I appreciate the cite and the information it provides. The message I take away from it isn’t that AA doesn’t work. The message is that it should be more thoughtfully applied. It doesn’t make sense to drop a kid scoring in the 50th percentile in the same math class as a kid scoring in the 99th, and expect both of them to have the same rewarding college experience. But if the gulf between them is less vast (say, 80th versus 99th), then their outcomes will be more alike.
Malcolm Gladwell also talks about this in his latest book, except that his treatment of the topic is more general and distilled down to the question of whether it’s better to be a small fish in a big pond versus a big fish in a small pond. For the college students who are full of confidence and natural talent, they will do well in the former situation. But for kids who lack confidence and don’t “shine” in any spectactular way, being a big fish in a small pond is probably a lot better for them. And this applies to anyone, not just black students. But because black students on average carry a burden that most other students do not carry, the benefits of the “big fish” approach are even more poignant.
Despite my ambivalence about AA, I think having it is better than telling ourselves that the playing field became level in 1968, so let’s not think about inequality anymore. Maybe if we were talking about something that happened hundreds of years ago, this would make sense. But my parents were tax-paying adults in 1968. Why wouldn’t the legal discrimination they faced back then be reflected in their present-day outcome, as well as that of their children and grandchildren? We can strive for equality of opportunity as much as we possibly can, and I think this is definitely what we should be doing. But considering that this is a very lofty goal that only seems to be getting loftier, AA is decent stop gap. Definitely far from perfect, but still better than nothing. And it seems to me that a lot of anti-AA folks want “nothing”. I’m just not down for that.
As George Carlin would say, keep people smart enough to run the machines but not smart enough to realize how badly they are being fucked.
However I don’t think that is what is going on, I don’t think this is an attempt to keep people poor and desperate. What is surprising about this situation is that incomes for blacks has gone up, but their wealth really has not. Or the fact that hispanic households average about 9k more in annual income but their wealth is barely $2500 total higher.
A better contemporary example of what you describe is how we use culture war issues and political wedge issues to distract people from the fact that our country has become a plutocracy.
I have been in a bar where the owner threw out a beer glass that a black person drank out of and you’re telling me that a home’s value can’t be devalued because of a black owner? If only 5 or 10 out of a hundred people won’t enter a bid on a home because of a black owner it decreases the value.
I’m under no impression that my risk for being taken advantage by a used car dealer is exactly the same as a man’s. I already know the stereotypes and assumptions that people make about women and their ability to negotiate anything car-related. It’s not even subconscious, these particular biases. Knowing this is why I don’t like going car shopping by myself.
So I’m amused that anyone would be incredulous at the idea that housing and race would immune from the same process. If subconsciously you’re thinking a black seller bought his house using a subprime loan and he’s borderline bankrupt, sleeping on the floor because his bed got repossessed, you will not offer him the same amount of money you would a white guy who you subconsciously assume is financially savvy, smart, and not in a desperate hurry to sell because he has cash in the bank to pay for his new penthouse apartment downtown.
Of course I’m exaggerating here. But this is how bias works, people.
Apparently you live in a different country than i do.
Realtors often tell people if they are in areas where homes sales are sluggish to put personal pictures away if the owners are not White. While that may mean that someone needs a new realtor, it may also mean that people may not sell their home or that they may get lower offers.
Frankly, at 47, I’m really not interested in people who have no idea how it is to be a minority in the United States (especially an African AMerican) telling me that racism doesn’t exist. It has been less than fifty years since the Civil Rights and Voting Rights were passed (read: for through Congress) and George Zimmerman gets away with killing an unarmed Black youth with whom HE provoked a confrontation.
Put another way, the lower your income, the nearer you are to living from paycheck to paycheck, sometimes to the point of having to take out payday-advance loans; getting ahead is impossible when you’re constantly struggling just to keep from falling off the treadmill.
I’m gonna say it again, just for emphasis: With a history like this, it should be no shock at all that black people do not have the same amount of wealth that white people have. It’s actually crazy that anyone would not know why this is the case since the causes of the disparity happened within living memory. It’s like wondering why the guy you saw hit by a car is still walking with a limp a couple of days later.
Same here. I don’t know that it happens exactly that way, but it wouldn’t shock me if it did.
And it wouldn’t shock me if all of the biases necessary for that sort of judgment are completely invisible (willfully, in some cases) from those who bear them.
And how do government benefits keep people hungry and desperate? Sure seems to me that they do the opposite. Yank Section 8 subsidies, for instance, and there’s a lot more people with nowhere to live and willing to work for anything.
He got away with it because he couldn’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have committed a crime. That’s how the system works. His acquittal is a terrible example of society’s racism, there are much better ones available.
Careful: some of the differences you’re attributing to being “anglo” are more of an “european” thing from the point of view of this Spaniard who used to live in the US. Immigrants often have much more of a saving culture than Americans, but also tend to have bigger families, lower incomes, and part of that family is “back home” and gets money sent. The first 3 years I was in the US I made 12K (an income Americans with degrees similar to mine despised, then complained that the folks with graduate degrees were all foreigners who’d been able to live and even save on that amount) and the trip back home for Christmas would eat about 1K.
More of Black wealth is tied up in the home. Home values have been hit harder and not recovered as well. Some of that is that the home investment bucket gets filled first but some is cultural. As a group Blacks invest less when matched on other attributes.
And this is another one of those “it’s expensive to be poor” moments. Staging your home can bring in a large return, but it involves storing old things, buying new things, and making an upfront investment in paint, etc. It’s a smart thing to do, but it’s not realistically possible for many people.
That was just the very first hit on google but the source seems plausibly reliable. You will of course want to choose a source you have confidence in. None are terribly long reads but there are points that need some thinking out. At least by those of us who once thought it was all much “simpler.”
If you want to find your own sources, go to google, and in the box, type Reasons Behind Affirmative Action. You’ll have plenty to choose from.