A Startling Statistic at UCLA

Parents Forum
281

<p>But I also think the “it's not my problem, so who cares?” posture too many other Americans are taking toward these problems is unhelpful.</p>

<p>I don't think that others see it as it isn't OUR problem- however- in our school district Asians- including new immigrants are often the most successful academically as they are in other districts across the country, and while we acknowledge that there need to be supports in place for students with academic and socioeconomic challenges- I think some may also feel, like there is a victim mentality that is holding some back from succeeding or even to acknowledge their own success.</p>

282

<p>"I think it needs to be said, yet again, that the reason blacks often are not highly qualified enough for these schools (which causes them not to apply and therefore matriculate at them) is racism, subtle, overt, and existing across multiple centuries, right up to today."</p>

<p>This is too simplistic and naive reasoning.</p>

283

<p>EK:</p>

<p>
[quote]
…we acknowledge that there need to be supports in place for students with academic and socioeconomic challenges- I think some may also feel, like there is a victim mentality that is holding some back from succeeding or even to acknowledge their own success.

[/quote]
I think the victim mentality exists because they are indeed victims. I think the particularly destructive hopelessness we see in many parts of the black community is due to a belief that this place, America, can never really accept blacks no matter what they do, and no matter how hard they try to fit in. </p>

<p>I agree that it is destructive, that it is not helpful to blacks and that we need to get over it and move on. But I also know the thing is a lot more complex than this.</p>

<p>Many of these destructive views come from history, because for a very long time blacks, led by people like Booker T. Washington, tried hard to rise above the aftermath of slavery. That is what the whole Tuskegee college/George Washington Carver thing was about. Blacks tried impressively and repeatedly to continue their purposeful development, but were stopped cold by whites, including officially, often by the white American government itself. Each time this occurred it caused millions of blacks all across the country to look to men like B.T. Washington and say “See? We told you so!” And what can we expect them to think-- people who only a few years prior were being forced by whites to live like cattle? It only gave strength to the protesting inclinations of guys like W.E.B. Dubois, from whose tradition we eventually got Martin Luther King and today’s Jesse Jackson.</p>

<p>I am not criticizing or supporting either school of black progress here. I am saying that the influence of America against blacks has left us with a very powerful legacy of defeatism that we are only now starting to seriously evaluate. No other group in our history has ever had to deal with anything quite like it – not the Chinese, not even the Jews. If one is ignorant of this history, one is likely to blame blacks in the exclusive way so many folks are doing now. And I think that is unfair and will be unproductive.</p>

284

<p>
[quote]
This is too simplistic and naive reasoning.

[/quote]
Okay. How's that?</p>

285

<p>Drosselmeier - you have got to be kidding when you aver that one of the reasons that conservatives are not attracted to academia is because they are not as qualified. This is just laughable. </p>

<p>Academia is one of the most liberal (liberal really is not the word) institutions in the land. There is a deep and pervasive bias in hiring those that share their political and worldview. There are schools that are exceptions to this rule, but not many. </p>

<p>My twin brother is Phd in economics who is no longer in the academic world, but by any means world renowned in his field. It found in just absurd how pervasive bias is in the academy - even to the point where, in the social sciences, there was lots of manipulation taking place - with regression analyses being manipulated until the right political result was obtained. He was embarassed at what he saw. And to suggest he is in any way not qualified is a joke - again, he is respected worldwide for his skills - and yet, tenure was not something he pursued because he was a conservative. A loss for the academy - really. Not for him - though - he is incredibly successful. Institutions that listen only to their own echoes in a chamber lose competitiveness and intensity. </p>

<p>Lest you think my criticisms are overstated, witness the Ward Churchill incident. And lets focus not on Ward Churchill in and of himself, who clearly is a fraud of mythic proportions such that he could be deemed an outlier. Look at the Univ. of Colorado who hired him as a professor, with only an undergrad and grad degree from a then unaccredited institution. This requires a review by several senior professors, who no doubt looked past his record because of his claim to be a Native American (he is one, if paying fifteen bucks for a tribal affiliation card qualifies). So they hired a fraud because ethnic studies is so "chic" and resistant to any sort of critical analysis about what the heck it is they do (other than feed white liberal guilt). The University then tenures this fraud, which requires not only a review by top university officials, but also recommendations from other top people in his "field" from other universities, even though a myriad of complaints about the integrity of his work has already arisen. The University then makes him, egads, Department Chairman, which requires review of the highest officials of the university and those from other schools - even though he lacked academic credentials and was consistenly being grilled by others for a lack of integrity at that time. Further, native groups such as AIM who the moonbats at colleges typically have sympathy for were already pointing out that Ward was a total fraud with no Indian blood or plausible family connection to claim Indian status - meaning that Ward obtained his job on false pretenses. (His nickname among Natives was "Walking Eagle" - in as so full of __ he could not fly). Could the university of Colorado done any worse in furthering a critical examination of ethnic studies issues than hiring a fraud like Churchill? Likely not. A well reasoned and honest conversative, even though totally anathema to the moonbats at Boulder, would have at least prompted a competitive and well thought out response by the academy to his views - whereas Churchill was a fraud and a waste - all in the pursuit of unthinking, chic, pro-victimcrat culture (life has been tough for the academy since Communism fell - it was their great shibboleth). But no way Colorado or most any other university hires a conservative, particularly in a safe (politically) academic ghetto like ethnic studies. You think bright, conservative people think they can succeed in this kind of environment? Hardly. So there is a lack of diversity in thought on campuses today, which is too bad. And the students know it - got to figure at least half of them play the game by humoring their professors, knowing what dreck they want to hear, and then graduate and form their own thoughts. Not a great state of affairs.</p>

286

<p>Rorosen:</p>

<p>
[quote]
o.k. Dross, I officially give up on going catfishin. But I will find the courage to reply to post#262 which has more dissertations swimming in it than catfish in a college lake.

[/quote]
Okay. This eases up the pressure a bit because I was wondering if I’d be able to take to catfishin’ again. LOL</p>

<p>
[quote]
The notion of a 'catalog' of preferred ideas of beauty(as I see it) is very profound and in fact an extension of your earlier post#200 where you describe "pockets of inferiority within their own heads" caused by not fitting in to the dominant 'catalog'. I of course was going to suggest that everyone struggles with fitting into that idea of what is preferred. This really is so obvious.

[/quote]
Hmmm! Of course you are right. Surely plenty, perhaps most of us are going through this to one degree or another. It is a strange thing because when I feel it, it feels as if EVERYONE ELSE is pushing down on me and that I need to fashion ways to push back. I lose touch with the fact that some white guy is also feeling similar pressure in some other way.</p>

<p>I think, then, that maybe I am experiencing the heaviness of a societal pecking order wherein people feel a need to keep pushing down on those they perceive as beneath them. Perhaps since the images constantly being promulgated in our society as “ideal” tend to promote whites (and often scorn blacks), many blacks feel whites generally are pushing against them as a united group. This “racist” effect seems the result of a system of beliefs and behaviors built into the very structure of our lives here - which is probably why many whites have little idea what I am talking about.</p>

<p>
[quote]
But I want to point out that the experience of black kids regarding how they are seen is on the same continuum as all kids, who all struggle to fit in, even though I grant that black kids might well, according to your very palpable descriptions, suffer the not-belongingness more profoundly...

[/quote]
Yeah. This is a very good, subtle and intensely interesting point. When I mentioned earlier that racism is probably just nothing more than “ME-ism”, I completely overlooked that this thing is affecting such a large number of people. I dismissed the thing you are talking about as just “peer grouping” and basically thought of it as something entirely different from racism. But you are quite right that a lot of people, blacks and others, are getting cut off from the “in crowd” by various means, due to things they cannot change (or even fake) about themselves.</p>

287

<p>my daughters school for example offers the most advanced classes in the state and has for some time
We attract many minority students from private schools because they want to have a larger cohort.
However, even though the only requirement to attend many of the advanced classes is a willingness to do the work-not everyone wants to do the extra work.
My daughter is in both remedial and advanced classes- where she works very hard to have a C average, however she feels as do I , that it is more important to have a high bar and work towards that, than to have lower standards and get a higher grade.
SHe has many friends who are minority in both her remedial classes AND in her advanced classes.
HOwever- most are not AA- but immigrants, sometimes even first generation. One of her best friends is from Senegal, and her family knows that to get ahead education is critical.
I often volunteer in the school, working with brand new immgrants to learn to read- not all have supportive families, some are orphans who have local sponsors- but they are very bright, and welcome the accepting atmosphere of the school.
However, it isn't unusual for AA families to discourage their kids from attempting more challenging classes because they are : too much work: the teacher/classmates are racist.
I don't think there is a lot I can do to combat this- I am pretty frank about my daughters difficulties, hoping it will encourage them to advise their kids differently.
I don't have an education background, I didn't graduate from high school and often the AA parents have a college degree, but they still feel that racism in the school is holding their kids back.
I fail to see what else I, or the school can do-
Virtually all the programs in the district and the school to support students academically are for minorities only, many specifically for african americans.
How is that racist?
Many minority teachers in teh school, some have been courted for years by fancy private schools, but they want to stay here-</p>

<p>I may not have much education- nor does my husband- but I am able to figure out that education is the only way to a better life for my kids- but I can't convince anyone else of that- they have to see it for themselves-</p>

288

<p>Mam1959:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Drosselmeier - you have got to be kidding when you aver that one of the reasons that conservatives are not attracted to academia is because they are not as qualified. This is just laughable.

[/quote]
This is not what I said. Conservatives may be quite attracted to academia, but perhaps they are not generally the most accomplished of scholars. If they are not generally the most accomplished, they probably won’t be as well represented in academia as liberals. So the fault is not academia. Conservatives ought to just get with it and do something more than whining on Hannity about not being as well-represented as liberals in colleges.</p>

<p>Now before y’all get your thongs in a bunch about this, I say again that I don’t really believe any of this, though I think it could be true. The reason I put it out so carelessly is to help you feel how I feel when you just dismiss my position by merely repeating your one-sided assumptions.</p>

289

<p>Affirmative Action. Remedial this. Reach-out that. Diversity is everything. Black Studies Departments. Head Start. No child left behind. School lunch programs. Billions poured into the California higher education system for schools ranging from world-class research universities to start-from-scratch community colleges. Dross, is this what you mean when you say a "perfunctory nod" to the problem?</p>

290

<p>EK:</p>

<p>
[quote]
I don't think there is a lot I can do to combat this- I am pretty frank about my daughters difficulties, hoping it will encourage them to advise their kids differently.
I don't have an education background, I didn't graduate from high school and often the AA parents have a college degree, but they still feel that racism in the school is holding their kids back. I fail to see what else I, or the school can do-

[/quote]
DO NO HARM. If you can’t see what to do, then at least don’t increase the defeatism by giving these folks confirmation of their fears. Too many people are just doing this. And its not like what I am asking here is some great sacrifice. It is just common decency, and yet there are A LOT of people who don’t even have that.</p>

<p>But I think there is something to be done and that AA is possibly one of those things (maybe?????) C’mon, there has to be at least one black kid who, inexplicably, is trying just as hard as your daughter and who is curious enough about the world to focus on it more than the pains of the past. I am saying that we need to agree together that we are not gonna throw this kid on the trash heap of percentages. We’ll give her a leg up because she is just a wee bit different. Let her in because she has had to slog through pure hell just to get to where your daughter is.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Virtually all the programs in the district and the school to support students academically are for minorities only, many specifically for african americans. How is that racist?

[/quote]
Don’t know about this program, but I suspect that when these black families are talking about racism, they aren’t talking about this program. They are probably talking about a culture stretched out from coast to coast, wherein people like David Duke, Robert Byrd and Neo-Nazis can find a comfortable home, even running successfully for public office as “former” Klansmen, and wishing for the day when whites will all rise up and mass murder blacks. Ain’ no way blacks will ever gain the vulnerability it takes to feel that this country isn’t after their heads while this sort of thing exists. Every Confederate Flag, ever politician who puts it on public-funded venues, every conversation about IQ, eugenics, every single mention of slavery, every sleight, every frown, everything, all of it, is suspect. And I am sure more than a few of these people you see ambling around in our cities just don’t care, and many others are thinking “Yeah. Bring it on and we are gonna show you just how fast we can bring the whole thing crashing down!” They have very little they need to worry about protecting.</p>

<p>You probably don’t have to worry about this stuff at all, and so it never occurs to you that it is going on. But vast numbers of blacks do worry about it, even when they don’t realize they do. For them, America is just one gigantic Sword of Damocles, and combined with their historic pressures and the destruction of their communities, it leaves a lot of them feeling pretty lost. It is much, MUCH bigger than your school’s program.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Many minority teachers in teh school, some have been courted for years by fancy private schools, but they want to stay here-I may not have much education- nor does my husband- but I am able to figure out that education is the only way to a better life for my kids- but I can't convince anyone else of that- they have to see it for themselves-

[/quote]
Well. Reading your posts, so many of them, makes me think that, though you probably have little idea what I am talking about, we could still be American together quite well, and I could eventually come to trust that you ain’t gonna stab me in the back. But a lot of people don’t have faith that Americans are generally as considerate as you are.</p>

<p>You know how it is. You can help a guy ten thousand times, rescue him from danger, saving his life repeatedly, going to the very ends of the earth for his well-being. But should you, JUST ONCE, intentionally chop off his pinky finger, well, there will be very little you can ever do to win that guy’s trust. All your thousands of well-meaning behaviors will mean very little. Well slavery chopped off much more than a pinky finger. It literally chopped off the entire self of blacks and gave it away for someone else’s to own and abuse. Today, many blacks still are left without their self. It seems lost forever.</p>

<p>The good news is there are increasing numbers of blacks who, completely without any explanation I can find, are really back in possession of who they are. These folks are getting along despite David Duke, and moving on beyond him as well. But too often they are getting drowned out by the evening news, which causes a lot of people to dump on a generic idea of “blacks”. And this only harms everyone.</p>

291

<p>""I think it needs to be said, yet again, that the reason blacks often are not highly qualified enough for these schools (which causes them not to apply and therefore matriculate at them) is racism, subtle, overt, and existing across multiple centuries, right up to today."</p>

<p>This is too simplistic and naive reasoning."</p>

<p>Because it seems that you still LIVE in the past. Reading your posts one can conclude that in your opinion everything that is bad in black society is due to the past.</p>

292

<p>
[quote]
Affirmative Action. Remedial this. Reach-out that. Diversity is everything. Black Studies Departments. Head Start. No child left behind. School lunch programs. Billions poured into the California higher education system for schools ranging from world-class research universities to start-from-scratch community colleges. Dross, is this what you mean when you say a "perfunctory nod" to the problem?

[/quote]
Indeed these things are almost nothing, especially since they are only about, what, at the most 40 years old, and especially since blacks themselves are forced through taxes to support much of it. These things haven't even existed for a full lifetime.</p>

<p>And yet the problems these things are trying to address have their causes in abuse that has existed since AT LEAST 1640 and that lasted right up until the mid 1970s. In fact, some of these causes still exist, right alongside these programs you've mentioned. You don't restore a nation of people overnight, and you can't do it by just throwing a few dollars at them. It takes much more time and depth than you apparently are willing to allow.</p>

293

<p>
[quote]
Because it seems that you still LIVE in the past. Reading your posts one can conclude that in your opinion everything that is bad in black society is due to the past.

[/quote]
And you claim my opinion is "simplistic". Friend, I am dealing with only a narrow aspect of black life, specifically, my view of Affirmative Action and the issues of history it aims to address. My view of blacks and our difficultis is a lot broader. But when it comes to the issue of Affirmative Action, I am forced to deal only with what I think it is trying to accomplish.</p>

294

<p>So in your opinions the System should lower their standards admit any blacks and Give them money to attend for eons?</p>

295

<p>
[quote]
So in your opinions the System should lower their standards admit any blacks and Give them money to attend for eons?

[/quote]
C'mon guy. Work with me here. My opinion is that when a person meets a school's academic standard, then it is fine for that school to take race in consideration right along with whether the kid can play basketball and tennis, when it comes to admissions decisions. I do not think schools are lowering standards. They probably have a range beneath which no kid can enter. In fact, I suspect a lot of blacks getting into schools today are getting in based on performances that easily best those of many whites in the past.</p>

296

<p>If you intentionally tried to ensure that a group did not raise its level of performance to the level of other groups, probably the first thing you would do is configure the situation such that its members' lower performance was deemed equal to the other groups' higher performance. In other words, take away the incentive to achieve parity.</p>

297

<p>C’mon, there has to be at least one black kid who, inexplicably, is trying just as hard as your daughter and who is curious enough about the world to focus on it more than the pains of the past.
Didnt I say one of her best friends is from Senegal?
In the same classes as my daughter- both remedial and Advanced
I am working with kids from the Sudan and Rwanda- how can you get a tougher situation than that? seriously?</p>

<p>I didn't say that there aren't * any * black students who aren't excelling, there are many.
The school has one of the highest graduation rates in teh city, with the highest percentage of students going on to further education.
I mentioned that many minority students who have been encouraged to attend some of the most academic private schools in the region, often choose to attend one of the public high schools, where they will be among a larger population of minority students.</p>

<p>But the members of the community who seem to have the same view about black achievement as they did 60 years ago, are quite vocal and persistent, giving some the idea that it isn't worth attempting to raise yourself up, because you will be kicked back down.
THey hold forth at community meetings and are quoted in the paper, even though I have not actually seen them in the building working with kids.</p>

<p>You are what you spend your time thinking about.
If you spend your time thinking about how you can move forward, then you will, but if you spend your time more concerned with your obstacles, then you havent even gotten out of the starting blocks</p>

<p>I have no idea what my great grandparents went through because I know nothing about them
I do know that I was marginalized in school because I was shy and didn't speak up and because I was a girl, I also have learning disabilties that when I was in school were not even known about, so that I believed that I was stupid & that I was lazy.</p>

<p>I can't spend my life blaming others for that because that will hold me & my kids back
I was abused when I growing up, not my greatgrandparents- I was abused-& neglected- I have been sexually assaulted, once by a group of boys when I was in junior high, raped by a "friend", and raped and roughed up by a casual aquaintance, which left me fairly traumatized for quite a while. ( who incidentally was AA) </p>

<p>Again, I can't spend my life blaming others for those cirumstances, because I am the only one who can move myself beyond them.</p>

<p>You either make excuses and spend your life going in circles, or you see what you need to do, and utilize the help that is available to move forward.
We all have choices- and we all have personal responsibilty</p>

298

<p>
[quote]
If you intentionally tried to ensure that a group did not raise its level of performance to the level of other groups, probably the first thing you would do is configure the situation such that its members' lower performance was deemed equal to the other groups' higher performance. In other words, take away the incentive to achieve parity.

[/quote]
Well. I'll need more time to think about this to see if I think it is true and whether it is happening.</p>

<p>My gut reaction is to think it is not taking place, especially since it seems blacks are gradually increasing their performances. I think AA should work such that anyone, regardless of race, can get into a school if one’s quantitative performance meets a certain level. EC’s and legacy status should also have an influence, even making it possible for a person to gain admission above others with higher quantitative performances. If a school has a ton of kids of varying races all in the same performance pool, and it wishes to choose students from this pool in order to build an entering class, then due to the ravishes of history I also think race can be one of many factors schools may use to make the decision.</p>

<p>I don't really see at the moment how anyone in this system is being told that they don’t have to work as hard as anyone else, especially since historical pressures affect some groups much more than others.</p>

299

<p>"So in your opinions the System should lower their standards admit any blacks and Give them money to attend for eons?"</p>

<p>I think we should just level the playing field, across generations. It took many generations of affirmative action - in early education, in family supports, in taxation, in Social Security payouts, in education spending, in higher education, in housing, in asset creation, in employment, in health care to get whites to where we are today. I took full advantage of it myself. I don't think it would take eons to level the playing field. Three generations would likely be plenty. But the advantages - not equality, but advantages - have to be systemic, and exist for that entire period, in order to level the field.</p>

<p>Otherwise you end up with a 100-yard dash, with some well-equipped and well-trained starters beginning at the 50-yard line, and others at the start, carrying 50-lb packs and limping. </p>

<p>Just level the playing the field, across generations.</p>

<p>(never happen. ;))</p>

300

<p>EK:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Didnt I say one of her best friends is from Senegal? In the same classes as my daughter- both remedial and Advanced I am working with kids from the Sudan and Rwanda- how can you get a tougher situation than that? seriously?

[/quote]
This is apples and oranges, friend. None of these people are here in America because white folks brought their ancestors here and treated them like animals, generation by generation squeezing them and breaking their spirits such that they were left with almost no hope. They are here almost purely because of hope. That is a huge difference.</p>

<p>The immediate intensity of a person’s travails is not the issue. I may take a guy and then proceed to break all of his arms, legs, whipping him severely until he can do very little but breathe. But if I stop and he heals, he will very likely be much stronger, at least in spirit, for having survived the ordeal. Give me that same guy as an infant, and allow me to intentionally teach him he is broken and incapable over the entirety of his life, let me show him by my dominance and abuse that he is worthless, allow me to teach him this by my clear abuse of his wife, his children, his parents and grandparents, then even though I break not a single bone in his body he will more than likely be destroyed, with a wounded spirit that will never heal. This latter case is what America has done, and to an entire race of people.</p>

<p>
[quote]
But the members of the community who seem to have the same view about black achievement as they did 60 years ago, are quite vocal and persistent, giving some the idea that it isn't worth attempting to raise yourself up, because you will be kicked back down.
THey hold forth at community meetings and are quoted in the paper, even though I have not actually seen them in the building working with kids.

[/quote]
Yeah. Well, I know these people. I was raised by them. I know what they sound like, and I know the absolute damage they can cause to a young mind and spirit because I have a mind and spirit that is damaged to this day by them. They are deeply wounded people, likely because of the things I have mentioned here. I do not think they should have control of the system, and I do not think people like you need to kowtow to them in the least. But it would help everyone if we could try to understand how they came to be as they are. It would help so that when one of their kids pops out of the mess they are perpetuating, it may cause us all to be a little more patient and try welcome that kid into us, to try to help him keep going. This kid here is different. It will be a real chore for him just to finish school because of the lack of support at home for the things he has come to value. I think AA at least acknowledges this. It may not be the perfect solution, but I think it possibly helps more than it hurts.</p>

<p>
[quote]
You are what you spend your time thinking about. If you spend your time thinking about how you can move forward, then you will, but if you spend your time more concerned with your obstacles, then you havent even gotten out of the starting blocks

[/quote]
I am trying to affect a little balance so that maybe we can move forward with some prudence. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I have no idea what my great grandparents went through because I know nothing about them I do know that I was marginalized in school because I was shy and didn't speak up and because I was a girl, I also have learning disabilties that when I was in school were not even known about, so that I believed that I was stupid & that I was lazy...

[/quote]
Yeah. rorosen just mentioned something about this kind of thing, and it is really an eye-opener. I still don’t exactly know what to do with it. But I am sure some of us can learn from it. I am sorry for the extreme hurts you and others have experienced. I wish that I could have raised you because there just ain’ no way you would have gone neglected by me. I figure, though, that some people are more capable than others, depending upon their circumstances. Some have higher tolerances than others for some kinds of pain. Those same people, however, would be completely undone were their children subjected to the same pain that they endure so easily. Still others can accept both pain for themselves and for their children and still soldier on. I’m not making excuses for anyone. But I don’t think it is fair to demand that all these people be as strong as I am because I just don’t think it is possible. I can demand that all people adhere to the natural law of human rights and that when human rights are infringed that they seek to make a fitting correction.</p>