance rates of black applicants.

Once again you are taking on faith the idea that they are all equal. The scores say that that 19% is too low, if they were not being discriminated against it would be even higher.

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It's racism I say!!! I mean sure, you look at the GPA and MCAT scores and see blacks have lower average scores and a lower acceptance rating, but that still doesn't mean racism!!! RACISM!!!

If it's not racism what is it?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Really? Asians are disfavored? I honestly cannot understand how that is true. Asians comprise under 6% total of the US population and comprise about 19% of all medical students. The acceptance rate of Asians, Hispanics and Whites is very close and significantly exceeds the acceptance rates of black applicants.

Once again you are taking on faith the idea that they are all equal. The scores say that that 19% is too low, if they were not being discriminated against it would be even higher.

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It's racism I say!!! I mean sure, you look at the GPA and MCAT scores and see blacks have lower average scores and a lower acceptance rating, but that still doesn't mean racism!!! RACISM!!!

If it's not racism what is it?

It's called affirmative action. A policy that puts a little bit of thumb on the scale when judging applicants for admission*. That blacks had a lower acceptance rate while having a lower average in scores seems like the weight of the thumb on the scale isn't that heavy. About 84% of enrollees into medical school were White and Asian (that's about 5 in 6.. ie... look to your left and look to your right and the students next to you would have likely been accepted because they were qualified to go to the fucking school! Blacks and Hispanics entering the programs aren't troglodytes!). Again, not an indication of "institutionalized racism".

* - admission into a school is based on more than just MCAT and GPA. It is also based on recommendations, activities, among other things that indicate the character of an applicant that can help an admission board overlook a 0.1 or 0.2 GPA differential and consider allowing the applicant to enroll in their program.

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And as I noted, while the average accepted GPA for blacks and hispanics is 0.2 lower, that difference isn't a massive chasm, that some seem to imply it is, nor is it the end all to the application, which includes letters of recommendations, activities, among other things.

It is a pretty big chasm as the scale is pretty compressed at the end.

Anyway, the real chasm we have a problem with is the very different acceptance rates for equally qualified students.

Oh, I'm sure, but the numbers indicate you are messing your trousers over nothing. 1 in 6 accepted were Black or Hispanic.

 

[Toni]

Does each school know what other schools a student applied to?

Your answers here feel like an extreme stretch to try to avoid the reality in that data.

It doesn't matter what schools know about applicants to other schools.

It DOES matter if 30% of Group A applies to every single Ivy league school or all of the top 20 medical schools while only about 5% of Group B and 4% of group C apply to so many schools and the remainder apply to the more common 3-10. Here, too, economics makes a difference more than talent. Medical school applications are expensive.

Medical schools (and good universities) look at what the student states they would like to accomplish at that particular school. If one wishes to be a neurosurgeon, it makes sense to apply to top ranked medical schools in that specialty, none of which are Harvard, for example. A thoughtful applicant will look at which schools most closely match their preferences in terms of specialties, training programs, residency programs, and so on, not merely which ones are ranked top medical schools (or universities).

Then again: most medical students I've known apply to schools which are relatively close to their families. It's economically more feasible plus students have the advantage of being nearer to the moral support of their families. Prospective students also look at whether a school is located in a large metropolitan area or not, what kind of climate, what kind of other amenities might be near the medical school/university.

If applicants only look at ratings, that would suggest to me that they were not interested in becoming excellent doctors but rather accumulating gold medals to give their families bragging rights. This is not someone who would make a good physician.

Finally, I will state that I have known more than one extremely intellectually brilliant student who decided to apply to medical school--and who did not get in, despite their stellar GPAs and MCAT scores. Because the admissions office gleaned what I knew quite well: they weren't really suited to the medical profession. Instead, they ultimately pursued careers that truly do suit them quite well. For instance, one earned a Ph.D. in mathematics and is enjoying a pretty great career in academia. I really like her and she's brilliant--probably one of the smartest people I've ever met--but she'd be a terrible doctor. And an unhappy one. Actually, she applied to medical school as an act of rebellion. Her parents are academics and she didn't want to get pigeonholed.

Once again, I can see no connection between your argument and what you're attempting to prove.

That chart shows acceptances vs scores. How is how many schools they applied to relevant to this?

Which schools could conceivably be relevant if the real issue was inferior black students applying to inferior medical schools but why would we see the distribution we do?

I think your choice of words: inferior black students' makes my argument better than anything else.

Also you either don't understand stats or you're so caught up in the notion that blacks are inferior that it is clouding your ability to reason.