Using the word “remedy” in this context is absurd though. Remedy here means a way to end discrimination and its effects, not a policy that went along with segregation because there was no other choice.
It’s not misleading at all. It was a remedy to the lack of education opportunities.
Thanks CarnalK.
“Remedy” has a pretty specific legal meaning in a discussion about segregation.
http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1784
To call segregation a remedy for segregation is absurd anyway, but especially when “remedy” is used to mean something that ends discrimination, not something that gets around it by going along with it.
But not a remedy to segregation. It WAS segregation.
Your link doesn’t mention the special meaning has wrt segregation.
Do you have evidence that HBCUs discriminated against anyone, or had a policy of segregation?
When discussing remedies for segregation, it’s usually in the context of legal issues.
Look, that’s the way I was using it. If you want to use it a different way, fine, we’ll have to just find a new word then because it just misses the point.
No. But you’re missing the larger point. They were part of a larger system of segregation.
Again, my point is that the bright line you’re making isn’t so bright. Just because a specific institution didn’t specifically discriminate, it can be a product of discrimination. Just like if a school didn’t actually have a policy banning a certain group, but made them so uncomfortable that they never applied. Or if a company hired blacks, but only at a lower wage and for crappy jobs. Or a club that had a “lady’s auxiliary” because it didn’t admit women as actual members. It’s more complex than you make it out to be.
As for HBCUs being a “remedy” for discrimination - do you think that if you asked a student or professor at one of them if we don’t need to desegregate white schools because we have these black schools as a remedy, they would agree?
They were a response to segregation – segregation disproportionately harmed one side, and that side did things in response.
Fine, but not HBCUs – they were a response to discrimination, not a product of discrimination.
None of these are comparable to HBCUs – all of these things harmed people; HBCUs harmed no one and helped many people.
They were a partial remedy – the best that could be done at the time with segregation in place and defended by the government. The complete remedy was the end of segregation, but since HBCUs never harmed anyone, and helped lots of people, HBCUs didn’t need to go away.
As long as HBCs aren’t discriminating now, assuming they are public institutions, what’s the beef with them? The only bad aspect, that I can think of, is the fact they were needed to begin with.
Just like abuse shelters are part of the system of spousal abuse, right?
A byproduct maybe. Either way, it doesn’t mean it is a negative entity. I think you missed the historic lesson here: many schools actively prevented Blacks from attending, so schools Blacks could attend were created. They were not ONLY created for Blacks. They didn’t segregate or prevent Whites from going to those schools. For some reason, you see a situation where one entity says, “Whites only”, and another says, “Everyone welcome including Blacks”, and think the latter entity is discriminating. Odd logic right there.vvIt’s especially troubling because you seem to make no distinction between the two. It’s as if inclusion and exclusion are the same to you.
Unless you are arguing the mere presence of Black people is intended to prevent Whites from applying, then I don’t know what your point is. Either way, even if that were the truth, that’s on the racists, not the Black kids trying their best to get an education.
But none of that is analogous at all. You seem to be missing the point that some groups and entities will not be demographically representative just due to factors largely unrelated to discrimination or bias. I expect most book groups to be predominately female, most cigar and beer brewing clubs to be predominately male. It’s not malice in action, and such things don’t need a remedy.
No because it’s not really an equal situation. Besides, the remedy was to address the fact that there were no educational opportunities for Blacks, not to end discrimination.
For US blacks, as compared with whites, you will find an average empirically measured difference in favor of young black males for:
- Bone mineral content, bone density and bone fracture resistance
- Skeletal muscle driving power-based sports activities
- Sprinting speed
- Muscle mass
- Endogenous androgens
- Armspan/height ratios
Over the last 20 or 30 years, the genetic underpinnings for these differences are being unraveled, and the direction of result has all been toward genes versus nurture for these physiologic outcome differences. If we look at skeletal muscle, we don’t find we are all about the same genetically; we find that, by self-identification with black or white, there are marked gene variant frequency differences.
Over the last couple decades we have begun to unravel the story of how the earth was peopled, and the current thinking is that something like 70,000+ years of separation exists between the modern source populations existing in west africa and most of europe.
Multiple studies show a general consensus that US blacks have an average of about 80% of their genes from a west african source pool while europeans have about 95% plus of their pool from european pools.
Thus, about 70,000 years of evolution (and much much more if you throw in the percentage of european pool that is from more archaic lineages such as Neanderthal) separate the average gene pools of black and white NFL players.
If you want to argue that these two genetic pools are not likely to be quite distinct, you would have to take a position that the pools have not been separated, and/or that evolution does not change our DNA beyond trivial things such as superficial appearance. That is the position of the Young Earth Creationist, which is all I mean by that comment.
In taking such a position (or perhaps, just ignoring the facts altogether) you would be at odds with what science teaches us.
I think almost all HBCUs besides Bluefield and W Va pretty much skew preferentially toward blacks, and certainly so for advanced degree programs such as an MD. Something over two thirds of black US physicians have their degree from an HBCU, where it is much easier for them to gain matriculation, given their substantially weaker college academic records. Were those HBCUs equally open to white applicants, the competitive academic advantage of the white and asian applicants would displace all the black ones.
We desperately need to preserve and maintain HBCUs, along with their ability to freely admit blacks preferentially. Given the current general hostility toward race-alone AA, HBCUs need to be protected even more vigorously from the merit-based crowd.
Do you have any evidence that HBCUs are not “equally open to white applicants”? I’m unaware of any HBCUs turning away applicants due to race.
A distinction without a difference.
If segregation hadn’t existed, HBCUs wouldn’t exist.
Do you also think we should keep blacks-only beaches, and clubs, and water fountains, and public schools too? Because they were a “response” to discrimination?
So racial discrimination is okay.
You’re ignoring the important difference – HBCUs harmed no one. That can’t be said for your other example, and harm is what matters.
I could just as easily say that those other examples harmed noone.
If blacks had a place to drink water, just like whites did, what harm came to them for having to have a segregated water fountain?
The NFL should not hire more whites.
First, there are plenty of whites in the NFL. They are owners, coaches, assistant coaches, etc. They have the power. Where the NFL needs to improve on diversity is in its management.
Second, blacks and minorities have been historically discriminated against. This is a fact and often ignored by people claiming reverse discrimination. Historically means years, decades, even centuries. The progress minorities have made recently does not undo all of that and we should not be so quick to “balance” things out because the minorities have had a turn for a few years. If anything, blacks and other minorities need to dominate in a majority of industries for another few generations before we can even pretend to have made up for what this country did to them in the past.
Whites have not been discriminated against for the color of their skin in things like housing or hiring. Some whites have been discriminated but typically due to other reasons like national origin, religion, or class. We should definitely try to remove those barriers as well, but its not something that hiring more white players in the NFL will address.
And third, as a sport with statistics and direct correlation between those stats and performance, the NFL doesn’t discriminate (among) its players that much. I would argue that sports discriminate the least among their players because everyone is looking past what color you are and looking at your height, weight, speed, college stats, etc. A majority black NFL is what non-discrimination looks like, so there is no need to try to balance things out the other way. On the other hand, more subjective occupations where someone doesn’t look at what you can do but rather infer things about you from your race DOES have discrimination due to the large amount of subjectivity in that judgement. Saying blacks are aggressive and therefore officers shoot them when they haven’t done anything wrong is a subjective prejudice based on their race. Saying women are not good leaders because they are shrill, or too passive, or bitchy, is not a judgement made objectively. Those things are wrong. But saying this guy runs faster, jumpers higher, and completes more passes than this other guy is more racially neutral and thus does not have to be corrected. By the way, that’s “more racially neutral” and not “completely neutral”, don’t put words in my mouth that I’m dealing in absolutes.
You could say it, but it would be false.
Because they were segregated by law to inferior facilities. Segregation materially harmed people. HBCUs helped people. Without HBCUs, the plight of black people would have been even worse. And again, from what I understand, HBCUs did not discriminate.