<p><em>Bangs head against wall</em></p>
<p>I fail to see how capitalism is an evil system. While it’s true that only a minority benefit greatly in the way you’re suggesting, society as a whole is improved as a result due to competition and innovation.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is, yes, there is economic inequality. Yes, it is a problem. However, even the poor have access to basic necessities. Everyone has access to education. There are social programs to help those in need. Being “poor”, while by no means easy, can still ensure a certain standard of living which most of the world cannot compare to. </p>
<p>Second, colonialism was/is bad. I’m not going to reiterate, however, that many of the problems facing Africa today are not a result of colonialism. Mugabe can claim all he wants that the economic crisis is a result of colonialism. The president of Sudan can claim that the Darfur crisis is Western propaganda, but that doesn’t make it true.</p>
<p>everyone has access to education? i wish. well, illuminar you have no idea what colonialism is obvioulsy, so i’m not going to waste my words…</p>
<p>by the way, how do you know what this world would be lilke without capitalism? thats right, u dont. so dont support it if you are ignoring its effects on the majority of this world.</p>
<p>The first part refers to the United States.</p>
<p>edit: What do you propose then?</p>
<p>ooooooo, the old if you don’t like what I have to say then don’t reply, leave the thread, and never come back routine… Excellent!</p>
<p>be honest sox. stop being indirect. you are more offended by the truth in my words regarding political science. your conscious ignorance wont go far, trust me (or not, lol)</p>
<p>How is it the truth though? You’ve given no evidence to back up your claims.</p>
<p>i was hoping if you dont believe me, you will find out for yourself. I read a lot books. why? I want to know the truth. Here are some books you should read that i have and that really reveal reality, they are excellent: Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism by Richard H. Robbins, Examining the History of American Foreign Relations by Michael J. Hogan and Thomas paterson, A Peoples History (i forget author but its a pretty popular book, google it). Books are the best mechanisms to gain valubale knowledge. read at least one of these and you’ll understand what i mean.</p>
<p>ooo, and i almost forgot a really good one: Global Matrix by Tom Nairn and Paul James. READ this!</p>
<p>maybe if you get really interested read this, although it may seem a little too complex to understand: Capital by Karl Marx (and no, i am not a marxist, but his book analyzes capitalism precisely)</p>
<p>reading is the best thing ever</p>
<p>Sex is the best thing ever. Reading is overrated.</p>
<p>An aside: I absolutely cannot believe that admissions committees in the United States - the richest and most advanced country in the world - consider race as a factor in the decision to accept or reject university applicants.</p>
<p>I am half white half black, but if you saw me you’d just say i’m black (same colour as Barack Obama). If I went to a top school in the United States, would my peers basically look at me and say “oh he only got in because of AA,” or something like that? I cannot think of a more demeaning college experience. Now that I’ve been admitted to top schools in the UK, I know I won’t have that problem. Why? Because in Europe they don’t have affirmative action.</p>
<p>To American black people everywhere: Stop posting your skin colour (women stop posting gender) stop underestimating yourselves, and have the stones to find out how you REALLY measure up - in terms of qualifications that is, rather than the suffering of your ancestors two generations ago. You might be surprised, since many of you, including the OP, are well qualified to be in top programs like Columbia engineering without this crutch known as affirmative action. Stop demeaning yourselves and stop demeaning me.</p>
<p>nauru, there are many aspects of a person that can contribute to a college’s community. I try not to bring history up when I look at something like AA. Grades are not the only things an individual can bring to the table. IMO, diversity matters and it furthers the education of everyone at an institution.</p>
<p>see, everyone always says that, but I have never once felt “damn, i’m sure glad we have [DeShawn] here, he’s really telling it like it is and I’m learning so much about what it’s like to be black.” It just doesn’t happen. Sure, everyone has different opinions. But when you’re discussing The Iliad, it really doesn’t matter much at all whether the person offering their commentary in a seminar is black, white, yellow, green or blue. i’ve had it up to here with my interviewees giving me a dialogue something like this:</p>
<p>Me: So, along those lines, what in particular do you feel makes Columbia a good choice for you?
Them: Uh, well, it’s in New York and i’ve always wanted to be in a big city…
Me: So what impact do you think that would have? What advantages would you get from being at college in a big city?
Them: Well, uh, you get the benefits of all this diversity and different cultural experiences…
Me: OK, yeah, but how does that theory translate to real life? Why do you want to be in a classroom with people from different backgrounds?
Them: Well I just feel like they have different perspectives and I can get the benefit from that, and diversity’s very important, and [insert 5 other cliches here].</p>
<p>I’m freakin fed up, frankly. I love the fact that the best minds from all cultural backgrounds and all walks of life are equally welcome at places like Columbia. I see nothing wrong with the admissions officers concentrating their recruiting efforts in places where not all students have college as a focus and not everyone may have considered the opportunities at a place like Columbia - because it means better students, drawn from a wider pool. But frankly, people keep looking for additional reasons to go out of their way to do this, and I just don’t see the benefit (even if I think the supposed ‘harm’ is equally exaggerated). Look, your contributions in a classroom and in a community will depend on your personality, your intelligence, your social skills, your interest level… cultural background may influence that but by the time you make it to a cosmopolitan college it’s irrelevant. I just wish people would stop acting like having black people around them makes them cooler.</p>
<p>nauru
i’m not posting my skin. I am rather giving an incentive for universities to accept me because if there wasnt AA, i wouldnt be accepted. Why? because discrimination still exists. and yes, it still thrives. I have never been to Europe, so i dont know how it is to be black there. But here, in America, I do know.of course there is always discrimination in the admissions office because you cant prevent the admissions’s officers personal opinions. However, AA allows for the once apparent discrimination against people of color to be slightly changed. It VERY is slight. if you are not aware of the history of black people in this nation, READ BOOKS nauru and you will understand its complexity.</p>
<p>and also, i am aware of my qualifications. but if there wasnt AA, do you really think admissions officers will be happy to accept a black student? consider black history in this nation</p>
<p>A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn is a good, well respected book. But its not really telling any history anyone here will disagree with (aside from some details maybe). Everyone knows Native Americans were treated unfairly. Everyone knows slavery existed. Everyone knows that in the North Irish immigrants were told “Irish need not apply” and that the Chinese were abused out west.</p>
<p>As far as Zinn’s politic’s goes, not everyone thinks radical solutions are necessary for historical wrongs, precisly because they are historical and not present.</p>
<p>Marx’s labor theory of value has been fully discredited by today. Reading Marx isn’t useless, but he was generally mistaken about the functioning of capitalism and that is why his predictions about the implosion of capitalism were so inaccurate. Capitalism is much more effective than his proposed system (pure communism which in practice is Leninism and Stalinism ) at appeasing the poor and help them earn more.</p>
<p>“diversity matters and it furthers the education of everyone at an institution.”</p>
<p>Everyone agrees on that. That is why we support having a university with many different schools and majors available, and having classes that focus on discussion so we can listen many people and having a lot of reading so we can understand as many perspectives as possible. I’ve never been convinced that solely because someone is African-American they are inherently different from me; it seems unreasonable in an evolutionary sense to believe race is that important since everything I’ve read suggest race has little impact except on skin adaptations and such (which presumably has little impact on your personality).</p>
<p>But affirmative-action isn’t motivated by diversity anyway. In Lydon Johnson’s intial speech that proposed affirmative action he said its about brining people up to the starting line so they can run for themselves. We have done that African-Americans since racism effectively no long exists in college admissions (excluding affirmative action). We should do it for the rest, and do it correctly–not through race discrimination but through solidarity and proven, empirically tested intiatives. Ones that work unlike affirmative action.</p>
<p>Giving the universities an incentive to accept you? The colour of your skin is supposed to be an incentive? What the heck? What ever happened to academic ability and dedication? What ever happened to intellectual potential, work ethic and ambition? Judging from your profile, you don’t appear to lack any of these things.</p>
<p>My guess is that the admissions committee at the London School of Economics is pretty much all white. Yet they chose me over a lot of other applicants. Some of those applicants who were declined may have even been white! It could be because I don’t have a black-sounding name that those white admissions officers weren’t able to screen me out. But I think it’s more likely that they found a significant amount of merit in my application and made their decision based on that. And let’s face it: England doesn’t exactly have a history of cozy race relations.</p>
<p>FYI, America wasn’t the only place with slavery in previous centuries and widespread discrimination during the twentieth century. If you are not aware of the history of black people in Europe and the whole rest of the world READ BOOKS oromia. And yes, I do know a fair bit about black history in America, and no, it doesn’t have anything to do with your academic merit as you apply to university in the year 2007.</p>
<p>All applications should say nothing about the individual person’s race or gender. Ideally, individual applicants would be allocated a number so that it isn’t obvious from their name what sort of heritage they have. But for now, America’s university admissions system continues to embarass black people the world over.</p>