Re: WOT: Guilt


Crowfoot wrote:
I'd like to focus on that parenthetical; affirmative action, by
definition, is designed to give a leg up to black kids *without* real
ability - the ones who would never have gotten into that college if
they were white.

Huh? Academics from UNM tell me the problem is that
affirmative action is supposed to help black kids with ability
who've been stuck in inferior schools and home situations that
have cramped that ability and reduced its effectiveness in
furthering their education (though around here, it's Hispanics
who mainly benefit, as our black population is minimal). The
problem, I've heard, is that they are then plopped down among
better-educated kids but not given the catch-up training they
need to actually catch up so they can compete from a relatively
level position.

But would they? Let's take my student as an example - her admission to
law school was certainly due to affirmative action. Sure, she may have
been stuck in inferior schools; I'm not sure about her home situation,
but the fact that her parents were able to get her my tutoring services
(at $40/hour, twice a week) shows some sort of privilege, doesn't it?

The question is, though, whether getting her into a law school is
really the best way of helping her. I'm not sure it is. If anything,
it is likely to hurt her further - by wasting her time and by showing
her that she is in no way qualified to do the work that her fellow
students can do easily. I'm not sure that "catch-up training" is
really the law school's responsibility, either; law schools are not in
the business of giving "catch-up training" (and what would it be in
this case? Teaching her to read?) - they're in the business of
teaching people to be lawyers. When I pay my astronomically high law
school tuition, I do not want to be paying for the "catch-up training"
of the people who should not be here in the first place. I am paying
enough as it is.

The other question is why black people and Hispanics are singled out
when talking about overcoming the effects of poverty, lack of
privilege, horrid family circumstances, bad schools, etc. Don't white
people have horrible families and poverty issues? Don't white people
go to horrible schools?

I have a friend who, if she were black, would be the ideal candidate to
benefit from an affirmative action program. Her college GPA is
abysmally low - but it's low for a reason. The reason it is low is
because at the time, she was supporting her ill mother and little
brother, fighting off legal cases that her estranged father kept
bringing up (often around exam time, on purpose), and working 80 hours
a week (while going to school full-time). Surely, this is someone who
deserves a "leg up" - and she has often contemplated the idea of going
to law school, and she would probably do quite well in one (she was
preparing legal cases for her family at the age of 16 - and doing quite
well). But she will never get that "leg up" - why not? She's neither
black nor Hispanic.

The black kids *with* real ability would benefit from
color-blind admissions, not affirmative action - if they're qualified
to enter the college in question, they would have gotten in without the
extra "leg up".

Sure, but the problem has been, in the better schools
especially where legacy admissions and wealthy daddy admissions
have been traditional, what was called "color blind" admissions
wasn't; which is why affirmative action was deemed a good idea
in the first place.

Umm, wouldn't it have been better to ensure that "color blind"
admissions were truly color blind? This is like saying that just
because black people used to be denied service at expensive
restaurants, they now "deserve" free meals at said restaurants -
compounding the unfairness rather than mitigating it.

And what happens to those black kids who are admitted into a college
program that they're unprepared for? For instance, what will happen to
that black student I tutored for the LSAT? If she can't read a New
York Times article and figure out what it's about (and I know she can't
- that's what we spent 2 months doing, with no real success), how will
she do with law-school textbooks?

She sounds like exactly the kind of kid who should not have
been admitted on an affirmative action basis; does that mean
that better-prepared kids, or kids able to work their way into a
competetive position once they're selected, aren't being helped?

Better-prepared kids don't need the affirmative action programs; they
can get in on the strength of their SAT's and GPA's. And no, they're
not being helped - they're being hurt.

Mind you, I agree that *if* schools could be counted on to set up
truly color-blind, class-blind, influence-blind selection processes
that really were fair, there would be no need for affirmative
action, and that is, as I understand it, the ultimate aim of the
program -- to fill in the gap until schools get on the ball themselves.
Meanwhile, the enormous growth of the costs of higher education
have thrown all sorts of distortions into the mix that were not, I
think, expected or foreseen, and that makes taking that next step
even more difficult than expected. I agree that what we've got
has evolved into something a good deal less than what was hoped
for (what I'm objecting to is your wholesale condemnation of the
program), but it's better than the privilege-distorted system that
it has modified (not, if recent studies of admissions policies are to
be believed, replaced). Do we need to move onward? Sure.

Yes; but we are not. Schools like affirmative action because they can
point at their high minority admissions percentages and crow about how
politically correct they are. They don't care that this actually hurts
minorities.

Can a school set up a truly color-blind, class-blind, influence-blind
selection process? It's a piece of cake, really. Just admit based on
SAT scores - and nothing but (GPA is subjective, in that it is
dependent on one's school - the SAT is absolute). The SAT is a
standardized test, it's the same for everyone. If the only thing an
admissions officer sees is a number - a SAT score - how can they apply
racist criteria?

In fact, it would be much easier than the current process of examining
an applicant's race (and, in some cases, figuring out just what it is),
reading the personal statement (which, incidentally, was introduced
into the admissions process to keep Jews out of Harvard during the
50's), reading the applications, etc. It could be done by computer.

really can't see why any black people, talented or otherwise, would
want affirmative action. It's humiliating and degrading, and it
contributes to racism.

Yet many of them do, so presumably they see some value in it that
offsets the humiliation and degradation etc. that you see.

It's a "prisoner's dilemma" sort of situation - an individual can argue
that he, himself, benefits from affirmative action; however, if
everyone who can benefit from affirmative action does so, the race as a
whole will be harmed (is it the "prisoner's dilemma" I meant? I'm not
too sure...). If I'm offered a chance to go to Harvard, I will do so;
the idea that it will hurt me in the long run if everyone who is
offered affirmative action to go to Harvard did so is not as compelling
to me at that moment.

However, I do have at least one black friend (mentioned above) who does
see it as humiliating and degrading and does not intend to benefit from
it.

that a whole
layer of native ability was successfully scooped out of the
ghettos and transferred into various levels of working and
middle class life, leaving the more incapable behind as a
stagnant poverty problem that is *not* helped by
affirmative action efforts, at least as presently constituted.

Does that make any sense in terms of genetics?

Genetics? No. Sociology? Yes. What does genetics have to do with
it?

I think the idea was that the "best" genes, whatever those are,
were thinned out in the ghetto populations because those folks
"escaped" with help and their kids do not grow up in ghettos. The
ones left behind were, presumably, working with a diminished
pool of whatever genetic programming (?) encourages both
ambition and success in middle-class terms.

What a depressing theory. I refuse to consider any group "genetically
inferior". I think it takes more than just a couple of generations for
any such "natural selection" to take place.

I did, however, read a very interesting (if controversial) article in
the New York Times about a researcher who used a natural selection
theory to "prove" that Ashkenazi Jews are genetically programmed to be
smarter; after 800 years of non-stop anti-Semitism, only the smartest
survived - the stupid ones were killed off by the anti-Semites or
caught up in whatever pogroms were going on at the time. As flattering
as it would be to believe that theory, I am not sure that natural
selection works quite that fast.

LM

.

Relevant Pages

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