Affirmative action, yes or no?

[Twin Fist]

oh dont even get me started on stupid celebrity kids names.....

but you see, here is ONE difference, those kids are born RICH

when you are rich, you are just eccentric.......

 

[Touch Of Death]

oh dont even get me started on stupid celebrity kids names.....

but you see, here is ONE difference, those kids are born RICH

when you are rich, you are just eccentric.......

Another White priviledge... HHMMMM?
Sean

 

[elder999]

oh dont even get me started on stupid celebrity kids names.....

but you see, here is ONE difference, those kids are born RICH

when you are rich, you are just eccentric.......

Yes, and at least they weren't "stupid" enough to be poor and name their kids Adolf Hitler and Aryan Nation, and have them unjustly taken away by protective services in a blatant act of oppression and discrimination.....:lol:

 

[Twin Fist]

yes, those people were in fact stupid white trash.

 

[searcher]

yes, those people were in fact stupid white trash.

Just as bad as someone naming their child Michael Hunt.


If I have to explain this one you need to just keep thinking about it.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Yes, and at least they weren't "stupid" enough to be poor and name their kids Adolf Hitler and Aryan Nation, and have them unjustly taken away by protective services in a blatant act of oppression and discrimination.....:lol:

That would be wrong; however, I'm sure the parents weren't angels; so, in the end it won't be about the names.
Sean

 

[Big Don]

oh dont even get me started on stupid celebrity kids names.....

but you see, here is ONE difference, those kids are born RICH

when you are rich, you are just eccentric.......

Not rich, rich ENOUGH...

 

[elder999]

Honestly, I always thought "Isaac" was a pretty funny name! First time I heard it, laughed!

I can’t bellieve no one got that!

See-Sarah was past the age of childbearing, and when God promised Abraham and Sarah a child, she laughed, and so, when she did have a child they named him Yitshaq, which, in Hebrew, means "I laughed"......oh, never mind.

Just as bad as someone naming their child Michael Hunt.

If I have to explain this one you need to just keep thinking about it.

Honestly, my Mom went to nursing school with a woman named "Red Cross." She couldn’t wait to get married. I also knew a fitter named-and, no, I am not making this up-Jack " Please, call me John" Mehoff. I actually worked with an I&C technician named "Harry Chestnuts." His parents must have really loved him.

The best, though, was an HP tech from down south-her name was "King Cummins." I joked with her once, said, Your parents must have wanted a boy, huh? and she said, "Yeah," and then I though about it for a second and said, Or a puppy! :lol:

"Course, all those people had managed to land some education and good jobs, in spite of their silly names., and, apparently, in spite of being white.....:rolleyes":

It's not my country nor my culture but it sounds like the man has a valid point to me.

Whilst it is often true that people will fail to live up to expectations of them, it is also true that if there is a low-level-of-expectation escape clause then many will take it.
I recognise though that what Elder (for one) has been putting across in his cogent posts above has having an element of truth to it - much more than an element in fact - viz that those that were slaves were cut loose without a clue as to how to live normal, productive, 'free' lives (being something of an archetype of 'institutionalised').
It is also the case that such 'social' traits pass on through the generations and that those that tried to 'play by the rules' seldom got an even break (or at least that it was the message that began to be played with "Roots"). That acted to disincentivise attempts to even try to be in the 'game'.

I get the feeling that what I’ve been trying to say here hasn’t quite gotten across.

I didn’t offer those "social traits" as a reason or justification for "Affirmative Action." I offered them as reasons for certain continued behavior patterns as a consequence. More to the point, it’s pretty clear that the people who display those traits do not utilize affirmative action, and clearly don’t need it. They are either successful rappers, athletes or gangstas, or lower income people for whom affirmative action isn’t necessary-they are going to sink or swim in situations like the one presented by TF. Maybe they join the military, or they wind up with some lower end gig. Their best hope for AA is if they wind up succeeding at some civil service examination, and get a job with the Postal Service......odds are good that you’ve seen them at the DMV, too...:rolleyes;

Fact is, though, civil service jobs aside, AA was always really for people who were qualified, but excluded on the basis of the color of their skin. That this has happened in the past cannot be denied-that it’s happening right now can also not be denied, but it can’t be proven-very often, anyway.

A couple of really good examples from the past are Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotamayor. Both were raised very poor, but worked hard in school: Clarence Thomas, it’s important to add, was raised speaking two languages: english and gullah, which is basically a creole dialect based on English, but influenced by West African language-it’s nearly unintelligible to those unfamiliar with it, and it creates some interestingly accented English. Sotomayor, of course, grew up speaking English and Spanish-the rapid fire Spanish of New York Puerto Ricans-think Rosie Perez for what her English probably sounded like in high school.. Both went to good colleges and law schools because-and principally because-of affirmative action. At that time, while exceptional minorities of all sorts had attended them at one time or another since their inception, those schools that we call "elite" simply were not admitting minorities, no matter how qualified, who were merely "good enough"-with the exception, perhaps,of Clarence Thomas’s undergrad school, Holy Cross, which had an affirmative action program of its own that was really a form of outreach like TwinFist’s at Dairy Queen.

In any case, both of their reactions to their status were vastly different-both attended excellent schools, and Yale Law because of affirmative action, and both had their qualifications questioned in job interviews to the extent that the interviewer actually questioned whether or not they were truly qualified for their schooling-in spite of the evidence of their exemplary performance-or had merely received their spots because of their color. Both had made efforts to improve their language skills-ironically, Clarence Thomas actually set out to do what I have often been accused of: sound “white.” But where Sotomayor is an advocate of Affirmative Action, Thomas was bitter about it almost from the beginning, and still is.

Life is soooo unfair.

But just as we may fail to grasp just what that is like for a people in an industrialised, supposed democratic, country to go through the end of a period of slavery, it does seem that the oft referred to fact that many of our own ancestors have been through just as evil a period is brushed aside. I think until either it is accepted that the experience those victims of the international African slave trade is qualitively different than that of all other slave 'peoples' or realised that in fact it was not significantly different then this question is never going to settle and fade.
That means that Affirmative Action or something similar will be a bone of contention for as long as it takes for the pot to boil over.

But slavery in the U.S. was substantially different-most of the places where slavery existed it was more like colonial slavery, where slaves could learn a trade, be educated, own property, buy their freedom back, and families were usually kept intact. Slavery as it came to exist in the south after the British abolition of the international African slave trade in 1807, and America followed suit in 1808, was a vastly different institution that put restraints on all of these things: it was illegal to educate a slave, or for one to receive education, slaves could not own property, there was no mechanism for buying back freedom, and families were often not kept intact. All of these conditions were set to maintain the state of servitude, and to preclude a slave rebellion, which many in the south were justifiably afraid of.

 

[arnisador]

A couple of really good examples from the past are Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotamayor.[...]Both went to good colleges and law schools because-and principally because-of affirmative action.

I read an article recently on the academic backgrounds of Supreme Court members (undergrad., law):

John G. Roberts: Harvard, Harvard
John Paul Stevens: Chicago, Northwestern
Antonin Scalia: Georgetown, Harvard
Anthony Kennedy: Stanford, Harvard
David Souter: Harvard, Harvard
Clarence Thomas: Holy Cross, Yale
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Cornell, (Harvard then) Columbia
Stephen Breyer: Stanford (then Oxford), Harvard
Samuel Alito: Princeton, Yale

I've put the Ivy League schools in red. Chicago and Stanford are certainly comparable institutions.

Does Affirmative Action matter? Well, as long as there's discrimination in favour of better schools, it looks like the answer may just be Yes.

 

[elder999]

I read an article recently on the academic backgrounds of Supreme Court members (undergrad., law):

John G. Roberts: Harvard, Harvard
John Paul Stevens: Chicago, Northwestern
Antonin Scalia: Georgetown, Harvard
Anthony Kennedy: Stanford, Harvard
David Souter: Harvard, Harvard
Clarence Thomas: Holy Cross, Yale
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Cornell, (Harvard then) Columbia
Stephen Breyer: Stanford (then Oxford), Harvard
Samuel Alito: Princeton, Yale

I've put the Ivy League schools in red. Chicago and Stanford are certainly comparable institutions.

Does Affirmative Action matter? Well, as long as there's discrimination in favour of better schools, it looks like the answer may just be Yes.

Thurgood Marshall only wanted to go to the University of Maryland School of Law, but was told by the dean of students that he wouldn't be accepted because of the color of his skin.....so, he went to an all black (at the time) law school, Howard University..........which, as my first wife's mother put it 30 some-odd years ago, "Is like Ivy League for black people...." (I was thinking of going to grad school there at the time, back when most of my peers-white and black-were still graduating from H.S.) and I guess that, and a little Affirmative Action back in 1965 on the part of LBJ, a Texan Democrat, are what got him on the court.....:lol:

 

[elder999]

Oh, and Holy Cross is technically an Ivy League school, though not one of the original eight....

 

[arnisador]

Oh, and Holy Cross is technically an Ivy League school

OK Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do...are you talking about ECAC and/or the rowing competition agreements?

 

[elder999]

OK Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do...are you talking about ECAC and/or the rowing competition agreements?

Neither, actually-the phrase "Ivy Schools," originally included both West Point and Holy Cross, which was founded in 1843 and thus old enough to be "ivied" by around 1933, when the phrase was first used.

Aside from the eight schools normally thought of as "the Ivy League," Stanford, Duke and MIT are often considered in the same category, though not, in the case of MIT, athletically.

 

[celtic_crippler]

Sigh...okay...

Trying to deal with the symptoms never cures the ill.

I don't have a concrete answer to how to rid "unfairness" from the world. On a personal level, I see the ridiculousnous of it. I have, ever since as a child of about 6 and watching Star Trek re-runs caught the episode "Let That be Your Last Battlefield."

Many cite the need for Affirmative Action based on "minorities" not having access to the same quality education as "whites." If that's the case, and I'm not denying that fact either, then why aren't you lobbying for better education?

The people you've elected continuously pass legislation that hurts education. Do you call your rep when this happens? Do you know how your rep is voting on these pieces of legislation?

I feel that if we could correct a lot of the problems we have in education, that would go a lot further to solving this problem than perpetuating it with more of the same.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Sigh...okay...

Trying to deal with the symptoms never cures the ill.

I don't have a concrete answer to how to rid "unfairness" from the world. On a personal level, I see the ridiculousnous of it. I have, ever since as a child of about 6 and watching Star Trek re-runs caught the episode "Let That be Your Last Battlefield."

Many cite the need for Affirmative Action based on "minorities" not having access to the same quality education as "whites." If that's the case, and I'm not denying that fact either, then why aren't you lobbying for better education?

The people you've elected continuously pass legislation that hurts education. Do you call your rep when this happens? Do you know how your rep is voting on these pieces of legislation?

I feel that if we could correct a lot of the problems we have in education, that would go a lot further to solving this problem than perpetuating it with more of the same.

You bring up a good point. We do need to stop worring about the past and deal with the present; but, at present, we have a serious problem with public opinion either way. Because of that public opinion is a red herinng issue given you are assured negative results. It is a common proplem with politcal fixes. They are ugly but essential for the health of the nation.
Sean

 

[arnisador]

Neither, actually-the phrase "Ivy Schools," originally included both West Point and Holy Cross, which was founded in 1843 and thus old enough to be "ivied" by around 1933, when the phrase was first used.

Ah, OK--an Ivy school but not an Ivy League school. I'll buy that.

Aside from the eight schools normally thought of as "the Ivy League," Stanford, Duke and MIT are often considered in the same category

Absolutely, yes--I'd add Chicago, among others. MIT really is the 9th Ivy. When I was at Brown we'd go up there for seminars (incidental to Red Sox games) much more often than to Harvard.

though not, in the case of MIT, athletically.

Yeah, everyone knows that nerds can't throw.

 

[arnisador]

Many cite the need for Affirmative Action based on "minorities" not having access to the same quality education as "whites." If that's the case, and I'm not denying that fact either, then why aren't you lobbying for better education?

Having public school funding based on property tax levels is the first problem. Poor neighborhood, poor schools...

 

[elder999]

Yeah, everyone knows that nerds can't throw.

Hey! I resemble that remark! :lol:

 

[celtic_crippler]

Having public school funding based on property tax levels is the first problem. Poor neighborhood, poor schools...

Then focus on that. There are plenty of problems around education due to legislation. Fix them.

The government only gains from dissent amongst the population. Keem 'em dumb and docile...divide and conquer...know what I mean?

 

[arnisador]

But AA is one way of affecting that...by moving some minorities up into a higher income level than they might otherwise have achieved. Granted, it's not the most direct way possible. Texas has an interesting idea...roughly, if your property values are above the average, half of the extra tax money you raise for the schools goes to your schools, and the other half goes to a statewide fund for the poorer schools. It's s step in the right direction...