(December 16, 2018 at 2:59 pm)tackattack Wrote: Jor I do understand the theory behind affirmative action. I agree with equal opportunities and diversity of opinion. What I don’t agree with is forced, unmerited equality. I feel that is just another form of unhealthy discrimination. Feel free to correct any of my ignorance in bullet format if you like.

Then please fill me in on what your objection to it is, because so far you haven't done so. It isn't forced, unmerited equality. That is not the goal of affirmative action. Affirmative action aims to stop the cycle of inequality that results from prior discrimination. Apparently you have a problem with that. What it is, I don't know.

Quote:A majority of whites say discrimination against them exists in America today, according to a poll released Tuesday from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

"If you apply for a job, they seem to give the blacks the first crack at it," said 68-year-old Tim Hershman of Akron, Ohio, "and, basically, you know, if you want any help from the government, if you're white, you don't get it. If you're black, you get it."

More than half of whites — 55 percent — surveyed say that, generally speaking, they believe there is discrimination against white people in America today. Hershman's view is similar to what was heard on the campaign trail at Trump rally after Trump rally. Donald Trump catered to white grievance during the 2016 presidential campaign and has done so as president as well.

Notable, however, is that while a majority of whites in the poll say discrimination against them exists, a much smaller percentage say that they have actually experienced it. Also important to note is that 84 percent of whites believe discrimination exists against racial and ethnic minorities in America today.

People from every racial or ethnic group surveyed said they believe theirs faces discrimination — from African-Americans and Latinos to Native Americans and Asian-Americans, as well as whites.

Majority Of White Americans Say They Believe Whites Face Discrimination

(December 16, 2018 at 11:18 am)Grandizer Wrote:

(December 16, 2018 at 2:37 am)bennyboy Wrote: Any political world view (read: PC identity politics) that insists on using race as a metric is explicitly racist, and is in the wrong.

Not if it's using that metric in an attempt to minimize/reverse the effects of racism. Based on my personal experience IRL, people who say the sort of stuff you say tend to be racists but don't want to admit to themselves that they are, so they resort to this rationalizing nonsense to make themselves feel better and because they're under the delusion that if they say stuff like this no one could reasonably accuse them of being racist (and thereby feel they can get away with this "subtle" approach to bigotry).

This is the PC narrative: if you say you do not want ANY racism at all, you are obviously a racist.  Should we encourage women to rape men more, in order to "minimize/reverse the effects of rape"?  No, because rape is wrong.  It should be minimized as much as possible.

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(December 16, 2018 at 3:05 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: Then please fill me in on what your objection to it is, because so far you haven't done so.  It isn't forced, unmerited equality.  That is not the goal of affirmative action.  Affirmative action aims to stop the cycle of inequality that results from prior discrimination.  Apparently you have a problem with that.  What it is, I don't know.

Affirmative action, if it actually upholds that goal, is fine. But why apply it based on racial identity? Why not socioeconomic need? Technically, if a school accepts Obama's kids with low grades, it is achieving affirmative action based on race. What it is not doing is solving the problem of black poverty.

My solution is this-- establish higher education as a right for all citizens, and provide assistance based on socioeconomic need from cradle right up to the Harvard application. The Obamas don't have a problem, and don't need to be included in affirmative action plans-- but both Shaniqua from the 'hood and Bubba from the bayou should get all the help they need, pretty much from birth.

As for racist acceptance policies, in both work and in school, I'd support global rules to remove arbitration from the process as much as possible. For example, the grades and entrance exams of all accepted students should be made public, and should be associated with numerical IDs rather than names or pictures.

As for the bolded-- you sure about that? Is it not true that in order to fulfill race quotas, schools will reject Asian students with better grades? Is not the fact that they've studied 8 hours a day outside school since kindergarten of at least equivalent value to a genetic increase in melanin in the skin?

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https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/14/world...index.html

If the thread isn't totally derailed already, here's an interesting issue in Canada, involving a struggle between atheist parents and a school board, which the atheists won.

The school board, in response to complaints by the parents about "decorating elves," suggested adding Hannukah and other traditions, but the parents insisted that they objected to ANY religious iconography is the schools.

So this is not really just an issue of hurt feelings-- it is a real battleground issue, which limits even the teaching of religious traditions for educational purposes.

Did you forget the link I posted in the Peterson thread to a study that showed race-based affirmative action was necessary to address racial inequalities in certain contexts? You even kudos'd that post, lol

(December 16, 2018 at 8:57 pm)Grandizer Wrote: Did you forget the link I posted in the Peterson thread to a study that showed race-based affirmative action was necessary to address racial inequalities in certain contexts? You even kudos'd that post, lol

Yeah, I had forgotten that.  I'll go check it out again.

-edit-
Okay, I remember it now.  

I gave you kudos for providing that paper, which was the best attempt we've seen so far to find numerical support for affirmative action.  The long and short is that if the goal of the program is racial diversity, ideally one where college makeup matches that of the general population, then SES-based A.A. doesn't arrive at that goal.

I found it strange because it was published by ETS, which is strange because they are the makers / administrators of the TOEFL test of English.  They make HUGE money in Asia, as their test is used to establish English proficiency scores for universities, English-speaking elite private high-schools, and so on.  Behind every international student at MIT filling a spot at MIT or in Harvard, there are probably a half-dozen ETS-administered tests.  Ironic!

Also ironic are the following lines from that paper:

Quote:These dimensions may include not only race or SES, but also academic interests, extracurricular talents, geography, and other
factors. For example, colleges may want to boost enrollment in an undersubscribed major or program or find talented players for their sports teams.

I sniff some serious implications  here-- because it's possible that it won't even be the best-achieving black students who are accepted, but the best running-backs for a sports team. What a win for the institution-- you get to fill your quota, and justify the presence of an academically weak athlete on the basis of "urban difficulties" or whatever. More power to the kids who get accepted on that basis, but it's unlikely to do much to change the position of black Americans overall.


There's a lot of nastiness behind the failure of SES policies-- but it's not all implied racism, which is why I've said that SES affirmative action needs to be from the cradle to the Harvard application.  It's not just enough to have policies at the college level to turn away Asian applicants and accept black ones instead-- that's racist, and serves as an impediment to those who end up being rejected to THEIR pursuit of opportunity and eventual happiness. I really feel that an academic institution should use grades and test scores as their main criteria for acceptance.

I've been somewhat more irritable than normal lately, possibly due to a cold. Rather than make enemies I don't want to make, I'm bowing out of this discussion until I'm feeling more confident of my tone.

(December 17, 2018 at 11:35 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: I've been somewhat more irritable than normal lately, possibly due to a cold.  Rather than make enemies I don't want to make, I'm bowing out of this discussion until I'm feeling more confident of my tone.

I admire your restraint-- it's something I'm trying to develop as well, and will probably be a resolution next year.  In this case, if you're talking about me, I know that you and a couple others have strong feelings about the issue.  I'll give you open season for a couple posts if you want to tell me what's on your mind-- no offense taken.

Quote:. What I don’t agree with is forced, unmerited equality.

Which isn't affirmative action 

(December 18, 2018 at 4:17 am)Amarok Wrote:

Quote:. What I don’t agree with is forced, unmerited equality.

Which isn't affirmative action 

Establishing merit is very difficult indeed.

For example, who deserves more merit-- the one of thousands of Asian middle-class kids who study 8 hours a day, or the relatively small percentage of poor kids who manage to get good grades and get (reasonably) competitive test scores, who probably wouldn't have had time to study that much due to harder circumstances?

That's part of the problem, though-- without a good definition of the merits which deserve acceptance, schools will twist that definition to their own needs.  My guess is most schools will take a couple of token black academic students, most likely rich ones like the Obama kids, and a bunch of black athletes, and pat themselves on the back condescendingly for being such good sports. The rest will probably fall through the cracks due to poor SAT scores.

To me real affirmative action starts at about age 3 and goes up to about age 10, when more than half of adult intelligence is in place. After that, I think it's probably a cultural issue-- falloff in academic interest due to a general disrespect toward learning in poorer communities. "I think we got ourselves a BOOK READER!" *kid gets pushed in a mud puddle because of sweater vest and bowtie*

This is all rubbish sorry benny but the cult of Anti SJW's benedictions don't work on the immune

Benny is explaining it far better than I have. I'm fine with the goals and ideals of stated affirmative action. The problem lies in RL practical application. Schools, Business, and people twist the definition of merit to their own. A school gets sponsorship from sports so it behaves them to have good sports members. Should this increase the weight of a players application? Well they're being self-seeking but that's not necessarily bad and I'm actually OK with this kind of wiggle room. The problem in this is that if 2 equally skillful players are differing races, why would the minority skin tone have more value?

Case in point, I've been a part of the hiring process at some places I worked. When the boss hands you a stack in a specific order, then tells you to just make sure the top 3 are good enough but interview everyone, then that's discrimination, not equal opportunity or affirmative action. Affirmative action breaks in practice because if you don't have proper definitions and limits in place, you're just combating discrimination with discrimination with discrimination, intolerance with intolerance, bigotry with bigotry.

Race, culture, sex alone shouldn't be determining factors because their merit (while adding to diversity of types of people) doesn't actually add diversity to opinion and skillsets, which I believe is the goal.