Is the "Spirit" of Affirmative Action Dead?
with John McWhorter and Tyler Austin Harper
One of the most dispiriting findings in the Students for Fair Admissions cases was the extent to which race-based affirmative action ended up helping the children of wealthy parents and harming the children of poor and working-class parents. As Tyler Austin Harper explains in this clip, this is a violation of the original spirit of affirmative action, and it’s a sign of how far it’s gone off the rails. Is it possible to implement a fairer version of affirmative action without jettisoning race from the process entirely? We debate the question.
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How about using the Brit Term "positive discrimination"? That helps frame the ultimate question: do African Americans today either need it or deserve it?
How about providing more money to HBCUs that are struggling financially? Georgia Governor Kemp has been exposed for neglecting the funding of HBCUs in Georgia in resistance to the fed's proactive approach. Affirmative action college admissions were on a foreseeable deathbed. HBCUs have produced many black attorneys, business people, doctors, dentists, professors, and engineers. North Carolina A&T has produced half of this country's black engineers. Bush and DeSantis graduated from Yale... look at their historical buffoonery. FDR attended Ivy League schools with nonstellar performances and helped to build the white middle class with social security and GI benefits. Of course, these government handouts initially excluded blacks. Conservatism is just preserving the white status quo of power and wealth. Meritorious manumission negroes like Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Larry Elder, etc. gain wealth through anti-black racism. Black conservatives are mere double agents with self first and foremost.