THANK YOU for checking Rothstein's sources so I don't have to especially since I had paywall issues. Minor point from St. Louis area that suburbs can be just as segregated/poor as the inner city. I also saw in a book review from the New Statesman that African immigrants in Britain also excel in school so programs meant to help all Black Britons do not reach the Caribbean immigrants they are meant for.
Affirmative action will never get the job done. I've watched these programs fail since the Martin Luther King Scholarship started in the 60's. If we could somehow have free quality day care for the worst ghetto kids so they could experience being around "normal" people instead of crack heads and gang bangers. As these kids get older and smarter, their exposure to quality day care adults and educated teachers gives them a choice; continuing to want to be with normal successful people - OR -being with ghetto rats.
Colleges around the country will probably follow the California model that admits College students using an adversity score process (circumventing the recent the SCOTUS decision dismantling affirmative action in college admissions). UC Davis Medical School in California has used adversity scoring along with SAT scores, which increased the enrollment of Black and Hispanic medical students. I lived in California for 68 years, and they can be quite legally creative. I experienced it when working for the state of California. The changing demographics made an impact.
White conservatives decided this time to use Asians as pawns to dismantle affirmative action in college admissions. There are Asian groups out there now affirming how white conservatives are using them as pawns. The previous use of white women to dismantle affirmative action in college admissions failed. White women have been the greatest benefactors of affirmative action programs, significantly increasing the wealth of the white middle-class. Asians have benefitted as well---ask the Burmese population and other ethnic Asian groups.
Whites using the buffer class isn't anything new. While colonialists/settlers created the 5 civilized Indian tribes in the Southeast as a buffer group against black slaves. They were conditioned to own and hunt down slaves that escaped, receiving up to $25 per scalp. These tribes included the Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole.
The white settlers (under the leadership of President Andrew Jackson) stabbed these Indians in the back with the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which gave free Indian land to Whites who would make millions of dollars on growing cotton. Cotton was king.
Whites will be whining and crying again, blaming the Asians because of their increasing competitive nature. There's a disproportionate number of Chinese exchange students enrolled in American colleges and universities. A big cry baby now Is [Amy Wax], a very controversial law school professor. She's very disappointed in the lack of Asians being overwhelming conservatives. One of her close associates is prominent White separatist, Jared Taylor, who vehemently believes that blacks and Mexicans are inferior to whites and Asians.
Notably, Glenn Loury gets very defensive when any of his guest speakers criticizes Amy Wax (an anti-black activist).
I think that student motivation is very important, whether it comes from family or some other outside source, or from within oneself. Here's a copy of what I posted as a comment on "What Happens After the End of Affirmative Action?" by Rupa Subramanya on "The Free Press" Substack:
I agree about the crucial importance of motivation in education. As an example, consider the life of the escaped slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, He became quite literate, mostly through his own efforts. As the Wikipedia article about him says: "Douglass continued, secretly, to teach himself to read and write. He later often said, 'knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.'". He overcame much bigger obstacles to his education than those faced by today's students, despite having been provided with far fewer resources outside of his own will and desire to learn.
There was a lot of great information the column. I'd like to read more about how class-based affirmative action would work. Ditto the apparent elite college preference for immigrant black students -- in this case Nigerians -- over U.S.-born blacks. Why is that?
Surely you have read the prophetic Moynihan Report. When youth are followed and measured on gaps in education, incarceration, employment and lifespan/health, blacks show a major gap in comparison with whites. When corrected for number of adults in the childhood home, the gap almost completely disappears. Blacks raised in a single-parent household perform nearly identically to whites raised in a single-parent household, and when that is further refined to account for absent fathers or other adult male role models, the difference disappears in a cloud of irrelevancy.
What is left I am prepared to accept as the consequence of racism, systemic or otherwise. But ignoring the problem of >70% illegitimacy, and too many babies with absent fathers, to rely on victimhood at the hands of white supremacists, is unimaginable to those of us interested in the welfare of children.
Wanted to share this twitter thread I just saw by Rafael A. Mangual regarding an op-ed in today's NYTimes by Radley Balko. I had read the op-ed, and it's really laughable. Anyway, very much your looking at it:
"As Rothstein documents, black 17-year-olds represent 31% and 24% of youth living in households with wealth placing them in the bottom quarter and bottom half, respectively...."
I understand that about 75% of black children are born outside wedlock. I've also read that around 1960, that rate was around 10%.
I wonder, Was the sexual revolution a disaster form the poor and working classes all over the West?
Despite decades of AA, some stats I just saw on the news re the gap btw hs grads & higher ed is huge for blacks … and the hs grad rate ain’t great to begin with. In comparison, across groups, the lowest high school grad rate & the greatest gap btw hs grads & higher ed was for blacks, then Hispanics, then whites, then Asians.
It’s maddening how, around this SCOTUS ruling, in all the opining chatter I hear about black kids’ low achievement, family & earliest yrs are barely ever mentioned.
It’s really pretty simple, this thing no one wants to see or discuss. The key is right there in the lock that’s on the door marked: “Enter for Success”: Family. Family is key. And those early years are essential. I guess it’s too scary, too controversial to point that out.
This anecdote comes to mind…
Im thinking of 3 Asian family-owned, takeout joints - “Tex Mex” (but all Asian owned) & Chinese - within 3 blks of my NYC apt. Inside these places, you’d see the owners, husband & wife, hard at work - HARD at work. Working ppl. Definitely not “privileged” ppl. Here’s the other thing you’d see - their kid. Late afternoon, their kid would be sitting there in the kitchen, or at one of the rickety little tables, doing homework. Doing homework.
And I’m I searching my mind, down the decades I’ve lived here, & I can’t recall any blk owned restaurants, or businesses of any sort (or wait.. one immigrant one, actually - African?) , and so, neither is there any blk owner’s kid immersed in homework to recall. And plenty of blk ppl everywhere. But where are the families? Where are their businesses? Where are moms, dads, and their kids?
Family - those people - are key.
I’ll note, there’s an excessive amount of blame dumped on the public schools, on “bad schools/teachers/unions!” School choice! That’s the key, they cry! I suspect that when the people in a community, who choose to have kids, put their kids’ learning as a top priority, better schools will follow… them.
We’re all stakeholders because these failures are negatively affecting all of our lives. But I think this requires a significant cultural overhaul of, by, and for the primary stakeholders. It’s likely only such a huge movement toward responsible, collective change can solve this problem.
If I were a Democratic Party activist, I would be salivating. The “Supreme” Court took control over women’ bodies and took school admissions back to the Middle Ages. A white legacy student gets a free pass. Of course if you want to die in a war, welcome to our military academies. Cue Monty, and meritorious manumission. Many Black students in elite colleges have stories about the stupid white kids on campus.
The “Supremes” decided that Republican legislators should have control of women’s bodies. Republican legislators are working hard to suppress votes. The “Supremes” told a woman who has not been asked to do a Gay project that she can use her fear of being asked to discriminate. Come on 2024.
The Republican dog just caught the car.
Edit to add:
Now let’s do white affirmative action a.k.a. legacy admissions
Very thoughtful article that seems to be focused on real drivers of disparity and with good suggestions. This is an issue we can make a lot of progress on by rigorously following the facts. Thanks for penning this.
(I am running in place with the amount of emails I have to catch up on because I had a 4-day power failure last week)
THANK YOU for checking Rothstein's sources so I don't have to especially since I had paywall issues. Minor point from St. Louis area that suburbs can be just as segregated/poor as the inner city. I also saw in a book review from the New Statesman that African immigrants in Britain also excel in school so programs meant to help all Black Britons do not reach the Caribbean immigrants they are meant for.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like "merit" has become the buzz word since the SCOTUS decision. Wasn't it a "dirty" word among AA advocates?
Affirmative action will never get the job done. I've watched these programs fail since the Martin Luther King Scholarship started in the 60's. If we could somehow have free quality day care for the worst ghetto kids so they could experience being around "normal" people instead of crack heads and gang bangers. As these kids get older and smarter, their exposure to quality day care adults and educated teachers gives them a choice; continuing to want to be with normal successful people - OR -being with ghetto rats.
Colleges around the country will probably follow the California model that admits College students using an adversity score process (circumventing the recent the SCOTUS decision dismantling affirmative action in college admissions). UC Davis Medical School in California has used adversity scoring along with SAT scores, which increased the enrollment of Black and Hispanic medical students. I lived in California for 68 years, and they can be quite legally creative. I experienced it when working for the state of California. The changing demographics made an impact.
White conservatives decided this time to use Asians as pawns to dismantle affirmative action in college admissions. There are Asian groups out there now affirming how white conservatives are using them as pawns. The previous use of white women to dismantle affirmative action in college admissions failed. White women have been the greatest benefactors of affirmative action programs, significantly increasing the wealth of the white middle-class. Asians have benefitted as well---ask the Burmese population and other ethnic Asian groups.
Whites using the buffer class isn't anything new. While colonialists/settlers created the 5 civilized Indian tribes in the Southeast as a buffer group against black slaves. They were conditioned to own and hunt down slaves that escaped, receiving up to $25 per scalp. These tribes included the Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole.
The white settlers (under the leadership of President Andrew Jackson) stabbed these Indians in the back with the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which gave free Indian land to Whites who would make millions of dollars on growing cotton. Cotton was king.
Whites will be whining and crying again, blaming the Asians because of their increasing competitive nature. There's a disproportionate number of Chinese exchange students enrolled in American colleges and universities. A big cry baby now Is [Amy Wax], a very controversial law school professor. She's very disappointed in the lack of Asians being overwhelming conservatives. One of her close associates is prominent White separatist, Jared Taylor, who vehemently believes that blacks and Mexicans are inferior to whites and Asians.
Notably, Glenn Loury gets very defensive when any of his guest speakers criticizes Amy Wax (an anti-black activist).
https://www.foxnews.com/media/california-college-ranks-medical-student-applications-based-adversity-scores?utm_source=Newswav&utm_medium=Website
I think that student motivation is very important, whether it comes from family or some other outside source, or from within oneself. Here's a copy of what I posted as a comment on "What Happens After the End of Affirmative Action?" by Rupa Subramanya on "The Free Press" Substack:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I agree about the crucial importance of motivation in education. As an example, consider the life of the escaped slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, He became quite literate, mostly through his own efforts. As the Wikipedia article about him says: "Douglass continued, secretly, to teach himself to read and write. He later often said, 'knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.'". He overcame much bigger obstacles to his education than those faced by today's students, despite having been provided with far fewer resources outside of his own will and desire to learn.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a lot of great information the column. I'd like to read more about how class-based affirmative action would work. Ditto the apparent elite college preference for immigrant black students -- in this case Nigerians -- over U.S.-born blacks. Why is that?
Surely you have read the prophetic Moynihan Report. When youth are followed and measured on gaps in education, incarceration, employment and lifespan/health, blacks show a major gap in comparison with whites. When corrected for number of adults in the childhood home, the gap almost completely disappears. Blacks raised in a single-parent household perform nearly identically to whites raised in a single-parent household, and when that is further refined to account for absent fathers or other adult male role models, the difference disappears in a cloud of irrelevancy.
What is left I am prepared to accept as the consequence of racism, systemic or otherwise. But ignoring the problem of >70% illegitimacy, and too many babies with absent fathers, to rely on victimhood at the hands of white supremacists, is unimaginable to those of us interested in the welfare of children.
Wanted to share this twitter thread I just saw by Rafael A. Mangual regarding an op-ed in today's NYTimes by Radley Balko. I had read the op-ed, and it's really laughable. Anyway, very much your looking at it:
https://twitter.com/Rafa_Mangual/status/1675646023622852616
Mr. Cherry, you wrote:
"As Rothstein documents, black 17-year-olds represent 31% and 24% of youth living in households with wealth placing them in the bottom quarter and bottom half, respectively...."
I understand that about 75% of black children are born outside wedlock. I've also read that around 1960, that rate was around 10%.
I wonder, Was the sexual revolution a disaster form the poor and working classes all over the West?
After watching and reading this interview. I watched 21 Savage and Young Nudy perform Peaches and Eggplant.
The Negro community might have 99 problems, but lack of affirmative action isn't one of them. This is as good as it gets.
Despite decades of AA, some stats I just saw on the news re the gap btw hs grads & higher ed is huge for blacks … and the hs grad rate ain’t great to begin with. In comparison, across groups, the lowest high school grad rate & the greatest gap btw hs grads & higher ed was for blacks, then Hispanics, then whites, then Asians.
It’s maddening how, around this SCOTUS ruling, in all the opining chatter I hear about black kids’ low achievement, family & earliest yrs are barely ever mentioned.
It’s really pretty simple, this thing no one wants to see or discuss. The key is right there in the lock that’s on the door marked: “Enter for Success”: Family. Family is key. And those early years are essential. I guess it’s too scary, too controversial to point that out.
This anecdote comes to mind…
Im thinking of 3 Asian family-owned, takeout joints - “Tex Mex” (but all Asian owned) & Chinese - within 3 blks of my NYC apt. Inside these places, you’d see the owners, husband & wife, hard at work - HARD at work. Working ppl. Definitely not “privileged” ppl. Here’s the other thing you’d see - their kid. Late afternoon, their kid would be sitting there in the kitchen, or at one of the rickety little tables, doing homework. Doing homework.
And I’m I searching my mind, down the decades I’ve lived here, & I can’t recall any blk owned restaurants, or businesses of any sort (or wait.. one immigrant one, actually - African?) , and so, neither is there any blk owner’s kid immersed in homework to recall. And plenty of blk ppl everywhere. But where are the families? Where are their businesses? Where are moms, dads, and their kids?
Family - those people - are key.
I’ll note, there’s an excessive amount of blame dumped on the public schools, on “bad schools/teachers/unions!” School choice! That’s the key, they cry! I suspect that when the people in a community, who choose to have kids, put their kids’ learning as a top priority, better schools will follow… them.
We’re all stakeholders because these failures are negatively affecting all of our lives. But I think this requires a significant cultural overhaul of, by, and for the primary stakeholders. It’s likely only such a huge movement toward responsible, collective change can solve this problem.
So we better start talking about it,no?
If I were a Democratic Party activist, I would be salivating. The “Supreme” Court took control over women’ bodies and took school admissions back to the Middle Ages. A white legacy student gets a free pass. Of course if you want to die in a war, welcome to our military academies. Cue Monty, and meritorious manumission. Many Black students in elite colleges have stories about the stupid white kids on campus.
The “Supremes” decided that Republican legislators should have control of women’s bodies. Republican legislators are working hard to suppress votes. The “Supremes” told a woman who has not been asked to do a Gay project that she can use her fear of being asked to discriminate. Come on 2024.
The Republican dog just caught the car.
Edit to add:
Now let’s do white affirmative action a.k.a. legacy admissions
This is as good as it gets.
Shoot the wounded.
Very thoughtful article that seems to be focused on real drivers of disparity and with good suggestions. This is an issue we can make a lot of progress on by rigorously following the facts. Thanks for penning this.
I strongly agree w Glenn’s arguments & reject Rothstein’s - in both cases, on every point.
PS- God, am I sick of DIVERSITY.