So it is fear of the black man afterall

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Well, since they're all political thugs, a Harvard education can't hurt.

I just can't leave this ignorant and racist statement alone. To say that the workplace quality radically dropped because suddenly people other than white males were given opportunity greatly offends me. Yes there was a brief learning period, but how else could someone possibly become adequately qualified without being given initial experience? The statement you made implies that non-white males don't have the same capacity of intelligence and ability.

And to address Orwell's statement about more grants, scholorships, and fellowships being available to minorities (including women I'll add), that is true but with good reason. White males do not have to overcome the same obstacles that minorities do just to get to college in the first place. Differential treatment by society start from birth. I can speak with experience (not just from text) about these issues. At the playground with my son, others would ask about his development (is he crawling, how many words can he say, etc.). When I'm with my daughter, people comment on her appearance (cute shoes, look at her eyes, etc.). I went to college to become a scientist and most people thought that was an odd choice for me, even though I've loved science since I was very young. I entered my major with about 200 mostly white, male students. Only 21 of us received degrees - 3 including myself were female and none were non-white.

Throughout my life I have lived and worked in many different communities including a mostly black urban neighborhood. It's not easy being the minority. People hold you to a lower standard. Very few opportunities exist for minorities to break the cycle. College is one of the biggest and most positive opportunities that a minority can take advantage of. The typical white male breaks don't exist in the ghetto. CEO's are nearly all white males. Most higher-up government positions are held by white males. College is one of the only situations in America where you might get a leg up by being a minority. Most white males don't routinely get asked what sport they play when they say they've been accepted to a college. No one, to my knowledge, hated Bush for the sole reason of him being white, but the hatred rages on about Obama. Much of it exists only because he is black. Hillary would have been subjected to the same hatred if she was elected into office. White males have a sort of elite birthright that they are often unaware of because they are never challenged in the same ways as minorities. It kind of sounds like a lot of you need to close your textbooks and go meet some real live black people.

Thanks, Number 5. It's nice to have somebody who knows what they are talking about. Black people have been and are being sh it on for centuries and it helps to make clear note of it.

As opposed to the HMO bureaucrats, who clearly have everyone's best intentions in mind.

Now, ruveyn, since you love anti-government cliches, please advocate the privatization of roads, the inter-state highway system, and the Department of Defence. Not to mention massive corporate welfare subsidies.

I know, abolishing the military will make it a lot harder to nuke Muslim nations. But I'm sure the invisible hand of the the almighty market will come in with privatized nuclear weapons corporations, so your dream may be even closer to fruition.

I am not enrolled in an HMO. I have prepaid medical insurance and I go to the hospital and doctor of my choice. I had a procedure last year (atrial ablation). One day wait. I was in and out the following day. I showed up at the appointed hour, signed the forms and waivers and had my procedure in the after noon. I was out by lunch time on the following day.

Easy peasy. No government burocrats. No government paid doctors.

ruveyn

I don't think the R-word should be thrown around so lightly. It ought to be reserved for actual racism, not lack of information and/or lack of agreeing with you on some subject.


You just said the exact same thing, but with opposite spin.

And he didn't say anything about the cause of the drop in productivity being because of non-white-males.


I don't read it that way. I read it as a dismissal of the idea that affirmative action is fair and necessary. I'd disagree with him to the extent that it probably was needed to get the ball rolling, but the ball has been rolling for quite some time now.

Nothing in it implies racism. Don't be too quick to use the R-word on someone for merely disagreeing with you.


I don't see much hatred. What I have heard about is all from fringe weirdos anyway.

Keep it in perspective. Bush, white or not, was almost universally loathed. Obama, black or not, is quite popular, despite the honymoon being over and the economy being in the tank.

From an anally pedantic point of view, you misspelled "anally".

That's funny!! !! I don't care who you are. Someone should realy give a course on how to use spell check on this BBS.

This is just a side note (vaguely related to the "is Obama a socialist?" thing), but what exactly is the difference between a social democrat and a democratic socialist? Or do they both mean the same thing?

I can see the point you're making here, but it doesn't justify racially-based affirmative action. Such programs would better be targeted along socioeconomic lines. Most of the people I know who benefitted from affirmative action came from wealthier families than I did, and they faced fewer challenges and did not work as hard. Your argument really only makes sense if you assume that all black people are poor and all white people are rich, which of course is patently false.


I've said this before, but I think the extent to which people hate Obama for being black is exaggerated. By analogy, I'll reference my roommate from last year: he was a Kuwaiti Muslim, and he was also extremely socially awkward and somewhat creepy. Hence, people on the floor made fun of him, occasionally even taking jabs at his religion or jokingly referring to him as a terrorist. No one actually had a problem with him being Muslim. Jews, Christians, atheists, and a Hindu all got along splendidly. No one actually believed that all Muslims were terrorists. People just didn't like the guy, so they made fun of him using whatever insults came to mind. In short, the "racist" jokes made about him weren't really racist, as no one would have made issue of his race or religion if he wasn't completely antisocial. Not to say there aren't plenty of outright racists left, but I grew up in one of the most conservative regions in the US and even there racism is not rampant.


And if a white male is accepted to Harvard, people know it's because of his own merit, not because the admissions officers were trying to get more white people. Black people have been robbed of that by affirmative action. Any accomplishment of a minority is tarnished by people wondering if it's just because they're black. Any time a black man is appointed to a position of responsibility, people conjecture that it's only because of affirmative action, not because they might actually be qualified. This is the sort of toxic culture that affirmative action breeds, that leaves people questioning the achievements of minorities and traps them in a position of assumed inferiority.

I truly cannot comprehend how a black person (or any other minority) would not be insulted by affirmative action. The implication behind affirmative action is that minorities have lesser capabilities and aren't able to compete against whites on a level playing field.

And not, at all, because of family name, family wealth, or family connections (sometimes even to the University itself)?

So me home many accepted white males come from wealthy families contrasted against the numbers of poor white males and then lets argue about the perfect meritocracy there.

Well, that has happened quite a bit (most notably Bush going to Yale) but it's considerably less common now. Perhaps MIT would have been a better example to name, since they have less of a history of nepotism.


Actually, poor whites (especially first-generation college students) have a slight advantage over wealthy whites in admissions (assuming the rich whites are not related to an alum). This is because it helps the school's ranking if they have a lot of students who qualify for Pell grants.

To clarify: I think that people from poorer backgrounds should be given special consideration, because they obviously have not had the same opportunities their whole lives. I know that this would disproportionately help blacks, and that's perfectly OK. I just don't like it being along purely racial lines.

+1

What a lot of minorities do not see (and I think this is deliberately fed to them, so it's not their fault individually), is that discrimination is not really about color/gender, it is about MONEY.

Much of the "white hate" towards minorities is that a white man can be 10X better than a minority and NOT be considered or given opportunity because he is white. That is wrong.

The "white males" that minorities say get all the breaks in life should be referred to as "wealthy white males." I can attest that there are likely 100X the "white males" who have been oppressed because they are from poor backgrounds in favor of the "wealthy white males" who get the opportunity. However, we will never see a law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of wealth/status, so there is NOTHING to help ordinary white men from average to poor backgrounds get equal treatment in opportunity. However, they get to compete against minorities who not only have laws protecting them, but giving them favorable treatment, so much that a vastly inferior candidate get hired and promoted over a white man who worked harder and proved his competence for the position.

I find it ironic that most black people whose ancestors were sold into slavery and sent to America were sold into slavery by their "black brothers" in Africa. Again, the rich exploiting the poor.

The whole white/black division (and curse the Al Sharptons and Jessie Jacksons who fuel the fire for their own political agendas) is a ploy to keep minorities preoccupied with a "boogieman" so they never open their eyes and realize that this is a game the wealthy have played against the poor since history began.

There is, undoubtedly, discrimination against the poor. I was quite poor during my adolescent years and yet lived in one of the wealthiest districts in my state (in a one room basement apartment, of course). I experienced the unjustices myself. The big difference is that a poor white man can get a clean shave and a donated suit and no one would no the difference. When you're black (or brown, or female, etc.) there ain't no hiding it. Many of my own friends didn't even know that I was poor.

The poor of all races do get do get government grants and/or subsidized loans for college. Much of the aid that goes directly to certain races is privately funded. Furthermore, the advantages given to minorities in college are not at all representative of the advantages given to minorities in the workplace. Very few companies actually have quotas and cases where a minority is more likely to land a job, even if he/she possesses inferior qualities, is extraordinarily rare. The only requirement of employers is that they are an equal opportunity employer. Actually, I'm not even sure if that technically is a requirement. Either way, it is nearly impossible to enforce, and discrimination still occurs. As a job candidate, your fate usually lies solely in the hands of the individual employer and they are generally free to make their own choices based on their own criteria.

Some may feel that it is OK to make racist jokes/comments if the joker is not really racist. That's part of the problem as well. A joke is only funny if the listener thinks it's funny. Most Muslims, when asked to be truthful, will admit that they don't appreciate being called a terrorist, even if it was only meant to be light-hearted humor. Likewise, a black person would not appreciate a comment on how the workplace quality "suffered" because their race was finally allowed to be given opportunity. These are the subtleties we all need to be aware of. Just because you don't consider yourself to be racist doesn't mean that you shouldn't think long and hard about how and what you say, and how it will affect others.

As for good, old-fashioned racism - there's still plenty of it, especially in the south. I just watched a documentary last week about a public school in Georgia that still holds segregated proms. As far as the whites down there are concerned, it's a tradition that they're stcking to - no matter what. Racism occurs because of ignorance, that is something we have no shortage of.

There is more racism in Boston MA (where I lived for 40 years, so I know what I am saying) than in most of the South.

ruveyn

And if I set up a private scholarship fund for whites only, I would be sued and would undoubtedly lose the case.


So? Advantages in college transfer to being advantages later in life. My university has a minorities-only program that matches students with a faculty mentor who uses their contacts to ensure that they get better chances when applying for grad school.


I don't think it's OK, obviously such comments are not appropriate. I just meant to demonstrate that not all apparent racism is necessarily indicative of underlying attitudes.