Airlift, or was it Les.. yeah Lex.. this is for you.. - Page 3

Navaron · 2003-01-15, 06:41 PM

Here is goes....

1 Charles Krauthammer: Affirmative action has become a naked spoils system
7/15/2001 Dallas Morning News

By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

In a 1996 referendum, California voters outlawed racial preferences. Or did they? At the University of California, a lovely backdoor has been found for beating the ban.

The maneuver appears wholly innocuous. Who, after all, would complain if UC decided to give the SAT II twice as much weight as the SAT I in determining college admission? Sure, some people might think it odd. After all, when standardized tests like SATs are denounced for cultural bias, a particular animus is reserved for the SAT II (which tests knowledge in specific subjects such as history, biology and French) on the grounds that it is more culturally influenced than the SAT (which measures general reasoning and linguistic ability).

Ah. But the beauty of this odd change is that it gets underqualified Hispanic students into the University of California system. In one predominantly Hispanic high school, among the worst in the state, the number of graduates accepted to UC schools increased by more than 50 percent this year. How did they do it? They aced the Spanish language SAT II.

Being fluent in Spanish, they breezed through, often without study or preparation, a test designed to measure second language acquisition. Despite doing dismally on all of the other tests, their spectacular scores in SAT II Spanish raised their average enough to get them into the better schools.

Presto. An almost foolproof way to give Hispanics a leg up � and the latest demonstration of the mindlessness and cynicism that have overtaken affirmative action.

Perhaps the most perverse effect of the SAT change is that it ignores or, indeed, injures blacks, the group for whom affirmative action originally was designed. Slots in UCLA's freshman class are a commodity in fixed supply. For every unqualified Hispanic student to whom you give a free ride because of a bogus bonus based on nothing but linguistic accident, you effectively have bumped a qualified student who otherwise would have been admitted.

Other immigrants, too, get a boost from taking, say, the Chinese or Korean language SAT II. Who gets boxed out? Anglos and blacks.

Affirmative action was invented to help blacks as redress for the centuries of state-sponsored slavery and discrimination. But as other groups � women, Hispanics and American Indians � claimed a piece of the grievance pie, affirmative action molted into "diversity." Diversity simply is the attempt to achieve rainbow representation for its own sake, without any pretense of redress or justice.

Justice? Consider: Doubling the weight given the SAT II benefits, even more perversely, newly arrived Hispanics over their more Americanized cousins. Second- or third-generation kids are far less likely to speak fluent Spanish. Thus, even within the now-favored Hispanic community, those who have been here the least amount of time are being awarded gratuitous advantage over those who have been here the longest.

By any measure of civic equity, the most deserving � those whose parents and grandparents have contributed to America for decades � get the least. An English-speaking third-generation Mexican-American whose grandfather fought in Normandy gets nothing � in fact, he even may lose his slot at Berkeley to the newly arrived Guatemalan whose slate as a citizen still is blank.

Why are we doing this? For the shibboleth of diversity. Diversity at any cost. And the cost is considerable. In order to artificially inflate the number of Hispanics admitted, the new rule places students who aren't academically prepared in colleges a notch or two above their ability.

The social wreckage created by such mismatches is enormous. Minority students are set up for failure, when they could have succeeded splendidly at less-advanced institutions. And more advanced students, denied their opportunity to learn in an appropriate academic setting, are left with deep ethnic animosities that can last a lifetime.

When affirmative action was about justice, it at least had moral force. Opponents could argue about the social costs (unfairness, racial resentment and patronization of minority achievement), but they had to acknowledge the contrary claims of racial redress. You might disagree that racial preferences were the best solution, but you had to respect the moral seriousness of the idea.

But now? What is there to respect in a scheme for giving newly arrived immigrants a leg up over everyone, including blacks? The SAT ploy is a sideshow, to be sure, but there is no better illustration of the wretched state to which affirmative action has sunk than this: a naked spoils system that under the flag of diversity makes a mockery of the impulse for justice that once lay at the core of affirmative action.

Charles Krauthammer writes for the Washington Post.

2 I'm gonna link the rest..... http://www.ceousa.org/

3 gooodd one - I don't want to end up in a hospital in CA... http://www.sandiego.edu/~e_cook/anal...urChances.html

4 http://www.sandiego.edu/~e_cook/chances/index.html

5 hahaha CA sucks again... http://www.adversity.net/c13_tbd.htm

6 flip side in TX - http://www.adversity.net/c12_tbd.htm

7 just wrong.... http://www.adversity.net/c24_tbd.htm

8 Walmart sucks the fat double standard... http://www.hrhero.com/sample/hrquick...nce/spat.shtml

9 and 46 more................ http://home.ddc.net/ygg/rb/index.htm

mistled · 2003-01-15, 06:41 PM

Originally posted by Lexington_Steele
You are missing the key. We are not looking on an individual level here, our scope is society wide. With socio-economical conditions as they are, whites have a better chance to find success then blacks, period.

AA is meant to even out that discrepancy.

There seems to be the need for me to spell it out for you. If you are born white you are more likely to find yourself in a favorable situation that a black person. Being in a more favorable situation, you are more likely to find success. This inequality is a reality.

And this discrepancy is an economic one, and has nothing to do with skin color. So why do we try to solve this based on color and not economic status?? If I am white and born into poverty I am in a terrible position also, but AA doesn't help me out. But, on the other hand, if I'm black and born into a wealthy family, AA puts me that much more ahead of that poor white kid.

-- and Airlift, I had to reply somehow, didn't I?? What else did you expect me to say??

Navaron · 2003-01-15, 06:45 PM

Best qoute I've seen yet.....

"Huck finn wouldn't get a scholarship to Yale, but Micheal Jordan and Oprah winfrey would"

SandTrout · 2003-01-15, 06:47 PM

Originally posted by Lexington_Steele
You are missing the key. We are not looking on an individual level here, our scope is society wide. With socio-economical conditions as they are, whites have a better chance to find success then blacks, period.

AA is meant to even out that discrepancy.

There seems to be the need for me to spell it out for you. If you are born white you are more likely to find yourself in a favorable situation that a black person. Being in a more favorable situation, you are more likely to find success. This inequality is a reality.

So you're saying that all minorities are poor? This is the thinking that brough AA into existance, and the racism that it promotes. There are poor whites and rich minorities.

Of course if you hapen to be born into a rich family you are more likely to succeed because your parents can afford a better education for you. Everone has a equil opertunity to be born into a rich family, but we cant control that, only whatever dieties there are can do that.

Why should someone be punished for haveing white parents? You don't choose who your parents are. If you traced my family tree back a couple generations, I'm mostly of eropean ancestrey, but I lable my race as hispanic because my mom was born in Brazil. Why? Because I can get more oppertunitys for scholerships for hispanics that arent available to whites.

Yes, thats useing the system to my advantage, but thats what people do. AA makes complanies hire people that are less qualified, just because they are a "minority", and they can add them to their quota of minorities hired.

Screw the "socio-economic" conciquences, without individuals, you have nothing.

Navaron · 2003-01-15, 06:52 PM

Hell if you trace my blood back, my people were probably slaves to the Romans. Fuck it, I want some repairations.

SandTrout · 2003-01-15, 06:53 PM

I guess I would have to pay them too, sence I'm 50% Italian by blood...

Navaron · 2003-01-15, 06:57 PM

DIE YOU BIGOT SOB! GO MAKE SOME PASTA!

Unregistered · 2003-01-15, 06:59 PM

Originally posted by Lexington_Steele
This boils down to two main things. Both of which we seem to disagrgee on.

Is there a social injustice? (the numbers are on my side on this one)

If there is a social injustice should the government correct it? (Like I have said a number of times, a survival of the fittest view is fine, but it is a bit too cut throat for me.)

1) Yes there are social injustices.

2) The government should not Force (racial quotas) anything upon the people as Afirmitive Action does, but laws that gaurenty equality should be enacted and enforced.

Let me now ask you a few questions.....

Do two wrongs make a right?

Do we fight racism with racism, and won't the end result be replacing one racist society with another racist society?

Last Question is Multiple Choice.

3 Seprate people apply for the same job. One Graduated from Stanford with a 3.5 GPA. The next graduated from Harverd with a 3.0, and the last from Texas A&M with a 2.0

Who should get the job?

A) The Black Man
B) The Woman
C) The White Man
D) The one who was most qualified

Lexington_Steele · 2003-01-15, 06:59 PM

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). "Assessing Human Development." Human Development Report 1993. New York: Oxford U.P., 1993: page 17.

As it is printed:

"When the HDI (Human Development Index) is desaggregated by calculating the specific HDI for groups or regions in a country, there can be startling divergences from the national average. Disaggregating HDIs provides a group-specific or region-specific human development measure, whereas the gender-adjusted and income-distribution-adjusted HDIs are still national averages incorperating the extent of inequality. Five countries that have readily available data to undertake such a disaggregation: the United States, India, Mexico, Turkey and Switzerland. More countries should launch efforts to gather such data.
In the United States, with the HDIs of white, black and hispanic populations seperated, whites rank number 1 in the world (ahead of Japan), blacks rank number 31 (next to Trinidad and Tobago) and hispanics rank number 35 (next to Estonia). This, even despite the fact that that income levels are considerably discounted in the HDI calculations. So, full equality is a distant prospect in the United States."

Is that good enough for you?

BTW, FYI, the top ten HDI ranking countries (without disaggregating the HDI value for specific groups):
1 Canada
2 Switzerland
3 Japan
4 Sweden
5 Norway
6 France
7 Australia
8 USA
9 Netherlands
10 United Kingdom

*edited to correct title of the book*

Lexington_Steele · 2003-01-15, 07:05 PM

BTW searching the internet did me no good, I had to bust out hard copy documentation.

Lexington_Steele · 2003-01-15, 07:09 PM

Originally posted by {BOHICA}mistled
And this discrepancy is an economic one, and has nothing to do with skin color. So why do we try to solve this based on color and not economic status?? If I am white and born into poverty I am in a terrible position also, but AA doesn't help me out. But, on the other hand, if I'm black and born into a wealthy family, AA puts me that much more ahead of that poor white kid.

-- and Airlift, I had to reply somehow, didn't I?? What else did you expect me to say??

A socio-economic discrepance based on race. Why doesn't that have to do with skin color?

Navaron · 2003-01-15, 07:10 PM

In the US what are the other 33?

mistled · 2003-01-15, 07:12 PM

Lex, all that tells me is that there are a lot of rich white people in the US. Of course the whites are better educated on average because the average rich person is white. We shouldn't be trying to help blacks by hurting whites, we should be helping the poor (many who happen to be black) by giving them more education choices, which is what the rich have that keeps them rich.

mistled · 2003-01-15, 07:15 PM

Originally posted by Lexington_Steele
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). "Assessing Human Development." Human Development Report 1999. New York: Oxford U.P., 1993: page 17.

I'll asume that this is report number 1999 since the book was only published in 1993.

Airlift · 2003-01-15, 07:17 PM

There are two distinct issues for debate here. The one that is being argued is whether or not Affirmative Action is a good or bad thing today. The one that is being quietly skipped on the thread is whether or not Affirmative Action was a good or bad thing in the sixties when it was introduced.

I'd be more interested to hear the opinions on the subject with some historical perspective? Obviously if you think it is a good thing now then it was a good thing then. But if you think it is a bad thing now, should Johnson have ever pushed the legislation in the first place?

P.S. You can't have my opinion on affirmative action.