Yes, Cranky, I probably should have used ‘political’ or ‘philosophical’ or ‘value-laden’ rather than partisan, as partisan makes one tend to think of Ds and Rs–though the Ds and Rs might have very different visions of which constituencies need/deserve Service more.
you with the face then it’s anecdotal. You accepted the EEO person’s opinion uncritically, but that isn’t good enough for a debate. Monstro said it best.
Listen, margin, I never posited that it wasn’t anecdotal. Please read back where I said as much. And I didn’t accept the administrator’s opinion uncritically, because A) it wasn’t an opinion that she voiced and B) I’ve personally encountered people who have reaped benefits from filing EEO complaints. And no, I’m not saying that it is wrong that they have benefited from doing it and I’m also not saying their claims were fradulent. I’m just saying the great majority of these cases are by white women, and yet public perception persist in associating these kinds of situations with “whiny blacks”. I kind of think you are missing the point of the anecdote.
you with the face when you make reference to ‘mediocre white women’ and ‘women profiting from their EE complaints’ you do seem to be setting up these women as being unworthy and whiny. You know they’re mediocre how? You get one EE person’s opinion on it and you use to claim that women are utilizing AA—well, if they’re mediocre, they’re not entitled to move forward, are they?Don’t use one prejudice to fight another. Besides, your claim that women are benefiting from AA and not getting criticized for it is off base. The criticism against women specifically tends to get subsumed into general bitching about how women supposedly have got it made these days.
Perhaps I should have put the “mediocre women” (note that I didn’t say mediocre white women) in quotes. I don’t mean to imply that benefitting from AA automatically means being lesser qualified or capable. Actually, one of my main frustrations is that widely held belief. When detractors of AA repeatedly frame their arguments only in terms of race–with extra emphasis on one particular race, I might add–and make unsubstantiated generalizations about the qualifications of all these profiteers of “reverse racism”, I want to know why there is no ranting about all the mediocre women taking positions away from hard-working men? In other words, why is it always about mediocre black people taking jobs that geniuses should be entitled to?
Hope you understand now.
You know, if this were truly a fair world, mediocre people everywhere would be entitled to jobs that until now only mediocre white men have gotten. As to your question about why people ignoring women utilizing AA, I have to say again that there’s so much bitching about women that it just becomes part of the general noise. Then, too, a lot of people who bitch about women disguise their sexism by using the word feminist because they know that if they use the word ‘woman’ it’ll be plain they’re not talking about politics. I mean, we hear about how women are taking jobs and school positions away from men; we hear about how guys at work can’t say peep for fear of getting fired for sexual harassment; we hear about how there’s a secret epidemic of women beating up men going on; we hear about how womens’ rights really are worse than the sexism that restricted them. It’s very general and pretty much all-encompassing. That’s why, frankly, it’s so hard to fight. Does that help?
To be fair, one could say the very same thing about black people. Rarely does a week go by without some thread being devoted to black “race baiters”, or to the “nigger” double-standard (“how come blacks can say it but I can’t, wah!”) Some of our most controversial threads have dealt with black people and their wiley antics, but that doesn’t stop anyone from griping about them in Affirmative Action threads.
In case you didn’t know, I’m a black woman. I am sensitive to sexist attitudes as well as racist ones. When it comes to the public eye, I’m well aware that my race makes me “look” like an AA beneficiary more than my gender does. Despite the fact that millions of people walking around with blonde hair and blue eyes have been assisted with AA, people who look like me are more visible targets for the contempt that (unfortunately) is associated with the program. To me, that confirms that society hasn’t yet evolved to the point where racial prejudice fails to color public perception. To me, it confirms that white people–regardless of gender–still receive a larger benefit of the doubt than blacks.
And isn’t that why AA exists in the first place?
Probably more of a surprise than the declaration that pro-AA beliefs are racist.
margin:
I have to say again that there’s so much bitching about women that it just becomes part of the general noise.
Do you mean as apposed to bitching about Middle-class-white men?
Well, statistically speaking, middle class white men occupy more positions of power than their proportion of society. White men dominate the military, the police force, the judiciary, and so on. Women, though they are more numerous than men, do not occupy nearly so many powerful positions. There’s nothing similar in bitching about groups that have such a disparity of power.
I have also noticed the disparity you bring up, you with the face. The theory that disagreement with affirmative action for females exists in equal proportion to disagreement with affirmative action for select races, but gets lost in an overall anti-woman fog, is laughable for two reasons:
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Statistics show that more people support affirmative action for females than support affirmative action for select races.
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Most people are unaware that affirmative action helps more females than minorities.
I suspect that monstro is correct in saying that a big part of this is that pretty much everyone is close to a female (mother, sister, wife, themself), and feels that affirmative action for these people is in their own self interest.
But another reason for this is that many affirmative action programs for selected races could be replaced with programs for the financially disadvantaged or those in below average schools. There are affluent select minorities in good schools, and there are poor whites and asians in bad schools.
And in fact, isn’t this one of the major arguments against affirmative action for select races? That it should be replaced with a colorblind system?
Affirmative action for women cannot be replaced in this way. It has to be based on gender.
Statistically speaking, women occupy more positions in college than their proportion of society, so I assume you support affirmative action for males in higher education.
Is that disparity based on grades? Then, no, frankly, I don’t. When women made up a majority of the population and yet a minority of college students, it was a select few that protested this disparity. There’s still a lot of bias against women in school, as documented in Failing At Fairness. I can’t remember the authors’ names, as it’s packed for moving, but it’s worth looking up.
I disagreed with some of the opinions put forth by Losing the Race by John McWhorter, but it was an interesting take on affirmative action. He’s a black linguistics professor at Berkeley, and his perspective is that of a geek who got ostracized because, well, he was a geek.
The difference is simple. Affirmative action for minorities is racism. Affirmative action for women is merely sexism.
And affirmative action for mediocre white guys is called a ‘legacy.’
Are you being facetitious, Debaser? Why is sexism any less evil than racism?
… for ** upper class ** mediocre white guys …
Cite for the claim that only white people benefit from legacy status?
Why ask for a cite when common sense will more than suffice?
It may not be that ONLY white people benefit from legacy status, but it’s a damned safe bet that white folk benefit disproportionately. Non-white participation in higher education has lagged behind white participation for some time. Go back far enough (and not that far, unfortunately), and you’ll find that blacks were even BARRED from some institutions. Therefore, take any two college-bound kids, and the white one is more likely to have family that were alumni of a college, any college, than the black kid. Not just because the black kid’s older relations didn’t want to go to college, or couldn’t afford to go college, but because at some place his older relations wouldn’t even be permitted to enroll.
Here, I’ve got some stats on attainment of bachelor’s degrees (which is not quite the same thing as college participation, but related enough to suffice).
Unfortunately, these stats are given as an “equity index” which takes some explanation. They take the rate of attainment for a certain racial/gender group and express it as a ratio to the same measure for the population as a whole. This is based on U.S. Census Data, for 25-29 year old males. You can figure a kid who currently stands to benefit (or not) from legacy status would have grandparents and parents falling into these decades somewhere.
I’ll just give males, though I should note that the disparity between white and black females is smaller. White women were less likely to go to college than their white male counterparts, while black women were more likely to go. In 1950, it was like a 98 vs. 52 index for the two groups.
In 1940, white males were at almost 130; black males at about a 25.
(Read this as white males had a 130% as likely as a person from the general population to have completed a bachelor’s degree by ages 25-29)
in 1950, white males were about 112; black males were at 30.
in 1960, white males were 140; black males were at 50.
For reasons not explained, Hispanic data was not tracked until 1974.
in 1974, white males were 120, black males 40, hispanic males 35.
in 1980, white males 113, black males were 48, hispanic males 37.
in 1990, white males 104, black males 50, hispanic males 32.
Remember also that WHERE these folk attended college also mattered. If you want to go to Yale, it doesn’t matter (from the standpoint of legacy help) that your grandpa went to Tuskeegee.
Or if he went to Alabama State. Your figures do not reflect the fact that poor and working class whites benefitted little or not at all from the “legacy” practice. In 1950 a poor white kid in Appalachia didn’t have a much better chance of attending Harvard or Yale than a poor black kid in a Detroit slum. And a middle class black kid might actually have had a better chance of attending a prestigious university than a poor white one.