<p>This is the crux of the matter. This is the problem that racial preferences does nothing to solve.</p>
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<p>First, maybe, just maybe, we ought to heed Frederick Douglass’s words for a change and leave them be. Don’t help them, but don’t “anti-help” them either. Just leave them be.</p>
<p>Second, if this is the case, then shouldn’t we make racial preferences more focused? As in, exclude the children of Caribbean and African immigrants when it comes to blacks? Right now, a lot of groups are freeriding on their group affiliation with the “recipients and heirs of generations of anti-help.”</p>
I would say parents complain about the same amount about the advantages of having a lot of money, and of having no money. It’s those in between that complain.</p>
I’m not sure about this. Many people, and I tend to be one of them, think that part of the long-term solution is to create as many middle and upper class black families as possible. It may not matter that much that some of them are immigrants, if they assimilate with the black community at large. This is how you eventually hope to bootstrap the society into a larger number of high-stats black kids. Perhaps eventually we will still have an underclass, but it will be more clearly an economic underclass. </p>
<p>I think “leave them be” is pretty easy to say for somebody who benefits from leaving them be. I note that most of the institutions we are talking about are private entities.</p>
<p>I agree with your long-term solution. I disagree with how you implement it. I don’t think racial preferences do much to “CREATE” “middle and upper class black families.”</p>
<p>According to Thomas Sowell, in 1940, 87% of black families lived in poverty. By 1960, the figure dropped to 47%. The drop had nothing to do with racial preferences, for 1960 precedes the creation of “affirmative action.” Ten years later, the figure dropped further to 30%. But ten years after that (1980), the figure was almost unchanged at 29%. Affirmative action did almost NOTHING to change that percentage.</p>
<p>Blacks seemed to have done a great job without any help from 1940 to 1970. They may even have done so in the presence of “anti-help.” If you know your world history, it’s not surprising that racial preferences are so ineffectual. Quoting Sowell, “preferences and quotas in India and Malaysia have benefited primarily the already more fortunate, rather than those in poverty.”</p>
<p>Affirmative Action Around The World</p>
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<p>How did Douglass benefit from leaving them be?</p>
<p>“Unless they are deliberately keeping black enrollment at those low levels, my belief is that because there just aren’t enough black applicants with reasonably competitive stats to go around. Berkeley has 3% black students, which may be suggestive.”</p>
<p>I would like to add another possibility; I think there are very few black that care about this “stuff”. Partly not enough care about education, partly not enough graduate high school, partly not enough apply to college, but even among those that do, the whole “elite” thing is pretty foreign to African Americans that go way back in the US. I think we tend to be MUCH more impressed by other things, even among the realtively affluent.I imagine the top .5 percent of black earners might be different, but my husband ( first gen from Jamaica WI), is litterally the only black person I know that seems to care about Ivy’s. My family goes back as far as anyones, and even though they went to college, they would have thought this whole CC thing pretty foreign.</p>
<p>I’m not referring to Douglass. Although perhaps Sowell feels the same way. Because I think he’s an idiot, quoting him isn’t persuasive to me. Also, I grew up in the South, so I have a pretty good understanding of what the anti-help was really like. It was devastatingly destructive to generations of people.</p>
<p>Shinkrap, you raise an interesting point. I wonder if some of the historically black colleges are getting applicants that would be able to go to some of the highly selective schools. I would still say though, that just looking at SAT distributions, black students are underrepresented among high-stats kids.</p>
<p>you cant do something for someone if they dont do it for themselves. you cant make someone want to learn if its considered “acting white” and “uncool”. why do you think there is still ebonics? the more you give advantage to someone, the more they know they have to work less to get the same result. the way to fix the problem is to fix the parental problem. many african american kids dont have supportive parents and most have single parent. there has to be a mentality change about family and education if there is to be advancement. for those who actually do well, its absolute degrading to assume that you need extra help because you are african american. the more people bring race into this, the more race becomes important in society. in my high school, no one cared about race or though anything about it until the whole college process came in. this only fosters hate and makes this country even more divided on race.</p>
<p>Setting aside the association fallacy, would you care to offer a separate explanation for why the poverty rate declined from 47% to 30% between 1960 and 1970 but only one percentage point between 1970 and 1980?</p>
<p>I think it may take decades, or even generations, for affirmative action to have a sizable impact on poverty. For what it’s worth, I suspect very few of the black admits to Harvard are from the 30% of blacks below the poverty line–more are probably from the next tier of people who are working but who are still relatively poor.</p>
<p>Note: it appears from a Google search that the poverty rate among blacks is now more like 25%. So does that mean that the helpful effect of affirmative action is now kicking in?</p>
<p>I’m just wondering, for those are pro AA, how can you argue it’s not discrimination? Please tell me another organization that is allowed to give racial preferences to anything? Remember the man who created the Caucasian only scholarship? Yea, it was as if he brought back slavery. I remember reading that entire thread, and it was a pure outrage. But, think of the THOUSANDS of scholarships limited to single races.</p>
<p>Hunt clearly frames the problem, from the school’s point of view, in post 191. Maybe a better way, however, would be to give more preference to poor blacks who show great potential yet are not yet up to Ivy League standards, and then give them the extra prep needed. Why not a whole extra “prep” year, pre-freshman year, to learn the basics that students from more elite schools have mastered? </p>
<p>State schools have lots of catch-up classes that should have been learned in high school and lots of 5-year graduates. Why can’t the Ivies reach down lower and bring these deprived kids up, rather than simply giving preference to their black peers who already have had a lifetime of advantage? One could argue that the rich black kids are taking spots from the poor black kids who would thrive if given a little extra background support.</p>
<p>see, asians who are the smallest minorities after NA as a group dont have much political power. there is only 2 asian senators and both are from hawaii -_- . so politicians could care less. plus, majority are recent immigrants meaning many cant even vote. if affirmative action was disadvantageous to any other groups like hispanics/latino instead of asians, you would hear public outcries and immediate actions to stop it.</p>
<p>In a world where only the content of your character and not the color of your skin mattered, college admissions would be done race-blind - with racial identifiers and even names removed from applications. In all other ways the admissions criteria would remain the same. This would be an interesting study actually, to see how different the admissions rates would be.</p>
<p>“I remember reading that entire thread, and it was a pure outrage.”</p>
<p>When the search function is fixed, can you link it? That’s not the way I remember the ones I read. </p>
<p>“But, think of the THOUSANDS of scholarships limited to single races.”</p>
<p>People say that a lot, but I have not found it to be so. Most that I find are limited to race PLUS low income, and it has not been thousands. </p>
<p>"I would still say though, that just looking at SAT distributions, black students are underrepresented among high-stats kids. "</p>
<p>I agree there are not a lot of blacks scoring above 700 on the individual SAT sections. </p>
<p>“I wonder if some of the historically black colleges are getting applicants that would be able to go to some of the highly selective schools.” </p>
<p>Maybe. But an additional factor is, “we” are not as …single minded in terms of persuit of prestigious universities.I honestly beleive the “fit” is about something else for those of us who go. It’s about being close to family, being able to work, being in diverse cities, being a good “investment”, etc. That leaves schools to do a little more outreach if they want to attract the black students they desire, and it leaves those students in a better position </p>
<p>IN PART, </p>
<p>because they are not all clamoring to go to the same twenty schools.</p>
<p>see, asians who are the smallest minorities after NA as a group dont have much political power. there is only 2 asian senators and both are from hawaii -</p>
<p>There are other ways to have political power than through an elected office.
Look at Bill Gates and other philanthropists.
( we also had an asian governor - he is currently the U.S.secretary of )commerce)</p>
<p>I agree, and I would argue that more still are from families that are already “middle-class” or higher. I don’t know for Harvard, but Duke’s student newspaper reported that in 2006, the average family income of black students was $118,316 ([Article](<a href=“http://dukechronicle.com/article/duke-draws-rich-kids-all-colors]Article[/url]”>Duke draws ‘rich kids of all colors’ - The Chronicle)</a>). Granted, whether $118,316 is “middle-class” depends on where you live, but I wouldn’t consider a family of three with that income poor by any means.</p>
<p>I don’t think so. It’s essentially stagnated following the institution of racial preferences, though of course I cannot claim racial preferences is RESPONSIBLE for the stagnation.</p>