If a policy is good for anyone or not, then there are legitimate ways to quantify relevant statistical outcomes to determine that as opposed to assessing the attitudes of out-group members to determine if, and to what extent, stigmatization exists towards members of target groups.
John, but for his positions on race (ie woke racism) is simply a doctrinaire New York City progressive that will find a way to use his intellect to tailor a position to the woke dogma. He actually defended this idiotic “they/them” pronouns on Bari weiss podcast. What did Orwell say, “some ideas are so foolish only intellectuals can accept them.”
It seems every white person here has an anecdote about a dumb Black person. Black people experience dumb white people on a daily basis. The whites often get promoted
Incompetent Conservatives are reproducing Smoot-Hawley and this site wants to keep giving Trump a chance.
Republicans are worthless. Democrats have a better record on the economy.
I shake my head when I see people practicing racism as a means to end racism.
Try looking at a person for what that individual is, not for his race or culture.
There are successful people of every race, and failures or every race.
What's the point of saying black people can't make in white America when there are tremendously successful black people in 'white' America.
Why presume that the cards are stacked for white people, when there are abject failures among whites?
Clearly, little of any of it is about race. Now, try looking at the poverty rate of single mothers of any race. Oh look! There's a causal link to poverty. Check the absentee rate of students at school, and see if it's a predictor of future poverty. It is.
It is sad that there are people who will ignore the real issues so that they can make it about race, even when it isn't about race.
It's a bit disingenuous to say “clearly little of it is about race" when rates/proportions are taken into account. After all, antebellum America featured a number of “tremendously successful Blacks” which included those living in the South. To see and acknowledge obvious and starkly distinct racial correlations is to conclude that, in some way, shape, or form, race plays some role. The real question is whether the function of race is fundamentally intrinsic or extrinsic.
As I have gotten older I my opinion of affirmative action has declined. At this point I suspect the costs exceed the benefits. Groups that are believed to have benefited from affirmative action are assumed to be less competent.
I don't think that affirmative action is really needed. And I truly don't care about the Ivy's, which are primarily polishing schools for the privileged.
My youngest daughter did a degree in civil engineering. Civil engineering is one of the obvious tracks out of the working class and she knew a number of students who had been in the service or had worked contruction who did one of the less mathematically challenging tracks in civil engineering, such as construction management. The students still have to meet the bar to graduate, but the field is open to students from poorer backgrounds.
My son did business. It was not as intellectually rigorous as his sister's engineering curicculum, but he still had to do lots of group projects, presentations, and analysis - and learned that the teams still had to deliver even when individual members failed - lots more work for him as team leader. You do have to know your material, be able to work with others, and in many areas a gift for gab helps a lot.
Groups that are believed to have benefited from affirmative action are assumed to be less competent.
That's why affirmative action was implemented in the first place: to attempt to mitigate the material harm inflicted on persons belonging to groups perceived as less competent. The perception long preceded the policy.
No, my friend...this is not a matter of groups who are 'believed to have benefited'. To receive, via AAction, something/anything which is unearned is to actually benefit and to benefit unfairly. This benefit is not a matter of belief or perception, it is a real measurable result of a 'reward' being bestowed not because of achievement but because of demographics....not because of what you've done or what you've made but because of what you are.
The groups that have, historically, benefitted from AAction have done so not because they're assumed to be less competent (As a matter of fact the inverse of that argument -- that under-represented groups are equally competent -- is the belief that drove AAction in the first place)... but because they're deficient as outcome equity is measured.
Reality is both simpler and more obdurate than all that.
Glenn makes the point, "one of the problems with race-based affirmative action in college admissions is that it attempts to ameliorate disparities at the end of the developmental process." But that's not really true. Race-based AAction is not attempting to 'ameliorate disparities' so much as it is trying to disguise disparities...to play-pretend that the disparities don't really exist -- OR, if they do exist, are not important or critical in any way.
Consider 'Stan', an obese, 5'9" senior-citizen who loves basketball....and let's imagine an age & size-based affirmative action plan for NBA admissions.... Would anyone now proclaim that such a plan is an attempt to 'ameliorate' these disparities at the end of Stan's decades-long basketball developmental process??? Or would there just be laughter and derision, and a ton of crash & burn games before sanity reasserted itself and Stan was kicked-off the team?
To take a solid-C student (of whatever color or economic status) and send him to our Harvard Stereotype (for Harvard is itself no longer really Harvard) with the vain hope that, Abracadabra!, he'll somehow now become a solid Ivy-A is not ameliorating, it's lying. Worse, this kind of 'ameliorative' farce does nothing other than humiliate & frustrate solid-C Billy, who knows absolutely that he's severely outclassed. (Imagine our Stan running the fast break against the Warriors: Showtime it is not!)
Race-based AAction is built upon the flawed foundational notion that demographic balance in all outcomes is not simply expected but essential to our Faith in Equality. The problem is – that Faith is horribly misplaced. No one is equal (each to the other) save before God & the Law. In every other way we are unique as snowflakes. Born with our unequal sets of genetic luggage into the unequal lives that our unequal parents have unequally built, we each have an entirely different set of strengths, weaknesses, ambitions, desire, hungers, and appetites. The question is not and cannot be: how do we guarantee demographic equality of outcome of anything...but rather, why -- in God's name -- would we ever expect outcome equality when the harsh reality of a million different kinds of Difference surround us every day? The fact that the NBA is 71% Black is not evidence of Bias, but evidence of Ability & Performance.
Equal Opportunity means only that Stan, Billy & LeBron all have, at birth, in the abstract, the exact same chance to play for the Lakers and win Championships...or go to Harvard and become a brain surgeon...or end-up in a homeless camp under the Golden Gate Bridge, or, or or, or. But from birth on, those chances begin to vary as Stan, Billy, and LeBron all start living, growing, learning, & failing given the thousands of opportunities and challenges that life presents. That’s how the whole things works. So the exact same chance to play for the Lakers when all 3 are side-by-side in the hospital nursery rapidly becomes -- in a mere 16 years -- LeBron on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Stan 74 pounds overweight winning the County Science Fair, and Billy impregnating Betty after HS prom that year.
Unfortunately, one of the hidden hurdles in these kinds of discussions is that we all can SEE exactly why LeBron has outrageously succeeded...and we can see why 5’9 obese Stan is not playing for the Lakers...but we cannot see why Stan went to Harvard and became a Cardiac Surgeon and Billy can’t hold a job longer than 17 months. And because we can’t see THAT kind of difference (save in Board Scores, and GPA’s...and we discount both of those), it’s far easier to believe their DISPARITY is the result of INEQUITY & worse, SYSTEMIC BIAS and HISTORICAL DISCRIMINATION, and so we come to believe that Billy needs the State’s thumb on his particular scale of performance outcomes.
Strangely, we don’t believe Stan’s shortness & weight & age require the use of the Thumb to rebalance his chances to play for the Lakers. There, we just say ‘Tough’; life is hard; you’re not playing.
On the contrary, it absolutely makes the argument.
Would we equally reference the fact that the top notch cardiac surgeons are White / Asian as 'examples of White & Asian Success'?
Of course not.
Rather such demographically imbalanced success is referenced regularly as an example of Systemic Racism..... with the solution being (via AAction) reduced hurdle requirements for entry and graduation to increase the 'under-represented' count in the ranks of cardiac surgeons.
So -- all things being equal -- we should (being consistent, of course) reference the overwhelming Black predominance in the NBA as just another racism....to be solved by by Short, Fat, Old White Guys who can't jump.
Or, as I noted, we say to Stan: 'Tough; life is hard; you're not playing'....same as we should say to those who don't clear the Cardiac Surgery hurdles, 'Tough; life is hard; you're not cutting'. The resulting demographic imbalance (in both the NBA and Cardiac Surgery) is then recognized as a function of demonstrated talent and ability NOT skin color.
Affirmative action is re-electing an incompetent white felon who puts white men who can’t conduct a discussion of secret military operations in a secure fashion in positions of power.
If a policy is good for anyone or not, then there are legitimate ways to quantify relevant statistical outcomes to determine that as opposed to assessing the attitudes of out-group members to determine if, and to what extent, stigmatization exists towards members of target groups.
John, but for his positions on race (ie woke racism) is simply a doctrinaire New York City progressive that will find a way to use his intellect to tailor a position to the woke dogma. He actually defended this idiotic “they/them” pronouns on Bari weiss podcast. What did Orwell say, “some ideas are so foolish only intellectuals can accept them.”
It seems every white person here has an anecdote about a dumb Black person. Black people experience dumb white people on a daily basis. The whites often get promoted
Incompetent Conservatives are reproducing Smoot-Hawley and this site wants to keep giving Trump a chance.
Republicans are worthless. Democrats have a better record on the economy.
I shake my head when I see people practicing racism as a means to end racism.
Try looking at a person for what that individual is, not for his race or culture.
There are successful people of every race, and failures or every race.
What's the point of saying black people can't make in white America when there are tremendously successful black people in 'white' America.
Why presume that the cards are stacked for white people, when there are abject failures among whites?
Clearly, little of any of it is about race. Now, try looking at the poverty rate of single mothers of any race. Oh look! There's a causal link to poverty. Check the absentee rate of students at school, and see if it's a predictor of future poverty. It is.
It is sad that there are people who will ignore the real issues so that they can make it about race, even when it isn't about race.
It's a bit disingenuous to say “clearly little of it is about race" when rates/proportions are taken into account. After all, antebellum America featured a number of “tremendously successful Blacks” which included those living in the South. To see and acknowledge obvious and starkly distinct racial correlations is to conclude that, in some way, shape, or form, race plays some role. The real question is whether the function of race is fundamentally intrinsic or extrinsic.
Sure it is. It gives the white progressive Leftwaffe such a feeling of moral superiority and noblesse oblige.
Plus there is easy money in it.
As I have gotten older I my opinion of affirmative action has declined. At this point I suspect the costs exceed the benefits. Groups that are believed to have benefited from affirmative action are assumed to be less competent.
I don't think that affirmative action is really needed. And I truly don't care about the Ivy's, which are primarily polishing schools for the privileged.
My youngest daughter did a degree in civil engineering. Civil engineering is one of the obvious tracks out of the working class and she knew a number of students who had been in the service or had worked contruction who did one of the less mathematically challenging tracks in civil engineering, such as construction management. The students still have to meet the bar to graduate, but the field is open to students from poorer backgrounds.
My son did business. It was not as intellectually rigorous as his sister's engineering curicculum, but he still had to do lots of group projects, presentations, and analysis - and learned that the teams still had to deliver even when individual members failed - lots more work for him as team leader. You do have to know your material, be able to work with others, and in many areas a gift for gab helps a lot.
Groups that are believed to have benefited from affirmative action are assumed to be less competent.
That's why affirmative action was implemented in the first place: to attempt to mitigate the material harm inflicted on persons belonging to groups perceived as less competent. The perception long preceded the policy.
No, my friend...this is not a matter of groups who are 'believed to have benefited'. To receive, via AAction, something/anything which is unearned is to actually benefit and to benefit unfairly. This benefit is not a matter of belief or perception, it is a real measurable result of a 'reward' being bestowed not because of achievement but because of demographics....not because of what you've done or what you've made but because of what you are.
The groups that have, historically, benefitted from AAction have done so not because they're assumed to be less competent (As a matter of fact the inverse of that argument -- that under-represented groups are equally competent -- is the belief that drove AAction in the first place)... but because they're deficient as outcome equity is measured.
Reality is both simpler and more obdurate than all that.
Glenn makes the point, "one of the problems with race-based affirmative action in college admissions is that it attempts to ameliorate disparities at the end of the developmental process." But that's not really true. Race-based AAction is not attempting to 'ameliorate disparities' so much as it is trying to disguise disparities...to play-pretend that the disparities don't really exist -- OR, if they do exist, are not important or critical in any way.
Consider 'Stan', an obese, 5'9" senior-citizen who loves basketball....and let's imagine an age & size-based affirmative action plan for NBA admissions.... Would anyone now proclaim that such a plan is an attempt to 'ameliorate' these disparities at the end of Stan's decades-long basketball developmental process??? Or would there just be laughter and derision, and a ton of crash & burn games before sanity reasserted itself and Stan was kicked-off the team?
To take a solid-C student (of whatever color or economic status) and send him to our Harvard Stereotype (for Harvard is itself no longer really Harvard) with the vain hope that, Abracadabra!, he'll somehow now become a solid Ivy-A is not ameliorating, it's lying. Worse, this kind of 'ameliorative' farce does nothing other than humiliate & frustrate solid-C Billy, who knows absolutely that he's severely outclassed. (Imagine our Stan running the fast break against the Warriors: Showtime it is not!)
Race-based AAction is built upon the flawed foundational notion that demographic balance in all outcomes is not simply expected but essential to our Faith in Equality. The problem is – that Faith is horribly misplaced. No one is equal (each to the other) save before God & the Law. In every other way we are unique as snowflakes. Born with our unequal sets of genetic luggage into the unequal lives that our unequal parents have unequally built, we each have an entirely different set of strengths, weaknesses, ambitions, desire, hungers, and appetites. The question is not and cannot be: how do we guarantee demographic equality of outcome of anything...but rather, why -- in God's name -- would we ever expect outcome equality when the harsh reality of a million different kinds of Difference surround us every day? The fact that the NBA is 71% Black is not evidence of Bias, but evidence of Ability & Performance.
Equal Opportunity means only that Stan, Billy & LeBron all have, at birth, in the abstract, the exact same chance to play for the Lakers and win Championships...or go to Harvard and become a brain surgeon...or end-up in a homeless camp under the Golden Gate Bridge, or, or or, or. But from birth on, those chances begin to vary as Stan, Billy, and LeBron all start living, growing, learning, & failing given the thousands of opportunities and challenges that life presents. That’s how the whole things works. So the exact same chance to play for the Lakers when all 3 are side-by-side in the hospital nursery rapidly becomes -- in a mere 16 years -- LeBron on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Stan 74 pounds overweight winning the County Science Fair, and Billy impregnating Betty after HS prom that year.
Unfortunately, one of the hidden hurdles in these kinds of discussions is that we all can SEE exactly why LeBron has outrageously succeeded...and we can see why 5’9 obese Stan is not playing for the Lakers...but we cannot see why Stan went to Harvard and became a Cardiac Surgeon and Billy can’t hold a job longer than 17 months. And because we can’t see THAT kind of difference (save in Board Scores, and GPA’s...and we discount both of those), it’s far easier to believe their DISPARITY is the result of INEQUITY & worse, SYSTEMIC BIAS and HISTORICAL DISCRIMINATION, and so we come to believe that Billy needs the State’s thumb on his particular scale of performance outcomes.
Strangely, we don’t believe Stan’s shortness & weight & age require the use of the Thumb to rebalance his chances to play for the Lakers. There, we just say ‘Tough’; life is hard; you’re not playing.
Perhaps we should say that more often?
The fact that the NBA is consistently referenced as the only example of widespread Black success kinda defeats the argument.
On the contrary, it absolutely makes the argument.
Would we equally reference the fact that the top notch cardiac surgeons are White / Asian as 'examples of White & Asian Success'?
Of course not.
Rather such demographically imbalanced success is referenced regularly as an example of Systemic Racism..... with the solution being (via AAction) reduced hurdle requirements for entry and graduation to increase the 'under-represented' count in the ranks of cardiac surgeons.
So -- all things being equal -- we should (being consistent, of course) reference the overwhelming Black predominance in the NBA as just another racism....to be solved by by Short, Fat, Old White Guys who can't jump.
Or, as I noted, we say to Stan: 'Tough; life is hard; you're not playing'....same as we should say to those who don't clear the Cardiac Surgery hurdles, 'Tough; life is hard; you're not cutting'. The resulting demographic imbalance (in both the NBA and Cardiac Surgery) is then recognized as a function of demonstrated talent and ability NOT skin color.
Someone should tell Republicans: The cure for racist antiracism isn't racism.
The Democrats go too far so we get the Republicans. The Republicans go too far so we get back the Democrats.
Someone pleeeez get us off this hellish seesaw!
Affirmative action is re-electing an incompetent white felon who puts white men who can’t conduct a discussion of secret military operations in a secure fashion in positions of power.
Affirmative Action creates an army of talented victims. So it’s good for anyone who wants to see civil conflict.