Multi-Billionaire Oprah Whines About Sexism & Income Inequality At DNC

[Toni]

Derec, AA removed giving preferential treatment to white males. It made it illegal to discriminate in the basis of sex, race, religion and national origins. Women, non-Christians and persons of color were finally allowed to apply for admissions and jobs previously denied them because of their race, gender, religion and national origins.

Correction: Affirmative Action *legally* removed giving preferential treatment to white male, but it absolutely did not *effectively* remove it, let alone *completely* remove it.

The law was enacted, but just as the emancipation proclamation did not actually free slaves for years, nor did Brown vs. Board of Education actually integrate schools for years, likewise AA did not make much of an impact, let alone a big inmpact, for more than decades.

I was personally prevented from getting a promotion because I was a woman (how do I know? They told me), and I was personally denied a job for being a woman (how do I know? They were emboldened to just up and say so, because they know that I couldn’t really do anything about it.). This explicit discrimination happened in the 1980s. Less explicit but still very clear violations continued to occur to me in the 90s and 00s such as not getting a project because it would require traveling with men, and I, being a woman, would disrupt the wives.

Which is why Loren’s and Derec’s utterly unfactual and mertiless claims that discrimination is over are a fetid, steaming, pile of uninformed, privileged, horseshit.

Exactly. I’ve been told I did not need as much pay as a male coworker doing exactly the same job. I’ve seen men get promotions because they became fathers and women looked at with suspicion if they got married or became pregnant because that might disrupt a schedule. In the late 20-teens. I watched a black wiman in the next lab quit because of her treatment by coworkers—and then heard the same coworkers bitch about her claiming discrimination, while describing scenarios that were clearly racist. I had to threaten to go to the head of our lab to get a coworker to stop referring to a black male other as ‘boy.’ As in, I stood up and headed towards the door. And no, none of our other male coworkers were ever referred to by this person as boy. A dear friend of mine is Asian, has a PhD and taught at universities for decades—tenured full professor abd still had to deal with students claiming they could not understand her quite excellent English. Same with her husband, also Asian with a PhD, tenured full professor. I am embarrassed to say that it never occurred to me that my friends would have faced that sort of nonsense. Their English was excellent t—both spoke English from childhood and graduated from American universities, earned advanced degrees from prestigious American universities. Some people see someone who looks like they came from another culture and hear non-existent accents, and assume that someone is N AA or DEI hire despite stellar qualifications and job performance. BTW, I live in a mostly blue state.

 

[laughing dog]

If you account for SES, both your and Rhea’s experiences can easily be handwaved away as not discrimination.

 

[Bomb#20]

... Toni has not been presenting her characterizations as a representation of the views of the "some white men" that you personally heard, and personally interpreted as expressing resentment, and personally decided you could mind-read as to precisely what it was they resented. She has been presenting her characterizations as a representation of the views of other members of this forum, including Loren and me in particular. She has been presenting her characterizations as a representation of any white people who aren't on board with affirmative action. And she has been presenting her characterizations as a representation of white males at large:

Toni is presenting it as a representation of a portion of white males at large. But you keep being you with your malacious imputations.

I quoted her presenting it as a representation of white males in general, and you quoted it back to me. So give it a rest.

I’ve had this discussion many times. For white males, the fact that they are no longer first in line for all good things feels like prejudice to them. It’s not. It just feels bad to them to be treated closer to how everyone else is treated.

That's a racist, sexist stereotype.

How is it racist? To any rational disinterested reader who is even moderately fluent in the language, it does not exhibit any trace that white men are inferior or that Toni dislikes them.

Sure it does. She would not accuse black females who don't get to be the (exclusive) first in line of that feeling like prejudice to them. When everyone is treated the same -- all first when that's practical, or in random order or first-come-first-served when serialization is for some reason necessary -- she assumes this feels unprejudiced to others and prejudiced to white males. That being true would be a character defect in white males, a form of moral inferiority.

None of that makes sense. First, whatever anyone might say about those of another race does not determine whether a statement is racist. Describing that black people have brown skin is an observation. No rational person would say it is racist because I would not describe white people as having brown skin.

Oh for the love of god! That's no different from arguing "'Mexicans are from Mexico' isn't racist; therefore 'Mexicans are rapists' isn't racist." She imputed a negative mental trait to white males, not a skin color and a sex.

Second, your example of black women is bizarre because in US history, black women are used to not being first in line.

What the heck has whether somebody is used to something got to do with whether it feels like prejudice? An awful lot of black women were quite used to having to give up their seats on busses; you think that didn't feel like prejudice?

Third, both plain literate reading of Toni’s statement and her repeated explanations that it means “some” not “all”. So your argument is founded in a false premise.

You talking about stuff like "What I wrote is that (some) white men perceive not always being first in line for all good things as being discriminated against "? That wasn't a correct statement of what it means; that was an incorrect statement of what she wrote. You can tell, because it starts with "What I wrote is...", not "What I meant is...". If she wants to withdraw her statements, she's welcome to; but she wrote what she wrote. It didn't say "some".

If a magadimwit said "black people are stupid", would you consider that nonracist provided he later claimed to have said "(some) black people are stupid"?

 

[Toni]

... Toni has not been presenting her characterizations as a representation of the views of the "some white men" that you personally heard, and personally interpreted as expressing resentment, and personally decided you could mind-read as to precisely what it was they resented. She has been presenting her characterizations as a representation of the views of other members of this forum, including Loren and me in particular. She has been presenting her characterizations as a representation of any white people who aren't on board with affirmative action. And she has been presenting her characterizations as a representation of white males at large:

Toni is presenting it as a representation of a portion of white males at large. But you keep being you with your malacious imputations.

I quoted her presenting it as a representation of white males in general, and you quoted it back to me. So give it a rest.

I’ve had this discussion many times. For white males, the fact that they are no longer first in line for all good things feels like prejudice to them. It’s not. It just feels bad to them to be treated closer to how everyone else is treated.

That's a racist, sexist stereotype.

How is it racist? To any rational disinterested reader who is even moderately fluent in the language, it does not exhibit any trace that white men are inferior or that Toni dislikes them.

Sure it does. She would not accuse black females who don't get to be the (exclusive) first in line of that feeling like prejudice to them. When everyone is treated the same -- all first when that's practical, or in random order or first-come-first-served when serialization is for some reason necessary -- she assumes this feels unprejudiced to others and prejudiced to white males. That being true would be a character defect in white males, a form of moral inferiority.

None of that makes sense. First, whatever anyone might say about those of another race does not determine whether a statement is racist. Describing that black people have brown skin is an observation. No rational person would say it is racist because I would not describe white people as having brown skin.

Oh for the love of god! That's no different from arguing "'Mexicans are from Mexico' isn't racist; therefore 'Mexicans are rapists' isn't racist." She imputed a negative mental trait to white males, not a skin color and a sex.

Second, your example of black women is bizarre because in US history, black women are used to not being first in line.

What the heck has whether somebody is used to something got to do with whether it feels like prejudice? An awful lot of black women were quite used to having to give up their seats on busses; you think that didn't feel like prejudice?

Third, both plain literate reading of Toni’s statement and her repeated explanations that it means “some” not “all”. So your argument is founded in a false premise.

You talking about stuff like "What I wrote is that (some) white men perceive not always being first in line for all good things as being discriminated against "? That wasn't a correct statement of what it means; that was an incorrect statement of what she wrote. You can tell, because it starts with "What I wrote is...", not "What I meant is...". If she wants to withdraw her statements, she's welcome to; but she wrote what she wrote. It didn't say "some".

If a magadimwit said "black people are stupid", would you consider that nonracist provided he later claimed to have said "(some) black people are stupid"?

No: I was talking about some white males. The ONLY reason that I specified white and make is because that was specifically pertinent: SOME white males struggle hard with the loss of a world where being white and male was one of the golden keys to the door to all good things. It was necessary but not necessarily sufficient to be white and male to be considered for educational and career opportunities. One very clear example was POTUS: Until Barack Obama, every single POTUS —and VP were white and male. It was very much accepted.

Working class and poor white men knew that they had a shot at improving their circumstances and they knew that perhaps the only advantage they had was being white and male.

 

[Derec]

Derec, AA removed giving preferential treatment to white males. It made it illegal to discriminate in the basis of sex, race, religion and national origins.

This is MAGA level of "alternative facts". While the original meaning of the term (from LBJ's executive order) is what you here wrote, the term has quickly mutated and taken on a very different meaning in the decades since.
Before the 1978 Bakke decision, "affirmative action" was done using rigid quotas.

Thus, colleges like the University of California, Davis School of Medicine adopted policies of racial favoritism, policies designed to compensate for unfair disadvantages. Specifically, the school established a program to designate 16 of the 100 spots in each class for minority students.
Allan Bakke, a white male in his thirties, twice applied for admission at the school but was rejected, partially because of his advanced age. Bakke’s interviewer considered him “a very desirable candidate”; his GPA was comparable to other admittees and his MCAT scores were all significantly greater. Compared to the special admittees of UC Davis’s affirmative action program, he beat every student in every metric in both of his application classes.
Bakke, exasperated by the rejections, filed suit, contending that the University of California violated the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act. Ironically, he argued, a law that was passed to promote equality was being employed for the opposite purpose.

(emphasis mine)
When the Supreme Court first ruled on affirmative action
Since then, it became slightly more subtle, for example by assigning applicants extra points for being black.

The issue in [the Gratz v. Bollinger] case was related to the implemented point system for admission utilized by the University of Michigan’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions or OUA. The 150 point system measured many things including high school grades, standardized test scores, curriculum, high school quality, location, alumni relationships, involvement, leadership and race. In regards to race, the OUA, deemed African-Americans, Native-Americans and Hispanic citizens as minorities on campus. In the 150 point system, 100 points were necessary to guarantee admission to the University. Of those 100 points, 20 points were automatically added to the applications of those deemed a minority, while a perfect SAT score only added 12 points. Both Gratz and Hamacher claimed that this 20 point advantage the use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

(emphasis mine)
Affirmative Action Movement
Again, you are peddling "alternative facts" here and are utterly unwilling to deviate from your talking points.

In any case it is completely wrong and misleading to suggest that "affirmative action" removed preferential treatment for white males instead of implementing a preferential treatment for blacks, Hispanics and women.

Women, non-Christians and persons of color were finally allowed to apply for admissions and jobs previously denied them because of their race, gender, religion and national origins.

And women and so-called "persons of color" were given preferential access. You keep denying this when it is the whole point of why "affirmative action" is so controversial. Nobody wants to deny opportunities to people you enumerated here. But they should not be given a preference either.

The rest is simply racist backlash because some people are too insecure to believe that white makes can actually compete without the centuries of preferential treatment they received.

Nobody received "centuries of preferential treatment". Individuals do not live that long.
And you got it exactly ass-backwards here. It is beneficiaries of "affirmative action" that do not want it to end because they do not want to compete on an equal footing with others; they want to continue receiving preferential treatment. It is a lot easier to get 506 than 512 on the MCAT, and they want to continue the practice of their 506 to count as much as a white applicant's 510 or an Asian candidate's 514.

 

[laughing dog]

... Toni has not been presenting her characterizations as a representation of the views of the "some white men" that you personally heard, and personally interpreted as expressing resentment, and personally decided you could mind-read as to precisely what it was they resented. She has been presenting her characterizations as a representation of the views of other members of this forum, including Loren and me in particular. She has been presenting her characterizations as a representation of any white people who aren't on board with affirmative action. And she has been presenting her characterizations as a representation of white males at large:

Toni is presenting it as a representation of a portion of white males at large. But you keep being you with your malacious imputations.

I quoted her presenting it as a representation of white males in general, and you quoted it back to me. So give it a rest.

I’ve had this discussion many times. For white males, the fact that they are no longer first in line for all good things feels like prejudice to them. It’s not. It just feels bad to them to be treated closer to how everyone else is treated.

That's a racist, sexist stereotype.

How is it racist? To any rational disinterested reader who is even moderately fluent in the language, it does not exhibit any trace that white men are inferior or that Toni dislikes them.

Sure it does. She would not accuse black females who don't get to be the (exclusive) first in line of that feeling like prejudice to them. When everyone is treated the same -- all first when that's practical, or in random order or first-come-first-served when serialization is for some reason necessary -- she assumes this feels unprejudiced to others and prejudiced to white males. That being true would be a character defect in white males, a form of moral inferiority.

None of that makes sense. First, whatever anyone might say about those of another race does not determine whether a statement is racist. Describing that black people have brown skin is an observation. No rational person would say it is racist because I would not describe white people as having brown skin.

Oh for the love of god! That's no different from arguing "'Mexicans are from Mexico' isn't racist; therefore 'Mexicans are rapists' isn't racist." She imputed a negative mental trait to white males, not a skin color and a sex…..

If it makes you feel better to beat the dead horse of your desperate misinterpretation, you will have to do it without me because I refuse to waste my time in a hopeless cause.

 

[Derec]

Which is why Loren’s and Derec’s utterly unfactual and mertiless claims that discrimination is over are a fetid, steaming, pile of uninformed, privileged, horseshit.

The discrimination is not over. It is just reversed.
And your anecdote is from the 80s. That was 40 years ago, ffs!

 

[Derec]

If you account for SES, both your and Rhea’s experiences can easily be handwaved away as not discrimination.

And Toni and Rhea are handwaving explicit policies about awarding applicants points for being black as "not discrimination".
And are pretending that marked differences in average GPAs and MCAT scores are meaningless.

 

[laughing dog]

If you account for SES, both your and Rhea’s experiences can easily be handwaved away as not discrimination.

And Toni and Rhea are handwaving explicit policies about awarding applicants points for being black as "not discrimination".
And are pretending that marked differences in average GPAs and MCAT scores are meaningless.

There you go again with a “whataboutism “.

I believe both realize such differences are not as important as you think.

 

[Toni]

If you account for SES, both your and Rhea’s experiences can easily be handwaved away as not discrimination.

And Toni and Rhea are handwaving explicit policies about awarding applicants points for being black as "not discrimination".
And are pretending that marked differences in average GPAs and MCAT scores are meaningless.

You’re confusing ‘marked differences in average GPAs and MCATs’ with inconsequential differences between the differences between individuals’ GPAs a d MCAT scores.

 

[Derec]

You’re confusing ‘marked differences in average GPAs and MCATs’ with inconsequential differences between the differences between individuals’ GPAs a d MCAT scores.

I have already explained to you that the differences are large and not "inconsequential". You keep ignoring it.
I have posted this before:
GPA/MCAT by race
MCAT percentiles
Mean MCAT for black med school matriculants is 505.7. That is 64-67th percentile of all test takers.
The mean MCAT for white med school matriculants is 512.4. That is 84-87th percentile. I.e. a much higher score, hardly "inconsequential".
The mean MCAT for Asian med school matriculants is 514.3. That is 89-91st percentile. Higher still.

You keep ignoring facts because they do not agree with your ersatz-faith-based position on so-called "affirmative action".

 

[Derec]

There you go again with a “whataboutism “.

How is it "whataboutism"? Not every challenge or comparison is automatically "whataboutism".

I believe both realize such differences are not as important as you think.

I understand that. They both think race is more important than academic performance when it comes to college or med school admissions.
And yet at least Toni is adamant in denying that race-based preferences even exist (see post #620 which I debunked in #626).

 

[Toni]

You’re confusing ‘marked differences in average GPAs and MCATs’ with inconsequential differences between the differences between individuals’ GPAs a d MCAT scores.

I have already explained to you that the differences are large and not "inconsequential". You keep ignoring it.
I have posted this before:
GPA/MCAT by race
MCAT percentiles
Mean MCAT for black med school matriculants is 505.7. That is 64-67th percentile of all test takers.
The mean MCAT for white med school matriculants is 512.4. That is 84-87th percentile. I.e. a much higher score, hardly "inconsequential".
The mean MCAT for Asian med school matriculants is 514.3. That is 89-91st percentile. Higher still.

You keep ignoring facts because they do not agree with your ersatz-faith-based position on so-called "affirmative action".

Perhaps you’d like to explain the following:

1. Why you think YOU are more qualified to evaluate applicants to medical school than are the admissions counselors, who evaluate each individual applicant?

2. How does the mean relate to any individual’s qualifications? As far as you or any of us know, the applicants who are accepted with the lowest scores are white or Asian.

3. Demonstrate that GPA and MCAT scores are so predictive of success in medical school and in the medical profession that any other criteria is inconsequential to producing well trained, well qualified physicians who want to serve every population who needs physicians.

MCAT scores and GPAs are the basement—the threshold all successful applicants must cross in order to be considered. They are not the pinnacle. It is not a race to the top after that threshold has been crossed. They are not the entire criteria.

On what do you base your faith that your judgement is better than the actual professionals whose job it is to ascertain which applicants are the best fits for individual medical school programs?

 

[laughing dog]

There you go again with a “whataboutism “.

How is it "whataboutism"? Not every challenge or comparison is automatically "whataboutism".

No one said it was. But when you switch the focus with complaints, it is a whataboutism.

I believe both realize such differences are not as important as you think.

I understand that. They both think race is more important than academic performance when it comes to college or med school admissions.

You are mistaken. I think they think there are other factors that become more relevant after some minimum academic competency level. Of course, I could be mistaken.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Loren, I’m absolutely fed up with your insulting calling my viewpoint ‘fundamentalist faith. If you were not a mid, I’d have put you in ignore long ago. Knock it off. Until you learn to be more respectful and less insulting, I will not respond to anything you write.

It is galling that you choose such terminology on this particular site, especially since you are a moderator. It tells a lot more about you that you feel compelled to claim other people’s views are a matter of faith because you disagree —not because you present any superior arguments or ever, ever back your pov with data or studies. No, you assume that admissions directors and counselors have less knowledge abd understanding of who makes a good candidate for their programs and schools than you do, with absolutely zero demonstrated or even claimed expertise.

I’m done with you.

Look at your position. "Faith" is an accurate description, but I do not mean it in a religious context. You are completely ignoring whether your fundamental approach is right despite the support you provide for it clearly does not show that your approach would do any good.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

By giving people previously excluded because of their race, gender or country of origin from the pool of applicants access to educational and career opportunities they would not have had prior to affirmative action.

This would be a good description of the original meaning of "Affirmative Action". However, what the term has quickly come to mean, and what it has meant ever since, is giving members of certain groups extra opportunities, and by extension reducing opportunities to members of other groups.

The intent was also to change people’s minds and perceptions of who belonged where. And to expand the pool of talent available to everyone.

If you discriminate against certain people in order to get more say blacks into a program that does not change perceptions of them belonging. If anything, it makes it worse. It underlines that that person did not get there by his or her own merit.

When it was first implemented it was probably the best solution. There used to be a social stigma from allowing blacks into higher positions etc. The heavy-handed approach broke that and that was a very good thing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Derec, AA removed giving preferential treatment to white males. It made it illegal to discriminate in the basis of sex, race, religion and national origins. Women, non-Christians and persons of color were finally allowed to apply for admissions and jobs previously denied them because of their race, gender, religion and national origins.

The rest is simply racist backlash because some people are too insecure to believe that white makes can actually compete without the centuries of preferential treatment they received.

Calling it racist backlash doesn't make it so.

My exhibit A on this: I was a lab assistant in the computer labs on campus. We had this one Hispanic outreach group that used the lab. They were very different than the regular students. The behavior of the teachers for it would have gotten them thrown out if it wasn't for the racial aspect. The students simply weren't college material--ended up being more work for us despite the class having it's own assistants. (And the main one managed to corrupt a word processor document. It happened on occasion, during some slow time I worked out a recovery method that turned the corrupted structures into a few lines of crap at the top of an otherwise text file. Vastly beyond the expectations of the job and I only taught it to a few of the most technically competent people because it would be very easy to corrupt the whole floppy with an errant letter. Her document was of absolutely maximum length, the crap at the top pushed off an equivalent amount from the end--and she tried to get me fired over losing the lines from the end. I clearly did that because she wasn't white.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If you account for SES, both your and Rhea’s experiences can easily be handwaved away as not discrimination.

And Toni and Rhea are handwaving explicit policies about awarding applicants points for being black as "not discrimination".
And are pretending that marked differences in average GPAs and MCAT scores are meaningless.

There you go again with a “whataboutism “.

I believe both realize such differences are not as important as you think.

Differences in SAT scores translate to differences in the rate at which people don't complete their degree.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Perhaps you’d like to explain the following:

1. Why you think YOU are more qualified to evaluate applicants to medical school than are the admissions counselors, who evaluate each individual applicant?

2. How does the mean relate to any individual’s qualifications? As far as you or any of us know, the applicants who are accepted with the lowest scores are white or Asian.

3. Demonstrate that GPA and MCAT scores are so predictive of success in medical school and in the medical profession that any other criteria is inconsequential to producing well trained, well qualified physicians who want to serve every population who needs physicians.

MCAT scores and GPAs are the basement—the threshold all successful applicants must cross in order to be considered. They are not the pinnacle. It is not a race to the top after that threshold has been crossed. They are not the entire criteria.

On what do you base your faith that your judgement is better than the actual professionals whose job it is to ascertain which applicants are the best fits for individual medical school programs?

My memory is that you've talked about places that simply trashed the resumes of black applicants. Yet you're basically approving of the same thing if the right ones are getting trashed.

 

[Toni]

Perhaps you’d like to explain the following:

1. Why you think YOU are more qualified to evaluate applicants to medical school than are the admissions counselors, who evaluate each individual applicant?

2. How does the mean relate to any individual’s qualifications? As far as you or any of us know, the applicants who are accepted with the lowest scores are white or Asian.

3. Demonstrate that GPA and MCAT scores are so predictive of success in medical school and in the medical profession that any other criteria is inconsequential to producing well trained, well qualified physicians who want to serve every population who needs physicians.

MCAT scores and GPAs are the basement—the threshold all successful applicants must cross in order to be considered. They are not the pinnacle. It is not a race to the top after that threshold has been crossed. They are not the entire criteria.

On what do you base your faith that your judgement is better than the actual professionals whose job it is to ascertain which applicants are the best fits for individual medical school programs?

My memory is that you've talked about places that simply trashed the resumes of black applicants. Yet you're basically approving of the same thing if the right ones are getting trashed.

Both your memory and your understanding of what I wrote are very much flawed.