<p>I’d be very delighted to have a friendly factual discussion, and I invite you to refer to as many facts as you can link to from any credible source. The World Wide Web is a wonderful help to online discussion. </p>
<p>To the factual questions: what fields have minorities been historically denied access to? How was the access denied? To which minorities? Is there any current denial of access of that kind? By whom? To whom? </p>
<p>Noting the overly personal tone of some of your responses to other participants this evening, I’ll briefly put on my moderator hat (as contrasted with my one-participant-among-many hat) here to remind you that College Confidential has Terms of Service </p>
<p>and those apply to everyone who posts here. There is no need to make a personal remark when registering disagreement with a factual statement. The management here, whom the volunteer moderators represent in enforcing the Terms of Service, are happy to see discussion of a wide range of issues from a wide range of points of view. But let’s all keep the discussion both civil and factual, okay? To paraphrase a saying wrongly attributed to Voltaire, I’ll defend to the death anyone’s right to disagree with me. But I’ll also defend any moderator’s enforcement of the Terms of Service, even on a participant who typically agrees with me. The rules here apply to everyone.</p>
And this is reason for affirmative action how? We get it; different races face different problems. Rich whites and ORMs face problems that rich blacks do not as well.</p>
But as I have argued, this is blatantly wrong. True, race is often (not always) a proxy for the black kids in the ghetto, but not at all for the other ethnic groups in the ghetto. What do you propose we do for those guys? Leave them in the dirt?</p>
<p>These African-American communities (ghettos) you speak of are far from being purely African-American. And thus, the results are nowhere near the same when comparing between your vaguely proposed solution and my vaguely proposed solution.</p>
<p>I searched back up the thread to see where the term “ghetto” was introduced into the discussion. </p>
<p>Let me ask an informational question: if I agree with the premise of the quoted statement that being black in the ghetto is different from being white in Appalachia, why does it necessarily follow that a college offering socioeconomic affirmative action to applicants from both kinds of circumstances isn’t helpful to both?</p>
What NearL is suggesting is that only those black urban kids truly deserve that AA bonus and not the white Appalachian kids, a point that doesn’t makes sense. Sure, I suppose the black urban kid might face more difficulties, but the white Appalachian kid isn’t exactly very privileged either.</p>
<p>^ I’m not sure that’s what that participant is saying. That’s why I’m asking, to be sure what the statement means and what evidence the statement is based on.</p>
<p>This scenario wouldn’t be a zero sum game for the two applicants in question. In practice I believe both students should benefit from socioeconomic affirmative action at the expense of the richer students in their respective pools. One might wonder why those pools much exist in the first place. Here is where I make my distinction: I believe that racial pools would follow socioeconomic affirmative action because I believe considerations of environment are a natural extension of socioeconomic affirmative action, a necessary component. Poor blacks generally come from one environment and poor whites generally come from another one. It just so happens that the environment poor blacks come from are harsher environments. What really counts is environment, not race. Unfortunately, race is essentially a proxy for environment in America. </p>
<p>This means that, on average, your poor black student might get a slightly larger boost than your poor white student. That doesn’t mean that all poor black students will get a larger boost. </p>
<p>However, this is all just idle philosophizing. In reality, no truly potent socioeconomic affirmative action would ever really come to be at the most competitive colleges. Many can’t afford to do it, and those that can wouldn’t want to dissociate themselves with the middle-upper class and wealthy. They’ll continue to admit predominantly wealthy students and admit mostly wealthy minority students in lieu of socioeconomic diversity to try and fool the masses. It’ll probably work to some degree because race is essentially a proxy for class in America.</p>
<p>Asians make up more of the population at top colleges than Hispanics and African Americans.
More Asians apply to these schools, and as a result, more are rejected, but more are also accepted.</p>
<p>Besides, you don’t even need to go to those elite colleges to earn a great education. There are no disadvantages for them at other colleges.</p>
<p>Nearl: Your heart may be in the right place, but many of your answers are condescending. Reasonable minds often disagree on racial issues, and you certainly do not possess a monopoly on enlightenment. Please be more respectful to those with whom you disagree.</p>
Not true. Besides the heightened quality of teaching at certain elite schools (Dartmouth and Princeton come to mind), take for example a student who wants to go earn an MBA in the future. The most integral part to the MBA app is work experience, and getting a strong job straight out of college often hinges upon the school. There are other examples I can provide you with as well. If it were only an issue of prestige and insecurity then AA wouldn’t be such a heated topic.</p>
<p>jamma: Rereading my posts, I have to agree with you. Some of my posts may have come off condescending. I apologize to anyone that I may have offended and hope that the merits of my arguments have not been diminished by their delivery.</p>
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<p>You hit the nail on the head.</p>
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<p>They probably are. But even if they weren’t, they would still be held to a higher standard by virtue of the competitiveness of their pool.</p>
<p>A random sampling of white applicants might look like this: 2100,2230,2340,2400,2250,2310,2090,2290</p>
<p>A random sampling of Asian applicants might look like this: 2210,2350,2230,2400,2400,2310,2100,2290</p>
<p>If you just randomly took two Asian applicants and two white applicants, there is a good chance that the Asian applicants would have higher scores. They’re applicant pool has a smaller distribution. However, from the outside looking it, it would appear that Asian students are held to a higher standard.</p>
<p>Obviously my example is a simplification and obviously exaggerated – but it’s not grossly exaggerated.</p>
<p>Nearl: I enjoy your posts. The points you make are extremely important and need to be heard. One of the problems with the racial debate is that many people do not listen to what others have to say. My fear is that your wit sometimes distracts from your message. You are an asset, and I just want people to listen to what you have to say. I look forward to your future posts.</p>