YWTF:
Explain the diference as it relates to discrimination today.
Real quick:
Part of the enslavement process, was the destruction of the culture that binds a people together.
Without those cultural ties, the Africans were for the most part forced to assume the culture of those who enslaved them.
A culture that told them that they were inferior and created institutions to enforce those rules…Not a good place to be.
On the other hand, those Voluntary immigrants, this includes Africans, have had a better time. The ability to fall upon one’s culture, especially in times of crisis, allowed them the ability to “wagontrain” themselves against a society that wanted to persecute them.
That of course allows a particular group the ability to “bootstrap”, to create wealth amongst themselves and rise up the chain.
Think about it like this, the two groups of people who have had the hardest time in the US are the Native American and the African American…two sides of the same coin.
One was taken from their land, the other had their land taken from them…not for 10, 20 or 30 years, but for hundreds of years …generations. Of damage done by the society in which they live in.
It will take generations for it to get “fixed”, I mean in my lifetime, segretation existed. My kids are the first generation in my family to live in U.S. were segretation wasn’t allowed to be praticed unchecked…and we still have black/white proms in Georgia.
So sure it seems hard to believe that a Korean can come to the US and within a generation, do really well and others who’ve been here for several not so well.
The reason why is that one, the Koreans (new immigrants) still have their culture, they can CHOSE to assimilate, but they aren’t/weren’t forced to. And of course the other immigrants are White. Lose your accent, change your name, toss in blue contacts and the US is yours.
And second they’re riding in on the coat-tails of those who fought and died for the rules to change, but still are being ‘leap-froged’ by other “lighter” cultures.
It’s like comparing a person who broke his leg and was in cast for 2 months and another who was in a full body cast for 12 months and asking why he (full body cast) can’t keep up.
Because his injuries were more severe and lasted longer.
IMO of course.
Perhaps we have a fundemental disagreement. I would say that racism is what affirmative action is intended to counter, not economic inequality. Certainly there is a place for programs intended to correct economic inequality, but I argue there is a need to counter racism specifically.
I don’t take inequality to be synonomous with racism, as you seem to. Certainly there are cases where inequality exists, but it is not the result of racism. Similarly, there are cases where racism does not result in inequality.
Do you mean “in what other ways does racism (not inequality) negativly impact the hiring or college admission of a minority, apart from economic inequality?” Teachers, for example, have different expectations for minority students than for dominate group students, even when accounting for economic status. This has a negative impact on the student’s motivation to learn and how much effort the teacher puts into teaching this student. This is not an insurmountable obstical, but it is an obstical none the less. Overcoming this obstical is something which should be recognized in a meritocracy.
Do you agree with the following statement from my last post?
This is the key to my argument. If minorities work harder to achieve some level of success, even accounting for economic status, that should be recognized.
-Short
squeels, holmes’s explanation covers it pretty well.
If we were working under the premise that one generation exists completely separate and independent from the generation before–with the status of one’s parents and other relatives having no bearing on one’s own status-- then maybe we could start comparing other people to African-Americans.
But as it stands, generations do not exist inside a vacuum. Even if a black kid today is lucky enough to never directly experience racial discrimination, odds are he/she still is affected by the institutional racism that was in effect decades before they were born. Where you live, what job you have, what school you go to…all of these things are at least partially determined by where your parents live, what jobs they have, and what school they went to. And on and on down the geneology.
Voluntary immigrants, as holmes pointed out, should not be compared to blacks as though they should be equal. Blacks face a different stigma than other groups do. Their “positive” stereotypes peg them as exceptional atheletes and gifted dancers. Their negative ones peg them as stupid, lazy, promiscuous, and criminal. These are the same stereotypes that plagued them during slavery days. These stereotypes are the driving force behind discrimination, past and present. Police profiling, student tracking in schools, healthcare disparities, housing discrimination, environmental injustice…all of these problems are rooted in stereotypes that put blacks at the bottom of the social hierarchy. In the past, these stereotypes allowed slavery to be a justifiable practice, so it is not by happenstance that blacks were associated with inferiority. The fact that these stereotypes persist indicates that slavery left a long-lasting legacy.
Other immigrants to this country do not have this kind of history. Blacks were called mentally inferior so that they could be enslaved without upsetting the consciences of the slaveholding public…an ulterior motive if there ever was one. Calling the “nigress” promiscous allowed slavemasters to use her for breeding purposes without incuring guilt pangs. Did Asian immigrants face this kind of madness? Maybe they did, for a short time. But for centuries? No.
The black kid has to work harding to prove himself an “exception to the rule” than the immigrant kid does, simply because “the rule” for black people has been ingrained into the American fabric for so long.
So now that we’ve read two thorough essays outlining the specific differences between an apple and an orange, I’d like to know what made you think black Americans and immigrants had anything to do with each other in the first place (besides the fact that that stupid, inaccurate, political buzzword “minority” lumps everyone from Israelies to Palestinians together).
YWTF:
Absolutely, but this contradicts Bob Cos’s argument that current institutionalized racism is responsible for economic disparity.
If someone keeps you in chains until your muscles atrophy, and then dies and you are released, you’re probably not going to do as well as your competitors because you are weak. At some point you’re going to have to stop blaming others because the others who are responsible for your condition no longer exist and it’s no longer anyone’s resposibility but your own. It’s your competitors’ responsibility to play fair and the referee’s responsibility to keep the playing field level. But if you’re behind, it isn’t due to the playing field being stacked against you, but rather your pre-existing weakness.
If you deny others ooportunity based upon race, that is racism. If you try to justify such action with the excuse of racial discrimination it could be considered ‘reverse racism’. That is abotu as simple as you can get. And you cannt argue with that. you can try to make up excuses for it, but it does not change the fact that AA is a tool that is used to propogate racism (reverse racism if you prefer).
Even in the latest supreme court ruling with the unsiversity, the Justices admitted the fact that although they would let the university have their qoutas and point system, it is wrong and would need to be phased out eventually becaus e it is wrong.
Whatever helps you sleep at night i guess.
Probably true for quota systems.
False for outreach programs.
You are still using a very simplistic method of viewing a very complicated issue. I question your use of the word, weakness, but I’ll let that go for now.
Let’s use a verison of your analogy: I hit you with my car, on purpose. You are badly injured. You sue and my insurance covers your treatment, which will be for years, if not for the rest of your life.
Then, I die.
According to your analogy, my insurance should no longer cover your well-being, because I am now dead.
Your ‘weakness’ is now your responsibility, you can no longer blame me? I am now dead and any responsibility the insurance company had to you, is null and void.
It’s your weakness, that you have to piss into a bag, It’s your weakness that you can’t hold a job, it’s your weakness, that you can’t afford the treatment that may enable you to better yourself.
Is that what you’re saying? I don’t want to speak, for you. If not, please explain the difference.
Hint: Society is like an insurance company: we all have to pay dues, to cover the mistakes of others and hopefully when our comes, someone will cover us.
So is it outreach or quota when a school denies a more qualified applicant over a less qualified one due to the color of their skin? Or what about the fact that they use a system to make one applicant more qualified based upon the color of their skin?
As I said before, if your “outreach program” denies an opportunity to someone based solely on the color of their skin, then it is plain racism. Justified racism in many peoples minds maybe, but still plain old racism no matter how you want to dress it up with PC names.
Since outreach programs do not deny opportunity to anyone, your point is irrelevant.
I agree that there have been racist AA programs. Your absolute statement, however, was that AA is racist. That statement is too absolute and is, therefore, in error.
I never made that statement. So I guess we can agree to agree.
equeels
No it doesn’t. I basically said that even if we take present-day racism out of the picture, the effects of past discrimination are strong enough to explain the disparities we see today. But that’s not to say racism today doesn’t contribute to inequity.
It was mentioned by someone else earlier that teachers have higher expectations on white students than they do blacks. I can attest to this, being young enough to remember the different ways teachers treated their students. In my school system growing up, white students were more likely to be tracked into the college-prep curriculum; blacks were more frequently tracked into vocational studies taught by the less stellar teachers. This tracking started early on in junior high. What classes you took in the sixth grade had the strong potential to affect what classes you took in the 12th grade. What classes you took in high school influenced whether or not you went to college.
Race was a stronger determinant of where you got tracked than things like grades were. This kind of racism could influence how much money you made in adulthood.
Then there are things like glass ceilings. A company may have a high number of non-white employees, so everything looks good on the surface, until a closer look reveals that all the supervisory positions are consistently held by white people. Now if these supervisors have more experience or more training/education than their underlings, then the simple fact that there are more white dudes in power shouldn’t count as proof of discrimination. But if that’s not the case, and the white guys are no better qualified for supervisory positions than the people serving under them (and in fact are less qualified), then racism is going on.
I’m pretty young (26), and I have seen this particular situation played out a few times. It reminds me that black folks have to work twice as hard to get the props their white counterparts get.
l
I dunno. You did not leave yourself much weasel room when you said
. Not even a “can be used” or a “sometimes is used” or a “some AA programs.” You simply said AA (with no qualifiers) was a tool to propagate racism.
It is not. Quotas are racist methods of implementing AA, but the statement “AA is a tool that is used to propagate racism” is too broad and is inaccurate.
Guns are a tool used to shoot people. :rolleyes:
I did not need a qualifier to make my statement true. You are just trying to weasel me into a straw man. I expect better of you tom`
To get back to my point. Because AA is supposed to be a means to end racism, and the fact that it is used to propogate racism, that may be considered reverse racism. And because it is fundamentally so flawed it weither needs to be changed or done away with. Or is it ok because it curtails racism against a certain races and only propogates it against others?
No. I want you to recognize that AA has more facets than quotas. There are aspects of AA that are in no way racist. As long as you couch your language in terms of “AA” and not in terms of race quotas, you are spinning the discussion into a broad condemnation of AA that is not valid. Those AA practices that have involved quotas have been racist. Failing to distinguish racist from non-racist practices, bundling them all into “AA,” means that future comments on AA are going to be unfairly tainted by the racism claim.
Since you did not qualify this statement, should I assume that you mean only those AA practices that have involved quotas have been racist? or are you going to recognize that your outreach programs are racist too?
In the last SC ruling, they affirmed that the university was not using a quota system, yet based on the spirit of AA they are allowed to deprive others equal opportunity based upon the color of their skin.
You can find good in anything. And I believe that as long as AA can be abused, it is a flawed tool to fight racism.
Holmes:
Insurance companies agree in writing to assume responsibility for the actions of its policy holders. And they establish limits on the liability they assume (both in terms of a maximum dollar amount and the “statute of limitations”). They don’t compensate the great-grandchildren of the claimants for presumend economic disadvantages they inherited.
Society is not like an insurance company. Society is a diffuse and informal collection of individuals that transforms itself over time.
YWTF:
Earlier statements were making it sound as if it were one thing as opposed to another. Past and present racism are entirely separate factors. No one denies that past racism was very real and continues to affect equality issues–but nothing can be done about it, and it does not prove “institutionalized” racism. Ongoing racism may be a significant factor, and it can be attacked when identified, but it has to be identified, not just presumed. The examples you cited are to be taken seriously, but it depends on which business or which school.
(btw, as far as AA goes, I don’t find giving a few extra points in college admissions to minority applicants to be extremely unreasonable)
Why? I have seen no evidence of a racist outreach program. The University of Michigan program may not have been a quota system, but it was clearly not an outreach program.
And I repeat that as long as you make blanket statements about AA instead of distinguishing racist and non-racist approaches, you are merely tainting the discussion with vague claims that harm all AA programs.