New "Affirmative Action" nonsense

[Jimmy Higgins]

You, and many others seem to only give a fuck about one of those. The constitutional amendment targeted no other form of discrimination in the collegiate method of accepting students. The justices have said it is alright to arbitrarily discriminate based on indirect historical issues of a candidate (IE blacks get a small bonus because of societal efforts to keep them from advancing in society for over 100 years post-slavery verses your mom or dad went to the same school). Both are forms of discrimination.

Darn uppity blacks?

Throwing around "uppity" has become one of those nonsense objections that means nothing. Please rephrase.

Not in my context it wasn't. LP said that trying to fix past wrongs will only hurt African Americans more. That sure reads like, if these people would just be quite, things will get better for them.

Fixing past wrongs is impossible.

Not really. AA is working at trying to even an uneven historical playing field.

Discriminating against whites and Asians now does nothing to fix past discrimination against blacks.

Firstly, it isn't discrimination. Whites and Asians are not having their applications tossed in a shredder. Secondly, giving someone a bonus in order to gain an opportunity because of the context of repugnant historical policies by States and Institutions is actually working to address the reality that the existing generation of African American students are not as far along as White or Asian counterparts generation to generation, due directly to racist policies in the past.

What we have now is basically the notion that two wrongs make a right--something we all know is false.

Except giving a boost to an applicant isn't a wrong. Schools aren't wholesale accepting students solely because of race (that'd be discrimination) nor are they heavily weighing race in the calculations.

We should not be discriminating against anyone. We should be trying to help those trapped in poverty but that's not a matter of discrimination and thus can't be fixed by antidiscrimination measures. It's also not a matter of money and thus can't be fixed by throwing money at it.

Giving someone an opportunity to get a college education isn't throwing money at the problem. A person has to bust their butt to graduate from college. They have to earn it. AA is merely giving them the opportunity.

AA makes life easy for blacks that would have made it anyway, it does nothing for those who wouldn't have made it.

Makes life easy? How is getting accepted in college making your life easy?

 

[Derec]

Who says it isn't fair?

Applying different admission standards by race isn't fair on it's face.

Somehow Michigan has managed to accept a vast majority of white students.

No, they didn't.

There is no indication, that I am aware of that the blacks who got in, partly due to AA have failed to meet expectations at the school and that the whites not accepted went on to live in poverty.

And that would make it ok for them to be discriminated against?

Strengthens preexisting prejudice? That is the racist's problem.
No, it's not. If you have institutional racial discrimination (which AA is by definition) it will inevitably harm race relations.

Angers those being discriminated against? Does anyone know who was discriminated against because of AA instead of merely not making the cut?

Just because one can't know for sure in any individual case the fact still remains that whites and Asians are being discriminated against due to AA policies. If the shoe were on the other foot would discrimination be ok if the effects could not be absolutely proven in every individual case?

And why is this a "special" group. Makes it seem like there is no historical context to why there is AA in the first place.

Two wrongs do not make a right and besides, today's freshmen were born in mid- to late 90s. Long time after Jim Crow.

This isn't about giving a free ride. It is about offering an opportunity to someone who should have likely been there in the first place, if it wasn't for the generation after generation of discrimination.

No, it's precisely about given underqualified applicants a free ride. Just because of their skin color. Most people had bad things happen to their ancestors - Irish had their famines and British domination, Balkans were under Turkish yoke for centuries, most Europeans are descendants of feudal era serfs which were only a little better off than slaves. Should we all get AA for the troubles of our ancestors?
Also take Obama. He is not related to any US slaves but is instead related to slaveowners, generations and generatons back. But because AA is skin color based he got AA advantage. And take his daughters. Should these privileged, private school educated, millionaire daughters of a president get special boost because they are black as well? Be given a spot edging out a better qualified white or Asian applicant who may have come from poverty/lower middle class himself?

Justifies new prejudice? It is prejudice if blacks are accepted over whites because the staff think blacks are smarter or better than whites. AA is about extending opportunities to those who wouldn't have otherwise been able to have such opportunities due to significant historical obstruction.

No, they have the same opportunity as everyone else to get good grades and scores. What does the fact that Kimbrough's great-great-grand-dad might have been a slave have to do with the price of tea in China? All of us will have some hardship in our family trees if we look back that far! But that is not an excuse for the "soft bigotry of low expectations".

Part of your argument is the uppity type (don't want to anger those racists) and part of it isn't (what standards should and shouldn't be used based on any particular set of context).

It's not about angering racists (they will be angry regardless) but about non-racists justifiably getting angry as well due to discrimination.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

And why is this a "special" group. Makes it seem like there is no historical context to why there is AA in the first place.

Two wrongs do not make a right and besides, today's freshmen were born in mid- to late 90s. Long time after Jim Crow.

How perceptive of you. This isn't about current racism, but how past racism retarded what is typical advancements for a family with each passing generation... ie... each next generation does a bit better than the past. Opportunities denied their grandfather affect where they are today... and it was done intentionally.

This isn't about giving a free ride. It is about offering an opportunity to someone who should have likely been there in the first place, if it wasn't for the generation after generation of discrimination.

No, it's precisely about given underqualified applicants a free ride.

Okay, you understand what free ride means, right? Some black kid doesn't stroll into a college, flash a race card and is then given a Bachelors of Science degree despite not attending half of their classes in high school. That would be a free ride. AA gets them in the door.

Also take Obama. He is not related to any US slaves but is instead related to slaveowners, generations and generatons back. But because AA is skin color based he got AA advantage.

There is no evidence that he saw any advantage due to his skin color. You'd need to demonstrate that he wasn't good enough to get into college he was accepted to. Secondly, AA isn't a reparation for slavery, it has to do with Jim Crow laws.

And take his daughters. Should these privileged, private school educated, millionaire daughters of a president get special boost because they are black as well?

I'm certain that they won't need AA to get jobs. When Dad was the President, certain opportunities open your way.

 

[J842P]

You, and many others seem to only give a fuck about one of those. The constitutional amendment targeted no other form of discrimination in the collegiate method of accepting students. The justices have said it is alright to arbitrarily discriminate based on indirect historical issues of a candidate (IE blacks get a small bonus because of societal efforts to keep them from advancing in society for over 100 years post-slavery verses your mom or dad went to the same school). Both are forms of discrimination.

The constitutional amendment stated that the Michigan public universities "shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin." If people really feel that legacy admissions at public universities are a problem (for those schools that still have this anyway), then go get petitions signed putting a further amendment of the state constitution to a public vote.

I don't think that any state public schools really give legacy any consideration. I could be wrong. There are a lot of them. But as far as I know, legacy admissions are mostly a thing for elite private schools like those in the Ivy League.

The state schools I applied to seemed to have only asked what level of education my parents or guardians had achieved, that is, if they had graduate high school, gone to University, or done any graduate school. Which brings me to a point I wanted to make. I have always argued that if people want some sort of Affirmative Action that it should based on these sorts of metrics. Parental educational achievement is a good one, but also parental income. This would help disadvantaged minorities without leading to the gross injustices which I have already outlined. It is interesting how no one seems to care that Asians are actively discriminated against.

 

[J842P]

What extra points are received if there is a legacy candidate?

Exactly. The more push for AA the more backlash there will be against blacks.

Darn uppity blacks?

It's not a matter of uppity, it's a matter of people getting things they don't qualify for.

What "thing" are they getting? It is merely an opportunity. And in general, those being lifted a bit higher because of AA should have likely been able to have been in this position if it wasn't for the policies of several generations that kept their families from advancing, like many other families have each passing generation.

Of course the victims of discrimination resent the winners--and these days the victims are whites and Asians.

Discrimination? Victims? Are schools attempting to segregate colleges to keep Whites and Asians out?

Schools actively discriminate against whites and people from East Asian and South Asian heritage on college admission.

 

[J842P]

Firstly, it isn't discrimination. Whites and Asians are not having their applications tossed in a shredder.

I don't know what to say. I guess you really believe that. The cognitive dissonance must be pretty bad. I've tried to tell people about my first-hand experience as a "disadvantaged" minority applying to college in the United States and how it very clearly was discrimination in favor of me against others because of their race. It always seems to be ignored.

 

[doubtingt]

Firstly, it isn't discrimination. Whites and Asians are not having their applications tossed in a shredder.

I don't know what to say. I guess you really believe that. The cognitive dissonance must be pretty bad.

Yeah, according his logic, almost no minority nor any female applicant has ever been discriminated against, since almost none have had their applications tossed in the shredder. I think those goalposts are currently somewhere in an alternate universe.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Firstly, it isn't discrimination. Whites and Asians are not having their applications tossed in a shredder.

I don't know what to say. I guess you really believe that. The cognitive dissonance must be pretty bad. I've tried to tell people about my first-hand experience as a "disadvantaged" minority applying to college in the United States and how it very clearly was discrimination in favor of me against others because of their race. It always seems to be ignored.

It does seem like a fairly straightforward point. If someone gets moved up the queue because of their race, then it means that someone who was ahead of them got bumped off of the queue so their spot could be taken by the person benefitting from AA. Whether one thinks that's good, bad or neutral is another question, but it's clearly a thing that's happening.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Firstly, it isn't discrimination. Whites and Asians are not having their applications tossed in a shredder.

I don't know what to say. I guess you really believe that. The cognitive dissonance must be pretty bad. I've tried to tell people about my first-hand experience as a "disadvantaged" minority applying to college in the United States and how it very clearly was discrimination in favor of me against others because of their race. It always seems to be ignored.

It does seem like a fairly straightforward point. If someone gets moved up the queue because of their race, then it means that someone who was ahead of them got bumped off of the queue so their spot could be taken by the person benefitting from AA. Whether one thinks that's good, bad or neutral is another question, but it's clearly a thing that's happening.

Of course, the point of AA is recognizing that the person was dragged back because of Jim Crow, and AA is attempting to get them backish to their rightful position.

 

[fromderinside]

A really simple solution comes to mind. Develop criteria that result in race, sex, preference, and belief, neutral criteria rather than using criteria that are obviously existing workforce matching. That way no group sees themselves as discriminated against. Well, except that group that has held preferential advantage up to the modern era.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Of course, the point of AA is recognizing that the person was dragged back because of Jim Crow, and AA is attempting to get them backish to their rightful position.

Yes, and it does this by having them take somebody else's place. It's discriminating against one race to compensate for the historical discrimination against another race. It's fine to think that's OK because it's a necessary step to level out an uneven playing field, but it's not fine to say that it's not actually discrimination.

 

[fromderinside]

Yes, and it does this by having them take somebody else's place. It's discriminating against one race to compensate for the historical discrimination against another race. It's fine to think that's OK because it's a necessary step to level out an uneven playing field, but it's not fine to say that it's not actually discrimination.

Oh, come one. Discrimination starts today. If criteria are group neutral no group is being advantaged. All that is happening is that the previously preferenced group(s) aren't being advantaged any more.

That falls into the 'tough shit guy' category.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Of course, the point of AA is recognizing that the person was dragged back because of Jim Crow, and AA is attempting to get them backish to their rightful position.

Yes, and it does this by having them take somebody else's place.

That somebody else's place wasn't rightfully theirs to begin with, at least metaphorically.

It's discriminating against one race to compensate for the historical discrimination against another race. It's fine to think that's OK because it's a necessary step to level out an uneven playing field, but it's not fine to say that it's not actually discrimination.

Discrimination carries a tone of prejudice. This isn't prejudice.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Yes, and it does this by having them take somebody else's place. It's discriminating against one race to compensate for the historical discrimination against another race. It's fine to think that's OK because it's a necessary step to level out an uneven playing field, but it's not fine to say that it's not actually discrimination.

Oh, come one. Discrimination starts today. If criteria are group neutral no group is being advantaged. All that is happening is that the previously preferenced group(s) aren't being advantaged any more.

That falls into the 'tough shit guy' category.

But the previously preferenced groups are being advantaged. There's a good video in the other discrimination thread which lays out exactly how that's the case. Decades of discrimination put the white candidates, as a group, in an advantaged position against the black candidates who weren't able to benefit from the generations of lopsided consideration.

If you trip someone at the beginning of the race, it's not making things neutral by instituting a no-tripping policy towards the end of the race simply because nobody will get tripped after that. You're still way ahead of the other guy as a result of having tripped him already.

 

[Derec]

If you trip someone at the beginning of the race, it's not making things neutral by instituting a no-tripping policy towards the end of the race simply because nobody will get tripped after that. You're still way ahead of the other guy as a result of having tripped him already.

So you trip, in a different race altogether, not just the descendants of the guy who tripped the other, but everyone who vaguely looks like him? Is that justice?

 

[doubtingt]

Firstly, it isn't discrimination. Whites and Asians are not having their applications tossed in a shredder.

I don't know what to say. I guess you really believe that. The cognitive dissonance must be pretty bad. I've tried to tell people about my first-hand experience as a "disadvantaged" minority applying to college in the United States and how it very clearly was discrimination in favor of me against others because of their race. It always seems to be ignored.

It does seem like a fairly straightforward point. If someone gets moved up the queue because of their race, then it means that someone who was ahead of them got bumped off of the queue so their spot could be taken by the person benefitting from AA. Whether one thinks that's good, bad or neutral is another question, but it's clearly a thing that's happening.

Of course, the point of AA is recognizing that the person was dragged back because of Jim Crow, and AA is attempting to get them backish to their rightful position.

Which is an absolutely absurd notion which presumes to know exactly what everyone's "rightful" position is that they would be in if history had been different. No one has any idea where any person would be and Jim Crow is a fraction of all the countless historical factors that impact each person of every race.
What we know is that Jim Crow impacted group level averages around which there is massive individual variation. AA and it supporters are blinded by a worldview that has no regard for individual human beings and treats everything as a group level competition as though every white and black person are just prototypes of their racial groups who all would be at the median place in the absence of Jim Crow. It is an objectively false worldview that produces massive errors in "rightful" placement, regularly putting people in front of others that they would not be in front of even without Jim Crow. It ignores these injustices to actual individual humans under the excuse that the group averages of placement will be closer to their "rightful" place thus whiteys who get screwed should just take comfort that their group is on average where it should be (which only whiteys who share the racist worldview of AA proponents would take comfort in).

It is an inherently racist and bigoted worldview that is anti-thetical to any progressive society that values individualism.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Of course, the point of AA is recognizing that the person was dragged back because of Jim Crow, and AA is attempting to get them backish to their rightful position.

Yes, and it does this by having them take somebody else's place.

That somebody else's place wasn't rightfully theirs to begin with, at least metaphorically.

No, not metaphorically, just really.

Say a university lets 1000 people, based on how they did on an amalgamation of scores. Without any factoring for AA, the lowest ranked person on that list is Frank, who has a score of 100. The university then applies 10 points for being a minority, so Steve, who is black, now has 101 points and gets the last spot on the list, kicking Frank off the list.

Steve took the place of someone who would have had that place without AA being a factor. That's what taking someone's place means. If there are a limited amount of spots and AA puts people in those spots who would not be in them without the advantage given to them by AA, they took those spots from other people.

It's discriminating against one race to compensate for the historical discrimination against another race. It's fine to think that's OK because it's a necessary step to level out an uneven playing field, but it's not fine to say that it's not actually discrimination.

Discrimination carries a tone of prejudice. This isn't prejudice.

Discrimination means making a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit. If black students receive an advantage which white students do not solely because of their race, then that is an act of discrimination. It doesn't need you to be pejudiced against white people in order to have the definition apply.

 

[fromderinside]

Yes, and it does this by having them take somebody else's place. It's discriminating against one race to compensate for the historical discrimination against another race. It's fine to think that's OK because it's a necessary step to level out an uneven playing field, but it's not fine to say that it's not actually discrimination.

Oh, come one. Discrimination starts today. If criteria are group neutral no group is being advantaged. All that is happening is that the previously preferenced group(s) aren't being advantaged any more.

That falls into the 'tough shit guy' category.

But the previously preferenced groups are being advantaged. There's a good video in the other discrimination thread which lays out exactly how that's the case. Decades of discrimination put the white candidates, as a group, in an advantaged position against the black candidates who weren't able to benefit from the generations of lopsided consideration.

If you trip someone at the beginning of the race, it's not making things neutral by instituting a no-tripping policy towards the end of the race simply because nobody will get tripped after that. You're still way ahead of the other guy as a result of having tripped him already.

We don't disagree. The criteria are not neutral. Job one. Neutralize criteria.

If we assume every achievement test is biased in some way then either we can develop tests which are aimed at each 'group', then use that battery of tests for everybody. There will be chitlins factors, Souchi factors, girlie factors, Iranian factors, sombrero factors everybody will need to address. Obviously the 'like parent like child in the workforce gang" won't get as high scores as in the past and there will be some heat from the top 0.1%. Or we can just admit anyone from any school who ranks in the top x percent of his/her/its class and avoid all the text validating and hair shredding involved in the metrics process.

 

[doubtingt]

If you trip someone at the beginning of the race, it's not making things neutral by instituting a no-tripping policy towards the end of the race simply because nobody will get tripped after that. You're still way ahead of the other guy as a result of having tripped him already.

That analogy falls into the racist trap of treating humans as though they are not individuals but merely cogs in some undifferentiated "white people" borg. That is the worldview that underlies AA. The people ahead of the tripped person aren't the ones who tripped anybody. They just share the same skin color as the trippers. At best, some of them happened to indirectly benefit by gaining some ground, but many of them were themselves tripped for reasons other than Jim Crow (Jim Crow and color of skin is not the only people and their offspring have gotten fucked in this race). OThers didn't benefit at all because they didn't start the race until after the tripping (e.g., a second generation polish or asian immigrant).
But along comes AA, the bumbling, ignorant, racist referee who just randomly finds non-black racers and trips them to allow a black runner go ahead of them, despite having no idea where either runner would have been without the initially tripping against the black runners. He says "Well, you have the same skin color as the people who did the tripping, but they already finished the race, so I'll trip you instead. Besides, you shouldn't be upset about getting screwed and having your future harmed, because on average people with your skin color are fairing pretty well in the race."
The people he tripped rightly reply, "Fuck you, you immoral racist scumbag! I am not "white people". I don't feel good because other white people are doing well on average. I am an individual person running my own race."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Fixing past wrongs is impossible.

Not really. AA is working at trying to even an uneven historical playing field.

The basic problem here is that you see groups as important. They aren't. The beneficiaries and the victims are two different groups. Nothing is being fixed.

Discriminating against whites and Asians now does nothing to fix past discrimination against blacks.

Firstly, it isn't discrimination. Whites and Asians are not having their applications tossed in a shredder. Secondly, giving someone a bonus in order to gain an opportunity because of the context of repugnant historical policies by States and Institutions is actually working to address the reality that the existing generation of African American students are not as far along as White or Asian counterparts generation to generation, due directly to racist policies in the past.

Whites are getting their applications shredded more than blacks these days. Asians even more so.

What we have now is basically the notion that two wrongs make a right--something we all know is false.

Except giving a boost to an applicant isn't a wrong. Schools aren't wholesale accepting students solely because of race (that'd be discrimination) nor are they heavily weighing race in the calculations.

<Drops elephant on Jimmy Higgins>
It's not heavy.

We should not be discriminating against anyone. We should be trying to help those trapped in poverty but that's not a matter of discrimination and thus can't be fixed by antidiscrimination measures. It's also not a matter of money and thus can't be fixed by throwing money at it.

Giving someone an opportunity to get a college education isn't throwing money at the problem. A person has to bust their butt to graduate from college. They have to earn it. AA is merely giving them the opportunity.

For every unqualified black you admit you exclude a qualified white.

AA makes life easy for blacks that would have made it anyway, it does nothing for those who wouldn't have made it.

Makes life easy? How is getting accepted in college making your life easy?

It's more a matter of the workplace.