Uh…Twisty…was there something wrong with the description I gave? Especially since I correctly identified the exam as AP Calculus? 
Barking Spider said:
“You know what “crawled up my ass”?
Monstro is an admitted recipient of a racist “affirmative action” plan.”
How is “affirmative action” “racist?” :mad: I’m sorry. I’m not going to take it on your word just because you choose to out of your limited vocabulary and even far more limited understanding of that vocabulary term to label it so. You seem to like bandying around the word “racist.” I wonder why? Are you trying to tell yourself something on a more personal level?
“She comes on the SD and calls her co-worker a Bitch because her co-worker wants to claim the same thing. Monsto decides that she can tell Gypsys stricty by their appearance.”
I believe that monstro has sufficiently explained her reasons for calling her dishonest peer a “BITCH.” You, however, are being dishonest and insulting the intelligence of anyone who reads what you post with your willful misinterpretations of the position she’s posted. I’ve read a lot of crap as well as a lot of pearls of wisdom on this board, but I just cringe whenever I encounter what you write. Either you lack basic reading comprehension skills and need to go back to elementary school and start all over again, you need to get your glasses prescription checked and updated so that you can see better, or you just didn’t bother to read what she wrote at all. You are being dismissive and disrespectful of her and of other Dopers’ intelligence in your consistent misinterpretations of what she said.
“Monsto then starts pissing and moaning because Blacks arent proportionatly represented in the “Sciences”. She clams that Blacks are somehow discriminated against, and that is the reason why they are not proportionataly represented in the higher Universitys.”
[VERY BIG SIGH] I don’t know where to begin with this. Where is your proof that she’s just lying about or is incorrect in her assertion that minorities are being discriminated against and/or misrepresented in the sciences!!! :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: I’m sorry, but I’m not going to believe that monstro is lying just because you’ve said so. I want to see some peer-reviewed data published in scholarly journals or texts—Do you understand what I mean when I say “peer-reviewed?”—that supports your contention that minorities are not underrepresented and/or discriminated against in the sciences, particularly as the sciences relate to research and treatment of diseases like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, mental health treatment, and so on. Before you open your trap and spew more bullshit, I want to see you present and interpret some definitive data that supports this particular position that you’ve made. Also in your analysis, I would like to see some figures on science education in elementary and secondary schools. What kinds of lab equipment and textbooks do these schools provide for students? How do these school curriculums prepare students, women and minorities in particular, to undertake science majors when they get to college? How do elementary and secondary schools demystify science fields so that students have a clear understanding of what opportunities they may find in pursuing science careers? I would love to see some statistics on how many minorities are represented in the sciences, and then please tell me why you feel that these numbers are sufficient.
“As a man who has read and understood the Bell Curve, all her arguments seem like so much whining and malarky.”
I believe tomndebb, bless his brilliant and intellectually honest heart :), has sufficiently addressed the “whining and malarkey” that is going on within the covers of The Bell Curve. It seems to me that the loudest “whining and malarkey” that occur outside of the covers of The Bell Curve stem from your mouth and from the mouths of others who share your unfounded and inaccurate opinion that blacks and other minorities are a bunch of idiots who are incapable of learning or understanding anything.
<snip> “I ask her, How many more deserving Whites were put on the back burner because some liberal school board decided to admit a less deserving Monstro?”
:rolleyes: Oh, and now you’re telepathic and you know monstro and her credentials well enough to know that she is “undeserving” of admittance to whatever graduate science program she’s in. And what are your credentials that make you so expert in deciding for her university or any other university for that matter what students and what credentials will provide the best fit for that university? How long have you served on Admissions Committees on the post-secondary level? What is your background in science?
If you cannot provide evidence other than the severely flawed and intellectually dishonest book The Bell Curve, then please SHUT THE HELL UP! I have had it with your dishonest spite.
[celestina takes her virtual paddle and whacks BS upside his thick skull. Besides the dull thwack nothing can be heard rattling around in his head. :eek:]
Barking Spider, I think that you are pathetic. From what I’ve read of your posts you have demonstrated that you are spiteful and willfully ignorant in the face of repeated efforts by Dopers to talk with you and to encourage you to engage facts and think critically about those facts. You seem so filled with hate that I both want to smack your parents and/or other family members upside the head for instilling in you the racist perspectives you insist on clinging to, and I pity your wife and kids, if you’ve somehow managed to obtain one or both of those. Since you maintain that “intelligence is hereditary,” it would be best if you get a vasectomy and whatever woman you marry/or have married gets her tubes tied to ensure that you do not procreate. I fear for the nation if you pass on your ignorant genes to another generation. If you have already had children, those poor younguns! Maybe they can fight your conception of “hereditary inheritance” and learn to think critically and logically about things. It will be difficult for them to fight the hate that you thrive on spewing every time you open your goddamned mouth, but I guess there’s always hope.
Geez, such a stress level around here!
My personal philosophy is that if you feel the discrimination in your ancestry hasn’t been recent enough to affect you and isn’t now common among the minority group you belong to, if you have any morals at all, you won’t apply for financial aid based on it.
Example: I’m Jewish (although nonobservant). Although my ancestors were certainly persecuted because of their race/ethnicity/religion/whatever you want to call it (which is, in fact, the reason I ended up being born in the U.S.) I’d be really surprised if anyone felt that American Jews are consistently victims of discrimination these days in academia.
Some people guess that I’m of Jewish descent because of my appearance, although I’m also frequently mistaken for other things (Hispanic and Armenian are common ones). To some, my last name can be a giveaway.
As a matter of principle, when I was applying to universities, I didn’t request any scholarship information based on my Jewish heritage (and boy, was my mom pissed off when she found that out!), although I think that pretty much the only scholarships left where Jewishness is a requirement are those endowed by Jewish organizations, and most of those also have an academic excellence and/or financial need requirement. (Of course, I may have felt differently about it if I hadn’t also been eligible for grants based purely on academic performance, what with my A.P. classes, National Merit Finalist status, etc.)
Since I went to a really good public high school, and was raised by two parents who both managed to finish college in spite of their parents’ low income levels and/or immigrant status, even though I didn’t exactly grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, I don’t feel that my lack of monetary wealth had anything to do with my ethnic heritage. (Leaving aside whatever Barking Spider probably thinks about how “my people” are running the world’s financial infrastructure, I only wish it were true, or I wouldn’t be spending the next billion years paying off student loans!)
I’m not naive enough, though, to think the same is true for members of all minorities. Whoever feels they are PERCEIVED BY OTHERS as a member of a disadvantaged minority, or have themselves been disadvantaged by their minority status, though, by all means, apply for whatever you’re eligible to apply for.
I didn’t realize this was moving so fast toward humor! Wow, barking spider, that was funny! And I’m sure it was a joke, because if it wasn’t, it would mean you were serious, and if you were, that would mean you were ignorant, and since this is all about fighting ignorance, that would mean… You would need to educate yourself! Otherwise, you would just be a lying jackass. Take your pick… jackass.
**tomndebb, I have no doubt that racial profiling was going on in NJ. People who were doing it confessed to doing it. Still, you need to be more aware that non-PC results are apt to be vigorously challenged. I don’t doubt that some, but not all, of the stops of Black drivers were due to their speeding.
An appropriate level of skepticism is required to seriously evaluate The Bell Curve. I have never seen a book more unfairly maligned. Many critics mis-stated its theses. E.g., TBC made quite a point of saying that one could NOT conclude anything about genetic differences between races, because their lives were so different in American society. Many critics falsely claimed that TBC said the exact opposite.
Regarding the alleged errors: The biggest criticism of TBC had nothing to do with the author’s research. They were blasted for simply repeating other people’s research, which happened to give non-PC results.
Getting back to the OP, I’d like to support Monstro’s thesis with an interesting fact. My wife is on the faculty at a medical school in Newark, just a few blocks away from Monstro’s campus. At graduation, she noted only about 6 - 12 Blacks out of a class of 170. The relatively small percentage was not due to students failing to graduate. It was the same percentage admitted.
In short, even in this substantially Black city, Blacks have NOT gotten major affirmative action benefits at the medical school.
I will say this.
I have respect for Monstro’s academic achievements. But I say that as one person to another. I don’t see see it as a Black/White thing.
My original point of contention was of Montro claiming a benefit for herself, which she would seek to deny to another. Heck, her co-student probably was full of shit in claiming to be a gypsy, ( I know it’s sounds like bullshit to me) but it’s still not Monsto’s decision to make.
And Tommndebb, thank you for correcting me on the lynching stats. I’m going to have to do some research on my own though.
I will say this.
I have respect for Monstro’s academic achievements. But I say that as one person to another. I don’t see see it as a Black/White thing.
My original point of contention was of Montro claiming a benefit for herself, which she would seek to deny to another. Heck, her co-student probably was full of shit in claiming to be a gypsy, ( I know it’s sounds like bullshit to me) but it’s still not Monsto’s decision to make.
And Tommndebb, thank you for correcting me on the lynching stats. I’m going to have to do some research on my own though.
No.
In the popular press in the months immediately following the publication of The Bell Curve, most of the loud criticism was voiced on PC objections. (This, of course, was due directly to the dishonest manner in which they hid their book from peer review so that at the time of publication there was inadequate information available to actually analyze their claims.)
In the ensuing years, actual scientists and mathematicians have had the opportunity to read the book, look at the claims, and write critiques.
The scientific press is universally condemnatory because
- they artificially matched unlike tests (when the results provided their desired goals)
- they misused data when it was similar
- and their math was actually wrong in many instances.
Condemning The Bell Curve in 2002 requires no adherence to PC, simple honesty and science destroys their polemic quite easily. As science, it is trash.
So what? I did not claim that the “study” was nonsense. I noted that the study was limited to a very finite examination of speeding on a limited section of highway. I also noted in passing that the results have been challenged, but I did not claim that they have been invalidated. However, the study was clearly far too limited to destroy the notion of profiling.
you can get MONEY for being from a minority?
this strikes me as…ummm…wrong.
equal treatment: yes.
safeguards from discrimination:yes
help in paying fees for ALL poor students: yes
money for your genes:nope.
you need money if you’re poor, of any colour, race or ethnicity.
can she apply for a student loan?
an extended overdraft?
government aid based on financial hardship rather than supposed race?
get a part time job?
hardship grants?
scholarships?
if she can do any of these things AND HASN’T she’s just a lazy bint trying to scam money for nothing.
lord knows i could come to the US and take a lot of money off your government if i wanted to
(jewish/german/portuguese/north african/scots-irish/irish/south african/northern irish/eastern russian asian)
but since cuturally my identity is white and irish, i’m not going to (the US government breathes a sigh of relief)
i have ethics.
i don’t lie
and misrepresent myself
i don’t steal
from people who need money legitimately
and i don’t piss people off
by exploiting something for financial gain which i had no interest in previously.
sorry. there you go.
here are the definitions for “racism” “affirmative action” “prejudice” and “discrimination” according to dictionary.com.
Affirmative action seeks to redress past discrimination against women and minority groups, it uses race as a factor.
Racism is Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
Discrimination is Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit.
So Affirmative Action is discrimination using a class such as race to redress wrongs done based upon that class (race) Therefore it discriminates based upon race, therefore it fits the definition of racism.
Maybe one day we’ll realize that classism is the real problem. Poor black people have more in common with poor white people than they have with their color coded counterparts in the upper classes.
I’m sure while Puff Daddy is playing golf with Martha Stewart in the Hamptons he probably spends the entire time bringing her up to speed on the plight of the black kids in Harlem.
There should be no extreme wealth or extreme poverty, what you do in the middle is your business and that is another thread.
You can’t fight fire with fire and you can’t fight racism with racism.
Thank you,
Erek
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=racism
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=affirmative%20action
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=prejudice
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=discrimination
rac·ism Pronunciation Key (rszm)
n.
- The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
- Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
affirmative action
n : a policy designed to redress past discrimination against women and minority groups through measures to improve their economic and educational opportunities; “affirmative action has been extremely controversial and was challenged in 1978 in the Bakke decision”
prej·u·dice Pronunciation Key (prj-ds)
n.
1.
a. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.
b. A preconceived preference or idea.
- The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions. See Synonyms at predilection.
- Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion.
- Detriment or injury caused to a person by the preconceived, unfavorable conviction of another or others.
dis·crim·i·na·tion Pronunciation Key (d-skrm-nshn)
n.
- The act of discriminating.
- The ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment.
- Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice: racial discrimination; discrimination against foreigners.
Want to see what all the different categories for which you can get money towards education are? Check with any college’s financial aid section and they’ll show you a huge number.
Too bad there aren’t more black people in the upper classes.
And too bad you’ve ignored my posts that have said poor whites and white women can get special funding too. Are these programs called Affirmative Action? Or is your rant reserved only for blacks?
What?
I’m confused now.
Just because Puff Daddy is rich that means there are no poor black kids in Harlem?
Or because he’s rich he has no right to talk about the poor?
Puff Daddy shouldn’t be playing golf with Martha Stewart?
Martha Stewart doesn’t know there are poor kids in Harlem?
What is your point exactly?
So if poor people were preferentially treated (which I think you would be for based on your comments about the poor), you wouldn’t find this akin to fighting “classism with classism”?
The thing is, you CAN fight classism with classism, as classism is very much based in money. So while you cannot actually get rid of classism that way, you can certainly alleviate the burden of it by changing who’s hands the money is in. It doesn’t work the same way with racism. People don’t stop hating black people just because they are more affluent.
The comment about Puff Daddy and Martha Stewart is that they have more in common with each other than they have with you or I.
Apparently you missed the entire point. Making a distinction based upon skin color is wrong. Period. Poor whites and women CAN get special benefits, but not because they are white, but yes because they are women. If there were ever a “white male” scholarship, people would be screaming bloody murder as they should, as they should if there is a black male scholarship, unless of course either of these is funded by a private organization. If the NAACP wants only black kids to get money, then that’s who they can give it to. (don’t know if the NAACP is funded by the government at all or not) just as the KKK should be able to give scholarship money to whomever they want.
And I agree with you that it is too bad there aren’t more black people in the upper classes, it is too bad that you’ve had to face racism, but taking money away from EVERY American to benefit ONLY black Americans, is pretty unconcionable. I think most people can get behind a merit based system, but, I think that a discriminatory system such as that, which would either reward someone who does not merit such an award, or exclude someone who is very deserving of that award, is just wrong.
You can’t bitch and moan about discrimination and then wish to be discriminated for instead of against. That’s not asking for equality, that’s saying “I don’t mind there being haves and have nots, as long as I’m one of the haves”
And whether you’ve noticed it or not Affirmative Action tends to breed contempt. How does that fight racism?
Erek
I don’t think you can say this if you look beyond the superficial.
I hear what you are saying, but I don’t agree. I think the problems in my community are not always linked to money. For instance, there are disparaties in the way blacks and whites are diagnosed and treated for certain conditions that still exist even when class is taken into consideration. Even among middle-class black kids, there’s this notion that science is “not for them”. Racism and classism are linked–to be sure–but they also exist independently from one another. At this moment in our history, we aren’t at a point where we can dismiss one and use the other as a blanket explanation for everything
Poor whites can get special treatment because they are poor and have difficult access to health, education, basic services, etc. Blacks can get special treatment because they are generally poor and face issues that are both internal and external, due to their history as an isolated, oppressed, stigmitized people. Poor and black Americans–as a consolidated group–both have issues that tend to overlap one another. But why is it okay to favor one group but not the other seeing as how they have DIFFERENT issues?
Favoring the poor is right, you would say, because it balances out the advantage that the rich already have. Why doesn’t the same analogy apply to programs favoring racial minorities? Aren’t these programs–in theory–just distributing power so that racial skewness doesn’t perpetuate itself? If you give a poor guy a job, aren’t you excluding a rich guy? Aren’t you discriminating?
Many rich Americans protest strongly against their tax money going to charity for the poor. Your protests against AA-for-blacks sounds very similar.
This isn’t a program just for black people, as I have said numerous times. It’s for a list of racial minority groups that 1)have been historically oppressed in the US and 2)exhibit a suite of health disparities. Actually, at my school, most of the students in the NIH-sponsored program are Latino, not black. So why the hell are all your arguments focused on black people?!
Yes, this would be unconscionable. That’s why it’s wonderful that it doesn’t only benefit black Americans. You haven’t been following this thread very closely, have you?
But let’s flip the script:
“But taking money away from EVERY American to benefit ONLY poor Americans, is pretty unconcionable.”
Like I said, this sounds like something a Newt Gingrich-type would say about welfare or any other social program.
Imagine that you’re saying this to one of the poor people you claim only deserve preferential treatment. Does it still make sense?
Alright, let’s not turn this into a thread on classism. I have to clarify my point on classism, and it gets into property rights a little bit, which IS NOT what this thread is about and I don’t want to hijack it more than I need to to make my point.
Rich people do not have any inherent right to the money that they have, in my opinion. The resources that they used to acquire that wealth belongs to every one. I see property rights as more of a lease from humanity at large as opposed to strict ownership. I think that property rights of any kind be it physical or intellectual are there only to benefit society as a whole. You award the most ingenius idea/person the rights to that property because they will give more of a benefit to the world at large. For instance oil companies will do better with land covering oil pockets than ranchers well, whereas farmers will do better with fertile land than oil companies will, etc… I believe wealth is there to be an incentive, but that does not mean that it is your completely and totally.
I think that the disparity of income is not because the wealthy people that DO have it, actually deserve it, or have some kind of actual claim to it through some kind of productiveness, no most of the people at the time go there by buying companies and maximizing their profit. Sometimes you can maximize profit by cutting your supply, laying off workers and selling some of the machines, thereby driving prices up and costs down at the same time. While this tactic is very often necessary to keep a company vital and healthy, it is just as often used to keep rich stockholders from selling shares and devaluing the stock, stock which the CEOs also own, stocks which, if their value went down considerably, the CEOs wealth would go down considerably.
This effectively, fucks the poor. So this, CEO who is drawing resources from the planet that we ALL share, is reaping a disproportionate amount of benefit from it, where if you shaved off just a little off the top, maybe asking him to sacrifice his Lear in favor of flying first class, you could raise the standard of living of 10,000 people.
So in the scenario that I described, the rich CEO, who let’s say is South American lays off 2000 workers and stock goes up. 800 white workers, 700 hispanics and 400 blacks and 100 mixed/various races are all laid off. They all lost thier jobs, they are all worried about their mortgage/rent. Race does not factor in, they all got fucked pretty equally, but they all have one thing in common, they are now all poor.
We are coming to a threshold. In the 90s, it appeared that unlike we suspected in the 80s, technology wouldn’t actually outpace human productivity, because computers created millions of NEW jobs that only humans could do. Now there are programs that write other programs. There is a glut of people who went to school for their degrees, got their MCSE, or just plain learned how to use a computer on their own, all very knowledgeable capable people who need a job, but can’t find one. So technology is sure enough outpacing the need for human workers. We even have come to accept shoddier service because big business is going to use machines where they can even if the service is inferior, because if enough of the companies force us to do it then we’ll accept it (voice mail labyrinths anyone?)
So, what is happening is the rich are able to maximize their profits, while investing in new technology based upon the profits from their human workers, and natural resources that will be more productive than one worker can be. Sure it’ll take a human to operate them, but that one human is doing the job of ten other humans. Now we can claim that education is the answer, people would be better served to work in a much more specialized field, because lord knows those are cropping up faster than we can fill them, but we cut funding to schools before we cut it to just about anything else, not to mention we hire all the people who couldn’t get a job somewhere else just so we can have an adult in front of the fourth graders to keep them from burning the class down. The government pays for public schools but somehow the richer districts have better public schools than the poorer schools. So how do we REALLY expect Joe Jackson from Harelm or Joe McDonald from Kentucky to truly compete in the college bound market? We don’t, so what does the school do? They train them not to aspire too high. Why would you want to be an astronaut? Almost no one makes that cut, maybe you should try you hand at being a mechanic since you’re interested in mechanical stuff. Trust me this kind of stuff happens, my school counselor talked me out of taking the SATs because she assumed I’d go to school in New Mexico where the ACT is taught. I moved out of New Mexico the moment I graduated.
So WHAT exactly makes these rich men DESERVE the wealth that they have? My opinion is nothing. They don’t deserve it, however it does serve our best interests for them to have it, progress DOES benefit humanity, it stops plagues, it helps colonize islands, or even other celestial bodies. It allows us to call an ambulance when we are sick, or to be in constant touch with our friends and family 1000 miles away. I am not against technology, in fact I’m all for it, but I’m all for it benefitting HUMANITY, not just the wealthy percentage of humanity. Statistically I am one of the wealthiest people on the planet, I would never DREAM of living off a dollar a day, in fact, I pay 30 dollars to go to a club for fun on a Saturday night, I’ve even at one point in my life blown hundreds of dollars in a weekend regularly. That’s a lot of money, and I’m still in the 90% of the people that share half this world’s wealth while the other 10% share the other half. That’s pretty disparate in my opinion. I don’t even WANT help from the government necessarily, except maybe free health care. However I walk by the projects down the street and I see poverty that CAN be helped, and I know this, because I go downtown two or three miles and I go into apartments where people paid 100,000 for a painting, 10,000 for a couch so ugly I wouldn’t want it if you gave it to me. I find this all rather ridiculous.
So as I said before racism and classism are seperate things, they aren’t even the same coin, they maybe resemble each other in the way a quarter resembles a nickle, but that’s as far as I’ll agree to. I think the quarter is much more important, though I think it’s the least addressed, because it’s in charge of 25 cents, whereas the nickle his direct subordinate, only covers 5 cents, and excludes 20 and gets a lot more face time.
Erek
In the context of increasing minority participation in the sciences, I disagree with this statement. But I appreciate your explanation.
I take your point, and I do think you hold a valid ideal, I just think it’s the wrong path to be taking, as I explained before, because there are white kids who are just as brilliant as you are, that have no more of an advantage toward the sciences than you do. Basically, I feel that affirmative action assumes that you have some kind of automatic benefit by being white and male, as white and male is the only group that is ineligible for any kind of affirmative action. I think that it is fallacious to say that being white and male confers any benefit whatsoever solely because you are white and male. The wealthy socialites here in New York will have the same lack of empathy for a white male from hicksville USA as they will for a black male from inner city USA. In otherwords I am saying that discrimination transcends racial lines. It is not limited to JUST race and I see there being no societal benefit to increasing minority participation in the sciences, whereas I do see a benefit in increasing the participation of disadvantaged people in the sciences.
Erek