BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 09:59 PM

Thanks Bobert, I hope maybe I can, if I can get enough permissions to make a piece. Having your first and some others of yours seem critical to put anything at all worthwhile together. But it has to have opposing voices too, and more of them than pro, I feel. Help? You know I'm really nice in person, when you aren't trying to kill me.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 09:32 PM

Ahh, you even have my permission to correct my spelling....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 09:30 PM

Heck, Fred, you got my permisssion to publicsh my stuff antwhere you want. Actually, if you have the power to get it on Bush's desk, that would be great. He is so out of it!

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 08:49 PM

Any of y'all mind if I publish some of your views and quotes, to a slightly broader readership? I'd have to have permission, but since it's killing me, making me sick, I maybe ought to do something to get rid of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 08:30 PM

Speaking of working hard, I'm not, I'm sick at home, going on at this. And also speaking of working hard, how does blind merit testing help the poor? Because they are typically smarter? As Kim C pointed out way back, not being so exceptional doesn't make you a bad person. Or make you take responsibilities for other people's lives lightly, if you are flying a plane. I picture all you merit people with ears like Mr. Spock, wondering what the deal is with these irrational human considerations. Being given a chance is huge. May seem like it's doing nothing good. To you. Black newspapers say different--"Bush Is Wrong" on the one I bought today.

Kim C it's not "naive". There's a term for having a feeling about things and thinking that everyone must feel the same, from the same point of view. But it's not "naive". I had a little psychology a long time ago, and can't think of it. It's associated with autism, sometimes, and psychopathic personalities. Nicole C may know it. Might want to have that looked at.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 06:46 PM

Yo, Doug: Thank's for the kind words about my artwork. They were nice.

Now, as fir the average working shmo. You may not see it as much as most of us becasue you live in an area that is highly populated with folks who have survived the assembly lines and are now more concerned with tee times then making a living.

With that said, the average American worker is now working longer and harder for less return for his labor than any time in the last 30 years. Income to debt ratios are at an all time high. Bankrupcties at an all time high. Now, with unemployment so high, those who have jobs are working even harder than longer hoping not to be the next to get a pink slip. This is occuring at a time when health care and insurance costs are rocketing to the degree that 41,000,000 American citizens now have no health insurance.

Given the absolute *driven* condition that the working man finds himself in, he comes home, crashes and goes at it again in the morning. You may not think it is like this but it is very much like this. I see it everyday. The American worker is battle fatigued and, sadly, as smart as he may be, doesn't have the time to do what a lot of us here at Mudcat take for granted, like, ahhh, thinking and communicating about ideas.

But no problem, Doug, becuase our working class hero has Mr Bush and his PR firms to stick little catch ohrases in his mind so that if he is asked an opionion, he will have one. No his, actaully. Butr an opinion. And guess who's opinion he has and guess what "buzz words" he will use in voicing it? Yep, Bush's PR firms, that's whose.

Now, I know you well enough to know that you think yer ol' hillbilly been watching too many movies or off the meds, but this is the real world. If it wasn't then why is it that the candidate that spent the most money won 90% of the last election races. Hmmmmmm? Because the one with the most money got more exposure for their buzz words. Its all about repetition...

Like Walter Cronkite used to say, "And that's the way it is."

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 06:12 PM

Kim C, as I said, saints may exclude themselves. My apologies, and please don't hear any of my stupid tone in that, really. I'm happy for you, and hope you can keep thinking the best of the rest of us. Pay no attention to that white man behind the curtain, don't go looking into it too far, we'll only break your heart.

Someone I knew grew up in an openly racist house, quite sheltered from the liberal media, but without a trace of it in him, it seemed. Who knows where that gift comes from, but he was a better person than me, in general. Once he told me that when he looked at human skulls the anglo ones looked noble and beautiful to him, the others like some old clay pot. That's all he said for a while.

The biggest factor in predicting a child's success in school seems to be the education level of the mother. Guess that sounds sexist, but what can you do? I suppose I am a sexist, because it especially disappoints me when women don't seem to see how coy, sly, cold, and unspoken real discrimination can be.

It's odd how most opponents of AA I know off-line will concede this, and grant you that--I don't know--that it probably helps for young minorities to see people like them going to college, in jobs, hanging out with Joey, Monica, Phoebe, Chandler, and the gang, just to make it imaginable, for instance. But here in E-ville our AA opponents grant nothing, hold the line, like they feel their position so inherently weak they can't give up a single inch.

   There used to be that riddle about the surgeon and his son who were in a car wreck, taken to the hospital, and a surgeon comes in and looks at the boy and says I can't operate on him, he's my son. Fifteen, twenty years ago nobody could figure that out.

You know, when they changed the questions on I.Q. tests to even women with men, that was blatant sexism, make no mistake. If gender wasn't supposed to matter, why did they make it matter?

Nicole C once again I must eat my words. The big thing in drawing isn't making a straight line--use a ruler if you want--but forgetting what you think about things, your ideas about things, and just looking at them. That's why in the old European schools they made you draw student pottery. If you drew it true and perfect they could tell you weren't really looking.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 03:27 PM

And another thing, Lurker. In your view, presumably, qualified non-minorities get into school on their merits, buckle down, study, get grades, and eventually graduate, while minorities go in and out like the Marx brothers through the doors of a taxi cab. You people and your steady supply of nonsense. Headline: Another unqualified-minority-related death!!! I happen to be an utterly unqualified white guy who got into college, in case you couldn't think of any.

   As a matter of fact, I never thought to look at the pilots when I get on a plane, I actually very much do trust my children's education to some unbelievably dedicated black teachers at a mostly black school, which is very highly ranked in scores in the state, and which most white people in Louisville have never even heard of, and would not even consider if they had. It's in the "west-end" you know. And my daughter just this week tested well above advanced, into gifted and talented. And you know what else? Guess. No. You're wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Kim C
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 03:08 PM

Well, gee, Fred, race doesn't matter one whit to me, not one, so I just figured it shouldn't matter to anyone else either. All this work we try to do, to get it NOT to matter, just perpetuates the ridiculousness of it all..

But I suppose that's naive. Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 01:57 PM

Kim C, gosh. Golly. Because "not supposed to matter" is not the same thing as "ISN'T GOING TO MATTER" just because we get rid of AA. It will, it does, you can test it, you can prove it. And by a much wider margin than AA begins to balance. You can show it back to people who made the decisions that they will hire an underqualified white person before a qualified black person, and there's always a non-racist or quasi-rasist-not-that-I'm-a-racist rationale, but there it is. It's not better because it's cold-blooded, and everyone knows to say the right thing. In some ways I think it's worse. I can see this is pointless, but--aigghyh.

Forum Lurker, please please please. One difference in racial discrimination is that AA is there as a stated bias, a policy of racial discrimination, yes it is, and you can see just what it is and who it's for. But ask yourself if you've ever known a non-minority who with no such stated, obvious, and open bias working for them, who got into college or got a job and seemed underqualified. Never? Then never mind, go with what you know. That's what anyone has to do. But if so, hm, how does that happen? I've known non-minority people who got in and graduated and got jobs and still seem underqualified to go in the first place. Are you considering the whole picture? Does the question seem too easy? Too obvious? it's racial discrimination, and isn't that "supposed" to be wrong? Isn't race "supposed" to not matter? as Kim C keeps petulantly asking like an adorable naive six-year old. The answers seem to me very childish, vain, silly, careless, thoughtless--and some quite grown-up sophisticated and insane.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: GUEST,Forum Lurker
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 01:23 PM

The problem with underqualified workers is not just that the qualified don't get the job. Do you honestly want to trust you life to a pilot who got into flight school only because he was hispanic, or your chidren's education to a teacher whose best qualification is that their parents donated to the college? The solution is to eliminate the inequities. The existence of AA, which appears to the uninformed to solve the problem, prevents progress from being made on real reform.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: DougR
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 12:39 PM

Sorry for the thread creep, but it's already creeped a bunch.

Bobert: how an artist as talented as you could draw such a distorted picture of the average "working man" (and I assume "woman") is beyond me. The average working person has much more smarts than you give them credit for having. Your disdain for business owners (and you are one yourself I believe)evidently has clouded your thinking.

I don't think the average working person is nearly as put-upon as you, and is not nearly as unhappy as you believe they are. If you were "boss hog" how would you make that person more happy?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 12:33 PM

Yes, yes. Don't do a small good thing because you can't do a friggin huge good thing. And violent methods to counter violence ARE violence, make no mistake. And as such they have a number problems, cheifest being that they are kinda necesary. And everyone who gets into the school you applied to or got the job you deserve is underqualified, cheifly in that they are Not You.

   I'm not aware of any ancestors of mine who were slave-owners but the point is advantages that are mine here and now, regardless, which I might like to think are earned by divine right and richly deserved. I think it's pointless to be a refusnik and not accept those advantages, generally, when they come to me. But not with a vain notion that I have them because things are so intrinsically fair. And then sometimes they don't come, probably because I'm an oppressed white man, damn it! Whatever happened to Gary Cooper?

   In photography, Nicole C, I took dead-level exposures that kept resulting in thin negatives. No matter how I checked my developing, temperatures, everything, it still came out that way. People thought I had to be doing something wrong. Despite every care I could take, despite all the best intentions and care I could muster, I couldn't seem to fix the results I got. I So I started exposing with the needle high, over-estimating a little one way. Did it fix the fact that I take lousy photographs? No. But at least I got better prints of my lousy pictures.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Kim C
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 12:26 PM

For the third time, I ask: if race is not supposed to matter, why do we keep making it matter?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 12:12 PM

Well, danged, Fred. You said it all, right there...

But, as per usual under this current administration, the PR work has been done and there don't seem to be any folks who want to take on Junior's PR firm. The average American working man is working his butt off at Boss Hog's widget plant to pay for the SUV that Boss Hog sold him and has his Boss Hog credit cards maxed and the poor guy doesn't have time to think. Just obey, and think he's thinking. Like how mauch actual thought goes on inside the mind of a parrot? But we have all these people stuck in Boss Hog's exercize wheels, getting no where and all they are capable of is parroting. Sure there are a few folks who disagree with AA who are thinking people but for the most part, the American people don't have a clue about the program or its history.

You have to compliment Bush for recognizing the complete stangle hold that his people have on the working man. And they are smart enough to recognize that if they put enough sugarcoat on any issue that the working man will eat it and say it was wonderful. Yep, Bush has gone way beyond the days of *the big lie told often and loudly* to *dressed to the nines* lies that are all glitter yet short enough to fit onto a bumper stciker or into a sound bite.

Unfortuately, the issues involved and the history of of AA are more complex than bumper sticker fixes.

Like I have pointed out several times recently, Bush is going to have his war, he is going to hurt minority participation in the American dream, he is going to rob the working class, he is going to force poor women into back alley abortion shops and there's hardly anything anyone can do about it because, unless I've missed something, he *owns* the governemnt right now...

Carlos Castanada had Don Juan tell Carlos that Carlos should pay someone to give Carlos's teenage son a butt whoppin' becuase it would give the son a lesson in humility. Well, looks like the American people are getting one of those butt whoppins right now and I hope they remember it this time because they must have forgotten it to let such a madman reach such a high level of power.

But, with all that said, I still see the value in AA and hope and pray that, inspite of the long odds against its survival, that it does survive until a better p;lan is in place...

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: GUEST,Forum Lurker
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 11:52 AM

AA IS racial discrimination, make no mistake. As such it has a number of problems, chiefest being that it allows underqualified persons to be accepted to colleges or job positions because they are a minority. No matter how much you want to take the responsibility for what you ancestors, or ancestors of other people in the country, did to Africans, the fact of the matter is that discriminating to alleviate disparities helps no one. Eliminate the socioeconomic difference between minorities, and the educational differnece will disappear. Leave it in place, and nothing you do to fix the symptoms will have any effect on the underlying problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 10:15 AM

I'm not going to take up the drawing metaphor because I was a drawing major, can draw a straight line either way, the side edge of a graphite stick or charcoal works better, and the known universe and and I prefer curves.

   We're not talking about drawing or dreaming but the relation of our ideals to our practical lives. I can agree to disagree on AA, but what has got me so upset is kind of the arguments so consistently raised against it. That is bothering me a lot more than the question itself.
   
    To call AA racial discrimination just like any other racial discrimination, to equate it, to pretend to be above such human failings in some ivory tower with your moral ideals, your sympathy, your dreams, your straight lines, whatever, to find certain things "ironic" because you are equating quite different things--is to deny something about U.S. history, American culture, and yourself in it, if you are an American. It's wrong wrong wrong. Don't do that, please, you don't have to do that. You do stuff like that, you'll live in the margin of your own life. Find yourself wanting things you don't even want. You'll wake up one day and miss yourself. Please stop this crazy talk.

   And no, AA is not there to pat ourselves on the back and feel better, it's to kick ourselves, and feel worse.

   Anyone can chose to take my parodic ramblings amiss, be offended--like Doug R preferring to hear Sympathy and Compassion when I believe I said practical concern-- but they are not to attack anyone any more than me. Saints can excuse themselves. We may believe violence is wrong but the measures we have to take against it also contain regulated doses of violence, and they are not the same thing, are unfortunate, not ironic. We can dream and be inspired that one day there won't be this mess. Meantime, back at the ranch.

   That's why I keep making fun of these idealistic postulations--it's not how we are. It's not who we are. It's certainly not politics. Or maybe it's just me. If we're told to turn the other cheek if we're sinned against 7 times 70 times, and if we believe in it, it's our way to figure that's what, 490? And at 491 if not sooner we'll pop open a can of righteous whoop-ass. We make distinctions, qualifications, always, unless we'd just rather not.

You don't have to kid yourself to oppose AA. You can oppose it anyway, though I personally don't recommend it, right now. Wouldn't be prudent. At this juncture.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: DougR
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 07:13 PM

Thank you Bobert. I accept your apology, but you can give the hug to Nicole, thank you. Or Fred Miller.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 02:57 PM

Doug:

I reread your post and admit that you were referencing a "subject" in the use of "them".

So I take back my post and offer you an apology on this one.

But, don't go gettin' a big head on me 'cause you're still a knucklehead.

(Bobert sniffs and looks down at his feet...)

Now come on over here a get a big hug...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: NicoleC
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 02:53 PM

Well, Bobert, I think you are taking this metaphor too far, but I'm game --

If your pencil breaks, that doesn't mean you can't draw a line. You get another pencil -- and you pick up where you left off and STILL keep your eye on where you are going. If you are watching the pencil lead, it's easy to give up on the line if it breaks.

That doesn't mean that *discussing* the line and studying it's path doesn't have merit. It's just not how the line gets drawn.

Okay, the metaphor is falling apart now... *sigh*

You're right, Bobert, we are simply disagreeing and running in circles. While I am totally in agreement on the goal, I'm just not sold on the method. But I have faith in people -- and I don't think an entire generation of kids needs to have equal opportunity education from birth to do some good. I don't think it's too late to work toward balancing the scales in 11th or 12th grade by mentoring and better schooling and access to better learning materials, and it does a lot more good for the self-esteem of the student.

If you show them point B and give them a pencil, it's amazing how many different ways people can draw a line to get there.

Then again, I don't think it's too late if you can help a 55 year old minimum wage hotel maid to take classes at the local community college for $11 a unit. (Gotta love that CA community college system.) Even if *she* doesn't get a better job, pride and knowledge are contagious. We all need role models :)

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: DougR
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 02:43 PM

Yep, Bobert, I think you and Nicole are. I find it interesting, though, that your (and others) opinion of Nicole's POV is simply that she is wrong. Why? Because she does not agree with you!

As to your remark about my post (them). What's wrong with that? Any reader would know I was referring to minority students. What would you have me use instead of "them?"

I've reached that point with your admirer, Fred, too.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 02:21 PM

I told ya', Fred. Purdy smart, ain't she?

But danged, Nicole, at any given point between A and B you are only where you are relative to the departure point and the destination point. Yes, You have to keep your good eye on a star, but you alos must appreciate the "here-an-now-ness" of the journey.

The here-and-now-ness of this journey is that without AA, or AA-Lite, or something, we're allowing the pencil to break on that journey. And if it breaks in mid course then you can forget point B because, as for this little experiement our collective grade will be DNF (Did Not Finish).

I think we may just be getting to the point where we are going to have to agree to disagree. I understand your arguements. I think you understand mine. And now we're volleying rather than trying to find a middle ground.

Yeah, I have said that I would love nothing more than to not have AA becuase for that to happen in Bobert's perfect little world, that would mean that we would have collectively eliminated those K-12 variables that had kept minorities on the short end of the stcik...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: GUEST,Forum Lurker
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 02:15 PM

Sorry about that accidental post. My finger slipped.

The major reason to support affirmative action appears to be the lack of alternatives, so I will present one. First, the problem of education disparities needs to be solved. A program like ROTC, except for teachers in inner-city and other under-performing schools would work well; the teacher gets a free college education, the schools have enough teachers to make class size ratios tolerable. In the long-term, this should also let minorities reduce or eliminate the wealth disparities.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 02:09 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: NicoleC
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 01:37 PM

A metaphor, if you will. The first day of art class in 4th grade, I was shown how to draw a straight line without a ruler. You don't look at the point where your pencil was. You don't look at where your pencil is. You don't wonder if you are drawing a straight line.

You look where you want to go. If you don't, the pencil dictates where the line goes, and an ugly, crooked line it will be.

Dr. King didn't inspire millions of Americans and push the civil rights movement into the 20th century by complaining about the "legacy of slavery." He inspired them by showing them a place they wanted to be, and the people followed.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 11:00 AM

Dougie:

You wrote: "Where did you get the idea that I am not sympathetic to them?"

ahhhh, "them"?

Sometimes the answer can be found in the question...

Fred:

Thanks for the the well written post. I'm sorry to not have Nicole in on this issue. I think Nicole is the world's smartest person and I've made no bones about how I respect her. Just wish she were with us on this one 'cause it's a biggie...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 10:53 AM

Forgot to say Hi Ebbie, Bobert--all the voices that as I feel more and more upset and uncomfortable, feel like my best friends. Thanks for being alive.

   I still think it's fine to oppose AA. I'm tempted to post what I think are good reasons to, instead of this fragrant puddle of whitewash. The stuff above is like a box of assorted cookies in different shapes, that all taste just the same. I'd be embarrassed to admit how upset I am at what seems to be a group rationalization coalition.

   It's weird that I of all people would want to defend consideration of athletics. I just didn't want to pay that university fee for it, since I've never watched a ball game in my life. But there's something to it, isn't there? Force of will, animal beauty, the poignant determination to achieve something that doesn't matter at all. The very idea of a university seems to call for considering it, even if you or I personally don't care. If you can't recognise the value of something so old, so imbedded in western culture, woven into the meaning of Hamlet--how far can you recognise actual diversity, and respect different kinds of intelligence?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 09:06 AM

No Doug R I complain because you and everybody else has compassion and sympathy and high-minded platitudes of equality and it's all completely worthless. Keep it. One has to be willing to do something. To actually do something not throw out a nice theory. People who practice clear-cut discrimination have sympathy and compassion too. Good for us.

   I complain because you and Nicole C and others are drunk with a Kantian categorical imperitive of non-discrimination which is nothing like real morality in practice. Discrimination is wrong! Fire bad! Bread good! Frankenstein the moralist. Forgive me if you are 8 years old--grow up. Your fine sense of morality is too fine for this shabby world. I suggest we crucify you and tell your stories for centuries to come. But I'd rather go to hell with Huckelberry Finn than to your heaven of non-discrimination.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: DougR
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 01:01 AM

Fred: there you go again. You complain because I don't show compassion for those who are discriminated against? Where did you get the idea that I am not sympathetic to them? That, however, is not what we are addressing. In order for the two of us to discuss this, we have to be on the same page.

Nicole: I suspect that you are right (last paragraph of your last post)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 09:46 PM

Fred, I'm sitting here laughing in astonishment. You HAVE come out of your shell, haven't you!

For the record, I agree with you.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 06:36 PM

I also still support AA, as a paltry, problematic, foot in the door, until there's something better. I don't believe it's what has stood in the way of progress on social issues, don't see how it's possible to think that. Many people seem to put a lot more stock in merit testing than I do, maybe that's part of the difference of views. I expect admissions to be unfair, erroneous, somewhat arbitrary, and AA is really just a bet-hedge, a way we'd prefer not to err. One of the biggest problems with AA is that despite it being a reasonable measure to take, it confounds and confuses and riles up people because there is just something they want to believe, in spite of everything, about academic testing. That God makes those damn tests.

   Nicole C I was wrong, I do feel sorry for you, with your moral sense, your ethics, and now your fine sense of what's ironic. If you think you can compare a corrective handicap of college admissions with the legacy of slavery you're out of your pea-picking head somehow. Obviously you aren't F-ing stupid. That leaves F-ing nuts, and full of shit.

I don't believe in violence but morally we distinguish counter-active violence against existing violence real and/or threatened. Well discrimination against blacks is still both threatened and real. But try a narrow measure to counteract the violence of the demonstrable discrimination specifically against blacks, and watch the white people get all nut-up with their big ideals of equality. What a bunch of stupid white people we have here, all acting like it's a choice on the table between AA or some big equality thing that's bound to happen. It's sad, sad. I'm disappointed and really sorry to hear all this.

   Even sadder is that when you test this discrimination, then ask the employers about it, it's not bigotry, just inertia. The whole thing makes people edgy and uncomfortable, afraid of trouble, and it's just easier not to hire blacks, not worry about it. There are always other people who deserve it too. Not like there was any discrimination, no bigotry, no guilt, nothing wrong. They believe in this big equality thing too. Just not our problem, not our fault, no need to do anything, lift a finger, cross the street. It's sad.

Doug R if my logic is hard to follow it's probably because I'm arguing with what you aren't saying. Follow that? If you believe nobody should be discriminated against it's nice to follow up with some concern about when people actually are. Not just pipe up like you reliably do when they are white. For that, you support scrapping AA. About the rest you don't feel the need to speak a word of practical concern. AA is such a measly step to take, in such a grey area. I'm all for trading it for anything better.

   Nicole C has some ideas that sound pretty good, I'm sure if she'd send them to Bush he'll do them. Or if not, scrapping AA will surely ring in a new era of peace, harmony, and justice for all. Us white people are pretty sure of that.

   As a high school dropout who graduated summa cum laude, I'm not sure about this blind academic criteria. I got F's in high school, A's in college. They want to consider other things than past performance and tests. But what do they know?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 04:19 PM

The problem is, Nicole, that not only are we not fixing the problems with eductaion but they are worsening. All one has to do is observe most inner city schools to get a purdy good idea of just how far they lag behind their suburban counterparts. It is amazing that anyone gets thru them with even the slightest bit of edgey-cation.

And now, we see that the new plan is to bleed the schools which are doing poorly. Hmmmmmmm? I thought the days of leeches, as a treatment option, were gone?

"No Child Left Behind"! What a joke. When you strip off the the sugar coat you have a punitive system. Not only that, now we're learning that Junior writes a check like a man with no arms. They are not even spending the money that they said they would. Ha! No make that a big Haha, will ya.' "No Child Left Unrecruited" to have his butt blown up in one of Junior's war dejour as now the military has access to every student that is in the public school system...

So, I guess after all my ranting, I'm still sticken with my support for an imperfect AA plan until I see that the playing field has been leveled K thru 12, thank you.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: NicoleC
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 02:04 PM

Fred, when I say "dumbing down" the system for minorities, I am referring to the criteria, not the people themselves, black or otherwise. If the vast majority of blacks do worst than the vast majority of whites on arbitrary criteria like SAT's, then there is obviously a problem with the tests or a problem with the preparation for the test. We can fix the problem, or we can continue to patch it up.

What makes more sense? Continue sending ill-prepared minority students to college, or prepare them properly to compete for admission to any school, whether it uses Affirmative Action or not?

I think it is ironic that if U of Mich had a student body of 30% blacks, and they were giving extra points to white students to racially balance the school in proportion to the population, many of the people that support Affirmative Action would be whining that the U of Mich was being racist by taking opportunities away from blacks who earned it.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: harpgirl
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 10:55 AM

Dougie...I agree, I shouldn't criticize your position as much as disagree with it. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings! I do think you tend to agree automatically with everything Bush says and does, though.

    As for legacies, I think they are weighted at less than five but I don't have the magazine in front of me as I am at the orifice and wasting time I told my therapist I would stop wasting instead of complaining about not having enough time to do everyhting! Should legacies be eliminated as a category? I don't know.

    I wouldn't eliminate gender as a criteria either, because I am in favor of diversity in working and school situations and I think that it is a very sensible goal. How else can we learn to get along and help everyone to gain access to the gifts our socioeconomic system has given us? I don't have answers but I am in favor of Affirmative Action at the moment.

The UofM system is mostly based on ability. 110 of 150 points are based on academics and how your curriculum and high school is rated. Males in nursing get one more point than legacies I believe, so what do you think about that?

Affirmative Action but I am still of the belief that it is too early to stop using Affirmative Action. However, since Hispanics have surpassed blacks as the countries largest minority, one would expect that more Hispanics would benefit from Affirmative Action than other minorities (notably blacks) at this point. hg

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 10:26 AM

Very interesting reading. Despite a very impressive post by Nerd my basic sympathies are with Nicole's position. Affirmative action in my eyes is at best a crutch for a short period. And it takes the pressure away from both sides. A black student/pupil may say to herself 'I'm already good enough with my B. Together with the twenty points I'm on the safe side.' And the white community/government might think 'Look, why should we invest all that money necessary to level the field. Let's go the cheap way and just award them 20 points and go on with the present politics.'

In Germany, the main issue is gender, of course. We have now near to perfect laws to ensure that women have at least equal (and in theory: better) opportunities to get a (state paid) job (in practice, that just means it involves a bit more of paper work if you want to hire a man instead of a woman also applying). That was the action that did not cost any money except for the printing of the law. Anything which really would change the situation was avoided due to the costs involved: No good support for women/families with a baby, no whole-day nurseries to allow women to work even with a small child, no real incentive for men to stay home for a while, no compensation for the loss of pension for family care time (for instance, I shall loose some percent of my pension for staying home with my young child, same as my wife will),...

The financial risk of pregnancy time-out is still fully with the employer. Women are still considered a risk to hire in too many positions. A part of that 'risk' rests only in the (male) employers' perception, another part is real. To lower that risk costs money. Our governments prefer to produce affirmative action laws that cost nothing and can be changed quickly if needed.

I end with a short true story which shows that colour/gender/etc blind selection can have unforseen positive consequences. The Munich philharmonists were a male only orchestra. As it happened, the members of the orchestra always selected male applicants for the free positions. They just 'were the best'. Then someone had the idea that the unnamed applicants played behind a curtain so that no prejudices (like I know him and like him) could influence the selection. That was the first time a woman was selected. They did the curtain procedure once more and that was the second time a woman was selected.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Kim C
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 10:15 AM

The other thing is.... you can't admit people to colleges, or hire them for jobs, if they don't apply in the first place.

I used to work in an ice cream store when I was in college. We had a mostly white crew, in spite of being near a largely black neighborhood, and between two colleges. The reason? Most of the people who applied to work there were white.

If institutions want to vary their racial diversity, then first they have to appeal to minorities to apply.

Then there are schools like Fisk University, who are quite happy to be mostly black, thank you very much. They don't want to increase their diversity.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Sam L
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 10:03 AM

DougR, sorry for those things that offended you, I have a juvenile smart-ass streak. I don't understand your logic either.

I didn't mean to imply I think all rich people are going to hell, just that Christian theology raises questions about it.

NicoleC I don't feel sorry for you, but you've made the first case for opposing AA that doesn't sound completely fatuous to me. To argue against it in the name of equality seems fatuous unless one directs some further consideration as to how this equality is going to actually play out. One can reasonably argue that AA is a crude solution, is not ideal, has unwanted side-effects. I'm not convinced there's something better at hand that is going to actually get off the ground anytime soon, that it's time yet to set AA aside, or that helping the blacks who can afford it go to college is such a negligible result. I still think I could make a much stronger case against AA than you have, and yet as a practical matter I support it.

   Sure, it doesn't solve everything for everyone. It hasn't eradicated the problems of the poor who aren't minorities. It wasn't meant to, and when you know how to do that, please don't type it all out, just actually do it, okay? A theory of a program that won't happen might not be better than the little good we can actually do. A better question to ask about AA is whether more blacks went to college than would have without it. The "dumbed-down" remark--there's no getting loose of this popular myth that we really know how to measure human merit, it's like the scarey guy in the horror movie that comes back no matter how many times you kill it. If it weren't for legislation to adjust I.Q. tests, women would still be less intelligent than men. They simply changed the questions. It's a mistake to over-weigh the merit tests, because they too can have inherent biases.

   I'm a white guy. It may be my point of view is tilted by that. I think maybe it should be. The cries of two wrongs don't make a right seem laughable to me--you can't compare it, really. Come on--seriously. Two "systems of discrimination"--for crying out loud, is there no proportion in things? Let's pretend that if we get rid of AA things will be fair, or fairer, that all the poor whites will go to college, without dumbing things down. (Apparently that's just for blacks.) How, exactly? That's what gets me. There has to be a saner way to discuss things. I'm right to make fun of that implication, and really you've just dressed it up to sound more repectable.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: DougR
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 01:42 AM

Harpgirl: I think it's a bit presumptious for you to criticize what I think. My thoughts and beliefs are my own. You don't have to agree with them, but I do have a right to them, right or wrong.

On the subject of points. I think 20 points for athletics is too much too! However the point system you printed from Newsweek (I presume)also includes points for "Alumni." Surely you, and others so critical of GWB because he got into Yale because his father was alumnus, do not believe it is fair of the University of Michigan to include it in theirs also...is so?

How many points would I assign? Maybe five.

I would still rather see it based on ability rather than accident of birth though.

I think Nicole makes a good point (if I read her right). There are some poor white young people who have been disadvantaged as much as a member of a minority (perhaps even more)and could be deprived of that good education simply because they were born of white parents.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: NicoleC
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 10:12 PM

See detailed post in the *other* thread on this subject on education, Bobert. I'm not typing all that again *whew!*

But while I'm on the topic, financial aid is a JOKE in this country anymore, and college tuition is soaring ever higher. The new tax deductions for adults who go back to school are a nice step in the right direction, but not nearly enough. What good is affirmative action if you can't afford to go anyway?

In the interim, we can give a big leg up while helping out other national issues. Nurses, doctors, medical assistants, social workers and teachers are all desperately needed, among others -- positions which could be filled by offering steep financial aid to interested students of any color. It's win-win for everyone involved.

And if you can get big help for college for joining the military, shouldn't there be more incentives for other social needs that don't involve killing? Performing vital work in the community like building parks, cleaning up trash, playing music in nursing home (;-))and -- HEY! fixing up rundown schools! -- should be as deserving of both the time commitment in school and the perks as ROTC.

Thanks for posting that info harpgirl. When put altogether, even if U of Mich looses, "socioeconomic disadvantage" pretty much covers the whole territory, doesn't it? It covers most blacks or other minorities from disadvantaged backgrounds, while not excluding whites from the same background. So why is race awarded extra points if it's covered elsewhere? The admissions officers would still have plenty of leeway.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 09:48 PM

Nicole:

Not to beat a dead horse but, ahhh, your alternatives? You have never been one to shy away from ideas so I'm real interested in what you have to replace AA?

And yes, I'm still your not-so-secret admirer. Just waitin' for you to get cranked up with something fresh to replace AA so that the US won't take large strides toward segregation, discrimination and cotton pickin...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: harpgirl
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 08:39 PM

If you delete race and gender, most schools would have mainly women and no money....that wouldn't work.


Don't get me started about white males being discriminated against. That really gets me mad!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: harpgirl
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 08:36 PM

You can't get twenty points for both, Jon.That category is at the end and requires a choice of one out of the following:
20 socioeconomic disadvantage
20 underrepresented racial/ethnic minority identification or education
5 men in nursing
20 scholarship athlete
20 provost's discretion


The entire forty includes:
Geography
Alumni
Essay
Personal achievement
Leadership and service

The rest are academic 110.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Troll
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 08:26 PM

How would some of you feel about the fact that Mich, also gives 20 points to, among others, athletes?.
It is my feeling that everything shoukd be ability based and that race and gender should be deleted from all applications of any kind. Let an applicant stand on his or her own merits with no advantage OR disadvantage attached because of status or accident of birth.
I have been the victim(?) of discrimination on several ocassions in the job market.
Ever heard the term "over-qualified"? Been there. Several times.
I was denied a job once for which I was FULLY qualified, degree AND experience. The reason I was given was that they had lost funding for the position. Two weeks later they hired a female minority who had almost no qualifications or experience. Others had to do her work until they could finally get her trained.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: harpgirl
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 08:02 PM

oh, and yes a scholarship athlete can be awarded twenty points. Now what do you think about that?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: harpgirl
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 07:57 PM

The point system is on page 34-35 of this week's Newsweek, Dougie...

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: harpgirl
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 07:55 PM

I receive two publications from UofM on a regular basis. The current LSA magazine does not address the race issue in admissions. But Lee C. Bollinger is quoted in this week's Newsweek which has several good articles on the issue at hand. (The current president of UofM is Mary Sue Coleman, BTW)

He says, "there are many misperceptions about how race and ethnicity are considered in college admisions. Competitive colleges and universities are always looking for a mix of students with different experiences and backgrounds--academic, geographic, international, socioeconomic, athletic, public service oriented and yes, racial and ethnic."

He goes on to say," The simple fact about the Michigan undergraduate policy is that it gives overwhelming weight to traditional academic factors--some 110 out of a total of 150 points. After that, there are some 40 points left for other factors, of which 20 can be allocated for race or socioeconomic status. "

He goes on to talk about the segregation of Detroit and the fact that the majority of students who arrive on Michigan's campus are from virtually all-white or all-black high schools....and that their first experience in integrated living is on Michigan's campus. He believes it is vital and that diversity is an essental element to a well-rounded education.

Anyway, I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted someone like the fella that wrote "the Emperor of Ocean Park" as a roommate. Too much like all the other people I grew up knowing.... (had to throw in the harpy bombast, right?)

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: NicoleC
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 07:52 PM

Bobert, they're slipping through the cracks anyway. So handful of extra blacks get into college -- and that solves... ??? Are any big race issues really getting fixed by Affirmative Action? Since Affirmative Action began, if you look at the economic figures, black people are no better off than they were before. As a social solution, I don't think it works and I don't think it solves a darn thing. The U of Michigan can racially balance their campus all they want, but is it really sending more black kids to college? Or does it just send the ones that could afford it anyway to the U of Michigan?

Meanwhile we perpetuate a system that causes as much injustice as it solves, stirs up resentment among those poor whites who should have the most common cause with poor blacks, is endless fodder for racists to "prove" that blacks have it so easy that we don't NEED to do anything else, and most of all continues to divide, divide, divide by the color bar.

If we Affirmative Action everything into racial balances equal to the population, will that end racism? Or will it make it worse by dummying down the system so far for blacks that no one bothers to fix the inequities that make the special considerations necessary in the first place?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 07:27 PM

Harpgirl: Don't get Dougie all confused with facts. He doesn't do well with 'em... Just get's the poor boy all tangled up... But, ya got to admit that fir a complet knothead, he is kinda likeable...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: harpgirl
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 07:17 PM

Do you know the complete formula for admissions weighting, Doug? If you don't then you can't possibly have an informed opinion; your opinion would then be knee-jerk support of the pretender!

Subject: RE: BS: Bush to Minorities: Screw you and the...
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 07:04 PM

Yeah, Nicole. Like what? And when? And what do we do with the generation of folks who will slip thru the cracks while you get your system up and running?

Just curious...

Fred: Hey, go for it. It's not like the race card has not been played here and will be replayed and replayed over the next few months before the Supreme Court kills AA with the same 5 justices voting to kill it who selected Bush as President. And you can take that to the bank!

Bobert