<p>^^How about if we give him a gym membership for half price, even though people who were not wrongly locked up must pay full price? He'd still have to do the exercises himself once he got in, but we could sure make it easier for him to get in the door.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Those higher ed. institutions would include Publics, even though I acknowledge that Privates seem to have taken the lead in this trend toward broader diversity (because they can).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Do you really think this? How about Ivy quotas for Jews and excluding Asians and blacks? That sounds very inclusive and diverse to me (if you're looking for rich WASPs). If you're talking about race, I'd be real interested to see trends in attendance for black students (public schools versus private schools). I think historically public schools have been more supportive than privates, but some privates have done many things as well. And as to affirmative action in hiring, this often benefits females, even white females. But this is another thing.</p>
<p>And you say many whites are rejected from UCLA yearly- the same is very true of Asians as well.</p>
<p>UCLA receives more applications than any other college in the country so they certainly reject the majority who apply and it'll affect all races. I'm sure the same is true for any top-end college.</p>
<p>TourGuide446,</p>
<p>To change your analogy a little, I think a better analogy is that after being imprisoned for a long time Mr. Smith has a child, who has a child, who has a child. This child has heard that his great grandfather was imprisoned and mistreated. He can then either lift weights like everyone else, or he can blame his UNWILLINGNESS TO TRY on his great grandfather's mistreatment.</p>
<p>Drosselmeier,</p>
<p>""After all, with his approach, B.T. Washington patently failed to use what was his right to use. The System just simply would not allow him to do his work."</p>
<p>Which book did you read? What did "The System" NOT allow Booker T. Washington to do? How did Booker T. Washington (as an adult) feel that "The System" limited him? Or are you simply the anointed one who is much wiser than he was?</p>
<p>pa, you seem terrifically petty and small-minded here and I suspect this attitude originates in a quite understandable unwillingness to shoulder the blame for a situation not of your design. The question of guilt is incredibly complex. However since I am the anointed one, I will not be deterred from entering the writhing thorns of that mountaintop. There is a difference between collective and individual guilt. You will not be hauled off to jail for being the beneficiary of stolen merchandise, let us say now priceless artworks, your great-grandfather removed from Picasso's atelier while he was copulating for the 8th time that afternoon. However, one of his many descendants might attempt to regain possession of that painting by utilizing the courts. Though you have learned to love that painting of his twenty-third mistress and your family has always considered it a part of the estate, finders keepers will not prevail. You will lose your weepers. But you will not go to jail, unless you run off with the picture under your arm in defiance of the courts. But then you would have only the picture, having sacrificed both dignity and decency for something you could well live without.</p>
<p>I retain no hope of altering your viewpoint one iota. I recognize your steely resistance to the notion of collective blame. You see blacks thriving in sports. You see blacks killing each other on the streets, perhaps even in your neighborhood, displaying little respect for each other or for you, and showing an unwillingness to take advantage of the opportunities in the schools, because education is the ticket toward successful adjustment to this society. I have felt as you feel. What Drosselmeier has allowed me to see, with his incredibly patient and balanced explanations of his viewpoint, is that this sickness has deeper roots than you or I have imagined and threatens to strangle even those who will do their best to prevail. Though you feel a sense of outrage and resentment at the inequalities that reflect a situation out of balance, your pain is tiny and in fact intellectual compared to the lived experience of those who must fight to enjoy the simple daily rituals you and I take for granted.</p>
<p>"How about if we give him a gym membership for half price, even though people who were not wrongly locked up must pay full price? He'd still have to do the exercises himself once he got in, but we could sure make it easier for him to get in the door."</p>
<p>should we also extend half price benefit to Mr. Smith's children and grand children?</p>
<p>^^IMO up to a point. As I posted earlier in the thread, there should be a statute of limitations on how far back we can legitmately claim wrongs that still need to be righted today. I don't know what the limit is, but it can't be forever.</p>
<p>I do not question any of the insidious effects of slavery, but since the Romans enslaved most of Europe, pretty much every modern European and European American is descended from slaves if you look back far enough. Slavery was still common in Europe up through the Middle Ages. It has really faded out only over the last 400-500 years. So it looks like 400 years is enough time to get over having had enslaved ancestors. Is 150 years years enough? I don't know. But there must be a limit out there somewhere. </p>
<p>I support AA in general, but I don't think it should go on forever.</p>
<p>Re Post #322:
...responding to DRab,
Yes, I really do think so. I think so because Privates can draw equally from all over the country if they wish, thus will get geographical diversity far more than a U.C. will. (U.C. will get a certain set of internat'ls, but the campus culture will overwhelming reflect California.) Geographical diversity is more important than some people realize, i.m.o. A poster spoke earlier about diff. political viewpoints; those will by definition be more likely to be present when you have represented undergrads from Montana, Arkansas, Texas, Maine, Minnesota, Georgia, etc. AND California. It can be very refreshing.</p>
<p>coureur,
I hear what you are saying with your earlier post that may have crossed with mine. I just don't agree with you. The facts do not bear out that poor recruitment & poor exposure & poor "bridge" programs are keeping minorities out of UCLA. I do not know how vigorous the campuses like Berkeley & UCLA <em>currently</em> are with regard to their influence on the State Educ. Dept --voicing concern over, suggesting alterations in the Dept's curriculum decisions, priorities, etc. In the recent past, I know they have been quite vocal with regard to concerns over preparation (& that would include preparation of all publicly schooled CA students). Millions of dollars later, hundreds of changes later, appreciable progress has not occurred in desired results. The consequence has been two: (1) middle-class minorities (& a smaller portion of lower-middle-class) seizing control of their institutions via charter efforts; (2) lower class minorities more often losing out in this effort (staying in underperforming schools), as those parents are not equipped to invest the time, nor have the education to make that alternative work. </p>
<p>When you try to serve everyone, you sometimes serve no one. A centralized education dept too far removed from local decisions & needs, a dept' run by politicians with political (read, constituent-pleasing) priorities, a State trying ineffectively to be all things to all people speaking all languages, an under-educated minority parent population (overall, particularly at the lower economic end), -- and a parent population increasingly less fluent with English due to disproportionate representation of immigrants within the public schools: these factors cannot be blamed on UCLA. </p>
<p>The one factor that, again, seems to make the difference, is parents. The public schools in the very wealthy districts are awesome. Bluebayou can back me up on that, for his area. Further north, there are also a few high schools that give many privates a run for their money when it comes to course offerings alone, for example. The advanced art offerings, the range of science offerings -- these would NOT be available without students there capable of handling them. Those districts have a fabulous tax base; they draw great teachers to them; they have students coming to class already with home educational advantages such as Dross' kids. Distracting issues such as poverty & accompanying social ills, are overall not interfering. Every year dozens of their grads go to UCLA, Berkeley, UCSD -- not to mention NE privates.</p>
<p>"....but I don't think it should go on forever."</p>
<p>How about 2017. Two generation of AA is long enough.</p>
<p>Regarding the past history of slavery, is there any evidence to support that the URM's checking the little box had some relative discriminated against because of slavery in the US? I know of many people with backgrounds from Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, SOuth America, ect that check the little box, and non of their relatives had any connection with US slavery. </p>
<p>AA lasts a lifetime: undergrad, grad, employment, gov contracting, ect.. </p>
<p>AA is racial discrimination, by definition. If it is ok to use racial discrimination in the context of educational opportunity, when else is it ok to use racial discrimination? Please don't support racial discrimination, as it is desctructive to our society.</p>
<p>I have been comparing in my mind womens rights- to AA
women were given the vote long after black men- women are often not allowed to enter the same jobs as men- women have only recently been allowed to sue for rape against their husbands, a whole list of ways taht women have been considered 2nd class citizens or less in our country.
A susccessful women is still often considered to have " ...ed" her way to the top ,, or else if she is successful she is considered to be a brass balled witch.
Still women have shown themselves to be much tougher than they look, to the point where some schools have lower standards for admission for males-
I understand that we need to give some segments of society a little extra help- but why not jsut steer them to the community colleges until they can perform on the same level as the women?</p>
<p>Coureur: I have no problem with the good deal on the gym membership. That's an interesting idea...give needy URMs a heck of a good deal on tuition, but the same deal as everybody else on admissions. Then again, the poor are already eligible for a ton of financial aid.</p>
<p>Pafather: I see your point in post #324. I was using Mr. Smith a bit more metaphorically (as representing the entire black experience in the US) than you saw him. But I think the important point we are both making is that even if the PROBLEM has roots in an unfair system that was not of their doing (slavery), they themselves are the ONLY ones who can generate a SOLUTION...all the well-meaning concern and sympathy does not lift even one barbell.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>I know of many people with backgrounds from Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, SOuth America, ect that check the little box, and non of their relatives had any connection with US slavery. <<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Yeah, but they are the direct descendants of Jamaican, Hatian, Cuban, and South American slaves. All those Africans didn't end up in those countries because they went there on vacation.</p>
<p>In fact a large majority of the slaves imported from Africa to the new world did not go to the US but to the Carribean and especially South America, particularly Brazil.</p>
<p>Drab:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Sure, American slavery was a wrong in history. Sure, it could be pointed to for the purposes of in part explaining the current situation of African Americans in American culture. Don't all but a small few disagree with these?
[/quote]
I read plenty of people who claim that because slavery no longer exists, the problems of blacks are caused only by blacks themselves. They seem to give no truck to the idea that the past influences the present.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But about every other wrong in our history. What about those? Is there ever a point when a wrong is resolved?
[/quote]
Of course, provided those perpetuating and/or benefiting of the wrong take sufficient steps to resolve it. I also think those who perceive wrongs should work to employ forgiveness as part of the resolution. Both sides have obligations. But if those who have wronged others, or who have benefited of past wrongs, refuse to see the connection between themselves and the wrongs, they make forgiveness and trust virtually impossible.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anyway, what sort of (obviously racial, but I hate it when this is assumed) affirmative action do you think univerisites and colleges, heck, maybe even jobs should use? More clearly, what should the policies be, and which institutions should abide by them?
[/quote]
When you reduce the solution to mere policies that some nameless institutions should implement, you require more than people are willing to endure. I think many of the programs in place are just symbolic gestures that do very little to help the problem. But they are important because they demonstrate an official acknowledgment of the severity of the past. Also, over a long period of time they may help. But they are fairly worthless if we implement them for a mere 40 years, whining every single one of those 40 years because it takes a good deal of time to correct problems that have been deeply entrenched in our culture since 1619 and that have existed in great force right up to today.</p>
<p>The country now sits atop the horror of slavery. Without slavery, there would be no technological revolution, no industrial revolution, no mass agricultural trade, no original colonies, no Constitution, no Articles of Confederation, no Declaration of Independence, no Triangular Trade, no Williamsburg, and no Jamestown. UCLA would not even exist. America as we know it, rests on the stolen lives of millions of people. There is only one institutional solution to this moral problem and that is to take everything that is America and then hand it to the progeny of those whose very lives were stolen. We are talking the lives of loved ones millions of them. Not even the value of the United States can pay for them. Yet that value and more is what is owed.</p>
<p>Yeah. I feel you recoiling from this truth. Well, I think that as hard as it is for America to just give up everything it is and give it to blacks, it was just as hard for the slaves to have their lives, the lives of their wives, the lives of their mothers and fathers, and their children, taken and imprisoned and abused through bondage and the racism that lasts even now. Yet it seems everyone acknowledges the former difficulty while easily dismissing the latter.</p>
<p>I think reparations is impractical because I think few people on the earth are interested in living honorably for the sake of honor. We really just want stuff for ourselves, and that is just the human condition. Im not exempt from this. I mention the above just to show what the moral scale looks like what we are up against ethically. The scale is basically collapsed against us all if we will only look at this thing institutionally.</p>
<p>There is possibly another way out. When one of my kids wrong another, I force the kid who is in the wrong to apologize. Initially he just does it because he knows that is what I want of him. It solves nothing at all. But it does get the kid moving emotionally in the right direction. I talk to him, get him to sense the wrong from his brothers perspective, and then here it comes I messed up. I shouldnt have broken it and now its gone. I cant repay because I dont have enough and besides, there arent anymore of these things around. Here, please take my (fill in the blank). I know its nothing, but please take it and forgive me. Then invariably the response to this is Its okay. Dont worry about it..</p>
<p>I am saying that the same basic emotions that exist in this simplistic example above also exist inside this huge problem we are dealing with here. If we can find ways to acknowledge the need for the above sort of exchange so that the wronged can sense the potential for trust, I think everyone will be able to move on and the thing will be resolved by a combination of tangible gifts (like MAYBE AA maybe not maybe its something else), given in heartfelt exchange and forgiveness given in response. I do not know how all this would look when it comes to countries and stuff, but I know this is what needs to take place to make healing come.</p>
<p>It will take a lot of time and effort all around, but I think this is the way we need to go about it. All this one-sided whining and blaming blacks for stuff is just making the thing worse.</p>
<p>^ In your opinion, who do you think were wronged more - blacks or the native Indians?</p>
<p>simba, such a simplistic response to such a complex heartfelt gift of thought
reveals a compulsion to win arguments over and above any interest in productive discovery,..</p>
<p>Dross I don't know whether you caught my earlier post about guilt and hence, blame, responsibility and forgiveness. Obviously in western society there is some ability to entertain the notion of collective guilt when it comes to original sin. There the mechanisms for asking forgiveness have generated quite an industry. On the secular level, it is possibly incorrect to expect individuals to incorporate meaningfully any sense of participation in acts of history even if the benefits still accrue. We're not to blame but as Americans we have a responsibility to make corrections. Isn't compassion enough of a rosary?</p>
<p>rorosen:</p>
<p>Yeah. I read your post and many others, but unfortunately havent been able to respond.</p>
<p>
[quote]
On the secular level, it is possibly incorrect to expect individuals to incorporate meaningfully any sense of participation in acts of history even if the benefits still accrue. We're not to blame but as Americans we have a responsibility to make corrections. Isn't compassion enough of a rosary?
[/quote]
Quite possibly, as long as the compassion is very clear and given in view of the conditions stemming from an acknowledged history. But when I hear things like two generations of AA is enough, or we have given you all this! and other comments like this (despite that I have paid into this stuff myself), I just think America is doing nothing more than throwing money around and whining Heal Thyself! It completely lacks the understanding of history from the perspective of the wronged. And this just does not really address the real problem here.</p>
<p>Those to whom the benefits of evil accrue dont ethically get to set the value of peoples stolen lives and heritage. They dont get to arbitrarily assign how much they will pay in order to have the problem resolved. Only those from whom a thing has been taken get to value the thing that was taken. That is their natural right as humans. That right serves as the basis of our nation. If we simply reject the right of blacks to make valuations, instead deciding for them what their stolen heritage is worth and forcing them by law to accept it when we flip coins at them, we just continue treating them like slaves. It is just no way to develop trust in a wronged person.</p>
<p>our society has lots of challenges and lots of people with" needs".
BUt of course we have limited resources
Where can we spend our resources most effectively?</p>
<p>My mother attended the same( inner city) high school my daughter is now attending more than 50 years later. Same problems exist for a school in a very liberal city, in a very diverse neighborhood.</p>
<p>Its even more diverse now, because while immigrants in the early 50s were often war refugees from Europe, ( caucasian), now they come from Vietnam, Uganda,Bolivia,New Guinea, Cambodia,Tibet......
I can see the efforts put towards helping the new immigrants find a place, really making a difference.</p>
<p>Many are fairly educated from their own country, but had to sell everything to come here, some barely escaping with their lives, sometimes having to leave children or other relatives behind.</p>
<p>I have spoken to several who work as custodians (or other jobs that we may think of as lowly), although they were medical doctors or other high status jobs in their homeland, who still mourn that they they felt forced to leave their country, and send money and supplies back home.</p>
<p>It is very inspiring to hear all they do, and all that they have gone through, it inspires me to continue to volunteer, because it is through working with diverse groups of people, that I am taught teh value of my contributions.</p>
<p>I would encourage everyone- in particular those who feel they don't have a voice or can't make a difference, to volunteer, not just in your own community organizations like your church, but outside your comfort zone, to get to know others from different circumstances- this is the only way that we all can move forward- by working together- with equal emphasis on working & together</p>