# Affirmative Action: Use enslavement history as a test? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 11, 2015, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659 "2015-09-11T10:50:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/61 "2015-09-21T20:25:40Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I was talking about people with those kinds of ancestries living in the US. Are you proposing to have foreign governments tell American companies and nonprofits how to behave in the US? Cos I got a feelin’ Uncle Sam would disagree. I would restrict AA to the descendants of US black slaves and US Amerindians. Period. Immigrants of whatever ethnic background wouldn’t qualify. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/62 "2015-09-22T01:50:55Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > …That being said, setting up a program that encourages Americans to trace their heritage back to indentured servants in the early Colonial days would be very interesting. I don’t think it would help much any cause, but it would be interesting. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > I don’t believe the majority of blacks in the US can actually trace their roots back to enslavement. Census records at that time only recorded the number of slaves and their genders, not their names. It’s sometimes possible, using plantation records, for blacks to trace their ancestry back to a particular owner, but that’s a hit or miss proposition. > > This might be an interesting hypothetical (I don’t think it is, but some might think so), but it wouldn’t work in the actual world we live in. Interesting points. One obvious hazard to this is the same thing that happened with the so-called “literacy tests” of yore - Average African-American does their genealogy, submits it to the Board of Affirmative Action, and gets a response back saying that the genealogy lacks sufficient scientific rigor to be accepted, please provide a notarized affidavit from a witness to the birth your great-great-great-grandma Ethel Smith, born 1835, and attach Schedule PRD with the names of the horses that pulled the wagon that she used to ride to Cleveland after she gained her emancipation. > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Is AA targeted solely at blacks? What about other underrepresented groups (latinos, women in the sciences, underprivileged whites) that benefit from affirmative action? Your proposal would eliminate those from consideration. I’m still waiting for my Irish Potato Famine reparations. Hello? Bueller? O’Bueller? ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/63 "2015-09-22T03:55:07Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m still waiting for my Irish Potato Famine reparations. Hello? Bueller? O’Bueller? Repatriate to the UK. Petition the government. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2015, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/64 "2015-09-24T10:01:53Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Interesting points. One obvious hazard to this is the same thing that happened with the so-called “literacy tests” of yore - Average African-American does their genealogy, submits it to the Board of Affirmative Action, and gets a response back saying that the genealogy lacks sufficient scientific rigor to be accepted, please provide a notarized affidavit from a witness to the birth your great-great-great-grandma Ethel Smith, born 1835, and attach Schedule PRD with the names of the horses that pulled the wagon that she used to ride to Cleveland after she gained her emancipation. This is ridiculous and reflects a profound ignorance of the way AA works now. You don’t need papers and proof to self-identify as black, period. By Federal definition, “black” is a self-identification. If self-identification works for race categories at all, and for AA at all, then it will work for enslavement ancestry. If self-identification does not work for enslavement ancestry, then it does not work for creating a category of “black” and we should eliminate AA. Come on. It’s a complete strawman to pretend that enslavement history would require documentation, and that’s the reason we should discard the idea. As with self-identifying as black, there is enough self-policing and peer-policing to avoid widespread fraud. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2015, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/65 "2015-09-25T00:04:24Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I think the biggest problem with Rothstein’s proposal is that it would likely self-skew toward the ethnically white, but with a relativelyl small proportion of black heritage population, in that I suspect that if preference and aid were involved, would come out of the woodwork claiming that small portion of black heritage. > > So you’d have to set a minimum level of “blackness” to get the results that the program is probably actually looking for. And then the question would arise “How much blacker do you have to be?” And the answer would be “None. None more black.” If it’s not a JFK reference, I shall cleave to the “Spinal Tap Catalog”, the “Hitler as Painter Joke”, or the “In Soviet Russia…” line as often as possible. You can’t tell a bird not to sing. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2015, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/66 "2015-09-25T02:03:21Z")
In Soviet Russia, eleven goes to HITLER! ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/67 "2015-09-29T19:00:39Z")
The real issue shouldn’t be whether someone’s gt-gt-gt-grandmother was a slave, but whether present-day people are given fair opportunity. Of course, it is especially important to support young school children denied opportunity due to poverty or discrimination. I was reminded of this by [a recent blog post about an experiment in Florida](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/22/these-kids-were-geniuses-they-were-just-too-poor-for-anyone-to-discover-them/). > [@](#): > > … disparities could be blamed in large part on the county’s gifted nomination process … Many promising students, particularly those attending poorer schools, just weren’t getting referred. > > That all changed after the county began universally screening its second-graders. > … > > The gulf between rich and poor kids starts to widen at an early age, particularly for language skills. Researchers at Stanford University recently found that by age 2, poor kids had already fallen behind the rich kids by six months in terms of language development. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/68 "2015-10-02T11:27:01Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > The real issue shouldn’t be whether someone’s gt-gt-gt-grandmother was a slave, but whether present-day people are given fair opportunity. That might be your real issue, but it misses the point of my OP. I want to assume that, as an average, self-identified blacks in the US are not given fair opportunity. In an effort to ameliorate that, race-based AA sets aside special consideration for blacks as a group. The question is whether race-based AA should be extended to blacks with no history of enslavement in the US. Should a college extend race-based AA special consideration to a wealthy and privileged black student from a foreign country, for example? Estimates for Professors Gates and Guinier that I quoted above are that something like 30% of race-based AA preferences are falling to students with no ancestral history of enslavement. See Clarence Page’s comments [here.](http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2007-03-20/news/0703200125_1_immigrants-black-students-ivy-league) ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/69 "2015-10-02T11:52:42Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Estimates for Professors Gates and Guinier that I quoted above are that something like 30% of race-based AA preferences are falling to students with no ancestral history of enslavement. See Clarence Page’s comments [here.](http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2007-03-20/news/0703200125_1_immigrants-black-students-ivy-league) 30% of race-based AA preferences that fall to black students, not of all race-based AA preferences that are falling to students. But your question still stands. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/70 "2015-10-02T12:48:49Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > The question is whether race-based AA should be extended to blacks with no history of enslavement in the US. In my view, the answer is yes, because black people are still, by and large, treated disparately by America in many ways, regardless of their ancestral origin. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/71 "2015-10-02T13:01:09Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Assuming this is true, and for the purposes of the argument, lets assume it is true, why should I have to tell my daughter, born in 2003, that she didn’t get admitted to a certain school even though her grades and test scores were higher than accepted applicants, because we simply have to make exceptions to allow for those whose ancestors were slaves in 1865. > > What do I tell her when she asks why it matters what happened 150 years ago? What if my family 70 years ago were dirt poor coal miners from West Virginia when it is still socially acceptable to make incest jokes about us? > > Isn’t it silly to talk about what remote and long dead ancestors had to suffer instead of what these individuals have to offer the school? Or should we pay for the sins of our fathers? Shouldn’t we put that aside and judge people based upon their own life experiences and (god forbid) actual merit in the form of universally recognized merit? > > ETA: Does it matter if I can show that in my ancestral line, nobody owned a slave? Does it matter if I can show that my father and grandfather supported the Civil Rights movement? Any extra points there? The problem for many of us white people is that AA, by its nature, affirmatively (pun intended) shuts us out with no hope of qualifying as a disadvantaged person. It takes a very narrow view of humanity (pigeonholing people into one of a small number of “races”), and assumes that everything would be peachy if we could just give handouts to government-defined minorities. My attitude is - the day that people start respecting true diversity and add [“No Irish Need Apply”](http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/High-school-student-disproves-professors-theory-that-No-Irish-Need-Apply-signs-never-existed.html) as an AA qualifying condition is the day I start supporting AA. Call me an “Angry White Man” - I don’t care. I’m not playing this silly bow to our masters the poor black people and give them all of our jobs game. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/72 "2015-10-02T13:07:57Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > The problem for many of us white people is that AA, by its nature, affirmatively (pun intended) shuts us out with no hope of qualifying as a disadvantaged person. It takes a very narrow view of humanity (pigeonholing people into one of a small number of “races”), and assumes that everything would be peachy if we could just give handouts to government-defined minorities. > > My attitude is - the day that people start respecting true diversity and add [“No Irish Need Apply”](http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/High-school-student-disproves-professors-theory-that-No-Irish-Need-Apply-signs-never-existed.html) as an AA qualifying condition is the day I start supporting AA. > > Call me an “Angry White Man” - I don’t care. I’m not playing this silly bow to our masters the poor black people and give them all of our jobs game. I don’t think this is the purpose of affirmative action. I think the reason is that (supporters of affirmative action believe) without AA, black people (and others) will not get a fair shake and do not have equal opportunity for jobs and education, due to still-existing racism and discrimination. Therefore, while not perfect, opportunity for jobs and education is much closer to equal with AA then without it (according to supporters of AA). I’m a supporter of affirmative action, and this is why I believe it’s necessary. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/73 "2015-10-02T17:45:09Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > In my view, the answer is yes, because black people are still, by and large, treated disparately by America in many ways, regardless of their ancestral origin. I found this absolutely astounding and to be blunt, ridiculous. Tell me, if every black person might suffer some slight due to the vestiges of racism, would your position ever change. If so, what metric would you use? Would Michael Jordan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Magic Johnson, Michael Strahan and Barack Obama be due some payout? When would it end? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/74 "2015-10-02T17:47:34Z")
\*\*Chief Pendant, \*\* Maybe I missed your response, but could you please address my comments in Post 33. **iiandyiiii**? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/75 "2015-10-02T19:24:34Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I found this absolutely astounding and to be blunt, ridiculous. Tell me, if every black person might suffer some slight due to the vestiges of racism, would your position ever change. If so, what metric would you use? Would Michael Jordan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Magic Johnson, Michael Strahan and Barack Obama be due some payout? When would it end? I think it should end when there is no longer evidence of significantly disparate treatment, such as black job applicants with no criminal records being less likely to be hired then white applicants with a criminal record, applicants with ‘black sounding’ names but identical qualifications being less likely to be hired, teachers treating black kids differently because they have lower expectations, and many more. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/76 "2015-10-02T19:44:11Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > In my view, the answer is yes, because black people are still, by and large, treated disparately by America in many ways, regardless of their ancestral origin. Right, affirmative action is about present circumstances. Slave ancestry would be relevant to a case for _reparations_, which is a completely different concept, and not really compatible with affirmative action. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/77 "2015-10-05T14:30:47Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I never said they should be the laws should be interpreted loosely. > > Conservatives also believed that slavery should end. Just because they believed that at one time doesn’t meant that the notion is a bad one. > [@magellan01](#): > > I found this absolutely astounding and to be blunt, ridiculous. Tell me, if every black person might suffer some slight due to the vestiges of racism, would your position ever change. If so, what metric would you use? Would Michael Jordan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Magic Johnson, Michael Strahan and Barack Obama be due some payout? When would it end? So what’s your answer to my question? In 1880 was the same notion also astounding and ridiculous? 1920? 1950? When did it stop being true that black people in the United States were fucked because of systemic racism? Was it true at one point? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/78 "2015-10-05T15:03:53Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > …let’s take it as a given that, without group-based AA, a merit-based system that accounts for every other variable such as income, family education, background, and so on, will NOT result in a proportionate number of blacks being admitted to higher education and jobs. At every tier, blacks underperform their peers. In fact, to such an extent that black children from wealthy and educated US families perform barely on par with whites and asians from poverty stricken, uneducated parents… > So the question I want to look at is not the first question: Should we have group-based AA? I am an ardent supporter of that (because no other mechanism will get us to reasonably proportionate representation). > > I want to know if it’s a good idea to limit group-based AA to those in the US with a history of enslavement. Without that limitation, what’s happening (as Rothstein, Guinier, Gates and others point out) is that group-based AA benefits are accruing to privileged immigrants, and not US blacks… Can it be shown that enslavement _per se_ is the direct cause (or at least a major, but-for cause) of the performance disparity, or could there be other reasons too, such as genetics, current racial prejudice, or culture? If I could prove that people of Irish descent significantly underperformed against non-Irish in stunt piloting competitions, would I thereby be able to conclude that the Irish Potato Famine had somehow damaged our stunt pilot abilitites so badly that the UK government would be morally obligated to give me an AA scholarship for stunt pilot school? You are probably thinking that my Irish example is absurd. I agree that the UK government has no moral duty to send everyone with a drop of Irish blood on free career training rides. But what is the fundamental difference between my example and the OP’s? Is it simply a matter of color, or are there other factors involved too? If so, what are they? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/79 "2015-10-05T16:29:34Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Can it be shown that enslavement _per se_ is the direct cause (or at least a major, but-for cause) of the performance disparity, or could there be other reasons too, such as genetics, current racial prejudice, or culture? If I understand the pro-enslavement history suggestion, it’s not related to whether prior enslavement is the cause of current disproportionate representation. It’s related to two ideas, I think: 1. It creates a race-free standard (if not defacto, then at least in principle), and 2. Benefits accrue more directly to the injured party ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659/80 "2015-10-05T16:47:09Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > If I understand the pro-enslavement history suggestion, it’s not related to whether prior enslavement is the cause of current disproportionate representation. > > It’s related to two ideas, I think: > > 1. It creates a race-free standard (if not defacto, then at least in principle)… > [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Why should it benefit only the descendants of American slaves? Why would we discriminate against the descendants of people enslaved in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and other places? Why not the descendants of those subjected to forced labor by the Nazis? Why not the victims of Soviet Communism? Why not slaves in ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, or Babylon? If we’re correcting vestigial ramifications of history, why not correct _all_ the vestigial ramifications of history? That’s a good question! A more obvious and immediately relevant question arises when you consider whether such an “enslavement test” would apply only to those people whose ancestors were enslaved in the US, thereby excluding descendants of people who had been enslaved in other countries of the Americas such as Jamaica, the Bahamas, Mexico, Brazil, etc., even if those people are “Black”. If you allow descendants of black Brazilian slaves who emigrated to the US after emancipation, then you also open the door to white people claiming descent from remote ancestors who were Roman slaves or whatever. The Jewish people have historically defined themselves as having an ex-slave identity (remember the LORD, for you were slaves in Egypt, etc.). Do we then have to add back a racial component so that only _Black_ descendants of slaves qualify for AA? There are Jewish populations in Africa, including but not limited to [Beta Israel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel), who look “black” but are Jewish and claim descent from the Jews who escaped slavery in Egypt. Do we then give them AA but turn around and deny AA to “white” Jews and the non-Jewish populations of Africa? White Jews don’t get AA because they aren’t black, but non-slave-descended black people don’t get it either because their ancestors weren’t slaves. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/affirmative-action-use-enslavement-history-as-a-test/730659.md?page=5)