# Is Affirmative Action focused on the wrong things?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 5, 2017, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792 "2017-04-05T02:21:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/101 "2017-04-06T19:23:25Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> I’m not sure what you are talking about. Vietnamese refugees weren’t admitted into the US based on their ability to navigate some refugee bureaucracy.
You haven’t provided any cites about the Vietnamese, and the larger issue isn’t about Vietnamese refugees.
> [@](#):
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> So you are saying that if we never had slavery or segregation, we would still need to have AA because we’re that fucking racist?
Who knows? We don’t need AA because of slavery/segregation, we need it because _black people (and others) are not treated fairly_. Slavery and segregation (and Jim Crow, etc.) play a massive role in why black people are treated unfairly, but it’s the unfair treatment in the present, not in the past, that makes AA necessary. AA is not about correcting for past unfairness; it’s about present-day unfairness in society.
> [@](#):
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> So cream of the crop might include nature AND nurture? Then, I don’t think I understand what you mean by cream of the crop unless you just mean people who do well for whatever reason, in which case, I’m not sure what useful role that term plays in the discussion.
I’m saying it doesn’t matter why immigrants may do better than other groups – I’m suggesting that the fact that they’re immigrants (or foreign students, or whatever), and not their nation of origin, might have something to do with their success.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/102 "2017-04-06T19:24:42Z")
> [@MandaJo](#):
>
> Yes. The corrosive impact of racism and implicit bias hits them very hard. Affirmative action isn’t apologizing to a bloodline.
I’m not going to pretend that discrimination against Asians today is as bad as discrimination against blacks but it is not a difference in kind. Historical discrimination against Asians have been minimized but it was still there. But for slavery and aprt5heid, I don’t know if things would have been much worse for blacks in the south than it was for Asians in the west.
What part of the legacy of slavery and segregation (rather than general white racism) do African immigrants bear?
> [@](#):
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> I mean, by your logic, would a black African American child adopted by African immigrants be entitled or not?
They would be entitled even if they were adopted by whites.
> [@](#):
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> True story, I have a student this year who is half Nigerian, half African American. He did get into a couple Ivys, MIT and Stanford. Is that just or unjust? Does it matter which parent it was, which last name he carries?
Last name doesn’t matter but I would say that if a sufficient portion of their ancestry suffered under slavery and segregation, then they should qualify. Frankly, I think Obama’s girls should qualify.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/103 "2017-04-06T19:26:21Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> What part of the legacy of slavery and segregation (rather than general white racism) do African immigrants bear?
The fact that they live in a society that, in general, treats black people unfairly. AA is about unfair treatment today, not unfair treatment in the past (even if the unfair treatment today is hugely due to unfair treatment in the past).
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/104 "2017-04-06T19:31:59Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> What if I told you that 40% of black students in the ivy league are Africans or the children of Africans?
I don’t know what that statistic is supposed to be telling me, other than Ivy Leagues are very attractive to African students and African students are also attractive to Ivy Leagues. Perhaps it’s because I don’t automatically assume black student in a Ivy League institution = AA that I’m not seeing the same thing you’re seeing?
> [@](#):
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> To be honest, this percentage sounds low to me, perhaps things have changed but when I was in school there seemed to be two immigrant blacks (or their children) for every native born black. The native born blacks were a minority within a minority.
I didn’t go to an Ivy League, but I went to a highly selective undergrad institution. There were certainly African students there, but they were a tiny minority of the black population, which was pretty dang small to begin with.
I’m finding your African/not African dichotomy interesting. Not only are African immigrants a “model minority” group, but so are recent immigrants from the Caribbean. They too tend to look their nose down on us African Americans (descendents of American slaves). So I’m guessing that your “native born black” schoolmates were actually disproportionately represented by second- or third-generation Americans. And this still doesn’t bother me none. I know there are African Americans who are butthurt about stuff like this. But the butthurt only makes sense if one assumes AA was intended to be slavery/Jim Crow reparations. It isn’t. If it were a form of reparations, then why do people argue that poor whites should qualify under it? Why have white women benefited from it?
> [@](#):
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> I think that African immigrants are absolutely taking something from the descendants of slaves. I don’t know if these spots would be replaced one for one with the descendants of slaves but its not zero either. And there is little to justify giving an advantage to the children of recent African immigrants.
Do you think there is little justification to giving a kid from impoverished Appalachia an advantage over a kid from impoverished inner city? Should a university have the discretion to go with the former since they only have two other students with a impoverished Appalachian background versus 20 from the impoverished inner city? I think they should.
Personally, I think it is crazy to think “African student” is some monoithic group that can be talked about in some meaningful way. Should an African student with average ability but from a wealthy background be lumped in with an African student with modest means who writes amazing poetry and a compelling personal essay? A university is perfectly justified in seeking out BOTH of these candidates, since they both bring tangible and intangibles with them.
> [@](#):
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> I think that affirmative action absolutely diminishes the prospects of others who are not beneficiaries of affirmative action. However, for the time being, I think that it is justified but the leakage of the benefit to black immigrants really undermines the argument for affirmative action in my mind.
Can you find a single iota of evidence that universities choose African students on the basis of Affirmative Action more than other groups? Or are you just speculating that they do, based on the cynical notion that black people are so undesirable that there’s no way an Ivy League would select them unless their hand was forced? Because that’s the inference I’m drawing from your posts.
> [@](#):
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> Its not like we can’t figure out who is a descendant of a slave. Georgetown University recently offered preferential treatment to the descendants of its former slaves. They didn’t seem to have too much trouble figuring out who qualified for this preferential treatment.
For every person like you who doesn’t have a problem giving a preference for the descendents of slaves, there are eleventy that don’t think the descendents of slaves are entitled to anything. If a university uses AA to build diversity rather than as a raparations program, are they doing something ethically wrong, in your opinion? Why should it fall on a university’s shoulders to give us descendents of slaves an extra boost, but no other institution?
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### Author:  [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/105 "2017-04-06T19:33:09Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> What part of the legacy of slavery and segregation (rather than general white racism) do African immigrants bear?
The part when cops assume they are violent and dangerous, the part where teachers and counselors expect less of them and discourage them from academic pursuits, the part where store owners follow them around.
White racism towards Asians doesn’t include the idea that they are dangerous and stupid. Because of slavery and Jim Crow, the idea that blacks are dangerous and stupid became enshrined in the worldview of many Americans and it has far reaching implications.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/106 "2017-04-06T19:33:46Z")
> [@MandaJo](#):
>
> You keep saying this like it’s an article of faith. But for my money, having diversity goals in college admissions isn’t about trying to pay reparations to the genetic linage of those affected by slavery. It’s to offset the current racist society. Lots of us are saying this, and you keep hand-waving it away with “society just isn’t that racist anymore”. But it is. A large part of the reason it is is that the justifications and rationalizations for slavery and Jim Crow have lingered, but those prejudices hit everyone that society identifies as “black”, not just people who carry the genes of former slaves.
Its not an article of faith, its an amendment to the constitution and while the constitution may not bind the hands of private colleges, it is pretty universally recognized that race based preferences are bad and there must be a correspondingly larger good that is being achieved by that race based preference.
This current racist society of ours has elected a black man to the white house twice. Racism exists but it is not racism that is crippling the opportunities of black Americans. Poverty might be a culprit but that is not where why are giving a preference to wealthy/middle class Africa immigrants. Culture might be a culprit but shitty culture is not where we are giving the preference to African immigrants who bring their own immigrant culture with them. We are giving this fairly significant preference based solely on the color of their skin and nothing more. That is an extraordinary thing in our democracy and if trying to reverse the effects of slavery and segregation is not really relevant in your justification of AA then I would suggest tat AA has experienced mission creep.
So yes society simply isn’t racist enough to justify AA on its own.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/107 "2017-04-06T19:36:29Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> Its not an article of faith, its an amendment to the constitution and while the constitution may not bind the hands of private colleges, it is pretty universally recognized that race based preferences are bad and there must be a correspondingly larger good that is being achieved by that race based preference.
>
> This current racist society of ours has elected a black man to the white house twice. Racism exists but it is not racism that is crippling the opportunities of black Americans. Poverty might be a culprit but that is not where why are giving a preference to wealthy/middle class Africa immigrants. Culture might be a culprit but shitty culture is not where we are giving the preference to African immigrants who bring their own immigrant culture with them. We are giving this fairly significant preference based solely on the color of their skin and nothing more. That is an extraordinary thing in our democracy and if trying to reverse the effects of slavery and segregation is not really relevant in your justification of AA then I would suggest tat AA has experienced mission creep.
There’s a whole lot of assertions in here that are just opinion, not fact, and differences in those opinions are probably the basis of the disagreements in this discussion.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/108 "2017-04-06T19:44:26Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> You haven’t provided any cites about the Vietnamese, and the larger issue isn’t about Vietnamese refugees.
The larger point was that your hypothesis was that there is some self selection to foreign exchange students and international students that might not make them a representative sample and that self selection rather than AA might account for the astounding academic success of all these African immigrants. Then someone pointed out that the student in question as a refugee and not the child of foreign exchange students and you didn’t seem to think that made much of a difference. I pointed out that a Vietnamese refugee population in America more closely mimicked the white population than the self selected group of Korean immigrants in America despite coming from relatively similar academic cultures (both Confucian cultures with a focus on academics).
> [@](#):
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> Who knows? We don’t need AA because of slavery/segregation,
Then we don’t need AA anymore.
> [@](#):
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> we need it because _black people (and others) are not treated fairly_. Slavery and segregation (and Jim Crow, etc.) play a massive role in why black people are treated unfairly, but it’s the unfair treatment in the present, not in the past, that makes AA necessary. AA is not about correcting for past unfairness; it’s about present-day unfairness in society.
What academic racial unfairness do you see that is not associated with poverty or culture?
I’m saying it doesn’t matter why immigrants may do better than other groups – I’m suggesting that the fact that they’re immigrants (or foreign students, or whatever), and not their nation of origin, might have something to do with their success.
[/QUOTE]
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/109 "2017-04-06T19:45:43Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> The fact that they live in a society that, in general, treats black people unfairly. AA is about unfair treatment today, not unfair treatment in the past (even if the unfair treatment today is hugely due to unfair treatment in the past).
How does society treat blacks unfairly that cannot be explained by poverty and culture?
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/110 "2017-04-06T19:50:21Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> The larger point was that your hypothesis was that there is some self selection to foreign exchange students and international students that might not make them a representative sample and that self selection rather than AA might account for the astounding academic success of all these African immigrants. Then someone pointed out that the student in question as a refugee and not the child of foreign exchange students and you didn’t seem to think that made much of a difference. I pointed out that a Vietnamese refugee population in America more closely mimicked the white population than the self selected group of Korean immigrants in America despite coming from relatively similar academic cultures (both Confucian cultures with a focus on academics).
You’ve stated this without any backup. But this was a very small part of my larger point, so I’m not inclined to go any further with it.
> [@](#):
>
> Then we don’t need AA anymore.
AA was never about correcting for slavery/segregation – you’re thinking of reparations. AA was about trying to ensure black Americans (and others) have a decent opportunity to succeed in a society in which they’re not treated fairly.
> [@](#):
>
> What academic racial unfairness do you see that is not associated with poverty or culture?
There are plenty of potential factors – teachers (no matter their race) treat black and white kids differently; media figures and potential role models are very different; day-to-day racism (little things) can add up and affect self-esteem, motivation, and similar characteristics; and much more. Racism doesn’t necessarily mean hatred or brutality – if one kid is assumed by a teacher to be a bit more of a troublemaker, even if the teacher tries to help, racism might be involved.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/111 "2017-04-06T19:57:14Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> How does society treat blacks unfairly that cannot be explained by poverty and culture?
I mentioned some above (though “culture” is a big enough concept that it could include almost every aspect of society). More examples:
Standards of beauty might affect self-esteem and feelings of self-worth. If a kid feels like their natural appearance and hairstyle are unacceptable in broader society, they might feel just a little worse about themselves.
Police mistreatment might affect trust in law enforcement and other institutions, including trust in the possibility of success by playing by the rules. If someone’s brother, father, uncle, and grandpa were all mistreated by police, they’re a lot more likely to see police as a dangerous enemy, not as a helpful ally. If the police are reasonably seen as enemies, criminals might be more likely to be seen as allies.
When a kid realizes that many of the “default” things in society exclude them (i.e. “flesh-tone” as a color doesn’t match their flesh, among many, many more), they might have increased levels of distrust in society at large, including in the possibility of success in playing by the rules.
Businesses (like the therapy group of a friend of mine, or a sales team, or any number of others) with absolutely no personal racial animus among their management might nonetheless be worried about hiring a black person in a public-facing job, since a black therapist/salesman/PR-person/etc. might harm their business since many customers might respond less favorably to a black person in this job.
There are tons more examples.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/112 "2017-04-06T20:04:35Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> I don’t know what that statistic is supposed to be telling me, other than Ivy Leagues are very attractive to African students and African students are also attractive to Ivy Leagues. Perhaps it’s because I don’t automatically assume black student in a Ivy League institution = AA that I’m not seeing the same thing you’re seeing?
And African students are attractive to Ivy Leagues because they are black. That is AA or do you have a different phrase you would use when colleges give students a preference because of the color of their skin.
Do you really doubt that the color of their skin had a significant affect on their admission to these schools?
> [@](#):
>
> I didn’t go to an Ivy League, but I went to a highly selective undergrad institution. There were certainly African students there, but they were a tiny minority of the black population, which was pretty dang small to begin with.
>
> I’m finding your African/not African dichotomy interesting. Not only are African immigrants a “model minority” group, but so are recent immigrants from the Caribbean. They too tend to look their nose down on us African Americans (descendents of American slaves). So I’m guessing that your “native born black” schoolmates were actually disproportionately represented by second- or third-generation Americans. And this still doesn’t bother me none. I know there are African Americans who are butthurt about stuff like this. But the butthurt only makes sense if one assumes AA was intended to be slavery/Jim Crow reparations. It isn’t. If it were a form of reparations, then why do people argue that poor whites should qualify under it? Why have white women benefited from it?
Women benefit because we used to have laws that made women unable to enter into contracts, hold jobs, enter professions. Because women were not viewed as competent to enter into contracts under the law. We used to strip women of their citizenship if they married a foreigner but men kept their citizenship if they married a foreigner. They were second class citizens under the laws of this country. Blacks were slaves and second class citizens under segregationist laws of this country.
People can argue for whatever the hell they want. If somewhere down, oligarchs have virtually destroyed America’s social mobility, then I suppose a reasonable argument can be made for some sort of advantage at that point but this is not affirmative action.
> [@](#):
>
> Do you think there is little justification to giving a kid from impoverished Appalachia an advantage over a kid from impoverished inner city? Should a university have the discretion to go with the former since they only have two other students with a impoverished Appalachian background versus 20 from the impoverished inner city? I think they should.
We’re talking about middle class/wealthy African immigrants.
> [@](#):
>
> Personally, I think it is crazy to think “African student” is some monoithic group that can be talked about in some meaningful way. Should an African student with average ability but from a wealthy background be lumped in with an African student with modest means who writes amazing poetry and a compelling personal essay? A university is perfectly justified in seeking out BOTH of these candidates, since they both bring tangible and intangibles with them.
Of course we can. They are all being given the same AA preference. None of them deserve it. If they can get in under some other criteria (great poet or wealthy enough to buy the school a library), then fine but they shouldn’t be getting in because of the color of their skin.
> [@](#):
>
> Can you find a single iota of evidence that universities choose African students on the basis of Affirmative Action more than other groups? Or are you just speculating that they do, based on the cynical notion that black people are so undesirable that there’s no way an Ivy League would select them unless their hand was forced? Because that’s the inference I’m drawing from your posts.
Then you are going out of your way to take offense.
I never said that none of these students could get in on their own. I said that they are getting AA preference that should be reserved for the descendants of slaves.
Are you under the impression that colleges differentiate between the descendants of slaves and African immigrants?
> [@](#):
>
> For every person like you who doesn’t have a problem giving a preference for the descendents of slaves, there are eleventy that don’t think the descendents of slaves are entitled to anything. If a university uses AA to build diversity rather than as a raparations program, are they doing something ethically wrong, in your opinion?
Yes.
> [@](#):
>
> Why should it fall on a university’s shoulders to give us descendents of slaves an extra boost, but no other institution?
Because higher education is the gateway to socioeconomic mobility. Its not the only gateway but it is a significant one.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/113 "2017-04-06T20:07:19Z")
> [@MandaJo](#):
>
> The part when cops assume they are violent and dangerous, the part where teachers and counselors expect less of them and discourage them from academic pursuits, the part where store owners follow them around.
And how does that affect college admissions?
> [@](#):
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> White racism towards Asians doesn’t include the idea that they are dangerous and stupid.
It used to.
> [@](#):
>
> Because of slavery and Jim Crow, the idea that blacks are dangerous and stupid became enshrined in the worldview of many Americans and it has far reaching implications.
You sure the notion of blacks being dangerous was from slavery and jim crow? ISTM it comes from more recent events.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/114 "2017-04-06T20:08:20Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> There’s a whole lot of assertions in here that are just opinion, not fact, and differences in those opinions are probably the basis of the disagreements in this discussion.
For example?
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### Author:  [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/115 "2017-04-06T20:23:11Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> And how does that affect college admissions?
>
> It used to.
>
> You sure the notion of blacks being dangerous was from slavery and jim crow? ISTM it comes from more recent events.
The notion that black people are dangerous goes all the way back to slavery and was always used as a justification for slavery: black people needed to be enslaved for their own protection and the protection of white people. That same idea was always implied by Jim Crow–you have to “keep them in their place” because they are dangerous otherwise.
A lifetime of being treated as less intelligent means a life time of fewer opportunities and less support. People assuming you are dangerous means that you’re more likely to be suspended from school or otherwise dismissed as a behavior problem. Of course these things have an effect on your performance. It’s multiplied, greatly, by poverty, but it’s there even for middle-class black kids.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/116 "2017-04-06T21:09:23Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> It used to.
>
> You sure the notion of blacks being dangerous was from slavery and jim crow? ISTM it comes from more recent events.
AA is about now, not what used to be. Things are unfair now.
As for the stereotype of black people being dangerous, this dates back centuries. There’s tons of literature on the topic, including pseudoscience that said black people were closer to animals.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/117 "2017-04-06T21:10:49Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> For example?
Principally that racism isn’t hurting the opportunities of black people today.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2017, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/118 "2017-04-06T23:43:07Z")
**Damuri** , until you can produce evidence that universities admit Africans under AA and not for some other reason (like “Look! An international student who can pay full freight who meets the basic requirements for admission!”), then we’re merely exchanging opinions. Sorry, that’s not interesting enough to keep me hanging out in this thread.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2017, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/119 "2017-04-07T00:49:05Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> You’ve stated this without any backup. But this was a very small part of my larger point, so I’m not inclined to go any further with it.
It was actually a large part of your point, that these Nigerian immigrants were doing well because they were a self selected group of high achievers; exchange students etc. That is pretty well undermined if they are coming from a cross section of refugees who are fleeing Boko Haram. There is nothing self selective about being a refugee in the United States fleeing from Boko Haram. We do not select refugees based on their socioeconomic status, their human capital, their education or any of that, do we?
Then what we have left is a bunch of black immigrants who have not yet been dragged down by a lifetime of toxic black culture. If your explanation for the extraordinary achievement of this small subgroup of blacks in America is no longer the notion that they are an extraordinarily self selected group, then how do you explain their achievement if we are saying that AA plays no part?
Sure we have racism but racism in general is no worse in the United States than in most Western European countries: [Map shows world's most racist countries (and the answers may surprise you) | Daily Mail Online](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2325502/Map-shows-worlds-racist-countries-answers-surprise-you.html)
> [@](#):
>
> AA was never about correcting for slavery/segregation – you’re thinking of reparations. AA was about trying to ensure black Americans (and others) have a decent opportunity to succeed in a society in which they’re not treated fairly.
“You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates”
-LBJ
Your formulation could be used to justify AA forever.
> [@](#):
>
> There are plenty of potential factors – teachers (no matter their race) treat black and white kids differently; media figures and potential role models are very different; day-to-day racism (little things) can add up and affect self-esteem, motivation, and similar characteristics; and much more. Racism doesn’t necessarily mean hatred or brutality – if one kid is assumed by a teacher to be a bit more of a troublemaker, even if the teacher tries to help, racism might be involved.
If your argument is that we have a type of racism now that is so powerful that is so powerful that it justifies race based discrimination but so inadvertant and subtle as to escape detection, then how do we know that these subtle and inadvertant little racisms don’t also weigh on Indian immigrants or Korean immigrants?
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2017, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-affirmative-action-focused-on-the-wrong-things/783792/120 "2017-04-07T01:55:14Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> I mentioned some above (though “culture” is a big enough concept that it could include almost every aspect of society). More examples:
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> Standards of beauty might affect self-esteem and feelings of self-worth. If a kid feels like their natural appearance and hairstyle are unacceptable in broader society, they might feel just a little worse about themselves.
You mean like Asian males?
> [@](#):
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> Police mistreatment might affect trust in law enforcement and other institutions, including trust in the possibility of success by playing by the rules. If someone’s brother, father, uncle, and grandpa were all mistreated by police, they’re a lot more likely to see police as a dangerous enemy, not as a helpful ally. If the police are reasonably seen as enemies, criminals might be more likely to be seen as allies.
>
> When a kid realizes that many of the “default” things in society exclude them (i.e. “flesh-tone” as a color doesn’t match their flesh, among many, many more), they might have increased levels of distrust in society at large, including in the possibility of success in playing by the rules.
I agree. In what way does AA fix that problem? It seems to me that if there is no “buy-in” into the system at a young age because of police abuse, then the answer is to control police abuse, rather than tilt the playing field in their favor.
For the record, these police abuses used to afflict every group including Asian Americans.
> [@](#):
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> Businesses (like the therapy group of a friend of mine, or a sales team, or any number of others) with absolutely no personal racial animus among their management might nonetheless be worried about hiring a black person in a public-facing job, since a black therapist/salesman/PR-person/etc. might harm their business since many customers might respond less favorably to a black person in this job.
I have run into this exact issue in law practice where partners feel that client relations would best be served by giving legacy clients to white males rather than women or minorities, including Asians. Should we extend AA to everyone other than white males? If we have a societal problem of this sort, AA seems like a particularly bad way of solving the problem and a particularly good way of stirring up resentment.
> [@](#):
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> There are tons more examples.
The answer to racism is to address the racism. Addressing racism with AA does little to address racism.
Should we now have AA for muslim students?
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