How to Improve Black America

College Confidential Community
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<p>"Name one society that has been lifted without focus on social issues."</p>

<p>Oh boy, this is easy. Try ancient Rome. Though it had a very rigorous hierarchical class system, it was the Western civilization for about 400 years. Indeed, some have even argued that an excessive entanglement in these very issues led to its decline:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cjv14n2-7.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cjv14n2-7.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>As for the black community, I think many of its problems can be traced back to the 1970s. White liberals and black separatists encouraged blacks to develop their own ethnic identity and to view themselves as victims deserving of aid and special care. The politics of entitlement (i.e., affirmative action) will result and have resulted in nothing but ethnic strife and class struggle and racism. Look at what's currently going on in India:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d87e35bc-105a-11dc-96d3-000b5df10621.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d87e35bc-105a-11dc-96d3-000b5df10621.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Two large caste groups are vying for (read: killing each other) preferential status in India, not unlike the intensifying conflict in California between blacks and Hispanics.</p>

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<p>Rather than complaining about people like Don Imus, they can work on</p>

<ol>
<li>Finding father figures</li>
<li>Idolizing black figures other than those that appear on BET (nothing against rap music though)</li>
<li>Instead of complaining that things are unfair, suck it up and break the stereotypes</li>
</ol>

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<h1>1...comment.... not necessarily...^^^^ and for #2.... there aren't enough ppl to idolize.... oprah, MLK, obama(hahaha)???? that is a pathetic list (u could probably only add 25 more and those would be ppl from way way way back in the day.......nothing current)...compared to the number of accomplished non-black americans</h1>

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<p>There are plenty of influential blacks in today's world. They're not in the mass media like Oprah and Obama, but honestly one is the most influential people in the world, and the second is a presidential candidate. So if that's your idea of visible "accomplished" black Americans, you'll be hard pressed to find any "accomplished" non-white Americans as well.</p>

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<p>alchemy named them please.......... name them......and it's kind of hard to pick an idol not on BET....if most of black american can't relate/ don't want to relate to them.</p>

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<p>Pick up a copy of Black Enterprise. You'll find dozens.</p>

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<p>why can't u simply just name them..... i want to see...their names.... how many of the ppl "that NEED to be reading that magazine" actually read that magazine?</p>

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<p>You can't simply pick up a magazine and read them?</p>

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<p>no i don't buy magazines..... i'd rather watch the news or read my local newspaper. do u not have a copy???? where are the names??? .....or do u not have any?</p>

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<p>Um, Aristotle, you may want to check up on your Roman history because catering to its people is one of the main reasons the Roman empire was so successful. Some examples are:
Building public bathhouses for the public
Building aqueducts for the public to have access to clean water
And before the monarchy, after the fall of Julius Caesar, they allowed their people to vote.</p>

<p>But thank you for giving a great example of a civilization that has risen because of its concern over the people's needs. ;)</p>

<p>Also, what makes you think that Black people do not deserve Affirmative Action. Every time there is a person against affirmative action, they can never give a legitimate reason as to why it is not deserved, so can you do that.</p>

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<p>@whatisinaname
Yeah, but did the Romans ever give out free money to people? I don't think so. They were too interested in conquest and gladiator fights.</p>

<p>I'm not saying that welfare can't work in certain situations and conditions, but the claim that there's never been a powerful civilization that did not directly help the impoverished is demonstrably false.</p>

<p>As for affirmative action, can you give me a reason why black people deserve affirmative action over other peoples who've been discriminated against in the past as well? If affirmative action is meant as a rectification of past wrongs, then why don't the Chinese receive it (Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882)? Why don't the Jews (Holocaust)? Why do these two groups actually receive negatory action? Even if you say that slavery's worse than genocide and national exclusion (and it's difficult to make the former claim), why don't Jews and Chinese receive at least some form of affirmative action, rather than the reverse? </p>

<p>Also, why do illegal Mexican immigrants whose ancestors have never been in the U.S. receive massive amounts of affirmative action? It's kind of difficult to make the discrimination claim there ;).</p>

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<p>affirmative action is not just to fix "past wrongs" it is to give minorities a chance to succeed.</p>

<p>chinese and jews get affirmative action??? hahaha. they are OVERREPRESENTED...... what is wrong w/ you? do u not understand the concept of minority?</p>

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<p>let me re-phrase, when i say minority i mean URM in the college world.</p>

<p>embrace the system... it is in place, and it will not go away until the playing field is even.... which will never happen.</p>

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<p>GAclass--Robert Johnson, Chester Davenport, Dave Bing....etc.</p>

<p>I suggest 'Ghetto Revival'. Anyone who gets the reference wins.</p>

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<p>It doesn't matter what kind of reform the Romans did for the people, what matters is that they actually cared about the needs of the people. Our society obviously requires social reform in the form of welfare.</p>

<p>I'll tell you why Black people deserve affirmative action more than others:
The Chinese and other Asians, if they needed anything, have not fought for it as much as we have. And in terms of education, they are pretty well represented.</p>

<p>Jewish, not Jews which is a racial slur, have been discriminated against in this country and still are, amongst white people, but they too are highly represented even in the top 1% of the countries wealth. They a highly educated people as well. The Holocaust did not happen in America, and no I have never and will never compare it to slavery or the reaping of Africa because they are not the same but equally horrible, it happened in Germany and there they do get precedence. Why should America give Jewish people welfare because of a crime they did not commit? </p>

<p>But they did allow slavery and they did allow Jim Crow, lynchings, the placement of Black people in poor neighborhoods, the lack of funding to schools in these poor neighborhoods, and racial profiling that eventually leads to most of the the black men in this country being put into jail for crimes that are trivial compared to heinous ones committed by the white population. </p>

<p>In this country people are still denied jobs or promotions because of the color of their skin. Why is it you are against AA, but you say nothing to the rich white kids who get everything, including entrance into top schools, because of their family name, not their outstanding merits. White people who automatically get good jobs because they are white and because many people believe white skin holds something more than dark colored skin could ever hold. </p>

<p>I could go on and on about how your logic makes no sense and why Black people do deserve AA, so keep going.</p>

<p>And the ancestors of Mexicans not being from this country? WHo do you think own CA, TX and lot of the Southwestern USA before Spain and then America stole it?</p>

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<p>that show on vh1??? that white boy rapper who wanted to revive the ghetto?</p>

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<p>@GAclassof2008</p>

<p>This is the United States. Any minority who wishes to succeed can do so. That's what the SATs are for. If you think blacks are so inferior that they need special help just to have a chance at succeeding, well, that's your problem.</p>

<p>Anyway, let's dissect your argument further. On a practical level, there are doubts as to whether affirmative action actually works. It actually mismatches students with institutions in which they are not capable of succeeding, and thus produces higher dropout rates and poorer exam results of the very minorities affirmative action was supposed to help. A few quotes from an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education:</p>

<h1>After the first year of law school, 51 percent of black students have grade-point averages that place them in the bottom tenth of their classes, compared with 5 percent of white students. "Evidence suggests that when you're doing that badly, you're learning less than if you were in the middle of a class" at a less-prestigious law school, Mr. Sander says.</h1>

<h1>Among students who entered law school in 1991, about 80 percent of white students graduated and passed the bar on their first attempt, compared with just 45 percent of black students. In a race-blind admissions system, the number of black graduates passing the bar the first time would jump to 74 percent, he says, based on his statistical analysis of how higher grades in less competitive schools would result in higher bar scores. Black students are nearly six times as likely as whites not to pass state bar exams after multiple attempts.</h1>

<h1>Ending affirmative action would increase the number of new black lawyers by 8.8 percent because students would attend law schools where they would struggle less and learn more, and earn higher grades.</h1>

<h1>With the exception of the most-elite law schools, good grades matter more to employers than the law school's prestige.</h1>

<p><a href="http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/11/2004110401n.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/11/2004110401n.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Just by going to college, minorities have a chance to succeed if they really want to, and if in a meritocratic system, a talented minority student is rejected from Harvard but gets into Emory instead, he/she will have just as great a chance of succeeding.</p>

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<p>every statement you said is ridiculous</p>

<p>"Any minority who wishes to succeed can do so"</p>

<p>Wrong..... if u took a government class you would know, it is equal opporunity (that is where affirmative action comes in), but not equal results.......only countries like swededn would rather have equal results...no gap of rich and poor etc....</p>

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<p>and FYI...... law school is the basis of your argument????? there are more black doctors than there are lawyers.</p>

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<p>Improve our public education system</p>