<p>and also, if you so strongly oppose AA, i pose one question to you: how will the subtle segegration/discrimination/subjugation of african americans be eliminated if we cant start with some minor program as AA. and it is minor. if half of affirmative action accepted people were cut, the admission rates for whites would only increase 2%.
opposing AA shows who you are: someone who will do anything to oppose any progress in social/racial justice in this nation</p>
<p>I support programs like the ones in Florida, Texas and California (except adapted to be even more progressive) that help anyone who is disadvantaged. I think that should include all races, genders, sexual-orientations, national origins, etc. and not be limited to races with large constituentcies who can stand up for their share of the help. (For example, there is no affirmative action for Austrialian Americans to my knowledge; in fact few places even have Austrilian as an ethnicity despite the fact that it is an entire continent with very unique people. [I’m talking about the natives, not the ones of British descent.] Why? Probably because there are so few they can’t form a big political coalition to institute special programs.) So I think its a misunderstanding to mistake opposition to racial discrimination-based programs as opposition to social justice.</p>
<p>I do run a website to support poverty reduction for the truly disadvantaged on a global level (I’m don’t know if I’m allowed to adveritse on how so I don’t know if I can post the link). I also give all of my money, profit from Fair Trade sales, advertising revenue from my website, and money from sales of my things on eBay to Millennium Promise which works toward social justice in 78 villages across the globe. I won an iPod shuffle in a scholarship and I’m selling that so I can help some kids get bednets to protect against malaria, despite the fact that I would definitly appreciate an iPod, because I think its more important they have health care. So I think by most conventional definitions I support social justice. By a libertarian or communist definition though of course I’m a bad person, since I can’t please everyone or all extremes.</p>
<p>Also, I’m not saying anyone was evil or bad and certainly no actions were better. I’m saying people make mistakes and we should forgive them. You may have heard of the Couey case about a man with a terrible background and a genetic attraction to young girls who raped a 9-year old and buried her alive. I live very close to were he lived. His actions were abominable, but do I think we should kill him for retribution? No, definitly not. We should forgive him and try to help looking forward.</p>
<p>Same deal with the past with regard to slavery. Africans committed crimes. Europeans committed crimes. Europeans hurt many people on that continent, but now they are trying to help. Capitalism has lifted 400 million Chinese people out of poverty in the past 20 years and will eventually help the 350+ million African living in poverty out of it too. Capitalism also lifted essentially everyone in the US (99.99% although not literally everyone I guess) out of poverty, including slaves. So I don’t know why we need to blame capitalism for all the problems–it has good sides and bad sides. Jeffrey Sachs (a liberal Democratic ecomomist and Director of the Earth Institute at, lo and behold, Columbia) explains this dichotomy well in The End of Poverty and other writings.</p>
<p>did you know that affirmative action benefits white women more than any race. (if you dont believe it, read books) I think its very funny that when one thinks of affirmative action they immediatley think about racial preferences, how about gender? is it wrong to be preferring about one’s gender? is this discrimination?</p>
<p>I believe steve10c just attempted to justify slavery. And colonization. And oppression in exchange for future “opportunity.” </p>
<p>Oh yeah, nothing to be defensive or saddened about a group of individuals treated as sub-creatures and held in captivity for 200 years. Yep. Nothing bad at all, there’s no way that people today would be much worse off if Europeans and Americans didn’t colonize Africa. No way at all. Such sacrifices were made. Let’s pay homage.</p>
<p>Disgusting.</p>
<p>and on the point of capitalism—well obviously (i am not trying to be obnoxious) you need to study more about this system. trust me, it is not one in which has helped the majority of people on this earth. but rather benefited a handful, and sent the rest to hell. Capitalism is a complex global system that focuses on one major point: making money/profit. Side effects may include a few wannabe capitalists making profit, but this is superficial. the majority of our world as you already mentioned are in deep poverty and hunger. the effects of capitalism are our sad world today. Its not that great is it? can you at least agree with that?
hah! europeans are trying to help</p>
<p>I’m not sure thats the case although certainly they do benefit significantly. Even white men do is some cases because men tend to have worse grades than women in most cases! This isn’t a racial issue, its a moral issue because discrimination is wrong.</p>
<p>Thats why I said earlier that I oppose all discrimination on the basis of gender, race, sexual-orientation, national origin, religion (which is still the biggest by far in the US, 8% of people won’t vote for a Jewish person and 55% won’t vote for an atheist!), what food your eat, whether you wear your pants backward, etc. </p>
<p>Any discrimination based on irrelevant factors is wrong. Education should be about learning, not about politics.</p>
<p>hey steve, i am tired of trying to convince you to see reality in the face. maybe one day you will wake up. bye :)</p>
<p>Your work and your life after college is full of politics.</p>
<p>wow…</p>
<p>Oromia, I can’t help but think that you are just trying to stir up controversy…</p>
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<p>What do you prefer – Nazism? Leninism-Stalinism? the Khmer Rouge-style Communism?</p>
<p>columbia2002:
why do you limit yourself to systems that already have existed and failed.
My point is that there must be a system that needs to be developed in which of course doesn’t have to be the same as the past. We need to learn from our past and not repeat history. I understand why you support capitalism—you are at the gaining end of it anyways. But there must be something or some way of life created so that some many people in our world wont have to suffer. i of course really havent contemplated anything much, but know that now there isnt much justice in the way things are going on right now</p>
<p>and i am not trying to stir up controversy, someone “attacked” me so i must defend myself</p>
<p>Oromia, yes you are stirring up controversy.</p>
<p>One only needs to look at the title of this thread to see that. Maybe you should take your own advice and read a little more. Do you know what AA is? What AA “is” is the answer to the title of this thread. Also, you posted this same thread a few other times and in one, which failed to create hostility, you asked if you deserved to be admitted to top schools. Hmmmmm… I wonder why you did that? Its pretty obvious what your doing. </p>
<p>One more thing, I don’t agree with some of the opinions within this thread and on all of CC for that matter but I at least try not to act like an ass towards other people. I hate to say it but you come across very arrogant and immature on this thread.</p>
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<p>Well there would be zero blacks in ghettos, because they wouldn’t be here in America. As for European colonialism being the cause of all ills in Africa, countries are allowed to defend themselves you know. European colonialism didn’t make the AIDS rate rise to record levels. European colonialism didn’t cause massive famine and endless wars over century old tribes that no one outside of the country has ever heard of. European colonialism didn’t cause the spread of radical Islam, which is destroying many African countries. I think Africans are to blame for many of the problems in today’s Africa.</p>
<p>Everything is relative. Someone can argue against every single one of those points. I’m not about to start.</p>
<p>What does “everything is relative” mean? Its obvious someone could argue against all those points, and against the theory of gravity (after all, it is only a “theory”) for that matter. But would they be right? I think everyone here knows Europeans didn’t cause the AIDS pandemic, and hopefully agrees we (rich or poor, American or Kenyan, gay or straight) are all responsible to help those suffering from it.</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks Europeans went to western Cameroon 70 years ago and planted some strange biological weapon that happens to be very similar to diseases related to HIV (but for other animals) is probably not going to win any mainstream or scientific-minded converts.</p>
<p>And anyone who thinks the children dying in the IDPs in Uganda are better off than the working poor in America is also not going to win many converts. Maybe he or she is right, but its definitly a battle against common sense and those are hard to win.</p>
<p>Oromia , Your stats are great without you mentioninig AA. What was your point of mentioning it???</p>
<p>What can I say, I just state the obvious.</p>
<p>Oromia sounds like a cool name.</p>
<p>aahh, soo many insults. wow, i must of offended some people by speaking the truth. i know, truth hurts sometimes doesnt it? if you don’t like what i have to say, then dont read it, dont bother to reply and insult, and leave this thread. simply putJust because i want to see other people’s views doesnt mean i am immature. Debate is healthy.
nogardder: Oromia is the name of country that is currently (and soon this will change) part of Ethiopia. It has been fighting for independence and liberation from the dictatorial Ethiopian regime since the 18th century. yea, its been a while, but Oromos are still struggling. Its too bad the media portrays Ethiopia as a model, democratic African country when it is exactly the opposite. If you type in Oromia or Oromo into google, you can get some valuable info;but beware half of it is false since it portrays Oromos as travelling nomads that took Ethiopian lands. They are really the original peoples of the horn of africa (“Lucy” was Oromo).</p>