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Grex > Diversity > #12: Bush to join fight against UM's affirmative action program |  |
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| 25 new of 232 responses total. |
scott
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response 156 of 232:
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Jan 24 21:07 UTC 2003 |
Who you calling white, cracker?
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gull
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response 157 of 232:
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Jan 26 02:36 UTC 2003 |
I prefer the term 'honky'. ;)
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gelinas
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response 158 of 232:
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Jan 26 06:40 UTC 2003 |
I don't see how jep can claim affirmative action "doesn't work and will not
work" when there is plenty of evidence that it _does_, _is_ and _has_ worked.
Not completely, not perfectly, but progressing.
Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, etc, have been discriminated at various
times in our history. HOWEVER, _none_ of them have been enslaved more
recently than the late 1700s. (If I remember my American history correctly,
chattle slavery on our shores rose out of indentured servitude: an employer
paid the servant's transportation costs and then the servant worked off the
debt. Some employers charged for room and board, adding it to the debt.
Fairly quickly, this abuse was outlawed, at least for Europeans.)
Without slavery, the dynamic was different for those groups. Eventually,
others supplanted them at the bottom.
It's worth remembering, though, that the immigration quotas for southern
Europeans were lower than those for northern Europeans.
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mcnally
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response 159 of 232:
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Jan 26 07:24 UTC 2003 |
re #158:
> Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, etc, have been discriminated at various
> times in our history. HOWEVER, _none_ of them have been enslaved more
> recently than the late 1700s. ... Without slavery, the dynamic was different
> for those groups. Eventually, others supplanted them at the bottom.
The overwhelming majority of Irish, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese
immigration to this country occurred *after* the Civil War. Even were
that not the case, based on what you have written above I don't see how
your point concerning slavery amounts to much more than a logical
non sequitur. The statement is true but has no demonstrated relevance
to your argument.
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slynne
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response 160 of 232:
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Jan 26 15:24 UTC 2003 |
You know. I disagree with mcnally on the issue of affirmative action
but I have to say that I agree with his resp:159.
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gelinas
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response 161 of 232:
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Jan 26 17:01 UTC 2003 |
I'll grant the point on Chinese and Japanese. Maybe Italian. Not so
sure about Irish: my own Scots-Irish anscestors were in Virginia in the
late 1700s. There was a spurt in Irish immigration during the Potato
Famine, which, if I recall correctly was in 1848.
Still. I hadn't realised that others hadn't made the same connection I
had some time ago. So:
Many slaveholders knew that owning people was wrong. And yet, they couldn't
afford to not own slaves. So they had to rationalise their behaviour,
convincing themselves that their slaves were not "people" but were, in fact,
an inferior sub-species. That rationalisation continues, even though it is
no longer needed. Except, of course, to justify current behaviour.
I argue that had other groups been enslaved, a similar rationalisation would
continue about them. They weren't, so it hasn't. The anger against them
has always been relatively short-lived, twenty to fifty years in most cases.
(It's probably significant that, in some cases, members of these groups
were landowners when more of them were seeking passage to the New World.)
(I just did a quick search; I'd thought the quota system was installed
in the 1800s, but Sacks & Kolken, Immigration Lawyers, say it was in
the 1920s.)
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scott
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response 162 of 232:
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Jan 26 17:07 UTC 2003 |
Another rationalization was that that slaves were unable to take care of
themselves, and needed the firm guidance of an owner. "White Man's Burden"
was to civilize (Christianize) them.
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mcnally
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response 163 of 232:
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Jan 27 00:24 UTC 2003 |
re #161: As recently as sixty years ago citizens of this country were
subjected to government-produced propaganda designed to convince us that
the Japanese were a race of sallow-skinned, buck-toothed, conniving
subhuman monkey-men. Public sentiment against them was whipped up into
such a frenzy that most of the people of Japanese ancestry on the west
coast (who were virtually all of the Japanese-Americans in this country)
were rounded up and put into camps.
Only a little more than sixty years later there's almost no sign of the
anti-Japanese fervor of those times. Why were those attitudes eradicable
when the ones you cite that affect African-Americans have proved so
intractable?
I'm willing to agree that the long-term effects of racism can be pernicious
and unpredictable. I'm just not convinced that you're demonstrating
causation, not correlation, when you cite slavery as the unique factor here.
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gelinas
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response 164 of 232:
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Jan 27 00:35 UTC 2003 |
Slavery caused the *owners* to develop their *own*, *internal*
rationalisations, and pass them on. The anti-Japanese sentiment was largely
*ex*ternal.
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jazz
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response 165 of 232:
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Jan 27 01:55 UTC 2003 |
One of the reasons that American anti-Japanese sentiment was so short
lived is that most Americans had no day-to-day contact with Japanese. The
dynamics of racism as it applies to groups that are in day-to-day contact and
clash regularly, and groups that don't, is quite different.
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mcnally
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response 166 of 232:
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Jan 27 03:01 UTC 2003 |
By that argument would whites in Fargo, ND, who presumably have
comparatively little day-to-day contact with blacks, be less likely
to hold racist attitudes towards blacks than whites in Atlanta?
It certainly sounds like a reasonable theory, but one of the paramount
characteristics of the most severe racism is its irrationality /
unreasonableness..
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gelinas
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response 167 of 232:
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Jan 27 03:11 UTC 2003 |
If neither they nor their parents ever lived any where else, probably.
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jep
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response 168 of 232:
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Jan 27 03:57 UTC 2003 |
re resp:158: I can claim affirmative action doesn't work because I
believe it's had *very* little effect for such a widespread system.
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rcurl
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response 169 of 232:
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Jan 27 05:38 UTC 2003 |
Nonsense. Interview those that have been helped by affirmative action.
Just in the news recently was affirmation for affirmative action from
Colin Powell. I CAN'T not help helping. Any leg up out of the swamp
gets some people to dry land.
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gull
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response 170 of 232:
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Jan 27 13:59 UTC 2003 |
Re #166: It's hard to say. There's also the fact that people tend to be
suspicious of people who are "not like them", and to someone from Fargo
a black person would be very conspicuously "not like them".
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scott
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response 171 of 232:
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Jan 27 14:16 UTC 2003 |
There's an easy answer to the Japanese vs. African question:
The Japanese folks were held in detention for a few years. The African folks
were held for a few GENERATIONS.
Next? :)
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jazz
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response 172 of 232:
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Jan 27 15:37 UTC 2003 |
Re #166: Very much so, if there was no cultural overlap whatsoever;
however I'd be willing to bet the average inhabitant of Fargo sees quite a
bit of biased information on television and hears a lot of black American
culture on the radio.
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jep
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response 173 of 232:
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Jan 27 18:16 UTC 2003 |
re resp:169: By interviewing just those who have been helped, I'm sure
we'd get results that agree with your perception. Some people would be
helped by *any* system. That does not mean every possible system is
good.
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rcurl
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response 174 of 232:
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Jan 27 18:25 UTC 2003 |
That is true. However it was not just those that were helped that were
interviewed. Only some of those interviewed were helped by AA. In any
case, I am glad that you agree that SOME system of help is desirable. Do
you have a suggestion for a better one than AA to increase diversity in
the public college system?
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tod
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response 175 of 232:
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Jan 27 19:14 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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jep
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response 176 of 232:
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Jan 27 19:35 UTC 2003 |
re resp:174: I'd agree a system was desirable if it met three criteria:
1) Has a likelihood of providing results which justify the effort put
into the program. (Affirmative action doesn't satisfy this.)
2) Does not too intrusively discriminate against those who are not it's
targets. (Quotas and other current affirmative action efforts are too
intrusive in my opinion.)
3) Does not cost too much. (Mandatory bussing was expensive, didn't
work *and* was too intrusive. Payouts to "families of former slaves"
would be too expensive.)
No, I do not know of anything that would fit all of my criteria. This
does not justify bad systems that are being used now. It's better to
do nothing than to do something ineffective and/or harmful.
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rcurl
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response 177 of 232:
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Jan 27 19:46 UTC 2003 |
UM's AA program meets all of your criteria: it provides results with
very little effort; it is not a quota system and, in fact, affects
very few applicants; costs practically nothing.
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tod
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response 178 of 232:
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Jan 27 19:52 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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jep
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response 179 of 232:
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Jan 27 21:02 UTC 2003 |
re resp:177: Perhaps you'd care to read resp:176, my requirement #2
again?
Also, if it doesn't affect much of anyone, then it's not helping many
people, and the pain of losing it would be very minimal.
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rcurl
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response 180 of 232:
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Jan 27 21:11 UTC 2003 |
That is actually true, for the majority, like you. But it matters to
the discriminated against minorities.
Re #178: you make the fundamental mistake in not realizing that admission
to Public universtities NEED NOT be based entirely on "academic merit". In
addition to factors like parental alumni, and location (e.g., UP), there
are other factors such as leadership, demographic status, character, etc,
which are important to provide educational opportunities to a cross
section of the public.
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