You’ve probably heard the news by now that the Supreme Court overturned Affirmative Action.
Most universities will likely not adhere strictly to this ruling. They will continue to practice equity but in so doing, at least the students accepted because of their race will not have to graduate thinking they were only there because of their race.
Is Affirmative Action even necessary now in the post-2020 America? We’ve seen a complete overhaul of nearly every major institution, especially universities prioritizing equity, as does the Biden administration. This has meant punishing specifically Asian students who work hard and yet are shut out of elite universities simply because of Affirmative Action.
In general, I prefer an America founded in a meritocracy, which is kind of the whole point of America. Things aren’t the same as they were in the 1960s. Maybe a rethinking isn’t a bad idea, just as there should be a rethinking of abortion, given that so many decades have passed.
I’ve seen some disappointing and rather disgusting comments from “good white liberals” on Twitter. Like this idiotic comment from poor vapid Erica Marsh:
Is that what they’re teaching Democrats now? That no Black person can succeed unless a white person hands it to them? How insulting.
For better perspective, here are a few links. Megyn Kelly:
And from Coleman Hughes: ”I am in the latter camp. I think “Affirmative Action” is a misguided, discriminatory policy whose end is long overdue. But I know many intelligent and well-meaning people who disagree. In the coming weeks, I expect many media outlets to push an alarmist viewpoint that we have dialed the clock back to the days of Jim Crow. So I’d like to lay out, as clearly as possible, my reasons for believing that this decision is a net good for American society. “ — 10 Notes on the End of Affirmative Action
Wow! The Twitter comment by that lady is probably the most racist thing I have ever heard uttered, and it is being done so under the guise of being a virtuous and caring person. Makes me sick.
January 6th as sedition? That hilarious narrative is quickly evaporating. Meanwhile, who can question the objectivity of the DC Circuit as it pertains to Trump? Pelosi was right, next time just machine-gun those pesky protestors.
You really want your governing masters to set a precedent machine-gunning down mostly peaceful protesters? You have no idea who or what you are supporting. Hatred and murder is never the answer in a free society.
Sorry, David, that was a sarcastic comment. After Jan 6, Pelosi wanted machine gun nests guarding the Capitol on Inauguration Day. Fortunately, she was overruled, but that's what they think of us peaceful protestors when we disagree with them.
If you can pull yourself away from your fantasies of 30 year old rape charges (and I know that’s difficult for you), could you please think about and answer these questions:
Why would an international company put a crackhead on the Board of Directors?
Why did Hunter Biden need to set up approx 20 shelll companies?
What exactly did Hunter Biden provide in return for the millions in payments he received?
I would be interested in your reasoned responses. Nobody disputes that Hunter had a serious drug problem, and nobody disputes that the payments were made. So what is your explanation?
Does the phrase Navy vs. Egan mean anything to you? Regarding Trump bragging on the latest recording, at the moment no one can produce any document. So, just keep bleating.
The Left is forced to argue that anyone with one drop of African blood is a subspecies and must be treated differently. John C. Calhoun, Democrat Senator from South Carolina would agree.
That is because our public school system has failed all children not just black children. Our government only focuses the outrage on black children, every 4 years. That is racist.
Right?! I have always wondered why any self-respecting black person would not be thoroughly insulted by AA, which pretty much says “you are incapable of making it on your own w/o help”. That would make me furious and yet so many people embrace it. Cognitive-dissonance if ever there was such.
"Back in college, I was one of the few black students on my campus and I was proud to be part of getting into such a respected school. I knew I worked hard for it but still, I sometimes wondered if people thought I got there because of affirmative action. It was the shadow that students like me couldn't shake."
Up until now, What’s regrettable about AA is that one can’t help wonder when you meet an Ivy League black grad is whether they got there on their own merit ....
It represents the Left throughout its history; Americans of African descent were doing very well until the 1965 - democrat led - Great Society further plantationing these fine people.
Thank god. As an anarchist/libertarian leftist, I say this has been due for a long time. University applications should be blind. If that means 90% of ivy league graduates are Asian, then so what? It just means we'll have the best people in the jobs. Any other system is racist. If you care what race the university accepts, then you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself what your assumptions are. Any good human impulse can be pushed until it is no longer good--empathy without logic or direction is not a benefit to your fellow human.
My heart surgery was done with a beige skin toned Caucasian and a Chinese doctor. They were both highly competent. Skin tone has absolutely no relevance whatsoever. Who would want an affirmative action doctor? Not me. I want the absolutely best doctor to open up my heart and fix me. How about you?
If my children were Siamese twins, who would I wish to be their surgeon?
Ben Carson, a black man and a surgeon of extreme excellence. My first vote for Potus in 2016 was for Ben Carson. His skin tone was totally and completely irrelevant.
LOL. I had Ursulines. Believe me, we did our homework. Mother Teresa got irritated with a fat boy who kept deliberately dropping his pencil. He was in a cast for a broken leg. She got up, walked over to his desk and threw it over with him in it. Mother Dolores got angry with a handsome blonde boy who was mouthing off. She threw him down a flight of stairs. They did not mess around.
Omg I had a nun flip me over desk and all in sixth grade for laughing at the class clown’s antics. On her way back to get him, she flipped my desk and me right over. Lol. Classic move.
Where exactly are the Caucasians from? Between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Why do all white people look sort of beige skin tone? Same answer. White people are not white unless they are albinos with pink eyes.
Why do other beige skin toned people gin up such hatred for other beige skin toned people? I imagine they don’t want any competition. Who built up modern society and its infrastructure? Mostly beige skin toned people. Look at the hall of fame for inventions and innovations. Same deal. So can someone please explain to me why the most productive people on planet earth are so despised?
Actually whites need to try and breed with Asians because the latter have a significantly higher IQ on average than the former. It has to do with the average amount of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in the populations. (Really; well documented).
Lol! It’s not foolproof so be careful before jumping in the deep end. :D. And remember I said “on average”. Best wishes at Hanukkah, Christmas and New Years; should be no shortage of holiday gift giving for the kiddos.
When I was a grad student one of my profs told me that there is regression toward the mean in breeding for intelligence. I didn't quite buy that, because the same ethnic groups that are super-performers continue to be over generations. But there is a ceiling effect, it seems.
A couple hours after the verdict, my alma mater sent out a message about how they are still committed to DEI. I groaned reading the message complete with all the Leftie buzzwords in it. It read exactly like I thought it would read before I opened it. It reminded me why I don’t give them money or recommend it to the high school kids I know.
The point of college is an education and gaining skills, not racial or social justice.
Well, RFK, Jr.'s tweet should disabuse anyone of the notion that he was anything but an old-school Democrat, after all, his views on vaccines notwithstanding.
Exactly my thoughts ref RFK Jr’s tweet. I agree with his position on vaccines; bought his book The Real Anthony Fauci. But wow, this tweet of his completely destroyed any other thoughts about his candidacy. Of course he’s much better than dementia Joe or gruesome Newsom, but what a typical Democrat politician in regards to the black community needing ‘our help’ to achieve. Good grief, we’ve had a black president, a black SC Justice--how much higher can a black expect to go?
It’s called “pandering”... he’s trying to make nice to attract the D’s who can’t stand him for his courageous stand on vaccines. In the end, they’re all the same...they’ll say anything to get your vote!
His regressive support of affirmative action is a 100% disqualifier for me and I suspect many others. Under no circumstances will I ever vote for someone who supports the institutionalized racism of affirmative action policies.
I think basing entrance to anything on the color of a person's skin is ridiculous. Taking into account socio-economic situations is fine individually, someone who has struggled in a tough environment but still succeeds should be given a leg up (as Justice Roberts suggested), but choosing based on skin color should not be allowed. Also, affirmative action has become a defacto method to keep high-performing kids of asian descent from getting in to high-ranked colleges; flat out racism.
That's only collateral damage. Whites have always been the targets. Typical prestige-college's freshman class: one-half minority, one-fourth white, and one-fourth Jewish. Whites are still 60% of US residents and Jews are 2-3%. Who's getting the brass ring in this scam? Minorities are distractions -- a nit-wit with a Harvard degree is still a nit-wit, and no real problem. But those white people -- gotta keep them down and out.
I was not familiar with the term and had to look it up. Thank you for that. But it still does not explain why you see it unfair that Jews are 1/4 of the class when they are only 2-3% of the population. It is not because of the affirmative action or any kind of preferential treatment. It is only because historically Jews always focused on education since so many fields and professions were closed to them. They are used to quotes so they have to excel to get in.
You need to find a better dictionary. "Disparate impact" is the principle behind all racial quotas. If 75% of the local population is white, 15% Hispanic, and 10% African (I wish), then any employer, school, or whatever must employ 75% whites, 15% Hispanics, and 10% African -- or else. Of course, whites have no rights under the Civil Rights Act, but if you don't have at least 25% minorities, your behind is vegetation. The fact that whites are legally second-class citizens, means that we have no complaints about under-representation, but any non-white or abnormal humans can sue to have more of their particular crew of aliens hired in place of whites until their percentages are up to snuff. Frequently, zealous Diversity Officers might hire a whole lot more minorities, but whites can have no gripes that any court is gonna worry about. That's why the first affirmative action case where the Court ruled for the plaintiff was brought by Asians. Whites have never gotten anywhere. Affirmative Action cases are zero-sum games -- every minority hired is a white person not hired. That's why the percentages in the Ivy League freshman classes are so infuriating for whites -- 25%????? We're getting hosed. Whatever the scores are for Jews and Asians, I can damn sure bet the farm that the scores of the minorities are out of sight in the whites' rear-view mirror. I mean, that ignores the fact that they're mostly OUR colleges and universities in the first place. You wanna look something up? Check the 'net and read the first American citizenship law -- Naturalization Act of 1790. Take another 10 minutes and look at Federalist No. 2 by John Jay.
Denying to sell a house to a person/family of certain races in decades past, was also ridiculous. Or a certain job. Or entry to certain clubs. But it happened. A lot. In this Country. Affirmative Action was attempt towards access. It’s totally imperfect. But I get why it came to be.
Have to disagree with you for the first time, Matt, because racism is wrong even when it seeks to remediate racism. Plus it went into effect in 1964 with Title VII. 60 years of institutional legal pervasive racism has been a catastrophe for our country and for our fellow black country people. They are more likely to be shot by a black, fatherless, on welfare and test below grade proficiency than any other group and this abysmal stats get worse decade on decade.
Yeah, I felt when I put out my thoughts on this it might not be in alignment with the majority here. My life experiences flavor me obviously. I see both sides of Affirmative Action. I’m also a student of History. Two wrongs don’t make a right but damn didn’t the monied whites in our country past keep down our fellow citizens of darker pigment
Matt, I'm sorry I don't do links, but WSJ had an interesting op-ed a few days ago. Research shows that, while redlining definitely occurred, over 90% of the people who lived in redlined areas were white.
“Denying to sell a house to a person/family of certain races in decades past, was also ridiculous. Or a certain job. Or entry to certain clubs. But it happened. A lot. In this Country.”
Haha, yes, interesting how Fear motivates a society to attack its ethnic minorities.
Jews were denied access in part because they were ‘too successful’ vs blacks who were viewed as ‘sub human’ and ‘dangerous’ Same root thought for both of European descents which is: ‘fear of’.
Interesting that the Dutch used the Hebrew Old Testament to justify their pacification of South Africa, and it’s native black peoples, as their own ‘Promised Land’
Jews have historically excelled and that is directly tied to being educated in ancient world (read/recite the Torah) where at that time, most everyone else were illiterate. Inter generational wealth for Hebrew speakers goes back to antiquity as a result of this (Near East God given?) advantage. So of course Jews naturally rose to highest ranks in society over time. And of course the ugliness (fear) in humanity slapped them back down because they looked/ate ‘different’ but were a minority with societal success. Jews were then ‘cornered’ into certain trades over time. Pogroms then kept them in check and on edge whenever a bogeyman was needed. Blacks kept in line w/ a few lynchings now and again. Okay thankfully we’ve graduated from that sinister practice, but the guilt that follows is why we are , in part, discussing merits or non merits of Affirmative Action here today
Before I retired, I worked almost exclusively with Israeli Jews for ten years. They don’t need any help in any way. I think of them as killer bees. Or porcupines. Dangerous on the outside, and soft as a baby on the inside. I love them very much. They loved me. Very hard to gain their trust, but once gained, they are truly amazing and loving people.
Perhaps everyone should look at other people with an open mind. As Forrest Gump said in his fake movie. Life is a box of chocolates. You never know what you will get. Give it a try.
Tom, being accepted into another culture that is different than your origin is for sure a very fulfilling and life-affirming endeavor. For me, it is with Persians, both 1st generation who fled the Shah, and now their children. I enjoy bbq Halal for them, and then one-upping them on bb court during Ramadan when the are weak from no food ☺️ They are good people and our lives are richer for the inter-ethnic community we keep
I thought he was talking about the Irish! And if he had said it about Ireland, I’d say “I thought he was taking about the Catholics!” Check out the potato famine for another orchestrated genocide.
Affirmative action should have never happened in the first place. All it's done is destroy the American educational system. This opens the door for suits against schools that continue to make race a consideration for admission. It's too late to make much difference but at least we have a court that follows the Constitution.
I disagree Sam. I think affirmative action filled a useful need, in a time and place. So did busing in 1970’s to finally (try) and realize the Brown vs Board decision. That said, I do agree its time is up, has long outlived its initial benefits, and agree it did do damage to education by becoming so institutionalized. I’m a big supporter of meritocracy in general. But I’m also a realist that some (many) of our black brothers and sisters were locked out of opportunities in past decades, that were much more open to lighter skinned citizens. There’s no easy fix for this. I would support our govt. gift seeding $ a 529K to every child (regardless of race) under certain $ poverty income. Drop seeds of hope early on
Busing was an absolute disaster for education. It separated parents from school and allowed all manner of idiocy to follow. AA has been a disaster and a stain that follows every black person who could stand on their own merit. The only solution to discrimination is to stop discriminating.
When bussing happened in Philly, two big outcomes happened; whites who could left the city en masse, whites who remained built the Catholic school system and sent their kids there. The Catholic school system was as big as the public school system and far better and less expensive per student. Long term results are that blacks in the public schools test far below grade proficiency decade after decade. So, no bussing didn’t help blacks.
Public schools are extremely toxic to the well being of any children who attend them. Their parents are stupid and slow, and will never understand the damage that teachers unions have over their most precious treasures, their children.
Putting children in public schools is child abuse and the parents who use that should be arrested for violence and child abuse.
Matt, you probably don't realize it, but along with affirmative action, colleges and universities started offering courses in black history, black studies, feminist studies, degrees that were practically worthless. Prior to 1965, NO ONE went to college except those whose families could afford it. Race and skin color had nothing to do with it. I joined the Air Force because my folks didn't have the money for me to go to college, even though I'd been accepted by two large universities. There were few scholarships, mostly athletic or National Defense. I seriously doubt that affirmative action helped any blacks other than leaving a lot of them with large student loans they can't pay because they couldn't get a decent paying job. As for busing, it brought dope into schools where it wasn't already there and reduced the academic performance of the schools. FYI, many children were already riding busses to distant schools. Busing dictated that white kids would be bussed into predominantly black areas. Those areas are still predominantly black and whites left for the suburbs. Memphis, Tennessee is a good example of the effects of busing. It used to be a decent city but now it's crime-ridden and rundown, just like Detroit.
Hey Sam, I also attended college on GI Bill in 1990’s (Army here) and I took Black Studies and Women’s Studies courses as part of my Liberal Arts education. And you can brush up on how many returning GIs from WW2 also used same for thier education advancements starting in earnest in 1946, and well before 1965. My next door neighbor growing up (base housing, my pops in US Air Force) were black family, we are white. The US military as you know was first the place in America to largely stop ‘seeing color’ in the chain of command. It wasn’t until summer of 1948 that military desegregated (under Truman executive order). That said, GI Bill was largely denied to Blacks who served in WW2, a shame and stain on our county:
You are right, there was pretty massive white flight out of inner cities, post WW2, and many of those new suburban tracts were not available to blacks. Those generations of blacks across Midwest migrating out of Jim Crow south. Busing failed, true. It too was an attempt to bring more equal $$ to schools. The thought being if wealthier white kids were alongside blacks the overall school would improve. We’ve been trying different experiments to enable equal access of the races. They haven’t always worked. But we have tried.
Woodrow Wilson, the most evil American President until Biden, segregated the US military, after decades of integration. Of course, he was a university president and Democrat. Universities and Democrats are toxic to all human beings. He also ran the first full length movie in American history in the White House “Birth of a Nation” which promoted the Ku Klux Klan from the White House. In 1924, the Democrat National Convention was nicknamed the KKKlanbake . It was ruled by KuKlux Klan activists.
It was held in NYC at Madison Square Gardens. Look it up. Democrats have always been the party of slavery. They still are. If they can’t kill all the black children with abortions, they demand to enslave them with fake welfare schemes that trap them into permanent slavery to the US government welfare schemes. Woke up from the stupid folks.
The number one cause of death for blacks in the US is abortion. Planned Parenthood cannot kill them fast enough or often enough to suit the Dems. Look up the abortion rates in NY and Richmond - more black babies die in the womb than are allowed to live.
Matt, affirmative action was implemented in the 1960s, not the 1990s. I know all about how the Air Force was the first to integrate, etc., and I also know how they puffed the Tuskegee Airmen in the 60s in an attempt to instill "black pride." Affirmative action in education goes hand-in-hand with a number of government "initiatives" of the mid-60s, including the Vietnam Era GI Bill along with Pell Grants and the Federal student loan program. Some WW II veterans used their GI Bill educational benefits, some didn't. The "migration" out of the South was in the early Twentieth Century, not the 60s and 70s, and it was just as much white as black, and although it's blamed on "Jim Crow" it had more to do with economic opportunity. There were few jobs in the South. By the way, those blacks who went north started going back south in the 70s. Affirmative action didn't implement equal opportunity, it initiated a new social order in which "equality" meant special treatment. "White flight" wasn't after World War II, it started in the 60s when the Federal government started ordering forced integration of schools. There are whole section of Memphis, as an example, that used to be white that are now black. And those sections are crime-ridden and run-down. This is also true in other cities.
By the way, while I did attend college using my GI Bill benefits, I used them mostly to get my advanced pilot ratings so I could get a job.
Matt, I very much respect a lot of what you write (don’t always agree, but so what?)
Please say you don’t mean gifting over half a million dollars to every poor kid in America… I’m thinking maybe you meant opening a 529-type education savings account?
(Huge props for not making it race based. The Obama and Ken Chennault kids don’t need government money…)
A couplr of years ago I read an article which made so much sense I have never forgotten it. . The point was that black schools in the South and elsewhere were excellent schools in the following ways. Their teachers lived in the town and if little Johnnie misbehaved in school, it was likely that the teacher would meet his mother in the grocery store and Mom wouldn't be pleased. Plus, Daddy was in the home and he too wouldn't be pleased and neither would the minister in their church.
Second. These schools had their own sports programs where every kid got a chance to play. They had their own proms and the queen would be a local girl who would enjoy the pride of the whole town.
It was expected that the kids would succeed in school and they did even using outdated books. Perhaps the "honors" class would not be on par with Newton but their was a pride in learning and to be the head of the lcass. . The kids competed with each other-on the sports team and in the classroom - -not with white kids in the suburban schools to which they were bused. . The teachers were strict and most of the kids learned reading, writing and arthimatic and a large percentage graduated and were able to go to colleges where they would do well such as Howard NOT Harvard. . If kids had problems with academics, there were programs teaching them needed skills to get jobs.
Busing upset the apple cart and the kids were the victims. Busing indicated to the black community that their kids couldn't learn or succeed unless seated next to a white kid. . It soon became apparent to the kids that they were not wanted, were looked down upon and started the whole "acting white" in order to cope. I have never been able to locate that article but I never forgot it since it went against everyhing I had learned about these black schools. Like the good liberal I was back then, I was sure busing was the answer to our race problem. Several older people who were interviewed said they were glad they had been able to get the "inferior" education they did.
Hi Dorothy, if you come upon the article it would be great if you could forward. It sounds very interesting. Link below for a 2018 book I read several years ago called ‘TigerLand’ which recounts Columbus Ohio East High (all black segregated HS) improbable winning of HS State Basketball and Baseball in the year 1968-1969, in aftermath of MLK murder. Eddie Ratliff on these teams (he went in to represent USA BB in ‘72 Olympics) as well as other NBA great Dwight Bo’ Lamar - who may have been one of the best pure outside shooters in the NBA, pre 3-point line. Recommend reading for sport fans, but also for those interested in black experience in America in 20th century in general, challenges and some who overcame
Matt. I think I found it - googled Acting White and thre is a book which I think is it - called Acting white :ironic legacy of desegregation by Stuart Beck 2011. I am not totally sure but that seems to be what I remember - there is a Commentary article about the book on line and it is at Amazon. If I didn't live in Mexico where ordering from Amazon is possible but a pain, I would order it.
Thank you Dorothy! I just read commentary link below on ‘Acting White’ and it’s quite fascinating. Even tracing back this ugly/limiting slur that took traction during desegregation of 1960’s among black peers to ‘hold back’ those who pursued academic excellence — to how darker skinned field slaves would try to ‘cut down’ the often lighter skinned house slaves in the Antebellum South, as being less culturally authentic. Thanks for pointing out this perspective.
African American families were doing just fine before LBJ's Great Society. Look at some youtube of how well black folks were living in Harlem before LBJ dropped the welfare bomb. And don't forget what ol' LBJ said about "having them vote Democrat for the next hundred years." The Great Society covered Democrat lust for power with faux-compassion about a great society that exists nowhere but Utopia...oh, wait, that's redundant ain't it? Utopia IS nowhere...
Ken, I grew up on the poor side. Middle of 5 kids. I’m no longer poor. What helped me advance? The US military first and foremost. What else helped? Sadly the death of my older brother who also served, and I was gifted a slice of his death $ benefit. What did I use that for? A brokerage account, multiplied the $ and down payment on my first house. I’m saying give that same seed $ opportunity to other poor kids early on. Some will squander it. Others won’t.
There are a whole lot of poor kids. I probably would have qualified. $529,000? To me that seems incomprehensible. We aren’t going to cover student loans at least in part because it has a huge price tag, at 10,000 per borrower. My first thought was, “does he think the government has money?”
Sorry Ken, I was meaning a 529 plan like a college savings plan for kids (and not $529,00 per kid!). I don’t know the right number, perhaps just $1K per baby and it can’t be touched until child reaches 18.
I still don’t have money, so I wouldn’t know what that is. Thanks for the clarification. Following the Biden admin’s act I sorta fell like it’s moratorium time on all new spending, and a lot of “old” spending. I’m tight as hell. Elect me and I’ll cover defense, some entitlements, build the wall and that is IT.
I don’t know CC, have you looked into the benefits to black children of the experience? Some gained exposure to better schooling, improving their societal standing. I’m not here to defend desegregation busing of 60’s & 70’s. But I am saying our black brothers and sisters have been redlined, subjected to mortgage discrimination and other racially restrictive covenants. So the government has tried different tactics over the years to try and level the playing field. AA was one of those, that like busing, also found its grave today.
I agree with you, Sasha. Anybody thinking rationally is really tired of “the soft bigotry of low expectations“. Is there really anything more racist?
I’ve been reading Thomas Sowell the last few years. He is a true scholar, an American treasure, who started out as a Marxist. I’m sure many people here know who he is, but for those of you who do not, I highly recommend you start to acquaint yourselves.
Thank you, Sasha, for everything you are doing. I look forward to your Podcasts.
I have read it. I was truly surprised to learn where much of the shared culture of the region actually comes from! Sowell is so thorough in his research.
This is good. Race-based admissions hurt blacks by stigmatizing them and by placing students in colleges they aren't prepared to thrive in. America's obsession with counting minorities in every college major and every profession, and screaming when "not enough" are found, is a major sickness. It's notable that no one seems to complain about how the National Basketball Association is overwhelmingly black: if any correction is needed, shouldn't it start there?
RFK Jr. is pandering to the Democratic Party voter. He’s running as a Dem. For a Dem (and only for a Dem) he is miles better than Biden or any others I can think of from that side of aisle
I was a "victim" of Affirmative Action, coming out of a superb British secondary school in 1969 with spectacular credentials and getting nowhere in the Ivy League (Oxford was more interested, but I was done with England at the time). In the investment banking job market six years later, things weren't any better. The issue wasn't entirely one of race or gender--these institutions were so stuffed with underperforming legacy and donor offspring, that there was little room for the rest of us to elbow our way in. In the end, none of this mattered, but it still rankles a bit to see "my" space taken up by a gender or ethnic studies major with little real social utility who now expects me, as a taxpayer, to help with their student loans.
Can we tackle equity next? It is part of a cultish Marxist religion. It's already against the First amendment to be pushing it on people in public institutions.
Bret Weinstein, PhD in biology, says in his interview with Coleman Hughes that he believes the IQ difference between blacks and whites is based on software (culture) rather than hardware (genes) and therefore can be fixed. We have totally failed to fix it though after 50 years, vast sums of money and so much social engineering that America is now a society that judges people on the basis of their group identity rather than as individuals. Is this supposed to be progress?
If it’s just a cultural difference why have we ended up like this and if the left really believed the IQ difference is culture rather than genes why have they given up on trying to improve the schools and instead focused on replacing meritocracy with Equity wherever it can be found? Doesn’t their commitment to Equal Outcomes look a lot like a belief that blacks can’t compete without dumbed down and rigged standards or even totally eliminated standards? And where is the black outrage about being classified as unable to compete with other races?
Seva, love your posts. Always informative. Check out “Who We Are and How We Got Here” by David Reich. It explains the relationship of DNA to IQ and particularly how ancient human migrations and humanoid species interbreeding resulted in significantly different average IQ scores by race.
When I was still a Democrat, I never thought that some day I would thank God for the presence of Clarence Thomas on the SCOTUS. Even more incredibly, I now thank Mitch McConnell for blocking Merrick Garland from getting on it!
I'm not over there either very much. I've been thinking about him, more so tonight because he seems to love this kind of topic. I'll make a trip to Glenn's and try to find him, tonight or tomorrow.
John McWhorter has long said that AA has hurt black students. When they get into a college with coursework they aren’t prepared for they do poorly and that perpetuates their own and others’ perceptions that “black people aren’t smart.” But when they go to a college that is an appropriate match there is no performance difference. (There are studies he quotes which I don’t know enough to reference but it’s in his book, podcasts, and other writings.) Glenn Lowry has similar feelings about it. If the goal is for every college student to succeed to the best of their ability, AA hasn’t done anyone any favors of any race.
There is actually a very significant average IQ score difference between the races with the Asians having by far the highest. Note the word “average” also; not absolute as in everyone of them has a higher IQ.
I’m retired but worked for many years with mostly immigrants from all over the world in Chicago. Vietnam, Mexico, Assyrians from Iraq, Jews from the Soviet Union, Indian Muslims from Gujarat and many other places. I knew them well since I would often ask them what they think of all kinds of things from religion to race. Excellent people with traditional values. Never had a sense that they were different. In terms of intelligence and temperament I never saw a difference. I’ve read that Hispanics have a lower IQ than whites but many of the Hispanics are white and the brown ones are no different than the white ones.
In group terms though I’ve always seen a big difference with blacks. I don’t say that to be heartless and a hater I say it because it’s what I saw and also what they saw. All of them were utterly appalled by black behavior and some told me they had no negative feelings about blacks when they came here because they’d never known any but that sure changed after they came here. I could go on and on and on with the horror stories they told me about their experiences with blacks. This is simply unsustainable though. This is just not working at all.
The big problem is that many blacks haven’t been well-socialized, probably because they stick with their own and don’t learn how to behave in non-black company.
I agree in that outside of urban areas in particular, I am thinking New York and Boston which I am most familiar with, I have not noted any differences. But having lived in NYC for decades, I have observed this.
Not only is that a real person, it’s really what blacks are constantly told by our guilt ridden, globalist, Woke white leftist, upper class, ruling class. They tell blacks that meritocracy is just a scam to maintain white supremacy and they need Equity to overcome this scam and the democrats are the ones will will give them Equity. On his first day in office Biden issued an Executive Order to replace meritocracy wherever it can be found with Equity aka Equal Outcomes although they claim it’s Equal Justice. Vivek Ramaswamy hates this and says on his first day as president he will issue an Executive Order banning race based affirmative action. What we now have here are irreconcilable differences.
I recall some white woman celebrity back in the day saying that it was too hard for black people to get a drivers license or an ID. That is what elites think of black people. Was it Kelly Osborne who said something about Mexicans. If they don't come over the border who will clean our houses.They don't hide their racism. Not everyone thinks like them though. Us normal deplorable people don't think like them.
It is real and the obnoxious views of unfortunately many otherwise intelligent people. They seem to have not observed that the current VP and the two term president before the current idiot were not white.
"The effects of racist policies ... are now self-perpetuating"?
This is in a sense true, but only (or largely) by way of "Slave Culture" being self-perpetuating: "There is no separate but equal". It is understandable, and indeed inevitable, that Blacks want to maintain a separate sub-culture. But it is also unrealistic for Blacks (or anyone else) to imagine that this does not come with a hefty price. The reality is that, at this point, Blacks are largely being held down by themselves. Fortunately, it seems that the number of Blacks who (at least in substantive matters) "act White" is steadily increasing. Watching "generational progress" is like watching trees grow. But it is certainly better than implementing de facto Tribalism and waging war against "Whiteness" in order to solve a problem, in historical perspective, temporary.
It's really despicable that people are willing to destroy meritocracy just to be considered 'nice'. You aren't helping anyone out by removing or lowering standards. But they like it because they would rather hurt everyone equally than help everyone unequally.
Ben, there are plenty on the Left who believe that meritocracy is a myth. If you choose to understand this mindset here is wiki page explaining the phrase:
Ah, the bigotry of low expectations for people with darker skin. They can't get an ID, can't get a job, now can't get into college without a white liberal handing it to them. You'd think at least the women of this country would recognize this for what it is as there were generations of women who were told they couldn't do anything without a man.
Most women can’t recognize the danger of AA because they suffering the effects of being cancelled by the Marxists. Our first black female Supreme Court justice cannot even define “woman.”
Sounds to me that any judge who can not define what a woman is, is supremely unqualified to sit in the Supreme Court. Does her husband, if she actually has one, use feminine hygiene products? Or not?
Amy, I agree with your comment and have a question also; should women have equal representation in our military combat units and be at the same risk of violent deaths and injuries as our men? If not, why not? My selfish reasons for wanting women to be at the same risk as men is because I think if they were, they’d vote to throw the Neocons out of government.
With our all volunteer army these days I would say yes. It does bother me that my son had to register for selective service but my friends' daughters did not. That being said, I acknowledge that women and men are different. We have different temperaments and different inclinations, for lack of a better term. I don't think I'd make a very good soldier but I would make a good medic.
Women make wonderful nurses. They have more compassion than men. This is how God Almighty designed women. Any actual man, not in a dress, can be easily taught to kill and destroy. This is the entire purpose of the US Military. To kill people and break things, until the politicians get up off their lazy behinds and make a peace treaty. Toxic masculinity is the most essential force in America that is necessary to create our peaceful daily world, to provide us peace, tranquility, and prosperity.
Don’t think so? Then gather together a bunch of transsexuals who only think about raping your children. Will they protect you from harm? I don’t think so.
Hey Tom, I served active duty so I have experience with military. I am pro-peace and anti-war. I think we’d have less war if women were at the same risk of combat violence as men because then the women would vote the Neocons out.
In case you were wondering about Trans and Selective Service. From sss.gov FAQ:
Q: I'm a transgender/non-binary person. Am I required to register?
A: Selective Service bases the registration requirement on gender assigned at birth and not on gender identity or on gender reassignment. Individuals who are born male and changed their gender to female are still required to register. Individuals who are born female and changed their gender to male are not required to register.
Yes, here is the neocons lever to eliminate trans in future, should they ever want to. Implement the draft and everyone regardless of their alphabet identity gets their head shaved and if vision bad, issued those birth control glasses 🤓
Men and women are different but they are the same in that they both value their own life and limb and I find it unfair and sexist that we have a policy of overwhelmingly putting the men in the military in harm’s way and not the women. Odd that women have not protested that particular unequal treatment. Not giving you in particular a hard time; hoping other women will read this and give it some thought.
About 20 years ago, Sandra Day O'Connor warned that the "temporary measure" of affirmative action in college admission would go away. In the 2003 Grutter Supreme Court decision, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor stipulated a 25-year lifetime for the continuation of affirmative action in college and university admissions. That's telling me that Affirmative action was long considered a temporary measure by the SCOTUS.
"The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE), details in their article The Widening Racial Scoring Gap on Standardized Tests for Admission to Graduate School the extent of the racial gap in graduate/professional school admissions tests. Not only is there a significant gap, but the article is concerned that the gap is widening. This after 40 years of affirmative action programs. The article comments frankly that without affirmative action dual standards, "the numbers and percentages of blacks in our leading graduate and professional schools would drop to very low, nearly nonexistent levels."
and https://gulfcoastcommentary.substack.com/p/the-crux-of-our-black-problem-part . In no way do I intend to be demeaning to anyone, but the truth is explosive because no one is allowed to be real about racial differences. It's no one's fault, but there are very real cultural and genetic inheritances. That doesn't mean anyone is "better" than anyone else, but just "different."
Everyone should be realistic about their capabilites. Michelle Obama went to Princeton. She said that she didn't feel like she belonged. It's probably because she didn't. Being realistic about our capabilities is a secret to being happy.
Sasha, I love your content, but I am disappointed with your conformity. Why would you capitalize “Black people” while using a lower case letter for “white people?” Very woke of you!
Nothing will change. Nothing. Nada. They will find ways to flout the ruling. They never give up. They never admit defeat or error. That’s why they are so awful.
They will not change but we are rapidly changing. Our ever worsening reality war of the Woke vs the nonWoke is rapidly heating up due to people like Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tucker, Tulsi and so many others like them plus this court ruling will certainly add fuel to the fire.
Kennedy's logic may be valid, but after 50 years, selective promotion based on race as a means to closes the achievement gap is a failure. Time to try equal expectations and a return to two-parent nuclear families.
Affirmative Action has been around since 1964 and succeeded only in racially discriminating against everyone but blacks and Hispanics. Racism is wrong regardless of which race it seeks to hurt and regardless of whether it is legal or not.
"Accordingly, JUSTICE JACKSON’s race-infused world view falls flat at each step. Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them. And their race is not to blame for everything—good or bad—that happens in their lives. A contrary, myopic world view based on individuals’ skin color to the total exclusion of their personal choices is nothing short of racial determinism." Justice Clarence Thomas' response to the woman who was nominated to the Supreme Court BECAUSE she's a woman... but she can't define the word woman because she is not a biologist.
And those proudly waving the flag of victimhood were on such a roll . . .
And I am a proficient student of hard knocks but never relied on the school of big brother government to bestow a participation trophy, unlimited taxpayer money, and a free Katrina phone to me just because I excelled and went on to the respected University of Adversity. To quote michelle for president "I sometimes wonder if I got here" because I was born without the lib gene and never vote democrat.
Many Black people still suffer the effects of our racist past. But almost all of these prevent them from starting college on an equal footing with their peers; they are not ready.
So that’s where we must concentrate our efforts: prep for college. Affirmative Action in admissions just sets them up for failure.
“So that’s where we must concentrate our efforts: prep for college.”
Ha ha. Very funny. I actually laughed when I saw that. Fat chance of that ever happening. A Mexican friend at work in Chicago once told me his cousin is a teacher in a black elementary school on the south side. He said she hates her job because the kids have no interest in learning, no respect for the teacher (they tell her to go f*ck herself when she tells them to do something) and no impulse control. How would it be possible to teach them? Yet it’s impossible to get the parents (or parent since most lack a father) to do anything because that’d automatically be considered racist.
Good schools are the result of having emotionally stable students with an interest in learning. Bad schools are the result of emotionally dysfunctional students with no interest in learning. Many a good school has been ruined by leftist social engineering that simply moves bad students to good schools.
I was on the Atlantic site years ago when they had comments and I said similar things to what I just said here and also said something about a guy I worked with who was from Ghana. A guy named “Ed” responded. I copied his comment and posted it below:
“I'm black but my parents are Ghanaian. I'd sooner send my kids to Africa, where I've never lived, to school before I send them to school here with many African-American kids. I grew up among African-Americans and the vast majority have scant interest in school which would be fine but they seem determined to ruin the schooling experience for everyone else. Nope, sorry not sorry.”
I used to work with an Asian Indian from Guyana which is a small South American country near Venezuela. It was once a British colony and is about half black and half Asian Indian. The blacks were brought there as slaves and the Indians went for a chance at a new life. The British government would pay for their passage and the Indians would then pay back the loan when they got established there.
He once told me though that every member of his family and all his relatives left Guyana to get away from the blacks. I asked him what the blacks there were like. He said "Ah, you know. Same as here." He also said the Indians in Guyana were far more prejudiced against blacks than were the whites ( the British ) because the whites had their own separate area whereas the Indians actually had to live with the blacks.
Never, ever will you see reported in the msm even the slightest hint that nonblack minorities say things like this. Many of the people I worked with in Chicago though are Vietnamese, Hispanic and Indian. They are simply appalled by black behavior. They fear blacks, not whites. They avoid black areas, not white areas. They very much feel it’s blacks, not whites, who very much need to change. Fat chance of the media ever reporting that. Never, ever will you see that happen.
My family is from Guyana. What happened was, after slavery they needed workers so they brought over indentured from India (including my great grandfather).
So the blacks go nothing. The Indians were given reparations and so did the slave owners. That set up the system there.
All the immigrants I worked with were appalled by black behavior. Blacks ruin their schools and their neighborhoods and then complain that they’re oppressed because their schools are awful and their neighborhoods deadly. Instead of always complaining about white racism you should consider why so many people consider blacks bad news. Have you ever watched video of blacks wilding in cities like Chicago?
This is a spiritual war. The establishment know our biases. They know our defenses and they play on them.
The only way is empathy. Why aren't they wilding in Ghana? Why are they busy studying? This curiosity I can work with. Finger pointing though? The establishment love it. We can blame each other all day long.
I've had experiences with racism. I now realise that it was staged by the establishment. I choose to rise above it. I refuse to engage with it.
The children in Ghana want to learn, they are exceedingly clever. What is it that has happened to African American kids that turn them like that?
And here in the UK, I was just the same. By aged 12, when I was told by my teacher that in Guyana (where my family was dumped in the 18th century) the people are Pygmies - I spun out and gave up. I was not interested. Disruptive, unprepared, naughty.
Of course, home wasn't much better. My father's nickname was The Overseer. It's as if all those generations of slavery made him bring up his children on Plantation Rules. But that's one of the hidden factors.
I went back to study later. Now, I have managed to stop the cycle of abuse handed down from slavery.
My children have their own children now. But I admit to not calling them "black" names so they would be called for interviews. And they are!
Why is it better to flunk out of an ivy league school than succeed at a state university? So we can that the victim of affirmative action is really the victim of racism?
I highly recommend reading Heather MacDonald’s City Journal article from last year which explains why blacks believe AmeriKKKa is permeated with white racism aka “systemic racism.” Truly disastrous. Excerpt here: “Figures from President Biden on down are telling blacks, nonstop, that they are under lethal threat from whites, and that it is white supremacists, not black criminals, who pose the greatest threat to their safety. “Buffalo attack ignites safety worries for Black Angelenos,” reads a headline in the May 22 Los Angeles Times. New York representative Jerrold Nadler, a sponsor of the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, says, “Democrats are taking the fight straight to the . . . violent extremists that are terrorizing minority institutions.” A Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that 75 percent of black Americans were very or somewhat worried that they or someone they love will be attacked because of their race. A respondent interviewed by the Post says that he is “apprehensive at stoplights, imagining a White man getting out and shooting him in his car.”
“Using Tragedy for Racial Propaganda.”
After the horror in Buffalo, President Biden and others peddle an entirely false charge: that whites are the biggest source of hate crime and interracial violence in the US.
Seva, that blacks are worried about being killed by whites defies all logic, data and their own lives experiences. Blacks are overwhelmingly more like to commit violent crimes on other blacks than any other races and indeed a non-black (ef Asians, whites) are more likely to be attacked by a black than a non-black. I think the polls you referenced are merely an example of of well indoctrinated blacks are at playing the victim role vis-a-vis non-blacks. It fits their AA and Reparations agenda.
But you overlook how incessantly and endlessly they are told by Biden, top democrats, the media, academia, Corporate America, Wall Street, our medical establishment and top black leaders like Obama and Al Sharpton that white racism aka “systemic system” is everywhere at all times and is always oppressing them plus they’re endlessly told that white supremacy is surging nation-wide and black people are in grave danger from this. The NAACP recently issued a warning to blacks to stay away from Florida due to the white supremacy flourishing there. How could this possibly not convince blacks that AmeriKKKa is evil and committed to destroying them?
Seva, the Democrat party is now dedicated to the destruction of this country. And they'll lie, cheat to do it. Truth isn't a priority of The Left.
From your comments, you can clearly see how absurd they are. They are ALL about inciting anger, violence, division, fear to take and hold power. Period. They couldn't care less about the good of the country.
I saw video of Chicago’s new Mayor Brandon Johnson recently where he basically said he wants these “brown” migrants here so they can join with blacks to fight oppression by whites. His Woke ideology is all about tribalism and the Democratic Party is totally committed to this. No borders means no country. We will never recover from the damage done. The “court dates” for “migrants” are meaningless since most don’t show up and even if they do and are denied asylum we have no way to enforce the order to leave and they know that so it’s just ignored. Democrats opened the border for political gain and created a monster which is already out of control and will only get worse. Watch Chicago if you want to see what civilizational collapse looks like.
“Actual Long Term Consequences of Crisis and Chaos at the Southern Border.” (5 min)
There is a lot of either/or here. Lots of people saying racism doesn't exist. It does. It exists. That's why it's being used by the establishment. To divide us. It works because I won't trust anyone who would deny experiences that I have had as a black woman. But I'll still work with y'all because the alternative isn't worth living if we don't defeat this evil.
America is rotting, insane and collapsing plus our whole world is in a rapidly accelerating tailspin. The philosopher Kant said “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” That sure is the truth. I believe the wild card in our future which has already arrived is AI and is the only thing that can change the path we’re now on which is rapidly taking us to the abyss. I recently watched this video by Alan Thompson, a top AI scientist from Australia, about how fast AI is moving. Quite amazing. A real game changer for humanity. Hope springs eternal.
“Integrated AI - The sky is entrancing (mid-2023 AI retrospective.)” (27 min)
Seva, I invite you to London to spend time with me. You are welcome.
Listen to this. I brought my 15 year-old and 13 year-old daughter and son to Queens NY, to visit with family. They were, at the time, addicted to MTV Bass. They were shocked at the eloquence of the young African Americans they met. How come we are having different experiences?!
They came back changed. They believed the movies before then. They also were moved that their relatives are middle class.
There has been some serious conditioning. Do you really believe you're immune from that?
We all need to do our shadow work. Let's talk somehow. Would you like that?
How many seconds is the present moment? Three seconds last the present, scientists say. Our brain considers the present instant from a second ago, the current second, the second to come. The rest is past or future. Deep down, anything other than those three seconds does not exist.
“Time is at all times on the verge of vanishing and all things show the frailty of being that keeps them ever poised on the brink of collapse. Time and being display a constant pull to nullification from beneath their very ground. That is impermanence.”
“Nothingness as the nullification of all things signifies the freedom and effortless flight of a bird gliding across the sky without a moments hitch, unburdened. Like the bird that leaves no tracks along the path of its flight, impermanence here means the non-hindrance of being free of the encumbrances of one’s past and of restrictions stemming from former lives.”
“Freedom and God are objects of faith, not of knowledge; in other words, freedom and God are infinite abysses whose bottoms cannot be sounded by knowledge.”
Racism exists against every race, white, Asian, black, Jewish, Indian, etc. and is done by every group by not by every person in every group. You seem like one who is not racist: welcome to our club!
Sasha writes "I prefer an America founded in a meritocracy." For the sake of the argument, let us grant Sasha her preference. The question then becomes how merit will be determined?
By scores on supposedly objective tests such as the SAT? As is well known, scores on these test can be improved by training and such training is not equally available to all. The parents of wealthy students can afford tutors while those of poorer students cannot. So such a supposedly objective test will not objectively measure ability.
By high school GPA? Again, socioeconomic status can distort high school performance. Schools in wealthier districts may offer AP classes unavailable in poorer districts. (AP classes can results in GPAs exceeding 4.0). Students of wealthier parents can afford tutors and extracurricular activities while those of poorer parents cannot. So wealth will impact the results of a GPA metric rendering it a problematic measure of ability.
As is well known, 25 to 35 percent of Harvard's admissions were legacy, i.e., the children of Harvard graduates. Add to that the children of Harvard donors and those who played certain elite sports. Whatever the innate abilities of such applicants, clearly they benefit from parental wealth over those with equal innate abilities but poorer parents.
So again, how do we determine merit?
Anyone wishing to pursue this matter might consider reading Michael Sandel's The Tyranny Of Merit. Though I personally disagree with several of his arguments, he does offer strong reasons to question a facile support for meritocracy.
What is your solution? Do you prefer that black kids who are not ready to do college work be admitted on the basis of their skin color and be set up for failure and the lifelong stain of being given a position for which they weren’t qualified? It seems a bit unjust to saddle a person with that.
Money has always bought opportunity but so has priorities and healthy choices. One parent buys tutoring, another buys iPhones and overpriced sneakers.
SAT scores have a long history of adequately predicting scholastic success. Prep is available in many places, often for free. If the schools aren’t doing an adequate job of preparing students for success, work to vote the Democrats out.
This is all well with reach of any community. It isn’t easy but it beats a lifetime of servitude to whoever is passing out free stuff.
How do proponents of meritocracy try to ensure that everyone regardless of their socioeconomic birth status has an equal chance to acquire merit and thereby succeed?
Advocates of meritocracy easily risk supporting a hereditary plutocracy, one in which the children of wealthy parents have inordinate advantages over the children of poorer parents.
As Michael Sandel notes "Despite generous financial aid policies, fewer than 4 percent of Ivy League students come from the bottom fifth [of the income scale]. At Harvard and other Ivy League colleges, there are more students from families in the top 1 percent (income of more than $630,000 per year) than here are students from all the families in the bottom half of the income distribution combined." (The Tyranny Of Merit, p. 24)
Should we just assume such close correlations of merit and lack of merit to parental wealth and poverty?
Parents have the primary role in developing their children’s capabilities. If that fails it will fall to the near community and ultimately to the individual to put in the effort needed to attempt their desires. We all play the hand we have; how well we play it has many components including our own initiative and integrity.
As a side note, the Iveys are highly overrated and I have no interest in encouraging anyone to attend. There are far better schools.
The risk of your approach is that a person's merit will be significantly dependent upon their wealth. That is not a meritocracy. That is a plutocracy. Do you really want to say that the wealthiest should be given political power at the expense of the other rest of us? I do not.
That is not true at all. Middle class Americans have all the tools necessary to excel to the extent of their capabilities. Many in the lower classes do as well, given that additional sacrifice must be made. At a certain point, more money is as likely to degrade ability as improve it.
It is also true that the wealthy will continue to buy the access and prestige they want. It is up to us, the governed, to elect representatives who will see to our interests rather than their own. The free ride business has ensured the electorate continues to vote against their strategic interest.
I do not share your rosy picture of the opportunities available to the middle and lower classes.
As I noted elsewhere on this thread, the number of students admitted into the Ivy League schools from the top one percent economic group exceeds the entire number of students from the lower half of the economic group. It is absurd to suggest that current economic position correlates so closely with student abilities.
Also please note that you have not yet addressed the issue of legacy admissions, donors' children, and elite sports participants.
As I previously wrote elsewhere on this thread, "As is well known, 25 to 35 percent of Harvard's admissions were legacy, i.e., the children of Harvard graduates. Add to that the children of Harvard donors and those who played certain elite sports. Whatever the innate abilities of such applicants, clearly they benefit from parental wealth over those with equal innate abilities but poorer parents."
On meritocratic grounds how can you justify such preferential treatment?
Culture and family play a much larger role in success then wealth. My grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe fleeing Hitler in the 1930s. They arrived here penniless and not speaking English. And yet, all their children went to college and become professionals. The reason is simple. My grandparents believed in education, were involved in their children’s education and pushed them to excel. They sacrificed for their children’s education. My father knew that education was the key to a better life and moving into the middle class. And he and his siblings all succeeded in doing that because they worked hard. They passed this on to me and my sister as well and we are passing this onto our children. I have spent literally a fortune to send my kids to private schools because I believe that it’s better for them. This meant sacrificing other things like new cars, vacations etc. If my child needs a tutor or a prep course I find the money for it because it’s important to me.
In short, IMHO, the key to success if family and culture not wealth. If you family/culture values education you will succeed. Unfortunately, much of the African American community doesn’t value education and that more then anything is the root cause of their failure.
We’re in a reality war of the Woke vs the nonWoke. Compare a nonWoke public intellectual like Vivek Ramaswamy to a Woke public intellectual like Ibram X. Kendi and the difference is like the difference between day and night or sanity vs insanity yet our ruling class, their media and their many useful idiot followers in the general public prefer Kendi!
The Woke left traded class for race, “Woke Marxism!” and certainly are demonizing white people as the source of evil in the world but this goes far beyond race since they also try to destroy anyone of whatever color who gets in their way plus their campaign to replace meritocracy wherever it can be found with “Equity” is a war on standards and since standards are the essence of civilization they are in effect waging a war on civilization itself. Basically a war on sanity by the insane.
Saagar has a good video about how even medical schools are dumbing down standards for the sake of Equity. This is just not working at all. Vivek 2024.
“Exposed: Med Schools Drop Merit For Racial Admissions.” (6 min)
We lack a common reality, have become incomprehensible to each other and can no longer communicate. Where is the common ground in such an infinitely wide divide? There obviously is none. We always just talk past each other. This can only get worse and is getting worse by the day. The same people who insist Jan 6 was an “Insurrection!” have no problem with Joe’s open southern border or pornography for public school children. This is simply not working at all. Could it be that the reason why our society is so rapidly unraveling externally is because it no longer exists as a country internally?
Over the years I have read various of Thomas Sowell's writings. Can you please remind me of how he specifically answers my question, namely how do we determine merit in undergraduate college admissions?
Yes, at least part of it once was (and I believe still is) grades. Alas high school GPAs are now a problematic metric. For example, consider the impact of AP classes on high school GPAs. Some high schools offer AP classes, others do not. Do you really want to penalize student with great potentials because they attend poorer high schools?
The combination of SAT’s plus high school grade point has been found to be a good predictor of academic performance in colleges. It doesn’t matter that these scores reflect training and previous achievement in addition to innate ability. These are all the same things that contribute to success in college.
You are of course accurate in saying that Americans have unequal access to resources that are needed to succeed in school. This problem needs to be addressed. I think we should focus on addressing it in K-12, not college. If large numbers of our kids are illiterate when they get out of high school, our educational system needs to be overhauled in a major way.
They’re also illiterate when they get out of elementary schools and have no interest in learning or impulse control when they start kindergarten. There’s a whole lot there that would have to be overhauled in “a major way.” Fat chance of that ever happening.
Also, these days, colleges are allowing submit of ‘essays’ in lieu of ACT or SAT testing. I saw a local neighborhood girl gain college admittance this way. But I don’t know how much that mattered vs. both her parents had attended same college. At any rate, add ‘essay’ to the college meritocracy mix
Testing scores and GPA are not perfect indicators of merit, but so far, we have not invented a better one. I think it is a simplified view that wealthy people can train their kids and therefore, they get better scores. In addition to financial advantage, there may be a cultural tradition to succeed in education that they pass from generation to generation.
Asian immigrant families may not be wealthy at all, but in their culture education and hard work are highly valued, and they achieve the same or higher scores than wealthy white students. So your socioeconomic explanation of why using merit system may not be fair is not accurate. I believe we have to dig deeper for roots why blacks continue to fall behind in socioeconomic status and education in our country. Slavery cannot be the only explanation for what is happening in 21st century. Affirmative action may have played a role of holding them back. Regardless of skin color, many of us know from personal experience that sense of victimhood is a strong deterrent in development.
Yes, many Asian cultures highly value education and hard work, which conduces to high student GPAs and SAT scores.
That does not contradict the hard statistical evidence of score improvement trumpeted by test preparation tutors to justify their high fees. The wealthy can and do game the system. Those of lesser means suffer.
If we had good public education starting with pre-k, then economic means would not matter in preparation for college. Everyone will be prepared. We need a total overhaul of public school. Not sure though it is possible in the current political climate. But we are getting distracted because all we talk about is admission to Ivy League schools. Why do we care about Harvard so much? We should care more about every child getting a decent education in school to be able to pursue a carrier of their choice.
It’s a noble idea, Just, but it isn’t practical to have the kind of education system you describe in the next 40 years because of the monopoly the Teachers Union and Democrats have on cities, school boards and black community. The resistance to change that environment overwhelms any attempt and the ones who most want to change it are the outsiders of conservatives and whites. The ones with the most to gain (blacks) and lose (teachers) are in agreement not to change it. Finally, education alone doesn’t determine intelligence.
I see it archived in small European countries, but you may be right on all points. We have broken education,, anti-intellectual sentiment and no merit system in selecting for competitive positions in education and employment, including the highest positions in the government. I hope it is a temporary madness, like fever that will subside. If not, looks like all of us, clever people here on Substack, do not have a remedy.
Bill, it is a good question and it seems to me that unlike pornography, we might not all recognize it (ie merit) when we see it. I don’t have a ready answer how to objectively and practically measure it. But there are lots of things I don’t know how to implement and that doesn’t stop me from wanting to see things that I view as immoral and unethical (racial discrimination) stopped. I do hope better minds than me (hope the Asians are listening!) can find a method that is both fair and effective. Sorry for not having a better answer; you’ve made a good point.
Thank you for your response. For my nickel, until meritocrats can offer a clear objective way to determine merit they should be very cautious in advocating for a meritocracy. Otherwise the results may not be what they desire.
Bill, I’ll bite. Government funded/seeded 529 type education savings accounts for babies born below a certain income $ level. $1K to $3K per kid at birth. Can’t touch until 18. Account grows in TIPS or other safe investment vehicle, or give options for instruments w/ more risk. Maybe don’t even tie it to education use, use for whatever they want at 18 or leave it alone and let it grow. Some will squander, some won’t.
While that is definitely an interesting suggestion, one worthy of further discussion, it does not address my initial question to Sasha of how in her meritocracy the merit of college applicants will be determined.
People's innate abilities at birth are highly distorted by later factors, one of which is the socioeconomic status of their parents. Efforts to determine merit by means of high school GPAs or SAT scores risk measuring parental wealth rather than applicant ability.
It does in part address your question. By increasing a $ kitty for the poor, or lower social economic student, he/she is on a ‘more’ meritocratic playing field than without this $ money - vs. his/her peers from wealthier family. That $ account also creates ‘hope’ for future and an incentive for student to work hard, despite their home/community challenges. Government could even tie a $ ‘bonus’ if student uses that $ for education, at time of admittance. I’m suggesting an alternative to affirmative action that is not race based, but class based. And puts use of those resources in the hands of individuals to provide them with more liberty and freedom
Sorry, but it does not address the real inequalities. Per your proposal the funds would not be available until the youth turned 18. The inequities being discussed happen before then, e.g., SAT tutoring while of high school age.
William, scores on SAT or ACT tests on admission to college do pretty accurately predict performance in college (on average of course). Are there some individuals who are exceptions? Sure, but in general low scores on these tests means that although a student may be admitted, the likelihood of completing a degree is also low. The goal is to get a degree, not just be admitted only to drop out 2 years later with nothing to show but student loan debt. It may be true that some prep could improve performance, but that doesn’t make the test meaningless as a predictor of performance.
High school GPA is a different matter, and GPA is often meaningless. Schools have grossly inflated grades so that students graduating with a high GPA may still struggle with college work. More and more students need some remedial classes before they ever begin college courses. It’s unfortunate that these students are given false indicators, and then become angry at the “system” that failed them.
Of course socio-economic status, life circumstances and secondary schools make a difference. That’s true of everything in life. But that doesn’t mean that there is no way to predict who can succeed at college (again, on average). We are doing no favors to young people by leading them into circumstances where they will most likely not do well. They may not be Harvard or Yale material, but they could get a degree at other schools. Better a degree from State U than dropping out of Elite U with no degree at all.
The relation of SAT scores to college performance is a bit more controversial than the College Board suggests. So while I question your claims about the SAT, nevertheless for the sake of the argument let me concede your point.
What follows? In advocating for a meritocracy, at what point do you determine merit?
You seem to feel that it is satisfactory to determine individual merit at the time that students take their SAT examinations. Yet clearly by that point the examinees will have been affected and shaped by their upbringing. You are not starting the race at the beginning of the course but somewhere in the middle of the track. So the results will likely be that the already advantaged will remain advantaged and that the already disadvantaged will remain disadvantaged.
In order to justify a meritocracy, everyone must have an equal opportunity to acquire merit. So your appeal to the SAT fails. It is a biased metric affected by societal inequalities.
I agree with your point that by the time students take the SAT, it is far too late to deal with the lack of education. That is not an indictment of the SAT as a tool to measure readiness. It is an indictment of the K-12 system that consistently passes students through the system without teaching them anything worthwhile.
I would like to thank you for your posts. They have helped me clarify my own thinking on the question of meritocracy.
There seem to be two questions that must be addressed:
(1) The metric to measure merit. You are defending the SAT. I personally believe that it is more problematic.
(2) The time that merit is determined. I believe that unless everyone of equal innate ability have comparable opportunities to develop their skills, a meritocracy will enshrine an existing unequal status quo. If we wait until late adolescence, the effects of nurture will affect measured merit. I think that your last response may concede my point. Yes?
To be justified, a meritocracy must really be fair to everyone.
It is not inevitable that the existing status quo becomes enshrined. The way to change it is to make sure that all children are given a proper K-12 education, so that all can be prepared to take the next step of a college education. NAEP scores show how woefully our public schools have performed. Affirmative action has allowed them to hide that failure by admitting students who are not prepared. Note that the stated reason is always “diversity”, not any actual benefit to the students themselves.
The best way to “enshrine the status quo” is to keep doing what has been done over the last 50 years, instead of holding K-12 schools accountable for educating students. Or we can just keep pretending that somehow putting unprepared students into universities is going to create “equity”.
Affirmative action was already a violation of the Civil Rights Act. About time it was shut down. They should force colleges to use an anonymous admission system where the application receives a number and all descriptive data are removed from the form for admissions people to see. Then they make the choice based on merit (grades, test scores, activities, accomplishments, and whatever essay they require).
Back in the ‘80s, my parents’ fertility specialist was black. My mom figured that if he’d gotten into medical school (not at an HBCU) as a black man in the ‘60s, he must be really smart. I’d like to be able to look at any doctor’s credentials and know that s/he was accepted to medical school because s/he was really smart, and didn’t get special treatment based on race.
I think there are some things that cannot be changed until it becomes so obvious that it’s painful to pretend it’s working.
Like many laws and ideas from the left, affirmative action was just another way to disguise their paternalism. That’s the biggest thing I see that D party perpetuates with everything...and it is so obvious to anyone who is serious. The D party is not serious and it’s childish because government is their daddy.
The democrats are fighting a two front war: Internally they’re turning America’s War Machine on Trump and supporters. Externally on Putin and Russia. They want Putin dead, the Russian people ground into the dirt and their LGBTQIA+ Pride flag of their Woke faith to fly over the ruins of the Kremlin. They want to do to Putin and Russia what they did to Gaddafi and Libya. When Gaddafi was captured by rebels in Libya I read they sodomized him with a bayonet. Here’s a video clip where Hillary is asked about what happened to Gaddafi. She said “We came, we saw, he died.” and then laughed. I’m sure Putin and the Russian people know about things like this. They have very good reason to totally distrust our globalist, Woke ruling class. Comment on the video is also quite interesting and damning.
Clinton on Qaddafi: We came, we saw, he died. (12 sec)
“She forgot to add: "He died and we stole 150 tons of gold from the Libyan people!" Libya had accumulated this tonnage to launch a gold backed Pan-African currency. Instead, it was appropriated by the various NATO countries to 'compensate' them for the cost they incurred for their regime change. Go figure the morality of that one.”
Consider this: I know a half-Jewish, half-Christian Serbian woman who’s married to a Turkish Muslim. They have two daughters around 20 and seem to have a good marriage. Considering the intense ethnic and religious hatreds involved with their religious and ethnic groups this is quite an amazing marriage. These people then are obviously intelligent and open minded people who judge others as individuals rather than by their group identity.
A few years ago though I happened to get into a conversation with her Turkish husband about crime in Chicago (a constant topic of conversation here) and once you start talking about crime in Chicago it usually moves to race since so much of it comes from blacks. He told me that when he came here from Turkey 18 years ago he had no sense of prejudice against blacks since he’d never known any in Turkey but for the first 10 years he was here he drove a cab and his experiences with blacks were so often so dreadful that he’s hated them ever since. Is he now racist or are his “lived experiences” valid and justify his feelings about race?
Apart from the mindless virtue-signaling ("an attack on black people") and an almost universal ignorance of the constitutional role of the Supreme Court, I am struck by the fact that the ruling's opponents cannot seem to muster a real argument on behalf of their own position.
It starts with Judge Ketanji Jackson-Brown herself, of whom Stephen Kruiser equipped, "The United States of America is blessed with millions upon millions of brilliant black women. The Democrats just don’t seem to know any of them."
Putting aside Brown's reasoning, the most remarkable thing about her dissent is its awful, turgid prose. One wonders if she studied English with Kamala Harris.
The opinion is marked by awkward and improper use of prepositions, beginning sentences with "And," incomplete or broken sentences, using may in the past tense, and the substitution of cliches and pre-made leftist phrases ("lived experience") where actual reasoning with detailed language could have made her point more convincing.
It's fine as an angry opinion post on Twitter, or perhaps an email to a leftist comrade, but prose worthy of a Supreme Court decision it is not.
At times, one thinks Brown must have studied English with Kamala Harris. Consider this Word Salad:
"To demand that colleges ignore race in today’s admissions practices—and thus disregard the fact that racial disparities may have mattered for where some applicants find themselves today—is not only an affront to the dignity of those students for whom race matters. It also condemns our society to never escape the past that explains how and why race matters to the very concept of who “merits” admission."
In addition to sheer wordiness, here we have the use of may for might, improper use of the preposition for with where, the insertion of never into an infinite verb instead of a simple straightforward verb that says what she means, and finally she has "the past" explaining concepts to us.
Using a verbal crutch like "lived experience" could be simple intellectual laziness, but that is not what we expect out of a SCOTUS judge. A judge who is charged with evaluating the soundness of legal reasoning should be able to recognize when a phrase doesn't make sense. Is there any "experience" that is not the result of living?
In his 1947 essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell pointed out that people who write like this aren't even thinking about what they are saying. They just mash together a bunch of phrases written by somene else that are presumed to mean something.
How about this, Ketanji:
"To demand colleges ignore race in admissions practices is an affront to the dignity of students who have experienced racial discrimination. The ruling condemns our society to an ignominious past, when an individual's' achievement in the face of discrimination cannot be credited as "merit" for admission."
There: 45 words instead of 68, and one can grasp her point instead of re-reading her last sentence.
Couldn't her clerk help have helped her with this?
She’s a prime example of the consequences of racial discrimination and incompetence due to generations of poorly qualified Affirmative Action selections and hires.
Yes, and now that incompetence has come home full-circle to roost in the high court, where it turns reason on its head and reduces legal rulings to blog posts.
As a PhD student in physics at the University of Michigan I tried to teach a black affirmative action woman how to assemble particle detectors for our experiment. She'd started out as a theoretical physics student but obviously wasn't able to compete, so they moved her to experimental physics. Her background gave her so little to work with that I was unable to get her to succeed at simple tasks. This was sad. It wasn't that she was stupid, but she had no background in anything relevant, nothing to build on. I supported affirmative action at the time, but it was obvious that this woman was not a proper candidate. At Michigan she could only learn how to fail. In contrast there was a black student in a physics lab class I taught who was head and shoulders above the rest of the class. When I saw Ben Carson later in life, I thought Ben may have been that student--but Ben didn't go to Michigan. But when my student graduated, people no doubt thought he got into Michigan only because of affirmative action. I still support affirmative action: affirmative action lite. it should never be an official policy, but it should be used to unofficially give borderline deserving students a slight preference.
I put this in the category of charity. The bulk of the US black population is downtrodden in so many ways, much of it from a political system hell-bent on making them feel like victims. Blacks from black African nations tend to have self-respect even if dirt-poor. (I've spent time in Ghana.) Many American blacks I've come across seem to have lost self-respect. (I've spent time in the US Army.) I think that's what holds them back more than anything. Bold affirmative action can only diminish their self-respect; lite affirmative action if administered properly needn't do that. Those of us who know what it is to have self-respect should feel inclined to give these poor victims of government policies a hand--as long as we can keep our hand hidden. Above all, teach them to emulate Ben Carson!
There is no such thing as “affirmative action lite.” It always has to be very heavy to produce a significant number of blacks in the middle class. Time to face reality. It is what it is. No point trying to pretend it’s not really a disaster.
In 1992 I started my mech engineer degree after four years of active duty Army where I was a minority anglo in every unit. My leaders were primarily Americans of African and latino descent.
On campus a black racist approached me to sign a survey supporting 'affirmative action'.... I just laughed with a middle finger present. Of course he got mad, called me names, and stormed away. I just laughed and further presented my middle fingers.
My leaders were outstanding People and I am very grateful my single mother did not teach me to be a racist; actually living and working with People teaches you correctly. I have travelled the world and People are the same as us just trying to make a buck and raise a family.
It is wealthy communists like Marsh above that ruin everything.
“Everybody has asked the question. . ."What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!”
I'm in England. We don't have affirmative action. We just take names and ethnicity details and detach them from applications to lessen any cognitive bias. I'm also a black woman.
It's interesting seeing on this thread how many folks think racism doesn't exist anymore. As a psychotherapist, I hear the stories of racism regularly. I've experienced it myself.
I thought that once people were not vaccinated and started to experience the discrimination, that they would turn and say to me, "is this what you were talking about?" Sadly, that's not been the case.
So the Powers that Should Not Be know what they are doing. They are ensuring that there is absolutely no empathy between the races.
That's real sad because if we can't empathise and believe each other when we speak of our experiences - we won't be able to trust each other, and we won't be able to defeat these psychopaths at all. Then there won't be white people or black people. There will only be cyborgs. 🥺💔
I’m a straight white biological (lol) male and I have experienced racial, gender, and sexual orientation discrimination and racism, sexism and genderism. Am glad we’re on the same side.
"It's interesting seeing on this thread how many folks think racism doesn't exist anymore. As a psychotherapist, I hear the stories of racism regularly. I've experienced it myself."
Of course it exists. it will exist as long as humans exist. 1. BTW its not just white people. Take a visit to the ROK. I did a 13 month tour there, (Broad Brush) They don't like White people, they REALLY don't like Black people. I mean I met Koreans who could teach bigotry to the KKK.
I call that prejudice. The Eastern Europeans didn't like black people when they arrived in England. But then they met us. They only knew black people from Hollywood.
Why do you leave out that any race can be just as racist as any other race? Blacks are as racist as non-blacks. To argue otherwise is to either imply they’re superior or inferior, but not equal.
Obviously you have not studied this as Deeply as I Have. Allow me to enlighten you. Its all about the power dynamic. Blacks have no power, so they cannot be racist.
Obviously you are not as intelligent as me and your studies were in vain. Blacks are as capable as anyone to be racist. You seem to be a prime example. Blacks had unilateral and complete power on the African content for hundreds of thousands of years and indeed were the only humans on earth for a long time but somehow lost that power and advantage. Why was that? And the argument that one has to have power to hate others sue to their skin is completely absurd. Plenty of broke people hate whites, blacks, Jews, Asians, etc simply because of their skin. How stupid to give blacks a get-out-of-racism card because of their power dynamic.
So-called affirmative action has always been vengeful and capricious. Even back in HS (a very long time ago), I saw how ridiculous it was that there were dozens of scholarship and aid programs available to minorities, but to even think of offering such a program for whites would be unthinkable. And then occupations where blacks have a distinct advantage - think sports - are completely immune from AA. It's a great example of how central planning does not, and can never, work in a free society with billions of inputs on a daily basis.
And one good thing is that between the above tweet and his comments on 2A, I no longer have any desire to vote for RFK Jr. Yes, his stance against medical tyranny is valiant, but these two stances are poison to liberty. "Better than Biden", alas, is not much of a selling point.
Affirmative Action programs are the most pure form of racIsm in American history.
Why? They destroy the very people that they are designed to help. They promote the racist idea that negro and Latino people are inferior and can never achieve anything at all without a racist BOOST from the US government.
Ok, step back and think harder. Think about the effects of affirmative action. Other folks will never believe that a negro or Latino has merit nor has any value, and then at least in their minds, they sideline these folks as weak and unable to stand on two feet and compete for real jobs or real tasks. This will always be unspoken. Saying it out loud is a firing offense.
Ok, now think more broadly. Did Ben Carson, pediatric neurologist surgeon who separated Siamese twins need affirmative active? Absolutely not. Did Associate Justice Clarence Thomas need affirmative action? Absolutely not. What would Frederick Douglas dpsay today, more than a hundred years later? Did any ever at all need affirmative action? Absolutely not. The only Jim Crow Laws and Ku Klux Klan racist nonsense always came from the Democrat Party. These people should shut up their pinholes and say nothing at all. They are the racists.
Oh yes, my first vote in 2016 for President, was Ben Carson, an actual genius surgeon, a rock solid Christian, and a very superlative man, a humble man.
When I meet blacks and other people of darker skin than mine in professional settings, I’m evaluating them on their ability, experience and how they present themselves. But I don’t walk around with some unspoken notion in my head that they are only there because of AA. We are way too busy trying to solve problems and make our organizations a $ buck.
Dave Rubin recently showed a clip of Chicago’s new Mayor Brandon Johnson from 2018 where he talked about what he did as a teacher which was pretty much nothing. He said he never gave any test prep, rarely gave any homework and never failed anyone. So what did his students learn? Nothing but at least they’re all equally illiterate. And this man is now the mayor of a major American city and admired by the democrats for being “progressive.” These people have zero interest in using public schools to actually educate children. Schools are just like this in California and many other places and this is simply not seen as a problem by democrats.
“Watch Two Quotes That Should Have Disqualified the New Mayor.”
Charter schools, private schools and parochial schools are how the whites, Jewish people, and anyone else with a little money got out of the abject failure that is the US urban school system.
But you’re overlooking the fact that many black kids start school with no socialization. No interest in learning, no impulse control, no respect for the teacher, especially if they’re white since they’ve already learned that white people are racist oppressors and this idea is emphasized and vigorously promoted all throughout our society by our upper class, Woke white leftist ruling class.
Paradoxically, the ruling may not reduce the ability of Universities to select underrepresented students. The Universities can focus on other parameters to promote equity- based on personal acheivement, motivation, ability to overcome adversity, performance in social settings, instead of skin color. Clearly affirmative action based on skin color is racist. It's time to move on. The supreme court decision will not impair equity, it can improve it based on how universities handle it. See commentary on PBS NewsHour on 6-29-2023. Affirmative action is not dead, it is only dead for the parameter of skin color.
Good points. I do think though that if a potential plaintiff can show that indeed the school does discriminate on the basis of skin color, then they will have a compelling argument and solid chance to win a lawsuit. It’s like the reverse of before when institutions said they weren’t discriminating based on skin color but then lost lawsuits based on the data.
I crave for a time where race or gender or sexual orientation are not the dominant narrative. Kind of like 5 year olds in a playground. Free open and without pre determined biases. Without an agenda. And importantly too young to be told how to think.
If properly implemented, will bring about the end of “Mismatch” to the benefit of EVERYONE. Great 2012 book of the same title by Stuart Taylor and Richard Sander. Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It https://www.stuarttaylorjr.com/books/mismatch/
If only we could come together, regardless of “race” (whatever that actually is) and commit to working on important matters, rather than being at odds. Would be great if all could pull together to solve mutual problems.
Wow! The Twitter comment by that lady is probably the most racist thing I have ever heard uttered, and it is being done so under the guise of being a virtuous and caring person. Makes me sick.
"No Black person can succeed in a merit-based system"
<Mic drop>
Clarence Thomas enters the chat. Not only a success but the very best Justice.
January 6th as sedition? That hilarious narrative is quickly evaporating. Meanwhile, who can question the objectivity of the DC Circuit as it pertains to Trump? Pelosi was right, next time just machine-gun those pesky protestors.
Jan 6th was a peaceful protest until the CIA and FBI started the violence.
You really want your governing masters to set a precedent machine-gunning down mostly peaceful protesters? You have no idea who or what you are supporting. Hatred and murder is never the answer in a free society.
Sorry, David, that was a sarcastic comment. After Jan 6, Pelosi wanted machine gun nests guarding the Capitol on Inauguration Day. Fortunately, she was overruled, but that's what they think of us peaceful protestors when we disagree with them.
If you can pull yourself away from your fantasies of 30 year old rape charges (and I know that’s difficult for you), could you please think about and answer these questions:
Why would an international company put a crackhead on the Board of Directors?
Why did Hunter Biden need to set up approx 20 shelll companies?
What exactly did Hunter Biden provide in return for the millions in payments he received?
I would be interested in your reasoned responses. Nobody disputes that Hunter had a serious drug problem, and nobody disputes that the payments were made. So what is your explanation?
Yep, the walls are (still) closing in! Wait for it...really, they are closing, yes they are..!?!?
Does the phrase Navy vs. Egan mean anything to you? Regarding Trump bragging on the latest recording, at the moment no one can produce any document. So, just keep bleating.
The walls are closing in!
I have a question. It has been said that "Even Trolls Love Rock & Roll.". Is this true? Just thought I'd check with an expert.
Truly a disgusting remark by an obvious half-wit.
The Left is forced to argue that anyone with one drop of African blood is a subspecies and must be treated differently. John C. Calhoun, Democrat Senator from South Carolina would agree.
Perhaps the rule of law is not completely dead.
That is because our public school system has failed all children not just black children. Our government only focuses the outrage on black children, every 4 years. That is racist.
Right?! I have always wondered why any self-respecting black person would not be thoroughly insulted by AA, which pretty much says “you are incapable of making it on your own w/o help”. That would make me furious and yet so many people embrace it. Cognitive-dissonance if ever there was such.
"Back in college, I was one of the few black students on my campus and I was proud to be part of getting into such a respected school. I knew I worked hard for it but still, I sometimes wondered if people thought I got there because of affirmative action. It was the shadow that students like me couldn't shake."
That’s the point of this decision, michelle.
Hey you should run for president.
Up until now, What’s regrettable about AA is that one can’t help wonder when you meet an Ivy League black grad is whether they got there on their own merit ....
Typical white progressive female basically saying blacks cannot achieve in the world without help. Pure racist ideology.
I’ve just learned Ms Marsh is a fake account, but there are many with this mindset.
Update: "Erica Marsh"s profile pic seems to have been lifted from a German consulting website, which is no longer live on the web.
Could an A. I. powered bot put that kind of spam together? Or will that be next year?
They could do it now. Next year it will be easier to do with a much better one. AI is moving very fast. Why so few pay any attention to it amazes me.
"Today is June 29th, and Joe Biden is the BEST president in US history."
Erica Marsh@ericareport
Proud Democrat: Former Field Organizer to elect President Biden. Volunteer for the Obama Foundation. (She/Her) 💙
Media & NewsWashington D.C. Joined September 2022
https://www.instalker.org/ericareport
It represents the Left throughout its history; Americans of African descent were doing very well until the 1965 - democrat led - Great Society further plantationing these fine people.
Thank god. As an anarchist/libertarian leftist, I say this has been due for a long time. University applications should be blind. If that means 90% of ivy league graduates are Asian, then so what? It just means we'll have the best people in the jobs. Any other system is racist. If you care what race the university accepts, then you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself what your assumptions are. Any good human impulse can be pushed until it is no longer good--empathy without logic or direction is not a benefit to your fellow human.
We Caucasions just need to start doing homework.
It’s ok! It’s easy to tell who the Chinese and Indian doctors are. I’ll stick with them!
My heart surgery was done with a beige skin toned Caucasian and a Chinese doctor. They were both highly competent. Skin tone has absolutely no relevance whatsoever. Who would want an affirmative action doctor? Not me. I want the absolutely best doctor to open up my heart and fix me. How about you?
If my children were Siamese twins, who would I wish to be their surgeon?
Ben Carson, a black man and a surgeon of extreme excellence. My first vote for Potus in 2016 was for Ben Carson. His skin tone was totally and completely irrelevant.
Where are those nuns to whip us into shape?
They all left in the 60’s. I had “Sisters of Mercy”. Talk about ironic names.
LOL. I had Ursulines. Believe me, we did our homework. Mother Teresa got irritated with a fat boy who kept deliberately dropping his pencil. He was in a cast for a broken leg. She got up, walked over to his desk and threw it over with him in it. Mother Dolores got angry with a handsome blonde boy who was mouthing off. She threw him down a flight of stairs. They did not mess around.
Omg I had a nun flip me over desk and all in sixth grade for laughing at the class clown’s antics. On her way back to get him, she flipped my desk and me right over. Lol. Classic move.
I have heard a lot of mean nun stories but the chair flip is news to me! Do you think they were trained in how to do that?
Dodger Stadium???
Where exactly are the Caucasians from? Between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Why do all white people look sort of beige skin tone? Same answer. White people are not white unless they are albinos with pink eyes.
Why do other beige skin toned people gin up such hatred for other beige skin toned people? I imagine they don’t want any competition. Who built up modern society and its infrastructure? Mostly beige skin toned people. Look at the hall of fame for inventions and innovations. Same deal. So can someone please explain to me why the most productive people on planet earth are so despised?
Jealousy
What do you mean? It is a fact. Who invented almost every single modern convenience or technological breakthrough? Be wise and look it up.
Not disagreeing. Hated because of success.’
The Persian, Chinese and Indians have entered the chat…
Actually whites need to try and breed with Asians because the latter have a significantly higher IQ on average than the former. It has to do with the average amount of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in the populations. (Really; well documented).
I have been wondering about that exact thing! I agree with the interbreeding idea. It’s the only hope now.
We actually tried in my family! My grandchildren are half Asian half Jewish. Alas, no geniuses. Only cure spoiled brats. 😃
Lol! It’s not foolproof so be careful before jumping in the deep end. :D. And remember I said “on average”. Best wishes at Hanukkah, Christmas and New Years; should be no shortage of holiday gift giving for the kiddos.
Thank you. And you know, it was not a genetic experiment. 😂
When I was a grad student one of my profs told me that there is regression toward the mean in breeding for intelligence. I didn't quite buy that, because the same ethnic groups that are super-performers continue to be over generations. But there is a ceiling effect, it seems.
It was a joke. Nobody is “breeding for intelligence” in my family.
A couple hours after the verdict, my alma mater sent out a message about how they are still committed to DEI. I groaned reading the message complete with all the Leftie buzzwords in it. It read exactly like I thought it would read before I opened it. It reminded me why I don’t give them money or recommend it to the high school kids I know.
The point of college is an education and gaining skills, not racial or social justice.
Did you send your thoughts to the university in response?
It’s a religion.
The idolatry of the Fauchovah’s Witnesses are very similar to the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Don’t donate to racist colleges!!!
mine did too
What school is it? Let these colleges be known!
The colleges are admitting that their raison d’être is now networking not intellectual pursuits.
Well, RFK, Jr.'s tweet should disabuse anyone of the notion that he was anything but an old-school Democrat, after all, his views on vaccines notwithstanding.
Exactly my thoughts ref RFK Jr’s tweet. I agree with his position on vaccines; bought his book The Real Anthony Fauci. But wow, this tweet of his completely destroyed any other thoughts about his candidacy. Of course he’s much better than dementia Joe or gruesome Newsom, but what a typical Democrat politician in regards to the black community needing ‘our help’ to achieve. Good grief, we’ve had a black president, a black SC Justice--how much higher can a black expect to go?
"Of course he’s much better than dementia Joe or gruesome Newsom..."
Yes, but just marginally.
...the margin of a hairsbreadth...or less...
It’s called “pandering”... he’s trying to make nice to attract the D’s who can’t stand him for his courageous stand on vaccines. In the end, they’re all the same...they’ll say anything to get your vote!
Ditto.
That was disappointing if not surprising.
His regressive support of affirmative action is a 100% disqualifier for me and I suspect many others. Under no circumstances will I ever vote for someone who supports the institutionalized racism of affirmative action policies.
I think basing entrance to anything on the color of a person's skin is ridiculous. Taking into account socio-economic situations is fine individually, someone who has struggled in a tough environment but still succeeds should be given a leg up (as Justice Roberts suggested), but choosing based on skin color should not be allowed. Also, affirmative action has become a defacto method to keep high-performing kids of asian descent from getting in to high-ranked colleges; flat out racism.
That's only collateral damage. Whites have always been the targets. Typical prestige-college's freshman class: one-half minority, one-fourth white, and one-fourth Jewish. Whites are still 60% of US residents and Jews are 2-3%. Who's getting the brass ring in this scam? Minorities are distractions -- a nit-wit with a Harvard degree is still a nit-wit, and no real problem. But those white people -- gotta keep them down and out.
Are you saying Jews get preferential treatment as a minority? LOL
It's basic civil rights law -- called "disparate impact".
I was not familiar with the term and had to look it up. Thank you for that. But it still does not explain why you see it unfair that Jews are 1/4 of the class when they are only 2-3% of the population. It is not because of the affirmative action or any kind of preferential treatment. It is only because historically Jews always focused on education since so many fields and professions were closed to them. They are used to quotes so they have to excel to get in.
They have on average a higher IQ score than the general population too.
Disperate impact is a lawyer driven weasel word that means nothing at all.
Except for, “great balls of fire 🔥 “ show me the money. Gimme dat.
You need to find a better dictionary. "Disparate impact" is the principle behind all racial quotas. If 75% of the local population is white, 15% Hispanic, and 10% African (I wish), then any employer, school, or whatever must employ 75% whites, 15% Hispanics, and 10% African -- or else. Of course, whites have no rights under the Civil Rights Act, but if you don't have at least 25% minorities, your behind is vegetation. The fact that whites are legally second-class citizens, means that we have no complaints about under-representation, but any non-white or abnormal humans can sue to have more of their particular crew of aliens hired in place of whites until their percentages are up to snuff. Frequently, zealous Diversity Officers might hire a whole lot more minorities, but whites can have no gripes that any court is gonna worry about. That's why the first affirmative action case where the Court ruled for the plaintiff was brought by Asians. Whites have never gotten anywhere. Affirmative Action cases are zero-sum games -- every minority hired is a white person not hired. That's why the percentages in the Ivy League freshman classes are so infuriating for whites -- 25%????? We're getting hosed. Whatever the scores are for Jews and Asians, I can damn sure bet the farm that the scores of the minorities are out of sight in the whites' rear-view mirror. I mean, that ignores the fact that they're mostly OUR colleges and universities in the first place. You wanna look something up? Check the 'net and read the first American citizenship law -- Naturalization Act of 1790. Take another 10 minutes and look at Federalist No. 2 by John Jay.
Ridiculous, and evil.
Denying to sell a house to a person/family of certain races in decades past, was also ridiculous. Or a certain job. Or entry to certain clubs. But it happened. A lot. In this Country. Affirmative Action was attempt towards access. It’s totally imperfect. But I get why it came to be.
Have to disagree with you for the first time, Matt, because racism is wrong even when it seeks to remediate racism. Plus it went into effect in 1964 with Title VII. 60 years of institutional legal pervasive racism has been a catastrophe for our country and for our fellow black country people. They are more likely to be shot by a black, fatherless, on welfare and test below grade proficiency than any other group and this abysmal stats get worse decade on decade.
Yeah, I felt when I put out my thoughts on this it might not be in alignment with the majority here. My life experiences flavor me obviously. I see both sides of Affirmative Action. I’m also a student of History. Two wrongs don’t make a right but damn didn’t the monied whites in our country past keep down our fellow citizens of darker pigment
Matt, I'm sorry I don't do links, but WSJ had an interesting op-ed a few days ago. Research shows that, while redlining definitely occurred, over 90% of the people who lived in redlined areas were white.
Thanks, I’ll try to find and check that out…
“… decades past…”.
Many decades. And why it came to be had NOTHING to do with why it has been perpetuated by elitist white liberals.
Who truly believes that Obama or Ken Chennault’s kids need a “hand up, not a hand out”? That’s who’s going to Harvard.
“Denying to sell a house to a person/family of certain races in decades past, was also ridiculous. Or a certain job. Or entry to certain clubs. But it happened. A lot. In this Country.”
I thought you were talking about Jews.
Haha, yes, interesting how Fear motivates a society to attack its ethnic minorities.
Jews were denied access in part because they were ‘too successful’ vs blacks who were viewed as ‘sub human’ and ‘dangerous’ Same root thought for both of European descents which is: ‘fear of’.
Interesting that the Dutch used the Hebrew Old Testament to justify their pacification of South Africa, and it’s native black peoples, as their own ‘Promised Land’
Jews have historically excelled and that is directly tied to being educated in ancient world (read/recite the Torah) where at that time, most everyone else were illiterate. Inter generational wealth for Hebrew speakers goes back to antiquity as a result of this (Near East God given?) advantage. So of course Jews naturally rose to highest ranks in society over time. And of course the ugliness (fear) in humanity slapped them back down because they looked/ate ‘different’ but were a minority with societal success. Jews were then ‘cornered’ into certain trades over time. Pogroms then kept them in check and on edge whenever a bogeyman was needed. Blacks kept in line w/ a few lynchings now and again. Okay thankfully we’ve graduated from that sinister practice, but the guilt that follows is why we are , in part, discussing merits or non merits of Affirmative Action here today
Before I retired, I worked almost exclusively with Israeli Jews for ten years. They don’t need any help in any way. I think of them as killer bees. Or porcupines. Dangerous on the outside, and soft as a baby on the inside. I love them very much. They loved me. Very hard to gain their trust, but once gained, they are truly amazing and loving people.
Perhaps everyone should look at other people with an open mind. As Forrest Gump said in his fake movie. Life is a box of chocolates. You never know what you will get. Give it a try.
Tom, being accepted into another culture that is different than your origin is for sure a very fulfilling and life-affirming endeavor. For me, it is with Persians, both 1st generation who fled the Shah, and now their children. I enjoy bbq Halal for them, and then one-upping them on bb court during Ramadan when the are weak from no food ☺️ They are good people and our lives are richer for the inter-ethnic community we keep
I thought he was talking about the Irish! And if he had said it about Ireland, I’d say “I thought he was taking about the Catholics!” Check out the potato famine for another orchestrated genocide.
AA was unconstitutional. Bad law.
Affirmative action should have never happened in the first place. All it's done is destroy the American educational system. This opens the door for suits against schools that continue to make race a consideration for admission. It's too late to make much difference but at least we have a court that follows the Constitution.
I disagree Sam. I think affirmative action filled a useful need, in a time and place. So did busing in 1970’s to finally (try) and realize the Brown vs Board decision. That said, I do agree its time is up, has long outlived its initial benefits, and agree it did do damage to education by becoming so institutionalized. I’m a big supporter of meritocracy in general. But I’m also a realist that some (many) of our black brothers and sisters were locked out of opportunities in past decades, that were much more open to lighter skinned citizens. There’s no easy fix for this. I would support our govt. gift seeding $ a 529K to every child (regardless of race) under certain $ poverty income. Drop seeds of hope early on
Busing was an absolute disaster for education. It separated parents from school and allowed all manner of idiocy to follow. AA has been a disaster and a stain that follows every black person who could stand on their own merit. The only solution to discrimination is to stop discriminating.
When bussing happened in Philly, two big outcomes happened; whites who could left the city en masse, whites who remained built the Catholic school system and sent their kids there. The Catholic school system was as big as the public school system and far better and less expensive per student. Long term results are that blacks in the public schools test far below grade proficiency decade after decade. So, no bussing didn’t help blacks.
Can we simply say that there is no free lunch?
Public schools are extremely toxic to the well being of any children who attend them. Their parents are stupid and slow, and will never understand the damage that teachers unions have over their most precious treasures, their children.
Putting children in public schools is child abuse and the parents who use that should be arrested for violence and child abuse.
Matt, you probably don't realize it, but along with affirmative action, colleges and universities started offering courses in black history, black studies, feminist studies, degrees that were practically worthless. Prior to 1965, NO ONE went to college except those whose families could afford it. Race and skin color had nothing to do with it. I joined the Air Force because my folks didn't have the money for me to go to college, even though I'd been accepted by two large universities. There were few scholarships, mostly athletic or National Defense. I seriously doubt that affirmative action helped any blacks other than leaving a lot of them with large student loans they can't pay because they couldn't get a decent paying job. As for busing, it brought dope into schools where it wasn't already there and reduced the academic performance of the schools. FYI, many children were already riding busses to distant schools. Busing dictated that white kids would be bussed into predominantly black areas. Those areas are still predominantly black and whites left for the suburbs. Memphis, Tennessee is a good example of the effects of busing. It used to be a decent city but now it's crime-ridden and rundown, just like Detroit.
Hey Sam, I also attended college on GI Bill in 1990’s (Army here) and I took Black Studies and Women’s Studies courses as part of my Liberal Arts education. And you can brush up on how many returning GIs from WW2 also used same for thier education advancements starting in earnest in 1946, and well before 1965. My next door neighbor growing up (base housing, my pops in US Air Force) were black family, we are white. The US military as you know was first the place in America to largely stop ‘seeing color’ in the chain of command. It wasn’t until summer of 1948 that military desegregated (under Truman executive order). That said, GI Bill was largely denied to Blacks who served in WW2, a shame and stain on our county:
https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits
You are right, there was pretty massive white flight out of inner cities, post WW2, and many of those new suburban tracts were not available to blacks. Those generations of blacks across Midwest migrating out of Jim Crow south. Busing failed, true. It too was an attempt to bring more equal $$ to schools. The thought being if wealthier white kids were alongside blacks the overall school would improve. We’ve been trying different experiments to enable equal access of the races. They haven’t always worked. But we have tried.
Woodrow Wilson, the most evil American President until Biden, segregated the US military, after decades of integration. Of course, he was a university president and Democrat. Universities and Democrats are toxic to all human beings. He also ran the first full length movie in American history in the White House “Birth of a Nation” which promoted the Ku Klux Klan from the White House. In 1924, the Democrat National Convention was nicknamed the KKKlanbake . It was ruled by KuKlux Klan activists.
It was held in NYC at Madison Square Gardens. Look it up. Democrats have always been the party of slavery. They still are. If they can’t kill all the black children with abortions, they demand to enslave them with fake welfare schemes that trap them into permanent slavery to the US government welfare schemes. Woke up from the stupid folks.
The number one cause of death for blacks in the US is abortion. Planned Parenthood cannot kill them fast enough or often enough to suit the Dems. Look up the abortion rates in NY and Richmond - more black babies die in the womb than are allowed to live.
Matt, affirmative action was implemented in the 1960s, not the 1990s. I know all about how the Air Force was the first to integrate, etc., and I also know how they puffed the Tuskegee Airmen in the 60s in an attempt to instill "black pride." Affirmative action in education goes hand-in-hand with a number of government "initiatives" of the mid-60s, including the Vietnam Era GI Bill along with Pell Grants and the Federal student loan program. Some WW II veterans used their GI Bill educational benefits, some didn't. The "migration" out of the South was in the early Twentieth Century, not the 60s and 70s, and it was just as much white as black, and although it's blamed on "Jim Crow" it had more to do with economic opportunity. There were few jobs in the South. By the way, those blacks who went north started going back south in the 70s. Affirmative action didn't implement equal opportunity, it initiated a new social order in which "equality" meant special treatment. "White flight" wasn't after World War II, it started in the 60s when the Federal government started ordering forced integration of schools. There are whole section of Memphis, as an example, that used to be white that are now black. And those sections are crime-ridden and run-down. This is also true in other cities.
By the way, while I did attend college using my GI Bill benefits, I used them mostly to get my advanced pilot ratings so I could get a job.
Matt, I very much respect a lot of what you write (don’t always agree, but so what?)
Please say you don’t mean gifting over half a million dollars to every poor kid in America… I’m thinking maybe you meant opening a 529-type education savings account?
(Huge props for not making it race based. The Obama and Ken Chennault kids don’t need government money…)
Yeah, I meant 529 type account! Not $529K per kid
Matt, I had you back on that and knew you didn’t mean $529,000. Lol.
A couplr of years ago I read an article which made so much sense I have never forgotten it. . The point was that black schools in the South and elsewhere were excellent schools in the following ways. Their teachers lived in the town and if little Johnnie misbehaved in school, it was likely that the teacher would meet his mother in the grocery store and Mom wouldn't be pleased. Plus, Daddy was in the home and he too wouldn't be pleased and neither would the minister in their church.
Second. These schools had their own sports programs where every kid got a chance to play. They had their own proms and the queen would be a local girl who would enjoy the pride of the whole town.
It was expected that the kids would succeed in school and they did even using outdated books. Perhaps the "honors" class would not be on par with Newton but their was a pride in learning and to be the head of the lcass. . The kids competed with each other-on the sports team and in the classroom - -not with white kids in the suburban schools to which they were bused. . The teachers were strict and most of the kids learned reading, writing and arthimatic and a large percentage graduated and were able to go to colleges where they would do well such as Howard NOT Harvard. . If kids had problems with academics, there were programs teaching them needed skills to get jobs.
Busing upset the apple cart and the kids were the victims. Busing indicated to the black community that their kids couldn't learn or succeed unless seated next to a white kid. . It soon became apparent to the kids that they were not wanted, were looked down upon and started the whole "acting white" in order to cope. I have never been able to locate that article but I never forgot it since it went against everyhing I had learned about these black schools. Like the good liberal I was back then, I was sure busing was the answer to our race problem. Several older people who were interviewed said they were glad they had been able to get the "inferior" education they did.
Hi Dorothy, if you come upon the article it would be great if you could forward. It sounds very interesting. Link below for a 2018 book I read several years ago called ‘TigerLand’ which recounts Columbus Ohio East High (all black segregated HS) improbable winning of HS State Basketball and Baseball in the year 1968-1969, in aftermath of MLK murder. Eddie Ratliff on these teams (he went in to represent USA BB in ‘72 Olympics) as well as other NBA great Dwight Bo’ Lamar - who may have been one of the best pure outside shooters in the NBA, pre 3-point line. Recommend reading for sport fans, but also for those interested in black experience in America in 20th century in general, challenges and some who overcame
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38398148-tigerland
Matt. I think I found it - googled Acting White and thre is a book which I think is it - called Acting white :ironic legacy of desegregation by Stuart Beck 2011. I am not totally sure but that seems to be what I remember - there is a Commentary article about the book on line and it is at Amazon. If I didn't live in Mexico where ordering from Amazon is possible but a pain, I would order it.
Thank you Dorothy! I just read commentary link below on ‘Acting White’ and it’s quite fascinating. Even tracing back this ugly/limiting slur that took traction during desegregation of 1960’s among black peers to ‘hold back’ those who pursued academic excellence — to how darker skinned field slaves would try to ‘cut down’ the often lighter skinned house slaves in the Antebellum South, as being less culturally authentic. Thanks for pointing out this perspective.
https://www.commentary.org/articles/riley-naomi/acting-white-by-stuart-buck/
African American families were doing just fine before LBJ's Great Society. Look at some youtube of how well black folks were living in Harlem before LBJ dropped the welfare bomb. And don't forget what ol' LBJ said about "having them vote Democrat for the next hundred years." The Great Society covered Democrat lust for power with faux-compassion about a great society that exists nowhere but Utopia...oh, wait, that's redundant ain't it? Utopia IS nowhere...
Matt, That would solve the diminished birth rate problem. Now to find the right spot for that massive plot of money trees.
Ken, I grew up on the poor side. Middle of 5 kids. I’m no longer poor. What helped me advance? The US military first and foremost. What else helped? Sadly the death of my older brother who also served, and I was gifted a slice of his death $ benefit. What did I use that for? A brokerage account, multiplied the $ and down payment on my first house. I’m saying give that same seed $ opportunity to other poor kids early on. Some will squander it. Others won’t.
There are a whole lot of poor kids. I probably would have qualified. $529,000? To me that seems incomprehensible. We aren’t going to cover student loans at least in part because it has a huge price tag, at 10,000 per borrower. My first thought was, “does he think the government has money?”
Sorry Ken, I was meaning a 529 plan like a college savings plan for kids (and not $529,00 per kid!). I don’t know the right number, perhaps just $1K per baby and it can’t be touched until child reaches 18.
I still don’t have money, so I wouldn’t know what that is. Thanks for the clarification. Following the Biden admin’s act I sorta fell like it’s moratorium time on all new spending, and a lot of “old” spending. I’m tight as hell. Elect me and I’ll cover defense, some entitlements, build the wall and that is IT.
That’s what needs to happen.
Bussing was a colossal failure. Read up.
I don’t disagree. But it was worth the try to level playing field
No it was not ‘worth a try’ it emptied out city centers like Boston - destroying the social fabric. Social engineering doesn’t work.
I don’t know CC, have you looked into the benefits to black children of the experience? Some gained exposure to better schooling, improving their societal standing. I’m not here to defend desegregation busing of 60’s & 70’s. But I am saying our black brothers and sisters have been redlined, subjected to mortgage discrimination and other racially restrictive covenants. So the government has tried different tactics over the years to try and level the playing field. AA was one of those, that like busing, also found its grave today.
I agree with you, Sasha. Anybody thinking rationally is really tired of “the soft bigotry of low expectations“. Is there really anything more racist?
I’ve been reading Thomas Sowell the last few years. He is a true scholar, an American treasure, who started out as a Marxist. I’m sure many people here know who he is, but for those of you who do not, I highly recommend you start to acquaint yourselves.
Thank you, Sasha, for everything you are doing. I look forward to your Podcasts.
If you haven't already, look into Dr. Sowell's "Black Rednecks & White Liberals." It turns every pop-dogma about race into the fakery it has always been...with plenty of documented facts. It's an amazing book: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1594031436
I have read it. I was truly surprised to learn where much of the shared culture of the region actually comes from! Sowell is so thorough in his research.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jodavimusic/p/affirmative-action?r=5fsii&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
This is good. Race-based admissions hurt blacks by stigmatizing them and by placing students in colleges they aren't prepared to thrive in. America's obsession with counting minorities in every college major and every profession, and screaming when "not enough" are found, is a major sickness. It's notable that no one seems to complain about how the National Basketball Association is overwhelmingly black: if any correction is needed, shouldn't it start there?
The NBA needs a balanced number of 5 foot six inch Asian guys.
Break out the Adderall and pose the Muppet in front of the teleprompter for some good ol' fashioned fist shaking.
Classic
RFK, Jr reveals his real beliefs, thank goodness. Stop holding this guy out as some kind of libertarian, he is a statist to the core.
RFK Jr. is pandering to the Democratic Party voter. He’s running as a Dem. For a Dem (and only for a Dem) he is miles better than Biden or any others I can think of from that side of aisle
He is because he is a middle of the road Dem and not a radical leftist, he has always been in that camp.
And of course he had no problem getting into Harvard or wherever he went.
I was a "victim" of Affirmative Action, coming out of a superb British secondary school in 1969 with spectacular credentials and getting nowhere in the Ivy League (Oxford was more interested, but I was done with England at the time). In the investment banking job market six years later, things weren't any better. The issue wasn't entirely one of race or gender--these institutions were so stuffed with underperforming legacy and donor offspring, that there was little room for the rest of us to elbow our way in. In the end, none of this mattered, but it still rankles a bit to see "my" space taken up by a gender or ethnic studies major with little real social utility who now expects me, as a taxpayer, to help with their student loans.
Can we tackle equity next? It is part of a cultish Marxist religion. It's already against the First amendment to be pushing it on people in public institutions.
Bret Weinstein, PhD in biology, says in his interview with Coleman Hughes that he believes the IQ difference between blacks and whites is based on software (culture) rather than hardware (genes) and therefore can be fixed. We have totally failed to fix it though after 50 years, vast sums of money and so much social engineering that America is now a society that judges people on the basis of their group identity rather than as individuals. Is this supposed to be progress?
If it’s just a cultural difference why have we ended up like this and if the left really believed the IQ difference is culture rather than genes why have they given up on trying to improve the schools and instead focused on replacing meritocracy with Equity wherever it can be found? Doesn’t their commitment to Equal Outcomes look a lot like a belief that blacks can’t compete without dumbed down and rigged standards or even totally eliminated standards? And where is the black outrage about being classified as unable to compete with other races?
“Race, Genes and IQ Differences.” (7 min)
Bret Weinstein interviews Coleman Hughes
https://youtu.be/IztL_m3pd70
“As US Schools Prioritize Diversity Over Merit, China Is Becoming the World’s Stem Leader.”
https://quillette.com/2021/08/19/as-us-schools-prioritize-diversity-over-merit-china-is-becoming-the-worlds-stem-leader/
Seva, love your posts. Always informative. Check out “Who We Are and How We Got Here” by David Reich. It explains the relationship of DNA to IQ and particularly how ancient human migrations and humanoid species interbreeding resulted in significantly different average IQ scores by race.
When I was still a Democrat, I never thought that some day I would thank God for the presence of Clarence Thomas on the SCOTUS. Even more incredibly, I now thank Mitch McConnell for blocking Merrick Garland from getting on it!
And it is really really tough to thank that RINO for anything.
Yeah!
Hey Sandy Pinches, get Dick Bickers over here too. He’s isn’t on Glenn and John’s site much anymore.
I'm not over there either very much. I've been thinking about him, more so tonight because he seems to love this kind of topic. I'll make a trip to Glenn's and try to find him, tonight or tomorrow.
Yes, I can’t wait for the Turtle to exit!
Thank Trump for giving us a sane court. 🙌🏼🇺🇸
John McWhorter has long said that AA has hurt black students. When they get into a college with coursework they aren’t prepared for they do poorly and that perpetuates their own and others’ perceptions that “black people aren’t smart.” But when they go to a college that is an appropriate match there is no performance difference. (There are studies he quotes which I don’t know enough to reference but it’s in his book, podcasts, and other writings.) Glenn Lowry has similar feelings about it. If the goal is for every college student to succeed to the best of their ability, AA hasn’t done anyone any favors of any race.
FWIW last night Thomas Sowell referenced that same study, apparently done after CA outlawed AA in the '90s.
There is actually a very significant average IQ score difference between the races with the Asians having by far the highest. Note the word “average” also; not absolute as in everyone of them has a higher IQ.
I’m retired but worked for many years with mostly immigrants from all over the world in Chicago. Vietnam, Mexico, Assyrians from Iraq, Jews from the Soviet Union, Indian Muslims from Gujarat and many other places. I knew them well since I would often ask them what they think of all kinds of things from religion to race. Excellent people with traditional values. Never had a sense that they were different. In terms of intelligence and temperament I never saw a difference. I’ve read that Hispanics have a lower IQ than whites but many of the Hispanics are white and the brown ones are no different than the white ones.
In group terms though I’ve always seen a big difference with blacks. I don’t say that to be heartless and a hater I say it because it’s what I saw and also what they saw. All of them were utterly appalled by black behavior and some told me they had no negative feelings about blacks when they came here because they’d never known any but that sure changed after they came here. I could go on and on and on with the horror stories they told me about their experiences with blacks. This is simply unsustainable though. This is just not working at all.
The big problem is that many blacks haven’t been well-socialized, probably because they stick with their own and don’t learn how to behave in non-black company.
CC, that is not my experience with blacks I know.
I agree in that outside of urban areas in particular, I am thinking New York and Boston which I am most familiar with, I have not noted any differences. But having lived in NYC for decades, I have observed this.
Maybe the purpose is to keep racism as an issue.
That is how Democrats stay in power
“No black person can succeed in a merit based system” That can’t be a real person that said that. Is that a bot? Or an ironic account?
Not only is that a real person, it’s really what blacks are constantly told by our guilt ridden, globalist, Woke white leftist, upper class, ruling class. They tell blacks that meritocracy is just a scam to maintain white supremacy and they need Equity to overcome this scam and the democrats are the ones will will give them Equity. On his first day in office Biden issued an Executive Order to replace meritocracy wherever it can be found with Equity aka Equal Outcomes although they claim it’s Equal Justice. Vivek Ramaswamy hates this and says on his first day as president he will issue an Executive Order banning race based affirmative action. What we now have here are irreconcilable differences.
I recall some white woman celebrity back in the day saying that it was too hard for black people to get a drivers license or an ID. That is what elites think of black people. Was it Kelly Osborne who said something about Mexicans. If they don't come over the border who will clean our houses.They don't hide their racism. Not everyone thinks like them though. Us normal deplorable people don't think like them.
It is real and the obnoxious views of unfortunately many otherwise intelligent people. They seem to have not observed that the current VP and the two term president before the current idiot were not white.
"The effects of racist policies ... are now self-perpetuating"?
This is in a sense true, but only (or largely) by way of "Slave Culture" being self-perpetuating: "There is no separate but equal". It is understandable, and indeed inevitable, that Blacks want to maintain a separate sub-culture. But it is also unrealistic for Blacks (or anyone else) to imagine that this does not come with a hefty price. The reality is that, at this point, Blacks are largely being held down by themselves. Fortunately, it seems that the number of Blacks who (at least in substantive matters) "act White" is steadily increasing. Watching "generational progress" is like watching trees grow. But it is certainly better than implementing de facto Tribalism and waging war against "Whiteness" in order to solve a problem, in historical perspective, temporary.
I'd put Justice Thomas up against Ketanji any time.
It's really despicable that people are willing to destroy meritocracy just to be considered 'nice'. You aren't helping anyone out by removing or lowering standards. But they like it because they would rather hurt everyone equally than help everyone unequally.
Ben, there are plenty on the Left who believe that meritocracy is a myth. If you choose to understand this mindset here is wiki page explaining the phrase:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy
Yeah I've heard that argument before. It's foolish.
Ah, the bigotry of low expectations for people with darker skin. They can't get an ID, can't get a job, now can't get into college without a white liberal handing it to them. You'd think at least the women of this country would recognize this for what it is as there were generations of women who were told they couldn't do anything without a man.
Most women can’t recognize the danger of AA because they suffering the effects of being cancelled by the Marxists. Our first black female Supreme Court justice cannot even define “woman.”
Sounds to me that any judge who can not define what a woman is, is supremely unqualified to sit in the Supreme Court. Does her husband, if she actually has one, use feminine hygiene products? Or not?
The insanity is overwhelming.
Amy, I agree with your comment and have a question also; should women have equal representation in our military combat units and be at the same risk of violent deaths and injuries as our men? If not, why not? My selfish reasons for wanting women to be at the same risk as men is because I think if they were, they’d vote to throw the Neocons out of government.
With our all volunteer army these days I would say yes. It does bother me that my son had to register for selective service but my friends' daughters did not. That being said, I acknowledge that women and men are different. We have different temperaments and different inclinations, for lack of a better term. I don't think I'd make a very good soldier but I would make a good medic.
Women make wonderful nurses. They have more compassion than men. This is how God Almighty designed women. Any actual man, not in a dress, can be easily taught to kill and destroy. This is the entire purpose of the US Military. To kill people and break things, until the politicians get up off their lazy behinds and make a peace treaty. Toxic masculinity is the most essential force in America that is necessary to create our peaceful daily world, to provide us peace, tranquility, and prosperity.
Don’t think so? Then gather together a bunch of transsexuals who only think about raping your children. Will they protect you from harm? I don’t think so.
Hey Tom, I served active duty so I have experience with military. I am pro-peace and anti-war. I think we’d have less war if women were at the same risk of combat violence as men because then the women would vote the Neocons out.
In case you were wondering about Trans and Selective Service. From sss.gov FAQ:
Q: I'm a transgender/non-binary person. Am I required to register?
A: Selective Service bases the registration requirement on gender assigned at birth and not on gender identity or on gender reassignment. Individuals who are born male and changed their gender to female are still required to register. Individuals who are born female and changed their gender to male are not required to register.
interesting.
Yes, here is the neocons lever to eliminate trans in future, should they ever want to. Implement the draft and everyone regardless of their alphabet identity gets their head shaved and if vision bad, issued those birth control glasses 🤓
Men and women are different but they are the same in that they both value their own life and limb and I find it unfair and sexist that we have a policy of overwhelmingly putting the men in the military in harm’s way and not the women. Odd that women have not protested that particular unequal treatment. Not giving you in particular a hard time; hoping other women will read this and give it some thought.
Moronic and incredibly discriminatory. Black people can't succeed unless they have an advantage? So insipid.
Damn. I hadn't thought RFK would be an anti-racist/racist.
Indeed. Sure did show his true colors. 🤬
About 20 years ago, Sandra Day O'Connor warned that the "temporary measure" of affirmative action in college admission would go away. In the 2003 Grutter Supreme Court decision, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor stipulated a 25-year lifetime for the continuation of affirmative action in college and university admissions. That's telling me that Affirmative action was long considered a temporary measure by the SCOTUS.
That said, there will be very few blacks in graduate schools because very few blacks can compete with millions of near-genius white and asian students taking the GRE. Don't take my word for it, but have a look at The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, covered at my 2013 post: (https://gulfcoastcommentary.substack.com/p/grad-school-lower-admission-standards) That post was based on JBHE article: https://www.jbhe.com/news_views/51_graduate_admissions_test.html
"The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE), details in their article The Widening Racial Scoring Gap on Standardized Tests for Admission to Graduate School the extent of the racial gap in graduate/professional school admissions tests. Not only is there a significant gap, but the article is concerned that the gap is widening. This after 40 years of affirmative action programs. The article comments frankly that without affirmative action dual standards, "the numbers and percentages of blacks in our leading graduate and professional schools would drop to very low, nearly nonexistent levels."
Also see my recent posts: https://gulfcoastcommentary.substack.com/p/the-crux-of-our-black-problem
and https://gulfcoastcommentary.substack.com/p/the-crux-of-our-black-problem-part . In no way do I intend to be demeaning to anyone, but the truth is explosive because no one is allowed to be real about racial differences. It's no one's fault, but there are very real cultural and genetic inheritances. That doesn't mean anyone is "better" than anyone else, but just "different."
Many may not get into Harvard, but how many do? Not many. What is wrong with going to “B” school that one is more academically prepared for?
Everyone should be realistic about their capabilites. Michelle Obama went to Princeton. She said that she didn't feel like she belonged. It's probably because she didn't. Being realistic about our capabilities is a secret to being happy.
https://gulfcoastcommentary.substack.com/p/us-blacks-should-be-more-realistic
Racial differences are well beyond skin deep indeed.
Sasha, I love your content, but I am disappointed with your conformity. Why would you capitalize “Black people” while using a lower case letter for “white people?” Very woke of you!
Nothing will change. Nothing. Nada. They will find ways to flout the ruling. They never give up. They never admit defeat or error. That’s why they are so awful.
They will not change but we are rapidly changing. Our ever worsening reality war of the Woke vs the nonWoke is rapidly heating up due to people like Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tucker, Tulsi and so many others like them plus this court ruling will certainly add fuel to the fire.
They will change or lose hundreds of millions of USD in lawsuits.
Kennedy's logic may be valid, but after 50 years, selective promotion based on race as a means to closes the achievement gap is a failure. Time to try equal expectations and a return to two-parent nuclear families.
I've always been with MLK, who dreamt of a time when humans would be judged
"not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Affirmative Action could be, and often was, used in opposite of this principle.
Good riddance.
Justice Thomas has a great rebuke to Justice Jackson here: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/06/29/clarence_thomas_put_aside_skin_color_focus_on_achievement_149427.html
Affirmative Action has been around since 1964 and succeeded only in racially discriminating against everyone but blacks and Hispanics. Racism is wrong regardless of which race it seeks to hurt and regardless of whether it is legal or not.
"Accordingly, JUSTICE JACKSON’s race-infused world view falls flat at each step. Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them. And their race is not to blame for everything—good or bad—that happens in their lives. A contrary, myopic world view based on individuals’ skin color to the total exclusion of their personal choices is nothing short of racial determinism." Justice Clarence Thomas' response to the woman who was nominated to the Supreme Court BECAUSE she's a woman... but she can't define the word woman because she is not a biologist.
And those proudly waving the flag of victimhood were on such a roll . . .
The Full Opinion https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf
I was a proficient student of the bodology of women but I never went to school for it.
And I am a proficient student of hard knocks but never relied on the school of big brother government to bestow a participation trophy, unlimited taxpayer money, and a free Katrina phone to me just because I excelled and went on to the respected University of Adversity. To quote michelle for president "I sometimes wonder if I got here" because I was born without the lib gene and never vote democrat.
Fun Times! “God save the Queen, man”
Many Black people still suffer the effects of our racist past. But almost all of these prevent them from starting college on an equal footing with their peers; they are not ready.
So that’s where we must concentrate our efforts: prep for college. Affirmative Action in admissions just sets them up for failure.
“So that’s where we must concentrate our efforts: prep for college.”
Ha ha. Very funny. I actually laughed when I saw that. Fat chance of that ever happening. A Mexican friend at work in Chicago once told me his cousin is a teacher in a black elementary school on the south side. He said she hates her job because the kids have no interest in learning, no respect for the teacher (they tell her to go f*ck herself when she tells them to do something) and no impulse control. How would it be possible to teach them? Yet it’s impossible to get the parents (or parent since most lack a father) to do anything because that’d automatically be considered racist.
Good schools are the result of having emotionally stable students with an interest in learning. Bad schools are the result of emotionally dysfunctional students with no interest in learning. Many a good school has been ruined by leftist social engineering that simply moves bad students to good schools.
I was on the Atlantic site years ago when they had comments and I said similar things to what I just said here and also said something about a guy I worked with who was from Ghana. A guy named “Ed” responded. I copied his comment and posted it below:
“I'm black but my parents are Ghanaian. I'd sooner send my kids to Africa, where I've never lived, to school before I send them to school here with many African-American kids. I grew up among African-Americans and the vast majority have scant interest in school which would be fine but they seem determined to ruin the schooling experience for everyone else. Nope, sorry not sorry.”
“Fat chance of that ever happening.”
You’ve mentioned some of the obstacles—by no means all—but not shown it to be an impossible task. And you can’t. Because it’s not an impossible task.
Unless you think the government is what I meant by “we”?
That’s what you thought, wasn’t it? My turn to laugh.
(And I’ve been to Ghana, several times, lived in Africa for 13 years. Your friend is right. But it’s still possible.)
I used to work with an Asian Indian from Guyana which is a small South American country near Venezuela. It was once a British colony and is about half black and half Asian Indian. The blacks were brought there as slaves and the Indians went for a chance at a new life. The British government would pay for their passage and the Indians would then pay back the loan when they got established there.
He once told me though that every member of his family and all his relatives left Guyana to get away from the blacks. I asked him what the blacks there were like. He said "Ah, you know. Same as here." He also said the Indians in Guyana were far more prejudiced against blacks than were the whites ( the British ) because the whites had their own separate area whereas the Indians actually had to live with the blacks.
Never, ever will you see reported in the msm even the slightest hint that nonblack minorities say things like this. Many of the people I worked with in Chicago though are Vietnamese, Hispanic and Indian. They are simply appalled by black behavior. They fear blacks, not whites. They avoid black areas, not white areas. They very much feel it’s blacks, not whites, who very much need to change. Fat chance of the media ever reporting that. Never, ever will you see that happen.
My family is from Guyana. What happened was, after slavery they needed workers so they brought over indentured from India (including my great grandfather).
So the blacks go nothing. The Indians were given reparations and so did the slave owners. That set up the system there.
All the immigrants I worked with were appalled by black behavior. Blacks ruin their schools and their neighborhoods and then complain that they’re oppressed because their schools are awful and their neighborhoods deadly. Instead of always complaining about white racism you should consider why so many people consider blacks bad news. Have you ever watched video of blacks wilding in cities like Chicago?
This is a spiritual war. The establishment know our biases. They know our defenses and they play on them.
The only way is empathy. Why aren't they wilding in Ghana? Why are they busy studying? This curiosity I can work with. Finger pointing though? The establishment love it. We can blame each other all day long.
I've had experiences with racism. I now realise that it was staged by the establishment. I choose to rise above it. I refuse to engage with it.
The children in Ghana want to learn, they are exceedingly clever. What is it that has happened to African American kids that turn them like that?
And here in the UK, I was just the same. By aged 12, when I was told by my teacher that in Guyana (where my family was dumped in the 18th century) the people are Pygmies - I spun out and gave up. I was not interested. Disruptive, unprepared, naughty.
Of course, home wasn't much better. My father's nickname was The Overseer. It's as if all those generations of slavery made him bring up his children on Plantation Rules. But that's one of the hidden factors.
I went back to study later. Now, I have managed to stop the cycle of abuse handed down from slavery.
My children have their own children now. But I admit to not calling them "black" names so they would be called for interviews. And they are!
Hope that helps readers innerstand.
Why is it better to flunk out of an ivy league school than succeed at a state university? So we can that the victim of affirmative action is really the victim of racism?
I highly recommend reading Heather MacDonald’s City Journal article from last year which explains why blacks believe AmeriKKKa is permeated with white racism aka “systemic racism.” Truly disastrous. Excerpt here: “Figures from President Biden on down are telling blacks, nonstop, that they are under lethal threat from whites, and that it is white supremacists, not black criminals, who pose the greatest threat to their safety. “Buffalo attack ignites safety worries for Black Angelenos,” reads a headline in the May 22 Los Angeles Times. New York representative Jerrold Nadler, a sponsor of the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, says, “Democrats are taking the fight straight to the . . . violent extremists that are terrorizing minority institutions.” A Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that 75 percent of black Americans were very or somewhat worried that they or someone they love will be attacked because of their race. A respondent interviewed by the Post says that he is “apprehensive at stoplights, imagining a White man getting out and shooting him in his car.”
“Using Tragedy for Racial Propaganda.”
After the horror in Buffalo, President Biden and others peddle an entirely false charge: that whites are the biggest source of hate crime and interracial violence in the US.
City Journal. Heather MacDonald. May 23, 2022
https://www.city-journal.org/using-the-buffalo-tragedy-for-racial-propaganda
“Most black Americans believe US racism will get worse in their lifetime: poll.”
Yahoo News. The Hill. Jun 17, 2023
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/most-black-americans-believe-us-142056009.html
Seva, that blacks are worried about being killed by whites defies all logic, data and their own lives experiences. Blacks are overwhelmingly more like to commit violent crimes on other blacks than any other races and indeed a non-black (ef Asians, whites) are more likely to be attacked by a black than a non-black. I think the polls you referenced are merely an example of of well indoctrinated blacks are at playing the victim role vis-a-vis non-blacks. It fits their AA and Reparations agenda.
But you overlook how incessantly and endlessly they are told by Biden, top democrats, the media, academia, Corporate America, Wall Street, our medical establishment and top black leaders like Obama and Al Sharpton that white racism aka “systemic system” is everywhere at all times and is always oppressing them plus they’re endlessly told that white supremacy is surging nation-wide and black people are in grave danger from this. The NAACP recently issued a warning to blacks to stay away from Florida due to the white supremacy flourishing there. How could this possibly not convince blacks that AmeriKKKa is evil and committed to destroying them?
Seva, the Democrat party is now dedicated to the destruction of this country. And they'll lie, cheat to do it. Truth isn't a priority of The Left.
From your comments, you can clearly see how absurd they are. They are ALL about inciting anger, violence, division, fear to take and hold power. Period. They couldn't care less about the good of the country.
I saw video of Chicago’s new Mayor Brandon Johnson recently where he basically said he wants these “brown” migrants here so they can join with blacks to fight oppression by whites. His Woke ideology is all about tribalism and the Democratic Party is totally committed to this. No borders means no country. We will never recover from the damage done. The “court dates” for “migrants” are meaningless since most don’t show up and even if they do and are denied asylum we have no way to enforce the order to leave and they know that so it’s just ignored. Democrats opened the border for political gain and created a monster which is already out of control and will only get worse. Watch Chicago if you want to see what civilizational collapse looks like.
“Actual Long Term Consequences of Crisis and Chaos at the Southern Border.” (5 min)
Megyn Kelly with Stephen Miller. May 12, 2023
https://youtu.be/-XmpnWmPTXI
There is a lot of either/or here. Lots of people saying racism doesn't exist. It does. It exists. That's why it's being used by the establishment. To divide us. It works because I won't trust anyone who would deny experiences that I have had as a black woman. But I'll still work with y'all because the alternative isn't worth living if we don't defeat this evil.
America is rotting, insane and collapsing plus our whole world is in a rapidly accelerating tailspin. The philosopher Kant said “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” That sure is the truth. I believe the wild card in our future which has already arrived is AI and is the only thing that can change the path we’re now on which is rapidly taking us to the abyss. I recently watched this video by Alan Thompson, a top AI scientist from Australia, about how fast AI is moving. Quite amazing. A real game changer for humanity. Hope springs eternal.
“Integrated AI - The sky is entrancing (mid-2023 AI retrospective.)” (27 min)
Dr Alan Thompson. Jun 26, 2023
https://youtu.be/RnkyM74-LAw
Seva, I invite you to London to spend time with me. You are welcome.
Listen to this. I brought my 15 year-old and 13 year-old daughter and son to Queens NY, to visit with family. They were, at the time, addicted to MTV Bass. They were shocked at the eloquence of the young African Americans they met. How come we are having different experiences?!
They came back changed. They believed the movies before then. They also were moved that their relatives are middle class.
There has been some serious conditioning. Do you really believe you're immune from that?
We all need to do our shadow work. Let's talk somehow. Would you like that?
What do you want to talk about?
Life, psychology and mind control.
How many seconds is the present moment? Three seconds last the present, scientists say. Our brain considers the present instant from a second ago, the current second, the second to come. The rest is past or future. Deep down, anything other than those three seconds does not exist.
“Time is at all times on the verge of vanishing and all things show the frailty of being that keeps them ever poised on the brink of collapse. Time and being display a constant pull to nullification from beneath their very ground. That is impermanence.”
“Nothingness as the nullification of all things signifies the freedom and effortless flight of a bird gliding across the sky without a moments hitch, unburdened. Like the bird that leaves no tracks along the path of its flight, impermanence here means the non-hindrance of being free of the encumbrances of one’s past and of restrictions stemming from former lives.”
Religion and Nothingness
By Keiji Nishitani
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/331332.Religion_and_Nothingness
“Freedom and God are objects of faith, not of knowledge; in other words, freedom and God are infinite abysses whose bottoms cannot be sounded by knowledge.”
Simone Weil. 1909-1943
That's quite beautiful. In that case racism against any group doesn't matter.
Racism exists against every race, white, Asian, black, Jewish, Indian, etc. and is done by every group by not by every person in every group. You seem like one who is not racist: welcome to our club!
Sasha writes "I prefer an America founded in a meritocracy." For the sake of the argument, let us grant Sasha her preference. The question then becomes how merit will be determined?
By scores on supposedly objective tests such as the SAT? As is well known, scores on these test can be improved by training and such training is not equally available to all. The parents of wealthy students can afford tutors while those of poorer students cannot. So such a supposedly objective test will not objectively measure ability.
By high school GPA? Again, socioeconomic status can distort high school performance. Schools in wealthier districts may offer AP classes unavailable in poorer districts. (AP classes can results in GPAs exceeding 4.0). Students of wealthier parents can afford tutors and extracurricular activities while those of poorer parents cannot. So wealth will impact the results of a GPA metric rendering it a problematic measure of ability.
As is well known, 25 to 35 percent of Harvard's admissions were legacy, i.e., the children of Harvard graduates. Add to that the children of Harvard donors and those who played certain elite sports. Whatever the innate abilities of such applicants, clearly they benefit from parental wealth over those with equal innate abilities but poorer parents.
So again, how do we determine merit?
Anyone wishing to pursue this matter might consider reading Michael Sandel's The Tyranny Of Merit. Though I personally disagree with several of his arguments, he does offer strong reasons to question a facile support for meritocracy.
What is your solution? Do you prefer that black kids who are not ready to do college work be admitted on the basis of their skin color and be set up for failure and the lifelong stain of being given a position for which they weren’t qualified? It seems a bit unjust to saddle a person with that.
Money has always bought opportunity but so has priorities and healthy choices. One parent buys tutoring, another buys iPhones and overpriced sneakers.
SAT scores have a long history of adequately predicting scholastic success. Prep is available in many places, often for free. If the schools aren’t doing an adequate job of preparing students for success, work to vote the Democrats out.
This is all well with reach of any community. It isn’t easy but it beats a lifetime of servitude to whoever is passing out free stuff.
How do proponents of meritocracy try to ensure that everyone regardless of their socioeconomic birth status has an equal chance to acquire merit and thereby succeed?
Advocates of meritocracy easily risk supporting a hereditary plutocracy, one in which the children of wealthy parents have inordinate advantages over the children of poorer parents.
As Michael Sandel notes "Despite generous financial aid policies, fewer than 4 percent of Ivy League students come from the bottom fifth [of the income scale]. At Harvard and other Ivy League colleges, there are more students from families in the top 1 percent (income of more than $630,000 per year) than here are students from all the families in the bottom half of the income distribution combined." (The Tyranny Of Merit, p. 24)
Should we just assume such close correlations of merit and lack of merit to parental wealth and poverty?
Parents have the primary role in developing their children’s capabilities. If that fails it will fall to the near community and ultimately to the individual to put in the effort needed to attempt their desires. We all play the hand we have; how well we play it has many components including our own initiative and integrity.
As a side note, the Iveys are highly overrated and I have no interest in encouraging anyone to attend. There are far better schools.
JasonT,
The risk of your approach is that a person's merit will be significantly dependent upon their wealth. That is not a meritocracy. That is a plutocracy. Do you really want to say that the wealthiest should be given political power at the expense of the other rest of us? I do not.
Bill
That is not true at all. Middle class Americans have all the tools necessary to excel to the extent of their capabilities. Many in the lower classes do as well, given that additional sacrifice must be made. At a certain point, more money is as likely to degrade ability as improve it.
It is also true that the wealthy will continue to buy the access and prestige they want. It is up to us, the governed, to elect representatives who will see to our interests rather than their own. The free ride business has ensured the electorate continues to vote against their strategic interest.
I do not share your rosy picture of the opportunities available to the middle and lower classes.
As I noted elsewhere on this thread, the number of students admitted into the Ivy League schools from the top one percent economic group exceeds the entire number of students from the lower half of the economic group. It is absurd to suggest that current economic position correlates so closely with student abilities.
Also please note that you have not yet addressed the issue of legacy admissions, donors' children, and elite sports participants.
As I previously wrote elsewhere on this thread, "As is well known, 25 to 35 percent of Harvard's admissions were legacy, i.e., the children of Harvard graduates. Add to that the children of Harvard donors and those who played certain elite sports. Whatever the innate abilities of such applicants, clearly they benefit from parental wealth over those with equal innate abilities but poorer parents."
On meritocratic grounds how can you justify such preferential treatment?
Culture and family play a much larger role in success then wealth. My grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe fleeing Hitler in the 1930s. They arrived here penniless and not speaking English. And yet, all their children went to college and become professionals. The reason is simple. My grandparents believed in education, were involved in their children’s education and pushed them to excel. They sacrificed for their children’s education. My father knew that education was the key to a better life and moving into the middle class. And he and his siblings all succeeded in doing that because they worked hard. They passed this on to me and my sister as well and we are passing this onto our children. I have spent literally a fortune to send my kids to private schools because I believe that it’s better for them. This meant sacrificing other things like new cars, vacations etc. If my child needs a tutor or a prep course I find the money for it because it’s important to me.
In short, IMHO, the key to success if family and culture not wealth. If you family/culture values education you will succeed. Unfortunately, much of the African American community doesn’t value education and that more then anything is the root cause of their failure.
“So again, how do we determine merit?”
We’re in a reality war of the Woke vs the nonWoke. Compare a nonWoke public intellectual like Vivek Ramaswamy to a Woke public intellectual like Ibram X. Kendi and the difference is like the difference between day and night or sanity vs insanity yet our ruling class, their media and their many useful idiot followers in the general public prefer Kendi!
The Woke left traded class for race, “Woke Marxism!” and certainly are demonizing white people as the source of evil in the world but this goes far beyond race since they also try to destroy anyone of whatever color who gets in their way plus their campaign to replace meritocracy wherever it can be found with “Equity” is a war on standards and since standards are the essence of civilization they are in effect waging a war on civilization itself. Basically a war on sanity by the insane.
Saagar has a good video about how even medical schools are dumbing down standards for the sake of Equity. This is just not working at all. Vivek 2024.
“Exposed: Med Schools Drop Merit For Racial Admissions.” (6 min)
Breaking Points. Saagar Enjeti. Jan 30, 2023
https://youtu.be/xpH6jTMApW4
Seva,
I thank you for your response. Sadly you do not address my question, namely how a
supporter of meritocracy would determine merit in the matter of undergraduate college admissions? Can you please talk to that?
Bill
“Can you please talk to that?”
We lack a common reality, have become incomprehensible to each other and can no longer communicate. Where is the common ground in such an infinitely wide divide? There obviously is none. We always just talk past each other. This can only get worse and is getting worse by the day. The same people who insist Jan 6 was an “Insurrection!” have no problem with Joe’s open southern border or pornography for public school children. This is simply not working at all. Could it be that the reason why our society is so rapidly unraveling externally is because it no longer exists as a country internally?
Seva,
Thank you for your further comment. Alas apparently you do not have an answer to my question.
Bill
How about listening to what Saagar has to say about it? Do you think the Chinese have difficulty understanding what merit is?
“Exposed: Med Schools Drop Merit For Racial Admissions.” (6 min)
Breaking Points. Saagar Enjeti. Jan 30, 2023
https://youtu.be/xpH6jTMApW4
“As US Schools Prioritize Diversity Over Merit, China Is Becoming the World’s Stem Leader.”
https://quillette.com/2021/08/19/as-us-schools-prioritize-diversity-over-merit-china-is-becoming-the-worlds-stem-leader/
Read Thomas Sowell
Susers,
Over the years I have read various of Thomas Sowell's writings. Can you please remind me of how he specifically answers my question, namely how do we determine merit in undergraduate college admissions?
Bill
It used to be grades
Nicola,
Yes, at least part of it once was (and I believe still is) grades. Alas high school GPAs are now a problematic metric. For example, consider the impact of AP classes on high school GPAs. Some high schools offer AP classes, others do not. Do you really want to penalize student with great potentials because they attend poorer high schools?
Bill
At this point, I don't think schools amount to that much.
The combination of SAT’s plus high school grade point has been found to be a good predictor of academic performance in colleges. It doesn’t matter that these scores reflect training and previous achievement in addition to innate ability. These are all the same things that contribute to success in college.
You are of course accurate in saying that Americans have unequal access to resources that are needed to succeed in school. This problem needs to be addressed. I think we should focus on addressing it in K-12, not college. If large numbers of our kids are illiterate when they get out of high school, our educational system needs to be overhauled in a major way.
They’re also illiterate when they get out of elementary schools and have no interest in learning or impulse control when they start kindergarten. There’s a whole lot there that would have to be overhauled in “a major way.” Fat chance of that ever happening.
Exactly. That’s why the admission to Yale seems irrelevant.
Impulse control and delayed gratification really helps in civilizing folks.
Also, these days, colleges are allowing submit of ‘essays’ in lieu of ACT or SAT testing. I saw a local neighborhood girl gain college admittance this way. But I don’t know how much that mattered vs. both her parents had attended same college. At any rate, add ‘essay’ to the college meritocracy mix
Testing scores and GPA are not perfect indicators of merit, but so far, we have not invented a better one. I think it is a simplified view that wealthy people can train their kids and therefore, they get better scores. In addition to financial advantage, there may be a cultural tradition to succeed in education that they pass from generation to generation.
Asian immigrant families may not be wealthy at all, but in their culture education and hard work are highly valued, and they achieve the same or higher scores than wealthy white students. So your socioeconomic explanation of why using merit system may not be fair is not accurate. I believe we have to dig deeper for roots why blacks continue to fall behind in socioeconomic status and education in our country. Slavery cannot be the only explanation for what is happening in 21st century. Affirmative action may have played a role of holding them back. Regardless of skin color, many of us know from personal experience that sense of victimhood is a strong deterrent in development.
Yes, many Asian cultures highly value education and hard work, which conduces to high student GPAs and SAT scores.
That does not contradict the hard statistical evidence of score improvement trumpeted by test preparation tutors to justify their high fees. The wealthy can and do game the system. Those of lesser means suffer.
If we had good public education starting with pre-k, then economic means would not matter in preparation for college. Everyone will be prepared. We need a total overhaul of public school. Not sure though it is possible in the current political climate. But we are getting distracted because all we talk about is admission to Ivy League schools. Why do we care about Harvard so much? We should care more about every child getting a decent education in school to be able to pursue a carrier of their choice.
It’s a noble idea, Just, but it isn’t practical to have the kind of education system you describe in the next 40 years because of the monopoly the Teachers Union and Democrats have on cities, school boards and black community. The resistance to change that environment overwhelms any attempt and the ones who most want to change it are the outsiders of conservatives and whites. The ones with the most to gain (blacks) and lose (teachers) are in agreement not to change it. Finally, education alone doesn’t determine intelligence.
I see it archived in small European countries, but you may be right on all points. We have broken education,, anti-intellectual sentiment and no merit system in selecting for competitive positions in education and employment, including the highest positions in the government. I hope it is a temporary madness, like fever that will subside. If not, looks like all of us, clever people here on Substack, do not have a remedy.
Bill, it is a good question and it seems to me that unlike pornography, we might not all recognize it (ie merit) when we see it. I don’t have a ready answer how to objectively and practically measure it. But there are lots of things I don’t know how to implement and that doesn’t stop me from wanting to see things that I view as immoral and unethical (racial discrimination) stopped. I do hope better minds than me (hope the Asians are listening!) can find a method that is both fair and effective. Sorry for not having a better answer; you’ve made a good point.
Libertarian,
Thank you for your response. For my nickel, until meritocrats can offer a clear objective way to determine merit they should be very cautious in advocating for a meritocracy. Otherwise the results may not be what they desire.
Bill
Bill, until you can find a non-racist means, you should be cautious about cautioning others to be cautious.
You can level the playing field by socioeconomic status and adversity without making it about skin color.
Jay,
Thank you for your comment. Can you please say a bit more as to how you propose to "level the playing field by socioeconomic status"?
Bill
Not everyone should be going to college. I know many people that are very successful without a college degree
Nicola,
I agree with you.
Bill
Bill, I’ll bite. Government funded/seeded 529 type education savings accounts for babies born below a certain income $ level. $1K to $3K per kid at birth. Can’t touch until 18. Account grows in TIPS or other safe investment vehicle, or give options for instruments w/ more risk. Maybe don’t even tie it to education use, use for whatever they want at 18 or leave it alone and let it grow. Some will squander, some won’t.
Matt L,
While that is definitely an interesting suggestion, one worthy of further discussion, it does not address my initial question to Sasha of how in her meritocracy the merit of college applicants will be determined.
People's innate abilities at birth are highly distorted by later factors, one of which is the socioeconomic status of their parents. Efforts to determine merit by means of high school GPAs or SAT scores risk measuring parental wealth rather than applicant ability.
Bill
Bill,
It does in part address your question. By increasing a $ kitty for the poor, or lower social economic student, he/she is on a ‘more’ meritocratic playing field than without this $ money - vs. his/her peers from wealthier family. That $ account also creates ‘hope’ for future and an incentive for student to work hard, despite their home/community challenges. Government could even tie a $ ‘bonus’ if student uses that $ for education, at time of admittance. I’m suggesting an alternative to affirmative action that is not race based, but class based. And puts use of those resources in the hands of individuals to provide them with more liberty and freedom
Matt L,
Sorry, but it does not address the real inequalities. Per your proposal the funds would not be available until the youth turned 18. The inequities being discussed happen before then, e.g., SAT tutoring while of high school age.
Bill
William, scores on SAT or ACT tests on admission to college do pretty accurately predict performance in college (on average of course). Are there some individuals who are exceptions? Sure, but in general low scores on these tests means that although a student may be admitted, the likelihood of completing a degree is also low. The goal is to get a degree, not just be admitted only to drop out 2 years later with nothing to show but student loan debt. It may be true that some prep could improve performance, but that doesn’t make the test meaningless as a predictor of performance.
High school GPA is a different matter, and GPA is often meaningless. Schools have grossly inflated grades so that students graduating with a high GPA may still struggle with college work. More and more students need some remedial classes before they ever begin college courses. It’s unfortunate that these students are given false indicators, and then become angry at the “system” that failed them.
Of course socio-economic status, life circumstances and secondary schools make a difference. That’s true of everything in life. But that doesn’t mean that there is no way to predict who can succeed at college (again, on average). We are doing no favors to young people by leading them into circumstances where they will most likely not do well. They may not be Harvard or Yale material, but they could get a degree at other schools. Better a degree from State U than dropping out of Elite U with no degree at all.
Heyjude,
The relation of SAT scores to college performance is a bit more controversial than the College Board suggests. So while I question your claims about the SAT, nevertheless for the sake of the argument let me concede your point.
What follows? In advocating for a meritocracy, at what point do you determine merit?
You seem to feel that it is satisfactory to determine individual merit at the time that students take their SAT examinations. Yet clearly by that point the examinees will have been affected and shaped by their upbringing. You are not starting the race at the beginning of the course but somewhere in the middle of the track. So the results will likely be that the already advantaged will remain advantaged and that the already disadvantaged will remain disadvantaged.
In order to justify a meritocracy, everyone must have an equal opportunity to acquire merit. So your appeal to the SAT fails. It is a biased metric affected by societal inequalities.
Bill
I agree with your point that by the time students take the SAT, it is far too late to deal with the lack of education. That is not an indictment of the SAT as a tool to measure readiness. It is an indictment of the K-12 system that consistently passes students through the system without teaching them anything worthwhile.
Heyjude,
I would like to thank you for your posts. They have helped me clarify my own thinking on the question of meritocracy.
There seem to be two questions that must be addressed:
(1) The metric to measure merit. You are defending the SAT. I personally believe that it is more problematic.
(2) The time that merit is determined. I believe that unless everyone of equal innate ability have comparable opportunities to develop their skills, a meritocracy will enshrine an existing unequal status quo. If we wait until late adolescence, the effects of nurture will affect measured merit. I think that your last response may concede my point. Yes?
To be justified, a meritocracy must really be fair to everyone.
Thank you again for your comments.
Bill
It is not inevitable that the existing status quo becomes enshrined. The way to change it is to make sure that all children are given a proper K-12 education, so that all can be prepared to take the next step of a college education. NAEP scores show how woefully our public schools have performed. Affirmative action has allowed them to hide that failure by admitting students who are not prepared. Note that the stated reason is always “diversity”, not any actual benefit to the students themselves.
The best way to “enshrine the status quo” is to keep doing what has been done over the last 50 years, instead of holding K-12 schools accountable for educating students. Or we can just keep pretending that somehow putting unprepared students into universities is going to create “equity”.
Sixty-plus years of social engineering failure and destruction. The leftist solution? Engineer harder.
Affirmative action was already a violation of the Civil Rights Act. About time it was shut down. They should force colleges to use an anonymous admission system where the application receives a number and all descriptive data are removed from the form for admissions people to see. Then they make the choice based on merit (grades, test scores, activities, accomplishments, and whatever essay they require).
Back in the ‘80s, my parents’ fertility specialist was black. My mom figured that if he’d gotten into medical school (not at an HBCU) as a black man in the ‘60s, he must be really smart. I’d like to be able to look at any doctor’s credentials and know that s/he was accepted to medical school because s/he was really smart, and didn’t get special treatment based on race.
I think there are some things that cannot be changed until it becomes so obvious that it’s painful to pretend it’s working.
Like many laws and ideas from the left, affirmative action was just another way to disguise their paternalism. That’s the biggest thing I see that D party perpetuates with everything...and it is so obvious to anyone who is serious. The D party is not serious and it’s childish because government is their daddy.
The democrats are fighting a two front war: Internally they’re turning America’s War Machine on Trump and supporters. Externally on Putin and Russia. They want Putin dead, the Russian people ground into the dirt and their LGBTQIA+ Pride flag of their Woke faith to fly over the ruins of the Kremlin. They want to do to Putin and Russia what they did to Gaddafi and Libya. When Gaddafi was captured by rebels in Libya I read they sodomized him with a bayonet. Here’s a video clip where Hillary is asked about what happened to Gaddafi. She said “We came, we saw, he died.” and then laughed. I’m sure Putin and the Russian people know about things like this. They have very good reason to totally distrust our globalist, Woke ruling class. Comment on the video is also quite interesting and damning.
Clinton on Qaddafi: We came, we saw, he died. (12 sec)
CBS. Oct 20, 2011
https://youtu.be/mlz3-OzcExI
“She forgot to add: "He died and we stole 150 tons of gold from the Libyan people!" Libya had accumulated this tonnage to launch a gold backed Pan-African currency. Instead, it was appropriated by the various NATO countries to 'compensate' them for the cost they incurred for their regime change. Go figure the morality of that one.”
Consider this: I know a half-Jewish, half-Christian Serbian woman who’s married to a Turkish Muslim. They have two daughters around 20 and seem to have a good marriage. Considering the intense ethnic and religious hatreds involved with their religious and ethnic groups this is quite an amazing marriage. These people then are obviously intelligent and open minded people who judge others as individuals rather than by their group identity.
A few years ago though I happened to get into a conversation with her Turkish husband about crime in Chicago (a constant topic of conversation here) and once you start talking about crime in Chicago it usually moves to race since so much of it comes from blacks. He told me that when he came here from Turkey 18 years ago he had no sense of prejudice against blacks since he’d never known any in Turkey but for the first 10 years he was here he drove a cab and his experiences with blacks were so often so dreadful that he’s hated them ever since. Is he now racist or are his “lived experiences” valid and justify his feelings about race?
Apart from the mindless virtue-signaling ("an attack on black people") and an almost universal ignorance of the constitutional role of the Supreme Court, I am struck by the fact that the ruling's opponents cannot seem to muster a real argument on behalf of their own position.
It starts with Judge Ketanji Jackson-Brown herself, of whom Stephen Kruiser equipped, "The United States of America is blessed with millions upon millions of brilliant black women. The Democrats just don’t seem to know any of them."
Putting aside Brown's reasoning, the most remarkable thing about her dissent is its awful, turgid prose. One wonders if she studied English with Kamala Harris.
The opinion is marked by awkward and improper use of prepositions, beginning sentences with "And," incomplete or broken sentences, using may in the past tense, and the substitution of cliches and pre-made leftist phrases ("lived experience") where actual reasoning with detailed language could have made her point more convincing.
It's fine as an angry opinion post on Twitter, or perhaps an email to a leftist comrade, but prose worthy of a Supreme Court decision it is not.
At times, one thinks Brown must have studied English with Kamala Harris. Consider this Word Salad:
"To demand that colleges ignore race in today’s admissions practices—and thus disregard the fact that racial disparities may have mattered for where some applicants find themselves today—is not only an affront to the dignity of those students for whom race matters. It also condemns our society to never escape the past that explains how and why race matters to the very concept of who “merits” admission."
In addition to sheer wordiness, here we have the use of may for might, improper use of the preposition for with where, the insertion of never into an infinite verb instead of a simple straightforward verb that says what she means, and finally she has "the past" explaining concepts to us.
Using a verbal crutch like "lived experience" could be simple intellectual laziness, but that is not what we expect out of a SCOTUS judge. A judge who is charged with evaluating the soundness of legal reasoning should be able to recognize when a phrase doesn't make sense. Is there any "experience" that is not the result of living?
In his 1947 essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell pointed out that people who write like this aren't even thinking about what they are saying. They just mash together a bunch of phrases written by somene else that are presumed to mean something.
How about this, Ketanji:
"To demand colleges ignore race in admissions practices is an affront to the dignity of students who have experienced racial discrimination. The ruling condemns our society to an ignominious past, when an individual's' achievement in the face of discrimination cannot be credited as "merit" for admission."
There: 45 words instead of 68, and one can grasp her point instead of re-reading her last sentence.
Couldn't her clerk help have helped her with this?
She’s a prime example of the consequences of racial discrimination and incompetence due to generations of poorly qualified Affirmative Action selections and hires.
Yes, and now that incompetence has come home full-circle to roost in the high court, where it turns reason on its head and reduces legal rulings to blog posts.
As a PhD student in physics at the University of Michigan I tried to teach a black affirmative action woman how to assemble particle detectors for our experiment. She'd started out as a theoretical physics student but obviously wasn't able to compete, so they moved her to experimental physics. Her background gave her so little to work with that I was unable to get her to succeed at simple tasks. This was sad. It wasn't that she was stupid, but she had no background in anything relevant, nothing to build on. I supported affirmative action at the time, but it was obvious that this woman was not a proper candidate. At Michigan she could only learn how to fail. In contrast there was a black student in a physics lab class I taught who was head and shoulders above the rest of the class. When I saw Ben Carson later in life, I thought Ben may have been that student--but Ben didn't go to Michigan. But when my student graduated, people no doubt thought he got into Michigan only because of affirmative action. I still support affirmative action: affirmative action lite. it should never be an official policy, but it should be used to unofficially give borderline deserving students a slight preference.
Even racial discrimination lite is racial discrimination.
I put this in the category of charity. The bulk of the US black population is downtrodden in so many ways, much of it from a political system hell-bent on making them feel like victims. Blacks from black African nations tend to have self-respect even if dirt-poor. (I've spent time in Ghana.) Many American blacks I've come across seem to have lost self-respect. (I've spent time in the US Army.) I think that's what holds them back more than anything. Bold affirmative action can only diminish their self-respect; lite affirmative action if administered properly needn't do that. Those of us who know what it is to have self-respect should feel inclined to give these poor victims of government policies a hand--as long as we can keep our hand hidden. Above all, teach them to emulate Ben Carson!
There is no such thing as “affirmative action lite.” It always has to be very heavy to produce a significant number of blacks in the middle class. Time to face reality. It is what it is. No point trying to pretend it’s not really a disaster.
In 1992 I started my mech engineer degree after four years of active duty Army where I was a minority anglo in every unit. My leaders were primarily Americans of African and latino descent.
On campus a black racist approached me to sign a survey supporting 'affirmative action'.... I just laughed with a middle finger present. Of course he got mad, called me names, and stormed away. I just laughed and further presented my middle fingers.
My leaders were outstanding People and I am very grateful my single mother did not teach me to be a racist; actually living and working with People teaches you correctly. I have travelled the world and People are the same as us just trying to make a buck and raise a family.
It is wealthy communists like Marsh above that ruin everything.
“Everybody has asked the question. . ."What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!”
― Fredrick Douglass
I'm in England. We don't have affirmative action. We just take names and ethnicity details and detach them from applications to lessen any cognitive bias. I'm also a black woman.
It's interesting seeing on this thread how many folks think racism doesn't exist anymore. As a psychotherapist, I hear the stories of racism regularly. I've experienced it myself.
I thought that once people were not vaccinated and started to experience the discrimination, that they would turn and say to me, "is this what you were talking about?" Sadly, that's not been the case.
So the Powers that Should Not Be know what they are doing. They are ensuring that there is absolutely no empathy between the races.
That's real sad because if we can't empathise and believe each other when we speak of our experiences - we won't be able to trust each other, and we won't be able to defeat these psychopaths at all. Then there won't be white people or black people. There will only be cyborgs. 🥺💔
“How Blatant Anti-White Racism Won Acceptance in Elite America.”
Real Clear Investigations. Sept 7, 2022
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/09/07/how_blatant_anti-white_racism_won_acceptance_in_elite_america_850879.html
I’m a straight white biological (lol) male and I have experienced racial, gender, and sexual orientation discrimination and racism, sexism and genderism. Am glad we’re on the same side.
"It's interesting seeing on this thread how many folks think racism doesn't exist anymore. As a psychotherapist, I hear the stories of racism regularly. I've experienced it myself."
Of course it exists. it will exist as long as humans exist. 1. BTW its not just white people. Take a visit to the ROK. I did a 13 month tour there, (Broad Brush) They don't like White people, they REALLY don't like Black people. I mean I met Koreans who could teach bigotry to the KKK.
I call that prejudice. The Eastern Europeans didn't like black people when they arrived in England. But then they met us. They only knew black people from Hollywood.
Why do you leave out that any race can be just as racist as any other race? Blacks are as racist as non-blacks. To argue otherwise is to either imply they’re superior or inferior, but not equal.
Obviously you have not studied this as Deeply as I Have. Allow me to enlighten you. Its all about the power dynamic. Blacks have no power, so they cannot be racist.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.lM3DyfIPJ1cMoSzY6D0QxwHaEK%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=314e72e88f856c18b9046dbe6c512bd44a13aa2dcd17724ce30a17dd0bbaec3a&ipo=images
A Brother just can't get a break
It's different. Prejudice + power to affect = racism.
All people hold prejudices. Preferences, if you like.
It's a shame that it's so hard to see that.
No. Racism is racism.
Obviously you are not as intelligent as me and your studies were in vain. Blacks are as capable as anyone to be racist. You seem to be a prime example. Blacks had unilateral and complete power on the African content for hundreds of thousands of years and indeed were the only humans on earth for a long time but somehow lost that power and advantage. Why was that? And the argument that one has to have power to hate others sue to their skin is completely absurd. Plenty of broke people hate whites, blacks, Jews, Asians, etc simply because of their skin. How stupid to give blacks a get-out-of-racism card because of their power dynamic.
So-called affirmative action has always been vengeful and capricious. Even back in HS (a very long time ago), I saw how ridiculous it was that there were dozens of scholarship and aid programs available to minorities, but to even think of offering such a program for whites would be unthinkable. And then occupations where blacks have a distinct advantage - think sports - are completely immune from AA. It's a great example of how central planning does not, and can never, work in a free society with billions of inputs on a daily basis.
And one good thing is that between the above tweet and his comments on 2A, I no longer have any desire to vote for RFK Jr. Yes, his stance against medical tyranny is valiant, but these two stances are poison to liberty. "Better than Biden", alas, is not much of a selling point.
Affirmative Action programs are the most pure form of racIsm in American history.
Why? They destroy the very people that they are designed to help. They promote the racist idea that negro and Latino people are inferior and can never achieve anything at all without a racist BOOST from the US government.
Ok, step back and think harder. Think about the effects of affirmative action. Other folks will never believe that a negro or Latino has merit nor has any value, and then at least in their minds, they sideline these folks as weak and unable to stand on two feet and compete for real jobs or real tasks. This will always be unspoken. Saying it out loud is a firing offense.
Ok, now think more broadly. Did Ben Carson, pediatric neurologist surgeon who separated Siamese twins need affirmative active? Absolutely not. Did Associate Justice Clarence Thomas need affirmative action? Absolutely not. What would Frederick Douglas dpsay today, more than a hundred years later? Did any ever at all need affirmative action? Absolutely not. The only Jim Crow Laws and Ku Klux Klan racist nonsense always came from the Democrat Party. These people should shut up their pinholes and say nothing at all. They are the racists.
Oh yes, my first vote in 2016 for President, was Ben Carson, an actual genius surgeon, a rock solid Christian, and a very superlative man, a humble man.
C’mon Tom, reel yourself back in. AA is the most pure form of racism in American history?
Read up on Redlining and let me know if you still hold that same opinion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
When I meet blacks and other people of darker skin than mine in professional settings, I’m evaluating them on their ability, experience and how they present themselves. But I don’t walk around with some unspoken notion in my head that they are only there because of AA. We are way too busy trying to solve problems and make our organizations a $ buck.
Dave Rubin recently showed a clip of Chicago’s new Mayor Brandon Johnson from 2018 where he talked about what he did as a teacher which was pretty much nothing. He said he never gave any test prep, rarely gave any homework and never failed anyone. So what did his students learn? Nothing but at least they’re all equally illiterate. And this man is now the mayor of a major American city and admired by the democrats for being “progressive.” These people have zero interest in using public schools to actually educate children. Schools are just like this in California and many other places and this is simply not seen as a problem by democrats.
“Watch Two Quotes That Should Have Disqualified the New Mayor.”
Rubin Report. Apr 12, 2023
https://youtu.be/tlA_FJ-s7EY
Charter schools, private schools and parochial schools are how the whites, Jewish people, and anyone else with a little money got out of the abject failure that is the US urban school system.
But you’re overlooking the fact that many black kids start school with no socialization. No interest in learning, no impulse control, no respect for the teacher, especially if they’re white since they’ve already learned that white people are racist oppressors and this idea is emphasized and vigorously promoted all throughout our society by our upper class, Woke white leftist ruling class.
Paradoxically, the ruling may not reduce the ability of Universities to select underrepresented students. The Universities can focus on other parameters to promote equity- based on personal acheivement, motivation, ability to overcome adversity, performance in social settings, instead of skin color. Clearly affirmative action based on skin color is racist. It's time to move on. The supreme court decision will not impair equity, it can improve it based on how universities handle it. See commentary on PBS NewsHour on 6-29-2023. Affirmative action is not dead, it is only dead for the parameter of skin color.
Good points. I do think though that if a potential plaintiff can show that indeed the school does discriminate on the basis of skin color, then they will have a compelling argument and solid chance to win a lawsuit. It’s like the reverse of before when institutions said they weren’t discriminating based on skin color but then lost lawsuits based on the data.
I crave for a time where race or gender or sexual orientation are not the dominant narrative. Kind of like 5 year olds in a playground. Free open and without pre determined biases. Without an agenda. And importantly too young to be told how to think.
If properly implemented, will bring about the end of “Mismatch” to the benefit of EVERYONE. Great 2012 book of the same title by Stuart Taylor and Richard Sander. Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It https://www.stuarttaylorjr.com/books/mismatch/
If only we could come together, regardless of “race” (whatever that actually is) and commit to working on important matters, rather than being at odds. Would be great if all could pull together to solve mutual problems.
Eliminating AA is a step in the right direction because it was clearly racist.
If we don't, we're fooked!