Interesting article on the subject. Mentions some of the things tomndebb discussed, though, again, I fail to see how the sundry challenges facing black kids aren’t the product of systemic bias, if they aren’t a blatant manifestation of it. Where on Earth would black kids get the notion that “science isn’t available to them” unless, for much of our history, it truly wasn’t (barring remarkable exceptions like George Washington Carver).
A rather sadly ironic quote from the article:
Not if the tireless defenders of privilege now in Washington have anything to say about it. Not if it’s from the Federal coffers, anyway.
Schools have always served to promote certain cultural values and social engineering–right back to Plato and Aristotle and right up through the European universities and the founding of first the Ivy League and then the Land Grant colleges. The providing of education has been the conduit for those social programs.
One social need in the U.S. at the current time is a method to ensure that no group is excluded from the “American Dream” by being excluded from an education. The method to promote that goal involves various (bitterly fought) attempts to recruit and educate more members of the various minority groups so that the lack of education is no longer a barrier.
Those attempts fall under the general label “Affirmative Action.”
Now, there have been attempts to provide Affirmative Action in education that have harmed other people who are not members of the groups targeted for inclusion. Bakke recognized that problem way back in 1978. Quotas seem to be a particularly onerous and unfair practice in education and in employment and housing. However, noting that there are a number of methods that are either/both unfair or unproductive does not invalidate the goal or the need. We simply need to work harder to discover methods that are fair and productive. This is easier in the areas of employment and housing than in education, hence the bitter fights over the methods.
And yet, there does not seem to be any similar barrier to Law and Medicine.
The general failure of the education of black kids involves a lot of bias. The particular issue of a lack of black scientists is much less clear–and the systemic nature of the barriers is suggested, but not established.
What, there are no black kids in the suburbs? None in “white” schools? I live in the burbs, and there are enough black kids who aren’t living in erstwhile segregated districts for plenty long enough that I can’t see how such examples are sufficient to explain anything.
I can’t fathom why they would develop such a strange bias (if it is predominant enough to explain even a portion of the disparity) unless they were rejecting a field from which they had been themselves very actively excluded from.
Take this quote from the article:
See above.
I dunno. Sometimes in these debates I feel like there’s a helluva lot of debating for debating’s sake going on, probably because it’s me making strong statements. I certainly don’t feel hurt, but it’s tedious as all get-out sometimes. Seriously, if it isn’t racism, what the hell is it, ultimately? Why is throwing a bunch of symptomatic examples around supposed to be an argument against implicating that rather obvious suspect? Fine, there’s an example that ought to demonstrate a rather obvious chicken-and-egg problem getting bums in the seats that is a direct consequence of racist tendencies in the halls of academia. I’ve given you a perspective from a black scientist who thinks there’s systemic bias. So, if we follow along, that makes it hard to find role models, which makes black kids think science is too white, ergo, yadda yadda, so on and so forth, like this really needs a lot of explication. Take it up with him, then. Contrarian attrition for debate’s sake is exhausting.
I agree, I think. I laud any attempt to attract kids from all backgrounds, particularly those who have been economically disadvantaged, to the sciences, law, medicine, etc. They should be made aware of the opportunities and provided with a road map to admission. But at that point I think you simply have to go on merit. Test scores combiined with academic perfomance are by no means perfect, but I can’t think of anything better. If you have a better way to have the best candidates accepted, I’m all ears.
Because if it is not the result of racism, we’re going to waste a lot of energy pursuing solutions that bring no benefit. There have been many “obvious suspects” in history that have not proven to be the culprits.
Note, (again), that I have not argued that racism is not pervasive and/or that racism has not harmed the education of minorities generally. I approve of taking steps to eliminate it. So, if we succeed in eliminating racism in education (I realize that that it an unlikely hypothetical) and we find that blacks are still underrepresented in the sciences, we will have missed the opportunity and time to change that situation and will be that much further behind in getting more black kids into the sciences.
While we work on eliminating racism, it is my suggestion that we work to discover why black kids are willing to become lawyers and doctors and not choosing to become chemists and physicists. Simply declaring “It’s racism” is actually counterproductive, because it does not actually address the particular issue we are examining.
I think the thrust of the efforts by SIU are correct. However, the disbursement of public funds that exclude whites is going to run directly into Bakke. Why not consider other options, such as private endowments targeting particular groups? Why jeopardize a program by going directly against both legislation and case law and then try to rationalize it with general remarks that the problem “must” have one of only two sources when that is clearly not the case?
I also have to wonder if blacks and Lationos are actually all that well-represented in Medical schools, for instance. Sure, the situation’s better than in the natural sciences, but how could it be much worse?
Another interesting article on the subject, and this time mentioning UIC.
An interesting quote:
While the percentages at UIC are certainly better in Med school than science grad school, they still fall below representative levels for IL, and I guess it can be inferred from the quote the situation looks worse at other IL schools. According to Dr. McDade, some places are more welcoming than others. It so happens the most welcoming in IL is now getting sued for it, I guess. I have to wonder what this “unfriendly reputation” at UC could be other than at least a perception of bias.
Well it looks like we’re in for a ride. Kinda sucks that it broke on a Friday, and a Friday that was a holiday, at that, since the school paper won’t come out again until Monday. Still, they’ve got a breaking news story on the site that has a little more depth. link I’d keep an eye on the DE throughout the next week.
I hope this isn’t a lawnchair post, but I just wanted to say that Bricker and Tomndebb have both performed excellently and said most of what I would’ve said.
In specific, I’m neither a right winger nor morally bereft, as far as I can tell, but I don’t support affirmative action, and I do think that Bush did the right thing. (Yes, I really did just say that.)
I do support colleges offering money/spots in their school, based on the economic situation of applicants, but not their skin color. It also disturbs me that supporting the law that’s applicable in this case means that I’m deserving of scorn.
I’d also say that I could not possibly care less if the people who are in the sciences are black, white, hispanic, asian, or have eight heads, as long as they’re good at their jobs. Likewise, I don’t care how many blacks, white, hispanics, asians, or eight headed monsters aren’t in the sciences as long as qualified candidates aren’t being rejected due to their ‘race’.
I also fail to see why qualified black science students can’t get perfectly good mentors who happen to of another ‘race’. As a matter of fact, that idea that blacks need other blacks in order to have a sense of ‘community’ strikes me either as racist, or as an accusation of racism against a school’s faculty/student body.
I’ll gnaw on this a bit more, but for now I’ll at least toss my hat into the ring.
My rabid, morally bereft hat.
Seems like the actual issue at hand is being sidestepped. The SCOTUS ruled that race can be one factor (among many) used in school admissions processes, but we’re talking about scholarships here. Not admission to the school, but money to go to the school. Money that is available only to minority students. That’s a far cry from even the most aggressive Affirmative Action programs (ie, quota based systems).
Well, I guess we’ll just ignore all the endemic racial bias in society, and all of its impact, since ultimately race shouldn’t matter. And we’ll ignore the fact the body of scientists is so unrepresentative of society at large it’s shameful. We’ll ignore that the few scientists of certain minorities who do become scientists apparently don’t thrive, and we’ll ignore the positive impact a critical mass of minority scientists would have toward ameliorating that problem. Sure, it’s blacks discriminating against white scientists. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up and now know where the blame clearly lies.
I guess I give up. Really, I’ve not been this disheartened in a long time. Hooray! Affirmative action: BAD! Ignoring the obvious: GOOD! How will things change? Why, it’ll just happen, because race doesn’t matter! See how easy!
If that was the entire content of the OP, I might agree with you. One snide and unfair generalization in a larger rant is VERY different from a post consisting of nothing else.
Furthermore, while I don’t want to be seen as a defender of the OP, he didn’t say “no one could possibly hold this position but a (rabid and morally bereft…)”. Rather, he basically claimed that the government, ie, the Bush administration, was taking this action in order to appeal to the (rabid and morally bereft…), which is a less outrageously offensive statement than you’re making it out to be.
My dishonesty??? Who peed in your wheaties? Where have I ever been dishonest in my SDMB interactions? It’s possible I’m wrong about this topic. It’s possible I’m wrong and a hypocrite. But what on earth possibly makes me dishonest? Please point out my dishonesty or withdraw the accusation.
Which (if you are correct, and you may be, I don’t know) doesn’t mean that they are necessarily wrong. And furthermore, that’s not what you said. You didn’t say “These programs are illegal, therefore it’s appropriate for the government to put a stop to them”. Rather, you made a meaningless comparison and attempted to use it to “zing” the liberals.
Yes, I react differently to apparently identical things when the words “black” and “white” are swapped. A “black pride week” and a “white pride week” are NOT equal. And furthermore, you’re a smart guy and you know it, so don’t plead ignorance and mock surprise.
PS: Also note that in neither this nor my previous post have I claimed that I support AA. It’s a difficult topic, and I’m not sure exactly where my precise opinion falls. I’m just saying that I find the “any racial preference ever is wrong period no matter what end of story” argument unconvincing.
I don’t think there is any quesiton that racism is the cause of the income and education disparity in blacks. Blacks were slaves for nearly the first 100 years of the country, faced institutionalized racism for the next 100 and have faced non-institutionalized racism since then. And this leaves us scratching our heads searching for the cause of black poverty why?
Even if you flipped a switch and removed any concept of race from the world and removed any AA programs it would take generations for the distribution of income between races to normalize. We live in a country where generally wealth begets wealth and poverty begets poverty. Some do break out of poverty and become wealthy and some fall from wealth to poverty but it doesn’t happen fast enough to expect change in one generation.
At different levels of family income come different levels of expectations for education and career. A kid that comes from a family that has no one who attended college is going to have pretty low expectations. If he even graduates with a 2 year degree from a community college he is going to be viewed as a huge success. The first in his family to ever graduate from college. Compare that with my family where I was not only expected to go to a good college I am expected to graduate in 4 years. Grades lower than an ‘A’ were met with hard questions and heaven help me if I got a ‘C’ or lower. Is it any wonder why someone in my situation will be more likely to graduate with a science degree than with someone in the first situation?
So how do you go about solving the disparity? Well, the best way to do that would to be change the cultural values and expectations that black parents have towards their children. Before we can do that we need to ensure what we are trying to convice these people of is in fact true. If we say stay in school and you will succeed we need to give them good schools, competent teachers and adequate supplies. Anyone that walks into a rich suburban school and a poor urban school will laugh at the claim that they are equal. These people are not stupid and can see that they are getting screwed.
Once we accomplish that we can start trying to change social norms. Needless to say thats quite a task but I think there could be some success in that area. Simply put those people that young blacks look up to need to start emphasizing school. These people need to come out and say that the ethos that if someone tries in school they are selling out or becoming white is junk. I am dubious as to how much effect that has compared with the parents and local community but its better than nothing.
Those things probably would speed up the equalizing the education distribution but it will take time. Slavery, “Jim Crow” laws and racism were a huge input to the system that has knocked it out of whack. The system that is currently in America is set up to favor the status quo and that is slowing down the response. Time cures all wounds though and eventually our income distribution will return to what it would have been without racism.
There are many forms of Affirmative Action-- some good and some bad. Racial quotas and set-asides are bad. This is a set-aside. This is bad.
I don’t think most people have a problem with aid offered to people who are economically disadvantaged. What peopel have a problem with is making race a requirement: This money is not for poor people, it’s for poor Black/Latino/whatever people. If aid is given to those who need it, and minorities are more likely to be in need, then they will be more likely to get it. It doesn’t have to be specifically set aside for them.