I would restrict AA to the descendants of US black slaves and US Amerindians. Period. Immigrants of whatever ethnic background wouldn’t qualify.
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.
I’m still waiting for my Irish Potato Famine reparations. Hello? Bueller? O’Bueller?
Repatriate to the UK. Petition the government.
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.
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.
In Soviet Russia, eleven goes to HITLER!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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” 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.
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?
**Chief Pendant,
**
Maybe I missed your response, but could you please address my comments in Post 33.
iiandyiiii?
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.
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.
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?
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?
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:
- It creates a race-free standard (if not defacto, then at least in principle), and
- Benefits accrue more directly to the injured party
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, 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.