A Startling Statistic at UCLA

Parents Forum
361

<p>"I'm for whatever will work. But I think we've demonstrated in this country and with our foreign aid programs, that turning over money and other resources to people does as much harm as good."</p>

<p>I think you should try it, consistently, for three generations, and see what happens. It is clearly true that turning over money and resources to white folks for ten generations hasn't worked. It has made them (us) feel full of ourselves. We allow ourselves to forget about this massive and ongoing wealth transfer. We don't recognize that our huge subsidy, and the subsidy given to our kids comes off the backs of others. It corrupts our morality, our culture, our governmental institutions, our way of thinking about ourselves. And because others are likely to resent this massive white-people welfare program, we squander massive amounts of resources trying to defend our ill-gotten gains, our "investments", our white-people's "affirmative action" policies. And it has destroyed any possibility of community across racial lines, with America more segregated today than at any time since the 1930s.</p>

<p>It might be that African-Americans, seeing the culture of craven immorality that affirmative action for white folks has created, decide not to use the resources to "catch up". I would think that should be for them to judge and decide, not for us.</p>

<p>My mother can decide to spend the extra million dollars that she has netted off the backs of Black folks in Social Security payments alone any way she likes. She can purchase five college educations for the grandkids - or send them all to ritzy private schools, and throw in SAT test prep alongside the horseback riding lessons. She can buy a huge house or three rental properties. Or start a business or have her grandkids start one. She can put it in the stock market. Or she can buy 50 black Lexus' or 50 yellow Cadillacs - or 25 of each if she chooses. No one talks about the fact that turning over Black folks' money to her "does as much harm as good". In fact, virtually no one even thinks it.</p>

<p>And the Social Security million is just for starters. (Want me to run out the numbers on the GI bill?)</p>

362

<p>Please include all the welfare payments, rent support, food stamps, medicaid and all other benefits received in your so called "analysis".</p>

<p>Please provide concrete evidence of your social secruity payment theory. Are you including disability payments that go to many children of all races and to the disabled parents? </p>

<p>No matter how you want to cover it with rhetoric, wealthy mostly white people pay most of the taxes collected in the US. If you want to claim they would have paid even more if not for some tax benefits, fine. But the remaining fact is even with breaks they still pay the bulk of taxes.</p>

363

<p>Please include all the welfare payments, rent support, food stamps, medicaid and all other benefits received in your so called "analysis".</p>

<p>Doesn't even come close, when you take into account redlining, restrictive covenants, spending on education, restrictions on higher education, employment subsidies, mortgage interest deductions, tax incentives for middle class women to stay home from work for 35 years; the list is virtually endless. This, of course, is only stuff from the last 50-60 years. Compound the white affirmative action rate for 10 generations...well, I don't think you could even calculate it. But then I don't know many white folks who'd be interested in trying.</p>

<p>""I'm for whatever will work. But I think we've demonstrated in this country and with our foreign aid programs, that turning over money and other resources to people does as much harm as good."</p>

<p>Actually, history of foreign aid has shown exactly the opposite. You see, there was this little thing called the Marshall Plan. For a decade, almost 15% of U.S. government revenues went for foreign aid. It was a spectacular success. Now, of course, that less than 1% of U.S. revenues goes for foreign aid (and that spread over a much wider swath, and a very large portion of it going to Israel - failure?) we call it a "failure". Up foreign aid to where it was percentagewise in 1949, do it consistently for a decade, and then come back and talk to me about the failure of foreign aid.</p>

364

<p>"You should know that 18th Century Friends not only freed their slaves, but provided reparations going back four generations."</p>

<p>That's really interesting. Has anyone done any studies on the families of those freed slaves? Did they have better outcomes having started with at least a better monetary footing?</p>

365

<p>You are right--not interested in trying--and I'm not even white. But all thiose deductions you keep citing do not change the fact that most taxes are paid by upper income people. Many groups have had their tale of difficulty in the US--mine sure has but we prefer to look to the future rather than dwell on how we were "shorted" in the past. I celebrate the day the US Army came to my father's dusty little town in Puerto Rico and signed him up despite just having a 6th grade education. That was the little boost that changed everything for our generation. It only takes one generation to alter the equation.</p>

366

<p>Adding to my previous posts about colleges working to improve the education of URMs at the middle school and high school levels, here's a recent article about UVA's Curry School's attempts to close the minority achievement gap along with some suggested ideas for junior high schools. Perhaps these efforts could be tested in California as well.</p>

<p>
[quote]
The (Curry) students’ programs suggested bringing in mentors for the middle-schoolers from Charlottesville High School or from the University to provide social and emotional guidance in addition to academic tutoring. Another program involved setting up a career center with a counselor who would help students, and even parents, make career goals and see what they need to do academically to fulfill them. </p>

<p>Flynn mentioned that one of the Curry students got so interested in Buford that she began working there as a substitute teacher. Ragan Collins also involved her sorority by holding an all-night lock-in program with 30 seventh- and eighth-grade girls. </p>

<p>“Mentoring and role models have a tremendous influence,” he said.</p>

<p>Some programs focused on nurturing motivation and responsibility for getting good grades. With the help of teachers, students would create their own individual plans to work consistently, accomplish academic goals and stay out of trouble. The students would be involved in monitoring their progress. Flynn said he thought that idea was an empowering one that’s concrete and doable. Other ideas ranged from offering after-school academic clubs to students keeping journals about their academic experiences.</p>

<p>Several ideas tackled racial tensions by incorporating time for students to get to know each other better. One Curry team pointed out that the achievement gap was part of a larger social gap and that wearing uniforms would level socioeconomic differences. Because white and black students often end up separated by academic achievement in slightly different curricula, called “tracking,” a couple of the plans would group students heterogeneously in some classes besides reading and math, and give teachers specialized training for teaching mixed groups of achievers. Another plan would use the homeroom period for regular discussion sessions.

[/quote]
</p>

<p><a href="http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/curry_achievement.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/curry_achievement.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

367

<p>Mini, this thread started out focused on the small # of blacks in UCLA's freshman class. My comments were pointed towards that. My main point is that things like 50 yellow Cadillacs will do NOTHING to get more Blacks in UCLA. If you focused more on the future, you would stop tripping over the past. The worst thing you can do for every new generation of Black students is give them an excuse for not succeeding.</p>

<p>When I was an officer in the Navy, we would periodically deliver these letters inviting high-performing Black and Hispanic enlisted men and women to participate in programs where they would go through a year of academic prepatory training, and then go on to the Naval Academy or an ROTC program. I'd sit down with these guys, explain what an incredible deal it was, and what effect it would have on their lives, and then they would tell me they didn't want the hassle.</p>

<p>Mini, could you please tell me what country in the history of the world has established more programs or spent more money to try to help a racial minority succeed than the USA has spent on its Black citizens?</p>

368

<p>Globalist:</p>

<p>I agree that the UCs and others should look at ideas by UVA and others (as long as they're non-discriminatory since I don't believe in that) but as I stated in a previous post on this thread, UVA isn't much more successful than UCLA in regards to the percentage of Af-Ams attending UVA in relation to the percentage of Af-Ams in the state. Why is that?</p>

369

<p>
[quote]
Please include all the welfare payments, rent support, food stamps, medicaid and all other benefits received in your so called "analysis".

[/quote]
We really do need a history of welfare to see the real picture here. From the very beginning of the nation public support has existed almost exclusively for whites. We need not even mention the history of black exclusion prior to 1865 because we all know blacks generally were enslaved. After the end of slavery, a twelve year program of helping both blacks and whites began in the south, lasting from 1865 to 1877. But beginning in 1870, many parts of this program were ended by whites. By 1877, blacks were almost totally denied access to any sort of public support. Indeed, they were denied access even to most jobs, causing many blacks to migrate to the North. But even in the North, state and privately funded charities generally limited their public support to whites only.</p>

<p>From about 1870 to 1920 Progressives pushed for many changes to social reform, including a controlling version of public welfare. But, once again, it pointedly excluded blacks and gave its handout to whites only, especially to white immigrants.</p>

<p>After the Great Depression, millions of whites and blacks found themselves desperate and in need of public support. I think the first welfare legislation was passed in 1931, and, once again, that legislation existed only for white women. Blacks were excluded.</p>

<p>With the New Deal, Blacks were, once again, excluded from social benefits, and they were excluded intentionally, by Northern Whites working in collusion with Southern Whites. The vast amount of public support coming out of the New Deal went almost exclusively to whites, and when blacks did get anything, it was less than half of what whites generally received.</p>

<p>Under many New Deal programs, states could set their own eligibility requirements for who could receive benefits. Whites in both the North and South agreed to shape their programs so that agricultural and domestic workers were excluded. Since the vast majority of these workers were black, most blacks were excluded. The blacks who did receive benefits from such programs as Aid to Dependent Children (which existed for white women), received much smaller amounts because, as was claimed at the time, “blacks need less to live on than whites”.</p>

<p>The point of this blatant exclusion was to force blacks to accept low and stagnant wages. Blacks could not even generally move to better paying jobs because whites also colluded to deny blacks access to job programs under the New Deal. This essentially trapped blacks in the lowest paying jobs. It denied them mobility since there was just nothing they could do. And it denied them social benefits to keep them desperate. America did this, and it did it officially – by law.</p>

<p>Blacks have only had access to America’s public benefits since the beginning of Johnson’s “War on Poverty”. The Office of Economic Opportunity launched Project Head Start in the summer of 1965, and even this access was not ubiquitous. And it was not offerred exclusively to blacks either. Whites have had literal welfare handed to them to the blatant exclusion of blacks for almost the entire history of the United States. At no time in the history of this country have blacks received this sort of advantage over whites in ANYTHING. So if you are gonna add up welfare, you need to add it ALL up. You will see that whites have intentionally squashed blacks for as long as blacks have been here. That is why we have the problems we have today. Very many blacks are just plain tired of it and, unfortunatly, they no longer care.</p>

<p>
[quote]
No matter how you want to cover it with rhetoric, wealthy mostly white people pay most of the taxes collected in the US. If you want to claim they would have paid even more if not for some tax benefits, fine. But the remaining fact is even with breaks they still pay the bulk of taxes.

[/quote]
And they get the VAST majority of the benefits from those taxes. It has always been thus.</p>

370

<p>
[quote]
I'd sit down with these guys, explain what an incredible deal it was, and what effect it would have on their lives, and then they would tell me they didn't want the hassle.

[/quote]
Well, don’t you think we really should also hear these guys’ perspective before we just run with you on this thing, Tourguide? I mean, are you really saying these guys are just innately lazy, or what?</p>

<p>I’d bet money they weren’t lazy in the least. They probably knew that the United States military ain’ gonna just GIVE nothing to them without expecting them to hand over something that is worth even more. They knew there was a gigantic CATCH somewhere in that “incredible deal” and they just didn’t want to get hooked on it any more than they already were. I’d bet money these guys were just worn out and skeptical about whether there could really be anything useful here for them.</p>

371

<p>
[quote]
Mini, could you please tell me what country in the history of the world has established more programs or spent more money to try to help a racial minority succeed than the USA has spent on its Black citizens?

[/quote]
It hasn’t been much Tourguide. America has really just thrown nickels at blacks. Those billions people like to whine about certainly aren’t getting to blacks. For the vast majority of American welfare history, blacks have been excluded. Access only opened in 1965. But guess what? That access did not even remain as open is it was initially. Within five years whites began to erode it.</p>

<p>Once Johnson’s administration began to finally focus on helping blacks, whites immediately began fighting it. As Nixon entered the White House, America began dismantling many of the programs Johnson intended to help the poor, including poor blacks. "Many observers point out that the War on Poverty's attention to Black America created the grounds for the backlash that began in the 1970s. The perception by the white middle class that it was footing the bill for ever-increasing services to the poor led to diminished support for welfare state programs, especially those that targeted specific groups and neighborhoods. Many whites viewed Great Society programs as supporting the economic and social needs of low-income urban minorities; they lost sympathy, especially as the economy declined during the 1970s."
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

372

<p>Dross: Just adding a footnote to the history lesson.</p>

<p>This is regarding the construction of the Hoover Dam (something I've been researching). With the approval of federal funds, construction on the dam began in 1931, one of the largest public works projects of all time. From the beginning, black men were shut out of the thousands of jobs created. They were refused union jobs, because blacks could not become union members. They were refused nonunion jobs for "lack of experience" although whites without experience were hired. Even black men who were veterans were denied jobs despite the fact that the federal rules required giving veterans preference. Blacks responded by forming the Colored Citizens Labor and Protective Association of Las Vegas and held an open meeting to protest the unfair treatment.</p>

<p>The head of the CCLPA wrote in a letter to the Las Vegas Age in January 1932: "There have been since the creation of this association, many, many colored overseas soldiers and citizens who have applied in person, with their discharge papers in hand, for work on the Hoover Dam Project...all such applications have been denied."</p>

<pre><code> It was noted that foreigners were hired, but not black Americans. The same writer made a further impassioned plea to fellow citizens of Las Vegas, various congressmen, and the press: "We now appeal to the just and fairminded citizens. The leaders of the association are lawabiding citizens, standing for justice. Is it patriotic on the part of the white community to stand by and see the eagle torn down from its lofty perch and the flag used as a dishrag? Union and liberty are inseparable."

Over time, with lobbying by the NAACP in Washington and after the intervention of the Secretary of the Department of Interior, the private companies in charge of the dam construction grudgingly began hiring black men. This was hailed by the Las Vegas Age in a 1932 editorial: "It is gratifying, not alone to the people of African descent, but to all lovers of fair play that this quesiton of Negro labor on Hoover Dam has been settled with justice and fairness." As far as the local white establishment was concerned, the issue had been resolved with a "just proportion" of jobs going to blacks.
</code></pre>

<p>What was the "victory" worth celebrating? The number of men working on the dam in 1932 was 4,200; 25 were black. By the time the workforce had peaked at 5,251 in July 1934, there were a total of 11 black men employed on the Hoover Dam Project. </p>

<pre><code> Speaks for itself.
</code></pre>

373

<p>Dross, re your post #370, I'm not saying they were lazy. I already said these folks were top performers.</p>

<p>a lot of people want to just do the enlisted thing for 20 years and get their pension and split. Just like some school teachers want to be classroom teachers and never want to be principals or superintendants.</p>

<p>I never heard of any of these types of programs (and there were many different types of college programs which paid sailors to go to community colleges, 4-year colleges, and grad schools) having any sort of evil payback scheme attached to them. They came with various extensions of your active duty commitment, but that was about it. If there was something evil afoot, I'm sure you would have seen it on "60 Minutes."</p>

<p>I think the fact that the program involved a year of academic college prep training showed that the Navy was serious about making sure these folks were not just tossed into Annapolis or an ROTC program before they were ready.</p>

374

<p>Dross, if you look at any biographical profile of Montel Williams, you'll see that he was an enlisted Marine and went through the Naval Academy Prep School before going to Annapolis. If there was something evil in the Navy's intentions, don't you think he would have made it known?</p>

375

<p>Tourguide:</p>

<p>
[quote]
I think the fact that the program involved a year of academic college prep training showed that the Navy was serious about making sure these folks were not just tossed into Annapolis or an ROTC program before they were ready.

[/quote]
I understand this. But if I can get people to just understand one thing, I would have them understand that our perceptions may differ radically from the sincere perceptions of others. You and I may look at the evidence before us and conclude the Navy was serious about helping. But some other guy may look at the very same evidence and be sincerely convinced that evil is afoot. I think our varied experiences influence our perceptions, and that this is one thing we are up against here in America. It is why when I hear people say “Blacks ought to just pull themselves up” or “the fault is on blacks alone” I just wanna throw up my hands, or maybe just throw up period.</p>

<p>We are talking a lack of trust here. I was reading a</a> story about a guy who joined the military by signing an agreement to serve for, I think, eight years. There was nothing in his agreement that gave the military the right to extend his term of service for anything other than an emergency or war declared by Congress. But several years AFTER the guy signed, the military began a “stop-loss” policy that allowed a soldier’s service extension in the case of a president’s declaration of emergency.</p>

<p>Well, the soldier’s term was just about to end when we invaded Iraq. I think the guy served in Iraq for about a year and then his term ended. The military decided to extend his term for 27 more years! He is gonna be on the hook now until 2031. The guy refused. So the military took him to court arguing that while the guy’s agreement doesn’t have the clause saying the military could automatically extend the guy’s term on a presidential declaration, the military still could extend the term when it felt like it.</p>

<p>I just thought, “what in the world is the use of signing anything with the military? Why even lay out the terms for anything in clear language if the military can go to court and then force you to abandon that language?”. That guy probably would not have signed had he known the language could be changed like that. He may easily have reasoned that since Congress is typically very reticent to declare war, the chances are he would be released after eight years. And it never would have occurred to him that he would be continually owned only on the one-sided word of the president because his agreement never said anything like that.</p>

<p>Now obviously you can look at this story and see the thing differently, and that's just fine. But why might we see it differently? It could be because your experiences are radically different from mine. When the military approaches you, you might start hearing “America the Beautiful” and crying patriotic tears of gratitude as you begin genuflecting and stuff. When they approach me, I might start hearing the “Darth Vader Theme” from Star Wars. When they ask you to sign, you might think they offer you an “incredible deal”. But after reading the episode of the soldier, I might think I “just don’t need the hassle”.</p>

<p>So I am very suspicious of what you are arguing here. It is possible, and quite likely, that those black guys had very legitimate concerns that caused them to totally shut down when you approached them to sign more of their lives away on the dotted line.</p>

376

<p>
[quote]
Dross, if you look at any biographical profile of Montel Williams, you'll see that he was an enlisted Marine and went through the Naval Academy Prep School before going to Annapolis. If there was something evil in the Navy's intentions, don't you think he would have made it known?

[/quote]
Yes. I think he would have, unless there were circumstances and/or agreements forcing him not to discuss it.</p>

<p>It also could be that his experiences with the Marines were positive, and so his perceptions of the military may be positive. Which brings me to my point. The experience of blacks in America is generally very poor, atrocious even. And it colors their perception of opportunity. Many blacks can't even see what you and I may see because of the past. Shoot. I just barely can see anything. I often am just acting purely against what my eyes and mind are telling me, hoping against hope that I am seeing it all wrong, and that my kids can maybe gain experiences more positive than mine, so that they can see it right.</p>

<p>I really hope I haven't made a huge mistake here. I don't think I could stand up under this one. But, so far, it seems to be working. And I am now sincerely questioning my perceptions.</p>

377

<p>jazzymom:</p>

<p>Thanks very much for the Hoover Dam information. It was very informative.</p>

378

<p>You and Colin Powell need to sit down and have a chat. :)</p>

379

<p>Re the Hoover Dam hiring practices. Just wanted to add that for me, the overwhelming emotion I got from the image of black veterans being turned away from a public works job while white nonvets and foreigners were hired, was sadness. </p>

<p>If I were black, and this had happened to my grandfather, I would feel something worse. Rage.</p>

380

<p>Yeah. And plenty of blacks are feeling exactly this, rage – debilitating rage, because this Hoover Dam episode has been repeated all over America, so much that it has crushed millions. My folks, every single one of them, have stories like this. And, you know, its us kids who have had to endure the business end of the shame, defeatism and rage all this stuff caused because our folks had no one else to take it out on. And that has just caused even worse problems. Add to this the racism we endure today, right here and now in American society, and we’re talking about a serious mess. When folks scorn blacks for stuff, they just have no idea what they are talking about. One day, the tables are gonna be turned. Somehow, it is gonna happen whether in this life or the next. But I will be a lot more compassionate than they have been, though it may make no difference.</p>

<p>(way, WAY off-topic – just gotta share it.)</p>

<p>Hah! Just spoke to my daughter in France after over a week of dead silence. She says the time in France has been the single best thing for increasing her ability to speak French. She’s been going all over that place and meeting all kinds of people. I thought the French were a pretty openly racist people, but apparently she’s been really well received.</p>

<p>One of her first positive experiences came after she ran into a few Americans there. She was newly arrived when the Americans just came up and asked if she too was American. When she said yes, they all kinda hit it off. None of them spoke very good French, and they were hoping my daughter would be their salvation. Well, my daughter has been studying French for only a semester! So she’s not very good. She still went into a restaurant, hoping to find English speaking personnel. But when she asked the waiter if he spoke English, the guy became visibly offended, recoiling as he said “No!” (imagine that! To hear her tell this was just the funniest thing). So, with halting French, she started explaining to the guy about her little group and how they are gonna hafta have a moment longer to decipher the menu and make their order. She said the guy seemed to enjoy her accent (to me it sounds precisely like the CD we use. So I am hoping its not weird) and was very patient. He allowed her a lot of time to structure her sentences and say what she intended to say.</p>

<p>She said that gave her a lot of confidence and that since her arrival she has generally been able to get all around the country without much problem. I have heard that the French are not very patient at all with people who aren’t good speakers. So it is just a wonderful thing for me to hear my kid be so intensely excited about her experiences there. She’ll be there quite a bit longer, and is trying to soak in everything she can. Tonight, she is attending this thing where a chef comes and cooks some amazing stuff and teaches you how to do it – or something like that. She says she suspects he/she won’t be speaking a syllable of English, but that she is ready to catch on. Its just crazy for me to hear this stuff!</p>

<p>I want here to honor, however insignificant it is, the great French people.</p>

<p>Vive la France!</p>