The demand for justification has an accusatory ring to it. Truthfully, our experience tends to color our perception of the world no matter our skin tone. Starting in middle school I observed one little black girl, poor thing was 13 but had the gravely voice of a smoker in her 50s, who would be extremely loud and disruptive in class and would often claim that the teacher was “picking on her because she was black” when called on her behavior. I observed similar incidents of this nature on occasion until my graduation from high school. The only similar incident from college was a loud argument that included swearing in the student commons amongst various black males and females. When the campus police came over and politely warned them to keep it down, and then had to follow it up shortly thereafter by telling them to vacate the area, many of the students accused the officers of being racist by exclaiming that they would never do this to white students. I didn’t spend all my time in the student commons, but this was the only time I ever saw anyone swearing and shouting loudly there.
We have national covered events that cry racism but turn out to be something else. Michael Jackson accuses Sony, particularly Tommy Motolla, of a racist conspiracy against black artist and Al Sharpton backed him up. Well, Sharpton backed him up until a bunch of other artist called in and he was forced to change his position on Motolla’s so called racism. Then we have Representative Cynthia McKinney who made the news not so long ago.
I suppose another reason that some white people might deny charges of racism is because they don’t think their racist and don’t think most other people are racist, so it’s just hard for them to buy because they have very little direct experience with racism.
I can’t say for sure if that little girl in my class so many years ago actually thought the teacher was picking on her because she was black or she just cried racism in order to put the teacher on the defensive. I can’t say what was truly on the minds of Michael Jackson (can anyone?), those college students in the student commons, or Cynthia McKinney, but there are enough false cries of racism to make many people doubt it when they hear another cry of racism. The boy who cried wolf and all that.
I’ve only had a small taste of what it must be like to be a minority. While walking through a mall in Memphis I started to feel a bit strange but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I realized that 8 out of 10 people around me were black and there were very few white or hispanic people around. I went to Philander Smith College in 2005 to see a lecture by Dr. Michael Eric Dyson not knowing that the school was an historically black institution. The security guard chuckled when I tried to gain addmitance, the campus is in a bad area of town and closed off to the general public, and asked if he could see my student I.D. I didn’t really get the joke until I got out and walked around for a bit. There were several hundred people who attended the lecture and I was only one of three whites in the audience. I think I was the only white person in the audience who wasn’t a member of the college staff. I wasn’t afraid in either of these cases but it really felt strange for me to be so obviously different from everyone else in the crowd.
I certainly won’t deny that racism exist. When I moved into my current domicile I thought the majority of my neighbors were black. I’m the type of person who doesn’t care anything about my neighbors so long as they keep their property in reasonable shape and don’t make a whole lot of noise. While moving in my mother-in-law looked out the window and ominously said, “There’s a black kid
outside playing basketball.” In rural Arkansas I met my in-laws 80+ year old neighbor for the first time and she very casually talked about an area where some “niggers” moved in, it was a shock to hear her speak like that in front of someone she had never met before.
Hippy Hollow, are you an older or younger guy? I am white but people seem to ask me a lot when I’m in a store about things as if I worked there even when I’m wearing clothes that clearly show I do not. I think part of it is my youth and people assuming I work there.
Perhaps one of the reasons that white folks are “in denial” about racism is that many of us have experienced the same sort of thing, and it wasn’t racism then either.
If you want to call it “progress” when people stop questioning the chip on many black shoulders, go ahead. But I ain’t playing.
I don’t “receive” a lot of racism personally, but I pick up on it when I listen to the views of others, pay attention to the world around me, and watch how people interact with one another. I haven’t been the victim of violence, either, but I know that its pervasive by being observant and conscious.
How often do I see things that ping my racist radar? Hmmm, that’s actually hard to say. Whenever there’s a high profile case where race is involved in some shape or form, if I find myself listening to the conversations of white folks, usually something will be said that makes the radar go off. Same thing if the subject of conversation deals with–I dunno–“ebonics”, Affirmative Action, whites getting fired for calling blacks niggers, slavery, elements of black culture, and racial disparities.
I hasten to say that whites can take on positions about race that differ from my own and NOT ping my radar. But often I find that it’s in the midst of discussing those topics that a lot ignorance and prejudice come a-leaping out of the closet, and I realize that society is not as enlightened as many would like us to believe.
Yes, I spot racism in the media from time to time. The OJ spectacle and Hurricane Katrina are cases in point. tomndebb explained well the things that I took issue with in the latter. While on one hand, the media did highlight how race mattered in the whole diabocle, on the other hand, it did a lot of harm by sensationalizing the violence and mayhem, which made it all too easy for the rest of the country to disregard the victim’s situations.
It seems to me that your example #1 explains to an extent your example #2.
I’ve had exactly the same thing as your example #1 happen to me in the past, and I’m White. How can one say that such a thing is proof of “microaggression”? It may be or it may not be, as you yourself note. However, you go on to state “For me, progress for me would be us discussing the event and perhaps even the degree to which racist intent played into the interaction, rather than if racist intent played a role or not.”. In short, you are happy to assume that it is at least partly “racist” - and to you, having others accept this is true is “progress” - though there is absolutely noting to indicate it is true.
That sort of attitute, if shared by your collegues (and there is good reason to assume that it is, based on your previous describtions of critical race theory) translated into an academic field, would have me question the objectivity of the observer, too - and I think with good reason. Not because they are Black, but because they, well, aren’t very objective. Based on these anecdotes and descriptions, they (and you) appear to have preconcieved theories which seem to fit the evidence to the theory rather than the other way around.
This isn’t to say that racism doesn’t exist and doesn’t have an impact. But to be perfectly frank, I would not be willing to rely on someone who appears to assume as the cornerstone of their theoretical perspective that racism permiates society and overwhelms other sources of influence, to describe the ambit of that impact - whether the scholar be White or Black, or any other colour.
Yes, but you’re operating from the perspective that there is such a thing as objectivity. As a postmodernist, postpositivist scholar, I reject the idea that there is such a thing. Positivism, at least in the social sciences, is a myth. Even in a quantitative study, we can take the same dataset, and by proposing different research questions and adjusting parameters like p-values to determine statistical significance, create quite different results. In the qualitative realm, there are multiple truthful interpretations of the event I described.
As a social scientist I would ideally want to interview both the presumed shopkeeper (me) and the woman. Not simply “what just happened?” but I’d want to know about the formative experiences of both people. Even with extensive phenomenological interviewing, I don’t think I’d be able to definitively declare, “This woman was operating with 10% racist intent, and HH is preconfigured to detect racism.” I’d hope the data would illustrate a strong interpretation of the interaction, even if the result is, “We don’t know exactly how much was racism, ageism, bad eyesight, etc., but we at least know a little about what makes each person tick.”
The best we can do is be upfront about our allegiances and beliefs. My research makes it clear that I am approaching sociological phenomena from a Critical Race perspective. I acknowledge this, and through my careful use of data and acknowledgment of discrepant findings, I am able to present rigorous educational research that is published not in niche journals or by special interest academic presses, but generalist, highly circulated works.
I think it’s very hard to deny that we haven’t all been simmering in this racist stew since our birth. From the blatancy of Jim Crow to the more subtle colorblindness that claims our equality but denies the significance of racism in the world. You state that racism exists, but what’s the metric for determining for what racism is? I’ll subvert that famous quote about pornography, “I have a hard time describing it, but I know it when I see it.” There are so many nuances that I simply cannot convey that lead me to suspect that racism played a role in the interaction I had with that woman. The way she looked at me, the accusatory tone, etc. But I’ve been mistaken for store staff before and it didn’t particularly strike me as rooted in racist intent. If I’m wearing something approximating the store uniform, or have my back turned, hey, it happens. I’ve done it myself.
Take for instance, a story I was told by a professor who told me a Latina student once entered a classroom at an Ivy League university and the instructor said, “Oh, the garbage can is behind my desk.” Was it a dumb or legitimate mistake on the instructor’s part? We’ll never know. What we do know is the impact of the statement on that young woman. Gender, race, social class, age, and national origin all play a role in how both parties perceived the situation.
I think what I’m saying is that progress would mean we can move past defensive posturing and negating the experiences of people of color and more to “well, I get how you perceive that there might be some degree of racism at play, but how much of this was actually the fact that this person you interacted with was a jerk/had poor eyesight/etc. as well?” And I’d agree, because I don’t know. But that’s a preferable outcome to “No, you’re wrong, it’s happened exactly the same to me, stop whining.”
I’m late to the party, but I feel I have about as much first-hand information about Hurricane Katrina as anyone on the boards, having lived here before, partly during, shortly after the storm, and I continue to reside in the city. IMHO, Katrina was about government ineptitude.
Approximately 80% of the city was flooded. The capacity of the city and parish (county) governments to cope with the disaster was obliterated. The state had (and still has) a weak executive who was either incapable or unwilling to use her emergency powers to direct Federal assets promptly and efficiently. The system of Federalism in the USA prevents the President from deploying the American military for domestic purposes and prevents him from making specific decisions about the allocation of National Guard and other military assets. As such, the Federal government could not simply step into the vacuum of leadership at the state and local level without the permission of the Louisiana governor. She took three days (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) to decide that no, she would not permit the Federalization of the recovery effort. Had she not dithered for those three days, or had she been capable of making decisions as to what Federal assets she needed and where she needed them, relief would have come much faster.
So while poverty played a role, the delayed response was largely due to the incompetence of the local and state governments and to the peculiar system of governmental hierarchy.
This situation, while unfortunate, would seem to me to reflect more on affirmative action - a response to racism - than racist intent. When we have to lower standards to fill a quota of professors (or college students, for that matter) for a minority group, it’s logical to assume a lower degree of aptitude in professors in that group, and ask a question to determine his qualifications. It’s unfair to those individuals who are qualified and do succeed, and that’s one reason why I oppose affirmative action, but we can’t simply cry “racist” at this action. I’d assume that those familiar with the quality of his work would not ask him that question.
The fuck? What evidence do you have to support the idea that this professor was first of all the beneficiary of affirmative action, and furthermore, why is this scrutiny not applied to Whites who are legacies, athletes, or are from remote places like Alaska? (These people can be affirmative action beneficiaries as well.)
Do you honestly believe that the rigors of earning a Ph.D. would permit someone to advance who didn’t have a basic facility in the field of his study?
Affirmative action also does not mean that one is admitted under lower standards. I am a beneficiary of affirmative action in my undergraduate years. I was also a National Merit Scholar, an honors degree major and graduated as a distinguished graduate from my college at the end of my undergrad years. I will happily match my academic credentials against anybody. I would wager a Ph.D earning academic is probably able to do the same - the man has a freakin’ Ph.D.
Let’s say that the mean score for students admitted under affirmative action on a given test is ten points below that of White students. This means that half of the students scored below the mean but half of the students scored above the mean as well, for both groups. So you should be prepared to argue that a good number of affirmative action admitted students are as qualified, if not more qualified by this particular metric as Whites, as well as the converse. In actuality, there can be considerable overlap. And let’s not get into the issues of bias and differential item functioning with standardized test scores. The first problem is that somehow people think it’s possible to reduce academic ability to a single metric - SAT, GRE scores, you name it - when the skills to succeed in an academic field are often poorly measured by such measures. Having earned a doctorate, I can tell you that I’m more interested in a student’s intellectual curiosity and stick-to-it-iveness than GRE scores (given a certain level of competence demonstrated in a battery of tests including GRE, subject area, experience conducting research, undergraduate grades, and so on).
A ridiculous point to make, unless this is a question asked of all Ph.Ds in a field.
FWIW I get asked these very questions on a regular basis when I walk into a store. The people asking are of all races (I get asked questions in Spanish a lot) I have been in a Target wearing dirty (greasy) blue mechanics uniform and been asked where is housewares. :rolleyes: I can wear shorts and flip flops into Adequate Purchase and get asked about buying a plasma TV. When I was in college and working in construction, I would stop off at a market on the way home in my dirty construction clothes, and have people ask me where items were in the store. I think it is because I have the generic employees face. My wife says it happens because I look like I know what I am doing.
I’m a white guy BTW.
America’s focus on all these black folks stealing all the jobs and admission slots because of AA continues to crack my shit up. As an undergrad student at predominately-male Georgia Tech, I used to walk around wondering how many people silently regarded and condemned me as an AA beneficiary, while not even considering the same thing about white females. If threads on the Straight Dope are any indication, it was probably a whole lot. This, despite the fact that blacks and females and white males get points for things beyond their control. The fact that blacks receive a disproportionate amount of the anti-AA scrutiny actually undercuts any argument that racism is a thing of the past.
I used to do poetry reviewing which is remarkably similar in some ways. There’s no way to read a book or poem without bringing in bias, so the important thing when reviewing a work of art is to say where I, as a reader, am coming from to start with. Essentially “This is who I am, and this is how I read this work.”
Obviously, literary criticism isn’t the same thing as social science, but I think some of the tools are similar.
I have none, and neither do the people asking the question. However, if he was raised to professorship since the late '60s, which seems like a pretty good bet, it is likely.
Nobody’s saying he’s definitely woefully unqualified. However, it is entirely possible that he has, for example, less ability with the language than might be expected. Knowledge of a language is not a simple binary.
I’m sorry, yes it does. Numerous studies (warning: PDF) have demonstrated that affirmative action beneficiaries score significantly lower on objective admission criteria than others…
And I’m sure that there are plenty of other qualified AA beneficiaries too. Those genuinely qualified are victims, not of those who question their abilities, but of a system that lumps them together with unqualified candidates merely because of their check mark on a form.
The number of female applicants to college (to pick one screening process) is actually greater than that of males, and the imbalance is greater than that in the pool of admittees. Now, it is possible that male applicants to college are more qualified (because the unqualified ones tend to go directly to work or join the military), but at any rate women do not receive anything like the 200-point SAT boost. Since they have less to lose, it makes sense that they would less tenaciously defend any preferences; similarly, it makes sense for the anti-AA people to focus on the most egregious inequalities. Legacy admissions, in my experience, are also criticized roundly by the anti-AA crowd (and they’re an easier target to go after, since one doesn’t run the risk of getting mired in race debates) in addition to the Edwards crowd. As for women in technical fields, it makes sense that such a relatively small subset is not the focus of the national AA debate, but I’d happily argue against those preferences too.
This is exactly the problem. You’d have to know a little about the guy to even posit this position, logically; otherwise you’re dealing with stereotypes. I can tell you that in my field, there are an amazing number of people who have academics as parents. I know of one woman who has a list of publications are long as my arm… but on closer inspection, most of them are somehow connected to her dad, who is a prominent scholar in the same field. A good number of the folks I’m discussing went to Mom or Dad’s alma mater for college. But I have to say, I don’t immediately think, “S/He’s a legacy, and therefore probably got into school by knocking out a more qualified candidate.”
He also might have more ability with the language than might be expected. I think we have a different view of the experiences of people of color in academia. I would say the prevailing attitude among my colleagues is that we have to work twice as hard to go half as far. I know I can’t just drop in a cite for Critical Race Theory when discussing my work - I have to know the canon quite well and be prepared to deal with resistance. I would think it is more likely that this fellow, because he is well aware of the scrutiny he is under, works that much harder. Just as I would argue that I was a more conscientious student as an undergrad because I was always one of a handful of Black students in a course. Whatever I did would stand out - falling asleep, coming in late, not showing up at all.
The article also says that the students of color who benefit from AA are primarily those scoring in the 1200-1300 range (and this study was before the recentering of the SAT which would boost these scores by around 100 points.) It’s not helping those with scores on the lower end of the bell curve. So how much more “qualified” is a student who scores 1300 compared to one who scores 1500? I think we’re splitting hairs here. The article also discusses the complexity of trying to remove preference at elite schools which use a wider range of criteria beyond quantitative scores.
No, the problem is a system that buries advantage and preferences for the dominant group but has no problem bringing those same advantages to light among subdominant people. I’ve met plenty of dumbasses from many races, and it’s become clear to me that things like family connections, church affiliation, and so on might have more to do with some people’s success than raw talent. I don’t think, however, that every time I encounter a businessperson who is working in the company that their dad founded that they are inept or less qualified than someone else. That would be a stereotype.
I think you are putting way too much stock in the validity of the SAT, which accounts for about 22% of the variance in first semester college performance. The SAT isn’t great for this purpose, but it’s a metric that’s been around for a while. If you are going to argue that the SAT has great predictive ability, you’re going to be looking at a lot of studies from the College Board and not many others.
I love it. Affirmative Action simply forces your hand. You have no way to resist the siren song of the possibilities of quotas. You will simply assume that the black people, and only the black people, got where they were because of their skin color.
Depends on the university. At an engineering school like my alma mater, which is historically and currently majority male, I have no reason to believe that the number of female applicants are higher than males.
Depends on the area of study and the degree of their underrepresentation. Just like with any group that receives points. You can not make this kind of assertion without backing it up.
(bolding mine)
Pick any random person off the street. You have a greater odds of selecting a white beneficiary of AA than a black beneficiary of AA. Since white women make up 50% of the population as opposed to 12% black, any fool could see that this would be the case. Gender-based AA is not just limited to the hard sciences, either. Leadership and managerial positions in general have been historically male dominated, so AA would apply to women seeking to break into these areas. Yet, mysteriously, folks seem to be more likely to look at a black supervisor and make certain assumptions about their qualifications. White women get the same benefit of the doubt that white men get.
All this to say, “relatively small subset” my ass.
