Affirmative Action Bake Sale

Parent Cafe
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<p>Stickershock - I agree with your last post 100%. Part of the problem is that a particular price break/tax break/regulation can seem eminently fair from one viewpoint but stupidly unfair from another. As I’ve noted in the past, every tax is “unfair” - if you focus on the unfairness of one tax you’re just ignoring the fact that the revenue loss generated by eliminating it will be made up by more unfair taxes on other people. Regulations tend to help some, hinder others. Those who feel hindered invariably feel the regulations are “onerous” and want to eliminate the “red tape.” Those who feel helped by them wrap themselves in the flag of environmental protection, heritage preservation, fair economic competition and the like.</p>

<p>What interests me is the pursuasiveness of the meta-arguments. You mention cost of admission to the beach as an area of cost discrimination. If you cut taxes that will result in higher entry fees for parks and beaches for everyone who uses them; which is to say, it discriminates against (or lessens a policy which favors) beach-users - typically middle and working class families. Does that ever come up in generalized complaints about taxes being too high? As you say, the proponents of every favored group can and will come up with persuasive arguments - some of them can even hire PR firms to hide their arguments in the public conversation - sort of like “product placement” in movies. That’s why I try to encourage people to question the source of their unexamined vague beliefs about the state of the world and the country. I think a lot of people have been persuaded by very well crafted, and very well hidden arguments that promote policies which benefit some “favored groups.”</p>

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<p>Stickershock, I agree with you as well - car insurance price discrimination in particular is just outrageous. According to “Credit Scores & Credit Reports” (Evan Hnedricks), credit reporting company scores - which are arguably discriminatory and subjective - not to mention difficult to correct - have greater weight in the algorithm used by auto insurers to assess price per customer than actual driving record! </p>

<p>The insurance industry’s logic is that persons with financial problems have more car accidents, owing to being under greater stress. Every other expert in the world says there is no science to support this position.</p>

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<p>I did the brown eye / blue eye thing as a kid at temple. I was 8, and it was incredibly disturbing to me. They told us it was based on “new scientific research” and had all of us going for hours. Some of the blue eyed kids were tearing up their “special” arm bands that they got to wear, in order to show solidarity with us poor brown eyed kids. Even when they told us at the very end that it wasn’t true, I came home crying. They never adequately explained what the exercise was supposed to demonstrate (although, since it was at my temple, I suppose it was to show the “arbitrary” cruelty of religious / ethnic discrimination). What a disaster.</p>

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<p>By the way, stickershock, great post 5:36.</p>

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<p>Has rhetoric gone completely out of style? I’d much rather appreciate a formal debate on the Affirmative Action issue rather than some somewhat-biased bake sale.</p>

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<p>yeah, like anyone’s going to listen to debate in highschool.</p>

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<p>We could throw in a number of other totems…diversity and equality, for instance. </p>

<p>Although the mock-Bake Sale seems all too clever to me, it does ride a wave–a tsunami, really–of thoughtless discourse. Moreover, I find all these earnest admonitions to have “honorable” debates equally flaccid and disingenuous. Riding a wave…they’re riding a bomb waving their cap like Slim Pickens straight out of the ass of a B-52.
“Yahoo, yippey-kay-ye…” </p>

<p>These things do not get debated in high school, they get taught (see: blue-eye, black-eye for instance). I agree with the above poster^^.</p>

<p>Without firing a shot, we know which side will “win” the “debate” over the “hearts and minds” of the “future”. It’s part of the curriculum, the text, so to speak: it’s on the answer sheet. I stay out of the AA threads and debates, as a rule, for this very reason. Too often one side is manned by ideological dogmatists…the other by resentful and greedy bigots.</p>

<p>First, I don’t understand the debate all that well (not at all sure anyone does). It’s a Byzantine and tautological slug-fest wherein sides are chosen for no better reason than to simply fit a particularly desired fashion into a cramped ideological wardrobe. Second, I think the debate is a distraction; it focuses on the wrong things altogether. </p>

<p>For instance, it is not at all clear to me that AA, as a tool, even “helps” minority students: It’s a feel-good sop. It seems to me that AA was fashioned and mended to help college administrations win a public relations war…and, after the fact, to enrich what is perceived to be the milquetoast lives of colorless <em>majority</em> students–not to help minority students. That is, give the dull middle-class “white kids” a richer cultural experience, as if real people/students–in this instance, minorities–are something more akin to works of art, or entertainers or landscaping sought out and installed for the benefit of an otherwise dull program, audience or campus. </p>

<p>Amongst the ideological marketeers, AA is to college campuses what the rum is to the punch: minorities being the spike. The ideologues of the Left find the concoction intoxicating and act accordingly (see thread). Champagne and camembert. </p>

<p>I normally favor poetshearts’ well reasoned posts in these AA threads, and see no reason to alter that opinion here; although, it should be said, she normally restricts her critique to attacking the methodology of the Anti-AA zealots <a href=“which%20I%20generally%20find%20quite%20compelling”>Triple A’s</a>, without, as I recall, making an affirmative case for AA as such. </p>

<p>A Sisyphean task, to be sure.</p>

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<p>FountainSiren: Controversial issues don’t get debated in high school? I remember that at my high school, especially around the 2000 elections, we had debates between the Young Democrats and the Young Republicans, and in my AP Gov & Politics class we used to debate current issues.</p>

<p>You do have a point though - the problem with calling for a debate on AA is that the issue is so polarized that what is meant to be an enlightening discussion will probably turn nasty, or at least very dogmatic on both sides.</p>

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<p>I have a 15 year old who is perfectly capable of having an intelligent debate. So I won’t agree that nothing gets debated in h.s. But hobo is correct that a h.s. debate isn’t going to draw the same crowd as the football game. That’s why exercise such as AA bakesale or brown/blue are used to draw everyone into the debate.</p>

<p>ILoveBrown went through the exercise without being taught its purpose. He figured it out, of course, but this isn’t how it should be done. When I did the exercise I admit to cheating. My dad had read about this exercise (we’re talking 1972) that was being hailed as a groundbreaking way to teach about discrimination. We discussed it over the dinner table. When my history teacher sprung it on the class, I was ready. As a green-eye, I could choose which group to join. Naturally I jumped in with the blue-eyes. The blue-eyed girls got to sit during class, were assigned no homework, encouraged to go and have a five minute break, etc. Brown-eyed girls had to stand in a pack at the back of the classroom holding their bookbags or some such inconvenient/uncomfortable task. Afterwards, we explored the exercise’s purpose. Lots of discussion, assignments about discrimination throughout history, etc. I’m not saying either a bakesale or brown eye/blue eye is necessarily the BEST way to make a point. They do catch attention, though.</p>

<p>Needless to say, I think the debate can only be an informed one if kids have been exposed to the historical context of the issue. The goal is not to create an emotion-filled brawl atmosphere. For a touchy subject like AA, the teacher might find each kid’s stance on the issue and assign that kid a paper arguing FOR the side he opposes.</p>

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<p>My kids have a blue eye/brown eye exercise as part of their unit on the Holocaust (Facing History, Facing Ourselves) originally developed at Brookline High in MA. It was in 7/8 grade. For many, it was a very useufl exercise.</p>

<p>I have a problem with the bake/sale idea because it introduces variables that would make it difficult to evaluate the opinions of each purchaser of cookies on AA.</p>

<p>Would the $2.00 cookies look different and taste different from the $.50 ones? I am not a chocolate person and would avoid chocolate chips cookies, for example. If I happened to be hungry, I would go for quantity, even knowing the purpose of the sale. And lots of kids buy without any intention of making a statement. Our Science Team holds food sales regularly, and many students purchase their lunch there; it’s not a statement of support for the team, merely a desire to eat different kinds of food for once.</p>

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<p>marite, your math background is taking over here! It really is just a gimmick to make a point. The bake sale sponsors are not collecting data on who bought cookies at what price. (Let’s assume they are all chocolate-chip.) A white male student approaches the table, tries to buy a cookie, and is told he has to pay $1.00 for the cookie while the black female accompanying him is charged $.25. The purpose is to make kids re-think the justification of AA policies. </p>

<p>Similar to sound-bite political ads that get your attention. You can’t cast an informed vote based on them, but they might make you seek out info on the candidate or his opponent.</p>

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<p>Oh, okay I misunderstood the question. I just flunked CR :slight_smile: I thought the cookies represented different categories of applicants and were priced differently. I did not think the cookies were the same but buyers were charged different prices.</p>

<p>Actually, differential pricing happens all the time–and you don’t even have to haggle. Contractors, electricians, plumbers charge differently by the zip code in my area. In China there used to be 3 differentrates for the same hotel rooms: domestic, overseas Chinese and foreign. This applied, too, to airfares, museums fees, etc… As a matter of fact, we have differential pricing, too, for seniors, students, children under 12, etc…
Maybe we should debate differential pricing more generally.</p>

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<p>Yup. Differential pricing, differential admission, differential treatment of all sorts. AA is touchy because it has become institutionalized. Like tax policy, I am powerless to protest it. Virtually every college & employer follows AA policy, whether out of conviction or fear of lawsuits. I am forced to play the game.</p>

<p>At least with a contractor I could chose to use one who charges everyone the same $$$ for the same job. If a bar only lets in people who look & dress a certain way, I can grab a drink elsewhere. </p>

<p>Differential pricing can be readily explained in car insurance because actuaries are calculating risks all the time. It’s quantifiable. In marite’s example of contractors, it’s market forces at work. If the rich people of 90210 all get wise to the fact they’re being overcharged & demand lower prices, the contractors will lower prices or chose to fold their businesses. But in the case of AA, it is simply so emotional, with accusations of greed, bigotry, and racism thrown around at anyone who questions the policy, that little intelligent discussion takes place.</p>

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<p>Stickershock:</p>

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<p>When your toilet backs up or your kitchen disposal ceases to work, you can’t be choosy. My neighbors and I all know we are getting charged way more than folks in a different part of town for exactly the same service; there is simply nothing we can do about it. </p>

<p>But let’s use the example of museum fees. Why should there be different prices for different categories of visitors? I do not think it’s only market forces at work. It has to do with social values, such as encouraging children to pick up the habit of going to museums. </p>

<p>Still, I agree with the larger point that debates around AA are so colored with emotions that it is hard to have intelligent discussions.</p>

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<p>Marite,</p>

<p>Would the same apply to going to the movies? </p>

<p>I’m guessing it has more to do with the cost of taking the <em>whole</em> family to the movies to be entertained or the Museum to be enlightened --as taste may dictate. Probably more practical than pedagogic: follow the money.</p>

<p>I agree with your last point…it’s not really “debatable” :)</p>

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<p>FS:</p>

<p>I was mindful of the UK social experiment of making museum entrance free. The stated rationale was to encourage working class folks to visit museums. The actual result of this policy is that middle-class folks are going to museums for free and working class folks are less likely to do so. It has little to do with costs. Middle class folks would probably have continued to go to museums even if they had to pay, while working class folks continue to spend quite a bit of money (more than the cost of an annual membership to museums) going to football matches.</p>

<p>The differential pricing (domestic, overseas, foreign) applicable in the PRC had to do less with what the market could bear since there was no reason to assume that overseas Chinese would be poorer than foreign visitors than as a means of signalling the “in-between” status of overseas Chinese. In colonial countries, non-European foreigners often occupied this in-between status between the colonized natives and the colonial Europeans. </p>

<p>Re movies and museums: Actually, many movies are specifically targeted at kids; the tickets are priced to lure kids. Parents are forced to pay higher prices if they want to accompany their kids–which they generally do. For museums, the rationale may be the reverse: kids’ tickets are cheaper to make dragging a reluctant kid to museum somewhat more palatable. Of course, all this is entirely speculative on my part!</p>

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<p>marite, I guess we’d all pay any price to fix a blocked toilet!</p>

<p>Social values do come into play with admissions to events. Museums are often subsidized by government or foundations. They want to encourage attendance & can have “suggested donations” rather than an admissions price, for example. Most people attending place value on the museums’s contributions, so throw in some $$$. Anyone who can’t, can enjoy it for free. </p>

<p>What about family discounts? On tuition, admission, etc. Is this really a conscious effort to “bless” large families when the third child pays half and the fourth is free? Or is it the market at work. Plenty of large families could not afford the school or event if they had to pay full price for each kid. So no $$$ would be made off that family at all if some discount isn’t applied. Like AA, this policy can get people quite angry. Afterall, my two-child household requires 1/3 the number of staff members to accommodate us than the family with six kids. For a hypothetical $100/month tuition, I pay $200 and the large family pays $250. Many large families are quite wealthy. So why offer them such a deal?</p>

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<p>Stickershock:</p>

<p>I grew up in France in the 50s when France had a clear pro-natalist policy. Besides the allocations familiales (family subsidies), large families could get into buses, subways, and other places ahead of others (jumping the queue). There were other ways of encouraging large families that I’ve forgotten, but as a child, I enjoyed being able to jump queues and get seats. :)</p>

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<p>If you want to mock affirmative action, stick with the original plan. But if you want to encourage debate–or, better yet, creative solutions–be sure to acknowledge the reality AA is meant to address. Next to the AA bake sale, have an Institutional Racism bake sale, with the races and prices reversed. Then, have a third table covered in white butcher paper on which people can propose new ways to address institutional racism without AA.</p>

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<p>Stickershock, your post and Marite’s remind me of a time a few years ago when I had some electrical problem or another at my house. Now, I am NOT a stupid person by any means, however, electrical problems terrify me, so the electrical contractor explained to me that I had some sort of a problem, which I swallowed wholesale, and we made an appointment for him to return the following day to do the necessary repairs. Cost would be $800 plus, which I was thrilled to pay on the spot if it meant making the problem disappear, and in fact I was ready to write him a check immediately but I couldn’t convince him to cancel another commitment and start the work immediately.</p>

<p>My best friend’s father dropped by later that same day on another matter and I happened to explain it to him. The abridged version is that for a trip to Home Depot and $2 he replaced a fuse, which solved the problem. He saved me $798.</p>