(December 27, 2018 at 2:13 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(December 27, 2018 at 10:03 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: I agree.  Benny, you're a dick.  3 out of 5 TV doctors agree.

No doubt.  That's why my wife ran away and my dog divorced me.  I feel the same about you.  <3

The obvious stated and replied to, then why don't you say what particular methods YOU would enact to make things more fair?  By what specific criteria would YOU tell one student he's narrowly missed his dream, and another that he's got a path to his dream because of melanin?

I'm officially staying out of it. But you knew that already. So why ask?

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(December 27, 2018 at 3:30 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(December 27, 2018 at 11:39 am)Grandizer Wrote: Still dismissing the reality of systemic discrimination, I see.

Anyway, who assigned you as the authority on these matters? You act like you know more than the people who have been devoting their lives to working on solutions to these problems.

Cherry-picking posts to support your prejudices toward me is bad manners.  I've explicitly agreed that there's real race-based discrimination.

As for authority-- this is a forum thread, and this is the direction it has gone.  We are here to share ideas-- of which, given how important you seem to think the subject is, you've had a pretty profound lack.

I could list (and have) at least half a dozen strategies for addressing the clusterfuck of stats that are weighted against the black demographic, while not requiring racial profiling as an essential mechanism.  And this is the biggest danger of racial profiling at the point of entry (say into Harvard)-- it's a piss-poor substitute for the very important programs and incentives which would be required to make a general change in real achievement levels which would actually wipe out those biases.  What the US needs is to be pumping out young black Einsteins, not to ignore a kid for 17 years and then shoo him into Harvard on a race-based balancing policy.

Do you think prospective employers are saying, "Well, gee golly, a Harvard degree.  We'd be lucky to have this guy!" or are they thinking, "Hmmmm. . . how can we get our hands on this guy's SAT scores to see if he was shooed in on a balancing policy?"  Or. . . more likely. . . they've just going to steer clear because they don't know if the guy's credentials match real academic ability?

Sure, you'll cry racism again, and you won't be wrong.  But policies that are based on racial profiling are going to compound the effect, because real achievements, when they are made, will be clouded by doubts about their legitimacy, and that should be painfully and immediately obvious to anyone who has a brain-- "authority" or not.

While I don't know specifically which programs or strategies you're talking about, nor that the goal is black Einsteins, if education and policies aimed at addressing things like black poverty are on that list, then affirmative action is a much more cost effective strategy toward achieving equality in our society. The other methods work, but cost so much money that the cost is almost prohibitive. In addition, affirmative action is an effective and cheap method of getting there. Maybe cost shouldn't be the only consideration, but it certainly needs to be among the considerations in choosing how to address racial inequity. If you are thinking of methods that are both as effective as affirmative action and as cost effective, then I haven't seen you mention them. Matter of fact, I don't recall any alternatives being offered by you. What alternatives do you have in mind?

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(December 27, 2018 at 3:37 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(December 27, 2018 at 3:24 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Since affirmative action doesn't do this, it seems like a silly thing to wonder about.  While Whitey fears reverse racism...as is the case with so many other fears like it, it's unfounded.  Between equally qualified candidates, in education or on the job...the white guy gets it the crushing majority of the time.  Affirmative action policies are the only thing that gets either category even close to representative of our demographics.  Since that's the issue that affirmative action policies are enacted to remedy, it seems like they're a swell solution to that problem.  This entire line of questioning is a tiresome exercise in sticking your head in the sand.

What it does is devalue the real achievements of actual black academics, by giving "also ran" trophies to students who are accepted on the basis of skin color despite lower grades or entrance exam scores.  Harvard attendance by black students up?  Great!  Problem solved, right?  Except it's not, because employers (quite rightly) know that the academic requirements for entrance were likely skewed, and they will have a very hard time sorting out the truly academic gifted from the shoo-ins.  Racial profiling will ironically have the effect of making a black Harvard degree seen as less valuable than a white one.

How does one measure "devalu[ing] the real achievements?" What metric are you using here, and what evidence do you have that this is an actual effect being felt in society? To quote the oft repeated phrase, "citation needed." I will also point out that, whatever effect it has on the perception of the affirmative action recipient, which may be negligible, that perception and effect will not likely carry over to the children of the affirmative action recipient. However, the benefits of affirmative action will carry over to the children. And that is a key part of the utility of affirmative action, and something that I haven't seen you address, except in the breach by noting that the carry over between generations resulting from black poverty is formidable. As a recent article noted, the most gifted among the poor graduate at a lower rate than the least gifted of the rich. All things being equal, it is better to be the child of well off parents than simply having talent. It seems you've been making the case for affirmative action, rather than against it, because you've been largely ignoring the generational effects.

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I'll also point out that a parallel problem occurs in industry and politics. Women are under-represented on corporate boards and in certain industries, and also among the Republican party in terms of elected Republican officials. What exactly is your remedy for Republicans? Suck it up? Ignore the problem because promoting female politicians would in some way lead to a devaluing of women politicians? Male Republicans should wear dresses? A massive re-education campaign for Republican voters should be undertaken, complete with re-education camps ringed with barbed wire and Russian style Gulags? What is your answer to them, benny? And how are you going to address the disparity in female participation at high levels of corporate leadership? Or are you just content to see things stay as they are?

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I'll also note that this "from the cradle" approach that you seem to be vaguely advocating would have to start with subsidizing poor mothers because racial inequality starts in the womb with fetal development. Yet this is precisely what society, read: racists, don't want to do. How exactly are you going to get this from the cradle approach off the ground, what does it look like, how is it going to work, and how are you going to convince people who are opposed to it (conservatives, sexists, and racists) to support it?

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(December 27, 2018 at 4:18 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(December 27, 2018 at 3:49 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Affirmative action is not an "also ran" trophy.  You really...really.......... need to scrub that shit right out of your mouth and mind, lol.  It's not only wrong, it's the propaganda of a bunch of sheet wearing sister fuckers, lol.

On what basis are black kids getting accepted to Harvard, when their school grades and SAT scores are an order of magnitude lower than those of Asian kids?  See, my view is that a university is an academic institution, and that applications should be accepted based on their academic achievements and potential.

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(December 27, 2018 at 5:07 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I can think of a dozen way in which such graduates might attack the statistical clusterfuck I was talking about, and if there's a statistical shift in any of those stats due to affirmative action, then I'll (a) be happy to hear it; (b) be proven wrong.
-Graduates from prestigious law schools (like Harvard) could return to poor communities to do pro bono, and could keep those dads out of jail
-Med school graduates could canvas for donations for drug-treatment facilities
-Programmers could train teams of teachers in the basics of robotics programming, and for a couple million dollars, you could have many thousands of kids with the required resources

None of these address the problem of prenatal inequality which I mentioned above. What graduates of prestigious schools do with their degrees is not something you can mandate. It would be great if all billionaires gave 10% of their wealth to charity, but suggesting it as a social policy, besides being unlikely to be adopted, would be stupid. The same with what med school graduates could do. The only viable suggestion here is sending teachers out into poor communities. The problem is that we're already doing that and it isn't working. Because of racism and segregation's lingering effects, the rich white kids get the good teachers and the money, and the poor black kids like those in Detroit get the shaft. So none of your suggestions are worth anything.

Got anymore bright ideas?

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(December 27, 2018 at 5:25 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(December 27, 2018 at 5:19 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: -and again with the white grievance.  That you can't distinguish the therapy from the cancer is a you problem. That's it, that's all...there's really nothing else to this.  You're wrong, and determined to remain so.  Affirmative action doesn't exist to hold the white man down..and it doesn't hold the white man down.

You keep saying this, in argument to who, exactly?  The straw man you keep putting up for me?

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(December 27, 2018 at 5:19 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: .............but that's your privilege showing, again.

My mom grew up on a native reserve (I'm 1/8 Penobscot or maybe 1/4 depending on who you ask) when she was small, and then lived in a farming community with my grandmother.  I was epileptic, and my medicine made me so stoned that I never really had a real friend until I was about 8.  I was passed around from grandparent to uncle to grandparent when i wasn't with her, and went a fair number of days with only one meal (usually Ichiban noodles) when I was with her.  I spent (as I've mentioned before) a couple years on the street full-time, and on-and-off it for a few more.  I'll spare you the list of things that happened to me during that time, but I can assure you that it wasn't an advantageous situation for a young person.

But yep, I have a noticeable melanin deficiency.  Tell me all about my privilege, asshole.

Is this the "black people can't be racist" argument, because, a) it doesn't work, and b) it's stupid, and c) it's at best anecdotal, and d) yeah, it is really stupid.

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(December 27, 2018 at 11:24 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(December 27, 2018 at 9:35 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Aw, poor racist is super hurt that he's being ridiculed for his racist positions.   I suppose you ought to be able to realize how hurtful those racist positions are, then, and how they cause others to feel?

Naaaaah, just fucking with you, I know that you're just bitching.  Carry on.

Yeah, I'm sure that my attempts to discuss daycare, preschool and prison release programs along with the importance of encouraging real achievements right from the start are heartbreaking to all those negatively affected by those ideas.  I'm sure my position that if America doesn't get its shit together, and if the next black Einstein is left on the street corner due to a lack of opportunity, America will be fucked-- that's pretty hurtful, too, right?

I know your attempts to pigeonhole me as an alt-right KKK sympathizer make your smugness a little more gratifying.  And I know from experience that you'll just keep cranking out the insults.  But smugness isn't going to help your grandkids much when they're learning Chinese.

The only thing you're succeeding in doing is showing that you're all the dick that Gae has said you are.

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(December 28, 2018 at 1:14 am)bennyboy Wrote: I was practically a bride of Obama.  I thought-- here we are.  We've got a black president in the US, the Dems have total control.  The people are fully mobilized and feeling inspired.  He's going to put everyone to work, he's going to rectify problems with sentencing, he's going to get pot legalized, he's going to bring the country together.

Now, I feel that was America's last chance.  I'll bet $100 Trump wins re-election by starting a war last-minute, and spend the next 4 years working out how to melt all the ice caps and start Armageddon.

I still don't like identity politics, though.

Studies show that Trump's victory owes itself largely to race based and sex based prejudices. What exactly was it you were going to do to fix things again?

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(December 28, 2018 at 5:49 am)bennyboy Wrote: Identity politics as a way of identifying victim groups and restoring them to equality is the wrong path, in my opinion.  I just don't think things should ever be framed in that way.  But identity politics as a way of targeting and deliberately holding back a demographic leads to gas ovens and bodies swaying from branches.  I think both are potential dangers to a stable society based on liberty and equality of opportunity-- but the latter is explicitly evil, much more immediately dangerous, and is a clear violation of the principles of the US constitution, right from the opening declaration.

Congratulations on your Godwin.

(December 28, 2018 at 6:55 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: While I don't know specifically which programs or strategies you're talking about, nor that the goal is black Einsteins, if education and policies aimed at addressing things like black poverty are on that list, then affirmative action is a much more cost effective strategy toward achieving equality in our society.  The other methods work, but cost so much money that the cost is almost prohibitive.  In addition, affirmative action is an effective and cheap method of getting there.  Maybe cost shouldn't be the only consideration, but it certainly needs to be among the considerations in choosing how to address racial inequity.  If you are thinking of methods that are both as effective as affirmative action and as cost effective, then I haven't seen you mention them.  Matter of fact, I don't recall any alternatives being offered by you.  What alternatives do you have in mind?

My plan, as I've outlined it in the previous thread about race/racism, is to focus on productivity. I'd start with prison release programs, with strong incentives for staying clean during probation, low interest loans for entrepreneurship in depressed areas, and so on. The way I figure it, if you can save taxpayer money on a man's incarceration, you can put some of that back into the community.

I actually benefit from a program here which allows me to borrow low-interest loans because we generate a lot of jobs in the community. Sometimes, I almost feel we work for the local government more than we work for our own financial prosperity. But those tens of thousands of dollars per year turn into jobs that pay out that much per month to local workers.

The biggest problem as I see it is hoarding. America's GDP is staggering-- enough for sure to allow for a decent quality of life for all, and still allow the richest to be much richer than any person needs to be. When resources are tight, someone's going to be at the top of the dogpile and someone's going to be at the bottom.

Quote:How does one measure "devalu[ing] the real achievements?"  What metric are you using here, and what evidence do you have that this is an actual effect being felt in society?  To quote the oft repeated phrase, "citation needed."  I will also point out that, whatever effect it has on the perception of the affirmative action recipient, which may be negligible, that perception and effect will not likely carry over to the children of the affirmative action recipient.  However, the benefits of affirmative action will carry over to the children.  And that is a key part of the utility of affirmative action, and something that I haven't seen you address, except in the breach by noting that the carry over between generations resulting from black poverty is formidable.  As a recent article noted, the most gifted among the poor graduate at a lower rate than the least gifted of the rich.  All things being equal, it is better to be the child of well off parents than simply having talent.   It seems you've been making the case for affirmative action, rather than against it, because you've been largely ignoring the generational effects.

If you measure the mean income in black families, then as successful black graduates branch off and establish themselves, those numbers will look better. But the source communities are likely to stay broken. Changing the racial constituency of power is one thing, but changing class immobility overall is another.

Quote:I'll also point out that a parallel problem occurs in industry and politics.  Women are under-represented on corporate boards and in certain industries, and also among the Republican party in terms of elected Republican officials.  What exactly is your remedy for Republicans?  Suck it up?  Ignore the problem because promoting female politicians would in some way lead to a devaluing of women politicians?  Male Republicans should wear dresses?  A massive re-education campaign for Republican voters should be undertaken, complete with re-education camps ringed with barbed wire and Russian style Gulags?  What is your answer to them, benny?  And how are you going to address the disparity in female participation at high levels of corporate leadership?  Or are you just content to see things stay as they are?

I can talk with some competence on the corporate life, at least in Asia. It's essentially an exchange of soul for money, to a degree that no healthy mother could do at least until her kids leave the house. Yeah, there are a lot of BMWs driving around, but they're driving to work at 6:00am, and back home around 11:00am-- if, that is, a superior doesn't make them stay out drinking soju until 2:00. To be very blunt about it, I'd say the only way a woman can manage to get into upper management in Korea is either to forgo a family, or nepotism.

My answer to the Republicans is to couch everything in nationalist/populist terms. Releasing black prisoners isn't a PC gift, it's a clever economic move meant to get them off their asses and raise the almighty GDP. Environmental jobs programs come from the military defense budget-- we are going to choke out the Middle East by rendering their only product useless.

Women in politics is easy-- just wait about two elections, and see how many female, gay, trans, latino, black voters etc. are elected. Either Trump makes a power move right here, right now, or I think it's likely that the dreaded brown wave is going to completely capsize Republican politics in the next 20 years.

As for the wall-- fuck that, people are a valuable resource. I'd follow Rome's example-- you love the country so much, here's a pair of boots and a rifle. You do your tour, you get to stay. Your kid does his, and he comes home to a parade and a passport.

(Keep in mind, I'm saying how I would couch these issues if I were a Republican, which I'm not)

Quote:I'll also note that this "from the cradle" approach that you seem to be vaguely advocating would have to start with subsidizing poor mothers because racial inequality starts in the womb with fetal development.  Yet this is precisely what society, read: racists, don't want to do.  How exactly are you going to get this from the cradle approach off the ground, what does it look like, how is it going to work, and how are you going to convince people who are opposed to it (conservatives, sexists, and racists) to support it?

Don't make it handouts. Make support contingent on a contract. In exchange for financial aid, a woman is expected to fulfill a set list of duties, as the caretaker of a future soldier/academic/laborer of the state. In essence, she become an employee of the state. In exchange for fulfilling these duties, she must be rewarded and honored. This is an important way in which she as a citizen can contribute the the strength of the state. You have a big mother's day parade once a year, wave flags, and chant her praises.

You can see where I'm going with this-- crank up the entire production line on all levels, and use it to expand or maintain American influence around the world-- pretty much everything but the ovens, yeah?

Quote:

(December 27, 2018 at 4:18 pm)bennyboy Wrote: On what basis are black kids getting accepted to Harvard, when their school grades and SAT scores are an order of magnitude lower than those of Asian kids?  See, my view is that a university is an academic institution, and that applications should be accepted based on their academic achievements and potential.

(scroll about 1/3 of the way down)
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/...at-scores/

The average Asian applicant scored a fair bit better than accepted African-American students.

-and yet...some random cracker with a trust fund got the spot instead. As has already been pointed out to you multiple times, this is a case example of pro-white racial bias...not a failure of affirmative action. That racists want to leverage an honorary white as a wedge to delegitimize affirmative action....and that you've swallowed their propaganda to that effect hook, line, and sinker..is..again, a you problem.

We don't do handouts in america, the lazy taker song and dance is wrong again. Take a look at the contractual requirements of government support or benefits sometime...and how often our government finds itself in breach and trying to evade the terms, lol. Or..even worse, intentionally crafting predatory and abusive contractual obligations.

I'll respond to your post later, if at all, but off the top I'll note two things. First, you didn't provide citations for all the claims that they were requested for. And second, you claimed that Asian test scores were an order of magnitude better than that of black affirmative action recipients, not that it is only a fair bit better than those recipients. So, first of all, you've moved the goalposts. And second, it's not clear that the facts in the Harvard case are a consequence of an explicit or even implicit program of affirmative action. More troubling is the fact that African-American acceptance rates being high is not necessarily related to the average SAT score of African-American applicants as a whole, so your citation doesn't even show us what you apparently think it does. The question is whether affirmative action recipients at Harvard have substantially lower scores than Asian acceptees, not whether the average applicant of Asian descent has a higher SAT score than the average applicant of African-American descent. It would appear that, at first blush, you have some reading comprehension issues.

So in the span of two posts, you've dishonestly and disingenuously challenged me to respond to your questions when you already knew that I had an interest in, and reasons for not responding. Then we get this scatter shot response which, from my skimming, seems to cherry pick what it responds to, moves the goalposts, doesn't answer relevant questions posed (the lacking citation), and provides a citation which doesn't show what you seem to be claiming it shows.

Needless to say that I'm far from impressed. I may go back and read your response, and, having read it, I may respond to your arguments, though if I do, that will come later. Probably after I'm done flossing my toes and picking lint out of my belly button, or whatever other higher priority tasks are on my busy schedule.

Asian-Americans are culturally conditioned to do well in these tests compared to other racial groups, and yet it's white students that get admitted in their stead.

Think of it this way. White students do better than black students at SAT/ACT because these tests are tailored to the norm that happens to be white male students, but despite this, Asian students do better than white students because Asian students are very well-prepared from kindergarten years to do well on these tests in spite of a lack of racial privilege. Putting aside systemic discrimination and white privilege, there is no solid basis to suggest that white students should do better at these tests (on average) than black students. Asian students doing so well on these tests should be seen as some sort of anomaly, and not as a disproof of white privilege or systemic discrimination when it comes to college admission tests. Hispanic students, Native American students, and students from other minority racial groups don't score as well as white students after all.

See this:
http://theconversation.com/test-prep-is-...ans-107244

(December 28, 2018 at 8:51 am)Gae Bolga Wrote: -and yet...some random cracker with a trust fund got the spot instead.  As has already been pointed out to you multiple times, this is a case example of pro-white racial bias...not a failure of affirmative action.  That racists want to leverage an honorary white as a wedge to delegitimize affirmative action....and that you've swallowed their propaganda to that effect hook, line, and sinker..is..again, a you problem.

We don't do handouts in america, the lazy taker song and dance is wrong again.  Take a look at the contractual requirements of government support or benefits sometime...and how often our government finds itself in breach and trying to evade the terms, lol.  Or..even worse, intentionally crafting predatory and abusive contractual obligations.

"Legacy."  Yep, that's a problem.

Uncle Moneybags expects a return on his donation investment, what can ya do...right? 

(December 28, 2018 at 12:29 pm)Grandizer Wrote: Asian-Americans are culturally conditioned to do well in these tests compared to other racial groups, and yet it's white students that get admitted in their stead.

Think of it this way. White students do better than black students at SAT/ACT because these tests are tailored to the norm that happens to be white male students, but despite this, Asian students do better than white students because Asian students are very well-prepared from kindergarten years to do well on these tests in spite of a lack of racial privilege. Putting aside systemic discrimination and white privilege, there is no solid basis to suggest that white students should do better at these tests (on average) than black students. Asian students doing so well on these tests should be seen as some sort of anomaly, and not as a disproof of white privilege or systemic discrimination when it comes to college admission tests. Hispanic students, Native American students, and students from other minority racial groups don't score as well as white students after all.

See this:
http://theconversation.com/test-prep-is-...ans-107244

One solution would be to limit the timeframe.  For example, post a massive text two days before the test-- like a thousand pages long-- and then test comprehension on sequentially finer points to see how much the student was able to assimilate in a short time.

"There is no solid basis. . . " Well, white kids do in fact do better than black ones.  I asked you before to look at some specific questions from entrance tests.  They seemed culturally neutral, except for one factor-- they would require a high reading level.  Specific test-preparation aside (I accept that as a claim against Asian scores, and also as proof that the concept of the IQ test is broken).

I've actually been on the down side of this kind of preparation.  In Canada, I had an IQ of either 147 or 165 depending on tests-- though I'd say due to aging I'd be lucky to ever hit 140 any more.  I tried out for Mensa, and in order to remove "cultural bias," they had a test with nothing but goddamned picture puzzles.  You know the ones: "which image comes next in this series."  It was literally me and 300 Korea college kids.  Out of the allotted time, it took me about 1 minute to go through the booklet, get some sense of what the differences in the patterns looked like, and ascertain that there would be no verbal or other kinds of question at all.  By the time I'd acquainted myself with the booklet, about 25% of them had finished.  Let's just say I'm going to have to try again.

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(December 28, 2018 at 2:09 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Uncle Moneybags expects a return on his donation investment, what can ya do...right? 

If only there were some way NOT to let abstract or arbitrary decision-making into the process.  That's the thing-- schools "get to" use race to shoo in a few black kids, but in their holistic approach, I'm pretty sure they also "get to" determine and apply donations or family history at the school, but with a more flattering word than nepotism-- maybe a "celebration of the ongoing legacy of Harvard in American families" or some shit.

It's not arbitrary in the least, benjamins can..and indeed are, counted. Nobody is "shoeing in" black kids..how many times do you have to be told this? That's the white supremacist myth of affirmative action..not the reality.

(December 28, 2018 at 10:59 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: I'll respond to your post later, if at all, but off the top I'll note two things.  First, you didn't provide citations for all the claims that they were requested for.  And second, you claimed that Asian test scores were an order of magnitude better than that of black affirmative action recipients, not that it is only a fair bit better than those recipients.  So, first of all, you've moved the goalposts.

Unless you really think I was saying Asian scores are 10x better than those of black students, then it should have been pretty clear that I was just emphasizing that the scores are very different. If your kid said, "OMG I have a million pages of homework!" would you accuse them of lying?

Quote:And second, it's not clear that the facts in the Harvard case are a consequence of an explicit or even implicit program of affirmative action.  More troubling is the fact that African-American acceptance rates being high is not necessarily related to the average SAT score of African-American applicants as a whole, so your citation doesn't even show us what you apparently think it does.  The question is whether affirmative action recipients at Harvard have substantially lower scores than Asian acceptees, not whether the average[b] applicant of Asian descent has a higher SAT score than the [b]average applicant of African-American descent.  It would appear that, at first blush, you have some reading comprehension issues.

Apparently I'm not the only one with a reading problem. I said the AVERAGE APPLICANT of Asian descent has better scores than the AVERAGE ACCEPTEE of African-American descent, by about 20 points. If you compare acceptee to acceptee, the difference is 63 points.

Quote:So in the span of two posts, you've dishonestly and disingenuously challenged me to respond to your questions when you already knew that I had an interest in, and reasons for not responding.  Then we get this scatter shot response which, from my skimming, seems to cherry pick what it responds to, moves the goalposts, doesn't answer relevant questions posed (the lacking citation), and provides a citation which doesn't show what you seem to be claiming it shows.

Needless to say that I'm far from impressed.  I may go back and read your response, and, having read it, I may respond to your arguments, though if I do, that will come later.  Probably after I'm done flossing my toes and picking lint out of my belly button, or whatever other higher priority tasks are on my busy schedule.

I'm not sure what makes you act this way, but I've already told you I'm not willing to interact with you like this. I don't believe an online forum thread needs this level of drama, and I'm certain that I don't.

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(December 28, 2018 at 2:26 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: It's not arbitrary in the least, benjamins can..and indeed are, counted.  Nobody is "shoeing in" black kids..how many times do you have to be told this?  That's the white supremacist myth of affirmative action..not the reality.

Harvard's position as I see it is that there's a ceiling effect-- that the scores of so many students are sufficient to demonstrate they can complete the Harvard program, that the extra 60 points can be safely disregarded.

This is a perfectly understandable.  If we need a vehicle capable of doing 60mph to qualify to drive on a freeway properly, and your car does 65, and mine does 90, then there's no reason to exclude you from participating in driving on the freeway because I'm "more qualified."

I do the exact same thing in hiring-- to apply you need a bachelor's degree.  However, once that criterion is met, I go to personality traits as revealed in a job interview-- smiling, asking the right kinds of questions, and so on.  Someone having a Ph.D is completely irrelevant to me, because the fairly basic work we're doing doesn't much benefit from the kinds of extra things you're likely to have done at that level.

That being said, I would go with almost any metric under the sun than that of accidental demographic membership.  If the cut-line SAT score for acceptance is 600, okay.  You can use that to filter out the poor readers who won't be able to handle the classes, and go with the next metric.  But blackness is a shitty metric for a few reasons.  First of all, do you measure degree of blackness?  Do you consider rich Nigerian international students in the same light as kids from Compton in that regard?  What about black kids from predominantly white middle- or upper-class neighborhoods, or those who went to private schools?

Here's something to consider-- 4.5% of Harvard students come from families in the lowest income bracket, but 15% of Harvard students are black.  Even if ALL those 4.5% are black, that means that most of the black students are from families that are doing fine.  That's why race-based affirmative action works better than SES-- because the black applicants schools chose to accept aren't necessarily the poor ones who had it hardest growing up.  Affirmative action gave them a convenient out-- find enough upper-crust black kids, and you can avoid any of those undesirable ghetto rats ever coming within a mile of your campus, while looking great on paper.