Why do you say “nothing can be done about it”? I think it’s in society’s best interest to at least try to do something about it. It is not enough to just pass legislation deeming everyone equal. Everything didn’t suddenly become fair and sqare the day the Civil Rights Act was passed. There doesn’t exist a day that marks the Death of Racism. What afflicted us in the past continues to afflict us today. Maybe not as strongly and obviously, but it is still present.
It amazes me when people basically say “Sure, there was plenty of racism in the past and it was a terrible terrible thing, but all that is done with and we live in a new age of enlightenment.” Um, no. “The past” is not ancient history, for pete’s sake. My mom was well into her teens when most black folks in Alabama didn’t dare to drink out the white folk’s water faucet, let alone vote and go to state universities. All the racial madness that characterized those days did not just evaporate New Year’s Day 1970; it still lingers, rearing its head on a daily basis.
Who’s saying that? Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m trying to make a distinction between past and present racism while you keep trying to blur it. My definition of past racism is racist acts committed by individuals who are no longer living, If 2/3 of white people are racist and 50 yeas go by, how many racists are there? Two-thirds? No, you don’t know how many until you count them all over again. Why aren’t we doing that?
And that’s my point exactly. You’re trying to make a distinction between past and present racism when such a thing makes no sense. How far back does “the past” go? Ten years? Twenty? When does the same kind of racism that plagued the late sixties, early seventies end and when did contemporary racism begin? My point is that the same species of racism that existed in the sixties exists today, just less powerfully and in-your-face. The volume has been turned down low, but the song is still playing. If that’s called blurring the line then so be it. Is the line between red and orange blurred on the light spectrum? So is the line between “past” and “present” racism.
Why would we ever dream of doing such a silly thing? You act as if racist people managed to live without infecting their kids with racism, allowing it to miraculously disappear in a single generation. And then you make the even sillier mistake of assuming that all the old school racists have died. And then you assume that the amount of racism in society can be quantified by counting the number of racists people in it. As if there is a way we could even determine who’s racist or not. There’s flaws all throughout the above.
Institutional racism works independently from racism on an individual level. All it takes is one racist person in a position of power to affect the well-being of thousands of people. A racist cop, for instance, is a far more scarier prospect than a janitor who harbors prejudices against Mexicans. When people talk about institutional racism they’re not talking about being called a nigger in the Walmart parking lot. They’re talking about being steered away from certain neighborhoods by real-esate agents because they don’t look “right”. They’re talking about having their resumes passed over because their names are too “black”. They’re talking about getting harsher prison sentences and being shadowed in department stores.
I think the problem is a lot of people feel that racism is gone because people “ain’t lynchin’ them n*gger folk no more” (am I allowed to say that?). People generally associate racism with very obvious racist actions, such as “White fountain only”,physical attacks, racial slurs, or Little Rock Nine kinda things. The problem is, most racism isn’t like that, it’s a lot more insidious. Sometimes there are people who are racist without even considering themselves racist. There are still racist people out there, the symptoms of such are just far more subtle than they used to.
I don’t care about racism; sometimes it’s a warm blanket for the paranoid, and sometimes it’s a rational strategy. The government has no business meddling in the ideology of its citizens.
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No, I am only pointing the arrow of inference one way. To the extent that racism is relevant, it has a measurable impact on economics, society, etc.
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There are thousands of other things that would make a teacher have low expectations, and I can’t see it as being more than a minor factor across the board. If the teacher’s attitude has such a great impact on someone, then perhaps they don’t belong in college. Oh, and look at this tangible irony: Affirmative action precisely assumes that minorities need help getting into good schools, and thus reflects a negative expectation. Yay for doublethink.
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Yes, so you should control for social factors, such as inadequate schools.
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Maybe I don’t care about effort; I care about equality. If your starting-point was further back, but you’re qualitatively at the same level as another guy who just hopped in, then we can favor you. It often amounts to the same, but you still don’t have an argument for the relevance of race. In general, psychological obstacles are not something in which schools should mire themselves.
I care about equality under the law. I could care less about equality of economic or social outcomes. Any attempts to force equality in those areas would mean unacceptable infringements on the individual liberties of Americans.
The ever elusive pursuit of equality in all things leads down a path no sane person would want to take.
Equality under law is the vital factor, from the perspective of liberty, but compensation for past inequality is important to overall freedom (and no, that does not go as far as equality of outcome), which is the animating force of liberty.
Okay, I can agree that compensation for past discrimination makes sense.
But the ways its been done up to now makes little sense. A wealthy African-American gets an extra boost from affirmative action while a poor white male gets an extra disadvantage.
Not to mention compensation for past discrimination is no longer the rationale for affirmative action like it was in the 70s and 80s. Now they use the amorphous excuse of “diversity”.
We’re on the same page. If they want diversity, then why not go by political party? Last time I checked, skin color doesn’t determine your point of view any more than a clearly declared ideology would. It’s actually funny how college students support Bush more than the general public, when it would be safe to wager that college professors are typically anti-Bush. Perhaps schools in the Midwest even things out on that front, but there are regions with a serious lack of ideological variety.
Another problem with diversity is that it discriminates against successful minorities. Some schools in California would be 60% or more Asian if admission was based on academic achievement.
It is a common misconception that poor whites do not get adversity points in college admissions. I know at my alma mater, Georgia Tech, there were whites in my class who wouldn’t have been there had their parents made more money. There were also some that wouldn’t have been there had their parents not gone to the school, but that’s a discussion for another day.
I agree that class should be more of a consideration than racial background. But it’s funny how we can all agree on this, and yet it doesn’t change the fact that non merit based criteria will still be used in the selection process. The middle-class kid with the 1590 SAT score and 3.8 GPA still might lose a seat to his dream university by a kid with less stellar credentials, due to a factor beyond either of their control. Why is “reverse classism” any different than “reverse racism”?
Wasn’t there a recent finding/study/news report (sorry can’t quite recall where I heard or read this) that stated that whites really AREN’T such a huge majority of the population anymore?
That when you add up minorities in this country, there really isn’t such a huge disparity?
If that’s true, that makes nesbit’s statements even sillier.
