Universities Record Drop In Black Admissions

kirmum
Sat, 04 Dec 2004 19:18:28 +0000

A very fascinating discussion. I am biracial but was raised by my black mother. Some of my earliest memories are of marching on picket lines for school desegration. My siblings and I were always considered very smart at our very integrated public schools. Top grades and lots of honors, yet I scored 1000 on the SAT. It was the era of ivies recruiting blacks aggressively. Daily, I got letters inviting me to apply from schools I had never heard of. So what the heck, I applied! Thus me and my 1000 found ourselves at Harvard. Amazingly, I did very well on all levels when mixed with my silver spoon “peers”. If AA is designed to change lives, I am the poster girl. There were fits and starts, but in 4 years I learned many lessons my mother couldn’t teach me. A new work ethic, the possibilities, to think big. Yale law school followed. A marriage and divorce from one of my silver spoon peers. So my children are mixed race. They have grown up affluent and attended the best private schools, camps and programs. Certainly they have endured prejudice because of the color of their skin. Certainly they relate to the trials of their ancestors. And certainly they have had every advantage. I guess my question is, how many generations need to pass before AA based on race makes sense any longer? What is the responsibility of our people to assimilate the values that Asians and other immigrants seem to have adopted in far fewer generations? I hear Chinaman and live in California where I have seen Asians pass us by. Why are we lagging?