Explaining Privilege: It may not be what you think.

[Toni]

Gospa moja, did you read this?

For those playing at home, this was a spam email attack, originating from outside the university, where somebody spoofed Equity Prime Mortgage as sender.

To call this 'Harvard discriminating against blacks' is moronic. Harvard had nothing to do with it.



An unknown person defaced the portraits of black law faculty and Harvard swiftly condemned it.

To call this 'Harvard discriminating against blacks' is moronic. Harvard had nothing to do with it.

https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/about-radcliffe/our-work/harvard-and-the-legacy-of-slavery


https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/10/2/ngauv-harvard-built-slavery/

There is literally no story here at all.

I am not currently seeking admissions to any university in the US or elsewhere but I have attended 3 different universities; my husband is currently teaching at a university and has taught at other universities and attended university and a different graduate school at another university. Our children have all attended 2 universities and one has completed law school. Among our friends is included admissions counselors, etc. One branch of our family attended Ivy League universities, something that neither my husband nor myself or our children seriously considered for ourselves. I was offered admissions to a couple of fancy ass schools but for various reasons, including personal preference, financial reasons and family reasons, I never considered applying to most of them. I had very high SAT scores and graduated 2nd in my class so I got lots of invitations. One I almost wish I had attended, but honestly, the primary focus of that university was not where I wanted to go as a student. But I do love that city....But even at 18, I knew wanting to live in a particular city was a poor reason to choose a school if it wasn't an otherwise good fit for what I wanted to do. I might have more seriously considered some of these options if a difficult family situation at home had not made it imperative that I remain within an hour or so of home. But who knows? I fell in love with a campus that I used to pass when going fishing with my dad and it turned out that it was excellent in areas I was interested in pursuing so, that's where I went.

My siblings and their children have all attended universities and in some cases, also graduate schools and professional schools. Many of my friends are also university graduates (as well as graduates of professional schools or graduate schools) as are their children (or are currently students).

I'm pretty familiar with university admissions in the United States.

That's a lovely anecdote, but I'm afraid you took away entirely the wrong message. Whether you are planning to attend Harvard, or any university in the United States in the near future is irrelevant to whether your arguments are sound.

Your personal and ill informed opinions about admissions by Harvard or any other highly selective university or more plebeian universities in the United States is completely irrelevant. You are unfamiliar with SATs, their use and utility in admissions or why their use is controversial, much less the relative rigors of Ivy League schools, campus life, etc.

I presume you are familiar with university admissions in Australia because I’m willing to give you a benefit of doubt. You can drive in whatever lane you like but you really should get up to speed.

 

[Metaphor]

Your personal and ill informed opinions about admissions by Harvard or any other highly selective university or more plebeian universities in the United States is completely irrelevant. You are unfamiliar with SATs, their use and utility in admissions or why their use is controversial, much less the relative rigors of Ivy League schools, campus life, etc.

You don't show much grace when your [assertions] - like Harvard discriminating against blacks - are exposed, do you?

I know what the SATs are and I know how the results are used.

I haven't made any specific claims about 'campus life' in this thread so I hardly see how it's relevant whether I am "ill informed" about them.

I presume you are familiar with university admissions in Australia because I’m willing to give you a benefit of doubt. You can drive in whatever lane you like but you really should get up to speed.

And I think you should get off the road, because you don't know the rules and can't read the signs.

 

[laughing dog]

Actually... no, we don't. There are several bills coming into consideration right now to make female genital mutilation illegal and an act of child abuse.

I had not realised the federal US law had been struck down.

Female genital mutilation in the United States - Wikipedia

It is illegal in 39 U.S. states and 'not specifically illegal' in the remainder.

Male genital mutilation is legal in all 50 US states, and legal in every country in the world, as far as I am aware. A few years ago, a country in northern Europe (I can't remember now which country exactly) almost banned it...but then it didn't.

I'll note that male genital mutilation is much rarer in Australia on a per capita basis than in America.

I expect male genital mutilation is a reference to circumcision which is a much less invasive and injurious procedure than female genital mutilation. Which may be the reason for the difference for the treatment in legal systems.

 

[Gospel]

I'm going through some emotional shit this moment, so forgive me (drunk and missing a dead friend). Yall ruined this thread. So far off-topic you should all be ashamed to call yourselves intelectuals. I'm begging you all to read the OP 100 times before posting on this again. I respect you all because yall are smarter than me and should fucking get it.

 

[Metaphor]

I expect male genital mutilation is a reference to circumcision which is a much less invasive and injurious procedure than female genital mutilation. Which may be the reason for the difference for the treatment in legal systems.

Some types of FGM are less invasive and injurious than MGM (I would judge Type I and some kinds of Type IV in WHO's taxonomy).

Part of the reason for the difference in treatment is that a greater number of parents have a religion that requires the genital mutilation of boys but not of girls.

Another part of the reason for the difference are the unethical actions of pediatric and medical associations continuing to recommend the procedure for decades, though some of those have seen the error of their ways and now recommend against routine male genital mutilation. WHO, however, continues to approve of infant male genital mutilation.

Another part of the difference is that male genital mutilation has been euphemised with the term 'circumcision', a term which I no longer use to describe infant male genital mutilation.

 

[laughing dog]

I'm going through some emotional shit this moment, so forgive me (drunk and missing a dead friend). Yall ruined this thread. So far off-topic you should all be ashamed to call yourselves intelectuals. I'm begging you all to read the OP 100 times before posting on this again. I respect you all because yall are smarter than me and should fucking get it.

I am very sorry for your loss.

But you don't get it. For some posters here, everything is about how unfair the world is to white men. Any topic that is not about white men is really not worth discussing, so the conversation must be changed to white men (or how the world is unfair to them).

 

[Rhea]

Privilege is not something you keep in a barrel like pickles and you just reach your hand in when you need some. It is more like you are a fish and privilege is the water you swim in.

An Example of privilege is:

I get to get lost in strange buildings because I don't have to remember how I get into places. I can walk. I can take more than one route. I can go into a building on a ramp and come out using steps. Any exit will get me out.

A person in a wheelchair cannot do these things. They have to remember how they get into places because that is often the only way they can get out. They have to pay attention to where exit signs are and if they are handicap accessible. They have to know how wide hallways are and if all or only some bathrooms are accessible to them. Things the able bodied don't have to think about.

That's how privilege works. It is the gift of not having to think about certain things. It is the gift of freedom from certain concerns, concerns members of other groups must always consider. It is the gift of having the world automatically fit me.

And privilege comes in more than one size, more than one flavor. And most people have privileges in one area and lack privilege in others. So they find themselves fighting what hinders them and not thinking about what hinders others.

You are not to blame for the privileges you have or have not. These things were set up before you were born. But if you can't find in your heart to empathize with others who lack your privilege, do not wish to truly investigate what privilege is, and want to attack not privilege but the people who lack it ...

That's on you.

Agreed, Gospel.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

AthenaAwakened, I hope you really like tea; cause you're gonna need a whole lot of it.

It's tea with bourbon in it. It's all good

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You missed an important qualifier: "on a big enough scale to matter".

Of course there's discrimination. We will never be free of it. The issue is whether it's enough to hold people back. The stats do not seem to support that.

Therefore if a minority doesn’t succeed where a white male does it is only their own fault for not trying hard enough?

You're assuming it's because they are a minority. Lots of people of every color don't succeed!

 

[Shadowy Man]

You missed an important qualifier: "on a big enough scale to matter".

Of course there's discrimination. We will never be free of it. The issue is whether it's enough to hold people back. The stats do not seem to support that.

Therefore if a minority doesn’t succeed where a white male does it is only their own fault for not trying hard enough?

You're assuming it's because they are a minority. Lots of people of every color don't succeed!

Reread the question. You seemed to be responding do a different one.

You said discrimination doesn’t hold people back. So if people find themselves at the back then it is not due to discrimination. What do you suppose contributes to their lack of success?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You missed an important qualifier: "on a big enough scale to matter".

Of course there's discrimination. We will never be free of it. The issue is whether it's enough to hold people back. The stats do not seem to support that.

It's definitely something that has held people back in the past AND IS HOLDING PEOPLE BACK TODAY.

Past, yes, discrimination certainly held people back.

Today, the problem is cultural. Once you control for socioeconomic factors you see the same success rate.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Especially if you're Asian or White applying to Harvard.

Sure. The two groups which comprise the majority of students at Harvard are being held back. Because Harvard is the only university to offer high quality high demand degrees and if you don’t get into Harvard and you are white or Asian, your life just isn’t with living because you’re going to end up working at McDonalds.

Your blindness doesn't make the issue go away. Harvard discriminates on large scale and tries to hide it (note how universities have taken to not providing the racial statistics anymore rather than actually stopping discriminating.)

 

[ZiprHead]

You missed an important qualifier: "on a big enough scale to matter".

Of course there's discrimination. We will never be free of it. The issue is whether it's enough to hold people back. The stats do not seem to support that.

It's definitely something that has held people back in the past AND IS HOLDING PEOPLE BACK TODAY.

Past, yes, discrimination certainly held people back.

Today, the problem is cultural. Once you control for socioeconomic factors you see the same success rate.

Interesting. Do you have that study at hand?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Harvard does discriminate against black students.

No, it does not. Based on academic aptitude and achievement, it favours black students and discriminates against white and Asian students.

Unless--and I cannot believe you would be playing this bait and switch equivocation game and I hope you are not--you mean that of all the black applicants to Harvard, some are admitted and some are turned down, so that Harvard has 'discriminated' by choosing some black students over other black students.

There is significant discrimination against black students on Harvard's campus and on most university campuses. There is discrimination against black students in the admissions process at many universities although it is less intentional now compared with in the past.

Disparate outcome does not prove discrimination no matter how many times you pretend otherwise.

I'm sorry that you still are not able to grasp US university admissions but again, that's not my problem. It's not even your problem as you are not seeking admissions to any university in the US as far as I know.

You are the one who doesn't grasp what is going on.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There is a recent move to eliminate reliance on SATs (maybe also ACTs???) in admissions. There is a plethora of articles about changing admissions processes to be found on your search engine of choice.

Yeah, don't measure the problem and you make it disappear. Standard cover-up tactics.

It's not the SAT is giving bad data, it's that the SAT measures their discrimination.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If a private university takes public money, it’s held to the same standard as a public university. Other criteria are fine. The issue is whether a person’s skin color should be a criterion. If you feel racial discrimination is okay, just say so.

I didn’t say anything about race. I just don’t think SAT scores should be the sole criterion for college entry.

Thebeave seemed to be denigrating “personal anecdotes” as a valid criterion while that may indeed be a valid criterion if a college wants specific aspects of character in its students.

They're a lot harder to verify, if anything it favors the rich more than the SAT/ACT does. Instead of test prep it's hiring people to write the personal stories.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Rather than taking the very shallow view that Harvard is actively discriminating, consider a just barely more complicated process, that looks at both test scores AND family income.

Consider two cohorts of applicants: One cohort comes from wealthy families and the other cohort comes from poorer families.

• Do you think it's reasonable to suspect that the wealth cohort would have access to considerably higher quality primary and secondary education, with a much higher proportion of private schools and a much higher likelihood of having had test prep classes and personal tutors to help them achieve high scores on their SATs and ACTs?
• Do you think it's reasonable to suspect that the poorer cohort would have had basic public school educations, with much less access to intensive tutoring and exam prep?
• Do you think that there's likely to be a differential in the racial profile of those two groups?

If Harvard is making entrance decisions on both exam scores AND family income, do you think that when the SAT scores alone are sliced by race, there might be an economic and educational privilege factor that gets obscured?

How about considering the fact that someone who got a poor primary and secondary education isn't going to fare well at Harvard? They might have been Harvard material with a better start but that doesn't matter.

The reality is that the current system highly favors the children of wealthy blacks, it does nothing to help the poor blacks.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You're assuming it's because they are a minority. Lots of people of every color don't succeed!

Reread the question. You seemed to be responding do a different one.

You said discrimination doesn’t hold people back. So if people find themselves at the back then it is not due to discrimination. What do you suppose contributes to their lack of success?

We don't have every bit of data to know why some succeed and some don't.

Just because one white succeeds and one black doesn't proves nothing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Past, yes, discrimination certainly held people back.

Today, the problem is cultural. Once you control for socioeconomic factors you see the same success rate.

Interesting. Do you have that study at hand?

Repeatedly asking for it doesn't mean it hasn't been discussed multiple times before.

 

[laughing dog]

There is a recent move to eliminate reliance on SATs (maybe also ACTs???) in admissions. There is a plethora of articles about changing admissions processes to be found on your search engine of choice.

Yeah, don't measure the problem and you make it disappear. Standard cover-up tactics.

It's not the SAT is giving bad data, it's that the SAT measures their discrimination.

You are mistaken.

First, scheduling to take the SAT or ACT during the pandemic was iffy. Second, there is growing research that neither the SAT or the ACT is as good a predictor of college success as achievement in highs school.