Seems like if the rationale for affirmative action is based on diversity, then there's no problem with this scholarship. If whites are under-represented at some schools, then it would be rationale to include a scholarship for whites. Alternatively, if the proportion of whites at a school isn't proportionate to the population in a given area (e.g. UC Berkeley is only 32% white, while California is 59.5% white), shouldn't there be an outreach towards white students?
Just for fun, substitute "black" or "hispanic" for "white" above.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for there to be any stigma towards one race getting a race-based scholarship over another, but there is. Why do we immediately think "RACIST" when we see a whites-only scholarship, but "totally OK" when there's a blacks-only scholarship.
* yes, I realize that Huffington Post is generally biased and one article was, to quote a Slate.com editor, "the greatest example of SEO whoring of all time." But hey, they were first on google (wait...)
I don't see what's wrong with celebrating your lineage, just because your lineage doesn't include a skin color which is a different color from normal. And one can't have equality between races if a race is penalized for the same reason.
Melissa wrote:I don't see what's wrong with celebrating your lineage, just because your lineage doesn't include a skin color which is a different color from normal. And one can't have equality between races if a race is penalized for the same reason.
...Huh?...Please forgive me,but I'm having a bit of difficulty trying to determine exactly what it is your trying to say here..
Melissa wrote:I don't see what's wrong with celebrating your lineage, just because your lineage doesn't include a skin color which is a different color from normal. And one can't have equality between races if a race is penalized for the same reason.
...Huh?...Please forgive me,but I'm having a bit of difficulty trying to determine exactly what it is your trying to say here..
...?
I meant exactly what I said... equality between races can't exist if one races (whites) is penalized for being the majority. So to me the scholarships are perfectly fine.
There are a lot of poor white kids out there in poverty unable to move up, and they have fewer opportunities than poor black kids because they themselves aren't black or they aren't hispanic or they aren't asian or whatever other minority.
IMHO they should do away with any and all scholarships that include race, religion, or creed. In addition, I think that scholarships for athletic ability should be bases of the students abilities in academics, as should all scholarships.
Race has zero influence on a persons abilities to become educated, and thereby should not be a factor.
Athletic prowess has zero influence on educational ability either.
It is time that we bring school of higher learning back to what they should be, institutions for higher learning. Not social clubs that want to make sure they are being PC by have the right percentage of blacks/whites/hispanic/asian so on so forth.
biccat wrote:
Seems like if the rationale for affirmative action is based on diversity, then there's no problem with this scholarship
It isn't just based on diversity though. That's part of it, but there's also questions of things like relative opportunity and the legacy of oppression; both of which have be covered many times by people that are paid to do so.
biccat wrote:
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for there to be any stigma towards one race getting a race-based scholarship over another, but there is. Why do we immediately think "RACIST" when we see a whites-only scholarship, but "totally OK" when there's a blacks-only scholarship.
You're far from the first person to ask this question, and the various answers that have provided throughout history are sufficiently wrote as to make be believe that you're not actually asking a question here, but attempting to make a point regarding your beliefs with respect to affirmative action. If that's the case, then you should probably just go ahead and do so in clear fashion.
Also, as far as I know, there is no such thing as a blacks-only scholarship. There are scholarships that are limited to minorities (where minority isn't clearly defined), but not scholarships that are limited to blacks.
Melissa wrote:I don't see what's wrong with celebrating your lineage, just because your lineage doesn't include a skin color which is a different color from normal. And one can't have equality between races if a race is penalized for the same reason.
...Huh?...Please forgive me,but I'm having a bit of difficulty trying to determine exactly what it is your trying to say here..
...?
I meant exactly what I said... equality between races can't exist if one races (whites) is penalized for being the majority. So to me the scholarships are perfectly fine.
There are a lot of poor white kids out there in poverty unable to move up, and they have fewer opportunities than poor black kids because they themselves aren't black or they aren't hispanic or they aren't asian or whatever other minority.
Ok..I get you,your initial post was a bit vague in wording that's all.
...And I'm inclined to agree,racial "equality" can't exist if whites are excluded/penalized simply because of skin color.
When I was in school in undergrad I had to pay out of state tuition for a year. Meanwhile foreign students were bing permitted to pay in state tuition rates, and so were illegal immigrants. And the school wonders why I don't donate...
dogma wrote:If I'm white, then I certainly lack the ability to be black just as if I'm an atheist I cannot be a priest.
Whilst an atheist would most probably not apply to be a priest, if they have the qualifications and experience, as well as the desire to do the job, I see no reason for excluding them from applying and even being employed, assuming there is not someone who is more qualified with more experience.
And if I am white and fulfill the criteria of need and have the appropriate grades/pre-requisites, why should I be excluded from gaining a scholarship simply because I am white? (replace "white" with your colour, race, gender, or other tag of choice.
dogma wrote:It isn't just based on diversity though. That's part of it, but there's also questions of things like relative opportunity and the legacy of oppression; both of which have be covered many times by people that are paid to do so.
the United States Constitution "does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."
Wikipedia put in the "United States Constitution." IIRC, she was referring to the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
dogma wrote:You're far from the first person to ask this question, and the various answers that have provided throughout history are sufficiently wrote as to make be believe that you're not actually asking a question here, but attempting to make a point regarding your beliefs with respect to affirmative action. If that's the case, then you should probably just go ahead and do so in clear fashion.
Actually I saw it linked to on another website. But I really do appreciate your default position that I'm racist. Seriously, nice job.
dogma wrote:Also, as far as I know, there is no such thing as a blacks-only scholarship. There are scholarships that are limited to minorities (where minority isn't clearly defined), but not scholarships that are limited to blacks.
So, given that there are blacks-only scholarships (or African-American, which is a discussion for another day), do you think whites-only scholarships are racist?
the United States Constitution "does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."
Wikipedia put in the "United States Constitution." IIRC, she was referring to the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Since when do legal opinions entail the sum of all support for a given institution?
biccat wrote:
Actually I saw it linked to on another website. But I really do appreciate your default position that I'm racist. Seriously, nice job.
I didn't say that you were racist, I said that it appeared as though you were trying to make a statement and not ask a question because this topic has been covered, at length, in the public sphere.
That website hasn't been seemingly updated since 2007 (aside from the Obama reference), and when I run a Google search for the organization the only thing that returns is the website in question. There is no application attached to the site, and there is no mention of such a scholarship on any financial aid page at any historically black college, there aren't even any emails attached to it, so....
biccat wrote:
So, given that there are blacks-only scholarships (or African-American, which is a discussion for another day), do you think whites-only scholarships are racist?
What do you mean by "racist"? There's almost no agreement regarding what the word means.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Frazzled wrote:When I was in school in undergrad I had to pay out of state tuition for a year. Meanwhile foreign students were bing permitted to pay in state tuition rates, and so were illegal immigrants. And the school wonders why I don't donate...
The in-state out-state tuition thing is weird. Some schools don't really charge anyone out-state tuition, others charge everyone they can (to the point where campus residency is not considered proof of residence).
dogma wrote:What do you mean by "racist"? There's almost no agreement regarding what the word means.
To be honest, I have no intention of engaging in another stupid thread where I spend four pages trying to explain what a certain term means to your repeated attempts to obfuscate and confuse the issue. Maybe you can find someone else to play.
If you don't have an opinion relevant to the topic, why bother posting?
It's pretty silly to ask whether or not a given thing is adjective and not have a definition for adjective so that it's known what the question actually is.
biccat wrote:
To be honest, I have no intention of engaging in another stupid thread where I spend four pages trying to explain what a certain term means to your repeated attempts to obfuscate and confuse the issue. Maybe you can find someone else to play.
What the term means, or what you believe the term means? They're different things.
biccat wrote:
If you don't have an opinion relevant to the topic, why bother posting?
My opinion is that there is no collective agreement on what constitutes racism, or even if racism is bad. These are relevant to the topic.
If you're looking for someone to make declarative statements, then I'm probably not your guy.
Melissia wrote:I don't see what's wrong with celebrating your lineage, just because your lineage doesn't include a skin color which is a different color from normal. And one can't have equality between races if a race is penalized for the same reason.
I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it this way and that this is just an example of poor wording. That said, I just wanted to point out that quite a few people could take serious issue with the implication that white skin is "normal" and that other skin colors are all somehow "a different color from normal." Just something you might want to be careful of, if you engage in a lot of this type of discussion and would prefer to keep things civil.
Melissia wrote:I don't see what's wrong with celebrating your lineage, just because your lineage doesn't include a skin color which is a different color from normal. And one can't have equality between races if a race is penalized for the same reason.
I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it this way and that this is just an example of poor wording. That said, I just wanted to point out that quite a few people could take serious issue with the implication that white skin is "normal" and that other skin colors are all somehow "a different color from normal." Just something you might want to be careful of, if you engage in a lot of this type of discussion and would prefer to keep things civil.
There are only two skin colors that matter; pink and blue.
Melissia wrote:I don't see what's wrong with celebrating your lineage, just because your lineage doesn't include a skin color which is a different color from normal. And one can't have equality between races if a race is penalized for the same reason.
I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it this way and that this is just an example of poor wording. That said, I just wanted to point out that quite a few people could take serious issue with the implication that white skin is "normal" and that other skin colors are all somehow "a different color from normal." Just something you might want to be careful of, if you engage in a lot of this type of discussion and would prefer to keep things civil.
I'm sure Melissia was refering to blue, green, and hot pink skined people
Hordini wrote:I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it this way and that this is just an example of poor wording. That said, I just wanted to point out that quite a few people could take serious issue with the implication that white skin is "normal"
In the U.S., white skin is "normal" becuase "whites" are the majority. If someone can't handle simple facts, I can tell them where they can shove their "moral" outrage.
Just because something isn't normal doesn't mean it's bad...
Hordini wrote:I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it this way and that this is just an example of poor wording. That said, I just wanted to point out that quite a few people could take serious issue with the implication that white skin is "normal"
In the U.S., white skin is "normal" becuase "whites" are the majority. If someone can't handle simple facts, I can tell them where they can shove their "moral" outrage.
Oh dear... I'm sensing something beginning with 'hypo' and ending with 'crite'.
Melissia wrote:I don't see what's wrong with celebrating your lineage, just because your lineage doesn't include a skin color which is a different color from normal. And one can't have equality between races if a race is penalized for the same reason.
I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it this way and that this is just an example of poor wording. That said, I just wanted to point out that quite a few people could take serious issue with the implication that white skin is "normal" and that other skin colors are all somehow "a different color from normal." Just something you might want to be careful of, if you engage in a lot of this type of discussion and would prefer to keep things civil.
I'm sure Melissia was refering to blue, green, and hot pink skined people
Well to be honest...the use of the word "Normal" is one of the things that gave me pause to begin with..
However..Due to previous post content..I'd never think of Melissia as having "Racist" leanings.
Melissia wrote:I don't see what's wrong with celebrating your lineage, just because your lineage doesn't include a skin color which is a different color from normal. And one can't have equality between races if a race is penalized for the same reason.
I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it this way and that this is just an example of poor wording. That said, I just wanted to point out that quite a few people could take serious issue with the implication that white skin is "normal" and that other skin colors are all somehow "a different color from normal." Just something you might want to be careful of, if you engage in a lot of this type of discussion and would prefer to keep things civil.
I assume that she meant the norm as in the most common
cant we just go back to whats really important and start discriminating based on gender instead?
the more women there are in college the less sandwiches are being made in kitchens!
in a more serious note:
i dont know why theres such a big deal here when the less controversial approach wouldve been to just award scholarships based on financial capability and end it there.
it covers all bases really. It wont really change much because it stays more true to the spirit of the initiative anyway: giving a fare shake to the people who would otherwise not have a chance.
Melissa wrote:Right, I'm heavily biased against people's ideologies, personalities, and actions, not against their physical traits.
Be equal. hate everyone.
See..Now there's a posistion I can get behind.
Screw hating people over what race/gender/sexaul preferance they are...hate them because they are taking up space on your world.
Melissa wrote:Right, I'm heavily biased against people's ideologies, personalities, and actions, not against their physical traits.
Be equal. hate everyone.
See..Now there's a posistion I can get behind.
Screw hating people over what race/gender/sexaul preferance they are...hate them because they are taking up space on your world.
Bakerofish wrote:i wont deny that i have some sexist views but if you thought i was serious with what i said earlier you have bigger problems than i do
hint: "on a more serious note..."
Modern sexism is jocular, per many theories anyway.
If its racist, then it racist regardless of any circumstance.
I think you meant to say that it is racist, but racism isn't necessarily bad.
Quite possibly I thought today was yesterday as I'm ill.
What I meant was: it's not racist to offer white people opportunities. Just because whites aren't part of a 'minority' doesn't mean they should be discriminated against. This is the justification I was referring to in my own head!
I do disagree with the notion that a one legged black lesbian single mother with an eyepatch gets a job in preference to a more qualified, able bodied white man.
SilverMK2 wrote:Any and all scholarships should be awarded on ability or need, not on race or gender.
I'm with SilverMK2 on this one. This is exactly what scholarships should be doing.
dogma wrote:
Bakerofish wrote:i wont deny that i have some sexist views but if you thought i was serious with what i said earlier you have bigger problems than i do
hint: "on a more serious note..."
Modern sexism is jocular, per many theories anyway.
Vid relevant?
Phototoxin wrote:
dogma wrote:
Phototoxin wrote:Not racist if its justified.
That doesn't make any sense.
If its racist, then it racist regardless of any circumstance.
I think you meant to say that it is racist, but racism isn't necessarily bad.
Quite possibly I thought today was yesterday as I'm ill.
What I meant was: it's not racist to offer white people opportunities. Just because whites aren't part of a 'minority' doesn't mean they should be discriminated against. This is the justification I was referring to in my own head!
I do disagree with the notion that a one legged black lesbiansingle mother with an eyepatch gets a job in preference to a more qualified, able bodied white man.
and here i thought i was being painfully obvious. noted. thanks.
in my opinon (again this is mine) sexism isnt necessarily bad unless its a main factor in your decision making. and again barring your decisons hinging on certain equipment
Hordini wrote:I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it this way and that this is just an example of poor wording. That said, I just wanted to point out that quite a few people could take serious issue with the implication that white skin is "normal"
In the U.S., white skin is "normal" becuase "whites" are the majority. If someone can't handle simple facts, I can tell them where they can shove their "moral" outrage.
Just because something isn't normal doesn't mean it's bad...
While I agree that not being normal doesn't mean it's bad, I think people take issue with the idea that if white skin is normal, than any skin color other than white is abnormal, which is of course, a pretty abhorrent viewpoint. I would disagree, however, that normalcy is determined based solely on whether or not it's the majority in a certain area.
Hordini wrote:
While I agree that not being normal doesn't mean it's bad, I think people take issue with the idea that if white skin is normal, than any skin color other than white is abnormal, which is of course, a pretty abhorrent viewpoint. I would disagree, however, that normalcy is determined based solely on whether or not it's the majority in a certain area.
but admit it, its a BIG determining factor isnt it?
fun fact: tribal people of different countries, while having no concrete concept of race beyond "us vs them" would kill albino children because they were not normal. a lot of reasons would pop up based on superstition but the underlying fact here is their mindset is "not like us = bad". this doesnt happen with all tribes but is common enough.
Hordini wrote:
While I agree that not being normal doesn't mean it's bad, I think people take issue with the idea that if white skin is normal, than any skin color other than white is abnormal, which is of course, a pretty abhorrent viewpoint. I would disagree, however, that normalcy is determined based solely on whether or not it's the majority in a certain area.
but admit it, its a BIG determining factor isnt it?
fun fact: tribal people of different countries, while having no concrete concept of race beyond "us vs them" would kill albino children because they were not normal. a lot of reasons would pop up based on superstition but the underlying fact here is their mindset is "not like us = bad". this doesnt happen with all tribes but is common enough.
Okay, but being albino doesn't have anything to do with race. There were/are cultures who used to kill babies because they had lots of different conditions or disabilities. Some civilizations used to kill babies based on their gender as well. Does being female somehow make someone abnormal? If the population is 60% male and 40% female, are females all of a sudden abnormal?
That isn't really the crux of the issue though. My point is really more that throwing around the term "normal" in regards to race could easily be considered quite loaded or insensitive language.
mauler78 wrote:I In addition, I think that scholarships for athletic ability should be bases of the students abilities in academics, as should all scholarships.
Lolwutt? You think that Athletics should be the main way to to get a scholarship? I think people shouldn't be able to get scholarships at all from athletics. It has no reflection on how smart you are or how you will function in the real world.
In regards to the whites-only scholarship however, I think the whole concept is pretty stupid. I don't think race should be a requirement for any scholarship.
Scholarships for athletics aren't going anywhere. People like sports, and some people are fortunate enough to be able to win money for their education with their athletic ability.
you missed my point. i wasnt talking about race. I was talking about normalcy
you expect certain things and traits to happen at regular times and when theres a deviation then the deviation is "abnormal"
everyone in my tribe has black hair brown eyes then all of a sudden i got straw colored hair and reddish eyes.
thats abnormal
the male and female example you made is also faulty because everyone expects two genders. youre either a boy or a girl. the abnormalcy would be if all of a sudden you have a hermaphrodite.
what is common is largely determined by what is normal. we take a look at whats common and determine normalcy from there. even in diverse communities you would still consider what was common.
in a multicultural community, having a person with horns would make that person abnormal wouldnt it?
Hordini wrote:I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it this way and that this is just an example of poor wording. That said, I just wanted to point out that quite a few people could take serious issue with the implication that white skin is "normal"
In the U.S., white skin is "normal" becuase "whites" are the majority. If someone can't handle simple facts, I can tell them where they can shove their "moral" outrage.
Just because something isn't normal doesn't mean it's bad...
While I agree that not being normal doesn't mean it's bad, I think people take issue with the idea that if white skin is normal, than any skin color other than white is abnormal, which is of course, a pretty abhorrent viewpoint. I would disagree, however, that normalcy is determined based solely on whether or not it's the majority in a certain area.
normal (conforming with or constituting a norm or standard or level or type or social norm; not abnormal)
By strict definition normal is just that, abnormal is a deviation from the norm
you missed my point. i wasnt talking about race. I was talking about normalcy
you expect certain things and traits to happen at regular times and when theres a deviation then the deviation is "abnormal"
everyone in my tribe has black hair brown eyes then all of a sudden i got straw colored hair and reddish eyes.
thats abnormal
the male and female example you made is also faulty because everyone expects two genders. youre either a boy or a girl. the abnormalcy would be if all of a sudden you have a hermaphrodite.
what is common is largely determined by what is normal. we take a look at whats common and determine normalcy from there. even in diverse communities you would still consider what was common.
in a multicultural community, having a person with horns would make that person abnormal wouldnt it?
No, I got your point. I know you were talking about normalcy, and I get what you're saying. I wasn't trying to make some nebulous comment about how using the term "normal" in any context could be offensive, but rather how using it in regards to race specifically could be seen as somewhat problematic or offensive.
youbedead wrote:
Hordini wrote:
Melissia wrote:
Hordini wrote:I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it this way and that this is just an example of poor wording. That said, I just wanted to point out that quite a few people could take serious issue with the implication that white skin is "normal"
In the U.S., white skin is "normal" becuase "whites" are the majority. If someone can't handle simple facts, I can tell them where they can shove their "moral" outrage.
Just because something isn't normal doesn't mean it's bad...
While I agree that not being normal doesn't mean it's bad, I think people take issue with the idea that if white skin is normal, than any skin color other than white is abnormal, which is of course, a pretty abhorrent viewpoint. I would disagree, however, that normalcy is determined based solely on whether or not it's the majority in a certain area.
normal (conforming with or constituting a norm or standard or level or type or social norm; not abnormal)
By strict definition normal is just that, abnormal is a deviation from the norm
Yes, and that is exactly what people could take offense at; that being a member of a different race is somehow a deviation from some established norm.
Seems like if the rationale for affirmative action is based on diversity, then there's no problem with this scholarship. If whites are under-represented at some schools, then it would be rationale to include a scholarship for whites. Alternatively, if the proportion of whites at a school isn't proportionate to the population in a given area (e.g. UC Berkeley is only 32% white, while California is 59.5% white), shouldn't there be an outreach towards white students?
Just for fun, substitute "black" or "hispanic" for "white" above.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for there to be any stigma towards one race getting a race-based scholarship over another, but there is. Why do we immediately think "RACIST" when we see a whites-only scholarship, but "totally OK" when there's a blacks-only scholarship.
* yes, I realize that Huffington Post is generally biased and one article was, to quote a Slate.com editor, "the greatest example of SEO whoring of all time." But hey, they were first on google (wait...)
In institutions with populations that are drawn from a global applicant pool, wouldn't it be natural to have a population with greater diversity then the native surrounding non attending one?
Yes, and that is exactly what people could take offense at; that being a member of a different race is somehow a deviation from some established norm.
the mere fact you used the word "different" should be your starting point here
when the census of a certain area determines that a "majority" of the population is caucasians then the remaining population, or the "minority" are the deviation from the norm
if i get lost in africa i will accept that i am a deviation from the norm in certain areas.
it helps to think of the word "normal" not just in its adjective sense but in its mathematecal sense as well
The idea that we live live in a merit based world is more of a fantasy than the people who believe the Na'vi are real. Connections are almost always more important than ability. Goegre w. Bush didn't get into Yale with a C average becuase it was a really solid C average. These institutional connections were long denied or repressed for minorities and that is what these programs are trying to address. There is also the issue of unearned white privilege being dealt with. It is an incredibly complex issue, but the one thing it really isn't isn't doing is promoting the superiority of one race over another.
Ahtman wrote:The idea that we live live in a merit based world is more of a fantasy than the people who believe the Na'vi are real. Connections are almost always more important than ability. Goegre w. Bush didn't get into Yale with a C average becuase it was a really solid C average. These institutional connections were long denied or repressed for minorities and that is what these programs are trying to address. There is also the issue of unearned white privilege being dealt with. It is an incredibly complex issue, but the one thing it really isn't isn't doing is promoting the superiority of one race over another.
When you look at scholarships for minorities, I think what happens is that the general blurs with the specific and what makes sense in general can lead to results that seem counterintuitive.
Let's say you have a decent amount of money. Say, a million dollars, which is roughly enough that invested wisely should send one kind to a state university per year on the interest alone. As a kind hearted and philantrhopic person, you want this money to help those that are neediest, but you're a busy man and don't want to spend a lot of time sifting through applications or hiring people to do the same. One great shortcut to getting money into the hands of people more likely to really need it is to target the scholarship at minorities, who (asians aside) tend to go to college in fewer numbers, and have far less family resources than white kids.
Now, that makes sense. Of course a working class black kid from suburban Connecticut isn't needier than a West Virginia white kid living in a trailer. There will be times when the most deserving candidate slips through the cracks. But on the whole, for the most part, giving scholarships to minorities does more to promote economic and practical equality than giving money to poor white kids.
You also run into a pretty common issue of scholarships that are color blind, but almost always won by white kids. Not due to racism, but due to circumstances.
The first result is a great scholarship, aimed at young leaders that want to stay in West Virginia. A state that is 94% white.
How many local chapters of the Rotary, country clubs, alumni associations, etc. give out scholarships? How many of those tend to run pretty white?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slarg232 wrote:Great.
Now when do we get "White Heritage Month"?
what would you teach in such a month? I'm obviously being smarmy, but it'd be interesting to see what aspects of white heritage you thaink aren't covered by public education.
I'm a little iffy on scholarships for minorities, because the defence of them typically involves the recognition that black folk generally come from poorer economic situations, and so should be given assistance. I kind of think that the middleman should just be cut out and we should instead recognise the economic situation by itself.
But there's a greater issue here, there's this idea that people like to create in their heads that they're the ones that are hard done by. They ignore every benefit they got from coming from a middle class, white background, and just look at every possible thing that someone else gets that they didn't.
It's a pissing, moaning spoiled child attitude.
The plain fact is that the average income for a white man in the US in 2004 was $30,513. The average income for a black man in the same year was $22,740. There are two options for explaining this, you can be racist and speculate that it's because the black man is dumber, or lazier or something. Or you can figure that men are equal across the races, and the difference in income is due to the social forces created by history that see white people advantaged over black people.
Accept that, and we can actually start talking about how to achieve real equality.
Well we should get one in name, gosh darn it anyway.
Everyone else gets one, and all races should be treated equal!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Polonius wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slarg232 wrote:Great.
Now when do we get "White Heritage Month"?
what would you teach in such a month? I'm obviously being smarmy, but it'd be interesting to see what aspects of white heritage you thaink aren't covered by public education.
How to properly cook a hot dog and enjoy a good beer.
But seriously, it's not so much what we would teach, it's the fact that all orkses made equal.
Slarg232 wrote:But seriously, it's not so much what we would teach, it's the fact that all orkses made equal.
See, that's exactly the problem. Ignoring the overwhelming number of white people within normal history classes, then getting all butthurt when an effort is made to balance this with a bit of time specifically dedicated to historical figures in other ethnic groups.
I'm not sure a formal black history month is the solution, but pretending most history isn't all about white folk, and that therefore minorities are somehow getting something you're not is just plain childish.
Slarg232 wrote:But seriously, it's not so much what we would teach, it's the fact that all orkses made equal.
See, that's exactly the problem. Ignoring the overwhelming number of white people within normal history classes, then getting all butthurt when an effort is made to balance this with a bit of time specifically dedicated to historical figures in other ethnic groups.
I'm not sure a formal black history month is the solution, but pretending most history isn't all about white folk, and that therefore minorities are somehow getting something you're not is just plain childish.
True, it is Childish, but fortunately, I'm 19, I can still think like a child when needed.
Most history is only about white folk because the books are written with biase. Beleive me, that's how history books are. Don't beleive me? Let me quote to passages from my old World History book I commited to memory (different subject, but you will get what I am saying):
(A single quote from 2 pages about the history of Muhammed) Muhammed traveled the region AS the prophit of Allah.
Now, compare that to:
"Jesus Christ traveled around the region CLAIMING TO BE the son of god. This angered the preists of the Temples, and they had him put to death."
That was all they had in the book about Jesus, but they had two pages dedicated to Muhammed. I'm not religious, and even I have to admit that's pretty..... stupid.
McDougal Little's World History, this was; I found a site that was angry at this, but it seems too Rightest to know if it's a "valid" anger outrage.
Also, another problem with most of our history being based on White Heros and such, but that's because of slavery; they weren't really allowed to be "heroic" in the traditional sense. Before I get flamed for some one reading that wrong; Martin Luther King Jr. was a great man, one of the best, in my opinion.
mauler78 wrote:IMHO they should do away with any and all scholarships that include race, religion, or creed. In addition, I think that scholarships for athletic ability should be bases of the students abilities in academics, as should all scholarships.
Race has zero influence on a persons abilities to become educated, and thereby should not be a factor.
Athletic prowess has zero influence on educational ability either.
It is time that we bring school of higher learning back to what they should be, institutions for higher learning. Not social clubs that want to make sure they are being PC by have the right percentage of blacks/whites/hispanic/asian so on so forth.
If only people would realize this, the world would be a better place.
(A single quote from 2 pages about the history of Muhammed) Muhammed traveled the region AS the prophit of Allah.
Now, compare that to:
"Jesus Christ traveled around the region CLAIMING TO BE the son of god. This angered the preists of the Temples, and they had him put to death."
That was all they had in the book about Jesus, but they had two pages dedicated to Muhammed. I'm not religious, and even I have to admit that's pretty..... stupid.
This would have a lot to do with the Prophet Mohammed being a much more historically documented character.
I also don't understand why you bolded AS and CLAIMING TO BE. A prophet and the divine son of god are two very different things.
Slarg232 wrote:True, it is Childish, but fortunately, I'm 19, I can still think like a child when needed.
Most history is only about white folk because the books are written with biase. Beleive me, that's how history books are. Don't beleive me? Let me quote to passages from my old World History book I commited to memory (different subject, but you will get what I am saying):
Yeah, that stuff happens. My experience is more the other way, because this is a predominantly Christian country you'll see events about Jesus reported as fact 'celebrating the day Jesus was born', but with Islam you'll see it described in terms of their faith, 'celebrating the day Muslims believed...'.
Being aware of that stuff that favours the majority, and looking to make allowances just strikes me as being good spirited, you know?
Also, another problem with most of our history being based on White Heros and such, but that's because of slavery; they weren't really allowed to be "heroic" in the traditional sense. Before I get flamed for some one reading that wrong; Martin Luther King Jr. was a great man, one of the best, in my opinion.
Ah, but there were still heroes. Slavery is a classic issue, as the way its taught generally leaves people with the idea that white people debated and fought with white people over the issue, while the slaves stood passively by. Except there were people like Nat Turner, Olaudah Equiano and Harriet Tubman who fought for their own freedom, and proved to white people that it was something they deserved.
Seems like if the rationale for affirmative action is based on diversity, then there's no problem with this scholarship. If whites are under-represented at some schools, then it would be rationale to include a scholarship for whites. Alternatively, if the proportion of whites at a school isn't proportionate to the population in a given area (e.g. UC Berkeley is only 32% white, while California is 59.5% white), shouldn't there be an outreach towards white students?
Just for fun, substitute "black" or "hispanic" for "white" above.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for there to be any stigma towards one race getting a race-based scholarship over another, but there is. Why do we immediately think "RACIST" when we see a whites-only scholarship, but "totally OK" when there's a blacks-only scholarship.
* yes, I realize that Huffington Post is generally biased and one article was, to quote a Slate.com editor, "the greatest example of SEO whoring of all time." But hey, they were first on google (wait...)
If Asian is the new black then you have a point, otherwise you are completely wrong as Blacks make up 6.7% of the population of California and 4% of UC Berkley.
Scholarships should not be able to discriminate based on race, but if that were to be passed into laws then the ethnic scholarships would just change into low income scholarships and guess who would be receiving most of those scholarships?
Melissia wrote:I don't see what's wrong with celebrating your lineage, just because your lineage doesn't include a skin color which is a different color from normal. And one can't have equality between races if a race is penalized for the same reason.
I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it this way and that this is just an example of poor wording. That said, I just wanted to point out that quite a few people could take serious issue with the implication that white skin is "normal" and that other skin colors are all somehow "a different color from normal." Just something you might want to be careful of, if you engage in a lot of this type of discussion and would prefer to keep things civil.
I assume that she meant the norm as in the most common
I snickered at this. Numerically, tan is definetlly the most common skin color, and race wise I would say asians outnumber any other race. Now ayways, personally nothing should be based on skin color. It should be based on abiility, skill, capability. And experiance
Comrade wrote:I snickered at this. Numerically, tan is definetlly the most common skin color, and race wise I would say asians outnumber any other race. Now ayways, personally nothing should be based on skin color. It should be based on abiility, skill, capability. And experiance
How do you explain that black folk earn, on average, 75% of what white folk do in the US?
Comrade wrote:I snickered at this. Numerically, tan is definetlly the most common skin color, and race wise I would say asians outnumber any other race. Now ayways, personally nothing should be based on skin color. It should be based on abiility, skill, capability. And experiance
How do you explain that black folk earn, on average, 75% of what white folk do in the US?
High rate of high school drop outs
Low rate of college grads
Too many single mothers
Too many men in prison
Root causes are a poverty cycle and the negative effects of the aa culture on their community.
Ahtman wrote:The idea that we live live in a merit based world is more of a fantasy than the people who believe the Na'vi are real. Connections are almost always more important than ability. Goegre w. Bush didn't get into Yale with a C average becuase it was a really solid C average. These institutional connections were long denied or repressed for minorities and that is what these programs are trying to address. There is also the issue of unearned white privilege being dealt with. It is an incredibly complex issue, but the one thing it really isn't isn't doing is promoting the superiority of one race over another.
Bush had a C average?
Yup. It was well documented that he never excelled at anything he didn't put his mind to. He was good at extracurricular activites though. This isn't a comparison of candidates transcripts as a measure of holding public office though, but an example of how merit doesn't always have anything to do attaining something. Bush isn't the only person to get into an Ivy League school based on family connections but he is thoroughly documented example.
Ahtman wrote:The idea that we live live in a merit based world is more of a fantasy than the people who believe the Na'vi are real. Connections are almost always more important than ability. Goegre w. Bush didn't get into Yale with a C average becuase it was a really solid C average. These institutional connections were long denied or repressed for minorities and that is what these programs are trying to address. There is also the issue of unearned white privilege being dealt with. It is an incredibly complex issue, but the one thing it really isn't isn't doing is promoting the superiority of one race over another.
Hordini wrote:While I agree that not being normal doesn't mean it's bad, I think people take issue with the idea that if white skin is normal, than any skin color other than white is abnormal, which is of course, a pretty abhorrent viewpoint.
What, you mean something that isn't conforming to the norm is... abnormal?
How is that abhorrent? Is it some irrational overly PC context added to the term abnormal to make it suddenly become negative instead of completely without subjective value?
Polonius wrote:The terms "normal" and "norms" are generally used with a postiive connotation, and abnormal is considered negative.
I know, and I quite obviously consider that irrational and just don't care.
Getting a raise is abnormal, but you don't consider that bad. Suddenly getting a date from someone you haad a crush on is abnormal, but that's certainly fortuitous. Being talented is abnormal, but sure as hell better than the alternative.
sebster wrote:
Huh, for a university with a really well known name internationally just 3% international is really low. Probably the focus on humanities...
It depends on what "international" means in that context. Some US schools use it as a "miscellaneous" response when reporting racial heritage. If that's the case, then there's a good chance that the Asian/Pacific Islanders category is composed of many actual international students. There's also a large contingent of naturalized students at any given coastal state school. People that aren't considered international because they aren't on student visas.
Polonius wrote:The terms "normal" and "norms" are generally used with a postiive connotation, and abnormal is considered negative.
I know, and I quite obviously consider that irrational and just don't care.
Getting a raise is abnormal, but you don't consider that bad. Suddenly getting a date from someone you haad a crush on is abnormal, but that's certainly fortuitous. Being talented is abnormal, but sure as hell better than the alternative.
I think you're confusing abnormal with "less common." The term actually has technical meanings within behavioral science, as well as statistics, so it's not like we as a culture are just assigning normative values haphazardly.
Of course, using terms that you know will be misinterpreted, and then admitting to not caring, shows little interest in productive discussion. Not that I expected that, but sometimes people surprise me.
Polonius wrote:The terms "normal" and "norms" are generally used with a postiive connotation, and abnormal is considered negative.
I know, and I quite obviously consider that irrational and just don't care.
Getting a raise is abnormal, but you don't consider that bad. Suddenly getting a date from someone you haad a crush on is abnormal, but that's certainly fortuitous. Being talented is abnormal, but sure as hell better than the alternative.
I think you're confusing abnormal with "less common."
*looks up definition on several dictionaries*
No.
No, I am not.
Princeton Dictionary wrote:abnormal: not normal; not typical or usual or regular or conforming to a norm; "abnormal powers of concentration"; "abnormal amounts of rain"; "abnormal circumstances"; "an abnormal interest in food"
Ahtman wrote:The idea that we live live in a merit based world is more of a fantasy than the people who believe the Na'vi are real. Connections are almost always more important than ability. Goegre w. Bush didn't get into Yale with a C average becuase it was a really solid C average. These institutional connections were long denied or repressed for minorities and that is what these programs are trying to address. There is also the issue of unearned white privilege being dealt with. It is an incredibly complex issue, but the one thing it really isn't isn't doing is promoting the superiority of one race over another.
Bush had a C average?
Yup. It was well documented that he never excelled at anything he didn't put his mind to. He was good at extracurricular activites though. This isn't a comparison of candidates transcripts as a measure of holding public office though, but an example of how merit doesn't always have anything to do attaining something. Bush isn't the only person to get into an Ivy League school based on family connections but he is thoroughly documented example.
But you suggested that his admission to Yale was based on white privilege, when the fact is that it had nothing to do with his race and everything to do with his family connections.
Contrast that with Barack Obama who more than likely did get into an Ivy League school based on his race, and we should be able to say something about race and privilege (Justice Thomas' experience and comments regarding Affirmative Action is also relevant). He may have gotten into Harvard Law by his excellent grades, but unfortunately hasn't chosen to release them.
(A single quote from 2 pages about the history of Muhammed) Muhammed traveled the region AS the prophit of Allah.
Now, compare that to:
"Jesus Christ traveled around the region CLAIMING TO BE the son of god. This angered the preists of the Temples, and they had him put to death."
That was all they had in the book about Jesus, but they had two pages dedicated to Muhammed. I'm not religious, and even I have to admit that's pretty..... stupid.
This would have a lot to do with the Prophet Mohammed being a much more historically documented character.
I also don't understand why you bolded AS and CLAIMING TO BE. A prophet and the divine son of god are two very different things.
So your telling me you would beleive the guy who claimed to be a prophet because he heard voices over the guy who claimed to be the son of god because he heard voices?
To me personally, neither sounds right, and teaching one of them as being so while the other isn't is just wrong, in my humble opinion.
Take another example from the same book:
Islamic Jihads brought the light of Islamic learning to much of the European Countries. Islam had vastly superior Medicine, Learning, and Navigational Skills than the current systems being used by the European Countries.
vs
Christian Crusades were violent, ugly affairs. Crusaders butchered man, woman, and child in order to claim what they declared as theirs, the Holy Land.
Major difference in tone, there. I think, but I won't quote this because I'm not as sure as I would like, that the book even stated that Jihads were relatively peaceful. Now, can anyone here look anyone in the eye and say that any "War" has been peaceful?
sebster wrote:
Slarg232 wrote:True, it is Childish, but fortunately, I'm 19, I can still think like a child when needed.
Most history is only about white folk because the books are written with biase. Beleive me, that's how history books are. Don't beleive me? Let me quote to passages from my old World History book I commited to memory (different subject, but you will get what I am saying):
Yeah, that stuff happens. My experience is more the other way, because this is a predominantly Christian country you'll see events about Jesus reported as fact 'celebrating the day Jesus was born', but with Islam you'll see it described in terms of their faith, 'celebrating the day Muslims believed...'.
Being aware of that stuff that favours the majority, and looking to make allowances just strikes me as being good spirited, you know?
Also, another problem with most of our history being based on White Heros and such, but that's because of slavery; they weren't really allowed to be "heroic" in the traditional sense. Before I get flamed for some one reading that wrong; Martin Luther King Jr. was a great man, one of the best, in my opinion.
Ah, but there were still heroes. Slavery is a classic issue, as the way its taught generally leaves people with the idea that white people debated and fought with white people over the issue, while the slaves stood passively by. Except there were people like Nat Turner, Olaudah Equiano and Harriet Tubman who fought for their own freedom, and proved to white people that it was something they deserved.
I disagree about the allowances thing; they should both be covered the same, no matter the biase of the majority or the culture; otherwise it simply isn't truely teaching us what we need to know.
Also they really need to start teaching more about those people then, because of those, I only ever heard about Harriet Tubman before now.
Going to have to google the rest of them, can't right now, baking cookies for work.
There are a lot of poor white kids out there in poverty unable to move up, and they have fewer opportunities than poor black kids because they themselves aren't black or they aren't hispanic or they aren't asian or whatever other minority.
I'll just point out that white students get scholarships to attend traditionally Black schools from said schools annually. Seen it, know people, it happens.
I know this thread won't be as fun if we don't yell "reverse racism" every five seconds and splash gasoline everywhere, but still...
Melissia wrote:Abnormal = deviating from the norm.
right, except for the fact that norm means:
Definition of NORM
1: an authoritative standard : model
2: a principle of right action binding upon the members of a group and serving to guide, control, or regulate proper and acceptable behavior
3: average: as
a : a set standard of development or achievement usually derived from the average or median achievement of a large group
b : a pattern or trait taken to be typical in the behavior of a social group
c : a widespread or usual practice, procedure, or custom <standing ovations became the norm>
4a : a real-valued nonnegative function defined on a vector space with value analogous to length and satisfying the conditions that the function is zero if and only if the vector is zero, the function of the product of a scalar and a vector is equal to the product of the absolute value of the scalar and the function of the vector, and the function of the sum of two vectors is less than or equal to the sum of the functions of the two vectors; specifically : the square root of the sum of the squares of the absolute values of the elements of a matrix or of the components of a vector b : the greatest distance between two successive points of a set of points that partition an interval into smaller intervals
Definition three comes close, but applies to set standards (of which race isn't one), patterns or traits of behavior (of which race isn't one) or practices (of which race.... still isn't one).
So, you could say that a car engine is more or less powerful than the norm, but you couldn't say that a green car is abnormal because grey is the most common color.
CT GAMER wrote:I know this thread won't be as fun if we don't yell "reverse racism" every five seconds and splash gasoline everywhere, but still...
What is this "reverse racism" you speak of? I wasn't aware that there could be such a thing as "reverse racism," since racism is belief in the superiority of one race over another, or I suppose more generally the idea that races are somehow unequal (intrinsic differences aside).
There are a lot of poor white kids out there in poverty unable to move up, and they have fewer opportunities than poor black kids because they themselves aren't black or they aren't hispanic or they aren't asian or whatever other minority.
I'll just point out that white students get scholarships to attend traditionally Black schools from said schools annually. Seen it, know people, it happens.
I know this thread won't be as fun if we don't yell "reverse racism" every five seconds and splash gasoline everywhere, but still...
... which both races can apply for. But whites can't apply for blacks-only scholarships.
Polonius wrote:So, you could say that a car engine is more or less powerful than the norm, but you couldn't say that a green car is abnormal because grey is the most common color.
Yes I could, and I would. 3b: a pattern or trait taken to be typical. In the US. that would be white skin, when most foreigners think of the US, they probably don't think of, say, the hispanic immigrants in Texas and California. They think of some fat unkempt white dude living in Iowa. Statistically speaking, this is accurate, as "white alone" in the U.S. Census gives 74.8% of the population, and 65% if you disclude hispanic groups from the "white" category.
Slarg232 wrote:
So your telling me you would beleive the guy who claimed to be a prophet because he heard voices over the guy who claimed to be the son of god because he heard voices?
In the case of the prophet there is no way of verifying anything he actually says, but he will behave as a prophet regardless of whether or not what he says is true so it is sensible to simply call him a prophet. In the case of the son of God its less sensible, as we're talking about an explicit, physical relationship, and not just the manner in which the person is acting.
Slarg232 wrote:
Islamic Jihads brought the light of Islamic learning to much of the European Countries. Islam had vastly superior Medicine, Learning, and Navigational Skills than the current systems being used by the European Countries.
vs
Christian Crusades were violent, ugly affairs. Crusaders butchered man, woman, and child in order to claim what they declared as theirs, the Holy Land.
Major difference in tone, there.
That's not necessarily an inaccurate statement. At the time of Islamic expansion science, technology, and many other disciplines were far more advanced in that part of the world. Similar arguments have been made regarding the Mongol conquests relative to political institutions.
Slarg232 wrote:
I disagree about the allowances thing; they should both be covered the same, no matter the biase of the majority or the culture; otherwise it simply isn't truely teaching us what we need to know.
They can't all be covered in the same sense, or at least that's the nominal argument. There's a reasonable point there as well, because the pivotal figures in Western history have almost all been white, meaning they'll naturally take up more time,but that doesn't mean we can't dedicate some time to learning about what other ethnic groups were doing.
Also, there's an argument to be made from relative knowledge. Basically, we don't spend much time on Jesus because the general facts of his life are pretty well known; certainly more so than those of Mohammad.
CT GAMER wrote:I know this thread won't be as fun if we don't yell "reverse racism" every five seconds and splash gasoline everywhere, but still...
What is this "reverse racism" you speak of? I wasn't aware that there could be such a thing as "reverse racism," since racism is belief in the superiority of one race over another, or I suppose more generally the idea that races are somehow unequal (intrinsic differences aside).
I'm aware, and I wouldn't use or suggest it, but this thread is based upon the assumption...
Emperors Faithful wrote:I also don't understand why you bolded AS and CLAIMING TO BE. A prophet and the divine son of god are two very different things.
So your telling me you would beleive the guy who claimed to be a prophet because he heard voices over the guy who claimed to be the son of god because he heard voices?
To me personally, neither sounds right, and teaching one of them as being so while the other isn't is just wrong, in my humble opinion.
You can become a prophet by spreading the word, and getting people to follow you. I'd agree that some of the wording could be done better, but the point is that we know for a reasonablly certain fact that Mohammed evangelized and shared his vision. He acted like a prophet, if nothing else.
The historical record for christ is thin, and the heavy lifting of spreading christianity was done by the Apostles and others like Paul. In terms of history, Paul is a far more important figure than Christ.
Take another example from the same book:
Islamic Jihads brought the light of Islamic learning to much of the European Countries. Islam had vastly superior Medicine, Learning, and Navigational Skills than the current systems being used by the European Countries.
vs
Christian Crusades were violent, ugly affairs. Crusaders butchered man, woman, and child in order to claim what they declared as theirs, the Holy Land.
Major difference in tone, there. I think, but I won't quote this because I'm not as sure as I would like, that the book even stated that Jihads were relatively peaceful. Now, can anyone here look anyone in the eye and say that any "War" has been peaceful?
Taken out of context, those quotes do differ in tone. Historians can argue that the Jihads were a net positive for the conqured lands, but it's hard to argue that for the Crusades. If the context of the paragraph doesn't justify it, I'd agree that hte line about the Crusades seems more sensationalist than it needed to be.
As for the term Jihad, it's actually being used very sloppily. It's hard to tell if they mean the initial Muslim conquest of the the 7th and 8th centuries, which while certainly armed invasions, were generally neither religiously motivated or targetted at civilian populations. Meaing, if I had to choose between living through the Muslim conquest of Jeruselem or the Crusader's conquest as a local resident, I'd pick the Muslims.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Melissia wrote:
Polonius wrote:So, you could say that a car engine is more or less powerful than the norm, but you couldn't say that a green car is abnormal because grey is the most common color.
Yes I could, and I would. 3b: a pattern or trait taken to be typical. In the US. that would be white skin, when most foreigners think of the US, they probably don't think of, say, the hispanic immigrants in Texas and California. They think of some fat unkempt white dude living in Iowa. Statistically speaking, this is accurate, as "white alone" in the U.S. Census gives 74.8% of the population, and 65% if you disclude hispanic groups from the "white" category.
Then again, you would be wrong. 3b states "a pattern or trait taken to be typical in the behavior of a social group"
It's hard to argue that race is a pattern or trait of behavior. I have never seen the term norm used to describe qualities that were qualitative but not value based.
There are a lot of poor white kids out there in poverty unable to move up, and they have fewer opportunities than poor black kids because they themselves aren't black or they aren't hispanic or they aren't asian or whatever other minority...
A “whites only” scholarship offered at Texas State University has yet to get any takers, according to a story in The Austin American-Statesman.
The Former Majority Association for Equality — a nonprofit group — is offering five $500 scholarships exclusively to white male students. The $500 can be used at universities other than Texas State, and, oddly enough, applicants only need to be “25 percent Caucasian.”
they have had no takers.
How come all those poor white kids out there in poverty unable to move up don't apply for these?
CT GAMER wrote:How come all those poor white kids out there in poverty unable to move up don't apply for these?
Clearly they don't have enough money to get the internet
Or the support structure that spreads information to people that "minority" students appear to have (looking at the various "black student" type websites that have been posted in this thread) doesn't exist for the "majority".
CT GAMER wrote:How come all those poor white kids out there in poverty unable to move up don't apply for these?
Probably because they don't want to be labelled as racist for receiving a "whites only" scholarship. I know I sure wouldn't have taken it, even if it was offered to me with no strings attached.
CT GAMER wrote:How come all those poor white kids out there in poverty unable to move up don't apply for these?
Probably because they don't want to be labelled as racist for receiving a "whites only" scholarship. I know I sure wouldn't have taken it, even if it was offered to me with no strings attached.
Are recipients of various scholarships published or made known? I would have thought it would be against some kind of law to do so.
it would be interesting to see statistics on need based aid (both governmental and private), broken down by race.
Basicically, I wonder if there is anyway to see if minority students get more or less aid based on need than similarly situated white students.
What makes the question hard is the concept of family support. So much of the focus is on the income disparity between blacks and whites, when the real difference is the wealth disparity. I didn't pay for law school with money from my dad's paycheck, I paid for it with loans and money I inherited from a grandmother. It was wealth, not income, that enabled me to get through. Interestingly enough, this is one reason that white immigrant groups have assimilated so well: they married into money.
CT GAMER wrote:How come all those poor white kids out there in poverty unable to move up don't apply for these?
Probably because they don't want to be labelled as racist for receiving a "whites only" scholarship. I know I sure wouldn't have taken it, even if it was offered to me with no strings attached.
Neitehr would I
But that is my whole point. Melissa is calling for whites only scholarships saying they must be made available or it is somehow racist/prejudice not to. So which is it?
I think the argument isn't that "whites only" scholarships are good or needed, but that "minority only" scholarships are bad.
It's a real life troll. I mean, there are many different ways that term "racist" seems to be used. Minority only scholarships are racially discriminatory, but are not (at least as far as I can tell) based on bigotry.
The law should be color blind: it doesn't matter your race when you speed or sell drugs or cheat on your taxes. Many private actions have become, by law, color blind: housing, travel, dining, etc.
However; insisting that all aid or support become color blind ignores the underlying social and economic inequalities in our society. Saying, "I'm only going to help black kids" is racially discriminatory, but it's not bigoted, any more than when ethnic groups sponsor scholarships.
With increasing numbers of individuals of mixed race, there will be some non-white student eligible for this, but I'm guessing the applicants and winners are virtually if not entirelly white.
Polonius wrote:However; insisting that all aid or support become color blind ignores the underlying social and economic inequalities in our society.
I disagree. Insisting on color blind aid and support will help overcome underlying social and economic inequalities in our society.
If the interest is eliminating poverty by educational achievement, we should have scholarships based on poverty, not based on race.
But the interest seems to be in moving X% of the whole population of blacks into the middle/upper class, where X is the percent of the whole population of whites in the middle/upper class.
If the options are "(a) 3 poor white kids get into college; or (b) 1 poor black kid gets into college," I'd pick option A every time. Maybe that makes me racist. If so, I'm OK with that.
Polonius wrote:However; insisting that all aid or support become color blind ignores the underlying social and economic inequalities in our society.
I disagree. Insisting on color blind aid and support will help overcome underlying social and economic inequalities in our society.
How exactly? And how would doing so help more than increasing the educational and professional levels of the bottom rungs of the ladder?
If the interest is eliminating poverty by educational achievement, we should have scholarships based on poverty, not based on race.
But the interest seems to be in moving X% of the whole population of blacks into the middle/upper class, where X is the percent of the whole population of whites in the middle/upper class.
There are scholarships based on poverty. Most are, in fact. Very few are based on race. Even the United Negro College Fund opens their scholarship competitions to all races. And they are an organization whose entire purpose is to close the education gap between whites and blacks. Compare that to the number of scholarships open only to people of specific ethnicities (almost all european).
I think you're right, I think the goal is to move poor blacks out of poverty. How is that a bad thing? Economics, unlike politics, is not a zero sum game. By tapping into the human capital that has lain dormant, we're actually creating more value over all.
If the options are "(a) 3 poor white kids get into college; or (b) 1 poor black kid gets into college," I'd pick option A every time. Maybe that makes me racist. If so, I'm OK with that.
I think that's common sense, but your scenario seems to imply a universe in which black students take up three times the resources of white students.
Where things get tighter is if you have two applicants for a spot in a college, and they are identical. Same high school, same GPA, same ACT, same extracurriculars, same family income, everything. One is black, and one is white. In this virtually impossible hypothetical, I would argue that any decision is supportable. Toss a coin, pick a name out of a hat, whatever. If I were truely looking for talent, I'd pick the black kid, simply because having the same skills and results against even a minimal amount of racism makes him more impressive. Now, the reverse could be true: a white kid that came up through an inner city school district and overcame being a local minority. But in most cases, the black applicant would have experienced (or witnessed) more racism than the white kid.
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Wonder Showzen's A Celebration of White People Throughout History from MTV2
That last scene shows mostly asians, actually.
(I'm going to hell)
Polonius wrote:
biccat wrote:
Polonius wrote:However; insisting that all aid or support become color blind ignores the underlying social and economic inequalities in our society.
I disagree. Insisting on color blind aid and support will help overcome underlying social and economic inequalities in our society.
How exactly? And how would doing so help more than increasing the educational and professional levels of the bottom rungs of the ladder?
Poverty and race are not 100% correlated. By basing scholarships on race, you create a situation where non-poor students compete with poor students for the same money.
Polonius wrote:
If the interest is eliminating poverty by educational achievement, we should have scholarships based on poverty, not based on race.
But the interest seems to be in moving X% of the whole population of blacks into the middle/upper class, where X is the percent of the whole population of whites in the middle/upper class.
There are scholarships based on poverty. Most are, in fact. Very few are based on race. Even the United Negro College Fund opens their scholarship competitions to all races. And they are an organization whose entire purpose is to close the education gap between whites and blacks. Compare that to the number of scholarships open only to people of specific ethnicities (almost all european).
There are scholarships open only to Europeans? Do you have any citations for this? I thought this "whites only" scholarship was a novel thing.
Polonius wrote:I think you're right, I think the goal is to move poor blacks out of poverty. How is that a bad thing? Economics, unlike politics, is not a zero sum game. By tapping into the human capital that has lain dormant, we're actually creating more value over all.
I agree wholly with you. However, I disagree that moving blacks out of povery is the best policy goal, economically. The goal should be to eliminate poverty, and that can be best done by limiting scholarships to need, not to ethnicity.
Polonius wrote:
If the options are "(a) 3 poor white kids get into college; or (b) 1 poor black kid gets into college," I'd pick option A every time. Maybe that makes me racist. If so, I'm OK with that.
I think that's common sense, but your scenario seems to imply a universe in which black students take up three times the resources of white students.
No, it's a hypothetical. It doesn't have to make sense. Black students don't take up more slots than white students, I was simply making the point that we should focus on getting more people into education (assuming education leads to upward class mobility), not on racial preferences.
Polonius wrote:Where things get tighter is if you have two applicants for a spot in a college, and they are identical. Same high school, same GPA, same ACT, same extracurriculars, same family income, everything. One is black, and one is white. In this virtually impossible hypothetical, I would argue that any decision is supportable. Toss a coin, pick a name out of a hat, whatever. If I were truely looking for talent, I'd pick the black kid, simply because having the same skills and results against even a minimal amount of racism makes him more impressive. Now, the reverse could be true: a white kid that came up through an inner city school district and overcame being a local minority. But in most cases, the black applicant would have experienced (or witnessed) more racism than the white kid.
Except you never have two students who are identical. This hypothetical provides the basis for putting a thumb on the scale to favor race-based admissions.
If you say that being a black student "tips the scales" because of racism, then you are attributing some non-zero value to race. Once you ascribe some non-zero value to race, the question must be, how unequal can students be before racism makes up the difference in their accomplishments?
For example, A and B have the same everything (as you described). They both get a (completely arbitrary) score of "100". To admit one student over the other, you have to give the black student some edge, maybe 1 point. But now you've created an inequality, where a black student only has to get a 99 to be equal to a white student with 100. You've admitted that racism is worth 1 point, so you can't deny the black student for getting 1 point less than his white counterpart, it was due to racism!
All other things being precisely equal, a nonwhite will be at a disadvantage compared to a white in almost any situation involving other people.
Our culturally deeply ingrains in all of us powerful biases that affect out behavior without us realizing it. I can assure you that every single person in this thread, myself included is racist in the truest sense of the word. We may not be hateful, and most of us aren't overtly bigoted but make no mistake you do hold bias against nonwhites.
We are dealing with a legacy of oppression and fierce othering that goes back hundreds of years, it hasn't vanished in the space of a generation.
Two people may have the exact same education, skills and talent, but if one is white and one isn't they are in no way playing on a level field.
biccat wrote:Poverty and race are not 100% correlated. By basing scholarships on race, you create a situation where non-poor students compete with poor students for the same money.
True, which is why few, if any, scholarships aimed at black students (because few if any are "blacks only") are need blind. Outside of internal scholarships at schools, and some competition based scholarships, most private funds are need based to some extent.
Polonius wrote:There are scholarships open only to Europeans? Do you have any citations for this? I thought this "whites only" scholarship was a novel thing.
I just posted a link for a scholarship for students of Polish ancestry that I found with litreally 15 seconds of searching. A lot of ethnic enclaves do that on the local level as well.
I agree wholly with you. However, I disagree that moving blacks out of povery is the best policy goal, economically. The goal should be to eliminate poverty, and that can be best done by limiting scholarships to need, not to ethnicity.
Well, things get murky at some point. Moving people out of absolute poverty is a not zero sum game. Moving people out of relative poverty, however, is. There's no better time to be dirt poor than right now, but I still would rather be middle class than poor. There will always be people on the bottom rung of society, and if groups want to help pull themselves out of that relative lapse, that's fine by me.
No, it's a hypothetical. It doesn't have to make sense. Black students don't take up more slots than white students, I was simply making the point that we should focus on getting more people into education (assuming education leads to upward class mobility), not on racial preferences.
Well, hypos should make sense. Yours made sense, it just made a self evidence point.
Except you never have two students who are identical. This hypothetical provides the basis for putting a thumb on the scale to favor race-based admissions.
If you say that being a black student "tips the scales" because of racism, then you are attributing some non-zero value to race. Once you ascribe some non-zero value to race, the question must be, how unequal can students be before racism makes up the difference in their accomplishments?
For example, A and B have the same everything (as you described). They both get a (completely arbitrary) score of "100". To admit one student over the other, you have to give the black student some edge, maybe 1 point. But now you've created an inequality, where a black student only has to get a 99 to be equal to a white student with 100. You've admitted that racism is worth 1 point, so you can't deny the black student for getting 1 point less than his white counterpart, it was due to racism!
Well, I'm pretty comfortable with spotting black kids a few points. Somehow despite all of that I still went to a state law school and got a governmental position as a white male.
Ideally, college admissions would factor in the totality of "degree of difficulty." Did you go to a crappy school and still ace the SAT? Did you grow up in foster care and still succeed in high school? I'm more impressed by a similar student that coasted. I'd be more comfortable with allowing students to make statements about challenges or harships they've overcame (including race) and have those factor in. That would be a fairer and more accurate way of rating students.
But when you look at something like college admissions, you have literally thouaands of applicants and a handful of staff to sort through them in a short time window. Giving a small boost to minority candidates might be sloppy, but nor more or less than putting faith in High school grades (which could be horribly inflated) or standardized test scores (which have a very soft correlation to undergraduate success) or any other factor.
Polonius wrote:However; insisting that all aid or support become color blind ignores the underlying social and economic inequalities in our society.
I disagree. Insisting on color blind aid and support will help overcome underlying social and economic inequalities in our society.
How exactly? And how would doing so help more than increasing the educational and professional levels of the bottom rungs of the ladder?
2 Kids and 1 scholarship to give. GPA, SAT, ACT, and extracurrics are not identical, but they are close enough that the school can call it a draw.
Student #1 is black. His father is a neurosurgeon and his mother is a lawyer. All 4 of his grandparents are or were college educated professionals that finished college during the civil rights movement and were the first members of their families to ever graduate college. He is on a high school varsity team, but not quite good enough for an athletic scholarship. He is however perfectly able to serve in the military. With the money his family has and the value they place on education all the extra scholarship funds would do for him is free up more cash to go towards his beer fund.
Student #2 is white. His father is in jail, and his mother lost parental rights because of a crystal meth addiction. Nobody in his family tree has ever graduated from college, and about half have dropped out of high school because somebody got knocked up. He is currently being raised by a single surviving grandmother on a small fixed income that is mostly social security. Without WIC he and his grandmother would go hungry. He has a bad case of asthma from his mother smoking around him for most of his life and thus it's impossible for him to join the military for a scholarship.
How does maintaining scholarships that are not color blind aid and support Student #2 to overcome underlying social and economic inequalities in our society?
The cycle of poverty is colorblind and does not discriminate.
I do disagree with the notion that a one legged black lesbiansingle mother with an eyepatch gets a job in preference to a more qualified, able bodied white man.
Wha-?
If I may explain...
This comment is based on the claim that certain London Councils had a weighting system on certain categories. This was originally for things like crisis loans, housing etc, but this is the first time I've seen/heard it on jobs.
Baiscally, if you fulfilled all the above categories at the same time you were 100% guaranteed to be given whatever you asked for.
I've always thought the "join the military" line was total bs. It gets me that completely rational, sane people can say that being trained to kill people is a reasonable solution to anything.
How many need based scholarships is Student #1 going to recieve? Find me a scholarship that favors black students that isn't need based.
I wasn't advocating blindly giving money to black students. If this was a purely merit based situation, than yeah, the white kid might get screwed. It happens.
If the cycle of poverty is truley color blind, than why are so many more minorities poor?
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I've always thought the "join the military" line was total bs. It gets me that completely rational, sane people can say that being trained to kill people is a reasonable solution to anything.
I think the argument he was making was that in his hypothetical, one person had many more options for paying for school (family, military) than the other. Making it unfair to deny the one with fewer options the scholarship when they're equal.
Of course, on the grand scale, this is also true, just with white kids generally (although certainly not always) having far more opportunities than black kids.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:
Polonius wrote:If the cycle of poverty is truley color blind, than why are so many more minorities poor?
Are we talking per capita, or real numbers?
per capita. From Wiki:
Poverty and raceThe US Census declared that in 2008 13.2% of the general population lived in poverty:[30]
8.6% of all non-Hispanic White
11.8% of all Asian-American
23.2% of all Hispanic (of any nationality)
24.2% of all American Indian and Alaska Native
24.7% of all African-American.
About half of those living in poverty are non-Hispanic white, but poverty rates are much higher for blacks and other minorities. 57% of all poor rural children are non-Hispanic white, compared with 28% of poor urban children.[31]
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I've always thought the "join the military" line was total bs. It gets me that completely rational, sane people can say that being trained to kill people is a reasonable solution to anything.
I think the argument he was making was that in his hypothetical, one person had many more options for paying for school (family, military) than the other. Making it unfair to deny the one with fewer options the scholarship when they're equal.
Of course, on the grand scale, this is also true, just with white kids generally (although certainly not always) having far more opportunities than black kids.
I was referring more to in general, not pointing at any one person. I've heard the line a few times myself and it's always irritating.
biccat wrote:Poverty and race are not 100% correlated. By basing scholarships on race, you create a situation where non-poor students compete with poor students for the same money.
True, which is why few, if any, scholarships aimed at black students (because few if any are "blacks only") are need blind. Outside of internal scholarships at schools, and some competition based scholarships, most private funds are need based to some extent.
To be honest, I really don't care what private groups do with their private money. The group in the opening post is OK by me (at least, I don't see any reason for legal action against them). So are blacks-only scholarships offered by the NAACP or any other private group.
I still think it's racist, but I don't think there's anything legally that should be done about it. The issue is the double standard, why are "white only" scholarships seen as bad and "black only" are seen as good?
Polonius wrote:
biccat wrote:There are scholarships open only to Europeans? Do you have any citations for this? I thought this "whites only" scholarship was a novel thing.
I just posted a link for a scholarship for students of Polish ancestry that I found with litreally 15 seconds of searching. A lot of ethnic enclaves do that on the local level as well.
I honestly did not know these were available. But you're confusing ethnicity with race. These aren't available to "white kids," they're only available to a select group. Not racist, but ethnically bigoted, which is just as bad, if not worse.
Still tho, private groups can do whatever they want.
Um, that doesn't "discuss" anything. It's pretty biased and inflamatory. Plus, the author of the article misses the point entirely. These stunts are tongue-in-cheek pokes at the idea of race-based scholarships and benefits, like the infamous "affirmative action bake sale." I'm pretty sure if the author had bothered to ask about ethnic scholarships, the individuals at issue would have rejected those as well. But he didn't ask, he merely assumed they were racist white guys.
Additionally, the whole website seems to be a sort of "Noblesse Oblige," (well, maybe "Blanc Oblige"). They bill themselves as having scholarships for "traditionally disadvantaged ethnic groups," but for some reason has to search for Irish and Jewish based scholarships. How these groups don't count as "traditionally disadvantaged" is beyond me.
Polonius wrote:
biccat wrote:I agree wholly with you. However, I disagree that moving blacks out of povery is the best policy goal, economically. The goal should be to eliminate poverty, and that can be best done by limiting scholarships to need, not to ethnicity.
Well, things get murky at some point. Moving people out of absolute poverty is a not zero sum game. Moving people out of relative poverty, however, is. There's no better time to be dirt poor than right now, but I still would rather be middle class than poor. There will always be people on the bottom rung of society, and if groups want to help pull themselves out of that relative lapse, that's fine by me.
I suppose I agree with this.
Polonius wrote:
biccat wrote: No, it's a hypothetical. It doesn't have to make sense. Black students don't take up more slots than white students, I was simply making the point that we should focus on getting more people into education (assuming education leads to upward class mobility), not on racial preferences.
Well, hypos should make sense. Yours made sense, it just made a self evidence point.
I don't think that point is self-evident. I'd be willing to wager that there are people out there who would disagree with my hypo. And I'm sure there are some that would rather see 1 white kid go to school than 3 black kids.
Polonius wrote:Well, I'm pretty comfortable with spotting black kids a few points.
So you don't think blacks should have to have the same educational achievements as a white kid to get into a school?
Polonius wrote:Somehow despite all of that I still went to a state law school and got a governmental position as a white male.
State law schools totally get a bad rap.
Polonius wrote:Giving a small boost to minority candidates might be sloppy
My problem isn't that it's sloppy, it's that such a boost is elevating one race above another, suggesting that blacks can't meet the same educational requirements as whites. All this does is lead to high rates of college drop-outs, because if you were a C student at school, it doesn't matter if that was due to racism. You're probably just not going to be able to cut it in college.
The issue is the double standard, why are "white only" scholarships seen as bad and "black only" are seen as good?.
Because US society (and by association academics) has a foundation of institutional racism and bias (part intentional, especially in the past, but now mostly partly because things here are slow to change and the research is just now becoming more widely known) against minorities the legacy of which can be seen to this day?
Poverty, prejudice, euro-centric curriculum, standardized test bias, and a host of other factors mean that people DO having different starting lines and obstacles ahead of them as far as achieving academically based upon things like their race, socio-economic status, etc.
Plenty of research has been conducted that shows that given a totally new block of knowledge that is new and unfamiliar to both blacks and white that each group shows the same ability to learn and test well on it: thus no racial difference in intelligence or learning ability can be argued.
However take those same groups and instead teach and test using the material in typical standardized testing and black scores fall off compared to whites.
Much of testing testing and academics have been (though things are changing) biased in their assumptions of both what everyone has been exposed to and taught, the impact of race and soci-ecenomic on learning, and how culturally relevant it is to all. Much research has been done on subjects like cultural/racial bias in academics/standardized testing. Both groups are trying to get into the same colleges but one side has a systemic advantage in learning the requirements to accomplish that. It has nothing to do with inferiority or intelligence, but a legacy of inequality that still informs and permeates how we teach and educate to this very day in this country.
biccat wrote:
I honestly did not know these were available. But you're confusing ethnicity with race. These aren't available to "white kids," they're only available to a select group. Not racist, but ethnically bigoted, which is just as bad, if not worse.
How is that bigotry? Giving money only to a single ethnicity, race, religion, etc. does not indicate strong intolerance, it indicates preference. One can prefer people of Polish ancestry without being intolerant of all people of other ancestries.
biccat wrote:
So you don't think blacks should have to have the same educational achievements as a white kid to get into a school?
How do you define what educational achievements are the same, or even comparable? Is the kid that got a 4.0 at Kentucky Country Day School the equivalent of a kid that got a 4.0 at a Louisville public school? If not, then how far apart are they?
I think one of greatest flaws in the argument from admission according to equivalent achievement is that very few people are going to agree on what constitutes equivalent achievement, and many more will say that equality isn't as important as the specific mission of the school doing the admitting.
biccat wrote:
All this does is lead to high rates of college drop-outs, because if you were a C student at school, it doesn't matter if that was due to racism. You're probably just not going to be able to cut it in college.
You may have a point, though without some kind of statistics showing that minority students are more likely to drop out of college than equivalent white students we won't know for sure.
Moreover, there's an argument that suggests a college that admits C-students (of any kind) will tend to have a higher rate of dropouts by its nature, and that this is simply a fact these institutions accept.
Chongara wrote:you do hold bias against nonwhites.
Bullgak.
I hold a bias against peoples' ideologies, not their race. I'm bigoted against religious nutjobs and republican/conservative/backwards nutjobs and liberal/whiny/politically correct nutjobs and lazy nujobs who leech the system and so on and so forth. I'm biased against criminals and people who refuse to try to make amends for past wrongs, and try to escape justice or act like it doesn't matter. I'm biased against drug addicts, and sex addicts, and people who don't use protection and yet complain whenever the female in the couple gets pregnant or one or both of them get an STD. I'm biased against plenty of people, but it's for what's in their heads rather than for the color of their skin.
What's in their heads is more important and effects me personally, the color of their skin does not.
Chongara wrote:We may not be hateful, and most of us aren't overtly bigoted but make no mistake you do hold bias against nonwhites.
I'm bigoted against Canadians. Does this change anything?
Also, you're assuming that I'm white. If I am not white, does that mean I'm biased against whites, but not against asians, or hispanics?
This is all very confusing.
I'll stick to hating Canadians. Mainly because of the Queen of England thing.
Nonwhites also carry the same bias against Nonwhites that whites do. Cultural racism doesn't discriminate when it comes to who it ingrains itself in. I'd say Nonwhites tend to be more aware of it than whites, and have more incentive to try and take more steps to resist it, but they aren't free of it.
Melissia wrote:
Chongara wrote:you do hold bias against nonwhites.
Bullgak.
I hold a bias against peoples' ideologies, not their race. I'm bigoted against religious nutjobs and republican/conservative/backwards nutjobs and liberal/whiny/politically correct nutjobs and lazy nujobs who leech the system and so on and so forth. I'm biased against criminals and people who refuse to try to make amends for past wrongs, and try to escape justice or act like it doesn't matter. I'm biased against drug addicts, and sex addicts, and people who don't use protection and yet complain whenever the female in the couple gets pregnant or one or both of them get an STD. I'm biased against plenty of people, but it's for what's in their heads rather than for the color of their skin.
What's in their heads is more important and effects me personally, the color of their skin does not.
You may think this. I absolutely believe it genuinely seems this way to you.. You may never even ponder the concept of race or color, that doesn't mean you don't hold a bias. I'm not claiming every goes around thinking "Dear god, gotta put those darkies in their place", I'm saying when it comes to your gut reactions and the little judgments and decisions you make every day, without even consciously thinking about them are heavily influenced by race.
I was part of a "white" minority (that is to say, no race held over fifty percent of the populace) in a school primarily filled with hispanics and a sizable population of black asian students. Of the three places I went to work, two of them had primarily hispanic workers and the other one was primarily blacks (a local newspaper plant, oddly enough).
Frankly I've dealt with minorities more than I have white people outside of my extended family. And even then, there's plenty of minorities which don't depend on physical race either that get just as much discrimination. Many "races" are more culturally defined than physically anyway, such as people who are born to two black parents but have fair skin-- are they black, white, purple, gold, chocobo? That's even assuming you'd consider me white, as based off of my physical features (I don't know my lineage due to being adopted and not wanting to really go open up that history) I could very well have a strong hispanic heritage myself-- and what about people who are part white, part black? Part hispanic, part asian? I have a friend who was descended from a Japanese mother and a Chinese father, and is married to a black soldier. What would you consider their child, if they choose to have one? Would they be racist against everyone else too? Meh at your assumption.
All racists are people, but not all people are racists... the overly simplistic assumption that everyone is racist is just meh.
schadenfreude wrote:Student #1 is black. His father is a neurosurgeon and his mother is a lawyer.
Shows what you know of how college is funded. Unless this kid is getting a non-ethnic academic scholarship, such as Rhodes Scholar, I can guarantee you he isn't getting any scholarships or federal aid. The extreme low end of neurosurgeon pay is over $150,000 annually. Even if his mom is a crappy lawyer she is taking in a bit over $50,000. He isn't qualifying for anything. On the other hand his parents can afford to send him to school.
schadenfreude wrote:High rate of high school drop outs
Low rate of college grads
Too many single mothers
Too many men in prison
Root causes are a poverty cycle
I agree completely. And therefore note when Comrade claims that things (he doesn't say but I'm guessing he means college attendance and employment) should be based on ability, skill and capability, then he either has to claim that black people are less capable, skilled and able, or that the current system acts against them, as they are as skilled and capable as anyone else, but paid 75% as much. So, if we actually want to have positions decided on ability and skills we need to introduce systems that nullify those racist effects.
Yeah?
and the negative effects of the aa culture on their community.
Sbuh? Wouldn't any negative parts of that culture also be a product of the poverty cycle?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
dogma wrote:It depends on what "international" means in that context. Some US schools use it as a "miscellaneous" response when reporting racial heritage. If that's the case, then there's a good chance that the Asian/Pacific Islanders category is composed of many actual international students. There's also a large contingent of naturalized students at any given coastal state school. People that aren't considered international because they aren't on student visas.
Ah, yeah, that makes sense. Cheers.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
biccat wrote:But you suggested that his admission to Yale was based on white privilege, when the fact is that it had nothing to do with his race and everything to do with his family connections.
Connections that are overwhelmingly more common amongst... white people.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slarg232 wrote:I disagree about the allowances thing; they should both be covered the same, no matter the biase of the majority or the culture; otherwise it simply isn't truely teaching us what we need to know.
I don't mean we need to make allowances in history books, and teach things in any way other than what they are, I mean we need to make allowances in greater society. We need to accept that the majority population is going to gain benefits just from being the majority population, and in order to actually build a society with genuinely equal opportunities we need to make allowances for other groups.
Also they really need to start teaching more about those people then, because of those, I only ever heard about Harriet Tubman before now.
Going to have to google the rest of them, can't right now, baking cookies for work.
They're good stories, ripe for teaching in history class. The idea that black folk played a huge role in their own freedom is something a lot of folk are unaware of... probably a good reason to dump black history month - it doesn't seem to be doing what it should be doing.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
biccat wrote:
CT GAMER wrote:I know this thread won't be as fun if we don't yell "reverse racism" every five seconds and splash gasoline everywhere, but still...
What is this "reverse racism" you speak of? I wasn't aware that there could be such a thing as "reverse racism," since racism is belief in the superiority of one race over another, or I suppose more generally the idea that races are somehow unequal (intrinsic differences aside).
Except racism has more than one meaning. The meaning you give there is the most common in the mainstream, but hardly the only meaning.
But there's another meaning that is heavily used in academia, referring to how social structures have placed certain races higher than others. That is, white groups had considerable political and economic power to shape systems locally and internationally, and they've shaped systems that have seen them take more power. In this sense, reverse racism has a meaning, whenever a system is put in place that causes power to flow away from the majority and towards minorities it is reverse racism.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
biccat wrote:I still think it's racist, but I don't think there's anything legally that should be done about it. The issue is the double standard, why are "white only" scholarships seen as bad and "black only" are seen as good?
Because of the totally different situations facing the two ethnic groups. One is overwhelmingly represented in the top levels of government and business, the other is very rare.
Giving money to individuals in a group that is at the bottom is very different to giving money to individuals in a group that is typically at the top. One increases inclusin, one increases exclusion.
schadenfreude wrote:Student #1 is black. His father is a neurosurgeon and his mother is a lawyer.
Shows what you know of how college is funded. Unless this kid is getting a non-ethnic academic scholarship, such as Rhodes Scholar, I can guarantee you he isn't getting any scholarships or federal aid. The extreme low end of neurosurgeon pay is over $150,000 annually. Even if his mom is a crappy lawyer she is taking in a bit over $50,000. He isn't qualifying for anything. On the other hand his parents can afford to send him to school.
What are the federal regulations on privately funded scholarships?
His parents can afford to send him to school, but they are in no way legally required to. When I was in the military I knew quite a few guys from very affluent and religiously fanatic families who were completely estranged from their family by the age of 18 because they didn't drink their parents cool aid. Which brings me to this.
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I've always thought the "join the military" line was total bs. It gets me that completely rational, sane people can say that being trained to kill people is a reasonable solution to anything.
Newsflash: Most people who join the military don't volunteer to be infantry. I can't say I knew anybody when I was on a submarine who joined to kill people. Seeing as how just about everybody who works in nuclear power and commercial airline pilots have a military background by your logic just about every nuclear power plant operator and commercial airline pilot are irrational/insane people.
sebster wrote:Except racism has more than one meaning. The meaning you give there is the most common in the mainstream, but hardly the only meaning.
But there's another meaning that is heavily used in academia, referring to how social structures have placed certain races higher than others. That is, white groups had considerable political and economic power to shape systems locally and internationally, and they've shaped systems that have seen them take more power. In this sense, reverse racism has a meaning, whenever a system is put in place that causes power to flow away from the majority and towards minorities it is reverse racism.
So 'academia' (whatever that means) has redefined a term that has a well known and ordinary meaning, thereby obfuscating their works in the minds of the consuming public. Seems like a good gig if you can get it.
Sounds like "racism" has been redefined to mean "white racism." While I agree that there is such a thing as "reverse white racism," that's actually the same thing as what most people would call "racism." If the term has really been defined so that only white people can be racist, then obviously we need to look for another word other than "racism" to describe what is going on.
Would 'racial bigotry' be acceptable, or can only heterosexual white males be bigots now?
sebster wrote:So, if we actually want to have positions decided on ability and skills we need to introduce systems that nullify those racist effects.
I don't see how this supports one-race-only scholarships?
Because, you know, white people can't also be from a family that doesn't have college grads, with single mothers whose father is in prison, that dropped out of high school to support their family or just out of being rebellious I guess?
Target those who are in poverty by... targeting those who are in poverty. Not by targeting minorities in specific. Not all minority families have a legacy of poverty, not all families who have a legacy of poverty are minorities.
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I've always thought the "join the military" line was total bs. It gets me that completely rational, sane people can say that being trained to kill people is a reasonable solution to anything.
Newsflash: Most people who join the military don't volunteer to be infantry. I can't say I knew anybody when I was on a submarine who joined to kill people. Seeing as how just about everybody who works in nuclear power and commercial airline pilots have a military background by your logic just about every nuclear power plant operator and commercial airline pilot are irrational/insane people.
There are two mistakes in your post. Please take a moment to identify them.
All right, let's try this again.
1. I never said everyone volunteered to be infantry, said that they were merely trained to kill people.
2. I said that people saying joining the military purely for college credit wasn't reasonable. I never said anyone was insane.
schadenfreude wrote:
What are the federal regulations on privately funded scholarships?
His parents can afford to send him to school, but they are in no way legally required to. When I was in the military I knew quite a few guys from very affluent and religiously fanatic families who were completely estranged from their family by the age of 18 because they didn't drink their parents cool aid. Which brings me to this.
Most privately funded scholarships use either the FAFSA, or some in-house variation of it; meaning that a child that is estranged from their parents can effectively be regarded as having a family income of zero.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
biccat wrote:
So 'academia' (whatever that means) has redefined a term that has a well known and ordinary meaning, thereby obfuscating their works in the minds of the consuming public. Seems like a good gig if you can get it.
Wait, racism has a well known and ordinary meaning? Then why is the word so often used to describe the resentment of religious, political, and national groups?
Honestly, I've always found racism to have one of the single most disputed meanings in the English language, and that's before we even get into the academic conversation.
biccat wrote:
Sounds like "racism" has been redefined to mean "white racism." While I agree that there is such a thing as "reverse white racism," that's actually the same thing as what most people would call "racism." If the term has really been defined so that only white people can be racist, then obviously we need to look for another word other than "racism" to describe what is going on.
Would 'racial bigotry' be acceptable, or can only heterosexual white males be bigots now?
That's not quite what Sebster was talking about, though the definition you're using here also exists. There are large segments of scholarship on race and gender that claim racism as something that can only be perpetrated by white people or, more mildly, that it only ever has been perpetrated by white people.
Of course, those both come out of critical race theory, which takes as its mission the elevation of all races to equality, which means a lot of their work is nothing but rhetoric for intellectuals.
biccat wrote:So 'academia' (whatever that means) has redefined a term that has a well known and ordinary meaning, thereby obfuscating their works in the minds of the consuming public. Seems like a good gig if you can get it.
It was the original meaning of the term, actually, going back to the original studies into why white people had come to dominate the world.
The simpler definition came in as the subject entered the mainstream, as it came to look at the subject in terms of individual actions, not society as a whole.
Sounds like "racism" has been redefined to mean "white racism."
No, it's the simple acknowledgement that the system as a whole favours white people over other ethnicities.
Would 'racial bigotry' be acceptable, or can only heterosexual white males be bigots now?
You're deliberately misreading the point to make it into something you can more easily argue against. That's very lazy.
Everyone can be bigoted. The point is that the system as a whole, which matter a whole lot more than the actions of one person here or there, through a whole combination of reasons, works to favour certain races over others.
It is in that context that the term reverse racism has meaning. Do you understand now?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Melissia wrote:I don't see how this supports one-race-only scholarships?
Because, you know, white people can't also be from a family that doesn't have college grads, with single mothers whose father is in prison, that dropped out of high school to support their family or just out of being rebellious I guess?
Target those who are in poverty by... targeting those who are in poverty. Not by targeting minorities in specific. Not all minority families have a legacy of poverty, not all families who have a legacy of poverty are minorities.
This was my first post on the subject, "I'm a little iffy on scholarships for minorities, because the defence of them typically involves the recognition that black folk generally come from poorer economic situations, and so should be given assistance. I kind of think that the middleman should just be cut out and we should instead recognise the economic situation by itself."
So as you can see I agree with you. My issue here is with people trying to use scholarships for minorities to try and claim that there's actually a bias against white folk, when the scholarships are actually just a step towards addressing the actual systemic bias towards white people and against most minorites.
Shadowbrand wrote:Alas to be poor and white is terrible. I know this is a American based issue. But I will have a very hard time getting into a college.
Whereas if I had a drop of Native American blood in me. I wouldn't even have to sweat it. :(
Are you not graduating High School? Based on (an admittedly brief) search, it seems that based on your self stated location, there is an open admissions community college (college of new caledonia) and a public university (University of Northern BC) near you. UNBC, according to their website, offers admission to BC and Yukon High School grads with averages of at 65% in five Grade 12 classes. I don't' know much about Canadian high schools, but if you're not putting up D-Pluses in the US, you're college choices are limited, but that's more your own fault.
So, maybe I missed something, because it seems like there are several options for even borderline students close to you.
Generally speaking, FAFSA is more than enough for local state colleges here as well, but then Texas has in the past done a great job funding its public colleges (not so sure if they're going to continue what with the naff tea party crap going around though-- education is the first to go any time some republican gets a not so bright idea in their head about cutting the budget).
sebster wrote:You're deliberately misreading the point to make it into something you can more easily argue against. That's very lazy.
Wait, I'm the one who is "deliberately misreading the post?"
You're the one who proposed the idea that only white people can be racist. Therefore, the idea of a "non-whites only" scholarship can never be racist.
Using such a definition, you avoid the difficult moral question about whether we should treat all 'races' equally or whether certain people should have preferential treatment afforded to them solely based on the color of their skin.
BTW, the only site I found that described the history of racism as you suggest was a white supremacy website (which I'm reluctant to take at face value, even when discussing a historical account). Not that there aren't other sources out there, but I'd love to see some support for that.
sebster wrote:So as you can see I agree with you. My issue here is with people trying to use scholarships for minorities to try and claim that there's actually a bias against white folk, when the scholarships are actually just a step towards addressing the actual systemic bias towards white people and against most minorites.
biccat wrote:
Using such a definition, you avoid the difficult moral question about whether we should treat all 'races' equally or whether certain people should have preferential treatment afforded to them solely based on the color of their skin.
No, that's entirely false. Such a definition exists in order to answer that difficult moral question.
biccat wrote:
BTW, the only site I found that described the history of racism as you suggest was a white supremacy website (which I'm reluctant to take at face value, even when discussing a historical account). Not that there aren't other sources out there, but I'd love to see some support for that.
Search for critical race theory, or just poke around the abstracts in racial studies journals for ten minutes.
Frankly I've dealt with minorities more than I have white people outside of my extended family.
This really isn't relevant to what I'm talking about. I'm talking about much larger cultural forces, what we see in our media, who we see as our leaders, what we read in our history books, the actions of the others around us who have been collectively influenced by those things. Even when we challenge the ideas presented to us by these avenues and think about them critically they're still having an effect on more subtle reactions and subconscious parts of our decision making.
And even then, there's plenty of minorities which don't depend on physical race either that get just as much discrimination. Many "races" are more culturally defined than physically anyway, such as people who are born to two black parents but have fair skin-- are they black, white, purple, gold, chocobo?
They're nonwhite. If they are white-enough looking they might be able to "Pass" somewhat. Chances are they've been surrounded by people strongly affected by the biases in our culture, those people affect them, the way they interact with people is different had been influenced by people with different experiences, people pick up on that and will react differently to a certain extent.
That's even assuming you'd consider me white, as based off of my physical features (I don't know my lineage due to being adopted and not wanting to really go open up that history) I could very well have a strong hispanic heritage myself-- and what about people who are part white, part black? Part hispanic, part asian? I have a friend who was descended from a Japanese mother and a Chinese father, and is married to a black soldier. What would you consider their child, if they choose to have one? Would they be racist against everyone else too? Meh at your assumption.
I myself of am mixed descent. My father was white, my mother was black. I'm very fair-skinned, and have a mixture of facial features. My hair is distinctly grows into an afro, if left to do so.
I am nonwhite. I can "Pass" with a short hair cut. Do I actively catch the biases against me? Rarely. Do I actively catch the biases against the darker members of my family? Less Rarely. Do I actively catch the biases I hold? A little less rarely, but still pretty rarely.
I'm not talking about anything remotely close to the surface of interactions.
I'm talking about the kind of thing where if you had two people with the exact same qualifications and said the same things in the interview the white would seem "Friendlier" or "More Trustworthy", for some reason. The thought wouldn't be "Oh. He's white, white people are trustworthy", the exact same words and gestures would just get interpreted differently. Sometimes this gap in perception is big, sometimes it's small. However, it's often pivotal.
All racists are people, but not all people are racists... the overly simplistic assumption that everyone is racist is just meh.
All people are people. We can't think about every little decision we make, we'd be overwhelmed in an instant. In the same way we don't consciously calculate every single gram of force we need to shift across each muscle fiber to walk, we don't actively think about every little thing about people that is influencing how trustworthy we think they are, how smart we think they are, how attractive or how component we think they are. We pick up on a lot of signs on a signals on a subconscious level, race is one of them and one of the more powerful ones.
EDIT: I don't have links to any of the studies on stuff off-hand like this but searching around for terms like "Reflexive Racial Bias" or "Implicit Racism" or similar should turn up information. It's something that's shown to affect most people, regardless of their racial or class background. At least to a certain extent, if I recall correctly minorities were less biased against themselves in this regard, but still generally biased. At least among Americans anyway.
Chongara wrote:All people are people. We can't think about every little decision we make, we'd be overwhelmed in an instant. In the same way we don't consciously calculate every single gram of force we need to shift across each muscle fiber to walk, we don't actively think about every little thing about people that is influencing how trustworthy we think they are, how smart we think they are, how attractive or how component we think they are. We pick up on a lot of signs on a signals on a subconscious level, race is one of them and one of the more powerful ones.
What exactly are you basing this on? Everyone is a little bit racist and we don't even know it. So who knows it? How do they know it? Is it the theory infallable? Why is the racism only one-way?
In short - if I don't know that I'm racist because the signs are too subtle for me to pick up, how do you know that I'm racist.
Chongara wrote:All people are people. We can't think about every little decision we make, we'd be overwhelmed in an instant. In the same way we don't consciously calculate every single gram of force we need to shift across each muscle fiber to walk, we don't actively think about every little thing about people that is influencing how trustworthy we think they are, how smart we think they are, how attractive or how component we think they are. We pick up on a lot of signs on a signals on a subconscious level, race is one of them and one of the more powerful ones.
What exactly are you basing this on? Everyone is a little bit racist and we don't even know it. So who knows it? How do they know it? Is it the theory infallable? Why is the racism only one-way?
In short - if I don't know that I'm racist because the signs are too subtle for me to pick up, how do you know that I'm racist.
Basically you just get lots of data. Record the reactions people have to others in various situations, controlling for variables in the people they're interacting with and see how race bears out as a factor in their reactions. You can also look at how people with similar backgrounds have fared in similar situations, where the only major variable was race.. that's a bit less sound though.
Like I said, I don't have the studies off-hand but they shouldn't be too hard to find.
Chongara wrote:I'm talking about the kind of thing where if you had two people with the exact same qualifications and said the same things in the interview the white would seem "Friendlier" or "More Trustworthy", for some reason.
I wouldn't.
There are people who have inherent underlying racist beliefs. Then there are people who overcome them. The idea that noone can overcome them is frankly offensive to me.
Chongara wrote:I'm talking about the kind of thing where if you had two people with the exact same qualifications and said the same things in the interview the white would seem "Friendlier" or "More Trustworthy", for some reason.
I wouldn't.
There are people who have inherent underlying racist beliefs. Then there are people who overcome them. The idea that noone can overcome them is frankly offensive to me.
Why do you find it offensive? What I'm talking about here isn't people being horrible, ignorant or hateful. Just being human and subject to the same processes that help us cope with every other part of our extremely complex environment and behaviors. I think that being open to the possibility that my behaviors are influenced by factors I'm not always aware of (race or otherwise), helps me to stay vigilant in remaining critical of my own beliefs, opinions and ideas.
I mean sure, I'll concede it's perfectly possible that some people have completely transcended their cultural conditioning. There are a lot of people in the world. If you have, you're a better person than me. I'm just not sure it's a judgment that anyone is qualified to make about themselves.
Melissa wrote:Because the idea that one cannot improve oneself and become a better human being I find inherently offensive.
I don't believe that's what he's saying...if I get his point it's that there are basic underlying factors in many people that result in an unintentional "Knee Jerk" thought process.
I'm not even sure that's entirely true... I mean, society and culture are more similar to a mixture than a solution, to use chemistry nerd terms. For some parts of society this might be true... yet for another part it isn't necessarily true.
Melissia wrote:Because the idea that one cannot improve oneself and become a better human being I find inherently offensive.
Since you're a person that boasts of not caring if she is misinterpreted, and showing little interest in preventing offense in others, I'm not sympathetic to your plight.
He's not saying you can't improve yourself. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that it's impossible to overcome racial, ethnic, and cultural biases, but it would be extremely difficult, as their effects and manifestations can often be extremely subtle.
The broader point isn't that any one person has or doesn't have subconcious racially based reactions. It's that the vast majority of people do, and that has a tangible and disproportionate effect on minorities.
Melissia wrote:Because the idea that one cannot improve oneself and become a better human being I find inherently offensive.
I never claimed that one can't improve oneself and become a better person.
What I've claimed is that cultural conditioning is pervasive, subtle and powerful and that it is (overwhelmingly) unlikely that any of us have even come close to overcoming it entirely, or even mostly. We can still try and be better people and find ways to work around the challenges there are in doing so, but some of the challenges will likely always exist at least to a certain degree.
Melissa wrote:I'm not even sure that's entirely true... I mean, society and culture are more similar to a mixture than a solution, to use chemistry nerd terms. For some parts of society this might be true... yet for another part it isn't necessarily true.
I agree with that sentiment..however,I do believe that even the most open minded of individual is still capable of making "race based" assumptions..if you follow me,
It's not that they are "Racist",it's simply that certain "ideas" have become ingrained.
Melissia wrote:Because the idea that one cannot improve oneself and become a better human being I find inherently offensive.
Since you're a person that boasts of not caring if she is misinterpreted, and showing little interest in preventing offense in others
That's not true, I do quite a bit of work to make sure I don't offend people. The naughty evil things I'd post if I was completely uninhibited would probably cause me to get banned within about three seconds.
Chongara wrote:
Basically you just get lots of data. Record the reactions people have to others in various situations, controlling for variables in the people they're interacting with and see how race bears out as a factor in their reactions. You can also look at how people with similar backgrounds have fared in similar situations, where the only major variable was race.. that's a bit less sound though.
Like I said, I don't have the studies off-hand but they shouldn't be too hard to find.
Going beyond that there are studies that basically indicate people will always respond differently to differences that are perceived. So simply recognizing that a person is black will make you respond differently to someone that you recognize as white. Even on a logical level the response of classifying two different things in different categories entails a difference in response. This is usually thought to be evidence supporting the idea that racism exists by necessity because the conversation regarding it exists, which was also the reason that lots of early work on racism focused on eliminating it from the lexicon altogether.
Melissia wrote:Because the idea that one cannot improve oneself and become a better human being I find inherently offensive.
Since you're a person that boasts of not caring if she is misinterpreted, and showing little interest in preventing offense in others
That's not true, I do quite a bit of work to make sure I don't offend people. The naughty evil things I'd post if I was completely uninhibited would probably cause me to get banned within about three seconds.
Melissia wrote:I know, and I quite obviously consider that irrational and just don't care.
I think that deciding that the commonly accepted terminolgy is irrational, and not caring about it is mildly offensive to the people in a debate.
I sought out clarification on your point, tried to show you that perhaps you were misinformed, and you simply avoided the rest of the conversation. Chongara was making a fairly nuanced point, which you misinterpreted (probably willfully), and claimed to be offended by it. Sorry, but that's just drama. Not discussion.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
dogma wrote:Going beyond that there are studies that basically indicate people will always respond differently to differences that are perceived. So simply recognizing that a person is black will make you respond differently to someone that you recognize as white. Even on a logical level the response of classifying two different things in different categories entails a difference in response. This is usually thought to be evidence supporting the idea that racism exists by necessity because the conversation regarding it exists, which was also the reason that lots of early work on racism focused on eliminating it from the lexicon altogether.
It's true of nearly any phsycial charcteristic. Height, weight, looks, hair, etc. There is an immediate reaction to a persons physical appearance, which most people easily overcome by seeking out additional information. There is still an immediate, visceral reaction.
Polonius wrote:
It's true of nearly any phsycial charcteristic. Height, weight, looks, hair, etc. There is an immediate reaction to a persons physical appearance, which most people easily overcome by seeking out additional information. There is still an immediate, visceral reaction.
The really interesting question is whether or not that visceral reaction can be attributed to environmental causes and, if that's the case, if those causes can ever be completely controlled.
Polonius wrote:
It's true of nearly any phsycial charcteristic. Height, weight, looks, hair, etc. There is an immediate reaction to a persons physical appearance, which most people easily overcome by seeking out additional information. There is still an immediate, visceral reaction.
The really interesting question is whether or not that visceral reaction can be attributed to environmental causes and, if that's the case, if those causes can ever be completely controlled.
Probably not completely. There's ample evidence that individuals (both human and animal) will favor aiding a more genetically similar (usually by relation) individual, because that helps pass on at least some of the same genes. I know that genetically there isn't a big different between any given white person and black person, but our lizard brains don't know that.
I think that the genetic impulse is probably incredibly insignificant compared to environmental conditioning.
I don't believe that's what he's saying...if I get his point it's that there are basic underlying factors in many people that result in an unintentional "Knee Jerk" thought process.
For proof of this go read the Afghan Children thread...
I don't believe that's what he's saying...if I get his point it's that there are basic underlying factors in many people that result in an unintentional "Knee Jerk" thought process.
For proof of this go read the Afghan Children thread...
biccat wrote:Wait, I'm the one who is "deliberately misreading the post?"
Yes, and you're doing it again.
You're the one who proposed the idea that only white people can be racist. Therefore, the idea of a "non-whites only" scholarship can never be racist.
That's just gibberish, a completely nonsensical reading of the debate.
For starters, it's just plain factually incorrect on the most basic level. Meliisia complained about poor white kids not gettin scholarships while poor black kids were, CT Gamer responded that he knew of white kids getting scholarships to traditionally black schools and that claims of "reverse racism" were incediary. You responded with a complaint about "reverse racism" as you (mistakingly) understood the idea, at which point I came into that side discussion for the first time, to try to explain to you what "reverse racism" actually meant. I didn't propose the idea, I just tried to explain what it actually meant, and how your rant was based on a complete minsunderstanding of the concept.
Worse than that, though, is that despite me explaining the concept to you twice you're still claiming it somehow means that white people can't be racist. That isn't what it means, you can accept the ideas of racial power structures (and therefore the idea of "reverse racism") and still believe the very obvious fact that everyone can be racist. The point of the idea is that overall institutions matter more than anyone person, and those institutions tend to favour the majority racial groups.
Using such a definition, you avoid the difficult moral question about whether we should treat all 'races' equally or whether certain people should have preferential treatment afforded to them solely based on the color of their skin.
No, the point is to understand that racism exists, it is inevitable, and that the vast majority of it's tangible, material effects impact the minority populations more than the majority. Having system that simply ignore colour doesn't mean that everyone becomes equal. To meaningfully address institutional racism you need systems that see colour.
I don't even completely agree with the concepts, but at least I understand them. You are welcome to dismiss them entirely if you please, but before that you have to actually understand them.
BTW, the only site I found that described the history of racism as you suggest was a white supremacy website (which I'm reluctant to take at face value, even when discussing a historical account). Not that there aren't other sources out there, but I'd love to see some support for that.
WTF? It's not exactly an obscure element of thought... I could go home and unpack some boxes and get out textbooks if you insist...
Why can't it be both?
Because there isn't a systemic bias against white people. They earn considerably more than other races except Asians, and are highly over-represented in the top tiers of business and government, relative to their proportion of the population.
This is the point. I don't particularly like the idea of colour bases scholarships, but to use that one small thing to try and claim that it's actually white people that are disadvantaged by the systems in the US is absurd.
...Huh?...Please forgive me,but I'm having a bit of difficulty trying to determine exactly what it is your trying to say here..
fficial&client=firefox-a